Open the Gates and Seize the Day

Open the gates and seize the day
Don't be afraid and don't delay
Nothing can break us
No one can make us
Give our rights away
Arise and seize the day
-"Seize the Day" from The Newsies

Today all of Spain is planning to "seize the day" and strike against their prime minister (Mariano Rajoy)'s new budget cuts (which are going to affect workers' salaries and benefits). Yes, that's right, the whole country is on strike today. And that means that although these budget cuts have little to do with me personally (as far as I know anyway), I can't go to work. The buses are running at absolute minimum capacity, and I simply can't get there, even though the school technically has to be open. Supposedly only "absolutely necessary" staff have to be there, because some parents will send their kids to school anyway. However, as there's no possible way I could be construed as truly necessary, I don't have to go.

I'm interested to see what this strike is exactly going to entail. I'm sort of worried that some of the demonstrations might turn violent, but we'll see. I'm also curious to know whether it will be bigger than protests I've been to in the US, like the ones against Wisconsin's Governor Walker.

As far as my feelings on the issue, I'm both glad to be in a country where workers can stand up for their rights and at the same time annoyed that everything is going to be closed AGAIN today (everything was closed yesterday in Vigo because of the Reconquista festival, celebrating the city's citizens kicking out the French in 1809). We really need certain items like toilet paper and soap. Things are starting to get desperate around here. But that's life in Spain for ya! 

Luckily, after this weird week I get to go on vacation and relax for a while. Phew!

A Love Letter to the City of Bilbao

Dear Bilbao,

I know we had our ups and downs in the past. I may have even professed to hate living there during a time when I was very homesick. But that's all it was--homesickness, I swear! I didn't mean it!

I had the chance to visit you this past weekend for the first time since I left you in 2009, and I realized that I had forgotten how beautiful and dynamic a city you really are. I hadn't thought about how much I missed you until I returned, but I now think that I was far too harsh on you the first time around. You really are a great city. A bit expensive, maybe, and perhaps you like rain a little more than you should, but everyone has their faults. It's OK. I love you anyway.

 I just thought you should know how I felt, in order to clear the air so that the next time I visit, you might feel compelled to have a little better weather.

...maybe that's too much to ask.

Regardless, I hope to be back soon.

XOXO
Love,
Alisa

p.s. Here are some pictures that you look really great in, in case you were having doubts about putting me back in your good graces.

Athletic Bilbao and Euskal Herria flags hanging from so many balconies

The Guggenheim, looking cool as always

Beach at Sopelana (not technically Bilbao, but nearby so I figure it counts)

Overhead view of the city

Plaza Moyua all lit up at night (aka my favorite place in Bilbao)

Spring Has Sprung!

Ironically, a few weeks after I post about snow and cold, spring comes early to Spain! We've had an uncharacteristic warm (and dry) spell and spring has officially sprung! 

Well, technically it started "springing" two weeks ago and now all of the flowers are starting to turn into leaves. But regardless it feels so early to me! It's so much fun to walk down the street by trees that are covered in flowers. My favorites are the magnolias, although I only ever seem to see them when I'm in a car and can't get a good picture. But they're beautiful!

Flowers, Feb. 27th, 2012--Vigo

The yellow ones are called mimosas, and they're EVERYWHERE on the hillsides here. And I have a fun game that I like to play with Spaniards who tell me the flowers' name, where they say "Those are called mimosas," and I say "Like the drink!" and they say "Huh?" ...great fun. Then I obviously explain what a mimosa is and how it is delicious.

How is your spring? Has it put a spring in your step? Does it make you want to say "la primavera, la sangre altera?" ("spring fever," more or less, or "love is in the air" maybe)

I've got a spring in my step, that's for sure. No love in the air around here, but I'm always hopeful!

Football+Grammar=???

So this week I've been doing a unit with my students on places in Chicago, giving them a description of a bunch of famous places and having them tell me why they would like to visit certain ones and why (surprise surprise, Pizzeria Uno was the most popular!).

This led me to a random-but-interesting (to me) grammar question. I included Soldier Field on the list of places one might visit in Chicago, and so that led to many of the boys trying to tell about their favorite American football team.

Now, their example sounds (in a Spanish accent) like the word "beers," but as I was taught not to lie I'm going to give the correct example of MY sentence below.

"The Green Bay Packers are my favorite football team."

OK, cool, you say. The Pack are pretty awesome. So what? Well, what if I wanted to switch that sentence around?

"My favorite football team are the Green Bay Packers." No, not right. It's "My favorite football team IS
the Green Bay Packers."

Now imagine me, on the spot, trying to explain to 25 teenagers why we say it in two different ways when the two sentences are identical apart from the subject placement. Except I don't know the answer. I guess it has something to do with "team" being singular but "Packers" sounding plural. So technically (TECHNICALLY although we'd never say it that way) the first sentence is wrong and should be replaced with "The Green Bay Packers is my favorite football team."

Yes? No? What do you think? Have I lost my grammar nazi touch? Why DO we do it that way? Does it even make sense? A little help, please?

We are cheeseheads for life (that sentence I'm sure about).

