Samedi

I've really been enjoying my recently liberated Saturdays recently.  Now that I'm no longer helping Manon, a high school senior who is considering studying at UK next year, prepare for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) at 11 every Saturday I have all day free to do whatever my little heart desires.  (Incidentally, I'm not tutoring Manon because she took and passed the TOEFL.  Yay!)  On a typical Saturday here that might mean eating breakfast not in a hurry, reading, taking a run, visiting the market, maybe visiting a nearby town or going to see a movie.  Maybe fitting some sort of cooking/baking experiment in there too.  Basically, Saturday is a day that is relaxing because I can do whatever I want.  And really, who can ask for more?

This past Saturday Katherine and I made delicious delicious banana pancakes for breakfast (Cathya was visiting a cousin who lives near Bayeux), after which we gathered our reusable bags and our grocery lists in order to faires les courses.  We were stopped in our eager steps, however, when we noticed that our front left tire had met with a tragic end and was as flat as one of the pancakes we had just eaten.  (Coincidence?  I hope so!)  Fortunately, I have spent many a Saturday and Sunday afternoon in the US playing the automotive card game Mille Bornes with my family, so I knew that we needed a roue de secours to fix our pneu crevé.  Unfortunately, I don't actually know how to change a tire so Katherine and I went to the internet for a brief tutorial. Feeling relatively confident that we would be able to manage toutes seules we began, but before we did more open the owners manual and try to figure out the proper method for removing the enjoliveur (hubcap) our splendid neighbor Patrick had left his hotel, squished the wasp that was hovering near us, and hailed his automotively inclined friend Jean-Yves.  Jean-Yves took one look at the wimpy little jack that came with our car and brought out the real deal.  He was nearly as efficient as a NASCAR pit crew, and within a few minutes our tire was changed.  We really do have the best neighbors.  Also, Katherine and I thought it was interesting that our spare tire is the same size as our other tires.  We're not sure if it's a French thing or if it's because our car is so small that they don't make tires in a smaller size.  


After that bit of excitement we went grocery shopping and met up with Valerie, one of the teachers Katherine works with, to take advantage of the open house at the gym in nearby Saint Arnoult.  Valerie's son Theo is in one of my kindergarten classes, and she told me that his jaw dropped in disbelief when she told him she was going to faire du sport with me.  Perhaps young Theo was right to be shocked; my attempts to keep up in the step class were pretty laughable.  I'm not the fastest learner when it comes to physical activities and I was the only person in the class who had never done step before.  It didn't really help either that the class was conducted in franglais.  I guess that because the classes were developed in the US the English words for various moves have been adopted, but that didn't help my comprehension.  For example, during Body Pump (the next class we attended) the teacher kept telling us to do what I thought sounded like "seagulls" but were actually "singles".  Katherine and I also stayed for a yoga/tai chi style class, which was good because it forced us to stretch a bit but was still pretty taxing.  I do exercise in Deauville, but because I don't typically have access to a gym I looked and felt like a wet noodle toward the end of our three classes.  If I were self conscious this would have been a problem because we were observed the entire time by various people who wanted to check out the gym but not necessarily participate.  Fun.

After the gym I started dough for the delicious pizza we would have for dinner and then Katherine and I walked on the beach in an attempt to loosen up our muscles.  We even splashed in the waves a bit.  At first the water was very painfully cold, but once I got used to it I really enjoyed our walk.

After such a busy Saturday I felt that Katherine and I really deserved the tasty pizza and salad that we made.  Between the pizza, the cokes I splurged and bought at the store, and watching Edward Scissorhands, I'd say that we had a pleasant end to a pleasant day.

Cheesecake

I'm sure that most of you all are aware that I spend my Tuesday nights and Wednesday mornings hanging out with an 8 year old named Felix.  The goal is for him to participate in his normal after school activities (chess, homework, building Star Wars ships out of legos to be destroyed in our battles) except in English.  What actually happens, however, is that I speak English to him 95% of the time and he either ignores my foreign babbling or (this is becoming increasingly common) responds, but in French.  Still, I can tell that he's understanding more and more of what I say to him in English, and he enjoys the I-Spy book I brought back for him from Christmas, so progress is being made.

Last night his mom (who speaks English really well and has even translated several books) joined us for a before-dinner card game of the bell-ringing genre.  A deck of cards each showing a different number of one of four types of fruit is dealt  and the players take turns laying down cards.  When 5 of the same fruit are shown the first person to ring the bell gets to take all the cards on the table, and the winner is the one with the most cards at the end.  Anyway, at one point Hortense was on a roll and kept winning our cards, so I commented, "She's quick!"  Felix apparently took note of this new phrase, because the next time she beat us to the bell he yelled, "Cheesecake!", thinking that was what I had said.  I guess I can see the similarity.  

