4Goodness, it’s been a long time since I’ve written. I’m sorry I’ve let so much time pass. I have a lot of things to talk about, so I’ll probably sort of just go through them in a haphazard way.
My “Continuation Period” classes began last week. I am taking "Women Writers of Spain" and "Spain and Immigration," as well as continuing my Lope, Dance, and Cultural Realities classes from before. My professor for Women Writers is Milagros Molina, or Mila. She’s really cute, and kind of has a northern accent. I’m really excited for this class. We are reading a lot of poetry, prose excerpts, novellas/short stories, and two novels. My professor for Immigration is Carmen Castilla—another Carmen, so she will be Prof. Castilla here. She is an anthropologist and a professor at the University of Granada. She is so passionate about anthropology, and she knows so much. I think this class is going to be really interesting. I mentioned before my observations on the beginnings of multiculturalism here, and that is going to be a big topic in the class.
I am tutoring some Spanish children in English, for which I am paid €8 an hour. They are Estefanía, who is ten, Tulio, nine, and María, seven. They are really sweet, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how difficult it could be to teach something as basic to me as my mother language. When I taught clarinet lessons, it was a little different, because clarinet was something I studied and practiced, whereas English I just sort of picked up as a toddler. It’s also hard because there are three of them, and only one of me, and especially now that they are opening up to me, they have a lot of energy. Tulio and Estefanía are in the same grade, and Estefanía is very competitive. I’ve been making them some word searches with vocabulary words, and whenever Tulio or María find a word before Estefanía does, she gets kind of grumpy. But when she finds a word first, she’ll go and circle it on María’s paper for her, and then María will get upset and sad. I don’t have a lot of experience with kids, so when they get all competitive and grumpy, I don’t really know how to handle it, except try to placate whomever is crying and then change the subject. I also have to balance what Estefanía and Tulio are doing, as they are in different classes but the same grade, and therefore have many similar lessons in their classes, but María is two grades below, so she is learning different things. So I have to think of different activities for them, and I have to figure out how to divide my attention between them. I think I am going to start giving them separate word searches or activities, so they don’t get so competitive. I also need to think of some more active games, so they can burn off some of their energy while they’re learning some new vocabulary.
Last Friday, Alicia and I visited el Museo de Bellas Artes (the Museum of Fine Art). That had a large and very nice collection of Renaissance and Baroque Spanish paintings, as well as some other European painters. We weren’t able to see the whole museum, though, so I’m not sure what other collections they have. This spring, they are hosting an exhibition of paintings by Bartolomé Murillo, a seviallano painter, who is quite dear to the hearts of los seviallanos. We kind of had to rush through the end of the exhibit to get home for lunch on time, but it was really nice. I really like the way he used light in his paintings.
I went to Gibraltar last Saturday. I am not going to write a lot about it, because it poured rain the entire time, and was kind of miserable. I am glad I went, as it’s a very geologically interesting place and I will probably not have another chance, but the rain made it rather cold and unpleasant. We did get to see a few of the famous Gibraltar monkeys, though. Apparently, they are everywhere, and they’re not too scared of people, and are really good at stealing people’s lunch. But that day most of the monkeys were hiding from the rain, so we only saw a couple.
It was really sad driving to Gibraltar and back (also to Algeciras to catch the boat to Morocco) because we passed fields and fields that were completely flooded. I saw in a newspaper that the Andalucían harvest has lost €130 million already to rain damage. All this flooding has been really hard on the farmers and people who make a living from the land. The sun has finally come out for four or so straight days, so hopefully the countryside will start to dry out soon, but it’s going to take some time for all that water to go away.
Last Sunday, Alicia, our friend Corey, and I attended a Protestant church in Triana. It was really small, but it had a sense of community that I felt was missing at the Cathedral and even a little bit at the smaller church we’ve gone to a few times. I feel like this lack of community is not uncommon in Europe. I noticed it in St. Giles Kirk in Edinburgh too. People just sort of went to service and left. But at this little church (also the church we went to in Glasgow), there seemed to be much more community. The congregation had studies and mission events during the week, and people lingered a bit to chat after service, although as it wasn’t so small it didn’t have a hall with coffee or anything like my church at home. It was definitely quite refreshing to go somewhere that did have that sort of community, because that’s one of the things I value and enjoy most about church.
