Marking Time

On Monday I visited the plaza de toros in Alicante, where a crew is shooting part of a film about "Manolete"--perhaps Spain's most iconic torero, who died in 1947, shortly after a bull gored him in the groin on a hot summer afternoon in Linares' plaza de toros.

In the film, Alicante's bullring stands in for Linares' plaza, as the latter has become surrounded by tall, modern buildings that would make it difficult to shoot scenes depicting 1940s' Spain.

Alicante's ring was a study in contrasts, its bleachers draped with advertising banners and political symbols evoking a different era (including national flags bearing the yoke-and-arrows of the Spanish Falange, a group that provided crucial support for Francisco Franco before, during, and after the civil war (1936-1939) that brought the Generalísimo to power), its earthen floor smothered by the film crew's tractors, cranes, and dollies.

When I left the plaza in the evening, I headed directly to the airport, and as I awaited the departure of my flight to Madrid, I looked down at my feet and realized that anyone familiar with the world of bullfighting would, at a glance, know where I had spent my day.

The sand in Spanish bullrings is almost uniquely fine in texture and yellow in color, and my pants and sandals were covered with it.

I bent to brush off my feet, then thought better of it, wondering if Manolete's Spain and mine shared much beyond the sand underfoot.

Historic Preservation

One of the great charms of the molino is, of course, that it was a mill. An actual, functioning mill, complete with a massive, hulking millstone. A massive, hulking millstone in which shards of petrified corn husk--the precious sustenance of some hard-working Asturian peasant, indisputable evidence of some simpler, more bucolic life--can still be found. A massive, hulking millstone right where our kitchen table should go.

We have contemplated getting rid of the millstone ever since we bought the place because 1) it is way too big for the room it is in and 2) it leaves no space for a kitchen table. Yet we have lived with the millstone for all this time because 1) our albaniles assured us that it could not be removed without knocking out an exterior wall and 2) everyone who heard heard that we (okay, one of us) was considering removing the millstone reacted as if we had just casually suggested that the pages of a Gutenberg Bible might make good rolling papers. "Oh, but you can't do that," they would exclaim, aghast, yet condescending at the same time.

Well, we did. And before anyone calls in the goons from Patrimonio nacional, let me emphasize that the millstone has not been destroyed, just moved to the patio where it awaits reassembly.



After last year's summary rejection, Jose Maria has changed his mind. Today he showed up with the same crew as before (Calisto as jovial as ever, Borja having grown his hair so that he now looks vaguely like Fernando Alonso) plus an ill-tempered Eastern European who has apparently taken Borja's formerly abysmal spot on the totem pole. The four of them lifted the grinding stone out with little problem, but things got dicey when it came time to move the 500-kilo basin that holds the stone. They cut it from its cement moorings, and got it on a dolly, only to find that they could not then move the dolly. They tried putting down boards and rolling it out on crosswise logs, but that got them only as far as the front door. Eventually they tied a rope between it and the bumper of Calisto's truck, and with much pushing and pulling, got it across the patio.

Right now, there is a hole where the mill used to be. I like to think of it as the yawning chasm of progress.

The Burro

Most days, year round, as we come and go from the Molino, we pass by this friendly fellow, whom we refer to simply as “the burro.” His age is unknown, as is his vocation. Is he retired from pulling carts, literally put out to pasture? Or is he defective or lame in some way, unable to perform normal burro tasks? The burro seldom moves, mostly stands, occasionally lies down. Surrounded by flies, munching grass, enduring whatever the skies pour down on him, he is a notably solitary creature. Personifying him as we do, we fear he is lonely, tired, uncomfortable. But we hope we are wrong and that, in the way of burros, he is content.

Spadrille Eseason

It's espadrille season again (or as a sign I passed today, clearing shooting—if perhaps not very effectively—for the English-speaking market says: "Time for Spadrilles from Spain." Not far from our apartment, the crowds are again gathering around what I think must be Madrid's most popular footwear store, Casa Hernanz. I wrote about the shop about a year ago, but what were in my opinion the best parts got cut out. So I thought I'd print the original here:

Around the first of May last year, long lines began forming outside a little shop just off Madrid’s Plaza Mayor. I had walked past it for months but never really noticed the place before: a non-descript awning reading “Casa Hernanz” and a pair of smudged display windows were the only signs of commerce. But now, suddenly, an ever-present trail of people led out from the door. Morning and night, every day but Sunday, lines snaked around the corner. What were they after? Was this a secret outlet for U2 tickets? Was someone handing out free hams?

Casa Hernanz, it turns out, makes espadrilles. A thousand stores in the city sell these homely, rope-soled shoes, but there is only one Casa Hernanz, where the long wooden counter dates to the nineteenth century and the shoes are made by hand. Come summer—a season which, according to local fashion norms, calls for rope-soled footwear—it is the place for madrileños to buy their authentic espadrilles.

The Hernanz family has been in business for five generations. Today, brothers Jesus and Antonio still make the basic kind of espadrille—two pieces of sturdy cotton sewn to a flat hemp sole—by hand, although they have improved on the original model by gluing a piece of rubber to the sole in order to make the shoe more durable. They also make truly traditional pairs—Jesus calls them “artisanal” –whose soles are unadorned and which are sewn with hemp instead of cotton.

Lightweight and inexpensive (at Casa Hernanz, a basic pair costs about $5.70, and the artisanal $19.50), espadrilles used to be footwear for peasants and laborers, but these days, they are more likely to be worn at home as a kind of warm-weather slipper. They’re not confined to indoors, however. “They’re very popular among young people who wear them to nightclubs,” says Jesus. “And you see them more and more on the street. They’re much better than those horrible plastic things.”

Even the humble espadrille, then, is subject to the whims of fashion. These days the Hernanzes also sell factory-made espadrilles in a variety of styles: some, called “valencianas,” tie around the ankle, others have wedge heels and pointed toes. “When I was young,” says Jesus, “there were only three models and maybe five colors available. But today they come in suede, silk, leather and you can get them to look like any other shoe.” The Hernanzes will even custom-make espadrilles in a fabric of the client’s choice.

But it is the basic espadrille for which those lines of people wait. Once inside the store, they line up at a counter squeezed between bolts of cloth. They state a size and a color, and Jesus or Antonio searches the floor to ceiling cases behind, where the sizes are handwritten directly on the shelves, for the proper pair. Only first-timers—foreigners, mostly—retreat to the small bench tucked near the entryway to try on the shoes. For everyone else, there is no need: this is an annual purchase, like suntan lotion or (heaven forbid) flip-flops.

Casa Hernanz, located at Calle Toledo, 18, is open Monday-Friday from 9am-1:30 pm and 4:30-7:30pm, Saturdays from 9am-1:30pm. Tel: 91 366 5450

And those Hubbel dolls will pay for your kid's college education

Last week, 350,000 Spaniards learned they may have lost their life savings when it came to light that two companies that were supposed to be investing their money in valuable postal stamps were actually operating big 'ol pyramid schemes.

Here's what we have to say about it.

Castellers

Spent one evening last week at castellers practice in Barcelona, and decided on the spot that of all the symbols of Catalan identity (the sardana, the striped flag, the Barça), those precarious towers of men are by far my favorite.

The first thing I realized upon entering the gym-like (polished cement floor, bleachers, smell of sweaty socks) space, is that they're not all men. Women, it turns out, make for perfect upper tiers. Children are on top, and they scramble up the adults like monkeys.

I learned a lot of things. That a bandana tied around the waist, for example, makes a good foothold. That the music that accompanies any tower-building display has signals in it that tell the guys on the bottom when the kid on top is ready to come down. That teams of castellers do not compete against other teams, but that the local papers rank them anyway. And that some people think castellers got their start in the Middle Ages, as a means of seeing what was going down on the other side of the castle walls. But that, says Toni, head of the Barcelona castellers, is the romantic version.

Viva el

Taxi drivers the world over are a curious group, and Spanish cabbies are no exception. I learned many years ago that most taxistas are more than happy to engage you on virtually any topic, and generally they are friendly, even if they disagree with you.

