‘Tis the Season

On an unusually hot day for late September, I left my unbearably stuffy apartment seeking the cool breeze that had now begun to blow in the late afternoon and early evening. The day’s sun had taken its toll on my afternoon siesta, leaving me sweaty and sleepless despite having put down both of the persiana shades in my room. Yet despite my readiness to put the day’s sun behind me, the heat was not so ready to comply. At approximately 9pm, I looked up at the street thermometer to find a big yellow 32 degrees (90°F) staring back down at me. Swearing a not-so-silent joder to myself, I began to cross the street in search of shade.

 

Suddenly, sifting slowly through the pockets of heat that still pervaded the city, a smell wafted my way that seemed oddly familiar. Although the scent vaguely resembled the smoke that comes from a bad fire, it did not set off the same feeling of panic in my olfactory memory, and then I realized—oh dear God, could it be? The season of roasted chestnuts had begun.

 

In Spain, what marks the end of summer does not necessarily include cues such as temperatures dropping, or leaves changing color. On the contrary, fall begins precisely on the allotted calendar date, and Spaniards make every effort to reflect that things have changed—even if the summer heat continues to linger.

 

While for me the smell of roasted castañas on the streets of Seville unmistakably means fall, there are a variety of other indications to remind us that the customs of summer must be immediately cast off and that fall is to be unquestionably embraced.

 

In Andalucia, the south of Spain, where the summer is especially reluctant to relinquish its hold, this tradition seems especially awkward.  While American tourists here in Seville wear sandals and shorts virtually all year round, once the calendar has dictated that fall is upon us sevillanos immediately change their wardrobe—breaking out their leggings, long pants, and scarves; those who fail to comply are gently chided, and, at least among locals, wearing shorts or a skirt becomes acceptable only if paired rather awkwardly with black opaque tights. A similar phenomenon occurs on the cusp of spring and summer, when this long tights/ short bottoms outfit makes a comeback, and when I, once again, am tut-tutted by the locals for wearing short dresses and skirts—I have obviously ventured too close to summer attire. Lucky for me, I am allowed to carry on wearing shorts in eighty five degree weather due to my status as an American who just doesn’t know any better.

 

Indeed, I believe that my being from the United States, and, more specifically California has everything to do with my inability to grasp this concept of the seasons. One frequent complaint of California, in fact, is that it has no seasons at all. Apart from a few weeks of cloudiness and rain, the temperature in cities like Los Angeles and San Diego tends to stay around a pleasant 65 to 70 degrees. This phenomenon is probably best exemplified by the equally unaltered apparel of Californians. A popular brand of flip flops called Rainbows, for example, can and tend to be worn everywhere and anywhere; some particularly adamant fans of the shoe can even been seen slipping and sliding in the rain, as they remain unwilling to put on a decent pair of closed toed boots for once.

 

This resolute aversion to changing seasonal wardrobes, however, simply doesn’t translate in Spain. As seasons seem to come to a screeching halt, this attitude is reflected in much more than just the local attire. While we  leap into winter, local pools begin to close (though it would be possible to swim in them until the end of October), outdoor discotheques hold a special farewell party, ice cream parlors go into hibernation and cold gazpacho comes off of the menu without batting an eyelash (don’t even dream of asking for it). It is as if we are directed to run inside for warmth, pretending that the heat hasn’t overstayed its welcome on the calendar.

 

Yet while this drive to usher in the new seasons, to suddenly embrace all of the new clothes, schedule, foods, and lifestyle, can and tends to frustrate me in its bizarre forcedness, I at once find myself a strangely willing participant. I am bitter that I must begin to give up so-called “summer” foods like the ground tomate on my early morning toast, yet I become almost giddy at the thought of my favorite “winter” foods such as chestnuts, lentils, and the tropical fruit chirimoya being available on the shelves. Although each year I grapple with this seasonal love/hate relationship, I am always reminded that allowing certain things to be seasonally sacred makes them all the more special the next time the calendar indicates that they can be enjoyed once more. Just like learning to live with next to nothing being open on Sundays, I have been able to survive and thrive within these seasonal constraints. Though I will continue to shake my head in disbelief when I see sevillanas pair thick black tights with jean shorts, I will smile in recognition that all of those other things I love so much about (and can only enjoy in) winter are sure to follow. Nevertheless, as one brave American expat once said: “Give me my shorts and flipflops in May… or give me death.”

