the adventure comes to an end...

http://picasaweb.google.com/mary.dellenbach -- pictures (updating... slowly...)

Hello, dear friends!

Well, the adventure has ended--I'm back home in Minnesota, and have been for about two months. Most of that time I spent completely engrossed in my thesis, which I finally finished and turned in! I don't know quite how so much time has passed, but I still catch myself thinking of wandering down through Madrid's city center to see what deals I can find at the book fair, do another photographic study of the Cibeles fountain, or sniff out some exquisite chocolates in my old neighborhood. And then someone asks me a question and I barely realize in time that I can't answer in Spanish. It's been a bit of an odd homecoming: wonderful to see family, and sprinkled with a couple joyous weddings, but a lot of locking myself inside and typing, and a fair amount of visiting my uncle in the hospital, where he's been all summer. I know we would all appreciate any thoughts or prayers you could send his way.

I've delayed writing up until now in part because reminiscing of Spain makes me rather homesick, and in part because I didn't want the lure of luncheons and leisurely phone calls to distract me from my all-consuming thesis. But now it's finally DONE! The approximately 90-page book contains the short story I wrote in Spanish, the translation I did into English, and an analysis on the problems and advantages of self-translation. The theory part took me forever, and comparing my own method of "normal" translation with the liberties I took translating my own work was also a bit time consuming, but it's finally, finally finished. A very good feeling. A bit longer than the average, too, but the story and its translation take up a good 40 pages on their own, which leaves me with a normal-length master's thesis.

After my last update, Spain has dominated in sports. I wish I could have been there to see them win the EuroCup soccer championship (their first major championship in 40 years), but I was able to share the quarterfinal victory frenzy with my roommates the night before I left. It also would have been fun to watch Nadal win Wimbledon while I was still over there, but tennis doesn't quite hold the same status as soccer, so it wouldn't have been quite as crazy. (I almost typed football... guess I've been in Europe too long!) That's not to say my adventures didn't continue in my last several months in Spain, though.

I went on one more trip for work with large groups of NYU undergrads: to Ciudad Rodrigo (Spanish border town), Almeida (Portuguese border town), and Salamanca. Once again, I enjoyed free delicious food, including the Portuguese delicacy of bacalao dorado, basically shredded cod with cheese and potatos--absolutely delicious, though some of the undergrads complained it didn't look fancy enough. All I can say is the relative maturity of many of those students didn't measure up to what I expected based on my experience at St. Ben's. Several danced to their iPods while we were on a tour of the cathedral in Ciudad Rodrigo, and they didn't care who told them to stop. But it was a lovely city with a beautiful overlook of a river and the surrounding countryside, and Almeida was even more wonderful. If you google it, you'll see that it's enclosed by city walls in the shape of a twelve-pointed star. Unfortunately, you can't quite see that from the ground, but the town itself was more than enough to see, even though it was very small. An old cemetary with weatherworn white crosses surrounded by bright red poppies was my favorite corner. Our visit to Salamanca included all the basics: the old Gothic cathedral, complete with intricate carvings around the main doorway (which include an astronaut and ice cream-eating dragon, both added in repair work five or ten years ago); the old university (a couple students: "Is this Oxford?" "Yeah, sure, we walked to London." .......); and the stately Plaza Mayor, which was filled with electronics equipment for a concert that night. I caught the tail end of it--just in time to hear what I think was a group of Austrians singing American rock ballads. A bit odd. As with previous trips for work, the highlights were (a) getting to know more corners of Spain for free, and (b) going out to delicious meals for wonderful conversation with the professors. Again, for free. I certainly had about the best possible deal imaginable.

My last months in Madrid were highlighted by more linguistic craziness with my dear roommates, a lovely Jorge Drexler concert, the 200th anniversary of the Spanish uprising against Napoleonic France on May 2, and the festival of Madrid's patron saint, San Isidro. The whole week of May 2 was filled with spectacles and events inspired by Goya's paintings, including half a dozen horses (trained to rear on command!) racing through the Plaza Mayor, a giant puzzle in front of the Royal Palace, and an impressive aerial display of acrobatics and fireworks at Cibeles. On the feast of San Isidro I went to the Retiro park for a fountain, lights, and firework show. Some of the fountains were giant arcs of water, and others little more than mist--into which they projected movies of dancers and horses running. Very impressive.

As spring waned into summer, my classmates and I forced ourselves to put away the books at least once a week on average in exchange for picnics in the Retiro, evenings out for tapas to celebrate birthdays, and, as the year drew to a close, farewell dinners. It was even more difficult than I had imagined to say goodbye to my friends one by one. I stayed a little later than some because of my class at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, but the end came all too soon for me, too. I left many dear friends back in Spain, and others are now scattered all across the world, from New York to Thailand. I keep reminding my parents that they're lucky I came back home at all--I could have easily had at least a part-time job in Madrid and, according to my old host mother in Segovia, a husband. When I went up to say goodbye to her, she had a student who didn't speak much Spanish. I translated, and she introduced me as the former student who came to her daughter's wedding and who she wanted to see marry one of her sons. "I think she'd get along best with Alfredo [the oldest] because they both love books so much," she said. She's such a dear woman, but poor Alfredo wasn't even there to defend himself! Needless to say, I didn't tell my parents that particular anecdote until after I was home. :-)

So before you ask what I'm doing now, I'm job hunting and daydreaming of the home I left abroad. I don't know what the future will bring, but I know that Spain will figure in it someday and somehow. I'm at a loss as to how to wrap up such an amazing year, so I'll close this email with a hug and a hope that the fall brings you all fresh adventures and delights.

un beso,
Mary

Mary's novel--uh, update

photo link: http://picasaweb.google.com/mary.dellenbach

Hello again, dear friends and family!

