Did you know? Spain tidbits, pt 1

It's hard to believe that I've now been living in Spain almost nine months. If we lived in a world where countries and people could create life, I would be giving birth any moment now. And every day has brought a surprise, a new vocabulary word, and interesting culture observation. While some of them have been (and will be) worth their own blog entries, others are worth a passing mention. I've compiled a few noteworthy tidbits here; you can expect more in other entries of this type in the future.

1) Punk rock grandmas
In the United States, dying one's hair is certainly not an uncommon practice, but most people limit their chosen hue to shades naturally found on heads around the world (if not their own particular strands.) Those individuals choosing more dramatic blues, greens, or pinks are generally understood to be making a Statement. Sure, those statements may vary, but the general message is the same: defiance and exclamation. Look at me-- see that I am different than you are.

It was thus with some confusion that I noticed women, mostly older women, walking around Palencia with magenta hair. Some of them had dyed their entire heads; others merely had a few vivid streaks--but it all seemed to be the same shade, almost as if they were sharing the bottle. This was something different than the "blue tint" effect occasionally seen in the US among senior citizens. It was clearly a purposeful, bold (in both senses of the word) choice.

Later on, I'd travel to northern Spain, to Basque country, and see many older women with similarly dyed hair, although this time with aqua/turquoise/blue hues. Nobody gives them a second look, neither in Palencia nor up north. Here it seems to be just another way to deal with graying hair and the aging process in general-- and I've decided I like it a lot.

2) Hellogoodbye
Like English (or, I imagine, most languages), Spanish has a cornucopia of various expressions for use in greetings. They differ based on the intimacy or mood of the speakers, the time of day, and the country (or in this case part of Spain) where they're greeting each other. This in itself is not remarkable.

However, after a month in Palencia, once I had moved into my own apartment, I started to notice something odd. Whenever my roommate came in to the apartment she said, "Hola." Without fail, when she left she called out, "Hasta luego!" even if we hadn't spoken in between. [A note on "Hasta luego" (which means "see you later) in Castilla y Leon: This phrase is constantly used, but the syllables rarely all appear together. The Palentino 'Hasta luego' is slurred together so quickly that you almost don't hear the first word at all. Try as I might, I haven't been able to successfully recreate it.]

But I digress. After I noticed my roommate's behavior, I started to see parallels in the behavior of others in my apartment building. Often when we crossed paths at the mailbox or in the doorway they would greet me with a friendly "Buenos dias" or "Muy buenas." They always followed this up with the famous Palentino "Ha-luego." Even in the elevator, I would be greeted, thirty seconds of elevator silence would ensue--and then, there it was again, the departing greeting. In the end, I remain puzzled but have concluded that greetings are a more important part of etiquette here than in the US, even among strangers.

3) Out for a walk
I've mentioned the "paseo" in this blog before, but it's worth revisiting. Palencia's Calle Mayor is a scenic pedestrianized mile lined with stores and 19th century buildings. In the winter the wind can be wicked, but the summer finds tin tables and umbrellas set out to enjoy the atmosphere. The street is a strange animal, a chameleon of sorts-- on Sunday afternoons and evenings after 11:30 pm it's virtually a movie set, complete empty and eerily clean (the sanitation department here is admirably diligent.) But there is a period of time every day before dinner (between the hours of 6 and 8, I would say) when Palentinos (and, I think, many northern Spaniards) like to go out for a stroll.

During that time Calle Mayor is teeming, sometimes even choked, with pedestrians. Some walk faster, some saunter. Many older couples hobble arm in arm, some adult children push their parents in wheelchairs, and there are always young kids weaving in and out of the chaos chasing a soccer ball. Everywhere there are clumps of people stopping to chat, young mothers showing off new babies, teenagers flirting and joking, people window shopping and chatting about the day's news. Sometimes there are balloon sellers; in the winter a series of wooden shacks appeared selling hot fresh mini-donuts and roasted chestnuts. It's Palentino life in a two-hour nutshell, and although I dread the thought of biking anywhere during that time (an experience like nothing more than a first-person video game), the feeling of walking the street during paseo--idly watching people, catching snatches of conversation, and feeling the energy of so many people ricocheting off the high pastel buildings--remains one of my favorites from my time here.

