Una Huelga General

Yesterday was the 29^th which meant that it was Huelga General (general strike) day in Madrid. It had been advertised for a while. We’d first seen banners and signs about a month ago when we were traveling in Andalusia. Since it was planned for the 29^th, it began on the evening of the 28^th of course, with a lot of noise, marching and massive amounts of stickering of windows and doors. The purpose of the strike was to demonstrate to the government that the people of Spain were none to pleased with the American style, Bush like bank bail outs (it’s come to my attention that a lot of people in the US seem to think this was an Obama choice which seems interesting since it was put in place under the Bush administration). In addition, they are protesting the loss of their benefits and the attempt to raise the retirement age to 67.

Like many things in Spain, it didn’t begin early. We went out around 12:00 to see what was

happening and found that while there were piles of trash and lots of stickers, there was little in the way of impressive striking. Since we live a mere block from where the congress meets, we thought we might check out the protests there. They were meager and seemed rather half hearted, and we were somewhat disappointed since we had thought that in a socialist country during the first Huelga General in 8 years we might see something impressive.

With that in mind we headed in to the Puerta del Sol where there were more protests happening in various places. Most groups of protesters were no more than 50 or so in size and we left rather confused. We spent some time counting businesses and after counting 20 of them found that 6 were closed and 14 open and determined roughly 40% of businesses were observing the strike, a number we found to be fairly anemic.

Unimpressed by the Huelga General, we dubbed it merely a “huelgita” and returned home.

Later in the afternoon around 5:30 we decided to go out for a walk. There wasn’t anything to do and we’d decided that since we were foreigners (albeit with great sympathy for the strikers) we would not be buying anything or going to any stores that were open on the day of a national strike, we could at least go for a paseo. So we struck out and decided to head in a direction unknown to us. Soon enough we had discovered a new part of our neighborhood and the Huelgote.

The strike had metastasized. As we neared one of the main thoroughfares we saw it was completely blocked to cars because on it were literally thousands and thousands of marchers. Banners, bands, something that resembled the hamburgler, families, hippies, people on bicycles, thronged the street. It was stunning. People had balloons, bells, whistles and rattles. They were chanting, yelling and singing. But the entire thing was peaceful as far as we could tell. We were right in it but never felt at all worried or endangered. The police were there, but not in riot gear the way they would be in the US. Of course, since we had not planned to see any more I did not have my camera (this image is a googled one) but it was something to behold.

Amazingly, this morning as I walked The Kid to school, the streets were once again tidy and clean. Trash had been collected. The only signs of the strike were the stickers that still clung to doors and windows. As I was walking home, I found a part of a roll of CCOO stickers and picked them up. I didn’t know what I would do with them, since it wasn’t my strike, but I didn’t think I should leave them there either. I continued on until I cam to a small plaza with a bronze statue of a man sweeping the street. Someone had put a CCOO sticker on his hat and secundaria kids were trying to peel it off to put on their book bags. I stopped them (savoring the irony of a statue of a worker going on strike) and handed them the roll. They were delighted and began to sticker each other’s bags quite artfully. I realized that this would be a formative memory for them. A city shut down. A citizenry in solidarity over their rights as workers and employees. It struck me that in Virginia it would have been illegal what happened yesterday. And I smiled to think I’d been lucky to see it.

more fun with food!

This morning we went for one of the best breakfasts there is in all of Spain. I make fun of Spanish food a lot. And I am in this post going to to an extent too, but I am going to begin with the following in which I rapturously talk about all the things I love about Spanish food.

1. Coffee. What the hell is wrong with the US? I have never had a bad cup of coffe the entire time I have been here. We've had coffee everywhere too. In the Atocha train station, at the crappy Rodillo sandwich place (don't get me started on their sandwiches), in excellent restaurants, tiny bars, everywhere. And every single place has absolutely amazingly good coffee. The coffee that is drunk here is espresso made in massive espresso makers like the kind that high end coffee bars have in the US. They are everywhere here. It no longer seems like extravagance to consider buying a really expensive (and I mean like $700) espresso maker when I get home. Because I don't think I could ever go back to the swill that Starbucks passes off as coffee after consuming the coffee nectar of Spain.

