A lesson in vocabulary

Guiri (pron: ‘girry’) is the term given by the Spanish to tall, usually light-haired foreigners, gringo being the South American Spanish equivelent.  It’s usually said endearingly; but of course it has been known to be followed by spitting and shaking of fists behind one’s back.

*  Wearing Havianas and/or denim shorts and/or looking like me will get you called guiri for sure.

**  Guiri de mierda on the other hand, is not and will never be said endearingly.

***  When asking a male Spanish friend his opinion on why it might be that I found it almost impossible to make friends with Spanish women (and if subsequently, if it was because they thought I was an estúpida guiri de mierda), I was told:

“You’re tall and blonde.  They’re intimidated by you.”

I thought this was a little bit awesome, until he followed with:

“And because of that, you don’t have to be very pretty to stand out.  If you were tanned and dark haired, you’d have to be a lot prettier to get noticed.”

I think he meant this in a nice way.

(Damn language barrier).

Kitchen Tap

When I turn on my kitchen tap, it sounds like a rotund old man is containing a wayward fart.  Or, that his pet terrier is containing a yelp of fear before being sat on by old man’s similarly rotund old arse.

(Self-reminder:  one mustn’t eat the produce of containers which hiss when opened.)

Fringe benefits? Not likely. A story of survival at the hairdressers.

I have a fringe now, something which I haven’t possessed since I was six years old and thought capturing garden snails was a valuable past time.

It all came about in an entirely innocent way, going to the hairdressers one afternoon after work, trying to pull together and tick off the myriad of tasks left to do before leaving Sevilla to move to Madrid.  And so I went, off to the first-in-best-dressed type of salon where you walk in and they attend to you according to arrival time.  After waiting for 45 minutes or so (sitting beside a mother and watching the haidresser cut her two young boys’ hair in a manner so meticulous as to suggest she was surgically removing a tumor from each) I began to notice that the gnawing in my stomach I’d been trying to ignore was becoming a full-blown hunger fest.  And that I was developing a please-feed-me headache to match.

“Shit,” I thought, “This can’t be good.”

When one has low blood-sugar, it’s relatively normal to become vague, faint, even bitchy.  I  habitually become all three, except that I also loose the ability to think rationally, or to respond to potentially dangerous situations in an altogether reasonable manner.

Situations such as, looking up to see a hairdresser wielding scissors and asking “Te hago flequillito?”  before you chirp “Sí!” without a second’s thought, not remembering that when too short, a fringe cut out of your hair has a tendency to become poofier than Sandra Dee’s when she turned up all leather-clad at the end of Grease.  And that for this reason you usually do all you can to avoid hairdressers getting all scissor-happy and cutting you a one.

“Como el tuyo,” I wanted to add, “Pero más largo.”  She had, you see, a lovely, sweeping number which fell delicately almost completely across her left eye, leaving a bit of body and bouce (but not too much, mind) on the right side.  It was silky and straight (blowdried, I suspect, within an inch of its life) and gently framed her face as one would hope one’s fringe would.

I, in my near diabetic sugar-low state of unawareness, noticed all the characteristics of her non-fluffy fringe in the second it took me not to respond to her question as I’d planned I might.  I was left, henceforth, to gaze at her in an imbecilic manner, watching as she parted my hair on the wrong side, before whipper-snippering it into the Brazilian wax equivilent of fringes.  The kind that don’t sweep at all – gently or otherwise – but rather bunch together in a fringe/clump not unreminiscent of the much loved ’80’s curl/poof/fringe.  The kind that either look like that, or, when swept to the side look as Jaggered as Mick himself, having seemingly been hacked into from the bottom up.

“Te gusta?”  She asks me.

Low-blood-suger-and-now-quite-painful-headache-Erin doesn’t answer.

“Un poco más, no?” Edwina Scissorhands adds, mistaking my silence for a request for more, and apparently not yet happy with her gardening.

The suggestion plunges me further into a state of shock/silence/hunger.

And so, I left, ten minutes and ten centimetres fringe-less later, to wander the streets of  Sevilla’s quaint and idyllicly Andalúz Santa Cruz looking more like I belonged in hippy La Alameda land, playing a flute and swinging a gangly, cross-bred’s lead while watching it pee against a lampost.

Spontaneous Upheaval

(Written six months after moving to Spain). When you move to another country, you move through a couple of stages of – let’s say appreciation – for your new home. The first stage is the ethrallment of…

love at first sight

…when everything seems fresher and more beautiful than it was at home.  Balconies, streets and people drinking coffee are scenes so picturesque that they seem to have been invented only yesterday.  The oddly strange new names for things and little quirky customs like having to weigh your own fruit at the supermarket are new and intesting.  Accents on vowels, squiggles above letters and people rolling their ‘r’s are the cutest things since you yourself were born.

