Love & Paella

Not a fan

2012-01-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

I give private English classes throughout the week in people's homes, and I've got ten students. My youngest is eight years old and the oldest is in her 40s. For the most part, I adore my students and I'm pretty sure I learn just as much from them as they learn from me (I know - cliché alert! Only it's actually true. I teach them verbs, they teach me all sorts of cultural gems like how to properly slice a leg of jamón.)

There is one exception, however. A coddled (I mean it, they literally have a servant in their house) eleven-year-old who hates English and spits fire. She sulks, she pouts, she wants to hang with her friends or look up puppy pictures online or do anything except study English with me. I've tried the sweet tactic and the veiled threats and pouting right back. She won't have any of it. She is unmoved. She does not want to study English and that's that.

Finally, I hit on an idea. She's always telling me how smart she is (she's a real gem), so one day I brought her an English book that's two years above her grade level. "You're smart," I told her, "so let's hit it. Enough with this baby stuff." It's the only thing I have ever said that has actually impressed her.

Anyway, since then she's been pretty docile - for her, anyway - and actually smiling at me occasionally. I thought we were making real progress. And then, the other day we were playing a game out of the English book that called for gamepieces, which I had forgotten. She darted into the other room to get what she assured me were perfect gamepieces.

She came back with these. Can you guess which one she designated as me and which one is her?

Guess I have a ways to go after all.

Rain and sickness

2012-01-26T12:31:00.001-07:00

It's been a beautiful winter here, full of warm and sunny days. This weekend it's supposed to rain though, pretty much straight through, and I tell you, I am ready for it. I miss the rain.

It seems that all of Málaga is sick right now, especially if you are under the age of 10. Today I showed up to my private class to find an impromptu sick house - three children laying on couches amidst blankets, tissues and thermometers. Great.

I began class and within an hour one looked at me with enormous eyes and said "I have to throw up." And then she did. In the toilet, thankfully, but nonetheless I'd had enough. I called it a wrap for the day and went home to take a scalding hot shower in an attempt to disinfect myself. Note to parents: just call and cancel the English lesson for the day, please.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to a weekend in - just me and my own germs, thank you very much.

Broken bridges

2012-01-24T06:52:00.000-07:00

Pont Saint-Bénezet

Avignon, France

Taken on the very first day of 2012,

as the bridge celebrated 827 years of life.

Broken, but beautiful.

La Disciplina

2012-01-23T12:27:00.000-07:00

Unrelated inappropriate picture. If you're not sure why it's inappropriate...well, it's just a very anatomically correct statue is all.

Let's talk discipline in Spanish schools. I overhead two Spanish girls today talking about the school systems in England, since they had just spent a few weeks there student teaching at the schools.

"They are obsessed with lining up straight" the one sniffed.

"And only speaking when you raise your hand first. I mean, not even a word without the teacher telling you can talk" lamented the other.

They laughed together: "that's why they line up so straight at bus stops."

This got me thinking about how our education systems really speak volumes about us as a culture, and shape the next generation not just intellectually but also culturally.

British kids are encouraged to be restrained and disciplined and definitely non-chatty. Americans are encouraged to think for themselves, compete with their peers (sometimes respectfully, sometimes not) and consistently strive for their best. (By the way, if you think that list seems universal, you are probably American. None of them are particularly important in Spain.)

Discipline in Spanish classrooms is more lenient in some ways, harsher in others. In general, the noise level is outrageous and "speaking in turn" is totally unenforced. Kids are always up out of their seats, and they often interrupt the teacher in the middle of the lecture. Cheating is a minor kid offense that everyone is expected to do at some point, like picking your nose. Cheaters are usually just told to keep their eyes on their paper, without any of the disciplinary fuss that would be raised at an American school.

On the other hand, I'm inclined to believe that lung power is part of the requirement for being a Spanish teacher, because they are a real bunch of screamers. They yell at kids, individually and collectively, in ways that Americans would feel are unnecessary and harsh. They will get in a kid's face and yell "WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? USE YOUR HEAD FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE! WHAT A BABY!" in a way that has me wide-eyed in the corner. But everyone takes it in stride and five minutes later the teacher is kissing the kid on the cheeks and telling him how handsome he is, like normal (Spanish teachers are demeaning at times but are much more affectionate than American teachers are encouraged to be, so the pendulum swings both ways!)

