Don't Click It

The website of the Spanish Embassy in Chicago has disabled right clicking. This seems quite suitable to me, but unfortunately the technology has already been copyrighted. Also, you can't use your mouse cursor if you're facing south-southwest.

Pigeon Attack!

There was a pigeon in the metro tonight. Terrified, it banged its head hard against the ceiling as it flapped wildly through the station. It rounded the corner as I was exiting the train, giving me little time to ponder the situation, and as it flew past me all I could do was dodge to one side as I felt the feathers tickle my left cheek. Other metro-goers reacted in similar manners. I heard some laughter and I laughed as well as the bird continued deeper into the station.

However, as I reached the top of the first of two sets of stairs, I considered that maybe laughing had been inappropriate, and that the true gentleman would not have dodged to one side, but rather caught the bird by its feet and neck (so as not to be pecked) and transported the poor creature back outside. After all, in its crazed state it easily could have descended into a baby's carriage, or worse, into the conductor's car, where he might have lost control and caused mass chaos and destruction.

My smile faded and I realized that no one else was smiling either. That is, the people whose faces I could see weren't smiling. I was walking forward, as I tend to do in the metro, and the best I could do without risking seeming too overeager was to glance at the person beside me, a woman in her twenties who had dodged left instead of right when the bird came down.

Immediately I suspected that she had realized the right thing to do to with the pigeon all along. She had probably been waiting for me to do the logical thing and snatch the beast out of the air and set it free, or in the least to recognize the potential gravity of the situation and therefore to know to keep my crass sense of humor to myself. Had anyone else really laughed or had my Jerry Springer-influenced mind just imagined that?

I began to feel better by telling myself that it had been my knowledge of avian-borne diseases that had caused me to duck in fear, but the lie wouldn't stick. The first reaction had been the natural reaction, and although instinctual, it left me feeling particularly mortal and unromantic.

Skirt Party

There are many types of parties. Saturday evening was my first ever "skirt" party. The concept is this: drinking in skirts possibly could be more fun than drinking in other styles of clothing, for men and women alike. I believe the Scottish culture thrives on this very idea.

Unfortunately, the skirt selection in my closet is tragically limited, thus forcing me to borrow. What's more, because I was running late I could not be present for the choosing of the skirt, which resulted in me being presented with two options. The first, which I first saw while walking to the party, was a stylish and somewhat long-- down to my knees, at least-- jean skirt, complete with little pockets. The second was a little green thing which appeared too short and too small, but then I could still be under the effects of Mr. Pratt, the dollar bill carrying Dean of my Catholic High School. I'm positive the green skirt would not have passed the Dollar Rule, that ancient law that says that inappropriateness begins exactly a dollar's length up from the knee.

Apparently I'm a bit of a girl when it comes to skirts, but the jean skirt just didn't offer me enough mobility, so after about thirty minutes of uncomfortable fidgeting I stole into an empty bedroom and changed into the green one. Much better, albeit a little more revealing. The problem was that most of the guys at the party thought that "skirt" meant "kilt" or "man-cloth" or "towel", and thus I was left as one of three in an actual skirt, and of these three I was the only one without leggings.

Back

The spring has been event-filled, so much so that I am now dauntingly far behind in recording day-to-day life in this country that continues to offer surprises by the spoonful. I have taken my first real vacation, real in every way except of course the lack of vacation pay, and benefited from yet another holiday week to boot.

I'll try to start where I left off, sometime when spring was about to pretend to start for the first time (it had to start again after failing the first time). I headed to Valencia to see the end of a festival known as las Fallas.

I had heard many rumors of las Fallas. Generally people had one of two reactions when I told them I was going, either a widening of the eyes and a "you-lucky-son-of-a-bitch" look or a raising of the eyebrows and a "yeah, I was dumb enough to go one time, too" look. Descriptions of the event itself remained elusive, though before leaving I was sure of two things: fireworks would be involved and there would be lots of people.

I was not disappointed. There were indeed many people and many fireworks. An entire novel could be written on the differences of firework attitude between the USA and Spain. It's as if the only people who voted on the city safety and fire code were males below the ages of 12 and a half.

