In Which I Am Mildly Obsessed With Fall Colors

One of the things I really missed while I was living in Spain was experiencing four distinct seasons a year. Everywhere I lived, there seemed to be only two seasons--summer and winter, with hardly a buffer in-between. And while spring and fall did exist there, I never noticed them as much as I did when living in the United States. I think part of missing fall had to do with the absence of leaves turning--in Spain, many trees are trimmed of leaves before they have a chance to fall, so I didn't get to experience those bright reds, oranges and yellows that I craved.

Have I mentioned yet how much I love bright colors? I mean, I know I'm not the only one to get excited about the leaves turning and it being FALL and PUMPKINS etc etc. But I think my interest in pretty autumn leaves may be slightly beyond that of a normal person...i.e. in the past few weeks I've gone on multiple bike rides PER WEEK out into the countryside with the express purpose of photographing fall leaves. And while this is really great for my physique, I fear that it may also be bordering on mild obsession.

But hey, instead of putting it that way let's just say that I'm gaining a passion for bike riding and photography! And while I ignore the fact that there is at least one person I can think of out there picturing me almost swerving into traffic and swearing at cars in French because I was a typical gas-guzzling American who hated sustainability and exercise and hadn't ridden a bike since I was 10 years old was unused to biking as a serious means of transportation, let's check out some of the photos I was so excited about taking!

Luckily, we've had quite the Indian summer this year, so I had a lot of sunny days to go out on my bike. As I write this, we're in the middle of a week of weather in the 70's F (mid-20's C) in November, which is insane for this part of the country. When I was a kid, we always used to have to go trick-or-treating in snowpants! I came back here to get to experience seasons again, and I am confused. What is happening to the fall chilliness? El Niño and global warming, I'm looking at you! I guess I'm not complaining, due to weirdly being now more used to crazy heat than crazy cold due to my time in Madrid, but still...this is strange. 

Also luckily, there is a nice bike trail that runs near my house, so going out involves neither dangerous traffic nor swearing! I have to say, I'm immensely grateful for that, because I am still not the steadiest person on a bike. Let's just say that trying to take pictures of leaves while still riding was not my brightest idea ever. #fail

And in case you're wondering, no, none of the photos featured here are my taking-photos-while-riding-and-almost-falling-off-my-bike-into-a-ravine ones. I'll just keep the atrociousness of those photos to myself, thank you very much! I have learned my lesson--first stop the bike, then take pictures.

Another thing I have to say I'm happy about is to even have access to a bike again, after so many years with only my own two feet as my main means of transport (even if my awkwardness+a bike is just a recipe for disaster). It's kind of crazy how excited I get about little things like having my very own bike to go places with, but I marvel at just how much further I can get in such a short amount of time on a bicycle. Silly? Yes. But still true. 

The last of the pretty leaves are just about to fall off the trees, so soon my commute to work in the morning will be that much less interesting, AND I'll have one less excuse to get out and exercise (as if freezing temperatures, snow, and the sun setting by 5 pm weren't reasons enough to stay inside getting fat all winter long). If you couldn't tell, I'm feeling rather sad that autumn is on its way out and winter is knocking at our doors. I haven't had a real winter in over 4 years, and I'm just sliiiightly apprehensive about once again dealing with ice and snow and temperatures of -25ºC (-10ºF). And did I mention living in near-constant darkness due to the sun setting so early? Damn you, daylight savings time!

It looks like today was probably the last "nice" day of the year, so I've got to get used to more grey skies and try to get myself amped up about the nice things about winter (that I actually do love), like snow angels and sledding and snowboarding and ice skating. I've just been spoiled by these nice temperatures, and did I say already that I'm not used to the cold anymore? Even on these 70ºF (20ºC) days, I have this compulsion to wear a light jacket, and my fellow Americans think I'm nuts. Maybe I've been around Spanish people too long and feel that I must dress for the season rather than the actual weather? Or maybe I'm just paranoid about getting cold since it happens to me so easily. Clearly, this bodes well for the winter ahead.

