American in Spain

I love it when current events cause a traffic spike on my blog. The big news in Spanish sports today is regarding a video clip where Sergio Busquets, a soccer player for Barcelona, covers his mouth, looks at Marcelo Vieira, who plays for Real Madrid, and says (no audio, just video) either “morro” or “mono”. Both require the tongue to hit the palate, and are more or less indistinguishable with video alone. The important facts of the case are that, Barcelona and Real Madrid are the principal archrivals in Spain’s favorite sport, and Busquets is a white guy from Barcelona, while Marcelo is a black guy from Brazil. Oh, and “mono” means “monkey”.
(more…)

As my knowledge about social networking and online marketing has grown, I have attained a better grasp of how Facebook should be used, or at least how Facebook wants us to use it most effectively. The most important dichotomy to understand is that between Facebook accounts and Facebook pages. These have evolved over the years I’ve been using the most popular social networking site, and they will continue to evolve. Let’s look at the differences…
(more…)

I woke up this morning to the news that Osama Bin Laden had been killed by US troops in Pakistan. I turned on the news and found a bunch of non-journalism time-filling fluff with a pretty Spanish woman with a microphone going around Madrid asking passersby for their opinion on the news. I turned to the internet and learned that there were parties in front of the White House and Ground Zero with mobs of Americans shouting “USA! USA!” and waving flags. My Facebook feed was full of comments like “From now on, May 1st will be known as Vengeance Day!! Booyaah!” Later, when I went to the local grocery store, where I am known for my nationality, I was greeted with salutations of “Congratulations!”
(more…)

Today we saw the first episode of the second season of Pregnancy. It was Marga’s twelve-week ultrasound. There was an eerie sense of déjà vu in the same corner of the hospital with the same nurses and same 12-week-ultrasound doctor as the last time. Just like last time, I was blown away by two distinct facets of our visit.
(more…)

On April 15, 2011, I was struck by the photograph on this news article. The caption attributed it to a photographer for Getty Images named Chris Hondros. I’d never heard of him, but, when I tweeted about it, I specifically mentioned his name. If my good friend, Kevin McCloy, hadn’t been on a Facebook hiatus, he might have seen my message about Hondros and proudly told me that Chris Hondros was one of his best friends from college.

Five days later, on April 20, 2011, Chris Hondros was killed in an RPG attack by Libyan government forces in Misrata. I heard immediately via Facebook from my friend, McCloy, and the next day it was the top news story across the United States.
(more…)

Over the past several weeks, as a project for his own personal blog, a colleague of mine, Cole Watts, has been interviewing me about my blogging over email. It was a fun experience, as I’ve never been interviewed as if I knew something about anything, well, almost never. I suspect many of my readers might be wondering these exact questions about me, but perhaps not. Here, reproduced with permission, in its entirety, is Cole Watts’ interview of Erik Rasmussen, blogging expert.

Most of us daydream about traveling but many of us will often not leave the United States. I’ve recently had the opportunity to be a coworker of Erik Rasmussen, who took the idea of traveling and ran with it. Erik currently resides in Spain and is known to some as an American in Spain.
(more…)

Nora’s English has been improving by leaps and bounds lately, which is due to many factors, but I think the fact that her American grandparents visited for a week and that her Spanish grandparents haven’t visited for a while made a big difference, by enabling/forcing us to use English primarily at home. Little by little, I have been requiring more of her when she asks for things. When she wants her hands cleaned, she used to get away with just saying “sucio“, but since then we’ve stepped through “sucia mano“, “dirty”, “dirty hand”, and now up to “My hand is dirty.” We’ve climbed a similar ladder for cookie requests, from “más” through “more”, “más cookie”, “more cookie”, “cookie please”, “more cookie please”, “May I have more cookie?”, “May I have more cookie, please?”, to finally, “Daddy, may I have more cookie, please?”
(more…)

This parenting thing is so easy, I think we should do it again! I’m pleased to announce that Marga is pregnant with our second child, who is expected to arrive around the end of October. I’ve never liked things that pop out, scream at me, and scare the crap out of me at Halloween, but I suspect I’ll love this one.
(more…)

Nora’s Spanish has taken some leaps and bounds in the past couple weeks, yet her spoken English is lagging behind, and I can’t help but blame myself for it. In the mornings, when I care for her for 3-5 hours depending on when she gets up, I speak only English to her, except when we are around Spaniards in the grocery store. She, however, chooses to speak Spanish to me. There are some exceptions. When she asks for a cookie, she says “Doh-chi!“, and when she wants to get down off of something (e.g. chair, sofa, stroller), she typically says, “Down!”, although she has recently taken to saying “Al suelo!” (to the floor).
(more…)

I love the smell of x-ray radiation in the morning. Last night, Nora had an encounter with The Ceramic Bulldog that didn’t go so well for either party. She managed to lift the one-kilo ceramic atrocity above the floor and then drop it somehow upon her left ring finger, breaking the dog’s tail slightly. She cried for a bit, but then stopped and it was time for bed, so we all went to Cuba.
(more…)