Spanish School Update - Week 11

Well, it's been 11 weeks of Spanish school and we've made some progress, but we still aren't fluent. That we know will take quite some time for sure.

Spanish school is a bit of a roller coaster emotionally. There are good days, bad days, boring days, frustrating days, etc. Historically we are quite good students, but learning Spanish is not like learning math or history. It is probably one of the hardest tasks we've undertaken (certainly in a long time). And as Type A perfectionists, we have high expectations for ourselves.

As native English speakers it is very tough to not think like an English speaker when learning and speaking Spanish, even when you know the same rules do not apply. While there are many similarities between the two languages, the differences and nuances definitely overshadow them.

A few examples:

The use of the past tense in Spanish is highly complicated. Several different past tenses can be used at the same time in the same sentence. For example, if I want to say “last Saturday it was a beautiful day and I went to the beach” in Spanish, I need to use two different past tenses: one when describing the day and a different one when describing what I did. As a result, Spanish seems much more precise than English when telling a story.

Prepositions, those little words that we barely notice, are not used in the same way in Spanish as they are in English. In English we say “in the morning,” but the Spanish preposition for “in” (en) is not used in this case. Rather, “de” (of) or “por” (through/for) are used. It is very hard to break our “in the morning” habit!

We are slowly realizing that learning Spanish (or any language) is truly a process and that it takes time and patience. We have the time, but our patience sometimes gets stretched a bit thin on a day-to-day basis.

Fortunately, we have fabulous teachers who know what we’re going through. They even have a name for it: the B1 Depression (Europe uses a six-level system for learning languages (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2), so we are in the third of six possible levels). It is very common for students like us at the B1 level to feel frustrated because you have learned so much, but you have a difficult time putting it all together and using everything you’ve learned correctly. The B1 doldrums have settled into our daily lives a bit at this point.

The good news is that we are taking a week off from school and headed to Valencia, the birthplace of paella, where we will enjoy more fabulous Spanish food, amazing architecture, and many exciting sights.

Agur (Basque for hasta luego),

Shana & Jeff

PS – our teachers and others generally agree that learning English is ultimately still harder than learning Spanish. So we have that going for us, which is nice. ;-)

Pamplona

Last Friday, we took a bus (yes, a bus) about an hour and 15 minutes to Pamplona for an overnight visit.

Pamplona, of course, is famous for its running of the bulls, which was made widely-known by Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises. Each morning during the week-long Festival of San Fermin in July, the bulls that will take part in that day/night's bullfights are moved from a pen at the edge of the city to the bullring by means of running through streets that have been blocked off for that purpose. And, each day, brave (or foolish) men and women (mostly men) run with them. You can watch videos of the event on YouTube and decide for yourself how crazy it is to run with bulls through narrow cobblestone lanes. There is a life-size statue depicting the event in the city:

And, of course, a Hemingway bust at the bullring itself:

But, Pamplona offers more than just a chaotic week in July. The city is ancient. In the winter of 75-74 BCE, the area served as a camp for the Roman General Pompey. It later became a Roman city and has been a population center ever since. It has long been a fortified city, with the old part of the city on a hill with walls and still-existing fortifications on all sides:

The city has even turned part of the fortifications into a sort of zoo where animals such as ducks, turkeys, chickens, deer and more live together:

The city (of course) has a Cathedral that dates from the 11th Century, although it has been modified many times since. We took a tour in Spanish, which was good practice for us, but we definitely missed a lot. Beneath the Cloister, there is a museum that includes an archaeological dig that has found items dating back to the Roman period. Very interesting.

The bell tower was also fun to see. We learned about the life of the bell ringers and saw the Cathedral's largest bell, which is only rung about 20 times a year on special occasions. It is rung by hand, by a volunteer, and can be heard more than 7 miles away. It is huge:

Unfortunately, the weather was not good on Saturday, so the views from the bell tower were limited (there are actually beautiful mountains around Pamplona):

Overall, we did not love Pamplona, and we will definitely not be there with the masses for the Festival of San Fermin, but it is an interesting city and we enjoyed walking along the walls and touring the Cathedral.

