A perfectly normal question about women in the developed world these days, especially those in a partnership (frequently known as marriage) and especially when the couple is raising children. Many people have made the decision to form their world in ways so that two incomes are not needed, at least not during the time when children are young. But often, when the kids reach school age, the issue is reconsidered, for financial or personal reasons, and "she," or rarely "he," returns to paid work outside the house.
Not in Spain, I think, or at least not easily. There is the not-so-slight problem of the Spanish daily schedule. That long siesta period in the middle of the day affects more than the poor Madrid businessman who must partake of a leisurely if lonely midday meal at a restaurant close to work, because the traffic and distances are too great to drive home for dinner and return to work. The midday meal and siesta also define the school day, separating it into two sections: morning and "afternoon." And that daily schedule shapes the work day for the ama de casa, or housewife, or stay-at-home mom.
Granted, I don't know a lot of Spanish families with children, but I know what I see outside my window. The school bus drives by at 8:30 each morning on its way to the single pick-up point in our urbanization. We live in a safe area, but I notice that the mother down the street still walks her elementary-school aged boy to the bus stop on the other side of the development.
At 1:15, sometimes while we are having an early lunch in the front sunroom, the school bus races around the periphery street again, bringing the kids back to the neighborhood drop-off point for comida at home, the main meal of the day
At 3:15 we hear the school bus again, coming to pick the children up to take them back to school for their second session of the day. I've often said that, if I were working this schedule, I would find it almost impossible to get up and make myself ready for work twice in one day--once is enough! I would find it even harder to get someone else up and ready for work twice a day.
We don't usually hear the school bus on its fourth trip of the day, but I do know the kids get returned home. I suppose the timing depends somewhat on their age and extra-curricular activities and the season, but I know that the "afternoon" can extend until 7:00 or 8:00 PM.
So when exactly does a mother have time for working outside the house, especially if she is the one responsible for preparing that main meal of the day at "midday" (and we won't even discuss the evening meal at 9:00 PM or so)?
There are women who work outside, of course--I see them in the shops and grocery stores, and the banks, the public offices, and health facilities--and certainly many appear to be mothers of school-aged children. Many families have help in the form of grandparents, or sisters, or cousins, but the ones I know have immigrated to Spain and have left at least part of this extended family behind. It cannot be easy to even think about working outside the house when daily life is punctuated so frequently with family life.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
Como en Casa
I've been back in Spain for almost two weeks now, and I am coming to feel very much at home. Me siento como en casa. The jet lag is finally gone and I am sleeping through the night without a sleeping pill. Good sleep is always hard to come by after the transatlantic journey, and especially in summer, when the weather is hot and we alternate between the bedroom air conditioner, which eventually becomes too cold no matter how many degrees we set it for, and the overhead fan, which eventually allows the temperature to creep up to where we need the a/c again. And isn't it a pleasure to be back in the land of good and silent room air conditioners, instead of those noisy things that are still grinding away in too many hotels in the U.S.
This week has been a succession of small rituals that make up our pleasant everyday life in Spain. Tuesday and Friday we had petanca games with the Danes. We were only three players on Tuesday, and I lost both games, but it was still a bit of exercise in the sun, and I enjoyed it. Friday there were 20 people at least, way fewer than normal because many go back to Denmark to visit in the summer, but some Danes also come to Spain to visit, and I played against two visitors--and my team won both games.
Wednesday we went to Almoradí to the health clinic, in the first of several health visits that we hope will find a solution to Johannes' difficulties in walking. Health care could be a near full-time occupation in Spain, or maybe it's only because of our age? We had been to the regular doctor the week before--I hesitate to call him the primary care physician because the only care I've ever seen him provide is to enter data into a computer and dispense appointment papers and prescriptions. Next week's appointment will be the clinic that does blood tests, and then the week after that all the data will be assembled back at the regular doctor's. This is the way the system works when it's not an emergency, and that's all right, because after each appointment we enjoy a cup of café con leche with a media tostada at a local bar. Then I am reminded again of how civilized the coffee ritual is here, where you never see a paper cup unless you go to McDonald's--and you wouldn't do that normally because there you can't see a tostada.
One activity that I am not back to is my weekly Spanish lesson, because my teacher has houseguests and will until the middle of August. That's typical here--we break for visitors, who arrive frequently from the north, or when we ourselves travel, of course. So in spite of the fact that I have a private class and my lessons don't have to follow the usual Spanish pattern of pausing for the summer from June until September, they will, this year at least. There is a reason these patterns develop.
