Too late, but welcomed all the same.

At the beginning of this year, Spain finally passed a loophole-free anti-smoking law.

There had been lots of murmurings in the anticipation of the law going into effect.   In 2006, a different law was passed that more or less banned smoking in workspaces and allowed small establishments to choose whether to be a smoke-free zone.

Yeah. That worked swell.  Any place that did ban smoking only lost patrons to those that didn't, and then in turn reversed their policy to lure them back.

So now, probably in an act of desperation, saving face, and pride, Spain has now enacted one of the most restrictive no-smoking laws in all of Europe.  And I quote (from another blogger who's much more informed than I):

"According to the new law, smoking is now forbidden in all places of work, both public and private and all public buildings. Employees who want to smoke must do so outside, and must make up the time lost at work too.  Restaurants, discos and bars over 100m2 must provide a separate area for smokers which must be equipped with clear signs, be properly divided from the main area with its own ventilation system, must not be in an area where people have to walk through to get in or out of the establishment and can not be more than 30 percent of the total area of the establishment and never more than 300 metres. Any establishments unable to provide a separate area with the said features are obliged to prohibit smoking altogether. Owners of bars, cafes and restaurants under 100m2 can decide whether or not to allow smoking on the premises. Shops, supermarkets, newsagents (kioscos) etc. are no longer authorised to sell cigarettes, cigars or tobacco. The only establishments allowed to sell tobacco are licensed estancos, the traditional stamp and cigarette shops in Spain."

Phew.  It's crazy to think that I had actually gotten used to going to restaurants, bars and clubs and being molested by the smoke, and then coming home only to still have it on my clothes and in my hair.  What seems funnier though, is that now that things have changed, I have hardly noticed it, and only do when my attention is specifically drawn to the fact that the room isn't filled with burning smoke.  It's funny the things you take for granted when you've been living smoke-free for years now.

I think many people are still holding their breath (pun intended) to see if this whole thing really pans out and works in the long run.  Of course places are seriously worried about losing business because of the strict new law.  But if only they would look to the future and only realize that what might be lost is only temporary and smokers will only adjust their habits in accordance to the new laws.  Non-smokers might also indulge in a few more drinks because their eyes aren't stinging anymore.  If all restaurants adhere to the law, no restaurant will loose business.  But honestly, I can't see the Spanish using such common-sense reason, especially given how the loose the last law was.  There are already several reports of certain restaurants and bars refusing to enforce it.  I'm curious to see where that leads.

For now, I just giggle at the group of people standing outside the doors, in the cold, smoking away.  Meanwhile the rest of us can finally breath a sigh of relief.

Sometimes I'm grateful to be so far away.

Thoughts and prayers are with Gabrielle
Giffords and other victims.

Last week my home state of Arizona, and the whole of the United States suffered a great tragedy.  

My head has had its moments of confusion and my heart its moments of pain.  My heart really hurts.  It hurts for those injured and killed and their families.  It hurts for the Tucson community that will forever have this scar.  It hurts for Arizona, which has been plagued with overwhelming hate, bigotry, and ignorance in more recent months.  It hurts for my country; for not living up its basic principle of civility and unity, particularly under distress.

Make no mistake.  The headlines have not stopped at our borders.  Many people here have tiptoed around the issue with me.  They gently ask me about what happened: have I heard... so sad... wasn't that your state...?  So far my only response has been to sigh and roll my eyes in a solemn acknowledgement (as I've come accustomed to doing with the year's national and international headlines coming from Arizona).  I don't know what to say or how to react, and have generally felt that way for months now with the current political climate.  This tragedy only makes it all the more real that we've crossed the line into completely despicable speech and behavior.

I agree, to a certain extent, with John Stewart who stated afterwards that one cannot point a finger at the vitriolic rhetoric as the cause of Saturday's shootings any more than heavy metal music is to blame for the Columbine shootings: crazy is crazy.  But hate is hate, and it shouldn't be tolerated in a civil society.  The  future is grim when hate (i.e. ignorance) permeates our thoughts, words, and actions towards our fellow citizens.   