Hidden Spain

There is a Spain that is hidden—a Spain that no number of detailed guide books, audio guides, and museum visits can prepare you for. During my second apartment search in Seville, I have come to realize this fact. After opening nearly fifteen apartment doors, I succumbed to the fact that these entrances can never truly reflect what is within. The smallest door may lead into a cramped, winding staircase ending at an appallingly bad piso, or may come to reveal the oasis of a cool Andalucian patio lined with century old azulejo tiles.

 

There is a Spain that most would say is probably better hidden—streets boasting empty plastic cups, beer bottles, husks of eaten pipas seeds, cigarettes, and other relics from the previous night’s botellón party. Avenidas lined with dog poop, horse poop, and excrement of such shape and size that whether it was actually man’s own work remains probable.

But there is also a Spain that can dazzle when it is finally shown. It is a private Spain that only us so lucky to live here, and those of us daring enough to love it will ever appreciate. It is when a rooftop azotea, which is otherwise strictly utilitarian and lined with drying underwear and socks, becomes the perfect spot to sit quietly one night looking up at the stars. It is discovering that just outside your door lies a reminder that a daring bullfighter, an eloquent Spanish poet, or even a bona fide saint once walked your same path to work. It is that feeling at twilight in the depths of a hot summer when the wind begins to blow, when people slowly awake from their siestas and take to the streets to have a cold beer.

 

From my room in Seville, I am privileged to have a direct channel into this Spain. Although on either side of me are a pedestrian street and the private patio of the apartment building, sounds abound; sounds like the intimate ramblings of two Spanish men who happen to cross each other in the street—their soft pleasantries and marked exclamations blending as they echo off the narrowly spaced buildings and come urgently into my window. Children laugh and scream in the mornings as old women stop to gossip, and the local knife sharpener plays a fife calling customers to seek his services. Bells ring intermittently from imposing, beautiful churches in every direction.

 

The truth is that you can never know what will be on the other side, no matter how much you learn to “judge a piso by its door.” It is rather, the honor to be let in on the secret, the private life of home that Spaniards so carefully safeguard and separate from the dirt and noise of the street.

 

This unique tranquility of the hidden also offers a chance for hope. No matter how lost you seem to be, the winding streets of Seville’s old city center, the casco antiguo, may suddenly break into a wide open plaza lined with blossoming orange trees and a bubbling fountain. Indeed, just around the next corner may be the most breath taking plaza you’ve discovered yet.

Why they hate us

Any moron can come back from Europe hating America. Armed with the conviction that Europeans are inherently more civilized, well-adjusted, and generally better off than Americans in every way, these Europhiles intend to inform everyone around them of these facts as often as possible. And why not—Europeans have beautiful buildings, immaculate fashion sense, and incredible food. I, in fact, was one of these idiots upon my return from Granada, Spain.

 

I spent nearly six months as an insufferable Euro lover, sneering at anything in my vicinity that I perceived as “too typically American”; large refillable sodas, ubiquitous consumerism, and what I now like to call “the obsession with abundance.” I remember in a local gourmet-type grocery store, I made an inventory of the fifty plus kinds of sauces there were, not to mention any fruit or vegetable or meat or type of food you could ever want whether officially in or out of season, all in a row lest you should have to walk for it—God forbid. I first whispered, digesting the thought, and then nearly screamed for all of the butchers to hear: “No wonder everyone HATES us.” My mother gasped aloud, asking me to take it back, either put off by my snarky comment but maybe also a little shocked upon hearing what we all know the rest of the world is thinking.

 

But aside from the cornucopia of options available to us at the grocery store, what I found truly unsettling was the sudden, suffocating gust of that American ingenuity,  the infamous Puritan work ethic that hit me almost the minute I touched down. Just by virtue of being you share, you are at once implicated in the rat race. What was this constant drive in the air, to get there faster, to make it better, never just stopping to enjoy the here and now—always reaching, reaching, REACHING until you die  so that everyone can then reminisce about just how much you reached. Through the prism of my reverse culture shock, the presence of this compulsive ingenuity became overwhelming. And its sudden reintroduction made me nauseated.

