Economic Changes

One measure of the way the worldwide economic crisis has hit Spain is the statistics about unemployment: approaching 25% according to the most recent reports, and nearly 50% of youth between the ages of 16 and 24. Another measure is the general strike of March 29, which did not cripple the country by any means, but was inconvenient, especially if one was traveling, and a noticeable reminder that government workers and services are being especially hard hit in the search for remedies. The slowdown in government services was one reason we found ourselves this past week in the waiting rooms of San Jaime, the private hospital in Torrevieja, for a third cataract operation.

This operation was not for me, but for Johannes. I have had two cataract procedures in the past two years, one on each eye, both successful, and both paid for by the public health system of Spain (which generally pushes costs for non-Spanish European citizens back to the "home" European country as in typical EU fashion, but the system is administered and services delivered by Spain). In 2010 when I needed my first operation, I waited for a few months after getting approval from the ophthalmologist and then I got a letter from the hospital that was to do the surgery: since the three month waiting period had been reached, I now had my choice of waiting until my name came to the top of the list, or going to the private hospital, where an immediate operation would be performed at public cost. I did not need a second invitation, and after I had had one eye done this way, I was able to get the second done several months later by the same hospital, same doctor, and according to the same overflow conditions.

This time three months passed after approval for the procedure, but no letter was forthcoming. In due course we went to the hospital for which Johannes was in line, and they would not give even a guess as to when he would make it to the top of the list. Apparently the public system is no longer paying for overflow procedures at the private hospital, which should not have been a great surprise since the newspapers are filled with stories of short-term strikes at pharmacies that have not received payments by the provincial governments for the drugs they have delivered free to participants in the public system.

On the day of Johannes' operation, the waiting room was not as crowded as it was when I had my two procedures, and instead of waiting several hours from beginning to end, it was less than two. As I sat in the outer waiting room and listened to the voices around me, I was surprised that most of the patients were Spanish. We were surrounded by families in which the women were well-dressed, with beautifully colored and styled hair. I had expected that they were European citizens who had elected to pay for a quicker procedure. But there was only one other English-speaking couple and at least four Spanish-speaking. It seemed as though Spanish women of a certain age were the patients; as this was cataract surgery, they were probably in their seventies or near them on either side. When Johannes came out an hour later from his procedure, he gave me the inside story of the conversations in the inner waiting room.

You have to disrobe and put on a hospital gown when you have cataract surgery here, and apparently that prompted the subject of clothing. The women were chatting about how, when they were growing up, they would have been dowdily dressed in straight black, dark grey, or navy blue skirts at this age, and certainly not undressing for cataract surgery. It is true; even today you see many short, older Spanish women, whether  in cities or pueblos, in their tight black skirts, nondescript dark blouses, dark hose, and flat black shoes. I look at them and guess that they are in their seventies or eighties, but I know that some, especially in the small towns, are only in their sixties or maybe even fifties. Only a generation, or perhaps two, separated the stylish women I saw in the waiting room from their mothers or grandmothers in the old-Spanish uniform. A generation, probably an education, jobs, the invasion of their country by northern Europeans, and presumably a little more wealth.

But the younger generation of today is probably not going to see the positive change that their parents did, if the country does not find a way to save its economy from itself and from the "Overdose of Pain" prescribed by the EU.

Semana Santa

Quick before we reach Easter Sunday, I need to write a bit about Semana Santa, Holy Week. Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, of course. I really got into the spirit of Palm Sunday two weeks ago when we were in Alcalá de Henares. As we wandered through the old town on Sunday morning, we suddenly heard the sound of tambor (drum) and corneta (cornet) music, and when we followed it, we came upon a cofradía practicing the special procession that is carried out in many communities in Spain on all the days of Semana Santa, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday.

Each community is different. Some put on very elaborate and expensive floats and parades; others are more humble. Generally the processions are held at night in celebration of the various events in the life of Jesus during Holy Week. Each float and procession is sponsored by a brotherhood (cofradía) and there may be more than one procession each day, leaving from different points in the city and following different routes. Domingo de Ramos, Palm Sunday, is the first procession and the parade is a triumphant one, depicting Jesus entering Jerusalem, with people waving palms in welcome. Here is a small picture of the procession as it is celebrated in Alicante, with palms from the nearby city of Elche, which are uniquely white.

Torrevieja is the closest city to where I live. This is what its Easter procession schedule looked like:

Palm Sunday, April 1
10:00 AM: Solemn Blessing of the Palms and Processional Parade
11:30 AM: Blessing of the Branches and Procession

Monday, April 2
10:00 PM: Solemn Procession of Lunes Santo (Holy Monday)

Tuesday, April 3
10:00 PM: Solemn Procession of Martes Santo (Holy Tuesday)

Wednesday, April 4
10:00 PM: Procession of Our Father Jesus, the Sentenced
10:00 PM: Solemn Procession of the Meeting in the Via Dolorosa

Thursday, April 5
10:00 PM: Procession of Silence
11:00 PM: Solemn Procession of Silence
12:00 Midnight: Solemn Procession of the Descent into Calvary

Friday, April 6
10:00 AM: Stations of the Cross
7:30 PM: Solemn and Great Procession of the Burial of Christ

Saturday, April 7
10:00 PM: Easter Vigil

Those are just the processions, not the expositions, masses, and lectures. You can see a gallery of pictures of the parades here.

I admit that I do not attend the processions. But two weeks ago in Alcalá, on Sunday morning, we heard the sound of cornets and drums and came upon a small cofradía practicing the walk for the following week. That is the picture you see at the top of this post. Twenty-four men were walking slowly, bearing this particular float on their shoulders. The ornate statues cannot be seen in advance of the day, of course, so the bags on the platform are filled with sand to simulate the weight of marble statues. A leader walked to the side, observing carefully and telling each practicant when he needed to step a centimeter farther to the left or right. Later we came across three or four more cofradías practicing. As we watched one disappear behind a metal gate into what must be a church storage yard, a bystander told us that they practice every Sunday morning between Epiphany (January 6) and Palm Sunday. They practice several hours, in silence and in dedication. You have to admire that sort of commitment.

