Getting out there

Yesterday was fun.

I rolled out of bed and phoned Customer Service at Telefonica. After listening to thirty seconds of my not-awake-yet-and –can-barely-speak-my-own-language-let-alone-yours Spanish, the agent asked, “¿Inglés, Francés o Alemán?” (Note: she wasn’t sure which language I spoke, but she knew it wasn’t Spanish.) and put me through to an English speaker, who dealt with my request politely, patiently and efficiently. Muchas gracias!

Then I pootled off (Cold! Wow!) for one of the last sessions of my excellent part-time course on teaching English to Young Learners. I was really tired, and not really with it, but didn’t want to miss a thing – and it was worth it. Two seminars and a cup of coffee, and it was 1 o’clock, and Habibi was waiting outside.

First stop: recreational trip to a Correos (post office). There are loads of post offices, and they’re open twelve hours a day, at least six days a week. There’s always a queue of course, and it may be long and winding, but as you arrive, you address the question “El ultimo?” to the air, and people wave you towards the last person in the queue. Very civilised. Some people chat, some blank out, others produce books and read. It’s quietly sociable, the staff are behind a long counter rather than a Perspex screen, and as queueing experiences go, it’s fairly painless.

Next: Mercado de Barceló, which I’d noticed across the road on a previous Correos visit. Mercados are big covered food markets, always on two floors. The Madrid ones are not handsome like the wonderful 19th Century Mercado Central in Valencia,
but they’re just as full of good things!

We bought some fruit and veg, then I spotted the market café and dragged Habibi over (literally) for a sit down. We sat on high stools at the no-frills counter and ordered a vino tinto (Spanish red table wine, served cold) and cerveza and I picked a tapas of fat, inch-long chorizo sausages. Later we asked to sample the calamares al tinto (squid in its own ink). We liked the chorizos so much (and I’m not generally a fan) that we later bought some and had Spanish sausageand mash with red cabbage for lunch to day. As for the calamares – it was ok, basically squid in a moderately salty paste – but I wouldn’t rush out and buy it that way, except to use in a winter fish stew.

The two women who ran the café were good-humoured and efficient, and it was good just to sit and chat and watch people come and go (always one of my favourite activities). Across the way, a woman at a greengrocer’s stall got really indignant about something – not sure what – and ranted on for absolutely ages before giving up and going on her way, whereupon the stallholders and the other dozen or so customers all looked at one another, shrugged, and carried on. Over at the café we had all enjoyed the show. “Qué pasa?” I asked. The woman laughed: “Nada!”
Lunch and a show: €2.90.


There's a demolition site where our neighborhood Mercado used to be. I don't know what's planned there, but this is what's on the drawing board for Mercado de Barceló.

We dropped our shopping off at home, and I went into zombie mode for an hour or so while Habibi read the Guardian on the terrace. It was a beautiful bright clear day, and the square was full of the gossipy overflow from the various bars, all making the most of the warm sun with their ‘Vermut’ or cerveza and tapas.

I’m reading Carol Drinkwater’s The Olive Route at the moment, the chapters on Lebanon, Syria and – now – Turkey. This is the third of her books that I’ve read, and they are very good, once she settles down to what she has to say. Her first chapters always grate on me, but once she hits her stride, moving beyond the fragrant excesses of poetic description and reflection, she has the ability to take you with her, and show you people and places as she sees them. I swear I can smell the landscapes she describes, with their wild fig trees, the Mediterranean garrigue, the goats and – so often – the smell of crushed olives. She definitely rewards perseverance - and I will be buying her other book!

And with my nose in a good book, I’m again making serious progress with H’baba’s 18th-birthday scarf. I know he’s 20 now, but it’s at least doubled in length in the last couple of months – I’m over half way now - and I expect that it’ll be cold again by the time I finish it……………..

So then we went out for a wander into the city centre. The sun had disappeared and before long the day turned bitterly cold again - too cold to be outdoors for no reason - but I really wanted to go somewhere big and lively, not a cosy little bar. I wanted company and variety. It was getting urgent – Habibi’s face had gone an interesting violet shade, and I felt compelled to check my frozen nose every few minutes just to make sure it hadn’t fallen off – so it was a relief to find ourselves outside two Irish bars - O’Connell Street and Dubliners – both crowded and showing football (somebody versus Newcastle). O’Connell’s was incredibly full, and smokey. So was Dubliners, but we found two seats at the bar, and settled in.

Now what? Working evenings does put the mockers on your social life, and I really really really did not want to go home and read, or watch a DVD, or knit; and I absolutely did not want to walk around a gallery or museum – however magnificent – and look at things. It was the weekend. I wanted to do something. With people.

