Going on a pilgrimage

Hi all,
This will be the last post until May, as I'm going to be away from internet and nearly all worldly possessions during the month of April.
I'm going to be hiking through the north of Spain, from the French Spanish border down of Roncesvalles all the way to Santiago de Compostela, a city almost all the way across the country on Spain's Atlantic coast.
It's a pilgrimage, although I'm not doing it for the religious reasons. I'm doing it perhaps for the spiritual power of a walk like this one, for the draw of the history, to meet people on the way, for the fun of hiking, and above all to explore Spain.
The story that began the pilgrimage is hilariously extravagant in the way of most religious myths. Saint James (Santiago) had supposedly once preached in Spain. When he died, back in the middle east, two of his followers took a stone boat through the Mediterranean, through Gibraltar, out into the Atlantic (!), up Spain's Atlantic Coast, and onto modern day Galicia in Spain. They converted a pagan queen there, but not many others, buried the body, and peaced. A few centuries later, a hermit living in the area found Santiago's "bones." The burial spot was conveniently located in the tiny Northern strip of Iberia not under Muslim rule.
We laugh at the story today, but pilgrims flocked to the site -- and they played an important role in Spain's history. The pilgrims reinvigorated the Christian part of Spain, giving force that would be key for the Christian reconquest of Iberia. Some played an even more direct role, becoming soldiers who fought the Muslims; around this time, Santiago got the epithet "Matamoros" (Moor-killer), explicitly linking the pilgrimage and the fight against the Moors. And beyond the pilgrimage's significance to Spain, many say that the walk played a key role in developing the idea of a Europe above the bickering states within it.
All of the Camino's historical significance is especially zany considering that it turns out Santiago never actually preached in Spain. A monk mis-copied Jerusalem (something like "Herusaliem") as Spain (something like "Hispania"). A fateful little mix-up.
So, hasta mayo -- wish me luck -- I'm off to visit an apostle's bones.

A reflection at the start of the fourth quarter

This post is a bit personal, but I think it will help anyone who’s thinking about a gap year of their own.

***

Holly Bull, the president of a company that organizes gap-year programs abroad, said in the New York Times Article on gap years I recently posted that “More than an alternative to burnout, a rugged gap year spent working on a sustainable farm in Costa Rica can provide a means to building self-confidence in students who might otherwise “get munched up by academic process.’”

I expected my gap year to give me this confidence, the sort of confidence that can’t be hurt by the ups and downs of collegiate jostling. And I expected this fortified confidence to rest on the solid foundation of a crowning victory from the gap year.

I didn’t have a clear idea what form this victory would take. Generously, you could say I was intellectually flexible about it. Perhaps it would take the form of hitchhiking across Spain, or Europe. Perhaps I would learn some incredible new skill, like break-dancing, and I would return to the United States to spend the summer entertaining in various nightclubs. Perhaps I would find some whacky and glorious job like writing for the National Geographic for a piece they were doing on a tribe in Morocco.

The gap year gave me a constant source of temporary self-esteem. Leaving the Harvard-Westlake crowd and entering a truer-to-life slice of society almost always put me at the top of any group in terms of quickness, knowledge about history and current events, and, to my surprise, confidence and gregariousness. But that kind of ego boost will mostly go away when I reenter places where everyone’s a big shot, as I will do in September.

So what about the big achievement?

Well, I plan on doing the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, which is a bit of an adventure. It’s true, I’ll have a path to follow, so it’s a bit different than hitchhiking through a country. I rode my skateboard as transportation when I wasn’t taking the metro, so I’ve learned how to ride passably after not really being able to ride at all. True, that’s not going to get me any glorious summer gigs. I worked as an English teacher of small classes, and I found I was pretty good at it, developing a solid, personal relationship with every one of my students, getting along wonderfully with almost every one of them, and even becoming friends outside of class with a few. True, that’s not National Geographic in Africa.

I am proud of those accomplishments, though, especially the last one. I compare myself to some break-dancing hitch-hiking National Geographic-writing gap-year superhero, but fuck it, if someone can build confidence on a farm in Costa Rica than I’m going to let myself acknowledge the confidence gained by teaching English in Spain.

***

But even if I didn’t have these “confidence-building” activities, I would consider the gap year worth it for three lessons I’ve learned, all of which required time off from school.

During the school year, my father sent me an important email talking about his competitive drive, how he had let it take control of him for the first part of his life and how he had mostly mastered and restrained it for the second. It planted the seeds of an idea that needed some time off to flower. In England, around people with whom I felt comfortable being myself, I saw my competitiveness when we played games like Scrabble together. Then, in Spain, playing basketball with my host father against two neighborhood kids, I took over and won the game Kobe-style, but I came home with a blister that had blown up so badly that the next day my host mother had to help me stick a needle through it. Looking at these occasions, and even more so, looking back at occasions from before the gap year, I saw for the first time: I am competitive.

The second lesson I learned was that my competitiveness could be dangerous. This lesson had even less than the first one to do with events going on in the gap year; it came from events from before the gap year being replayed in my head now that I had time to ponder. In school, one doesn’t have as much time to ponder. We’re faced with high stakes decisions and deadlines daily. Now, I could contemplate, and I realized that my competitiveness had led to my most stressful and my saddest moments, and, after more contemplation, that it had also led to my greatest successes. I became conscious that my competitiveness was both valuable and dangerous. I saw I would need to watch it carefully, in college and forward.

The third lesson was the realization that college is for finding out what’s fun and doing it. I had gone through high school with this purpose in mind, but also with the idea of excelling. To me, excelling was rising above others. I didn’t need others to notice – I solely needed to know for myself that I had “excelled” – but it was still a dangerous if not downright unhealthy aim. In college, I decided, I would try to find out what gave me joy, and I would do it. I would allow myself to be competitive with myself to do the best job I could do, but I would avoid the comparisons to others. I saw that this was the route I needed to take.

These three lessons needed the time off. For them alone, the gap year would have been worth it.

***

And, beyond these three lessons, I have learned more broadly and deeply about myself.

I have learned that, if I feel I have to, I can hold a room. I have been living outside of my comfort zone, both in terms of living within a slightly different etiquette and being with totally new people, not even part of some shared program. This newness forced me to reach back and grab all the sociability I could muster. I drew on Scene Monkeys, sometimes, but more often I drew on a calm, centered personality I hardly knew I possessed.

I have learned about classical liberal economics! With a lot of free time when I was in Santander, I read Free to Choose, a “personal statement” by Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman and his wife. It has changed my life. I imagine my personal views differ widely from those of Friedman’s followers, but they have nonetheless been significantly influenced by his ideas, ideas I hadn’t been able to explore before.

