新年快乐 The Year of the Tiger

 Tired and very hungry after putting the finishing touches on Johannes' upcoming art exhibition at Procomobel, and then shopping for glasses and paper goods for the opening reception, we just had to have some lunch at 2:00 yesterday afternoon. So we fell into the Chinese restaurant next to our closest shopping center for a quick meal. It was only the second time that we have eaten Chinese in Spain. The first time was about a year ago, when our rental house suddenly lost power late one winter afternoon, and it was freezing and dark both inside and out. We walked across the street to the only restaurant that had lights, where we were surprised to be able to order Peking duck, a dish that normally requires 24 hours notice in the U.S. It was excellent, and we took enough home with us for a second--or was it a third--meal later on in the week.

Yesterday we found that the specialty was a buffet, but we didn't want to gorge ourselves, so we ordered from the menu. No Peking duck this time. Chinese-Spanish food is different from Chinese-American. We had a choice of spring rolls (five small ones) and sweet-sour soup for starters, and then a choice of curried chicken or spicy chicken with white rice, fried rice, or French fries. Yes, French fries are a standard accompaniment to a main dish in Spain, or, as chips, for the numerous English living here. Beverage was included in the price of the meal. No tea. Again we had the typical Spanish option: a glass of red wine or bottled water, in our case, one of each. My chicken was delightfully spicy, but the rice was simply white rice pilaf--no frying evident. In fact, there was a marked  absence of soy sauce--nothing noticeable in the sauces of either dish, and nothing on the table. Dessert was another typically Spanish choice: ice cream or flan. When my tiny portion of ice cream came, it was in a little individual plastic container just as I might have bought it at a seaside refreshment stand or in quantity at the supermarket. When it was time to pay the 11 euros for our two lunches, we did not get any tidbits of pineapple or fortune cookies, as one often gets in Chinese-American restaurants. Instead we were urged to try the complimentary fruit liqueur, a non-alcoholic variety that is often offered after a filling meal in Spain. The peach was lovely and the apple was also.

It seemed like a fitting way to celebrate Chinese New Year's, and our English and Chinese speaking server obligingly told us how to say Happy New Year in Chinese before we left: xīn nián kuài lè. And I did remember how to say it until I got home. But I had to look up how to spell it.

Settling In

I was home again to our house in Montebello by Tuesday noon this week. The clear and sunny sky that greeted me at the Alicante airport disappeared soon, and we had two gloomy and cold days, and I missed the central heat of houses in the U.S. But on Friday morning the sun came out and warmed the rooftop terrace to above 70 degrees, so I did some laundry and hung it out to dry. When I came home from our pétanque game and a wine-tasting preview that evening, I started another load of clothes in the washer so I could be the first person within view of my rooftop to hang clothes out on Saturday morning. It proved worthwhile--Saturday was as beautiful and warm as Friday had been, and I did two more loads of laundry.

This Sunday morning I opened the bathroom window to enjoy the view and listen to the birds as I prepared for the day. We walked by the orange grove--oranges still on the trees, and brighter orange than a month ago--to our own pétanque playing field in Montebello, and I won two games out of two. Then we went to the outdoor Sunday market (Zoco), which was very crowded today with people out enjoying the sunny weather. Strawberries are coming into season and every produce stall had them, but I'll wait for a week or two until the price comes down and they look a little more ripe, and in the meantime be content with the sweet and juicy mandarins that smell like spring as soon as I thumb one open for our fruit salad at lunchtime. I was comfortable in sandals without socks and just a thin undershirt and linen open-necked blouse--maybe I can put away the turtlenecks and heavy socks I brought back from Ohio with me.

We sat in our sunroom for soup, fruit salad, and two big rundstykker rolls from the Danish baker at the market. Goldie rolled around on the tile floor catching sun rays, and we enjoyed the view of our trumpet plant that is once again blooming, now for the third time since last May. And tried to fathom that people are digging out from 28 inches of snow or more on the mid-Atlantic coast.

"And sorry I could not travel both..."

This Sunday, and indeed most of the Sundays in January, I am not in Spain. Instead, today I am traveling west from Cincinnati to Chicago, where I will overnight in a hotel near O'Hare and slowly accustom myself to a long flight back to Madrid and then to Alicante.

The sun shone brightly, but it was cold as we gathered at the MegaBus stop in downtown Cincinnati Sunday morning. and even though I hate to end what has been a comfortable and happy visit with my family, I began to look forward to the 65 degree weather that my husband assures me is waiting in Spain. The bus was not full and though only a single piece of luggage is permitted, the attendant kindly accommodated the second suitcase that I had carefully packed with valuables retrieved from the depths of boxes in one sister's walk-in closet, which help me to integrate my past lives with my current life in Spain.