Habeis ganado? Que si, hombre

Almost nine months ago, we auxiliars-to-be sat in an airless, windowless room in Madrid talking to one of the American consuls. She was speaking about safety, urging us to be careful of muggings and pickpockets. "But," she added, almost as an afterthought, "there's something you have to understand about Spanish people. To them, the street is an extension of the living room, and they treat it as such. You need to be careful, of course, and sensible. But help is never far away on the Spanish streets."

When I first arrived here almost nine months ago, I think I was too busy in my head to really see the miracle that is Spanish summer. By the time I had adjusted and settled in, the days were ending earlier and the trees bending over the Rio Carrion were tinting yellow. Outdoor tables at cafes were stacked and put away; the fog of winter (both bone-chillingly literal and metaphorical) obscured what had come before.

And then, to be honest, the weather this spring hasn't been ideal, either. After the driest winter in 70 years, we had several weeks straight of cold, raw, rainy unpleasantness. We powered through a wet Semana Santa and still managed to enjoy it (posts forthcoming), but I admit it put a damper on this last month or so.

And then suddenly this week--summer, and I understood finally what she had meant.

The heat arrived a few days ago, without any real warning or transition, and it happened to coincide with a very important soccer game, the championship of the European League. I've never been much for soccer, but the electric atmosphere combined with the sudden warmth of the air to create something remarkable. Tin tables and chairs sprouted like mushrooms and the streets were choked with the chatting and strolling multitudes. At game time, children chased soccer balls of their own in the main square while muffled roars sounded from the surrounding bars. I sat with friends and savored the first outdoor beer of the season, then walked down the deserted main street listening to the game's aftermath. We passed a couple of celebrating fans in striped red-and-white jerseys. "Habeis ganado?" we asked them-- "Did you guys win?" "Que si, hombre," the taller one yelled over his shoulder. "Obviously!"

We turned the corner and passed a similarly exuberant bar, festooned with red and white cloth and team flags, spilling warm yellow light into the street. Through the window I could see a cluster of men packing food into plastic containers to bring home. Outside, by the window, three grandmother types played cards and sipped beer. I looked at my watch: 12:30 am. The week before, the streets had been empty, reflecting moonlight in freezing puddles. Now it was like these women had always been here; like they had never been cold in their lives.

The heat continues as I write this, and our sudden summer is calling for a shift in schedule. Already things feel lazier, more relaxed... and they are definitely pushed later. It's this change (along with the retaking of the streets) that's made me feel in the last few days that everything is falling into place. Chatting with my roommate over lunch, greeting acquaintances in the grocery store or at the park, enjoying the late night warmth--I feel like I've finally found my rhythm.  I'm a notorious night owl, and it's thrilling to sit in air as warm as bathwater with a group of friends drinking a beer, surrounded by a crowd so robust that the waiter has to tell us any food we order will take an hour to arrive. The night is dark, thick, hot, ringing with the clink of glasses and jostling cutlery. There are sleepy children eating ice cream and older couples walking arm-in-arm. In the United States any of these people would be snug, safe and sound in their beds. But here in Palencia, it's 1 AM and summer has arrived.

Tastes of Africa

After a long radio silence, I am attempting to get back in the blogging spirit. It's harder than I expected to make room in my life for regular writing and reflection, especially when I've been moving around so much. In the past 6 weeks, I've had a good friend visit from the UK, gotten the stomach flu, showed my parents around northern Spain and savored the power of Easter celebrations here, and journeyed to Africa for the first time on a seven-day sojourn to Morocco. There hasn't been much time to catch my breath (and what time I've had has gone to... well, doing just that.) I'm so behind that it will be awhile until a post on Morocco appears on here for real, so I thought I'd post a small taste of two particularly powerful sensory experiences to tide you over.

1) We stopped in the small northern-Morocco town of Meknes for a few days but were disappointed by an initial 48 hours filled with torrential rain. Although we enjoyed walking the winding backstreets of the city's medina and visiting the remains of a Roman town in the Atlas foothills, for me the highlight was the last night.

The rain had finally cleared, filling the Meknes main square with people celebrating the end of holy Friday. A snake charmer half-heartedly piped his flute, a lazy-looking viper draped across his arm; children played a carnival-like game fishing for soda bottles with oversized rods; nearby, a crowd of men seemed to be cheering on a street performer who was teaching two pint-sized boys to box (?) But my favorite was the band.

