Granada by day

Durning these last two weeks there are two things that seem to posses Granada:rebajas and the Alhambra. I have been witness to both of these things. The rebajas are the end of the seasons sales. Everything is put at ridiculously low prices in Spain and perhaps all over Europe in preperation for the next season. From what I can tell the majority of Spanish women don´t mind wearing cloths a little out of season because they attack the stores with an unnatural fevor. Things are thrown everywhere and it is seriously crowed. A good comparison for any Bay Area folks would be Berkeley Bowl on a Sunday.
The Alhambra cannot help but to dominate Granada. It dominates the skyline with it´s beautiful architecture. Right now they are voting for the 7 man made wonders of the world and there are adverstisments everywhere to nominate the Alhambra. The Alhambra was built by the Moorish caliphs (kings) of Spain and is covered in the most amazing tile work. Even though the Moores were supposidly driven out of Spain around the same time of Christopher Columbus in 1492 I am still convinced that many Spainairds carry arabic blood with them. There are two women at the residence from Jordan and you can´t even tell them apart. They look very Spanish (or vice versa :) Spainairds, for the most part, are very proud of this heritage. Just as Granadas skyline is dominated by the Sierra Nevada mountains that surround it you can also see the Alhambra from many parts of the city. We´ll see if one of the women here lets me use their computer to put some photos in my blog. I´ll show you exactly what I mean. When I walk Granada by day that is what I notice...more to come later.

beach & botallon

The Spanairds of Souther Spain love two things in the summer: drinking in the streets and going to the beach. Some of the girls from the residence invited me to go out with them this weekend. We started the night off in typical Spanish style at a tapas bar. What I didn´t know was that each drink you order they give you a free tapa! Isn´t that amazing! The term tapa came from "tapear" which means to cover up something. Back in the day bartender used to cover someones glass with a small plate to keep out the flys. They started putting olives on top and thus the tradition was born. Apparently in Granada the tradition lives on it´s purest form. We were able to try lamb kebabs, baby ribs with honey, pork loin sandwiches, little hamburgers, mussles...you can see that the Spanish love their meat! Then what I can´t exactly figure out how to spell but I can tell you how to say, (repeat after me :)bow-tay-own, began. It basically consisted of buying a huge liter of tinto de verano (red wine mixed with fanta) sunflower seeds all for under 3 euros. Then we went to this huge plaza and chilled. There was only so much red wine-fanta mix that I could drink but it was fun to watch the scene. Spanish women are very much into seventies style shorty shorts these days and guys use as much gel as possible to spike their hair into faux hawks (you know faux mohawks). Of course everyone had their own style! And that my friends was most of night. Much cheaper than any bar I´ve been to.
The next day I went to the beach with another group of girls. We took the bus to Malaga about 1.5 hours away. It´s so sweet to see how much love there is between all of them. The folks I met in the dorms are some of the closest friends I´ve had in my life. These three girls, 16, 18, and 20 are close of friends. They were hilarious. The couldn´t stop laughing at eachother. The beach was so relaxing! I may be converted to a beach girl. I´m trying to make plans to visit my coworkers in Nerja which is also on the beach. Malaga like the rest of Andalucia was part of the Moorish empire. There is evidence of this everywhere. I couldn´t help but notice the buildings and parks surrounding the beach.
There is also much evidence of American influence. No one will be suprised to know that Malaga has a Mc Donalds. My Spanish friends really wanted to go there! THat was what suprised me most. I´ve been really suprised to hear how many people here are really interested in the U.S. Maybe I met different kinds of people where I stayed last time but I´ve never met so many Spanairds that want to visit the U.S. They are all fascinated by New York. Maybe anti-american sentiment has waned a little bit since the war started.
I picked up my flamenco skirt yesterday and I´m going to take more classes starting tomorrow. Ole! I´ll try to include pictures of my class :)
Peace-Maggie

flamenco...

