Well said, Hemingway

Although I'm not a fan of Ernest Hemingway's obsession with bullfighting, he definitely describes Spain perfectly from an ex-pat's point of view.  This excerpt is from his book "Death in the Afternoon" (1932) and things haven't changed much since then.

Madrid - Feb 2011

"Madrid is a strange place anyway. I do not believe any one likes it much when he first goes there. It has none of the look that you expect of Spain. It is modern rather than picturesque, no costumes, practically no Cordoban hats, except on the heads of phonies, no castanets, and no disgusting fakes likes the gypsy caves at Granada. There is not one local-colored place for tourists in the town. Yet when you get to know it, it is the most Spanish of all cities, the best to live in, the finest people, month in and month out the finest climate and while the other big cities are all very representative of the province they are in, they are either Adalucian, Catalan, Basque, Aragonese, or otherwise provincial. It is in Madrid only that you get the essence. The essence, when it is the essence, can be in a plain glass bottle and you need no fancy labels, nor in Madrid do you need any national costumes; no matter what sort of building they put up, though the building itself may look like Buenos Aires, when you see it against that sky you know it is Madrid. If it had nothing else than the Prado it would be worth spending a month in every spring, if you have money to spend a month in any European capital."

Cynical Island, Population: Me

This week has been one of those weeks where I have to constantly remind myself, “At least you’re not in the U.S.A., at least you’re not in the U.S.A.”  I am fully aware that the following rant is going to come off as ungrateful and close-minded and spoiled, but that’s okay with me because the people who know me best know that every day I’m here (especially this year) I'm thankful for my job and my amazing life in Madrid.  I think most ex-pats are entitled to a rant like this once in a while.  So, here are some things that have been pissing me off lately:   

1. Having to constantly defend a country that I secretly can’t stand.  Spaniards have the most stereotypical and uninformed opinions about the United States.  I’m constantly having to tell them that none of the crap they’re shown in the media is actually real, and I find myself getting legitimately annoyed.  It’s a similar feeling to the one you get when you trash talk and criticize your own family, but the second someone else trashes them you come to their defense.  It’s exactly like that.  Personally, I can’t stand the United States because I don’t have the same cultural fit as everyone else, but I am capable of standing back and realizing that the United States is an amazing place to live.  It’s shocking to me that Spaniards have the balls to describe us as selfish, lazy, gun-toting fatties (no joke, I’ve seriously had this said to me this past week) and yet be completely blind to the flaws in their own culture.

On the other hand, there are those Spaniards who idealize the United States and think life there is an amazing magical wonderland of glamour, fashion, and professional sports. If I hear one more Spaniard say, “Ees my dream go to America”……I might crack.

I feel like American ex-pats have a harder time of disproving stereotypes (both negative and positive) about their home country than other ex-pats because we’re fighting against an image that is so deeply entrenched all over the world.  We’re fighting against a media campaign from Hollywood, travel companies, Washington D.C., and every single American product or celebrity that is sold internationally.  Sometimes I wish I could teach in a school in the middle of the jungle where the people haven't been exposed to MTV, video games, or any communication with the outside world.  Then, I could just be judged for being me and not for being "an American."
   
2. This one gets a little whiny.  When you’re living abroad, everyone wants to take advantage of you and use you as a resource…the locals and the people back home.  Let’s start with the English-speaking folks.  Since September 2010, I’ve gotten everyone and their mother asking me how to get a job in Spain.  Oh, you want to know how to get a job in Spain? You want to know if I can help you?  You want me to tell you how to do every single thing involved in making a life-changing decision? I’ll tell you how.  You google it, like I did.  You spend a month incessantly googling and researching and you make your own informed decision.  Nobody helped me, and I did just fine.  I’m always more than willing to talk to people and tell them how awesome it is in Spain, what the ex-pat experience is like, and all the cool things they can see and do here.  I’m also always more than willing to let people stay at my place for a few nights when they first get here or if they’re passing through Madrid.  What I’m not willing to do is cater to people who are too lazy to do their own research.  It’s their life.  They need to take control of it. 

Now, the Spaniards.  They see me as a free walking English class or proof-reader.  No matter what I do, my co-workers, random people I meet out at night, and even friends will try and speak English to me.  They justify it by saying, “I know your Spanish is better than my English, but I really need to practice.”  Yeah, great.  I get to sit through a painfully slow, badly pronounced, broken English conversation just because you want free English lessons.  If I wanted to speak English, I would hang out with guiris.  I hate English, and any time I’m not in a classroom, I don’t want to be speaking it.  I’m taking the most difficult level of the DELE exam at the end of the year, so maybe I should be just as selfish as they are and reply to every English conversation starter with, “Sorry, you have to help me prepare for the DELE exam!”

