Sunday, June 6, 2010

Some notes on Spain: Spaniards do not eat while on the go. I don’t like taking time to eat breakfast when I know I have a 30 minute train ride to class, so I want to eat my apple on the bus, but NO. Because I feel so out of place…not that my hair doesn’t already take care of that. Which leads me to my next note: why do Spanish women let their husbands/boyfriends/sons catcall? It’s not really a big deal or threat, but everytime I or we pass guys on the street they make a comment about blondes, most of the time just saying “Hola rubia” (hello blondie) but normally they’re with girls and you’d think they’d be insulted. Obviously not, since Spaniards continue this practice and still find wives.

And a note about driving (and by the way, I’m not sure if I’ve already written about this, so if I did just ignore it, but I don’t want to take the time to read through my blog to see). Intersections here are very different. The crosswalks are 10 feet back into the street. So when people can walk, a yellow flashing light goes on, and cars approach, but if there’s walkers they have to wait. Thus, if you’re the only walker they want you to hurry up and cross so they can go. They almost nudge you with their cars. And sometimes these crossstreet things are in the middle of the street, so cars will be driving full speed and will be obligated to stop midway. Very strange, but it seems to work just fine.


So today, we went to El Rastro, which is an open-air market. Surprisingly, there were a lot of locals there! They had everything from leather purses and belts to fruit, clothes, shoes, batteries, makeup, Disney toys, EVERTHING! But I didn’t buy anything because it was so overwhelming and I need to go with a list of what I want to get everyone. Does Matt want anything in particular? Or dad?

Then we went to a superstore where I got bread for .70 Euro and a 2 liter of water for .29 Euro. What a cheap lunch! Then we went to the pool and ate our lunch and suntanned amongst the topless crowd. Just like Cinque Terre, though, it seemed to be only the old and unattractive ladies that opted for this method.

Then I came home to find my host mother dancing Flamenco in the living room. So cool. They’re so bold and sure of themselves here. The kids were playing DinseyTunes Karaoke, which was HILARIOUS, and only became more so when my host father joined in to sing “Fabulous” from High School Musical 2 (Alex, I think you and him would get along! I bet he’d sing Miley too!) and the Jones Brothers song “Play my Music,” both of which were SO funny. Especially for the line “There’s no faking” he said “f**king” and the son got a huge kick out of it. My father super smart because he was explaining how he’s taken classes on English and even though he can’t speak it a lot of times, he understand the syntax differences and how my thoughts and attempts can be translated into a real Spanish sentence. Then the mom sang Miley’s “See You Again,” oh karaoke nights at Purdue! I could never even begin to sing in Spanish as well as they did in English.

Dinner was paella, for me at least. The dad and little boy had milk. The mom didn’t eat, and Lidia had hot dogs. I don’t know how this happens. Oh, and in the milk, to make it “drinkable” the boy AND dad added crumbled cookies! Haha. And my paella was delicious! It only had little shrimp and the rice tasted good! I wonder how she knows exactly what I like. It’s almost creepy. Or maybe since she’s had so many Americans she knows by now. But I’m so impressed!

We watched a channel that was covering festivals throughout Spain and my dad explained how they spit olive pits and I told him about Michigan cherries and Purdue grasshopper spitting. Grasshopper is Saltamontes. And he called the inside of an olive a “hueso” which means bone. So they refer to the pit as a bone. Interesting.