Spain

Winter is coming…

/ helenstasa / 3 Comments

One thing which I don’t have much experience of is European winters.

In fact, my only previous exposure to such climates was when I foolishly decided to spend about four weeks in the UK from the middle of December to the middle of January about 10 years ago.

Think 30 days of grey skies, freezing winds, continual rain, 6 hours of daylight, and excessively hot air conditioning.


Suffice to say, I won’t be doing that again in a hurry…

Thankfully, although Madrid is getting cold (2 degrees overnight), it doesn’t seem to rain all that much. And I always find that being cold when it’s sunny is much more pleasant than being cold when it’s wet.

So, in the spirit of autumn, here’s a few things I am enjoying about this season in Madrid.

1. The leaves

The autumn leaves are amazing. On Saturday, I went to the Royal Botanic Gardens, a rather underrated tourist attraction. They had the most stunning trees there, and the colours were phenomenal. Here’s a couple of pictures that I took (and I’m not even a good photographer!).

It’s even more spectacular when you see the trees en masse. Absolutely incredible.

2. Doña Manolita

A strange obsession here is the Doña Manolita lottery. It seems that almost everyone wants to buy a ticket. But not just ANY ticket will suffice. Rather, you simply must purchase your entry from the “lucky booth” near Sol.

Yesterday, it was raining like mad, but, sure enough, there was a massive queue outside the “lucky booth.”


Using simple maths, it is obvious that if there’s 100 tickets in the lottery, and 90 people buy them from the “lucky booth”, then yes, it’s more likely that a winner will come from that booth. But that’s because everyone is buying from there, not because of some inherent mystical properties of the booth!

Maybe I should give a free lecture on the mathematics of lotteries to the assembled crowd? After all, I’d have a captive audience, as no one is going to leave the line without their tickets…

3. Chestnuts 

Another popular autumn offering in Madrid are castañas or chestnuts. Little kiosks spring up (or should that be “autumn up”? Sorry, that was bad, even for me!), selling roasted chestnuts by the bag.

I haven’t tried them yet, but apparently, they’re very nice. At the moment I have one, unroasted chestnut at home, which my friend in flamenco class gave me, for some unknown reason. I’m not sure if she expects me to cook it and bring it back to class, or eat it by itself, but I’ve had it sitting in my apartment for the last 2 weeks, because I don’t know what to do with it, and I feel ungrateful throwing it out.

So here it is, in close up, for everyone to admire.

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All I can say is, why can’t autumn last all year?

Umm, what’s the word for that?

/ helenstasa / Leave a comment

One of the few things which I actually feel reasonably confident about in Spanish is my vocabulary. Although I make heaps of mistakes conjugating the verbs, I am usually able to remember the words for things, or to at least describe the concept in enough detail that the listener gets what I mean.

But not everything, as I recently discovered…

Late yesterday afternoon, I realised that I had run out of what can euphemistically be described as “feminine hygiene products.” I was meeting a friend at 9p.m., and I didn’t have time to go to the supermarket, so I decided I’d drop in at the chemist down the road.

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I had a look on the shelves, but I couldn’t find what I was looking for, so I joined the queue to speak to one of the pharmacists.

It was only when I reached the counter that I realised that I didn’t have a clue how to ask for said items. I had absolutely NO IDEA.

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“Umm, I don’t speak much Spanish,” I began, hoping desperately that the pharmacist would say “That’s OK. I speak English.”

But she didn’t.

“I’m, umm, I’m looking for, err, things for women. If you know what I mean,” I continued valiantly.

“No. I don’t understand what you want,” she shook her head.

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“You know. Ladies’ things!” I continued, raising my eyebrows. “I don’t know the word.”

“No. What ladies’ things?” the pharmacist answered, looking puzzled.

By this time, I was bright red, and the queue behind me was growing by the second. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I decided to abandon any subtlety. “Blood. Women. Month.” I stuttered.

“Oh! Yes!” she beamed. “I know!” She reached behind the counter, and produced a box of tampons.

“Yes, yes, exactly!” I exclaimed, willing this experience to be over. “And can you tell me, what’s the word for these in Spanish?”

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“Tampones” she said.

That was just the icing on the proverbial cake. I had made a complete and utter idiot of myself when I could have used virtually THE SAME WORD the whole time!

Still, I wasn’t the only one having problems. The man next to me was wanting to buy a packet of condoms. These were also stored behind the counter, necessitating another needless conversation with the pharmacist. The unfortunate gentleman was being given the third degree about what size he required, and if he preferred a particular colour, when it was clear that he just wanted to get out of there ASAP!