I never suspected flamenco would be part of this trip. Anyone that knows me knows I don´t mind dancing in public as long as I don´t have to memorize steps and do it in front of any kind of audience. That has sort of ruled out dance classes in the past. When I went to this school I found on the internet to sign up for cooking classes they told me that I couldn´t take cooking classes but they did offer substainally more expensive language classes and flamenco. I am definitely a fan of flamenco but I don´t really know that much about it nor do I know don´t know anything about dancing it. When I signed up I was wondering what a flamenco teacher would be like. My image is a woman with a fierce expression on her face. When Ana showed up I wasn´t dissapointed. She´s a grandmother but still quite beautiful and with a powerful flamenco body. She approached me confrontationally wanted to what I knew about flamenco. When I told her the little I did know she told me I was entirely mistaken! That someone else had told her that they had heard something similar in an American film. Why are we always responsible for all the bad things people see on T.V.! Needless to say with my small phobia of dance classes and this confrontation I was ready to tell her I had wanted cooking classes and quit! I´m glad I held on though. Today she was infinitely more patient and she took me to her favorite store to help me buy a skirt and show me her beautiful house in the center. She even offered to give me classes at a reduced rate. I think it´s because I told her I too love Sex in The City! That show unifies a lot of women, it cracks me up! Today I also spoke to most of students by telephone. They all seem happy with their situations, tired, and struggling with the language. This is a very hard place to learn Spanish! Well more about my adventures and my crazy teacher. She´s preforming tomorrow night so I´m going to see her. Un beso para todos-Maggie

Alone?

It´s an interesting thing being almost completely alone in a foriegn country. I´ve noticed my life follows this theme. I feel alone surrounded by people or completely at home and cared for in the prescence of just a few people. I think that would justly describe why that contrast, alone or not alone, is a theme in my life. The women´s rescidence is a mess of activity eveyday and all the time. There are always around 50 girls between the ages of 18 and 24 fighting, smiling, talking over eachother at any given meal. Considering they are doing all these things in Spanish it´s a little overwhelming at times. Most don´t recognize me and ask why I´m here and smile and are impressed by California. I think feeling a little off balance is normal. I can´t quite connect or laugh or talk over them in the same way they are able to do.
Last night, completely alone, I went to a free flamenco concert in the plaza just in front of the catherdral here in Granada. On my way there I asked a couple for directions and they said they were going to the same concert. They kindly led me there. I lost them in the crowd because there must have been around 500 people in the concert. I found a place on the steps convinced that I wouldn´t find a free seat and a young couple squeezed in next to me and struck up a converstation. We chatted until the concert started and then we stood up and moved closer to the stage. Two young women stood very close to me and I started talking to them. A little girl who could barely see and who one of the woman didn´t know climbed up on her shoulders. Together, strangers connected by the space and the music, we enjoyed the preformance. It was strange to be alone but carry on several conversations in one night. Sure, these conversations are usually pretty meaningless but it does make me feel a little less alone. Not to mention that at night the streets are full of people and you can´t help but feel completely safe. Alone? Not exactly. I think Spanairds have different ideas about strangers. I can´t imagine any American parent being okay with a 5 year climbing up on the shoulders of someone they didn´t know or of squeezing in close and starting a conversation.
The flamenco concert was magnificent.There was a male dancer, something I´ve never seen, and 4 female vocalists. They also had a drummer and a violinist both rarities in Flamenco. Something about Flamenco´s mix of sorrow and elation draws me completely into the moment in a way that´s rare for me. The music, the expressions move me as much for their exoticness as for some shared emotion I feel I must experience in my most graceful moments. More to come...ANY COMMENTS??? IS ANYONE OUT THERE???

