Un tour, una familia, y una aventura de autobus.

¡Hola amigos!

There has been soo much going on, I'll do my best to explain without rambling. We'll see. I'll also do my best not to slip any Spanish words in odd places, which is getting easier and easier every day - good for my language skills, bad for my blogging comprehensibility.

First of all: the tour of Alicante. It's Monday night here, and we toured the city back on Saturday, which is like a lifetime in the Me/Alicante relationship, so I'll remember the order of things as best I can. The photos will help.

We took a bus from the CIEE offices on the University of Alicante (UA) campus "al centro", to downtown. For many people, it was the same bus route that they now will take from their homestays to UA for classes. Downtown, we assembled in front of this building:

which houses el Mercado Central, a big market that has signs outside pointing you toward fish and seafood on the first floor, and meat and sausage on the second floor. Don't worry, you would know which is which with your eyes closed - the smells are incredibly strong, though not totally unpleasant. Well, if you don't like the smells of fish and meat, it would probably be hell, but I didn't think it was unpleasant.

In front of the Mercado we split our group of 60-something students into 5 groups of 12 or so. These groups are those with which we now have our two weeks of intensive language class. Each group was assigned a guide, a CIEE professor or staff member. Paco, the director of the Liberal Arts program (ours) came with my group, and we spent a few pleasant morning hours walking around downtown Alicante. We started with a walk through the Mercado. This was by far the grossest sight we saw:
Those are sheep heads, in case you couldn't tell. There were also pig heads, but those still had skin on them and so were not as creepy. There were also rabbits ("like Bugs Bunny," Paco joked), pig skin (just the skin of the head, with the nose shape still awkwardly there), pig hooves, and cow hearts. We didn't see any testicles, but apparently those are pretty popular too. That five-minute meander through el Mercado made me really glad that I'm not a squeamish eater.


From el Mercado, we walked up a few blocks to look at the Plaza de Toros - a bullfighting arena. There are no bullfights until the spring, and there was a decidedly mixed feeling in the group about going. Paco seemed to represent more or less the majority when he basically said that it was a valuable cultural tradition to experience, but we should also be prepared for a lot of blood. I heard that some of the other professors and staff condemned the practice much more strongly.


Since there are no bullfights right now, there are posters up for other events outside the Plaza, concerts and things. There's also a museum around the back that has displays and information about the culture and tradition of bullfighting, with none of the blood. Also, unlike the bullfights themselves, the museum is free. And open during the winter.

Walking back toward the main part of el centro, we caught several glimpses of el Castillo de Santa Barbara, one of two castles in the city of Alicante, that I'm pretty sure has been here since the Moors in the 12th(?) century. Clearly, I need to brush up on my Spanish history. I think that we're hiking up the castle this weekend, when we'll probably get some cultural and historical context, and also what is apparently (unsurprisingly) a spectacular view of the Mediterranean from the top.

We walked through el barrio, which is a length of narrow street, almost alleyway, that forms the center of Alicante's celebrated vida de la noche - nightlife. And nightlife is a big deal here. I think I heard someone say in the past few days that Spaniards have one of the lowest average hours of sleep per night of any country in the world. I have no idea where I heard that or whether or not it's actually true, but I would definitely believe it. Apparently it's perfectly normal here to salir//go out until 4 or 5 or 6 in la madrugada//the early morning. Then they get up to go to work at 7 or 8. It feels a little bit like "no rest for the wicked." "No sleep for the Americans trying to conform to Spanish cultural norms!" (On a total Google-induced sidenote, did you know that that phrase - no rest for the wicked - is derived from the Bible, but was popularized in the 1930s by the Little Orphan Annie cartoons? Do you care? This is the rambling I said I wouldn't do.)

But speaking of random references...

The ad is for a furniture store, and the speech bubble directs readers to the store, 20 meters away, where sales abound and apparently there's no interest for 30 months. Obama looks convinced, if not exactly ecstatic about the prospect of cheap furniture. There's really nothing more I see fit to say about this.