After enthrallment comes…

awareness

…around about two months in, you’ll experience one or two reality checks.  Due to the physical and emotional upheaval of finding yourself somewhere to live and a person willing to pay you to work, you’ll probably find that you’ve contracted some sort of heinous flu, or at least, an odd tendency to break out in allergic reactions when faced with food that you used to eat abundantly – meaning that a visit to the doctor will be essential.  No longer cute, the doctor’s constant ‘r’ rolling and your own recent arrival in the country simply mean that you can’t easily communicate, and you end up leaving with a prescription for something that may or may not help you and a pissed off expression usually reserved for wild boar, or new mothers.   Set back number three comes in the form of…

financial shock

…your new home is a fair whack more expensive that your previous, which is something you were incapable of appreciating while your faculties were more involved in appreciating balconies, narrow cobblestoned streets, the proximity of sea and mountains and the ridiculous hairstyles paraded in these parts.  But your current reality of rice and onions with the occastional tin of tuna mixed in are no longer quite so delicious.  Of course, nothing would fix this as quickly as half an avocado and a squeeze of lemon spread on real grainy bread – but avocados sell for what you’d expect to get for you kidney, and the locals are yet to wake up to the fact that grainy bread is not a luxury that can be happily replaced by white bread bubbles. After a couple of reality checks and the unsightly period of awareness comes…

confusion

…bound to happen somewhere within your first six months, confusion is a moment when you realise that you brought yourself with youto this new place.  Life came with you too, and didn’t read the invitation you sent it that read ‘only awesomeness please’.  You have an irrational cry or two at home spurred by something idiotic like there being no milk, or being tired, or not understanding the shop assistant when she asked you if you had a Mercadona frequent customers’ card.  You try to blame it on your period and then realise that it’s not the right time of the month for that, setting you off down another teary track where you scream silently at yourself for being in such a beautiful place, doing what you always wanted to do and feeling like all you want to do is eat a bar of chocolate and go to sleep for the next two months.  Confusion is the period when ‘living the dream’ turns into simply ‘living’ and you realise that wherever you are, people still have the same problems…they’re just in another language, making it all the harder to rant about them. Confusion lasts about as long as it takes to make an awesome friend or two, and is followed not by a lightning bolt of clarity/epiphany style revelation of ‘this is what it’s all about’ complete with the booming voice of reason…but with…

life…just life

…and it’s great and complete and boring and fabulous and sometimes makes you want to kill it and it’s hilarious and tiring and not always wondrously financial – but you’re here, and you made it.

Of Food and Flatmates

So, to have a very Carrie Bradshaw moment, after moving into a temporary studio apartment in the centre of Madrid, I’ve gotten to thinking.  “Is this the height of coolness, or a desperate attempt to live a life that I’m not yet equipped to live?”

The apartment is very cute; wonderful for a single girl to enjoy and call her own.  It’s a split room job, polished floors and high ceilings, a faux-leather sofa and a wall made entirely of shelving (enough for even the most rampant trinket horder to stash all her bits and pieces).  There are several lighting options to suit mood, and a balcony at the height of the young tree outside.  True, I’d change the pitch black entrance hallway before the front door, my kitchen wouldn’t be in a cupboard, and my shower would be big enough to shave comfortably in; but as this is not a place where I’ll live for ever, those are things that I can forgive.

View from my temporary haven's window. So easy to be a voyeur in Spain...

The first night I was here, I decided not to eat, and instead filled what space was left in the wardrobe (my friend has a lot of clothes), with the contents of my bag.  The next day, I headed out the front door, strolled past the fountained plaza and as yet unopened bars and cafés near it, and went in search of sustinence.  Coffee first, and then food.

Coming home, and beginning to fill my fridge with my first food purchases, I had a thought.

“That was expensive, for not much reward.”

That is to say, I’d brought home the bare necessities (cereal, milk, rice, pasta, veggies and…tuna – yes, again tuna!) and had been forced to hand over 20€ without even trying.

Now, I’m not a brand girl (except for chocolate and coffee) and believe what my mother always told me; that all over the world, there are factories where the same products exit via two doors.    One door, grey and boring for the black and white no name brands to come out, and the other, a sparkly pink door with it’s own personal fairy lit marching band, where the glittery name brands exit and are stamped with an inflated price of their own.  This may or may not be a slightly cheesed up version of my mother’s advice, but the point still stands.  The morning in question, my first shopping outing in Madrid, I had entered in Día (known cheap-o supermarket) and had not even indulged in farmer’s market, organic produce and Kellogg’s cereal.  The milk was UHT (like all milk is in Spain, but that’s another complaint) and the pasta was certainly not made in Italy, nor had any pretence at all of having been.  Neither had I splurged on wine, or chocolate, or fruit, or the saucepan and dishwashing liquid that I’d seen my little flat had lacked.  That would all have to come later.

After observing my not even full bar fridge for a moment or two, I became aware of a little voice whispering at my shoulder.

“It’s because you’re single.”

“Pardon, little voice?”

“You’re buying for one person.”

“Well, what do you expect?  That I buy for you too?  Or the family I hope to have someday?”

Sadly, the little voice was right.  Eating for one, and not eating crap, is not cheap.  You can buy all the rice, potatoes, salt and garlic that you want, sure.  But once you have the idea to dress it up a little with something green, it’s time to say adiós to loose change paying for the weekly shop.

I, anyway, can’t actually do a weekly shop, as I eat vastly more than a rabbit does, and so in shopping for only a few days, already come home lugging a few bags as it is.  In some share houses, my biceps haven’t had this work out, as I’ve shared food, and thus had help with the lugging of bags.

Upon leaving home, I moved in with Kieran, a excellent friend who also turned out to be an excellent flatmate (these are more difficult to find then they may seem).  We had a shared interest in hungover underwear shopping, blue chaise lounges, the blue and grey monochrome of our neighbour’s washing line, eggs for breakfast, strong tea drunk on the back deck and hunting rogue mice that were invincible to any bait.  And importantly, we only fought one and a half times.  The first, when he criticised an outfit that I was going to wear; after which I told him to shove it and he would not, where upon I reacted by hitting him with a boot.  And the second; a half-hearted moment when I was making curry the way I’d always seen it made, and he got just a teensy bit uppity about my mum’s quick and busy method before spouting a small monologue about India and insisting that he continue.  The fact that his version was light years superior is beside the point.

