Method of Elenchos

I too believe that wisdom is limited to an awareness of my own ignorance.

A woman fell in front of me in the street last night while walking her dog. In rushing to help her up I was certain the Gods of good deeds would bless me with the words to say, "let me help you, are you allright?" in Spanish. Instead, all that came to me was "quinentos veintidos million cuatro cien cincuenta y tres mil cien doce" (which I think means 522,453,112) and "son las seis menos diez pasadas" (it´s just past 10 to 6 pm.)

I´m convinced my Spanish classes are not helpful at all.

I take class in a room called Socrates. And wasn´t he condemned for impiety and corruption of youth thus causing him to choose suicide over exhile clamining that running away would bring dishonor upon himself and Athens and thus death was the better option? Super.

I often zone out in class and focus in on one of the many drawings of Socrates and his work. Soon I´m answering the questions in my head with other questions and enjoying my use of his own dialectic method of inquiry and imagining his studies with Diotima. I too would like to study love.

Considering the fact that the last thing I think of before bed and the first thing I think of when I rise is not from Spain at all but in fact it´s something (or someone) I´ve left behind in the states, I suppose that love IS the main part of my studies.

It certainly isn´t Spanish.

I am fully aware of my own ignorance. I´d call it blissful but I have not yet truly achieved that which I truly desire. I suppose Socrates was right all along in finding the answer within the asking.

What is it that I want?

My first non-Spanish Holiday while in Spain...yeah

It´s labor day people. And to celebrate it Amero style, we´ll be having chicken with ranch dressing. I´ll be wearing real clothes and I might even care enough to do my make up. If it happens to run down my face I won´t care because it´s labor day and I don´t have to work.

And considering the way people already look at me when I walk around Madrid, a little melting eye brow probably won´t make much of a difference.

It´s Labor Day, YAY! Transvestites Unite !!!

Ah how I miss thee...a poem

I´m missing many American things
the list is long and plenty
I´d kill for a salad, a pizza, some chicken
or a chai frappacino venti.

I never knew how much I´d miss
a bottle of ranch dressing,
peanut butter, rootbeer too,
tv shows with Debra Messing.

I can´t explain how much I crave
a whole day of wearing high heels
or driving my car (though not very far)
and not having to guess at my meals.

I like the snails and the squid, I do
but maybe not in my spaghetti
they warned me it´s different here, change is so good
but I tell you I just wasn´t ready.

I miss all my friends there, my family, my lover
mi amigos , mi familia , mi amante,
I´d love to peruse the familiar menu
in a Ghetto Amero Restaurante´.

I do love the culture, the sights here, the people
and even the street vendors malo arte´
but oh how I miss, from the depths of my soul
My safe haven, my fortress, my WalMart(e).

A person can only eat so much ham.

You can´t go anywhere in Madrid without running into some butcher shop. It´s a vegetarian´s nightmare. It keeps me entertained though, the other night we went out with some Brits and where was their first choice? Museo del Jamon. The Ham Museum. Nice. Apparently the beers there are only 1€.

You can walk into any place, pick a blood leg of pig off the wall and say, give me a slice of that. Then of course they´ll wrap something up in tinfoil and you´ll be on your way. They have salted ham, spiced ham, plain ham, proscuito, and any kind of pig you please. You can get it on your sandwiches (bocadillos), in your tortillas (kind of like an omlette but they often put it on bread), you can have it by itself, or you can stick it in any dish you feel like having it in. Nothing is unheard of I assure you.

But sometimes I just don´t feel like eating more ham or ham like substances. So I went grocery shopping. Dinner, I decided should consist of a sandwich and peaches. I was so amused by their 2" by 4" bread slices that I thought I must take a picture.

This, people, is the life!

What kind of sandwich you ask? Queso y jamon. Ham and cheese. Of course.

Top 10 things I've learned in Madrid

10. Blood sausage is NOT a necessary part of any menu and should be avoided at all costs and having someone ask you if you can feel it oozing down your throat as you chew it does not help the situation.