One of the first drivers I met here, in fact, became a devoted friend despite our differing political views when, after he told me that he played on a local baseball team (not a common sport in Spain, and one with little proper equipment), I had my soon-to-visit dad bring him a Louisville Slugger -- he nearly wept with joy.

Several years later I discovered that I could charm most taxistas if I simply mentioned how well one could eat in Spain. No driver has ever challenged this, and I recall leaving one literally gurgling, Pavlov-style, in his own saliva, as I mentioned, one by one, a few of the cheeses, hams, and wines to be enjoyed in this country.

Riding from the airport to my apartment in Madrid the other night, however, I encountered a taxi driver who genuinely confounded me. Bald, elderly, and seemingly mild-mannered, he was silent during most of the ride.

But when we hit a traffic jam entering the Plaza Santa Ana, things began to go awry. We were stuck for only fifteen minutes or so, consigned to observing the tides of chatting Spaniards that passed by on their evening walks, yet this incident somehow ignited my driver, who, without warning, exploded into a diatribe against "the masses," the media, and the mindlessness of contemporary Spaniards that went uninterrupted (it was uninterruptable, really) for the duration of our journey.

I was at first merely surprised by the outburst. Soon, however, I was flabbergasted, for the longer he held forth, the more complex and theoretically formidable became his rant. As he backed his claims by carefully quoting Marx, Hegel, Adorno (above), and an array of other political philosophers, I sunk lower and lower -- in my seat, and in amazement.

By the time we reached my apartment, it was all I could do to timidly offer him a handful of Euros and slink quietly from the cab. Hours later, I was still in shock -- NOT that a taxi driver would sound off, but that he could do it so eruditely as to plunge me into the kind of intellectual submission I haven't felt since graduate school.

We interrupt this blog...

for a technical note. For some time now, we've been meaning to mention that, um, there are two of us here. But it all seemed far too complicated until a helpful reader mentioned that things were getting a wee bit confusing.
So from now on, we'll use different nicknames to sign our posts: Almendro (him) and Almendra (her). And since you asked, yes, we split our time between Madrid and Asturias

Viva yo

Spaniards have a talent for groups. They are delightfully social creatures--able to talk to anyone about anything, and never happier than when surrounded by crowds of other Spaniards all jabbering away. They learn this skill at a young age--a British acquaintance of mine describes with mild amusement watching his children's daycare teachers chastise them for spending too much time on their own.

But they are also inveterate rule-breakers. They may enjoy spending time with other people, but Spaniards never think that the those same people's rules apply to them.

I was reminded of it twice on the same day last week. First, I went to the post office to pick up a certified letter. I stood there alone for the first 20 minutes or so--even though the post office was 'open,' it was also 3pm, right in the middle of lunch time--and when the guy finally showed up, he asked for my passport. I didn't have it with me, but offered my driver's license and credit cards as ID. He insisted that I needed my passport. I started to to recite the number, which I'd memorized. One more time, he told me he needed the passport. And yet all the while, he was filling out the form that showed receipt of the letter. "You always need your passport for mail from the municipal government," he said, handing me the letter. "Hasta luego."

A few hours later I was shopping at a department store. I brought a bunch of clothes into the dressing room, but the attendant stopped me, saying "That's too many." I asked how many I was allowed to take in. She started counting and said, again, "That's too many." I made a gesture like I would leave some with her, if she would just tell me how many I could take in. She said, one more time, in case I had missed it, "That's too many." And then she handed me the chit, and ushered me to the dressing room.

A Tad Late, the Heat Arrives

Yesterday Nacho, our good-hearted but somewhat-scattered electrician, and his brains-of-the-operation mother, Encarnación, pulled up to the Molino around 9 a.m. and announced they had with them the two heaters we’d ordered (and that Nacho had promised to install) months ago -- during the winter. A great procrastinator myself, and in generally good spirits, I welcomed them in to execute a task they assured me would be finished within a few hours.

Two days (and couple of housecleanings)later, the Molino boasted its first-ever built-in heating system, complete with two two new outlets -- one tucked into the corner of the kitchen on the main floor, the other greeting you at the top of the stairs to the second floor -- and a thermostat on the living room wall. Now if we're cold, we simply reach up, turn a dial, and warm the entire house.

We can only imagine how much we'll enjoy this next winter.

Closet to Hell

This week I began what I thought would be a simple and brief project: paint the closet in the Molino's master bedroom. It seemed a good way to do a test run with the new paint we bought (a color in the "Kenya" family at the store here) while spending relatively little time.

Monday afternoon, with enthusiasm and false hopes, I began scraped the walls, ripped out the old wall hooks, fixtures, etc., spackled and mortared the cracks and holes. At this point things seemed dandy, and it occurred to me that, since I was all set up, it would be logical to paint the inner closet too (in addition to the walk-in area I'd just prepared).

With boldness and a vain sense of heroism, I began by tackling the upper part of the inner closet -- a moldy area that we’ve never used and that has been the ugly repository for only items we neither want nor use. I began to scrape, and the trouble began. This closet sits in the corner of the house and apparently it has, over the years, absorbed a great deal of moisture. Unsurprisingly, everything I touched fell apart, rotten. This didn't make me happy, but I pressed on, figuring I could scrape away the decayed material and get to the bare wall, which would be easy to paint.

But the more I scraped, the further I penetrated a world of mold that appeared to have no end. Soon, the closet area as well as the adjoining bedroom were filled with a storm of pungent, grayish-brown mold dust whose eye swirled around my head. I kept scraping, and it kept getting worse. I feared I’d not stop until I hit the roof.

I finally donned my painting mask, something that I -- now quite lightheaded -- should have done much earlier, and bore down. A couple of miserable hours later, I felt as though I'd been dipped in putrid cocoa powder. (Indeed, in my feeble condition, my mind flashed to a television show I’d been watching, "House," in which a fabulously misanthropic and brilliant diagnostic physician, Gregory House, solves complexly mysterious cases while abusing his underlings. Each episode is, in effect, a new mystery, a physiological crime to be solved. The patients' maladies are bizarre and often harsh, in my mind’s eye I imagined myself as one of those unlucky patients -- the mold dust entering my airwaves, traveling to my lungs, into my blood stream, straight to my brain. I decided to stop watching the show until I'd finished this particular task.)

Soon I had to resign myself to the fact that before painting this part of the closet, I’d need to do a bit of carpentry. Exhausted, angered, and not feeling terribly well, I did my best to remove the piles of detritus from the upper closet, and called it a day.

This story, unfortunately, will be continued....

Another Saturday, another protest

Actually there were six yesterday, and that's just in Madrid. The biggest was in the Plaza Mayor where thousands (5,000? 12,000? The process of counting demonstration participants is an art in Spain that, despite its clearly stated formulae, produces wildly divergent results) of Guardia Civil called on Zapatero to fulfill his campaign promise and de-militarize their organization.

A lot of ink has been spilled about this country's astonishly rapid social and political changes. Just the other day a friend and I were reminiscing about the fact that when we started coming to Spain in the 80's, the toilet paper had the consistency of crepe paper and was, for reasons I never discovered, usually mauve in color. And of course there are more serious changes as well, the things that long-time visitors say they never thought they'd see: gay marriage, domestic violence courts, trains that run on time, bare midriffs.

Yesterday's protest ranks right up there. Long before Franco came to power, the Guardia Civil, with their signature patent-leather hats, were a feared mechanism of state control; under Franco, they were nothing short of an instrument of state-sponsored terror. For however many thousands of them to be demanding that, effectively, they be stripped of certain kinds of power (admittedly in exchange for others: demilitarization means that they'll be able to form associations and join unions), well, that's an astonishing thing indeed.

NOW PLAYING IN OVIÑANA...

...Splendor in the Grass.

