Visit from my sisters :)

My two sisters visited me here in Spain last week over their spring break! My older sister Nora spent a year in Valencia with a Fulbright grant two years ago, so she's quite familiar with Spain. For my younger sister Lily, however, it was her first time in Europe!

They flew into Madrid last weekend and we stayed there overnight, met up with some of me and Nora's friends, and visited some of the major places like Plaza del Sol, Plaza Mayor, el Rastro market, and el Retiro park.

Plaza Mayor in Madrid

Then we spent a few days in Sevilla, and all of us slept in my little room in my apartment. We saw the main sites (Plaza de España, the cathedral, the Alcázar, all of which you should recognize if you've been reading my blog :) ), met up with some of my friends, went to the lab for my sisters to meet my labmates, had a dinner at home with my roommates, and saw some flamenco. We made sure Lily tried some typical foods like tortilla española, jamón, salmorejo (like gazpacho - cold tomato soup), churros con chocolate, and croquetas (croquettes).

Tortilla española for dinner with my roommates

Plaza de España

Waiting for flamenco to start at La Carbonería

Last of all, we spent a couple of days in Valencia. We stayed with a family that Nora spent a lot of time with during her year in Valencia: the parents, the daughter who's in her second year of college, the aunt and uncle, the 6- and 12- year old little cousins, and the grandma. With them we did some sightseeing in the city (the cathedral, City of Arts and Sciences, the market, the beach) and hung out at home: we dyed Easter eggs and baked oatmeal butterscotch cookies with materials brought from home, played Just Dance and Wii karaoke, and they prepared every single meal for us (including homemade paella and fideuá, both of which are typical Valencian dishes).

Sightseeing in Valencia

Paella lunch with the family!

It was a whirlwind trip, and we did a ton of things in one week! It was so nice to have time with my sisters, especially now as I realize that it's getting harder and harder these days to have us all together. It was also fun getting to show Lily around for her first real trip out of the country. Their visit also made me realize I feel pretty established in Spain - I have friends here, I know how to get around, and can show people around!

RASPA on the news!

My research group here in Sevilla was on the news recently! A local channel did a special on "la mujer trabajadora" ("the working woman"), and they interviewed different working women on Andalucía. One of them was Sofia, the PI of my group! Click here to see our section of the program. You can see me in a few parts!

In case you don't speak Spanish, in the clip Sofia talks about what the group does: there are many projects going on, but all of them involve molecular simulations to study materials with technological applications, such as capture of carbon dioxide. She says that Spain is a strong country for research, but that the recortes (government spending cuts) will make it difficult to keep up the level of research. At the end she says of her work, "Do what you like. To do something well, you have to like it." :)

Semana Santa!

Semana Santa is holy week, the week before Easter. Sevilla has some of the biggest and most important celebrations in Spain. The week revolves around processions: each participating church has one procession one day during Semana Santa. The processions start and end from their individual churches, but all of them at some point pass through La Campana, down Calle Sierpes, along the town hall, and in and out of the cathedral. It takes around 2 hours to see an entire procession - there are multiple bands, hundreds of nazarenos (church members wearing robes and pointed hat/mask), and the main attraction are the pasos (large floats), typically one with a statue of Jesus and one with the Virgin. The pasos are super heavy and are carried by around 40 costaleros, men who walk underneath the paso and support it on the back of their neck. The pasos can be centuries old and have a lot of gold and silver. Because of this, if it rains at all, the processions are simply cancelled. Lots of people in Sevilla look forward to their church's procession ALL year, so if it rains, it can be pretty devastating.

Luckily it hasn't been too rainy so far! On Sunday, the official beginning of Semana Santa, I saw one ENTIRE procession. The church is in the neighborhood where I live, and I pass by this church several times a week, so I feel slightly more allegiance to this procession than to others! My friends and I got lucky and were standing right in the front. Here are a few pictures from this procession:

Nazarenos in the procession of the Hermandad La Estrella

Here comes Jesus!