This morning, as we now do not have class on Fridays, Kerry, Alicia, and I did some wandering and shopping. And today, finally, I had a churro. I don’t know why it has taken me this long to eat one, but finally I had a chance to sample churros with hot chocolate. And it was delicious. We were able to sit outside in the sun, and we had a big place heaped with little ring-shaped churros, and little cups of thick delicious chocolate. Sigh . . .
There were several other little things like that this week—little things that don’t make great stories, but are so fun to do—but I as they don’t make good stories, I won’t list them all here. We are going to a flamenco show tonight, so that should be exciting. I’ll let you know how it goes. All for now!
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Friday, March 12, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
¡Qué mal tiempo!, Or, the rain in Spain has left the plain and migrated to Sevilla—Day 22, February 24, 2010
As I believe I mentioned earlier, it’s been rather chilly here recently, although what I call chilly, the sevillanos call cold. And even when it’s cold, I can deal with cold; it hasn’t been intensely, terribly cold. Inside the houses, it’s been freezing, often colder than outside, which is annoying when I would like to go inside to warm up. But what has been bothering me, and what my title this time refers to, is that it has been raining almost non-stop for the past two weeks. Which is especially annoying when I have to trek across the city via foot, bus, and tram at least twice a day, usually more, to get to class, and when my socks and jeans don’t dry inside because it’s colder inside than outside, and Carmen doesn’t have a dryer. The sun showed his lovely face a little yesterday, but he is hiding again.
You may be thinking, “Christy, you are in Spain. Stop complaining.” A valid point. However, not only is this much rain highly unusual in this area of Spain, it is proving rather harmful. There has been a lot of flooding in several cities, including Granada, I think, because they are not constructed to cope with this much precipitation. So while all this rain is just a thing of discomfort for me, as I would like to have dry shoes, it is much more than uncomfortable for many families in Andalucía. So hopefully it will stop raining soon, and start getting warm.
Onward to other topics.
I had heard that classes in the Universidad de Sevilla start off very slowly, but I was not prepared for just how slowly this would be. We spent the first three days of my Lope class going over the syllabus. Granted, it is a long syllabus. There is a list of 9 or 10 obligatory readings (plays by Lope), and then a list of extra books she thinks she should read, which are mostly biographies or commentaries or histories of the Siglo de Oro. But she went over every single work on all of these lists in detail, telling us a little about the work and the author, and how important she thought it was for us to read it and where we could get it . . . on and on. Kerry and I, and the English girl Laura, couldn’t help laughing a little, because we’d spent so much time on this syllabus. I don’t think all the classes are like this. I went to the first day of the Cervantes class I couldn’t take, just to see what it was like, and the professor handed out the syllabus, went over it a little, remarked that we could read it on our own, and then jumped right into a crash course of the history of the Golden Age. It helped that I’d studied the Golden Age before in my Theatre of Spain class, because he talked much faster than my Lope professor, with a very strong Andalucían accent, and was much more difficult to understand. There were also some times that he would ask the class a question, and I knew the answer, but no one was answering. I was quite tempted to raise my hand and answer, but as I knew I wasn’t coming back, that felt silly.
Anyway, back to Lope, I think maybe the slowness of the class is more related to this professor. There are some copies we are supposed to buy from the university copy center. I went in on Monday to get them, but I was told that she hadn’t turned in the pages to be copied yet. Also, last Wednesday, she asked us to read a sonnet and write a commentary about it, saying she’d pick a few students to read their commentaries on Monday. Accordingly, I read the sonnet and wrote a commentary. On Monday, she reminded us that she had asked us to do it, and asked that we have it for Tuesday. On Tuesday, she didn’t say anything about it. On Wednesday, just when I thought that it had gone by the wayside, she asked us to pull it out, because she wanted to have some of us read it. She said that first she’d pick a Spanish student, then un extranjero (a foreigner). Nobody was forthcoming in volunteering, except some fifty-year old guy, who before reading his commentary, had to comment rather smugly how he volunteered before any of the rest of us. After he read his commentary, she began looking for another volunteer, and we all squirmed in our seats. She then asked us if we’d done it, and about three of us, including me, raised our hands. She asked the guy sitting behind me to read his. Just when I was thinking I was off the hook, then, she asked me to read mine as well—gaarrr! I am so super self-conscious of my accent, and a couple times when I talked to my professor after class I think she had some trouble understanding me, and here I was, having to flaunt my gringa accent in front of the entire class. But I sucked it up and read my commentary as clearly as I could. I suppose, on the bright side, that may have earned me some brownie points towards that 7.5 (aka, B) that I am hoping to get.
