Saturday, March 26, 2011
Quemada in the Making
Here's a brief video of quemada-making I took. If you turn the sound up, you can hear me trying to speak Spanish at the end.
Drink on Fire
I've mentioned the dinners I've had with my teachers on numerous occasions, but for a variety of reasons, I've been unable to photograph any of them. Last night, I had what might be the last one I'll have, and managed to take some photos.
As I have two groups of teachers, I've had two different types of dinners. With the teachers from Albelda, the dinners have simply been at restaurants. With the teachers from Alberite, they have been in a bodega that a few of the teachers own cooperatively. "Bodega" means a lot of things, but in this case, it's simply a wine cellar with a kitchen, a table, and a fireplace.
A few small notes about Spanish dinners that I may have mentioned previously: food is brought in courses, but the table has finger food already laid out when people arrive. I had doubts about whether it was polite to reach, but then I realized that each section of the table had the same selection, making passing somewhat unnecessary. Spanish people also break the one rule of etiquette that I always remember (because I always break it) - elbows on the table. Apparently that's completely fine here.
Last night's dinner was carrilleras (pig cheeks) and a fish whose name I'm still not sure of. It was described to me, but I can't remember the name: a flat, bottom-feeding, ugly fish with antennae. "But the taste is...good." (The music teacher was practicing his English with me) I tried both dishes, and enjoyed them both. I was particularly intrigued by the fried potatoes served with the carrilleras, which were delicious, and I'm not sure what made them different from other potatoes I've had. Knowing Riojan cuisine, it was probably just the quantity of oil involved.
After dinner, we were treated to quemada, a beverage typical of Galicia (or so I was told), which is a bit of a show as well as a drink. Its base is orujo, which is hard liquor made from the leftovers of the winemaking process. Having tasted it before, I was not excited to try it again until I saw how quemada was different. Once the orujo was in the bowl, it was lit on fire. Suddenly it became much more attractive. Then fruit was added to flavor the drink, and all of it was allowed to cook in the burning orujo for about fifteen minutes. My teachers summarized it as burnt sangria, which is about right. But sangria never looked so cool with the lights out. Incidentally, quemada means "burned" in Spanish. How appropriate.
After the quemada and dessert came the party games, which are always organized by Toni, the religions teacher. The one I played involved tasting various liquids and guessing what they were. As we tasted them, the audience was informed what they were. Toni scared us by claiming they were things like puree of sheep's brain and raw fish, but they were fortunately revealed to be completely harmless things like pureed anchovies and tomatoes.
The last game involved watching videos of our students describing something and trying to guess what it was. To my surprise, I was one of the things they described! The sound wasn't very good, and shy kids don't enunciate very well, so all I could hear them say was that I came from Canada, but it was still nice to be included in something like that.
Anyway, enough of my descriptions and on with the pictures.
As I have two groups of teachers, I've had two different types of dinners. With the teachers from Albelda, the dinners have simply been at restaurants. With the teachers from Alberite, they have been in a bodega that a few of the teachers own cooperatively. "Bodega" means a lot of things, but in this case, it's simply a wine cellar with a kitchen, a table, and a fireplace.
A few small notes about Spanish dinners that I may have mentioned previously: food is brought in courses, but the table has finger food already laid out when people arrive. I had doubts about whether it was polite to reach, but then I realized that each section of the table had the same selection, making passing somewhat unnecessary. Spanish people also break the one rule of etiquette that I always remember (because I always break it) - elbows on the table. Apparently that's completely fine here.
Last night's dinner was carrilleras (pig cheeks) and a fish whose name I'm still not sure of. It was described to me, but I can't remember the name: a flat, bottom-feeding, ugly fish with antennae. "But the taste is...good." (The music teacher was practicing his English with me) I tried both dishes, and enjoyed them both. I was particularly intrigued by the fried potatoes served with the carrilleras, which were delicious, and I'm not sure what made them different from other potatoes I've had. Knowing Riojan cuisine, it was probably just the quantity of oil involved.
After dinner, we were treated to quemada, a beverage typical of Galicia (or so I was told), which is a bit of a show as well as a drink. Its base is orujo, which is hard liquor made from the leftovers of the winemaking process. Having tasted it before, I was not excited to try it again until I saw how quemada was different. Once the orujo was in the bowl, it was lit on fire. Suddenly it became much more attractive. Then fruit was added to flavor the drink, and all of it was allowed to cook in the burning orujo for about fifteen minutes. My teachers summarized it as burnt sangria, which is about right. But sangria never looked so cool with the lights out. Incidentally, quemada means "burned" in Spanish. How appropriate.
