This past week has been brimming with sun, and I have been eating it up like chocolate. I have been positively glued to my Chacos, froyo, shorts, and the park. The Spanish do this odd thing where instead of dressing for the weather, they dress for the season. So even though it was sunny and 70 degrees outside, coats and scarves were everywhere, and my attire was met with choruses of “fresquitaaaaa!” (“chilly,” more or less). Because I care. Anyway, last week, I
Scandalized the teachers at my school by wearing Chacos in March. The temperature of my toes was of grave concern to everyone.
Cheered Escarabote on to second place at the Annual Boiro Primary School Smackdown (a.k.a. student foot race on the beach)
Approaching the riot on Rúa de Hórreo. The fence on the left surrounds the parliament building.
I would categorize yesterday among the oddest of days. Why now? Yesterday, I witnessed my first riot. I kid you not, I was photographing daisies in Belvis Park fifteen minutes before I was photographing burning trash cans. (And, speaking of photographs, what even is the protocol for posting pictures of riots to Facebook? I legitimately googled “wrong to post riot pictures to Facebook” and there doesn’t seem to be a strong precedent.) I followed a cloud of smoke up a street bordering Santiago’s parliament buildings, and found myself in a scene of heavily armed police, smoldering plastic, and wayward flying glass bottles.
So what was the issue here? From what I’ve gathered, it was a protest of marineros (sailors). The European Union has imposed certain quotas on how many of each species of fish sailors can catch. They left it up to Spain to divvy that quota up between the different regions. Galician marineros are unhappy with that allocation. It’s politics, people. The sailors say the Spanish government screwed them over and gave a much bigger cut to regions like País Vasco, which doesn’t have nearly the amount of shoreline as Galicia. If the amount you can fish is cut, so is your salary, and so is your ability to live. Spain in crisis.
It’s sad. People are desperate.
Tonight in one of my English conversation classes, we discussed the riots. Hearing the opinions of the students, who are Ph.D. and Master’s students, I am starting to come to terms with how shattering this economic crisis has been for Spain. Though the majority of them are against violence in general, several of them also expressed that there was no other alternative. The democracy, they explained, was not working for the people.
I came away startled. I’ve always, always accepted that violence is never the answer, and I assumed every other rational person was on board with me. It’s times like these when I realize how both insulated and blessed I’ve been. It’s one thing to see riots in the paper and on TV and judge violence from a distance. It’s another thing entirely to listen to your students grapple with and hesitantly accept violence as the last course of action for a very real situation.
Anyway, just so no one is worrying, I am fine, and Santiago is perfectly safe. Tuesday was an anomaly, but a weighty one at that.
MB
The police form a barrier between the protestors and Parliament
Police surging after protestorsA fireman puts out the smoldering remains of garbage bins (protestors had lit them on fire and shoved them at the police)
Getting to Santander from Santiago de Compostela without a car is a deep, deep struggle. It took me two BlaBlaCar voyages to get there, and a ten-hour bus ride to get back. If I didn’t have a friend awaiting me there, I probably would’ve shelved the trip for keeps. But wow, was it worth the pain.
After suffering through two months of rain, I arrived in Santander to skies a-blazing with sun. I was squinting like the (wet) hibernating bear I am. We spent a sizable chunk of the weekend outdoors, hiking along the coast, watching waves, and commandeering playgrounds from small children. And there was also some rabbit paella involved. Big ol’ stamp of approval from this girl.
Cheers,
MB
Faro de Cabo Mayor
Don’t touch the animals (La Magdalena)
Big kids, baller playground (La Magdalena)
Faro de Cabo MayorThis cannot be comfortable (La Magdalena)
The best Cantabrian company and paella a girl could ask for
I am in bed and suffering from some post-Carnaval stress to the system. My nose is dead to me. I may have just eaten spoiled yogurt but will never know because I can taste nothing. Dulling effects aside, Carnaval has been quite a grand affair. But let’s back up. In the past three weeks, I:
Royally ate pavement while running in the Alameda, much to the dismay of my hands, knees, and iPhone screen.
Got bullied by 5th graders
Inhaled a couple more rounds of pulpo
Attended an antique car show, lacking in all things MG
Saw Santander, a good friend, and the sun, all at the same time (yes, this is an achievement)
Celebrated a very merry Gal-entine’s Day with wine, strawberries/spoons dipped in chocolate, and…kombucha
Rang in Carnaval in a town that starts with an X
Got a new teaching gig
Ate pig face
So yes, things have been pretty busy around here. There’s a whole lot of visual that will make its way over here eventually.
Cheers my dears!
MB
Retro Galicia (car show in Santiago de Compostela)
A few blessed hours of sun at the Playa de Catedrales.The perfect coffee spot to watch the rain: Hotel Costa Vella.A half dozen “arco iris” (rainbow) sightings, including this one on my way to work.A run up Monte Pedroso (…I use the word “run” loosely).Churrasco y patatas with the English profe.
Oh yeah…and this.
All day, every day:
I took this screenshot with the idea that a forecast of 100% for all eternity would be a novelty. Well.
Casualties.