Whatever my issue is, get used to the cold and dark and ice and snow I must, and so I will (try)! 

But that doesn't mean that I can't return to look at these pretty fall photos every once in awhile to remind myself of beautiful bright-colored leaves seen on sunny days from my precarious perch atop my bike.

¡Feliz otoño a todos!

An Argument for Places With Bad Weather

Bilbao

This past weekend, I was taking a more-than-slightly damp walk through El Retiro in Madrid with a fellow former assistant teacher who was in Galicia at the same time as me. As we squished along, we started reminiscing about the rain in my favorite community in Spain. As I know very well by now, the rain in Spain does NOT fall mainly on the plain! The rain in Galicia was a constant companion, and I came to find its presence more comforting than anything else. The big rainstorm here on Saturday was one of only a handful since I arrived in this desert last August, and it made me think about how I really miss chilly, cloudy days.

I know people think I'm strange for saying this, but I love places with bad weather. I can't tell you how many arguments I've had with people who've tried to insult the various places I've lived in my life (which, with the exception of Alcalá de Henares, are all known for their not-so-stellar weather). They ask why I wouldn't want to live somewhere like the south, where there is sun and heat and beaches. And I say, "Bleh."

Why? Well, first of all, I hate hot weather. Anything above about 25˚C (77˚F) is too hot for me and makes me super uncomfortable. But if that weren't enough, I have all kinds of reasons I like bad weather. Some of them are superficial, like the fact that I think winter clothes are cute, and that I like winter sports better than summer ones. 

I was a figure skater for 15 years, after all...

However, I also have more philosophical reasons, things that I think touch on the core of my personality type. 

Everywhere I've ever lived (Spain, France, the USA), people have told me about their theories that people from the South are very open to strangers but that they're also kind of fake, and people from the North are difficult, cold and unfriendly at first, but once you make your way into their hearts, you'll be friends forever. Is this true? I can't say for certain, although my confirmation bias and the fact that I am a born-and-bred northerner says YES, 100%. 

What I do think is true about the people from these northerly latitudes is that they are forced to be more resilient. When it rains every day for 6 months, you don't whine about it, you just get boots and an umbrella and go about your business anyway. When your car is buried in a snow avalanche, you shovel it out as best you can and drive much more carefully to work. Little things like weather don't get these people down! 

Maine

And when you're used to bad weather, you don't complain about it so much. It's a fact of life, not something to mope about! And in fact, there is a great deal of beauty to be found in stormy weather, which you only begin to notice when you're exposed to it repeatedly, day after day. 

Maine

For me, at least, there are few things more magical than a blanket of snow over a field, like an empty canvas waiting to be filled in, or trees painted white by frost. Both of the places I've lived in the USA are great winter wonderlands, and I loved them for it.

Illinois

I am equally enchanted by fog rolling over green hillsides, creating an air of mystery and romance. Fog patterns were a topic I became intimately familiar with in my two years in Galicia, and I loved going through foggy forests, then climbing the mountains to see the mist from above. 

Cañones do Sil, Galicia

Bad weather on the ocean can also be breathtaking. One of the most amazing moments in my life was watching the grandes vagues (big tides) come into St. Malo. The storm created quite a show, and I've rarely felt so much reverence for the awesomeness of the natural world around me as when the ocean soaked me from head to foot and then broke in the windows of the restaurant where I'd been! 

St. Malo, Brittany

I'm either a very moody romantic or Mary Mary quite contrary, but I like being forced to sit inside wrapped in a blanket with a steaming hot tea on a cold rainy/snowy day. I actually feel guilty when the weather is too good, because I don't like being outside all the time, especially not in the heat and sunshine! Sometimes I'd rather appreciate the beauty of raindrops winding their way down my windowsill. I also enjoy falling asleep to the pounding of raindrops on my roof. There are few things more soothing!

Vigo, Galicia

Lots of precipitation has another plus, which is that it turns everything it touches a vibrant shade of green. No, really! I swear, the plants in Galicia are on another level compared with those in other places I've lived. That was good, because when I did feel like going outside and appreciating nature, it was really worth my while! 

