Los Carnavales: Capítan España contra los Espantapajaros

This past weekend, as I stated before, was Carnival.  I have been to one Carnival before, in Cadíz,  and although I did have a great time two years ago, this Carnival did not disappoint.  The best way to describe this amazing experience is going day by day.

Friday:

Friday we went out to eat a place called Crónicas Carnivoras.  This is known to be a cheap restaurant with great food.  And not just great food, but portions that would blow your mind.  The name means die-hard carnivore and everything on the menu is meat.  I was not anticipating when we ordered three tapas, or small portions, and it was enough to fill up four people.  After eating great food and having a beer, I only ended up spending 5€.  This was the start to Carnival.

After, we went to this plaza to do a botellón, which is when everyone gathers together and drinks in the streets and plazas.  I love this because it gives you a chance to meet people and you aren't in a cramped environment.  Contrary to what I've told you, this night we did not dress up.  It was a start to the celebration so people gathered and talked and sang murgas.  Murgas? you ask, those are songs that groups write that are supposed to be funny and usually take hits at current problems like the government, the crisis, and what have you.  In the gazebo, they played videos of all of the different murgas.  This is only ONE of the competitions that Badajoz held this weekend.

We stayed up until about three and then headed to bed.  We knew that the next day would be a lot more exciting.

Saturday:

This was the first night of costume festivities.  People spend all day preparing their costumes.  Some families with younger children walk around town, go to bars, or hang out in plazas during the day while the youth stay inside and rest.

The real fun started around 11 after we had all prepped our costumes.  I borrowed the costume of a friend and paraded myself as a hippie.  Amor y paz, tío.  People work really hard on their costumes and usually end up spending a lot of money, so I went ahead and bought some glasses and an afro because, because, because Carnaval.  My other friends dressed up as a jester, Batman, an elf, Superman, a sailor, and all other kinds of things.  Really, Carnaval is like Halloween on steroids.



We left the apartment and gathered in one of the major plazas and boy were there a lot of people.  We found a spot and started drinking and talking and looking for great costumes.  I clearly had to take pictures with all of my favorites.  At about 3 AM we went to another plaza where a club had a DJ playing music outside.  We were with hundreds of other people dancing in front of the cathedral.  It was unreal.  We even got lucky with nice weather.  It was in the 50's the whole night.

An interesting thing that I noticed happened around 6 AM.  We were on our way home when I saw this group of drummers.  They played music really loud at 6 AM.  AM in the morning.  I was blown away.  It turns out that this group of drummers isn't the only one and that the next day they would have a competition known as los comparsas.

Sunday:

Although I had had a late night, I really wanted to see the comparsas.  I wasn't entirely sure what it was except that it was a parade of sorts.  There weren't any floats or balloons, but what I saw truly blew me away.

Here we were on the sidewalk and all of a sudden a mini-float passes with a sign that shows the name of the group.  Then, immediately behind it is a group of dancers all wearing the same costume.  Some of them were themed like pavos, turkeys, or Michael Jackson.  These groups were dancing to music that we could hear a little further back.  Next comes a cart that houses all of the drums.  The same drummers from the night before were now playing intense percussion music for the dancers.  It was incredible how good they are.  One group even played their rendition of Animals, a popular club song.


I was honestly amazed at how awesome this was.  There were so many people involved and so many people watching from the side.  Kids were already dressed up in costumes as the clapped along to the music.  Us older kids didn't dress up on Sunday though.  I was so exhausted that I slept for most of the day and wished for Monday.

Monday:

Monday.  Monday was crazy.  Again, the festivities didn't start until the night.  My costume this time was as Capítan España instead of Captain America.  I even made a shield that resembled that of Captain America.

This night was essentially a repeat of Saturday night except that it was really, really cold.  This was the day that I wore the costume with less insulation.  That didn't stop me however.  We went out and went to the plaza.  We met a bunch of different people with the icebreaker, "Hey, nice costume."  It was honestly another spectacular night.  It ended at 7 AM and on the way back we noticed my favorite burger place with an outdoor stand.  We payed 3€ for a giant burger and left with smiles on our face.

