Last Day in Madrid – part 1 – breakfast to lunch

Site of the Last Lunch

I haven’t had time to write about it, cuz I’ve been a bit busy, what with the leaving the country and six years of my life behind, but i thought I’d share a bit of my last day before heading out to Washington DC.

• The Freak Out. You know how sometimes you wake up before your alarm goes off and then just doze for a while? Yeah I love that. Couldn’t do it though, cuz I instantly started thinking of all the crap I was supposed to do and the fact this was my last day and omg what the f$*k am I going to do in washington dc and aaaaaaaaa! So instead of having some lazy napping, I just started at the ceiling and let my thoughts whirl about like a hamster wheel being driven by a hamster on cocaine. That was fun. And then I got up.

• The Sorting of The Crap. One of the big things I had left to do was to go through various baggies, boxes, folders, binders, notebooks, and piles of various papers, documents, letters, handwritten notes, photos, receipts, photocopies and other bits of paper I have long since forgotten the significance of and see what, if any, needed keeping. So I sat in my big blue ridicuously oversized bathrobe (thanks Mom!) with cup of tea in hand and started sorting.
  I found interesting stuff! Like:
  *  cute cheesy cards my mom sent me along with photos of my cat 🙂
  * lots of scribbled emails addresses and phone numbers that brought back very few corresponding memories
  *funny notes I wrote to myself while I was working in a bar my first summer here, scrawled on Warsteiner brand notepad paper.
  * copies/drafts of two whole post-break up letters, always amusing to read years after the fact, and thankfully, no longer painful. In fact I was quite impressed with my compositional style, and mourned that my espistolary talents count for little in the email age .
  *lots of business cards. I think I kept, like 3.
  *a napkin with a memorable joke written on it 6 years ago in a bar in Sol.
  *the driver’s license of an Irish friend of mine who I haven’t seen since 2004, but who calls once every year and a half (sometimes after a few too many) to see what’s up.
  *ticket to Benicassim 2005. Best 5 days of pure bliss I’ve had in the past 7 years.
  *ticket to Summercase 2007. Best 2 days of pure bliss I’ve had in the past 3 years.
  *photo booth photos from when I took my pic in Feb of 2004 for my Madrid metro pass. I totally want to get one of them scanned and make it my Facebook profile picture. Toooooooooooooo funny.
  *receipts for taxis in Berlin from when I was there with MobuzzTV for 10 days for the world cup. D’oh! Forgot to get my reimbursement apparently.

• The Depositing of the Money. I enjoyed my last instance of waiting in line at the Bank to deposit my last month’s wages, which would soon be my tiny tiny nestegg for begining a new life in DC. I am royally irritated by the crappy exchange rate. I unashamedly wish for the dollar to plummet in value against the euro sometime within the next couple of weeks, so that when I withdrawl it over here, it will have magically become more.

• The Farewell and the Piggy Bank Money. So I had this crazy red  papier mache piggy bank that my boss at MobuzzTV gave me for secret santa years ago. And I realized acouple weeks back that now it was finally time to open the poor thing. I was discussing this with a student of mine who works at Banco de España (Spain’s central bank) and he told me they have machines in the lobby to count your coins. Yay!
  

  Interior of the bank, can't see beautiful stained glass ceiling 😦

  So I swept passed Banco de España and met up with my student. My coins (diminished at this point as I had already spent all the big 1 and 2 euro coins immediately after gutting my piggy bank) came to a grand total of 32 euros. And this being the Bank of Spain , I got it in super brand new crispy never been wrinklen notes, and shiny shiny shiny coins. I had a coffee with my student, said farewell and went off to buy myself a lunchtime treat.

• The Last Lunch. This was it. My last lunch out in Madrid. Where would I go? What did I want to eat? What could possibly be special enough? What could symbolize the end of this era. And as I strolled through Sol, down toards Plaza Mayor it hit me: Botin! Madrid’s Guiness World Record holding oldest restaurant, where Hemmingway ate and Goya (I s#&t you not, Goya, washed dishes). And I had never eaten there! With good reason, its expensive. But I thought, I could have a glass of wine and some croquetas, I don’t have to get the roast suckling pig. It seemed somehow poetic to go there for my last lunch.
  

  Photo I found of Ricla online. Gives you an idea.

  But I got there and it looked all dark inside, and it seemed a pity to go there on such a sunny day. I looked across the street – Bar La Ricla, a little bar I’d passed a million times and had always wanted to go into, but when I went back it was always closed. It was open! So, on my last day I discovered something new. Cute, small, cozy, bright, with beautiful old tiles (the ones I love with the andalusian-style, islamic-influenced geometric patterns) cast iron columns like many buildings in the area, including my flat. Glass of tinto, a bit of chorizo, reading my book on a stool, looking out the lovely, sun-illuminated facade of Botin. Juuuuuuuuust right. And it cost less than 3 bucks!

