Love & Paella

An end and a beginning.

2012-08-10T15:25:00.002-07:00

As life progresses, the seasons turn, sometimes at irregular intervals, sometimes overnight and sometimes a gradual, graceful change. I feel the seasons shifting in my own life as my two years of la vida española are over. When I think of these years I will think of golden slanting sunshine, the smell of the salty sea air mixed with the wafting of freshly fried fish, bright white Andalucían pueblos with tidy trim in the clearest cerulean imaginable. I’ll think longingly of three day weekends and late night tapas runs, which always seem to end with a visit in the wee hours to the Argentinian guy that sells handmade empanadas in the square. We’d stand in the street taking enthusiastic bites of piping hot caprese empanadas, washed down with Argentinian beer and exhilaration. The frustrations, the thousand tiny cracks of discomfort will fade away in memory to insignificance, like a new mother forgets labor pains in the blinding joy of the moments after birth. This is how it should be.

This past season has been like one long summer, filled with good fun and swimsuits and the kind of friends that you bond with hard and fast, like you’re at summer camp. We’ve been living carefree, like seagulls wheeling freely in the breeze. But all good things must come to an end, and as with actual summer, somehow we are usually inexplicably ready for autumn. It feels like that now in my own life: changes, sharpening of pencils, a more serious, homey season is in store.

When we were accepted into Harvard Law School, The Mister and I looked at each other in awe, blinking, our minds flipping through the million ways in which our lives are about to change. At the moment, I feel ready for them. The past season has been deliciously irresponsible, but sometimes after a nice long rest we wake up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle something grand, to use our muscles, to sweat a little bit. I don’t doubt that this next season will be exhausting at times and I’ll think longingly back to Málaga and my favorite park bench angled perfectly beneath the jasmine flowers. But that’s why we carry these summer memories with us into winter, because it will be long and sometimes hard. The promise of a well-lived life is that someday there will be another summer, of a different flavor, but nonetheless another season of reckless abandon.

Until then, hasta luego. It's been wonderful.

Not to make you jealous, but...

2012-08-02T15:53:00.000-07:00

Amongst the pines in Pinetop, Arizona

2012-07-30T03:00:00.000-07:00

A Quintessentially American Experience

2012-07-27T15:31:00.002-07:00

Getting some Indian fry bread on the rez.

Pinetop, Arizona

2012-07-24T10:01:00.003-07:00

A particularly American kind of heaven

2012-07-11T19:21:00.003-07:00

This is why I haven't blogged

2012-07-09T16:27:00.001-07:00

My week in short declarative sentences:

Go to California. See sister-in-law. Celebrate 4th of July (in America!). Eat cheeseburgers and grilled hot dogs. Swim in the hotel pool. Make last minute changes to the wedding ceremony the morning of the wedding. (Did I mention that The Mister was performing our friends' wedding? And that I was writing it?) Watch The Mister knock his ministerial duties out of the park. If the bride hadn't been quite so beautiful he might have stolen the show. Dance our butts off at the reception. Go to lots of vineyards while in California. Taste wine. Taste more wine. Flight home. Sushi. The end.

America.

2012-07-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, America. It still is as big and sassy as ever, with an added dash of spicy summer heat.

We've been back for a week now and it's going to take a while to fully reorient ourselves. Things that have seemed strange include:

Almond butter, peanut butter, cashew butter, sunflower butter and on and on
How efficient the security line at the airport is - everyone seems to know the drill. No mass confusion: what? I have to take my shoes off? Both of them?
Everything really is huge, you guys. Houses. Wide avenues. Elevators. Bathrooms. Sodas. Dogs. Cars. People (you knew I had to say it).
Dollar bills are really terribly designed currency once you think about it. All the same color and size regardless of denomination? Confusing. And so long and skinny.
Dr. Pepper and bagels and 100% beef burgers with cheddar cheese.
Technology. Man it has been racing along. All these apps and mobile bar codes and cool gadgetry.
Flavors that have been largely absent from our lives: beer with lime, buffalo wing sauce, chipotle peppers.
All the English. I can't tune out a background conversation with the same ease.
Everyone keeps trying to eat lunch at 12, or worse, 11:30. I still think of it as breakfast.
American flags are everywhere.

