The New York Times has a good run down on Bilbao

Andalucid is Chumbo hunting!

Abadia Retuerta (from our winery podcast) wants you to win their salt!

Mojacar-based Lenox writes at the Spanish Shilling: “There are, broadly speaking, three different types of Britons coming to Spain – if you consider this part of the Iberian peninsular as being ‘Spain’ since most towns around here now have more foreigners than they do locals.”

And finally… our latest advanced Spanish podcast on the Spanish education system mentions a subject I have always found quite amazing - that it seems quite common for kids to cheat in exams in Spanish schools. This usually involves the typical scribbled notes on the hem of a skirt, the palm of a hand, even etched onto the side of a biro with a pin! And what are these secret cheat-notes called? Una chuleta, yup, the same word as ‘meat chop’!

I read a great post about photowalking the other day, and have been inspired to start taking my good camera everywhere with me again (my EOS 350 SLR, as opposed to the wonderful but less dynamic Ixus 700).

I used to be an avid photographer, but in recent times have let it slip - there is just two much extra media to play with (audio, video, writing…) Let’s see what happens. The image above (large version) was taken in Bolonia, Costa de la Luz, one of my favourite beaches on the planet, which thankfully is not winning in the 20minutos.com ‘Best Beach’ competition - please take time to vote for one of the other finalists, to keep Bolonia off the map!

And don’t forget to check out our Notes from Spain flickr group every now and again, there are some inspiring photos on there. Why not add one of yours?

Mostly our Notes in Spanish podcasts get pretty nice comments, but every few months we get a classic piece of feedback in the mail:

Author : anonymous
Comment:
i hate these podcasts, acutally i dont hate them, i just hate the idea of them, because i have to do a summer assignment for school based off of these stupid shits.

i’m sorry i’m sure you’re nice people and all, but i’m sick of these, and i’m sick of looking at the transcripts and having to translate half of this stuff online and its like one in the morning and i’m tired as hell and i wish you had never made these.

Hijo de puta (son of a ‘prostitute’), is up there with the worst swear words in Spanish. It’s even worse than the ‘C’ word, which is actually bandied about freely in bars, at more relaxed dinner tables, and on television. So I was quite surprised to find a tapas called ‘Japuta‘, pictured above, that is blatantly a shortened version of Spain’s most violent phrase.

Japuta itself is basically a white fish, served here fried in a herby batter. We ate it in Cordoba, and it comes highly recommended even by someone not too keen on fish: me.

Anyway, this reminded me once more of a conversation I had with my sister-in-law about my own sister, when she had just got a great job as a reporter at Reuters in London, purely on her own merits (mentioned in a previous post on the enchufe). My sister-in-law said ‘That job in Spain would only be for el hijo de‘ - for the son of… not meaning ‘hijo de puta‘, but rather that any job that good in Spain only goes to people with connections. ‘The son of’ someone important gets a better job. I’m sure this is true, but what I wonder is, how much does this still go on in places like the UK, where everyone is so sure that the stain of nepotism was removed from society years ago?

Tree house seen in Sierra - hope kid never takes up architecture
click to enlarge

We just got back to the capital after spending 10 days in the Sierra to the north of the city. We got a lot of work done, saw almost no-one, and breathed a lot of fresh air. It was wonderful. As we drove into Madrid Marina asked me how it felt to be back. Not too bad. She dropped me off at the door to our building with all our bags, and then headed off to park in the underground car park around the corner. When she finally got upstairs she looked distinctly unhappy to be back in Madrid.

Apparently, as she turned onto the ramp down into the basement car park, another car was on its way up. So, she stopped, and began to reverse back out onto the street to let him up. Unfortunately another car was now coming down the road towards Marina, and stopped so close that she couldn’t reverse out enough to let the car coming up the ramp out. She turned and looked at the guy behind, a 50-something man in a BMW, and he crossed his arms in defiance and shook his head, making it clear he would not move, even though he had no cars behind him.

Marina got out, went up to his car, and asked if he would please move back so she could in turn reverse further and let the other guy out. He said no, he would not reverse (we’re talking 2 metres!), that she would have to go forward, drive round the block, and come back instead (which would take about 3 minutes!) At this point the famous Spanish caracter came into play, and Marina gave him a piece of her mind. He promptly reversed the 2 metres, allowing Marina to do the same and let the other guy up, who, of course, drove off without a word of thanks.

Another fine example of why Spanish women have had to learn to take no s*#t! (…and how a lot of people in big cities, or big cars, are complete w*#+!rs …)

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Why are you interested in Spain? What made you come here, or makes you want to come here? How did it all start? Why do you read this Spain blog? What makes the country special? Answer below or in the special forum post! I look forward to reading your answers!

