Monthly Archive

We love cities, and Madrid is a fantastic city. Having been deprived of some of the luxuries of urban living for so long, we are both fully enjoying getting back into the lifestyle: the ease of transit, both by foot and metro; the greenery interspersed among the historic towers of concrete and steel; the hustle and bustle of so many people, and, of course, the people watching.

Over the past two weeks, however, I have been watching those same people slowly drive me up the f*cking wall.

I am an ardent supporter of the lackadaisical Mediterranean lifestyle and fully embrace the tranquilo (basically: “slow it down, hombre”) mentality, but can’t these mellow bastards walk in a straight line and on at least ONE side of the road, sidewalk, grocery store aisle, museum hallway, metro staircase or other public venue? Being laid back doesn’t mean there can’t be SOME kind of order and regard for your immediate place in the public sphere. I’m not talking about going all German where they fine you €60 when you’re late for your ping pong club meeting*, but c’mon…

Case in point:
During a recent trip to the grocery store (throughout which I was plagued with a raging headache), I:
• endured 30 minutes of sheer pandemonium while every Spaniard in Madrid, it seemed, scrambled to get to the market before it closed. There was no order, no common sense, no thought as to whether a person’s individual actions affected another. It was as if a giant ant farm full of Spaniards had just been dropped from above and shattered into this market and they were all skittering about trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
• was nearly bowled over 3 times by people not watching where they were going.
• got caught behind some numbskull intent on reading every ingredient on the back of a shampoo bottle whilst standing squarely in the middle of the aisle, oblivious that he was prohibiting traffic in ANY direction.
• received glowering stare-downs from a bunch of old ladies who wouldn’t move so that I could get to the stack of shopping baskets—which, contrary to logic, were not at the front of the store, but nestled behind some register which took 10 minutes to find, and rather than move them to a more accessible spot, the 10 employees of the store were all intent on stacking yogurt in the cooler section.
Needless to say, we won’t be going back to the market anywhere near closing time. Learned our lesson.

Anyway, as I was bitching to Al about my experience on the way home from the market, I commented that I longed for Chicago and the American appreciation of personal space, walking on the right, etc., and speculated that things would be different once we got away from all these Spaniards. She was quick to retort that it’s not Spaniards, it’s people that drive me nuts.

Maybe I need my own island?

*True story: our German friend, Tomas, said that he was in a table tennis club and if you’re late for your match (by even one minute), they fine you €60. Zee beatings vill kontinue oontil morale eemprooves!

-bdmc

Okay, no more “your mom” jokes. There’s a little bit of a generational misunderstanding going on. The “your mom” jokes were in no way directed at nor intended to offend our wonderful mothers.

Disclaimer: The opinions reflected by the readers here at Conison Industries do not necessarily reflect the views of the management and staff.

-cuptastic

You’d think that the continent with the greatest concentration of world-class museums would have yielded a population with at least a functional understanding of how to browse and behave in one.

Our recent trip to the Thyssen-Bournemisza Museum proved that this is only wishful thinking. There is still no way to get the culture without having to put up with the uncultured.

Alas, the day they institute a mandatory Museum Etiquette class and certification program for anyone wishing to enter such establishments is still too far off.

-bdmc

A social commentary on Las Viejas, or as we have dubbed them, The Biddies of Spain.

Unlike in America—where once women reach 60 or 70 they begin to be overlooked in the eyes of society (depending, of course, on whether or not you consider 30 to be the new 20 (we do))—elderly Spanish women refuse to go unnoticed. We’re not entirely sure what motivates them, but they are very committed to preserving their relevance at all costs. This is accomplished through a number of means:

First, rather than adopt the stately gray or white coiffure of the aged American woman, the senior-itas of Spain generally go fire-engine red with the hair dye. This makes them visible from a mile (1.6 kilometers–they’re metric over here) away, ensuring that you’ll notice them.

Second, they dress to the nines, regardless of time of day, destination, or general plan. Every day calls for their Sunday best: dress or skirt-suit, jewelry, make-up, hair done, heels (granted, stout granny heels, but heels nonetheless), snappy vogue sunglasses, the whole shebang. No mumus, sweatpants or oversized Mickey Mouse tshirts here. This is especially visually jarring when viewed in context of the general crowds, usually adorned in jeans or muted work wear.

