Tag Archives: Mario

Running the Madrid Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon 2013

Last Sunday, April 28, was Madrid’s Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon. Mario was a participant, and I thought it would be a great time for him to share his thoughts on the experience.

I like running. I started in high school, before it became so popular. The truth is that, although I love running, I’ve never taken it that seriously. Actually, the first time I ran a “real” race was in December 2005, when I took part in the Ismaninger Winterlauf, since at that time I was working in Munich. It was 12.8 kilometers, and I finished with a time of 52:50. It was snowy and bitterly cold and I think I was wearing two T-shirts (maybe three). It wasn’t until 2009 that I ran my second race. The race was in Salamanca and the distance was 7.650 km. My time was 28:56. I was dating Kaley at that time, which helped motivate me to run fast in order to impress her.

Kaley: I ran too, but not nearly as fast as Mario

My first big race was in March 2012, when I ran my hometown half marathon. I didn’t have a specific plan to train for the race. For those who follow this blog, you may have read that Zamora is a beautiful sort of medieval town. However, those in charge of organizing the race for some reason didn’t draw up a race course that went through the nice old town. The race is on the outskirts with 90 degrees turns (those who run know how much making an u-turn kills your rhythm) and, worst of all, it was two laps of the same circuit (boooooooooooring). I ended with a time of 1:25:15, which I was happy about.

When I moved to Madrid last October, I considered running the Madrid marathon. It sounded scary, but I wanted to try. Sito, my cousin, who is an experienced marathon runner, talked me into it. He knows a lot, and he guided me through it. I had done some calculations in order to estimate the time I would need to run a marathon, based off my half marathon from last year in Zamora. One way to estimate a marathon-finishing time is to double your half-marathon time and add ten minutes, which for me would be exactly three hours. Kaley had downloaded a training plan for a person who goes running three days a week. As I said before, I’d never used a training plan before. I usually go running à la Forrest Gump—it’s what I like, but I’m not what you would call organized when it comes to setting up a training plan.

The problem with preparing for a long race is that you have to start training well in advance and you never know what might come up, such as a lot of work in the office (which would mean not being able to follow my scheduled training sessions) and/or injuries. The former didn’t happen, but the second one kind of did. Three weeks before the race, I started to feel—literally—a pain in my butt. After a couple of hours sitting at my desk at work, I couldn’t sit still; I kept fidgeting. I didn’t know I had a slight case of piriformis syndrome. I should have rested a bit, but the marathon was drawing closer, so I decided instead to run shorter distances, so that I wouldn’t overload the muscle (even more than it already was), and stretch. It did get better.

Kaley was my personal food expert, and she cooked for me foods rich in carbohydrates, so I got plenty of energy. The day before the race she prepared some delicious cannelloni. Finally the day of the race came.

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The race started at 9 a.m. It had threatened to rain, but in the end it didn’t make an appearance. But the weather was brisk. Both Sito and I wore two layers. The race started in the Plaza de Colón. Because there are so many people who participate in either the marathon, half marathon, or 10K, people are separated into corrals, based on previous race times or estimated race times. I was in Corral 1, just behind the professionals. (You don’t see the Kenyans even at the very beginning, they’re so fast.) Before the starting gun went off, we had a moment of silence in honor of the victims of Boston. I had attached a black ribbon to my T-shirt.

Then the countdown began, and before I knew it, my legs were moving. We were running up Paseo la Castellana. In the Rock and Roll marathons, they have bands playing live music, which really pumps you up. There are also liebres (literally, hares) or pacesetters, who are experienced athletes recruited by the organization. They have a balloon tied to their back (it must be annoying running with that) with a sign that says how long it will take them to run the marathon. If you follow them, it helps you not to go out too fast or too slow, so I tried to keep close to the three-hour pacesetter.

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Around the 14-kilometer mark, my left knee and ankle started to bother me, and I began to lose sight of the three-hour pacesetter. Luckily it passed, and I was able to find a comfortable pace, which I gradually increased until I was again able to see the three-hour balloon. That part of the route went through the center of Madrid, on Calle Fuencarral, through Sol, down Calle Mayor. People lined the streets and applauded, there was rock music, and thus I felt the rush of adrenaline; I was meeting my three-hour target.

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With regards to hydration, every five kilometers there were hydration points with water bottles and cups of Powerade. I drank something at every point so as not to get dehydrated. As I passed the half-marathon point, I saw that I had completed the half in one hour and twenty-eight minutes. I felt confident that, if I kept it up, I would be able to meet my goal. However, it was too late to realize that I was overconfident … because it was then that I hit the metaphorical wall.

