Super Bowl Sunday in Spain

The most interesting part about Super Bowl Sunday is that it doesn’t actually begin in Spain until Monday, due to the time difference. As most of my American readers know, kickoff was at 6:30pm EST, which means that it was approximately 00:30 Spain time. Well this presented no obstacle to the hundred of dedicated football fans (or study abroad students who enjoy any excuse to go out on a Sunday) with whom I watched the game last night. I myself am not sure in which category I belong.

Anyway, there was an event put together by We Love Spain, an organization that plans events for/exploits Americans. This time the deal was ten euros to get into the bar, and unlimited beers and popcorn after kickoff. Oh, and how can I forget the all American hot-dogs that went around at half time? In retrospect, it was not such a bad deal. The beers were the size of the Dixie cups I used to brush my teeth when I was younger BUT there was no limit on how many you could get at a time. So all in all I have to say thank you to We Love Spain for helping me come together with my compatriots to celebrate our American-ness by stuffing our faces and watching football.

The game did not end until very late in the morning, approximately 4 AM, on a work night. Needless to say, I did not make it in to work today. However, thanks to my three day a week schedule, I can easily make up this lost day.

So even though the bar was crowded and there was beer and popcorn all over the floor, it was nice to feel like I was back in the good old US of A for a few hours. And of course it was nice to see the Giants win!

Apparently, Americans out watching the super bowl were the only people out at 4:30 AM on this Monday morning. Ergo, Sevilla decided there was no need for taxis at this specific hour. So instead of hopping into the comfort of a taxi after standing on my feet for 5 hours, I had to walk home (a 40 minute walk!) with my roommates. I also lost track of my jacket for a significant portion of the night and when I picked it up to leave it was drenched with beer. So not only was I walking, I was walking in cold weather with a beer soaked jacket.

And I have to say, it was a great night! Love ya USA!

el gimnasio

Today, despite going to sleep at midnight last night, I didn’t wake up until 1pm. Given how lazy I was yesterday, I decided I should probably try to make it to the gym today…good thing its open until 3PM! (seriously though, nothing is open on Sundays so that’s pretty good)

I had some breakfast, put on my gym clothes and was on my way. Everything was going great until around 2:30 I noticed they turned the lights off. I thought it was weird but there were people continuing with their workout so I didn’t think anything of it. I got back in the zone and lost track of time. Around 2:45 the monitor came up to me and said “nos vamos” (we’re leaving). I thought wow, that was a fast half an hour, but then I saw on the clock on the wall it was only 2:45. Weird again. But I was told to leave, so I did just that.

When I was collecting my belongings from the locker room, that same monitor who told me to go home was in the same row as me getting her stuff together. She said something to me really quickly in Spanish and my brain was not ready to translate. But I’m pretty sure she was saying that they close the main workout rooms at 2:45 because otherwise people would stay in there until 3, and then come to shower etc in the locker rooms. I mean heaven forbid the employees have to stay past 3 exactly. I love Spain, its okay to be up to 30 minutes late before its considered rude, but when it comes to leaving work, they are super punctual.

While I’m on the topic of the gym I have a few other peculiarities I would like to mention. First of all, I am without fail, the only female ever wearing shorts at the gym. I just don’t understand, sometimes I even get strange looks/stared at for baring my legs. I mean this is Spain, not Morocco, I don’t really know why women would choose to wear pants at the gym. It’s a really hot space, and generally exercise produces sweat. Pants just do not seem like the right choice. It’s even more interesting that I never see men in pants, in fact, they are usually in shorts that are way too small in my opinion. But I suppose these are just cultural differences I never really thought about until I joined the gym. As long as no one stops me from wearing shorts, I don’t really mind.

One other thing I noticed today was a woman carrying a gym bag that had cigarettes and a lighter in the water bottle holder. I mean to each their own, but come on, why be a member of one of the most expensive gyms in Sevilla, if you are just going to go outside after a workout and destroy your body with cigarettes anyway? Yes, maybe I’m guilty of eating some chocolate or an ice cream bar after going to the gym sometimes but I don’t think smoking is quite the same. But now that I think about it, its probably quite common in this cigarette obsessed country that people go out for a stogie after/during their workout.

