¡Ay, cabra!

You may need to read this one in sections. I even told myself to keep it short, but it turned out to be 7 pages in a Word document. I included lots of feelings, just for you Sara. I’m not sure if I was able to say what I really felt since I think I’ve lost my touch with the subtleties of English, but I tried.

Small world, the Nordic Choir performed at the cathedral in Alcalá. For those who don’t know, the Nordic Choir is from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. I went with two of my friends, just as something to do to kill time until cena. I ended up being an hour and a half late to eat, but I am so glad I went to the concert. Listening to an incredible choir in a beautiful cathedral with typical cathedral acoustics was absolutely the most impressive thing I’ve ever heard. Not to mention the organ. Apparently, the organ hadn’t been played in a while. A member of the choir played it for one of the songs, and we were talking to him afterward (because he happened to be from the same high school as one of my friends) and he got a lot of compliments about his playing and how “organs are made for people like him.” I recommend hearing a choir in a cathedral to anyone and everyone. Indescribable. I’ve been thinking a lot about religion lately, especially how and why Christianity started and gained such a headstrong following. Sitting before a gigantic hanging Crucifix, getting goose bumps listening to the choir left me awestruck. I can understand how people back in the day could believe it were the power of God. To me, the power of music was impressive. Having visited a few local establishments and hearing street musicians in Madrid and Seville, music is such a connecting human characteristic. Music feels like English to me because it’s so natural, but at the same time, I imagine it feels Spanish to a Spaniard. We are speaking the same language then and understanding each other perfectly. After the concert, a group of about six performed an informal a capella song and it was incredible. I think there’s a vid on facebook of them that I’m tagged in. I’ll check and tag it.

I went to León with Caitlin to see Noelia’s family last weekend. I think it is going to be the highlight of Spain. The landscape and people were both mesmerizing. I wish I would have had time to write everything down because I’ve already forgotten a lot. However, I don’t think I could have ever accurately conveyed the atmosphere of the pueblos and the warmth of Noelia’s family. I fell in love with Castilla y León, I think. I didn’t take near as many pictures as I wanted to, but I plan on stealing some from both Caitlin and Noelia. I’ll probably make my own facebook album consisting solely of “borrowed” pictures.

The only touristy (sorta) thing we did was go hiking in the Parque Nacional de los Picos de Europa (The Peaks of Europe National Park). It wasn’t too touristy because most of you know I hate being seen as a tourist. The peaks were beautiful, then it rained, and it was a whole new kind of beautiful. I’ve heard some quote, “Some people feel the rain, others just get wet.” This applies to more than just physical rain, but you understand how relevant it was here. Yeah, I wasn’t exactly dressed or prepared for rain, but the sound of the rain, the wet socks, the heavy jeans, and the weight of the mountains added to make it something I could feel. I was wet, but I wasn’t just wet. Get it? The rain and fog made the mountains so majestic and mysterious, like some kind of immortal Goliath that has been there forever and will be there forever. Sometimes they can be seen, sometimes they are hidden, but they remain sitting. It’s almost like they’re waiting for something just enduring what’s happening right now because they know, in that majestic, mysterious way, that something else is coming… Sorry, I have a lot of time to think when I can’t always say what I want to, when I want to (on account of the whole Spanish thing) and even when I can, my mind likes to take my body for a walk on its leash.

Anyway, this is where the title came from. I saw a mountain goat and yelled, “¡Ay, cabra!” naturally and excitedly. Caitlin laughed at me because it does sound weird when Americans say things like ¡Ay! and it probably wasn’t something a Spaniard would say. Would it be funny if someone said in English, “Oh goodness gracious, a goat!”?? I dunno. I think the whole situation was funnier for those involved. After hiking, we ate some authentic northern food: fabada (a bean heavy soup with a few pieces of sausage-y meat), I forgot the second course was, cidre (cider that tastes like a mixture of wine and beer to me and is always drunk from a shared cup), and nocilla and something else that I forgot the name of (nocilla is a delicious custard/pudding thing and the other thing we had was the worst tasting “yogurt” I’ve ever had in my life and I’ve had expired yogurt. It came with honey, though, which tasted a lot like honey). There were also dogs that looked like lions, but they were just dogs.

