The Great Outdoors

Benches in urban spaces are a great way to energize a community and get people outside -- and many cities are coming up with all sorts of cool ideas to persuade people to take a seat.  But here in Madrid, there is no need for the remodeled bench (though they are so beautiful they are welcome) because it is a year-round outdoor city. It’s October and Madrileños are still spending most of their free time outside.  Terrazas are still crowded with people eating and drinking and enjoying and the street below my apartment window carries interesting conversations into the late hours.

In fact, the weather is so pleasant, year-round, that Madrid has plenty of places to simply BE outside – plazas, both big and small, are found in every neighborhood and streets are littered with (old school) benches.  And what’s more – people actually congregate in those plazas (excellent spots for newspaper reading and letting kids and dogs run wild) and actually sit on those benches (for watching the world go by.)

Many of us lead busy lives, with every minute focused on getting us to a determined goal.  But Madrid has a way of reminding us that it’s okay to just sit and be.

Yet, even with an understanding of this mentality, I was taken aback when a colleague suggested that we have a meeting outside.  Now, I have grown accustomed to meetings outside the office space (in fact, there is an art form to having a meeting in the time it takes to drink a coffee)... but a meeting with absolutely no walls around us?

We didn't stand and discuss action items and to-dos.  We actually met at a bench, sat down, and watched everyone else whiz by while having the meeting.  It was a bit, okay, impossible to take notes, but we did come up with a few genuine ideas (often the point of a meeting) and were both agreeable to the other’s requests.  It must have had something to do with the fresh air – a free and healthy substance that tends to make people happier and more productive.

Spanish Test

Claire and I met on the first day of Spanish class in Madrid.  Like me, she could not fill out the entry form which asked, in Spanish, such difficult questions as What is your name? When were you born?  What is your native language? How long have you been studying Spanish?  We both turned in blank pieces of paper. When learning a second language as an adult, vocabulary and grammar come gradually (more gradually for  me.)  Thus, Claire loved talking with little kids in Spanish.  If friends brought their children to a party, for example, she’d relish the opportunity to practice her Spanish amongst equals.

For this same reason, I’d avoid them.  Not only do kids say the darndest things anyway, they tend to speak truth to your face.  The question that usually came at me was why do you sound like my little brother?  Plus, they pick up the subjunctive so fast these days.

Fast forward three years and I am happily visiting my friends Carly and Rob in Philadelphia.  On our way to gather their four year daughter from preschool, Carly says Oh! And Lily has a Spanish class every Tuesday!  She can practice with you!

Now, a class every week is just enough to remind me of what I learned the week prior, but it is massive for someone who has not yet learned to read.  Children can acquire a second language faster than adults – and it will make them better adults, with improved working memory, cognitive control, and the ability to form concepts and think abstractly.

What is she learning?  I inquire, hesitantly.

Luckily, Lily is not yet a superhuman with five languages under her belt.  Our conversations focused mainly on jirafas and hipopótamos and gatos and perros.  Not only could I handle it, but I excelled – winning the delightful title of “Lady from Spanish Land.”

So, what brought you to Madrid?

This is where a conversation amongst expats (in Madrid) eventually lands. And the answer is usually love. Someone followed someone else to Spain, or fell in love with a Spaniard while visiting the country and simply never went home.  More often than not, that love soon fizzled but the expat stayed on because well, Spain itself is easy to fall for too.

The story can get a bit tired, and so it was with pleasure that I met an Andalusian named Susana who found her way back to Spain by following her heart.

After studying marketing at University, Susana decided seemingly at random to move to Italy, learn the language, and get a job.  She did.  (People are amazing.)  She stayed for a handful of years before moving to the UK to learn English.  She mastered that language (which is how she and I could have a conversation) and landed another good marketing job outside of London.

Before I continue, I should disclose that I knew Susana for little more than an hour of my life.  I hired her to help me with some specifics of Spanish bureaucracy and this entailed a trip to sign some paperwork donde el viento da vuelta. Let’s just say it’s far away.  During the trip, I asked her nosy, American questions and she gave me warmhearted, open Spanish answers.

