House of Cards

Captain's bLog: 21 weeks.

We, the teachers, have officially designated the coming week as Spring Break. We have a car rented for the week and places to see, dammit! Plus we are not a little weary of school, and remembering we could just *decide* to do things like take breaks from it was like finding a forgotten $20 in a jacket pocket. Whee!

We - the teachers, that is - have been doing simply loads of very clever things like preparing assignments, then grading said assignments. Teaching things. Even making a report card, for goodness sake! Like, who do we even think we are? I think all children are a bit surprised when they realise their parents don't actually know everything (or anything, as the case may be), but Small Fry is gonna be pissed to learn we were faking it so hard. Maybe it's just my consultant side talking, but shouldn't I have provided a disclaimer somewhere? He can't sue me for teaching him Grade 6 without any training or credentials, can he? Who even let me have children in the first place?

Honestly, the whole thing is a house of cards. Best not to think on it too hard.

Unfortunately, my time in Spain has led me to believe my Spanish language skills are a house of cards as well. Even after poking fun at DH about his app-based French language proficiency, I went ahead with a learning app myself. And despite seriously questioning some of the claims DH's app was making about his progress, I was still fooled by my app into believing I was making useful, measurable progress, despite learning equally dubious phrases such as 'You are a genius!' Let's be honest here: the person I'm most likely to say that to is myself, so the learning of it gave me the illusion of progress while actually leaving me standing at the starting line with my thumb in my ass. The irony is not lost on me - Eres un genio, indeed.

Would you like to know who did teach me some useful Spanish?

First I'll set the scene: Imagine a leisurely, multi-course meal at a sidewalk cafe in atmospheric Girona. My belly is full and I'm feeling warm and buzzy from that extra glass of vino tinto I acquired by eloquently flapping my hands around my empty glass at the waiter, when a complete and lucid phrase comes burbling unbidden from the mysterious depths of my meat computer: Senor, la cuenta, por favor. I think the waiter was just as surprised as I was.

That's right, I learned my single most useful Spanish phrase to date from Weird Al's 1992 magnum opus, "Taco Grande." Honourable mentions go to "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)" by The Offspring, although I am unable to count to seis without saying cinco twice, and Dora the Explorer's backpack. Basically, thanks for nothing, Memrise. Eres un genio. /s

Anyway, I've managed to pick up a few new useful phrases in the past seven weeks, and what I don't know I've been mashing together like a crazed toddler: Round with apple please! got me the pastry I wanted at the bakery, for instance, while Very fatso please! got me the dress size I needed at the store. It ain't pretty, but it is getting results and really, who can argue with that?

I only hope Small Fry can come to feel the same way about his Grade 6 teachers one day.

Sixth Base

Captain's bLog: 20 weeks.

I read a lot of travel guides before embarking on this trip, and if I learned anything from them it is that Rick Steves does not know what "through the back door" connotes.

Otherwise, I'm with him on the philosophy, and we have taken many of his handy tips to heart: we are trying our darnedest to shed our Canadian notions and habits and become "temporary Europeans" while we're here. I mean, we're definitely not succeeding in it, but at least we're trying. 

I would even suggest going a step further than Rick Steves wants you to - let's call it sixth base - and try not only to live like a local, but to really suffer like one. Like, how can you fully experience regular life in a new place if you're sequestered in a private car? Get thyself some bus tickets and learn to sardine-can your way around town like a proper local. Unless you're in Italy, in which case the insanity of driving is a suffering unto itself, so definitely do rent a car for a few days. Count how many times a day you nearly die of a heart attack! Why are we all honking? Where even are the lanes?! (October 2020 update: P.S. Be sure to budget for the $300 traffic ticket you are definitely going to get in the mail six months after you get home.)

The locals don't have clothes dryers, so why would you? Learn to relish the lingering dampness of clothes you've line-dried in places where the humidity never dips below 80% - oh, and by the way pigeons have shitted on your clothes again.

The locals would never deign to eat anything other than their food, which is obviously the best food and should therefore be the only food, so learn to bear the frustration of having all the corn and tomatoes in the world, but none of the chips and salsa.

