otoño en el pueblo

we're leaving soon to go to Ana's pueblo, Ubeda, for a couple days.
it's cloudy and not too bright and not too warm and we ate a lentil soup concoction followed by arroz con leche and a pear for lunch, and i feel great.
i don't know why early autumn days are so relaxing, but i'm a fan.

from Ubeda, we're wither cojering an autobus or catching a ride with a cousin or nephew or niece or someone to Alicante, where we'll chill until Wednesday, when we fly to Pisa, Italy...all in all we're going to Pisa, Cinque Terre, Venice, Assisi (on the fourth, which we found out today is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi) and Rome.

there are roughly a million and one things that i don't understand in life, but the reasons for two of them came clear yesterday and today, and they're a fantastic reminder that i don't need to know what's coming, i just need to be

why didn't we buy tickets for alicante, our very first destination? because plans change, and now we get to go see where Ana and Ana grew up and go on a pilgrimage/hike/something and spend some quality time with the fam

why did we skip Florence? because Assisi's going to rock.

ps we're staying with the parents of a coworker of kelsey's who are missionaries in venice. i'm so stoked.

that's my story. i pray you all are learning and growing and enjoying.

LLou

Victor, sevilla, and the closest i've come to spanish tears

Victor (el tecnico) told me he'd call me when he knew what he could do for my computer. he told me there were probably two options, one of which was considerably better than the other. i added my movil as a contact number and went home, my backpack lighter. we missed a number, so when kelsey and i went back to see Victor today we fixed that. our dialog, mas o menos, is as follows

Laura: tienes algunas palabras buenas para mi ordenador?
(do you have any good words for my computer?)
Victor: quieres que me digas en espanol o en ingles?
(do you want me to tell you in spanish or english?
Laura: espanol, por favor
Victor: it's broken

my hard drive is shot, apparently, so Victor's sending it to the regional office in Seville (sevilla) and if they deem it sufficiently fried (they're an actual apple office, Victor works at an authorized retailer) somehow a new hard drive will come from Ireland and they'll put it back together for me. Then, with my new number, Victor will call me and i'll go find my computer with a new mind.

victor told us that it could have been the travel, the movement, the pressure of air travel, or some mixture of all those...or it could be something completely different.

the bad, the good, and the worst

the bad: i had a ton of pictures on my little mac, everything from morelia to our trip to the mountains, and documents from my first two years of school
this isn't supposed to happen to a mac

the good: all the pictures from my aunt and uncle's christmas display in 2005 to the playset that kari, mom, and i finished the day before i left for Morelia, as well as all my music, are in a little black pocket-sized inanimate friend.
there is some sort of chance that Victor will come up with something when he looks tomorrow 'tranquilamente' at the hard drive.
i had the chance to put most if not all of my favorite pictures from morelia, london, ireland, ronda, and the sierra nevadas on facebook. so while the quality may not be great, they're there. and they're most definitely in my mind.
also, i have had the great blessing to travel with a very talented photographer, her new roommate, and my roommate, all of whom have fantastic pictures.
applecare, which i thought had ended, was extended another year, so while i'm not sure what it'll cost, the service is international and i'm still covered under it.

the worst: (nada. mejor una cosa que una persona, porque no se puede mandar una persona a sevilla para recibir un disco nuevo)



Victor: es posible que has perdido todos tus fotos, pero has conocido a un tecnico
thanks Victor

i know where the mac store is and i'm afraid i'm going to have to use it

i should be studying
better, i should be reserving hostels for our trip to italy

but no, i'm on kelsey's computer trying to figure out why my computer has converted itself into video art without asking my permission. it locked up and wouldn't do anything, so i thought i'd give it a rest and try again, and i am rewarded with a blinking folder and question mark on a blue screen (which apple.com tells me has something to do with an unknown operating system location. i wasn't aware we were playing escondidos.)

my biggest concern should be the tests i have this week
or the notes i have on my computer for the tests i have this week

but i hope nothing happens to my pictures

so it might be a while...but i'll have a story when i get back, that's for certain.

if you could keep us in your prayers this week; we have our first set of exams, and next week too, as most of our group is travelling.

e s a e l p y a r p

i keep forgetting to put these in, but i have a couple yarp (read it backwards, don't ask questions) requests
my spanish sister, Ana, is starting a new job as a teacher with the government (which is ideal as a teacher). her new placement is in her pueblo, which as i understand it is about an hour or an hour and a half away, so she is living in her family's old house during the week and coming back to Granada on weekends. for her transition and her kids would be great, because as far as i know she's not a fan of having to work so far away.
my spanish mom, also Ana, has been chillin in the house unless absolutely necessary for the past few days because her foot's been hurting a bunch, possibly something about a nerve...anyway, that this problem would be resolved so she can go to churros with her friends.

