I'm alive!

Oops, hey friends. Sorry I dropped off the face of the blogosphere for a while... super quick update: I'm still in Madrid and still LOVING IT!  I just bought tickets to come home on July 15 though -- legit fastest year of my life.

Here's a brief photo-essay update to prove that I've been doing lots of cool, chulo, time-consuming things and cosas, which is why I haven't written in so many moons.

I'll start by going WAY back to my first real trip, during a puente (right, "bridge"... also "long weekend") in October, where 3 other Fulbrighters (it should have been +2 more, but they accidentally booked the wrong travel dates) and I hit up the beach town of Lloret de Mar, on Spain's Costa Brava:

This photo doesn't do justice to the beautiful Mediterranean, or all the topless European tourists.  

I also ran into an unprecedented number of Oxy folks in one weekend back in the crazy, how-were-so-many-Fulbrighters-born-in-one-month?! constant party that was October:

Me, Sonia Lessuck '11, Maddie Knaup '08, and Taylor Griggs '11 at a very strange, pijo (posh) club, Serrano 41.

I celebrated my 23rd birthday with another Minnesota Fulbrighter (there are TONS of us... but this one happens to share my October 28th natal day) in the most culturally sensitive of ways -- throwing a EuroTrash-themed potluck party:

Just a bunch of trendy Spaniards hangin out.

In early November, I caught a 7Euro RyanAir flight to gorgeous, sunny Valencia to hang out with some Fulbright folks teaching in Alicante:

The greatest park ever: a massive, fallen Gulliver to climb all over.

As you know, later that month I met the Prince (because, as Paula said, I deserved it, claro):

A close-up of our official handshake and me grinning like a crazy person.

After cooking vegetarian stuffing for our back-to-back nights of delicious Thanksgiving celebrations to wrap up November, December was a whirlwind month of lots of friends, lots of rain, lots of traveling, and little school. I spent a puente at the beginning of the month exploring northern Spain's Pais Vasco (Basque Country) in rainy San Sebastian and Bilbao, followed by a brief less-than-24-hours in Cantabria's Santander:

Maddie's and my Christmas card pic in front of the Puppy ("Poopie," as our students pronounce it) at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

At the end of the month, as our students wrapped up their first term, Cam arrived in Madrid for what turned into a two-week period of the sky unleashing its wrath upon the whole country. His first full day in Spain, we trudged (late) to my school through actual snow (?!?) and presented a PowerPoint about US holiday traditions.

My sister Adrienne, with friends Dylan and Ali, made an awesome sign for us to include in the presentation, but in true Lobl family fashion, it arrived too late for more than one class of students to appreciate.

Cam and I ventured to southern Spain, touring la Alhambra and running into an Oxy friend at a Belen (Bethlehem scene) in Granada, appreciating an afternoon of sun in Malaga, stumbling upon Ian Cameron at another Belen in Sevilla's massive cathedral, and spending a night in a renovated parador (castle).

 If I checked into a parador looking like this, and you were the receptionist, would you really think it reasonable to ask me, "So is your car parked outside?"

For Three Kings Day, Madrid held an extravagant parade (Cabalgata de Reyes Magos), complete with creepy 6-sided floating heads, giant red giraffes, and a sweaty, black-faced King Baltazar.

This "Up!"-inspired woman kicked off the Cabalgata by flipping gracefully through the air. I don't think I've ever been so jealous of a parade float.

In early January, I moved apartments to get away from the smoke-filled, generally empty room that was my 30-year-old French male roommate.  I've been MUCH happier living with another Fulbrighter and a sweet Spanish dancer from the Basque country in our spacious piso. 

The view from the my building's front door on what should have been our first day back at school after winter break. I'm all for Snow Days, but too bad I had to arrive in Getafe at 8:30am before finding out from my students that school was canceled.

In response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti, I proposed to my students that we organize a school fundraiser. After only a week or so of frantic planning and coordinating and pricing and labeling, the 2nd-ESO students ("segundos," ages 12-14) pulled off an extremely successful yard sale in the front lobby of our school. The donated items up for sale ranged from math flashcards and "Hamlet" (the Spanish translation) to posters of soccer stars and dried-up highlighter markers.  Our "Mercadillo Solidario para Haiti" raised around 630E for Medicos Sin Fronteras (Doctors Without Borders).

