Speak Spanish in Spain? Don’t be ridiculous...

My New Year’s resolution is to speak more Spanish.

I came to this decision when I was reminded by my flatmate of an incident that took place back in September that I had either forgotten or blanked from my mind out of sheer embarrassment. In a Classical Culture class, a Spanish guy sitting next to me asked whether he could borrow my pen to sign the attendance sheet but I, in my Spanishless state, didn’t understand this extremely simple question (we were taught how to ask whether we could borrow things in Year 8 at school) and before I could turn on my (almost non-existent) Spanish brain or even utter a ‘Pardon?’, he had already picked up my pen, signed the sheet and placed it back on the table. He followed this with a Gracias, which I, now in panic mode, proceeded to repeat back to him instead of replying with a response that would actually have been suitable for the occasion, such as the also extremely simple De nada. What a muppet.

Then, less than a week ago, the cleaning lady – the one in the foyer with the rubber gloves – asked us something or other as we stumbled out of our flat to make our way to an early-morning exam, and we had to ask her to repeat herself twice, at the end of which we still hadn’t understood. Asking more than twice crosses some sort of social boundary, so after shooting baffled looks at each other, we muttered a quick No entiendo (I don’t understand) and scuttled off to the safety of the lift – which, incidentally, we never use if we see other people waiting for it; God forbid we actually have to speak some Spanish.

When I went back to England for Christmas, people seemed surprised at my lack of progress in learning the language, but it is worryingly easy to get stuck in a rut; in a little English bubble. Going home for Christmas was amazing, especially after depressing ourselves with the thought that we may not make it home at all due to the huge amount of snowfall and its unwelcome persistence. Even when I was at Madrid’s airport sitting in front of my gate, there was still cause for alarm. The TV screen at the gate suddenly went blank, with no explanation. This turned out to be Spain’s way of letting us know that our gate number had changed – apparently a useful announcement wasn’t seen as a necessary addition to the situation. The fact that this happened not just once, but twice, really made it a relief to finally get home. Plus, it was nice to able to speak English for two weeks for a change (ha, ha). Being home was great though – when I wasn’t busy seeing friends, family and neighbours, I was either glued to 4OD (we can’t access it in Spain) or munching on a bacon sandwich. The bacon here is far from impressive – in actual fact, meat in general falls well below par compared to England: the sausages are coiled in a most repelling manner, the mince is often composed of both beef and pork all mashed together and the giant legs of ham that adorn the dreaded final aisle of Carrefour make me want to gag every time I am forced to walk past them, which so happens to be almost every time I shop there, as the alcohol aisle is most inconveniently placed far too close to these hanging horrors for my liking. Is this Spain’s novel way of tackling its drinking problem? If so, it could probably do a better job than the police, who ‘solve’ the problem of drinking on the streets by advising the offending participants to relocate to a park.

The incompetence of the police fades into the background when compared to the teachers here or more specifically, their incompetence during the exam period. In Leeds, bags and even coats are placed well out of reach at the front of the room, we each have our own set of the questions written on a sheet in front of us, phones must be switched off unless you want to jeopardize your entire degree and the invigilators arrive early. In this country, the teachers (who also assume the role of invigilator) breeze in ten minutes late, dictate the exam questions to us, allow bags to sit under the desks and pay no attention to any beeps of mobile phones (one went off three times in 15 minutes). I suppose, in their defence, this is all in keeping with the chilled-out attitude of the Spanish. I mean, they do have a reputation to uphold and at least there is some consistency in these ‘values’ – but really, where do you draw the line? Renewing books from the library is also an interesting affair: apparently, once you’ve renewed the item online, you’re supposed to write the due date yourself in the stamp page of the book, which defeats the purpose of renewing it online in the first place. It really has been like flying back in time, in a way. I also remember thinking this when I heard Kylie’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head for the first time in a long while back in either October or November. Any chance of this situation realizing its potential as a fairly nostalgic moment dissolved into thin air on discovering where the music was coming from – none other than a young Spanish guy cruising down the road in his car, windows rolled down and sunglasses on in a failed attempt to come across as smooth. English culture, especially the language and music, is quite popular here. Listening to tunes from the UK and USA as well as keeping up to date with what’s in the charts seems to be the ‘done’ thing here, especially by young people, which just makes it funny when they get it so, so wrong. Anything other than Kylie would have sufficed. I don’t mean to tease – it was just the fact that he was trying so hard to impress any onlookers that greatly boosted the comic value. I did however feel sorry for one poor boy, who I spotted walking down the street wearing a T-shirt with the words ‘Hot Girl’ written across his chest.