An ominous cloud of smoke ringed the city center. From the cozy regional train station on the edge of the city I could hear the irregular but frequent boom of fireworks all around us. They were mostly the low-pitch type that sound like a cannon and worry your mother that I could hear, but upon entering the city I found that the less powerful but more numerous Black Cat variety was also widely popular. Indeed, the big types were used for more well-planned projects like the blowing up of the large, dirt-filled tree pots, while people seemed to prefer the small ones for sneak attacks and surprising their enemies. A third variety was employed less often. Once the fuse was lit it would rocket about in all directions for about three seconds (a long time for rocketing about) followed by a short trail of neon-pink flame. The ideal location of placement was the location with the highest number of slow-moving individuals-- toddlers, the elderly, people with strollers.

Despite the apparent lack of any sense about the whole thing, I only saw one ambulance the whole day, and although this one seemed rather busy, it must have been for more minor injuries, as no tragedies were reported on the news.

Although the fireworks and the drunkenness (not me, at 5pm, but plenty of others) and the magnificence of Valencia's city center were greatly elevating my mood, I still really didn't have any clue as to what was going on. Huge statues stood every hundred meters or so, which I learned were made of paper mache and, according to my travel partner, were meant to be set on fire.

Throughout the day I gathered more and more information about this strange event. These Ninots, as the crazy paper mache statues were called, really would be set on fire. All but one, which would go into the Ninot Hall of Fame. There were all sorts, too many to show all of them, and everyone of them spectacular-- I liked the one of the giant banana especially. The artists work all year on them, so the people said-- some of these people were quite drunk-- and in the end their statues are destroyed. Even the Mighty Menagerie Ninot, which I thought would win without a doubt, it being the largest Ninot, was destroyed.

The artists create these works of art as a vehicle for political critique, and then they set them on fire. Quite a system of venting, and not one house caught on fire the whole night.

Drum Circle

The weather is warmer. This brings about all sorts of changes to the city, such as greener colors, sunglasses, ice cream stands, and allows for more frequent public events like the nude protest against the killing of Canadian seals, in which about 250 people participated. I was several metro stops away, and unfortunately I missed out, and in fact was totally oblivious of the event until I saw two red people-- the protestors painted themselves in light red paint-- relaxing in Retiro Park. Everyone needs a break, I suppose, and it's true that in Madrid it doesn't get much better than Retiro on a Sunday afternoon.

The park was so packed that it was difficult to walk, and just about every free green space was occupied by a person taking a nap, or playing an instrument, or juggling, or eating, or drinking, or playing drums. The drummers, however, all congregate in one location, which from about 4 to 11pm beats incessantly. They come and go, playing in groups from 3 to twenty or so, but the music never stops. It is the ultimate drum circle, truly world beat, with drummers from nearly every corner of the world.

It's an amazing sight and about as un-Midwestern as could possibly exist, an all day long free party that today has me thinking a little slower and looking forward to next Sunday, the day during which I used to do something that must not have been too important, because whatever it was it has already been forgotten to the sounding of the drums.

That's not entirely true. I used to spend my Sundays at Retiro reading. I even brought my book with me this Sunday as well-- it's bright pink, Spanish, and about pirates-- but it didn't fit in very well with the situation.

buying groceries and the global economy

My local grocery store is a little less than a mile away from my apartment, about a ten minute brisk walk, and I always walk briskly. The sidewalks leading there are exceptionally narrow, with the typical brown, metal cylinders positioned every 5 or 6 feet, which serve to smash my eggs and bruise my tomatoes on my walk home, among other things. These things combined with your typical Madrileno's love for taking up space makes me put off serious trips to the store for as long as possible. I can get by with making small purchases at the store near my work and transporting them in the metro for about a week, the time it takes me to run out of bread, milk, tomatoes, and juice simultaneously.

Two days ago was that day, and today I finally made it to the store. It was 3 pm, one of the slowest and busiest times to buy groceries besides all of the other busiest times to buy groceries that aren't at the moment the store opens. Things went smoothly, minus an awkward moment-- for me, anyway-- when a man with a shopping cart refused to move even a centimeter backward in the egg aisle to let me through until he had examined the three main types of milk, skim, semi-skim (there's no 2% here), and whole. I hope he learned all he set out to.

The time came to check out. There was a Chinese girl already checking out in front of me with mounds of items, so much that the dainty check out lane couldn't handle the whole load at once and both lanes had to be used. This was all fine, except that when the woman at the cash register tallied the amount at 53 euros the girl was shocked and wanted to leave some items behind. This would have been fine as well, except that the girl spoke almost no Spanish, and the woman at the cash register, as far as I could tell, spoke no Chinese, unless she was hiding it out of pure meanness.

