I had briefly considered naming this piece "Aileen in Blunderland" but feel a little Casablanca may in turn lend a little Tinseltown to what has conspired to be a very trying week. If I were Mrs Bennett I would be reclining on a four poster clutching a lace handkerchief to my brow and crying out for someone to fetch the smelling salts to restore my poor nerves. That's how it went down.
What a terribly awkward week. I'm in Starbucks again trying to look artsy and not at all like I had to Google the correct spelling of "hankerchief." Even now as I try to remember what I wanted to write I must shudder in remembered social embarrassment. Here's why;
Primero, my assigned uni sort-of-college-mother figure. A dear sweet girl who I ran into on the way out of the UAM cafeteria; but herein lies the rub Hamlet. You can't just spring Spanish speakers onto me. I need time to mentally prepare. It would be like asking Rocky to take on Apollo Creed when the guy's just stepped out of the shower. The man isn't in the zone! He needs some Eye of the Tiger, he needs protein shakes...he needs to run up the steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and cry out for joy! And so do I! No, what I need is some time to translate "A pleasure to meet you" without accidentally using the noun "placer" which is more for the Belle du Jour sort of pleasure and would just end up horribly embarrassing everyone.
So I froze, open mouthed like a lazy goldfish, and could not come up with a suitable answer to Que tal? which is GCSE Spanish at its best. And because I took my own ridiculous advice "Say anything, nothing could make you look more of an idiot than you already do" and came out with "No sé que decir" (I don't knwo what to say) I'm afraid my poor Spanish guardian is now under the impression I'm more likely to ask for a lollipop than advice on the up and coming issues in mercantile law.
As if the UAM day wasn't spicy enough I have added the game Hide and Don't Seek to the fun. Now I know that a good 80% of you play this game too. Maybe you've never heard of it, maybe you don't realise you do it but don't lie to yourselves when I describe it. Join me in coming clean, holding one hand up to Heaven and say loud and proud "I too have made a complete tit of myself in front of a perfect stranger on a night out and now cannot look them in the eye least I die of shame..."
That's a bit long; we'll cut it down to something we can put on a T-shirt...
Anyway, the perfect stranger is not important. What is important is that they may have witnessed an angry monologue about Spanish internet providers, accompanied by spirited use of a mojito to punctuate amoung other things and now I have to use a mirror to look around Law Fac corridors.
Thus it was that on exiting a classroom I espied the stanger to the starboard side and kept right on walking...
...right on walking into a caretakers closet.
What could I do? They were waiting for another class. The danger would be over in mere moments. All I had to do was sit tight at base camp and hope no one came to use the mop and bucket. Which of course Juan the Janitor did.
"Usted se encuentra perdida?" He asks. Are you lost? (Polite verb form and everything, what a gentleman)
"No, de todas formas no," I reply.
He looks concerned, And so am I because we have just come to the same conclusion at the same time via mental arithmetic. If I'm not lost I must have a reason to be hanging out in his store room, and I'm not letting this get extremely, horribly "Are you trying to seduce me Miss Devlin-y" out of hand.
"Ah ha, ta luego señor..."
Escape number two and somewhere up there Harry Houdini is wondering whether this could have been incorporated into his performances.
Next there was Philosophy of Law; Jurisprudence to we legal folk and usually I, if not kick ass, then serioudly prod bottom in this arena. First lecture, who comes up but Dworkin. Can´t pronounce that if you try to roll the r my foolhardy Latinos. They all look terrifed. Our teacher smiles
"¿Quereis que lo escribo?" she asks knwoingly.
No I don´t need you to write it. I´m all up in this bitch, as I once heard Samuel L Jackson and rather liked the sound of. I am ON the spelling of Richard Dworkins name.
Except the we had to "colocaros en filas para que no podeis copiar" get into alternating rows so you can't copy
Had she seen through my ingenius scheme of sitting behind a Spaniard with a laptop so narry a word was missed? Nope; we had a test. On an article I had not read for the very legitimate reason of having no fecking clue it existeed. And it was multiple choice. And one of the questions was "Who wrote Critics?" Oh the holy mortifying shame of it all.