Near Santiago, Galicia

And when you're used to bad weather, you're more able to handle it when you encounter rainy or snowy skies on your travels. You know exactly what to do to keep yourself safe and happy when you need to, because you know all the tricks to living in a place with difficult weather. It never takes you by surprise, like it might for those people used to perpetually warm sunny days!

Near Edinburgh, Scotland

Lisbon, Portugal

Clouds also create an awesome backdrop for photos, since they make the rest of the colors pop so much. I like going out and taking photos on yucky days because the moody clouds look so pretty!

Near where I lived in St. Malo, Brittany

Gorgeously moody skies in Bilbao, Spain

I also think that going through lots of bad weather really makes you appreciate the good weather more when it does come. I remember when I was studying in Maine, every year the first day that all the snow had melted off the university mall and it was above 40˚F (5˚C) about three-quarters of the campus was sitting outside studying or playing frisbee. What would be considered end-of-the-world cold in other places was a cause for celebration in a place where two months before it was -30˚ (~F and C, how weird is that?) and we'd had a warning that if we stayed outside for more than ten minutes, we were at risk for frostbite. If every day were sunny and warm with perfect temperatures, you would never get to feel joy at the return of the sun in spring! 

It's so cheesy, but the bad weather makes you appreciate the rainbow that comes after so much more than if you saw one every single day. Or at least, that's what I think. 

Especially if it's a double rainbow, like this one in Liverpool, England!

So there you have it, I've pled the case for the greatness of bad weather! I know most of the world will never agree with me, and I'm sure I'll have arguments about this for years to come, but this is my opinion and I'm sticking to it! 

And you? Do you have more of a sunny disposition, or a moody cloudy one? 

My Fave Photos So Far in 2015

Am I the only one having a hard time believing that 2015 is already more than a quarter over with? 3 months gone, just like that! And while I've been posting a lot more frequently in here this year than I have in the past, there are still some moments that have escaped me. I'm a pretty busy gal, for all that I wish I could be doing more! 

So this post is about the unseen moments so far in the first quarter of 2015. These are the things that I did that I never got around to mentioning to anybody, that I took photos of and then forgot to share! Yes, sometimes I forget that I took pictures that I meant to post on the internetz. Oops. 

I kicked off the year in France, and one of the first things I did was see Marseille for the first time. Honestly, I'd heard pretty bad things about it, and my impressions mostly confirmed them, although there were some factors going against my having a good time there (like a not-so-great AirBnb host, for one!). Still, I did see a few things worth taking a pretty photo of!

These are the calanques of Marseille, something I never knew existed until they were right in front of my eyes. This moment was also amusing because I didn't actually know what that word meant at the time, just that it was the thing before me...so I laughed when later I looked it up and went "ooohhhhh, FJORDS!" Fjords in general rock my socks off, and these were no exception. 

For all its nitty-gritty-ness, Marseille did show me a few beautiful moments, like this one when I was walking down the street at sunset. 

Have I mentioned that I love sunsets? The next night, I went to a park on top of a hill to watch this one over Marseille's old town. I loved watching the full moon rise over the mountains, too! 

Here's a pic from a random day wandering around Madrid. Most weekends in 2015, I've been heading into la capital because...Alcalá de Henares has started to bore me. It's pretty, but there are no young people here! I need friends, after all! Since one of my best Galician buds lives in Madrid, we hang out a lot, and this picture was from a day when we decided it would be nice to walk around El Parque del Buen Retiro (or just Retiro, for short). The crystal palace there is beautiful in...you guessed it, sunset light. 

Another weekend, we headed off on a last-minute Couchsurfing adventure to Cuenca. I honestly knew nothing about Cuenca, other than having seen the name in guidebooks, but I was blown away. I fell in love with the way the houses were painted so colorfully! I love bright colors, and living in a city like this one would make me feel so much more cheerful! 