Hasta luego,

Jeff and Shana

Deba to Zumaia – Hiking the Flysch Route

This past Sunday (Oct. 15) we took another spectacular hike along the Basque coast. Together
with our friends Atsuto and Rieko, we took the train to Deba, a small town about 30 kilometers (18 miles) west of San Sebastian. We then hiked about 14 kilometers (8.5 miles) east to Zumaia, another small town. This route allowed us to experience the Flysch.

What is Flysch? Flysch formations are sedimentary structures in which there are alternate hard
layers of limestone and sandstone and soft layers of clay and rocks. The protected coastline between Deba and Zumaia is one of the few places in the world where the strata show over 60 million years of geological history written in the successive rocky strata, which due to marine erosion, have been exposed and now show various events in the earth’s history, including the extinction of the dinosaurs! The area has been designated as a “Geopark.”

Words really cannot describe the Flysch. It some places it looks like the pages of a book, in
others it looks like almost like rows and layers of shark teeth. Sometimes it is vertical:

and sometimes it is horizontal:

Notice the different colors of the Flysch. The first picture is looking towards the Zumaia beach and San Telmo Chapel. The second is just oustide of Zumaia. The third is from the middle of the hike near Sakoneta Point. As you will see below, we were able to climb down and walk on the Flysch in the third picture.

Most of the hike was along the coast above the water, but at some points we were at sea level, where there were beaches. The views were spectacular:

We also saw a great many animals on the hike including cows (many cows), chickens, horses, sheep and donkeys. At several locations along the route there are gates that required us to climb over a small structure. Jeff surmised that they were designed to keep the cows (and other animals) from wandering off and noted that they acted as intelligence tests: you had to be smarter than a cow to walk the route. Fortunately, we were able to pass all of these tests.

At Sakoneta Point we were able to “rapel” down using a rope to descend to the Flysch where we could walk on and along it at sea level:

This was the route back up – note the surfers are climbing up with their surfboards:

The hike was moderately difficult, but mostly manageable. We were very proud of ourselves for
completing it in about 4.5 hours and enjoyed a cerveza and pinxto upon arriving in Zumaia:

While we were very proud ourselves for having walked 14 kilometers, our bubble was burst on Monday morning when we learned that one of our classmates, a Taiwanese-nun, hiked 24
kilometers (14.5 miles) the same day! And I suspect she didn't even need a beer at the end...

Hasta Luego,

Shana and Jeff

San Sebastian Gastronomika - National Grill Competition

After the success of the Cooking in Portuguese Taverns, we were really looking forward to the National Grill Competition event. Unfortunately, we had a bit of trouble following the discussion because the emcee spoke really fast. Other speakers (including members of the official jury for the competition) spoke more slowly, but there was a lot of detailed, technical discussion of salt use, how long before cooking meat to take it out of the refrigerator, resting times, fuel sources, etc. These guys are serious about their meat!

In between these discussions, we got to try, and rate, txuleta from eight chefs. One note: meat in Spain, and maybe elsewhere in Europe, is served much more rare than what you generally see in the US. Ordering a steak "en punto" (supposedly the equivalent of medium rare) will get you something that looks about like this:

While that is fairly rare, the quality of the meat is spectacular and it is cooked incredibly simply (with good salt and nothing else). The competing txuletas ranged from good to fantastic. And, although not as interesting as the Portuguese Tavern event, we really enjoyed trying the eight samples, which often tasted surprisingly different despite all being grilled meat with salt. We agreed on the best one but not on how to rate the others. It was a fun and filling event.

Strangely, they served beer at this event. Perhaps because it is common to drink beer while grilling outside? The audience definitely wanted to make it clear that it is FAR more appropriate to be drinking red wine when eating grilled meat. Duh, right? Next year they will definitely be serving red wine or there might be a revolt! 

We are not sure what the next big event is in San Sebastian, but there does always seem to be something going on here.

Hasta Luego,

Jeff and Shana

San Sebastian Gastronomika - Cooking in Portuguese Taverns

Yes, this is another post about food. No, we don't and won't apologize for writing so many posts about food. Food is really a way of life here.

The San Sebastian Gastronomika event is really an industry conference, but it is open to the public. The total event is expensive and would have interfered with school, so we chose a couple of sessions to attend: Cooking in Portuguese Taverns: a sample of "petiscos" and Portuguese products, which involved a tasting of traditional Portuguese foods; and The National Grill Competition where we rated eight different grilled txuletas (the Basque word for chuleta, which is a beef chop).

