I Try and Fail (So Far) to Make Spanish Friends

Here is a short anecdote:

I was thinking making Spanish friends would be nice. Maybe Spanish friends would speak to me in Spanish. Hopefully they would be really fun and show me around the city. I don't have many outlets to meet new people since I work in English and take classes with other people who are looking to learn Spanish. I decided to do what is considered relatively normal in this country and try to find an intercambio. An intercambio is when two people meet who want to learn each other's languages. For example, I want to learn Spanish and perhaps I make a friend who wants to learn English. These two people (ideally me and my awesomely fun new Spanish friend) meet up for a coffee or a beer and speak for half an hour in English and half an hour in Spanish.

When I was in Granada, my 31-year old intercambio Juanjo invited me and my friends to some spectacular house parties. We spoke in Spanish, we drank his alcohol, we told him about the land of liberty.

Unforunately, I couldn't find a picture of Juanjo, so here is a pic of one of my favorite God-fearing, freedom-loving meals in Granada with some great people:
So to begin my search, I put an ad on Loquo, similar to CraigsList and received 54 responses in 3 days. My ad was very simple, 2, maybe 3 sentences. I got some prize responses and it was difficult to choose which ones to include on this blog. Here are the winners:

Hi! Soy masajista reflexoterapeuta gay y preparo Proficiency, si quieres intercambiamos conversacion en ingles x masaje reflexologico. Tks


Would you accept doing a language exchange with a Moroccan guy¿? Your sexy American accented English for my Spanish! lol


and my favorite:

Hi everyone. It's Antonio, a "normal" funny guy who would like to find a partner in English. I can help you in Spanish, if you were a true teacher for me. I like dancing, sport, books, working and meet foreign people. Moreover, I might make laugh you, too. :)Let me know your opinion about my offering, please;)
Be happy


Don't know who "everyone" is since the email was just to me, and don't know why Antonio considers himself "normal."

The ad is down. The search for friends continues.

Some Gentle Physical Activity

Perhaps you are wondering what I have been doing for the past two weeks. Perhaps you are wondering if I recovered from my double bout of pink eye (the left eye has recovered, thank you for your concern, Danielle Touhey, Laura Bennett, Loren Heinbach, and Mom). Most likely, you are wondering why the f you receive an email with my blog as the text. If this last clause applies to you, it is because a) I have my doubts that you can navigate your way to this page (sorry, Daddy, but you KNOW this applies to you), or b) I thought you needed to be alerted instantaneously when I posted something new so you could mock me.

Well besides abandoning my homeland, that of the free and the brave, I have also almost completely abandoned physical exercise. Long gone are the days of beautiful jogs, prisoner squats, hip circuit and casual swings of the tennis racket. Instead I walk to the metro in uncomfortable shoes or Euro sneaks, and I have no idea what else I do with my time but you can be sure it does not resemble working out in any sort of way.

For the past two weekends though, I have taken day trips to beautiful towns, Cercedilla and Manzanares for some hiking.

Here are some unflattering pictures from Cercedilla, a tranquil town an hour outside of Madrid full of hiking and bike trails.This is what Cercedilla looks like after you have hiked to the top of a mountain.

These pictures portray two activities at which Vicki, Michael and I excel: napping and eating.

The following weekend, I went to Manzanares, another town close to Madrid for hiking, napping, and observing.

These people are huge.

Fording the river.

Guesses as to why Miguel "Lone Wolf" Leyes refuses to look at the camera yet again? Perhaps he has spent time male modeling and knows his best angle? As of yet, undetermined.

In conclusion, two pictures of friends whose absences from my daily life make me sad:

Internationally renowned food blogger and former phys ed teacher, Loren Heinbach:

An all-around excellent specimen of a teacher from Ballou SHS, Adam Janosko:

I Moved to Spain, Got Soft, and Now Have Pink Eye in Both Eyes

After two blood-curdling, reality-defying years at Ballou Senior High School, I like to pride myself on being tough. I dealt with crises at work on a regular basis. Occasionally, I dealt with personal crises. I remember in March when I was training for the National Half Marathon and I had a cold but I refused to stay home from school even though I was miserable and after a day of hell I purposefully OD'ed on all types of cold remedies that caused me to salivate miserably while I tried to do a training run. Much to the glee of the homeless men sitting on Pennsylvania Ave taking big swigs out of dark brown paper bags, this home mixture of DayQuil, Mucinex, and Tylenol Cold and Sinus necessitated a stop-and-spit every 5 feet or so. I spit, they cheered. The cycle repeated. I include this story to illustrate how far I have fallen. Now, I work only about 16 hours per week assistant teaching, take siestas, and have pink eye in both eyes.