But what? This is January and we’re spent up after Christmas, so it had to be cheap. Damn! No theatre this month, and I want to see Pinocchio – we saw some of the characters and scenery in the Cabalgada de los Reyes and I want to see that show,

but you know…. eating, heating, phone bill… all that mundane stuff… really should take priority! Also, with our limited free time and even more limited Spanish, we don’t know many people. There are bars and clubs of course, but did I mention that we’re 50?! Whatever - getting wrecked just doesn’t do it for me. What else do people do at the weekend?!

There was a copy of InMadrid on a shelf with an ad for JandJbooksand coffee which indicated all sorts of interesting social stuff as well as shelves and shelves of second-hand books. I like the Petra secondhand bookshop, on C. Campomanes, just off Pl. del Opera, which is a shabby little warren of delights, with a reading room at the back, full of squishy seating, good on a rainy afternoon. OK. Let’s take a look at J&J's. And then we can go home. Thanks Habibi….

Metro to Noviciado. Round the corner onto C. Espiritu Santu. We walked into what appeared to be Spain’s smokiest bar, and walked out. Through the haze, I’d seen a corner unit and a revolving wire stand of books, some occasional tables, a dozen people in lively conversation, and a staircase going down to a basement.
Was this a bookshop? - I asked the man who followed us out. Oh yes, it was.
Were there books downstairs? Yes. Thousands.
OK.

Habibi and I looked at each other: deep breaths, imaginary breathing gear. In and down.


Coo! Books: thousands of them, and doorways leading to more – three rooms in all, stacked to the ceiling. This will do nicely. About 20 minutes later, Habibi went back up to the bar with his two paperbacks, and I went up a little later with two reduced price hardbacks (€2 each) a talking book (€6.50) and a pop-up Nutcracker Suite proscenium arch theatre kit (€4). Habibi was talking with two women, one Australian and one English, and I joined them.


We had such an enjoyable evening, talking about all sorts of things over a couple of glasses of wine. Smoke? What smoke? When ‘Pauline’ switched to moccachino she was handed an enormous cup and saucer with a great creamy swirl on top – beautiful! It was twenty to midnight when we got home…….. Wild night out at the second-hand bookshop!

Un poco más

We just got back from La Fontana de Oro. This is one of Madrid's many Irish bars, and a great live music venue. (The link is a Top 10 Live Music guide, and also lists Café Central, another favourite, so I'll probably be following up on some of the other venues in the next few months.)

This was our second visit. We took a walk last night, and came across it then - happily - because a) we were planning to go and listen to Sí Sí Riders again tonight - this time with lots of people from work - but couldn't quite find the Calle Victoria on our streetmap; and b) Capítan Soul happened to be on, playing a solid R&B set. They were very good, though the lead guitarist's vocals weren't up to their overall musicianship. Their website shows 2 female singers in a 4/5 piece group, but they were playing as an all-male three-piece last night. I'd definitely go again if they had their full line-up, and as it was, we stayed til gone 1 a.m. and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

La Fontana de Oro has its thirteenth anniversary this month, and a full programme of live music. Actually, it's the Irish bar that's 13 : the original FdO opened for business in the 1840s, as a cafe and - literally - a chat room - where people gathered to discuss life , the universe, and everything. Like the Café Comercial, where we went last week, this evolved into one of Madrid's tertulias, or literary circles, and the setting for Benito Pérez Galdós's first novel. Er..... that would be.... La Fontana de Oro ........

I'd never heard of Pérez Galdós before, but that says more about my ignorance of Spanish literature than anything else. Wikipedia says that many consider him second only to Cervantes.

Anyway, he was a contemporary of the Valencian artist, Joaquín Sorolla (Now him I have heard of, and appreciate: I saw an exhibition of his work last year, in Granada, and framed the poster.) And here's Sorolla's portrait of Pérez Galdós:

The FdO has a copy painted on tiles. A nice touch.

And Sí Sí Riders turned in another lively evening's entertainment. Those guys can really play.

I think we're having a lie-on tomorrow.

Oh, and it seems that there's a ghost, too. In England, we go for headless ghosts, but this one is apparently bottomless.

Going to the Prado

We went, but we didn't get in. They were queuing round the block. It's a very handsome block, and it was a very relaxed queue, but we didn't feel like standing in it for an hour or so and then walking round a museum which, by all accounts, takes at least two days of serious attention. So we walked round it instead.