Good Friday / Viernes Santo

Like many people in the modern world, we live within earshot of a highway. The noise doesn't bother us much--the quiet buzz from passing cars is only noticeable outside the house or, perhaps, occasionally when windows or doors stay open and all electronic devices (computers, television, and even piano) are turned off. Only once do I recall hearing a real smashup on the highway, and everyone in our neighborhood rushed to their rooftop terrace to see the damage, but both the angle and the distance prevented me from a view.

This morning I woke up, as usual, to stillness, punctuated only by the comforting tick-tock of the bedroom wall clock and the chirping of birds. We sleep with the customary Spanish rejas (metal awnings) down to prevent thieves (who have never bothered us), cold wind (which has), and light from entering. I'm not sure whether the chirping of birds comes through because the walls of the house are thin or because the kitchen door has been opened downstairs to permit mistress Goldie out for her pre-breakfast inspection tour of her extensive domain.

This morning I lay in bed longer than usual--I can do that with breakfast brought up to me--and it was only after my butler and Goldie had returned to the bed and were breathing peacefully by my side and at my feet that I realized that it was unusually quiet. No one was snoring, but I could still hear the tick-tock and the birds. I lay iPadding in the darkness and contemplating an article I am writing, and the clock moved closer to 9:00. I think that I sensed an absence of automobile traffic on the highway a kilometer or so (as the crow flies) away. I know I did not hear the school bus roaring through and turning the corner in front of our house.

It is Viernes Santo, Good Friday, and a major holiday in Spain. Last night at 11:00 in Torrevieja the Solemne Procesión de Silencio walked through the streets at 11:00 PM, and at midnight the Solemne Procesión del Descendimiento del Calvario started from the Plaza del Calvario. All cities and town in Spain have these impressive processions during the evenings of Semana Santa, or Holy Week--some more ornate and elaborate than others. But we do not customarily drive out this late at night and we were no more aware of the nearest-by festivo than we are of highway traffic. The silence has continued throughout the night and into the morning. Though most festivos are marked with fireworks and we often awaken to the sound of firecrackers in the campo around us, Viernes Santo is not, and that makes it unique.

The silence will disappear as the day goes on. I remember previous Easter weekends when nearby towns sponsored tapas festivals, and we have read that a medieval fair is scheduled in Quesada, just across the highway, today and through the weekend. But Good Friday morning is still quiet.

Alcalá de Henares

Storks in Alcala de Henares. Photo © Johannes Bjørner 2012        

Every time I see the storks in Alcalá de Henares, it is magical. How many are there? Twenty, thirty, forty? All around Plaza de Cervantes they perch on the tops of buildings, or fly, or--at this time of year, at least--build nests. We first stumbled onto Alcalá, the Plaza de Cervantes, and the storks one June afternoon several years ago when we spent the night in this town not far outside of Madrid on a trip to catch an early morning plane out of Barrajas. In June 2009 we returned to Alcalá for an afternoon and evening with a group of Danish visitors during an engineering school reunion; we were all enchanted by watching the storks in late afternoon, as the sky turned dark blue and faded to dusk, while we waited for our restaurant to open at 8:30 for Spanish dinner. Now, the fourth weekend in March, we returned to Alcalá once again, this time with a couple we have known for forty years. We spent two nights in this old city, and that gave us the opportunity to pass through the Plaza de Cervantes many times and enjoy watching the storks go about their business.

Alcalá is also famous as the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote. We visited a museum in the house of his birth. Finally. As I mentioned, we had been in Alcalá twice before, and both times arrived too late in the day for entrance to the museum. So this was a must-see on this trip. Our friends humored me and we went straightaway to the house Saturday afternoon, immediately after arriving on the regional train from Madrid, checking in to our hotel, and getting a light bite to eat at a table in the sun on the Calle Mayor, between Plaza Cervantes and the little museum. I was surprised to learn that Cervantes only lived in this house for the first four years of his life, and I read on a tourist brochure just before going that "very little is known of his early life." Still, it was interesting to see the structure of a house of that period (1547-1616). It was handsomely restored, and two rooms were devoted to Quixote first editions, or other rare volumes, in various languages.

We spent quite a bit of time walking around the old city and saw some of the Jewish quarter and some churches, and other historic sites. But I still have to see Complutense university, which dates back to 1293, so there will probably be another trip some time in the future, to meander around those ancient buildings, and to see the  storks again.

My Spanish Reading

In a needed and welcome fit of spring cleaning in my office yesterday, one of the things I rearranged was the section of my bookshelves holding the dictionaries, books, magazines, and papers (and more papers) that I have used in the five different Spanish classes in which I have participated over the past six or seven years. Two of those classes each take place once a week now, a private one on Monday and a ten-person class on Friday, the first with a European-certified language teacher who happens to be Danish, the other with native Spanish language teachers, two of them, who share the schedule at various times throughout the year. I have several archivos (files) of papers with exercises, explanations, and photocopies of dialogues or short stories that we often read in the larger class. For the private class, our usual practice is to read a book (at home) and discuss it in class; we look for contemporary titles, with lots of dialog. Sometimes that means what we call young adult literature or women's fiction. I was surprised how many books I had stuffed on my bookshelves. Here is the list of what I have read that is still on the shelf:

