Parque del Peñalara

In early December, a friend and I took a long, early-morning bus ride to the Parque del Peñalara, a state park-type area high in the mountains near the ski station of Madrid. We were going to see the snow. I was unfamiliar with this concept; where I'm from, if there's any snow to see, there's the same amount outside your door as anywhere else within an hour's drive. There was no snow in downtown Madrid, and though I could see the snow on the mountains in the distance, I wasn't sure it would amount to much. The park ranger quickly set me straight when I called to inquire, however. "Oh yes, there's snow, " she told me. "One of the other rangers went out yesterday and sank in up to his waist... and he was wearing snowshoes." This didn't seem promising, but I improvised a multi-layered outfit that included waterproof rain pants, and off we went.

It was absolutely beautiful. There were at least eight to ten inches of snow on the sides of the trail (the path itself was packed down from other hikers) and on the exposed curves of the mountain there were sparkling, wind-sculpted whorls and dunes. When we reached a sheltered meadow from which several other trails take off, there were more surprises in store. As a flatlander, I was amazed to see people with cross-country skis clamoring gamely up the trail of what I remember from a previous visit to be a rocky and very steep 6-mile loop. High on the ridges that cup the meadow on one side, I could make out the tiny figures of people inching up to the summit before skiing partway down in a graceful swoop of poles. The strangest sight, though, was closer to the path. Across the meadow, we could see people rock climbing... only it wasn't a rock wall they were navigating, but a frozen waterfall. There were two frozen cascades, the lower perhaps 25 feet high and another above it that must have been 40 feet altogether. As we watched, someone inched out of an ice cavern at the top of the higher waterfall and slowly rappelled down.

Intrigued, we decided to leave the path and found ourselves right in the middle of the waist-high snow the ranger had warned me about. After hauling ourselves uphill for fifteen or twenty minutes, we arrived at the lower waterfall. One or two people were ascending the frozen wall while the others clustered at the base, drinking Gatorade, checking their equipment and swapping stories. The climbers were using two ice picks, one in each hand, and sturdy boots with needle-like cleats protruding from the soles to ascend the ice very slowly. A group of young guys saw my friend reach out reverently to touch the frozen waterfall and started laughing. "Try the real thing!" they urged, and handed us their ice picks. After several ineffectual swings, I got the hang of it; you have to swing hard so the pick goes deep into the ice, then wiggle it carefully out while keeping your torso still so as not to lose your balance. One climber explained that his least favorite part was striking a sac of liquid water while climbing; the water splashes straight into your face at temperatures presumably just above freezing. "Aren't you worried you might fall, or the ice might not hold you?" I asked them. It was warm in the sun that day, and the creaking of the ice was audible as we chatted. "Shoot, man, it's not the safest thing in the world," one of the guys answered. "But it's really, really cool."

Music, part two

In other musical news, I joined a community choir this fall! In addition to the normal church-songs-in-Latin repertoire, they also sing quite a lot of zarzuelas, a traditional Spanish musical theatre-esque genre. It's similar to what we would call operetta, complete with swirly, colorful dresses and cheesy lyrics. The choir is directed by an energetic Catalan guy who spends about 15% of rehearsal time trying to keep everyone’s desire to socialize in check. “Now we’re going to stand up and sing this again,” he’ll say, “but please, remain in silence. Silence. I SAID, SILENCE, PLEASE!” But he is an excellent and demanding musician, and the music is a lot of fun to sing. At our first concert, we were instructed to recreate the theatrical feel of an actual zarzuela performance. This entailed laughing artificially, pretending to gossip, giving what the director dubbed a “special sigh”, and, of course, shouting things like “Olé!” and “Viva Madrid!” I felt pretty ridiculous doing this, but the other choir members, all apparently zarzuela veterans, managed it with aplomb and no apparent loss of dignity.

Now we are preparing for a Christmas concert, which will be a mix of really old church music in Latin, traditional Spanish carols, and other songs from around Spain and the world—there’s a song in Catalan, one in Basque, one in Japanese, one from Peru, etc. For me the most interesting has been learning the Spanish carols, especially the ones from Andalusia—they frequently have snatches where the music echoes the rhythm of castanets or the aching melodies of flamenco. I’ve also been amused to see that (at least in several of the songs we’re singing) the Christ child is portrayed not as a tiny, saintly being, but as an actual baby. Sample lyric: “They made soups for the Christ Child/He didn’t want to eat them/So, since they were so sweet,/Saint Joseph ate them himself.” No “no crying he makes” here!