I have learned to embrace my self-doubt. I mean self-doubt in an intellectual sense – not the self-doubt that shackles someone to small ideas and small ambitions, not the self-doubt that keeps someone from dreaming big – I mean the self-doubt that makes someone constantly question the arguments he or she puts forth. I used to resent my self-doubt, feeling that if I could bull-rush ahead, my arguing style would be stronger. I feel the opposite now: That the self-doubt makes me a better debater by leading me to consider arguments against my ideas even before others present those arguments to me; that it makes me a better thinker by forcing me to embrace nuance; and that it makes me a better listener by making me aware that I will never be able to connect the dots alone. I’ve interacted with so many different people on this gap year, from such a variety of cultures. It has become clear to me that a person’s eloquence and concision, his or her appreciation of complexity, and his or her flexibility of mind all rest and fall on that person’s ability to doubt him or herself. Crude anecdotal evidence for this connection comes from the American who insults the Spanish culture as superficial, or dirty, or wrapped up in partying, and from the Brazilian who charges that Americans don’t know anything about the world beyond their 50 states. Each should literally think twice.

Before I took the gap year, though, I didn’t know I’d learn the lessons I’ve learned or gain the insights about myself that I’ve gained. So why did I do it? At first, I wasn’t sure, and even after I had started I wasn’t really sure. I gave two chief reasons: I said I wanted to learn Spanish, and I said I wanted an adventure. Both were true and good reasons, but they didn’t make up the whole picture.

Years back, the daughter of my Mom’s best friend visited Los Angeles. (This year, when I visited London, we became close friends.) In Los Angeles, she described the idea of a gap year, which she said was very popular in England. I was enchanted, and I kept the idea in the back of my mind all through high school.

Halfway through senior year, I floored my parents by telling them I intended to take the next year off. My Mom was against the idea but not strident. My Dad was open. At Stanford’s admit weekend, I spoke to a dean who dealt with gap years. I asked him whether I could inform Stanford of my decision to defer at the end of July. He said that the late date would be okay. Two of my best friends and I were going on a Eurotrip in July, and my plan was to see whether I liked Europe then. If I did, I’d pull the trigger on the gap year.

As I had expected, I did like Europe, and I pulled the trigger. I sent a letter to Stanford explaining what I would be doing and why I was taking the year off. My four reasons, in highly formal language that hid the reality that I didn’t really know why I was doing what I was doing, were to learn Spanish (“a very important skill in an increasingly globalized society”), to gain teaching skills, to see the world, and to go on an adventure.

I have gotten all four of those things out of the gap year, but there were other important reasons too. Someone who wants to go through college trying to beat others is someone who needs to take a gap year. I didn’t have that insight, though, nor did I even know that I was dangerously competitive. But there was some instinct that pointed me in the right direction, something that murmured, “A pause would be a good idea” even as logic screamed that I had not planned nor thought the gap year through.

I must stress to anyone considering a gap year the importance of this point. If you’re already considering it, the likelihood is that something instinctual is murmuring that a pause would be a good idea. Maybe there’s a lesson you need to learn. Maybe there’s an insight you need to gain. Maybe there’s something else entirely. For some reason, a pause would be a good idea.

For those reading this blog with an eye to a gap year of their own

Check this New York Times article out.

The important issues of work, where I go out at night, and other mundane trivialities

Two Fridays ago I dined with my ex-family,

And despite the fact that I’m now standing free,

Our natural, liquid chemistry

Came back even pre-wine, quite immediately.

Next night, bar-hopped at the Plaza de Santa Ana

With Austrians, the Venezuelan brothers, and a South Africana.

Chugging calimochos (a mix of red wine, coke, and a

Swab of the sweat of Erica Bana).

Sunday I saw “There will be blood”

With a student who’s become an out-of-class bud.

The following week I worked like a stud.

I’m collecting money like earthworm researchers collect mud.

See, I’m saving for a sensual saunter to Santiago,

A one-month pilgrimage through Northern Spain’s montaña, campo, and lago

An experience on the spiritual level of eating Ikura and Tamago,

Or, hell, just finding a nice table at Spago.

Anyway, I work hard, I play hard, and the weekends are good,

Especially Thursday night in Chueca, the gay neighborhood!

Although even that night we started at a Basque bar in La Latina, where wine tastes like wine should.

And ended in Tribunal, at La Via Lactea, my best discovery since earthworm cages of wood.

On Friday, Santa Ana, in a discoteca playing oldies songs,

With my Austrian and Venezuelan friends, dancing the whole night long.

Next night some Spanish buds and I watched Real Madrid whack around its opponent like ping-pong

Then, out from the sports bar, we hit “Moby Dick,” a club near the soccer stadium.*

Sunday night I returned to my old host family’s house,

To watch the second Spanish Presidential debate, a true verbal boxing bout.

Today, ETA killed a Socialist ex-councilman: Spain mourns…and wonders which side the attack will help out.

Two days from now, after Sunday’s elections, we’ll have an account.

*Just work with me on this one. Pronounce “stadium” like “stadi-ong.”

A run-down to make up for my copious amounts of not updating

A lot has gone on
since I last posted, weeks back.
Chronologic'ly:

Cold, crisp enero
saw visits from Alex, and,
later on, Adam.

Alex took quite well
to the Madrid nightlife, and
to Toledo, too.

Adam and I hit
beautiful Salamanca.
Both left way too soon.


Febrero started
with an Independence Day,
a move to a flat

right in the center,
shared with two Madrileños,
close to the nightlife.

Skateboarding 'round town --
dodging old ladies, cars, kids;
wind blowing through me --

completes the image
of my newfound liberty.
Ellis Island rocks.

Leaving my family
made victory bittersweet,
but we'll still meet up.


By day, I tutor,
giving English lessons to
the upper classes:

teens with rich parents,
execs, lawyers, researchers.
Often, they teach me

of law, linguistics,
culture, and clean energy.
(They also pay well.)

By night, I explore
a town with a severe case
of insomnia.


Two weekends ago,
I visited London for
Naomi's birthday.

Last weekend, I met
my uncle Ken in Paris
for sights, food, and wine.

This particular
fin de semana I'm back
in Madrid, chilling,

teaching and billing,
and writing haikus in the
subway to fill time...

I be time-filling!
...Like, um, petals of a leaf.
On calm, still waters.

Hilary and McCain win New Hampshire

I would have liked to see the Democrats wrap the contest up quickly. I would have liked to see the Republicans spend the next month or two bloodying each other while whichever Democrat had won Iowa, NH, and Nevada sat pretty. And most of all, I would have liked Obama, who has the best chance of winning the general election, to have been that Democrat. (No, it´s not knee-jerk partisanship. The Democrats take global warming more seriously across-the-board than the Republicans. Of the Republican candidates, only John McCain, and, to a lesser extent, Mike Huckabee, speak about climate change with the urgency that it deserves. The Democrats are also the party in which every major candidate has put forward a universal healthcare plan to fulfill the government´s basic duty to help the helpless.)
Despite Obama´s loss, seeing Iowa´s choice rejected by New Hampshire was nice. Iowa´s caucuses are a joke, if what you´re looking for is democracy. And Iowa´s outsize influence in choosing winners and losers perverts policy in Iowa´s favor - "If they held the first caucuses in Idaho," someone once said, "we'd be subsidizing gasoline made out of potatoes." NH sends a valuable message that Iowa isn´t the decider.
And Hillary is not bad at all. Obama talks about change, but many of the most important changes from the George W Bush years would be returns to the Bill Clinton mode of operation: international cooperation in fighting wars, fewer unnecessary hot-button choices that hurt America´s image in other countries (I speak of keeping Guantanamo open), and spending that doesn´t sprint past the government´s ability to pay for it. Those changes, plus moving full-speed-ahead to limit CO2 emissions and working towards healthcare reform, will leave America much better off. And we could reasonably expect all of the above from Hillary. But only if she won the general election, a big enough "if" for me to throw my support behind Obama (on policy, very similar) instead.

