The Festivities Begin...

For about a month now the city has been looking more and more festive- 
I looooovvvveeee all the different lights in all of the main streets- these are some of my favorite- the chandeliers on one of the upper-scale shopping streets. You can also hear some Christmas music here and there, as well as many many nativity scenes, called 'Belens', which are more common than Christmas trees and tend to be very very detailed. 




Andújar
A few weekends ago Melinda and I jumped right into the holiday spirit with a little trip. On Saturday morning we loaded up the cars with lots of people and RIDICULOUS amounts of food and drinks and drove about 3 hours into the province of Jaén; on the bank of the river Guadalquivir.
Outside of the town Andùjar there’s this sanctuary/church called Real Santuario Virgen de la Cabeza that people go to to leave offerings and ask for things. (Some of the offerings we saw included photos, locks of hair, wedding dresses, prosthetic legs, etc.) The church is in the middle of all these gorgeous green hills, which are also home to the almost extinct Iberian Lynces (lynx).
In one of the valleys there is a tiny row of buildings owned by various pueblos. We stayed in the house of Campillo de Arenas, which is where a few of the guys in the group are from. There were about 30 of us in total, and no one knew everyone- a good mix of friends of friends of friends- so it was really laid-back and we all made new friends.
The house itself was amazing- two giant halls on the main floor and basement floor with giant fireplaces and a big luxurious bar. There was also a kitchen and patio outside. Upstairs were two bedrooms- caballeros y señoritas- each containing about 50 sets of bunkbeds and a small bathroom.

The weekend ended-up being non-stop, and I’m pretty sure no one got much sleep between all the games, dancing and food. We also saw a herd of ovejas (sheep) a few times!!!

On Sunday we all went for a little hike up to the church, as well as around the campo nearby before feasting on a giant giant paella. Then we cleaned like crazy and headed back home.

I was especially excited to make a few new Spanish girlfriends on that trip, one in particular named Beatriz (everyone calls her ‘Bea’) who I bonded with immediately. Through her I’ve since met some other girls and we’ve all gone out a few times- lunch at a Mexican restaurant, tapas, dancing. The Mexican restaurant in particular was really fun because there were about 20 of us and the electricity kept going out. Every time the electricity went out the owner came around with complementary tequila. It turned into quite the party… (pictured: me, Bea, Asun y Isabel)

Our little group of extranjeros (foreigners) also got together at Clare's house one weekend for a party- we're mostly teachers from the US, UK and a few others here and there, but it was a fun evening of charades and songs.

"Esta noche es Noche-Buena, 

y no es noche de dormir"


The big Christmas celebration happens on NocheBuena, December 24th. Traditionally the big family meal occurs on this night. I went with Angel to the home of one of his aunts- it was only the intimate family on his dad’s side (about 25 people) all of whom I had met before so I felt really comfortable. We sat at a long banquet table and passed around tons of plates with various things- the usual jamones, quesos y tortillas (kind of like a quiche), as well as fish, meat, various vegetables and then different little cakelets and a flan. We all drank wine and cava (kind of like champagne) and by the end of the meal everyone was singing Spanish Christmas songs and there were a few panderetas (tambourines) floating around. It was a lot of fun! One aunt then served as ‘Papa Noel’ and passed out presents to all of the children (the youngest was about 16ish) and she had even bought something for me- a beautiful bottle of Spanish perfume!!!

As the meal hadn’t even started until 10 p.m., we were late leaving but nevertheless went to some bars and discotecas for more drinks and dancing until the (not-so) wee hours of the morning. This resulted in me completely sleeping through actual Chrismas Day.


I have received many cards and a few amazing packages (gingerbread cookie kit from Aaron and Amanda, A ridiculously fun medley of Christmas activities, crafts and snacks from Heather, jalepeños from home) that have really made the holidays for me- thanks again, yall!!


