sun, and cinnamon dogs on a saturday

This is the first day I've not worn a hat in outside, in the house and in bed. Tons of hardy Spaniards are sitting outside in the plaza - in plazas all over the city, in fact. And most of them at the other smaller plazas are standing, not even sitting. Standing there with their jackets on in the cold, drinking at tiny, tall tables outside their favorite bar.

The weather is better and I am better but my head hurts and I don't feel normal. In fact I've felt disconnected ever since a few days after I arrived here. I keep pressing on an acupressure spot in my neck that hurts like hell. I missed three days of classes this week, and managed to pick up a fair bit of what I missed on Thursday and Friday but I am not really getting the full benefit of what I'm learning. Just too overwhelmed.

The other day our newly met bar friend said that he admires France for protesting when there is a problem. That Spaniards are too content to sit there with their beer and do nothing. Comparing unemployment rates, according to Gaetane and Sergio, France has about 11% while Spain has 20%, and 28% in Andalucia right now.

This morning I waited for about what seemed like 15 minutes in a tiny bakery, for the 4 people in line in front of me to be served, in order to buy some "integral" bread from a German style organic bakery. I figured I owed it to my body to give it some healthier bread, but am not at all impressed. Dry and tasteless. No wonder people here want to keep eating white bread, if that's all they have for healthy stuff. Want to bake my own in the tiny oven, but the kitchen is one thing that is pretty uncomfortable in my place. There really is no room for me to keep any supplies there. My two bottles of olive oil are in the way. I cannot live with only one. I don't feel like I can go buy spices, unless I were to keep them in my room. I can't see myself feeling comfortable enough there to carry on a "normal" life, that is to actually find a job while living in someone else's house, in which I feel like a guest. Need to move.

The people in this neighborhood are notably normal. Really, the whole world is kind of uniform these days. "Desaparacida perra labradora canela" Cinnamon coloured labrador (female) dog lost. That was a sign I saw this morning. It is one of those weird things that happens - a disconnect between the conscious and unconscious. Somehow I am amused and surprised to see humans having the exact same problems and doing the exact same things about them anywhere in the world. The other differences around me cause me to subconsciously feel that these people are different in some basic way, from me and then I see something like that which stops me. Or perhaps it is some kind of surprise to see the exact same kind of message in a different tongue.

As for me:

He I go to try it. I should had to say it is tomorrow. I it up, okay? You like yourself? It is easy for I. Yes, I keep the oil in my bed. I will to look for it on the internet. I am looking a little. No, I am a foreigner, I don't know much. I he go this afternoon. He they said it is that way. Yes, I am to put it there. It is ahead by the orange thing, how do you say it? Those one, yes, please. One of that, please. I can do. You have a good afternoon too. - (I will try) - Yes, I think so.

At least Gaetane and I are on a similar level with our Spanish, and we can sound idiotic together and not be worried.

Do you eat sand in Spain?

Do you eat sand in Spain? I like to eat sand for breakfast. 

I was talking to a guy who really wants to come to Canada, because he loves the cold. He was trying out his English after an English class down the street, and was in the bar with his other classmates. He insisted that I should speak to him in Spanish, and he to me in English. I have been singing about “arena” along with Camaron, for quite some time now, and should not have gotten it mixed up with “avena”, which I just bought the other day. I could see through the package, so knew it had to be either what I was looking for, or else a close variant, like rye or wheat flakes.
Gaetane set out to find us some amigos the other night. This is not something I would normally go to a bar to do. You have to look for the bars that are overflowing. If people are sitting down at tables, it is no good. You are not going to meet anyone there. We tried some orange wine and ordered two glasses of refrigerated, expensive red at a cute little hole in the wall in trendy Santa Cruz. But after having a smoke, Gaetane started to look bored and tired due to lack of friendly people around us. That's when we encountered el sitio.

The bartender was a skinny woman, with a sharp wit, and seemed to include everyone while she talked and poured beer. A minute later we found our amigos.