 

Yet after nine months in Seville, Spain, somehow involuntarily listening to ninety percent American pop music, and being nearly begged countless times by Spanish friends to eat at McDonald’s or Burger King, I began to wonder..Who are we really? Besides those fat people driving enormous SUVs? I came to realize that we are actually the innovators, the entrepreneurs, the popular class president type who everyone badmouths but secretly wants to be like—in the end, the Europeans have lost the rat race; hell, they may have been outside having a coffee and a smoke when it was time to sign up. The truth is, they never could nor wanted to contend. For this reason the best and brightest from the Continent don’t stick around to rot away into obscurity—they come to us.

 

And whether I like it or not, the need to achieve will never leave me. A Spanish friend of mine once asked me why I had to be useful, why couldn’t I just relax?  As if the former had absolutely nothing to do with the latter; when in my mind utility has everything to do with me staying calm. To really enjoy something, it seems we Americans have to find some kind of use in it—or at least, I do.

 

As Americans abroad we seem to readily undersell ourselves. In our restaurants we hope to copy the food, the old world feel of Europe. In California, to remark that something is European is to bestow upon it the greatest of compliments. That particular store or restaurant has achieved civility, it has allowed us to become distracted by the fact that we are living in new territory, that at some level we still and perhaps always will continue to inhabit the Wild West.

 

But we must not undersell ourselves. Despite our ad-nauseam desire to achieve, the Puritan work ethic has indeed worked in our favor. We are a nation of do-ers. The relentless daily grind may render us stressed out and driven over the brink of obesity, but the constant need to accomplish keeps us alive, keeps us moving at least mentally, though physically we may never walk more than a few feet from our air conditioned, GPS equipped vehicles. And what Europeans see as a crazed frenzy on our part to bring about some kind of advance, is part of what I have come to admire so much about my country: our creativity, our ingenuity, our particular finesse. The rest of the world hates us, but also keeps its eyes on us, disgusted and dazzled by what we may come up with next.

 

I find that these idiosyncrasies lie at the core of the misunderstandings between Americans and Europeans. On our side of the Atlantic, Europeans are those lazy, hedonistic people who take sex too lightly and tend to show far too much boob in their movies. In Europe, we are those who shudder at an exposed breast on National Television and pay more attention to Clinton’s Oval Office sex scandal than to his politics. To us, they are content with mediocrity, resting on their “commie” laurels, and to them we are nothing more than meddling, tightly wound capitalists with a serious obesity problem.

 

But rather than grapple with an ultimately hopeless debate regarding the superiority or inferiority of one to the other, maybe we are better off calling a cease-fire between Old and New World. I posit that each side stands to gain significantly from a more developed view of the other. For instance, Americans might seek to avoid immediately labeling Europeans as lazy snobs with siestas and too many coffee breaks. Instead, Americans could benefit greatly from savoring life in a way that we have come to identify as strictly European in style; and rather than surrendering such enjoyment to a certain group, we must learn to take pleasure seriously.

 

Europeans, on the other hand, may wish to transcend their notions of Americans as overly aggressive workaholics.  They could stand to gain by encouraging greater innovation and creative curiosity, by adopting a more positive attitude and providing more intellectual support toward these endeavors. In short, Americans do have a thing or two to learn from Europeans, but—more importantly, and certainly less popularly—Europeans can also stand to learn a great deal from Americans.

 

But as a current resident of Spain, I would like to take this moment to make one final request of those American tourists out there—please try to dress with a bit more style (lose the socks with the sandals) and keep your voices down when you’re abroad because, frankly, you’re killing me.

 

 

 

 

 

El Taxista

After our long trip in the plane, it was a relief to have finally arrived at Madrid’s Barajas airport, and feel like we were on our way. Barajas airport is a good distance from Madrid’s Atocha train station in the city center,  not to mention the plethora of bags we were pushing on little carts (eight en toto, an obvious giveaway that we were bumbling guiris if I say so myself).

Although I had my doubts about fitting the suitcases into the predictably small European taxi trunks, we were greeted immediately by a grinning old taxista who somehow managed to fit them all in the car without a second thought-my mind immediately skipped to Mary Poppin’s magic carpet bag. Had he got a large lamp and a spoonful of sugar back there too?