I gazed out the window as we headed west on Interstate 74 toward Indianapolis, where I had lived for a short time, and enjoyed the view. The sun continued shining onto idle brown farmland, and hundreds of tall, straight deciduous trees spidered feathered branches over the clear blue sky. I shot fleeting glances at the Middle Eastern-looking man seated in front of me, who had jumped on board five minutes late, after the luggage door was sealed, and even after the front door was closed, carrying only a white plastic shopping bag, jolting me into realizing that there had been no security check at all in purchasing my ticket and boarding the bus. He had immediately taken out his cell phone upon seating and spoken so softly and briefly into it that I could not tell what language was spoken. Inter-city train rides that I have taken in Spain require a baggage and person check now, and I am sorry that regardless of where in the world I live, the wariness that I felt is normal now.

As we neared Indianapolis I saw street names and places that I remember from the six or seven years ago that I was there, but we came through a different route to central downtown than I, then living on the west side, knew. I understood where I was and where I was going, but I didn't really recognize the journey. Beyond the Indianapolis pick-up we turned north onto Interstate 65 to continue our diagonal trip across this narrow state, and I sent silent mental messages to friends I remembered  in Eagle Creek, Zionsville, and later, Lafayette, and even later, Munster, Indiana.

I-65 beyond Lafayette has got to be one of the most boring interstates in the U.S. Not ugly, but the road stretches on forever through long stretches of flat farmland that now have only tiny groves of trees near a farm house or to delineate borders of fields. A large windmill farm appeared near a town called Fowler, the individual mills spaced much farther apart from each other here than those I have seen in Spain and Denmark (we have so much space in the U.S.) and all today turning slowly. What keeps you awake on this boring road, though, are the hundreds of 18-wheeler trucks zipping by on their way to and from the central states distribution hub of Chicago.

Finally, after five hours,  one time zone change, and slightly ahead of schedule, we arrived near Union Station, Chicago, where I retrieved my two suitcases and found a taxi to take me out to my O'Hare hotel. This is proving to be an excellent place to harbor myself as I slowly take leave of the U.S. and move myself, my things, and my mind back to my home now in Spain.

The Days of the Week

Even though I have not yet been to the U.S. to pick up American calendars for 2010, I have accumulated several, by gift, newspaper freebies, and purchase. In addition to normal variations in calendar styles (one-page vs. monthly vs. daily agendas; pictures vs. plain text; space for writing vs. just-the-date reminder, etc.) there are a couple stylistic variations between the calendars I am used to from the U.S. and those I find in Spain.

The biggest difference is that the week in Spain, and in most of Europe, starts on Monday. So the weekly and monthly view of a calendar shows days as Monday, then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and finally--at the far right--Sunday. I always have to look twice and check myself when verifying which day a date falls on, to make sure I am not automatically assuming a Su-M-T-W-Th-F-Sa orientation. Of course, I should look at the top grid letters, and remember that when it starts L (for lunes, Monday) and proceeds through M-X-J-V-S and concludes with D for domingo (Sunday), I'm on the Spanish calendar. Fortunately, most Spanish calendars use red ink to indicate Sunday and holidays, so all that red ink on the right side of the calendar page is another clue.

My primary calendar is a plain-looking, black book calendar, which I use as a daily agenda of what I am supposed to do, and a journal of what I actually did. I've bought one of these for only two or three euros every year that I have been in Spain. If I remember, I can look ahead to see when the holidays are coming, as each day shows the saint associated with it. Last year's had month names in five languages, including English, but this year's only has the four official Spanish languages. I had a hard time finding a Spanish version of this agenda this year--I ran into a lot of English-only editions, but if I were to buy a British version, how would I be able to find out about the Spanish holidays?

My primary picture wall calendar this year is the H.C. Andersen kalendar 2010 from Denmark, each month showing a colored reproduction of a painting by Svend Otto S. from various of Andersen's fairly tales. The Danish week also begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, and this particular calendar has another special feature that I had to look closely to observe. Each Monday there is a number showing which week of the year it is. This is very useful, as it is quite common for Danes to tell you they will be on holiday in week 19, for example, or that their summer house is available for rental from week 24 to week 25.

I have an assortment of one-page, full-year calendars--essentially advertising pieces for local newspapers or companies--that I have placed throughout the house for checking dates. My keyboard calendar is from a multilingual company that produces signage "made to measure." Its weeks begin on Monday but the days are labeled in Spanish (LMMJVSD), although the month names are only in English. The first half of the year is on one side, with a centimeter rule, and the second half is on the other side, with an inch rule.

The Costa Blanca News gave us a calendar that is a mash-up between Spanish and English. Each month is a vertical row of days, and though days and months from this British newspaper are in English only, Spanish  and British flag icons indicate holidays important to people of both countries, and holiday names are in the language of the holiday. Now I am wondering why England has three Boxing Days in 2010...maybe because Christmas falls on a Saturday?

An alliance of Scandinavian businesses in Alicante gave us a handy calendar in Spanish (the calendar is way too small to get all the Scandinavian languages on it) and this wall calendar also has numbered weeks. I find it disturbing, however. According to this calendar, we are now (on January 6) in week 2, whereas my Danish calendar shows this date in week 1. Of course, it all depends on whether the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of January started out as the first week of 2010 or finished up as the last week of 2009.