The Señoras de Almendro

Though in our Madrid apartment we are five stories off the ground, living far above the active life of the streets below (I often think of the apartment as a tree-house), we are but a few meters from our fifth-floor neighbors in the buildings across the street in any direction. Our windows — one in the bedroom, two in the living room, one in the dining area, and one in the kitchen — have afforded a number of interesting visual encounters with people familiar by sight but anonymous in every other way. From the two windows — one in my bedroom, one in the living room — on the west wall of our apartment, I am often looking directly at two elderly women, sisters I have always assumed, who regularly watch what is taking place in the Plaza San Andrés below. Something about their timing (always in the morning), their manner of dress (bathrobes, housecoats), their way of standing (bent forward, arms resting on the window bar), their gaze (left, right, straight down, up into the air), and their facial expressions (frowns of disapproval, mostly, with occasional smiles of recognition or eyes widened in surprise), has made these two neighbors more interesting to me than the others. They served as a barometer of sorts for what was happening in the neighborhood, and from watching them I could tell when there was misbehavior in the plaza, when a construction project was too loud or bothersome, when a wedding at the church (held most Saturday evenings) had let out, or when street musicians were particularly good or bad.

One day over a year ago, I took some pictures of these two women, who almost always appear together. I never thought about photographing them again until a few nights ago when, during the height of Semana Santa, one sister appeared alone, late in the day, all dressed up. At first I didn’t recognize her, and I realized that I had never seen her or her sister in anything but informal morning attire. Given the rarity of such an appearance, I quickly grabbed my camera and took another picture. Holy Week has a remarkable effect on Spaniards of all ages and affiliations; they’re suddenly well-scrubbed, dressed up, and somehow more reverent in their never-ending street parties. From now on I shall think of Semana Santa as the quiet holiday, for the movement and noise below is noticeably more restrained than the hustle and din of virtually all other fiestas (most weekends during the late spring, summer, and early fall).

I’ve always felt that the figure of a Señora on a balcony in Spain is somehow mythical, more than a woman merely standing at a window. They are a town’s observers, a neighborhood’s eyewitnesses. Last week, watching one of my own señoras, I think I began to see a little differently too.

Eating in Madrid: Cañas y Barro

There are a few basic rules for finding a decent paella that, if you are a foreigner, you learn only through harsh experience (I suspect that for many Spaniards, these rules are innate, like their ability to keep all the soccer leagues straight).

Rule #1: No matter what its bearer may call it, nothing that anyone ever brought to a potluck in Boston, or Ann Arbor, or, say, Oberlin, Ohio, is remotely close to real paella.

Rule #2: Never eat paella on a menu del dia--it's been made ahead. Same goes for those massive paellas on display at tourist restaurants along Echegaray and most every paseo maritimo on the Costa del Sol. You only want paellas that are made to order. And for that, you usually need to eat in an arroceria

Rule #3: Purists will tell you that paella should only have rabbit, snails, and those massive beans called garrofa in it. But in truth, most combinations are pretty tasty. Chicken and chorizo; shellfish and chicken; vegetables and squid--they're all good. The only exception to this rule are those vegetarian restaurants where they start getting funky on you with the verduras. Carrots do not belong in a paella. Ditto for broccoli, yellow squash, and tofu.

Rule #4: The best paellas, the ones that will stick with you longest in memory, are cooked over an open fire on a dia de campo with friends.

I'm frequently asked where to get a good paella in Madrid. And, since I assume the asker is willing to ignore rule #4 for the moment, my answer is usually Cañas y Barro. It's a small place, decorated in a romantic style whose excesses border on the ridiculous, but the rices, including the authentic (rabbit, snails, garrafo) paella, are expertly made and thoroughly delicious.

I found it the first time when I was working in the municipal archives at Conde Duque. That day, I was on my own for lunch, and since I am a bigger fan of paella than Geoff is, I decided to take advantage of my solitude for a little rice. It was a risk, since some restaurants require a minimum of 2 people per arroz. And I was the only person in there, which made me a little nervous. But the menu assured me they made rices for one, the waiter was solicitous, and the bright yellow dish of aioli he brought to start things off was reassuringly valenciano. And indeed, the shellfish paella that finally emerged from the kitchen was the best I'd ever tasted. Admittedly, I've never been to Valencia. But trust me, it was good.

For the longest time I thought that Cañas y Barro was my personal discovery, mostly because the place was always empty or near-empty when I was there. I've since been proven wrong by the CNN bureau chief. But he also turned me on to the restaurant's zucchini and bacon appetizer, so I can't hold it against him.

Cañas y Barro, Amaniel 23, Tel. 915 424798

Madrid restaurants

A Good Birth

Yesterday, Spain rather quietly marked the 75th anniversary of the declaration of the Second Republic. There’s been some controversy about whether and/or how to celebrate this day. Those favoring celebration tend to fall farther left on the political spectrum, are not admirers of Franco and his dictatorship, and are content that the right-leaning Popular Party lost the national elections in 2004. Those who resist or outright oppose any celebration are largely more conservative, have (at least in private) mixed feelings about Franco and his legacy, and are not supporters of current Prime Minister Zapatero, who speaks often of his grandfather, a Republican who was killed by Franco’s Nationalists during the civil war (1936-1939) that followed the collapse of the Republic. In any case, I have spent much of one of my careers—a college professor—studying and writing about things related to the Republic and the civil war, and so yesterday's events interested me. I was traveling from Madrid to Asturias and didn’t get much news, but I did read that the head of the United Left party was attending a Republican flag-raising in Grado, not far from here. But it seems that the Republic’s banner was raised in just one other Spanish town. And Zapatero’s governing Socialist party appears to be making conciliatory gestures towards the PP on legislation that makes this the “Year of Historical Memory.” Editorials have appeared all week, both praising the Republic for its achievements and even pointing to it as the precursor of today’s democratic state, and criticizing the Republic for its many errors while suggesting that those who remember it fondly are given to nostalgic fantasy. How to make peace with the past? That's a never-ending question. All things considered, the Republic's anniversary seemed a bit understated. I'm not particularly sad about this, but I will tell you that the first time I saw a photograph that for me has come to symbolize the birth of the Republic—delirious throngs of people flowing through the Puerta del Sol on April 14th, 1931, as a brazen few hoist the new government’s banner, all enshrouded in an inexplicable mist--I was moved.

Drink From the Cup

It's Wednesday of Semana Santa. In our Madrid neighborhood, people are getting ready for the four days of religious celebration that begin in earnest tomorrow and continue through the weekend. From my fifth floor window, I observe the San Andrés church, lit up by the sun, lying back against an azure sky, ready for the days of worship. I descend to the street and, upon leaving our building, notice that the preparations have begun. During this Holy Week, no one will go thirsty.




Holidays, Semana Santa

Connected

A dear friend from college and two of her three adorable children have been visiting, and in all the excitement, I forgot to mention the most important news. I was sitting at the Cafe de las Vistillas two weeks ago, having just dropped off said friend and children for a jetlag-induced nap. I was feeling pretty happy because 1)it was such a beautiful, warm day that even the normally surly waiters at the overpriced Cafe de las Vistillas were in a good mood and 2)although no one official would tell me where they were, I had just managed to track down some of the recently transported undocumented immigrants at a homeless shelter near the Royal Palace (not that it mattered in the end, since most of what we wrote was abandoned in favor of reporting from Mauritania).

So I was sitting there on this beautiful day, looking at the still snow-capped mountains in the distance and drinking my agua con gas, when my phone rang. It was Geoff, and he was giggling. "I just sent you an email," he said. It took me a few seconds before I realized he was calling from the molino. And then I began to giggle too. Because although it took buying a cheap PC and temporarily abandoning our lifelong devotion to Macs, we do indeed, finally, have internet at the mill.

There is No Foot Kissing

That, roughly translated, is the note attached in boldface capital letters to the Good Friday procession schedule issued by the Archdiocese of Madrid: NO HAY BESAPIES. Semana Santa has its serious side (see below), but there are also, at least to this outsider, some thoroughly comic moments. The image of anyone attempting to prevent hordes of se~noras from kissing the feet of a Jesus statue is just one of them.