This week’s biggest news is that I am drowning. It’s been raining for FIFTY-TWO DAYS. Did you get that? Fifty-two. Every day, Galicia wakes up and grumbles, “Today is going to be a bad day,” pulls the clouds over its head, and proceeds to cry. It is just.inconsolable. In the past week, the wind has also joined the fun, pushing the rain (and me) in all directions.
I am tired of being cold and I am tired of being wet. But Galicia compensates for its weepiness with incredible natural beauty, and for now, that is enough!
Humans of Santiago.
Parque de la Alameda, Santiago de Compostela.“Risoterapia” (laughter therapy) with 2nd and 3rd graders.New café discovery: Pan e Chocolate, Santiago de Compostela.
Don’t ask me where “Weeks 4-13” are…seek and ye will not find. We’re now running on 43 straight days of rain here in Galicia…not that I can complain from what I hear about the weather back home. But I’m pretty sure I’m not leaving my bed today.
I met Spanish Joe my first day in Spain, en route to Santiago. Fifteen out of seventeen hours of traveling complete, I needed coffee. So I ordered coffee. And this was the coffee I received:
Scale: sugar packet is the same height as the cup.
I was appalled. This squatty little imposterwas not fit to be called a cup of coffee. A shot of coffee, perhaps. To think: hundreds of years of innovation and progress had culminated in this, a veritable thimble of liquid!
Don’t get me wrong. Spanish coffee is cute. You want to admire its dimples, give it a lollipop, and pat it on the head. But.
You can’t wrap your hands around a thimble of coffee and let the warmth seep from your fingers to your toes. You can’t nurse a thimble of coffee through two hours of history reading. Spanish coffee, in other words, goes against all my preconceived coffee-culture notions.
But.
Over time, I have grown fond of these little nuggets. They are a testament to quality over quantity. Each sip is rich and frothy, and because I have to ration my sips, I appreciate the richness and frothiness all the more. Furthermore, most coffee I’ve ordered is served with a fluffy croissant or a spongy slab of cake. (Which are busting with gluten and logically useless to me, but illogically make me happy.) If carbs and coffee can’t make you smile, I don’t know what will.
Upon returning to Spain from my winter travels, I found I missed my fun-sized caffeine. So I suppose what I’m trying to say is this: thank you, Spain, for three months of mouth-watering, irresistibly-photographable coffee. Here’s to many more.
– MB
(P.S. If you actually want a helpful guide for ordering coffee in Spain, check out Trevor’s guide. I, for one, always adhere to the café con leche.)
First meal of the New Year, as prepared by my lovely (temporary) Belgian family. They were determined to feed me as much real food as possible before I returned to my life of airport Snickers. Ah, the perils of gluten-free travel.
I love traveling. But there is something so wonderful about coming home and sleeping in your own bed. Making French toast for breakfast and burning half of it. Drinking one – nay, two! – cups of Earl Grey, and tallying the blows to your bank account. It’s great to be back. And, well, Continue reading “New year.”→
My stomach is shuddering at the Valencian orange and cup of coffee I have just consumed. Come at me, litmus test. (Sorry, that is not at all newsworthy. Just pressing at the moment.)
Anyways, I am writing from the airport in Madrid. A flight home, you might guess? To bask in the glow of family and friends and overplayed Christmas music and general revelry? Nay. This pauper cannot rationalize paying for a pricey ticket home, especially after having spent less than two months in Spain. So this is the first time I will be missing Christmas with my family, and it’s weird. I’m trying not to think about it. On the plus side, though, I’m spending winter break meandering through Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, and Belgium. So it could be worse 😉
Rúa San Pedro, the lovely street a minute’s walk from my piso.
So last week I moved to Santiago, right? I found a cheap apartment with two nice female Spanish college students in the older (prettier) part of town. As it turns out, these three positive qualities (price, roommates, and location) have been overshadowed by the true heinousness of the apartment. After a week here, I have come to terms with my own stupidity in housing selection, and have come up with seven rules to keep from making the same mistakes again.
Do not select an apartment:
1. Because the roommates call you “chulo” (cool) for being American and that makes you feel warm and fuzzy because you don’t have friends yet.
2. If you have only toured the apartment at night. Those shadows in the corner/behind the desk/around the window might be are assuredly mold.
3. If you there are so many spots in the wall that it is hard to tell at a glance which ones are holes and which ones are mold.
4. If the hot water is powered by a gas tank that you have to manually switch on before you shower. On Sunday, you will run out and the landlord won’t be able to bring more until Tuesday because Spain, and the last time you showered will have been on Saturday, and you will have to start taking sponge baths seventy years prematurely.
5. If the apartment does not have heating, and also does not have the ability to both run a heater and charge a laptop at the same time.
6. If the statement “yes, we have wifi” is followed by an explanation that includes the words “descodificar” (to decode) and “de nuestro vecino” (our neighbor’s).
7. If you cannot bend over the sink to brush your teeth without entering the shower.
Having learned these seven very valuable lessons, I feel both ill and well-prepared to begin round two of apartment hunting. Wish me luck!
Molly On the Move 