Beyond the realistic portrayals of Jesus, I must admit that the lyrics to some Spanish Christmas carols are just bizarre. The ultimate example of this is the song “Los pesces en el rio”, the chorus of which goes as follows:

“But look how the fish in the river are drinking!/To see the newborn God!/They drink, and they drink, and then they drink again/The fish in the river, to see the newborn God.”

Does this sound more like a Christmas song, or a recycled drinking song? Probably in your native language, songs like this don’t register—you’ve been singing them for so many years you cease to think about what they’re actually saying. Not so when sing carols in Spanish, during which my thought process is something like: “I think the melody is more or less like this… oops, that was supposed to be a sixteenth note. . . what the heck is that WORD?! Oh, well, I'll ask later! The fish drink and they drink and—what is this song ABOUT?” But it’s good company and a great mental workout--just what’s needed to ward off the sluggishness of winter.

Sex sells

Sensitive readers, be warned: this posting deals with suggestive advertising that should probably be rated PG-13. If you find this topic objectionable, please stop reading now!

Ok, remaining readers, a quick quiz: if you saw this poster, you would guess it was an advertisement for a) laser hair removal; b) lingerie; c) membership at a gym; or d) plastic surgery.

Answers ready? The correct choice is.... rice cakes. That's right, I said RICE CAKES! (Technically, these are made of corn, but close enough.) And thus we have a perfect example of the bizarrely sexualized advertising to be found in Spain. You don't have to speak Spanish to appreciate the TV spot on which this poster is based. What 's the deal with the pantless cowgirl? Or the girl bowling in a swimsuit? Or the seductive nibbling of the corn meal cake? Yes, these girls are “being smarter than hunger” (the spot's tag line) by snacking on something healthy instead of junk food, but it takes a special kind of mind to make eating well so PG-13.

I don't mean to suggest that Bicentury, the company behind the corn cakes, is alone presenting such sexual advertising. I remember seeing an ad for fruit juice several years ago in France that featured a sultry-voiced woman extolling its smooth, creamy texture. Apparently, she was just talking about orange juice.... or was she? Nor is the phenomenon limited to food; an especially egregious ad is this one, which features a nerdy-looking 30-something guy (played by Spanish TV personality Andreu Buenafuente) becoming overly excited about the sales at electronics store. Incredibly, this is not an isolated commercial; MediaMarkt did a whole series of TV and print ads featuring Buenafuente, all with the tagline “El gustazo de comprar a mejor precio”, roughly “The enormous pleasure of shopping at better prices.” Maybe the food ads are somewhat justified; eating can be a sensual experience (though personally, I've never found rice cakes especially enticing). But buying laptops and stereo systems in a giant warehouse? Come on!

This is not to say there aren't similar ads running on American TV. Last week an ad for Beyonce's new fragrance was banned from daytime TV in Britain for being too "sexually provocative". (The Daily Mail's deadpan comment on this: "Any criticism that she is too sexually provocative is likely to enhance rather than harm her earning potential." Love it!) But I do think there is a little something cultural in play. An American ad for rice cakes emphasizing their weight-loss properties would probably feature scientific-sounding jargon or testimonials from people who've dropped several clothing sizes from eating them (think Subway Jared). Seductive, scantily-clad women might be less likely to make an appearance.

I guess all the insinuation and exposed skin make for effective advertising; these commercials are certainly memorable. But I hope public health spots for safe sex, STD testing, family planning and the like are given leeway to be equally direct. If there's going to be that much sex in commercials for rice cakes and electronics, actual information on the subject shouldn't be far behind.

Fall comes to Madrid

A gloomy fall day is the perfect time to visit the Retiro: sloughing ankle-deep through fallen leaves, inhaling the sharp scent of damp earth, magpies flitting between the branches in flashes of black and white and metallic blue. It hasn't rained yet but the leaden clouds hang unusually low over the city, a still, heavy presence that makes sound seem duller, somehow muffled. The children too are quieter, subdued, and the wild cats stalk silently through the grass, undetected amid the refuse of autumn. The only sound, besides occasional footsteps, is the trees shaking free of their summer apparel: a dry creaking from the branches and the air is filled with motion, leaves floating and twirling like a shower of gold coins.