Oh spain…

christmas time in españa

it has only been two weeks since i last posted, but i feel like its been months. christmas time (aka hanukkah time for us judios) has been very event filled (eventful?) for me. in fact it has been so eventful that i can only really remember a few of the things i have done! (will recount events later)

this christmas time has been very special to me. although i do not technically celebrate christmas, i do celebrate the happiness and family time that comes along with this season. unfortunately, being in spain, I was unable to spend time with mi familia. this is actually the second year in a row i have been away from home for the holidays (promise ill be home next year), because last year i was volunteering in belize at an orphanage. working in an orphanage really made me appreciate the things i do have. so although ideally i would have loved to be home for the holidays, i am extremely grateful for the people who took me into their homes so i wouldnt spend christmas eve/day alone.

on christmas eve, i ate dinner with ismael's family. his mother or father, not sure, cooked a delicious typical spanish meal. there were plates para picar: jamon, cheese, another kind of jamon, olives (i think), and some form of pork as the main course. i made latkes to share a little judaism with the family. although i consider myself quite a terrible chef, i think they came out well. at least ismael's family was polite and told me they were good. also, i found applesauce in corte ingles! so mixed into this typical spanish meal, we ate latkes. of course, in typical spanish tradition, we ate them as a tapa, as in each latke was cut into 4 and picked at with a toothpick. not a bad idea, no wonder spanish people stay so skinny. whereas we are at the table eating 3 too many latkes per person, the spaniards are tapeando (tapa-ing)

i think this was in fact my very first christmas dinner, anywhere in the world. in my mind, im not exactly sure why, i imagine families sitting around and singing christmas carols while getting drunk on christmasy beverages. i dont recall any villancicos (cool spanish word for christmas carols) being sung, although they were playing on the radio. but i do recall beverages being drank/drunk/drinked? (yes, i am here teaching english)

on christmas eve night, after dinner with ismael's fam, i went out with my spanish amiga isabel. we went to a bar/club in a part of sevilla i havent been to yet (good to know sevillanas). i had a lot of fun, i met her friends and danced and drank until 6 in the morning.

the next day, christmas day,(which was actually the same day i went to sleep) i woke up and went directly to another christmas celebration. this time it was with the family of another friend, pilar. i met pilar through some auxiliar friends that live in the same building as her. pilar was very sweet to invite me to spend the day with her family. i went to her house around 2:30. turns out lunch wasn't actually at her house but in the apartment across the hall, that of her aunt/uncle/cousins. (jennie if you are reading this, i hope one day we live across the hall from each other)
well, spanish families are typically pretty big, and pilar's was no exception. when i walked in the door i was introduced to about 20 people. everyone was super welcoming and friendly. even though im jewish and american, i didnt feel out of place at all at this spanish christmas celebration. again, we had the typical feast. there was jamon and cheese and stuffed peppers and some meat i couldnt identify to start. by the time the main course came out, i was already stuffed. but i was told by various family members that i had not eaten anything...same thing happened with ismael's family. i guess you havent eaten enough unless you feel physically ill and can no longer put food in your body. well i didnt feel physically ill, so i ate the main course, didnt want to be rude.

at 9:30pm, after watching elf in spanish (awesome!), i was about ready to go home. i had very little sleep the night before and was going to madrid the next day and hadnt begun packing. i went to say goodbye to everyone, and they said to me "you can't leave, we haven't eaten dinner yet!" dinner! yikes i was still full from the 5 hours of eating i had recently finished. but to have the true christmas day experience, i stayed for dinner, which was mostly just leftovers from lunch. no one really ate that much, i think everyone was as full as i was. we all eventually migrated to the couch, where there is a coffee table with a heater under it (genius) and watched el diablo viste en prada (the devil wears prada). i really like watching movies i have seen 100 times in spanish because i feel like i actually understand what they are saying even though its more likely that i just have the lines memorized.

there was also a christmas lunch at school which in the sequence of events actually happened before the other two meals, although i am writing about it last. we ate at a restaurant in pilas. i think we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. there were about 100 courses and lots of drinks included. after the lunch we went to a "club" in pilas, and danced and drank some more. it was really fun partying with my coworkers. i feel like i know them (some at least) much better. it was a really good time and a great way to start my vacation.


so it turns out i havent actually been doing all that much this christmas season, just eating a lot! but isnt that what the holidays are for afterall??

lots of love from madrid!
felices fiestas

my trip to PRAGUE blog

I woke up 4:45 last Friday morning to go to Prague. Needless to say I was exhausted when I got to the airport at 6am. But the good news is I checked in and got through security in approximately four minutes, so I had an hour and a half to do nothing before my three hours of doing nothing on the plane. I had a layover in Barcelona and a short five hours after I left Seville, I arrived in Prague.

