Ordering American in Spanish

I had trouble ordering a McFlurry today at McDonald´s. It went like this:

-McFlurry, por favor.
-¿Perdón?
-McFlurry, por favor.
-¿Perdón?
-OK...Meek Flewd-ee, por favor.
-Ah, vale. Meek Flewd-ee. €2.10, por favor

Thanks for reading.

Happy News

http://www.happynews.com

This is legitimate - I found an article from the Associated Press. It´s a happiness-oriented news filter website.

Have a nice day.

Laying low for the fair/Mumps

This week is the Jerez Horse Fair - in Spanish la Feria del Caballo de Jerez. People talk about it all year!!! It´s a week long. What I know - There are tents that serve food and drinks inside a fair ground. What I think - As the name suggests, the fair has a horse theme. Don´t know exactly what happens with the horses. Jerez has the Royal Andalusian Equestrian Art Academy....Royal Andalusian Equestrian Art Academy for short. Hehe. So there´s an old tradition of horse-training here, and since I got here there´s a new tradition of horsing around. I´ve seen pictures of the fair - there´re horse parades. People also dance traditional southern Spanish dances. Everyone dresses nicely. More to come about this later.

My roomies and I are laying low this weekend so that we have the money and energy to go day after day, late into the night, at the fair. Laying low means going to the beaches which are 20 minutes away. I don´t deserve to have this much fun. You can drink and take your clothes off at the beach here - it´s great.

There was a mumps outbreak at a elementary school here recently. The city´s making sure that all kids at all schools are vaccinated and so there was a nurse at my school Friday giving out vaccinations.

I inhabit my body but don´t know basic stuff about it like, Am I vaccinated against mumps. I didn´t ask for a shot. Mom? Dad? Have I been vaccinated?

On the road with Zelazowa

I went this past week to Madrid and Barcelona to meet up with friends from the States who are doing a European tour - their band is called Zelazowa. I went to their shows in Madrid and Barcelona and had a chance to hang out with them, which was great. I both by accident and by planning met up, both in Madrid and Barcelona, also with some Spanish friends and even a Scottish girl, all folks that I´ve met here. I spent Tuesday night on a bus, Wednesday night in Madrid and Thursday through Saturday nights in Barcelona. The principal players in Madrid were Bryan, Terry, Ian, Kyle and Dave(the band and videographer), Pelu and Luis, Javi, Penelope Cruz and the Spanish President. In Barcelona they were Bryan, Terry, Ian, Kyle and Dave, Javi, Hernán, Esteban, Manolito, Suzy, Marta, Oriol, the 12€ megabeer, Joaquim, Cristina, Luis, some high school friends, and me - he-ey!!! So that´s the crux of the long blog entry that I´m about to begin to finish.

After an overnight bus ride from Jerez I arrived Wednesday morning in Madrid. I spent the day walking and riding the metro around the city - great time. That night I just happened to run into one of my buddies from Jerez - Pelu - while I was waiting to get into the rock show. He and his cousin were working that day in Madrid and to cap off the day decided to go with me inside to the show. My other friend - Javi - showed up a little later. I´d made plans to meet up with him in the first place. We thought we were screwed when he showed up because I´d given his invitation to Pelu to get in. The folks at the door let us in without an invitation. How nice. Anyway, I introduced Javi, Pelu and Pelu´s cousin to my American buddies after they finished their show. So my Spanish friends spoke their Spanish and my American friends their English, and they somehow understood eachother. I was only needed to translate important things like, Hey Sean, tell this guy that I´ll go get a marker so I can sign a copy of the CD for him. My buddies had some good stories to tell from their tour so far.

I got to go backstage after the show and catch up a little with them. They were nice to answer all my questions about how exactly you go into such undefined territory as making a European tour without a manager or booking agent - oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. In addition to playing his or her instrument, each band member, and even the videographer and tour chronicler who´s travelling with them, each has his or her parallel duties like booking shows, writing blogs, arranging transportation and stuff. Pretty neat. The do-it-yourself work ethic. You do it all yourself. The band is called Zelazowa and if they keep at it you´ll be hearing about them one day...not from me I mean. www.myspace.com/zelazowa

We had kebaps for dinner after midnight that night. The funny thing for me was that it was after midnight on a Wednesday night and the folks at the kebap joint didn´t even seem to be considering closing any time soon. Anyway, on my walk home from the show I received too many sexual solicitations to count - as it turned out I was staying in a hostel in a hooker hotspot.

Thursday morning I caught a bus to Barcelona and had the pleasure of seeing some of the Spanish countryside on the way. I arrived in the autonomous community of Cataluña - where Barcelona is - to find that in addition to Spanish they speak Catalán. I should say in addition to Catalán they speak Spanish because Catalán is the official language there - the official language is something other than Spanish in a place INSIDE of Spain. And now you can begin to understand the strong secondary identities within the country of Spain. You´re Spanish but in several parts of the country you´re more defined by the part of the country you´re from than by the country as a whole. I guess it´s like that in the States but we don´t have a variety of languages to further define these mini identities, do we? Uh, I don´t know what I´m talking about.

