Nightmare on Gran Via

I think every expat in Spain has a Telefonica story to tell. The futile attempts to get phone service installed, the internet routers that mysteriously stop working, the head-bangingly frustrating efforts to get phone service, once installed, turned off. It's practically a rite of passage.

I've been through that passage--many times. So I knew that my visit to Telefonica headquarters was going to be trying. But I had no idea that it would be quite like this.

We had a problem with our bill. Actually, with both bills--land line and cell. With documentation in hand and an admirably Zen-like attitude, I showed up downtown. I was ushered to a desk staffed by security guards where, as if I've accidentally stepped into a 1950's Guardia Civil station, I have to surrender my passport in exchange for a security tag. The tag must be worn at all times, the guard tells me. I put the plastic card around my neck.

"Do you want to speak about your land line or your cell line?" she asks. I tell her both. "Well you can't do anything about your cellphone here--that's Movistar." (Note: Telefonica and Movistar are the same company). Okay, so where do I go for Movistar? "I'm not sure. Maybe on Capitan Something-Unintelligible." Where is that? "I'm not sure."

I decided to stick to the landline. Another security guard comes over. She will be my permanent escort for the rest of the time I'm in the building, I'm told. We go up to the floor where the single, pinched customer service person has her grim office. I tell the security guard I'm surprised that I need an armed escort to talk to someone about charges on my phone bill. She smiles knowingly.

Finally, I--I mean, we--are ushered into the customer service woman's domain. There is no one else around, but she clearly does not have time for me. As I start to explain the problem she interrupts to tell me there is no solution. Of course. But I've been doing this long enough to know that the first answer is always no. So I press on. She interrupts me again to call a colleague and ask about my problem. Colleague tells her they'll review my bill and get back to me within 14 days. Service person hangs up and begins to usher me out the door. I ask another question. Service person rolls her eyes at me and snaps, "If you're going to have multiple questions, could you please ask them while I have my colleague on the phone.?" I start to ask another. But she glares at me and cuts me off to call her colleague.

Nothing, needless to say, accomplished. But as we close behind us the door of what is quite likely the rudest customer service I've ever encountered, my security escort turns to me with a smile. "Now do you see why we need guards?"

Outtakes

I've written about Madrid Fusion, that 3.5-day extravaganza of culinary innovation and ego here. But there are still a few impressions that didn't make it into print, like Ferran Adrià admitting to me that, all technological doodads aside, "what's better than a fried egg?" Or the liquid nitrogenized dollops of olive oil served as hor d'oevres at dinner that, once put in their mouths, had all the stern ladies at the Real Casino blowing smoke out their noses like dragons. Or the woman who pushed her way toward a plate of ham during the massive tapas lunch served in the exhibition hall saying, "It's the only decent thing to eat in this place." In fact, although the hall was fairly teeming with truffles and chocolates and cheese and a never-ending array of small plates born from a back-stage kitchen by trails of waiters, it was the ham stand that drew the ravenous crowds. Ham and the wine to wash it down with. Viva la España.

Old Blood in the Season of Giving

On the last day of the year, in Villaconejos (‘Villa’=‘small town’; ‘conejos’=‘rabbits’), a village thirty miles southeast of Madrid, a crowd of several hundred gathered at 4 pm in the town square to perform what they considered a long-overdue community service: they were going to teach a neighbor a lesson.


Why? This particular neighbor, known as "El Calvo" ("The Baldman"), had terrorized the locals from the day he moved in seven years ago, carrying a large pistol and knife around as he took whatever he wanted from the town's stores, bars, and restaurants, and drove his cars wherever he pleased (on and off the roads).

Only after a local youth confronted El Calvo, in a bar two days before Christmas as the latter bullied the bar's patrons, did things change. Screeming "No more!" the youth gave El Calvo a beating.

Saturday night, El Calvo returned to the bar with a group of toughs, looking to seek vengeance on his aggressor. Not finding the youth, El Calvo and his men trashed the bar instead.

Word spread, and a group of youths starting making plans to punish El Calvo. The Guardia Civil in neighboring Chinchón were called, and several officers were quickly dispatched to meet the crowd gathering at El Calvo's house.

