“Break On Through [to the other side]”

Your writer and electronics are a perfect mismatch.

If I was to put up a list of electronic things that I have broken in the past, it would be (beyond any doubt) a really long one. I could write a book about the countless amount of ‘Series of Unfortunate Events’ that enduringly chase electronic products I happen to own.

Ipods, laptops… the screen of the camera I currently use was broken 5 days after having purchased it. It happened during the second day of the trip to Bhutan, so was bound to come up with a ‘DIY solution’. I was so happy then, that when the incident occured it was hard to complain and really care about it; plus by the end of the surgical procedure it was the coolest camera of all! With its hand-paper-made viewfinder!

The camera is still broken because, after the many dysfunctional relationships, I have no plan of buying any electronic thing, unless I really feel like I can ‘love it’ and take appropriate care of it. Which will probably not happen any time soon; it is just so hard to love a thing, you know… It is a thing after all.

One of my favorite stories though, is that time when my mobile phone decided to ‘take a bath’ in the washing machine. Of course, by the time I had realized that, it was already too late and had drowned in a washing soap/ softener/water mix… At least it was clean and smelled really good.

This ‘demolisher’ characteristic of my self does not limit to electronic things unfortunately; and so I have had people telling me: “You are like a stomach”. You know, because the stomach breaks things down and turns them into… crap, basically.

You might be thinking by now, where exactly is all this nonsense introduction leading to?

I bored you with all that previous rambling because, after all the past demolition experiences, it is the first time in my life when I can actually get points for it!

Huh?

Yes. For one of the lectures of the Artistic Direction and Design course, we were asked to sort of alter a magazine ad in whatever way we wanted to. And, as I had fun while doing it, I thought it would be a good idea to share it with you dear readers.

The results of impersonating Shiva (the Destroyer, Transformer) for a while were the following:

  Try not to break anything today dear readers, and: HASTA LA VISTA, BABY!

Peace out
Your writer,
Maria

Not fair, yes fair: “Ya huele a feria”

Thanks to “Singstar” last night, your writer’s voice is almost on strike today dear readers!

It was actually the first time I had ever played this video game. In general I’m not that much of a video/computer game person and the only similar one I had tried before was “Guitar Hero”; which caused on me a temporary obsession when I did, because it is pretty entertaining to be honest. At least, until you get to the ‘Hard’ level of difficulty, because then I was the most annoying of ‘fake guitar’ players who set foot on Earth. I figured that, in any case, if I would spend that amount of time learning how to play a fake guitar I might as well spend it on learning how to play a real one… which in my opinion makes more sense.

But if I am an unbearable Guitar Hero player, I don’t want to even get started on how terrible I am at singing. ‘The human equivalence to fingernails on a chalkboard’ is a suitable description for my voice. And the worse thing is that I enjoy it, so I am not the least merciful to those listeners present in close surroundings!

Yesterday I have no clue of why my friend’s neighbors did not call the police (which here happens very often if you are being loud), because we were “breaking a leg” (or in my case “breaking a window”) by singing all kinds of ‘tunes’ in the terrace until early in the morning. Blink 182, Fool’s Garden, The offspring, Sixpence Non the Richer, Supertramp… and more embarrassing ones including Nicky Minaj and the Vengaboys; no idea how this happened! At least we skipped Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” and Britney Spear’s “Womanizer”!

The worse one of the night to sing though, was these kids’ one… The Hanson with the “Mmmbop” song. Oh no, not possible! I’ll practice it from now on (poor house mates!) and perhaps I’ll break no more windows next time! 

What am I writing about? Ok. I stop. Go to the real topic!

I do not know if many of you are aware that in Spain it is very common to have a lot of ‘festivities’.

[I mean if the King was to break one of his toes tomorrow, then it will remain ‘The King’s Toe Day’ for the rest of the country’s history, probably. Looking for another reason to party or to practice the so called “Spanish Triathlon”, as they might say…]

Just three weeks ago there was Semana Santa, which completely paralyzed Sevilla for a few days and every day after midday. Now, this past week it was a very similar story, but this time’s excuse was: The ‘Feria de Abril’.

What is the feria?