Two things: it's free this week, and there's an exhibition of 19th Century paintings that I want to see. Never mind. I'll go another day. Habibi and I are not very good at doing museums and art galleries together. He absorbs detail quite quickly, and can move from work to work quite quickly. I get transfixed by details, and take f-o-r-e-v-e-r to get from one end of a gallery to the other. I have an idea that we're not the only couple like this. I always wonder at those who can stroll arm-in-arm from painting to painting in rapt, and evenly paced, concentration. How do they do it? Is one of them secretly frustrated, sedated, or quietly looking forward to the cafe and gift shop at the end? Or treating this trip as a recce, and making mental notes for Next Time?
Is it quid pro quo - Prado today, World Cup qualifier tomorrow?

Or are they soulmates destined for the same lotus blossom for all eternity?

Sigh...

Anyway, we cut through the queue, and walked around the outside, en route for Plan B, the Real Jardin Botanico, which he enjoys, and I love. And somewhere that does breakfast! We found the warm, snug, Cafe El Botánico between the Prado and the RJB, and took a break from the bracing autumn air, for tostadas, tortilla and good coffee. That's one to go back to.

The botanical gardens were full of other people who'd thought better of the three queues for the Prado - and there were more queuing to get in. So we went to El Parque del Buen Retiro instead(El Retiro to us locals.........). Just around the corner.

That was busy too, but part of Retiro's charm is the number and variety of people who go there to do their thing at the weekend - plus the fact that it's big enough to accommodate us all. Skateboarders - mostly young men with serious hand, knee and elbow protection - make the most of the flat ground around the fountain of the Fallen Angel (Lucifer, cast out of Heaven) - and the long slope down to the Atocha gate. Children on in-line skates wobble and loop around parents ambling with push-chairs and toddlers. Joggers. Cyclists. Teens, adults and jubilados (fab Spanish term - beats 'pensioners' and 'senior citizens' in my book) stroll hand-in-hand, or sit at one of the many cafes with friends and newspapers. So do we. There's a playground where you can encourage your four-year-old to the top of a ladder; practise Tai Chi or yoga; strip to your shorts and work your abs and pecs - or just watch....... ;)














Then there's the Palacio de Cristal, overlooking an ornamental lake full of fish (huge fish - huuuuge fish), ducks, umpteen terrapins, and three or four swamp cypresses that grow straight out of the water. Such fun. The Palacio is gorgeous. It's also an exhibition gallery connected with the rather fab Centro Reina Sofia, just across town. I couldn't understand this when we first saw the Palacio in the 35C heat of August. It's an unshaded glass building - probably the most unsuitable venue for any kind of exhibition - unless they bring stone sculpture up those steps?





Today we saw - Andy Goldsworthy's 'En las entrañas del árbol' :

OK!

We walked on, to the cafe overlooking the big ornamental lake, and the statue of Alfonso XII. The last time we stopped there, back in August, in our first week here, we were ready to collapse from a bad case of Overdone Tourist: the heat! - our feet! Basically, we stayed because we couldn't move another step until the sun went down. Of course, on the way back to the hotel, we discovered the Palacio de Cristal, and all sorts of lovely things we'd been too stressed to appreciate earlier.

This time, we had a lovely time watching the world row by in bright blue rowing boats, while sparrows swooped in and out of the flame-leaved trees, and people came and went, all wrapped up in woollies and boots, and all wearing shades against the brilliant autumn sun.

We continued along the lakeside path - across from the statue and mausoleum - and passed at least four puppet booths, a pair of dancers taking a break, a magician in huge fake wig and purple turban, and showbiz Ali Baba slippers; and the tarot souk! There were about a dozen ladies with little folding tables, all with table cloths, some with bouquets of artificial flowers attached, plus lines of elastic to hold the tarot cards in place - presumably to prevent a chance breeze from rearranging someone's destiny.. (There are several TV channels dedicated to tarot. Add that to the national obsession with lottery tickets, and you get an odd slant on what used to be a formidably Roman Catholic country.)

I like Sundays in Madrid.

Deberes (Homework)

We've started Spanish lessons, and got to El Preterito Perfecto. So here's the homework - all in the present perfect, and heavily reliant on the dictionary, but never mind! (Short version: we went out last night. It was fun. We slept in today in celebration of The Day of the Dead - great excuse for a public holiday - and then went for a walk. Wild.)

