Observations

I’ve decided to make a list of things I’ve noticed about Spain. It could be cultural differences, traditions, the habits of the people, the fashion, food, what’s on TV etc… I’m going to update this post whenever I think of something to add to the list.

Since I spent most of the last 3 days in the house with a cold, I spent a lot of time watching TV and looking down on the street below from my terrace. One of the few trips out was to the grocery store which was very unsuccessful. However, I was directed 2 stores down to the local chino shop where I found everything I needed and more.

1. Spanish people call people of Asian descent and stores that they own and run “chino”. It is not considered derogatory, that’s just the way it is.

2. The chino shops are filled with anything from earrings, clothes, and shoes, to towels and pillows, to laptop bags, to clothes pins and hangers, USB memory keys, to converters to…well you name it, it’s in my local chino shop.

3. The grocery store Lidl, is a sad excuse for a grocery store.

4. MTV in Spain is still playing shows that no one even watched when they were on MTV in the States like 7 years ago. Namely, ‘Exposed’, ‘Punk’d’, ‘Date My Mom’…you get the gist. Oh and bonus- they’re dubbed into Spanish. And I thought Bolivia was bad with MTV playing ’16 and Pregnant’ non-stop. Well at least it had subtitles.

5. The most recent season of Jersey Shore is on. Yay! But it’s dubbed into Spanish. *tear*. But my roommate figured out how to use the remote control and set it back into original language. Yay!

6. The Spanish online banking system is the most confusing thing ever. I needed 5 PINs just to access my online account, and then in the opening page it asked me to change and personalize some. Then, when I signed out I couldn’t figure out how to sign back in.

7. I discovered a better supermarket near by called Dia, so now I can do my shopping there and only go to Lidl to stock up on Guarana, the Brazilian soda that they awesomely have here in Spain.

8. Everyone rides bikes here. Ok, well not everyone since a good portion of the population seems to be over 60 here, but bikes are popular. There are Sevici bikes which are Sevilla bicis, bikes you can rent for free for 30 min at a time and leave at certain locations all over the city. All you need to do is pay an annual subscription fee of 25 euros. I’m thinking of hopping on that bandwagon..or should I say bike.

…to be continued

Eine Maß Bier, Bitte

If you haven’t guessed from the title, this post is about Oktoberfest. Also, you may be interested to know, the title includes more German words than I used the whole weekend. I would say at this point it is Epic Fail for languages other than Romance Languages for me. Holding up an empty liter mug and raising my eyebrows seemed to work wonders. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

So at some point during the summer, when I actually had some money in my bank account, I decided to plan a couple of trips for while I’m in Europe. Oktoberfest seemed like one of those “things you have to do”, well at least it was a new addition to my bucket list. Thinking back, I don’t even remember considering going to Oktoberfest when I was living in Florence, Italy in the fall of 2005. I looked at flight prices on “cheap” airlines like Ryan Air and it just seemed absurdly difficult and expensive to get from Spain to Germany. (They’re actually kind of far away!) One of my good friends from home, Martina, lives in Munich, so I knew if I made it there I at least had a place to crash. Things were looking awfully pricey when I started doing my research, so I kind of swept the idea under the table because I also really wanted to go to Barcelona for Sensation, an electronic music event. A couple of weeks later, a guy from my program mentioned he was going to Oktoberfest. I blame him for putting the idea back in my head. In any case I looked again, found a little more reasonable flight out of Malaga to Memmingen with Ryan Air and impulse bought it. Well it wasn’t quite an impulse buy, but it kind of was because as soon as I saw a flight cheaper than the ones I’d found before I just bought it. All in all, I’m glad I did. It was great seeing Martina again, Munich is a really cool city, and Oktoberfest was a trip! I won’t go into detail about getting there, but boy was it a hike. Sevilla to Malaga to Memmingen to Munich and then back 3 days later.

I ended up going to Oktoberfest with Martina and a bunch of her friends from Northeastern who are dispersed through Europe and the States for their various jobs. Soo jealous of the ones with “real” jobs in Europe. I say “real” because the one I’m starting next week is only 12 hours a week for 8 months. Anyway, I didn’t get the memo that people are serious about wearing dirndl and lederhosen, traditional Bavarian outfits, at Oktoberfest, so unfortunately I was the only one with the wrong attire on. Nana enlightened me yesterday that she actually owns a dirndl from a Euro trip decades ago, so I’ll have to take that with me if I ever go again!

