29
Oct
2010
The perfect little Spanish city
Oviedo is a stunning small city in the North of Spain. It’s the capital of the province of Asturias, a beautiful area of green pastures and rocky mountains. The city is also not far from a patch of coast that boasts some of the most beautiful beaches in Europe and perhaps the world, allowing some residents to claim they have had days of surfing in the morning and skiing in the afternoon. Which would obviously require surfing in the kind of temperatures that make you wonder if you these people are dedicated or just mad.
If you’ve never looked at travelling to the North of Spain but Oviedo is ringing some bells – it may be that you heard of it watching Woody Allen’s film, ‘Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona’ in which it features fairly heavily. Allen’s a passionate fan and the town has returned the love by placing a bronze statue of him in one of the city’s many pedestrian streets around the centre. He joins an impressive and varied selection of statues that dot the city’s centre and includes the gorgeous “La Maternidad” by Botero. As well as an excellent example of loved and appreciated public art, La Maternidad’s substantial, exposed derrier gives children plenty of entertainment. At any given moment there is a small child giggling and pointing. Ah, bottoms. They’re pure comedy.
15
Oct
2010
WHERE DO WE HIDE ALL OUR OLD PEOPLE?
CC photo credit: Asta Adamonyte
One day as I was visiting a little Spanish town, the streets suddenly flooded with elderly couples as Church finished and they poured out the doors to return home for lunch. Smartly dressed and able footed, they were all walking the cobbled streets home.
I remarked to The Spaniard that I’d never seen so many old people in one place outside an aged care home, or alongside an excursion bus from an aged car home (depressingly supervised by bustling nurses speaking to their clientele as if they were mentally challenged rather than just old).
The Spaniard responded with recognition of the marked difference in Australia, “yes, where do you hide all your old people?”. He’s pretty perplexed by having virtually never laid eyes on anyone over seventy in the two years he spent living in inner Sydney. It’s not something you tend to notice until it’s pointed out to you. Then you see how many elderly there are supposed to be walking the streets. I didn’t really know how to answer him. I don’t really know where Australia, well, Sydney and Melbourne, put their old people. Where are they all? You’d have to assume they’ve all been sent to the aged care facilities that sometimes bus them out for a rare sighting by the rest of the public, because they’re not strolling the streets like they are in towns and suburbs across Spain. Not in my experience anyway.
2
Sep
2010
Spanish Wedding – Medieval style (Architecturally Speaking – not dress up as Buxom Wench speaking)
This weekend I went to a wedding in the lovely, picturesque town of Ayllón en Segovia. It´s only an hour from Madrid and the area is dotted with other, equally delightful little towns (Riaza is worth a stop). We discovered you can still walk into a little tavern in a fortress wall or looking over a medieval plaza as the bullfighting plays on the television (or indeed, if you go at the right time, the town’s bullfighting or running of the bulls festival might actuall be going on live in the plaza) and buy a beer for one euro. And you thought Spain was all beaches and 15 euro cocktails.
The wedding venue, The Cloisters of Ayllón, was breathtaking. These are the kind of ruins you find all over Spain – there are so many medieval castles and ruins people literally don’t know what to do with them. The volume is simply too big for a National Trust type scheme to meet the task of restoring them all. (The government runs Paradors as part of a conservation plan – historical buildings converted in to affordable hotels and you really should stay in at least one if you visit Spain).
15
Jul
2010
The Kiss that has Captured a Nation
Spain won a little thing called The Soccer World Cup. You may have heard about it. It’s been all parties, happiness, brotherly love, and a rare feeling of national unity. How much partying? This might give you an idea.
In the midst of all this Sporting revelry came a moment of romance that made every Spaniard gasp and grab their chest in vicarious swooning: the emotional and spontaneous kiss between the Spanish Captain, long time national hero and one of the heroes of the winning game; Iker Casillas, and the woman this year voted as the most beautiful presenter in the world; Sara Carbonero.
Iker is himself quite hot. The kind that faces thousands of screaming school girls wherever he goes – this insurance ad does a very amusing parody of his misfortunes on that front (FYI: ‘Me siento seguro’ means ‘I feel secure’).
And Sara is well, breathtaking.
Professional life has taken on a new complication for these two beautiful people since they started going out only five months ago, just as the build up to the Cup was hitting it’s stride. Since news broke of their relationship, every time Sara interviewed Iker, we watched in awkward fascination as they both maintained stoic professionalism in numerous question and answer sessions.
11
Jun
2010
Cleaners – the good, the bad and the awkward
I think The Spaniard and I may be talking about Elsa to our grandchildren. Elsa was our previous cleaner. And what a cleaner. Coming home every Tuesday was filled with expectations of what previously invisible corner of dirt and disarray had been transformed in to a sparkling and orderly delight. Not only did she not miss a single surface, from skirting boards to drawer ledges, cupboard surfaces and ceiling corners – something you start out assuming would be standard for a cleaner but quickly learn is a surprisingly rare ability – she also dismantled and cleaned oven fans, found fresh sheets and put them on the beds without having to be provided with detailed instructions, put on several loads of washing and hung them out, and numerous other tasks you hadn’t even thought of let alone realised needed to be done; and one of the best things of all, she also re-arranged THE INSIDE of cupboards.
