Blog Birthday 2: The Underappreciated Posts

This is my most popular picture so far on Instagram.

It's my blog's 2-year anniversary! Two years ago today, my blog went live and my quest to counterbalance all the sappy sentimentalism "Hemingway paradigm" began.

Since the great slow down of March 2012, my posts have been more infrequent. (This blog, after all, is just a hobby. I make no money from it... sin ánimo de lucro, indeed.) I now have a personal commitment of posting at least one blog entry a month… which given how long my entries are is probably plenty of reading material for most of you. (Even my wife struggles to keep up!) At some point last fall I discovered Instagram, which has been my great obsession/distraction ever since. I did two more interviews: one with Expat Arrivals and the other for Young Adventuress's blog. I particularly enjoyed the odd challenge of Young Adventuress's question, to describe Spain in three words: "Please come visit!"... no wait, "Mostly harmless fun."... "Mmm. Yum. Delicious." or "What the heck?!?" Go ahead and read the interviews, you know you're curious. (¡Marujos!) That said, the most autobiographical moment on the blog this year was this past July, me getting Spanish citizenship. (Just last night my Spanish friends were oohing and aahing over my new DNI, which I whipped out right after one of them mistakenly joked about me being a guiri like all the other guiris hanging out in El Carmen on a Saturday night.)

My life is not all Spain. This last year I spent some time in Vienna,
enjoying its incredible coffee scene. Chic Soufflé wrote some excellent
entries detailing coffee culture there.

You may be wondering, what have people been reading on the blog? Well, here it is. The all-time top two posts are: "That Perfect Gift: Spanish Footwear" and "Don Ernesto: Ernest Hemingway in Spain". They are both many thousands of page hits higher than all other entries, and both neck in neck for the top entry. There is something funny about the way in which the Hemingway post has been duking it out with the shoe post for the number 1 spot… It speaks to a kind of schizophrenia people have about Spain: are they coming here for hedonistic indulging or deep, introspective self-discovery? (Or maybe it's a marketing opportunity – who wants to join me in a startup shoe company: Hemingway shoes?) I'm pleased to see that sometimes substance does drive readership. So, for example, my three Teaching English entries have performed well. I've noticed regular download traffic for my ready-made PDF lessons. It is gratifying to think that my work on those is paying off in some small way for other TEFL teachers or learners out there.

Last year for my blog birthday I did a conventional anniversary post, sharing with you what were the most popular blog entries for the year. But the truth is, that just encourages you to read the posts that everyone is already reading. So this year I thought I would highlight those posts that, for whatever reason —posted before my blog was "discovered" by google the public; posted at the wrong time of day when nobody was reading; didn't have a catchy title or sexy pictures of some famous actress— didn't ever get much traffic or visitors, but are personally some of my favorites. So here it goes, here are…

10 Underappreciated Blog Posts:

I've grouped them into three genres, in no particular order... 

• Movies:

I love movies! I've written a few entries about them, but I really should write more. What a wonderful way to get to know a culture! Especially Spanish cinema! (Oh yeah, and it is also a good way to practice the language.) At some point in the near future I'm considering doing a self-taught class on Spanish cinema. There's so much more than Almodóvar, and I admit that I've only barely scratched the surface.

(1) "Film: ¡Bienvenido, Mister Marshall! (1953)"

Somehow this entry got skipped by my readers, which is a shame because this movie should be required viewing for all Americans coming to Spain. In my opinion, Berlanga is still possibly the greatest Spanish director in terms of capturing truly Spanish Spanishness, and this movie is specifically about cash-strapped Spaniards getting their hopes up about American investment money coming in to save the day. (Still sounds relevant today, no?)

(2) "Film: La Comunidad (2000)"

Another film entry skipped over by my readers. This movie just happens to be my favorite Spanish movie of all time. I won't presume to say that it is the definitive best, but it is my personal favorite. And there is a certain dynamic in this comunidad that just does seem to resonate with some of the quirkier characteristics and attitudes of Spaniards today. So if you haven't seen it yet, go download it rent it now.

• It's the Economy, Stupid:

Perhaps it is only fair that my posts about the economic crisis don't get a lot of traffic. If you're looking for an expert opinion, you should visit Ibex Salad, a much more thoughtful and informed blog on the market and Spain's place in it. In general, I try my best to avoid talking about the crisis on my platform, because I think it gets too much attention in a way that is repetitive and self-defeating. Still, I've written a couple of entries that I would hope my readers took a look at, which seek to cut through the bulls**t hot air that you will hear about it on even serious news outlets.

(3) "Note to Americans: PIGS is a four-letter word"

We're four years into this economic crisis and sadly this entry is just as relevant now as it was back when I wrote it. Why northern Europeans, and particularly the British, tend to generalize about the problems in Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal as if they were all of one cloth, I do not understand. Suffice it to say that its not true, but also that it's flat out obnoxious and insulting, too.

(4) "Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying 

and Love the Global Economic Crisis"

If I've got one complaint about Spaniards, it's that many can be really negative. This is a glass-half-empty kind of culture. Even without horrible economic statistics and the world's lamest government, Spaniards wouldn't need much to get them talking about how backward their economy can be, and how the grass is so much greener over there in America. I wrote this entry, and put some thought into it, at a moment when I was particularly fed up with all the negativity about Spain and its economic future. Recently, perhaps I've also succumbed a bit to the despair. (Rajoy, por favor, no rompas mas mi pobre corazón.) But I still think the message in this entry is sound. The self-fulfilling prophecy can be a virtuous cycle, too. Positive thinking, anyone?

(5) "Local Vocab: 'Los Funcionarios'"

The reason I like this underappreciated entry is because it's about one of the central culture battles in Spain: public servants, are you with them or are you against them? If you don't understand the funcionario system, then chances are you are not understanding half of the political battles and arm-chair political rants that you've overheard in Spain. This entry will get you started on that, though it has taken me years to appreciate all the viewpoints and contradictions in this debate.

(6) "Note to Americans: Tipping Really Is Optional"

The longer I live in Spain, a country where tipping is not necessary, the more I find tipping culture in America not only backward, but down right medieval (okay, maybe bourgeois). Let's do everyone a favor. Let's encourage systems where workers get paid for their work, and where, on the bill, what you see is what you get.