• Lunch, cont’d….. A bit of chorizo wasn’t really a lunch, and all the other things they offered were my less than favourites (lots of fish out of tins, in vinegar, in oil, etc…) so I thought I’d make lunch a 2-parter. So I ambled down Cava Baja towards home and just before I got there, stopped at Tempranillo. Wine bar extraordinaire. With really good yummy food things.
  

  Pic found online of the wall of wine at Tempranillo. I am unworthy.

  If I had money and decided to become a serious alcoholic wine connoisseur, this is where I would spend my life. They have a wall of wine. A wall. Someday I will have a wine rack like that. We all need goals. Anywho. So I had a glass of priorat (nope, dunno what that means either) and a tosta with salmorejo (this amaaaaaaazing tomato garlic thick cold gazpacho tasting stuff) and quail breast. Didn’t cost less than 3 euros. And so I finished the first part of my last day!

 

Spain Turns Right on Immigration

Ran across this little vid on the Independent’s site about how Spain is taking a harder stance on immigration.

Socialist Spain Takes “Right Wing” Stance on Immigration

Nothing really new or strange here. Europe in general is moving right, as is most of the “rich” world. Especially when the economy has troubles, its normal to see immigration rules tightened.

What I thought was interesting about this was the first interviewee’s comment about the policeman who took him in one night. He says the cop told him that they had a quota for the number of people they all had to pick up for being “sin papeles.”  Man. What assholes. Ok, not the cop, he’s just doing what he’s been told to do, but the whole system that would set up quotas like that is sick.

Also makes me realize once again how unfairly lucky I am to be a white American chick, unlikely to be stopped on the street and asked for my papers (though it did happen once, and I almost vomited with panic).

Also cool in the vid – they do an interview with someone from CEAR – the Spanish NGO that helps refugees with whom I did a training program and was going to volunteer for before my papers went to crap and I ended up in the hospital with gall stones. Boo. One more thing I wish I’d done in Spain.

 

Spotting Hypocrisy: Save Haiti!!! But Keep Those Awful Poor People Out!!!

Stumbled across a blog post in the online part of Publico, a Spanish paper, that very concisely reminded us that if we’re sincere about solidarity with places like Haiti in times of crisis, and we really want to help, we can’t also whine about immigration and insist on closing borders.

Says “El Gran Wyoming” (and no, I have no idea why that’s his name):

With the earthquake in Haiti, the wave of solidarity and understanding that the Spanish have towards the underprivilaged has been unleashed. We unite before great tragedies. All citizens, no matter their ideology or religious beliefs, demonstrate their indignation at the poverty in which these people live. It has not occurred to any politician to step to the podium to say “you’ve made your bed, now lie in it.” No, that would give itself away as cruelty, and the electorate won’t go there. Nevertheless, here, because of the proximity of the regional and municipal elections, a witch hunt for immigrants is brewing. The president of the PIMEC [an association of small business owners in Catalunya] links immigration to citizen’s security; the People’s Party [conservatives] via Alberto Fernandez Diaz, is asking for a immigrant commerce inspection plan; Trillo wants to reform the law to avoid repeat offenders who are immigrants; Esperanza Aguirre is supporting the town couselour of Torrejon in limiting municipal registration of immigrants; Alicia Sanchez Camacho – candidate for the PP in Catalunya – is basing her campaign on unemployment, security and immigration and claims that this can make the PPC the governing party. Her slogan “We can’t all fit”. It’s open season: being xenophoic isn’t a sin, it’s self defense. The subtext is: they take our jobs and our bread. The damage they’re doing with these xenophobic propositions is terrible who knows if it’s irreversible.

Dear sirs/mesdames of the center, constitutionalists, and Catholics: those whom you are pointing your fingers at as though they were usurping delinquents are the same people trying to get out from under the rocks in Haiti. They are the same. Don’t build your power on top of mountains of the starved-to-death. [emphasis mine]

Amen.

 

Karina Video!!! – Burial of the Sardine in Madrid! – Up on Gadling.com too! Yay!

So we did this little vid a couple weeks ago – about one of the more bizarre madrileño carnival traditions. (Article about it here in In Madrid). And we were quite pleased to have it go up on Gadling.com, one of the top travel websites (#2 according to Technorati).

Enjoy!

 

Friday the 13th v. Tuesday the 13th

I got curious and decided to do some investigating (in the loosest sense of the word).

 

Cow Parade in Madrid!

I caught some of the cows in the Cow Parade the other day while I was walking around in bright sunny Madrid – here’s some pics!

A line of cows on the Plaza Mayor, in front of the Junta Municipal.

An EU themed animal.

