Devon Cooper

Okay I lied about not having pictures. Danny and I have taken many interesting shots. Here are some of my favorites.


First: Pretty buildings and monuments













And finally, a picture from the Havana Abierta concert. Good music!

1. Smoking. Well, second hand smoking that is. Trust me, I have no desire to inhale anyone's smoke- let alone do it voluntarily. But it seems that no matter where you go, there is always someone within 5 feet of you puffing away... Let's hope that Penn and Teller are correct about second hand smoke not being dangerous!

2. Surfing. Give me a board and a wave. I am sure I could do it. I have had plenty of practice on the metro, standing in the middle of a crowd with nothing to hold onto while the metro sways and jerks. I have become a master of balance.

3. Mountain climbing. I know the walk from the metro to my apartment is just up a little hill. But by the time I reach my door I feel like planting a flag and taking a picture. The upside of this uphill climb: I am getting in much better shape!

Danny and I have not had much of a chance to travel outside of Madrid. Danny went to Barcelona, but spent the majority of the time arranging his paperwork for school. So we don't have many exciting pictures. But, there are some holidays coming up, and we are trying to plan a couple day trips, at least. So I promise that I will post some pretty pictures as soon as we venture out.  Other than that, I am keeping very busy with teaching. It is an exciting job, but can be time consuming. My spanish is improving every day. (At least I hope so!) I am thinking about giving private classes to earn a little extra money on the side. Though, I haven't really figured out how to break into that market yet. We will see how it goes!

No city is perfect. Every silver lining has a cloud. I suppose it was naive to think that the social problems in Madrid were few. And I don't know if I was completely convinced of that. I guess I figured that in a country with national healthcare, an incredible amount of social programs, and an at times nearly socialist government, that the dirty side would consist of some gangs and rufians tucked into some corner of the city. But, like I said before, that was very naive of me.

Dayni and I were walking down Gran Via last weekend, which is kind of like a combination of Broadway and Madison Avenue. It is the place to go on a friday night. We passed by many interesting people. But we also passed by many, many homeless people. Some were well hidden, sleeping in doorways off of allyways. Others seem to place them selves slightly more strategically...Including one man who, when we first walked by, was camped out in the middle of the sidewalk asking for money. On the second pass, about 2 hours later, he was asleep. still in the middle of the sidewalk. It is sad and frustrating at the same time, because obviously there is no easy solution. Who are the people who really are struggling? And who is there to take advantage of the location? I'll take a wild guess and say that the man in the middle of the walk belongs to the latter group. It seems to be a problem without solution.

Tonight, we walked from Gran Via to Sol, another very popular spot in the city. The street was full of prostitutes. It seems funny at first... oh lets walk through the "red light district" and see what it's like. But then you see the very young girls, many immigrants. And the older, slightly overweight women. And the ones who look the same age as you. And as they walk the streets in anything from jogging suits to leopard print boots, you begin to see how tired they look. How used and useless. How hopeless. And the only way to describe it is heart breaking. Some girls, you can see, are perfectly content with their profession. At least on the surface. But all the others, the ones who begrudgingly make eye contact with you.. those are the ones you can't stand to look at. Because they are unhappy. And who knows how they ended up there. Or where they go when their workday is over. Or if they are even able to lead a normal life.

And when you start thinking of all these things, it fills you with a sense of guilt for being where you are. But a sense of gratitude at the same time. I am here, at this point in my life, not just because of my own hard work. (obviously, if my life relied only on hard work, I would be in trouble) But a series of choices made by all the people around me. My parents, my family, my friends, the world in general. Every little detail had to fall into or be nudged into place just right. That is how I ended up here. And how they ended up there. And it is very difficult to think about.

Cheers and "keep it up" to my awesome brother Jackson and his Awesome wife Medina for their weight loss adventure. I am sure it's a long, difficult journey, but I know they are doing a great job and I am really excited for them. So... congrats so far and keep up the awesome work!

Alternate titles: The great mullet caper, It's my milk in a box

Madrid is a big enough city that you can see just about anything. But somehow it seems I keep noticing the same thing over and over again.
The infernal mullet.
The 80s in general have seemed to make a resurgence in these parts. You can find anything from the high-glam leather boots with miniskirts to the full-on punk look, to the ever popular sweater-around-the-shoulders-andrew mcarthy look. However, the only one I truely seem unable to ignore is the mullet. I feel it would be inappropriate, no matter how tempting, to pull out my camera and photograph this hair-phenomenon. I was going to try to classify and describe these mullets, but it just will not do any justice. And while the european mullet is a slightly different phenomenon than the redneck mullet, I think many will still enjoy this mullet resource I found...
www.mulletjunky.com

Shifting back to the topic of my previous post, I have forgotten to mention one of the distict differences in the lifestyle here. It took me by surprise when I walked into a grocery store and found the milk in a cardbord carton, on an unrefrigerated shelf. It looks like it could be powdered milk. But when you open it, it's just plain liquid milk. The taste is only slightly different, and of course once it's open, it must be refreigerated. The eggs are also kept on the shelf with the milk. But obviously, this does not make a difference. The quality of food here is excellent.

