dietary transformations

You give me food, I'll eat it. Whatever. While anyone who has known me from my days of blatant refusal to eat green pasta may see this as a bold-face lie, the picky eater in me has been vanquished by my "vegetarian-in-Spain" experience a year ago. This period was also known as "Carbfest with a side of Olive Oil '07." But really, vegetarianism/voluntary starvation opens your tastebuds and dietary system up to a whole new array of options here in Spain. Yesterday, I ate pig fat fried in fat. I believe it still had hairs on its hide. It was free, so I figured I might as well try it. I ate gulas...I believe the consensus, through online dictionary research, is that gulas are baby eels. Which makes sense, since they looked like little worms. To be fair, I had no idea what gulas were when I ordered them. I simply thought to myself, "Well, whatever they are, they can't be too weird." This in the country that serves a pig's ear as part of standard tapas fare (I haven't tried it yet). In Morlupo, the little Italian town I visited, I ate some kind of wild chicken. We think they caught it somewhere near the premises. With Rebecca's encouragement, in Barcelona, I managed to eat a whole fish. I know it was a whole fish because it still had its head, fins, skin, bones, and eyes. However, perhaps the strangest things that end up in my stomach come from the school cafeteria. There are two reasons for this. One, everything is free, and I just graduated from college and moved to another country as my native land fell head-first into a sub-prime abyss, meaning that money and I really don't see a lot of each other. Two, I really don't know what anything is. I ask, the cafeteria women tell me, I give a confused look, they say it again, but louder, and I point and say "Esto, por favor." One moment had special significance, the day that callos were an option. I have reproduced the conversation, in translation:
Cafeteria Lady: For the second plate, there's chicken and this other chicken.
Me: What's that tray underneath the chicken?
Cafeteria Lady: Callos.
Me: What?
Cafeteria Lady: Callos.
Me: ...What?
Cafeteria Lady (shakes head): You won't like them. Trust me.
Me (shrugs): OK. That chicken, please.
Cafeteria Lady: Tell you what. I'll give you a little bit, you try it. On Monday, you let me know if you liked it or not. Yeah?
Me: Why not?
I just want to say for the doubters, I gave the callos two bites. The first bite, I got mostly sauce, and described it to my fellow American Megan, who was watching intently, as smoking, musky chorizo that's kinda old. The second bite, I got some meat, and I believe my face contorted in a way I did not know was possible. It was chewy, rubbery, slippery, unidentifiable. We shrugged it off, as neither of us had any idea what it could be. When someone else sat down with a plate heaped full of it, I politely asked if he knew what it was. He looked at me consolingly, and said, These are the cow's stomach and intestines. On Monday, I told the lunch lady that callos really weren't my thing.

la rentrée

While the word is French, not Spanish, everybody's gotta go back to work sometimes, even in Europe. The wonderful time of rest and relaxation has come to end for all, adults and kids alike. School is starting, and I'm heading back to school...to teach. Enter Zen metaphors about young grasshoppers, coming full circle, etc. With little to no training and qualifications that include baby-sitting and volunteer tutoring, the Spanish government and public education system has cleared me to be around children. Shocking. I will be assistant teaching at the preschool level for children age 3-5, which means...songs! games! dancing! unbridled excitement for all things American! Irresistible enthusiasm for life! This could take some getting used to, since the last three years of living in New York and attending NYU were spent in a haze of sarcastic apathy with random bursts of cynicism. Drinking crappy American and musing about poststructualism have really not prepared me to teach English to 3 year-olds. However, with my nurturing nature and saint-like patience, I'm sure I'll be a natural...Well, I can probably guarantee that I will not throw any of the children within the first week. Live like you teach, starting with violence is never the answer, unless you really need oil and a distraction from the mess you've created domestically. Or if God declares that it's your manifest destiny to rule a country that stretches from sea to shining sea, meaning that everyone else, mostly the indigenous people that have rightful claims to the land, better get out of the way. USA! Er...amarillo is...that's right, yellow!