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Thursday, March 26th, 2009
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Friday, February 13th, 2009
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So I had some chicken to use, and some other stuff lying around, and decided I wanted curry. What resulted was something based on coconut cream and tinned tomato, and it was pretty delicious. I suppose you'd call the end product "Indian" since it came out something Tikka Masala or Rogan Josh and was reddish brown.
Tomato Chicken curry (easily made vegetarian)
INGREDIENTS (To be honest, I dunno what was essential and what wasn't since it's all guesswork and things I've picked up from different recipes)
-500ml Coconut cream (1 and a half tins or so, can probably get away with 1)
-2 tins diced tomato
-Some diced chicken
-1 potato, cubed
-1 sweet potato, cubed
-Chillis to taste, chopped
-2 Garlic cloves, chopped
-Oyster sauce
-Cumin seeds
-Tumeric
-Curry powder
-Some sugar
-Butter
-Oil
DO THESE THINGS
Drain some of the juice from the diced tomatoes, place in a bowl, mix in some sugar to sweeten them a bit (I find tinned tomato a bit sour).
Heat some oil in a wok/frypan, add cumin seeds (unsure the quantity, shake a few times), chopped garlic and chillis to oil. Swish together with spatula, leave a few seconds.
Add chicken, stir fry in the oil on high heat til white/brown and sealed. (omit this step if you dont want meat obviously)
Add coconut cream and a tablespoon of butter (or moar! I intended to add butter at the start, with the oil, but forgot). Add tumeric and curry powder to taste. Let the butter melt and the coconut cream boil for a couple minutes.
Add the potato. I think it takes longer to cook through than sweet potato, so leave 3 or 4 minutes before adding sweet potato and tomato.
Add oyster sauce at some point, about a splash or so. This probably isn't vital but it gives a deeper brown colour which is nice. And it can't hurt.
Add the tomato and sugar and the sweet potato.
Let simmer/boil for a while. I left mine for about 15 or 20 minutes, until everything was nice and soft and the liquid had reduced a bit.
Consume. Serving with rice is an option.
Yay!
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Monday, January 12th, 2009
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Some short satire I have been writing for the student paper I now edit. Submitted for comment.
Racist unsure who to support in ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict.
Marcus Damian, racist and bigot, is keenly interested in international affairs but has been at a loss to know how to respond to the Hamas rocket attacks and Israeli attacks on Gaza. The problem for Damian is that both sides represent things that people like him hate and oppose. “On the one hand, you have a horde of bloodthirsty Arab Muslims launching rockets and suicide bombs and and generally waging a holy jihad on anyone who doesn't share their perverted beliefs in their false prophet. These people are evil and a threat to all good white Christians everywhere.”
On the other hand, though, for a bigot like Marcus Damian, the Jewish state is also anathema. “It's bad enough that Jews basically run the world. But to have a state and a powerful military? That gives them a sanctuary from which to plot the destruction of white nations through interbreeding and multiculturalism and control of the international economy. These people are evil and a threat to all good white Christians everywhere.”
This dilemma has Marcus stumped. “It's very difficult. I want the Jihadi terrorist muslims kept down, but I also want the Jews destroyed,” he sighed. “Maybe I'll just hope they descend into a cycle of ever-increasing violence and slowly destroy each other in a mutual deathgrip,” he said. “That seems to be working pretty well so far.”
UNSW Arts Faculty admits defeat and institutes “Bachelor of Hamburgers”
Having decided that things like history, politics, foreign languages and the social sciences are superfluous to today's business focused world, and deeply unprofitable, UNSW has announced an ambitious plan to retool its struggling Arts Faculty into something better suiting its money-making and vocational focus.
“Fuck it” said James Donald, Dean of the Faculty, “We're not teaching them anything worthwhile anyway. Most of them won't even become lawyers or business people. Let's just teach the bastards how to make burgers and be done with it.” He added that you don't even have to study numbers or money during an Arts degree.
