Hmmm…. where to start. With the big news I suppose, followed by all the consequences!

Marina, my wife, is just about 8 months pregnant. This is wonderful. Wonderfully wonderful. But it certainly adds a new edge to life, a new urgency as THE BIG CHANGE approaches, fast.

What can I tell you about having a baby in Spain?

In Spain the question isn’t “Are you going to find out the sex before it’s born?”. Instead everyone asks: “Is it a boy or a girl?” Why? Because everyone finds out the sex of their baby as soon as an ultra-sound can tell them (around month four).

In our case the answer is ‘boy’. This means finding a boy’s name that sounds good in Spanish and English (for when we take him back to the ‘old country’). My current favourite is Rafa, after my number one tennis idol and all round super hero, Señor Nadal, but Marina still needs some convincing!

So what else does this mean?

It means I’ve got to get my shxt together! We run a business from home, and now we’re going to be running a child as well… in the same office, so to speak.

Hence my recent obsession with time management. (By the way, forget anything else I’ve said about that, and buy “No BS Time Management for Entrepreneurs”, immediately! Do what he says, he’s totally OTT and even more obsessive than me, but it really really works.)

Managing time better means cutting down on certain luxuries, one of which is the commnets on this blog. I’ve turned comments off for the time being for all past and future posts. There are a few reasons for this:

- As well as having a baby (or because of!) we have to concentrate 99% on our Learning Spanish site, notesinspanish.com, over the coming months. This means I just won’t have time to reply to comments left here, and I feel really guilty when I don’t reply to comments!

- We have the wonderful forums right here on this site where wonderful discussions go on, so please please go and comment and discuss things there instead! Feel free to take any topic I discuss here in the future and expand on it there. I’ll be popping in a lot to join the conversations there.

- Having comments very occasionally makes one write ‘for the comments’. It makes me think ‘I wonder if this topic will get lots of comments’, rather than, ‘I think this is the most interesting thing I can write about write now for the readers of this blog, regardless of whether people are likely to comment or not’.

(This may be a very inside-baseball bloggers point, but I think it will free up, and improve the writing here. As for the ‘is a blog a blog without comments?’ discussion, Yes it is!)

What will I be writing about?

Creativity, Spain, having a baby in Spain, anything else I deem of interest to those kind enough to keep showing up to have a look.

I often say to Marina “I wish I could write about x or y, not just Spain, I might start Notesfromben.com again”. She says, “Just put that stuff on the Notes from Spain blog”, so that’s what I plan to do.

I can’t promise how often I’ll be posting. I made a list recently which on one side said ‘Cool things’ and on the other ‘Not cool things’.

On the cool things side it said: Writing blog posts when I’m in the mood.
On the uncool side it said: Writing blog posts because I feel I have to (blogging pressure).

I’m going to take the ‘cool things’ approach. (By the way, I highly recommend you make two of these lists, one for not-work life, and one for work. You then do everything you can to remove the things on the ‘not cool’ side of the lists from your life, to concentrate on the cool things list).

So, enough rambling. Keep coming back, I’ll keep posting good creative content whenever I’m inspired, I hope it will be useful and helpful, not just ego-to-pixels blogging. New times are coming!

Comments welcome in the forum from now on!

A very interesting discussion is going to be taking place in the forum over the next few weeks, all about travel writing on Spain, and how the reality shapes up in comparison. The discussion is forming part of a fascinating research project by Tita Beaven from The Open Universtiy.

Please do join in if you can. The first discussion thread is here:

Travel Writing and Being There

Thanks!

For any avid present or future podcasters amongst you, there is a big event at the end of the month in Barcelona, and I’m really happy to have been asked to speak there.

I’ll be sharing the stage on Saturday afternoon (27th Sept) with Mark Pentleton from Coffee Break Spanish, and we’ll be talking about how on earth we ended up making a business out of Podcasting.

If you are interested in coming along, full details are available at http://www.podcampbarcelona.org/

Hope to see you there!

After a recent bout of the ceremonials in Valladolid, I thought it might be interesting to further explore the archetypal Spanish wedding…

Church or ‘Civil’

Everything starts with the ceremony. If as a guest you are lucky, this will be a civil affair, probably in the local town hall. Presided over by the Mayor (if you have friends in the right places), or a local councillor, the ceremony lasts approximately 2 minutes and 45 seconds, during which the bride (Novia) and groom (Novio - collectively know as the ‘Novios‘) are required to agree to a couple of legal statutes, swap rings, say I do, and get the hell out of there to stop wasting any more municipal time.

