"agur" is a four-letter word.

"It's cool," the customs guy in Washington, D.C. told me. "You're a civilian now - you're not a tourist anymore." The relief finally hit me: I'm home. I belong here.

I needed it, because starting yesterday with the end of classes I'd been a mess. I was waiting for my last train out of Laudio when it really started to hit me how much I'm leaving behind. The past 48 hours I've been breaking down and crying on and off. It's the "lasts" that have gotten me: Last Saturday daytrip. Last time singing in church. Last hug with each friend.

This morning I thought I was going to make it OK - I was too sleepy to cry, I figured. Then my friend who had brought me to the airport started crying. I lost it. I've been crying like a baby on and off the whole way home.

Of course, the amount this is hurting really only confirms that it was time to move back now. I know I'm not up to building an expat life for the long term at this point, and if it was this hard now, it would have only been more difficult next year. I know and love people who have remained in Spain because, well, they woke up one day and realized that their life was more in Spain than back home. I'm not ready to do that, not ready to leave American life behind. If it's this hard now, it would have been impossible next year.

I have so much to look forward to here in the USA. It's why I'm moving back home. But as my pastor said, "tienes el corazón dividido." Your heart's divided now.


"Agur" is Basque for "goodbye," by the way. It could be the worst word in the whole language.

what will you miss?

with my friends Thomas and Bryan at the Hanging Bridge in Portugalete
(photo credit: Bryan Alfano)



with my friend Esmeralda in Vitoria-Gasteiz


My friends here in Bilbao and I have been playing this game lately: answering the questions "what will you miss? What won't you miss?" about life here. Most of them are staying here for another year, while I'm flying home this Saturday. It's getting truly strange and bittersweet - of course there are things I can't leave behind fast enough, but I'm also realizing that I'm leaving a pretty significant part of my heart behind here.

So I thought I'd share some of the biggest things I will and won't miss about life here. First up:

Things I Will Not Miss At All About Life In Bilbao

Not belonging. It's thrilling at first, but after nine months standing out it becomes exhausting.

Little things - people walking 4 deep on a sidewalk and not moving, forcing you onto the street; staring being totally A-OK; strangers yelling at me "HELLO!" on the sidewalk because I look foreign (as a side note, if American kids did this to a lady from, say, Mexico, how yelled at would they get by their parents?! So yelled at).

Living in a monoculture. Being as isolated (at least in many ways) from other peoples as Basque country has been for this long makes xenophobia almost a given. Specifying in an ad what ethnicities are and aren't welcome to come check out your room for rent is considered totally acceptable. "Oh, hey, Civil Rights Movement, we didn't see you there. We were too busy recovering from a dictatorship by making films about the crazy stuff we weren't allowed to make films about before."

Not smiling. I've compared notes with other Americans (North and Latin), and the verdict is that people here don't smile nearly as much as we do. Even children - it's pretty standard to see kids playing in a park together with serious little faces, no smiles.

Teaching. If there's anything I don't enjoy, it's teaching people who don't want to learn. It's like, if you don't want to learn English, then don't. If you want to limit your horizons to working in a hardware shop in Alava or something, who am I to stop you?


Things I Will Miss Like Crazy About Life In Bilbao

Living in a monoculture. The flipside of this is that the culture is more condensed, so you get to experience it closer to what it was like hundreds of years ago. There's not so much figuring out what Basque culture is exactly, and the little things that are special about this place stand out more. It's pretty straightforward, you experience it, and you love it.

That incredible travel high that comes from being accepted in a different culture. To everyone who made me feel welcome, accepted, like I could belong even if just for a minute, thank you. You can't know how much it means to me. Unless you've lived abroad. Then you know.

Specialized food shops. I had a good thing going with my butcher, who knew my favorite cuts for stews, and had found my favorite shop for cheap, amazing fruits and veggies. Goodbye, Fresh Local Produce; hello, Trader Joe's.

