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May 10, 2011 Hello Pilarin,How are you doing? I hope everything is OK. You know what? To be living in this country as is normal and natural, I have been changing many customs that I had. I like don't look at people passing in the street; I don't take naps during the week, only on weekends; and I have coffee in a paper cup, to name some examples. But what I haven't been able to adapt to is meal times and the number of meals per day. I'm still eating at the times I used to in Spain, but not the number of meals that we have there. Bearing in mind that the breakfast schedule in Spain and the United States is very similar: around 7 to 8 am, lunchtime and dinnertime is where the big difference will be. In the United States, lunch time is between noon and 2 pm, and dinner is between 6 and 8 pm!!! This for me is the hardest change to adapt to, especially when a friend invites me for dinner. Meanwhile in Spain we had lunch between 2 and 4 pm and dinner between 9 and 11 pm. As for the number of meals in Spain and the US, this is another big difference. In the United States, it is very common to have three large meals, i.e. breakfast, lunch and dinner. For breakfast it's very typical to eat eggs, bacon, potatoes, pancakes, coffee, salad, toast, cereal, and juice -- all of that. It's pretty much like a lunch!! While in Spain the approximate number of meals is 6, including breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the other 3 meals are our typical tapas. I really miss going to a restaurant and eating a tapa* with a glass of wine with good company. I know a couple of places that serve tapas here in San Francisco, but obviously those are Spanish restaurants. I always strongly recommend to my American friends to adopt the habit of eating tapas because tapas have not only evolved into a hallmark of Spanish culture, but also they are healthy, fun, and a perfect excuse to socialize with everybody. Have a terrific week. Carmen *Tapa = A tapa in Spain is essentially a snack or small amount of food served in bars or restaurants with a drink (alcoholic or not)  May 6, 2011 Hi Pilarin,How are you? Over the weekend I met to my Spaniard friends at a bar in the Mission for a drink. The Mission is a neighborhood where most residents are Latino, and this area has many Bohemian style bars. While I waited for my friends to arrive, some people in the bar were smoking marijuana, called "pot" here. But the funny thing is that in California it is illegal to use it. In November 2010, there was an election that included "Proposition 19," also known as the "regulate, control & tax cannabis act." Although the medical use of marijuana is already legal, Proposition 19 unfortunately lost. San Francisco had the highest percentage of "yes" votes, but not other cities in California. To see people smoking marijuana was awkward but far from new for me because in Spain it is legal to use it. And while I do not understand why many people are radically opposed to smoking it, I believe that every human being has the right and duty of free choice, and therefore the right to choose to use marijuana or not. I'm not saying that I'm in favor of using drugs, if not the opposite, because unfortunately if a person wants to do drugs, they will do if whether it is legal or not. I don't quite understand why in some places, there are people who are radically opposed to its legalization. Perhaps they are looking for a government that will solve their problems? Since they probably are unable to take over and so are looking for a drug-free society? But it is assumed that education begins at home and at school, right? So why expect the laws to do this work for them? It is true that marijuana use has many negative effects, but no more than legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco. I could name at least five benefits of the legalization of marijuana for medical, economic and recreational purposes, such as preventing vomiting and nausea induced by chemotherapy, reducing retinal damage in diabetics; marijuana taxation could produce large economic benefits for the state and reduce drug trafficking and all the problems that this entails. I would like to know if those who oppose the legalization of marijuana also oppose the consumption of legal drugs such as tobacco and alcohol? After