Johanna Writes Madrid

Squashed Popcorn

I am a formerly proud puffy piece of popcorn which has been dropped onto the ground, speared by a stiletto heel, angrily shaken off, and then peed on by a dog before finally being squashed into the cement by a grumpy old man. This is the state that apartment hunting in Barcelona with two children has reduced me to.

At this point I mainly remember a blurry haze of whining (Nico), screaming (Luca), vomiting (also Luca) and rain. Also a hotel room that looked as though about 800 synthetic zebras were slaughtered in order to decorate it.

You are probably guessing by now that we still do not have a place to live in Barcelona. We must have seen about a dozen different apartments. Some were very nice but looked as though they had been constructed on the set of Fight Club.  Others were in great neighborhoods but appeared to have been built for a family of moles who had no use for either light or space to turn around in.

Apparently during Franco's era, people were encouraged to have a lot of kids but few could afford to house them properly in the cities. The result are warrens of small and dark bedrooms all connected by long, narrow and maze-like corridors. The kitchens are usually the size of broom closets (rarely do urban Spanish kitchens have enough room to even put a kitchen table in) and many of the bathrooms don't have bathtubs which for me is an absolute necessity. There is also a major lack of closet space.

I am finding that these deprivations can seriously compromise my decision making skills. An apartment could be made out of Tinker Toys but if it had a giant kitchen, it would probably still go on my "To consider" list. Or it could have enormous closets and have me jumping up and down with delight despite the fact that the living room looks out on an elementary school playground (and YES we did see such an apartment).

To make matters worse, we did find what seems to be the perfect apartment, only to be told the next day that the agency requires a five year contract. The longest I've lived in one place in the past 16 years is for three years in Tokyo. I'd love to stay in the same place for five years but the chances of that happening don't seem high enough to risk signing that sort of agreement (with the prospect of losing thousands of euros at stake).

Last night I had a dream in which I had just gotten married in a dress that I thought was incredibly elegant and classy. For some reason I walked home alone from the wedding, only to pass by the Disney Store, glance inside and see that the dress I was wearing was an exact replica of Snow White's. Anyone can deduce that I am feeling the pressure. 

Recently Reading:

The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa

Lit by Mary Karr

Best Food Writing 2009

Recently Cooking: (By the way, if I link to a recipe here, you can assume it is seriously yummy!)

Chicken and Dumplings

 

Changes

There have been a lot of changes during the past several months and still many more to come. As you know, we have a new member of our family- Luca Miró. He is now almost 6 months old!

A few months before he was born, it became clear to us that we were going to have to leave Madrid which was naturally stressful news. I´ve loved living here and have made many wonderful friends so the news that we´d have to leave was not welcome. To top it off, finding this out only a few months before having a baby was not ideal timing.

Pregnancy is a time when a missing jar of peanut butter can send you into fits of rage. It is not a time when you want to take up skydiving or wear a great deal of costume jewelry. It is not a time when you want to suddenly start wearing fuchsia and it is most certainly not a time when you want to be informed that you will be moving at some point in the near future to parts unknown.

Nevertheless, this is what happened and for a number of months, we had no idea if we´d be staying in Spain or moving back to the USA. In the meantime, Luca was born and then a few months later we all got swine flu. Luca was hospitalized, I vomited a lot. It was horrible but we got better. We then found out that we would be staying in Spain after all, but moving to Barcelona. Next we hopped on a plane and went to the US for a month before zipping back over to Madrid where we will spend the next 4 weeks or so searching for a place to live in Barcelona before we move on March 1.

So that´s it in a nutshell. Oh, and I also found out that due to visa issues, I can no longer write for the Spanish food and wine magazine where I´ve been working for the past year. This is a big disappointment since it´s been a fun job which has also given a bit of structure to a life that´s been just a bit chaotic of late. Worst of all, I will no longer have access to all those fun food industry trade magazines that give me an inner glimpse into the scintillating lives of European fruits and vegetables. “A complicated year for the Spanish apple,” and “The French tomato faces a new crisis” are just a few of the intriguing headlines that I´ve perused in the past several months. I guess it´s back to People magazine for me now though.

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!

Street Life

It has recently come to my attention that after six years, my days of living abroad may be numbered (or they may not, we don’t know yet but we will soon). I’ve already forgotten so many things about life in Japan and Switzerland, and I’m sure that the same thing will happen once we leave Spain. For that reason, I’ve decided to start writing some posts about cultural differences amongst all the places I’ve lived. Here is the first.