Though I’ll never know if he gipped us or not, perhaps I should have suspected some foul play when he mischeviously giggled after my mother (no doubt out of extreme tiredness) suddenly bumped her head on the roof of the white taxi. In fact, I hadn’t even noticed she was hurt until the taxista began to joke in Spanish with my Mom if she would be all right, perhaps making one too many snide comments.

Despite the rather impressive feats the taxista displayed in fitting our bags in the car, they had exiled me to the front of the seat, face to face with this anciano, who twittered on in a sharp, thick Spanish that proved a bit too much for my jetlagged brain.

So, I was going to Sevilla, eh? Did I know that they were all fuleros, who hadn’t worked a real day in their lives? “Not just that,”  he continued, his checkered boina cap bobbling with anticipation, “The catalunyans are tacaños, they work only to hold onto money. The Galicians son unos paletos tontos, those stupid fucking rednecks. The Basques are not really a part of Spain with that strange language they speak up there.” People from Aragón and the leftover northern regions were quite dirty, but not too bad.

” ¿Y qué de los madrileños?” I asked rather sarcastically, anticipating a glowing review of the residents of Madrid, “Son los mejores, no?”

“¡Pues, claro!” he replied, refusing to budge in acknowledging the biases in his stereotyping. Madrileños were the most hospitable, civilized, and hardworking group in all of Spain.

Strong opinions like these from Spaniards were nothing new if not outrightly expected during my travels in the country. But in the taxista’s comments I found something more than the classic problems of “las dos Españas”- the conflict between a cold, quiet, work-driven north, and the humid, loud, and often hedonistic south. These contentions ran deeper than regional differences, and rivalries could even be traced to each of Spain’s seventeen autonomous communities, maybe even to the level of cities. “Las dos Españas” had suddenly been splintered into more than seventeen different Spains.

Although perplexing, this phenomenon of complex identity that Spain presents continues to delight me in its obcurity. Part of my passion for Spain arises from the paradox that a group of people that are so different, and may actually despise each other manage to stay together at all. Whether or not Spaniards are this deeply divided or purposely choose this contrary sort of arrogance remains a mystery.

When we finally arrived at the station, I questioned señor taxista about the high price of 50 euros for our journey. His screen after all only said 30 euros, suggesting some 20 euros popped out of nowhere to give him a good tip (when he could have had one anyway since Americans will tip anyone who so much as brings them a Q-tip). He seemed intent on telling me any of his colleagues would do the same, and even helped us get carts and find change, ignoring our indigantion with characteristically Spanish chummyness.

And though perhaps these seeming acts of courtesy may have only been last ditch attempts to deter us from calling la policía, deep down in his head he may really have meant to be kind. I’d rather not know really, and be left with this more complex, highly symbolic representation of what Spain really can be about- a deep sense of dividedness, ambiguity, and contradiction. Perhaps he really did believe all of his stereotypes to be terrifically true. He certainly never wavered in convincing me of his correctness. Whether he was a no good pícaro or merely a man full of conviction caught with the wrong screen amount at the wrong time, I don’t really care to know. Just as I would rather have a taxista with a deep, unpredictable personality. So would I never trade anything for the magic that is Spain in all of its dazzling contradiction.

Passport Disasters I Have Known

I squirmed in the passenger seat of my mother’s Lexus as San Francisco’s traffic seemed to snake along endlessly. Today was the day of my Visa appointment at the Spanish consulate and the clock now read that I would be ten minutes late at the very least. The digital numbers seemed to wink, knowingly laughing at my doom as they continued to pass and pass. Nearly puncturing my leather seat with frustration, I thought back to the months I had spent dealing with American bureaucracy in order to get all of the documents I needed. I began running my fingers through the pieces of paper while silently checking off my mental list of “Doctor’s note, Police Clearance, Visa form, Passport..” But all these incantations seemed to be for naught as we pulled up to a parking space at last in the Mission district, threw some coins in the meter, and finally made our way toward the Spanish flag nearly thirty minutes past my appointment time.

Now, the Spanish themselves are not creatures of punctuality. Take to the streets of any Southern Spanish city and you may hear that La prisa mata or, hurry kills. Find yourself waiting five hours in line for a Spanish residency card and you may receive a polite yet curt Vuelva usted mañana “Come back tomorrow” from a security guard who cares more about his mid-day cafelito than whatever document you need the clerks to stamp.  I had personally experienced this phenomenon in Granada with my Spanish friends who thought I would clearly understand that meeting at 10:30 most surely meant no one need show up until 11.

