blakerson.com

spinning: Thievery Corporation - Interlude

Let's talk about cars. You can tell a lot about a city by the cars you see in it. A few examples:

Matamoros, MX: When the newest car is a 10-year-old Chevrolet Chevy, you know your town is in bad shape. Probably the poorest town I've ever seen. If your car has alloy wheels, you're more stupid than fortunate - they'll be gone in 20 minutes.

Austin, TX: A substantial population of Volvos, which corresponds to the demographic I like to call 'the PBS group,' and the only town I've ever heard of, much less seen, where there are running, daily-driven art cars. Enough said.

Santander: This is a rich town, as far as permanent (non-tourist) residents go. Cars older than 10 years are rare. Small city runners are the most common, but I see plenty of Mercs and BMWs every day. But over all, everyone and their dog drives an Audi. Young guys drive A3s, professionals drive A4 diesels, and status-driven people have A6s and A8s. They're everywhere.

But the biggest sign you can get about a town is from the people outside the cars. On a calm Saturday morning, there was no one to notice the gorgeous red Ferrari 575M at the light next to my bus. But still it didn't look or feel out of place. It looked like it had just finished an early round of golf, nothing out of the ordinary. But on a Sundary afternoon, in the town's main plaza, an area about as close to Times Square as north Spain can produce, a new, black F430 Spyder turned no heads. None. Not even kids, who in the USA would have a poster of that very car. In a certain sense, that may be the biggest culture shock I've suffered yet. Then again, haute couture shock could happen anywhere in the world.

The weather turned less-than-perfect, so I've spent the last couple days writing
and addressing postcards. Out of 20, I've written and mostly addressed 15. They should all arrive right around the first of July.

I think I spent most of yesterday pushing my host family's buttons. I'm really pretty sure my surrogate father a) is sick of having guests in the house or b) is sick of me, or possibly both. There's a cultural thing here where if you do something they don't want you to do, it's not a simple matter of asking 'can you not do that?' and having you stop. Of course, that's what happens, but to them the
damage has already been done. Even after I take my feet off the coffee table, or Carl spends 2 seconds vacuuming up the little pile of sand in the corner of his room in his apartment, the moment remains awkward and the family remains silent as if they're giving you the 'dissapointed in you' treatment.

Anyway, off to meet the Michigan kids to go shopping. Until next time!

Times are good here. It's a cloudy Sunday and I'm in the UC computer lab after typing up a paper. Good time for a s.o entry, since it's not really beach weather to me.

The week of classes was boring as ever, but everything else continually gets better. Now that I spend less time with the Texas crowd, I get along with them better, I learn more, I have more fun, and everyone goes home happier. My new friends come from Western Michigan U, which I'd never even heard of before coming here. Great bunch of folks, they are. So at the very least, I've got my little social circle that's capable of speaking English.

Yesterday was a road trip out to two towns, Bilbao and Castro. Castro came first, and it was a small fishing town on the border of the Basque country. Spent half the day there wandering around with the two UT professors, one other smart guy here from UT, and our UC guide, who's a 25-year-old student chick. We ended up walking along a gorgeous pier, seeing a 13th century Gothic church built by the Romans, as well as the ruins of some minor Roman aqueducts. And lunch was one of those local restaurants that's nothing special to the locals but completely blows the minds of tourists. For 7.50 each of us got a salad, a plate of chicken paella, dessert and a drink, and we just about died from satisfaction. They call that kind of thing a combination plate, and it's very common here, if you're ever headed to Europe. It's definitely the way to go if you want to eat really well without spending all your money on food. Afternoon was Bilbao, and I didn't do much there besides see the Guggenheim and the Fine Arts Museum. The Guggenheim was extremely impressive. I fell in love with the look and feel of the whole building, there's an educational area for those of us who haven't had art history, and the audiotour was really good. I learned that I like some Pop Art. The Fine Arts Museum, even though it was host to a lot of famous Spanish painters, didn't really interest me at all. Had I had the choice to do it over, I would have skipped it and did the exterior Guggenheim tour.