After the quemada and dessert came the party games, which are always organized by Toni, the religions teacher. The one I played involved tasting various liquids and guessing what they were. As we tasted them, the audience was informed what they were. Toni scared us by claiming they were things like puree of sheep's brain and raw fish, but they were fortunately revealed to be completely harmless things like pureed anchovies and tomatoes.
The last game involved watching videos of our students describing something and trying to guess what it was. To my surprise, I was one of the things they described! The sound wasn't very good, and shy kids don't enunciate very well, so all I could hear them say was that I came from Canada, but it was still nice to be included in something like that.
Anyway, enough of my descriptions and on with the pictures.
 |
| Making the quemada, with the lights on. |
 | ||
| Making the quemada, with the lights off. |
 | |
| A glass of quemada. It's steaming, if you can't see it. |
 |
| Burning away our mess...and the tablecloth. |
Sunday, March 20, 2011
You Can Call Me Crazy, but Here's My Plan for Next Year
Many people reading this will be wondering what I am planning to do with my university-educated, career-free, travel-obsessed self in the coming year. The plan is not set in stone yet, but here it is, with commentary.
My plan is to get a working holiday visa for New Zealand. These are visas which allow you to travel and work as a temporary or part-time employee in New Zealand for a specified amount of time (in this case, a year). I know quite a few people who have done this before, and I have yet to hear anyone say it wasn't worth doing.
Why New Zealand? I've always been curious about it, and since becoming interested in rugby, it has drawn my interest even more (New Zealand is home to the All Blacks, always one of the best rugby teams in the world). It also has a large agricultural sector (more sheep than people), another of my areas of interest. And it is mostly rural, from what I've read, which is yet another of my preferences. I think many of the things I will like about New Zealand are things I like about Ireland and Scotland. Like green hills and entertaining accents. Obviously, that is a huge simplification, but I want to see exactly how much of a simplification it is.
New Zealand will also play host to the next Rugby World Cup in September. My brief pipe dream of seeing the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa didn't last long, but hopefully I'll be able to make this one happen. In fact, Canada is playing the All Blacks on my birthday in Wellington. Canada's going to get crushed, but that's some kind of coincidence. (Side note: I had to be in Cleveland for my 17th birthday, but it so happened that Bruce Springsteen was playing a concert at Gund Arena on that exact day. Another great coincidence. And yeah, I went. I still have the shirt.)
But working in New Zealand is only half the story. Partly because of environmental concerns and pent-up guilt over the amount of flying I've done over the past four years, partly because of curiosity, and partly because of a desire to avoid a hellish 21-hour flight in economy class, I've decided to go to New Zealand without flying. You might ask how that's possible, New Zealand being a series of islands in the South Pacific. The answer is freighters. I had no interest in taking a cruise ship, but freighters regularly cross the Pacific and pass through New Zealand and Australia. They no longer allow you to "work a passage," but they do allow you to pay for a cabin and ride with them. The cost includes three meals a day and access to the crew's leisure facilities (these guys live on the ship, so they need something to do). The whole journey will take around 15 days, and hopefully be an experience I'll remember forever.
Of course, if I'm to go to New Zealand without flying, I'll also need to meet the freighter at a port in North America. The one I'm looking at leaves from Long Beach, CA. And if I don't want to fly at all on my way to New Zealand, I'll need to get from North Bay, ON to Long Beach, CA by land. So this means a cross-country train journey. My dad will be joining me for this stretch of the trip.
So here, tentatively, are the stages of my journey from North Bay, ON, to Tauranga, New Zealand:
1. Two-day drive from North Bay to Chicago, IL with my dad to visit my aunt Judi.
2. 50-hour train ride from Chicago to Sacramento, CA with my dad, passing through Nebraska (the only state he hasn't been to) along the way.
3. 11-hour train ride from Sacramento to Los Angeles, CA, to meet the freighter by July 7th. We're still unsure about where we'll be staying and whether or not we'll rent a car to get around the LA area, but my dad has a cousin in Santa Barbara whose doorstep we may darken.
4. 15-day journey by freighter to Tauranga, NZ.
If all goes according to plan, I should be in New Zealand by late July of this year. If this works, hopefully people will stop calling me crazy.