In Spain, individual thinking and initiative is not particularly encouraged. Everybody is mostly supposed to stick to the script. Grades are public property, and a teacher will read out everyone's grades on a test to the whole classroom, to the jeers and cheers of the audience.

This isn't the complete picture, of course. I've worked in three elementary schools over the past two years, and The Mister in a high school, and four schools total isn't exactly a wide sample size. Andalucía, particularly Málaga, is known for being laid-back even for Spaniards, so maybe it's just a bit wild down here in the south?

Either way, it is never boring.

Barca - Madrid death match

2012-01-19T12:45:00.001-07:00

Last night was a big night here in Spain: the latest Barcelona-Madrid soccer throwdown. I love these nights - it's all anyone talks about all day, and the whole country practically shuts down. Waiters sit down at their customer's tables for a few minutes to catch some action here and there, and good luck doing anything except plopping down at a pub and watching the game. The bars are humming with activity, and nervous fans smoke, drink and cuss their way through the 90-minute playing time.

Sports writer Bill Simmons said it this way: "Here's how I would describe Barca-Madrid: Imagine if the Mets and Yankees were the two best baseball teams by far, if they measured themselves only by each other, if they played six to eight series every year, and if they had many of the best players in the world. Then imagine if baseball was the only sport that anyone cared about in America, imagine if they were throwing at each other almost every game, and imagine if the players hated each other as much as the fans did. That's Barca-Madrid. And on top of that, Barca plays soccer at a higher level than any American sports team does anything AND it has the best athlete in the world (Messi, who's the closest thing to a sports genius that we've had since Michael Jordan)."

The Mister and I are Barca fans, and they won last night. Today at school the kids were wild, obsessed, breaking down every play. My fifth grade class was learning the grammatical construction "getting + comparative adjective" as in "it's getting darker" or "she's getting taller." I asked them to make up their own sentences.

One disgruntled little Madrid fan raised his hand.

"Barca is getting more annoying."

More from Nimes and Le France

2012-01-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

Nimes

2012-01-17T07:47:00.001-07:00

Nimes, France.

January 2nd.

10:29 a.m.

Taken just after eating a croissant.

53 degrees

2012-01-16T11:46:00.000-07:00

This is what it usually looks like.

Today the thermometer peaked at 53 degrees Fahrenheit, and it rained for part of the day, both of which made Málaga residents feel like it is the end of the world. It's been a warm, sunny, dry winter here and it's amazing how fast you feel entitled, isn't it? I was wearing a thick sweater and leggings under my jeans and I still got scolded by a motherly old lady at the bus stop for not wearing gloves. Another teacher noted my lack of scarf. "That's how you get sick" she clucked ominously. I was wearing a turtleneck, for crying out loud.

I've got to say though, even though 53 degrees sounds unbelievable wussy to those of you spending a winter in actual cold temperatures, the difference is that here there is no heat in buildings. At all. And the buildings are all built for the heat instead of the cold, with marble and porcelain and never, ever with carpet. So when it's in the fifties outside, my school is in the low to middling sixties, which is a pretty cold temperature to hang out all day in, and our apartment is often colder than it is outside.

There is, however, a rather charming Spanish custom to combat all this. It involves gathering friends and family to a nice big table and draping the table with a huge tablecloth that reaches the ground on all sides. Then, put a space heater called a brasero under the tables and crank it up really high. Keep the tablecloth tucked around waists and dropped down nicely, and you'll have nice warm butts in no time! I've been told that it's an old-fashioned custom that had been going out of style until the recession kicked it right back in as a nice way to conserve the heat and save on electricity bills. I just think of it as a nice social way to keep my toes warm!

Ode to Claire

2012-01-13T12:17:00.001-07:00

Oh, Claire.

Claire is my one American friend in Málaga. I like her for various reasons, including but not limited to her sense of humor (cracking sarcastic jokes to friends who won't understand them gets old), her famous ability to cook whole turkeys in toaster ovens, and the fact that Spaniards get us constantly confused because we are both short and blonde and foreign.

Also, I like her because she just went to the motherland and picked up a few Christmas presents for us.

See above.

Round. Of. Applause.

