¡Teatro Extraño!

This post is 90% theatre review, 10% about me.

Okay so tonight I went and saw legit "weird" theatre. As in no narrative, very little text, mix of circus/magic show/acrobatics/dance. I was hoooome. The show was called Crece, and based on what I read has had three previous permutations. It was great. The best way I can describe it, which will mostly only make sense to the PHTS kids reading this, is that it was like a Witness Relocation show if they used a dozen teenagers instead of Will Petre and Laura. So much form and content action. You Can Get An Idea Here.

So for the rest of you, I'll try my best to put almost no words into words. The themes that I saw were about bodies in space, the fluidity of motion and human relationships. (Colleen - it wasn't really about gender!) There was some trapeze, a little tight rope, a lot of impressive jumping and flips and Cirque du Soleil type acrobatics.

I was never bored, but I did get pulled out of the performance a lot by the audience clapping, so I spent a lot of time thinking about design elements and everything I was seeing and hearing in front of me. The lighting was trying to be interesting, there were some cool instruments used, including some free-standing strip lights, fluorescents, and a huge hanging flood light, but I felt like there were a lot of missed opportunities and most of the lighting was really simple and not ideal to show off what the performers were doing. I think I also only noticed about two moments when it made me feel something, and generally lights always make me feel something. I spent a lot of time focusing on the sound because it was really aggressive, loud and ominous and strong and angry. Sometimes it felt like the sound was embodying the strength of the performers, but it felt too heavy for the space, especially because all the performers were so young and joyous. I didn't think about costumes a lot, because it all seemed to be mundane clothing from their closets, but I liked that it didn't detract from what they were physically doing.

The theatre is in the round, with maybe 10-20% of the circle cut out to make a bigger backdrop so that there is sort of a "front" of the circle. And it's also only a 15-minute walk from my house! AND I got my ticket for half-price because NYU gave us this "Madrid Cultura y Arte" card that gets us discounts at lots of things. In fact their newsletter is how I found out about this show and why I decided to go tonight. I got seated next to a family with three little kids who were really cute and fun to listen to. Sometimes they laughed for no reason, and at one point I heard the little boy ask his grandma who was sitting next to me if she was scared. My row was fun people.

This theatre will be housing Fuerza Bruta soon. I think I might go, because it will feel like home, and I also want to see how it will be different here. I don't think they can get rid of the seats in the theatre, so it could be a very strange experience if we're sitting through the whole show. (I work at Fuerza Bruta in New York so I've seen the show countless times.) This is Fuerza: (Brute Force/Strength). You can get a pretty good idea of the show just by watching the intro before you enter the sight. The show was originally created by a company from Argentina, so I actually work with a number of native Spanish speakers in NYC. I'm looking forward to being able to talk to them in Spanish when I get back, though of course they all speak English just fine.

More theater news soon to come, I'm sure. Before I left tonight I took every postcard on the table to find out what else is going on (plus it's free wall decoration). Even in Spanish I feel so at home in the theatre but I miss having my hands in the process. I want to be doing something. When I go to Berlin (Halloween weekend!) I'm staying with a PHTS friend who lives there who said she would house me though she'll be in the middle of rehearsals. I told her I'd like to come one day, because I am going through severe rehearsal withdrawal. Usually it's all day, all the time, and now I haven't had a show to work on since mid-May. Maybe I'll write a play and do a whole production in my head. I'm already directing in my head every Lorca play we read in class...

Spanglish

Alejandro wanted me to tell you that he can say Yankees properly now. Also that he is helping me with my Spanish and that he is a good person. I suppose these things are true.

But really talking with a Spaniard has seriously improved at least my writing skills (we always chat on facebook), now I just have to learn to speak. Haha. Ironic, I know. The problem though is that Spanish grammar is actually hard. The hard thing about English is pronunciation (Yankees!), the hard thing about Spanish is grammar, which is a lot more... fundamental to speaking.