If you are less fortunate, you may be subjected to the the rigours of the Spanish church wedding. Of unknown length (bank on an hour) and religious ferocity, the church wedding is usually an unutterably boring experience that involves lots of catholic process completely unknown to your average guirri like me.

In theory you are allowed to skip the church part if you don’t fancy it and go straight to the party afterwards, but in practice you suspect your absence will be noted and feel far too guilty to sit this part out in a nearby bar where many of the more canny Spanish males are hiding out.

Note: to get married in a church in Spain, the Novios are required to go do several pre-training sessions at the church, where they swear their allegiance to the cross and generally become re-religiousified (I claim that word!)

In the ceremony itself they are forced to make all sorts of rash promises about educating their children in the ways of the church and the eyes of god and so on, promises they mostly have no intention of keeping. The fact is that 9 out of 10 couples don’t marry in the church because they are devout believers, but rather because it just looks nicer than the average town hall.

Also note: Getting married in the church is pricey. You pay a hefty fee, and are forced to use the churches florist and photographers, both of whom kick back to the guy at the altar.

After the service

What happens next is subject to a strict, practically unbreakable, formula. Everyone races off to a local restaurant/golf club/country house - anywhere that is set up to screw money from newly-weds in the mighty Spanish wedding business.

First up is the “cocktail”, where everyone mills about on the lawn outside or in some sort of reception area, being fed exquisite tapas (foie gras, jamon iberico, gambas rebozadas, tempura de verdura, that sort of thing), and the first round of booze.

Just as you feel you can’t eat another thing, it’s off to the tables for dinner, which usually involves a couple of seafood dishes, followed by meat and, finally, an almost inedibly sweet cakey desert of some description.

Throughout the meal white wine is followed by red, and Cava is served with the cake for everyone to toast the happy couple with at the end of the meal. Finally comes the coffee (dancing energy) and, as if anyone actually needed it by now, the liqueurs (pacharan, liquor de hierbas…)

Note: there are no speeches at Spanish weddings. However, it is customary for the drunker and younger members of the crowd to constantly heckle the increasingly annoyed happy couple throughout the meal, with shouts of ‘Viva la novia‘ (long live the bride) and, the one that really embarrasses them, ‘Que se besen’ (kiss each other!), which once shouted out is taken up and chanted by the entire room until the couple oblige.

This is considered slightly tacky behaviour in polite circles, especially when, during the resulting kiss, the drunkest table continues to chant ‘con lengua, con lengua’ (with tounges!)

Bara Libre and Baile!

Now for the fun bit! The Novios open the dance up with a traditional waltz that more often or not they haven’t bothered to learn properly in advance, but isn’t that hard after you’ve seen it at 100 other weddings and you’ve been on the vino all night in preparation for this moment.

While they sway around the dance floor, everyone except the oldies is completely ignoring them, hell bent instead on getting their first free copa of rum and coke or gin and tonic (top 2 drinks) from the free bar.

With the waltz out the way, a hard night of boozing, bad dancing and worse music, now ensues, with Spanish fiesta classics and international megamixes from the 80’s keeping everyone happy until at least 6 am (see also Spain’s coolest DJ).

And everyone is indeed extremely happy, something that may not only be down to the fact that they are drunk, and their friends/relatives have tied the knot, but also, on a deep psychological level, because they have paid to be here in the first place….

Money or Gifts, and the Corte Ingles Wedding List

Going to a Spanish wedding is a pricey affair. Apart from all the usual travel etc costs, you are expected to give a very decent gift, and 90% of the time that gift should be money. If you know the couple well (hay confianza), you get a bank account number long before the wedding (on rare occasions it arrives with the invite!) and you simply hand the money over the wires before the big day.

Alternatively you can slip them an envelope after the meal, hoping they aren’t drunk enough to mislay it. The big idea is that you are helping them to pay for the wedding, which seems entirely fair enough considering how much these things cost these days.

What’s the going rate? How much should you hand over? As a mid-thirties couple we usually stump up 250 Euros. As one heads off into middle age this number tends to increase, and I have a feeling those of Marina’s parents age may well hand over double this at the wedding of a close relative.

Some couples will set up a wedding list, more often or not at the Corte Ingles department store. You go in, choose a gift from their list (carefully created by the Novios to include objects in a wide range of prices) and pay for it.

