¡Comenzan Las Vacaciones! - Madrid Otra Vez

I must apologize for taking so long to get back to blog writing, but you must understand my habits - day is for getting stuff done and goofing off, night is for getting serious work done if necessary and paying attention to the things that interest me. Blogging is something that interests me, so that is for night... but I can't get to a computer late at night since I don't have a laptop. But I´m glad I don't have a laptop, it would pose problems of... lose-a-bility? Besides that computers are hard to get to anytime during the day, either completely across town or expensive. It is not very conducive to paper writing and getting emails that teachers expect you to be able to read at any hour. JMU has 24 hour computers available... Salamanca is slacking. So I really have to want to write blogs while in Salamanca. While in hostels or in my dorm room, there´s usually a computer available as late as I´d like and that is very helpful. And I think it'll take a little while longer to get my post on Barcelona up, that was a very interesting trip and will take a while to gather all my stuff to write about... I never thought writing would be so mentally taxing!

It too me a long long time to finally settle with my plans for Spring Break. I thought all along that I wanted to visit El Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain (I'm just going to assume I explained that in a previous blog), but I thought to myself that it's really really cold in Spain. In the time I was planning, it surprised me how cold it was in Salamanca - I thought Spain was a hot dusty place! Of course that's the Spanish stereotype that actually comes from Andalucía - bullfighters, paella, hot dusty countryside, flamenco, ruffled dresses... all that stuff. Nope, it has been a really really cold winter that I didn't expect, so I was very worried that father north it would be even colder, and to be freezing my extremities off while I should be relaxing and enjoying myself. So I considered changing my plans - I wanted to spend Easter with Caroline but it was looking like her parents were deciding to hate her world and not let anyone visit, and it would cost wayyy too much to visit my friend Sarah in London... I couldn't find anything reasonable back to Paris. I was running out of time. Then once I got Caroline to say that I could at least visit town and hang out with her, even if I couldn't stay at her house I said to myself - FINE, I will go for El Camino de Santiago, I´ll just bookend it with Madrid first then Porto afterwards, make a nice square out of the trip. And so in a very short amount of time I managed to book all the busses and hostels necessary and here I am in Madrid!



The night before leaving for break, I spent a fair amount of time rummaging through my room deciding what to take and what to leave... I had packed some things in Becca's backpack but the rest of my room remained an unholy mess. After sitting through a single class this morning (I might have had others, but I had an essay to write before noon and I just didn't feel like class today.... it's break time!) I talked to Bethany for a while and then ran on home and made my sandwich for the trip and finish packing. The most necessary things I got for the trip were snacks for my hike and new socks for my feet - my socks are terrible, I have badly been in need of replacements and what better excuse than a reasonably long hike? Oh and I forgot to mention that last night I got a haircut! I got a normal sort of shave and enjoyed speaking with the extroardinarily friendly workers, and I decided that I haven't shaved my face in about a month and there's no reason to cut it now - it just works as insulation. Hair on the top of my head, however was starting to look shoddy and difficult to control, so it had to go. So a pound or two lighter, newly socked and stocked I set out to the very busy bus station, selected my seat and did what I could to enjoy the trip. I must note here that I am not the normal size for anything - Greg I´m sure you understand - at 6´2¨, no seat is correct for my back, nor is there ever adequate leg space. It was a long long bus ride to Madrid because I was in the back left corner and I couldn't even put my legs into the aisle. Bummer... I spent my time watching episodes of Good Eats and DCI finals and listening to old recordings of the MRDs and the Frida Kahlo soundtrack.


So finally I arrived in Madrid and wandered briefly in search for a route to get to my hostel... but I realized that the road I was on was not on my map. Well darn, I gues the metro it is. Luckily the Madrid metro is really easy to use and really cheap on Euro standards and rather clean and easy. Using the lovely map that I got from my sister (http://www.streetwisemaps.com/) I made it without trouble straight to my hostel. I've got to make note here that I've been using my sisters maps throughout the trip in London and Paris and Madrid and Barcelona... they are fabulous maps that show the entire city, every street and landmarks with (if available) metro stops and a metro map. All the street names are then put in alphabetical order and listed with coordinates to help you find it if you're lost and start looking at street signs. Love it.


I emerged from the metro in Puerta del Sol (Door of the Sun) which happens to more or less be the center of Madrid. It's a large plaza usually with street performers and policemen and hoardes of people. As always there was a lovely crowd gathered about someone playing music and after briefly looking, it was actually a pair of men playing chinese hammer dulcimers. I continued on my way looking for my hostel and eventually I came to the numbers that should be about right and I didn't see anything that stood out, there was just a wooden door that usually meant residence. Upon closer inspection, my breath in the cold air parted to find a little white note - Sant Jordi Centro Hostel, sonanos (ring for us). Huh, ok, this is going to be a lame place with little room, I thought.

Well I went up the several flights of stairs until I found a door to my left that I knocked on. I was led inside to a little desk with some guys maybe a little older than me screwing a bookshelf on the wall above the desk. 'How is it? Good?' Wow, they speak English! And upon looking around... this is an amazing place! An entire floor for the hostel, completely clean and well kept - rooms of 4 or 8 beds, neatly arranged. Eight computers for free internet access at any hour, a full kitchen for usage by anyone, a large TV room with tons of music and chairs. Perfectly beautiful.

Well I settled in and hen wen out looking for the convent of Las Descalzados (the barefoot nuns... I don't know...) but alas I could not find them, instead I could find that black leather cowboy statue guy making funny wheezy sounds. He had a nice sized crowd, while others stood unattended. I must say this is a strange institution of Spain - street performers who just stand in some strange costume expecting donations. The black cowboy man at least was entertaining and made fun noises and took pictures with people, others just stood still or did rather boring things... costumes varied from strange (fake) blood drenched demon people in Barcelona to an odd angel-ish girl(?) in Salamanca to even a travelling Saint James in Santiago de Compostela, but I get ahead of myself. I'm just saying it's a strange practice and some people don't seem to understand that to get donations you actually need to perform, not just... stand still.