Nazarenos and costaleros

On Monday I went with friends to the center of the city - near the cathedral and the town hall - where the crowds are the biggest, and saw parts of a couple of processions. It was great experiencing the atmosphere there, but we couldn't see as well since a lot of the path is blocked from view by the seats that people pay for to watch the processions from.

Procession of Hermandad San Gonzalo on the route to the cathedral

Paso with statue of Jesus

Tuesday evening it was raining, so there was absolutely NOTHING in the way of processions. That night, though, I went with a friend to one of the most famous dessert/pastry shops in Sevilla, and we tried torrijas, the typical dessert of Semana Santa in Sevilla. Torrijas are a slice of bread dipped in eggs and milk or wine, fried and with sugar or honey on top. They were delicious but quite possibly the most empalagoso (overly sweet) dessert I've ever tried!

Trying torrijas with friends

I first learned about Semana Santa in high school in Spanish class, and I've been hearing about it ever since I got here this fall, since it's such a big deal here. I've actually only talked to one person my age who says they like Semana Santa in Sevilla - others I've talked to say it's too much, or that they prefer Semana Santa in their own town, or that they see it as hypocritical (not going to church all year and then going all out for Semana Santa).

In any case, I loved finally experiencing Semana Santa in person and getting to see little things like how some of the toddler-age nazarenos hand out candy to kids in the crowds and how kids in the crowd have balls of wax that they form by collecting dripping wax from the candles of the passing nazarenos; seeing the pasos stop and the costaleros changing out and seeing a mom walking with her kid-nazareno give him a sandwich during the procession (they can last up to 14 hours!). Also, I was actually less creeped out than I thought I would be by the nazarenos - they do look like the KKK, but once I saw them up close, walking on the streets, and putting on their robes, it is clear how they are normal people underneath!

Living in Spain

I've been in Spain for 6 months now, the longest I've lived in a different country, and I'm feeling less like a foreigner and realizing how much more I feel at home here.

There are little things like: a couple of weeks ago when I met someone in Sevilla, I recognized the name of the company he works at and knew that it's based in Sevilla. I recognize the news reporters on TV, and I'm getting really good at 24-hour time, to the point that am/pm looks weird and writing the month and then the date looks weird. I've realized I can now name and locate all the autonomous communities in Spain, not because I memorized them but because now I know someone from or something about each comunidad.

Importantly, my stomach is finally, finally, finally getting used to the meal hours (late lunch and dinner). I mean, I've been fine with the schedule but it's only recently that I've realized that it feels absurd to, for example, eat dinner at 7pm. I'm not sure I'll ever adjust to staying out until 4 or 5am on weekends (a respectable hour to go home), however I was out until 1am with friends last Saturday and felt like an old lady for going home so early! Phone calls are no longer stress-inducing, and I've realized that the streets, buildings, shop signs, the weird door knobs in the middle of apartment doors, everything doesn't strike me as foreign anymore.

I love talking with Spaniards about the different accents in the country, and I'm finally starting to be able to differentiate between accents. I can definitely distinguish Spain and Central/South America now, and within Spain, I can now hear the difference between my friends from Galicia, Valencia, Madrid, and Andalucía. And furthermore, within Andalucía, I'm starting to be able to, for instance, hear the difference between people from Sevilla and Cádiz. To give an example, people from the city of Sevilla tend to talk with seseo (pronouncing c and z as an s instead of as a th, like in the rest of Spain) whereas people from Cádiz tend to talk with ceceo (pronouncing s as th). My roommates are from the province of Cádiz, and some of their accent has been neutralized by living in Sevilla for a few years, but their Cádiz accent tends to come out more when their parents or friends visit. :)

Last time I was in Spain (the summer of 2007, with a program through Indiana University for high school students), all of this was totally over my head! It makes me realize how much more I've learned about Spain and also makes me excited that I still have a few months left to learn more!

