19 November 2008
Driving force
I am not good at this…
….I have said it before and I will say it again, I am no good at blogging regularly, although I spend a LOT of time of the computer I never seem to get round to it. To make it worse, a lot has happened since I last bothered to write anything down and things have been bouncing around my brain ready to launch into cyber space but then I forget all about it. Which is typically me, I have definitely got some attention span issues. I am full of ideas; it’s the execution that fails me.
So much has happened that I have decided it is not worth writing much of it down, it’s just the account of one life among many anyway so not of much interest. There is one thing though that has been a recurring theme over the last few weeks that I think is worth a mention. I started this whole thing to observe differences in Spanish and Anglo Saxon ways of bumbling around on the mortal coil, more as a reference for me than for anyone else, although, there is an off-chance that others might be interested.
Anyway, blah blah blah. Driving. Driving in Spain is not for the fainthearted. For the first time in my life I feel genuinely brave when I go round a roundabout. Which is nice I suppose.
I don't mind driving here; you just sort of have to have eyes in the back and sides of your head. At the same time you have to pretend that you don't see anyone at all so that you can still muscle in and go where you want to go. Trick 1 of driving in Spain: Master the art of seeing EVERYTHING whilst appearing to see absolutely nothing and seemingly not caring one jot for your car. It is not easy. I have an irrational sentimental attachment to my car. And my life.
Trick 2: Please understand that indicators are optional extras on cars in Spain and it seems that most people don't like to pay the extra for this feature. That or somehow they charge here per usage of the aforementioned indicator. Whatever the reason, they appear very scarce. Endangered even.
Trick 3: my dad gave me one piece of good advice (ever) and it was "if you drive as if everyone is out to kill you, you may just make it out alive". This is indeed wise advice although it has done nothing to lessen my innate paranoia about the world.
Trick 4: Avoid women drivers. Yes. I am a girl and yes, I am all for equality BUT having said that, the women drivers here are among the worst I have seen anywhere. The problems are many and varied, they have: no sense of anyone else’s existence, the attention span of gnats and basically drift in and out of lanes in a rather listless and disinterested fashion, sometimes at high speed while talking on the phone, doing their makeup or shouting at their kids/boyfriends/husbands. They seem to genuinely disconnect from reality the minute they get in a car, they do the strangest things and then get really really outranged (and a outraged Spanish woman is something to see) when they drive into you or pull out without looking and you overtly question their decision-making capability. Spanish Women Drivers: AVOID AVOID AVOID (especially when outraged).
The next thing is less a trick and more a series of observations that relate to the drier more central and southern areas of Spain rather than the north. When it rains here, people crash, a lot. The roads in the city grind to a halt owing to the number of people randomly smashing into one another. The windscreen wipers on the cars here are different and they are basically not up to the job. Rain here is scarce so the roads get greasy when they get wet. They also don’t use cat’s eyes here on the roads. I had not really noticed the difference here; I drive at night and have street lights etc so no big deal. Well, it is a huge deal when the heavens open, the roads turn to rivers and you cannot see the little painted white lines on the roads. Cat’s eyes. I miss them (but only when it rains).
….I have said it before and I will say it again, I am no good at blogging regularly, although I spend a LOT of time of the computer I never seem to get round to it. To make it worse, a lot has happened since I last bothered to write anything down and things have been bouncing around my brain ready to launch into cyber space but then I forget all about it. Which is typically me, I have definitely got some attention span issues. I am full of ideas; it’s the execution that fails me.
So much has happened that I have decided it is not worth writing much of it down, it’s just the account of one life among many anyway so not of much interest. There is one thing though that has been a recurring theme over the last few weeks that I think is worth a mention. I started this whole thing to observe differences in Spanish and Anglo Saxon ways of bumbling around on the mortal coil, more as a reference for me than for anyone else, although, there is an off-chance that others might be interested.
Anyway, blah blah blah. Driving. Driving in Spain is not for the fainthearted. For the first time in my life I feel genuinely brave when I go round a roundabout. Which is nice I suppose.
I don't mind driving here; you just sort of have to have eyes in the back and sides of your head. At the same time you have to pretend that you don't see anyone at all so that you can still muscle in and go where you want to go. Trick 1 of driving in Spain: Master the art of seeing EVERYTHING whilst appearing to see absolutely nothing and seemingly not caring one jot for your car. It is not easy. I have an irrational sentimental attachment to my car. And my life.
Trick 2: Please understand that indicators are optional extras on cars in Spain and it seems that most people don't like to pay the extra for this feature. That or somehow they charge here per usage of the aforementioned indicator. Whatever the reason, they appear very scarce. Endangered even.