My first introduction to Semana Santa came, properly, in Andalusia, home to all forms of religious excess. There, I experienced the peculiar shock that Americans feel when they first witness the cofrades in their modified KKK garb. I giggled as the crowds shouted piropos at passing statues of the Virgin: ay, que guapa estas!. And, I have to admit, I felt something strange and mysterious at night, when drums fill the air, the streets glow with candlelight, and a single voice pierced the dark with a saeta.

In Madrid, Semana Santa is somewhat different. A couple of years ago, my parents and I caught one procession in which the cofrades wore not the ordinary robes and pointed hoods, but some kind of 18th-century military garb. It was the strangest thing: there were the drums, the candles, the same ladies in their mantillas, and in the middle, a bunch of guys dressed up like Paul Revere. It lacked, shall we say, something of the spooky mystery you get in a place like Cordoba or Sevilla. But then, I doubt that those cities prohibit foot kissing either.

Holidays, Semana Santa

Who's Kant?

It’s Semana Santa in Spain, and this year I am struck by the way that Spaniards seem to live closer to the ground, their spirits, minds, and bodies more fluidly part of an overall scheme. Traditionally, that scheme is Catholic. Friday was “Viernes de Dolores” [“Friday of pains”), today is “Domingo de Ramos” (“Sunday of branches," of Palm Sunday). People, mostly men, are carrying large, heavy Virgins through the streets of cities and towns across the country. Many children are still named José María or María Jesús. Rituals of devotion to the body of Christ. On a more mundane level, people here simply like their bodies and their bodily pleasures. Spaniards gather in bodies, they eat and drink to fill their bodies and sate their desires, they dance with a holy (or unholy?) passion, their beaches are filled with topless women (of all ages and appearances). I think that they are just not terribly self-conscious about their bodies. This makes me both more comfortable with my physical self and appearance (I care little about what I wear when I leave the house, especially up here in Asturias) and more aware that I am an outsider, not a Spaniard. The mind/body split? I’m not sure what it means here, or that it means much at all.

Holidays, Semana Santa

Elbow grease and a bright flash

After a couple of 70-hour weeks of painting and cleaning (plus a few furniture acquisitions), we've made habitable--even welcoming--the two bedrooms on the Molino's third floor. This inspires us, since these rooms--damp, dingy, peeling, dirty, and very, very, moldy--were among the spaces we generally avoided during the last year. As may be evident, both rooms have taken on distinct personalities and are currently the quarters of friends visiting from the U.S. The "blue room" faces the stone courtyard, while the "green room" looks over the many things growing behind the Molino. Without a wide-angle lens, I can offer only photographs that present incomplete views of the rooms (though Levon can be seen lying sleepily on the floor to the left in the green room). On the other hand, the flash makes it difficult to detect our limitations as painters.

Weather or not...

Asturias’ weather is mercurial--like a god who seems angry but is actually playful. Sunshine, clouds, wind, and rain all come and go on a moment's notice. The sky looks different every single night. This morning Levon and I ran along San Pedro Beach in the pouring rain. The sky was a swirling gray, the ocean dark green and violent. Just a narrow strip of sand was visible between the grasping waves and the rocky shore. By the time we arrived back at the Molino, drenched, the rain had stopped. Throughout the day, clouds, rain, and glimpses of sun have appeared and fled again. A temperamental world here, but never boring.

Corruption

Marisol Yagüe became the third Marbella mayor in a row to receive a jail sentence for corruption on Wednesday when police showed up at her home (she had taken time off from work to recover from weekend liposuction) to arrest her. And she wasn’t alone: across town, officials at city hall were told to step away from their keyboards as police evacuated the building to search for evidence. Eventually they arrested an additional 21 people, including the lieutenant mayor and the city’s advisor on urban growth, and froze some 2.4 billion euros in assets. The latest detentions brings the number of Marbella’s top officials investigated to 14 (out of a total of 27).

Unrestrained construction has a history in this Costa del Sol resort town of making politicians unwarrantedly rich. Ever since Jesús Gil, shady real estate magnate and flamboyant owner of the Atlético Madrid football team, became mayor in 1991, developers have operated with impunity, secure in the knowledge that building licenses can be theirs if they’re willing to line a few official pockets. In fact, 30,000 out of Marbella’s 80,000 homes are illegal. And although Yague herself was ordered by the regional government of Andalusia to review the questionable licenses granted by her two predecessors, the mayor— an ardent disciple of Gil—has repeatedly avoided taking any action.

The investigation into city hall’s latest shenanigans began in November 2005, when wiretaps in a money laundering investigation—this one directed against local businessmen and lawyers—produced evidence that implicated the mayor and her cohort. Last week, the regional government of Andalusia stripped the Marbella government of its oversight powers over real estate development, and today, Zapatero's Council of Ministers met to decide whether to simply dissolve the entire municipal government. With local elections just 14 months away, it’s anyone’s guess whether this latest exposure of wrong-doing will be enough to break Marbella's long tradition of corruption. Disgusted citizens have been marching through Marbella to protest their government’s greed. But they did that in 1999, too, and seven years later, graft remains as much a part of the Marbella scene as tummy tucks and year-round tans.

Why am I so interested in this tawdry story? Because in college, I dated Marisol Yagüe's brother. Who knows what riches could have been mine had I stuck with that relationship?

Vanguardias rusas

I haven't quite figured out the relationship between the Thyssen Museum and the Fundación Caja Madrid, but whatever it is, I like it. They've been co-sponsoring shows for awhile now, spreading the goods between the new Thyssen space and the Fundacíon's small gallery in front of the Convento de las Descalzas. Right now, they've got an impressive show on Russian vanguard going on. I haven't made it to the Thyssen, but last night, in between finally seeing 'Capote" and buying 2 pounds of good coffee at El Mexicano and 2 boxes of vacuum bags at our hardward store (both items hard to come by in Asturias), I rushed through the show at the Fundacion.

And left it, as always, quite taken with the place. It's small--just two rooms—but I like the intimacy, and the fact that you're not beating back hordes from the walls. It's free. And the Thyssen doesn't hog all the good stuff for itself; there was a Malevich series, and some Rodchenko, and a reproduction of that great monument to the III International. Go see--it's there until May 16th.

Terms of Endearment II

I'm not the first person to delight in her counter's ability to deduce which search terms bring readers to her blog. But I've noticed that the most common referral lately is from people googling "spanish" and "terms of endearment", and that most of those doing the looking come from countries where Spanish is not the first language. Which has me imagining hundreds (okay, dozens) of people throughout the world searching for the sweet words to whisper in their Hispanic beloved's ear.

So, in the interest of public service, a few to help you along the way: media naranja (literally, "half-orange", or other half); rey/reina de mi alma ("king/queen of my soul">, and my all-time favorite, the simple but effective mi vida("my life"), which can also be adorably abbreviated to mivi.

The Hedonist's Approach to Labor Unrest

Given the Spanish propensity for coming together in large groups (to drink and chat, to protest educational reform, to run with the bulls), you'd think that labor actions would be more dramatic here. They happen alright--I barely made it to my GREs years ago because a rail strike kept all trains from leaving Córdoba for Madrid until midnight, and I nearly lost my hearing in one recent action by airport workers (the strike consisted largely of marching through Barajas blowing police whistles). But in general they don't have the massive impact you see in, say, France.

Aside from the fact that any strike in Spain is bound to feel festive simply because, well, there are people standing around together, the strikers themselves often tend not to seem particularly fired up. How else to explain the fact that upon returning to Madrid tonight I found polite signs in the metro warning me of an upcoming labor action? It seems that the subway train drivers of the city are very unhappy about a "deterioration of working conditions" and a "lack of training"--though on who's training is lacking, they don't say. But the degree of their annoyance is obscured by the decidedly milquetoast approach they're taking. The strike won't run for a full day --just from 7 to 9am and from 7-9pm, and even then, only 50% of the trains will be stopped. And the slowdown won't happen every day either--Tuesday and Thursday of this week, and the first three days of the following week. Which means it will stop just in time for everyone, subway workers included, to leave for their Semana Santa vacations.
Madrid

Events great and small

Yes, ETA declared a "permanent ceasefire" yesterday. It was—and is—the only thing anyone is talking about here, and you can tell that behind all the skepticism and calls for prudence, a creeping sense of elation lurks, just waiting until it's safe to come out.