I soon learned that the actual reason Cuenca is famous is not for the brightly-painted façades, but the casas colgadas (hanging houses). Cuenca was built on the edge of a canyon, with some of its houses teetering over the edge. I have a growing fear of heights (thanks, Mom), so you wouldn't catch me living in one of these houses! They're really stunning though, when seen from the safety of the ground. 

Despite all appearances, I do like going into the great outdoors. Another chilly winter weekend, some friends and I caught a bus to Cercedilla to do some hiking in the mountains. We got slightly lost and ran into some bulls, but were rewarded with pretty views, at least! 

Finally, one day all of a sudden a few weeks ago, spring arrived! The temperatures shot up about 15 degrees (Celsius), and it was warm enough to go out without a coat. I love when I first see the flowers blooming, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. 

Taking advantage of the nice weather, I decided it was high time to go running outside again. The only problem was that, after a whole winter mostly cooped up inside, I got a bit too overenthusiastic and ran until I got lost somewhere in the hills near Alcalá. Oops. The views of the snow-covered Sierra were pretty, but walking about 5 miles back without a water bottle during the hottest part of the day was not fun. Thus the story of the day I accidentally went hiking!

I've been taking full advantage of the many little day trips possible around the region of Madrid. Another weekend, some friends and I headed out to Segovia, a nearby city that has a Roman aqueduct. I'd been there before, of course, but there are always new things to try in an old city. This time, I stumbled upon some delicious artisan beer at a festival, and tried suckling pig (cochinillo) for the first time. 

Did I mention already that I'm obsessed with sunsets? I've taken I don't know how many pictures of this particular view. I just love that illuminated fountain with the sunset light.

Finally, at the end of March, it came time for a well-deserved spring break. My next post is going to be all about where I went and how I felt about it, but here's a teaser picture. For some of you, it may be just that much easier to guess my destination now! 

Hiking Madrileñan Mountains

What is it about being out in the fresh air that literally gives you a breath of fresh air? Getting outside is so wonderful for clearing my head, and after having been cooped up writing my thesis so much lately, I needed it!

So one day recently, I took a trip with some friends back to El Escorial again, this time not to tour the monastery, but to hike in the mountains nearby. 

I'm literally picturing at least one of my sisters giving me the side-eye right now. Somehow, I've gained the reputation for not being outdoorsy, but that isn't at all true, as long as it's not too hot outside and I'm properly attired. And rewarded with coffee and churros afterwards!

Luckily, on the day we went it was freezing (by Spain standards), with a fierce wind blowing, and there were small patches of snow on our path. My kind of outdoorsy weather! Perfect for doing exercise. I was particularly pleased when tiny flakes of snow began to fall, making the scene just that much more idyllic. 

Seeing the town from above was absolutely gorgeous. 

So were the snow-covered mountains behind me here. I wish they'd come out better in my photos! 

I think my favorite part about walking through the woods is that it gives us a chance to get into real conversations with people. We're going to be with them for several hours, we might as well explain what's bugging us at the moment, right?

In my friend group, the topic always seems to be "where are we going with our lives?" ...I suppose that's pretty common for young adults. As I've said before, I'm getting a little sick of constantly having to ask myself the question "what's next?" I'm tired of moving all the time. Chatting with my friends in the woods made me start to think about how it's getting to be that time of year again, when I have to figure out where I'm moving next. What will be my next home, and will it be semi-permanent, or only for a few months? What do I really want?

At present, I have no real answers to these questions, and thinking about it too much makes my brain hurt. There are so many options and they're overwhelming and there are no clear answers.

Soon enough it will be crunch time, when I will be forced to make another life-changing decision. But for at least a little longer, I can try to just take my life here as it comes, continue thinking, but also allow those thoughts to be swept away with the wind when it all becomes too much. 

So here's to moments of pause and reflection, of good conversations and body-warming exercise with friends. May they be there when you need them!

Thesis, theses...

Am I the only person in the world who hates that the plural of thesis is theses? Sounds too much like a funny word...

Anyway!

I'm supposed to be writing my Master's thesis right now. Clearly, that's going really well, since you're currently reading these words on my blog post ABOUT my thesis which does not in any way help me get said thesis finished.