I am not happy about paying for water everywhere I go, as I think I mentioned earlier, but it does feel nice to drink it out of a wine glass, even in the cheap little diner on the corner.

And finally, I wanted to give just a few examples of what kind of glamorous life I am living here in Spain. Last night, Danny and I went to a jazz club to see the band Habana Abierta. This is one of Danny's favorite bands, and I really enjoy them too. They are Cuban, but living in Spain. The concert was more of what is called a "descargo" which is an informal, almost last minute, show. Five members of the 8 person group were there, they had one guitar and nothing else. But one member acted as a "beat box" only much MUCH better than what you are imagining right now. It actually sounded as if he were playing the drumset, or the bongos, or any other assorted rhythm instrument.
Coincidently, Danny ran into some old friends from Cuba at the show. They were all very excited to see eachother and have made plans to keep in touch.

Today was "Dia de la Hispanidad," which I think is officially called the National Holiday of Spain, or something ambiguous like that. It is the celebration of Spanish culture, and all the cultures of the old Spanish colonies (now the spanish speaking coutries of the americas). We went to a parade where we saw the cuban band Los Van Van and the very popular colombian singer Carlos Vives. The parade went down the avenue in front of the Prado, and was packed with thousands of flag wavers. It was quite fun. Although, we noticed it was extremely unorganized, with no barriers and people streaming into the street. The organizers were constantly pushing people back to the sidewalks. (A futile effort, it seemed)

Hopefully this weekend I will have a chance to post some pictures of the above mentioned events....

*********Update***********
here is a common piercing found in Europe. I like to call it the "metal mole."
 I got the picture off of the internet. I don't actually know this person...

So many things to say... There is no way I will remember to say them all.

So first, let me say, I am having a great time! Dayni and I spent the first couple days eating yummy food and exploring the town. I am still getting oriented, but I am learning...however slowly.

Teaching is fun. And crazy, and a little stressful. I teach ten classes a week, which requires nearly 20 different lesson plans. But the more adapted I get, the more streamlined my tasks become. I have even made myself a lovely chart to match classes to lesson plans, so I don't have to write out 20 different plans. Shhh don't tell my boss. Haha. No, really. I don't think I'm breaking any rules. If anything, I should get brownie points for efficiency...

You know, they say when you move to a new place, you will experience culture shock. And, in my case, it hasn't been huge, but it is definitely there. Here are some examples: (1) Servers in restaurants act like you are totally disrupting there peace and quite when you show up and actually request to be served food... Also, once you are served and finish eating, you generally must hunt someone down for your check. However, I have a feeling if you just walked out the door without paying, they would show up really quickly... (2) Maybe it's because I'm from kentucky, but GEEZ everyone moves fast around here. It's like, if they don't run down the escalator and throw themselves into the sardine can that they call "the metro," that if they actually have to wait 2 and a half minutes for the next train, they will just die. (3) Even though a store looks big and fancy, like a WalMart or a Target (Alcampo and El Corte Ingles in my particular neighborhood), they will probably have every product in Europe except for the one you need, which requires you to go to a specialty shop downtown somewhere. (4) I cannot figure out the hours of operation for anything! A lot of places open in the morning, close for about 2 hours midday, then open again in the evening. But then some places close at like, 6pm. I walked past a pasta place (where I really wanted to eat) at about 8pm on a thursday and they were closed..... (?) I don't get how that could be good for business...

So anyway, there are many differences that I still don't quite get. But that is not to say that I am not having a great time! I really love my job and being in this amazing city. Being in Madrid, I hope to have a celebrity sighting or two, but I guess that means I need to study up on my European celebs... (did you know that Formula 1 racing is EXTREMELY popular here?!? I never would have guessed...)

I am posting some pictures of things that are a little different around these parts. Hope you find them interesting.

That, of course, is an electrical outlet. Very exciting, I know.

 

That's the bathroom with the bidet that I don't use.

 

The toaster with one, long slot. Great for toasting yummy french style bread. (you know, eating french style bread makes you feel so european. HA no, its just really cheap to buy.)

 

This statue is of a bear eating fruit from a madroño tree. Madrid is named after this tree, and the bear eating from the tree has something to do with the legend behind the foundation of the city, but I need to do more research on that...

This is an actual madroño tree.

And this is the only (or one of the only.. not quite sure) statue in the world dedicated to Lucifer. It is called "El angel caido" or the fallen angel. Pretty cool, huh?