Third, should the first two signals fail to grab your attention, their diminutive 4′7″ height puts the powers of stealth and physics firmly on their side and enables them to physically remind you that, “Hey, I’m walkin’ here!”. Believe you me, despite the flashy clothes and poison-dart-frog hair coloring, even your most observant six-footer will occasionally miss an oncoming biddy. Should you have the misfortune to make contact, they strike exactly at knee- (or for the taller ones, crotch-) height, resulting in a loss of balance and / or temporary incapacitation. Given their low centers of gravity, they are unaffected by the oncoming force and continue walking.

Fourth, since they’ve been out walking kilometers every night for the past 60 years, they have become deceptively quick—often closing on you at an unexpectedly fast rate—and have avoided the osteoporosis that plagues modern American geriatrics. Thus, they have no fear of breaking a hip.

These factors, combined with their general contempt for the soft and overly-comfortable modern population—a result of their stoic survival of the Franco regime—imbues them with the moral authority to not yield to anyone under the age of 60, regardless of the predicament in which moving might leave you. Neither oncoming bus, nor train, nor danger of falling off a craggy 300-foot precipice will force a biddy to alter her course from mowing you down. Their strength is often multiplied by the fact that they usually travel in packs of 2 to 6, making them a formidable force indeed.

If you plan on visiting, just remember to watch out.

Photos taken without expressed consent of Biddies and at great personal risk; image on right for scale (dude is about 6′2″ and a few feet ahead of them. He barely escaped by darting across the street).

-bdmc

Note to the Reader:
Unlike Al’s false advertising about the length of her last post, I will warn you that this is a long one. But it’s got pictures!

Still, better read it over lunch.

Today started ridiculously early with the not-so-dulcet tones of our $3 alarm clock rousting us out of bed at 7:30a so that we could catch the bus for our school-sponsored excursion to Segovia, a small city about 1.5 hours north of Madrid, famous for its ancient Roman Aqueduct. (Note: on school days we usually set the alarm for 11:30a, but don’t actually make it out of bed till around 12:30, which gives us just enough time to shower, dress, eat, do homework and leisurely stroll thru the park to make it to our 3:30p class just in time. We ARE on vacation, dammit!). Suffice it to say that NO ONE in Madrid was up when we were walking to the bus…

After boarding the bus and promptly passing out, we arrived in Segovia around 11am and began the day with a stop at a little cafe for a tortilla (egg and potato omelet, a staple of Spanish cuisine) and a café con leche pick-me-up. Fully sated, we then began our tour of the ancient town, which has been inhabited since prehistoric time by a series of disparate peoples, including Celts, Romans, Visigoths, Moors, and finally European Spaniards. The architectural style resulting from this unique range of inhabitants lends an intriguing flavor to the buildings of the town; nearly everything is constructed out of that yellowish stone typical of central Spain, wood and plaster / rubble, and is beautifully aged. So much so, that I managed to shoot 567 pictures of said aged beauty, resulting in my constant tardiness to each successive site on the tour, to the point that I dawdled by the Aqueduct and ultimately and made us all late for the bus home. In America, this probably would have earned me the ire of both the tour guides and my fellow tourists, but here, it didn’t seem to matter. Especially after I explained myself to the guides, saying it was Spain’s fault for being so beautiful, not mine for photographing it. That and the fact that my new Nikon camera, which is made in Japan, instantly converts the user into a Japanese tourist, where even parking lots are worth photographing. Two irrefutable points that no one on the bus could reckon with. Oh yeah, in addition and the bus was late itself, so it was moot anyway. Go Spanish attention to promptness!

The fruits of my labor are on display in the hallowed virtual halls of flickr.

At any rate, we saw a number of awe-inspiring structures, including several churches which had to be older than God (work that one out…); the Cathedral which, given it’s yellow color and incredible ornateness, gives the impression of a sandcastle adorned with mud-drip crenelations; the Alcázar, a fortress situated in such an advantageous position that attacking it would be absolutely insane (it’s on a rocky precipice complete with a 200ft drop to the plain below, and bordered on both sides by rivers), and of course, the Aqueduct, a 2000-year-old beaut of Roman design that has managed to weather the tests of time (and…uh…weather) without the aid of cement or other binding agent / device between the stones (it’s all mass and pressure–physics never looked so good, baby!).