: )

a little bit of everything and a lot of music

Today was a huge mix-up…in our minds, in the centro de lenguas modernas, and in the entire city of Granada…es fiesta, or no es fiesta?
Today is traditionally the Monday celebration carried over from the Sunday observance of the feast of the Virgen de las Angustias, the patron of Granada. Here’s the thing, though…the city doesn’t want to be identified as completely Catholic, so every year it’s a huge question of whether or not the schools will start on Monday or observe the holiday. Indeed, the children in their little uniforms lined the streets with their padres waiting for the transporte estudantil, which are more like tour buses (where were these when I was a kid?)
We went to class too, and learned all sorts of good stuff, but like usual, the best learning experiences was outside of class. Kelsey and I walked down to the Iglesia de la Virgen de las Angustias, and were met with larger crowds, more noise, more flower vendors, and a few helicopters the closer we got. The custom here is to give an offering of flowers (oferta floral) to the image of Mary for all she has done for you in the past year, and all the flowers are placed, or rather shoved, into a huge metal structure on which people are working to get the greatest number of bouquets in to the smallest area, because there’s a giant line of people waiting to see their flowers on the wall. In front of the line of people is an even larger line of groups, some dressed in traditional flamenco dresses, one from the local security force, some on their motorcycles, and some on horses who we saw as we left.

I forgot to mention that on our way to the church, we took a street we weren’t quite sure of and ended up way south of our desired destination, but in the process found a couple librerias and … drummroll please … PEACHOS!
They’re the most rock-like peachos I’ve every tried to eat, but nevertheless, they are peachos. In Europe. I think the young lady in the story thought we were crazy, and we tried to explain to her that gravity of this situation and just how much her little store had made our month, but even with (what we think were) the right words we were crazy foreigners. Or just crazy, because I don’t think the majority of Americans would understand peachos.

By sheer area, I’m overshadowing the experience of the fiesta with my peacho story. Whoops.

Last Saturday was a good trip, too. Actually, the whole weekend. Friday night Kelsey, Anna, Nils, and I went to a performance by the Granada City Orchestra in the Plaza del Toros. It was their inagural performance of the concert season, and like always, entrance was free, but we needed tickets. A couple weeks ago, we tried to get these tickets, but they were gone when we got there after class. So we found as many groups of people as we could and asked if they had extra tickets until we had enough to make our way into the plaza with ‘todo el mundo.’ The planned concert was movie tunes, overtures from Disney’s Blancanieves and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the theme from Fantasia with Mickey and his mops, a few selections from Cinema Paradiso, and John Williams’ pieces for Star Wars. The audio-visual team projected images from the films on the floor of the ring, and the crowd. The obviously planned surprises included a prelude of the Fox studios theme, and two encore songs after the crowd’s clapping changed from an unordered thanks to a rhythmic request for more. The first song was widely known, and to which we clapped and whistled. The second was a song for Granada that featured the conductor and his brilliant tenor voice…
After the concert, we walked across town to Barrio Zaydin and caught the last song of a flamenco presentation. Last week was fiesta in Zaydin, and it looked like a fair; there were booths with jewelry and clothing, rides for the chilluns, a churro tent, and beyond that, the jovenes. It was a veritable ( I think that’s the right word) sea of people, and I have to say that in my other concert clothes, I felt a bit out of place in the mostly dark-clothed crowd. Kelsey and I took in the experience and called it a night around 2:30, at which time we walked back through the fair and bought some churros, which we ate while getting lost and eventually deciding to take the night bus home. The driver told us it would take an hour to get home (which was about as long as it would have taken to walk) but we ended up in a familiar part of town in about 15 minutes. Yay night bus.

More on the mountains later…but just for starters, they’re beautiful, hiking is awesome, trails should sync their signage with their paper maps, gps units are alright, the river is cold, and rock jumping is the best. Figs from the local fruit stand and drinks at the cave bar make for a good ending to a really fun day, and then we missed the bus. sweet.