Trick 3: my dad gave me one piece of good advice (ever) and it was "if you drive as if everyone is out to kill you, you may just make it out alive". This is indeed wise advice although it has done nothing to lessen my innate paranoia about the world.
Trick 4: Avoid women drivers. Yes. I am a girl and yes, I am all for equality BUT having said that, the women drivers here are among the worst I have seen anywhere. The problems are many and varied, they have: no sense of anyone else’s existence, the attention span of gnats and basically drift in and out of lanes in a rather listless and disinterested fashion, sometimes at high speed while talking on the phone, doing their makeup or shouting at their kids/boyfriends/husbands. They seem to genuinely disconnect from reality the minute they get in a car, they do the strangest things and then get really really outranged (and a outraged Spanish woman is something to see) when they drive into you or pull out without looking and you overtly question their decision-making capability. Spanish Women Drivers: AVOID AVOID AVOID (especially when outraged).
The next thing is less a trick and more a series of observations that relate to the drier more central and southern areas of Spain rather than the north. When it rains here, people crash, a lot. The roads in the city grind to a halt owing to the number of people randomly smashing into one another. The windscreen wipers on the cars here are different and they are basically not up to the job. Rain here is scarce so the roads get greasy when they get wet. They also don’t use cat’s eyes here on the roads. I had not really noticed the difference here; I drive at night and have street lights etc so no big deal. Well, it is a huge deal when the heavens open, the roads turn to rivers and you cannot see the little painted white lines on the roads. Cat’s eyes. I miss them (but only when it rains).
06 October 2008
Found of Madrid
So, I had a small melt down at the weekend searching for an outfit for a friend’s wedding and it literally took me the whole weekend to find something that I liked! Well, this wedding is in the UK and it is in October. Sun dresses that I usually wear to weddings at home will not cut it in October methinks so I required a shopping trip to rectify my lack of outfit. If only it could have been that easy!
The thing I have noticed about weddings here is that people tend to dress much more formally, no light summer suit or summer dress or the like here, oh no, the full fitted works or at the very least something resembling a ball gown that costs well over 100€ or you just are not quite the ‘thing’. Every time I went into a shop and said I was looking for something for a wedding I was whisked of to the expensive sections where silk and petticoats reign supreme. A bit over the top for a UK wedding unless you are one of the wedding party really. It made finding something formal-but-not-too-formal rather a trial. Fear not dear readers (not that I have any), I found the outfit after 3 days of searching and running around different branches of the same shop looking for something in my size (Incidentally, I seem to be the same size as every other woman in Spain because nowhere has my size!) .
However, I digress, my point is not just regarding the differences in dressing up for weddings in Spain, it is more regarding the fact that, for the entire day I was driving around Madrid and the surrounding area looking for an outfit and…I didn’t get lost!
I can go to most places in the world and have myself pretty much orientated as to which way is up and how to get from A-Z within a week or so. With Madrid I have really struggled. I often say I navigate by using water as a reference point which is true and since Madrid lack a significant body of water (sorry but that is not really what I would call a river) I have issues finding my way around. I don’t know what it is, but Madrid has had me stumped and only now am I finding my feet more. The weekend was a personal triumph for me, not because I found an outfit (rather a bonus that) but because I found my way around completely by myself. And no, I don’t have a TomTom.
Now, I exist. Apparently.
So, apparently I exist here in Spain; I now have residency and I have also registered my home address with the local ayudamiento so I am all official. My residency certificate is something of a disappointment, a green bit of A4 with an official stamp and a number printed on it, I was at least hoping for a laminated card! This scrap of paper has to last me 5 years, I have had cars and numerous other things made out of metal that have survived less time with me than that so I await with interest to see how long it actually survives!
Now…to go about importing my car….
Now…to go about importing my car….
11 September 2008
The long 'shared' Spanish summer
Yes, well, it has been a while, I knew I would be crap at blogging regularly but I will carry on every now and then, it isn't as if anyone is hanging on my every post so I am not too concerned!
I have now spent my first summer in Spain - a culturally interesting experience.
In Spain August = stop working for the majority of people. Madrid literally empties and the beaches and mountainous areas fill up, the airports, train and bus stations not to mention the roads become bedlam as everyone heads off on holidays more or less at the same time.
It is something that doesn’t really happen at home, not to the same extent anyway. The nearest we get are bank holidays which people can’t be bothered with anymore because a) ‘they’ decide that this is the perfect time to do essential track and road maintenance rendering travel a nightmare and/or b) the weather is rubbish. Here b) at least is not a problem.