Sabes Que…

Ever since ancient times, the Spanish have celebrated the coming of winter with a unique custom, called Hogueras. Reminiscent of the ancient Roman holiday of Saturnalia and the Northern European tradition of a Yuletide celebration, Spaniards celebrated the Winter Solstice by jumping over a fire, as a way to protect themselves against illness in the coming year. This was especially popular in the areas of Granada and Jaen. As Christianity gained power during the Middle Ages, Hogueras fell by the wayside, along with many other pagan customs.

http://spanish-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/christmas_in_spain

Boas Fiestas!!

That’s ‘Happy Holidays’ in Portuguese!

This past Monday and Tuesday were national holidays in Spain, so Angel’s family and I headed off to Lisboa for the break. We stayed in a little campsite just outside of the city- his parents in a camper-van and us in a little cabin (bungalow) that was just cute as the dickens.
We did a lot of sight-seeing (Belem, the Monasterio de los Jerónimos (pictured), Castillo de San Jorge, the Cathedral, etc) some shopping and ate some amazing Portuguese meals. (The meat was fantastic, but my favorite edible experience was the traditional tarta almendoa, (almond pastry, kind of like a pie).




Several other of my favorite experiences were:

1. Riding on the famous trolleys (tranvias). The city is Enormous!! Surprisingly so. And it is stretched over 7 giant hills, as well as a ton of smaller ones. We mostly stayed in Barrio Alto and Chiado (both in the city center) but dipped into the oldest area by the castle and cathedral a bit as well. That is where we rode the trolley (number 12) up and down some very exciting hills.

2. The famous Fabrica dos Chapéus, a specialty milliner where only a few customers are allowed to enter at a time, but each is paid a lot of attention, no matter how many times you try on every single hat in the store. We all ended up buying at least one (except Angel) and wore them for the rest of the day.

3. The Instituto do Vinho do Porto (the Portuguese “Port” wines). We did a tasting in this beautifully decorated old building. We tried several different types of Portos, my favorite being the Dow’s late bottled vintage 2004, as well as a few Portuguese cheeses. The thing about port wines is that they are all very very sweet and must be sipped slowly, but they really bring out some amazing tastes in the cheeses. (I recommend a cheese called évora, named after the town it is made in.)

4. Fado. This is the traditional song-style of Portugal, a bit like flamenco, but more melancholy. We went to the oldest Fado house in the city, Parreirinha de Alfama, a small cave-like room with a kitchen and about 12 tables. We ate fantastic food, and every few minutes or so someone would come out and sing, accompanied by a traditional guitar and a Portuguese guitar. A woman named Argentina Santos owns the place; She is an older woman who has been one of the most famous Fado singers for decades. She sang towards the end of the night and it was unbelievable what all she could do with her voice. (Watch her here.)

5. The Christmas Decorations!!!! This was hands-down my favorite part of the trip. Lisboa is a city that holds nothing back in the way of festivities: Every single street in the center was bedecked with giant beautiful designs of light- each different! Every time we turned a corner I couldn’t help but squeal with delight. There were also more than a few giant lit-up Christmas trees to be found around the city, as well as hundreds of homes with “Papa Noels” (Santa Clauses) climbing into windows or scaling down the sides of the buildings. We even saw one Santa driving a trolley!

It is also worth noting that many of the buildings themselves were tiled in beautiful, colorful, hand-painted and detailed designs.

SABES QUE…
There was an enormous and devastating earthquake that occurred in Lisboa in 1755, destroying almost all of the architecture (what wasn’t destroyed by the earthquake itself was ravaged by the consequential fires that lasted for days). This resulted in the Portuguese being some of the first to make giant steps in earthquake research and safer reconstruction.

Five Mundane Things

1. On Friday I got a fantastic haircut. I tipped my stylist with a cheap bottle of red wine and she was ecstatic.

2. I have a student who can’t distinguish the different pronunciations of ‘kitchen’ and ‘chicken’. She also clucks when she gets frustrated.

