Casa Camuñas

The waitress sat down on Cathy's armrest. Her eyes were fixed on Claudia and María, who had just told her that they are from Mexico. She fired question after question about their country. "What's it like? How's life in Monterrey?" Neglecting all other customers, she revealed that she has in fact fallen in love with a Mexican man. "He's got huge, Mexican chipmunk cheeks," she says delicately, "and a bit of a gut. But he's treats me so nice." She later reveals, amid scandalized gasps from the four of us, that she has a Spanish boyfriend. Her Mexican has a girlfriend as well. "I hope she's ugly" she said, pouting. In a final twist to the storyline, she revealed that he's leaving for Mexico at the end of the month. She fret over this for a moment, thinking that perhaps she'll run away with him. We almost forget that we had ordered food.

Guada ♥ Brian

Today I took the stifling bus into the city of Badajoz [population 120,000], a medium-size city on the outskirts of Spanish civilization. I met up with María and Claudia, two friends who will be staying with me in Madrid for a few days as part of their Summer Spanish Adventure. Guadalupe, a good friend from Syracuse, got married at approximately 9.00 pm today with only minor bumps, largely from the groom's inability to comprehend the entire ceremony. The wedding was Catholic, which I think added to the general confusion radiating from the American participants. Brian's mother was thrust into the front, seated next to Guadalupe as the Godmother of the Bride (or something like that), nodding vaguely when the priest glanced her way in the off chance that he was actually directing something at her. Brian did quite well, feigning total comprehension of everything. His vows were spoken in English and hers in Spanish. It was a beautiful ceremony.

Afterwards, around 10.00, we headed to the reception ceremony. In true Spanish fashion, we started eating at around midnight and didn't finish until about 2.00 am. Children scampered about, playing tag. The party descended into the depths of the hotel's discotheque, where Claudia, María and I held out until 4.00 am. We were among the first guests to leave. 10-year olds tirelessly waved goodbye as we made our way back to the hostal.

Ikea

As promised to myself before, and unbeknownst to her, a return trip to Ikea was high on my list of "Things to do Upon Arrival of Cathy." We blissfully walked around for two hours in the Swedish furniture store, yay-ing and nay-ing each other's purchases. Do we really need a giant porcupine-shaped footstool? Probably not. Most of our time in Ikea was spent deciphering Swedish slowly, like two historiographers charting maps in some lost civilization of home designers with impeccable taste. Now, if faced with exile or travels within Sweden, I can safely point out the nearest drawer. We returned from Ikea bustling with design ideas for our rooms and fresh color schemes to match.

Afterwards, we went grocery shopping. Cathy, apparently a nuclear physicist in her home country of Northern Ireland, figured out how to operate the oven this morning with only a few singed arm hairs. We ate frozen pizza today for lunch, smug in the joy of having dominated all electrical appliances in the house. We also briefly discussed the schedule for the rest of the summer: in June, we will leave for the southeast of Spain (Murcia), where we will be English professors in a Spanish summer camp. The ages of the children at the camp will be from 7-15, a bit of a scary prospect for me as I've gotten really used to the idea of teaching university-age students. Cathy talked of scaling mini-mountains and swimming in forgotten lakes in the countryside. I asked her if I could bring books instead.

Mmmmm, gazpacho

definitely one of those this will put hair on your chest drinks

True Confessions of a Spanish Television Junkie

I have intensely studied Spanish television for the past week and half, and I now present my detailed report and analysis of Spanish daytime television to the cybercommunity:

1. Yellow Journalism runs rampant. I'm talking six or seven TV shows all in the style of Hard Copy or Entertainment Tonight. The "reporters" on this show do nothing more than run after famous people and tell their secrets. It's disconcerting to watch, if not oddly mesmerizing.
2. There is nothing wrong with female nudity. Boobies are everywhere.
3. If it works in another country, maybe it'll work here, too. Two of the most watched shows in Spain are "The House of your dreams" (a scary reality show so like Big Brother that it should indeed be called Big Brother), and Fear Factor. This is not to say that the Spanish copies from us, as they had the television show Big Brother long before we did, but there does seem to be a liberal amount of idea swapping.
4. These folk like their news. Be it celebrity news, sports news, news about the country, or global news, a Spanish pastime is gathering around in a circle and screaming obscenities at each other for different points of view. Half the time while I'm watching these shows I'm vaguely wondering if some of the participants are going to come to blows. I've seen people kicked off news shows for being too violent. People being kicked off news shows. We're not talking the WWF. News shows.

Setting Up the House

After a few days of endless bore broken only by the books I have devoured feverishly, I decided to purchase a new television and DVD player. The television, after being miraculously heaved through the teeming masses to get to my very, very far-away apartment, refused to work. It could play DVDs, and it would allow me to play my videogames, but it stubbornly refused to give me any basic cable. We fought for a few days before I threw in the towel. I only recently went to the store where I purchased it and was informed that I have to program the TV. What is this madness?

But the TV is hardly my only robotic arch nemesis here. Yesterday the washing machine and I had a bitter duel. After a very long study of its front panel, with 30 buttons, dials, and knobs, I cracked the code and got it to turn on. Upon finishing, however, it locked my clean clothes inside and refused to let them go. I kicked and screamed. Worse still, I could see my clean clothes, my shirts pressed up against the glass like multicolored hostages. I turned the washing machine off and sat in defeated silence for a few minutes. Reluctantly, the machine made a CLICK and set the hostages free.

Now if I could only figure out the gas oven.

The Daily Grind

The heat slowly rises in the streets. I open my windows, regretting the addition of creaky elevator sounds and noisy sickly neighbors. The man one floor up opens his window and hacks all night loudly, coughing and spitting up. I want to call the hospital for him. Surely this is not healthy. Someone turns their television up loudly. The elevator crawls creakily up to the fifth floor and lazily finds its way back down. Who could need to ride the elevator at one in the morning? Why doesn't this man take some cough medicine?

So, one full week away from Cathy's arrival, I sit in my apartment and listen to these noises for lack of anything better to do. The day before, I sat at the table in my new apartment and planned the following week out with great care, so as not to have too much excitement in one day. What if I did everything in two days? What would I possibly do for the following six? No, like the true obsessive-compulsive that I pretend to be, I scribbled the days down and took great care to assign to them two Very Fun Activities per day. Some of these activities aren't really that fun, but anything that gets me out of the apartment is a good thing. I've read two books already and watched as much Spanish basic cable as I can stomach. These people have a fondness for news and talk shows that I can barely match.

I'm hoping that this week passes by quickly, and that Cathy gets here soon so I can finally have a breathing soul to talk to. My Spanish friends curl up into their exams and I busy myself with supermarket excursions. Once Cathy gets here, however, I'll probably miss these lazy days, each painstakingly planned by my overzealous head. Probably.