ANYWAYS, walking around the streets of Madrid, I also heard a vaguely familiar guitar tune, but I couldn't really understand the lyrics... as I got closer I suddenly understood the two Spanish guitar players obviously nervously looking at a songbook singing, 'Wheill mae gee-terre jentle woeeps'. Lovely indeed, Paul is rolling in his grave (let us all remember that Paul is indeed dead, died in a car crash as recreated in the song Number 9, replaced by Billy Shears... google it).


I had arrived around dinner time, so there was still a little bit of sunlight and I had even brought a sandwich from home! So I sat in a plaza in front of the parliament building and ate my lovely bocadillo. The parliament building, or Cortes Generales, is a large government building (you know, straight lines, lots of identical rooms and windows) with two lions in the front. Now in Cine class we watched this movie that imitated the Don Quixote style called El Corazón del Guerrero (The Warrior's Heart) and in it the lead character imagined these lions to be metallic warriors to be defeated by shaking up a magical coke can and spraying them.... he was a little crazy... but that's all I could think of when I saw them and very nearly did spray them with the coke can that I had brought with my bocadillo... but then decided that I was indeed thirsty and would need something to refresh and moisturize my mouth after the decidedly strong taste of the Iberian Chorizo.

Apparantly the taste is appetizing to dogs as well. Sitting there in the little courtyard, a little dog approached me. Deciding that he must want some of my sandiwich I took out a little bit of sausage and threw it to get the dog to fetch. Didn't budge. This cute little terrier wanted all or nothing. Bad dog. No bocadillo for you. Well the owner amused and apologetic carried the dog away and after several moments his other dog repeated the exact same sequence. The circle of sausage does not interest him. (I must note here, the dog actually peed on a sign in the grass that said no dogs allowed on the grass... I almost died laughing and wished I had a camera)

Well, I was pleased but alone and went in search of something to do. By now it was getting dark and upon finding the Thyssen closed, I went in search of something fun to do. Becoming eventually lost, I found myself in a somewhat hidden plaza where I saw a sign - CINE (movie theater). Nice! Now as I might have or might not have mentioned before... we have seen two films with our group in Salamanca. Both American, overdubbed. Why did we come to Spain to see American movies? And I hate overdubbing - there is so much lost in the acting without their actual voices! Lame, very lame. Well, the movie I was to see was German! International, at least - good stuff. And apparantly it won an Academy Award as best International Film, Die Fälsche - an Austrian film by Stefan Rusowitzky. After buying my ticket, I had about an hour to spare so I walked around and found a chocolate covered churro and relaxed for a while. I found myself wandering into a soap shop. I was attracted to an herby clean air smelling soap and actually got some. I wasn't quite sure why... I just felt like I would need it. Then I went over to see the movie I had gotten the ticket for. As it turns out, the movie's about the Nazis employing money counterfeiters during WWII and what life was like for them in contrast and in relation to other inmates and guards. It's a very interesting perspective of what a prisoner sees, always opting to see and hear exactly what the lead character experiences, not an omniscient viewer but rather a very personal view of rather traumatic and somewhat dream-like scenes. To me it really focused on the brutally careless and indifferent way the nazis treated the lives and work of their captives, concerned only with the outcome for themselves. I even splurged before the movie on a chocolate covered churro and popcorn, bringing water in my own waterbottle. It was an interesting movie and actually made me realize how my Spanish is coming along - reading the subtitles as easily as if they were in English. It feels nice to experience growth.


Anyways, after the movie I just came back to the hostel and relaxed at the computer for a while talking to Bethany before going to sleep.

The next morning after happily sleeping in, I found a Valor chocolate shop where they happened to specialize in churros and nice spicy thick chocolate to dip in. Having had a chocolate dipped churro the night before I opted instead for a Spanish donut, unfortunately forgetting the Spanish nature to get things that should be light and fluffy terribly crumby and dry. I should have gotten the churros. They had a very interesting way of preparing the churros - there was a machine that pumped the in-store made churro batter into this bath of hot oil... it would be pumped in continuously in the star-shape and formed into a large spiral by the churro chef, eventually filling up the oil bath, turning off the batter pump and turning it away from the fryer. After the first side had sufficiently cooked, using two long metal poles the chef would coax the coil over on the other side to cook the rest. Once done, the chef would then snip the drained churro coil into consumable sticks and serve them with a very thick and spicy chocolate sauce/drink.


I enjoyed it until I was stuffed and then went around the corner where I found first a free exhibit by the Thyssen musem! I spent alot of time sketching portraits by Moise Kisling (Lady in Blue, Kiki de Montparnasse with red dress), Amedeo Modigliani (young man with cap), nude by Suzanne Valadon (The Fortune Teller), and more pencil portraits by Modigliani (Portrait of Lèopold Zborowski, Portrait of Lunia Czechowska). It was a small exhibit, very nice and quiet and plenty of space to sketch. I am really loving sketching, just being able to recreate what I see and preserve my impression of it, even if it may not be perfect.


After thoroughly enjoying that, I went back to trying to find the Convent of the Descalzas, which I did find, if a little late. It was getting ready to close, but had a free exhibit that I got to see of old artifacts from the cathedral, including one thing I really enjoyed - an illuminated manuscript! I really love how elaborate the script could be, and I tried to recreate one word, but it took a long time and I ended up just fudging a lot of it. I can't even imagine trying to freehand something like that... just the time effort and materials it must have taken are staggering. In the section that I saw of the convent, there was also a courtyard, a beautiful little courtyard with fruit-bearing orange trees and green green grass. Looking up I could see the tiled roof and chimneys covered with perching pidgeons and the light blue sky. I really would have liked to have picked one of the oranges and eaten it right there - as I would eventually learn on El Camino - it's the best an orange can get.


