There’s a reason that everyone knows the word sombrero. That’s right. It’s a hat. Do you ever wonder about that? Why, of the many thousands of words in the Spanish language, does everyone know the word for hat? All of the United States (and I’m willing to bet throughout the English speaking world) absolutely everyone knows the word sombrero. As you might guess, I have a theory about this. Sombrero, when translated literally means “shade maker”, and believe me when I tell you that you can’t spend an hour on the streets of Madrid in the middle of August without figuring out that anywhere that has sombra, shade, is prime territory.
The madrileños have an instinctive understanding of where to find the shade. For instance, you’ll never find them walking down the sunny side of the street. Which I realize makes them seem incredibly pessimistic, but such is not the case. They simply know that it’s a solid ten degrees cooler in the shade. Any bench in the parks or along the paseos is bound to be occupied by someone taking advantage of the sombra. I went with a group last week to visit the Palacio Real, and found it amusing that several of our group had huddled together in the shade cast by a public toilet while we waited for our tour guide to appear. (NB: another helpful word to know is servicios.) There may be sights more ridiculous than a crowd of tourists in the shadow of a public toilet, but I’m not certain at the moment what they might be. However, I am almost certain there is the title of a novel in that scene: La sombra de los servicios. It has the weight of classic, don’t you think?
Perhaps it is then a bit ironic that these weighty ideas were rolling around in my head as I maneuvered through the Puerta del Sol. Which, taken literally, means the Door of the Sun. This is the main tourist shopping district in Madrid and leads to the Plaza Mayor, and although very attractive looses a lot of its impact as the mayor when compared to a number of the other sights. I had gone to the Puerta del Sol to meet up with yet another tour group and was walking in a circle through a giant pedestrians-versus-automobiles traffic jam of tourism in search of the statue of a bear. This is one of those icons of Madrid that it is simply assumed everyone visits on the first day. I, having other priorities, had not yet been there and was now paying the price.
The place is absolutely teeming with people, all of whom want your money more or less legitimately. Those who want your money slightly more legitimately are hoping to interest you in bootleg CDs, suspicious designer handbags, or knockoff Real Madrid jerseys sporting David Beckham’s name. Those who want you money less legitimately are hoping that your interest in a souvenir for your little brother will overcome your caution about who might have their hand in your pocket. Alas for them, such was not the case for all of my attention was focused on finding what apparently is the one statue in Madrid not elevated on a ten foot pedestal. I exaggerate, but not by much. Madrileños love their pedestals. By the time I found the statue, I had also managed to find every other type of kitschy souvenir known to man. If there exists a collectible icon of Spain not for sale in the Puerta del Sol, I cannot imagine what it might be. Sadly, my eye is inevitably drawn to glittery, shiny things and I find I can’t help but wonder who I know who might need a “Toledo” sword, or an impressively ugly doll, or a gilt fan.
Let me pause a moment and talk about the fans. I think that on some level I have been searching all of my life for a place where carrying and using a collapsible fan is not considered an affectation, but is merely good common sense. At one time I owned a number of fans, and enjoyed them immensely as decoration, but could rarely bring myself to use them in public because I was too well aware this would be viewed as peculiar behavior at best, and at worst an outlandish affectation. I got rid of most of them years ago, but have kept a sandalwood fan that I purchased at the Texas State Fair more than two decades ago, and one that Mom brought back to me from Singapore. Which goes to show, I suppose, that souvenirs do manage to find their space in our lives. In contrast to my self-conscious ways, madrileñas use their fans as naturally as they seek out the sombra. These are not actions that require any thought. Leave the house, put on sunglasses, snap open fan, and walk in the shade. I dare you to find a routine that is any more sensible. Everyone at home has roundly teased me about the possibility of coming home with the Spanish lisp, but I think it’s much more likely that I will adopt the mannerisms. Don’t be surprised when you see me walking through the neighborhood gently cooling myself with a black lace fan. I will, of course, be on the shady side of the street.
So it was that I found the statue of the bear. The statue was surrounded by tourists waiting rather good-naturedly for their turn to take a photo in front of the statue. Not wanting to be part of some stranger’s vacation photos or wait my turn with the rest of the crowd, I never got close enough to read the plaque explaining the significance of the bear. I had about forty-five minutes before the group was supposed to meet, and had worked up a good appetite. I hiked through a couple of the nearby streets and surveyed my options weighing price against purse, and quality against comfort. I finally took a seat in the shade on a terraza and ordered the menú del día. I sat and enjoyed the breeze, for I have found that wherever there is sombra there is also a breeze, and contemplated my life in Spain thus far.
