As Spanish as Canarian can Be.

Los Canarios, the people of the Canary islands, are a proud people. These small islands that belong to Spain, even though they are nestled against Africa some 1200 kilometers from the spanish peninsula, are a world apart from their patria. They seamlessly blend African, Spanish, Caribbean and now English and German cultures. They feel like tropical islands, with bright colors and palm trees everywhere, but also keep surprising landscapes hidden in their interiors. The aboriginal people, los Guanches, once lived in cave houses in the dry, mountainous heart of Gran Canaria -- and this is where I had a brilliantly authentic experience with a group of their distant descendants.

It was my first week on the island and I found myself looking out of our cave hostel into the crag-like canyon that spread out before me. Myself and Tom, another American, were on cave duty for a few days because a couple from Barcelona were staying there. We had just finished the mid-morning cleaning and decided to go for a bike ride down the mountainside to a traditional village tucked under an ominous overhang of a rock. Our first mistake, and we knew (which was worse), was leaving at 2 in the afternoon, being overconfident in our biking abilities, and carrying just enough water.

Needless to say, 2 hours later, after seeing this..., we were dying of thirst, heat and exhaustion after climbing some pretty steep ascents without much shade. We arrived to the main road, still a ways from home, and saw the same group of men sitting under some trees that we had seen while passing by earlier. Tom spoke up for salvation and asked for water. They offered us wine. We took it and then they jostled beer, cheese, chorizo, mangos and finally water into our hands. They were a group 5 hunters having a good ole' Heminway-esque time getting drunk under a tree while their dogs barked in their cages nearby. They were jolly, loud and funny. They made sure we knew that they were true-blooded islanders and showed off their knives and singing abilities. One that was the oldest, drunkest, and most toothless, sat next to me and mumbled traditional ballads into my ear. He stole my heart. They explained how they had helped re-forest this part of the island, gave us business cards to eat at one of their restaurants, and yelled at the cars that were passing by. They saved us and enriched us, and I'll forever remember them for it.

Modern Booty: Experiences

I've been away from home 33 of the last 84 months. That's almost 3 of the last 7 years. Seems more impactful when said the latter way. I started when I was just about 18 and suppose I really only stopped in between for university. I'm not sure where the instinct comes from, if it's even some kind of inborn quality, but I'll just say I fit into the category of people with an adventurous spirit. Aaargh! I'll also give some credit to my lovely parents who possess similar spirits and took us road-tripping around the Southeast when we were growing up. Everything has a beginning, and this one is right after high school graduation.
      There was something about that first taste of true independence when I was 18 that changed everything. It was the catalyst that came at the right time, as so much of life depends on circumstance and developmental experience.  It was Rehoboth Beach, Delaware (the first state) in the summer of '05 when Mario and I arrived after our typical senior trip in Cancun, Mexico, which was a time when I didn't even stop to think, "Wow, I'm in Mexico." Fresh out of high school, Mario's long lost biological father began to reconnect with his maturing son, and advised us to spend the summer working at Funland, a beach-side, family-oriented, amusement park. It was our first communal living experience, and the moldings of our future began then.
      That summer we were endlessly stimulated and enthralled. We had escaped Southern Louisiana and we were making friends from all over the world who were equally open and excited to new experiences. In the end, that's the essence of traveling I think. The underlying group consciousness, the "we're in it together and we're all loving every second of it." We shared stories from Colombia, England, Scotland, Germany, Kenya, ate together, laughed together, were embarrassed together, roamed the boardwalk together and admired each other for being so different but similar all at once. We weren't each others friends from back home. We were young, free and enchanted with life.
      Now, 7 years later, I'm in my shadowy kitchen in Northern Spain processing the circular green tile patterns on the wall in my periphery. My cup of coffee is going cold next to me, it was too weak anyways, and I'm waiting for the right time to go surf at the city beach. I'm again living next to a cold, northern, Atlantic beach. I'm still living communally by having an "open" apartment and accepting couchsurfers when I can, and by trying to assure friends that they can drop by whenever they please. I've taken immersion a step further by deciding to live in Spain for 2 straight years and realize that I'm still chasing and catching that initial experience from Delaware. That's what we travelers are, right? Experience chasers, it's why we can't stay put in the same place for too long. At least for now. There are too many open, interesting, interested, free and fun people to meet and learn from. I know it won't last forever, and don't think that I want it to, but for now let the adventure continue. 
   