Thursday evening I took a train from Sevilla to Malaga and was pleasantly surprised to find that I live less than a 10 minute walk from the Santa Justa train station. How convenient. Arriving in Malaga my first impression, honestly, was that it was a shithole. It was early evening but many stores were shut (it wasn’t during siesta though), there was non-artistic graffiti everywhere, trash on the streets etc.  I know it’s a huge city with beaches near-by and the area around train stations in many cities are pretty crappy, so I won’t make any real judgements until I go back to visit for a weekend and have someone show me around. I have actually heard nice things about Malaga. I walked with my duffel bag to the hostel (like a 20 min walk) which I’d read good reviews about but it also pretty much sucked when I got there. I swore I had booked a room with a bathroom in it but that was not the case. It faced a noisy street (which actually I can’t complain about because I lived in NYC and I don’t really mind traffic noise), and ironically the front desk dude didn’t speak any Spanish. In fact, he was a riot, and I spent the whole check-in process laughing in disbelief. I suppose since I’m about to give the blow-by-blow, I’ll spare the name of the hostel but feel free to ask me if you want non-recommendations later. I buzz to get in the door and this guy comes down and opens it and says “hello” and I say “wow” *sigh* “it’s that obvious that I speak English?” and he just shrugs and says “nope, I don’t speak Spanish!”. Well hmmmm that’s interesting. After walking up the stairs, I asked him a couple of questions while he was checking me into my room. What I gathered is that he’s Romanian, speaks Italian, lived in Italy for a while, had to leave Italy for some reason like he couldn’t find a job or something, ended up in Spain, hates Spain- the people and the food, and refuses to learn Spanish. My first impression was how hilarious that all was, my second thought was ‘what fool hired this guy to work at reception in a hostel?’. Romanian is another Romance Language, and coming from someone who already speaks Italian, I know how easy it is to pick up Spanish. But I guess, if you hate a place that much, you may refuse to immerse yourself in the language and culture. I had to chuckle at his comment on Spanish food though, because honestly I’ve been living on jamon y queso sandwiches for the last week, and if I don’t see a vegetable soon I might go crazy. But at least I knew the deal before coming here. Some Eastern European-sounding massive blonde man seemed to work there as well. They spared me from paying the key deposit, saying that since I was leaving before 5am to catch a taxi to the airport that I should just leave the key at the front desk before 1am and then just leave when I have to and not worry about getting the deposit back. That all made sense at the time, but later, not so much. I asked for some recommendations of places to go grab some dinner and the Romanian guy said he really didn’t know but he’d heard that this and that area were good, but he cooks all his food at home. He raved about Italian food, which I can understand, coming from a fellow Italophile, but his utter apathy and obvious dislike for all things Spanish were quite shocking although entertaining as well. Had I been some tourist in Spain for the first time I would have been very disconcerted after talking to him. Anyway, after eating some gross pasta at some overpriced place in the historic center, I chatted with a nice Brazilian guy in the bunk bed below me (one of the many I’ve encountered in the last few days). I went to sleep and woke up to my alarm at 4:30am. The hostel guys had ordered a taxi for me for 4:45am the night before but, when I was all ready to go, I couldn’t get out of the front door of the hostel. In most Spanish buildings there is a button to press that is a buzzer that lets you out. I swear I looked eeeeeeeeverywhere and there was no such thing. Come to find out you had to have the hostel key at night to get in and go out. Fire hazard much?? It was already time for me to be outside waiting for the taxi and I started freaking out that I was stuck in the hostel and that if the taxi left I wouldn’t be able to find another one and I’d miss my flight. I ended up having to run upstairs and wake the Brazilian guy to use his key to get out the door and then run downstairs and stick something in the door to prop it open and run back upstairs to return the key to him. Thank you Brazilian guy whose contact info I don’t have!! )Maybe I should have added him on facebook?) After an expensive taxi ride (I was charged 5 euros for how long it took me to get out the hostel door) I did make my flight and arrived in Memmingen.

