Living in Sant Cugat

Back in the USA

2006-08-03T09:58:00.000-07:00

The families returned back from Spain and we are getting settled again. I've really missed a lot of topics that I wanted to write about, so I'll have to get back to it at some time. Here is a list that I hope to gradually get through.

1) Getting Visas to Spain - (Terrible and not even required)
2) Getting our dog to Spain (Lots of paperwork that nobody ever checked)
3) Spanish Values - Seemed like a lot looser definition of honesty in cateluna. Lot's of cheating on the tennis court.
4) Travel - Sweden and the artic circle, Monaco, Marakesh, Italy, Egypt.
5) Kids last few days of school - very nice goodbyes from other kids
6) Visiting friends and family - 11 families came to visit. Funny stories but I'm not sure it is worth the trouble I'll get into.
7) Reflections on the year.

Just wanted a little reminder about good additional topics. Hopefully they will be coming soon.

Spanish Radio

2006-06-16T00:30:00.000-07:00

Now that I’m starting to understand a little more Spanish, I’m finding some of the Spanish radio ads very funny. The one I like the most is a series of ads for learning English. One of the series starts out with a couple talking in English. The conversation goes something like:

Women: Oh dear, isn’t everything wonderful. It is so nice being able to spend all day together.
Man: I just love being together. I don’t think things could get any more perfect.
Women: Yes, this is just the way it should always be.
Man: We are so lucky that we can live this way.

Then the announcer cuts in and says in Spanish: You too can understand what couples like this are saying. In only 20 weeks you can learn English. Just call 93 739 3434 and you can be on your way to learning English.

Another ad in the series is a man reading the results of the Academy Awards. Followed by the same announcer, same message. A third ad in the series is someone reading Shakespeare’s To Be, or Not To Be passage in English (but with a heavy Spanish accent).

I’m not sure what this says about how Spaniards think about English. Especially the first commercial with the “loving” couple seems completely random to me. I’m not sure whether it is saying that with English your relationships will be better, or just that you will be able to enjoy the joys of American soap operas.

Another funny thing with the Spanish radio is what they do to the songs. When they play “Crazy in Love” they have edited out the man’s part. They also only play about 8 songs over and over. When we arrived we would hear Bon Jovi’s have a nice day about 3 times every hour. This lasted for approximately 4 months. Bon Jovi is on the slow rotation now. The new favorite is black eyed peas.

Spanish 10 Year Olds

2006-03-13T12:59:00.000-08:00

Kids in Spain seem to grow up a bit faster than they do in the states. For example, my son told me his classmates have been playing a very strange game in the school’s courtyard during their playground time. The kids sit in a circle and take turns spinning a bottle of Coke. When it stops you have to kiss the girl it points to (yuck). He also said a girl in his class told him that every Spanish 10 year old gets a girlfriend and a cell phone. All this had me thinking, “Why didn’t my parents take me to Spain for a year”. Unfortunately my son doesn’t appreciate the opportunity. He has no interest in the girlfriend (but he would like his cell phone).

Not only are the Spanish kids precocious, but they are also use to getting a lot more independence. Many of the kid’s classmates walk from their homes to and from school. In the parks parents don’t hover around their kids the way Americans do. You often see groups of parents talking with the kids over a hill and out of site. The school also encourages this independence. Starting in first grade the school program includes a week long ski trip to the Pyrenees. The parent’s are not suppose to visit. You aren’t even allowed to call. While my children were a little nervous about this, my wife was a complete wreck. I don’t think she got more than 2 hours of sleep on any of the nights that the kids were away.

My wife’s anxiety was exacerbated by an incident we had several weeks earlier with my son. My son had run into a problem with bullying in his class. Apparently this is a common problem with Spanish kids. We’ve known several American families that transferred their kids to the British school or even started home schooling just because of this problem. In our case, one particular student was making life miserable for our son. You might be able to guess how my wife reacted once she found out. Just imagine a grizzly bear watching some hikers poking the bear’s cub with a stick. I think the grizzly would have a more restrained response than my wife. In a two week period, we had six meetings with officials at the school to address the problem. This culminated in a meeting that included his teacher, the school psychologist, the head of the lower school, the school’s program director and the head of the school. Personally I would have given some of the earlier meetings more than a day to have an effect before returning to the school, but each day, when something new happened, we went right back in. To be fair to the school, my son wasn’t telling anyone at the school when he was getting pushed around, but mostly I have to give my wife credit. Since having our big meeting things got much better. Not only have there not been any more incidents, but they have also worked with my son so he will be better able to deal with bullies in the future. As an aside, you might think that kids would make a special effort when a classmate has to learn their native language, but in many cases you would be wrong. Some kids just suck.

Now you might want to skip this paragraph because I was going to devote it to bragging about my son. I think he’s done great to put this behind him. He is not only doing well socially, but he is also topping his class in many of his subjects. In the fifth grade math contest (given in Spanish) he came in second. He actually tied for first, but ended up losing a coin toss to decide the winner. He still thinks that school is lousy compared to schooling in the states that he can cruise through, but he seems much happier to be in the “lousy” school now.

European Cars

2006-02-15T15:55:00.000-08:00

Cars are expensive. In Europe they are WAY more expensive than back in the states. After pricing out many options and gradually acclimating myself to this new reality, I finally found a really good deal on a Peugeot. The French government runs a special program for tourists and diplomats that lets them lease a car without paying taxes. This practically cuts the cost of the car in half, meaning that the car is only 20-30% more than it would be in the US. The only problem with this program is that a tourist can get a car for a maximum of 6 months. With 6 months rapidly approaching, this means that I have to find a new car. My original plan was to have my wife get the car for the second 6 months. Unfortunately, the French government frowned on my new plan, and I was assured that any such attempt by my wife would end up with the car being rejected at the Spanish border. This has me back to pricing out the expensive alternatives.

Another problem with European cars is that lots of them are diesel. Now diesel is less expensive and gets better gas mileage than unleaded gasoline (all good) but it can lead to confusion. How bad can that be? Unfortunately I know the answer.

In Scotland I rented a large 8 person van. We were meeting my parents and I wanted to be able to zip around the countryside together. This worked great until the last day when we headed to the airport to catch a late night flight to Dublin. We had some extra time so I thought that we would save a few bucks by stopping and filling up the tank. My first problem was that I couldn’t find the gas tank. After walking around the car a few times, I even asked the attendant if she could help us. I’m not sure if I wanted her to find it, or not to be able to find it, thereby proving that I wasn’t completely inept. I guess the best would have been if she found it with difficulty, but that was not to be. No, she didn’t find it right away. She couldn’t find it either. (I know what many of you were thinking). My father finally solved the mystery by going to the owner’s manual where we found out that, between the driver’s door and the passenger’s door, the thin upper panel could be swung to the side to reveal that gas tank. This gas stop was already not going well, but it was going to get worse.

At this point I picked up the unleaded nozzle and headed for the car. I then hesitated and asked my dad, “It would say something on the gas cap if this was diesel, right?” To which he answered, “It couldn’t be diesel without them telling you.” Dads are not always right.

I now know the answer to what happens when you put half a tank of unleaded gasoline in a diesel car. You can go for about a mile and a half and then the battery light comes on and the car will no longer move. This happened to us in the fast lane of the highway about two miles short of the airport. Luckily we were heading into a roundabout so cars tended to be slowing down, but it was still an awful place to leave the car. We also lucked out in being able to flag down an empty cab that could ferry us to the airport. With two cab rides and my wife getting dropped off by a tow truck, we were able to just make our flight to Dublin. The only thing left to do was to pay off my inflated credit card bill.

As a final note, while waiting for the tow truck my wife noticed that the Hertz van rental required you to prebuy a full tank of gas. Stopping at the gas station was completely unnecessary. To her credit my wife has only ever mentioned this to me once. (Thanks sweetheart)

Spanish Level II

2006-02-02T13:03:00.000-08:00

After successfully completing Spanish Level I, I am now enrolled in Spanish Level II (intensive). The intensive part means that instead of being 2 hours a day, 4 days a week, it is now 4 hours a day 5 days a week. This is a lot of Spanish.

Once again we have an interesting mix of people. There are only 3 others from my original class (one being my wife) and 13 new people. We now have people from Sweden, Finland, Georgia (nothing like Russia), Poland, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Korea, and Palestine. Almost everyone speaks perfect English which is a little surprising since it’s definitely not true for most of the Spaniards. Not that I’m complaining. Talking with the other students in English is my favorite part of the whole class.