Something I hadn't considered before

I just read an NYtimes article about the consumption and waste of energy by data centers around in the U.S. that illuminated something for me that I had not stopped to consider before: that every e-mail., blog, video or song that we store online in "the cloud" is kept on a disk drive in a factory building somewhere in West Virginia. These data centers, or factories, are what were inspected by the newspaper, to determine how much energy they use and waste. Unsurprisingly, it's a lot. Our constant need for instant access to anything and everything online has created an industry-wide paranoia of system failures, which would delay us from watching the next YouTube video for example, and create an uproar of complaints and criticism which would then put some data storage company out of business. Therefore, these warehouses stocked with serves are run at full power 24/7 and furthermore connected to diesel burning generators to back them up in case of emergencies. Damn that's a lot of energy. The journalist found that quite often the servers are not running efficiently at all, often using energy to power operations that are no longer needed, or that are running at 12% utilization, a measure of the percentage of the entire system needed to operate, while 100% is being fueled. These energy-sapping safeguards are to satiate our need to access info, however useful or mundane it may be, at anytime. Also, though, it's caused by us growing into a system that most don't fully understand. I for one didn't think twice about the space and energy my 500 stored emails were wasting, or even the space that this maltreated blog is occupying on a disk drive somewhere. For me, this was another lesson of how important it is to be a little more conscious of the things happening around us because, however seemingly impossible they are to change, a bit of awareness always helps. Maybe in the future people will be forced to store the majority of what they want on their own external hard drives that can be powered on and off instead of kept on eternally running servers somewhere. The more time passes the more I'm convinced that things would be better with a small reset to a past state of things. A hybrid of sorts that mixes the new and old. The problem is that the mass perception of how the world, similar to how religion works, will not change anytime soon.  

Summer's Over

Black sand, warm sun, cool waves, crowded hostel, dry canyon air, hard brittle volcanic rock, shimmering sea grass and cheap food are some of the sensations that I'll carry away from my time in Gran Canaria. It's flown by as expected, but it's been magical. There were times when it was a little demanding to live in a hostel with limited privacy and constant interaction or responsibility (since i was staff), but overall it was a great experience and I think that I've come away more open and with better social skills. The constant presence of the guests and perpetual social atmosphere almost completely removed that feeling of reluctance, nervousness, or fear that I once had to start a conversation or keep one going. I find it easier now to prod a person into speaking, to keep nudging them along so as not to have to speak so much myself. I find it's easier that way, when before I used to think too much about what I was going to say. Better just to keep bouncing the ball against the wall and letting it come back to you. Also, I learned from a TED talk that the number one reported fear is public speaking, while number 1.1 is merely saying hello to the person next to you. I fit into that category I realized and made a decision then to try to change that. Granted, you can't go around expecting everyone to want to talk to you and you can't awkwardly say hey and smile to everyone (that's a cultural perspective I think), but I am finding that quite often just throwing the ball once or making the initial crack in the ice is all that it takes. I'm also finding it slightly easier after the hostel experience to not worry so much about what the person I'm talking to thinks of me. After meaning so many people one begins to feel weathered, more comfortable with oneself. Connections are made faster, masks are taken off, you dig deeper quicker because you repeat it so often. Granted, these approaches aren't for everyone, for they hinge so much on uncontrollable factors like the culture you were raised in and what categories of the 5 main human traits that we possess.

 In retrospect, i wish that i had kept a guest picture journal, but i think that i'll remember the most important ones.

It was great to live so leisurely on the beach, and while doing so i learned that it's possible to live on 5 dollars a day and  be perfectly happy. a typical day consisted of doing my morning cleaning and having breakfast, playing on the internet, reading something informative, then taking a walk down the beach and stretching, maybe having a snorkel and another read, cooking lunch, laying about aristocratically, then going out in the early evening to surf or just sit on the beach and watch the sun go down and bathe everything in soft, golden light, cook dinner, socialize and finally watch a movie or read some more before bed. Glorious i tell you, but it will be nice to return to the working world and to have a schedule. I don't think the shift will be difficult. Big plans to finally travel a bit outside of Spain this year! woo hoo! I miss home and my peeps and fam, but i'm excited to get the second leg of this adventure underway. who knows what the future holds. in the meantime...