I have always been an introvert, and you who know me best will admit the depths to which this is true. In Madrid I’m discovering that more than ever before there are tremendous conflicts at play in my daily life. Sitting alone in the shade I’m experiencing a state of isolation unlike any I’ve experienced before. The language barrier is only part of it. I’m hampered by my natural reluctance to strike up conversations with strangers, and the few people I have befriended these last two weeks are most likely to revert to English the moment class is over. I’ve had several invitations to join other students, and in fact had just that day turned down an invitation to go to El Escorial because I knew that while I’d enjoy the camaraderie, I would make no progress with my language skills. I rarely lose sight of why I’m here. I find I’m really looking forward to Pamplona, which is muy pequeña in comparison to Madrid, but where I can anticipate making a few friends. The realization of how short my time in Madrid is yet another hindrance for me.
In direct opposition to this is my growing need for privacy. I’ve never before lived with anyone other than family, and perhaps I would have been the better for it. I’m living, as you know, in the home of Blanca Peñas. What you don’t know is that her home is a two-bedroom/ two-bath flat, and I am not her only lodger. Blanca has rented the “spare” room and bath to a pretty chemist named Monica, whom I don’t see often and talk with even less. She doesn’t seem inclined as a rule to want to deal with my struggling Spanish. However, Monica and I did bond a bit over a documentary on Ethiopia, which we watched together over dinner one day. Ask me a personal question and I know nothing, bring up the subject of Ethiopia and you’d think I was the blinking ambassador. Now if you’ve been counting along you know that we have two bedrooms and three women. Monica is renting the “spare” room. I am renting Blanca’s room. Blanca is sleeping on the couch. I could console myself with the knowledge that I do at least have a bed, but I’m afraid that that is cold comfort when I want to sleep and Blanca can’t find her shoes. Why? Because all of Blanca’s clothing is in the closet in “my” room. Although she did clear a bit of space for me in the closet, I don’t have any place to keep my toiletries, towels, etc. which means that I have to go through a daily routine of packing and unpacking these things. Blanca’s absolutely rabid about things not being left out to compete for dust with her bric-a-brac. I’ve come to horde the time that I have to myself in the apartment, not that there is much of it to have. In fact, I just heard one of my roommates come in the door. So, while I do have isolation, I don’t have solitude.
So, as I was saying, I was sitting in the sombra on the terraza and contemplating all my personal hang-ups when the tallest cross-dresser I’ve ever seen in the shortest mini dress I’ve ever seen sits down at the table next to me and orders a café. At which point I begin to wonder if I am in a Pedro Almodóvar movie. Picture me: short and grubby in khakis and sneakers, hair tied back and make-up long since smudged away; and picture her: the very definition of a glamour queen, absolutely radiant in her illusion of femininity. The contrast between the two of us was ludicrous, and I debated whether this was perhaps why she chose to sit down at the table next to mine on an otherwise deserted terraza. Not that I have any real reason to suspect her motives. All I really have is a fantastic grasp of the absurd.
I probably don’t need to mention that I didn’t make it in time to catch up to the tour. Between my own wanderings and the relaxed service at the cervecería, by the time I finished it was a full hour past the time at which I was supposed to have met the group. No le importa. They weren’t expecting me specifically, so no one would notice I was missing. The excursion was to have been a tour of a Carmelite convent. There has been a religious of the Order of the Sacred Heart in my class this week, and when I asked if she was going on the tour she replied, “Why? Is there anything special about it? If you’ve seen one convent, you’ve seen them all.” Even with Donna’s enthusiasm ringing in my ears I decided to try to find the convent after I finished my meal. By the way, the meal ended with the best helado limón I’ve ever had. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was my hunger, but that was some mighty fine ice cream.
On another subject, my classes this week, while more advanced than last week, were distressingly boring and still not up to the level at which I need to work. I was bored out of my mind Thursday and Friday. I began to get panicky when I heard Macarena, this week’s instructor, saying that next week she was going to cover the same information again, only SLOWER. I almost came unglued. Donna, the nun who was with my class most of this week, switched Friday to the class I’d had the week before. I thought she put it very well when she said that the first hour of grammar (in the lower class) was too slow for her, but Pablo led a very interesting class and they spent more time practicing speaking. Let’s face it; if the nun is having the same response that I had, it may be more than simply his natural charm.
Macarena overheard me talking with Donna and repeated to her that our class was going to be slower next week. That’s when I voiced my objections. I need to be in a class that’s moving faster not slower. Macarena tried to dissuade me from moving up, but relented and took me to talk with Roscío who teaches the next level. Roscío, who’s led three of the excursions I’ve been on, flat out said no. She didn’t think I had the skills for the next class. Surprisingly, Macarena stood up for me and said that I had the best command of speaking in the class, and I asserted that the grammar that Roscío is covering in her class was not beyond me. I’m familiar with the grammar; I need practice. Roscío finally agreed that my comprehension is fine, but she has her reservations about my ability to keep up with the class. In the end, she agreed that we’d see how things went on Monday.