2. Hot chocolate. Oh my fucking God. There are not curses in my vocabulary (and if you know me well you know that I am stating something above and beyond there!!!!) to describe the richness, the decadence, the sinful delight of a cup of this stuff here. Let's start with the fact that they melt a bar of chocolate to make it. There is no powder, no cocoa, none of that shit. It's a bar of chocolate. Stuff is so thick your spoon can stand up in it people. This morning The Kid had one with dulce de leche on the bottom and whipped cream on the top. This is the kind of shit that would have a street value in the US. At home, we'd bottle this and paint it on each other during sex games. You don't even know.

3. And it's eaten with churros or better yet, porros. These are fried pieces of extruded batter (thin for churros and thick for porros). Like donuts but much better because they absorb the coffee or help to mop up the chocolate stuck to the sides of the cup (although I am not above simply using my fingers).

4. Orange juice. In almost every place this is produced in a machine (and they all seem to be Zumex machines) that has a receptacle on the top for loads and loads of fresh lovely oranges. Order a juice (inexplicably called a zumo –thumo– here) and the oranges roll down, and get squeezed to order into your glass. It's like the Ritz-Carlton, but it's normal here.

And that was our breakfast. Yum!!

Now that you know that I actually love eating here, it's time to resume our regularly scheduled program of weird menu signs. These are on the way to and from The Kid's school and it happened I had my camera today to share them with you, my dear readers.

This is the aptly named "wet fish." It is wet because it is raw, I expect. I think it is meant to be "white fish" which to a Spanish ear will sound almost exactly like "wet fish." But it's baffling nonetheless. The Kid's school isn't really a touristy area although it's a close hop to the Plaza Mayor. I think this restaurant is hoping for traffic to wander down and to dine there because of their prices (much lower than on the Plaza). I suspect they'll want to cook the wet fish first.

This same place also offers grilled sirloin steak. Maybe. It says it does. But it shows the steak raw. Is that so you know it's grilled? Or might be grilled if you order it? The Spanish like their meat rare (I approve of this) but this seems a bit ridiculously rare to me. Maybe this should be "wet steak." And why are there two of them? Will you get two per order? That's a lot of meat!!

And here is my very favorite! As always! The ensalada mixta. Look closely and see what's mixed into your salad! Ah that's right, tuna of course. But also shrimp. And is that eel? You betcha! As well as the ever present jarred white asparagus (which I don't get because asparagus grows wild here and could absolutely be eaten fresh!), hard boiled eggs, jarred peppers and a red mass of something I can't figure out. Vegetarians, there is no room for you here, this salad screams. No room for you!

clean as a whistle

I've always sort of pooh-poohed the European need for a bidet. They always seem to crowd the bathrooms of hotels when you stay in the great capitals of Europe and you never use them as an American. We look down on them. We assume Europeans use them instead of bathing and that that makes them a little gross.

But I am here to tell you that I am a convert to the bidet. I love it. I want one at home. I don't know how I ever lived without one before. These are the greatest inventions known to man!!

I first discovered my deep and abiding love of the undercarriage bath in Granada where we'd walked and walked for hours and hours. Of course I needed a shower after that. So I took one and felt immensely refreshed. But when we came back to the hotel after dinner, I was a little shvitzy. I had only one pair of pants left and I'd had to wear them even though I had just taken my shower and I now felt kind of grimy. The bed was luscious. Was I really going to put myself into that rich, soft cotton bed with my manky ass?

Maybe, I'd try the bidet. And so I did. And it was good.

The next morning, I used it again because I had showered not 12 hours before. Again, it didn't replace a shower, but it obviated the need for two showers (since summer in Andalusia is not to be trifled with).

Since then, I have found that I like a little mini-bath as it were. And I think others would too, if we could get over our snootiness about the whole thing. Personally, while I can't get behind the tuna fixation here, the bidet thing is A-OK by me.

