Transport tribulations on route to Valencia

We nearly didn't make it to Valencia at all.
The signs weren't good. When our Valenciana friend Amalia suggested a trip en masse by people from the Pueblo Ingles La Alberca programme end of October 2008, at least twelve people said they were interested in joining the party.
By the time we had got to the week before, everyone had dropped out (for a variety of understandable reasons) except Theo and me and Lynne, who was flying out from London. On Friday, I checked the weather forecast and guess what? After three weeks of unbroken warm sunshine across much of Spain, there were black clouds and big fat raindrops all over the map of Espana, especially the Valencia bit.
As it was, Theo and I had to curtail our visit a tad because of his timetable - rather than arrive very late after his classes on Friday night, we opted to take the train at a reasonable hour on Saturday morning - it was only a three-hour journey with Renfe and we would arrive early in the afternoon.
It all started very well. We arrived in plenty of time at Atocha station, which resembles an airport terminal with attendant baggage x-rays and check-in desks. "This is going to be a breeze," we thought, as we sat down for a cuppa before boarding the train.
Except it wasn't. A train, that is. As we handed our tickets ready to embark, the lady in the smart uniform said something in rapid Spanish which sounded suspiciously like "bus". Some Spanglish later, we had established that there was a problem on the train line and we would need to take a bus as far as Alcazar de San Juan - adding an extra hour to the journey. Great.
Ah well, we had sandwiches, books and backgammon with us, we could afford to be philosophical.
The journey began uneventfully. After we got out of the southern Madrileno suburbs, there wasn't a great deal to look at out of the window so Theo snoozed while I enjoyed myself reading the man in front's book over his shoulder and looking up all the words I didn't know in my Spanish/Ingles dictionary. Very educational.
After a couple of hours on the road, we made an unscheduled stop in a one-horse town off the motorway where the driver stopped and spoke to a passer-by. It looked suspiciously as if he was asking for directions. A few passengers exchanged glances, but apart from the group sitting behind us, who'd been complaining about the bus-replacement ever since we'd got on board, no one made a big deal of it.
A few more kilometres down the road and we were off the motorway again, round a couple of roundabouts and back on, this time travelling in the opposite direction. This didn't look good. There were a few rumbles of consternation.
Eventually we entered Alcazar de San Juan and started making our way to the town's railway station. At least, that was the intention. After he'd stopped twice to talk to passing pedestrians, it was clear our driver didn't have the faintest idea of where we were or where we were meant to be going.
Then he saw a policeman in a squad car and flagged him down. By now, all the passengers were watching the driver's progress through the town with a mixture of anxiety, irritation and amusement. So, with a police escort, our bus picked its way through the narrow streets, only just avoiding pinning several passing cars to the wall, or at least forcing them to drive over the pavement so they didn't hit us. We passengers had a moment of elation when we saw the railway line at the end of one of the streets, but it didn't last long. We drove on past. But it was clear, even with the policeman indicating the way to the station, our bus driver had other ideas. We got stuck in another small street, hemmed in by the traffic in front of us and the station still tantalisingly out of reach.
By this time, the passengers had decided to take matters into their own hands and with typical Spanish directness, they started shouting for the driver to open the doors. When he did so, everyone grumpily climbed off, pulled various bits of luggage out of the coach's cavernous hold and stomped off to the station on foot.
Thankfully, they held the connection or we would have had to wait until 4.30pm to catch the next one - well after we were supposed to have arrived in Valencia itself. So, we made it - late, but still in one piece.
When we told the story to our Valencia friends later, they unhesitatingly reached the conclusion that this was entirely typical of Spain. "You must write and complain!!" they said. We might do. After all, it would have been a lot cheaper to just get the coach the whole way - we would have arrived no later and saved ourselves a bunch of money.
Still. The rest of the stay was lovely. Yes, the weather was pretty rubbish, but the hotel Theo had booked as an anniversary surprise was lovely and only five minutes from Valencia's historic centre, which is a charming and interesting place. It was fun seeing Lynne again and Amalia, Juanvi, Jose and Maria proved, once more, to be excellent partying companions as we moved from one bar to another, then a tapas restaurant, then another bar, then a club.
We could have done with the extra hour the Spring clock-change stole, but we were up early enough on Sunday to get a personal guided tour around Valencia's beautiful streets and buildings from Amalia and her sister, Maria.
The visit was topped off with a long-promised Valencian special dish, paella, including a delicious veggie version for us sin pescado, sin carne types.Thankfully, the train going back didn't require any buses to help out and we made it back to Madrid Atocha without incident. Not as entertaining, sure, but by that time we were too tired for any kind of bonus cabaret.
Valencia, by the way, is lovely. But next time we go, we'll either drive ourselves or get the bus the whole way.

