New Beginnings

Due to popular demand and recent life updates (aka, moving back to the USA in September after my 3-year hiatus), I am re-positioning my blog and re-defining my life. Exciting stuff, right? I’ve got a backlog of updates, from my experiences over the summer in tons of different places (Greece, Turkey, Austria, Hungary, and a little island called Menorca, Spain) and stories about my latest adventures in NYC (including networking events, cold weather adjustments, endless job search, re-connecting with old friends, and completely bizarre things, such as this two-yolked egg). Stay tuned.

mémoires de voyager

“Today I am in France. Today is a gorgeous day: the sun is shining, the air is crsip like the first bite of a golden delicious apple. The atmosphere is relaxed yet chic, modern yet antiquated, and despite the prevalence of most signs in English, still deliciously un-American. It’s amazing to be here – hearing a new language and seeing incredible views around every corner. The scenery in Europe truly can’t be beat. Kind of stinks that the US is newer than all of this and we’ve already done a great job of screwing up quite a bit of our own scenery. Cultural faux pas aside, I think this trip has been great. I want to rent a motorbike and drive it all around France. But first… to learn French!“

- October 2007 in Biarritz, France, on a trip to the Basque country (Bilbao, Biarritz and San Sebastian) while studying abroad.

you can’t take it with you

It started last night, while watching Graham Hill’s TED Talk (Less stuff, more happiness - http://t.co/RrHq1do0). Is life really lived better with less stuff? Does a smaller amount of possessions make us freer? I believe that the increase in quantity of certain possessions, like underwear, is definitely positively correlated with happiness (because come on, who wouldn’t prefer to do less laundry?!) But the truth is, with increasing options and increasing space available to us, we are becoming comfortable with owning in excess (though not always as bad as this).

So my problem? The incessant, harassing nagging of a storage unit, the current resting place of nearly all of my belongings since birth. In college, I lived in no fewer than eight different places, including my study abroad residence, and since then, tack on another 9 more if you count the various apartments and friends’ houses that I inhabited while in Madrid over three years. (This isn’t counting my mom’s three residences since we left our house in 2003 or the one apartment my dad had). Grand total? A whopping 23 places that I have inhabited for a month or longer, including my house in East Lake and my current residence with family in NY. So one may say that I have too much stuff or am disorganized… but consider the circumstances.

All of my conversations are about Yankees… // Todos mis conversaciónes tratan de yanquis…

…and no, I´m not talking about the baseball team.

It´s hard to escape the fact that yes, I am an American citizen, born and bred. But it´s never come to my attention so frequently and forcibly as in the three years or so that I spent in Spain. I don´t confront the scrutiny as much as I think I would in a smaller village or out in the country since, hello, I live in the capital city of a modern country, and many of the big city dwellers have made it across the pond to visit my homeland. So they can relate. But nonetheless, I still find myself constantly defining and redefining what I am and how it relates to my native culture, all the while trying to stave off typical comments from the typical Spaniards about how the typical United States citizen typically acts.

There are some people here that are obsessed with the American culture. I have met more than a few who would drop their current lives here to have a shot at living and working in the United States. I don´t know what it is that makes them want to live there so badly – if it´s the big cties, big cars, big houses, expansive stretches of land, outrageous selection of restaurants, or the fact that capitalism, despite its many negative aspects, allows people by its very nature to succeed and live fabulously and successfully, creating a potentially more comfortable level of income than in other more socialized countries? But on the other hand, there are throngs of people ready in the wings to try and make me feel bad about who I am, what my forefathers did, or how America’s politics and international behavior in general is ruining everything globally.

So what does it mean to be an American in Spain (or abroad, in general?)

I want to know your opinions. Leave a comment about your experiences how you were treated, or are currently being treated, as an American ex-pat. Anecdotes requested, criticisms accepted, rude comments discouraged, however, all opinions welcomes.

Hasta Mañana, or Saving it for tomorrow

Thoughts about procrastination.
Yesterday a big piece of my history and my family passed away (an expression that I like and at the same time loathe, because it’s so appropriate and tasteful yet so passive and anticlimactic to describe the act of one ceasing to exist by gently drifting into oblivion). Samuel Carofino, AKA Pappap, my mother’s father, died yesterday morning (May 9) in Ellwood City, PA.

I’ve been meaning to call. Meaning to write. Meaning to visit. Nearly three years have past, and I’d wager the same number of phone calls have been made the whole time.

