Barcelona

Barça. Well, what to say? It was an amazing week of relaxing, walking around and getting our minds blown by Gaudí. Main highlights were La Sagrada Familia, La Pedrera and Parque Guëll. Our hostel was lovely, the paella was the best so far and we did quite a bit of shopping as well. Las Ramblas wasn't quite what I expected, but the market right by was incredible. Met some wonderful people and would love to visit again when it's actually warm out.


Current Musik: "Loca" - Shakira

Granada

Well, I've fallen in love. And it happens to be with a small Spanish city in Andalucía. After a 5 hour bus ride, hostel madness and a ridiculous, rum-filled night with Italians we were ready to conquer Granada. The first day was more relaxed, strolling (with all kinds of impulsive shopping) through the Albayzín. That night we returned to the hostel Makuto for some incredible Flamenco music (guitarra y cajón) and somehow managed to stumble our way home (all of 2 blocks away...). The next day (a couple of hours later) I miraculously woke up to make the early trek for Alhambra tickets around 7AM. After about 3 of waiting in the rain I emerged victoriously with 4 tickets and breakfast for my lovely friends back at the hostel. Unfoooooortunately, I somehow managed to get myself lost on the bus ride back and ended up wandering around Granada for a good hour and a half (which actually wasn't too bad). After breakfast and stirring up the victims of the previous night, we made our way to the Alhambra.

Amazing. Ridiculous. Marvelous. Words really don't describe. Half way through it started to rain and all of the elements incorporating water (pools, fountains, etc.) were highlighted even more. The landscaping and gardens of Generalife were beautiful and I would love to go back.

As night fell, we satisfied our craving for Italian food at the SHADIEST "restaurant" in Granada run by the same eccentric, Spanish lady (Tía Maria!) we bought our 10 euro bottle of rum from the night before. Taking a break from the normal 'festivities', we made hot chocolate, snuggled and watched Breakfast at Tiffany's. (Nothing like a nice dose of Audre Hepburn) Our final day in Granada was spent roaming around their Gran Vía and seeing the Cathedral. The 5 hour bus ride back to Madrid became 7 hours of trudging through a flooded highway with a demonic child throwing a 4 hour temper tantrum DIRECTLY behind us. Buuuuut we survived an incredible weekend and even managed to catch the last metro.

I wouldn't hesitate to go back as we weren't able to fit in Sacramonte, a trip into the Sierra Nevada and seeing the works of El Niño de las Pinturas.



Current Musik: Arziyan (Maula Maula) - A.R. Rahman
I guess all the Islamic architecture got me in the mood for some good good Suffi music.

Córdoba

So, what to say? Two days/one night (20-21/11/10). Congested and dying for most of it. But being the sucker for gorgeous Muslim art that I am I enjoyed every minute of it. Not gonna lie, the tour guide was horrible, but the Mezquita was breathtaking.


Current Musik: Dirty Laundry - Bitter:Sweet

Toledo

So awhile ago, I took a quick day trip to Toledo with a couple of my favorite ladies. Only about an hour train ride out of Madrid, it reminded me a lot of Segovia. Although mostly known for its famous cathedral (I didn't bother putting up any pictures as mine were awful) we were also lucky enough to see the AMAZING Ana Alcaide performing in the street. She plays a viola de teclas and many traditional sephardic songs.

We ended up enjoying a relaxing day and mostly walked around the city (most of the sites/museums we wanted to see were closed as it was a Sunday) and I visited my first Synagogue. Overall, a pretty, quaint Spanish city that was great to spend a day in, but definitely not somewhere I would want to live for an entire year.


Current Musik: Ana Alcaide "Como La Luna y El Sol"

CaixaForum - Infancia

A little while ago (Ok, a month) the MinoriTeam decided to take a quick dip in something cultural and ventured off to the CaixaForum (a free, contemporary, art museum owned by a Spanish bank). There were two exhibits running, Dalí/Lorca and Infancia, photos by Isabel Muñoz.

So the basic premise of her exhibit was to take high-quality (ignore my blurred, photographer's too ignorant to work the flash on her camera, picture), close up shots of various children from all around the world, blow them up and smush them in a room walled in mirrors. Oh, and of course paste their stories of being orphaned by AIDS, impoverished or sexually assaulted on small plaques on the sides of the photos. Hmmmm.