Thursday evening we visited the home of a Spanish-American couple we have come to know, and enjoyed dinner and conversation with them on their beautiful terrace overlooking the pool and the lights in Torrevieja on the other side of the salt lake. By this time of day there were cool breezes and no flies or mosquitoes. We chatted over a drink and hors d'oeuvres from 7:30 until twilight fell, and then sat down to a simple dinner of pork roasted with vegetables, and grilled zucchini and tomatoes. Spanish recipes, my friend assured me, and we were definitely eating at Spanish time, which the two of us cannot normally manage. Suddenly we noticed that the clock stood at almost midnight, and we had no idea of how it had gotten that late.
Yesterday we skipped our usual Sunday Zoco market--the one close enough to us that we could walk to it but never do because we don't know how much we might buy and have to carry home--and went instead to the "lemon market," which involves a drive down Lemon Tree Road toward the town of Guardamar. It is much larger and some say "more Spanish" than the Zoco. Maybe so, and we certainly noticed that the prices of produce were far cheaper than at the Zoco. But that may be because we are in the midst of the plenitude of summer, and they were almost giving away tomatoes and plums, and even the grapes were less costly than usual. I was amused by a man demonstrating a wonderful fruit and vegetable slicer with three different blades--and could understand the "as seen on TV" promotion in Spanish even though I didn't catch every single word. The utensil would have been perfect for our lunchtime salads and would not even have taken up very much storage space, but the price, which of course only comes out at the end, after tons of vegetable slices and curls have piled up in front of him, was "only" 25 euros.
After such a demonstration we just needed to sit down for a cup of café con leche, but we weren't able to find a place for a tostada at this "more Spanish" market. Instead we settled at one of the many "English breakfast" establishments, where we indulged in English bacon, sausage, an egg, toast, tomato, and an enormous cup of tea. Coffee would have been extra, so why not do as the "natives" do?
And that is multicultural Spain as I know it.
This week has been a succession of small rituals that make up our pleasant everyday life in Spain. Tuesday and Friday we had petanca games with the Danes. We were only three players on Tuesday, and I lost both games, but it was still a bit of exercise in the sun, and I enjoyed it. Friday there were 20 people at least, way fewer than normal because many go back to Denmark to visit in the summer, but some Danes also come to Spain to visit, and I played against two visitors--and my team won both games.
Wednesday we went to Almoradí to the health clinic, in the first of several health visits that we hope will find a solution to Johannes' difficulties in walking. Health care could be a near full-time occupation in Spain, or maybe it's only because of our age? We had been to the regular doctor the week before--I hesitate to call him the primary care physician because the only care I've ever seen him provide is to enter data into a computer and dispense appointment papers and prescriptions. Next week's appointment will be the clinic that does blood tests, and then the week after that all the data will be assembled back at the regular doctor's. This is the way the system works when it's not an emergency, and that's all right, because after each appointment we enjoy a cup of café con leche with a media tostada at a local bar. Then I am reminded again of how civilized the coffee ritual is here, where you never see a paper cup unless you go to McDonald's--and you wouldn't do that normally because there you can't see a tostada.
One activity that I am not back to is my weekly Spanish lesson, because my teacher has houseguests and will until the middle of August. That's typical here--we break for visitors, who arrive frequently from the north, or when we ourselves travel, of course. So in spite of the fact that I have a private class and my lessons don't have to follow the usual Spanish pattern of pausing for the summer from June until September, they will, this year at least. There is a reason these patterns develop.
Thursday evening we visited the home of a Spanish-American couple we have come to know, and enjoyed dinner and conversation with them on their beautiful terrace overlooking the pool and the lights in Torrevieja on the other side of the salt lake. By this time of day there were cool breezes and no flies or mosquitoes. We chatted over a drink and hors d'oeuvres from 7:30 until twilight fell, and then sat down to a simple dinner of pork roasted with vegetables, and grilled zucchini and tomatoes. Spanish recipes, my friend assured me, and we were definitely eating at Spanish time, which the two of us cannot normally manage. Suddenly we noticed that the clock stood at almost midnight, and we had no idea of how it had gotten that late.
Yesterday we skipped our usual Sunday Zoco market--the one close enough to us that we could walk to it but never do because we don't know how much we might buy and have to carry home--and went instead to the "lemon market," which involves a drive down Lemon Tree Road toward the town of Guardamar. It is much larger and some say "more Spanish" than the Zoco. Maybe so, and we certainly noticed that the prices of produce were far cheaper than at the Zoco. But that may be because we are in the midst of the plenitude of summer, and they were almost giving away tomatoes and plums, and even the grapes were less costly than usual. I was amused by a man demonstrating a wonderful fruit and vegetable slicer with three different blades--and could understand the "as seen on TV" promotion in Spanish even though I didn't catch every single word. The utensil would have been perfect for our lunchtime salads and would not even have taken up very much storage space, but the price, which of course only comes out at the end, after tons of vegetable slices and curls have piled up in front of him, was "only" 25 euros.