My first day as a Spanish housewife

and it has not gone swimmingly.

Let's start with my wake up call, the now classic collapsed bed. This has happened to me about 6 times now. When we first got to the apartment, we were in the smaller bedroom but Ricardo felt cramped so we moved to the room with the two twins pushed together. It's much larger and airy. But it turns out there is a reason the landlord didn't say it was the "master suite" even though from looking at it it obviously is. And it seems the reason is that the bed on the right has a malfunction. What malfunction? Well it seems that the frame is slightly bent which means that every so often the slats collapse under the sleeper, comme ça:

She'd tried to remedy this (the landlord) by putting in two sets of slats which made it feel a lot like I was a monk sleeping on a pallet (because essentially I was sleeping on a pallet although not a monk). To no avail. Since I had been putting up with this about a month, I had told Ricardo this was it, the next time I fell through the bed we were switching rooms with the Kid. Period.

Guess that meant I was going to be doing the switcheroo today while the Kid went off to school and the husband to the library because now I am the hausfrau. Which is fine, because it's not like I have a job or anything right now. But the thing is the other room is definitely smaller, and the Kid has a tendency to stretch out into every nook and cranny available to him (as middle schoolers are wont to do). So I've spent much of the morning switching closets and dressers which is easy enough.

I then took a break to make some iced tea for almuerzo (the main meal of the day eaten around 3pm). The Kid's school does not have a cafeteria and they do not offer a meal at all. They go to school from 8:30 (today from 9:20) to 2:50 and they get no meal. There is a 1/2 hour break around 11 when the kids usually eat a snack from home but it's expected they will go home for their almuerzo and not really need a meal at school. We've been eating this way and the Kid will likely be fine, but he took a PB&J (you would NOT believe how much a tiny thing of peanut butter is here! we are sooooooo bringing some Jiff back with us!) and a couple figs for his break since there is no playground equipement or anything for them to do during break anyway.

But I digress. One thing I miss a lot from home is iced tea. I can't drink soda because of the migraine medicine I take (which makes everything carbonated taste like the inside of a rusted pipe) so I have become an iced tea addict, particularly green tea, especially Arizona green tea. In fact yesterday I spent an ungodly amount of money at the Starbucks just to drink an Arizona green tea (ok, 3.50 E) because I felt so sick and we'd been walking for hours and I was completely parched and well you get the idea already.

So I've come to the conclusion that the only remedy to this is to make my own iced tea. And since I am now a housewife, this should not be a troublesome thing to do. I have all the things I need, bags of green tea, honey, a liter pitcher, and a kettle and stove.

Let's start with the fact that Ricardo put the pitcher on the top most shelf of the kitchen. Ordinarily, this would not be in the least an obstacle. I would climb on a chair and get it down. No problems. But in the house that Ikea built (as cheaply as possible), it is a problem. All chairs are folding and designed for slim, Scandanavian asses, not mega American ones like the kind I sport. So that was not an option. Not to be dissuaded from my mission, I looked around for whatever I had that would help me poke it down. I found (luckily enough!) my tongs which I had insisted on buying because I am a total baby when doing things like pan frying chicken or even bacon. So using the tongs, I got the pitcher down.

Now I turned to my kettle. This is a bizarre kettle. It doesn't whistle. and you can't tell when it's full or not or if it's boiling. Also it leaks. And it's easy to over fill it. So I put the kettle on and went back to the great room flip. The next thing I hear is a wretched hissing and sizzling and then smell a weird smell.

I bolt back to the kitchen in time to seen that there is a puddle all over the stove and dripping onto the floor. There is water sizzling all around the bottom of the kettle and it's steaming all

over as well. I can't tell if I've overfilled it and it's poured out, or if it's leaked out of it from the bottom or the spout or what the fuck is going on when it begins to spout steaming water out of its joint between the spout and the base and also between the rolled bottom and the burner.

But god damn it I am going to have some tea today!!!

