The End

I arrived in the United States a month ago, and was immediately taken aback at how strangely long and rectangular our currency is, how uniform in color. I also realized I no longer had to equip myself with specialized vocabulary before asking for help (in the O'Hare airport I began to think of all the necessary words for upgrading my ticket until I remembered that I could just--incredible!--use English). But soon enough I got used to the sound of English on the street, the possibility of running into a friend at a cafe who I hadn't seen in 5 years, the prevalence of high fructose corn syrup. Also, the children I now work with are helping to erase the weird sense I developed that all young humans speak Spanish fluently and English only marginally.

There are several stories that I wanted to post to this blog and never got around to writing, such as Easter Sunday when Arcos let two bulls loose through its streets (tentative title: Hallelujah, it's Running Men). Perhaps I'll get to them someday soon--more for my own benefit of recording everything than yours, my loyal audience. But for now my life is already carrying me quickly into a new phase and Spain is starting to seem more unreal, more distant. On to the next frontier.

Things I Will Desperately Miss

And thus, of course, here’s the follow-up list:

1. Patra’s knee-slapping jokes (I think there were 3 or 4 this year, and they were all gems)
2. Taking flamenco lessons in a bar, ie, doing as much drinking as dancing
3. Our terrace. Our terrace on perfect days, meals on the terrace, hanging laundry on the terrace, drinking sherry on the terrace at sunset
4. 300 children
5. Seeing one of my 300 children on the street and feeling like a star
6. Saying hello to all the old men taking their morning, afternoon, and evenings walks
7. Living in a cubist’s dream
8. Being halfway between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean
9. Taking Sevilla for granted since it’s just an hour away
10. Hearing Spanish every day, especially the awesome accent the old men have here
11. Being constantly inspired by the beauty of this town
12. Cheap tickets to everywhere else in Europe
13. Being serenaded by an incredible flamenco guitarist
14. Doing yoga in an old Spanish patio
15. The Friday market
16. Olive oil, organic eggs, fruit in season all year round
17. The cliff
18. Flamenco parties every Friday and Saturday (and spontaneous flamenco in the street)
19. The fact that everyone knows how to clap in rhythm here

This list is actually harder than the last, because many of the things I will miss aren’t as concrete as the things I won’t miss. That is, I will miss all the smells of this town, all the strange and beautiful things I see every day, I will miss the sounds in the streets of the old men talking, of bands practicing for Semana Santa, I will miss the feeling that everyone welcomes me in. And I will miss hundreds of people—Patra and Adan, Emma and all the Brits, Santi and the women we danced flamenco with, my co-teachers, the choir members, the shop keepers and café owners, all the townspeople I’ve become accustomed to seeing…and, as I said above, the hundreds and hundreds of children who I love more than I thought possible. But the year has come to an end and I don’t belong here anymore. Such is life. On to the next adventure.

Things I Will Not Miss

I leave Spain on Friday. Though I will be glad to see my family and friends again, leaving Arcos will be like ripping out a small piece of my heart. Thus, to make myself feel better, I’ve compiled a list of things I will NOT miss.

1. Having to wait for a day that is warm, sunny, and dry enough to do laundry (this day having to correspond to a day I wasn’t in school).
2. For that matter, the laundry machine and the long process of getting its door open (this involved a small silver spoon—the laundry spoon—that we used to jimmy the catch)
3. The ants that have taken over the apartment floor, coupled with the fact that I now sleep on the floor due to a broken bed-frame.
4. Relying on a small and inefficient gas tank for hot showers—and then hoping they’re not TOO hot.
5. Dubbed movies.
6. Trying to avoid bird poop while passing underneath the flying buttresses of St. Mary’s on the way to school (thereby avoiding being the object of ridicule)
7. Not understanding people a lot of the time.
8. Having a terrible internet connection.
9. The creepy guy.
10. The gray cat upstairs and how he’s always on the terrace when I’m wearing black clothes.
11. The piercing bark of the dog downstairs (and his young owner calling out “Blanky!” at all hours).
12. The construction that started just outside my window.
13. Feeling like an outsider.
14. Carrying groceries up the hill.

Um, I think that's it. Meaning that everything else currently in my life I am either slightly indifferent to or will desperately miss. Writing this list has only made me more aware of what I WILL miss. Shoot.

Last tango in Arcos

Today was Patra's last full day in Arcos, and it was a busy one. In the morning we went out to the countryside to do yoga in the blazing sun. The view up to our town was beautiful:


Then, in the afternoon, we headed to the countryside once again, this time to dance at our flamenco teacher's house. As it was our last time ever, I took a few videos of our teacher doing the steps so we could practice after we left. I also took this one of Patra and I dancing tangos (a flamenco form that has nothing to do with the Argentinian partner dance):

Snail Season

For me, the turn of late spring into summer heralds the arrival of my favorite fruits: raspberries, blueberries, nectarines, cherries. Meanwhile, Andalucians get excited about the advent of a different seasonal food: snails. Come late May, the little creatures can be seen scaling walls, burrowed in the folded leaves of every plant, and hiding in the produce section of any grocery store. Their prevalence begs the question of why anyone would bother buying them instead of blindly sticking a fist into nearby greenery and drawing out a meal's-worth. But there they are, the snail-sellers, standing at street corners with plastic tubs of their captives millimetering toward freedom. Broken shells and the flattened grayish goo of snail bodies on the sidewalk stand as a testament to the doomed future that awaits crawlaways.