It’s been a busy few weeks on this side of the pond, with lots of running around like a chicken with my head cut off: errands around Madrid; midterms; traveling for work, class, and fun; and starting to realize how (relatively) little time I have left over here. And to give you yet more ideas of why I love this place… I give you the world’s longest update. Oops.


Tengo nickel

In case I haven’t said so already, I have once again been extremely lucky in my housing. My roommates (brother and sister, José and Pichu, both teachers) are both fantastic, fun people—and they don’t mind cramming seven of us into the apartment! Over the past several weeks, I’ve two visitors and José has had three, bringing the total of languages in the apartment up to a high of seven: English, Spanish, French, Japanese, German, with a smattering of Gaelic and Italian just for fun. I think we redefine the concept of an international living situation.

Quick anecdote to explain the title: one day José was just plunked down in the hallway playing odd songs on his guitar (example: “Oh Susanna,” “This Land Is Your Land,” the graduation song…) to annoy Pichu (ahh, siblings… but seriously, they get along really well). So I asked him “Who put the nickel into you?” Hence, in pseudo-Spanish, “Tengo nickel” = “I have (a) nickel.” Antics frequently take musical form around here: José and his girlfriend Yuko, who’s staying with us for a while, are in a band together. We’re even attempting to see if my poetry will lend itself to lyrics.

A couple weeks ago I had the wonderful chance to go to a Real Madrid soccer game, thanks to an extra seat in the block my roommates’ family has in the stadium: about the 12th row up, right in the corner. Amazing seats, and quite the fun night, even if RM lost.

Other news: I’m still teaching English one hour a week to a very sweet 17-year-old, Rocío, and that’s going fabulously. My class at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) is going really well. I’m mainly glad the red tape is over. Odd observation there: the UAM makes everything seem impossibly complicated, and then after stressing over how to get it all done, you find out it’s a five-minute simple process. This, as supposed to NYU’s method of making things seem easy-breezy and later screwing it up into one giant knot of confusion. Now, I don’t like making generalizations without caveats, but it rather seems to me that Spain’s reputation for impossible red tape might hide a reality slightly more convenient—at least at times—than the USA’s reputation for efficiency above all else. And as long as I’m comparing the two countries… Spain just had elections here, and things got a bit tense, as usual. I won’t comment on the actual politics, but I will say that for all the polarity and complicated history and posters lining the streets over here, there was still slightly less noise over the actual election here than there has been about the primaries back home. Perhaps it’s just easier to avoid having politics shoved in my face as an outsider, or perhaps the worldwide attention to our primaries is distorting my perspective a bit, but still. Of course, politics in Spain eventually leads to talk about regional autonomies, which brings me to my first trip in March….

Ciao, bacalao

Two weeks after my trip with the undergrads to Andalucía, the travel-craziness continued with my program’s trip to the País Vasco (the Basque Country), a region in northern Spain with a very strong nationalist streak (depending on whom you talk to), its own non-Indoeuropean language euskera, and amazing food. Title explanation: bacalao (cod) is a regional specialty, so we changed our “see ya later, alligator” equivalent of “ciao, pescao” (invented by my friend Mia; pescado is fish, but the /d/ oven gets elided in conversational speech) in honor of the weekend trip.

We started out in Bilbao, the region’s capital, where we promptly spent four hours in a classroom. To be fair, the lectures/conversations were very interesting, but I would have preferred more time to explore the city. I had to get up early to do that on my own! Yay city, yuck early. The first lecture was on that complicated language, euskera, and the even more complicated linguistic politics in the País Vasco. It was fascinating, though the purely linguistic component was a bit over my head—ergative verbs, anyone? I won’t go into the whole thing here; this will end up long enough without a half-political, half-linguistic treatise with a subject matter that goes back centuries! The second lecture was a bit more… controversial. A Basque nationalist (oh, and anarchist too… just don’t ask me how those two can actually go together) came to talk about the culture—that part was really interesting—and the politics—that part got rather heated. He never defended ETA, the Basque nationalist terrorist group, but he did say he “understood” their motives. I don’t put up with much of that happily.

But afterwards we went out for pintxos (tapas) in the heart of old Bilbao, and I had the most amazing food! I tried kokotxas de bacalao (cod cheeks), stuffed txipirones (baby squids stuffed with their own tentacles), and the marvelous calabacín relleno de bacalao (zucchini stuffed with cod in a lovely red sauce with peppers), along with a few croquetas and conversations when we could find each other in the crowd of locals flooding the most popular pintxos bars. I’m forever spoiled when it comes to food, especially tapas, after that night.

Before leaving, Bilbao, we did indeed make a stop at the Guggenheim: cooler outside than inside, but the surrealism exhibit (pretty much all I had time to see) was fascinating. The giant spider sculpture outside the museum was not my idea of fun, but Mia still got me under it for a photo op. She owes me. Inside all the gleaming silver curves we saw Dalí’s lobster phone and lip couch, some giant walk-through spirals, big glass roses, portraits made out of painted and broken plates, and other even more abstract things. Modern art doesn’t often do much for me, but it was an interesting museum.