Roscío terrifies me. I’m not sure why. The interview with her (in the teacher’s prep area and witnessed by every instructor in the joint) was like being grilled under a bare light bulb in some old crime drama. Bright light shining in your eyes, sweat running down your face, and everything that you say just leads to another probing question. It’s exactly the sort of situation that makes me revert to my most introverted. Please, please, get the attention off me. The blinding glare of that kind of attention has never really suited me. Public speaking? Piece of cake. Starring role? That’s a snap. Tremendous attention focused on me personally? I’ll do my best to suck it up and try not to let on that there are knots in my belly that will take hours to untangle, but chances are that I’ll walk away shaky and angry and in need of a good cry.
I have no doubt that she was trying to intimidate me, because her Spanish just kept getting faster and faster. I think I made a bad impression on her the week before when she asked me a question as we were walking in a group down the street. I couldn’t hear her question. I knew she was speaking to me, but she was turned away from me and there was a great deal of traffic. She repeated herself once, and looked very irritated when I told her I couldn’t hear her. I know she thinks I’m just slow. I think what finally swayed her in my favor was that she could see I had an anthology of selected works by Mariano José de Larra tucked in with my books. I’ve finished the books I brought to read on the plane and have pledged to myself that I’m only reading works in Spanish from here on out, e-mails being the sole exception. I walked out of there trying to understand what could have possibly been in my mind that I had willingly subjected myself to such intense scrutiny, and not only that but I had invited myself to more of the same next week. Roscío warned me that the students in the next class do a lot of talking. I kept trying to tell her that that is why I’m here. I can’t say I enjoyed the attention. I was practically shaking by the time I escaped the spotlight.
I took a long walk to calm myself down. The weather has changed in the last day or two and the warm sun was a good contrast to the crisp wind and helped to take my mind off my apprehensions. That interview with Roscío is the closest I’ve come yet to the full blown panic attack I’ve been expecting since this whole business began. I walked all the way up to good old calle Zurbarán, then down the paseo Castellano to the Plaza de Colón. There are several fountains in the Plaza de Colón, and a soaring pedestal with a statue of Cristóbal Colón, better known to us as Christopher Columbus. Behind the statue are the Jardines del Descubrimiento, the Gardens of the Discovery. I walked through the gardens and then sat for a while and listened to the competing sounds of traffic, and water, and the flapping of the largest flag I’ve ever seen. It was a flag large enough to rival the impact of the towering transvestite. Sitting on a bench in the warmth of the sun and looking at monuments to an event that changed the world, I was reminded that the price of discovery is a place in the sun.
Pray for me.
Love,
Goo
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Me & the Metro & the Music
Mom wrote saying that she wants to know every little detail of my trip. While I have no doubt that this is true, I won’t bore all of you right now with the details of travel. Instead, Mom can read my diary when I get home. It’s incredibly overwrought for such mundane reading, but if she won’t make the trip herself, she’ll just have to endure the tortures of trying to live vicariously through me.
I made it here safely enough. The only passably interesting thing about the trip is that I got stopped at every airport. Each time I changed planes I had to go through the routine of taking out my laptop (you’d think that once it had been checked that you’d be fine), taking off my shoes, and getting the once over with their magic security wand because every time I went through the magic security gate bells and whistles sounded the alarm. By the time I hit Gatwick I had figured out what was causing the problem. The under-wire in my bra is apparently more metal than any rational, non-terrorist type ought to be carrying on their person, hence the bells and whistles. Gee, and all this time I thought I was the only one irritated by the under-wire in my bra.
So, anyway, I made it to Madrid with all my luggage intact and after a good meal I hit the sheets for about twelve hours straight. That I could even contemplate sleeping for so long a stretch horrified my hostess/landlady, Blanca. Blanca is a forty-something, divorced, out-of-work psychologist – or, at least, she has a degree in psychology. Blanca speaks fluent English, as well as German and French. She studied a year in Aberdeen, and a year in Vienna. All of her jobs up until the present have been related to her language skills, except for a short stint trying to sell apartments. She really liked that job, but she never sold any apartments.
