Hi all!
Here continues part 2 of What I’ve Done Since Saturday!
Thanks for reading! I know I’m really really really obnoxiously verbose but I figure if you’ve made it this far, you don’t care. So thank you for being my patient audience!
This one is REALLY long, so you might want to save some time to read it...! I'll try to cut back at some point, I realize I'm a little ridiculous, but I'm starting to use this thing as a sort of journal for myself as well because sometimes I remember stuff I forgot to put in my journal! Anyway. Welcome. Kat's in Spain! Yay!
So I think I left off with Segovia and was going to continue with El Rastro. It was pretty straightforward in terms of being a long street lined with small stalls filled with basically the same stuff in general—scarves, sunglasses, shoes, tons of baby clothes, clothing of varying quality, pirated DVDs, perfume (one place had a sign that literally said “Recently stolen!”). And then there were tiny baby turtles!! Janna kind of wanted to get one and then we realized it would either die tomorrow or live until May, at which time she’d have to figure out what the heck to do with it. They were pretty cute, though…probably diseased…
I’ve heard from a semi-reliable source (aka Katie Grimm) that the one in Madrid is way way cooler, so I may or may not hit that up. I’d prefer not to get mugged or get harassed by sketchy guys hawking stolen goods, but it sounds pretty impressive aside from those lovely threats. So we’ll see, I can probably convince someone to go with me!
Onto the more interesting stuff! Fútbol on Sunday with Antonio (my orientation leader, for those of you who can’t keep track of people…he’s one of the only people here who laughs as much as me, which works out well), his friends, and Drew, Evan, Danny, and Peter (guys from my program). They played at one of the sketchiest parks I’ve ever seen (nobody was there, but there was graffiti everywhere and at random times sketchy guys would come up and stand at one of the fences and sort of stare and do nothing except look threatening). We had to hop the fence and the “field” was a basketball court with soccer goals at both ends. One of the soccer goals only had 1 post so Antonio (being the fine arts major) stuck a teeny skinny stick into the base of the broken one. Slick. Anyway, Antonio and Danny and Peter were on one team with 2 of Antonio’s friends and then the rest were with Drew and Evan (they all thought Drew was huge, which he is…they wanted to know if he played rugby…?! Which I guess they think is essentially American football).
There’s not much to explain except that it was so so fun to watch (I miss the Guapos of Middlebury!!!) and I may or may not be convinced to play with them at some point. I met Monica (Antonio’s friend from University who’s my age and reminds me a lot of Anna Wheatley, one of the british girls who stayed with us back at CA through the exchange thingy…) and Maria (Antonio’s younger sister who is 16) and chatted with them, which was cool. Slash made me feel like I might have some kind of chance at making Spanish friends, one day! Monica showed me the funniest photo of herself and Antonio (in girly pajamas and makeup) from a few years ago and kept trying to get me to call him Tontonio (tonto=stupid). We had a good time and I think they’re gonna play again on Sunday!
Janna and Kendra (two girls from IES) came and watched for a little while with me but as soon as they left the boys decided that 1.5 hours of straight soccer was enough and it was time to play Ventana (aka Window aka like Horse or Knockout in basketball). Basically, there’s a goalie and everyone else stands in a semi-circle like 10 feet or 20 feet away and tries to score. If the goalie gets 5 goals scored against him, he has to bend over and everyone gets to kick the ball at his butt. During the game, you can only shoot on goal if you receive the ball in the air (aka if it bounces, you have to kick it up in the air and pass it to someone else), the goalie can catch the ball and chuck it back at the players (if he hits you and the ball goes out of bounds, you’re goalie). It was hysterical, because Drew was stuck with 4 goals against him. He revved it up and started playing like a total animal, jumping to catch the ball whenever possible and generally being a maniac. At one point he caught the ball and chucked it at Peter, who turned so it hit him in the back. It bounced straight back at Drew, who caught it and chucked it at Peter again, this time hitting him squarely in the crotch. Ow. Peter fell to the ground, laughing/crying in pain, and all the other guys pretty much did the same, except without the pain...Peter ended up in goal and ended up getting 5 goals on him after like 30 minutes…so he had to bend over with his butt in the air and everyone got a shot! Nobody hit him, though, so either they’re all really nice guys or can’t score (could be a mixture of both). Can’t wait for this Sunday!! Antonio wants me to play, but I don’t know if I have the guts (or legs, or knees, or endurance). But it could be fun. I think Becca Maller from Bowdoin’s gonna try to play with them, so maybe I’ll join her.
