Jake was here, is in Paris, we had fun. I dragged him to lots of things which required spanish (he does not have spanish)-- open mic! Lyrically interesting concerts! Political poetry reading and vegan dinner in squatted house! We also did the museums and big green park (springing!) and Caitlin L. came with us to those and the tail end of a flamingo concert in La Peña, where José works.

Flamenco means flamingo. I never had known. Sandra dances flamingo dance and José teaches flamingo guitar. Exquiz!

I´ve been around and around. I´m staying here for the Semana Santa, seeing the parades and being as spanish as I can. I´d like to show you more of my new life here, but I think I don´t even have a picture of Sandra yet, and we LIVE together. Spanish people make fun of me when I take pictures. Also, Codo´s friend is still fixing my computer, allegedly chargelessly. How do I know so many people? Streety people, people I run into in the subway--what was your name again? Come to my concert!

Pictures as soon as I have them. Words as soon as now. Me whenever you need me and promises for all.

Robot is busted, burst, retired. For this reason I´ve been so negligent of my communicative duties. A friend of a friend says he´ll fix it, bless him, but until then I´m enjoying my internetless productivity. I´ve been tearing through books by Valle-Inclan, Unamuno, Benavente...it´s thrilling to realize I´m reading in Spanish for pleasure (also for class!).

But there is so much news! José had painted our floor deep blue, the kitchen floor deep red--I went to Barcelona with Erasmus, European student network, and it was mostly really fun--Jake is coming in a week to visit for almost a week! I´m fat and happy. I´ve pictures of Barcelona to put up once Robot is fixed, but here´re Elizabeth and I as snapped by Katie:

Cute!

I send one vague good hope out to all of you.

A charming account of Christine's visit to Madrid can be found on Christine's abroad-for-a-year-blog, http://uneannee.blogspot.com/

I saw a terrible zarzuela today. What does that mean? I've learnt that bad actors are the same in Spain as they are in California, New York, Minnesota...

Grump, grump. The Bard kids are here and they are terribly nice. We none of us talked much there, yet here they are and we all get along. They are all in long-distance relationships, dear lord. The non-Bard-AYA girl, Kate, is a sweetheart too. She carries a little pen of Tide to clean kebab stains off her sleeves. For reals.

My other New American is Caitlin Liss, who's here au pairing two rambunctious spanish boys. She has to travel an hour and a half to get to my house, but here she is! Here! In this picture! With the kids!

Yeah, I like them! They're no MattandJulia, but they are (left to right) Caitlin, au pair; Mary Kate, ex-punk ex-nanny; Elizabeth, who carries coffee in a jam jar and makes hummus every day in Maria José's kitchen!; Sam who has already made 2.50 bu
sking in a park; Jessica whose ear is so spangled with earrings I have difficulty not turning into a fish and swimming into it; Kate whose bag today held, along with Tide and antibacterial gunk, a deck of cards and a novel by Graham Greene.



This is them in my loungey basement living room, eating a huge dinner we all made together in my tiny dormlike kitchen. The food is hummus and pita, good vinagery salad, sliced chorizo, too much pasta, wine and carrot orange juice. Dessert was a lot of good cookies and strawberries. Pre-dinner was goat cheese, pears, and pastis. Why do I write all of this down? Why do I write it on the internet, forcing my mother and aunts to read it? I usually write good times and things (like meals) down in order to relive them, but I am actively reliving this meal as it is: my breakfast, lunch, and snacks today all came from the leftovers filling my fridge.

I'm happy! Even though some classes start monday, and I don't know my schedule at all, I'm happy. I saw a nice concert on Valentine's day in a bar, played by a busker Ariana and I met in the subway. He was quite good, though, like my Spanish teacher, he really really likes Ben Harper. He also likes Joanna Newsom and Ramona Cordova, though, making him the only Canary Islander I've met who's heard of either.

Much love and much more!
yrs,
Sophie

To Ariana and anyone who likes us: the pictures from your (her) trip to Madrid are up (on my shutterfly account) (www.parasolparagua.shutterfly.com) up up.




