Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Global Economic Crisis

"Based on the findings of the report, my conclusion was that this idea [a Doomsday Machine] was not a practical deterrent for reasons which at this moment must be all too obvious."— Dr. Strangelove, in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Being from Texas myself, naturally my
favorite character in Dr. Strangelove is
Maj. 'King' Kong.

Disclosure: I am trained in a field that studies expertise, or really the history of expertise… How it changes over time, or has different criteria for credibility in different cultures, or how it undergirds or undermines other kinds of authority (wealth and power, i.e. "might is right"; folk wisdom or "street smarts"; and so forth). So recently I've found myself thinking about all the expert opinions floating around in the punditsphere regarding the global economic crisis. It got me thinking about the movie Dr. Strangelove. Back in the 1950s, scientists and especially nuclear physicists were the experts of the hour, turned to for advice by policy-wonks politicians to inform their policies about our geopolitical futures, and in a more direct sense, potential nuclear threats and counterattacks. Now to cut an already long introduction short, Dr. Strangelove, through its brilliant satire of expertise, offered a very simple critique of the atomic age: None of these guys (politicians, experts) know what they're doing, and they're gambling with _our_ futures!

The beginning of a beautiful fable: "The haba and the tree." Dilemma... This year on Reyes,
 I was both the rey, for finding a tree figurine, and in debt (for next year's roscón), for finding the haba.
(This must be how how Rajoy feels.) It was because I _had_ to eat that second slice.

So what would be our Dr. Strangelove for this economic crisis? Because let's face it, none of these guys know what they're doing, and they're _literally_ gambling with our futures. I spent the first three months of this blog willfully ignoring the topic of economic crisis in Spain. (Stage 1 of the "Stages of Grief": Denial. The road ahead: Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.) This was no small feat, since I'm a news junky, and all I was hearing on the news was Spain's economy looking grim. Record unemployment. PIGS this or PIIGS that. Macro-economic statistic this, and anecdotal grim story that.

I've long been fed up with all the global economic crisis talk and all the doom and gloom specifically about Spain. Doom in the media (_especially_ the British foreign press). In the politics. On the last working day of 2011, "recortes." On the first working day of the new year, "recortes." (How many "cumbres extraordinarias" can the EU hold, and at what point do they become "ordinarias"?) And perhaps most of all, the endless negativity among economists and financial analysts. 

I'm wondering if this former Barça coach, Louis van Gaal, ought to be our poster-child
for dealing with outside critics on the economy. He made a splash with this statement,
"Tú, siempre negativo, nunca positivo," back in 1999.

Upside to global economic crisis: I get to learn a whole lot of new economy-specific Spanish vocabulary… recortes ([budget] cuts), huelgas generales (general strikes), and so on. For example, how many times will they say "hoja de ruta" (roadmap) on the news _this_ year? (It's also good hunting ground for Spanish-specific jokes, too. Consider for your entertainment what has my vote for Phrase of the Year for 2011: "prima de riesgo"… Nope, it's not your cousin's risk. Look it up. Punchline: "¿Quién es esta prima, y dónde está "Riesgo"?) Downside: It's _bor-ing_. What happened to when news meant something new? It's all so predictably negative, self-defeating, and an all-around bummer.

It also has all the trimmings of the housing bubble, but in a negative inverse form. I still remember when, about five years ago, my friends were all telling me, "Buy a house now before they're all gone or too expensive!" Even then I was thinking, "This is just not socially sustainable. This must be some kind of lemming effect." For all of people's gushing about "crowdsourcing" and the "wisdom of the crowds", there has also long been a counter-wisdom, with labels such as "groupthink", "herd mentality" or more recently "information cascade," basically when everyone reads the same two or three faulty sources and thus recapitulate those source's biases and errors. (Another great line in Dr. Strangelove, when the Soviet minister explains to the U.S. President that his source for the erroneous "fact" that the U.S. was also making a doomsday device was the New York Times.) And just like five years ago when my instincts told me that the housing market was too inflated and surreal to be real, well, now my instincts tell me that all this doom and gloom is too gloomy and doomy to be real. 

