Who knew I liked soccer?

When I was in 1st grade, my parents signed me up for soccer--because, you know, it’s American Law or something. For the whole season, I ran around cones during drills, learned that you were supposed to kick with the inside of your foot, and learned that the ultimate objective was to kick the ball into the net.

“Because the coach tells you to!” I answered my dad when he asked me why.

I didn’t touch the ball once during the season. I did, however, kick puffy dandelions like it was my job.  I think I might have played right wing?  I remember being told to stand on the circle. So I did. Era todo. Sue me--I’m not aggressive. Give me shiny objects, tap shoes, and music over competitive sports any day.

I still don’t know a damn thing about soccer. What I do know, however, is that I’ve absolutely loved being in Spain during the World Cup. Just like I loved watching my old music professor get all riled up at the beginning of classes, watching the entire town light up on the night of a match--and later that night following their win--was one of the most electric things that I could have experienced. I’ve actually gone out to watch every soccer game here. Do I know what’s happening?  No. Do I know when they score?

OH MY GOSH YES I DO. Even if you’re not watching the screen (although I usually am, in a weak attempt to soak up any soccer knowledge I could gain over this almost-four-week period through osmosis), you know when Spain scores. The entire pub erupts into shouts and screams, stomps and applause, foghorns and noisemakers. Cars on the street begin all honking their horn in the same pattern (for the rhythmically inclined, it’s a 1, 2, 3+4, 1+2+, +4! rhythm that is totally from something that ends in “let’s go!”)

a batch of cookies to the first person to tell me what that’s from--it’s been bothering me ALL MONTH. And it’s not often it takes me this long to figure it out. But you can’t google “dun, dun, dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun--let’s go!” It doesn’t work.

Then the songs begin. A refrain consisting of nothing but ¡Olé! over and over again, or a rousing refrain of “Yo soy Español, Español, Español” gets the whole pub clapping and singing. It’s electric, and so exciting to watch--although I do feel like a bit of a poser if I sing that song, since it’s so blatantly obvious that I’m not Spanish (my roommate and I have taken to singing (no) soy Español instead, so we can still take part in the celebration without lying. Phew--that’s a load off my conscience!

Late into the night, the cars continue honking that exact same rhythm. Over. And. Over. And. Over. But it’s not obnoxious!  There’s such an electricity in the air that it’s just incredible. I wrote a bit about this during my Granada post, but still. It’s two days later, and people are still celebrating. 

Confession: I was asleep by 12:30. I know, it seems lame. I think we were also the only people who had to be doing anything by 9 a.m. the next day. And who also don’t get a siesta. Yes, I may be in Spain, but this school totally runs on an American schedule. I’m just sayin’. Don’t judge.

Oh, and if nothing else, I’m totally rooting for Spain every four years when the World Cup rolls around. 

¡Olé, olé olé olé!

"Make a Jail With Your Teeth!"

I'm just gonna throw it out there: I was a Speech Kid.

From Kindergarten through 3rd grade, I was pulled out of my normal class and sent down to Mrs. Bubb's room, where I would be taught time and again how to form my mouth and make the noise that came out sound something like my formidable consonant: the ever-troublesome "S." Still to this day, I remember Mrs. Bubb telling me during that weekly hour to put my front teeth together, my tongue right behind them, and try to whistle a noise out. "Make a jail with your teeth! You can do it! It'll be easier with this sentence right here!" I grew to hate those "S" tongue-twisters more than anything else.

Three years later, Mrs. Bubb decided I was capable enough to make that stupid sound on my own. I'll never forget the time I was sitting on my knees on the floor of our living room, while my dad played the piano, and it happened. I was practicing my "S," just like Mrs. Bubb told us to, and in the middle of my dad playing "Honesty" by Billy Joel, I heard a whistle. It was slight, but I knew it was there. 

...and then I couldn't do it a minute later. Traumatic, I know. Such was my relationship with Speech for the second half of my 8-year-old life.