McCain´s win in New Hampshire gives me mixed feelings. He used to be a force for campaign finance reform, although who knows whether that´s still true. Quite recently, he tried to pass immigration reform legislation, but failing might have left him once burned, twice shy, and unwilling to try again. He has been a vehement supporter of the Iraq war from the beginning; the initial support is worrying, but the continued support is obvious, as Iraq is not ready for us to leave. And then, of all the Republicans, he seems most serious about fighting climate change. I´m hesistantly hopeful he´ll be the Republican candidate; I´ll root against him but the prospect of him winning won´t be so bad.

Obama wins Iowa!

Walking along the Paseo de Prado, I thought of the nuances of Spanish culture, and how the discovery of America sparked a golden age but later hobbled Spain with crippling inflation. Christopher Col --
Just kidding. I´m way too obsessed with what´s going on back home to be thinking about anything else.
Obama won Iowa! This is huge!
Okay, it´s a win in a tiny state. With a victory based on a voting system in which two pillars of democracy, the secret ballot and one person one vote, are missing.
But even non-Obama supporters have to get excited about a half-black candidate´s ability to win a state that is 90% white. And for Obama supporters, winning the first contest takes some of the bite out of Hillary´s asburd claim that she´s more electable. And then there´s the strange but reliable tendency for voters in other states to imitate Iowa (Obama is suddenly up in NH by 12 points).
I´ve been a hesitant Obama supporter ever since I faced the music and admitted Bill Richardson wasn´t going anywhere.
For me, this election comes down to climate change. It is the single biggest threat to our national welfare, with the single greatest ability to lower the living standard of every American (and human being).
Across the board, the Democrats take climate change more seriously than the Republicans (for a good comparison of the candidates, click here). Combined with the Democrats´ big advantage on proposals for universal health care, I´m pretty partisan this election cycle: I want a Democrat in the White House in 2008.
And Barrack Obama, with his ability to cross party lines to pick up votes, with his ability to attract independents, with his impressive oratory skills, and with his early opposition to the Iraq war, is the most electable Democrat. (Early opposition to the war doesn´t help solve the mess, but this war is hugely unpopular, and I´m looking for a winning Democrat, and those against the war from the start have the best chance at winning.)
New Hampshire should be interesting. I predict and hope Obama keeps rolling.

Happy New Years!

My German friend Steffen and I decided to go to Lisbon the Wednesday before last weekend, Two days later, we were on a nightbus heading east.

We slept on the bus, came into the Portugese capital at 7am, and headed to the hostel to drop off our stuff. A young lady greeted us and sent us to the kitchen where we got a free breakfast of crepes.
From there, we took a trolly tour around Lisbon and saw what I think was the Lisbon Cathedral:

We visited the Muslim (and later Chriatian) castle:

Then, we went to Lisbon´s ancient district, Belém, and visited the Tower of Belém (the name could have used a little more originality). Of all the castles and palaces I´ve been to in Europe (and at this point I´m starting to take them for granted), this little fortress on the sea was the best thing I´ve seen. From the outside, it was intimidating, but on the inside it was breathtakingly beautiful.

In this picture, the tower in the front is the bronze model of the tower, and the real tower is in the background:

It had a dungeon downstairs. I´m crying because I´m a prsioner who got stuck trying to escape:

Lord of the Rings inspired interior decoration: A view from (near) the top of the ocean:

And looking in the other direction, the city of Lisbon:

I found zen in the meditation turret:

Tired from walking up all those steps, we took a short swimming break:

From the tower, we went to the largest stone statue of a ship I have ever seen and predict I will ever see again. Steffen, the red dot just a bit to the right of the white car, gives some perspective.

We took a trolly back to the hostel to shower and unwind before dinner. There, we met a Portugese guy named Marco who invited us to his birthday party, which he happened to be holding that night at a Fado club. Fado is Portugese folk music, invented, I was told, by melancholy Portugese sailors at sea. Here´s a sample.

We went with Marco and some Chinese and Brazilian people from the hostel. I had "bacalhau" -- salted cod, a Portugese speciality -- and Steffen had octopus, the other dish that you´re supposed to get when you go to Portugal. Both were ridiculously good.

As we ate, two guitarists tuned. Then, the lights dimmed, and the waitress herself sang, backed up by the guitarist. We literally had a private show; for reasons totally unknown, perhaps because of Marco´s birthday, we were the only group let into the restaurant. Soon, the waitress took a break, and the owner sang, and the owner´s wife sang, and the guitarist sang. Everyone pitched in to give us a shot of spectacle.

Here´s a picture of the guitarists. It´s bad quaility, but it gives a feel for how up-close we were. If the guitarist had scratched his neck, he would have knocked over the wine:

We finished dinner around 12:30 and had a drink in Lisbon´s nightlife area, el Barrio Alto. We headed back to the hostel, climbed into our beds, and were asleep in minutes.

The next day, we breakfasted on homemade eggs (this hostel was incredible). We rode the gondola near the Vasco de Gama tower:

After the expo, we saw the naval museum, which might have been more rewarding had I known anything about boats. We also stumbled upon a celebration of the newly signed Treaty of Lisbon:




Near dinnertime, we took a ferry to the other side of Lisbon, and saw the city at sunset. "If you were a girl," I told Steffen, "this ferry would be our first kiss."


Nicely sums up the trip:

We took a night bus back to Madrid on Sunday night, and I had my first Christmas. Two huge meals, one a dinner that lasted until 2am and another a lunch that started at five in the afternoon. (Quite Spanish.) I gave Hector and Dario a stegasauras and a something-else-sauras, respectively, my host parents Ozomatli and Yes CDs, and Margie (the babysitter and housekeeper) a stuffed animal dog for her daughter. My host parents gave me an awesome shirt and a striped sweater (which I´ve needed for teaching at risk of showing my students that I only have one nice outfit in my whole wardrobe).

Last night, I ticked down 2007 at Sol, Madrid´s version of Times Square, with Steffen, the friend with whom I´d gone to Lisbon. There had to tens of thousands of people. We met up with my friend Sophie, also from Germany (but whereas Steffen´s from the part near Austria, she´s from the part near France), and met two British girls who had come to Madrid for just one night (weirdos!). We went bar-hopping, then went back to Steffen´s apartment to unwind watching Scrubs. I left at 6am, and due to major horrible disasterous outrageous ridiculous public transportation woes, I got home a few minutes before 9am. I suddenly realized that everyone on the west coast was celebrating midnight, and I felt nostalgic for LA -- Happy New Years!. Seconds later, my head was on the pillow and I was asleep, a wonderful Christmas break behind me and thoughts of going to Sevilla soon swirling in my head.