One of the early groups of volunteers -- their smirks don't accurately show the true excitement of missing class to sell broken jewelry and chicken-shaped alarm clocks.

Immediately following the Haiti Mercado, I left for a weekend trip to Budapest with a Fulbright friend, Evan. We thoroughly enjoyed the city (despite the darkness from 4pm on), experiencing a Turkish bath, the Terror Museum, hilarious language misunderstandings ("This shirt say, 'It's a Monday scene.' This one, vegetable statistics."), a hairy-pig-sausage festival, and more.

The Chain Bridge, photographed through the falling snow, the way we saw everything in Hungary.

Carnaval was celebrated at my school with an early end to Friday's classes and a party on the outside patio, with competitions for best dance performance and best costume. I was more than a little shocked when a group of 16-year-old girls slithered around on the raised platform, dancing on chairs in booty-shorts and skimpy tank-tops, and not only were not reprimanded or asked to stop, but in fact were awarded second place and presented with flash drives inscribed with the school's name. Ohh, Spain.

 

Also surprising were the very real-looking fake guns a number of students brandished as costume props.

A large part of the Fulbright secondary TAs' roles through March was teaching and organizing Global Classrooms, Madrid's Model UN conference for bilingual students.  While the other TAs and I had a lot of work to do (like editing Position Papers, running mock conferences, and understanding the difference between the various points and motions well enough that we could teach our kids), the students worked so much harder, and they did an absolutely amazing job. Not only did they re-write their Position Papers countless times, they also had to learn a ridiculous set of English vocabulary (from "Rapporteur" and "Honorable Chair" to "Point of Personal Privilege" and "I motion to move to a 15-minute moderated caucus with a speaking time of 5 minutes for the purpose of beginning to formulate resolutions"), and (at least in my Asia committee) all the students actually spoke in English throughout the entire conference!

I literally felt like such a proud parent. Look how cute they are!!

In mid-March, the Fulbright Commission sent all grantees in Spain (TAs and researchers alike) to Santander for a mid-year conference. It was fascinating to hear what the researchers had been working on, interesting to meet the older professors studying here, and surprisingly constructive to discuss with our peers about the TA experience. Plus, it didn't hurt that they put us up in a 5-star hotel, where I was hilariously under-dressed for nearly all of the group meals (served by waiters who, with towels over their arms, refilled our glasses after each sip).

 Within ten minutes of checking in and seeing this stunning view from my room, another classy Minnesotan and I sprinted down the plush carpet of the hotel's halls, collecting people to explore the beach with us.

Over Semana Santa a few weeks later, I traveled with three friends to Istanbul, Turkey. We had an amazing time visiting incredibly old mosques and palaces, cruising along the Bosphorus Strait, petting all the street cats, bartering for the best deals in the Spice Market and Grand Bazaar, avoiding the outrageously over-priced tourist-trap restaurants near our hostel, and perfecting the flavor of the ubiquitous "Turkish Tea" (best taken with 2-2.5 sugar cubes stirred in).

 Lookin' fly on the Bosphorus (Tim, Kyle, me, Evan)

Six hours after I returned from Istanbul, Cam flew into Madrid, and we headed back to Barajas Airport the next morning to catch a flight out to Athens. After staying in the capital for two nights and running all over the city to see the incredible ruins, we left the pollution behind (disclaimer: not actually that noticeable; just pointed out incessantly by our favorite tour guide Rick Steves) to spend less than 24 hours in Nafplio, a gorgeous seaport town. The weather on our brief, riot-free jaunt in Greece could not have been more perfect, and even Madrid put on its best sunny show for the rest of Cam's visit, possibly making him forgive at least some of the torrential downpours of his winter break trip.

Before being barked at to only take "NORMAL!" photos.

And that catches us up to now! This coming weekend, although it's Adrienne's birthday, Mother's Day, and Madrid's San Isidro celebration, I'll be leaving all things familiar and heading to Tangier, Morocco with four Fulbright friends. Then on Wednesday my parents arrive and immediately embark on a couple of crazy-busy weeks, with plans in place to travel to Barcelona, Granada, Sevilla, Galicia, and obviously hang out with me in the 'drid. Despite all this fun, I'm hoping to find a little time to post quick updates... but we'll see how well that dream goes.