Walking the square, I happened to catch a street band playing traditional Moroccan gnawa music to a rapt crowd. The last rays of sun reflected on the tattooed faces of old Berber women, young guys in skinny jeans, women in hijab and out. Above, a cloud of swallows swooped over the ornate gate to the Imperial palace. The music was rhythmic and emotive, and the men's voices wove in and out of the drum beat, occasionally uniting with a power that soared higher than the swallows. What drugs could ever replicate such a high?

2) A few days later in Meknes, my father and I spent a very lovely evening eating Syrian food and bonding with a diverse community of couchsurfers in Rabat (A Somalian-American studying Arabic poetry; a French-Brazilian working with refugees; a Moroccan physicist seeking to break the glass ceiling in her Ph.D program; a Korean doing his country's equivalent of the Peace Corps.)

After tea on their balcony overlooking Rabat's estuary, we returned to the hotel to check on my mother, who was having stomach problems. She reported that she was feeling better and that she had been hearing "some kind of wonderful live music, and very close by." We found out just how close by a few moments later, when the musicians took up their posts after a break, and we discovered that they were playing in the courtyard of the neighboring building. As our room was essentially a cabana on the roof of the hotel, we were able to look directly down at the proceedings.

There, a very exuberant, and exuberantly loud celebration was taking place, with the resonant drums, powerful voices, and complex rhythms that evoke images of West Africa. For a time, I stood in the chill watching, wanting desperately to run next door and knock on the door--but it seemed like perhaps this was a religious rite. Instead, I let the very foreign sounds wash over me, watched the women moving their legs and arms in sinuous rhythm, drummers pounding a seemingly endless and powerful tattoo.

Luckily, the main part of the ritual seemed to end at midnight, and the revelers retired to the inside of their building to continue the party. Even so, my dreams were still tinted with African voices. When I woke, hours later, and went out onto the cold balcony to use the detached bathroom, they were still at it-- though the sky to the east was just beginning to lighten.

Tuesday the 13th

Did you know that the concept of "Friday the 13th" doesn't exist in Spain? Instead, the unlucky day is Tuesday the 13th (also known as today.) I'm told the Friday-Tuesday switch has to do with Tuesday's association in many languages with Ares/Mars, the god of war (in Spanish, Tuesday is Martes.) Also, the fall of Constantinople happened on a Tuesday, which explains why the Greeks aren't so wild about it, either.

Anyway, despite the anxieties of various Spanish friends, I am happy to report that nothing untoward happened to me today (and it's 11:42 PM, so I'm hoping I can get off scot-free saying that. If no one hears from me in the next 48 hours, send out a search party armed with four leaf clovers and pennies picked up from the sidewalk.)

Fun with Spanish, 1: At the beach

While I've focused generally on cultural adventures in this blog, the truth is that language is culture. There's a great deal to be learned about a country or a people through its language. It's true that I go to Spanish classes two to three times a week at the Escuela Oficial de Idiomas (Official Language School), but my real classroom is in Calle Mayor, in the bars and theaters of this city, in the grocery stores and train stations and in the new friendships I've made. So, my thought is to add a new language feature here, mini blog posts to teach you some small Spanish somethings I'm picking up here in my daily life.

Today's iteration has to do with the ocean--well, sort of.

1) Scrambled sea
Let's say you're at the beach on a blazing hot day. Your sailboat-owning friend invites you on a tour around the bay. That sounds good, you say-- but just as you are preparing to depart, a couple of threatening black thunderheads roll in, and a stiff breeze kicks up. You hear peals of thunder, and even the water in the marina is roiling. Going on this boat ride would be a one-way ticket to seasick central. You turn to your friend and say sadly, "El mar está revuelto."

Strictly speaking, you're calling the water "choppy" the way we would in English, unsettled or uneven. The interesting thing here is that the direct translation is "The sea is scrambled"--the same sort of "scrambled" that shows up to describe eggs on bar menus all over Spain, usually accompanied by an assortment of cheeses, chorizo, or mushrooms. No "choppy" equivalents here-- Spaniards prefer a different kitchen metaphor for their seas.