• Alternative Spanish tourism/geography:

For a little over a year now, when I write about places to see in Spain, I've heavily favored places in and near Valencia. What can I say, it's what I know. Many of those entries are getting traffic as my blog's ranking rises in the blogosphere as one of the few English language bloggers writing from Valencia. But there are a few hidden gems that I've written about that haven't got much traffic. (Unfortunately, people who run searches on google only find what they're looking for.) Trust me, these spots are all very much worth visiting. Maybe they are not secrets, but they're not nearly as appreciated as the Costas or big cities like Barcelona and Madrid. So take a look and consider a visit!

(7) "Penedés: Wine Country"

Everyone always talks about Rioja wine. I haven't been to La Rioja, so I can't compare, but Penedés was an incredible wine country to visit, and is easy to reach from Barcelona. It's also the place to go if you love Spanish cava. So why not add a wine/cava tour to your next visit to Cataluña? Trust me, you'll thank me.

(8) "The 44th Sitges Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic"

This is an incredibly cool film festival! Not far from Barcelona, and taking place early to mid October, I would imagine if would be easy to combine it with a package tour of Barcelona, and maybe of the Penedés wine region right around the vendimia. If you like sci-fi and horror or film festivals, do not miss an opportunity to experience this sci-fi, horror, and fantasy film festival. I loved it, and definitely plan to go back.

(9) "Pueblos con encanto: Linares de Mora and the Sierra de Gúdar"

Cute towns, nice hikes, great food, this region has it all and it's an easy day trip from Valencia. I won't pretend that Linares is better than dozens of other 'pueblos con encanto', but it is time that you foreign tourists break the Madrid-Barcelona-Sevilla mold, and do some traveling through Spain's charming smaller towns. In this entry I offer a cannot-lose formula for this highly popular kind of tourism with Spaniards.

(10) "It's the Little Things: Spain's True Wealth"

This is an uncharacteristically short entry for my blog. It's really just a couple of videos. But whoa are these videos incredible. If you missed it, take a look. I return to these nature videos highlighting Spain's true wealth from time to time whenever I need to step back and look at the big picture. The visuals this film director has created are breathtaking, and Spain's natural parklands are magnificent.

– – – Birthday Epilogue – – –

I've done my best to hide on my blog that, in reality, this last year has been a particularly difficult one for me. Several important things have not gone my way and I'd be lying if I said that I'm not disappointed, and maybe even a bit morose about them. Fortunately, I've always had a game plan for periods in life like this. One of them is to pull out my list of "Lifetime Things To Do". (I've already done a couple of them… "One Year of Travel in Europe", check; "See an Opera at the Met", check.) It's not exactly a bucket list. I feel no obligation to do them before I die. Rather, it's a list of challenging, interesting things I have on hand to tackle whenever there's a lull in life, or I feel like I'm in a rut and need some activity to distract and uplift me.

Training for long runs is all about having the right equipment,
which is why I bought this toy for my marathon training!

This year I've chosen the "Run a Marathon" item on the list. Those of you following me on Instagram will note I post a lot of #running images in the Río Turia park. Well that's why. It's not that I love running or that I think running a marathon is the be all end all of life. It's more humble than that. Running is a simple, manageable challenge, something I can accomplish right now while my spirit is low and I feel like some things are out of my control. Exercise goals are great for moments of feeling low. No matter how miserable I am, after a painful hard run and refreshing shower, it is really, truly difficult to not feel positive. I've registered for Valencia's half marathon in October, and if I manage that then I'll register for the Valencia full marathon in November.

Another uplifting distraction on the horizon is a... West Coast Road Trip with my 'huckleberry friend' Chic Soufflé!!! Very shortly you will notice me tweeting and instagramming all about a Seattle to San Diego road trip, with many cool stops along the way. I'll say more about it here on the blog in October, but I'm already loading up my e-reader with books to get me in the spirit of it: Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Bryson's The Lost Continent, and Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways. (Don't worry. I read Kerouac ages ago, and got California's Central Valley covered having read The Grapes of Wrath... even read anti-road trip novels like McCormac's The Road or Nabokov's Lolita.) I'm getting ready for my Rediscovering America Tour... or Road Trip Reboot 1.0!

So stay tuned. I hope you continue to enjoy reading the blog. Please know that your replies and thank yous are greatly appreciated.

Cityscape: An Architectural Tour of Valencia

One of the perks of writing a blog are the unexpected social connections one makes, such as when readers reach out to me with questions about Valencia or Spain and in the process teach me something about it I hadn't known or thought about before. This past April I was contacted by a British architecture professor who was bringing a group of university students to Valencia to look at its architecture and to explore the city as a lived space. I was intrigued by the visit, and in particular by her statement that "we have described Valencia as the city of contrasts" (how true!), so I offered her my services as a local guide, or as she put it, "someone who could give the students an idea of how Valencia was experienced and understood by locals".

Now I am by no means an expert on, nor even an amateur student of architecture, but I keep an eye open for interesting buildings and know how to read up and synthesize historical information about a place. So I used their visit as an excuse to read up a bit on Valencia's architecture, and to blend that with what I've learned about the city over the years listening to locals. To start, I found this absolutely incredible online resource, "Guía de arquitectura de Valencia", which lists in chronological order many (if not most) of Valencia's principal architectural landmarks, each with a "ficha" summarizing the landmark's history. (Okay, in truth I was tipped off about the guide from some Valencia Twitter friends who I knew were experts on architecture.) The visiting students already had a planned tour with someone else to cover the City of Arts and Sciences (a.k.a. the "CAC"), so I prepared a tour for the city center, starting at where they were staying, the Purple Nest Hostel.

The map above shows you the walking route we took. My basic plan was to first take them down Carrer de la Pau, which as I will explain in a moment was an important Modernist artery, and is marked at both ends by two buildings I like, Monforte (1895) and Bolinches (1903). Then I took them through Plaza de la Reina to the Plaza Redonda (1837), to say a little something about urban planning. (Again more on this below.) Next we visited the Mercat Central (1910... opened 1928) (the professor had seen from my blog that I was a regular there, and wanted me to talk about local food), and on my insistence we went into La Lonja (s. XV), to talk about medieval trade, secular architecture, and Mudéjar influences.

