Unsuspected Misses

Recently, I made a two-month trip to the United States to visit my family and friends. Within just a few hours of my arrival, there were several things from my time in the Basque Country that I was missing. Some of them, like missing my friends and all of the other people I had met, are things you would expect, while others may seem a bit strange. What follows is a list, in no particular order, of some of the items I wasn’t expecting to miss.

1. Walking and Public Transportation

I do not have a driver’s license. In the U.S., this would mean that to go any kind of reasonable distance from my house, I would either need to use the public buses, or bum a ride off of my family members or friends. I usually preferred the latter because I could arrive at my destination in a reasonable amount of time, traffic permitting of course.  I don’t have any problems with public transportation except for the fact that it takes me significantly longer to get where I need to go.  The suburbs of Seattle aren’t known for great access to public transportation, and since I live “two buses from everywhere”, travel takes me twice to three times as long as it would in a car.

Here, on the other hand, I walk everywhere. In fact, riding in a car is a rarity for me nowadays.  Most of the places within the city are easily accessible on foot, but for longer journeys, I use the excellent public transportation system. To travel the 30km (18.6 miles) from Durango to Bilbao by train, it takes a mere 40 minutes. The same trip by bus takes between 20 to 40 minutes depending on the route and traffic conditions within the city itself.  Once inside the city, it is possible to take many forms of transportation to get where you need to go, including, buses, trams, the metro (subway), and just plain old walking. In Seattle, on the other hand, it would take me that long just to get from my house to the downtown area, a distance of approximately nine miles.  Once there, I would have two choices: take another bus, or walk.  While working on an activity on tourism in Seattle, several of my students were shocked to find out that Seattle did not have more efficient means of transportation. "You have no metro? But Seattle is bigger than Bilbao. How do you go anywhere?" I often wonder the same thing.

2. The Letters K, X, and Z

At this point, you must be thinking, "This girl has gone completely off her rocker. How can she miss something that still exists?" Over the past year, I have grown accustomed to seeing words spelled with these letters not too commonly seen in the English language. The most common letter in Basque is the letter a, which accounts for approximately 17 percent of all letters.  While ranking significantly lower on the list of commonly used letters, k, x, and z are used to a much greater extent than they are in English.  If you are wondering why I know this, it is because I was trying to create a set of Bananagrams so that I could play in Basque. You can ask my family how long I spent figuring out the correct percentages and number of letters I would need to be able to play.  Using a combination of several sets, I now how have enough tiles to be able to play in either English, Spanish, or Basque, as long as I can find someone to play with.

When I first arrived in the Basque Country, I was daunted by the fact that I was constantly surrounded by such unfamiliar letters, but I have grown so used to them that their absence was significant in the United States. How could you not miss spelling chocolate "txokolate"?

3. Dinner After Dark


I never thought I could get used to eating lunch at 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon and dinner after 9:00pm. I have not only gotten used to it, I found that I quite like it.  I hadn't thought about it much before, but now it makes perfect sense to me. I tried to impose this timetable on my family while I was visiting, but unfortunately, they didn't take to it like I had.  Although it made more sense with our schedules, they were still committed to eating early.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the things that seemed strange to me at the time, but these are the three that most stood out to me. What are some unusual things that you miss when you travel to other places?

What I've Been Up To: An Update

It's been a  long time since my last post, and I'm sure some of you must have thought that I had fallen off the face of the earth.  The good news for you is that I have not fallen of the face of the earth, unless, of course, you were hoping that is what happened to me. In that case, I am sorry to disappoint you. Now that I know I have a couple of readers besides my parents, I will attempt to post more frequently. The key word here is attempt. Keeping up with my blog hasn't been at the top of my priority list.

After finishing my teaching at the end of May, several of my friends helped to prepare me for the upcoming Basque exam.  I was so nervous, specifically about the oral exam, that I wasn't sure I was going to pass, especially considering my previous performance. During the mid-term exam in January, I got so nervous during the oral exam that I almost completely forgot my name. This time, though, I remembered not only my name, but everything else I was supposed to know as well, and passed both the written and oral parts.  I know enough that I could probably hold my own in a conversation with a three-year-old.

Shortly after finishing the Basque exam and before heading back to the United States for a long vacation, I went with the choir to the town of Sodupe for a concert. However, this was not just an ordinary concert, this was a gathering of many of the choirs from Bizkaia, numbering close to 1,000 people. If you have ever been around choir people, imagine putting 1,000 of us in the same room. It was crazy, but incredibly fun.

Part of the crowd

After that, I packed my bags and headed to Seattle for my little brother's high school graduation, visit family and friends, and play tourist. What follows are some photos of how I have spent my vacation, because pictures are usually more entertaining than words.

This summer I:
watched my little brother graduate from high school,

Posing for a picture with my family after the ceremony

went to several Seattle Mariners baseball games

watched the 4th of July fireworks with my mom and my friends,

took a road trip to Spokane with my sister to visit more family,

Hiking Tubbs Hill with my sister, aunt, and uncle

Standing with my sister at the edge of the Columbia River

fed a giraffe,

fed an elephant.