After enjoying Las Descalzas, I went in search for food - knowing that the best would be found away from tourist landmarks I tried to lose myself in the city. Eventually on the south eastern side, I found myself outside of a beautiful little marketplace reminiscent of Harrods actually. Lots of showcases featuring fine but very separate foods. There was a section for sandwiches! But... these are definitely sandwiches I have never ever seen before nor will probably ever see again: foie gras creme on white bread (€0.80 /quarter) and 'sandiches de caviar' for the same price, gushing with little black pearls. Completely inable to help myself, I got a caviar sandwich and at a little anything store down the street, a lime drink named Shady Cruzcampo which I thought would be soda... but it was instead a kind of beer... but I liked it! I guess it was the classic combination of something salty and starchy with beer that just kind of worked. I rather enjoyed it and I don't think I'll have an experience like that again. The caviar was very much like little liquid explosions of saltiness, which worked well with the soft bread and little bit of cheese ~ based spread I think it was.
Eating my caviar and beer, I sat down to enjoy it while sketching a little playpark that seemed to come out of nowhere in the middle of the urban spread. Made mostly of bend metal bars joined with plastic orbs and knotted rope it was a futuristic bending form whose parts intermingled at unexpected places. I was fascinated but soon moved on to a warmer place in the sun as it was not. My choice of place was a very good choice I think - El Parque del Retiro. The Park of Retiring, a place to relax. It was maybe 1 or 2 euros for a student and beyond beautiful. Rows upon rows of beautiful plants trees and flowers, many labeled and described and all well arranged. I took time first to sit in a little plaza like place where there were benches for sitting. Across from me in the shade of a large pine was a man who looked like a hiker, but well kept and with a particularly nice pack I thought. As he ate his sandwich he was tossing bits and pieces to a collection of small birds and a duck at his feet. Between the branches of the pine I could see the duck bobbing up and down fighting with the other birds for little bits to enjoy.

I then wandered up through the garden and found what I thought might be a little museum section, but instead it was a very steamy greenhouse where they kept the tropical plants. The flowers were brighter and more enticing - I particularly liked the clivia misata from the south of Africa - it had large groupings of flower blossoms with bright orange leaves and golden yellow centers. Upon leaving the lovely warm greenhouse I saw a stairway with a sign saying Bonsai Exhibit? NICE. Indeed there were... TONS of bonsai. I have never seen that many bonsai trees in my life. At least 50 bonsai trees laid out over a large balcony and walking areas - there was even a nice fountain area surrounded by the peaceful little plants. There were sticky bonsai, cloud-leaf bonsai (the branches separated and grew leaves in a such a way it kind of looked like a cloud arrangement), gnarly bonsai, and I took time to sketch a juniperus sabina bonsai, I thought it was my favorite there. It was interesting to sketch the shading of the tree with its two different dark bark and light skin sides, with little bushy tentacles coming out of the center. I could see little places where it had been carefully pruned, and the little clod it sat on in the beautiful square wooden box on top of the very short wooden table. I'm rather proud of my rendition of it and it tells me you know I think I've learned a good bit about drawing here - perspective and shading and contrast. I enjoy it :-). But there was one bonsai that just took your breath away and there is no way to sketch it in pencil because the beauty was in how there were hundreds of tiny soft pink flowers dotting the bamboo-like short stems.

I left the garden feeling relaxed and pleased and as I was hunting for a snack (I get hungry quickly) I saw two people my age on the grass, a guy and a girl, clearly enjoying each other. The girl suddenly rolled over on top of him and began a rocking session of tongue twister. As I've mentioned before, Europeans or Spaniards at least seem to be very ok with public displays of affection, to quote our intensivo teacher 'it's a beautiful thing.' And I'm fine with that.


Well by now I had become ready for a snack, and as I wandered the streets of Madrid searching for the actual Thyssen-Bornemisza, I walked past a restaurant which caught my eye because it said Dim Sum! For those of you who are unaware, Spain is not the only country with a tradition of serving lots of little servings of food as meals - in China there is a very old tradition of Dim Sum which generally includes lots of steamed dishes with soups and tea (tea of course having it's own intensely rich history in Asia). So I thought, this looks like a really trendy place, I'll try to get some nice dim sum here, maybe just one for the experience.

As I walked in to iNDOCHINA, it was indeed a very trendy place with what looked to be trendy rich clientele and very attentive staff (which is hard to find in Spain). I was seated and searching over the menu I found something roughly called dumpling in four seasons. As I waited for it I looked around and enjoyed the pretty chinese decor, the bamboo and red tapestries with plants carefully arranged. When the dish arrived, it looked fabulous! Presented in a careful circular bamboo steaming box with a nice square dish holding a fish/soy sauce. With a breath of steam, I opened the top of the box to find four dumplings that were crimped on top and above that the corners of the dumpling wrapper were formed into four little cups much like looking at the bottom of the paper toy girls would make in middle school where you had to pick a number and then they'd open it up after counting and you had to pick a color and something was written on the inside... yeah those. And in each of the four sections of the top there were different fillings - one was a bright yellow granular bunch, another a pink powder, another some sort of green slivers and the other was filled with a sort of white filling - a gel kind of. I was very fascinated to see how the flavors of these brightly colored indents would enhance the overall dish. As I dipped it into the fascinating square dish of soy or fish sauce using my chopsticks, I popped it into my mouth. Of course, how could I be so silly. These trendy restaurants are not here for cuisine, they are here to flaunt money and society. It beguiles me how so many restuarants can exist in all these major cities that serve just unappealing food that calls high prices because of the decor, service and extravagant presentation. I could have made a much tastier dumpling on my worst day. The fillings had absolutely no discernable flavor and underneath the dumpling coating was a very palid and flavorless meat (I guess?) filling. It was worthless, I would only eat that to support nourishment, not in any way to enjoy the flavor of something. It's slightly insulting that restaurants exist like this place that completely ignore the culinary aspect except superficially. I'm so disgusted with the idea I don't think I'll talk about it anymore.