Two weeks in England for Christmas was not enough and due to leaving so early in January, we missed any chance of seeing ‘The King’s Speech’ in the cinema. Having heard everyone rave about it back home, we were desperate to see it and planned a post-exams trip into Madrid the other day to go and watch Colin Firth in all his glory. It was set to be a lovely day – although yet again without a trace of Spanish (shopping in H&M, lunch at TGI Friday’s and a film in English) – however, we arrived at the cinema 20 minutes late, despite storming through the metro – which is in no way comfortable after just having eaten an enormous cheesy bacon cheeseburger and chips and about a gallon of coke (damn free refills). Anyway, as a result we weren’t allowed in. Twenty minutes late and we’re not allowed in? In a country where teachers can’t even turn up on time to their own exams? In a country where being late is practically a synonym for ‘Spanish culture’? We were offered tickets for the next showing but that would have conflicted with our plans for going out that night, and as model Erasmus students, we knew in our hearts what we had to do. So, with some grumbling and plenty of moaning, we headed back home and got on the wine, which quickly worked its magic in helping us all to forget the sorry situation.

On the other hand, at least we got to go to Ibiza. The metro stop, that is – you could travel the world here just by riding the metro; a trip to Bélgica (Belgium), a quick stop-off in Colombia (Columbia) and maybe a cheeky internal visit to Bilbao. Noticing this reminded me that there is a place called Egypt about 20 minutes away from my hometown High Wycombe – which I can’t make head or tail of, seeing as Wycombe is the least exotic place on the planet. The only pyramids you’ll find in Wycombe are pyramid schemes, which accompany the huge assortment of crimes committed hourly in this pitiful place. It really is a hole – in fact, Oscar Wilde is rumoured to have said “The name of the town is a suitable warning...High ‘Why-Come’? Why indeed!” and even more brilliantly, George A. Romero’s vision: “When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk High Wycombe.” Although I cannot validate these quotes, mainly because they are from a website called http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/High_Wycombe (which is well worth a read if you fancy a laugh), they still ring true and serve to highlight my point.

Although Madrid’s Ibiza was a little disappointing, all of the Erasmus students across Spain are going on a trip to the real Ibiza in May, which is going to be amazing – we’ve already been told there will be a beach, foam and water party. Again, a slight clash arises between what we probably should do and our duty as Erasmus students, as module enrolment for the next academic year at Leeds begins at the same time as the Ibiza trip. The choice begins – stay in Alcalá picking modules we’ll enjoy for nine months or go on a wild four-day holiday; the sensible option or the Erasmus option? Once again, we all know what we’ll choose. I’m also jetting off to Marrakech with a few friends in a couple of days, which is going to be brilliant. Added to trips into Madrid and a visit to Toledo, as well as a potential trip to Granada or Seville on the cards for late February, this whole year abroad escapade is turning out to be pretty awesome.

T-shirts and trams: a further exploration of Spain’s little absurdities

The lack of logic in Spain doesn’t stop at the layout and inner workings of traffic-light systems, or at the fact that they serve tortilla in bread. (Not even just tortilla – everything in a tapas bar comes in, or at least with, bread, throwing my pre-arrival plan to stick to a healthy Mediterranean diet out the window a long, long time ago.)

No – it certainly doesn’t stop there. I recently had to buy ibuprofen from the farmacía here, after running out of my supplies from Tesco that I’d brought from home. The capsules from the Tesco packet contain 200mg. The capsules from the pharmacy in Alcala are 600mg. Each. How easy do you want to make it to accidentally overdose? The idea is that you’re supposed to half the tablets and take half at any one time – and here is where that big, empty space in Spain where logic and common-sense should take pride of place becomes glaringly obvious – why not just packet the tablets in such a way that you can take one at a time without having to worry about the fact that you may have just overloaded your body with a dangerous excess of chemicals?

Another example: I went shopping for hot pink tights last week (to dress up for an 80s party, not for regular personal use). Sure enough, I found them without much of a problem, but when I was looking for my size I was informed by the shop assistant that they were talla única (one size fits all). Okay, fine – that makes some sense taking into account the material tights are made from. However, I then went into another shop, found a T-shirt I liked and was informed that these were talla única as well. What?! How on earth can the same sized T-shirt fit everyone? It’s simply physically impossible. Take, for example, Cheryl Cole and Beth Ditto. If anyone can squeeze Beth Ditto into Ms. Cole’s shirts then I shall take it back – but for now I really can’t see that this concept works terribly well.