Hitchhiking

This past week and a half started off with good luck and continued rolling. Late for my first day of classes in my new (and way improved) Spanish school, I fidgeted with my pen at the bus stop. A lady pulled up.
"¿Anyone going to Moncloa?" she asked in Spanish. I was. So was another guy. She needed to pick up at least one person to be able to use the carpool lane. I got a free quick ride, arrived early to Sol (where my school is), ate a nice second breakfast, came to class a few minutes early, and got the best seat in the class (second row, far left).
Later on that week, I went to Alberto´s mom Eloisa´s house. For the first time, I really followed the conversation through and through. Before, I had made sure to have a prominent role in any conversation so that, if I needed someone to define or repeat words, I wouldn´t be interrupting. This time, I sat back and listened, to see if I could. The conversation centered around the question of whether women´s equality, while just, had made family interactions more complicated. I caught the drift, I caught the nuances, and I caught the details, almost as if I were listening to a dinner conversation back in Santa Monica.

Lately, I´ve been going out a lot more frequently to the Madrid bars during weekdays, but last weekend, after months of clubbing and bar-hopping, I had my first stay-at-home movie night. My Venezuelan friends live in Spain, and I came over to their house with a few others to play basketball and watch Jarhead. (Speaking of which...kind of a mediocre movie.)
It was a journey to get there, though. Their house is even more in the suburbs than my host family´s. I overshot, and ended up hitchhiking a ride with José, a shy Spanish guy who wore braces and, as if inspired by the improvements made to his own mouth by the orthodontic correction, was studying to be an orthodontist!
The Monday after the weekend, I had an interview for a teaching job at an English school called Tutordidact. Victoria, the friend who had recommended I apply for a job at Tutordidact, was coincidentally at the school before my interview.
"Nervous?" she asked.
"Cold as ice," I said.
Yeah right. But I got the job! The school provides the clients and the resources -- the books, photo-copiers, and folders -- but from there basically gives teachers full independence. It´s what I need right now: the full reign and responsibility that will make me get good at teaching quickly backed up by resources and experienced teachers with good advice. My first permanent client is the director of a company that owns multiple golf courses. (And if that weren´t intimidating enough...he´s a beginner, in my opinion the hardest type of student to teach.) And I´m substitute teaching Victoria´s classes (she´s in Canada for Christmas) -- two groups at a renewable energy company.

This weekend, Victoria, Steffen, Erika, Victor, Cesar, and I went to Ávila. We had been to Segovia about a month before, and Segovia had been beautiful and incredible, with an intact Roman aqueduct, a castle that looked straight out of Disneyland, and a gorgeous Cathedral. We expected Ávila to be similar, and it was nice, but basically all it has is a very old city wall.

Through all this, I´m still giving lessons to Oscar, the coolest Madrileño I´ve ever met. At this point, we split our time between paid classes, conducted mostly in English, and chilling, conducted mostly in Spanish. At first, this arrangement was a little awkward. Friendship and business don´t naturally mix. But I now just stop counting hours when the lessons seem to have ended and the chilling sessions seem to have begun. And the truth is, I´ve probably learned as much Spanish culture and slang from him as he´s learned English from me.

Borders

This post would not be complete if I didn´t say something about my new life long love, so I´ll start with her. She´s got curves, and she´s beautiful. I ride her nearly daily, sometimes nightly, and always ever so rightly. (She´s usually on bottom). She likes to go fast, which is good, because I do too.
I bought her second-hand at Dak-Tak, perhaps the only skateboard shop in Madrid. The best €70 I ever spent - riding that board through the streets of Madrid fulfills fantasies.

Britney, a good friend here, left for Canada. It was a sad night, though we made it a good one (we being Britney, her Swedish friend named Daniel, and me). We went to my favorite bar, a cidrería called "El Tigre" in Chueca, the gay neighborhood, where giant tapas (free food that comes when you buy drinks) nicely set off good cider and dead moose on the walls. From there, we went to another gay bar, and after that a jamming jazz club.

The fun night was interrupted by a reality check. While in the second bar of the night, I decided to get a breath of fresh air outside. On the plaza, shady-looking group asked me if I had a light. I didn´t, but they started chatting with me. I take any chance I can to talk in Spanish, so I chatted back. One guy asked me where I was from.
"California," I said.
"¡California!" he said. "¡Fútbol, sí!"
"That doesn´t really make sense," I remember thinking. "Sí," I said, non-commital.
He started demonstrating a football tackle on me. "I guess he meant American football," I thought, but still, I was a little weirded out. Plus, his friends were muttering, "No, Pedro, no hagas..."
Then he reached into my back pocket. Thankfully, my valuables were in my front pockets, and all I had in my back pocket was a "Calvin and Hobbes" cutout from a newspaper I´d been reading (actually, pretty valuable).
"¿Que haces, cabrón?" I yelled. (What are you doing, motherfucker?). I tore the newspaper from his hands.
"Broma, broma, broma," they said. (Jokes.)
I looked at them. Bewilderment mixed with growing anger as I realized what had happened. I went back into the bar, and we split. I was still fuming until we got to the jazz club.
At the metro, Britney and I parted ways. It was really a sad moment. She was the first good friend in Spain to leave.

Members of the Basque separatist terrorist group ETA shot down two Civil Guards members. One died immediately, and the severely wounded one died days later never having left his coma.
The two major parties united to demonstrate against terrorism, although the public split into pro-Zapatero and anti-Zapatero divisiveness (Zapatero is Spain´s President). There were smaller daily reminders, too; I was on the subway when it stopped for five minutes to honor the men killed.
Watching the TV reports the next day, my host dad Alberto saw Ibarretxe, the President of el País Vasco (the Basque Country), at the demonstration honoring the policeman who died.
"That´s good of him," he said in Spanish.
"Because even if he is a Basque nationalist, he still is against terrorism?" I asked.
"Yes," Alberto said.
Ibarretxe is trying to hold an independence referendum in 2008. Alberto and I began talking about the referendum.
"It would be unfair to have an election now, when ETA makes it dangerous to campaign against independence, but if there were no violence, wouldn´t it be better to hold the referendum?" I asked. "In Canada, Quebec holds referendums on independence, and I think there´s a lot less strife partly because Quebec´s citizens have the power to choose their autonomy."
Firstly, he answered, the referendum would probably fail right now, but Basque students read history books with blatant separatist bias, so sooner or later a majority in the Basque country will want to separate. The area has been part of Spain for centuries, and before Ferdinand the Catholic married Isabella of Castile, it was part of Aragon, but the textbooks stress the separate race and language. So eventually, a referendum would be more than an exercise of the power to choose -- it would make separation a reality.
"Okay," he continued in Spanish. "Besides the fact that it´s unconstitutional, that it´s illegal -- so, above the law, in high moral thinking -- is the referendum a good idea? Well, where does the Basque Country start and end? There are three parts -- Gipuzkoa, Bizkaia and Araba. And one is more Basque than others. And who should vote? How about the people who have fled because of ETA? Should they be left out?"
In talking about nationalism, I hadn´t really considered how important that point was. Borders are arbitrary, and that means self-determination is messy. Borders rarely capture the whole situation.

