A glacial situation, uncooked beans, and mushrooms galore!

Soria is hilariously tiny. There are only 40,000 inhabitants, 80% of whom are over the age of 75. The remaining 20% of the population consists of my students, who I see everywhere all the time in the streets. I cannot escape them. Isn't it amazing how into themselves teenagers are? I'm really glad I never was one. Anyways, due to this demographic situation, the only people my age in Soria (that I've met or seen) appear to be my fellow auxiliares. Last Saturday,
I met almost all of them when we went on a field trip sponsored by the city to a glacial lake (la laguna negra) up in the mountains, not far from Soria. However, my perception of "not far" is clearly very different from that of Spanish people. 25 minutes into our exhausting, painfully looong bus ride, with the daunting prospect of the 20 minute stretch that remained before the arrival to the Laguna, the bus stopped for a "15" minute coffee break.

We finally got to the lake after a perilous drive up the mountainside, and it was BEAUTIFUL. However, it was also FREEZING. I am sure it was below 0, and my 3 sweaters + huge scarf weren't doing much. I've been ill since the minute we left the Laguna and Dr. Simon has diagnosed me with laryngitis. In any case, we took a bunch of pictures, marveled at the pretty, and whined about the cold (that last part was mostly my contribution).


clockwise, from the top left: the Laguna, the Laguna from the top of the mountain, the auxiliares from Soria of 2010-11, and me and my friends being cool.

That same night, Erin, Simon and I hosted a potluck in our piso and invited all of the assistants. Hilarity ensued. Stephanie DeOrio (the chick in the sunglasses in the picture above, whom I've nicknamed Oreo, Cookie, and Cooks [although she really can't do the latter, as I am about to relay]) brought a bean dip. She soaked the beans for 12 hours. She didn't read the rest of the instructions. She left out the cooking part. Then, Francesca made coconut-mascarpone balls covered in melted chocolate and I ate all of them. Then, Candy brought brownies that were absolutely the most delicious brownies I have EVER EVER TASTED and so I ate all of them as well. Everyone told a fun fact about themselves and I feel as though I should relay a few of them due to their sheer madness: Steph got stabbed by an 8 year old once. Shane stole a gondola in Venice. Francesco got roofied. After almost all of the food had been consumed (including the most DIVINE mac n' cheese eveeeeer by Jessica [it had goat cheese and blue cheese in it YUM] and the most flavorful deviled eggs by Stephanie and have I mentioned CANDY'S BROWNIES?????? Seriously, all of the food was fantastic) we moved the party to Hormiga bar, where I proceeded to take a nap, which has turned into somewhat of a recurring phenomenon, unfortunately. You see, I have this condition - I believe the medical term for it is iSleep - that forces me to take brief naps in public. The doctors have yet to figure out what the trigger is. My friends believe it is the wine.



In other news, it is mushroom season in Soria, and everyone and their grandfather has been going mushroom picking. This week is mushroom tapas week. Every bar serves its own 1.50euro mushroom appetizer and we basically go from bar to bar and have a tapa and a tinto every day. I am loving it so much.

Besos,

Ésmadar.

P.S: When I started out this post with the declaration that "Soria is hilariously tiny", I was going somewhere, but I forgot to get there: for a over a month now, Erin and I have been waiting for our bank cards to arrive in the mail. Alvaro, the (hot) (but married) bank employee with whom we opened the account, has been looking for us to tell us the delay was due to his needing photocopies of our NIE cards. When we'd opened the account with him, we didn't have a land line or cellphone numbers yet, so he had to be creative when trying to get in touch with us. His creativity entailed telling pretty much the entire town that he needed me and Erin to come into the bank with our NIEs. The result: friends, acquaintances, and downright strangers stopping us in the streets to tell us that "Alvaro de Santander" needs to see us. Earlier today at school, a prof Erin claims to have never even seen before walked up to her and asked her in an urgent tone if she'd been to the bank with her NIE card yet. Can you imagine being a newcomer in Montreal and having strangers track you down to discuss your bank account business with you?? Soria is awesome.

Fiestas del Pilar

Once upon a time in Spain, Mary (the virgin) manifested herself in the city of Zaragoza on a column (un pilar). To celebrate this appearance, there's a holiday called Los Pilares on October 12, which happened on a Tuesday this year, which resulted in a puente. A puente means that if there's a holiday on a Tuesday or Wednesday, there is no work or school on the days leading up to it, so that there is a long weekend. Because we're in Spain, a fiesta is not a fiesta unless it's stretched out for as long as possible. All sorts of fun stuff takes place in the days leading up to El Día del Pilar. For us, the parties began on Friday night, when a whole medieval market got erected in the main streets of the city center in Soria.



It rained a bit, but that didn't stop the entire freaking town from showing up at the market. There were hoards of people perusing the stands, which featured a variety of products, such as jewelry, beauty products, and home decor items, as well as an incredible assortment of cheeses, salamis, cakes, soft chewy candies, potatoes, crepes, mojitos... there was live music and the vendors were all dressed up. Great, grrrreat atmosphere. I bought a pair of earings, a hairpin, and food. The food was glorious.