Check out this video of Gran Canaria.
 

summertime saunter

At last and once again, I return to this online record of my comings and goings. It's been a while, quite a while, and many things have happened since school ended on May 31st that I didn't capture in text as quickly as I would have liked, but maybe the good parts get weeded out of the excess of information when you wait a while to write them down. How about a quick list of highlights to get things started:

1. El Camino de Santiago from Oporto, Portugal to Santiago de Compastela, Spain (250km).
2. A leisurely month at home (A Corunya) with some good visitors.
3. El Festival de Ortigueira.
4. Festival de Percebes.
5. I bought my first roadbike.
6. Awesome dayt rip through Galicia and Asturias.
7. The Trip-- Madrid, Segovia, Barcelona, San Fileu with my main man Mike, his lovely wife, Danaya, and my sidekick, Claire.
8. Gran Canaria.

Looking at it like this makes me very impressed, although while everything happens, well, it just happens, and one doesn't often consider the greatness of  it all in the moment. I suppose that's why the ability to reflect is one of the supreme human characteristics (see earlier post with the poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"). I see clearly now, and I've been told that I would eventually, that the ability to look back on these times in my life will bring me much contentment later in life, and I remind myself of this frequently when I feel that innate guilt emerging from the depths of my mind when I'm overly bored or lazy and begin to question the merit of my current lifestyle. Everything is temporary, though, and this too shall pass, and I will undoubtedly miss it immensely when it does. But I'm in it now! And I'm in it deep! And I've read some good books recently:

1. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
2. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
3. Saltwater Buddha by Jaimal Yogis

All are highly recommended and it's a diverse fiction trilogy if you're in the mood.

Finally, to end this recap, the theme song of the summer...

Two Things I Dislike

O ye acid reflux of the soul! That which makes me spew forth rotten words like foamy ocean spray on a cliff-side. Encumbrances to my well-being and mental fortitude, hindrances to my happiness and rank perpetrators of peace; you have replaced the roaches and mosquitoes of Louisiana! Name yourselves burdensome beasts that wander the sky and pavement, spying, conniving, giving, taking , squawking and hassling. Step forth beady-eyed seagull and quick-handed flyer hander outer!

First the seagull, he that roams the sky as a happy partner of the ocean, disgracefully countering the soothing sound of its waves with a blood curdling eruption of senseless chaos. SQUAWK! I despise your beady eyes and sharp, food stealing beaks! Beach rats with wings, I can think of few more horrible things!

Then there is the flyer-hander-outer person, you that averts your eyes while probing into my personal space with your capitalist waste. I do not want your advertisements, and neither does anyone else that accepts your offerings without a second thought, like the trained robots that we sometimes are. I do not blame you, though, for I realize that it is not your fault, but rather the institution that you and I are both a part of, one that squeals for extra profit by littering the earth with its desperate attempts to attract the extra customer. How many of this papers must be passed from hand to hand to trash can with the rapid efficiency of a well-oiled machine before we do away with that horrid routine! Never! Sadly, it will never happen. If only we could train the seagulls...

Monte O Pindo

Last Sunday 3 friends and I hiked a small mountain on the western coast of Galicia, between the towns of Finisterre and Muros. I first saw what the locals call the "Mount Olympus of Galicia" a few months ago on one of my countryside viewing tours with Irene, and I immediately and inexplicably fell in love with it. The road to get there winds majestically between the mountainside and the expansive Atlantic ocean while giving you views of the many small fishing towns that dot the landscape.

The trip was a grand success, and made possible because my roomie Guille let us borrow his car. Here is my friends Bridget's account of the trip on her light and entertaining blog.

It was the epitome of a spur-of-the-moment trip because we didn't know we would have the car until the night before, in which we also had a big and rowdy majority American party to celebrate a duel birthday. Things ended for me around 5 a.m. and we had agreed to hit the road by 10, meaning I had to get up early to get the car and then pick everyone up. Bridget was laying the orderly law down the night before, and so I assumed that they would be waking me up at 9:30. Low and behold, it was me waking them up at a quarter past 10, after I had reluctantly gotten out of bed, thrown some stuff together and made my way to the car to pick up Dan. We did hit the road by 10:30, though, equipped with my mental image of the map to get there. Needless to say, that map disintegrated about halfway there and we pulled over to ask someone for directions and unknowingly receive one of the best memories of the trip. The guy looked like he belonged in a cheap cologne magazine ad (I mean that respectfully). His hair was almost shoulder-length, jet black and slicked back, coupled with a light brown leather jacket. He was nice as hell, but as soon as he realized we understood him, he let loose with a barrage of hints, tips, and cheat codes on how to go straight all the way to the coast. I contemplated hitting the gas and leaving him behind, but I would have felt petty and ungracious. We listened to his elaborate re-tellings for about 5 minutes before being able to wiggle our way into a U-turn to hit the road again. The car immediately erupted into laughter and it already felt like it was going to be the great day that it was.