At this point, I asked if they wanted to take an extended tour into El Carmen and look at street art, my personal passion. Yeah, I took them in the Iglesia de San Nicolás (s. XV), to see its breath-taking frescoed interior, and I pointed them to the Palau de la Generalitat (s. XV). But mostly I wanted them to really think about this idea of a "city of contrasts" and the ways that street art, for example, reappropriates crumbling, poorly maintained buildings and public spaces, transforming them into canvas and provocation. (There was, I thought, I bigger lesson here to make than the just buildings, about the ways that buildings and cities are living, breathing places, so to speak, constantly decaying, being reborn, and registering their use and "misuse" by a public.) Finally, I walked them back towards the Plaza de la Virgen, ending where it all began at L'Almoina (s. I BC), which my architecture friends insisted to me was "a must see" for visitors because it marked the city's ancient roots and was quite a significant archeological find.

One doesn't need a lot of history to see the ways that the past shapes the present. But a little bit of history goes a long way. Drawing inspiration from the Annales School of history, I wanted the visitors to consider the "longue durée" of the city, to understand how several broad themes or currents have shaped and reshaped Valencia over two millennia… 

I let them keep my notes on broad trends in Valencian architecture and
city planning, so I took this photo of them for my personal reference.

So I came up with five theses that help explain Valencia's architecture, urban planning, and overall layout and vibe. I list them here in loosely chronological order:

I. A port city defined by trade

In the beginning, Valencia was a settlement on the Mediterranean sea, effectively a port city... an island city, in fact, since the Río Turia surrounded the settlement on its way out to sea. What this meant and what it means still today is that Valencia is first and foremost a city defined by trade. In the Medieval period this trade was with the East, principally for silk and china. In the 19th century, Valencia's strength in agriculture and location on the coast meant it would become an important exporter of agricultural "exotics" to elsewhere in Europe and abroad (yes, think oranges!). And today Valencia's port is the second busiest in Spain in terms of actual cargo moved in and out, and the busiest Spanish port in terms of trade on the Mediterranean. (Barcelona's port is economically much less important by comparison.) Yes, Valencia's port also accommodates a growing cruise ship tourism, but I think visitors often fail to connect the dots with how central and significant Valencia's more serious sea trade is today. While the city's port is not as sexy as its beaches, it does define the city's economic importance globally.

For most Valencians, and most visitors, the cargo port is simply that
eye-soar that one sees off on the horizon while sunbathing at the city beach.

II. 1491, or my personal thesis about Valencia's relationship to Spain

I vaguely recall learning as an undergraduate in history of science that in Medieval Europe there were two port cities that were the center of intellectual vibrancy, because they were the two places where important ancient scientific ideas were being reintroduced into Europe from the Arab empires. One of them was in Italy, I can't remember where (maybe Pisa?). The other was Valencia. Yep, for about a century, the 15th Century (a.k.a. the "Siglo de Oro Valenciano") to be precise, Valencia was a center of sorts of cultural power in Europe, and arguably the most economically powerful city in Spain.

Okay, maybe I'm overstating myself, but I have a personal theory about Valencia that I call "1491", which is the year just before Spain discovered the "New World" and started to look West to build its empire. Why? Because before 'Columbus sailed the ocean blue', a geopolitical revolution that would catapult first Sevilla and then Cádiz into the economic limelight, Valencia was Spain's main port to the East. And it was the East that held all those treasures Europeans wanted. This is how Valencia's most infamous family, the Borgia, gave the world not one, but two Popes (1455-58 and 1492-1503), exercising enormous and economic influence.  (Indeed, it was Valencian bankers who lent funds to the Queen for Columbus's 1492 journey!) This is why so many of Valencia's impressive buildings were built in the "s. XV": the aforementioned Lonja, Palau de la Generalitat, and Iglesia de San Nicolás, as well as the wheat depository Almudín (s. XV) and the Borgia's city estate, today the Palau de les Corts Valencianes (s. XV), to name a few. (And if you take my Tower Tour of Valencia, then you will note that the Puerta de Serranos was built in s. XIV, the Puerta de Quart in s. XV, and the Miguelete initiated in s. XIV and finished in XV.)

The formidable Palau de la Generalitat, built during Valencia's Golden Age.

Are these 15th century curves and spirals to be credited
for inspiring Calatrava's 20th century work?

If anything, the Lonja is testimony to how it takes years, sometimes centuries to see the dramatic changes in power structures taking place. The city initiated construction of the Silk Exchange as early as 1469, in recognition that the silk trade in Valencia had grown beyond the humble means of its existing ad-hoc marketplace, though the first stone wouldn't be placed until 1482. By the time the building was (mostly) completed in 1498, Spain's royalty was greedily looking West, not East, for treasures; however, Valencian silk traders would continue to enjoy substantial economic success for another century, even as the locus of economic power was gradually shifting westward away from Valencia to Andalucía. (Perhaps this shift is what would give birth to the "Hemingway paradigm" obsession with that region, instead of with Spain's "Levante".) The Lonja is also of interest to connoisseurs of architecture because it is a distinctively secular building from this heavily religious period, and you can find clues that its financiers had their issues with the church. (Bare in mind that silk traders made money off exchange rates, a kind of earthly profit that at times had been frowned on by the Church.) Its "portal de los pecados" door, for example, is marked with figurines in highly suggestive states of sin, pushing the boundaries of propriety in a way that could be interpreted as a snub of clerical prudishness. A final interesting point about La Lonja: a Valencian architect who joined our tour noted that Calatrava claims this building as an importance influence on his work.

To restate the hypothesis: economically and culturally Valencia peaked at 1491, and has only begun to again reclaim its former Mediterranean glory in the past couple of decades.

One of Valencia's most extravagant buildings is this Art Deco one, in Russafa next to the Plaza de Toros
which is unfortunately overshadowed in tour books by Calatrava's more mammoth contributions.

Digression: I'm skipping over some important late Baroque architecture in the Valencia, specifically the Palacio del Marqués de Dos Aguas (1740) or the interior of the Iglesia de San Martín (s. XIV).

III. Urbanization and modernization, 1850–1950

If you want to talk about one major trend in the last two centuries, at least from an architectural point of view, it would be the rise of cities. Urbanization has changed us in so many ways that it's hard to catalogue them. With the rise of industrial capitalism in the 19th century, Valencia like so many other cities, was transformed by urbanization and modernization (the latter of which furthermore left a distinctive Modernist mark on the city's architecture):

     1) Urbanization

Plaza de la Reina as seen from the Cathedral's Miguelete Tower.
Imagine. For over four centuries this would have
overlooked housing!

Urbanization has had a lot of interesting consequences for Valencia's layout and landmarks. As you can read on historical placards nearby, the aforementioned Plaza Redonda, built in 1837, replaced a former "matadero" or slaughterhouse. In this respect its foundation signaled the growing public sanitation interest in rationalizing urban spaces by moving the messy, stinky, unhygienic slaughtering of animals away from city meat markets and out onto city peripheries. Another plaza that was opened up in this period was the Plaza de la Reina (1878), created by the destruction of a couple of blocks of houses that had been there since the medieval period. One curious consequence or trace of this aspect of how young the Plaza is can be found on the Cathedral door. If you look at the statues on the main door facing the square you will notice they all look downward rather than outward. This is because when the door was constructed in 1713-1728 there was no Plaza de la Reina and no viewpoint of the entrance from further than 5 meters away.

Expansion and acquisition is the other big trend in urbanization. So it boggles the mind to think that the Plaza de Toros (1857) was built on what was then the edge of town. Russafa, today a vibrant central neighborhood of Valencia, was an independent town up until 1877. It is for this reason that the streets here resist the rectilinear rational pull of the L'Eixample area that sprung up around it, and you can still find windy, confusing roads that loosely follow the older town settlement. Benimaclet, a district to the north, was a town that joined the Valencian city in 1882, though its integration into the city didn't really pick up until the 1950s. With the city creeping northward, one wonders how long it will be before the pueblo Alboraia is consumed subsumed.

The Correos building on the Plaza de Ayuntamiento an exemplar of Modernist style.

     2) Modernist architecture

Snapped this Instagram of Carrer de la Pau back in February.

Modernization (a socioeconomic and technological process) and modernism (a cultural, aesthetic and artistic movement) usually get treated separately... but shouldn't. (For a brilliant, very readable book that argues for blending socioeconomic and cultural history, I point you to Marshall Berman's All That is Solid Melts Into Air (1982).) Much of the modern cityscaping of Valencia from the mid-19th century to early 20th century reflected that Bourgeois prerogative of seeking public spaces for conspicuous consumption... boulevards, arcades, covered passages, etc. In other words, bulldoze those disorganized medieval, crowded, narrow windy street neighborhoods to put in more linear, open streets for storefront window-shopping and terraced cafés. (Think Haussmann's renovation of Paris or Le Corbusier rational simplicity.)

Carrer de la Pau (1868) was created with this kind of reasoning to create a clean linear view of the Torre de Santa Catalina, and is home to many fine examples of modernist architecture (a couple of my favorites mentioned above). There is also the Pasaje Ripalda (1889), emulating the popular passages couverts de Paris. The L'Example district of Valencia, annexed in 1877, and the Gran Vía Marqués de Turia (1907) strongly resembles Paris and also have dozens of magnificent Modernist (many of them Art Nouveau) buildings, too. I like the Chapa (1909) wavy-top building at Cánovas. (I told visiting architect students that they should spend at least half a day alone wandering through the L'Eixample district to admire the buildings and their impressive façades... and maybe spend a night or two, also, to admire the hopping nightlife there.)

While strolling around the city center, be sure to look up
so as to see the impressive decorative façades of buildings
like that of the Banco de Valencia seen here.

Many other quirky and cool buildings that populate the city center were built in this period, evidence of the city's economic vitality, before the Civil War doused those dreams. Two marketplaces, my beloved Mercat Central and the Mercado de Colón (1914), were designed and constructed in the early 20th century. The Estación del Norte (1906) has a similar kitschy modernist vibe. An Apple Store recently took over inhabited the elegant Ylario (1889) building in the Colón shopping zone. The bordering-on-gaudy Banco de Valencia (1934), and the Correos (1915) building on Plaza del Ayuntamiento has the hallmark use of steel (think Eiffel Tower). You'll also find many exemplars of Art Deco, such as the Rialto (1935) the old cinema theatre on Plaza de Ayuntamiento.

IV. A river runs through it – the Río Turia

I have written elsewhere that, in my opinion, the most beautiful, wonderful feature of Valencia is its Río Turia riverbed park. The river ran through the city, and for this reason alone is important for understanding the shape of the city and its layout. For millennia, this river would have been central to the city of Valencia for its role in watering the region's acclaimed "huerta". The Alameda riverbed area was a popular site in the 19th century for festivities. In short, it's a big deal. This is why it there is a fountain celebrating the River like a god on the Plaza de la Virgen. But I also mention the city river because of the interesting story about how it became the city's green belt and signature parkland.

Keep an eye open around town for these waterline markers,
evidence of the destructive potential of the 1957 flood.

That transformation happened in three stages. Stage 1 was the great flood or 'Gran Riada de 1957'. You can find many accounts of the flood elsewhere. I recommend a blog entry written by Graham, Valencia real estate agent and fellow expat blogger, aptly titled, "Why Does Valencia Have the Biggest Garden in Spain?" This is one of those floods that became legend. You can ask older people about it, and get great personal recollections. And you can find markers all throughout town which show the waterline at frighteningly high levels above the sidewalk. Stage 2 of the transformation we'll call "how the authorities almost f**ked it up, until the people rose up to put some sense in them". Following the flood, all agreed that the river had to be moved south of the city. (It even had a catchy military-like name: "El Plan Sur"!) And between 1958 and 1973, the city worked and eventually succeeded in rerouting the water. What was left to decide was what to do with the new space. City officials decided the riverbed would be ideal for highway. Yeah, they'd just cement it all up and make way for more polluting cars and urban disgustingness. Brilliant. Fortunately, protesters and concerned citizens of the period prevailed. Holding "manifestaciones", Valencian protesters demanded that this space be put to public use, and by the end of the 1970s officials came around to the idea that it could become parkland rather than pavement. 

Above the head! This tourist took a picture of the waterline marker...
next to the must see Casa de los Gatos in El Carmen.

Bringing us to Stage 3, the building of the Jardín del Túria (1985–2010), a massive and in my opinion masterful urban landscaping project, much of the initial design by Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill. It more or less ended with the addition of the Parque de Cabecera (2001), though the riverbed park is still experiencing renovation and reinvention with smaller projects around the Pont de Fusta and CAC. (Since I love to run in the Turia park, I was very pleased to discover this City webpage with links to download a PDF brochure detailing the full park and all its distinctive "tramos" (sections)!) With the placement of the Bioparc at one end and Calatrava's folly, the City of Arts and Sciences, at the other, the Río Turia park is, for me, what makes Valencia Valencia as much as its Mediterranean beaches.

Long before Calatrava worked his havoc magic upon the Rio Turia park
there was the Palau de la Música (1984), a favorite feature of my runs in the river.

V. The important role of controversy and civil disobedience in urban planning

Now, Camps and Rajoy the powers that be would like us all to think that cities like Valencia were designed with simple, visionary planning and harmoniously executed without public dissension, but nothing could be further from the truth. As I mentioned above with the example of the Río Turia —rescued by a protesting public from the shortsightedness of city planners— the only way to understand some of Valencia's most prominent landmarks is to recognize their contestedness and the controversy surrounding them. This could be a more general truth: when urban historians say that cities grow organically, what they mean is that popular protests and contestations consultation also form an important element to how a city is built and evolves. With the sad exception of Brasilia, cities usually do not emerge from the head of Zeus fully formed.

Valencia rewards the attentive tourist.
You can spot this interesting façade detail at the
Cortina II, a.ka. Casa de los Dragones (1901),
located in the heart of the Colón shopping district.

In the case of Valencia this 'social fact' of an unruly public presents the opportunity for a different kind of architectural tourism, what some have playfully called, "La ruta del despilfarro", or the tour of wasteful overspending. The first thing I asked my visitors was whether they had heard locals complain about Calatrava's folly, the City of Arts and Sciences (1991-2009). It's difficult to convey the intense ambivalence that locals feel about it... that it is visually magnificent, beautiful, elegant... but also that it is a mammoth waste of money that suddenly the city doesn't have for more important things like teachers, doctors, and scientists. And there is the tragic irony that locals, and probably most visitors, can only really afford to enjoy the buildings from the outside. Entrance tickets into the CAC museums are expensive, given that their contents are often not as world class as the flashy exterior. So, directly at least, it's not much of a revenue generator. But the controversies don't stop there. The Valencian government has been in a legal battle with its native son, Santiago Calatrava Valls (1951–), over whether he overcharged them for the CAC. It doesn't help that, much as is the case with many of Calatrava's other works and works by other contemporary celebrity architects, the buildings have serious design flaws: leaks, overheating caused by excessive use of glass windows, and more. On the one hand, the CAC reflects an inspired moment – Valencia aspiring to be a world symbol through architectural greatness. On the other hand, it reflects a kind of excess and hubris, a wound in Valencians' side that smarts as they suffer a protracted and ugly economic crisis.

The real complaint behind "La ruta del despilfarro" goes beyond the CAC, and is about the democratic nature of urban planning and architecture more generally. Critics are rightly upset about whether the government adequately consults with its public about such plans, and whether such projects reflect a style of governance that is flashy and showy rather than investing in solid longterm resources. And here we have two further landmarks to consider. The first is the Veles e Vents (2005) building at the port, a quite beautiful symbol of the Valencian government's repeated strategy of courting big global entertainment events as a way to raise the city's worldwide prestige. The building was commissioned to mark Valencia's host role for the 32nd America's Cup in 2007. The city used the America's Cup to execute several admirable, yet expensive projects: linking the port to the airport with a metro line, renovating one part of the port with fancy boathouses and new shops and bars. While few locals complain about these building projects, the America's Cup is listed along with the MTV Winter Festival, the Pope's visit in 2006, and Formula One European Grand Prix as another example of flashy, unsustainable events that the city supported with public money which have now moved on and left the city in financial ruin.

The Torre de Ripalda, a.k.a. La Pagoda (1967) is a more recent,
striking architectural landmark in Valencia, near my beloved Viveros park.

A second controversial project involves the Paseo Blasco Ibáñez (1888). This elegant avenue was built during the heyday of modernism, and even then was initially conceived of as the "Paseo al mar", intended to be a city avenue that led to the sea. The problem with this 'manifest destiny' was that its passage led right through the humble but proud fishermen's village of Cabanyal. Locals resisted urban planners' dreams and Cabanyal remained. Yet in recent years the Valencian government has revived these dreams, drawing on the Bourgeois fancy urban planning example of Barcelona's La Rambla as a model for the real estate bubble opportunity in having a city avenue that meets the sea. The result is an open legal war between city officials wanting to bulldoze parts of Cabanyal, and citizens of Cabanyal fighting for recognition that their quaint, modest, but in some cases quite tiled beautiful fishermen houses represent an architectural heritage worth protecting. (I'm inclined to agree with Cabanyal; why not use Barcelona's Barceloneta as an urban revival model? or L.A.'s Venice Beach?)

So I encouraged the visiting British architect students, and I encourage you to think of these three examples, but also of the five general trends more broadly when making your study of Valencia as a city of contrasts... a city that was and continues to be built on political and economic hubris and humility, excess and simplicity, and the old and the new.

This was the list I made of my favorite buildings in Valencia for the tour,
but it was not comprehensive. So go explore! There's a lot to see!

Becoming Spanish: From Expat to Immigrant

Me dicen el clandestino 

Por no llevar papel 

Pa' una ciudad del norte 

Yo me fui a trabajar 

Mi vida la dejé 

Entre Ceuta y Gibraltar 

Soy una raya en el mar 

Fantasma en la ciudad 

Mi vida va prohibida 

Dice la autoridad.

— Manu Chao, "Clandestino", 1998

Spain's population grew by one on Monday.

Some people are born Spanish. Others, like me, choose to become Spanish. Yesterday morning, in Valencia's Ciudad de la Justicia, I swore the oath to the King of Spain and the Spanish Constitution, to confirm my naturalization as a Spanish citizen. Today I woke up Spanish! (Though it won't feel really real until I get the DNI and passport later this month.) This is exciting!

That my "juramento de la nacionalidad española" occurred so closely after Bastille Day, July 14th, marker of the French Revolution and a birthday of sorts for modern ideas about nationalism, was a token symbolism not lost on me. What really is a nation, after all, but a Romantic myth made real by all the bureaucratic paperwork of government institutions, along with the sentimental acts of patriotism by "the people" grasping at straws for some kind of ennobled unity of identity beyond the simple fact of physical proximity… and yet this so-called nation is made a mess of by the many expats, immigrants, emigrants and other migrants who "vote with their feet" and, consciously or not, "resist" the reality of borderlines drawn on maps. I'm not saying "nation" is not "real". Quite the contrary, I am thrilled to gain Spanish nationality. This is a big moment in my life! I'm saying that over the last ten plus years of moving back and forth between Europe and the U.S., and now immigrating to another country, I've gained a very rich and complicated idea of what a nation is, and I can tell you that it is something we produce, not something "real" sitting out there in nature. Which means it's dynamic and evolving. Hey! Yesterday Spain gained a new citizen! This nation is a little different this week than it was last week.

But, oh dear, I've gotten all philosophical. First I should get to the nitty gritty. Answer those usual questions that I get asked whenever I mentioned that I'm applying for citizenship here. These generally fall into two categories: the pragmatically curious (how does one go about doing something like that?) and the pragmatically confounded (why bother?).


     • How does one do it? Do you have to take a test?

Immigration to the United States is a process of such mythic proportions that the process itself has become the subject of many a Hollywood fiction—take Green Card (1990), for example—and even entered pop culture in the form of clichéd narrative twists (marrying for visa, but then falling in love) and popular lingo (e.g. "anchor baby", "fresh off the boat"). Not so for Spain, and maybe that's why so many Americans I know are curious to know what it's like over here.

The latest in a long line of silly
Hollywood movies about the
"romance" of U.S. immigration.

The short answer: much easier. Of course it depends on how you go about applying, but for us married-to-a-Spaniard types the process involves establishing one year of residency in Spain + 2 years waiting for the paperwork to "process" in Madrid. Oh, and it is totally free! (Contrast this with the U.S. where it is 5 years residence to then apply, and I have no idea how long the papers take to process. And throughout the process you pay hundreds of dollars in fees!)

Once the residency requirement is established, you compile various papers to show your cause is legit (proof of residence, proof that marriage is real) and that you have some means of getting by in Spain… for the details check out this official link. And you go in to the appropriate police station in your city and make an appointment to submit them. In my case, about a week after asking for an appointment I got it, and thus had the first of two interviews… and this leads to the other big question: Is there a test for citizenship in Spain?

Of course, it might not be free for long. On my morning waiting for the
processing to be completed, I noticed these posted flyers all around the office.

As the posts indicated, the current PP-led government is threatening
to introduce fees for many legal services provided by the government.

Well, yes and no. Unlike the U.S. there is no formal multiple-choice test to establish proficiency. But there is a requirement in the application that you demonstrate some degree of integration in the community, or some wording to this effect. So in this first interview I had the officer was asking me about the application, why I was applying, and then suddenly asked me where I had travelled to in Spain, drawing an outline of the Spanish peninsula on a piece of paper. She pointed at the paper and asked me to mark on the map the cities and places I've visited. I obliged, marking a fair number of cities (I think she was impressed), and she was satisfied that I had some basic geographical knowledge of Spain… though she pointed out that I had placed the city of Granada too far to the west on the map, too close to Sevilla and Córdoba (a mistake I'll never make again). They made a note of my intent to apply and kept copies of my application. Not long afterwards (I think around 3 months had passed), I received a letter to bring my documents to the Registro Civil, and for my wife to join me. This was, in effect, a second (and final) interview. We were asked questions about each other, but it was not especially rigorous or intense. In fact, the woman who interview me was downright friendly. But, again, there arrived a moment when, suddenly, I was asked: "¿Te gusta la comida española?"

Now, at this point I was recalling my dad's dating advice: "Zach, you like to talk too much; try to be quiet; give simple answers, and let the other person talk". Because I was thinking: "Are you kidding! I'm a total foodie, and heck, I study the history of food! I love Spanish food!!!" So I answered very coyly that, yes, I liked Spanish food (tortilla de patatas, jamón, etc.), and then I pandered by saying that in particular I like Valencian food (paella, arroz al horno, fresh salads "de la huerta"). It was the summer of 2011, so I made a point of saying that I had been making my father-in-law's recipe for sopa de pepino a lot, in support of the poor Spanish cucumber farmers besieged by Germany's Spanish cucumber health scare. And I left the interview wondering: how could one fail that test? Would anyone ever answer: no, I hate Spanish food?

But then I have read Zola-esque exposés in Spanish newspapers about capricious local immigrant officers imposed byzantine tests, such as a judge in Getafe asking applicants what happened in the year 1868 (answer: "la Revolución Gloriosa"… which none of my Spanish friends or family knew), or the more tricky case of a test in Catalonia that asked applicants to name two Spanish athletes, but then failed an applicant for putting "Messi y Ronaldo". Haha! Aren't Messi and Ronaldo Spanish athletes by now!?! But I write these kinds of incidents off as examples of that deeper cross-cultural truth: that there are a**holes everywhere, but they are generally the exception not the norm.

Early morning line at Valencia's Ciudad de la Justicia

Still, when people ask me about my experience applying for visas and citizenship here in Spain, I make a point of qualifying that there were three things which quickly turned the process in my favor with local bureaucrats: 

1) when I opened my mouth, I spoke a pretty good Spanish, above all with a decent Spanish accent, which puts the agent at ease (no awkward hand gestures and annoying confusions necessary),
2) when they asked me where I'm from, my answer--the United States--immediately removed suspicion from them as to my motives for applying, and
3) when they asked by what means I was applying and I answered, "por matrimonio (a una valenciana)", in other words, for love, their hearts softened and they treated me like part of the community.

I can only wonder what a sub-Saharan African immigrant who comes looking for work with only broken Spanish would face. (I also wonder how tiresome it must get for the bureaucrats to deal with overly romantic, hedonistic guiris whose Spanish is atrocious.)

