Race day in Albox

I had marked the race on my calendar. Wanting to dive into anything local, I always check the bulletin board at my school. IES Gracia Ramos, the other high school in town, was hosting a 4-km race at 10 on Saturday morning. The thing is, apart from the poster hung in my school, I could find no evidence that this event would occur. I first asked the office staff and the PE teachers at my school, then the Garcia Ramos staff that I can count on seeing every Thursday at the Mirador, and none of them seemed to know what I was talking about.

It had rained Friday night, which I had thought was supposed to be a pretty unusual in Spain’s only desert, but I’m finding that that is not entirely true. It was chilly and overcast in the morning, but not too windy like it can be, so really pretty good weather for running. I jogged across town, arriving at the school a bit after 10, and wandered through the crowd up to the sign-in table. Having been born before ‘92, they fit me into the senior category and I pinned the 986 they gave me to my chest. Some of my 1st year ESO students (11 and 12 year-olds) waiting at the inflatable starting gate for the 2 km route were excited to see their English teacher numbered and ready to run.

Around 10:15 or so I was stretching and checking out the crowd. Mostly students, but the adults that were lined up wore racing jerseys matched with shorts. I told myself I didn’t have to compete with anyone who had a country’s name printed on his jersey. Yeah, I suppose I was the representative for America in this race, but that didn’t need to be advertised.

About 5 minutes later they made the first announcement: 10 minutes. The jersey-clad were doing elaborate warm-ups: running backwards, swiveling their hips and jumping about. Most of the kids were huddled together just trying to stay warm. I would take a little 1-minute jog every 5 minutes, more to stay warm than to explode out of the gates. Around 10:40 we got the first of several 5-minute warnings, and a little after 11:00, without much celebration, the guy with the megaphone dropped his hand and we were off.


By off, I mean sprinting. I’m pretty sure they guys who had Deutschland printed across their chests had a chosen a legitimate pace, but the kids who were trying to keep up had mistaken. I chuckled a bit, it’s easy to get carried away when everyone around you is going so fast. Honestly it was a short enough race that I didn’t need to save my energy, but I just like starting slow. I’m no Prefontaine, and running for me isn’t about putting my guts on the line. I’m out there to enjoy, and it simply feels better to run comfortably. Also, mentally, it’s a lot more satisfying to pass that gaggle of winded blowhards than it is to be among them watching a relaxed, easy-breathing jogger slowly warming up to a faster pace ahead of me.


I don’t want to exaggerate about the organization of this event, it was fine, but if there’s a split in your race, you really ought to have a sign telling runners where to go, or at least a volunteer standing in to do the job. As we wound down the ramp, blindly entering the rambla, the bodies ahead of me picked a direction, left or right. I knew that one group must be the kids 2-km, and I had been expecting a split at some point, but I had never seen the route on a map before we began. In that moment both groups of runners appeared to be more or less the same size and quickly looking back and forth between the fleeing groups wasn’t helping. I started to the right, following the majority, but then came to a full stop puzzling through the possible routes. It seemed that the right path aimed back towards the starting gate while the left path could be a blind loop that added the extra two km. I moved back to the split and just jogged in place as racers of seemingly equivalent sizes continued to split in either direction. Finally, after one of those periods of time that seems a lot longer than it probably was, a couple of my 1st year ESO kids came and chose the right path, giving me more confidence about a turn to the left.

My decision proved to be the correct one when the race leaders whizzed by in the other direction. At the end of this extra loop there were about 4 volunteers with stopwatches, clipboards and pencils, carefully noting our race numbers to make sure no one was shortcutting the route. Why couldn’t one of them have been stationed at the split?

I made the turn, and on my return route found myself pretty much alone in the gap between those incredi-fasts and the high school kids who had run out of steam. I waved to a few familiar faces: the PE teacher from our school (why wasn’t he running?), a couple ladies from the choir and some of the younger kids who were waiting at the finish line for high-fives.

This wasn’t a big enough event for chip timing, but my watch obligingly filled the part: 20:12. I picked up a juice box and an orange and made my walk home. Not such a bad way to start a Saturday.

Baking Bread

I want to keep posting. I just don’t do it. I have plenty of stories and I often think about how I might write them, but then I stall, and before long it seems like old news. So that loaf from the other day came out of nowhere; it was my attempt to jumpstart. I wanted to post something without writing anything, like a cannonball into cold water, but now it’s time to try swimming.

