Some random updates...

Pablo. Sometimes I don't even know what to say. A few weeks ago I believe he gave me a Spree that he had already put in his mouth, I asked him and he said no and starting laughing. So I took that as yes. He also enjoys showing me his chewed food so I now do the same for him. He is obsessed with hamburguesas, which by the way are very different here; they are not beef, usually ground chicken or turkey. I like them, but the first time I saw one I was like why is my hamburger pink and I asked Paqui what kind of meat it was and she told me carne, which basically tells me nothing. I later found out that it was chicken. Every day Palbo wants a hamburguesa and usually has a fit about it. He is also loves to talk about my Tabasco sauce too. One day when he pisses me off I should put it in on his hamburguesa, haha, jk. Lately I have been hearing some porn-like moaning noises coming out from him. I have no idea what he is doing but they are loud, quite abundant, and completely random.

I have been taking salsa lessons for about a month. It's a lot of fun, but don't get nervous and think I have skill, I am horrible.

This past Friday I went to Córdoba which is about two and a half hours north of Granada to see la Mezquita Catedral de Córdoba (the mosque of Córdoba). It was one of those crazy old structures with lots of detailing that makes you wonder how it is possible that something is 1,000 years old and still standing when we knock down buildings that are 20 years old because they were built so poorly. Like many old churches in Europe, it has gone through many changes and updates the past 1,000 years, but still has some of the original walls and interior structures from the 10th century.

My Spanish is improving a lot, but it is far from perfect. There are still many moments of confusion. I practice all of the time and sometimes I feel really good about it while others times I feel it is nearly impossible to achieve the perfection that I want.

I have an intercambio, which means I am pared up with someone that wants to learn English and we practice together. His name is Javi and he is awesome. I think he speaks English very well, better than I do Spanish, haha. We have only met a few times, but we get a long well which is good because I will need some friends when everyone leaves in December.

This past weekend I went clubbing with a 17 year-old. No joke. There are some kids from California in our school, and one is in high school and I went out with him and his brother the other night to a club. He is actually really mature, maybe more than me, haha.

This Friday I am going on vacation because we have a week off of school!!! My friend Kate and I are leaving for Oslo, Norway on Friday, then we are going to Stockholm, Sweden and our final stop is in Copenhagen, Denmark. I am very excited because these are all new cities for me and I really wanted to make my way up to Scandinavia while in Europe. No doubt it will be cold, but I hope that the fall weather will bring pretty colors.

When Teaching English, Wear a Bra

Two weeks ago I started to volunteer at a church teaching children English. It is something I wanted to do before coming here for practice. I am also using the experience to write a paper for my Spanish culture class. From one day of volunteering I have enough to write a 3 or 4 page paper, it was quite an experience. The first day I went to the church we (Kate and I) did not really do much but meet some people, last Monday was the first real day of teaching. The children range in age from 6 to 14 and they are all quite aggressive. The older ones immediately started with vulgar questions. First they were obsessed with wrestling and saying smack down. Then one told us he has a shirt that says “Fud me I am famous” and he wanted to know the significance of fud. Obviously a shirt lost in translation. Anyway after talking about the shirt they started yelling fucky and would not stop for ten minutes. Then another fine young man joined our group and started asking about various rappers and as well as throwing down the west-side symbol. He also told me that his mother is a prostitute. He then got up on the table and took his pants off and started twirling them around on his hand. I about lost it and could not stop laughing because I did not know what to do, it was a lost cause. Laughing was a bad decision because after putting his pants back on, he took them off again. After this little game, the older kids starting chanting mother fucker and would not stop. When the real teacher walked in to see how we were doing they all called him a mother fucker and he did not really react. I don't know if he was unaware of the significance of mother fucker or if he just ignored it. He told them to listen and pay attention and put one kid in a minor head lock and left the room. The situation was not resolved and mother fucker continued to be the word of the day. I then had another boy come up to me and ask me the significance of playboy, hmm. I actually explained to him what it was because in Spain being naked and wearing clothes is equal and I knew he had seen plenty of nude women in magazines and public access television. Finally the older boys left and we started to focus on some of the younger children. One would think this would be a controlled situation, not really. I was wearing a tank top with a built in bra and a girl of seven years old pulled my shirt out and asked why I was not wearing a bra. She then grabbed my boobs, a few times. After my boobs became a bore, she asked me how to say puta (which has various meanings in Spanish depending on the use, a popular meaning is whore) and mierda (shit) in English. I responded with poop. At this point we were almost done with our duties and I went to get my purse and upon my return the girl took one final boob pinch when I walked by. Among the many lessons learned, the most important is to wear a real bra. I don't think this will be the last story about my volunteer experience.

Flamenco y La Fiesta

The first week of October I went to my first Flamenco show. Flamenco is the popular dance in Analucia (Southern Spain). It is really popular in Granada and Seville and many of people involved in Flamenco are gitanos (gypsies). It's not a dance that you throw down at a club, it's more of crazy Spanish tap dance that you go and watch. There is one man who plays the guitar, another sings (they call it singing but is sometimes sounds like a painful cry for help), and at this particular show there were three women and two men dancers. Two of the women were kind of scary, kind of like Britney at the MTV awards but they were better dancers. The dance becomes really intense sometimes and so do the facial expressions. It was fun to see to because I had been hearing and learning about it for the past month so I finally got to see what it's all about.

