La Lengua

In Spanish, lengua means both “language” and “tongue.” Interesting that they should be the same word, because my tongue-lengua has still not been able to settle comfortably into this goddamn Spanish-lengua. On the one hand, I have seen encouraging improvements in my accent and vocabulary - but on the other hand, my grammar remains stubbornly deficient. That is to say, most days I would rather waste an extra five minutes in pointless, roundabout sentences than conjugate in the subjunctive. Or sometimes my mouth gets carried away with itself and starts pulling pluperfect conjugations out of thin air and sprinkling them nonsensically throughout otherwise-perfectly-comprehensible sentences.

Other times I will be waiting in line somewhere, knowing that momentarily I will have to ask for something in Spanish, and when the time comes for me to recite my grammatically-flawless question, I will get flustered, forget my carefully practiced (and embarrassingly simple) phrase, and open my mouth to utter some ugly form of American-tourist-gobbledegook. Of course everyone in Madrid speaks American-tourist-gobbledegook, so I will still get what I am asking for, but at the expense of my language-learning pride. They have a word for this here: vergüenza – it means shame or embarrassment. So at least I can go home to my host family and adequately describe my post-shopping emotional state. That’s progress.

So there is the grammar – what I like to call “textbook” Spanish, because you have to know it, even though nobody really speaks it. It is so frustrating, because I need to learn textbook Spanish so that I can NOT speak it and instead speak real Spanish – la lengua corriente. Literally, this means: “the current language.” I get this confused with la lengua “corriendo” which would mean (if such a phrase actually existed) “the running language.” To me this just seems much more appropriate, because real Spanish is hard to keep up with and always seems to make me feel out of breath.

When I first got to Madrid, my experience of real Spanish was something along the lines of: “…mmm mmmmmm con los mmmmmm mm quedado mmm mmmmmm. Diego mmmmmm, ¡mmmmm mm puta madre! ¡¡Mmmmmm teléfono mmmmm mm mmm Vodafone mmmm mmm mmmmm mmmm!! ¿¿Qué mmmm mmmm?? Mmm no creo mmmmmmm - ¡mmmmm mmm jamás! ¡¡Jamás!!”

Trying to figure out the words in between the few that I knew felt like an extended game of hangman - which I always lost. However, after a couple weeks of spending up to 7 hours a day (Tuesdays = death) in classes in which only Spanish is spoken – and is often spoken rapid-fire by native speakers – I am now able to win my perpetual game of hangman about half of the time. I’ll take what I can get.

It is quiet exciting, actually, to notice that I am reading faster and understanding more, and asking people to repeat themselves fewer times. And it is a particular relief to have fewer of those moments where I will be talking to someone in Spanish, nodding and making “mmhmm” sounds because I really don’t understand most of what they are saying, and all of a sudden they will give me a funny look – I have apparently “mmhmm”-ed where an “mmhmm” is not appropriate, and now it is painfully clear that I have no clue what they are saying to me. Ay, the vergüenza!

I think I just have to get over that – the vergüenza, I mean. I don’t see Spaniards moping around because they’ve muddled up an English sentence (Ha! They could care less). I am determined to learn this feisty little lengua – and so the vergüenza has just got to go.

Pictures!

If you want to see pictures of my trip, you can check them out in my MobileMe gallery (for those of you who don't have facebook). I just added pictures from Toledo!

"Toledo, Ciudad de las Tres Culturas"

Toledo takes a rather different approach to religion than any other part of Spain that I have been to. Religion is, well... bigger in Toledo. Possibly because there are three of them.

In between visiting Toledo’s stunning places of worship, we had a bit of free time to wander around a market with shops and stalls selling jewelry, clothes, Spanish leather bags, trinkets, pastries and ice cream. However, this being a religiously vibrant city in a catholic European country, the scene was not complete without an enormous reproduction of Christ on the cross stationed high on the wall behind the market stands - lest we forget, even for a moment, the real reason why we are able to enjoy all these earthly indulgences. I noticed this as I slurped up my unspeakably delicious strawberry helado, thinking that if I was Christian and religious I would certainly give Jesus a hearty thank you for all his sacrifice, because gosh do I love ice cream. I couldn’t help feeling like Toledo was reminding me that I should at least feel a little bit guilty about enjoying it so much while Christ hung there in perpetual agony, but before I could give it much more thought, a band appeared marching through the street with a troupe of costumed men twirling flags, which, of course, distracted me from any further contemplation of Catholic guilt.