Small news item—I successfully did laundry! The place is literally a street away from my house, so that’s super convenient. It was 6 euros for washing and drying (student discount), and it’s a cute little place and the guy was quite nice and not sketchy and seemed responsible enough. We just left our clothes and came back in 2 hours. I’m SO glad it’s close and easy and my clothes all came back the right color and smelling good and everything!! And even if I do my laundry every week it’s cheaper than it would be if I did it here at home (aka asked my host mom to do it…she already told Becca and I that she won’t do it, because we have too many clothes…), which would be 11 euros a week. For all of you studying abroad right now you might appreciate that whole little tidbit more than anyone back at home.
Onto the parts with alcohol! So Monday night we had pizza with everyone from IES as part of orientation (yum, goat cheese pizza!!) at the Irish Rover, a generally American or international student bar near the Casa de las Conchas. Before we got there, however, there was a bit of a problem. I was walking to the Plaza Mayor with Becca and we ran into like 10 kids from IES. Wondering what the deal was (everyone knows how to get to the Irish Rover, nobody needed to meet up), we realized quite quickly that all of a sudden the air smelled strongly of ammonia and a lot of people were covering their mouth and nose. Apparently some truck (maybe?!) had spilled or crashed or whatever near the plaza and spilled ammonia all over the place and it smelled AWFUL. We walked as quickly as possible across the plaza and about 5 minutes more down towards the Irish Rover, holding sweatshirts or sleeves or napkins over our facs. As we crossed one of the streets, a huge sanitation-type truck passed and someone was announcing that there had been an ammonia spill and it would not reach toxic levels but not to open windows or doors…we ran pretty fast, groaning the whole time and wondering aloud if alcohol was going to be the best idea after inhaling ammonia. Yum.
Upon arrival, we got a free drink coupon (yay, Sangria!) and had pizza, chatting and relaxing. At some point, a group of Tunos arrived. What are Tunos, you ask? Groups of male students from the university who play guitars/tambourines/accordion and sing. They’re kind of like traveling musicians but they have been around for centuries. My art teacher from Middlebury, Aquilino (one of the craziest human beings I know…artist, somewhat creepy, very touchy, totally insane) is a tuno, which we learned whilst at Midd. Little did I know, though, that he was in THE group that came to play for us on Monday…what a surprise when he walked in the door!! Judd and Rebecca I think will be the only ones who can fully appreciate the insanity of that situation, but just in case you want to have the experience, too, check out these helpful links: (http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/ls/spanish/facstaff/ag_barrio.htm and http://bowdoin.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016461&l=0c157&id=4602208 ---check out the third and fourth-to-last photos…).
Tunos tend to play traditional songs and sing in harmony etc etc and are almost always students but clearly there are also adults. At any rate, they also serenade girls. Guess who got dragged on stage first? Yes, that’d be me. I begged for other people from the program to come up, so I got 3 more girls to come up with me. Yeah, so the tunos got down on one knee and sang about 3 songs to us. Aquilino plays the little tambourine thingies, which is just beyond absurd. After they were done embarrassing us, they played a few more songs (including the oh-so-traditional Hotel California and Guantanamera) and Aquilino did somersaults and flips and such. This is much funnier if you look at those links I posted a few sentences ago. Oh my god. After they were done being super traditional and, I don’t know, goofy, Aquilino gave me his number (and his business card for being a Tuno?! Wtf?!?) and was like “We HAVE to get coffee!” which, you know, fine, friendly face, blah blah, but he’s AQUILINO and no effing way am I going by myself. Luckily it’s at this point I find out that he’s Antonio’s sculpture professor!! So I drag Antonio over and we all talk and Aquilino is like “Casey rocks, Antonio rocks, you guys are the best, be friends, life is good, I love both of you, Antonio you have to show Casey your artwork” and Antonio and I are just laughing and being embarrassed. Antonio said he’d come with me to have coffee with Aquilino, though, which will be SO helpful. Or key, as some of you say. =)
The night has not even remotely begun, my friends. There’s more! David—one of the guys from IES who is young but not a teacher and not an orientation leader—works there (so does Oscar’s brother—Oscar is like David) and after studying in the US for a year a few years ago started Beer Pong at 11 on Monday nights when he got back. It’s pretty popular among Americans (there were a ton of Colby students—apparently they have a poseur-Feb-program like Midd and they send lots of kids to Salamanca…half of them looked about 12 and were generally sketchy boozers who didn’t know how to deal with so much freedom, independence and alcohol…the other half was nice enough, as far as I could tell) and international students. I didn’t play (the only alcohol I had all night was that sangria at 9, but I think oscar and david thought I was drunk later on, at 3am, when I was still dancing…) but I supported the IES kids who played. Antonio and Danny were a team (Antonio’s first time!) and they were shut out by Colby kids in their first game, thus being eliminated from the tournament (nooo!). We were trying to explain to Antonio what a naked lap was but David was like “uh, no” (it was just a joke!). I think kids from JMU ended up winning around 4am.