After such a demonstration we just needed to sit down for a cup of café con leche, but we weren't able to find a place for a tostada at this "more Spanish" market. Instead we settled at one of the many "English breakfast" establishments, where we indulged in English bacon, sausage, an egg, toast, tomato, and an enormous cup of tea. Coffee would have been extra, so why not do as the "natives" do?
And that is multicultural Spain as I know it.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Sunday in Spanish New Orleans
This is the first Sunday I've spent in Spain in over a month; I've been back in the U.S. for one of my twice-yearly visits, this one anchored by the annual meeting of the American Library Association (ALA) in New Orleans. As usual, the ALA convention was busy and productive, and as usual, New Orleans was fun and interesting. It was my second visit to New Orleans since I have been living in Spain, and I remembered previously stumbling onto the Spanish Plaza there, a beautiful gathering place with a typical Spanish fountain, surrounded by gorgeous tiles depicting the official seals of each of Spain's autonomous regions. The plaza was dedicated by Spain to the city of New Orleans in 1976 in recognition of their shared past and with a pledge of fraternity in the future.
This time as I wandered in the French Quarter (well, as I headed out for beignets and shopping in Jackson Square) I took more note of the ceramic tiles on many streets announcing that "When New Orleans was the Capital of the Spanish Province of Luisiana 1762-1803 This street bore the name" ... Calle Real, for example. I knew that New Orleans had been first French, then Spanish, and then French again before it came into the United States as a part of the Louisiana Purchase. What I didn't realize was just how short a period of time the second French period had been.
Thanks to a lovely reception sponsored by Oxford University Press in The Cabildo, a key site of the Louisiana State Museum, I had the opportunity to spend a Sunday evening perusing historical artifacts in various museum rooms. The Cabildo served as the town hall and its Sala Capitular was the site for the formalization of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. I was struck by historical descriptions that said that in this room the colony was transferred from Spain to France on November 30, 1803 and then from France to the United States on December 20, 1803. Just twenty days later!
Why the hurry? Did Spain know that France was going to turn around and re-sell the territory immediately, and to the U.S.? Did France know at the time of purchase that it would divest itself of this land so soon? What had happened to cause this dual transfer? And where was I back in my U.S. history classes many years ago to miss out on what sounds now like a scandal or a coup?
Explanations within the Cabildo were nonexistent, but now I've had the time to do some research, and Wikipedia and the Cabildo websites offer more explanation. It seems that the November 1803 transfer was just a formality and that the territory had really been in French hands, though secretly, since the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso three years earlier. It's a tale of intrigue, power, and negotiation, with Napoleon, a kingship in the Italian peninsula, the fall of Haiti, and the creation of a counter-power to England.
To find out more, read Wikipedia on the 1803 Louisiana Purchase and the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800. Yale Law School's Avalon Project has Hunter Miller's Notes on the Louisiana Purchase, together with English translations of the original documents
This time as I wandered in the French Quarter (well, as I headed out for beignets and shopping in Jackson Square) I took more note of the ceramic tiles on many streets announcing that "When New Orleans was the Capital of the Spanish Province of Luisiana 1762-1803 This street bore the name" ... Calle Real, for example. I knew that New Orleans had been first French, then Spanish, and then French again before it came into the United States as a part of the Louisiana Purchase. What I didn't realize was just how short a period of time the second French period had been.
Thanks to a lovely reception sponsored by Oxford University Press in The Cabildo, a key site of the Louisiana State Museum, I had the opportunity to spend a Sunday evening perusing historical artifacts in various museum rooms. The Cabildo served as the town hall and its Sala Capitular was the site for the formalization of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. I was struck by historical descriptions that said that in this room the colony was transferred from Spain to France on November 30, 1803 and then from France to the United States on December 20, 1803. Just twenty days later!
Why the hurry? Did Spain know that France was going to turn around and re-sell the territory immediately, and to the U.S.? Did France know at the time of purchase that it would divest itself of this land so soon? What had happened to cause this dual transfer? And where was I back in my U.S. history classes many years ago to miss out on what sounds now like a scandal or a coup?
Explanations within the Cabildo were nonexistent, but now I've had the time to do some research, and Wikipedia and the Cabildo websites offer more explanation. It seems that the November 1803 transfer was just a formality and that the territory had really been in French hands, though secretly, since the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso three years earlier. It's a tale of intrigue, power, and negotiation, with Napoleon, a kingship in the Italian peninsula, the fall of Haiti, and the creation of a counter-power to England.