Clearly, this want of logic has filtered through into my own lifestyle, predominantly into my sleep pattern, which was pretty bad in Leeds but has now turned into something else. Despite it being an established tradition in Spain, I have no need for the siesta – waking up at three or four in the afternoon most days pretty much eliminates its need. To be fair to myself, this sleeping pattern does suit the Spanish lifestyle rather well in Spain, as I am up and ready in time for the shops to re-open and, more importantly, I have enough energy to get me through the nights out, which only come to a close for us at about five in the morning. I have set the bar high – the latest time I’ve got up here is 7.30 in the evening (although this was due to a particularly horrendous hangover) and the latest/earliest (?) I’ve got to sleep is 9.30am (obviously by getting up late, I am unable to sleep until the early hours of the morning). It’s a depressing thing to hear peoples’ blinds opening so that they can start their day or go to work when you’ve not caught a wink.

The final example, at least for now, is when I visited the city of Toledo (which is about half an hour away from Madrid by train) with my mum in October. The city is beautiful, its main attraction being that it is almost completely surrounded by water. However, it is also situated on very hilly terrain. Which is all well and good – apart from when you want to take the tour bus, or in this case, the tour tram. Why they decided that a tram, of all types of transportation, was a good idea for a city built on steep hills I shall never understand. On our return, this poor tram loaded with tourists was forced to struggle up a ridiculously steep hill in order to get back to the main plaza. There were several points during this hazardous (albeit ultimately successful) hill-climbing attempt where I genuinely thought that we were going to roll backwards, which reminded me of my equally ridiculous driving test. I’ve lived in the hilly area of High Wycombe all my life, so I mastered hill-starts and the like fairly early on in my driving career. However, no amount of practicing could have prepared me for what was presented to me on the day of my test: the most enormous man I have ever seen in my life appeared from the test centre and wobbled his way towards my car, and slowly it sunk in that this was my driving test instructor. Ordinarily, his size wouldn’t have mattered, but due to a gearbox problem with my driving instructor’s car I was having to take the test in my own car – a blue Cinquecento with an engine size of less than one litre (if you have ever watched The Inbetweeners you will be able to sympathise with the awkwardness of the ensuing situation). Although the problems began with him having to physically squeeze himself into the passenger seat, they certainly didn’t end there – every time I changed gear I accidentally rammed my fist into his leg, which was extruding in a most alluring manner over the edge of the seat. Despite not knowing whether to apologise each time (apologising would probably have brought more attention to the protruding limb than the accidental punching), we carried on quite nicely until I reached Marlow Hill, the steep hill that takes you out of High Wycombe and into the abyss of Handy Cross roundabout. With the microscopic engine size, my car sometimes struggled to carry the weight of my mum and I on practice drives, so you can imagine the strain it experienced up the town’s steepest hill with this new, well-padded passenger. Even with my foot flat on the accelerator and the engine screaming for mercy, it only managed about 20mph at most up the slope, and typically the traffic lights changed half-way, meaning that I had to stop. Again, this could have been cause for just a simple hill start, but in a car in which the handbrake didn’t exactly work, there was a slightly bigger problem, especially when the other passenger was packing a few (or several hundred) extra pounds. Luckily, clutch control got me through, but there were a few scary moments in which we could have rolled backwards if I’d have lost concentration for just one second. This is the reason why I am not generally impressed by hills. I specifically didn’t write down the University of Exeter as one of my choices after visiting the campus due to the amount of hills (the course content didn’t get a look in). But of all the hills I’ve laid eyes on, the use being made of the one in Toledo took the biscuit – it defies logic, even by Spanish standards.

What surprised me the most is the fact that we did actually return from the excursion. Taking a ride in the death tram is not relaxing or touristy in any way – firstly, after doing the tour within the city itself, the tram joined the main road, which was definitely an A-road and certainly more similar to a motorway than I would have liked, with the intention of showing us the city’s surroundings. Secondly, because obviously the tram was travelling pretty slowly in comparison to the rest of the traffic on this road (although for what it was, it was surprisingly zippy), we got tailgated a lot. This, added to almost falling out of the tram when going uphill, made sitting at the back end of the tram (and facing outwards) very uncomfortable indeed. Luckily, there was a pole to my right supporting the tram’s roof which I made very regular use of to save myself from death-by-tram. The final straw was that after suffering all this, it was impossible to get any decent photos – which was the whole point – because the driver refused to slow down at any point on the journey even when we hit an obvious tourist viewpoint. Thanks driver for my blurry bridges and cathedrals, what wonderful memory aids they shall make...