Random delightful moments. We had our kitchen window open this evening and while I was cooking, voices singing "Happy Birthday" in Basque from another apartment came breezing in. Moments like that.

Specific people - my housemate from last semester, my church family, and a handful of other incredible people. A lot of people have stepped up and been amazing friends to me here when it came down to it (more on that to come).


Fellow expats: what about y'all? What would you most miss - and be the most glad to leave behind?

a blog confession. and a cheeseburger.

So first off, during the hectic whirlwind that was my mom having surgery/my dad moving/my best friend getting married all in the week that I was back in the States, I did make sure to get my hands on the sorts of food you can't get here in Iberia. This included Mexican food, American Chinese food (as opposed to Spanish Chinese food, and believe me, there's a world of difference), and a Five Guys bacon cheeseburger.

Three words: no regrets there.

And now, the confession: I really didn't want to write this blog post. Ever go through phases where you just. don't. want. to. write in your blog? I sure am right now. I mean, the school year and my time in Bilbao are both drawing to a close, my mind's off in North Carolina at least half the time and seriously, what am I going to write about? "Students frustrating again today"? "Flowers bloom in springtime"? "Pollen worse in Raleigh"?

Full disclosure: blogging regularly is not the easiest thing. Especially when I don't feel I have much to say. Anyone relate? Other bloggers: how do you get past "slumps" in writing?

speaking American

Today's post was going to be about the Cinque Terre, where I spent much of my Carnival vacation last week.

Then I found out about this (I originally found it here, via another language assistant's blog).

This came on the heels of another discussion about how racism is notably more socially acceptable in Spain than in the United States. And usually that's true - talking about how you "have to watch out for the black people" or doing the "chinese eye stretch" doesn't get a second glance here, while in most of America that sort of thing is a pretty big no-no. Especially for a lot of Southerners - hello, residual slavery/Jim Crow/generally behaving like asses about the Civil RIghts movement guilt - "racist" is about the worst thing someone can call you.

Then my home state went and shamed me. A quick summary of the article above: Latino customers, who did not speak English, went into a diner in Lexington on two occasions and ordered using gestures and probably some Spanish words. Management of the diner put up a sign that those who did not speak "American" (they meant English) would not be served. God bless America, it said.

Huh? I understand that, when a customer goes into a restaurant, the impetus is on them to be able to order. That said, you can communicate plenty using gestures and pointing at menus. The best meal I had in Genoa was at a restaurant where the waitress spoke no English. I spoke no Italian. We just ordered by saying the names of what we wanted off the menu in our bad Italian accents. She brought us the check and, wow, numbers are the same in Italy as in America, so we knew how much to pay. No problem. I would have been flabbergasted if she had refused to serve us because we didn't speak Italian!

The thing that really upsets me here is I really don't think that's America's heart. I truly believe that, by and large, Americans are an open, friendly people. We're one of only a few countries that's been so defined by its diversity, and while I know each new wave of immigrants has faced prejudice on some level or other, I think the overall attitude towards diversity is a positive one. Here in Bilbao, you can tell who's not Basque (or at very least who's not Iberian), but you can't tell who's not American in America. Ethnicity won't tell you; language won't tell you; dress won't tell you. It's one of the things I love most about my country.

So when a diner in North Carolina goes and puts up a "no English, no service" sign, it breaks my heart, not only because of the way it must have made non-English speakers in the community feel, but because it's an attack on the very thing that makes America great.

I love our diversity. I love that we don't have an official language, that the minute you pledge allegiance to the Flag, whatever language you speak becomes "American."

God bless America.

amereotypes

that's stereotypes about Americans, for those of you who aren't into puns of the "Daaaaad, you're embarrassing me!" variety.



Not a false stereotype at all, but what I spent a good $40 on at the State Fair last year. Followed by another $5 on Tums.