Combing the Wind

I liked Bilbao, but I fell in love with San Sebastián. It’s a gorgeous seaside town, and they gave us several hours to wander around the old city center. A few of us ran across a bar where the pintxos went on forever, but we had been warned not to spoil our overly-large dinner, so unfortunately we didn’t get the chance to try any of the delectable little dishes. The promised dinner was indeed fantastic and very filling, though. We went to a sidrería, a cider house, on NYU’s dime. Imagine half a dozen enormous barrels of cider with spouts about head-level, a crabby old man in control of the spigot, and lines of people stooping to catch the arching stream of cider in their glasses at just the right angle, and just the right amount (very little: never more than quarter-fill your glass! It’s just not done). The meal was fabulous, and the highlight was the steak. I wouldn’t normally eat meat that rare, but it was so tasty! Somewhere there’s a picture floating around of me holding a very large knife and grinning like a maniac. If you see it, don’t worry. I was just looking at the steak.

I got up early again the next morning (who IS this girl?) to take a short walk down from our hotel to the sea, which is where I fell in love. I like beaches, and there was one, but I love a rocky shore—and I took several hundred pictures of it alone. At one end, several gigantic iron sculptures are welded onto the rocks. It’s a work called Peine del viento (Wind Comb) by the sculpture Eduardo Chillida, and somehow the huge metal curves manage to fit completely into the landscape. When my friends came and finally dragged me away from the spray and the waves, it was actually to go on a tour of a museum/sculpture garden of his. It was an excellent tour, and for the first time I can say I’ve had a tour guide who made abstract art make sense. We also just so happened to have the fantastic timing of being at the museum on the first Sunday of March, which is the day the new season’s cider is brought out for tasting. So we ate cheese and tasted cider, listened to musicians and the mayor’s welcome (given in euskera, naturally), and wandered around the green slopes and iron sculptures until it was time to go home to Madrid—and after all that sun, fresh air, and GREEN, it was a little difficult for all of us.

Castles galore

The following weekend I ended up making a second trip for work, which I was rather happy with since it allowed me to see parts of Spain I never would have reached on my own. We went to several cities in Extremadura, a region bordering Portugal, and even crossed the border for a day to see several castles in Portugal itself. (No passport stamp; why would there be anyone in the derelict border guard house?) The first stop was Mérida, with its extremely impressive collection of Roman ruins, including an amphitheater in remarkable shape with even more remarkable acoustics, and an aqueduct nothing at all like Segovia’s. Second stop, and our home base for the weekend, was Cáceres, a beautiful city with an inordinate amount of storks. Yes, my old cigüeña photographic obsession resurfaced. Again.

Our two stops in Portugal were too picturesque for words. Castelo de Vide was perhaps the more exciting, because we got to walk through the town, have lunch, and sit on a castle rooftop (although the undergrads sitting IN the crenellations just made me want to yank them down or cower on a flat, low spot and cover my eyes… I don’t do heights well), and because one of the students sliced his knee open playing soccer with a few Portuguese kids and needed stitches. Marvão’s castle was even higher up, with the most amazing views—and a rather strong wind. “Breathtaking” was the word of the day, and you’ll just have to look at the pictures when I get them up to see what I mean.

One of the perks to traveling for work is that I didn’t have to pay for anything but my own postcards. One night we had supper in one of those fancy restaurants where the food arrives looking so artfully prepared that it’s almost a shame to eat it—almost. It was delicious! At various points throughout the weekend, I had partridge, venison, and a delectable selection of local cheeses and hams. Spain is the king of ham—or, rather, ham is king in Spain.

How Gaudí

My friend Laura arrived just after midterms (following the Extremadura-Portugal trip), and as soon as my classes let out we were off bright and early for Barcelona, one of my favorite cities in the world. We had a hotel just off Las Ramblas, the colorful main avenue that threads through the Gothic quarter on its way to the old port, and so were perfectly located. Naturally, we spent some time at the beach, collected sea glass, ate paella, and admired the collection of people along the Ramblas: street performers, artists, florists, pet shop owners, and a bunch of vacationers celebrating St. Paddy’s Day with giant Guinness hats. We divided the rest of the time among Gaudí’s famous architecture scattered around the city…

Casa Batlló seems to be designed to look like a dragon with St. George’s sword through its back (St. George is the patron saint of the city). Inside everything looks like it’s part of the ocean: even the doors somehow seem to flow, and the light was amazing. We walked around the roof, too, and got to see the dragon’s-back scale-tiles up close—again, words just don’t do it justice. The inside of the Pedrera (another building designed by Gaudí along the same street) wasn’t nearly as impressive, but the roof is this giant, multi-level surface with dozens of chimneys designed like swirled crosses or knight’s helmets. Utterly surreal. And then, of course, we went to the Sagrada Familia, which might just be finished by 2025. Walking inside is like walking into the shell of a very bright cathedral, and the view from the towers is incredible. I made the mistake of walking down the stairs, though, rather than taking the elevator back down: at one point, the normal stairs kind of disappeared and turned into a very tight spiral staircase with a railing only on the wall side. I basically backed the whole way down, holding very tight to that railing. The pictures I have of that staircase are amazing, and it really does look like a snail’s shell, but it wasn’t the world’s calmest descent. Our last day in Barcelona, I took Laura to Parc Güell for a lovely walk through the trees and through more nature-inspired Gaudí architecture before hopping a flight back to Madrid…