Tuesday:

Today has been another recuperation day which I needed so badly.  Now, I'm sitting here writing this blog post and not looking forward to working tomorrow.  Luckily, this is a short week as I only have to work for two days.

Wow, I wrote a lot.  This should tide you guys over for a little while.  I hope you can see just how much I love this holiday and how much I love Spain.  Again, you see this sense of community and friendship between Spaniards.  It's incredible.

Until next time, ¡Hasta Luego!

Propósitos en El Nuevo Año

Wow, it's been a while since I've written anything.  So several things have happened since we last talked:

My family came and visited me.  We spent a week traveling around the south of Spain.  I think they enjoyed, but I know for a fact that I did.  We went to Toledo and bought swords, we went to Granada and saw the Alhambra.  We went to Gibraltar, although they didn't let me in because I forgot my passport.  Then we went to my city of Badajoz.  Now, Badajoz doesn't have much to offer.  It is known for being a strategic city that has been through a lot.  It lies practically on the border of Portugal and has been fought over for centuries.  This means that a lot of the buildings and monuments were destroyed over the years and sadly what remains isn't much.  Well, that's the city I live in.  Fortunately, they say one positive thing about Badajoz, Aquí, se come muy bien, or here one eats very well.  Their food has some Portuguese influence and obviously a lot of Spanish influence, so I made sure that my family got to try some of the local cuisine.  Obviously they were not disappointed.

I did go home for a week and that was probably the best decision I've made since I've been here.  I got to see all my family and friends and it reminded me all of the good that America has to offer.  I can't wait to see everyone again this summer.

Then I returned to Badajoz and resumed my life as it was before.  I went to the elementary school during the day and did my private lessons at night.  Some of the classes remained 20 minutes in one direction, fifteen in another, and half an hour for the class that paid the most.  I didn't like all of the traveling, but I endured it for the money.  Well, just as luck would have it, an academy was looking for a new employee to work about 8 hours a week.  An academy is an after school place where they give classes in English.  It was called Britannia and they gave me a chance for an interview.  They have a very interesting style of teaching which comes at students from all sides: grammar, vocab, reading, writing, listening, and conversation skills.  They had a teach leave and they needed a replacement.  I knew that if I were to take this job, I would have to drop the rest of my classes, but because they paid really well and they were in a central location, I took it and now I couldn't be happier.

This job is much more like a teaching position that the teacher's aid position in the schools.  I have to plan a one hour lesson for each class every week and focus on listening and dictation skills.  I've had them make commercials, listen to Mumford and Sons, and even find out the difference between football, football (soccer), and rugby.  Doing this job has made me like teaching.  Furthermore, it's with older kids and adults, the age group that I really wanted.  There's another American there and we are the complete opposite because she likes the younger kids and I like the older ones so it works out perfectly that she gets the younger kids and I got the older ones.

Right after I accepted this job, I went to a town/city called Almendralejo for an even called the Candelas.  Essentially, different groups come together and make these floats or dolls that they end up burning at the end of the night.  They do this to clear all of the bad things from the city and also as an excuse to drink and eat fresh, from-the-pueblo food.  Spain does not disappoint with it's parties and this one was a blast.  What I love about this country is their sense of community.  Everyone of all ages gets together to watch something burn and then the go and hang out in the streets for hours.

(Side Note: One thing I noticed here is that people will talk to everyone.  If you're in an elevator or running on a treadmill people may come over and start a conversation.  Not a chummy conversation, but they talk as if you are best friends.  The people here are so friendly that they talk to complete strangers.  If my dad knew Spanish, I'm sure he would love living here.)

Community is so important to them that it makes me rethink how individual and closed we are in America compared to here.  Not that it's bad because sometimes we need our space, but the fact that everyone in the city comes out on one night is just incredible.

Finally, last week I went to Las Grutas de Aracena with my friends.  This is an underground cavern full of stalagmites and stalactites.  Now, I had been to a cavern before, but this one was so much bigger and so much prettier.  It had underground lakes and so many rocks in different formations.  It was awesome.  Then we stopped in a castle on the way back, but it was closed.  We walked around the back and to our surprise, it was open.  So we broke into the castle and took a few pictures.  Though very well preserved, this castle served as a protective stronghold that would warn other castles if invaders were coming.  Inside, there was not a lot to see, but it was still really neat.