Kieran's alphabet magnets were awesome. Beat pen and paper anyday.

Anyway, we shared food.  And it made shopping easier and cheaper and more fun to return from the shops together, working our abs by tensing and relaxing them as we lifted shopping bags like dumbells.  Sharing food only became just a teensy bit of a problem when the fact raised its ugly head that I ate just a teensy bit more than he.  Which only came to light one day when I ate a teensy bit of what was his share of some leftovers we’d cooked together.  Which I think was in fact his aforementioned superior curry; thus adding fuel to the half-hearted fire.  From which point I simply ate less, that in itself being an effort I must say.  But all this did explain how it was that he could fit into my jeans without any effort, while I had to suck in a little to do the same.

My next house was an airy flat of a minimum of five, maximum of seven in Barcelona, myself at one point being the only un-Brazilian.  We didn’t share anything, but occasionally cooked together before enjoying an impromptu 5am mojito.  These flatmates taught me how many carrots should ideally go in a carrot and chocolate cake (eight or nine), how to make empadão (a chicken dream) and, finally and most importantly for humankind, where I learned how to cook rice without either searing the pot black, or ending up with a lump of indistinguishable grey smush.  Nothing scary food-wise happened in this flat, except for when Thorsten, the German counterpart, brought home a leg of jamón one day and we all learned how to carve off little slices with the strange sort of long, un-serrated knives that evidently one is to use.  I wasn’t a fan of this piece of pig in my kitchen (its hoof still attached), as it smelt and tasted as I imagined (and still imagine) human flesh must smell and taste.

5am mojitos in jars. Scary jamón in background.

House number three.  I had my second, and equally successful attempt at moving in with already made friends – the lovely Mandy and Kelsey.  Mandy and I met in Spanish class, and had already bonded over food in a major way, her serving me a sort of mini dinner once or twice a week between her classes, and before my skipping off to serve beer in large quantities to drunken Englishmen on La Rambla.  During our time as flatmates, I learned how to make potatoes interesting, and she learned that potatoes are not, in fact, a “free” vegetable.

This sad fact came to her one night when at around 10pm, after returning from giving a late class and having eaten a sizeable plate of her “pink pasta” (spiral pasta, butter and tomato sauce), she returned to the living room with a plate of freshly fried and salted potato cubes.  While trying to decipher the Catalán news program on TV Kelsey and I had heard them spitting away in the kitchen and thought it better not to ask.  But ask we had to, as Mandy happily sat down to eat her second massive helping of carbohydrates in almost as many minutes.

“What are you eating?”

“Potatoes.”

“Didn’t you just eat pasta?”

“Yep.”

“Potatoes are like pasta, you know.  It’s a huge source of carbs.”

“What do you mean?  It’s a vegetable.  Veggies are free food.”

“Who said that?”

“Everyone knows that.”

“Yeah, but potatoes don’t count.”

This went on for some time, and finally became a world-shattering realisation for Mandy of the variety that I don’t really think will ever allow her to return to her life of old.  Sort of like for me, when at 5 years old I had a nightmare where in Michael Jackson was waiting for me in the darkened spare bedroom at my grandparents’, before chasing me through their house.  (Soon after, I learned that he had not always been the translucent, white, destroyed of nose specimen I’d grown so used to seeing.  And my world hasn’t been the same since).

Old flatties, Brazilian and otherwise...

Kelsey too had a special relationship with food in our house, involving mostly her amazing ability to whip up delicious hors d’œuvres suitable for the sort of entertaining we didn’t yet consider ourselves old enough to partake in.  Of special note were her honey-roasted tomatoes with balsamic vinegar, and a certain dip which remains curious to this day; namely cream cheese, purple grapes and coriander leaves, sliced and mixed together.  Kelsey also introduced quimwah (a grain which I can’t spell) to my life, taught me how to make salad dressings from scratch, and was the author of some amazing, yet odd molasses and chocolate chip cookies (made, or not made as the case may be, for the arrival of a very dashing Venezuelan one lazy Sunday afternoon).

Incredible as her cooking skills could be, Kelsey herself ate simply.  She was often seen staring at her shelf in the fridge – remembering yet again that she’d forgotten to go shopping – before taking out an apple, a block of cheese and a knife.  She’d be found moments later, sitting on the couch and expertly shearing off slices of each, before eating them in a sort of apple-cheese-apple sandwhich.  Sometimes, cheese-apple-cheese.

I was reminded off all this as I lugged home my first shop, before returning to the supermarket to lug home the saucepan and cleaning materials I lacked.  I was actually very lucky that month.  A friend not currently in Madrid was letting me use her cute little studio for a relative pittance; paying basically the bills themselves.  This was such a gift, that it was actually making me a little lazy.  Lying in, making breakfast slowly before deciding whether or not to go out and achieve anything that particular day.  Soon, I realised that my diary had filled up with trips here and there out of the city, and I hadn’t yet put any elbow grease into finding myself a place for when my friend returned.