The Cathedral was beautiful, both inside and out, with the soaring architecture typical of Gothic styling, while the Alcázar was slightly underwhelming, if only for the lack of scale (it looks bigger than it is). Inside, however, are several interesting rooms, including the throne room of Ferdinand and Isabella (the pair of monarchs who finally booted the Moors off the peninsula and paid for Columbus to discover America), which features their actual wooden thrones. Interestingly, and counter to Spanish royal tradition, their thrones are on equal footing and are of equal grandeur—usually the queen’s throne was lower and more modest—owing to their shared political clout and mutual respect for each other. Al the feminist loved it. There were also a number of rooms featuring armor from the period, and each room was ornately decorated in a Moorish / Christian hybrid style, typical of the region.

After climbing the 200 steps to top of the tower of the Alcázar, we recovered from our leg cramps and racing heart rates to dine on a local delicacy: roasted suckling pig. Basically it’s slow roasted baby pork that’s so tender they cut it tableside with the blunt edge of a plate. Al got the ass, complete with crispy corkscrew tail and I got a front shoulder and ear, and after we were done, there was nothing left for the buzzards. Say what you will about the morality of eating Piglet, but good lord, it was TASTY. And since we’ve already paid money to see bulls slaughtered in the name of sport we figured we’re already on the ASPCA’s watch list, so what’s one more transgression?

After that it was ice cream, more photos of the Aqueduct and home. Good times, good times.

Oh, and about the title: while in an outdoor courtyard at the Alcázar, I noticed a unique device on one of the walls featuring a metal pin protruding perpendicularly from the wall with a series of Roman numerals in a semi-circular array around it. It dawned on me that this was some kind of ancient clock, and in my nerdy (and at this point in the tour, famished to the point of halucination) excitement, I babbled to Al, “Look! It’s a clock that uses that metal thing to make a shadow to tell the time!” Unimpressed, she retorted “That’s a sundial, you idiot.” Despite this blow, my wit would not be stifled, and I shot back, “Your mom’s a sundial!”.

Boom. Game over. I win.

Oh, and I touched the Aqueduct. Which essentially means the Aqueduct touched me. And inappropriately, I might add. Bad Aqueduct.

I need an adult.

-bdmc

A humorous side note.

In the Spanish language, when you want to describe a place that sells a particular product, you generally add the suffix -ria to the end of the original root word. For example, a place that sells cerveza (beer!) is a cerveceria. Concordantly, a place that sells coffee (café) is a cafeteria, a place that sells shoes (zapatos) is a zapateria, and so on. This scheme works pretty well until you run into false friends (words that are spelled the same or similarly in both languages, but have different meanings), like this:

Man, I sure could use me some joy today!

On second thought, what they sell here could bring joy to some, I suppose.

At any rate, the only -ria to which I will NOT be going is the one where they sell Dia.

Thank you, try the veal!

-bdmc

This post will be short because MC and I are leaving to do a little grocery shopping in a minute and then I have to spend the rest of the evening and tomorrow morning studying because I have my first test tomorrow! Everyone in my class is freaking out a little because none of us have been tested yet (except for the first day when they determine in which level you will be placed), but I don’t think it will be too difficult. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow whether I’m right.