In Memmingen I found out the bus to Munich is almost a 2 hour ride. ‘Good’ I thought, ‘I’ll get some more sleep’. No such thing! They sold beer on the bus and it ended up being a party bus at 9:30am with a bunch of Spanish guys yelling and clapping Flamenco songs. I met a few Americans and Canadians and just talked with them. No beer for me that early, gracias. Little did I know what was coming the following day. That Friday was chill, Martina’s friends arrived from all over and we went out for Ethiopian food which was amazing. I ordered a vegetarian plate and it was delicious and I have no idea what I ate.

Saturday morning we woke up before the crack of dawn, 5am to be exact, to get to one of the many Oktoberfest tents and get in line in order to get in. Although each tent fits over a thousand people, they fill up, and one often has to wait like 2-3 hours after arriving just to make it in. We got a bit lost on the walk and ended up having to job half the way to still get in line early. When we arrived at the tent and got in line there weren’t too many people ahead of us but it sure filled up quickly and the sun wasn’t even out yet. The doors don’t open until 9am. For Germans I must say the organization outside that tent was horrendous. They kept switching which side of the pathway the line was on and so everyone would push and shove and lose their place in line. It was kind of scary because it was like a stampede, complete with crushed glass beer bottles being trampled in the rush to get back in line. A couple of people in line were pre-gaming the fest with the aforementioned bottled beer they brought. I did not partake. I’m not quite sure the point of pre-gaming liter mugs of beer. Won’t that do the trick? When we finally got in and dibsed a table and half of another, a guy came around selling massive pretzels (breakfast) and an hour later the first liter mugs of beer were served. The majority of Oktoberfesters were in outfits and the men and women serving the beer were too. They (the servers) were amazing! Not the outfits, the fact that they carried 10-12 liters at one time. Sadly I did not manage to take a photo, but they hold 4 or 5 in each hand by the handle and balance one in the middle. I can barely lift one! It took me two hands to drink it. That’s got to be about 100 lbs that they carry using basically their wrists. Ouch. Quite a few of them actually had wrist braces on as well, no kidding. After most people had gotten their first beer, people all over the tent started standing on the benches one at a time and chugging the entire liter. To explain better, every couple of minutes, some guy, or even once or twice, a girl (you go girl!), would stand up on the bench and begin to chug amidst claps and screams from the crowd, if they finished the whole tent erupted in cheers, if they didn’t, they sat down to boos. It was totally insane. I’ve never seen anything like it. We were in the tent from 9am to 5pm, when the tables are reserved for other groups, then we wandered around the area outside the tents where tons of other people were stumbling around beer-in-hand. One of Martina’s friends even managed to smuggle out 3 giant mugs under her dirndl as souvenirs. That weekend of Oktoberfest is considered ‘Italian weekend” because so many Italians go. I met at least 10 Italians from Trento which I thought was really random. I spoke a lot of Italian and on Monday when I got back to Spain it took me all day to get back into Spanish mode. Usually that doesn’t happen, but I was running on an average of 5 hours of sleep a night for a couple of nights. When we got back to the apartment that night we were exhausted, and almost everyone was asleep by midnight. No after-party festivities that day!

Sunday was another calm day, we went out for typical Bavarian food and later Israeli food (love the diversity in Germany). In the afternoon we checked out Englischer Garten, an enormous park bigger than Central Park. In one of the rivers that runs through it, there were man-made (I assume?) waves and people were surfing. It was unbelievable. Imagine surfers in Central Park! We should start that. I want to learn how to surf. Then later that day most people left. Monday was another early morning for the long trip back to Sevilla. Monday night was the beginning of one and a half day CIEE orientation.

Está disponible? No? Oh…hasta luego.

Out of everything about moving to Spain, the only thing I was really nervous about was finding an apartment. No matter what anyone from CIEE (the program I used to apply for the job as an Auxiliar de Conversacion) told me about how it would only take a couple of days, I just couldn’t wrap my head around that. Finding an apartment in New York City took me an entire summer. I spent every moment of free time and some not-free time looking for apartments while doing an internship the summer before Senior year of college and it was one of the most stressful summers ever.