So, disappointed I continued walking and found a lovely little sweets shop to put something flavorful in my mouth. There was a gorgous little lemon tart and an inch wide raspberry topped pastry - that will do just fine, thank you! I savored the delicious marrying of sweet flavors, alternately taking another bite and licking my fingers as I went in search of the Thyssen-Bornemisza to enjoy some impressionism again. So I looked. And looked. I was staring at my lovely map and at the plaza in front of me - ok, so this is the big plaza, now why can't I see either the Thyssen or the Prada? Where am I? I continued walking around in a kind of dizzying manner, trying to check street signs (did I ever mention how impossible they are to find in Europe?) and looking at landmarks or at least what I thought were landmarks... Green trees, gaunt street vendors, bag laden tourists, dark gothic-styled buildings, whirring cars - where the hell am I? A street sign! Thank god they still make those in cities here... I was beginning to lose hope. Ah. Well... good. Wrong plaza, I needed to go up another 200 meters over there. Great, thanks map. So embarrassed and annoyed at myself, I walked along and very easily saw the Prada and Thyssen right there - whaddaya know.

Thoroughly enjoying my student denomination, I payed the small fee and hopped right into the artistic jungle. I sat for 20 minutes staring at Emil Nolde's Marsh Bridge from 1910. http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/coleccion/ficha297.htm. Check it out if you like. I was in complete wonder at the ability of Nolde to create an image on the canvas with such texture and slight vagueness that the viewer would see from up close nothing more than an interesting collection of paint scabs but when beheld from more of a distance it becomes an almost moving countryside scene. I would like to think that the absolute realistic nature of it comes out of how vague the painting is, which is to say because there are parts missing from it, our brains may fill in the gaps and see what it wants to see, creating a more scenic and perhaps even multi-dimensioned painting. There is flat 2-d, depth with 3-d, time with 4-d, but is there another dimension of imagination and experience? I would venture that this painting was in 5-d, requiring a certain level of imagination in a moving vision with depth. I could see the clouds flying overhead, threatening rain, the moss by the stream bowing back and forth in the current, almost taste the unthreatened fresh invigorating air. Perfectly moving - and I didn't sketch the tinyist bit of it, no possible way to capture that in a notebook.

I also took ime to enjoy Renoir's 1879 Wheatfield (http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/coleccion/ficha158.htm) which looks like the wheat could be moving, Gauguin's 1888 Dogs Running in a Meadow (http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/coleccion/ficha178.htm), Monet's 1925 The House Among the Roses (http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/coleccion/ficha162.htm) which is particularly open to interpretation I think, Metcalf's 1907 The Picnic (http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/coleccion/ficha247.htm), Monet's 1881 The Thaw at Vétheuil (how do you even pronounce that?) (http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/coleccion/ficha498.htm) which is an outstanding example I think of impressionism, and Van Gogh's whimsical and terrifically textured 1890 ''Les Vessenots'' in Auvers (http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/coleccion/ficha417.htm). I sketched none of these, but spent considerable time enjoying them and looking at them from several angles. I did take time to sketch two works in particular - Mueller's 1922 Two Female Nudes in a Landscape (http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/coleccion/ficha500.htm) which I found to have a very lovely contrast and a really interesting view of nature which is to say I think it presents a very unashamed look at some very natural things ina very beautiful and flattering way - the female body and a semi-arid sort of background I might expect to see in Africa or Australia. I must say it brings up some interesting sexual questions to me - for example howw incredible it is to me how seriously physically different men and women can be, coming from more or less the exact same place. Yes there's that whole Y and X chromosome thing, and apart from reproductive systems men and women are as different as any two random people might be, but having never taken any anthropology or biology or any study of the sort on it, I am in complete wonder at our separate natures. That being said I'm unsure of whether it's a function of my natural sex or my social gender, but I find a complete and incomprehensibly complex beauty in the female form. From the many and wondrous curvy parts that one might expect to be sharper and harder on a male body to the opposite nature of thickness and thinness and length of other parts of the body in contrast to the Y chromosome induced sex. Some of it, of course, is managed by society, for example the tendency of women to have longer hair - Alexander the Great ordered his forces (all male of course) to cut their hair to prevent the enemy grabbing it as a part of battle, thus began the tradition of men short hair and women long hair. Scandinavians seem to have generally ignored this, I guess their berserkers eschewed any such battle advice and the cold weather encourages anyone to have long hair. Anyways, my point is that I find females to be finely formed figures.

It should go without saying but just to prevent any indignancy, I know and any decent man should know that women are just as intelligent and capable as men are and don't exist just to be looked at... although I find Van Gogh's work considerably less enticing than the sight of my girl on a nice night out.

Rant over, because it was comparably simple I did take time to sketch Van Gogh's 1888 The Stevedores in Arles (http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/coleccion/ficha416.htm) hoever impossible it is for me to capture the beautiful burning colors of what one assumes to be the setting sun in the background.

So I pretty much hung around the Thyssen until we all had to leave, and I was plenty pleased with it. I think I'd enjoy having copies of some of those works for my living space some day. (maybe not worth mentioning but some guys just walked in this computer lab and they're all huddled around one computer looking up flight times - they smell like a collective ash tray... why do Europeans love smoking so much? it's like a dessert here) After the Thyssen I think it was around 8 or 9pm or so and I just returned to the beautiful little hostel and spent some time online talking to Bethany - actually starting this blog... it takes a long time, really it does. I hopped out to get a tortilla sandwich with a roasted pepper and I even got some free ice cream from the hostel workers - they just came out and asked if anyone wanted ice cream! Very nice guys. I got a good night's sleep and prepared for the long journey ahead.

