שכונה שלי

I spent much of last summer on my bike.

There's nothing quite like a long bike ride through the cool breeze at twilight as the unbearable valley heat ebbs and the sky streaks a deep auburn across the horizon into a lush golden lavender that beckons a deep blue balmy night. I pop my head phones in and a soundtrack accompanies my solitary ride through the smooth back roads of the neighborhood.

Cars whiz by, wistful couples stroll hand in hand, intrepid joggers weave through the mostly sparse foot-traffic, kids with scooters wearing colorful, goofy helmets haphazardly dodge other pedestrians as their exasperated parents chase after them dragging their overtired miniature dogs, and fellow bike riders switch on their blinking night lights as the neon sun expires beneath the cool blanket of night.

Most times I stick to this road that parallels the busy, honking mess that is Ventura Boulevard because it offers a mobile serenity much needed after a long, sticky day stuck on the 405 or the 101. Sometimes I bike through and to the park where I spent so many of those summer afternoons spread across the grassy knolls listening to the chorus of ducks and geese, gliding through the nostalgic haze of summer time barbecue smoke only to reappear on the other side onward past a somnolent golf course where I spent weekends of my youth lugging around my cumbersome clubs.

I've been a valley girl, if you will, for more than a decade now, and it's still a facet of my identity that surprises me despite the vehement pride I unhesitatingly express for the valley to the chagrin and mocking incredulity of other, "real" Angelenos.

Having grown up in the heart of Hancock Park on the edge of Beverly Hills where I spent the formidable years of my childhood collecting leaves and roly polies with Tiffany in the backyard, my move to the valley some eleven years ago still seems just like yesterday. Much of highschool was spent at Blue Cafe, the drive-thru of In-N-Out and couches at friend's houses. I walked and ran with Polly every night for six of the past ten or so years, but I never ventured much further than my usual route, and if I did, it was only within a block radius of my house. It was only recently, during my short vacation bouts at home that I really started to explore my neighborhood.

Maybe it was my time spent abroad for a year, especially the time spent in Israel that has opened my eyes to the substantial presence of Israelis in my neighborhood, but whatever it was, I've noticed more than ever before, the Middle Eastern tang that permeates this stretch of Ventura between Winnetka and Hayvenhurst.

I'd always known there were many Persians in my neighborhood because most of my neighbors seemed to have these beautiful, exotic yet difficult to pronounce names. And I knew of the Jewish presence because of the Orthodox jews who would walk to the temple in front of my house every Saturday. However, I don't think I was aware of the extent of this Mid-Eastern presence in my neighborhood and on my daily life. Maybe all along it was subliminal messages that surrounded me for all those impressionable years of highschool that pushed me to learn Arabic as soon as I entered college and then find myself traveling through the Middle East. Mom, there's your explanation!

Having come back home after such an incredibly difficult and wonderful semester in Israel, nothing made me happier than having uncharacteristically taken the Ventura route one day on my bike to rediscover my neighborhood with the addition of Hebrew interspersed with Farsi along every block and at each corner Starbucks.

I spent a solid week biking up and down Ventura capturing the best and most typical scenes and images that represent what really is a taste of the Middle East in who knew?, the valley. Let me share with you these vignettes I so cherish into my neighborhood. And man, that's real LA when you can find a kosher sushi bar, and a random Korean girl can read the Arabic script on your Farsi signs and tell you she met your uncle, the one that drives a taxi, in Eilat last January.

Welcome to my hood-we even have our own Aroma!

Let's start this again

Woke up this morning feeling less than fabulous. Thus, I'm still frolicking in my pajamas listening to John Mayer, and I've never quite appreciated how nice barefoot and flannel feel in lieu of the usual scratchy slacks and hells (excuse me, I meant heels) on an early friday afternoon.

It's almost been a year since I've updated this blog, and it's quite sad because I come up with post ideas more often than I have the time for. I'll come to this page every so often ready to write, but then I reminisce about all those past posts that never were, and I get disheartened and then distracted by something on perezhilton.com (LaLoca did what?) or by mama checking in to ask if I'm eating (yes.), then if I've gained weight (maybe.). And of course, school started again for me this past year..real school, I mean including all the reading (huh?) and studying (what's that again? No lo ha(th)emos en Cadi, pichaa.).

