Nothing to Say But Adiós

My absolute favorite view of the city of Vigo

...the mingling smells of cigarette smoke and coffee that tickle my nose as I sit at an outdoor caftetería...

...the feel of the sun warming me during a winter paseo along the beach...

...the confusion of listening to a tableful of Spaniards all talking at the same time...

...the tangy taste of an olive, washed down by a cold caña...

...the sight of children out with their parents, enjoying the last bit of sunshine at 10:30pm....

There are certain things that will always remind me of my time in Spain, and I hope that when I look back on these days in years to come, I'm able to remember the above sensations...how Spain made me FEEL. 

Tomorrow, I say a final goodbye to the country that captured my unwilling heart, where I've spent 3/6 years of my adult life. I'll bid farewell to the only city I've lived in so far that I could see myself being in long-term, to friends who are more like family, to a life that has made me happier and more relaxed than I even knew was possible before I first came here. Spain has changed me, it has shaped who I am today enormously, and I'm honestly in disbelief that I'm not going to be living here anymore in the fall, that my students are no longer "my" students, that soon all the work I've put in learning Spanish will mean nothing as I struggle my way through a different language barrier. 

I suppose I should have more feelings about what feels like a breakup with my true love, but at the moment I'm in denial. I probably will be even after the plane leaves Galicia and I'm thrust into a world where English is spoken and tortilla is only for tacos. I have no words, really, to describe how I feel right now. Betrayed? Hopeful? Grateful? Sad. I don't know, they're all in the mix there somewhere. But goodbye has to be said. So it goes.

I don't know what more to say than gracias, mi querida España, y nos vemos prontito. Hasta luegiño.

To My Colleagues

Aos meus compañeiros de traballo que descubriron o meu blog--quero dicirvos moitas grazas por todo o que fixestes para min nestes dous anos. Dende o principio, déstesme a benvida como unha compañeira, non só "a estranxeira," e sempre estivestes interesados no meu país, na miña cultura, na miña lengua, e o que é máis, en min como persoa.

Non é fácil desprazarse dun país a outro, onde non tes ningún coñecido, onde non entendes os costumes, e onde non falas perfectamente o idioma. Pero facilitástesmo, aceptástesme, e agradezo iso moito. Quero pedir perdón por todas as veces que non vos entendín, ou o idioma ou os vosos costumes, e quero dicirvos grazas por ser pacientes comigo mentres aprendía da cultura e das linguas aquí. Como espero que se pode ver neste texto pequeno, aprendín un mogollón, e quero dicirvos grazas pola axuda.

CPI da Cañiza é un pequeno colexio marabilloso, e as memorias que teño diso sempre serán de xente cariñosa e alumnos moi monos. Paseimo moi ben traballando convosco, e vou botar de menos o colexio e a xente moito.

Moitas grazas por axudar a contribuír a 2 anos moi felices nun lugar excelente.

Con cariño,
Alisa

Multilingual Puns

¿Qué hace un pez? Nada.

Something the world needs to know about me: I'm a sucker for puns. I'm punny. Words with any sort of double meaning are fascinating to me, as a linguaphile. And if I can take that double meaning and make it funny? Sold.

Even when puns are "stupid" or "tired" I admire them for having that slight extra edge to them. Like the one above...it's one of the oldest, most-used puns in Spanish, and I love it anyway. What does a fish do? Nothing/He swims.

A second thing you all need to know is that I love my students. There's no denying it. And I love them even more when they make multilingual puns, quite possibly one of my favorite things in the universe.

I bet every ESL teacher in Spain has heard this one: How do you say nariz in English? No sé. Hahahaha. Nosé...nose. (No sé means I don't know...but it looks like the word nose!)

The other day we were doing a unit on the US states, and one of the kids went "Buff, te cansas de Kansas!" (You get tired of Kansas...but "cansas" and "Kansas" sound exactly the same in a Spanish accent) This one is extra funny because it's true. Poor Kansas. (Sorry Kansatians... Kansanians... Kansasers...oh lord. People from Kansas. According to Google the proper term is Kansans, but that sounds every bit as silly to me as my options, so I'm leaving them here.)

And finally, because my Spanish roommate was complaining that I've never talked about him on this blog, here is a pun he told me the other day. Not multilingual, but you can't always have everything.

Dijeron los piratas, "¡Abordamos el barco!" Y el barco les quedó muy mono.

(Translation: The pirates said "Board/decorate the ship! And the ship ended up looking really beautiful.)

Oh Spain

I have so much fondness for this country, where things like the above happen on a daily basis. Park wherever you want, no big deal! No pasa nada!

...which is why I'm filled with sadness to announce that it is probable that I won't be living in Spain anymore next year. I'd love to stay in Vigo forever, since I now have a life here that I absolutely adore, with great friends, delicious food to eat, and a beautiful city in which to live. But one must go where there is work. I'm not quite ready to say exactly where I'll probably be next year yet, as it's not 100% certainly decided, BUT here's a big hint to where it's likely to be for those that know me personally--my inner sixteen-year-old self is squeeing with delight.