I have to give a presentation in one of my classes on Tuesday, in Spanish. It only has to be 3-4 minutes long though, which is nothing compared to the 20 minute presentations I've done in English, so I'm not too worried. I just need to mejorar (improve) my Spanish a bit. And Alejandro says he will help. And now he will know that you all know that he said he would help, so he has to help. (Alejandro, could you read that sentence?)

Not doing anything on this Thursday night. Nidhi and Emily went to Cádiz for the weekend so I have the apartment to myself. (I'm not really a beach person, so I opted out.) I'm trying to get as much work done as possible before Brian arrives on Sunday. Oh. Right. BRIAN ARRIVES ON SUNDAY! He's teaching for a year in China and coming here on his week off so there's gonna be some serious UU action up in Madrid next week. Which means this weekend has to be productive - tonight I'm doing my laundry (which takes forever, due to a 1.5 hour wash cycle followed by air drying), tomorrow I'm going grocery shopping, and all weekend I'm doing as much homework as possible to leave me free time during the week. Wooo.

Heads up - I have skype free calls to phones anywhere in the world for a month (thanks, Mom!) so you might get a call from a weird unknown number or something. It might be me! If you want me to call you, send me your phone number, because I don't have any of my phone contacts here. I already tried to call my grandma in Florida who doesn't have a computer, but I got sent to voicemail. So. There's that.

Anyway, back to "Una Ley Integral" y más tarea. ¡Hasta luego!

Extremadura y Portugal Part II: This Time It's Personal

That just means there's photos. Don't get too excited. But there's a lot, so... have fun.

We begin (on Christmas Eve - no wait, that's not right) with the Roman anfiteatro in Mérida - the aphitheatre where they had Gladiator battles. It's impressive how much of this structure is left.

Original Roman walls and arches. Sure, I touched some 2000 year old stone, no big deal.

And then I died.

Seriously. This is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life.

Just as I always imagined it would be, but better.

Proof I was here! That's my roommate on the right and from the left is Noelle, Lauren, and Steph.

I have no words. Only indistinct sounds of the sort I use to communicate with Colleen Toole.

So now I've seen two Roman aqueducts. This one obviously doesn't function anymore, but it's called the aqueducto de milagros, aqueduct of miracles, because some of the arches fell down but the columns still stood.

Thus began our tour of the old city in Cáceres - withs stairs, of course.

The rest of this is all just going to be artsy shots. Look, I like contrast!

Narrow streets!

This is the cistern under the... archeological museum, maybe? I can't remember. It was really echo-y though.

Spaniards are short. And they used to be even shorter. I'm like a normal sized person here... or maybe even a giant!

(Caption from facebook - "This door is my size. So get out.)

Church in Cáceres. Drama.

Stairs to Dumbledore's office? (Castle in Cáceres)

View from the tower of the castle.

Nighttime in Plaza Mayor of Cáceres

Look Dad, rocks! (On the way to Portugal)

Coffee and the best coffee cake pastry thing I've ever eaten in my life - on a terrace in Castelo de Vide, Portugal, with Lauren and Steph (in front).

Just, you know, chillin at the coffee place. Perri, me, Steph, and Lauren. (There are only l0 or 15 guys in our program of 80 people, and only 6 were on this trip. So. Female friends?)

Plaza in Castelo de Vide

Commence pictures of buildings at interesting angles.

Four-nail Christ in the church, pre-Council of Trent.

Little street, typical lady peering in a door.

Cat eyes.

On top of a wall somewhere in Castelo de Vide.

Pretty!

Interesting angle! Lighting! Castles!

With Emily atop the tower of some castle. That's real life behind us, not a painting.

You can see the church in the background... (Atop the castle)

Other castle? Some kind of ruins, I don't know.

Typical Europe.

Artsy.

Yet another castle, in Marvâo, Portugal.

More Iberian landscape.

Lots of things to climb.

Oh look, my hotel room!

Fanciest bathroom with the best shower ever.

Even the door was pretty.

Gran Teatro of Cáceres - walked past this on my way to the medieval festival.

Modern art at the random art museum we went to in middle of nowhere, Spain.

Outside the museum that was once a wool factory. They used to wash the wool in this lake.

