The above photo is of our patio interior, a glorified light-shaft present in the middle of just about every flat block in Spain, where light and air enter the back end of the neighbours’ apartments, and all sorts of interesting things float out again: sounds, smells, arguments…

We’ve heard wild creaking bedsprings at midnight, seen marijuana plants where now you see the geraniums, get woken by the breakfast sounds of the kids on the third floor at 7 am, and have to shut all the windows against the strong smell of cocido that rises for a five hour stretch every thursday morning.

We hear the screech of clothes lines as the chords are dragged across the gaping space over the horizontal pulley system, and the clatter of fumbled clothes pegs as they tumble from washing baskets to the ground floor.

It’s all part of the aural-aromatic landscape of life in Spain, and far from being annoying (except perhaps for the smell of a 5 hour cocido and the 7 am alarm call), it’s comforting, especially today, when all I can hear through my window over the patio interior is the clatter of refreshing May rain.

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Many thanks to everyone who submitted a photo to the Notes from Spain Flickr Group in April (keep them coming in May!) April’s winner is Jan, with Kids at the Sherry, above. Jan explains:

“It was taken at the Feria del Vino Fino last weekend [in El Puerto de Santa Maria, Cadiz province, part of the feria season starting in Sevilla] … I made it sepia and blurred the surroundings as I felt it had a kind of timeless quality and if it weren’t for the boy’s trainers, could have been taken way back in the past.”

I agree totally. This is classic, timeless Andalusia, trainers or no trainers!

Do check out all of Jan’s wonderful photos from this event and beyond, on the ‘Jan’s World’ Flickr Stream.

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iTunes users: subscribe directly to the Notes from Spain podcast via this link.

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Sounds innocent enough. Now watch this and tell me just how long it takes for your palms to start sweating!

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For all those super sharp-shooting Spanish speakers amongst you, check out the new round of Advanced Podcasts at our sister-site Notes in Spanish.

The latest episode is about the potential hypocrisy of boycotting the Olympics: head on over and have a listen!

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“What we are trying to achieve here,” said Rafael Blasco, minister for immigration and citizenship (and silly plans) in the Valencian Government, “is that people that come here integrate themselves not only work-wise, but also that they become fundamentally integrated in our values, our system of living together, our customs, our traditions, and that this integration results in continuing social cohesion…”

So basically, either immigrants to the Valencia region do as the locals do, or the very fabric of society is at risk! Which in turn can easily be taken to mean, “don’t bring your funny customs over here, we’re having none of that, be like us or back you go.” Now there’s a message that’s bound to lead to increased social cohesion!

Fortunately Zapatero’s central government has been quick to tell their Valencian counterparts to shut up, that the only thing that matters is that immigrants comply with Spanish law, which seems fair enough, but one big unknown still remains… what does it mean to follow Spanish customs, principles and traditions?

That’s the question I was tested on this morning on Radio M80’s ‘No somos nadie‘ programme. As a typical foreigner who’s had plenty of time to adapt to Spanish ways, I was put to the test to see whether I’d be up to scratch with the Valencian regime, and had to answer the following key “how Spanish are you?” questions (see how you do too!):

Q. Do you throw cigarette butts, olive stones, serviettes etc on the floor in bars?
A. All the time! (except the cigarette butts…)

Q. Lack of punctuality?
A. I’m still a bit English on that one… so, no.

Q. Do you drunkenly dance Paquito el Chocolatero at fiestas?
A. Ah… Yes!

Q. Do you walk out of restaurants with a wooden toothpick in your mouth?
A. No! (I’m always afraid I’d bump into someone and swallow it!)

Q. Do you slag off your neighbours?
A. Yes

So how did I do? … They said I failed and should be deported immediately! Vaya…

You can listen to the full radio interview via this mp3 link, read more about the Valencian contract mess in El Pais, and please let me know in the comments:

Would you have passed Radio M80’s test? What Spanish customs are you most fond of that they could have added to the test?