And that's why I've been so grateful these past months, this year and last, to have lived far away from it all.  I've been able to discriminately watch tv and read the news, not being involuntarily subjected to the poisonous rhetoric that has infiltrated the print and airwaves.  Particularly last year, during the midterm elections, I couldn't have been more content not watching the tidal waves of negative campaign ads that tirelessly run for months leading up to November.

I would love to be optimistic and think that this event might change things, and we might be more humane in the way we treat and speak of each other.  But I'm not, and I don't think things will change, not yet at least.  I don't know what it will take, how many people need to be affected and hurt (physically, mentally, spiritually, etc) before things turn around and we begin to emphasize tolerance over ignorance, and love over hate.

For now, I'm considering staying overseas until after the 2012 presidential election.

The Kings escort out the holidays

I must admit.  I had become pretty jaded about the holidays.

When I was little, Christmas was always so much fun.  There was lots of family around, hot chocolate and sweets abound, the Christmas lights still adorned most homes, and gifts under the tree were aplenty.  As family dwindled, sweets lost their novelty, neighbors left and lights faded, and things to unwrap grew sparse due to age, what was left of Christmas was often just the tackless dribble of overplayed and underwhelming songs and the incessant ads on TV.

Nowadays it seems as if Halloween has barely passed before Christmas junk has gone up on stores shelves, ads become a nuisance before the end of November, and songs are now playing on the radio 24/7 before Thanksgiving.  The magic of Christmas and the holidays had mostly worn off and left me wishing it could just be perpetually a season of Thankgivings instead.

And then this year, I was in Malaga.

Almost as if timed perfectly just for us, the Saturday of our Thanksgiving celebration, the grand lights of Malaga were turned on to usher in a beautiful season.  Sorry Madrid and Barcelona, but you've got nothing on Malaga.  The streets had been tastefully lined with stunning lights and decorations that took your breath away at every corner turned.

Then, for the next 6 weeks, the street performers changed their tunes to holiday jingles, carolers of all types went singing through the streets, and music students formed string and brass quartets, and even full bands, all to the delight of the people walking around them.

Oh and did the people dar un paseo!  On any given night, provided it wasn't raining, the people of Malaga were out and about!  Every proceeding weekend night, walking through the city I would swear to myself that never had I ever seen so many people out on town, and that everyone and their child, and mother, and grandmother must be out enjoying the festivities.

Last night, the final Spanish celebration for the season passed with the arrival of the Three Magi Kings.  Families gather in the center of the city for the long parade through the streets.  Obviously, never witnessing one myself, I didn't go last night expecting a lot.  But a lot did unfold: beautiful contraptions of moving birds and fish, a flowing acrobat hanging from a tower of balloons, and then floats of children throwing out handfuls of caramelos to the little and big children lining the street, scraping the ground for them, acquiring as many as possible.

Today, a beautiful sunny day, reminded me much of Christmas mornings at home in Arizona.  Running through the streets and boardwalk, I saw many of family out with the kids testing out all their new toys that the kings had brought them in their sleep.  The day stayed quiet with most everything closed aside from the spare restaurant and cafe.  Then later in the evening, I took a stroll to enjoy the warm evening and the last of the lights and festivities.  I bought a café and un trozo de rosco, a piece of the delicious Kings' Cake, baked in the shape of a large wreath, with your choice of cream or no cream.

On my way back to the apartment, I came across a quartet and realized that through the whole of the season, not once had I actually stopped to listen to the musicians.  So this time I did.  And I stopped to just soak it all in and enjoy this truly festive and genuine season.

In the next few days, the lights will come down, the players will return to their traditional repertoire, and the stores will give way to sales.  But in these last few weeks, I have come to appreciate and regard the winter holidays in a way I thought was lost on me.  But indeed, the spirit of Christmas, and the Three Kings, lives on.

