It’s 11 years and a day since I moved to Madrid, a move which turned out surprisingly well, and which, as usual, I can highly recommend (especially if you are young free, single, and bored… as I was!)

We’ve just got back to Madrid after 2 months away, and boooooooy is it hot. Still.

We have to move flat in the very near future (which should make for some interesting stories), but first of all we have to decide where the hell to live! With a baby in tow we are keen to head out of the massification that is Madrid, towards greener climes…

Possibilities so far include: Sierra north of Madrid (not that green, let’s face it…), Asturias, San Sebastian… and just about anywhere else in the entire world. As one friend points out, I’ve been talking about moving out of Madrid since I got here, and it hasn’t happened yet… so watch this space…

Meanwhile, to celebrate my birthday we are holding a very special sale at our Spanish learning site, notesinspanish.com – watch the special video here for full details (while the sale is still on!)

Saludos desde Madrid – Ben

In a survey I recently took about being an expat in Spain, I was asked whether I had every ‘put my foot in it’ culturally or linguisticly since arriving 11 years ago… and one experience came straight to mind.

A few years ago Marina and her sister were swimming in their parents’ pool up in the sierra beyond Madrid. As I sat on the edge lazing around, Marina’s sister swam up behind Marina and, as one does in swimming pools, playfully ducked Marina’s head under water.

Marina emerged seconds later with a wild exclamation of: “ZORRA!”

Zorra (noun) = female fox, or (slang) whore

“Zorra Tu“, shouted Marina in return, and they both splashed about laughing.

Now there’s an inventive use of the language I thought, one for the databanks, can’t wait for an opportunity to try it out myself!

The next day, back at the poolside, two of Marina’s oldest friends, a married couple, came round for tea. Pool antics ensued, and when Marina pushed me from the side into the water, I seized my chance to try out my favourite new word:

“Zorrrrrrrrrraaaaa!” I cried in delight, when I resurfaced….

” – - – “, replied Marina, a mute expression of total disgusted horror on her face.

Later, long after they had left, and Marina still hadn’t spoken to me for about 5 hours, in desperation I managed to corner her in the kitchen for the following enlightening conversation:

Ben: “What the hell is wrong?”

Marina: “Are you stupid or what?”

Ben: “Clearly, because I haven’t got a bloody clue what’s wrong with you!”

Marina: “Don’t be so ridiculous, I can’t believe you don’t know why I’m so pissed off…”

Ben (pausing for divine inspiration): “Ummmmmm… Nope.”

Marina: “YOU CALLED ME A WHORE IN FRONT OF MY FRIENDS, IDIOT.”

Ben (wracking brains for proof this might be true): “Um, are you sure?”

Marina: “You called me a Zorra when I pushed you in the pool!”

Ben: “Oh yes that, ha ha, I’d been waiting to use that for ages!”

Marina: “…eres un gilipollas, vamos…” (=You stupid d*ickhead)

Ben: “But… but you and your sister said the same thing to each other in the pool just the day before!”

Marina: “THAT’S DIFFERENT!”

Ben: “???”

And so another part of my Spanish education was complete. Your wife may call her sister a whore in front of you, and her sister may equally be-whore her in return, and it’s all good fun!

But woe betide you if you dare to presume to learn by mimicry. What works for one person in situation A, is by no means available to you in the similar, but almost-inappreciably-different, situation B.

I tried to explain this to Marina of course, that I was just a victim of the ‘witness, commit to memory, try it out soon’ school of language learning, but sadly she was still slow to forgive. Took about four years if I remember correctly before the whole event was truly forgiven (but not forgotten).

So be warned! A Spanish woman may be a zorra in front of her sister, but never in front of her friends.

I was recently talking to a 70+ year old friend of my grandfather’s. After asking him if he’d lived in the same city all his life, he said:

“In Spain we have a saying: you are born where your parents come from, and you die where your wife comes from…”

The more I thought about this, the more examples I found to back it up. Married couples do often end up living where the wife orginally came from.

Now this could be a completely unfair conclusion, and is certainly no slight on women in general (I can feel myself getting into trouble here…), but it is just the kind of ‘warning’ you hear when you first end up getting together with a Spanish person, male or female, on their turf…

I received another such warning when I first got together with Marina. A teacher friend kindly passed on words of advice from another teacher who knew what I was up to. “Tell Ben to watch out,” she had said, “he has no idea what he is getting into with the Spanish family.”