We made it to O Pindo without further hazard, although my erratic driving plummeted Dan into a head-in-lap carsickness that paralyzed him for the last 30 minutes of the ride. That was resolved by free tapas in the local cafe that we got, along with directions to the trail head, from the super nice bartender. I still can't believe we got sausage, paella, and a few chicken wings for free. We walked through the town, along this inlet until arriving at the cemetery that marks the beginning of the ascent.




The hike was great, and filled with super cool rock formations like this one...








So many rocks....














So many cool rocks...

I managed to get off some good pictures in the sunlight before the clouds rolled in....

But then it began to look like this...

But even this atmosphere was impressive, and by the time with reached the top we couldn't see anything at all around us. It was quite freaky and otherworldly. We made it down 5 hours later and took a dip in the ocean to shock our sore muscles to life again. Then we headed to a town nearby to have a spectacular dinner of local food and drink. Tack on a ride home with an awesome mix of songs from my roommate and it was one hell of a good Sunday.

Southside Swang

I remember those hot, wide streets near the rumbling train tracks. I remember those corner stores and dark-skinned characters always ready to surprise you with a smile or a sinister stare. Twilight lathered swimming pools and 32 ounces of Miller High Life to end a day of bike riding and couch visits. Porch dwelling and grass watching filled the hours in between class and work. That often ignored, but frequently enjoyed, sound of a jubilant accordion makes me wish now that I was capable of teaching people how to 2-step, but instead I can only stumble my way through it while pretending I know what's going on. Oh roux! you dirty brown concoction that is the beginning and end to so many meals in that humid state. How could I wait 24 years before making you for the first time, thousands of miles from where you inspired me. Louisiana, you're like a friend that I never tried to make, but then one day I find myself telling you all of my secrets, although I'm just beginning to listen to yours.

a tedious process

surfing is hard:  First, you have to learn how to read and judge the weather conditions. Then, you have to hop two buses to get to the beach and hope that the ocean looks like you thought it would. Having the right board is turning out to be more fundamental than I thought, but I´m going to stick with the dauntingly small board that was lent to me. Squeezing your way into a wetsuit can be as hard as throwing the covers off when you wake up in the morning. Tackling the initial shock of the freezing Atlantic is like storming a castle, while battling the waves until you get to the safezone behind them is a lesson in patience and perseverance, one that often makes me wonder what I´m doing out there wobbling to and fro while trying to keep myself centered on the board. Then come the waves. You have to judge them, position yourself, time the take off, control your paddling motion, STAND UP, keep you balance and try to look cool at the same time. And if it doesn´t work out, you have to fight the waves and try again. I´ve got a lot of practice ahead of me, and man I want a car.

porty pics

and now portugal

i don´t know that much about Portugal. many people reccomend knowing the historical or cultural significance of a place before going there in order to enrich your overall experience. I didn´t know shit. Except some remnants leftover from my interest in the Conquest and periods of exploration. I´d forgotten that Portugal was the mackdaddy in the 15th and 16th centuries and discovered half of the known world at the time. Now it´s just another victim of the tough economic times of the day. But it still has a lot to offer.

I arrived home from the Feria de Vino late Sunday evening with a hangover and a lot of uncertainty about getting in a car the next day and travelling for the better part of a week. Safe to say i was burnt out. Nico, my roomie, the voice of reason and leisure, said i was crazy for even considering going and that i should stay home and relax for vacation. I agreed, but couldn´t shake the thought that i might wake up on Wednesday with nothing to do and wish that i was in Portugal. I decided to decide about the decision in the morning. I didn´t pack; i went to bed. My phone rang at 10 with Dan saying that they would arrive shortly and to come down and meet them. That was it, i wasn´t going. I would give them the camping gear and head back upstairs. Then Dan convinced me just to close my eyes and get in the car. I did it. I´m happy now, although i was cursing my lack of resolve for 2 days into the trip. The pressure i put on myself to save for my summer vacations was making me wonder why i had come to Portugal when i didn´t know anything about the country and there was no real objective for the trip. I feared i would leak money for 6 days.