Blanca is very attractive in a slightly unkempt, out-dated sort of way. This is the case with a number of the Spanish women that I’ve seen to date. The very young women are extremely stylish, and the older women often quite frumpy in their manner of dress, but they all have a sort of wilted, I-just-need-a-minute-to-freshen-up look. And so far as I can tell none of the women wear hosiery. Of course, it’s too hot to wear panty hose, but I’ve never known that to stop a hearty southern belle from forcing her sweaty legs into a reluctant pair of nylons. That’s not the case in Madrid. Here it doesn’t seem to matter if you’re headed to the market or the park, to the opera or to mass, bare legs and open toe shoes are the order of the day.
That’s enough of my fashion commentary on Madrid. The point is that I got here, and that having gotten here I’ve now made it through an entire week. The first night I was here Blanca gave me directions over a very late dinner (six o’clock, dinner time is two p.m.) about how to find the language school (International House of Madrid) the next morning. Remember, she’s telling me this is over a dinner I almost slept through. “You go down here,” pointing, pointing, “and take the metro to Alontho Martineth. It should take you about 15, 20 minuteth. Alontho Martineth. Juth don’t go to the airport. Alontho Martineth. Then you haf to ask thomeone how to find calle Thurbarán. Thurbano? Thurbarán.” It is, at times, like being caught in an episode of Fawlty Towers.
Needless to say, I got lost. Not on the metro mind you. Goodness, no! That’s the easiest part of this whole adventure. A moron could figure out the metro in Madrid. It’s numbered and color-coded and there are pictograms to show you where to find the exits. Anything important is translated into English and French. I’ve yet to be even slightly confused by the metro. Which means that that will inevitably be next week’s story. It was when I came out of the metro that I got lost. I checked a map, found the “you are here” marker on it, which unfortunately obscured the entire corner, and absolutely failed to get my bearings. The buildings shown as landmarks on the map are not plastered with giant signs displaying their names, and the streets are too wide to read the street sign on the opposite side. And, of course, this is no mere intersection of two streets, but is instead a meeting of several streets with a lovely fountain and statue of Alonso Martinez at its center.
Using my incredible sense of direction I chose a path and headed off to find calle Zurbarán. Amazingly, calle Zurbarán was precisely where I expected to find it. From there it was simply a matter of finding number 8. I could see number 15 across the street from me, so I employed logic, ascertained that I was miraculously on the even numbered side of the street, and immediately turned to my left and started walking in the direction of descending numbers. That is, I could see the numbers descending on the opposite side of the street, until it read “1”. Standing at the end of the block, I could read “2” on my side, but all the way down the street I’d passed nothing but a long wall. I walked back the other direction to see if maybe I’d missed it, but found nothing opposite number 9 other than a giant wrought iron gate that I’d paid no attention to on my first pass on which hung the sign “Casa del Pobre, Zurbarán 8.” Very funny. I fly across the ocean to find myself on the steps of the poor house. I could have managed that easily enough without ever leaving home.
Well, I checked out the next block of Zurbarán, just in case I’d misread the number on the letter from Rotary. I didn’t find International House, but I did find the Goethe Institute, which offers the best language training in the world if you want to learn German, as well as two other language schools. By this point, I’d been wandering the streets of Madrid long enough to make me late for my first day of class, and the temperature had risen enough to make me uncomfortable. I’m sure you’ve already figured out what I had realized by this point. I was on the wrong street. I finally had to do the unthinkable and ask an older gentleman on the street if he knew where to find calle Zurbano, ¿conoce Vd. calle Zurbano?, and trust that I’d be able to make heads or tails his reply. The good news is that he understood me and I understood him, or at least I understood him well enough to know that he hadn’t a clue where to find either calle Zurbano or International House.
I headed back the way I came, madly checking street names all the way. At worst, I’d find my way back to the metro stop and eventually to Blanca’s before having to ask her to lead me like a kindergartener to her first day of school. I was on my way back to the metro where I knew I could find an illegible map, when I ran into the same man I’d asked earlier about c. Zurbano. I’d made the block going one direction; he’d done the same going the other. He very kindly stopped me to say that if I went two streets further in the direction I was headed I’d find c. Zurbano. And to think, people told me the madrileños are mean!
And so it was that hot and dizzy and embarrassed I found myself walking through the doors of International House. They greeted me as though I were a long lost cousin who finally managed to find her way back to town. No one ever asked me why I was late. They just sat me down without any preamble and had me take a placement test. I was caught a bit off guard with the placement test, since I’d already done one for them online, but I didn’t take any offense. The words were pulsing a bit on the page, but I gamely did my best to concentrate. There were a couple of things that threw me however, including a multiple-choice question about the correct way to say, “I am English.” A simple enough statement on its own, but you can understand why it’s not one I’ve ever practiced. After I finished the written test, a woman sat down across from me and without introducing herself began asking me questions about what I’d done that morning. Sure, with twenty-twenty hindsight it’s perfectly obvious that this was the oral portion of the placement exam, but please take into consideration that at the time I was overheated, confused, and still a bit disoriented from the time difference. I’d only been in the country for about eighteen hours, and most of that time I’d been asleep. At that moment all I could think was, “Why is this strange woman asking me all of these rude questions?”