Last night, MC and I went on a pub crawl with our American friend and our German friend. We learned that the concept of a pub crawl is very foreign to Germans. Based on our friend’s complaints, we’re pretty sure Germans like to go to a bar and stay there and don’t you dare try to pry that beer out of their hands until they’re good and ready. And why the heck would anyone leave a warm bar with plenty of beer to walk to another one? However, we managed to convince him to soldier on for the sake of cultural exposure. Truly, pub crawl is probably not the most accurate term for our evening because we basically just tried to find bars that would serve us food for free with our drinks. Unfortunately, we seemed to be in the wrong part of the city for those types of bars. At the last bar we finally got a little bit of free food, but unfortunately for MC, the first plate was shrimp (he doesn’t eat seafood) and unfortunately for us both, the second plate was liver (we think). The bartender called it “el estomago,” (though she looked a little unsure when she said it) but we think it was actually liver. It wasn’t bad, but a little too salty for my taste. And I’m pretty sure I saw the bartenders standing in the back giggling at us - though that could have been for a number of reasons. Oh well, I’m still alive 24 hours later. We also watched the Spanish national team beat Italy’s national team. I’m assuming that the game didn’t mean too much because no one seemed particularly excited about it. In fact, los americanos probably showed the most enthusiasm and our ignorance in the process. It’s also very confusing trying to talk to people about futbol because they assume since I’m American I mean “football” (as in American football) when I say “futbol,” but I sound like a stupid American when I say “soccer.” It’s led to some truly absurd conversations.

Saturday is our German friend’s last day and our British roommate’s/friend’s last day. We’ll be going after class tomorrow for one last night out with them, but it will be pretty tame because we leave for Segovia somewhat early Saturday morning. MC has been doing quite a bit of research on Segovia, so we should be well-prepared. We’re going with the school and are not really sure what to expect because the cost is so low. So we think they might just sort of dump us off in Segovia and say “see you in a few hours!” and that’s it. If that is the case and we end up being our own tour guides, we want to make sure we can make the most of it. Anybody have any ideas of places to go, things to see, what to eat, etc?

-cuptastic

This is directed at my designer-dork fiends:

Has anyone else noticed that the kerning of “Madrid” in the header image is atrocious? It begs the question “Who’s ‘drid’ is it?” Clearly, it’s Ma’s Drid. Way to go, Ma; I didn’t know you had a ’drid.

Needless to say, I’m planning on replacing that image as soon as I find a more appropriate one.

At any rate, the shot is of the back of a street sign near our apartment, typical of those throughout the city. Though at first glance, it appears clean and refreshing, especially when viewed in context with stereotypically clunky American civic signage, I have seen numerous examples of the city signature (the crest with the bear and the strawberry tree (who knew they grew on trees??) with “Madrid” set below) in a number of different fonts, arrangements and renderings. Brand standards anyone???

Jesús Dulce.

On the contrary, I must credit Madrid for having a decent design vocabulary overall. I’ve found a number of examples of stellar graphic design that I am planning on uploading as soon as I get the opportunity (though judging from past precedent, that could be a while).

-bdmc

So I have a sinking feeling that we’re in for a rude awakening in the next couple of days, at least from an educational perspective.

The way the class structure works, you take classes for a week or two, then on Fridays, there’s a test of your aptitude to determine if you’re fit to ascend to the next class. It seems most of the people here take these tests pretty seriously, as they are always studying. Al and I, however, don’t seem to fully understand the gravity of our impending doom. Rather than “study” (and what material to study, we haven’t the foggiest idea, as lesson plans here aren’t really…linear. Or defined—page numbers and topics are arbitrary, we’ve discovered), we are focused on applying our knowledge and expanding our skillset by real world testing: in the bars.

At any rate, Al has a test on Friday (I don’t because I take the short bus to the beginner’s class in the basement and they’re giving us a few weeks to stop drooling on ourselves before they ask us to write our ABC’s) and neither of us spend a fraction of the time studying that the rest of our roommates and friends do. Are we missing something? Or are we just that freakin’ smart?

I’m going with B.

-bdmc

…as an American. Global warming is being caused by 18- to 21-year-olds in North America and Europe.

-cuptastic

So we went to a bullfight yesterday evening. I have been once before, but MC had never seen one and our friend got tickets for about 4 euros. (Which is probably about $30 at this point, but who’s counting?) I’m completely conflicted about bullfighting. I think there’s something to be said for the historical and cultural aspects, but that doesn’t erase the fact that it truly is killing for sport. I love the pageantry and the costumes (and damn, bullfighters are pretty sexy), but I hate the fact that you start to get desensitized after the first bull. I welled up as soon as the first bull came prancing out and didn’t stop until the next bull. Then I felt like I got used to it, but I don’t think I want to be more used to it. And I really hate that that the last moments of the bull’s life are filled completely with confusion and pain. But then again, probably the last moments of a lot of creatures lives are filled with confusion and pain. Also, there’s something to be said for the life of the bull up until that point which is probably much better than the life of most animals killed for their meat in the US. But it really is strange to see the life drain out of something, and I’m pretty much done with bullfights. So if anyone who is coming to visit wants to see one, you might have to go without me. Or, you can look at the more than 500 pictures that MC took yesterday and feel like you were there with us.