To find out more, read Wikipedia on the 1803 Louisiana Purchase and the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800. Yale Law School's Avalon Project has Hunter Miller's Notes on the Louisiana Purchase, together with English translations of the original documents
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Helping Lorca, and Lessons in Philanthropy
The two earthquakes that hit Lorca on May 11 have passed from the headlines, but we still think about what is happening in this city and how it is rebuilding itself. We were reminded of Lorca in a very clever way this past week when we did our customary monthly banking. So far Spain seems to have escaped the frenetic bank mergers that the U.S. and other countries have experienced over the past decade, and for reasons that I will not detail, we have accounts in three or four different banks. It is not at all difficult to pass six or seven or even more banks while walking a single block in the commercial areas close to us.
So last Monday, according to our monthly ritual, we went first to the bank up the hill to pull money out of "his"account, and then we stopped at one half-way down the hill to press the buttons and collect a little more cash from "her" cajero. Then we proceeded quickly to the bank that assisted us with our house purchase and where we maintain a joint account for regular monthly expenses. Spain is still a cash economy in some ways, so we placed our accumulated euros and the bank book on the counter and waited while the teller performed the usual paperwork. Part of that paperwork involves bringing the bank book up to date with the previous month's automatic deductions, which is done by sliding the open book all the way into a machine; the machine pulls the figures and notations from its wide-ranging memory and puts it all down in neat rows in the book, even automatically turning the page of the book inside the machine when necessary.
It was while we were waiting that we noticed the strategically placed poster, asking us to donate money to the Cruz Roja, Spain's Red Cross, for the recuperation of Lorca. This was not a small round container with a slit on the top in which we could slip a few coins--it was a paper form with the bank account number to which we could easily--now that we were in the bank and knew exactly how much money we had--make a transfer from our account to theirs. It took no time at all for us to decide to give and for the bank teller to process that paperwork, and we gave much nore than we would have if someone had come to the door.
Now we have read in several sources that Lorca is taking another step toward its own recovery. Its office of tourism has opened a "tourist route" in town for visitors to see its historical spots from many centuries, many of which suffered severe damage, and also to see the progress toward restoration. Lorca's second annual Medieval Market took place as usual the second week of June, and a previously scheduled professional trade show for rural tourism will still use its planned Lorca venue this coming week. So a little later this summer, after I am finished with travels farther afield, I intend to visit Lorca and follow the tourist trail to see its historical sites, but even more to see the effects of the earthquakes and what is being done to recover. As the head of the tourist office says, it is a unique opportunity to see how the forces of nature can touch the lives of the people and the history of a city, and to continue helping by coming to visit, spending money, and securing jobs.
So last Monday, according to our monthly ritual, we went first to the bank up the hill to pull money out of "his"account, and then we stopped at one half-way down the hill to press the buttons and collect a little more cash from "her" cajero. Then we proceeded quickly to the bank that assisted us with our house purchase and where we maintain a joint account for regular monthly expenses. Spain is still a cash economy in some ways, so we placed our accumulated euros and the bank book on the counter and waited while the teller performed the usual paperwork. Part of that paperwork involves bringing the bank book up to date with the previous month's automatic deductions, which is done by sliding the open book all the way into a machine; the machine pulls the figures and notations from its wide-ranging memory and puts it all down in neat rows in the book, even automatically turning the page of the book inside the machine when necessary.
It was while we were waiting that we noticed the strategically placed poster, asking us to donate money to the Cruz Roja, Spain's Red Cross, for the recuperation of Lorca. This was not a small round container with a slit on the top in which we could slip a few coins--it was a paper form with the bank account number to which we could easily--now that we were in the bank and knew exactly how much money we had--make a transfer from our account to theirs. It took no time at all for us to decide to give and for the bank teller to process that paperwork, and we gave much nore than we would have if someone had come to the door.
Now we have read in several sources that Lorca is taking another step toward its own recovery. Its office of tourism has opened a "tourist route" in town for visitors to see its historical spots from many centuries, many of which suffered severe damage, and also to see the progress toward restoration. Lorca's second annual Medieval Market took place as usual the second week of June, and a previously scheduled professional trade show for rural tourism will still use its planned Lorca venue this coming week. So a little later this summer, after I am finished with travels farther afield, I intend to visit Lorca and follow the tourist trail to see its historical sites, but even more to see the effects of the earthquakes and what is being done to recover. As the head of the tourist office says, it is a unique opportunity to see how the forces of nature can touch the lives of the people and the history of a city, and to continue helping by coming to visit, spending money, and securing jobs.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Less Than 36 Hours in Madrid
A certain major U.S. newspaper is known for its travel stories with advice for passing a quick but action-packed weekend in world cities. Sad to say, my trips to Madrid are usually less than the 36 hours in length described by the New York Times in this series. I have been to Spain's capital probably ten times since moving to the country, but with one exception--a four-night meeting and reunion with three of Johannes' Danish engineering college classmates and their wives in 2009--all my trips to Madrid have been connected in one way or another with an airport. There have been few opportunities for sight-seeing.