My plan is to get a working holiday visa for New Zealand. These are visas which allow you to travel and work as a temporary or part-time employee in New Zealand for a specified amount of time (in this case, a year). I know quite a few people who have done this before, and I have yet to hear anyone say it wasn't worth doing.
Why New Zealand? I've always been curious about it, and since becoming interested in rugby, it has drawn my interest even more (New Zealand is home to the All Blacks, always one of the best rugby teams in the world). It also has a large agricultural sector (more sheep than people), another of my areas of interest. And it is mostly rural, from what I've read, which is yet another of my preferences. I think many of the things I will like about New Zealand are things I like about Ireland and Scotland. Like green hills and entertaining accents. Obviously, that is a huge simplification, but I want to see exactly how much of a simplification it is.
New Zealand will also play host to the next Rugby World Cup in September. My brief pipe dream of seeing the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa didn't last long, but hopefully I'll be able to make this one happen. In fact, Canada is playing the All Blacks on my birthday in Wellington. Canada's going to get crushed, but that's some kind of coincidence. (Side note: I had to be in Cleveland for my 17th birthday, but it so happened that Bruce Springsteen was playing a concert at Gund Arena on that exact day. Another great coincidence. And yeah, I went. I still have the shirt.)
But working in New Zealand is only half the story. Partly because of environmental concerns and pent-up guilt over the amount of flying I've done over the past four years, partly because of curiosity, and partly because of a desire to avoid a hellish 21-hour flight in economy class, I've decided to go to New Zealand without flying. You might ask how that's possible, New Zealand being a series of islands in the South Pacific. The answer is freighters. I had no interest in taking a cruise ship, but freighters regularly cross the Pacific and pass through New Zealand and Australia. They no longer allow you to "work a passage," but they do allow you to pay for a cabin and ride with them. The cost includes three meals a day and access to the crew's leisure facilities (these guys live on the ship, so they need something to do). The whole journey will take around 15 days, and hopefully be an experience I'll remember forever.
Of course, if I'm to go to New Zealand without flying, I'll also need to meet the freighter at a port in North America. The one I'm looking at leaves from Long Beach, CA. And if I don't want to fly at all on my way to New Zealand, I'll need to get from North Bay, ON to Long Beach, CA by land. So this means a cross-country train journey. My dad will be joining me for this stretch of the trip.
So here, tentatively, are the stages of my journey from North Bay, ON, to Tauranga, New Zealand:
1. Two-day drive from North Bay to Chicago, IL with my dad to visit my aunt Judi.
2. 50-hour train ride from Chicago to Sacramento, CA with my dad, passing through Nebraska (the only state he hasn't been to) along the way.
3. 11-hour train ride from Sacramento to Los Angeles, CA, to meet the freighter by July 7th. We're still unsure about where we'll be staying and whether or not we'll rent a car to get around the LA area, but my dad has a cousin in Santa Barbara whose doorstep we may darken.
4. 15-day journey by freighter to Tauranga, NZ.
If all goes according to plan, I should be in New Zealand by late July of this year. If this works, hopefully people will stop calling me crazy.
Anecdotes from the Past Month
Here's three quick highlights from the past month before I add another, far more noteworthy post.
Once every trimester, the teachers at each of my schools have a dinner together. Last weekend, I had my second with the teachers from Albelda. I really enjoy spending time with the teachers from both of my schools, and this dinner was no exception. Perhaps the oldest teacher at the school is a special ed teacher with a very easygoing manner, a dual citizen of Venezuela and Spain named (or nicknamed) Coos. He sat across from me and never ceased to tell jokes, all in Spanish despite his considerable English skill acquired from travels in his younger days. The combined success of my being able to understand his punchlines about 25% of the time and the quality of his jokes made for a very enjoyable evening. One that I remember that also translates into English goes as follows:
A teacher thinks Johnny and Jimmy cheated on their recent math test, so she takes them aside to talk about it. She points to the first answer. They both got it correct with eerily identical work. They reply that they studied together, so of course they solved the problem the same way. The teacher moves on the second question, which they both got wrong and made the same mistake. They reply that they were not the only ones who were fooled by that question, and surely they were not the only ones who made that particular mistake. The teacher then moves on to their third answer, to which Johnny has written "I don't know." Johnny is about to explain himself, when the teacher points out that Jimmy has written "Me neither."
