The news from Madrid

It was a glorious day today in Madrid. None of those nasty rain-bearing clouds, just the occasional cirrus-y type wisp. Or maybe fair-weather cumulus. Oh, heck - I know nothing about clouds. Anyway, no hint of lluvia, and bright sparkling sunshine. Of course, being in class for 7 hours cuts down on my time for frolicking in the sunshine. So I have no direct frolicking experiences to report on. Instead, I thought I would fill you in on what madrileños are talking about these days.

Well, first things first:

La Infanta Sofía visita a Orson, el niño de Paz Vega

Before leaving the maternity ward on Friday, the new Infanta, and her family

left to right, Doña Letizia, la Infanta Sofía (3), el Principe (1), la Infanta Leonor (2)

paid a visit to the other royal family in the same ritzy maternity clinic. Yes, the hispanohablante star of "Spanglish", Paz Vega, gave birth (or, as the Spanish put it, "gave to the light") her very own bundle of joy, Orson on Wednesday, following the ever-popular (at least, at the Ruber clinic) Caesarean section.

Paz Vega, the pearl of Andalucia, in the full glow of her imminent maternity. Image has been subjected to special slimming filters.

As you can imagine, this confluence of two royal families in the same clinic was too much for the press to resist. It's as if the Jolie-Pitts had dropped in, newly acquired offspring in tow, to greet the new Cruise clone. Even on the website of the normally staid El País, this story remains one of the most widely read, since its appearance on Friday.

Monday's second big local story concerns the difference between these two metro plans. Can you see what it is?

I will leave discussion of the whole distasteful Dolce and Gabbana brouhaha for another time.

Knowledge for the traveler

This is, of course, a café con leche, an important breakfast standby.



Or, if you are lactose intolerant, here is its cousin, the café solo.





For those who like just a little milk, there's the café cortado, above.



Finally, for those with a very sweet tooth indeed, (or with no teeth left, to speak of), there is this saccharine delight, the café bombón (café con leche condensada). I was first introduced to the café bombón by our somewhat sparse-toothed busdriver on the trip to the mountains last weekend. Fortuituosly, on the same day that I tracked down its correct spelling, I also learned that the correct spelling for those items that cheerleaders deploy


is pompons, and not pompoms, as I had always believed. For this piece of knowledge I am indebted to my good friend the O' Donovan, whose fine blog thedogspajamas I highly recommend.

The O' Donovan is also the source for the following excellent link: disapproving rabbits. You may think that you already have enough disapproval in your life (don't we all?), but these rabbits will make you think again.

Other useful Spanish for travelers:

This fine beer, possibly familiar to some of you from yesterday's cinco de mayo celebrations in the United States, is, of course, not called Corona in Spain, that brandname having already been taken by a popular brand of tobacco. Instead, you must ask for a Coronita.

The plain people of Ireland: Begob, but that's a fine-looking young wan above. You wouldn't happen to know her name, would you?
The management: As it happens, I do.
The plain people of Ireland: And?
The management: And nothing, that's what.
The plain people of Ireland: Yerra go on. We just want to send her a nice respectful e-mail.
The management: I'm sure you do. Tell you what. Since ye're such a dab hand at the googling, why not try doing an image search on "pompons" and see what ye might find out?
The plain people of Ireland: Right you are so. Liam, come over here! How does that google thing work again?
The management: That should keep them occupied for a while.

Finally, the Spanish for Imodium is ... Imodium.

The plain people of Ireland: Imodium, is it? Isn't that the stuff for..
The management: enfermedades del estomago. Yes, indeed.
The plain people of Ireland: Begob, you're not having such a great week, are you?
The management: I assure you, it's getting better by the hour.

And there we must leave things for this evening.

Qué tal?

I tried this post once before, but the ghost of Washington Irving had apparently taken over my brain, with evil results. (While I was sick during the week, I'd been reading "Tales of the Alhambra", in which nobody is old, instead people are "stricken in years", all "damsels" are "buxom", you get the picture). I swear, the phrase "robust quinquagenarian" showed up in the earlier post. Washington Irving will do that to a person. I've since moved on to Dorothy Parker.

Anyway, before coming to Spain, I had worried a little bit, in an abstract kind of way, whether or not being 50 would make it harder to learn a foreign language, or even - God forbid - if there would be certain key aspects that would remain beyond my grasp. You may remember, there was a fairly broadly-publicized study a few years ago, involving functional mRI (magnetic resonance imaging), or whatever the latest flavor of brain scanning was at the time, purporting to show that certain neuronal (neural?) pathways, key to the acquisition of language, were closed off permanently around the age of 8. I'm undoubtedly mangling the details, but the gist of the conclusions was clear enough, that acquisition of a new language becomes progressively more difficult, the older one gets.

So it was a great relief when, a couple of weeks ago, my facility with Spanish took a quantum leap upward. I've had the experience before, with other languages - if reasonably totally immersed, there will come a point, often around the 5- or 6-week mark, where everything "clicks". Things begin to make sense in a way they didn't previously; you start to be able to connect new words to those already in your mind, and - most importantly - you suddenly go from speaking like an 8-year old, to being able to express ideas that are at least approximately what your adult self wanted to say.