Do you know how great it is though to be able to have a phone and talk and text with friends and family? After two years of email-based communications, it still feels pretty novel to get an instantaneous response.

Spain is lovely, and it's hard not to fall in love. But I was out in the car yesterday and saw a huge American flag rippling across the wide, blue desert sky - the widest and bluest sky in the world - and I though that yes, yes indeed, I am glad to be back.

Spanish efficiency

2012-07-01T09:05:00.001-07:00

Spaniards are valuable companions for their good cheer, willingness to party at any time and in any location, and their unusually good fashion sense (mullets aside).

Spaniards, however, are subpar companions if you wish to do anything on the following list: anything involving efficiency, anything involving deadlines of any kind, anything that needs to get done in a timely manner, anything that involves a goal that you would actually like to accomplish.

I realize that my vision is tainted by the simple fact that I am American, and Americans are known to be particularly touchy about productivity, so I'm willing to grant that I'm not a neutral observer. But still.

There is construction near my apartment on a project that was supposed to be completed in 2007. Two thousand seven. It was delayed, half-finished for many years because of financial concerns, and now the construction company is blowing through deadline after deadline for actual completion dates. Yesterday was supposed to be the grand opening, but it wasn't. It's the third or fourth time it's been postponed on the actual day of.

It's not just on a societal level. On a personal level, Spaniards are shockingly and maddeningly averse to, well, hurrying it up a bit.

Teachers wander their classrooms handing out worksheets one by one to students - I don't think they've ever heard of the old "take one and pass one" American standard.

The man at the library who checks out my books stamps one book, puts the stamp away, then takes it out again for the next person in line.

When my boss had a simple question for all the teachers on staff she went to every class, one by one, and interrupted the lesson while she chatted with each teacher to ask her question. Getting all the answers took her two days. She could have just asked for a show of hands in the faculty meeting. Two minutes and done.

Again, Americans are famous for their obsession with saving time, so who's to say it's not all in the eye of the observer? Maybe it's better that way. Their system works for them (...although I'm not sure a certain Angela Merkel would agree...)

But sometimes, the American in me really wants to take over for about five minutes and just make everything a little more streamlined, run a little smoother, trim a little fat from all the unnecessary time wasters.

Hasta luego, España

2012-06-21T01:30:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning we'll be getting on the plane and leaving this lovely place. I'm sad that the adventure is over but I'm also already excited about the next one. Also, I'm excited to sink my teeth into a Chipotle burrito. And to not have to wake up every morning and check the paper to make sure the currency in my wallet is still worth something.

I'll miss the fruit market, and fresh persimmons, and paella and Manchego cheese. I'll miss Claire and my friends, my students at school and their grubby adoring little hugs. I'll miss the beach being outside my front door, and I'll miss the nighttime walks along the waves with The Mister. I'll miss the everlasting sunny weather and siesta and the way the shops are closed on Sundays.

But after all the adventures over the last two years, after Italy and Jordan and France and Scotland and Ireland and Morocco and Portugal and Sweden and all the rest, I have come to this timeless conclusion:

There's no place like home.

Photos from the archives

2012-06-20T01:32:00.001-07:00

The view from my living room window on a rare cloudy day.

Sunset.

I'll miss this - fresh food delivered straight from the fields.

Bullfight

2012-06-18T10:59:00.001-07:00

I went to a bullfight yesterday. Oh yes, I did.

Saturday night The Mister and I were hanging around, getting ready to meet friends for dinner, when we started talking about things we hadn't done in Spain. Seeing a bullfight was pretty high up on the list, and we both remembered walking past lots of posters in the past few days advertising a bullfight in our local ring on Sunday. Hmm, we thought -- destiny?

And so we went, dutifully punching in our ticket to this particular cultural oddity. Now I know this subject can be controversial: there are the "HELLO ANIMAL CRUELTY" people and the "JUST A CULTURAL THING, NOTHING TO SEE HERE FOLKS" people, and I'd say we fall right in between. I didn't grow up on a farm or anything and I'm not around wild animals that much, so I'm not exactly used to seeing something - anything - die right in front of me. Killed right in front of me, let's be honest.