• Como Agua para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate), by Laura Esquivel, a Mexican author.
• Dulces Mentiras (literally Sweet Lies, but titled Bitter Sweets in the original UK version), by Roopa Farooki, born in Pakistan, raised in London.
• Admiración (originally Tribute), by Nora Roberts, a U.S. author I had only heard about before reading this in Spanish.
• Pollyanna, by Eleanor H. Porter, a native of Littleton, New Hampshire. First published in 1913, this Spanish version was purchased in a very contemporary edition labeled "Chicklit: Novellas de siempre para la mujer de hoy" in the German low-price supermarket Lidl.
• Daddy Long-Legs, by Jean Webster; though missing from the bookshelf. Originally published in 1912, we read the Chicklit "classic novels for the woman of today" version.
• Spanish Stories/Cuentos Españoles; a Dual-Language Book, edited by Ángel Flores. Departing even more from the contemporary criterion, this is a study book comprised of 13 classic or representative works (or excerpts) of Spanish literature, starting with "About What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Very Wild, Unruly Wife," by Don Juan Manuel (1282-1349) to "The Guard," by Juan Goytisolo (1931-  ). I have only read four of these so far, but I expect we'll get round to all of them in time, with some space in between. Sometimes it's really necessary to read the excellent English translations, too, that appear side by side with the Spanish.

And here are other books that I have not completed yet:

• Un Burka por Amor, by Reyes Monforte, a Spanish radio and TV personality. Both my teacher and I gave up on this one, because in spite of the fact that it is in its 6th printing, it did not grab either of us in the first 100 pages. Maybe later, or maybe not. 
• Atravesando Fronteras (Crossing Borders), an autobiography by Jorge Ramos, a Mexican living for 20 years in the U.S. I picked this up at Half Price Books in Cincinnati and have read 50 pages; I do want to continue reading this when I have the time.
• Historia de España para Dummies, by Fernando de Cortázar, which I found in one of my travels through the Madrid airport. Like many Dummies books, it is easy to dip into this in many places and learn something. I use it for reference, but it would be good to read more parts of it.
• I should also be reading more parts of the Manual programado del conductor 3, the 244-page driver's manual that I started a couple years ago. As you may expect, it is really boring and much of it is obvious. However, I've looked through it and cannot find anywhere the rules for driving in roundabouts, though I have learned some surprising things, such as that bicyclists are permitted to ride two abreast on many streets.
• Don Quijote de la Mancha, of course, but this is a Novelas Famosas edition, in simplified language and greatly abbreviated, and get this--several pages in comic-strip format. I think this is definitely the YA version.
• Mujeres de 60, by Hilda Levy, an Argentine. I bought this book in Argentina before my 60th birthday and perhaps I'll finish it before my 70th. It seems to be part funny and part advice, but not exactly gripping even as I make my way through my 60s.

And now I need to go review for my class tomorrow. We are reading Cuentos de America, a young adult book that was given my husband in Argentina about 60 years ago. It has one story from each of the Latin American countries. So far we've done "Sumé," a legend of Brazil. For tomorrow it is "Las Naranjas," a charming little story from Mexico.

Signs of Spring

Perhaps the most definite sign of spring is the fact that the U.S. switched to Daylight Savings Time this past weekend, upsetting my rule of thumb that to know what time it was in the U.S. I only had to look at the opposite end of the pointy hand on an analog clock: It is 2:00 PM here (after lunch) when it is 8:00 AM (starting-work time) in the eastern time zone of the U.S.; I am beginning to think about supper here when it is noontime for most of my family and associates; and by the end of the work day there, we have reached the end of my day here and I am usually fast asleep, or reading in bed. One hour's change should not make that much of a difference after I figure out which way the clock moved (forward, so now only five hours separate us) but it is a huge psychological difference because it upsets my easy calculation. Besides that, it makes me wonder why it is spring in the U.S. but we don't change to "summer time" here in Spain until next weekend.  I still have another week of unsettled time sense.

But there are some other wonderful signs that spring is upon us, namely, heat and light. It is no longer dark outside at 8:00 AM when I stir from my bed, nor is it dark at 7:00 PM as we sit in the living room and watch the evening news. Last Sunday at the outdoor market all winter clothes were on sale, and I bought two pieces--a pale orange knitted cardigan sweater and a rust-colored microfiber shirt, both to have available to pop over any lighter top I happened to be wearing--for just three euros (not each). I've used both this week, as over the last two weeks I have moved from wearing heavy winter sweaters and/or turtlenecks, with heavy slacks and heavy socks, and more significantly, from three layers to two layers and sometimes, in the middle of the day, to one layer. This morning I separated out warmer socks, underwear and night clothes and moved them to the less accessible part of my closet space.

I didn't put them away completely for the summer yet. It still is cold at night, and it still is colder in the house than outside. We had the gas fire on in the fireplace last night and we probably will again tonight, even though Johannes has gotten into his usual end-of-season mode of saying "This should be the last time" whenever he replenishes the gas bottle. We haven't put away the winter comforters yet, and we still turn on the halogen heater in the bathroom in the morning. And, in an effort to improve the comfort of our house next winter, we spent quite some time this week investigating and finally ordering infrared panels for the bedroom and bath. I sort of hope it stays a little bit chilly so we have a chance to try them out before next winter.

I miss crocuses, daffodils, tulips, and forsythia, but we have already had the almond blossoms and the little yellow flowers that spring from nowhere along the side of the road, and though there are not as many magenta succulents here as where we used to live in Almeria, there is a small patch here in Montebello. Some new thing is blossoming, somewhere, because Goldie has taken to sneezing four or five times several times a day, usually when she wanders back inside--or maybe she just finally caught the family cold that went round and round last month.

Perhaps the best sign of spring: it has been strawberry season for three weeks now, so we are enjoying lots of strawberries in our lunchtime fruit salads, or just by themselves, with cream.