I spent at least half an hour gaping at El Greco’s El Entierro del Conde de Orgaz. Actually, it could have been several hours. I also could have been drooling, I really just don’t remember. El Greco is one of the few artists whose styles I can recognize instantly, and I just can’t get enough. I’m not sure what gave me the chills more – the painting’s raw nightmarish beauty, or the fact that I was actually in it’s physical presence. I stood there in the Iglesia de Santo Tomé and studied every face that surrounded Saint Stephen and Saint Augustine and the dead count, staring even longer into the face of El Greco himself, because he was looking right back at me, and got the chills once again wondering if when he painted this he had any idea that I would be here almost five hundred years later unable to pull myself away. Then I remembered that El Greco had arrogantly (and correctly) boasted that his work would become unbelievably famous and valuable after his death - so yes, I think he would have fully expected me to be here nearly half a millennium later.

His arrogance, however, did nothing to stop me ogling his portraits in La Catedral de Toledo. I love them so much I could cry. I was too distracted to listen to our guide’s long-winded explanation (of what I don’t know, because I wasn’t listening), so I just wandered off to stare desperately at each of the stark portraits, feeling an incredible frustration that I didn’t have nearly enough time to properly experience each one (and also feeling like no matter how much time I had it would never be enough). I felt bad, like I should apologize to Santiago, and the crying San Pedro, and Christ who was forever suffering against that nightmarish sky, and all the others, for not being able to pay them the attention they deserve. Although I guess they are saints, so they probably understand.


There was work by other artists in between the Grecos, but really, I hardly saw them. Sorry Caravaggio, but when it comes to 16^th century renaissance painters, I have eyes only for your Greek friend over there.

Toledo takes the “no pasa nada” Spanish attitude and boldly applies it to what is possibly the most volatile source of conflict in human history: religion. In Spain especially, whose history is more or less dominated by religious strife in various forms (but then what country’s isn’t, at least to some degree?), one hardly expects to find a whole city dedicated to the coexistence of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Oh that’s not to say that everyone didn’t fight over Toledo, or that the Catholic Kings didn’t win (because obviously they did), but there is something about seeing a mosque, a synagogue, and a cathedral (all centuries old and breathtakingly beautiful, by the way) within ten minutes of each other that just makes me feel good about Toledo.

Even if you didn’t know a thing about Toledo’s history (or Spanish history), you would know which religion won the battle for Spain’s spiritual supervision as soon as you stepped into Toledo’s cathedral. Once inside, you’ll probably want to lie down on the floor and stare at the ceiling for about a day or so. It’s so intimidating and so beautiful that you had better just get down on the floor because you’re going to feel utterly insignificant anyway, so you might as well avoid getting a crick in your neck. (Side note: it occurred to me while I was gaping up in open-mouthed awe at the ceiling that the people who build these cathedrals are very smart. They make you feel small – so you remember your mortal insignificance in comparison to God and saints and all that. They pack in so much aesthetic beauty that it is overwhelming and intimidating and breathtaking all at once – another reminder that you are a little speck of a being while God is, well, everything. And they design it so that you spend a lot of time staring up in awe. You know who lives up? God - that’s who.)

Once you get your senses back under control, you’ll get up, dust yourself off, and wander around to the other side of the cathedral. Then you’ll probably lie down again, because you’ll be staring at 18kg of gold and 183kg of silver’s worth of religious devotion, and trust me, it’s difficult to spare any consciousness for standing upright when that’s in front of you.

One interesting thing you’ll notice is that much of the cathedral’s beauty comes from the many detailed Moorish designs. Indeed, the Muslims of Toledo helped build this Catholic cathedral. And let me just say that despite centuries of bitter conflict, Islam and Catholicism make a drop-dead gorgeous combination.

To me, Toledo’s message is: there are many ways to be religious. You can be traditional (and you have several options here), you can go for some fusion, you can be culturally religious (for example, I have several friends who consider themselves “culturally Jewish”), or any number of other forms of religion/faith/devotion. In this atmosphere, almost everything feels like a religious experience. For me, standing in front of those El Greco paintings or Toledo’s cathedral was inspiring and disturbing – disturbing in the sense that it disrupted my normal thoughts and feelings, pulling me out of my constantly circling thoughts so that I was just there. Just experiencing. The chattering in my head paused and for a few minutes I was just looking and breathing and living. In that haunting - sometimes even scary - beauty, I see why people are compelled to worship the things that affect them so deeply. That might not be my style, but being in places like Toledo makes me almost wish it was.