I had not heard of the “wall” concept until the previous day, when I went to the fair organized by the marathon. I had to go to pick up my bib. There were professional athletes giving a talk, and one (I don’t know his name) was speaking about his experience the previous year, when he too hit the wall. Someone asked him if the feeling passed, but he said no, that it had lasted until the very end. I hit the wall around kilometer 23, and it lasted until the end, so I basically ran the entire second half with this horrible feeling in my head and legs. Moreover, added to my suffering was the fact that I now had to run through the Casa de Campo, which became unbearable.

At kilometer 27, they were giving out Powerbar energy gels, which taste disgusting, but they help. Still, I had to stop twice to stretch my hamstrings and pyramidal muscles, which were killing me. Along the route, there are people on skates who carry Vaseline and topical painkillers in spray form. The good thing about them being on skates is that they can spray you while you’re running; you don’t have to stop. I had to resort to them twice.

Here comes the figure of my guardian angel: Sito. We had both planned to run the marathon in three hours, and he sacrificed this in order to wait for me and cheer me on. As the race went on and I was suffering, I watched as people passed me by and I barely passed anyone. I tried to think about songs that motivated me; I needed to break through this wall that was preventing me from moving forward with the ease that I desired. It makes you want to stop and quit. I think that, sometimes, the wall is real—your muscles don’t function at full capacity because you haven’t trained enough. With determination and Sito’s help, I was able to keep going. Most of the time when I run, the kilometers seem to fly by, but at the time the distance between one kilometer and the next seemed endless. The good thing is that when you leave Casa de Campo, you return to the city, and there were again people cheering. We arrived at Atocha and there were only three kilometers to go. The bad thing is that the remaining kilometers were ascending, but I was able to draw strength from somewhere. I couldn’t quit then, we were almost to Parque del Retiro, I only had to push a little bit more.

Finally, I saw the 41-kilometer marker, and I knew there were only 1,195 meters left! There were people along the path clapping, so you have to stop looking pitiful, keep your head up, and enjoy the last minutes. I crossed the finish line as it marked 3 hours, 21 minutes. Mission accomplished.

Throughout the race, there is a sense of camaraderie because other runners encourage you and you, them if you see them stop. Or, in my case, Sito, who patiently waited for me, so that we would finish together, thus sacrificing his personal finish time. “Si empezamos juntos, acambos juntos,” (“If we started together, we finish together”), he kept repeating every time I told him not to wait for me.

These days after the race, Kaley has been taking care of me and massaging my legs with specific creams to help them recover from the effort.

I may not have finished in three hours like I wanted, and naturally I feel a bit disappointed, but in life you must learn from everything, and—above all—from the negatives. I learned three valuable lessons: Don’t leave anyone behind, don’t get overconfident, and have the ability to analyze situations in the long term.

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Why Are You in Spain?

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Ah, the question. The question. I ask it a lot of others; they in turn ask it of me. I love and hate this question, because I love knowing other people’s stories, but I have no idea how to answer it without starting off on some ten-minute-long storytelling session, leaving my questioner with his/her mouth agape and mind reeling by it all.

So, let me just ask you, readers:

Why are you here?

Now that I’ve asked that, I can tell you why I’m here. As it says on my about page, I came to learn Spanish. I stayed for a boy. Mainly.

Would it shock you to know I kinda sorta hated study abroad? I was old enough not to get homesick, but I still did. I did not like living in a teeny-tiny room in an old nunnery with walls so thin you could hear your roommate typing late at night. I didn’t like having to wash my clothes in the shower because the laundry room charged upwards of $10 a load. (This was back when the one euro equaled something like $1.50.) I didn’t like feeling as if it were impossible to make friends except for drinking buddies and intercambios who weren’t really interested in hanging out with me after hours. I didn’t like seeing my bank account drain slowly down to almost nothing.

But I did like learning Spanish. I did like that, and so I dove in headfirst, as much as I could. I got another intercambio because one just wasn’t enough. I spoke to all the waiters in Spanish, even if they insisted on speaking to me in English (the bastards). I studied vigorously, even when all of my classmates were basically taking a semester off. I traveled as much as my budget would allow. I learned to love red wine, olives, and tortilla de patata.