So that's my quick summary of these past few months.  Right now we are celebrating the festival of carnaval.  Carnaval was one of my favorite experiences from study abroad so I am sure I will have a lot to say about this event.  Badajoz is supposed to be in the top 5 best carnavals in the world and I've been excited to see it ever since I found out.  Here's a little taste of things to come.  A toddler dressed up like Edward Scissorhands:

Lisboa: Siempre Subiendo

As my astute readers may recall, I said that I was going to Lisbon the weekend of the 9th.  Well, I did, and what follows is my experience in that beautiful city.

Elevators were popular in Lisbon

I had the idea of going to Lisbon for about a month.  I knew that we had a puente, which literally means bridge, but can also be used for long weekends.  So, I knew we had this puente from the 6th to the 9th of December.  I decided that I needed to do something and Lisbon, being 2 hours away, seemed doable.  The first thing I had to plan was the way I was getting there.  I went to this website, Blablacar, which I had used before to get back from Cáceres.  I look at the list of travellers going for the same time span as me and I notice my roommates picture.  I quickly send him a text asking if he was going and would have space in his car for me and my friend Nick.  He said yes, and there we had our ride settled.

Lisbon at Night

Lisbon Christmas Tree

The next step was to look for a hostal, hostel.  The only two criteria I had were that it needed to be cheap and it had to include breakfast.  I looked at the locations of several different hostels and settled on the Good Night Lisbon Hostel.  Step two done.

So the puente came and my roommate, my other roommate (his girlfriend), Nick and I got in the car.  Less than two hours later, we were in Lisbon.  It's a very impressive sight because as you are driving into the city you see a giant Jesus statue.  It resembles the one that they have in Brazil, but the reason that they built it was a gift to god to keep Portugal out of the World War.  Guess what, it worked and now it stands on a hill looking down on the city.  I was in awe.

My favorite Plaza

Then we get to the city.  My too roommates were staying in a hotel, so they dropped us off at our hostel and we unpacked and started adventuring.  I have found that the first day should be dedicated to getting lost.  Nick just goes with the flow, so we walked to some places on the map and got lost.  It was perfect.

We did have one goal: to try the cazuelitas of Belem.  Belem is a neighborhood of Lisbon and it actually has really nice tourist attractions; however, their biggest attraction is the pastry called cazuelita.  Nick and I tried walking all the way there, but that turned out to be fruitless, so we caught a train and arrived there super quick.  The dessert is not much to look at.  It has a flaky cup holding this tan creamy substance.  Well, I ordered one and Nick ordered two.  After we ate them, we ordered some more.  I don't know how to describe it but delicious.  I don't have a sweet tooth, and I loved it.

After we left the "Factory of Pastries" we went for a walk and found this beautiful monastery just by chance.  We even crashed the misa, or mass that was going on inside.  The ceiling was the best ceiling I've seen in a church.  It was so intricate as if snakes were weaved into the ceiling.  I don't have a picture, because we weren't allowed to take any, but believe me when I say it was beautiful.

Nick and I also decided that we wouldn't go out that night because we were exhausted.  That plan changed quickly when we met some people in the hostel that tenían ganas de salir, wanted to go out.  We went to Barrio Alto, another neighborhood up a hill in the center of the city.  Yes, Lisbon is a very hilly city.  It feels like everything is uphill, and that you are always climbing not descending.  They also put all of the cool things on top.  This neighborhood is known for great bars and for people gathering in the streets and drinking.  It was a lot of fun and I'm glad we ended up going out.

Enter the next day.  Nick and I decided to do a walking tour at 10:30.  Well, we didn't wake up for that so we went to the 1:00 tour instead.  It was really interesting and the tour guide knew a lot about the city.  The most important thing that I learned was that there was an earthquake in 1755 that rocked Lisbon to the ground.  There is a church that lost its roof in the earthquake and still remains roofless. A lot of the beautiful buildings that are currently standing were built after the earthquake including this beautiful plaza called Plaza de los Comercios.

