Sunday, December 19, 2010
Decoration Differences
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Dinners, Decorations, and Dr. Seuss
This is normally the time of year for snowy shopping trips, cutting down a Christmas tree, and slowly building a pile of presents as packages come in from relatives. But there's no snow here and I have yet to see a cut-your-own Christmas tree farm. As I found in Holland, most elements of the Christmas season are far from universal. Spain is no different.
In these last few weeks before the holiday break, I'm reading my classes Dr. Seuss' classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Despite its use of strange and made-up words, it seems to hold their attention, and I think the story's message is generally understood. Even such a simple story is not without cultural hiccups, however. To help explain why the Grinch hates Christmas morning (the noise, noise, noise, noise!), I asked one of my fourth grade classes what time they get up on Christmas morning. The teacher had warned me that they still believe in Santa Claus, so I naturally expected them to be among the Christmas early risers that the Grinch hates so much. When one student said she gets up at two, I assumed she was just extremely eager - until I realized she meant two in the afternoon!
The explanation for this lack of interest in Christmas morning is the celebration of the Epiphany on January 5. Apparently many households here celebrate Christmas with a large meal and a family gathering, but the presents wait until after New Year's to be opened. In addition to Santa Claus decorations, it is quite common to see images of the three wise men. I suppose it makes sense, as they were the original gift-bearers.
Christmas decorations are equally popular here. However, since there seem to be no stand-alone houses in Logroño, people decorate their balconies. The most entertaining decoration I've seen is one of Santa Claus climbing a rope ladder up over the balcony. In keeping with what I wrote above, you can also have the three wise men climb over if you like. According to the stories here, the three wise men bring presents in through the window (but Papa Noël comes through the chimney...which most people don't have. No wonder they get their presents at the Epiphany.)
For me, Christmas means lots of holiday dinners, a happy consequence of not being a poor student anymore. My housemates and I are having one on Thursday, followed by a work dinner on Friday, and one with our landlord on Saturday, which actually conflicts with a dinner that my friends from basketball are having. Is this why people get stressed at Christmas?
This won't be my last post before Christmas, but I hope everybody is enjoying themselves as 2010 winds down.
In these last few weeks before the holiday break, I'm reading my classes Dr. Seuss' classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Despite its use of strange and made-up words, it seems to hold their attention, and I think the story's message is generally understood. Even such a simple story is not without cultural hiccups, however. To help explain why the Grinch hates Christmas morning (the noise, noise, noise, noise!), I asked one of my fourth grade classes what time they get up on Christmas morning. The teacher had warned me that they still believe in Santa Claus, so I naturally expected them to be among the Christmas early risers that the Grinch hates so much. When one student said she gets up at two, I assumed she was just extremely eager - until I realized she meant two in the afternoon!
The explanation for this lack of interest in Christmas morning is the celebration of the Epiphany on January 5. Apparently many households here celebrate Christmas with a large meal and a family gathering, but the presents wait until after New Year's to be opened. In addition to Santa Claus decorations, it is quite common to see images of the three wise men. I suppose it makes sense, as they were the original gift-bearers.
Christmas decorations are equally popular here. However, since there seem to be no stand-alone houses in Logroño, people decorate their balconies. The most entertaining decoration I've seen is one of Santa Claus climbing a rope ladder up over the balcony. In keeping with what I wrote above, you can also have the three wise men climb over if you like. According to the stories here, the three wise men bring presents in through the window (but Papa Noël comes through the chimney...which most people don't have. No wonder they get their presents at the Epiphany.)
For me, Christmas means lots of holiday dinners, a happy consequence of not being a poor student anymore. My housemates and I are having one on Thursday, followed by a work dinner on Friday, and one with our landlord on Saturday, which actually conflicts with a dinner that my friends from basketball are having. Is this why people get stressed at Christmas?
This won't be my last post before Christmas, but I hope everybody is enjoying themselves as 2010 winds down.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Back in the UK
This past weekend was a long one in Spain - holidays on Monday and Wednesday mean Tuesday is free as well. I'm still not entirely clear as to which holidays they were, but all of us enjoyed the five-day weekend (six in my case). I used the extra time to pay a visit to my brother Jesse in Cambridge, where he is wrapping up a term on exchange from Yale.