But I suppose the bulls have had nice lives munching grass and frolicking under blue skies and all that, which is far, far nicer than the life of your average American feed-lot guy. I mean have you seen "Food, Inc."? And I still eat cheeseburgers. So, yeah. I suppose I can't get on my high horse and judge.

Annnnyway, enough philosophizing. For those of you who think this whole thing is terrible, see below: the bull got his comeuppance. Maybe we saw a crappy bullfight or something but I think there were four or five near-gorings, with men in tights and sequins hightailing it as fast as they could with a raging bull in hot pursuit. And one man fell off a horse and narrowly avoided being trampled by both the furious bull and the confused horse. I can't say I felt that sorry for the men - why can't the bull get in the action too? All's fair in love and war.

A note on the future of this blog

2012-06-16T10:00:00.001-07:00

Looking ahead. Or behind, depending on how you look at it. I'm a glass half-full kind of girl so I say ahead.

I debated back and forth for awhile. What to do with this blog? What do you do with a travel blog about living in Spain when you no longer live in Spain?

So here's what I've decided: I'm not going anywhere. Internetly, at least. I'm going to keep blogging throughout the summer, as I navigate what is sure to be a fun (funny?) transition back to the motherland.

I've never heard the overplayed radio hits, I've been told that there's something/someone (still fuzzy on that?) called "The Situation" that is somehow culturally important, and when I left America the word Siri didn't mean anything. My sisters told me that I am like their little alien that has to be taught how to be around normal people again. They said my de-Euro-ization will take at least six months (maybe longer in the fashion department?), but in the meantime they're willing to be patient.

At some point in the summer, I'll begin blogging on my new blog, which is in the final stages of my super-secret design and testing process (read: I've barely started throwing around ideas). I'll leave this blog and URL unchanged so that anyone who likes can access posts about Spain and travel without having to sort through layers of stuff about life in Boston and Harvard. But I hope you come along for the ride over on that blog too, because even if law school is completely outside your area of interests, I bet there will be some incidents involving Boston baked beans or New England leaves in the fall or über-special people straight out of The Paper Chase (true or false? everyone at Harvard Law is a pretentious overprivileged trust-funder? tune in to find out...).

In other words, I do not think it will be boring.

Is it ever?

Photos from rural Spain

2012-06-15T09:08:00.001-07:00

Out in the country

2012-06-14T14:02:00.000-07:00

I'm back from one last romp in the countryside with our friends Becky and Martin and their farm in rural Spain.

I love going there for many reasons, but one of them is because it's so ridiculously photogenic. I'll post more photos tomorrow, but for now, I'm loving this one that I just pulled off my camera:

Can't you just smell the grass and sunshine?

Adventures in Paella Making

2012-06-08T04:19:00.001-07:00

A little while ago my friend Claire and I put our collective skills together and made a paella. Both of us have tried to watch and absorb paella-making lessons from Spanish friends, and we wanted to test our skills with a good solo effort. There were a few dicey moments but in the end I must say we came out with a pretty bitchin' paella, so if you're into trying to make one, take a peek at what we did:

First, dice up a tomato and a red and green bell pepper. Toss them in a sauté pan with a bit of rabbit (if you don't find yourself with a rabbit niftily in your fridge, go ahead and substitute chicken. We're flexible like that.) Sauté in a bit of olive oil on medium heat until the peppers start to get tender.

Meanwhile, let's make the broth for the paella. Find some fresh sardines and lop off the heads, tails and guts. Don't be squeamish. Paradoxically, these are the parts we actually want. The little filets...well, as far as this paella is concerned you can feed them to your cat.

Put all the heads, tails, fins and all that into a big pot of water. Also add in shrimp shells and heads from the shrimp we're about to put in the paella. If you are a.) squeamish b.) fresh out of whole sardines or c.) not Spanish, you can go ahead and use a general fish broth for this part. I've even seen people use boxes of chicken broth. A good quality broth will make your paella better, but compromise is golden.

