EuroYankee

President Bush seems at a loss on how to win over Europe. I found the answer Sunday. Gorp. Everybody loves gorp.

Much like Bush, my initial reception was cool when I set out on a hike with 38 Spaniards and a German to El Circ de la Safor. I started off on the wrong foot by demeaning the metric system. Everyone was cordial, but when we came upon a snowy area, I was left out of the snowfight. We reached the summit (1,011 meters) at 2:30 p.m.

The night before the 21 km hike, I had mixed up a huge bag of gorp (M&Ms, raisins, peanuts, cashews, almonds). As we ate in a meadow below the peak, I went group to group with my gorp offering. At first everyone was shy. I persisted, telling them was a U.S. mountaineering tradition. By the end of the hike, everybody was all about the gorp and my bag was empty.

Come on Bush. Get your gorp together.

 

11 p.m. Barroom flamenco at Café del Duende: boisterous, sexy, hypnotic, dizzying.

1:30 a.m. Café near Plaza de la Virgin (web cam): cozy, chill.

3 a.m. Dance club in  the Barrio del Carmen: Shake it on the dance floor yo.

4:30 a.m. Pastries at the all-night bakery: delicious.

6 a.m. Spanish college students. Seems like we figured out why they’re so weird. Yet the explanation has been forgotten in a jumble of early morning sleepiness.

Went on a day trip to Peñíscola Sunday. It’s a whitewashed Mediterranean pueblo 90 minutes north of Valencia. Poked around the castle, which was quite the place circa 1407. Apparently, this guy Don Pedro de Luna declared himself pope in the early 15th century and moved his whole relgious shebang to Peñíscola. He became known as Papa Luna (The Moon Pope.) Lots of religious intrigue ensued. The other catholic top dogs declared him a heritic and tried to poison him. You know how it goes. Also hiked about 10 km (trying to prepare myself for the big 21 km trek next weekend) in the nearby Irta mountains. Checked out Torre Bardum, a medieval lookout tower. Sweet trip.

Prediction: A majority of Spaniards will vote “sí” on the European Constitution today. Spain is the first European Union country to vote, creating a lot of interest here in the outcome. Both main political parties support it. It has predictable pie-in-the-sky political idealism. Here’s one excerpt:

The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.

Right-o. I had added a tirade on the discrimination and intolerance I have witnessed during my first month in Spain, but on second thought, I’ll just leave it at this: In Europe, as in the USA, actions speak louder than words.

Hey nature nerds. Here’s your chance to identify trees and birds I spotted on walks around town.

Yesterday, the center of Valencia filled with police and television cameras. I assumed a famous politician was visiting the city. Actually, two Basque terrorists got taken down in a hostel next to the town hall, a five minute walk from where I live. In their luggage, police found explosives and guns and hit lists. They planned to blow up a tourist office and a police station as well as kill some military guy.

The lack of respect Spanish students show for professors is amazing. The professor asked students to stop talking among themselves at least five times. One student asked the professor to change the hours of the class because they all travel Friday afternoons to spend the weekends in their hometowns. Chaos ensued for about a half an hour while everyone tried to yell over each other to voice their support or disapproval for moving the class time. In the end, the professor decided to move it up a half hour, but not change it any further than that. Needless to say, I decided the class would be a waste of time and will not go back.

I skipped yoga again. Stayed up too late watching more trashy American cinema. Yeah. Yesterday my roommates and I got a Blockbuster card. We rented Mean Girls (hilarious teen comedy nearly on par with Better Off Dead and Sixteen Candles) as well as The Prince and Me. The latter was cheesy, by which I mean set in Wisconsin. Sweet. It’s the second recent movie I’ve seen (the other Love Actually) in which eurotrash have ventured to Wisconsin solely because of the state’s reputation for hard-partying hotties. I love that. The Prince and Me had a cheesehead, referred to the UniversityOf Wisconsin Rathskeller and showed a riding lawnmower race in Manitowoc. They even said, “cheese curds” when taking a group photo.

My chocolate chip cookies were a disaster. Vanilla doesn’t exist as a liquid in Spain, apparently. I found a small package of powdered vanilla for 19 euros (that’s  $24.78 for anyone keeping tabs at home.) Not wanting to pay crack cocaine prices for vanilla, I walked to the Mercado Central. There, “Esencia de vanilla” costs 90 cents. Now at the way-too-cheap end of the vanilla spectrum, I bought it. Turns out, esencia de vanilla in no way resembles the real thing in texture or flavor.

The next impossible-to-find ingredient was chocolate chips. So I cut up bars of chocolate. But it didn’t soften right and was too big. Of course, I also lack measuring cups and spoons, so amounts were guesswork. The cookies are crunchy and barely edible.

I’m currently skipping my first class of the day: yoga. But before I get indignant posts from mothers, there’s a good excuse. Yesterday my french roommate turned 22. I was obliged to strengthen yankee-french relations by eating good food and drinking wine and champagne. It’s tough, but I take my role as the U.S. Ambassador of Fun very seriously.

 

Last night, before the birthday dinner, I went to see Destroyer. No, not a Kiss tribute band. A Canadian indie rock outfit with tangential ties to Neko Case. It was fun to hear music from the northwest. And it was free. If this band played at Mootsy’s in Spokane, the place would have filled with holey sweaters, corduroy and clove cigarette smoke.

 

Okay, I’m off to find ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies. The culinary adventure is taking place because I’ve been invited to a dinner party where some guy who maybe owns or owned (it was kind of loud in the café where this was being explained to me) a restaurant is going to make (possibly) Guatemalan food. Meet people one day, the next day get invited to dinner. What a great country.