Eduardo, the physical education teacher in Albelda was the person who connected me with my Thursday night basketball group, and we frequently talk about sports together. This week, he had organized a small volleyball tournament at recess. The tournament was essentially to see which team of students could beat the teachers...and none of them did while I was there. I've never been much of a volleyball player, but I was playing against teams of students who are more than ten years younger than me. Did I play nice? That depends on your definition of "nice." I didn't spike it hard...but I did spike it. A lot. I even spiked it with my back to the net once. Fortunately, the students all thought I was really good, rather than really mean, so I left that recess feeling pretty refreshed.
People know that Spain is obsessed with football (soccer). Most people also know that the two big teams in the Spanish league are FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Support for those two teams effectively divides every one of my classes. One day, while talking about sights to see while traveling, my students in Alberite mentioned the Madrid stadium (Santiago Bernabéu). It was our last example before I erased the board, leaving the Barça supporters with their hands fervently up to name their stadium as well. Just to stir up trouble, I erased the board and wrote "Nou Camp" (Barcelona's stadium) in small letters where "Santiago Bernabéu" had been. The Madrid supporters instantly noticed and called for it to be changed. Then I hit upon the ultimate solution. I erased "Nou Camp" and wrote "Fenway Park." Problem solved.
Once every trimester, the teachers at each of my schools have a dinner together. Last weekend, I had my second with the teachers from Albelda. I really enjoy spending time with the teachers from both of my schools, and this dinner was no exception. Perhaps the oldest teacher at the school is a special ed teacher with a very easygoing manner, a dual citizen of Venezuela and Spain named (or nicknamed) Coos. He sat across from me and never ceased to tell jokes, all in Spanish despite his considerable English skill acquired from travels in his younger days. The combined success of my being able to understand his punchlines about 25% of the time and the quality of his jokes made for a very enjoyable evening. One that I remember that also translates into English goes as follows:
A teacher thinks Johnny and Jimmy cheated on their recent math test, so she takes them aside to talk about it. She points to the first answer. They both got it correct with eerily identical work. They reply that they studied together, so of course they solved the problem the same way. The teacher moves on the second question, which they both got wrong and made the same mistake. They reply that they were not the only ones who were fooled by that question, and surely they were not the only ones who made that particular mistake. The teacher then moves on to their third answer, to which Johnny has written "I don't know." Johnny is about to explain himself, when the teacher points out that Jimmy has written "Me neither."
Eduardo, the physical education teacher in Albelda was the person who connected me with my Thursday night basketball group, and we frequently talk about sports together. This week, he had organized a small volleyball tournament at recess. The tournament was essentially to see which team of students could beat the teachers...and none of them did while I was there. I've never been much of a volleyball player, but I was playing against teams of students who are more than ten years younger than me. Did I play nice? That depends on your definition of "nice." I didn't spike it hard...but I did spike it. A lot. I even spiked it with my back to the net once. Fortunately, the students all thought I was really good, rather than really mean, so I left that recess feeling pretty refreshed.
People know that Spain is obsessed with football (soccer). Most people also know that the two big teams in the Spanish league are FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Support for those two teams effectively divides every one of my classes. One day, while talking about sights to see while traveling, my students in Alberite mentioned the Madrid stadium (Santiago Bernabéu). It was our last example before I erased the board, leaving the Barça supporters with their hands fervently up to name their stadium as well. Just to stir up trouble, I erased the board and wrote "Nou Camp" (Barcelona's stadium) in small letters where "Santiago Bernabéu" had been. The Madrid supporters instantly noticed and called for it to be changed. Then I hit upon the ultimate solution. I erased "Nou Camp" and wrote "Fenway Park." Problem solved.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Kids and Hamsters
Things here continue much as they have since I returned from Christmas. I've been playing basketball with a group of older (i.e., 30+) guys on Thursday nights after they put their kids to bed, and with a group of expatriate friends on Sunday afternoons. I'm also running a March Madness pool at the moment. My weeks have been busy with teaching, including up to six tutoring lessons at one point. And although I have not been traveling, my weekends have managed to keep me entertained.
Most people who know me will know that young children and I do not get along well. Indeed, when I told people I was going to be teaching in a primary school, I got plenty of surprised laughs. Before I left, a wise man told me I would soon discover the joys of working with children. That wise man knows who he is, and as of now, he is neither right nor wrong.
