El Parque y La Plaza Mayor

Today we had a short class, then afterwards went to the park to bathe in the sun, which saturates the lush, grassy hills except for where the large trees offer cool patches of shade. I ran through the park the other day, (before getting lost) and am so impressed with the small fraction of it I have seen. It is like a little haven from the busy city streets. Families are strolling and kids playing on playgrounds, lovers are making out uninhibitedly, joggers and rollerbladers are everywhere, and friends sit and eat tapas at the outdoor cafe. It's amazing. It really puts Boulder parks to shame.

We went to tapas this evening as a group, and on the way saw a demonstration regarding the bombing of the ship carrying goods to Palestine. There were signs reading 'free gaza' and 'libertad para Palestine.' Police supervised but were inactive. We also saw painters painting on the street, and selling their works to restaurant-goers, shoppers, and tourists. Finally I encountered this drunk old guy who was calling me 'bonita' and then when I grabbed a friend Paul's arm kept coming up to me insisting 'Yo no robo' or something like that; "I'm not a robber."

The market we visited was amazing, just outside the Plaza Mayor, it offered fresh tapas of every imaginable kind, wines, breads, meat and seafood, fresh popcorn and potato chips, and confectionary treats. It was set up kinda like a loop you could stroll through, stop at a bar here and there for a drink, then at a stand for some fresh produce, and they even had ceiling misters to control the heat.

We had tapas including sliced Spanish tortillas: thick omelets full of slivered potatoes, small crostini type things topped with different things such as anchovies and tartar (my favorite), tuna and lox ceviche, and a potato-salad type thing, as well as fried balls of creamy, breaded dough filled with things like cod, ham or spinach. The spinach was what I tried, and it was love at first bite. Sort of like a rich, creamy ball of fried spinach-artichoke dip crossed with indian saag.

My mouth watered at the sight of the chocolate mousse cups and apple tart bars, but I was so full I simply bought some spices including genuine Spanish saffron before we headed back on the metro for a night of board games and wine.

Absinthe

So....no green fairy revealed herself to me last night after we all took shots of green, European absinthe last night for Alex's birthday...despite the almost unbearably foul flaming licorice taste. But, it was a great night nonetheless. We started at an irish pub where we had the absinthe, and also some delicious cider, and a live band played a few Spanish songs mixed with American ones, which we sang along to.

Oh, did I mention we arrived at about 12:00 am, and the place was only beginning to get busy? I don't know how these Spaniards do it, but even the older population is going out late at night for drinks, tapas, and ice cream. The city was bustling all the way through our aventuras in the irish pub, which led to aventuras in a bar/discoteque down the street where I am pretty sure they gave us all free shots of vodka and lime.

Bartenders serve drinks right before your eyes here---not so much as a safety precaution as a way to show you haw much alcohol they are putting in. Rum and cokes are almost three shots of rum---half and half. Dancing in the disocteque, which was filled with little moving green lights from the disco-ball, still no fairy, was a blast.

When we got out at 2:00 am, the metro had stopped running, and the bars had stopped serving so unless we wanted to pay cover to a club we were done drinking. My girls and I shared a cab home, which meant we each only paid about 2.30 euros, and had a hilarious conversation in our kitchen sitting on the counters. What an incredible night out.

La Plaza Mayor

A cross-dressing street performer in Plaza Mayor, happy to pose with us after we offered a euro each!

Arrival

When I walked into the apartment, my first thought was, my boyfriend shouldn't be worried about me leaving him and falling for a matador--he should be worried about me never coming home because I have fallen for Spain. Our apartment is beautiful. I live with two other girls from my program and we each have our own room. On the sixth floor, my bedroom looks out down onto the street but is high enough to be sunny for most of the day, and it is painted lavender.

As I made my way through yesterday, stupid with jet-lag and having lost a night, I ran into many unforeseen challenges and began to feel a little lonely and exhausted. I took the Metro (an underground public transportation system) to El Centro to buy an electrical adaptor and realized only after I got to the counter that I'd forgotten my debit card. The I waited for 25 minutes in line at a money exchange place to get Euros from my US dollars only to be told I could not get it without my ID, which I'd forgotten. I was on the verge of bawling, but the lady behind me did the exchange for me and I bought the adaptor.

So many things are different here, little things, but important none the less. Some are delightful, like the yogurt I bought at the airport--which was the delicious flavor of tapioca pudding, not the texture--being served in a clay pot not unlike a flower-pot. Others are just a pain in the ass, like the electric differences. Not only does one need an adaptor for american appliances because the outlets are different, but the wattage is really strong here, which I found out by ruining my dryer and blowing a fuse trying to dry my hair this morning.

Anyways, after all that's happened so far, I still love this place. All the exploring I did yesterday and buying groceries really helped me start to learn my way around and forced me to practice my Spanish, which is, if I do say so myself, not all that bad. I bought a bottle of wine for 2.30 euro, and a wine-glass for .99 euro, and had a 10 minute discussion with a store owner about pimientón, or black peppercorn, when I accidentally asked for pimiénto, or frecsh pepper. We also discussed cayenne pepper, and then he tried to interest me in his son, who is "well educated and doesn't have a girlfriend."

I have many things I want to do here, but am also very flexible and open to what happens. There is an heladería (ice-cream shop) just beneath our apartment which I will have to try, and a panadería down the street that sells empanadas. My room-mates and I plan to visit the Catedrál eventually--a five-story high club, and I can't wait. Tomorrow our group goes to lunch for Paella, and I will visit the Park. Finally, eventually, I will do some art.

We don't make our goals, our goals make us.

As we taxied down the runway at DIA, about to take off, three goals crossed my mind:

1. Allow myself to be vulnerable during this trip.
2. Speak relatively fluent spanish by the end of this summer.
3. Learn how to paint clouds by the end of college.