In other news, I am not a tortilla prodigy. José came in, giggled at my efforts, and then got serious and said tortilla española is difficult! He will teach me! I said thank you, and would you like some half-baked potato slices with a trim of scrambled egg?*

*which is what tortilla esp. becomes if you are not a tortilla prodigy.

I was told two shaking bits of impersonal tragedy today. The first, the more serious, is that Molly Ivins died last week from breast cancer. She was white-haired when I saw her speak at Scripps, but so vital... I truly loved her work- her book "You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You" was my high-school entrance to politics, honestly. She was funny; ironic but not cynical. Molly Ivins was an optimist, a moralist, a humanist- at that age she was what I needed in a political writer. Too many writers accesible to me made me feel helpless in the face of the governmental machine.

I've passed from the clarity I felt at that age, reading her essays on grassroots activism and liberal values, but I still credit her for starting me reading the paper.



The other, replaceable loss--which I learned from Ana just as a I entered the Catedral de Toledo for the first time--is that some kids smashed up the emblematic lizard of Parque Güell in Barcelona with an iron bar. Ana said it was "to be funny," but I have to wonder if it was a political statement. Statement or no, the lizard was a lovely, silly thing, and I'm terribly sorry it's been so damaged.


Well, darlings, I'm writing to say that I'm well. There's good news for the future. Sam will probably come visit me, which is wonderful. I'm behind on photo-posting, but rest assured: twenty million photos of Christine drinking tea will soon be on the internet. I, I'm fat and (what's that? I haven't written about food yet in this entry?) full of marzipan, thanks to Toledo's charming stagnation/traditions, charmed with my kitchen and cooking, and about to go eat with the new AYA kids.

Love to you, all.

I poached an egg!

Oh my gosh. Christine wrote and illustrated instructions and I did it! I poached an egg!


I am marriageable!

Supper at Aitor´s.

Darrrrrlings. I´m holding up, barely, under a deluge of visiting american women. Mama and Rosie for Christmas. Ariana for the New Year. Dara (on the right) for more New Year. Christine for New February. Caitlin Liss I will meet this weekend. Not to mention the lovely Marisa South Wiliams (on the left), who came and stole Matt away forever. Meanwhile, I am up to my ears with frustration at the woman I live with, who is consoling herself about my present departure by telling me everything I will not like about my new apartment.

So then Aitor points and I kick him and Matt cooks and we all feel better.

Why all these blurry pictures? The above are all taken on Aitor´s camera, as are almost all of the photos below. Because? Because my computer has suddenly decided it isn´t speaking to the internet. I have no idea why! It´s some adolescent thing, I don´t know.

Anyway, I promise shutterfly will eventually have pictures of Ariana and I in Madrid, Ariana-Matt-Aitor-and I in Brussels and Amsterdam, Christine and I spending her whole visit here deuglifying my room, and everyone being sad on Matt´s last night (guest appearances by People You´ve Never Seen). So in the meantime, I´ll steal pictures from Aitor´s facebook albums and put them here. This was how New Year´s was:


Me looking like a twit, Matt, Aitor, and the Yikestedts.


Me sulking because Julia is leaving and Matt grinning because his wallet was stolen.

Last, in Brussels, Ariana and I toast our future nostalgia. Sepia is cheesy, Aitor.



Love you all, love you all.

Honeybees,

Have finally succeeded in putting up the pictures from Madrid and Barcelona (and one or two from Segovia).

www.parasolparagua.shutterfly.com


Much more to say and much more to do. Will do it and say it.