Today, one year ago

We got married one year ago today.


What an amazing year it's been.

Thanks to everyone who has helped and supported us along the way.

Lots of love,

Kate and Theo x

the Madrid airplane curse

I think there's a curse on flights to and from Madrid.

First, our friend Ayesha missed her flight to Madrid because of Ryanair's extreme ****ishness (my Gran reads this blog, hence the asterisks). She did finally make it out last weekend, when an excellent time was had by all, but at extra expense and much irritation.

Secondly our flat mate, Alex, managed to leave his passport behind and hence missed his flight to Mexico. The poor guy has been working so hard recently and really deserved a holiday (plus it's where his parents live).

Then, most guttingly, two friends of ours who we'd been really looking forward to seeing, Anna and Amy, where denied entry to their flight because Amy's passport was a bit tatty. So? She was clearly not a terrorist and clearly not an illegal immigrant; the Spanish wouldn't have cared, it's just the English who are so anally rententive when it comes to paperwork. Congratulations Mr-Bristol-airport-jobsworth, you've just ruined two people's holiday. We were really gutted as we had been looking forward to seeing them, so we can't imagine how gutted they feel as they'd been planning their holiday for ages.

So, if you are travelling to or from Madrid, for goodness sake make sure you have your passport and that it's in reasonable condition. And don't fly Ryan Air!

City Guides Redeemed

It's not like we owe anything to Madrid, exactly. I mean, we both pay our taxes (or will do in Theo's case when the Spanish system finds time to sign him up), we both contribute our euros to the city's economy in various ways, we integrate with the locals and we are both providing a much-demanded service, English lessons. So why did I feel like I needed to apologise for showing the city in a less-than-entirely favourable light after receiving our first guests from home? I did indeed apologise to my mother and godmother, who bore the brunt of our (unintentionally) rather sparse hospitality on that occasion. It's a bit more difficult to say sorry to a city. Where do you start? With the mayor, perhaps?

In our defence, Theo and I couldn't really help the fact that we were working for much of the duration of our first guests' sojourn - their stay was during the week and like most people, that's when we're busy earning our crust. And it was just bad luck that the same week caught both of us in a state of illness and attendant tiredness, crotchetyness and low energy levels.

I suppose, having been living in the city for six-or-so weeks by then, we should have been able to offer more inspiring suggestions for outings and certainly should have had a few special bars and restaurants up our sleeves. But much of our time since arriving in Madrid had been spent working, recovering from working, sorting out the necessary bureaucracy and being ill. Thus, our tour guiding was at best, somewhat patchy. And that's putting it mildly.

Our one attempt to show our guests a bit of the "real" Madrid went spectacularly wrong when our short stroll to the trendy and accessible La Latina area took a wrong turn and became a hike through the mean streets of Lavapies. The latter is a fairly popular area with those seeking an authentic city expererience, but isn't really the right place to take your respected (or even disrespected) elders for a nice glass of sherry. Something about the skulking groups of shifty-eyed, baseball-capped young men hovering in the semi-deserted alleys, I think.

The wonderful San Gines chocolateria, with its cups of thick, dark, sweet nectar and stacks of churros helped improve our guests' impressions of Madrid a little, but I fear by then, the city had rather lost its shine. A shame. Madrid, as I have mentioned before, is not as pretty, impressive or antiquitous as other Spanish cities, but it has a lot to offer in terms of culture and buzz. As salesmen, we were simply inadequate to the task of showing it off at its best (especially as I am a woman).

So it was with relief as well as delight that we observed our two most recent guests fall in love both with Madrid and its people (natives and extranjeros). They chose the "puente" for their visit - a Thursday public holiday which leads many to take Friday off as well (puente is Spanish for bridge) so consequently, Theo and I were far more available to offer company, as well as food and lodgings (our previous guests had stayed in a hotel, which was definitely a better option for them - as elders and betters, I don't think the sofa and foam-mattress on the lounge floor would have been acceptable). Also, we were both in rude health and spirits AND we'd had a chance to make a few finds when it came to places where we could take visitors, so we were able to play host with a lot more confidence. Various of our Madrid pals, as well as a visiting phalanx of Valencianos, came up trumps with an exuberant, nattery Anglo-Spanish mix of open-armed welcome, which helped show Madrid in its warmest, most sparkly light. To cap it all, both our friends were hit on by members of the opposite sex - and nothing beats a good flirtation for making some top-notch holiday memories.