Monochrome Valencia

2012-01-12T09:22:00.000-07:00

Valencia and Barcelona

2012-01-11T13:40:00.002-07:00

After our few days in Morocco, we rested at home for a day and then headed out on a road trip to northern Spain and southern France. The cast of characters included our friends Fran (as in Francisco) and Belén (as in Bethlehem, yes, her name means Bethlehem).

We lucked out with great weather, except for one rainy day in France, and having a rainy morning in France isn't exactly the worst thing that can happen to you. We were limited to a few old CDs (a perilous situation on a road trip), but of the CDs happened to be the Forrest Gump soundtrack, which is more or less the best CD I can think of to have on repeat on a car trip.

So there we were, rolling down French highways with Spanish friends, singing about California dreamin'. We stopped in Valencia and Barcelona, both of which were pretty great. Valencia is very modern and looked prosperous to us, as we're accustomed to the poorer south. I kept looking around at all the clean, neat apartment buildings and wondering where everyone put their laundry. In Málaga laundry is hanging everywhere outside windows, which seemed odd to me at first, but I suppose now I'm so adjusted to it that the city felt a bit sterile without it.

Witness Valencia:

Fran and The Mister

Belén and I, quite well-lit.

Then, it was on to Barcelona, which is one of my favorite cities in Spain. I know this is going to be a controversial statement, but I'm gonna throw it out there - I really prefer it hands-down to Madrid. It's got quirky architecture lots of parks and huge avenues that are vaguely reminiscent of Paris. Also, there is a camera store near the Plaza de España that has a floor tailor-made for moonwalking. I know this because we stopped in and The Mister and I had an impromptu moonwalk contest (he won, naturally) because life is too short to pass up such perfect opportunities to attempt a moonwalk in public.

Also, this was my walk to work yesterday morning. It's titled "Why I'll be sad to leave Spain: Exhibit A."

The Tannery

2012-01-09T12:59:00.000-07:00

So I was honest about my rocky relationship with Morocco, and I was interested to see that in the comments, some of you reported similar experiences both in Morocco and in other countries. Maybe we just all belong to the wussie traveler club and we should toughen up, or maybe it isn't us. But I'm not all negative, because today I'll share two cool things about our trip there: 2.) the food is really good. Couscous and dried apricots and dates and tagines and camel burgers. And sweet mint tea. We were well fed. And 2.) The tannery.

We were in the city of Fez, which has one of the oldest continually operating tanneries in the world. We went, and then almost dropped dead from the smell. But we powered through and captured the snippets below. The guidebooks all swear that you can't get down on the tannery floor and can only view it from a balcony, but we lucked out with a "tour guide" (special price for you my friend!) who apparently held the keys to the whole establishment. We got right down in the mess, dodging pack donkeys and stray chickens, past animal carcasses and men up to their waists in huge ancient vats of what we were assured are very carcinogenic dye chemicals. It was noisy and colorful and so very, very pungent. It was fascinating.

See:

Morocco the weird

2012-01-06T13:23:00.001-07:00

Okay, so I am going to give it to you straight: I did not like Morocco. There, I said it. I though it was filthy and wild and smelly and just a little bit scary. There's no way to hide being a tourist when you're a blonde in north Africa, and The Mister and I couldn't swat a fly away without being accosted by locals offering, or sometimes insisting forcefully, that they help you or be your guide for a few bucks. The first couple times = no big deal. The fourteenth time in five minutes would try even the most gentle of human beings. Not that I fit in that category.

Anyway, there are plenty of people who love Morocco and will just say that it's vivacious and a little more rambunctious and that they like the vibe, and that's okay. To each his own. But I feel obligated to mention it because I write an awful lot on this blog about pretty cities and fascinating architecture and seemingly idyllic travel experiences, but the honest-to-God truth is that sometimes you go somewhere and then you spend most of the time looking around you with eyebrows raised, thinking, holy crap I actually paid to come here, and you laugh at yourself for being so stupid. Then you shake it off by dancing your heart out in a silent disco in the middle of a crowded city street. On Christmas Day. And then things are better in the world.

With that said, Morocco is as photogenic as a cute baby in a dandelion field, so enjoy the eye candy:

Morocco

2012-01-05T10:05:00.002-07:00

Just got in yesterday from our epic Christmas travel extravaganza and I've been laying like a limp noodle in my bed ever since. I'm not sure at all if I plan on moving from here before next Monday.