The Spanish personality: starring the cleaning lady

The Spanish are not known for being shy.

The episode which got me thinking further about this generally-acknowledged fact occurred on Saturday, and consisted of one of a group of what looked like nine or ten-year-old boys slapping my 21-year old flatmate on the backside as they walked past us in the street. This is a perfect example of the rather brash attitude exhibited by some (I would like to stress definitely not all) of the Spaniards I have happened to come across during my time here. I was reminded of another incident which took place soon after our arrival at our new flat: not having been offered the orange sticker with printed names on it that every other flat’s post box is adorned with, we decided to make our own. Shreds of paper, many different coloured pens and about ten minutes later, we had our label and proudly stuck it to our letter-box. However, after walking past it the next day on our way out of the building, we realised that we were walking across none less than a crime scene – the label had gone. Confused, and utterly curious, we began an investigative search and to our horror, discovered its remains in the waste paper bin, only centimetres from the letter-box vicinity. On further inspection, we realised that it hadn’t just been picked off and placed into the bin – no, it had been screwed up viciously into a ball and thrown in an apparent fit of inexplicable anger. After only having lived in the building for about a week, who could we possibly have distressed that much?
We do have our suspicions: the most likely culprit in our opinion is the bin-lady, in the foyer, with the rubber gloves. Our reasoning behind this is that within the first few days of living here, we accidentally messed with her ‘system’ – it seems that putting rubbish bags outside the front door a second before the allocated time of 19.30 is not the way forward. We’ve also annoyed her since by putting out an apparently overly-offensive rubbish bag, because when we opened the door the next morning, she’d placed it onto our doormat so that we physically had to step over it to leave the house. And according to her, a few days ago one of our rubbish bags stained the floor (although we can’t see anything). So she’d definitely have the motive, it’s just whether she could see through such a villainy. After the incidents following that which caused the post box crime, I am awaiting a similar vengeful scandal. However, whatever she decides to do, a repeat of post box vandalism is out of the question because, after tenderly unscrewing the crushed little label, we stuck it back on but to the inside of the box rather than the outside where it is clearly too exposed to angry cleaners. I eagerly await the day when in bin-world, we do something so outrageous that we catch her with her fingers trapped in the slot, desperately clawing at the label that’s just out of reach... This honestly seems to be as far as crime goes in Alcala. The police force here are in desperate need of something to do: I can’t say that I’ve actually ever seen a policeman doing any work – they always seem to be congregating on the streets in groups of about four of five having a chat, or at most, shepherding traffic when the lights are out of order. The one time we’ve actually seen something happen – a woman was having a full-on screaming match with her boyfriend just opposite our block of flats – the police got far too excited and sent out no less than six cars, sirens blaring, to calm down the situation.

The Spanish have also exhibited their unreserved attitude in a more caring way, for example I got stopped on the street wearing just a T-shirt several times in November by middle-aged and old folk asking me: Are you not cold dressed like that? With them all bundling up in coats, scarves and gloves the moment the temperature drops below 20°C, it must be an odd sight to them to see someone strolling down the street wearing just one layer. I quite like the fact that they stop me – it feels like they care about your wellbeing – but also I think it’s just a natural curiosity that, unlike the British, they have no qualms about satisfying. For me and my fellow British friends here, a November day in Spain is equivalent to a day in May in England. For several days at the end of November, it was 24°C and there have been some beautiful blue and cloudless skies even at the beginning of this month – making it difficult to believe that there has been a foot of snow in Leeds and that it is Christmas in less than two weeks.

Katy Perry, Linkin Park and how not to cook a pizza: the MTV awards in Madrid

Having been told that my blogs so far have been somewhat negative, I’ve decided to write about my best day so far in Spain in an attempt to lighten the tone!