I suppose, also, I shouldn’t be too worried about my accent in that class, as there are a lot of foreigners, mostly Erasmus students. Aside from Laura, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard some others with British accents, and I think there’s a German girl, as her computer had something that looked like German, and a Canadian girl, as she had a notebook that said “Canada.” There is also a Brazilian guy named Gustavo with whom I talked a little today. He’s really nice, and his Spanish is really good. He asked Kerry and me how long we’d been in Sevilla, and when we said “three weeks,” he told us our Spanish was very good. What I said was “Gracias.” What I was thinking was “YESSS!” I get really excited when people tell me in an earnest, not just polite sort of manner that I am speaking well, because I think maybe my accent isn’t so bad after all, and my grammar isn’t so bad after all. Even though he is Brazilian, and Portuguese is his native language, he probably hears a lot of Spanish living in South America, and I believe a lot of Brazilians learn Spanish, as it’s just handy to know.
I met my intercambio last night. His name is Aleix, and he looks to be about in his mid-twenties. He works for a business that makes small films for other businesses, as well as some of their own small films. But his aspiration is to write scripts for films. He loves the movies, including a lot of American movies. He asked me what kind of movies I like, and when I said I like Disney movies, he said he loves Pixar, and when I mentioned John Lasseter being my hero, he expressed a similar appreciation for John Lasseter. He’s very nice, and kind of artsy, which is cool, and with his appreciation for movies (especially Pixar), we should have a fair amount to talk about. His English is better than my Spanish, but he also told me my Spanish is pretty good. Actually, what he said is “Your Spanish is better than I expected,” because I have a lot of trouble speaking Spanish over the phone, and the first time he called me, he realized I was having trouble and switched to English. So I guess his comment was a compliment. But he also has a bit of an accent, although it’s quite easy to understand, so that makes me feel better about my accent.
And now, a tangent. We had a really interesting discussion in my language class today about some of the cultural differences between Spain and the U.S. There are several things on which I might like to comment, but for now I’d like to comment on the culture of food here. As I believe I mentioned earlier, eating takes a long time, and waiters in restaurants, or even coffee shops, tend to leave you alone for a long time, and when you need to go, you need to ask for the bill. In general, I think this is a better attitude. Food should be enjoyed, not scarfed, as it’s healthier that way, because your brain has time to process that you have eaten, and you miss out on the pleasure of good food if you are just shoving stuff down your throat so you can move on to the next appointment on your agenda. It’s also nice that mealtimes are such a communal undertaking, and that even just a cup of coffee is valuable as a shared experience. That being said, sometimes one is just hungry, or in need of caffeine, and one just needs food, and needs it quickly. I blush to admit I have now been to Starbucks here twice (something else I never thought I would do), because there have been times between classes in which I needed a quick snack, emphasis on “quick.” At Starbucks, you pay at the cash register before you get your food, meaning you can leave as soon as you are done eating. I have also learned that if you want coffee in a paper cup, so you can take it with you, you need to ask for “un café para llevar” (a coffee to take away). If you don’t, you will get it in a ceramic cup. Moreover, food here is just not made to be eaten quickly or on the run. I’ve had to ask for sack lunches a few times from Carmen, as I haven’t had time to return for lunch, and I get a sandwich and a piece of fruit. Usually, I’m still kind of hungry after eating this, especially with both lunch and dinner being eaten so late. But there’s not really anything else I could ask for. She doesn’t have baby carrots, chopped veggies, granola bars, or yogurt cups I could ask for. When one goes shopping in Spain, one buys ingredients for what one is going to cook that day, and possibly the next day. One does not stock up on little snacks to be eaten quickly. And I don’t really want to ask her to buy snacks especially for me. I guess I’ll keep going with what I’ve been taking, and if I find myself really really hungry, maybe I’ll request something.