The new scheme will save the Faculty lots of money, as tired old academics get sacked and replaced by fun new part time “Burger-neers.” These experienced fast food technicians will teach subjects like Advanced Burgerology, The History of Fries, and The Pickle: Perspectives and Debate in Morven Brown classrooms especially refitted as industrial kitchens.
In other news, the Australian School of Business finished the installation of gold-plated toilet seats in the Executive Spa.
Kevin Rudd surrenders to China in fluent Mandarin
As Chinese tanks entered Canberra yesterday and ended the war of liberation of Australia from bourgeois British and American oppression, the former Prime Minister of Australia broadcast a surrender to our new Chinese Communist masters in what President Hu Jintao praised as “flawless, idiomatic Mandarin.”
Rudd's linguistic and diplomatic skills were put to a stern test as he negotiated the terms of the surrender, and he drew on his grasp of Chinese history and culture to insist on certain terms that would otherwise not have been secured. For example, Australia's political class will not be executed as the Chinese negotiators initially demanded, but merely imprisoned in remote facilities in the Outback where they will work and be re-educated. Additionally, slave labourers tasked with extracting Australian mineral wealth for the benefit of the Middle Country's glorious industrial development will only work 16 hour days, negotiated down from 18 by Rudd, a staunch advocate of workers rights and industrial relations reform.
All glory to the Revolution! All glory to our new Chinese protectors! All glory to Kevin Rudd, governor of the Australian Special Administrative Province!
Drunk friend isn't racist
Several beers into the house party you attended last week, your friend assured you that he wasn't racist before explaining why he doesn't like members of several ethnic groups. As evidence of his lack of racism, he claimed that he has friends from other cultures and that they're good people. Leaning in closer, he expressed fears that in the future, “they” will overrun “us,” in a manner which suggested he believes you are part of this “us.” Rather than express the discomfort and outrage you inwardly felt at his comments, you nodded in vague but noncommittal agreement and continued to sip your beer whilst looking for a way to end the conversation.
Ancient Evil still sealed away
3000 years ago, a dark and unimaginable horror was loosed on this mortal world. It threatened to consume the entire world in pain and suffering. Only the quick actions of a group of wise druids and the noble sacrifice of a young hero managed to seal it away. To this day, the seal remains, keeping the world safe. The ancient horror has not been unleashed once more, and will never be unleashed. It is sealed away safely and securely.
Backpacker too cool for “touristy” things
Rather than stick to the well-worn trail of tourism, something which is catered to by an entire industry of people dedicated to enhancing the experiences of visiting foreigners, a young Australian backpacker thinks she is too cool to visit the same things everybody else goes to see. Instead she eschews conventional attractions in favour of seeking out what she considers to be cooler and more “real” activities and locations.
While insisting that she isn't a snob, she says she doesn't like “tourists,” implying that she is not one herself. Instead she seeks out unusual things to do so she has stories that can impress her friends back home and feel generally worldly and superior.
Last night, after boldly and intrepidly exploring beyond “the touristy part of town,” she found what she had anticipated would be a restaurant with a suitably authentic and local character. However, she was disappointed and vaguely embarrassed to find it filled with similarly hip young foreigners who had also found the restaurant in their Lonely Planet guides. She will not tell this story to her friends back home.
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Monday, November 17th, 2008
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So, Obama's going to be the first president with a PC on his desk, and the first to deliver his weekly radio addresses as podcasts and on Youtube.
Nice.
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Would a zombie movie set in Nazi Germany where the victims of the Holocaust rise up and destroy them from within be considered bad taste? Because I´ve been thinking about zombie stories set in history and I feel this is one of my better ideas.