True, I wasn’t going to find myself a place quite like this one.  600€ a month is too much for me; much as I’d like to tap into my inner Carrie Bradshaw and live alone and mostly fabulously in the centre of an exciting city.  Though, as I remember, even Bradshaw, in her special whiny way, complained occasionally about the rent.

“How can you save some money, short term?” I asked myself, watching my shopping bags cut into the palms of my hands.

Survive on rice and chicken stock?  Hmmm, no.  I like food.  Not salmon and sirloin mind, but having colour on my plate.  And not eating things that already look as they’ve been chewed and partially digested.

Grow my own veggies?  Yeahhh.  In a little apartment, sure.  Over a year ago, my new year’s resolution had been to find a place with a rooftop terrace, from which to grow fresh herbs (which I’d of course learn how to include in my soon to be awesome cooking).  Rooftop terrace found, five months later the herbs had yet to eventuate.

Keep the lights turned perpetually off, and live under the glow of candlelight?  Sounds wonderful, though romantic though it may be, would not be practical nor ease my already fairly innate jumpity-ness.  Having been brought up in a land where leaves crackle as merrily as one’s morning Rice Bubbles, and a single spark can birth a blaze which wipes crops clean off the face of the earth, fire danger is always a very real thought in my mind as I watch a tealight candle burn in its little metal dish.  Knowing a candle is burning, I can hardly leave the room for a moment, not even to go to the next.  And anyway.  After a trip to “Natura” (Spain’s answer to Australia’s hippy wannabe shop “Tree of Life”), I found that candles are not actually as cheap as they might be.  And with a burning time of 5 hours each, but diameter of…well…30 centimetres…I would need a good 40 in my flat at any one time to light my way.  And the heat they would give off in a Spanish summer isn’t even worth mentioning.

Paying for one person’s inner city existence isn’t a cheap practice.  Smaller packages of food aren’t proportionately smaller in price, and bulk buying isn’t feasible as the produce rots in the refrigerator before one has had a chance to munch through it.  We are hence limited to choosing one of the two options or trying to agree on a wider range of shared food with flatmates.  Some cities have limited this problem for us, making outdoor eating as cheap as it is in your dreams (I’m looking at you, Berlin and your massive Turkish community!).  But others (Hi there Barcelona and Madrid!) haven’t, leaving us to be as creative as possible with our food preparation.

One of my resolutions this year was to be more creative food-wise, while not spending any more money on sustinence.  What will be acomplished will be interesting, as I am still a little too impressed with myself when I manage to do something simple well – as with my 2007 rice success, the first time I made a good white sauce, and the perfect omelette I fashioned moments ago.

My goals therefore, will be:

• To be able to identify fresh herbs by their leaves
• To know which should go in the major foods of each continent
• To be able to think of something more interesting to serve than pizza, beef stirfry or olives and cheese para picar when people come over to eat
• To enjoy good cheese while not getting as large as said cheese would have me become
• And to spend no more than 30€ per week on store bought food

Let’s see how we go.

Llega una Madrileña muy poco tradicional.

24 hours almost to the hour after first arriving in my temporary flat in Madrid, I’ve had to ask myself why I’ve returned to Spain for the third time in as many years, to set up in city number three.

Yesterday, after sleeping on and off on my flight from Frankfurt (and finally coming to completely after sleep snorting so loudly I woke myself up) I arrived in Madrid’s Barajas airport and spent the next half an hour trying to get out again, before another hour negotiating the metro.  Arriving at Ópera station, I got out my map (folded into six so as to look a little less obviously like I was holding a map) and began negotiating the side streets surrounding the Palace.  I had been down Fadia’s street before, but that was in the afternoon and after the help of a third of a large pitcher of sangria, shared with her and a friend at a Mexican restaurant nearby.  In the dark evening of a Monday night, puntuated by the many lights of nearby bars just beginning their trade…it was slightly more difficult to find.  I did get there, only realising I’d done so as I crossed a people-dotted plaza for the second time, carefully avoiding the couple I’d asked for directions minutes before, and was about to make my way up yet another side street, when a man sitting by a fountain called “Ereén?” in the particular way that only the Spanish do.

Joseba had been expecting me, and took me to the studio apartment that would be my September home.  He was brief, friendly and to the point…and after pointing out where the kitchen was (behind a cupdoor and resembling a wardrobe), he left me to my own devices.  Of course, I did call him back momentarily, as my key had become splendidly wedged in the lock and I was having visions of being locked forever in and dying in a starving heap, unable to jump out my balcony due to an immense sugar low.  But that was soon sorted, and I was alone.  It was perfect.

The studio is a one room job, “separated” by two open archways that lead from the entrance hall to the lounge/bedroom.  The bathroom is just too small to negotiate comfortably (I tried shaving my legs this morning, much to the amusement of…well…myself), and the kitchen is (literally) situated in a cupboard.  But this is all just mildly comical in its own way, and besides, the polished floorboards, leather sofa and television blasting out all the crappy Spanish programs my heart could wish for make it all wonderful. After deeming myself too buggered to go out and look for nourishment, I halfheartedly unpacked before throwing myself into bed, deciding to set my alarm for 10am, justifying this by reasoning that I’d only woken up at this time twice in two months (conveniently ignoring the fact that this is normal for many people out there).