Welshman

Last night as I was walking to an internet café for my routine afternoon chat with Bethany I witnessed a prime example of the public ability of Spaniards to be inconsiderate - at an intersection, one of the roads leading north into it was an alleyway passing through buildings onto a bigger road - more specifically Avenida de Portugal, the largest road in Salamanca stretching West to East across the whole mid north of the city. Well, there was a line of cars waiting in that alleyway to turn into the Ave., but a guy on a motorbike approached from the West of the intersection light and apparantly saw some of his friends and pulled over to talk to them... right in front of the waiting cars. And he proceeded to take his time talking to his friends blocking the cars until he was very good and done talking to them - completely blocking the path of the cars and even putting himself in danger if the cars decided to not care and go when the light turned green. Likewise Spaniards are content to take up as much space as possible on sidewalks and walkways, walking perhaps as slow as they can without shuffling their feet, completely oblivious to anyone who may actually have somewhere to go and might need to get around them. Usually they are more than happy to move if you ask them to, but it seems to me rude to have continued blocking the path in the first place with full knowledge that others are traversing the same path most likely at a quicker pace.

Katie sweetly pointed out that my legs are in fact longer than most everyone here - very notably the army of old ladies in huge fur coats, none of which can possibly be over 4 feet tall. This is indeed true, purely by physiology I walk a lot faster than the average Salmantino. While that is true, I know many Americans under 6'2" who manage to leave space for others to walk on any given pathway. There is of course the factor that I´m not at all used to city life - it is still a foreign thing to walk everywhere I need to go all the time (although it is similar on campus at JMU). I am used to the luxury of wide open spaces and cars to transport here and there. It would be incredible to have a bike here... it would make everything twice as fast! I could go home for things if I needed to and not take 45 minutes, and getting to class in the morning would be worry free - 5 minutes and I´m there! Yes, but an issue that comes up there is the amount of space allotted in city streets and again the attitude of its inhabitants... I would be unable to get past hardly anyone and some places there really isn´t enough space for a bike and people to move through. There is also of course no subway system, but then again there´s not anything of interest outside the city itself which isn´t terribly big. Lots of people routinely go across the bridge to get to a running track there, but then there´s the pure interest in excercise, so a subway would defeat the purpose. Apparantly there is a bus system, perhaps I should explore that, although it would mean some extent of laziness since people living much farther away from classes than I (20minutes more - Katie) do actually need the bus system. Yeah, I guess it really does come down to an extent of laziness and impatience to having everything within a 'comfortable' range. A simple solution for this would be having my own space to live. Now you might say to yourself - 'Well Kip you have a mother cooking meals for you and cleaning up after you, hot showers and lots of clean space whenever you want it in your house.' This is true. This is entirely sufficient for someone perhaps in middle school, in high school however lots of parents notice their kids getting edgy about the restrictions of the household - curfew, limits on who can come and go, meals at specific times, arguments about household things that tend to not matter and impositions of personal feelings and propriety by the supervisors of said household. Unless one has a good relationship with the 'rent(s)' and a reasonable level of independence and trust about friends and coming and going (which luckily I had in abundance during high school, wonderful trust in the kitchen and with friends and always good trust on where I might be - thanks mom and dad!), with the growing independence of a teenager and the increasing feeling of wanting to spend time with their friends doing whatever it is they do, the household experience can be demeaning and a sort of encroachment on feelings of self-determination, making one feel (incorrectly, one might assume) as if an oppressive force is intentionally preventing enjoyment or liberty. A deliciously and perhaps sadly ironic and perfect example of this is Liberty University. With its rules and strict enforcement, it is in fact decreasing their students' liberty to act of their own accord and therefore take responsibility for their own decisions.

Finally getting to the point, it would just be easier to have my own space that I could bring people over to if I needed to instead of just having to come and go from this surrogate house. I would very much prefer to live in my own space, to be able to prepare my own meals, to be able to have friends over to hang out whenever to watch a movie or play games or just for a chill night of hanging out with drinks instead of the expensive and potentially dangerous bar hopping. And so I will certainly have that when I return to the United States for next semester at JMU and for however long afterwards as well. For now I suppose I can take while I can the home-made Spanish food and cleaned living space.

And really, these are just nit-picky details that I can point at and say 'this bothers me!'. What is more difficult to point at is what isn't here. As I just mentioned to Bethany, everything would be lovely and easy to enjoy if she were here, or indeed if any of my friends from home were here to spend time with and relate to. As it is that all of our classes are with JMU kids and all our activities are with JMU kids and we all live with JMU kids and spend time in the office with JMU kids and do projects and study with JMU kids - practically all our time is with each other. This would be wonderful given that we were all fantastic friends. Unfortunately the nature of this group of JMU kids is that of 'click'-iness. That is to say that certain people hang out with the same people all the time and are reluctant to intermingle - though of course noone would refuse a straight 'may I join you?'. They probably just won't ask you. SO if one does not really have a 'click' to mingle with, too bad... I don´t particularly have a 'click' although there are surely lots of people I enjoy spending time with, so I guess there´s just a certain feeling of 'belonging' missing. Back to the point, everything would be that much more interesting and fun if I just had some friends from home, or even one specific young lady to help me feel less like a foreigner. 'But you are a foreigner,' you might say. Foreigner is a state of mind - you can become part of the landscape easily just by making friends and social routines, from whoever happens to be around you be that JMU people or Spaniards. Being outside of any such specific group of friends or social routines is what makes someone feel like a foreigner. Everyone else doesn´t matter, the place you happen to live in doesn´t matter as long as you have a society to participate in and laugh with.

What do these conclusions tell me? I suppose it tells me that I´m a social creature and however independent I like to think I am, I do need to have a group of people to participate with in whatever it might be. Good people and beautiful surroundings make life more comfortable and pleasant, a purpose and job make life worth it, friends and a society make life enjoyable.