Logroño is reasonably well-connected by bus and train to the rest of Spain, but getting out of the Iberian peninsula is a bit of a challenge. That's why I left it until this long weekend to go visit Jesse. My journey to London took the better part of a day. I began at 1.30 AM on Friday, hoping to sleep on the bus to the airport. After some confusion over my seat (each ticket has a bus number and a seat number, even though there was only one bus), I was heartily entertained by the one stop we made in snowy Soria. Our bus was visibly full, yet upwards of ten new ticket holders rushed onboard before realizing there was nowhere to sit. They all checked their tickets for the bus number, as we had done in Logroño, and found they were on number 8, the correct one. After some grumbling from the new arrivals in the aisle, we heard the driver's voice shout from outside: "Bueno, ¡hay otro ocho!" (Okay, there's another number 8!) Being 3 AM, the sheer insanity of this disorganization was entertaining rather than frustrating.
Upon reaching Madrid-Barajas Airport, I checked in and lined up to board my Ryanair flight to London Gatwick. At the exact time it was meant to depart, it was announced that it had been delayed for two hours. Gatwick airport had been closed due to weather for two days, so a two-hour delay was not unexpected. Once we finally took off, the pilot announced that he still didn't know if we'd be landing at Gatwick or Stansted because of the snow at Gatwick. As it turned out, we landed at Stansted, but I avoided the fate of many other travelers from Barajas that day - the Spanish air traffic controllers went on strike later that afternoon. I just made it out of the country.
While in London, I used a tube day pass to visit some places that I remembered, and some I hadn't seen - Abbey Road Studios, London Bridge, Harrod's, Southwark - and also had the misfortune of encountering bed bugs at my hostel. Rest assured, they have been dealt with mercilessly.
A tourist taking a picture of the crosswalk on the cover of Abbey Road.
Jesse and I met at Embankment station on Saturday to head to Twickenham to watch Barbarian FC play South Africa (rugby, if you're confused). On the way, I had my first celebrity sighting - British TV personality Dara O'Briain was walking by Waterloo station. I guess that's one advantage of living in a big city.
The rugby game was fantastic. Barbarian FC (also called Baa-Baas) is an invitational team made up of players from all over the world. In rugby, that basically means tons of players from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, a few Europeans, and one Pacific Islander. The Barbarians traditionally face one of the southern hemisphere sides that come to tour Europe in November, and this year, it was defending world champions South Africa (the Springboks). Barbarians won 26-20, and much of the action was in our end, which was a treat. It was a fantastic atmosphere, with plenty of South African expats in the stands screaming "Go Bokke!" in their unique accents. Although not as crowded or as competitive as an international match, it was a privilege to watch the Barbarians play their exciting brand of running rugby. The crowd loudly voiced its disapproval every time either team chose to kick a penalty rather than run it.
Ma'a Nonu: All Black, Barbarian, and all-around awesome rugby player.
Jesse and I met up with Jeff, a friend from the ISC who is now there as a staff member, and headed up to Cambridge later that evening. After church the following morning, Jesse gave me a tour of several Cambridge colleges. Later, I visited my friend Renad, who is currently doing his Masters at the university. I was continually struck by the amount of history, money, and power that Cambridge possesses. One of Renad's professors used to be Richard Nixon's chief of staff, and one of the students at his college counts Facebook's Eduardo Saverin among his friends. Few of the colleges have not produced a world-famous graduate - Newton, Darwin, Keynes, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Monty Python being just a few examples. Cambridge has produced more Nobel prize winners than any other educational institution, though its 800-year existence does give it a distinct advantage.
Isaac Newton.
Jesse Zink (and Charles Darwin).
One of the simplest pleasures of being in the UK was being immersed in my native language again. Jesse and I went to two movies while I was in Cambridge, neither of which I could see in English in Logroño. It was also quite a treat to watch Spanish people try to negotiate the fallout of our flight being diverted in English. Part of me pitied them, but part of me was enjoying seeing the shoe on the other foot. None of them seemed to have real trouble, anyway.
The return trip was uneventful and went exactly as planned. The only surprise was the change in weather - Madrid was 15°C upon my arrival, and Logroño is about the same. It is not often that I get the privilege of wearing sandals in December, but I do enjoy it.