The locals live in old buildings that have been retrofitted into small and often awkward apartments, so stay on budget and really sink your teeth into the local experience of less personal space, no counter space, and a quarter of the plug-ins that modern, connected life requires. Surprise! The toilet is in a different room than the sink! Bonus like-a-local points if you somehow manage to perfectly align your menstrual cycle with all the apartments you've rented with this feature.

"Through the back door" is - well, I'll leave that definition to Rick Steves. But sixth base is all about getting past that fresh, sexy love it's so easy to have for a new place and developing a deeper relationship with it... discovering as much of the "warts-and-all" of a place that you can in the time you have, and then transcending the warts...

Or something like that. I'm still pretty sore about the pigeon shit so my transcendence might have to wait a few wash cycles more to kick in.

Late for Supper

Captain's bLog: 19 weeks.

Remember how your Grandma used to say things like, 'Oh I just cannot get over...' and the thing she couldn't get over was something you felt she should definitely get over (and probably also stop talking about, like, forever)? Well, now pretend I'm your Grandma, and the things I just cannot get over are things like how people eat supper at 10pm in Spain. Seriously - I can't get over it. Restaurants don't even open until 8:30pm, and if you are there smooshing your sad, hungry little street urchin face against the glass at 8:29pm it is an obvious sign that you're a tourist. First of all, only tourists get hungry for supper at such an unreasonably early hour, and secondly, definitely only tourists would expect the place to open at the actual time the signage indicated it would. Silly tourists, with their quaint notions about time!

So if supper is at 10pm - way after Grandma's usual bedtime - then when the heck is bedtime? The answer is that I'm not entirely sure people sleep here. Nightclubs close down at 7am, yet school and work days seem to start at comparable times to back home. I understand that the schoolchildren and nightclub-goer populations are unlikely to overlap substantially, but since everyone eats supper so damn late the overall effect is one of no one ever sleeping. There was a drunk dude on the street outside our window the other day bellowing "Puta! Puta!" and rubbing his dick on a taxi window - at 7:30am. I don't know what your youth was like, but that seems distinctly more of a 2:30am activity to me - days just seem to blend together differently here. We sipped our morning coffee and thought to ourselves grandmotherly things like, If only that poor young fellow had eaten supper earlier.

It also occurred to me that this would have been a much different trip for me at 21-and-single than it is at 41-with-family-in-tow, and it surely would be different again at 61-and-who-knows. More tripping at both ends of the scale - ha! Taxi-dick guy reminded me that I'm not experiencing the (apparently) wild Spanish nightlife, but on the other hand, in my recollection the wild night life was overrated sometimes - pretty sure I've been in that escape taxi enough for one life. And maybe I'm spending more time lesson planning and cooking supper (at a stolid North American hour) than one might envision for a dream trip, but I've also never felt closer with DH and Small Fry, and we will always have this incredible shared experience on file. In short, it would certainly have been a different trip, but I can't imagine it being any more perfect, and I certainly would have experienced different stuff, yet I don't feel as if I've missed out on a single thing.

Basically, I just cannot get over how splendid it's been. And I hope to never get over it.   

Ode to Florence

Captain's bLog: 18 weeks.

Welcome, friends, to Florence
Home of the Renaissance
Where you will soon discover
A rather shocking lack of pants.

The modern folks of course have clothes
But nearly everywhere you look
You'll find peering, one-eyed, back at you
A knob in every nook.

The abundance is astounding
To be believed it must be seen
The sheer, profuse variety
Of artistic EuroPeen:

   There's ivory and wood and bronze
   Alabaster, plaster, paint
   Assorted multi-media schlongs
   Hercules' marble taint.

   Endless paintings, untold sculpts
   In the round and in relief
   Countless gargoyles, every fount:
   That classic trouser snake motif.

   Jupiter, Neptune, Cupid, Pan
   Hercules fighting All the Things
   Angels, demons, Vitruvian Man
   Even Jesus' holy ding-a-ling.

   The work is lovely, I do concede,
   So perhaps I'm just unsophisticated,
   But does the world truly need
   Another reprodicktion David?

Forgive my logical phallus-y
But all the pecker-centric art created
In the Renaissance sure makes it seem
As if folks then were just... really naked.

If everyone's firehoses were flying free  
I have so many questions
Like, what did they ever do about
Spontaneous erections?

And if not while warring or wrestling lions,
I wonder, under what rare circumstance 
Might they have felt exposed enough
To finally consider pants?