Noelia also took us to see “typical Spanish” in some other pueblos. First of all, a pueblo is like a town but different. It’s one of those things you really can’t translate directly. There’s a lot of emotion connected to the word pueblo, even for me and I’ve only visited. Imagine what the word implies for people who have lived there their whole life. They are tiny little village/towns that are stereotypical European. I didn’t think this kind of place actually existed. I’ve only seen it in movies so assumed it wasn’t actually that common. Tiny, tiny roads made of stone to match the stone houses, old couples with a cane or flowers or the day’s bread, and countless little details that make each new direction I look new but familiar and welcoming. I wanted to go up every alley and around every corner because the whole place seemed like a fantasy. I didn’t think this kind of place actually existed, remember? I hope the pictures I post will help explain it. There was one couple we visited: Isaac and Bernadina. They have lived in their pueblo for their entire lives and rarely leave. People go to see them because they are genuine, heartfelt people. When we drove up, we had to go slow so the free-range chickens and new baby chicks had time to get out of the way. The two dogs were the first to welcome us followed closely by Issac who was sitting outside the house on a bench looking like he was remembering some interesting story he wanted to tell. Dos besos (two kisses) for everyone once we were invited into the modest house for wine, meat, and cheese. The small kitchen, with the cut of meat hanging from the ceiling to cure and the red-hot coals burning slowly in what looked like a hole where a floor level cabinet used to be, was cozy. We had just met but Isaac was so willing to give all that he had. Well, not all of course, but the earnest he showed in offering another piece of meat or another cup of wine was true. I didn’t always understand what they were saying, but they way spoke, especially Bernadina, was so funny to me. She always seemed to be yelling, you know how old ladies are, and when she talked to Isaac it was like she was scolding him. I don’t wanna use the word cute, so I won’t, but it was.

Driving through another pueblo, Noelia suddenly stopped and rolled down my window. She started yelling up the hill to a lady in her “yard.” The lady stopped and looked for a second and just said, “¿Quiééén?” She seemed really confused by who it was at first but once Noelia told her you could tell, even from that far away, that her face kinda lit up. They yelled back and forth for a while. Kiki was her name, and she invited us in for some food, which we had to decline since, although not in a hurry, never in a hurry in Spain, we were still on our way somewhere. As we drove away, Noelia just said, “very a Spanish,” but to me, it was just very real. It’s the side of Spain I didn’t really expect to see. Away from the cities, away from the places everyone has recommended, I found people I knew. They are people that reminded me of Iowa, where people stop in the middle of the street to yell to an old friend. I felt a sense of connectedness and a vision of this huge network that stretches to every person on earth. We aren’t really that different, are we?

In Noelia’s pueblo of Puente Almuhey, we stayed in the family’s house which is connected to their bakery. To me, the house was gigantic, but there are up to 6 people staying there at once; more if friends are over. The house felt like a hotel to me, but not. I’ve never been to a bed and breakfast, but I think it would be like that. Only, the family was nice because they are nice and not because we were paying them as if it were a bed and breakfast because we weren’t paying them, they were just nice and let us stay with them. Did that sentence make sense? It was so awesome to eat meals with them, play cards with them and their friends, teach each other language, share YouTube videos, everything. Noelia’s brother took Caitlin and me to the local bar. It was just a small town, everyone knows everyone kind of bar. I would have never gone in if I hadn’t been invited. It was fun. Staying with them was the highlight of the highlight, I think.

