The World According to Conison

It’s a good thing we’re leaving for Portugal tonight, as, apparently, we have less-than-endeared ourselves to the Spaniards this weekend. It’s only Sunday afternoon, and already I’ve been berated by a VERY pissed off neighbor and later (in an unrelated incident) got less-than-courteously asked to leave the sidewalk bar at which we were sitting. Stellar.

It started on Friday night when our Swedish roommates decided to have an impromptu party which included floor-stomping sing-alongs to ABBA (how cliché!) that lasted till 3a, after which, they migrated to a bar, only to return just as loudly 3 hours later, just in time for us to get up to go to the airport to pick up our dear friends who had flown in for the week. Again, stellar.

After we returned from the airport, we happened to meet our downstairs neighbor, an older gentleman in his mid- to late-60’s while waiting for the elevator. He sidled up to us (at this point, we didn’t know who he was) and asked if we lived in such and such apartment, to which, I stupidly responded “Yes, we do.” He responded that it was “quite a fiesta last night” to which I replied, “yeah, I think it was, sorry”. Why I apologized for a party of which I had no foreknowledge, no part in coordinating, nor in which I participated, I haven’t the foggiest. Trying to appease, I guess. This appeasement strategy backfired horribly, as I was subsequently berated—long enough for the elevator to arrive and pass 3x—about how I can’t be sorry (or sorry wouldn’t cut it) as this was the third time this has happened and “you northern Europeans and Swedes and North Americans come over here and do things you wouldn’t do in your own countries”, and how next time he’s going to call the police and yadda yadda yadda, to the point that I: a) lost track of the number of points to which I needed to respond and b) lacked the speed of thought to respond to said points as I had only enjoyed 2.5 hrs of sleep the night prior, and c) even if I did have the speed to think of words, my vocabulary is unable to allow me to express that “It wasn’t me, it was my Swedish roommates, and PLEASE, the next time they piss you off CALL THE POLICE because then WE will get some sleep too!”

His torrent continued until the elevator arrived a third time, upon which he entered it, and subsequently encouraged us to join him. I’m not sure what drugs he was on at the time that made him think we would actually get in the elevator with a screaming geriatric, so I told him no thanks, we’d take the stairs. As we reached the fourth floor on foot, the elevator opened and he emerged, continuing to yell at us as we climbed the next flight and slamming his door with a building-echoing thud. Stellar still.

That was yesterday.

Today, after a decent day of touring and hitting the big flea market, Plaza Mayor, and Sol, we ventured to an off-the-beaten-path plaza known for its numerous cervecarias in order to get off our feet and enjoy a cold one. Though there were 7 of us, we found tables at the far end of a cafe line, conscious of our potential to annoy other diners and subsequently taking all pains to avoid such offense. After 2 rounds of ordering both drinks and food (IN SPANISH!) we suddenly, for no apparent reason, received the check—from a different waiter than we had had all afternoon—who subsequently waited over our shoulders until we paid up.

Now, in the States this is a normal thing; in Spain however, they generally wait for you to ask for the check before they bring it to you (which can be hours if you’re not aware of the policy), considering it rude otherwise. Caught off guard, and under the steady gaze of the waiter #2, we paid up, questioning the whole time what offense we were guilty of to cause them to essentially ask us to leave. Though louder than a twosome, we were much tamer than our capabilities: we were nothing but polite to the staff; we spoke only Spanish; we weren’t camping, as we continued ordering; it was a FREAKIN’ SIDEWALK CAFE and not some intimate high-end restaurant; and though our particular topic of conversation at the time of check-receipt was a tad racy, we took pains to mask it in code and exercise some degree of class (which is a lofty goal for this group). Our only assumption was that the stodgy-looking couple next to us bitched about it and since we weren’t speaking Spanish to each other, the waiters had no issue telling us to leave.

So, just to recap: I got bitched out by a very pissed off neighbor for the noise of someone else’s party, and then got kicked out of a bar for being American (cause, bet yer boots, had we been habloing in Español, they would not have been so bold).

So, I guess it’s a good thing then that we’re heading to Portugal this week. It’ll give the locals a chance to calm down and realize, “hey, those tall white Dutch / German / American (?) kids are gone and it’s still loud here…it must be those damn Swedes!”