To be honest, the sight of few hundred ugly brown shells with their corresponding oozy gray inhabitants does not especially whet my appetite. Perhaps to combat this rather unappealing reality, restaurants frequently advertise the availability of snails with a hand-drawn picture of a smiling snail frolicking among flowers, or just happily surrounded by snail-friends (ooze, translucency, and amorphousness are all down-played).

Though I have remained unpersuaded by the drawings, the enthusiasm of my Spanish friends convinced me I needed to try this seasonal delicacy. When ordered, snails come in little glasses, submerged in a brownish liquid which is to be sipped first before slurping the small bodies out of their shells. I have not yet gained the courage to slurp any bodies (which have been described to me as "gooey" and "fishy," adjectives that fail to entice me) but I agreed to try the liquid. After the briefest of sips, I nodded in approval: it failed to make me nauseous, and that was success enough for me. The Spaniards continued to coax me into trying a snail itself.

"Well, you know, I'm more or less a vegetarian," I told them, desperate for any excuse.

"But you eat plants," one friend argued. "And plants are animals, too!"

I stared in disbelief, and started to say, "But, no, that's the whole point of the distinction, plants AREN'T animals..." Unfortunately, the beauty of specious reasoning is that its ridiculousness often negates the possibility of logical counter-argument. So I shrugged and sipped down another mouthful of herbed snail-brine. Yum.

Turning 23, I think I'm turning 23

23 has been my lucky number since I was five years old when it was the number on the mat assigned to me for nap time. We've been close ever since. Perhaps it's most significant appearance in my life occurred in a place ripe for superstitions and lucky numbers: a casino in Montreal. It was my first--and thus far last--trip to a casino and, big spender that I am, I placed aside $20 with which to gamble. I converted my precious cash into four 5-dollar chips (I would have done twenty 1-dollar chips if they'd let me) and headed to roulette. First chip on black and the number turned up red. Second chip on odds, the number came up even. Third chip on some random area of the board, and lost that one, too. With my last chip clutched in my hand, I eyed 23. Why not? I would most definitely lose, but all more "surer" bets had lost. But I lost heart. I selected another random area of the board, one that didn't include 23. And the number that came up? 23, of course. I took that as a direct sign that I was not meant for the gambling life, and haven't done so since. Who knows what kind of a person 23 saved me from becoming?

In any case, my affinity for 23 has long made me believe good things would happen when I finally reached the age. Many months ago I became nervous when I realized it would occur during my year in Spain. I wondered if anyone would know it was my birthday, if there would be any special celebration at all, if I would be surrounded by friends like I was last year at the end of my time at Dartmouth. Turns out I had nothing to fear.

The day itself was a study in Reasons I Love My Life in Arcos: I was with my kids in the morning, some of whom had bought presents for me (a silver coin purse, silver sandals that were somehow exactly the right size, and the first item of clothing with Minnie Mouse on it that I've owned since I was 5). There was also cake and a belly-dance performance by my 10-year olds which was just a little awkward. In the afternoon I went to yoga (Patra, to our yoga teacher: "Jenna's having a special day!" Yoga teacher, looking aghast, "You didn't get married, did you?" Me: "No, I just turned 23." Yoga teacher: "Thank God. Your mother would have killed me.") Patra and I had dinner on the terrace and went to flamenco in the evening (the class sang "Cumpleanos Feliz" and one of my fellow dancers with delightfully bowed legs chided me for not bringing a cake). All in all, it was not so different from any other Wednesday in Arcos, which is to say it was perfect. The kind of day that makes me think 23 is indeed my lucky number.

Don't know much about geography

I told one of my private classes that the following week would be our last class together.

"And then you're going home?" Alvaro asked.

"Yes, that's right, to my country."

They looked puzzled.

"Which country are you from?" Juan Manuel asked, which disappointed me since he's also in my regular classes at school and it's the kind of thing I'd think he'd know by now.

"I'm from the United States. Do you guys know where that is?"

"Oh yeah! Right next to France!" Alvaro looked gleeful in his knowledge.

"Ummm, not next to France, no. You know how there's an ocean near Arcos? The Atlantic? I'm on the other side of the Atlantic."

The kids still looked confused. Then Alvaro spoke up again, "Okay, so not next to France but above France?"

I shook my head. Juan Manuel jumped out of his seat. "I know!" He picked up a marker and began to draw a crude outline of Spain and France on the whiteboard. "Okay, here's where we are, and here's where you live," he said, indicating approximately where the UK is.

"No, I'm not from England, I swear," I said, but Alvaro was already agreeing with Juan Manuel.

"Yep, yep, that's where teacher lives."

Finally I found a book on Christopher Columbus and showed them an egregiously out-dated map. I pointed at southern Spain, showed them England, and then showed them where Minnesota would be, relative to them. Their eyes widened.

"You live all the way over THERE? That's so far!"

"That's right," I said. "Nowhere near France."