love,
Ivanhoe

Madrid is explosive right now. You see people running, the street smokes and glitters, and then BANG. The first thousand times I jumped out of my skin: now I’m skinless.
Christmas, New Years Eve, and the Day of the Magi are several weeks of celebration without break. The santa hats and nativitiy scenes don’t go down until January 6th. Santa hats, hardly… every kid has whined there way into a troll or rainbow princess wig, a monster mask, a hat trailing fake dreads. At night the adults get into them, too; whole parties floating fake afros over their chic spanish jacketry.
I was talking about the explosions, though. The morning before Mama and Rosie left the ETA ended their ceasefire with a carbomb in the Madrid airport. Flights were suspended: until late last night we had no reason to believe they’d get back as scheduled. Luckily, their flight was for whatever reason NOT from the international terminal, and we all had the pleasure of waking up before eight to make the original flight time. I met a soulmate on the metro and the airport coffee vendor (like all of Spain) fell in love with Rosie. Coffee was spilled, flights were figured out, we all hugged and I wept. I’m home and have declared myself delicate and assigned myself bedrest before La Noche Vieja comes demanding celebration.
I’ve a thousand photos to share from their visit, from our trip to Barcelona and our tripping about Madrid. I'll put 'em all on shutterfly soon, I promise. Not pictured: Rosie in Germany, Rosie ordering orange juice with every meal; Mama and I in the Prado, Mama and I in the Parque de Buen Retiro watching a man run down a path yelling “Feliz ….dos….mil….sieteeeeee!!” for a camera about a thousand times, Mama and I dragging Rosie through museums; Rosie dragging us through stores; Mama waking up earlier than Rose and I and wandering alone every morning; all three of us eating falafel at Maoz (pronounced “mouth” in the castillian accent) many too many times; Mama and I getting stuck overnight in snowy Segovia.

Now come 2007, Ariana, a trip to Brussels and Amsterdam, more apartment hunting, possibly Dara with her goth band, and deadlines for four papers I haven’t touched. Felíz dos mil sieteeeeeeeeee, loved ones.

Thanksgiving in Paris
Tristan and Christine

Merry upcoming Christmas, resplendent familiars. I've been about: Paris, Madrid, Sevilla/Matalascañas, Madrid. I'll write about the others later, and about Paris now.

Paris was another alternately fitful and pleasant trip. Happiness in friendship and proximity and conversation and strange beautiful civilization, but fretfulness in that I lost a little money, a little time, a little myself in those twisty underlabeled streets.

The night before my flight I thanksgiving dined with th’ program, and left from the restaurant to the airport. My flight, see, left at 5:45 am, and the metro closes sometime after one and doesn’t open until six am. I thus had to choose between taking a pricey taxi or sleeping in the airport, and since I had chosen said ridiculous flight because it cost less than 40 euro roundtrip, and the taxi would have cost about that much, I opted to sleep in the airport.

I was in good company! Students were sleeping all over the terminal floor, sprawled over their luggage. There were two girls sitting barefoot on their suitcases, a circle of boys playing poker; there were hippies with huge backpacks. I heard snatches of all sorts of conversations I couldn’t understand, as well as Spanish and English in several accents. A friend of mine was taking the same flight, but since his spanish-girlfriend-with-car was driving him, he didn’t arrive until four something. However, amazingly, a girl from my Religions class showed up with a group of friends. They’re from the Canary Islands, and have nice breathy/chewy accents. We talked and napped hard on the floor, and when we awoke, we’d been attacked by leprechauns?



Irish people are the only tourists more obnoxious than U.S.Americans, but because I’m US and they’re them it never bothers me.

Anyway, I took a shuttle to Christine’s pretty neighbourhood—the shuttle costs more than the bus, but it drops you off at your specific address. I mean, it's supposed to. They dropped me off several blocks away, in the drizzle, directionless with my luggage and complete inability to even pronounce the name of Christine's street. Chrstine was in class, thus not answering her phone, and ummmmm I had forgotten what it was like to Not Speak a language and have no translator. In fact, I haven’t really even had that experience. In Germany, Mexico, Spain, I’ve had enough of the language to ask where and when, and to at least be able to pronounce place names, and in France I’d had Hannahla to translate. Here I was just lost.

So I wandered weepily, eventually found a map, and found my way to, at least, the café in front of Christine’s house. It was cosy and lovely, soupy and bready and coffee. Christine called me—oh joy—and fully aware of the adorableness of her own life, told me to kick open the gate and climb in her window. Déjà vu is a french term, mmhm. So I did, and she’d left dark chocolate and loving notes on her bed. I had also brought her chocolate, but I busied myself with her candy and clothes.



Christine’s room, no matter where on earth it is, is always a favorite place of mine. There’s a blurry photo of me, in homage to the one she took of herself the same mirror.