I did try a proper blog earlier, but something went awry, hence default homework entry. Also - my Spanish is finally starting to resemble a language instead of a linguistic lucky bag............... phew............. So, never mind the howlers, here's my best shot.

el 1 de noviembre de 2007
Hoy es el Día de los Muertos, y un día festivo aquí en España. Para celebrar, me he quedado en la cama hasta 1 por la tarde, y entonces, dos horas más, con mi té, mi libro y mi ordenador portátil. ¡Qué bueno a holgazanear como éste!
Ayer noche, me he ido de trabajar a 9.45 por la noche, y he tomado el Metro a Nuñez de Balboa, y un concierto en The Celtic Cross. En las estaciones, he visto muchas jovenes en traje de fiesta, vestido de estilo fantastico: capas y alas negras, pelucas brillantes, y maquillaje de fantomas, diablos, o payasos de circo. En el andén a Alónso Martínez, la gente ha sonreido, o le has ignorado. Entonces, cuando el tren he ‘efectuado su entrada en la estación’ los coches han contenido otros diablos y angeles, todos en fiesta.
Luego, he encontrado con Keef a N de B, y nosotros hemos ido a la barra, donde hemos disfrutado con amigos y desconocidos – ha sido igual. Mucha gente, musica, risa y conversación sobre otras conversaciones y más risa. Dos cumpleaños – toda ha cantado. Nos hemos ido tarde.
Cuando hemos salida del Metro a 1 de la mañana, hemos encontrados muchos grupos de jovenes quienes han sus propios fiestas pequeños en la piazza cerca de nuestro piso. Hemos querido quedarse – ¿por qué intentar de dormir a través de tan ruido? , pero he hecho demasiado frío, y nosotros hemos estado un poco cansada. Nos hemos ido a la cama, y nos hemos levantada doce horas mas tarde.
Esta tarde ha estado despejado y ha hecho de buen tiempo. Pues, hemos dado un paseo lente, miranda los arboles, los edificios, y la gente del barrio, y hemos comido en una de las pocas cafeterías que han sido abiertas hoy. Entonces, un otro paseo, un café en el ambiente amable de la historica Café Comercial. Y la vuelta al casa.

......... I might try that again when I can talk about the past properly! The band was Sí Sí Riders, a light-hearted Elvis cover band fronted by the gloriously extrovert singer Jeff Hogan. It was a wacky night out, with umpteen of us crammed into a tiny Scottish bar, with punters in Halloween dress having to sidle discreetly round the band to get to the loo, and stopping for a bop on the way back. Great fun. And these guys could really play. Lead, bass and drums doing serious justice to classic rock & roll and R&B. Estupendo! In fact, some of them play in other groups and line-ups. Check out bassista (!) Dave Mooney's other band, named for it's singer and writer Garrett Wall, on MySpace. I'm going to get down to their next gig. My ears might have stopped ringing by then.

Hacer de Compras

Grocery Shopping

Phrasebooks are great for holidays.