In the early days, when I traveled twice a year back to the U.S., it was not possible to make the trip without spending a night in Madrid or in London. That's why I found myself one January 5 in the center of Madrid on the last shopping night before Three Kings' Day, when Spanish children get their Christmas presents. The main department store, El Corte Ingles, was open until midnight, and we watched the parade and fireworks on TV after we made our way through the crowded streets to our center-city hotel. The midnight shopping trip and parade were the memorable events from that Madrid trip.
Since then. most Madrid airport trips have been to fetch visitors from the airport or take them back for their trips across the Atlantic. Since transatlantic flights almost invariably land here in the early hours of the morning, we usually book a hotel room close to Barajas airport so we can be at the door letting passengers out from the baggage area at 6:00 or so in the morning. My longest airport trip occurred when we made the six-hour drive from Roquetas to Madrid to pick up my mother one winter day and were awakened from our fitful sleep a few hours before her scheduled arrival with the news that her flight had been cancelled due to bad weather, she was somewhere around Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and she would "probably" arrive on the next day's early morning flight. That flight delay gave us an unexpected 24 hours in Madrid, and I saw the Prado.
Last year I took the train from Alicante to Madrid to spend an overnight with an American friend who had a 24-hour layover on her way from Morocco to Washington, DC. Together we had a very enjoyable respite and saw several attractions, though not those recommended by the 36 Hours article.
But over the years, most Madrid airport trips have not leant themselves to exploring Madrid or even the environs of Barajas, the suburb that is home to its four airport terminals. We generally drive instead of taking the train, because who wants to lose money on return train tickets if the plane one is meeting is delayed? We start out the day before, find our way through the exasperating Madrid traffic, check into a hotel, and try to find something to eat nearby at a shopping center, because real restaurants are not open for dinner early enough for us to get enough sleep before we need to be up at 4:30 or 5:00 AM.
When we picked up our latest visitor last month, our trip was improved, even though we still did not do any sight-seeing. Gloria Pèrez Sànchez, the lady who lives inside the GPS, got us to our new hotel in record time, with no wrong turns and no frustration. A large shopping center was a short walk away, and we found what we wanted to eat and browsed a bit before returning to an early night in the sack. Breakfast was, of course, not available next morning prior to our 6:00 AM free shuttle ride to the airport, and Spanish hotels do not have coffee service in the rooms. But there was a coffee machine in the lobby! The plane came in on time, and our passenger and her luggage were on it. We took the free transportation back to the airport, rested, and were soon on our way for the four-hour drive home.
Taking this guest back for her midnight flight to Buenos Aires last Thursday, we booked the same hotel so that we could climb into bed after she was swallowed up by the security gates at 10:00 PM, and we took the train from Alicante to Madrid to provide a little variation in scenery. It is relatively easy to use the metro in Madrid to go from Atocha station, where the train comes in, to the Barajas terminals, though it does take two transfers and it was a good thing that we had three people to manage the six pieces of luggage (only one of which would be returning to Alicante). Our plan was to go to the airport by metro and take the hotel transportation back to the hotel, where we would find something to eat at that convenient shopping center, and then return to the airport for the flight check-in. Unfortunately when we walked into the terminal at 5:00 PM, we learned that there was a 95% chance that the midnight flight would be cancelled: the ash cloud from the Puyehue Chilean volcano was settling over Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires.
Yes, we had read the reports and had monitored the situation as best we could, and when we had left our house at 10:00 AM, there was no reason to expect that the flight would not go off. But something had happened during Thursday our time, and now there was nothing to do but hope. We were tired and did not want to wait for the hotel shuttle. So we piled into a taxi and headed for the hotel. A longer-than-expected ride later, we pulled up in front of the AC Feria, which was not the hotel that we asked for: the Axor Feria. An understandable error, but the driver was not happy. Nor were we. The driver muttered, and I heard Spanish words that I had only read in books, and not very good books at that.
We did get to the Axor and explained that we may turn out to be three people instead of the intended two in the reservation. They were most accommodating. We used the free wireless connection to get as much information as we could, and to send messages to those waiting in Argentina. We walked to the shopping center. We had dinner. We walked back to the hotel, collected the luggage, and went to the airport. The flight was indeed cancelled. Although the European Union has established strict rules about compensation and emergency arrangements for travelers when flights are cancelled, those rules do not apply in cases of unforeseen and uncontrollable meteorological problems, or "acts of God," as I translate the clause on which Air Europa was basing its actions.