I had booked 4 nights at the Sevilla Urbany Hostel in the historic center of Sevilla. 4 nights was my limit to find an apartment because the weekend after I arrived I had plans to go to Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany. Had it not been for those plans I probably would not have been so worried, however I still wasn’t keen on spending much time sharing a hostel room with 5 random people and having nowhere to lock up my luggage because they couldn’t fit in the lockers. Everyone I had spoken to prior to arriving in Spain had different suggestions about how to find an apt. Mainly it was check out a couple of websites, make contacts and then visit them once you are there. The main site that I used was easypiso.com. I paid 14 euros in order to be a Premium Member because members can access the phone numbers of the people who post the ads and free users can only email them. It’s totally a scam for money but once arriving in Spain and getting a phone number it was much easier to just call than wait for an email back, so I was glad I paid. In 2 days I saw about 12 apartments. The very first one I went to I thought was THE ONE but after calling back an hour after seeing it, it had already been rented. I had chosen to arrive in Sevilla a week before orientation thinking that it would give me time to find an apt and then relax, but what I didn’t know was that it was rush time for Erasmus students studying abroad in Sevilla. They were all on the apt hunt as well because classes were starting the following week. At least 20 apts that I called to go see were already rented out and the posts had not been taken down off the website. The apt that I first saw and liked was in the Macarena barrio which is supposed to be a hip neighborhood, and it had 3 Spanish girls living there. The building was beautiful and across from a church down a little street. It was very disappointing not to get it because I really didn’t want to go on a crazy apt hunt but c’est la vie. Apts either included or did not include the following things when they were in the 200-300 euro for a piso compartido (shared apt) price range: internet, los gastos (water, light, gas), washing machine, dish washer, terrace, and la comunidad (building maintenance fees). Ideally you wanted one in your price range that included the majority of those things. Mostly it was not common to have a dish washer, no apt I saw had dryers, all had washing machines, and many had the base price not including los gastos which cost about an extra 50 euros per month even after dividing the bill with roommates. I spent the 2 days of my searching running around the city from apt to apt, map and list of questions in hand. The 3rd day I found one that was pretty good, and I was just tired of looking, so I took it. It was more than what I wanted to spend but my bed is some size between individual and double, I have a mini balconey and the apt has a big one to hang clothes to dry, and it has 2 bathrooms and internet already set up. The other thing about apts here is most have no contract, so if I decide in a few months that I hate it, I can leave. One strange thing about the apt I chose was that while all the others I had seen were rapidly filling up, this one had 4 empty rooms so I got the pick of the litter. So if you see me blogging about ghosts in a few weeks, that’s probably why…can’t figure out what else is wrong with it. Anyway after returning from Germany 2 of the rooms were filled. Although I really wanted to living with Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese speakers, my roommates are an American doing the same job that I am here, and a German girl, and they both seem very nice.

Off to Spain

I’m usually a very good packer. I start way ahead of time and add things into the suitcases bit by bit and by the day before the trip I’m already all packed and ready to go. This was not the case for my move to Spain. I’m not sure why but something in my subconscious was fighting against this move. Don’t get me wrong, I was excited to go, in fact I couldn’t wait to get out of Ithaca, as is usually the case. It’s nice being home with my family and my best friends but something about being in Ithaca after college feels like regressing, like I took a step forward and then a leap back. I know many others are in the same position but…well I digress. I really only wanted to bring one suitcase, but I soon found out that was not realistic. So I lay out 2 large suitcases and immediately became bummed about how much it was going to suck to lug them through the airports. My flight plans were as follows: Ithaca to Newark on USAirways, via Philly. 2 hour wait in Philly just in case something got delayed, so that I didn’t miss my flight to Newark. 6 hours wait in Newark and then a flight on TAPPortugal to Lisbon, then an hour wait there, then a flight to Sevilla. Originally I only had the Newark flight, but after some discussion, the family decided it was better taking a flight from Ithaca than driving or taking the bus 5 or so hours to Newark with my massive bags (that were exactly, if not a bit over the 50lbs weight limit). Usually, my flight experiences are not worth mentioning, however on this trip a couple of interesting things happened.

