Por Fin! Un Piso!

Here's the house we're staying in. I tried to choose only a few photos of this place, but I love it so much that I found it hard to be conservative, so I've just scattered photos of it throughout my entire post. I'll include some more pictures of other things later. For now, I'm in love with this house, and it's where I'm staying, so deal with it! (And enjoy, of course.)

There are so many anecdotes, I don't know where to begin. We've spent the last three days searching for a piso (apartment) and have covered most of the town. I almost fear this blog, because the last few days have been such a roller coaster, such an insane compilation of peaks and lows, and so much has happened each day, so many deliciously awkward moments, and a few not-so-delicious ones, that I'll

inevitably overlook something wonderfully entertaining. Alas, se la vie, and so I begin.

I'm currently sitting in the astoundingly beautiful attic space of a woman named Maria Jose, one of the most common names in Spain it seems, so her nickname is Cuchi. Sheena, the other American girl who is staying here with me, and I are just now getting the point of maturity where we can call her "Cuchi" with a straight face. Anyway, she is the teacher that Sheena will be working with, and she and her husband, Julio, have been an absolute dream. Their house is a restored stone house built a century ago, complete with a beautiful garden, and they are the BEST cooks I have ever encountered. Everything is handmade, EVERYTHING, including the tomato sauce, with simple ingredients, and comes served with wine. I'll put the photos up as soon as I can, because not only is the food delicious, it is beautiful as well. Savory for all the senses.

I've visited my school, the CEIP San Xoan de Filgueira (which is INCREDIBLY hard to pronounce, and should have an accent on the "a" in "Xoan," but I don't know how to do accents on this computer...). It is a primary school, so I will be working with kids I believe from the age of 6 to 11. It's bright green when you walk inside, and has a big field in the back and a garden complete with chickens. My profe, or teacher, Mari Carmen, is great, as is the rest of the staff I've met, and I feel very comfortable there. Tomorrow is my orientation, so I'll actually know what my job will be. They've never had a language assistant there, and are completely lost as to what to do with me, but we shared a good laugh about it, and figure it out.

Sheena, a fellow language assistant from LA, and another girl, Callie, from Alabama, and I have spent the last three days looking at so many apartments, of such a wide variety, that my head is still spinning. This is my first apartment hunt ever, and I have the privilege of embarking on the adventure in a foreign town that I haven't had the time to walk around in yet, in a foreign country with a new property protocol, and in a foreign language. It's been, well, overwhelming to say the least. And quite comical. Fortunately, my future roomies are wonderful, and we've been enjoying the tumultuous journey together.

An example, we met with an inmobilaria, which is a property management agent, who showed us a piso in a potentially cool building. The minute he opened the door, however, the smell of centuries-old- mold slapped us in the face. Ferrol has very wet winters, so mold and heating are serious concerns here. The romantic that I am, I wanted an apartment in the old part of town, in a restored building in the modernista style of architecture from the 1800s. This style of modernist architecture is typical of Ferrol, and is quite beautiful. However, as we've learned, old either means cheap and delapitated, or restored and extremely expensive. I digress slightly, as my story was about the moldy building. Ok, so this building was an old army barracks, from who knows when, now converted into a place to live. What would have been our apartment was on the bottom floor. We walked the place, it was horrible and dank, and though the agent assured us there was no mold, I found a patch of something growing that was unreal. It was white and furry, and about two inches long. I took a picture. Mentioned it to him, and he grabs a towel, tells us not to worry, cuz it's not in the wall, and is only because the place has been closed up. Um, thank you very much, but I do not need the abomidable snowman's coat growing on my wall. That was discouraging, but definitely reminded me to be careful.

But, the day wasn't all bad. In the morning, we walked around the old town with this delightfully spry, four foot tall 300 year old woman and looked at two really great pisos with her. Only problem is they were old, and had no heating, and had crap everywhere. Seriously though, one of them, if I were to live here long enough to take on a project, would have been perfect, but there were no beds, the oven was broken, and the previous tenants still had food in the freezer.