Let us recall what started the economic crisis: It wasn't crop failures. It wasn't world war.
It was a bunch of overly cocky rich kids playing monopoly. The movie Margin Call (2011)
did a nice job of illustrating the problems of relying on a fixed, mechanical,
and opaque market device to determine our financial futures.

Are the "facts" overwhelming in this
crisis, or just all the numbers?

[Warning: I'm gonna get a bit nerdy here.] There are so many tools in the toolkit in my profession which one could use to explain this recent roller-coaster ride of faith it's hard to know where to start. The key one is the "self-fulfilling prophecy", a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true. Robert Merton based this on the Thomas theorem: "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences." More recent sociological models talk about "reflexivity" in risk decisions – the fact that risk-taking people, take for example stock market investors, know that they are being watched, and thus predictions or anticipations of their actions can have consequences on how they act. Risk studies gave us the clunky but oh-so-true notion of "offsetting behavior". (For the über nerd, check out how sociologist David Stark builds on the concept of performative utterance to explain how finance people follow each other to a fault, rather than following markets or the real world, thereby creating bubbles and crashes.) My personal favorite is the Mathew's effect, often shorthanded as "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer," which basically explains the positive snowballing effect that awards can have, such that one person can end up accumulating them all… Not necessarily because that award winner (or market leader) is _that_ _great_, but because it is easier and safer for a committee (or lenders) to give the award (or investment) to an already recognized great than take a risk on an unknown. These are all examples of how our self-awareness and future-mindedness shape the present often in spite of the actual present. Each could also be the thesis statement for an entire dissertation on how Spain is getting screwed by the current crisis of confidence and finger-pointing.

Hans Christian Andersen's fable ought to be
required reading on Wall Street 

But you don't need to be a sociologists to know all this doom and gloom talk about Spain is bunk. Heck, this is kid's stuff. Hasn't everyone read The Emperor's New Clothes. Isn't it abundantly obvious that the smartest guys in the room in these rating agencies didn't know jack about the real economic health of banks back in 2008, and clearly don't know jack about how to predict the economic health of a given country's citizenry today? Here's a New Year's resolution: I will not pay heed to the self-serving zany and after-the-fact unreliable prognostics of Standard & Poor's, Fitch Ratings, or Moody's. (Big tip off: Why _are_ we trusting agencies called "moody" or "standard and poor", anyway?)

So I offer you all a manifesto. How about all of you my faithful readers? join me in an experiment. Ignore it. That's right, stop listening to the doom-and-gloomers, and start focusing on all those things that are still going _right_ in Spain. This was my realization sometime last November. I was unemployed and feeling quite discouraged by all this negativity. How does one get up the energy to apply for a job, and want it, when everyone is telling him its a horrible market with poor prospects? When it hit me. It wasn't helping me to believe all this negativity. It was disempowering me while making gloomy economists and pundits rich. I also suspect that it is this negative talk from other countries that is directly pushing Spain into the mud, and undercutting Spaniards' abilities to adapt, innovate, and keep positive.

The New York Times's country page for Spain opens, and I quote:
"In Spain, after two decades of dizzying growth, the party is over." 
The party's over? Yikes! But I just got here!

Let's all start telling a different story. I've decided I'm going to listen for more success stories of Spanish entrepreneurs and businesses, and then share them on the blog. (Uh, that is, _after_ Fallas. Even global economic crises take a backseat to Valencia's magnificent street festival.) That's right. There are stories of Spaniards who had a business or non-profit initiative, took a risk and made it. It happens all the time in this country, yet somehow economic pundits in the acronymopolis —the US, EU, and UK— only ever talk about the problem of the PIGS, debt and unemployment, when Spain comes up. (Forget that Spain has demonstrated a unique democratic strength in being the only economically challenged country to let voters determine its fate. Such trivial democratic track-record or virtues apparently don't have a measure at Moody's.)

Look at all those Logos! This economic powerhouse,
Inditex, is Spanish. It can be done!