While all this is going on, you should soak some mussels. Nobody likes sand in their mussels. Then strain your fish broth so it's just the liquid. The fish and seafood parts have served their purpose and the broth should be thick and delicious smelling.

Return to your pan of peppers and meat. Make sure there's still a good amount of oil in the bottom, and if not add a bit more. We're in Spain here, olive oil is practically a religion.

Add in two handfuls of rice per person. As you can see, I measured it out in a very fancy measuring cup first. Sauté the rice for a minute in the oil, then add in a little salt and saffron (or, as they usually use here, paella coloring). Now add the hot seafood broth. Mmmmmm. The liquid should pretty much but not quite cover everything. There are different thoughts on this: some people like soupy, brothy paella and other people like drier paella, with a more fried-rice liquid ratio. I am firmly, firmly, I say, in the dry paella camp. I know someone will hear me say this and try to change my mind, but I will remain strong. But if you like the soupy stuff then add a little more liquid.

Put the heat on medium high so the liquid starts to simmer. This is the sweet spot. Don't stir the rice while it's cooking - the brown crusty bits on the bottom are a delicacy and the best part of the paella.

Scatter some shrimp around the top. You will have already peeled them and thrown the shells in your pot to make your seafood broth, remember? Also, get your mussels nice and steamed. Mussels like lemon as well, so why not toss a bit in there for fun?

When all the liquid has absorbed (add a little more broth if the liquid is absorbed but the rice is still crunchy), you are finished!

Lay the mussels over top and add some cool slices of lemon. And then pour a cold glass of an adult beverage of your choice. And then it is time. EAT.

Thoughts on leaving Spain: Going out on top

2012-06-06T03:43:00.000-07:00

Leaving Spain is such a strange sensation. It isn't like a normal moving day, where you know you can come back and visit on occasion. I hope to come back one day of course, but it won't happen for a long, long time, and quite possibly not ever. These friendships will be stretched and wrung out under the strains of time and distance and cultural divergences and an ever-widening language barrier as my Spanish, inevitably, slowly leaks out of my brain. I will do everything I can to bridge these gaps, but I am not superhuman and the task will be impossible forever.

Part of me, I'll be honest, longs to go. I am American, and I hear the call of home. I'm yearning for absolute fluency in communication and cultural matters, Thai food, the sounds of an ice cream truck, salsa, buffalo wings, texts from my sisters, cultural cues to help me remember holidays, homes of family members in which to celebrate them in. I miss football (the real kind), Thanksgiving, cornbread, flavored coffee creamers, handshakes instead of cheek kisses, Fahrenheit. I miss fitting in and I miss modern small comforts – dishwashers, dryers, central heating and AC, carpeted floors. I miss being able to pick up the phone and call my mom without first subtracting nine hours to figure out if she's awake yet.

But oh, how I will smile when I look back on this season in Spain, and how nostalgic I will be for it after it ends. I know I sometimes talk about Spain on this blog as if it is all a never ending string of sunny days, good food and funny cultural experiences, but the truth is that for us, it really has been such a happy time and those will be my memories.

I know, though, that prolonging our time here for another year would rub off some of the magic. Things that seemed charming to us two years ago ("they never seem to be in a hurry! they really know how to enjoy life!") have slowly and perhaps inevitably morphed into frustration ("I have been waiting for twenty minutes for the check because the waitress is at the next table finishing her coffee. Just because she isn't in a hurry doesn't mean none of us can be in a hurry.)

My sister Emily asked me recently how I felt about leaving and I told her I didn't know exactly, that I felt a blend of excitement and happiness and nostalgia and loss. "Well," she told me, "it sounds like you're leaving at exactly the right time then. Not too soon and not too late."

And you know, I am pretty sure she was right.

Spanish cooking classes: Tortilla

2012-06-04T14:05:00.003-07:00

My time in Spain is down to just a few weeks, so I'm trying to absorb as much as I can before I go. This means that I've been asking practically every Spanish person I know to teach me how to cook something. I can't say I'm a huge fan of Spanish food, which can sometimes be a bit bland to my taste, but there are a few things I'll miss back in the U.S. One of them is a good homemade Spanish tortilla.