We drove 6 or 7 hours to a beach and campsite just north of Lisbon and set up shop. The campsite was nestled behind some sand dunes a couple of blocks from the beach, which was surrounded by cliffs. the facilities were nice but our supplies were scarce. We had about 2 dozen cookies and cinnoman rolls infused with weed. Satiation and alteration fused into one. It was me, Dan, Drew and Christine, all Americans with the same program. The stoned lack of decision making and direction really bothered me at first. I was quite pessimistic at first, but surpassed that nasty feeling in the coming days. A list of the cool things...

1. Sintra-- the former vacation spot of the king and high class when they wanted to escape the city. It´s a super picturesque town hidden in a lush valley and overlooked by a mountaintop castle. The old estates were taken from a fairytale, with underground tunnels that weave through darkness and spit you out at hidden lagoons or on top of a tower or the bottom of a well. By far a highlight of the trip and life in general. We spent the day getting lost in castles and palaces. Childhood relived. Check.

2. Camping. Having now problem getting up in the morning because that´s just how you feel when you camp.

3. Not camping. Hostel life is great and we had a blast in Lisbon and met some cool people. Lisbon was really pretty, but the weather was a bit dreary.

4. Cruising down the coast, peering over a sheer cliff at the beastly, open Atlantic thrashing down below. 

5. Getting to Peniche, a Portuguese surf town, just in time to see a thunderstorm roll on with the waves and taking a cool pic like this...













6. Arriving to Oporto while having a blast getting lost. Having a late night dinner with the family and owners of a restaurant and trying to understand Portuguese. Eating steak, fish, rice, potatos, salad, bread and wine for 4 people for only 25 euros.

7. Oporto. Cool German girls in the hostel. finally watching City of God. nightlife. meeting a nice portuguese girl.

8. stopping at hot springs on the way home and treating ourselves to an end of the trip spa sesh.

Thanks Mom and Dad for letting me do what I want and be lost in life.

Portugal, you friendly neighbor and finder of new worlds

i'm writing this, in a short space of time that I have in a hostel common room, in order to get the ball rolling again with this elusive blog that slips in and out of my routinely-non-routine life like an eel between a fat man's fingers. These last 3 weeks have been full of travel: a trip to reunite with my old pal, James, in Barcelona, to a small town in Galicia for a wine festival with my roommates, and now finally on a 6 day road trip along the coast of Portugal. And the curtain lifts...

Barcelona

My first visit to one of Spain's premiere cities; it left me almost as content as a plate of curry, naan bread and a mango lassie. I went because James was going to be there and we thought that it would be cool to meet in Europe. He was going to visit his cousin, who is studying in BCL, and wanted to know if I felt like crashing on the couch for the weekend. I bought the ticket and arrived at 5 p.m. on Friday. * a note on food: you can eat a big sandwich of spanish tortilla, which is basically an egg pie infused with lightly fried potatoes, for 2.70. You can then add pork tenderloins to it for only .30cents more. bomb.* That's what I ate for lunch. bomb. The airport in Barcelona conveniently has a train that takes you to directly to the city center for only 3 euros, and so I hopped on that bad boy and stepped out of the metro to the bustling streets of Barcelona only to be greeted with La Pedrera, on of Gaudi's many architectural gifts to the city. I passed this building that seemingly melts into the street on my way to meet James in the main plaza of the city. I was unaware and pleasantly surprised to learn that his mom, 2 aunts, and cousin Jack were also staying with him. They were extremely nice and i passed a luxurious weekend in a loft-style apartment in that same plaza in the middle of the city. I couldn't have asked for a better dose of random good luck. Thank you James and Co. once again.

The city itself is magical. It's cosmopolitan and you can hear any number of languages walking down the main tourist drag through the old part of town. This is where the hustle and bustle is, where pick-pockets and prostitutes thrive and immigrants from Pakistan sell 6-packs out of plastic bags until 5 in the morning. bomb.

I was approached my first night by a pretty, kind-looking african lady that asked me for the time. I was congenially reaching in to check my phone when she subtly whispered her elegantly-worded proposition to me: "Can I suck your dick?" I was taken aback and quite amused by this unexpected turn of events, and found myself laughing with my phone still in my hand. She looked offended that I found humor in this friendly exchange and so I apologized and thanked her for the kind offer. Some would call me a gentleman, but i would say a naive country boy form Lafayette, although it reminded of a certain similar happening outside of a Popeye's in Grand Coteau.

