Almodóvar

Pedro Almodóvar is not just my favorite Spanish film director, but is probably my favorite overall film director (yes, he beats David Lynch and Wes Anderson). The trailer above is for his newest movie Los abrazos rotos. (If you've never seen anything by him go out and rent/add to your Netflix queue either Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Todo sobre mi madre, or Volver--you won't regret it.) This past weekend I saw Los abrazos rotos and while it doesn't come close to breaking into my top three or four favorite Almodóvar movies, it was such and enjoyable experience because I am in Madrid! It is completely different watching an Almodóvar movie in Spain than it is in the U.S. I've seen a lot of the places that were shown in the film, I was watching it in Spanish without subtitles, and I was laughing along with my friend (and about half of the other people in the theater) to the references to Women on the Verge... I don't know--I guess this was just one of those little things that will end up being really memorable someday. (Also I am glad that I got to see it now because it doesn't get to theaters in the U.S. until October or something.)

Last week I also toured the Palacio Real and it was gorgeous, but disappointing because I could not take pictures inside.

Speaking of photos, here are some from my wanderings last week.

Oh and I'm going to Barcelona next week for Semana Santa, so expect a big update with lots of photos after that!

I love this city.

It struck me this week that I have been in Spain for over a month and I realized that I'm really content here. I do miss my friends and family a lot, and there are things that get on my nerves here (like the lack of Diet Mountain Dew), but I honestly can say that I am having a great time.

I think one thing that has lifted my spirits is that the weather has been gorgeous the past couple days. Madrid is especially beautiful when the skies are blue. Today, I couldn't see a single cloud. Really, the city is an entirely different place when the weather is nice compared to when the skies are gray and it's cold and rainy. All the people walking around just seem happier. Yesterday my friend and I walked from Puerta del Sol to the metro stop near her house (well she walked home then) and it took over an hour, but the walk was just so refreshing that the time passed so quickly. Most of our walk was along the Paseo de la Castellana and I really like that street because although it runs through a fairly commercial area, all of these new buildings sit right next to these old buildings and they just seem to fit together. I think that street will be really beautiful in the spring. Actually I think the whole city will be beautiful when everything is finally blooming in the spring.

Also yesterday in the late afternoon I had to go back to Sol for an ISA meeting and after it two other friends and I wandered around for a bit. I never really get sick of Sol. I've seen it many times now--I've seen a lot of things in the city over and over again--but it still amazes me each time. I'm glad that I'm not getting jaded and that I still feel a bit of a sense of wonder about the sites, even the ones that I see as I walk to the bus stop to go to school every day.

I think I'm going to take a nap now. I have turned into a real Spaniard in that I take a nap almost everyday. Tonight is 1 euro night at 100 Montaditos (this little kind-of-like-a-tapas-bar that we go to every Wednesday) and I want to be wide awake to enjoy the best patatas fritas con salsas in Madrid.

The Corte Inglés Rant

I have mentioned it a few times on this blog, but today I'm going to expound on my dislike for the Corte Inglés. Corte Inglés is this Spanish chain of stores. The stores themselves are huge and are kind of like a department store (like Macy's) with a grocery store in the basement. Then outside of the main store you can usually find a Corte Inglés bookstore and/or music/movie store. Some of the stores also have travel agencies in/around them. Pretty much this huge store is located in almost every neighborhood of the city. (There is one two blocks away from my house in one direction and about five or six blocks away in the other direction.) Also, outside of Madrid there is Hipercor (which is owned by Corte Inglés) which I haven't been to, but I'm guessing is kind of like Costco or something. So I guess my first reason for disliking the Corte Inglés is that I feel like it tries to be too many things.