3. We went to a car show this past Saturday. There are tons of little smartcar type things that don’t require a European driver’s license. (Santa?) The music played at the show was the same as the music Gob uses for his magic shows in the TV show Arrested Development. It is worth noting that this character always travels by segway (unfortunately not too be seen in this particular car show).






4. Yesterday we roasted chestnuts (castañas) over an open fire.

5. We spent a good deal of Saturday night at a bar trying to come up with palindromos: (words or phrases that have the same letters and meaning backwards and forwards).

 

English examples:
Eye
Racecar
Do geese see God?
Never odd or even.

I was very proud of my Spanish vocabulary that evening!

Spanish examples:
Somos o no somos
Luz azul
Amor a Roma.
Dábale arroz a la zorra el abad.

Thanks, Man!

I’m starting to get a little sad and nostalgic about being so far away from my wonderful family during the holidays. However, I was able to make my Favorite fall food the other day thanks to a certain M. Flapjack Ramsour who sent me the mix for Sprinkles pumpkin cupcakes!!! DELICIOUS!I have also been teaching Thanksgiving themed classes this week to a variety of reactions among my students. In one class I had them work in teams to invent an entirely new holiday and all of the details. These teams came up with ‘International Chocolate Day’ and ‘Dessert Celebration!” They are my favorites.

For the actual day of Thanksgiving I had to work (but I’m thankful that I have a job) and so we weren’t able to celebrate until late. Melinda (Rhode Island), Dan (Chicago) and I ate a lovely meal in a British-owned bar (the one my roommate Will works at- Casa Lopez Corea) that consisted of several appetizers, a WONDERFUL pumpkin soup, turkey with stuffing, gravy, veggies, etc, and of course several delightful desserts including Apple pie!

We were stuffed! (pictured: Mel and I enjoying the desserts with power-ranger spoons. Since we were some of the last to eat, they had run out of normal, clean cuttlery. We found it very festive!)

Other notable events this week include a birthday party for my friend Pablo (my favorite of Angel’s friends) on Tuesday night, another jazz concert last Friday night (wonderful! An Italian ‘big-band’) and a little day-trip on Sunday with Angel up into the Mountains towards Güéjar-Sierra so that I could play with my new [hot pink] camera!

A highlight of this adventure was stopping at a little-old lady’s roadside veggie stand and seeing some of the MOST ENORMOUS onions, gords, etc. that I have ever seen in my entire life. The seems-like-a-good-idea of the day was buying a lot of stuff from her and trying to safely get it home on the moto. (We were successful in the end and celebrated by making a delicious veggie paella with some of the purchases.

People-watching has also been in high quality this week. On Tuesday night on my way to meet everyone at a bar across town for Pablo’s birthday I walked past a small hotel called Don Juan Hotel. It looked a little skeezy. Outside there were three Italian men dressed in their Saturday night best and smoking cigars. They were speaking in the ideal stereotypical accent and cat-calling at every girl who walked by. Way to feed the stereotypes, fellas. I also saw a younger woman (cute, small, blonde) on Monday morning in the official jumpsuit uniform of the city’s street sweeping staff. She was pushing a giant trash can onto which she had Duct taped a huge boombox circa the 1990s! She was BLARING music and singing very loudly. I found that a little strange as well. God bless this city. They’ve just passed a law trying to clean the community up a bit that bans pretty much everything in the streets (eating, drinking, singing or playing an instrument, selling anything, gatherings of more than 4 people at a time, etc.) Hopefully it won’t scare all of the crazies away- they sure do keep it interesting.

SABES QUE
The world record for the heaviest onion is a 16lb 8½oz (468g) onion grown in West Midlands. The previous record was a 15lb 15½oz (454g) onion which held the record for ten years.

Lazy November

It has been a fairly normal couple of weeks. Working, dealing with the weather’s mood-swings, tapas, etc.