So this morning, I was woken to the strains of my terribly outdated mobile phone’s alarm, and slowly waltzed out of bed. It was to be an important day, if not a memorable one.  It was to be my first in a new city.  I was going to step out my front door, a new, if rather untraditional Madrileña.  The day was to be dedicated to finding a bank, filling my fridge and finding clothes for a job interview I have scheduled for Thursday. Madrid was already seeming far more cosmopolitan than Sevilla, I noted as I sat down to have a café con leche and a tostada con tomate y aceite (a flat white and a toasted panini with olive oil and smooshed tomato).  In Sevilla, cafes shun you and turn you away in a special sort of pissed off manner if you so dare as to ask for tostadas after 10am.  Breakfast ends, you see.  Never mind the fact that toasting bread and smearing it with squishy, ripe tomatoes is not rocket science; the timing is paramount.  The Spanish can be very German in this respect.

Plaza Mayor - an old guy on a segue. Fabulous.

I spent a good hour in this place, reading the Spanish equivelent to Q Weekend, and learning all manner of things about the three current reinas of Hollywood (Eva Méndes, Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie, for all of you playing at home), as well as how we’ve become so scientifically and technologically adept, that we no longer know how we are emotionally.  I knew how I was emotionally, and that was aware that if I didn’t soon find a supermarket, I’d be eating tostadas and drinking coffee at this place three times a day.  I was going to ask the barman where I might find sustinence…but realised that I’d ruined that by giving him the exact amount he asked for, in one, two and 50 cent pieces.  No tip.  Not that you actually tip here, but did he looked worse for wear upon seeing my shrapnel.

After finally finding a supermarket and realising that downtown Madrid is actually not that overwhelmingly large; I karted my purchases home, placed tuna on my kitchen shelf for the first time in eight weeks, and made lunch.  A boring lunch.  Interesting cooking skills will have to go on my list of things to achieve this year, alongside taking salsa and tennis lessons, learning Portuguese to a respectable pre-intermediate level, finding an English/guitar intercambio partner and joining a local swimming pool when, in fact, I find one. After a siesta (which I will not allow myself the indulgence of every day!), I remembered that I possessed no suitable attire for the job interview that I have lined up for this Thursday.

Off I went, and back home I came four hours later…laden down not only with the spatula, washing liquid and mini saucepan the cupboard kitchen had lacked, but also with four tops, a dress, new jeans and some undies.  None of which was really suitable for an interview.  Hmmm.  Well, the jeans and a top could possibly be, if jazzed up with jewellery.  But man, after arriving in Madrid, all thoughts of myself happily roaming the streets in jeans had been scratched off the plan – much as I’d have killed for an extra pair of pants in chilly old Frankfurt.

But the question remains, why have I come back again?  I think it’s a bit of a combination.  Somehow, I have the feeling of not being “finished” with this country, but at the same time, I’m not sure what it is I’m missing here.  I’ve already realised that (unless their father ends up being a overwhelmingly-proud-jamón-eating-Spanish-nationalist who insisted on staying; in which case, I’d have to wonder why he’s the father) I wouldn’t raise kids here.  And it isn’t that there’s anything in particular wrong with the country in terms of being kid friendly – I just know that a garden and house, like those we know, can’t be beaten.

The food isn’t even my real cup of tea (and the tea isn’t anything to rave about either for that matter!)  It’s usually too greasy and pork-encompassing, and vegetables are worth their weight in gold, if you find any at all.  The bread is expensive if you want a variety that isn’t bubbly and white, and milk is of the UHT variety (in fact, I haven’t actually seen fresh milk once in three years).

But there is something about the lifestyle that keeps me here, and the architecture, and the language.  The language is a major factor.  I considered moving to Berlin or Sweden, but realised that it would be and exhausting and hugely difficult task to learn the language, due to the blondies’ amazing ability with English.  The Spanish, on the other hand, remain a little less coherent in general with their English, a fact that keeps me afloat when I’ve had less than coherent moments swimming about their language.

So, another chapter begins.  I’m going to go slowly and with my eyes open to enjoy it as I walk.

Having moved to Sevilla…

Sevilla, unlike my initial and stereotype-fuelled fantasies, is not laden with dancing locals and instant friends on every corner.  I haven’t heard anyone say ‘Olé!’ except for a guitar playing gypsy in a bar (fine, that’s pretty Andalucian right there!) and not one local has actually been able to tell me where to find a flamenco show.

Fortunately, these things are not what brought me here in the first place…but rather looking  for a change of place for the city-ness that is Barcelona.  And a change it’s been…!

Barcelona is famous for being slightly left of centre, a little off, full of tourists, much more ‘cosmopolitan’ than the rest of Spain.  Sevilla, despite the lack of stereotypes in everyday life, is famous for being much more ‘Spanish’.  It’s hotter for one.  There’s a functioning bullring and a LOT  more jamón as well.  And the people do certainly love a holiday, though they’re quick to retaliate if you accuse them of not liking to work!

One such excuse for not working – the Semana Santa – finished week or so ago.  This was certainly a spectacle, if an incredibly inconvenient one.  Essentially, throughout the week, thousands of people flock to the streets to watch floats (tronos) bearing Jesus or one of the many Virgens pass by.  After feeling suitable pious, they drink their body weight (the sight of the rubbish, both normal and human in the streets afterwards is pretty filthy).

A paso in Triana - famous for being livelier, less solemn...