Talking about the weekend on the way home instigated some interesting thought. I don’t want to analyze it fully because I could probably write quite a bit about each one. Instead, I’m going to list them like essay topics, which I might decided to expand upon later.
-That lifestyle dies with them (talking about Isaac and Bernadina).
-Torre, Noelia’s neighbor and pretty much member of the family, reminded me so much of a Malvern person. Again, do all the differences between our cultures outweigh the similarities enough that war was ever or is ever necessary? Maybe not necessarily with Spain, but what about other places? I’d like to go to those other places to see if we are more alike or different. I think I already know the answer.
-The connections you make with people are what you remember, not the stupid tourist stuff. Even when you don’t understand all the words, the emotions and feelings and ideas are still there. It’s crazy when you can connect with people like that. It almost seems strong than if I would have been able to understand every sentence perfectly. It’s like we struggled together to understand each other so we have that little extra bit of ourselves invested in the other one.

So, this blog is long. It’s been a while since my last post and a lot has happened, so I’m just going to tell you stories and ramble like I do. I know a series of unorganized, tangent thoughts is frustrating to read, but thanks for doing it anyway.
Here’s another section:

Arbitrary Observations and Comical Language Encounters
- It’s hot. Very hot. All the time. The north was actually pretty cold. It’s weird how you don’t have to go very far to be in a completely different climate. From Madrid, you can get some sun on a Mediterranean beach or go skiing in the mountains after driving only a few hours in the car. Compare that to 12 hours to Colorado and who knows how many to a beach when leaving from Iowa City.
- Mullets are still in style as are mohawks. Unfortunately, the mohawk-mullet is NOT a rare enough find. I decided today that I’m getting my haircut like a European.
- A lot of guys have an ear pierced. That part closest to your head that you wouldn’t think would be pierced is most popular. There are also a lot of random places pierced like just pieces of skin anywhere on the body.
- Censorship in the media doesn’t really exist. Nudity and incredibly violent images of corpses and such are shown.
- Popped collars abound.
- Two of the bars in Alcalá that I’ve been to had signs banning requests for reggaeton. I don’t know why I thought that was really funny.
- Spanish has five vowel sounds (a,e,i,o,u) while English has 13, not including diphthongs. So, it’s hard for Spaniards to pronounce some English vowel sounds. While in León with Noelia’s family, Torre was trying really hard to pronounce something. All I kept hearing was ‘cock, cock, cock.’ I was telling him in Spanish what he was saying and he was really confused. Apparently, he was trying to say ‘cook’ then switched to saying ‘coke,’ but they sounded the same. Anyway, cooks, cokes, nor cocks had anything to do with the conversation at hand. It was hilarious.
- Noelia was asking about people from Malvern and what people in my class are doing now. Since I haven’t been home for anything other than Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Spring Break in over two years, I didn’t have much info for her. She did ask about Sara Woolery, with whom I keep in contact. I didn’t understand her accent when she said “Sara Woolery” so she said something like “The Amish one,” and I explained that Sara’s not Amish, but she always wore long dresses. “…pero siempre estaba vestido en faldas.” At least, that’s what I meant to answer. I actually said, “…pero siempre estaba vestido en alfombras,” which we all know means that she always wore not one but two or more carpets.
- This isn’t the French reference I was talking about in my last post, but I heard another one. We were in Puente Almuhey with Noelia’s family and they were asking about our heritage. This is roughly what was said:
Caitlin, “Mis antepasados son Franceses.”
The family, “¡Qué curso!”
Caitlin has some French in her, which is apparently worthy of pity from the family. The way they said it and the context and everything, I thought curso meant curse or something like that. I just looked it up and it means year, class, or course, but not course like rough, course like route. So now the whole situation doesn’t make sense to me. I wonder how many times I’ve thought I understood someone’s Spanish and been completely wrong. All well, no pasa nada.
- A good chunk of the countryside on the way to León was covered in grapes. We spontaneously decided to stop at a vineyard. They were really nice and gave us a tour. It included a lot of very unfamiliar vocabulary so I’m not quite sure how everything worked but it was still really cool. There was a really fancy place underground that looked like it was for wine tastings, but the lady said they don’t have them down there because it’s cold. They also kept all the barrels down there. By ‘barrels’ I mean ‘baaaaaaarrrrrreeeeellllllllsssss,’ which is Spanish for ‘there were so many darn barrels in that basement.’ Then they gave us each a little bottle of free wine. Also, I learned that they put the SAME EXACT WINE into two different labels. One goes to a restaurant and costs 20€ and the other goes to a store and costs 7€, but they are the same wine!
- I found a good place in Alcalá. We got 3 drinks and tapas for only 9€. Cha-ching!
- I also met some good local friends to have. They are friends with a lot of the bartenders… Also, they are both multilingual. One speaks German, Spanish and English. The other one speaks, get this, Dutch, Taiwanese, Spanish, English, and Mandarin. Yep. The English taught here is English English, so a lot of people have accents which is kinda funny. Anyway, after talking to them for a while, they are really interesting people and I can’t wait to go out with them again.
- Later that night a friend and I met some French guys. They were really impressed with my French, which consists of a little more than 15 words. It was a new experience switching from Spanish to French to English to French to English to Spanish. If I couldn’t say something in one language I could say it in another, and if one of us didn’t understand the other, we had at least one other language to try to say it in. I don’t know if meeting at least bilingual people is common or if it was a bit of an anomaly that night, but it was cool.
- We visited Palacio Real (the Royal Palace) in Madrid for my art class. It was cool. Painted ceilings, sculptures, tapestries, etc. Then my group and I did our group project homework on the steps of the Cathedral next to the Palace. Pretty sweet.
- I saw the biggest dam in Europe when I visited Castilla y León. At least I think it was the biggest. Eight pueblos were destroyed from the resulting lake formation. A lot of the older people, like Isaac and Bernadina, insisted on staying and dying in the pueblo where their ancestors are buried rather than move. Of course, no one actually did that, but it was still incredibly moving.
- In León, there were a lot of fountains just on the side of the road coming out of the hillside. Not fountains like, “Ooh, that’s a pretty fountain.” They were working drinking fountains but were still really cool because there were made out of stone and were super old.