Something I had observed, and that was commented upon in our class discussion today, people here do not eat while walking or in the streets. I had noticed a few times that if I was eating an apple or a sandwich between my classes at the Center and my university class, people would give me strange looks. Today in class, Prof. Dorado said that it is considered somewhat rude to eat while walking, and it’s something parents will teach their children not to do. Apparently, there’s a myth that if you eat in the streets, you won’t get married—oops. So I will try not to eat in the streets unless it’s an absolute necessity, because I certainly don’t want people looking at me and thinking I’m crude. But I find it odd that when one is both hungry and in a hurry, one cannot multi task by eating and walking.
This has been long—sorry about that. I suppose if I wrote more often, I would not write so much each time. All for now.
You may be thinking, “Christy, you are in Spain. Stop complaining.” A valid point. However, not only is this much rain highly unusual in this area of Spain, it is proving rather harmful. There has been a lot of flooding in several cities, including Granada, I think, because they are not constructed to cope with this much precipitation. So while all this rain is just a thing of discomfort for me, as I would like to have dry shoes, it is much more than uncomfortable for many families in Andalucía. So hopefully it will stop raining soon, and start getting warm.
Onward to other topics.
I had heard that classes in the Universidad de Sevilla start off very slowly, but I was not prepared for just how slowly this would be. We spent the first three days of my Lope class going over the syllabus. Granted, it is a long syllabus. There is a list of 9 or 10 obligatory readings (plays by Lope), and then a list of extra books she thinks she should read, which are mostly biographies or commentaries or histories of the Siglo de Oro. But she went over every single work on all of these lists in detail, telling us a little about the work and the author, and how important she thought it was for us to read it and where we could get it . . . on and on. Kerry and I, and the English girl Laura, couldn’t help laughing a little, because we’d spent so much time on this syllabus. I don’t think all the classes are like this. I went to the first day of the Cervantes class I couldn’t take, just to see what it was like, and the professor handed out the syllabus, went over it a little, remarked that we could read it on our own, and then jumped right into a crash course of the history of the Golden Age. It helped that I’d studied the Golden Age before in my Theatre of Spain class, because he talked much faster than my Lope professor, with a very strong Andalucían accent, and was much more difficult to understand. There were also some times that he would ask the class a question, and I knew the answer, but no one was answering. I was quite tempted to raise my hand and answer, but as I knew I wasn’t coming back, that felt silly.
Anyway, back to Lope, I think maybe the slowness of the class is more related to this professor. There are some copies we are supposed to buy from the university copy center. I went in on Monday to get them, but I was told that she hadn’t turned in the pages to be copied yet. Also, last Wednesday, she asked us to read a sonnet and write a commentary about it, saying she’d pick a few students to read their commentaries on Monday. Accordingly, I read the sonnet and wrote a commentary. On Monday, she reminded us that she had asked us to do it, and asked that we have it for Tuesday. On Tuesday, she didn’t say anything about it. On Wednesday, just when I thought that it had gone by the wayside, she asked us to pull it out, because she wanted to have some of us read it. She said that first she’d pick a Spanish student, then un extranjero (a foreigner). Nobody was forthcoming in volunteering, except some fifty-year old guy, who before reading his commentary, had to comment rather smugly how he volunteered before any of the rest of us. After he read his commentary, she began looking for another volunteer, and we all squirmed in our seats. She then asked us if we’d done it, and about three of us, including me, raised our hands. She asked the guy sitting behind me to read his. Just when I was thinking I was off the hook, then, she asked me to read mine as well—gaarrr! I am so super self-conscious of my accent, and a couple times when I talked to my professor after class I think she had some trouble understanding me, and here I was, having to flaunt my gringa accent in front of the entire class. But I sucked it up and read my commentary as clearly as I could. I suppose, on the bright side, that may have earned me some brownie points towards that 7.5 (aka, B) that I am hoping to get.