all those are also drugs, right?? In short, this world is crazy, crazy, crazy. Have a nice week. Carmen May 3, 2011 Hello Pilarin,How are you doing? Reviewing the previous letters, I realized that I've written you about the famous hills of this city and its climate. So today I will write about San Francisco's famous typical Victorian style houses. I honestly don't know much about the history of these types of houses, so I asked my stepfather and he told me about this style of architecture. My stepfather, Ahvram, told me that San Francisco is commonly known for its Victorian architectural style, but this really is not so; i.e., there are two basic types of houses, a Victorian and Edwardian style. Apparently during the reign of Queen Victoria of England in the early 1900's, all the houses were considered Victorian houses, and when her successor, Edward VII, ascended the throne, all the houses built in San Francisco, i.e., houses built between 1900 and 1910 are considered Edwardian. The buildings of the Victorian and Edwardian architectural style are bit difficult to distinguish as both types wooden houses, with a strong influence of European modernism adapted to the tastes of Americans. And he told me that the house where we live is an Edwardian style  . So I started doing a little research and I couldn't find anything specific about the differences between Victorian and Edwardian houses; however, I found a list of all architectural styles in San Francisco according to their period of construction: Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate, Italianate Villa, False Front Pioneer House, Basement Raised Cottage, Spanish Colonial Revival, and well over 20 architectural styles. If you want more information, check this out:
http://www.sharonkramlich.com/sfinfo/architecture/ Well, there is less reason for me to go to Spain and be sleeping all day in the sun. Have a wonderful week. Carmen
April 12, 2011 Hello Pilarin,How are you doing? Here I am ready to tell you one more of my anecdotes in this city. We had a mini-vacation the week of March 27 to April 2, which is called Spring Break here. I took this week to rest, work on some assignments that I had to finish, and do a little socializing. So I decided to go to SFMOMA to see which new exhibitions they had. There exhibitions were "How Wine Become Modern", "ParaDesign", Nan Goldin, Helios Eadweard Muybridge, etc. In other words, contemporary art, which I never understood, nor can I understand; or maybe I'm not sensitive enough to understand what the artist wants to convey. As an example I attached the 2 works which were the most shocking for me, the first is "Smudge" by Mel Bochne.  I don't know, it's just a brushstroke on a wall, and they call this art? I do not understand and I'm sure the artist will have been paid a lot of money for this work. And the second piece of art, which for me it is a pile of newspapers in a corner, is called "Newspaper" by Robert Gober.  I saw people a group of 3 people who were looking at these newspapers in tears. I don't know; perhaps it is my ignorance in the field of contemporary art that doesn't let me see this work. I have no more comment to make on this exhibition called "ParaDesign", interpreted by my silence ;). Continuing my walk through the museum, I got to an exhibition of the photographer Nan Goldin. I had heard a lot about her. The presentation of her photographs was in a film that displayed images accompanied by background music according to the picture that she wanted to convey. The photographs are quite strong, as there are pictures with reference to sex, drugs, violence, etc... But I have to say that I liked her presentation. Well, I'm out of time to write, I have to go to class  .
Take good care.Carmen P.S. I'm sorry for the bad quality of the pics, but we are not allowed to use the flash at the museum. March 10, 2011 Hi Pilarin,What's up??? this is an American way to say "Hello, how are you?" . Today I'm going to write you about my experience in driving through the streets on San Francisco. As you well know, the streets of San Francisco are very steep to the point that some streets, such as in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood, have stairs for pedestrians, but the steepest streets are Filbert St (in the Pacific Heights neighborhood) and 22nd St. (in Noe Valley).
