Celaje / Cloudscape

Saqué esta video hace unas 3 semanas, desde la murallas juntas al Concello. Las nubes encima del mar y del Morrazo eran impresionantes.

This is a video from about 3 weeks ago, taken from the walls by the Concello. The clouds over the ocean and over the Morrazo were pretty impressive.

Santiago de Compostela II

Ayer llegué a Santiago de Compostela a las nueve; hacía frío y la ciudad monumental era envuelta en niebla y nubes bajas. Para mí es casi un caso de conductismo: si hay paisajes neblinosos, voy a sacar un montón de fotos. Y no os preocupéis. Saqué una cantidad absurda. Pero realmente era una vista impactante. Desde la Praza do Obradoiro (frente a la Catedral) se veía las torres y la fachada de la Catedral a contraluz; con la niebla, rayos individuales del sol eran distintamente visibles; incluso las cosas más delgadas, como las cruces de metal encima de las torres, proyectaban sombras en tres dimensiones a través de la niebla. Era hechizante. Ese tipo de cosa es difícil de capturar con una cámara pero lo intenté.

Yesterday I got to Santiago de Compostela at nine a.m.; it was cold and the old town was shrouded in mist and low clouds. For me it's almost a case of behaviorism, if there are misty landscapes I will be there snapping photos. And never fear: I took an absurd amount of photos. But really, it was an impressive sight. From the Praza do Obradoiro (in front of the Cathedral) you saw the towers and the façade with the sun coming up behind them; with the fog, individual sunbeams were distinctly visible; even the thinnest things, like the metal crosses on top of the steeples, cast three-dimensional shadows in the mist. It was incredible. It's a hard thing to capture with the camera, but I tried.

La foto arriba parece muy Mitteleuropeano; me recuerda a Praga
The photo above seems very Mitteleuropa, makes me think of Prague

Fui al mercado en plan turista. No es que no tenemos mercados como esto en EEUU, pero me gusta mucho los mercados al principio del día; la manera de la que se coloca las cosas es muy pintoresca; además, donde vivo yo no tenemos tantos mariscos y peces y por eso es interesante verlos.

I went to the market as a tourist. Not that we don't have markets like this in the US. I just like markets early in the day; the way all the foods are arranged is picturesque; in addition we don't have so much fish & seafood where I live, so it's interesting to see them (the fish packed together tight, the crabs and shrimp flexing in their cubbies).

In the background you can see the Cidade da Cultura complex that Aunt L. told me about during the summer. I didn't make it out there (you have to take a bus) but there are cultural events going on September thru December. I'm not sure if this photo really gives you an idea of the scale; it's positively gigantic. I saw a recent newspaper article criticizing the whole thing as one of those poorly-thought-out pharaonic projects conceived of & approved in a burst of official enthusiasm (i.e. a fast ferry) (one example here).

Al fondo se puede ver el complejo Cidade da Cultura. No fui (hay que coger un autobus) pero hay eventos culturales de septiembre a diciembre. No sé si esta foto realmente da una idea de la escala del edificio; es verdaderamente ingente. Vi un articulo de periódico recientemente que la criticaba como uno de esos proyectos mal planeados y faraónicos que gobiernos municipales conciben y aprueban en un arranque de entusiasmo (por ejemplo aquí).

Thanksgiving en Vigo

Election Day

The general elections were held today. I wanted to do a post earlier in this week describing election-related things I had seen, but I was lazy and never got around to it. Anyway, polls have been saying for weeks and months that the Socialists were going to be defeated badly and that the Populares would be the new governing party. I bought the newspaper one week ago and the headlines flatly referred to the Socialist defeat (that still hadn't happened at that point) as a "debacle." So you can see the attitude people were coming to this with. Of course Spain has 20% unemployment (and 40% youth unemployment) so it's no surprise that the incumbent party was expected to lose. I mean, people talk about Obama not being reelected for mainly economic reasons--now imagine what it would be like if we had 20% unemployment. The strange part of the whole story is that the Partido Popular is a conservative party that is certainly going to pursue a politics of fiscal restraint, which I can't imagine being really popular during a crisis (semantics lesson: rather than talking about a recession or whatever, Spanish people always refer to "la crisis"-- this is a totally ubiquitous phrase to the point that stores will advertise their special deals as "crisis prices"). The other important part of the story is discontent/anger with politics in general, with the indignados and so on.
So what did I see in Vigo? Not too much actually. There were a bunch of PP campaign cars driving around. I mean cars decked out in blue with the PP logo (in Europe red=leftist, radical, etc, and blue=conservative) with loudspeakers mounted on top that drove around playing music and urging you to vote for their party. There are a lot of posters in the area where I live that express a general discontent with the foreseen outcome of the elections. One poster for some leftist Galician party showed the two main candidates and asked, "Are you going to vote for the right, or the extreme right?" A communist poster said "Gañe quen gañe, a pobo traballador galego perde" which means "Whoever wins, the Galician working people lose." The other day an indignado handed me a flyer telling me to vote for Bert and Ernie "since you already know beforehand that they're puppets manipulated by hidden hands." At the bottom of the flyer you were informed of various voting strategies (not voting, voting blank, writing-in candidates, writing nonsense on your ballot as a protest) and their results (for example, if you vote blank your ballot is still counted and added to the total, which makes it more difficult for small parties to break percentage thresholds). There are posters that combine the names and logos of the two major parties PP and PSOE to make PPSOE.
Anyway, the PP had a big victory today, but other that these observations I don't really have any interesting analysis or insights. On facebook I saw some doom&gloom statuses, but this isn't suprising, I can only imagine what my facebook will look like if Obama loses in 2012.