Leaving you to think that over for now and feeling evilly secretive...ciao ciao!

Umbrella Etiquette, or Vigo Debajo de la Lluvia (Gives Me Too Much Time to Think)

Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day...

This is an extremely dangerous song to be singing in Galicia, where rain won't just come some other day, but rather EVERY other day. The forecast for this week looks like this:

More rain? What a surprise!

When you live in a place like Galicia, where on any given day it's a wonderful surprise when it DOESN'T rain, you start to learn a few things about rain itself. You begin to recognize cloud formations and to know what type of rain is coming, you get a sense of how long a given type of rain is probably going to last, you absolutely know approximately how long it will take your clothes to dry outside in the damp weather, and you learn a whole lot of rain-related vocabulary. "Sirimiri" means a light drizzle, "chubasquero" is raincoat, "niebla" is mist, "llover a cántaros" is to pour...I could go on and on.

It's kind of like the below scene in Forrest Gump. Sideways rain, rain that seems to come up from underneath...I've seen it all.

Anyway, I've also learned a whole bunch about something I'd never really even thought about before: the etiquette of using umbrellas. I almost never used umbrellas in the US. If it was raining, I'd just take the trouble to park my car slightly closer to wherever I was going and run inside. But here, I spend so much time walking around outside that being without an umbrella would be absurd. So now I know these unspoken rules:

1. When two umbrella-holders are approaching each other, the taller person (usually me) must lift their umbrella to let the shorter one's umbrella pass underneath.

2. When the above isn't possible, or you're both the same height, moving your umbrella out to the side is also possible, as long as you're not in a crowded place.

3. In couples, the boy carries the umbrella (partially because the girl is usually shorter, plus the whole chivalrous aspect to it). With friends sharing, it's whoever's taller.

4. If you forget your umbrella on a given day and it starts pouring, everyone you know will offer to lend you one.

5. Carrying your wet umbrella inside is bad manners. You absolutely must leave it in the umbrella stand by the door, despite the fact that this makes it 150% more likely that you will forget said umbrella when leaving.

And most importantly,
 6. If you carry around a pink child's umbrella, you WILL get made fun of by absolutely everyone you meet. Apparently no one but me sees the practicality of a smaller umbrella.

Getting sick of this...

So in order to not go crazy until the sunshine comes around again, I'll try to be "singin' in the rain, just singin' in the rain..."

Soy Vaga, Spanish for Hello My Name is Lazybones

So you all should know by now that I'm extremely lazy about posting in this blog sometimes. It's not that I don't want to, it's that it's not the highest priority in my life. I prefer to live life most of the time rather than writing about it. When I'm really busy, blogging falls onto the back burner, until I see someone else posting really great pictures about their travels and I feel the little green monster and want to write about my voyages as well.

And man oh man have I been busy lately. Since I last posted, I've been on 3 separate vacations to 3 separate countries (France, Poland, Morocco), with a fourth one (Germany) coming up in less than two weeks, plus I need to plan a 3-week trip with my parents during the summer. I guess I never really thought about just how much I travel until the other day when a fellow auxiliar (hi S!) came right out and said it--"Wow, you travel a LOT."

I guess I do...although I enjoy it so much that it never seems like enough! "There is more to be seen than can ever be seen, more to do than can ever be done."Wise words from The Lion King.

Anyway, more interesting content (and updates on what will be happening to me in a few months when my teaching contract here is up) soon...ahem...probably. Just wanted to say hi and remind the internet that I'm here.

For your trouble, here's a nice Galician rainbow. I'm a fan of these rainbows, except for the fact that they mean that beach weather is not here yet. Please please please get here before June, Mr. Sun...please?

Feliz Entroido!

Carnaval decorations, Málaga, 2012

One of the many things that Spain has that America lacks is Carnaval (Entroido in Galician). This is basically what Americans think of Mardi Gras, or the last few days before Lent. Depending on where you are, the celebrations can kick off up to a few weeks in advance, with drinking, eating, parades, and costumes. 

In Vigo, things are fairly low-key (for Spain), and the only real way I celebrated was by spending an evening with a group of people all dressed up in this getup:

Can you figure out what it is? If you're not from Vigo, the answer is probably no. I'm dressed as a Vitrasa bus (the local bus system) transformer. More specifically, the number 11 bus, which I take 3 days a week to get to private lessons. So there I am as a human, and when we all "transformed" into buses, they looked like this, with us inside:

It was a lot of work making the costumes, but when we all "transformed" together, it looked pretty cool. If you're my friend on facebook, check it out there! It was quite fun to go out and see all the different costumes (mostly people like us, in groups with a theme). Like a second (better) Halloween!

So Happy Carnaval, everyone! Eat lots of orejas, dress up, and be merry!