I arrived in Barcelona Thursday night and had a nice walk to my hostel. Barcelona´s beautiful. I met up with my friends from Jerez to check out the night life in the Gothic neighborhood of the city. We met in the Plaza de Cataluña, or Catalunya as it´s written in Catalán. There are lots of people out and about in Barcelona at night but I would guess that number is doubled once the beer peddlers come out to sell you cans of beer on the street. There are probably 3 trillion of them out every night. Are these extreme exagerations as funny to you as they are to me? I´m surrounded by kids at school who tend to exagerate like that (3 trillion beer peddlers) and it rubs off on me. Sorry, continuing...

Friday morning after the biggest breakfast a hostel had ever let me have I checked out and walked out into the morning´s rain. This didn´t stop me from walking along the beach or checking out some other sites in the city. At the Sagrada Familia cathedral, which is very unique, I met up with a friend who I´d met online - Suzy. Suzy lives in Barcelona and I would be spending the next two nights in her apartment. She showed me more of the city that afternoon. We headed to Friday night´s Zelazowa show in Barcelona - part 2 of my reason for going on this trip in the first place. We, like the band I later found out, had some trouble finding the place, but we got there finally. The show that night was EXCELLENT! The music is very moving and the guys´ dedication shows when they play. Phew! I had to serve as translator that night which allowed me to SAVE the show but at the same time put me in an awkward position, having to be informed of the band´s financial arrangement with the venue. Anyway, after the show I got to go backstage again and chat with the guys. Some Spaniard made fun of my glasses in such a cutting way that I will be replacing them first thing when I return to the States. Anyway, after the show Terry, the drummer, decided to go out with Suzy and I. We met up with my friends from Jerez - I forgot to say before they were there for the weekend too. Good night.

Saturday - Suzy showed me some more magnificent parts of Barcelona. We went to the castle fort at Montjuic. We rode the cable car up to it, getting a nice view of the city only to be bettered by the view atop the castle fort - magnificent. You could see the port of Barcelona from the castle. I played on the canons at the corners of the castle fort. We then went to meet up again with the friends from Jerez for some more talking, tapas and other stuff. Suzy and I watched a seagull devour a pigeon in the middle of the street for about 3 mintues on the way to the friends. That made us stop and think about nature and stuff. We decided we would order seagull burgers that night to get back at the seagull population for eating that pigeon/we would perpetuate the cycle of rapacity.

After the talking, tapas and other stuff, I crashed for a few hours at Suzy´s place before having to head out at 4 AM to the airport to catch a 7 AM flight to Sevilla and then a train to Jerez. In Sevilla I had a nice walk, watched a protest, had a nap by the river, watched a bike race time trial, had the house chocolate ice cream in an ice cream joint, and, when it started to rain, headed to the train station.

I´m going to try changing the word order in this next sentence. I hope you like it. I back in arrived Jerez broke and tired, had two big bowls chocolate of muesli and the hay hit.

Thanks for reading. Happy Earth Day.

Madrid or Barcelona

There´s a major soccer rivalry here between Madrid Royal Footbal Club and Barcelona Football Club. Well, the rivalry exists mainly between the fans it seems. But as the names suggest, Madrid in the minds of the people is grander than Barcelona - it´s royal. I by accident bought a soccer ball in Madrid of the colors of Barcelona. I didn´t know that at the time. My Spanish friend told me to watch my back walking around flaunting such Barcelona-erism or whatever in Madrid public.

You get asked the question a lot here - Are you for Madrid or Barcelona? You can easily say one or the other, but it takes time to really come up with your own answer. To base your answer in performance alone is tough because in the end, althoug my Madrid roommate strongly disagrees, it´s tough to say who´s better. In some ways Madrid´s better - and, you guessed it, in some ways Barcelona´s better. Madrid has the best goal keeper around but Barcelona has the best passer and (a separate player) the player with the best footwork in the league. Madrid has one real bad sport which for me reflects poorly on the whole team. Sorry, I can´t help that. The people here say that the rivalry is based somewhat in politics too, which I shouldn´t comment on more than to say that Madrid represents for some one thing - maybe like ESTABLISHMENT - and Barcelona the opposite - INDEPENDENCE and CHANGE.

My feelings in the end - and my answer to the question - is based on the fact that I find myself looking forward to the few Barcelona games that I catch with the feeling that the players are my brothers and that, when they´re playing Madrid, they´re soldiers of light against a big, scary, dark monster. Therefore I say I´m for Barcelona.

This week I´m going to both Madrid and Barcelona to meet up with friends from the States. I don´t deserve to have this much fun.

Thanks for reading.

Rain and library cards

It´s been raining for 4 days. It hadn´t rained in like 6 months though so it´s for the better. We´ve had something like 100 liters per square meter which I have no idea how compares to inches which isn´t that how we measure in the States rainfall? Confused by that last sentence?