You may be wondering why I'm even bothering to bring this up, when I'm supposed to be talking about the marvelous time I'm having in Spain. Well, we were studying "The Manner and Place of Articulations" in our Phonology segment today in class, and I was having flashbacks to my Speech days. But not happy, nostalgic flashbacks; these were more of the PTSD variety. In determining where my tongue was supposed to go for each phoneme, every so often I'd revert back to my 8-year-old self and want to exclaim "but it is at the roof of my mouth! I don't know where it's supposed to go! Does it really matter? It's close enough!" 

This is also when I realized that I'm still not making the "sh" sound properly, even 15 years later. Because no matter what, the sides of your tongue are not supposed to be the only part touching the roof of your mouth. Discovering this was almost as upsetting as not being able to properly "make a jail with my teeth" for my dad after I had done so for myself less than a minute before. I've also learned that I'm [somehow] subconsciously hyper-aware of my speech tendencies and how I pronounce certain sounds. However, a useful tool for a potential choir director, or just for someone who plans on talking a lot in life.

The fun story in all of this?  I need to take and pass a phonology exam in order to get my certificate from TEFL. Thank goodness Mrs. Bubb told me how to incarcerate my tongue, or this whole trip might have been for naught! Well, not for naught (/nɑ:t fɔ:r nɒt/), but it'd be a sad ending nonetheless.

Granada

Mom, Dad, and anyone else who cares:

You are so lucky that the TEFL program wasn’t set for Granada--I’d never come back!  I was in the city for a grand total of 24 hours, and it’s already risen to one of my Top Five Favorite Places Ever, potentially even top 2--Boston still beating it by a hair because my highest concentration of “family” is still there. High praise, no? The last time I fell in love with a city, I was 12 years old, walking through Haymarket, and saying to myself, “I’m going to live in this city and shop in this market when I grow up.”  So, who knows?  You can’t call yourself the “Renaissance and Baroque City” and not make me want to stay.

The whirlwind tour of Granada began when Lyndsey and I caught the early train on Saturday morning. After rushing around for the first hour we were awake (I opened my eyes at 6 a.m. and Lyndsey had also forgotten to set her alarm, both of us needing to get dressed, pack, and be out the door by 6:30 if we were going to get to the train station in time to purchase tickets for the 7:00 train), I’ve discovered there is no better way to dually wake up and calm down than by taking a train through the Andalusian countryside. Unlike so many of the high-traffic railways of the US (or at least the Boston-New York rail I take so often), I can’t even see the tracks of the train headed in the opposite direction. It’s just field after field, hills rolling on top of each other, as far as the eye can see.

There are three different types of land along this route: there’s the tan field, likely home to something unable to be grown in the scorching July sun; olive trees, deep green and bushy, planted in rows that remind me of the orange groves I’d pass on my drives across Florida; and sunflowers, still very small now, but sure to be much larger by the time they’re harvested and sold in the fall. 

Every so often we’d pass a small town, its whitewashed plaster buildings reflecting the rising sun beautifully. it’s also incredibly different from Sevilla, where each building is a different bright color. Some of these towns just rise and fall in the distance, some are smaller stops for our train. Occasionally in the far distance I’ll see windmills, which (thanks to Lyndsey) remind me of Don Quixote, that quintessential Spanish novel, which makes the entire thing feel more Spanish and makes me feel more authentic--regardless of the fact that the ticket guy didn’t understand me the first time I asked for a ticket this morning.

The subtle rocking of the train lulled me to sleep, and I woke up as we were approaching Granada. We had nothing planned except to see the Alhambra, the ancient palace and fortress of the Moors and the last to fall to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 during the 15th-century Spanish Reconquest. It’s as we’re walking through the city, towards the Alhambra on the other side of town, that I fall in love with the city as I’ve only done once before.