Christmas in Morocco

The last two weeks of the year, I was able to welcome my mom back to Spain for her second time this school year.  The stay in Spain was short-lived however, as we left for a six day journey to Morocco, both of our first times to Africa, and my first time in a muslim country.

In the Marrakech medina, probably lost already

Thanks to a wonderful new friend who drove us to Sevilla, we easily hopped a plane to Marrakech, the first stop on our trip.  Unfortunately we got off to a rocky start when we mistakenly insulted a couple of gentlemen who had helped us with our luggage to the Riad when instead of paying 20 dirham, I was actually giving him 20 cents of a dirham (a word of advice: if unfamiliar with a country's currency, it would serve well to do a quick google/wikipedia research to avoid such embarrassing, uncomfortable, and downright heart-racing misunderstandings.  Also, Moroccans don't kid about that sort of stuff, so don't laugh as if they are... it wont help matters.)  After hashing everything out, we took the next day and a half to explore the medina in Marrakech and enjoy two sunsets in the El Fna Plaza watching the food stands be assembled from piles of iron rods in carts and then listening to the call to prayer sound while the sky burned red and beautiful.  We never had the opportunity to venture outside the medina, but this hardly bothered us, and it gave us a head start to some of the major shopping we did on our trip - shoes, lamps, keychains, dates (not men, fruit).

Sunset in El Fna plaza, Marrakech

Our days were cut short as we were timid about the possibility of getting lost in the medina and not being able to find our way back to the Riad - as night fell so did the blinds of many of the hundreds of stands we used as mental breadcrumbs.  But we were also just as content relaxing back in the Riad and finishing off whatever goodies we had purchased earlier that day, going to bed early and sleeping in past the first (and sometimes second too) call.

With our baggage heavier, we made our way (first class no less, at a whopping 29 euros each) to Fez via an 8 hour train ride.  Mom and I were placed in different compartments which actually allowed each of us to meet our share of interesting and helpful people on our way, including Brits restoring Riads, Canadian gas businessmen on a 6 month journey through Africa and Asia,  young Moroccan women returning home from their studies in France, and even a man who worked with UNESCO and offered to unite us with his friend and guide for our day in Fez.

Tanneries in Fez - don't forget your mint sprigs!

The weather predictions weren't positive for our time in Fez, and upon our arrival we were greeted with heavy wind and rain and our driver was kind enough to let us stay in the taxi until it let up enough to get through to our Riad.  Fortunately, the weather didn't persist, and the next day the sky only fell when were were inside and out of the elements.  We did in fact meet up with Hammid, our recommended guide, and he gave us tour of the medina he calls home.  We saw the universities, the rugs made by widows, the herbalist, and the stinky tanneries that haven't changed in hundreds of years.  Although we thought we had him for the entirety of the day, he left us after a little over 3 hours, probably because we weren't emptying out our bank accounts on any rugs or bottles of perfume, despite his insistence that we aught not to be pressured into buying anything.  It works out for the best, as he directed us back to the main gate of the medina where we indulged in a delicious Moroccan meal with a scenic view of the medina.  We were also proud of ourselves as we made our way to and from the train station by ourselves via taxi (1 euro taxi rides - I like Morocco!) to buy our tickets to Tanger for the next day (didn't want to end up in different compartments again).

After carb-loading at breakfast (what is now a Moroccan tradition for Mom and I due to the large and delish breakfasts at the Riads) we carb-loaded our bags for our afternoon train ride, but made sure to include the massive amounts of cheap and equally delicious mandarines, as well as some dates (again fruit, not men) and baklava.  We took our last stroll through the medina, going each way we could without turning more than once (not wanting to risk getting terribly lost when needing to get to a train that afternoon).

We enjoyed a much shorter train ride to Tanger, watching a surprisingly green country roll past our window.  Shepherds and their flocks of goats, sheep, and cows were abound in the countryside, as well as random roosters running along the fronts of houses and neighborhoods, all finished off by a seaside sunset reflected in still tide pools.  The journey was made even more rewarding when a cab was able to take us all the way to our hotel doorstep when we reached a dark Tanger (no more kind men having to take our luggage via homemade wheelbarrow from the outside of the medina).