Moving on: I moved in with my host family yesterday afternoon. They're really wonderful! Una mamá, un papá, and two little sisters, who are ten and almost fourteen respectively. I like all of them very much, and I'm very optimistic that the next few months here will be great! The single drawback is that we live a little bit farther out that most of the other students' homestays. Now when I say farther out, let me put that in perspective: Alicante is really pretty small, and the main part of town is even smaller. Regardless, it's divided into barrios//neighborhoods, and my barrio is a little farther than a quick walk from el centro...

Which leads directly to the story of the day. Today was our first day of classes, so we gathered in two places in town at 8am to ride the number 24 bus to campus together for the beginning of school. Many of the other students will continue to take the 24 from their homes to UA and back, but I live in a different direction, and will be taking the number 34 instead. But I didn't do that this morning - I rode the 24 with everyone else. Four hours of grammatical review later, we emerged into the sunlight, clutching the bocadillas//sandwiches that our mamás had packed for us. We had several CIEE activities after lunch, and then many of us meandered (by bus) towards el centro. Some people were on their way to buy cell phones, other had other shopping needs (or wants). I needed notebooks, so a few friends and I walked to FNAC, a mid-sized shopping center downtown. Finding nothing in their book section, but receiving a recommendation for a nearby shop, we sat in the FNAC cafe and drank coffee con leche and I ate an empanada argentina, a savory pastry that was delicious, thought I suspect that "argentina" only indicated the presence of beef instead of ham. We found the little papelería that the FNAC guy had recommended, and bought notebooks for our classes. Success!

Then the real adventure began. I decided it was time - nearly 6pm at this point - for me to head home. Now theoretically I knew that the no. 6 bus would take me from el centro to mi casa, but I didn't at all know where to subir//get on or bajar//get off the bus. My wonderfully patient friends and I spent the better part of half an hour walking up and down the street and staring at bus maps, trying to understand why the bus stop for the 6 wasn't where it seemed like it should have been. Well we finally asked someone who knew - another bus driver, in fact, and he informed us that we were on the wrong street altogether, which we probably should have guessed, but that wouldn't have been any fun, now, would it? So we pulled out our maps and headed down a few blocks, only to find that, after close map examination, we had gone to far, so we retraced our steps (again) and were finally successful in locating the parada//stop of the no. 6 bus. Here my friends left me, it now being on the far side of 6:30pm and all of us being anxious to get home for dinner.

The no. 6 came and went, with me safely aboard, and having studied the route guide at the stop, I was relatively confident that I knew at which stop I should exit. A combination of nerves and lack of actual knowledge of the area led me astray, and I completely jumped the gun, watching the coveted no. 6 bus drive away from the stop and then looking around to realize that I had no idea where I was. So I turn around and study the bus map for another few minutes, trying to figure out where I am, where I need to be, and which buses connect the two. I'm well on my way past frustration and edging toward panic when a nice-looking older woman sits down in the bus shelter with her grocery bags.
"Excuse me," I said in Spanish, "but I think I'm a little lost. Can you help me get there?" and I pointed at the map. She could and did - she informed me that I had merely gotten off several stops too early, and said that she was taking the no. 6 too, so when the next one came, we would get on together and she would show me where to get off. She was as good as her word and as a bonus added stories about her daughters who love to travel, two of whom now live in New York. Also, Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the world after English. Is that true? Again, I don't actually know. She was convincing, but understandably biased. She also has a nephew who is a sociology professor at UA, and praised my Spanish as I thanked her profusely for saving me from a more lengthy adventure.
"Until next time!" she called after me in Spanish as I exited the bus (thanks to her direction) at the correct stop. Running on adrenaline and nervous energy, I made the three and a half blocks from bus stop to casa in record time. Well, I kept thinking, at least now I know.