The weather was glorious for the most part, we had two cloudy days in 3 weeks and the temperatures remained hot and sun cream was still necessary because of the UV, nothing that would stop you from going outside. Home, by contrast, seems to have had some truly awful weather with rain and floods and all sorts. What is going on with the weather in the UK?! More to the point for those who have been lucky enough at home not to be flooded there was a general gloom and greyness which just carried on through the whole of August, I went home for a few days and it was just so depressing the constant gloom.
The summer in Spain is when people, who generally work pretty long hours, spend time with their families and extended families. The people who rented the flat below ours on the beach managed to cram in at least 10 people (these could seriously only have been room for 6 but they managed it), grandparents, cousins, children, brothers and sisters, you name it; they all get together on the beach for August. In Madrid however, you can finally get into bars that are usually packed out, not only that, you can get a seat, and you can park close to where you are going. Driving in the centre (usually a pretty kamikaze move, at least for the cars) becomes a tranquil, nay, calming experience, nobody's there so the roads are largely your own. It's a strange experience being in a city that usually houses a good few million people when there are only a few hundred thousand people rattling around in it.
Going back to work, now, that was interesting. Here they call it the ‘vuelta al cole’ or ‘back to school’ – and it literally is here; the kids go back to school and the parents go back to work, all at roughly the same time. It is really weird when you think that in the UK we all take our holidays at various times with everything at work continuing more or less as normal. While summer hols are always popular (and expensive) we all take a couple of weeks anytime between June and September generally, not all together at once in August. Interesting. I think I liked it. You know your not missing anything because no-one else is working so you can really just relax and disconnect rather than constantly wondering whether something at work is going drastically wrong. It’s good. It’s nice. You all come back and chat about your holidays at once, gives you a sense of shared experience somehow.
I have now spent my first summer in Spain - a culturally interesting experience.
In Spain August = stop working for the majority of people. Madrid literally empties and the beaches and mountainous areas fill up, the airports, train and bus stations not to mention the roads become bedlam as everyone heads off on holidays more or less at the same time.
It is something that doesn’t really happen at home, not to the same extent anyway. The nearest we get are bank holidays which people can’t be bothered with anymore because a) ‘they’ decide that this is the perfect time to do essential track and road maintenance rendering travel a nightmare and/or b) the weather is rubbish. Here b) at least is not a problem.
The weather was glorious for the most part, we had two cloudy days in 3 weeks and the temperatures remained hot and sun cream was still necessary because of the UV, nothing that would stop you from going outside. Home, by contrast, seems to have had some truly awful weather with rain and floods and all sorts. What is going on with the weather in the UK?! More to the point for those who have been lucky enough at home not to be flooded there was a general gloom and greyness which just carried on through the whole of August, I went home for a few days and it was just so depressing the constant gloom.
The summer in Spain is when people, who generally work pretty long hours, spend time with their families and extended families. The people who rented the flat below ours on the beach managed to cram in at least 10 people (these could seriously only have been room for 6 but they managed it), grandparents, cousins, children, brothers and sisters, you name it; they all get together on the beach for August. In Madrid however, you can finally get into bars that are usually packed out, not only that, you can get a seat, and you can park close to where you are going. Driving in the centre (usually a pretty kamikaze move, at least for the cars) becomes a tranquil, nay, calming experience, nobody's there so the roads are largely your own. It's a strange experience being in a city that usually houses a good few million people when there are only a few hundred thousand people rattling around in it.
Going back to work, now, that was interesting. Here they call it the ‘vuelta al cole’ or ‘back to school’ – and it literally is here; the kids go back to school and the parents go back to work, all at roughly the same time. It is really weird when you think that in the UK we all take our holidays at various times with everything at work continuing more or less as normal. While summer hols are always popular (and expensive) we all take a couple of weeks anytime between June and September generally, not all together at once in August. Interesting. I think I liked it. You know your not missing anything because no-one else is working so you can really just relax and disconnect rather than constantly wondering whether something at work is going drastically wrong. It’s good. It’s nice. You all come back and chat about your holidays at once, gives you a sense of shared experience somehow.
24 July 2008
Why can't they just play cricket?
Haven’t written for a while, I knew I wouldn’t be able to retain a regular interest! Just don’t have it in me….
I have just realised that I have not mentioned that since I have been here Spain have become champions of European football (which prompted a massive and very loud street party, even in my quiet barrio) and Rafa won Wimbledon, which is something I am personally very pleased about as he is my favourite tennis player on the circuit at the moment. I seem to have brought the country luck and am wondering whether some sort of commission deal can be worked out with the Spanish government so that I promise to stay in the country during major sporting tournaments in the future…
So, sport out of the way, well, milestones in Spanish sport anyway. I obviously still enjoy my motorsport, cricket and rugby…first sport is more than covered here, I get to watch every motor GP on terrestrial which is a step up from the UK. I also get to watch every F1 race, the coverage is very one sided and anti Hamilton but that just makes me scoff my British scoff and brand Alonso a massive loser while pointing out that (in the last race) he came second from last while his team-mate came second, you do the maths people. LOSER. Anyway, yay Hamilton and yay yay yay Rossi!