It’s a lovely house, and her host mother and sister (japanese one…didn’t meet the french one) are smart sweet people. We had a wonderful second (for me) Thanksgiving dinner. Christine cooked huge amounts of delicious food, and Tristan provided that traditional thanksgiving chicken. Isabelle, who speaks English and Spanish and I think German and uh French, provided excellent dessert, and (I’ve forgotten everyone’s name, so we’ll go by nationality) Japanese Sister, British Friend and I just ate and radiated light.



The next day Twistan-Chwistine had class AGAIN (they’d already skipped enough that they couldn’t skip to hang out with me, tut tut) so I went the REALLY STUPENDOUS Picasso Museum in Maret or Marat or something like that. It’s gorgeous. I think it contains his personal collection, so, scrumptious.

I then got lost for three hours trying to get back, but I got back. We ate cheese and bread and went to a weird electronica concert along the Seine, v. fun.

The next day we went to Piere Lachaise, the huge famous graveyard, and did not see Gertrude Stein’s grave (or Jim Morrison’s). We talked about death, grief, pomp, piety, fear. We spent too much time in the graveyard and for the rest of the trip I felt like the perpetually blackjacketed parisians were in fact mourning [what? paris past?].





Christine was cute the whole trip




But Tristan and I remained unapologetically unphotogenic



They were good to me, good to me, and I left happy and well fed and dazed and my laptop charger in Christine’s room.

I have eight forms of photo id now, but don't worry! I only carry five of them on a daily basis.

Anyhow, I went to Toledo again this weekend, with a friend whose family lives there. It was amazing to me, because my problem enjoying Toledo the other time was that it felt like Disneyland: made to please visitors; not inhabited. Of course, the other time I'd only been in the historic zone, and Valle and her family live in the modern, but we did wander the olden streets Saturday evening. We sat in the same place in front of the cathedral where Matt and Julia and I had eaten marzipan, only this time we were waiting for Valle to finish her cursed cigarrette. Oh grief I am going to leave Spain with a year of second-hand smoke in my poor baby lungs. Valle, María José, not to mention everyone in Spain. We also passed by the same café Matt and Julia and I had hovered around waiting for seats to empty out, the only cafeteria nearby with a menu in Spanish only..
Valle was an enjoyably terrible guide. We had to find a map, and she didn't know what most of the buildings were for or the statues were of. I was content wondering, but she would point them out and then realize she didn't know. Pretty much like me on the Claremont colleges. I know the layout like the back of this cliché, but uh I don't really go in those buildings, but they're definitely important? It was like that.

Hm. It's true, though. Old Toledo is made for me. During the night, as the kids are drinking under the huge walls and going to the same several bars (it's a small town, really), there are men with huge hoses washing the streets clear of trash and vomit, leaving everything ghost-town clean. There are so many places the cars can't park during the day, so many stores selling suits of armor and other ridiculous things. We're doing something wonderful personally, as tourists, but we're doing harm culturally. I do mean those tacky shops.

It's this, you know? Any culture has to keep changing, rebelling against itself, letting in new things, tearing down. The problem with we tourists is that we come in search of the typical, the most typical possible, usually more of the past than the present, usually more imaginary than not, but stifling any way you look at it. Places like Barcelona which are famous more for being beautiful and alive with art may survive tourism better than places famous for their stone and marzipan.

Well hm. But I take it all too seriously. Valle and I walked through a charming ancient tunnel and she told me her mother's car got stuck there once. Just as much a crime to drive a car through (or half the way through, as it may be) as to insist that cars not be driven through.
What I mean to say is that I really liked my weekend. It's nice to have been asked over; nice, once there, to be asked to stay longer. Good to know that Valle and I do get along outside of class, and that her friends and I like eachother. Oh, and really good to be shown, by Valle and her (adorable) friend Elena, what they claim is a fossilzed chicken stuck in one of the ancient toledan walls. I have a better picture where the claw also shows, but uh please take a look and tell me what that thing is.

Plus! How are yous?