So yeah, they played pretty much all American music (Umbrella, Gold Digger, Every Step You Take, Maroon 5, Black Betty, various remixes of J. Lo songs, Jay-Z songs, 50 Cent songs…weird selection, I know). Most people were dancing American-style aka really sexually aka grinding, except for me, Simone, Antonio, Danny, and Peter. We stayed in the far corner of the bar near the stage and just hung out, doing our own thing. Antonio is an amazing dancer, in like…a street way. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s just dancing by himself, but he can move his feet in crazy crazy ways. Danny gets drunk really easily and gets really goofy—he saw a couple making out farther down the bar (really common in Spain—PDA shows how much you care about your significant other, it’s not gross, but it’s still surprising!) and could not stop staring and being like “Qué asco!” which means “Gross!” We saw Monica (from the soccer game, Antonio’s friend from school) and I met one of Antonio’s friends named Javi who spoke so softly and quickly I gave up trying. Also he was kind of sketchy. Not important.
At some point, Danny and Peter left and Oscar left, leaving just me and Simone and Antonio. We started walking out with Danny and Peter and somehow ended up on this sort of upper-step part near the door, where people had been playing beer pong but where nobody was after about 2:30am. For some bizarre reason, we three just ended up dancing with each other/alone/trading off with Antonio/goofing around until…oh, 4:30? David was still there, cleaning up and monitoring the LONGEST beer pong tournament I have EVER witnessed (winners get Irish Rover gear, a bottle of alcohol, and it’s free to play the next Monday). So we just generally had a great time, dancing “American style” and Spanish style and being silly. Simone and I kept trying to translate the titles of the songs into Spanish for Antonio just because we thought we were cool and that resulted in some funny miscommunications. We met some Irish kids from London who’d been there for 3 days (not in the bar, in Salamanca) and were leaving early the next morning. I started imitiating their accent which was a bad idea because I couldn’t stop, but before that, one of them asked me if I had irish heritage because I looked irish (whaaatever). Their girlfriends were not impressed that they were talking to me and Simone but it was fine and it was fun to translate for Antonio. Around 4:30 I think we left, walking home. We all luckily live near each other (I was waiting for Simone because I didn’t wanna walk home alone and I couldn’t find Becca past about 1:30am) and started talking about past relationships and us vs. spain and popularity in the US and all sorts of stuff. We sat on a stoop on one of the avenidas near our houses and just talked! Simone left after about a half hour and Antonio and I just stayed and talked until we were too cold. I made it into bed around 6am and I think that’s part of why I have a cold now…! But it was so so worth it and I am SO glad I hadn’t had any alcohol since 9pm or I really would have been miserable. Eck.
That’s probably been my favorite night so far. I’m sick now, though, so I haven’t been out since then. I’m going to go out tomorrow night after karaoke with the group and probably on Saturday, too, depending on how tired I am after our trip to Zamora and Toro on Saturday (for all you wine-lovers out there…there will be wine-tasting of some of Spain’s best wine!! Anything specific you want for Hanukkah or Christmas….??). We’ll see. I’m still getting used to everything, duh, and I think I will be doing so until the day I leave!! You know how it is.
So. Yesterday I bought 4 sweaters, a dress, and a winter coat. Today I bought the smoothest and prettiest green scarf (you gotta have a scarf if you’re gonna be in spain!). I spent a little more than I’d wanted to on the coat but I figure if I love it and I wear it every day (aka the plan) and I can def wear it in the US, it’s worth it. I’ll take pictures or something for those of you out there who wanna know what it all looks like (aka Mom). I’m not planning on making any clothing or big purchases aside from cute funky things or postcards or whatever until next spring, but we’ll see how I fare as time goes on. Hopefully these clothes will help me blend in a teeny bit more. I still am debating getting bangs (not the scary kind, the swoopy fashionable kind…without cutting the rest of my hair…I don’t think I’ll look too yeti-like but we’ll see if I am brave enough to try it in Spanish!).
Most importantly out of all of that=I’m coming home on DECEMBER 18th and I’m coming back here on FEBRUARY 1st. And I’m visiting Bowdoin and Middlebury in January. And maybe a few certain cities on the east coast. We’ll see, I might just invite myself. Jess, I’m seeing you every second of every day before China, I know you leave in late December, have no fear!
Phew. I write way too much.
Thanks for reading this, I’ll be sending postcards your way over the next few weeks, I hope you receive them before December!!! If you’re in Spain or Europe and want to visit, keep harassing me until I make plans!!
Think good thoughts about me not having this nasty cold anymore, remind me to take more photos, and send loving thoughts across the ocean as I sleep!!!
Love love love love,
-Casey