Out in the shadow of Tio Pepe.

mmmmmm…..sandwich cow

Global Cow!

Bargain-hunting cow, perfectly mimicking the omnipresent Corte Inglés rebajas (“sales”) bags.

 

Video Pick of the Day: Out of Africa – Spain

I ran across this video today while not doing all the things I was supposed to be doing. I think its a great concise, and very sympathetic look at the Africans that are risking their lives to come to Spain in rickety, dangerous little boats. I really like that they visit the coast in Senegal where most of these boats come from, and get some good perspective on where the phenomenon starts – most people pick up the story at the point of arrival.

 

Brit Expats’ Economic Woes (Sort of)

Torrevieja -on the coast of Alicante - which was purpose built for British retirees.

Oh, and now a look at immigration from the side of the rich folks of the world – like the British expats who form colonies all along the sunny (and so very cheap) Spanish coast who are having to make real, tough sacrifices because of the economic crisis. Says 82 year old Eugenie Smith:

“I’ve got to keep the car,” she says. “I’ve got spinal trouble so I can’t walk up the hill carrying shopping, and there are no buses. And I must keep the gardener; I can’t do it myself now, and can’t let it run wild. But I don’t think I can afford €34 (£29) for my club’s Christmas dinner this year. I’ve got a new great-grandson I want to buy presents for, but I must be much more economical now, when last year I just went out and bought things.”

No country club dinner!?!?! Economical Christmas shopping!?!?! Oh the humanity!!!

While googling around for images of the Alicante coastline built-up by Brit expats, I found this great story, which I have blogged on before:

Expat Victory For Healthcare : Basically, the Spanish government was worried that all these aging (and therefore sickly) British people were mobbing their already strained social services in the form of disproportionate health care costs being paid out of a system into which these freeloaders had not been paying their whole lives. The area government thought about changing policy to deny coverage to foreigners. But the Brits kicked up enough of a fuss that they “forced” the authorites to put up with them. They claimed they were “tricked” and “lured” into moving there because of the promise of free health care – but hey, Spain is a sovereign state, and it and any of its local governments has the right to change policy whenever they want – you move to the country, you assume that risk.

Ok, so I gave it a slightly different spin than they did. Whatevs.

 

Association of Undocumented Workers Marches Today and Asks For the Decriminalization of Selling Pirate Merchandise.

I was walking home from work and literally stumbled upon a march like no other I’ve seen so far. It wasn’t huge, but immigrants were visibly present. This was interesting because African immigrants, who are probably those with the least resources here, were so visibly in the streets.

Talking to one of the participants, I learned it was being organized largely by the Asociación de Sin Papeles (the Asociation of Those Without Papers) a group that has arisen in the Lavapies neighborhood of Madrid, one of the most heavily immgrant neighborhoods of the city, right next to my own, in La Latina. The fact that undocumented workers are autonomously organizing, is, on it’s own, quite important. These are the folks that probably live in most fear of the police, the people in the shadows, and there they were, making their voices heard. Beautiful.

Mor Ndiaye

But the motivation for this march was really surprising – they were calling for the decriminalization of “top manta” – the common practice of selling pirate merchandise – DVDs and CDs usually – on the streets. In particular they were asking for a pardon for a Senegalese man, Mor Ndiaye, who was sentenced to 8 months for these activities.

This is an interesting, and heavily loaded, intersection of immigration law and DRM law (one of the issues from my previous experience in tech news that i was profoundly interested in.) And its a difficult conundrum on the surface of it. You could say “wait, we’re supposed to legalise an illegal practice because people without legal residency are doing it?” And unfortunately I think the argument about immigration could get lost in the argument about piracy and the extent to which we should promote DRM. It really shouldn’t be about a certain type of labor. These people should be able to work legally in legal industries – not illegally in legal industries (like restaurants, bars or construction) and not illegally in illegal industries (like piracy). The spokespeople say in the article linked below, that they aren’t asking for the legalization of piracy but that they just want it decriminalized , unfortunately, for the pro-DRM crowd, that’s probably not going to fly.

At any rate, it’s an interesting campaign to keep an eye on, and an interesting organization I hope to check out soon.

Here’s the link to the Spanish report in ADN, video on this link.

From público.es.

Info on the Association in El País.

 

Correction – and my theory is thrown into chaos!

So, I was writing a couple days ago about McCain’s supposedly huge gaffe, and I must make a correction. I thought that the crucial line was when the interviewer said “I’m talking about Europe, the president of Spain” and he replied “What about him? what?”

But I was listening to it again today cuz I’m gonna use it in one of my classes tomorrow and I realized I heard wrong. He responds “What about me? What?” He obviously thought the interviewer said “you” instead of “Europe.” (Which, listening to her pronunciation, makes total sense). So that throws (at least part of) my theory out the window!!! Oops. :p