Quick change of continents

I believe that when you saw me last I was living as an hispanohablante (or hispanophone, if you're on the northern side of the Pyrenees).  My trip was both a break from Franceland and an opportunity for me to gauge how much my confidence has been boosted living abroad; while I spent most of my time with English speakers so I wasn't really thrown to the wolves I still had to buy bus tickets, find my way around strange cities, and try to move past my language insecurities to make friends with people who don't speak English.  And I made it!    All this reminded me of my time in Rennes, and I definitely was really awkward then so I'm glad that, comparatively, I've become more comfortable with taking chances in order to make the most of my time in a different culture.  Yippee!

To prove how true that last statement is I'll tell you about the time I spent recently experiencing life in Asia, albeit in Deauville.  

That's right.  As part of the service d'anglais we were given free passes to another film festival.  We have a pretty sweet existence here.  The American film festival this September happened before I started keeping my blog (back in the stone ages before we had internet here at 28bis) so you may not be completely au courant, but that was a ritzy deal.  The red carpet was literally rolled out for big and small name directors, movie stars, and film crews in town for their films' showing and the streets of Deauville were packed with people there for the event.  Lines were very long both to get into the movies themselves and to get the invitations to get into the movies, and we got turned away on multiple occasions because the theatres were full.

Nearly the opposite was true for the Asian film festival.  I think I got turned away from one film, and generally there were tons of empty seats for the high profile evening showings with the directors at the CID (Centre International de Deauville), which suited me just fine because that place has very comfy seats!  I was also interested to note that when the directors were invited to the stage to speak there was very little fanfare and their speeches were very uncomfortable and short.  I don't blame them at all. English was nobody's first language and I don't think anybody really spoke French, but the difference was still obvious.


I don't feel that I can comment intelligently on most of the films because I know so little about any Asian culture, but from a purely subjective and uneducated standpoint I'd say there were more real stinkers than at the American festival.  To be fair, though, Sex and the City II didn't make it while I'm afraid that it's Asian equivalent did on a few occasions.  Here's my film lineup, picked largely based on which would interfere the least with my meal schedule.  Actually, that's a lie.  I was listening to some of NPR's pre-South by Southwest music festival coverage, and the music critics were saying that with so many different concerts to attend it's hard to decide how to divide up their time but they try to see at least one from each genre.  Never having heard of any of these films before I figured that the NPR model might be a good one, so I tried to see films by directors of as many nationalities as possible.
Thursday:  La femme est l'avenir de l'homme (Woman is man's future) by Hong Sangsoo.  Thumbs down on this Korean film.
Hahaha, by same director.  I liked this one much better, though I was left with the impression that all people do in Korea is drink and smoke.
Friday: Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, from China.  The premise is much the same as the Pixar film The Incredibles, but I really enjoyed it, despite its ridiculous.  How can you go wrong with a movie that has SuperGazer and Aroma Palm as its protagonists?  
Udaan, from India.  This was probably my favorite film from the festival.  It's about a boy who has to go back to live with his abusive father who doesn't support his dream to be a writer and forces him to work in his steel factory and study engineering.  I thought this film was really well made, particularly since the director said it was his and most of his crew's first film and would suggest it if it came to a movie theater near you.
Saturday: The Piano in a Factory, from China.  This one was about a divorced Chinese musician who goes to great lengths to try to procure and then make a piano in order to convince his young daughter to stay with him.  I saw this one with Ivan and his friend Jean, and neither of them liked it (Ivan fell asleep), but I thought it was okay, although I wouldn't go out of my way to see it again.
Eternity, from Thailand.  This one was awarded Best Film, which shows why I'm not a film expert.  Katherine and I saw this one through to the bitter end, unlike the hordes of people who left partway through, and I appreciated what it showed about life in Thailand, but boy was it SLOW.  Eternity was definitely the nom juste.  
Saturday: Detective Dee et le mystere de la flamme fantome (Detective Dee and the mystery of the phantom flame), from China.  The name tells you pretty much all you need to know.  It was pretty horrible, but I still enjoyed laughing at its badness.  Actually, I learned a lot from it.  Did you know that in 7th c. China Spanish speaking Europeans (who bore a strong resemblance to Alexander the Great) visited China?  I didn't.  

All in all, I'd say that I've become very cultured and well-traveled this month.  Trop cool.

