Madrid Adventurer

The end of the term has arrived, and between all the running around and cleaning out and packing up I wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the effects my Spanish adventure has had on me.

I’ve gotten used to creative parking jobs, public urination, packed dirt instead of grass and Spanish fashion trends.

I’ve come to take public transportation and small cars for granted.

I’ve learned how to be more spontaneous. I can say yes to a last-minute invitation. I can go with the flow when the plan changes.

I’ve learned how to be unpunctual, how to walk slowly and without direction, and how to take up the entire sidewalk by myself.

I’ve learned how to be present in the moment. I can enjoy doing nothing rather than feeling the need to go here, do that, be efficient, be productive all the time.

After ten months, I finally appreciate the sun. Given some 50 SPF, a pair of sunglasses and the occasional tree for shade, I can glory in the light and warmth of the sunbeam with the best of them.

I’m addicted to café con leche and sick to death of queso manchego, jamón serrano and tortilla española.

And perhaps what I find most impressive: I’ve learned to work to live. Although my work is important and satisfying, it is not my basis for self-identity or worth. In a way I suppose it’s made me a little mal-adjusted to work life in the U.S., but I have faith I’ll be able to find work at home that doesn’t require me to sacrifice personality to professionalism, with people who understand that work is not more important than taking care of self, friends and family.

But don’t think that my adventure is over yet. Next year I head to Munich to experience a completely different European culture and to learn a whole new language. And after that, who knows? I can teach English as a foreign language anywhere; the whole world is wide open and waiting.

Some Spaniards wonder why Americans, Britons and Germans go crazy when they come to Spain, but I don’t.To begin with, foreigners in Spain are leaving a known culture behind and coming to an unknown culture. The rules of the former culture don’t apply, and the rules of the new culture aren’t yet understood.

A prime example of this is public urination, which would totally not be okay in the U.S. but which parents of young children in Spain actually seem to encourage. We also don’t usually go to the bar for breakfast or stay out all night drinking. We don’t pick our noses in public. I don’t mean to make judgments about these behaviors; I’m just saying that they’re very different from what I’m used to in my home country.

A foreigner’s ignorance of Spanish cultural norms already predispositions them to throw the notion of all unspoken rules out the window.

And on top of that, we foreigners see Spaniards boldly flaut their own written laws without consequence. They drive backwards, at top speed, the wrong way down a one-way street. They double-park and create parking spaces that don’t exist. They drink in plazas and parks though it’s technically illegal, and they smoke in clubs and train stations where smoking is forbidden. I’ve even seen people smoking and drinking on the trains themselves, and not a single Spaniard speaks up and tells them to stop.

So of course foreigners get the impression that anything goes here. Of course we free ourselves from preconceived notions of right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable.

I’m not saying I think it’s right for foreigners to come to Spain and disrespect the country or its people. I’m not suggesting that we should be allowed to get rip-roaring drunk and riot in the streets. I’m only suggesting that it’s understandable that strangers in a strange land, and especially in Spain, would behave in ways they probably wouldn’t behave in their own countries. That we would be confused about appropriate behavior and would be more likely to let our hair down in unusual ways.

I’ve become completely fascinated with the normal use of madrileño Spanish in everyday life and the surprising ways in which it differs from textbook Spanish and from direct English-to-Spanish translation.

The other day I realized, for example, that Spaniards yell “Arriba, arriba!” during football matches, where English speakers would be yelling “Go, go!” Totally makes more sense when you think of Speedy Gonzalez shouting “Go, go!” instead of “Up, up!”

My newest observation is all the different ways madrileños use the word “ya” in their daily lives. It seems to be one of their favorite words, next to “joder,” “vaya,” and “venga.”

In Spanish class you learn that “ya” means “already” or “anymore.” This is true, but “ya” can mean several other things as well.

“Ya” is used instead of “okay” in specific circumstances. When you ring someone’s doorbell and they buzz you into their building, “ya” is used instead of “okay” to communicate successful entry.

“Ya” can be used as an alternate form of “yes.” I’m not sure exactly how this use came about; perhaps from watching American TV and movies? Regardless, you can cut someone off by agreeing with “ya” just as you might use “yeah” or “uh huh” in English.

“Ya” is sometimes used as “soon.” “Ya hablaremos” is a phrase I hear quite often at the end of a goodbye ritual. It translates to “we’ll speak soon.”

Finally, “ya” or “ya está” means “that’s it.” For example, you’re giving your order at a restaurant and when you come to the end of the order you can say “y ya.” Or you’re at your local mercado, ordering fruit or dried goods or some such, and the person helping you will say, “algo más?” and you’ve come to the end of your list, so you say, “ya está.”

Pues, ya está.

One of the things I appreciate most about Spanish culture is that they don’t define themselves by their work nearly to the extent that Americans do. In the U.S., other people’s perceptions of your worth as a human being are largely based on what kind of work you do.

While social status is most often defined in the U.S. by economic status, there are a few jobs that are respectable even though they don’t pay well, such as university professor. Similarly, there are jobs that pay well but don’t automatically come with social status, such as a private businessman. Ideally, you want to have a job that carries both social status and loads of money, such as a doctor, lawyer or actor. This is the American dream: to be rich and famous.