If you're curious why I might be writing a Master's thesis when you all just thought I was doing another year as an auxiliar de conversación in Spain, well, that's a story for a different day.

But struggling to write this thesis inevitably reminds me of another time and another thesis, when I was sitting angrily in front of my computer screen willing myself to just write actual words already. That was, of course, four years ago (has it really been that long??), when I was writing my undergraduate honors thesis.

At the time, I was struggling with the choice between taking a "year off" (ha) to teach abroad or going to graduate school for literary translation. Fittingly for the latter, my thesis was a translation of the poetry of one of my professors in Bilbao.

So day after day I would sit on the futon in my sad, tiny, freezing little all-brown student apartment, and try to get to work. I would tell myself, "Just translate one sentence. Just one. Go on, do it!"

The weather out my window quite often looked something like this (when people ask me what it was like to study in Maine, this is inevitably what comes to mind...this is also the type of scene that comes to mind when people try to complain about "cold weather" in Spain, and then I start to laugh). 

As the snow swirled outside for months on end and I drank a probably unhealthy number of cups of tea, little by little, poem by poem, snowday by snowday, I made progress on my thesis, until finally the day came when I defended it in front of 5 professors, who said I could go really far in the field of translation if I wanted, and I felt on top of the world.

Just a few days after that, I decided to take a position to teach English in A Cañiza, Spain.

Why do that if I could have been so great at translation and didn't want to be a teacher?

Well, the experience of writing that thesis had taught me that I had no desire to be self-employed and have to set my own deadlines. The idea of spending my future going through that struggle of self-revilement, procrastinating and feeling bad about it every single day, sounded like honest-to-god torture.

In the end, my "year off" to find myself turned into four, and find my profession I did. I ate my words about not wanting to be a teacher, since here I am, doing just that and loving this dynamic job that is different every day and does not require me to muster enormous amounts of self-discipline about writing long essays.

But as a cruel twist of fate, studying to become more qualified to teach leaves me right here right now, staring at my computer screen, fighting the exact same battle as four years ago. "Just write one sentence. Just one. Come on, do it!" Except now, I've been out of practice for four years, and my skills are a bit rusty. "Is that how you spell that word? Does that word even exist in English, or is it Spanglish? Does that sentence sound right? How do people say that in America? Is that British English or American?"

The battle to write just one sentence is up an even steeper hill than it was four years ago, and I am absolutely floundering. However, having done this once already, I do know that I can, and that helps immensely.

More importantly, it also reinforces my plan to continue in this profession and not switch over to higher education or back to translation! I can fight this battle from time to time, but I still say: every day, no frigging way. Give me teaching or give me death!

Photo Post: El Escorial

Last Friday, after getting out of school a little earlier than normal and feeling very excited to get a start on the weekend, despite the impending rain, some friends and I hit the road towards El Escorial, an old royal residence and monastery a little ways outside of Madrid. While I'd been to the nearby El Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen), or Franco's grave, a few years ago when I was moving to Madrid to be an au pair for the summer, I'd never managed to make it to El Escorial. I'm glad I was able to get there last week though, because it was much more beautiful than I'd imagined, and the fall colors on the trees surrounding the palace really made the experience for me. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!

Reminder to self: you now live in real Spain, not Galicia or the Basque Country!

The old glass in the windows made the trees look like a Van Gogh painting. Loved it!

I also loved this colorful Hall of Battles. So beautiful! 

I may or may not have been yelled at by a security guard for taking this picture. Oops! The flash was off, at least...

I've really been missing the mountains and greenery while living in the desert-like Meseta, so El Escorial was a nice little break!

Imposing doorway to the castle

Love fall foliage, it makes me think of home!

Having a coffee every day in a square with a view like this must really be tremendous, mustn't it?

I also really liked the landscaped gardens. I'm a sucker for symmetrical patterns, so these gardens were right up my alley! 

Have you ever been to El Escorial? Did you find it as beautiful as I did? What are some other daytrips near Madrid that you can recommend to me?