The Search for a Consistent Editorial Tone (CET) Continues

I am in my room with Sarah as we sit and work side by side at my long desk. We are back in the Meseta of Castille-la Mancha after three days in Granada. We’re both a bit stressed after coming back to our responsibilities after a tiring trip. Sarah has graduate school applications to work on; and I have fallen behind my sister in travelogue post quantity. To make matters worse, matters are worse: I haven’t updated recently and so there is too much material to create a satisfying, well-orchestrated blog post. In desperation, I have resorted to subsections. But all is not lost. Spell-checking still functions at full capacity.

Almorox: Almorox is not as small as I first thought. Its age distribution seems to be a reverse bell-curve, with lots of children and elderly and much less in between. Nevertheless, there are teenagers and young adults. But what are the demographics, you shout? Well, there are a good deal of Muslims as well as the traditional Catholics (whether they attend church or not is another question). The town is made up of homes in ancient buildings, and talleres (workshops of various specialties), and a few scattered other businesses, such as banks, groceries, and auto services. There are also about ten cafes/bars around. These are quite small and more or less full of adults from around town. You can smoke in them. You are brought a free tapas platter, usually fried, when you order a beer. I have only been to one such cafe so far, and need to make my way to more. In the center of town is the plaza, which is quite pretty. Everyone sort of congregates around the plaza in the evenings, talking to their friends and seeing what other groups are up to.

I don’t yet know many people in Almorox. But there are lots of kids, and I always say hello to them in English, since I’m not sure which are my students and which aren’t.

School: There are two buildings that I teach at, one a brown colegio infantil, where 3-6 year olds attend, and the escuela primaria, with 6-12 year olds. The kids range from having trouble with naming their colors correctly to struggling through exponents and orders of operations. They are all quite friendly, especially the younger ones. The older ones are friendly too, but are more likely to laugh at ridiculous way Americans sound. I am still finding my sea legs (figuratively speaking), as I have only taught two days thus far. But I should bite into the mallowy center of the school year soon (figuratively speaking).

Madrid: Madrid is a crazy city. It’s very compact, so while you can take the excellent metro to get around, you don’t have to. There are lots of great places to eat and drink. It is a bit expensive unfortunately. It is also very full of people. At night, the streets rumble with people. Twice as many feet as people pummel mercilessly at the defenseless ancient brick of the streets. Sarah and I only stayed out till 2 when we were there, so I cannot confirm that the party keeps going till dawn in Madrid. Sarah and I agree that Madrid is probably best if you know people there and can go out with them, so I would like for this to happen in my opinion. Luckily, I met a couple of Madrileños while I was in Granada this weekend.

Granada: Granada is an incredible city. It is in the South of Spain in Andalucía. It has flamenco, Moorish castles, Moorish neighborhoods, and a vibrant nightlife. Sarah and I visited for the weekend, staying with a Polish student named Paulina for two nights, and in a hostel for the other. In Granada we visited everything we could. Al-Hambra, the Moorish castles and gardens (and also the local beer) were beautiful. Sarah is posting pictures on her Facebook profile. The Moorish neighborhoods were also beautiful, and also hilly. This is definitely a city with many views to take the breath away. It also is a lot of fun to eat and drink in. It is a tapas city where you go from bar to bar ordering beers and getting free tapas, and that seems to be how many people spend a great deal of their time. Sarah and I also took a day trip out to the small neighboring village of Monachil, where a local festival took place, complete with local folk marching band. We were lucky to have seen this, as we had no idea it was afoot. But even this is not all that Granada offers. Paulina tooks us out with a Spanish friend of hers, and we saw a very cool rock bar which played rockabilly and 60s garage rock and had Swingin’60s decorations, and also to a large bar having a soul music night. That incidentally was where I met two Madrileños named Jorge and Danny who liked bands like the Feelies and X, which I also like. We exchanged numbers and will meet up in Madrid. Paulina’s was also a lot of fun. She is an anthropology student studying a specific folk culture of Poland. We spent an enjoyable evening with Paulina and her two French roommates exchanging music videos from our home countries. Elucidation took place without warning. Luckily all survived.

That’s all for now. In the future who can know what I might experience? Nobody.