In summary, you win some, you lose some. In this case, it's one-all. Madrid, I hope you accept the apology.

problemas con idiomas

One big problem with gaining some degree of competency in Spanish, we have discovered, is it has an adverse affect on our ability to speak French.

We had a very multi-cultural weekend, hanging out with our visiting friends Ayesha (a Londoner whose family hail from Gujurat) and Obaro (originally from Nigeria) and collecting Spanish, Valencian, Swiss, French, German and Canadian friends along the way. At various points I enthusiastically leapt into conversations in French, thinking that having studied it for 14 years I would find it easier than speaking Spanish, only to find, much to my dismay, that I kept slipping back into Spanish. Ironic really, as whenever I can't think of a word in Spanish I tend to try a French one.

It appears to be the case with language that you use it or lose it. Eventually, by the end of the weekend, my French had just about resurrected itself but it definitely needs more practice - I feel a regular intercambio with our non-English speaking Senegalese friends Ibrahima and Abobacar is called for, without delay.

On Spaniards

Why do so many Brits come and settle in Spain? The main reasons appear to be the glorious weather and the relative cheapness of property and a lowish cost of living - at least, most retirees, who've chosen to live out their days on the Costa del Sol, would probably acknowledge those factors as high on their priority list.

But I feel many of the ex-pat Brits living on the costas often miss out on one of the best things about Spain. With their famous reluctance to learn the language beyond the ability to order lunch and tendency to to prefer all (or mostly) British enclaves when it comes to socialising, they're missing the opportunity to have fun with the Spaniards.

For, based on the Spaniards we've got to know, Spaniards LOVE to have fun and are very good at it. Spanish people are not as smiley and instantaneously friendly as people from, say, Slovenia or parts of Italy. But even the smallest effort at a friendly overture will usually pay high dividends. We've found Spanish people to be warm and inclusive and very generous in their friendship.

In our experience - confirmed by other extranjeros - Spanish people are enthusiastic socialisers and communicators and that's what makes them such fun students when it comes to teaching them English. Despite their well-publicised "sentido de ridiculo" (stupid feeling), which can make them reluctant to try out their English for fear of sounding silly (not something I've particularly noticed, I have to say), they are generally a delight to teach. Their warm sense of humour and exuberant nature turns many an English lesson into a good old chin-wag with loads of laughs thrown in. Whether any English is actually learned is another matter.

Trip to Toledo

With our friend Ayesha we finally fulfilled our much put off ambition to visit the medieval capital of Castille, Toledo, just a short bus ride out of Madrid.Perched on a rock surrounded on three sides by the river Tago, the city has retained much of its medieval mozarbe and mudejar architecture, though, naturally, several monuments were wrapped in scaffolding when we visited. The imposing Alcazar, scene of a famous Civil War siege, dominates the skyline, while the Cathedral is stunning. We also enjoyed the new El Greco musuem which, quite apart from having some beautiful paintings, is wonderfully set in a sympathetically adapted former convent. Everywhere Castille's multicultural heritage was on display, not just in the tiny mosque and synagogue, but in the doorways and window arches, tiles and decorations. Slightly more bemusing were the random collections of swords and knives (an echo of Toledo's reputation for steel production) on sale in all the tourist shops. These ones in particular raised an eyebrow or two:

I mean just what would you use that for? Table Tennis?

Ghosts of Spain

I just finished reading "Ghost of Spain" by Giles Tremlett, a British journalist who has spent some 20 years in Spain (thanks for the lend Pete). Its title, and the opening chapters, were inspired by the relatively recent phenomenon of the exhumation of Civil War mass graves, almost exclusively (thus far) containing those executed by Franco's supporters.

For the most part it made for an excellent and fascinating read, excepting the last few chapters which seemed as if they'd been tacked-on as an afterthought and dealing with Spain's indigenous ethnic minorities (Basques, Catalans and Galicians). While probably very interesting for those who know little about Spain (we had heard all the stories here - and more - before) the final chapters seemed to have little relevance to the starting premise of the book; Spain's silence about its recent past.

The silence is striking. During both our travels around the country and our residence in Madrid, it is notable just how absent any mention or memory of Spain's quasi-fascist past is. Franco only died in 1975 but compared to say, Germany or Hungary, reminders of his dictatorship are negligible. If you want to know why, well I suggest you read the book, although I will add one more conclusion, which Tremlett hints at but never explicitly makes.