I got sent to a class for what they term “false beginners”. How this differs from actual beginners I don’t know. When I joined the class in progress the teacher, Daniel, asked my name and where I was from. I replied, “Me llamo Goo. Soy de los Estados Unidos”. Daniel asked which state I came from, and I replied, “Soy de Texas, pero vivo en Louisiana.” At which point Daniel asked if I was in the right class. I was definitely in the class to which I’d been directed, however I quickly ascertained that this was definitely not the right class for me. My entrance had interrupted Daniel in the midst of teaching the class the Spanish alphabet, which was followed by a lesson on how to pronounce various letters. At the break I got myself bumped to another class. By mid-week I probably should have changed classes again, but the second class I went into went through various incarnations throughout the week and I was reluctant to be the cause of yet another change.
The class was made up of me, a British painter in her sixties, an Israeli couple about my age, a bank clerk from upstate New York, a Colombian-born Dutch girl, a German businessman fresh out of university, and a Korean diplomat. Over the course of the week the classes were taught by Pablo, Berta, Roberto, and Miguel, all of whom grew up in Spain, although not all in Madrid. Miguel is from Zaragoza and speaks very rapidly, and Berta is from Burgos and speaks very distinctly. Roberto is a native madrileño and has very Castillian features: broad forehead, high cheekbones, and a strong nose. In fact, he looks a good deal like my younger brother, Joel. Berta, Roberto, and Miguel switched off teaching the first two hours of the morning, from 9.30 to 11.30, which are devoted to grammar.
At 11.30 the entire school takes a break and heads to the café downstairs for coffee, a bite to eat, and a smoke. After the break, Pablo takes over the class and teaches conversation. In the course of practicing conversation, I’ve learned that Pablo is a sports nut and a communist who loves country music and Woody Allen movies. He’s extremely entertaining, not to mention easy on the eyes. Must be the gypsy blood. If I’m completely candid, I’ll admit that Pablo had a lot to do with my reluctance to change classes. Not only because he’s pretty (and boy is he pretty!), but more truly because I enjoyed his conversation and he challenged me in class. I ran into to him in the café on Friday during the break and he asked casually how I was doing, “¿Goo, cómo estas?” I was all set to give any one of a number of stock phrases in reply, but stopped and looked at him and told him the truth. “Estoy muy aburrida.” I’m bored, and the class is too slow. He told me that he thought that was the case. He and the other teachers had discussed it, and they thought that Norbert, the German, and I should jump to another class come Monday. I’m proud to say that this exchange happened all in Spanish. That is, it was all in Spanish until at the last moment he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “They’re bloody slow aren’t they?” My laughter turned heads in the café, as Pablo backed away from me with a twinkle in his eyes and a finger pressed to his lips telling me to shhhh!
I’ve spent a lot of time on the metro whizzing around under Madrid. It’s astonishingly quiet on the metro. For the most part, people don’t talk while riding. They certainly don’t talk to strangers, but they don’t even talk amongst themselves when you see couples or families get on the trains. And then you find that when someone does speak to you, you wish they wouldn’t because everyone in the train is listening to your broken Spanish as you try to give a guy the brush-off. I wish I were making this part up. I’ve never been very good at this sort of conversation in English; it’s only that much more terrifying in Spanish. You know the conversation I mean. The one in which the shy girl gets hit on by the really pushy guy and can’t figure out how to tell him to back off. The one in which the guy keeps pushing and pushing for her phone number after it’s become obvious that she doesn’t want to give it even if she had one to give, and then he starts insisting that she take his number. The whole time I kept wondering why this information had not been included in Pablo’s lesson on how to make (or refuse) a date. Pablo had thoroughly covered the part about how only a person who had terrible manners would refuse a date without offering an explanation, and the Spanish equivalent of “I have other obligations” is explanation enough. We never covered the part about what to do when the guy on the metro keeps insisting on giving you his number. What to say when he doesn’t get off with his friends at their stop, and informs you that he’s going to ride on until you get off, wherever that might be. I know, I know. I should have just let him give me his number. I’d made it clear enough that I wasn’t going to call. My only consolation, my triumph in that moment is only that I refused to resort to English, as he was so quick to invite me to do. No, however frustrating and embarrassing the situation might have been, I was not going to take the easy path and say what I wanted to in English. I’d have to content myself with what I could say in Spanish.