Eight pisos later, just as we were about to give up, we stumbled unto a plaza and called a number to a sign we saw in a dauntingly plain apartment building. We were not hopeful, but the minute we entered the apartment an hour later, all three of us knew it was it. Our landlord, whose name is Laura (her name is my name too...), and her boyfriend David, were two very unscammy twenty somethings, who will now be our landlords. The place was a breath of relief. It's new, has heating, four bedrooms, electricity included, and is fully furnished (including kitchen utensils, bedding, towels, everything... that's common here, I LOVE it!). It's on the third floor, which is really the fourth because the bottom has shops and the entry way, and looks out into a plaza. It's also a corner spot, with so much light and a wonderful view of where the sun sets. I took a nap today, and already had a dream about it. NO joke. Signed the contract today, and we move in tomorrow!

After signing the contracts, we went to get some tapas and drinks before lunch, stopping in at a place recommended by a local coffee guy, which proved to be, how do I say this... breathtakingly good. I closed my eyes to chew the food, I won't lie. Calamari and carne with salsa, Here's a picture:

Oh!? And did I mention that we've been getting up before sunrise every day? Around 7, because the sun rises and sets later here, but it's been a lot. Especially when we eat dinner at ten thirty, and sit commiserating, rather passionately, about politics, the royal family, and the "mierda del mundo" until one. It's been so great, I will miss these people I'm staying with, but the community is so small, we'll be spening a lot of time together.

Sunrise, here you are!

That's all for now, I'm hogging Sheena's computer, and will add the rest later. Peace!!

Yet Another Day in St James's City....

Let's begin with another photo of the gorgeous cathedral.....

Thursday night I went to the pub La Gramola, which is the place that the Galician musicians I met in Santa Cruz at a concert two months ago recommended to me. I told them I was going to Santiago de Compostela, and asked where musicians would be, and they told me about this place on Thursdays and Saturdays. They didn’t tell me, however, that it was the pub that THEY themselves all jammed in, so when I walked downstairs into the stone basement, the last thing I expected was their smiling faces. It was crazy! Sinead, the Irish girl who had given me her email, remembered me and so did the other guys. Half a world away, and I found people I knew! Didn’t bring my fiddle though, so I watched them play and talked to an older Spanish guy about where to see in Spain, the US, and random things. Drank a glass of DELICIOUS Rioja, and walked home so content.

Friday, September 24:

It’s strange, because Santiago de Compostela feels like a small sleepy town and a big city alternately, depending on where you walk. Yesterday I set out at ten in the morning with the intention of getting some almond milk and cereal for breakfast, and a phone card. Took me an hour to find almond milk, but I DID find almond milk, which was unexpected. I ended up asking around at four pharmacies to find a health food store eventually. Finally, after finding it, I ate breakfast and headed out again to walk around town. The phone was my next goal, which I eventually got at 8:00 pm. Seems like every time I set myself a specific thing to do here, my perceived plan gets derailed, but I can’t even bring myself to worry about it. I ended up walking the periphery of the town, down along the medieval walls that surround the old quarter of the city, and took my time, stopping for views at almost every corner. The weather held out, with sporadic showers that passed quickly. It’s nice, makes everything feel really fresh, and never gets you too wet. Here are a few photos, notice all the lovely graffiti!







So, this is a Medieval granary that I randomly found in a park right next to a playground. The juxtaposition of old and new in this city is astounding. I tried to capture the playground in the
photo for the irony, but it didn't quite work. They're still using this thing to store stuff-- now it's full of hoses and gardening equipment, whereas six hundred years ago it probably stored a years; worth of food. Next, I headed to the Cathedral center, and there was a big happening. Across the plaza from the Cathedral is the Xunta, and the president and his colleagues were greeted with eight dancers. It was strange and kitcsh, I’ll be honest. There were two dancers who did “traditional” Indian dance, two that danced Galician, two did Flamenco,

and two belly danced.
But there were all Spaniards, so that was fun. I'll post a video of it later, because it's well worth seeing.


Meandered, bought an empanada for lunch (80 cents!) with Tuna, pepper and onion in a pastry crust, and headed to a park to eat. I randomly walked into the northern part of the Parque de Belvís, and walked up through some stone ruins. There were numbers on the stone floors of an old building, and I felt like Indiana Jones in “The Last Crusade.” Anyone get that reference? He has to spell out Iahova to get to the Holy Grail… Anyone? Ok, I’m a nerd.