Unlike Germany or Hungary, and other countries, Spain had been passing in an opposite trajectory in the 19th century. Instead of following the vogue for powerful, central, unifying governments found elsewhere in Western Europe at the time, Tremlett suggests that Spain was disintegrating, losing colonies instead of competing for them and racked internally by coups, revolutions and insurrections, ironically putting it on a par with its ancient rival, the Ottoman Empire. After such internal unrest, which continued right up to the outbreak of the civil war in 1936, Franco, for all his innumerable faults and harsh procesution of his opponents, at least provided stability and continuity for 35 years. So perhaps, while pleased to be well rid of him and his ilk, the reason why Spain is so silent about its recent past is because if the country admits to the terrible things committed during Franco's reign, it might be forced to admit to the one good thing as well. Given the current popularity of separist leaning parties in the Euskal Herria and Catalunya, it's one conclusion guaranteed to go down like a lead ballon.

Curry and cocktail combinations

Sitting in the park near our flat on another beautiful afternoon we got a text from our friend Belen offering us two tickets to see Sisters of Mercy. Tempting as this offer was we already had plans that evening to go and see one of Kate's colleagues perform in his funk band The Combinations. Besides, Kate was quick to point out, the hot, vampy-one was no longer in the band.

Naturally we couldn't spurn this kind offer out of hand, so we had to reply with a counter-offer - come for a curry! So Belen and our Venezuelan friends, Natalie and David, arrived (nearly on time) at Chez Berry-Salisbury for a couple of picante veggie curries with rice before we headed out en-masse to the gig venue in Calle Bernardino.

Our first gig in Madrid - a shocking statistic for two people who met at a gig and regularly used to attend 3 or 4 a week back in Bristol - was a mixed bag. The band sounded great, but the long, narrow shape of the bar, the low stage and press of people meant we could barely see them. Plus it seemed to be more of a social affair than a genuine collection of music fans. The place was clearly a refuge for English-teachers and previous Pueblo-Ingles participants. Kate's colleagues kept coming up to say "Hello", Belen renewed several old acquaintances and I ran into a couple of people I'd met the night before. Poor David and Natalie were a bit stranded!

As it hit midnight a collective decision to decamp somewhere less loud was made - if we were all bent on chatting then we should clearly be doing it somewhere where the ambient volume didn't require us to shout at each other. Wandering up the street a little way, the Spaniards wrapped up warm against the positively polar (18 degrees celsius) temperatures - I was in short sleeves - we discovered a Secret Garden just off Plaza Espana.

This beautiful little bar - El Jardin Secreto - was decked out in quasi-colonial style with wooden furniture, natural fibre ceilings and whirling fans and was also home to some of the most polite and helpful waiters we've encountered in Spain - Belen was almost in shock! They also had an astounding list of postres (puddings) and cocktails, so naturally we made a couple of selections. Our tongues wagged until late into the night before we finally had our traditional argument about who would pay the bill (we wanted to pay as the others had bought the drinks in the first bar, they wanted to pay as we had cooked - in the end I had to slip some 'petrol' money into Belen's coat) we headed home well satisfied after a lovely, impromptu night out.

in praise of Skype

From our Madrid apartment I just Skyped my Dad in Ethiopia and my Mum in England; we'll probably give Kate's Mum a call in France later. Skype rules!

It's another beautiful, warm, sunny, cloudless day here in Madrid.

Ballet in the Park

It being another beautiful Saturday here in Madrid, we decided to go for a walk in the massive Parque de Buen Retiro, the former Royal Retreat that became public property in 1868. It's essentially an outdoor art gallery, recreation ground, picnic site, tourist trap and arboretum rolled into one.
We strolled about the walk ways around pools and ponds, admiring fountains and terrapins, the trees still largely bare, but there were a few flowers and sunbathers out. In one of the pavilions was a small contemporary art display - Espacio para un Universo Isla by Josiah McElheny - of hanging silver chandeliers representing galaxies strung out in space. Really rather beautiful.
Finally, after an ice cream each, we decided to settle by the boating lake to play backgammon (old habits die hard) where we caught a rather excellent and novel busking display. They love their street theatre here in Madrid, and we've seen some excellent hammer-piano, flamenco, magic, music shows, but ballet was a first for us. A lovely finish to the afternoon.

depressing things about teaching (no.53)

The lack of initiative, gumption and imagination in some of my kids' classes is quite astounding. (Only in the field of learning English that is - when it comes to cheating at tests, kicking each other under the table or disrupting the class they are incredibly imaginative, if not terribly subtle.)