Another thing about the metro is the number of what would have been in other times street musicians. Minstrels. Strolling players. They generally get on a one stop and ride and play for two stops before getting off and changing cars. I’ve heard a guitar and Andean flute player who needs turn down the amplifier on the flute, an accordion player who was a fair if uninspired musician, and a entire group of Peruvians who hopped on the metro to play a couple of songs. The unnerving part in all of this is that the music they’re playing is pop music from the eighties. It’s a little disconcerting and not mention a bit disappointing to find that no one is playing “native” songs. Instead, it’s Air Supply on the accordion and The Police on the panpipes. Blanca has an outright adoration of Gloria Estefan, which is not too odd I grant you, but she prefers the stuff in English. Pablo likes country music. You can hear rap pouring out of Walkman headphones passing by. Then to top it all off, I was watching some variety show on the television last night and saw the most bizarre rendition ever of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” from Jesus Christ Superstar. Had I only been reading the lyrics in translation, I’d never have recognized the song. I think we may have to reconsider the notion that music is a universal language.
I’m sure next week will bring new adventures for each of us. Please, don’t hesitate to write to me, either by e-mail or by post. I’m trying to send at least a two-word reply to e-mails, just to let you know that I’ve read them, but it’s inevitable that I’ll miss one here and there. I’m writing this on my laptop, so the good news is that I’ve been able to get it running without either blowing it or the fuses in the building, but I don’t have net access at Blanca’s. Now the challenge is to figure out how to get this from my laptop out to all of you. Let’s all just cross our fingers and trust that things are going to work out just fine. That’s how I made it this far.
I made it here safely enough. The only passably interesting thing about the trip is that I got stopped at every airport. Each time I changed planes I had to go through the routine of taking out my laptop (you’d think that once it had been checked that you’d be fine), taking off my shoes, and getting the once over with their magic security wand because every time I went through the magic security gate bells and whistles sounded the alarm. By the time I hit Gatwick I had figured out what was causing the problem. The under-wire in my bra is apparently more metal than any rational, non-terrorist type ought to be carrying on their person, hence the bells and whistles. Gee, and all this time I thought I was the only one irritated by the under-wire in my bra.
So, anyway, I made it to Madrid with all my luggage intact and after a good meal I hit the sheets for about twelve hours straight. That I could even contemplate sleeping for so long a stretch horrified my hostess/landlady, Blanca. Blanca is a forty-something, divorced, out-of-work psychologist – or, at least, she has a degree in psychology. Blanca speaks fluent English, as well as German and French. She studied a year in Aberdeen, and a year in Vienna. All of her jobs up until the present have been related to her language skills, except for a short stint trying to sell apartments. She really liked that job, but she never sold any apartments.
Blanca is very attractive in a slightly unkempt, out-dated sort of way. This is the case with a number of the Spanish women that I’ve seen to date. The very young women are extremely stylish, and the older women often quite frumpy in their manner of dress, but they all have a sort of wilted, I-just-need-a-minute-to-freshen-up look. And so far as I can tell none of the women wear hosiery. Of course, it’s too hot to wear panty hose, but I’ve never known that to stop a hearty southern belle from forcing her sweaty legs into a reluctant pair of nylons. That’s not the case in Madrid. Here it doesn’t seem to matter if you’re headed to the market or the park, to the opera or to mass, bare legs and open toe shoes are the order of the day.
That’s enough of my fashion commentary on Madrid. The point is that I got here, and that having gotten here I’ve now made it through an entire week. The first night I was here Blanca gave me directions over a very late dinner (six o’clock, dinner time is two p.m.) about how to find the language school (International House of Madrid) the next morning. Remember, she’s telling me this is over a dinner I almost slept through. “You go down here,” pointing, pointing, “and take the metro to Alontho Martineth. It should take you about 15, 20 minuteth. Alontho Martineth. Juth don’t go to the airport. Alontho Martineth. Then you haf to ask thomeone how to find calle Thurbarán. Thurbano? Thurbarán.” It is, at times, like being caught in an episode of Fawlty Towers.
Needless to say, I got lost. Not on the metro mind you. Goodness, no! That’s the easiest part of this whole adventure. A moron could figure out the metro in Madrid. It’s numbered and color-coded and there are pictograms to show you where to find the exits. Anything important is translated into English and French. I’ve yet to be even slightly confused by the metro. Which means that that will inevitably be next week’s story. It was when I came out of the metro that I got lost. I checked a map, found the “you are here” marker on it, which unfortunately obscured the entire corner, and absolutely failed to get my bearings. The buildings shown as landmarks on the map are not plastered with giant signs displaying their names, and the streets are too wide to read the street sign on the opposite side. And, of course, this is no mere intersection of two streets, but is instead a meeting of several streets with a lovely fountain and statue of Alonso Martinez at its center.