I already have some candidates: at the top of the list, Zara and its parent company Inditex Group, a Spanish clothes retailing company that has grown at incredible rates despite the crisis. Or, the other day on the national radio (thank you RTVE!) I heard an interview with the CEO of Imaginarium. It's a pretty cool sounding Spanish toy company that is expanding globally. Last fall EmTech Spain gave out its first round of Technology Review 35 (TR35) awards to ten talented scientists and engineers under the age of 35. That's right. Talented, forward-looking Spanish innovators. The New York Times was recently talking about the rise of caviar fish farming in Spain, what a concept! How innovative! Heck, and we shouldn't forget all the local businesses and freelancers sprouting up all over the country with smaller or more modest ventures, such as the Serie Limitada collaboration here in Valencia among others. I'd say that "after two decades of dizzying growth" it's time we let go of Hemingway paradigm stereotypes about lazy or backward Spaniards or stifling bureaucrats holding the country back. This is a new Spain for a new century.

Imaginarium S.A. Building economic success on a sense of enchantment.

So, yeah, it's the economy, stupid. But let's not forget that _we_ are the economy. And we are also much, much more. So don't consider this rant post a prediction, consider it a call to arms!

Are you one to say the cake is half eaten, or half remaining? 
I say, have your cake and eat it too. It's good to be king!  

Eating in Season: Valencia Oranges!

So back home, when I mention Valencia, probably the first thing people say to me is, "Oranges!" Yes, Valencia is the land of oranges ("naranjas"), and right now (late December through early February) oranges are in season. Which means that I've been enjoying, near daily, the world's most delicious fresh-squeezed orange juice with my breakfast, and we've been eating fresh oranges in a variety of forms for dessert. Thus, I'm using this very iconic Valencian product to inaugurate my series on "eating in season," a practice that is very Spanish and yet somehow lost to time and globalization in the United States but waiting for a good comeback.

It's funny. The idea that oranges are a seasonal fruit, and much less a winter fruit is probably extinct now in the States. If anything, people probably hit the highly-processed Florida orange juice even heavier in the spring and summer (bikini diet season). And, indeed, as I will explain in a moment, it is because of the Valencian orange that many of you will eat table fruit oranges more in the summer, too. Yet not long ago, or not long ago by historians' standards, as in just over a century ago, an orange in many parts of the U.S. was a special treat associated with the holiday season. In my family, for example, we are very proud of a very old diary we have that was written by my grandfather's grandfather (my great, great, great grandfather? very great, needless to say). He lived a fascinating life, having grown up partly in Japan where his father went as a missionary just after the country (re)opened to the West in the 1870s. But there is a lovely passage that he wrote as a boy growing up in Indiana, where he mentions his excitement at getting a fresh orange around Christmas time. I believe it was even a common gift or stocking stuffer back in the day. (Imagine! Oranges special enough to be a gift.) I think of it every time the first batch of this season's local oranges appear in supermarkets mid December.

My Spanish family is so Valencian that we haven't even had to buy oranges yet this season.
These organic oranges were gifted to my father-in-law from a producer, who also got a box from a friend
 of his that has a family orchard, plus he got a third box from his employer as a Christmas gift!

Spaniards have no doubts about how Valencian oranges are.
This old ad encouraging foreigners to "Eat more Spanish fruits"
features a woman dressed in very Valencian fallera attire.

"Fruta, hija del sol, fuente de salud"
[Fruit, daughter of the sun,
source of health]

So now I'm going to follow that with a big letdown for all you Hispanophile Americans. When you find "Valencian Oranges" in the States, chances are they are _not_ from Spain, much less Valencia. Thus the title "Valencia Oranges," and not "Valencian" for this post. This is because the Valencian oranges you find in your supermarket are named for the variety of orange and not the location where they were cultivated. Most oranges in the States come from California (though increasingly shifting southward to Mexico), Florida (which specializes more in the thin-skinned juicing oranges), or Brazil. Spanish-grown oranges largely get marketed only within Europe. This Valencian variety, according to my very cursory investigations, was a hybrid first developed in southern California in the late 19th century, and was prized because it ripened off-season, so to speak, which is to say it was ready to be eaten later, in the summer, instead of in the winter and spring. Many a southern California town and region was marked by this discovery, such as Valencia, California (just outside of Los Angeles) and "Orange County" (a.k.a. The O.C.). But don't be too disappointed. This variety of orange probably does have its roots in the Iberian peninsula, since it was found to be very similar to oranges grown in Portugal, and likely originally from the Valencia region. Also, in recent years there are a lot of clemetines ("clementinas") in the U.S. arriving from Spain (usually around December), which most certainly would be coming from the Valencian region.

