A Weekend Adventure

A few weekends ago I went to Asturias, the next province to the west of Cantabria, with some friends on a little day trip. We went to see a cave called el Pindal, which full of paleolithic paintings. These included depictions of a fish and a mammoth, which are very rare in cave paintings in this area, if you were wondering. But I suppose I should talk about this day chronologically, so you will have to wait a minute til I get to the cave part (or scroll down, if you are that excited about paleolithic cave art. That's you, mom.)

First we stopped for lunch in Cerrazo, a tiny, typical Cantabrian village near Torrelavega, the city where I work. The restaurant is really popular because it's a) cheap, and b) has great food, and they don't take reservations, so we got there a little early...so early, in fact, that the kitchen wasn't open. That's ok, we'll just go for a nice stroll through the village. Now I should mention that EVERY. TIME we leave the city I make a huge annoying point of going to find ponies, because there are inevitably some pastured nearby. My friends are very good about humoring this particular quirk of mine. I even have a "pony kit" ready to go, which I have never once remembered to bring along. It includes two brushes, one hard, one soft (I bought them at the supermarket and I'm pretty sure they were meant for shoe cleaning), a sugar cube stealthily stolen from a bar, and a carrot. Well, actually, the carrot is in there on kind of a rotating basis, because they were getting all shriveled up and smelly between pony excursions.

So we walked down the hill from the restaurant, and sure enough! We found two horsies in a beautiful field. The seemed pretty uninterested in us, though, and my friends were ready to continue along the country lane. "Oh pish posh," I said. "Let me show you a little pony trick I know." I pulled out a packet of kleenex from my bag and wrinkled the plastic wrapper. This method is not very honest, because it makes the pony think he is going to get a peppermint or other similarly cellophane-wrapped treat. But it is a tried-and-true way of luring ponies closer to fences to be petted. And this proves its effectiveness is international. Sure enough, this nice, dirty, stocky grey pony lumbered over, ears perked up and looking for a candy. I apologized for tricking him but soon learned he felt pretty OK about it, and was happy to be scratched and patted. My friends were very shocked at this: what can I say, my horse powers are finely tuned. They even called me the horse whisperer! We spent a little while with this nice fellow, and my friends found it hilarious that he was pretty lippy, meaning he let me play with his nose and he made funny faces and yawned big great yawns, and let me kiss the soft, velvet spot between his nostrils. My friends eventually got a little bored (I would happily have stayed there all afternoon), so we continued up the road. This is our parting glimpse of my pony friend:

As we walked along we passed a few farms, and one had a big, muddy pen in the back yard. We found some sheep huddled in a shed, looking stranded in a sea of muck. And in another such refuge:

He/she is destined, I'm sure, to be chorizo, jamón, lomo, or salchichón one day. Such is the life cycle of a Spanish pig. 


We went back up the hill and had a lovely lunch -- I'll do an entry on food later on, so you can get familiar with all the jargon -- including raciones of morcilla (blood sausage, don't you turn your nose up, it is delicious), piping hot clams with olive oil, garlic, parsley, and hot peppers, and a cheese plate. For our main course we split a whole white fish cooked in the oven with potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and peppers, and a steak with french fries and roasted red peppers. I didn't eat much steak, not being a big red meat person, and especially not being a very, very rare red meat person. But I can appreciate the quality and preparation of the meat here, especially this steak. It was cooked on a super hot grill with nothing but salt and maybe a little oil. Everything was spectacular. Spanish food really is great. To drink I had a glass of red wine, one friend had a beer, and we all had water and mosto, a very sweet grape juice made as a bi-product of (? or maybe just in the same facility as) wine.

Then we drove just over the border into Asturias, where we drove up a hill to a tiny resort village at the top of a ridge overlooking the sea. Since we had time to kill before our cave appointment, we went to a lookout and took a brief walk down a very steep hill leading down to cliffs, and eventually to the ocean. The sun was coming out from behind the clouds, and even though the water here is far from tropical, it always has that turquoise tinge to it that I associate with much warmer climes. I snapped a few pictures of my friend Leah venturing down in front of us, and got this one of the sun shining full on her. I love the way her little red hat makes her stand out in the vast landscape she's a part of. I am no photographer, and my camera is a piece of crap, but sometimes by sheer luck a nice picture gets produced.

The cave was down the hill towards the sea. We walked through a forest of stunted trees with gnarled roots coming up out of the ground, and down a narrow staircase carved into the cliff on the other side. 

It opens up to a view of the ocean, a very Pirates-of-the-Caribbean scene with a huge rock that looks like it grew right up out of the ocean.