Of waffles and blood sausages

And now it's time for part two of my Spanish adventure: Murcia!  Alejandro and I were known for spending forever chatting and laughing at each other over meals in the cafeteria at Transy, so it should be of no surprise that some of the highlights of my visit with him were our excellent and incredibly diverse conversations...and the food.  As the title of this post suggests, I ate both waffles and blood sausages, though (thankfully) not together; after he finished with class my first night in Murcia we stopped at a home electronics shop to buy a wafflemaker (gofredor, if I'm not mistaken) to get a little taste of America.  While I rarely find a waffle that measures up to my darling mother's cornmeal based ones, the ones we made and ate with Alejandro's friends Gabi and Jaime hit the spot.  Bien hecho, Alejandrito!  On the blood sausage front, Alejandro cooked those to accompany the feast of pork chops, oven roasted potatoes, and alioli he prepared for us one night, and they actually were pretty decent--certainly much tastier than they look (and sound).  Other food highlights from this leg of my trip: tortilla española made by his mother, trying regional tapas specialties at one of his favorite restaurants in Murcia, and going to a "chipper" (fish and chips place) with our friend Elena and her Irish boyfriend Darren during our day trip to Cartagena.  

Because we didn't spend much time on the coast I got to see a different side of Spain in Murcia than I did in Valencia.  The countryside reminded me a lot of the more arid parts of Colorado in some ways, and it was great having such a wonderful and knowledgeable tour guide so that I could attain a deeper historical and cultural understanding of the places we visited than I would have been able to on my own.  


Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday were spent in the city of Murcia, where Alejandro is at the universidad studying for his masters in comparative European literature.  His classes are primarily in the evening, so during the day he was able to show me the town.  I loved the buildings; even though they aren't as brightly painted as those in Villajoyosa there was a diversity in style, texture, and material that is sadly lacking in many French cities.  I also really enjoyed the plazas where I could sit and read and just enjoy the flowers and my surroundings.  Probably my favorite building in Murcia was the Casino we toured, which wasn't like a casino at all but rather a gentlemen's (and now women's) club like you would find in a P.G. Wodehouse novel.  


Friday night after Alejandro got out of class we took the bus to his hometown of  Caravaca de la Cruz which is significantly more beautiful than a cow's face (a direct translation of the city's name, though he told me that's not where the name comes from).  After dinner he took me on a night walk of the city; its population is about the same as Frankfort's but the city is much more walkable.  Incidentally, it's a pilgrimage city because of the cross (cruz) of its name, which is supposed to have a splinter from Jesus's cross.  Anyway, we hiked up to the castle to see it and the city by night, wandered through the neighborhoods, and saw his old schools.  The next day we saw these things by the light of day, too, but I think old cities like that are interesting at night.  Maybe it's because the darkness makes the Middle Ages feel closer (A World Lit Only By Fire, anyone?).  Saturday Alejandro also took me to La Encarnación, a nearby area with old Roman quarries and an Iberian turned Roman sanctuary and a nifty cave.  Here's a link with good pictures, if you're interested.


We also visited a museum that shows embroideries from the Festival of the Holy Cross that takes place in the beginning of May each year.  Here's a blurb I found about the holiday:
Riderless horses wearing beautifully embroidered coats race through the town of Caravaca de la Cruz on the second day of the Holy Cross Festival. Vocal spectators gather to watch this fast-paced spectacle, known as the "Wine Horses", or caballos de vino.
The horses are led by a porter on each side, who must run as fast as their legs can carry them up to the town's castle. The only wine you are likely to come across, just in case you were wondering, is at Mass earlier in the day. [LIES according to my native tour guide.  He claims there is much drunken revelry in the streets.]

The 13th-century tradition dates back to when templar knights raced across Moorish territory to bring wine to those who guarded the relic of the True Cross.

Church services, processions and Moors and Christians battle re-enactments complete the rest of the festival.


Caravaca was also great because I got to meet Alejandro's parents and sister, who are very nice.  His mom and sister speak good English, but with his dad I practiced my Spanish a bit.  It's quite rusty and pretty abysmal, but he was kind enough to slow down a lot and we were still able to talk about our interests and  future plans.  His family also kept telling me I needed to come back some other time because it was quite overcast during my visit (like I said, the clouds were following me!), but when we woke up to walk to the bus Sunday morning it was beautiful.  


Next stop was Cartagena, a coastal town (and Alejandro's birthplace) that I believe had its heyday in the 19th century when there was a lot of silver mining.  He and I visited the Punic wall and the port and then met up with Elena and Darren to see the area.  Together we walked around the Teatro Romano and an area downtown with interesting architecture and then began our eating extravaganza.  First was tapas for lunch, after which we looked at the port again and then drove to the beach town where Darren and Elena live.  We walked along the beach for maybe 2 minutes and then stopped at a cafe they like for coffee, after which we went to an Irish pub that Darren likes, followed immediately by the "chipper".  A lot of eating, but hey, it was neat to visit Ireland unexpectedly like that.  


And now for the photos.  Wordreference.com suggests this is what I want to wish you:

¡ánimo!   

Lovely plaza in Murcia near the facultad

At the Cathedral in Murcia

Alejandro's campus

Near the campus.