Gaetane is my housemate, and is on a gutsy mission, in my estimation: here from Paris for about 10 days in order to improve her Spanish, for an upcoming job change, she decided to enroll in a crash course in flamenco dance, rather than study language, per se, in some boring classroom. As she knows little about flamenco, I took her to the pena with me the other night. It was a proper concert, with two young performers, singer and guitarist. For a couple songs, they were backed up by palmeros, one of whom (in sneakers) danced a stunning bulerias at the end. The sneakers may sound less than serious, but this concert was puro (hence very little dancing). The young woman singing was incredible, and guitarist no less. 

I have a new hypothesis that Sangre Latino is just the same sangre as the rest of ours. It just gets heated up more in the summer down here by the Mediterranean. At this point in the winter, the men are acting like Canadian men. Neither of the guys we talked to last night tried to hit on us at all. We both talked to them for quite a while, and had great conversations that everyone was enjoying. They told us they always go there after their classes Thursday, but never asked for our phone numbers or told us we were guapa.

In fact, as I said earlier, hardly any men have even called me guapa. Part of that may be due to the fact that I've not been very guapa, with ratty hair sticking out below my perpetual purple wool hat.

One more...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDnehUAC5ZM&NR=1

Protestando con el flamenco

Today on the news, a woman who goes by the name of La Nin~a Ninja, and who is part of the Colectivo Flo6x8. This is probably the coolest thing I've seen in, well, a very long time.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv5dh8v7mDs&NR=1


The words are something like: banker, banker, banker, with your cold heart and hot purse... I have no money..

The group's by-line (think that's the word) is "Cuerpo Contra Capital" (body against capital).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUzaeOEplnc&feature=related

No one (except kind of fringy, angry people that no one takes seriously) protests anything in Canada because we just never have any problems that affect enough people badly enough. Personally, I've tried, and wanted to be involved in protesting things I was really against, but I couldn't deal with the atmosphere surrounding most protests (both the majority of the people involved and the way the rest of our complacent society views me when I want to take a stand against something). On the other hand, here obviously, since last summer it is a "crisis" (same word in Spanish, which I saw everywhere in the summer).

Brings me back to the idea that you can't change people's hearts or minds very well by fighting or arguing, but you can get to them with humour and through art.

I love the one where they started a dance party in something like a unemployment lineup - not sure what INEM is...

Jerez, Sunday

I am happy about one thing, and that is that I just spent a great time with three awesome people. Unfortunately my throat is now very sore, and I am running out of Gan Mao medicine... I also have an eye infection, most likely due to the germ infested and sickly, revolting cats at Alicia's house. It is kind of an automatic reaction to pet a cat. Better think twice before doing that here. Nobody would let these cats sit on their lap. Mika said the grossest one had been sick for quite a while and not able to shake it yet. Ew.

Anyways, aside from suffering with cold and gross cats and eye infections... and likely missing class tomorrow, I was extremely happy to be in Jerez, to see Keiko and Dani, and Juan Carlos and Mika. Keiko met me immediately after I arrived, in Plaza Arenal, where we went to tomar algo (drink something – coffee in this case). A while later Dani joined us and we went for a massive plate of varied deep fried fish, and a bottle of wine, as well as a revuelto, which is scrambled eggs and ham with algo (whatever else) in them. This one had beans and onion.

The air in Jerez was fresh indeed, as Bijoyini had predicted. It was raining and reminded me of home. The sky even looked like home. Was really nothing like when I was last here...

Juan Carlos was working until 5:00, so I waited at Dani and Keiko's and Keiko came with me to meet Juan Carlos at Alicia's place, where Mika still is living. Mika is one of the few other people I had to see, and didn't realise Juan Carlos and her would be living in the same house. He is due to leave this coming week so this was my only chance to see him. We had an excellent time chatting and Mika and Juan Carlos made us dinner of wine, Jamon, salad, pizza and french fries made from scratch. 

It is great, I think that four of us can manage to communicate all in Spanish for hours, with only Juan Carlos being a native speaker. I did, however, manage to mix up platanos and plata, and so described that there are artisans on Granville Island who work with bananas. I was trying to explain to Keiko that there is a sake maker there, and described the overall place and the types of things people do.

