Category Archive

We’re taking a slight pause in the Tall, White Americans saga to relay this important message about Real Madrid, Madrid’s regal soccer team, as we are experiencing writers block on the TWA story and after viewing some pix we took, realized that the following story needed to get out.

Despite our best (and believe me, they were our supreme) efforts, we finally succumbed recently and went to Santiago Bernabéu stadium, home of Real Madrid, to both visit the stadium and later, to see a game. We don’t know if you’re aware, but apparently Real Madrid is the greatest team in the world at every sport, and basking in its glory and achievement is the sole reason this world and all its inhabitants exist. And possibly God, for that matter.

And that’s not hyperbole on my part; it’s more-or-less a direct quote from the numerous information panels within the Real Madrid Museum and Hall of Self-Gratifying Glory. A couple choice quotes:

“Real Madrid is the best team in the 20th Century, which is like saying that it’s the best club of all time: the best club in the history of soccer.”

“The European Cup would be meaningless without Real Madrid.”

Now, being rabid Ohio State football (the only football that matters, etymology be damned) fans (go to hell, SEC, you bunch of over-hyped weenies), we understand the tendency to over-inflate your team’s self-worth and impact on the game (thought it’s hard to beat 7 Heismans and 7 National Championships). This sense of self-awareness, however, seems to have bypassed Real Madrid. Nowhere in any part of the tour nor the game was there any sense that they could lose, have lost, or ever will lose, or that they themselves are not the reason for God’s existence. It was ridiculous.

Unimpressed.

The stadium, in a word, was cute. With a capacity of 80,500, it was so cute, in fact, that it prompted me to ask our tour guide “es para practicar?” and another friend to inquire “donde esta el estadio para los hombres?”. For being the team that invented God, it was a little underwhelming. The press room and visitors locker room, both stops on the tour, paled in comparison to the facilities of most NCAA women’s fencing programs, while the overall stadium was decorated in orange and blue, neither of which is found anywhere in the Real Madrid brand ethos (their colors are white, gold and purple). Makes one question where all the money goes.

Oh, that’s right, it goes to the overpaid players. Basically, Real Madrid is the New York Yankees of European soccer, which means they can pretty much buy anyone they want to virtually ensure that they at least get to the finals in any league in which they play. And when you consider that a large portion of the players aren’t even Spanish, it undermines their nationalistic claims all the more (not that US football teams are all Americans; there’s a Samoan and maybe Canadian or two in there, we know). Whatever is left over goes to provide the La-Z-Boy-like armchairs in which the teams sit on the sidelines. While lounging in them at one stop of the tour, another buddy leaned over and asked “why don’t our professional athletes have such comfortable equipment?”. It’s because our professional athletes are men. With the exception of pro basketballers. They’re princesses.

Alright, enough bashing. Every team has the right and board-mandated obligation to win games and turn a profit. So be it. Doesn’t mean we can’t laugh at them.

The game itself—which by coincidence was the last game of the Spanish La Liga season—was fairly interesting and passionate (at least on the part of the fans). Real Madrid played some podunk team and completely thrashed them, which didn’t matter anyway because they had already locked up the title a few weeks ago. The post-game festivities and presentation of the trophy was as ostentatious as the team that invented God would demand: music; a procession around the stadium accompanied by confetti cannons at each section; an hour-long multimedia presentation and summary of the season; and probably more, though I can’t say for sure because by that point it was getting on midnight and we’d been up for 2 days and were exhausted, so we left. Overall, it was akin to a Superbowl Championship presentation, for which I have equal disdain.

We (and by “we” I mean Al) did do our part to support the Team that Invented the Universe by purchasing 2 €45 nosebleed tickets (I will point out, however, that we were able to acquire these tickets a few hours before the game, at the ticket office, without a line, a fact that would never stand at an Ohio State game, regardless of the opponent; a truly disheartening anecdote that calls into question the true level of devotion of Real Madrid’s fanbase), a Champions scarf and replica game jersey (both for our nephew, who is, with out a doubt, being indoctrinated with this dreck as we type). It pained me to think that we were, in essence, actively supporting the European version of the M*ch*g*n Wolverines.