The best illustration that this had happened was last Sunday morning, when I found that I was able to maintain a reasonable conversation with the taxi-driver during the entire 25-minute ride from Granada city center to the airport. While starting out on relatively safe, weather-related, ground, we touched on topics such as modern Spanish attitudes toward marriage, morality, and the church (generalized mistrust, because of the perception that the hierarchy was far too hand-in-glove with el Caudillo, to the point of violating the sanctity of the confessional and turning people over to the authorities, according to the driver), corresponding recent changes in Ireland, and differences between both countries in intra-familial relationships, and the role of women.

The details are perhaps not so important - my point is that I was able to hold my own in an adult conversation about topics of general interest. This might seem like small potatoes to my readers. But, let me tell you, after six weeks of classes, six hours a day, you take your victories where you can find them.

I can only hope that my recent virulent head-cold hasn't erased the progress of the previous week. Phlegm is a substance truly best appreciated in its absence.

The INTJ song

Caesar! and Hannibal too!
Peter Jennings, and Phil Donahue
C. Everett Koop and J.F.K.
Yes! You've guessed it - all INTJ's.

It's fun to be-ee an I - N - T - J!
Oh, yes, it's fun to be an I - N - T - J!
You can have high standards
Be all you can be
Because you know you're in good company

Be iconoclastic, like Aykroyd or Chase
Excel like Lance Armstrong, and win every race
Break down barriers like Powell or Ashe
Or just soar like Jane Austen, or Gandalf the Grey

It's fun to be-ee an I - N - T - J!
Oh, yes, it's fun to be an I - N - T - J!
You can have high standards
Be all you can be
Because you know you're in good company

Clarice! but Hannibal too!
So don´t let!
your dark side get the better of you!
Think of Rumsfeld, Giuliani, Professor Mor-i-ar-ty
Best to fight the good fight like Susan B. Anthony

Because it's fun to be an I - N - T - J!
Oh, yes, it's fun to be an I - N - T - J!
You can have high standards
Be all you can be
Because you know you're in good company.

Two limericks

Not in Spanish, you´ll be relieved to know:



There's a type of a bawd called a strumpet
Who - I'm told - can be played like a trumpet
But when you have paid
That streetwalking jade
Then, sir, you can like it or lump it!



Her amorous cousin, the trollop
Ladles out love by the dollop
In legend of old
She's a heart of pure gold
Snopes.com says that that's just codswallop!

The plain people of Ireland: Eilish, Sinead - get over here - guess who yer man has on his blog today! It's that American movie star, Julia Roberts. Look - that's her with that Richard Gere fella in "Pretty Woman"! Won the Oscar for that one back in 1990. Remember - Father Finnegan tried to have it boycotted because of that scene where she flashes the coloured con-doms at yer man..

The management: Excuse me! Let's stick to the facts here. The motion picture for which Ms Roberts received the Oscar for showing off her decolletage to devastating effect was "Erin Brockovich", not "Pretty Woman".

The plain people of Ireland: No matter. She's still one handsome woman, teeth or no teeth, you have to give her that.

The management: Indeed. And does it not bother you at all that in the motion picture "Pretty Woman" Miss Roberts played the role of a common streetwalker, a strumpet, a lady of easy virtue?

The plain people of Ireland: Yerrah, spit it out man! You mean she was a hooker!

The management: Exactly.

The plain people of Ireland: How much of an eejit are you? This is Julia Roberts, America's sweetheart. Sure she was no ordinary hooker. That was the whole point. She was a hooker with a heart of gold.

The management: dear God.

The plain people of Ireland: So, can we take it that all this versifying means you're feeling yourself again?

The management: oh, yes indeed. Thank you for your concern.

The Peaceable Kingdom

Here at MotP we wish all our readers as much peace and harmony in their lives as is seen in these pictures.

Now with 100% more pictures

Articles for bakeries

Who said we neglect dogs on this blog?

Strumpet City

It is the policy of this blog to report the truth as we see it, recognizing that this might be upsetting to some. Or indeed that doing so might draw the attention of the wrong kind of reader, lacking in the discernment that characterizes the great majority of our readership. But these are the risks we take in the interests of truth.

Thus, for instance, I fear that earlier posts may have given an incomplete impression of the nature of the Calle Valverde, where I am currently billeted. Not all is leafy grandeur and "My Fair Lady" like elegance. At least I don't remember seeing any sex boutiques in "My Fair Lady", though Henry Higgins was clearly more than a little bit kinky. So it would be remiss of me not to mention the two cheerfully decorated sex shops right here on the street where I live. And, I suppose, in the spirit of full disclosure, it seems only fair to mention that there are four more within a block on either side of the Gran Vía.

Now, lest any of my readers become concerned for my safety, I need to say that, from the outside at least (the limits of my experience, I assure you all), Spanish sex boutiques seem to match more the clinical cheeriness of their German counterparts than the sleazy, fear for you own safety nature of the corresponding establishments in the U.S. (Again, I must plead limited experience here). So there appears to be little element of danger surrounding these establishments. Neon? Lots! Danger to one's personal safety? None, assuming one has the good sense to observe from the outside only.

