I'm in Argentina and Everything's Awesome!!!

On the 11th Jonathan and I arrived here in sunny Argentina!  We are staying with our cousin Nora, her husband Jorge, and their two sons Sebastian and Santiago.  They have a guest house in their backyard where we have been staying.  We immediately felt comfortable here upon arriving.  The guest house is very comfortable (we have our own bathroom and air conditioning and wi-fi).  But also, they have all been so generous and so kind that we feel right at home here.  We've had a ball hanging out with Santiago and Sebastian; Jonathan and Sebastian are connected at the hip (who knew that Jonathan had an Argentine cousin who was into Swedish film).  It's hysterical to watch them interact - watching Al Pacino clips on You Tube and arguing over how many continents there are (in Argentina they learn in school that "America" is a continent, which includes both North and South America).  They are currently competing in memory games online for beers. 


The first night we were here we had a big family dinner (beef, of course) with Tino (Nora's sister) and his whole family.  Jorge taught Jonathan how to cook the ribs and chorizo's Argentinian style. 

We are currently staying about 30 minutes by train from downtown Burnos Aires.  The city is absolutely amazing.  We have visited it a few times now.  One day we went to a Latin America Art Museum with Santiago.  Here was one of my favorite works that I saw (Antonio Berni's Manifestacion):

We also went through a whole tour of the city with Jorge, Nora, and Santiago.  It's huge and beautiful and I can't wait to see more of it. 

We also spent one day in Chascomus, a large lake south of Buenos Aires.  On the drive there we got to see Las Pampas, the flat plains of Argentina where all the cows live.  There were cows as far as the eye could see. 

We also spent a day with Tino.  We went and saw the first house that Jonathan's mother lived in here in Buenos Aires (Jonathan's grandparents immigrated to Buenos Aires from Spain during Franco's years for work.  Jonathan's mom was about 7 years old when they moved.  About 9 years later (when his mom was about 16) they then moved to New York for work again).  We also walked around his town, Claypool and had lunch with his family. 

Last Sunday Jonathan and I went to a Baptist church service with Nora (Tino is the pastor), which was for sure an experience for me.  All of the services I've ever been to have been Catholic.  Very different. 

I tried Mate.  It's horrible.  I felt like a kid trying beer for the first time.  Maybe it's an acquired taste?  

It's been like 90 and sunny  (it's so hot. My fingers and toes are swollen - they look like little sausages). 

I've never eaten more beef in all my life (Argentina has a huge beef industry).  I think I'll be set for life with regard to iron intake. 

We've been keeping real busy and have surely have been enjoying ourselves.  Argentina is a ereally beautiful country and I am so hapy that we have decided to come.  :)

The End of an Era

We are currently less than two weeks away from our two month trip to Argentina.  We will be in Buenos Aires, Argentina visiting with family from February 10-April 19th.  We are also planning on renting a car and doing a little South American roadtrip.  We haven't finalized it all yet, but are planning on driving from Buenos Aires to Mendoza, the glorious Malbec wine region of Argentina.  From there we want to head over to Santiago, Chile and drive up the coast of Chile into Peru.  We will get to check out the Chilean wine country and all of these awesome national parks (volcanoes, geysers, and oh yeah the Andes in the backdrop of everything we do :).  Once in Peru we want to quickly check out Machu Picchu and Lima and then head back to Buenos Aires.  I am incredibly excited for our trip together, as neither Jonathan nor I have ever been to South America.  And then once we return to Spain from Buenos Aires it will be the beginning of beach season here in Spain and our apartment will become a revolving door of friends and family until we pack it in and head back to the states on August 1st.  With this in mind, I must acknowledge that a significant portion of our time here abroad it coming to an end and I thought I would reflect on it a bit.

We arrived here in Spain on September 3rd, already almost 5 months ago. One of main goals while living here in Spain was to know what it feels like to live in another country.  A lot of my friends have asked me why we don't do more traveling while we are here.  The first and more obvious reason is that we don't have jobs and are living off of a savings account and can't afford to travel more.  The second is that if we spend the entire year traveling we would be in vacation-mode; we still wouldn't know what it is to live in a different country.  So after the first few weeks of "OMG I'm in Spain and everything's awesome" wore off I began to settle into a more routine schedule and began to know more about what it is to live here in Galicia.  I absolutely love the lifestyle here in Galicia and feel a closeness to it that I will for sure take with me wherever I may live (minus that whole drinking in the afternoon thing - can't get away with that in the states).  When people here ask us if we think we could live here happily, it is always a complex question to answer.  More simplistically the answer is yes.  But do I prefer to live in the US?  absolutely, yes.  And this isn't just because all of my family and friends are there.  There is a mode of living, having access to everything at your fingertips, that I have become very accustomed to (and I'm not just referring to quests I have gone on here to find basil and peanut butter).  But when I begin to think more deeply about knowing what it is like to live in Spain I'm still not sure if I really do.  As stated earlier, we don't have jobs.  Not having a job is in some ways a very freeing thing, but in other ways has been difficult for me.