What many people don’t know is that this money goes into a special Corte Ingles bank account that the Novios can then spend on whatever they like in the store. They may never end up with what you actually spent hours deciding to buy them.

Your Thoughts….

So there we have it, your typical Spanish wedding. What have I missed out? Please add your thoughts in the comments below!

3 a.m. at a family wedding this weekend in the depths of Castilla y Leon, not far from Valladolid, and the Grease MegaMix was playing full blast. Revellers hips were grinding (even those that had been recently replaced), and rivers of ‘Ron con CocaCola’ were flowing from the ‘barra libre’.

My Spanish brother-in-law pointed out the guy in charge of the music and said, “¡Por Dios! Look at the DJ! A middle aged guy with full-on moustache, jersey picked out by his mum, and specs. He looks just like a Guardia Civil! For god’s sake don’t put him on your blog, you’ll make Spain look completely ridiculous!”

Don’t worry, I said, I’ll keep the photo to myself

While Marina and I are away for the week, we’ve turned over the blog to veteran Notes from Spain contributor and guest blogger Gary Child, who was recently let loose for a fortnight in Barcelona. In this final instalment, how to survive in Barcelona…

Mr. Sinatra’s most famous offering begins with the lyric, “And now, the end is near…”, and so it is for me. I have just finished my last intercambio of the fortnight and there is one grammar session and two conversation classes between me and the flight home.

The fortnight has flown by and “…regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention…”.

But I will anyway. I booked the course which included a fiesta and so lost a day’s tuition. No biggy. The thing I did that I won’t do when I repeat the experience is to book so many intercambios. Two a day is wa-a-a-ay too many when added to three ninety minute classes. No, next time, the standard course of two sessions in the morning and probably three intercambios in each week will be enough. You get all Spanished out.

But “…I did what I had to do, and saw it through without exemption…”, thank God I had two cancellations.

Of the seven people that I have met there are two with whom I have an arrangement to meet for a drink and a chat at New Year when I’m back in town with my beloved. Strictly social though, no classes and no formal intercambio.

I love Barcelona and I have been here often enough now that I feel no compunction to traipse round all the usual tourist gaffs unless there is someone with me that necessitates ‘tour guide’ mode. I have always tried to do something on every visit that I haven’t done before. This time it was to be a visit to Tibidabo, but with all the intercambios I just couldn’t face the hassle. Maybe next time, maybe not.

I stay in a shared flat with a charming English lady to whom I was introduced via the language school. I have also stayed with her on weekend breaks with my son, and though student accommodation may not be appropriate when traveling with Mrs C, we will make a point of calling in when we are in town. It has become a home from home, a pied-a-terre in BCN, and it is sufficient for me that I come and live in the community for a couple of weeks, learn a bit and relax a lot.

I suppose it must fall upon me to write a little about the city at the end of this series.

If you’ve never been then do make the effort. It has taken me the best part of five years of visiting a couple of times or more a year to get round all there is to see and, as no series of articles on the web would be complete without a list of dos and don’ts here’s mine:

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While Marina and I are away for the week, we’ve turned over the blog to veteran Notes from Spain contributor and guest blogger Gary Child, who was recently let loose for a fortnight in Barcelona. In this fourth instalment, Spanish overload…

So, I’m half way through the second week of my fortnight’s Spanish course in Barcelona. The mornings continue to be excellent, 90 minutes grammar followed by 90 minutes conversation. Different teachers this week but, looking at the logistics of organizing a new crop of students each week and jigging the groups to match the teaching talent, this is neither surprising nor, it transpires, a detriment.

This week we have Rosina for grammar and Daniel for conversation. Both are good at what they do and the lessons are well planned, with good photocopied resources, and well executed.

WOAH! Heaven forfend that this should turn into some kind of clandestine OfSTED report on an unsuspecting language school somewhere in Barcelona - back to the gossip…

In a previous post I explained how I intended to dip the pm session in school. After a long weekend – the 15th of August is a national holiday in Spain – my batteries are re-charged and I decided to give it another shot. The star-crossed lovers have shuffled off (to quote Bill twice). Things are better, so I’m still on board.