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List of valid two-letter words in Spanish Scrabble:
ad ah aj al ar as ax ay be bu ca ce cu cha che cho da de di do
ea eh el en es et ex fa fe fi fo fu ge ha he hi id in ir ja
je ji jo ju la le lo lle me mi mu na ne ni no ña ño ñu oa oc
oh oi os ox pe pi pu re ro se si so su ta te ti to tu uf uh
un va ve vi xi ya ye yo za
TOTAL - 91
English:
AA AB AD AE AG AH AI AL AM AN AR AS AT AW AX AY BA BE BI BO
BY CH DA DE DI DO EA ED EE EF EH EL EM EN ER ES ET EX FA FY
GI GO GU HA HE HI HM HO ID IF IN IO IS IT JO KA KO KY LA LI
LO MA ME MI MM MO MU MY NA NE NO NU NY OB OD OE OF OH OI OM
ON OO OP OR OS OU OW OX OY PA PE PH PI PO QI RE SH SI SO ST
TA TE TI TO UG UH UM UN UP UR US UT WE WO XI XU YA YE YO YU
ZA ZO
TOTAL - 122
I'm actually surprised how many more there are in English given that there's more two letter words in common circulation in Spanish (I was able to come up with about 25 off the top of my head, including "co" which is a Zaragoza/Aragón word the RAE apaprently doesn't recognise).
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Sunday, February 17th, 2008
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Friday, February 15th, 2008
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For el dia de San Valentino I got:
Drunk.
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Saturday, February 9th, 2008
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Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
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Since getting back from travelling over New Years, I have been spending all my time either sitting around doing nothing on the internet, attempting to study (mostly decyphering my notes and revising them), or pretending I can teach English. On the latter point I am quite thankful I've only been given advanced classes where they're conversational and merely error-prone.
So far I've learned that English modal verbs are atrociously arbitrary and messy and I don't know why some things sound correct and some don't.
One of my classes is a one-on-one session with an executive at a major Zaragoza bank. That's my favourite because I have a security card and it takes place in a big fancy building, and the lady actually speaks a lot off her own initiative, she has interesting thoughts and opinions, and I find it very easy to fill the hour.
Between these activities, my lack of classes thanks to exam-time, and the lack of going out lately, it actually doesn't really feel like I'm in Spain at all at the moment. Well, except for the part where everything in the streets is in Spanish.
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Monday, January 7th, 2008
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So I guess I am going to start teaching English tomorrow. I am naturally pretty nervous because I have never done it before, but excited becase it's something I will probably enjoy doing and a useful skill to pick up. At the moment though, this is all outweighed by how wretchedly sick and fluey I feel and just hoping I am better tomorrow.
I woke up yesterday afternoon with the double whammy of a hangover and coughy, chesty illness and despite about 18 hours of fitful sleep it hasn't really gone away.
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Sunday, December 16th, 2007
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List of nationalities, other than my own, which I've been taken for over the last 3 and a bit months. In roughly descending order of frequency:
German (I live with two of them and generally most people as pale as me in Zaragoza are German)
English (fairly obvious here)
Dutch (curly brown hair apparently = sterotypically Dutch?)
French (I have no idea why I get this so much)
American (there's not many Americans here and they have quite a different accent in Spanish)
Polish (I was at a party where most people were Polish)
Italian (Same as above, but still kinda weird)
New Zealander (My linguistics lecturer thought this during the first week. I haven't a clue why.)
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Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
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Rape Case Ruling Shocks Australia
Basic details: very young Aboriginie girl in remote community gets gang raped, is clearly coming from a history of sexual abuse, and judge gives an absurdly wrong ruling. Outrage ensues.
When I first heard of this yesterday it seemed baffling, but now that I know that it took place in a remote Aboriginal community it makes more sense. Australian law is absolutely useless with regards to Aboriginal communities, especially in remote areas. I mean, like basically all legal systems, Australia doesn't handle rape well, but this is just apalling even by conventional "patriarchal legal systems are slanted against rape victims" standards.