So, that leaves me mourning the lack of my other two sports…rugby and cricket. I can deal without rugby at the moment as it is not quite the season but it will start to bite during the 6 Nations which has been an annual ritual of mine since it was the 5 Nations so, what to do? And cricket? Don’t get me started on cricket, most people here have not even heard of it and, well, it is hard enough to explain in English, let alone Spanish… ‘silly mid off’, ‘leg side’ or ‘LBW’ … I mean, they just don’t translate really. Hmmm. So, I am stuck for my favourite sports, and short of shelling out a small fortune on satellite I cannot see how the situation can be rectified. It is so ironic that if I was living on one of the costas I would get the good old BeeB without any trouble. Boo and, may I add, hiss.
I think that is enough on my sports rant for now.
Oh yes, I also miss curry.
I have just realised that I have not mentioned that since I have been here Spain have become champions of European football (which prompted a massive and very loud street party, even in my quiet barrio) and Rafa won Wimbledon, which is something I am personally very pleased about as he is my favourite tennis player on the circuit at the moment. I seem to have brought the country luck and am wondering whether some sort of commission deal can be worked out with the Spanish government so that I promise to stay in the country during major sporting tournaments in the future…
So, sport out of the way, well, milestones in Spanish sport anyway. I obviously still enjoy my motorsport, cricket and rugby…first sport is more than covered here, I get to watch every motor GP on terrestrial which is a step up from the UK. I also get to watch every F1 race, the coverage is very one sided and anti Hamilton but that just makes me scoff my British scoff and brand Alonso a massive loser while pointing out that (in the last race) he came second from last while his team-mate came second, you do the maths people. LOSER. Anyway, yay Hamilton and yay yay yay Rossi!
So, that leaves me mourning the lack of my other two sports…rugby and cricket. I can deal without rugby at the moment as it is not quite the season but it will start to bite during the 6 Nations which has been an annual ritual of mine since it was the 5 Nations so, what to do? And cricket? Don’t get me started on cricket, most people here have not even heard of it and, well, it is hard enough to explain in English, let alone Spanish… ‘silly mid off’, ‘leg side’ or ‘LBW’ … I mean, they just don’t translate really. Hmmm. So, I am stuck for my favourite sports, and short of shelling out a small fortune on satellite I cannot see how the situation can be rectified. It is so ironic that if I was living on one of the costas I would get the good old BeeB without any trouble. Boo and, may I add, hiss.
I think that is enough on my sports rant for now.
Oh yes, I also miss curry.
09 July 2008
San Fermín, bulls and bullshit regulations
Well, I have been very lax in noting down any of my thoughts of late, possibly because I have not had any worth noting recently. Just the general language barrier and getting to grips with things, although now I think of it there are some things I have wondered about…
This week has been San Fermín week, the Spanish are mad for this, the whole festival is televised and commentated on and has a series of complicated customs and rituals associated with it. Let me tell you how some of it fits together…as far as I can work it out anyway!
…it began on Sunday with, from what I gather, was one massive roaring street party that takes over the whole of the city of Pamplona. The party does not however begin until midday when the town council set of a series of fireworks to signal the party to commence. This is strictly adhered to and the television network spent the whole morning covering the preparations for the fiesta, the way that people customarily eat certain things at certain times to maximise the partying. The party-goers themselves also have a sort of ‘uniform’, most dress completely in white with a red pañuelo or neckerchief or red fabric round their wrists. Once the party kicks off officially, people start throwing around the preferred beverage CALIMOTXO, or coke and red wine – not just any red wine, really cheap red wine, always in a carton. The red wine covers everyone so all the white turns pink and everyone looks a bit sticky. But then everyone also looks to be having a bloody great time!
The party itself looks rather terrifying to me, just a mass of people gathered in (a lovely looking) main square. When I say mass, I mean mass, the square is crammed with people wall to wall. People also throw themselves from ornate lamp-posts to crowd surf off into the distance, and I am talking throwing themselves from at least two metres; thank goodness there are some many people packed in that no-one can move out of the way. I think it is the press of people that disturbs me most, I am not really one for crowds anyway but I think the infamous ‘British reserve’ kicks in even more and I start wondering where my ‘personal space’ has got to. And I’m only watching on tele!
The party is the start of San Fermín, at some point a figure of San Fermín is paraded around Pamplona, formally, properly and with a lot of religious respect. San Fermín is the patron saint of Navarra and if the Spanish are anything they are seriously proud of their regional heritage and guard it ferociously.
