A poem:

I wrote this one a while ago.  I was trying to (devilishly) tempt my parents to cheat on their diet (we were competing on how well we can stick to the plan, not on weight lost. It was a competitive diet, what can I say? I wanted to win!)

An Ode to Cocoa:  because I like poetry. 

            The dark and sugary fragrance wafted gently through the air

            As I sat in sweet surrender thinking deeply of a pair

            Of Lindt dark chocolate truffles, the best kind on which to munch

            You can bet on my day off, I’m sure to have a bunch.  

            “Don’t feed me Hershey’s chocolate! It’s far too sweet!” I say,

            As I head out to the store in preparation for the day

            Of tasty, delicious goodness—I won’t eat a Snicker’s Bar,

            Nor a York Peppermint Patty nor a chocolate cigar.

            No Milky Ways, no Musketeers, no nutty Almond Joys,

            No Butterfingers, Baby Ruths, nor anything with toys.

            I don’t want Reese’s nor its Pieces.  No M&Ms for me.

            I just want Lindt dark chocolate in my decadent fantasy.

If this makes you want to eat a Lindt dark chocolate truffle, then you should go buy some. And then say a little prayer for my Lindt-dark-chocolate-truffle-less self while you're at it. Please.


If it makes you interested in competitive dieting, check out The Game On! Diet. It's pretty intense, and you just might find yourself writing poetry to chocolate. 

Haiku

Dear Peanut Butter:
My señora has a jar.
Where are the saltines?

Dear television:
Why are you so wonderful
yet terrible?

Dear Don Quijote:
I can't read you fast enough.
Can your adventures wait?

(I was a little free with the verse count in these. sorry.)

A Letter

Dear Colgate Baking Soda and Peroxide Toothpaste:

You are so perfectly wonderful, and it is a shame that I am squeezing your dregs out of the tube. Your slightly salty, yet refreshing, flavor will be dearly missed here, but I know that you live on in the toothpaste aisles of grocery stores across the United States.

Oh, WHY did I not think to pack more than one tube of you in my suitcase? Oh, HOW could I have been so shortsighted? Your delightful texture, so pasty and peroxide-y, is the perfect freshening substance, a cooling respite after a day full of garlic-y foods. (Mmmm, garlic! but yurgh, garlic...)

But wait, my dentally-hygienic love! I have hearkened upon your dear cousin, Colgate Total. Just as freshening, with 24 hour whitening/protection. Though he is lacking in taste and texture, he has the distinct advantage of constant presence. While you shall always hold a dear place in my heart, please know that I never meant to hurt you. There is just too much distance between us.

Sincerely,
DNorton

Don Quijote (Prologue)

Miguel de Cervantes was kind of a genius. Of course, this means that he died a bitter and lonely old man, but that doesn't discount the fact that his best-known work is just brilliant and completely ahead of its time.

If there is one thing to know about Don Quijote, it is that he read so many books (specifically libros de caballería or knights' tales) that he went a little crazy. He sets off on a misadventure through La Mancha, and in the process, takes the reader on a nice little tour of QuijoteLand--that wonderful place in his mind where his adventures really happen.

The true genius of Don Quijote, though, is revealed at the very beginning of the book: in the prologue. Prologues in this time period had a very specific pattern: the author adopted a false modesty and begged the reader not to judge him too harshly, he claimed that he wrote the book in a pleasant place, he gave thanks to the person who had financed the book's printing and told the reader his intentions in writing the book (since fiction was still a little suspect).

But of course, Cervantes, being so avant-guarde, didn't follow this script at all in his prologue. He starts off: "Desocupado lector" (Unoccupied/Idle reader). That's kind of an insult...doesn't really make me want to hold his book in high regard. He tells us that he wrote the book in prison, which, knowing Cervantes, was probably quite likely. He spent quite a lot of time in prisons, apparently.

And of course, he added something to his prologue that was so revolutionary that I am still marveling at it. He formulated (and answered) his own version of the tree-in-the-forest riddle: If a story has no readers, is it still a story? For Cervantes, the answer was, "No."