The basic problem is a combination of cultural/institutional blindness and neglect which has created a situation where many communities are hopelessly dysfunctional and basically put in the "too hard" basket. The basic backdrop is a fairly well-understood pastiche of colonial and post-colonial themes... fucked up racists policies, well-intentioned paternalism, neglect, marginalisation, abuse, etcetera. It's been going on for 200 years and I don't think I need to re-hash the details of how fucked things have been.
Basically the present result is a situation where substance-abuse (alcoholism, petrol-sniffing) runs rampant, dysfunction is absolutely systemic in many places, and the stronger and more powerful members of these groups (read: older men) are pretty much able to do whatever they want. The entire situation, as exemplefied by this perfect storm of a fucked-up situation is honestly pretty shameful, and there's no easy solutions. The left goes "racism!" and the right goes "welfare!" and nothing happens.
So stuff like this horrendous rape and sexual abuse occurring in the first place is much less unlikely or unusual than it should be. But, beyond that, there's a whole OTHER level of FUCKED here, and that's the behaviour of the legal system towards Aborigines and this girl in particular.
CULTURAL BLINDNESS
Basically, the legal system and other institutions are systematically failing most Aboriginies thanks not so much to neglect or racism but simple cultural and institutional blindness. There's endless examples of this cos, like, Aboriginal culture is really different and stuff, but a few things are more relevant to the interactions with the legal system:
Firstly, the language. Aboriginal English is an internally consistant dialect, but obviously a different one. Things can mean different things even if they're apparently saying something else, this is called the "pseudo-intelligibility trap" where people on both sides have a false sense of understanding. Aboriginies mostly don't speak Standard Australian and there's differences at every level of linguistic analysis. Hypothetical questions, double negatives, either/or statements, are some of the areas which give rise to misunderstandings, and these are all frequently employed in judicial situations.
Then there is the habit of "gratuitious concurrence" which means simply that agreeing with someone, or giving them the answers they want is a form of politeness. Imagine the ramifications of that in a conventional Anglo-derived legal system, for a moment. Another is that eye contact is impolite with people you don't know, so a polite avoidance of eye contact by an Aboriginie might seem rude or aggressive to an Anglo jury or policeman.
All of these can create major problems, however there's one in particular with huge ramifications in the legal system and that's the avoidance of direct questions.
In Aboriginal cultures, direct questions are rare. It's a well-documented linguistic characteristic. They're considered deeply impolite and not likely to be responded to directly, if at all. There's a great value placed on privacy, specifics are often neglected or avoided, and there are taboos on certain types of information. To use a simple and possibly inaccurate example, "Where are you from?" or "Who is your father?" is bad, while "you're from X town, right?" or "Your father is Y, right?" is far better. This, obviously, creates great difficulties in a police or courtroom setting based on Anglo norms where the aboriginal norms are barely permissable, let alone understood (ie, indirect questions are basically leading questions and basically invalid, plus they might just trigger gratuitous concurrence anyway).
Obviously, this creates a situation where thanks to cultural and institutional blindness and the fact that practically no-one is properly cross-culturally literate, it's almost impossible to treat Aboriginies like other people on legal matters and still achieve justice. Aboriginal witnesses or defendants or victims are likely to appear sullen and withdrawn or evasive or suspicious to others. They might not respond to questioning, might not reveal vital information, might misunderstand questions, they might simply go along with whatever their lawyers say even if it's bad advice and even if the lawyer is assuming they're guilty, etcetera. Meanwhile, through all this, they'll be simulteneously feeling attacked and victimised by the behaviour of the white institution towards them, and this will help to perpetuate mistrust and bad blood.
Stuff like this is EVERYWHERE in the relationships between white institutions and Aboriginies and the result is that large numbers of people slip through the cracks. Obviously I'm talking about the legal system here, but this stuff would all be causing problems be it in the health system, the legal system, education, or employment... anywhere there's interactions with "white business", really. Thousands of interactions and thousands of misunderstandings and petty problems stack up into some serious disadvantage and marginalisation.