Because don't all wool factories have turrets?

Modern art. Yep, that's about right.

Yoko Ono made this.

ONE MORE CASTLE! In Oropesa, Spain

Angles again

Plaza Mayore in Oropesa

And that's the highlights! All pictures are on facebook. I will try to get them all uploaded to shutterfly or something though; it just takes foreverrr. Anyway, it's the weekend and I think I'm going to a theatre tonight to see something because my roommate is traveling for the weekend, so more later!

Oh p.s. - I booked my flights to Paris, London, and Berlin this week! So excited!

English Perspective

Just a short one today, as I have a lot of homework to get through before four classes tomorrow. This post was inspired by today's purchase of a can of Pringles, which seems to be, for some reason, the only potato chips sold at the grocery store by my school. (Sidenote, somehow in Spain, sour cream and onion Pringles taste like America.)

Before I came to Spain I thought that English pervaded the globe and that due to Western imperialism and English-speaker laziness, essentially everyone in the world spoke some degree of English. Upon arriving in Spain, I immediately found out this is not true. My land lady, who rents this apartment to NYU students every semester doesn't speak any English (although she seems to like the word "flight"). And I soon came to learn she wasn't an oddity. Well, she is, but not because she doesn't speak English. (Ruth is a cool lady in her 60s who loves to chat and wants to make sure everything is okay and also likes to wear leopard print. But I digress.)

Products here often have labels in several languages. We got a carton of rice milk a while ago (after a bad experience with some regular milk) and it had a description of the product on the back and side in at least a dozen languages, but not one of them was English. This I do find odd. And I thought about this today because the Pringles container, God bless it, does have English on it. I don't know how the kids here who don't speak any Spanish are getting by though, because in so many cases there is no English to help you out. However, I think just as everything is coming to be in Spanish in addition to English in the States, some things here are in both Spanish and English. All the signs next to artworks at the Prado are in both languages, though often maltranslated. I wonder if things translated into Spanish in America are so grammatically incorrect.

Anyway, that is my minor musing for today. My Spanish is getting so much better due to daily use and with some help from my friend Alejandro. We talk on facebook and I told him to correct me whenever my grammar or a word is wrong, so I'm learning all the time! Now if I could just speak as well as I write... (Not to mention the minor problem that my English skills diminishing as my Spanish ones improve.)

Extremadura y Portugal Part I

I return, triumphant and exhausted, from Extremadura and Portugal! Many pictures are soon to come, but as uploading and editing over 100 photos will take a lot of time (and I am, as I said, exhausted and, in addition, have homework to do) so I'm going to summarize via narrative for now.

Friday, 23.9.11
Got up around 6:45, finished up the last bits of packing one must always do the morning of the trip and not before. Made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to eat on the bus for whenever my stomach eventually woke up. Left with Nidhi around 7:15 for the bus stop that's just down the street from us to take us to school. Ran into three other kids from the program on the same bus. Arrived at school just before 8, sat in a cloudy haze in our patio until we got on the bus. We were supposed to leave at 8:15, but of course we left somewhere around 8:30, lacking three of the thirty people that were supposed to be coming.

After about two hours of driving through surprisingly dull countryside (well, I mostly slept so I guess I don't really know) we stopped at some random truck stop-type place and some people had coffee and croissants or something. I ate my sandwich, much to the envy of many around me because peanut butter here is hard to find and expensive. (I'm lucky because Nidhi brought a huge jar from home, though we've gone through probably 2/3 of it already.) 20-30 minutes later we got back on the bus, I went back to sleep, and two hours later we arrived in Mérida.

Mérida, Spain, is an old town with Roman ruins. I either forgot or never really knew that Rome's empire used to include the Iberian peninsula, so there are parts of Spain that look like what I suppose a lot of Italy looks like. We saw an aqueduct, an amphitheatre (for gladiator fights), and best of all and possibly the highlight of the trip for me (on Friday early afternoon), a Roman theatre from the second century. It was a pretty spiritual moment for me to be in such a place, to know that nearly 2000 years ago in the place where I stood people were performing, and it was theatre in its original intent - both entertainment and an offering to the gods. A connection of humanity and higher powers. I wished we could have spent more time there, or that I could have sat there for even a few moments alone. But we had to move on.