Cooking has been a part of my life in Spain, the produce is fresh and cheap, I have a (meagerly) stocked kitchen, and both time and interest. With long to-do lists and the general busyness back home, investing time in cooking didn’t make much sense. Now, I think of it as a creative hobby. Some paint, others write—but I get to eat my work. From an economical perspective, baking bread doesn’t actually save me any dough when it’s 1.20 € at the Mercadona for three French loaves, but I’m having fun, and I’m learning something useful.

Trying a new dish is always a little intimidating as recipes, even simple ones, are filled with all kinds of jargon that cooking newbies like me just don’t understand. Breads moreso. You’ve gone beyond cutting, mixing and heating. Now you’ve got little living buggers to feed and keep warm just so they raise your dough. No amount of reading will clarify the difference between a sticky, tacky, firm, very wet, or just-so dough. Kneading seems a little abstract as well. What could be easily demonstrated just doesn’t work in text.

With time, my resolve conquered doubt and I set out to try what seemed to be a very simple and straightforward recipe. Consulting my dictionary, I needed levadura, yeast. The Mercadona stocked little black boxes next to the flour sacks that were clearly labeled levadura en polvo above an image of muffins. It must mean like smashed yeast or something, I thought. Yeast dust. Seems right.

But, my bread didn’t rise. I had come to check on it between classes (remember I live right across the street from my school) and I’m theorizing: hmm, it is pretty cold in the apartment, maybe leaving it out in the sun will help? Still nothing. Then I’m wondering about the front of that little box, do you even make muffins with yeast? I’m reading the instructions on the back more carefully and the word química worries me. Wordreference confirms my suspicion, levadura en polvo=baking powder.

So this thing’s not going to rise. If I were making a quick bread from the start I could have put it in the oven right after mixing, but it’s too late now. Not wanting to waste the dough, I’m thinking: keep it basic, I have wet flour and I want bread. I need to make it hot. I heat up a skillet and make what turns out to be pretty decent fry bread. Something like Indian naan. So far, even the big kitchen goof ups have been edible.

In the following weeks, realizing I had baking powder on hand, I made a couple of loaves of beer bread. Quick breads turned out to be both easy and tasty, not a bad combination. My roommates at least approved, and at one of our dinner parties I got the observant comment “Mmm, you can really taste the beer in here.” But I still hadn’t had a good yeast bread.


Then I went to Barcelona. (This is supposed to have something to do with Spain after all, and it does, kind of.) I had planned to meet a friend from Sevilla for a long weekend we had at the beginning of December. I found a small, highly rated place to stay on hostelbooker.com and was set for a fun weekend.

The hostel was small, about 20 people, with the striking majority coming from Australia. The receptionist immediately responded to me in English despite my Spanish greeting, which seemed odd to me at the time. I had had the same experience in Granada, surrounded by an island of English speakers in the midst of a Spanish-speaking city. I later accounted for this peculiarity in the community kitchen. The others had also picked this hostel for it's high ratings on hostelbooker. I guess not too many Spaniards log onto this English website when looking for travel lodging.

Nonetheless, it was a good group of young, twenty-somethings and being a small place as it was, we all naturally spoke and got to know each other. Some were traveling for weeks, some for months, while others were taking a weekend away from a study abroad university and two girls were language assistants in Austria just as I am in Spain. And then there was the seemingly out-of-place, portly, white-haired man. He was always mixing something up in the kitchen, a little bit in his own world, but just as content as could be. When he found I’d studied nutrition, he had all kinds of questions and advice for me. He believed young people today don’t eat as much fish as they should, and described what a simple and wonderful dish can be found in lentils and rice. He wanted to know whether I thought wine was healthy. He explained that he enjoyed being around young people, that he had a couple days off from work and had come to Barcelona (from France) just to cook and walk around the city. He wouldn’t be joining the crew leaving for the bars, (around 11:30 in Barcelona) he was just enjoying a little break the ordinary.

And the young people loved him. It was probably his always upbeat, calm demeanor. The fact that he had chosen to stay in a dorm with a bunch of kids clearly speaks to his character. Or, it could be that he made and shared bread everyday. Good bread. Crispy crust, soft crumb, he pulled a beautiful loaf out of the oven every afternoon. There’s really nothing to it, he would say. "Just flour and a little yeast with a bit of salt. And water of course." Nothing complicated about it. Of course everyone loved free, fresh bread from the old French guy. But I wanted him to show me how.

And he happily obliged. It’s so simple really. Add enough water to make the flour wet, let it rise for a long time, overnight is good, and bake it until done. Can’t argue with that. There wasn’t one concrete instruction, but watching him work, feeling the temperature of the water and seeing how he shaped the loaf filled the gaps left by even self-described “idiot-proof” recipes. He explained he got the minimalist idea from New York Times’ Mark Bittman.