But there was so much I didn’t know at the end of my stay! I didn’t know how to tapear, I hadn’t mastered the subjunctive, I had never had a real Spanish friend that I could text and ask to hang out with. This bothered me. I went back for my senior year unsure of the future and what would happen after May 2009.

As senior year wore on, I had a decision to make—find a job or go back to Spain? I chose Spain, specifically Salamanca. I was excited to experience a new side of Spain, to live in my own apartment, and meet Spaniards. Oh yeah, and improve my Spanish.

I got back to Spain in September 2009, a year and three months after I’d left Toledo. A few days later, I met Mario. He came to the door of the place I was interning, and I was unintentionally rude to his friend and him, but he still went out to dinner with us. The next day, I pretty much asked him out, and the rest was history. My mother waited patiently by the computer to hear updates about this guy I talked about all the time, even though she’d warned me not to fall in love with any Spaniard (only because that could keep me far away from her). Oops! I was head over heels after a few weeks. After a month, I met the family. After three, I was ready to stay indefinitely, if it meant we could be together.

Staying in Spain is not an easy task for many reasons. There’s bureaucracy. There’s homesickness. There’s cultural differences that drive me crazy at times. There’s times when I get so sick of Spanish, of struggling to find the word that I just want to scream, pack my suitcase, and get on the next plane to Chicago. Get me outta here! Mario knows this more than anyone. Luckily, although he wouldn’t feel the same way, he sympathizes as best he can.

There are some expats that love Spain much more than I do (although, don’t get me wrong, I do love it), and they’d stay forever if it were up to them, boyfriend / girlfriend / husband / wife / lover or not. I wouldn’t, though. If not for this husband of mine, I’d be in the States, where my family is, where my friends are, where my history is. Living in another country wears on me, and I’d love to be able to just hop in my car and drive to my parents’, but right now it’s just not possible.

Right now we’re here; right now this is our home. It may not be for forever. That’s okay. When I married a Spaniard, I gave up that right to certainty about where home is. Home is here. Home is there. Home is Zamora, it’s Crawfordsville, it’s Bloomington, it’s Salamanca. It’s Spain and it’s the US. That’s why I’m here.

What about you?

Marrying a Spaniard in 7 Easy Steps

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Disclaimer: The word “easy” in the title of this post—take it with a grain of salt. A large grain of salt.

Last year (July 7, 2012, to be exact), I got married in Spain. I got married in Spain to a Spaniard. We celebrated our wedding in a Romanesque church with origins in the eleventh century, the beautiful San Cipriano of Zamora.

Source: Turismo de Zamora

Trying to get married in another culture, with all its requisite paperwork and bureaucracy, makes you realize that planning the actual wedding and reception is a lot easier than trying to get the Spanish government to recognize the legality of your upcoming marriage vows. And so I get emails from readers who are in the same situation as I used to be: they’re dating Spaniards; they want to marry them … but how? How indeed.

So You’re Dating a Spaniard … and now you want to say I do / Sí, quiero in the church.

To get married in the church, you have to do all the things for the civil ceremony and a few additional ones for the religious part. I’m going to talk about the Catholic church, because … well, that’s my experience and it’s the most common in Spain. A helpful website for both civil and religious ceremonies can be found here. Also, remember that every region in Spain is different, so be sure to ask your local authorities about any special requirements they may have.

1. Get a copy of your birth certificate.

This is first and foremost. But, ojo, it can’t be a vintage birth certificate. It has to have been issued within the past six months, I believe. Silly? Perhaps, but you don’t want to play with their rules.

For Indiana, my home state (go Hoosiers!), I went through Vital Records and ordered two copies because I’m slightly neurotic. Your state is going to be different. They say it takes 4–6 weeks, but I got it sooner than that. It cost me $10 for the first copy plus a $1.85 identifty-verification fee (and $4 for the additional copy). The “problem” was the shipping. I wasn’t sure whether to insure it or not; in the end, I did. That ended up costing me about $17.

Next you have to get that sucker apostilled. An apostille is an international certification and is comparable to notarization on an international scale. The process for getting an apostille on a document varies from state to state. In Indiana, there’s no fee for the apostille service. I sent in my birth certificate along with the following to the Indiana Secretary of State’s office:

an original signature
a cover letter with the name of the country (Spain), my phone number, and information as to where the documents had to be sent afterward
a postage-paid envelope for them to send it back to me

I hope you are okay with spending some money. Bureaucracy requires paperwork, and paperwork requires money. Yours.