A man can dream…

Irritated by my lack of fluency
-bdmc

Our good friends have been arriving this week one by one and as of 9:30 yesterday morning, the American takeover of Madrid is complete! Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Actually, it’ll have to start for real in a few days after they all get over the jet lag. And we’ll be in Lisbon, Portugal until Thursday, so the actual takeover will probably have to wait until we get back to Madrid. And since we’re taking an overnight train back and will be arriving in Madrid around 8:30am on Thursday, we’ll probably be pretty tired so we won’t really get started until Friday. The American takeover of Madrid is coming this Friday!!!

Anyway, we’re so excited to have our friends here and we’re taking off for Portugal tonight, so we probably won’t be posting until we get back.

By the way - Happy Mother’s Day to our wonderful mothers and Happy Birthday to my awesome dad!

-cuptastic

That’s right, folks, I have once again valiantly surmounted the linguistic obstacles set before me and triumphed, scoring a class-high 91.5% on my most recent / second-ever Spanish test, enabling me to enter the coveted Level 2. It will be nice to look down upon all the tongue-tied imbeciles in Level 1 from my lofty throne.

Though the written part a touch difficult—it consisted of tests of our comprehension of 5 different verb tenses, including 3 past tenses (they don’t just “did” things in Spanish…they “did” things differently depending on when, for how long and whether or not it repeated…realllllly annoying)—I aced the oral section. It went something akin to this:

A quick post to say that we have reacquired internet access at the apartment and are now back in business. Let the bells ring from on high!

This technological miracle is just that, as it came not through any action on the part of our landlady nor with any technical assistance from the service provider. Rather, the system miraculously self-corrected after we decided, on a whim, to give it one more go. I can’t explain it, nor do I care, so long as it doesn’t happen again.

New useless posts and photos forthcoming (and fifth coming if we get around to it). At any rate, off to wander wikipedia, er, I mean study for my exam tomorrow…

hating Preterito Imperfecto,

-bdmc

As our time here is winding to a close, we have taken great pains to maximize our our remaining weeks to ensure that we get to see as much of the ridiculously and intriguingly varied Iberian peninsula as is possible under our time and budget constraints (I say again: Damn exchange rate!!). We’ve already covered the greatest hits of the central plains, including Madrid, Segovia, Toledo, and El Escorial. We hit the north side (San Sebastián) and the central east coast (Valencia). That leaves the south, the west coast and Barcelona, all of which we’ve made plans (as in booked trains and hotels) to visit.

Just so our mommies can keep track of us, here’s the remainder of the weekend plans:
A horde of our inordinately large (as in height, not necessarily weight) friends are coming this weekend, and we’re taking the night train (sans James Brown) to Lisbon, Portugal, for 3 days, which checks the west coast off our list, and after that we’re going to Sevilla, then Barcelona and wrapping up our final weekend in Granada / Cordoba before returning to Madrid and flying back to Chi-town. Should be a good time. Those four destinations pretty much ensure that we’ve seen all that Spain has to offer (at least in a cursory sense), with the exception of the north west, which we’ll just have to hit on a return trip.

The Lisbon trip promises to be fun, though I’m interested in how Spain and Portugal are going to react to a group of seven 6-foot-plus whiter-than-white kids roving their narrow streets (we’ll probably have to walk single-file and sideways to avoid getting wedged…). They’ll probably think we’re Dutch.

Here’s to not getting deported.

-bdmc

P.S.: Anyone know any useful Portuguese? Like, “I’m sorry I just offended everything you stand for. I didn’t mean it. America does rule, though…you know that, right?”

Good news everyone! We just figured out (after 7 weeks) that the school (with all it’s free wifi glory) stays open late on Tuesdays (and I think Thursdays). That means we can once again torture you with unsolicited stories of our adventures! Yay!