He was right. It can be pretty easy to make good bread. It’s also plenty easy to mess one up, as I did immediately after baking that beauty by storing it in plastic. The moist crumb and the crisp crust got too friendly leaving the whole thing soggy and uninspiring.

Merry Christmas

I’m staying in Spain over the holidays. Seeing family and friends would be so refreshing, but I’m sticking with my immersion. Unfortunately, the Spaniards I know (the young teachers) have gone home to see their families. On the other hand, my choir connections are serving me well. The younger family members of the Moms and Grandfathers I sing with are coming to town, so I won't be alone.

From the outset, I should just say that Christmas is celebrated a little differently here. It sounds obvious, but a forewarning is due. Back home, Christmas is a pretty peaceful, if not boring day. For the kids with their new toys it can be pretty exciting, but as you get older, the new toys are less enticing and what you really want to do is see friends. But, it seems taboo to call them to go out, so you wait until the 26th when you can continue as normal.

In Spain, Santa Claus doesn’t come around on Christmas. So back when you were seven and wondering how he could possibly make it to every house in one night, (even if you understood that the time zones could give him an edge) he skipped Spain. The presents don’t come until the 5th of January, and they’re not in St. Nick’s pack, it’s the wise men that bring them. So since the boys and the girls aren’t over-eagerly trying to sleep in anticipation of presents, they’re out at the nightclubs and bars. That’s right. As was explained to me, Christmas Eve is celebrated pretty much like New Year’s Eve in Spain.

After the midnight mass I meet Joaquim and Fran, the sons of a singing mom, and we head to a small bar where they are reunited with childhood friends. I’m introduced to too many people, drinks are shared, and good times are had. But I simply don’t have the staying power for an all-night party like the Spaniards do. By 5 in the morning, I’ve had me fun and I’m ready for bed. I curiously ask what times the others thought they would be turning in. 6? 7? Yeah, of course, it's Christmas. 9? 10? I never got a solid answer. Only shrugs and indifferent expressions that told me they would go home when they were finally tired, and from the looks of it, that wouldn’t be anytime soon.


I haven’t been posting quite as often as I’d set out to, and I’d like to fix that. With my time off I plan to put up at least a couple more entries, and then to continue more regularly in the New Year. I do enjoy writing, but I’m still hesitant about the blogging space. I feel exposed. I’m not exactly the person you’d see competing to get on a cheap TV show. And on the other hand, I didn’t even know if there were readers. That was, until my posting waned. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with requests to keep blogging. It really makes a difference. So please, leave a comment once in a while so I know you’re reading.

Bread

I am so proud of the bread I just made.


That is all.

There's Life Outside Your Apartment

About two weeks ago I was feeling down about my efforts to get involved and push my language skills. I had fallen into a comfortable groove: I was content with my job and my free time (much of it more or less internal (cooking, reading, exercising)), but I needed something of a kick in the pants to get out of the routine and into new situations. Sure it is nice to have a free afternoon to relax at home, but sometimes you just have to realize “There’s Life Outside Your Apartment” –Ave Q (I thought this show was funny while I was in college, but from the far side I appreciate each song in a new way).

So I set out on foot one afternoon, no particular goal in mind, just to see what’s out there. Just before marching out of town (carefree wandering can’t last too long in a town that could fit inside a smaller cornfield) I found my way into one of the last cafébars where I tried (barely) to start conversation with the only two patrons who were chatting in mumbled Andaluz with the bartender. As I left, I wondered if I had really gained anything useful from sitting in a café by myself. I could have made my own cup of coffee (and refilled it!) and saved myself a buck. I told myself it was worthwhile, despite lacking any evidence, and began home. En route, I poked my nose around a bit, peering into the ubiquitous cafébars and figuring out which ones were populated by the English folks and which belonged to the Spanish, building a mental schema of the town. Some of my students were playing a game of pool in one; a sign advertising “Latin Dancing Lessons” decorated the door of another. Okay, here’s a chance to get out there, to meet some locals. The beginner lessons are on Monday. I marked my calendar.

Content with something to show for my afternoon, I continued up the hill to my piso. Around a familiar corner, I saw a prominent sign I had never noticed: Escuela Municipal de Musica. Hmmm. I wonder what happens there? It was about 7 or 8 and the sun was already down, so I was surprised to see people inside as I approached. Sigue I told myself, and I continued right on inside. I could hear some beginning flutists and pianists filling the air with what could marginally be called music, when I was approached by a woman with a big head of frazzled, curly hair. Moment of truth.

