This is what a feminist looks like. Oh yeah thats right I've spent the weekend getting to grips with feminism. I now consider myself a militant feminist. Why I hear you ask. Well other than the patriarchial slavery that still grips our society, I have a new intercambio partner. It has been declared the summer of Spanish and the biggest part of this is finding someone to speak some of the damn language to. My new language buddy found me on the school list I signed up and in the week we organised to meet today. On the phone she said she was an academic who needs to improve her English for delivering papers to important people. Gulp. She said on the phone she was working on a project that was "the intersection of History, Sociology and Gender Studies". She is also an ardent feminist. That is a is difficult in English but in a language in which I struggle to do simple tasks it was always going to be a lot of me smiling politely and nodding. I was nervous going to meet her but it went really well. I was really happy, and more than a little smug, with how much I managed to understand. I thought I'm doing it, I'm really doing it, I'm speaking some Spanish almost like an adult! Then it happened. I needed to leave to pay my rent, in trying to explain I got myself confused and ended up weaving a web of lies. She understood that I had a problem with the flat and I needed to see my landlord. I tried to explain. Confused her more, tried again, confused her more. We were in too deep at this point and I just surrended and went with it, saying there was some problem with the water pipes. She can never know!
This was not my only dallience in feminism this weekend. At the first leaving party of the season, sob, my spiritual Finnish sister Silja acquired herself some feminist stickers. They said things like "You are beautiful the way you are, do not pursue impossible images." or "Anorexia is real, the images in magazines are not". You get the idea. She and Amy took great joy going down the streets sticking them on posters and even at one point Mike and me for some less than feminist comments. We were joking! It was a lot of fun and the two of them don't have mullets and even have a sense of humour. I know, go figure. That's the sort of talk that got me a sticker of shame. Silja stuck one on a poster in front of a police man and he just smiled, I have a little go on a swing set and I get a talking to. Pigs.
All that good work was undone by a trip to the football. Football will do that to you. The season may be over but the veteran teams of Real Madrid and Bayern Munich played in order to raise money for charity. I have seen a few veteran Charlton games, the last one was behind a pub in Eynsford as Charlton took on a village team. This was slightly different. The Bernabeu was full, all 80,000 of it and there were a few familiar faces. Luis Figo, Fernando Morientes, Paul Brietner, Elber and most importantly Zinedine Zidane. To be able to see one of the greatest players ever play in the flesh even if it was a friendly was a true privilege. He is still operating on a higher plain. His touch was unbelievable, he saw things I couldn't see from the stand and he didn't misplace a pass. It was wonderful. The other highlight was Davor Suker. He seems to have spent his time since retirement eating. He is MASSIVE. Didn't stop him chipping in a penalty though. The game was fun, Real won 8-3. Bayern didn't help themselves giving away three penalties (Real did miss one), scoring two own goals and a completely farcical moment of the goalkeeper kicking the ball straight into Fernando Moriente's face from a goal kick and helplessly watching it trickle over the line. There was also a torriential rain storm which made the whole a lot more atmospheric.
Spain remains politically agiatated. The protest camp remains there and I'm more impressed by the day of their devotion to the cause. There was also fury when a breakout of e-coli in Germany was blamed on Spanish cucumbers. The people of Spain rallied heroically to defend their beseiged cucumber farmers. They have since been proved right and have enjoyed every last minute of it; ignoring the deaths and the fact that the strain is resistant to medicine. It's been a strange week.
love love love x
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