So I don my ridiculously huge and largely unusable Ikea oven mits, grab the kettle and whip it off the stove, spraying steaming geysers across the kitchen as I go and pour the water (which oddly enough is not actually boiling) into the pitcher. I let the tea steep while I go back to try to fix the slats of the broken bed so that it doesn't look like shit, which I do. I manage to set up all "the guys" (The Kid's stuffed animals) exactly the way he likes them, tuck them into his new bed and get back to the kitchen before the tea over brews. I add honey and put it in the fridge.

Missions accomplished!

No, I don't fucking "vale" god damnit!!!

The Spanish have this word, "vale." It means, as far as I can tell, the following:

• ok?
• ok.
• alright.
• alright?
• got it.
• got it?
• understand?
• I understand.
• great!
• let's go
• go now!
• I'm finished with you.
• your time is up.
• get out of my sight.
• you're in the wrong line, asshole.
• what the fuck are you doing back here?
• what is your major malfunction?

The thing is, I don't "vale." And it's their fault. I have reasonably good Spanish. I don't have a lot of comprehension problems really. My productive language is a problem still, but it's not nonexistent. But here's the thing. I've been to and/or spent chunks of time in 10 Spanish speaking countries (11 if you count Miami which Ricardo does) and I don't have difficulty understanding people. OK, a little trouble in the Dominican Republic and Panama, but that is some advanced Spanish.

And put it this way, I nearly cried with joy (literally, tears welled up, and OK I was over tired and jet lagged, but fuck that) when I found myself ordering from the owner at the restaurant a 1/4 block from here. Why? Because she was from Havana and I understood her perfectly. Every. Motherfucking. Word. And she's Cuban.

Yes, that's right. I understand Cubans with little difficulty. But not Madrileños.

When we traveled south to Andalusia, I felt the tides of relief wash over me as I realized that there (perhaps due to the heat? maybe it cools them down?) people actually opened their mouths when they spoke and formed words. I could understand them! Don't get me wrong. Few other tourists could since they dropped every third syllable (not unlike Cubans, frankly). But for one glorious week, I felt like I had a chance to "vale."

But now I am back in Madrid. And once again, I do not "vale." People speak to me and it's like they are speaking a language I have never heard before. Between the bizarre th-like lisping, the fact that no one seems to open their mouths, and the fed-ex man speed of their speech I might as well have moved to Burma. I don't think I have a bat's prayer in hell of learning to speak Spanish well this year because I will be spending all my time just trying to fucking "vale."

Cause right now? Yeah. I don't.

tuna fish

Today I went to El Corte Inglés to go the grocery store. We've ordered a couple times from this French hypermart called Carrefour, and the prices are fine but they ding you on delivery and they substitute a lot. So today, despite the fact that I have this cold/stomach flu thingy, because we had no food other than rice, lentils, and some melon and milk (the lentils and rice were too complicated and the melon and milk too gross) Ricardo and I limped over the the store.

We don't have anything like El Corte Inglés in the US. Imagine Bloomingdales combined with a Harris Teeter level grocery store, a travel agency, car repair service and rentals, Best Buy, and Barnes and Noble. Add to that a Tower Records (now defunct), a decent restaurant, a full liquor store, and a West Elm and you've got El Corte Inglés.

We hadn't intended to shop there. But we couldn't make it to the cheaper Día grocery closer to The Kid's school. And actually it ended up being quite reasonable. I got about 10 packages of pasta (each about .58 E/90¢ each) which was what our stomachs can handle, ingredients for chicken noodle soup which i plan to make tomorrow when I am not sleeping all day, some figs for the Kid, lactose free milk for Ricardo, tea, lemons, eggs, cereal, bread, butter, a couple kinds of juice (including real tropicana because juice here is really odd), herbs, and more all for 51 E/ $70.

But this is rather a long prelude to a more interesting obsession/phenomenon here. And that my friends is... tuna fish.

A one point during the shopping trip Ricardo had to excuse himself to find the facilities (it was bound to be one of us with this bug and had it been me, I'd likely have been vomiting) and this left me alone in the aisle devoted to tinned fish.