Last weekend I went to Leon. It is a smallish city north of Madrid where Vicki's grandparents and aunt live. We stayed in her parents' apartment where I averaged a good 12 hours of sleep per night. Leon has a beautiful cathedral, and free tapas, which reminds me of the best city ever, Granada. My activities in Leon included sleeping, napping, walking around the city, relaxing, and sitting.

I had the opportunity to meet Vicki's grandparents in León, a fantastic duo of whippersnappers who live alone and care for Vicki's cousin's dog, a puppy named Las. During my brief visit to their apartment I was stuffed with chocolate candies and was witness to a lot of loving screams at Las to stop eating my shoes, stop eating Vicki's shoes, come, stay, and stop being such a bad dog. It was a wonderful visit and hope to go back and sit on their couch again soon.
Here are some more pictures from León.

An excellent host and tour guide, Vicki points at something old.


Linnette, Georgia, Vicki and me, in height order, getting drinks and tapas.

These very small drinks came with free tapas of fried croqueta goodness.

I pay 84 Euros a month to learn to be more offensive in another language
I began my daily Spanish class last week. The first week's emphasis was on adjectives and descriptive words. My homework the first night was to write down 5 adjectives to describe the people of France, Italy, Spain, China, and Argentina. The next day in class, my professor Carolina gleefully led us in brainstorming pejorative ways to describe these nationalities, except for Spaniards of course, and I sat horrified and sweaty listening to how to say "vagrant," "lazy," and "fun-loving" in case I need to describe an Argentinian. I brought up my concern in halted Spanish reminding the professor that these were stereotypes and generalizations. She smiled kindly at me and informed me that all stereotypes are founded in truth. My fellow classmates gazed at me with disdain. Class has picked up since then and I can now compare my friends to animals when I want to insult them with idiomatic expressions in Spanish.

In closing, Tara Higgins...

Life is Better When You Nap

On Saturday, I went to Segovia. Segovia is a town that has it all: a giant aqueduct, a beautiful castle, Renaissance reenacters, a temporary blow-up jumping apparatus, and an event promoting gender equality through sports. The "Women Can Play Sports, Too" gathering aptly blared Britney Spears' song, "Womanizer" on repeat.

Here is a picture of Segovia.

Do I know how an aqueduct works? If society crumbles and I somehow survive and am there to help rebuild, I believe my only contribution may be my ability to teach the younger generation how to read by scratching a stick into the dirt. This of course will be useless when we have no time for such frivolous pursuits since we spend all day fetching water by pail because we have no aqueducts.
Here is the fine group of people I went to Segovia with. Faithful blog followers will remember Vicki, my fellow Teach for America alum I like to spend all my time with. Mikey also came and acted as a fantastic tour guide, even reading aloud to me from a brochure inside the alcazar about the highlights of each room while I lazily sat on replicas of ancient stuff since the actual old stuff burned up (wish I could have been there for THAT fire.) The lovely lady to Vicki's left is Linnette, who taught in Korea last year and is way cool, but unfortunately perhaps too cool because she would never do something like accidentally drop her abono (Metro pass) in the toilet. The confused-looking gentleman in the front who can't see to find where the camera is, is Miguel. Poor Miguel works with me every day at school where I am on a crusade to have the children like me more than him. I do realize that my competitive spirit may be temporarily inappropriately applied.

Protecting the alcazar

Segovia

The excellent day included a walk on a nature trail alongside the castle, great company, a picnic in the park where I consumed the equivalent of about three Spanish pigs worth of ham, and two naps.

In closing, I would like end in a way that fellow blogger Laura Bennett ends her posts, an embarrassing picture of a friend from the Motherland.

Oh, hey Griff...

Manos gigantes, Manos arriba

My newest favorite pastime? Yep, you guessed it, immersing myself in friendly crowds with the potential to turn hostile at any moment. One minute I may be enjoying the feeling of a collective gasp or cheer, the next moment I might be stampeded to the ground in the midst of a riot. The unknown is thrilling.

On Friday I went to the palacio real for the announcement of Rio as the host of the 2016 Olympic Games. There were giant yellow beach balls, there were giant hands, there was loud music and there was always the faint hope that things were going were to turn very ugly.

Above: At the palacio real with Vicki and Michael. Right: Vicki watches silently as the inevitable comes sailing toward her face.

This is Michael aka Mikey. Besides being a genuinely nice person, far nicer than normal people which makes me suspect he has an abnormal amount of serotonin in his brain, he is a ton of fun. Please use the expressions on his face as an indication of just happy this kid gets when he gets free stuff like a mano gigante, or waits in a giant line of mostly families with young children to get his hand painted.