Halloween was a blast. Angel and I dressed up as Popeye and Olive Oyl (“Pop-ay-yay” y Oliva) except Angel wanted some gore so he was “Scary Popeye” . We went out with a bunch of friends so some bars and discotecas. There may have been some karaoke involved… Fun night.

We have also been going rock-climbing a little bit lately. We usually drive up (in the opposite direction from the Sierra Nevadas) to outside of a small town called Alfacar. It is exciting!

Angel and I have also reached the six month mark. While we didn’t do anything to specifically celebrate that day, we have done some more adventures lately.

One I particularly enjoyed was a Sunday when we drove up through the Alpujarras (the small villages scattered about in the Sierra Nevadas). We started in Lanjaron (the village has natural springs and provides a lot of the bottled water for the country) and tested the waters. Then we made our way up to the tippity top- Trevelis.

This is one of the highest pueblos in Spain, and FAMOUS for it’s jamon. (I toured one of the factories in February with Paul and Gillian). We walked around the town for a bit with Gusanna, bought some roadside raspberries (frambuessas- mmmmmm!!) and finally selected a small but cozy bar to eat a big feast of jamon and cheese and meats and fruits. Delicious!

After we ate we jumped back in the car and drove over to another pueblo- Capileira. By this point the sun was setting and the wind was UNBELIVABLE- we’re talking gale-force plus. And so we didn’t get the chance to walk around too much but settled in for a glass of wine and a tapa before heading back home. A very successful journey.

The following weekend we took a daytrip on the moto-de-campo.
We drove up through into the mountains through the heavily-forested areas and ended up on the ruta de vaca. (A really pretty little drive with lots of cows.) We also went to see a jazz concert that night as there is a festival in town and it was pretty good!

Because it has been so long since my last post, I will treat you to not one, but TWO tidbits of information.

SABES QUE

According to Angel (I’ve done no thorough research on this topic) Beetles in the dessert are able to survive by storing water/dew in little deposits in their forelegs. This suffices for the entire day’s supply of hydration.



SABES QUE
Tapa literally means ‘cover’ or lid’ and way back in the old days originated when people would place a slice of bread (or ham or cheese) on top of their jar/glass/mug to either keep out the flies, or prevent drunkenness (reports vary). Now they can be anything- many restaurants and bars are very creative with their recipes. My favorite is still the classic piece of toast with jamon Serrano or Iberico and a slice of Manchego cheese. Here are some other recipes:
http://www.arrakis.es/~jols/tapas/index2.html

Tis the Season...

… to celebrate my favorite holiday—HALLOWEEN!!!!

We officially began the party when I was FINALLY able to locate some pumpkins (small, but still). Every year one of my very favorite Svoboda traditions is the annual pumpkin-carving with my Dad. This year I was unable to spend the time with him, but instead of foregoing the tradition altogether I made do with my favorite man on this side of the ocean. It was Angel’s first time EVER to jack-o-lant (yes, I’ve made that into a verb) and I was pleased that he took the appropriate serious approach- google research and careful planning before the actual slicing began. We were both very excited by our final products. (His is the skull; mine the scary-face).

Afterwards I made some awesome spicy tacos along with all of the accompaniments (guacamole, pico-de-gallo, margaritas etc.) and we headed up to the terrace to celebrate Jaime’s birthday. Jaime had also made a FANTASTIC paella so there was plenty of delicious food to go around for the 20 or so partiers. After several hours of the festivities, we were all exhausted and didn’t even make it to really go-out on the town. (pictured: Jaime, Samuel and the paella)

Yesterday (Sunday) provided us with GORGEOUS weather and Angel and I went out for an early breakfast of tostadas, churros and chocolate at my favorite place- Café Futbol. We then drove out to buy some firewood and stock up for the coming months. After we had unloaded all of the firewood we took Gusana out for an adventure- up to Atarfe. We hiked up to the top of a huge cliff to the Ermita de los Tres Juanes (a hermitage). The views were amazing plus there is an Aviary where we walked around talking to all of the exotic birds (including 4 giant ostriches). There was even a wild peacock running around. The only downfall of the outing was when Gusana spotted a kitten and took off after it. To everyone’s surprise she actually caught it and killed it instantly (she’s never caught ANYTHING before). We were pretty bummed afterwards, but on the other hand, this might be the first time in history a worm has caught a cat.