We spent a few days in Morocco, then a brief stop back in Málaga before taking a road trip to France with some Spanish amigos. It was a great trip, except for the time the ferry from Morocco heaved up and down on the seas like a rubber ducky trying to ride out a washing machine cycle. Other than that though, good stuff.

I'm happy to report that Morocco and southern France are particularly photogenic places to travel, which makes me better about my photographic skills after the Sweden debacle (The Mister says that is definitely melodramatic and he thinks the pictures look great but I look at them and I think, Oh Sweden why do you always have to be so dark?!).

I'll be back tomorrow with lots o' pictures from northern Africa but for now, a taste:

See you on the flip side

2011-12-22T13:49:00.001-07:00

Merry Christmas everyone. If you celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Reyes Magos, or anything else, then I hope that's really happy too.

As for me and The Mister, we are off to Morocco tomorrow for a little getaway that hopefully includes copious amounts of cous cous.

May your holiday be full of good food and belly laughs, and not too much fruit cake.

2011 in review

2011-12-21T09:37:00.003-07:00

2011 has been a rollicking good year. Seeing as the coming of the new year always makes me a little nostalgic, I put together a little highlights post of some of my favorite memories of the past 12 months, a few pictures and a few posts. We've been lucky enough to make some pretty awesome memories this past season - here's hoping 2012 can follow this act!

Castilla La Mancha, Spain, August

London, June

Sherwood Forest, Nottingham, England. April.

Scottish Highlands, April.

Porto, Portugal, March.

Ericeara, Portugal, March.

Málaga, April

Cape Cod, September

January:

On Italian food: Olive Garden versus the real thing

February:

The Shakira comment made up for the ego bruise

Peanut butter and salsa

March:

Stuff Europeans Like

Stuff Americans Like

April:

How to eat a Spanish churro

May:

In which The Mister is a rock star and I am a failed Mexican-American cook

June:

Four.

Monochrome London

July:

Team 'Merica

Pranks on the Boss Lady

August:

Sunflower fields

Someone actually approved this message

September:

Tales from Maryland

October:

The checklist

November:

The flamenco flop.

The hardest part of being a teacher

December:

The Polar Bear Plunge

2011-12-19T13:51:00.001-07:00

Stockholm, Sweden

December 9, 2011

Sauna Temp = 190°F

Water Temp = 37°F

So when we decided to go to Scandinavia in the winter, we were told that the thing to do is a traditional Swedish sauna, where you steam yourself like a dumpling and then either a.) jump in freezing water if it's available, or b.) roll in the snow. I was assured that people don't actually die doing it, which cheered me up a bit and made me feel adventurous and devil-may-care. So, we did it. And we survived.

The sauna is so hot and steamy that you are gasping for cool air. After I was cooked about medium rare (approximate internal temperature: one hundred thousand degrees), and my skin looked as red and glowing as the coals in the sauna, it was game time. Dunking yourself in the freezing cold Baltic Sea doesn't seem exactly appetizing, but it's as close as you'll get so you might as well get it over with.

You say a prayer and go outside. This part must be done very fast, because once you're outside the freezing air makes you lose your will to live, nanosecond by nanosecond. Your hair and eyebrows immediately frost over. You climb down the ladder as a concession to your heart, or if you're The Mister you just go for it and hope for the best. The water snaps at you with icy jaws and clamps down on your skin with a force that feels like tiny sharp teeth all over your body. Your mind has only one thought: &^%$#!!!!!!

I held my nose when I hopped in the water, scared that the temperature change would make me inhale in shock and get icy liquid in my lungs. I needn't have worried, however, because it turns out that water that cold makes you not breathe at all, and you'll notice that each of us is surprisingly quiet until we are out of the water, because each of us is experiencing lungs on total protest lockdown.

We had a pretty international group in our sauna: Scotland, Australia, Sweden, Germany and the USA all had representatives. Group bonding happens surprisingly quickly when you are half naked and sweating your buns off, and we laughed a lot and cheered each other on. I think it may be my favorite memory of Sweden.