A One-Pound Lemon

What can you say about a one-pound lemon? This is the lemon I used to make citron fromage, a Danish dessert, for some invitados to a light luncheon this week. The lemon is shown resting on my kitchen scale--because, of course, as a cook in Spain, I have a scale that is at least as important as teaspoons and measuring cups to follow various recipes. If you have very sharp eyes, you might be able to see that the weight indicator on the bottom right says 458 grams, or more properly, .458 kg. Or maybe it says 453 grams, as I also had a picture of it when the digital scale flashed that number. Whatever, it is just about a pound, depending on how the lemon rolls.

Perhaps the most important thing about this lemon is that it came from the lemon tree in our front yard. Not the one we bought shortly after we moved in, the third we have cultivated, without much success, since we lived in Spain. It came from the tree we discovered the second summer we were here, after clearing out a lot of brush that perhaps had covered up the tree for a year--though I don't think there were any lemons on it to cover up. My personal theory is that it wasn't until we brought in the new lemon tree we had purchased that this lemon tree got pollinated and started to produce lemons. Or maybe it felt threatened, or motivated? Not much to feel threatened about, as the lemon tree that we bought is now smaller than when we bought it, with fewer branches and, so far, no new lemons. Maybe the pollen only blows in one direction.

My best recipe for citron fromage is from Danish Cooking, by Nika Standen Hazelton, published by Penguin Books in England in 1967. When I got it, from a dear friend as a wedding gift, I was just beginning to understand about the great divide in publishing English-language books, i.e., that there are books published in the United States, and there are books published in the UK, and the rights for one geographic area do not extend to the other. The publishing history of my "Penguin Handbook" shows that it was "first published in the U.S.A. by Doubleday in 1964" and that it was "Published, with revisions, in Penguin Books, in 1967." Those revisions, I now know without a doubt, had to do with conversion of the measurement of ingredients to the metric system, as well as revising spelling from American to British, and otherwise adapting from American to UK ingredient names and kitchen practice.

So I have always "translated" when using this cookbook. My recipe contains a penciled note, "1/2 cup," next to the listing for "4 oz. sugar" and a red ink "1 envelope" next to "2 dessertspoons unflavoured gelatin."  I must have always had measuring cups showing ounces, because there is no notation next to "2 fl. oz. cold water"; and "5 eggs, separated" seem to be separated the same on both sides of the Atlantic, though I'll wager that the size of eggs has grown in the past 45 years. The other ingredient that normally would not need any special notation is "juice and grated rind of 2 lemons."

Somehow I didn't think that two jumbo lemons of a pound each were necessary or even advisable. Fortunately I have The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, of about the same vintage as Danish Cooking, but from the U.S. side of the Atlantic. I found a whole section "About Lemons" in its chapter on fruits and fruit desserts. It said that "The juice of 1 lemon makes about 1/4 cup, but yield varies considerably." OK, so I was looking for a half cup of lemon juice, and I didn't really have to be exact.

When I cut my lemon open it looked more like a grapefruit than a lemon. Whether it was authentically a thick-skinned variety of lemon or just overgrown, I don't know. One does not normally give lemons a taste test as you would an orange or mandarin or even a grapefruit. It did have a thick skin and it was large enough that I needed to juice it using the attachment for oranges rather than just the normal lemon juicer. I got 3/4 cup of lemon juice from my one-pound lemon, but that included a couple tablespoonfuls of lemon pulp, so I took out the pulp. Grating the rind of the giant lemon was a bit easier than grating the rind of two normal lemons, but I must say that lemon zesting is not my favorite activity no matter how large the lemon. 

Our guests loved the citron fromage, or Lemon Delight, as it is translated in the Danish Cooking book.  I was pleased with the result myself, especially since the lemon-gelatin mixture did not separate from the whipped egg whites and settle itself in the bottom of the glass bowl, as it can easily do. We still have a few more giant lemons, though our guests took one home for themselves. It filled up about half the space that the bottle of wine they brought us had occupied.

¿Sabías que...?

After I left my fingerprints at the policia nacional last week as the next-to-last step in getting my residencia renewal, we went for a cup of coffee and a tostada at the café bar adjoining the parking lot right next to the police building. Going for coffee is a nice little frequent celebration in Spain. One of the lovely things about drinking coffee here is that you sit down at a table and drink your coffee from a real china cup or a clear glass cup, on a saucer. For café con leche, the coffee may come with the hot milk (and it is always hot milk that is mixed with the coffee) already in it, or occasionally, and especially at nicer places, the server comes to the table with a steaming pot of coffee and a steaming pot of milk, and pours each into your cup (usually milk first) to create the delicious and comforting drink. Whether you drink it from china or glass, it sure beats fastening your lips to the styrofoam or flimsy plastic with a hole cut out in which U.S. coffee is often delivered.

I don't drink sugar with American coffee or with the morning coffee I get in bed here in Spain, but I almost always add a bit to the strong café con leche I invariably order here when out. The sugar comes in oblong packets that are often placed on the saucer beside the spoon when serving. Sometimes two packets are placed on each saucer, though I think this hardly necessary, considering the fact that each packet holds 8 grams, and I know from an article in the Wall Street Journal that I read this week that 8 grams of sugar is roughly equivalent to two teaspoons. I know that from experience, too, as my compañero and I customarily share just one packet of sugar for both our coffees, and we may not even use a whole one.

On Tuesday this week, however, at the police station café, we got two packets of sugar each. Many sugar packets carry the brand name of the café or restaurant in which they are served; others carry the brand name of a sugar of coffee supplier. Occasionally they carry a brief quote from well-known authors or other famous people; more than once I have been amused to read the words of William Shakespeare, John Lennon, and Woody Allen in Spanish. This time the Oquendo-branded sugar packets each carried some factual information that started out ¿Sabías que---? (Did you know...?