When the officers arrived, El Calvo confronted them with his pistol blazing. After a long mediation, the Guardia Civil arrested El Calvo, along with four others, and took them to the local jail. They also were able to disperse the crowd. But this story was far from over.

The next morning, fuelled by outrage over ETA's airport attack, the townspeople again gathered, and at four in the afternoon, four hundred of them marched to El Calvo's house. Despite the presence of El Calvo's pregnant wife and elderly in-laws, the mob proceeded to burn El Calvo's house, garage, two cars, motorcycle, and truck, among other things.

As they carried out their retribution, members of the group prevented the local firefighters from intervening, and the four Guardia Civil officers who arrived succeeded only in getting the inhabitants out of the house before being forced to stand nearby, watching helplessly.


The episode is eerily reminiscent of the great Spanish playwright Lope de Vega's 1619 play, "Fuente Ovejuna" ("The Sheep Well"). Based on an actual incident that took place in the town of Fuente Ovejuna, in Castile, in 1476, in which a visiting military commander mistreated villagers who then banded together and killed him. When a magistrate was sent by King Ferdinand II of Aragon to investigate, the townspeople, even under the threat of torture, only responded by saying, "Fuente Ovejuna did it.”


After the violence in Villaconejos, the town's mayor, aptly named Lope, said one of the mob approached him and said, "It was all of us, Mayor. The town did this." Despite a police investigation, the townspeople are keeping silent, offering no names, and when asked about El Calvo's expected revenge, they're saying the same thing: "We'll all respond together."

The Grapes of Luck

Not everyone counts down from ten. Spaniards start the New Year count at twelve, and accompany each number with a grape, swallowed rapidly. This sounds like some Deep Spain, pre-Christian ritual, but in fact, its the 20th century invention of a bunch of grape farmers who found themselves with too much product on their hands. The solution? Convince everyone that shoving twelve pieces of fruit into their mouths in 12 seconds will bring them a year's worth of good luck.

Of course, Spanish grapes tend to be on the large side, and they invariably have seeds, which means that one's good fortune in 2007 could easily be brought to an abrupt end by choking. But here again, some enterprising Spaniard has found a solution: seedless, peeled grapes in a handy little can. Twelve in each, of course, though two cans come to a pack, the better for romance.

Referrals, Holiday Edition

Until recently "Spanish terms of endearment" has been the search phrase that draws the most Googling-viewers to this blog. And most of them, despite what we had imagined in certain romantic moments, are college students. No doubt looking for a quick sweet nothing with which to spice up a final exam.

But in the last month or so, all that has changed. Now our referral list is filled with searches for the Catalan crapper we've described here and here. So as a public service for all of you looking for a little dumper of your own, we hearby bring you the Caganer Website. Like Santa's elves, their artisans spend the summer and fall crafting tiny little crappers that look like that year's celebrities. Last year, the big seller was the Leonor caganer, handsomely carved and painted to look like the Prince and Princess's new baby.

This year, the star caganer is José Montilla (see above). That name likely won't mean anything to those of you who are not Spanish. But tell me he doesn't look like Dick Cheney.

Country Pup in the Big City

We’ve noted that Levon loves living in Asturias. For a dog, what’s not to like?

He chases his tennis ball and rides the surf at the San Pedro beach, he walks along the cliffs to the Faro Vidio, and he wanders around the Molino and its grounds day and night, according to his whims. After his traumatic plane ride across the Atlantic almost a year ago, he probably thought he’d landed in heaven.

Last week, things changed. We had avoided taking Levon to Madrid with us because, with his fear of climbing stairs, we figured we’d never get him up the five flights to our piso. And if we did somehow manage that, we couldn’t imagine repeating it several times a day for walks, bladder relief, and the rest.

But Levon is a different creature since coming to Spain; he’s changed a lot more than I thought he (or any dog) could. As the months have passed, the notion of at least attempting a trip to Madrid with him has seemed less and less crazy.

So we finally tried it.

Last Saturday, after a five-hour drive down and another half an hour trying to find a parking spot, Levon and I approached Almendro 27. With some hope but realistic expectations, I opened the building’s large front door and plunged ahead. I’d decided that I would walk swiftly up the stairs and simply tolerate no lagging or resistance from Levon.

