Fulbrighters, you continue to impress me.

Was it really as good as I remembered it? I doubted myself in the days leading up to Fulbright's mid-year seminar, constantly wondering if I was remembering the conference with rose-colored glasses. Last year I wrote in my blog about the intriguing presentations about mushroom hunting, indigenous languages in Spain and the U.S., and the connection between Dali's surrealism and the siesta. I recorded memories of a few days of intellectual enlightenment, rest from the day-to-day life at school, and interactions with truly amazing people. Could this year live up to all of that?

The answer:
Yes, sí, oui, ja.
Absolutely.

But first things first. Before I start raving about the seminar, I must give credit where credit is due: to the amazing staff at the Fulbright commission, Tory and Victoria.

From left to right: Tory (Fulbright program assistant), Victoria (Fulbright program officer), Lauren (co-mentor), and I (hopefully you know who I am) at our last meal of the Fulbright mid-year conference. Not a shabby backdrop either :)

After organizing Madrid's preliminary Global Classroom conferences this year, I realized how much work goes into all of the things we take for granted. Who printed all of our nametags and thought to make them double sided so that even if they got flipped around, we could read them? Who asked the university to set up the coffee breaks outside so that we could soak up some Vitamin D while we drank fresh-squeezed orange juice and coffee between sessions? Who figured out a schedule that would balance the variety of sessions with unique culinary experiences and transportation organization? Tory and Victoria, that's who.

They have helped all of us to make every process as easy as possible. They send us explanations of how to get our residence cards and forward us notifications about events in the city. They selflessly go above and beyond their job description so that we can feel at home and can make the most of our time here. Thankfully, from what I saw at mid-year, most of the Fulbrighters are not letting this opportunity go to waste.

At the mid-year seminar, researchers and ETAs gave 10 minute presentations that left me intrigued about the variety of experiences in Spain. A graduate student explained her studies of active and passive train crossing symbols, explaining the way human behavior forces transportation engineers to figure out ways to "protect us against ourselves". A Madrd ETA talked about her cooking classes and her experiences learning to cook typical Spanish dishes. (I congratulate her on having picked what I consider the best side project ever ;)) Another graduate student summarized her studies on trials of magic in Navarra and, using Victoria as an example, made us realize that a "witch" was really only based on what we agreed upon as a group, not what fit some academian's criteria. (A side note: this researcher also works in a castle.)

Lunches became continuations of these presentations; we were able to engage further with those who had presented and to hear from those who were too humble about their achievements to realize that they would have been interesting to share with the whole group.

Interestingly enough, humility and a sense of inadequacy were themes that I saw consistently throughout the three-day conference. Most presentations started off with a comment similar to:

• Sorry, this is a terrible PowerPoint presentation...
• Sorry, this was a dramatic presentation...
• Sorry, I'm not going to cook for you...
• Sorry, I lost my voice...
• Sorry, this is not as exciting as that last performance...

After a while, it began to bother me. Why are these incredible people apologizing so much?! They were entertaining us, enlightening us, engaging us. They had the guts to get up there in front of over 90 Fulbright scholars and talk about something they were passionate about, only to be asked incredibly complex questions about the deeper implications of their research. (These questions, though often impossible to answer, did show that the audience was listening!)

To all of you, I want to say thank you. Thank you for doing what I didn't have the guts to do in the past two years. Thank you for running the risk of over-simplifying your passion in order to share it with us. I know I only caught a glimpse of what you dedicate your life to, but I am thankful you put yourself out there so that I can better understand the varied interests of humanity.

Okay, okay, enough about that. We didn't sit in a lecture hall all seminar; we also got a chance to participate in one of 3 activities: a trip to the Oceanographic (aquarium), a guided tour of the Old Town, or a visit to a robotics lab at Universitat Politècnica de València. 

Since I had already been to the aquarium and am always up for learning more about the history of Spain, I chose the guided tour. Here's a bit of what we saw...

One of many views of the main cathedral

Princess (of Model UN) Lauren

The symbol of Valenica... LOL? ;)

 

One of many PG-13 figures outside buildings. These figures serve to remind people of what they should leave behind before entering the church. In our group, however, they just caused a lot of snickers.

Unfortunately, by mid-day Friday, it was time to say goodbye. Fortunately, the goodbye was softened by a scrumptious plate of paella and wall to wall windows overlooking the ocean.

PAELLA. SOOOOOO GOOD.

And with that, Lauren and I headed off to my next autonomous community, the Balearic Islands. 

I know what some of you are thinking: Islands? Spain has islands?!