Since that was reasonably heavy - and I´d like to add that this blog is my outlet to express what I´m experiencing... I experience pleasant and interesting things as well as not so good feeling things and I think it´s only fair to express everything without watering down the homesickness for the sake of people who just want to hear the good news - how about a joke?

One night a good friend of Bethany and I - Sarah Tarrant (excellent horn player, brass band soloist - my current facebook picture was taken of Bethany and I at her sister's wedding last summer) was not feeling so good, so we decided to try to make her feel better by telling jokes. Sarah and her family are proudly of Welsh descent, which makes for entertaining banter between her and I - Welshman! Scotsman! Effing English!! Well I found this joke and it still makes us laugh uncontrollably -

A Welshman walking through a field sees a man drinking water from a pool with his hand. The Welshman shouts,
"Paid a yfed y dwr mae'r gwartheg yn cachi yn y dwr" (Don't drink that water, its extremely poisonous as all the cattle and sheep poo in it !)

The man shouts back in a very proper victorian English accent,
"I'm English! Do speak English, I don't understand you."

The Welsh man considers for a second and then shouts back,
"Use both hands, you'll get more in!"

Políticos

It is unfortunate that Spanish politics remind me of American politics. The national presidential election will be on March 9th, in a system where there are basically two leading political parties since after the military dictatorship of Francisco Franco ended in 1975 because of his death. Now there is an important distinction between the US position of president and the Spanish president - the US president is the head of state and head of government 'directly elected' (although not really, electoral college and all that) by the people who leads the executive branch of the government and does not participate in the work of the legislature apart from approving or vetoing bills. The Spanish president is not actually a president at all, he is the Prime minister (very similar to the UK) under a constitutional monarchy and so is not really directly elected. Representatives into the legislature are elected, and the majority of representatives elects among themselves a leader - this would be the Prime Minister. In Spain there is the formality of having to propose this PM to the King (currently Juan Carlos I), but essentially the president of Spain is actually the party leader representative of the majority party in the legislature. This, I believe makes for a more interactive leader that participates more in the process and is more responsible to the other representatives and definitely more responsible to the pointed harassment of the opposition party.
ANYWAYS - there have been debates and there is an advertising war between the leaders of the PP (Partido Popular=Popular Party, conservative group - leader is Mariano Rajoy) and PSOE (Partido Socialisto de Obreros Españoles= Spanish Workers' Socialist Party, currently in power liberal party - leader is José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero) parties. The posters have pictures of either Zapatero or Rajoy and all the say are things like 'Somos Más'='We're More', 'Con Cabeza y Corazón'='With Head and Heart', 'No Es Lo Mismo'='It´s Not the Same'. So basically they are points of propoganda, not telling us anything at all about the parties or their positions or the leadership ability of either candidate. Although I think that there is a similar case in the US - people are expected to already know who they like and the rest is just dispersing the name. Why can´t we have real debates about the virtues of either kinds of policy or the reasonings behind the histories of their party and how they could ensure a difference in the future. As John Stewart pointed out during his butt-kicking appearance on Crossfire, debates would be incredible opportunities to really discuss the important points of either side - eventually agreements to disagree on certain points would be reached - perhaps on the matters of faith and priorities, but just for the fact that reasonable conversation could take place would be wonderful - but it never happens that way. The debates between Zapatero and Rajoy have been based on small rather unimportant points instead of real solutions to large problems or realizations of the true nature of individual issues for example immigration. They began by naming the real issue - can we stop the flow or do we just have to start naturalizing a lot of the people? The real answer of course is that naturalization is the only sane and possible solution, but they began nitpicking in the details of what has been done in the past by either side and the actual numbers of who was where. It doesn´t matter! They´re here, what do you do now? It´s just sad that in such serious matters as the election of a head of government, they have to play stupid argument games like that.

Just as unfortunate is the method of campaign in the US - a battle of arguments instead of debates and meaningless propoganda campaigns. At least it seems reasonably clear to me that there will be a Democratic president next, if America can just make up its mind which Democrat it will be. I wish I knew more details but from what I´ve heard I agree more with the less agressive and fiesty positions of Barack Obama - I think the US could use a healer not another fighter. But what does that mean? Who knows, the Democratic candidate will be elected before I even return to the US so it doesn´t matter.

Umame

This writing has to do with things that are very specific to me - but I made them hopefully vague enough that maybe in some way you can relate. Do you ever have these feelings?

Here, in my rented household room in Salamanca at 2am, I lay slightly uncovered, thinking long and hard about the thick heavy silence flooding my ears, cleaving the air in its fullness of moment to the luscious tune of a faint rining as if a mocroscopic horror hilm violinist was positioned with his strings on the outskirts of my eardrum. Every pulse of my body is heard, it´s an uncomfortable silence. At school I usually leave a fan on while I sleep to provide a white-noise curtain to everything around me for pleasantly deaf sleep. I ponder the viability of learning French and German by translating Good Eats episodes or Monty Python for that matter. The motions of shared public privacy drive continually as nagging preoccupations. My feeling here is still as an outsider, even when participating within. Associations seem fleeting in reflection of vested interests - to be or to let everything else be. Social niceties become a momentary passport into beings, but reporters always must stop at the threshold - even the professor. The continual 'out' never seems to stray beyong the 'be' in, but the new 'in' has allowed a door to open out. Is the 'be' so acculturated it can't find out? My out is unfortunately in since the professor is always out. To digest and report is not to be out, but where else is out if not in? Delayed privacy is eternal out, and still waiting, which further inadvertantly sequesters. Where is liberation from this continual communical outward ' in' and singular inward out? But for the unpassable threshold and perfect romance. Some are so obsessed with in that they just don´t explore out.