This funcionario pride poster was also
posted around the Registro Civil office. 

But the intractable discretion of street-level bureaucrats is not unique to Spain, nor Europe. (For any social theory nerds interested in this, I direct you to Michael Lipsky's Street-Level Bureaucrats (1980), a classic on the subject.) And I shudder to think what my experience would have been like in the United States where even "desirable" immigrants face a profound skepticism and distrust, where the burden of proof is, "Why should we let you in here?"

So let me pause here to give my thanks to the many bureaucrats who helped me to get here today: Spanish bureaucracy is not that bad. In fact, in my opinion, it's smooth, efficient, professional and downright pleasant when compared to the experiences my wife had in the United States with immigration. (I had nightmare experiences with Homeland Security when my wife applied for residency in the United States.) This shouldn't be much of a surprise, because the people who work in the immigration office are professionals, funcionarios, whereas many of the people who work in U.S. immigration are hourly wage workers. Which is why I groan every time an expat spins another clichéd blog entry about Spanish bureaucracy; or when Spaniards perpetuate the stereotypes themselves. The truth is that most of you haven't had to go through it in your own country, and so you really have no point of comparison. Bureaucracy in the U.S. can be pretty oppressive, opaque, and capricious to an outsider; and Spain's system was fairly straightforward and navigable for me thanks to having my wife and her family as "insider" guides. (It's amazing how easily "local knowledge" can sidestep bureaucratic conundrums by tried and true method of "asking a friend about it" or getting a local to "look into it" for you.)

If anything the economic crisis has been a wonderful opportunity
to display the creativity, inventiveness, dare I say entrepreneurship
in all the brilliant ways that the protesters ("manifestantes") play on
pop culture and popular indignation to give birth to hilarious
and poignant critiques like this one: Rajoy, public enemy #1...
enemy of the public #1

     • Why apply for it? Why would you want Spanish nationality anyway? 

In a way, getting asked this question already offers significant insights into the differences between Spain and the USA… Why don't more people ask this question back in my birth country? Part of me was saddened that I was even asked this by the first immigration officer that I spoke to, not simply for the interview, but as a sincere question: why apply to be a Spaniard when you can be perfectly happy here as an American expat? 

–> Initial easy gut answer: So that I can vote in elections. So that I have a voice. Because it will simplify my life with the local bureaucracy.

Why are such utilitarian, transactional explanations always the most credible? When I give answers like this people nod their heads (and then probably think, "Okay. I guess that makes sense. [But I'd never bother with it!]").

–> Sincere yet awkwardly formed, deeper answer: Because I want to be a member of the community! I own a home here. I live here. It feels wrong for me to pretend that I do not belong here. Citizenship is a part of belonging in modern society. I want to belong.

Yeah, even as I write it I can see that it sounds sentimental and idealistic. But in truth citizenship was not just about convenience for me. It was about commitment. Spain is my future. I'm not just day-tripping here. So it is not enough for me to be a permanent resident.

The moment when I swore the oath to the King of Spain and the Spanish Constitution.

Of course, the corollary question that I get asked is "Do you lose your American citizenship?" Ah, yes, the real test of commitment. Here I can fall back on a legal ambiguity. In the "juramento de la nacionalidad" I did have to renounce my other commitments, including my American citizenship. In Spain, I am now not an American. Yet, I know for a fact that the U.S. won't let go of me so easily. I continue to be an American citizen over there. (Unless I formally renounce my citizenship in a U.S. Embassy in front of a consular officer, it's not official for the U.S.) Indeed, some Americans have tried unsuccessfully to willingly leave the U.S.A. for tax-purposes (Americans abroad still have to declare taxes in the U.S.), such as the co-founder of Facebook recently tried. But de facto dual citizenship exists, as I know from a friend who came to Spain from the U.S., got Spanish nationality, and even played basketball for the Spanish Olympic team… and yet the U.S. still accepts _his_ American passport. So short of Spain declaring war with the U.S., and me becoming an "enemy combatant", I'm still American.

Does this mean I'm a dual citizen? I'll leave any direct answer to that to the lawyers. It simply means that in the U.S. I'm American and in Spain and Europe I'm Spanish. 

     • Whither Expats and Immigrants?

The most trivial of dilemmas I now face as a result of this acquisition of Spanish nationality is that I must now decide what to do about my blogger persona moniker: "An Expat in Spain". I'm not exactly an expat anymore, am I? 

The idea of "expat", and how it differs from immigrant, is a complicated one with a long history. If you are interested in this history, I recommend this article, "Expatriation, Expatriates, and Expats" by Nancy Green, herself an American expat living in Paris. One of the broad points of her article is that few Americans actually ever sought foreign nationality, Henry James a notable exception. (Ernest Hemingway was more par for the course, living abroad for years on end, but never giving up his Americanness and surrounding himself with other expats.) Another interesting broad point of her article is that, as America has become more comfortable with itself as a nation, it has not worried as much about demanding clear loyalties from its subject. In other words, at the beginning of its history the U.S. worried about its citizens being abroad too long; but today it is comfortable that an American abroad is an American no matter how much they might "go native" as anthropologist say. Thus we now use the word "expat" for people who do not in any way intend to expatriate, to renounce their former nationality for a new one.

It has always seemed to me that, broadly speaking, there are three kinds of immigrants: 

1) those who migrate "por el factor n", to be with the novio/a… i.e. for love,
2) those looking for work or "opportunity" abroad, and
3) those who need to "get the heck out of dodge", the emigrants who want to leave a place more than seek one out. 

Depending on which of these three you are, you'll have a very different kind of experience with the process of cultural integration and local acceptance. One peculiarity of Spain's special relation with many South American countries is that it is easier for many South Americans to obtain citizenship than to get a work visa. Which was probably why the majority of people in my swearing ceremony were from there. This has also created an awkward trend in recent years of a population decline for Spain due to newly minted naturalized Spaniards from South America returning home, unable to find work here.

When my wife saw Balseros with me years ago
in the States, she commented on how much
the Cuban boats resembled boats of refugees
that head to Spain's Canary Islands all the time.