The Spanish Mamma

The concept of "full to the point where I can't possibly eat anymore even though there is still food on my plate" really just doesn't translate no matter how far I stretch my gastronomical vocabulary. My Spanish mamma doesn't have much to say about most of the things I do, except when it involves eating. The she has A LOT to say. When it comes to food, she apparently knows everything - including how much I can fit into my own stomach. Excuse me, but I have lived with this stomach for 21 years and at this point I'd have to say I know it pretty well. I know what upsets it and I know what makes it full.

Ha! I almost expect her to just come right out and say, honey, you don't know shit. I might have only met you a week ago and know almost nothing about you, but trust me, you can finish that chicken AND still have room for yogurt. When I stop eating she gives me this look like, are you kidding me? And I find myself wishing that I wasn't so full so that I could eat more, because I want my Spanish mamma to like me. This makes eating very stressful.

Every night for a week I tried a different combination of explanations in my attempt to express to her that I was utterly stuffed, but she really wasn't having it. She would look at me as if I was just trying to be difficult, then she would ask me to recite all the food I had eaten that day. Even when I embellished my report, she would invariably tell me that I had not eaten enough and therefore could continue eating. Then she would sit back in her chair (because when she interrogates me about my meals she has to lean very, very close so as to detect any suspicious, telltale eye-shifting or facial twitches that might indicate that I am lying) and return to watching the news. Glad we got that all figured out. Oh wait - we didn't! Because I am STILL FULL.

I finally asked one of my language professors if there was a way to get her to listen, and she told me to say: "es que no puedo más." I tried it that night, and - miracle of miracles! - it worked. She just nodded and took my plate away. What?! That was it?! What was wrong with all the other things I was saying ("I'm full," "I've already eaten a lot today," "I can't fit anymore"...)?

As it turns out, the "es que" part is crucial - this translates to "it's that..." which is important because it is a justification, which means a lot to Spaniards. If, for example, you want to reject someone's proposal for a date, the polite way to do it is to say something like, "No, gracias, es que tengo otro plan" (no, thank you, it's just that I have other plans"). Apparently this works wonders with both Spanish men and Spanish mammas.

A word about the Spanish grandma (because I have one of those too). As is customary for older parents in Spain, the abuela here lives in the house with her daughter and two granddaughters (and me). She spends her days crocheting outside on the patio, and, well, that's it. I have never seen her do anything else. Oh but she does have a rotation of subjects that she likes to talk about: 1) how hot it is (although when she says this it usually isn't); 2) Franco; 3) how crazy young people are. Any night that I say I am going out, she always asks me, "aren't you afraid to go out at night?" To which I reply, no, because I am going out with a group of friends. She thinks about it for a minute, then nods, as if I have finally answered a question that she has been wondering about for years. And then she does it all over again the next time I go out.

This was pretty much the extent of my conversations with the abuela, until a few days ago. After a run in a beautiful park down the street from my house, I hopped in the shower, happy as could be about my first time running in Madrid, and just generally pleased with life. I finished showering and turned of the water, and heard a voice in the bathroom with me. I peered around the shower curtain and saw the abuela moving my towels off the toilet seat. She looked up at me and said, "oh I didn't know you were in here." I told her that I would be out of the bathroom in one minute, but she shook her head seriously and told me that it couldn't wait, and then started lifting up her dress. I dived back behind the shower curtain, and then stood there, naked and dripping, trapped by this wobbly 92-year-old woman and her impatient bladder. Oh God. She's peeing... Oh God. She's ONLY peeing, right??!! I wish she had given me my towel... god this is so uncomfortable. Can I ask her to give me my towel? Oh, no, she's done... oh THANK GOD. As she peed, she kept saying things to me, which I didn't understand partially because they were in mumbled Spanish echoing off the tiled walls, and partially because I was far too distracted by the incredible awkwardness of my situation to pay attention to anything else.

The thing is, I think it was only awkward for me. She may have forgotten that I've only known her for a week, or perhaps she just didn't care. However, there is no word in Spanish that translates to "awkward," so maybe such feelings are simply not a part of the culture. I think I like that, but I DEFINITELY need to get used to it. I'm pretty sure that at home I said "awkward" at least 800 times a day, so it might be good for me to focus on some other aspect of life.

This Blog

So after much deliberation, I decided to start a blog about my life in Spain. I was hesitant because I thought blogging might take away from writing in my journal/speaking Spanish/actually being in Spain, but I realized that I spend so much time thinking about my life here (in English, I should say), that I might as well write it all down (in English - since I definitely cannot yet express myself to this degree in Spanish). And so long as I'm doing that, I might as well publish it (I mean, it would be selfish to keep all my wise thoughts and observations to myself, right?). So that's what I did.