After I finished my Spanish classes I applied to be a volunteer with the Red Cross so as to further my Spanish immersion and to gain more experience for my career.  But what was more important for me was to have a very concrete and obligatory purpose for getting up every day.  After my Spanish classes ended I found myself struggling with remaining productive when I didn't have any daily obligations.  When in December I realized that the Red Cross was not going to call me to volunteer I felt deeply disappointed.  I still had three months until we were going to leave for South America, which is too little time to go around beginning to try to find another volunteer position, but at the same time a lot of time for me to keep myself busy and find something productive to do.  I enrolled in painting classes, learned about early soul music and the history of Africa, continued cooking, painted the apartment, read a lot, and continued with my Spanish.  My Spanish.  One of my major objectives in Spain is to learn Spanish.  I figured that while I'm living in Spain it would be good to be able to speak the language and not have to be escorted everywhere by Jonathan.  Also, it would be wonderful for my social work career if I were able to practice bilingually.  I initially started my studies with 2 months Spanish classes at this local language institute.  There I was given a good foundation of grammar and vocabulary.  When I left the school I was beginning to learn more advanced grammatical things and found that what I needed most was more practice with my conversational skills, quickly conjugating verbs. Since then I have progressed in this and can pretty quickly and accurately express my thoughts.  But in truth, after I finished my classes I didn't work as hard at my Spanish as I should have and am disappointed with my current Spanish level.  I am currently reading a novel in Spanish that Begona gave me as a Three Kings gift ("El Tiempo Entre Costuras", which is a really popular book here in Spain now) and try to speak as much as possible with my family here, but even still I feel a long way off from where I want to be.  I have noted though that when a cousin from Argentina came to Galicia a few months ago to visit and also while I was in Asturias last week, that I understood them much better than I do the family here in Galicia.  It's possible that the dialect of Spanish here is difficult to understand because of it's Gallego (Galicia's language, a mix between Spanish and Portuguese) influence and that maybe I'm a lot better than I really think I am.  I'll have to report back once we're in Argentina.  But until then, I compare my Spanish studies to growing out my hair.  There are some days when I feel like my hair has really grown since I began growing it out since August and am excited at the prospect of where it will be this August when we leave here (will it be long enough to put in a pony tail?).  But then there are other times when I look at my hair and the length that it has grown since august and can't believe that it's still so damn short.  In those moments it takes all my my self control not to just cut it all off and go back to my short do. 

Another way in which I don't feel that I have fully immersed myself in Spanish living is in my social life.  We spend a lot of time with family here, who the majority are old Spanish retirees.  They are very sweet, but it's like living in one of those old people compounds in Florida; my social life here leaves a little something to be desired.  I have become closer with my art teacher, Cristina, and have been going out to lunch with her weekly, which I've really enjoyed.  Jonathan and I also met Andrew, an American currently living in Samieira, the next town over, who is teaching English at a high school in Pontevedra.  We have gone out a few times with Andrew for a few drinks.

But in the end, not having a job and not having an active social life has made me at times feel very isolated here in Spain.  I spend a lot of time on the internet trying to stay closely connected to my friends and family.  Spain has a very social culture and people don't stay cooped up in their homes; everyone is out and about in the streets and in the bars.  Because of my feelings of isolation, which in nature are very un-Spanish, I'm not sure if I really do know what it is to live Spain.  I feel like instead of moving our whole lives, that we put our "real lives" on hold to do some sort of personal experiment.  And in a lot of ways I am very eager to return to the US and reestablish these "real lives" in whatever city we choose to live in.  What I am trying convey here though is not that I am unhappy.  I am very happy here and do not regret choosing to move here.  And since I have moved here I have grown and learned a lot.  But at the same time, I feel as though there are parts of my personality, my sociality and my desire to be productive and work hard, that I have lost in my time here.  I am not ready to return home quite yet.  I am very excited for our vacation in South America and to share with all of my friends and family my life here in Galicia.  But when August 1st comes, I will be ready to reclaim those parts of me that I have lost and together, with the ways that I have grown while here, I hope to be a better person.