-cuptastic

Big Daddy here. I’ve had about 5 entries in various states of completion for the past week or so; I keep getting ideas of things to write about, start the entry with a witty title, then never get the time to actually take the concepts thru to completion. So in the intermission between the weird Easter procession / drum line experience we just endured and the bull fight we’re going to later this afternoon, I figured I’d take a moment to throw down some thoughts.

First, as of today, we’ve been here for one full week, though it feels like so much longer (in a good way). We’ve mastered the basics of Madrid including the metro, gained a rough understanding of the city and general location of landmarks and have found several satisfying tabernas where you can get a caña of cerveza (a small glass, maybe 8oz.) and a heaping plate of tapas for about € 2 (~$3.50). Three of those is a full meal at a ridiculously low price, even with the exchange rate in the crapper (gracias, Premier Bush!). We’ve made several fast friends, including an Irish engineer, a number of Germans, a few Brits, a French-Filipino-American kid, a disproportionately large number of Swedes (three of whom we live with), and an American med student from California with whom we’ve discovered many interesting corners of the city, including Madrid’s Short North (get this: assless chaps are just as in vogue here as they are in the States…fabuloussss!!).

Over the course of the past seven days, we have learned a lot, and not just in the language department, but also culturally and socially. The school is awesome, and we’re both picking up Spanish at a surprising rate, despite the complete shock and awe we experienced on the first day of class when it was like being on the Titanic of language, and we were in steerage class. They’ve made up for it, though, but hosting two get-togethers in the last week where they’ve covered the drinks: Monday night was the weekly welcome party for new students where the school buys everyone their first drink at the bar across the street, and Wednesday night, it was all you can drink cerveza and sangría (a red wine and liquor punch) at this bar called Los Ojos Negros (the Black Eyes–contrary to its name, however, it was pretty tame and hipper than expected. No fights, unfortunately.) for a two-hour block from 9-11 pm. In keeping with the lackadaisical Spanish approach to promptness, however, it went on till 1 am, with no complaint from us. Spanish beer, though more readily available and consumed in much larger quantities than I ever expected, is shit, but given that it’s cheap and in this case free, it’ll do. At any rate, being at a school where people WANT to learn AND gets you drunk? Now that’s study abroad.

Most students are older, it seems, and all of them truly want to learn, so there’s an investment in the classwork (versus the mandatory fun of high school Spanish). They hail from all corners of Europe, creating an interesting mix of people and opinions. At a little apartment party we had the other night, there were two Germans, two Brits, a Frog, a Swede and us, and we had a lively discussion about politics, language and the actual influence of American consumerism (it turns out it’s much less dramatic than expected, with at least European countries actively seeking out American trends and incorporating them into their own cultures with a local twist and virtually no resentment). We also learned that despite the impression that Europeans are so much more sophisticated than Americans, all students around the world still view their time at college as an opportunity to regularly get drunk. Some things never change.

So that’s the basics from the last week. There are some other observations I’ve been making that I’m hoping to aggregate into a list with regular updates. Stay tuned.

-bdmc

Random observations about the Spanish adventure, both positive and negative, and in no particular order:

001:
The worst Spanish food is infinitely better than mediocre American food and can be purchased everywhere and for a fraction of the price.

002:
Having a 6 foot stack of blond hotness with you at all times gets things done around here.

003:
Spain needs a smoking ban. Too many boogers, not enough Febreeze. (Note to those coming to visit: Bring extra Febreeze for us.)

004:
We’re too old to be living in a substandard college-style apartment with the requisite patina of filth in close proximity to 4 other 20 year-olds who come home from the clubs at 6 am and hold an afterparty and holler till 7 am thru the paper-thin walls of our echoing apartment.