If you've never been to Spain you're probably thinking that tortillas are the corn or flour deliciousness that you wrap your taco in. But this tortilla is sort of like a big flat potato omelet, and it's a perennial favorite here in Spain.

Here's how my friend Pilar taught me how to make it:

First, assemble and peel a couple potatoes. Five is enough for a nice skillet-sized tortilla. Chop them up into little flat squares, nice and thin.

Then - and this is controversial - sauté about a quarter of an onion in olive oil. There is hearty debate about whether onions belong in tortilla or not, with each party believing fervently that their dish is the best. So if you are in the no-onion camp, skip this step. I won't judge.

Now, this next step is going to take some real fortitude, so take a deep breath and gird your loins. Next you dump the potatoes into your handy-dandy deep fryer. If you don't have one (please tell me you don't have one), fry them up in a skillet with a couple healthy glugs of olive oil. While you're doing it, think to yourself: "Mediterranean diet, my a$$"

For the record, I have never in my life been in an American home with a deep fryer on the counter (although I'm not from the South), but pretty much every single Spanish home I've ever been in has one proudly installed in the kitchen. When I express astonishment at this fact, my Spanish friends are bug-eyed that Americans don't all have deep fryers in their back pockets. "But I don't understand" they wonder, perhaps a touch untactfully, "how do you all get so fat?"

But anyway, on we march. When you've thoroughly cooked your potatoes until they're tender (I wonder if boiling them would also be an option to cut down on the oil?), drain them and put them in a bowl. Add your onions if you've got 'em.

Crack in your eggs: about one egg for each potato. Then mix it up! It should be goopy but not overly liquidy. Place it on a hot skillet that's filled with about half an inch of hot olive oil (yeah I said half an inch). Turn it after about 90 seconds or when it starts to solidify in the middle. Flip it using a plate and turning the skillet upside down. Let it sizzle on the other side, and then lower the heat to let it finish cooking a few more minutes.

And voila! You have made Spanish tortilla! Eat it cold, hot, room temperature, with mayonnaise or without, on a sandwich or with a fork. Bon appetit.

Goodbye, English teaching

2012-05-31T11:55:00.001-07:00

And just like that, it's over.

Today was my last day as an English teacher. The kids group-hugged me to death and drew me lots of pictures with hearts and I mostly wandered around with a plastered-on smile, ambivalent and a little stunned. No matter how much you know it's coming, ending an era of life is always a bit of a shock. In just a few weeks (three to be exact) I'll board a flight and go back to America, and a few more weeks after that I'll move to Boston to begin law school. Then, on some cold, rainy, blue-toned day in Massachusetts I'll lay down across my bed and lift my face up toward the dark sky and I'll dream of sunshiny Spain.

Teaching English hasn't been a picnic by any stretch, but I've liked it for the most part. I've worked in three elementary schools over the past two years, and each one had their merits and drawbacks. The kids are cute, but they are also loud and whiny and inattentive, and did I mention loud? Very, very loud. Some days my job was fun because I got to engage with students on interesting topics and watch them actively learning. Most days it was frustrating and a bit boring, because I am not always in charge of the classroom and I'm subject to another teacher's whims and teaching/discipline style. Cultural differences are more alive and well in the classroom than you can imagine, and sometimes I still find myself absolutely baffled by the Spanish system and why things are done a certain way. No doubt, if they came to America they'd think the same thing.

But my teaching days are over and now I can live my life without the constant need to pick apart my language and examine it like a dissected frog. Now I'm free to admit that I have no idea why we say in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening and at night. I don't know why read (present) and read (past) are spelled the same way but pronounced and understood differently. I can't explain why the expression "catch up" has nothing to do with either catching or up. I love words, and language, and now I'm free to dive back into the art of it and let go of the science and tedious mechanics.

I'll miss the coworkers and some of the kids, the nice ones who are smart and funny and work hard. I won't miss all the behavior issues and the millions of requests to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water. I won't miss sassy nine-year-olds or kids that just refuse to work but then complain to their parents that it's too hard.