ANYWAY: Enough about Indiana, here's the view from the park:



On my way back, with jet-lag setting in fully, I realized I was completely lost, and ended up getting my map out for the first time to decipher where I was. The only other person on the street, and older Galician man immediately asked me where I was trying to get, and kindly accompanied me to the street I was looking for. He was SO incredibly kind, introduced himself by name, and showed me a short cut.

Went back in the evening to La Gramola, with my fiddle this time, but there were no musicians!!! So Rachel and I walked around a bit, ran into a group of professors who were decked out in musical performance garb, all with instruments, and upon seeing my violin case they took us with them to a bar. (It was a friendly accost!) Returned to Gramola a little later, and found another fiddler, a Scottish man, who was shy like me, but wanted to play some tunes. We sat down together, and within two songs, random musicians were coming out of the woodwork. A Boudhran (Celtic drum) player joined, as did Sinead with mandolin, and her friend with pipe and flute. We ended up having a fully functioning jam sesh until 3 in the morning, which is early by Spanish standards. Just as I was good and ready to sleep, they invited me to yet another bar, where we stood around and chatted until 5 am. Turns out the Bodhran player actually lived in Soquel for an exchange in the States, and loved it. So, so far away from home, and I end up talking about the Santa Cruz mountains. I also got into a long conversation with one of the guys about the way the Galician language, Galego, is disappearing. Basically, the government (as tends to happen all over the world) is systematically eradicating Galego in an attempt to integrate the region more fully into Spain and the global society at large. There seems to be a very strong sense of Galician pride, however, and every day I see multiple people wearing Galego pride shirts, and run across a decent amount of nationalist graffiti. I’m looking forward to learning more about the political nuances of this place. Two months ago, I had never heard of Galicia, and after less than a week here, I can already feel it becoming my home.

Saturday morning (or afternoon rather), I walked the town, and on my way to the Contemporary Art Museum, came across a workers protest in the streets. They were loud, and toting black and red flags, so I decided to grab a paper, and join the crowd to find out what was going on. It turned out to be a protest by the laborers in the Forestry sector of Galicia, which as I understood it includes all the workers responsible for building and maintaining a good number of public works, and the natural environment. As is true everywhere unfortunately, they have no rights. As it was described to me, “Tío, sabes, que todo es una mierda! No tienen derechos, ni nada.” Translation being, “Man, you know, it’s all shit. They have no rights to anything.” So, since that was the only explanation I got, I got their website… which is all in galego:

http://cntforestal.blogaliza.org



I’m going to have to learn galego if I want to understand anything here!!! Random final thought for the day—I finally figured out why Galego is spelled Galego and Gallego. I’ve been trying for the life of me to figure out which is correct. Galego is the spelling in the language itself, and Gallego is the spelling in Catellano. So, the very spelling of the name of the language itself can be a political choice as well. I’ll be spelling it Galego. ☺

Santiago de Compostela: Days 1 and 2

I know it might be bad form to post twice in one day, but now here's the up-to-date stuff. I'm currently in Santiago de Compostela, a town south of Ferrol by about an hour on bus. It's the final destination of the Camino de Santiago, or the Sain James Way, a thousand-year-old sacred pilgrimage with a network of routes, the most famous stretching across all of Norther Spain. Here's the Wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_St._James

Now on to Compostela. This city is amazing. I find it slightly ironic, yet perfectly appropriate that I'm beginning my journey abroad where thousands of people end their own every day.

I landed yesterday in Santiago de Compostela at 1:55 in the afternoon. Six in the morning California time. Riding the bus into town I felt right at home, as we passed woods and gardens with plants and trees quite similar to Northern California. The architecture is simple, and more reminiscent of Ireland than anything I’ve ever seen in Spain. Which makes sense, with the region’s Celtic past.

My hostel is the Albergue Meiga. It took me a while to find it, as I attempted to walk, but immediately got lost. When I finally conceded to asking a cab driver to drive me there, he couldn’t interpret my stilted pronunciation of the place, which I was calling the Hostal Meiga, until I gave him the address, and he asserted it was an albergue, not a hostal. I asked what the difference was, and he explained it quite clearly—that there was just a subtle difference, and had I mentioned the Albergue, he would have known immediately where to drop me. I was just grateful that his accent was understandable, and everyone speaks Castellano here. The signs are in the regional dialect, Galego, which is a cross between Portugues and Castellano (Spanish) as I understand it, and all the natives speak the dialect, but fortunately they’re not lazy about language, and everyone speaks perfect Spanish as well. The two women sharing my room are Americans, one is teaching abroad as well, and is from Sacramento, so it was nice to come so far to find someone from home! The hostal is so clean, friendly and safe I feel spoiled.

