ZaragOH!za

(it´s what the signs all over the city say)

So Zaragoza. It´s fine. I´m not blown away or anything, but I wasn´t expecting to be blown away. Goya is from around here an there´s a good small art museum with a whole room full of his etchings. There´s also a museum dedicated to Pablo Gargallo, a sculptor from here, in this cool old palace. Churches, Roman ruins, plazas, fountains. El Corte Inglés.

Maño is a term for an Aragonese person (Aragón is the autonomous region where Zaragoza is; it´s right next to Catalunya). Maños are stubborn brutes, apparently. The eat these candies here called adoquines that are really hard and chewy and take forever to eat (you have to be a stubborn brute to finish one) and are supposed to have a jota (some kind of Aragonian song) inside. I learned all of this from Angel and Gustavo whom I´m staying with. Angel pretty much speaks English and Gustavo speaks some, but they´d call me a gringa if I tried speaking English to them, so Zaragoza is good for my Spanish.

It feels a little like a sitcom. Gustavo is Mexican and the whole house is very decorated with colorful things from Mexico. Angel keeps telling him not to talk to me because I need to learn Spanish not Mexican. Angel is a judge and Gustavo is a law student and they have another roommate who´s never around and apparently smokes hash all the time. This bothers Angel not. Last night their neighbor came by. He wasn´t wearing a shirt and he was really sweaty and carrying a man´s purse. He drank one of their beers and then left. It was at least as funny as the Spanish sitcoms I´ve seen.