We all have words which have become instincts. Curses, exclamations. Because they're instinctual, they don't translate. My program director says Wow when you talk to her in Spanish. A lot of U.S. students here drop Likes or You Knows in their otherwise-spanish sentences. We all curse in English when we stub our toes. (Grandma! I've met some nice girls from St. Mary's!) I'm not sure why, because I don't thiiiiiink I said it in the U.S., but when I'm astonished here I gulp out "oh-my-gosh."
I said that a LOT in Granada, which is now on my long useless list of Places to Live Forever.

If you ignore Matt and Julia and I, this is a really pretty picture. If you don't ignore us, um, your loss? Seriously, what awfully ugly kids.

The point is, I have a new photo album website, because flickr let me upload about 4 pictures of vibrant captivating Granada. So here:

http://parasolparagua.shutterfly.com/action/

All about Granada, oh-my-gosh Granada.


In other news! I am being busy! Tomorrow I spend lunch speaking English of all things with a nice talkative girl from my Islam class. The time after that we'll speak Spanish, and so on. Practical!
Thursday I'm actually tutoring (speaking English, but officially) and getting paid a lot. Awesome!
Friday the police will give me permission to live here all year. This is important, but does not merit an exclamation mark.
Monday I take the final for my so-pleasurable Picasso class and fail or fly.
Thursday morning I fly to Paris on the wings of my triumphant Picasso test taking and spend Thanksgiving in the romance capital of the world. I've had my Thanksgivings in the funniest places, since I left home.

Online photo album:

I wanted a beauuuutiful blog, but I think I'll have to settle for a beautifully written blog (ah ha ha) and a separate-but-beautiful flickr account. I've got too many photos and too many problems uploading them. So here! Photos!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59516086@N00/


Beautiful red cold Burgos.

Family mine,
Sorry for not writing in a million years. I've tried, but had a lot of trouble uploading pictures. Why oh why?

In the meantime, Friends, Elen has a well-written blog, very elegant, will make you want to live in Berlin:

Berliner Bare

So there's that. I just got back from Granada, which was truly lovely, and I promise to tell you how everything is soon.

much love,
Sophie

Alcalá de Henares

Julieta and I made two trips last weekend, one to Alcalá de Henares, and one to Ávila. I'd like to say I'm sticking around Madrid this weekend, buuuut I'm going to Burgos with SIJA, a university group. I don't really like joining clubs, groups with paid membership, etc, but membership is part of the AYA program. It's probably a good idea, because it will put me in nodding acquaintaince with more Spanish students.

Right. Alcalá de Henares:


The buildings have huge birdnests on top. They are so huge and perfect, placed at the very peaks of the rooftops, secure, absurd. I wondered if the city PUT them there, they are so perfect.

Julia and I then stumbled upon the house Cervantes was born in. There was a room full of different editions of Don Quixote, including one illustrated by Salvador Dali (like the amazing bible in the chapel at Bard. Oh I have thumbed carefully through that, have I ever).



'nother nest.



Not pictured: Julia and I eating fantastic truffles.

Soon to be pictured: Ávila. Then Burgos. Then dinner. I took a photo of dinner once, and now whenever María José makes anything slightly interesting she calls "Sophia, you can take a photo and eat dinner now." Look, I take pictures because I like writing captions, okay? Okay.

TOLEDO
Last weekend we "did". Toledo is a big once-holy stone of a tourist trap, and I admit I enjoyed being able to goggle at everything and take pictures without feeling self-conscious.
Toledo has a fascinating history which you can read about on Wikipedia, and many beautiful sights which you can find with a google image search, but I'll tell you this and I'll show you these.

This: Toledo has three cool religious backgrounds and a motto. Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all, uh, chipped in (I'm trying not to use the words "rich" or "melting pot") to make it a great old ancient, uh, place. I mean, nowadays it's very disneylandesquely full of shops selling suits of armor and punny t-shirts, but really, after my experience at Auschwitz* I will never be shocked by touristy tactlessness ever again.

[*My german class stepped off the bus, all grim-faced and ready to tour the worst of the concentration camps, and the first thing we saw?: "McDonalds Welcomes You to Auschwitz." They really, honestly made a sign saying that. Golden arches and all.]

