9/7/07
Today I got homesick. Today every time someone tried to talk to me I either couldn’t respond or I would respond with tears in my eyes. About nothing. Culture shock? Lord. I don’t feel like I miss home so much as I’m frustrated I can’t communicate clearly with folk. I can sense their frustration, and I’m sure they can sense mine. We both hit walls. I don’t much feel like writing, working, or talking. Maybe sleeping. Maybe drinking. Definitely smoking. That’s all.
10/7/07

So. I really don’t know how to describe yesterday. I think my brain was overwhelmed with the culture differences of Spain vs. the US ( particularly after the weekend that we had in Avila and El Escorial, and it came out in tears. I feel like the crying was less of a sadness and more of a physical body adjustment… fatigue, stress, happiness, sadness. Travel seems to be a ping-pong table of emotions and different states of physical existence. One minute I’m bouncing up off the table to the racket and the next back down to the table, squishing my face up on the green, incapable of knowing where the next bounce will take me. So after all that bouncing around a bit I got a little queasy from not knowing exactly what it is I’m doing from one minute to the next. Not that I’m a control freak, in fact I like unknown adventures, but, in Spain it’s hard to know exactly what I’ll be doing, and the fact that I also don’t know exactly what I’m saying, let alone exactly what everyone else is saying is disorientating to say the least. Challenging.
Uh, I like how I have to use strange and somewhat unnecessary metaphors to explain things here—I hope it’s entertaining, because I’m liking it. Ping pong I say. Pong it up.

There’s a train track about 30 feet from my window here in Salamanca. I’m surprised the trains don’t wake me up every time they go by. I think my body must be reminded of Chicago. Either that or my body is just so fatigued I can’t be roused. I think, however, during siesta, when my brain knows it should be waking up soon, the trains go by and keep me from oversleeping.

7/12/07

Yesterday Jennifer and I went to the park and went over vocabulary and grammar from Spanish 101 in our textbooks from home. Boy was that a good refresher session. I think we’ll try to do it everyday, although today we got sidetracked by good conversation, or at least I did (Jennifer, you’re so good you kept trying to study verbs! Oh how I adore you). It’s amazing how much a few hours of review will help you understand, and it seems after marinating for a while, the stuff I didn’t understand so well before suddenly come into focus. For example, we relearned how to say almost (casi) and the verb to take a break (descansar). Que bueno. These are really quite useful words here. In fact, a lot of Spanish 101 is pretty freaking useful. Good work I say to Spanish 101.
I feel like at this point, I’ve put off describing the ridiculously exciting events of the weekend in El Escorial and Avila. Every time I think of the trip, I don’t know where to begin. There was so much to see, and so many bizarre twists in journey occurred. I think I’ll start with the walls of Avila. Well… they were grande. What else is there really to say? What one will find in Ávila if one finds themself lucky enough to visit the oldie old town is an existence surrounded by protective castle-like walls. Inside the walls there are multiple churches and museums and somewhat run-down houses stacked up against well-maintained tourist bait.
We walked and walked, and took picture after picture. I kind of led the group on a wild goose chase to see what I thought was a palace inside the walls (the palacio of reyes?) that turned out to be just a garden, maybe? I still don’t even know what I was looking for but I do know that I led everyone around the entire inside of the town only to find our calf and thigh muscles burning like they’d been stung by bees. We saw multiple weddings going on and lots of tacky dresses! I can’t imagine how lovely it would b to get married in one of the beautiful old churches in Ávila thick with history and gorgeous artwork. Shoot, compared to my Grandparents brand new Mormon church back home I might just think about converting to some religion if only to hang out in the presence of all that patience. I wish my sister could have come with me to tell me about the painting styles. I like the way she talks about how color vibrates off her face.
So, after the trek about the castle walls we make it to the bus station with intentions of going to El Escorial, but we didn’t think to check whether or not the buses take siestas. Apparently they do. They really take that siesta stuff seriously in Spain. We waited, and Jennifer played with her finger puppets and toys she’d bought for her cousins. For some reason we decided to sit on the ground outside of the bus station as opposed to the benches. The benches don’t tend to be too comfortable. They’re metal. It’s funny to watch the old men and women in the park outside of my house here, for example. They all sit there for hours and hours and their solution to the discomfort is to tear up cardboard boxes and sit on those. Apparently the courteous thing to do is to leave your cardboard for the next person to use.
The old folks found it pretty amusing yesterday when we discovered the reason why no one else but us sits in the grass in the park: sprinklers. That was fun. We got wet, and the oldies (but goodies) laughed at us as if they’d known for ages about the inevitable drenching session. They had been just waiting for that opportune moment to arrive when they could let go that deep bellow of satisfying laughter. They laughed at us like the crazy Americans we are. I laughed at us too. Wet t-shirt contest in the park anyone? Um. Dooo doo dooo.

