Title explained: Trains, tapas, and tribes

Best explained with an example: riding a motorbike down to the beach in Almúnecar with my Couchsurfing host, stopping for sardines at a local bar on a Sunday afternoon. THAT is what I mean by trains (any and all means of transportation, taken in my travels), tapas (all sorts of "typical" food from a region), and tribes (all the cool people and communities out there that I anticipate to meet).

One of my favorite adventures, summed up in a reflection:

Madre Mía: Verbs, Verbs, Verbs

In a scene from My Fair Lady, Audrey Hepburn shares my sentiments about how I felt every once in a while in Spain:



Although my frustrations lie in the verbal usage in Spanish. There are different verbs for everything, how am I to ever learn them all! In Andalucía, there is a verb that describes the action to wipe your plate clean with bread after a meal. Imagine.
Coming back to California and talking to some Mexican friends, I find that they use verbs differently as well. As a non-native student of the language, do I hold an archive for every country in my head and change it for where I am or who I am talking to? That sounds like a mess.

Yes it is a challenge to learn all of the vocabulary, but for the Spanish speaker learning English, the contrasting problem occurs. They have to change their mindset to using the same verb to describe many actions and then just interpret what the other person is referring to. Apparently, in the English language, we use "got" in a lot of cases.

I wonder as I begin my courses back here at Berkeley, how that makes literature different in both discourses. Does it make English poetry more rich because you can have more interpretations for a different word? Or is Spanish poetry more rich because you can describe something precisely? I think the answer to that one is subjective and on a case-by-case basis, but it is something to consider as I take my Spanish 107A course: Medieval Spanish literature, where the f´s mean h´s and "ca" is "porque". Wish me luck.

Black and Light

There's one time of day that always seems to come around for some reason or other- dusk. No matter who I am with, I comment on how it is my favorite time of day for two reasons. One: the day's work is done and a night of dancing, reading, or celebrating lies ahead. Two: At this time of day, color doesn't matter. Shapes are black silhouettes; the sky is light, and peace settles on the surroundings as shadows form. The skyline that trees or buildings form is the focus as an aurora of colors lingers from the sun's goodbye. Here are some of my favorite pictures of it:


London, England


Almúñecar, España


Almería, España

A Recount of Escorts around Europe

I have been meaning to put up various posts to my blog, and they are things that I still want to say and remember. I found myself in many situations where nice people gave me private escorts around Spain and Europe. It is just an introduction to how I feel there are so many beautiful people in this world. Every one of these encounters came as a godsend to myself and whoever I was with. Here is a list of most of them:

1. My first escort in a taxi ride was a major rip-off to start off, but it only got better from there.
2. When my parents and I were looking for my friend Laura's house outside of Madrid, two friendly police officers plugged in the address in their GPS and we were escorted to the corner of their apartment complex.
3. The French pick-up truck outside of Toulousse, France after my dad accidentally put in the wrong gas in our rental car. Yikes!
4. A man in a red hotrod car helped my sister, my cousin and I leave Sevilla by, rather than just giving us some makeshift directions, graciously caravanning us to the mouth of the freeway on the way to Portugal. His name was Miguel and he was very attractive too.
5. I had expected to catch a taxi from arrival into almeria, but after talking to a lady from Almería for five hours on the train, she insisted that she gave me a ride and then continued to buy me a coffee just before I entered into a crazy summer.
6. My sister and I were looking for a church in the tourist section of Málaga where we were staying for a week. Well the front-desk help, named Dan, willingly escorted us to his favorite church. We proceeded to join the party after the mass with the community.
7. My great friends Mila and Jaime insisted on picking up my sister and I in Córdoba to get us to Sevilla, and also Mila let us stay with her for the night. A whirlwind of hospitality within 24 hours.
8. Last but not least, I needed to catch a flight back to California at 7am. I needed to leave for the airport at 5 in the morning. The host family, after opening their home to my sister and I for a week, insisted that Pedro, the father, took both my sister and I rather than us catching a taxi or bus.

All I can say, is that there are some beautiful people in this world. I met a few of them in Spain, I am expecting to host some in California, and I am looking forward to meeting more beautiful people from around the world.

Language Bloopers

My good friend Anne doesn't own an umbrella and uses her scarf when it is raining. Arriving home drenched head to toe, with a small patch of dry hair, she shrugs and says “eh, builds character”. I love this philosophy and have applied it to my many language bloopers over the past months here in Spain. To name a few:

-"Can we feel upstairs?" instead of can we sit upstairs? I went beet-red and my mom said, nah he thought it was cute haha.
-Primos instead of sobrinos
-despacho y gaspacho
-peine y pene
-lentejas y lentillas
-hijos instead of hermanos.
-ropa instead of pulsera

all in all, like my good friend Anne would say, “eh, builds character” and it definately made for some great laughs.