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.

Gutting Fish

The last day I spent in Almería, I had the lovely chore of gutting the calamari that we were to eat for lunch. I was given the choice to opt out, but I figured I had to try it at least once in my life. The experience proved to be similar to the snails I tried last week- fun and tasty, but I´d rather not repeat.

Warning: squirmish readers please skip to the next paragrah. For the interested calamari-gutting virgin, read on for a complete description on how it is to be done. First step: rinse off the icy calamari before the disection. Then, twist off the head in a pinching motion. Feel around within the head for a black ball similar to a peppercorn- the mouth apparently. Attached is a clear transparent thread that (used to) lead to the hungry fish's stomach. Remove both mouth and thread. Now, the eyes follow. This part involves more force and a wincing facial expression. Unfortunately, at one point my squinting eyes were squirted by the late George Calamari´s eye juice. My lungs inadvertently released a high-pitch squiel, that which the house cook Luisa couldn't help from chuckling. Now that the tiny octopus-like tentacles are removed, move to gut out the innards of the poor calamari. Fishing within him, mercilessly toss all the creamy white guts. Note: meanwhile this step my stomach was mercilessly turning. Lastly, feel for the tip of the spine. Break the brim of the flesh where the spine had met the head. Cautiously pull out the transparent thread and place what is left of George in the pan along with the rest of his friends.

Albeit that was an outlandish explanation, I have a point. I was discussing with my sister what we are going to leave behind in Spain and take home to California. One thing that I will be taking home is a different mentality. The calamari sitting on the plate is what I imagine my mind looks like. After seven months of getting lost, losing things, being helped by strangers, being lost in translation, observing unique communities, and having delicious conversations with beautiful people, my mind is raw and ready to be marinated.

From the Almeria train station

I won't be coming back with all of the answers to what I want to be and where I want to go; I will simply be coming back with a malleable yet healthy mindset of the possibilities. I have one year left at Berkeley, and after I graduate I will have to use an open mind to pave a unique path for Maggie Palmer. I didn't see how Luisa prepared the calamari after, but lunch was especially delicious that last day in Almería.

Back in the day...

Not many people visit Spain to go to Almería. It is difficult to get to, it is both mountainous and a desert, and the beach is sub-par. Yet, with a little change of perspective, you learn the good in the ugly. It is difficult to get to, so there are not too many tourists. Albeit the mountains are not lush and green like northern Spain, they make for a beautiful dusk and sunset by the beach. Finally, any beach is better than being landlocked in a hot muggy Spanish city in the middle of July. My director said that I can really say that I have traveled all of Spain because not many people make it out to Almería. That being said, I spent six precious weeks in a house with 5 kid ranging from the age 9 to 16. I also was a camp counselor for another 82 kids from the Molinos neighborhood in which the Casa Don Bosco was located. Here is Jesús and I dressed up as elfs one day for the fantasy-themed summer camp. Look closely and you will notice that I grew points on my ears overnight.


For the first weeks I was living my summer childhood- playing soccer with Cristian, braiding Martina's hair, going to the beach, and of course doing my daily chores around the house and helping in the kitchen. I pretty much was their summer doll that had a string in the back like Woody from Toy Story with a few catch phrases. Pull it once, and I say “Yes, I can play cards”. Pull it again, and I say “Oh the beach sounds great!”. Pull it a third time, and I say “Ok I need to take a nap.” Are you catching my drift? It was fun and entertaining and everytime I went to bed exhausted after a hard day's play, just as if I was back in Brea, California on Waterfall Lane and I had a playdate with Kristen and Elizabeth everyday. It was a lot different from a summer in Berkeley, that is for sure. Here is Martina and one of the many braid hair-do's I gave her.

Martina, Sandra, and I on a post-dinner walk:



Dishes, many many dishes:




The next three weeks I changed rolls and jumped back into being a young adult with a balance of disciplining and entertaining snotty, sweaty, and adorably cute Spanish niños and niñas. In Spanish, there is a special conjugation for commands. In the first few days of camp, I caught the most important commands and I saw how powerful they were. It was like magic the way they obeyed. Ok, well, most of the time it worked for a handful of the kids. The other handful of 4 to 15-year-olds had another agenda; I remembered how hyper-active I was in my childhood and felt an urge to apologize to my parents. The counselors got revenge on the night of the haunted house where we were able to draw some screams and pleads to "Let me out!...mama". Unintentionally, we also had a few kids brought to tears. All in all, by the end of three weeks, the kids wanted a safe place to play with friends and that is what we were able to provide. Mission Almería: complete.





Crafts:




Mila's birthday cake; the photo-on-cake style is very much so fashionable in Almería:



Pictures of the dressed-up counselors for the haunted house; I even scare myself:





Drumming act at the final fiesta:



Last and great night together; Mila and I having a great laugh: