Overnight in Madrid

We made an overnight trip to Madrid this week, just for the purpose of picking up a new passport at the Danish embassy and then leaving it, together with my own new passport, at the Vietnamese embassy. They needed these to process our visa application for the trip we have planned in late August following the World Library and Information Conference of IFLA in Singapore. Our train left from Alicante just after noontime on Thursday and we arrived in Madrid's Atoche Renfe station at 3:15. Amazingly we managed to catch the underground metro mass transit to Serrano station and get into the Danish embassy before 4:00. It took about a half hour there and then we were back in the metro to Santiago Bernabeû station. When we came up to the surface I saw a huge structure. If I were a sports fan I would have known earlier that we were headed for the stadium where Real Madrid plays. I am not a big fan of professional soccer, but even I can recognize an important landmark like this one. There were several groups of people in the green median on one side, photographing themselves and their friends. We could have stopped and spent time there, but we had to walk a few blocks to the Vietnamese embassy, and they were staying open a little late just for us.

We found the embassy after having walked the full length of two sides of the stadium and then three or four more blocks, up a hill. The business didn't take long, and when we were finished, moving on toward 6:00, we stopped finally to catch our breath and rest with a cold drink and a small montadito sandwich at a café back toward the stadium and station. Then it was back underground for yet another metro ride to the hotel, more correctly the hostel, where we had reserved a room. As we made our way through a couple subway connections we realized with glee that we had absolutely nothing else that we had to do before our return train left at 2:00 the next afternoon.

Every time we go to Madrid we stay in a different section of the city, depending on where we need to be in this huge metropolis and what Booking.com has on offer. This time we got off the metro at Sevilla station, one stop past Puerta del Sol, the Times Square of Spain. We walked south and realized soon that we were in a very old part of Madrid. Many of the buildings along the very narrow streets had intricate ceramic tile designs at their gates, and even the street signs were ceramic. We found the small hostel after passing right by it the first time, so intent were we on observing the various restaurants we passed by, wondering whether we should have an Indian or Peruvian meal later on this evening.

For that is always the issue with us when eating dinner out in Spain. Just how late would we have to wait for the restaurant to open its doors for the evening cena? Since many people work until 9:00 it is no at all uncommon for a restaurant's kitchen to be unavailable for hot meals until 8:30. On occasion we have observed that a place may open at 8:30, and in very extraordinary circumstances, 8:00. After checking in and finding our room,  I spent an hour browsing Maps on the iPad in search of what was interesting, within easy walking distance, and opened early.

When we left our room at a little after 8:00 it was still light and pleasantly warm outdoors and we stepped into a bustling evening world. I had despaired of finding a convenience mart in his old part of the city, but on the first corner we spied a cellar store and popped in to buy water and a little wine to take back to the hotel. But, revitalized now, we continued walking among throngs of people of all ages out enjoying the early spring evening--hundreds at sidewalk cafes or, like us, moving along the streets to do some end-of-day shopping or to meet someone. We sauntered through several blocks, pausing on occasion to check a menu--I had decided by now that I didn't want much to eat--not one of those voluminous three course Spanish evening meals--but I wanted something hot. Pizza would do, so would soup. Trying to decide among a huge selection of tapas would be too much trouble.

Finally we found ourselves on Calle de las Huertas, Orchard Street would be the direct translation, though I think first of a garden of vegetables (hortalizas) rather than fruit trees when I hear the word huerta. And I found vegetables. The picturesque brick-walled restaurant that we wandered into after seeing pasta on the menu posted outside the open doorway was full of people at the bar but had no one else in the dining area. It was, after all, not yet 9:00. Johannes had the pasta, but I spied a vegetable wok dish listed as one of the house specialties. In meat-heavy Spain, this may have been designed as a family side dish accompaniment to more protein-heavy entrees, but I had it alone, with just a small glass of warm soy sauce for dunking. My hortalizas on Calle de la Huerta included long thin slices of peppers in three shades, onions, mushroom, carrots and green beans, at least, all stir-fried to perfection, still crunchy. It was delicious, and I felt satisfied and virtuous--at least until the excellent bread came when I was almost finished--then the virtuous feeling disappeared, though satisfaction did not.

