For the Love of Granada, and Katie Lent...

Some friendships start by dumb luck. On the first morning of the first day of Teach for America Induction I met this tiny blonde girl wearing a short skirt and red lipstick. She had a ton of luggage and a penchant for port wine and online television. We went to lunch and each consumed our weight in french fries. I would later learn that this feisty little rebel is one of the world's largest consumers of fried and frozen foods (as well as a hoarder of these things), did not own a pair of sneakers, and would chug coffee before and after every potentially thought-requiring task. This clever sweet-tart is of course Loren "Coach" Heinbach.

Also by coincidence on the very same day, I was introduced to future Supreme Court Justice Sarah Boyce when she and I were randomly assigned to be roommates at the very same induction. Later we roomed next door to each other in the dreaded Temple University suites where we were haunted by the absence of a person allegedly named Iwana Duck. Iwana never showed. Neither did her duck. Sarah and I became fast friends. By what Ignatius J. Reilly would call Fortuna's capricious nature, I also met some of my favorite people at Bates in coincidental ways such as these.

Other friendships of course require a bit more of stoking of the fire, or relentless pursuit, as some may call it. Danielle Touhey, for instance, was no easy sell on joining aboard the Westlake Well-Wisher Wagon. I pursued her. Eventually she succumbed.

Katie Lent is a friend of the former group. We met on the first day in Granada. She had braces and seemed fairly normal. I laughed in her face. I don't remember why. Thus began an epic friendship spanning time together on three continents, a fake accent, ridiculous sing-a-longs to Lil John as well as John Lennon, and our often repeated mantra, "Men are Mean!" led by the patriotic Patricio. Although Katie and I have spent time together in beautiful places, (including Lewiston, Maine and San Jose, California) the girl reminds me, as trite and pathetic as it sounds, that the people you are with are many times more important than the places where you are.

One day, no time soon, I will break another of our promises to each other (you really caught me at a low point, Ms. Lentyface) and in the far and cloudy future will decide to enter into that historically unsuccessful and dreaded institution some people recognize as marriage. (Joke, Mother, please do not have a heart-attack. Katie and I use to say things like that.) Katie will not respond to the Save the Date, nor the invitation but will instead show up unannounced and make a ceremoniously dramatic speech about the loss of sisterhood and the personal affront to her I will be making by accepting societal norms such as marriage, punctuality and time. The events that follow will be made into a Lifetime Movie.

Until then...here are some pictures of my trip to Granada with Vicki and Michael, two great travel companions. Granada is the same. It is the most beautiful place on Earth. The following images are an ode, homage, and tribute to Katie Lentface. There are mostly obnoxious pictures of me doing what I used to do with Katie and some of our other friends in my new purple pleather jacket. Granada was not as beautiful without you, my friend; nor would my life will be as boisterous or happy without you, either.

More pictures to come in my new Facebook album entitled, "I'd kill Lorca first..."

Cristobal: A controversial figure for some, a revered figure for others...some as IES Granada circa Fall 2005.

Cafe Central: it now has WiFi!

Natalia, who set me up with an internship once petting homeless dogs for 5 hours outside Granada with Helga, a German woman.

Introducing Vicki and Pedro to The Good Place.

The Mirador

Plaza Nueva: still dogs and hippies

In conclusion, of course, Katherine Lent:

When Your Mother Thinks You're Funny, You're Not

My mother, Susan Eydenberg Westlake, is a very special woman. Few other women of her generation continue to rock pigtails on and off the tennis court and have consistently fabulous ground strokes, even fewer can complete the NY Times Crossword Puzzle with rapidity, and even FEWER are so organized that they have tiny signs having over their desks with the expiration dates of the family passports. Rebecky: 2018, Dannyboy: 2022, et cetera.

I know my blog is a smashing success because I immediately make Vicki read it as soon as I write a new post and she always sends some ridiculous amounts of "hahahaha's" with other random letters thrown in as if she has had a small stroke and fallen onto the keyboard. My friend Laura who is in Pamplona and researching none other than blogs and citizen journalism reads my blog I think as part of her research demonstrating how blogs are a symbol of the decline of the American people. The greatest indicator of the success (or perhaps failure) of my blog is that during my mother's visit to Madrid she quoted parts of it back to me. The woman is an attorney and a stickler for details; you can't get anything past her and she clearly has committed all to memory. My mother thinks my blog is funny. In terms of my future as a humor columnist, this may be the kiss of death.

Alas, we had a fantastic visit together.

We went to the Reina Sofia and the Prado. At the Prado, I was reminded why uniforms are a good idea for students: they prevent the little ones from displaying gang colors, and they are also damn cute.

We went to tapas with my friends.

We went to Toledo.
We braved El Rastro.

She witnessed (perhaps in horror) how I do nothing at my job. Please note: this is not me at the front of the classroom. I no longer stand at the front. I usually sit at the back or poke children who are not listening. An additional note: I have not sunk as low as my Fulbright partner in crime Miguel "Lone Wolf" has. I do not arm-wrestle the children while the real teacher has her back turned. I draw the line at this. Our visit was full of culture, culinary luxuriates, (including a trip to Museo del Jamon, a recommendation from culinary expert Griffin Finan) and a good amount of whining (on my part.) Ever the trooper, my mother plunged into Spanish culture and bravely tried the foreign custom known as the siesta. She succeeded.

Here she is inappropriately using the bidet to soak her blisters. I include this last picture on my blog because my mom specifically said, "Rebecky! Do not put this on your blog!" She should have known better.

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...