The last straw that broke the camels back...or summat like that...was a friendly run in with the neighbours. I'm lying, of course, we may have inadvertently held the lift door open while getting up to speed with gossip. A simple mistake, but one that made our vecino climb four flights of stairs. We didn't realise this. I didn't realise this. Thus it came as a shock which made the San Francisco quake of '06 seem like a child's hiccup when she screamed;
"Que cerrais la jodida peurta!" Close the f**king door and then, on opening her door across the hall proceeded to inform her room mate that;
"Estas putas que viven aqui no saben ni siquiera cerrar una puerta! Coño, putas!"
This translates rather charmingly as "Those whores that live across the way don't even know how to close a door! F**king whores!"
If ever a moment called for my best Kenneth Williams style; "MADAM!" that was it. I believe the Carry On reference may have been wasted though.
Other than that, well I don't think I can top that. Now if you'll excuse me I must once again recline on my four poster surrounded by Cadbury's that I may have purchased purely to cheer self up. Best case scenario, glorious chocolate induced food coma. Worst? Well I could take the putas suggestion seriously and set up a brothel. The classy kind. Maybe set up a contract, none of this pay-as-you-come-and-go nonsense. No chintz nor red velvet. Blonde or dark wood? Some tasteful nude prints? Or famous movie sex scene stills!! Yes, this could wor...
I apologise, must leave to ponder an ...ah... unrelated matter. Opinions/advice on entrepeneurship in the sex industry are, as always, very welcome
xo
Wednesday 19 October 2011
Sunday 9 October 2011
Just Penelope Cruising
Somewhere, high in our dark flat tower, dwells a mysterious recorder player. I apologise. I've plagurised that line from either Victor Hugo or Disney without any real reason as the mysterious musician is no hunchback but what sounds like a small child desperately attempting to coax beautiful melodies forth. It ain't working. The pobrecito (poor wee one) is either playing the first two lines of Old MacDonald or the very first of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Apparently we need to wait until he gets those down before the big reveal. The suspense is killing me.
Speaking of miniature humans, in the very near future I may be teaching them to speak English. Given my quest for an artsy bookshop to while away the siesta hours encountered unanswerable questions as varied as "We're not currently looking for part time employees, could you rearrange your class timetable?" to "So what first interested you in gay erotica literature?" the next best thing seems to be to bite the bullet, conform to stereotype and pimp my services as a Cambridge educated native speaker.
There is a huge market for this sort of thing in Spain. English is the language of business and everyone, from the ladies in the salons who insist "No, no mira guapa, para los nails? Nails? Yes, good? Yungle rrrrred dahling, it is jur colour!" to sharply suited lawyers jabbering into their Blackberrys on the metro want to speak English.
Skeptical at first; my mind was quickly changed by a giddy vision. Spanish mamas and papas who wish to privately educate their little Maria's and Pepe's will no doubt have full fridges. That amazingly clever kind that dispenses ice for your drink! A TV so huge you almost feel you can high five Andy Dufresne when he escape from Shawshank. A pool with sun loungers and possibly a liquor cabinet for the Sangria! A chance to tak a little sun! And maybe a little light teaching when wee Pepe runs over with the Pimms pitcher again.
"Pimms Pepe, se llama Pimms! In life, a good Pimms is either being served or being consumed. Much as in life people are either giving or taking. Remember that Pepe, it is a parable of our times!" Because I enjoy dispensing unfathomable social commentary with my lesson plan.
Enough of that nonsense, I of course want to teach to enrich the cultural experience of children during this era of great globalisation. Also I believe I would get more out of reading "Charlotte's Web" with suitable voice acting than any two year old. Set it in Jamaica, dress up, make appropriate animal noises. Happy as a clam.
But until someone trusts me with the apple of their eye life goes on and goes on in the form of hotel hunting for relatives who will come to see I'm still alive and bring me delicious things. I know this because the questions "Do you need an adaptor? Sun cream? Spanish phrasebook?" were answered with "Bring me Cadbury's or bring not at all!" I would ask for Ribena but airport security will surely wrest it from their hand luggage in case it's laced with arsenic or a liquid explosive.