Semana Santa

My friend Weez arrived the next day, and after a fun evening of cooking and catching up, all three of us went to Segovia for Holy Thursday. We spent the day wandering around my city, admiring the aqueduct, cathedral, alcazar (castle), an artisan market, and the lovely streets, punctuated with trips to my favorite café, La Colonial, for hot chocolate, and to the stylish bar Oso Blanco for some amazing tapas. We did get to see some of the Holy Week processions go to the cathedral before we had to catch the bus back to Madrid (pictures coming), but to be honest the Good Friday processions we saw in Madrid’s Plaza Mayor had far better music accompanying them.

We divided our time in Madrid among walking around to see the sights, spending money at the Rastro market, the Semana Santa processions, art museums (the Prado, of course, and the modern art Reina Sofia), pure silliness, getting into multiple-language conversations, and—bless Laura and Weez—cooking.

Sueños de la Alhambra

Early Monday morning we took a bus down to Granada, where I promptly went overboard and bought way too much tea. (The mix I fell in love with earlier this semester is called Sueños de la Alhambra, or Dreams of the Alhambra, and I bought four or five bags of it.) We wandered around the fringes of the Albayzín, the old Moorish quarter, to look at pretty things I’d love to decorate my house with someday; it became our afternoon ritual. We met up with Weezy’s old program director several times, we walked around town, had sweet, fruity tea in a tetería, ate gelato, and had paella… And on Wednesday we went up to the Alhambra.

That palatial complex never ceases to amaze me. Everything is a work of art, and every piece of artwork is so intricate, from the tiles low on the walls to the stalactite-like carvings on the ceilings. And then, of course, there are the Generalife gardens: everything smelled like flowers and oranges, and the only sounds (other than tourists talking) were birdsong and trickling water. It was so peaceful and beautiful, with such impressive views and details—I could spend weeks there, I’m sure. Unfortunately, they now sell 7,000 tickets daily and sell out easily, so that’s not quite possible.

We ended our trip by visiting Weezy’s old host family, where we were treated to a delicious home-cooked meal of lentil soup and tortilla de patatas, two of our favorite Spanish staples. We then had to hop the bus back to Madrid, where Weez and Laura got to spend a day wandering around the Prado while I ran errands and went to class. Then it was all packing and goodbyes and a little music-making with the roommates.

A Spanish Wedding

It was wonderful to have two close friends around for Easter, and wonderful to travel around Spain with them. But one of the highlights of the entire year has to be this past Saturday, when I went to Segovia for my old host sister’s wedding. I got to their house just as Ana was getting ready (so many buttons on that gorgeous dress!); it was insane with brothers and photographers running all over, but they just welcomed me in like one of the family—again—and it still warms my heart like you wouldn’t believe. The ceremony took place in a church beneath the Alcázar (Sleeping Beauty castle), in the Iglesia de San Juan de la Cruz, which I had actually done a small project on two years ago. It’s a very pretty church with a beautiful abstract mural behind the altar, based on a poem by St. John of the Cross. Alberto (youngest brother) walked Ana down the aisle, and it was a beautiful wedding (if shorter than the American norm!). As Ana and her new husband, José, left the church, the choir—including Alfredo (oldest brother)—serenaded them before everyone started chucking rice at the happy couple. Then there was nothing else to be done but pose for pictures, first in the church and then beneath the castle. I was honored to be included in one of the sets of family photos, so here’s hoping that photographer’s fancy camera was digital so I can someday get a copy!

The reception was at a fancy restaurant/hotel just outside the city, and the meal was both large and delicious: a plate of hams and cheeses followed by fish, a palate-cleansing sorbet, salad, and the famous Segovian cochinillo (suckling pig), heralded by a pair of musicians. Cochinillo is supposed to be so tender you can cut it with a plate, and so apparently there’s a Segovian tradition of the bride and groom doing the “carving” and then breaking the plates. To be honest, I hadn’t been expecting a lot of differences between Spanish and American weddings—but when the pigs came out and the plates crashed on the floor, I threw that assumption out the window. The newlyweds fed each other bits of cake perched on the tip of a small sword (naturally), the friends of the groom passed out souvenir cigars, the friends of the bride cut her garter into tiny bits and passed them out to guests for donations (Spanish version of the dollar dance, I guess), and then all the tables were pushed aside and the dancing began. The playlist of music, needless to say, was not the same as what we’re used to, and it ranged from current hits to more traditional Spanish songs (and dances) which I didn’t know at all. After a few hours, the party shifted from the restaurant to a bar back in town, I went to my hostal and changed, and the dancing and chatting continued… I escaped the smoke for a brief while with Alberto, his girlfriend Ruth, and a few of his friends: there was a gastronomy market visiting nearby, and we went down for a bit of fresh air, wine, ribs, and brief English lessons (a.k.a. it’s “to pull someone’s leg” not “to take someone’s leg off”). After dancing with all my Segovian siblings and various friends of theirs, I was dead tired and went to bed just after Ana and José left at about 3:30, but I’m sure the merriment continued well after that! It usually does, here.

