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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
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