All I can say is, I have never been more motivated NOT to run out of things again. Although, this being said, I guess I do know the word for next time…

Cultural Wednesdays- Week 3

/ helenstasa / 2 Comments

Today’s Cultural Wednesday was a bit different, as it was a public holiday in Madrid, so I had a whole day off school. Hooray!

But Wednesday being Wednesday, and culture being culture, I was resolved to do something which would expand the mind. On this occasion, I decided to go to the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (or the National Museum of Natural Sciences). Here’s their website. 

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I’d never heard of the MNCN until I started my museum hunting mission, but given that it’s reasonably close to my house, and that no one really talks about it much, I figured I’d give it a go.

The museum is located in a beautiful old building, with a park out the front, and you get a great view over the gardens from the main entrance.

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I wasn’t too sure what the “natural sciences” involved, as the term seems to be a bit vague, but most of the exhibits seemed to focus on different animal and plant species, and the structure of the earth.

There was a special exhibition on about biodiversity, which was really interesting, although I’ve got to admit, most of the displays in the museum seemed to feature taxidermied (is that a word?) animals, which were a bit (how do I say it?) confronting. I appreciate that the preserved remains may help people to appreciate how evolution works, but I’ve always found it a bit, well, unsavoury, to see the bodies of unfortunate animals displayed in such a way.

Particularly if the taxidermist is not exactly an expert (although mercifully, that wasn´t the case here…).

This being said, I was impressed that they had a Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) on display, and there was a large section dedicated to Australian animals. But if you’re not into preserved specimens (even though said specimens have been there since 1940), this museum probably isn’t the best choice for you…

Nonetheless, the dinosaur skeletons and the information about minerals was fantastic. They had some wonderful fake dinosaur bones…

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And some really interesting trilobites…

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The last section of the museum was dedicated to rocks and minerals, and had some really brilliant tables with different inlays. I liked these a lot, and they were considerably less gruesome than the taxidermied corpses.

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So, overall, I would give the MNCN 3 stars out of 5. It’s interesting, and you can learn a lot there. However, unless you are interested in animal corpses, it is unlikely to be particularly pleasant for you, unless you concentrate on the excellent fossil section.

Theatre for babies

/ helenstasa / 2 Comments

On Sunday, I had a bizarre experience which I am still trying to fully comprehend in my mind…

On Saturday morning, I had received a text from my friend, Luisa, who I often accompany to “cultural events”, such as plays, art showings, or obscure foreign films. The text asked if I was free on Sunday morning, because she was planning to go to a performance of “theatre for babies” at a studio near my apartment.

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I thought this was a bit of a weird request. OK, so my Spanish is bad, but it’s not at baby level. Or so I thought. But I didn’t have anything else to do, so although I was a bit offended, I agreed to go.

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At 10:45 a.m., I found myself outside Teatros Luchana, waiting for Luisa. 10:50 a.m., and there was no sign off her. 10:55 a.m., and I was getting worried. I tried to call her, but her phone rang out, so I figured that she must have forgotten about our arrangement.

I was annoyed, but since I was ready and raring to go, so to speak, I decided to go to the theatre for babies by myself.

What a mistake.

When they said “theatre for babies”, they REALLY meant babies. As in, under 2 years old. So the entire theatre was packed with babies, and their harried parents, with me sitting there like the proverbial shag on the rock.

The performance, which was named “Meylín’s garden” or similar, featured a woman in a bug/spider/beetle/caterpillar costume wandering around her beautiful garden, and pointing out all the lovely flowers and animals.

meylinGiven that the average attention span of the audience was about 5 seconds, Meylín spent much of the time trying to encourage us to participate. This involved yelling out our names, saying hello to her friend the snail, and, at the very finale, waving our arms and legs in the air. Here’s a sample…

I would have found this incredibly awkward even if I’d had some children with me, but to be sitting there, by myself, and screaming out “Hola, Señor Caricol!” (Hello, Mr Snail!) as Meylín waved a rather unconvincing puppet snail around, was ABSOLUTELY EXCRUCIATING.

And to make the whole sorry spectacle even worse, I couldn’t even understand all the Spanish. My language level is BELOW that of a baby.

Sob.

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After enduring 45 minutes of this torture, I escaped the theatre, to find Luisa waiting outside. Her train was late, so she had arrived 10 minutes after the show commenced, and hadn’t received my call because she’d been underground. “But the cashier said your Spanish was very good when you bought the ticket!” she tried to comfort me, as I snappily related the sorry saga of theatre for babies.

To make the whole thing even more farcical, it turned out that the reason Luisa had suggested the trip was because her friend’s daughter plays Meylín, and she had decided to surprise her by turning up to a show, unannounced. But when she rang her friend, it was revealed that the daughter only performs during the week, and that Weekend Meylín was a total stranger!

All I can say is, next time Luisa suggests theatre for babies, I think I may be very, very busy…