*Warning: the video contains a little bit of beeped-out salty language, for obvious reasons. Look, if you had dunked Mother Theresa in that water she would have said more than darnit. Those words are for very special occasions and trust me, this was one of them. Sorry, Mom.

Nerds (as in geeks) and Nerds (as in candy)

2011-12-15T09:18:00.000-07:00

About once a year, I like to read a really opaque physics book, one on relativity and space-time and the weak nuclear force and all that. The Mister always reads the same book at the same time, because the ideas are too big for one brain alone, and then we read until we're dizzy and then go lie flat on our backs and stare up at the heavens and try to make sense of what we just read. If you're lacking a little wonder in your life, if you need something to grab you by the shoulders and remind you to pay attention because this life is amazing, then I highly recommend this course of action. Just once a year, mind you, or else you'll turn into a real geek.

Anyway, with this in mind, you won't be surprised to learn that one of the things that really excited me about last week was that they were giving out the Nobel prizes in Stockholm and the prize winners give lectures that are free and open to the public. Hello, physics lecture from Nobel prize-winning physicists. Hello, room full of fellow blonde nerds. I felt so normal. It was glorious.

Also, all three of the laureates were U.S.-born, so, you know, go America.

Speaking of America, I saw more American stuff in Sweden than I've seen for a long time. For starters, there seemed to be one of these on every corner:

I don't think I've ever seen a 7-Eleven abroad before. It smelled the same, like day-old chili dogs and stale coffee. Mmm, scent of the heartland.

Also there was a restaurant rumored to be the best Mexican restaurant in Europe (which, let's be clear, is not saying much) and oh man, it was smokin' good. Mexicans owned the place and the food was authentic stuff - lots of cilantro and lime involved. Delectable.

Most charmingly, there was a little store in Stockholm that has all American food, and the primary clientele seems to be American expats and study abroad students who miss their home cuisine. Not sure what you'd miss if you were to find yourself stranded outside the motherland? Well, take a minute and peruse the options that would be available to you if you lived in Stockholm:

Please note that everything on the above shelf is labeled "ASS KICKIN"

As a side note, I have never eaten Baconnaise, although I applaud the concept (not that I would ever eat it or anything, I'm just saying that it's innovative is all). Also, I did not know that people still drink Snapple, seeing as it's no longer 1996. You live, you learn.

In any case, it's better than the American food we can get in Málaga, which is limited to some neglected-looking Old El Paso taco shells for about 8 euros a box.

So, a round of applause for America. The Nobel prizes were impressive, but the 7-Elevens were really the icing on the cake.

A glimpse at Sweden

2011-12-14T10:39:00.001-07:00

I ate Rudolph, and he tasted delicious.

2011-12-13T13:34:00.001-07:00

Hands down one of my favorite parts of traveling is eating. One of my traveler friends says that there are really only three things that you must do when you travel: eat a typical meal, have a glass of whatever the locals drink, and climb to a place really high up so you can see the whole landscape. I like his style.

I ate like a champ in Sweden. It was dark and cold and...no, I don't have any good excuses, I just like to eat. Good Swedish food is heavy with lots of hearty sauce, and this humble fare is surprisingly hard to find in Stockholm, which is a quite cosmopolitan city filled with Thai restaurants. When we asked where we could get some good traditional grub, Swedes wrinkled their noses and said, well, we eat that at home, so when we go out to eat we want something different. But one day we lucked out and fell into this little place that had Swedish flags all over and didn't have an English menu. Good signs.

We had the reindeer stew (yup, read that again. I said reindeer.) which was tasty and tender and was sort of like a stroganoff. Side of lingonberries (of course).

Then we had a classic Swedish dish of potatoes fried with sausages and meat, topped with an egg and with sides of beets and pickles.

And the crown glory - you knew it was coming, right? - were the meatballs. IKEA, stand aside. These meatballs were divine. Dee-vine.

We also did a touristy thing and signed up to learn how to make meatballs from a Swedish chef. It was surprisingly cheap and we got to eat the meal afterwards, of course.

The appetizer was thick wheaty crackers topped with something like sour cream, chives, red onions and pickled herring. The pickled herring smelled just about exactly like cat food but it tasted a lot less strong than I imagined it would be. I didn't go back for seconds though. It is, after all, fish from a jar, and when all was said and done it still sort of tasted like fish from a jar.