This ‘adivce’ haunted me for months…

I guess she meant the fact that the Spanish family stays close, that you’ll be eating with them every weekend, and there may be quite a few extra visits during the week… all true…

BUT, doesn’t that happen in other countries too? A mother-in-law is a mother-in-law where ever you come from – ever present, in one way or another.

So according to received wisdom, if you move to Spain and get together with a Spanish person, you will end up living where they come from forever, and have to hang out a lot with their family. That pretty much accords with my experience, but you know what?

It isn’t all that bad!

Thank god Spain still has a culture where the family is respected, nurtured, kept tight! While western culture is doing it’s best to dissemble the traditional family (extended and nuclear), the Spanish still want to get together as often as possible for a good feed-up! Good for them!

And the idea you might get stuck in Spain forever? I say jump in with both feet, you’ll soon end up realising you were always destined to be here anyway.

[P.S. I miss my own family lots and wish we were all nearer!]

I’m back in Spain after a month away, a 3,000 km odyssey via France (where I managed to get totally offline for 2 weeks for the first time in … years), two wonderful family weeks in the UK, and finally the ferry home from Portsmouth to Santander (Thanks Colin for putting us on to the joy of Brittany Ferries!)

A note on the ferry: we dreaded spending 24 hours on a boat, but enjoyed it immensely. Yes, the normally rough Bay of Biscay was calm as a lake, but the boat was huge, our cabin was big enough, and a nice lady from whale charity ORCA gave us a talk on the evening we departed about wildlife we might see, and the following day helped us spot dolphins and whales from the heliport deck.

Apart from common and bottlenose dolphins, we saw two fin whales, the second largest animal on the planet (after the blue whale). Others spotted sperm whales and pilot whales. Either we are very lucky, or the Bay of Biscay is teeming with life!

Here are some of my first impressions of Spain (from the drive home from the Santander ferry to Madrid):

1. There are a ridiculous amount of brothels along the highway around Valladolid – part of the route we took home. These are known as ‘clubs’ and are identified by the garish coloured neon strip lights around the edge of the buildings. Libido must be wild in Castilla y Leon, these things are everywhere!

Sadly they are full of girls from Eastern European countries and beyond who have been conned, abused, and forced into working there.

2. People walk into bars here to smoke, instead of walking out to smoke. Much as I hate smoking in bars and restaurants, there is something great about seeing the Spanish casually do something much of the rest of Europe has renounced so fiercely. No one tells Spain how to behave!

3. Highway driving here = appalling. You’re in the fast, overtaking lane, about to pass a lorry, when an SUV undertakes you at crazy speeds, and squeezes into the tiny gap between you and the lorry, just so he can get past it before you do. Scary. Unnecessary. Seen less in the UK.

4. It’s still bloody hot (compared to the UK!)

5. More soon. Suffice is to say that it’s great to be back. But it was wonderful to be away.

OK, Marina and baby and I are off on holiday for a few weeks, so…

If you are new to the site then I really suggest you take a look around, listen to some podcasts, please do leave some comments if you have something to say, and don’t forget, if you like learning Spanish, you have to check out our sister-site, the famous NotesinSpanish.com!

Happy Holidays! – Ben

OK, there are a million reasons why Spain is great, and after the first three entries, I could continue this series forever… But I’m off on holiday to find even more reasons why Spain is great, and in the mean time, I wanted to wrap this series up by asking YOU why you think Spain is great.

But first of all, here are my final thoughts, a few more of the things that Make Spain Great:

1. Professional waiters who’ve been in the job for life and don’t do a bad job while simultaneously trying to charm you for tips.

2.Eating and drinking on outdoor Terrazas in summer when the air buzzes with happiness.

3.Spanish girls in summer (OK, all year round…)

4. The amazing diverstiy of landscapes from the green north to the deserts of Almeria, the mountains, plains and sierras…

5. Morcilla.

6. San Sebastian, Granada and Cadiz.

7. The fact that friendly Spanish people aren’t scared to touch your baby’s feet.

8. … or touch each other in conversation without flinching.

9. Dos besos.

10. Over to You – What would you put at number 10? Answers in the comments below please!

You know what this is all about. There is a country not far from here, where I come from, where things have gone a little bit mad.

Children in my good old UK are not allowed to have much fun anymore, lest they should hurt themselves while someone else is looking after them and courts of law get involved… they are often not allowed to run in playgrounds, and should they wish to use Blu Tack at school, they may be required to wear goggles.

In the good old days, I was allowed to take a penknife to school (the teachers only took it away from me once, to engrave my initials on it for me so I wouldn’t lose it, then they gave it back).