The process is simple, but takes months of preparation.  The tronos are carried by 40 – 60 men who are hidden underneath, each armed with a rolled up teatowel bunched behind their head to cushion the pressure of the 35 odd kilograms each much bear as they walk slowly down the streets for hours at a time.  Golden, covered in roses and candles, the tronos are a beautiful sight, though a slightly unnerving one, what with the vacant expression and glassy tears of the Virgen atop.  Leading and following the trono are hundreds of men (and lately, women) who walk with the trono for an average time of six hours.  Dressed not unlike the Ku Klux Klan and bearing metre-long candles, they sometimes walk barefoot and are not allowed to speak to the public.  Citing ‘penance’, these small irritations seem fair enough, but upon further chats with locals, it become difficult to gather if participation is in fact for relgious purposes, or out of habit or family tradition.  But regardless of their motives, the Nazarenos (or ‘cone heads’ for those less aware!) provide their fair share of nuisance when tries to cross the city.

Nazarenos from El Cachorro

I’d been warned before the first Monday that once in, you were in.  I was told that people arrive, sit on their inherited deck chair (really!) and plant for the next few hours, occasionally puntuated by a beer.  It seemed that if you’re unlucky – and unlucky you would be, as the compulsory route cuts the city in half – you’d be stuck in a throng at some point.  That you couldn’t simply barge nor talk your way out of such crowds once in.  I didn’t believe these warnings.  “I’ve got recent experience in clubs, I’m an expert crowd barger!” I thought.  Not so.  Old crotchety ladies – those not rich enough to have inherited a deck chair – have waited for hours to watch Jesus or their favourite Virgen pass, and they’re armed with umbrellas and evil expressions should you attempt to cross them.  The conversations I overheard (“I’ve been here for three hours and these tourists just come in and stand in front of everyone…”) were all about.  I, on the other hand, was NOT trying to steal view, but actually get out of the way.  Not possible, it seemed – and worse for the locals, as I’m often double their height!

Despite these fairly inconvenient elements, it’s definitely a beautiful sight, especially at night after a glass of wine and out of the reach of the hoooooooot sun.  Just bring an umbrella to poke the grumpy old ladies in the backs of the calves and you’ll be fine!

His procession won't start for another hour or so...

La feria por dentro…

I’ve just come back from my first experience of La Feria de Abril, (Sevilla’s version of the April Fairs held throughout Andalusia in spring) and feel simultaneously fulfilled and emptied by the experience…which is unusual as you’d think that something as colourful and filled with life and laughter as the Feria would only energise.

The Feria is a tradition going back to 1846 when a Catalán and Vasco pushed for three days of public holiday, annually at the end of April.  Now, the Feria has become one of the major cultural events in the local calendar (after Semana Santa) and something that locals look forward to throughout the entire year with their hearts, minds and wallets (the average family’s spendings at the Feria is around 500€, and many others take out a loan to pay for all the excess).

The Feria is about several things:  casetas, food, dresses, dancing and being seen.

The first of these is the most irritating too.  The casetas.  These are the tents in which the festivities take place, and if you don’t know anyone with one, you won’t get in, not even if you can usually sweet-talk a doorman.  The Feria, contrary to its super fun and free ‘look’, it’s not a public festival for the people.  That is, you’ll be able to get into the fairgrounds fine, but once in, you’ll be walking around and around looking at all the beautifully dressed social royalty having a lovely time; or spending your time in the public casetas – which just don’t hit the same notes in terms of super prettiness or swankiness.  The locals will advice you against going into a public caseta, but of course, they won’t always follow this advice with an invitation to theirs…leaving you a little bit stuck for better options!

Number two:  food.  Food’s usually a passionate affair in the typical Spanish family anyway – which is interesting considering that a lot of their dishes are incredibly simple and can also be found in part in the diets of other Mediterranean cultures.  But the simplicity is evidently the key to great Spanish cooking – eg, you must find not just tomatoes, but tomatoes that smell like the essence life itself.  This makes it very stressful to prepare anything for a Spanish friend, as your ingredients (if not your method or lack of skill) will give your ignorance away.

Feria food is sumptuous, larger, juicer and more carefully prepared than usual.  Tapas are not allowed – only large portions and larger prices to go with them.  Along with being connected in the world of the casetas, more good advice is to have caseta friends or spend the rest of the year making friends with chefs who won’t mind shouting you a plate.  Originally, people came together at Feria time to show off their horses, and this spirit in modern times has become (if you’re lucky) about showing off your caseta, and its food and drink to others.  Choose wisely.  Not everyone will show off anything except themselves.

My own status as a flamenco-dress-not-owner didn’t bother me in the slightest until I was walking around the fairgrounds on the first day of the festival, and I saw for the first time the sea of ruffled fabric making its way towards the party.  Flamenco dresses on their own, it’s true, are a little clown-like…but put 300 of them together in a small space and they’re automatically fabulous.  They have their own conveniently located pocket buried amongst all the ruffles, which often needs a helping hand to get into and a lot of fiddling around.  So much so, that before I knew what it was, I just thought people were being hugely innappropriate with the public displays of affection!

The basic problem with flamenco dresses is the expense.  True, you can find one for 100€, but it’ll look a bit like your blind aunt Ida made it.  The fabric’s just that little bit too gaudy, or shiny and it sags a little around the bum like you bent over, split it, and then had to rapidly sew it back together again.  If you want one which fits like it should and makes you feel like a princess, be ready to pay from 300€ to whatever’s your personal limit.  My personal limit didn’t exist this year, as I prefer to buy food.