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In fact, if you haven’t got a year’s worth of salary in the bank, and a firm job offer on arrival, the general advice was ‘Don’t risk it!’ And certainly don’t sell your property back home to buy another one here, because if you change your mind later, you’ll never afford to buy a similar house back if you have to return home…

You can follow the full debate in the forum, but be warned, it’s enough to put a family off moving here altogether. Perhaps that’s why I was really interested in a very appropriate comment left here on the blog over the weekend, in answer to a previous question. “How long does it take to get used to living in Spain?”:

I moved to Madrid from the US 3 years ago with my husband and 2 children, one of which was a toddler. I speak fluent spanish, so the language barrier was not a factor. It was a difficult move. The “mañana” way of life, the ridiculous driving standard, the siesta hours, the over-inflated prices, the holier than thou attitude… well you get the picture, it’s very, very hard to get used to.

Once I realized that I was NOT in the US and I accepted that things are “different” it got much, much easier to live here. The amount of time it takes to realize that can vary for each individual. For me it was at about the 2 year point. I am much happier now and when I am happy, my family is happy.

I miss my home, the US, very much. But I’m not going back until it’s time to move back (another 2 years). The way I see it is: “I’m in Europe and I’m going to see this part of the world before I leave.”

So to answer the question…. It is different for everyone, but you have to make a choice. You either accept a different way of life, or you fight it until the end. Good Luck.

So it is possible for families to move here and survive/be happy, but just how common is it? Have you moved your whole family here, or do you know someone else that has? Would you risk it?

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First up is a photo taken this week by Ryan Opaz of Spains’ greatest wine website, catavino.net. It shows the crazed Castellers in his home town Terrassa, scaling new heights to celebrate St. Jordi, a Catalan fiesta similar to St Valentines, when people say it not just with flowers, but also by giving loved ones a book. You can see more of Ryan’s great photos here.

Secondly, we have this classic image from Alistair Wood, of Las Cruces in Granada. Where would I be if I could be anywhere in the world this May 3rd? In Granada for this fiesta. The Granadinos dress up to the nines and ride into town on speckled horses to see beautiful crosses made of flowers in the plazas around town. See more of Alistair’s wonderful photos from Spain and beyond here.

The photo above was taken by Alistair when I first went to Las Cruces with him 9 years ago. The two girls in the photo have probably turned into frighteningly beautiful young women by now!

If you could visit any fiesta in Spain this summer, which would it be, and why?

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The second part is a true story about the death of a friend, Paul, pictured standing next to me to the left of this text. It’s a story I’ve really wanted to tell for a long time, but as I explain in the podcast, I thought it was too long to publish straight on the blog as text.

Still, if anyone does want a text version to hang on to for any reason (but please listen to the audio first if you can), you can download a pdf version here.

Thanks and abrazos for Paul, somewhere.

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The idea is quite shocking: people who usually only ever communicate over the internet all actually get to meet in person! Marina and I picked 5 or 6 of our favourite restaurants in the capital, and we all met for lunch and dinner from Thursday to Saturday night. In the meantime, everyone took the morings and afternoons to check out what most interested them in Madrid (torrential rain permitting…)

Despite overzealous attacks on late night drinking establishments until the depths of Friday night (or early Saturday morning, perhaps), and the resulting feeling of physical doom amongst some through most of Saturday, the event, for us, was a tremendous success. Why? Because it turns out that those people one chats away to on the internet are all exceedingly nice. Ridiculously nice in fact!

If you run some sort of internet community yourself, I can’t recommend this enough: pick a place and get together some time! It makes this whole on-line thing even more worthwhile than before.

We’ll certainly be repeating the GME experience again in the future. If you are interested then join the conversation with the exceptionally nice folks in the forum now, and keep an eye out for GME updates in about 6 months time…

In other news… good luck and murphy willing, the Notes from Spain podcasts will be back regularly, very very soon…

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