Granada has the build of a city and the pace of a small town, which is either growing on me a) because it’s how they do in Spain, or b) because we woke up early and walked over 10 miles that day and I was just not set to go fast the whole time. Even as Lyndsey and I traipsed around with no set plan, finding church after church and cute little plaza after cute little plaza, the trees were blooming a vivid, seemingly doctored shade of green and the buildings were adorned with such details that I couldn’t believe a place like this existed in the 21st century outside of literature. 

At night, the streets were lit with lights draped over the streets like they are on Harvard Ave. or in Brighton Center, except even larger and more colorful (and, I have to admit, classier shops on the streets themselves, too). We passed a band playing music in one of the plazas while a bunch of people--mostly older couples--danced, and it was so wonderful and incredible and Spanish that it made me beam one of those “I can’t believe this is my life” smiles. Yes, I’m a sap in Spain--deal. 

This was also the night that Spain won the World Cup quarter-finals game against Paraguay, and while the game ended around 10:30 p.m., people were driving through the streets in their cars and on their Vespas, shouting and honking their horns in celebration until well past midnight. The energy in the city was electric--although I can’t really count that as just Granada, as I’m sure it was that way in every part of the country. You all know I’ve never been a soccer person, but it’s hard not to get excited when you’re surrounded by an entire population of Ralf Gawlicks and other such soccer lovers who are spending June and July living for the sport. 

You may have noticed I’ve said virtually nothing of what we did in Granada--well, I’ve got a bunch of pictures of the Alhambra, so check them out if you’d like. But what affected me the most was the manner in which the people and the city just lived--it’s so historical, and yes so right now. Francis Mayes, in her book Under the Tuscan Sun, said it better than I could, even thought she’s writing about southern Italy as opposed to southern Spain:

In these stony old Tuscan towns [or in Granada, as far as I’m concerned], I get no sense of stepping back in time that I’ve had in Yugoslavia, Mexico, or Peru. [Andalusians] are of this time; they simply have the good instinct to bring the past along with them. If our culture says burn your bridges behind you--and it does--theirs says cross and recross.

You can look up the hill and see the Alhambra from any section of the city. The nearly 500 year-old cathedral is visible from the train station. And they have signs, statues, and memorials commemorating this “Rennaisance and Baroque” city at every turn. But as the city comes to life that night, I realize that it’s not just commemorating what was 500 years ago, but also living fully in the here-and-now in a balance that rarely find in the States--one of the few places being where I live. Come to think of it, I just might have found my European Boston in more ways than one.

The day I failed at Laundry

My roommate Lauren always says that any article of clothing she owns needs to be able to be thrown into the laundry with every other piece of clothing she owns--if it doesn't make it out alive, then it didn't deserve to be in her closet in the first place.

Aside from most of the dresses I've made, I tend to live by Lauren's philosophy as well, though not in as many words. You always hear the horror stories of one red sock in with the whites, and you're ready for a Valentine's Day party after, but it's never happened to me.

Then I came to Spain.

And failed at reading icons. Not Spanish--that I can handle. what I can't handle are the pictures on our washing machine, such as the little curlicue.

What the heck is the curlicue supposed to mean? I get the snowflake. Except that it's not that cold. What's the leaf for?  Or the funnel?  Why in God's name are you putting a funnel in the washing machine?!? SO MANY QUESTIONS.

And the numbers are not minutes. They're degrees. Celsius.

So when I put the dial on the 90, that was bad news bears.

But hey, bright side, right? My formerly tan sweater is now a kickin' shade of grey. My blue shirt is now really blue. The white part of one of my dresses has a nice little pink hue to it now. Anything elastic is now white, regardless of whatever color it formerly was.

No, I have NO FREAKING IDEA what I did to my laundry.

At least my roommate and I got a good laugh out of this!  And hey, now I don't need to buy a new shirt to remember my time here!

"Oh, this old thing?  Yeah, it used to be a different color. Then I went to Spain, the magical place where nothing stays the same--even my clothes."