One thing we learned was that the Spanish big numbers go from “millones” to “billones”, but while “millones” corresponds to the English word millions, “billones” corresponds to the English word trillions. The word for billions in Spanish is just mil millones (one thousand million). I guess this wouldn’t bother me so much except that “billones” is so close to billions. The German guy told me that billions in German is also 12 zeros. My theory is that America wanted to be the only country that had billionaires. Of course Italy followed suit and made it so you could have 1,000 lira and not be able to buy a cup of coffee. But when everyone is a billionaire, it’s just not as much fun, so they ended up scrapping the whole thing and going to Euros.

We also had two interesting exercises about food. When we were learning the ordinal numbers (first, second, etc.), we had an exercise where we had to order the steps required for making the special Catalan garlic bread (Described in my post Can Borrel). There was the step to squish the tomato, the step to rub the garlic, and the step to add olive oil. I found this funny because you can really do this in any order, but whoever put together our book figured everyone would know the correct Catalan way for preparing such an important food.

The second exercise required you to guess different Spanish foods based on a Spanish description. If you got the entire foods right, they spelled a hidden word down the middle. If you’ve been reading this blog, you should be able to guess the word. It’s the Spanish food we found everywhere. It has 5 letters. It is … I’ll put it at the end just in case you want to guess.

Our homework assignment was also interesting. We each drew an outline of our home country on a piece of paper that was passed around the class. When a person got a sheet of paper, they added a word they associated with the country. When you finally got your sheet of paper back it was filled with Spanish words. You then had to write a composition about your country that included every word on your sheet. My sheet included Buffalo, Uncle Sam, The Death Penalty, Hot Dogs, Opportunity, NFL, War, Hamburgers, Hockey, Bush, Baseball, NBA, Ben Laddin, Great, and McDonald’s. My composition included wonderful sentences like, “The idea of America is that a person can get everything they work for and nothing more, from lots of money to the death penalty.” I’ll find out tomorrow what grade I get on this jewel of Spanish literature. By the way, if you couldn’t already guess, the mystery food was jamon.

Views From Our House

2006-02-02T00:38:00.000-08:00

I think we have an interesting town house. The first picture is from the loft where I sleep. I know that it is hard to see in the picture, but the train to Barcelona is going by right in front of the houses in the distance. Getting to the train station is only about a 5 minute walk. There are also mountains that are hard to make out because it is a little hazy. In front of the train is the golf course. This is also hard to make out, so I thought I would go down two floors to our kitchen and take another photo.

This is the resulting shot from our kitchen window. I have yet to play on this golf course which is very sad. To play golf, you are supposed to get an official card that requires taking a golf test. I think foreigners can also play if they have a good enough handicap. I am fairly certain that there is a way around this because I've seen people playing in our backyard. These people do not have the required handicap.

Now you might be wondering what a picture of my dog is doing here. This is her doing her favorite activity. She is sitting out on the deck and watching people play golf. She is actually appreciative of the people with the high handcaps because her second favorite activity is retrieving golf balls that land in our yard.

And finally, this is a picture that has absolutely nothing to do with golf. This is from our loft looking out the front. I added it because it shows the STOP sign at the end of our street. What is a stop sign doing at the end of the street? There is a perfectly good Spanish word that means stop, para. It's the same number of letters and everything. Believe me, most people don't know English. All the other signs are in Catalan, or both Catalan and Spanish. Did the Spanish government get an especially good deal on surplus from the United States. I have no idea. If you know, please add an explanation into the comments.

The Robbery

2006-01-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

My wife and I were robbed on the way to our Spanish class. We were driving down the autopista (highway) when a car drove beside us. The passenger started yelling something at us and making motions with her hands that we should slow down and pull over. I was a little hesitant, because our car seemed to be driving fine, but the people in the other car looked very upset. We were close to our exit so I was thinking we could take a look after we parked, but my wife started getting upset and telling me to stop. The other people were driving a nice BMW which made me feel better (so much for telling a book by its cover), so I pulled over a little way down the exit ramp for the school. The BMW pulled over just after the exit and the driver jumped out and hurried back to us waving his arms and saying lots of stuff in an urgent voice, none of which I understood. My wife thought he was saying something about the back tires and a fire and it was clear he wanted to show us something so my wife got out of the car to take a look. He wanted my wife to look under the car in the back, but when she hesitated he started to get angry. He came to the front and showed me a burnt piece of paper and then went to the passenger’s side of the car, opened the door and pointed near the top of the car. He then closed the door, said a couple of more words to my wife, headed back to his car and drove off. My wife wanted me to drive a little ways with her watching the back of the car, but I already sensed that the car was just fine. This was confirmed when my wife noticed that her pocketbook was no longer in the car.

After talking with the police of Sant Cugat, we found out we were lucky on a couple of accounts. Actually, after the second time we talked with the police we found out we were lucky on a couple of accounts. The first time we talked with the police, the only thing we found out was that mastering level uno of Spanish is completely inadequate for filing a crime report. We may or may not have continued to pursue matters, but that night my wife received a call from someone saying that they had found her purse. My wife was thrilled and she told the person we lived in Sant Cugat and would like to pick it up. But, once again, level uno Spanish was insufficient to really understand what the person was saying. She left it that we would get a friend to call and make arrangements. I was less thrilled to hear about the call because I worried that these might be the same people who took the purse. They were in possession of my car keys ($220 to replace), and I worried that this was a scam to get our car (more than $220 to replace). We decided that it would be best to turn the matter over to the authorities. Luckily we have a very good friend who offered to come with us and serve as an interpreter.

We arrived at the police station the next morning after getting very little sleep. Every bump, clang, or creak had my wife sending me through the house to check things out. I would canvas the house with my cell phone out, already dialed to 092 (the Spanish 911 equivalent). We were fairly certain that the thieves didn’t have our exact address, but something about having my personal space violated made me feel less secure. This was especially true at night. About 3 in the morning, we finally gave up on sleep and watched Tom Hanks in the Terminal. I find good movies to be totally relaxing. As I worried about poor Tom being stuck in the airport for 9 months, I totally forgot about the army of gang members casing out our premises.

At the police station the first thing we found out was that this was not done by Spaniards. They told us this before they heard any of the details of the robbery. This has also been the reaction of every Spanish person who we have told. It is always the South Americans and probably a Peruvian. One friend even followed up by saying, “It’s like in America. It’s never the Americans committing the crimes.” I don’t know where that came from, but I just thought, “What America are you talking about?” It might be my political correctness indoctrination, but I think it is simply wrong to prejudge huge groups of people. On the other hand, I have to admit that the person didn’t look Spanish and, if I had to guess, they looked South American (Peruvian?) to me.

We also learned some more things at the station. When we told them that we had pulled over on the interstate because another car was indicating we had a problem, they looked at us like we had told them we had stuck our tongues to the frozen flag pole so that we could see what it was like. (It’s the why in the world would anyone do that look). The police went on to tell us that we were targeted because of our French license plate, once again emphasizing that no Spanish person would ever stop. We also learned that looking under the car is even worse. This is when they knock you unconscious and grab your wedding ring, watch, and wallet. Taking the whole car is not that uncommon either. All told it could have been much worse. My wife even had her credit card and driver’s license in her coat at the time.

I’ve included a picture of the police report below. I’m not sure it adds much, but I couldn’t think of any other picture to add for this entry.

Rascon de Reyes

2006-01-20T11:51:00.000-08:00

This is me standing in front of the Museo del Jamon (Museum of the Ham) in Madrid. Seeing this picture reminded me of another Spanish custom. There is a dessert, Rascon de Reyes, which is traditionally eaten as part of the “Los Tres Reyes Magos” celebrations. The dessert is a ring of sweet bread that has two prizes baked into it. It is traditional to cut up the ring so a piece can be distributed to each person around the table. Receiving one of the prizes is suppose to impart good luck for the coming year. Receiving the other prize means that you are obligated to buy the Rascon de Reyes for the next year. While strolling through the streets of Madrid we passed a pasteleria (pastry shop), and we decided to partake in the tradition. Being that there were only four of us, we purchased a small Rascon de Reyes. We were warned that the mini size only had the good luck prize and that this one prize would also carry the obligation for next years purchase. Willing to accept the terms, we left with our mini Rascon de Reyes. As it turns out, I was the lucky recipient. As I munched into my slice of Rascon de Reyes, I bit into a little plastic pig. It seems that nothing could represent more good luck to a Spaniard than finding an extra pig when you weren’t expecting one.