Hamburguesas

Apparently Spanish children are the most obese in all of Europe. I learned that today in a magazine, and it actually doesn't surprise me. What IS surprising is that the adults are still so freaking skinny.

"But Spanish food is so healthy, right?" I hear you say. "Isn't it a part of the Mediterranean diet that all the doctors and nutritionists were recommending a few years back?" Wrong.

Spain may form a part of the border of the Mediterranean Sea, and its diet may share some characteristics with the Mediterranean diet (like a heavy reliance on olive oil), but in reality, Spaniards like their food much like Americans like theirs: fried, greasy and full of beef. I can't count the number of times that I have eaten some sort of fried meat while I've been here, not to mention the croquetas (croquettes--delicious fried chunks of béchamel sauce, cheese and ham...kind of like a mozzarella stick, but better. Not healthier, just better.)

And of course, the side of me that actually wanted to eat healthy in Spain died when a friend and I discovered this hamburger at a restaurant 10 minutes away from school. We go there on Tuesdays when we have a relatively short lunch break.

It has egg (over-easy), bacon, beef, lettuce and tomato, and maybe cheese. I don't normally eat eggs over-easy, but it is totally worth it for this burger. It might be the best hamburger that I have ever had in my entire life, which is saying something, because it's competing with buffalo burgers AND green chile cheeseburgers. And you KNOW it's good if it can compete with those.

¡Futbolín!

I went out last Thursday night with Kenneth's friend Belen and her friends, Genevieve and Rafa. And at one of the bars we went to, there was an awesome foosball table.

Foosball in Spanish is futbolín, and boy is it sure fun to play, especially on really old-school tables.

Genevieve and I teamed up against Belen and Rafa, and I wouldn't say that we beat them handily, but we might have dominated each match.

I would place the cause of our dominance on our fierce game faces.

Belen and Rafa don't look nearly so fierce. You can never underestimate them, though. This is them scoring the first goal of the match.

They might have scored this goal because I was taking a picture of the game. I do not regret it because I came back with a goalie to goal kick that tied us up, so it was all good. And then we won the game. 

Lots of Light

My favorite part about my room is the window. It is really large and lets in LOTS of light. (It also lets in a ton of noise, but that's beside the point.) That's one of the striking differences between the States and here. Back home, when we say a window lets in lots of light, we don't (or at least I don't) actually think that that will be the light that I will be living by. I'm generally more concerned about the view. There are always plenty of lamps and indoor lighting that it never occurs to me that some people still actually live their lives by natural light.

But here, natural light is definitely the way to light up a room, mostly because it's free. Also, in the summer, since the sun goes down really late (at like 10), there's a lot of light to live by. I'm not really sure what is done in the winter--ask me in February.

But the other reason that I like my window so much is this:

That's right. The paint is peeling off the panes. That is probably not something that a normal person should like about a window, but I think that it gives my life a very bohemian vibe (and I mean that in a very literal way, like I should be living in the attic in La Boheme).

El Rastro

Last Sunday, Christina and I also went to Madrid local flea market, El Rastro. It's ginormous and they sell just about everything. I bought some cheap sunglasses, and Christina bought a surge protector, which should tell you just how varied the offerings were.

In case you can't tell, in the above picture, one stall is selling straight up cotton clothing, and the other is selling brass clown horns and other trinkets.

The one thing that we heard about El Rastro is that you want to go early to avoid the crowds (and pickpockets). So that is what we did. well, kind of. Even early, there are still crowds.

And of course, after all that walking we had done the day before, we decided to take a quick break and grab a merienda (to escape the heat and the, you guessed it, crowds). So we stopped at this little cafe, where Christina got a coffee with churros and I ordered a strawberry batido (the Spanish version of a milkshake). I had had a really good one the other day, and I was really craving one for some reason. Unfortunately, I got this (It's the Pepto-Bismol-ey looking thing at the back):

Also unfortunate was that it kind of tasted like what I would imagine Pepto-Bismol tastes like. Which is not a strawberry milkshake. Oh well, live and learn.