Sunday afternoons

Bueno, aqui estoy.
It’s Sunday afternoon, and, like everyone told me, there’s very little to do, as far as regular entertainment is concerned. But we’re not concerned with that. Today Kelsey and I woke up earlier than we should have, ate homemade churros and fried egg-milk creations covered in thick yummy chocolate and overall way too much sugar for a first meal, walked to church by way of parque Garcia Lorca, a gorgeous collection of shrubs, flowers, and tall trees that look like they belong in C.S. Lewis’ mars triology. We talked with our new friends after church and walked back home, but very slowly…yesterday took it out of my poor feet. : ) Sunday is paella day around these parts, and we enjoyed it thoroughly. Dessert in Spain is more often than not fruit, and today we had our second chilimollo. Google it, and if there’s any way you can get some wherever you live, do it. I’ve also had my fair share of higos here, too. They’re figs, but I don’t think I’ve ever had them in their natural form. Anyway, now I’m sitting on the couch watching some movie…I can’t figure out what it is yet…and I’m putting pictures on facebook (no way!) Everything from Canada to yesterday, if I have time and battery. Well, not everything.
I know there’s a lot I haven’t shared, but now I really don’t know where to start. Here’s a good one: Kelsey mentioned that today is the 14th. That makes exactly one month since we bid our families farewell for this chapter of our lives. wow. I think that I don’t understand time, or at least how i function within it, because at the same time it feels like yesterday I was running through the tower of London and a few months ago we met Ana and Ana, our Spanish family.
Last Friday night, I wrote a little bit to add to my blog, but I never finished it…I’m going to work a little more on it, but here it is…

Friday 7 Septiembre 2008
We started walking today, sarah and Kelsey and Olivia and I, and we walked down a little street and into some little shops and eventually down another little street that opened up into the small plaza of the chapel connected to the capilla real. From there we elected by no-nose-goes that Olivia choose our next direction, and no further than ten steps to the west we came upon a plaza and an orchestra warming up. I said que suerte, but I don’t think It was suerte at all. The crowd was decidedly older, but we grabbed three plastic chairs in rows too small for our knees to fit comfortably and waited for the music to start. Funny thing, too, because while the music was wonderful, the baritone was super engaging, and the orchestra very fun to listen to, the Spanish people in this, a fairly normal environment, were singing their own song.
The older couple sitting in front of us found seats for their daughter or son-in-law and their children, a boy about aaron’s age with glasses to match who read his harry potter book in Spanish during the entire concert, and a younger girl who had turned her mother’s lap into a pillow long before the opening notes. Behind the orchestra the second song accompanied a couple dancing, and every once in a while a tourist would wander through with his flash photography. A little boy in an orange impermeable (raincoat) found the music quite suitable for dancing as well, and a man out for a walk with his huge shaggy sheepdog made his way through the crowd seated on the steps to continue on his route. On one of the steps, a silver-painted street performer, who had long before finished his evening shift, enjoyed the sounds of the municipal orchestra and the baritone with ‘todo el mundo,’ my new favorite Spanish phrase. The slightly older couple behind me had some not so patient words for the young lady who answered her phone during a later song, and overall the people shared their space and their art.

The baritone who accompanied the orchestra on a couple songs was quite a character all on his own. He took all his roles very seriously, and his hair moved just as much as he did, adding a whole new personality to the ensemble. His voice was so fun to listen to.

as the sun set in the plaza, the sky turned from a brilliant clear to a dark midnight blue. The capilla remained lit throughout the concert, and each time I looked up I saw more stars

okay...so i have a lot to say and a lot to tell you...like about the free concert that we found last night, my madre who is as we speak "cociendo pimientos" (and yes, that does say sewing peppers), our trip to ronda and the beach and classes and plans for future viajes, but today i'm smiling from ear to ear about my intercambio.Traditionally, intercambios are two students matched together to learn from each other and spend time together speaking both languages, in this case english and espanol. But, like just about everything, my intercambio is different. Maria, one of the program directors here, told Kelsey and I that she had a set of sisters who wanted to have their intercambios together, and that sounded like a good time to us, so we agreed to meet them at the school after my class today. We ended up having the two sisters and their friend and her intercambio, another girl from our program. The six of us went to a cafe in the Arab part of town and drank tea and talked about life, studies, the differences between our countries, what we want to do when we grow up, where we've been, all sorts of stuff, in spanish mostly, but also in english. They're really easy to talk to, and I felt very much comfortable asking questions and being wrong and everything that usually scares me. Nieves and her sister (maybe something like Teresa, I'm terrible with names) actually live really close to Kels and I, and we're all going to meet again next thursday.
That's my story. I'm a fan of intercambios.
And now i need to study...or sleep...lo que sea.