La Alpujarra

Yesterday the latest asee trip took us to Las Alpujarras - a group of traditional white-washed towns up in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada.

The day involved a bit of trekking and a good deal of walking.

All that excercise was on top of to a bit of a kick around of a football on Friday and a pain in my right foot, the result has been quite a sore Sunday..!

I must be getting old... More of that talk to come in May, no doubt!

Lazy blogging

Hello all!

As the eager visitors to this site may have noticed, I've taken a bit of a break from blogging. My last post was the weekend before the Easter holiday. Although I had intended to wrap up some loose ends (Zapatero won, we went for tapas, I went to Cordoba), I've decided that I don't have enough interesting things to say about them.

So, instead of going over old ground, I've had a rest and come back fresh to this blog. I had a delightful Easter break back at home, incidentally, and it was great to see everyone who I got to see. :)

While I was at home, one question that was often asked to me was whether I've made many Spanish pals out here, (what are they like, how's their accent, etc.).

Unfortunately, the simple answer is that I haven't met any Spaniards yet!

Well, that is an overstatement. I have certainly met some native Spanish people in passing, but certainly none who I would consider a friend yet.

That's not to say, however, that I'm friendless out here. On the contrary, it feels like I've met people from every European country around - yesterday I added Denmark to the list which already includes, well, France, Italy, Holland, England, Wales, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Greece... Basically students from everywhere except Spain!

There are a few reasons for this:

1. the Spanish don't turn up to lectures. (I'm exaggerating a bit here, but it is obvious that those who regularly attend are the foreign students. Whether this is down to the Spanish being lazy, or just knowing how the system works, I cannot say).

2. those who do turn up to lectures don't tend to mingle with us stuttering foreigners. (Birds of a feather and all that).

3. the university has a great organisation (called asee) run by volunteers especially for foreign students - they organise trips, go for tapas, and have even started a film cycle, all for us Erasmus students who are looking to practise our Spanish and meet new people.

Obviously it's through asee that I've made all my friends here in Granada. So, none of them might be Spanish, but at least we do generally talk to each other in Spanish (so I am getting a bit of practice...).

The reason I bring all this up is because I saw a film last night all about the experience of being an Erasmus student in Europe. L'auberge espagnole, (Eng: The Spanish Apartment) is about a French student who, while studying economics in Barcelona, ends up living in an apartment which already includes a mix of nationalities: English, German, Dutch...

The film is quite funny and plays heavily on the various stereotypes of the European countries (the German is very neat and organised, the Spaniard is fiercely patriotic, the English girl speaks terribly posh English and terrible Spanish, etc.). Although it showed far more partying than I've experienced here, it does faithfully represent what it's like to be living in a true European mini-community.

It's like they took our lives and put it right up there on screen! Ish.

Photos

Simon in the arabic baths at Ronda.

The French: Tony and Yann, my housemates

Photos - Ronda

The bridge ('El puente nuevo') at Ronda.

The cliffs of Ronda.

The view from Ronda.

Photo time - Granada

The view of the cathedral from my terrace just after sunset.

The Alhambra palace, taken from the top of Albaicin.

Looking across to the snow-capped mountains of the Sierra Nevada, again from my terrace.

The Spanish version of Nick Robinson

Today is election day! Spain is ‘going to the urns’ (a phrase that harks back to the early days of democracy when voting slips were put into urns) to elect a new parliament and senate.

Since I’ve arrived the publicity has gradually been building, although I wouldn’t say that tension or excitement have ever been palpable. According to Spanish law, the campaigns cannot officially start until just two weeks before election day (or 9M as its fashionably portrayed in the press), prompting the BBC to describe it as a ‘sprint’ (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7253662.stm) especially when compared to the marathon of the US process (as interesting as that is).

The current prime minister is José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero from the Socialist Workers’ Party who unexpectedly came into power four years ago. The challenger is Mariano Rajoy, leader of the conservative Popular Party who was defeated by Zapatero last time round.