Juan Carlos is a very open-minded, aware kind of person, who said he did not feel much culture shock being in Boston. Keiko has seen this place from the perspective of an outsider making her life here. The two of them had some things to say about people here being closed. Of course, that depends about what. I am starting to understand that everywhere people are open in certain ways and closed in others.

Saturday night

Listening to a pot bellied man in a purple-ish sweater, and still black hair with a style like my dad's... he raised his hands, at times shook them back and forth. I found myself seeing images of desolate places in the hills of the pueblos blancos, a guy singing to a girl on a balcony, “your body that was in my bed,” “no te encontro...” (I can't find you)

I have not found myself caught up in any kind of art, song, music, story such that I have had powerful images in my head, like when you are are in a good story, for a long time. The few words I caught were enough, with the evocative power in this man's voice and manner.

As I sat there listening I felt like all the pain of the last week was worth this, and that my troubles about where I live are moot. I live steps from cultural treasure. The Pena Torre Macarena is on my doorstep. I walked in and without hesitating, Diego, who sang last time, and who I was introduced to, gestured to a seat. Everyone was squeezed into a space between a fireplace and the bar, with the singer and the guitarist sitting among others along a bench running the length of the wall, and people in front of them around 3 round tables. I sat along the adjacent wall, crowded onto a bench. The group gathered this time was especially small, and while people didn't particularly ignore me, they didn't pay particular attention either. I felt perfectly comfortable going there alone. I don't understand penas very well yet. I wondered last time if I needed to pay to join, if I wanted to come regularly. They seemed totally unconcerned that I order anything from the bar. All they were interested in was listening to the singing and chatting among themselves, and I think happy to have any interested new people.

The man who sang had a beautiful voice, which could also be considered so by people not used to flamenco singing. It was a sweet voice – there are all kinds in flamenco. Some of the most respected founding fathers had quiet, sweet voices, just as much as some have the roughest sandpaper in their throats. When I first entered, a woman about my age started to sing. None of these people would look like “flamenco singers” to you. She was blond and very average looking. Her voice was most of the time quite soft which made it all the more surprising how she could have such intensity... What is most real and not put on, obviously comes from within, and so it seemed with her singing – not some showy stuff – nothing in your face, but with depth. She had an unusually fast modulating, and subtle tremolo, which was judiciously used, and she likewise went perfectly off-pitch when it was necessary.

Another guy sang a Farruca. The guy with the purple sweater did a beautiful Granainas among other things, and ended with some pretty amazing bulerias. The guitarist there is obviously good, but had a bit of trouble keeping up with some unusual chord changes in the singer's bulerias. His playing would I believe, as a rule, be just doing whatever was required on the spot. He too, as others do at times, let a string of his guitar go really out of tune for a bit. What would never be acceptable in some kinds of music, and what the guitarist would have to stop for, is used to effect here.

Priorat

I am about to try Priorat.

For those of you not in the know, it comes from a very special terroir, somewhere north of here. I discovered it quite by accident when it came up on Epicurious as the recommended wine to have with a rather special slow roasted duck dish I made a year or more ago. It so happened to be the latest thing in wine, at that time. Until now, not a drop has passed my lips - you cannot come by it for less than $60 or $80 a bottle in Vancouver, from Firefly on Cambie, for example. The really good stuff goes for much more, I am told.

Priorat comes from an apparently tiny hilly region with exceptionally poor/sandy soil, that happens to get quite extreme heat and sun, if I remember correctly (check me out on these details), and up until recently, when some hotshot winemakers got ahold of it that knew what to do with it, it made jammy plonk. Well, my Priorat comes from the Lidl supermarket where cases of wine still in boxes are piled along one wall, and they unceremoniously dump your groceries down a little ramp where you bag them yourself, nervously watching to make sure the customer before and after you don't get your stuff mixed in with their E0.99 shampoo.

Loli gave me the tip to go to Lidl for wine. I think cheapness was the objective, though she said it was good. As I weighed the prices of Ribera del Duoros and Riojas against embarassment (despite my budget, tending more towards the expensive ones, at E3.50, rather than the ones for E1.69, but not wanting Loli to think I am some kind of spoilt snob) I noticed the misfit Priorat, and was surprised to say the least, but laughed, wondering if it would be terrible.