Then there is the following observation to be made. On Sunday afternoon, as I was figuring out the way to school for the next morning, I accidentally found myself strolling down the Calle de la Montera (which runs parallel to c/Virgen de los Peligrosos, where the school is located; the two are linked by the c/Caballero de Gracia).

tart walk

Gentle readers, I am not entirely clear about the literal translation of Calle de la Montera, but an accurate functional translation might be rendered as "Street of the Working Girls". ¡Strumpets! In hot pants! Plying their trade at four in the afternoon on a Sunday, right in the center of Madrid! With the apparent full approval and cooperation of the local constabulary.

This must be what they mean when they refer to "the new Europe".

The plain people of Ireland: Begob, that's shocking altogether! And on a Sunday no less?
The management: Indeed.
The plain people of Ireland: Tell us, were you able to get any pictures?
The management: Salacious wretches! If it's dirty pictures you want, I suggest you indulge your prurient curiosity elsewhere on the internets, that is, if you can unstick your fingers from the keyboard.
The plain people of Ireland: No need to get huffy. Just askin'. So tell us - "Strumpet City", that's a reference to that book by yer man, James Plunkett, isn't it?
The management: Yes, a fine panoramic tale of strife-torn Dublin during the lockout of 1913, booklink later adapted by RTE into a fine television series. Available on DVD.
The plain people of Ireland:
Strumpet City in the sunset
Suckling the bastard brats of Scot, of Englishry, of Huguenot
Brave sons breaking from the womb, wild sons fleeing from their Mother.
The management: dear God. So ye've learned to google, have ye? This cannot end well.

Unto us a child is born

An update from the throne of the Bourbon-Hapsburg-Battenberg-Hohenzollern-Tiramisu-Hasenpfeffer-Sachse-Gothenburg-Windsor-Thurn-Taxis dynasty:

El Príncipe and his non-aristocratic wife had another Infanta on Sunday. Se llama Sofía como su abuela, and she is third in succession to the throne, after el Príncipe and her sister, Leonor (pending some boring changes in Spanish law which will give equal rights to male and female heirs in the line of succession; too late to benefit el Príncipe's older sisters, but I'm sure they're not bitter in the least). The Infanta was delivered by Caesarean section on Sunday at 16:50, and weighed 3.31kg, measuring 50 cm. Don Felipe informed the queen by radio, as she was returning from the Rostropovitch funeral in Moscow, that her 8th grandchild would bear her name.

This touching picture is that of older sister Leonor, about to visit the new arrival. Rumors that the older sister's first words to her sibling included the phrase "neener-neener" remain unconfirmed, according to a palace insider.

Members of the Battenberg branch of the royal family are said to be literally pink with fury, maintaining that they are being short-changed in the proposed new succession rules. A palace insider, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that, in view of their somewhat checkered past, it is unlikely that a Battenberg will ever again mount the Bourbon throne.

The Hasenpfeffer family could not be reached for comment.

The plain people of Ireland: Are you gone daft altogether? This is surrealist rubbish, and not even funny at that! Any more of this, and steps will have to be taken.

The management: Do you mind? I spent the afternoon at the Reina Sofia museum, much of it spent in mature contemplation of the works of Dali. Is it any wonder if a little surrealism creeps in occasionally? We sensitive souls are very suggestible you know. The lush zebra imbrocates aubergine schoolbuses with zabaglione.

The plain people of Ireland: Dali, is it? Oh fair enough so. Sure that's understandable. Let us know when you're feeling yourself again.

The management: The narpish fleens gongoozle sybaritic nightshirts.

Take the virtual tour

A few of my readers have wondered: "why aren't there more photos of people on this blog, of David, in particular"? An entirely reasonable question. So, here you go: (and yes, I have shaved off my moustache)



This photograph is just one of many subtle gems you will find if you take the virtual tour of my current dwelling, which is at the following link:

where I live now

The plain people of Ireland: Begob, them's very fancy digs indeed. Sure 'tis living on the pig's back, you are - ar mhuin na muice, as Brother O' Donovan was always fond of saying.
The management: Yes, thank you. Nice of you to say so.
The plain people of Ireland: That's what comes of all that book-learning. Sure 'tis nice to see it pay off.
The management: Why yes. In my time, I did indeed apply myself to my studies, with occasionally gratifying results.
The plain people of Ireland: But with all that book-learning, did you never hear of a thing called Grecian Formula? For someone like yourself, with a fine head of hair, 'twould take years off overnight. Sure look at what it did for yer man Reagan over in..
The management: Why, I believe the new wireless connection is acting up. I'm afraid we will have to leave things there for this evening.

The street where I live

People stop and stare. They don't bother me.

For there's nowhere else on earth that I would rather be.

On the plain

Estoy en Madrid. Much more to relate, but right now, I've got to go buy a laptop.

¡Hasta luego!

Art from the Albujarra

Photos in greater detail are available at

Photos galore

It's a wonderful life

Sometimes life just hands you a peach of a day, one that you look back on and savor in memory for years afterwards. Today was such a day. An all-day excursion to the Albujarra, the part of the Sierra Nevada between Granada and the coast, named for the father of Boabdil, the last Moslem ruler of Granada (famously expelled by the Christian monarchs, or reyes catolicos, Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1492, but that's another story entirely).