Example of the best food you've ever tasted: Chicken with
almonds and prunes, couscous with caramelized onions and
veggies, and finally, sugary hot mint tea.

Christmas morning we woke up and happened to be staying in probably the one cheap hotel that had a Christmas tree in the foyer (Charlie Brown could have worked wonders on it).  We were a bit medinad-out and decided to do our strolling outside the medina in Tanger, only journeying inside to find the (closed) American Legation Museum (the only American historical landmark on foreign soil, as Morocco was actually the first country to recognize the US as a independent nation after the revolutionary war, mostly to get back at the Brits for something else).  Ironically, we got more lost outside the medina than we probably would have staying it, due to my ineptitude, lack of decent map, and the fact that nobody we asked seemed to know their way around either (locals included).  Starvation getting the best of us, we were convinced to sit down at a plaza side restaurant and we never looked back, especially as we ate like queens and stuffed our guts with other tasty food that wasn't served in a tajine (as good as they were, we didn't especially want one more tajine either).

Aside from the winding passageways and narrow alleys of the ancient medinas, much of the architecture was actually vaguely reminiscent of that in Andalucia.  The tombs in Marrakech, the tiles decorating the Fez fountains, and the minarets that towered above everything all have their ancient counterparts still in southern Spain.  The Reconquista could only demolish so much, and who'd even want to - it's all so pretty anyway.  I can only imagine how Morocco would strike someone who wasn't already exposed to the Alhambra in Granada, La Giralda or the Alcazar in Sevilla, or the Mesquita in Córdoba.

We left the next day via ferry, which was running more late than the ride actually lasted, a mere 35 minutes.  This was the easiest part of the day, as we got stuck in Tarifa longer than we wanted because they only ran 2 buses out on Sundays (to a busy port which runs ferries every 2 hours - ah, back in Spain) and even got a bad cab ride back to the apartment.  A hard ending (and beginning) to an otherwise beautiful trip filled with kind, warm, and generous people, amazing food, and unforgettable sights.  And I'm only more pleased that my mom was along for the adventure!

See more pictures of the entire trip here.

Sometimes it's not so easy being so far away

Today my best friend in the whole wide world is getting married.  Needless to say, I'm only going to be there in spirit.

When moving to a far away place, even for a short period of time, inevitably you face the reality that life goes on without you.  Even important, life changing stuff happens, for which you can't be present.  This isn't the first wedding I've missed because I've been too far away to make it feasibly possible to attend, and it probably wont be my last.

There are definitely upsides to traveling and being far and away from home, all of which are obvious.  Sometimes the downsides aren't so obvious when we make the decision to leave.  I'm not at all implying that the downsides ever make me wish I had chosen to do things differently.  But when things do happen, it just makes it glaringly obvious that Skype sometimes just doesn't cut it for everything that life throws at you.

But it will have to do for now.

And with that, I am thinking of her constantly and wishing her all the best and sending her so much love for the beautiful occasion.

They didn't call it the Cold War for nothing!

Most of my adult life, I had wanted to travel to Prague.  I heard wonderful things from others who had, but never actually thought I would actually make it one day.  It always seemed like one of those "pie in the sky" hopes and dreams that would never actually come to fruition.

Luckily for me, one of my closest friends this year had the same hope and dream and the gumption to actually do something about it.  Fortunately, I got to come along for the ride.

Taking advantage of a long holiday break (before the actual holiday break), we snuck out of town on Friday to make our long journey to Prague.  I say "sneak" because upon our arrival in Prague, we were shocked to find out that only a few hours later nearly all flights coming in and out of Spain were grounded to an air traffic controller strike that continued for 3 days (apparently, they're opposing the upcoming privatization of airports which might keep them for earning unlimited overtime, and for some of them, over €1,000,000 annually.  I still have yet to understand why Spain is in financial trouble.)  Moving on...