To make a long story short (and sweet), Levon went up and down those stairs dozens of times without a hitch. He was certainly anxious at times, and when we reached the top he always wanted to get inside the apartment door as quickly as possible. But a trip that I had accepted might be a drive down to Madrid and back to Asturias the same day, turned into a week and a half of pleasure (for us) and adventure (for him—and us).



Sunday morning we took him along the Calle Belén to the Royal Palace and the Plaza del Oriente. At first skittish about all the loud noises and sudden movements of the city, Levon quickly realized that he could run and play here, too (if he could just sneak past those pesky Guardia Civil).

And when he was ready for a nap, he found that a bed under the living room window suited him fine.

I think we all expanded our horizons a bit. And Levon, at times the most stubborn dog in the world, discovered that even in Madrid, there’s a place for him.

What Every Girl Wants For Christmas

We first noticed them a couple of years ago. Calf-high, low-heeled (no heeled, really), lace-up horrors masquerading as women’s footwear. Suddenly, they were everywhere, filling scores of shop windows with their hideousness, marring the lower extremities of nearly every female under 40. Somehow, wrestling boots had become hip.

We shouldn’t have been so surprised. This is a country, after all, where men happily wear pirate pants, and where the mullet is the default haircut for people of all sexes. The staying power of these ill-conceived booties was, nonetheless, astounding: winter, spring, season after season, Spanish girls kept tying them on.

So it was with some relief that we came across this recent Christmas display. Red suede with black laces: we can only surmise that the wrestling boot has at last jumped the shark and is headed into Spanish fashion oblivion. (Just don’t tell John Irving.)

File under: Go Figure

The biggest thing on Spanish television these days isn't a sitcom or reality show, and it isn't even in Spanish. It's an ad for BMW cars. Featuring a resurrected, Zen-like Bruce Lee telling an off-screen listener to "Be water," (the clip was taken from an interview that Lee gave to Canadian television in 1971), it has taken the country by storm, prompting a Marca headline after the Barca suffered defeat at the hands of its eternal enemies ("Be Madrid,"), several parodies on a number of television shows, and even a counter ad from Mitsubishi (Who's that Chinese guy?" asks an elderly man).

And Google.es lists over a million hits for "Bruce Lee" and "BMW."

Bruce Lee, Spanish advertising

Evolution

I've said it before, but man, does Madrid change fast. I've been away for a month, and in that time, a new subway entrance has gone up at Corte Ingles, there's a new bar on our street where none had existed before, and just around the corner, the Restaurante Capitan Alatriste has opened, complete with a wall-sized version of The Surrender at Breda, and other 17th-centuryish accoutrements.

What's more, the crowded, noisy, car-jammed stretch that was once Calle Arenal has turned into a crowded, noisy, pedestrian walkway. Admittedly, the change wasn't exactly sudden: there was many months there of jackhammers and dust. So many, in fact, that one began to suspect, as one often does in Madrid, that the obras would never finish. Needless to say, it comes as something of a surprise when they do.

Hints Are Dropping

Thanksgiving has now past, and you know what that means.

As we drove out this morning, fairly early, to walk along the beach, we encountered a jolly figure on our road that reminded us what’s just around the corner.

We’ve written before about the caganer, the Catalan crapper who shows up in nativity scenes this time of year. The caganer is a mischievous reminder that, despite the high serenity of the Virgin Birth, nature has its way.

There, just to our left, one of our neighbors was celebrating the start of Christmas season by staging his own nativity. Squatting, grunting, and grimacing, pants at his ankles, hairy bum in the air, he was—how shall we put this?—dropping his load. Though we were a bit startled, to say the least, our neighbor didn’t seem to mind, or even notice us, as we passed.