• Did you know that the structure of the Statue of Liberty (Estatua de la Libertad) is copper with a covering of steel? "The copper has a weight of 31 tons, the steel, 125 tons. And the cement weighs 27,000 tons!" No, I didn't know that either, and although the Spanish tonelada translates in my Cambridge-Klett dictionary to "ton," I would have to look up the real weight of each and calculate the metric equivalents to see whether this statement is accurate, and from whose point of view.


• Did you know that Broadway is the longest avenue in New York, with a length of 33 kilometers? Its name is derived from the Dutch breede wegh, which means "broad road," the sugar packet tells me. I'll bet there are a lot of Americans who wouldn't know the metric length of Broadway, and that a lot of Spaniards reading this have no clue that this major U.S. city was formerly known as New Amsterdam.


• The third packet also talked about word origins.  Did you know that the Spanish word pijama (English "pyjamas" or "pajamas") comes from the Urdu "paejamah," which signifies a garment for daytime? This clothing is really a daytime outfit. It became night-time garb in England, back in the 1880s, when it was worn by colonials who returned to their homeland.

Without more research, I can't vouch for the veracity of any of these statements, but each one does provide a little curiosity to think about and talk about while sipping coffee and watching the policemen on their break. And for some, I discovered later, the little sugar packets have provided "memories of paper."

Renewing Residencia, Part 4

Today was the day to go to Alicante to get finger-printed--the last formality before I could get my renewed card for continued legal residency in Spain. I had received a letter in the mail giving me the address to go to (Policia Nacional and Guardia Civil, on Calle Campo de Mirra), plus the list of papers I should bring with me: this letter, two photographs of a certain size, shape, and color (carnet), valid current passport, old residencia card, certificate of empadronamiento (my legal address), and stamped form verifying I had been to the bank to pay the residencia fee. For good measure, a new three-part form for the fee was enclosed. But I had previously paid a fee and had a copy--would that be good enough?

When we checked with the bank, they said there should only be one fee for one tramite, and I had paid it way back at the beginning of this tramite, when I went to Orihuela in November. The same cannot be said for the certificate of empadronamiento. These certificates are only valid for three months, and the one I had gotten at the beginning of these proceedings ran out, very inconveniently, less than a week before today. So last Thursday we dropped by the ayuntamiento in our town, with a copy of the escritura, our house deed, to request a new certificate of empadronamiento.

No problem, and since this was the second time we had requested one (it was actually the third, but who's counting?) the woman at the town hall told us we didn't need the escritura. We just needed to pick up the copy on Monday--it takes two days.

So yesterday we picked up the certificado de empadronamiento at noon, checked and re-checked that we had all the papers needed, and investigated how to get to the Policia Nacional in Alicante. The designated time--it would be too much to call this an appointment--was between 9:00 and 2:00. I set the alarm for 7:00 AM, which is a somewhat unusual occurrence in this household now, but I woke up at 6:00 and used the extra time to find the Policia Nacional on my iPad. The directions sounded correct, and when I viewed the location using Google Maps, I knew it was right--the static picture showed a line of people waiting outside a boring looking building, so it must be a police station. I also found the address on a paper map of the city, to get a better idea of the larger picture than I can find on a screen, and when we got in the car at 8:00 my trusted driver found it on the GPS.We listened anxiously to Gloria Perez Sanchez as we drove off, wondering whether she would agree with Google Maps on the iPad.

Forty-five minutes later, we knew that she did, and shortly thereafter we drove into a parking lot next to the police station. Only about 20 people were in line in front of us, and the line was moving. As we got to the front, a police officer checked my papers and directed me through a door to the inside of the building. But no, my husband could not accompany me into the building--no compañeros during this procedure--he had to wait outside.

I went inside with the number I had been given: no. 26. Five rows with about 20 seats in each comprised the waiting room, and I was directed to a seat in the third row. The number machine showed that we were on no. 4.

The line moved surprisingly quickly. By 9:20 we were on no. 13, and at 9:30 my number 26 was posted. I went through the glass doors, waited again,  and eventually was directed to one of the six or seven desks handling these affairs. I had all my papers in my hands (and all my back-up papers from the previous excursion in a folder in my bag). The clerk looked first at my proof of payment and laid it on a stack. Whew! Then she looked at the computer screen, my passport, former card, and the letter. Then she took out a unique square-shaped set of scissors and cut out two photos from the set of three that I had given her. She pressed some keys on the computer and out came some papers. I had to sign my name in two places, she asked if I understood Spanish, and when I said "si, un poquito,"  she told me in Spanish that I could pick up my card in a month in Orihuela, and gave me my old card attached to a paper indicating Orihuela. Then she directed me to the fingerprinting office immediately behind me.

I was pretty sure they wanted my right forefinger, but I was not prepared for the fact that I could not press the finger onto the inkpad or the receiving paper myself. No, the officer had to guide me in that, because there is a very special way to roll the finger horizontally from right to left. We did that twice, on two separate sheets of paper--one for the files, I suppose, and one for the card that I will pick up in Orihuela a month from today. After I rolled my finger--or rather, after the officer rolled my finger--I got a little paper to clean my hand. ¿Listo? I asked. Listo, said the officer. Hasta luego. Well, not any time soon, I thought to myself. I'm going to Orihuela in a month, not back here. I don't expect to be back here for the next ten years, which is when this card will expire.

As tramites go, this one was not traumatic.We stopped at the cafe bar on the way out and had a cafe con leche and media tostada con atun y tomate. And we were finished with that by 10:00 and had the rest of the beautifully sunny day to enjoy ourselves. Since we were in a part of Alicante that was new to us, we decided to continue on a different route and see something new before we left the city and went back to our area to do banking and go to the grocery store. We did pursue a different route, and we did see something new, though not what we had planned as we sat with our cafe con leche. But that's what happens when you go joy-riding in a new part of the city without listening to Gloria Perez Sanchez. Since we hadn't turned her on, she couldn't warn us about what roads not to take. But at least we didn't get caught while going down the ambulance- and taxi-only lane in an otherwise one-way street next to the hospital. I guess we were far enough away from the police station by that time.