I have three library cards. Two in the States (Maryland - Worcester County and Pennsylvania - Chester County) and one here, one library card here in Spain. My penalties-for-late-materials-return history is pretty clean...my libary rap sheet is nearly blank...or at least it was until I got here to Spain. I´ve returned materials late here a couple times but the worst part is that they´ve been REALLY late. The first time I returned mats late I thought that the library was just really forgiving because there was no fee and SEEMED to be NO penalty whatsoever for the late return. No one said anything to me. I told the man that my mats were really late. He smiled and said, Thank you. Hohohold on. Wait a minute. If only I knew what was hiding behind that smile. I returned a few days later to find that I´d lost my borrowing privileges for number-of-items X number-of-days-late. In the end I couldn´t borrow for three weeks. Whammy! I couldn´t use the computers either. Double whammy!

It´s 4:15 PM and Jerez is starting to wake up from the siesta. Gotta go to town and do all the things I couldn´t do for the last 2 hours.

Burker King

Former Beach Patrol crew chief, current Air Force officer, life enthusiast and newly crowned Burger King - my friend Geoff Dobson...

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/article/13406

An Irish Exit and a Spanish Exit

Last weekend (3/29-30) 50,000 motorcyclists descended upon the city of Jerez for the annual Gran Premio de España of MotoGP - an motorcyle race at the city´s racetrack which is one of the contests in the international MotoGP circuit. Motorcycles everywhere - all there to watch the race. There were only 30 racers actually in it. The only tickets left when I went looking to buy some were 60€ and 900€ - I decided not to buy the 60€ tickets because I couldn´t afford them and I decided not to buy the 900€ tickets because I couldn´t afford them.

I spent this past weekend (4/4-6) with friends in Sevilla. We all went to the beach yesterday, which was great. Usually when I go to the beach I´m working as a lifeguard. It was nice to relax. My friends told me, while we were sitting and taking in sun, that I had done an Irish exit the night before - we were all out and I went home without telling anyone. It was like this - the friends I was out with got into a conversation with someone I didn´t know. I didn´t want to disturb them. There were friends of friends next to us and the question was - Do I be sociable and introduce myself to the friends of my friends or do I just call it a night? It was 4 AM. I chose to call it a night and I thought that if I told my friends I might face some resistance. I freely admit that I was out until 4 AM. That´s how late people stay out here...and later - 6,7,8 AM. Whatever. Walking around at 4 AM is like walking around at 10 PM - there are still people everywhere. Anyway, the exact opposite happened the following night. I was out with friends again. We decided to go home but it turned out be complicated to do so. We left the club but were invited by a new friend for a drink in another club. We went, had the drink, said we were ready to go and were invited for another drink. By the end, the act of going home, or saying goodbye, or EXITING, took about an hour and a half - a Spanish Exit I suppose.

Today

My day had a relatively positive note today - the running water at the school being restored. There was a leak in the plumbing at the school and we lost the water for two and a half hours. When we got it back everyone had the same needs to take care of. Without water, in addition to the toilets not working, there´s no washing of hands and no lunch in the cafeteria so it´s good that it came back. People started brainstorming what to do for lunch for the kids at school supposing that water wasn´t restored. Someone suggested fried eggs as a recipe not requiring water. I suggested beer. They reminded me that the kids can´t drink beer. I´m 27 and I can´t remember anymore life back when I couldn´t legally have a beer with a meal. I have a friend who works for an international relief agency called Intermón Oxfam. They are providing clean water right now for folks in Ecuador who were evacuted from their homes after flooding last month. Intermón Oxfam is concerned with getting the folks clean water for drinking and bathing. It´s a really good thing what they´re doing down there, and today I was reminded how necessary clean running water is. I´m stupid and I need to be reminded of stuff like that.

I don´t notice teachers in my school telling the kids to walk in the hallways; that seems to be a principal preoccupation in the US. Here in the hallways it´s like an all day field day - kids SPRINTING back and forth from classrooms to bathrooms. It´s hilarious and I think it´s good. I don´t mean to say that teachers NEVER put their class in order to walk down the hall - it´s au contraire. When the whole class goes somewhere together, the teacher puts them in order just like in the US.

Back to today - poor Abraham, the new kid in first grade. Today was his FIRST DAY and he was made to take an English test. I think that´s pretty rough. It wasn´t like a placement test for English class; it was a chapter test.

I chose not to share the April Fools´ Day pranks that I found on Wikipedia with any of the teachers because everyone was preoccupied with the running water (bathroom) problem. Bummer.

A teacher here was asking me today about smoking regulations in the US. She said we introduced smoking tobacco and we were now leading the fight to unintroduce it? As with most attempts to answer questions about my own country I realized that I didn´t know. I went to Wikipedia and believed what I read that official smoking bans date as far back as the 16th century - a ban on smoking by Pope Urban VII. (Weehee! Are you enjoying this journey through history. It´s brought to you by Wikipedia.) I read too that there was a string of smoking regulations during the 18th century in what is now Germany, that the Nazis imposed smoking regulations during their reign and that - what was the only thing I thought I knew about the US´s regs - the smoking regs are up to the states there.

Bla bla. Done.