May God (should he be an independent creation from Real Madrid) have mercy on our souls.

Photodocumentation of our transgression available on flickr.

Final note: the fans (however deluded) were really nice.

-bdmc

Edited to add: I truly enjoyed the tour of the stadium and the game. The stadium does not have a bad seat, and the fans were extremely friendly and entertaining. The Real Madrid museum was completely charming in its unabashed self-glorification and I truly think I’m getting into soccer. I think BDMC’s post might have been influenced just a little bit by his love/hate relationship with a certain rabid Real Madrid fan-in-law we know
-cuptastic

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 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

As a departure from MC’s obsession with the way in which Spaniards walk (it is pretty insane, however we’ve received new evidence that it’s a Mediterranean issue and not a Spanish issue), we have a new topic to discuss: what the rest of the world thinks of Americans!

(I can hear the collective groan all the way over here)

I’ve had a couple interesting experiences in the past few weeks that have shed some light on the rest of the world’s opinions about the US and have actually made me feel a little bit better about international relations.

First of all, I, apparently, do not look American. Last Thursday, a Swiss girl from our school came up to me in a bar and asked me a question in German (after which I stared blankly at her for about a minute and a half thinking ‘oh, please, please, please don’t let my Spanish be that bad!’), and once we got the languages figured out MC asked her why she automatically spoke German to me. She replied that she wasn’t sure where I was from but that I don’t give off an American vibe, and she thought I might be German. So apparently I’m either Dutch or German depending on whether I’m sitting or standing. (I was standing when the Dutch tourists approached me and sitting when the Swiss girl approached). We were talking to her for a while when she said, completely unprompted, that she thought of America as a country of extremes. We have the fattest people in the world and yet so many people with anorexia or bulimia; we have such huge differences in political beliefs among citizens; so much of what the rest of the world sees comes from Hollywood so it’s rife with all kinds of extremism; and even our landscapes are extreme in the sense that our country is huge, our climate is varied and we have such extreme topography from the Grand Canyon to the Rocky Mountains to Death Valley all the way to Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp. She then said that it was very strange to meet someone from the US who is just normal and like any average person from Switzerland or France or wherever. I wasn’t quite sure how to take that, but I think it’s a good thing. Mom? Dad? I’m officially average! And I’m out spreading my American averageness to the rest of the world!

A few days later in class, my teacher wrote “America,” “Holland,” “Portugal,” and “Russia” across the top of the board. (My class consists of, at the moment, girls from Russia, Holland, and Portugal, a boy from Georgia - that’s Republic of, not the US state - and a guy from England. That day however, it was only us girls in class). He then turned and said to me (in Spanish, of course), “Al, what are Americans like?” To which I choked a little on my water and replied, “What are Americans like or what does the rest of the world think Americans are like?” Basically, we were learning adjectives, so each person had to come up with a bunch of adjectives to describe people from their own country. Of course, as we got into the exercise, the other girls became more willing to give their own adjectives for what Americans are like. Among them were fat, loud, tall, patriotic, friendly, open, religious and proud. As we went on for each country we discovered a lot of really interesting things. My impression had always been that most Europeans are pretty patriotic, but at least in Spain and Portugal, that’s not completely true. The other thing that I’ve discovered is that WWII is still at the forefront of a lot of Europeans’ minds. I’m in class with girls that are in their early, early twenties who bring up WWII all the time when talking about relations between European countries. Once WWII was brought up during this discussion, the Russian girl said to me that she thought Americans were very proud because we had defeated fascism. (To which my first thought was, “actually most people seem to be more upset about the whole not defeating communism thing than helping defeat some fascism in Europe,” but decided to keep that to myself). I said that it’s very different in the US because we didn’t suffer like Europe did in WWII, so to us it seems like a long time ago. I think the men and women of that generation were proud to serve their country and proud of helping Europe, but we’ve had so many wars since then that the threat of fascism seems like something from another world and a completely different time period. (Okay, so I wasn’t so eloquent - I had to speak completely in Spanish!) I then went on to say that the current mood for a lot of Americans is actually shame because we’re embarrassed about the situation in Iraq and our imbecilic president and we feel like the rest of the world hates us. The response to this was overwhelmingly positive - according to all of my classmates and teacher there is too much history to just think of the current president and the mess we’re in. They know that a lot of Americans disagree with the war and when they think of America, they think of the people they’ve met from the US who have all basically been friendly, open, tall, and patriotic.