Anyone interested in reading a bit more about these cultural differences in courtroom settings might want to read this page, it's very informative.
SO, IN CONCLUSION
I'm willing to bet that, on top of the shameful long term environment of neglect and mistreatment this girl is coming from, simple things like the above have helped deny justice from being done.
I kinda feel bad for the judge getting pilloried at the moment, because s misguided and out of her depth she seems to be, she also seems to merely be representative of some fairly major deeper problems. I honestly would not be surprised if the evidence as collected by the police, given and put forth in the court, argued by the lawyers, and interpreted by this judge did actually support her conclusions. Which kinda illustrates the depth of the problems.
I hope that, somehow, as a result of the current public outrage and government attention and inevitable heavy-handed emergency response, some serious reforms are made in the legal system to address this stuff. We need more sensitivity to these issues and that means both law reform and more resources being poured into training and so forth.
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Saturday, November 17th, 2007
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So, I'm fairly sure I wanna get a tattoo of this symbol:
It's the Brunchma sigil, as many people reading this know, but I'm really more interested in the aesthetics of it than the fact that it's the symbol of a message board community that is pretty important to me. Really, it's a simple yet interesting design (fairly unique in the non-Brunching world) and perhaps more importantly, I think a symbolic representation of a Tangent is actually a pretty perfect symbol for me. I probably wouldn't bother explaining the Brunching connection to most people.
It's either that or something geekier, like a Triforce or something. I think I'll wait a bit to have a think about other designs, but the tangent symbol's been in my head for a fair while.
So I guess the question now is where to get it done. I'm thinking maybe about an inch wide, on the nape of my neck.
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Saturday, November 3rd, 2007
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God Damn The Sun:
Beautiful Child:
I think it's pretty neat that these two songs are by the same band.
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Monday, October 22nd, 2007
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So yeah, I was robbed on Saturday night/Sunday morning. I'm okay, and I didn't lose much more than my phone, my wallet and my pride. Basically, I was drunk and lost and looking for a cab, and a dude came up and started talking to me. It wasn't violent, it was more that my "this isn't right" senses were too slow to kick in, probably because even when I'm sober I'm not street-smart at all, and at any rate I was busier trying to understand what this random guy was actually saying and whether he was dodgy or not. Guess I got the answer to that one.
He grabbed my phone out of my hand while I was checking the time, I think he "asked" to borrow it but I didn't understand what he said. I also guess he must have pickpocketed my wallet in the minute or so we were talking, because he was standing too close. Then when I eventually realised "yeah, this isn't right" and "I need to get my phone back" he ran off, and was way too fast for me, disappearing into a park.
The wallet and ten Euros and random Australian ID cards I'm not terribly concerned about, but losing your phone always fucking sucks and this is no different. It sucks especially since it pretty much sends me back to square one with meeting people, which is hard enough as it is. Whine whine whine.
I was pretty depressed and down on everything yesterday, but having cancelled my cards and had a bit of time to sleep and stuff I feel better. Focussing on the positives helps. Yeah, I was robbed, but I wasn't hurt and they didn't take much. People were nice to me and helped me when I was asking them for directions and so forth. A taxi driver was nice enough to drive me home for free and likewise, a group of youngish Spaniards was super nice and talked me through what I should do (it hadn't occurred to me to wait until I'd slept and was sober and calm to go to the police). Then, the next day, the police were actually nice (I guess they respond better when you're not drunk and pissed off that they're asking you for ID you don't have) as well. A particular thanks is owed to Vanessa who went with me to the policía yesterday, and Ben who helped me cancel my credit card over MSN since I didn't have a phone.
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Sunday, September 23rd, 2007
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The sight of two 4 year old niñas attacking each other with foam fencing swords is probably the cutest thing I´ve ever seen. Zaragoza seems perfectly willing to block off its main street (Paseo de Independencia) at the drop of a hat, this time closing it off for the Semana de Movilidad´(Fitness Week). Basically the entire road was filled with different games,´and hundreds of kids of different ages playing a couple of dozen different sports in different areas of the road, with music playing and lots of people just wandering around eating Ice Cream.