Set off into town humming the theme music of Driving Miss Daisy; armed with my abono and a screen print of a Google map covered in Xs. I had but one objective. If at all possible ensure my family are kept well away from prostitutes, sex shops, drug dealers and Carlos in Sol who keeps telling me the end is nigh. This is trickier than it sounds and so locating a hotel which didn't feature "local colour" took two hours, six metro stops, three prozzies and a strange shop conversation with an old Chinese woman about the curious alignment of lines on my hand and what it meant for my prospects of marriage. She couldn't find the "anillito" on the ring finger. "Nunca se casaras!" She looks devastated for me. "You will never marry!" To think I only went in for a Coke...
Ah wait! A fell melody is on the air...
"E I E I O"
There we are, it's Old Macdonald after all. I must go applaud and/or present this maestro with a bouquet of roses. It's only taken him two hours and thirty six minutes after all.
xo
Speaking of miniature humans, in the very near future I may be teaching them to speak English. Given my quest for an artsy bookshop to while away the siesta hours encountered unanswerable questions as varied as "We're not currently looking for part time employees, could you rearrange your class timetable?" to "So what first interested you in gay erotica literature?" the next best thing seems to be to bite the bullet, conform to stereotype and pimp my services as a Cambridge educated native speaker.
There is a huge market for this sort of thing in Spain. English is the language of business and everyone, from the ladies in the salons who insist "No, no mira guapa, para los nails? Nails? Yes, good? Yungle rrrrred dahling, it is jur colour!" to sharply suited lawyers jabbering into their Blackberrys on the metro want to speak English.
Skeptical at first; my mind was quickly changed by a giddy vision. Spanish mamas and papas who wish to privately educate their little Maria's and Pepe's will no doubt have full fridges. That amazingly clever kind that dispenses ice for your drink! A TV so huge you almost feel you can high five Andy Dufresne when he escape from Shawshank. A pool with sun loungers and possibly a liquor cabinet for the Sangria! A chance to tak a little sun! And maybe a little light teaching when wee Pepe runs over with the Pimms pitcher again.
"Pimms Pepe, se llama Pimms! In life, a good Pimms is either being served or being consumed. Much as in life people are either giving or taking. Remember that Pepe, it is a parable of our times!" Because I enjoy dispensing unfathomable social commentary with my lesson plan.
Enough of that nonsense, I of course want to teach to enrich the cultural experience of children during this era of great globalisation. Also I believe I would get more out of reading "Charlotte's Web" with suitable voice acting than any two year old. Set it in Jamaica, dress up, make appropriate animal noises. Happy as a clam.
But until someone trusts me with the apple of their eye life goes on and goes on in the form of hotel hunting for relatives who will come to see I'm still alive and bring me delicious things. I know this because the questions "Do you need an adaptor? Sun cream? Spanish phrasebook?" were answered with "Bring me Cadbury's or bring not at all!" I would ask for Ribena but airport security will surely wrest it from their hand luggage in case it's laced with arsenic or a liquid explosive.
Set off into town humming the theme music of Driving Miss Daisy; armed with my abono and a screen print of a Google map covered in Xs. I had but one objective. If at all possible ensure my family are kept well away from prostitutes, sex shops, drug dealers and Carlos in Sol who keeps telling me the end is nigh. This is trickier than it sounds and so locating a hotel which didn't feature "local colour" took two hours, six metro stops, three prozzies and a strange shop conversation with an old Chinese woman about the curious alignment of lines on my hand and what it meant for my prospects of marriage. She couldn't find the "anillito" on the ring finger. "Nunca se casaras!" She looks devastated for me. "You will never marry!" To think I only went in for a Coke...
Ah wait! A fell melody is on the air...
"E I E I O"
There we are, it's Old Macdonald after all. I must go applaud and/or present this maestro with a bouquet of roses. It's only taken him two hours and thirty six minutes after all.
xo
Wednesday 5 October 2011
The Metrocious State of Public Transport in Madrid
In a spirited attempt not to lurk in our hallway like the ghost of Wifi past I am writng this particular missive at the Autonomous University of Madrid, the good old UAM. In the cafeteria to be precise. Someone is yelling at Mercedes that no hay cuchillas. Mercedes don´t care about no cuchillas. No one does until Luis brings them forth from the dishwasher. I would make a joke about the forks being with him but my jokes are incomprehensible enough when everyone speaks English and yet another pair of Hispanic eyebrows knitted in confusion would only depress me. Maybe another time...