In the meantime, if you know of any awesome jobs in San Francisco for next year, please send them my way!

Meeting Su Alteza, el Príncipe Felipe

Now that over a month has passed and the Prince and I are still dating, I think it’s finally an appropriate time to update about our glorious meeting.

Barely a week and a half after receiving a call from Paula at the Fulbright Commission asking me if I’d like to meet the Prince (um, yes please!) and telling me I “deserve it,” I found myself booking it across Madrid in high heels to meet up with the rest of the group who would also be heading to the Palacio de la Zarzuela.

To be honest, I was actually wearing flats during my trek to the Commission, hauling my heels in my purse.  After hiking up the stairs to the Fulbright offices, Paula greeted me warmly, expressing mild concern about my one-minute fault in punctuality and then giving me a head-to-toe once-over, followed by an unimpressed expression.  I assured her that I had brought other shoes, and immediately sat down to change into what I was sure would nearly quadruple my fashion points for the day (heck yeah, Aerosoles heels picked out by my mother, what?).  As I was shoving my flats into the depths of my purple purse, I happened to glance up and notice Paula and Patricia exchanging a worried look above my head.  I could only interpret this as Paula attempting to reassure Patricia that she really had made the right choice in inviting me.  At least I was only switching my shoes; I had also packed a pair of tights, in case that suddenly seemed necessary too.   

Once I looked presentable, they ushered me into a meeting room at the Commission with a large table covered with coffee mugs, around which important-looking people mingled in dark suits.  Naturally, as everything is in Spain, our transportation was late, so I had a good half-hour to get to know my fellow Prince-meet-n-greeters.  Essentially our group was about 15 people—a grad student researcher from the US and I were the only current Fulbrighters, but there were also two Spanish ex-becarios (beca = scholarship) who both studied in the US for their masters degrees, and then the rest of our team consisted of a smattering of important American Embassy and Spain/US Fulbright bigwigs.  

Finally our private mini-bus showed up and drove us just outside of the city.  At the gate to the grounds surrounding the Palacio, a guard boarded our private mini-bus to check our IDs and inform us that no photos were allowed.  Too bad, because the ridiculous number of strange, Spanish-looking deer (aka just different from those in MN) I saw on our 5-minute ride up the “driveway” would totally have been worth a thousand words.

The bus dropped us off at the rather unremarkable front of the palace (it could have just seemed like a suburban brick mansion) and we were ushered into a waiting room for about 30 more minutes.  Another man came in to brief us about the audiencia, and I was pleased he included the important information that a simple hand-shake was sufficient and appropriate; we would not need to bow or curtsey, so my pre-visit prepping from the teachers at my school was all for naught.

Eventually we lined up in a large room with nothing but nice carpets and tapestries on the walls, and waited awkwardly for the Prince to enter.  When he did, I couldn’t help but laugh—it was such a strange experience, and everything was totally silent as we waited for this very tall man to make his way down the line and shake our hands.  The Fulbright Executive Director, Maria Jesus Pablos, introduced each of us to him in what seemed like a whisper.  Then we took an awesomely awkward group photo before she talked about the Fulbright and its 50-year history between Spain and the US and important projects, and then the Prince responded about how great the Fulbright is and blah blah.    

I'm the one with lots of skin showing.  The Prince is the one with the height. 

Also, this photo is definitely not mine. (Stolen from here)

During Maria Jesus' talk, she mentioned the Global Classrooms project, which is a Model UN program that all the secondary-school Fulbright English Teaching Assistants are in charge of—we will be running an MUN conference for our students in March, so in the meantime we are working with the bilingual 14-15-year-olds at our schools to prepare them for taking part in this conference (which will all be in English.  The topic this year is Education, and each school is assigned 11 different countries to represent).  