It was pretty damn cool, I was looking for a cynical or funny angle on it but no, it was just cool. Firstly that the city council puts on such a seemingly excellent promotion of sports, and secondly that there´s such a community atmosphere around it. And yes, as previously mentioned, watching little kids being taught to Fence is pure awesomeness.
OTHER THINGS! Political graffiti! There´s a lot of political grafiti around here. Lots of the usual petty Nazis versus anti-fascist stuff, as well as some straightforward nationalist slogans and socialist/republican ones, hammer and sickles, and anarchist ´A´s and the like. Probably the strangest is the frequency of VEGAN sloganeering scrawled over shopfronts and walls and the like. It´s a little weird, but assuming the frequency of the graffiti reflects an unusually large vegan population, my guess is the following: This place eats SO MUCH meat and it is often sold in kinda gross looking ways that leave no illusions as to the nature of the product. Even being vegetarian is fucking hard because there´s often nothing without any kind of meet on it. To top it off, large numbers of people think brutally murdering bulls is fine entertainment. Therefore, going vegan is possibly one of the most fundamental ways in which you can reject it all and move to the other extreme as some people inevitably want to do in any culture. Maybe. There´s also the possibility that veganism is just the culinary equivalent to the anarchism that is historically quite strong here, a natural complement to it.
Who knows!
My Spanish is improving in small chunks. The process of assimilating a new language is entirely new and scary to me, but I think I´m making progress. At the moment I feel like I can only capture the broadest of thoughts and anything subtle or fine-grained just slips through the gaps. Assumably, more learnings will better hone the rather crude pre-existing structures from 2 years of classes into something approaching actual language proficiency. I think part of the problem at the moment is my English is often pedantically precise and I can´t get that level of precision in Spanish, which causes me to think it´s not worth speaking at all, instead of deciding that most language is surplus to basic communication of information.
That said, already I´m finding that my first instinct is often to speak Spanish now, that new words are usually sticking when I learn them, verb conjugations are slowly coming to me more easily, knowing when to use the different past tenses is becoming a little more automatic, and every now and then another mysterious structural word like tanta or atrás will start making sense to me. It´s a slow grinding process but I´m starting to think it might actually all fall into place eventually. Well, maybe not the subjunctive. I really should speak less English than I do, I feel a bit guilty about it but it´s just too easy when there´s native English speakers around, and it´s not like I´m going to stop hanging out with Australians, English or Irish that I quite like and enjoy the company of, just because I feel I should be speaking less English.
The dance of language switching in multilingual social groups is fascinating and new to me. I´m sure some people have experienced this before but I´ve led a remarkably monolingual existance until now. With people from different countries, there´s sort of a semi-unconscious process of figuring out what common language works best. Relative numbers in the group play a role... a critical mass of French, German or English speakers renders that language dominant in a given social context, but relative fluency also plays a role as does alcohol consumption. Some non-native speakers actually want to practice their English with natives, while other times the languages and levels of proficiency are too varied and the group either breaks down into little units along language lines, or Spanish actually gets spoken... or both. I still don´t speak much Spanish in these situations for the reasons I was talking about before... which puts me in the very unusual situation (for me) of listening to conversations and being passive more than trying to speak a lot.
I´m quite proud of what just happened in this internet bar (!) though. Two dudes, probably Eastern European came in. They didn´t speak any Spanish and like most people here, the lady at the bar doesn´t speak any English, so I translated between them about prices and stuff and it worked. Yay me!