So in summary:

1) I don’t look American.

2) America seems like a big, extreme country to the rest of the world.

3) The rest of the world doesn’t hate us! Yay! (Edited 28.04.08 - Okay, I may have spoken a little soon on this way. The rest of the world doesn’t hate us, per se, but we do have a bad reputation. poop.)

-cuptastic

This post finds us once again revisiting the beguiling walking habits of Spaniards. As you can see from previous posts, this is truly a major point of concern for us; one which we are driven, if not to rectify before leaving this glorious country, at least to understand in greater depth.

Today we made a big leap toward the latter, as we had the revelation that the seeming unconscious tendencies of Spaniards to walk in quite possibly the most annoying ways possible are exactly that: unconscious. Rather, they are the result of natural selection induced by the Mediterranean climate and the physics thereby associated.

Allow me to rise out of my overly complex Hawking chair and speak frankly: basically, we figure it works like this: Spain is freakin’ hot for most of the year, right? What don’t you wanna do when it’s hot out? Move, right? Well, at least not rapidly. So that means for the last, I dunno, 10,000 years, Spaniards have been moving slowly so as not to break a sweat and stain the armpits of their very classy silk blouses, making today’s Spaniards really, really slow.

Now, if you recall from your 8th grade science classes—you know the ones that introduced you to physics through the then-seemingly-cool metaphors of the Spinning Bicycle Wheel and the Mousetrap Car (ok, Mousetrap Cars are still cool)—things that move tend to build up inertia and continue to move in the manner in which they started moving. And the faster things move, the greater their inertia, and hence, the more likely they are to keep going in the same direction (this is, of course, a very dumbed-down, graphic designer’s explanation of physics, and assumes that there are no forces acting to counteract the initial force). At any rate, the converse would be (other than a classic shoe), that slow moving objects are more easily diverted from their paths. Hence, rapidly moving Americans are able to maintain a steady course and speed down the right sight of the sidewalk, whilst slower moving Spaniards are subject to the same forces that cause the Spinning Bicycle Wheel of yore to wobble and fall over. Thus, slowly ambulating Spaniards are more prone to non-linear courses of travel, thereby resulting in their continual incursions into our comparatively straight vectors.

This phenomenon is exacerbated by the physics of mass and gravity, which, we have come to realize, helps explain the tendency of ambulating Spaniards approaching from the opposite direction to suddenly veer into us and attempt to pass on the right, while those traveling in the same direction will pass on the left with as little physical clearance as possible. As an additional result of the aforementioned Mediterranean natural selection yielding ever-more-slowly moving Spaniards, said Spaniards are also generally smaller folk, as smaller folk tend to not get as hot. That also means that compared to larger objects, they’re less dense. 6-foot-plus Americans, on the other hand, are, in the case of Al, very hot, and of me, very dense, which means that together, our collective mass exerts a fairly strong gravitational pull. The smaller, less dense Spaniards are helpless in the face of these physical forces and since their slow-moving speed precludes them from having significant inertia to avoid being affected by our mass, they are thereby drawn to us in one capacity or another.

To put it plainly, we’re just too damn attractive and they just can’t help themselves.

Now, if we can just figure out how their sense of scale became so distorted as to think that a mother, her child and a stroller can fit through the personal space between Al and me (which, although we ARE Americans, is only about 3–6″), that would complete our scientific analysis of the crowd behaviors of the Spanish. I’m sure additional time in the field will yield further clarification. Stay tuned.