Asturias

Jonathan and I decided to take a little mini-vacation to Asturias, a region in northern Spain.  Nila, a close friend of Jonathan's mother currently lives there and we had been graciously invited to stay with her and visit the area.  Asturias is a naturally beautiful region of Spain.  It is an area well known or it's beaches and steep coastal cliffs.  Also, to the south are the Cantabrian Mountains.  We took a 11 hour bus ride to Nila's home in Pravia and had a blast looking at all of the views.  We traveled inland through Galicia and drove through the city of Ourense, which looks awesome (my art teacher is from there and told me some cool stuff about it there too).  We also drove along the Ribiera Sacra, a wine region in Spain.  The road we took follows alongside of the river, which was in itself awesome.  But all along the river banks and the steep hills were small vineyards.  We are definitely excited to check out this area with some friends this summer.  Then I fell asleep for a few hours, so I'm sure there's some other sweet stuff to see, but I just don't know what it is :).  We then headed north into Asturias, driving literally through the Cantabrian Mountains.  The road was narrowly paved in between the mountains and we got to go through all of these sweet tunnels through them.  All I wanted to do the whole time was make the bus stop so I could get out and get pictures! 

Our first day there we went for a tour around Pravia, which is a smaller town.

After lunch that day Jonathan and I took the train to Aviles, a mid-size city in Asturias, to walk around and get a drink together.

The next day we took the train into Gijon, a large city in Asturias.  It was super cold that day, like 40 degrees cold! (I do have to say, I felt a little silly feeling cold when I got back home and realized that it had been like negative 5 in Buffalo the last few days).  All of the women were walking around in fur coats, which I admit I now have a huge desire for.  Christina, my art teacher, told me that there's a second hand shop where you can get em super cheap.  So who knows, maybe I'll arrive back to the states in Chinchilla? :)  Gijon is largely known for it's beautiful beach and during the summer is absolutely packed with tourists.  When we went, the winds had picked up so much that the beaches no longer existed and the waves were crashing up onto the sidewalks.  Even though we didn't get to see the beaches, we had a lot of fun watching the waves crash and playing with photography.  And then we went and got some churros to heat up before catching the train back to Pravia.

The next morning we went to Violeta, Nila's sister's bakery in Pravia.  This bakery has been family owned for three generations.  All of their stuff is done either by hand or with these awesome old machines.  I had a blast in the back taking pictures and watching them make the desserts.  I also had quite possibly the best croissant and cafe con leche of my life.  :)  There is a cafe in the front of the bakery where all of these old ladies come to gossip and have breakfast.  In the pictures below you'll also notice a mounted boar's head on the wall.  Violeta's husband hunts and where better a place to display his trophy kill?!

That afternoon Jonathan and I went around with Nila, her sister Conchita, and Conchita's husband to see some of of the smaller local coastal towns.  Usually in the summer these towns are mobbed with tourists so it was a real treat to be able to visit them in the winter.  They were practically empty and shut down, but there's something special about having an entire stretch of beach to yourself :)

 It was awesome to wander around the coasts.  At a few of the beaches there were look out points to climb up.  Here are some photos I took at one of them.  It felt like the end of the earth. 

Cute little self portrait, eh?

So on our last night, Jonathan and I went to Oviedo, the capital city of Asturias.  We wandered around the city for a few hours and then stopped in a bar to get a cider.  Most of the cider in Spain is produced in Asturias.  When you go to a bar and order a class of cider, they pour it from high up so that the drink is aerated.  They don't carbonate the cider, but the pouring process adds a nice little fizz to it.  I had a riot watching our waiter pour our cider.  

 

Gallegita!!

Since I moved here to Galicia I have been learning a lot of really awesome Gallego reicipes and, since I am without a job, I have fully emersed myself in the role of "ama de casa" (Gallego housewife).  During the Franco era of Spain a lot of emphasis was placed on a woman's duty in the house, and still today being a housewife is a source of pride for many older women.  When we went over to Gonzalito and Loli's home for a family dinner, Chelo came to help out in the kitchen, with her smock in tow (Obviously, I made fun of Chelo for bringing her own smock).  Because I've shown an affinity for Gallego cooking and all things of the house (making wine, planting potatoes, etc) Chelo gave my very own Gellega smock.  :) 

Dia de Los Reyes

In Spain Three Kings Day is a widely celebrated holiday.  Traditionally, it is the day when the most holiday gift giving is done.  Christmas is more of a religious holiday.  Due to the influence of the United States, Santa is becoming more popular, though still the majority of the gift giving is done on Three Kings Day.  Jonathan and I went to Vigo to spend Three Kings Day with family there.