Things Remembered

2006-01-20T02:34:00.000-08:00

You can sometimes be surprised at what you remember most from a trip. After traveling to London, Edinburgh, and Dublin I’ve had time to reflect on all that we did. We saw lots of interesting places. We saw the new Harry Potter film in a great theater in Piccadilly Circus. We went to the stage production of Mary Poppins. We went to a lot of good restaurants. We saw lots of natural wonders like the cliffs of Moher. We took tours of famous buildings and saw many wondrous works of art. But none of those things are what I remember most.

What I remember most was an incident in Luton. We had flown into Luton because Ryan Air flew there for 1.99 pounds per person. We could also find a reasonable hotel that had good train accesses into London. We went into London to see the show “The Lion King”. We thought we could just pick up tickets for the show that night (perhaps a bit over optimistic since I was later told there was a 4 month wait). We were able to find a discount ticket seller, and eventually settled on seeing the evening show of Mary Poppins which was my daughter’s first choice anyway. The tickets were 80 pounds each and, when my wife asked how much they were with the discount, we were informed that 80 pounds was already discounted. Nobody ever said that London was cheap.

The show was great, but that wasn’t what I remember most. After the show we had to take two subway rides and a train to get back to our hotel. About 5 minutes into the second subway ride, my son announced that he really, really has to go to the bathroom. We still had about 5 minutes to go to get to the “King’s Cross” station, and then another 30 minutes on the train back to Luton. He was sure he couldn’t wait for the hotel, but he was OK with getting to King’s Cross (barely). Of course, when we get to King’s Cross we can’t find a bathroom anywhere. With my son getting gradually more and more upset, we decide to try to find a restaurant on the street. By this time it is about 12 O’clock and a lot people seem to be stumbling out of bars. The first two restaurants we try have just locked up, but finally we are successful at a Middle Eastern kabob place (to the great relief of my son). On the way back toward the station there are even more people out on the street and my son (10) and daughter (9) started to get nervous. “Daddy, those people look like they’re drunk…They scare me.”

This actually surprised me. We had been in the London area for a few days and seen a lot of drinking already. In fact, there was a pretty rowdy bar in our hotel. When we arrived late on a Saturday night, the entrance to the hotel was blocked off with a line of people waiting to get in. I had to push my way to the front of the line to talk to one of the bouncers at the door. He sent two other bouncers back to help with our bags and move people out of the way. As we pushed our way through many loud dancing people with full pints, I thought our hotel choice might have been a big mistake. To be honest, my thoughts were more along the lines of, “Thank god my wife picked this hotel so I’m not going to be blamed for this.” It turned out the rooms were down a long corridor away from the bar and fairly nice, so the hotel worked out well. But the point was that the kids weren’t nervous at all, which is why it surprised me that they got nervous later, outside King’s Cross.

Anyway…, with both kids starting to get upset, we hustled through King’s Cross and were able to get onto the last train back to Luton. With the excitement of the show, the adrenalin from being nervous and the fact that it was after midnight, the kid’s lasted approximately 30 seconds in our comfortable train seats before they were fast asleep. The train had us back to Luton at approximately 12:45 at night. Luckily, my son popped right up when we reached the station, but my daughter was out cold. I just had to pick her up and carry her the three long blocks back to the hotel. About two thirds of the way back, I was startled to feel a kiss on my neck. I looked down and saw my daughter staring up at me. She looked completely content. She had been scared and tired and she didn’t know where she was, but when she woke to find herself in my arms she had no cares and just felt herself overcome with affection. About 3 seconds later she was back to sleep. I’m not sure why such a little thing would make me feel so good, but it did, and I still remember that kiss. In fact, that kiss was the best part of the whole trip, and that kiss is what I will remember the most.

Dalhousie Castle

2006-01-19T02:49:00.000-08:00

I’m backing up a bit, but I want to write down some of the details of our trip to Scotland before I forget. We stayed at a Dalhousie castle just outside of Edinburgh. The castle had been featured on the cover of the book, “Ghost Hunter”, and as soon as we arrived Peter (Pe’er) gave us a private tour of the facilities to point out all the places where ghosts had been spotted. There was a ghost from the queen (duchess?) of the castle who hated weddings and often caused mischief with ceremonies. There was also the recent addition of a ghost dog. In 1994 a dog had gone to the top of the highest tower and then thrown itself off. Late on moonless nights the dog could still be heard to bark. Apparently the moon was always out while I was there because I never heard any mysterious howling.

Peter also showed us additional idiosyncrasies of the castle. There was a special room for the Duke of the Castle. It was designed with a floor that was tilted so that one side of the room was about 6 inches higher than the other. The tilt was to help the Duke appear taller to impress his lady friends (when just owning the castle isn’t enough). This might also help to explain why the Duchess wasn’t so keen on weddings.

Dinners in the castle were held in the “dungeon”. The area seemed more like an armory, with a liberal assortment of weapons and armor decorating most of the stone walls. The food was great, with the meal finishing with the pre-desert, followed by the desert, and then the all important post desert. I also enjoyed Scottish Oatmeal, the local brew.

One oddity of the castle was that it was the location of non-stop weddings. We were there on a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the middle of the winter and every day had a full day wedding ceremony. I was amazed that people could get so many guests in the middle of the week, but Scottish bagpipe players in traditional kilts are a powerful draw for getting out the crowds. Another option for the wedding couple was to have the ring delivered to the best man by a falcon, which swoops out of the sky with the ring attached to one of its feet. The falconer (?) told us that they had only had one problem. A bride had insisted on having cute little bunnies up at the altar to add to the ambience. When the falcon found the cute little bunnies more interesting than the best man, a certain ambience was created, but not the one that the bride had hoped for.

The birds were actually amazing. There were eagles, hawks, and owls as well as the falcons and we were able to spend a morning with them. You would wear a special glove and hold up a little piece of chicken. A bird would then swoop out of tree, land on your hand, and get its reward. Just seeing a bird swooping down with a 3 or 4 foot wingspan and land on your hand is a sight not to miss.

My First Spanish Business

2006-01-14T11:25:00.000-08:00

I have now made 53 cents for my time in Spain. As you might have noticed, I have taken my wanderings, mishaps and musings and turned them in to a “money making” venture. Living In Sant Cugat has sold out to the man and now is a vehicle for pushing everything from rental cars to sex change operations. (The sex change ad displayed when I clicked on the Gender Confusion entry.) By signing up with AdSense, Google now figures out exactly what anyone who would spend time reading this blog would like to buy and helpfully puts up a link to those services. FOLLOW THOSE LINKS. If you don't think you need the service, remember ... Google's stock is up over $450 / share. They know better than you do what you might need.

Seriously, I'm surprised at how much satisfaction I received from making my first 53 cents. The fact that some advertiser is going to pay me 7 cents for getting someone to follow a link to their site makes me feel like I've created something of value. I know that it was just as valuable before, but I enjoy getting the extra external validation of an independent business willing to pay me (indirectly through Google) for my efforts. In fact, it got me so excited that I went onto Google and opened an AdWords account. This allows people searching for certain key words to see a link to this blog. I've now invested $2.02 promoting this blog to the world. Yes, I can do the math. I know I'm losing money, but I can't think of anything else that I could have spent the $1.49 on that would have provided me as much pleasure.

Off to Lisbon

2006-01-13T03:41:00.000-08:00

The family recently traveled to Lisbon. When we crossed the border from Spain, I was surprised that there was nothing except a small sign. It is more prominent to cross state lines in the US, where at least you usually have a welcome center. When I asked a Portuguese tourist guide if there was nothing at the border because relations with Spain were so good, he looked pained to tell that the Spanish weren't always the best neighbors. Apparently Spain's been putting up dams to keep water from getting into Portugal and sending their fishing boats into Portuguese areas. But he also said that, being part of the EU family, neighbors could work things out in a welcoming way without fancy borders. When I told him that there was a border checkpoint when I went from Spain into France, he said, “You know, the French, they're French.”

Before heading to Lisbon, we had been staying in an inn in Madrid. From the inn we searched the Internet for places that we could stay in Portugal that would accept dogs. After spending about 20 minutes without having any luck, we decided to just drive out and find a hotel once we got there. As my wife said, who could turn us away once they see how cute our puppy is. Nothing against our dog (which really is very cute), but I had my doubts. When we arrived, I headed for the city center and, too my surprise, Le Meridien let us right in. Le Meridien is located across the street from the park Edward VII, not that far from the Gulbenkian Museum, and by going to the Praca Marques de Pombal you can walk down the Avenida da Liberdade all the way into the center of town (OK, I admit it, the last sentence was partially plagiarized from the hotel's website). Our dog especially enjoyed the park, but her favorite activity was strutting through the fancy lobby to get to the elevators.

