Día de la Hispanidad

Heh heh

October 12 is a national holiday in Spain, known officially as “Fiesta nacional de España” but often called “Día de la Hispanidad.” It celebrates Columbus (October 12 was the day the famous explorer first laid eyes on America) and Spain’s contributions to the world, etc. Yes, I realize this holiday was now two weeks ago. Blogging without a computer is hard, ok.

In light of this holiday, I used my various English classes last week to talk about Hispanic identity (i.e., is there such a thing/how would one go about defining it/etc.) and Día de la Hispanidad’s sister holiday in the U.S., a.k.a. Columbus Day (in the greater context of Hispanic National Heritage Month in the U.S.). 

I always started the class by asking what the students already knew about Columbus. The first answer was usually the classic: “He discovered America!” which served as a great launching pad to talk about how Columbus didn’t really discover America—he only ever landed in the Bahamas and those islands were def already inhabited—and how maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t such a cool guy to celebrate... By the end, when I asked students if they thought the U.S. should still celebrate Columbus Day, most of them said “no.” (Well, many of them still said “yes," initially. But then I told them that they had to pretend that the holiday no longer included a vacation day from school or work. How about then? And only then was the answer “well, no.” Ohhhh, kids haha.)

Anyway, October 12 here in Spain does mean no school or work, yippy skippy hip hip hooray. My roommate was going to Sevilla and Córdoba for the long weekend with a big group of people, and they had one seat left in one of the rental cars. So she invited me to go along WOOT, road trips are my fave. There were nine of us total: 3 Italians, 2 Swedes, 1 Belgian, 2 Frenchwomen, and 1 American (me). It was basically the United Nations haha. And with the exception of one poor Swede, our common language was Spanish, but we all spoke it to varying degrees of intelligibility, making communicating hilarious. Now that two weeks have past, I'm having a hard time remembering specific instances, but I do remember that there were a lot of facial expressions, gesturing, and sometimes quality charades needed to get any given point across…

The whole crazy gang

Sevilla was amazing! So much history, holy cats. I think that’s what impresses me most about everywhere I visit in Spain: the buildings and the streets, etc. are just so. dang. old. And for that same reason, Córdoba was probably my favorite part of the trip. We were only there for an afternoon, but we got to visit this giant, 1200ish-year-old mosque. The architecture was absolutely incredible.

La Mezquita de Córdoba

It's technically not a mosque anymore, however, because during the Reconquista, the central part of the building was converted into a Catholic place of worship, and the building was renamed "La Catedral de la Asunción de Nuestra Señora." But the original mosque remains intact around the little central cathedral part. Now there are discussions about it reverting back into a mosque, which it is clearly more suited for, but only time and many more roundtable discussions will tell about that.

My sister arrives in a week yayyy! And she'll bring me all the American goodies I've requested, plus my NEW COMPUTER, DOUBLE YAYY!!! And then I'll blog once/week, dedos cruzados. :)

Love,
E.

Weekends FTW.

It's Wednesday, which means I'm more than half done with my work week (!!), classes are going well, the weather is beautiful, I'm loving life, etc. Nothing too interesting there haha. My weekend, however, proved to be very interesting, so if it's alright with you, I'd rather talk about that instead.

View of Toledo from the top
of la Iglesia de San Ildefonso

On Friday, I wanted to go to Toledo, which is just a short bus ride away from Madrid (50 minutes-ish, if you succeed in getting a direct bus, which I did). I was going to go with a friend and then she couldn't go, but I decided to go anyway. The man at the bus ticket window gave me a hard time about that. “One ticket? Are you going alone? No one should go to Toledo alone! Look, here is a nice gentleman; you should go with him!” etc. (at which point his co-worker, a.k.a. the “nice gentleman” in question, looked over with “WAT” written all over his face). And I was like mira, no pasa nada, en serio, could I just have my ticket now, pretty please?

Toledo is beautiful. It is jam-packed with history and a crazy mix of art and architectural styles that stem from said history. Not going to lie, I ate so much marzipan that I felt a little ill, but other than that, it was a stellar day. For more information about Toledo, see the picture on the left or go visit for yourself.

Saturday, my laptop (who, as many of you know, was brought through a grave illness this May thanks to a super tech-savvy co-worker of mine) finally and forever died, may he rest in peace. I will never forget how the lil' guy froze every single day at 4:48PM on the dot, without fail, or how he stuck it out with me through the entirety of an exhausting college career, including through weeks of non-stop use leading up to my senior thesis deadline. What a trooper! He will be missed. I thought about writing him an ode, but I don't really know how to write odes.

I now know that this place is within walking
distance of my house. Oh no., please help.

Saturday night, I took part in the time-honored Spanish tradition of staying out with friends until the wee hours of the morning and then stopping at Chocolatería San Ginés for some dangerously delicious hot chocolate (literally just melted chocolate—think Burdick's) and churros before heading home to bed. According to my Spanish roommate, however, a true madrileño/a would have stayed out til the sun rose (which takes place around 8:00AM here), stopped by a café for breakfast (and/or chocolate con churros), and only then gone home to bed. So I guess I´m not a true madrileña yet. But it´s good to have something to aspire to haha. ;) 

Much love,

E.