9. Mosquitos here are invisible and hungry. I probably have over 100 bites and though I bathe in bugspray every night I seem to always wake up with more. One of my locals friends told me that meant I have sweet blood.

8. 45 SPF suncreen applied four times within a day is NOT enough when you are a white white blanca white girl in Spain.

7. It is pointless to wear make up here. It will inevitably be running down your face within an hour of going outside. Not a good look. Not to mention, i you are a 6´tall busty white woman wearing makeup and a dress in city center Madrid people will mistake you for a transvestite. This is not good for one´s ego.

6. No matter which direction you turn once you get off the metro, you will definately choose the side that has stairs leading up and out and an escalator only coming down. This is luck, this is life. (see picture for a perfect example)

5. If you cough all night long and refuse to let your Spanish roommate take you to the hospital, you will wake up with a post it note stuck to your forehead that says, "good morning lady. On the fridge you will find a natural orange juice glass, take that to be good for your big chest problems." Aww...cute Eloy, he made me fresh squeezed orange and carrot juice, my "big chest" will be better in no time.

4 If the person you stop to ask for directions turns out to be a prostitute, the policia will certainly want to have a word with you. And no, telling them you speak no Spanish will NOT get you out of questioning.

3 A complete normal school day here might sound like this..."Go to the Bar Yakarta in the Plaza Eliptica at 11 on Saturday morning, you will meet a man named Noel. Don´t ask for him, he will know who you are." After doing so, you get in this stranger´s car and drive over an hour to the mountains to sit under a large tree at a ski resort and practice your verbs. 8 hours later you come home. Normal.

2. At any given moment in any given house at least one person will be naked. The problem is that every time I seem to enter a house, it´s the ugliest most awfully shaped person who seems to have their clothes off. I can´t carry on a conversation like that. ... "yes school was great today, I learned about present participles and oh my is that your breast on the floor?"


And the number 1 thing I´ve learned..The taxis may be small here but you can still fit about 8 midgets in just one with room to spare. It´s true, I saw it.

La Tomatina

I love nude beaches. For the first time in my life, NO ONE is looking at MY boobs. I just had to start with that. So here I sit on one of Valencia´s lovely beaches completely covered and enjoying it thoroughly.

So the tomatina, as it turns out, is a HUGE deal. We parked our bus about a mile and a half below Bunol behind all the other thousands of cars and hiked to the top. ALong the way locals lined the streets with buckets and hoses and cheered us on. Once you reach the top of the town, you hike down into an inner barrio with high walls and narrow streets. Thousands of people, men in shorts and no shirts, women in anything from bikinis to a wedding dress (true story) everyone drinking beer from plastic cups and carrying nothing of value.

Gun shot goes off and the crowd goes wild, the tomatoes have no yet arrived and it´s already worse than any mosh pit I´ve been in. Windows in high up flats fly open and buckets of water pour down on our heads and suddenly we hear the roar of the trucks and down below we see them. Huge dump trucks full of tomatoes are inching their way through the crowd one after another stopping only to dump out piles of tomatoes or when one of the truck´s large security men stop it to prevent some silly tourist from being squished.

"Ground Zero" as they call it is not for the weak at heart. My shortlived time on the inside was rough enough for me to understand why I saw few other girls there. My shoes were long gone, my shirt had been ripped off, and I was thigh high in tomatoes. I could see nothing but red and the smell, a hot sticky sour scent, was seeping into my pores. It took all the strength I could muster and alittle help from some concerned large Irish guys to get me out of the thick of things. I loved it!!!

I found a few other shoeless and shirtless members of our group and we headed back out of the barrio. All the way back to the bus we were showered and hosed off by the locals, some paying a little more personal attention than others...ahem...and by the time we reached our destination we were worn out and still covered in smelly tomatoes.

It was a ridiculous amount of fun! Next stop...nude beaches...

It Begins

This shall be my first post and my first post shall be this.


How did I do?