DK in Spain

Daniel Kwon

Skinny streets

Spanish Markets

There's something about the street markets of Spain that attract my undivided attention.  From the items sold, to the pedestrians they draw, to their informality, these markets are simply Spain in a nutshell.  I came to this program for one higher reason: to become a more cultured individual.  I have heard these markets are incredibly Spanish, and they are without doubt a commonality in each city I have visited.  From food, to antiques, to music, to weapons, to clothes, etc., they seem to sell everything under-the-sun.  Having walked through these markets in several different cities, I could not help but ask myself, what makes these markets so popular, and why are my friends and I so attracted to them?

Above, I mentioned their informality.  I mean this in the sense that they are outdoors, temporary, and do not conform to the conventionalism of a typical indoor store.  These markets are dynamic, lively and overpopulated with people in a cramped environment. There is no common entity [aside from the local government to maintain order] that manages all the independent booths.  There is no formal or main entrance, nor is there a tyrannical arrangement to the items sold.  These booths are run by aggressive merchants who, fair or not, are after your money.

The people who shop at these markets come from a wide range of backgrounds. In bigger cities like Barcelona, they are mostly filled with tourists from all over the world.  In cities like Guardamar, they are occupied with a fair share of locals in addition to visitors.  Backgrounds aside, however, these markets simply draw people out of homes and cars to gather in one place, at one time.  Humans, social and curious as we are, tend to be drawn towards large crowds of pedestrians.  In other words, if we happen to walk past a large, lively occurrence with multitudes of people, we would naturally yearn towards it.  This type of event, as William Whyte would call “triangulation,” is epitomized in the form of a street market.

When I enter these markets, it is initially as a customer.  As a first time visitor of this country, I constantly yearn for memorabilia that will hold sentimental value for me in remembering this trip.  I can without doubt spend hours at a time in these markets looking for those types of goods.  Once, however, I get over this primitive motive, I move on to become an observer.  Only at this stage can I truly experience the culture and essence of the places I am in.  Observing the merchants, customers, pedestrians, tourists, etc., I focus in on transactions, social exchanges, conversations, body language, and activity of various groups of different backgrounds.  As amusing as it can be to people watch, I genuinely feel connection to a public space/event when I engage it from an observant point of view.  As William Whyte would most likely say, a successful public space is one that fosters a sense of belonging.  Feelings of inclusion are generated with the help of social events and occurrences.  My friends and I simply feel like we are included in the rich culture of the Spanish markets.

Posted by: Austin Ng

Tabarca.

There is a struggle between land and sea. 
The land divides the water 
and the water engulfs the land.

There is a constant crashing of waves, 
constant cries of seagulls, and the human town 
slowly pushing against the borders 
with their shouts and songs and limbs. 
The battle frontier is only clear 
when one steps towards the edge of the island. 
The war marks are carved out in the rocks, 
creating a system of caverns. 
Ivory bones lay glistening in the sun, 
beaten against the jagged cliffs 
again and again by relentless waves. 
A cemetery is placed in this transitional space. 
The ending of one journey, 
and the start of another.


-Cindy

Foreign foods in Barcelona Part 2

La Vietnamita

Adorably hipster ambience, with sparrows painted on the ceilings and square stools for seats, this place was tight and packed... with Europeans; the chefs were Filipino and Spanish.
Unfortunately, they ran out of pho, which we had been craving a while. My group ended up settling for Bun Bo and other noodle dishes, while I decided on a chicken noodle salad. The salad was refreshing especially with our meat-heavy diets all throughout Spain. The multitude of textures, crunchy of the peanuts, chewy of the chicken, crisp of lettuce, soft of noodles, was delightful. But ten minutes into our meal, we all realized the sauce was drowning our food in flavor and was only increasing in salty, sour, and strong the deeper we got. I really wanted to finish, but I couldn't handle the sauce any longer and decided to just depends on my drink to get full.
The different drinks we got were detox ginger apple, coconut mango smoothie and refreshing mint lemon drink. The mint lemon was pretty much a virgin mojito, detox ginger apple was my least favorite, ginger being the only taste I could identify, and coconut mango was a favorite among the girls, being a little too thick for the guys until we mashed a mint leaf in, thinking out the drink significantly.
The drinks were the redeeming factor to this restaurant, food and authenticity lacking. Therefore, this restaurant felt like a 6/10.

Spain Summer Studio

I was always wondering why the program was held in Guardamar out of all places in Spain. Why couldn’t it be held in a bigger city with more well-known architecture? What were they going to make us do in a tiny beach town? I guess there were way more things here than what I first imagined. On top of the city there’s actually a castle (although in ruins), a pretty nice and clean beach (unlike the one in Alicante), a sand dunes with an archaeological site attached to it, and some really nice people (although they all look at me strangely because I’m Asian).

Being able to get a meal everyday just by walking downstairs, having a beach, supermarket and chino store just less than 10 minutes away by foot, and a bunch of café surrounding the Pension, I realized how convenient this town really was and how much money we were actually saving compared to living out in the big city.

One of the things I looked forward to the most in the program were our two excursions, where we were able to go out and explore the big cities and see what Spain was really like. Although it was enjoyable and fun, nothing beats coming back home to the mellow city of Guardamar where I could finally do my laundry and lie around doing nothing for an entire day. No matter how much I loved going out to the cities, it’s still great to be able to come back to a less intense environment and chill out for a bit.

- Annie

Foreign foods in Barcelona Part 1

First thing we were missing was Mexican food. After wandering around on foot visiting some of the closer sites, we reached our desired destination, the Rosa Negro. There, we were happy to find 3€ frozen margaritas and beautifully layered sangrias: the salt-rimmed glasses of margaritas not skimpy where it was needed, and the white lemon granizado underneath the red wine of the sangria made the taste so smooth.
And then the main attraction, the enchiladas, burritos, and tacos. Myself, I ordered a cochinta burrito,  if you know me, the size of my stomach, then you will understand when I say I finished the plate, half the burrito the size of my two fists tight together. The slow cooked pork was the juiciest meat I have had in a very long time. The rice was cooked just right unlike the soggy, the crunchy, and other textures resulting from different degrees of "cooked" rice that I've had all over Spain. The flavor of it all was never overpowering, but even so, the unevenness in distribution allowed me to refresh my palate after each half.
I'm generally more ignorant to ambiance than food, but I'll briefly describe. The interior was gaudy with color, had shoes and sombrero brims decorating the walls, and chairs lined up on some unreachable cove nestled in the wall. The lampshades were red, so the mirrors around the top tier reflected a pink glow.
Overall, my burrito earned a 9/10, the ambience, in my opinion, wasn't something I cared for, the food lost done points on authenticity, and the drinks were good. This, Rosa Negro earned a 8/10, being one of the better experiences  in Barcelona.

Rose