Week 31

Lost in Translation: By in large our "Lost in Translation" feature has steered clear of untoward euphemisms, but this week we break the dry spell that has persisted since the mistaken question about contraceptives in our post from week four. I'm happy to report that we've managed to keep these missives at bay and have simply observed unfortunate phrasing in others.  This week I was discussing an article about robots in the workforce with a student.  My student was fumbling for a phrase, and so I asked if it could be described in English.  "When people do things that machines cannot do...hand jobs?"  I didn't miss a beat and said "Ah yes, manual labor." It didn't strike me as inappropriate in the moment, though I later realized that the outsourcing of this particular task would require not only incredible precision but also a sea change in the amount of trust humans place in machines to carry out the more...intimate...of tasks.

Who’s Coming to Dinner: This week we were joined by our Illinois friends for several meals in and out of the house.  Leah, Jacob and Sarah arrived on Friday and have battled the time difference and jet lag in service of venturing out into the city.  On Tuesday we were all feeling tired and collectively decided to stay in for the night.  Everyone was craving pizza, and so we fittingly ordered Dominoes to consume with our fellow Americans.  If we haven't noted this previously, Dominoes in Spain is FAR superior to US transplant Pizza Hut and local competitor Papizza.

Exploring the City: This past Friday marked the beginning of Carnival in Spain, a pre-Lent string of events that lasts five days.  While a majority of the festivities took place in a rather distant barrio, we struck out for Plaza Mayor with the promise of people dressed up in costumes and masks.  Not wanting to be left out of the fun, we got into the spirit and assembled costumes ranging from a cat to a lumberjack:





While we had a good time, it seems that we arrived in Plaza Mayor after most of the formal happenings had ceased.  Later in the week on Wednesday, the closing day of Carnival, I went in search of the bizarre entierro de la sardina - the burying of the sardine.  This tradition dates back a couple hundred years (at least to 1812) and a student told me that it had something to do with a king being so repulsed by receiving a shipment of expired sardines that he ordered the foul fish to be burned and then buried.  After spending about an hour mingling amidst a very slow moving processional, I still don't fully understand, but the impassioned adherence to a quirky ceremony won me over.
 

We also managed to see our first opera at the world renowned Teatro Real.  It was an abstract atonal piece called La ciudad de las mentiras (The City of Lies), and the general consensus seemed to be that it was pretty dang weird BUT impressive in many ways.  The building was stunning on the inside, and I'd love to make a few return visits in our remaining months. 



On Tuesday morning, Sarah, Joni and I strolled the brightly colored halls of the Almudena Cathedral.  Completed in 1993, construction took over 100 years.  The architectural style reflects this modern time span, and suffice to say that both interior and exterior are distinct in the slowly growing collection of Cathedrals we've seen in the last six months.










Joni and Sarah spent the afternoon getting churros and chocolate and exploring Retiro Park.









Memorable Meal: For the first time in several months, we went out to a restaurant during the peak Spanish lunch time - about 3 PM.  After trying a handful of places where we were met with rather exorbitant wait times, the group of us stumbled upon the vegetarian restaurant El Estragón Vegetariano. Joni and I shared grilled peppers stuffed with curried rice and vegetables along with a squash soup.  Sarah ordered a grilled cheese, which turned out to be exactly that - a large chunk of cheese without the familiar slices of bread to accompany it.  Jacob and Leah shared an avocado salad with generous portions of the delectable green food.  To top it all off, we were treated to complimentary coffee after the meal.  I'd definitely go back!



En la clase: Joni's four-year-old students are learning about parts of the body, and so a parent provided a set of helpful flashcards.  Some of them were OK, but then again...



The target audience of these cards seems very unclear.  The style of the drawings seem well-suited for children, but the images seem a little racy.  And if the student is an adult, why not go all in with the slang?!

Final Notes: We both taught about the past continuous tense this week using a lesson focusing on crime.  My discussion ranged from talk of petty theft in Madrid ("pickpocket" was a crowd-pleasing vocab word) to the inevitable questions about why gun violence is so prevalent in America.  I'm not entirely sure how we got to the topic, but I somehow found myself recounting the story of Trayvon Martin.  To my surprise, none of my students recognized the name and were not familiar with the events.  It has made me think a lot about how media coverage not only shapes public perception of events but also the mere introduction of content.  Of course the leader of a dominant world power has a much higher chance of affecting daily life in Spain, but it is harrowing to think that a poorly conceived tweet could garner more attention on the other side of the world than the murder of a teenage boy.  It's nothing new, of course, but I'm challenged to think about the dilemma in a global context.