2. Proof of freedom to marry.

So, this document doesn’t exist in the U.S. I know, I know. Whaaaat? How can I be expected to produce a document that doesn’t exist? This will happen in Spain (see: getting your degree recognize by the Spanish government), and you will just have to suck it up and find your way over it, around it, or through it. One of those methods has to work.

In the civil court, you can accomplish by swearing before an American consul. In my case, I did so by swearing in front of my pastor and having him sign a document I found on the Internet. I signed it, and so did he. He stamped it … you know, to make things official-ish and all. Boom, done!

Note: apparently in Madrid, this is different, and the statement has to be made by the parents. What’s with that, Madrid?

3. Baptismal certificate.

We Protestants can be strange. I didn’t get baptized as a baby, because in my denomination this is frowned upon. Instead, I got baptized in my church as an eight year-old. I asked my mom one night before bed, and that was when I got dunked in a lukewarm bathtub in front of 200 blurry strangers. (My vision leaves much to be desired.)

My baptismal certificate was more like this one … not so official looking

But here in Spain, Catholics like to get all strict about baptismal certificates, and the one I got in Sunday School class wasn’t exactly cutting it. Nevertheless, we somehow convinced the 80-year-old bishop that it was indeed legitimate, and off we were.

4. Certificate of consular inscription.

This isn’t hard to do. I just made an appointment with the American embassy in Madrid. I did have to wait a bit, but the process was simple. There is a small fee for the service.

My official translator has two other degrees as well

5. Translate your documents.

Luckily for me, I’ve got a translator for life in Mario. You will need to have your birth certificate, the apostille, baptismal certificate, consular inscription, and proof of freedom to marry translated into Spanish. This must be a legal translation, so you can’t just do it yourself.

6. Application forms.

There are various application forms involved in this process. We filled these out and had them filled out for us. We had to visit the bishopric of Zamora as well as Mario’s dioceses to speak with the bishop and priest of Mario’s district. You could tell that this was a very rare occasion for them, as the paperwork often required us to explain the situation two or three different times in the same meeting.

7. Posting of Banns.

You’re probably asking yourself right now what in the world Banns are. I had the same question. Basically, in Spain, people are required to go through a process called “posting of banns” for a civil ceremony. This is a public declaration of intent to marry. It’s possible that your nearest embassy/consulate can provide a letter saying that this is not required in the U.S. In our case, our names and wedding date were posted outside the door of Mario’s church for weeks before our wedding. You know, just in case someone had an objection to the marriage.

What happens now?

Well, now you’ll be wanting your residency, right?

The libro de familia.

The libro de familia (literally family book), or Spain’s marriage certificate, can be obtained from the civil registry after the wedding takes place.

Get empadronado/a.

Because Mario and I had not yet moved to Madrid, I got empadronada (registered with the census) in Zamora, where we got married. I didn’t do this until after the marriage, but it’s important in order to get your NIE (foreign citizens identification number). Getting registered in Zamora is about 100x easier than in Madrid. That’s why I always advise people to get married in your future spouse’s hometown, if he/she is not from Madrid.

Apply for your NIE.

You can check out the process here. In this case, you are not a student, so you won’t be applying for the same type of NIE as you would have if you were in Spain as a Conversation and Language Assistant or on study abroad. I did this process in Zamora, and like I said earlier, it took much less time than it would have had I done it in Madrid, where foreigners abound and you have to reserve appointments months in advance.

What did I miss? Have you gotten married in Spain or another country? Do you plan to?

Third Culture

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In our guest room a flag hangs from the wall above the bed. No, not a yellow and red flag; this one is red, white, and blue. You know—the stars and stripes. My dad bought Mario this flag to remind him where he should (eventually) settle down. My dad would like it very much if we moved back to the US, preferably yesterday. It has a prominent place in our home, this flag. Why?

Vacationing in Sevilla

We live in Spain. We carry out the day-to-day of our lives, of our life, in Spain. We speak in Spanish and eat Spanish food. Yes, we do all this, all this Spanish stuff. We are Spanish.

But though we reside in Spain, we dream about living in the States too. We speak in English and watch American TV shows and movies. I make brownies and cookies and other American dishes. So we are also American.

In reality, he is Spanish. Born and raised in the heart of Castilla y León, with family roots that go back centuries, Mario is as Spanish as they come. Zamorano, really. His dark hair and eyes betray him. His telltale accent, his pronunciation of the z and c in the true castellano accent, his love for lentejas and cocido and jamón and tortilla, his concern for his parents never to worry unnecessarily … he is Spanish.

