Johanna Writes Madrid

A large man in tiny shoes

And vice versa

 

Nico and Jake

Matching Set

Walking through Madrid´s Retiro Park on any given Sunday, it would be easy to think that you've stumbled into some sort of alternate universe where not only do all the children come in multiples, but the majority of them look as though they've just been plopped into 2010 by a time machine which has transported them directly from 1950.

You could also come to the conclusion that someone must be holding auditions for The Sound of Music nearby.

This is because in our part of Madrid, it is common practice for parents to dress their children identically on Sundays and then parade them around the neighborhood and park. They favor short pants (even in winter), knee socks and leather t-strap shoes (ala Christopher Robin) for the boys and for the girls, matching dresses, cardigans and sometimes even bonnets.

As you can imagine, my fellow expat friends and I take a great deal of delight in making fun of this bizarro practice. However, once I found myself the mother of two boys, I began to develop strange and disturbing urges... Urges to dress my boys EXACTLY THE SAME- OHHHH THE CUTENESS!!!!!

Naturally though, I can´t just march them through the streets of Madrid wearing matching outfits as that would expose me to merciless teasing by each and every one of my friends. Instead I must indulge my dark desires in secret, preferably at night. Thus, the pajamas. Are they not adorable?

So you want to be a bullfighter

 
This past weekend we took El Tren de las Fresas (The Strawberry Train), which travels the old route from Madrid to Aranjuez. I’m not quite sure what I was expecting. The advertisement featured a train blowing strawberries out of its smoke stack so naturally I supposed that the whole thing had something do to with strawberries. Au contrario. Aside from being handed a pint of berries as we embarked on the train, that was the extent of any fruity talk.

It turns out that Aranjuez is known for its fruits and vegetables (including strawberries), but we didn't hear about any of that on our journey by old-fashioned steam engine through the vast barren wastelands of outer Madrid. Instead we were treated to two people (dressed up in 19^th century-style clothing with giant microphone speakers attached to their butts) who screamed back and forth at the top of their lungs about their differing opinions as to what were the most fun things to do in Aranjuez (“WHAAAAAT? Is there a crack pipe in your bustle? You think the Bullfighting Museum is fun?? You should try the SCENIC BOAT RIDE and then take a stroll through the FORMER ROYAL SUMMER PALACE!!!!”) Or something like that.

 

As for us, the highlight of our day was definitely the bullfighting ring. While we were there, some young bullfighters were practicing with their coach, a short balding man wearing a track suit who screamed out periodically “You have NO FUCKING CLUE what you’re doing do you???!” to the bewildered toreros in training. From the sound of it, one would have thought it was just another day at football practice were it not for the periodic appearance of the “bull,” a large bull’s head mounted onto a pair of wheelbarrow handles.

During our tour of the museum, Nico fell utterly in love with our guide, a middle-aged woman who had bunny rabbits cavorting along the hem of her mini-dress. He held her hand throughout the tour and when we left, he asked if one day we might come back and visit her. “I’m going to miss her soooo much!” he lamented, as though they had spent four years in a sorority together, rather than held hands for 20 minutes in front of a glass case full of bullfighting paraphernalia.

As we left the bullring, I commented to Alex that I had thought of a good bullfighting name for Nico (in Spain, famous toreros are often given nicknames). Before I could say it, Nico looked at me in alarm. “But Mommy I haven’t decided yet!” “Decided what?” I asked. “If that’s what I want to be when I grow up!” he responded, clearly worried that I was going to head off the next morning and put his name on the waiting list for Bullfighter Kindergarten or wherever it is that aspiring young bullfighters go to begin their educations. I assured him that he had many years to decide whether he wanted to be a bullfighter or something else (the other top contenders for future career are currently astronaut and woodcutter). He was very relieved.

 

Not everyone can say they've been breastfed inside a bullfighting ring!

That was your fault too

This has not been the easiest of weeks. Alex is out of town for a conference and Nico and I are on our own for 12 days. The combination of an absent husband, a restless four-year old, 7 months of pregnancy and the ridiculously hot Madrid weather has been tough to say the least. Last summer we didn’t end up buying an air conditioner and it turned out to be fine. The summers here are definitely hot but they are also dry and after years of living in the humidity of NYC and Tokyo summers, it really didn’t seem so bad to me. This year though, I decided we needed to break down and get an AC. The baby is due mid-August, a time when about 90% of Madrid flees for cooler climes. The entire city more or less shuts down (even some of the swimming pools!) and not only is there nothing to do and no one to do it with, but it’s too hot to want to do anything anyway. In light of that, I might as well be comfortable right? Or at least as comfortable as it’s possible to be while carrying an extra 30 pounds, one side of which is jumping up and down on my bladder, while the other side does pull-ups on my rib cage.