The festival continues, only now it is not a party, now San Fermín is all about the bulls. Yes, the famous running with the bulls in Pamplona (el encierro), this is w
hen it happens and this is what it is all about. Every morning at 8am from 7-14 July the towns people, and of course tourists from all over Spain and the world, run with the bulls from the edge of town into the Plaza de Toros on the other side of town; ready for the bullfights in the afternoon. This was traditionally how they moved the bulls to the Plaza and has been going on for a very long time. Pretty much everyday someone gets mangled and they tell me that every year someone dies.
Can you imagine that in the UK? (Isle of Man TT races aside) Everyone in the street, drinking, having fun, old and young, all together at a party? Then the next day people haring round the streets being chased by bulls, with large pointy horns, bulls that weigh a good 500 kilos? No, neither can I. Health & Safety anyone? *yawn*
This week has been San Fermín week, the Spanish are mad for this, the whole festival is televised and commentated on and has a series of complicated customs and rituals associated with it. Let me tell you how some of it fits together…as far as I can work it out anyway!
…it began on Sunday with, from what I gather, was one massive roaring street party that takes over the whole of the city of Pamplona. The party does not however begin until midday when the town council set of a series of fireworks to signal the party to commence. This is strictly adhered to and the television network spent the whole morning covering the preparations for the fiesta, the way that people customarily eat certain things at certain times to maximise the partying. The party-goers themselves also have a sort of ‘uniform’, most dress completely in white with a red pañuelo or neckerchief or red fabric round their wrists. Once the party kicks off officially, people start throwing around the preferred beverage CALIMOTXO, or coke and red wine – not just any red wine, really cheap red wine, always in a carton. The red wine covers everyone so all the white turns pink and everyone looks a bit sticky. But then everyone also looks to be having a bloody great time!
The party itself looks rather terrifying to me, just a mass of people gathered in (a lovely looking) main square. When I say mass, I mean mass, the square is crammed with people wall to wall. People also throw themselves from ornate lamp-posts to crowd surf off into the distance, and I am talking throwing themselves from at least two metres; thank goodness there are some many people packed in that no-one can move out of the way. I think it is the press of people that disturbs me most, I am not really one for crowds anyway but I think the infamous ‘British reserve’ kicks in even more and I start wondering where my ‘personal space’ has got to. And I’m only watching on tele!
The party is the start of San Fermín, at some point a figure of San Fermín is paraded around Pamplona, formally, properly and with a lot of religious respect. San Fermín is the patron saint of Navarra and if the Spanish are anything they are seriously proud of their regional heritage and guard it ferociously.
The festival continues, only now it is not a party, now San Fermín is all about the bulls. Yes, the famous running with the bulls in Pamplona (el encierro), this is w
hen it happens and this is what it is all about. Every morning at 8am from 7-14 July the towns people, and of course tourists from all over Spain and the world, run with the bulls from the edge of town into the Plaza de Toros on the other side of town; ready for the bullfights in the afternoon. This was traditionally how they moved the bulls to the Plaza and has been going on for a very long time. Pretty much everyday someone gets mangled and they tell me that every year someone dies.Can you imagine that in the UK? (Isle of Man TT races aside) Everyone in the street, drinking, having fun, old and young, all together at a party? Then the next day people haring round the streets being chased by bulls, with large pointy horns, bulls that weigh a good 500 kilos? No, neither can I. Health & Safety anyone? *yawn*
25 June 2008
A shared history...
I was hankering after the good old BBC last night so fired up the laptop to watch a couple of shows that I had downloaded on the iPlayer before leaving the UK for just such an emergency (NOTE TO BBC; please please PLEASE make iPlayer available overseas).
I watched an episode of the Inspector Lindley Mysteries and then moved on to a documentary entitled ‘What did you do in the war daddy?’ I am a history graduate through desire to enjoy my degree rather than through any hope of working in the historical field, and I am a sucker for anything vaguely historical; books, films, documentaries, I lap it all up – but woe betide anything that is historically inaccurate; not in the minutiae sense but in the sense of one big plot theme or supposedly historical reference that is just stupidly wrong.
Anyway, always loving the BBC docs I downloaded this one and stored for later use. Now was the time. I began watching it and it was really very interesting, moving and poignant; the sadness of children who lost their fathers in WW1, some who never even knew them. I was faithfully watching away when I realised that this series was something completely new to my Spanish fiancé who was sitting happily watching beside me.
Completely new.