The personal financial institution is a shared future good, resulting from social supplier pressures, delayed ultimately by frictional unemployment. The realization of this enterprise occupies forever the minds of its destined proprietors but difficult to discuss because of the forward contracting connotations and difficult to ignore because of the intense market opportunity and potential. While expected, it´s often set aside for completion of curent projects and in preparation for tyhe commencement of this future good. While intensely private, the institution is expected to invite wide public support and perhaps participate in foreign direct investment, if not foreign placement altogether.
I guess we ought to visit the Arbotreturm together, dear.
While delaying of this merger is frowned on by older institutions for the Keynsian reasoning of short term market clearing by government interaction, the long term medicine in the end may work out best as markets tend to fix themselves, messily sometimes, although ultimately scarcity and marginal propensities reign supreme. Assuming clear property rights and clear contractual enforcement - as the unemployment rises again after the credit crunch, opportunities in the market will stimulate momentum to realize the venture, although details have not fully been negociated at this time.

To live in the imaginary is a fatal but easy flaw, particularly with association and enticement. By a mile or in sand the thoughts manifest in a splash of 'wow!' in frustating patience. No arguments, always pondering - I thank you and help myself. What do I want? To be pleased into my imagination... but also to not feel guilty in indulging alone - to provide and bring 'wow!'... isn´t that the real transcendance of now? But how far does the imagination go - how restricted does it need to be by 'reality'? It depends on your approval of Plato´s ideas on art. Is imagining and describing as good as being? Depends. How far are we willing to go to realize imagination? Depends on who shares it.


Back into making sense - last night we went out to dinner! But first during the day I was a bum. A lazy bum. And a happy bum. Sleeping until 10 or so, having gone to bed at 11 or so, I woke up to Mamá having made the Spanish version of French toast! They´re called here Torrijas, and they are made with less egg custard to brown and a LOT more cinnamon sugar. It´s a heavily spiced little slice of eggy sweet bread. Delicious! And I very happily asked Mamá if she´d like to try it with the traditional American topping that I now gratefully have in my possesion - real maple syrup! It took me a little while to explain what it was, you know the liquid that comes from a big tree at the end of winter that can be cooked and cooked until it´s thick and strong. I guess it´s difficult to describe exactly if you don´t know the words for a 90% reduction of tetra-decinarian Acer Sacchurum para-frozen climate 2% sucrose sap graded by color. Well she liked it anyways, but still prefers her cinnamon sugar - to be fair the sugar is awesome with it.
After our Torrijas, I learned how to make Paella! The best way I can describe it is a yellow mix between a good surf and turf soup and risotto. The surf and turf soup is based on the fact that the crustaceans and bivalve molluscs were all prepped to individual stocks (a shrimp stock created by reducing water with the shells and heads, then pureed - I would personally strain out the parts, but whatever ; and then mussels held in water for purging and cleanliness, the water then boiled and strained) then the chicken parts, chorizo and ham all browned in oil, and to the side a sofrito of onion pepper and tomato (with seasoning) browned. Similar to risotto, the rice was cooked briefly in oil to slow down water absorption and accentuate starch extraction for the creation of a thick sauce to accompany the finished dish - water is then slowly added (or crustacean and bivalve stock reductions) to further enhance starch extraction. The result, however you put it together is a thick rice stew with happily browned assortments of surf and turf throughout. Traditionally an important detail is to let this risotto cook untoushed as opposed to the French insistence on stirring, the result being a special crust on the bottom that is regarded as a specialty not least of which for the caramelized sugars involved. This process is of course the Maillard reaction which is still be researched, as it is caramelization of internal sugars at temperatures generally too low to have such an effect. Infinitely complex and momentarily incomprehensible, from meat, cheese, duck and mushrooms (and LOTS more) it results in a flavor most of us don´t realize we have and wasn´t described in history until the 18th century by the brilliant Brillat-Savarin: umame. Reduced by asian scientists to being triggered by glutamate (MSG anyone?) in particular, this taste is a certain fullness, a fulfillment of flavor without being particularly salty or sweet or bitter or sour. It has been suggested to be called 'savoriness' in English, I just tend to call it delicious.

After I had learned about Paella, I simply lazed about all day until I went and got to spend an hour or two IMing Bethany and making plans for Italy. It will be expensive, but incredible! I just can´t wait to be able to share firsthand my experiences with someone who understands - like I remember feeling while visiting Caroline in particular. It becomes tiring simply taking notes, I have become known in particular for my note-taking by my classmates.