These pictures are just what they appear to be: manos gigantes, and when the MC yelled "manos arriba!" we put our manos arriba. The afternoon ended when Rio was announced winner, the crowd peacefully (somewhat disappointingly) dispersed and my big toe was burned by a flaming ash discarded by someone's cigarette nearby. After the excitement, I was unable to attend my first day of Spanish class, something I had been looking forward to since my arrival in this god-forsaken land a month before. I was too tired but as I guiltily confessed to Jeff that I skipped my class and he judged me ruthlessly, as boyfriends tend to do, I merely held up my mano gigante triumphantly for him on Skype. Could you go to class after holding this thing up high, way arriba, for two hours?

A final note: I sent out the address to my blog in a mass email to friends and family including my father, Dennis Westlake, aka Sea Wolf. Sea Wolf's response, the most adorable email ever:

Hi Rebecky! Loved your blog. It's like a mass email, I think. Maybe this is my blog to you? Can't wait to visit. Love Dad
P.S. Do I need to go to blogspot.com for anything?

The Best Things Thus Far...

I have been in Madrid for almost a whole month and there have been some highlights. Here are the four greatest things I have experienced, in chronological order.

1. Watching A Building Burn

During my first week in Spain, I was walking at around 8 pm with Vicki. We were both greasy, hungry, thirsty, and confused. We clutched our passports to our hearts. Periodically, I would stop and exclaim, "This would NEVER happen in America!" The aforementioned phrase can be used in any sort of context be it incredulous, or exclamatory, but my favorite time to drop a "This would NEVER happen in America" is when I am particularly indignant. Anyway, Vicki and I were wandering and we stopped right by the Reina Sophia as black smoke poured out of the first floor of a nearby apartment building. We quickly became part of a gathering crowd. This was just the sort of thing that the US Embassy warned us to walk away from.

We stood on the opposite side of the street for about 40 minutes while we watched how Spain deals with a crisis. The firemen came, leisurely. They did not block off the street or stop traffic. They did not evacuate the building. In fact, many people from the upper floors of the burning building went out onto their terraces and watched as the smoke continued to pour out of the first floor. One child of about 12 in adorable pajamas stood on the terrace and casually ate an apple. After a good 10 minutes of huddling, one brave fire fighter used a hose to start propelling water into the building where the smoke was pouring out. I heard Vicki softly chanting, "Find the source. Find the source of the fire. Find the source." After another good 10 minutes of smoke inhalation and spectating, we made our way away from the crisis, greasy, hungry, and yet surprisingly content.

2. Visit from El Jefe

Jeff came to visit for a week. The night he arrived was La Noche en Blanco, a festival in Madrid where all the streets are closed and there are performances all night. We went to Plaza Mayor for the release of thousands of white balloons over the city (polluting the city...This would NEVER happen in America!).

Here we are in Plaza Mayor, getting ready to watch the release of the balloons.

There go some of the balloons, off to harm the defenseless marine life.
The streets were so crowded. Everyone and their grandma was out enjoying the night.

3. Making a Human Hand (Un Mano Humano)

On Sunday, Vicki and I stumbled onto some greatness. The people of the city of Madrid gathered in Plaza Cibelles to annouce Madrid's candidacy for host city for the 2016 Olympic Games. In order to show solidarity and really make Tokyo look weak, a stage was set up in the Plaza, there was music, but most importantly, participants were given free hats and large pieces of colored paper. We were herded into areas to create a human hand of many colors to be photographed from above by a helicopter. Vicki and I accepted our free hats with pleasure, I shed most of my American patriotism and gladly grabbed a blue piece of paper to hold up in support of Madrid. You can clearly see me in the blue zone in this picture to the right. On the left is the wonderful symbol of Madrid's candidacy.

4. Spanish Running Club

My latest, perhaps greatest, success in Spain thus far was going to a Spanish running club. There is a running store similar to Fleet Feet near Parque de Retiro, the big, beautiful park in Madrid. There is a club that runs every day (Vicki found it and brought me of course I could never be this proactive about anything) and we went on Tuesday. Although things were off to a rough start when everyone thought my name was vaca (the Spanish word for "cow") and I imagined being cheered to the finish, "venga, vaca!" or "come on, cow!" We did a way-too-fast warmup run, some strange skipping exercises and a 3000m time trial, all of which I was terrible at, but it was great. I am going to join the club starting once a week and hopefully build up to twice a week. The group was about 30 Spaniards, mostly in their 40s and 50s, incredibly friendly, and all wearing spandex shorts.

These have been the highlights of my trip to Spain. Tune in again for the next time I witness a catastrophe and am inappropriately enthralled.