Salem or Madrid?

 Soon after my last post, there was a subway paro. Although, the strikes here are much different than those I've experienced in the states. For example, I remember when the supermarket cashiers in LA went on strike, strikebreakers came in so that the markets could continue to operate. Also, the strike occurred for several weeks. With these subway strikes, it only happened during peak hours and only on certain days: it was only one the Monday and Friday of last week and the same two daysthe week before that. So the metros still run, just less frequently- every 20 minutes as opposed to every five minutes. Believe me, it makes a difference. One friend who's been here longer than I have told me that, during a previous paro on the metro, she was shoved off the metro car due to lack of space! Luckily, nothing that crazy happened to me. I have a client on Mondays from 6-7, the paro didn't stop until 8, so I had the good fortune of experiencing it right at its peak.

The metro continues to be my primary transportation. The whole system is second nature to me now. One point worth mentioning: the larger subway stops are so intricate. To transfer at “Cuatro Caminos”, for example, I spent 10 minutes going up a stairwell to then walk three minutes down a hallway just to take two escalators down, followed by another walk (some subway stops have people movers), went up again, etc... It made me wonder about the team of architects who created this whole maze. It would be amazing if, someday, Los Angeles could get on this metro bandwagon and have a functioning system, not only in downtown and Hollywood, but through all neighborhoods of the city.

When buying a ticket for the metro, you can either just get a one way ticket, a ticket with ten trips for twelve euros ($15.50), or an abono mensual (essentially a monthly pass for as many metro rides as you like.) However, these passes are not that easy to come by. To make things even more difficult, the metro system was in the middle of changing the entire abono process when I began my quest to get one about a month ago. Before, the old abono ended when the calendar month ended, regardless of the date it was purchased. Now that the change is being implemented, the abono mensual runs out a month from the date you buy it.

In any case, everyone was telling me I just had to go into any estanco shop (estanco= “tobacco”, these little shops are on every block in Madrid.) I went into multiple estancos, however, as Madrid was in the midst of changing the abono, they all gave me a number to call to set up an appointment to go and get the abono. I called the number twice, both times the person on the other end hung up on me.

Eventually, I went to an estanco and the woman behind the counter kindly called the number for me and helped me set up and appointment. Thus, last Thursday, I went to the Moncloa subway stop and met with a representative from the company who sells the cards. Finally, after multiple phone calls, a couple of pieces of paper with the same number on it, and persistence, I successfully got the abono.

Rewind to when I first mentioned the tobacco shops: smoking is so prevalent in Madrid, I would say equal if not more prevalent than in Argentina. While the woman at the estanco was helping me make the calls, people continually poured in to buy a new pack of cigarettes or some other form of tobacco. I noticed that, on the lid of each cigarette pack, was a warning: “perjudicial a su salúd” (harmful to your health.) Not to be deterred, a steady stream of people continued to come in and out of the tobacco shop.

Another reflection on living in Argentina versus living in Spain: you can drink the tap water here. In Argentina, my host mother Ana had a water filter in the house and made sure I always used that water. There was also a gallon of purified water every day at my school in Argentina. On the other hand, I can go into any restaurant here with an empty water bottle and ask for “agua del grifo, por favor” (“tap water, please”).

Finally, I've noticed more language differences between the Castellano spoken in Argentina versus that spoken in Spain. In Argentina, “che” is a very common word used when speaking with friends or when joking. Here in Spain, “hombre” (literally, “man”) is used instead. In addition, Argentines say someone is “de buena honda” if he's an all around great guy. In Spain, they say “majo,-a” instead.

It's beginning to get really chilly here. I woke up the other morning to take a look at the weather on my phone: 0 degrees celsius (32 fahrenheit.) It's warmed up a little since then but I was talking to my roommate who's from Spain, he said this weather will last until at least early January.

About a week ago, I finished my washer cycle and, as we don't have a drying machine, hung out the laundry to dry on the clothesline outside. It had been drizzling a tiny bit earlier in the day but had finished when I was hanging my clothes towards late afternoon. The weather was great for the rest of the day. I woke up the next morning, however, and it was pouring! There was really nothing I could do at that point, as my clothes were soaking wet on the clothesline, so I went to a nearby store and bought a tendedero (indoor clothesline.) Later that day, the rain stopped and I was able to put my damp clothes on the tendedero. Of course, there's not enough space in my room to put the indoor clothesline, so I have to leave it in the common area. Luckily there are only guys in my flat...

On certain days, the rain has been really heavy. Earlier this week, I left my flat in the morning with a light drizzle outside. As it wasn't pouring, I figured a raincoat would be fine. After all, I did go to school in Salem for four years! What I forgot to think of was that, while at Willamette I would only be walking 5 minutes from the University Apartments to Ford Hall, here I'm walking from the metro stop to the client's household... which is not always that close. I had a client that afternoon and, on the original sheet I'd gotten with their information, it said I could get off the gray line at Legazpi or the orange line at Delicias. Prior to that day, I'd always taken the orange line to Delicias. This day, however, I figured I'd mix things up a bit, try the other route. How bad can it be?

Long story short, I ended up walking around in the rain for half an hour, trying to find where the actual street was (remember, I was coming from another station). Eventually, since my shoes had long since soaked through and the jacket sleeves below my raincoat were starting to get wet, I hailed a cab to take me to the correct address.

About a week ago, I was walking down to exit our building and heard shouts, occasional horns, and the like, outside. I asked the doorman what was going on, he informed me that there was a fútbol game between Spain and Portugal later that night, so the Portuguese team and fans were marching towards the fútbol stadium, a pep rally of sorts. Although, it was more than just a march- there were police escorts at both ends to ensure it didn't get out of hand.

Recently, I went to Palacio Real (Royal Palace) with my flat mate Luis. El Palacio Real is the official residence of the Royal Family but, nowadays, it is mostly a museum, the Royal Family opting to live in a suburb of Madrid. The palace had amazingly beautiful architecture and you could go into many of the rooms of the palace, a brief description of what that room served as in each one. In another part of the palace was tons of armor that the Spanish army used from the 1400's onward. The designs on the shields and armor were so intricate. There was even armor on display for the horses ridden in the wars, also very intricate. Luis and I got to the palace with an hour left to spare until closing time so, unfortunately, we had to take a quick tour through the rooms. Nevertheless, it was definitely worth seeing, a brief insight into the history of Spain.

Last Friday, I went with my Italian flatmate Andrea to a pub where we met some of his Italian friends. Although there were not only Italians; there were two women from Mexico who met us there as well as some Parisians. I was struck by the plethora of languages being spoken; although I don't speak or understand Italian or French, this melting pot of languages all being spoken at the same time interchangeably by one large group of people was great.

The next day, I met a friend on Calle Gran Via who I'd met at the hostel I stayed at when I first arrived. As I was walking towards our meeting point, I began to hear drums banging and bunch of commotion.  Approaching Gran Via, I saw that police cars were leading and bringing up the rear of a protest against the current economic crisis in Spain. The protesters took up two solid blocks and, as I walked along Gran Via, I saw that certain perpendicular streets were closed and policemen were directing traffic. The protest definitely made it a bit more difficult to find my friend but we did eventually find each other and headed off.

That night, I went to Mercado San Miguel with the same friend. This market is famous in Madrid for its good food and amazing architecture. It's an outdoor market housed in a see through structure with many little stands to get paella, ice cream, tapas, and really anything else you can imagine. The market has a few tables but people tend to just stand around the perimeter and enjoy their meals or snacks. In fact, this seemed to be part of the charm of Mercado San Miguel. The paella I ate there was great, I hope to go back at least once more before leaving Madrid.

Daylight savings happened last weekend as well. Thus, it now gets dark a little after six PM. The four children I teach all have their lessons in the late afternoon, so it's now dark when I get out.

As I've been walking around the streets of Madrid, I have seen many shops with a big sign saying “Museo del jamón” (literally, “museum of ham”). When you walk in, there are at least twenty dead pigs just hanging from the ceiling. As I don't eat red meat, I find the sight quite disturbing, smell's pretty bad too. As one of my flatmates explained to me, the waiters simply have to cut a slab of the animal off any of those hanging from the ceiling and serve it up. You can get food other than ham there but it is quite the sight to see all these dead animals just hanging above the customer's heads.

I have one new client since the last post who I've now seen twice. Her name's Cristina and she is 32 years old. She works for a consulting firm here and has an intermediate level of English but wants to better it for work purposes. At this point, I'm tutoring four children (only two lessons- the kids are paired up with a friend or sibling) and Cristina but hope to pick up at least one more client.

Halloween is not celebrated here to the extent it is in the USA. Only as it got dark did I see some people dressed up. I did see a fair amount of costumes on the subway when I got on around 11 PM. I ended up going to an Irish pub where one of my friends from the TEFL program works. The bar was all decked out with rubber bats, cobwebs, and the like, many of the patrons dressed up.

Although, yesterday was a Federal holiday in Spain, All Saints Day. Since it fell on a Thursday, Spaniards take today off as well. When a holiday falls on either a Tuesday or Thursday, Spain takes this puente (literally, “bridge”). Rather, the holiday is on that Tuesday or Thursday but then the Monday or Friday is taken off in addition, thus acting as a bridge between the holiday and the weekend.

That's it for now, Madrid continues to be amazing, I will write when I next get the chance.