During our entire supper we were entertained with the sound of a street music duo just outside the open door, a young woman playing oboe and a young man playing a trombone. Their selections were eclectic and lively, some jazz, some klezmer, some haunting, some indescribable. We talked with them when we left the restaurant. He is from France, she from some country that we did not find out in Africa. They are two-thirds of a group called Conchindon (the third plays banjo).  They gave us some links, so you can listen and catch the spit, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oK56qMI3ts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=ydSHJ4O75cs&NR=1

They were packing up as we talked, or rather, they looked as though they were packing up, because the police had been by and I guess they didn't have a license to play street music. Indeed if everyone who plays street music in Spain had to pay money for a  license, there might not be a financial crisis going on. On the other hand, if the police really make young, struggling, but enthusiastic musicians keep quiet if they can't afford a license, the city is going to be a much more somber place.

We continued on our way after wishing them well. We meandered back to our hostel, people watching all the way. There were still people in the streets and at cafes, and now in restaurants in large groups having dinner. We had found a delightful part of the city and looked forward to exploring it more in the morning, when it would be equally interesting but not quite so magical.

The Train to Madrid

It's been a long time since we drove to Madrid. Taking the train is so much more relaxed. The train from Alicante to Atocha Renfe station in the center of Madrid takes only 3 hours and 15 minutes, and there are several to choose from throughout the day. You buy a reserved seat, and you travel in comfort, with plenty of leg room and  free auriculares (earphones) to listen to music or watch a movie. Granted, it is invariably a movie in Spanish, also with Spanish subtitulos, and the subtitles are small enough unless you are sitting in the row immediately in front of the screen that they neither help nor hinder. I was sitting halfway back in Coche 4 and together with the distance and the glare from sun pouring in through the window next to my seat, I couldn't see all that well anyway. Still, I take the opportunity to view a dubbed-in-Spanish movie for free as the opportunity to have a Spanish lesson for free, so I followed along in between looking out the window at the passing scenery at beautiful, rolling hills, sometimes revealing freshly plowed terrain.

It's always interesting to guess what the name of the movie is and where it is from. When the language of a movie changes from its original, the title changes, too, and it usually isn't just a direct translation of the original. I had missed the opening credits, too--just looked up from the book I had been reading for my real Spanish class on Monday and noticed that the screen had switched from black with a DVD logo on it to live action, so I switched the dial from the pleasant American jazz I had been listening to in the background. This movie was about baseball, so I suspected it was originally an American movie. I became more sure when I thought I heard some talk about Carolina del Sur, but I don't know of any baseball team in South Carolina. However, at one point I heard the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner, so there was no doubt. I followed the story loosely about a lawyer daughter of an aging man who had been, I gathered, a baseball star earlier in his life, but now was just getting old.

This turned out to be a rather long movie, and we were soon to roll into the end station when the action concluded, without any crescendo, I must say, and the title appeared on the screen: Curvas de la Vida. Now I'm home and I've taken the trouble to use the Internet to find out what it was I saw. To begin with, I hadn't realized that the old thin man I saw in the distance was Clint Eastwood. The movie, in English, is Trouble with the Curve, surprisingly a very recent (2012) film.This review from a Charleston newspaper makes me realize that I missed what was probably the funniest scene in the picture by not seeing the very beginning.

Oh well. I enjoyed practicing my listening skills, and I excuse myself for not recognizing the aging Clint Eastwood from a distance by virtue of the fact that I didn't ever hear his voice--amazing how important the voice is to one's persona, I now think. I also enjoyed the scenery outside the gently rolling train as we made our way through the countryside going toward Madrid, and the sky really was as blue as it shows in the picture above. Next month a high-speed train is supposed to open between Alicante and Madrid--we've seen workers laying tracks and renovating the station for months. It should cut an hour off the trip, and I suppose we will take it once to see what it's like, but I doubt that I will be tempted to pay the assuredly higher price too often. Why do that if it will interfere with my language and film education?