In the past couple weeks I have had my students ask me:

-if I know anyone famous (no)

-if I drive an expensive car (no)

-if I have lots of money (of course; I teach English for the Spanish government. If the Spanish gov isn't a high rollin' boss I don't know who is)

-if I eat hamburgers all the time (come on, be serious)

-if I like Eminem (see hamburgers answer)


Some day I'm going to respond by asking them if they've blown up any buildings or won any Michelin stars lately.***



***these are the only two stereotypes Americans even come close to having about Basque people. Because terrorism and haute cuisine are the only things that make it through to us, best case scenario. I'm sure you could tease another good generalization about Americans being ignorant out of there somewhere.

coming soon: field guide to Spanish junk food. I'm pretty pumped about it.

get ready, because this one's a doozy.

sunset, monte urgull

Jessica and Allison's visit to Basque Country was fantastic, just fantastic. But before I tell you about that, I need to take you back in time about a week. Come with me please...

So my mom had mailed me some packages of gear I had put together to hike the Camino de Santiago this June. Don't you love getting packages in the mail? Especially in a foreign country? I know I do, and so it was with much anticipation that I looked forward to getting these little boxes of goodness from me to myself.

Then they came: the letters from Madrid. We have your packages here, they said, and we hope you weren't wanting to get them too easily. Please come to Madrid in person to pick them up, or else contract an expensive company to do it, but if you choose the company you must send us a copy of your ID, birth certificate, college entrance essay and a drawing from when you were six years old that your parents put up on the fridge. After a long and hectic process that involved lots of document-scanning and talking to post office officials on the phone, I figured out that one could have one's friend go in one's place, provided one's friend was in Madrid and was going to be where one was shortly.


rescued backpack


Eureka. So Allison - who I believe should be recommended for sainthood - went to the post office for me, picked up my huge backpack and brought it all the way up north for me. I luh you, Allison.

But wait, you said. This post has "donosti" and "food" tags. Where is all the food and the picturesqueness?

Patience, grasshopper.

Saturday morning we arrived in Donosti to a surprise:


...IT WAS SPRINGTIME.

We took advantage of the perfect weather to do the following: walk to el peine de los vientos. get Juantxo's for a picnic (Juantxo's is a bar that specializes in sandwiches. Its name is not actually Juantxo's, it's Juantxo Taberna. Enter How Southerners Handle Establishment Names). Play in the sand on the beach. Walk up Monte Urgull for some perfect views of the city at sunset.


Juantxo's on the beach

Then pintxo-poteo was on (I told you we'd get there sometime). We made it to 4 places that night, and I have to say I think it was the best pintxo experience of my life. I hate to be that person saying pretentious-sounding things like "the foie at La Cuchara de San Telmo was revelatory," so I won't (except I sort of just did, in a cheating way). I'll just show you a picture of it and tell you we went back for more the second night.



Another landmark: my first Gilda. Perhaps the most emblematic of Donosti pintxos, the Gilda consists of guindilla peppers, an anchovy and an olive on a stick I wasn't sure I'd be into it - anchovies aren't usually my thing - but this was Donosti, where things you don't like are still somehow delicious. Salty, briny, tart, with a little bite at the end.** We got ours at Bar Haizea, over near La Bretxa market.


Anyway, not going to describe every pintxo. Suffice it to say: Mmm.

Sunday was lots more walking, including a second (sunset) visit to a very lively Peine de los Vientos, the Eduardo Chillida sculpture at one end of the city's La Concha beach walkway. When the tide's coming in or the sea is especially playful, big jets of air and water are forced up the blowhole part of the sculpture. The tide was coming in.



After that, it was time for Jessica's Basque hazing. I took her into Bar Herria, a locale decorated with propaganda, murals of masked men, and photos of political prisoners. I had only been once before, and on a Real Sociedad-Athletic Bilbao game night when every bar was packed and so the atmosphere was a bit different. This is a class of bar called a herriko taberna, or bars that support the (now-illegal) leftist independence party Batasuna. They're the ones with the big basque flag out front. I ought to mention that these bars are not representative of mainstream Basque society - even most people who support independence are heavily opposed to violence.