You walk into a cervecería, give the camarero a big sonrisa (:D) open your libro de frasos at Page 2, and point to the fraso, Dos cervezas, por favor.
El camarero rewards you with an authentic flamenco stare down his handsome Spanish nariz ( :<\ ), and ¡Olé! Roberto es su tio. (Except that, in Spain, Pepe es su tio - and María es su tia, while we're doing cultural notes.) Three hours and several pages más tarde, full of bocadillos, paella, tapas, pinchos and vino tinto, you write a cheque in the air, and are rewarded with a small circular dish bearing the latest news on the exchange rate. You sort through various denominations of billetes in pretty colours, and a pocketful of unfamiliar silver, brass and copper, and then beam a happy ¡Hasta luego! at el mundo at large, and continue on your way in search of new pages. ¡Qué bueno! Well, three weeks into our sojourn aquí, we've done Page 2 lots of times. ¡Qué bueno! Of course, we've also gone off text. First there was shopping for food, because you can't eat out alllllll the time. The Mercado is across the road from us for fresh fruit and veg, meat, fish, eggs, cheese and bread; and all around us there is every kind of shop, like a street in a children´s book: grocer, bakery, charcutería ('deli' doesn't cover it), shoe shop, hardware store, chemist, book shop, stationer, fabric shop, wool shop, clothes shop, health food shop, farm shop, toy shop, plus gym, salon de juegos (games arcade), and lots of cafeterias and cervecerías, also sidrerías, pizzerias and purveyors of Döner Kebap. And that's just around the corner. (I was going to say 'walking distance', but everything's within walking distance: one of the pleasures of being here is being able to walk everywhere, and we do.) In Dubai we have shopping malls. In Britain we have Tesco superstores. Here, where everyone lives stacked three or four deep above a shop, in buildings over a century old, finding space or getting planning permission for a mega-mall or whopper-market which would increase efficiency and profitability (for the owner of said WHaM) and denude a neighborhood of everything but estate agents, charity shops and antique dealers by day, and graffiti artists and piss artists by night – oh, and involve rehousing four households (and 4-12 registered voters) for every 50m2 of retail space... well... I think we're safe for a while yet. Whoo! First rant in Spain! Gonna be an anarcho-conservative, libero-fascist greenie! Anyway, I've always enjoyed food markets – the fragrant heaps and pyramids of colour, the orderly variety of fish and seafood, cheese and bread; the different types and cuts of meat; the range of preserved goodies: salt- and smoke-cured meat, all ages and stages of cheese, salted fish, and pickled olives; and eggs of all colours, sizes, and parentage. On my first visit to the Mercado I was in my element, even though it was a Monday, so most of the stalls were shut after the busy weekend trade. In my new orange espadrilles, and with my natty new shopping basket with the blue and green striped lining (spot the newcomer doing New Life in Spain!) I trotted round reading labels and notices, watching and listening to other shoppers, and thumbing back and forth and back again through my diccionario. It took lots of smiles, mime and pointing, but I did manage to hacer de compras en español and €s. The first surprise was that they wrap everything in waxed paper; the second that they assume you want a plastic carrier bag for everything, even though most shoppers have shopping bags or wheelie-bags. And there was I with aforementioned natty basket. Oh well, I was buying fish and meat anyway. Where our market at home features Lincolnshire potatoes, here we have gallego (Gallician) poultry and eggs (fresh turkey any time, not just Christmas and Thanksgiving), granadiño and Iberian hams, and embutidos (sausages) ibéricos. I think that in this context, ibérico/Iberian simply means Spanish, rather than imported, though there are special pork cuts and products which you would not find outside Spain. (And if you've ever seen a vacuum-packed lardon, basically a 10x8x5cm lump of white fat trimmed with bacon for contrast, you'll understand why!). After a dozen years in a Muslim country, it's a little overwhelming to find myself in Pork Central. While Dubai’s supermarket chains – apart from the French ones – carried pork lines, we were paying for food miles and the privilege of access to haram products, which put the British (best!) beyond our budget, leaving bland and additive-packed American brands - or South African bacon which tasted good, but more or less vapourised on contact with grill or frying pan..... Hmm.... a little disconcerting. And what is the point of turkey, beef or soya bacon? So I skipped it. Apart from the black pudding. That worked! Here, there's pork everywhere. Suckling pigs smile adorably from window displays, in a dead sort of way, like cheerfully philosophical Babe wannabes; and ‘jamon’ legs hang in rows in cervecerías, cafés and restaurants, the current one propped on a special stand, ready for slicing for your lunchtime tostada or bocadillo (and, once, a discarded one in a skip, trotter pointing skyward – a little unsettling until brain processed glimpse and established that this was neither part of a plastic mannequin, nor the beginnings of a police enquiry). When not sliced and packed, pork looks so human…..

But – it is the Spanish meat, dating back to the centuries when the majority of Spaniards lived in poverty and – like the rural poor in most countries – kept a pig for meat. And – I suppose - ate every last scrap, however inventive they had to be to make it palatable. Also, in periods of religious intolerance, a leg of ‘jamon’ hanging in your window was insurance of a sort.

Last year I was introduced to a very Spanish cheese. It has no name, as far as I can tell – just your común o jardín queso - but it's made from the milk of cabra, oveja y vaca (goat, ewe and cow) and comes in three ages: tierno (young), semi-curado, and curado. Habibi's not impressed, but I enjoy all three. As with all cheeses, refrigeration makes it bland, but with August temperatures of 26-36º, I don't really want it lurking in a corner, plotting my overthrow, so it lives in the fridge, but gets three or four hours freedom before meals.

Anyway, when I got home from the Mercado (and the horno/pastelería/confitería bakery/pastry-shop/sweetshop), I put everything away, made myself a coffee, spread the printed waxed wrappers on the table and pulled out the diccionario again. Which is why I can spout merrily about embutidos and the like.

One thing. When I was little, my Grandmère had a quince bush, and used to make quince jam, which I adored. When I saw quince last year (in the French hypermarket Géant, in Ibn Battuta Mall, in Dubai!) of sugar, I pounced. I had to look up quince on the Internet to find out how to cook it, and I duly followed the instructions, which involved an improbable quantity of sugar. Result. Inedibly sweet muck. Vile.
So, when I saw tarte de membrillo in the local horno/pastelería/confitería-bakery/pastry-shop/sweetshop, I bought one.
Any Beano readers reading this? No? Dandy?……… Do you remember Dennis the Menace/Minnie the Minx/Desperate Dan’s reaction to revolting food? It went as follows: Grrrroooooogh!
If and when I find fresh membrillos – I mean quinces - I'm using half the standard sugar quantity. Ha!