The next day, I was off to Zaragoza with Simon, Erin, and Erin's awesome sister Jessica (who has been spoiling us with her incredible Spanish-meal-making skillz), who is currently living in Spain to be with her boyfriend Ivan. Ivan's family generously let us stay in their (uninhabited) house, which is in the very center of Zaragoza. The house was ancient and most definitely haunted. Simon set a ghost trap and this is what we stumbled upon the following morning:






Then we found this on the dining room table:




Creepy. Thankfully, I had my motzah balls of death handy, so we vanquished the creature and never spoke of it again. Then, we headed out to see the celebrations of El Pilar. We had 1L cups of sangria and saw a concert by some random singer, Mariposa. The setting: in front of us, a huuuuge temporary stage overlooking the plaza. Behind us, the enormous cathedral, all lit up. There were also fireworks, because it's not a fiesta without the fuegos!





Mariposa sang several love songs that the crowd (which consisted of 5 to 120 year olds, in true Spanish fashion) sang along to, so we thought she might be famous, but google has disproved that theory... there was also a super random group in one of the plazas of a bunch of guys dressed in corsets, wearing colourful wigs and performing a super varied repertoire that included the Spanish version of "Hit the road, Jack", which translates into "Dejame en paz". It was AWESOME. Another awesome moment: Erin, Jessica, Simon and I sitting in a plaza, enjoying a tinto, and singing a great selection of Disney and Broadway classics at the top of our lungs. Video to come.




The next day, the streets were packed and the entire city was in holiday mode. The people of Zaragoza whipped out their traditional garb and headed to the ofrenda, bouquets of flower in hand.




As you can see, the ofrenda entails the piling up of all the flowers to create a shrine for La Virgen. There was also a stage in front of the flowers where groups from various parts of Spain performed different types of dances and songs while wearing awesome outfits.

All in all, another successful trip and a fun fiesta! Until next time...

Besos

3 weeks in Spain!

I came to Soria, Spain, 3 weeks ago. Some fun facts about my new home: it's in one of the highest points in Spain (altitude-wise), and therefore one of the coldest, and (probably therefore) one of the least populated in Europe. You wouldn't know it by the look of the streets, plazas, bars, and restaurants - they are constantly bustling, except, of course, during siesta time, which takes place between 2-5pm and sees the shutting down of pretty much the entire city.

On the cultural and social fronts: people are very friendly, open, and easy to talk to. Introducing myself during the first few days was hilarious. I'm used to North Americans having a hard time with my jewname, but they're definitely polite and subdued in their confusion. Meanwhile, this is the face I've been met with every single time I've introduced myself since getting here:



Spanish people have a reaaaally hard time pronouncing Smadar without adding an "é" sound at the beginning - hence my blog's title.

Work at the school has been interesting... The first week, I introduced myself, talked about my family, and did my part as a "cultural ambassador" of Le Quebec, là là, by explaining about Poutine, name-dropping Céline, and describing our igloos. The kids are surprisingly well-behaved, for the most part. I work with 3 teachers: let's call them E, Iz, and C. It's amazing how different the dynamic is with each one of them. E guides the conversation in class, asking me questions and prompting the students to do the same. Iz, meanwhile, takes a seat in the back of the classroom and pretty much leaves me on my own to run things. It's not stressful, but it's tiring. Then there's C, who's new at the school. She doesn't discipline. Kids make out in her classroom.

There are a whole bunch of auxiliares in Soria, including my roomies, Erin from Connecticut, and Simon from Leeds, England. They are hilarious and I adore them! We spent our first evening in our new apartment painting chicken-shaped candles with green nail polish because we had been hoping to rent a place with a modern kitchen with lime-green cabinets that we often mispronounced as "green chicken". When we ended up renting our far more conveniently-located (a 5 minute walk from the center and the school) piso with a white kitchen instead, we decided to buy the chicken candles and varnish at one of the local chinos (Soria is full of Chinese-owned shops that are like mini-Walmarts, really) and put them on display in our kitchen. So now we really do have a green chicken!

There is so much more I could write about - like the other auxiliares in Soria (my amica Francesca from Italy with whom my roomies and I hang out daily, Tom from Australia with whom I binged on Nutella in a hostel in Madrid, and Julian, the WEIRDEST, tallest, skinniest, most non-german German you will EVER meet, who found himself homeless and sans-suitcase on his 3rd day in Spain and instead of panicking, wandered the streets listening to his iPod and eating Milka)... I hadn't intended to keep a blog because I prefer sending e-mails or telling these little anecdotes on the phone/skype, but it's been kind of hard to keep up!! So for now, I'll end this post and say hasta luego and go join my roomies in our kitchen, which is where I spend most of my time anyway because Spain has done something to my appetite and I CANNOT STOP EATING.