May 2006

The soundtrack to my family life in Spain is the drone of the television. I´ve seen snippets of dubbed American movies--one was on Saturday where Richard Gere was a knight or something and the guy who did his voice sounded like Jean Claude Van Damme-- and shows like Family Guy (whose humor is definitely compromised in translation), Law and Order (which I don´t even watch in English), and my mama´s favorite: Supervivientes (Survivor).
I guess the appeal and turnoff of reality shows is the drama. In Spain, even newscasters are ridiculously animated. They make a car accident sound like an extra-marital affair. So the genre of reality shows is almost unbearable (or fabulous, depending on your taste).
Supervivientes is broadcasted during dinnertime, and her face visibly lights up to the sound of the theme song. Before I ever saw an episode, she tried to explain it to me: 15 people, perform challenges, live on an island. She excitedly relayed the details of several episodes: eating ants, staring into balls of fire. These were the pieces of sentences that I could catch as she rattled on about her favorite show. Then, I saw my first episode...
Supervivientes works a little bit like American Idol here. It is broadcasted two times a week, once on the island where they show the people attempting each challenge. The following day, the show is broadcasted from Madrid, where the tacky host brings in family members and others into the studio, and asks them to comment on the previous day´s show, and then the loser is voted off before a live studio audience.
Yesterday, my mama´s favorite female performed pretty poorly. Let´s just say that I´m not looking forward to dinner tonight.

For those who know me, even a little bit, this entry has been a long time coming. Living in a coastal town on the Meditteranean, I find the cuisine pretty standard as far as that goes: various types of fish, seafood, rice and tropical fruits. But this is no Red Lobster.
The meat is often mixed into some sort of salad doused in olive oil. Here, the dessert of choice is flavored yogurt (strawberry Petit Suisse is my new love). The leche fria (cold milk) is more lukewarm than anything and pumped with preservatives. It sits in a box on grocery store shelves until opened. But I dont mind its temperature, am actually getting used to it, and am pretty sure I´m the only one on this trip who feels this way. "Pop" is nowhere to be found here in Alicante, the cheese is soft and gooey, and Zuma (juice) comes in all kinds of yummy tropical flavors. Today, my mama packed me zumo de pina, my favorite!
Here, Chinese restaurants all have the same name (restaurante chino) and aren´t not worth their prices. So far I´ve found one Indian restaurant that doesn´t look to have a single vegetarian entree (so weird!). And the tapas bars are everywhere.
Tapas: a variety of meats, cheeses and/or vegetables, either fried, grilled or prepared cold, and served on slices of baguette, to be accompanied with wine or cerveza. For example, yesterday I went out for tapas with a friend and had a plate of three tapas with white wine. One was a fried spinach croqueta on a slice of zuchhini. The other was a vegetarian pate´ of cucumber, tomato, olive oil and goat cheese atop baguette. I don´t remember the last one. Two old jovial men at the bar bought me two tapas and unfortunately, both had hunks of bacon on them so they sat on my plate, uneaten.
But Spanish food isn´t nearly the nightmare that I was fearing. It will be hard going back to Iowa. That said, I miss Indian food like burning! My mama here in Alicante seems not have discovered the wonders of salt, let alone pepper, garlic, cardamom and cilantro.

Yesterday, a bunch of us went to the open market near the bull-fighting rink, and it reminded me a lot of India. From my journal:
The market crawls with people--a slow, sauntering Spanish crawl. It´s a one-stop shop: grocery store meets deli meets mall. Next to a stall selling sunglasses is another selling kalamata olives; it´s an interesting, convenient juxtaposition of products, different from what is found in the States, although we are perhaps moving in the same direction, with establishments like Wal Mart Supercenters (the difference is, these markets do not thrive on exploitation and elimination).
Here, the vendors are more laid back than those in the US. They aren´t in my face while I windowshop, unlike the freaks at The Gap at North Grand Mall. In fact, I practically had to flag one down to get any attention. I wanted to buy a kilo of oranges.
Of all of the various products, shoes seem to be the most common stall item. Perhaps it is because they are relatively easy to transport? The produce enjoys seasonal rotation; when my host mother and I talked about the availability of fruits and veggies here relative to the US, she was shocked to hear that I can eat grapes (among other things) year-round in Iowa.
Bargaining is the name of the game here. I dare not open my mouth for fear of being discovered a foreigner. But I´ve made a good purchase.
The oranges are sun-warmed and sticky and explode juice in my mouth.

I love Spain. I really do. I love that shopkeepers don´t harass me when I merely want to windowshop. I love that people assume that I´m a native Spaniard and when I flub up their language, they don´t deride me. I love the nocturnal culture (to which I´m still becoming accustomed) and the smell of paella but I draw the line at--

1) MULLETS. They´re like a nightmare that I live day and night. I wonder if they never left Europe, or if (worse) they are making a fashion comeback. If the latter, than I should prepare myself for at least another year of them, when I get back to the States and all of the guys there finally catch up. Some days, I have violent urges to chop off every mane that I see with a sharp pair of scissors. Another violent urge: kicking a pigeon. They´re so damn arrogant.

2) Pint-size toilets and elevators. I had been warned in advance, but they´re claustrophobic nonetheless.

3) Seeing Burger Kings, McDonalds, KFC, and Starbucks everywhere in Madrid. Que triste! Along the same lines, there are several (bad) tv shows in the states that have been dubbed into Spanish. Kelly and I are subjected to them during every meal. Our family watches TV all day, every day.

Surprisingly, my vegetarianism has gone over quite well here. I get a variety of vegetables, fruit bread, cheese and milk here, and quite balanced meals. In fact, the produce is much more varied and fresh here, which I like.

Heading south from Madrid, the Spanish countryside is patchwork green and brown. Short, shrub-like trees and olive groves speckle the land, and unlike in Iowa, the passerby is never subjected to the smell of animal feces. I guess the thing that struck me immediately about Spanish "farms" (orchards?) is that they surround the village center. Every few miles, there is a cluster of homes, with the cathedral or church standing prominently in the middle. And all of the pastures lead away from the homes... In Iowa, the land is visibly private rather than communal, owned by one farmer who lives in one house and has no neighboring houses as far as the eye can see.

As a former West Virginian, I didn´t realize how much I missed seeing mountains; it has been nearly five years since I´ve been back. Here, the topography is haphazard and beautiful. Atop several cliffs are medieval castles, abandoned I guess. And I counted three marble statues of Mary randomly on the side of the road (sure beats roadkill).

Alicante is in a very dry part of Spain, and they´ve been experiencing a drought for a couple years now. But the beaches bring humidity and some cool breezes, so at the end of May, I couldn´t dream of better weather. Yesterday, Kelly (my roommate) and I wandered down to the Esplanade and had some pizza and tiramisu (not very Spanish, and therefore quite good) in an outdoor cafe. We then wandered over to the beach, where I saw two pickpockets successfully steal 2 people´s backpacks. It was insane! This afternoon, I am going to go to the open fruit market near the Plaze de los Toros (bull fighting stadium) and have been warned by my host parents to hold tight to my bag, and plan to do just that.