Most exciting news I´ve had all week comes in the form of my €30 abono transporte and another joke. This delightful little card allows me to flit in and out of the Metro and Cercanias train stations without feeding €1.50 into the machine every time I wish to educate myself or wander downtown. In the nick of time too, for I had begun to feel distinctly Scrooge McDuck whensoever I was forced to extract my purse from the depths of my bag and feed 5 cent coins one at a time into the slot praying I wouldn´t reach €1.45 before looking down to see nothing but a terrible emptiness; a symptom caused by the malady "Stoney Broke." Attempt to convey my joy to the Señora in the Tabac was to exclaim "Que abono! O mejor decir, que abueno!" This is an insanely clever pun which loses out somewhat in translation, as the best I can come to in English "What an Oytser card. Or better yet, a JOyster card!" The señora was not amused.
Ah, that leads us on to the title of today´s blog which, believe it or believe it not, has some bearing on current affairs. Using the abono for the first time was a thing of great beauty and may have resulted in some Mr Bean-like antics. I say may, I mean I know no other way to express my own bemusement than to chuckle to myself and talk to inanimate objects a la Rowan Atkinson at his finest.
Anyway, Metro times, and I had no sooner embarked on the journey to Nuevos Ministerios than a chuckle to my left caught my ear. A half shuffle brought two muchachos into view who not only had the all the giggling foolishness of two schoolboys craned solicitously over their first Playboy but also were of the false impression I spoke no Spanish. My eavesdropping presented me with this;
" ¡Mira la blancura de ella! " (I pinched that upside down exclamation mark from Wiki. I´ll explain that Spanish chirograhpical weirdness at a later date)
I had heard this before, "Look at how white she is!"
"Quizas se cayo en una tina de blaquera!" (Maybe she fell in a vat of bleach!)
"Quizas a Dios le olvido la tinta!" (Maybe God forgot the ink!)
I had no idea whether to be shocked or somewhat amused and to be honest at first no idea what they were saying but, after arriving at Uni and furiously flicking through a dictionary I have settled on the view that this is an outrage! Even back home in dear old Norn Iron, where we have the cultural diversity of a packet of Fox´s Custard Creams, it would be considered a socially unacceptable disgrace to take a seat on a bus by the Spains answer to the Chuckle Brothers and exclaim;
"A ha ha ha, looks like God forgot to take these two out of the oven. He´s gone and burnt them!"
Actually that´s not bad. Memo to self re blatant disregard for individual dignity, look up oven, to burn and colloquial gone and done smthg so next time will have scathing reply close to hand.
Yet more documentation was to be picked up at Uni and lo and behold I once again met my nemesis in the form of UAM´S Erasmus office.
"¿Ah, necesito coger mi tarjeta estudiante?" (I need to pick up my student car?)
"¿Eres estudiante de Wham?"
Was I a student of Wham? I had no idea what this cryptic question meant. Yes, I have been known to hum the odd verse of "Wake me up before you Go-Go" and "Last Christmas" is certainly worth a listen come Yuletide, but a student of the great musicians? I decided to communicate my confusion with clarity and precision.
"Ahhhhhhhhhh...."
"Wham! WHAM! Ooo, ah, emay! Wham!"
U.A.M. Or if you´re Spanish and the letter U barely exists on its own; Wham. Perfecto.