Overall, I'm so glad I've had this opportunity. I am 100% sure that I am not cut out for a permanent position in elementary education, but hey, that's what law school is for.

Eurovision

2012-05-30T11:57:00.000-07:00

We need to talk Eurovision. If you have not sat through a Eurovision contest with a group of Europeans, you have only lived a half-life, my friend. And by that I mean that you have avoided something that would have inevitably dragged down the quality of your life, so good for you.

Eurovision is a music contest, in which every European country (and, inexplicably, many definitely non-European countries. Israel? Azerbaijan? Sorry y'all, the credited response is ASIA) sends a musician/treacly ballad singer to compete with the other countries. Votes are cast through phone lines in a 15-minute period at the end of the show, and you aren't allowed to vote for your own country. It's like American Idol with a passport and truckloads of trashy Europop. And no Simon Cowell (by the way, I hear American Idol is still on TV even though Simon Cowell left. How can this be, America? This does not compute. He was the one and only star of that show.)

Eurovision has been going on every year for fifty-ish years, and it's a Very Big Deal. It draws 120 million viewers, which is 10 million more than the Super Bowl record. Seriously. Every year, Europeans gather together in their homes to watch this strange spectacle made of equal parts trashiness, campiness, and mediocrity.

If you ever watch Eurovision though (despite my warnings) you should be prepared for the side sport: the Super Bowl's time-honored sister activity is eating buffalo wings, and Eurovision's is complaining about the fairness of the votes. Everyone votes for their neighbors, or so the saying goes. English speakers vote for English speakers, Ukrainians vote for fellow Eastern Europeans, the Portuguese vote for the Spanish and the Spanish for the Portuguese. Complaints abound. Everyone thinks that everyone else is voting against their act because of political reasons, but everybody's song looked equally awful to me. As an outsider with no skin in the game, I claim neutrality - everyone was equally embarrassing. Voting for political reasons or because you simply like the inhabitants of a certain country over another feels like a perfectly reasonable option to me when there is nothing else to distinguish by.

Anyway, if you have watched Eurovision and you think it's amazing, feel free to tell me in the comments. I thought it was amazing...ly funny. In a ridiculous sort of way.

Not that I didn't enjoy myself, that is.

Scenes from the pueblo

2012-05-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

Al pueblo

2012-05-25T11:32:00.003-07:00

I'm headed to the pueblo for the weekend to visit my friend Pilar. Last time I was there we picked oranges and this time she's promised me a Spanish cooking tutorial. I think gazpacho may be on the menu (I'll report back).

See you next week?

A few more Ronda photos

2012-05-24T07:57:00.001-07:00

It's a nutso time to be in Spain

2012-05-22T13:34:00.003-07:00

Another big strike today in the province of Andalucía. This time it was in the education sector (teachers, all university and high school students over the age of 16, and most students under the age of 16 too) protesting deep budget cuts in education and teacher's pay. So for the second time this spring, I had a day off because of a strike. I slept in late, went to my private classes in the afternoon, and then grabbed The Mister and headed over to watch the protests raging in the streets.

I'm not sure what the number was, but it was several thousand, by far the biggest protest we've seen in Málaga this year. The central arteries through town were cut off to traffic when protestors flooded the streets, although it was peaceful (they are mostly schoolteachers, after all).When everyone began marching, the mass of people was at least two miles long.

We kept running into people we knew: Málaga is a small place already, and since we've collectively worked in four city schools over the past two years, we have lots of friends at the education protests. Below are some shots of us with our coworkers (also, the official color of the protest was green, hence the matching color palettes).

Crazy times.

Lovely Ronda

2012-05-21T13:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a friend took us to see Ronda, a Spanish town nestled in the foothills of central Andalucía.

Ronda was a photographer's dream. It was unseasonably cold, and rain showers blew in and out throughout the course of the afternoon, and this made the some of the most ethereal lighting conditions possible. Dark gloomy clouds, with the sun still shining in spots.

I won't waste more time telling you how fantastically gorgeous it was though; you can take a peek yourself and see what you think: