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.