7/13/07
Anyhoo, after the bus station we decided to get a beer so we walked way back up into the castle walls and met some very nice folk at the “Bar al Paso.” Then we walked about some more contemplating ways to stay the night so as not to miss El Escorial. We found a fantastic little specialty bar that had more than simply 2 or three beers to choose from! It was a miracle. I can only drink so much Mahaou, San Migues, Heineken and Amstel (although the Hein and Am do taste different here). We played Yahtzee with the wooden dice I’d bought earlier as a gift for my fellow. (Sorry Bry if your dice smell like delicious beer when I get back). I drank Kwak and… crap, another beer. No me recuerdo el nombre de la otra cerveza. We met some red-faced fellows there. They applauded our having found the bar since it was so small and out of the way. (See, good things happen when you get lost, I’m telling ya.) One of the fellows worked at the University of Salamanca, although after a couple of thick beers and not a whole lot of food, I don’t recall what it was he does there. We left the bar pleased with ourselves (remember: no tengo una abuela) and carried on to the train where Alison and Stephanie left us for the more certain trip home that night.
Um. I stop now. But first, have I mentioned yet in these scribblings (via computer) how much I am absolutely in love with Spain? And my new friends and our teachers (both our new teachers in Salamanca and of course Gaby and Marta) and dealing with intense lack of sleep… oh wait. Um… “I’m ridin’ ridin’ ridin.’” Attempt to imagine walking down a road with a pretty loca little lady named Aubrey who apparently sings randomly about events in her life as much as I do. You know, just spontaneous little ditties. Man. Good times. I feel like if more people sang about their everyday activities more people would lead happier lives. A whistle while you work sort of mentality. Everyday would be like a musical! That would be great.
Nest week, my dear reader, you can look forward to greatly detailed descriptions of El Escorial and the northern beaches of Cantabria for which we head tomorrow. What I have prepared for you next is a teaser of things to come:

The street signs, the weddings, the presents we bought (dice, tic tac toe board, the finger puppets and the squeezy men stick toys, the bus closure in Avila for siesta, the decision to stay the night, the paella, the trip to the bar el paso, the german specialty bar with ridiculously strong beers on tap, the laughter, meeting a man who worked at the University of Salamanca, his friend buying us beer to go (Hoegarten gold), meeting the bartender and the other guy who called for us, the offers to stay at their house, the mother, the old lady at the window, the children, the jamon, the coffee machine, the concert, me asking the inn keeper if he was pregnant (accidentally of course), the trip the next day to El Escorial, the tour, the tombs, the pictures, the anger towards the man in the tour group, the inlaid wood doors that took five years to complete five doors, filipe the second who commissioned the monastery, the wooden model of the courses of the stars with the earth in the center in the library, the books turned the other direction, the ceilings, the artwork (inexhaustible) the rotting chamber, the gardens, the short beds, the 400 year old tile, the 21 years it took to build the monastery and the many more it took to decorate it. The way we got to El Escorial, the walk, how I like to get lost, the man with the bugs bunny teeth, who had no idea how to get to the train, the man who called the white Mercedes taxi with no counting machine in it, the onions and pickles at the bar, the man who showed us how to get to the right track, the security guard who followed us out of the cathedral because I took some pictures, the architecture section with the machines that used to help people lift the big blocks of granite up to build the building. Etc.

Ahora, quiero hablar de una persona que me pone de buen humor; quiero hablar de mi mamá—la más importante persona de mi vida. Ella es guapa y muy talentosa. Tiene ojos oscuros y pelo largo y moreno. Ella no es ni alta ni baja, es perfecta. Ella es humilde y muy espontánea—como yo. Es su vida mi madre fue masajista, ebanista y consejera, pero ahora es cantante de jazz y también ella es profesora de canto y piano.
Claro que ella puede hacer todo. ¿Conocéis la canción de Peggy Lee? Mi madre es como esta canción que se llama “Soy una mujer.” Ella es particularmente como la parte de la cancón que dice, “Tengo una parte de oro de veinte que dice que no hay nada que no puedo hacer. Puedo hacer un vestido de una bolsa y puedo hacer un hombre de ti. Porque soy una mujer, M-U-J-E-R.” Una buena canción.
Cuando era pequeña se daba una tarjeta que dijo, “Mamá, tienes un corazón como un ángel y una sonrisa como un fantasma.” Pienso que porque sus dientes son blancos (más o menos) y un fantasma es también blanco que la palabras era similar y poética. Ahora esta tarjeta es una broma grande en mi familia.
Ahora pienso que esta mejor decir que cuando mi madre canta tiene una voz como la miel y como un ángel (sin la parte del fantasma). Me cantaba cada noche cuando era pequeña. Un día cuando tenga mis hijos, voy a hacer como mi madre era con migo y mis hermanas.
Buen hecho madre.