I find it’s best to spit something out as soon as possible when trying to speak a foreign language. This strategy doesn’t make it any easier, but if I get it in my head that I’m going to speak correctly, time stretches out and I freeze up. I can’t come up with anything. Usually all that is understood from my first words is that I don’t speak very much Spanish, so there’s no point in overthinking it. Once I’ve convinced them that I’m clueless but that I’m going to keep talking anyways, I can usually slip some significant words into my babbling and eventually convey a message. If nothing else, my transmission attempts end with my unfortunate communication partner at least understanding that they are going to have to dumb it down for me, and that’s enough.

Anyways, I came away understanding that I could sign up for private instrument lessons for just 20 euros a month and that there was a band and a choir that I could join for free. Guay. These were the opportunities that I wasn’t going to find in my relaxing afternoons at the apartment.

Two weeks later I’ve been to my first piano lesson, two lenguaje classes (and let me just say that while music is often thought to be a universal language, somehow the Spanish music lenguaje seems to be at odds with the theory I’ve learned at home) and I’ve found my place in the back row of the Albox choir. At last, I found a way to Americanize the tranquil life I had been enjoying so much.


*The dance lessons flopped. I returned on Monday, but peering through the beads (many shops prefer this relic from the 70’s to a front door for a reason that I haven’t quite yet figured out) I could see that the three elderly English couples, while probably perfectly friendly, were not the folks I had come to Spain to meet.

Weekend in Granada

Man, this thing can really get away from me. It’s already been a week and a half since Granada. On the drive home my mind was awhirl with ideas enough for a book, but they just kind of stewed and never made it into text, until now I guess.

First, by the time I got to Granada it was already worth the trip. As an NHRI counselor, I learned the value of car time for conversations, and that is no less true in Spanish. I communicate in the apartment with Frenk, my ride to Granada, but it is always in a very functional, goal-directed manner (Have you had dinner? Are you done in the bathroom? What time are you going to the gym?) In the car, I had her trapped—a 2.5 hour private Spanish lesson. And I got to know so much better to boot.

She’s a real person. So many of the people I end up meeting here are so simplistic, so easily characterized and predictable. They like pop music, movies and TV, they like drinking and smoking, they find nothing wrong with blantent sex appeal and simple fatty, salty sweet junk food. Frenk is cool. We talked about the problems in the school, and without being able to pinpoint a central cause, respect, motivation, uninspiring curuclum and the classroom environment have made it so that many of her high school students haven’t read much of anything, can’t spell many common words, and simply haven’t developed an ability to think for themselves. Modernity. She had been a vegetarian before, and many of her friends work on a gardening co-op, sharing the work of growing their own vegetables. She’s a big reader, and probably could be considered somewhat of a environmental hippy. So she’s cool.

Then, Granada. Man, I need to make effort get out more because Albox just isn't Spain. My short weekend was so full of new experiences and memories that I just can’t hope to describe them all here. We’ll take a summary tour, and then if you’re interested, you can ask me about it later.

I stayed in the Albayzín, a historic neighborhood across from the Alhambra and filled with Arabic teashops and all kinds of neat clothes. Seriously, I thought it might be time to reinvent my style.


At the hostel (a din of foreigners, English-speaking foreigners) I signed up for a tour with a wacky English fellow where I ended up meeting a group of world-travelers.


Over tapas after the walk, a group of us decided to get together that night to watch the sunset from the caves over the Albayzín (where our guide recommended the girls spend some time if they were looking for a boyfriend with a dog and a van). Yep caves. And people live in them. Not like Fred Flintstone or Conan, these folks have electricity and running water in their hillside dugouts. So 8 of us, after much deliberation about whether or not we would be too late to see the the sunset, were in fact too late to see the sunset. But we wandered up to the caves anyways. Fun.


Sunday was my day to see the Alhambra, and I decided to head up there with Ewa, a tired-out medical resident from Poland. She was sweet, but I could tell she was dreading her return to a pretty hectic lifestyle. Still, we enjoyed the day in the palaces and gardens of old Moorish kings.


Here’s where things get interesting: at about 5:00, I get a text from Frenk saying that the bus route I was planning on taking to her town doesn’t run on Sunday nights. I had planned on staying with her and leaving at the crack o’ dawn so she would be back for her 8:15 classes, but now she was suggesting that I take a cab. Not exactly my idea of a buck well spent. At this point I needed: a place to stay and a ride to Albox. I didn’t want to spend anymore dinero than I needed to, as I figured I was pretty much done with my trip. A 30 or 40 Euro taxi ride could do the job, but I had a couple of ideas up my sleeve.