Magosto

Here's an explanation I picked up at school.

“Historia del Magosto.

Recibe este nombre la fiesta que se organiza en el mes de noviembre, especialmente el día de Todos los Santos y el de San Martín para asar y posteriormente comer las castañas.

Antiguamente era frecuente acompañar los magostos con vino nuevo. Normalmente las chicas aportaban las castañas y los chicos el vino. También se comía el pan de trigo y otros alimentos de la época. Terminaba el magosto con juegos y bailes. El juego más común era el de tiznarse la cara unos a otros.*

Los magostos están vinculados al día de difuntos porque existía la creencia de que por cada castaña comida se liberaba un alma de purgatorio.

Los zonchos eran collares o rosarios de castañas cocidas con la monda y atravesadas con un hilo, esta es una costumbre que hoy en día todavía se mantiene.

Actualmente se realizan los magostos en casi todos los lugares de Galicia, pues se intenta recuperar la costumbre, aunque sólo se dé importancia al hecho de comer las castañas y hacer la fiesta.”

“History of Magosto.

This is the name of the festival that is organized in the month of November, especially All Saints’ Day and Saint Martin’s day, to roast and to afterwards eat chestnuts. [Editorial comment: I swear that the original Spanish is pretty awkward, this isn’t solely the fault of my translation.]

Formerly it was common to drink new wine at Magosto. Normally the girls would bring the chestnuts and boys would bring the wine. People also ate wheat bread and other foods of that time. Magosto ended with games and dances. The most common game was to mark other people’s faces with charred sticks.

Magosto celebrations were linked to the day of the dead because there existed the belief that for every chestnut you ate, a soul would be freed from purgatory. [Man, this seems like a really easy way to free souls from purgatory. Just saying. They would have put that Tetzel guy out of business.]

Zonchos were necklaces or rosaries made from chestnuts cooked in their skins and run through with a string, which is a custom that is continued today.

Currently magosto is celebrated in almost all parts of Galicia, as people are trying to recover the custom, although they only give importance to the act of eating chestnuts and having a party.”

*I remember learning the noun "tizón" at one point and thinking "how strange. They have one single noun that refers to a charred stick? Is this really a necessary word?" Now they've taken it one step further and we have the verb "tiznar" which means "to mark with a charred stick."

Above: Magosto foods. Incl: Chocolate-covered chestnuts, chestnut truffles, apple cake.

¡Asando las castañas! / Roasting the chestnuts!

Con la cara tiznada / Marked up with charcoal

Castañas, noces e viño
Fan as delicias do San Martiño

Chesnuts, walnuts and wine
Are what makes Saint Martin's day so fine

Polo San Martiño
faise o magosto
con castañas asadas
e viño ou mosto

For Saint Martin's
you celebrate Magosto
with roasted chestnuts
and wine or grape juice

Nos soutos enteiros
vellos castiñeiros
de froitos cargados
e soños dourados

Whole forests
of old chestnut trees
filled with nuts
and golden dreams

Xa sopra o vento
¡chegou o momento!
Cun amplo sorriso
regaña o ourizo
Ven Santos chuvioso
Con moitos magostos
¡As ricas castañas
quentiñas asadas!

Not sure if I can translate this one properly... Some relevant information: the spiky covering of a chestnut is called "ourizo" (Castilian: erizo) which means "hedgehog." Also it is a common trope to think of the ourizo as smiling (sorriso=sonrisa=smile) because of the way it splits open in a curved shape. I'm not quite sure what the verb "regañar" (to scold) is doing in there. I'm guessing that the word Santos is doing synecdoche duty for "o día dos Santos", or else the adjective "chuvioso" would be plural (right..?) Anway, here goes...

Now the wind is blowing
The moment's arrived!
The chestnut-shell scolds
with a great big smile!
Rainy Saints' day is coming
with many magostos!
Tasty chestnuts,
piping hot and roasted!