And that’s finally all for now, folks. I’m getting pictures organized and online slowly but surely, so keep checking back… but my thesis is looming, and suddenly classes take precedence once more (except the gorgeous weather will be a slight challenge to productivity…). I hope you all had a wonderful spring break of some kind and were able to relax a little. Stay warm over there J

I know I haven't yet responded to all of your notes to me, but please know that I do read and appreciate all of them very much! It makes me feel more connected to home, which in turn makes it seem like I am home over here, since family and friends aren't that far away after all.

Hugs and prayers,
Mary

what to do with a dead fish

photo link: http://picasaweb.google.com/mary.dellenbach
(Still have a bit more updating to do, with Segovia from December and Córdoba/Granada from last weekend, but carnavales are up!)


16 February 2008

A belated Happy Valentine’s Day to you! (Unless you’re one of those people who’s not a big fan, in which case: Happy Random Gifts of Chocolate Day!)

I’m told it’s -40 with windchill in Minnesota right now, and I’m dreadfully sorry for all of you who are busy freezing in the depths of winter. I’m reminded of a postcard I once saw of a group of people in parkas and up to their waists in snow (in MT, but I’ll use a little poetic license and change the state): “Minnesotans for Global Warming.” And that joke is as close as I’ll come to touching politics without a ten-foot pole during this electoral season, except to say how incredibly glad I am to be missing the primary circus!

I wrote the first half of this email sitting in the sun on a bench at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). People were sprawled all over the lawns (actual expanses of grass! amazing!) with their lunches and probably a few drinks (only in Spain moment: you go to the on-campus bar to get a cup of tea), and it was just so wonderful to be back in a university atmosphere. I heard French, English, Italian, and German, saw signs advertising Arabic classes, but it’s really just great being on a Spanish campus. The campus itself, actually, reminds me just enough of CSB/SJU to make me feel at home: grass, trees, brick sidewalks, concrete and brick buildings…. The random old train engine sitting in the middle of the lawn undermines the impression a little bit, and no one seems to know why it’s there. So, naturally, one day I’ll bring my camera and do a little photographic study when the light’s good. I wish I’d had it with me the other day; someone was trying to teach her friend to ride a unicycle. It wasn’t working very well, but they kept at it—with hilarious results.

I checked out three classes at the UAM: Teaching Spanish as a Second Language, Translation from Spanish to English, and Translation from English to Spanish. I had originally signed up for the teaching course, but ended up deciding on the Translation to Spanish (the other translation course is taught entirely in English, and I really don’t see much point in taking it). While I’m really enjoying my tiny tutoring job, I really don’t know if I ever want to teach, and I do know I love translating—so it makes more sense to learn as much about it as I can. Speaking of translation, classes and the thesis are so far going well: the story’s finished, and corrected, and Step Next is to simultaneously keep researching the phenomenon of self-translation and to start translating the thing into English. My friend Mia joked that our theses are our boyfriends for the semester. She’s with Don Quixote, another friend of ours is dating Harry Potter in Spanish, and I’m dating… Loneliness? (Story title: “Me llamo Soledad / My Name Means ‘Loneliness’”)

Right. Moving on. Carnavales! Carnival isn’t nearly so crazy in Madrid as in other parts of Spain, but it managed to pull together a respectable parade and a couple other events that will require a bit more explanation. I’ve got pictures up now, which explain the parade far better than I could in words. The giant bee at the end was a bit odd, though. On the other hand, rollerskating bugs are always good for a laugh. The second high point on my carnival agenda was the battle between Don Carnal (Lord Lust) and Doña Cuaresma (Lady Lent) in the Plaza Mayor. Basically Carnal and his cronies were out carousing, and she arrives in all her righteous fury, complete with sword and lobster-headed followers, to put an end to it in a giant flurry of feathers and fish bones. In the last procession, though, Lent’s victory is turned a bit on its head in el Entierro de la Sardina (the Burial of the Sardine). Yes, you read it right. A little smelly dead fish. Apparently the Alegre Cofradía del Santo Entierro de la Sardina (the Happy Brotherhood of the Holy Burial of the Sardine) was formed back in the 19th century to hold this mock funeral mourning the passing of a sardine, which symbolized the fasting and abstinence which comes with Lent. Instead of burying fat, they bury a fish. (They basically wanted carnival to continue on Ash Wednesday.) People showed up in their most maudlin finery—black veils, sardine-tin-hats, little fish pins—crying and singing the whole way. Some threw candy into the crowd, some dumped confetti onto every passing pretty girl, some women wailed over the fish’s body, some little old men danced and capered—you know, your average night in Madrid. Actually, according to some tiny old woman I ran into just as I was leaving, this was “la Madrid de verdad.” The real Madrid (not to be confused with Real Madrid, the soccer team). Take that however you will.