To sum things up: James and I had a good time catching up on old memories and chatting about new events in our lives. We had some nice meals with his family and the two of us went on Saturday and met some nice people. An acquaintance of mine, Cynthia, from the Y met us that night as well and we stayed out talking to locals in the plaza until about 6 a.m. Refreshing to be in a big city again, although I do enjoy the small town atmosphere of La Coru~a. I spent the rest of my time traversing the city by foot and gazing at the many architectural jewels that one man took upon himself to bestow upon his hometown, thus single-handedly transforming it into a tourist attraction. I'm excited to return there in July with Mike and Danaya, and to delve deeper into the city.

La Feria de Vino

A Sunday Trek

Yesterday, I woke up at 7:30 to catch a bus out to the countryside with 20 or more people. It was the monthly hiking trip organized by the local outdoors club. This was my first time going and I was looking forward to seeing the countryside on foot and meeting some new people. I wasn't disappointed, and they even managed to give a normal hiking trip some spanish flare.

We drove about 45 minutes east of Coru~a to a small town named Carballo. The trail head lay just south of the town, but we unloaded the bus in Carballo just to have a morning coffee and socialize for 20 minutes. I felt like I was on a field trip. I had a met a German girl the day before at an Italian Flash Mob (the humor is implicit) and had told her about the event, and was surprised to see her that morning. We hit the trail at about 9 and there was still frost on the ground, but the sky was blue and the sun was shining like it should on a Sunday. It was great. My friend, Franziska, and I stood out for being the youngest people there and the only foreigners. It was nice, though, because everyone was very friendly and interested in us. We practiced Spanish more than I ever have in an extended period. The trip was a pleasant 20 km walk through fertile pine forest and old villages, and the time was spent between good conversation and peaceful thought. Every so often, we'd come across a single house with smoke billowing from the chimney, or an ancient church surrounded by a sprinkling of houses. We stopped in one such place for lunch, when 25 of us swept into a house/cafe and proceeded to have beer, coffee, and a shot of liquor cafe with our lunches. How Spanish!

We passed a couple of gentle waterfalls, many barking dogs, and a lot of countryside which reminded me of medieval times with peasants picking their crops and hens roosting in the yard. We finished around 6 and stopped again for a coffee/beer and chat on the way home. It was a very nice day and I look forward to next month's excursion. I failed when it comes to picture taking because my batteries died soon into the hike.

is boredom life´s antagonist?

written from a non-spiritual point of view...What is life about? yes, yes so philosophical, but it´s one of the most natural questions to ask. Excluding those people with the luxury of deep and unwavering faith in a Christian god that demands a certain behavior and lifestyle, life would seem, I think, to be a pursuit of happiness, success or survival. Yet these three things have such subjective meanings.

Happiness is a fleeting sensation. Sure, there are scientific and psychological studies that pretend to whittle the mystery of gainable and sustainable happiness down to a list or process, but I pessimistically don´t think the achievement of such a thing is possible. But I have no reason to think that is possible, though, being that have lived what i consider to be a happy life until now. But my worry and doubt comes from the acknowledgement that the things that make me happy now will not bring me said happiness in the future. Sure, sports and reading and music will always bring me a degree of well-being, but will my current lifestyle, one void of want of nice and often material things, marriage, or children stay buried under the blissful protection of the charmed life that I  have now?  I have not suffered the life-altering shock that i have watched in so many movies, and I do not know how I will handle it when that assumed day arrives, whether it be news of cancer, death of a loved one, or prolonged impoverishment. It´s equally hard to define what exactly makes me happy now and why it does so. I think part of it stems from the human quality of finding happiness through sociability. For this reason, I count myself lucky to have been born and raised in the Southern culture that holds friendship and good times to a very high standard.

So, for some, wouldn´t success in life be equal to prolonged (dare i say permanent) happiness? This inferring that happiness comes with the absence of all things that reduce happiness: disease, pain and sorrow...etc. But when those things do happen, there seems to be two things that help immensely: money and or strong relationships with family and friends. I´ll try to skip over the cliche of money vs. happiness by saying that sure it helps, but is it a worthwhile lifetime commitment? Or is pride in one´s achievements, no matter how big or small they be, or the ability to improve other people´s lives while improving your own, a definition of success? For me, a combination of the 3 would be paramount.