Stumpito de la Albujarra

As you can imagine, the bus tour around the mountains involved a fair amount of scary, inches-from-the-abyss, driving. There was a lot of good-natured shrieking, ooh-ing and aah-ing, and a couple of genuinely hold-on-for-dear-life, moments. I shrieked along with everyone else. My Dad, who would have been 85 on May 1st, and had both a fear of, and a fascination with, heights, would have loved it, in his own teeth-gritted, white-knuckled way. Dad, I was thinking of you every turn of the way.

Random facts

We finally have a positive identification of the hitherto mysterious "frutas del bosque". They are black and red-currants. As delicious in Granada as in Seville, I might add. Other pretty darned good ice-cream flavors include: mandarin, nuts and rum, and the chocolate-orange combination.

Did you know that the Spanish refer to the current queen of England (more precisely, Reino Unido) as Isabel II ?

UFOs are known as ovnis.

Paz Vega, the pearl of Andalucía, enters the final month of her pregnancy in a state that is described both as "glowing" and "beatific", despite being ambushed by paparazzi at her last ob/gyn bisit. As a cultural reference point, think of Paz as Spain's version of Heidi Klum.


Meanwhile, all of Spain awaits the bisit of Beyoncé, "la diva más 'sexy'" with (you're way ahead of me here), bated breath.

Plain people of Ireland: This is very choppy today. And shouldn't that be....
The management: What? "Baited breadth"? Is that what you were going to say? Think hard before you embarrass yourselves further.
Plain people of Ireland: Oh, all right so. Never mind. No need to be so touchy about things. Just trying to help.
The management: Indeed.

Menu of the damned

Unfortunately, this is the best image I could get, despite several efforts. Even a Spanish waiter will eventually respond to some random passer-by taking repeated snapshots of the menu, so I had to smile and move on. So you will have to trust me that item # 23 really does promise "calluses", while the penultimate item is the mysterious "spurted of Iberian".

My best etymological guesses are that they mean "tripe" and "selection of Iberian hams", respectively.

Personally, I recommend the "codfish to the la Riojan" as a starter. Or possibly the skipped mushrooms.

On the home front

Many of my readers have written wondering what is happening with the kitties. Here is an update, courtesy of George (¡ hi, George !)



Boris, being Boris.



Natasha, always the flighty one.

Both appreciating the fine new kitchen floor tiles.

The plain people of Ireland: Begob but that marmalade cat is awful fat-looking.

The management: Silence, you insolent wretches! This time you have gone too far. Boris is not fat; he is simply big-boned.

Washington Irving slept here

This afternoon I visited the Alhambra. I will have more to report about this. Please check back later.

¿ And for dessert ?

The ugly duckling

You may remember that this sign had previously vexed me a little. "¿Palace of the Ducks?"

Well, here at MoTP headquarters, we spare no effort when trying to get to the bottom of life's little mysteries. Our readers deserve no less.

So we did a little legwork, and here is what we found. The building in question has now been transformed into Granada's most luxurious hotel, surpassing even the Alhambra Palace Hotel in the opulence of its furnishings and the servile fawning lavished on its guests.

Here is a view of the main entrance to the hotel.

Observe closely. Just above the "C" in "Canon", what is that white, snorkel-like thing?

Let's take a closer look.

Why, it's a swan. A pair of swans, in fact.

Unless you are Spanish. In which case you will refer to this hotel as the Palace of the Ducks. Go figure.

Doing the locomotion (a rant)

Yes, I know. This may seem like a bit of an obsession, but once again I find it necessary to hold forth on the habits of the Granadan pedestrian. Gentle readers, I wish I could report that I had attained a state of Zen-like detachment, as far as pedestrian progress is concerned. But this is simply not the case.

I can, however, after two weeks of intensive study, cast further light on the problem. Because one has to understand one's enemy in order to prevail. For anyone intending to travel to Granada in the near future, I offer the following taxonomy of sidewalk denizens. The key variable in understanding pedestrian behavior is age, and the breakdown is roughly as follows:

12 to 30-year olds: pedestrians in this age group do not pose a particular problem. They can generally be trusted to behave similarly to their peers in any other city of the world.

30 to 50-year olds: in this group you will find, primarily, proponents of the sudden stop, the turn without warning, the random dart. Masters of Brownian motion, their main contribution to inhibiting the normal flow of pedestrian traffic is the element of surprise. There is simply no telling what these people may do. What causes the sudden stopping and starting behavior so characteristic of this group? I wish I knew. It could be something as simple as seeing an acquaintance across the street, or a particularly snazzy pair of shoes in a stop window. Or stopping to pay closer attention to one's strolling companion. Adjusting the baby stroller. But - let's be clear on this - as often as not, it's for no discernible reason whatsoever. Entropy rules supreme in this group.

the over 50-crowd: this particular menace to society is distinguished by the tendency to roam the pavement in packs, usually of three or more. The preferred number is four, because only then is it possible to walk in formation in a way that occupies the width of the entire sidewalk. Often sauntering with arms linked, a phalanx of these oldsters yields to nobody. If you let them, they will force you into the gutter. Occasionally, senior citizens may sally forth in groups of three. In this case, it is a simple (and apparently instinctive) matter for them to combine the arm-linking technique with a gentle weaving motion in a manner that makes passing virtually impossible except to all but the most determined.