3. The level of racism here is unbelievable and overwhelming.  Things will never change if the younger generation continues to validate it with “Así es España / That’s the way Spain is.” Yeah, we get it.  You were completely isolated from the rest of the world and fed ridiculous ideology from a fascist dictator for 36 years.  There are tons of older people (a.k.a. people born pre-1980s) that still believe that close-minded shit, but if you’re not from that generation then behave like a normal human being!  Open your eyes, learn things, and don’t believe everything your parents, political party, and television programs say.  I haven’t given up completely with my students.  Every time one of them says the n-word or anything racist, I stop the class and point it out.  I try to explain to them why it’s wrong or ask them how they would feel if someone made a completely uneducated generalization about all Spaniards…but who knows if they actually care.  They look at me like it’s completely irrational for me to be so angry about their comments, probably because I’m white.  There’s no way for them to understand that cultural difference.  Part of me feels like it's a lost cause with older students because there's a very small window of time to be taught tolerance when you’re a kid, and by the time adolescence rolls around, the foundation has pretty much already been set for your asshole adulthood. 

4. Good manners are almost non-existent here.  I know a lot of foreigners say that Spaniards are rude because they’re very straight-forward and blunt, whether they’re resolving a workplace conflict, giving their opinion in a friendly conversation, or cat-calling on the street.  That kind of stuff doesn’t bother me.  I can see that as a weirdly endearing part of their culture.  The part that gets me is the obliviousness to basic courtesies.  I have seen firsthand the difference in treatment I get when I’m with Spaniards and the treatment I get when I’m with other foreigners.  Waiters and bartenders will blatantly treat us like shit. (Maybe this complaint should go in the racist category).  Then there’s the simple concept of not taking up the entire sidewalk when there are other people walking down the street, helping old ladies with their grocery carts in the metro, etc.  I can count on one hand how many times in the last 2+ years I’ve heard someone say “please,” “thank you,” or “excuse me.”  I have to actually elicit these words from my kids, and I’ve worked with 1^st-5^th grade and 7^th-12^th grade.  The attitude they have is amazing.  They have no respect for each other or their elders. 

I think this might be a worldwide phenomenon though because I see the same things here that I see in the United States: parents who are completely oblivious to their children’s behavior, who never correct them when they do something rude or wrong, or who can’t control them to begin with because the kids know they’ll get their way in the end. 

On Thursday, as I was leaving work to head to my tutoring classes, I had to walk past the public high school in front of the train station.  There was a group of about 50 kids gathered outside starting some kind of fight or orgy or general chaotic mess.  As I pushed my way through them (probably with a disgusted look on my face), I heard one of the kids mockingly go, “Sheesh, the youth these days.  In my time, this didn’t happen.”  So does that make me an old grump now?

5. Lastly, they need to stop inventing words in English like “okay makay” or random noises to go along with English verses in songs. 

 

That’s my way of ending on a light note.

 

Disclaimer: I know tons of people in Spain who don’t fit any of these criteria, and I appreciate the fact that I’ve had an amazingly easy life here being a Caucasian, 20-something, bilingual, female with a steady job.

First day back! - Year 3

Today was FINALLY my first real day back teaching in the classroom.  My new school runs from 3 years old (infantil) all the way to 18+ years old (bachillerato).  I get to work in all of secondary which means 1º ESO - 2º Bachillerato (7th-12th grade in American years). 

All I have to say is the following:

Year 1 vs. Year 2

This is a jet-lag and/or insomnia induced writing.  Year 3 in Spain has begun! I arrived in Madrid on Wednesday afternoon, after a bit of re-routing by the lovely U.S. Airways lady who got me here by way of Frankfurt when a delayed flight to Philly made my original plan impossible.  It is currently Friday, August 31 at 3:30am, the perfect time to compare my first two years in Spain!

Granada - June 2012

During my first year here ('10-'11):                      During my second year here ('11-'12): 
I had 5 people come visit me                                  I had 2 people come visit me
I traveled to 12 cities in Spain                                I traveled to 5 cities in Spain
I traveled to 2 cities in France                                I traveled to 2 cities in England
I traveled to 1 city in Italy


Yes, my second year was pretty underwhelming in terms of travel, but it was because I had a more Madrid-based social life this year.  I'm not going to say it was better or worse than the first year.  It was just different. Having said that, now that I've learned the best and worst ways to spend my time here, I really do think the third time is going to be the charm.  I'm aiming for the perfect combination of enjoying everything in Madrid while traveling just as much as I did as a wide-eyed first year. And it starts this week! I'm off to do 7 days on the west coast of Italy before work starts, and I've already got a Madrid/Morocco/Barcelona trip in the works for winter break with an old friend.  Fingers crossed that I've learned from my mistakes in the past two years and that I make my (possibly last) year here amazing!