We played conkers (without safety glasses!), and in winter the sloping playground was sprayed with water at night to make an impromtu ice-run for the purpose of doing fun, long skidding slides down.

All banned now. No one ever got hurt when I was at school, but you know, just in case…

Adults have less fun these days where I come from too, as far as I can tell. They aren’t allowed to indulge wildly in public in many of the great pagan festivities that used to make life, well, more fun…

They have to STAND WELL BACK at exciting things like fireworks displays, once again, JUST IN CASE. They used to be allowed to get really close to the action, but now they mostly stand at A SAFE DISTANCE behind big barriers erected for their own good.

In fact the entire country where I come from is pretty much a ‘don’t do that, just in case’ culture these days as far as most of the old fun things are concerned, and much of this ‘just in case-ness’ has been enforced by silly but very strict laws.

(It seems the only thing that people are allowed to do with wild abandon and without restriction is to drink lots of alcohol… often until they are very very ill, and often while moaning a lot about all the things they can’t do anymore… This is also very very dangerous, to life, limb, and morale, but ironically it IS allowed and often encouraged as a way to RELAX… But is isn’t very relaxing when someone else that has been doing a lot of wild-abandon-drinking decides he doesn’t like the look of you and wants to kill you, and you don’t have time to retreat to A SAFE DISTANCE. This happens a lot on Friday and Saturday nights, even in nice towns, like Oxford.)

Spain isn’t like this… whereas people from the UK are advised to stand well back all the time, Spanish people like to stand very, very close to the action. Without barriers or hard hats, or security cordons, or silly laws banning fun things they’ve been doing for ever anyway.

For example, if they want to burn down very very flammable wooden statues in very tight streets, while standing very close, despite the risk that the whole city might catch fire and be destroyed forever, then that’s just fine. It happens in Valencia and is called Las Fallas.

If Spanish people (OK, OK, in this case Catalan people who are often unjustly lumped into the geographical notion of Spain for the sake of articles like this, but anyway…) want to stand on top of each other making improbably tall human pyramids, and send small children scrambling to the top of these pyramids at the risk of life and limb, then that’s fine too. They do that in Tarragona alot.

And I can’t say I approve of it anymore, but if Spanish people want to run around in front of half-tonne bulls which could easily trample them to death, then go for it! You can literally grab the poor bloody bull by the horns if you want.

Why is all the above allowed in Spain when you wouldn’t have a chance in hell of getting any of those fun plans past a UK town council these days?

Because people in Spain still believe in letting each other decide how to get their kicks. They still believe in doing crazy things that have been going on for generations, just because, well, that’s what’s been going on for generations, and history is more interesting than health and safety.

Mostly though, I think they just like to feel alive, and their government is often OK with that.

But let’s face it, all this irresponsible free-will-to-act-as-they-please may not last forever.

Far more speed traps on the roads in Spain these days. British people have been moaning about that for years, and I’m sure they are right… it’s a sign, one of those nanny-state things…

Few years back the citizens of a small town in Aragon were told that they couldn’t drop a live goat out of their church tower once a year anymore. Great news for goats, I’m delighted, but again, it could be a sign… Things might start getting BANNED a lot…

But for now, Spanish people seem to have quite a bit more freedom when it comes down to doing mad-crazy-dangerous things just for the fun of it, and that is to be commended (as good ideas go, that one’s dying out). It is just one more of the things that Makes Spain Great.

Discuss…

Let’s stick with eating and drinking, and look at another reason why Spain is great/the Spanish are great.

There is something wonderful about going out to a bar or restaurant with friends, and ordering a few different plates of ‘raciones‘. Like a larger version of tapas, raciones, as you probably know, are just a big plate of only one thing – jamon, calamares, cheese, gambas (pictured above)…. and the idea is to order a few of these and share them.

Everyone picks a bit from one plate, a bit from another, and keeps eating until there’s no need to order any more as everyone is full and contented.

I’ve known non-Spaniards, including myself at the beginning of my time in Spain, to be perplexed by this, even to feel exceedingly anxious in fact at this whole concept – some people just want to have their own plate of food without anyone else attacking it… that way you know just how much you are getting, and no-one is going to start stealing it from you!

How nice it is when you get over that attitude, and really really start to share, without a single worry about whether the person sitting opposite you is going to have one more croqueta than you, one more bit of finest jamon… I have to confess that even now, the selfish Brit in me still has his eye on that last croqueta, occasionally feeling pained to see it open to the table… It’s something I’m working hard on!