So when I came to this city three years ago and saw that to get from one place to another I had to wait for a bus that never came, and when I walked up the endless hills (my house is located on one of the steepest streets, Broderick Street), I decided to buy a car, but I got a stick shift. Why a stick shift car? Because it was the kind of car I'd driven for many years and it was cheap. Crass error!!! Driving on the flat streets was not a problem at all. But when you stop in the middle of an uphill incline and wait until the traffic light changes, shift to first gear, it is almost impossible to move the car without going back. And parking on the slopes either uphill or downhill was so difficult. Sometimes I felt a little bit frustrated because I'd always been a good manual transmission driver. So I decided to practice driving on the hills at night, mostly to park uphill and downhill, until I got the trick. Since then, I drove my stick shift car until the end of last year. When my old car didn't pass the smog test in December, I had to buy a new car, which is an automatic; what a big difference!! Now it's easier to park, stop and continue in the middle of a hill. But the funny thing is that once in a while, my left foot still lifts pretending it's pressing the clutch. Anyway, this is one of my adventures with my cars on the steep streets of San Francisco. Best, Carmen March 9, 2011 Hi Pilarin,Thank you for reading my letters from this country so far, far away called the United States of America. I always have in mind to write you about my visit to the De Young Museum two months ago, but I always forget to write you about it. But here I am and I going write you about this below. I went to see the exhibition from the post impressionists: Van Gogh, Gaugin, Cezanne, and Beyond Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay. But first of all I'm going to tell you what the De Young Museum is. It is a fine arts museum located here in SF in Golden Gate Park, which showcases art from all around the world from the 17th - 21st centuries. I'm sure you would love this place. Early last January, I went to the exhibition to see the paintings of two of my favorite painters, Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gaugin. They are my favorite painters not only because they were close friends and rivals at the same time, but also by the kind of vision that they gave their paintings, as was the case of Madame Marie Ginoux. The two artists painted her but in different perspectives. Van Gogh painted her as an archetype of a modern melancholy woman, while Gauguin depicted the woman as the owner of a brothel and smirking. Van Gogh named this painting "L'Arlesienne" and Gaugin "Café de Nuit Arles". Unfortunately these two paintings were not on the exhibition. But the exhibition has the paintings "Self-Portrait and Yellow Christ" by Gaugin and "Self-Portrait" by Van Gogh (Autumn 1887 - Oil on Canvas). I think I'm beating around the bushes. So, going back to the exhibition, the De Young museum was the only museum in the USA hosting it. And I finally had the chance to see Van Gogh's famous painting "Bedroom at Arles" (in French "La Chambre à Arles"). Remember since in the time when we were in Paris, I always wanted to see this painting, but I had the bad luck that at the time in the Orsay museum the picture was in another country. But now, I made it. And the next exhibition to which I will go is "Balenciaga and Spain" which is going to be from March 26th to July 4th 2011, do you want to come with me?? Hope all is well!!! Love, Carmen March 2, 2011 Hi Pilarin, How are you my friend? I hope everything is OK. I'm fine but busy, busy as always. Today I'm going to tell you one of the U.S. values, which is helping each other as a community, and I'm going to explain to you what it means. In this country the people have a deeply rooted sense of helping others either by donating money or doing volunteer social service.
Last Saturday at the preschool I'm working with, we had an auction night, when the preschool tries to raise funds to help children from low-income families so that they can study in the center. You cannot imagine what people donated to be auctioned. The parents donated plane tickets, new clothes, toys, V.I.P set tickets for the SF Giants, boxes of expensive wines, etc. The goal of this auction was to raise $200,000, considering that the school has only 150 children. Since the auction raised a total of $250,000, One of the families loaned their house in Hawaii for a week and it brought $8,000. Amazing!!! Another family came to pay for a dinner for 6 people with a famous chef for $5,000!!! And so on. During the auction was a dinner which was served by the parents of the children who volunteered as waiters, and the food for 400 people was donated by one family. It's amazing how people in this country have a deeply rooted sense of helping other, and on Saturday I could see it once more. I'm glad that we were able to reach the goal, and that in the next school year we will be able to help children whose parents can't afford the tuition, which is $1,600 a month.
Pilarin, now you know something else about American culture that is often unknown in our country.
