Pueblo Ingles / English Village

June 1st

You know what's great?

Free transportation, food and 4-star hotel lodgings in the mountains in southern Spain...

...in exchange for talking to people for 8 days.

I heard of this program, Pueblo Ingles (English Village) from a student I've been tutoring in Madrid - basically, it's an English immersion program for Spaniards to improve their English by spending 5-8 days (depending on the program) in a village somewhere in Spain speaking over 100 hours with native speakers.

I was accepted into the 8-day program in Coto del Valle, 5 hours south of Madrid by bus. It is a resort smack dab in the heart of the Cazorla National park in the Jaen region.

I've got nothin' but time and English as my native tongue so I'm goin!

Love,
Katie

Segovia, Spain

Sometime mid-June 2011...


I LOVE CASTLES.

Like this one:

The Alcázar of Segovia 

Look at all that nothing in the background!

I'm a die-hard Tudor junkie, but that's not to say I don't enjoy some good medieval Spanish palaces and history, too.


I just love 'em. So grand and mysterious and full of stories, so different from today and so beautiful.


This one is The Alcázar of Segovia (Arabic for fortress or palace) and it's smack in the middle of a big dry... area? Well, the whole city of Segovia is a like a fairytale city in the middle of a sandbox, truthfully. 


I am smitten with this city. 


Got off to a good start with a ham sandwich, where I got to see a grouchy old barman cut it right from the leg itself:

mmmm

In fact, as bizarre as it was at first to see legs of ham hanging around everywhere (and I mean everywhere - the supermarket, bars, restaurants... I even went to a ham museum!) it's pretty much the most delicious ham I've ever had, every time. You just gotta get used to the hooves watching you eat. 


Segooooovia! Such a pretty city. It's got these great roman Aqueducts, too:

The Roman Aqueduct of Segovia

Aqueduct what!

Looks like it'd just topple right over if you sneezed on it the wrong way.


Wikipedia tells me it might have been started in the first century, is 818 meters long and made from 25,000 granite blocks - and without any cement, nothin'! Achoo. 


I feel like I could write a song about this city. 

Segovia

and again, Segovia

I wish I had more interesting stories to share about what went on, but really, sometimes you just show up somewhere, look at a lot of stuff, and leave. 

Lookin a little chubby at
the top of the tower of the castle

View from the castle

And just because I love them so much, back to the castle - only the inside now:

You might live in a castle, but this is what's
outside of it. Sand. box.

Gorgeous ceilings.

I love royalty!!

See the wee kings and queens staring at you?

I really have nothing to say. So I shall leave you with this last photo:

Blargh! Off with yer head...s.

Love you!
Katie

Toldeo, Spain

Saturday, June 11th

Turn on your oven to 400 degrees F.

Now, expand it to the size of a city.

Walk in.

You may now perhaps be able to understand my day trip to Toledo, Spain.

It's the opposite of everything I knew in France. Not only surface-of-the-sun hot, but red and dry and bright.

It's a beautiful place to be sure, but I am learning just how much heat can affect me. I am simply drained of energy, listless. Excited as I was to go on this day trip, once I was in the city walls it was like trying to drag a dead whale around behind me.

Toledo, Spain 

I felt so weak, I actually had to sit down regularly to recuperate a bit of strength from time to time - this coming from a gal who can normally hike for hours at a time no problem! Bah.

I would then wobble to the next street where I would seek out once again the least-hot stone something or other to sit on while poor Alberto probably worried about having to call my family to explain their relative had up and melted in the middle of Spain.

Inside the city

We did enjoy a nice meal indoors where it was much cooler and where the people were rowdy and loud and even smoking despite the ban. They were all relatively old and the smokers probably couldn't care less they were breaking the law since they had been smoking for 50 years in the same restaurant before the ban came out. So sassy!

Anyway, there was, believe it or not, a river in this place, but I swear even the water looked dry. We found a nice path around it that provided some shade:

No really, look hard, there's water...

Well there was some shade anyway...

I was feeling a bit more alive after the walk, which is where the energy came from for the following photo, which also quickly left me after the effort of lifting my arms like that...

An adventure is an adventure no matter what the temperature!

Love,
Katie

Conozco solo el tiempo presente

"So.. wanna go to Egypt today?" asks Alex.

I think about it.

"Yea sure why not," I reply.

Alex is one of my language exchange buddies, and while he's actually from Romania, he's lived in Spain since he was young and so he speaks perfect Spanish. When we meet up, we like to go to a particular park where there is the Temple of Debod that came from Egypt as a gift to Spain for helping them out a while back, and it's pretty nifty, especially the carvings on the inside which are so old you can barely make them out.