Bill (nickname of my lacrosse friend Lindsay) gave me some instructions regarding how to get to her house from the airport. Luckily, everyone I encountered in Prague spoke English, because Czech is not a language I can even kind of understand. On the half hour bus ride from the airport to I noticed about 3 mcdonalds and 5 KFCs. I know that america’s nasty food chains are all over the world, but for some reason I was shocked/surprised by the number of chains I saw.

My weekend was filled with lots of sightseeing, beer drinking, and going into stores to keep warm. It was a good 30 degrees colder there than it is in Seville. Although I am from New York, my four years in California really thinned my blood. Luckily, the people of Prague believe in heating their building. (side note-my school no longer turns the heat on because of something about the price of oil, ergo it's really cold inside and joanna is not very happy)

Bill and Ted, my other lacrosse friend (yes as in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures) showed me a good time. I met their new study abroad friends. I ate some delicious food including a fried cheese sandwich, some delicious version of a hot dog, and hot wine, mmmmmm. and beer of course.

*my fried cheese sandwich

Since I was there so close to Christmas, the city was filled with Christmas markets and Christmas trees. Decorations make me so happy!

Prague is a really beautiful city. I am so glad I had the opportunity to go! Thanks to Bill and Ted for an awesome weekend.

PS-After almost three months of promises, I finally went kayaking with Ismael today! It was not the most beautiful day but I still really enjoyed it. Kayaking is a cool way to see the city. But unfortunately it's not as easy as it looks.

Yooooo quiero dar, sevilllaaaa mi corazón

This past weekend was an incredible experience for me. I was volunteering at the Copa Davis (Davis Cup) final between España and Argentina. I met lots of new people: English, Spanish, famous, not famous. I got Nadal and Ferrer to sign my hat, and I got to go down on the court after Spain’s victory. I also was able to watch the final game on Sunday from 1000 euro seats, that I paid nothing for, except my time.

Speaking of which, this weekend I did not sleep much. I was pretty much busy from early in the morning until really late at night. I was a transportation volunteer for the ITF (International Tennis Federation) which meant that I was in charge of coordinating private cars and shuttle buses going from the hotel to the stadium and back for kinda important people. It was quite an interesting mix of people we (me and my partner Nacho) had to deal with. Some people weren’t given clearance for a private car but thought they were entitled to one. Some people apparently never learned to read because everyday we had the bus schedule posted on a board in the hotel, and still people asked what time the buses were leaving.

Each day we caught the last bus to the stadium to watch the match. Since we were transportation volunteers, not ushers, we didn’t have any official duties during game time. Instead we were told to find seats where we could and enjoy the match. And I took full advantage of that instruction. I found pretty good seats each day, but Sunday’s seats were by far the best.

After the final match on Sunday, and after spain was presented with the cup, the volunteers were able to go down onto the court and TOUCH the very clay that the players had played on, QUE SUERTE. But really, it was cool to be down on the court, especially since Rafa and some other teammates were still down there doing interviews. When we left the stadium, a few volunteers and I decided it was time for us to celebrate. We may not have one a davis cup, but we did work hard over the weekend and deserved a little celebration.

At first we went to the hotel where the Spanish selection was staying to try to get a few more pictures/signatures, but it was so heavily guarded that we decided it just wasn’t worth it. Then we went to the argentinian’s hotel, where there was less police security. We waited for almost an hour and half because one of the other volunteers wanted a picture with one of the players, SJASJ, so badly that she wouldn’t let us leave until she got it. Which she did, so it was a success. In the mean time, we made some friends with argentine fans. We all got some dinner together, seven native Spanish speakers and me. I thought the andaluz accent was difficult to understand, but holy cow, I think the Argentineans were speaking another language entirely.

En fin, it was a really great experience for me. I would give up all that sleep in a heartbeat to do it again. Now I am getting ready to go to Prague tomorrow. My life isn’t too bad right now…

my video of nadal's winning point:

ps-the title of this blog is part of a song that was played every time spain won a game or set or match. the spanish are very into their songs. the argentineans might be even more enthusiastic if possible.

pps-sorry if the video doesn't work. blogspot is giving me some problems.