A related observation pertains to the behavior of your average Granadan shopper. Whether through instinct, or years of practice, as if by second nature, upon entering a store of any kind, the typical Granadan customer will immediately gravitate to the single narrowest part of the store and proceed to stand there aimlessly, thereby maximizing the potential congestion in the store. Be it in the supermarket, or el Corte Inglés, this behavior is so consistent that one has to suspect there is a genetic component that is passed on from one generation to the next.

I am generally not given to violent fantasies, dear readers, but I have to say that, on more than one occasion in the past couple of weeks, I have mentally transplanted some of the worst offenders to the tube in London, or the subways of New York, and imagined the subsequent mauling that they would receive at the hands and feet of people who understand the fine art of pedestrian behavior.

¡Citizens of Granada! Your behavior is neither charming nor tolerable. It is egocentric and oafish, and would not be considered acceptable in any truly civilized society.

In the classroom

Three weeks ago I bought a Sony Discman. I need to listen to classical music at night to fall asleep. Otherwise strings of Spanish words keep repeating in my head, driving me nuts, because this is already happening during the daytime.


When I mentioned this in class the other day, there were three very odd sounds. Later, I was able to interpret these retrospectively as the sound of three twenty-year old jaws dropping. Followed by stunned silence.

Fortunately, my familiarity with Scissor Sisters' "Take your Mama" salvaged my credibility later on during the same class. Temporarily. However, the information that I do not now own, nor have I ever owned, a cell phone, appears to have been too much for my classmates' twenty-year old brains to assimilate. So now I am treated with the deference accorded any over-the-hill old fogey. I may start to bring an ear trumpet to class if things go on in this way.

On the other hand, the words promulgate, obstreperous, and byzantine are part of my active vocabulary. Which, I suppose, is just further confirmation of fogeyhood.

Where did I leave that AARP application form? Gosh-darn it, I know it's here somewhere, if I could just find my bifocals.

The plain people of Ireland: begob, there's some very fancy words you're using tonight.
The management: I had a feeling that would get your attention, you obstreperous wretches. Now, please be quiet.

Reino de Granada

I have no idea what it is, but you won't catch me sitting under it, that's for sure.

Life at the home for retired light fixtures can be a little boring sometimes.

Whenever I'm staying at the Reino de Granada, I like to revive myself with a delicious piece of cardboard pizza, ordered in from the good folks at Telepizza. It's so convenient, because if you don't speak Spanish, the helpful hotel receptionist will place your order for you. Of course, some might consider her complete lack of English the weak link in this logical chain, but if you don't mind the frisson of excitement that accompanies the element of surprise (¿anchovies anyone?) you can't go wrong with this room service option.

A few nights of this and you too can approach the state of glazed torpor of that happy businessman. Unless the light fixtures or wall hangings attack you first.

Words, words, words

You see, this is the kind of thing guaranteed to drive any foreigner crazy. Because you know, and I know, that "pato" is the Spanish for "duck". We are supposed to believe that the ducks have their own palace? I have my doubts; honestly, I do. My personal theory is that this apparent "municipal sign" will later be revealed to be a piece of performance art perpetrated by the city of Granada as a kind of passive-aggressive act of revenge on the foreign tourists to whom it owes its livelihood, and with whom it cultivates an ongoing love-hate relationship.

Alternatively, it could be like Venice in the old times when there was the palace of the duck and the palace of the dog (my Italian is a bit rusty).

Who is this fine fellow? ¡Why, it is Ozzy, the bear of liquorice! For a long time, the word "regaliz" gave me trouble, as it seems to come from nowhere, with no clue at all as to its meaning. Then, last week, when I finally made the realization (¡duh!) that "Argel" is Spanish for "Algeria", "regaliz" suddenly made more sense to me. If you think about it, all the liquorice consonant sounds are there, just randomly jumbled to confuse non-native speakers. I really wish they wouldn't do that.

Other random word-related musings.

Words I like: musulmán, for moslem; pájaro carpintero, for woodpecker ; okupa, for squatter.

Words I dislike: paloma, for pigeon. Who do they think they are kidding? Everyone knows that paloma means dove. To extend its meaning to include flying vermin is an insult to doves the word over.

Things I found out the hard way this week: the phrase for "breast cancer" is not "cancer de pechuga". It is "cancer de mama" (no accents in that last word). And if you are tempted to double up on the second 'm' (as I was), remember the rule of Caroline.

Water Music

Earlier this week, I had a minor epiphany. Thinking back to the situation where I have had the most success in life mastering a foreign language, I realized it was as a teenager in Germany. The breakthrough came after about 6 weeks, when I just woke up one day and vowed that I was simply going to speak at all costs, and not worry too much about the correctness of what I was saying (after all, that's presumably how we do it as kids - nobody really teaches us the rules). So I've started to do the same thing here. Furthermore, I've added the condition that I will force myself to overcome my natural reticence (yes, folks, I am an introvert, thought not hugely so) and make a conscious effort to talk to strangers, whether it be to ask for help, exchange pleasantries about the weather, or just engage in general meaningless chit-chat.