November 7^th 2010. The day Madrid hosted the MTV EMA awards, and the day I got to see one of my favourite bands, the one and only Linkin Park. The day didn’t get off to a great start – almost freezing to death having opted to start our Madrid adventure with a picnic, in a park, in a grassy spot with very little tree cover, on a windy day, in November wasn’t ideal. Ordering drinks afterwards in a busy pub with no spare chairs probably wasn’t too sensible either – we ended up taking up a considerable chunk of floor space, resulting in many bemused looks and several irritated Spaniards, who found getting from the door to the bar a little bit more like parting the red sea than they would have liked. However, very shortly we heard the beginnings of a familiar song...Linkin Park had started playing two hours ahead of schedule! I have literally never run so fast in my life as I did to get from the pub to that stage. Despite having no breath left in me whatsoever and feeling as though I might die (the most exercise I have done since being here is taking the three flights of stairs to and from my flat and walking the 15 minutes to uni four times a week – and two out of four of those days when I have particularly stressful classes which I still find difficult to understand, I ‘treat’ myself to a McDonalds on the way home – a sort of consolation prize: “Congratulations, your Spanish hasn’t improved at all this week!”) I somehow found the energy to bounce up and down and gasp out the lyrics. This was, however, only the sound check, and it was a further two hours before the first act of the evening came onstage. The event was kicked off by 30 Seconds to Mars, which was cool and somewhat unreal considering I’d seen a film with frontman Jared Leto playing the protagonist just a few days before. Katy Perry was the next to grace the stage, and she was fantastic. To complement her song ‘Firework’, there was a mini-fireworks display (didn’t see that coming at all), which was awesome and made up for the lack of Bonfire Night in Spain.

Holidays and events are so different here. I’ve already explained the beautiful concept of the puente – we’ve just had another one which resulted in a six-day weekend. Although this is obviously brilliant, it is strange missing out on some of England’s traditions, for example Bonfire Night, but also the more sombre events such as Remembrance Day – it felt almost wrong to go about my day without wearing a poppy, or without doing a collective two minute silence. Christmas is also quite a different affair in Spain compared to England. The most noticeable difference is that children believe in the three Wise Men instead of Father Christmas: they arrive in Spain on January 6^th, the date that the Wise Men are said to have given gifts to Jesus. Children all over Spain leave their shoes out on their balconies, in the hope that in the morning they will be filled with gifts. This is all well and good, but I think that England is definitely the place to be at Christmas: for a start, shoes have nothing on stockings. I mean, there are only so many presents you can cram into a shoe. If I had grown up in Spain – and I’m sure that Spanish children have found many other ways to cheat this sorry system – you would not have caught me leaving out my favourite ballet pumps, or a school shoe – no, my balcony would have been adorned with the much more spacious Ugg or wellington boot. Now who’s the wise one... I suppose at least the concept of the three Wise Men is slightly more believable than England’s Father Christmas. British children are encouraged to believe that once a year, a fat and merry old man, driven across the country by flying reindeers, squeezes himself down their chimney or lets himself into their house (it’s worrying that so many kids believe in an idea that defies not only the laws of physics but also those of plain common sense); whereas Spanish children, by contrast, are told that the three Wise Men arrive in Spain, one on horseback, one on a camel and one on an elephant –so much more logical than flying reindeers (I do understand that Santa’s sleigh being pulled by eagles or bats wouldn’t have quite the same effect, but still, teaching kids that an animal can fly when it clearly can’t is just inciting ignorance) – and that they leave presents on balconies, no breaking into anyone’s house involved. 

Anyway – back to the MTV awards. After five hours of waiting in the crowd, Linkin Park finally made their appearance. We all went crazy, especially when they started playing songs from their older albums. The one problem was that I was with a friend of mine, about a foot taller than me, who ended up standing right in front of me for almost their entire set! I was NOT happy –on the plus side however, a tall friend does make an excellent leaning post when one is wobbling around on one’s tiptoes in a desperate attempt to catch any sort of glimpse of one’s favourite band. Furthermore, courtesy of him I now also have some great photos. 

The gig came to an end after the crowd had successfully requested two encores; and after I managed to get my legs to work again after having been stood in the same place for six hours, we headed off to find food and ended up, quite predictably, in McDonalds. It’s genuinely not through any fault of our own that we go there so often – cooking for ourselves in Spain has been, shall we say an experience – not only because we can only use either the oven or the hob at one particular time, but also because of the interesting culinary techniques employed by the Spanish. Frozen rice and vegetables in a packet, for example – the usual way to cook these items would be to cover them in boiling water in a pan and leave them on the hob for 10 minutes. Right? Not according to Spain – here, the packets advise you to fry the aforementioned items in oil. Fry rice in oil? Despite finding the whole idea very strange, we were at the same time very curious to test out this novel method of rice-cooking. Sadly the results of our little experiment were very unsatisfactory and begged the question as to why these packets are still on sale – having poured half the packet into the frying pan, we ended up with a mound of vegetables and about three grains of rice. The rest had stuck fast to the bottom of the pan, where it had burnt to produce a crispy black mess which had to soak in the sink for an entire night before we could even start to clean it off. All in all, probably not ideal.