 

Advice for the 20-30 somethings

"Die Slowly" / "Muere lentamente"

He who becomes the slave of habit,
who follows the same routes every day,
who never changes pace,
who does not risk and change the color of his clothes,
who does not speak and does not experience,
dies slowly.

He or she who shuns passion,
who prefers black on white,
dotting ones "it’s" rather than a bundle of emotions, the kind that make your eyes glimmer,
that turn a yawn into a smile,
that make the heart pound in the face of mistakes and feelings,
dies slowly.

He or she who does not turn things topsy-turvy,
who is unhappy at work,
who does not risk certainty for uncertainty,
to thus follow a dream,
those who do not forego sound advice at least once in their lives,
die slowly.

He who does not travel, who does not read,
who does not listen to music,
who does not find grace in himself,
she who does not find grace in herself,
dies slowly.

He who slowly destroys his own self-esteem,
who does not allow himself to be helped,
who spends days on end complaining about his own bad luck, about the rain that never stops,
dies slowly.

He or she who abandon a project before starting it, who fail to ask questions on subjects he doesn't know, he or she who don't reply when they are asked something they do know,
die slowly.

Let's try and avoid death in small doses,
reminding oneself that being alive requires an effort far greater than the simple fact of breathing.

Only a burning patience will lead
to the attainment of a splendid happiness.

- Martha Medeiros

The last weekend

My last weekend in Spain was a weekend of pride, in more than one sense of the word.  I left Madrid on July 4th, and the weekend before I left was the perfect way to end my second year in my favorite city (sorry New York) in the world. 


waiting for the parade to begin!

Saturday, June 30th was the Gay Pride parade.  I missed it last year, but I was determined to go this year.  I went with my roommate Christian and his two friends.  We met up at Alonso Martinez and walked down to the Plaza de Cibeles to catch the parade at the beginning instead of down by Plaza de España where all the drunken fiesteros would be.  Even before we turned down the main boulevard, I sensed that everyone walking down the street was a little bit happier and smiley-er than usual.  We passed a family with a baby, who couldn't have been more than 2 years old, waving a rainbow flag.  How could someone not love living here?  When it comes to the tiny seemingly insignificant parts of daily life here, they are the most traditional and annoyingly conservative people.  When it comes to the big matters, like telling people how to live their lives, they are the most liberal and accepting.  Spain was the second country in the world to legalize gay marriage, and Madrid was the perfect place to be on this very day.  The floats were amazing, the music was great, and the weather was the typical 90 degree cloudless sky that it seems to be every day in June in Madrid. 

I turned to Christian at one point when we were dancing in the street (waving to the hottest men I've ever seen in my life) and said, "Christian, I am so happy right now, I can't even put it into words.  This is the perfect moment."  He looked at me like I was crazy....but then again, he always does.  I couldn't explain to him how even though the theme of the day had nothing to do with me, that moment made me realize my complete joy and independence and appreciation for the life I had here.  How do you explain to someone that the sheer fact that we were dancing on the closed off street, in the Plaza de Cibeles, surrounded by the most accepting group of people I've ever seen, and everyone was having fun, was making me want to burst with joy?  Pure and simple fun. I had begun to think that it wasn't possible, but it was.  (The fact that every single one of my old problems was miles away probably helped.)

 

squished into the bar across the street
from my apartment during one of the
semi-final matches

The next day, Sunday, July 1st was the Eurocup final.  Now, I've never been very much into futbol, let alone sports, in my entire life.  I could appreciate athletes for their talent, and would occasionally be awestruck by the amount of passion they had on the field / court / pitch, but I never understood the obsession.  When Lynn was here, I was forced to get into the Eurocup tournament because Lynn is a sports fanatic and still harbours her patriotismo español from last year.  It really is inexplicable, but by watching the matches with her and the people in our hostels, I became obsessed with seeing our boys win.  I think it comes down to the national element.  I can't see the point in becoming obsessed with teams like Real Madrid or the New York Giants or the Lakers because it doesn't matter where the players are from as long as the organization has enough money to buy them.  I don't see the logic in supporting one team over another because (to me) they're all the same.  Tournaments like the Eurocup, the World Cup, the Olympics.....now that, I can understand!  No matter how good you are, or who you play for, you have to go back to your home country and play for them.  I love it.  After all was said and done, Spain beat Italy 4-0 in the final.  I celebrated in the living room with my roommate as the selección española became the first team ever to win three major tournaments in a row (Eurocup 2008, World Cup 2010, and Eurocup 2012).


