my dad makes the best mint juleps.

...See?

Happy Father's Day to the best dad ever.

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.

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.

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.

heading back to the south

No, not that south.

This south.



Possibly I have not mentioned it on this blog, but I studied abroad back in 2007 in Sevilla. Now my oldest stepsister is studying abroad in the same program in the same city and I'm off to visit her this weekend.

Sevilla, where oranges fall in the streets, cars run over them and the whole city smells like juice all winter, until the orange blossoms form in the spring (then the city just smells like heaven). Where bullfights and flamenco and machismo and all the things you think of when you think of Spain are a real part of life. Where you head to the old part of the city and are constantly clobbered over the head with how outlandishly beautiful everything is, as opposed to what I think of as the gentle lulling of the beauty here in the north.

I will go the baños árabes and eat 2000 Bar Manolo olives and relax in my favorite restaurants and maybe find Scottish Donald and see if he will do his "upper Michigan accent" for me again.

"shrimp and grits." "y'all." "Johnny Cash."

These were the important terms I wound up writing on the boards today in my various classes. As it turns out, you can take the girl out of the south, but then she gets approximately 700% more southern. I spoke to about 6 classes today and introduced myself, and when you're supposed to introduce yourself and your culture, it's hard not to become a bit of a cliche of your own region.

Other highlights:

One of my coworkers at the school is also new and she is super friendly and she invited me to her village and to go see an Athletic game with her (her brother is a socio and can hook us up with tickets). Awesome!

The student (a girl) who asked me, "do you like Basque boys?" This was in the most out-of-control of my classes and by far the most hilarious.

The class that got way more entertainment looking for all the Springfields on my US map than I would have ever dreamed possible.

The roller coaster of excitement and confusion that is Basque school. All the professors speak to each other almost exclusively in Euskera, which as it turns out is pretty intimidating. But then, I have short conversations with people and it feels like the biggest accomplishment ever. "Good morning," I say. "Good morning," they reply. Sometimes I say "Hi," and they say "Hello." Most impressively, yesterday I asked the lady at the front desk, "where is Esteban?" She told me in Spanish, but I still felt pretty good about it. I think I'm going to take it to the next level tomorrow and ask "where is Esteban, please?"

Anyway, next week I am planning to do music activities with my classes. My higher-level classes are all getting Johnny Cash day. A selection of the vocabulary I will be teaching them from "A Boy Named Sue": booze, ain't, honky-tonk, stud, cuss, saloon, gouging.


Euskera of the day:
Esteban non dago, mesedez? "Where is Esteban, please?"