Anyway, the store is supposed to have anything your little heart desires. Well in my opinion, the stupid store has both everything and nothing at the same time. I can find pretty much anything that I don't need and nothing that I do need. And the stuff that I can find is in the most random places. And everything is super overpriced. I don't know why I even go there, but today I did. I needed a new mesh laundry hamper thing and some tights for this party I'm going to on Friday night. First I decided to look for the laundry hamper. I figured it would be in the pet store part (by the hangers--see this post for that story) and I was kind of right. I wandered around for a while and finally asked somebody where I could find something to put my dirty clothes in (I didn't know the Spanish word for hamper at the time). Well the worker guy showed me this 20 euro hamper thing and after I scrunched up my face at the price (I was looking for like those mesh pop up laundry hampers that you can by at Target for like five dollars) he poked around some more before finally saying he didn't have anything else and scampering off. I gave up that search and decided to look for the tights.

I found those without any problem. However, I picked up this decent looking pair and they were 21 euro. My question is, who would pay 20-some euros for tights that will probably end up getting snagged on something the second time you wear them? Not this girl (the fact that I'm a klutz means I would probably snag them the first time I wore them). Then I wandered around some more and they just had so many to choose from that it was overwhelming. The problem with all of the options was that, aside from those 20-some euro tights, most did not have a price on them. Finally I just picked up an inexpensive looking pair and checked out (and was relieved to find out that they were, indeed, fairly inexpensive).

So yes, these experiences have not been terribly traumatic in and of themselves (well the experience in the Corte Inglés coupled with my post office experience was a bit traumatic), but each time I go to that store I just get more and more annoyed with it. And no, the Corte Inglés is not some metaphor for Spanish culture in general or anything like that (because I do really love Spain and Madrid and everything). It's just a store that really annoys me and makes me really miss Target. Seriously, I'd give just about anything to have Target only two blocks away.

Oh and just to let you know, tonight I walked around the neighborhood with these two girls who just moved in and I pointed out the "chino"* located around the corner. We went inside to look around and I found a mesh hamper in there almost right away for only four euros.

*(It's kind of hard to explain what a chino is without sounding a little bit politically incorrect or something, but in most neighborhoods there are these super cheap stores with the most random assortment of stuff in them that are generally owned by Chinese people. The Spanish word for Chinese is Chino, thus the Spaniards refer to these stores as chinos.)

My traumatic experience with the postal service.

Actually The Postal Service is one of my favorite bands and I had a great time singing along to "Such Great Heights" with a bunch of friends this weekend. That is not the postal service that I am talking about in this post (and I'm sure most of you probably didn't think it was--I just wanted to give props to great music).

No, this week I was traumatized with my dealings with the Correos, Spain's postal service. It all started out with me having to send my camera back to the U.S. so it can get fixed. I decided to look into doing this on Monday and I thought I'd just go to the Correos office on my street. Well for some reason that office is not open to the public. It's only a sorting center or something like that. Because I was already on that end of the street I decided to go to the Corte Inglés to find some packing materials, but after walking around for 15 or so minutes with a packing tape dispenser in my hands, but no actual packing tape, I finally asked where it was and was told that they do not carry packing tape (they just carry dispensers--dumb. I really have a love/hate relationship with Corte Inglés that I will have to post about some time). That night I got home and put my postal code in the finder on the Correos website and it told me the next closest office and I decided to go there after school on Tuesday.

On Tuesday I studied my metro map carefully and took it to where I needed to go to find the Correos ofice. I walked up and down the street and rechecked the address. Apparently there is no office at that location anymore or something. Foiled again.

So today I decided that I knew there was a Correos office in the Corte Inglés near Puerta del Sol. I went there after school and had to go down into the basement and then walk through this creepy parking garage just to find the office. I had read on the Correos website that I could buy a box there to ship my camera, so I waited in line and then asked the man (in Spanish) if they sold shipping boxes. He told me that yes, they do sell boxes there, but they didn't have any today. Oh. Okay. I wandered around that Corte Inglés for a little while trying to come up with innovative packing materials, and could not find anything that would work. Then I decided to go to the ISA office nearby because I figured the directors might have an idea where I could find a box. David was the only one there and told me the post office in Corte Inglés. Ha.