Anyway, despite the plague of people such as me, there were also: really tall walls!

Roman author Titus Livius was the first to write about Toledo. He called it a "small fortificated town." I learned this from The Internet.
Anyway, narrative. We look up!



We walk around the corner and look up and across! Lo! A castle shineth forth! It is on the map, though not in the guidebook!



It is not in the guidebook because it is being used as a youth hostel! One cannot enter the garden without a key!
A youth exits, leaving the hostel door ajar. We trespass!



We look across the way. Why did we leave that beautiful place?



Why, to take better pictures! Right, I'm tired of the narrative! Here are pigeons in pigeonholes.



Toledo, besides being holy, is famous for its marzipan. We ate that box in one sitting, America.



It's about time to mention that the motto of Toledo is, and I learned this from María Jose's sister, "Either you crush the stone, or the stone crushes you."
Catchy! Here's Matt, crushed.



Here's Julia (hoo-lee-yah), fortified by marzipan.



There are two gorgeous 14th century synagogues in Toledo we wanted to go to. We made it to the first, Sinagoga del Tránsito, which contains the Museum of Sephardic Judaism. Informative! Here are the windows of the synagogue not letting you see anything else:



And here they are surrounded by their surroundings. Oh the difference, the difference between one step back and two steps forward:



The garden across the street from the synagogue Santa Maria la Blanca (terribly tragically clos-ed when we arrived), taken from the uh negative space of the wrought-iron fence keeping us out.



And here, the holiest part of Madrid: The Nun Café. We didn't enter, but this is my favorite part of the window display: a Mama Nun freaking out that her little baby nuns have been baked into cookies.



Lovely weird painting of Toledo by th' Greco. Off center because there was a tall man with his arms crossed Experiencing it for the whole twenty or so minutes I spent in that little room.



You see, kidsl, we have to leave beautiful places. That's the other half of traveling.



"Bye, Toledo."
"Bye, man. Come by sometime, see the synagogue, you know."

Thankfully, there's an AYA trip to Toledo next semester, when I'll be the fluentesque cosmopolitan member of the group, instead of the one who's only had one year of Spanish and always loses her keys.

Madrid is a great city in which to be carless. The metro is clean(-er than restaurants, bars, my hair), brightly colored, and easily navigable. There are cheap flights, bright green buses (other colors also available), comfortable trains, and oh, oh, ten minutes walk from my house there is the Atocha train station. Or rather, there is the forest inside the Atocha train station.



Really lovely, larger than it looks here, turtles in the pond, and, this week, an exhibition of photos and biographies of women rebels, titled "Women in Jail." Women who resisted Franco, women who fought on the battlefield, English suffragettes. I didn't have to time read most of it (see the blue thingums that the people are reading from? That's the beginning of the exhibition, which continues twisting through the "jungle,") but there was a lovely foreward which I photographed (in Spanish, so I won't put it up here), which talked about how rarely acknowledged most of this history is. It contained one of the many references to the gender system of the Spanish language. One of the many lies I was told about Spanish was that nobody thinks about the genders of the words. This is absolute nonsense. Even on that vapid American Idolesque show I watch with Maria Jose, it's come up. Male is the default for words that go both ways, such as the martyrs* of the resistance to Franco, and the thesis of the exhibition was that historians, like the Spanish language, tend to ignore the contributions of women.



I was there yesterday, waiting for an hour (Madrid is a terrible city in which to be carless) to get three train tickets to Toledo, where I felt very litte, but took lots of pictures. I will post them! I'm doing well.

*That is, if you are speaking of a male martyr, you call him "el mártir." A group of male martyrs is "los mártires." A female martyr is "la mártir," and a group of female martyrs is "las mártires," but a group of male and female martyrs would be "los mártires," every time.

Pictures taken by me . . . of me! For you!


The cheap pants! The jacket! I'm blurry!





The new sweater! (me wearing white?) (me looking very sweet?)




The new jacket! I've a very superior expression in this picture because I was thinking how greener-than-grass my jacket was. However, the lighting in my room is vicious and it looks blah green.




The new attitude! This is a picture of my FEELINGS.