Personally, I’m quite a fan of Zapatero and his manner of politics. I’m a sucker for a good rhetorician, which Zapatero undoubtedly has (his trademark being a Ciceronian-style three adjectives to describe one thing). He has also built a good brand around not only his name (he is known in the press as ‘ZP’, or ‘Zapatero Presidente’) but also his distinctive eyebrows which look like this: ^ ^.

The upshot of this is the following campaign video for Zapatero showing some of the great and good of Spanish music, TV, etc. as well as a number of people off the street, doing the ‘Zapatero’ symbol: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yrLOyKPPKo

On the other side, Mariano Rajoy has a full-on beard which does his chances little good.

(Zapatero has invited the country to see the moustache of Aznar behind Rajoy’s beard. Aznar was the previous PP leader and is universally disliked here for his close relationship with George Bush which led to Spanish troops going to Irak. The first thing Zapatero was in office was to bring them back.)

As perhaps you can tell, I’ve been getting quite into the politics of it all over the last few weeks. Whatever the ultimate outcome is, it’s set up to be a close contest. The conservatives have promised to clamp down on immigration and the economy. The current government intend to carry on with their socialist policies in favour of women’s rights, continued education reform, etc.

Terrorism is also high on the agenda, especially given that ETA cut the campaigning short on Friday due to the murder of an ex-councillor in the Basque region of Spain.

For the first time in 15 years this campaign season has seen the Spanish people treated to two head-to-head TV debates between the two main candidates. Whether or not they will have excited them enough to vote today remains to be seen.

The day before the elections is known as the ‘Day of Reflection’. All campaigning is stopped and the public is invited to reflect on their voting decision. I spent the day chillaxing in Córdoba, more of which to follow in my next post. :)

Spanish language class: A tale of two teachers

So, as part of the deal for me to study here as an Erasmus student (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ERASMUS_programme), I have to enrol on a Spanish course for foreigners.

On Monday we had a exam to test our level of Spanish. Interestingly, those found to be in the lowest and highest level brackets (i.e. beginners and very advanced students) are not accepted onto the course. Having been forewarned by friends that the exam is quite easy and not wanting to miss out on the course for being too good, I threw in some equivocal answers for the harder questions.

Whatever I did, it worked – I was put into a group at the top level. For reasons that are too dull to witter on about here, I ended up going to the introduction class for two groups. Two groups, with two very different teachers…

The first was a self-proclaimed former hippie. The entire lesson (3 hours) was devoted to ‘getting to know each other’. Our first activity was to pair up with someone you’ve never met before, leave the classroom and learn as much as possible about the other person in 10 minutes. On our return to the class, we had to present ourselves to the group as the other person. (Out of interest, my partner was a Greek chap called Nicolaos).

Next, we moved into a circle and wrote our name at the top of an A4 piece of paper. This paper was then passed to the person sitting to the right. The teacher put music on and we had to start writing about the person whose name was at the top of the paper. In describing them we could right about what we knew, or, more interestingly, what we guessed they were like. When the music stopped, the paper was passed to the right again and the music started again. Eventually we made it round the whole circle till everyone had commented on everyone else in the group.

I had written descriptions such as ‘He has always dreamt of working in a bakery’ or ‘She prefers lying on the beach than skiing’. Others copped out by writing ‘she seems friendly’ or ‘has a nice smile’ etc. etc. Anyway, once we had our original paper back in our hands we had to present to the group one thing about us that someone had guessed right, and one thing that wasn’t true. Someone guessed right that I like to read. Someone guessed wrongly that I’m rich ‘because I’m from England’. I pointed out that I might be from England, but that I’m still a student..!

These were just a couple of the group-bonding activities which culminated with a 10-minute learn everyone’s name session. According to the teacher, she likes to use music and film regularly in her classes and has suggested that we don’t take the (normally compulsory) language exam at the term, but instead that she just mark us depending on our class involvement and improvement.

So, all in all, quite interesting.

