Immersion 101

Until this weekend I've been saying that I'm truly being immersed in the Spanish culture, but now that I've spent a weekend at home, no Mary Carr to speak English with, almost all friends out of town in Portugal or Italy or wherever they might be off to, I think I've caught a glimpse at what really being immersed in this culture is like. For one, I completely feel like I live here. Everything has felt so natural about this weekend with Cristina, it really feels like I'm just living with a family member (one who is a bit nutty, of course, but you just have to take her freak-outs with a grain of salt). We even had a moment the other night when she asked if she could come in to my room since my door was half-way closed, and when I said of course she could (I thought she might have had a comment about me doing something wrong) she just wanted to give me a kiss good night and tell me that if I needed anything she would be sitting in the living room and I could get her for anything. It was truly sweet and it made me realize that, even though she's said it before that she enjoys having girls come live with her and its what keeps her young/happy, she really does thrive on being the mom figure...and then before she left she did mention that I leave my closet door open too often and I need to remember to shut it (?)...it wouldn't have been a proper visit if she hadn't offered some much-needed advice or recommendations for what to do/not to do. So I decided this weekend I wanted to let her be that mom figure full on. So this is what we've been up to:

On Sunday there was a festival in the park across from my school (el Mercado Romano, to be exact) that looked interesting to me so I asked if she wanted to go with me to check it out. She took the bus downtown and I biked (except all the Sevici stations were out of order so I had to walk, causing her to wait for me and get very confused/worked up), but once we were both there and all calmed down we meandered around the park, looking at the stands of food/artisan craft-work/"Roman" games and traditional clothing. I thought it might be a food market like I've come to love since being in Europe, but I should've known better. Almost all the types of food they sold were chorizo/cured ham/cheese. I could have called that. But there were also stands of dried fruit and caramelized nuts so Cristina bought me some and I bought some for myself to make a little trail mix snack. She also bought the tiniest sliver of Gruyere cheese you ever saw as "una tapita" for herself. We looked at the stands of women offering to tell you your futures and read you tara cards, the stands of Moroccan men selling herbal teas and herb mixtures that solved everything from indigestion to celulitis, the jewelry stands with all hand-made leather bracelets and bronze rings with stones the size of your fist, and even the wild bird stand where you could have your picture taken with a falcon, a hawk, or an owl. We even watched a few parades pass through the rows of stands, made up of men dressed as Roman soldiers, playing old instruments, and a woman dressed as a gypsy, dancing, leading the pack through the park.

My favorite sample of the day: Pesto cheese

The two of us; qué mona

For dinner, since we ate so many samples and candied nuts in the market, we just had a tortilla de patatas for dinner but I told her how I was going to use the recipes she had taught me and had me write down in my daily life when I got home and she was overjoyed. When I told her my family is big on cooking and that I would also share her recipes with them, she was beside herself. She even said, "I'm a celebrity." She then proceeded to make plans for us for Monday...

On Monday morning I went with her to the market where she buys all the fresh fruits/vegetables and meats/bread for our meals for the day. She goes to the market every single day, and only shops with the mindset of what to eat for the next two meals. So her groceries always fit in one bag and there's hardly ever leftovers (and hardly ever things to eat around the house when she's not home and I'm scavenging for snacks). I think it made her morning that I went with her, because along the way we stopped so many times for her to tell me something about a certain store, a certain plant she passes every day, a certain shop owner she knows really well...I could just tell she's proud of what's hers, and this is a big part of her life. She introduced me to all the vendors in the market that she knows and buys from every day, and the fruit man even gave me flowers to take home. 

Self timer pose with some of the flowers and some chorizo, what a combo

And after she started making lunch I went in to the kitchen and asked if I could watch as she made salmorejo, which, again, made her day. She showed me all the utensils she uses, exactly how much of everything to put in, and showed me step by step her process of the dish. She also explained the difference between salmorejo and gazpacho; they sounded almost identical to me, except for the fact that there's peppers in gazpacho, but Cristina told me gazpacho is strictly a summertime food. 

Everything (except my handicap of not being able to walk much/exercise at all) about this weekend has been so fulfilling. I feel at peace and at home where I am. I've been able to relax without worrying about school since we have this whole week off from class because of Feria. The weather has been awesome and I've gotten to lay out in the courtyard of our apartment complex every day when the sun reaches it from 2-5:30ish. I've caught up on every single show I've ever watched, and even started watching Girls on HBO...I sort of hate it but when there's nothing else to do I find myself watching episode after episode and somehow I'm already on season 2. The weekend has just been like a timeout from my already timeout of a semester, and I am welcoming it. For anyone who knows me, I set an alarm every single day, even when I don't have a place to be at any certain time (and that is quite unusual). But the past 3 days I've just woken up when my eyes open, and sometimes I even fall back asleep for another hour or so. I did take one bike excursion Sunday morning out around town, checking in my bike to renew the rental every 25 minutes or so, and I biked all through Triana, los Remedios, to the Feria fairgrounds and through Maria Luisa park for about 2 hours. But other than that I've been pretty sedentary all weekend, something very unlike me to be. At first I had thoughts of being bored, but I need to realize that its okay to not do anything. I don't have to be productive every second of the day, feeling like I'm accomplishing something. I don't even have to be filling my time up with any one thing. When I walked to the market with Cristina and she stopped to smell a rose, then stopped to read the specials menu of a restaurant she's probably passed a gazillion times, and then stopped at least 10 more times before even getting to the market, it occurred to me that these are the things that give her satisfaction. She doesn't have a lot going on, but that means she's got the time to notice the littlest things in her path. Quite literally, she is stopping to smell the roses. So while we were on this little adventure and I started thinking to myself, "come on already, let's just get there!" I tried to retrace my thoughts and just look with her at whatever she was noticing. I might not have finished all the work school-wise I have to do for the semester over the course of the weekend, and I might not have been able to stick to the Insanity calendar, but here's what I'm thinking: any day in Spain that I'm practicing Spanish, learning how to live a little more in a different culture, and able to sit outside to enjoy some sunshine is a day worth being proud of.