Once carnavales ended, I had the happy job of going along as chaperone on an undergraduate trip to Córdoba and Granada. It was a busy weekend, and I spent most of the time making sure we had everybody, but I did get to take some pictures of my own, and I got a lot of really good food for free. In Córdoba we did the usual: Mezquita, old Jewish neighborhood and synagogue, and Calle de las Flores, that amazing flower-filled street. Just a few hours and we were off to Granada, where I got to see the cathedral for the first time, the Alhambra for the second (though there wasn’t enough time for the Generalife gardens, but I have the luxury of returning in just over a month!), and the old summer house of García Lorca and his family. I led a small group of students there while the rest went on a tour of the Albaicín barrio, and I didn’t even get us lost, which I felt was quite the accomplishment. It was mainly run-run-run the whole weekend, but during the down times I went with the profs to a café someplace and we just sat and talked for a little bit. The highlight was probably a little tea shop cave where I discovered a tea called “Dreams of the Alhambra” which tasted absolutely divine, and I’ll have to find someplace I can buy the mix when I go back after Easter.

And now I’m sick but recovering, and therefore pretty much out of news. Stay warm over there!

Hugs,Mary

New Year, new adventures

Link to photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/mary.dellenbach

13 January 2008

Dearest family and friends,

My one and only New Year’s Resolution: keep in touch. (The addition of wifi will be a great help, I’m sure.) I don’t know what happened to all my grand plans of writing updates and emails and postcards galore, but it’s a new year, so here goes Round 2.

And yet… before really, truly starting the new year (classes tomorrow…), it’s time to revisit the old. And so I give you my own, not-nearly-as-funny-as-Letterman-even-without-his-writers Top Ten List. Except it might just be in no particular order, which rather undermines the whole concept, but oh well.

Top 10 Highlights of 2006 (after I fell off the face of the earth)

10. Spending the night in Philadelphia. As an airport, it probably gets four stars. As a hotel, none. Ninguno. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Ni un pizco. Have I made my point yet? Yes, I got stuck in Philly—they cancelled my plane out from under me, and nearly kept me there the next morning, too, but I finally made it to Chicago in time to dash to the plane that, 36 hours after leaving Madrid, finally brought me home to my loving family. But I really have no further urge to visit that particular part of the country. No, I did not buy any souvenirs. Not even postcards. I didn’t even take a single picture. Yeah, now you’ve got the idea.

9. Getting sick in Córdoba. The group excursion for the semester was to Andalucía, southern Spain, which has a much warmer air—both literally and figuratively—than the more northern parts of the country. I loved the chance to see a bit more of Córdoba than I had been able to last time, including revisiting the forest of red-and-white arches in the famous Mezquita/Mosque (which is actually a cathedral now) and wandering down narrow side streets between whitewashed and flower-draped buildings. However, I came down with an awful stomach bug and had to take the AVE (high speed train) home early while the rest of the group went onto Sevilla. Needless to say, one of my goals for this spring is to get back to Andalucía—and stay healthy. And along that same vein…

8. Playing “Hopalong Cassidy” in Madrid. I knew the marble staircase in the Institute (where we have our history class and an actual library) spelled trouble the moment I first slipped—I mean stepped—on it. So, naturally, I sprained my ankle mid-November. Luckily my host mother had a crutch I could use, and an ice pack, and an ace bandage… so all was well, if a little slow-moving. Of course, I did this right before Item #_, and it also complicated #7, but at least I never got my crutch stuck between cobblestones. Actually, people here are quite considerate when it comes to injuries. Normally a crowded metro means getting stepped on and shoved around—but if you’ve got a crutch, everyone gets up to give you their seat. Hey, you’ve got to take the perks where you can.

7. Apartment hunting. Around the end of October, Rosa told me that her sister was coming to stay with her for the spring, and so I wouldn’t be able to keep living there for the whole year—which was sad, but fine, except NYU had known pretty much all along and neglected to tell me about it. That rather set the tone for the entire hunt, which I started in November (minus time spent with my foot up or on #_), with very little help from the university. On the plus side, I saw a lot—and I mean a LOT—of different parts of Madrid, including both some rather sketchy ones (one place I got off the metro, walked to the general area, took one good look around, and called the woman to tell her I wasn’t coming after all) and the fabulously picturesque (and pricy) barrio de las Letras, across from the Prado, where every other house/palace is the birthplace of some famous Spanish poet. On the minus side, researching, calling, and visiting a couple dozen apartments took up a lot of time and energy. Time wasn’t really pressing, which was good because no one wanted someone to come in January—everyone wanted someone to share the rent immediately, and I wasn’t about to move out early. That is, I didn’t want to, but at the end of November Rosa’s sister got very sick and needed to come to Madrid for kidney dialysis. So two weeks before the end of the semester, she moved in and I moved out. It was hard leaving someplace that felt like home, and both Rosa and her daughter (also Rosa) were so wonderful to me—but life happens. NYU stepped in at that point and found me a homestay with a nice but rather nervous woman named Pilar for the last bit of the semester, luckily in the same neighborhood so I knew where everything was, could bump into Rosa every so often, and could keep going to my same church—the only Spanish church I’ve ever been to that has Mass lasting for a full hour and has a full complement of young musicians. The building itself is rather ugly and made of concrete, though the second part—plus the music—reminds me of SJU, which made me feel more at home despite not knowing any of the songs. Anyway, I won’t bore you with any more of the search except to relate one sentence from an ad I saw: “buscando gente normal” (“looking for normal people”). Draw conclusions as you will. But I did finally find a place and, though it’s further away from everything than I was, I’m quite content. More on that later.