005:
6 people go thru toilet paper at an alarming rate. And they didn’t have TP in the bathroom before we showed up…disturbing to think of how they managed…

(and MC forgot to mention that not only did they not have toilet paper in either bathroom, but they did not have handsoap in either bathroom. all together now: ewwww…)

006:
They put the lightswitch to the public rooms (i.e. bathroom, living room, kitchen, etc) OUTSIDE the rooms, but the switches to the private rooms (bedrooms) inside the rooms. Weird. I get the idea of turning on the light before entering the room, but what happens if you’re in there and someone turns it off?

007:
Supply-line style water heaters are a decently good idea, so long as you have the water pressure to back them up.

008:
Would it really be that hard to mount a showerhead high enough on the wall so that 6-footers didn’t have to duck each time they wash their hair?

-bdmc

Our fourth roommate apparently returned from her two-week vacation last night (From what exactly do you need a vacation? The taxing few hours a day of Spanish classes? Really?).

She is very loud. This could get interesting.

-cuptastic

We just got back from a couple tapas bars and a chocolateria with our American friend. We realized that everyone thinks I (Al) am Dutch. At the first tapas bar (where you order una cana de cerveca for about $1.50 and get an entire plate of tapas for free) a group of people walked out and said “tot ziens” to me as they were leaving (I totally had to google that to figure out how to spell it. It sounded like “toe seese” to me), and after saying perdon a couple times, the guy switched to English and said they thought I was Dutch. I think they see (somewhat) blonde and tall and assume I am Dutch. (Crazy dutch b*st*rds - MC).

Also, an entire shop devoted to chocolate with a full bar? Best. Thing. Ever.

-cuptastic

I am catching up on some email and blogs today while waiting for MC to finish getting ready. We are going to look for a market that is supposed to be close to our apartment and much cheaper than a store that rhymes with Smell Courte In glase, which I consider to be a cross between two stores that rhyme with Farget and Carbucks. (Spelling is strange because I’m trying to avoid weird web searches and spam). Farget because it offers pretty much anything you could want (although at higher prices) and Carbucks because there are so many of them and you can find them right across the street from each other.

Our tour yesterday was very interesting and made me feel pretty good about my Spanish comprehension. Although at the end, they did about a half hour tour of typical Spanish taverns and restaurants and I was so hungry that it was a little hard to concentrate. I might suggest to them that next time they do the taverns at the beginning of the tour when everyone is still full from breakfast and the historical part at the end. It was extremely disheartening to spend so much time in front of these restaurants with such wonderful smells emanating from them while my stomach was growling and have to walk right on by.

After the tour we had lunch at a little outdoor cafe and then walked around quite a bit until finally ending at the park where we sat and soaked up the sun for at least an hour. (For all the foodies reading, MC and I shared a ham and egg dish served on top of potatoes fried in olive oil. I’m drooling just thinking about it right now). The park was beautiful yesterday and full of Madrilenos who had the day off for Semana Santa. (And, by the way, we’re pretty sure there was a little bit of exaggeration going on when we were told everything would be super-cerrado. There were tons of stores and restaurants open all over the city). I’m glad we spent a lot of time outside in the sun yesterday, because today is much cooler and rainy. Madrid is in a drought right now, so the rain is a good thing, but tomorrow is supposed to be down in the low 40’s and some people are talking about snow. I think maybe that’s another exaggeration, but we’ll see.

Tomorrow is Easter and we are going to try to go to a Procession that’s done in the city and I believe ends in Plaza Mayor. We have heard a number of different things about the Processions, but I’ll wait until tomorrow to explain them once I’ve actually experienced one.

Okay, on to the market and then to do some laundry. Don’t our Spanish lives sound so exciting?

-cuptastic

MC and I just returned home from class for the day and for the week because tomorrow is a vacation day! This week was Semana Santa in Spain, so as the director of our school put it, everything is cerrado (closed) on Thursday and super-cerrado (super-closed) on Friday. Tomorrow, instead of class, we are going on a tour of “Madrid de las Asturias“. It should be interesting because it will be conducted entirely in Spanish. We’ll see how much my comprehension has improved.

This week in class has been great. MC’s Spanish has improved dramatically, and I already feel much better about mine. Except for the times I remember how much I still have to learn. But we’re both enjoying our teachers and classmates a lot. And, of course, we’re spending an adequate amount of time in the bars because everyone knows that’s where Spanish is best practiced. I really wish we could avoid it, but we don’t want to waste our tuition by not doing our homework.