We received a tentative reservation for Monday evening, four days hence, with a phone number to call on Sunday to confirm that the flight would go through--if it did not leave as scheduled after that confirmation, the cancellation arrangements would be enforced, and a hotel would be supplied. We returned to our hotel and phoned Renfe to add another ticket to the two return fares for Friday noon. No way, Jose. While the Thursday afternoon train to Madrid had been half empty, there were virtually no places available on the train from Madrid to the coast on a summer Friday afternoon. So we were up before dawn--at 5:30, I believe--to get a cab to the Renfe station, and by 7:00 we had gotten a credit on our two afternoon tickets and bought three for the morning train, which left at 7:20.
By noontime--26 hours after leaving the day before--we had retrieved our car at the Alicante train station and were back home in our Montebello house, adjusting to the four-day vacation extension and hoping for strong winds in the southern hemisphere to move the volcanic ash out of Buenos Aires.
We have just made the phone call and been told that the Monday midnight departure is scheduled sin problemas. We have reserved our now favorite hotel for Monday night, for two persons. We are driving instead of taking the train, trusting Gloria to get us to the hotel, and the hotel to get us to the airport. And we are hoping for an uneventful trip and less than 36 hours in Madrid.
In the early days, when I traveled twice a year back to the U.S., it was not possible to make the trip without spending a night in Madrid or in London. That's why I found myself one January 5 in the center of Madrid on the last shopping night before Three Kings' Day, when Spanish children get their Christmas presents. The main department store, El Corte Ingles, was open until midnight, and we watched the parade and fireworks on TV after we made our way through the crowded streets to our center-city hotel. The midnight shopping trip and parade were the memorable events from that Madrid trip.
Since then. most Madrid airport trips have been to fetch visitors from the airport or take them back for their trips across the Atlantic. Since transatlantic flights almost invariably land here in the early hours of the morning, we usually book a hotel room close to Barajas airport so we can be at the door letting passengers out from the baggage area at 6:00 or so in the morning. My longest airport trip occurred when we made the six-hour drive from Roquetas to Madrid to pick up my mother one winter day and were awakened from our fitful sleep a few hours before her scheduled arrival with the news that her flight had been cancelled due to bad weather, she was somewhere around Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and she would "probably" arrive on the next day's early morning flight. That flight delay gave us an unexpected 24 hours in Madrid, and I saw the Prado.
Last year I took the train from Alicante to Madrid to spend an overnight with an American friend who had a 24-hour layover on her way from Morocco to Washington, DC. Together we had a very enjoyable respite and saw several attractions, though not those recommended by the 36 Hours article.
But over the years, most Madrid airport trips have not leant themselves to exploring Madrid or even the environs of Barajas, the suburb that is home to its four airport terminals. We generally drive instead of taking the train, because who wants to lose money on return train tickets if the plane one is meeting is delayed? We start out the day before, find our way through the exasperating Madrid traffic, check into a hotel, and try to find something to eat nearby at a shopping center, because real restaurants are not open for dinner early enough for us to get enough sleep before we need to be up at 4:30 or 5:00 AM.
When we picked up our latest visitor last month, our trip was improved, even though we still did not do any sight-seeing. Gloria Pèrez Sànchez, the lady who lives inside the GPS, got us to our new hotel in record time, with no wrong turns and no frustration. A large shopping center was a short walk away, and we found what we wanted to eat and browsed a bit before returning to an early night in the sack. Breakfast was, of course, not available next morning prior to our 6:00 AM free shuttle ride to the airport, and Spanish hotels do not have coffee service in the rooms. But there was a coffee machine in the lobby! The plane came in on time, and our passenger and her luggage were on it. We took the free transportation back to the airport, rested, and were soon on our way for the four-hour drive home.
Taking this guest back for her midnight flight to Buenos Aires last Thursday, we booked the same hotel so that we could climb into bed after she was swallowed up by the security gates at 10:00 PM, and we took the train from Alicante to Madrid to provide a little variation in scenery. It is relatively easy to use the metro in Madrid to go from Atocha station, where the train comes in, to the Barajas terminals, though it does take two transfers and it was a good thing that we had three people to manage the six pieces of luggage (only one of which would be returning to Alicante). Our plan was to go to the airport by metro and take the hotel transportation back to the hotel, where we would find something to eat at that convenient shopping center, and then return to the airport for the flight check-in. Unfortunately when we walked into the terminal at 5:00 PM, we learned that there was a 95% chance that the midnight flight would be cancelled: the ash cloud from the Puyehue Chilean volcano was settling over Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires.