He is Spanish, and I am American. I speak English with the typical accent of many modern Americans, an accent that is almost impossible to pinpoint. I don’t worry about my parents worrying. I like basketball much more than football (soccer), and I don’t really enjoy eating a big meal at two o’clock in the afternoon. It still surprises me when children are out past 9 p.m., especially on weeknights.

Though we feel as Spanish and American as they come, we also love each other and each other’s culture too. So together we make our own culture, a third culture: a Spanish-American culture. We make stupid jokes: “Sweetie foot” (because pie means foot in Spanish) or “Estoy espalda” (literally “I am [a] back”). We eat tortilla for dinner and chocolate-chip cookies for dessert. We watch the Simpsons in Spanish.

We also compromise, just like any other couple, bicultural or not. We decide on the best way to clean the house. We let each other get away with things. We do things that don’t seem logical to us at times, but we do it because it’s important to the other person. I may or may not vacuum an insane amount of times per week.

Just call us the Spanish-American Institute of Couples.

How to Host Thanksgiving in Spain

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Having hosted two Thanksgivings in Spain, I now consider myself an expert, obviously. That’s just how these things go.

Buy a female turkey, una pavita. I had no idea before 2010, but smaller turkeys are tastier

Mario helped too!

Have a pinche, a sous chef. Mario’s father, Jesús, was my sous chef, and the best one there could possibly be. He spent the whole morning chopping, cutting, and just generally being helpful. Also, he is totally relaxed. Find one of those.
There will be bread. This is Spain, how could there not be?
Stand up to the idea of primer plato, segundo plato. Stay steadfast in your American-type meal and have your guests eat everything off the same plate. The horror!

Let someone else make the dessert, even if they make it differently than you would. This year, we didn’t have the traditional pumpkin pie; rather, we had a sort of pumpkin cake. No big deal. We ate some pumpkin, okay?!

Drink local wine. Better yet, have another person bring that local wine, especially someone from Toro!

There you go, my recommendations for a Spanish-American Thanksgiving. Go forth, and roast yourself a turkey!

Thankful for 2012

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In 2012, life changed. Life changed fast. I could say it all to you, in one breath, a rush of words and emotion that would leave you reeling. I could replay the year over in my head, wondering how I got to this point, this place right here—November 22, 2012.

In 2012 I did so many things. So many things changed in my life, in my family’s lives, in my friend’s lives. These things, there were good. They were wonderful and magical and joyful. So, dear 2012,now it’s my turn. Thank you. Thank you for:

July 7. On this day, I married Mario. I don’t have words for this day. It was a day full of sunshine and laughter and red scarves and dancing. It was rich with tears and photographs and the grasping of hands. I wore a white dress; he wore a suit. We joined hands, and we said yes.

New family. I’ve gained some new family this year: in-laws, cousins, aunts, uncles. I’m no longer the American; I’m prima or hija. I’m part of this family here in Spain, a grand family who has taken me in without a second thought, who has taught me to cook, lavished me with presents and love and welcome. I couldn’t be more grateful for my mother-in-law, Pepita, who worries about me as if I were her daughter or my father-in-law, Jesús, who emails me to wish me a happy Thanksgiving in his newly acquired English. I am so grateful to them and for them.

Old family. One is silver, but the other’s gold? I don’t really buy this saying, but I am aware that my family has always been there for me, ever since the rainy Monday almost twenty-six years ago. My family has supported me through my on-again, off-again relationship with Spain, and I don’t think I could have done it without them. They love Mario like their own son, and they would do anything for us and for my brother and his wife. You couldn’t ask for more dedicated parents, the kind that go to every single sports event in high school, the kind that never say a word about driving six hours there and back to pick you up at the airport, the kind that pay for a brother and future-sister-in-law’s plane tickets just so that they can all be together on the most important day of the bride’s life.