Not so in Madrid. The madrileño only wants to get a government job, doing whatever, because government employees earn a decent salary (on the high end for entry level but without much growth potential) and get to leave work at 2:30 or 3pm every day. This is the madrileño dream: to earn enough money to buy a house and support a family, and to have enough free time to enjoy said house and family.

Which brings me to point number two: while Americans live to work, madrileños work to live. Love that.

But what does that mean? It means that their employers don’t expect work to come first before everything else. It means that madrileños can pick up their kids from school and don’t take their work home with them. It means they’re rarely if ever asked to work later than usual or come in on holidays or weekends. Of course it’s important to them to keep their jobs, but their employers understand that family and friends are number one.

It’s true that the majority of madrileños work long hours, 8 or 9am-6 or 7pm with an hour lunch, but they spend a lot of their time at work socializing with colleagues and standing around the coffee machine not even pretending to be busy. (Some of my students will be upset with me for saying that, but in my experience it’s true.)

On top of that, they have things like summer hours (the work day ends at 2:30 or 3pm) and almost two months of paid vacation on top of the scads of national holidays, many of them Thursdays, they have off.

And then there’s puente, which is the day between the holiday and the weekend that you get to take off just because it seems silly to come to work for one day. And in some workplaces, employees get to leave work early the day before the national holiday, so they end up having quite a lot of four and a half day weekends throughout the year.

The only down side to all this is that the pay rates for most jobs in Madrid are dismal. You’re lucky if you’re a professional taking home €1000 a month. Lawyers, I’ve heard, actually start at something like €300 a month and don’t have nearly the earning potential they do in the States.

One more big difference I’ve noticed between madrileño work culture and U.S. work culture is that being professional doesn’t mean checking your personality at the door. Depending on their job, it’s common for madrileños to come to work in jeans and sneakers. They make jokes and talk about their family lives with their clients. They have piercings and tattoos in visible places. The customer isn’t always right. They don’t have to act like robots in order to get the job done. I really wish the U.S. were more like that.

What makes a Spaniard tick? Recently I asked a couple groups of my students this question, and basically it comes down to the three f’s: family, friends and food. (I would’ve add a fourth f, fun, but most Spaniards’ idea of fun is spending time with family and friends and eating lots of food, so it seemed pretty redundant.)

The Spanish dream, as near as I can figure, seems to be to work as little as possible, make enough money to buy a house and travel a bit…oh, and raise one or more babies with a chosen partner. Weekends are spent going to weddings, family functions, reunions of old groups of friends, reunions of newer groups of friends, and playing/watching football.

Speaking of babies, recently I found out that the stork myth about where babies come from is fairly universal. But did you know that, according to Spaniards, the storks come from Paris? Yes, you need to write a letter to Paris to order your baby. When I heard that I just about wet myself laughing.

It should also be mentioned that Madrileños are die-hard sun worshippers. Give them a sunny day and everyone is out in the street, on the benches, in the parks, at the outdoor tables of bars and cafeterías. Give them a cloudy sky or couple drops of rain on the weekend and they’ll whip out their umbrellas and bitch about the lousy weekend weather all week.

One more cultural observation: Spanish people don’t really seem to consider beer an alcoholic beverage. True that their national beers, what everyone has on tap, has a relatively low alcohol content. But I’m not sure that justifies the downing of a couple jarras during the lunch hour or the fact that beer is listed along with coffee and soda under refreshments rather than under alcoholic beverages on many menus.

Let me give you a little glimpse of what it’s like to teach English in Madrid.

I only get up early (6am) three days a week. On the other days I usually sleep in until 10 or 11am.

I only work four days a week, which is pretty normal in this business. Most English teachers keep their Fridays free for travel or just general mucking about. You have no idea how quickly the weeks go by when you have three-day weekends every week.

I spend more time on lesson planning than many teachers, and it’s what gives me a good reputation with my students and agencies. Even so, I only spend about 15 minutes planning each class, and much of that planning gets done during the commute and in the breaks between classes.

The standard rule in the business is that a cancellation with less than 24 hours notice results in full payment for the class. Many times my morning classes are cancelled the day before, which means I get paid to sleep in, and sometimes my lunchtime class is cancelled the day of, which means I get paid to take an extra long nap or watch TV online.

Every so often my 6pm classes will request a conversation class at the bar, which means I get paid to drink beer and just chat. And the students almost always pay for my beer.

It’s strange the kinds of things that begin to seem normal after a few months in a foreign country. If you had told me a year ago that I would get paid to sleep in and drink beer, I would’ve called you crazy. I feel absolutely spoiled to death here, working hardly at all but making pretty decent money (by Madrid standards).

But it’s not all beer and naps. The work days are long: I don’t get home until 8:30 or 9pm. You don’t get health insurance or paid holidays. You commute a hell of a lot.

Overall, though, I gotta say that this job rocks.

The elderly madrileño is at least a head shorter than his grandson. He wears slacks or corduroys, a collared shirt, a cardigan and a wool poorboy cap. Sometimes he sports a cane as well. His hair is snowy white, kept cut respectably short.