Street Life

New York City

Obviously there are plenty of homeless people in NYC and I’d guess that a majority suffer from some kind of addiction and/or mental illness. A lot of them would like you to give them money but in general I’ve always found them to be pretty low-key about it. They usually just plop themselves down on the sidewalk with a cardboard sign which provides any extra details they wish to give you as to why they need help. Some with a bit more get-up-and-go will travel the subways, giving well-rehearsed speeches about their plights, or singing for a bit of change. Of course there are plenty of ranters as well. However, they’re generally not asking for money but rather, just raving about something they’d really like you to know about (i.e. Jesus Christ, the evil symbolism of this year’s Macy’s Santa Claus´s belt buckle, etc.).

Tokyo, Japan

Relatively speaking, Tokyo has very few homeless people and during the three years I lived there, I was never once asked for a hand-out. I remember one park in Shibuya where several homeless people had made a small town for themselves out of cardboard boxes. What struck me the most was how outside several of the shelters, you could see pairs of shoes which the inhabitants had taken off before entering their boxes. There were also several brooms propped up beside the doors. One must have standards after all.

On the other hand, after 11 pm or so, the streets of Tokyo are absolutely teeming with drunk Japanese businessmen and office workers. These guys never ask you for money but they sometimes pinch your bottom or worse, throw up on your feet. Riding on the metro at that time of night is like being trapped inside an empty can of stale beer and the stations are full of warning signs depicting cartoon pictures of unsteady looking men in suits falling onto the train tracks. Oddly, this sort of behavior seems to be perfectly acceptable in Japan. This never seemed fair to me considering that walking around with an exposed bra strap is seen as utterly shameful.

Lausanne, Switzerland

Are there homeless people in Switzerland? I never saw one. There was a tidy little group of dope addicts who hung out near the entrance to the parking garage near the Place de la Riponne but that was really about it.

Madrid, Spain

The old center of Madrid is rife with all sorts of street life. There are pickpockets, gypsies, people with horrible deformities sitting on the sidewalks with signs asking for money, people who cover their bodies in silver paint and stand still for hours at a time and so on and so forth. My neighborhood is about 40 minutes walking from the center and we still have a fair number of local street characters. Most of them I see on a daily basis and am familiar enough with them that we’ll frequently exchange small talk about my kids, the weather etc.

There is one particular gypsy woman whose beat seems to unfortunately coincide with my daily routine. She always wears stripy socks and I really don't like her because she curses me (by this I mean she literally puts hexes on me as opposed to just telling me to fuck off) whenever I refuse to give her money. It doesn't seem to have occurred to her that cursing people  is probably not the best way to cement good relations for possible future donations.

On my street we also have several accordion players. They tend to adopt a certain location and then stick to it religiously (I often wonder about the intricacies of street musician turf politics). At night when the tapas bars are open, they roam up and down the street, playing one or two tunes at each spot and then moving on to the next. Since we live directly upstairs from two bars with outdoor seating, I can safely say that if given the choice between listening to five minutes of jack hammering versus yet another accordion rendition of “My Way,” I’d gladly choose the former.

 

 

 

 

Man Refuses to Share Giant Mushroom (and other news)

A few months ago I started writing for a local publication called In Madrid. It´s a lot of fun because I get to write about local life, Spanish culture and so on. For example, this month I have a piece entitled "Man Refuses to Share Giant Mushroom" which is all about a Spanish man who basically, well, refuses to share a giant mushroom. Sadly, unless you´re here in Madrid and can pick up a copy of the magazine, the rest will have to be left to your imagination. However, I also have another piece in this month´s issue about El Gordo, Spain´s famous Christmas lottery. This one you can read online here. Please pardon the weird British spelling. They made me do it.

Media Vaca/Kalandraka

Whenever I travel to a new country, I always check out the kid's sections in the local bookshops and try to find a nice picture book to bring back as a souvenir. It's not always easy since many countries don't have very large children's book publishing industries. Luckily in Spain there are a few excellent publishers that specialize in picture books. One of my favorites is Kalandraka. The illustrations and stories are marvelous and since I believe that most of the authors and illustrators are Spanish themselves, it really does represent the culture.

Another Spanish book publisher that I really love is Media Vaca, a company that publishes books for both children and adults. The illustrations are stupendous- here are a few examples. One from an alphabet book for kids and another from a book about Tokyo.