The cave tour was just the four of us with the guide, and we walked deep into the cave, along wet, dripping paths that wound between thick stalagmites. It was mostly dark and muddy in the cave, but the guide turned on low lights and carried a flashlight so we could see the drawings and carvings he pointed out on the walls. I've been to a number of caves in this part of Spain, some with drawings, some with incredible rock and crystal formations. I never get tired of seeing the drawings on the walls, and imagining the people who made them. Twelve thousand years ago. Twelve thousand. You know Christ? How he lived two thousand years ago? Yeah, go back another ten thousand from then. These people lived in caves, but not this one, because it opens directly onto the ocean and is very cold and wet. But they went deep into el Pindal to paint on the walls with an iron oxide compound they mixed with animal fat; that made the lines absorb into the porous rock, so that they haven't faded over time and are just as vibrant (the experts think) as they were back then. The people -- probably the shaman or holy men, but no one knows for sure -- painted bison and horses and, as I mentioned above, a fish and a mammoth. They used the rock itself as part of the drawings, so that the heads of some of the drawn bison protrude like the real animal, or the curve of a horse's haunch is clear in a crack in the stone. 


There are also abstract marks that can be found in caves all over the north of Spain and into the south of France; scientists think they could have been some kind of mutually understood communication system between the many tribes that used the network of caves along the coast of the Bay of Biscay, or that the tribes shared a religion and the marks represent some spiritual meaning. It's incredible that modern man can know so much about these ancient people, but there is still so much we'll never know, and it's so thrilling for me to imagine what it could have been like. What the people were like, what they wore, what they looked like, how it felt to live so very long ago. That's one of the things about Spain that make it so mysterious and awe-inspiring -- the ancient, ancient history that surrounds us every day here, that can be seen just about anywhere, and the influence it's had on the way we live now.

As we left the cave not too much happened: one friend and I went into the woods in lieu of a bathroom; I almost lost one of the beautiful green mittens my Granny gave me years ago; and a woman with a siamese cat on a leash came to ask for information about the cave:

The cat was really unhappy about being on a leash and didn't really seem to understand that he was supposed to walk along with the woman -- so mostly she alternated between holding him like a limp ragdoll or heaving on the leash while he dug in his claws and wailed.

We stopped for a drink in Llanes, a pretty little beach town just before the border of Cantabria, and took a walk along the sea wall as the sun set behind the mountains opposite the ocean. 

  

We wanted to get a snack in Llanes, but nothing was open, so we moved along from town to town looking for a bar whose kitchen was preparing food. All we found was a rest stop off the highway, where we ate potato chips. Then we drove home. Just a normal end to a normal weekend day trip. You can see more pictures here.

Pretty Things in Spain III

Traditional Asturian dancers in a plaza one Sunday morning in Oviedo

 

Blogs and Boredom

Well here we are, four months since I last posted. To be fair, these last few months have been very busy: in April we went to Italy with my parents for Easter vacation. In May I was finishing up the school year with lots of projects and stress. In June we went to Morocco (to buy cheap, beautiful leather products and eat) and Senegal (to visit Katie over at Niger-Mania) for three weeks. We came home in the beginning of July with a nasty, nasty flu virus that knocked me on my ass for a week. Now I have no excuse for not writing. But laying it all out like I did above, I'm realizing just how many things I have to write about. Good, something to sink my teeth into in these weeks of inactivity. July is turning out to be a bit of a bust. Read on:

I was hoping to get a job in a tiny town in the interior of the province teaching English at a summer school, but because of my student visa they couldn't hire me. (The student visa allows me to work a very limited number of contracted hours  --  I'm paid under the table for private classes and my job at the academy, but the director of this summer school wouldn't hire me without a contract. And therefore didn't hire me at all.) I've been teaching some private classes, but with people going on vacation and working and kids not wanting to study in the summer, my schedule has been sporadic to say the least.

On top of that, it's been cold (in the 50s! I've been wearing a jacket! It's JULY for god's sake!) and very rainy for the last few weeks. Of course, the week I was sick in bed with chills, a fever, body aches, and a terrible cough (I am such a baby about illness), it was gorgeous, hot and sunny outside. The weather has made it difficult to enjoy the beach and go on adventures and revel in summer. Not to mention the darkness, cold, and rain make for cranky, mopey moods.

I have lots of things to write about. But I just haven't been able to get it together to sit down and write. New personal mantra: "I will use my time productively and write instead of moping around the house and taking too many naps." Mantras are supposed to be short and easily memorized, no? Oops. How about "Get off your ass. Be creative." Better.