I've been involved with more mundane things, like trying to get the upstairs bedrooms into some kind of shape. It's a daunting task (see above). Not 40-years-worth of terrorism daunting, but hard enough for me.

ETA, Politics

He eats jamon too

There's a lot to say about Mehdi Savalli, the so-called "Muslim matador," and we say some of it here.

Bullfighting

Ah, youth

Spanish jovenes have long gotten around drinking laws, parental supervision, and the high cost of clubs with the “botellon,” an open air gathering where participants bring their own booze and mixers, and just, well, hang out. (The word translates literally as “big bottle,” in reference to the liter-sized containers of beer often consumed.) But the “macrobotellon” is a new invention, one that was supposed to bring the better part of Spain’s youth into the street last night to party.

It started last month, when students in Sevilla used text messaging to spread the word about an outdoor party held to celebrate the end of exams. About 5000 kids showed up, and the celebration made the national news. Unwilling to be outdone, students in rival city Granada, declared their own “macrobotellon” for this weekend, promised 30,000 attendees, and again spread word of it via text messaging (The same medium was put to more serious ends two years ago when, the night before national elections, it called thousands out into the street to protest the Aznar government’s handling of the March 11th investigation).

Word of Granada’s challenge quickly leaked out to kids elsewhere in Spain, however, and 22 cities ended up hosting their own “macrobotellones” Friday night. A couple got out of hand: 24 people were arrested in Barcelona, and there were barricades and riots in Salamanca when the police tried to kick the kids out of one square. But on the whole, there wasn't much of a political message, unless "let's get wasted" can be considered a political message. (In fact, the mayor of Granada went on TV saying that the city had to respect young people's right to enjoy themselves, so there you go. Only in Spain). But in Madrid, the whole thing was something of a bust--rain and a heavy police presence made sure of that. Instead, the city's drunken youth all hung out where they normally do: right outside our apartment.

Madrid, Botellón

Terms of Endearment

Twice in the past week I have been called 'cuca.' I figured it was an Asturian word, and I wasn't too worried, since its users sounded friendly, much as if they were calling me 'guapa' or 'maja.' Still, I wasn't sure, and since "cucaracha" is the Spanish word for "cockroach," I wanted to make sure I wasn't being compared to an insect. So I looked it up in an Asturianu-Castellano dictionary and learned that 'cuca' means "a pile of corn husks, or a small mountain of grass." Of course. What every woman wants to be called.

Writing in Airports

Now that we have heat and electricity and plenty of hot water, only Internet remains as our most-desired utility. It is, however proving to be remarkably difficult to obtain. The phone we had--which operates via radio waves--couldn't provide it. There is no broadband or cable service to our part of Asturias. And our mobiles get only spotty coverage. Which means that we make daily treks to check our email.

And by trek, I mean trek. The closest spot is the bar in Soto de Luiña. It's only 5 minutes away, but internet comes through a device that looks like an electronic slot machine. You sit on a stool at the screen and try to wrestle the cursor: used mostly by jovenes playing video games, the mouse gets quickly bogged down in gook. On the plus side, there's coffee at hand, and they occasionally give you free food.

There is a real-life internet café in Luarca, some 20 minutes away, but it's closed at midday and at other times, is often overrun by jovenes shouting at their video games, or middle-aged men looking at porn. There is a free, city-sponsored "ciber center" in Cudillero, but it is only open weekdays from 4-8pm, and is often taken up with "How to Navigate the Web" classes. It is also more or less the personal fiefdom of the one man who works there, so whenever he has something else to do, it closes. Yesterday I turned up only to learn he would be out until Thursday: "He just became a papa" was the reason why no one else could unlock the door and turn on the lights.

We thought we were rectifying this situation when, last week, Telefonica came to give us a new satellite phone that would, they promised, allow us to get online as well. Even when we told them we had Macs, multiple people at Telefonica assured us the satellite would work. But, now that the satellite is installed, of course it doesn't. When I called yesterday to see if they could just give us the IP addresses for Macintosh, I was told "We at Telefonica don't know anything about Macintoshes."

So, while we 1) either find someone who does or 2) give in and buy a PC, we are back at our most-favored Internet option: the airport. It's expensive, and it's 30 minutes away, but it has WiFi and we can use our own laptaps. Levon is not so crazy about it, however. He spends a lot of time in the parking lot.

A Simple Life

In Asturias, I like my life, because this is what’s in it: solitude, Levon, the ocean, the beach, a burning fireplace, daily bread, thick clean air.

Two years seems like forever, or a day...

Two years ago today we became, you might say, real journalists. I shot the photo below in the Puerta del Sol where thousands of young people had gathered after the bombings to mourn collectively, and our first big news story was "Terrorist Attacks Jolt Spain." Far different from the story we had filed the evening of March 10th, a piece on the upcoming Spanish elections. Last year the commemoration here was notable; this year, it's more muted, more pensive. With all the political fighting within Spain, and the great uncertainty outside in the rest of the world, we all wonder, I suppose, what the future holds for people of different faiths, convictions, hopes, grievances.

Otro 11-M

Another March 11. Like last year, I spent this one with a television crew, with all the stress and frenzy television crews seem to generate. But Madrid itself is calmer than a year ago, the media less rapacious, the commemorations smaller. Memory fades.

My Madrid has changed, though, perhaps permanently. Calle Genova, which used to mean the Turner English Language Bookstore to me, is now the place where that dramatic nighttime protest took place outside PP headquarters, thousands calling for Aznar to take responsibility. Cibeles, which was once where I went to pick up mail sent "General Delivery" to the central Post Office, is another demonstration, this one filled with millions of people streaming through the pouring rain on March 12th. And Atocha, of course, is something else altogether. Two years ago and one: the candles and flowers and handwritten notes stacked one on top of each other, lining the vestibule and circling the entire exterior.

On Thursday we did an interview at the video monument set up at Atocha when they finally took away the candles and flowers. Gonzalo was a captain in the army, 46 years old, when the bomb went off in the car. He lost most of his hearing, had a lung collapse, suffered burns over half his body. A year later he ran 10 kilometers in a race. But he hadn’t yet been able to make himself view the monument.

He agreed to do it for the interview, saying that he “had to confront” the monument. He walked up to it, his lifelong military training evident in his rigid posture and jutting jaw. He looked at the screens for about two minutes, and broke into tears. It broke my heart.

Staying: Madrid

I spent my first night in Madrid, back in the early 1980s, in a small pension still thoroughly stuck in the Franco era. The rooms were dark, the owners severe, and the “private bath” turned out to be a raised platform with a drain, located right in the middle of the room. I took one shower, flooded the place, and was forced to flee in shame. From there, I moved to another pension, this one located right off the Plaza Mayor. The beds were concave and slightly damp, the shared bathroom just this side of filthy, but the twin dwarf brothers who owned the place were friendly, and they offered me a small, greasy glass of wine each evening when I returned.

Mostly I stayed there because the place cost about 4 bucks a night, which pretty much won me the accommodations category in those latenight bullshit sessions with fellow backpackers. But even when I became a bit more upwardly mobile, I learned that Madrid’s more expensive hotels weren’t all that much better. Of course, the very top end—the Ritz, the Palace—were lovely, ornate places. But most mid-range accommodations throughout the 80s and 90s were dreary at best and subject to unfamiliar standards of cleanliness at worst.

It’s all different now. I’ve written about some of the city’s great new hotels here and here and here, but I’m beginning to lose track of them all. In the last couple of weeks alone, three of the more stylish chains-- Petit Palace, AC, and Vincci—have opened delightful new hotels that combine sleek accommodations with classic Madrid architecture. And more are on the way.

Travel, Madrid

But They're Just Chocolate-Covered Peanuts

Geoff is in Barcelona this week, working on a story about racism and soccer. It comes on the heels of an incident at a Barça game in Zaragoza on Saturday, when the home fans started making ape noises at the Cameroon-born player Eto’o. Unfortunately, that kind of shit has become par for the course at Spanish soccer games. One of the most amazing things that Geoff told me is that one of his sources told him that making ape noises at black players “isn’t racist.” The fans, in his view, just want to insult their opponents. And monkey noises lobbed at black players are, apparently, like any other insult.

