So, It’s a quiet Wednesday afternoon at Finnegan’s; we’re all just recovered from Fallas – a week long explosion of sight and sound that ended two days ago in the early hours of Monday morning, March 20th.
My participation this time around was mostly on my terms. The center closed last Wednesday for the festival, so I had a few extra days off. I took the opportunity that Wednesday morning to watch Star Wars…oh the things you tend to do while sitting around the house.
Thursday, Daniel had no school, so he and I hung out for the majority of the day on our own. Most of that time we played in his room – blocks, cowboys and horses (an interesting game where I’m the horse, D is the cowboy riding the horse, and he pulls this little pop-up house down on top of us…???), and built a couple of cool things with legos.
I needed a break Thursday afternoon, so went to Valencia to wander around the Fallas and parades. The city was definitely busy, but I wasn’t in any hurry, so sort of ambled around the crowds, ultimately managing to get my ass fairly lost. A lot of streets were blocked off, which didn’t help me get my bearings. But, I really only had a few moments where I felt a little antsy, and then I stumbled onto a street I knew.
I used to play this game when I lived in Boston (I refer to the game as “I’m in city X, but don’t have any fucking idea where I am!”), and eventually learned all the neighborhoods really well. The added bonus in this particular round was the additional mass of people: bands marching, Falleros strolling, and everyone setting off fire crackers. Cool. (quick note about marching bands in Spain…they seem to be very fun to be part of. Young members play along with old members, and the spectators just love them. This is a striking difference from the times when junior high students carrying French horns would get beat up while walking down the hallway at school…)
Once I’d had enough of the crowd, I headed back to the metro, and got to ride home with what seemed to be half the city. I’m the sadistic bastard who loves the sensation of cramming into a metro car to the point of being unable to breathe, only to get off at home and say, “Whew! That was awesome!”
Friday, Daniel and I hung out for the morning, then I took him to his grandmothers, and met up with Lynne and her coworkers. Once again, we crammed ourselves onto the metro bound for city center. Whew! That was awesome!
During Fallas, each day at 2pm there is a mascletá, basically an extensive fireworks show in the daytime. It starts at the beginning of March, and the displays increase in intensity from day as we near March 19th, the last day of Fallas.
This being the 17th, we were in for a pretty intense time. Thousands of people crowd into the town hall plaza, and at 2pm on the nose, things go crazy. We’re talking sensations that ripple clothes and (probably) damage hearing.
During the finale, not that anyone could hear me, I said more than once, “Fucking A.” The intensity easily surpasses any rock show I’ve attended…and the mascletá only lasts for 10-15 minutes.
Afterwards, Lynne, Fran and I met Maribel and Andres at a restaurant, then walked around for a few hours looking at the various Fallas. The Fallas themselves are impressively detailed papier-maché structures, many are several stories tall. (Hit a website or two to actually see what these look like…this isn’t a travel guide…)
Now, we had a fairly leisurely stroll around, but there were a lot of people, and many folks were chucking fire crackers around, so it was all a bit surreal. Eventually, we’d seen enough, and proceeded to hike back to Lynne’s work to collect the car, then back to Alboraya to pick up Daniel.
Saturday, we took it easy during the morning and afternoon, including naps to prepare for the evening’s festivities. In the end, Fran stayed at home with D, so Lynne and I met up with Maribel and Andres for tapas, then headed to a particular Falla where we’d been invited.
Falla clubs are pretty interesting, but the groups, after spending a good part of the year building their Falla, throw sort of an exclusive party for themselves (and guests), leaving all the other people to flood the streets. Being connected has its advantages, and I’m certainly glad to have been included on the guest list. That said, “inside the tent” was a bit stuffy (climate-wise). A band was playing cover songs, and rather poorly. The whole thing reminded me of some wedding receptions that I’ve been to where I really didn’t know anyone. Still, it was really great to be able to see a Falla up close…to actually touch it. In less than 24 hours, it would be burned to cinders.
At 1.30am, we all gathered to watch a fireworks display, which was impressive, but not particularly overwhelming.