Old Town Square, Prague

Prague turned out to be everything (and more) I ever imagined it could be.  I felt like I was living in a fairy tale for 36 hours.  The snow dusted everything spectacularly and gave that extra Christmassy feel.  The Markets stole my heart and the food my appetite.  When I didn't think anything could get more beautiful, we would turn the corner and the sight would then take my breath away, and probably a little bit more because of the extreme cold as well.  When we landed in Prague, it was 17° and it only got colder the remaining time we were there (warming up, of course, the day we left).  Unfortunately, due to the weather, we probably didn't see as much as Prague as we would have liked (frequently stepping into stores and cafes to warm up and defrost our extremities), but it didn't slow us down too much, and didn't keep us from loving almost every second of it.

Overlooking Budapest

Two days later, we made our way to Budapest via a 7 hour train ride (thank goodness it was great scenery).  Even though it was only in the 30s when we arrived, anything felt like a nice Spring day compared to brisk Prague.  Unfortunately, we didn't have much time in Budapest, a city that after all was said and done, seemed like the type of city that really would take time to discover and see all its hidden wonders.  But in the one whole day we did have, we saw a lot.  The Markets in Budapest, although not as spectacular looking, were my favorite because the stands were either full of handmade crafts or large pans of savory stews.  To finish the day, we went to the Turkish baths which offered us a warm reprieve under the stars.

Presidential Palace, Bratislava

Finally, the next day we took a much shorter train ride to Bratislava (leaving Budapest just as it was warming into the 50s).  None of us had a strong desire to go to this particular place, but as we were using it as an inexpensive flight back to Malaga and we thought we would take advantage of it in the meantime.  Of course, after our successes in Prague and Budapest, we immediately headed to the Bratislava Christmas markets where we once again indulged in delicious food and drink and spent way too much money on gifts (...for ourselves).  The next day we had a few hours before having to head to the airport, but even in that short time, we felt like we had seen the bulk of Bratislava and felt that it was surprisingly charming and beautiful.  We were glad we made the effort.

It was an amazing trip and I'm so glad I got to do it, especially at such a festive and magical time.  I'm hoping that maybe at some point in my life I'll be able to make it back to these cities to explore them even more (and preferably at a warmer time of year!).

The links to the full Facebook photo albums are here: Prague, Budapest, and Bratislava

Dar Gracias

By no exaggeration, when I think of all the things I have to be grateful for, I get a warm and fuzzy feeling inside and I seriously can't help but smile.

It happens all the time too.  I'll be walking down the street, LOVING everything and just the fact that I'm here, have people that support me being here, that I'm capable of being here (finically, emotionally, physically), and I'll realize that I have this huge grin on my face.  I'm sure I look ridiculous, but I have no concern in the world, least of which is looking totally blissful.

I know that technically Thanksgiving was yesterday, but for me and all my American friends with whom I'm celebrating here in Malaga, we're saving it for tomorrow: A day when we all have off and time to cook and appreciate the holiday to the fullest extent possible.  So, in honor of our Thanksgiving, I want to express my gratitude for all the blessings in my life.

Thank you for my mom and dad.  There aren't words or space sufficient enough to go on about everything I owe to them.

Thank you for my friends - new and old, close and far.  I am so blessed to have friends that have stayed so close despite time and distance and I am even more blessed to still be meeting incredible people throughout my journeys.  All of them have given me the invaluable companionship and constantly challenge me and mold me into a better person. 

Thank you for all the amazing opportunities that have been provided to me.  I have had the honor and privilege to do life-changing things that have taught me so much about myself and the world.

I'm even thankful for Thanksgiving.  Spending Thanksgiving outside of the United States only makes it all the more obvious how special our country and this holiday is.  There aren't other countries in the world that nationalize a day of gratitude and when I explain Thanksgiving to non-Americans, the notion even fails to translate.  Thanksgiving transcends religious differences, corporate-takeover, and economic hardships.  And although we should constantly be recognizing the blessings in our lives, it's especially wonderful that we celebrate them too.