celebrating the Eurocup final in our
enormous living room

Monday, July 2 was the welcome home parade for the team.  I had read somewhere that it was going to start in Moncloa, which is where I live!  I had been doing some shopping (obviously souvenir shopping the day before I had to go home) and wound up near the main street right around the time the parade was to begin.  I took a seat on the opposite side of the street because I wasn't about to brave the crowds of die-hard fans painted head-to-toe in red and yellow paint while we waited for the double decker bus.  While I was wandering around, I ran into my friend Carlinhios.  What were the chances I would see someone I knew?!  Then again, he does live around the corner on my block....so why wouldn't he see a parade like this passing right by our houses?  The parade finally began (over an hour late, as per usual in Spain) and it was the strangest thing seeing these "national heroes" in real life.  I loved the fact that half of them were drunk and they were waving to everyone in the crowd as if it was a small hometown parade. It made me so proud to even be a small part of this country.  Obviously, I'll never be seen as a real Spaniard by the people who have it in their blood, but I've been getting by pretty well so far, and one more year won't hurt at all.

"Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.”

On June 12th, the most amazing girl in the world came to visit me for 11 days.  Lynn is one of my four best friends.  I met her last year in Madrid when she was doing the BEDA program and I was doing the Ministerio program.  I met her at my 22nd birthday party last December, and the rest is history!!!  Freakishly enough, she has the same exact birthday as one of my other best friends.  I'm starting to think all people born in October are just awesome. 

I finished work on June 15, and the two of us set off for El Arenal, Mallorca for the weekend.  It's a German beach destination and most people there thought we were Dutch.  (It was a little hard to handle the tidal wave of German culture during the first few hours, but then we came to love it.  The German vacationers are so much easier to handle than the British vacationers we were with in Fuengirola last year).  We made some amazing friends at the hostel, got Lynn's nose pierced, ate a lot of food, and roasted under the sun.  After Mallorca, we headed to Granada, saw La Alhambra, and wandered around without a map for two days....most of the time winding up in sketchy barrios.

Being with Lynn was such a relief.  After 6 months of waiting for her to come,  I finally had a genuine friend to hang out with in Madrid.  It was such a relief...I may have gone a little crazy / stupid while she was here, as showcased in this horrible video. Enjoy.

Foreigners...

If every guiri could read my mind while they try to initiate conversation with me.....

Semana Santa - Sevilla

To prepare for my Semana Santa / Spring Break vacation, I booked two nights at a hostel in Seville and two nights at a hostel in Punta Umbria, Huelva.  Other than that, I didn't plan anything.  On Monday afternoon, I headed to the bus station thinking I could catch the 1:00pm bus to Seville.  I got up to the lady at the ticket counter at 12:47pm and asked for the next bus to Seville (side note: when interacting with anyone in Spain sitting behind a ticket window you have about a 90% chance that they will be rude and/or hate their life).  She told me 3:00pm....my roommate warned me this would happen.  I was trying to get to the city in Spain with the most famous Semana Santa celebration in the country without booking in advance.  I figured I might as well buy my return ticket from Huelva to Madrid since I was at the window with 2 hours and 10 minutes to spare.  I also didn't want to risk getting stuck in Huelva on Friday morning.

Even thought I was at the station over two hours before my bus was schedule to leave, I still managed to almost miss it.  What can I say? I have a talent for being late.  I had to run to the bus terminal (#49 where the sign at the ticket window had said it would be), only to discover it was at #12.  I ran to the bus, where the driver was waiting for me, and managed to get into my seat by 2:59pm.  Lucky for me, I was seated next to an old Chinese man who was already asleep, with his mouth wide open and his legs stretched as far apart as possible.  I kept trying to get comfortable and not inhale too much of his body odor, but he wouldn't budge.  Then, the leaning started.  He was leaning so far over that I was sitting on only half of my chair.  I was letting out audible sounds of frustration in an attempt to wake him up because I didn't want to actually have to touch the guy.  Finally a young Spanish guy behind me said, "Is my leg bothering you?"  I hadn't even noticed that he had stretched his leg under my chair.  I think he just wanted to help.  He told me to try putting the arm rest down, but the old guy was too far over for that. Then, using a lot more effort than you would think necessary, he pushed the old guy for me, all the while asking, "Joder...Is this guy even alive?"  The arm rest barrier was a success, more or less, for the rest of the trip.