The Portuguese event was first, and it was really fun for us. Conducted entirely in Spanish, we felt we were able to follow the discussion fairly well because the emcee was not a native Spanish speaker (he was Portuguese) so he did not speak as fast as many native speakers.

The emcee wearing a traditional beret

The food was really good (and interesting). We started with a plate of Portuguese sausages and a bit of dense bread. The sausages were really tasty and the bread was really different, but we both liked it. So far, nothing too out of the ordinary, but that would change. The second dish was Piso Sopa, a traditional soup made with bread, oil, cilantro, octopus, and a ton of garlic. Really tasty, but maybe a bit too much garlic.

The next dish had two items: really interesting red carrots (an apparently ancient varietal) and a traditional Portuguese goat sausage known as maranhos. The sausage is made with rice and is wrapped in tripe. While Shana did try the octopus in the first dish, she did not brave the tripe wrapping.

The fourth dish was pataniscas of bacalao (bacalao in Spanish, cod in English). Basically, these were fried fish sticks, but they were really tasty.

Fifth, we had orejas de cerdo (pigs ears). Yes, that is correct, we tried pigs ears. Basically, we cannot figure out why people like these. It was like trying to eat a ligament - literally. Jeff choked down one piece while Shana spit out two. Definitely not on our list of favorite things, but in the name of completeness, here is a photo:

And finally, we had Sarapatel Portugueses. There are apparently many recipes for sarapatel, but the one we tried was a rich beef soup with a lot of pieces of tripe in it (for those of you who don't know what tripe is and didn't look it up when we mentioned it earlier, tripe is stomach lining - usually from a cow, but can be from any animal). I suspect some of you may be disgusted that we ate this, but Jeff loved the sarapatel and Shana liked the broth despite what it contained, although she was less sure about the tripe itself.

Each dish came with a paired wines, and all of the wines - one rose, three whites and two reds - ranged from good to great. After the six dishes, there was a cheese table with four strong Portuguese cheeses. All-in-all, a great event. Now, we can't wait to visit Portugal for more of the same.

Hasta luego,

Jeff and Shana

Baseball in Spain

No, this is not a post about playing baseball in Spain (although there is actually a small professional league that plays a six week season in June and July). This is about watching baseball in Spain, and the difficulties of being an MLB fan in Europe.

The MLB playoffs are in full swing, and that would usually mean a lot of baseball watching for us. Unfortunately, the time difference between here and the US makes that difficult. Most games start between 10 pm and 4 am. So far, we have watched the beginning of games before going to sleep and have seen a few full games that started at 1:00 pm on the East Coast (7:00 pm here). On Tuesday morning, we woke up for school at 7:20 am and caught the last half inning of the Dodgers clinching victory over the Diamondbacks.

Tonight the Yankees and Indians play a decisive game 5 of their AL Division Series, the game starts at 2:00 am here. However, since tomorrow is a national holiday in Spain (celebrating Columbus's arrival in the "New World" and also Saint Pilar), we don't have school. So, we have decided to wake up in the morning and immediately put on the replay of the game without checking the internet. Early morning baseball!

There are so many things that we love about living here, we will just have to live with missing out on most of the MLB playoffs. Now, if the Angels make it next year, we might just have to give up sleep... ;-)

Hasta pronto,

Jeff and Shana

Dinner with a Professional Chef

One of the best things about Spanish school is the people we meet. Interesting people from all over the world come here to visit and many of them decide to study Spanish on their vacations; and, there are people like us who have moved here and are trying to learn Spanish. Among the latter are our friends Atsuto and Rieko from Tokyo.

Atsuto and Rieko both speak English very well and have lived in the US. In fact, they met in Las Vegas where Atsuto worked as a chef at Spago. Yes, Atsuto is a professional chef who went to CIA (not that CIA, the Culinary Institute of America) in New York, worked at Spago for two years and is now seeking to continue his career in the amazing food mecca that is San Sebastian.

In the meantime, however, he agreed to cook a meal that we hosted with two other classmates, Richard and Alena, who are from London, although Alena is originally from Slovakia (see I told you our classmates are interesting). Richard and Alena recently got married and are on an extended honeymoon. And, when I say extended, I mean six weeks in Spain, four weeks in Japan, a week in Moorea and five weeks in New Zealand!