This was more or less the source of the confusion. Clearly the shopper and the worker had differing opinions in what this seemingly unthreatening mathematical equation meant. To try to clear up the misunderstanding, the woman at the cash register, a young Spanish woman with big loop earrings, resorted to standard operating procedure for store workers attempting to communicate with those who don't speak their language well. This involves the rapid-fire repeating of important phrases in as many different ways as possible so that the listener can choose the one they understand most to respond to. In each case, using more words is considered better, especially friendly additional words that make one sound more down-to-earth (like the English word "folks", which consequently, has never appeared in any of the English text books I teach from).

The listener, in this case the now desperately gesturing Chinese girl, can then respond by understanding absolutely nothing and offering a smile meant to assure the other that, at the least, they aren't crazy.

I was standing innocently behind the girl in line while this went on, occasionally offering sympathetic faces at both of them if they looked my way. Their conundrum continued for a good 5 minutes, but after hearing the girl say something in English, and the worker respond with an annoyed hombre, yo no hablo ingles, I offered to help out. The girl only spoke a little English, and so my help consisted of telling the woman at the cash register everything she already knew: that the girl misunderstood the sale sign and now wanted to leave just about everything she had at the register minus a six-pack, a bag of spinach, a package of fruity yogurt, and a sealed bag of freshly-chopped fish, freshly-chopped fish being unreturnable-- something that I think everyone at the register, regardless of nationality, could appreciate.

In the end I was allowed to purchase my groceries before the problem was all the way solved, after the flustered girl's groceries were crammed completely on the other side of the register. As I turned to leave the embattled pair faced each other once again. I felt a bit like a coward for leaving before the battle was over, the returning of the goods battle, but I had class and I had already dedicated a good 7 minutes toward grocery store diplomacy.

On another note, here is a picture of a Carnival party at my apartment with my roommates, Javier, Peter, and Ricardo.

No phone...

Another weekend in Madrid, another batch of stories for home.

Unfortunately, my phone went missing in the metro at approximately 5:45 am. That's what happens when you try to go home early in Madrid. A friend called it today and someone answered with "Hola, Luz?" I haven't been lucky enough to get through, and now it has been turned off, surely forever. Thus ends the life of my first Spanish cell phone.

Where Has the Metro Lady Gone?

Here's a little sample of a typical morning for me here in Madrid.

7:30 - Phone alarm goes off.

7:35 - Phone alarm goes off again.

7:37 - "Tricky" phone alarm goes off, the one I set at an odd time the night before to remind me of the importance of things like showering before work and breakfast.

7:37 - Inner debate on the necessity of things like showering before my morning class and having breakfast.


7:42 - "Tricky" alarm goes off again. It's difficult to tell if it's getting lighter outside. Outside my window the light appears just as grey as before reflecting off the building opposite. In fact, no matter how much sun there is outside this is the same shade of grey it will be all day.


7:43 - Shower or breakfast. Never both.

8:05 - Proceed to metro station with a brisk pace. As the practice here seems to be to take up as much space in the sidewalk as possible, this requires a good amount of people dodging. A group of four in the appropriate formation is impassable.

8:10 - Arrive in metro.

Metro Madrid brags constantly about itself. There are still numerous posters up from its fall ad campaign, which shows among other things the Statue of Liberty on her knees staring, dumbfounded, at the metro entrance. There's also one with the Sphinx doing the same thing. I've never been in New York's or Cairo's subway-- I'm not sure if it's really furthers their cause by taking a jab at Egyptian infrastructure (no offense to Egypt, but the ad did come out just after the terrible rockslide)-- but it's true that Madrid system is pretty incredible. A three minute wait is rare in the morning.

One stop to Diego de Leon and then I switch trains, then go three more stops and I'm in Nuevos Ministerios. The trip takes almost exactly 25 minutes, during which I sometimes plan lessons, read, and of course listen to the variety of musicians performing in the halls and trains. Normally these musicians stick to one post, where they arrive punctually and leave at a set time, to be replaced by the next.

For the past 6 months I've listened to the woman sing in the hallway of Diego de Leon. I could hear her sad, droning voice as soon as I got off the train. She had four songs before Christmas, five after, two of which were Sinatra covers. One, my personal favorite and the one that just so happened to have the least amount of words could liven up my entire morning with its Eastern European beat, but unfortunately I only heard it once or twice a week out of the thirty others.