Basque hazing complete, we were exhausted so we went to bed at the ungodly hour of 10:00 PM. Wuss-out... or opportunity for crazy amounts of sleep? I think you know.

Monday afternoon we parted ways, and I got back to Bilbao yesterday afternoon in time to teach my evening classes.

**a note to my fellow auxiliares in Bilbao - don't try to get a Gilda in Bilbao. They're always messing it up with onion chunks here.

chicken juice and other authentic experiences

When all the language assistants got here from America this past fall, our #1 priority was clear. It came up again and again in conversation as we were settling in and doing the job hunt:

I want to find local roommates.

I could say I was one of the lucky ones, except it wasn't luck at all, it was getting here a full week ahead of schedule to hunt for an apartment. Anyway, I had Made It. I had Real Basque Roommates. I was going to have the Authentic Local Experience.

Let me pause for a moment here to give you some vital background information: This is not a cynical post. I really do like my roommates. We've had a lot of turnover so I don't know everyone in my piso so well yet, but from everything I can tell I like my new roommates too. My old roommate Ismene is without doubt my closest friend from here.

Anyway, back to the story. Sometime between October 1 and now, I have formed a conclusion about the Search for Local Roommates. It boils down to this shocker: Basque roommates are still roommates. Stop the presses, I know. What this means is, yes, they speak at least one language you're trying to learn and yes, you get to have closer contact with "local culture" at home. On the one hand, living with fellow Americans doesn't really get you this kind of immersion; on the other, do you really want to experience your deepest culture shock at home? That's not a rhetorical question; I really don't know the answer. But consider this experience I had yesterday:

I go to the freezer to pull out some cheese or something I had in there. I discover the freezer door is open and won't shut. The things near the front of the freezer have partly thawed, including some chicken that was wrapped haphazardly in some saran wrap. Chicken had dripped all over, meaning when I opened the door, I was greeted with a spurt of chicken juice. I spent the next 10 minutes cleaning out the freezer and flipping out - "it's just not healthy to leave raw meat like that!," I kept repeating like some broken disc to Teresa, who was helping me mop up the floor and in all likelihood wondering what had gotten into me.

In a later conversation with my mom, after I had settled down, she reminded me that people here do not worry about food storage like we do in America - at least partly because chickens in Europe don't go through the horribly gross process that American chickens go through.

Of course, if I lived with Americans, I wouldn't have gone through that little culture shock meltdown. I also wouldn't have gotten to see the expressions on my roommates' faces when they tried their first candy corn, their first biscuit, their first roasted sweet potato. I wouldn't have thought to visit some of the places I've seen and I wouldn't have gotten to have a "Marcha de San Sebastian" sing-and clap-along in the car on the way home from Lekeitio.

Living with people who have a different worldview, background, even native language is a challenge at times - but I can't say I regret it!

hey, Ferran Adria hates bellpeppers, ok?

so pretty, and yet they repulse me


Circa 1991, a 5-year-old me was confronted with something that, to my little girl mind, was truly terrifying.

My parents had ordered pizza with artichokes on it.

Of course, I had no idea what artichokes were, only that they were green and must be gross. Mom and Dad quickly nipped that one in the bud, telling me I didn't have to like them, I just had to try them. You can see what's coming next: little Kathy (yes, I was Kathy then***) tastes artichoke pizza; little Kathy loves artichoke pizza; little Kathy grows up to order artichokes on her pizza all the dang time.

The valuable lesson I learned there was, of course, my parents' philosophy on food adventurousness: you don't have to like everything, but you ought to give everything a try. This has served me well and maybe later I will do a post on the weirdest or most interesting things I have eaten and liked, but for now, I want to talk about the failures. The foods where I tried them, usually really wanting to like them, but couldn't stand them just the same.