Around 3, Lynne and I accompanied our friends to locate a lost little brother of one of the girls in our group. (She happened to be a single 35 year old, rather on the attractive side, but that’s another story…)
After finding the brother, we parted company, and Lynne and I headed home. In a raffle at the Falla fiesta, I had won a paella pan and a coat hanger (don’t ask) which we were lugging with us as we walked over a Calatrava bridge back to the metro.
I fell asleep as the sun was rising Sunday morning, March 19th, Father’s Day in Spain. I slept as late as I could with a 3 ½ year old in the house, then we headed a few kilometres outside of town to a restaurant for lunch. My old friend Felip (who used to have a place in Meliana) was the chef, and we enjoyed a nice meal celebrating Fran.
Afterwards, we took a little walk to an area where Fran used to rock climb. These weren’t mountains so much as really big hills with cliffs, but pretty fucking cool. One might feel like saying Fucking A.
Sunday night, we all sort of collapsed after a busy few days. Daniel had a bit of a melt down, which made for a less than quiet exhaustion. At midnight, we switched on the TV to watch the Fallas burn. I’d seen this event in person 18 years ago, but this time, had no regrets watching from the comfort of the living room. I did pop up on the terrace to look around the city at the various fireworks displays…along with the thick smoke from the various burning Fallas. It almost resembled a war zone.
This always amazes me. Monday, the city was back to normal. The streets were clean, and no fireworks were in sight. The only signs that a huge festival had just finished were a few tired looking people walking around. Lynne and I took Daniel to Finnegan’s for lunch, where he napped while we ate. Upon waking up feeling a bit crabby, he pouted in the bathroom for about 20 minutes. Eventually, we managed to leave (coaxing him out with the promise of a donut or something from a bakery), and went over to the center where I teach. I stayed to work, and the two of them proceeded home via metro, chatting merrily with several people then encountered on the train.
Yesterday was relatively low key for most of us: I took the morning to watch the Empire Strikes Back and the Return of the Jedi (reminder to self….need more movies around the house). I was interrupted once when Lynne called to tell me how her morning was going: she’d forgotten that she’d left the car parked in Alboraya the day before, so they had failed to pick it up when returning home via metro the night before. She discovered this at 5 minutes before 9am, thus creating a rather hectic experience of trying to get D to school, metro two towns over, pick up the car, and drive herself to work by 9.30. As I hung up the phone after our conversation, I thought to myself that things like this happen when there’s too much going on.
I, on the other hand, am cool, calm, and collected. Er, kind of. I certainly have more free time than before…I’ve had one or two moments where I’ve actually felt idle.
My students are on military duties for the next two weeks, and then we have Easter holidays for a week and a half. This is something I’m still adjusting to. I’ve always known 45-55 hour work weeks, and now I’m putting in 15 hours of work a week at most. From a vacation standpoint…excellent. From a “let´s get cracking” perspective, perhaps a bit more difficult to gain momentum.
So, I’m in my 5th week of a new life, and stumbling around a little. My Spanish needs work, and come to think of it, I need to make some money, too. Three weeks without classes in April isn’t helping that.
However, springtime is here, and I’m trying to ground myself. I’m still smiling a ton (though I wasn’t smiling on the metro the other day when I thought some guy was grabbing my ass….whew, it was only my backpack afterall). I’m a few weeks away from turning 36 (“Now we are 36,” he says in his best Christopher Robbins) and it seems perfectly all right to be sitting in an Irish pub in the middle of Valencia at 4.15pm contemplating another Guinness.
keep the faith
bryan
22/3/06
note – thanks for all the emails…it’s nice to hear about the stateside happenings.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
30 Days....y ¿qué?
18 years ago, on this very day, I spent my first hours in Valencia having a beer at Burger King with my sister and her roommate; quite the way to celebrate a week of Fallas. As a 17 year old, I was a bit new to all the debauchery, but I learned quickly. Even my parents (gasp!) allowed me to imbibe more than just a mere glass of wine with dinner. The fiestas were immense…and the week went down as one of the very best experiences o my life.
Yesterday, I had a chance to look at my sister’s scrapbook from that spring, and had some pleasant (albeit frightening) memories as I looked at old photos of me walking around Valencia wearing Sid Vicious and Clash t-shirts.