Apparently, the feria started as an agriculture and livestock (cattle rancher) type of activity; where an exposition of bulls, horses, oxen and rams used to take place. Now it has evolved to this more of a spectacle/party kind of activity; where instead of agriculture and livestock business people gathering together, there are entire families meeting for this traditional occasion.

What happens during the feria?

Well, the feria takes place in a fixed location (though you will definitely notice it through the whole city), where you will find a large amount of ‘casetas’; which are this sort of tents or stands types-of-place where people gather to drink, eat and dance basically. There are some ‘casetas’ that are private and others that are public. To the private ones you have to know someone who is inside in order to get in and to the public ones of course everyone is allowed to enter.

The party goes on for the whole day and night 7 days a week; practically from 11:00 am to 10:00 am of the next day. All of this, of course, if you are able to stand the amount of heat there, because there were days in which the temperature reached 41°C. Desert weather! This doesn’t make a difference for the ‘Sevillanos’, as you will still see them all suited up with their jackets and all, some even wearing black… An outstanding high heat tolerance!

Horses, mules, ponies, dresses and‘casetas’ from all kinds of colors; the traditional drink ‘Rebujito’ (‘Manzanilla’ wine mixed with Sprite and Fanta) and of course the ‘Sevillanas’ music as the celebration’s official sound track. If you are searching for an authentically Spanish experience, then this is it! I myself have never seen anything like this before, and I think it is very nice and interesting to see how traditions like this are still kept this strongly within a group of people. I really enjoyed watching all of it; great, great.

Feria de Abril VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Hasta la próxima dear readers!

Peace out (!)
Your writer,
Maria

“JUEVES”

The recipe for a turbulent, tempestuous, thoughtless Thursday goes as follows:

1) Place shrimps in a bowl

2) Cover them with lime juice

3) Put 2/3 or maybe even 4 spoons (depending on how much you like it) of  ‘Worcestershire Sauce’

4) Leave the prepared shrimps in the refrigerator for a night

…and the next day

5) Add onion and tomatoes (both of them cut in small, squared pieces) 

6) Put a bit of coriander (if you don’t find any you can also use parsley)

7) Add salt and pepper (to taste)

8) Add a bit of tomato juice (preferably something like ‘Clamato’, but it is also possible to use regular tomato juice)

9) Place a few sticks of celery

…let it rest for 30 minutes

And voilà: Yes. Perhaps the ‘aftermath’ of doing this series of actions and combining these different ‘elements’ is not a “turbulent, tempestuous, thoughtless Thursday” (YET), but you do have a great and magnificent and extraordinary, tasty ‘CEVICHE’! And not any kind of ceviche, no… but a GUATEMALAN CEVICHE, the mother of all ceviches; which makes it way better!

You can go ahead, eat it with crackers and enjoy it. If by any chance you do not enjoy it, you can instead go ahead and consider yourself a bad cook (sorry, sorry)! Blame it on the chef, but never on the ceviche! :D

But, now the real recipe for a “turbulent, tempestuous, thoughtless Thursday”:

1) Make ‘having dinner every Jueves’ a mandatory tradition in the house.

2) Have Dutch, French, German, Spanish, English, Guatemalan and many Italian characters as your guests.

(!) Whatever you do, always follow the one and only rule during the ‘gathering’ - NOT speaking English, por favor! Otherwise problems begin to arise with the Italian ‘audience’… 

Specially when talking about ‘forks’…

(…just kidding of course!)

4) Make sure that the nearest super market runs out of all types of alcoholic beverages.

5) And also make sure that each and every bottle is empty by 1:30 am on Friday.

6) If by 2:00 am you still feel like you have not yet killed enough or sufficient neurons in your brain; just go out to a disco and completely ignore the fact that you should be in school 6 hours from then.

7) Dance.

8) Arrive home by 6:30:

“Hmmm… I have class in two hours”… But we are in España so, “no pasa nada.. la gente esta muy loca!”

Hopefully you don’t experience too many of these “turbulent, tempestuous, thoughtless Thursdays”, dear readers; I don’t want to be a bad influence on you. In the long run all is nothing but ‘a waste of time wearing a very overrated, fake-flashy costume’; or at least that’s my opinion.