Regardless, it was a truly fine day and the pictures are fantastic. Sometime this week I'll be burning my first of probably two photo CDs, at which point I'll send along a couple photos to my email buddies since I can't manage my online albums from here.

So I'm counting my time here in Thursdays, the day which I arrived and will leave. I'm down to two more Thursdays, and on the third I leave to come home. Translation: I'm now under three weeks left here. I feel like it's the perfect amount of time to learn more of the language and finish school without getting sick of anything. Better yet, I'm looking forward to getting home, but I'm very happy that I have almost 3 weeks still here. And when I get home, I'll be happy to be home, but I'll be very glad I went. Things are working out nicely here.

Pretty much all of the kinks have worked themselves out as far as minor details of survival, like food, sleep, travel, etc. From here on out I get to sit back and enjoy the ride. That ride is taking me to a few more Spanish cities, including Salamanca (where Soph is) and I'm currently looking into spending my last weekend hitting up Barcelona and Ibiza.

So, in closing, as I say here to the Texas crowd whenever I leave: Adios, bitches!

spinning: John Mayer - 3x5

A quick stop in Castro Urdiales, a fishing town with a really old church and gorgeous bay. Ran around for 5 hours with professors, Laura, and the other Blake. We spoke only Spanish, and I learned a lot more than language. All of us bonded over some real history, a gorgeous bay, and a fantastic restaurant lunch.

Bilbao: Guggenheim way surpassed my expectations. Truly appreciated the small Pop Art collection and the architectural tour. There wasn't too much that I wanted to see, but still 90 minutes wasn't nearly enough time. Museum of Fine Arts disappointed even though there was a fine collection of very famous artists. Prof. Montiel did everything he could to show me a good time, but the only thing I learned was that the man knows his stuff about art. This is a fine place, and my profs are brilliant guides.

Good day. Weather is beyond gorgeous and everyone's in good spirits because it's Friday.

Yesterday visited Santillana del Mar. It's an ancient Roman town that's home to a very historic monastery and some very ancient cave drawings. The town was very cool, very linear stone-paved streets made for fun pictures. The bad part was it was *ruined* by the tourism industry. Every shop was a gift shop or an only-slightly-better shop for local baked goods, cheeses, etc.

Tomorrow's a day trip to Bilbao, another Basque city and home to the Guggenheim. Should be very cool, but I'm hoping to get something out of it given my stupiditiy when it comes to art. Why aren't there equally cool music museums? We're visiting another town to kill time before the museum and word is it'll involve beaches. Good, because with under 3 weeks to go I'm still lacking a tan.

Let's talk about shopping. The frequent stories of going to various markets daily are semi-true. Most people buy foodstuffs 2-3 times a week and bread every day. There are frequent supermarkets and people use them for general stuff that doesn't depend *that* much on quality, like snacks or lemons. Stuff that isn't essential usually comes from specialist shops, but that's quickly changing.

Today was my first run to El Corte Ingles [The English Court]. Imagine a structure the size of The Parks or Barton Creek Mall. Now make it 5 or so stories tall and fill it up with *one* store that sells *everything*. They sell stuff that Wal-Mart doesn't. They are all up in this bitch. Grocery store, food court, department store (on a scale of 1 to upscale, closer to upscale), car shop, clothes, hardcare, yardware, sporting goods, electronics, games, I mean these guys will sell you *anything*. I spent an hour and a half just exploring. To make maters even more complex, the same building houses a different retain chain in the exact same fashion, with an almost identical logo. So when you guy stuff from the common central atrium you have no idea which store to pay. I couldn't get a beach towel for that exact reason. I didn't even get to go in that second store (Hipercor) because I carried my backpack. Huge. Freakin'. Store. Who thought an American would say that?

Europe, I would say, has a major problem. I've seen it like a plague here in Spain and I pray it hasn't spread like one.

It's the mullet. No, I'm not kidding.

It's the fad among soccer players here, from ages about 10-20. They're very small mullets, as most of the guys have really short hair, but man, it looks beyond awful. That small problem aside, I'm having good days here. Had a good experience in the computer lab today talking with friends from home. I miss everyone a bit, but it'll be really great to visit everyone (or have them visit me) once I get home.