Never was there a cultural divide as large as dancing.  Us ‘guiris’ aren’t known for our sexy hips and suave moves, leaving us a little out of cultural whack in places like Brazil and Argentina.  While (thankfully!), ‘Sevillanas’ don’t call for fast hips, but rather for ankles and wrists, finding time to learn how to execute the four pasos of the local dance is another question.  So without lessons, you’ll probably find yourself simply waving around your arms and attempting to follow your partner, lame though the result may be.

All of the above culminates in the great adventure of ‘being seen’.  It’s a bit of a show, the entire festival, and while I didn’t want to feel this way, I felt that it was a repetitious pat on the back from successful upstanding societal brat to another, a big congratulations on one’s beautiful life and lovely dress.  Classism was quite evident throughout – exacerbated more than anything by the private nature of the casetas – from the foreigners being more than anywhere outside, and the lolly stalls and Feria trinkets being run and sold by South American immigrants.

Of course, underneath all of this, a lovely caseta and perfectly fitting dress don’t necessarily equate with a happy life.  But at least during the week, it seems like it.

All hail El Bocadillo!

There’s a little something in Spain; a snack; a foodstuff; something to stick in your gob when you’re hungry.  But first, let’s just take a moment to cast our minds over what we consider typically ‘Spanish’.  Bull fighters and flamenco.  Right, ok, well good try and we’ll get onto all that later (and I’m sorry in advance for disappointing you with their lack of relevance to normal Spanish life).  So, move on.  In the realm of food, what did we end up with?  A bit of paella, a little taste of tapas…what else?…well…paella…and…tapas?  Yep, yep, yep.  Fresh seafood including almost-never-seen mussels, saffron, perfectly cooked rice; and small little dishes of tasty treats, usually hugely overpriced.  Yummy and awesome.  Both go amazingly well with white wine.

Ok, so no, that’s not what we’re dealing with.

Now, this little baby isn’t what you’d expect.  It’s not difficult to make, in fact, taking little to no thought, patience, or really any skills at all.  You won’t have to source the ingredients in a special supermarket, or ask your Indian, Thai, Israeli, Italian or Cuban friends to bring back spices and interesting bits of herbage and fun from their recent holidays back home.  Nor will you spend hours in preparation; need to prop a recipe book up behind a plastic, spatter-proof guard before reading it thoroughly; whisk, beat, sautee or glaze anything.

Drumroll please………let me introduce you to:  The Bocadillo.

Ingredients needed:

• Baguette bread
• Ham
• Ham
• Ham
• Probably cheese, to compensate for all that ham
• Ham
• Tomatoes
• Oil and garlic if you’re feeling fancy
• Ham

This is what you do.

• Cut the baguette and the dirtiest, juiciest of your tomatoes lengthways
• Peel a clove of garlic
• Rub the clove over the open baguette, both sides.  Repeat, if your hands aren’t already smelly enough.
• Do similarly with the cut tomato.  You’ll get a little bit sticky, but just deal with it.
• Place ham, ham, ham, ham and ham on the baguette.
• Cheese too, unless you’re a ham nut.

You’re done.  Let’s have a little look at what you’ve done.  Yeah, I know, it’s what we’d call a sandwhich, isn’t it?  A ‘sub’ if you’re from New York, fine, but let’s not get into that here….

The hilarious thing about the bocadillo, is that it’s among the simplest food the world has to offer, along with cornflakes and milk, vegemite on toast and the baked bean jaffle (with or without cheese).  It’s easy to make and eat, and in no way reflects any sort of austere, creative culinary genius.

I was forced to first stand up and take note when I suffered a gnawing in my stomach about four days after having settled in Barcelona (I, of course, had more than one previous gnawing, but had been able to settle that with the sugary cake and white toast breakfast my hostel insisted on providing for free.  Not that I was in a position to bitch about processed carbohydrates.  I’d recently borrowed $1000 from my parents to be hungry in Barcelona in the first place.  Realising that my innards were threatening to soon digest themselves, I looked around for a sushi bar as you do, for at home we are overrun with corner-sized mini sushi bars staffed by equally mini Asian attendant serving questionable to excellent sushi.  Not finding one within visible distance, I took myself for a walk.  Nothing eventuated, and while considering either inflicting my abominable Spanish upon a unsuspecting passing local in a plea for sushi help, or eating another of the two Euro felafel wraps I’d scoffed with my friend Anita before she choofed off back to Australia and left me to begin a life here, I noticed that almost everyone around me had a French stick in their gob.

‘Odd,’ I thought.  ‘We’re at least 100km from the French border.’
I was not partial to the baguette at the best of times, as I’d just been in Paris with Anita and had had a horrible time trying to convice the city’s extremely polite, decent, patient and accomodating bakery staff (!!) that the ‘uuuurgghhhh’ we would each utter was ‘un’ and the sound after was ‘pain’, which we’d been told meant bread (it could of course have mean ‘shag’ and we’d have been none the wiser.)  This wretched daily ritual which had driven me crazy with pent-up frustration at the impossibility of the French language and the insane popularity of its national bread all came flashing back the moment I noticed the Spanish sea of half-chewed French sticks.

Still, I didn’t partake in the bocadillo fun.

I didn’t think much more about them until being forced to make their accquaintance in Spanish class a couple of weeks later, when during our unit on food, our teacher went on an almost fifteen minute rant about the wonder that is el bocadillo, and its cousin la tortilla. At best comprising bread, ham, tomatoes, eggs, potatoes, garlic and oil between them, they were a students’ food wet dream she said; a gift from heaven from the saint of study and little time or money; a joy to behold and eat.