Now don't get me wrong. These were gorgeous pictures. But I can't say that I'm ecstatic over the idea of thousands of citizens from the Global North adding another set of images to the "Developing World" section of their philanthropic sympathies. I hate always questioning the line between solidarity from those with privilege to the blatant othering of entire peoples, but REALLY?

In some of the pictures, the children (especially young boys who had been assaulted) covered their faces to hide their identities. And as much as I want to give the photographer the benefit of the doubt that she obtained willing consent and acknowledge how powerful and image like that can be, if the boy doesn't want his face shown then I'm wondering how he'd feel about the picture being blown up to 6 feet...

I don't know... After shit like this goes down I feel like I have to seriously reevaluate every exotic piece of propaganda some westerner elicits from the east.



Current Musik: Rihanna "What's My Name"
(anyone else catch the irony that of all the 3,000 some songs on my computer Rihanna pops up while I'm writing about the exotification of children of color through art/popular culture? damnit for being such a dang catchy song)

El Rastro/Lavapiés

So about a month ago, when the weather was still gorgeous, I went on a Sunday afternoon adventure with a couple of friends to El Rastro and Lavapiés.

El Rastro is an enormous bazaar (I posted one of my pictures to the left) where vendors offer everything from fans and scarves to leather goods and shoes. It had your typical, chaotic hubbub of any outdoor market, but was definitely peppered with a couple of crazies to keep things interesting (ie: the Romani (gypsy) lady who set up some kind of music box/cart smack dab in the middle of the street and my favorite-the group of Hari Krishna fanatics who danced down the street and tried to convert little, Spanish children). While I spent the good part of our time there conflicted over the irony of a vegetarian buying leather products, I finally caved and unleashed my inner-Indian-bargain-demon when my eyes caught sight of a beautiful, leather duffel-bag. As I was being conservative with the powers of persuasion, I ended up paying 24 Euro for a 36 Euro bag (I'm sure my Nani wouldn't have settled for anything that wasn't under the 20 Euro mark...) but I left more than satisfied with my purchases.

We hopped back on the metro and grabbed lunch at the first falafel joint (with probably the blandest hummus I've ever had) we saw in Lavapiés. Now before we got here, the Coordinator of our program told us it was a predominately North African neighborhood and notorious for being very dangerous. However, the only things I saw were Indian restaurants, Indian grocery stores, Indian video shops and Indian people. EVERYWHERE. (I mean there was graffiti in devnagari on almost every wall) Whatever pangs of homesickness I had creeping up were instantly diminished and it's definitely reassuring to know that there's an entire barrio that can take care of any cravings I'll inevitably get for hindustani khana.


Current Musik: "Ain't Nothin Like You (Hoochie Coo)" The Black Keys ft Mos Def & Jim Jones

Segovia

Sooo all the way back a month ago, our program made a bit of an excursion to Segovia. It was my first formal introduction to Spanish architecture and besides the fact that I was half-asleep for the first part of the day, I enjoyed it.

Highlights were definitely the aqueduct, the random lady who painted herself in silver and was a dancing statue and the GORGEOUS gothic cathedral. And I think everyone can agree that the climb up the 200 some steep and winding steps in a tower was completely unnecessary.

It was actually really interesting how the architecture was affected under Muslim rule. It reminded me a lot of India, where you'll see a pillar that has visibly different layers according to Hindu/Muslim influence (in this case Muslim/Catholic).

Still trying to figure out how to sneak in some of my pictures on here, but feel free to check out my Flickr account at http://www.flickr.com/photos/swatibhargava/


Current Musik: "Work It Out" Beyonce vs. Dave Matthews/Jurassic 5 (you might have to YouTube this one...)

Teaching//Learning in Spanish.

Alrightt. So, I've technically only had two days of the same class and I still feel like it's a touch too early to pass judgement. But besides occasionally slipping into a frighteningly, loud tone of voice my proff seems legit.

My classes for the next semester include a political and economic analysis of modern spain, spain's international policy in a contemporary context, feminist theory and critique (a more philosophical/theoretical angle than what i'm used to) and women in spanish literature (which will HOPEFULLY count towards my GWS minor).

So I'm taking it a bit easy this semester and will be spending some of this extra time teaching my little spanish bbs English.

Which brings us to a brief side note: Despite spending a summer teaching English in Sri Lanka, having two Spanish families here and possibly teaching again in this upcoming summer I still have qualms about spreading around this garbage. And for a couple of reasons.