Another detail is I´ve gotten lax on card and letter sending, I should resume that practice. After talking to Bethany for a while, I met up with the group by a hospital not far away and we all went to a nice Italian dinner! I didn´t know we needed to be dressed up, I just happened to be looking nice... that happens a lot. I guess it pays to just stay well dressed when you can´t remember if you should be or not. Anyways, we went to this place whose name escapes me but the title was Italian restaurant and pizzeria. Well to be honest I wasn´t expecting much. All the Spanish pasta I´ve had was with a kind of strange cheese sauce that tastes like Kraft and horrible crumby hard attempts at pizza crusts. Oh well. I sat around some very nice girls and one of them even had her boyfriend visiting! Alex was a very nice and quiet guy, very adorably having some of the same mannerisms and speech patterns as his girlfriend - a very sweet friendly and cute couple I think. Unfortunately hotel managers do not think so fondly on them, she went to visit him at his hotel one night and they actually made her pay for a night´s stay. As a business I guess I understand, but that´s still really insensitive and not a way to get repeat business. Unfortunate stuff, but they were still cheery and we had a good time just talking, particularly Kathy next to me about food! She loves to bake and cook too! We talked about yeast breads and quick breads and the challenge of vegetarian cooking (a girl sitting across from Kathy was also a vegetarian) and the fascinating nature of lots of food. We also made plans to bake chocolate chip cookies Thursday evening - I can´t wait! We decided that the cookies must be soft in the middle and nicely browned around the edges.
We were sat down to two long tables, where one supposed we would be served family style in groups. Our first dish was a selection of salads - uninterestingly composed, unevenly dressed and generally lack luster. The next dishes were all cheese-sauce covered pastas with the occasional piece of meat or vegetable - some tasted like Spanish ham and cheese, others again like Kraft cheese. I was unimpressed and somewhat depressed at this portrayal of Italian cuisine. Why does everyone feel the need to limit 'Italian' in their minds to pasta, tomato sauce, melty cheese and ground beef? It´s sad, there are so many more incredible food traditions in Italy - beautifully braises and gorgeous variations on basic pasta dishes with interesting vegetables. They then brought out interesting lasagnes... with a delicious spinach variation and a less delicious ham and cheese version as well. By this time discourse had ranged from 'holler' to the interesting phrase 'I feel like a fat kid'.
Then came the pizza. Impossibly thin and crispy with random huge yeast bubbles, lovingly covered with an intensely flavorful tomato sauce and less liberally topped with a perfectly melted and slightly browned mozzarella - this was fantastic. Thank God someone in Spain can make pizza! Lovely toppings ranging from ham to bacon (!! :-D) to tomato to olives to spinach to just cheese. I think I strangely enjoyed the cheese more - it was easiest to enjoy the fantastically crisp crust and the fulfilling rich savory flavor of the tomato sauce and feel the perfect tearing of the melted mozarella. Our plates runneth over. And then came the desserts.
Perfectly soft and crisp crépes with sugar or chocolate, soft and well balanced gelatos of lemon or strawberry cheesecake or chocolate chip, and interesting variation on tiramisu. The crépes were taken out first and when second courses of that came out, someone actually shouted out 'Shut up, where´s my spoon!'. It was of course a 'had to be there' moment, but we all nearly choked on our food laughing. It was a huge meal... and ultimately extremely pleasing and fulfilling. To top it off I got a lovely cup of café con leche - which ultimately was a mistake because I couldn´t get to sleep and instead wrote that jibber jabber above. Oh well, totally worth it and very delicious.

Best wishes and I will assume that only one or two people are actually reading this blog by the amount of response I got from my 'Meaning of Life' entry... so hi you two and keep letting me know how things are going back at home!

La Vida de un Monje

The blog on Madrid seems to be going a lot slower than previously thought since I seem to have misplaced one of my little notebooks, which I have no idea how that happened... it´s gotta be around here somewhere. I´m really bad at keeping track of things. Not a good trait.

Anyways, this morning we went on a little tour of Salamanca with Jesús. We really can´t sleep in just one Saturday? I guess not. Oh well, I still managed to get a full night´s rest and we met in the Plaza Mayor to first go down to the river where he talked about the history of it. Salamanca is a really really old city and when it was first constructed the first things to be started were the protection wall around it and the old cathedral in the middle. The long stone bridge leading through the dense shrubbery around the river Tormes stretches nearly up to the protection wall. The view is beautiful from up the hill, stretching on this beautiful day even into the pastures and open fields that lay outside the city. With the city at our backs, the outskirts seem tame and peaceful, barely any clouds hanging over it as a gesture perhaps of goodwill.
Our next stop was indeed the old cathedral. We first had to walk through the new cathedral which I have already described, then we passed into this hall that opened into what looked like a huge half bullet shell-shaped area above the altar. Behind the semicircular aread was a grand collection of paintings depicting bible stories, gilded and brightly painted. There was also a collection of very regal looking satin-cushioned seats and a great altar in the forefront. The rows of seats spitting forth out of the altar area were clearly designed for shorter people, as the kneeling bench in front of the seats fit most of us as a very comfortable foot rest.
The incredible detailing and gilded framing was breathtaking. We soon moved on to a set of chapels surrounding a cloister courtyard. One of the chapels that we entered was called Capilla Santa Barbara which was the traditional place of the Salamanca University doctorate examinations. There was a tombstone covered with glass where papers were to be arranged and kept, as well as a large seat behind it where the doctoral candidate would sit and study and prepare his presentation all night before the doctors and professors would enter in the morning and examinate him and his thesis which was to be defended. If the thesis could be successfully defended, the new doctor would proceed out through the sanctuary and proceed to fund a party for the whole town to attend. There would be great feasts and entertainment and good cheer.
If, however, the student could not sufficiently defend his thesis, he would have to excuse himself out the service entrance where townspeople would greet him with a barrage of tomatoes and other squishy things as a castigation of his failure. Very interesting history.
From there, we moved through several other areas, finally ascending several sets of stairs up into the tall towers. Finally out onto a lookout point, the view was speechlessly incredible. I took pictures with the camera that my sister gave me, hoping they would grasp the enormity of the scene. I tried to sketch a rough idea of it, with the gorgeously ornate towers and cupolas of the building to our backs and an even larger view of the city and outskirts all around. The bright pastel colors of the outskirts contrasted sharply from the rough stone and many shadows of the city, also the countryside was also less tainted by the wandering figures of people going to and fro. It was an interesting point of view and I wonder what a friar from the middle ages might have seen from there - some cooking fires and salesman travelling by boat through the river. Perhaps some farmers out in the field or perhaps soldiers marching to and fro, or even an ambassador travelling by horse-drawn carraige in undue opulance from the infamous Inquisition searching for heretics. And what would this friar be thinking? Pondering the mysteries of god and the sins of man? Or perhaps some honey cream pastries or leek soup that need to be cooked for his monks. Stories tend to tell me that monks were very shrewd and human in contrast to their professed lifestyle. Whether in the business of bargaining the burial place of high society people in their cathedrals or indulging in the public fears with the inquisition or perhaps indeed just seeking a simple and philosophic lifestyle in relative peace and solace. The place was beautiful and evocative, I should only hope to see more such places in such good weather.