Ah, the famous, “It’s not racism” argument. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Spaniards tell me that they’re not racist. When they dress in blackface for costume parties, it’s not racist, it’s “funny.” When Conguitos (translation, “little Congolese”) a type of chocolate-covered peanut, carry a cartoon of a naked African child with thick lips and a distended belly on its label, it’s not racism, it’s “marketing.” And now, when thousands of fans make ape noises at black players—and only black players—it’s not racism, it’s just the enthusiasm of fans.

Eto'o, Football,Racism

The Woodcutters' Revenge

For a little over a week now, woodcutters have been clearing a piece of land near the molino. I can't say I like them: they make a lot of noise, they tear up the already muddy paths, and, oh yes, they're cutting down a bunch of innocent trees.

So when they ill-advisedly decided to drive their big trunk-hauler down the teeny overgrown path that empties into the clearing where we park, only to find the exit blocked by our parked car, I practiced a bit of eco-terrorism on them. First, I pretended like I wasn't home and therefore unavailable to move said car. After about thirty minutes of that, I opened the door and let the by now enraged Levon out, who terrified them for about 30 seconds until he became distracted by a toy. And then I yelled at them a bit, about erosion, and our crumbling fence, and how they path was ours and they didn't have permission to drive down it. (This last bit was something of a fib, but I figured they didn't know otherwise. I was right) They yelled right back, but I felt I had made my point.

I was no more forgiving the next day when I twice found them blocking the road out of the molino; the second time I even threated to file a denuncia, which as far as I can tell, is the ultimate threat in Spain. Soon after, they were keeping to the side of the road, and scowling unhappily at me every time I drove by.

At the end of that same week, the guy from Digital +, our satellite tv provider, showed up to fix our suddenly misbehaving reception. He fiddled for a while with the box, then fiddled some more with the dish, then called me outside. "You want to know your problem?" he asked. I nodded resignedly. He pointed up to a tall patch of eucalyptus trees growing behind the house. "You gotta cut'em down."

Well, At Least She's Consistent

You may remember that several weeks ago the president of the community of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, suggested that the new anti-smoking law might be a little too strict. Yesterday, she did indeed sign into effect a ‘revision’ of the national ban that lets workers smoke on the balconies and in the cafeterias of their workplaces, and everybody else during wedding and baptism receptions.

The day before that, however, she decided to go one better than the government on bird flu. Although the ministers of Health and Agriculture have decided that there is no need yet to enclose Spain’s chickens (Spain has yet to find a case of avian flu, though many predict that will come any day now), Aguirre disagreed, and now all farm-raised fowl, including several dozen ostriches on a ranch north of the capital, have to be kept where wild birds can’t reach them.

Madrid’s farmers aren’t happy about the decision, but luckily for the PP, they number far fewer than the comunidad’s smokers. And this way, no one gets to say that Esperanza Aguirre doesn’t care about her citizens’ health.

Smoking Ban, Bird Flu,Politics

Whither ETA?

That was the slug for one of the first stories we did that wasn't about the Madrid bombings. And nearly two years later, it is still the question on everyone's mind. For the past month, rumors of an impending truce have been swirling, and Zapatero himself has said that he has information that "the beginning of the end" is near. The possibility has been driving the opposition Popular Party into a frenzy, and statements that the Socialists are "negotiating with terrorists" and conducting politics "on the backs of victims of terror" come in a daily stream.

On Saturday, ETA issued a statement in which it called for compromises, yet made no mention of the supposed truce. Many here take that as a hint that perhaps no cease fire is coming. But that hasn't stopped the hysterical rhetoric of the PP, members of which are now calling for Zapatero's resignation on the grounds that his ETA policies "have failed."

Criticizing Zapatero for a policy that supposedly has him willing to negotiate, and then criticizing him because that policy supposedly fails seems right up there with that old joke about the bad restaurant: "The food was terrible, and the portions were so small!" But calling for his resignation seems downright ridiculous. The PP were in power for 8 years during which dozens of Spaniards were killed, injured or kidnapped in ETA attacks. There has not been a single death or injury since the Socialists have been in power. For this, Zapatero should resign?

ETA, Politics

Another week, another utility

On Thursday we got an electric hot water heater. Actually, we got it on Wednesday, after Geoff insisted that perhaps the electrician and the plumber could stop blaming each other for his absence and actually meet at our house at the same time. They did, though when Fernando the plumber insulted Nacho the electrician´s electrical acumen, the latter left, leaving the former to install the thing.

Which of course couldn't be done in one day. Bright and early the next morning, there was garrulous Fernando and his taciturn assistant Pedro, hard at work. Several hours later, we had copper pipes where our creaky butane heater used to be, and a shiny white tank in the basement. Only problem was that it didn't work.

Seems maybe Fernando didn't know quite as much about electric water heaters as he professed. That may explain why he cornered me in the kitchen for about an hour to hold forth on how we really should have put in a gas (or gasoil, as it's called here) heater. But I thought I detected a smirk when I called Nacho back to ask for his help.

Next, the internet. Any suggestions, anybody?

Fear of flying

A new terminal opened at Madrid's Barajas airport on February 5. Architecturally, it's supposed to be quite spectacular--it was designed by Richard Rogers, the same guy who did the Pompidou Center in Paris. But I've been avoiding it--flying through it, that is--because I already find airports and check ins and security searches trying enough, and I fear this new terminal will make them more so. In the first week after it opened, the nightly news ran a regular segment on the delays, the lost baggage, the construction remains still in plain view, but those, I imagine, are just opening jitters. The real problem is accessibility--to get to the terminal on public transportation you have to get off the metro and onto a bus (from our apartment this comes after 2 changes and an hour long underground ride), and then on to another bus if your flight happens to leave from terminal TS4 rather than T4. Someday, there will be a metro stop directly at the new wing, but last I heard, the municipal and national governments were arguing about who should pay for it.

And speaking of airports, on a flight from Barcelona today, I was reminded of the rule of Spanish flying: the later in the day you fly, the more delayed your flight will be. Instead of getting some flights off on time, both Iberia and Spanair seem to let the little delays of the day pile up for all their flights. So by the time you get to a 5pm departure, like mine today, you can pretty much count on a half hour retraso. And if you happen to take the last flight of the day, as Geoff did last night, you can count on having the airport to yourself by the time you arrive.

Barajas, Madrid, Travel

Appearances

I spent the better part of two days last week in plastic surgeons’ offices for a story: Spain, it seems, is home to more plastic surgeons who conduct more plastic surgery, than anywhere else in Europe. It was a very strange experience: the expensive modern art on the walls; the pretty assistants who all wear chic matching suits, like salesgirls at Zara; the patients who retreat to the waiting room clutching slightly bloodied ice packs to their face as they wait for the swelling to go down from their Botox shots. But the strangest of all was how normal everything came to seem, the groups of women sitting in chatty, happy groups making it seem like the decision to have a little taken off here, a little tightened there, is no more weighty a decision than what color polish to choose at the manicurist.

The Smoking Wars

Every since Spain's smoking ban went into effect on January 1, every bar small enough to legally escape the crackdown—and they are many—has posted a handmade sign on its door advertising the fact. Which means that instead of actually preventing smoking in public, the law is simply shuffling the geography of where smoking takes place.

Meanwhile Esperanza Aguirre, the president of the comunidad--or region--of Madrid, is about to shuffle even more. Her government has drafted a plan to "enact" the anti-tobacco law that in fact disactivates it, allowing smoking in bars as long as the ventilation is good and in offices as long as there is a balcony . After all, she doesn't want smokers "to feel discrimated against." The Minister of Health has responded by calling Aguirre's plan illegal, and suggesting that the presidenta is perhaps willing to jeopardize the health of madrileños in order to win votes. Members of Aguirre's cabinet, in fact her very own councillor for health, has responded by calling for the Minister's resignation. Nothing new there--calling for resignations is what the PP seems to do best these days. The crispación continues.