-bdmc, Ph.D.

We had a small victory today: we finally got oncoming Spaniards to pass us on our left as we were walking down the sidewalk.

It is a bizarre phenomenon that, despite the fact that the Spanish—like Americans and most other Europeans—drive on the right-hand side of the road, they feel compelled to try and pass you on the inside (right side) when approaching from the opposite direction on the sidewalk. For the past four weeks, we have gone from gracious accommodation to disbelief that this activity wasn’t an isolated incident to stoic immovability to a subtle lateral tracking to the right, which today, finally forced the oncoming Spaniard to reconsider his approach and veer off to the left at the last minute. A small victory, but a key win in the challenge to bring some order to this Mediterranean chaos!

Viva la Revolucion!

P.S. These are the fun little games you play when you’re otherwise completely enamored with a country and a people. Whee!

-bdmc

Today we had an unusually high level of interaction with the natives, specifically those outside the protective (and ridiculously slow speaking) bubble of our school. Reflecting on the linguistic onslaught which we narrowly survived, we came to some interesting (at least to us) conclusions regarding the Spanish language and those who speak it as their lengua materna. They are presented below.

Keep in mind that we are:
a) not yet fluent in Spanish, as such, all statements about the intricacies and nuances of the language are based purely on our limited exposure and subject to change;
2) liberal arts/ business majors and therefore not fully trained in the scientific method. As such, most the “theories” postulated herein are based on circumstantial evidence (although every one of them holds more water than the one about the earth only being 6000 years old. Now, that’s just ridiculous…);
d) not advocating one language as superior to another, but merely observing differences for the sake of discussion;
iv) paranoid about the things reader Spirit of ‘73 is going to come back at us with, hence these disclaimers.

Theory 1: Spaniards speak ridiculously fast because their language prohibits shortcuts, they use double negatives, and they lack the ability to speak with brevity in general.

Data Point 1: The Structure Prohibits Shortcuts
The Spanish language, as with most Romance languages, is very formulaic and regimented (in odd contrast to the people), such that there really aren’t any shortcuts to say most things. Additionally, there aren’t any contractions. Sure, that only means a few letters every now and again, but over the course of a paragraph, that makes quite a difference. Thus, the Spanish are forced to say three to four words to communicate something that, in English, one or two would cover. When you’ve got to double your output in the same amount of time, it forces quickness.
Examples: El Restaurante de Los Padres de Carlos, vs. Carlos’ Parents’ Restaurant (that’s a 50% savings right there) or los padres de mi padre vs. my dad’s parents (an additional 40% fewer words (I think…math was never my strong point, especially in another language). And it’s not just limited to parental descriptions.

Data Point 2: Double Negatives
They don’t not use double negatives. That’s just a-whole-nother kettle of fish adding complexity to the language, as it requires an additional three sentences to explain exactly what you mean by not not meaning something…. Again, the whole more words / same time issue.

Data Point 3: But Yet They Repeat Themselves
It seems that the average Spaniard in the course of conversation will actually say the same thing no fewer than three times, and not necessarily in different ways. And this behavior has been observed between Spaniards speaking to Spaniards, not just Spaniards speaking to retarded Americans. So if you work that one back, that means 66% of what is said is redundant. That means they’re cramming 3 words into a timeslot built for 1. That means that 2 of every 3 words is the same as the first one.

Have we made our point?

Data Point 4: A General Lack of Brevity
Within the 33% of the conversation that’s actually new information, we figure that only 30% are necessary to communicate the point. And that’s accounting for the English equivalents of “like” and like, stuff like that, and like you know, and such. That means that 70% of what is said is essentially conversational gravy and could be eliminated to reduce speed. That all works out to some kind of fraction that Stephen Hawking couldn’t figure out. Point is, all you need is the basic meat and potatoes of language, people: subject, verb. Done.

(The authors realize the irony of this last point, especially in context of some of the overly-loquacious entries in this here blog, but we’re not talking about us, dammit.)