After that I decided to do what I should have just done all along--go to the Palacio de Comunicaciones. Really, that sounds a lot more special than it actually is. It's a beautiful building on the outside, but just a huge post office on the inside. (I think I have a picture of the building in one of my previous Facebook albums--I just didn't know what it was called at the time.) I went inside, stood around, and finally figured out that you had to take a number even though there were like 10+ stations open and only five customers there. I had to pick what kind of number I wanted to take and I picked the one that said I needed to buy something because I needed to buy a box. Well, I chose correctly and when I got up there the guy asked me what I wanted and I said in Spanish "I need a box big enough to send my camera to the United States." Well, he got pissy when he heard that and left me for a minute and came back with this really nice woman who got me my box, but told me that they did not accept credit cards. I only had 20 euros on me and had to spend 3 to buy the box (and I had figured it would probably cost around 25 to send the package), so I decided to just get the box and come back later with more cash. Like I said, the woman was very nice, so she weighed my package before I left and told me it would only cost 4,80 to send. I couldn't believe it would be so cheap, but was happy that I could just stay there and mail it. Unfortunately I had to take another number to get in "send" line (because I had been in the "buy" line). I got up there and handed the guy all of my information and he weighed my package and told me it would cost 18 euros to send. Oh. Apparently the nice worker had put in the wrong postal code. I was a euro short, so I took the box and walked outside. However, I scrounged around in my pocket and found two more euros in change, so I went back in, took another number, waited around, got up there, waited while the worker guy flirted with a worker girl and finally sent the box. I was so relieved just to be done with that experience. Although now we have to wait and see if the box actually gets to Wisconsin.

Of course when I got to the metro, I found that with all my digging in my pockets for various things at the post office I had lost my metro pass that still had 7 trips left on it. It's a good thing I found that last euro in my pocket because it bought me my trip home.

So the moral of this story is that you should just go to the big post office to begin with. And don't trust the Correos website for anything. I really love Spain, but sometimes I just feel that people aren't really on top of things and they kind of like to give you the run-around.

P.S. Just to let you all know I don't have classes on Thursdays ever and there's some holiday on Friday so I have an extra long weekend. My friends and I are going to Zaragoza on Friday, so I probably won't update this again until Sunday.

¡Mis maletas están aquí! (Finalmente)

Hi everyone,

Sorry to disappoint you but I kind of took the day off today. I slept in, went to El Corte Inglés to buy hangers (which took about an hour because I could not find them and rode the escalator up and down 50 billion times...they ended up being like right next to the pet supplies), and then waited for the call that my luggage had arrived. It finally came. Seriously, it was one of the happiest moments of my life. I went over to the ISA office to go pick it up and ended up taking my first ride in a taxi (I wasn't about to haul my huge suitcases on the metro). The driver was really nice and we had a good conversation. Then I unpacked, which took about as long as it took me to pack and ended up falling asleep for a while. Then I decided I was too lazy to go anywhere and read instead. It was actually a really nice, quiet day. But I have a busy-ish day planned for tomorrow to make up for being lazy today.

Based on my conversation with the taxi driver today and the conversations I've been having with the ISA directors I've come to the conclusion that my Spanish is a lot better when I stop thinking about it. When I start to think too hard I begin constructing these elaborate sentences in my head that are hard enough to spit out in English. While sometimes I feel like I'm talking like a child, I've started to become satisfied with simple, effective sentences to get my ideas across when I'm speaking in Spanish. That's not to say that I'm not going to challenge myself to speak better, but I'm starting to realize that speaking Spanish here isn't about being perfect, but instead it's about being understood. And when I let go and just focus on being understood, the grammatical elements seem to just fall into place (and even if they don't, it's not the end of the world).

On a completely different note, does anyone have any cheap, easy meal ideas? After this weekend I'm going to need to go grocery shopping again.