Hogwarts.es

When we visited the Kid's school for the first time last August, the Kid blurted out, "Wow!  You could film a Harry Potter movie here!"  He was reacting to the school's monumental 17th century courtyard.  You see, Santiago's high school goes back to the middle ages, and is one of the oldest educational institutions in Spain.  During the sixteenth century, it became a very important college, and almost every important writer of Spain's so-called "Golden Age" either studied or taught there.  Since the 17th century, the school has produced a slew of writers, intellectuals, and even the current king.  It actually gets mentioned in Fortunata y Jacinta, the most important novel by Spain's most important 19th-century realist, Benito Pérez Galdós.

The school is going through a huge transition now.  Many of the neighborhoods of downtown Madrid have filled up with immigrants from Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.  The school now serves students from 23 countries, many of them from troubled working-class backgrounds, and it has its share of problems.  But it's our neighborhood public school, so that's where Santiago goes.  The Hogwarts of Madrid, only without the magic. Or the owls.  Or the English.

This week, the Kid ran into his very own Professor Snape.  I won't mention his name or the subject he teaches.  Let's just say he has a teaching style that does not rub the Kid the right way.  Something happened in the classroom last Monday that left the Kid quite upset, so Zoë and I went on a rampage.  We actually barged into the school and demanded to speak with the director.  The professor was brought in to the conversation, and an argument ensued.  This was to be expected, since that very morning Zoë had said that she wanted to "rip off his head and shit down his neck."  I shared this sentiment.  As you might surmise, we were not in a frame of mind conducive to constructive dialogue.  Neither was the professor, it turned out.

We have learned some things since that very upsetting half hour.  In Spain, high school teachers have tenure, and they are kings in their classrooms. Nothing can be done to call them on their behavior, and no one seems to have any authority over them.  Not the director.  Certainly not the hapless parents.  Particularly if they are from another country and can be accused of not understanding the nuances of Spanish as it is spoken in Spain.   We can only be thankful that if today's class is any indication, the professor has no intention of taking things out on the Kid.  OK.  Good enough.  We declared victory and went for ice cream.

Today, I'm happy to say, was different.  I told the Kid that if he wanted to make friends he had to take the initiative and ask someone over to the house.  So he asked a friend over for lunch and a study session.  Everyone has a test tomorrow, so why not prepare together?  It's in English class, so this made the Kid an attractive study partner.  So, our Harry brought along his Ron.  Ron is from Ecuador, and like all Ecuadorian children, has impeccable manners.  Really, he does.  I'm not being sarcastic.  It was such a pleasure to watch him wait for everyone to be seated before eating his food, and to instinctively get up to clear his plate when the meal was over.  No feral USA kid there!

Now, of course, calling my risk-averse, brainy, unathletic child "our Harry" represents something of a stretch.  The Kid is no Gryffindor.  He may be a Ravenclaw.  He might be a Hufflepuff.  At least he's certainly not a Slytherin.  But you get the point.

There's even a Hermione in the picture.  She tagged along on the way home, and ended up coming over when her mom had to go to work and realized she wouldn't be able to help her prepare for the test.  I find Hermione adorable, and am very impressed with her manners as well.  Harry, Ron and Hermione spent the afternoon doing homework, and when it was time for Ron to leave, they walked him to the Puerta del Sol.  Now Harry has gone off to Hermione's house to study French, and maybe to visit the Halloween store . . . Hmm.  . . Maybe the Kid is Ron, and his friend is Harry?  

Burgos & Bilbao in the Rain II

Did you miss part I?  Here it is.

Exhausted, we were in bed by 9:30, but up and at 'em the next morning, ready for the Guggenheim.  We walked from our hotel, despite the drizzle and the cool weather.  I suggest you do not walk, but run, as fast as you can, to the Guggenheim Bilbao if you have not yet been there.  It's one of the most spectacular things we've seen in Spain.

For those of you who were unaware, the Guggenheim Bilbao is the newest of the Guggenheim museums (I think).  The others are in New York (the original), Berlin and Venice.  The GB was designed by the American architect Frank Gehry, and was meant to make a statement.  And, boy, does it.  Gehry plopped a daring, extraordinary building into a hohum section of the riverfront of a dying industrial city, and turned Bilbao into an international art & architecture mecca.  Take a look at the place for yourself through the link above.  We all thought the building was the most extraordinary we had ever seen.  I finally have a new favorite building in the world that trumps the East Building of the National Gallery in DC.

The Kid and I on Calatrava's pedestrian bridge in Bilbao.