And so it was that as we headed out this morning, we realized that around here anyway, it is indeed beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

At least they're consistent, part II

This week, Spain's Health Ministry asked Burger King to suspend a new advertising campaign for its "XXL" hamburgers. According to the ministry, the ads--for burgers that contain a hefty 971 calories--fail to comply with an agreement reached by Spain's food industry to avoid promoting supersized portions (they also offended a lot of Spanish vegetarians, who apparently see the ad above as a kind of hate crime). Burger King is fighting back ("Our customers' tastes come first,"), but with 18.5% of the country's children officially overweight, you have to wonder if this isn't a sign that burger ads may one day go the way of cigarette commercials.

Except in Madrid. The same regional government that banned models from Madrid runways for being too skinny apparently has a problem with efforts to prevent everybody else from being too fat. "The government shouldn't interfere with the tiny, intimate details of our lives," said the vice-president.

TeymiGordy

Madrid’s Mercado de la Cebada is not a pretty place. I’ve seen photos that show it was once was one of those turn-of-the-century beauties decked out in wrought iron, but somewhere along the way, the graceful old building was torn down to make way for today’s brick and cement bunker. As Spanish markets go, it fulfills its function—good produce, good fish, good meat—but unless you count the nudie calendar hung on the wall across from the chicken and egg guy, it’s not the most aesthetically pleasing of places. And many of the original stalls stand empty, which, coupled with occasional noises from the mayor’s office about “revitalization,” sometimes leads me to suspect that the Cebada is not long for this world.

Which is why I was so pleased to walk in there a few weeks ago and see one of those previously abandoned stands suddenly occupied. TeymiGordy (more on the unfortunate name below) is lined with bright blue canisters, each one—there are over 300—containing a different variety of tea. All the basics are there, though even a simple chamomile comes in several versions—Egyptian, for example. But the most enticing are the blends, like green tea with strawberries and white orange blossoms, or the romantically named “Arab Sighs,” with rose petals, raspberry, hibiscus, cardamom, and cinnamon. There are also flavored sugars (lemon, caramel, three kinds of brown)and a middling collection of tea cookies. Two pots on sternos contain the day’s free samples.

TeymiGordy is run by Laura Miso, whose hair is dyed to match her tea canisters. The shop’s name came from the two things, she says, that comfort her: Tea (that would be the “Té”) and “my dog Gordy,” (that would be the Westie pictured on the sign). She got the idea to open a tea shop because, she says, “I don’t like coffee.” Those are heretical words in this espresso-fueled city, but she figured there had to be others like her. Here’s hoping she’s right.

TéymiGordy is located to the right of the stairs as you enter the Mercado de la Cebada. Tel: 91 344 2038.

Madrid, Shopping,Tea

VERTIGO

It’s not that in Spain I think only about taxi drivers. It’s just that they’re so interesting.

I don’t know exactly how it works, but taxistas here reflect something essential, something organic, about Spanish society. Maybe this is true of cabbies everywhere in the world, but I have a hunch that Spain’s drivers reveal an unusual amount and kind of cultural information about the country.

So: late Saturday night I hailed a taxi to take me from my hotel in Valencia, the Astorias Palace, to the airport, for a flight back to Asturias. It was raining, and empty cabs were scarce. But even though I was not the only person waving an arm at the white vehicles as they splashed past, one particular taxi pulled up directly to where I was standing.

I got in, soggy and grateful, and told my driver—a short, bald, man in his sixties, dressed conservatively (though quite typically for someone of his generation)—where I needed to go. He shook his head affirmatively, and we sped off.

Interested in chatting, I began making trivial comments about the unusually rainy weather (Valencia hadn’t seen precipitation in quite a while). But my driver just nodded, wishing, it seemed, to drive in silence.

No problem: I retrieved my cell phone to make some overdue calls.

As soon as I began dialing, however, I realized that even if my driver didn’t want to make small talk with me, he wasn’t seeking quiet. He reached over, pulled a CD from a box in the passenger seat, inserted the disc into the car’s stereo, adjusted the volume, and sat back.

In the two or three seconds before any sound was actually emitted, some part of my mind considered the various types of Spanish music that I might expect to hear.

Imagine my surprise when—

“UNO! DOS! TRÉS! CATORCE!”

—U2’s upbeat “Vertigo,” from How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, filled the car.