First Dinner We Bought (Cod)

After the tour, we met up with Mariel, the girl who studied abroad with me.  She arrived a day after we did and we decided to walk around the city with her.  On our walk, we actually ran into my roommates who were drinking beer in a plaza.  We talked there for a while and decided to go to the Castle of Saint George the following day.  This is a giant castle that sits on yet another hill overlooking the city.

We then returned to our hostel and decided to take a nap and then walk around the city at night.  Well, we woke up and all of the people in the hostel were talking about a bar crawl.  I had never done one so the idea intrigued me and we went out for the second night in a row when we had planned not to.  The bar crawl was awesome and I'm so glad I went on it. We met a lot of American studying abroad in Spain who were in Lisbon on vacation as well.  It was a good time.

Flag on top of the castle

Our third day in Lisbon was dedicated to seeing the castle.  I really liked the castle because it let you see a lot of the city from a different angle.  We actually took two elevators and walked uphill to get to the castle.  It's that far up.  We met my roommates and we took pictures of the views and the different rooms of the castle.  Honestly, it wasn't that much to see except for the views.  There is another castle that I will describe that I loved and the Castle of Saint George does not compare to it.

Male peacock in the castle

In our hostel, they cooked us dinner for 2 €, a price that might look cheap because it is cheap!  We even helped make it.  It was bacalao: a cod, potato, and egg dish.  Did I just say cod?! But I hate seafood.  That's true, voice inside Jacob's head.  So what happened? Those of you who have dined with me know that I dislike fish.  I would never go out of my way to eat cod or swordfish or anything fishy.  Well, the best place to try seafood for those people that are anti-pescatarian is Lisbon.  Every meal that I paid for had cod in it and I loved it.  We even went to a restaurant famous for its seafood and I ate not only cod, but shrimp and octopus.  I've matured a lot and now my family will have to pay for it when I start ordering lobster when we go out. Just kidding, I'm taking baby steps with shrimp.  Not too eager to try lobster yet.

This night we didn't go out.  I physically couldn't! I was so exhausted.  Instead, I slept for 10 hours and woke up excited for our last day in Portugal in a town called Sintra.

We all decided that we would go to Sintra the last day.  My roommate drove us with all our luggage to Sintra, a small town 20 minutes outside of Lisbon.  It's a beautiful town, but what really interested us was the Palacio de Da Pena, or this palace that sits atop of a tall hill.  We tried driving up it, but we ended up turning around because there wasn't enough parking.  The second time, we went up about halfway before we parked and walked up the rest.

My other roommate, who didn't venture with us, recommended this castle because it is something out

of a Disney movie.  She was right because there were so many colors and interesting designs.  Overall, Portugal maintains their monuments extremely well and this was no exception.  I don't want to describe it in detail because I think the pictures speak for themselves.  I do want to say that it was built in the 1800's on top of a monastery because this wealthy family just wanted to do it so they could have a summer palace.  Now, it's owned by the country of Portugal and is one of the most visited palaces there.


So look at the pictures and tell me that this isn't one of the most beautiful places you've ever seen.  Well, after the palace we drove home and that concludes my time in Portugal.  Did I have a great time? Yes.  Would I go back? Yes.  Do I have plans to go back? No, but I'm telling everyone who hasn't been that I would totally go back.  If you, reader, haven't been to Portugal, I know a guy who would accompany you ;)

Finally, I want to say that my thoughts are with my family right now.  You don't know how much I wish I was with you guys this weekend.  I'm glad I got to skype and you all got to see my Sunday European hairstyle.

La Temporada de Navidad Está Aquí

Another month has ended and I have to write this blog post before this weekend because I'm going to Lisbon.  Then I have to write that blog post before my family comes to visit me on the 21st.  December is turning out to be a busy month!