2) Hangover or undertow?
I first learned the word "hangover" from a couple of Columbian students who attended the school where I taught in Boston. "Una resaca" was an all-purpose excuse for them, explaining lateness, distraction, or exhaustion. Las resacas are topics of much discussion here in Spain as well--mostly as a point of pride if one can survive a particularly difficult morning after last night's festivities, or else if one never gets a hangover at all. (These individuals are particularly to be envied by those of us who hangover after half a glass of wine.)

The concept gets linguistically more interesting when you find out that the word for an undertow at a beach is also "una resaca." Not only does it make the age-old admonition not to swim when there's an undertow doubly wise-- it also creates a much more evocative description of the experience of a-morning-after. Who among us hasn't felt like he or she was being sucked into a deep, dark void after a night getting especially friendly with tequila or rum?

What makes Madrid?

A few weekends ago, I found myself sitting with my friend Dani, a Madrid native, in a bar in the grungy-trendy neighborhood of Malasaña. It was early on a cool late-winter Saturday night, and we were drinking cañas (mini servings of beer, ranging from 6 to 10 oz-- a common sight in any Spanish bar.) It was exactly my kind of place, with relaxed, warm atmosphere; colorful and funky decorations; and a pleasant variety of people clustered around tables and at the bar, all celebrating the weekend. My friend ordered another beer, and he took a moment to kibbitz with the pretty bartender. And then he turned to me and said,

"See? For me, that's Madrid. This bar is Madrid." Of course, I pressed him to explain himself-- and he did his best.

"I think Madrid is about life, ultimately. It's a city with everything-- beauty, history, museums. But people really savor life here. They know how to live, and they don't take things too seriously. Take that interchange I had just now with the waitress. I wanted to pay, she gave me a hard time-- that special light tone is very Madrid."

It was a theme I had noticed before, although Dani elucidated it better than I could have hoped. In my handful of visits to the city, I had picked up on that certain "vivaciousness"-- a feeling of energy and life, a New York-like joie de vivre but without some of the sweaty, crowded squirming discomfort. Even in the busiest times, it still felt like there was some personal space left on the Metro platforms. And yet that feeling...

Over three or four visits in the last months, Madrid has taught me about the many forms in which one can encounter this special zest-for-life. In the bustle of morning commutes, certainly. And the weekend buzz of bars in Malasaña or nearby trendy, gritty Lavapies--to be sure. But it's not just about movement.

I found that Madrid Something at the Casa Museo Sorolla, the museum dedicated to the lesser-known Spanish impressionist which I visited in early fall. Sorolla was a Spanish impressionist for his depictions of life in southern Spain and especially his generous splashes of the famous Valencian light. An ordinary museum experience can be sterile, but this one was full of warmth and life--the paintings crowded together, keeping each other company in tiled, richly-decorated rooms where Sorolla himself once painted. The images were full of that same dynamism, fully-realized characters who seemed dying to jump off the canvas. They may have been frozen, but they exuded a familiar energy.

View at the casa-museo


After that museum visit, another friend and I spent a lazy lunch in a beautiful plaza in a forgotten corner of the city. Warm-weather Madrid is chockablock with those kinds of nooks and crannies, full of sun-dappled cafes with people chatting, drinking coffee or beer, smoking. This Saturday-afternoon-cafe version of Madrid isn't in a hurry; it doesn't have anywhere special to be. Instead, it is simply thrilled to be out on this particular day, in this city of all the cities. And yet there is more potency to this lazy contentness than in the heights of some cities' most exciting evenings.

As good a place as any for an early-fall Saturday lunch

Further into the weekend, El Rastro beckons-- one of the best examples of Madrid's specal dynamism. One of the busiest flea markets in Europe, El Rastro floods the streets and alleys of the La Latina neighborhood weekly with leather workers; jewelers; junk food hawkers; vendors of rude t-shirts, key chains, bras, socks; curious shoppers; and (inevitably) pickpockets. It is nothing short of a seething, slow-moving mass of humanity, spreading slowly into the afternoon-- laughing, arguing, bargaining, chatting, drinking in the sunshine and the energy of the city.

El Rastro

Portugal!

I had big plans to post a Madrid-centric essay before I left, but packing always gets in the way. It's all drafted, so maybe I'll have a chance to get it finished while I'm gone. Because gone I'll be-- I'm about to spend 5.5 days celebrating Carnaval in Lisbon and Porto, Portugal. Should be crazy. I feel nervous and excited-- just the way you should before a fabulous trip. Catch you later!