Lisbon is a great city and, like in most European cities, you would hear people say things like, “This is a new church, it was only built two hundred and twenty years ago.” We went to an especially nice cathedral about half and hour outside of town that was built to honor a general for fighting off the Spanish. (He's the one on top of the horse). I was told that it took over 200 years to build. You enter by walking over the graves of two of the head architects on the project. This made me wonder how you get to be chosen as an architect. How much experience can anyone have with making buildings that take 200 years to complete? If you are the architect, are you tempted to take shortcuts that look good now, but will cause problems in 40-50 years? I guess if you do, you don't get the honor of having American kids see if they can hop all the way across your grave, without landing on you. (Not that my well behaved children would ever participate in such disrespectful behavior.)

Parking Revisited

2006-01-11T05:58:00.000-08:00

Since we've now been in Sant Cugat for a few months, I thought I might revisit some topics. Not only have I started taking pictures, but I also have learned some secret tricks that the locals use to make life easier. One area where I have improved is in my ability to find parking. One sure bet for finding parking near the kids' school is to go into the park. The curb around the park has some tapered ramps allowing for easy access for bikes. These are perfect places to have the car jump the curb and enter the park's walking/biking paths. You can then park between trees alongside the path. Not only can you find a spot this way, but there is the added advantage of making it impossible for a tow truck to be able to drag you away (it just can't fit between the trees). In the photograph you not only see several people using this parking strategy, but you can also see an SUV driving down the walking path looking for an open spot.

There is also another parking strategy that I have yet to try. Apparently, after a tow truck pulls someone away, it takes quite a while before it's back on the prowl. Just the other day I saw a savvy spanish driver taking advantage of this information. There are a few prime spots right in front of the bakery (of course they are all illegal). When I drove by, I saw someone patiently waiting for the tow truck to finish removing a car from one of these spots so that they could parallel park into the newly cleared space.

Some Spanish Traditions

2006-01-09T09:40:00.000-08:00

For New Year's Eve we went to Madrid where the festivities seemed to center around La Plaza Mayor. As you might guess from the picture, it is common to wear funny hair. We picked up a couple of wigs from the kiosks in the center of the plaza. In the evening, there is a live broadcast from the La Plaza Mayor as the midnight hour nears. They have a stage set up, and an ensemble of pop singers. About two thirds of the songs are in English with many taken from the group Abba and the show Grease. When it is finally midnight, it is traditional to pop a grape in your mouth for each of the twelve tolls of the bell. The supermarkets sell special cylindrical containers set with 12 grapes ready for the ceremony. If you watch on tv, as soon as the bell starts tolling, they put a picture of a chewing cow in the corner whose cheeks gradually puff out.

The 5th of January is also a special day in Spain. This is when "Los Tres Reyes Magos" (the 3 kings) come to the children of spain. There are many parades where candy is thrown out into the crowd. The parades always end with the 3 kings riding on the last float. The parade in the picture was in Salamanca, a city known for its University. On the night of the 5th you are suppose to put shoes outside of your front door to let the kings know that there are kids in the house. Then the kings leave presents for the kids (or Carbon if the kids are bad). Many Spanish kids don't get any presents from Santa Clause (Papa Noel), but just get their presents from the 3 kings. My kids must have been pretty good because the kings got my son a watch and a dragon sword, and they got my daughter a traditional spanish outfit. My behavior must have been questionable, because the kings didn't leave anything for me.

Castle Mottos

2006-01-09T02:02:00.000-08:00

This is a picture from the castle that overlooks Edinburgh. Over the front gates is a saying in Latin that says something like, No disrespect will go unanswered. The tour guide explained that it was the Scottish motto. While this might be the Scottish motto, it was very similar to the sentiments found on castles in Ireland, England, and Spain. I found this interesting because it reminded me of the computer strategy tit-for-tat. There was a famous programming competition where programs would square off against each other. In a given round a program could decide to cooperate or fight. If you fought and the other program cooperated, you got 4 points and he got none. If you both cooperated, you each got 2 points. If you both fought, you each got 1 point. After 100 rounds, the programs would rotate to face another program. At the end, the program with the most points won. People wrote very elaborate programs, but what won the competition was tit-for-tat. This is where you start off cooperating, and then always do what the other program did in the previous round. What strikes me about these castles mottos, is how they seem to represent the idea of tit-for-tat in the real world. It seems that being either too aggressive or too forgiving keeps you from staying in power long enough to build a castle.

Questions that you don't want answered

2006-01-09T01:56:00.000-08:00

I use to think that there was no such thing as a bad question. Spain has taught me that I was wrong. Take, for example, the question, “How long can you go without paying any of your utility bills before your utilities stop functioning?” The answer is 4 months and 4 days. To be completely accurate, after 4 months and 4 days an order is sent to a subcontractor to turn off your utilities. The water subcontractor is the most efficient, taking only 2 days to shut off the water. Both the gas subcontractor and the electric subcontractor take longer (thankfully I don't know exactly how long).

I'm sure this leads to another question. Why in the world would anyone who can pay their utility bills, go so long without paying them. As you might have guessed, the answer is that I had no idea that I wasn't paying any of my utilities. When we moved out to Sant Cugat, all the utilities were set up by a relocation firm who tied them to our bank account (also set up by the relocation firm). During my second week in Sant Cugat, I went in to the bank to set up a wire transfer into my account. I asked them why they charged so much to accept money (2%). They told me that this was their standard rate and showed me where it was listed in a brochure. I told them that I still thought this was too much. They then asked me if 1% would be OK. I told them that I still thought that this was too much. They said to do any better would require talking with the branch manager. I asked them to talk to the branch manager. The bank official came back and asked if a flat fee of 15 Euros would be acceptable. I said, that is OK with me. Early in this conversation I realized that my Spanish was not up to the task at hand, so I had called the relocation service and had someone on the phone who could act as a translator, allowing most of this conversation to be accomplished by passing a cell phone back and forth. Now apart from getting a better rate for receiving wire transfers, at some point during this visit (probably during the first 2 seconds), the bank realized that I was not a Spanish citizen. They also realized that my account number was one reserved for Spanish citizens so they made a tinny, little change to the number allowing everyone looking at the account would know that I'm an extranjero (foreigner). Now, believe it or not, I remembered that my utilities were tied to the original bank number, so I asked the relocation agent to make sure that things would still be linked up. He told me, “No pase nada”. (Don't worry about a thing.) And that was the last I worried about it for 4 months and 6 days.

Another oddity about utilities is that the names listed on the contracts are for various previous tenants. For example, the gas is listed for Fernandez, the electric is for Jose, and the water is for Felip, with these three making up only a small fraction of the names of people who receive mail at our address. Not wanting to open other peoples mail, I've been collecting up their letters and giving them to the local post office, happily passing on all the disconnection notices without even realizing what they were. My recent experience has caused me to reevaluate this procedure.

As a final note, the water company finally had office hours this morning. I was able to go in, explain the situation (all in Spanish without my cell phone translator), and pay my back bills. This has lead, in under 2 hours, to my water being turned back on. If anyone was wondering, having water is much better than hopping over the neighbors fence to load up buckets of water to fill up the toilets.

Manly Men

2005-11-15T01:13:00.000-08:00

Men in Spain spend more time doing manly activities together than men do back in the states. At least they spend more time than I did. From my neighbor who keeps trying to get me to go hunting wild boar with him (not likely to happen), to Angels Bar around the corner that is packed each night with an all male crowd, to the guys at the tennis club who are often meeting for dinner in the evenings, men seem to spend a lot of time away from their families hanging out together.

Of course, since I’ve been trying to gain an appreciation for Spanish culture, I’ve force myself to partake in several of these activities. I started with going to the pick up futbol games organized by the fathers of the 3^rd graders at my children’s school. They meet in the school’s gym and play for about 2 hours each Thursday night. The group is very welcoming and good natured, but there also seems to be a fair amount of “breast beating”. The first night that I stopped by, one of the fathers greeted me with “Como estas?”, to which I answered, “Muy bueno”. He responded, “You just responded that you are very sexy, I think you meant muy bien.” I said, “No. No. MUY BUENO”. After that I fit right in with the group.