A completely new history. Something that he had never learnt about in school. It struck me that Spain was not involved, in more than a peripheral way, in any of the wars that have so shaped the consciousness of a large part of the rest of Western Europe over the previous century. WW1: Britain, France, Germany, Belgian, Russia & the Balkans not to mention the participation of the (then) colonies of these imperial powers. WW2: Britain, U.S.S.R., Germany, Japan, France, Italy, Austria, the Balkans and again many many other commonwealth countries and other people from across the world. The Cold War: Germany, U.S.S.R., Britain & Western Europe, The States, among others.
I realised that during the first World War, Spain had not really been involved; the hardships, the horrifying death toll on the battlefield, the advances in weapons that so outpaced the tactics, the discovery of, or rather the creation of a situation that lead to the occurrence of Shell Shock….and so many other things, the tank for God’s sake, the invention of the tank! This all meant nothing to my fiancé… (not that the Spanish army don't use tanks, just that the reference to how they came about is something rather abstract)
I am not saying that the Spanish have not been affected by the consequences of these wars…which brings me to Hitler...
…and World War II.
By the time of this war Spain had fallen under Franco’s boot (even though quite recently). The Nazis had been involved in the ultimate victory of Franco in the Guerra Civil in Spain, anyone who knows much about history or art has at least heard of Guernica. Spain was the Nazis tactical testing ground. But during the war Spain was designated a ‘non-belligerent member of the Axis’ they sent one division of troops to support Germany, they sent workers and they sent money (largely in repayment of Nazi loans). But that was it.
They were largely peripheral players in this war that is so etched on my consciousness; images of the Nuremberg Rally, Hitler, Churchill, the air raid shelters, London on fire, tanks against horses in Poland, the words from Churchill’s speeches, images of Auschwitz…
During the Cold War they remained under Franco, emerging only in 1975 (that is ONLY 33 years ago!) and again, largely peripheral.
It is strange, had I moved to France, to Germany, Russia, Ireland, the US, even New Zealand the people there would have had an understanding, albeit from a different perspective, of all of these things, possibly even have grandparents who had been involved on some level in these conflicts…but…Spain?
I know that it is not just conflicts either, although these of course are catastrophic events and the ones that have scarred us most. I know there is more to history than that but for now, it is enough to dwell on this.
I am suddenly aware that history is very important to me, more than I realised, that this history of Western Europe that I have always been aware of, that I have studied, my history and the history of my people, it is not even vaguely the same as the history of this country and this people. What do I do on 11th November this year? Do I just go quiet and remember the war dead, those who died in WW1 and in any war across the world, our boys in Iraq, Afghanistan…even when nobody here understands anything about it?
I have decided that the answer is, of course, YES!
Yes I do observe our usual remembrance rituals, I will watch the cenotaph and all the veterans and the Queen. I am moving to Spain, not forgetting where I came from after all.
And it is not just this symbol of national mourning that I will be on my own in missing, what of the trooping of the colour? And other more trivial things, Wimbledon, Ascot, Henley? Silly little things, things that I never went to but did watch on tele, but things that are really very British. Things that I will miss dreadfully.
A completely new history. I have also made a mental note that I will find out more about the Spanish Civil War and Spanish history. However, I have decided to start with Napoleon and the Peninsula Wars in Spain. The Brits were involved in that, I can get to grips with that. And then move onto more Spanish-centric stuff.
It’s actually quite exciting, a whole new history to explore and a twentieth century one that has been largely hidden owing to the very recent nature of the emergence of Spain from fascism. It is something that is easy to forget when you are here, that most of the people I work with were born under a fascist regime.
Nobody talks about it.
Nobody mentions it.
My future mother-in-law was a primary school teacher during this regime. She has some textbooks on how good boys behave and how good girls behave. I have a feeling that this could get very interesting…
I watched an episode of the Inspector Lindley Mysteries and then moved on to a documentary entitled ‘What did you do in the war daddy?’ I am a history graduate through desire to enjoy my degree rather than through any hope of working in the historical field, and I am a sucker for anything vaguely historical; books, films, documentaries, I lap it all up – but woe betide anything that is historically inaccurate; not in the minutiae sense but in the sense of one big plot theme or supposedly historical reference that is just stupidly wrong.
Anyway, always loving the BBC docs I downloaded this one and stored for later use. Now was the time. I began watching it and it was really very interesting, moving and poignant; the sadness of children who lost their fathers in WW1, some who never even knew them. I was faithfully watching away when I realised that this series was something completely new to my Spanish fiancé who was sitting happily watching beside me.
Completely new.
A completely new history. Something that he had never learnt about in school. It struck me that Spain was not involved, in more than a peripheral way, in any of the wars that have so shaped the consciousness of a large part of the rest of Western Europe over the previous century. WW1: Britain, France, Germany, Belgian, Russia & the Balkans not to mention the participation of the (then) colonies of these imperial powers. WW2: Britain, U.S.S.R., Germany, Japan, France, Italy, Austria, the Balkans and again many many other commonwealth countries and other people from across the world. The Cold War: Germany, U.S.S.R., Britain & Western Europe, The States, among others.