Here’s more about “people not being different” that I’m only including because Sara said she wouldn’t mind this kind of stuff. I had to write it for a report I write every year about my summer for one of my scholarships.

>>My entire experience abroad thus far could take up about fifty pages of this section. Taking a risk and completely immersing myself in a strange, new, and completely different environment has been both challenging and rewarding, clearly worthy of writing about. I suppose I shouldn’t say “completely” different. The similarities I notice are just as important as the differences, and there are similarities. When my Spanish sister and I can share something as simple as loving ice cream, we are actually sharing something much more. It shines light on connection people all over the world share, even if it is only liking sweets. This isn’t the first time I’ve felt this way, nor the last, I expect. Sometimes, living in the middle of a gigantic country, even in a diverse university town, there’s a sense of unrealism when it comes to considering other nations, peoples, and cultures. The “they” used to refer to foreigners so many times, although not meant in a hateful way at all, seems to be a wall to me. The war is happening “over there” or that earthquake happened in “that country” or that tsunami destroyed “their homes.” It’s weird how I feel like I’ve unconsciously categorized “them” into a category unique from people I know. Not to be misunderstood, I, by no means, have ever had any feelings of either race-superiority or that one group of people is more “human” than another. I’m trying to say that that invented wall I didn’t realize was there has come down. It’s still mind-boggling to me when I consider that people thousands of miles away, who live in a starkly different culture, are more like me than I could possibly imagine. With the current political situation, my mind couldn’t help but wander to the Middle East and Islamic culture in the US. Two questions keep running through my head: “Are Muslims that different from me? Why did I used to think so?” Like I said, I’ve never harbored hateful feelings. However, I would always tell myself that everyone is equal; there are no differences, but I think that imaginary wall was still there before. All of this makes me fantasize about a world where the differences between people aren’t the focus and cause of war and turmoil, but rather the similarities are realized and differences celebrated. It sounds like the daydream of a liberal nut-job, and maybe that’s what it is and that’s what I am, but I know it’s the truth behind what I feel.<<