The quality of the stereo was impressive, and the volume was high (my throbbing seat seemed to function as a subwoofer). But my driver never moved his head in rhythm, never mouthed any lyrics, never changed his body language or facial expression in at all. He just drove and listened.

And so did I.

By the time we arrived at the airport, we’d made our way through roughly half the album, and I’d enjoyed a most welcome, if unexpected, aural treat.

In some curious show of respect, we sat at the departures curb until the song we were listening to had ended. The driver then turned off the stereo, took my money, and gave me my change and a receipt.

I stepped out the door and was about to walk away, but I had a question I couldn’t resist. I put my head back into the cab and asked, “So you like U2?”

Without turning around, and with no apparent sense of irony, he said, “It’s my seventeen-year old son’s. He buys a lot of music, and when he’s tired of something, he throws it in the trash. I pull it out and put it in my box, here, and listen to it when I drive.”

More intrigued than ever, I sat back down in the seat. “So you must be familiar with a lot of contemporary music,” I queried.

“Not really,” he answered. “I just hear bits of this and that.”

“Hmmm,” I said. “Very interesting.”

Smiling, I gathered my things, stepped back out of the cab, and began to walk away.

As I did, I heard my driver call out.


“I like Boy better.”

All Souls Come Out

Yesterday, while in the U.S. kids took their once-a-year chance to masquerade and solicit candy, in Spain, schools, banks, and businesses shut down so that people could lay fresh floral arrangements at the graves of their loved ones.

In Oviñana, this meant the dumpster beside the town cemetery was suddenly filled-to-overflowing with the phony flowers--burial site adornments the rest of the year--that had to be tossed to make way for the real thing.

El Pelu

Although the astonishing number of mullets--male and female--might lead the casual observer to conclude otherwise, Spain is a country in which it is practically impossible to get a bad haircut if you don't want one.

I was reminded of this fact a couple of weeks ago when I was in desperate need of color and a trim, but found myself in Asturias. I had planned to drive to Luarca, where there is a salon I had been to a couple of times before, but when I got to the car that morning, the front right tire was flat. I managed to get it to the nearest taller, where the mechanic patched the tire for 15 euros, but by that time, most of the morning was gone, and I had family coming to visit, and a house to clean. So I took a chance and went to the peluqueria in Ovinana, located next to the tiny, malodorous grocery store that we never go to except to buy bread.

It wasn't promising. For one thing, no one was there when I walked in, though the television was blasting a Spanish game show. For another, when the stylist--and I use that word advisedly--came out, I recognized her immediately as the grocer's wife. I knew this because I had previously encountered her behind the cash register, ringing up loaves of bread.

No cape, just a piece of plastic wrapped around my neck. No Vaseline to keep the haircolor from staining my forehead. Magazines all several months out of date. And a tv kept permanently on "blast," in apparent competition for auditory dominance with the stylist/grocer's wife, who, it turns out, has a very loud voice.

But my hair came out looking great. And best of all, it cost exactly the same as the tire patch.

The Upside of Immigration

 

What with all the focus on Subsaharans, pateras, and the Canary Islands, it's easy to forget that I too am an immigrant. Luckily, I have the city government of Cudillero to remind me (and in English, no less):

"Associate I send information to you about a Course of Spanish for immigrants, organized by the City council of Cudillero, that I consider could be interesting for you. If you are interested you do not doubt in contacting with us or going in person the City council or calling to telephones 985590020. The schedules of the course will settle down according to the necessities of the students." 

Eating in San Sebastián: Galparsoro

There must be a hundred sayings in Spanish that have the word bread in them. My favorite is "Eres mas bueno que el pan," which translates literally as "You are better than bread," and is usually said while cupping the face of an adorable child in your hands and squeezing. Or alternatively, "Eres mas inocente que el pan"--"You're more innocent than bread."

But the dirty secret for a country that puts such a premium on bread as to compare it to goodness itself is that most Spanish bread is not very good. Your standard barra is cottony and bland and even the rustic-looking gallego is disappointingly flavorless and unchewy. It's true that La Tahona, near us on c/Humilladero, has me convinced it's the best bakery in Madrid because of its delicious chapata, but even it turns out standards--barras and baguettes--that just don't do it for me. I can only conclude that Spaniards like bad bread.