But I digest. Here’s the real post:

This past weekend was a 4-day marathon of public spectacles in observance of May Day (the European equivalent of Labor Day, which basically means that all the French and German tourists on the continent flock to Spain) and the 200th anniversary the events of the 2nd / 3rd of May 1808 when Napoleon stormed Madrid (for no apparent reason) and the townspeople fought back, eliciting severe retribution by French troops the next day. These are the events depicted in Goya’s famous paintings, The 2nd of May and The 3rd of May 1808 (on display at the Prado. We saw them. Next to each other in a special exhibition. They’re HUGE. And super awesome. And no photo in any art history book comes close to doing them justice).

Overall the weekend was really interesting, as there were several events held throughout town to honor the anniversary (6, actually, hence the name of the weekend, 6 Goya 6). These included a free symphony concert in front of the royal palace (nice vista; made me long for my aforementioned royal holdings); a play involving gigantic marionettes (unfortunately we overslept and missed that one); and two bizarre interpretative presentations: one about the 2nd of May held in the Plaza Mayor consisting of a north African traditional band (presumably representing Napoleon’s Mamluk troops), juxtaposed against a series of junk bands mounted on truck beds, assumed to represent the rabble of Madrid; and another in Plaza Cibeles, which seemed to reenact the retributions of the 3rd of May, through the allegorical use of a pair of star-crossed lovers who lived thru the event. At least that’s what we could gather from the visuals, which, all bizarre weirdness aside were pretty cool. In the Plaza Mayor, there was a huge wheel mounted with pre-tuned guitars which was manually rotated around a stationery pick to produce a song…interesting; in Cibeles, there was a huge metal truss from which a number of people were suspended, all dressed in the white tunic and yellow pants of the hero of Goya’s painting, who were then metaphorically shot by a series of bright lights and machine gun sounds coming from the building behind them, leading them to writhe and wriggle in mid-air. Rather impressive. Oh, and there was a 30-foot tin foil woman who had a person sitting in her chest cavity that opened up to reveal him. We never actually saw the final production of the Cibeles show as we were at the palace, but we stumbled upon the dress rehearsal the night before and it looked pretty interesting. And we figured that was enough.

As cool as all these things were, the truly impressive aspect of the weekend—and of all the Festivals we’ve experienced so far—is the amazing speed and stealth with which the Madrid Department of Fiestas sets up and tears down the sets in the hours surrounding the events. For example, the Cibeles show had a huge 3-part stage, 4 smaller stages, a full light / sound show, 2 enormous construction cranes and a highwire strung between two adjacent buildings and anchored to the street below (not to mention the Aluminum woman and the truss of dead guys). All this went up in a matter of an afternoon and was torn down by noon the next day. Ridiculous. Same thing with the Real Madrid victory party: we walked thru the Plaza at 9p, there was nothing. By 1130p, there was a stage, 6 light / sound towers, a huge PA system and a dj, along with miles of retaining fence which closed off 3 main thoroughfares. And this achieved by a culture not renowned for its vitesse. Now that’s mindbottling.

Additionally, there were a ton of people out in the streets and general joyful pandemonium throughout, though the hordes of French May Day tourists all seemed a bit skittish, and probably for good reason…probably should have done your research, Messieurs…

Viva la Revolución!

-bdmc

Last night Real Madrid won their 31st league championship. We didn’t even realize they were playing until we heard a lot of yelling and honking coming from the street. Our roommate poked her head outside her door and asked if Real Madrid had won. Of course, we stared blankly back at her with no answer. After a short time listening to the shouts from the streets, we figured that they must have won, so we decided to head down to Cibeles (a main intersection / roundabout / plaza near the Prado where fans congregate following a Real Madrid victory). We walked the short distance to Paseo del Prado, which had been shut down to traffic in anticipation of the large crowds of people walking to Cibeles, and made our way up to the plaza. For anyone who hasn’t been to Madrid, Paseo del Prado is a MAJOR THOROUGHFARE in a large city. And they SHUT IT DOWN for a soccer game. MC said to me as we were leaving the apartment, “I want to see some burning couches and overturned cars, or I won’t be convinced that these soccer fans really know how to riot.” Although we didn’t see anything burning or even any cars in the vicinity, let alone overturned cars, we decided that completely shutting down a major road and plaza is a pretty good start to celebrating a victory.