Theory 2: Spaniards Speak Louder with People They Know Than with Strangers

This odd phenomenon has been observed in numerous cafés, restaurants and other such public places, and defies conventional expectations: two Spaniards who know each other will converse in a comparatively loud voice about topics you wouldn’t think they’d want the whole room to know about, while they speak with a waiter (or other stranger) in a relatively low voice about topics that no one would care if they heard. The effect of this phenomenon is that a room full of Spaniards talking to people they know gets really, really loud, making it almost impossible to hear the waiter give you the total for your bill causing you to stare blankly at him until he assumes you’re retarded and writes it on the napkin for you. Not that that’s happened to us…

Theory 3: Spaniards Appropriate Words from Other Languages and Do So Phonetically

The cool thing about Spanish is that you pronounce every letter, and each letter only has one sound. This makes it easy to learn, as you just assume you say everything you see. It also yields some interesting discoveries when you find a term that wasn’t around when Spanish was invented.
Examples:
esqui : ski (phonetically, that’s “eski”, which is basically how the Spaniards would pronounce the English word.)
béisbol : baseball (same as above)
and my favorite
champú : shampoo (there are no double vowels in Spanish, and the ch is as close to “sh” as they come)

Theory 4: Learning Spanish Will Cause You to Lose Your English Vocabulary, Making You Sound Like an Idiot in Two Languages

Ever find yourself in the situation where you’re the only native English speaker in a room full of ESLs and no one else in the room understands what the hell the teacher is trying to say in Spanish, but she knows you know the word in English, so she looks at you with that “How do you say this in English” look, but for the life of you, you can’t come up with “brochure”? No? Yeah, us neither…

10) Horchata. I can’t believe I didn’t mention it before. For a while I thought I might be the only person in the world who likes it, but I truly don’t believe I’m drinking THAT much horchata. I can’t be keeping an entire industry afloat, can I?

11) Rain. Contrary to popular belief it doesn’t stay mainly on the plains, so the madrilenos have been ecstatic this week because of the rain. In fact, yesterday there was a thunderstorm as we were leaving school and the director broke her own “solamente en espanol” rule to run around the school chanting “esta raining! esta raining!”

12) La escuela. Our school is great. The teachers are smart and fun and I’m really enjoying meeting students from other countries. There are not that many Americans attending the school, so it’s sort of our own version of this, but wow, it can be difficult to understand a Russian speaking Spanish.

13) Juan Valdez Cafe. Okay, it’s totally a chain and not very Spanish, but it’s close to the school, it has free wi-fi and they play American music. Albeit very strange and sometimes older American music, but American music nonetheless. Which completely takes me back to my days of being an angst-ridden teenager. I sit and study and listen to music from the early 90’s and get all melancholy because I’m a little homesick - if that doesn’t scream teenager, I don’t know what does.

-cuptastic

After an intense bout of homesickness this evening (spurred on by bdmc saying “wouldn’t it be nice to be sitting on our front porch with a beer right now?”) I arrived back to the apartment to find a full jar of olives, an almost full bottle of wine and some jamon serrano awaiting me. All helped to assuage the homesickness and also got me thinking about my favorite things in Spain. So without further ado, mi lista de mis cosas favoritas (in no particular order, and to be added to in the future):

01) Jamon serrano: kicks the crap out of prosciutto. Sorry, Italy.

02) Olives: they just taste better in Spain. (And there’s my white person statement for the day).

03) Walking through Retiro Park on my way to class: I doubt I will ever again have this beautiful of a walk to “work.”

04) And, oh yeah, “working” for three hours a day: okay, granted, this is specific to our trip and not completely about Spain, but not working beats the crap out of working.

05) The Spanish Language: it’s just so much more descriptive and flowery than the English language. Everything is just a little more beautiful/funny/interesting in castellano.

06) Four hundred verbs meaning “to lay down”: so you know how Inuits have about a thousand words for snow? The Spanish have about a thousand verbs that all basically mean “to lay down.” No wonder this is the country that created the proverb, “How beautiful it is to do nothing and then rest afterwards.”