Whatever the answers, I can attest,
As I have thoroughly taken stock,  
That romantic, inspiring, intellectual Florence
Is also chock-a-block with cock.

Snack-Sized

Captain's bLog: 17 weeks.

I dreamed I was having a long-term affair with an animated superhero-type (specifically, Metro Man). He was always so busy with superhero stuff that we didn't get to spend much time together, until one day some shit went down at a big cocktail party and he scooped me up and flew me to safety atop a nearby building.

This was surprising to me, because if anything it's Megamind I have a crush on. One thing celebrity sex dreams have taught me, however, is that I do not get to pick my celebrities. Just one of life's little disappointments, amirite? We live in a time where I could almost certainly find sexy fan fiction about Megamind online if I were so inclined, but, like, hard no to that. (That so many people write terrible shit and post it online where it has the opportunity to infect other people's brains is IMHO one of life's big disappointments.)

I also thought I had already experienced every type of flying dream one could possibly have; the superhero scoop was a new one for me. Not quite so fun as self-propelled flying dreams, but still pretty rad. 8/10.

There was a third level of surprise in my Metro Man dream that does involve some elements of sexy fanfic, but saying even that much makes me feel dangerously close to infecting other people's brains with things they never wished to think so I will stop myself there - anything your brain conjures about sexy Metro Man after this point is entirely your own doing.

Anyway, the whole point of this is to say: I will never be famous. That was never my goal - in fact, it sounds pretty terrible - but notice how you don't ever hear famous people saying they dreamed they had an affair with a cartoon character, or got a free book with their grocery purchase, or bought a 4-pack of cigarettes. Famous people have big, juicy, meaningful dreams. They dream famous works of art, literature, cinema, music - I read that David Bowie was inspired to write the song Five Years by a dream of his deceased father, and I was like, now this is a dude who dreams in full-size packs of smokes.

I will never be famous because my dreams - literal and figurative - are simply not famous-sized. They are... snack-sized. Dare I say, blog-sized. But I'm not at all sad about this - I've searched around my brain and discovered that my smallish dreams are just fine by me. (And honestly, why can't you buy a 4-pack of cigarettes? That is precisely the level of commitment I appreciate in my life.) On that note, I will leave you with this final dream: I dreamed that DH whispered in my ear that he wanted me to eat his donuts. I was briefly concerned that this was some sort of disturbing innuendo, but lo and behold he was actually covered in small donuts! The tiny chocolate eclair he had stuck to his shin was particularly nice, but I also enjoyed a cinnamon-sugar Timbit from his chest and a mini powdered donut from his shoulder.

This dream was utterly meaningless and inspired exactly zero great artistic works, but it was fun and pleasant and about as perfectly snack-sized as those wee assorted donuts - or these blogs. Why not enjoy a few with your coffee today?

Grimace and Bear It

Captain's bLog: 16 weeks.

Instagram ruins lives. Or, at the very least, vacations. Not my vacations, because I hate Instagram and refuse to use it, but definitely the vacations of the photographer-boyfriends who trail sullenly behind their photographee-girlfriends, taking the photos or videos that will ultimately be posted to her Insta.

Exhibit A: DH, Small Fry and I were at a glorious outdoor thermal bath in Tuscany and saw one poor fellow film his girlfriend just entering the pool, over and over again. I don't know why the shot had to be redone so many times, but he would follow her in, iPhone rolling, then she would review the video, deem it imperfect, and they would start again. I am pretty sure at least one take was ruined by some random fat lady in the background making incredulous faces at them (it was me - I'm talking about me), but others seemed to be rejected over frolicking children, her hair not draping correctly, swimsuit adjustments, and who knows what else. Once that shot was perfected, they moved on to another area of the baths to take different photos. In the several hours we 'took the waters', I did not see either of them actually seem to relax and enjoy the pools.