From Wiki - The Temple of Debod

To be honest, I've lost the initial momentum I had in my motivation to learn Spanish (I blame the heat) and can't seem to learn the past tense all that well. I know if I could just sit down and teach myself I could get somewhere, but I'm bent on learning by listening this time, but this darn past tense will not stick.

I realize as I'm trying to explain this to Alex that "Conozco solo el tiempo presente." I only know the present tense.

Who knows if I'm saying it right, but he nods and laughs saying, "Well good for you, then you can live more fully in the present since that's all you can talk about!"

I laugh too and enjoy this little philosophical twist on my inability to speak much Spanish, and realize that really, that's what this past year has been about, that's what it should always be about. Sure, you shouldn't forget about the past or ignore the future, but don't harp on 'em either.

Nothing grand today folks, just a warm little moment to share with ya'll.

I'm also playing with it to see if it works as a blog title. Let me know if you like it.

Bisous,
Katie

Alone

A nun with Calvin Klein sunglasses listening to her iPod.

An elegantly dressed woman pushing a baby carriage and smoking.

A withered old man hobbling along slowly with a pipe hanging out of his mouth.

A young lady dressed in a hundred shades of pink with a rainbow turtle backpack and braids.

A blur of a bohemian skirt and rail-thin, deeply-tanned woman with a frizzy mop of hair.

A foreigner with a map and arched eyebrows and a look of desperation.

A very large man in a tight yellow t-shirt and green pants with a purple shopping bag.

Some guy on a skateboard annoying them all.

A woman with half a buzz-cut, half-shoulder-length hair.

Two teenager girls with curly black hair carrying books..

A balding business man with a cell phone in his mouth.

An ancient woman with white hair, bright blue sweater and light beige skirt.

An unusually tall young man sporting plaid and a pony tail.

A husband, surely, shuffling slowly behind his patient wife.

A mother holding the hand of her child in his crisp school uniform.

A hunchback woman conquering the sidewalk with her cane.

A couple walking hand in hand looking absolutely not in love.

A man J-walking, the sound of honking.

A young woman in a tube top dancing her way in front of two old ladies walking arm-in arm.

A 23-year-old American sitting in an old green sofa spying on them all and feeling slightly lost.

But hey, I love Madrid if only for the people-watching.

From the window of a cafe, I'm letting the city come to me as I sip on a tea I ordered in Spanish (woo I'm learning!) after 4 weeks of wandering around the city slightly aimlessly with 3 more to go.

I feel very strange.

This was the "difficult" part I mentioned in the last post. 

I have found several students to whom I tutor English to make a little money, I have made several friends with whom I speak English or Spanglish, but I have not quite found my groove in this city which I find more alive and with an energy more tangible than anywhere I've ever been.

I'm happy here, but something feels off.

Maybe it's because I am sort of floating around here. I came to Madrid with no real plans, except to pick up some Spanish and tutor some English if possible. I didn't have the money for classes or other traveling as I had hoped. The goal in coming here was to simply discover a new city and breathe a few more deep breaths before coming home for a moment and then heading off to grad school.

It's normal. I've felt like this before, with each study abroad and most recently my time in France working. It creeps up on you, this slightly melancholic, slightly nostalgic feeling. Sometimes it's homesickness, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it has to do with loneliness, other times it doesn't. Right now I don't feel lonely, but quite alone.

It reminds me of this beautiful poem performed to a song I discovered through a friend while abroad, which I think I will end with.

I wish I could write like her.

Basically,

It's alright to be alone.

Here are the lyrics as well, but please listen to it if you have a few minutes.

love,
Katie

--

HOW TO BE ALONE by Tanya Davis

If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you've not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren't okay with it, then just wait. You'll find it's fine to be alone once you're embracing it.

We could start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library. Where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books. You're not supposed to talk much anyway so it's safe there.

There's also the gym. If you're shy you could hang out with yourself in mirrors, you could put headphones in.

And there's public transportation, because we all gotta go places.

And there's prayer and meditation. No one will think less if you're hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously based on your avoid being alone principals.

The lunch counter. Where you will be surrounded by chow-downers. Employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town and so they -- like you -- will be alone.
Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.



When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner. A restaurant with linen and silverware. You're no less intriguing a person when you're eating solo dessert to cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies. Where it is dark and soothing. Alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community. And then, take yourself out dancing to a club where no one knows you. Stand on the outside of the floor till the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one's watching...because, they're probably not. And, if they are, assume it is with best of human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you're sweating, and beads of perspiration remind you of life's best things, down your back like a brook of blessings.
Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you.

Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, there're always statues to talk to and benches made for sitting give strangers a shared existence if only for a minute and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversations you get in by sitting alone on benches might've never happened had you not been there by yourself


Society is afraid of alonedom, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if, after a while, nobody is dating them. but lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it.

You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner, look both further and farther for the endless quest for company. But no one's in your head and by the time you translate your thoughts, some essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept.

Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those sappy slogans from preschool over to high school's groaning were tokens for holding the lonely at bay. Cuz if you're happy in your head than solitude is blessed and alone is okay.

It's okay if no one believes like you. 


All experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can't think like you, for this be releived, keeps things interesting lifes magic things in reach.

And it doesn't mean you're not connected, that community's not present,
just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it. 


take silence and respect it. 


if you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it. 


if your family doesn't get you, or religious sect is not meant for you, don't obsess about it.

you could be in an instant surrounded if you needed it
If your heart is bleeding make the best of it
There is heat in freezing, be a testament.

Why not move to Madrid for 7 weeks?

(As always, click on photos to enlarge to get a much clearer view)

So I've been in Madrid for a bit more than 3 weeks.

It's been fantastic.

And then it's been difficult.

Repeat.

I'm living in the what most people refer to as the "gay district" which is very close to Gran Via, the main street, and pretty much in the heart of the center.

Gran Via

Here is a peek at the street I'm living on plus a peek in either direction at the end of the street:

Yep, that entirely unimpressive-looking building is
where I'm staying. Don't judge a book by it's cover, however.

To the left

To the right

Coming here from the quiet, peaceful countryside of France made for quite an interesting change. It's incredibly loud most nights, with people up and about, partying and causing other general shenanigans until well past 6am, around the time they find a cafe to get breakfast and a coffee to sober up, and just as I wake up to start my day the noise dies down to be replaced with the general hum of life in the busiest city I've ever been in.

I have but to walk downstairs to be within 30 seconds distance of places I could go to buy nearly anything I could want in the world. Coffee, a disco ball or an avocado are all within instant reach should I ever be in urgent need of them. Or just the general, unhurried need of a disco ball and other such things.

The city is so alive, the energy is contagious. I'm constantly in a state of feeling slightly overwhelmed and very excited and, of course, lost in most senses of the word.

When I first arrived, the revolution was still pretty much in semi-full swing, and a 5 minute walk from the apartment takes you to Puerta del Sol, where people were still living in tents in the square protesting against the government. There were tents everywhere with people sharing ideas and speaking through megaphones, but then there were a lot of people who were just sitting on old couches under tarps drinking a beer in the mid-day heat or getting a haircut, for example:

Walking to Puerta del Sol

Puerta del Sol

A protest sign on the metro

They were here during the week it rained almost every day

Inside the tent area

A man getting a haircut in the midst of it all

It was really quite a sight. I felt very out of place as I walked around and took it all in, not being able to understand what was written on the posters or talk to anyone about it.

I came to Madrid knowing I'd stay here about 7 weeks and not much else. I spoke virtually no Spanish but have since found several language partners and have self-taught enough to speak a pretty survivor-level of Spanish, but I'm improving a lot day to day, each time I meet with someone new, and I have spoken for over an hour in Spanish on some days, albeit very poorly. It helps enormously knowing French, which also allows me to understand a lot more than I'm able to speak.

Anyway, I've also become a bit of a jogger for a lack of a better way to stay in shape. There is this former royal garden, "El Retiro" that I go to often, whether it be for a jog or a walk or to find a bench to park in to read a bit. It's ENORMOUS. It feels like a dozen gardens and parks in one:

On one end in El Retiro

fountains everywhere

One of my favorite gardens within the garden,
which I have dubbed "Peacock Paradise"

Mother and baby peacock 

They're sorta everywhere in this part of the garden

Where I read a bit

Great view for reading, no?

I often got lost in the beginning while jogging around because it's just so darn big, but it's kind of a magical place so I don't mind all that much.

Basically, this is the time that was left after leaving France but not having enough money to travel around like I had planned, for several long and complicated reasons I won't discuss here. I could have gone home early, but I could not pass up the chance to spend almost 2 months in Spain - I have always wanted to learn Spanish and never had the time, so I took advantage of Alberto's offer to visit.

Besides studying on my own and juggling a dozen tandem language partners, I also found a handful of people to teach English to to make a little money. And to be perfectly frank, besides these two main activities, I spend the rest of my time walking around, reading and writing.

I doubt there will ever be such a period in my life again (until after retirement perhaps?) where I will have such time and freedom, so I am simply trying to take it all in as much as possible and, little by little, mentally prepare myself for coming home on July 19th.

Love,
Katie