Lunch in Mérida was unfortunately probably the most disappointing meal I've ever eaten. I got the menu del día, which is a fixed price (in this case 10 euros, but there was really nothing cheaper) three course meal that is generally a good deal because of how much food you get. We had local wine, which was mediocre, and each of us tried a different appetizer, most of which were different kinds of vegetables that seemed to have been dumped out of a can onto our plates and mixed with ham. (Because 99.9% of food in Spain is mixed with ham.) I had mushrooms with garlic and ham. It tasted okay, but the mushrooms definitely were not from a local market or anything. My main course was pork (I think grilled?) with a little salad. The meat actually didn't taste that bad but it wasn't warm. Most of us ordered ice cream for desert, which turned out to be the best part of the meal, and it was only little yogurt-sized prepackaged Nestle ice cream. Haha. Oh well. Win some, lose some, I guess.

After lunch, those three stray people who had missed the bus showed up (they took a different bus and met us there, finally), and we got back on the bus and headed to Cáseres, where we stayed for the weekend. Our hotel was so nice. Possibly the nicest place I've stayed, though it's not really comparable to some of the suites I've been in with my family. And breakfast at the hotel Saturday and Sunday morning was great. I roomed with a girl named Vella and we got along fine and had a few nice chats and lunch together Saturday. I also watched a little Spanish TV, which was fun.

After a brief break at the hotel to get situated and rest just a little, we went on a walking tour of the old quarter of Cáceres, which is a walled city that looks like it's still in the 15th century because they've kept it that way. We saw an old church and lots of towers and of course narrow streets and there were many stairs. All of Spain is hilly, and when that is combined with tall towers and castles and things, it's quite a workout. I'm from Illinois, part of the great plains, and as far as I was concerned, we were in mountain territory. But I asked Carlos, our guide, and he said hills. So. Technical term.

Post-tour was small dinner time, because it was only about 7:30, which is too early for real Spanish dinner, and we weren't terribly hungry yet. I ate with some friends and we all had bocadillos, which are sandwiches on baguettes. I actually thought I was just getting tortilla española (the potato/onion/egg dish), but I got that on bread. Which was alright. Definitely filled me up, and I didn't eat anything else that night. Actually, I got a terrible headache and instead of going out Friday night I went to bed really early.

Saturday 24.9.11
Got up at 8 feeling great and took the best shower ever. Got a funny wakeup call from the front desk at 8:30. Went down to the amazing breakfast buffet at 9. I ate a lot of mini croissants, some cereal, yogurt, fresh melon, fresh orange juice, and COFFEE. I've had so little coffee here because a cafe con leche is pretty small and doesn't really affect me at all. At this point I just want coffee because I like it, not because I need it. (I broke my caffeine addiction this summer! YAY! We'll see how long that lasts once I'm back in NYC. I give it a week.)

Around 9:30 we started the slow process of getting everyone assembled to get on the bus to go to Portugal. We were supposed to leave at 9:45 and I think left at more like 10:15. On the way we watched Gladiator, which I had never seen and actually really enjoyed, minus the extremely gory parts. Something like two hours later we arrived in Castelo de Vide which does indeed have a big castle. We were let free for half an hour to have coffee and pastries (which I guess Portugal is known for. Apparently) and I succeeded in making up for Friday's awful lunch. I tried something called Bola de Bachegas (I think) that was a coffee-cake-mousse-chocolate-tiramisu-esque slice of deliciousness. We sat out on a little terrace and had an amazing view of a valley and some hills/mountains.