Yes, we had read the reports and had monitored the situation as best we could, and when we had left our house at 10:00 AM, there was no reason to expect that the flight would not go off. But something had happened during Thursday our time, and now there was nothing to do but hope. We were tired and did not want to wait for the hotel shuttle. So we piled into a taxi and headed for the hotel. A longer-than-expected ride later, we pulled up in front of the AC Feria, which was not the hotel that we asked for: the Axor Feria. An understandable error, but the driver was not happy. Nor were we. The driver muttered, and I heard Spanish words that I had only read in books, and not very good books at that.
We did get to the Axor and explained that we may turn out to be three people instead of the intended two in the reservation. They were most accommodating. We used the free wireless connection to get as much information as we could, and to send messages to those waiting in Argentina. We walked to the shopping center. We had dinner. We walked back to the hotel, collected the luggage, and went to the airport. The flight was indeed cancelled. Although the European Union has established strict rules about compensation and emergency arrangements for travelers when flights are cancelled, those rules do not apply in cases of unforeseen and uncontrollable meteorological problems, or "acts of God," as I translate the clause on which Air Europa was basing its actions.
We received a tentative reservation for Monday evening, four days hence, with a phone number to call on Sunday to confirm that the flight would go through--if it did not leave as scheduled after that confirmation, the cancellation arrangements would be enforced, and a hotel would be supplied. We returned to our hotel and phoned Renfe to add another ticket to the two return fares for Friday noon. No way, Jose. While the Thursday afternoon train to Madrid had been half empty, there were virtually no places available on the train from Madrid to the coast on a summer Friday afternoon. So we were up before dawn--at 5:30, I believe--to get a cab to the Renfe station, and by 7:00 we had gotten a credit on our two afternoon tickets and bought three for the morning train, which left at 7:20.
By noontime--26 hours after leaving the day before--we had retrieved our car at the Alicante train station and were back home in our Montebello house, adjusting to the four-day vacation extension and hoping for strong winds in the southern hemisphere to move the volcanic ash out of Buenos Aires.
We have just made the phone call and been told that the Monday midnight departure is scheduled sin problemas. We have reserved our now favorite hotel for Monday night, for two persons. We are driving instead of taking the train, trusting Gloria to get us to the hotel, and the hotel to get us to the airport. And we are hoping for an uneventful trip and less than 36 hours in Madrid.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Agurketid and the Media
Agurketid is a Danish word that denotes the boring and inconsequential television programming that often sprouts in midsummer, when everyone is on vacation, but the airwaves still need to be filled with something. Literally, agurketid means "cucumber time." So it is fitting that we were in Denmark when we first heard reports that killer cucumbers from Spain had infected several people in northern Germany with E.coli bacteria.
I have to admit that initially I was glad to be out of Spain and in a place where I could still comfortably indulge in cucumber salad such as the one I had enjoyed just one or two days previously with friends from Tåsinge, an island in the south of Denmark. But then I remembered that we were not very far from northern Germany and that Denmark, like Germany, gets a lot of fresh produce from Spain. And the reports got worse. Soon cucumbers from Holland were also suspect, and then it wasn't just cucumbers, but tomatoes, and lettuce, and--according to some reports--any fresh vegetable.
By this time we had moved on to Warsaw and the only news reports we could understand were from CNN. Perhaps the Polish news was not reporting on the cucumber story, or not taking the danger seriously, or not being as alarmist as some media outlets, because at our first evening dinner in Warsaw, while we waited for some elegant entrees, we were offered complimentary appetizers, one of which was a spread of white cheese on huge slabs of raw cucumber. (I declined, but my friends and family know that it was the cheese, not the cucumbers, that turned me off.) A couple days later, I enjoyed a lunchtime green salad of mixed vegtables, and I continued to eat raw vegetables in moderation.
The agurk problem kept on spreading, affecting people in other countries (though almost all were reported to have visited northern Germany recently) and the story escalated. We were, of course, aware of the economic impact on farmers in Spain, where people are already suffering severely from the financial crisis. Soon reports began saying that Spanish cucumbers were not to blame. Now Germany is promising financial compensation to Spain for its premature and erroneous accusations, but how much money will trickle down to the individual farmers? And the cultural cracks between countries in the European Union are surfacing again.
I'm back in Spain. One of the first things I had to do was to buy fresh fruits and vegetables for our lunchtime salads. I filled my shopping cart with iceberg lettuce, spinach, multi-colored peppers, carrots, mushrooms, and a pepino holandés, as the long, thin cucumbers are called here. We are once again enjoying a little agurketid.
But the TV pictures of European farmers sweeping unsellable cucumbers into dumps are still disturbing. The Perishable Pundit has a good report on the serious consequences and causes of this agurketid, which has been anything but boring and inconsequential.