Since my last post finishing up my roller coaster semester in Cadiz, I took off for two weeks traveling in Italy (with Karia and meeting Jeni in Rome) before spending two last nights in Cadiz eating diablillos and professing our love to the server at Cumbres Mayores, walking up and down the coast with Paco trying to beat the sunset back to downtown and drinking Cruzcampo with the Italians while burying our toes in the cold sand next to the waves.

Returned to Los Angeles, plumper and tanner, around the end of June and spent that summer...wow, I can't even remember what I did that summer that was remotely productive. But that summer was marked by long bike rides at dusk with Arya, lots of movie watching, (re)discovering my hood and trying out different Israeli and Middle-Eastern restaurants, afternoons laughing at ducks at the park while we sprawled across the warm grass, improv comedy shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade, random "Hollywood" nights, hiking on weekends, fires that lasted for days, and long car rides to nowhere because we had nothing to do and nowhere to go. And that was fine.

Nothing could have mentally prepared me for the culture shock I'd feel upon returning to Wellesley. What a rough start that was...this excerpt from an email sums it up nicely:
" Returning to Wellesley was difficult-readjusting to the intense Wellesley bubble, re-acquainting myself with old friends, reassimilating into the community...there was a lot of re-doing going on."

Despite the rough start, last semester at Wellesley could really vie for one of the best. (No, who am I kidding. Second semester sophomore year at Casa was the best.) SKEMjay and Skulls was established, I was going out to Boston at least three to four times a week, I had visitors come share my humble yet cozy abode with a most spectacular view of the lake especially at sunset, visited my St. James' crew down in NYC, drove to Vegas for a weekend of debauchery during Thanksgiving break with Neese and Sean to celebrate my 21st (also when Sean got swine flu LMFAO, sorry dude. Glad you were there!), reconnected with the K-posse from freshman year from insane asylum Freeman, and I met someone, as someone else put it, "just like you, but with eyebrows."

After a whirlwind winter break of numerous family dinners, weekend trips to the mountains so my mom could "see snow", bonfires at the beach and subsequent drinking reunions, lots of driving back and forth across the 101 and the 405 at three in the morning, day trips to Santa Ines and San Diego with long stops at the beach, adventures in the kitchen with some pretty incredible and tasty creations, dates to the museum, the zoo, the bowling alley, the blacklight mini golfing, more visits to downtown LA than ever before in my life, first tattoos and more family hiking and photography trips to Malibu, I scrounged up a place on Craigslist, and here I find myself, on a friday afternoon in mid-March, staring out the window on a rainy, dreary day, still in my pajamas, still listening to John Mayer, in Falls Church, Virginia.

More updating later. I have too many nostalgic thoughts swimming in my head.

ps. miss you lots SKEMjay.

Finish off strong, friends, and see you soon!!

الأندلس

Tomorrow I have my last final exam, and this truly marks the beginning of the end of my semester in Cadiz.

After my exam, there will be a mad scramble to start packing-packing for a week and a half exploring the culinary prowess that is Italy; and packing the rest of my life away because when I return, another American student will be living in my room. I'll be "upgraded" to spend the last few nights in Cadiz in my host mother's bedroom while she insists that the couch is far more comfortable for her.

It's incredibly muggy outside, so I don't mind spending a few more hours in my pajamas studying in bed. My last exam is for my class on the history of al-Andalus (a.k.a. Muslim Spain) - that "Gem of the World", that paradigm of Convivencia that is ironically invoked by both anti-war advocates and Osama bin Laden.

There is always one quote that blows my mind whenever I come across the topic of al-Andalus. I first heard it on my visit to Alhambra in Granada three years ago and then in a Wellesley Spanish class, and again with this class.

Legend has it that when the last Nasrid King of Granada, Boabdil, surrendered the last Muslim stronghold in Spain, he turned around on the path to exile to look with one last sigh lamenting his lost palace. His mother walking by said:

"Llora, llora como mujer lo que no supiste defender como hombre."
(You cry like a woman for that which you did not know how to defend as a man.")

Damn.

Culture Overload

Soccer victories , white pueblos of Andalucia , biking in Sierra de Grazalema , rooftop birthday barbeques , Moroccan Arabic class , bullfights , Feria de Jerez and all the flamenco dresses, mudejar architecture, flamenco shows, hanging our laundry like true gaditanas, and capoeira performances in leafy plazas.

A Love Story of Sorts

Whenever I travel, I always carry with me a stack of photos of family, my dog Polly, high school years, and my closest friends to help me through those lonely days, so I can decorate the walls of my new home away from home and to show new friends my oldest friends.