Yet despite this attempt at self-reassurance, the mention of my name at the consulate ushered an abrupt and heavily accented “And whyy wear ju late?!” from the flamboyantly gay Spaniard behind the window. In reality I had no explanation except that I had forgotten to make a copy at the last minute and severely underestimated traffic. Luckily, my mother piped in at just the right moment with “Family emergency”–perhaps the single most ingenious excuse ever invented; on the one hand vague and pliant, and on the other just personal enough to deter others from probing further.

Mostly satisfied though still rather miffed, the assistant told me to have a seat. I waited about half an hour before I was finally called into my Visa appointment by a (devastatingly) attractive Spanish clerk whose first question also involved my tardiness– joder! After a few rather friendly questions about my travels and quite a bit of document scanning, all of my papers seemed to be in order until: “This paper isn’t signed by an M.D.”  “Huh?” ” This paper isn’t signed by an M.D., that is one of the requirements for the Visa.” I looked back at my Doctor’s note to find that the doctor at the clinic had signed but somehow neglected to write the magic words M.D.–a detail that, had I noticed, could have probably written in myself without anyone being the wiser. The clerk assured me that I could either mail them the new document or have someone bring the new document to the consulate in person. Although logically this statement  might have served as a consolation, I remained uneasy and held in my desire to throw a crying fit. I had worked so hard to ensure that this appointment would go smoothly and now it seemed as if I would never get my Visa.

But how could such a minute detail bring me to such quick upset and even possibly to the point of tears? Aside from my own perfectionistic tendencies, this worry regarding travel has plagued me time and again–and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Looking back on my many experiences with passport control, I realize the dire importance we as travelers attach to ensuring not merely a safe passage, but, in fact, a flawless one. And after 12.5 hours of being nearly dessicated to death in a tin can, this sense of determination to follow through with the journey becomes even stronger, if not all-consuming.

While in some airports this clearance requires little more than a nearly whispered statement of either ” business” or “pleasure,” in others it can open the doors to a plethora of probing personal questions spoken in a tone that borders on surly if not outright hostile. This experience can depend on anything from the particular personality of the agent whose line you happen to enter to the cultural make up of the country in which you arrive. London Heathrow’s Passport Control staff, for instance, have given me a variety of experiences to make me often sympathetic to the urge to suicide bomb the hell out of the place. During one particularly poignant arrival to the international terminal, I found myself face to face with a bald, ruddy Brit who had decided that I surely had come to mooch off of UK social welfare instead of studying Shakespeare. A bit too enthusiastic and punchy from the measly four hours of sleep I had on the plane, I presented my passport with a smile and told the agent I was so excited to be studying the works of the great Bard in the country where he was born no less!

“Well, who authorized you to do that?! I need to see some papers” barked back the agent. Wondering if I had somehow time traveled to Wehrmacht headquarters , I began to nervously dig through my bag thanking my lucky stars that my perfectionism had in fact inspired me to print out all of the emails I had from the program as well as a full class itinerary.

Undaunted by my printing skills, the agent takes a quick glance at my things and continues the interrogation with: “How much money do you have in your bank account?” I kept myself from violently exclaiming “WHY?” or “none of your business,” and composed myself enough to squeak out an “I don’t know..my parents gave me enough money.” “You don’t know?! How can you not know how much is in your bank account?! You need to show me proof that you have at least 2,000 pounds covered for the time that you are here in order to enter the country.” The tears almost come, and just as I anticipate that I may have to beg him to let me enter the country, he slaps a stamp on my passport that says “No recourse to public funds,” with a permission to enter for 6 months–in essence a begrudging consent to finally collect my bags and stumble my way through the city to find my hotel.

Within a few months of this fairly heinous encounter, I found myself flying through the Barajas Airport in Madrid, where the passport agent greeted me with a smile, a quick stamp, and without any inquiry as to why I had come. Another international arrival into Barajas yielded a similar curiosity when the agent took one look at my American passport, stamped it, and proceeded to ask me in Spanish how long I was going to stay, and, when I answered just one week, why wasn’t I staying longer? My most recent entrance into Spain found me giving travel tips to a Spaniard who was particularly thrilled that I was from San Francisco.