First up: raw tomatoes and raw onions. It's a tie for these two - raw onions taste abrasive and have a horrifying texture, and raw tomatoes are gag-inducing and have a horrifying texture. The tomatoes one causes me a lot more grief, though, because people are always getting good tomatoes in the summer in NC and making sandwiches out of them and I know I'm missing out.

Second: Chorizo. I know, I know, I live in Spain and don't like chorizo. The horror. Actually, come to think of it....

Second.five: all cured meats. That's right, country ham, jamon serrano, proscuitto, bacon that is not from America, and all their cousins. I don't actually hate these usually, but never do I love them. Of course I suck it up here: I will eat jamon on things, and obviously when someone gives me a piece of their jamon I eat it and praise its deliciousness. I'm still Southern, people. But sometimes when those cured meats taste really stinky, I do hate them. I'm looking at you, you nasty piece of Virginia country ham messing up that biscuit I was going to eat.

Third: bleu cheese. I go through phases where I am OK with it and where I hate it, and right now I hate it.

Fourth: horseradish. I can't even explain to you how much I hate horseradish. Except you know when you have mustard on something, and the first bite is just a little sour and spice, and then you taste the horseradish in the mustard in that second bite? Yeah, I can't go past bite 1.

aaand fifth: canned tuna on or in anything but tuna salad. Which I made. On a tuna melt. Here tuna winds up on everything: salads, pizza, you name it. True story: once I went with my roommates to a telepizza (think Domino's but much, much worse) to get pizza for a party. They started looking at jamon and tuna pizzas, and I, thinking I was getting around this problem of pizzaingredientsKatadoesn'tlike, requested a 4-cheese pizza. Guess what one of the 4 cheeses is here? BLEU. Cultural adjustment fail.

So... there it is, the embarrassing edibles a self-purported foodie can't bring herself to get on board with. Feels freeing to get that off my chest.



***side note for people who only know me from Spain/this blog: you most definitely canNOT call me Kathy. I go by Kit in America (or "real life"), which you may call me if you promise not to introduce me to a Spanish person as Kit, because then they will forever call me "Keet" which, let's be real, sounds like an ugly bug.

que será, será

The question on every language assistant's mind, starting in November: am I staying here next year?

OK, not every language assistant. Some are definitely going home because their contracts are nonrenewable; others are definitely staying because they're in love with a Spaniard and/or this has become more their home than their home back home. If you know what I mean there. But the choice was definitely on my mind.

Time off, a visit back home to Raleigh and settling back into my routine made the decision easy for me.

I'm moving home next year.

Actually, to be honest, the decision was pretty much made before Christmas break. So why, you ask, am I leaving this 22-hour-a-work-week-living-in-Europe gig to go back to America, where food is processed, the work week is 40 hours, and none of those hours get cancelled because of a strike?

Well... lots of reasons. Life in Europe is still life, first of all. Yes, Bilbao is still awesome; yes, I still love it here. But when you live somewhere, it's not like you are a constant tourist; you are settling in, going to your job, coming home, cooking dinner, watching TV or reading, going to bed. Also, I have discovered that I don't terribly like teaching. Go figure. The kids are still entertaining sometimes and I have another job at an academy in the afternoons, both of which are fine jobs. I just don't dig teaching all that much.

But the main reason is this: I have the strongest desire to nest EVER. This has been the case almost since I got here. In the past 5 years, I haven't ever spent more than 1.5 years at a time living in the same place. I feel myself reaching the end of that stage. I want a dog and some kitchen appliances. I'd like to see my family more than once every few months. And, maybe most importantly, when I went home for Christmas I felt like I belonged. Spending some time away from Raleigh has taught me to appreciate that.

So... what next?

Well... I'll spend the next few months taking advantage of my time and opportunities here. Taste foods I've always wanted to try. Travel around as much as possible. Get to know Basque Country as well as I possibly can in 5 months. In June, if all goes according to plan, I'm hiking the Camino de Santiago. Check that one off the bucket list!