This city is incredible. The history seeps into every crack in the architecture, and the juxtaposition of modern and historic is astounding. I wandered around yesterday without a map, which is how I like to do it, and though I had set a few specific errands for myself, once I took off I knew I wasn’t going to get anything of consequence done. I ended up just walking as much as I could.

I didn't bring my camera, but I stumbled upon a random capilla and watched the sun set between the campanas (bell towers). I took this photo today of the place, so imagine this with the sun setting, and that was my first evening view in Spain.

I continued to walk, stumbled into a convent, which was gorgeous, but mass was in session, so didn’t actually feel courageous enough to go inside. I then walked the old quarter of town, following the winding cobblestone streets to the main (and very famous) Cathedral. It was easy to find. The towers are the tallest thing around, and there were increasingly frequent street musicians as I approached. Pilgrims, tourists and locals passed through the plaza in front of the Cathedral and I finished the sunset out on a ledge overlooking the hills to my west, with the Cathedral’s immense façade behind me.

Spent the rest of the walk listening to the explosive manner in which Spaniards communicate, and smelling the delicious and familiar scents of tapas, cigarettes, and centuries old stone that are only possible in Spain. It’s a world away from Granada, but still retains the wonderfully simple food and spirit of life that I remember. I love it here, and now I’ve been reminded why.

Thursday, September 23:

This morning we went to Church! My two American roomies and I went to noon Mass at the Cathedral today. THE Cathedral. We waited in a line that wrapped around the corner to get into the cathedral, to crowd into the back if the cathedral surrounded by Spaniards and extranjeros (foreigners) alike. The sermon was given in Latin and Castellano, and was pretty impressive. I haven't ever actually sat through a Catholic mass, so I was stoked to have my first experience in Spain. The incense burner was half the size of a person, and they had it hung from the ceiling, swinging it through the entire knave. Here's the video I took of the padres walking in:





Ok, need to go get a phone and do some errands, here are some other random wonderful photos of the city

This is where we entered the Cathedral

Beautiful city streets




First Lunch in Spain!! Pulpo de Feria. Braised Octopus with Paprika and SOAKED in amazing olive oil, Fresh squeezed Zumo de Naranja.

Random Capilla in town.

So many updates....

Despite my best efforts to start this blog off early, I've somehow managed to post absolutely nothing in the last two months. I'm currently in Spain, so a few updates are in order.

I received my placement, and found out that I will be living in a town called Ferrol, a coastal town WAY in the north. It has about 77,000 people in the city proper, and 200,000 in the outlying areas. I will be teaching at the CEIP San Xoán de Filgueira, which I believe is a primary school, though I'm not entirely sure. Haven't quite figured out the educational system yet. I do know, however, that there is a total of 198 students at the school, which means I should get to know them all. I've been in email contact with the school's secretary, Ana, and she is extremely helpful. What I've learned of Ferrol is this:

1. It is the HUB of the Spanish Navy, and has been for at least five hundred years. It's still the country's strongest naval base, which means tall ships and Spanish military men. Should be quite an experience. it means, though that the area is peppered with exquisitely old naval forts, including three in the fjord-like entrance to the port of Ferrol. Found a great picture with labels. When I get there I'll post some of my own sure to be amazing photos:



2. Ferrol is Also the birthplace of Francisco Franco. You may have heard of him. Absolute Dictator extraordinare. Turns out the region is also the birthplace of the Fidel Castro's ancestors. So, it has a good track record.

Politics aside, the town looks beautiful. It resides in a beautiful bay, surrounded by so many green hills, I can't wait to walk them all. It's known for its seafood, and the beaches in the outlying areas. I can't wait.

Oh yea, and did I mention that Galicia is Celtic in origin? It might be in my first post, but it is one of the seven Celtic nations of the world. People here actually play traditional Celtic music. It's very distinct, and quite different from the Irish fiddle I've played in the past, but the fact that a place exists that is Spanish-speaking AND celtic obviously means I was meant to be here (my fiddle made it too!)