I wrote about my pride for the US in the last blog post, but there´s some contradiction feeling pride for a country that only has to do with me by chance -- born by chance within arbitrary borders.
Really, my pride for America is irrational, an emotional pull from wherever I come from. It´s similar to my love for California, for Los Angeles, for Santa Monica, even for Harvard-Westlake, recognizing its many flaws. And I think that irrational love is good, a force that gives cultures power to stick around, stay signifcant, and keep their variety.
It´s good only to a point, though. Eventually, love for the place you come from can separate you from where you didn´t, and at that point it´s good to remember that where you come from is a made up name with made up borders. Until then, it´s good to celebrate.

Identity by contrast

I was getting some copas (drinks) with my German friend Steffen and his Canadian friend Danielle. Never having met her before, I asked her where she was from.
"New Brunswick," she said.
"Oh, is that right above Maine?" (I took a lucky stab, knowing that at least some of Canada has gotta be above Maine.)
"Yeah!" she said. "Do you know Canadian geography?"
"Not really," I answered. She pulled out a map that she had drawn for someone else. "Wait, let me try to draw what I do know," I said. I knew Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.
"We´re you neighbor!" she said disapprovingly. "How do you know only four provinces?" She gave me the others.
"Well, do you know every state in America?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Wow."
"We had to learn the states and capitals in school," she said. "Americans don´t take the trouble to learn because they´re too egotistical. No offense."
"Maybe it´s because America is a bigger player on the world stage," I said. "Do you know every province in France'" I asked Steffen. "And do you know every province in Russia?" I asked Danielle.
"Russia isn´t our neighbor."
"They´re your neighbor to the west."
"There´s an ocean separating us."
I didn´t press the point.
"Do you know who our Prime Minister is?" she asked.
I tried to think. "I know he´s conservative," I said, cringing. That´s one I should have known.
"Steven Harper," she said smugly. "He´s the reason we´re in Afghanistan."
"Oh," I said. "So, do you, um, support that decision?" It was pretty clear she didn´t.
"No, I don´t. Canada´s role has always been as peacekeeper. We shouldn´t be fighting."
I asked her why there was a difference between fighting for peace and handing out food for peace (or whatever it is she meant by "peacekeeping" -- some people mean fighting). If both create peace...
She buckled a little there. "The point is, we shouldn´t be fighting the US´s wars," she said. "Especially one as pointless as Afghanistan." I raised an eyebrow or two. I´ll be the first to say that the poppy, heroine, warlord, and violence ridden country is in trouble, but I think we had a good purpose.
"America just wants the oil," she said. That´s a line I hear a lot.
-- Except -- alarm bells were going off in my head -- it didn´t make sense in a conversation about Afghanistan. I had caught her in an outright falsity.
Usually, I try to respond reasonably to this kind of rhetoric and explain that, while neither war has been what I would consider a net good for the world, America, or the countries themselves, America did not intend the chaos and bloodbath. Except -- here I could be a bit more pithy.
"Afghanistan doesn´t have oil," I said.
She paused. Even she recognized that she´d made a mistake. "Well, America just wants to control the Middle East situation," she said.
"Let´s not conflate Iraq and Afghanistan," I said, not letting go of the huge error.
"The problem is that we don´t know why we´re in there," she said. "It was never clear."
I flipped a little.
"A terrorist organization called Al-Qaeda killed 3000 people," I said. "Afghanistan´s government, the Taliban, was protecting them. The US went in with a UN resolution to take out a government that was protecting a group that killed 3000 of our citizens. What´s unclear about that?"
My voice was level, but I stared at her like she was crazy.
She offered this pitiful explanation:
"Well, unless you´re super-political, it´s hard to know what´s going on." (That´s the way the brain works, I almost said; you need to expend effort to learn. But I kept quiet.) "We just get the news that yet another Canadian has died."
"Well, you want peace," I said. "A lot of Afghanistanis have died. But most didn´t die during the invasion. Most died after, in the chaos, and this is even more true for Iraq. The chaos might be our fault, but taking Canada -- or Germany, for that matter -- out of Afghanistan will just create more chaos and bloodbath."

Later, after she had caught the metro back to her house, Steven and I had another copa.
"I got really angry," I said. "It´s been a while since I got that angry in a discussion about politics."
"Yeah," he said. "Everyone´s entitled to their own opinion."
Had I been unfair? I wondered. Had I not given her opinion a fair hearing?
No. I had been TOTALLY fair.
"Sure, of course. But her story was wrong," I said. "She says oil, and that positively can´t be the reason. What happened on September 11 is pretty clearly the reason. So to try to make it seem like it was something else -- it´s a little disrespectful to the 3000 people who died."
"Yeah, and also, the fact that the US went in the a UN resolution is very important," he said.
"That´s true too," I said. "Here´s the thing. I think it would have been better if I had stayed calm. But I also think I was totally justified to be angry."

A few nights later, I was out again with Steffen, this time at O´Neils, an Irish bar in Sol. We met a German girl and a girl from Northern Ireland.
The anti-American attacks came again, hot and heavy.
There are 3 types of anti-America attacks.
1. The US has done bad stuff in the past.
2. The US is doing bad stuff now.
3. The US treats their own poor badly.
This lovely bar conversation saw all three.
The first US beef came up in the form of past US support for Saddaam and the Taliban. I explained that, while the support was probably a bad idea, looking back now with 20-20 hindsight is unfair when the USSR seemed so mighty and dangerous back then. (And moreover, if we go back far enough, every group has a legitimate complaint about another group. Germany doesn´t have such a clean record from the ´40s. England, France, Spain and Italy were careless colonizers. I could go on.)
Obviously, the second US beef came up. It always does, when we´re fighting two wars, one without a UN resolution. Both wars had good intentions, I said, as I usually do. I also honestly said that I was part of the Iraq protests.
The third came up in the form of our healthcare system, our welfare system. our slums, and our response to Katrina. I agreed that changes needed to be made to the healthcare system. I tentatively agreed that our welfare system could be more comprehensive, but I cautioned against welfare systems that were so "comprehensive" that they took away the incentive to work. By the time we (they) got to slums and Katrina, I was spent.

I used to say that I wasn´t patriotic. The heavy symbolism put me off -- the flag-waving, the group expressions of allegiance to the flag and the republic for which it stands, "One Nation, under God" -- and that kind of patriotism still makes uncomfortable.
But while I continue to push against the group shows of loyalty through symbols, by the most basic definition of patriotism, I am patriotic. I am proud of my country.
As far as I can tell, we are the oldest continuous democracy still in existence. We have a free press, we have freedom of religion, and we are largely free to speak our minds. We are go-getters and innovators. Slums be damned: of the countries our population size or larger (there are only two others), we have the highest standard of living and the most equality of wealth. We are still the land of opportunity, with the most immigrants in the world. We have absorbed more than 20 million legal immigrants over the past quarter-century.
America has caused a lot of bad, and we still do. But I think that, all in all, America is a force for good. And I am proud to be part of that force.