So it’s actually a really neat program, but what's funny is that Maria Jesus pointed me out as someone who helps with it, as she was speaking to the Prince -- so he interrupted her to look at me and say, in Spanish, “I’ll have to ask you questions about that later—I don't know anything about it.”  ....and then he really DID ask me later.  So I, nervous and quickly turning BRIGHT red, smiled apologetically and stumbled over a few words in Spanish before Maria Jesus suggested I explain in English, which I promptly and shamefully did.  Luckily Felipe (first-name basis, nbd) speaks amazing English (high school in Canada and a masters program at Georgetown will do that for ya), so he responded by talking about a similar simulation he did at Georgetown.

We were probably with the Prince for about 20 minutes or so, as other members of our group asked him questions in Spanish, and one former Ambassador made a long-winded story-comment in English about the benefits of studying abroad... and then we shook hands again and left.  No snacks, no presents, no marriage proposal... nothin.  But hey, I basically had a private convo with the Príncipe, so I guess the visit was worth it after all. :)

ohh hey!

Just so we're all on the same page, I am in fact still in Madrid and LOVING IT!!

Apologies for the lack of updates... I PROMISE to write more soon.

Just a quick fun fact so my extensive fan base knows what I'm currently up to:

I'm meeting the Prince of Spain tomorrow.  Yeah, Felipe.  That one.

No big deal, he's only the next in line to become King.

And luckily my Spanish is totally excellent (......................una broma) and lots of us are going (........otra broma), and I am really good at dressing up (hahaha) and I'm super well prepared (...............ha!!), so I'll totally blend in and just hide in the back.

But like, en serio: From the little I know, it's the Fulbright Commission's 50th anniversary of existing between the US and Spain.  Somehow, I'm the only US English Teaching Assistant going, plus a US research guy, and maybe a couple of Spanish grantees, and then the Fulbright Commission people... so we'll be a pretty small "audience" for the Principe.

Thank goodness I did TONS of power-shopping with various friends and family members (aka my mom, with Adrienne consulting via photo texts) in the few days I had between camp and flying to Spain at the end of the summer, so I at least have a presentable outfit to wear... I think... I'm scared those with better fashion sense will tell me it's not perfect, so I'm not showing anyone until after.

But you can definitely expect pictures, as long as that's allowed...?  My students wanted to know if they could see me on TV.  A teacher I work with told me she'd buy the paper on Tuesday just to see if I made it in there.  So I'll have to post something about it here, too.  I promise.  

self-correction

magical = mágico

I'll keep that in mind the next time a stranger tries to talk to me about Alice in Wonderland...

random Wednesday

Tonight I saw "Los Sustitutos (Surrogates)" (dubbed into Spanish, and for only 5E -- gotta love figuring out the discount days), and I've decided that Spanish-language action movies might be the type for me; I left the theater pretty confident that I understood about as much of the film as I would have had it been in English!  So that's.... something.

Afterwards, I went with a bunch of Fulbrighters to MadridBabel (a free event hosted at Cafe Madrid every Wednesday night, where people are encouraged have "intercambios" with others in all sorts of different languages [let's be real, usually English and Spanish]), and it ended up being really fun!  The last time I went I actually really enjoyed myself as well, and Cathy made a good friend from that night... but tonight, I wasn't in the mood to meet new people and I wanted to go to sleep early, so I wasn't planning to stay for too long.

However, this was before I met Moises and his two friends.

Thankfully, and surprisingly, they weren't at all sketchy or creepy or really even that weird.  We talked about Cape Town, Harry Potter (okay, maybe they were a LITTLE weird), San Francisco (that convo was early on -- maybe the "oh my boyfriend lives there!" preemptively stopped their creepiness...?), and how my name wasn't Jennifer (as Moises kept calling me).  One of the guys asked me how I got home without a car when the Metro was closed, so I explained that I took a "buho" (literally "owl," but that's what the night buses are called), aaaaaaand he thought I said "burro."  Sorry friend, I do not ride my donkey home on the late night. That's purely a daytime activity.