That's an empty stadium you're seeing

First I would like to talk about the soccer game I went to.  Or in English the football match.  I'm learning a lot of English English here.  Anyways, the two teams that were playing were Badajoz and Coria.  The game was interesting to say the least.  First, let me say that they are extremely level teams.  That being said, I'm in Spain, so I am biased and expect everyone to play like Messi.  Well, these teams played like our high schoolers play, but they are getting paid.  I mean to say that they kicked the ball to the middle of nowhere, they were so close together I could "put a blanket over them", and they missed shots that were right in front of an open net.  Crazy.

However, just like a high school team, the fans had a lot of hometown pride.  They brought drums and banners and made signs that said: "One team. One city."  One man, who I'm going to guess was pretty drunk, was going around yelling screaming Es nuestra ciudad! It's our city!  The aficionados, the fans, made the experience.  They all came together on a Sunday afternoon and yelled obscenities at the árbitros, referees.  During the half, they let all of the kids in the stadium run on the field and kick soccer balls around.  It was very cool to see the people of city come together in the same way Needhamites watch Wellesley lose in the Thanksgiving Day Parade (even though I heard this year that they actually won :( ).

Me winning in Risk

My best Spanish Tortilla (so far)

I have also been learning Spanish through the culture and through games.  Some of my Spanish friends are really into games and they taught me how to play Risk.  I learned words like: ¡Toma! ¡Chupate dos! ¡Fuera! and they got to learn how competitive I actually am, which turns out to be really competitive.

Town Hall

Cortes Inglés

Otherwise, I haven't been up to anything significantly different, so for the rest of the blog I want to show you some pictures that are making me really nostalgic.  Christmas in Spain is huge.  Well, not Christmas day itself, but the holiday season from Noche Buena, Christmas Eve, until Epifanía, Epiphany (the day of the three wise men).  The latter is actually when kids open all of their gifts.  They have to wait all the way until January 6th.

Plaza de Conquistadores

Plaza de España

Ever since the start of December, Badajoz has been abuzz with lights and, get this, carnival rides.  The night life here is so crazy that even at 10 PM on a school night, kids will be playing in the different plazas, or town squares.  It's a great way to bring family and friends together as well as a great way to promote shopping.  So sprinkled through this blog post are some of decorations! Enjoy!

Después de Dos Meses

Thanks family for the bday gift!

In the past two weeks not much has happened.  Actually, my birthday passed on November 12th.  It wasn't on the scale of the birthdays I had in the past, but it was still nice to celebrate with people that I didn't even know 2 months prior.  We went to our favorite restaurant El Tronco, the tree rulo de cabra or goat cheese.
trunk, for a birthday dinner.  I got my new favorite meal: Goat Cheese and Caramelized Onions.  I had told people that my favorite cheese was Brie, but it has since changed to

If you need anymore proof that my life hasn't changed too much since I've gotten here, I watched the complete Breaking Bad series...in English.  My friends here had all watched it and told me that it was incredible, so I finally gave in and watched in a week and a half.  It was totally worth it.  It's an incredible story that they express flawlessly. Vale la pena, it's worth it to watch.

Something out of the ordinary, is that because I am living with a French roommate, we have started making crepes...a lot. In one week period we probably had three days of crepes.  That's how I'm expanding my international horizons: through eating international food. I furthermore got a haircut where I only told the stylist that I wanted to look more European.  The outcome definitely is European and it is a style I would never have had in the states.  See it there on the left? And yes, I do need to use hair gel everyday now.

The friends I celebrated my birthday with

Also, Badajoz is having a Fería de Tapas, or a festival of tapas.  If you remember my trip to Granada at all, you will remember that I talked incessantly about tapas.  There, they were included in the already cheap drink price.  Here, and in almost all other places, they are not.  They cost a few Euros on top of the price of the beer.  For this special festival, local bars cowe vote for the best one.  There is even a chance to win 500 €! It's great.  So far, my favorite one was at Taberna Bigote.  It was like a briscuit with a black raspberry sauce on top.  Surprisingly delicious!
mpete to make the best tapa.  The tapa is also cheaper than usual being only 2€!