Fruits of Natural Advantage: California and Valencia, which landscape is which?
Traveling through L'Horta de València can feel like traveling through southern California.
(Answer key: California is on the left, Valencia on the right.)

California, a land made in Spain's Valencia's image?: This old ad celebrating
the Orange County's pastoral self-fashioning could easily have been Valencia, too.

This Valencia ad from the early 20th century illustrated the citrus industry's global ambitions:
"Son deseadas en todo el mundo." (They are desired all over the world.) "Eat more
Spanish fruits." [Even back then you can see the non-native English errors: "fruits" in plural.]

Okay, so that brief American history of agriculture detour aside, Valencia is a _major_ orange obsessed producing region. (Though like California-Mexico, much of the production in Spain is shifting south to Morocco.) The streets are literally paved with gold orange trees. (Guiri alert!: Don't be a guiri and try to pick this fruit. The orange trees that line the streets have decorative oranges, which are nearly inedible.) You can find oranges in the tile art (azulejos) iconography all throughout the city. And after the silk trade's decline, following its height in the 15th and 16th centuries, the citrus industry was probably one of the major backbone industries of the region that maintained Valencia's importance economically as a port city, especially around the turn of the twentieth century when the marketing of such fresh fruit boomed in the U.S. and Europe (following advances in transportation and preservation, which overcame the perishability challenges of before). And, again, I'm eternally grateful to the ill-conceived association Americans have between oranges and Valencia, since it provides me a starting point when talking about my otherwise neglected adopted Spanish city.

Oranges adorn Valencia's main train station, Estación del Norte, which is a must-visit for tourists.

The train station recently added this beautiful tile room, which displays
pastoral imagery typical of the Valencia region including orange groves.

There are also oranges all over the walls of Valencia's Mercat Central,
another modern-style building whose fruit stands will most certainly carry oranges

There are orange trees ("naranjos", with an "o" for the tree, as opposed to ending in an "a" for the fruit),
all over the city, and especially along the avenues. Lovely, except in February when there are
also mushed oranges all over the ground.

Orange, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. If you ever try a fresh Valencia orange in season here, you'll understand the local pride, and how it is that oranges and orange juice find their way into the many novel local dishes and drinks here. First, I'm going to let you all in on a big local secret: agua de Valencia. Remember when I wrote that Valencians regularly say that the water in Valencia isn't good for anything except making paella? Well maybe that's why "agua de Valencia" here isn't water. It's a local cocktail which loosely resembles a mimosa, made of orange juice, cava, and a couple of liquors. (This cocktail is probably the exception to the rule that there are very, very few local cocktails in Spain. Very, very few. Spain, in general, does not have a cocktail culture.) It was invented in the late 1950s by Constante Gil at the Bar Café Madrid, what was in its day a lively and culturally important hub in the old center of Valencia. These days, you are more likely to see people here who are out for a drink sharing a pitcher ("jarra") of agua de Valencia than of sangría, and I highly recommend you order some when you visit.

The most common thing is to order a "jarra" of agua de Valencia with a group of friends.

The Plaza de Negrito, shown here in El Carmen of Valencia,
is my favorite place to sit out and drink agua de Valencia with friends.

When they daylight hours get short, there's
nothing like the taste of fresh-squeezed OJ

Valencians, however, are more likely to be enjoying the season of fresh oranges in more mundane ways. My wife and I got the world's best house-warming gift from her parents when we moved into our current place: an electric juicer. I think it's a must-have kitchen utility here in Valencia in the winter, facilitating that daily orange juice with breakfast. But you can also have oranges for dessert. My mother-in-law cuts up oranges and serves them with honey on top (and sometimes pollen sprinkled over it), which makes for a delicious, simple and healthy dessert. Or you can cover it with melted chocolate, like in this fancier and mouth-watering dessert shown below, and whose recipe you can find here?