Post-coffee we toured the Jewish quarter, saw a church, and visited a castle. Everywhere we turned in the town there were amazing views. More on all that with the pictures. Lunch was paid for by NYU (for once) at a place called Do Parque, where we had traditional Portuguese food. There was a plate of (very strongly flavored) traditional Portuguese cheese, bread, chorizo (which I skipped - there are some things my almost-10-years-vegetarian self still can't handle, and bright red fatty looking slices of sausage are one of them), and olives. We had local wine, a vegetable soup that was delicious, and then a cod/onion/egg hash that mostly tasted like eggs with a salad. For desert we had a custard with caramelized sugar on top which was also really good.

We departed Castelo de Vide and headed a short distance away up a hill (mountain) to Marvâo (new fancy symbol!) and saw ANOTHER castle. More stairs. More climbing. I made up for 20 years of flat-land living in one weekend, I swear. More about that castle when I have the pictures. Eventually we left Marvâo and headed back to Cáceres for the evening.

I went to a medieval(esque) market/festival with some people (after getting severely lost and eventually successfully asking for and understanding directions), which was interesting; I didn't buy anything and we mostly wandered a lot. When I got back I went out for a small dinner and a drink with Nidhi and our friend Emily. We had the slowest service I've ever experienced (which, in Spain, is saying something, because it's always slow), but we had a nice time chatting and the food was cheap, filling, and flavorful.

After dinner we met up with a bunch of people and found a bar where we had a few shots together. (Skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to read about me drinking. Haha.) I tried absinthe for the first time. It was really gross; tasted like black licorice or jelly beans. Must somehow involve anise. Fortunately I had a (pretty weak) tequila shot after. And I actually didn't get even tipsy off of my unspecified number of shots (which were all the same liquor except for the absinthe, because I'm responsible! Yay!). They were probably all kind of watered down because they were really cheap.

We left the bar (I wasn't drunk, in case you skipped the last paragraph) and went to a discotequa (club) that the cute guy at the hotel reception desk recommended to us. It was about 1:30 when we got there (and got in for free thanks to saying Raúl sent us). Guys. NO ONE was there. We were the only people until about 2:30. Literally. But it was really fun, we took up the whole dance floor and probably looked like fools. The DJ played a lot of American dance music that even I knew some of. Any of that music that I know though is because my brother listens to it, so it made me miss him. (The only American music I hear here is top 40 stuff which I always only know because Sam likes it.) ¡Te amo, hermanito! We danced at the club until about 3:30 and then we all walked home. Just enough time for a few hours sleep before one more day of fun.

Sunday 25.9.11
Repeat of Saturday morning, then we loaded everything on the bus and started heading back towards Madrid. A short bus ride later we stopped in basically the middle of nowhere and went to a random art museum in what used to be a wool factory. More on that with the pictures too.

We got back on the bus and drove two hours to Oropesa (while watching Spanglish) and after some miraculous turns and squeezing through tiny streets in our giant bus, we stopped to quickly view yet another castle and then to eat lunch. I do have to note that I seriously felt like I was on the Knight Bus for a few minutes when we made it through one of the tiniest streets I have ever seen - there were maybe five inches between my window and the wall outside. Nothing too notable about lunch (another menu del dia - with very salty food) other than that there were a couple of really cute but probably stray kittens wandering around, one of whom spent a good 20 minutes circling our table under our chairs.

I slept on the bus back to Madrid, two more hours. They were nice and made a stop at the southern side of the center of the city in addition to the final stop at school, so I was lucky enough to get off the bus just ten or so minutes from my apartment. Which was about three and a half hours ago now... This is what I get for being detail-oriented (and also talking to a couple friends as I write this). Plus trying to talk to my friend in Spanish while also writing in English... my brain is getting a lot better at flipping between the two languages, but sometimes random words will come out in the wrong one. I guess that's a good sign, actually! Anyway, I'm exhausted, and it's about time for some dinner, or some kind of food that hopefully requires no effort.

Buenas noches, amigos. I hope you are all well and that I will hear from you soon! I miss you mucho and send love from España!

To Portugal?

Not too much to report at the moment, actually. Just letting people know I'm alive and busy keeping up with homework and drinking tinto de verano and writing in parks.