Thanksgivings past. My extended family was never one to fight. Our holidays were filled with food, laughter, and kids’ tables. There was no yelling, no hurt feelings, no real problems. As a girl, I took this for granted. Now I couldn’t be more grateful for an extended family that knows the value of togetherness.
New friends. I’ve met some new people here in Madrid recently, and I’m really excited to see where these friendships lead. You cannot underestimate the value of a nearby friend.
Old friends. Where would I be without my constant source of encouragement and laughter, Hilary? Roommates in college, friends for life. I cannot say enough about my cousin Bailey, just seven months older than me and already on her way to having her second child. It’s hard to reconcile what was with what is, but our friendships will never shrivel and die, just change and grow as we do.
This blog. This blog has been a source of encouragement for me over the past few years. I started it without knowing what would come of it, and I am ever so grateful for the readers who comment, email, tweet, or Facebook me. Thank you, readers! Thanks for reading, for caring, for helping me see things in a new light. Without you, I know I wouldn’t keep writing. Thank you.

So happy Thanksgiving, dear friends! If you’re in the States, please eat some stuffing for me! And—oh yeah—give your mom and dad a hug! They’re the only ones you’ve got.

On the Road to Salamanca

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The bus rumbled along the highway, dusk quickly approaching. We sat side by side, our fingers curled together, leaving the day behind us. Weary but content, we sat in silence, the silence of two people who have everything to say to each other, but not necessarily at that moment. It had been a long day: up early to catch a morning bus, a long walk around town as they wind bit at our cheeks and hands, a hearty lunch, and all of the things that go along with meeting someone, someone special, for the very first time. By that point, I was exhausted but we glanced at each other and smiled with a sigh.

The evening sun tinged the horizon amaranth, gold, and orange. I grasped his hand, searching for the words I wanted, needed, to say to him. I hadn’t picked out a special place or time to say them, hadn’t analyzed my feelings, hadn’t thought about his reaction. I only knew that I loved him. And so I told him—there, in the bus, speeding along the A-66 towards Salamanca: “Te quiero.”

I didn’t start learning Spanish for love. I did it out of curiosity, because I needed a language to complete my high-school degree, because it was what was expected of me. But I mastered it for other reasons: it challenged me, it made me think about the world differently, it allowed me to see into the soul of another nation, of another people. I mastered it in the end because of Mario, because for him I stayed here, because for him I made my second home in Spain, because for him I packed up my whole life and changed it forever when I told him, standing in front of our friends and family in a church built in the 13th century, right in the heart of Zamora: “Sí, quiero.”

Yes, I do. I do promise to love you, to be there for you, to remember the important things for you. For you I will overcome the frustration that I sometimes feel when I can’t think of the right word, when I can’t remember the proper phrasing. Yes, I do.

My motivation for learning Spanish has varied over the years, but my one constant has been love. Some may consider it cliché to say that love makes you do crazy things, and it is, a bit. But love can also make you do daring things, things you would never have had the chance to do had you not bitten the bullet, got right back on the horse after it threw you off, and said to life and learning, “Sí, quiero.”

On the day we were married, the priest—a friend of Mario’s—talked to us and all our guests about love. Moving to another country for someone? he said with an intensity shining in his dark-brown eyes. That’s love. That’s love, friends.

Learning a language is frustrating. The first part is enthralling, when you learn by leaps and bounds, huge gulps of knowledge. But then comes the slow part, when you feel as though you’re dreaming about running, desperately trying to move your legs faster, but you just can’t. It’s a slow slog; it can seem fruitless. I know this feeling all too well. I still struggle with fast speech and gender; I still slip up almost every time I open my mouth. But with Mario there, and his family alongside him, I see the purpose. Without him—without them—I’d haven given up already.

Here’s to learning a language for love, whether it be love for a significant other, for a husband or a wife, for the little English-learning children who attend your local elementary schools, for a fellow church member, for the person who lives down your street. Learn a language for a love, and learn it for a lifetime.

This entry is a part of Kaplan’s Inspire Language Learning Blogger Competition. I’m not that interested in winning a Macbook, but I am interested in sharing my story. After October 29, you’ll be able to vote for me on their Facebook page if you so choose. Thanks, readers.

Learn English with Kaplan

Also, please visit Vaya Madrid—I’ve just had my first article published: Tales of a Transplant.

Two Threads

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The music is loud and it fills the room. All eyes are on us, and I can’t stop smiling. He grasps my hand, a bit harder than normal, and whispers, “Vamos.” So we enter the room, bright lights shining hotly on us, and I try to see everyone and everything, take it all in, remember everything about this moment. All these people, all this happiness, happened because we happened. We are the cause of these beaming faces, this raucous laughter, this clink of glasses. We are so loved. And we are so unbelievably lucky.