Sliced fresh orange with honey on top and pollen sprinkled over it.

And anything, but especially fresh Valencia oranges,
tastes better with melted chocolate over it.

So there you have it. Oranges. One more reason why life in Valencia is sweet!

Los Reyes Magos, and then Rebajas: The Three Kings, a Day of Gift-Giving in Spain

Today is el Día de los Reyes (the Day of the Magi Kings) in Spain, a.k.a. la Adoración de los Magos (the Adoration of the Wise Men), a.k.a. El Día de la Epifanía (the Day of Epiphany), a national holiday and the country's traditional equivalent to Christmas in the U.S., that is the day kids open gifts here. Today the three wise men kings, Melchior ("Melchor"), Caspar ("Gaspar"), and Balthasar ("Baltasar"), bring their gifts to all the kids throughout Spain much the way Santa brings them to kids in the UK and U.S. on the 25th of December.

For a laugh, I recommend
"Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale" (2010),
a Finnish movie about the "real story"
behind Santa Clause.

From a Christian point of view, Reyes makes much more sense than Christmas as a day of gift-giving. Today, the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, is the day that, according to the Bible, the three wise men, a.k.a. los reyes magos, arrived to the little town of Bethlehem, a.k.a. Belén, bringing the newborn baby Christ gifts from the Orient… specifically gold (gimme!), frankincense (an incense), and myrrh (an embalming oil and symbol of death… kinda morbid gift, huh?). Compare that to a story about a jolly ol' elf who lives in the North Pole, flies around with magical reindeer (some of whom have glowing red noses), cavorts with other elves, and who spies on children (to know if they are naughty or nice) in order to decide whether to give them candy and sweets and tooth cavities or a lump of coal.

The Three Kings offering Christ their gifts in Valencia's Townhall belén

I'll confess that, before moving to Spain, the only time I ever thought about
the Three Kings was when singing this Christmas carol ("villancico"),
"We Three Kings," and usually then the parody version.

I'd say that, in practice, Spaniards are split about 50/50 on those who gift-give on Christmas and those who do so on Reyes. (Of course, _everyone_ celebrates _both_ days, both of which are national holidays and important family meal days.) Historically and traditionally, however, Reyes is _the_ important holiday on this gift-giving front. So traditionalists and maybe the more religiously-inclined lean towards Reyes. But non-christians and pragmatists often lean towards Christmas. Let's face it. Giving your kids gifts on January 6th, and then having them go to school often the very next day is a bit of a killjoy. A lot of parents thus choose to give gifts on December 25th so that their kids have the entire holiday break to play with them. (While there's no official war between Christmas and Reyes, Papa Noel and Los Reyes, it makes for an interesting question to poll your Spanish friends: which way do you swing?) 

If you are looking for a Bad Santa (2003) style comedy about Reyes,
you might enjoy Noche de reyes (2001), starring Elsa Pataky among others,
and which, if I remember correctly, even has a hilarious scene where
some guys dressed up as the Three Kings beat up a Santa Claus.

Much like I mentioned earlier with Santa, you can see the Three Kings climbing
Spanish balconies in their quest to bring kids their gifts for the holidays.

Reyes has picked up all the accoutrements of Christmas, what with the competition and opportunity for marketing. Kids write letters to the Reyes. Some people playfully move the Three Kings pieces of their home belén the days leading up to Reyes, to simulate the journey of the kings closer to Christ's crib. It can be cute to watch the RTVE news people play along the week leading up, talking as if the Kings are real while practically winking at their audience. (This morning on the national radio they were interviewing different kids across the country about what the Reyes brought them, which was pretty cute.) The night of the 5th, kids might leave drinks (e.g. wine) for the Three Kings and something extra (milk or bread) for the camels, much like American kids would leave cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. And kids open gifts morning of the 6th. They might find carbón (coal) if they've been a bad kid… but here it's a sweet, carbón dulce! There will be a family lunch, and following it parents will bring out the roscón de reyes, a round donut shaped cake with candied fruit ("escarchada") on top, often filled with a cream or "caballo de ángel" (Angel's hair jam) and surprises hidden underneath. (A lot of families have the roscón in the morning for breakfast.) Whoever gets the slice with the "haba" bean buys the cake next year, whoever gets the king or figurine is king or queen for the day. (Thus, roscones are usually sold in hornos with a paper crown.)