The other thing that baffles me in this country is that ovens do not seem to be used with much frequency. I know several people on their Erasmus year here who are living in a flat without an oven – thankfully not us – I don’t know what we’d do without our chicken nuggets and chips when we stagger in drunk at six in the morning. I actually stayed with a Spanish family in Madrid over the summer while I was doing an internship, and although there were 11 people in the flat, I was the only person to use the oven in the entire month that I lived there. On one memorable evening, I put a pizza in the oven, in the usual way, i.e. on the baking tray at about 200°C. I noticed that one of the other girls living in the flat was watching me with a worried look on her face. Eventually she piped up, telling me that 200°C was definitely too high and that 200°C really is very hot. Well, yes, it is an oven – they don’t design them to go up to that temperature for no reason... I tried to explain it was quite normal but she clearly didn’t trust this strange English girl and her intentions, because when I returned to the kitchen five minutes later, she’d turned it down to 100°C. She also made the very unhelpful suggestion of putting the pizza on a plate before placing it on the baking tray in the oven. I was genuinely stunned that she, older than me, didn’t have the first idea about how to use one of the, for us, most basic kitchen appliances.

It’s not just this poor Spanish girl who has problems in the kitchen. A few weeks ago, we were invited to an international food day, or something along those lines: the idea was to cook and bring something that represented your country. In our defence, we had only been told a couple of hours before the event, although we probably could have done better than we did...after inspecting the fridge we decided that the most usable item was the big pile of Frankfurters, with which we made the delicacy known as hot-dogs. Although clearly these are of American origin, we justified it with the fact that it is at least an English-speaking country. Pudding consisted of strawberry and cream flavoured sweets which we found on an impromptu trip to the petrol station on our way – representing Wimbledon, of course, which we thought was quite an inspired idea (unfortunately, we were the only ones). New Year’s resolution: learn to cook and not to bring shame upon my country...

Road rage and dead hedgehogs

Okay, so clearly I built my expectations up too much – the Christmas market was really quite disappointing, mainly due to the fact that it consisted of stalls that all sold exactly the same things. I suppose it could be seen as a very innovative queue-cutting technique: if the queue is too big at one stall, fear not, as the same item can be found at the next stall just inches to your left/right.

But now, onto my main point – driving. European drivers are stereotypically awful: they supposedly have no respect for pedestrians, drive too fast and adhere to road signs on worryingly few occasions. This stereotype exists because it is true. I have never seen such appalling driving in my life: red lights seem to be taken more as friendly advice than a rule – kind of like when someone suggests to you that maybe you shouldn’t illegally download that movie; or that you should maybe buy a parking ticket even if you are just stopping for 15 minutes...only this time the advice is slightly more pressing. As in, you should probably stop at this red light so that you don’t run over a human being. 

It is not only traffic lights that suffer being ignored, but also road signs, for example zebra crossings. This side of the ocean, crossing the road is no longer just about getting to the other side – it is also about remaining in existence (I exaggerate not). Whether this is Spain’s attitude towards natural selection, or simply a lack of concern for their fellow human beings, I shall never know. Either way, people strolling about in Spanish cities by foot have to be super careful. Forget singing hedgehogs – the pedestrians here need far more than a light-hearted reminder of the green cross code. Maybe even an advert simply telling them not to cross any roads. Ever.

Even looking both ways – one of the lines from the British hedgehog road-safety campaign – won’t cut it. In Spain, very often both lanes of traffic appear to have stopped, but then suddenly one lane of traffic rev up their engines and away they go. This exemplifies the strange Spanish concept of stopping the traffic on one side of the road while the other side goes; something that I have yet to understand the logic of, but also something that I have picked up on very quickly, mainly due to several close shaves!

“When it’s clear, nothing’s to fear.” Another line from the beloved hedgehogs – and yet another lie. Applied to Spain, the song should go as follows: “When it’s clear, presume that a vehicle will come zooming up the road out of nowhere and expect you to run very fast; if you don’t, they will slow down but only at the very last second and while honking their horn either incessantly or in one long and very loud beep, almost giving you a heart attack and morbidly embarrassing you by drawing the attention of the whole street.”