The evening before Three Kings Day there is a large parade, La Cabalgata.  It had been horribly rainy all day and they weren't sure if the parade was going to occur, but it held off just long enough for us to enjoy the parade.  The parade is your basic parade with floats, dancers, and candy, except at the end The Three Kings arrive and the kids yell out to them what they want to receive.  I asked Balthazar for a pink Vespa with a matching helmet.  Balthazar was the last King in the procession and I thought he would appreciate my patience.  All of the floats are loaded with kids throwing hard candy at the crowd.  Unfortunately, nobody properly schooled them in how to appropriately throw candy at the crowds.  So basically we had floats full of 10 year old boys, whipping hard candy at us.  Basically, I'm lucky that I wasn't concussed.  Jonathan started taking pictures of the parade, but eventually put away his camera because he was afraid that it would be damaged by hard candy.  He told me that this is what it must feel like to be stoned to death.  The parade was pretty, but we spent most of it in the back, ducking. haha.

Before we got the the parade Jonathan was being grumpy and I told him that I wouldn't forgive him until he bought be a balloon at the parade (I know what you're thinking - most mature couple ever).  Here is a picture of me with my Zebra balloon:

Not only am I super pumped in this photo because I have a zebra balloon, but also because my darling and I had made up.  Things were good.  :)  So I spent an hour protecting my balloon from the hard candies during the parade and as we began our walk to Rosie's house for dinner I was excited to hold that bad boy with pride!!  As we are walking, Jonathan jokingly shouts "I'm going to kill your zebra" and pokes it with the umbrella.  He CLAIMS that it wasn't his actual intent and was only trying to be silly (though I really know the truth - he was jealous of all of the attention I was paying to it).  But he popped it.  He popped my balloon!  I was so upset!!!!  Mario, our 4 year old cousin was also very upset with Jonathan.  He told Jonathan that he was stupid and that Jonathan wasn't allowed at his house anymore (I, of course, thought that this was amazing).  Eventually Mario forgave Jonathan, after Jonathan pleaded with him, reminding him repeatedly that they were cousins.

We then went to Rosie's house for dinner.  Jonathan made everyone his delicious homemade pizza, which I profess is the best I've ever eaten.  A month or two prior we had dinner at Rosie and Jorge's with a few of their friends.  They ordered Domino's for dinner.  As expected, it was horrible.  But more interestingly, the toppings were so strange (kernels or corn and BBQ sauce?).  So we told them that Jonathan would make pizza for them and show them how it should taste.  Jonathan made pizza while Tina made a few traditional Gallego tapas (shellfish, tortilla).  Everyone really liked Jonathan's pizzas :).  For desert on Three Kings Day we were served a ring shaped anise cake with candied fruit on top.  In the center of the ring is a paper crown (just like at Burger King).  Baked inside the cake is a bean and a small plastic figurine of one of the Three Kings.  So everyone is allowed to cut into the cake, and if their piece has the bean, then they are supposed to pay for the cake.  If you get the king figurine, you get to wear the paper crown.  This was super fun.  Whenever anyone cut a piece everyone would drum their hands on the table and howl with excitement.  Jonathan won and was really excited to wear the paper crown.  We then spent the next few hours talking and having some drinks.  I taught them all how to play Kings Cup.  They had the most fun when someone drew a card and they were required to put their thumb on the table or their hand in  the air.  haha. 

The next day we all went over to Vicente's parents home for lunch.  It was really nice, but we were all really tired.  We went back to Tina's house, where we stay whenever we go to Vigo.  Tina went to bed to take a nap.  Jonathan and I watched a video and then decided to go out for a walk.  We went for a really nice long walk throughout the entire city and stopped to get a drink together.  And then we hopped on a bus the next day and headed back to Raxo; our visit was short but sweet :)

Lookie What I Got!!

So today, after 4 months of absurdity, I have in my hand my Spanish National ID Card.  Unlike the US, Spain has both passports and national ID cards (similar to state ID cards, but mandatory and obviously national)  So I am obviously obsessed with my new ID card.  This is for several reasons:

1.  It's just plain awesome.
2.  I look adorable (some days I yearn for my pre-Justin Beiber/Anton Chigurh days, though hope for a brighter hair future).
3. And apparently, I come from a land in the future when we don't feel the need to identify one's sex.  Sweet.