What a typical roscón looks like

Last year my mother-in-law got the figurine (a hippo) and my father-in-law the haba.

One thing that has fascinated me as an outsider is Balthasar, the, by popular tradition, black king. Spain has only very recently experienced a surge in immigration, and with it an increase in the number of Africans who now make up its 21st-century population and look. So finding this African face among its traditional holiday images is kind of intriguing. Now I don't want to start any big arguments about this, and I definitely don't want to insinuate any racial politics into what is effectively a happy, friendly, family, and all-around positive time of the year… but I can't help but share with you my early and initial mild shock at the use of blackface by white Spaniards dressing as Balthasar. Until recently this was a common practice in Spain, and for that matter it is still quite common in a lot of places here. For you Spanish readers: in the U.S., the use of blackface is _heavily_ associated with racism, since it was commonly used to play the "happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation" and other such slavery and segregation era stereotypes. Such is the stigma that Robert Downey Jr.'s clearly comical parody of its use in Tropic Thunder (2008), still managed to receive criticism for making light of the subject. In Spain not so much. I don't think anyone would see any harm in a Spaniard "dressing up" as Balthasar with blackface. So this is definitely a cultural difference to keep in mind. 

American actor Robert Downey Jr. in blackface for Tropic Thunder (2008)

An example of Balthasar-by-means-of-blackface in Spain,
all in good fun and not remotely intended to be offensive.

However, the figure of Balthasar today has also become an almost irresistible opportunity for improving race-relations and Spanish attitudes about sub-Saharan immigrants in Spain. Subsaharan immigrants are increasingly invited to play the part of Balthasar in official Reyes visits to elementary schools or in the arab tents ("la jaima") where kids go to make official requests of the Three Kings, or at the official Three Kings parades ("cabalgatas"). While I don't want to knock any Spaniards out there who still rely on blackface to play Balthasar, my personal hope is that Spain will embrace this growing population of new Spaniards of African origin by further incorporating them into what is a model of multiculturalism: three wise men of the Middle East Orient, each of different kingdoms and of an exotic—Zoroastrian—faith, coming to offer their congratulations to a family of migrant workers persecuted for its innovative religious beliefs.

¡Felices Reyes!

A "jaima" with lines of kids eager to speak with the Three Kings (all played by subsaharan immigrants),
set up by Valencia's Bioparc this year in the Parque de Parterre next to the El Corte Inglés Colón location.

Postscript: Did you not get what you wanted for Christmas Reyes? Have no worries! Tomorrow, January 7th, is the start of Rebajas season. Rebajas are a strictly regulated affair in Spain. Discounts have to be for a certain minimum amount, and covering a certain percentage of store products. And they can only take place on specified dates. January (and now much of February) is _the_ big Rebajas season, and this year there's talk of discounts of more than 50% off. So it's not quite as great a deal as gifts from wise men, but I'll be out there shopping for those things Santa and the Three Kings forgot to get me.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes: New directions in the blog

Blogger fuel

New years are supposed to be about taking new directions, right? Well, I'm going to be making a couple of changes to the blog and thought I would give my few loyal readers a heads up.