My favorite Spanish culture experience so far has been the parade in Selebraña. Now I know that parade sounds lame and not fun, which is generally the opinion I hold, but this parade ended with a FIESTA! My friends and I decided to go to Selebraña which is a beach town about 50 minutes away from Granada. We knew there was some form of a fiesta and paella but we had no idea what it was going to be like. We found the beach and starting walking down the boardwalk when the parade began so we decided to watch. The second I saw a woman drinking a beer in her Flamenco dress and walking in the parade I knew that this could be nothing but good. Within seconds of the beer sighting a group of men (Los Fiesteros) invited me and my friends to walk in the parade and not long after that I too was a woman walking in a parade drinking a beer. The float we are walking with was stacked with beer and food, and of course a leg of ham. I am very proud to say that I was part of a Spanish parade; of course I know that we stuck out like sore-thumbs but it was worth it. After the procession ended all of the floats lined up along the beach and the fiesta began. The scene reminded me of a tailgate on the beach with legs of ham and bread instead of hamburgers and hotdogs. We made friends with one particular Spaniard, Antonio. He was very kind and more-or-less took care of us the whole time. Every time I turned around there was some new item of food being served or a beer being handed over to me. There was so much food that a larger space was needed to accommodate the group, so eventually Los Fiesteros moved the party to what I would like to call a VFW-type building not far from the shore. At this location there were some new food items, and 8-year old girls in Flamenco dresses bartending. When one asked me what I wanted I almost died, what a dream-come-true. While all of this was going on a bar on the beach was cooking a giant pan of paella, which of course we bought some later. We finally had to go and catch our bus around 7pm, so sadly we missed out on hitting up the disco on the beach. HaHa. It was a fantastic experience and really did give me a piece of Spanish culture. The whole event reminded me of something you would see on the travel channel and think, hey I would like to do that knowing that you probably never would, but I did. Maybe I can be the next Rick Steves. Yeah right, but I know kind of how he feels.

La Corrida de Toro

The past two weeks have been an onslaught of Spanish culture starting with a bull fight, “una corrida del toro,” two weekends ago. I already knew the specifics before attending because I learned about it in my Spanish culture class. To be honest, before living here I did not know exactly how the whole thing went down. I knew that a bull was killed and I thought that was it, wrong. Why kill one when there are people to entertain? So if you don't know, here is how it goes. There are three toreros (bull-fighters) whom each kill 2 toros (bulls), yes that makes a total of 6 toros killed in one event. They let the bull out into the arena and the torero and his “gang” mess with it using the capes. Then the “picadores” come out. A man on a horse takes a long poll with a knife/sword on the end and stabs the bull in the back. After he feels he has sufficiently cut the bull, or the bull gets pissed enough and tries to ram the hose, the picadore leaves the arena. Moving on to the second part, the “banderillas.” Now that the bull has been sliced in the back it's time to stab him some more and this task is usually done by the torero's “gang.” Three men come out and each put in two bandereras in the toro's back. There bandereras are meant to stay in the back of the bull for the remainder of the fight moving into the third and final part of the corrida. In the final stage the torero comes out with his knife and red cape and taunts the bull some more until he finally decides that the bull is tired and he stabs it in the back, aiming to go through the heart and kill the bull. Sometimes the final stab is not so smooth and has to be repeated until the torero gets it right. The only torero who got it on the first time (both times) was El Fandi, who is one of the famous bull fighters in Spain. At this point you probably think it's over, well it's not. The crowd cheers and waves their pañuelos (scarves) in order display whether the torero deserves the ears of the bull. One ear is good, two is great, and if the tail is cut off then the fight was the best. Fortunately I did not see any tails cut off, but I did see the son (5 yrs old) of one of the toreros walk around the arena with an ear. This whose process is repeated 6 times. Needless to say it is redundant and I think I have seen my one and only corrida.

Rooney = Pegote

Last week Rooney was in Granada. We had some good times, probably the most notable night with Rooney was this past Friday. Rooney, Kate, and I went out for some tapas and we found a random seafood place, probably one of my favorite places since I have been here. They served lightly fried fish for one tapas and small clams for the other, both delicious. We made friends with the guys working, took some shots, and went out to a disco with one of the bartenders. When we arrived at the disco no one was there, which I was not surprised because it was early according to Spain standards. The bartender told us that the guy working was his brother so I thought, great cheap drinks. A round of shots were given, along with a beer, and some more beers later. When it was around 4 am, maybe later and no one was there I thought it was a little sketchy. When we were ready to go, we got the bill, thinking it would be cheap and it was 56 euro. We somehow got the bill reduced to 41 euro, which was still a rip off because we did not even drink that much. Needless to say we were irritated with he first bartender we met because we thought we had the ¨hook-up.¨ Then the first bartender told us there was a night bus we could take and he wanted to show us. At this point Rooney was heated about the bill and attempting to speak Spanish. Although Kate or I should have stepped in and explained our irritation, I did not have the energy to get into a Spanish argument. So Rooney took over and starting yelling "Buscar" which means "to look for" and was not really relevant to the situation. Anyway the guy said some things very quickly in Spanish and eventually stormed off. I´m not sure if I´ll be returning to this tapas bar anytime soon.

I am sure I will be running into Rooney again in the near future, possibly next week.