Back to my Spanish agenda, where I notice that there are very small and light letters indicating the week number. According to this one, week 1 of 2010 started on Monday, January 4. January 1, 2, and 3 comprised the last week of 2009--week 53.

There is an amusing, if little-known, short story by Hans Christian Andersen, about the Days of the Week. You can read an English translation here.

Spain's Big Chill

The BBC reported yesterday that a big chill was bringing cold and misery to millions of Europeans. I didn't need the BBC to tell me. It's been cold and miserable for about two weeks on the Costa Blanca and in other parts of Spain, too. Even though we didn't experience anywhere near the problems that many others faced in central and northern Europe, we had uncharacteristically cold weather, and lots of inconvenience.

Outdoor temperatures have been in the single digits Celsius. That's in the 30s, Fahrenheit. I finally got out all my winter clothes, and I wore as many of them at one time as I could get over each other--four layers being about as many as I could fit. It may not have been as bad as it seemed, except for the fact that we had had the warmest November in 140 years. Then again, I think it was as bad as it could get, though not the outdoor part.

In a land where central heat and thermalpane windows are virtually unknown, long-term cold seeps into the houses, and it stays there, right on top of the beautiful ceramic tile flooring and marble stairways. We got out all the area rugs we could find--even the ugly ones--and we bought a large new carpet that almost covers the living room floor. We wheeled in a small portable electric radiator and turned on the electric wall air conditioner/heater in the adjoining dining room so we could sit, huddled in blankets, while watching reports from the global warming energy summit in Copenhagen. My upstairs office has the only other portable electric heater in the house, though we occasionally moved it to the bathroom during shower time. I went to bed early and read under the warm down comforter, my feet encased in down slipper boots, and moaned when I had to take one hand out from under the comforter to turn pages. I refused to get up in the morning until the wall heater had been on for a half hour. My neighbor told me that she was going to bed and not getting up until March!

In desperation, we went to the Ambifuego store and made a purchase that we had been hoping to put off until we had been in the house for a year. We ordered a propane-fueled fireplace insert that "burns" fake charcoal. In this season of miracles, they told us that they could install it in just a week--on December 24. As I write, the installation man is fitting the wires to the propane bottles, and I expect soon to be called downstairs for lessons in how to work this heater.

Of course, the weather finally broke, and yesterday was in the balmy 60s F. We take full credit. If we hadn't made this major purchase now, I am convinced, the weather would have stayed cold for months. It just goes to show, you do have to throw some money at the problem to get a better indoor climate. I'm glad to have an alternative to using so much electricity, but I'm even more glad just to get warm again.

A New Panhispanic Spanish Grammar

The Nueva Gramática de la Lengua Española, was published on December 10 by the Real Academia Española, the Royal Academy of Spain, which is the official body that determines "correct" Spanish. It is noteworthy because:

• it's the first academic update since 1931,
• it was eleven years in the making, and
• it was a panhispanic cooperative effort of 20 Academies of the Spanish Language and is the first time that such a work reflects "all the varieties of Spanish."

Objectives are to describe general Spanish usage as well as to reflect variants, to offer recommendations regarding usage, and to act as a reference in the understanding and teaching of Spanish. For the first time, it pays special attention to American usage, and it takes into account usage from a variety of types of sources: literary, educational, scientific, journalistic, and oral.

The complete work comes in two volumes of 4032 pages (for 120 euros), but smaller versions are also available: a 750-page manual, and a 250-page basic grammar text.

More information is available in Spanish from the Real Academia Española website and in English in an Associated Press story.

The Spanish Constitution

Last Sunday (December 6) was Constitution Day in Spain, but I didn't read the newspaper until Monday. So I didn't know until later that a whopping 84% of Spaniards believe that their constitution needs reform.

And it's only 31 years old!

To be fair, not everyone thinks the constitution needs a total overhaul. According to the poll, 65% believe that some fine-tuning would be sufficient to improve the law, while 26% want a complete reformation. But even though 69% say that the Constitution represents the ideas of all (and not any given political party or ideology), only 12% think it is good as it stands.

So what needs fine-tuning?

70% would like to regulate the use of co-official languages in the autonomous regions.
61% would like to give legal immigrants the right to vote in all elections.
51% would like to eliminate references giving special attention to the Catholic Church.
51% would like to eliminate the distinction between nationalities and regions.

Some of this is difficult for a foreigner to understand, but it is related to the fact that a recent controversial statute has used the term "nation" in regards to the autonomous region of Cataluña. A related question in the survey asked, "Do you believe that Cataluña is really a nation?" and 79% of all Spanish respondents opined that it is not. Of Catalans, 54% believe that their region is a nation, while 42% do not. And regarding the question of whether public organizations and businesses in Cataluña should use Catalan and Spanish equally, the majority say yes. But there is a marked difference in the numbers: 82% of Catalans believe that Spanish and Catalan should be used equally in public affairs, while only 58% of those living in other parts of Spain believe so.

It seems to me that most Spaniards are more than willing to share their country and its governance with the mass of foreigners now living here legally, and that they want to legitimize linguistic diversity throughout the country, while retaining a common language.