In contrast, today’s teacher was less fun. We arrived at the classroom: it was tiny and there were only 10 seats (for a group of at least 15 people). The latecomers had to stand! The teacher asked each of us in turn the same questions: name, course and country of origin. She handed out the course programme (inc. an exam and a presentation on a topic of our choice), which listed all the grammatical points that we’d be covering, and then sent us on our way after 15 minutes (which was a great relief for those who had been standing/sitting on the floor!). The course starts proper on Monday. She stressed the importance of attendance. She didn’t smile.

What teaching style would you prefer?

(Well, for me, it doesn’t matter either way. I can’t make the ‘hippie teacher’ group because it clashes with one of my modules. Maybe the other teacher will warm up after a few weeks…)

 

The profound effect poetry can have on me

The other day I was sitting in my Spanish Literature class, waiting for the professor to arrive.

(The professors know that the majority of students don't make it to class on time, so they deliberately wait 5 or 10 minutes before turning up at the classroom to give everyone else a chance to get there first. Of course, the students have twigged onto this and so adjust their between-classes-cigarette-break accordingly so that they still manage to turn up 5 to 10 minutes after the professor anyway. Ah, good old Spain).

As I was sitting there, for whatever reason, I began to have some kind of allergic reaction. I started to sneeze ferociously every five minutes, continuing through the entire lecture. I wasn't doing it so much as to put off the lecturer, but it was certainly putting me off. I was trying so hard not to sneeze, and then sneezing so hard, that my eyes began to well up with tears.

As tears streamed down my cheeks, the Spaniard next to me must have wondered why the Golden Age poem we were studying was so particularly upsetting for me...

Anyway, all my airwaves were cleared up not long after the lesson and I'm happy to report that I'm breathing freely once again. Maybe I'm just allergic to that subject. Or maybe to poetry...

Wandering around Ronda

Hello all!

So, last weekend I had a day trip to Seville. This weekend has been a puente – a sort of bank holiday. Thursday was a day off because it is ‘Andalucía Day’ and when Thursday is a day off in Spain, Friday gets taken off too to make it a four-day weekend!

The idea had been for us (i.e. me, Yann, Tony and Tony’s girlfriend who is visiting us from France) to hire a car and drive down to Gibraltar and across to Cádiz for a couple of days. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a hire car last minute (not in our price range, anyway) and so the plan was scuppered. Fortunately, yours truly came up with a super stroke of inspiration: why not take a day trip to Ronda? After a quick search for the price for return tickets came up with pocket-pleasing results, the decision was unanimously approved.

So yesterday (Friday, or viernes as my blog would have it) saw us waking up early doors to catch the first train to Ronda.

“Situated in the far northwest of the province of Malaga, Ronda sits on an outcrop of rock in a basin surrounded by mountain ranges […] One of the oldest towns in Spain, Ronda has its origins in Prehistory.” I’m quoting here from the Historical Summary section of the free map/guide that I got from the Ronda tourist office.

For those who want to learn more about Ronda, you can read the short Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronda and discover, amongst other fascinating things, that Ronda is one of 5 sister cities for Chefchaouen, Morrocco.

Anyway, the four of us had a very pleasant day wandering around the tourist sites in Ronda, taking photos of the views and generally basking in the lovely sunshine (which, even at the end of February, is already warm enough to be height-of-summer, traffic-jams-to-the-beach, railway-track-melting weather if it were Britain). 

For those who are hoping to see photos, I’m afraid I forgot to bring the cable which connects my camera to my laptop. I’ll upload them when I’m home for Easter!

Not too much else happened this week. I’ve chosen my module choices now and I’m now getting fully stuck into my lectures, which is good fun. I’m taking two literature modules (Literatura Hispanoamericana III and Literatura Española IV) and two linguistic modules (El español de América and El origen del léxico español). That means I’m studying twentieth century Spanish American literature, literature of the Spanish Golden Age, Latin American Spanish and the origin of the Spanish language.

Well, I think it sounds interesting anyway :-P

Next weekend we (that is, me, Yann and Tony) have booked ourselves onto another Erasmus trip: this time to Córdoba. The week after: Fleet!