Living la Vida Loca (Crazy being the main word!)

Hello Everyone! Hola from Madrid!



Plaza Mayor

I´m coming towards the end of my year abroad and therefore this blog but I still have enough material to blurt at you before its all over! I´m currently in Madrid, Spain for the last stint of my year abroad. While most people have finished their year abroad, I´m doing a 6 week placement at HP (Hewlett Packard, not the sauce!) doing pretty bog standard things like translation, general admin etc. Not very exciting and I´m under no illusion that the "work" I´m doing is of any importance, but the people are nice, it´s good for my Spanish and due to "summer hours", I´m back home most days by 3pm. It´s a hard life. Especially in such an incredible city like this. Anyway, my favourite thing( you may have noticed) on this blog is to tell you about the strange cultural differences I´ve noticed during my travels. And Madrid is no different. I´ve been here for 4 weeks and already have a whole plethora of blog gold to present to you now

Welcome to Madrid

So when I first arrived to Madrid, it was a nightmare. I got in to a cab from the airport to go to an agency to get my keys for my apartment, pay my deposit etc. I gave the cabbie the address and off we went. When we pulled up, we were outside an block of flats. And no sign of the estate agents anywhere. I then proceeded to look like the typical lost tourist, lugging my bags up and down the street, effing and blinding at every corner, melting in 36C heat and just generally looking like a complete Muppet. After about 30 minutes, I gave up and just sat on a bench, contemplating where I was going to sleep tonight and how far I would have to stomp around with these stupid bags. Then from nowhere this man appears and asks if I´m looking for the agency. It turns out that they were in the downstairs of another estate agents, which I had passed about 47 times and it was only after I sat on the bench, that one of the employees of the other agency came out to help me (after having a right giggle at the stupid tourist!) Eventually I got my keys and was taken to my flat for an standard inspection before I moved in. Now they gave me about 20 different keys which open the building front door, 4 keys for my apartment front door and they gave the guy showing me the flat, the key to my room. Now in our flat, each room is locked with a padlock. So when we arrived at the flat, I looked at the man and he looked at me, and we stood there for about 20 seconds outside my bedroom door, before I said that he has the key. He denied this and said that I had it. After about a 2 minute conversation, I finally convinced him that he had this key when he realised that he had in fact lost it. Now instead of calling the office for the spare key, or generally looking for it, he decided the best idea was to unscrew the whole lock, with the locked padlock attached, from the bedroom door. Then proceeded the longest 30 minutes of my life. Watching this tiny Spanish man attempt to literally break in to my bedroom was a particularly strange "welcome to Madrid". Eventually he got it open, and return a few hours later to fix the door. Completely unnecessary crisis averted. Good job.


Possibly less terrifying than the fan.

Well after that excruciatingly awkward encounter, I´ll get back to my observations of Madrid and the Spanish people:

1) The stereotype that Spanish women carry fans everywhere. Completely true. Fans literally left, right and centre. And I'm not talking about small fans either. With the size of some of these fans, these women could cause high speed winds. I saw one woman with a fan on the subway who had a massive, obviously handmade fan. it was very intricate and it had the face of a baby or a child on it, maybe a child or grandchild. This may sound sweet but I´m not kidding you.....this thing was terrifying. I'm talking Spawn of Chucky terrifying. This baby picture looked possessed and every time she moved that fan, those creepy baby eyes just followed you. Truly terrifying.

2) Now Spanish people are renowned for having siestas and staying up late. Whilst the siesta seems to be a bit of a myth (only some shops close), the nocturnal lifestyle of Los Españoles is mental. Loco to the extreme. On my first Friday here, I decided to go in to the city centre at night just to get my bearings and have a little wander around. I arrived at an outside restaurant about half 10 at night and feeling a bit peckish, tried to order some food. The waiter explained to me that wasn't possible because it was too EARLY. What? Seriously, most Spanish people especially during the weekend won't eat dinner until at least 11 and finish up around 2am. And this goes for everyone. People with young kids, teenagers even old people will just be finishing their tortillas around 1am. Since I'm a student, this sort of nocturnal life suits me.......until having to wake up at 7am for work. Spain seems to work on the same timetable as everyone else, just pushed back about 5 hours. For example, you know when you go on a night out and that boring person leaves early because they're tired or a bit too drunk. Well that was me.....at 5am. My flatmates stayed out until at least 7am. Even I can't hack this lifestyle for too long! Spanish people = hardcore.

A hard day's work

3) Now as I mentioned, I'm doing an internship here in Madrid for 6 weeks. Now because I arrived in August, people work summer hours, i.e. get to go home earlier because of the heat, and I thought "Brilliant, 6 hour days! So easy". However, I was not prepared for actually how relaxed the work place was. Seriously, this seems to be a typical Spanish work day (well at my work anyway): get to work, have a chat, go get a coffee, chat for an hour, have another coffee, work for an hour, go for lunch, come back 2 hours later, have a meeting, have another coffee, 30 mins later: HOME TIME. And they're still trying to figure out the causes of the economic crisis in Spain?

4) Since being here, I have noticed that the economic crisis has hit Madrid quite hard. Lots of closed down businesses, lots of people begging etc. but some people have come up with some creative ideas to get by in these hard times. Pretty much wherever you go in Madrid, there will be a Chinese person selling beer out of their bags for a 1 Euro. Literally round every corner, every side street, every square you will be hard pressed to not find someone rattling an empty beer can in your face, asking if you want one. Being the philanthropist that I am, I have invested heavily in these people's future :P (1 Euro for a beer? You can' knock it!) Another good way of earning some quick money is busking. Now of course you have buskers everywhere in the world. However, I haven't met many that play on a crowded train, one quick song between stations and then walk round the carriage asking for donations. No one can say that they didn't listen or walk away. Very intuitive to serenade a large crowd of people who cannot escape. Major points for creativity / hostage taking.



5) I've seen some very strange characters here in Madrid but I've decided to talk about the most disturbing but in hindsight hilarious encounter I've had so far on my Year Abroad. It happened while I was at the local swimming pool. As I was just about to leave, a man lying on the grass asked me for the time. When I looked up to tell him, I was just stunned. Imagine an old man in red speedos who was the colour of mahogany. Kind of like an (even more) leathery, bald David Dickinson. I apologise for that mental image but if I had to suffer it, so do you! He then proceeded to ask if I was English, and if so was I a sailor because the English love boats. He cackled like a hyena whilst applying more baby oil to his cow hide like skin (the image has gotten worse I know!) and I left. There are many things just so so so wrong about that encounter.



Plaza Cibeles

Well I think that's it for now! I've got loads more to tell but I'm going to keep you in suspense and hopefully squeeze another blog post out of these 6 weeks in Madrid. I hope you enjoyed it and I'll post again soon!

 

Andy C