Paella and Things.

I love paella. It isn't actually a Spanish dish, so much as it is a Valencia dish, but still. It is delicious, and there are restaurants in Madrid where you can get it, and have I mentioned that it is delicious?

Last Saturday, Christina and I went walking (literally, we covered Madrid and were probably moving for at least 4 hours straight). We met up in the Chueca metro stop (we happened to be riding the same train when we got there, which I find super-coincidental), and made our way to a delicious little paella restaurant called, "La Paella de la Reina".  We had gazpacho, too, and it was all fantastic. Here are some pictures of Christina's paella plate and mine taken at approximately the same time during the meal:

Mine's the one on the right, in case you can't tell. And I might have helped Christina polish off the rest of hers. Afterwards, we were so full, that we felt like exploring, so explore we did. We wandered by Middlebury's campus in Madrid, walked down Paseo del Recoletos and down the Paseo del Prado, over to the Puerta del Sol, and up Calle del Preciados to Callao and Gran Vía.

On Preciados, we found this:

Twist is better, but the plain yogurt here clearly has more fat in it, which makes it super-tasty.

And on Gran Vía, we found this:

    

It's a restaurant named, "Nebraska", and its slogan is: "Enjoy yourself in Nebraska!"  It makes me wonder if any Spaniard has ever actually been to Nebraska.

La Biblioteca Nacional de España

For our first project for the Research Skills Workshop, we had to go to the National Library of Spain (which is actually quite close--just a few stops over on the metro), and get our library card and make some photocopies as proof that we were there.

It's super pretty on the outside, and yet, all I can think about when I go inside is: "Firestone's better." Clearly I am spoiled. And I will tell you why.

Spain does not have open-stack browsing. This is a national travesty.

If I need to borrow a book, I cannot check it out. I have to fill out a little card with the book's call number and info, wait for them to bring it to me, and then take notes about it at the little desk that they have assigned me. I can make photocopies (maybe), but there is no way that the original copy is ever leaving the building. Just ask the security guards. They rifle through all of the papers that you bring with you when you enter the building and again when you leave, just to make sure that you don't try to sneak anything in or out.

I understand this entire procedure if I were trying to access ancient archives--or even relatively old archives, like from the '70s (kidding!). But the book that I looked at was published in 2010. So there's really no reason to keep it under lock and key.

I've just decided that I'm going to try to avoid researching there as much as possible this semester, since I don't really have much time to waste waiting for someone to find a book for me. It's a good thing that most of my papers this semester are based on class readings. And then, next semester, when I actually have to do research, I will have hopefully found more patience for bureaucracy.

Still, it's an awfully pretty library, isn't it?

Classes

So I kind of love all of my classes this semester, and I will give you the run-down here:

Monday, 9:30 AM: Cultural History of Spain:

• Precisely the type of history that they don't let you study in school, since everyone is so obsessed with military/political history. I don't care about who won such and such battle or why. Just show me the pretty things they did to commemorate it. 

Monday, 4-7PM: Research Skillz Workshop:

• This one is actually every other Monday, which is nice, and it's helping us adjust to a whole new library system (which is not nearly as warm and cozy as the library system in the States--Thank you Dewey Decimal and all library science majors everywhere!). 
• No, they don't spell it with a 'z' in the syllabus, but I don't care.  I see that it is gangster, and I am very gangster myself.

Tuesday, 9:30 AM: Cultural History of Latin America:

• Like a Cultural History of Spain, except in Latin America. Also, Syncretism!
• Syncretism is the combination of opposing beliefs. It generally refers to combining opposing religious beliefs, such as happened in the Spanish colonies with Christianity and the various indigenous religions--which led to awesome paintings of the baby Jesus dressed up like an Incan. 