This week in my kids' classes we have been revising the use of "going to" to express the future (e.g. I am going to play tennis this weekend.) They have already learned this point in class; they have already been tested on it in fact, and set copious amounts of homework on it. It should be relatively easy for them to understand - they have virtually the same expression in Spanish - yo voy a juegar tenis este fin de semana (although that does literally translate as "I go to play tennis this weekend"). However, they still don't quite get it, so I planned a 90 minute lesson to help them revise the area.

We did listening exercises, we did speaking exercises, we put the grammar points up on the board, we did reading exercises and even writing exercises. Up, down, left, right - every way we could use "I'm going to do/go/play/eat/etc" we did. Finally, to end the class I gave them the lyrics to Pink's song "So what" and asked them to fill in the gaps. The gaps - as astute readers might have guessed - were all linked to "going to" constructions.

Eg:
I'm __________ to drink my money,
I'm not going _________ his rent,
_____ going to start a fight

Now, even if you've never heard the song, you could probably guess the words that go in those gaps, and I was hoping the kids would also be able to fill in half the gaps before playing the song - just to make sure I had actually left the phrase "I'm going to pay" on the board along with the grammar rules for forming the future with "to go".

After two plays of the song most of the class had blank sheets and even blanker faces - if they'd written anything it was probably either "go" or "pay" (no "to"). It was fair enough if they didn't understand the song, or if they lost their place in the lyrics, but I just couldn't understand how, after 90 minutes, they didn't have the gumption to take a wild guess that "going" would be followed by "to" and preceeded by either "I'm" or "He's".

Fortunately I'd completed all their report cards the week before, or I might have written some very caustic comments.

proceando paso a paso

This Saturday past, our wonderful and multi-lingual friends Belen and Cesar invited us over to their house for a dinner party. Along with David and Natalie, a charming Venezuelan couple whose company we've enjoyed several times before, they had invited a Spanish couple, Alberto and Marito, whose English was rather limited. Thrillingly, however, we were able to communicate (with some generous understanding) for the entire night (9 til 2) in Spanish. Impressive really, especially considering we only really know two tenses - el preterito perfecto and the future with "ir". Better still, we could understand a fair amount of what was said - not only to us, but between the Spanish speakers as well. Naturally we had to ask for clarification at times and there was a great deal of "como se dice (English word) en espanol?" but it's all very exciting!

For the past three weeks we had been attending 90 minute classes nearly every morning at International House, where trainee Spanish teachers were able hone their skills on us (as a result the lessons were free). While the early start was a pain - especially last week when Cathy and Tish (Kate's mother and Godmother) were visiting and we would rather have been spending time with them - the benefits are already showing. We're on that steep learning curve all beginners experience where you easily tell that you are progressing; soon (I hope) we'll hit the Intermediate Plateau, where progression becomes less tangible. By then you have the structure of the language more or less under command and it's a case of improving pronunciation and receptive skills, learning vocabulary and getting to grips with the less everyday grammar points (e.g. when to use "cual" for 'which', rather than the usually ubiquitous "que").

That's a way off yet though - as we can presently only talk about things we have done (hemos hecho) and things we are going to do (vamos a hacer) there are a few tenses (was doing, did, would do, are doing) we need to learn before we get to the dizzy heights of intermediate proficiency.

It's the little differences (part 2)

No es solo en los cines de Paris que se puede poner una cerveza - en Madrid tambien. I don't think Vincent Vega made it South of the Pyrennes though, so we never knew until this evening when we went to watch the excellent Slumdog Millionaire with our lovely friend Jero. Otherwise Spanish cinemas seem to be much the same as English ones, except they still have allocated seating and the excellent innovation of toilets at the back of the theatres - so you don't have to stagger out into the foyer if you need to pee and then realise you've left your ticket stub in your jacket pocket (which is under your seat). Also the Spanish audience didn't explode from their seats the moment the credits started rolling but actually stayed to watch a good section of them before making a move. Whether this was because this is the way Spanish audiences behave or because the credits for Slumdog where quite entertaining I'm not sure.

The film itself was excellent - none of us were expecting it to be quite so tragic and gritty - I don't know why but I'd imagined it was going to be a comedy. Perhaps I'd been misled by all the "feel good" labels. We watched it in V.O. - version original - so no dodgy dubbing, though we had to read the Spanish subtitles for those moments when they were speaking in was I assume was Urdu (well the main characters were Muslim) but could well have been Hindi or some other language. It's a excellent film - one minor quibble is it would have been nice if Latika's character had been more developed rather than just being the Holy Grail of Jamal's quest - and, as if it needed further recommendation after its Oscar success, we suggest you try to see it.