I realised that during the first World War, Spain had not really been involved; the hardships, the horrifying death toll on the battlefield, the advances in weapons that so outpaced the tactics, the discovery of, or rather the creation of a situation that lead to the occurrence of Shell Shock….and so many other things, the tank for God’s sake, the invention of the tank! This all meant nothing to my fiancé… (not that the Spanish army don't use tanks, just that the reference to how they came about is something rather abstract)
I am not saying that the Spanish have not been affected by the consequences of these wars…which brings me to Hitler...
…and World War II.
By the time of this war Spain had fallen under Franco’s boot (even though quite recently). The Nazis had been involved in the ultimate victory of Franco in the Guerra Civil in Spain, anyone who knows much about history or art has at least heard of Guernica. Spain was the Nazis tactical testing ground. But during the war Spain was designated a ‘non-belligerent member of the Axis’ they sent one division of troops to support Germany, they sent workers and they sent money (largely in repayment of Nazi loans). But that was it.
They were largely peripheral players in this war that is so etched on my consciousness; images of the Nuremberg Rally, Hitler, Churchill, the air raid shelters, London on fire, tanks against horses in Poland, the words from Churchill’s speeches, images of Auschwitz…
During the Cold War they remained under Franco, emerging only in 1975 (that is ONLY 33 years ago!) and again, largely peripheral.
It is strange, had I moved to France, to Germany, Russia, Ireland, the US, even New Zealand the people there would have had an understanding, albeit from a different perspective, of all of these things, possibly even have grandparents who had been involved on some level in these conflicts…but…Spain?
I know that it is not just conflicts either, although these of course are catastrophic events and the ones that have scarred us most. I know there is more to history than that but for now, it is enough to dwell on this.
I am suddenly aware that history is very important to me, more than I realised, that this history of Western Europe that I have always been aware of, that I have studied, my history and the history of my people, it is not even vaguely the same as the history of this country and this people. What do I do on 11th November this year? Do I just go quiet and remember the war dead, those who died in WW1 and in any war across the world, our boys in Iraq, Afghanistan…even when nobody here understands anything about it?
I have decided that the answer is, of course, YES!
Yes I do observe our usual remembrance rituals, I will watch the cenotaph and all the veterans and the Queen. I am moving to Spain, not forgetting where I came from after all.
And it is not just this symbol of national mourning that I will be on my own in missing, what of the trooping of the colour? And other more trivial things, Wimbledon, Ascot, Henley? Silly little things, things that I never went to but did watch on tele, but things that are really very British. Things that I will miss dreadfully.
A completely new history. I have also made a mental note that I will find out more about the Spanish Civil War and Spanish history. However, I have decided to start with Napoleon and the Peninsula Wars in Spain. The Brits were involved in that, I can get to grips with that. And then move onto more Spanish-centric stuff.
It’s actually quite exciting, a whole new history to explore and a twentieth century one that has been largely hidden owing to the very recent nature of the emergence of Spain from fascism. It is something that is easy to forget when you are here, that most of the people I work with were born under a fascist regime.
Nobody talks about it.
Nobody mentions it.
My future mother-in-law was a primary school teacher during this regime. She has some textbooks on how good boys behave and how good girls behave. I have a feeling that this could get very interesting…
23 June 2008
Spain 3 - Italy 2
So, Spain v Italy in Euro 2008 took place last night and Spain won on nerve-wracking penalty shoot out. It is the first time in 88 years Spain have beaten Italy in an international football game.
Now, I live a bit out of the city centre so I hate to think what it was like in the centre but when that last goal went in, the place erupted, car horns beeping, firewor, our block of flats just went mad, you could hear everyone from all over the block just cheering and yelling. People just poured out of their houses and celebrated, very spontaneous and enthusiastic. It is great to see it, everyone was just so in the party spirit. If Spain make it to the final I will be first in the bar to soak up the atmosphere I think!
¡VAMOS ESPAÑA!
Now, I live a bit out of the city centre so I hate to think what it was like in the centre but when that last goal went in, the place erupted, car horns beeping, firewor, our block of flats just went mad, you could hear everyone from all over the block just cheering and yelling. People just poured out of their houses and celebrated, very spontaneous and enthusiastic. It is great to see it, everyone was just so in the party spirit. If Spain make it to the final I will be first in the bar to soak up the atmosphere I think!
¡VAMOS ESPAÑA!
Why blog?