Logroño is reasonably well-connected by bus and train to the rest of Spain, but getting out of the Iberian peninsula is a bit of a challenge. That's why I left it until this long weekend to go visit Jesse. My journey to London took the better part of a day. I began at 1.30 AM on Friday, hoping to sleep on the bus to the airport. After some confusion over my seat (each ticket has a bus number and a seat number, even though there was only one bus), I was heartily entertained by the one stop we made in snowy Soria. Our bus was visibly full, yet upwards of ten new ticket holders rushed onboard before realizing there was nowhere to sit. They all checked their tickets for the bus number, as we had done in Logroño, and found they were on number 8, the correct one. After some grumbling from the new arrivals in the aisle, we heard the driver's voice shout from outside: "Bueno, ¡hay otro ocho!" (Okay, there's another number 8!) Being 3 AM, the sheer insanity of this disorganization was entertaining rather than frustrating.
Upon reaching Madrid-Barajas Airport, I checked in and lined up to board my Ryanair flight to London Gatwick. At the exact time it was meant to depart, it was announced that it had been delayed for two hours. Gatwick airport had been closed due to weather for two days, so a two-hour delay was not unexpected. Once we finally took off, the pilot announced that he still didn't know if we'd be landing at Gatwick or Stansted because of the snow at Gatwick. As it turned out, we landed at Stansted, but I avoided the fate of many other travelers from Barajas that day - the Spanish air traffic controllers went on strike later that afternoon. I just made it out of the country.
While in London, I used a tube day pass to visit some places that I remembered, and some I hadn't seen - Abbey Road Studios, London Bridge, Harrod's, Southwark - and also had the misfortune of encountering bed bugs at my hostel. Rest assured, they have been dealt with mercilessly.
A tourist taking a picture of the crosswalk on the cover of Abbey Road.
Jesse and I met at Embankment station on Saturday to head to Twickenham to watch Barbarian FC play South Africa (rugby, if you're confused). On the way, I had my first celebrity sighting - British TV personality Dara O'Briain was walking by Waterloo station. I guess that's one advantage of living in a big city.
The rugby game was fantastic. Barbarian FC (also called Baa-Baas) is an invitational team made up of players from all over the world. In rugby, that basically means tons of players from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, a few Europeans, and one Pacific Islander. The Barbarians traditionally face one of the southern hemisphere sides that come to tour Europe in November, and this year, it was defending world champions South Africa (the Springboks). Barbarians won 26-20, and much of the action was in our end, which was a treat. It was a fantastic atmosphere, with plenty of South African expats in the stands screaming "Go Bokke!" in their unique accents. Although not as crowded or as competitive as an international match, it was a privilege to watch the Barbarians play their exciting brand of running rugby. The crowd loudly voiced its disapproval every time either team chose to kick a penalty rather than run it.
Jesse and I met up with Jeff, a friend from the ISC who is now there as a staff member, and headed up to Cambridge later that evening. After church the following morning, Jesse gave me a tour of several Cambridge colleges. Later, I visited my friend Renad, who is currently doing his Masters at the university. I was continually struck by the amount of history, money, and power that Cambridge possesses. One of Renad's professors used to be Richard Nixon's chief of staff, and one of the students at his college counts Facebook's Eduardo Saverin among his friends. Few of the colleges have not produced a world-famous graduate - Newton, Darwin, Keynes, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Monty Python being just a few examples. Cambridge has produced more Nobel prize winners than any other educational institution, though its 800-year existence does give it a distinct advantage.
One of the simplest pleasures of being in the UK was being immersed in my native language again. Jesse and I went to two movies while I was in Cambridge, neither of which I could see in English in Logroño. It was also quite a treat to watch Spanish people try to negotiate the fallout of our flight being diverted in English. Part of me pitied them, but part of me was enjoying seeing the shoe on the other foot. None of them seemed to have real trouble, anyway.
The return trip was uneventful and went exactly as planned. The only surprise was the change in weather - Madrid was 15°C upon my arrival, and Logroño is about the same. It is not often that I get the privilege of wearing sandals in December, but I do enjoy it.
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