Exhibit B: While the weather back home was especially frightful, we made a point of really getting our money's worth by spending a sunny afternoon at a sidewalk cafe located near a photogenic local landmark in Girona. It was basically a perfect storm for people watching: I saw someone's dog pee on their backpack - like, really soak it (both were sitting under the table while their owner dined). I watched a little old lady use a magnifying glass to read her smartphone (I am positive there is an app for that). And I watched a young woman set up props on the steps of the landmark - a stunning landmark, which certainly did not require further adornment - which she posed with while her sullen photographer-boyfriend took and re-took photos until she was satisfied. I could have forgiven this foolishness had they settled in for a drink and actually enjoyed the lovely setting for a few minutes, but instead they packed up their props and scurried off to "improve" the next piece of local history with some snazzy-coloured suitcases.

Exhibit C: Does anyone actually eat their food while it's hot anymore? I could start an Insta dedicated entirely to photos of other people taking photos of their food. Which, by the way, would definitely include a photo of a certain little old lady peering through her bifocals, through her magnifying glass, at her phone, trying to take a picture of her tapas and sangria.

Of course, I could just be too old to "get" any of these things (although not so old that I can't see my phone screen!) and Instagram might not be ruining vacations or lives to nearly the extent that I imagine. Let us consider some alternate hypotheses:

The sullen boyfriends could in fact be fully enjoying their vacations, and simply suffering a bad case of resting bitch face... Meh, seems doubtful.

Treating one's entire life like a photo shoot or potential monetization event could be a very fulfilling way to live... I think we all know on a gut level this is not true.

I could be secretly envious of people with dedicated photographer-boyfriends and wish I could experience all the benefits a photographer-boyfriend would bestow upon my own vacations. For instance, I wouldn't have to all but issue a formal proclamation that I would like the photo record to reflect the fact that I, too, was on the vacation... my body would never be cut off at my widest points (I happen to be #blessed with several of them) so it looks as if I continue to flow eternally outward, like Grimace... my photos would come pre-screened to ensure no one's eyes were closed, or mouths were mid-sentence, or heads were entirely obscured by their mother's right breast...

Ahem, as I was saying, it could be that my burning vacation photo envy has embittered me and I must therefore mock the Insta-obssessed and their sullen photographer-boyfriends to make myself feel better...

Nah. Couldn't be that either. It's definitely ruining lives.
  

Shaved Hams

Captain's bLog: 15 weeks.

Despite having over four years to prepare for this trip, I have found myself woefully un- or under-prepared for a great many things - not least of which has been my inability to get out of my own way when it comes to attempting to communicate. Most of the things have been relatively minor: I wish I had smuggled over a box or two of KD to alleviate Small Fry's loneliness for home, for instance. I wish I had spritzed my scarves with my perfume before packing them. I wish I had known that messy buns are not a "thing" in France so I could have tried to figure out a second hairstyle in my entire life.

These are all practical examples, but there have also been things for which I was not emotionally or - for lack of a better term - "psychically" prepared: The insane driving speeds and bewildering road signage in Germany. That I would become very bored, very quickly, with my mix & match travel wardrobe, and be unable to shake the daily dissatisfaction I feel at each rehash of the eight or so outfits I have on hand. The shocking number of pig legs on display in Spain.

You may think I'm joking about that last bit, but I truly cannot overstate how many pig legs there are here. They are hanging on walls and in windows, laid out on countertops, and standing on racks in the aisles at grocery stores like so many meaty guitars - display one on your own wall today! (Or: jam out with your ham out.) (I'm still working on the ad campaign.) I even saw one that had been 'planted' decoratively in a terracotta pot. Or at least I think it was a decoration - all of the legs are displayed out in the open, so it could have been a cool new way to serve it up for all I know. Given the abundance of open-air pig legs in the typically cozy quarters of wee old town shops, it feels as if there is a constant risk of snagging your scarf on a trotter. Not to mention food poisoning. I'm not convinced the air is even vegetarian in most of these establishments, which I guess would be cool if you were giving up meat for Lent and wanted to sneak one past God, but for the rest of the time, is inhaling that much cured meat... healthy?

No doubt about it, pig legs are as much a part of the scenery here as ham is part of the diet.

In French class in middle school, we each had to give a little presentation about how we got ready for school in the morning. One girl said she shaved her jambons every day, and as retribution for laying that bullshit beauty standard on a bunch of 12-year-old kids, for 30 years I have been joking "gotta shave my hams!" every time I need to shave my jambes. In the event I ever decide to enter into politics, I would like to preemptively apologize for my decades of cultural insensitivity in this matter: here in Catalunya, one just might shave one's hams every day.