1. It comes from England.
2. It undermines the value/importance of children learning their mother-tongue (not like I'm bitter or anything...)
3. Cultural imperialism

But I digress...

Yesterday, I had my first 2 classes with 4 of the CUTEST kids in Spain (well if not Spain then definitely Madrid).
I met with a family with 2 sons first (Aged 12 and 10). Being completely unprepared as I was, after doing their homework with them I had them read a bit from Fareed Zakaria's The Post American World just to hear their pronunciation. Bahh. Hearing 10 year olds read about the rise of the East was practically music to my ears. My next family (girls aged 11 and 7 - who were also surprisingly gingers) also succeeded in melting my heart to mush. And I have to say I was IMPRESSED with the 11 year old's English skills.

Overall, I had a lot of fun and realized that I'm going to have make legit lesson plans if I want a 7 year old girl to stay in her chair for more than 10 minutes (although I can't hate cuz I'm sure I was ten times worse at her age).

I'll meet with each family for 2 hours a week and at 15 Euro/hour, no complaints from me.


Current musik: "1977" Ana Tijoux.

Maoz

So as promised, I wanted to write a bit about possibly the tastiest discovery I've (and when I say I, I mean Austin) made in Madrid: Maoz.

So what is Maoz?

It's a little falafel restaurant (although I'm hesitant to use this word cuz it implies a sort of sit-down bougieness that just doesn't exist there). Right off of the Plaza at Sol. [c/ Mayor 4] Yes, I know. It doesn't get any more touristy than Sol BUT if that's what it takes to find a legit vegetarian joint in this city then so be it. So for 3.50 Euro (or 4.50ish if you wanna splurge and get some guacamole that is ON POINT) you get a pita pocket with fresh falafel, a plethora of options for toppings (couscous, chickpeas, carrots, cauliflower, green chili sauce, tomato and onion, baba-ganoush, lettuce, mixed olives - really the list goes on and on) tahini/yogurt sauce and FREE REFILLS! No jokes, lies or deception. Buffet libre.

Now I just want to know why isn't there a Maoz on every college campus?? [Or rather every street corner...]

But. If you happen to stroll through Madrid sometime this next year and I'm nowhere to be found. Chances are I'm at Maoz with the MT gorging ourselves with cheap, fresh VEGETARIAN deliciousness.


And if I've tempted your tastebuds, peep their website atttttttt: http://www.maozusa.com/


Current musik: Alicia Keys "Samsonite Man" - long time no listen...

Spain, spain, spain.

So this has been a long time coming (about a month now), but better late than never eh?

Well, it's been 34 some days since I've been here and despite opening a bank account, registering for classes, getting an apartment (and the whole apartment hunt mind you) and "scoping out the city" I STILL don't feel "settled" in.

As a brief recap. I landed on Aug 30th. Had a fair share of awkward cultural faux pas/language issues, but spent 2 weeks in a Spanish dorm and began an intensive culture/language course. Quick note about Spanish university students, they have the maturity of an average 13 year old American boy. My 'curso intensivo' consisted of an hour of history/politics, hour of art history and 2 hours of grammar/composition. From 9AM-130PM. Yes, 9AM.

Within those couple of weeks we were responsible for getting all of our logistical details underway (and can I just shout out a quick thanks to God for our program's Director/Student Coordinators). After seeing about 20 apartments I finally found one in Arguelles. Besides the fact that it's a 7 bedroom and my landlord lied to me and stuck me with 5 Americans I am grateful for having a place in a good, safe neighborhood.

Other than a one day trip to Segovia with our program, I haven't done too much traveling, but Spain is all about these random 3-4 day weekends so hopefully with this upcoming weekend the Minority Team will venture out of Madrid.

Nothing too dramatic other than the hot plates off of my straightener melting off (deja vu of Sri Lanka all over again...)

A couple of disappointing restaurants/bars, but definitely a couple of keepers as well:

El Tigre (tapas bar near Chueca - the gay neigborhood). Hella foreigners though.
La Finca de Susana. (a hop skip away from the Sol stop) AMAZING prices for a pretty swank place.

There will be an entire post dedicated to Maoz.

Definitely not a service oriented country (but... not big on tipping either so it evens out right?)

Buuuuut I'm off to my first official day of classes.

So, more later!


Current musik: Corinne Bailey Rae's "Feels Like the First Time" and "The Blackest Lily" off of The Sea.