After living in England for a few years, Susana returned to Spain, to Madrid this time, at which point she was offered a good sports marketing job in NYC.  She turned it down.

Lest I remind you that Spain is in crisis, with an unemployment rate hanging around 25% and smart Spaniards leaving the country for jobs elsewhere.

I wondered whether Susana was worried about staying in Madrid and working a job that didn’t push her forward professionally.  I asked her about what that would do to her future job prospects.  Wouldn’t she have trouble getting back into sports marketing?

No.  She wasn’t concerned.  Other jobs, she said with a wave of her hand, will come up.  Sometimes, you just want to be in Spain with the person you love.

Ana for a Smile

My Spanish teacher deserves a lot of credit. More for her patience than for my language ability, true – but also for her skills in reading upside down. Every time we get together she relays the sentences and exercises, takes part in our little theater readings, from the other side of the table. Reading upside down can boost brain activity, break monotony (no comment on what it’s like to teach me Spanish), make it easier to share newspapers, not to mention spy on other people. It also comes in handy when riding the metro.

On a grey, early morning (yes, these do happen in Madrid and – actually – they tend to make people happy because the sun is always freaking shining here in this part of the world) there were a bunch of tired folks riding the metro. It was too early for them to be in good spirits. No one seemed all too pleased to be alive.

Ana - let’s call her Ana because that’s her actual name – was in this bleak metro car.

She turned her book upside down and kept reading. With an eye on the page and an eye on the people around her, she noticed the other passengers glancing at one another, little elbow nudges, discrete head tilts in her direction. Slowly but surely, with each stop, the air in the car began to change. Some people even gave way to giggles and full smiles. She looked up, glanced a bit around, smiled herself, before going back to reading without giving away the fact that she realized her book was upside down.

As people got off the metro, they went into their day in a better mood. Lighter. Happier. Smiling. So did Ana, knowing she had helped make it happen.

Purchases

One of the “fun” things about living in a country where I don’t (yet) know the language is I often purchase things that do not make sense. For example, the other day I was at a lovely café, which I frequent on occasion when by some miracle I am early for Spanish class.  Instead of only ordering my usual café con leche, I went out on a ledge and  ordered tostada con tomate as well.  But it wasn’t that simple because the waitress then gave me a choice using vocabulary that is not on my top ten list.  Given the choice of two words, I chose “rebanada”— and stuck with it even though the waitress looked at me dubiously and asked again.  Si, rebanada, I said.  Of course I know what I’m talking about.

So, instead of toasted ciabatta, which is awesome…I got one slice of bread.

Today, I went to the drug store (which is not a pharmacy but more of a perfumeria where they sell  brand name cosmetics) to buy fabric softener.  Yup, I can buy Estee Lauder night crème and a bathroom plunger in the same place.

I thought I could go without fabric softener considering the laundry takes two full hours for a cycle of cotton – plus, Spain hasn’t allowed me to live as green as I am accustomed so I figured ditching the fabric softener was one small step.  (Fabric softener and sheets are not that good for la madre tierra.)

Needless to say, after wearing cardboard for three weeks, I have caved until further notice.  But, just try buying fabric softener in a store where you don’t recognize any of the brands and even the detergent looks alien. No fear though, because while my language skills have not improved as much as I would like, my charade skills are in tip top shape and I got help from the store clerk.

Which brings me to my second domestic shopping trip of the day to the grocery store – a place that needs its own post at another time.  It had been a really cold day and I had been outside of the city visiting a monastery and Franco’s tomb (you know, the usual) and I really wanted  to make hot chocolate at home.  The supermarket shelves only had Nescafe and I thought I’d have to go home empty handed.  But, then I saw the Nesquick bunny with a steaming cup of chocolate.  Trust me, I investigated the package at length to make sure there was no cold chocolate milk shown – only hot.  All good.  Hot chocolate mix.  yAy.  This is what I bought:

But, with all that investigation, how did I not notice the heavy eye lids on the Nesquick bunny?  How did I not see that he is wearing PAJAMAS and IN BED?  Not to mention the word “Noche” splashed across the front with a half moon in the middle.

Sometimes Spain is weird.  I mean, sleep inducing hot chocolate?  Of course I would buy that.