So Alex bought a portable AC which was delivered the day after he left for his conference. I started to set it up and approximately 20 minutes later, I had broken the internet connection, the phone and the window shutter (giving myself a sliver while I was at it). To top it off, the AC was defective and blew only hot air. When Nico woke from his nap I was in an utterly foul mood. A five hour cycle of whining (his), yelling (mine), and crying (both) ensued, during which we made a brief outing to the park in order to spread our misery. Thinking that Nico’s friend Betty had finished with a shapeless pile of sand she was constructing, I told Nico it would be okay if he stomped on it. Sadly it was not okay at all. Turns out that the pile of sand was actually a castle. Betty wailed at Nico who looked on with interest as I tried to apologize to her and explain that it was actually my fault that her architectural masterpiece was now reduced to a tiny sneaker shaped footprint in the sand. When we got home, I couldn’t deposit Nico in his bed fast enough. As I kissed and hugged him goodnight, I told him that I was sorry that I’d been so irritable with him all afternoon. “It was just a really bad day you know? I broke the phone, the computer, the air conditioner…” “Yes,” Nico interrupted me. “And you told me I could ruin Betty’s castle so that was your fault too.” For one of the few times in my life, I truly laughed and cried at the same time.

San Isidro

Yesterday Nico's school celebrated Madrid's San Isidro Festival. All of the kids were dressed in traditional Madrileño castizo clothing which for men consists of a chulapo and for women, a chulapa. (I feel compelled to add that at least in my opinion, the chulapa, with the possible exception of  bubble skirts, is probably the most unflattering item of clothing ever to be designed in the history of mankind. With very few exceptions, any woman who dons one resembles nothing else so much as a sausage attending the a school dance with a bad case of chicken pox.)

Of course the more ridiculous you make a three-year old look, the more adorable they tend to become, so watching Nico and his classmates performing traditional dances while dressed in chulapos and chulapas was one of the cutest things I think I've ever seen. 

I made a video of Nico dancing and although I know there's a way to embed it onto this page, I'm too impatient to figure it out so you can see it here.

You can see more pictures on flickr!

 

That´s what I get for wearing a headscarf

Yesterday Alex, Nico and I went to walk around the neighborhoods of Chueca and Malasaña in Madrid. After a few hours of window shopping and exploring the winding streets, we found a restaurant with outdoor seating adjacent  to a little playground. While we sat and sipped our drinks, Nico played in the playground. After a few moments I noticed that he seemed to be in active conversation with one of the mothers in the playground. When I listened carefully, I heard the following

Nico: Yes I have a baby brother but he´s still inside my mommy´s tummy.

Park Mother: Oh, which one is your mother?

Nico (pointing at me): She´s sitting right over there, the one wearing the pirate hat.

Exploding Bottoms, Nasal Beards and Ravioli Babies

Nico after a minor but rather noisy bout of diarrhea- Looking at me with alarm,  "Mommy did my bottom just s´plode?"

Nico to Alex- "Papa, why do you have a beard inside your nose?"

Nico upon viewing his future baby brother or sister on the sonogram screen for the first time "That´s the inside of Mommy´s tummy? Oh. So that´s the ravioli she ate for dinner?"

Almost

I wonder if there are thousands of small children out there who like Nico, believe that there is a talking race car named “Lightning the Queen” and that under the ocean swims a feisty redheaded mermaid named “Oreo.”

The Advantages of Growing Up in a Large European City

The other day as we left our apartment building, we saw a motley crew of gypsies walking down the street. Dressed in an assortment of head scarves, long skirts, over-sized sweaters and patched trousers, they did present a fairly unusual sight because although gypsies are common in Madrid, one doesn't usually see them walking in large groups of men and women together. I saw Nico looking at them and was surprised that he didn't make any comment. Five minutes later however, he looked at me and said softly, “Mommy, I think I just saw some pirates!”

Growing up in Salt Lake City, nothing that exciting ever happened on my street. I did see a raccoon in my backyard one day though and once my brother and his friend nailed skateboards to the bottom of a couch and rode it down the middle of the street so I guess my childhood wasn't completely devoid of unusual events.

Make sure to eat your parrots

Last night we celebrated our first Thanksgiving in Spain by eating dinner in a Mexican restaurant. When we lived in Japan, we always ate our Thanksgiving dinner at a Nepalese restaurant and last year in Switzerland we celebrated at home with our Russian neighbors. The last time I had a real Thanksgiving dinner was when we ate it at a Hard Rock Cafe in Amsterdam four years ago (which I´d completely blocked out of my mind until about 30 seconds ago...)

As we were walking home from the restaurant, Nico commented that we were able to see so well in the dark due to the fact that we eat a lot of parrots. Ah yes, it´s all making sense now.