Love yous!

So, as I promised, I didn't take any pictures of La Noche en Blanco, but I'll tell you what. Didn't see the damn puppets. Nor the circuses. Nor did I get into any museums- the plan (my plan) was to finish the morning-side of night wandering blearily around the Prado, perhaps collapsing on a bench in front of something gorgeous to shock my eyes open while relieving my poor feet. However! The museums closed at 3:00. Matt, Julia and I spent most of the night shouldering through street parties in search of people-we-might-be-meeting? and I-think-there's-an-outside-concerts, and we did eventually meet up with people-we-might-be-meeting?, and they were ducks. Look, I know I don't say "ducks," much, and nobody does, but their just isn't a word in Spanish like "duck." I have to write it here and mouth it to myself. It is a solace.

Back to all La Noche etc.: We actually didn't have an officially sanctioned Cultural Experience until the v. early morning (la madrugada), about 7ish, but (I am typing with one hand so I can entertain (torture?) the cat by whapping her big pink ribbon around with the other. Remember the way the girl in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" swordfought while sipping her tea? That way. Just as Ninja Miss Manners taught us) it was worth it (oho! forgot I was in the middle of a sentence, did you? Go back and read it again!). Or maybe it just felt like it was worth it because we were all so exhausted. Well, I felt happy, and I'm not sure one can have felt happy without having been happy, as happiness is a feeling an' all. Anyhow, there was music in the park as the sun came up, and even though we were exhausted we hippie danced a little. I mean, barely. I tried, but ooh, tired, sore, chilly. Hey, they say "chill out" in Spain. "Cheel out," really. It's a style of music.

They also have a show on the model of American Idol, "Operación Triunfo." Operation Triumph, to put it vulgarly. The first thousand times I heard it mentioned I thought people were talking military politics.


Oh, yeah, La Noche en Blanco. I did take one picture. Not of the crowded boozy streets, nor the monuments lit startling colors, no, nor the park nor the sunrise over the lake, nor the musicians, nor the dancers. Nor the chocolate with churros we ate at 8:00 in the morning, in a café full of similarly cheerful all-nighters, though I'm sure we were a sight to see.

I DID take a picture of one of the buildings across the street from me, one block down. It's a newish, boring building, but the sun at 8:00 am is a grace, and it gives you an idea of my neighbourhood.



Too bad these color-coordinated chicas aren't walking toward it this second. Though really, it's not my building, and I'm one of them, so we'd have to be pretttty confused. Also, I don't want a big ugly New York City street cutting through the buildings in this new-but-cosy corner of Madrid.



This morning M.J. promised to throw me out if I keep being deaf, and (many minutes later) to throw the cat out if she keeps getting fat. In Spanish those adjectives rhyme (sorda, gorda), and I was spooked that she could repeat a threat, rhyme it, and not notice. People do often think in nursery rhymes. Violent, illogical, ultimately charming for virtue of their repetetive musicality and familiarity. Well, our thoughts don't always achieve musicality, but violence, illogic, repetetition . . .oof, time for bed.

Also, here they say "uf."

Th' Language

Spanish people use the phrase "the whole world" to mean everyone in the room, both in conversation and in print. They also use "for the best" the way we use "for the worst;" this can be scary.

Spanish speakers are as heartless as Americans about their language. "Limphogar" is my favorite worst business name: limpiar/hogar: to clean/house: housecleaning. Limphogar. Hideous, even considering that the "p" is hard and the "h" silent.

The slang and the Bad Word, called "tacos," which is stupid, are very enjoyable, though. Very expressive.


"Porfa-please" M. José said to me the other day. "That's Spanglish."



La Noche en Blanco

Tomorrow night should be really fun. On the bread-and-circuses model, Madrid is having a night of free cultural attractions. Museums open until seven in the morning, guided tours of theaters, circuses. No bread, I lied about the bread. We might not even have time to eat dinner if we go to what I want to see, which is "Merma nuncamuere," a homage to Miró using giant puppets he designed. I will definitely not take pictures, but someone will, and they will post them on the internet, and I will link you up.

Also I miss you all very much.