Music here is kinda crazy. There´s a lot of cheesy English-language pop and I´ve heard random Spanish-language covers of songs like Achy Breaky Heart (oh my god). The other night in a Discoteca they played a fucking DANCE REMIX OF LOSING MY RELIGION which is now my favourite song evah. Half the Spanish music sounds like the Venga Boys or Manu Chao but some of it is pretty good. There´s two Zaragozano rock groups (Amaral and Heroes del Silencio) which I think are pretty huge. The Heroes del Silencio have packed out the Romareda stadium two nights running for their anniversary/reunion tour. What I´ve heard of those two groups has been half decent and I probably need to hear more of through the magical art of internet theft, once we get our internet up and running back at my flat.
Other things that are important are sport and university classes, but I can´t be stuffed talking about them right now. Let´s leave it at: Barça and Real Zaragoza, Port Adelaide, Ualabis (sound it out), amazing evenings-only class schedule, history, linguistics. Piece it together.
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Tuesday, September 11th, 2007
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OK, so I´m sitting in a net cafe about a block away from my apartment, next to the local branch of the Partido Comunista (whom I once wrote an essay about!) and that seems a good place to start.
I got here about a week ago. As I sit down to write, I´m struck by how much, yet how little, there is to say. It´s almost overwhelming. It´s almost overwhelming, a continuous stream of new experiences and random observations and cool little moments. The city is predictably awesome and I´m still utterly enchanted with the sense of history. I walk around the Casco Viejo (old town) around my flat and try to imagine the streets filled with Roman soldiers or medieval peasants, or filled with the dead from the sieges and streetfighting during the Napoleonic wars, or chaotic with clashing bands of Anarchists and Fascists. The street I´m living on is in a street named after an 800 year old monarch and I´m mere blocks away from ruins and monuments from virtually all of the many periods of Zaragoza´s history.
Streets are small and confusing but pretty in a cobblestoney and apartmenty sort of way. There´s bars pretty literally everywhere. Buses are incredibly frequent and stuff is mostly cheaper than Sydney (though that ain´t hard). The city is nice and compact, and probably a lot safer than much of Sydney.
So there´s all that.
The rhythms of life here are very different, and are going to take a lot of getting used to. Everything shuts in the afternoon before opening again around 5 and nobody seems to eat much in the evenings... all the bars and restaurants have is Tapas and Raciones and Bocadillos (sandwiches, albeit very good ones) and other lighter stuff. I think what happens is people go eat a nice big meal at home in the afternoon (everyone in Australia seems to think this is "siesta" time but that isn´t really true) then they rest and by evening and dinner they just want light foods and stuff. Hence Tapas and a lack of proper restauranty restaurants. As someone used to North European rhythms (big meal in the evening, relatively early) that´ll take some adjustment.
Food! The meats and cheeses are awesome, and there´s all sorts of stuff I need to sample on that front. The bread and cereal is sweeter and less substantial than even the United States, which I hadn´t thought possible. Also, there´s nary an Asian dish to be found, and not even many kebab places... I have a feeling that by June I´ll be ready to kill for something Satay flavoured. Fresh milk doesn´t exist, it´s all UHT, which I´m told is the European norm. Beer, however, is everywhere, and despite the fact that bares only have one on tap (you just ask for "una cerveza" without specifying) the quality is surprising. I´ve even found a couple of dark beers in supermarkets here, which is awsome and I want to buy cases of it. It sounds like I´m whining about the food but really I just have to get used to the differences.
As for what I´m doing. Well, mi español still leaves much to be desired... during the day (9 to 6 with a break in the afternoon, of course) I attend a special Spanish class for foreign students (read: Germans). This course is very very necessary but quite gruelling, and it´s a bit dispiriting to come back froma whole day of communicating in Spanish (with foreigners and Spanish teachers) to realise that you still can´t really follow what native speakers are saying. Bah. I´m living with a couple of Germans and we´ve been trying to communicate in Spanish as much as possible. There´s a lot of foreign students (Erasmus!) here, and they´re generally pretty nice. We Australians seem to be a slight novelty, having come so far. The Germans seem a bit cliquish because a lot are from the same place so they tend to talk to each other a lot, but (defying stereotypes!) the French have been super nice and of course there´s others around from places like Poland and Switzerland and Turkey. So far my social life has consisted of hanging out with the other Australians and going to Erasmus parties, hopefully this changes a little once classes start.