I arrived in what I assumed would be plenty of time to catch my flight out of Ithaca. I already paid my $60 fee for my 2 bags (not even one is free anymore??) and I had my boarding passes in hand. I mentioned that my final destination was Sevilla on another airline, and the woman behind the desk informed me that I could have my bags checked all the way because of some baggage agreement between the airlines. Well hallelujah! I had never heard of that brilliant idea before. My monster suitcases checked through 4 flights? Yes, please. She just needed my reservation number for my TAPPortugal flights. That is a whole mini story in itself, trying to find it on my Blackberry when the new software is about as user friendly as a rubix cube. If it weren’t for BBM I might be on my way to team Iphone. Anyway, after what felt like ages (thank you lady for waiting patiently) I found the information I needed and she set up my bags to get all the way to Sevilla. However, in that time the security line had gotten enormous (really? in Ithaca?) and my flight was finishing boarding. I got in line, and a couple minutes later actually got to skip the line (thanks again lady) to make my flight. I think that because of the delay in readying my bags the TSA decided to go ape-shit on my bags in order to check them for weapons of mass destruction quickly and toss them in the plane. But I’ll get to that part later. Made the flight, chilled in Philly, made the flight, chilled in Newark. When the check-in opened in Newark, I had another super nice experience with the woman behind the counter. (What are they called? They aren’t flight attendants…customer service? Check-in people?). I told the woman I’d been traveling since 9am on 2 other flights and she offered to switch my seat on the long flight from in between 2 people to a window seat close to the front of the plane. It’s amazing how good nice gestures like that make you feel. I was pleasantly surprised at having 2 airline people go the extra mile to make my trip easier.

On the flight to Lisbon I watched a great movie, or the last 3/4 of it once I realized a movie was on. It was a Brazilian film called “Muita Calma Nessa Hora”. I was surprised at how much I understood. I really need to get on that whole learning Portuguese thing. When I arrived in Lisbon I picked up a newspaper and attempted to read it on the plane ride to Sevilla. Everything went pretty smoothly including arriving safe and sound at my hostel. Opening my suitcases…well that’s a whole other issue. When I opened my bags it looks like a hurricane had blown through and my liquid bottles and shoes were victims drowning  in a mess of clothes. Ok, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but I have never seen TSA violate my stuff so badly and I’ve been traveling since I was in utero. Having taken 2 weeks to pack and neatly rolling every item of clothes, with winter clothes and shoes at the bottom, shoes in bags, liquid containers taped shut and in bags as well, and summer clothes on top, I’m sure you can understand how ‘annoyed’ is an understatement for how I was feeling. In fact, I’m so anal and organized I wanted to tear my hair out and cry when I opened my bags. All the liquid bottles were out of the bags and mixed in with my dress clothes. All my shoes were out of the bags and crushed between other items. Dress shirts and blazers were crumpled up in balls. (Um hellooo I didn’t pack an iron, nor do I really know how to use one anyway). The only thing that could have been worse was if I hadn’t taped the liquids up and they had drowned out all of my possessions. When I discovered that mess, I just shrieked, cursed, grabbed a couple of shirts and other items for the week, and zipped my suitcases right back up, deciding to deal with it after more pressing issues- like finding an apartment.

To Blog or Not to Blog…

I’ve briefly scanned a couple of blogs in the past. I’m definitely not an avid follower of any, and I’m a technology-challenged person as far as my generation goes. When I was younger I kept journals off and on. The longest period I kept a journal was while living in Florence, Italy at age 14 for 6 months. I wrote in a journal every single day, and I’m sure if I took the time to go back and read them, they’d be full of embarrassing teenage stuff. The idea to finally start my own blog came to me while at Oktoberfest, after a couple of liter maß mugs of beer. I really couldn’t be bothered before, but suddenly it occurred to me that a blog was an easy way of telling my experiences, without repeating myself in multiple phone and Skype conversations, and without inviting my grandparents to join Facebook and learn more than they’d like to about events like Oktoberfest and other cultural endeavors. Ha. If you’re reading my blog, it would be useful to point out that I am a fan of sarcasm, so if you can’t pick it up from what I’ve typed…well this blog will probably be slightly less entertaining for you. That being said, I whipped out my trusty Blackberry and punched in a couple of notes in the Memo pad about what I’d write in my blog if I ever did start one. Well here I am. I’m going to jump right in with my flight to Seville, Spain, where I have just moved to be a Language and Culture Assistant for the Junta de Andalucia. Yes indeed I have found a paid job, albeit temporary.