I have to admit that initially I was glad to be out of Spain and in a place where I could still comfortably indulge in cucumber salad such as the one I had enjoyed just one or two days previously with friends from Tåsinge, an island in the south of Denmark. But then I remembered that we were not very far from northern Germany and that Denmark, like Germany, gets a lot of fresh produce from Spain. And the reports got worse. Soon cucumbers from Holland were also suspect, and then it wasn't just cucumbers, but tomatoes, and lettuce, and--according to some reports--any fresh vegetable.
By this time we had moved on to Warsaw and the only news reports we could understand were from CNN. Perhaps the Polish news was not reporting on the cucumber story, or not taking the danger seriously, or not being as alarmist as some media outlets, because at our first evening dinner in Warsaw, while we waited for some elegant entrees, we were offered complimentary appetizers, one of which was a spread of white cheese on huge slabs of raw cucumber. (I declined, but my friends and family know that it was the cheese, not the cucumbers, that turned me off.) A couple days later, I enjoyed a lunchtime green salad of mixed vegtables, and I continued to eat raw vegetables in moderation.
The agurk problem kept on spreading, affecting people in other countries (though almost all were reported to have visited northern Germany recently) and the story escalated. We were, of course, aware of the economic impact on farmers in Spain, where people are already suffering severely from the financial crisis. Soon reports began saying that Spanish cucumbers were not to blame. Now Germany is promising financial compensation to Spain for its premature and erroneous accusations, but how much money will trickle down to the individual farmers? And the cultural cracks between countries in the European Union are surfacing again.
I'm back in Spain. One of the first things I had to do was to buy fresh fruits and vegetables for our lunchtime salads. I filled my shopping cart with iceberg lettuce, spinach, multi-colored peppers, carrots, mushrooms, and a pepino holandés, as the long, thin cucumbers are called here. We are once again enjoying a little agurketid.
But the TV pictures of European farmers sweeping unsellable cucumbers into dumps are still disturbing. The Perishable Pundit has a good report on the serious consequences and causes of this agurketid, which has been anything but boring and inconsequential.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Homecoming
After two weeks away on vacation in Denmark and Poland, I am once again spending Sunday in Spain. The day started early. I woke up at 3:15 AM in Copenhagen to check in at 4:30 for a 6:30 AM flight from Copenhagen to Alicante. Never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed how many people are up and about, moving through an airport on a Sunday morning in the wee hours. Of course we were out of our hotel before the complimentary breakfast buffet started, but we did snatch a cup of coffee in the lobby as we waited for our taxi to the airport. Once at CPH, we used the automatic self-check-in machines and then, after some difficulty, found the right station in which to drop our luggage. There were long lines at both the baggage drop and the security control. Once inside security we stopped again for a fresh fruit salad and made it to our gate just in time to walk directly onto the plane, with no waiting.
The three-hour flight went by quickly. The Norwegian Air Shuttle managed to fill the time with the sale of a Breakfast Box (coffee, orange juice, cheese sandwich, and two chewable Omega-3 tablets) and a movie that ran in complete silence, with Danish subtitles. Fortunately I had already seen The King's Speech, and wondered at the time what it would have been like to hear it with the Spanish dubbing that is the rule in Spain. This version had no sound at all, very effectively rendering the king speechless. The subtitles showed almost no indication of the stuttering heard in the real film. The only time that the text indicated a stutter was when Edward taunted his brother as B-B-B-Bertie. For those who had not previously seen and heard The King's Speech, this speechless version must have been confusing indeed.
We landed right on time at 9:40 AM, and had a pleasant drive home through sunny citrus orchards and surprisingly cool air. I have spent the very long day reading email, unpacking, and creating something edible from the contents of my freezer and pantry. It is delightful to get settled again after two weeks of travel. I'm off now to finish reading the last chapter of the novel for my Spanish lesson tomotrow, and then I will be back into a welcome daily routine.
The three-hour flight went by quickly. The Norwegian Air Shuttle managed to fill the time with the sale of a Breakfast Box (coffee, orange juice, cheese sandwich, and two chewable Omega-3 tablets) and a movie that ran in complete silence, with Danish subtitles. Fortunately I had already seen The King's Speech, and wondered at the time what it would have been like to hear it with the Spanish dubbing that is the rule in Spain. This version had no sound at all, very effectively rendering the king speechless. The subtitles showed almost no indication of the stuttering heard in the real film. The only time that the text indicated a stutter was when Edward taunted his brother as B-B-B-Bertie. For those who had not previously seen and heard The King's Speech, this speechless version must have been confusing indeed.
We landed right on time at 9:40 AM, and had a pleasant drive home through sunny citrus orchards and surprisingly cool air. I have spent the very long day reading email, unpacking, and creating something edible from the contents of my freezer and pantry. It is delightful to get settled again after two weeks of travel. I'm off now to finish reading the last chapter of the novel for my Spanish lesson tomotrow, and then I will be back into a welcome daily routine.
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