The last time I saw him, I knew it could really be the last time. But there was so much to say. I wanted to know more about his childhood, about his parents, his parents’ parents, life as a first generation American, his favorite foods, how much wine he made and what was his technique. So many things that I’m thinking of now that I should have thought of during the past 25 years of my life, when I had him so easily accessible at the other end of the phone line.

This is how it works. You’re young until you’re not. You love until you don’t. You try until you can’t. You laugh until you cry. You cry until you laugh. And everyone must breathe until their dying breath. – Regina Spektor

I’m sad I wasn’t there to see him at the end. I’m sad that my mom has to go through this alone. I’m sad that I can’t be with the rest of my family and go to his funeral. But most of all, I’m sad that I procrastinated. The Spanish are famed for their idea of “mañana”, they’re notorious for putting things off until tomorrow (though I can say that reputation is not always 100% true, I’ve met plenty of efficient and punctual Spaniards… but I digress). I want to cherish the time I have left with my one remaining grandparent, and when I go to my cousin’s wedding in August, where I was hoping to see him again, I want to learn about my grandpa, see more into his life, visit his old house, and cherish the memories I had with him when I was young. Until then.

Tapas Tour in Tampa

After receiving a quite beautiful “cesta de navidad”, or Christmas chest of goodies from my school, full of no less than four bottles of wine (two red, two fizzy rose), a bottle of whiskey, chorizo, white asparagus, pate, nuts, chocolate, turron (almond candy, typical for christmas), polvorones, and all other products necessary to make this holiday season intoxicating and ham-filled, I decided to bring what I could smuggle through customs home to the USA to introduce my mom to some of the magical wonders of Spanish food.

My Christmas loot, compliments of the school I work at

So to make the Spanish tapas experience truly special (in the past, I’ve cooked tortilla, garbanzos, ensalada campera, and a number of other Spanish foods for my family), I decided to make a few additional plates:

- Champiñones rellenos de chorizo a la plancha / Sauteed mushrooms stuffed with chorizo

- Ensalada con queso de cabra con salsa de vinagre balsamico reducido / Warm goat cheese salad with balsamic reduction dressing

- Papas arrugadas con mojo picón / “Wrinkled” potatoes with spicy mojo sauce

- Gambas al ajillo / Shrimp in garlic and olive oil

Since I never do food posts, here’s the recipes I made with a couple special adaptations. They’re all pretty easy, you can try them at home!

 

2010 was a good year.

I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions, but I definitely believe that neglecting my blog is a very rude thing for me to do. Therefore, I’m not going to try and do a big update to maintain continuity and make life make sense…. instead, I’m going to get back down to the true nature of the “Wass Around The World” travel blog concept and write a little blurb about all of my travels and adventures during the months of 2010. The ones I remember. And the biggest challenge is including JUST ONE PHOTO for each one… this is gonna be hard. (Okay, maybe if it was epic, I can include more… please?)

JANUARY: Madrid Blizzard

So it’s not so much a travel, but how excited was I when Madrid was blanketed in a snowstorm the first week of January?! The city looked BEAUTIFUL!

Snowstorm in Madrid, January 2010

January: Salamanca, Spain

Something about this post just didn’t feel right. I had almost finished listing all of the destinations, when suddenly, I realized that I almost left this little gem out completely!! Salamanca is a beautiful university town about 2.5 hours west of Madrid (obviously all of these distances are approximate) in Castilla y Leon. The university here is incredibly, they have a massive enclosed Plaza Mayor in the same style as Madrid’s, and the buildings are beautiful. We also visited the Museo de Art Nouveau and Art Deco, that has some incredible stained glass windows and a kind of bizarre collection of dolls that frankly freaked me out.

Salamanca's Plaza Mayor

Rolo doing kung fu outside of the cathedral in Salamanca. Hey, it was closed for the day, we had to amuse ourselves somehow!!

Masters of Travel Disasters

Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse…

- Rolando with pneumonia for 5 days in the hospital in Barcelona (June 2009)

- Rachel getting pharyngitis and not being able to speak or move in Berlin (May 2009)

- Rolando coming down with a 24-hour stomach virus and being stuck in bed the last day in Prague (April 2010)

….I had to get my APPENDIX taken out in BARCELONA!!

Yes, ladies and gentleman, that’s SURGERY on the COSTA BRAVA, May 2010!  And the best part is that I was in the same hotel that Rolando was in just under a year before. Amazing.