The even more ridiculous conversation I had with a random guy who thought he knew Minnesota from the movies was also pretty incredible.  He asked what movies were filmed in Minnesota, because he was SURE he knew it, but he couldn't figure out from where... so I threw out "Grumpy Old Men."  He asked me to repeat the title, and then in Spanish, so I said, "....uh, Viejos... Hombres... Enojados??"  He, for some reason, looked even more confused, and I politely excused myself from the conversation.  While chatting with Cathy a good 10 minutes later, he came up and stood awkwardly in front of us.  When I finally acknowledged his presence, he shouted at me, "Alice in Wonderland!"  I politely asked him what the F he was talking about, and he told me in Spanish that Alice in Wonderland was from Minnesota.  I told him I didn't think so -- in fact, I was pretty sure it was a magical place (though of course I don't know real words so I said something like, "Pienso que es un pais ma-hee-cal, no..?") -- but he insisted that he'd gone to ask his friends, waaaay over on that side of the bar, and they agreed that Alice in Wonderland (with the Queen, and the rabbit, and the hole) was from Minnesota.

So apparently we have a new cause for state pride.  Thaaaaaanks Lewis Carrol, you honorary Minnesotan, you!

Other highlights of the day included buying strawberries, Clementines, a toaster (no "oven" but I'm learning to deal with the real oven instead), 0.30E bread for 0.28 (since it was either that "perfect" change or breaking a 1E coin... I must be pretty pathetic if the guy behind the counter didn't hold me to my 2cents), and a Marvel Comics (tribute to Justin Young) '09-'10 school year planner; getting my exercise on again in PE; attending a presentation by two Native American women from the US who make short films and were brought here by the American Embassy (and then brought to my school via me --> my coordinator); and finalizing details for a dress-as-your-fave-Spanish-fashion joint birthday potluck, coming soon to a culturally sensitive Fulbrighter's piso near you.

inspiration

Today, in Educación Fisica (EF—or really, since it’s part of the bilingual program, PE [for Physical Education] is appropriate), I participated with the students in an endurance circuit of sorts, with basketball and soccer dribbling, jogging, jump rope, and step-aerobics.  At each station, the students were supposed to memorize the health benefit (which, for dribbling a soccer ball apparently includes “Improves appearance”), as they were asked to recall them at the end of the period.

I realized today that I’ve a) been here a few days over a month, and b) not exercised in just as long (other than wandering around the city, which I did far more frequently early on).  I actually REALLY enjoyed today’s PE class, though, so when I was at the nearby “Chino store” (un-PCly called such because these frequent small-scale Big Lots discount stores all seem to be run by Asians) shopping for a new backpack (success: light blue with yellow trim; logo on the outside pocket says “LOBO” with an abstract wolf design—clearly the only reason I even picked it up) small/big enough to be my RyanAir carry-on, I wandered through the toy aisle and stumbled across.... jump-ropes.  So I bought one. 

For €1 I figure it’s worth it to at least *tell* myself that I *could* be working out if I wanted to.  I’m gonna look up gyms online tomorrow...

day-trippin

I’m not gonna lie to you—it’s absolutely pouring out.  And lightning even occasionally lights up the entire neighborhood outside my floor-to-ceiling living room window, with the thunder claps following so far behind that every single one of our Wyoming thunderstorms this summer would scoff at this pathetic attempt to fit into the same category.

I bring this up not with the purpose of informing you about the most boring topic possible in my life, but to admit that I’d really rather be lying in bed right now, falling asleep to the steady bouncing of raindrops on the rooftops outside... but, since I’ve noticed it’s been a good while since I’ve written anything, I wanted to give you a quick taste of my life these days.  But I’m overwhelmed by the task of updating about everything from the past so-many-weeks, so I’m just going to post random clumps of similarly-themed information whenever I find the time, and hopefully that will suffice to catch you all up on my life.  Vale?  Vale.

So Cathy and I really did go to Cuenca with Guilherme, my Brasilian almost-flatmate, and a bunch of international randoms he somehow brought together: besides me, Cathy and Gui, one girl was from Singapore, two girls were from different eastern European countries, and then we had with us two actual Spaniards. 

The only information I knew about Cuenca before jumping on (after almost missing) the (not-even-THAT-early) train was what I’d gleaned from Wikipedia: Cuenca has a really cool “old part” in the middle of the city up on a hill, and they tout their casas colgadas (“hanging houses”) as a point of interest.  I’ll admit it—I was interested.  I wanted to see the hanging houses.