Lo Sabe No Lo Sabe

I see the show Lo Sabe No Lo Sabe ("knows it doesn't know it") at least a few times a week in the evening with my roommates. In each episode, the host Juanra goes to a different city in Spain and chooses a contestant off the street. The contestant has five questions. For each question, he/she needs to choose another person off the street who either knows the answer, or doesn't know the answer, depending on the question. If the contestant gets to the end, he/she wins up to 6000€. It's one of my go-to shows to watch - the host is funny, it's interesting seeing different cities, and of course any show is helpful for improving my Spanish.

The exciting news is that last Saturday afternoon I ran into them filming an episode right here in Sevilla!! They were on a pedestrian street really close to my apartment. I was so excited!! It was basically exactly like on TV - an older man was the contestant, Juanra asked him the questions, and the guy chose people off the street to answer the questions. I followed them around for maybe half an hour, along with a group of other people, some of whom were equally excited and some who had never heard of the show. Of course I took a million pictures - here are a few!

First Paco (the contestant, right) chose this woman, hoping she would know the answer.

The woman didn't know the answer, so Paco used his one phone call, and the person he called did know the answer.

For the next question, Paco chose this guy as he biked through the camera crew. The guy was supposed to not know the answer, but he actually did, so Paco lost here.

And I got a picture with Juanra the host!

Explaining scrambled eggs

With a Spanish friend the other day, all in Spanish:

Friend: What are you making for dinner today?
Me: Eh, probably eggs.
Friend: Ah, are you making a tortilla?
Me: No really, just eggs.
Friend: Oh, like a revuelto?
Me: Yeah, like a revuelto, but with only eggs, nothing else.
Friend: (Looks at me.)
Me: I just put the eggs in a pan and cook 'em.
Friend: So huevos fritos.
Me: But no oil.
Friend: No oil?? How strange.

(Tortilla: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_omelette
Revuelto: scrambled eggs with stuff mixed in
Huevos fritos: fried eggs)

I've learned that in Spain, there doesn't really exist the concept of eating plain scrambled eggs, plain oatmeal, plain lentils, plain black beans, plain vegetables...everything needs to be cooked into a dish!

Fulbright conference + more travel!

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind, in a good way, of traveling and things going on!

Last week I went to the Fulbright midyear conference in Zaragoza, Spain, where all the American Fulbrighters in Spain this year (about 100 of us) met. We had sessions for discussion and reflection on how our projects and experiences are going and how our perceptions of Spain and the US are changing. A number of Fulbrighters (including me!) gave brief presentations on our projects or any aspect of our experiences - for example I talked about my research and my experience working with my group, another Fulbrighter talked about her project making an interactive 3D model of a cathedral in Barcelona, and another talked about her experience being Chinese-American in Spain. We also had a lot of socializing/networking time, and I talked to so many cool people doing diverse, amazing things. It makes me feel lucky to be part of the Fulbright group!

Fulbrighters on the steps to one of the buildings of the University of Zaragoza

The previous weekend I had a long weekend (for Día de Andalucía) and I took the opportunity to take a trip to Madrid and Oviedo! In Madrid I met up with some Spanish friends I had met during the molecular simulations course I attended in Amsterdam in January, and they showed me around all the city. I've already been to Madrid maybe 5 times but now I want to go back even more!

In Oviedo I visited the host family I lived with in the summer of 2007 when I participated in the IU Honors program. It was great to see them again, and very nostalgic being back in their apartment! The family is a mom and a son who is now 14. I loved getting to see the people from the barrio who I spent time with that summer and to see all my favorite things in the city, like the cathedral, town hall, Parque de San Francisco, and statue of Woody Allen. I was pleased to find out that I still remember the city really well, as well as the route for the 20-minute walk I used to take every day with my IU Honors friends to class. :)

The cathedral and statue of La Regenta in Oviedo :)