"Finding Some Quiet Time in Your Life is Hugely Important"

For this post, I have begun with a quote by a person other than Ernest Hemingway. Instead, I present a quote by Ernest's daughter, Mariel Hemingway. 


While browsing the selection of Hemingway books on Amazon.com to download one onto my Kindle, I came across a free offer for a book titled "Healthy Living on The Inside Out." I thought it was very strange that this book was listed under a search for Hemingway. I noticed that the author's name was Mariel Hemingway, so I merely thought that Amazon was confused and placed a random Hemingway under its selection of Ernest Hemingway's titles. I thought, "why not? It's free, and I can always use a brush-up on healthy living." I downloaded it onto my Kindle and brought it with me on a weekend trip to Alicante, a beach town about a three-hour drive from Madrid (I actually flew).
I had been feeling a lot of craziness and unsettled-ness in my life for some months, and decided to take a solo weekend away to simply enjoy the sun, tranquilize myself, and rejuvinate. On my flight to Alicante, I began to read the book by the "random" Hemingway. Two pages in, it was clear that in fact, she is the daughter of Ernest Hemingway! How could I have been so silly and clueless?


As I delved deeper into her book, I realized that she was on to something with all of her talk about tranquility and balanced living .... she wrote that because she has the Hemingway genes, she has to take extra care to keep a balanced and disciplined life. She realizes that because her genes involve people with enormous personalities, moods, and passion, that if she doesn't want to go down that self-destructive road, she fills every day with meditation, yoga, and careful consciousness to what she places in her body. Her family genes involve addiction and pure madness (after all, though a genius, her father was prone to intense mood swings, intense alcohol consumption, love affairs, and eventual suicide). 


It occurred to me that as I had become more and more entranced and infatuated with the life of Ernest Hemingway and the other fiery, passionate artists of that time period in Paris, I had been welcoming more and more of those qualities into my own life. I musn't go into too much deal here about my own life, but as I read Mariel's book, I noticed that I had been acting for many months in a similarly self-destructive, though what I thought was a passionate and alive manner. I had taken on characteristics of the 1920's Paris writers because I was so fascinated by the high's and low's of their personalities. I was mesmerized by the seeming glamour, the extreme living in terms of the "artistic" personalities, and I had convinced myself that the only way to live is to "live big" by feeling constant emotions, by proclaiming love, by doing and feeling too much of everything and with too much intensity.


So gee, I wonder why I needed a very quiet weekend for myself in Alicante? I had not even realized that I had been wearing myself down, bit by bit and piece by piece to a point that I was making myself crazy. As I read Mariel's book, I realized that perhaps I have some inherent qualities within myself that her father had as well (certainly nothing to his extreme), and that like her, I actually need to be careful to keep myself in check. I found myself very affected by her book and since then (two weeks ago), have been very conscious about everything I do. I have found quiet time every day, I have started to do yoga (meditation is still impossible for me as my mind will not stop, but I am trying), and I realize that everything I put into my body truly effects my emotions and my demeanor. 


Even though I find it fascinating, the life of the 1920's writers in Paris is really not for me. I cannot keep up, and I know that I am much better, more pleasant, and an overall more balanced and peaceful person when I do things at a slower pace and keep check of how I feel and how I am treating my body and mind. Thank you to Mariel by teaching me that in fact, this is a preferred way of life to the frenetic-ness and downright delirious-ness of the way her father lived.


And with that, I share some photos from ALICANTE....

The beach just before sunset...

Alicante is quite small, though there plenty of beautiful buildings and as is typical of Spain, people on the streets at all moments

 Notice a wedding party in the corner...

 The girl in this photo looks like me, but it's not! I took this photo because I loved walking this "paseo" on Sunday morning. Chairs had been placed all along simply for people to sit, chat, and relish the sun. I can't say it enough: The Spaniards are professional bench-sitters. They truly know how to pass a day slowwwwly, yet beautifully. 

 It almost looks like Beverly Hills....

 All out for a stroll whether on foot or by vehicle....

 Even though Spaniards often tell me that you will almost never see a Spanish flag because the Spanish Civil War is still such a delicate topic and the flag represents Fransisco Franco, I certainly see loud and proud Spanish flags everywhere....

Coolest Dog Ever.... 

 I met this amazing girl in Alicante. She is from South Carolina, and lives in Madrid like me! We were instant friends... we have so much in common. The most important? We are both Tri Deltas!! We hiked to the highest point of Alicante to view the city and catch the sunset.

We came across this random structure with a beautiful message... "Believe in the Magic and You Will Find It"

 How could we resist this opportunity?

Alicante at Sunset

 Soon Before Sunset

"I know now that there is no one thing that is true - it is all true"

Two weekends ago, I drove to Badajoz, a  city on the West side of Spain. It has a main city area as well as villages and pueblos around it. I have several friends that are from Badajoz, and the "Carnavales" festivals are celebrated there in abundance. Carnavales is a time when people wear costumes and have giant parties in the street. It is very big in the south of Spain, Andalucia, as well as in Badajoz.  The house in the photo above belongs to the family of one of my friends named Carmen. They are from Badajoz, and this house is actually in Portugal. It is a farm house and they have some Portuguese people that live there and take care of the house and the animals.