Tuesday, 11 AM: Cervantes:

• This class is potentially my favorite. Actually, I can already tell that it is my favorite. Why? Because we are reading Don Quijote (Parts I and II) in one semester and discussing. Also because Don Quijote is awesome. And because Cervantes was a genius. (He may have died bitter and alone, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a genius.) Also because Don Quijote is awesome. 
• One aspect of the Quijote which is kind of important to understand is that, when DQ sets off into the world, he is only doing so to prove that the real world is the same as the world about which he had read in all of his fairy-tale novels. Does this sound familiar to you? Because it kind of sounds familiar to me...

Tuesday, 12:30 AM: Teaching Spanish as a Second Language:

• It was either this or textual criticism, and although all of the technical pedagogical language kind of terrifies me (I think I just used pedagogical and I'm not even sure I know what it means...), it's kind of a nice break from all of the literature. Also, I think it will be helpful.

Wednesday and Thursday just repeat Monday and Tuesday (minus the Research Skillz Workshop), and then Thursday evening, I come home and go to sleep.

Bookstores in Madrid

One of the best things about Madrid (for me, at least), is that the ginormous chain bookstore hasn't really caught on here yet. So I walk down the street and see a bookstore here and another there, and this little outdoor second-hand bookstore squeezed into a nook in an alley. 

It's going to be a pain to purchase my books for school because I'll probably have to run all over town, but that will just be an adventure!

SE-GO-VIA!

Is currently my favorite city in Spain. I had forgotten how cool the old town wall and the Roman aqueduct are. Also, since it has the exact same vowels as Genovia (the fictional land where Princess Mia rules in The Princess Diaries), you can totally sing it to the Genovian National anthem! ahem. moving on.

This is the cathedral from afar, with all of its cool late Gothic spires. It's kind of ginormous and has a ton of different chapels lining the inside walls, like most cathedrals. Many of the chapels, however, are Baroque, since by the time they got to building them, the architectural styles had changed.

And this is the town wall, with someone's house built right on top of it. Segovia sums up Spain perfectly, with the old and the new built right next to each other.

Or, in the case of the plaza where the Roman aqueduct intersects the town wall, it's the old and the really really old built right next to each other.

Madrid

I'm here! I've arrived (quite safely, too, I might add)! And the city hasn't changed a bit since I was here last (2008, for those keeping track). It's still hotter 'n snot and the streets a dirty and dust-filled (even though individual people mop the sidewalks outside of their shops/apartment buildings, they never seem to really get clean...probably because someone almost immediately tosses down a cigarette or a used metro card).

I've mostly been recovering from jetlag (hey--it takes me awhile, ok?). But I have managed to visit some of my favorite places (and eat some of my favorite foods)!

For instance, pictured below is the Casa del Pescador (The House of the Fisherman) in the Parque del Retiro (from now on, it's just the Retiro). The Retiro was just one of the many places where former kings of Spain would go to hunt/fish/kill things for fun. Fernando VII was one of these kings, and within the park, he built lots of cute little hunting lodges, such as this one, intended for fishing:

The Retiro is absolutely my favorite place of all of Madrid. It's like Central Park, but better, because there are more even more walking paths and it's quieter.

It's also near a bunch of little shops and restaurants, like La Taberna del Toro, the restaurant in which I ate what is one of my favorite meals in Spain: Gazpacho and Calamari.

Don't they look just absolutely delicious? 

Oba-Mao?

Sometime last year, my brother sent me this video. Some people find it offensive, but I think it's hilarious-- mostly because it is an attempt at adulation by the Chinese, yet fails miserably for an American audience. It also really highlights how, in spite of globalization, there still exist some pretty stark differences between nations and cultures.

Said brother worked in Hong Kong this summer and for my birthday brought me several presents, one of which is the following notebook:

Interspersed inside are pictures of Obama captioned by various Chinese phrases, complete with an English translation. They range from somewhat intelligible (Have something to say, then say! Have nothing to say, go home!!) to downright strange (Pig head 3, go dead!).

Here are some of my favorites:

• "You don't bird me, I don't bird you."

• "Love his mother's who who who!"

• "Color wolf, you give me roll exit!"

