Welcome to "Las aventuras de una gringa andante"

¡Bienvenidos!

"Hay muchos los gringos que erran, pero pocos los que llegan a ser errantes."

A bit about the who, why, and what of this blog

I'm a former high school teacher, a current PhD candidate in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and a novelist who has written quite a bit about Spain. I'm a lifelong New Yorker, but now I've come to Spain for a year to do archival research about African American writers who have spent time here.

I've promised letters about my adventures in Spain to various friends at home and abroad. But I've also promised dissertation chapters to my thesis committee, and if I can squeeze time in I'd love to work on some fiction a little. So this blog is intended as a sort of group letter to all the people to whom I promised to write. Sorry guys, I love all of you, but telling the same anecdote once is easier than writing it multiple times, and this way you get pictures (and maybe even a few videos) as well.

I can't make promises about the content, except that I'll try to make it amusing. This is NOT going to be a guide to living in Madrid (which would be pretty arrogant of me) or even to being a tourist here (though I know more about that). Nor can I promise daily diary-type entries. (I do have those thesis chapters to write, plus the research I'm doing.) If I can make the detective work of hunting in archives interesting to anyone besides myself, I'll do that with pleasure. Otherwise, this is just a record of the amusing, beautiful, moving, or curious things I find on my travels. Please do read, comment, and share. And enjoy one of my favorite cities with me!