La alegría de Laguardia (The Joy of Laguardia)

Last Saturday, I, Kata, Jessica C., and Ally met up in Bilbao and took a bus to the walled city of Laguardia. As we rode through Álava province of the Basque Country, the scenery suddenly changed from green pine tree nurseries to red-orange rows of vineyards. I was in wine country for the first time in my life, and when I saw how the vines hung over what looked like fencing, I laughed because it reminded me of how it looks when you grow grapes on Farmville. Yes, I may be from Oklahoma, but most of the crops I'm used to seeing are corn, hay, and maybe some cotton.

After realizing what I was seeing, I got really excited, and I couldn't stop reacting -vocally. You can ask Ally who was sitting next to me. I kept saying "Wow!" and "It's so pretty!" I tried to mix up the two phrases so that I wouldn't repeat the same thing too much, but the more beautiful fields of red I saw, the more I would forget adjectives and interjections to do them justice. I think everyone else had seen grape vines before and weren't as impressed as I was. I reminded the girls also that even seeing mountains was still a new experience for me, so the combination of these two novelties blew me away.

Eventually we made it to Laguardia and walked around outside the city walls for a few minutes before going to our scheduled tour of a bodega and wine-tasting. Bilbao doesn't have very many trees, and the ones in my neighborhood that did were sadly de-robed a few weeks ago. Jessica and Kata took advantage of the leaves to play in them.

 

Then we found our way into the walled city. Behind the wall we discovered narrow streets, even narrower than those of Bilbao or Vitoria's Cascos Viejos.

Ally, Kata, and Jessica

After grabbing a quick bite to eat, we went to the bodega, which is named El Fabulista, after a famous fabulist (writer a fables) who grew up in Laguardia. After buying our reserved tickets, we listened to the tour guide as she explained the history of the bodega. Apparently centuries ago during wartime, underground wine presses were built all over Laguardia. Most of them were no longer in use due to flooding, but this one still is and one of only two that are open to the public. The underground concept worked well for the storing of the wine as well, since the temperatures underground remain constant year-round. When I stepped inside the bodega and inhaled, I thought that I might get tipsy; it smelled like I'd stepped into a wine bottle. We listened as she explained the wine-making process.

I was annoyed by light reflecting of dust particles in the air in pictures I was trying to take, but I realized that the light was actually reflecting off of fruit flies. Of course they would be here.

Then we went down, down, down into the depths of the bodega. It was surprisingly not too claustrophobic despite the size of our group. Soon we came to a large chamber where two glasses of wine were set up for us to taste. One was a younger wine, and the other was more mature. The tour guide explained how they differed in smell, color (tested by how the light shines through it, below), thickness (by how slow it drips on the side of the glass), and taste. When she asked the group what fruits we smelled in the wine, one wiseguy said, "Grapes," and we all laughed.

I liked them both, "like how parents love two different children," I explained when asked which I preferred.

 

The tour ended abruptly after the wine-tasting, and the four of us went for some lunch at an Irish pub. We bought and shared four different raciones, appetizer-sized portions of various foods. It was starting to get cold after dinner, so the girls went in search of sunlight, and finally found some. After catching some rays, we decided to spice up the mid-day lull with some coffee. "My two favorite drinks in one day," I noted. We didn't have much time after coffee, but I was determined to see some vines up-close-and-personal. So, we walked downhill. I thought that surely we'd be met with some barbed wire or other fencing, but in fact, you could walk right up to the vineyard sin problema (without a problem).

 

 

The vineyard was more amazing than I'd imagined. When frolicking down the rows of vine you would sink delicately into the loamy soil. Like Ofelia in Pan's Labyrinth, we couldn't resist trying at least one round, juicy grape.

I had thought that wine grapes were usually more bitter, but these were very sweet. Too soon, we walked up the hill to catch our bus, and we waited, and waited, but it didn't come. We left three hours after we expected and killed time by going to another small bodega for yet another glass of wine with some bread.

We finally made it to Bilbao, and I went to Casco Viejo where I met up with friends who were celebrating the birthday of one of Saraí's roommates. They had quite a large group, and I met several people and spoke a lot of Spanish. Later we went to Mozart, the place with salsa lessons that I'd been to before. I was too tired to dance, though, so I chatted with the wallflowers.

Today I went back to work. All last week I had done activities that were too difficult for most of my students. I decided to figure out something more level-specific to each cycle. Luckily Helena, one of the teachers I work with the most, emailed me with some suggestions yesterday about things she would like to see me do this week in her classes. Finally! Some direction! Apparently the professors had a department meeting and are going to give me a little more direction like I've been wanting. This week I took her suggestions and developed them into activities for all the classes of the same level. For example, the first cycle students need practice with "have got," so I had them draw a family tree, and talk about how many siblings they "have got."

It feels a little ridiculous teaching English here at times because the student's curriculum is in British English. Thus for simple possessive statements, they learn to say "I have got three sisters," instead of the more simple "I have three sisters." Those poor kids. The perfect tense is so unnecessary here, even illogical. Also, today, I spelled "neighbor" on the chalkboard, and one of my students accused his teacher of being wrong because he had taught that it was spelled with a "u." I find I have to stop more than you might expect to explain the differences between British and American English, for words like "mum" and "trainers" for example. A couple weeks ago one of my students even asked me what "dog bollocks" meant, and I didn't know until I asked my British friend. Today in one of my upper-level classes I also cracked down on the ridiculous-yet-common "See you!" as a goodbye, which not even the British say. I explained that if you don't follow it up with "tomorrow" or "later" you have to say it like the Spanish for chair: "silla!"

My class of horror remains horrific, even with a very dumbed-down exercise. I asked their teacher what disciplinary methods she's tried, and she said she'd tried all of them. Getting them to simply remain in their seats would be progress. Students here have interesting school supplies. I had noticed before that they all use grid-lined notebooks, but today I realized that they also all had white-out pens or white-out tape, which they love to use at any opportunity, almost as an excuse to be productive. What ever happened to old fashioned pencils and erasers? They have those, too, but only the most astute students have realized their value. If I were in charge, there would be severe consequences for getting out of your seat for any reason. If I were in charge, I would confiscate all the white out.