around

I just listened to a message left on my cell's voice mail by some señora and her husband who apparently called, were confused about the fact that they had reached someone named "Laura", and decided to talk about it for four minutes without remembering to hang up. They kept repeating my voice mail message over and over sarcastically... like it's my fault they called my fucking phone! Hahaha... soooo random.... I hate this fucking phone. Did I tell you guys about this already? How I keep getting text messages and phone calls for some lady who evidently isn't paying her bills? Doña Isabel de los Santos Sánchez, I hate you.

Well since I'm here, it's adventure-telling time: on my week off in February, after going to Carnaval with Drew, I headed down to Madrid for a couple days, where I stayed at Rubén's place. I got to see his band rehearse and ride around Madrid in Rubén's awesome little car, heavy metal a-playin'... weather was too bad for a repeat of the motorcycle tour. Since he was working during the day on Thursday, I hung out with his German roommate and her two friends. And Mario. :P On Thursday night I hung out with Sam, Tyler, and Marco (couchsurfers from the States who'd visited me in San Sebastian) in some mega-mansion in a mega-nice area of Madrid. The girl's dad, whose house it was, works for the American embassy. Niiiiiice. We also hit a jazz bar, and called it a night.

On Friday I went down to Tomelloso to hang out with José Luis. He showed me the town, we hit up the Lagunas de Ruidera - which I had been to in 2007 when there was much less water - got some food and drink, and went out with some of his gal pals. On Saturday we went over to Ciudad Real (where I studied in 2006-07) to meet up with a big group of his buddies from Horcajo (his hometown). We (ok, they) played poker for a couple hours, got tapas from La Cabaña, and took the bus (what an adventure... no one ever takes the bus in Ciudad Real) to the Fito & Fitipaldis concert in the Recinto Ferial. Big exhibition building full of Spanish people holdings huge beers in plastic cups. And singing Fito. It was entertaining enough. Afterwards it was off to La Fontana (oh, some things never change).

Oh, I didn't mention that on the streets of Ciudad Real I met Rafa, Mark, AND Julián at different points of the night. I think that's everyone I know that lives there, so, not bad. :P

The next day it was a loooong trip home on three hours of sleep.

And that was that! This past weekend I went to Bilbao for a Couchsurfing "Meeting Mundiala 2010". Friday night we had a mingling social at a bar/event place called the Hikaateneo; Saturday we ate at a sidrería (pretty lame compared to the real deals we have here in Gipuzkoa, but the food was good), relaxed for a bit, and then it was drinking-game time back in the Hikaateneo. We learned some dice game called Kinito, which I quickly spurned for the much more fun bounce-the-coin-into-the-roll-of-tape game. BRING IT, people. Then we went out on the town: I know I was in four different bars, but I could not for the life of me ever find them again. I ended up sneaking into a friend's hostel (not that hard, considering there was no one at reception) and sleeping in an empty bed rather than attempting to find my host's house at night. And finally on Sunday, I ate a bunch of delicious delicious pintxos and did my best to keep warm and awake until we all drove home again. I'd gone with four other people from Donosti (Gonzalo, Ana, Iñaki, and Sandra) in a car, and on the way back we were grooooovin' to all the best commercial hits. Oh Lady Gaga.... :)

Donosti is lame for couchsurfing, but I can't really blame it. It's just small and tranquil. Iñaki says he's going to try to liven it up... wish him luck.

okey doke

'Tis all good, it's been beautiful lately, and the trip to Hondarribia was a success.

Today after a small run I studied a little bit on a bench on the Paseo Nuevo. I went for super guiri mode, with socks 'n' birkenstocks and a New York hoodie. And I sat there, thinking "how awesome that this isn't France/that there are no Moroccan guys walking along here who would make me feel nervous and harassed". Of course, as I was walking the ten steps back to my house, I had to pass an old man carrying a fearsome cane, who decided it would be fucking hilarious to slightly step towards me as I passed by and freaking YELL into my ear, "QUÉ me dices!!"

.... Can't people just leave other people the fuck alone? Grumble, grumble.

more random observations

You know you've gotten way too used to Spain when a comfort salad involves white asparagus, corn, and olive-and-vinegar dressing.