Back "home"

Stepping back onto the Madrid Metro, I felt a strange mix of familiarity and homesickness. I had been on these metro lines almost every day for two months, I knew this city far better than any that I had visited back in the US, I was excited to sleep in my "own" bed for the first time in two weeks, and I couldn´t wait to see my "family" again.
But the two week visit was one of the best of my life. Every city brought me to people I loved, most of whom I hadn´t seen since the end of June and all whom I hadn´t seen since the end of July.
On the metro, I took the 8 from the airport, transferring at Nuevos Ministerios onto the 6, running on auto-pilot through stations I know well. It was a stark contrast to the New York and Boston subway systems, where, no matter how simple my route, I asked for directions every time. I love knowing that I´ve mastered Madrid to the point that it´s my city away from LA, but I already miss the people waiting to meet me at the end of those unfamiliar United States underground rides.

Seeing my host family -- Eva, Alberto, Margie, Hector, and Dario -- was wonderful. We got right back into the swing of things.
I gave English lessons to Dario and Hector, and Alberto and Eva gave me a Spanish politics lesson. They have given me a first-rate education on Spanish current events (and American cinema, too -- they know more about movies than their Los Angeles host son -- it´s a little embarrassing), and the night I came back they updated me on the latest. The biggest news, and the most bizzarre, was an incident at an Iberoamerican conference (Spanish and Latin American leaders summit). Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was giving a speech, when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez began interrupting him to call former Spanish President José María Aznar a Fascist. After multiple interruptions, the King of Spain asked, "¿Por qué no te callas?" In English: Why don´t you shut up? Usually, the King is supposed to sit above it all, the perfect diplomat...This time, he lost his temper.
It seems as though Chavez was looking for a fight, because tensions have exploded way out of control considering how small the incident was. Chavez wants Spain to apologize for crimes it committed when it had colonies in Latin America. And he and the South American leaders who are his allies have threatened to penalize Spanish companies.
Gifts that I´d brought from the states went over well. A Red Sox hat for Alberto (after I pretty much exhausted him day after day during the playoffs with Red Sox status updates), a scarf for Eva, a stuffed Schnauzer for Margie (well, for her daughter), and baseball gloves for Hector and Dario (the next night, Dario -- just 3 years old -- and I played catch!).

I got in Thursday. Friday and Saturday night, I went to a jazz club with a friend from Germany and my Venezuelan friends. The music really caught the best of this gap year so far -- the freedom, the unpredictablility, and the roaring ´20s night-lifestyle all rolled into one.

In honor of the greatest baseball team of this millenium

I know I said no more posts, but the Sox won the Series. C´mon!
I actually got to see Game 3. As far as I know, I was at one of two bars in all of Madrid showing the game. It started at 2:30 AM, and I went to bed as my family was waking up. But nice game. Dice-K (Japanese import, starting pitcher) had two RBIs, which is one more than either ARod or Derek Jeter can boast.
But enough gloating.
Hector and Dario had me guilt-tripping all over myself tonight. "Quiero que no te vayas." "Por favor, quedate aquí." Hector drew me a picture, and Dario came into my room as I was packing to distract me with his airplanes.
Both had their own ways of saying goodbye. Hector played the "No I love you more" game, showing off his knowledge of outer space with, "Well, I love you from here to the galaxy!" Dario, on the other hand, tried to play with my heart. "No te quiero," he said. (I don´t love you.) "Pues, sí yo te quiero," he said, trying to get a rise out of me. (Well, I actually do love you.) He switched it back and forth a few more times. I assured them I´d only be gone two weeks.

"Dude, I think he´s doing the dice thing too much." "That´s all he´s got."

It´s been awhile. I´ll give the footnotes.
The night after I saw Toronto lose to Real Madrid, I went clubbing with Britney, a girl from Canada and Austria, Erica, a girl from the US and Venezuela, and the Madrileños who I had watched the game with. It was good to combine groups.
If I knew how to dance, I might understand the attraction of a nightclub. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to dance, and my usual itinerary in a nightclub can only reasonably be stretched so long. I get a drink and chat a little, if the grating techno isn´t too loud.
Usually, I come into a club with a just slightly unrealistic idea of how incredible my dancing is, so at first I dance seriously. Crip-walk. Michael Jackson spin move this girl once taught me. A casual moonwalk, somewhere in the song. Something dreidel-like with the hands. I think I´m pretty cool, but eventually (a minute into the second song), I don´t know any more moves. I improvise, but I look more like I´m spazzing out than doing anything intentional.
At this point, it´s time to reference the part in "Knocked up" when Seth Rogen repeatedly does a dice-throwing routine to cover up for his lack of dancing ability. (Amazing how closely art imitates real life.) The dice-throwing routine leads to the ever-useful sprinkler routine. If you´re with cool people, they get into the imitations, and this kind of thing can last for a while. The night with Britney, Erica, and the Madrileños saw the lawn-mower, the shopper, the race-car-driver, and countless other classics.
Eventually, I can get into the dancing a little bit, even the non-jokey dancing. But one of the two best parts of a club is the sitting down and chatting...In other words, something that could be done much more easily at a bar.
The club is a similar but less intense version of a semi-formal afterparty. Clubbing is a weekly event, at least, so kids aren´t trying to pack a whole school-year´s worth of partying into one night. There´s more dancing, and less, um, promiscuousness (I´ll leave it at that). The biggest difference, though, is that people don´t know each other. At the nightclub, the friends you come with are usually the friends you stay with. The people on the dance floor might as well be eating lunch with their group at a restaurant -- that´s how little interaction there is between groups. At an afterparty, you´ll say hello to almost everyone you see, and interact with almost everyone you say hello to. Then again, you probably won´t meet anyone new at an afterparty. At a club, you meet tons of people, which is the other really good part of a club.
But to me, bar-hopping is the most enjoyable way to spend a night out. The two best parts of clubbing, chatting and meeting new people, are easier, better, and more fun in a bar. So there, clubbing.

I used to doubt the idea that children learn languages more easily than adults. The evidence often given, that a five year old speaks better Spanish than someone who has taken five years of Spanish classes in school, is a totally unfair comparison. The five-year-old is immersed, a situation clearly better than classes.
After about two month´s worth of teaching, I still have those doubts, but children clearly have some advantages. Pronunciation is the biggest. Hector (five years old) and Dario (three) can, on the first try, repeat a word back to me with nearly 100% correct pronunciation. Oscar, a Madrileño to whom I give private lessons, cannot eliminate his accent when pronouncing words even on the third or fourth try. And he often lapses back into his Castilian-tinted pronunciation if I ask for the word later in the lesson.
But my adult students seem to learn more quickly than the children I teach. They know how to concentrate on memorizing, which is a big part of learning a language. Adults have the same kind of advantage over children that they would if they were studying law, or biology, or history -- they know how to deal with lots of information, prioritize it, and memorize it.
That said, I am sometimes amazed with what Dario and Hector have internalized, such as Dario knowing a word I´ve taught only once or Hector picking up on the difference between "here" and "there." It could just be a matter of expectations -- I expect more of the adults I teach, so I am less blown away when they make these same kinds of leaps. But I feel a difference. The adults memorize words and concepts. The children internalize them. The adults will have to actively transform the memorization into second-nature, possibly in an immersion, as I am doing now. The children already operate as if the second language is second nature. Steffen, a German I know, learned English as a child, and now, after never being immersed in an English-speaking country, speaks perfect English. He learned it and internalized it at the same time. You can see that same-time learning happening in Dario and Hector. They use English words in otherwise Spanish sentences. "Quiero mi red car, por favor." It´s fascinating, and also really cute.