As you know, my sister, who was studying in Valencia that spring of 1988, has since made Valencia her home for the past decade and a half. I, on the other hand, am marking my 30th day in Spain. I no longer wear skater shoes, but other than that, my dress code hasn’t changed all that much; I still have that Clash shirt…
Well, the past 30 days have been incredible. No, I haven’t made it on to the front page of the newspaper yet, but I’m looking for my own Kinky Friedman….rock it up, Pablo.
First off- the vacation period is over – I’ve been running pretty hard since I landed in Spain. That said, it’s a bit of a slower pace for me, and a pace that I’m very fond of. There is ALWAYS time for coffee.
Second- I need to once again express my respect for those who have immersed yourselves in another language…wow. I spent the first two weeks here frantically hoping nobody would talk to me in Spanish, just so I could avoid yet another moment in “deer in the headlights” mode. I just couldn’t seem to understand what anyone was saying.
But, with a little encouragement from friends and myself, along with just a small bit of alcohol (“small” for the purposes of this story is roughly equivalent to the consumption habits of bryan on any Greenville Avenue St Patrick’s parade….which leads me to wonder about the level of enthusiasm for a travel book I might have to write one day entitled, Europe on Fifteen Pints a Day. Hmmm.) I’ve started to gain some traction.
At any rate, I have got a long way to go language-wise, but I’m making progress.
I joined a gym my second week here, and it has helped me to establish a routine. I’ve since lost 10 pounds, thanks in part to the daily trips to the gym, not to mention the improved diet.
The conditions of my residence visa required me to file some paperwork with the government within 30 days of my arrival, and though I didn’t deliberately try to wait until the last minute, I did hit a couple of obstacles. Long lines in scary places of the city at the immigration office just aren’t all that fun….and make the local DPS lines an afternoon at the beach. I can report, though, that aside from the unpleasantness, I now have my little temporary ID, and in another few weeks will get my actual photo ID card.
As I said earlier, there wasn’t much of a vacation period, I began teaching classes my first week in Spain. Currently, I’m teaching four private classes. All my students are officers in the military. This punk had to back off the anti-military stance just a tad, but we’re all getting along fine, and I’m actually enjoying the teaching experience.
The other teachers at the center where I work all seem pretty cool. One is some guy from Philly who happens to be a skater. If anyone of you happens to see Mike Wallace at the Old Monk, let him know that the report is skating in Valencia is excellent, but Barcelona is even better.
I’ll elaborate more on the teaching experience and my fellow teachers at some point in the future, but one of the funniest moments I’ve had since my arrival happened with the director and another teacher. The three of us were sitting in the office area of the main room of Casa Americana (where I work), and Alan was streaming some songs sung by Richard Cheese…who does lounge covers of various popular songs, including “Enter Sandman”, “Creep”, “Me So Horny,” etc. We were just discussing the fact that perhaps we shouldn’t play the 2 Live Crew song again, lest it offend any of the adult students sitting in the lobby, when a Slipknot song came on, and before we could do anything, “Come on motherfucker, everybody has to die!” blares throughout the room.
We all sort of stood there and tried to act like nothing unusual had happened. Then, I burst into peals of laughter as Alan scrambled to skip to the next song. OK, so maybe you had to be there, but the absurdity of it all was great. I’m certainly in the right teaching environment.
A quick comment on coffee and cigarettes. Yes, I’m still consuming both. However, I’m now only paying 1.10€ for a coffee, so feel free to remind your local Starbucks that they’re ripping people off. Cigarettes cost less, of course, but I’m actually smoking less, too. (Now is not the time to read anything into that statement….I’m merely pointing out a personal observation.)
All in all, adjusting to a new life seems to be going ok, as I fully expected. Last Friday I sang at a wedding ceremony, and at some point, I may have to play piano at a few choir concerts, and no one is more surprised than me to be doing this kind of thing. Nothing else I’ve done is really out of character, though. I’m still likely to jog across town in a a dew rag, soccer shoes and shorts to pick up my nephew from school, and, yep, I just developed yet another crush on a waitress here at the Irish bar I’m sitting in. Bryan is Bryan, regardless of the country.
So as I start my second month here, I continue to smile…
Keep the faith
bryan
13/03/06
Yesterday, I had a chance to look at my sister’s scrapbook from that spring, and had some pleasant (albeit frightening) memories as I looked at old photos of me walking around Valencia wearing Sid Vicious and Clash t-shirts.