6. Taking to the streets. Anything at all happens in Madrid and it seems the whole city takes to the streets. There was a citywide art festival, of which I unfortunately saw very little due to bad timing and lack of good planning, called Noche en Blanco. The streets were packed, there were odd little theater or dance performances or open air exhibitions all over the city, which made it a wonderful excuse for all of Madrid to stay out even later than normal. To give you an idea, I think the last exhibition started at 1 and ended sometime the next morning—in other words, normal clubbing hours. The only spectacular thing I saw was… slower… than I expected. They lit up Torre España (big building) in different colors. Spaniards kept cheering each time more windows turned blue or green or pink; we kept looking at each other and thinking, “This is it?” Good photos, though. A bit more spectacular was the Columbus Day military parade. Again, packed streets. Lots of soldiers, horses, and tanks marched by; loud planes streaked overhead, trailing red and yellow for the Spanish flag; little boys clamored for bigger guns and little girls wanted more horses; a Coast Guard boat went by on a trailer; people chanted for Zapatero (prime minister) and a few obstinate old men shouted obscenities whenever that name came up; the king’s car and Zapatero’s car went by just down the corner, but I was a little too slow on the camera and I couldn’t get anywhere near close enough to the plaza to see them in person. But it was a fun afternoon, even with the occasional bitter political undertones.

5. A literary festival. Back towards the middle of October, an organization called Casa de América (housed in a palace, Palacio de Linajes, in the beautiful Plaza de Cibeles) had a whole host of visiting artists, authors, actors, etc. They gave lectures and held roundtables and I was able to go to a number of different sessions, both on inspiration (La arquitectura del proceso creativo/Architecture of the Creative Process) and memory (El derecho a olvidar, el deber de recordar /The Right to Forget, the Duty to Remember), and both were very helpful in starting out my thesis (more on that later). The culmination of this week was a moving concert called La Marcha. Five Latin-American bands (it was “The Americas” week) on big Mack trucks moved very slowly through enormous crowds from Atocha to Cibeles. I thought the Rastro market was crowded? Hah! Have a look at my pictures; seas of flag-waving and occasionally costumed people danced and sang along with the trucks. It took several hours just to traverse a couple miles, but it was fun.

4. Random gems of Madrid. This could be its own top ten list, but I don’t want to exhaust your patience all in one email! I no longer live in walking distance of the Retiro Park, but I sure took advantage of it while I was there. Perhaps unfortunately for this loose exercise regimen of mine (called “Mary Needs Trees and Peace and Quiet!”), there is a neon-lit ice cream store on the way home from the park. They have Bailey’s-flavored ice cream. ‘Nuff said. Moving on. What says “autumn” like the smell of falling leaves? I now have an answer: the smell of chestnuts. Roasting on an open… grill. On the street corner. Sold alongside yams and corn on the cob—what else? Despite a lingering limp, I made a few circuits around the best-known parts of Madrid when the Christmas lights came out. The Christmas tree in Puerta del Sol looked like it had been electrified; glowing bubble-wands hung over the wide avenue of la Castellana; the Prado’s trees turned purple; magic carpets floated over a street someplace near Gran Via; and giant leaves drifted over the Plaza Mayor. I’ll have the pictures up soon, I hope—the descriptions really don’t make sense without them. While I was apartment hunting, I had one particularly disappointing night when I went to sign a contract and found out someone had already rented the apartment out from under me due to a lack of communication between the husband and wife who owned the building. So I was searching for another, it was just before finals, I was ready for Christmas and home, and I heard a band strike up “Jingle Bells.” Immediately that warm fuzzy feeling dispelled all my little grumbly thoughts… and then one of the players stopped playing and started singing. Problem #1: He didn’t know the words. Problem #2: He was flatter than a pancake. “NAVIDAD, NAVIDAD, NAAAAVIDAD,” he… well, I hesitate to call it singing. Warm fuzzies—all gone. It might have been the next night that a couple of us got together to watch clips of Christmas movies on YouTube (it’s good for something, after all!) and drink homemade eggnog. By that point, we all needed it.

3. Freezing in Segovia. So much for chronological order. The day before I flew home, my friend Mia and I took a spur-of-the-moment jaunt to my lovely little city. It was rather brutally cold, at least for Spain—below freezing and windy. (Yes, I learned my lesson when I got home.) Unfortunately I wasn’t able to see any of my old host family; they were all working at the time. But we had a wonderfully relaxing day wandering through quaint little shops, through all my favorite haunts, up the aqueduct, and under the castle—and caught some fantastic light for photos, too. (Yes, I’m addicted. You all knew this already.) It was so good to get back there… there’s nothing so peaceful as walking through trees over a river or just sitting and sipping a warm cup of REALLY THICK hot chocolate and staring out the window at adorable children running past centuries-old buildings. We finished up with a glass of wine and a few tapas at the Oso Blanco, a classy bar halfway down a staircase, which my group frequented for sangria two years ago. The bartenders are the same sweet old men in suits who made sure to give us all the best food and keep us from foolishly trying the tapas they knew we wouldn’t like! I love Segovia.