Have a nice weekend (avoid – “drinking and driving” + “drinking and dialing”+ “drinking an… ok I stop)

Peace out
Your writer,
Maria    

P.S: Enjoy the CEVICHE in case you decide to try and cook it!

¿Ka Klax Klun?

April: The tequila bottle is gone, the mysterious bra also and the entrance has had the honor of being ‘redecorated’. It is hangers and flowers for this month, such a modern art common! “A house with a lot of character” as some might say…

Hmmm…

Why can’t your ‘writer’ write?

I have to confess to you dear readers that I have never found myself in this type of situation where I am absolutely paralyzed when it comes to writing. For several months now.

As much as I try to dig into the deepest, most remote and unexplored parts of my mind; I can’t quite figure out a topic which is convincing enough, for my brain’s motor cortex to take a moment and transfer a command that forces my hands to put it on paper.

If I had to choose three adjectives to describe my brain at this moment of time and space, they would most certainly be: Empty, vacuous and deserted. All of which mean the same thing.

My mind has involuntarily escaped into a state of oblivion; or you could also say there is currently an inspirational deficiency within my being to put it in more ‘poetic words’.

What can you do about that?

Not bad, not good; that is just simply the way it is; but today I’ll try.

Apart from my lack of ‘ideas flux’ there are some more interesting things which have happened during the course of these past weeks…

For example a trip to Granada, a city located around 3 hours away (by bus) from Sevilla. Well known for its charming bohemian atmosphere and of course its popular “Alhambra”: An ancient fort -slash- palace –slash- small city (…or fort/palace/small city, as a less complicated person would write it!), where it does not matter what direction your sight may turn to look at - walls, doors, ceilings and floors – the view will definitely always perspire, almost literally ‘sweat’, a very elaborated Arab art. A pretty place that will at least take four hours of your precious time for you to ‘roam’ all around it.

It was France, Italy, Bulgaria, The UK, Germany and Guatemala who ‘took over’ Granada for that weekend; but along the way we ran into the place’s most entertaining character of all (if I was a kid I would have thought that for a moment I was placed in one of the Shrek movies or something!). The character was a very sociable and peculiar baby Donkey who was wandering all around the streets saying “hi” to everyone.

…except when it came to the dog. Because with the dog it was more like a: “HOW YOU DOIN’?” 

…the dog refused without a doubt. Because, of course, donkey-dog babies wouldn’t be half as pretty as the donkey-dragon ones are so… … broken heart! Poor donkey.

 

Apart from that peculiar personage of Granada,  the week before the last it was Sevilla which was rather ‘flooded’ with other kinds of characters (I say ‘flooded’ because you would really see them everywhere!). These ones though, were rather creepy and eerie instead and they invaded Sevilla for a whole week; the whole Semana Santa.

They had no long ears and funny faces, but they did have large cones in their heads and… well, why bother; the pictures say it all!

THEY ARE NOT THE KU KLUX KLAN, people! NO! I was said this a million times that week. These ones are called “Nazarenos”, they wear different colors and ‘come in' different ‘sizes’ (because there are kids also) and they go around the city walking everywhere throughout the whole week (with the processions).

The city was exaggeratedly overflowed with people during the entire seven days and almost everyone was dressed as if to attend a wedding.

Of course the party people did not hesitate to ‘embrace’ the nights! If you would go out to the streets at 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning you would still see people drinking their beer cups in bars. You could not tell whether they were just starting or whether they were just ending (or trying to end) the party. It is España in the end… So, NO PASA NADA! …or at least that’s what they say.

And if last week was ‘Creepy week’, then yesterday it was ‘random day/night time’; with a twist from the formal environment of Semana Santa to the hippie vibes of an “Alternative Festival” in the North of the city.

It was a funny day full of unexpected stuff going all around. Local people, mostly “hippie-stylers”, and of course everything that comes with it. Guitars, drums, dancing, vegetarian food and the ‘Ska’ beats that filled up the air at night, which then lead to getting lost while driving around Sevilla with a couple of friends; just making sure the night ‘never gets old’.

oK dear readers, I guess I cut it here for today, because it seems as if it’s starting to get a bit ‘early’ :D time to ZzZzZz I guess.

Hasta la próxima,

PEEEEES :D
Your ‘writer’
Maria