And there is obviously a difference between the legal and illegal immigrant. Being from Texas, I've been especially struck by the parallels between Spain/Europe and Texas/United States in the politics of immigration. In some ways, Spain, like Texas, is a major front in the battle lines of illegal immigration for Europe (see, for your reference, latest news story X on boat from African to southern Spanish coast; compare to Cuban raft on Florida coast). And for the last 15 years Spain has had immigration levels comparable to Texas. And yet, while many northern countries in Europe have had a kind of xenophobic backlash to their immigration (like certain reactions in California or Arizona, which see immigrants as a drain on public resources), in Spain, like in Texas, immigrants are generally accepted as a plus for the economy. Even though Spain does not have the U.S.'s long history as a "melting pot", it tolerates immigration quite well even though immigrants do challenge Spaniards' cultural assumptions. (Cue conversation on "los chinos" and how they confound the Spanish conventions on knowing when to stop working – a fruit stand open on Sunday? It's the beginning of the end!)

But what exactly are "expats"? Where do they fit into all of this. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, there is a kind of luxury and casual indifference to those who embrace the "expat" label. It is not about integration. "Immigrant" suggests a desire and neediness for the adopted country that "expat" does not. "Expat" says, "It's so pleasant here. What a wonderful spot to summer, or vacation, or retire!" (Any time Spaniards do mention immigrants as a possible burden on social services, I point out that retired expats are a much bigger drain, using social services in their retirement without having contributed to employment taxes.) But it's more than that. "Immigrant" suggests a struggle of identity, "Am I Spanish enough? What should I preserve, protect from my past self?" In other words, the immigrant offer us the story of real drama and cultural confrontation, the expat the story of fanciful whimsy and entertainment. (Hemingway, are you hearing this? taking notes?)

For a while now I've enjoyed using the expat label because of its convenience, because it conforms to people's expectations of me as an American in Spain. Because it has allowed me to reach out to others from my birth country who are here in Spain, to connect with them on our "similar" experiences falling in love with the country. But there is a part of me that is curious about those (other) immigrants. Why shouldn't I be classed with the Romanians, the Russians, the South Americans, the sub-Saharan Africans, the Chinese who come to Spain? I'm an immigrant, too!

The room where we did the swearing in ceremony,
and the group of immigrants with me.

Hmm. I don't know. I'm still chewing on this thought. And not lightly, I promise. Yesterday morning, throughout the swearing ceremony, I found myself humming the Manu Chao song quoted above, "Clandestino", about those illegal immigrants in Spain, skirting the law. (What a great song!) How much of my life is like, and how much is it different from those "sin papeles"? Obviously drawing too much of a comparison is not fair to them. I've had it easy. But when I ask, what is a nation, what I'm really asking myself is, how are they any different than me? Why is their claim to enter Spain less legitimate than mine? What right do I have to becoming Spanish that they don't?

This cartoon, showing a "blind justice" miraculously able to pass a eye test
focused on euros, is a brilliant critique of the highly unpopular PP proposal
to introduce fees ("tasas") for legal services in the justice system.

     • Once a guiri, always a guiri?:

Some people are born Spanish. Others, like me, will spend their entire lives having to prove they are Spanish. Last May when I was leading a discussion class in the English language institute where I work, I chose as the topic, "a culture within a culture", starting with a discussion of Jewish culture in America, but then drawing parallels to gypsies in Spain. And sure enough, one of the students said that flamenco was Spanish, not just gypsy, but then couldn't easily articulate why gypsies were somehow distinct from the Spanish even though a dance style they introduced could be called typically Spanish. I made the observation that continental Europeans (not just Spaniards) tend to rely more on a tradition-centered, place-based identities than Americans, and that there was a fixity to how they saw identity that, for me as an American, seemed oddly stubborn and out of alignment with numerous examples of hybrid or dynamic cultural currents in contemporary Spain. 

To drive the point home a bit, I asked my students, "In July, I will gain Spanish nationality, but will you think of me as Spanish or American?" Using the classic heuristic of fuzzy sets reasoning (something akin to "slippery slopes"), I then asked about further hypotheticals, "Is the first generation Chinese-Spanish kid, who speaks with a fully Spanish accent, Spanish? If so, are they, in some way, less Spanish than a Spaniard born to Spaniards, because they don't "look Spanish" or because their parents aren't Spanish?" Now, my students aren't bigots, far from it, but they were honest and they acknowledged that I would not "become Spanish", in the broader cultural sense, this July simply by getting nationality. (Formal nationality is not a magic wand after all.) And some even agreed that I might never be Spanish, by many people's standards. Even though, at some future point in time, I will have spent more years in Spain than I have in the U.S.

Frankly, I'm not worried about this. "Blending in" is not my lifelong objective. I enjoy being a bit of a misnomer and "out of place" here, living in a "third space" between Spain and the United States, to pun on an urban planning term. I would like to think that I add to Spain's diversity and cultural richness by being the immigrant that I am, and not a born-and-bred Spaniard. But I do like to get my students thinking outside their comfort zone, so I then told my students about an excellent work in American history, Elizabeth Ewen's Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars (1985), a study of progressive social workers in 1920s America who sought to work with poor immigrant families to help them integrate and "become American". It was an ironic story. The "very American" social workers kept getting frustrated with what they saw as intransigent, backward immigrants who adopted "American" traditions only partially, selecting some but not others. Of course, what the American social workers did not see, but what the immigrants saw only too well (and the historian with 20/20 hindsight), was that America had changed. The immigrants were not encumbered by Victorian-era values, and embraced the emergent 20th-century consumerism, with all its flash and heady gaudiness. (I don't think it's a coincidence that so many American directors during Hollywood's Golden Age were immigrants. Who better to write the script on the quintessentially American story?)

What was the lesson for my class? Sometimes, just sometimes, immigrants see a country better than the locals do. And both are going to play a part in writing that country's future.

Addendum: A much, much longer entry could be written about the 

many other bureaucratic steps one has to take to "become Spanish", beyond 

residence and citizenship... such as the dreaded "homologación de título" 

for foreign degrees, or getting a local driver's license. Suffice it to say that 

some of these I've done and others I have on radar, but they are much more

complicated, infuriating, arbitrary and time-consuming. 

So I save them for another day.