This post will be the last for two weeks, as I am taking a two-week trip to the states! I won a journalism award for an article I wrote last year, and the original reason I´m coming is for the journalism conference and awards ceremony (Harvard-Westlake is being unbelievably generous, helping me to get to Philadelphia, where the journalism conference is being held). As this trip will probably be my only time in the US this year, I decided to extend the time a little bit. The Vasquez´s, the family I´m staying with and teaching the kids in, said two weeks off would be fine. I´ll see friends, my grandparents, and my mom and her boyfriend Bill, who were coincidentally already coming to New York the weekend before the journalism conference. In two weeks, I´ll be back in Madrid, hopefully without missing a beat. But for now, the gap year´s on a two-week hiatus, and so is the blog.

The NBA gets worldly

A Madrileño who I met on the town´s basketball court a few days ago invited me to watch the big game tonight with him and a few friends. The big game pitted the NBA´s own Toronto Raptors against the Spanish league´s Real Madrid.
Three guesses who won?
Go with the logical answer and you´ll be wrong every time.
Real Madrid beat the Raptors.
The final score was 104-103, but the numbers were a little closer than reality, as Toronto hit a meaningless three at the last second.
To be fair, the Raptors were missing their biggest star, Chris Bosh. Still, an NBA team losing to a Spanish league team?
Gut instinct says that´s unprecedented.
It´s not so unprecedented. Just this month the Memphis Grizzlies lost a close one to Unicaja 102-99. (Both Memphis and Toronto have two players each from Spain. Like Yao Ming´s Rockets, huge in China, these teams are big draws here.) And last year, the Philadelphia 76ers lost 104-99 to Sant Jordi (see Memphis link).
It´s not all bad news for the NBA, though. After their loss at Unicaja, Memphis dismantled the Spanish League team Estudiantes later in the month.
Also, these are pre-season games, so even when the NBA teams do field full line-ups, the players aren´t going full-bore.
But Spain has proven something basic -- its teams are competitive with at least the middle of the NBA pack.
Tonight, three Spanish boys crowded around a TV where national pride hung in the balance. And all across Madrid, all across Spain, similar scenes played out around other TVs.
Imagine the market for the NBA if it that N for "National" became an "I." Imagine the excitement that kind of expansion would create back here in the states, and all around the world.
Why not?

What´s up? What´s up? We don´t have houses

Housing is a big issue in Madrid. Half of "kids" under 35 still live with their parents, and the average age of "emancipation" is even higher in Madrid. Part of the reason is culture, but another part is the ridiculously high price of reasonable living in Spain (say the Madrileños I met at the protest).
The President is trying to encourage citizens to rent more. That wasn´t enough for the protesters.
They waved Cuban flags (in an exercise of stupidity that reminded me of the immigrants rights marchers waving Mexican flags) and Republic of Spain flags (the Republic that existed before Franco was moderate-left, not Communist, but Republicans allied with Communist to fight Franco´s Nationalists in the Civil War, so the flag has become a symbol of Communism).
The protesters wanted the government to build low-cost housing. That well-intentioned idea would probably do harm, in my opinion. The US government has undertaken such projects -- they usually become the worst areas of any neighborhood (ever heard Dr. Dre rap about living in "The Projects"?). No one really owns the homes, and, without real ownership, the buildings are neglected.
The protesters also talked about government fixing of rent rates. Pretty short-sighted. That kind of move would discourage home-owners from renting their homes, so those that did benefit from lower prices would be a lucky few. Most people would be worse off.
The protesters best idea was embodied in a sign that read "Casas sin gente y tú sin casa - acaba €speculación." (In English: "Houses without people and you without a house - end speculation.") The protesters´ suggestion was to impose high taxes on owners of houses without people living in them. Seems interesting. If you think that maximizing living space serves more good for society than speculation, even if to maximize the space you need to interfere with market forces, this tax is for you. It encourages owners to use their houses as homes.
The protest itself was fun. Protesters met at la Puerta de Sol (imagine the Santa Monica Promenade in downtown LA). I estimate about 3,000 people were there, and another few thousand watched. I chanted along with everyone else. "¿Qué pasa, qué pasa? ¡No tenemos casa!" (English: "What´s up, what´s up? We don´t have houses!")

I´ve been meeting a lot of people, most through the Spanish school. About half are Germans, a country that has the best combination of high population, proximity to Spain, and tradition of learning languages other their own (unlike, say, France). The other half are Dutch, Austrian, Canadian, and French. And I meet locals, too, mostly on the bus or the metro.
Nightlife is often bar-hopping. This Saturday, though, I persuaded the people I was with that we needed to hang out in the forest near my house. Exploring the forest - that´s nightlife.

Special deals and Harry Potter

The waitress asked what we wanted to drink.
"Agua," I said, and two of the girls followed suit. The third girl wanted a Thai cocktail.
"Might as well go big if you´re gonna pay for water anyway," she explained.
My internal Jiminy Cricket discusses some issues of morality with me, but his passion is making sure I´m cheap. When he heard the quip about water, he went so crazy I thought he´d had a run-in with my internal woodpecker, who tries to eat him from time to time.
"What? We´re paying for water?" I asked.
"Yeah, you have to," another girl said. "I mean, I guess it´s reasonable, ´cuz it comes in bottles."
"We´re getting bottled water?" I asked.
"Yeah, that´s, like, what you get," she said.
I turned to the waitress.
"¿Venga, podemos tener agua del grifo?" I asked.
"¿Como en una jarra?" she asked.
I asked my Canadian and Austrian friends, all of whom were just starting to learn Spanish, whether they wanted bottled water or regular water. They wanted regular water, if it was available.
"Sí, en una jarra," I said to the waitress. (Yes, a jug of water.)
I tried not to look smug as the waiter left the table.
But c´mon. I´m getting special deals in restaurants!
And I just finished my first full book in Spanish -- Harry Potter 1!
So I´m feeling like this whole bilingual thing´s coming along!
---
At a small English as a Foreign Lanuage school today, the director offered me a job paying 22€ per hour, three hours a week. I nearly started singing in her office. Then she told me the hours. They wanted me from 5:00 to 6:30 on Tuesday and Thursday, and I´m already tutoring Hector and Dario then.
Aaaahhhhhhhhh!!! I could have been up 66€ for just three hours of work, weekly!
---
Another Spanish weekend. Today, I went to bed at 7am, the exact same time that I woke up yesterday.

A religious experience at the Templo de Debod

On Fridays, my Spanish school takes a "cultural tour." The director of the school majored in art history, he told me when I signed up for courses, so he knows his Spanish stuff. He gives a stand-up comedy act in Spanish around every sight we see.

This Friday, we saw the royal gardens. Each one is the same story, of kings trying to one-up the kings before them, usually their own fathers, by building bigger and grander gardens.
The most interesting sight was a statue outside the front gardens of Felipe IV riding his horse. His father had commissioned a similar statue in which he rode a horse "a pasello" (trotting along). That statue now sits in a plaza I stumbled across just last night.

Like father, like son, but flashier. Felipe IV wanted a statue of himself riding "a caballo" (galloping), and he wanted it at the front of the main palace´s royal gardens.