1,087,000 Words

When it comes to taking pictures, I am definitely my mother's daughter.  Two years ago, my mom came to visit me when I was studying in Granada and we took a three-week trip through Spain, Germany, and Austria.  During this trip, I shot about 500 pictures; she shot approximately 2,000.  I couldn't believe that she could take so many pictures in such a short period of time, and gave her a bad time about it.  As it turns out, I have inherited the gene for taking massive amounts of pictures in a short period of time.  Over Semana Santa (Easter holidays), I spent 12 days traveling through Budapest and Prague, where I took an astonishing 1,087 photos.

It is commonly said that a picture is worth 1,000 words.  If that were entirely true, then this post should be 1,087,000 words long, assuming I can do math correctly.  Luckily for you all, I have never written that many words on a single topic in my entire life, and I don't plan on starting today.

Seeing as how free time is at a premium right now, instead of attempting to write down all of my adventures, which might actually bring me close to a total of 1,000,000 words, I am going to give a brief rundown of the trip followed by a few of my favorite pictures.

Total number of days: 12
Countries visited: 2 (Hungary and Czech Republic)
Cities visited: 3 (Budapest, Prague, Kutná Hora)
Hours spent on a bus :16 (Budapest to Prague and back)
Concerts attended: 3 (two in Prague and one in Budapest)
Dictionaries acquired: 3 (English-Czech, English-Hungarian, and English-Romanian)
Friends made: several
Relatives visited: 1

Chain Bridge and St. Stephen's Basilica, Budapest

St. Matthias Church, Budapest

The Astronomical Clock, Prague

Sunset behind Prague Castle

The Ossuary, Kutná Hora

What Does an American Look Like?

Most of you who read this blog (if there are any of you left) are most likely from the United States, and probably have a fairly good idea as to how to answer the above question.  Think about it for a second until you have a good mental picture of a typical American.  Do you have one? Good.

Does your picture look something like this?

If you answered yes, you think along the same lines as many of my students.  If you answered no, that's okay, you will have another chance in a little while.

A few weeks ago, I was doing a lesson on family relationships and I showed this picture to my class.  In case you have never met my family, the girl on the left is my sister and the boy on the right is my brother.  Having seen a couple of my family photos in previous classes, the students already knew who they were.  The first comment I heard after displaying this photo was, "Rita, your brother is SO American."  I was curious as to what makes makes someone look American, so I asked the student, "Why does he look American?"  The response given by several of the students was that he looked just like the people they see in the movies.  Apparently my brother is brother is the stereotypical American high school boy.  After hearing these responses, I asked if they thought my sister looked American.  Expecting an affirmative response, I was surprised when they told me that she did not look American and had a difficult time explaining why.

If your stereotypical American didn't match the picture of my brother, I am going to give you an opportunity to redeem yourself.  Do you still have your picture in mind? Good.

To further our discussion, I showed the following picture to the class.

 

Upon seeing this photo, the students became very animated and exclaimed, "Your dad is very American!"  Curious as to how their responses would differ from when asked about my brother, I asked the students what made him so American.  One of the students responded with, "The hat, the shirt, and WHITE SOCKS!"  Yes, my dad is wearing shorts and white socks, which, unfortunately for him, is not the latest fashion trend. Although somewhat common in areas such as the Pacific Northwest, this fashion trend has not caught on in Europe, and clearly marks you as an American.

 When I told this story to my brother, who, if you hadn't noticed, is also wearing shorts and white socks in the picture, he told me "I wear shorts and white socks, but at least their not as tall as Dad's.  Besides, everyone wears them."  My brother has successfully reinforced the (possibly accurate) stereotype of Americans and white socks with shorts.   I'm not sure that everyone wears them, but maybe it's just a thing that typical Americans do.  They say that all stereotypes begin with some grain of truth, and apparently this is no exception.

In a Nutshell

I would like to apologize for not writing in such a long time.  I thought I would let you know that I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Quite the contrary, I've been so busy with teaching, going to Basque class, and the choir that I haven't had time to sit down and write a post about all of the things that have happened in the past few months. Here is the story of the past few months in a nutshell.  I have had several choir concerts, and only had to "watermelon" a couple of songs.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term, "watermelon" is what you sing when you don't know the words to the song and have to fake it.  This term is also known in Spanish as "playback".  The reason for my "watermeloning" was that I was given some of the music they day of the concert and needed to sing it as best I could.  Needless to say, my sight reading has improved considerably since being here.

As for my Basque class, it is still difficult, but I am beginning to understand more and more each day.  I say simple phrases and can count to 100.  It's a good thing I know my numbers because some of the store clerks at the supermarket tell me how much I have to pay in Basque. I'm  still far from being the most adept at using the language in class, but I am learning quickly.