Pretty close to where it all started

My life and Mario’s life have become intertwined, two threads of the same story, irrevocably twisted together. I didn’t mean for it to happen, didn’t head to Spain looking for love, let alone looking for him. But happen it did.

Nevertheless, sometimes I feel a twinge of envy as I look at others’ lives. Perhaps I’m crazy, and feel free to say so, but I do sometimes envy those who aren’t headed to Spain, who aren’t married to foreigners like I am. I think of their lives, and I wonder what it’s like not to always yearn. I miss half of my world. Every day.

In the US, I miss Mario most of all, his contagious laughter, our bilingual jokes, how he tells me he loves me. I miss the sunshine and dry plains of Zamora. I miss speaking Spanish, feeling like I’m always learning and growing somehow. I miss our friends: R with his earnest attempts at English, J’s jokes, M who sees Mario much like I do. I cannot help but think of café con leche, chorizo, salchichón, and lentejas. I miss walking past the corner store that sells salt cod, sweet wine, and aguardiente. I reminisce about drinking sweet liqueurs out of frozen tiny beer steins after long lunches, the orujo staining our upper lips a milky brown. I think of paseando after dinner in the summer, when the streets are finally cool and sometimes smell of an afternoon downpour, the pharmacies’ thermometers blinking the temperature in red. I remember how to savor wine and food, linger over a meal, and—because I must—speak deliberately, with a purpose.

In Spain, I miss my family—my mother’s hugs “on both sides,” my father mowing the grass, chatting with my sister-in-law about the Hoosiers, the family get-togethers. I miss the green grass, the smell of fires in the fall, my backyard garden with its endless sweet green peppers and curious rabbits poking about. I miss the local Mexican restaurant, its colorful, joyful booths and waiters who already know our orders. I long for cookouts, pitch-ins, and barbecues; fireflies, dandelions, and open fields; barns, cornfields, and corner stores. I miss them all, but know they’re waiting on me to return, and I hope one day I will.

I think that coming back and forth exacerbates it all. I read posts from former Conversation and Language Assistants who are reminded, every so often, of Spain, and they miss it. Understandably. I wonder if these feelings fade. I think they do, over time. They become less and less frequent, less and less painful. Is this good or bad, this lessening? Who’s to say? I just know that my feelings do not become less frequent; in fact, as I become more deeply entrenched in another culture, another country, another place altogether, I’m realizing that these feelings are more frequent, and often more gut-wrenching. I will never stop missing the other place. Never.

And so I face my future, knowing that something will always be missing, some hole will always be present. These holes I will fill when I return to that place; they, in turn, will be emptied when I must inevitably leave.

And please, don’t think I’m complaining—there’s no reason to complain about my life, fortunate and blessed as it is. But remember that your life, too, is fortunate. T-minus twenty-six days until I’m officially a madrileña.

Moon of Honey—Florence

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Florence, once considered the most important city in Europe, had its fling with fame—from 1865 to 1870, for one brief (shining) moment, it replaced Turin as the capital of the newly formed Kingdom of Italy. Alas, it was replaced six years later by Rome, even though the Florentines had taken pains to modernize the city by tearing down medieval houses and replacing old markets.

Don’t worry Florence, Mario still thinks you’re the prettiest. Of the three cities we visited on our honeymoon, the one that most impressed Mario was Florence, with il Duomo, broad avenues that encircle the old city, and plethora of Renaissance art. (It’s known as la culla del Rinascimento, or the “cradle of the Renaissance,” after all.) This explains why we have a separate folder for all the pictures of il Duomo, too.

Florence is the city for Renaissance art. Here you’ll find Michelangelo’s David, the Uffizi Gallery, the Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge), the Pitti Palace, and much more. Some notable residents include Dante Alighieri, Donatello, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Niccolò Machiavelli, the Medici Family, Galileo, Amerigo Vespucci, and Florence Nightingale.

We took full advantage, of course.

Il Duomo

Il Duomo, or the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, is Florence’s main church. Its exterior is marble—shades of pink, green, and white, to be precise. During a certain part of Italy’s history, the churches were made up of three separate buildings: the baptistery, the belfry, and the church itself. We climbed up to the top of the cathedral’s dome.

Don’t you wish this were you?

We also visited theBasilica di Santa Croce (Basilica of the Holy Cross), where some of Florence’s most famous citizens are buried, people like Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Galileo.