Que Guay

I feel very fortunate to now live in a place where people instantly recognize the name and the bridge associated with it. I arrived at the women´s rescidence last night a little disoriented. The woman that works at the front desk, Susana, was very patient and nice about everything. She even gave me a moment to relax and orient myself. At dinner I introduced myself to everyone. I asked them about what they were doing. Everyone here is studying something different. There are a few girls I met last night who are doing translation. Granada has a really good translation school. I chatted away and everytime I told folks that I lived next to San Francisco they commented,"Que guay" (that almost sounds like why in English) because they had all heard of San Francisco. I felt instantly better that everyone was so open and friendly. The residence is simple but with beautiful views, clean sheets, and a quiet private room. Everything I need! More later. I´m going to try and sign up for cooking classes today.
peace-Maggie

San Francisco-Paris-Madrid-Granada-Marbella-Granada

The list of disparate cities above are where I´ve been since Wednesday. I´m wondering how people become totally in control of such insanity. I left San Francisco with 9 students and 9 tickets and passports in hands of each high school student. When we got to Paris one ticket was missing. This felt like a definitive moment: welcome to your new job :) Fortunately, the ticket was replaced for very realitively little money and I was able to go to Madrid with everyone in tow and another student we met in Paris. It´s been interesting spending time with these students. I´m feeling ways I expected and ways I never expected to feel. I´m recognizing my own personal transformation while experiencing theirs to some degree.
The students are now all in host families in Granada, Marbella, and Malaga. We spent a night and day in Madrid. The students had lots of observations. I heard some ineteresting comments about cultural differences. For some reason spending time with them is a real wake-up call to the fact that so many conversations I am having every day these students are never asked to engage in. I had a talk about race with a student today. It was the first time I actually decided to voice my opinion. I´m sure my body language gave me away a bit. It was actually a good conversation. I felt like the student heard me.
Another interesting thing that has happened is the way the students relate to me. This speaks to all the issues of race that I feel like I confront in my work at Roosevelt. I never felt like for a moment that I had to try too hard to be cool with them. They naturally gravitated towards me. We all went out last night and they wanted me dance! Hillarious, my dancing moves emabaress the hell out of the kids at Roosevelt.
Madrid is a city full of windy streets and I was totally lost leading 13 students at times. We laughed. Some of them were a little annoyed but all-in-all they´ve had a great attitude about things. We had an amazing tour of the Riena Sofia and went to the Palacio Real. I saw my friend Conchita who is 5 months pregnant and married. She was niether last time I saw her four years ago. She was so beautiful and I really felt like the changes in her life had brought her a lot of joy. It´s so amazing to follow someones life for years, even if it is from a distance. Today we arrived in Granada and I left the students with their host families. They were nervous and excited. I was happy to see them start off well with this amazing experience but I was a little nervous for myself. I really have little idea about what I´m going to do for 16 days all by myself! This is a truely unique experience in my life: no responsiblities and no friends! I think I´ll find some time for much needed head space even if just for a short time. I´ll fill you all in. Sorry for the poor grammer! I have to pay for this fun :) Un beso muy fuerte desde Espana...Maggie

Spain from a distance

I'm leaving on Wednesday for the my first job abroad. I'm being paid to chaperone 13 highschool students during a month long homestay/tour of Spain. I'm hoping this blog will help me a little reflective about what things mean to me while I'm traveling. Events always seem to rush past me so quickly and I sometimes regret not having more get up and go. This should help hold those moments a little more still and motivate me to find things to write about. I guess those 18 days when the students are with their host families I won't feel so alone because I'll be sharing those moments with all of you. That said, post any comments you might have about my travels/observations and for those of you "stuck" in your own respective corners of the world enjoy the ride through me. Whenever I leave the country things always seem to happen in much the same way. It's so hard to envision myself in that different world until I step into it. I've been seriously dissapointed these last few days because I applied for a Rotary scholarship to study abroad in an Arabic-speaking country and I found out I'll miss the interview portion during my trip. I struggled through the application and paid someone to help me translate it into French. Now I won't even be able to compete. I considered renigging on this trip. I talked to my Mom today and she told me I had to think about my integrity and the committment I had already made to do this trip. I think she's right. Every time I've made serious committments in my life I haven't backed down. Maybe that's why marriage and kids scare me so much. I guess that means I'll stay here in the States for grad school. UC Berkeley maybe..hmmm..I'll guess we'll see. More to come next week.