But the sharing doesn’t stop with the actual food, it carries on into that nightmare of nightmares in many cultures… the division of the bill.

Amongst the Spaniards I have met, one of two things will happen.

1) There is an almighty argument about who should have the pleasure of paying the entire amount, to invitar everyone else – this can go on for up to 5 or 10 minutes, getting fairly aggressive, until one party gives way, and either the bill is paid by just one of the party who is delighted to treat the rest, or…:

2) The bill is shared equally amongst those present, no matter what anyone had to eat or drink! There is none of the famous ‘who had the prawns’ careful analysis of every single thing that every single person ate, it’s just “it’s 40 Euros, there’s four of us, so 10 each” – end of story.

Occasionally someone will arrive very late and eat much less, in which case they’ll be either be paid for by everyone else, or will put in a token amount, but the rest will always be split, evenly, without a hint of fuss. It is a quite enormous relief and saves an untold amount of stress.

So here’s to complete, relaxed, contented sharing! Food, bills, wine, good times… just another reason why Spain is so extraordinarily great!

I was recently asked just what was so great about Spain, so I’ve decided to dedicate a mini-series this summer to answering just that question. First up, the honesty system…

It never ceases to amaze your average Brit that you can walk into most bars in Spain, order as much as you like to eat and drink, and pay nothing until you are about to leave when, quite often, the barman will ask you to remind him what you had!

Clearly there is massive room for abuse here. Had 5 cañas one night but only want to admit to 4? The worn out guy in the sweat-stained shirt who’s been working since 7 am isn’t going to notice… but as far as I know, this system is rarely exploited.

The most amazing example I’ve seen of the honesty system in practice was in San Sebastian.

You walk into a bar there and find the bar top covered in plate after plate of incredible tapas, or pintxos as they are known up there (see photo above), help yourself to as many as you like, and then casually inform the barman (who hasn’t been taking a blind bit of notice of your eating habits) just how much you’ve had. You then pay him and leave.

Can you imagine how much that system would be abused in other parts of the world if suddenly introduced over night? Yet in Spain this has been going for years. The bar owners trust the customers, and the customers basically act honestly in return…

…Except for those that feast outrageously then ‘do a runner’, or a simpa as it’s known in Spanish, but that’s a tale for another time… All in all, the honesty system is without doubt one of those things that puts the ‘great’ into Spain. Would you dare to abuse it?

A common question Marina and I are asked, as a Spanish-British couple, is ‘What language do you speak to each other?’

The answer is that we absolutely interchangeably speak English, Spanish, and rubbish.

Let me explain: We are both very good at each other’s language, so we can easily talk to each other in English, or Spanish, and communicate perfectly. I would say we speak a touch more Spanish, but it really depends on factors like how tired one of us is (I always defaults to my own language when I’m tired)…

The problem is that our easy interchange between English and Spanish doesn’t just happen on a daily basis. It doesn’t just happen on an hourly basis…

It often happens on a sentence to sentence basis, or worse, a word to word basis!

For example:

Marina to Ben: You look exhausted, qué te pasa love?
Ben to Marina: Nothing, I’m just feeling a bit agobiado…

Oh dear. You see the thing is, in sentences like this we’ll change languages when a single word or phrase works better in one language than another. Qué te pasa just works better than ‘what’s going on’ for Marina in the above example, and in the case of my reply, I use the word agobiado becuase it does a one-word job that English doesn’t have to explain a general feeling of stress/anxiety/over-work/too much on my shoulders.

And Marina understands what I mean perfectly, just as I understood her! Why speak in one language at a time, after all, when we have all the wonderful lexical tools of two at our disposal? We have a reached perfect, hybrid-bilingual communication at a sentence to sentence, word to word level.

Here´s the problem. Well two problems really.

Problem one, things get worse. Our hybrid-bilingual model quickly gets out of control. Let’s take my sentence from the above example again, and look at another version, that is almost more likely to be used these days:

Ben to Marina: Nothing, I’m just feeling a bit agobiated…

AgobIATED! Spanglish at it’s best! Yet it just sounds right, and I know that Marina knows exactly what I’m talking about, even if I am effectivily speaking the third language of rubbish!

But here’s the biggest problem of all: We are trying to bring up our baby to be bilingual. What chance has he got with words like ‘agobiated’ flying around the house?

Time to ditch the private language I think, and stick to those good old staples of English and Spanish, and preferably just one at a time!