Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Nine notary publics later...

I'm officially registered for the New York bar. Here's the story: on Tuesday night, with the registration deadline 48 hours away, the firm confirms that I should take the bar in February. And thus begins the mad scamper through Granada's roster of notaries public. After getting the hang of the office hours (scant and unpredictable) the next trick was to find an office with a notary in carne y hueso, rather than solo en the door plaque.
On day two, the first real live one informed me that he could not confirm my signature without understanding the language the document was written in. (This despite the fact that the document in question was merely a one page summary of all my vital information.) Same story at the next four. Hmm. I could, I was told, submit the document at a government office for an official translation, which would take about a week, and then return to get that notarized. Hmm again. In the office of Notary 8, minutes before the hours of siesta, hours before the postmark deadline, I lost it. But I was gifted with the magical word "tranquila," usually a cue that some sort of generosity is imminent.
And it was. Notary 8 began calling through her entire directory until she found Number 9, who reads English, handed me a map and a few reassurances, y ya está, my luck had turned. Tengo vergüenza decerlo, pero estuve en punto de llorar. Mente en blanco. On only my second trip to the offices of Number 9, the honorable himself sat me down for a fascinating discussion of how Spanish notaries fit within the legal system here and how they differ from US notaries.... and he notarized my document.
His secretary then kindly informed me that I had to find a second notary to affirm the notarization of the first notary in order for the first to be valid in the US... but I have the immense pleasure of reporting that it's postmarked and off and all is well. And I have two pages of complex official seals and affirmations to prove it.
My other mind numbing pile of logistics has involved my bicycle, which inspired the series of pictures in this post. Vale la pena? Creo que sí.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Still...

in Spain.

And the country continues to be beautiful.

And the time full.

And the rides big alive remember-forever.

I am more than grateful.


But the Spanish has slogged to a stop.
And today the snow came down to my ride.


So, it is time.
My brother arrives Friday.
(Can't wait can't wait can't wait.)

We head to Morocco.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Jamón

If you were here you could be having this for dinner.
Jealous?
I didn't think so.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Cuentos de Andalucía

Sevilla: una ciudad en la que, a partir del siglo octavo, tres grupos distintos vivían juntos.... and continued to do so throughout the next nearly eight centuries, with a sometimes harmonious and sometimes tumultuous history, until 1492, when the Reyes Catolicos came to the height of their power. Then the Christians took over definitively, forcing the Jews out of the country and forming an accord with the Muslims that, although overtly pacific, led to forced conversions and massive burnings of Arab books. Perhaps not surprisingly, most Arabs decided not to stick around. The story has been Catholic ever since. But those years between 711 and the turn of the 16th century have marked southern Spain--Andalucía--profoundly. Sevilla draws a bold yellow marker over the mix. Standing in the central plaza you can turn around in one spot and see (a) the world's biggest gothic cathedral, built in a display of excess in the 15th century on the site where the city's main mosque previously stood, (b) the Alcázar, a complex palace made up of a fascinating maze of buildings, courtyards and gardens, originally constructed by 11th and 12th century Muslim rulers and updated by rulers of both religions throughout the ensuing centuries, and (c) the entrance to Barrio de Santa Cruz, a tangle of winding streets that served as the medieval Jewish quarter, before the tragedies of later centuries. The first three of these pictures are portions of the Alcázar. In the second you can see how this palace complex folds together layers of history... the bottom levels are Muslim, the top Christian, built to mirror the style below. The third shows the Muslim women's room--note the screens in the second level. I was struck by a few miniature faces in the detailed plasterwork on the lower level. A guide explained that these were probably made as a joke or provocation by Christian slaves employed by Muslim rulers, as it is (was?) against the Islamic faith to create human images. The fourth is a tiny little sliver of the confoundingly huge cathedral (the third largest in the world after St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in London). You can get a sense of its size by looking at the miniature people at the bottom of the picture. The fifth is a shot of the gardens.  Some 17th or 18th century king (I forget which) built the long second-story corridor so that his queen could take some fresh air without being exposed to the sun--an important consideration for anyone wishing to preserve their status as a blue-blood.   (Is it common knowledge that the word blue-blood originated by people distinguishing between the aristocracy and common folk by color of skin?  Brown signified fieldwork while naked blue veins under white sunless skin carried status.)  
And enough history. The last two are this post's gratuitious shots. This past weekend's ride.  Sheer unparalleled being alive.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Sierra Nevada Mountains

First: super close.
Second: cool rocks.
Third: check out the picture.
Enough said?

This is an artificial lake that provides Granada's drinking water. Roads snake along both sides of its source river up towards the snowier parts and back down the opening valley towards Granada, at the base.
Can you see how beautiful this is?
Fall sun. Glinting raucously off yellow, green, brown; skimming sidelong around almost-sentient rocks; just missing bitter breezy folds of living shadow.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Granada

I'm still in Granada, but have been derelict about posting on account of a small lack of joie de vivre. (Which, of course, I feel more than a little silly about. I'm at a language school in Spain, with time and life on my hands. What more could a person want?)
But by now I could kill for a cup of vegetarian chili, an American coffee or a paper version of the Sunday Times. And after ripping up perfectly serviceable roots in Barcelona to come down here, I was greeted by wet dark days, an empty apartment, and a language school dominated not by the twenty/thirty-something European amalgam I'd grown accustomed to in Barc, but by a large troupe of barely-old-enough-to-vote UMass students on their semester abroad. And living the elections vicariously through the NY Times at internet cafes got me homesick fast. I miss you--people who would be thrilled to talk about the why and when of Rumsfeld, for instance.
But I think I've just been rescued from this bout of gloom by a lively Iranian-turned-Swiss woman on leave from her work with the Red Cross in the Sudan and full of stories that she's glad to tell in her month-old, month-to-go Spanish. The first night we went Salsa dancing, or rather, she did, and I watched from the safety of the bar. The next night we went to a Scandinavian movie dubbed badly into Spanish in what turned out to be a makeshift theater that doubles as a nightclub on the weekends. So we understood little but did so from the relative luxury of shiny gold couches.
Good enough. I mustered up the energy to unpack and am ready to dig in my heels and see what the next month has to offer. After all, all reports of Granada have been amazing. This weekend I think I'll point my bike in the direction of the Sierra Nevada mountains and see what happens.
As for these pictures, the first is a corner of the Albaicín (barrio with narrow winding streets, a mosque and teahouses, first developed in the 8th century when the Moors invaded the Iberian peninsula) from through a small hole in the door of the second. The third is untitled, the fourth is a door to nowhere hiding in the medieval city wall, and the last is my wannabe postcard shot of the Alhambra. More on that later.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Montserrat

"Truly weird rock pillars" seems apt enough, no?
I got there on a cablecar strung up the side of the mountain on a wire. Fog drifted in the windows. I gaped at the sand castle rocks and stumbled unsuspectingly into high mass at the monastery, lured by the sounds of a boys' choir--a throng of 10 or 12 year olds in Catalan mullets shuffling around with arms tucked into sleeveless robes and, counterintuitively, sounding ethereal. (They study there on the mountain, at reportedly the oldest music school in Europe.)
And then I left Barcelona. (Picture to left.)
And am here in Granada. (Not picture to left.)
Feeling fork-in-socket culture shock.