By observing these distinctions I do not necessarily mean to say that one particular way of dealing with entering foreigners is good or bad, right or wrong. Rather, (apart from highlighting the absurdities of passports in the first place), I mean to point out that the flawless journey or visa process that we all dream about does not and cannot exist. Simply by virtue of being human we are just as capable of erratic moodiness, miscalculation, and general ineptitude as anyone else. One day you may find yourself giving insider travel tips to a beaming passport agent and the next he may question your motives for traveling until you feel your hope dissipate and the tears well up. One day your mouth may pucker and your eyes water from a sour orange, and the next you may savor every last drop of juice from an orange of a similar rind.

But without this uncertainty, the very essence of travel– the exhilarating sense of adventure and of diving into the unfamiliar– loses its luster. Without some pain, there can be no real sense of pleasure. And despite the aggravation and the inclination to complain mercilessly about the passport process, I secretly pray that the frightening yet invigorating feelings of wonder I garner from travel never leave me; that I will allow myself to bask in the beauty of the unknown and to delight in even the most bitter of “disasters.”

Do I dare to eat an orange?

“Toma, bonica. Así con el cuchillo,” my host mom, Esperanza, guides my hand as I make small incisions in the thick skin of a ripe orange. We are sitting in her small kitchen in the pajaritos neighborhood of Granada, Spain. Fed up with my clumsy attempts to peel the fruit that always end in spilling sticky liquid everywhere, she decides to take me under her wing at last (if only for the sake of her kitchen floor). She gives me a large, knowing smile as the orange cooperates, emerging from its shell unscathed and too perfect not to eat.

I can say with confidence that the oranges of Andalucía (the Southernmost region of Spain) have forever ruined me. As the winters in Granada take away the fresh vegetable salads and delicious tostada con tomate we once relished, the oranges only seem to get sweeter, fuller, juicier without explanation.Well into December, while families in Granada huddle around their tiny braseros, dressed in layer upon layer of clothing, they often do so while sucking down oranges after a warm cocido (traditional stew).

After dinner either Esperanza or her husband, Antonio, would invariably ask me and my roommate Tara a question to which the answer was always the same: “¿Manzana o naranja?” Would we like an apple or an orange for dessert? Now, in America, fruit would hardly qualify amongst the pies, cookies, cakes, and cupcakes that usually finish off the meal. This fact was quite often pointed out by my roommate, Tara from Kentucky, who missed her pie mercilessly: especially once it became apparent that it in no way, shape, or form existed in Spain. After a few weeks as honorary Spaniards, however, we’d excitedly answer “¡Naranja, por favor!” (An orange please!) every. single. time.

During stay in Granada from September to December 2008, oranges became not just an incredibly healthy dessert, but rather came to define the way I gradually grew into the culture. Just like my trouble with squirting fruit juice every which way, my Spanish and sense of cultural comfort at first proved clumsy and sometimes downright unwieldy. Nevertheless, I would have much rather taken some acidic juice to the eye any day than endure the laughs or strange looks I received when flubbing up grammar or mistaking sellos for the rather Spanglish version estampillas. ¡Qué horror!

Yet eventually (and certainly with the help of some kind españoles), I got the hang of it–less spilt juice and more of a chance to enjoy the unbelievably sweet fruit that is granaino and Andalucian culture when it begins to pay off. When the rewards finally emerge flawless from an otherwise messy rind. When the sunset explodes into endless colors as it touches the horizon of the gypsy houses in the albaicín. When you roam small cobbled streets after one two many tintos de verano and not enough tapas with your new colegas howling lewd obscenities in Spanish like a lullaby to the city. When an old street vendor shoots you a mostly toothless grin as you pass by–not to sell you something, but because he knows, he feels you begin to belong.

Now as I find myself only a month or so away from yet another adventure in Andalucía as a teacher’s assistant in Seville, I again ask myself if I dare. And in the words of one poet:

“And should I then presume?

And how shall I begin?”

“Shall I part my hair behind?”

And do I dare to, once more, eat an orange?

I actually do. As I prepare to leave my home in California for the shady orange groves of Seville, I feel between my stomach wrenching nervousness and  excitement this somewhat reckless abandon to disturb my universe: to once more sink my teeth into that orange, chasing its sweetness yet unafraid of the bitter taste or stinging acid it may very well spit back at me along the way.