What really made our visit, however, was the special exhibit by the Indian artist Anish Kapoor.  He's the guy who designed the so-called "Bean" in Chicago.   The exhibit featured his work with color, form, negative space, and surface, and it was absolutely extraordinary.  You can go on a virtual visit of the exhibit online, in the company of Kapoor himself.  Much of what he says on the video clips here appears in the audio guide that you get at the museum.  We all feel in love with his work.   "Yellow" was my favorite piece, although I think the Kid preferred the one with the cannon.  He particularly enjoyed the exhibit, proving to me once again that interactive conceptual art – contrary to its elitist image – is some of the most exciting, accessible art out there, particularly for sharing with kids.  

Our day was made especially fun by the Indian family who befriended us at the entrance to the GB.  It was a man (my age) traveling with his mom and dad from the midwest.  All were art lovers, so they were basically museum-hopping their way around Spain.  We went to lunch with them (delicious) at a riverfront restaurant, and then took a rain-soaked but delightful stroll through Bilbao's old quarter.  By 8 we were bushed, and back in the hotel for an early night.

Coda: Sepúlveda.  

The next day we debated staying the morning in Bilbao, but decided to leave early in case we hit lots of traffic as we had on the way up.  Of course, the clouds cleared and the roads were practically empty, so we whizzed back towards Burgos, and then past it.  Using our trusty map and guide book, we decided to stop for lunch along the way, at a little town called Sepúlveda.  This is a hilltop medieval town reconquered in the 10th century.  Utterly charming.  Excellent cordero asado.  A great end to a great, if somewhat damp, trip.  For pictures, check out Facebook.  

Zoë catches me peeking out from the medieval walls of Sepúlveda.

Burgos & Bilbao in the Rain I

Today, dear readers, we have returned from yet another expedition into the field.  October 12th is Spain's National Day, so there was no school.  Neither was there school yesterday, the "bridge day" between the weekend and the holiday.  Faced with a four-day weekend, we decided to go exploring.  But where?  Extremadura?  Galicia?  Barcelona?  We ended up with plans to go Burgos, a medieval city about 2.5 hours north of Madrid, and then Bilbao, the largest city of the Basque country, about 2 hours further on.  Objectives: 1) See the cathedral in Burgos and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao; 2) Eat well;  3) Have fun.

We found ourselves thwarted on Saturday morning when we left by both the rental car agency and the weather.  During our almost 2 months in Madrid, it hasn't rained hardly at all.  In fact, we didn't see a cloud in the sky during our first four weeks here.  Then, on Saturday morning, we started to get all the rain that we didn't get in September.   Sometimes it poured.  Sometimes it drizzled.  It rarely stopped.  Undaunted, we went to get our rental car, only to be faced by a 1.5 hour wait in line while a highly inefficient group of rental car employees doled out cheap compacts to aggravated tourists.  The inefficiency was only slightly abated with the appearance of an additional bleary-eyed employee, reeking of alcohol.  

Then we were off!  And then we weren't.  The A-1 was a parking lot.  Confused?  No, the A-1 is not a steak sauce, but a highway extending northward and southward from Madrid.  Between our trip to Andalusia and this one, we have travelled its full length, north to south, making us authorities on road conditions and rest stops.  There was construction, you see, and between that and the rain the traffic was not moving.  We finally ditched the A-1 and made our way up some parallel country roads.  The detour saved the day, since it meant moving at more than 3km/hr, and it also took us through a series of charming villages, including Nayares de Ayuso, Nayares de Enmedio, and Nayares de las Cuevas.  Yes, that's right. All three villages have pretty much the same name, and the central one is called "Middle Nayares," or more literally, "The Nayares in the Middle."  I wonder if they have a complex there, like middle children often do?  We couldn't find out, because their restaurant was fully booked.  So, off to Moradillo de Roa, next town in line (not a "Nayares" as you can see), where we found a spectacular place for lunch.  More about that in my soon-to-come food-and-restaurant page.  

Burgos around 6pm, after taking 5 hours for what should have been a 2.5 hour trip (not counting the lunch stop).  The cathedral was closed.  The churches were closed.  The stores were closed.  It was raining.  We walked around anyway.  Cold.  Wet.   Luckily, the pastry shop near the hotel was NOT closed, and we indulged.  We deserved it.  In bed by 9pm.  

Having blown Saturday, we stuck around to see the cathedral and have lunch in Burgos, rather than move on to Bilbao right away, and we were glad we did.  The cathedral is gorgeous.  I'd very much wanted to see it, having seen the cathedral in Leon some years ago.  The two are something of a pair, since they're older than that cathedral in cities farther south (Toledo, Seville, Granada, etc) and are more purely French gothic in style.  Zoë and I were both surprised to find that the cathedral had been through a lot of changes between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, changes that had transformed the medieval cathedral into an early modern one.  Still, the place was astounding.  