I’ve also been spending some time with men from the tennis club. After playing a match, one of the guys invited me out to dinner with some of his friends on Wednesday night. After accepting, I found out that we were meeting at the restaurant at 10:30 PM. We had Jamon (of course), potatoes and cheese with a special hot plate in the middle for melting the cheese to pour over everything else. There was also plenty of wine, and for desert we had shots of Jack Daniels in deference to the American in the group. They wanted me to explain how Jack Daniels was made, and were very disappointed with my minimal knowledge about the production of fine whiskey. Only one of the Spanish guys, Pedro, spoke English well, and he was only willing to translate about half of what was said (the rest being too embarrassing). Carlos ended the night struggling through an English toast, but getting confused, he ended with, “Shit to you” when he meant “Cheers to you.” In the spirit of the night I just toasted back, “Shit to you too, Carlos”.

Mystery in the Morning

2005-11-09T01:09:00.000-08:00

I really like cereal in the morning. If I go out traveling and have fancy breakfasts in hotels, by the third day I'm missing my morning bowl. The cereal that I like best is Honey Nut Cheerios. Luckily we've been able to find it out here, but it hasn't been easy. Cereal is not very popular here and it seems to be targeted almost exclusively for children. Most of the supermarcados in the area carry only 7 or 8 brands and almost every cereal has chocolate added to it. But, if you are willing to travel 40 minutes to the nearest El Corte Ingles (a Macy's style department store which we discovered because it was the only place that carried the kid's school uniforms), on the bottom floor there is an extended supermarcado that has all sorts of extras you can't normally find like peanut butter and (joy) Cheerios con Tostados y Miel.

Now I'm coming to the mystery part. As I was enjoying my bowl of cereal, I started to read the side of the box. There it had the CDR (equivalent to USDA) guidelines along with how Cheerios stacked up. The first mystery was that the line for Calcio showed that the amount went down in the second column. In the US, the second column always contains the nutrients when milk is added, but that couldn't be right for Spain, because, even in Spain, adding milk doesn't lower the amount of Calcium. I was stumped because the second column did list “con leche” until I noticed that the second column also changed the amount of cereal measured. A small note said that the first column tested 100g of cereal, while the second column tested only 30g of cereal with milk. While that solved the first mystery, it raised another one (isn't it always the case). Why do they show a first column with 100g tested? A whole large box is only 375g. I eat a lot of cereal, but I'm sure I get way more than 4 bowls out of each box. This mystery I didn't find such an easy answer for. Maybe it is a marketing ploy to make it look like cereal is more nutritious, or maybe people just like dealing in quantities that can be made up using only 1s and 0s.

My wife thinks she knows the answer. She thinks that this is because Honey Nut Cheerios is marketed to Americans here. The Spanish stereotype is that Americans each huge quantities of everything and my wife thinks that the Spanish would think 100g is just about right for an American. After all, we've seen coffee being sold in small, medium, large and American size. That being said, I think my wife is wrong on this one. I'm just going to chalk this up to another one of those strange European things.

Art around Sant Cugat

2005-11-08T13:19:00.000-08:00

One difference from Raleigh is that there is a lot more art out and about the area. Not to take anything away from the giant acorn, but I prefer the pieces I’ve seen here. They tend to be abstract and modern, but very well done (unlike the welcome tower coming down Capital Boulevard into Raleigh that is practically indistinguishable from a cell phone relay station). On the way to driving the kids to school, I pass a cinema that has 3, twelve foot abstract heads. My wife didn’t even recognize them as heads the first time that she saw them, but I think that they are quite good.

Art isn’t just in Sant Cugat, but seems to have been sprinkled about practically everywhere. As we travel about the area, large sculptures seem to be about as common as rest stops. I like the entrance to Universidad Autonama which is adorned with 4 massive columns, all of different sizes, and all between 6-8 stories tall. These towers are built up of square concrete slabs that are gradually rotated, making it look like there are stairs spinning up the sides of the towers.

Modern art is also added to almost every historic site. We recently took a trip to Costa Brava, which is the ritzy, vacation area in Spain. In Begur, there is a big hill, with the remains of a castle/lookout tower that watches over the coast for miles around. We hiked up the ancient crumbling stones, wrapping around the hill 4 times to finally reach the tower. You climb in and in the parapet you not only have a great view, but there is also an 8 foot sculpture made out of metal gears and rods. I actually liked the sculpture; I just found it a little odd to be stuck in the middle of an ancient rock structure.

There was another example that was even odder in Besalu, a historic town about 45 minutes inland from Begur. Beselu is a great town that has been preserved for who knows how many years. To get into the city, you park you car and then walk across a giant stone walking bridge, passing giant iron gates designed to keep out the invading hoards. Once inside the town there are restaurants, shops, and apartments all in the ancient stone structures. As an aside, one of the shops that we passed specialized in flat screen TVs. I wonder who has the brilliant business plan to rent a space in an ancient city to sell modern electronics. I’m pretty sure the store tries to compensate by offering free delivery, but my Spanish is still not good enough to know for sure. Back to the point…while walking down one of these narrow streets we noticed that someone had welded a metal chair 2 ½ stories up on the side of one of the stone walls. After we noticed the first one, we started to notice that, every once in a while you would turn a corner and there, welded way above your head, would be another vertical chair.

Andorra

2005-11-03T02:39:00.000-08:00

On our return trip from France, we decided to spend a night in Andorra. We didn't know anything about Andorra, we just noticed it on the map so we thought we would head that way. After winding up a mountain path for about an hour, I started to wonder if this was such a good idea. It was starting to get dark, we hadn't seen that many cars, and we hadn't made any reservations. Andorra is not part of the EU. Could that mean that there were Andorran rebels hiding in the mountains? Was this a country filled with Andorran shanty towns that didn't have nice hotels? My concerns were not alleviated when we finally reached the Andorrian border. It was a mountain pass with nothing much around and there was a HUGE line of cars trying to get out of Andorra with practically no one going the other direction. After being waved right through customs (they didn't even look at our passports), we continued onward in the dark for about half an hour going higher and higher into the Pyrenees. Eventually we reached our first Andorran town which was a relief because it looked like a little ski village. We decided to continue on and after winding our way through some more mountains, we reached a place that was larger and looked like it had nice accommodations.

This was a very mountainous area. Everything was built clinging to steep slopes. In fact, when we went to park the car we had to corkscrew down a tunnel 3 times before it opened up into the parking area. We joked about being sent to the Andorian mining pits to park and my wife practiced her Volcan greeting of “Live long and prosper” (with the two fingered V). She then left me to take the elevator back up to the reception area while I stayed with the sleeping children. We soon confirmed that we had left France when my wife came back and said that they wouldn't allow us to take our dog to the room.

A little further down the road we did find a hotel that would take pets. It actually didn't take pets but they made an exception because it was before ski season and they still had plenty of vacancies. The place we stayed was extremely nice and very inexpensive. Breakfast was even included. I later found out that Andorra is known for its great deals and duty free shopping.

The next day we followed the one main road out into Spain. It is hard to believe that a country could exist that is so small it doesn't even have one airport. The whole country is built in mountains around one road. As far as I know, there is only one entrance in Spain and one entrance in France. The Andorrans must have been very adept at balancing the interests of the French and the Spanish not to get gobbled up by either country. Next time we go back, we'll have to try to talk with more Andorrans to find out their history.

One final note was that it did take forever to get back into Spain. We must have been stuck for over an hour as we tried to cross the border. I think the Spanish and French do this on purpose, just to keep too many people from availing of the duty free shopping.

Traveling Europe By Car

2005-11-02T01:46:00.000-08:00

Some things about traveling by car are different in Europe. The first difference is that it is much more expensive. Not only are gas prices higher (double to triple the expense), but whenever you go on a major highway you have to pay tolls. For a 4 hour trip to France, the toll road in Spain was about $10, and the toll road in France was about $15 dollars. It was even more expensive when we came back through Andorra where we had to go through 2 tunnels, one $7 and the other $12. The good thing about the tunnels is that they are long, so at least you feel like you get your moneys worth. My kids play a game where, if they can hold their breath all the way through a tunnel, they believe one of their wishes will come true. My kids were not even close to getting any wishes.

Another difference when driving in Spain and France is that you don't see any police. I have yet to see anyone stopped for speeding. The roads in Spain have a limit of 120 km/hr and the roads in France are 130 km/hr in good weather, and 110 km/hr in rain or fog. The fast lane was moving at about 150 km/hr. I'm told that there are some cameras that will send you a ticket, but there are a lot of people who just zip along. People are very good about staying to the right unless they are passing and I have not seen any accidents on the highways.