My classes are generally pretty enjoyable, as almost all of them have a few intelligent and studious kids. There are also a surprising number of students who have an English-speaking parent, and so help move the rest of the class at a quicker pace. There are only a few classes that are consistently problematic, and those are the ones that make me feel drained afterwards. It can be like pulling teeth to get these kids to behave, let alone to understand my English. The combined frustration of misbehavior and lack of understanding - and the sheer absence of any attempt to understand me - only serves to make me feel out of place and as a distraction, rather than as a teacher. The kids that frustrate me most are the ones who have mastered the smug "I don't know what you're saying, and I don't care to find out" smile. On the other hand, those are the kids whose names I always know, and it makes for a great measuring stick to see if they can answer me. If I ask a bad student a simple question about the material, the other students' reaction is how I judge my success: blank stares all around means a failure, annoyed whispers to help the bad student mean success (because they know the answer).
Bad students aside, I do manage to enjoy my job. The most entertaining part continues to be the stumbles people (myself included) make over the language barrier. Recently, I was teaching a fourth grade class about daily routines, and I was having the students tell me when they did various things. I asked one student when he put on his pajamas. His response was, "I put on..." followed by a pause filled with laughter from the other students. Thinking he had just stumbled, I encouraged him to continue, when their teacher asked me if I knew why they were laughing. She said, "Think about it. Put. On." In Spanish, the word putón is a rather dirty thing to say. So I had the student repeat, "I put. On my. Pajamas."
In the same school, one of the sixth grade classes saw me drink from my tall, 750-ml water bottle (which regularly draws attention) and asked what I was drinking. It was a particularly irritating student who asked, and he asked in Spanish (which meant I shouldn't have responded), so I replied, "Beer." The students laughed. Don't ask me how they know the word "beer" in English, because I certainly didn't teach them. Then things got bizarre. One of the kids in the front row asked, "Hamster? Hamster?" while pointing at the bottle. I was so taken aback by the oddity of the question that I burst out laughing. It wasn't until later that I realized he'd been saying "Amstel? Amstel?" in reference to the joke that I was drinking beer.
I apologize for the limited number of posts I've been writing. There really is plenty to tell, but it's hard to sort out the interesting from the already-told. Maybe I'll do something different today and go drink a Hamster. That would certainly be a story.
Most people who know me will know that young children and I do not get along well. Indeed, when I told people I was going to be teaching in a primary school, I got plenty of surprised laughs. Before I left, a wise man told me I would soon discover the joys of working with children. That wise man knows who he is, and as of now, he is neither right nor wrong.
My classes are generally pretty enjoyable, as almost all of them have a few intelligent and studious kids. There are also a surprising number of students who have an English-speaking parent, and so help move the rest of the class at a quicker pace. There are only a few classes that are consistently problematic, and those are the ones that make me feel drained afterwards. It can be like pulling teeth to get these kids to behave, let alone to understand my English. The combined frustration of misbehavior and lack of understanding - and the sheer absence of any attempt to understand me - only serves to make me feel out of place and as a distraction, rather than as a teacher. The kids that frustrate me most are the ones who have mastered the smug "I don't know what you're saying, and I don't care to find out" smile. On the other hand, those are the kids whose names I always know, and it makes for a great measuring stick to see if they can answer me. If I ask a bad student a simple question about the material, the other students' reaction is how I judge my success: blank stares all around means a failure, annoyed whispers to help the bad student mean success (because they know the answer).
Bad students aside, I do manage to enjoy my job. The most entertaining part continues to be the stumbles people (myself included) make over the language barrier. Recently, I was teaching a fourth grade class about daily routines, and I was having the students tell me when they did various things. I asked one student when he put on his pajamas. His response was, "I put on..." followed by a pause filled with laughter from the other students. Thinking he had just stumbled, I encouraged him to continue, when their teacher asked me if I knew why they were laughing. She said, "Think about it. Put. On." In Spanish, the word putón is a rather dirty thing to say. So I had the student repeat, "I put. On my. Pajamas."
In the same school, one of the sixth grade classes saw me drink from my tall, 750-ml water bottle (which regularly draws attention) and asked what I was drinking. It was a particularly irritating student who asked, and he asked in Spanish (which meant I shouldn't have responded), so I replied, "Beer." The students laughed. Don't ask me how they know the word "beer" in English, because I certainly didn't teach them. Then things got bizarre. One of the kids in the front row asked, "Hamster? Hamster?" while pointing at the bottle. I was so taken aback by the oddity of the question that I burst out laughing. It wasn't until later that I realized he'd been saying "Amstel? Amstel?" in reference to the joke that I was drinking beer.
I apologize for the limited number of posts I've been writing. There really is plenty to tell, but it's hard to sort out the interesting from the already-told. Maybe I'll do something different today and go drink a Hamster. That would certainly be a story.
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