In December, I went back to the U.S. for Christmas to visit my family and friends.  I had a great time, especially having the opportunity to visit with some of my cousins who I haven't seen in a long time.  Due to severe snow storms, I almost didn't make it out of Europe, but, after many hours of delays, I made it home and had a wonderful time.

Teaching has proven to be as challenging as I thought it would be, but I am greatly enjoying it.  Sometimes I wonder if my students have learned anything because several of them keep asking them about my life in England or Canada.  Just yesterday, one of my students asked me (again) if I was from Canada.  Newsflash: I'm not English or Canadian.  Despite the difficulties, I love working here in the Basque Country and have submitted my application to return for next, and with any luck, the experience will be just as positive.

I Can't Even Dance in English!

The title, however strange it may seem, is the perfect description of my sentiments these past couple of weeks as I have been acclimating myself to life in the Basque Country.  I am in a new country, with a new language, and, oh yes, a new job.  I have taken it upon myself to learn as much about the culture, the language, and about how to be a good teacher as I can while I am here, which means integrating myself into the local community.

If you have read my previous post, you will know that I have joined a choir here in Durango.  Little did I know that I would be singing with them during several informal concerts in local bars after just two weeks of rehearsal.  I was unaware of these concerts until the day before they were to occur, when I was invited to tag along by one of the other members.  I arrived at the meeting place, where I was given a book of approximately 20 songs that the choir had previously worked on.  I had thought that I was only going to listen, but, as it turns out, I was supposed to sing.  Thus, my sight-reading greatly improved in a very short amount of time.  For those of you who don’t know, sight-reading is when you are given a piece of music that you have not seen before and are expected to sing it, which has never been one of my strengths.  It didn’t help matters that I was sight-reading handwritten music, with text in several foreign languages.  I had a great time that day, and the choir continues to be one of the highlights of my week.

I was told that a local café would be offering traditional Basque dance classes for beginners once a week and I decided that those classes would be an excellent way for me to learn more about the culture.  I was forewarned that the classes would be conducted entirely in Basque, but that didn’t deter me like it would a normal person.  I went to the class, figuring that at least I could follow the steps even if I had no idea what the instructor was saying.  As it turns out, that was a mistake.  I should have taken into account my dancing ability (or lack thereof) before deciding to enter into a world where I could no longer differentiate my left from my right.  My dancing has always provided great entertainment for any spectators.  Unfortunately for me, the instructor spent most of the class talking, instead of dancing, so I was left without a clue as to what to do.  When I was talking to a friend about this experience I said, “I don’t know what I was thinking, taking a dance class in Basque.  I can’t even dance in English”. That was the end of my adventures in dance class.

I was finally able to secure a place in a beginner level Basque class at the official language school of Durango.  When I entered, the class had already been together for a couple of weeks, so I had to start by playing catch-up.  I am learning quickly, although I still have trouble remembering all of the words that get thrown at us on a daily basis.  I have gotten to the point where I can understand a few basic sentences and I can pick out a couple of words from a complicated paragraph. I also know how to tell my left from my right, which would be a big help if I were still taking dance classes.

For the most part, the classes I am teaching are going fairly well.  I have a couple of classes that were complete disasters, and some that couldn’t have gone better.  I like all of my groups, although each one presents its own challenge.  Some are very energetic and eager to learn, while others could care less about what I have to say. Most of the students seem to enjoy having the ability to practice their English with a native speaker, although many of them still think I’m from England.  Nearly every day, someone asks me something about life in England, and I have to tell them that I am an American, from Seattle, which is a word they can never understand until I write it on the board.  Whenever my students see me around the city, they always stop to say hello or to chat for a while in English which always makes my day.

San Fausto Jaiak

The fiestas of San Fausto were celebrated during the week of October 9-17 in Durango.  It is a time for gathering and celebration, and the streets are filled with people.  As I had only been here a couple of weeks when they were going on, I wasn't exactly sure what was going on, and I'm still not entirely sure.  All I know is that there were many cultural activities and people in traditional dress, and that I enjoyed myself immensely during the fiestas, as they were the first real fiestas that I had experienced.  In the mornings, the had what I call, "The Running of the Bulls, Durango Style", where they allowed a bull to run through the city streets and people tried to avoid it.  My roommates asked if I was going to run, and I told them, "I am adventurous, not stupid," and stayed safely in the bleachers that they had set up for the occasion.

Several days later, they let loose another type of creature in the streets, the gigantes and the cabezudos.
Gigantes : Giants, approximately about 12 feet tall, who walk around the streets and dance.
Cabezudos : Normal-sized people with over-sized heads who walk around the streets and hit unsuspecting bystanders, usually children, with blocks of foam.  Very fun to watch

  The actual day of San Fausto, October 13th, was my favorite.  I was able to experience many aspects of Basque life that I had not already experienced, such as listening to the txalaparta and watching the dantzari dantza, traditional Basque dances.

 

The txalaparta, a traditional Basque instrument