During a highly anticipated trip to Barcelona to see the showing of V.I.T.R.I.O.L. (a show that has texts written by our dear friend Miguel Orbaneja), I began to feel stomach pain and developed a fever on Saturday (May 1). After taking some Ibuprofen, it kept coming back. A trip to the ER Saturday night told us that I had a virus, but after I got worse on Sunday, we headed back to the ER instead of the bus station. And within about 5 hours, they were chopping open my poor belly to get to a big stinkin swollen appendix. Gross.

you know you’ve been in spain too long when…

After spending over two wonderful years here in Spain, I’ve realized that there are certain things I’ve had to get used to while living here that are, well, unique.

I decided it was time to share some of my experiences and learned behaviors with the blog-reading community, so that you can know what to expect during an extended stay in Spain, and maybe determine if you, too, have been here long enough to agree with some of these. Comments and opinions welcomed!

1. You’ve mastered the “dos besos” (two kisses) and how to properly administer them without accidentally kissing someone on the mouth. At least when sober.

2. You’ve realized the power of goodbye – or the endlessness of goodbye, because every time you leave a place you have to make sure to “dos beso” everything with a pulse so as not to seem rude. This being said, you have learned to prepare to leave at least 10-15 minutes before your actual intended time of departure to avoid hurt feelings.

3. Going out at 11 PM just seems ludicrous – that’s the time you START getting ready. Also, you need to be careful with your digestion, because you probably just finished eating dinner.

4. You know exactly which doors you have to enter on the train or metro so that it drops you off directly in front of a door or escalator or flight of stairs to exit as quickly as possible and avoid the crowd.

5. Speaking of public transportation, you’ve developed a seething hatred for: really smelly people who don’t know they’re smelly but sit down next to you or across from you therefore trapping you in their nasty bubble of B.O.; that group of teenagers or middle aged women that won’t shut up because their opinion is more important than the delicious silence and tranquility that could be your journey; that guy with the music on his cell phone that starts playing hip hop or techno music as loud as possible because clearly, we all want to hear it; people who stand directly in front of the doors as they open; and, of course, the starers, who for some reason, can’t get enough of looking at your for extended and awkward periods of time, all the while with a murderous glare.

6. You know which “chino” (convenience) stores are the “good” ones (that sell alcohol after 11 PM secretly) and actually have a preferred fruit or vegetable stand.

7. “Service with a smile” is a distant dream, and waiters, public employees and everyone else in the service industry also knows it. So you just don’t bother tipping anymore, because it doesn’t matter. And in the absence of wonderful customer service, you’ve learned to appreciate simple “Service without a scowl”.

8. You will not go the bank on the weekend. You will not go to the bank after 2 PM. You will not call the bank for free. You will also not ever see more than one teller at the bank at any given time, regardless of how many people are standing in line. If you’re lucky enough to see more than one teller, don’t get excited – he’s about to get up and walk away to go drink a coffee. And if there are four people in line, there are actually eight – as soon as it’s your turn, there will be four little old ladies emerging from the darkness and insisting that they were there first, but couldnt be bothered to stand in line like the rest of the people.

9. You have given up on trying to pass anyone on the street and accepted that everyone walks the same pace: sloooOOWWW!!

10. You can’t help but smile in the wine aisle at Carrefour when you realize that you can recognize the places you’ve travelled by the wines and liquors typical of the region: Tempranillos from La Rioja, Oloroso and Brandy from Jeréz, Albariño from Galicia, and even Port wine from Porto (oh wait, maybe I’m just an alcoholic… and that last one is in Portugal. Anyway.)

10. Every eight days or so, or more frequently depending on where you live, you will see someone peeing in the street in broad daylight…. And you’re no longer shocked by it.

11. You know that there really is more than one way to make a Tortilla.

12. You know the difference between a caña, clara, tubo, jarra and tercio. And also, between a pintxo, tapa, ración and media.

13. Though you don’t actually take a siesta, you know exactly what is considered “siesta time” and plan your life accordingly so that the shops will be open.

14. You are aware that being called tia and tio doesn’t actually invoke any family ties or a need to buy birthday gifts, and that tronca and tronco don’t mean that you look like a tree.

Feel free to continue this list…. I know I will

happy new year – 2 months late! // travel fun

2010 started with a bang. No, literally. My first instinct at midnight was to pop open a bottle of champagne and spray it on the group of people next to us that had just misted me with their champagne. which led to them trying to soak me and my friends with their bubbly. Maybe not the best way to start a year, but either way it started, more or less, the same as the past 24 that I can “remember” have begun. The past three, however, have been rather difficult. I miss my dad, and don´t think New Years will ever be the same without his gap toothed grin. Nothing will. My biggest New Years Resolution, in that case, is not to forget. I know I never will.

So.

Welcome to the New Year. I don´t feel any different. A few interesting things have happened….