One thing odd about Spanish highways is that the exits are often different depending on what direction you are going. If you miss an exit and go to the next one to turn around, you seem to only have about a 50% chance of getting back on the highway. This is just one of the many times when having a GPS unit in the car is great. Especially in France, where you really don't want to be asking for directions, having the GPS meant that we had a lot more time at our destinations instead of circling around lost.

One last point of interest is that there is a surprising amount of English music being played on the radio. This is not only true when driving around, but also in the shops and restaurants. There may not be that many people that speak English in Sant Cugat, but there are a lot of people who know the words to Bon Jovi's, “Have a Nice Day”. I think I have heard it at least 30 times while driving around the town. It was also the first song we heard when we got to France (though I think it was a Spanish station). Spanish people like Bon Jovi.

Good French Things

2005-11-01T11:49:00.000-08:00

I am feeling a little guilty about my last post since it was so critical. There were several great things about France. The first thing that comes to mind is the food, which was fabulous. Our first dinner might be the best meal I have ever had, and my wife's dish was equally as good. Even the kids meals were special, with my son having a lamb dish and my daughter having fillet mignon. At another restaurant, we noticed that about half the people were speaking Spanish. We were told by a waiter that many people drive hours just for their desserts.

The cities were also beautiful. We walked the historic section of Montipellar and were able to walk along the original walls of the city that had been created centuries earlier. Around many corners there were intricate sculptures and meticulously manicured gardens. We also were able to visit a French fortress near the Spanish border and walk through the garretts. It seemed impossible that anyone could break through the defenses with anything short of a modern tank.

The French also love dogs. We were traveling with our Shihtzu, and the dog was welcome everywhere. From staying with us at the fancy chateau to joining us for gourmet meals, the dog was our constant companion. At the restaurants they would even bring over a bowl of water for under the table.

We met one very nice 25 year old, Alex, along the way. My wife started talking to him in French and he was very friendly. We were both looking for a Chinese restaurant and we ended up joining each other for a meal. It turns out he was a Canadian from Montreal, and he was taking a year to bum around Europe. We gave him our address in Sant Cugat so we may see him again.

"French people are scary"

2005-11-01T09:51:00.000-08:00

During the long weekend, we decided to visit France. After about a 4 hour drive, we were able to make it to Montpellier, a French town on the Mediterranean. It is amazing how much difference there can be in people who are only separated by 4 hours of road. As we walked through the square of Montipellar, it looked like practically everyone was a little annoyed at something. In the middle of the square, my son pulled me aside and whispered in my ear, "I think French people are scary". Being the ever understanding father, I whispered back, "Don't look now, but I think they've surrounded us."

My wife was also having difficulties. We were having trouble finding the restaurants that our hotel recommended, so she tried out her French to ask a women for directions. The conversation went something like:

< >Wife: "Do you know where the restaurant, Guía, is?"
< >Woman: "Gooeu"
< >Wife: "Oue (yes), Guía"
< >Woman: "Gooeu"
< >Wife: "Oue" Showing the restaurant name on a piece of paper
< >Women: Rolls her eyes and says, "Gooeu" again.
< >Wife: "Gooeu"
< >Woman: "Gooeu, I have no idea"

The woman wasn't going to help us, but she just wanted to make sure that my wife didn't mangle the French language. This was followed up with the waiter at the restaurant saying (in an annoyed tone), "Look, why don't we do this in English", after we tried to order.

Even the people in the fancy French chateau where we stayed lacked warmth. They had 3 concierges, and they all were similar. They were all attractive women in their 20s, dressed to the hilt, but they all did their best to try to pretend that both you and they were invisible. They would ignore you unless you talked to them directly, and then they would talk in hushed tones. It seems that the hight of French hospitality is to make it seem like there is no one else around you. Given what the other French people were like, maybe this is understandable.

There was one notable exception. The breakfast at the chateau wasn't great, so on our second night I zipped out with my daughter to a McDonalds to get breakfast for the family. To my great relief, the people working at McDonalds not only spoke English, but were also both cheerful and nice. The McDonalds in France don't have a breakfast menu, so we ordered chicken sandwiches that took a while, but it was such a good surprise to meet nice French people that we didn't mind. I read someplace that when McDonalds opened in Moscow, they had to have smiling lessons for the new hires. I'm not sure whether the people in France went through special training, but there was something definitely different about them.

Halloween

2005-11-01T09:49:00.000-08:00

Halloween isn't much in Spain. They know what it is from American movies, but it still is rare that anyone is doing anything for it. One exception is the kid's school, who had a dress up day and then an afternoon party. The most interesting part of the festivities was that each grade was only give a choice of two types of creatures they could dress up as. My daughter could either be a vampire or a hunchback. My son could either be a mummy or a werewolf. The high schoolers were given a little more freedom. They could be any character from the Adams family.
Of course Halloween is a national holiday from work. It is traditional in Spain to go and visit your dead relatives in the cemetery, but, with the day being a holiday, many people use it as an opportunity for a "grande noche". We missed the festivities and instead took the opportunity to tour a bit more of Europe.

Can Borrell

2005-10-27T02:03:00.000-07:00

Today my wife and I went out to eat at a traditional Catalan restaurant, Can Borrell. It is situated in the middle of a park and we had to walk about 25 minutes down a wooded path to get there. There is also a dirt road you can take, but we couldn't find it. About 1/4 of the people that were at the restaurant had walked.

We started with a pitcher of sangrea, but a more interesting choice would have been the chilled black wine (two me next to us ordered it). The black wine comes in a glass pitcher that has the pouring nozzle stretched to a point. The men would take turns holding up the pitcher and pouring the wine directly into their mouths. They did this with one hand while the other hand held back their beards. I thought that the chance of me getting through a whole pitcher of the stuff without getting any on my shirt would be minimal.

While we waited for our food, we had bread that came with tomatoes and garlic. When I write tomotoes and garlic, I mean the whole things, completely uncut. When we asked the waiter what we did with the tomatoes and the clove of garlic he tried to explain, but finally gave up and got his own portion to show us. You started by taking the tomato and cutting it in half. Then you rubbed it against the bread, squishing out tomato juice. When the bread has soaked up the tomato, you cut the garlic, and rubbed it on top as well. You finally poured oil over the top. While it was good, I think I prefer having the sause made for me.

A man and his mother on the other side of us had ordered some type of vegetable instead of the bread. It came with plastic gloves and a dipping sause. The vegetable looked a lot like thick spegetti. It was dipped into the sause and then dropped into your mouth. The man was doing the dipping for his mother and they both seemed to be enjoying it.

Our first course was mushrooms after which we had snails and rabbit. The mushrooms were especially good. As we finished, we got 4 large shots of child peppermint schnops. The waiter insisted that this was good for the digestion and gave them to us on the house. It was a good thing that we had plenty of time and that it was a long walk back to the car.

Following the restaurant link, Can Borrell, has some nice pictures of the place. You click on "Mappa" and then click on any of the red dots.

The Birthday Party

2005-10-27T01:33:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went with my daughter to a birthday party for one of her classmates. It was at a stable close to her school. The day started out a little rocky, because there are actually two stables close to her school and I went to the wrong one. The stable I arrived out told me I had to pay 8 euros to get into the party before a girl waiting to ride told me I was at the wrong stable. As she started to walk me to the other stable I'm pretty sure they were telling me I had to move my car, but parking is so difficult I chose not to understand. (One of the rare times where not knowing Spanish has been an advantage).

There were 28 children at the party and most children were brought by their fathers. About 10 of the fathers stayed and 3 or 4 of the mothers. The most interesting parent was the grandfather of the birthday girl. He was in from Madrid where he was the head of the Red Cross. Before heading the Red Cross (which is completely a volunteer job), he was CEO of a petrochemical company. He told me how he was able to pay for college by playing professional soccer and how being on the soccer team, where he had to get allong with people who mostly had very little education, gave him some of the most useful experience for being a successful CEO. He also told me about getting his Master in Chemical Engineering at MIT. He recieved a one year scholorship, so he had to get his masters in one year. His adviser thought it would be impossible, and told him that at a minimum he would have to improve his english. The adviser strongly suggested getting a bed dictionary (i.e. an American girlfried). When he told the adviser that he was married, the MIT advisor told him that his advice still stands. The advisor's secretary was horrified and ended up helping him get through the program without the extracuricular help.