More to come from me this weekend, and to whet your appetite, I know MC has some entries in the works about socio-alcoholic observations. I’ll leave you all to decide what you think they might be…

-cuptastic

I submit the following for most bizarre St. Paddy’s Day ever. And that includes the one where Alex got yelled at by Chet and I lost my pants:

Irish bar in Madrid, surrounded by Spaniards, accompanied by a fellow American, a Brit and two Germans (none of whom could grasp what the hell was so important about the day) watching the locals scream out the lyrics to mid-20th-century American rock songs (think Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis) as covered by an Irish guitarist whilst the German cohort drunkenly convinces a Spanish kid to help him do his homework in the bar.

You espeaka Espanish? How you say ‘los’?

Ain’t no Finnegan party.

It does, however, combine numbers #89 and #72 on the list. (We are SO white.)

Oh, and then came the drunken “let’s compare cultures!” game that, apparently everyone plays. The German wanted to know more American swear words, and after listing off an impressive tirade of offensive language, all we had left to give him was “cocksucker”, which truly threw him for a loop. “Vat iss kock?!?” It didn’t take long to explain. And we learned it in German, but I forgot to write it down.

-bdmc

Let me fill you in in the minor details Al forgot. First: contrary to popular opinion, the British are NOT the most organized people on the planet. At least not at the airport. Aside from the roving ticket desks (there is no fixed counter for any airline), they also refuse to have a fixed gate for each aircraft, meaning you have to stand in the main lobby of the terminal and stare at the LED board until your gate pops up, usually 15 minutes before your flight. And conveniently, the board is facing perpendicular to the oh-so-comfortable lobby chairs so there is absolutely no chance that you can sit in said lobby chairs and view said board. Brilliant. Second, and in support of point 1, they really need to get that Terminal 5 up and running at Heathrow. The “take a bus to the check-in point, go thru security (again) and take another bus to the departing terminal while your luggage sits out in the pouring rain” idea leaves much to be desired. Third, babies screaming in Spanish for the entirety of a two-hour flight are just as annoying as babies screaming in English. Just so you know.

I can speak positive volumes about British Airways, though. Somehow that accent makes all the usually annoying things about flying more bearable.

-bdmc

We made it to Madrid! Our trip was pretty uneventful except for one missing suitcase (with most of my shoes!), but supposedly the suitcase will be delivered today. MC and I went to the school this morning to see which class we test into and the evil side of me couldn’t help but laugh the entire time because the test was written entirely in Spanish and I knew MC was lost. Luckily, he was laughing, too, and they placed him in the beginning level as expected. He did, however, understand quite a bit of the test, he just had to answer all the questions in English. I think he is going to do really well and advance quickly. Unfortunately, our classes were scheduled at different times of the day, but we talked to the director and changed my class so we can be at school at the same time. In fact, we are waiting at our apartment right now (hoping the suitcase shows up soon), and then heading back to the school for our first class this afternoon.

We actually got into Madrid yesterday and took the metro from the airport to our apartment. And then promptly decided that when we leave, we’ll be taking a taxi to the airport. The metro is very easy to navigate, we just have a lot of luggage. (And, of course, that was with one fewer suitcase than we’ll have when we leave). Since I had talked myself into thinking our apartment was going to be horrible, it’s much nicer than I expected. We have two shared bathrooms and a kitchen and living space. There’s also wireless internet access, so we really will be able to keep up with blogging and email. There are five bedrooms and MC and I have the only double. We have three roommates from Sweden who will all be here until July, and one roommate from England who will only be here for another two weeks. Luckily, the rest of the world is not as ignorant as the United States, so all three roommates from Sweden speak English. But there is still quite a bit of communicating in Spanish, so we’ll still practice outside of class.

I think I will join MC in napping a little before class. Normally I don’t like sleeping during the day, but maybe a nap will get me functioning better before I go and embarass myself trying to speak Spanish with a jet lagged brain. I’m sure MC will have his own version of the events so far once he catches up on sleep. More later!

-cuptastic