Snow in Spain

It's really hard not to laugh at Spain's inability to handle cold and snow. I know they're not used to it, but really, when I see articles like this one in the paper, I giggle. "Fourteen (of Spain's 17) regions are on alert because of low temperatures." The article goes on to say that the lowest of these low temperatures was -15 Celsius (about 0 Fahrenheit) on a mountaintop somewhere. 

I admit, I have a personal gripe with Spain's inability to keep it together when there's snow. The photo below illustrates how "bad" the snow was in Dec. 2009 when I got stranded in Madrid Barajas Airport for 4 days because almost all flights going out were canceled.

Madrid, Dec. 2009

But really, when you went to university in a place with snowdrifts that look like this:

Maine, 2008

And you're from a place where you feel the need to dress like Ralphie's little brother to go outside, kind of like this little guy:

Wisconsin, 2009

...all of this freaking out seems a little silly. However, I admit there isn't even snow here, so the extent of my experience with people losing it is from reading the paper and also from a few years ago. 

...and I also admit that they may have converted me on the temperature thing, because now anytime anyone says it's going to be below 0 Celsius, I say "brrrrrrr." But I live in a piso that has no heat, so maybe you won't fault me on that one. 

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm half laughing at them being silly and half worrying that I'm turning into one of them.

Of course, perhaps none of "them" have heat in their apartments either! I guess Spain isn't SO silly after all. But maybe they should practice dealing with snow...just in case.

A State of Mind

Something I learned recently (that took me long enough to figure out) is that happiness is a state of mind. It's not about what happens to you, it's about your attitude towards those occurrences. There are no truly good things or truly bad things; everything is perception. So about a month ago, I decided to have a positive attitude towards life, and suddenly life seemed better. Is that a coincidence? I don't think so.

Lately, I've been busy. I've been traveling and making new friends and practicing Spanish and just learning things. And that's awesome, because when I'm not busy I get bored, and when I'm bored I get sad. So no sadness for me recently, yay!

A quick random example of something I learned the other day: when Spaniards say chay-toes, they mean Cheetos. Shouldn't have taken me this long to figure that out, buuuuut....it did. Cheers to learning something new every day, be it important knowledge or not.

So anyway, here are some photos from a trip I took recently to the Cañones del Sil and the Playa de las Catedrales.

I enjoy the colors on these hillsides--and the fog and trees make me feel like the world I'm living in is primeval.

More fog. I've grown very accustomed to fog since I began living here!

So cool--a spiderweb covered with frost.

What looks like steps carved into these hillsides is actually vineyards, which is pretty neat.

A church in Lugo, a city a few hours away

Cute seaside fishing town

At the Playa de las Catedrales. I love the way we pop out of this picture!

I'm told this archway at the Playa de las Catedrales is famous, so here you go. 

El Próximo Año

I thought it was about time I shared my plans for the next year (because you were all so curious, I know). I was a flip-flopper there for a while, one minute deciding I wanted to go home and the next that I wanted to stay. But I had an epiphany a few weeks ago while sitting in a café relaxing that I would be a fool to go home now and trade in this laid-back lifestyle for one of stress and misery. I had thought that I needed to go start my real life, but I now realize that this can BE my real life, if I so choose.

Plus I still have so much to learn! My Spanish has not improved as much as I'd like, and I still have a hard time understanding my coworkers when they talk amongst each other. I can't go home before I've fixed that problem! And I haven't made as many Spanish friends as I'd like, and I haven't traveled to all my dream destinations.

So now I've decided to stay for another year.

The next question (the one I've been ruminating on for weeks now) is WHERE exactly to go next year. I have three options: a) stay at my same school, b) stay in Galicia but move to another school (which I don't get any say in), or c) move to another region entirely.

At first I had thought it would be good to move to another region and learn about other parts of Spain, but then I thought about how much easier it would be to stay in Galicia. My bank would already be set up and I (hopefully) wouldn't have to reapply for a visa in America--I could just renew my foreigner card here in Spain. Plus staying would increase my feeling of being settled, because the first few weeks wouldn't be a blur of confusion and being lost all the time, and because I could build on the small friendships I've already made here.

So now the decision is whether to stay in my same school or not. There are advantages and disadvantages to both options, of course. If I were to stay, I'd already know the people who could give me rides to work, I could make better friends with my coworkers, I'd already know the school schedule and how things work there, and I'd already know the kids and could build on my relationships with them from this year.

However...if I were to move to another school, maybe I could get a schedule that wasn't biweekly and could therefore do private lessons because I'd be free at the same time every week, maybe I could be just in a primary school instead of in a primary and a secondary, maybe my commute to work would be way shorter (instead of the 45 minutes that it is now), and maybe I could make even better friends with coworkers because we'd actually live in the same city (almost all my coworkers who are around my age live in Ourense; I live in Vigo).

The unfortunate thing is that if I choose to move schools, I have no idea what I'm going to get. I can try to ask to be placed in Vigo, and I can ask for a primary school, but there's no guarantees. I could end up with something worse than I have now or way better than I have now.

So I just keep on deliberating, back and forth and back and forth. Does anyone have any good advice that will help me make a decision?

Here is an unrelated awesome picture that my friend took for me last weekend in the Playa de las Catedrales, a cool beach in the north of Galicia.