I also met a father that worked in buscit marketting (Formerly with Nabisco but now with a Spanish firm). I asked him about the Jamon with DVD promotion (see previous post). He told me you could also get a free Jamon leg when you bought home insurance or, during the Christmas season, if you bought enough biscuts (and not just any Jamon, but the really good stuff with the black hooves).

The fathers pretty much just talked amoung themselves as the kids went riding and then afterwards, as the kids had snacks. This continued as the boys in the group started running around throwing food at each other. One of the fathers commented something to the effect that boys will be boys. My daughter tells me that this roughty behavior is tollerated at school as well. She commented that, if the Spanish students were transported back to school in Raleigh, the School in Raleigh would have to hire more principals.

Back to College

2005-10-22T05:32:00.000-07:00

I've just started my classes in Castillano (Spanish) at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. The class is a mix of people from all over. There is one women from Turkey, one Pallestinian, 4 people from Germany, one from New Zealand, one from China, 2 Americans (me and my wife), and two Italians and an Austrian. The instructor, Pilar, speaks a little bit of English and a little bit of German but tries to only use Castillano.

Getting into the class was a bit of an ordeal. The school has about 15,000 students, so just finding the building for Idiomas Modernas (Modern Languages) took us a while. Once we found it, someone at a desk told us we had to show up again for an information session two weeks later. When we came back for the information session, we waited for about half an hour to be taken into a class room with a group of about 30 students. The profesora collected everyones passport number and then started describing the matriculation processes. After she talked for about 15 minutes an English guy raised his hand and said, “You just described what people who have never had Spanish before should do, maybe beginners would have trouble with what you said because it was all in Spanish”. The teacher looked at him like he was an idiot, and said (in English), “It appears like you understood what I said, but if you like, I'll say it again more slowly.” at which point she started repeating stuff more slowly, but still in Spanish. As she was repeating absolutely everything, the guy interrupted her and said that it wasn't for him, that he understood, at which point the teacher said, “good, if you understand, please let me get through the material” and then she went on to giving new information. I thanked the English guy after class for trying.

Once the session ended, we were able to find out that we had to come back later in the afternoon for a placement test, and then, once again, in another week to register. I skipped the test completely knowing what I would get on it, but my wife tried it. After struggling through the grammar section she thought that maybe she should start in the beginner section too.

We then waited the week before the next hurdle, formal registration. We showed up at the appointed time and there was a line through the building. We ended up waiting an hour and a half until it was our turn at the window. We were then taken to a back room with a person that was sitting in front of a computer. They typed in our name, confirmed that we were going to be in Castellano 1, and then printed out an invoice that we had to bring to one of 3 banks to pay. The whole processes was very mysterious because I couldn't understand why any of it was required, but being a good sheep, I waited my turn. Most of the students waiting seemed to be in very good spirits and the wait didn't seem to phase them at all. I guess this was just a part of university life.

So off we went to the bank and another line. When we finally got to the front, they wouldn't take my bank card to pay the bill. They kept saying, “cash only”. I had the women repeat it a couple of times because: 1 – I didn't think she really spoke English, and 2 – The bill for me and my wife was a little over $1,000. It seemed unbelievable that the bank wouldn't accept a transfer. In the end, I went over to an ATM, got the money, got back in line, and handed over my wad of 20s.

Just to end on a positive note, now that the class has started, I'm very happy with it. The instructor, Pilar, is great (much better than the head of the department who did the orientation). She keeps the class upbeat and interesting even though we all have a very limited Spanish vocabulary. The first day she asked everyone what pais (country) they were from. That is, she asked everyone except the Italians. They showed up about 10 minutes late looking a little disheveled with what looked like 5 O'Clock shadows at 12 in the afternoon. When they came in, before they said a word, she said, “Ah..., Italianos, Si.”

Spanish Pride

2005-10-19T00:42:00.000-07:00

The people I've met are filled with pride for the place they live. When I was in a car dealership and asked the salesman how he liked living in Sant Cugat, he answered that, “Sant Cugat is the most beautiful place in the world.” It's great that people feel this way, but it seems to be taken to an extreme where everything here is unquestionably the best. For example, I went and was inquiring about joining a tennis club and I asked whether they had any covered courts. The man answered that they don't need covered courts because, “this is Spain and it is always beautiful in Spain”. I pointed out the window where the rain was pouring down, and he said, “well... todays an exception”.

People are also always bragging about the food, but honestly, a majority of the places we've tried have pretty mediocre food. The food in Raleigh tends to be much better and a lot less expensive. There are some exceptions. The fresh fruits and fresh fish are good, the fish being best when the Spanish cooks do as little to them as possible. If you like ham sandwiches, they have a gazillion types of ham and salami. My wife and I were at a midieval village and ate at a restaurant that advertised O.K. Paellas. We agreed.

While looking with an uncritical eye at your surroundings strikes me as odd, it might have something to do with the Spanish history. It wasn't that long ago that Spain had a dictator and people got hauled off in the middle of the night when neighbors turned each other in for being too critical. I'm told that talking about politics is still avoided in social situations. But despite this history, I still get the feeling that the underlying consensus here is that everything Spanish is the best in the whole world.

Jamon gratis with DVD

2005-10-17T02:30:00.001-07:00

The people here love ham (Jamon). Everywhere you go there are stores with little ham sandwiches or bagetts with pork salami. On the way to Collgato (a town with huge caves in the side of a mountain said to inspire Gaudi), we stopped off in a mall for Mexican food. We had to wait for it to open (1:00 PM – too early for lunch), so we walked around. In the electronics section of a store, they had a big promotion. With the purchase of a DVD player you would receive a free pork leg. They had stacks of them on both sides of the DVD player. Each pork leg was from the hooves all the way up to where the leg connected into the body. They were dried and salted, and apparently made for a wonderful treat no matter what movie you were watching.

Yom Kippur

2005-10-17T02:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Yom Kippur so we went into Barcelona for the service. After finding a congregation on the Internet, I was surprised that they didn't provide an address with their contact information. I had to email and then they gave me an invitation and the location. We also had to bring our passports in order to get into the service. Apparently antisemitism is a problem here. On the website, they said that within a week of putting up a holocaust memorial statue, it was broken in half.

The nice part about the service was that it was still familiar. This is one of the advantages of having much of the service in Hebrew. Of course, my understanding of the 20 minute sermon was something like this: There were three students who Blah, Blah, Blah. And then the Rabi said Blah, Blah, Blah. A few days later we went over to the house of one of the congregation members and found out that the sermon was actually pretty good.

Another difference was in the transliteration. Because lots of people don't read Hebrew, all the prayers have the phonetic translations underneath the Hebrew. The phonetics were completely different than they would be in the states. It makes sense, since many letters are pronounced differently in Spanish, but it still took me a few minutes to figure it out.

Gender confusion

2005-10-10T03:23:00.000-07:00

My wife just sent out this email to some friends. I thought it was funny so include it here:

Help! After all these years, I find myself facing a gender crisis. No, not the sexual orientation kind - the language kind. Being a Filipino, I am afflicted with the disease of mixing up my English pronouns. In the Tagalog (Filipino) language, our pronouns are
generic and can be used for either sex. I occasionally hear my son exasperatedly say "Mom, you just called me a 'her'." when this disease strikes.

Now, we're living in Spain where everything - and I mean everything - is either a male or a female. A table is not an "it" but a "she" and the floor that I walk on feels superior because he's a he. The rule is, if the name for a thing ends with the letter "a", it's a female; "o", it's a male. All the pronouns, adjectives and adverbs have to match the gender accordingly.

This rule confuses me because it is not always followed. "Dias" is the plural form of "dia" which ends in "a" but you use "buenos" with it. "Noches", on the other hand, is plural for "noche" which ends in "e" but sounds like it should be male because it has the letter "o" in it, is paired with "buenas". It irks me to get corrected whenever I slip and say "Buenas dias". It's their own rule that's messed-up, not me.

Furthermore, I just found out that I have male and female body parts. My eyes are male (ojos), my mouth is female (boca), so on and so forth. Then, there are gq's (gender questionable) parts such as my nariz (nose)or mofletes (cheeks). Are they male of female (androgynous, maybe)? Do having male and female parts make me a hermaphrodite?

I am so gender conflicted. I want everyone to learn how to speak Tagalog so I don't have to worry about sex anymore - instead, I can just relax and enjoy IT!

Spanish Hours

2005-10-07T06:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took a trip with my wife out to Sitges. It is a city on the Mediterranean that seems to have been around for a long time. It has lots of narrow cobblestone streets surrounded by stone buildings with people selling cloths, jewelery, food, art, and furniture. My wife wanted to buy some jeans that were being sold in an outside stall. When she asked if she could try them on, the vendor said go ahead. The vendor expected my wife to try them on right out in the public area. Aparently this is pretty common. There are some things about Spain that you just have to love.

