Fall

There have been a few days that really felt like fall here in Spain. Something about the smells and the wind, along with the right temperature that's just warm enough to wear a sweater instead of a jacket.

Even if the weather outside is relatively nice and warms up by midday, the temp inside the apartment is still coooooold. The stone floors just suck up all the coldness and my feet are almost never warm. I have a space heater in my room which sits under the table, so the only way I can warm up is to sit at the table. Not too terrible, but then I feel a little antisocial working on my computer a lot. So I venture out to the salón/living room to watch tv with my host mother every once in a while.

I really miss the leaves changing colors back at home. Here they just die green and fall off. Some turn a little brown. Although most of the trees still have nearly all their leaves yet. However, on our class trip southeast to Granada we went through the mountains and all the aspens are turning yellow about now. Really pretty.

Fall colors

The fall fashion colors in Spain are purple and red this year. The Red Hat Society ladies would have a heyday! Except nobody wear showy red hats.

A good solid purple is most popular, but also a rich, slightly pinky-purply jewel tone and a lighter lavender. The red is mostly for accents like shoes, jewelry, purses, and jackets, and is fading out of heavy use as winter approaches.

Las frutas

If the smell of fingernail polish remover has a taste, then I've had it. We had melon today for dessert and while it looked fine, it smelled like rubbing alcohol. And because the senses of taste and smell are linked, I decided that if things ever tasted the way they smelled, the melon was for sure fingernail polish remover. I've had a similar experience with corn that tasted the way I think the smell of skunk would taste. Mmm-mmm.

Every other time we've had this kind of melon it's been good though. Must have just been a bad chunk of prematurely fermenting fruit.

This part of Spain has only one kind of melón- the outside looks like a cross between watermelon and muskmelon/cantaloupe rind and the inside is green like a heartier honey-dew melon. They have watermelon too, just not more than one kind.

For me the fruits aren't more spectacular than the fruit in the U.S. Except for the smaller varieties of oranges/naranjas - they are awesome! The normal oranges have thick skin and not much juice, but the smaller ones (similar to clementines or tangerines) are delicious. The skin peels off like melting butter and the slices are sooo juicy. I've also tried mandarine oranges, but those are too sour for me.

The grapes/uvas are nearly the size of ping pong balls, but they also have 3-4 huge seeds inside them. The peaches/melocotones are alright, but don't have much flavor. The pears are perfectly delectable. The bananas are small and a little meatier. The normal plums/ciruelas are okay, but the white plums are exceptional (they actually have green/yellow skin with white/yellow flesh). The apples aren't that great - really grainy and soft. It makes me want a nice, crisp, slighty tart apple from Minnesota/Wisconsin!

Los jovenes

Spanish youth isn't lazy per se; they just choose one occupation at a time, whether that be studying, working, or partying. It's practically unheard of that a Spanish college kid would have a job, even if they only have one or two classes a week. They just stick out their hands to their parents for money and voila!

No wonder American teens and young adults are so stressed - they are expected to fit in all three things, plus volunteering, sports & drama & music & clubs, and personal hobbies.

On the one hand Spaniards don't seem to have much experience in anything except partying, but on the other hand Americans seem to be looking only to enhance a résumé. Is that the difference between working to live and living to work? Speaking of which, I still don't know my calling in life. Bah.

Las nubes

Where are you? Where is your head right now? Estás en las nubes... ¡de Valencia! Ha. Elementary teachers say the same things here as in the U.S. You've got your head in the clouds. And Valencia is opposite Cáceres, way on the east coast of Spain, so that kid was really not paying attention.

Oh, and speaking of clouds. Today I had a sort of cookie. Well, it was round and looked like a cookie. Except it was more like really airy sweet bread; not crunchy like angel's food candy, not the consistency of fried donuts, but not like cotton candy either. I decided it was like eating a cloud, if I could ever just grab a handful of one for a snack.

Novatadas

For Spanish students, the fall semester started Monday the 27th of September. However, very few students actually went to their classes the first week.

