Adventures in Air-Drying and Other Things

It seems like a great idea when you think about it. Clean laundry, drying in the wind, billowing with sweet open air. It resonates with a sort of idyllic, 50s-style domestic perfection.

However, surprisingly, line-drying clothes isn’t as exciting as one would imagine. It’s a rainy winter, and anyway the only outdoor space we have for lines are our balconies, so the clothes hang around on the little indoor rack in the living room for a day and a half or so, while you check every fifteen minutes to gauge whether they feel any less soggy than they did before. It's like an exercise in patience: practice patience, and you can leave the house in dry jeans. I wear a lot of damp clothes. 

In everything else, I’m starting to feel settled. Life in Spain is a lot like life in any other place--work, laundry, cooking, friends--everything is just a little bit different and new.

Part One: Work. I love my coworkers and they’ve treated me with an almost familial generosity, the appreciation for which I wish I could properly articulate to them in Spanish. In my first week alone, the headmaster took me to the movies, the vice principal had me over for lunch, the preschool English teacher took me out for drinks twice, and the fourth grade English teacher gave me an extensive verbal list of good places to go clubbing. When the apartment drama was in full swing (which I’ll talk about, I promise), three separate coworkers offered me a place in their home while I looked for new housing. I can't even comprehend the niceness of these people. The kids are pretty great too. They are, if not always attentive during lessons, unfailingly adorable. I’m working with children from age 3 to age 12 and it’s fascinating to watch the way language teaching develops and evolves between levels. They have a lot of mocos, and I’ve been sick a few times since I started teaching, but their drawings pretty much make up for everything.

I’m also having a great time making friends. A closet introvert, I'm always intimidated by the idea of finding buddies (an intimidation that's compounded by the fact that when I try to talk to Spaniards I sound like a two-year-old), but everyone has been really welcoming. I've befriended all the Americans in the town and I’m also working on breaking into a particular circle of Spanish friends (this "breaking in" usually includes me either sitting mute while I fear saying something stupid or being taught dirty phrases and swear words) with unflagging—and probably annoying—persistence. Fingers crossed I will stop seeming like a personality-less pest to them by Christmas. Big goals.

Roommate with tortilla triumph

Some of my friends from high school and college are also in Spain, which is making adjustment all the easier and gives me top-notch excuses for trips. For Halloween, I went to Madrid to see Kirstie, a good friend from Prep, and this past weekend I visited Jessica, one of my lovely Stanford favorites, in Bilbao. I came back from Bilbao with a new respect for the beauty of the city, a ponch from the 80 pounds of delicious pintxos I at, and an ongoing tally of sightings of Old Basque Men In Berets (only 31 so far, but winter’s barely started). As far as Madrid goes, it remains unchanged and hands-down one of my favorite places in the world. Apart from the weekend with Kirstie, I’ve gone to Madrid four times (once for an American Christmas Bazaar, complete with a Santa and root beer (which Spaniards hate like cough syrup) and peanut butter (which Spaniards hate like vegemite)). It’s finally occurred to me that I should be taking pictures of these things—however, so far my camera’s just loaded with pictures of food. Typical.

Cooking for myself is another adventure. Most of my meals are either overcooked, undercooked, or prepared from frozen packages. Still, I’m starting to get the hang of it, which is even more rewarding than I would have expected. I even made some chicken last week that tasted pretty not bad! As I ate it, I said a hundred apologies to my poor father for making fun of him when, ten years ago, he proudly showed me how he had finally learned how to cook a chicken (this continues to be his signature—and maybe only—dish, and I have a whole new appreciation for it). Still, despite my fabulous chicken, I think my novice is showing. Last week, as my roommate, Laura, and I were making Spanish tortilla (see triumphant photo), she assigned me the seemingly simple task of scrambling the eggs in a bowl before we poured them in with the potatoes. I got out a fork and went about my scrambling business, but after 5 or 10 seconds, Laura looked over, laughed, and said, “You don’t do this often, do you?” She then kindly removed the fork from my hands and took to the eggs like a tornado. It was a low point in my life when I realized that, compared to her, I literally failed at scrambling eggs.

I’ll have to rally all my latent cooking skills this Thursday for the Thanksgiving feast I’m hosting with some American friends. That’s right. In only a few short days, Spanish teachers, Spanish friends, and Spanish roommates will unite to have their first taste of stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie (pie does not exist in Spain) prepared by the woman who cannot cook eggs. Let me repeat: these Spaniards’ first pumpkin pie (the single most important American invention and symbol of all time) will be baked by YOURS TRULY. Challenge accepted. Wish me luck.