But first a quick thank you to many of you other expat bloggers who've helped to make the blogging about Spain feel like being part of a virtual imagined community. I can't do proper justice to those of you who were so kind as to specifically feature me on your blogs, but I list your names/sites here so that you know I'm digging reading you... Aw heck, confessions: many of you even featured heavily in my day-to-day conversations in real non-blogger life – Mr Grumpy at Tumbit Spain, Chic Soufflé, Lauren at Spanish Sabores and Recetas Americanas, Nieves at Sangría Sol y Siesta, Nancy and Regina at The Spain Scoop, Kaley y mucho más, Kirstie at entre flores, fandanguillos, y alegrías, Liz en España, Erin at Tortuga Viajera, Ibex Salad, Liz at Memoirs of a Young Adventuress, Cassandra at Gee, Casandra, Luís at PerroFlauteando, Family Life in Spain, Christine in Spain, Elizabeth at Fighting the Flat Life, Christina the Gazpacho Girl, Becoming Sevillana, Will at My Spanish Adventure, Stephanie at the Viatrix, and Kirsty at Books on Spain.

If I didn't mention you here, it's not because you aren't important. (Ah, the ugly underside of community: exclusion.) Many of you are now on my radar and are likely to be on my 'thank you' list next year. But the bloggers mentioned here above, through tweets or online comments, have been an integral part of my digital second self these last few months and have helped to show me what sociologists meant when they talk of the virtual "third spaces" that social networks and online tools can create for expat communities.

Buñuelos de calabaza, Valencian blogger fuel

So the changes to the blog won't be dramatic, but for starters I will be posting a little less often than I did this fall. One of my new year's resolutions was to "blog less, and professionalize more." The fact is I don't bring in money writing these entries, and I've probably been spending too much time on them, time I could be spending on other activities that will have a greater payoff for me in my professional aspirations as potential historian and educator. So starting last week I've reduced my goal of frequency of posts down to just twice-a-week (Mondays and Fridays) instead of three-times-a-week (bye-bye Wednesdays). Eventually, I'll probably reduce it further to just one post a week. I mean, really, how many of you were _actually_ able to read all those ridiculously long posts anyway? (I'm hoping the page-count, web traffic gods won't punish me. How do those of you who post so infrequently get so much traffic!?!)

The other change is only temporary. Starting next week and running up through March I'm going to be featuring Valencia. Over the long run I still intend this to be a blog about Spain, as a whole, and about rupturing the Hemingway paradigm. But let's face it, Valencia is _way underrated_, probably one of the principal victims of the Hemingway distortion effect in America. (I'm so tired of having to tell my American friends and family that Valencia is a city three hours south of Barcelona along the Mediterranean coast... and yet they always know where Pamplona is, or have visited Sevilla. Hemingway, Lorca, arggh!) What with Lonely Planet listing Valencia as a top ten destination for 2011, the cat is probably already out of the bag. But this city's moment has come and I want to do my part to make sure that Valencia matches the Barcelona miracle of the 1990s in its ascent to world renown.

Valencia, a rising cosmopolitan city. (Seriously, few Americans visited Barcelona
back in the 1980s, that is until the 1992 Olympics launched its profile internationally;
and Bilbao was just an industrial town until the Guggenheim conversion of the 1990s.) 

But the actual motivation for the blog refocus, other than that Valencia is my home and my central point of local knowledge and authority, is that March 15th – 19th is Fallas, the biggest fiesta in the world Spain and the brief moment when Valencia is the center of the universe attention. So for the next couple of months I'm running a one-man campaign to promote Valencia as an incredible place to live and must-visit for all who pass through Spain. (Fun game: check in regularly to watch how large the label "Valencia" grows in the left margin of the blog.)

Though outdated on a few recommendations, this website/blog continues to be
a great first stop for information on Valencia's festivals, culture and street life.

To make this Valencia feature possible, I'll be leaning on my usual sources of local knowledge: my wife and my in-laws. But I also plan to draw from a wonderful, if momentarily dormant website created a while back by some friends of mine: Hola Valencia City Blog. While Mike and Jürgen have moved on to greener blogging pastures, it was their Hola Valencia blog that first got me interested in blogging, and is still to date, in my opinion, one of the best documentations of this city by an expat.

So with that final recommendation, I leave you with this Fallas season teaser, a video that Hola Valencia recorded of a New Year's mascletà last year...

This year's (2011) New Year mascletà was cancelled due to the crisis :-(

I encourage you to surf through the many videos posted by Hola Valencia here.