After the cathedral, we stumbled across a group of people who did traditional Castilian dances and games.  The rain had let up, so we hung out and watched as they danced jotas, accompanied by simple instruments that one could assemble from one's kitchen.  At one point, they interrupted the dancing and singing to play games with everyone.  Zoë and the Kid tried their hand(s) at cat's cradle with one of the performers.  I'll post a clip of the dancing to Facebook, because uploading video to Blogspot takes forever.

By the time we finished, everything was starting to close (it was Sunday after all), so we had lunch (excellent) and headed for Bilbao, full of trepidation for what the A-1 would hold.  After two hours or so of clear sailing, we were in our hotel, in the Basque country.  More to follow in the next post.  In the meantime, take a look at our pictures on Facebook.  

Spanish News

Years ago, in Mexico, I was talking with someone about how it was becoming popular to learn Spanish in the US.  He told me that he was aware of the popularity of his native language, and that, in fact, it was now so popular that there was even a country in Europe where that was pretty much all they spoke.  Well, now I find myself living in that country and I find myself struggling with whatever it is that they speak here.  Like Zoë, I do not always "vale."

But first I have to take you back to this weekend.  Zoë and I are clearly going through some adjustment involving the dim realization that we are not tourists here.  Naturally, this has involved moments of utter, irrational panic.  Zoë, for example, was working on our finances when she came to the conclusion that we could not really afford to live here, and that we had to choose between paying rent and eating.  After some discussion, we realized that we were OK, but we had to stop eating out as if we were tourists ready to charge things and be damned.  My turn came when I became convinced that we were never going to make Spanish friends, and that the primary stumbling block was Zoë's limitations with the language.  I suggested that she needed to work harder on her Spanish, do all sorts of things that she wasn't doing.  As you can imagine, this suggestion went over extremely well.  Like most spouses, Zoë is always very appreciative when perceived shortcomings are brought to her attention, and very happy to receive unsolicited advice about how she can work harder in order to improve herself.     

We decided we would watch the news, since this would give Zoë an opportunity to practice her Spanish, and it would give both of us an opportunity to figure out what was going on in the world.  Not only have we been eating out as if we were tourists, we've also disconnected from the larger world as if we were on vacation.  This morning, I decided I would get a head start on this plan by listening to the news on the radio as I cleaned up the breakfast things.  I do this every morning – clean up, that is - while Zoë walks the Kid to school.

Now, I often describe myself as having "news announcer Spanish," because I don't really have a recognizable accent.  I speak the sort of flat, standard Spanish that one associates with news announcers on Univisión.  What I lack is the speed.  I had forgotten that news announcers, despite the clarity of their pronunciation, can be very hard to understand.  They tend to talk rapidly, with a minimum of affect, and they assume that you are aware of the context of what they're saying.  For example, it's assumed that you know that there is an election going on, and that you will recognize the names of the major candidates.

Here in Madrid, the news on the radio is delivered in the fastest Spanish I have ever heard.  No, correction.  The announcers speak Spanish as quickly as is humanly possible.  I tried to imitate the pace, and couldn't come anywhere near close.  Never mind actually trying to understand the news.  I had little context, and I even have trouble with the newscasters on Univisión!

The station I was listening to had two announcers, a man and a woman.  At first I thought it was like dueling banjos.  One would recite his/her segment as quickly as possible, and then the other would try to outdo the first, reciting even more quickly.  In this way, they would egg each other on until they were speaking so quickly that their tongues might catch fire.

Then I realized the awful truth.  They weren't egging each other on: the were spelling each other.  Because certainly no human tongue can be so agile, so nimble, and so strong as to keep that pace up for very long.  I pictured the two of them, at their microphones, sweating under the pressure of speaking at such alarming speeds.  One would spit his/her segment into the microphone fast as hell, without taking a breath, and then the other would spell him/her, while the first caught his/her breath and took a drink of water.  They must surely get paid on a word-per-minute basis. Worse yet, they had sent their kids to college in the US, and needed to make money for tuition.

Of course, the inevitable awaits them.  Nothing can save them.  Not the workouts.  Certainly not the steroids or cocaine. Rumor has it that in a dusty corner of the city, in some dilapidated Franco-era building, disabled news announcers sit around playing dominos in silence.  Their broken jaws fall slack, while their inert tongues droop uselessly out of the sides of their mouths.

When Zoë came back, I told her that I didn't think listening to the news was going to help her.