Well, yes it does... TWO sets, in fact. The Canary Islands are located 100 km west of the border between Morocco and Western Sahara and the Balearic Islands are located just off the eastern coast of Spain. The location of Mallorca (one of the Balearic islands) made it a perfect place to visit after spending some time on the coast in Valencia.

When we arrived in Palma on Friday night, Lauren and I took a nighttime walk past the huge cathedral and through the main part of the city before stumbling onto (not out of) Wineing, a restaurant specializing in "tapas" of wine. There, rather than settling for a glass of house wine, Lauren and I ordered numerous catas (tastes) of local, national, and international wines. In the end, I stuck mostly to the Mallorcan wines, many of which are some variety of cabarnet, and all of which were quite good. But the best part was indulging in multiple wines that were 6-10 € a glass (Okay... in the states that isn't expensive, but here it's an outrage!) and commenting to Lauren about cedar notes as if I were a sophisticated winer and diner.

Then, Saturday morning, we set out to continue our tour of the center. But first, we had to have breakfast...

Ensaïmadas in Can Joan de S'Aigo

Ensaïmadas are pastries that are fried in a special pork lard, called saïm. They are best explained as a distant relative of the funnel cake, though I think they are better. (And I used to LOVE funnel cake.) It's possible Lauren and I ate ensaïmadas on 3 different occasions over the two days... so worth it.

After breakfast, we took a pleasant stroll along the water. It was a bit windy, but that just meant we could taste the salt of the sea on our lips even after walking away.

Pretty much my ideal Saturday morning

When you turned your back to the water, this is what you saw:

La Seu, the cathedral in Palma, Mallorca

The cathedral was quite impressive, especially for being on a modest-sized island. The style is Roman Gothic and, like many Spanish cathedrals, it is built on the site of a pre-existing mosque. The inside was done partly by Gaudi, whose influence you can see when you look at one of the main chapels, designed by a Mallorcan artist.

An underwater crucifix

The rest of the day was rather calm; Lauren and I had lunch, coffee, tea, and a snack, not so much because we were hungry or thirsty but because we allowed ourselves to check out cute cafés and bars whenever we felt so inclined.

A fire hydrant we found along the way

In one of the cafes, we read about the windmill museum and, thinking it would be a unique activity to partake in, we headed off to find it. Unfortunately, what we found was a museum that looked like it hadn't been opened in years. Fortunately, the windmills in the area were still there for our viewing pleasure.

Getting my Don Quijote on

On Sunday, we headed to Soller, a city on the northern coast of Mallorca.

A welcome sign in Soller

Oddly enough, all of the languages on this sign are quite necessary in Mallorca. Mallorca has (more than) its fair share of German and British retirees, making it difficult to know what language to speak to someone in. (Lauren and I were approached in German multiple times.) I'm used to forcing Spanish into conversations (Waiter speaks in English, Amber speaks in Spanish, Waiter in English, Amber in Spanish, Waiter in Spanish... WIN!) because otherwise most of the Spanish population would use me to practice their English. But a few times during the trip, I conceded to the waiter's English. Why? Because he or she was English or German and Spanish was just unnatural. GEH. European language dilemmas.

Anyway, to get to Soller, we took an old-fashioned train with a number of German retirees and young Mallorcan couples with their small children. We obviousl didn't fit either of the standard profiles, but we didn't mind.

On the train, before it got filled up

We took a pit-stop to check out the view of the mountains.

In Soller, we saw the cathedral and went to a modern art museum in an old house, where we ran into many of the German retirees that had been on our train. Actually, everywhere we went we ran into the German retirees that had come with us. 

Small town. Many tourists. Mostly German retirees.

The cathedral in Soller

Then, when we got to the Port de Sóller, Lauren and I had a glass of orange juice and people-watched for a bit.

Who names their boat "FOX"? Someone who loves Ylvis? 

After a relaxing afternoon and cup of café con leche (the Ana Botella joke is still going for my students...), we headed back on the train to Palma, where we packed up our stuff, had an early dinner (which was deemed socially acceptable because the Brits and Germans tend to eat earlier), and took the bus to the airport to catch our flight home.

When I finally arrived in my apartment at 2 AM on Monday morning (we had a late flight that got delayed), I was tired but joyful. After the unbelievable days I had spent with wonderful people in breathtaking places, what is there to complain about? Fulbright was such an unexpected gift two years ago when I found out that I received the grant, and here I am getting to repeat the experience. I honestly couldn't feel more blessed.

Much love from Spain,

Amber