Hi
everyone. Most of you have probably been following the road to the White House
in the United States, but 2008 is also an election year for Spain. Sunday is
election day, and while the election hasn't gotten nearly the amount attention
here that the American election gets in America (partly because there is a very
short campaigning period, and there are no primaries--each party internally
selects a candidate a good six months in advance. In Spain, you vote for a
party, not for a person), it's still a big deal. There have been posters all
over Barcelona both for the internal Catalunya elections and the general
election for the Prime Minister. The two main candidates are José Luis
Rodriguez Zapatero, of PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español--Spanish Socialist Worker's Party), who is the current prime
minister, and Mariano Rajoy, of PP (Partido Popular--the People's Party).
Generally speaking, the PSOE is more liberal, and the PP is conservative.
Because it's
election season, there's been even more protesting in Barcelona than usual. The
bus workers are back to striking, and on Monday they had a demonstration in
front of the university (unfortunately I missed it, because I was in class, but
I certainly heard it), because they want two days off per week (their slogan: Dos dies!). Yesterday the students at both the
Universitat de Barcelona and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona were
demonstrating against the Bologna Process, a proposition that threatens to make
all of the European universities' programs and systems more closely linked.
To
explain why the students are so against this, I have to explain some oddities
of the Spanish university system (to the best of my knowledge). First,
universities in Europe tend to be very traditional. Until recently, the role of
the professor was very different--they were used to being treated as the rulers
of the classroom and were not held accountable to anyone (for the most part).
They've just introduced a course and professor evaluation system, and many
professors are up in arms. Also, in the past, grades in classes were always
based on a final exam and/or a final paper. Just recently, the universities
here have implemented the option of an evaluación continua, which consists of
papers, quizzes, etc. throughout the term. Of course, this also means that
attendance to class is far more important: something that students had been
able to skirt in the past. You see, many students here also hold normal jobs,
and can simple complete their degrees (not with flying colors or anything, but
as you know, simply holding a degree lets you take higher-paying jobs) by
passing exams during a few months during the year. Or, students can add classes
to their workload that may have been in conflict with other classes they are
taking, and just take the exam later to pass the class (that's why there's a
whole month for exams; the exam schedule is not based on the hour of the
original class like it is at least at UCSD). The student can thereby finish
their degree faster and, of course, pay a lot less. Needless to say, the
Bologna Process will likely eliminate the evaluación única (the one exam system), and
students realize that it will severely inconvenience them. (Of course, I'm not
going to tell them that they only pay €600 per semester, and we end up paying a lot more than that in the
US…). So that's the basic problem: and the governments intend to make these
changes without drastically spending any more money.
I also had the
opportunity to go see the BODIES exhibition last weekend. You may have heard of
it--it's the super disgusting collection of body parts and muscles, etc. for
the public to peruse. Actually, it was very interesting to look at all of those
things that I had studied way back in 9th-grade biology. Still, I couldn't eat
meat for the next few days--it just looked far too similar.
Some
apartment notes: Anna and I haven't the slightest clue where Ari actually
is--we haven't seen her in two weeks. We talked to her once last week on the
phone, but she hasn't shown up since. I figure she's at her boyfriend's. Still,
she picked a good few weeks to not be around: we've had some issues, namely
with the bathrooms. First of all, the last two weeks our building has been
replacing pipes, so I haven't been able to use my bathroom at all between 9 AM
and 2 PM every day during the week. I initially misunderstood what my portera told me
and thought it was only ONE day (this past Wednesday) that I couldn't use it,
but apparently it was every day until then. I found this out the hard way, when
I went to wash my hands, I heard a voice in the shaft outside my bathroom where
the pipes are, "¡QUINTO! No tire el agua!" (Fifth floor! Don't run the water!). Anyhow, on Wednesday the
problem was a little different: they had finally gotten to our floor, so that
meant they were working from my bathroom the whole morning. I was there for a
while, and it was interesting to see them rig up a rope and pulley system to
jump into the shaft, but the noise got pretty irritating (as it was the whole
week). I stayed until my class, and Anna skipped work to stick around for the
final three hours or so.
The other bathroom
is worse: whenever they turn on the hot water heater, the electricity in the
whole apartment shuts off. Anna's been trying to get the people on the phone,
but it's been difficult because they have horrible hours and Anna's at work all
day. Supposedly they're coming out on Monday, but who knows. We had to remove
the roof in the bathroom in order for these people to come… don't ask. Anyhow,
for a while last week, no one here was taking showers because of all of this
business.
You
can check out Week 28 photos on the site now. They're mostly of our final class
excursion, to Poblet and a huge lunch following a calçcotada
(more on that in the photos).
My spring break
starts in a week, and so far my plans are thus: for the first week, I'll be
covering Northern Spain. The first few days will be in País Vasco (Basque
Country), starting in Bilbao (going to see the Guggenheim!) with probably a
quick trip to San Sebastian. From there, I'm going to spend until the 21st (or
so) going on the FEVE--a small, slow, scenic train that goes along the coast in
the provinces of Cantabria, Asturias, and Galicia. My visit to the so-called
"España Verde" will hopefully include hopping on and off the train to
go see the cities of Santander and Gijón, and an outing to the beautiful Picos
de Europa in Asturias. I've been working
the last day on the individual days: I don't want this to be like the Balearics
trip where I had no idea what I was doing and wasted a lot of time travelling.
I'll finish up that week in Galicia, in Santiago de Compostela, which has the
famous cathedral depicted on all of those 1-, 2-, and 5-cent Spanish Euro
coins. It's also, of course, the end of El Camino, the famous pilgrimage route
that tons of people do by foot every year (we're doing the lame way, by train,
on the "Northern Route", i.e., not through León).
After seeing
Galicia, and muddling our way through having to speak Gallego, I'm going to
head south through Vigo and into Portugal for the second week. I just bought a
guidebook on Portugal today, so I don't really have any plans, but I'm planning
to go through Porto and end up in Lisbon by the 27th or 28th, when I'll fly
back to Barcelona. So yes, two glorious week of travel! Despite all of my
complaining about not having traveled enough so far, I really haven' travelled
this much in my life before. So it will be pretty amazing. I actually have a
class on the 26th, but I'm going to skip it because it's the only hour and a
half I'm responsible for for the entire week. Class starts again on the 31st of
March, when I have an exam.
So that's about it.
I'll update you with more concrete plans of my travels hopefully later in the
week.