It's amazing what a difference this can make. Obviously, some interactions are more successful than others. But I've gone from being served with the kind of sullen neglect, bordering on rudeness, Spanish waitresses manage to inflict on most tourists to being greeted with an ¡hola!, a big smile, and free vocabulary lessons in the restaurant where I eat lunch most days. Similarly, I've learned that the previously eternally bored-looking woman, Inma, stationed at the counter in the internet café/grocery store, spent six months in Killarney last year with her boy-friend (the competent helpful guy - see earlier entries on "laws of the internet café"), and they are both crazy about all things Irish. And I'm due back at Hannigan's (not to be confused with Flanagan's, because there is one of them as well) Irish pub tomorrow night, because I've been roped in as a member of what has been described as a "killer" pub quiz team. (I explained that I would be no good whatsoever on sports questions, but apparently that's already covered).

About 6:30 last night (Saturday), I was exploring the narrow alleys of the Albaicin (the area of the city by the Alhambra). Without particularly meaning to, I found I had made it pretty much to the top of the hill, to what seemed to be the bus parking lot for the Alhambra itself. Seeing a sign for the "Manuel de Falla cultural center", I followed it. Very few people arround, but there was a terraced area from which I had a great view of the city, and the Sierra Nevada behind me. I walked around a bit more, and was getting ready to go back down into the city, when I spotted three guys, who appeared to be maintenance men taking a cigarette break outside what seemed to be the entrance to the main auditorium, which was visibly deserted. A week earlier, I would have nodded to them neutrally and gone my way. But I obeyed my new policy and forced myself to ask a question: "¿Hay concertos aquí?", which seemed like a pretty safe bet for an auditorium named for De Falla.

Turns out that not only are there concerts almost every night, there was one last night. Again, with my usual bone-headed pessimism, I thought to myself that it would surely be sold out. But the little voice said, "it can't help to ask, dummy". So I did: "there wouldn't be any tickets left for this evening, though?" At which all three went into this elaborate pantomime of denial, indicating that "sí, sí", there would be tickets, and that all I had to do was come back to the taquilla (little excursion as they took me over to show me where the taquilla was) after 8pm (further little pantomime with watch hands) to snag a ticket for that night's concert at 9pm. The zoos "Budapest", "Tchaikovsky" and "agua" kept coming up a lot, so I had some idea of what the program might involve.

Well, at that point, it would have been churlish not to come back, right?
(to be continued)

Price updates

Not everything in Andalucía is a good value. Three examples: (to convert from € to the equivalent approximate dollar amount, just multiply by 1.40)

1. Cost to have 3 weeks' worth of laundry washed, dried, and folded = 30 €
2. Cost for one café con leche in Starbucks = 3.80 €
3. Cost of one (meagre) scoop of Cherry Garcia at Ben and Jerry's = 2.90 €

Here, of course, it's Starbucks that are the most egregious offenders - somehow they again manage to take an item typically costing just under a Euro and quadruple the cost. The amazing thing is that they get away with it; the Starbucks stores in Seville were always packed, as is the one I've seen here in Granada.

Mind you, the price for doing all that laundry wasn't exactly cheap either - $42 would allow you to do many loads of laundry in the U.S. Even if you handed it in to have it done, I'd be surprised if it cost half as much in San Francisco. Not that the method of arriving at the price was particularly scientific - if it had a name it would be referred to as the Iberian squint technique.

At least, three weeks of clean laundry lasts for roughly three more weeks. One can only wonder why the robber barons of Starbucks get any repeat business at all.

MAINLY ON THE PLAIN

I'm surprised nobody has asked yet. ¿How do you say "mainly on the plain" in Spanish?

I know that my discerning readership interprets this question in the intelligent, rather than the literal, sense. So I will answer the intelligent, not the literal question.

The management here at Mainly on the Plain takes such linguistic enquiries seriously. I am glad to be able to report that, following weeks of investigation by our top experts, we are now in a position to give a definitive answer on this question.

In the Spanish version of My Fair Lady, the rain-related phrase with which the sadistic Professor Higgins torments Eliza is the following

La lluvia in Sevilla es una maravilla

The plain people of Ireland: begob, there's a lot of them double-ls in that sentence.

The management: which is precisely, the point, you wretches.

The plain people of Ireland: Oh right. Of course. Very clever indeed. Smart boy wanted. Isn't that interesting?

The management: yes, isn't it? For once, we agree on something.

¡Tally-ho!

I know many of you must be wondering: "¿What if I would like to plan a motorcycling holiday in Andalucía? ¿Are helmets mandatory?"

Indeed they are, gentle reader, indeed they are. And if you read of the untimely demise of one middle-aged Irish blogging statistician, it will be because, convulsed with laughter, I fell into the path of an oncoming Vespa. Whose rider was smartly outfitted with the following, by far the most common choice among discerning Vespa-riders throughout Granada:





As yet, no foxes have been sighted. But I live in hope.

Coming clean

Time to come clean (note deft tie-in to preceding post) about something. You may have noticed my use of a little blogging device, in the form of imagined interjections by the so-called "plain people of Ireland", providing a kind of meta-commentary on the ongoing blog content.

Irish readers will recognize immediately that this device is in no way original. It was used, to considerable comic effect, by one of the geniuses of Irish literature, Flann O' Brien. Flann O' Brien is one of the pseudonyms used by Brian O' Nolan, who also published, for many years, a daily column (An Cruiskeen Lawn; anglicization of the Gaelic for "the full jug") in the Irish Times, under the pseudonym Myles na gCopaleen.