I have never blogged before and am probably, in reality, rather too old to do it but I thought that I would start a blog because I have just moved to Madrid for the foreseeable future; maybe it will be a good thing to record how I find it all, as much for myself as for anyone else! I will try to blog about stuff that strikes me as different here, probably ranging from the massive to the seemingly unimportant, but it is often the smallest things that make the biggest difference.
I am no stranger to moving my life around or to travelling generally, although moving now I am older and have more to leave behind has been a surprisingly wrenching experience. It is when you move somewhere else in Europe that you realise how different the Brit really are from our European neighbours. I am sure this is a sweeping generalisation but, at the moment it seems to me that most Mediterranean Europeans could move from their country to another without experiencing too much of a culture-shock. The same could well be true of Northern Europeans I suppose although I have to admit, that is not somewhere I have really been. The Brits are just different. Having lived in SA I didn't feel the differences so acutely; I lived in an English speaking area and hung out with English (and Afrikaans) speaking friends and families. While they lived more outside and just had a fantastic life, their attitudes, the things they considered rude, their way of interacting and being was not, in many ways, staggeringly different from ours.
I have been discovering over the course of the last year or so that the Spanish, whilst obviously having pretty much the same core moral values and life outlook, are rather different from us. Having just moved here and the more permanent nature of the change has now started to sink in I am beginning to miss things from home (aside from friends and family of course!). These are the things I have noticed so far (although I am sure I will miss some from this list):
* Tea! Yes folks, it is no myth we Brits LOVE our tea. I have a good supply but miss it in restuarants and the like
* BBC - the BBC is definitely the best media provider in the world and I miss it; radio, tele, the lot.
* Decent sofas - the Spanish like their lazy-boys and they are the height of fashion here but I don't like them all, give me a good old fashioned English couch anytime.
* Light coloured wood. The wood of furniture here is really really dark
* Wimbledon - GUTTED to be missing this, I don't have Canal+ or BBC here so will miss the lot and it is my summer ritual
* Rugby - they just don't do it here
* Boots - I love that shop
There are however lots of advantages to being here as well, cheap clothes, fab climate, laid back people (mixed blessing sometimes though), being on the Metro at midnight without thinking you're going to die, nightlife (eating at 11 and partying til whenever and everything stays open), the friendliness of the people, long lunch breaks, drinking in the office bar (oh yes people, you read that one right), arriving at work at 9.30, the sound of Spanish, being with my fiancé and I am sure millions more.
Well, I have bored you all enough.
Til the next time...or ¡hasta la próxima!
WW
I am no stranger to moving my life around or to travelling generally, although moving now I am older and have more to leave behind has been a surprisingly wrenching experience. It is when you move somewhere else in Europe that you realise how different the Brit really are from our European neighbours. I am sure this is a sweeping generalisation but, at the moment it seems to me that most Mediterranean Europeans could move from their country to another without experiencing too much of a culture-shock. The same could well be true of Northern Europeans I suppose although I have to admit, that is not somewhere I have really been. The Brits are just different. Having lived in SA I didn't feel the differences so acutely; I lived in an English speaking area and hung out with English (and Afrikaans) speaking friends and families. While they lived more outside and just had a fantastic life, their attitudes, the things they considered rude, their way of interacting and being was not, in many ways, staggeringly different from ours.
I have been discovering over the course of the last year or so that the Spanish, whilst obviously having pretty much the same core moral values and life outlook, are rather different from us. Having just moved here and the more permanent nature of the change has now started to sink in I am beginning to miss things from home (aside from friends and family of course!). These are the things I have noticed so far (although I am sure I will miss some from this list):
* Tea! Yes folks, it is no myth we Brits LOVE our tea. I have a good supply but miss it in restuarants and the like
* BBC - the BBC is definitely the best media provider in the world and I miss it; radio, tele, the lot.
* Decent sofas - the Spanish like their lazy-boys and they are the height of fashion here but I don't like them all, give me a good old fashioned English couch anytime.
* Light coloured wood. The wood of furniture here is really really dark
* Wimbledon - GUTTED to be missing this, I don't have Canal+ or BBC here so will miss the lot and it is my summer ritual
* Rugby - they just don't do it here
* Boots - I love that shop
There are however lots of advantages to being here as well, cheap clothes, fab climate, laid back people (mixed blessing sometimes though), being on the Metro at midnight without thinking you're going to die, nightlife (eating at 11 and partying til whenever and everything stays open), the friendliness of the people, long lunch breaks, drinking in the office bar (oh yes people, you read that one right), arriving at work at 9.30, the sound of Spanish, being with my fiancé and I am sure millions more.
Well, I have bored you all enough.
Til the next time...or ¡hasta la próxima!
WW
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