Marina just left a long comment on our recent article about Spanish women and their inherent ‘feistiness’, known here as carácter. I think it is a valuable contribution, and worth posting here:

“Of course there are plenty of Spanish women who are not fiesty, but funnily enough, if I look at a lot of our foreign friends that have a Spanish girlfriend/wife, without exception they are all strong and full of Spanish character

I think to look at the reason for this, Franco or no Franco, we have to look back at least 30 years, and even a bit longer. For a person around my age (32) the difference in freedom and opportunities that our mothers had in their youth compared to ours is massive (I reckon that even my grandmother enjoyed more freedom than my mother when she was young). Being able to see how women have worked for their men and children, giving all of their time in usually not very rewarding tasks, makes one appreciate much more the freedom and opportunities that women enjoy nowadays, and I guess that makes us very protective and defensive about it. I guess what happens in general is that we apply the same protection to other matters in life as well, for example if someone jumps the queue. But here we should also take into account that Spanish society is a complaining society: The Spanish, in general, love complaining and do so, both men and women, in a much direct way than people from other countries.

Going back to equality… from what I’ve seen in England, for English women my age equality is not a big issue, mainly because they take it for granted. And even if in Spain, at least when I was a teenager, we looked at the North European women with admiration regarding equality, I’ve seen a few examples of chauvinist behaviour in young English couples that I wouldn’t accept, nor would most of my friends. One good example is taking your husband’s name when you marry. I know it is a cultural thing, but in Spain most of the women would laugh at that possibility. Even today parents can choose the order of their children’ surnames - people in Spain take two surnames, usually the father’s one comes first and then the mother’s one, but nowadays you can choose to put the mother’s one first.”

Ben and sister-in-law in skip…
I love skips. When I was young my father had a skip hire business and I spent a lot of time jumping in and out of and tossing stuff into them. We always seemed to have one at home, though I have no idea how we managed to keep filling them. So, how happy I was to hire one this morning for the in-laws place in the sierra. While they are away we plan to throw out a whole load of crap, which will either lead to a nice surprise on their return or the start of an almighty arguement (”I can’t believe you got rid of my X”).
 
Anyway, to get said skip I went to the web and did indeed find someone to bring one over on the same day (130 euros for 2 weeks, not bad). However, it was impossible to find out how big a skip we needed. None of the websites I came to via paginas-amarillas.es would tell me what a 10 cubic metre skip looked like. They didn’t even have photos or prices. So I put ’skip sizes’ into google, and came up with a gem of a website in the Uk where they have actually unploaded videos showing you how big each skip size is. Click here for some classic footage of a 10 cubic yard model. Just what I needed (once I worked out how to convert from cubic yards to meters). Now there is a company that gets the web (they even have a skip blog!)
 
How long until the web shows this level of usefulness in Spain? Could be a while in a country that, unlike the UK, France, and Germany, doesn’t even have Amazon.ES
 

Every now and again we like to invite any questions you might have about living, traveling or working in Spain, and we promise to answer them as best we can! While I usually ask for questions to be put in the comments below, today I really encourage you to come and join in at our forum.

The depth of knowledge in there is amazing, everyone is very friendly, and between us we can answer just about anything related to Spain and learning Spanish! So, if you have got any question you’d really like answered about Spain, register in our forums and ask away, we’d really love to help! Access our forums here!

The Spanish do not suffer fools gladly. Spanish women do not suffer fools in any way whatsoever! They know instinctively and immediately when someone is messing them around and they will not stand for it. Examples include setting a bill straight when a surly waiter has added one too many coca colas, dealing with someone who has pushed into a queue, and whipping useless customer service reps into shape when a phone call isn’t going to plan. Telefonica hasn’t sorted out your internet connection in time? Got a Spanish girlfriend/flatmate? Get her on the case!

Now this is by no means meant as criticism. As long as you aren’t on the sharp end of a determined Spaniard it’s a marvel to behold, and in my case, Marina’s abilities in this field have saved us hundreds if not thousands of Euros and sorted out endless problems.

But what is it that makes the Spanish woman so strong? It has been suggested that it’s a back-lash against years of macho oppression by the chauvinist Franco regime, or perhaps it’s just a Spanish version of feminism. It is almost certainly a reaction to the fact that Spanish women know they have to put up a good fight in a country where they still face promotion glass ceilings at work, and are usually paid one third less than their male counterparts, even in multinational companies.

Whatever the case, as you get deeper into Spanish culture, you will often hear reference to a person’s carácter, a word that doesn’t refer to personality as a whole, but that fiesty bit in all of us that wells up to sort out annoyances. “¡Qué carácter tienes, macho!“, Marina tells me when I’m in a bad mood, to which I’ll reply, “Carácter, me???”

But Carácter gets money knocked off bills and internet connections installed faster, and keeps husbands doing their share of the work in the kitchen. I hope this post celebrates the famous national carácter, but I’m still left wondering, will I get into trouble when my Spanish wife reads it?