forays in deep spain: cáceres

Extremadura is unequivocally and unapologetically Spanish. This is not Galícia, or Pais Vasco, or Cataluña -- there are no competing linguistic or national identities here. This is the birthplace of the conquistadors, the home of jamón serrano, where people still siesta and pictures of los reyes are hung proudly in public offices, in no danger of being burned in street protests.

Bienvenida a España Profunda, they told me when I first arrived -- Welcome to Deep Spain.

Extremadura is probably unjustly left off most tourist's itineraries. Goodness knows it probably wouldn't have made it on mine -- which is why I am making the most of this wrinkle in fate by nodding to portrait of the kings in the office at school every morning, sleeping as many siestas as my schedule allows, eating plenty of jamón, and hitting up every conquistador town in the area.

This morning I wound through tiny towns and fields of sheep to Cáceres: provincial capital, university town, and almost perfectly preserved walled city of Roman, Moorish, and conquistador-funded wonders.

The walls and several adobe towers are mostly Moorish, with a few of the arched entrance ways dating back to Roman times. Within lies a maze of narrow, uneven cobblestone streets, Gothic churches (each bell tower with its own family of storks), heavily restored Arab remains (the Cáceres museum is housed what was the Alcázar and includes a cute patio and the arched aljibe, or cistern), and solares built in the 15th century by (rich) returning conquistadors. I walked along happily on what was a sunny but crisp morning (high of 12 today), running my fingers along the jagged walls, photographing flowers and following cats.

One of the cats led me to the Casa Árabe, a private museum born of one man's excavations and renovations in his Moorish home. It's neat -- complete with its own cistern, small courtyard and basement steam bath that also served to heat the main bedroom. It's also profoundly odd, including, among other things, tourism posters (circa 1970) from Egypt and letters and photographs from the Iraqi ambassador to Spain.

Cáceres is nice outside of the walls, too. It's small, but it's a city -- which was refreshing. There are wide, tree-lined avenues, pedestrianized shopping streets and a theatre (on now: a concert series called 'Cáceres Sounds Like Portugal' with headliners Dulce Pontes and Camané). It feels like a world away from Don Benito -- but it's only and hour and a bit on the bus, which means I'll probably find excuses to venture that way throughout the year.

One conquistador town down...
....the rest of Deep Spain to discover.

more photos at http://mcgill.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2174774&l=c48fa&id=13604199

my year 'off'

You probably think I'm taking a year off.

I mean, most people do.

A year off. A break. Something different, something better, more fun, less stressful.

Sounds enviable -- can I have one?

This year doesn't have much to do with what that little tag-a-long "off" connotes. I may be doing something different than what I was doing before, but since I opted not to do a victory lap that was sort of inevitable. It is not better, or more fun, or less stressful. Just different.

My problem may be semantic. What am I supposed to be taking a year off from? A career? A degree? A carefully crafted plan for the future? I didn't have those things to begin with.

What then -- life?

As far as I can tell, this is life -- or as life-like as the rest of it has been. It's not exactly radical for me to be engulfed by someone else's culture or expect to have to pick up my bags and leave in the foreseeable future. In my mental mailbox there is always an eviction notice -- if not in someone else's handwriting, then in my own.

The end of this Spain stint won't be a resumption, even if it is a return (to Montreal...to school...?) It'll be a set change, just like this one.

There is no intermission in this show.

déjà vu

One of the decisive factors in the Spain-France decision was proximity to Portugal. The possibility of hopping on a bus in Don Benito and hopping off a few hours later in Lisbon tipped the scales in favour of Spain. And so, when the All-Saints'-Day long weekend rolled around at the beginning of November, it was to Lisbon I hopped.

These two lovely ladies took up the invitation to stay at my parents' place. (I call it my parents' house but that's really just a cover for the building's secret identity as a B&B.)

A and I left from Spain on Wednesday after school; J flew in from Paris on Friday morning.

I couldn't shake the feeling of déjà vu. The combination of the absurdly warm weather (24 degrees every day...!) and tour-guiding threw me back to my summer of visitors. We hit up the main spots -- Belém, Chiado and the Baixa, Bairro Alto, the Castle and Alfama, my grandmother's house in Alenquer.

We soaked up plenty of the famed Lisbon light -- at its most beautiful at the cloister and tower in Belém. We walked by the bar in bairro alto were I spent so many nights with my Portuguese class friends, had coffee and pastries at the café around the corner, ate at the usual restaurant in the park.


But it wasn't all replay. A and I spent a chilly evening washing down roast chestnuts with agua pé in a beautifully restored country house belonging to friends of my cousin. We satisfied our hunger for the arts with a visit to the newest contemporary art gallery and box seats at Lisbon's opera house for Portuguese choreographer Olga Roriz's current show (and photographed ourselves in the theatre washroom, in gleeful silliness).

Even the streets I know had some surprises for us. We walked into a film shoot on our way to one of the downtown lookouts. We found a nifty little store where the guy behind the counter made us fun earings. A friend, P, took us to a delicious vegetarian restaurant for dinner (that's two, #1!).

It was a familiar weekend -- cozy, comfortable, calming. Fragments of home: hanging out with J, being pampered by my grandmother, coffee with old friends, a room that will always be mine (at least until my parents get tired of me).

Fancy that, me feeling at home somewhere....

More photos here.