And then there is the ancient definition of success: survival. It was so plain and simple then. But then we evolved right? Our interests, desires and mobility adapted and changed and we began to want more out of life than mere survival. We arrive to present times when our sheer technological and evolutionary advancement has given life, for most people, a plethora of paths, options, or meanings. Now i can define personal success as climbing a mountain or seeing 40 countries, when 100 years ago this was not factored into the equation. Now, i can define success by having my own internet business or reading 5 books a week on a Kindle. But, there still exist many people that only define success by putting food on the table, and this is what separates the West from the Other. But it is nice to know, that no matter how hard it might be, the Other still exists within my Western framing of the world, and that if need be, i can define myself in their terms, no matter if it requires a redefining of what happiness means to me. But hey, i don´t know exactly what that is anyway, i just know that it currently comes to me naturally, and i´m grateful for that.

Note: does this sound like a self-help article? I started writing with the intention of talking about boredom being the biggest obstacle in life, and that finding ways to cure boredom can ultimately lead to happiness and success. So would life then be about not being bored?...because no one wants to be bored to death.

a word on homeless people

A Word on Homelessness

On any given night there are 564,000 homeless people in the United States, giving it the deplorable distinction of having one of the highest rates of homelessness among developed nations. Given that politicians frequently debate this issue, it is valuable to give it some consideration and look at how other countries handle it.

With the recent economic downturn, homelessness has become a bigger issue in Spain. This may seem logical considering the current rate of unemployment in the country, but historically the government has taken measures to protect the poor and disadvantaged in its country. However, things have changed since the crisis began and the government began tightening its belt. Couple this with the skyrocketing number of evictions due to payment default and you have the makings of a social disaster. Interestingly, the attitude of these less fortunate people, and that of the government towards them, is notably different than in the U.S.

Begging in Spanish cities is not the same that you see in Los Angeles or New Orleans, where you sometimes feel like the person is conning you or guilting you into giving a little bit. It may happen that way in Spain, but overall, it is a simpler statement: "I´m poor, the economy is horrendous in this country, can you give me some change?" Local governments  and the general population seem to understand the situation; there seems to be a lot more sympathy and understanding that this could happen to anyone at anytime.

This sympathy is reflected in the attitude of people in Spain and the U.S. A great example is that, with a severe cold front approaching one week in Galicia, the local authority visited the banks to drop off coats, hot drinks and blankets to the homeless as they took shelter in the ATM rooms. This would not readily happen in the U.S. because the interests of the business would supersede that of the individual. The homeless person would not be allowed to sleep in the ATM room because it might disturb more fortunate patrons, patrons that fear the homeless. Granted, there are institutions that provide for the homeless here in the United States, but in general, they are somewhat scorned in this country. There is less solidarity, and this attitude bleeds in to the rest of the country's culture and identity.

The United States built itself around the sacredness of private property, and its cultural identity grew out of the assumption that it is of the utmost importance. While there is no doubt that it is important and must be protected, it is increasingly relevant to study other countries' ideologies and adjust our national consciousness if it is found that we can learn from them.

communicating babble

It's so cool the way life happens. I don't mean this from a scientific perspective, although things happen as equally bad-ass on a microscopic level, but rather through the lens of social interaction and chance. Someone else might sum this all of as normal networking,  but i'll take the long-winded road of trying to make it seem more complicated than it might be. What I'm referring to:  those moments when you can track the significance that one small and seemingly unimportant daily decision has made on your life. I read some articles a while back about how to be more creative and not get caught up in the hum-drum march of life when you stop taking notice of the small things because you naturally forget to observe them because you are so set in your daily routine (note to reader: i don't feel like using commas today). Not that I fervently have been trying to do this (nevermind), but the notion arises sometimes. For example... I used to walk to work the same way everyday on the same side of the street, but then I began to change which side of the street I walked on. Then i got a bike and still took the same way, although riding it gives me many more accessible ways to see different parts of the city on my way home. Sooo, I decided to mix it up every now and again. Doing this last Wednesday, I uncharacteristically stopped to grab dinner to take home from a local tapas bar. I almost didn't, because i have been training myself to eat at home because of all the new and costly hobbies i would like to maintain.

