(Several quick notes before you begin reading this blog post: unless you are from Spain and already know what I’m talking about, this post is best read with access to the internet—and perhaps headphones—so you can listen to the songs as I discuss them. Also, for most of them, you might want to minimize the …
Everything about being in Spain was so new and different for me, that it’s no wonder that Christmas was too. I grew up with Santa, Christmas trees and stockings hanging over the fireplace, and naively thought these were universal. Not so. Santa only recently got exported to Spain and is still not very popular. …
Non-verbal communication, as we all know, is a huge part of how we interact with each other. A smiling “no” can be an invitation, while a morose “yes” should probably be considered a negative. But what about other gestures and sounds we make? I had not really paid much attention to how people communicate thoughts …
“Can you tell us which way to the dolmen?” my friend asked the woman standing outside the last house of the village. She seemed very old to me, though my best guess now is that she was in her 50’s. She shooed the clucking chickens away and stepped a bit closer, asking us to repeat …
“Adónde vamos?” I asked, sitting in the car with a group of my friends. It was a Saturday morning and we were off on another adventure in their quest to “Show Christy all of Spain in 9 months.” It was only natural that I should wonder where we were heading this time. “Iremosaunpueblollamadocastrillodelospolvazaresacomercocidomaragato.” Right. …
Ask anyone who knew me in my first years in Spain and they’ll tell you I was obsessed—how could I help it? As I was walking down the street I would look up at the rooftops of the highest buildings (usually churches) and I’d see these humongous nests, maybe 5 feet across and several feet deep. …
Lest you get the idea that I ONLY like northern Spain, (perhaps from reading my post about the Las Médulas) today’s story is about another neat little place, southeast of Madrid, called Cuenca. It’s an amazing city whose early inhabitants, desperate for flat land, decided to build these huge stone buildings right smack on the …
While I lived in León, which is about a two hour drive northwest of Madrid, I went on quite a few excursions with my fellow graduate students who were determined to show me thoroughly around Spain, and one place which made a lasting impression on me was when we took a ride out to the …
“It’s supposed to be a ship, you know, because of the wharf and shipyard that used to be here. See how that part over there goes to the other side of the bridge too?” “Well, I think it looks more like a flower—like one of those roses you see made out of metal.” “No, no” …
The first time I went to Bilbao, a city of about 800,000, nestled in a valley between Basque mountain ranges, and only a few short miles from the Bay of Biscay, I was horrified to see that the huge river running through the middle of the city actually turned colors at different times of the …