As you know, my sister, who was studying in Valencia that spring of 1988, has since made Valencia her home for the past decade and a half. I, on the other hand, am marking my 30th day in Spain. I no longer wear skater shoes, but other than that, my dress code hasn’t changed all that much; I still have that Clash shirt…
Well, the past 30 days have been incredible. No, I haven’t made it on to the front page of the newspaper yet, but I’m looking for my own Kinky Friedman….rock it up, Pablo.
First off- the vacation period is over – I’ve been running pretty hard since I landed in Spain. That said, it’s a bit of a slower pace for me, and a pace that I’m very fond of. There is ALWAYS time for coffee.
Second- I need to once again express my respect for those who have immersed yourselves in another language…wow. I spent the first two weeks here frantically hoping nobody would talk to me in Spanish, just so I could avoid yet another moment in “deer in the headlights” mode. I just couldn’t seem to understand what anyone was saying.
But, with a little encouragement from friends and myself, along with just a small bit of alcohol (“small” for the purposes of this story is roughly equivalent to the consumption habits of bryan on any Greenville Avenue St Patrick’s parade….which leads me to wonder about the level of enthusiasm for a travel book I might have to write one day entitled, Europe on Fifteen Pints a Day. Hmmm.) I’ve started to gain some traction.
At any rate, I have got a long way to go language-wise, but I’m making progress.
I joined a gym my second week here, and it has helped me to establish a routine. I’ve since lost 10 pounds, thanks in part to the daily trips to the gym, not to mention the improved diet.
The conditions of my residence visa required me to file some paperwork with the government within 30 days of my arrival, and though I didn’t deliberately try to wait until the last minute, I did hit a couple of obstacles. Long lines in scary places of the city at the immigration office just aren’t all that fun….and make the local DPS lines an afternoon at the beach. I can report, though, that aside from the unpleasantness, I now have my little temporary ID, and in another few weeks will get my actual photo ID card.
As I said earlier, there wasn’t much of a vacation period, I began teaching classes my first week in Spain. Currently, I’m teaching four private classes. All my students are officers in the military. This punk had to back off the anti-military stance just a tad, but we’re all getting along fine, and I’m actually enjoying the teaching experience.
The other teachers at the center where I work all seem pretty cool. One is some guy from Philly who happens to be a skater. If anyone of you happens to see Mike Wallace at the Old Monk, let him know that the report is skating in Valencia is excellent, but Barcelona is even better.
I’ll elaborate more on the teaching experience and my fellow teachers at some point in the future, but one of the funniest moments I’ve had since my arrival happened with the director and another teacher. The three of us were sitting in the office area of the main room of Casa Americana (where I work), and Alan was streaming some songs sung by Richard Cheese…who does lounge covers of various popular songs, including “Enter Sandman”, “Creep”, “Me So Horny,” etc. We were just discussing the fact that perhaps we shouldn’t play the 2 Live Crew song again, lest it offend any of the adult students sitting in the lobby, when a Slipknot song came on, and before we could do anything, “Come on motherfucker, everybody has to die!” blares throughout the room.
We all sort of stood there and tried to act like nothing unusual had happened. Then, I burst into peals of laughter as Alan scrambled to skip to the next song. OK, so maybe you had to be there, but the absurdity of it all was great. I’m certainly in the right teaching environment.
A quick comment on coffee and cigarettes. Yes, I’m still consuming both. However, I’m now only paying 1.10€ for a coffee, so feel free to remind your local Starbucks that they’re ripping people off. Cigarettes cost less, of course, but I’m actually smoking less, too. (Now is not the time to read anything into that statement….I’m merely pointing out a personal observation.)
All in all, adjusting to a new life seems to be going ok, as I fully expected. Last Friday I sang at a wedding ceremony, and at some point, I may have to play piano at a few choir concerts, and no one is more surprised than me to be doing this kind of thing. Nothing else I’ve done is really out of character, though. I’m still likely to jog across town in a a dew rag, soccer shoes and shorts to pick up my nephew from school, and, yep, I just developed yet another crush on a waitress here at the Irish bar I’m sitting in. Bryan is Bryan, regardless of the country.
So as I start my second month here, I continue to smile…
Keep the faith
bryan
13/03/06
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