I suppose, also, I shouldn’t be too worried about my accent in that class, as there are a lot of foreigners, mostly Erasmus students. Aside from Laura, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard some others with British accents, and I think there’s a German girl, as her computer had something that looked like German, and a Canadian girl, as she had a notebook that said “Canada.” There is also a Brazilian guy named Gustavo with whom I talked a little today. He’s really nice, and his Spanish is really good. He asked Kerry and me how long we’d been in Sevilla, and when we said “three weeks,” he told us our Spanish was very good. What I said was “Gracias.” What I was thinking was “YESSS!” I get really excited when people tell me in an earnest, not just polite sort of manner that I am speaking well, because I think maybe my accent isn’t so bad after all, and my grammar isn’t so bad after all. Even though he is Brazilian, and Portuguese is his native language, he probably hears a lot of Spanish living in South America, and I believe a lot of Brazilians learn Spanish, as it’s just handy to know.
I met my intercambio last night. His name is Aleix, and he looks to be about in his mid-twenties. He works for a business that makes small films for other businesses, as well as some of their own small films. But his aspiration is to write scripts for films. He loves the movies, including a lot of American movies. He asked me what kind of movies I like, and when I said I like Disney movies, he said he loves Pixar, and when I mentioned John Lasseter being my hero, he expressed a similar appreciation for John Lasseter. He’s very nice, and kind of artsy, which is cool, and with his appreciation for movies (especially Pixar), we should have a fair amount to talk about. His English is better than my Spanish, but he also told me my Spanish is pretty good. Actually, what he said is “Your Spanish is better than I expected,” because I have a lot of trouble speaking Spanish over the phone, and the first time he called me, he realized I was having trouble and switched to English. So I guess his comment was a compliment. But he also has a bit of an accent, although it’s quite easy to understand, so that makes me feel better about my accent.
And now, a tangent. We had a really interesting discussion in my language class today about some of the cultural differences between Spain and the U.S. There are several things on which I might like to comment, but for now I’d like to comment on the culture of food here. As I believe I mentioned earlier, eating takes a long time, and waiters in restaurants, or even coffee shops, tend to leave you alone for a long time, and when you need to go, you need to ask for the bill. In general, I think this is a better attitude. Food should be enjoyed, not scarfed, as it’s healthier that way, because your brain has time to process that you have eaten, and you miss out on the pleasure of good food if you are just shoving stuff down your throat so you can move on to the next appointment on your agenda. It’s also nice that mealtimes are such a communal undertaking, and that even just a cup of coffee is valuable as a shared experience. That being said, sometimes one is just hungry, or in need of caffeine, and one just needs food, and needs it quickly. I blush to admit I have now been to Starbucks here twice (something else I never thought I would do), because there have been times between classes in which I needed a quick snack, emphasis on “quick.” At Starbucks, you pay at the cash register before you get your food, meaning you can leave as soon as you are done eating. I have also learned that if you want coffee in a paper cup, so you can take it with you, you need to ask for “un café para llevar” (a coffee to take away). If you don’t, you will get it in a ceramic cup. Moreover, food here is just not made to be eaten quickly or on the run. I’ve had to ask for sack lunches a few times from Carmen, as I haven’t had time to return for lunch, and I get a sandwich and a piece of fruit. Usually, I’m still kind of hungry after eating this, especially with both lunch and dinner being eaten so late. But there’s not really anything else I could ask for. She doesn’t have baby carrots, chopped veggies, granola bars, or yogurt cups I could ask for. When one goes shopping in Spain, one buys ingredients for what one is going to cook that day, and possibly the next day. One does not stock up on little snacks to be eaten quickly. And I don’t really want to ask her to buy snacks especially for me. I guess I’ll keep going with what I’ve been taking, and if I find myself really really hungry, maybe I’ll request something.
Something I had observed, and that was commented upon in our class discussion today, people here do not eat while walking or in the streets. I had noticed a few times that if I was eating an apple or a sandwich between my classes at the Center and my university class, people would give me strange looks. Today in class, Prof. Dorado said that it is considered somewhat rude to eat while walking, and it’s something parents will teach their children not to do. Apparently, there’s a myth that if you eat in the streets, you won’t get married—oops. So I will try not to eat in the streets unless it’s an absolute necessity, because I certainly don’t want people looking at me and thinking I’m crude. But I find it odd that when one is both hungry and in a hurry, one cannot multi task by eating and walking.
This has been long—sorry about that. I suppose if I wrote more often, I would not write so much each time. All for now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)