The Chinese stores around here really need to be open past 11. Where is one to go for late-night chuches? Isn't this what Chinese stores are for?

I know there was more I wanted to say, I'll get back to it when I think of it.

OH.... and apparently a "ciclogénesis explosiva" is heading our way tomorrow. First of all, what the FUCK does that mean? Second of all, does this mean my small trip to Hondarribia tomorrow will be blown off course, so to speak? I'm supposed to be taking advantage of my weekends, I don't need this inclement weather foolishness.

carnavales

Carnavales was awesome. I usually don't dress up for Halloween or really anything if I can help it, but at the last second I threw on a black ballerina skirt, striped socks and my hater deflectors and caught the train to Tolosa with Drew. I don't really know why or how it was such a great night. We just spent it roaming the streets amongst the other party-goers, hitting every bar we saw for a drink and a dance, joining in the dance parties on the street, following drum ensembles, and just generally scoping out the town. We also checked out the fair going on - lit-up rides and carneys - but Drew wouldn't go on the Alcazar Jail ride with me. Scaredy. Our last stop was at the top of the stairs looking down upon a sort of Where's Waldo - that costume's a popular one here - and then we ran to catch the 1am train back home. I know, I know... 1am... lame. These kids from Oregon just have early bedtimes.

One of the best things I think was we didn't see a single other foreigner (more specifically, guiri) the whole night. That made us feel special. Thanks, Drew, for a sweet Carnaval! Viva Tolosa.

people of S.S:

GOD I need a cell phone with a camera on it. I would be blowing all y'all's minds with my pictures of the worst hair EVER. And there is plenty to choose from here. I wonder if I can't find something on google. 'Basque hair'.

................Um ok, I guess a 'Basque' is some kind of lingerie, thankfully the image results weren't QUITE too inappropriate for work. Doo de doo...

As a textual teaser and hopefully precursor to an image, a very common cut is the 'short up top, dreads down back'. How awesome is that. While I'm on the subject, I'll just go on and describe a typical Basque 'guy from the mountains' look. Running shoes, mountain pants, horizontally-striped sweater, the hair described above, and a man-purse. These 'mountain pants' are warm with sort of really big knee patches of a different colour than the rest of the pants. Like these. http://www.psmoutdoors.co.uk/img/thumbs/827.jpg

Anyway I must be boring you... so onto my next observation. My favourite place to read is actually on public transportation, and in Toronto on the TTC, there are ALWAYS tons of people reading, even if that only be the Metro. I read on the bus here, but no one else does. I literally don't think I have seen anyone else read on the bus. I wonder why that is. I guess maybe if you're only on the bus for fifteen minutes at a time and it's not a regular commute, it's not worth it. But I always get happy to take the bus because it means I get to read in peace. :)

...?....?

Today I saw a woman wearing jean overalls... wow, that's been a while, and I certainly didn't expect it to come from a Spanish woman.

Secondly, I found Skippy peanut butter in the Chinese store near my gym. WHAT are the ODDS?

It wasn't chunky, so I didn't buy it.

wowwwza

Hello everyone. What do I have to tell this time, you ask? Well... let me see.

I got initiated into pintxo culture last Saturday night: after watching some heavy Chinese documentary about drug smugglers, Aina, Claire and I (later joined by Louise) hit up a bunch of good pintxos places in Gros. First on the list was a bar I can't quite remember the name of right now, but which is affectionately called by Aina '1985', although within the group we are somewhat at odds about what the exactly appropriate year-label should be. We don't even have the decade down. All we know is the atmosphere is pre-1990. This tiny place has great pintxos, a long cocktail list, all of which are prepared with love by the curly-haired owner, who always dresses up in his snazzy vest, and the best part: the music. But I'll come back to that.

After 1985, we moved on to three other bars, having a couple pintxos and a glass of red wine at each one. It was so much more relaxed than the Parte Vieja; it was nice to have space to talk and not have to fight crowds of people for the waiter's attention. And of course, the pintxos were amazing. But yes, I know, I have yet to go to La Cuchara, which Aina swears has the best pintxos in San Sebby. And the best arroz cremoso, which was my favourite pintxo of the night.