Alas, entering the place I noticed an American guy that i had met once before sitting at a table  with some other people. Here begins the intangibles. Why does one act or think differently from day to day? In my case, why do I sometimes not bother with social "risks", and other times have no qualms about them? This day I was second-guess free. Leaving the restaurant and passing their table, I said "hello fellow americans" and then sat down, chatted, and eventually had some beers and passed the next couple of hours. Since then i have hung out with one of the people, Lorena, a few times, and she seems to be a very interesting person that fits in with my other friends, and is helping me to better solidify some of those friendships nicely.

If you made it though that, i really just wanted to comment on how invigorating and sporadic life can be when you are creating and nurturing new experiences and friendships on a weekly basis. Being in a new country helps immensely, as well as speaking the local language (another aspect completely), but one can also still easily enclose him/herself in the same near-sighted routines that life so often throws at them if they are not careful. Don't hate on my lack of pronoun agreement.

I have other examples, as i'm sure everyone does, but the essence, i think, is how much of a difference the utterance of a few words can make on life. Here is where i should embark on an intellectual and technical discussion of ancient and modern communication, but i'll leave those words unuttered.

Instead, i'd like to invite those who read this to think of a personal example of some small coincidence or event that impacted your life in anyway and to share them in the comments section. Nothing extreme, maybe something you bought that has changed your daily routine and so on...

New Occurrences

1.   I went surfing for the first time. The bomb diggity. I was able to get to my feet and felt alive in the freezing water. You naturally feel supercool wearing a wetsuit and trotting toward the ocean with a surfboard at your side. I´m going again this weekend in hopes of trying to really catch a wave. Also, I am a now imagining a summer of surfing on virgin beaches with mountainous backdrops. Idealism is a beautiful thing.

2.  I´ve joined the local climbing/hiking community which should add some more excitement and friends to my life. It will also be a good outlet to hike through some of the beautiful countryside that i´ve mostly been seeing by car.

3.  I´ve picked up some private classes on the side which is a nice, easy bump to my monthly income.

4.  I´ve reached the 4 month mark. When i reached it in Mexico i was just starting to feel really comfortable with the life and language there, but then i went home. Now, I am feeling the same and have at least another 6 months to go.

5.  I´ve been lent some interesting books in spanish and so should be doing a lot more second language reading.

6.  I´ve begun to practice water paints. I´m still pretty bad.

7.  My roomies are helping me to learn the music creation/production software Ableton Live.

8.  I´ve decided that in the future, if nothing else grabs my attention, I will get an associate´s degree and become a physical therapist´s assistant. I think i could dig it. This would be after teaching english at a ski resort, though.

9. I´ve switched from drinking coffee from a french press to an Italian perculator. Playa´s so cultured!

Galiza é ben feita

The title sums up this blogpost, but allow me to elaborate. I mentioned in an earlier post how nice it was the first time I left the city and saw some of the countryside. Well, I have done it a few more times since then, and it continues to endlessly impress me. This specific trip, documented in photos on facebook, took me west of A Coruña along the Coast of Death. What a cool name, eh!? It´s called this because of the 60+ notable shipwrecks that have happened there in the past 100 years. For this reason, the many small towns are riddled with myths and legends and I hope to read up on some of these in the future. We stopped in Finisterre, which translates to ´the end of the earth´ because it was once thought to be so. On the cliffside overlooking the vast Atlantic, one can see scorched, black stone where the many modern pilgrims burn their shoes after thousands of kilometers spent walking in them. This reminds me of my dad´s story of he and his friends burning their school uniforms in the woods after graduation. Physical and mental journies both deserve a good fire I suppose. My friends Dan and I scaled the cliffs at our next stop and got as close to the crashing waves as we could. It was awesome, to say the least, to look up and only see rock and to look down and see that surging and powerful body of water throwing itself at the cliffs like a child does to the locked door in his room when he´s in timeout. Or maybe that was just me. But I was never in timeout because I was the good son, Macaulay Culkin style. The countryside leading to these virgin beaches and wild cliffsides was also impressive. It is filled with old rural houses clustered together in small enclaves on the hillside like barnacles on a rock. It is a cliche scene filled with grazing cattle and goats, fresh produce gardens, the deepest green grass and the cozy sight of smoke billowing out of chimneys. One can rent a house anywhere in this classic atmosphere for only a few hundred euros a month. Pastoral getaway, anyone?

-ity

(drop the bass)

Narrativity is my proclivity

If you didn't know - it's something close to divinity -

D'you have an affinity?

to do something to the best of your ability?

If you don't you better try from now until infinity

to find that thing that brings you closest to sanity