Here in Spain they have a tradition of initiating (read: a form of hazing) the new 1st yr students. This involves the sophomore class as sort of wranglers who carry around megaphones and order the freshmen around. The freshmen, according to gender and major, wear matching tshirts that on the front say things like infantil, novatada, etc. and on the back sport their first name. They then proceed to have the following done to them: roped together in a line, eggs and flour covering them, singing songs to degrade themselves, magic marker signatures on their skin from upperclassmen, etc. Surprisingly they all seemed to be in a pretty good mood about it.

So we've been told, here in Cáceres the novatada business is fairly light and upbeat. It makes me wonder what the rest of Spain does.

The ants go marching

Everywhere I need to go in Spain, I walk. And walk and walk and walk. To meet people, I walk. To catch the bus, I walk. To go to the mall, I walk. To go out at night, I walk. I walk.

There are city buses, which are extremely helpful to get to school since I really don't want to walk to the university. It is possible to walk to classes, although it would take 50min or so, and that's even downhill. Going back up... well, that took over an hour. On a road where the sidewalks require you to be shoulder-to-side-mirror with the traffic. Along non-residential, busy streets most of the way. Which is why I haven't repeated that experience.

You would think then, since I do all this walking, that for sure I must be skinny as all get-out. But things even themselves out with all the food we eat for lunch and supper. So I can't complain too much either way.

I find that I tend to notice odd things while I walk. For example, ants in Spain do not lazily meander about the ground. They tend to do things en masse. Every so often I'll see a whole column of ants across a sidewalk. I don't know why they do this; it's not like the Amazon where ants surge in rank to devour everything in their path. It must be a Spanish thing; they can't stand being without a group of them together.

Another thing I noticed are all the baby carriages/strollers. Quizás I notice this because they block the sidewalk (which is usually a good 8ft wide in most of the inner city) and are so slow. But they are all brandnew and color-coded and comfy.

Conejo anyone?

Today for lunch I had orange-colored soup made of pureed potatoes and zucchini. Then came the meat course.

There were two chunks of meat with cooked peppers. I looked at it and tried to cut it, but failed. My host mother informed me it was probably better to eat it like finger food. I wondered what kind of meat it was and thought, maybe it's lamb. It tasted pretty good, but let's face it. I have no idea what lamb looks like.

My roommate must have been thinking the same thing because she asked what it was. Conejo was the reply. We were eating rabbit. Rabbit, people!

Then I realized the bent thing almost like a chicken wing was really too small to be from a lamb. And the bones reminded me of the squirrel that one of my brothers killed years ago, which my mom fried so we could try it. Rabbit tastes much better.

Spray paint

Another thing that Portugal wins at in my book is graffiti. At least in the part of Lisbon that I toured, there was less graffiti than in Spain. But the biggest plus was that the graffiti was better quality. So not only are there way fewer ridiculous tags littering buildings and such, but what you get to see is pretty cool. Although nothing as cool as things I've seen in the U.S. Which could either mean I'm observant or I haven't seen much.

Minnesota

... is no longer the land of the bland. Spain is. Well, in particular, the autonomy of Extremadura, of which Cáceres seems to be the heart. I am in the middle of tastelessness here people!

Now, some of you might know that I quite enjoy the taste of foods for what they are. I don't use a lot of extra spices, and it doesn't take much for something to be spicy. However, that being said, I like my food to taste like something. What you get here is salt, garlic, fish, jamón. There do not exist any other tastes. Except for the non-taste of olive oil which drenches the aforesaid, barely-existent flavors.

What boggles me is that Portugal, the country which directly borders the oddity of Extremadura, has amazing food. I would eat there any day. So then how is it that one side of an imaginary geographic line lives in the luxury of flavor while the other side has seemingly never been introduced to a spice in its history? Both of these cultures set out to conquer the Americas, yet only one could figure out how to use spices??? Spain is a culture I fear I may never know all the ins and outs about.

Just so none of you freaks out, the food is actually good here in Spain. I'm just a little bored with it and craving more flavors than the four I mentioned above.

Rain

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. Ha.

It doesn't rain often here in Cáceres, and has been a pretty dry summer actually. I've seen maybe two or three days of rain, and very short tormentas during only two of those days.