2. A Scottish Thanksgiving. While I’m sad I missed our groups big Thanksgiving dinner (at least, I’m sad until I look at the photo of Sean with a carving knife, and then I’m just scared), and it was sad not to be with family, I had a fantastic thanksgiving in Edinburgh with one of my best friends, Laura, who’s there for vet school. I still had my crutch when I flew over to visit her, but I still got to see a good portion of the city, or at least my favorite parts and then some. The first day I went with her to school, got some research done while she was in class, and then we walked through the hills back towards town—it was just lovely to get some real outdoorsy time in. Thanksgiving day I don’t think we even left the house. Laura (a vegetarian) perfectly cooked the turkey, I made some tortilla española because it’s what I do (just not very neatly), and a bunch of her friends came over for lots of food and fun. All the vet people oohed and aahed over the colors my foot was turning. Other highlights: mulled wine in the Christmas market, church in English!, meeting the William Wallace impersonator who stands outside the castle in full battle regalia for photo-ops, eating Turkish delight, and generally being silly with Laura throughout Edinburgh. Cheers!

1. A winter wedding in Winona. It was wonderful to spend so much time with family over break! I’m still sad I didn’t get to spend much time visiting with friends, but those couple weeks sure flew by. My cousin Lindsy’s wedding in Winona was definitely the highlight. It was such a joyous occasion, and there were of course all the little things to make it even better—the flower girl and her special “picture pose,” the ring bearer stomping up the aisle in his boots during rehearsal, dancing with my little cousin and my dad and my Grandpa, and watching all the guys gradually drift towards the big game by the end of the reception. It’s always good to know that, no matter how much some things change, others never will!

And that’s the end of the Top Ten list. Of course, there’s always more that could go in there… the final group dinner in a fancy restaurant where all the undergrads dressed up like they were going to prom (how did they get those dresses over here?) and the grad students were just happy to be leaving while knowing we were coming back… celebrating a birthday in a Turkish restaurant, complete with bellydancer… getting our official Spanish student ID cards in an astonishing 2 minutes after waiting in line for an hour and a half to get into the police station… starting to tutor a delightful seventeen-year-old girl named Rocío in English one hour a week… spending an entire Linguistics class talking about a postcard with purposely horrendous translations of common Spanish phrases (“It’s not turkey mucus!” springs to mind)… going out for Halloween dressed as nudists on strike (a.k.a. we wimped out and wore signs rather than spending money on vampire outfits)…

It seems odd to go back to talking about my old classes just before the new ones start. Linguistics (lexicon) with my thesis director was definitely my favorite, followed fairly closely by Journalism & Translation, both as classes and for the professors. We lost the woman who taught our workshop at the beginning of the year and gained a fabulous teacher and friend in Lidia; I think the translation workshop laughs a lot more than the literature workshop, but that could just be me. And the other 9 of us. I’m progressing on my thesis, which is an odd three-part combination of writing and translation and analysis. It took a while to argue the program director into the feasibility of it, but we finally reached an agreement I’m quite happy with. My threefold project: 1) write a short story in Spanish, 2) translate it into English, and 3) do an analysis of the process (problems, advantages, etc.) of self-translation. It’s been an interesting investigation so far, and I’m finally done with the first draft of the Spanish story. The writing has actually gone fairly easily, though I haven’t exactly made it easy on myself to translate… but I’m sure I’ll write more about that later as the process continues.

I’ll close with a little bit about my new home: the apartment itself is quite nice, with a spacious living room and terrace (which is more of a cold sun room), small kitchen, dining table, 1 bathroom, and 3 bedrooms. I’ve finally got mine set up, complete with a warm fuzzy blanket I’m going to miss when I can’t bring it home with me. I live with two Spaniards, a brother and sister. José is a language teacher and translator; he also takes linguistic classes and plays the guitar. Lucky for me, he even has a keyboard, so I brought a bit of sheet music back with me for when my thesis tries to become Tessy the Thesis Monster (credit for the name goes to Mia) and eat me alive. Pichu, his sister, is a grade school teacher and absolute sweetheart. I’ve seen some of the daily questions her students pose her: everything from practical, pre-test questions to “Do fish pee? How?” and “How do you put up with us?” It’s a very tranquil place, but it’s had its share of company this week, enough to make me feel a part of the household even as I’m still learning how to use the stove (matches and gas and fire, aaah) and still don’t have more than one day’s worth of food in the fridge. The day I got in, José had a couple friends over. He cooked dinner for all of us and then we played Trivial Pursuit until about 1 in the morning. It was a little unfair; he and Pichu must have the answers all memorized, and they were on the same team. My team lost 0-6. It was sad. In my defense, though, it’s the Spanish Genius Edition, and I really didn’t have a prayer. I did know two questions: one about Gabriel García Márquez, and another about Flipper. Go figure. Then last night Pichu had some friends over to practice singing for someone’s wedding, and so I got serenaded as I finished my thesis-story. I also got fed chocolate J All in all, I’ve met more madrileños in the past couple days than I did all last semester, and I’m hoping some of these friends keep coming back so I can get to know them better. At any rate, I’ll have a class in a Spanish university this semester, and—as much as I love my classmates—it’ll be good to make friends outside the group.

Last year was a whirlwind, and I expect this one will be much the same. I’ll try to keep up with it a bit better; wish me luck! For now, most of my goals are lamentably short-sighted: survive the first week of classes, go grocery shopping daily until I build up some kind of pantry, go see a silly animated version of Don Quixote (Donkey Xote… oh dear), and put enough photos online to finish with last year so I can erase my camera’s card and start anew.

And on that note, a belated Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, feliz Reyes, and hasta pronto! Hugs and besitos,

Mary