We returned to 1985 for a cocktail. The other 15 people in the bar seemed content enough, but that couldn't compare to the lust for dance that brought us four girls back there. Lights were dimmed and Boney M was played. Lots of Boney M. And other awesomely danceable songs. I am a complete nerd, but basically this is the music I look for when I want to go out to dance to. Oh yes, I remember now: The Final Countdown came on and I rocked out the guitar solo. Oh... my god. The shame. And the utter, utter joy.

Hahahaha. Aaaaalright. The only down point to that bar is that the waiter wasn't too happy about giving us glasses of water - he'd give them to us, and then make some comment about how we should be buying bottles of water. I do always feel weird/bad about asking for water at bars for some reason; I mean, yeah, I guess I'm not making you any money. But I love water (as anyone who knows me can affirm), I love the fact that it's free, and I don't like creating waste by buying bottled water. Hence why I cart my Sigg bottle everywhere with me. I hate feeling bad about loving water. So I guess if we ever go back there, I'll just make sure to bring my own water, and avoid the conflicts.

The rest of the night was just spent bar-hopping. It had its messed up parts, so I won't go into it, and instead I'll move straight into reporting on my excursion to the Peñas de Aya with my kids.

We left 8.30 Monday morning from Rentería, met the other bus of kids from Bayonne, and did some orientative games. It was really hard to get the Spanish and French kids to mix, and who can blame them - neither of them really spoke the other language. I was kind of surprised that seemingly none of the kids from Bayonne spoke Basque. I may have mentioned this before, but the kids I teach are all taught in Basque, so they're bilingual. One of the teachers from Bayonne, Jon, was native of both Basque and French, so Carlos (a teacher from my school and the leader) would make announcements in Basque, which Jon would then translate into French for his students - that's how I knew what was going on. Normally I just speak Spanish (obviously) in my schools and I have no problem; it was kind of funny to suddenly have to switch sides in order to understand.

We first visited a bunker that was built by Franco before the Second World War; although he was an ally of Hitler, just in case Hitler got some strange ideas into his head, Franco decided to build a line of bunkers along the border with France. So all of Spain's concrete went into building these things, not to mention a lot of money and labour from the prisoners of the Spanish civil war, and now there's a string of bunkers along the border of the Pyrenees. Huh. This one was just pretty much a tunnel underground. The exit was never finished, so it just looks like a cave.

All about protecting the Spanish people, huh, Franco.

Anyway, next up was a grouping of cromleches (is that the correct plural?). These are stones from the Neolithic grouped in circles - the most famous one, of course, being Stonehenge. They're also found in France, India, Portugal, the Americas... Their meaning is still fuzzy - maybe they were just tomb markers, or maybe there was some big geometric conspiracy going on.

(Side note. I just checked on Wikipedia for cromlech, and it turns out that although in Spanish and French they use the old english word cromlech to describe these things, while dolmens are other things, in English we usually just use 'dolmen' to describe them - God, what the hell.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35664045@N06/4336891567/

Moving on, we proceeded to the Peñas de Aya - Aiako Harria in Basque - and climbed one. It's funny how it started as just a nice walk up through a forest.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35664045@N06/4336892805/

Then it started getting snowy. I was carrying a bunch of stuff and getting my feet soaked through my ragged Converse shoes that I wore because I was just going to throw them out anyway. I know, whine, whine, right.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35664045@N06/4336893755/

Up at the top it was pretty windy and snowy - we cursed the snow pretty bad on our way back down, too. Lots of sliding was involved. The crazy part - it all melted that same day. Goddamn you, snow. It was weird looking down to Donosti as well - it looked all sunny and peaceful, and here we were getting snow-whipped.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35664045@N06/4336894875/

Anyway, blah de blah, we hiked across the mountain, made it to a hostel, made sure all our kids were fed and then gorged on meatballs and french fries, and the next day went to a mine that's now out of use. The tour was in Basque soooooo can't tell you a lot about that place.

I was really tired this week.

P.S. I still don't understand how to put pictures in my blog, so for now I'm leaving those stupid urls in. Cry about it.