Smoking Ban, Politics

The cake that ate our electricity

Sure, we were getting a little cocky. Two space heaters, two dehumidifiers, the occasional vacuum cleaner, and all the table lamps you could want. For six glorious days we were environmentally unsound, scarfing down all the electricity we could get our hands on. But it wasn't enough. I had to go and try to bake.

Baking: one of the things, right up there with blow-drying my hair, that would make me feel most at home. And it wasn't anything fancy, just a bizcocho, which is the Spanish version of something between a sponge cake and a pound cake. I had to improvise the recipe since the Spanish recipes I have all called for metric measures, and I only have American ones, conscientiously imported. I had to melt the butter instead of creaming it, since we don't yet have a mixer, but the batter tasted fine.

After the bizcocho had spent three minutes in the oven, however, the power blew--all of it, right as dark was falling. To be honest, I knew that back when we were running off of water power, the oven, which is gas but has an electric broiler, routinely overloaded the circuits. But I had hoped that now that we have some 17,000 watts at our disposal, I'd be able to bake a simple cake. I would be wrong.

So, we turned off the oven, lit all the candles in the house, and finished making dinner. After, as we huddled next to the fire for warmth, Geoff pointed out that since the electricity was already gone we might as well re-light the gas and finish baking the cake. So we did, and spent our Sunday night eating steaming bizcocho in the dark.

The recipe:

2 sticks of unsalted butter, melted
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. vanilla extract
125 g (sorry. that's the size they come in) plain yogurt.

Mix everything together. Pour into greased baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. Serve warm.

Eating: Juana la Loca

One of the chief pleasures of urban life is that you can have a neighborhood restaurant, a place where out of the whole sprawling metropolis, you know the food will be good, you know the waiter will greet you by name, you know the bartender will remember how you like your coffee. Technically, I suppose you don’t need to live in a city to have a neighborhood restaurant, but somehow the whole enterprise seems less meaningful if 1) everyone knows you at the post office too and 2) you have no other restaurants to choose from. If one lives, say, in Oberlin, Ohio, the fact that the waiters at Black River Café all know you like your eggs scrambled is not comforting. It is suffocatingly boring.

But in Madrid, it’s a different story. There, my neighborhood restaurant is Juana la Loca. Tucked onto a corner of La Latina, its violet-blue walls are at once soothing and every so slightly chic. The waiters, despite their all-black uniforms, are friendly. There are at least 6 wines available by the glass. The owner, who looks like an older Pedro Almodovar, also owns what may be my favoritely-named restaurant ever, Maldeamores.

The food, needless to say, is great. It’s almost all tapas and pintxos, but innovative ones, like roasted artichokes with shaved parmesan and whole cloves of blanched garlic, or a tuna carpaccio that gets silkiness from a drizzle of almond oil and crunch from saffron-flavored puffed rice. Even the regular suspects come dressed up: humus comes with strips of crisp-fried pita and a sprinkle of pimentón; the onions in the tortilla de patatas are deliciously caramelized.

So truly do I love Juana la Loca that I hesitated to mention it here, afraid it might be overrun. But then I remembered what this blog’s traffic levels are. So, all tens of you, go forth and try Juana la Loca. Tell Gustavo I sent you.

Juana la Loca: Carrera San Francisco 4. Tel: 913640525

Madrid restaurants

Levon Across the Water

There's a lot to tell about our dog Levon's journey across the water, but I'll leave that for Geoff, who suffered the worst of it. I don't, however, think I'll ever forget the image of him inside his crate,coming toward us on the prongs of a forklift.

He seems to be adapting well, if tentatively, to Spanish life. The mornings with tennis ball on the deserted beach near our house, and the chunks of Asturian beef we guiltily slip him, only help.

Let there be light

It's true. As of 5:15pm on Friday, January 27, we have electricity. Photos to follow.

Forgive me if I sound surprised. It's true that we were told, back in early November when we handed over a check for an absurd amount of money to cover the cost of cement poles and wire-hanging, that the process would take "10 days--two weeks max." It's true that as recently as 10 days ago, our own electrician told me that "things would have to get very complicated" for us not to have electricity by Friday. By now, I expect things to get "very complicated." When it comes to things involving installation of any sort in Spain, I am inured to hope.

Of course it didn't help that when I called on Wednesday to ask if they had finished hanging the wires, José told me that, well, they hadn't started until Tuesday, and they should be done Thursday. When I asked why they hadn't started on Monday, as he, and three other people at Viesgo had promised repeatedly, he changed the subject to how I hadn't gotten the right permissions. When I said that first, I had gotten the permissions they said we needed and that in any case the posts had been up since the first week of January, just waiting for the wires, he mumbled something about the weather. And then he changed the subject to how he still needed an order from his office to come do the final inspection and that another company would be in charge of putting in the meter, and who knew how long that would take. When I reported this to Nacho the electrician, he said, "Yes, I told you it was going to be very close to get it done by Friday." I said, "You told me things would have to get very complicated for them not to have it done by Friday." He shrugged.

Around 11, José himself showed up to do the inspection. Around noon, I called Laura at the customer service desk at Viesgo to ask when the guys would come out to do the hookup. Laura told me that she thought the team would be there that afternoon. By this point, I had already decided to head back to Madrid—forecasters were predicting a huge snowstorm overnight that would have the whole northern half of Spain blanketed, and I had to have the car in the capital to pick Geoff and Levon up on Monday. But I didn't want to miss the hook-up guys if they were indeed coming. I asked if she was sure. She said she "thought so." I decided to stay the night, kicking myself the whole time for ignoring instinct and experience.

But at 4:30, there he was: a handsome man in a blue Viesgo suit telling me I would have electricity within half an hour. I toyed with taking some of the space heaters I had bought out of their boxes, then decided to wait, still suspecting that something would go wrong. As the lights came on, Mr. Guapo said, "You never appreciate something so simple as flipping a switch until you don't have it, do you?" Well no, sir, you don't.

How not to plan your next vacation

FITUR opened in Madrid on Wednesday out at the IFEMA convention center. You could tell it was coming because suddenly, a ring of yellow sand materialized in the middle of the Plaza Mayor, the newborn site —as it is every year—for a performance by the famous dancing horses of Jerez.

Out at the convention center, things are much less predictable. FITUR is the world's second largest travel trade fair, and in the quest to stand out amid the hundreds of other booths that are all grappling for the attention of hordes of travel agents and convention planners, each country or hotel chain or regional tourist board tries to outdo the other. Some wrap recent theater-school graduates in billows of turquoise tulle and have them ripple like a river you might want to row down. Some convince middle-aged Spanish men to dress like the Centurions who one roamed their city's streets. Some force poor natives from foreign countries to do folkloric things in an overheated convention center for hours on end.

Imperative to the task of drawing a tour planner from Lérida or Liverpool to your booth is a small legion of pretty azafatas--some dressed like hot businesswomen, others like hookers at Mardi Gras-- to hand out brochures. But hostesses aside, in the end, it all comes down to swag. Free food, drink, and tchotckes apparently keep the travel industry afloat. In the few hours I was there, I scored half a dozen pens, two pencils, one glass each of sherry, cava, and a very fine Rioja, a poster of Picasso, three lapel buttons, fresh conch, a fan, a bottle of olive oil, and a fez. And I wasn't even trying.

FITUR, which runs through Sunday, is open to the public during the weekend.

Events, FITUR

Ode to an Immersion Blender

I know that technology is supposed to be America's strong suit (after, oh yes, civil liberties and democratic transparency). But there are some things that Europeans just make better. Simple things, like dustpans with broomstick-long handles and oversink cabinets with built in dish drainers.

And immersion blenders. So neat and trim, so practical: no need to transfer anything, no chance of spraying asparagus soup all over your kitchen just as your guests arrive because you filled the blender too high. The very embodiment of European values, in fact: no gaudy doo-dads, just enough power to get things done without being ostentatious about it. I know that, technically, immersion blenders are available in the US, but honestly, how many people there do you know who have them?