‘Huh!’ I scoffed, solemnly swearing never to eat one, that I would instead be a wonder in the kitchen of the other, more international expat-ty delicacy sort of sense.

This did not last for long, as eventually, you are invited to a party where little cubes of tortilla are served, or you again suffer street-side gnawing in your tummy and must consider the bocadillo.  And upon doing so, you are forced to admit that these little suckers are actually damn tasty.  A genius idea actually, to rub tomato, oil and garlic into bread (two up on the Italians, who settled with oil and salt).  And while jamón still reminds me a little of how I imagine human flesh must taste like and has an aftertaste not unlike a stuffy bedroom; when it’s disguised beneath tomato and smothered between two layers of crusty bread, I’ve got to admit that it too is worthy of a sort of thoughtful applause.

But no too much.  I mean, the pig’s foot is plainly visible as you carve meat off its leg.  If I wasn’t sure that my revulsion was just psuedo hippie, hypocritical I-eat-meat-but-freak-out-when-I-see-where-it-comes-from, I’d wager a guess that I was in a past life.

Pork, you see, is something which upon considering a move to Spain, you’ll have to learn to like, or pretend that you do.  It’s just that it’s everywhere.  Sometimes even places where you’d expect that it wouldn’t be, and where it’s clearly not been invited:  like in a vegetarian tortilla in a Mexican restaurant.  ‘Meat’ is something a centimetre or two thick, probably with juices coming from it, criteria which its thinly sliced cousin jamón can’t fulfill.

Admitting that you don’t really flip over the taste of jamón is not going to win you friends in Spain, certainly not amongst the Spanish and interestingly enough, not really amongst foreigners either – as people generally flip over the stuff.  It’s unclear whether it’s the fun of carving your own meat directly from the leg that taps into a long lost tribal tendency currently unfulfilled by modern life, or if it’s the…well, nothing more really…it must be the tribal thing.

My personal aversion to jamón is, I feel, psychological, stemming from a disgust at eating meat which has been sitting out on a kitchen bench top for who knows how long.  Yes, it’s been cured, salted and preserved better than Michelle Pfeiffer, but…it’s meat!  Little bitty things are frequently born in it!  My argument – though adequately thought out and well organised – hasn’t convinced anyone, as upon dishing it out I usually find myself talking to Brazilians who at that moment are eating some sort of fish soup or meat stew scooped from a day old bench pot, or reminded by Andalusians that the climate here is also incredibly hot, and that should it be insanitary to keep meat out of the fridge in Australia, it would certainly be here too: Ergo, it’s perfectly fine for you to eat this wedge of jamón I’m brandishing at you.  This, from a housemate who in the same breath complains about the coming hoards of cockroaches that will soon invade our lives and sanities.  ‘And you’re going to continue leaving meat out for them??!!’ I want to interject, but somehow can’t, as I’m sure she has a counter argument about cockroaches not being partial to jamón.  Like me.  Maybe they also think it slightly iffy to consume bench meat?

Notes from a sticky keypad. As in, the keys stick.

19:08 (like in the army)
 
There have been two weeks spent in our fair (pentagonal shaped?) land near France.  I am finally housed, temporarily though gratefully in a little flat decorated so as to embrace everything that should have been forgotten about the seventies.  I share this mission brown heaven with a nervous Peruvian and his more arrogant but thankfully more absent friend.  Each morning, I am greeted by the former wanting to talk and talk and talk.  At this point, clad only in pjs and the sleep from my eyes, I want nothing more than to shuffle past him and splash some overly calcified tap water onto my face…but he’s just so ‘i want to learn English’ that this is nearly impossible!  Unfortunately, it’s hard to answer his questions, and he doesn’t really understand mine…so our is a mutually unbeneficial relationship.
 
Before I was employed and housed, I walked everywhere and saved on food (and health) by surviving on pasta, tinned tomatos and the included breakfast of white bread and cake (yes) at my hostel.  Now that both issues have been rectified, I can afford the metro, and so no longer fall out of my skinny jeans with each step (though part of me found that mildly enjoyable!).  So while I have yet cooked only one decent meal during my stay here, I have been kept fed due to the fact that my work backs onto a Subway store which is under the same management.  I am averaging 2m of sandwhich per week.  A statistic that both pleases and disgusts me.
 
Employment has it’s benefits as follows:
* i get to enjoy the fact that blonde hair is a relative novelty in Spain
* i now mildly understand the rules of rugby
* the blank, non-English speaking cook gives me lessons in loosing my ‘whitest girl on earth reputation’ via handshakes and Spanish ‘wat up dawg’ style gibberish
* i can rank the world’s nationalities in terms of rudeness (surprisingly, Ireland needs to work harder)
* there is a motorbike above the bar, which causes me great amusement
* the look from people when I tell them I’m Australian and the never failing ‘why are you here?’ that follows is even more amusing
 
And negatives.
* i certainly cannot carry a platter laden with four plates atop my shoulder while effectively unfolding a serving table without causing serious alarm and possible arrest
* i have to wear an unattractive t shirt
 
All is well in this land.  Dogs run free on the metro, human castles and street-long fire fights are staged to celebrate local saints’ days, girls have shaven mullets, verbs are conjugated 18 different ways and the change in temperature (I can only imagine) has caused a 10c piece sized section of skin on my right shoulder to scab, heal and rescab with rampant abandon.
 
I hope you are chirpy and delicious.