Sitges also seems to have a thriving resort industry. There are several smaller hotels that are across from a very nice beach and some rocky cliffs. We arrived about noon and after walking around for a bit we ended up in an art gallery. We thought about buying a painting, but decided to hold off. While we were leaving we asked the curator what time he would be open until in case we wanted to stop back. He was closing at 2, and then he would reopen sometime around 4 (depending on how lunch went) and then stay open to 4:30, 5:00, maybe even 6:00 depending on how he was feeling. I think these were about the hours for all the retail stores. After eating lunch at 1:00 (a sea side cafe with a patio with a great view, mediocre food), almost nothing was opened. The streets that had been packed with people, had relatively few people left. Most of the people around seemed to be closing up. The restaurants were full with people having leisurely lunches. Two to Four is the standard lunch “hour”. This is not limited to Sitges, but is also the same in Sant Cugat.

Earlier in the day I had stopped by the bank to pick up my ATM card. It had taken 3 weeks to get the card and required going back to the bank 4 times. They had made a mistake on the first pass at opening the account (they originally opened the account with me listed as having a NIH number) which added about a week to the process. The person I worked with at the bank was very nice, but said that she was tired because she was accustomed to the branch closing at 2:00. In the fall the branch extends its hours to include from 5 until 8:30. 8:30 is about when people start having dinner and it is when most of the restaurants open in the evening.

The delays at the bank weren't so bad because the main reason I wanted the account was to be able to pay for the kid's school (you have to pay by transfering money). On the kid's first day of school I went in to let them know that I had not received a bill. The women working in the office (who is extremely nice) said that the beginning of the school year is a very busy time, so she hadn't had a chance to put our bill together yet. She asked me if I was planning to pay the bill when it came. I said yes. She said, “then don't worry about it. I'll get to it soon.” It has been about three weeks and I still haven't gotten the bill.

Weirdness in the park

2005-10-04T11:33:00.000-07:00

Across from our house, there is a park where I walk our dog. It is the side of a hill that has winding paths leading to the top. At the top there is a little mound that is raised. (The mound reminds me of a hobbit hovel, minus the front door and windows.) There are apartments on 2 sides of the mound, but the view out the other direction is across the valley.

Each morning I walk the dog to the top of the hill and I've come to know a couple of the other dog owners in the area. It seems that most people let their dogs run free through the park (though there is a rule that you have to keep your dogs on a leash), and no one seems to clean up after their dog (though there is a rule that everyone has to clean up after their dog). Many rules seem to be disregarded. For example, just driving through town you see cars parked everywhere that doesn't directly block other traffic. If there is a sidewalk that someone can drive up on, there is a car parked there. When I go to pick up the kids at school there is a traffic circle that is 2 lanes. About once every 4 days there is a policeman standing there to call a tow truck if anyone parks in the circle. If the policeman is not there, everyone parks in the outer lane of the circle. The biggest danger to parking there is that the Spanish policeman doesn't seem to have a good sense of time, so sometimes he's late (at which point the tow truck actually gets someone).

But, back to the point about the weirdness. On Sunday morning I go to walk my dog in the park. On Sunday mornings almost nobody seems to be awake. The normally busy street in front of the house is completely quiet. I get to the top of the hill and there are 2 shinny new BMWs parked in front of the hobbit hovel. There are 5 well dressed men that look to be in there late 20s talking between the cars and drinking a few beers. This is odd for several reasons. First, you don't see shinny cars anywhere. Nobody seems to clean their cars here and fancy cars like BMWs are relatively rare. Second, why would anyone drive to the middle of the field. There is usually parking around the front of the surrounding apartments a short walk away from the park. Third, why are they drinking beer at 7:30 in the morning? Forth, what are they even doing up, it's 7:30 in the morning. My wife thought they were just continuing parting from the night before, but I don't think she is right. They looked freshly showered and wide awake. I might have gone over and asked, but my Spanish just isn't good enough, and even if it was, I'm not sure it would have been such a good idea. If I solve the mystery, I'll put up another post, but I think this is just going to be one of those unanswered questions.

First Party

2005-10-01T23:24:00.000-07:00

Friday night we had our first dinner party in Sant Cugat. We invited 3 other couples that we had met at the kids school. One couple had moved here from Madrid over the summer. Another couple had lived for 5 years in Connecticut after the husband graduated from Tuck(?) (Dartmouth's business school). The husband of the third couple had lived in LA for a while. It isn't exactly a prerequisite, but speaking English makes it much more likely you get invited to one of our parties.

We were told that it was fairly unusual to have several people over and that usually a group this big would meet at a restaurant. About 45 minutes before everyone arrived, we realized that we didn't have enough silverware or place settings so I went zipping out to the local mall. There they have a local super market, Eroski, that has everything. It is sort of odd to have a store that sells fish also sell cell phones, shoes, and CDs but you can get it all at Eroski. We now have place settings for 18.

The party went pretty much like one would in the states. I think that they seemed a bit more reticent than Americans to talk about themselves or say anything controversial, but it was a fun group and we had a good time. Champaign, or the Spanish version that seemed equivalent to me, is big here. Each couple brought 2 bottles. (Though the group from Madrid said they only brought it because the flower shop was closed.)

Getting Started

2005-09-30T00:22:00.000-07:00

I arrived with my family in Sant Cugat about 3 weeks ago. This was a last minute decision to try living in Spain for a year. The recent sale of a company that I started has allowed me this unique opportunity to take some time off and explore life in a different culture.

The best part so far has been that the people here have been wonderfully helpful. This has been hugely appreciated because no one in the family speaks Spanish or Catalan. (My wife actually speaks a little bit of Spanish, but not enough to get by without help). While most people don't speak English, they have been very accommodating and gracious as we struggle to look up words in our ever present English/Spanish dictionary.

We have rented a town house about 5 minutes from the kids school.

One difference is that our house seems to be built like a fortress compared to our house in the states. There is a tunnel under the units to the parking. After you gain entrance into the tunnel with your door opener, you have to get to your car’s garage. The garage has iron grating that reminds me of a prison cells. The garage door also makes a powerful, harmonic clang when the door locks closed that just rings with the words, “this will not be opened without proper authorization”. You have to get out of your car and unlock the cell (garage door), pull in, relock the iron grating, and enter your house from the door at the back of the garage. After about a week in the apartment, I had to make a quick stop into the house. I pulled the car in but I left the door to our car’s cell open. After running in and getting whatever (I think it was passport for the bank, but getting a bank account is another story), I jumped back in the car, pulled into the tunnel, hopped out of my car and slammed our car’s cell closed. When I reached the end of the tunnel and needed my garage door opener, I couldn’t find it. After quickly searching the car, I decided that I must have left it in the house. Since there was no way to get the car out of the tunnel without the opener, I left the car (blocking all cars from the other 14 town houses) and went out through a door next to the tunnels exit. In my rush, I let the door exiting the tunnel close behind me. This locked me outside our complex. After hopping over a wall to get back to my front door, I was able to get my wife to open the door. We both started searching around the house for the garage opener which is on a keychain which also has the key to the car’s cell. After about a ten minute search, I decided the key and garage door opener must really be in the car after all, only at this point, I had no way of getting back to the car. I decided that it was now a good time to meet my neighbors.

Of course, the one neighbor that I had already met was not around. At about the eighth house I was able to get someone to answer the door. She was actually just leaving to go someplace, but I’m a little unclear where since she didn’t speak any English. As you can imagine, trying to explain my above circumstances in sign language proved to be quite difficult. I think she thought that I might want to go through to her garage, but it seemed such a strange request that she didn’t believe we were understanding each other. She started walking with me, ringing doorbells of more people’s houses trying to find someone who could translate for us. After crossing the street, and trying several doors, we finally found someone who was home who knew some English. She convinced my neighbor that I really wanted to go through her garage so we went back to my neighbor’s house and she let me through. After she unlocked her garage and we walked to my car, she finally realized what was going on. She showed me the panel I could open that had the controls for the tunnel’s door. Once the door was opened, I was able to drive my car out into the street where I wouldn’t be blocking everyone. After another 10 minutes of searching, I finally found the key and garage door opener in a nook off under the car’s driver’s side seat. I then went zooming off to an appointment with a car dealership since we still had an Avis rental, but once again, that is a story for another post.