Hotel Amenities

When we first came to Spain, almost ten years ago, we almost always stayed at three- or four-star hotels when we traveled within the country. Even though I have enjoyed many nice hotels in the United States, usually during professional conferences, I was impressed. There was often a huge hot and cold buffet breakfast included, and the amenities in the bathroom did not end with miniature bottles of  shampoo, conditioner, and hand lotion, but also included individual packages of a toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving kits, shoe horns, combs, packs of pañuelos (paper handkerchiefs) and make-up removal cloths. There was a lovely system then, whereby you went to the nearest travel agency, paid 40 or 50 euros up front, and the agency secured your night's stay at a luxury hotel and gave you a voucher to present upon check-in, which, for some reason had to be by 6:00 PM. I think now it was a development plan to help subsidize both the travel agents and the hotels. At any rate, it doesn't seem to exist any more, a casualty, no doubt, of "the crisis" and the widespread use of the Internet. Why go to a travel agent to book a hotel when you have Booking.com and TripAdvisor?

So now we choose our hotel on the Internet, but that is not all that has changed. Prices have gone up considerably. The bountiful breakfast is less bountiful now, and usually it is an added charge--but that's not bad because it's better for the budget and the waistline to go to the nearest café and get a café con leche and a tostada for two or three euros. The amenities are not quite as plentiful or varied as they were in the past, either.

Our requirements now are simply to find lodging in a location that is convenient to get to, regardless of our mode of transportation (which now is often train rather than car) and convenient to where we are going (the airport, embassies, a cultural event, whatever). Location, price, and free wi-fi in the room are the three things we look for now. Lately we have been trying a type of lodging that has always been around, but we had overlooked it: the hostal. The hostal, hostel in English, has improved since the days of congregate dorm-type rooms of our youth. In most hostels one can still rent a bed in a dormitory with a shared bath down the hall, I guess, but you can also rent a private room with its own en-suite bath, a flat-screen TV, air conditioning, and, most importantly, free in-room Internet access. In Spain as in the U.S., it seems that the lower the price of the room, the higher the chance of free access, whereas the higher the price of the room, the more you will be expected to pay for this everyday utility.

This overnight in Madrid we stayed in our third hostal--we used one in Barcelona at Christmas, and another one, in a different part of the city, when we were in Madrid earlier this spring. Both had been perfectly adequate, and this one was, too, especially for 50 euros in the center of the city. It was a large room in an older building, but it had been totally and rather artistically renovated. There was a toilet in a separate room that may have formerly been a closet, a shower (no bathtub) in a different separate "closet," and a sink in the room itself. But there were two large beds with good mattresses and comforters with beautiful and perfectly ironed white covers, both overlooked by a Picasso self-portrait reproduced on the wall, a funky full-length mirror, nice and easily manipulated persiana blinds on the two wide windows, the flat-screen TV, and a view of the fire escape when the blinds were open--but it was a view of a purple-painted fire escape. Then, too, this was as green as any hotel/hostel I have been in. A sign on the wall gave ten tips for sustainability, and they weren't just "throw your towel on the floor if you want a new one; hang it up if you will use it again" in ten languages. Did it even mention saving water? It didn't need to, because the shower stayed on for only ten seconds, though you could then push the handle again and again, as many times as you wanted, but each time you could feel guilty about using water.

Amenities were few--and far between, as one would expect with separate toilet, shower, and hand-wash facilities. If fact, there were none of the usual or formerly usual amenities. Soap and shampoo were provided from a dispenser in the shower room. There wasn't even a hair dryer (waste of electricity, probably). But there was one amenity that I had never had provided in a hotel before. When I went to hide my iPad under the pillow on my bed prior to going out for dinner, I found a soft cloth bag hanging from the rung of the bed frame. Upon inspection, I discovered that it held a tiny package--one handily placed condom.

There was a bag on the other side of the bed, too.

April Showers

The trumpet flower plant, a week ago, before the rains.
© Johannes Bjorner 2013

I woke this Sunday in Spain to the pitter-patter of rain on the rooftop. It was the fourth consecutive day of rain. I don't remember any other time here in which it has rained so long.

Not that it has rained continuously throughout the four days, but it has rained every single one of them, and the feeling and experience of rain has permeated the days. It started late Wednesday, as we were in the midst of our third and final game of petanca, nearing 7:00 in the  evening. The wind was strong and the clouds were darkening. It rained that night, but nevertheless I got up the next morning and put in a load of laundry, because I had managed to stain both my white pirate pants and my favorite white pullover (100% cotton, made in Denmark but purchased years ago at Garnet Hill in Franconia, New Hampshire) with tomato sauce the night before when I was making dinner. By the time the washing machine was done, the clouds were spewing forth with water again.