Last Monday she was gone, replaced by a young but scruffy violinist. I can't help but wonder what happened to her. It could be that she went to search for the missing verses of Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps-- she only had the chorus, some filler, and part of the intro-- or maybe she moved on to bigger and better things. I'm not saying that I didn't respect her efforts, but sometimes her voice in the morning made me want to throw something at her, just not enough to throw the only things available to me that she would have wanted: my phone and a few coins. Many people in Metro Madrid make a killing selling tissue paper; another friend of mine has talked excitingly about her plans to earn a living doing gymnastics (not stripteases, she insists) on the hand rails in the train.

She probably has it right. I've never seen a "gymnast" in the train, and the most original efforts seem to be worth as much as the most talented.

So like I said, I respect the metro lady for her efforts. It can't be easy being a semi-talented (talented in her punctuality and dedication, anyway, if such a thing is possible) metro performer doing unoriginal things at a generally unfriendly time of day. I hope things have gotten better for her. Maybe she's doing great, singing her heart out to appreciating passersby at a more appropriate time, like from 11pm to about 6am, when people in the metro are a little more primed for her performance.

Re-Snow Day

It snowed again here today. This is super rare for Madrid to have more than one snow in a year, apparently, though I don't know first hand. The madrilenos didn't seem to know what to do. The expressions on their faces varied from utterly distraught to absolutely ecstactic, this of course from what I could see from under their umbrellas, which once again everyone except me carried.

In fact, the only two people I saw without umbrellas were television reporters interviewing passersby outside of my metro station. I remember when I first came here noticing how beautiful the women are who have this job in Spain, and how awesome it would be to have to talk about whatever subject with them. This of course would be on my way to or from work, or out at night, or coming back from an outing in some other city, and certainly not on a Sunday morning, with my hair matted down like a wet carpet and my jacket smelling like a cigarette factory on fire. That was how I was today, but fortunately or unfortunately, the two reporters who interviewed me were some of the only non-comedian males behind a camera in the whole city. It only quickly flashed through my mind that really, with the camera there, it was like talking to all of those pretty reporter women all at once, or at least to all of them who watch the morning news. Maybe it was a little different.

After discussing the weather in front of the camera-- always everyone's favorite activity-- I decided to join in the snow frenzy. Still about half a mile from my apartment I broke into a run. Plenty of other people had been running as well that I had seen, and besides my lack of umbrella required me to take some action according to the Madrid Laws of Appropriateness. In reality I was just really thirsty and the fat, wet drops of snow melting on my face weren't helping me ignore it. They could have seen the desire in my face, I'm sure, except of course that all the sane people were inside or with their eyes hidden by their tightly held, slightly forward slanted umbrellas.

Snow Day, Back to Work

I came in early last Thursday evening, after all but one and half of my potential 7 hours of classes had been cancelled for the day. Fortunately, it was my last class who had remained, a group of soon to be doctors who like to treat me to tapas and drinks after class. I don't complain. The metro went slower that night. I didn't walk through the door to my apartment until nearly 2am. My roommate Peter was lying on the couch.

"Is it snowing?" he asked.

"No," I said. "Just cold."

It seemed like a strange question to ask, especially at 2 am in our living room, which has window that takes up practically the entire wall and overlooks a park. My morning classes had been cancelled as well. I got into bed and turned off my alarm.

I woke up the next day to the normal grey light of my interior room. Without bothering to check the clock, or put on pants, I left my room with the intention of cooking some breakfast and was instantly shocked to see snow, heavy snow, coming down outside my window. There's something mystical about the snow. Eager to capture the moment, I rushed to get my camera. I snapped the first few shots hanging out of my window, still pants-less and shirtless (but not underwareless, I thought I should say).

One of the first things I noticed was the silence. M-30, the main highway surrounding Madrid, had almost no traffic, just a slow moving car every now and then. I think of many things when I think of Madrid. Quiet is generally not one of them. The second thing I noticed were the people in the park. They seemed a bit perplexed by the whole thing, their animals too. The shining torch of their confusion? Their umbrellas.