07) El Prado, Thyssen-Bornemisza, Reina Sofia: We live in a city with three fantastic museums, not to mention other galleries and exhibits dispersed throughout Madrid.

0 The satisfying “thunk” of a cork being pulled from a €3 bottle of wine that kicks the living crap out of a $15 bottle of US wine. Now that’s the sound of progress.

09) Sitting in a bar or restaurant with friends and suddenly looking up and remembering that I’m in another country: it’s strange how quickly you start to feel like this foreign country is your own. That is, of course, until you try to pay your bill and the bartender asks you something in Spanish and you completely misunderstand him and it all goes downhill from there and then somehow you find yourself washing dishes for the rest of the evening. But for a short period of time, it almost feels like home.

-cuptastic

Since all good things come in threes (wishes, Graces, Stooges, Ménage-à-Trois..es), this is the third in a series of three posts on some Amero-centric topic. I don’t know what it is, but I’m on a Hispano-American comparison kick. I assure you, though, it’s only temporary, and this will be the last one for a while.

At any rate, we were out pub crawling again tonight in search of the elusive free food that intermittently comes with the beer (’tis a valiant quest: we’ve discovered parts of the city that aren’t listed on any tourist map), and as we were walking home, Al and I were suddenly hit with a wicked, undeniable craving for something sweet (damn munchies). We did a quick survey of our immediate locale, and realizing that there were no quick-rips around that would carry such vittles (side note, even in Spain, the quick-rips are run by Asians…”Hora!“), we caved and went to the one place we swore we wouldn’t visit while in Spain: Mc-F’ing-Donald’s (come on, it was RIGHT THERE and it was the only thing open…still…we’re so ashamed).

In an attempt to still honor our No American Fast Food Pledge (which for the purposes of this story now only includes burgers, fries and chicken), we settled on milk shakes, as that seemed the least culturally offensive. Unfortunately, milk shakes haven’t yet made the translation, so we agreed to split a McFlurry. (Side note #2: I’m personally happy to report that I’ve never had a McFlurry in the States, so in a way—to me, at least—it’s a Spanish…um…”delicacy”. Rationalizing, I know, but it’ll help me sleep better tonight.)

So we’re standing in the Mc-F’ing-Donald’s waiting for to order, and we both felt that something was eerily familiar (aside, of course, from it being a Mc-F’ing-Donald’s), and then it dawned on us: even in Spain, the Mc-F’ing-Donalds(es?) are staffed by South Americans and managed by white guys! It was surreal. As we were discussing this odd phenomenon on the way home, we decided that it would infinitely suck to make it all the way to Spain (which is a significantly more expensive and difficult crossing than that into Texas, even with the MinuteMen), and end up working at a Mc-F’ing-Donald’s.

What to do, what to do…(and DON’T say “Build a wall!”)

So between the facts that (1) the quick-rips are owned and staffed by Asians and (2) there even ARE Mc-F’ing-Donalds and (3) said Mc-F’ing-Donalds(es?) are staffed by South Americans and managed by white guys, tonight felt a very oddly American cliche. We’re hoping it’s only because Madrid is a newer city (by European standards), and very modern and pro-Western, and as such, feels similar to most other big Western cities. We didn’t get the American heebie-jeebies in Segovia—a smaller, older city—so we hope it hasn’t run rampant through the hinterlands. Our trip to Toledo (not Ohio) this weekend should give us another comparative datapoint. If they have a Wal-Mart, I’m going to kill myself.

Stay tuned.

-bleedingly liberal bdmc

It’s dawned on us that Spaniards, or at least Madrileños, despite all their civic and national pride, really wanna be Americans. This is manifested in their propensity for naming stores, restaurants, etc. for US states and cities. After two weeks, we’ve already found 10.

We’re going for all 50.

We needed a montage. Click it to see the full flickr gallery.

-bdmc

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

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

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

…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

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

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

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