Well, it certainly isn't bad. I would say it is definitely decent, for E4.99 a bottle. Is a little minerally, has quite a mellow taste for such a cheap wine, and definitely a heavy berry taste, but I wouldn't say jammy, or fruit juicy like crap wine. The cork says, “wein, vino, wine” in spiralling, repeating print, diagonally across it, which does not normally give me confidence that the wine will be worth anything, and it has instructions in at least 3 languages on the back. I am sorry, Carol, that I did not let it breathe, nor did I wait to decant it for an hour, as it suggested, though I did think I might attempt to wait a while. That just didn't happen though.

Anyways, I am sitting here having it with the only bread available on a very dark, cloudy, late Saturday afternoon, and with some of the E12 for 200grams Jamon that I got early this week. And of course a heavy drizzle of olive oil all over the bread. I am listening to Fandangos, and thinking about going to the Pena that is really near me, tonight, but not feeling much like venturing out on a day that is almost as cold as Vancouver might be. That is mostly due to the wind. Sevilla is below the magic line and was not due for negative temperatures today, though most parts north of here are, and there was even snow blowing behind the announcer in Mallorca (or whatever island is off the coast by Barcelona).

Mentiras, mentiras, casi todo en este mundo es mentira... el hombre mas importante.... en el espejo.... di..iii...yeee iiii.... ayyyeeeee.... (a rather dark but very cool letra)

I am fighting a cold still, and Loli keeps plying me with medicine, which I would normally not take, but feel I cannot refuse. She tells me it is natural, though it is obviously not, as the name has “...idol” on the end. At least it is not antibiotics, so I am breaking a rule I have not broken for probably 10 years. I have probably taken pain killers once since 2000 or 2001 when I had my tooth surgery, and not a single piece of western medicine has passed my mouth other than that, despite time in China, and all sorts of germ issues there!

I have gotten ahold of Juan Carlos and Keiko and will try to see them both tomorrow in Jerez. Hopefully the weather is better, and I will not have to be facing walking around in cold wind. This morning I sat at Cafe Hercules to do my blogging and answer a few e-mails. I apologise for the ones I still haven't answered. Poor Zhang Kun in China is not going to get answered for some time still as that means downloading Chinese character capability which I don't think I put onto this computer yet.

The pate aromatizado de vino de Jerez is a fail. If I realized it was going to be canned I would not have bought it. They actually carried it in the really exclusive Jamon shop, so I thought it would be good (had previously bought it in a slightly less exclusive specialty shop). Anyways, at Carrefour in Jerez last summer I used to get a really awesome French pate in a tiny jar. The pate here is higado de cerdo, which is a bit weird for us: pig liver.

I took a break and am now waiting for my tortilla to cook. More bread, this time with raw garlic and oil, and some really smoky chorizo. And manchego, more wine. This time it has at least breathed for 15 minutes...

Today I woke up and had a shower, which is not normally how things have been going. Last summer I showered always, before going to classes, even when I sweat like crazy. This time, I've finally realised the stupidity of that. Now I go to bed with the tights and underwear on that I am going to wear the next morning. Disgusting. Yesterday I hung around in the afternoon in gross clothes that I'd worn all morning for dancing – well, changing to an already used tank top once – until like 8 pm, when I finally got done with all the sweating for the day.

Anyways, the point was that today was different, being Saturday. I had some Pu Er tea and toasted a small piece of gallega loaf on Loli's toaster, which is a small flat pan with ridges and a sticking up handle, that you put over the gas flame. Then I went down to Cafe Hercules with my computer and got the only table that has a plug in the wall, beside the toilet and the storage room. Had a cafe solo (varies between a large espresso and a small americano) and a tostada enterro (whole toasted bun) with tomato and aceite (oil). Cafe Hercules is definitely cheap for Sevilla: only E2 for all that, and several hours worth of internet. Cafe Hercules is on an odd-shaped corner about a block off the Alameda de Hercules, and about 2 blocks down from my place. It has a lot of windows and is fairly traditional looking. The clientele seems to be populated by Commercial Drive-y looking people. I feel pretty comfortable there in a wool hat, without makeup, which is a bit unusual here.