So I had several clever remarks to make here about Jonathan's name being on the back of my card (shocker, right?), so I've decided to write all of them!!
1.  I'm with him. (all of my residence paperwork here in Spain was done through my marriage with Jonathan as he has Spanish citizenship).
2. " I'd be lost without him", like #1 but more romantic.
3.  I like to make jokes about Jonathan riding in my sidecar when I finally get my pink Vespa with a matching helmet.  This card is evidence, that in fact, I ride in Jonathan's sidecar. 

New Year's

So after my Christmas homesickness I wasn't really looking forward to New Year's.  Traditionally here on New Year's Eve families have a big dinner and ring in the new year together.  They spend the evening together and then have hot chocolate (thicker and more bitter than American hot chocolate) and churros before going to bed.  Younger people go out to clubs and dance the night away and upon returning home, have their churros with their family.  I posted pictures of my first churros a few months back; if you're interested, you can view them by clicking here.

Jonathan and I were invited to Manolo's daughter Miriam's home for dinner.  Before heading over to Miriam's we had a few cocktails together (since coming here we have been developing quite a bar and have been experimenting a lot with cocktails.  My favorites thus far are champagne cocktails, Disaronno sours, and French Connections.  I know, I know, I drink like a 19 year old girl.) and toasted just the two of us to the new year.  On facebook I had noted a lot of people happy to see 2010 end and happily welcoming a new year.  For me, 2010 was a great year.  I finished my masters degree, fell even more in love with my darling husband, and moved to Spain.  I understand that tragedies and hardships happen during people's lives, which would obviously affect the way you reflect upon the last year.  But when I was reading person after person discussing how horrible their year was, I couldn't help but wonder if these same people would be saying the same thing next year (unless that is, if I don't defriend them first ;).  I think that if you are good to others that good will come to you and that if you are unhappy with your life you need to take action to change it.  This may seem blatantly obvious, but you'd be surprised how many people don't act in this manner.  There are people who actively foster happiness in their lives and there are people who passively wait for this happiness to reach them.  If you wait, it may never come and you'll just end up bitching about it year after year on facebook.

We then walked up to Chelo and Gonzalo's house to say hello to everyone and wish them all a happy New Year.  They were preparing their New Year's meal.  The house was packed and everyone was in a great mood.  We hung out there saying hello to everyone for 20 minutes or so and then headed down to Miriam's for dinner.  We were served shrimp and crab to start.  We were then served Bachalao and cauliflower, the traditional New Year's meal, which was absolutely delicious.  They were boiled together and then served with an olive oil, garlic and paprika sauce.  We were then served roasted chicken and lamb (this course would have been awesomer if I wasn't already stuffed from the 2 previous courses).  We then had tons of different kinds of cakes, nuts, and fruits (including Jonathan's beautiful flan) with coffee and whiskey/brandy/coffee liquor shots.  Here's a picture of all of us at Miriam's:

In Spain, it is the tradition that during the last 12 seconds on New Year's Eve that you consume 12 grapes (1 for each month of the following year).  If you are able to eat them all before midnight strikes you will have luck throughout all of next year.  Since I have been with Jonathan we have done this together at New Year's as Jonathan's family continues this tradition on New York.  However, Jonathan was taught that so long as you finish the 12 grapes in the last 12 seconds you will be luckily.  After years of practice Jonathan has found that if you put all of the grapes in your mouth when the countdown begins and chew manically until midnight, that you will have a greater chance of success.  Being a gringo and an inexperienced grape eater I have assumed the same tactic.  This New Years Eve, we found out that this tactic is not practiced in Spain.  Before the countdown everyone was served Cava (Spanish sparkling wine) and given a dish of 12 grapes.  As the 12 seconds started Jonathan and I quickly rammed 12 grapes in our mouths and both successfully finished with about 5 seconds to spare.  As I was gloating in my victory I looked around at everyone else and quickly realized that they were all adding one grape to their mouths with the count of each second.  Much more orderly and less manic/barbaric. haha.  Everyone then went around kissing and hugging each other and then we all toasted to the New Year.  Jonathan and I hung around for another hour or two and then decided to go back over to Chelo and Gonzalo's to spend some time with them.  We spent another few hours with them, drinking, talking and eating desserts.  We got back home around 4 or so, talked to Jamerson, Jonathan's brother, on Google phone (the greatest invention ever) and then headed to bed.  We didn't end up having churros, I was feeling too lazy to make them.  :)  All in all I had a really great time and will certainly remember this New Year's Eve.