Acho! Welcome to Murcia.

To begin, which due to a combination of my long-term and quite serious relationship with procrastination, is now February 1st; approximately 5 months after I originally arrived in Murcia and decided that I ought to start a blog; I should probably explain exactly where the in the world Murcia is, what its like, and what I've observed thus far, for the 99% of people who know nothing about any of these things. I will try to be brief in this first post, since a long and protracted history of Murcia is not in the interest of the reader or my own sanity; but here it goes...

Acho! At this point, after reading it three times in the first 500 words of the blog, you are probably curious as to what this strange exclamation means. The short answer is that I have no idea. Although after living in Murcia for some time, and listening to the jumbled and confusing dialect of Spanish that is spoken here, I am now willing to venture a guess. First, it is purely Murcian. Nowhere else in Spain will you have the pleasure of strolling down the street to a constant deluge of Acho! in nearly every conversation. Second, as to its meaning, It cannot by any means be translated; but it is some combination of damn, really?, cool, hardcore!, awesome, and seriously?. For example ¡Acho tío! (Cool man! Damn man! or Awesome dude!). Third, it is used with absolute impunity by Murcians of all shapes, sizes, ages, genders, races, classes...therefore lesson one for fitting in while in Murcia: Learn the contextual useage of ¡Acho!, use it early and often at least once every three sentences and you will be loved.

After overcoming the ever-present communication barriers, primarily concerning Acho and the ability to understand and entire sentence of Spanish that sounds like one word (the Murcian dialect sounds something like normal Spanish while choking on a piece of bread), one can begin to explore the city, its culture, its gastronomy etc. Murcia is a little region wedged between Valencia and Andalucía in the southeast of Spain. Why it was never quite absorbed into either Valencia or Andalucía is beyond me, but its something that the locals are quite proud of, and it has a distinctive local flavor. The city itself its a moderately sized provincial city, which as I am quite familiar with as a native of New Jersey, is a shining example of urban sprawl. It emanates from the historical center, and spreads out seemingly chaotically in all directions for miles. It then immediately stops and is surrounded by a eerily beautiful craggy desert landscape full of lemon and orange orchards that reminds me of the photos of of Neil Armstrong on the moon...but with lemons! The pace of life here is something between that of a snail or turtle, and it is a perfect escape from the stress and constant motion of most other cities which I've visited. To get something simple done (like get some passport photos), it's always a two-day process. Lunch is 2 hours long, and not a minute less, and is always followed by a 45 minute nap. In sum, it takes some adaptation for an American from the Northeast, but its wonderful to live in such a relaxing atmosphere.

So that's my brief introduction to the general points of Murcia....look forward for more observations to come.