Fiesta de la Trashumancia

On Halloween Day, the center streets of Madrid were overtaken by a parade... of livestock. Yes, in addition to the usual regional costume-wearing dancers and musicians, there were horses, sheepdogs, cows, a bull, and several hundred sheep. The occasion was the 17^th annual Fiesta de la Trashumancia loosely translated as the Festival of the Seasonal Migration of Livestock. Spain is full of vías pecuarias-- old herding paths that are maintained as part of the public domain, traditionally used for livestock but now also popular with hikers, mountain bikers, and horseback riders. I knew a little about this, having worked in a rural school two years ago that was across the street from an old herding path (see photo). But I didn't know that these paths can be found all over the Iberian Peninsula, forming a network of 100,000 km and covering an area equal to 1% of the country. It's fifteen times longer than the railroad system--no small feat considering the reach of the railroad system! And it's been around for a LONG time. Historians believe the seasonal migration of livestock has been happening since the late Paleolithic Era, and the network of vías pecuarias as public land was officially created in 1271.

As for the mechanics, anyone who's ever read Heidi understands the basic idea of trashumancia. When snowy weather began to threaten in the mountains, shepherds led their flocks to lower ground to pass the fall and winter. In summer, the flocks returned to the mountains to graze, thus allowing pastures in both areas time to regrow. It's incredible to realize that for many rural areas of Spain, these traditions are not that remote. A friend in his late 20's told me his great-grandfather herded his sheep this way, and you can sometimes still see animals grazing freely in the mountains or being led by a shepherd in rural areas.

The purpose of the parade, apparently, is to remind people that the vías pecuarias are still a valuable public resource which should be maintained and protected just the way they are: no asphalt, no motorized vehicles, no development. It's an admirable message, and one whose point was amply driven home by surreal presence of so many confused, nervous sheep milling around in the heart of downtown Madrid.

Back to school

Another school year, another chance to speak English to small people who may or may not understand any of what I'm saying. (Just kidding... they understand quite well, for the most part, but sometimes they like to pretend they don't, just like they do in their native language.) I'm working a lot with nursery school students again; in fact, this year I only have two elementary school classes a day. This gives me lots of time to work on learning names (with 375 students in nursery school alone, it's no small task!) and figure out who is playing the typical characters in each class: the English genius kid, the high-energy kid, the zombie kid, the escaped-from-the-zoo kid, the kid with the perpetual runny nose, the saintly, quiet kid, and so on.

Happily, the school has paired me with another language assistant, Beth, which made for a awkward couple of weeks during which the kids screamed, ¨Hola, Laura!!!¨ whenever they saw us together and ignored her completely. Eventually they progressed to trying to say her name ("Bahth! Bet!"), which was pretty entertaining, at least for me… my favorite two guesses were "Vac!" (which also happens to be their translation of vaca, cow) and "Pez!", which means fish. But now they have more or less mastered "Beth", and they're making progress on learning the litany of songs and ridiculous dances we lead them in every day. Some of the three-year-olds have even exchanged their puzzled stares for eye contact, responsive movement and repetition of words. Success!

One of the best things that's happened, though, was a conversation Beth had with a five-year-old girl on the playground during the first week of school. Chatting with the new teacher, the girl stopped and observed in Spanish: "You speak in English all the time!" Beth smiled and agreed, ¨Yes, I speak English.¨ The girl thought a little and came to the most logical conclusion: "I bet Laura taught you how, didn't she?" Like they say in the MasterCard commercials: priceless!

Music, part one

A fact you might not know: France has a law in effect that mandating that between 35-60% of music played on privately owned radio stations must be in French, depending on the type of station. (Stations geared toward “young talent”, which I assume means pop stations, must play 35% French-language music, while stations devoted to traditional French music are mandated a 65% French-language playlist.) When I studied abroad in Nantes, the radio stations got around the law by playing most of the French music in the middle of the night. It was a clever loophole: the daytime airwaves were thereby freed up for more popular imported songs, and the stations followed the letter of the law without losing listeners.

I expected the radio situation here might be similar, but as far as I know, Spain has no such rule. Despite the lack of legislation, though, there is a lot of pop music in Spanish on the radio, and most of it (by my standards at least) is pretty good. Spain, unlike France, has the advantage of being able to import music in the right language from Mexico and South America, which certainly opens up the musical possibilities. This isn’t to say there’s any shortage of music in English--you can easily hear Katy Perry, Beyonce, and even a song I heard a lot in Indiana this summer, “Need You Now,” which is currently number 16 on the Spanish charts and more than a little country. But there’s also a lot of Spanish music that is actually from Spain, and most of it is quite catchy. Three of my current Spanish pop favorites are here, here, and here (this video is truly odd). There are also several flamenco-only radio stations, which are popular among members of the blasting-music-from-vehicles club in the neighborhood where I teach. It's a comforting thing to remember: among the many small trials of living abroad (no bagels, having the verbal élan of an eight-year-old, struggling to determine the proper response when urged to drink liquor at 11AM by a kindly Spanish grandmother), at least there's no shortage of good music.