Generally speaking I´m still in the initial happy stage, having only been here for a week... glad I´m finally here, loving all the differences and all things Spanish in general, so things are awesome, and I´m safe and well. University-proper hasn´t started yet and I´ll probably get downright depressed and frustrated once I´m dealing with native spoken Spanish a lot more, but I´ll get there eventually, no doubt after much angst and hardship.
This weekend, I believe I´m going to Valencia with a few people (including the three Australian girls from UNSW), and next weekend a couple of us are going to Montpellier in France for the Wallabies-Fiji game in the Rugby World Cup. It´s a bit weird, going halfway around the world and ending up watching Rugby with Australians, but such is life.
Yay!
There´s other stuff I could talk about... the amazing Basillica del Pilar, the political grafiti, the Expo that´s apparently coming here next year, the humbling and ego-reducing experience of being in a place where you can barely communicate or express yourself... but I´ve probably gone on for too long already.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, September 4th, 2007
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I've been in Helsinki for about a day and it's a weird little city. Parts of it are pretty in an understated, Baltic sort of way, but the area around Kamppi (which I gather is the main shopping district?) is horrendously ugly and messy. I know Finland was never actually part of the Soviet Union, but the mess of bizzare statues and ill-advised, tacked-on globs of various styles of architecture makes me wonder...
This is the first time I have spent any length of time someplace where English isn't a main language, and it's bizzare. Everything is in Finnish and Swedish and the sheer alienness of the Finnish language has been bringing me endless amusement... glancing at my map at random yields wonderful things like Pursimiehenkatu and Uunisaari. I am pretty sure the Finnish word for American is Yhdysvalttain.
Today I took a ferry to Talinn, Estonia, because the novelty of being able to take a ferry to another country is irresistable to me. Talinn has this medieval 'Old Town' surrounded by grassland and regular streets, which confused me greatly. Basically, it feels like Hyrule has joined the EU. The rest of the city looks pretty much like Helsinki, though with signs saying 'Striptiisi' everywhere just to remind you that you are, in fact, in an ultracapitalist post-Soviet den of sin, not a staid little Nordic republic.
I spent the entire time trying to work out if the medieval Hyrule-esque area was actually lived-in, actually part of the city, or if it was some sort of touristy theme park. I think it's kinda both. Sure, there's touristyness everywhere, and parts of it look too perfect to be genuine, but there's also dentists and embassies and cars and a school. I wonder who actually lives in those cobblestone streets and what they think of the world.
And I wonder whether they frequent Bar Depeche Mode, a random find in a basement in the middle of the medieval Old Town. As far as I can tell, it is a bar owned and run by the Depeche Mode fan club of Estonia, and it's all decked out with DM paraphenalia and constantly plays DM music. Words fail me, it was just too random.
I climbed up the tower of St Olaf's church which dates back to the 1200s (and the very initial Christian subjugation of Estonia). Felt deeply unsafe and thus genuine, to be climbing up there around a stone spiral staircase. I still hate heights. Dizziness and fear abounded.
Then I went and got lunch, drank several Saku Tume beers (dark beer, Estonian company, 6.7%) and then went on a slightly drunken museum visit which was entertaining. I learned that Estonia's history essentially consists of being a slushy little possession of all its neighbours, one after the other, then joining the EU.
Then I came back to Finland, and I'm writing this in an internet bar (!) instead of getting some dinner because my experiences with Finnish food have been so dire that I don't have the courage to try and find another meal here. Instead I will gorge myself on the one edible thing I've had here--the free hostel breakfast tomorrow morning. Mmmm, porridge and toast!
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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"Conventional" and "normal" are pretty overrated concepts.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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