Ultimately, what I’m saying is: when in Spain, don’t trust the hedgehogs! Following their own advice, they would definitely end up as road kill. There is one good thing about the roads in Spain, however, and that is that when the green man pops up letting you know that it is ‘safe’ to cross, a countdown begins, showing you how long you have left before the lights go green and the carnage on the road starts all over again. (He also looks like he’s absolutely pegging it, which is quite fitting given what I’ve just been discussing.)

At the complete opposite end of the scale to driving, we have walking. The Spanish walk, or amble perhaps, is at the average speed of backwards. I would love to deposit a load of Londoners in the streets of Alcala and see what would happen. In my head they would get so angry – inwardly of course, as British people are far too polite to voice their rage – that one by one, they would implode. Or simply go mad. And understandably – who has the time these days to wander around like there’s nothing to do but smoke and eat tapas? Oh, wait. Still, drifting around like the un-dead should really be limited to when one is hung-over. 

I do have to say that, despite all this moaning, there are a couple of gems with regards to Spanish transport, the first one being double-decker trains, which are awesome, no further explanation required. The only disagreeable thing about the trains is the noise the closing doors make, which sounds like, although about twenty times louder than, the loudest alarm clock in the world. It makes travelling with a hangover headache a nightmare; and if you fancy a kip on the way into the city, forget it. On the other, more positive hand, you won’t find many people stuck in the doors: the sudden blast of noise is enough to make even the most idiotic person dive out of their way in an acute attack of fear. 

The second transport treasure Madrid has to offer is the metro system. At risk of sounding like an advert, the system is quick, easy to use, and just €1 to travel as far as you want or need to across the whole city. Although, some well-meaning advice: if you don’t have far to travel, walk. After taking roughly five escalators to get down into the underground system, feeling like you’ve reached the core of the earth, or more suitably based on the furnace-like feel the depths of hell, taking the metro and then another five escalators to return to earth’s surface, it is difficult to justify this means of transport for just one or two stops.

Strike? What strike? And Spanish 'fashion' ...bless them, they try...

The whole of Spain held its first general strike since 2002 on September 29. Anticipating marches in the streets and possible riots, we were all quite excited for this ‘momentous’ event (and for the day off uni and the chance to sleep in). However, nothing happened. Most classes were cancelled, the city seemed a bit quieter than usual, but apart from that, everything was fairly normal – some of the shops were even open. Although disappointed, after watching the news that evening, we were also somewhat relieved: in Barcelona police cars had been smashed and set on fire and it looked like World War Three had broken loose; in Alcala de Henares the teachers didn’t come to class and we got a day off – more reflective of a holiday than a strike.

Despite the general strike not working out quite as planned, something that is always on strike in Spain are the lights in restaurant bathrooms. Each cubicle has its own touch-sensitive pad which you use to activate the lights. So, obviously, when you first enter the pitch-black cubicle, you touch the pad, but then about twenty seconds later, the pesky thing times out and you are left fumbling around in the dark, wishing you’d taken more notice of exactly where this pad was. The first time this happens and you are left inexplicably in the obscurity with your jeans around your ankles is far from pleasant, but as with anything, you get used to it as time goes by and gradually it has developed into more of an inconvenience than a cause for alarm.

I dedicated my previous article to university life, so in this one I want to swing the focus towards life outside of uni. The other week, we enjoyed a luxurious five-day weekend, thanks to a little thing called puente. Tuesday was a national holiday, but the Spaniards (praise them) clearly don’t see the point of working on a Monday only to have the next day off. This, combined with the Friday we have off anyway and the usual weekend, added up to five wonderful days of socializing, fun, chilling out and exploring the city. Being girls, the first activity that sprung to mind was of course shopping, and being so close to Madrid, it was an offer hard to resist. We headed off to Gran Via which is close to Sol, the centre of the buzzing capital city. The staple Spanish fashion stores were there – Zara and Mango and the likes, as well as H&M – three stores within five minutes of each other in fact – which seems slightly excessive, not to mention illogical as all the clothes in each one are pretty much the same. Then again, logic doesn’t seem to be a strong point in Spain, a country whose tapas bars serve tortilla in a sandwich. Rather worryingly I am actually getting used to this, however one thing I need to accustom myself to before my second shopping trip are the European clothes sizes: in somewhat of an oversight I forgot to check my UK size against the European system and consequently ended up lugging all of my chosen items around the stores in two sizes, giving a literal meaning to the phrase shop ‘til you drop.