Unfortunately, it was under construction, as happens a lot in Europe

We enjoyed the courtyard

Dante’s tomb

Michelangelo’s tomb

Inspiration for the Statue of Liberty

Galileo’s tomb

The Ponte Vecchio, or “Old Bridge,” was and is a site of commerce, of jewelers. In the 16th century, Ferdinando I de’ Medici ordered that the jewelry shops replace the butchers, whose shops didn’t exactly smell like roses and who sometimes tossed their unsold goods into the Arno River below. It is also the only surviving bridge from the German retreat in 1944.

Another beautiful site, that perhaps many do not know about, is San Miniato al Monte (St. Minias on the Mountain), a church located at one of Florence’s highest points. It has great views as well.

You can see the church just barely; it’s the white building blocked by the rather wispy tree

We stayed a while and watched the sun set.

It was a perfect ending to our stint in Florence. The next day we began our journeys around Tuscany and Liguria!

Stay tuned for more …

Moon of Honey (Luna de Miel)—Venice

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In Spanish, honeymoon is luna de miel; literally “moon of honey.” If you’re my husband (ohhh, doesn’t that sound weird and oh so nice at the same time!), a moon made of honey would be welcome. Mario and Winnie the Pooh love honey about the same amount. If you are what you eat, Mario would be bread, olive oil, and honey. Probably in that order. (I would be tomatoes. Boring.)

Thank you for letting me completely off track. We spent our honeymoon in Italy. Italy! To Spaniards, Italy is a short plane ride away; to me, Italy is a dream honeymoon. I imagined Venice, its canals snaking quietly through the city, Florence with its marble-covered cathedral and Renaissance art invading every church, Rome with its quiet ruins … we got all that. I forgot to imagine the heat.

We arrived in Venice at 10 p.m. and stepped out of the airport in search of a bus. I had forgotten how humidity envelops you, invades your lungs and your pores, causes the air itself to feel heavy and dense. We nearly gasped. Oh yes, the heat was already upon us. Sweat, we would.

Luckily, our hotel, located right on the Grand Canal, had air conditioning. Sweet, sweet, environment-destroying air conditioning. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

We set off to explore the city immediately after breakfast, winding our way down alleys and stopping at numerous dead ends, consulting the map every two minutes. Venice was a maze, but we were determined to conquer it.

We found our way to Piazza San Marco, St. Mark’s Square, where the Basilica of San Marco overlooks one of the most beautiful piazzas of Europe, the heart of Venice. To the right of the Basilica is the sea, the bay of San Marco, which was the way the people arrived—by boat. Also in this square is the Doge’s Palace (try not to read that as the dog’s palace). The Doges were the rulers of Venice for over a thousand years.

There are more pictures of me because Mario is very camera happy

If you lived in Ancient Venice, you had to be wary of your neighbors. Around the palace we saw these mail slots, which were for nontie serete (secret denouncements), if you wished to snitch on your neighbor for their wrongdoings. And there were no appeals for death sentences. Good luck!

Afterwards, we wandered around a bit more and tried not to get lost

Mario’s new boat

Venice in the afternoon

Everybody was hot that day

Next we splurged on a gondola ride. Sure, they’re totally a tourist trap, and they definitely overcharge. But still, you’re only in Venice on your honeymoon once, so live it up. Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, this was a major form of transportation, and there were upwards of eight to ten thousand gondolas in that time period, whereas today there are only about four hundred, mainly used by tourists.

Our gondolier talked to Mario about Italy’s defeat in the Eurocup and then took a few phone calls

We came back to a big leak in our room, so we headed downstairs to reception to ask for help. They changed our room … to a suite overlooking the Grand Canal, which normally costs approximately a gazillion dollars per night. Score! They told us we would have to change the next day, but in the end we got this amazing room for two whole nights. Needless to say, we didn’t complain.

We also couldn’t complain about our breakfast setting. The breakfast itself was superb, with everything from tomato juice to yogurt with toppings to scrambled eggs to meats and cheeses. And, of course, lots of cappucino.

Back in Piazza de San Marco

We spent a lot of time in Venice exploring. Besides the Piazza de San Marco and the Doge’s Palace, there’s not a whole lot of “sights” to see, but there are a lot of places to be explored. Including a very interesting bookshop that I thoroughly enjoyed. But don’t ask me how to get there.

Venice is not made for the busy tourist. Instead, it’s for the tourist with time and patience, the one who wishes to be and not do. It’s hard to accept for some, but once you do, Venice grabs hold of you and stays with you.