Friday morning promptly at 5:00 I was awakened with a horrendous clap of thunder, pouring rain, and noisy winds, but it cleared enough by 10:30 that we were able to sit outdoors comfortably in Los Montesinos for the Fourth Friday coffee hour of the tiny American community that we go to each month. By afternoon we had had more rain, more sun, and then more rain, so that Friday afternoon petanca was cancelled. Saturday morning was also gray and wet. By now I had rescued the whitened laundry that I had hung on the outside line and which had experienced at least two extra rinses, and brought it inside to dry. Then, of course, it cleared again and we took advantage of the day to run out to Quesada to buy some birthday cards, wrapping paper, and have a cup of coffee at the Halfway House. It rained much of the afternoon, but I didn't feel bad about that, because I have a big writing project that I wanted to work on, and if you have to be inside on a weekend day, it might as well be raining. This morning I still had words to write, so I didn't object too much when I heard the rain on the rooftop, though it did mean that I wouldn't go to the outdoor market and purchase the week's supply of fruits, vegetables, and frutos secos. Very often, when the weather is gray in the morning, it clears up by 4:00 in the afternoon, so I just planned to work until the sun came out and then we could go out and enjoy what probably would be a brief respite from our cabin fever.

Sure enough, at 3:51 I noticed that the sun was pouring in my office window. It didn't take much longer before we were out the door--but where to? Stores and shopping malls are not open on Sundays, the outdoor market had long since closed, we did not want a late Sunday dinner in a restaurant. So we drove to Los Montesinos, ten minutes or so away, and found that the metal tables and chairs were sitting out front of El Tambalache bar just as you enter town. I thought it was still too cold to sit at a sidewalk table, so we went inside and enjoyed the ambiance of a neighborhood bar on Sunday afternoon. Five or six men were talking noisily at the bar among themselves and the two men who were standing outside at the pass-through window. A soccer game was on the TV, playing silently because separate audio was playing first English, then Spanish pop music. We ordered a vino tinto and tinto de verano (pushing the summer season a little, I thought) and also picked up a small bag of Lay's Artesanas potato chips, fried in 100% olive oil. Today's regional newspaper was lying on the bar, and as we drank we read the news, a nice savings because, although we often buy a newspaper, we never do on Sunday because it costs so much more that day. A front page story told us that 40 liters of hail had fallen per meter during a 15-minute period the day before in Alicante. Also we read that the waiting time for operations from the  public health system has doubled in the last year, due to reductions in staff of medical personnel. The  day's cartoon showed a man asking his doctor whether he would come out [alive, presumably] from his operation. The doctor responded tartly: You´ll be lucky to come into the operation!

We were back home in no more than an hour and it still hasn't started raining again yet, but the newspaper said that the "unsettled" weather would continue in the area until Tuesday. Not a good sign for us, as we leave at 7:00 in the morning to take some friends to the train station in Alicante on their way to embark on a cruise. They, at least, will manage to get out of the rain for awhile. Cruise ships have big indoors.

The Spring Garden

Goldie coming out to enjoy the spring sun and to survey her domain from the front step. 

© Johannes Bjorner 2013

 

A Walk on the Beach

Finally it's spring. Really spring. That delightful season in Spain when it's not too cold and it's not too hot.

Of course, to preserve that delicate balance, you need to change clothing at least three times a day. Today I am putting away my winter clothes and getting out my summer garb. I'm hoping this doesn't put the jinx on the weather, as it usually does when we say "This is the last time we'll need the fire" while we watch TV at night. We haven't had a fire for several evenings now, and I am just about ready to plant the white silk flowers that I bought for that purpose in the black square of the fireplace grate for the summer, but I haven't done it yet, because we may just need that fire again some time.

How many times I need to change clothes each day depends on when I get up. I need long pants and long sleeves for the morning and evening,and even during the day if I am inside the house at my desk or in the kitchen, but after wearing long pants to play petanca in the afternoon a couple times this week, and being too hot, I decided that I really needed to retrieve my 3/4 length pants. Yesterday I cut down on the number of wardrobe changes by staying in bed reading until 11:00 AM. That meant I could put on the one pair of pirate pants that I had kept out of storage for the transition season for the afternoon. I also donned a sleeveless laced tank top, one I had purchased years ago at an arts and craft fair somewhere in New England, which has a matching long-sleeved men's shirt with lacy cut-outs and applique--perfect if there are breezes or too much sun. I was a little cold as I sat at the computer in my office in early afternoon, but I was perfectly dressed when we ventured out mid-afternoon for a drive to the Mediterranean, only ten or fifteen minutes away by car.