Yes, that's right, an entire aisle of tinned fish.

One whole side of which is devoted solely to tuna.

You can't log into the supermarket part of the Corte Inglés website without a Madrid zipcode (go to google maps and get one if you're curious). But if you were to do this you would discover what I did in my nausea and hacking cough haze of horror.

There are more kinds of tuna for sale in this basement grocery store than I have ever seen in my life. It comes in cans, in glass jars and in what look like juice boxes. You can get it packed in water, olive oil, virgin olive oil, vegetable oil or pickled. Worse yet you can get it in sauces. Either tomato or "picante." It comes in chunks, flakes and filets. It comes as light, white or albacore. You can have it in three packs, large containers or small. I've never seen the variety or the array of tuna products. It was stunning. I was held in thrall as I dragged my little basket on wheels of lactose free milk and (hard to find) salted butter from jar to jar, can to can, juice box to juice box. Even without the stomach issues I think this would have made me throw up a little in my mouth. As it was I was too shocked to even move at one point as I stood before the flesh colored chunks floating in oil in their red and yellow labeled jars.

This was where all the salads in Spain began. In this aisle. Now I understood. I would not ever need a vegetable peeler (which btw, I still have not found). All I need, is a can opener.

Musings on bathrooms, restaurants and other odds and ends

I figure that if you want to know what we've done as tourists, you're better off reading Ricardo's blog. I don't do very well describing those kinds of things and I just end up writing some sort of litany. I feel that complaining and making fun of things is really my milieu. So I am here to do just that.

When we were in Venice, we were treated to a lot of squat toilets. I took this as being a part of the fact that when you are a sinking city and you have water issues that antiquated plumbing comes with the territory.

Here is what I did not expect: Spain has a lot of toilets simply missing toilet seats. This is not, strictly speaking, a squat toilet clearly, but it necessitates squatting. In addition, Spain, like much of Latin America, has a thing where you throw the paper that you've used into a trash can instead of into the commode. I can live with these two things. They are not uncommon when traveling, (although unexpected in the first world), but I can let that pass.

Here is what I don't care for one bit. About half of all bathrooms lack soap. It's not that they are out of soap. They don't have any. And they never have had. In one café/bar we were in, I went to use the restroom (and actually this one did have soap) and a guy came out of the men's room with his cigarette in his hand (the men and women frequently share a sink) and made no attempt whatsoever to even rinse his hands. Just moved on. Sometimes, people use toilet paper to dry their hands which just makes the whole thing worse (and it's not like they used soap to begin with).

So basically, it seems that hygiene is not of concern here.

Now I get that we are overly concerned with hygiene in the US and I know as a teacher I am really fastidious about it. But I can't help wondering if this is a problem, the fact that people here so infrequently wash their hands carefully or well. It seems like it would be.

Another thing that is kind of odd here in Spain is the café/bar/restaurant. This is a place where you can go for a cup of coffee or for a rum and coke while your friend has a coffee. Or you can sit down and eat a meal. Or you can stand and eat a tapas. At 10am you can have a beer. At 1am you can have a coffee. There is always food, drink, smoking (which I think is obligatory) and all of it is in the same place. Imagine a Starbucks where you can sit down to a steak and a glass of wine with a full bar. It's kind of like that. Also the prices are different if you're sitting, standing or perching. If you sit at a table, it's more than if you stand. If you perch on a stool it's more than if you stand, but less than if you sit. Weird huh?

Finally, some thoughts about driving in Spain. There are some truly bizarre road signs in Spain. The Spanish are much more creative when making traffic signs than we are. Of course this means that the signs are also much more open to interpretation than ours. Here are my two favorites.

I think this one means that speed is checked by radar. Or it means that the aliens will be sterilizing all of us as we enter town.

This one is also great. This one either means that the motorcycles that follow too closely to cars will be in trouble if they hit the seams in the bridge or that they cannot successfully mate with cars because they are another species.