View from the castle in Caravaca de la Cruz (or CDLC if you're in the in crowd)

My silly tour guide blocking the view

In front of the church in the castle where they keep the famed cruz (which the priest let us see)

Two thumbs up for his hometown!

CDLC

Cave at La Encarnacion

Catacombs in Cartagena.  Not sure if you can tell, but there were real bones there!  SCARY!

Port

The firefighters were doing an exhibition while we were walking around

Teatro Romano

Elena and Alejandro

The procession of the chicken people for Carnaval

It reminded me of the Flatiron Building in NYC

With a new friend!

Lovely coast by Cartagena

Windsurfers in Elena and Darren's town

Back in Murcia we see calls for revolt

Catching a ride

Behind the cardboard Alejandro is displaying (what Spanish people apparently call it when your hair starts thinning) you'll see one of my favorite buildings in Murcia.  It was very nicely textured, but you can't exactly tell from the photo.

Okay, so the sun finally came out in Murcia.  I think it thought I was still in Cartagena.

A sardine--they apparently bury one each year in some sort of Easter ritual.

The Bishop's house in Murcia

And now we skip to Alicante (I spent the night there before flying back): THE KRUSTY KRAB!

Pretty park in Alicante

 

Vale...

As my title says in its Spanish way...okay.  It's been a while, and I have so much to share!  So let's take a deep breath, let it out, and we'll begin.

My week and half in Spain was just what the doctor had ordered: a complete change of pace.  I love Deauville and France and my students and teaching, but it was wonderful to be able to shed my French persona and practice my rather rusty Spanish skills while reuniting with Molly, Alejandro, and Elena. As you will see with my photos, I visited some beautiful places, and they were made even better by my great companions and tour guides.  Funnily enough, some of the Deauville clouds I was trying to leave behind seemed to be following  me around for much of my trip; according to Alejandro it clouded over once I arrived in Murcia, and each city we visited together would get cloudy in preparation for my arrival and then clear up as I left. 

I spent Saturday, February 26 through the afternoon of Thursday March 3 with my fellow Frankfort-er Molly in Benidorm (a coastal resort in Valencia home to TONS of Brits), and together we took great advantage of her region's tram to visit the nearby and (let's be honest) more attractive cities of Alicante, Villajoyosa, Altea, and Denia.  In the US Molly and I tend to plan our outings together around food, whether it's cooking together, visiting spots on the Bourbon Trail, or getting Blizzards and Fazoli's breadsticks before leaving for Europe, and I'm pleased to announce that little has changed in the 6 months we've spent abroad.  We made several delicious meals together (including vegetarian fajitas with homemade tortillas--a first for me!), visited the Valor chocolate factory in Villajoyosa, and took a 3.5 hour hike over very mountainous coastal trails (I felt like I was in Oregon Trail for a while) with a huge pan of paella as our goal.  Visiting Molly was also great because she teaches 3 year olds in an English immersion classroom in Benidorm, so we could understand each others' stories about the children.  Plus, talking with her and her teacher Andi and reading Old MacDonald Had a Farm to her students gave me many great ideas for my classes.  

Me (and my enormous backpack) in front of the Mar Mediterraneo

Lovely place to stroll in Alicante

The view from our hike to Altea for paella.  It was hilly and exhausting but completely worth it.

The sea is so blue-green!

Looking behind.

Partner in paella-eating.

I think you can tell from this photo that we were walking from clouds into the sun.

The descent into the land of paella!

Altea is lovely.

YUMMY PAELLA!  For those who aren't acquainted, this one has rice, shrimp, chicken, beans, artichokes, peppers, and saffron gives it the color.

Pretty street in Denia

View of the countryside in Altea

Delicious Xuxu I got in Altea while Molly was teaching her Spanish class for immigrants

It started to mist in Altea, leading to several beautiful rainbows like this one.

Benidorm...or should I say Beniyork?

Here we are, hiding the view.

Couples write their names on locks and leave them on this stairwell.  I guess it's to show that their love lasts as long as it doesn't get too rusty.

At the Valor chocolate factory in Villajoyosa.  It smelled delicious!

Colorful buildings in Villajoyosa.

There were so many citrus trees everywhere!

And palm trees, too.

Walking off the free chocolate samples from the Valor factory.

Market in Benidorm.

Cool mural in Alicante.

The castle I hiked up to in Alicante.  I believe it belonged both to the Moors and Christians at various times, and boy was it a steep hike!

Partway up...

Stopped to smell the flowers.  And to catch my breath!

The view from the top.

Our goodbye feast my last night in Benidorm.  I said we liked to eat, right?

I'm sure you all are as exhausted by all that as I am, so I'll leave my time with Alejandro for another occasion.  Hasta pronto!