Today it rained. And for the most part it's not that inconvenient. The temperature is a lot cooler, but it's not really dreary outside. My main problem has to do with the tiled sidewalks. Don't get me wrong, I love the designs of stone and cast concrete (except when wearing heels!); however, every so often there are broken tiles or pieces that aren't set into the ground very well. This means they rock back and forth when you step on them... and that they collect puddles of water underneath them when it rains. Which means when you step on a broken tile while it's floating on a puddle, it squirts water up into your shoes and onto your pant legs.

At least it's nowhere near as bad as the horrible, horrible (nonexistent) drainage system on the Iowa State campus. When it rains there it pours, and when it pours the streets become canals of gushing water, and then it's good luck trying to get to class with dry anything on those days.

Cáceres Creativa

I've been introduced to two of the art faculty at Universidad de Extremadura and have been invited to attend any of their classes I might be interested in. One of the professors invited me to go to a city event called Cáceres Creativa, saying it could be neat to see what's going on in the city art-wise, and why not bring a friend. (Cáceres is one city nominated to be the European Capital of Culture in 2016; therefore, there are a lot of events, concerts, and otherwise going on in the city.)

So Thursday, Oct. 1st, I met up with an ISU friend and we walked with the professor into the old part of Cáceres. The event was held in one of the restored medieval buildings, Palacio de Toledo-Moctezuma. People were pretty dressed up, and I found out it was supposed to be for professors of UEX, city council people, and other businesspeople of the city. The bigwigs! (Do you s'pose that term comes from the era of ginormous powdered wigs?) It's pretty cool to meet someone who can persuade others that her foreign students should be able to attend the event.

We got there right about 8:00 when it was supposed to start, but true to Spanish culture, the program started late. (I'm not a fan of starting late when it's so hot you have to use the program book for a fan or else melt into a puddle. And I was even wearing a fairly lightweight dress!) There was a powerpoint slideshow projected onto the wall while two speakers spoke about the possibilities in making some renovations and innovations in Cáceres. I liked seeing examples of urban landscaping from other wordly cities, some from the U.S. The MC was a cute young magician who did some card tricks, coin sleights of hand, and something with water and colored sand.

Afterwards we partook of hors d'oeurves and cocktails. Well okay, so mostly they served lemon and orange Fanta and Coca Cola (which, by the way, is not as bubbly as the coke in the 'States), but later they served some wine. There were a lot of different finger foods to try, all served on silver platters (I'm not kidding!) with white linen. And I have advice for you all: no matter how weird it looks, if it's that expensive it's going to taste really good. Even the pukey-green mousse served in a mini-reeces-pbcup-sized pastry cup was delicious. I tried sardines, really pungent cheese, thin jamón slices, crunchy bread wafers, caviar, and a bunch of other trifles concocted with a variety of foods.

I must say I enjoyed the evening.

Seafood

There is a lot of seafood to eat here in Spain. I wonder if it's because (yes, I mean this facetiously) Spain is right next to the ocean?

I can't really tell the difference amongst the normal fish here. I've had carp and some other similarly sized ones that I don't remember the names of. They all tasted, well... like fish. One noticeable issue though is that the fish are cooked with the skin on, battered and fried in olive oil. I also tried a small kind, 5 inches long, that my host mother cooked whole, except for the guts. I didn't eat the head! The eyeballs creeped me out, besides the fact that you're really not supposed to eat the head in the first place. I liked those.

I also got to try sardines for the first time in my life. Those taste really fishy, but they're still good when eaten on a slice of bread with cheese. However, sardines are not traditional fare here; I doubt I could find any at the supermarket or served at a restaurant or bar (but maybe at the fish market/pescadería?). The ones I tried were served as sort of hors d'oeurves at Cáceres Creativa.

I have also eaten squid/calamares in the form of fried squid rings, much like the onion rings you all know. I actually like them (the squid, not the onion).

And I've tried octopus/pulpo in the form of quarter-sized slices. This I did NOT like. It's kind of like chewing unflavorful, very chewy fat globs that have a little bit of texture I would liken to waterchestnuts if waterchestnuts were ever not crunchy.

The staples

... to any good Spanish diet are as follows: meat, cheese, bread, wine, olive oil, fish, garlic, salt, water, cerveza (i.e., beer). And lots of walking.