So, Atsuto and Rieko, who acted as his sous chef, came to our place and prepared an amazing meal for the six of us. The food was a fusion of Japanese and Basque. First, he made a Japanese omelette with foie, walnuts, a fig, and a balsamic sauce. If you have never seen a Japanese omelette, they are made in a special rectangular pan and are folded with chopsticks (!) until they are thick. The process is very intricate. I cannot convey how good this dish was, but here is how pretty it was:

The second dish was gyoza (Japanese dumplings) filled with crab (in this case fake) and other secret ingredients, served with a light lemon dipping sauce. Again, the picture does not do the dish justice, but we cannot convey taste, so you will have to trust us. They were good.

Finally, Atsuto prepared delicious baby-back ribs coated with a breadcrumb and cheese concoction and savory soy/balsamic sauce. Unfortunately, we were all so involved in enjoying the meal that no one took a picture.

With dessert from a local pastelaria, and plenty of wine, a wonderful time was had by all. Even better, Atsuto liked cooking in our kitchen so we are already planning another dinner. We wonder what he will come up with next.

Hasta Luego.

Jeff and Shana

9 Movies In 9 Days

Film festivals are fun, but they are also tiring. The first movie we attended was at midnight on the first day of the festival, and the last was at 10:45 pm on the last day. We truly took advantage of the whole event! Of course, our Spanish studies suffered a bit this week, although we did write reviews in Spanish for several of the movies we saw.

One thing that was consistent with our overall San Sebastian experience: the movies were very reasonably priced. Each movie ticket cost only 6.15€, or about $7.25. So, our movie binge cost less than $135. A great value for so much entertainment!

We obviously tried to pick movies that we expected to enjoy, but the Film Festival is a very popular event here, so we were shut out of some we wanted to see. Instead, we added some movies we might not otherwise have seen, which had mixed results.

There were not that many US celebrities here for the festival, but John Malkovich served as the head of the festival’s jury, and we did see him on the street Saturday afternoon! Jeff gets credit for his eagle eyes; Shana would have walked by oblivious.

One thing that we especially enjoyed about the festival was that the directors are often there to present the films. Sometimes, actors or producers would attend as well. At two of the movies we attended, there were Q&A sessions afterwards with the directors who received a very positive response from the mostly Spanish audiences.

Here’s a quick rundown on the films we saw, in the order we saw them:

Call Me By Your Name: Takes place in Italy and the scenery was beautiful; this “first love” story was nothing special though.

Michelin Stars – Tales From The Kitchen: We were expecting a more analytical piece but got “puff pastry” instead. We did enjoy seeing several famous chefs in the audience.

Take Every Wave: The Life Of Laird Hamilton: Amazing presentation of an iconic big-wave surfer’s story. What Laird does on a surfboard is nothing short of amazing and seriously crazy. This was one that we might not have seen outside a film festival, but were glad we saw it.

Borg/McEnroe: Turned out to be one of our favorites. The story, which is centered on the 1980 Wimbledon final, shows that although Borg and McEnroe seemed to have very different personalities, they were really more similar than the public knew at the time.

Dad’s Lunch Box: This Japanese film tells the story of a father who makes his teenage daughter’s school lunch every day for 3 years, which was his way of showing his love. The Q&A afterwards was interesting because the Spaniards had a hard time relating to the limited nature of the relationship between the father and daughter, which was very foreign to them.

Sollers Point: We hated it. Nearly walked out. The negative side of choosing movies just because they are at a film festival.

Apostasy: The surprise of the bunch from a new director. This extremely interesting film portrays a Jehovah’s witness family struggling with a family member being “disfellowshipped” from the congregation. The director, who we spoke with afterward, had grown up as a Jehovah's Witness until he was 23. He was hoping to show the movie to his mother (still a Witness) who was not even aware of the project.

The Trip to Spain: Third in “The Trip” series with Steve Coogan and Rob Bryden. We think humor is difficult across languages/cultures. As English speakers we understood, but did not appreciate all the British humor. Not sure the native Spanish speakers really appreciated it at all; we attended the movie with friends from Portugal and Japan and they looked at us afterwards for an explanation.

The Leisure Seeker: Wonderful performances by Dame Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland in a bittersweet film.

We are already looking forward to next year’s festival!

Saludos,
Shana & Jeff