Dobleve

(Originally posted on our homepage January, 2008)

Hello and Happy Holidays from Granada!

As we celebrate our one year anniversary here we look back and truly can’t believe it’s already been more than a year since we left Seattle. In that time we have thought of everyone back home many times and wonder how everyone is doing. We’ve been able to catch up with some people but not nearly as many as we’d like so we thought we’d make a small start at letting everyone know how we are doing over here in Spain and a little bit about our lives since we arrived.

Our new home town, Granada, is in the southernmost part of Spain in the Province of Andalucia. Although not a coastal town, Granada is only about 25 miles from the Mediterranean Sea. Granada is far enough south in Spain that it is closer for us to travel to Northern Africa than it is to go to Paris, Rome, or even Barcelona. This City is popular for the Alhambra, and, because of its proximity to both sunny Mediterranean beaches and the snow capped Sierra Nevada mountain range. These are definitely some of our favorite things about the city. In the summer it’s a 30 minute drive to sandy white beaches (the Costa Brava) dotted with chiringuitos – little open air bar/restaurants where you can spend the afternoon lingering over Spanish seafood dishes, tapas and sangria. In the winter, it’s only a 30 minute drive into the higher parts of the Sierra Nevada mountain range for skiing or snowboarding (or another of our favorites, snowshoeing – apparently the strangest thing Spanish people have ever seen.)

Granada is a city of 300,000 people, about 60,000 of whom are students at the University of Granada. It is a city of neighborhoods, or barrios, and we live in the old Moorish quarter called the Albayzin (al-bye-theen). The Albayzin began as the first Iberian settlement in the 7th century and flourished at the base of Alhambra from the 9th century onwards. The entire neighborhood is one of the most well preserved Moorish areas in Spain. There are rows upon rows of white buildings, within the walls of which there are multiple houses and dwellings. These buildings are almost imperceptibly bisected throughout with narrow maze-like cobblestone streets. Our own house is on a street that is far too narrow to fit any car traffic at all and dead ends into a very steep staircase so we rarely even see any of the ubiquitous Granada scooters outside our door.

In addition to being unbelievably picturesque, the Albayzin is also wonderfully quiet and tranquil compared to the rest of Granada. Car traffic in to the neighborhood is strictly controlled and only taxis, buses, and residents-with-permission can drive into the neighborhood. We ourselves don’t have a car and walk almost everywhere we go. Granada is small enough that this is possible. Or rather, we do almost everything (shopping, hardware store, post office, etc.) so locally that we don’t ever need to travel very far. When we do need to travel further, like to the one and only very special vet that grooms our dog, for example, it is not difficult to rent a car.

Neighborhoods outside of the Albayzin are much more modern and high rises, factory sized grocery stores and the 6 lane highway are all within a half hour’s walk. Granada, probably like many European cities, is truly a mix of old and new with both picturesque historical neighborhoods and Walmart and Home Depot-like stores out by the major highway. In addition, because of the University and the Alhambra there are more cultural events happening than we could ever possibly see.

No Hablamos Catalun

The official language spoken in Spain is Castilian, or as they say here, Castellano. Spaniards also speak Catalan (related to French), Galician (closer to Portugese) and Basque (or Euskara), which has no common roots with Spanish at all and in fact has never been traced to any single root language. In Granada people speak Castellano and rarely if ever, the littlest bit of English. Castellano Spanish is the closest linguistically to Mexican Spanish and we hope that means it will be the most transferable back in the United States.

Although fairly difficult when we first arrived, we’ve long since learned to manage the basics of daily life in Spanish — including of course shopping; getting around in buses, rental cars and taxis; hiring electricians and plumbers; buying furniture and appliances – the 11 week desk chair adventure is a story for another time; making arrangements when our dog Emmo died last summer; and even, after several tries, successfully communicating to our veterinarian that Yes our dog does need to be anaesthetized for every haircut and No, we did Not mean that the vet should amputate his leg during the appointment. (This makes more sense if you know that our dog’s back leg is visibly permanently damaged.)

Learning Spanish has been its own year-long comedy so far. At first our Spanish friends waited patiently as we hammered through sentences that in all reality couldn’t have possibly made sense to anyone. Eventually however they felt free to laugh out loud at some of the things we say and seem to wonder more often than not if we really mean what it is we seem to be saying. For example, if everything we’ve said is to be believed then among other things, we want to take a shower with the Japanese Prime Minister; one of our favorite meals when we go back to the US is hamburgers made with little baby rabbits; and there are a whole bunch of monkeys in our neighborhood doing the most interesting things. (This last is due in equal parts to the fact that one of us can’t keep the words for “monkey” and “nun” straight and we happen to live within a block of 3 churches, a convent and a residential Catholic school.)