Yesterday was a hard day:

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While Marina and I are away for the week, we’ve turned over the blog to veteran Notes from Spain contributor and guest blogger Gary Child, who was recently let loose for a fortnight in Barcelona. In this third instalment, The Joy of Intercambios…

It is peculiar to this day and age that everyone has the potential to put themselves in contact with complete strangers, and enter into a mutually beneficial relationship, at the click of a mouse. I refer to the intercambio and not the numerous nefarious activities which, allegedly, take place with the assistance of modern technology.

My mother would have a fit. I can hear her now:

“You’re what!? You’re going to travel to a foreign country, full of foreigners, and meet a complete stranger, a foreigner, in a bar, a foreign bar, in a foreign city you barely know? What for? You’re just going to talk? Talk!? Don’t come running to me if you end up in the gutter with your throat slit, your wallet gone and your passport being sold on the black market..!”

Just as well I didn’t tell her then, eh?

Intercambios, I have discovered to my great delight, are a wonderful thing. So much so that I have elected to dip my arranged classes in the afternoons and do intercambios instead. Invisible Ruben and the star crossed lovers wont notice I’m not there, which leaves the lovely Laura having a one to one with the teacher. Everybody wins.

There is, apparently, misconception that intercambios are what you do when you move to live in a country for a period to learn the language. I suppose I was concerned that this might be the case. But, no, it seems that the Spanish are keen to speak to a wide sample of us native English speakers to experience the whole breadth and depth of our mispronunciation and mangling of our mother tongue.

So much so, in fact, that I have needed to be careful to try to make sure all respondents get a slice of the cake, so to speak. What’s the best way to go about arranging intercambios? In short I have no idea but what follows has worked for me:

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While Marina and I are away for the week, we’ve turned over the blog to veteran Notes from Spain contributor and guest blogger Gary Child, who was recently let loose for a fortnight in Barcelona. In this second instalment, Notes from the Language School…

I do not do mornings well. For this reason I need to be up and about for a good while before I am ready to interact with the rest human race, more so when this is going to take place in a foreign language.

When in Barcelona to study Spanish for my annual fortnight, on school days I am up at about 7.15. The school is a 20 minute walk from where I stay but, as the arthritic knee I mentioned previously doesn’t work so well until I get it going, I get the Metro to school and walk back.

Two flights of stairs down, a 90 second ride and three escalators up puts me on the terrace of a bar outside the school by just gone eight o’clock. My daily routine will see me order café Americano and a glass of hot water to pour in to create a longer drink.

I arrived this year in my usual spot and within ten minutes was approached by probably the oldest hooker in Spain. She certainly is persistent, having now been graciously declined by yours truly for the second consecutive year.

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While Marina and I are away for the week, we’ve turned over the blog to veteran Notes from Spain contributor and guest blogger Gary Child, who was recently let loose for a fortnight in Barcelona. In this first instalment, something anyone living in Spain strives to avoid: sorting out anything medical…

Domingo. A day of rest before I start my fortnight’s intensive Spanish course in Barcelona. Or so I thought. I was awakened earlier than I would have liked by the arrival of a text from home that just said “Ring me”. Naturally, panic set in. Rather than ring and clock up a bill bigger than the national debt, I texted back, “On Skype in 5 mins”.

I have to confess it was a long five minutes. Had there been an accident? Was the dog ill? Were the grandkids okay in Mojacar with their mum and dad? Had the roof fallen in?

It was none of the above. It turned out that I had left my medication on the work surface in the kitchen. No biggy for me, but ‘her indoors’ seemed concerned that with the sunshine, the relaxed atmosphere and the two weeks complete lack of stress, I might have a problem with my blood pressure. ‘Don’t be silly’ wasn’t working and so I agreed to set out on a quest to source an alternative supply of little asprin and felodipine, lest she had to repatriate me for terminal snoozing.

So to la farmácia, my first intercambio of the fortnight.

Little asprin, no problem. Ibuprofen for arthritic knee, no problem. Felodipine? Nowhere to be seen. Of course it would have helped had I spelt it correctly on the paper I handed to her with my list of requirements. They even went on ‘Google for Chemists in Spanish’ and could find no trace. I returned to the flat convinced I would sort it out but, of course, I couldn’t spell it so couldn’t find it either. Still, I could always go back to cilazapril. It gives me a cough but it would do for a fortnight.

Back to the farmácia for cilazapril, but still no luck. I would have to see a doctor for a ‘receta’ for cilazapril. I was told that there was a Sala de Urgencías two blocks away and my heart sank at the prospect of spending the rest of the day hanging about to be seen.

And so to my second intercambio, with los médicos…

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