Fuga de Cerebros

Last Thursday I went with two other ISU students to the mall to see the movie Fuga de Cerebros, recommended by a professor so we would see some of the youth culture. It was 1€ (a dollar movie. They even have 1euro stores here just like we have dollar stores.) We got our tickets early, which was good, since the theatre sold out half an hour before the movie started. One thing we happened to notice while we got our tickets was a sign saying "recommended for persons 18 and older" (well okay, so the sign was actually in Spanish). However, we seemed to be three of only a handful of viewers who fit that profile. Apparently here in Spain you can go see this stuff at age 12 and 13 without an adult escort, and yet noone stops you to prevent you from being scarred for life (i.e. the sex scenes and sexual connotations are not censored or shortened or leave much to the imagination here).

The movie was, by the way, hilarious. I would equate it to something like Euro Trip and Road Trip. Essentially this geeky Spanish guy has been in love with his beautiful classmate for the past 13 years. And when she gets accepted to Oxford (geography fact: Oxford is in England), his four buddies forge his way in, too. These five guys get into all sorts of trouble while pursuing girls. The parts at Oxford that were in English had subtitles in the theater - we laughed! Most of the movie is in Spanish though, and because of the fast speech and slang we didn't understand it all. But for the most part the images told everything.

Pelirroja

In case you're picturing me as typical española, I'll let you in on a little secret: I am the only, let me repeat ONLY, redhead in Spain. Well, except for a few bad dye jobs and maybe one other exchange student from somewhere in Europe. Even being blonde here is not as much of a novelty.

Things I miss

So I've only been in Spain for three weeks. And what could I possibly miss already? Well, here's a partial list: long showers, chocolate, dessert, seedless grapes, baked food, a set schedule, green things like grass and fields of corn and nice shady trees, understanding people who speak Spanish without a lisp to their z's and c's or who turn their s's into air, fresh milk, public restrooms, not being under-dressed to go to school, good apples, street signs, people who are on time, and need I say chocolate one more time?

Then again, I am in Spain where I'm surrounded by siestas, fiestas, cervezas, buen amigos, really cool old buildings, amazingly good hot weather the way I like it, good looking men, tons of shoe stores, lots of new food to try, and more new experiences to have. And I suppose not everything is different; people are pretty much the same everywhere, even with a different language and cultural norms.

The middle finger

... in Spain has two functions: #1 being the same in the U.S., where people freely express their love for one another by waving it in salutation. In other words, mostly when kids decide to taunt each other and when someone's ticked off and when they're irritated by someone's inability to drive as if they had any brains, and when teenagers mess around.

#2 being their pointer finger. Alas, Spaniards don't seem to believe in the first finger as a grand tool to point things out. Instead they choose to use the middle finger from everything to underlining words on the chalkboard, to pushing their glasses farther up their nose, to pointing out a street on a map, to itching their face. So if you ever get the chance to travel to Spain, plan to take it in stride that over here, unless the middle finger comes with some choice swear words, it's probably not a hand signal that they hate people from the U.S.

The word is "tranquilo"

By now all of you should know for sure that I am currently in Cáceres, Spain, studying abroad for three months. I arrived in Madrid on Sept 10 after a looong set of flights through Detroit and Amsterdam. Kudos to me though, navigating airports I've never seen before. I managed to check my email in Detroit and wrote down the phone number for our Spanish coordinator, which turned out to be extremely helpful later when I couldn't find a single person from our group at the Madrid meeting point. Long story short, there are two arrivals areas in Terminal 2, and when they said "cafeteria at the end of Terminal 2" they actually meant "cafeteria at the end of Terminal 1 that is closest to Terminal 2". God bless the Info kiosk woman who called the number I had written down and explained where to find me. I joined the group for our bus ride south to Cáceres.

The first three weeks here have been excellent, although not without other kinks. It wouldn't be my life if something off-kilter wasn't happening alongside the rest of my schedule. Which is the reason I tend to worry... all the time. Which, for those of you who understand Spanish culture, just isn't a good thing. Sure, the Spanish mothers have a natural concern about their children getting places safely, but as una joven I'm supposed to just go with the flow of things. Tranquilo. Slow down and enjoy what's going on. Have a cerveza and tapas and just chill with some amigos. Stay out until 5:30 in the morning. Take a siesta. Etc. And all I can think is "just give me a set schedule and some written rules already!"