Basqueiness

At the end of August, I was lucky enough to experience the annual fiestas in a friend's hometown in the Basque Country. My own hometown has a few small festivals, my favorite being a weekend in the fall when the baseball diamonds are taken over by classic midway attractions and dubious-looking rides, but this was a totally different story. For starters, Basque fiestas last for a week. Many of the attractions are things you would expect-- concerts, a parade, fireworks, fair food--but they are accompanied by some very unusual offerings.

The most bizarre item on the agenda was my introduction to "traditional Basque sports," which is more or less synonymous with "lumberjack activities." The classic example is a competition to see who can pick up the heaviest rock (harrijasotzaile). I didn't see this, but I did see an equally odd event pertaining to the subheading of "quarry activities." Teams of three men (though I was pleased to note one team that included a woman) took turns driving a long steel rod into a block of stone. It's a relay event, so after two or three minutes the first person passes the pole to the second teammate, and so on. The object is to drive the most holes into your block of stone. A referee is stationed next to each block with a little metal gizmo he uses to measure the depth of each hole; in order to be counted (thus allowing the team to start bashing a new hole), the hole must be a certain depth. It's a pretty wild thing to see--the participants grunt in a manly way as they wield the steel rods, and the whole parking lot rings with the rhythmic clanging of metal on stone. Little puffs of dust rise up from the blocks where they are being struck; if you stand close enough, you might even get hit with a flying chip of rock. Quite a lot of people from the town had turned out to see the event. After twenty minutes or so (twenty minutes!), time was called, and the winning team was declared. The announcer went on to wish all the competitors luck in their upcoming league events. Yes! Not only does this sport exist, but it's apparently sufficiently popular for there to be a league!

Other highlights included the outdoor concerts (earliest starting time, 11pm; prime-time weekend starting time, 1am), unexpectedly marching in a parade (featuring the traditional Basque dancers and instrumentalists pictured above), and volunteering at a concession stand, where I struggled mightily to understand the clientele:

Man screaming over live Basque-language band: Give me a katxi of beer!
Me: A what?! (This turns out to be a Basque term for "very large beer.")
Tipsy woman: I'd like two kalimoxos! (The most-ordered beverage by far, kalimoxo is one part Coke, one part cheap red wine. Really.)
Particular man: I'd like a (word that sounds like vulture)!
Me: (to native Spanish- and Basque- speaking concession workers) Ummmm, there's a guy here who just ordered a vulture.
Native speakers: Ha! He didn't say vulture, he said (identical-sounding word). That's a mixed drink where you open a bottle of coke, pour out a little, and pour a shot of rum right into the bottle.
Me: Naturally! Right away!

In short, it was a very unique and enjoyable experience which almost made me wish I were Basque, as long as I wasn't expected to participate in traditional sports or drink more than a sip of kalimoxo.

Olive oil

Before moving to Madrid, I was under the misconception that Spanish food might be similar to Mexican, French or Italian food. Now that I've been enlightened, the closest comparison I can make is to stereotypical English food, except that instead instead of boiling or steaming the food in question, here it is fried in olive oil. Use of spices is extremely sparing; garlic, salt, paprika, and parsley are commonly used, plus saffron if you're making paella. And that's about it. Many restaurant tables have a little metal doodad which is clearly intended to hold a salt shaker in one side and a pepper shaker in the other, but instead has... two salt shakers. D'oh! And you can forget about spicy food; ethnic restaurants that would reliably clear my sinuses at home are flavorful here, but somehow... bland. How a culture that considers fried octopus tentacles a delicacy and prides itself on eating all parts of a pig (we're talking ears, intestine, and stomach) is so wimpy on this point defies explanation.

But back to the point. Olive oil is an essential part of traditional Spanish cooking. A quick trip to the local supermarket bears this out; you can literally buy the stuff by the gallon. In my first apartment, I was perplexed and disgusted to find what I took to be some kind of pooper-scooper in the kitchen drawer (see above). I promptly dispatched it to the terrace to serve as a makeshift trowel and forgot about it until a year later when, while watching a friend fry potatoes, I realized it was actually a frying implement. Go figure. My current apartment has no less than six frying pans-- and of course, the requisite pooper-scooper frying tool.

Houses here are also designed with frying in mind. Most kitchens have a large square of ceramic tile on the wall behind the stove, the better to remove oil splatters. It's also normal for every area in your apartment to have a door, including the kitchen, living room, and hallway. This is probably partly to help direct the heat in the summer, but it also helps shut off parts of the house from the penetrating odor of frying. The oven, on the other hand, is a strictly optional appliance; many apartments don't have one at all, and mine heats up to a dubious temperature which is barely conducive to baking. When it's not in use, which is most of the time, I use it (what else?) to store the frying pan collection.