Sadly, my snow day was cut short by an ill-timed migraine. I tried to run it off at the gym, but this one got the better of me and I had to waste precious snow time sleeping off the pain. Still, I didn't miss out on the evening news reports, one of which interviewed several people from youngest to oldest, each insisting that a progressively longer time ago had been the last time they had seen a snow like this one. There was also a man explaining how to put chains on a car, though I'm not sure where in Madrid one could hope to find them, or anything to use them on, for that matter.

Amazingly, after the three days the snow is still here, albeit in patches. Madrid has proven itself tough enough to survive a real winter storm, except of course that today when I went grocery shopping they didn't have any carrots, or salad, or chicken, or bread. A couple more days of snow, we might not have made it.

Los Reyes

I'm fortunate to live in a country that thoroughly appreciates celebration. Being a traditionally Catholic country (they even more or less escaped that pesky Reformation) Christmas is celebrated and no one works. However, and I think they did this just because of their profound appreciation of celebrations, they also celebrate Los Reyes on the 6th of January, and again no one works and everyone celebrates. This is the day in Spain when families exchange gifts, although now some families also exchange gifts on Christmas as well. One might be inclined to think that it might be smart to space one's holidays out a little more so as to not have too high of a concentration, but don't worry, their are plenty to go around.

The city holds several parades in honor of Los Reyes, one of which I was lucky enough to be a part of. I headed to Canillas metro stop, which is about 10 stops East and North of me. That's really saying something, as I consider myself located very far East. Of course, I went with a Spanish invitation, without which I would never have known such a parade existed.

And exist it does, and with style. As I watched, I couldn't help but thinking how good these parade-goers had it. Specifically, the kids. Their job, the ones who participated in the parade, was to throw a near unlimited supply of candy to, or sometimes at, the crowd. Almost all of the candy was the same, small, round, colored hard candy wrapped in clear plastic. However, one of the boys on the floats who appeared to be a little older than the others, maybe 12, apparently brought some of his own. His candy was much bigger, and as I watched from several feet back, he cocked back with what appeared to be a Twix-sized object and heaved it directly into the forehead of the woman standing in front of me. For a moment I didn't know how to react, but after a nice me cago en la leche! the woman seemed to be fine.

But I started with how good the parade-goers had it, and I didn't mean to suggest that I think throwing large pieces of candy at people's faces was something that I enjoy or would enjoy. I meant that as a kid, it doesn't get much better than having an important job to do in a cool costume on the top of a giant slow-moving object.

Also interesting to watch were the candy collectors. People of all ages were there, but it seemed that the most aggressive participants were either between the ages of 3 and 6 or 75 and 129. I thought it was a little strange that the 75+ crowd would have such a serious need to get their free candy fix, but later Bea explained to me that her grandmother used to give her all the candy she found at the Reyes parade.

Like the Midwest but with Castles

December 28

8:00 in the morning didn't used to seem so early. That was before I moved here, where things happen later and I have become, somehow, even paler. Granted, I have to get up early for work sometimes. But as they say, you don't work on vacation. And that's what this is. Three whole weeks of it. However, this day I had to get up. At a quarter to 8 the phone rang and we shuffled downstairs and into the street where a car was waiting to pick us up. Bea and her Dad, Jose, were there to get us, and we had to hurry if we wanted to see everything.

The drive was about an hour and a half into the heart of Castilla-La Mancha. We stopped about half way to eat some breakfast where I foolishly ordered a tortilla and a coffee; I even had to get help finishing the tortilla. It was a little chilly outside, freezing, if you're from Madrid. I couldn't have been happier to have finally seen a view without a building.

Our first stop was Segobriga, a well-preserved Roman ruin that used to serve as the center of a large communication network in the region. This info is thanks to a pamphlet, which I took in Spanish and Jose took in English, to practice.

Next came a little more driving. The first castle we drove to required some off-roading to get to, and unfortunately our little get-up just wouldn't have been able to make it. So I took pictures from far away. We could have walked, but the Madrid and California representatives were looking very comfortable in the nice warm car. The second castle, which is small but has an enormous wall extending from it into the surrounding town, was closed for repairs. So I took pictures of that one far away as well.

The last thing to see before the long day of eating ahead of us were the windmills of his home town, Mota del Cuervo. Mota del Cuervo is the biggest town in the area, as Bea's grandmother loved to constantly point out, and has, among other things, a pool and a doctor. Surely it has more than this, it has 6000 people, double the size of my old town of Watonga, which had more than one doctor and two pools to boot.