Let´s see, what else of note happened. There was the discovery that the "Wham" cafeteria boasts a large selection of alcoholic spirits, most of which you need to get through the average day. Finally purchased a mug from the Chino, for tea may be drunk from a cup but verily tay, the drink that was gifted to the Irish by the gods can be drunk from none other than a veritable bucket. There was the moment of sheer panic when singing along cheerfully to a recent hit went something like this, "Somebody call 911, Shady fire burning up the...wait, wait WAIT! We dont know the emergency services number of this accursed country!" and the horrible sinking feeling and progression of facial expressions never to be equaled when the train to campus starts to slide the wrong way out of the station and the destination reads "Buenas Aires"
Oy vay
xo
Most exciting news I´ve had all week comes in the form of my €30 abono transporte and another joke. This delightful little card allows me to flit in and out of the Metro and Cercanias train stations without feeding €1.50 into the machine every time I wish to educate myself or wander downtown. In the nick of time too, for I had begun to feel distinctly Scrooge McDuck whensoever I was forced to extract my purse from the depths of my bag and feed 5 cent coins one at a time into the slot praying I wouldn´t reach €1.45 before looking down to see nothing but a terrible emptiness; a symptom caused by the malady "Stoney Broke." Attempt to convey my joy to the Señora in the Tabac was to exclaim "Que abono! O mejor decir, que abueno!" This is an insanely clever pun which loses out somewhat in translation, as the best I can come to in English "What an Oytser card. Or better yet, a JOyster card!" The señora was not amused.
Ah, that leads us on to the title of today´s blog which, believe it or believe it not, has some bearing on current affairs. Using the abono for the first time was a thing of great beauty and may have resulted in some Mr Bean-like antics. I say may, I mean I know no other way to express my own bemusement than to chuckle to myself and talk to inanimate objects a la Rowan Atkinson at his finest.
Anyway, Metro times, and I had no sooner embarked on the journey to Nuevos Ministerios than a chuckle to my left caught my ear. A half shuffle brought two muchachos into view who not only had the all the giggling foolishness of two schoolboys craned solicitously over their first Playboy but also were of the false impression I spoke no Spanish. My eavesdropping presented me with this;
" ¡Mira la blancura de ella! " (I pinched that upside down exclamation mark from Wiki. I´ll explain that Spanish chirograhpical weirdness at a later date)
I had heard this before, "Look at how white she is!"
"Quizas se cayo en una tina de blaquera!" (Maybe she fell in a vat of bleach!)
"Quizas a Dios le olvido la tinta!" (Maybe God forgot the ink!)
I had no idea whether to be shocked or somewhat amused and to be honest at first no idea what they were saying but, after arriving at Uni and furiously flicking through a dictionary I have settled on the view that this is an outrage! Even back home in dear old Norn Iron, where we have the cultural diversity of a packet of Fox´s Custard Creams, it would be considered a socially unacceptable disgrace to take a seat on a bus by the Spains answer to the Chuckle Brothers and exclaim;
"A ha ha ha, looks like God forgot to take these two out of the oven. He´s gone and burnt them!"
Actually that´s not bad. Memo to self re blatant disregard for individual dignity, look up oven, to burn and colloquial gone and done smthg so next time will have scathing reply close to hand.
Yet more documentation was to be picked up at Uni and lo and behold I once again met my nemesis in the form of UAM´S Erasmus office.
"¿Ah, necesito coger mi tarjeta estudiante?" (I need to pick up my student car?)
"¿Eres estudiante de Wham?"
Was I a student of Wham? I had no idea what this cryptic question meant. Yes, I have been known to hum the odd verse of "Wake me up before you Go-Go" and "Last Christmas" is certainly worth a listen come Yuletide, but a student of the great musicians? I decided to communicate my confusion with clarity and precision.
"Ahhhhhhhhhh...."
"Wham! WHAM! Ooo, ah, emay! Wham!"
U.A.M. Or if you´re Spanish and the letter U barely exists on its own; Wham. Perfecto.
Let´s see, what else of note happened. There was the discovery that the "Wham" cafeteria boasts a large selection of alcoholic spirits, most of which you need to get through the average day. Finally purchased a mug from the Chino, for tea may be drunk from a cup but verily tay, the drink that was gifted to the Irish by the gods can be drunk from none other than a veritable bucket. There was the moment of sheer panic when singing along cheerfully to a recent hit went something like this, "Somebody call 911, Shady fire burning up the...wait, wait WAIT! We dont know the emergency services number of this accursed country!" and the horrible sinking feeling and progression of facial expressions never to be equaled when the train to campus starts to slide the wrong way out of the station and the destination reads "Buenas Aires"
Oy vay
xo
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