When we got to the plaza, it was already pretty full, and more and more people kept coming. According to the Real Madrid website today, almost 200,000 people packed into the area. The city had set up a big “stage” for the players and there was a dj playing pop music and also what seemed to be the “hang on sloopy” of Real Madrid. We danced a little with the madrileños, but it was a little difficult to sing along since we weren’t sure what the words were. In fact, we spent our entire time in the plaza trying not to make it too obvious that not only did we not even know that Real Madrid was playing, we also know nothing about soccer and we didn’t even really understand what exactly Real Madrid had won. (After hearing “campeones! campeones!” and “treinta y uno! treinta y uno!” over and over again, we finally figured it out.)

We arrived at Cibeles around 11:30pm, and at 1:30am, when the team had still not appeared, we decided to head home. I was hoping to get some pictures of the team for my madrileño brother, but alas, I had no staying power. And, after reading the Real Madrid website this morning, I’m glad that we left when we did. Apparently, the game wasn’t even in Madrid, and the team didn’t return to their own stadium until 2:30am, where they were seen exiting the team bus and entering the locker room with bottles of champagne. Which means that they couldn’t have gotten to Cibeles until around four in the morning. Which means that a plaza full of 200,000 people waited at least three hours for the team to show up. Now that’s dedication. I’m still not convinced that soccer is a better sport than football (americano, that is), but I am pretty impressed by the fans.

* or maybe the idea of soccer

-cuptastic

Our internet access went out at our apartment last Wednesday, sending me into a dimension of pissed off I didn’t even know existed. And not that a lack of internet access is all that worrisome; when compared to quadriplegia, it pales. And significantly.

I know this.

But when in the midst of job / apartment searching and finalizing plans for the remainder of our stay here, a sudden, inexplicable lack of internet access is a big freakin’ deal. Especially when it is your sole form of communication with the outside world (we don’t have cell phones, the apartment phone doesn’t work and there’s no TV). And when viewed as the only self-controllable aspect within our less-than-ideal living environment consisting of a troupe of college-age Swedes content with living on the edge of such squalor that the health department is considering condemning the entire 40-unit buildling on account of their filth, and who are intent on getting ripped to the nines every weekend night and reaffirming for the umpteenth consecutive time that, no, the paper-thin walls of the apartment STILL don’t muffle your raucous 6 AM return and subsequent hour-long drunken recap of the night you just experienced, then, yeah, the lack of internet access suddenly became a big deal.

At any rate, after Al talked me down off the ledge, she kindly reminded me that, despite all my proclamations to the contrary, I—unlike Richard III—had no kingdom to give in exchange for a return of my internet access. Or for anything else for that matter. She then refreshed my memory of all the things for which I have purportedly offered my supposed kingdom during our visit thus far, thereby leaving me in no state to offer it yet again. These include (in no particular order):
• A clean apartment
• A normal-size shower
• Hot water that doesn’t cut out in the middle of said shower
• A clothes dryer
• A clothes washer that holds more than a pair of jeans, a sock and one t-shirt at a time
• A vacuum cleaner
• Thicker, sound-proof apartment walls
• A complete grasp of the Spanish verb structure and all its permutations
• Our own apartment
…etc, etc, etc, all of which, I felt at the time of utterance, were worthy exchanges for my imagined regal holdings.

Upon realizing that I, in fact, HAVE no regal holdings (as yet…working on that one), I was forced to reevaluate my position and clarify the real reasons we’re here, namely: the Prado, the park, the monuments, the food, the language, the sun, the culture, the friendly (though wrong-side-of-the-sidewalk-walking) people, the wine, the cheap (but realllly cold) beer, the history, the smells and the otherwise FREAKING AWESOME TIME we’re having. Could be worse, eh?

-bdmc

P.S.: Please note that all kingdom-worthy aspects are related to our apartment or its state, indicating my overall pleasant contentment with our situation in general. I think, as a 28-year-old veteran of communal collegiate living / previous study abroad experiences, I am officially done with living in student housing with other students. And not like I haven’t given it a fair shake. Now I’m just certain.