SABES QUE…
“Halloween is actually based on an ancient Celtic holiday known as Samhain (pronounced ‘sow wan’), which means ‘summer's end’.”
from
http://www.pumpkincarving101.com/pumpkin_carving_history.html

“Help me, Rhonda Help Help me Rhonda”

I’ve had that Beach Boy’s song stuck in my head all weekend. The cause of this was a delightful little weekend excursion to Ronda, Andalusia (in the Malaga province).

On Saturday morning Angel and I got all loaded up with our moto gear (or as I like to call them, our space suits) and set off southwest to visit Ronda with our friends Rafa and Mel (Rafa is from there). We had a stop half way in a town called Antequera that was just darling winding cobblestone streets on steep hills, surrounding a giant castle/Alcazaba.

We found a bar to eat some migas and bocadillos in a plaza situated between a beautiful old iglesia and a charming mezquita. We walked around a tiny bit (in our space boots) before hopping back on the bike for the rest of the journey. Once we arrived in Ronda we met Mel and Rafa in a beautiful park along the edge of the cliff. The entire town is situated along this ENORMOUS drop-off.

There’s a huge huge huge bridge over the abyss that I can’t even imagine how they built 500 years ago. After dropping our stuff off (and putting on real shoes) the four of us headed our for a paseo through the town.

We explored the old town the most, it is incredibly well kept-up and clean. We walked along the old city wall (with towers!) and through some tiny little streets before starting our tapa- hopping. The first bar we went into had incredible tapas- meats, croquettes, fish, I had a fancy toasted cheese thing, and the local specialty- some sort of meat from a bull in a soup- delicious!

We also had a couple bottles of a delicious wine (Pago de Carraovejas Crianza 2006 D.O.Ribera del Duero) that had us each rocking the purple-teeth look.
Several bars later Melinda and I got to talking to an older American couple. They used to work for one of the larger newspapers (he was the editor, she a reporter) and have been coming to Ronda every year since 1973. They sure did have some wild stories!
After I finished my chocolate cake (I had seen someone else order it and wanted some too) the 6 of us headed across town (about a 5 minute walk) to a different bar- very cool. It had a kind of speak-easy feel to it. At this bar the dancing began and was carried on to a disco-teca nearby until the wee hours.
It was a fantastic night.
The next morning (afternoon) we all woke up and ate at Rafa’s mother’s house- they had prepared a big ol’ bacalao and some pork and veggies and pretty much a delicious feast (I even tried the fish). After the food coma wore off, we peeled ourselves from the sofas and drove down to the bottom of the cliff to see the view of the bridge from there.

 It was incredible. I can’t even compare the magnitude of this place to anywhere else I’ve ever seen. We then drove a little further down to Rafa’s family’s farmhouse- An enchanting 100ish year old, two story, yellow home with a big balcony and lots of land.

We met the 80-something sweet old couple next door and walked through the crops and garden. Inside the house were just piles and piles of neat old antiques (my dad would have had a field day looking at everything!) There was a larger salon and newly remodeled kitchen and bathroom downstairs, and three bedrooms upstairs. My favorite had a large princess curtained bed with an old washbasin stand and a window opening towards the gardens. The other two bedrooms were full of twin beds- clearly a very healthy catholic child-bearing family built this home.

 The four of us then returned to town to have one last café con leche before the drive home.






SABES QUE…

Ronda is one of the oldest cities in Spain. Archaelogists have found things dating back to before the Neolithic age, including many cave drawings (like this one).