The inside of the house... so rural!!

A giant fireplace was welcoming because the house was very cold.

The woman that lives there made us afternoon coffee with homemade bread and spreads for the bread. It was quite a lovely indulgence, especially because we had just come from an amazing restaurant meal. We ate lunch in Portugal at a restaurant on the border where we drank beer and ate a seafood rice stew. The two people in the photo above are my roomate Barbara (also from Badajoz) and her boyfriend Dani.. I love them, they are so much fun!

This photo is our group. From left to right... Javier Kayser, the bofyriend of Carmen who is next to him. Carmen was my roomate, but now she and Kayser (he goes by Kayser because everyone in Spain is named Javier and nobody has the last name of Kayser) live together, then Barbara and Dani, then Kayser's brother Agustine, and then me. They are all wonderful and fun people, and I certainly realize how lucky I am to know them. It can be difficult to meet and get to know local people when living abroad, and I was lucky enough to find some amazing ones.

This is the closest I have ever been to real animals! Look at the size of that pig... I think it was pooping. The farm is filled with female cows and there is only one bull that empregnates all of them. If they had more than one bull, they would fight. I had no idea that this was the case on farms. What a lucky bull, right??

They are Iberian pigs. This is the best ham you can taste. I never, ever ate ham before I came to Spain, and believe me, it is delicious!

The dog was mesmerized with the pigs, and they completely ignored him.

Quite a photogenic cow

So peaceful

Time for Carnavales! After the afternoon on the peaceful farm in Portugal, we drove to Carmen's apartment home in the city of Badajoz where we prepared our costumes and drank some spirits before heading out into the streets.

Kayser and Carmen dressed as Inspector Gadget and his partner, the young girl, Penny.... such great detail!

Barbara was a Russian Spy (she wanted to think of the warmest possible costume as the streets were blistering cold)... and I was a pirate because it was the first thing I saw!

Dani was dressed as a 1980's Columbian soccer player ... apparently a really funny joke... here you can see the streets during Carnavales

The night was filled with dancing through the streets... everything that you hear about the parties in Spain are true. The Spanish never sleep. The Carnavales festivities last until 11am... we went home "early" at 8am. If I end up back in the States, the early nights there will be one of the most difficult adjustments for me!

"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."

This post will offer a random mix of photos from the last few months in order to offer a short preview of the big events and every-day occurrences that have happened since my arrival in September. Then, little by little, (but not too slowly), I will ponerme al dia (catch-up) by writing blog posts and posting pictures of the events or occurrences that deserve their own blog post, rather than be mixed in with this mix of random.

How I could possibly begin with a topic other than futbol? It was a fortuitous day when I stumbled upon this wall holding my two most favorite Spanish players. On your left (my right in the photo), you see Sergio Ramos, a star on the Real Madrid team. On your right (my left in the photo), you see Fransisco Torres, who is Spanish but plays currently on England's Chelsea team. I was lucky (I can't think of a stronger word, but this deserves one) enough to be here two years ago when Spain won the World Cup. What a night! Both of these players help major roles in the championship team. During the general league of soccer, players from any country can be placed on any team around the world. For the World Cup, every player returns to play with their country. This is why Torres returned to Spain for the World Cup. Anyway, soccer games here are very exciting and are a part of the soul, the blood of the Spanish. Team loyalties are very important and the greatest rivalry is between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona (who happen to be the best teams in the world right now).

 Madrid loves Christmas! The entire city was illuminated for at least two months. Once Christmas ended, I kept thinking that the lights would go away, and finally sometime around the end of January, they disappeared.

 The next three photos are taken in Madrid's Retiro park. It is a massive park filled with grass, trees, fountain, and a very small lake which you can see is popular for rowboats. Retiro is a space where people leisure in the grass, picnic, carress their lovers, run (there is a four-mile track around), or simply enjoy the almost-constant sun. Please note the incredible full moon in the third picture. Dusk in Madrid is stupendous as the sky turns a million shades of pink.

 The following two photos are in central Madrid. There is never a dull moment as the streets constantly beam with people, movement, and life. One is never far from an architectural masterpiece. Even a post office can be a sight for sore eyes.

 I have gone hiking twice in the mountains outside of Madrid. The first three photos took place in a mountain region called "Miraflores."

 The following photos were taken during a hike in a region called "La Cabrera." This means "little goat." We hiked to the very summit of the mountain where no other hikers dared to go ..... not really that dangerous, but still exciting.

Yes, it is a little strange to post photos of perfume. However, after months of eyeing it, I finally decided that I had to have it, and it is so beautiful! The bottle is a beauty, as is the box, and it even came with the adorable scarf. After Christmas, every store in Madrid carries extreme "Rebajas" (reductions) and they are still going on right now. Each week, they get progressively lower until now almost all stores are at 80 percent off, (Below this photo, you must click "read more" to finish the blog post)