Sub-Spanish

Happy All Saints' Day Everyone! Last year I FINALLY went to see the All Souls Procession for "Día de los Muertos" (the Mexican equivalent to this Spanish-Catholic holiday) and it was definitely worth it. So any of you in or near Tucson should definitely check it out...super fun!

OK, now lets get down to business. I know you've all been dying to know what FAMOUS architects I've been hanging around with and what language BLUNDERS I've made lately. Well, I thought that those topics would be separate posts, but unfortunately for me and you those two worlds have recently collided. Yes, come near and I will share with you the story of my recent humiliation in front of Alicante architecture community.

I am holding the card of some AMAZING Alicante architects that I received from them when I went BY MYSELF to visit their studio. OK, I'm sure that even my friends from school have never heard of these guys, and even my boss is much more widely published, but they are FAMOUS to me.

I had been very familiar with this website before realizing that it is the product of Alicante, and I considered myself very lucky to meet its creator when I interviewed for the job here. (There was a FANTASTIC semester-wrap-up symposium of which he and my boss were the directors.) His site, though mostly in Spanish, is very popular in the international architecture blog world. (Could mine be the next for the big time??? Doubtful.) It was on that blog, that I first heard about the project featured in the images in this post. I had recently returned from my first journey to España, and was bummed that I had not seen it when I was in Valencia (though I never got near Alicante). It turns out that this TRAM stop is not only a few km from our place here, but the first completed project by Subarquitectura.

It also turns out that Subarquitectura are three young guys (as in the oldest of them is only 4 years older than me!) that were once students and employees of my boss. We have had a few great collaborations with them since they formed their own studio, including this widely published project where we shared the bill with some of my architectural IDOLS! (Sounds like a great reality show...¿no?)

Anyways, I was compelled by my boss to call up these guys ON MY OWN, and presumptiously ask if I could swing by their studio to get to know them. I was also to offer my English letter-writing services which have been an asset to my boss. It was GREAT! They are three really cool guys who went through a mini-presentation of every project they have done in the last two years, and they are BAFFLED as to why an American would end up in Alicante. The studio consists of three friends hanging out, getting geeky with architecture and trying to make a living doing it. LIVING THE DREAM in my opinion!

They did ask me to write a letter in English to take advantage of my boss's adventures in Boston. I was supposed to utilize José María's contacts to get them the opportunity to present their work at some school there. After a few weeks of struggling with the vague description of the letter I wrote it and sent it to them and the boss.

WAIT....where's the humiliating language blunder in this?

Turns out that I found out 15 minutes later in a reply email from the Subs (really, many locals refer to Subarquitectura and those who work there as "los Sub") and the boss, that I COMPLETELY misunderstood my letter writing assignment. I was SUPPOSED to know from my conversations with the Subs that they had previously been approached by the director of structures at that school for information about the project you are looking at. He developed a relationship with them and included this project in the structures curriculum in their graduate level courses. I was SUPPOSED to then write a letter as if it were coming from the Subs to endorse a meeting with my boss while he happens to be in Boston. WHOOOPS! (Anyway I THINK that is what I was supposed to do...I have not heard anything since my last submission to them.)

As for the TRAM station. It is INCREDIBLE! Sorry for the grainy photos...I had left the ISO at 1600 from taking a picture of a delicious salad. I will give a special prize to ANYONE who can tell me how these 10'x10'x120' steel cubes are appearing to FLY IN MID-AIR!

Also, because of my advice to him, my boss was able to watch "his" team get their second World Series victory and attend their homecoming parade. I received several text messages and camera-phone pictures from him describing how "AMAIZING" (sic) it was.

Friday night with Friends (nope...no Chandler)

So it turns out that I am not working all of the time here. I know that you've all seen photos of me outside of the office, but you probably attributed them to wifey's rapidly developing Photoshop mastery. Luckily, my time at the office has yielded more than a few weird images on yesterday's post and a paycheck that might be coming soon. I work with OTHER PEOPLE! These other people also like spending time with people other than themselves. We did get one crazy night with the whole lot of them, but who knew that we had not completely scared them off then?!?

So far the roster of the office has included: Myself, José María (the boss-in Boston), José Luís (the admin assistant), José Chilón, Chema (whose real name is also José María, but is now off at arch. school here in Alicante), Paco (off at arch. school in Pamplona), Cecilia and Ana.

When I interviewed in June, José Chilón was one of three people that I met, and the other two are no longer working here. He is a Peruvian born chico who just moved here in June after two years in Madrid and the previous 16 years in Argentina. Cecilia is his mujer who is a native of Argentina, which can easily be heard in her thick Argentinian accent. The two of them are AWESOME for a few reasons: they are unbelievably nice (actually, most people are here), they have a great understanding of the political struggle of being a non-EU citizen in Spain, their South-American Spanish is MUCH easier to understand than the garbled Alicante version, they are very thrifty in a city full of pricey activities and it is more fun for us newly-weds to hang out with couples. This is why we were so stoked to be invited to dinner with them last night!

restaurant of course! Before you grumble that we're not photographing the storefronts of authentic local places that we'll be taking you to, let me say 6.30€ Where in the world of awesome spanish food did we go? A budget chinesemenú del día....that's all we needed to hear! The food was alright and a total bargain, but the highlight of the evening of 5 straight hours of non-stop conversation in CASTELLANO! That's right! Wifey and I not only held our own, but did a mighty good job of entertaining and understanding. We are still patting each other on the back! What's more is that we did not just talk about coming here, how we don't know Spanish enough and teach about US culture (all common default topics of conversation for foreigners with a limited vocabulary). We just HUNG OUT! That's right! We talked about the weather, buying televisions, horror stories from airlines, maybe a little too much about architecture (sorry Steffa!), college stories, embarrassing moments and things I do that annoy the wifey...that is, we talked about whatever came to mind...that is, we carried on NATURAL CONVERSATION! They even seemed to enjoy it as much as we did!

We got to hear about how José Chilón was once married to a girl that is both Cecilia's cousin and the mother of his brother's children...YIKES! Draw that family tree! We know that they lived in Madrid without TV just long enough to be driven crazy and buy a sweet flatscreen. We shared our feelings on the joys and woes of Spanish culture, and we made probably a million grammatical errors without turning red. All in all...a GREAT night!

Today we've been to our local castle and beach...just because we can!

Hopefully there will be more reports of fun double dates in future issues!