NO ME FALLES, YO NUNCA TE HE FALLADO

Sunday morning I went to my very first live football match (soccer game for my Americans readers). I was very excited to see what happens at a spanish sporting event. Americans take their tailgating pretty seriously, myself included, but unfortunately this tradition hasn’t quite made it across the pond. There is of course a bit of “pregaming”, beers and disgustingly fattening food is sold and consumed at trucks surrounding the stadium.

I was told that this game was not the complete experience because it was at noon on Sunday, instead of later in the day. Apparently, as I’ve previously experienced since I’ve been here, the Spanish are not morning people. And noon on Sunday is just too early for the beticos (Betis fans) to get going. The fans were pretty dead for the first half of the game, except the one section called aficionados (I think), who are comparable to bleacher creatures at Yankee Stadium. They were on their feet singing and cheering and cursing the whole game. Speaking of which, I learned a few new words during this game, none of which I are appropriate to repeat here.

By the second half, people had woken up a little more, or recovered from their hangover from the night before, and the crowd livened up a bit. The game also got a little more interesting. Real sociedad (the bad guys) had two goals and Betis had none. In my opinion, Betis was controlling the game just couldn’t get the ball in the net. But what do I know about soccer.

Finally, Betis scored two goals to tie the game and everyone was going crazy. Did I mention they haven’t won a game in the past 8 games? Well they haven’t, so this was an exciting opportunity for them. It appeared as though they would at least tie. But then in the very last minute, a real sociedad player launched the ball towards the Betis goal in a last ditch effort (is that the right phrase) to win the game, and miraculously the ball flew right over every Betis players’ head, including the goalie, and landed right in the net. It was a pretty incredible shot but I wish the bad guys did not score it. I was pretty sad to see Betis lose, everyone in the stadium just sat in their seats in awe/crying.

Go to 3:26 in this video if you want to see the shot.

poor betis:(

Even though they lost, I think I have officially been converted into a Betis fan. Te quiero Betis.

**side note—the name of this post is part of a song the beticos sing during the game. I cannot remember the rest of it for the life of me.

A Spanish Thanksgiving, Round Two

This year was technically the third time I’ve been in Spain for thanksgiving. Although it is an American holiday, not celebrated here, I have never let the day go by unrecognized. The first time I was in Barcelona and the family came to visit. Although we did not have anything close to a typical thanksgiving feast, it was nice to be surrounded by family—a very important part of the holiday. During my semester abroad in Madrid, I did not have family visiting, but I did make a delicious meal with my roommate Christina (she actually made most of it) and we had a little celebration in our home stay with Conchi, Louisa and some friends.

This year was a little different because I had to work all day on Thursday, at school and then tutoring. Even though I didn’t get home until 6pm, I still got to celebrate thanksgiving with a proper meal thanks to my roommate Chelsea and her mom who is here visiting. They spent most of the day cooking for us: stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy. We bought some rotisserie chicken because we couldn’t find a turkey, nor would we have been able to cook one in our oven. For desert we had a delicious apple pie because pumpkin was just too hard to find. We also added a little Spanish flair with a tortilla española (potato omelet) and olives and bread. (only took one picture that doesn't properly capture the yumminess of the meal)

Although it wasn’t a typical thanksgiving, I still had a great day. At school we celebrated Fruit Day, Day against Violence, Children’s Day (everyday no?) and we even dedicated a small part of the day to discussing thanksgiving. I had to stand up in front of the whole school and speak to them, in Spanish, about the holiday. At first, I was pretty nervous to have to speak in front of so many people in Spanish, but I was glad I did it. One of the second grade classes did a cheer for me when I finished, so that made it all worth it.

I had a lot of fun at school yesterday. We got to eat fruit, yummy! (however, I was not happy about how many bananas I had to peel, yuck!) They were playing music (New York, New York when it was my turn to speak) and the kids, and some teachers, were dancing. There was also a nice moment when the students released balloons with an anti-violence ribbon on them into the sky. I don’t know exactly what the significance of that action was, but I suppose it had to do with the release of violence at the school and in the town.

Now I have the post-thanksgiving uffs. I had another plate full of leftovers for lunch, which I am really regretting. But it only happens once a year so why not enjoy it while you can!

After two consecutive weekends of travelling, I am looking forward to staying in Seville this weekend. Hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving day!