Febrero Frío y Resfriados

At the outdoor Sunday Zoco market this morning, there was a stand selling off the last of its winter sweaters for one euro apiece. I couldn't even get close enough to see whether it was worth trying to get closer. It was a gorgeous sunny day. The breeze was gentle and even though I still had one of my warm winter sweaters on with my long knit slacks over "tights," as the English call panty hose, I had removed the neck scarf that I had donned as a precautionary measure, even though my sweater had a high collar.

Earlier this season I promised myself that I was not going to write this year about the winter temperatures in Spain, where there are uncomfortably cold house interiors, caused by no insulation, no central heating, and the use of tile and marble flooring throughout, instead of wall-to-wall carpet. That promise was easier to keep back in the unusually warm December and early January we had. But that was before an arctic freeze descended over Europe, even down to Spain, in the first week of February. Reportedly this gave us the coldest winter in sixty years, which certainly makes it the coldest I have experienced in Spain. In fact, it seems as cold as many I previously spent in New England, where we had super insulation, central heating plus a wood stove, and wall-to-wall carpet in most parts of the house--but it still felt cold, by my standards then.

So I am not writing about the cold (frío) this year in Spain, but I will note that my husband and I are just now moving toward what we hope are the last stages of the third cold (resfriado) that we each have suffered in less than a single month. Just as we thought we were out of the woods with each of the first two, another came on. This third resfriado has been the worst, with a hacking dry cough and debilitation to the point requiring multiple-day bed rest.

Today dawned dangerously warm and sunny, and after buying local potatoes, tomatoes, raisins, a few very expensive grapes, and a whole kilo of ripe, red strawberries at the market this morning, we sat in the sun with a cafe con leche and caught up on what was happening in the world outside our sick house by browsing a week's worth of free English and Norwegian newspapers. Then we considered whether we should go on to the "This is Spain" home show and expat exhibition that was being held this weekend, I have written previously about these annual or semi-annual shows, and we knew that there we could explore the latest in gas, electric, halogen, etc. space heaters and other gadgets to pump a little heat into the frío of Spanish houses. But we said  "no," since we knew we were at the dangerous point of our resfriados, when it was all too tempting to stay out and enjoy the weather, but that we would probably get over-tired and pay dearly for the false notion that we were cold-free.

Besides, we had already done one big project this year to beat the cold (installing heavy insulated curtains and carpeting in the bedroom) and experimented with one of the halogen heaters to toast up the bathroom (it works but will require rewiring to be really efficient). But speaking of the bathroom, the best thing we did to improve daily warmth was a simple and inexpensive purchase that we had first learned about in New England. We replaced the regular toilet seats with real wood seats. There is not much as uncomfortable as lowering yourself onto a cold toilet seat in a cold room. (Stepping on to a metal bathroom scale gets close, but no one has to do that more than once a day, and not even that often if you don't want to.) The real wood is noticeably warmer, and it's one of those cheap improvements that you remember and appreciate every time you use it.

Expat Love

I've never really considered myself an expat. I don't like the word, as to me it implies a rejection of one's native country, sort of like one who used to be patriotic but is no longer. I have never rejected my country, though politically speaking, I do get the opportunity to reconsider that stance from time to time. My condition of living outside the United States is simply that--a condition. I happen to be living outside the U.S. because my European husband, after living in the U.S. for 35 years, wanted to move back to Europe.

He had always said that he wanted to move back when he got old. Of course, when he first mentioned this some thirty or forty years ago, I knew that we would never get old. So it was a considerable surprise to me when, about ten years ago, he informed me that the time had come. We started investigating places to move, and settled on Spain, which, we acknowledged, was a "neutral country" for us both.

We had moved through our multinational marriage (he from Denmark, but having grown up in Argentina, and me from Ohio) trying not to fall into the "my country--your country" trap. That would be the trap of  accepting one as better than the other, and blaming each other for the sins of our countries, or if not sins, the policies, customs, or less agreeable aspects. We have learned that neither of us is responsible for, nor can influence very much, what our respective country is or does, but we can create a life that is comfortable and meaningful for us with the background and wider world of both countries.

So about eight years ago we added a third country, Spain. Many Americans who have lived much of their lives in the north (and we lived for most of our years together in New England) move to sunnier climates when they retire, and many Danes (and Norwegians and Swedes, and Germans, and Brits, we have discovered) also move to sunnier climates when they retire. Think of the Costa Blanca as the new Florida, from a northeast U.S. point of view.

Earlier today I checked the term "expat" in OneLook Dictionary Search. "Primarily British," it says, which is curious, and an abbreviation for "expatriate." Now, "expatriate" can be an adjective, or a verb, or a noun. "To expatriate" is particularly negative, with synonyms of to expel, banish, renounce, quit, and the like. The noun form from Macmillan is more benign: "someone who lives in a country that is not their own country." Well, that is innocuous and certainly describes me. 

But there is also "someone who is voluntarily absent from one's native home or country." Uh-oh. Bringing the question of "voluntary," or choice, or free will into the issue certainly complicates it. When was it that I chose to live outside my own country? As a Valentine's Day special, a UK newspaper with a strong expat column featured three expats who had left their native countries and moved abroad, apparently voluntarily, "for love." All three stories had to do with young love, where the individuals involved made the move soon after they met each other and became a couple. Good stories, but they did not speak to my situation of "voluntarily" moving abroad after several decades.