I like fried food as much as anybody, and some Spanish dishes are pretty delicious: fried potatoes, fried green peppers with sea salt, and fried cheese nuggets, for example. (They also all go wonderfully with beer and red wine, which are plentiful here too.) And it's certainly easy to understand why olive oil is such a staple; the soil and climate, especially in the south of Spain, are very conducive to olive trees and not conducive to a whole lot else. But would you go so far as to classify it as vegetable? Take a look at the Spanish food pyramid above. There, next to the fruits and vegetables in the second row is... a jar of olive oil! Yes! And the instruction stipulates that the correct daily intake is three to six servings! Granted, a serving is one tablespoon, and I know olive oil is considered by far the healthiest of the oils. But for my money, oil is oil, and therefore belongs at the top of the food pyramid, not next to the spinach and carrots. It's also worth noting that beer and wine are included in the ok-to-eat-daily section of the pyramid ("consume with moderation"). Yes, Spain is different... but at least it's tasty, and hopefully my arteries aren't suffering too much. I suppose time will tell!

Champions/Campeones!

As I'm sure you remember, Spain won the World Cup on July 11. That was also about the time my computer decided to kick the bucket, and thus when I took a blogging holiday. But it was an incredible time to be in Madrid. My nursery school students arrived at school every morning decked out in miniature red and yellow jerseys, and singing Shakira's "Waka Waka" World Cup theme song was a major part of each day's activities. Since the end of Franco's rule in Spain, overt patriotism has been associated with having fascist sympathies, which means it's not common to see flags or national symbols besides on government buildings.

From a broader perspective, it seems that much of the current dialogue about what it means to be Spanish centers on regional differences. The province of Catalunya has dedicated itself recently to demonstrating that it is cutting-edge, free-thinking, and not necessarily very Spanish; it has its own identity, thank you very much, complete with a widely-used regional language and a recent ban on bullfighting. Then there's the Basque country, which has its own regional language and its own nationalist groups (most infamously the terrorist group ETA). The regions of Galicia and Valencia are promoting their respective regional languages too... and so on and so on.

As a result, seeing all of Spain come together for anything-- even something as seemingly trivial as football--was pretty special. The news was full of clips showing huge, outdoor screens mounted in cities across Spain: Cadiz, Valladolid, Badajoz, Leon. The streets of Madrid were teeming with red-and-yellow wearing, vuvuzela-toting fans at all hours of the day and night. And when the ugly, karate chop-filled game with Holland had come to its end, the country erupted. I live in the middle of downtown Madrid, and it is no exaggeration to say I got very little sleep for two nights on account of the screaming, honking, singing, buzzing din.

I watched the game itself at home with friends, some of whom later headed out with me to partake in the mayhem. The streets were shoulder-to-shoulder with exultant fans, many of them chanting the rhyming cheers so popular in Spain: "Con Villa, Iniesta,/¡esto es una fiesta!" (With Villa and Iniesta--two of the most important scorers for Spain during the World Cup-- this is a party!) Upon emerging from the cobweb of narrow streets near my house (where we witnessed a taxi driver crossing himself very earnestly before heading into the crowds), we found ourselves in the middle of an impromptu dance party in what is normally a busy roundabout. A group of forward-thinking fans had thoughtfully brought their car, equipped with giant speakers and subwoofers in the trunk, and set up an eardrum-pounding discoteca in the intersection. Gradually the crowd surged down the street and deposited us in Plaza del Sol, the ground zero of Madrid's downtown. And it was a sight. Ecstatic fans of all ages, many draped in Spanish flags, were singing, chanting, splashing in the fountains, even scaling the tall statue Carlos III astride a horse that graces the middle of the plaza. The metro itself was shut down all over the center of the city, as were many major streets, leaving spectators little choice but to wander home slowly on foot, continuing to party. I may have failed to emphasize that this was all occurring on a Sunday night starting at 10:30 pm, making it an impressive example of the stamina of true fans. But then again, as many of my coworkers pointed out, celebrating a World Cup victory is a once-in-a-lifetime proposition--it would be foolish to miss out for the sake of one night's sleep. The next day, I walked past my neighborhood newsstand and glanced at the front page of a prominent sports newspaper. Over a photo of the team hoisting the trophy was a simple headline: "God is Spanish!!!" ¡Viva la Roja!