From Wikipedia:

Flann O'Brien is rightly considered a major figure in twentieth century Irish literature. The British writer Anthony Burgess was moved to say of him: "If we don't cherish the work of Flann O'Brien we are stupid fools who don't deserve to have great men. Flann O'Brien is a very great man." Burgess included At Swim-Two-Birds on his list of 99 Great Novels.

The full Wikipedia entry is here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flann_O'Brien

My adoption of the device is intended in the spirit of pure homage to this most brilliant of Irish writers. If you have never read "The Third Policeman", order a copy right now, even before you finish reading this entry:

http://www.amazon.com/Third-Policeman-Byrne-Irish-Literature/dp/156478214X

It's the funniest description of hell you will ever read in your life. Borrow, steal, or buy a copy now!

¡Don Limpio!

Wednesday in Granada. A day of many small triumphs. I think anyone who has spent more than a few days in a foreign country probably knows what I mean when I say that one of the joys of being abroad is the huge sense of triumph that one can get from accomplishing even the most quotidian of tasks. Something as simple as buying an alarm clock. Or sending a package back to California. Because you are doing it in a foreign country. In a language not your own. You get this absurd sense of accomplishment. At least I do.

The flipside is that you also learn to take a somewhat different view of the normal activities that form the fabric of everyday life at home. The quotidian is no longer something to be taken for granted.

A case in point. Laundry. In Ireland, and in the U.S., there is a natural progression, for males, anyway:

• Someone else worries about it
• You bring it home at weekends and someone else worries about it
• You learn the basics and do it in the nearest shared facility (college dormitory or public laundromat); you start to obsess about having enough quarters
• You move up to a shared facility that doesn't need quarters (e.g. apartment complex or building)
• Finally, you graduate to living in a space with an in-home washer-drier, after which you never really think consciously about laundry again.
• Until the washer-drier goes on the fritz, at which point you are brought to a sharp realization of just how much you have been taking for granted.

Another way of being forced to realize just what you've been taking for granted is to travel or live in a foreign country for a while.

Take Spain, for example. Gentle reader, there is one thing I can state with certainty. You will not find the love of your life sitting in a Spanish laundromat. Not in Seville or Granada. Nor anywhere else in Spain, from what I am given to understand. This is a country without laundromats. The concept simply doesn't exist. How do I know this? As usual, for me, I found out more or less the hard way.

See, when you are traveling, there's a kind of grace period, where you first start to think about laundry in a general abstract "Gee, I really should do something about laundry before I run out of clean socks" kind of way. Eventually, the end of the grace period looms, when you realize that you need to do something about the laundry situation within the next two days, (maximum three if you relax standards slightly on the sock front). So now you walk the streets, consciously keeping your eyes peeled for a laundromat. Things start to seem weird: none of the likely-looking streets pan out.

There is an interesting, and useful, side-effect during this phase. You are forced to pay conscious attention to all the stores that you pass, and so you actually see what kind of stores there are. This gives you an interesting composite of the Granadan character. Clearly these are people who are so busy buying, renting, and selling apartments, visiting the nearest fruit store, bakery or bar, in between visits to the stationery store, peluqueria or salon de estetica that they have little time for such niceties as washing clothes. Results of my (unscientific) sample consisting of the block in which my apartment building is located. It's a rectangular block, each side being a commercial street, with the two short sides being more heavily trafficked than the longer sides; totals are for both sides of the street for each face of the block - got that?

The plain people of Ireland: That's probably a rhombus you're thinking of -'tis a very common mistake to mix up a rhombus and a rectangle. Are you sure those corners are all at 90 degrees?

The management: Oddly enough, peasants, for once your question is not complete rubbish.

The plain people of Ireland: That's Brother Jerome up at Saint Malachy's we can thank for that. A great man for the Euclid.

The management: But I think you mean a quadrilateral, not a rhombus. Not that it matters for the purposes of this story.

The plain people of Ireland: Begob you're right. Fair enough so. We're all ears.

Frequencies for the most common types of business:

• Inmobiliara (real estate offices) = 6
• Restaurants/bars = 4
• Pastry shops/bakeries = 4
• Hair/beauty salons = 3
• Fruit stores = 3
• Stationery stores = 3

Some time on Tuesday, it began to dawn on me that maybe the reason I wasn't stumbling across any laundromats on my travels was because there weren't any out there. A quick check of the yellow pages and an online search served only to confirm this suspicion.

So I asked the teacher. Unfortunately, I chose to ask María (names changed to protect the innocent), not - as it turned out - the most empathetic of respondents. Her initial reaction was to make me repeat the question twice, as she subjected me to the kind of pitying gaze one might cast upon someone with Tourette's. Finally, acknowledgement that perhaps my question might have some legitimate basis. But then, in the most dismissively condescending tone imaginable:

"But why would anyone need to use public washing machines. Every home in Spain comes with a washing machine", shuffling her papers to move on from a topic which was clearly of no concern to her washing-machine-containing-home-loving self.

Somewhat taken aback by this complete lack of empathy, I pointed out that, indeed my current temporary lodging contained a washing machine (though no visible drier), but that it also came equipped with seven other boarding students and a dragon lady whose very first sentences to me had been about the need to conserve water in Granada.