He spends several hours of his day in the park outside his building, sitting on benches, smoking cigarettes or cigars and arguing politics with men who remember when he was young. Sometimes he plays chess or cards. He appreciates young women and is sure to tell them that they’re pretty when they happen to cross his path.

The elderly madrileña has short hair, usually dyed a shade of red. She is several inches shorter than her granddaughter. She wears housedresses and aprons at home, skirts and orthopedic shoes and all her jewelry in public.

She spends half her day at the market, buying groceries for the day’s meals and gossiping with the neighborhood women. The other half of the day she spends at home, cleaning and cooking.

They take walks together in the evenings and invite their children and grandchildren over for meals. They often pick the grandchildren up from school and spend time feeding and coddling them until the parents return from work in the evening.

They thrive on respectable appearances and gossip, take pride and joy in their children and grandchildren, and live far longer than anyone who smokes black tobacco and eats loads of fried food should.

He keeps his hair cropped short and wears new, dark jeans that have been ironed, brown loafers, and a button-up shirt in pink or a grid pattern.

He reads a metro paper or a book when on the train, sometimes fishing a paper out of the garbage if necessary.

He’s the traditional gentleman: opens doors for women, helps mothers get their strollers on and off the metro, gives up his seat for anyone who looks like they might want it, lights other people’s cigarettes.

She dyes her hair blonde, wears lots of black eye make-up and super-tight jeans with pointy heels.

She always carries at least two bags, a purse and a shopping bag. The purse contains her valuables and is clutched to her chest at all times, and the shopping bag contains things she might need throughout the day such as a newspaper or book, an extra scarf, a snack, etc.

They both take fastidious care of their appearances, spend the weekends with their families, have been in a relationship with the same partner for several years and are on the verge of buying (or have just bought) their first flat.

They are long and lean with dark hair and intense eyes. They are a head taller than their parents and almost twice as tall as their grandparents.

He sports a mullet, mohawk or fauxhawk, she an 80’s fright wig. He uses lots of gel in his hair, and she wears loads of black eye make-up.

They wear coordinated outfits in bright colors: the mustard yellow of her ballet flats and handbag is repeated in the wide horizontal stripe on his polo shirt and the Nike swoosh on his sneakers.

They swagger and swear and break all the rules, smoking joints in the underground and doing botellón in the public squares.

They can’t take their eyes or hands off each other. When standing their arms encircle each other’s waists, when sitting she drapes a leg over his or he lays his head in her lap.

Loud, smacking kisses will give away the location of a young couple every time.

It’s taken me months to begin to crack the surface of madrileño slang, so I thought I’d share a few discoveries with my readers. For those who have studied Spanish but have never been to Spain, there are a few choice phrases which you probably haven’t learned but will hear often in Madrid.

Qué tal–how are you? At first I thought people were asking me “what’s up?” but the correct response to “qué tal?” is the same you would give had they asked you, “cómo estás?” Qué tal can also be used to ask how a specific event or period of time went. Examples: Qué tal estás? [How are you?] Qué tal el fin de semana? [How was your weekend?] Qué tal la fiesta? [How was the party?]

Pasarselo bien/mal–to have a good/bad time. Often used in wishing someone a good weekend or asking if someone had a good time. Example: Pásatelo bien! [Have a good time!] Te lo pasaste bien el fin de semana? [Did you have fun this weekend?]

Y tal–and so on, and all that. Spaniards use it quite frequently when telling a story about something that happened to them. Example: Estábamos en el bar tomando una caña y tal, y entró mi ex-novio. [We were at the bar, having a beer and so on, when my ex-boyfriend came in.]

Tío–man, guy, homie, dude. In the dictionary tío means uncle. But in everyday use in Madrid it’s slang for man or guy. Similarly, tía is slang for girl or chick. Examples: Qué tal, tío? [How you doing, man?] Había una tía raro frente de la casa. [There was this strange girl in front of the house.]

Chaval–guy, dude. A friendlier version of tío. I’ve heard it used between workmates to signify manly affection for one another. Example: Hola, chaval! Qué tal estas? [Hey, man! How you doing?]

No hay de que–you’re welcome, no problem at all. Can be said in lieu of “de nada.” I think it literally means something like “there’s no reason for you to thank me.”

Ligar–to pick up, hit on, hook up. Useful when posting an ad for a language exchange or if your mission for the evening is to get laid. Example: No me interesa ligar. [I’m not interested in hooking up.]

Tocar los huevos–to give someone a hard time. Literally it means “to touch someone’s testicles.” In the command form it can be used to tell someone to leave you alone. Examples: Me está tocando los huevos. [He’s giving me a hard time.] No me toques los huevos! [Get off my back!]

Venga, hasta luego, chao!–This is the typical three-part saying when ending a conversation either in person or on the phone. Literally it means “come on, see you later, goodbye!” but for some reason madrileños feel the need to stretch out their goodbyes. The venga let’s people know you’re about to terminate the conversation (like in English I think we say “well, I gotta go”), the hasta luego conveys continued friendliness, and the chao is the actual goodbye.