• "You ask me, me ask who?"

And finally, the all-time favorite:

• "Dear wang little girl, first eye see you,, I horse up love you."

I almost want to send it to one of my Chinese-speaking friends to learn what the phrases really mean, but I think it's funnier if I don't know.

Surprising Surprises! Part IV

And this one wasn't really a surprise, but then later that evening, the 107 Girls had a housewarming party. So yeah. 4 parties in one day. I was pretty tuckered out.

Here is a picture of their beautiful living room:

It's a little blurry and I don't know why, but I'm assuming it's because the flash was off.

And here's a picture of the preparations for the festivities:

It was quite a fun-filled evening. We had Knolla's Pizza, and on the way friend Aubrey and I discussed the possibility that anyone could ever throw a surprise party for her. She decided that it was impossible, since she was the planner of the group. But then at the housewarming, she was surprised by the appearance of her friend Peter. So I guess it is possible to surprise an unsurprisable person. 

Surprising Surprises! Part III

Of course, since I didn't know about the surprising surprise party, I had already planned my own birthday party for Saturday at 3:30.

And there was no way I could cancel it because we had already baked a dark chocolate fudge cake with dark chocolate fudge icing (my favorite!) and made 2 kinds of homemade ice cream: raspberry sorbet and vanilla.

And there was no way my mom couldn't not let me plan my own party without giving away the surprise, so... at 3:30 we had more cake and ice cream! This time with presents!

I was a lot more excited about it than I look in this picture. I think here I was very intent on opening the present. (!)

And this is a nice little panorama shot of the room with Dad's new handy Sony point and shoot digital. We like it a lot, but what we didn't realize was that you have to take a full panorama if you don't want a random black bar to appear on one side.

Surprising Surprises! Part II

After breakfast on Saturday, we had about 30 minutes to get ready for a lunch with the brother's in-laws to plan the Christmas trip. We were going to meet them at the country club. I should have known that something was up when the brother kept telling me to change into something a little nicer than my denim skirt and JCrew tee (I changed into a white summer skirt and kept the tee).

We got to the club and walked towards the Tapestry room. I kind of noticed a bunch of people standing around, but didn't really pay much attention to them until they shouted, "SURPRISE!"

That's right, a surprise going away party thrown by my friends and family who lived within Kansas or within a 100 mile radius of Kansas (or thereabouts). I guess my mom planned it while I was at Spanish camp, and friend Aubrey made the decorations.

Apparently, there were a few close calls where I might have learned about it...most notably when Aubrey made me send some text messages for her since she was driving and I saw a text about a birthday gift, or when I visited friend Rob's house and the invitation was laying out face-up on the dining room table. Thankfully, though, DNortonLand breeds oblivion, so things like surprise parties remain, well, surprises.

This is the kid's table. Note the dude serving fajitas in the background. Best surprise party ever!

Back in Action!

Spanish camp is over and I can speak English again!

Sorry for the Zorro obsession last week. Actually, I'm not sorry at all because Zorro is awesome! I was giving a presentation in a class over him and it was just so much fun that I had to share. He's my favorite superhero, mostly because he actually seems real. His skills, though honed from hours of practice, are those that someone might actually have had and developed, you know, back in the mythical California that exists in the Zorro legend. If you're looking for a connection between DNortonLand and superheroes: Zorro can exist in DNortonLand, but Batman, Superman and Spiderman are too fantastical even for that.

Flying back from VT, I stopped in Chicago to pick up my passport and visa at the Spanish consulate, so I won't be an illegal immigrant to Spain. YAY!

After the Consulate, I had some time to kill in downtown Chi-Town before I headed back to O'Hare and back to Wichita, so I decided to make my brother jealous and hit up his favorite restaurant in Chicago: Cereality.

Unfortunately for my evil little sister self, the restaurant actually looked like this:

That's right. Operation Make-Kenneth-Extremely-Jealous failed miserably because the restaurant was closed for renovations. BOOOO!

Los jueces/The Judges