Using my incredible sense of direction I chose a path and headed off to find calle Zurbarán. Amazingly, calle Zurbarán was precisely where I expected to find it. From there it was simply a matter of finding number 8. I could see number 15 across the street from me, so I employed logic, ascertained that I was miraculously on the even numbered side of the street, and immediately turned to my left and started walking in the direction of descending numbers. That is, I could see the numbers descending on the opposite side of the street, until it read “1”. Standing at the end of the block, I could read “2” on my side, but all the way down the street I’d passed nothing but a long wall. I walked back the other direction to see if maybe I’d missed it, but found nothing opposite number 9 other than a giant wrought iron gate that I’d paid no attention to on my first pass on which hung the sign “Casa del Pobre, Zurbarán 8.” Very funny. I fly across the ocean to find myself on the steps of the poor house. I could have managed that easily enough without ever leaving home.
Well, I checked out the next block of Zurbarán, just in case I’d misread the number on the letter from Rotary. I didn’t find International House, but I did find the Goethe Institute, which offers the best language training in the world if you want to learn German, as well as two other language schools. By this point, I’d been wandering the streets of Madrid long enough to make me late for my first day of class, and the temperature had risen enough to make me uncomfortable. I’m sure you’ve already figured out what I had realized by this point. I was on the wrong street. I finally had to do the unthinkable and ask an older gentleman on the street if he knew where to find calle Zurbano, ¿conoce Vd. calle Zurbano?, and trust that I’d be able to make heads or tails his reply. The good news is that he understood me and I understood him, or at least I understood him well enough to know that he hadn’t a clue where to find either calle Zurbano or International House.
I headed back the way I came, madly checking street names all the way. At worst, I’d find my way back to the metro stop and eventually to Blanca’s before having to ask her to lead me like a kindergartener to her first day of school. I was on my way back to the metro where I knew I could find an illegible map, when I ran into the same man I’d asked earlier about c. Zurbano. I’d made the block going one direction; he’d done the same going the other. He very kindly stopped me to say that if I went two streets further in the direction I was headed I’d find c. Zurbano. And to think, people told me the madrileños are mean!
And so it was that hot and dizzy and embarrassed I found myself walking through the doors of International House. They greeted me as though I were a long lost cousin who finally managed to find her way back to town. No one ever asked me why I was late. They just sat me down without any preamble and had me take a placement test. I was caught a bit off guard with the placement test, since I’d already done one for them online, but I didn’t take any offense. The words were pulsing a bit on the page, but I gamely did my best to concentrate. There were a couple of things that threw me however, including a multiple-choice question about the correct way to say, “I am English.” A simple enough statement on its own, but you can understand why it’s not one I’ve ever practiced. After I finished the written test, a woman sat down across from me and without introducing herself began asking me questions about what I’d done that morning. Sure, with twenty-twenty hindsight it’s perfectly obvious that this was the oral portion of the placement exam, but please take into consideration that at the time I was overheated, confused, and still a bit disoriented from the time difference. I’d only been in the country for about eighteen hours, and most of that time I’d been asleep. At that moment all I could think was, “Why is this strange woman asking me all of these rude questions?”
I got sent to a class for what they term “false beginners”. How this differs from actual beginners I don’t know. When I joined the class in progress the teacher, Daniel, asked my name and where I was from. I replied, “Me llamo Goo. Soy de los Estados Unidos”. Daniel asked which state I came from, and I replied, “Soy de Texas, pero vivo en Louisiana.” At which point Daniel asked if I was in the right class. I was definitely in the class to which I’d been directed, however I quickly ascertained that this was definitely not the right class for me. My entrance had interrupted Daniel in the midst of teaching the class the Spanish alphabet, which was followed by a lesson on how to pronounce various letters. At the break I got myself bumped to another class. By mid-week I probably should have changed classes again, but the second class I went into went through various incarnations throughout the week and I was reluctant to be the cause of yet another change.
The class was made up of me, a British painter in her sixties, an Israeli couple about my age, a bank clerk from upstate New York, a Colombian-born Dutch girl, a German businessman fresh out of university, and a Korean diplomat. Over the course of the week the classes were taught by Pablo, Berta, Roberto, and Miguel, all of whom grew up in Spain, although not all in Madrid. Miguel is from Zaragoza and speaks very rapidly, and Berta is from Burgos and speaks very distinctly. Roberto is a native madrileño and has very Castillian features: broad forehead, high cheekbones, and a strong nose. In fact, he looks a good deal like my younger brother, Joel. Berta, Roberto, and Miguel switched off teaching the first two hours of the morning, from 9.30 to 11.30, which are devoted to grammar.