Dummy-lynching

Scene: in front of 3 banks. There used to be a camp-out of indignados, but it's gone now. Don't know what happened. Indignados are the original occupiers. Back in May they occupied Puerta del Sol in Madrid and other places in Spain. In Vigo they camped out in front of Santander and the other banks by Rúa Príncipe as well as in front of the Concello de Vigo (the city hall). The weird thing about the Vigo campout was that it was right in the middle of the city-- I mean, if you were going for an "unignorable" spot this would be it. Yet thousands of people walked by each day ignoring them and their signs (a giant chart of what media groups and banks are owned by which corporations, etc).
Now here's moneybags strung up from the lamppost. Remember when Sarah Palin used a target symbol on her website and everyone flipped out? I wonder what would happen if Occupy Whereever hung bankers in effigy.

Escenario: frente a tres bancos. Antes hubo un campamento de indignados, pero ya no está. No sé que pasó. Los indignados son los predecesores de los "occupiers" en EE UU (en el sentido temporal y, digamos, espiritual). En Vigo tenían campamentos en frente de los bancos (Santander y otros) en la Rúa Príncipe además de en la plaza al lado del Concello de Vigo (el ayuntamiento). Lo raro fue que era en el centro de la ciudad-- queiro decir que si se buscara un lugar "imposible de ignorar" eso lo sería. Pero miles de personas pasaban al lado cada día y no les hacían caso a los indignados ni a sus carteles (gráficos que muestran cuales grupos de medios de comunicación pertenecen a cuales corporaciones, etc).
Y ahora tenemos a Don Ricachón colgando de la farola. Hace dos años la política/payasa norteamericana Sarah Palin usaba una imágen de un blanco o la mira de un fusil en su sitio web para señalar los distritos decisivos en la campaña electoral y todo el mundo se ponía muy enfadado. Me pregunto que pasaría si Occupy Donde Sea ahorcara a los banqueros en efigie.

Baiona

I paid a short visit to Baiona (or Bayona, in the Castilian spelling). It's a small coastal city not too far from Vigo. I think for a long time the two were pretty similar in size and character, until Vigo became more industrially developed, and Baiona settled down into its present status as a tourist town. One interesting thing about the town is that it was the first port of call for Columbus's ships after discovering the New World.

This is the Parador or luxury hotel of Bayona.

Note the mussels clogging every crease in these rocks

Lady, whose shrine stands on the promontory...

Here on the ocean-facing side of the promontory, waves are stronger than in Vigo, since in Vigo we are sheltered by the Islas Cíes and also farther into the ría (ría= bay or river-mouth, evidently the word ria is used in English too, it's a geographical term). You can see the wind picking up water from the crests of the waves.

You may need to expand the picture to see it (right-click), but there are figures out on the rocks, I assume collecting mussels.

No, the weather wasn't the best... not too long after this it began to pour... that's Galician weather for you

This is the inner side of the bay. If you expand the picture you can probably spot the replica of la Carabela Pinta, Columbus's ship "Pinta." You can visit this replica although I didn't. I have to say, it's really tiny! It seems unbelievable that a ship so small crossed the Atlantic when they didn't even really know if there was anything to be found.

O Samaín de Tirán

This was my lesson plan for the week. On one side of a sheet of paper I drew the different parts of a costume and on the other side I drew the completed costume. So I taught the vocab and had the kids guess what the finished costume would be--that part was usually pretty easy.

Esto era mi plan de la clase para la semana. En una cara de una hoja de papel dibujé las varias partes de un disfraz y en la otra cara dibujé el disfraz completo. Entonces les enseñaba el vocabulario y pedía que adivinaran que sería el disfraz completo--obviamente esa parte no era tan difícil.

Then they drew their own costumes.
Y dibujaban sus propios disfraces.

This was the mural I painted for them to color in-- the finished version can be seen in the background of one of the photos below.
Aquí veis el mural que pinté para que lo colorearan-- la versión terminado se ve en el fondo de una de las fotos abajo.

These Jack O'Lanterns were actually really impressive.
But, you know, I heard one professor saying to another, "I'm glad the kids can be creative but as far as I'm concerned that's the only saving grace of this whole thing... this isn't our culture. This is an imposition of the Anglo-Saxon culture."
There is, however, a more indigenous version, and that's Samaín, the Celtic Halloween.

Oí un profesor diciendo a un otro, "Me alegre de que los chicos tienen la oportunidad de estar creativos con esto, pero según mi opinión, esa es la única buena cosa de todo esto-- esto no es nuestra cultura. Es una imposición de la cultura anglosajona."
(Nota para castellanoparlantes: la palabra "anglosajón" es muy poco usada en inglés. Se la usa casi exclusivamente para refirir a la lengua que la gente inglesa hablaba antes del siglo XII, también llamada Old English, una lengua totalmente incomprensible para la gente de hoy. Pero los franceses y españoles siguen usando esta palabra para referir a cualquier aspecto de la cultura/sociedad anglo-americano, el cual me resulta un poco gracioso.)

Here you can see Chulas de Cabaza, a kind of pumpkin pancake.

This is a choiva de caramelos... the rain of candies. They just threw candy from the upper level!

And this is one of the activities of the day, painting on shirts.