Wanderlust

As of today, I am officially one month away from my next move. The plan is to move home at Christmas, then come back for a week and a half after Christmas to train the next nanny. That, however, may change, and I may end up training her before I leave for Christmas, which would result in me going to Korea in January rather than February - but that all remains to be seen.*

At any rate, my time in New Jersey is quickly coming to a close.

As I wait (somewhat impatiently) for my FSOT results, my thoughts remain in South Korea. For, as I've mentioned before, becoming a US diplomat is my dream, teaching English in Korea is my plan.

For me, one of the hardest things about moving to Spain was moving back. Culture shock wasn't too much of a problem. It was expected and planned for. Reverse culture shock, however, came from out of the blue and blindsided me.

I've been doing a lot of research (read:surfing the web) for my adventure in Korea, and as I was reading some forums (fori?) this evening, I came across a thread on reverse culture shock. As I read posts, a wave of memories washed over me. Memories of getting the urge to request movie tickets or order at a restaurant in Spanish, for example. More notably, Koreans and Spaniards appear to have something in common which is difficult for Americans to adapt to.**

Two words.

Personal space.

It's okay to run right into someone and not even acknowledge it.

I recall performing a sociological experiment in my neighborhood in Madrid. Bearing in mind that it has been more than two years since I moved back to the States from Madrid and my skills of estimation are rudimentary at best, I would estimate that Calle de las Delicias was at least 20 feet wide.**

A couple of times, I played chicken walking down that street.

I got tired of being the one to always move out of the way and wondered, if I didn't move, would the other person move to avoid running into me?

Yes, Madrid is crowded. But I lived out in the sticks (no, I'm lying. But it makes a clever pun off my metro stop).

However, even in a crowded city, there are bound to be times when you find yourself in an uncrowded situation. At certain times of the day, my neighborhood was definitively uncrowded. These were the times when I spontaneously chose to perform my sociological experiment (read:play chicken). When walking down a 20-ft-wide sidewalk, if there is only one person coming from the opposite direction, but they are directly in your path - will they move to avoid you? The answer is "No."

I'm not kidding. I ran into people this way. But only a couple of times, because I get annoyed running into people so I resumed dodging Spaniards.

This is not to say that I did not learn how to adapt to the culture. I felt a bit guilty one day when I pushed my way onto the bus (in typical Spanish fashion) and encouraged Kelly to push in with me, only for her backpack to get caught in the doors. I didn't feel guilty for too long, though, because the picture was pretty funny and that made up for it.

But back to my point (I really did have one): As I sit here and think about what was, for me, the most difficult aspect of my overseas experience, the only thing I feel is a desire to go abroad again, to have a new experience.

And I wonder, will I ever be content to remain in one place? Is Wanderlust terminal?


*That's basically all I know at this point; hopefully I will know more soon. I plan to go to Korea roughly one month after moving back to Washington.
**Arggh.. Grammar rules have changed and I know that it is now acceptable for me to leave a prepostion dangling, but it still hurts a little.
**That is, the sidewalk on the northern side of the street (if my sense of direction serves me correctly).

A tasty snack with Captain Jack

There are few things that I will refuse to eat. In fact, I can only recall two things of which I have turned down the opportunity to sample:

bull penis (Córdoba, Spain)

(with french fries, naturally)


and sheep head (Marrakech, Morocco).


Not only do I try just about anything, but I like (or at least, do not dislike) most things, too. It’s a matter of pride for me. I love spinach, mushrooms, and I even like brussels sprouts. Not only that, but I might even admit to liking morcilla, as long as we don’t mention what it actually is.

But there are a few things I would rather not eat. I don’t like sweet & sour sauce, pickles, relish, or olives. Never have.

Naturally, as the whole matter is an issue of pride, I do my best to try these things from time to time. However, the frequency with which I try these things is directly proportional to the frequency with which I find them on my plate. Makes sense, right? If they’re there, I figure I might as well give them a shot and see if anything has changed. Consequently, I have eaten a lot of olives without actually liking them. Growing up, I was the only one who didn’t like black olives. Every time we ordered pizza, there were olives. I picked them off. At Thanksgiving, I was the only kid not getting olives from the hors d’oeuvres table, then sticking them on the end of my fingers so I could have cool olive fingers.

Then I went to Spain. Spaniards love olives. I think it may be illegal for them to dislike olives. A Spaniard not liking olives would be tantamount to a Brit not liking tea (though I have actually met one such Brit - at least, she claimed she was English - she was probably lying).

In the US, I had somehow gathered the impression that a black olive was sort of a precursor to the green olive. In other words, if you like black olives, you should try green olives - you might like them, too. But if you don’t even like black olives, you won’t like green olives - there’s no point in even trying them.

But I tried them anyway.
Many times.
I always tried them if they were on my plate, and I always disliked them.
Until one day...

I was having lunch with M2 in Granada. We were getting the Menú del Día at a restaurant that was located right next to a big plaza. I can still see it in my mind’s eye. I ate a green olive. And I liked it. It was pretty amazing. I tried to communicate the magic of the moment to Matt, but I don’t think he quite understood. Anyway, I didn’t just start liking olives from then on. There may have been a few in the following years that I liked, but I didn’t just start eating any old olive. It wasn’t long after that apperception that I returned to the US. So my encounters with olives were drastically reduced in number and I all but forgot that magical moment in Granada. Until one day…

A couple of months ago, my boss brought home some jalapeño stuffed olives.

I tried one.

I liked it.

I ate more.

I started picking them up regularly at the grocery store and my boss and I have both been enjoying them.

Now I am in the habit of eating Melba Snacks with Laughing Cow spreadable cheese and sliced jalapeño stuffed olives. Yum.

A couple of weeks ago, the grocery store was out of the jalapeño stuffed olives. So that evening, I made my little snack with regular olives, and I still really liked it! That’s how I know I’ve truly turned a corner here.

But I still don’t like black olives.

Holy smokes!*

Why is it that when I have the most to blog about, I blog the least? I have a few blogs in mind and I've even got pictures! I'm not going to take the time now, though.

So, stay tuned.

For now, I'll just leave you with this interesting/unsurprising tidbit from The Economist. A market research group compared annual cigarette consumption in 120 countries in 2006.

Together, these countries account for over 95% of global consumption.

Spain is #6.

*Maybe that should be "unholy smokes"...

MacGyver in País Vasco

Warning: This clip is dubbed in Spanish.
Apparently, one of MacGyver's great exploits was rescuing an American from a Basque guerrilla camp. I'm curious as to where the writers got their background information...