At 11.30 the entire school takes a break and heads to the café downstairs for coffee, a bite to eat, and a smoke. After the break, Pablo takes over the class and teaches conversation. In the course of practicing conversation, I’ve learned that Pablo is a sports nut and a communist who loves country music and Woody Allen movies. He’s extremely entertaining, not to mention easy on the eyes. Must be the gypsy blood. If I’m completely candid, I’ll admit that Pablo had a lot to do with my reluctance to change classes. Not only because he’s pretty (and boy is he pretty!), but more truly because I enjoyed his conversation and he challenged me in class. I ran into to him in the café on Friday during the break and he asked casually how I was doing, “¿Goo, cómo estas?” I was all set to give any one of a number of stock phrases in reply, but stopped and looked at him and told him the truth. “Estoy muy aburrida.” I’m bored, and the class is too slow. He told me that he thought that was the case. He and the other teachers had discussed it, and they thought that Norbert, the German, and I should jump to another class come Monday. I’m proud to say that this exchange happened all in Spanish. That is, it was all in Spanish until at the last moment he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “They’re bloody slow aren’t they?” My laughter turned heads in the café, as Pablo backed away from me with a twinkle in his eyes and a finger pressed to his lips telling me to shhhh!
I’ve spent a lot of time on the metro whizzing around under Madrid. It’s astonishingly quiet on the metro. For the most part, people don’t talk while riding. They certainly don’t talk to strangers, but they don’t even talk amongst themselves when you see couples or families get on the trains. And then you find that when someone does speak to you, you wish they wouldn’t because everyone in the train is listening to your broken Spanish as you try to give a guy the brush-off. I wish I were making this part up. I’ve never been very good at this sort of conversation in English; it’s only that much more terrifying in Spanish. You know the conversation I mean. The one in which the shy girl gets hit on by the really pushy guy and can’t figure out how to tell him to back off. The one in which the guy keeps pushing and pushing for her phone number after it’s become obvious that she doesn’t want to give it even if she had one to give, and then he starts insisting that she take his number. The whole time I kept wondering why this information had not been included in Pablo’s lesson on how to make (or refuse) a date. Pablo had thoroughly covered the part about how only a person who had terrible manners would refuse a date without offering an explanation, and the Spanish equivalent of “I have other obligations” is explanation enough. We never covered the part about what to do when the guy on the metro keeps insisting on giving you his number. What to say when he doesn’t get off with his friends at their stop, and informs you that he’s going to ride on until you get off, wherever that might be. I know, I know. I should have just let him give me his number. I’d made it clear enough that I wasn’t going to call. My only consolation, my triumph in that moment is only that I refused to resort to English, as he was so quick to invite me to do. No, however frustrating and embarrassing the situation might have been, I was not going to take the easy path and say what I wanted to in English. I’d have to content myself with what I could say in Spanish.
Another thing about the metro is the number of what would have been in other times street musicians. Minstrels. Strolling players. They generally get on a one stop and ride and play for two stops before getting off and changing cars. I’ve heard a guitar and Andean flute player who needs turn down the amplifier on the flute, an accordion player who was a fair if uninspired musician, and a entire group of Peruvians who hopped on the metro to play a couple of songs. The unnerving part in all of this is that the music they’re playing is pop music from the eighties. It’s a little disconcerting and not mention a bit disappointing to find that no one is playing “native” songs. Instead, it’s Air Supply on the accordion and The Police on the panpipes. Blanca has an outright adoration of Gloria Estefan, which is not too odd I grant you, but she prefers the stuff in English. Pablo likes country music. You can hear rap pouring out of Walkman headphones passing by. Then to top it all off, I was watching some variety show on the television last night and saw the most bizarre rendition ever of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” from Jesus Christ Superstar. Had I only been reading the lyrics in translation, I’d never have recognized the song. I think we may have to reconsider the notion that music is a universal language.
I’m sure next week will bring new adventures for each of us. Please, don’t hesitate to write to me, either by e-mail or by post. I’m trying to send at least a two-word reply to e-mails, just to let you know that I’ve read them, but it’s inevitable that I’ll miss one here and there. I’m writing this on my laptop, so the good news is that I’ve been able to get it running without either blowing it or the fuses in the building, but I don’t have net access at Blanca’s. Now the challenge is to figure out how to get this from my laptop out to all of you. Let’s all just cross our fingers and trust that things are going to work out just fine. That’s how I made it this far.
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