Most pictures below taken by a random Italian guy in the group - thanks Italian guy.

I hope you noticed that the pickled herring brand is Abba. As in ABBA, Swedish rock band. In fact, I asked our Swedish chef what makes Swedish meatballs different from other meatballs. He cocked his head to the side.

"You have to listen to ABBA while you make them."

And in fact, we did.

You're in Sweden, welcome to the time warp

2011-12-12T13:36:00.000-07:00

Sweden: pretty awesome and very, very cold.

On our trip we ate reindeer and pickled herring, jumped in the (literally) freezing Baltic Sea, and sang ABBA while we made meatballs. We saw Nobel prize winners lecture on their genius ideas, and we went ice skating outside and hung out on Viking ships. But by far the oddest part of the trip was trying to adjust to the daylight hours in Sweden, or the scarcity thereof. The sun rises at 9 and sets at 3. Six hours, and that's not including dawn and dusk.

It throws you completely off kilter. You find yourself yawning, looking at your watch and thinking, surely it's almost time for bed!, but it's really only 6:30. It's just been dark for three hours.

The first day we arrived, it was about 1:30 in the afternoon and we told the receptionist at our hostel that we were going to peek around and then have lunch in a few hours (we do live in Spain, after all, so we usually eat lunch between 3 and 4. When in Rome...) The girl looked at us like we were crazy. "You'd better go to lunch now," she told us, "everyone closes in the next half hour." So we rushed to a nearby restaurant to eat and when we emerged at 2:30 this is what we saw:

(sorry, I know this is a bad picture, but I wanted to get the actual color of the sky.)

We stood in the street, stunned and incredulous. 2:30!

Marvel with me--here are a few more (timestamps taken from my camera):

11:25 a.m.

2:29 p.m.

3:01 p.m.

3:32 p.m.

3:38 p.m.

3:41 p.m.

Euros in my pocket, dollars on my mind

2011-12-09T01:00:00.000-07:00

I'm in Sweden this week having reindeer and lingonberries for lunch, so I pre-scheduled this post. Be back Monday with photos of the frozen tundra up north!

Things have come to a pretty pass when you are monitoring European bond auctions and long-term interest rates while eating your breakfast, just to make sure that the currency in your pocket still has the appropriate amount of value.

It's an interesting time to live in Europe - now, when everything is trembling in fear of collapse, the whole thing swinging precariously from one frayed wire, threatening with the slightest tremor to crash down around our ears. The papers cry Armageddon! and the politicians cry Relax! and nobody knows who is really right. What we do know is this: this isn't over, and before it's over it could be bad.

As for me, I'll take my pocket money in euros but I want my savings in dollars, thank you very much.

The proof is in the pudding

2011-12-07T12:29:00.000-07:00

I'm in Sweden this week having reindeer and lingonberries for lunch, so I pre-scheduled this post. Be back Monday with photos of the frozen tundra up north!

And he says he never gets mad at me.

The view will probably be...colder.

2011-12-05T11:48:00.001-07:00

I captured this sunrise on my iPhone on my morning walk to work last week.

You know where the view is definitely not like this?

Sweden.

(Which is where I'm going tomorrow!)

I'll have a few posts running this week while I'm gone, and I'll be back next week with some Scandinavian eye candy. (As long as my camera La Rebel doesn't totally go stubborn on me and reuse to operate when temperatures are in the ridiculous zone.)

Hasta luego!

Visitors

2011-12-02T13:23:00.001-07:00

I haven't even mentioned here that we had visitors last weekend! Remember Christy and Duncan? We visited them last year in Nottingham, and they took us to Sherwood Forest and fed us lots of fish and chips. This time it was their turn.

We went to Nerja, ate fried eggplant with honey and drank lots of tea, because you can take a Brit out of England but you can't take the England out of the Brit.

Also, they brought us cheese. Two types of cheddar and some gloucester and I am in heaven. I would like to know why Spaniards do not think cheddar is worth making. One of these days I will march up to city hall and demand an explanation.

Anyway, my parents smuggled me some cheddar last year too and as it's not exactly legal to smuggle these type of foodstuffs across borders, I believe it's time to add a new line to my resumé: head of an international cheese smuggling ring. Yes.