What’s On Our Spanish Table

When people ask us questions about our life here they seem most interested in what we eat and how we shop.

For starters, Granada is one of the few remaining provinces in Spain where it is customary to serve a free tapa with every drink order. This is usually some small bit of food ranging from a sandwich to a portion of paella or even at some places, your choice of sushi. Many of our (student) friends here are inclined to make the free tapa habit their main source of sustenance and daily order a couple of small beers for lunch with tapas, and repeat for dinner. (This seems to be especially true if they are not Spanish). There are also many restaurants we love in Granada but for which you must plan a minimum of 1.5 – 2 hours for lunch and possibly more for dinner. Because our schedule does not allow for this we eat and cook at home far more often than we ever did in the US. Learning what to cook and how in Spain has been its own adventure

The first most obvious thing about cooking here is that everything is seasonal – fruits, vegetables, fish and even almonds and oranges which we thought were absolute year-round staples of a Spanish diet. And of course, just as obvious is that the Spanish just don’t eat the same food or food prepared in the same way as we are used to. For example, while grocery shopping you might find an entire aisle of 40 varieties each of preserved white asparagus, red peppers, olives, or tuna but you won’t find any water chestnuts, jalapenos, or tomato paste. After several months of shopping for food almost daily we are finally learning what food might be available and how to prepare it. Although we still hunt for things like brown sugar, corn starch and sweet onions, (not to mention favorites like chipotles, fish sauce and truffle oil), with some effort we are now able to get some of our former regulars like cheddar, parmesan, and peanut butter.

Baking and cooking in the oven has been the most complicated enterprise of all. When we first arrived, every time we turned on the oven every other circuit in the house would blow within moments. After 5 months of electrical investigation (checking and re-checking all manner of fuses and wires), phone calls to the electrician and property owners, and finally the eventual purchase of a new oven, we were able to use an oven again.

Once we had the oven the experiments in baking abroad could begin in earnest. Any of our recipes looks like an 8th grade algebra final by the time all the necessary equations are done. The ovens, and therefore the pans, are generally smaller here and so any American recipe has to be reduced by about 1/3. Then too, the new volume must be calculated so the right pan may be chosen. Then, the oven temperature and cooking time must be adjusted for either (or both) a convection oven and/or glass pan. Finally everything must be converted into metric. Thinking all of this was unnecessary at first, or at least a bit of overkill, we filled our kitchen with billowing black smoke on several occasions…

Some Of Our Favorite Things

When we first arrived everything was novel to us and after a year here, that is often still true. While at first we could not sleep for the seemingly random and endless ringing of church bells, we now enjoy the ringing and have since learned that the bells in fact ring so people know when to start getting ready for church, when to leave for church, and finally, when the church service has begun. And too, we have yet to tire of seeing a nun walking up our street and flipping open her cell phone as she says: “Digame” (Spanish for “Talk to Me”). We love that besides these sounds we are only otherwise likely (in our neighborhood) to hear our neighbors singing Sevillanas (kind of like Flamenco songs), children playing, and yes, birds chirping. Finally, although overwhelming at times, we love the time of day when entire families throng the sidewalks for “paseo”, or the evening walk.

As much as we love our new neighborhood and exploring a new city and country, there are some things to which we have yet to fully adapt. At times we really miss things like a dependably hot shower (not to mention a bath tub), our clothes dryer, smoke-free bars and restaurants, and, scooter-free everything.

What we have learned in our first year is incomparable with what there is yet to learn. It is historically and culturally fascinating to live in such a thoroughly Catholic country with such a powerful and long term Muslim history, for example. We read everything we can get our hands on, explore neighborhoods and monuments, and ask questions of anyone who will talk to us. This may be, for example, asking during the Semana Santa Processions (during the week before Easter / Pascua thousands of people wait for hours to watch Mary and Jesus statues be carried past on elaborately decorated platforms in processions with hundreds of male “penitents”): “how do you feel about standing here for hours to honor these symbols less than one block from the place Muslims and Jews were murdered in the name of the Catholic Church during the Spanish Inquisition?” Or, we are as likely to ask if there is a Spanish equivalent to a “dive bar”, what you call it, and where we might find one.

Home Away From Home

We had such a strong community of friends in Seattle and family back home that we were really pretty nervous to leave everyone behind. Responding to our anxiety our friend Georges said “You will find your people wherever you go”. That has certainly been true and we have felt blessed all year to have friendly, giving and open people around us whom we now also call friends.

We are lucky to have many great memories from this last year and wish the same for everyone in 2008.

Much Love and Happy Holidays!

Shannon and Brian