And so did the rest of the group.  I don’t know where they heard about them, but Gui was carrying around a more larger Spain guidebook (in English, for some reason) than even my family owns, so maybe he had passed on fascinating tidbits of info, but unfortunately, what none of us were anticipating was the fact that approximately 1.5 hanging houses actually exist in Cuenca.  After hiking past the top of the old city, I pointed it (them?) out from afar, and we purposefully marched back down the hill to take a closer look.  Yup, even upon close inspection, said hanging houses were nowhere near as cool as promised.  It was essentially one house that had a few balconies attached to the side of the building (I guess “hanging,” if one were to use a generous adjective), overlooking a deep canyon with the river below, and then another house set farther back into the street, so its “hanging” balconies weren’t even out as far as the others’.

Naturally, being the positive, young and idealistic explorers that we are, we didn’t let a silly little misrepresentation ruin our day.  The sun was out, the gray skies had disappeared, and there just happened to be a festival for San Mateo (which none of us had known about), culminating in a modified running of the bulls in their Plaza Mayor (not as cool as Madrid’s). 

Overall, the day was hilarious and absolutely ridiculous, starting with the bizarre group of strangers (not only our funny mixture of personalities, but also incredibly varied levels of Spanish); to our lunch at a café where every single person’s order was incorrect in some way; to the fake running of the fake bulls (literally, men wheeling plastic, painted bull heads/torsos into crowds of laughing children); to the fake running of the “bulls” (actually female cows attached to ropes [held by probably the same men as at the earlier event], running through more contained, yet more frightened, crowds); and every thing in between.

Cathy and I ended up taking an earlier bus back than the rest of the group to try to be in Madrid for the start of La Noche en Blanco, a 9pm-7am city-wide street festival celebrating arts and bein’ artsy.  Though we missed the kick-off, which was supposed to be hundreds of white balloons with poems on them set into the air from Plaza Mayor, we still managed to participate in other incredible events throughout the night. 

Near the Prado Museum around 1am, I was in love with the public ballet lessons given by a man on a giant projection screen, but even more in love with the dozens of people lined up at the makeshift barres (long metal barriers set up for exactly this purpose), actually following along and not even laughing at each other as they pliè’d and arabesque’d. 

Around 2am, Cathy, Lily and I joined a large crowd of people to dance to a live DJ’s strange musical selections in Plaza de Cibeles (where, a week later, I joined a far larger crowd in support of Madrid’s candidacy to host the 2016 Olympics—check out this photo [I'm the one in yellow: http://bit.ly/sQNaV ] and click the link at the bottom to read the short article).  The three of us attempted to start a train throughout the crowd, but only got ~2 strangers to join... regardless, we continued to be generally the most dance-tastic people for a solid half hour until the rest of the crowd realized that really was what they wanted to be doing, too.

After grabbing some tortilla española and wandering around for a few more hours, I crawled into bed sometime after 5am and slept until 3 (as much as that was my strategy all through college, it’s DEFINITELY how I’m surviving weekends here).

Speaking of weekends, this coming weekend is long (not that they’re ever short—we don’t have to go into school on Fridays), as Monday is National Day in Spain.  Some Fulbright friends and I are hopping on over to Costa Brava via RyanAir, staying in a beach town called Lloret de Mar, so stayed tuned for an update on that.... ha, in the next month or so. 

Otherwise, I haven’t done too much traveling... Lily, Cathy and I went to Toledo this past Saturday, and although my parents claim I went there at age 9, I certainly did not recognize anything.  We mostly wandered around in search of sites of historical and cultural significance which we knew to be somewhere in the old, walled part of the city, but we ended up FINALLY stumbling across the Sinagoga del Tránsito about 20 minutes before it closed.  The synagogue was built by Muslims, for Jews, and used by Christians for hundreds of years, and is now part of a museum about Sephardic Jews in Spain.  It was actually really interesting, and I wish we’d had more time to spend actually *in* the museum.  Luckily, Toledo is only about a 45-minute, €9.70 (roundtrip) bus ride south of Madrid, so I think I should be able to make it back there (possibly tagging along with one of my classes, as I think the third-year students are going on a field trip in April!).