Middagsblomster
Photo credit Johannes Bjorner

We parked at La Mata, a neighborhood in the north of Torrevieja, and got out to walk to the beach. There is a boardwalk that stretches along the Mediterranean for several kilometers, and we walked south toward the city. We had been on a stretch of the boardwalk before, but it was a couple years ago. We passed small cafés and chiringuitos as we followed the boardwalk around sand dunes and beach greenery with the magenta middagsblomster and another blue wildflower that I had not seen elsewhere. It was a perfect spring Saturday afternoon. There were several people sunning themselves in swimsuits or just reading in a beach chair. We saw a sailboat. Other people were walking or biking along the boardwalk. We heard lots of Spanish voices, some German, and a very few English. We stopped for a cup of café con leche, and then walked on, and then we turned back and stopped for a caña and tapa, and we watched some real experts playing petanca before we got back to the car at 5:30 or so.

There had been a breeze along the coast, but I was fine in my sleeveless top as long as we stayed in the sun, which was not difficult. When I got home, however, I disappeared upstairs immediately and changed into the slacks and long-sleeved cotton-knit shirt that were still hanging on the side of the dirty clothes basket from the previous evening. After our traditional Saturday evening smørrebrød we settled down for an unusually good Saturday evening of television. Once in awhile I glanced at the empty black hole under the mantel, but we did not light a fire. I did pull a wool blanket over me as we moved into the second hour of the evening's program, however.

Poverty in Spain

The CoastRider, in an especially informative issue dated April 2, put some statistics about poverty in Spain to the faces of distress that we have begun seeing even in our area along the Costa Blanca. The research came from the FOESSA Foundation, the Fomento de Estudios Sociales y de Sociología Aplicada, which was founded in 1965 to provide "the most objective and continuous research possible on the social situation and changes in Spain," according to my reading of its mission statement. I downloaded its 2013 report and looked through it, but because I find economics tough going in any language, I rely mostly on The CoastRider's interpretation:

• 10 million people in Spain--21% of the population--are living in "relative poverty." Relative poverty is defined as having an annual income less than 60% of the national income. A family unit of two adults and two children living in relative poverty live on less than 15,330 euros (about US $20,000).

• There are now 3 million people living in Spain under "extreme poverty." That is 6.4% of the population. Extreme poverty is defined as having an annual income of 30% or less of the national average, or 3,650 euros (about US $4,750).

• A total of 38% of one-parent families are living below the poverty line--11.7% in extreme poverty.

• The percent of households with everyone out of work has grown from 2.5% before the crisis to 10.6% at the end of 2012. That is more than 1.8 million people.

Elsewhere in the issue, the Bank of Spain says that the jobless rate could reach 27% by the end of 2013 and that not until 2014 is "the pace of job destruction ... expected to moderate substantially ... and ... job creation ... begin."

The visible signs of the economic crisis have moved beyond half-finished building projects, empty holiday units, reduced hours of service in medical and government offices, and shuttered or ever-changing cafés, restaurants, and shops. We don't know a lot of Spanish people, but I know two women whose husbands have not worked for two years. One is young enough that he can at least use the time to care for their infant daughter while the mother works; the other is old enough that he will probably never have another job in his lifetime. Another young family is working hard to remain in Spain; she is running the business that had supported them here for several years, but he has had to return to another European Union country for work and is now able to join his family only once a month. We know a retail shop owner who owes two suppliers 15,000 euros and doesn't have it, and is being taken to court--as if that is supposed to produce money from somewhere. We know a middle-aged divorced woman who worked for less than ten years before she lost her job and whose public unemployment benefits have now run out after two years; her former husband had already stopped all financial help. While in Madrid a few weeks ago, we saw numerous street beggars, whom we had rarely seen in the city before. And even down here on the costa, the street musicians who greet you with a cheerful song as you approach the grocery store and always thank you for your change when you come out are singing a little less brightly now and smiling only rarely.