Finally, Christmas comes early in Spain.  They have no holidays between Halloween and Christmas (Halloween excluded), so they prepared for Christmas in the beginning of November.  Right now there are lights strewn around the city and the teachers want me to prepare a powerpoint on Christmas for the class.  I'm definitely showing them this picture of Finley's XMas gift from last year:

But overall, things are going fine.  I'm trying to go to Lisbon next month, but I haven't found people to go with yet.  I'll let you know if I end up going!

Fountain that changes colors in the center of Badajoz

Mérida: Roma Existe en España

Temple of Diana

This past weekend, I went to Mérida.  Now, I doubt that many of you have heard of this little city, but it used to be a key location in the Roman Empire.  Yes, the ROMAN empire.  Badajoz has some Islamic roots, Cáceres, where I went last week, has some medieval roots, and Mérida, has Roman roots.  This is all in one autonomia, very similar to state in the US.  Well, Mérida also is the capital of Extremadura.  This is weird because the two provinces that make up that autonomia are Badajoz and Cáceres.  In Andalucia, the capital is Sevilla, but Sevilla is also a province.  It is very uncommon for that to happen in Spain, and here is one of the exceptions.

Well, history aside, Mérida is an incredible city.  Not only do they have sites fenced off so you have to pay to enter, which I didn't do, but they have Roman structures throughout the city.  There is a bar that has part of an arc as part of it's foundation.  They have el Templo de Diana in the middle of the street.  Honestly, it was just as cool as Rome.

The only problem with Mérida when comparing it to Badajoz is that it is much smaller.  It also doesn't have the exciting night life that we have here.  The friend we visited actually comes to Badajoz every weekend because there isn't as much to do there.  I'm sure if I was actually living there, I would find more faults with Badajoz, but since I'm not, I'm going to complain about Mérida.  Actually though, I don't need to return to Cáceres, but I need to go back to Mérida.  It was that cool and I feel like I didn't see it all...because I didn't.

So that was the historical part of my weekend, now on to my favorite holiday: Halloween.  If you know me then you know I love dressing up.  Last year I painted myself blue, last summer I dressed up as a gorilla and made it on the front page of the paper.  I put tons of effort into making the perfect costume.  This year, it was a little different.  Halloween isn't nearly as big in Spain.  They think that it is only about dressing up as something scary and that's it.  To show how much they love me, my school in the pueblo had festivities for Halloween.  There was a Halloween costume contest at recess.  In the spirit of dressing up, I cut two holes in a sheet and immediately became a ghost.  The rules were that you could not buy anything and that it had to be from things around the house.  The winners were a spider, two mad nurses, and an epic scarecrow.  It was a lot of fun.

¡Los Ganadores! The winners!

Otherwise, Halloween passed pretty nonchalantly.  I saw one kid dressed up on Halloween.  That's it.  After not seeing much on Halloween itself, you can imagine my surprise when I got invited to a Halloween party at someone's casa de campo, which is a summer house in the countryside.  My friend Tom and I went to get costumes in the little window we left for ourselves in between getting back from Mérida and getting picked up for the party.  I found a crown and decided to be a king.  Tom found a mask and decided to be an alien.  Not our best effort, but it was something.

When we got to the car, the Scottish girl who had invited us greeted us and told us about this party and how many people were going to be there.  We told her we had just bought costumes for the party.  Erin burst out laughing.  Although in Scotland they celebrate it like they do in the US, she knows that in Spain costumes are not a thing.  Tom and I look at each other and are kind of embarrassed; however, we don't have to wear the costumes if we don't want to.

Picture from the summer house

So we get to the party and for the longest time the only thing that related to Halloween were two pumpkins.  Then Erin decorated the rest of the room with some homemade decorations and it had more of a Halloween vibe.  After a couple of hours, Tom and I wore our costumes for all the Spainards to see.  At first they laughed, but then they tried wearing our costumes.

The reason why dressing up for Halloween is not big here is because they dress up for Carneval in March.  That's their biggest holiday to wear their disfraz, costume.

As you may have noticed, I have been writing more than I promised.  We'll see how things go and if I have an interesting week, I'll be sure to fill you in on it!

Can you guess what this is supposed to be?