Leaving in approximately 7 hours for a weekend trip to Extremadura (a region of Western Spain) and Portugal (but only a little bit just over the border, and only for a few hours). We're staying in a town called Caseres. Apparently in a 4 star hotel, because this is NYU and that is what they use our tuition money for. Check it out HERE. We're going to see Roman ruins and some museums. I don't know much more than that because no one talks about this trip, they all talk about the other one. Half of our group is going to Córdoba and Granada. My Lorca teacher spent a good 15 minutes today telling us about all the great things about Granada. So good thing I'm not going there. (I'm un poquito bitter about it, but it's a long story and not an important one.)

Anyway, It's about 1 am and I need to be up at 6:30, so I suppose I should go to sleep. Next update will be post-Portugal, the fourth country I will have visited in my life. ¡Buenas noches!

Segovia!

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present the long-awaited post about the trip to Segovia (September 2, 2011). We had to meet "promptly" at 9 at the school to leave for Segovia. Of course, nothing happens "promptly" here, so I was on time for waiting for fifteen minutes. And mind you, I live at least half an hour from school by public transit. (And I hadn't mastered the bus yet, and the metro takes longer.) Anyway, two hour bus ride, sitting with my friends Boris and Matt, taking in the scenery, and then we arrived at Segovia!

I'm going to do this basically through pictures - this is a very small selection of the almost-100 photos I took that day. If you're friends with me on facebook, they're all there. If not, I'll try to upload them to a share site like shutterfly in the near future. Here we go:

This is a Roman aqueduct. Yeah like from 2000 years ago. And it still functions. And on the right is a café that Hemingway really liked.

This is what pretty much all the streets in Segovia look like. And beyond it you can see the mountains. (Mountains! Not prairie! I'm confused.)

Which means there are also a lot of hills. And stairs. Like these.

This is me on top of an old Roman wall, with the Cathedral in the background, included mostly as proof that I was there.

Don't remember exactly what this was, just thought it looked cool.

Typical Segovia.

Inside the cathedral!!!

Many different types of art are displayed, because the cathedral took over 100 years to build.

Cathedral hallway, to give a sense of scale.

This is an organ. I don't know why this picture is sideways. Blogger won't let me rotate it and I'm too lazy to go fix it. Turn your heads if you're really curious. :)

You get one guess why I took this picture.

(It's because of the stained glass light reflection. Duh.)

Monastery hallway, from the 16th century.

Commence Cathedral obsession

Okay so I like to be artsy sometimes. (Okay all the time.)

To the CASTLE! I've been obsessed with castles since I started reading Harry Potter. In case you didn't know. So I've been obsessed with castles since I was eight.

Alcázar, the castle, one of two castles upon which Disney based the Cinderella Castle. No joke. Can't you see it? (I think this is also the basis for every lego castle, based on the left-hand side.)

Guys, it's like a freakin' Gryffindor shield. On the wall of a castle that is at least 500 years old.

Armour. So cool.

Gryffindor bed! (This is really all just because the colors of Spain are red and gold, like Gryffindor.)

Artsy picture of the Spanish countryside through some windows, and my friend Yasmín. (Hi I like backlight it makes things dramatic.)

Possibly graffiti that is 15 years older than me?

View of the Cathedral from the top of the Tower of Juan II - 152 steps up

One last view of the Cathedral, with a flock of Hitchcock-esque birds flying in front of it.

After a two hour bus ride there and three hours of walking around, we were let free for lunch. I ate with a couple girls from my group in the Plaza Mayor and had croquetas. I'm not quite sure how to explain croquetas. They're made of a sort of paste of flour and milk (that I thought was potatoes until my cooking class), with various fillings - most commonly jamón, like these. The paste gets cut into pieces and breaded with breadcrumbs and then fried, so they look a lot like mozzarella sticks. And they're really delicious. After lunch we all met back in front of the cathedral (where I took that last picture) and headed back to the busses. We were all pretty tired and most of us, myself included, napped all the way back to Madrid.

Gosh it's gotten late as I've been telling my story! Well goodnight, friends, and see you again soon - when I must tell you about my failed attempts at finding live music, and also my success. ¡Buenas noches!