The artist he commissioned didn´t know how to build a statue of a galloping horse. The two legs in the back would be the only legs touching the ground, and the front of the statue would fall forward. He called on Galileo Galilee and Diego Velázquez to help him, and the all-star cast came up with a design that stands to this day, filling the back with solid iron and making the front hollow.

---

Later that Friday, I made my first money in Spain, giving a two-hour English lesson. Oscar, the student, was 10 years older than me. He ordered us Chinese food, and we spoke in English and Spanish.

He works in food distribution, so he often goes to China, mostly to buy canned mushrooms. The reason he wants to learn English? To speak to the Chinese!

I laughed. No, he was serious.

A testament to the importance of English in business around the world.

When I came home, Dario and Hector were driving Margie mad. Margie opened the door for me, said a quick hola, and ran after Hector, who had chocolate smeared all around his mouth for reasons I still don´t know. I could tell I was in for a hard lesson.

I started off with a picture book, and the lesson was began smoothly. They named the words they knew. I gave them the words they didn´t, and they repeated them.

After about five minutes, though, Hector started saying "sufey" after every word. It´s a common joke. Hector thinks it´s hilarious, as does Dario, who idolizes him.

I usually pretend that they´re making an honest mistake. "No, that´s not right," I said. "What is it?" As long as they know the word, I´m okay with them adding "sufey."

Then Dario inexplicably spit in the book. "No, Dario, that´s not okay," I said. He spit again, and then Hector spit in the book. "What are you guys doing?" I asked, taken aback. "Go to the bathroom, get towels, and clean this up." I led them to the bathroom, and we cleaned up the book.

Time to move on to songs, I thought. But before the first song finished, Hector kicked Dario in the mouth. Utterly shocked, I scolded Hector. I decided to take the lessons outside to release some energy.

Hector and I threw a ball around. At one point, though, the ball fell onto the second-floor balcony.

"Oh, we´ll have to go get it," I said.

As I unlocked the door to the balcony, I saw a ladder leading up to the third story. As the door swung open, Hector bolted to the ladder, not even feigning interest in getting the ball. I caught him, barely, grabbing him by the ankle.

Meanwhile, Dario ambled out and chilled. I concentrated on Hector, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Dario trying to turn a giant water faucet.

"Lucky it´s rusted over," I thought.

I turned my attention back to Hector. He was almost bawling. "¡Quiero, quiero, quiero ver la calle!" he screamed in an absurdly high-pitched voice. ("I want to see the street!")

Suddenly, water burst out of the faucet, drenching Dario. In twenty minutes, they were going to a birthday party for their dad´s colleague´s son.

"Dario, no!" I yelled. I turned off the faucet as Hector raced up the ladder to ver la calle.

Margie changed Dario´s clothes, I retrieved Hector kicking and screaming from the porch, and Hector and Dario proved once and for all how ridiculous, hilarious, and crazy Spanish kids can be.

---

Last night, (Saturday), Madrid hosted "La noche en blanco."

Riga (Latvia) and Rome have already hosted the festival and Paris and Brussels are set to host it as well, but it felt especially Madrid.

Almost the whole city stayed open through the night, which meant business as usual for many businesses. Also, museums stayed open, and small art exhibitions and music shows lined the streets.

I strolled the streets with Carol, a friend from Germany who I met at the Spanish school. Two hour lines at the museums drove Carrrrroh (the correct pronunciation of her name) and I away from the big stuff and towards three music shows and two art exhibitions.

At the Templo de Debod, I had a religious experience. I was watching Fátima Miranda, which the program said would make you ask, "¿Dondé estoy?" ("Where am I?").

Rain was falling as hard as hail, and the wind shook the trees and churned up the water around the temple. At first, I didn´t realize that the music was a human voice. I saw a woman onstage, carrying a clay pot on her head. I soon realized she was singing, something between an Indian spiritual and a wolf howling at the moon. We arrived at a calmer part of the song. Soon, she was almost shrieking, and then something between Bjork and Sigur Ros, and then, she fell silent, and the blue lights dimmed. The audience went crazy.

Private concert

The world has voted, and it has voted for the Red Sox. (I define the world as the readers of this blog who voted. You guys mean the world to me.) The poll answered the vague question, Red Sox or Yankees? Whether the question meant coolness, likelihood of reaching playoffs, or, um something else -- that was up to the reader! The Red Sox handily beat the Yankees, who garnered less votes than those who resent baseball´s affect on our youth. The Yankees supporters can at least brag that they are as numerous as those who voted "C´mon, Tamba Bay, all the way," and "I´m all abute Toronto."
So, to the beloved Red Sox -- congratulations. Now please, please, don´t collapse.

Spanish classes started today. The school is tiny, 80 students, and with that smallness comes quite personal attention. Yesterday, when I signed up, the director of the school personally drove me to the sister school at which I´d be taking my classes.
I´m in the high-level group. The class has seven students, and three were absent today. In addition to my amiable Chilean teacher, my classmates are Bulgarian, German, Dutch, and French. Not one comes from an English-speaking country, which is great. Claudia, the teacher, conducts the class in Spanish from start to finish.

While I was on the way to classes, my train car got a private concert. In England, they called it busking. People play for money in the underground halls or on the metro trains themselves. Something like the Promenade, but no freakshows, and better quality. The violinists, singers, and guitarists almost always play beautifully.
Today, on the train, two men entered, mumbled something in Spanish, and took out their microphone, speaker system, and flute. They had a CD playing behind them, drums and backup vocals.
They sounded CD-quality, playing without missing a note. I wondered whether they were lip-syncing and lip-fluting. But then, the flautist put away his flute, and I could hear the whoosh of air as he took it from his mouth. He started shaking maracas, and the shakes lined up with the sounds. Then, after the maraca chorus, he took out a wooden harmonica, and I could again hear that whoosh that proved the playing was real. They were moving, really getting into their music.
I wondered how they made money, thinking that perhaps they sang for fun, out of the kindness of their hearts. The rest of the train car seemed unaffected, as if they were used to the good show. I must have stood out, with my wide stupid joyful grin. But then they finished their second song, mumbled something in Spanish again, and went around the train car. Half the car, maybe more, gave change. I left at the next stop, and saw them in the next car.

The extraordinary human body

The body can do extraordinary things on two cokes and a red bull. It can hit the bars at midnight, hop clubs later on, dance until 6am, eat a churros and chocolate breakfast at 7am, and head home at eight. It can wake up on the bus ride home just long enough to get off at the right stop, it can make the five minute walk to the house, and it can climb up the stairs into bed. It can´t take the time to shower, but it can undress, pull back the bed covers, and set the alarm for four in the afternoon.

I woke up at four in the afternoon and hit the snooze, getting out of bed at around 5pm. Hector and Dario´s birthday party started at eight. Spain´s basketball team´s victory against Greece in the Eurobasket semi-finals was the night´s main event. Then, the parents opened the piñata (they pull a drawstring and the piñata breaks, a far less exhilarating show than our homerun-derby-like tradition), Eva (the mom) and I handed out cake, and the family brought out the presents. My toy trucks went over damn well.