When I move home, I'd like to start pursuing photography. I don't know if this needs to entail an internship, apprenticeship, going back to school, or just starting and seeing what happens, but I'm going to find out. Any professional photographers who read this, feel free to leave tips!

And of course get a dog and a KitchenAid.

Beyond that... who knows?

oh, hello again

I just took a look, and it turns out I haven't posted for two weeks. TWO WEEKS! Oops.

I can explain: I was in America still, but all that had happened was still snow and Christmas and hanging out with my family. There are only so many ways to say "my dad makes a mean cuban sandwich."

Then I was in Germany, and the internet in our hotel was terr-i-ble.

Then I was here for 4 days, but my old friend Doctor Homesickness announced that he was open for business inside my mind again and really, who wants to hear detailed descriptions of how sad you're feeling? Not a travel blog audience, that's for dang sure.

Anyway, the long and short of this is: the blog is back up and running. Sorry for making y'all wait.

Germany post up next!

holidays in nc

it snowed the day after Christmas!

Christmas break is flying by. The flight back was one of the easiest ever (I made a new friend on the big flight!), my friend's wedding was gorgeous, and my dad once again made the best peppermint candy ice cream and cuban sandwiches in the world for my birthday.

I love Raleigh, guys. I love it so much that during the confused, rambling movie junkfest that is Elizabeth: The Golden Age, when Sir Walter Raleigh says something about building a shining city in the New World and someone makes a snide comment about how he'd probably name it after himself, I yelled "whoo!" I love the barely-two lane roads that wind through the residential sections of town. I love how Fayetteville Street is finally taking off downtown.

All through high school and college I felt like I couldn't get out of this town fast enough. Right now it seems like the only place I could possibly wind up.

17 hours.

Tomorrow morning at 7:20 AM, I get on the first of many airplanes that will eventually take me back to the Land of the Free.

What I'm looking forward to:

- Airplane food. I cannot even explain how much I love airplane food. I understand that it's gross; I understand that if you were to serve that same food to me in any other context I would be grossed-out at best. I don't care. I love the anticipation as the cart gets closer, I love getting to choose between pasta and chicken, I love the miracle of that ridiculously tiny amount of food somehow filling me up. Love it, love it, love it.

- Someone in the Frankfurt airport talking to me in German. After a few months in a country where I stick out everywhere I go, where no matter how much I shop at Mango and Zara and no matter how little eyeliner I wear I'm still so obviously foreign, it's oddly comforting to have someone mistake me for a fellow countryman. Even if all I can say in German is "Away with the ugly thing!" and "Damn it all anyway!" (thanks, Mom and Dad.)

- Kara's wedding. My friend Kara, who is one of my very favorite people I've ever lived with and also generally a beautiful person, is getting married on Saturday. I'm so lucky things worked out for me to be able to go living in another country!

- Seeing my family! Obviously. And Christmas. If I'm honest, spending Thanksgiving away from home was not that big of a deal for me, but I am so grateful to be able to spend Christmas with my family.

What I'm not so much looking forward to:

-Traveling sick. Why does "traveling" not have two L's? Anyway, I had a fever for about 8 hours last night, which doesn't always make for the very finest air travel experience. Hopefully this thing will have improved by tomorrow morning.

so true!

from about.com's tips for conversation with Americans:

Americans love to talk about location. When speaking to a stranger, ask them where they are from and then make a connection with that place. For example: "Oh, I have a friend who studied in Los Angeles. He says it's a beautiful place to live." Most Americans will then willingly talk about their experiences living or visiting that particular city or area.

It's so true! I didn't really realize other people groups didn't do that, except come to think of it no English people I've ever met have been excited to discover that one of my best friends is from London. Weird, I would be totally stoked if I met someone someplace random and they told me their best friend was from anywhere in NC!