28
May
2010
Madrileño’s that dress their child like Little Lord Fauntleroy
There’s quite an astonishing culture in Madrid of dressing your child to look like it’s 1880 and you’re off to church. If it’s actually a Confirmation boys are off to they will be dressed in either a sailor’s outfit or other military inspired arrangement. If you have family here you will receive a lot of this clothing by way of gifts and spend a lot of energy making up elaborate stories of the many outings baby has had in the outfit and how delightful everyone thought your darling child looked, while the offending boy dress with blue shoulder ribbons actually sits safely tucked away in the bottom drawer.
One of the more disturbing aspects of seeing an innocent, curly haired boy in a baby blue and light brown outfit of bib and brace shorts with a frilly collar, knee high socks and lace up shoes is, despite your awareness that he is an unfortunate and innocent pawn in his parent’s children-as-accessories obsession, you just can’t avoid the word SISSY flying into your head and almost on to your lips. I KNOW. Dreadful. I didn’t know that word was still in my brain somewhere. But that’s what happens when you see these kids.
13
May
2010
The El Gordo Sing-along
There was a lot of excitement regarding the Euro millions largest ever 86 million pound jackpot last week. And sure, that’s an impressive lottery, but I don’t think anything can compare to the pomp, ceremony, tradition and downright oddness of Spain’s annual Christmas lottery – El Gordo (The Fat One).
It’s not just that it’s the biggest lottery in the world, hitting 2 billion euro last year, or the oldest (starting in 1812), for me it’s really about the sheer hysteria, complete media saturation, and best of all, the singing results, televised every year on December 22 and considered as much a part of Christmas as presents under the tree.
You read that correctly. Singing results. School children work in teams of two to sing out the winning number while another sings out its corresponding prize amount. There are a lot of draws in this lottery. Perhaps hundreds of 1000 euro wins, several fifth, fourth and third prize draws and then the two big first and second prize draws. That’s a lot of singing. There’s just the one tune. Well I guess it’s kind of more like a cantation. Each year, school children across the country are carefully selected and trained for this very special task, and a day of high drama and complex number sequences which must fit snugly into a given stanza.*
6
May
2010
An (almost) local’s guide to Madrid
One of our readers contacted us last week to ask about my take on the ‘must sees’ in Madrid. I wait around most of my days waiting for someone to ask me to tell them what I think, so, naturally, I’m delighted. It’s with no small amount of chest puffing and grinning then, that I bring you my personal guide to Madrid.
Madrid is a wonderful city to be a tourist. Everything you would want to see is in a fairly compact area. The central area of Madrid is full of truly stunning buildings, plazas and fountains that you must see. The underground and bus systems are a dream, even for non-Spanish speakers. Walking the streets is an absolute pleasure on almost every day of the year. Even in the cold of winter Madrid is characterised by impossibly blue, sunny skies.
I started writing this post with a great deal of detail only to find I was not even one fifth of the way through my recommendations and already at a 1000 words. So I give you bullet points, for both our benefits. Certainly there’s room for greater brevity, but it was never my strong point, as you may have noticed from previous posts.
12
Feb
2010
San Miguel Food Market Madrid
The San Miguel Market (Mercado de san Miguel) in Madrid is an exciting culinary and entertainment addition to the centre of Madrid, long overdue. Very overdue in fact. The building sat empty for over 10 years. It has been beautifully renovated and the food displays are a pleasure to look at as well as feast on. You can sip on champagne while sliding back freshly shucked oysters or grab a tray of tapas and a beer to enjoy under the high ceilings of the light and airy interior.
If you go on the weekend, try to arrive outside of 2:30 to 3:30 when it gets a little bit crazy – but if you arrive at peak hour, the insiders trick is to enter through the “back door”, the entrance farthest from plaza mayor where there is more space than the hordes realize. We found a space even with pram in tow.
San Miguel Market and Surrounding Buildings
10
Feb
2010
Friendly Medical Advice from your Local Butcher
In continuation to my last post, the hospital and sick child at home experience has given me even more pause for thought – this time in relation to the Spanish approach to medicinal care. On the one hand I discovered a whole other area where people like to give advice (to my delight, as you can imagine). On the other hand there was also a slightly laissez faire approach from the nurses in the hospital actually qualified to give it.
Look! FUN with medication!
Spaniards are particularly prone to handing out unqualified medical advice – the government had to run a multi million euro ad campaign which featured a woman in the market handing over her antibiotics to her good friend the neighbourhood butcher telling him to take them to address his cold like symptoms. The tag line to the ad was “You´re not a doctor, don’t share prescription drugs and see your doctor for medical advice”. Or some such.