Here and There: Nochevieja in Spain, New Year's Eve in the U.S.

In most respects New Year's Eve, a.k.a. Nochevieja, in Spain and the United States are pretty similar. In both countries it is customary to get together with your close friends, countdown to midnight, and celebrate the new year with some libation—usually cava or sparkling wine—and reflect (only briefly) on 'the days gone by' and the fresh new year ahead.

This said, over the years I've noticed some signature differences between the two countries which I'll share here.

• The perfect setting:
USA: A friend's house party – Most people will probably celebrate New Years in the US in a friend's (or friend of a friend's) house.
Spain: Go back to the pueblo or purchase an all-in-one night out at a club – While some people in Spain also celebrate at a friend's house, I think more people either head back to their family's pueblo, where the festivities can be intense, or they buy an all-in-one package night at one of the many clubs which cater to New Year's festivities in the city.

Time Square on New Year's Eve

Nochevieja at Puerta del Sol

• What to wear:
Spain: Fire-engine red underwear – I kid you not. In Spain, one tradition is that you should wear bright red underwear, which will bring you luck for the new year. (Sort of the way Anglophones wear green on St. Patrick's Day.)

• Balls drop, bells chime:
These two locations are not _the_ place to be for New Year's, and are really only filled with tourists and out-of-town visitors. But all eyes are probably turned to these two iconic squares at midnight. In the US people will often tune their TVs in to Time Square, while in Spain they'll watch the clock strike midnight at the Puerta del Sol...
USA: New York City's Time Square – The traditional mark for the new year at Time Square is the drop of the bright shiny ball, which touches down at midnight.
Spain: Madrid's Puerta del Sol – In Madrid it is all about the clock striking midnight and the twelve chimes (las campanadas) for each hour which signal the dramatic ritual of the grapes...

A ball drops at midnight in the States

Bells chime at midnight in Spain

• Midnight rituals:

USA: Kiss your loved one – Given that this tradition is so common in the States, and happens in every single movie about New Year's, I've been surprised how little Spaniards are aware that, for Americans, it is important to kiss your partner first thing after midnight on the New Year. It is such a tradition that Americans have consecrated it in the way they know best, by creating movie after movie where the central plot device is that the frustrated couple finally come together for the big kiss (the example par excellence being When Harry Met Sally (1989)).
Spain: Las (doce) uvas y las campanadas – Be prepared! At midnight in Spain, it is a must to eat twelve grapes, each one eaten at the sounding of a bell marking the twelve hours struck at twelve o'clock. If you fail to do so it is very bad luck. (This tradition is probably only about 50 years old, but you wouldn't know it for how intense Spaniards can be about trying to meet this midnight challenge.)

Grapes ready for midnight, cava ready for toasting, Christmas turron ready for snacking

So important is this grape-eating tradition that in Spain you can find these
ready-made-for-two packages of grapes, each can with 12 peeled-and-deseeded grapes

• The right soundtrack:
USA: Auld Lang Syne – Again, given how traditional this song is for bringing in the new year in Anglophone cultures, it's interesting how little Spaniards know about it. But this song is a classic, and chances are, much like lovers kissing at midnight, you'll hear this song playing in the background in any cheasy American movie about starting off the new year. It's a nice song, and I confess I get a bit sentimental when I hear it. The whole point of the song is to remind us all that there are those people from long ago in our pasts, who might be worth remembering at this moment when we're looking forward.

"Auld lang syne" is Scots language for "old long since,"
meaning 'days gone by' or 'long, long ago'

• New Year obsessions:
USA: New Year's Resolutions lists – America's obsession with self-improvement thrives around this time of year. Starting January 1st you will hear much commentary about one's "new year resolution" (dieting an all-time favorite, landing a job a crisis-era close second). (Confessions: I'm writing my annual list of five things to improve.) This is not such a big thing in Spain, but very big in the US.

And I leave 2011 behind with that. Those are all the differences that come to mind for the moment. Please comment away if you can think of others.

Happy New Year! ¡Feliz año nuevo!