But Galparsoro, in San Sebastian, changed my mind this past week. They appear to supply barras to half the city; in the morning their deliverymen pull huge woven baskets stuffed with loaves on handcarts through the Parte Vieja. But it is their specialty breads that really stand out. Gorgeous chapatas and rusticas and vienesas. A dense, slightly sour mushroom-shaped thing called a Plus Minus. And what are certainly the best brioche I've eaten outside Paris. But the star, the shocking star, of their offerings is the humble suizo, a normally uninteresting sweet roll topped with sugar. At Galparsoro, the dough is chewy and yeasty and not too sweet; the sugar on top comes in big crunchy crystals. Early Tuesday morning I ate one warm from the oven as I walked along the seawall. It was, indeed, mas bueno que el pan.

Galparsoro: Nagusia 6, San Sebastian.

Three gestures

In my travels in the past week three gestures, spied on the street, reminded me that however much Spain may change, there is still something so very Spanish about it:

In Soto de Luiña (Asturias): The garbage truck pulls into the one parking spot left on the town´s one street. It happens to be in front of the church. So, as he comes around the the passenger side to pull out his broom, the garbage man crosses himself.

In Madrid: I arrive home late on a warm September night. Propped against the wall of the San Andres church is a group of grungy looking jovenes drinking beer. One begins to sing flamenco with much fervor. The others join in clapping.

In Barcelona: I am walking down a street that is being torn up for re-paving. The noise and the dust are terrible, and the street--what remains of it--is treacherously uneven. Suddenly I feel a hand on my elbow: it´s an elderly woman, asserting her right to take the arm of any passerby, in order to safely traverse the street.

The Secret Life of Cabbies

 

I took the bus to the airport on my way out of Barcelona last week. Although I've frequently ridden the bus into the city, I don't I've ever done the reverse, because I was utterly surprised to find us, as we neared the airport, veering off into a back parking lot loaded with taxis. Literally hundreds of them, all black and yellow. At first I thought they were just lining up, from very far afield, to pick up passengers. But then I realized that none of the drivers was in his car, and that in fact they were all just hanging out, talking, smoking, and going for coffee at the special taxi drivers' bar handily located alongside the parking lot.

It was like one big, secret, taxi drivers' treehouse. The windows on the bus were closed, so I couldn't hear. But I can imagine the passionate, rapturous discourses on ham, and the declining morals of youth, and why the government is withholding information about the Madrid bombings that emanated up from the asphalt. 

Where not to stay in Barcelona

Travel writers rarely get to complain, at least not in print. Newspaper travel sections and glossy magazines exist to entice people to go places and spend money, not convince them to stay home and horde their cash. So you learn pretty quickly that editors want snazzy and upbeat, not depressing and whiny.

But that's the beauty of a blog.

I was in Barcelona this week, and since my favorite hotel (favorite when I'm paying, that is; otherwise it's no contest) was booked, I decided to try a new place, the Hotel Olivia Plaza.

That's it above. Looks nice, right? In some ways it was: good location smack in the Plaza de Catalunya. Stylish, not too expensive, and the chenille coverlets are a nice touch. But trust me when I say that these people have no idea what they're doing.

I suspect they decided to open a hip little hotel without ever stopping to think that someone might actually stay there. How else to explain the stained floor coverings (made of some unrecognizable material that felt like woven plastic) in a hotel that has only been open for six months? How else to make sense of the fancy, plate-sized showerhead...surrounded by a huge mold stain? The sophisticated track lights dim nicely, but won't actually turn off unless you take your key card out of the slot. Which means, of course, that you can't turn them on again without slapping around blindly in the dark in search first of your keycard and then the damn slot. See those hipster-retro globe lamps hanging by the bed there? Turn the air conditioning on, and the current will keep them knocking into each other all night. Add a maid who, without knocking, lets herself into the room at 8:00 am while you are dressing, and you have an all around bang-up experience.

Did I mention that there are no soap dishes? Nice little toiletry sets, but no place to put the soap. Which, being the exact size and shape of a golf ball, rolls.

Barcelona, Hotels,Olivia Plaza