I got to Seville and started walking in the direction of the hostel, or at least what I thought was the direction of the hostel, from what I had gathered from studying Google maps the night before.  Once I hit the old quarters, I saw the Semana Santa processions and nazarenos (or as we call them in the U.S....people dressed in KKK outfits).  It was a lot more shocking and unnerving than I thought it would be.  A lot of them were young kids walking around using their iPhones!  I checked in at the hostel, where I got the usual response of  "Wow! You're Spanish is reallly good and you're not even from the west coast?!"

The first thing I noticed about Seville was that it smelled amazing.  On Tuesday, I kept looking around for magnolia trees because that's what I thought the smell was.  It took me a few hours to realize it was the orange trees blossoming.  It was rainy and humid the whole time I was there, so I didn't go to all the sights.  I didn't even open my guide book.  I walked around the city and got back to the hostel, where I met a lot of strange people and a few very cool ones.  We all hung out on the rooftop terrace for four hours, and then the storm started.  We squeezed in under the gazebo and stayed there because that was clearly the smartest place to be in a thunder and lightning storm.  It was strange to be huddled with 10 strangers under a gazebo, sitting around a table speaking 4 or 5 different languages simultaneously, but those kinds of things always happen here.  The storm was so close that there were only 3 seconds between the thunder and lightning.  The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain, you say? No.

The second thing I noticed about Seville was that it's full of foreigners! I know that Seville has the most popular study abroad program at UNC, so I don't know why I didn't brace myself to be around obnoxious English speakers for two days.  I do also realize that I went at one of the most touristy times of the year.  I went into a cafe on Tuesday for my standard cafe con leche and tostada (best breakfast ever) and the waitress asked me if I was going to come back.  I told her I wouldn't be back because I live in Madrid, and she told me that she had thought I was a student since so many come to Seville.  When I told her I was surprised by the amount of foreign students she replied, "Yeah, you probably wouldn't have come if you knew, right?"  I love sharing moments of mutual annoyance with Spaniards.

So that's the story of how I went to Seville, which has 340 days of sun every year and the most famous Semana Santa celebrations in the country, and didn't see any of it.  What I did see was beautiful, and the people I met were amazingly cool.  Honestly, the trip served as a turning point in my life where things started looking up after four months of mierda, so I've already romanticized it in my mind.  A much-needed second trip is already on the books for next year.  

“She was a girl who knew how to be happy even when she was sad. And that’s important—you know ”

Here are some reasons why my job is amazing!!!

Being around kids (1st, 2nd, 4th, and 7th graders in my case) is a fail-proof way to get your mind off your own problems, especially when you feel obligated to accomplish something with them - not just babysitting, but rather working towards a long-term goal.  The time that you're completely absorbed in the kids is a whole chunk of time when it's impossible to think about yourself.  Children are so self-centered and naive that nothing would ever be accomplished if the teacher was as well.

The other amazing thing about kids is that they accept you as you are.  Even if they think they're being "rebellious" or "getting away with" sneaky behavior, they have no idea how much nicer they are than adults.  Young teachers often wonder, "Was I as bad as my students when I was their age?!" but instead I wonder, "Was there ever a teacher in my school that was having such a hard time that we actually helped him/her without even knowing it?"

My kids at work are the reason I drag my butt out of bed every morning, but my girls and moms in Arroyomolinos are the only people on this continent that I can really depend on.  The girls have come so far with their English since the beginning of 3rd grade.  They can understand everything I say, even when I spend the entire hour (or hour and a half) speaking only English.  I may have accidentally given Andrea a New York accent because a few months ago she said to me, “Niki you gotta speak Spanish!” I almost fell off my chair. I said, “Where did you learn the word gotta? That’s horrible.”  They say the sweetest and most honest things to me…like when Maria told me, “Niki, espero que te quedes en España por siempre” or that she prefers “the weekend Niki” she saw on her mom’s Facebook pictures.  Sometimes they say feisty and sarcastic things to me like, “No me interesa tu vida” during CONVERSATION practice or “¡Como se nota que somos hermanas!” when they do something similar. (I still can’t tell the twins apart, by the way).     

The girls’ moms, Gemma and Isa, are the most generous and compassionate people I know.  I always knew I could count on the two of them for help, but it wasn’t until winter break that I realized they really were my only support network in Spain. I don’t know if it was more friend instinct or maternal instinct, but whatever it was, they’re the reason I’m still here. I know they’ll be in my life forever, no matter where my future jobs may take me, and one day when the girls are older I’ll tell them about how amazing their moms actually are.