The truth is that I would not have voluntarily chosen to move to a country brand new to me as I approached retirement years. I did it--and many of the women I meet here have done the same--because my husband wanted to do it. Is my life richer for this decision? How can one tell? One cannot compare the reality of a life with what might have been. I do know my life is rich. I cannot say that I chose voluntarily to leave my country, but I do choose every day to live here in Spain, strengthening my love, as an expat.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Moroccan Lamb and Couscous

Moroccan Lamb and couscous, and vegetables.

When a friend stopped over last week to invite us to a special dinner to celebrate his 75th birthday, he told us we were welcome to choose off the menu Friday evening, but that there were a few special dishes that we would have to order in advance if we wanted to eat those. "Special, like what?" I asked, having already been told that the chef was French. "Well, they do a Moroccan couscous, and I would really like that," he said, but his wife doesn't care for couscous and you have to be two to order the couscous, in addition to ordering it two days ahead. There's got to be more to it than that, I thought, having prepared couscous myself in just five or ten minutes a few times in my life.

Well, there is couscous, and then there is couscous with Moroccan lamb. And then there is couscous with Moroccan lamb and a whole lot more, both my friend and I found out on Friday evening.

We were the only two having the Royal Couscous, as it was named on the menu, and it was immediately clear where we should sit: at one end of the dining table were two auxiliary serving tables, with a warming apparatus and placeholders for hot dishes. The other guests ordered more traditional fare, all with starters, two with French onion soup. My friend and I looked at each other and the size of our serving table and decided that we probably would not need a starter. Shortly afterwards, their soup came, and immediately after that a procession of three, or was it four? people came from the kitchen and filled our serving area. And then the owner filled our plates, first with couscous, then with stewed lamb, then with meat balls (which I realize now were probably not meat), and then the beautiful vegetables you see in the picture above, and finally the whole chickpeas. I had made my way through about a quarter of this when the French onion soup dishes were removed from the table and replaced with main courses, but I was totally unaware of what the others were eating. The lamb, not often on a restaurant menu in Spain, and expensive when it is, was delicious. I tried it without and with the spicy hot thin sauce in the bowl in front of my plate. The sauce wasn't too spicy when I first tried a tiny bit, but it sure got hot when I added more. Still, I had plenty of couscous on my plate. And if I didn't, I could just help myself to more, as the owner/waiter had said when he first placed my plate in front of me.

Serving Moroccan Lamb from tagines. © Johannes Bjørner

The colorful and unique serving dishes on the right are called tagines, and they also serve as cooking dishes. I'm not even sure what was in each one, though I do know that the vegetables and garbanzos arrived together in the one on the back left, and the one that my friend is just removing the cover of contained chicken, which I had declined in my first, "starter" course, but went on to when I had cleared some of my plate. I also tried one of the thin sausages from the uncovered platter between the flat warmer and wine glass, and it was different--perhaps also lamb.

Neither my friend nor I needed dessert, though we did pour wine and water rather liberally throughout the evening. I've checked out various recipes for Moroccan lamb and for couscous over the weekend, and I intend to try my hand at Moroccan cuisine, but not immediately. I'll want to start with something a little simpler than the Royal Couscous we had the other night. And just possibly I'll need to go to Morocco to find a tagine or two, and to try some other samples.

Denmark vs. Spain

Denmark played against Spain in the semifinals of the European Masters in handball on Friday. It's hard to know who to cheer on when you feel a part of both countries, but the advantage in that situation is that you will be happy for the winner, no matter who it is. I don't think that handball is a major sport in Spain, but it is in Denmark. I learned about it even before I met the Dane who became my husband and adopted the country by default over the years--I had a Danish gymnastics teacher my freshman or sophomore year at college, and she taught us Danish handball. Everyone at the Danish club petanca games on Friday was talking about the upcoming match, and we curtailed our last game so that we could all get home and watch the match on TV.

But which TV? We get Danish television at our home in Spain and have ever since we moved here. Seven years ago we started paying a little less than 300 euros annually for the license for the two public stations in Denmark, DR1 and DR2. This is about what Danes in Denmark pay for the same service, though there are now a few commercial stations, with advertisements, that they get for free. Our service in Spain does not offer the commercial stations or the regional stations, and it would be nice to have those, but by and large, the two public stations are enough to help me maintain my Danish language ability, keep us informed about what is happening in Denmark, and provide a known European perspective on what is happening in the rest of the world. What started as an affordable luxury has become a somewhat more expensive necessity, however, as the charge has risen to over 350 euros per year and the dollar (which is what my income is paid in) has decreased in value. I would feel better about the increase if we had access to the main commercial channel, which is the one that was carrying the handball game, of course.

Spanish television also carried the match, but we are still "sorting out" our access to Spanish TV, as our English neighbors say. It has now been over a year since we were advised that by law, all urbanizations in Spain had to provide access to Spanish-language TV, even if only foreigners lived in the houses in the neighborhood and even if they did not want Spanish TV. We did want it, and we have been advised that the cable already in the street carries the signals. But something has gone amiss in the cable in our street or between the street and our house, and the person who can presumably figure this out is not coming until next week. So we get only a couple regional Spanish stations (of poor technical quality) through the main satellite we have, the one that brings us BBC World, Bloomberg, CNN, MSNBC, and a whole host of German stations.

So we watched the game on German TV. You can understand most sports programs even without understanding the narration, but it was a little irritating to hear the German voiceover drowning out Danish and Spanish when the mike was allowed into the respective teams' strategy confabs. It was an exciting match, and very close. Denmark won by a single point. Later Friday evening, in a match that showed the evolution of the new Europe, Serbia won over Croatia. Denmark meets Serbia in less than an hour, and we will be watching again on the German station.

Postscript: Denmark beat Serbia in Serbia for the world championship of handball!