It was a happy day yesterday when I took advantage of the nation-wide rebajas to first finally buy one, and then to make a deliciously smooth and creamy carrot soup with it. Couldn't have been easier. Here's the recipe:



Carrot and Dill Soup (serves 4)

2 Tbsp. butter
1 large onion, sliced thinly
6 carrots, peeled and sliced thinly
1 tsp dried dill
5 cups chicken broth
Chopped fresh dill for garnish

Sauté onion and carrots in the butter with the dried dill until the onions are translucent. Add the broth and bring to a boil. Lower heat, and simmer until carrots are soft, about 40 minutes. Use immersion blender (or if you must, a regular one) to puree until smooth. Serve topped with a good amount of chopped fresh dill.

Gadgets, Cooking

Thank you, Benedict Anderson

By the time I got out of graduate school, I was a little tired of the ubiquity of the "imagined communities" rhetoric. Good idea, but damn if it didn't make its way into every dissertation and job talk of the 1990s. Still, I found myself thinking about it again as we near an apparent agreement on the Catalan statute.

Taxes, it should be said, have been a major sticking point--who gets how much of the revenue. But the major hold up throughout the process has been about the word "nation." All along, the Catalans have insisted that Statute define Catalonia as a nation, while the government has insisted that Statute define Catalonia as a place with a national identity. That may not seem like a difference worth holding up a pact that will utterly remake the nature of Spanish government, but trust me. And things got even more punctilious after that. Just days ago the government ceded a bit, and offered the concessionary "Some Catalan citizens feel that Catalonia is a nation"; when that was deemed too patronizing by the outraged Catalan parties, the government took off the "some."

Then, in the face of continued resistence, they revised it again. Now it says that "The Parliament of Catalonia...has defined Catalonia as a nation." Classic trick: say what somebody says it is, rather than what it is. But it seems to be working. The last hold out among the Catalan parties meets with Zapatero today, and I'll lay money that there's an agreement by the end of the day.

Politics, Catalan Statute

The Electrician's Family

I showed up at the molino this weekend to find Nacho the Electrician hard at work, along with the better part of his family. Actually, with the exception of his mother (who has the body of your average señora but the dyed-red shag of an 80s rocker), the rest of them—sister, grandfather, unknown man who could have been a brother or a guy they met in the bar on the way over—seemed a bit sheepish. Which seemed unnecessary until I realized that rather than working they were there to look around our house. But Nacho's mother was working hard, and we now have 1) a cable that juts out from a hole in the wall, cuts up to the roof, and stretches across the patio; 2) one and a half floor's worth of new outlets (one and a half still to come); and 3) a pretty little stone house, complete with red tile roof, to house the counter, whenever that gets put in. Progress.

Seeing: Madrid

The city of Madrid spends a lot of its culture budget promoting the Festival de Otoño in October, but for some reason, I always find the end of January a lot more interesting. This year, Spain´s most famous ballerina, Tamara Rojo, is dancing El Quijote with the Argentine Julio Bocca at the Teatro Albeniz, while Victor Ullate´s work El Sur--a ballet about domestic abuse with music by possibly the best-known flamenco performers in the world, Enrique and Estrella Morente--premieres at the Teatro Gran Via. Caja Madrid´s five-star flamenco festival begins next week. MadridFusion, which ends today, has all the avant-garde chefs of the world showing off their latest creations (Adrià issued a 23-point manifesto and demonstrated a battery-powered screwdriver that shoots out strands of carmelized sugar). And all the big US Christmas movies--Munich, Brokeback Mountain, Luther (what? You haven't heard of that one? Joseph Fiennes playing the tonsure-headed founder of Protestantism? I can't imagine why)are finally making their way over.

Madrid, Culture

The Scent of Return

Not too long ago I mentioned how Córdoba's scent hit me as soon as I got off the train. It used to be that way with Madrid as well: I would get off the bus from the airport at Plaza Colón and lightly swoon as I inhaled the smell I hadn't realized I had forgotton, the smell of Madrid. It wasn't olive oil in this case, more like a mix of coffee and exhaust and fried calamari and that peculiar cleaning fluid that Spaniards use, but it instantly reminded me where I was, and I loved it.

When I got in to town earlier this week after a month away, it wasn't there. Or rather, it probably was but I didn't notice it. I think it must mean that Madrid is becoming home.

Madrid

Essentialism

Two pieces of interesting news from the weekend:

A general in the Spanish army was placed under house arrest after he warned that if proponents of autonomy went too far with the Catalan Statute, the army would be forced to intervene. And a man in his 60s was killed when his car accidentally hit a gitana girl as she crossed the street, injuring her lightly. Her family, upon witnessing the accident, ran into the street and shot the driver eleven times.

There, in one news cycle, two constant themes of Spanish history and myth: the rebellious military, the violent Gypsies. The last time the army threatened revolt was in 1981, when a band of generals shot up the Congress of Deputies in an attempted coup. At the time, it was terribly frightening: Franco had been in the ground for fewer than 6 years and the prospect of a return to dictatorship or civil war seemed very real. But these days, "ridiculous" seems to be the general opinion of Lieutenant General Mena's threats regarding the Statute.

Not so the public outcry regarding the murder of Gaspar García in Sevilla. The Union Romani and other Gypsy organizations have been inundated with slur-filled emails and threatening phone calls. Some perceptions, it seems, are more resilient, like weeds.

What the Three Kings Brought

Not electricity, exactly, but the poles on which our electrical wires are strung. It's a start.

The Kid, The Fat Guy, and the Objectification of Women

As consolation to all those who lost the El Gordo Christmas lottery, today brings the smaller but still sustantial El Niño. This one's winners are also announced by children in Catholic school uniforms, a fact that is probably not amusing to anyone but me.

But amused I am. Not least because the regular daily lottery is announced on TV every night by five willowly women in high heels and form-fitting clothes whose sole job it is to pick up a ping pong ball, slide it into place, and—with big, suggestive (now you'll have a chance at me) smiles— intone the number written on it. So I can just imagine the girls in the photo above thinking today is the start of a great career.

Lottery, el Niño

Eating in Cordoba: Meson Juan Pena

I traveled to Córdoba the day before I came back to the States, and realized that a lot of things have changed since I lived there a decade ago. They have these nifty bikes, free to use, parked outside the train station, for example (a woman in the tourist office told me that Córdoba has more bike lanes than any European city outside of Holland). El Churrasco has opened a small inn--lovely, if a bit rococo for my tastes. Muslim chic is all the rage, with tea rooms and Arab baths popping up around the Mezquita.

But Juan Peña is blissfully the same. Same bullfighting pictures along one wall, same farm implements along the other. Same braseros underneath the tables, with thick blanket-like cloths to pull over your legs and warm your feet. And the same fantastic food.

I had lived for months in Córdoba before I ever tried Juan Peña, even though it was right across the street from the bar where I had breakfast every day (every day, that is, until the waiter--whom I thought was my friend but who clearly disapproved of my unladylike habit of eating a whole, not half, toast—told me I was "getting a little fat"). In fact, it was my visiting friends David and Elizabeth who convinced me to try the place. They ate there one night and came back raving. "You have to get the fried eggplant and spinach with garbanzos," they told me.

So I did. And in the dozens of times that I've been to Juan Peña since, I've never not had those two things. The spinach is lightly cooked, and spiced with cumin and other vaguely Moroccan flavors. And the eggplant is just plain remarkable. Cut like french fries, it is crisp and salty on the outside, melting and not at all eggplanty on the inside.

That's what I ordered two weeks ago, plus a gambas al ajillo for good measure, in the spirit of all-time favorite tapas eating. "Is that a lot?" I asked the waiter after ordering, remembering his critical brethren across the street. "Yes," he admitted. Then I ordered it all anyway.

Meson Juan Peña
Doctor Fleming, 1.
Tel. 957 20 07 02

Cordoba, Restaurants

Laws Sure To Be Broken

Spain's smoking ban goes into effect today, and already one guy has found a way around it. More, no doubt, to follow.

Spain's Smoking Ban