Hallowe´en

Would you believe that this is how they spell Halloween in England?: Hallowe´en (the English they teach to the students here is for the large part all British English... quite different). Who knew? I guess they are just splitting up the word into what it used to be: All Hallow´s Eve. I´ve actually studied a little bit about the origen of Halloween with the help of my profesors so that I can teach our students.

All Hallow´s Eve was once a Pagan festival of the dead celebrated by Celtic tribes in the ancient British Isles. They believed that this was the night when spirits and other supernatural beings came around, looking for trouble. Soooo, their bright idea was to wear scary costumes to ward them off while their druids or other people lit bonfires and performed other such fanfare to do the same. There are a bunch of other legends, but basically after many years the Church officially created All Saints Day out of All Hallow´s Day, recognizing the memory and worship of various saints, along with marking a day of remembrance for deceased family and friends also. Halloween, therefore, came from the Celts, who eventually left their homes and (along with their traditions) came to America. Kind of crazy.

So they don´t celebrate Halloween so much in Spain. Not much at all, actually. I was talking to my students about it, and I agree: it would be much more difficult to celebrate it here in the same way that we do back in the U.S. First of all, they all live in apartments here. Trick-or-treating would consist of ringing someone´s bell from the ground level and talking to them over the intercom, while they (wondering what the heck is going on) are up on the second, third, and fourth levels are asking: what? candy?

My profesors insisted that Halloween was gaining in popularity in Spain... though it´s still nothing at all in comparison to what we do in the U.S. I think that people are just more aware of it now than ever before. It´s celebrated widely in England... though I´m not sure of similarities between us and them.

Anyways... Abby and I are hosting a little Halloween party tomorrow night with our fellow auxiliares (assistant teachers). We´re getting everyone over to have pizza and pop. A real American style get-together. Actually, pizza is very very popular here also, especially amongst the youth. Their pizza is much like our pizza at home (I think we even have a Pizza Hut here in Logroño...).

The principal of my primary school gave me some free tickets to a local basketball game late last week; and so Abby and I went, had some concession food, watched, and had a pretty good time. The team is semi-professional, and not too bad as far as their division goes (I think they´re fifth of like 15 or so). They lost to a pretty good team. It´s fun and different to watch them play zone defense all the time. Logroño´s team has three African American players on it! A couple of them are very good. Abby and I laughed and cheered the whole game (especially when the announcer or the fans would talk about Stevie Johnson--the star from America). Not as good as Kevin Garnett, but we might go and watch them again sometime.

We are planning on going to San Sebastian this coming weekend. We already booked a bus trip (we think about two hours straight north in Basque Country--a different Spanish province located on the northern coast) and a hotel right in the middle of the city. San Sebastian is a big resort town, and it has two gigantic beaches along with a lot of ancient cathedrals and interesting monuments. I visited there the last time I went to Spain in 2004. It was summer when I was there last, and so I think this time will be a very different experience. The weather will likely be about 60 (I hope) and so it´s safe to say that I will not be swimming, nor will I be taking any sun while lying sprawled out and relaxed on the beautiful sandy beaches. Siiiigh, que pena (translation: bummer...).

But nothing to worry about. We´re going to see the sights and report back. San Sebastian, like I said, is in Basque Country, a unique place in Spain where they have their own separate culture. They speak a different language and everything. I hope to learn a little bit more about how they´re different.

Well, if you´ve read this far without the help of pictures, I salute you. Still waitin for the internet at our apartment, so it´s tougher for me to upload pictures whenever I want to. Things will be getter, I promise. Stay cool for me.

Ben

I dunno if this link will work... but try it out. There some great photos of the city of San Sebastian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Sebasti%C3%A1n