Great Perks

I am not in Spain on this second Sunday in 2012. I am on my regular January trip to the U.S. to visit family and attend the midwinter meeting of the American Library Association. Last Friday morning I left Alicante for Madrid, and then four hours later (only two hours after the scheduled departure) I boarded the long flight to Dallas. My  trip continued to Cincinnati, but in order to avoid arriving there at 15 minutes before midnight, I chose to spend a night at a hotel in Dallas. It seems like a good opportunity to reflect on the features of U.S. hotels that are particularly welcoming after such a long flight and such a long time outside the U.S.

Given the length of flights and complexity of connections, I have become a veteran of airport hotels in the U.S. and Madrid over the past several years. Free transportation to and from the airport is not unique to the U.S., but finding the right place for the pick-up is not always easy. When I came out of the baggage area and customs control in Dallas, I didn't know where to go to get the courtesy van. I walked by an information desk--it was unstaffed--and out to the curb. How many lanes should I cross over to find the courtesy van? Or should I turn left, or right and follow the same lane? I was a bit angry that no one had responded to my request on booking.com to inform me of how to get to the free transport, and that I myself had not followed up with a second request before leaving home.

But I did have an advantage in Dallas over Madrid--I speak the language "like a native." I returned inside, and now there was someone at the Information desk. I could tell as I approached, however, that the woman sitting there was just resting, waiting for someone to come out from behind the doors separating the arrival area from the baggage and customs area. No matter! Texas hospitality came to the fore. She borrowed a cell phone and called my hotel to find out where I should go to catch the limo, then directed me out to the appropriate place. I left, feeling confident that my driver, Jaime, would pick me up within fifteen minutes, and he did. Such proactive helpfulness would be unheard of in Spain. What a welcome home! Only in America, I thought.

Soon I was checking in at my hotel, the Fairfield Inn in Irving. I was unprepared for the first question: Would I like a bottle of water? Well, sure, but I never expect to get that question when checking in at a Spanish hotel. The front desk clerk efficiently took care of me: I got the location of the fitness center and the fact that it was open all night, I set up a wake-up call and reserved the van to the the airport the following morning for my continued flight, I found out that I would have time for  breakfast at 7:00, and she passed me a paper with the login information for the Internet. Although most of the hotels I stay in in Spain now have Internet, they never offer this aging but frequent user the login information at check-in, and I always forget to ask until I get to the room, thus necessitating a phone call or extra trip down to the front desk.

I found my way to my room. U.S. hotel rooms are larger than Spanish, and most European, hotel rooms. There was an extra queen bed where I could spread out my few clothes, many papers, and several electronic devices. After sending an email, I went to the fitness center, which was conveniently located down the hall from my room. One of my goals in this trip is to compare fitness equipment with that which I usually use at my exercise center in Spain. I was surprised to find out that the treadmills in this center were the exact same brand that I use there. A few differences: I did not have to select a preferred language for programming my session, I entered my weight in pounds, not kilos, and when I entered my usual 5.5 level for velocity, I almost fell off the treadmill, since that was, of course, measured in miles, not kilometers.

After a short work-out, I was ready for a shower. I had forgotten how delighted I would be with a facecloth. Facecloths are not provided in Spanish, and most European hotels. When I forget to bring one with me, I often use the small hand towel that hangs next to the bidet. Not all bidets have a hand towel, but almost all hotel rooms have a bidet. No, I don't use the bidet itself, and I have not used the one in the guest bath in my own house. A better piece of bathroom equipment, in my opinion, is the grab-bar, a nice feature when you are jet-lagged and finding your way around a bathroom that is unknown to you, especially if you are dependent on eyeglasses. Grab-bars are non-existent in European bathrooms.

I didn't need the iron and ironing board that was a standard part of my room in Dallas, but which I would never find in a Spanish hotel room. It was now that I spied another unique offering: a package of microwave popcorn! Just the thing at 9:00 PM after having already partaken of four meals this day already. Unfortunately there was no microwave oven in my room--perhaps it was supposed to be on top of the tiny refrigerator? I knew that I would be welcome to use the microwave in the breakfast area off the hotel lobby, but i didn't want to leave my room now, not even for popcorn. I realized also that of course there was an ice bucket, and an ice machine outside my room. But I guess I have become enough of a European that I don't need ice, at least with the tetra-pack of red wine that I had brought with me from Spain.

So I settled down with the TV remote--and is every TV remote throughout the world on its last dregs of the battery so that it is tedious and almost impossible to change channels and operate the controls? Was it the remote or my ineptitude that prevented me from getting the digital selections to work, even though I was able to see the hundreds of possible programs? Fortunately Jay Leno was available on an analog channel, which I could get, and fortunately I was in the Central time zone, so I could stay awake for most of the program.

The next morning I was out for the complimentary breakfast a few minutes before the hour of 7:00, when it was scheduled to be open. It would have been 6:00 on weekdays, and it probably would have been 8:00 or later in Spain. Breakfast is more of a DIY affair in the U.S. than it is in Spain, where hot items are in steam trays and don't always stay hot. Here I was able to heat up a Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich in the microwave myself, or, if I had been so inclined, make my own waffle.

But even before I went out for breakfast and told the front desk that my 7:00 wake-up call would not be necessary, I had partaken of the best of U.S. hotel perks. Jet-lagged, of course, I had been up for three hours already. And I blessed the institution of in-room coffee.  I don't ever expect that there will be coffee machines in hotel rooms in Spain. Coffee is not a DIY affair there. It is a ritual and ceremony, and I promise to write about it sometime.

There are those, of course, who say that the tiny percolators and pre-packaged coffee found in hotel rooms make a dismal swill. But when I happen to be in a hotel room, jet-lagged from time zone differences, and wake up far earlier than I need to, I consider in-room coffee one of the greatest of hotel amenities.

A great perk.