My time in Madrid is half done. Part of me thinks, "Already???" and the other part thinks it feels like I've been here forever. I think part of that has to do with feeling like I picked up where I left off four years ago. I'm going to some of the same places with some of the same people, or same places with new people, and new places with new people. It just feels like my life has continued on from June 2009 and picked up in May 2012.
The good part about retracing my steps is that I've been able to see how much I have (not) changed in the last three years. I've noticed how much growing up I've done and have reflected on all the experiences I hadn't had yet that have given me my personality and my outlook on life. In a lot of ways I feel wiser than I was before, and I don't mean that I'm all-knowing, but the last three years I've started living on my own, graduated college, got rejected from 100s of jobs, started law school, got rejected from 100s more jobs, made friends, lost friends, had two knee surgeries, and adopted Ginger Lee Rogers. All of these events, big or small, have changed me from who I was in 2009. A few nights ago I was talking with one of the Marines who works at the Embassy and we were talking about thoughts on a variety of subjects, most of them serious. We're the same age and had a lot of the same experiences that we've grown and matured from. What struck me was when he asked me what it's like to live on my own. Taking the steps of living with family to a sheltered dorm environment to living with a host family to living in a house with 4 other women and finally living on my own, there was a progression in my life of learning how to live on my own with less security every step of the way. He thought it would be weird to live on his own, and I realized that even though he's been responsible for the safety of other people for the last 6 years, he's never been responsible for paying his own bills. It's such a mundane task, and I think you take for granted that by 25 you learn how to live on your own as an adult, but he'll be 25, living on his on for the first time, having never had to remember to pay bills or go grocery shopping. It also made me realize that 3 years ago I hadn't done any of that either, but now it's second nature and just part of life that I don't even think about.
Trips
So far I've taken two day trips, one to Avila, and today I went hiking.
OK, let's start with the more surprising of those two: I went hiking. I'm from NYC. The outdoors is a great but scary place filled with bugs and mud and ways to hurt yourself. One of my coworkers invited me on a day hike and I said sure. One, because I didn't actually know if I liked hiking or not (turns out I do). Two, because I thought it would be a good (or awful) test for my knee. And three, when else am I going to get the chance to go hiking in Spain. We went to a small town called Rascafria (wow, that's the worst Wiki article I've ever seen) and hiked in Peñalara Natural Park. We went on a 6K hike, most of which wasn't too treacherous, but some of it was a little challenging. One of the things I love about Spain is how quickly weather changes in the mountains. When we got to the park it was cold and rainy and I thought I was poorly dressed in a T-shirt and shorts. We went into a monastery for a few minutes, and when we came out it was sunny and warming up. Throughout the day we had overcast skies, cloudy skies, partly cloudy skies, drizzle, rain, sunshine. I was really worried about my knee as we got to some of the bigger rocks but I think was all in my head, and I made it to the grand finale, the Cascada de Pergutorio (Waterfall of Pergutory ... yikes) no problem
I never think of the Spanish as an outdoor-loving people unless it involves a combination of soccer, beer, and a stroll in the park. In the year I lived here I never heard anyone talk about hiking or outdoor adventures, so I was surprised to see how many people we on the trail with us. I was also surprised to see that animals were being herded and kept in different pens along the mountain (mostly cows). And looking back on it, I didn't see any litter which is what you expect when you climb a mountain, but there tends to be a lot of litter in Spain, and people just drop things on the floor instead of looking for a trash can, so it was nice to see that park kept so nice.
On Memorial Day, I took a day trip to Avila which is home to lots of medieval churches (including one that started being built around 350 AD but is mostly medieval in style) and a giant wall to keep people out. And my people I probably mean Moors. I went on a Monday which meant that most of the museums were closed which made my trip a lot shorter than initially planned. One of the disappointing things about seeing a small medieval town is once you've seen one you've kind of seen them all. The main attractions are churches and cathedrals and churches and an architectural phenomenon or two. So nothing struck me in Avila the way things struck me in Segovia or Toledo or the small towns we went to in Extremadura or Castilla-Leon or Castilla-La-Mancha.
Cathedral
Lion outside of the main church. Lions are the main symbol of the royal family descending from Castilla León and why the Lion is on the Spanish crest.
Anti-invader wall
Europeans say that Americans are way too patriotic and everyone has an American flag and we go around singing the national anthem all day long. OK, maybe not the last part. But they do think we're the most patriotic country in the world.
Until now.
The EuroCup is a regional
Anyway, the teams are split up into 4 pools, the top 2 from each pool after round play goes on to the following round, similar to the World Cup. Sorry Spain, you tied Italy 1-1 and played a much better game. Better luck against Ireland and Croatia.
As often happens, there's a lot of politics involved in this match. It's not quite the Miracle on Ice or the Berlin Olympics, but it is an important time for Europe. There's still a lot of inequality between Western and Eastern European countries, and Eastern Europe is still viewed by Western Europe as underdeveloped and backwards. In an attempt to debunk some of those myths, UEFA awarded the EuroCup to be played in Poland and the Ukraine, most likely because neither of those countries could handle all those games, but they can show the rest of Europe that they are a cultured, smart people with a lot to offer the EU (Poland is an EU member, the Ukraine is not, though presumably is trying to become a candidate country). Western Europe tends to see Eastern Europe as pulling down the Euro and the European economy as a whole, so this is a good chance to A. help the economy but B. show what these countries have to offer. But that only works IF these countries can present a positive front. (note: of the 16 teams the 5 Eastern European teams are Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Croatia, and the Czech Republic).
There are current and former soccer stars who are boycotting the games because of the rampant racism -- mostly against Muslims, Jews, and Africans -- in Poland and the Ukraine. The players have been training in the two countries for a few weeks and many were bombarded with racial slurs during practices, including a group of Polish men raising their arms and heiling Hitler to some Jewish players, and a group of South Asian youths who were beaten during a game for no reason other than being South Asian. With acts like that, the EU member states are only going to continue looking down on Poland and the Ukraine. I was reading an article that criticized UEFA for giving the bid to Poland and the Ukraine to help improve the impression that the west has about the east, and said that the games should have been awarded as a reward for making certain steps to stopping racism and other social problems, not given out in hopes that the countries would magically become more tolerant.
According to these articles, racism seems to be an issue, and it's only day 3:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18383678
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18338838
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18377957
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