P.P.S.: The internet currently remains out at the apartment, nearly a week later, thanks to our oh-so-easy-to-get-a-hold-of landlady…get this: she gives us her land line and her cell number, but doesn’t answer her land line and the apartment phone only calls its voicemail…work that one out. Good thing nothing’s caught on fire. Come to think of it, that may be a great way to get her attention….

P.P.P.S. (and yes, I just went there.): We are spending the bare minimal amount of time (awake) in the apartment, so our actual interaction with aforementioned internet-less squalor is fairly minimal. The kicker is that when we WERE using the internet, it was late at night when we weren’t missing anything outside. Now that we have to forage for free wifi, it’s cramping our style a bit. That’s the only down side and the reason for a lack of recent posts…we know you’re all crushed.

Our internet connection in our apartment is broken right now, so it has been a little difficult to post. This weekend is a big holiday weekend in Madrid also, so I doubt we’ll be able to get anything fixed until next week. Today is the 200th anniversary of the uprising in Madrid against Napoleon’s troops. It’s the subject of one of Goya’s most famous works and a pretty big deal here, of course. MC and I decided to stay here for the weekend since we figured it would be somewhat like what it might have been to be in Washington, D.C. on July 4, 1976, and since we missed that one by a few years…

There are all kinds of activities planned throughout the city today and we are planning on going to three or four. Last night on our walk home we ran into what looked like dress rehearsals for one of the events. Plaza de Cibeles is completely closed down to traffic and they were rehearsing what looked like a story about two people during the uprising. There were tight-rope walkers and a couple of cranes that were used to make people fly through the air and lots of music and dramatic lighting. We left as they were getting ready to lift a giant aluminum woman into the air. Not sure exactly where she fit into the story, but she was very impressive-looking!

So for today, we’re going to try to study a little bit (I just started subjunctive last week! Aaah!) and then head over to see a few of the planned events. Hopefully our internet connection will be fixed soon and we can post a little more consistently. We have a lot of exciting things coming up, including friends coming to visit, a trip to Portugal and more trips to other parts of Spain. It’s hard to believe we only have five more weeks!

-cuptastic

Either the Spanish enjoy their meat rather rare, or they think Americans do (or maybe the Dutch? or Germans?). MC and I have ordered steak in some form or another (entrecot, solomillo—it’s hard to figure out what to order because I don’t even know cuts of meat in English) five or six times now and, of course, every time the server has asked us how we would like it cooked. I’ve never caught the exact words they use to ask, but we figured out pretty quickly what they meant. Unfortunately, we haven’t been sure how to answer in Spanish and so far every time we’ve gotten steak, they’ve basically just led a cow—still mooing and chewing its cud—out from the kitchen. It’s a little awkward.

Fortunately, because I’m all smart and stuff, after six weeks of having to ask the server (in Spanish!) to take the cow back into the kitchen and slaughter it and possibly give it five minutes on the grill, I realized I could ask one of my Spanish teachers (who was born here and actually knows the language) how to order steak. So for anyone who is considering a trip to Spain and would like to be able to order cow that’s already dead and cooked a little, I humbly submit the following:

In Order from Rarest to Most Well-Done:
• casi vivo (almost alive)
• poco hecho (a little done)
• vuelta y vuelta (turned and turned…basically rare)
• al punto (medium)
• muy hecho (very done / well done)

So upon further reflection and in consideration of the fact that they’ve got three different forms of rare, I think it is probably the Spanish that like their cow served living tableside, and not their assumption of American carnivorous tastes.

Vuelta y vuelta seems to be the default for non-Spanish speaking patrons. So basically, if you blankly stare at the waiter when they rattle off something after you order, you’re probably going to get a bloody hunk of meat. I must say, however, that because of my ignorance my tastes have changed a little since we’ve been here. Too afraid to ask the server to take the meat back and cook it a little more, I’ve just eaten what I’ve been served, and I think the Spanish might be on to something with this whole eating meat a little closer to its natural state thing. I figure that since I’m willing to eat beef carpaccio, I can eat rare steak, and honestly, we haven’t had a bad piece of meat since we’ve been here. So the above list is for your benefit if you’re making a trek to Spain anytime soon, but you might want to try the staring blankly strategy—so far it’s worked for us!

-cuptastic