This conversation led nowhere fast. Fortunately, my compatriot Cathal came to the rescue this morning, by directing me to one of two known places in Granada (if you aren't staying in a hotel) where one can drop off laundry for later pick-up. At 16:30, as they reopened after siesta, I was there with my bulging bag full of 3 weeks' of accumulated dirty laundry.

And, gentle readers, you will be relieved to know that a mere 4 hours later, I was marching home to Señora Rosa's, with enough clean clothes to last me at least to Madrid. For tonight, at least, I am the Spanish equivalent of "Mr Clean".

Your faithful correspondent,

Don Limpio de Granada.

At the post office

The post office can be a scary place, especially for foreigners:

Day of reckoning

Sorry folks, I can't even to begin to make the experience of filing taxes in three separate jurisdictions (Federal, California, and New Jersey) from a distance of 6000 miles from home seem anything other than exhausting. I would like to thank all of the people who helped track down information at the last minute, and who pulled me through the experience.

Perhaps the only light note was when I googled to try to figure out why the filing deadline this year was April 17th. The reason involves some arcane provision about holidays inWashington DC; the amusing part is that the Federal Government was apparently unable to figure out its own regulations in enough time to print the correct deadline on the relevant forms and (quite sensibly) didn't bother to have them re-printed.

The plain people of Ireland: What's this? Nothing yesterday, and two paragraphs of self-pitying rubbish today? When do we get our refund?
The management: Funny you should ask, fools. I had the same question myself today. Must be that time of year. Get in line, like everyone else.

Church, churros & chocolate

This morning I got up around 8:30, put on my snazziest threads, and headed over to the cathedral for Sunday morning mass. Not out of an enormously developed sense of devotion, I regret to say, but for two slightly less admirable reasons. First, in the spirit of sociological inquiry - I wanted to see what it would be like. Second, I wanted to see inside the cathedral, and this avoided the 6€ fee that is charged during the week.

The powers that be are obviously wise to this second reason, because in fact not all of the cathedral is open to worshippers on Sunday morning. Nonetheless, what I saw was interesting. As was the mass. Since I've been seeing one touching display of family togetherness after another since getting to Spain - in the streets, in the cafés, in the bars at night - three generations out together, often as not, I fully expected mass to be a multi-generational experience as well. Boy was I wrong. At fifty, I was one of the youngest congregation members in the church. Attending mass appears to be something that young (and middle-aged) Spaniards appear happy to leave to the older generation.

Or maybe I just picked too early a time. This thought occurred to me when I got back to Señora Rosa's shortly after 11am to find that nobody else in the house was up yet. I don't know whether to be impressed or shocked, because I have never considered myself a morning person.

One other disappointment at mass was the sermon. I was mentally settled in for a good 20-minute job, even had my little Moleskine (hi Dr Heidi P!) notebook to jot down good vocabulary words. What did we get? Two minutes, maximum.

To console myself on the way home I had to stop at a churrería, for some churros and chocolate. I took a picture, so that my blog-readers could share vicariously.




Churrería almost displaces murcielago as my favorite word of the moment. In part, because it's so much fun to watch my charming classmate Charlotte, from Lille, wrinkle her nose as she tries to pronounce it. But then I remember that murcielago is the only word in Spanish containing all five vowels (or so I´ve been told). Also deserving honorable mention this week, michelinitos, meaning love handles.


Plain people of Ireland: this Charlotte girl, does she have a sister?
The management: Silence, curs!

Books and such

While I remember to do so, I want to mention two books that I brought with me to Spain, both of which I highly recommend to anyone with an interest in Spain, generally, and in Andalucía in particular.

The first, published in February of this year, is by Giles Tremlett, and is called "Ghosts of Spain: Travels through Spain and its Secret Past".

From the blurb on amazon.com -

The appearance, more than sixty years after the Spanish Civil War ended, of mass graves containing victims of Francisco Franco’s death squads finally broke what Spaniards call “the pact of forgetting”—the unwritten understanding that their recent, painful past was best left unexplored. At this charged moment, Giles Tremlett embarked on a journey around the country and through its history to discover why some of Europe’s most voluble people have kept silent so long.

Ghosts of Spain is the fascinating result of that journey. In elegant and passionate prose, Tremlett unveils the tinderbox of disagreements that mark the country today. Delving into such emotional questions as who caused the Civil War, why Basque terrorists kill, why Catalans hate Madrid, and whether the Islamist bombers who killed 190 people in 2004 dreamed of a return to Spain’s Moorish past, Tremlett finds the ghosts of the past everywhere. At the same time, he offers trenchant observations on more quotidian aspects of Spanish life today: the reasons, for example, Spaniards dislike authority figures, but are cowed by a doctor’s white coat, and how women have embraced feminism without men noticing.

Drawing on the author’s twenty years of experience living in Spain, Ghosts of Spain is a revelatory book about one of Europe’s most exciting countries.

More information at the amazon link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Ghosts-Spain-Travels-Through-Secret/dp/0802715745

The second book is older. I brought it with my on my 2003 trip to Spain, and brought it with me again this time. The author is Maria Rosa Menocal, and the book is "The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain" .

More information at:
http://www.amazon.com/Ornament-World-Christians-Tolerance-Medieval/dp/0316168718