Each photo evokes a distinct memory - birthday bonfires, prom night, a week in Maui with mom, baseball games, random afternoons with the shisha pipe and pink champagne. Sometimes I chuckle; other times I feel a momentary pang of nostalgia.

When I see one photo in particular, at first I always smile, but this quickly changes into a bittersweet sigh and a resigned shake of the head.

It is a picture from almost three years ago. It is of me and a friend. I am glowing from a deep tan after a weekend of sprawling on the hedonistic shores of Ibiza. I'm wearing a dark navy and rich green dress that has long since faded from the sunlight. He is wearing his signature leather necklace that he still sports to this day. We are sitting, and I'm leaning on his shoulder.

This photo always elicits many curious comments and questions. This is the one photo from the bunch that provokes a lightheaded giddiness of familiarity. And this is where it all starts.

I met Paco four summers ago when I came to Spain for the first time through the Experiment in International Living as a high school junior. I lived with a Spanish host family in Vejer de la Frontera for four weeks. I had a host brother Francisco who was my age, and Paco was his best friend.

The three of us spent that summer frolicking on the beach, rollicking in the warm waves, wandering the winding streets for hours, frequenting the small town bars with the other underage hooligans until the wee hours, all the while gesturing and gesticulating madly to each other because I didn't speak very much Spanish and neither of them spoke English.

Vejer is in Andalucia, and this is where my interest in Arabic and Middle Eastern studies was sparked. The legacy of Al-Andalus is apparent in the mudejar architecture and every summer there is a Moroccan arts and crafts festival. I returned home with the seed planted that would guide the course of my college studies.

Before I left, I exchanged my email address with several of the Spanish friends that I met in Vejer. Paco is the only one who kept in touch. We emailed each other every week for a year. We never missed a birthday or a holiday. The next summer, I had graduated from high school, and my parents congratulated me with a trip to anywhere I chose with a friend. I chose to return to Spain.

Denise and I went on a Contiki tour that included all the big cities and (party) sites. Before we returned home, we made a surprise stop in Vejer. Those few days were some of the best ever. I ran into old friends, and Paco and I spent almost every minute together.

During those few days, only we seemed to exist in this ephemeral bubble that would pop when I left again. He was my first love. I'd never cried so hard leaving anyone or any place in my life, and I vowed to him and myself that I would come back some day.

Neither of us knew or quite believed that I would actually be back three years later as a study abroad student. Here I am in Cadiz just a two hour drive from Vejer, and I've been here for over four months already. I’d known that Francisco wanted to study at the University of Cadiz, and I knew that Paco was working in the port. As small as this city is, I finally ran into Francisco and Paco just a month ago. They have been living in the new part, and I live in the old part of the city.

Paco and I had kept our internet correspondence strong just until, strangely enough, I arrived in Cadiz. I had written him several times that I was going to be studying in Cadiz, but he never responded to that part of the email. Apparently, he never quite believed it either. This past year, he wished me a merry Christmas, and I told him how I'd spent Christmas Eve in Bethlehem. And then, the emails stopped.

I gave up hope talking to Paco again after the email connection was so abruptly severed. I never saw him or Francisco in my daily warblings up and down the streets of Cadiz. I sought out places in the city that would seem like his favorite haunts but to no avail. I finally bumped into Francisco at a local club, and the next day I ran into Paco and his girlfriend on the seaside promenade.

Since then, our contact has been short and scarce. I met with Paco twice, and both times, we spent the day in a reverie of nostalgia. We galvanized old names and old faces from distant memories as we sat on the beach watching the waves crash like we used to those past summers in Vejer.

It’s been three years, and much has changed. When I saw him with his girlfriend, I was surprised by my reaction. I was neither hurt nor jealous; I was simply so glad to finally see him and that he was happy and that she was making him happy.

Two nights ago, Cadiz won a football match. Paco has been writing me for years about how gaditanos celebrate their football victories by jumping into the fountain in front of the old city walls. Two nights ago, Paco and I swam in the fountain together as the crowd surged around us in a sea of yellow waving flags, drunkenly singing regional gaditano anthems, and jumping wildly around with flares to crashing beer bottles.

For a brief moment, old feelings were rekindled, and he claimed in a drunken release from his inhibitions, “te amo”, and that was simultaneously what I’d hoped to hear from him before coming to Cadiz and what I’d hoped to never hear after coming to Cadiz. We haven’t talked since that night, and I’ve only got about a week left in Cadiz.