Video Postscript: Revelry in Toro

After our concert we were treated to a dinner above the theater with all the other performers - it was a community concert in honor of St Cecilia, so the local guitar orchestra played with a guest flutist, a funny little man sang funny little songs, and afterwards we all ate and drank and everyone sang. It reminded me of music parties at our house, or some of the festivals we went to when I was younger - with alcohol and good times come the traditional songs that everyone knows and spontaneously begins to sing. It was so great! 

(Keep an eye out for the Spanish Old Ladies in their fur coats and full makeup)

 

I Love Choir (and Our Trip to Zamora)

After singing for my entire life in one form or another, I knew that when I came to Spain I wanted to find a choir to join. I had great choir experiences throughout childhood and high school (yes, I’ll admit it now, even though I complained mightily about NMH Concert Choir and Select Women’s Ensemble), but was disappointed in the offerings in college. Don’t get me wrong – my acapella group, the ConnChords, were (are) my saviors, my sisters, the lights in my life through my four years at Conn. But I missed classical singing, and found that the Chamber Choir left much to be desired. So imagine my excitement when, through simple internet searches, I stumbled upon the blog for a choir right here in Santander. I listened to the videos and it seemed to be exactly what I was looking for – about forty members, with a high level of musicality, a great sense of community and humor, but with a low-pressure, non-competitive feel. I sent an email to the director listing my ‘credentials’ and experience, and was invited to come to a rehearsal. In hindsight I know I needn’t have written so formally and talked myself up so much – I’m sure he laughed to himself when he read how serious I was trying to make myself sound. But I went to that first rehearsal, and, as they say, the rest is history.

Everyone in choir is simply wonderful. They are interested, inclusive, friendly, caring, hilarious, MUSICAL, and take care of me like one of their own. Especially now, in my second year, I feel more comfortable than ever with them and with my Spanish. I can laugh and joke along with them, and I really feel like a part of the community, a part of their ‘musical family’ as the director called it in an email once. They remind me of some of my mom’s kooky (and totally wonderful) music friends at home. The majority have been singing together since college (everyone is in their 50s minus me, the director’s two teenage daughters, and 30-something-year-old Maria), and are all the best of friends. 

Last fall, in November, we went away for a weekend to the province of Zamora, which is to the south and west of us. The town governments of Toro and Urueña invited us to come and sing a few concerts and a mass for them. In Spain, “invited” means that everything was paid for! We took a bus down and stayed overnight in a nice hotel, had good meals at a convent (?), and enjoyed the star treatment for the weekend. I was a little worried at first, not knowing if I’d have anyone to hang out with, if I’d be included, who I’d share a room with, etc. But it turned out to be one of the best times I’ve had in Spain. (I shared a room with Cristina, who is 15 and very sweet)

We visited a lot of the historical stuff in the area, lots of churches with beautiful frescoes… I had planned to make that a list, but mostly what we saw were churches! One of the monasteries/churches had one of the biggest reliquaries in Spain – if you don’t know what a reliquary is…just think dead guys! Pieces and body parts of various saints and religious things, all encased in glass or framed. Very creepy, and very cool. 

The young priest at the church where we sang mass Sunday morning was really candid with us, admitting that most (all) of it was rabbit bones or the remains of some anonymous human beings that had been dug up and sold as religious artifacts. That Sunday was St Cecilia’s day, so we sang a mass in her honor, as she is the patron saint of music and musicians. The church has a cross separated into little compartments full of bone powder from various saints, one of them being St Cecilia. At the end of the mass you could come to the front of the church to kiss the cross and pay your respects. 

Being slightly germaphobic I decided just to touch it and not kiss it. They also had a spine from the crown of thorns Christ was crucified in and the (now) shredded flag that was used to scare away the Turks in some ancient important Spanish battle. 

It was also nice to be back in Castilla y León, which is the province where Salamanca is, where I studied in 2006. It’s amazing how varied the Spanish landscape is – where I live, in Cantabria on the north coast, it’s very green and lush and hilly, and the Picos de Europa mountain range are visible to the south, usually covered with snow. Castilla y León, however, is the famous “plain in Spain,” (although the rain stays up here, and not down in the drought-plagued central parts of the country). It reminds me of the western part of the United States, open and flat and a lovely brown prairie color.  Of course, in the US we don't have amazing castles disrupting our prairies...

The best part of the trip, though, was spending time with everyone in the choir. I know it sounds sappy, but I am so grateful every time I go to rehearsal – not only are they great people who have accepted me into their family, but we make beautiful music together. All you Chords and music-types out there will understand what I mean when I say it makes it so much more special and multi-dimensional when you work hard to create something beautiful with people you love.