Take good care,
Carmen
February 17, 2011 Hi Pilarin,How are you doing on this week? I hope everything is OK. I think I am just fine because last week I have been sneezing all the time, you know my allergy to pollen and grass. And this silly weather that we have here in San Francisco doesn't help me too much. When I came to this town, one of the biggest pieces of advice that my parents gave me was that I have to carry in my car's trunk, just in case, all kinds of different jackets, like a rain coat, a vest, and a sweater, because we never know how the weather is going to change. How right my parents were!! In San Francisco we have 4 seasons in the same day. This city doesn't have four distinct seasons. In the summer time it's very cold and foggy, but in October we had two weeks of hot weather. It's supposed to be winter time, and last week we had sunny days, like spring in Spain. And now the weather report says that this week it's going to rain. I don't understand this crazy weather!!! But the funny thing is that some people, whether it's a warm or cold day, dress in short pants, shirts and flip flops like in the summertime in Seville. Maybe these people don't feel cold, I guess. I don't know. I've already checked the weather report and it says that for the rest of the week, the days are going to be rainy and the weekend is going to be sunny. And the average temperature will be of 51° F. That means 10° Celsius. Anyway, I have to take the umbrella!!! Have a terrific day, and see you next week Carmen February 8, 2011 Hi Pilarin,How has your week been? I hope everything is OK. Here I am -- one more week with my letters from America to Spain. This past week I spent my time, besides my work at the preschool and my classes, reading online newspapers like the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle (SF Gate), and the Oakland Tribune, to name a few, trying to practice reading/understanding English and to learn more about American culture. And I did find an interesting article called "Our Banana Republic" by Nicholas D. Kristof. In his op-ed column, he talks about the fact that it is not longer necessary to travel to a banana republic to observe injustice and evident economic inequalities because we have the same disparity here at home (USA) at a time when the distribution of wealth in the United States is almost comparable with banana republics such as Venezuela, Guyana and Nicaragua. Kristof also refers to the astronomical amounts that move in this country by the billionaires and on the other hand the small budget that is used to generate more employment. Kristof continues to make reference to Robert H. Frank, Adam Seth Levine, and Oege Dijk, who recently made a study and census which gave the result that inequality leads to more financial distress. They found that places where inequality increased the most also endured the greatest surges in bankruptcies. This study provides three important conclusions: first, teaching us how the richest exploit the misfortunes of the most disadvantaged. Second, how financial distress is affecting the population and generating more divorces. And finally, the financial crisis may directly affect us all in our self-esteem and identity. The column concludes that the serious picture presented after the elections will make Latin American dictators feel proud of the situation. Kristof finishes by saying: "To me, we've reached a banana republic point where our inequality has become both economically unhealthy and morally repugnant." As you have seen, living in the States is not a paradise; it is a country where the ones who have money have the power. Thinking about it, this also happens in Spain; therefore, Spain is a banana republic too!!!! Have a wonderful week. Carmen February 1, 2011 Hi Pilarin,How is your life in your new apartment? I hope everything is going well. I know very well how complicated it is to organize a home after moving to a new place; it is very hard to decorate the house, arrange furniture, change the addresses of your bills, etc, etc. But looking at the positive side, you are starting a new life, so enjoy it, be patient and cheer up!!! Well, I'm still here in SF with my stressful life; I have already started classes at CCSF. So far I've only registered in 11 of the 12 units that are required for international students. I already registered in ESL 160 (Academic High-advanced), CDEV 113 (Work Experience in Child Develop), LAS1 (Latino/a Diaspora: The Impact), and PE (Swimming). I would have wanted to add two different swimming classes but unfortunately I can't do it, because according to the rules of the CCSF a student can't register in the same subject twice and even with a different teacher. So this week I have to find a 1-unit class. I'm thinking maybe of adding a yoga class, since it is known that the practice of yoga helps you lose weight, meditate, and reduce stress, which I need urgently .
So from now until the end of May, I'll be pretty busy between my classes and my work at the preschool, with almost no time for socializing. But on the weekends, I'm still doing one of my favorite habits which one is taking a nap, you know, to keep the Spanish customs. From now on I'll write once a week and I'll tell you about my life in this distant land. Keep in touch and a big hug. Carmen |