It so happened that my neighbor Charlotte was also in Granada this weekend and staying with friends. She had class tomorrow too, so perhaps she could help me out. At the end of a short phone call I hadn't solved either problems, but we did have plans to meet for a coffee at 9:00 (2 notes: phones here charge by the minute so people tend to be quite brief, and Charlotte and I speak in my (still) limited Spanish.) So I relax, no need to worry, surely I will get everything sorted out over a cup of Joe.

Earlier in the weekend I sat down with my guidebook and marked interesting restaurants, cafés, bars etc. on my map so I would know the best spots to hit when the opportunity arose. All weekend I hadn’t had a chance to try them out, so I decided that this three-hour window would be a nice chance to treat myself to a good meal.

Well, the first couple of restaurants were closed (Ah, it was only 6:00, way too early for dinner. Try back at 8:30 I learned from a hotel lobby) So I instead set out for Anaïs Café, described as “a bar for bookworms with a penchant for imbibing, literary evenings and tarot readings, as well as mindless fun.” Nearby I found an unmentioned but seemingly good enough “Bohemian Jazz Café”, but the Anaïs Café eluded me. Some combination of the desire to complete what I had set out to do and a curiosity to figure out with that description actually meant kept me searching. Eventually I learned that: 1. The name had changed, 2. It was now in a new location, which ultimately proved to be 3. closed. So back to the good enough Jazz Café. And it was:


I made it to the appointed mall on time to meet Charlotte, and I was practicing my Spanish explanation of what I needed when she arrived with her friends. As I followed them upstairs, I explained too good-heartedly what a pickle I had found myself in, and apparently wasn’t conveying the message that I needed her help. Before getting anything sorted out we ended up in a pretty loud bar. As I tried again to explain my position, Charlotte confusedly asked if I perhaps needed a coffee. No! I thought tomar un café meant we were going to settle down and chat about our weekends in a coffee shop, I didn’t come to the bar because I was wanted coffee!

Eventually, she agreed that maybe I should call Roberto and ask for a ride, and she gave me his number. Busy. Busy. Aargh! At this point I should mention that I have my traveling backpack with me, and as I enter and leave the bar the security guards are giving me the strangest looks. Okay, so maybe I should go look for a taxi for Huétor Santillán? Try once more.

Success! "No problem" he says, "sure." Okay, so a place to stay. Veronica. She studied in Sevilla with me, and I happened to know she was living in something of a convent with 8 University students. "Sure," she says. As she tries to explain where she lives (and my battery light is blinking dangerously at me, I like living on the edge) my eyes scramble over the map. "Okay, so it’s a street parallel to Calle Reyes Catolicos?" At last, they strike the name they're looking for, and one of my earlier markings pops out. "Do you know the Rincón de Michael Landon? Yes? Let’s meet there."


This has got to be my favorite detail of the weekend. After much tribulation, the fact that this little “nook” plays a role in guiding me through still makes me laugh. How could this gem not make it to my map: “In the midst of Granada’s student life, this funny bar is dedicated to retro kitsch and the bizarrely cult star of The Little House on the Prairie.”

Relaxing life in Albox

My approach to this year is a bit different than many of my fellow teachers. In Sevilla, our conversation often drifted to travel plans, and nearly everyone intends to see as much as they can. Don’t want to waste an opportunity. How can you pass on the 20-euro fare to see Madrid, Valencia, or Barcelona? Not to mention the 40-euro Ryanair ticket to Morroco, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Poland, the UK, Scandinavia, and on, and on, and on. . .

I guess my outlook is a bit different. I came here to sink into my community, to learn about the culture by participating in it, and above all, to slow down. While this experience doesn’t lend itself to the same kind of exciting stories, it instead maintains a subtle pleasantness. Certainly I can’t claim to have conquered something as vague and non-distinct as “participating in the culture” and I honestly have a long way to go before I’ve “sunk into the community”, but I can unequivocally say I have enjoyed slowing down.

My work schedule, while a bit flexible and unpredictable, bears no resemblance to what I might be doing were I in the US. True, I’ll have teachers asking me to join their next class, sans-preparation, when I’m just about to head home, but at the end of the week, I’ve rarely been at the school more than twenty hours, and of those, only about 8-12 actually in class. And so more than anything, I’ve loved having time to read, to cook, to sleep without an alarm, to sign up for Yoga and Judo classes, and to do it all without careful planning or scheduling. (Yeah, I guess I am bragging.) Advice to manage stress by squeezing an extra “stress-relieving” activity into an already overbooked day has always struck me as a bit odd.

So I’m planning to spend most of my time here in Albox whether or not it has the historical castles, cathedrals, gardens, the nightclubs or the movies (it does not). That said, I don’t have to go and be an extremist about it. In fact, I've just returned from my first weekend trip, Granada. Stories forthcoming.