There are times when I sit on the ramparts by myself and look out into the ocean as the sun sets, and I know that he is doing the same a few miles down the shore. Part of me wonders with a bit of sadness what might have been. But most of me realizes that our paths diverged long ago.

This is a tribute to young love, and to how pure and powerful it is, and to how long it can last despite its youth, and to how wonderful it is even in retrospect.

There, Tif. There's your update.

That's Not My Name! They Call Me Gordy.

Okay, let's just put aside the fact that my name has been changed from Stacy to "Stefy" during the past four months due to pronunciation difficulties. (I guess it's better than "Tasty", which was my name in Jerusalem from time to time.)

I must say though, I get that it's a "cultural thing", but I really resent my host mom referring to me as "gordy" and "gorda" these days. More so because she is a considerably large woman herself. FML.

This gordy is going for a run. Damn.

This is Our Time

I've been seriously slacking on this blog.

Partially, internet is a limited affair, and when I'm inspired to write something, usually I'll have to wait to update, and by the time internet becomes available, I'd much rather download and watch Arrested Development.

Partially, I'm not driven to write so often because I don't feel like I have too much to write or update on. I don't like to write about my daily, mundane goings-on because that's boring for you and me.

But who am I kidding, I've become lazy. Even writing a blog entry is kind of a hassle. Even planning for future traveling is an unpleasant task.

This Tuesday marks the four month anniversary of my arrival in Spain. I've been here for four months and to be quite honest, this will break my parents' hearts, but I really don't feel like I have too much to show for it all.

Cadiz is fantastic. It's beautiful and slow-paced.

My life here is so easy, and often I find myself sitting in sun-dappled, leafy plazas for hours on end in the bright sunlight, watching little children run around with precariously topped ice cream cones and sticky lollipops, and I think to myself, how wonderful my life is.

Sometimes, I sit on top of my friend's rooftop with a view of the golden domed cathedral, which brings back memories of Jerusalem without the underlying tensions and strain. She'll be hanging her laundry to dry in the brisk sea breeze like a true gaditana, another friend will be pouring herself another cocktail at 4 pm., and I'll lean over the ledges to watch the people walk by below in the narrow alleys and think to myself, life is too good.

Other times, I walk out of my two-hours of Spanish class (which is really more like 40 minutes of total teaching time) and head the thirty feet straight to sprawl on the beach while watching the sun-streaked sky slowly fade into dusk against the silhouette of the sea-side castle promenade. And then I think to myself, what a life I have.

It is a Sunday afternoon, and having gotten home last night at five am., I'm taking it easy. Delicious aromas waft from the kitchen as Rosa (host mom) is in the kitchen making a traditional Spanish stew. I'm in the salon reaping the benefits of neighbors who have wifi (thanks, THOMSON) reading up on newspapers and celebrity gossip while Spanish television blares mindlessly in the background. And the streets below are bustling with Sunday afternoon pedestrians yelling to each other from windows while the dogs incessantly bark in rounds.

I've lost much of my Hebrew, and despite my Moroccan Arabic class, I still feel as though much of my Arabic has also been buried under new random Gaditano colloquialisms. I've finished at least eight books-all of them for leisure. I have two weeks left of classes, but then again, class attendance has always been optional.

Most days, I spend in a nearby plaza reading and people watching. I'll go to class as an escape from boredom. Or I'll trek to the beach and greet the beach hippie/sand sculptor extraordinaire. Then I'll sit on the docks and watch the fishermen scrub down their boats while others commence an impromptu flamenco clap.

It seems that during the day, I sit around and impatiently wait for the day to end so that the night can begin. Whether the night means internet connection or going out with friends for dinner and drinks, the clear sunlight of these long days is both beautiful and mocking.

Days here are long, lovely, and lonely. I have a lot of alone time to think about god knows what. I've checked off several books from my reading list. I'm a regular lone fixture on the old walls overlooking the ocean as I spend hours brooding about how wonderfully dull my life is in Cadiz.

One more month and then I'm home.

I'll end on this note:

Tif, always the voice of optimisim and reason. And it's not just Cadiz.

Tif: "Well, as fruitless as life is now, it's never going to be as obligation-less and wonderful as it is now. I'm so lonely, but i need to keep reminding myself that i'm going to miss this lonely down time. When am i ever going to get time like this to sleep in everyday and watch endless movies?"
Me: "This is our vacation, right? Before life starts?"
Tif: "YES-before life starts. This is like OUR TIME. Before money gets complicated, and responsibilities become endless."