On the subject of clothes, I would like to add that despite the huge number of shops on offer in and around Madrid, the Spanish do not seem to make the most of them. In fact, walking down the street sometimes, it genuinely feels as though I’ve stepped back into the 90s, evidenced by the sad fact that many Spaniards still seem to think that jeans with a denim jacket is a good look. They also take a scarily obsessive liking to the colour red and can be frequently seen donning the brightest shades in a less than delightful shirt AND trouser combination.

Last month, however, the denim was placed into (hopefully) the back of their wardrobes for a few days while Alcala de Henares’ medieval market took over the town’s countless cobbled streets. The array of middle ages outfits was impressive, and with this added to the buzzing atmosphere it became clear that this annual event is something that Alcala is very proud of. It had everything – owls and birds of prey flying around the main plaza, pigs and other animals in cages (I only realised what these were for after walking past the spit-roast) and a huge variety of food and goods stalls. I’ve just found out that the Christmas market is due to start tomorrow and if the medieval one was anything to go by, the festive one is certainly set to be quite an experience.

Time Travel

Last week, I spent my Sunday evening sat in a field. The sun was setting, giving the sky a beautiful rose-tinted hue, a girl and her horse could be seen walking in the distance, the dust kicked up by its hooves shimmering in the sun’s glow, and someone started strumming on a guitar and singing. All in all a very pleasant evening activity. Until my flatmate decided to reintroduce us to grass-blowing. This very adult activity involves pulling up a piece of thick grass, holding it between your thumbs and blowing to produce a trumpet-like sound. I don’t know what the girl playing the guitar was least impressed with: our somewhat inferior knowledge of music or being drowned out by our grass trumpets. However, momentarily back in 1998, we sat there blowing quite happily on our grass until it started getting chilly and we started the walk home. A fun, simple evening, yet something I would never have thought about doing in Leeds.

As well as little things like this highlighting the contrast between Alcala and Leeds, the differences between the two universities are also vast. For instance, on asking the nice lady in the reprographics room where the printers were – there didn’t seem to be any in the computer rooms – she gave us a funny look and pointed towards the one, sole computer that looked almost discarded in the corner of the room. Apparently, apart from a few helpfully broken machines in another university building, that one computer is the only available place where the entire student body of the Arts Faculty can print out their lecture notes, seminar work and essays. Is it just me or does a printer:student ratio of 1:1050 seem a little absurd? I cannot even begin to imagine the carnage on essay deadline days. As well as this slight technical blip, the University does not seem to communicate with students via email, which is a strange concept after having been bombarded with the things for two years at Leeds. Here, when a lecture is cancelled, the entire class, having walked all the way into uni especially, is presented with a blasé note on the classroom door. Instead of jumping for joy as we would in Leeds and heading straight for the Terrace, here it is somewhat exasperating. The cityscape may replicate the medieval era, but in 2010, the technology doesn’t have to as well!

The classrooms, on the other hand, are nicely set out so that for the most part they are easy to find, other than the odd one or two that are tucked away round corners (clearly designed to confuse the Erasmus students as much as possible). There are also several staircases that seem to lead to different places each time I take them. So, with secret rooms and moving stairs, I find myself in a Spanish version of Hogwarts. Still, it makes a refreshing change from the stress of the Roger Stevens building. Classes have also been fairly interesting, in the sense that I make half a page of spread-out notes and half a page of doodles from a politics class that lasts an hour and a half. Good going – and it’s not just the classes taught in Spanish that present a problem. In the spirit of improving our Spanish as much as possible whilst here, we have all taken a module to do with the history of English-speaking countries, which is taught partially in English. The teacher, not impressed with us taking this module in the first place, expects us, as natives, to possess a working knowledge of English history dating back to the fifth century. Embarrassingly, and somewhat worryingly, we know less than some of the Spanish students in the class. For this module, we have also been told that we are expected to produce an essay, which obviously presents no problem for us as we’ve had essay skills drummed into us for years. However, according to our teacher, the Spanish first-years not only can’t write an essay but also cannot formulate their own opinion to incorporate into an essay. Therefore, this 2,000-word ‘essay’ (may I just add here that the announcement of this word limit drew gasps of horror from the Spaniards) may be written in a group of as many as six people and information can be copied and, in the teacher’s own words, ‘translated’ from the internet, i.e. this is very much a copy and paste job.

Although cobbling together an essay through copy and paste is brilliant and makes a relaxing change to the strict measures in Leeds, where we get penalised for putting a full stop in the wrong place in the footnotes, I am definitely looking forward to my return for my final year, even if just to be launched back into the 21^st century.