Aventuras in Spain

One day in the autumn of 1980, when I was living in Talavera de la Reina I spent a morning in Madrid. Keen to learn more Spanish, I browsed around a shop selling just about every text book you could think of.  Amongst this array of books, one caught my eye. It was a teeny tiny, skinny minny paperback which looked completely innocuous. However, as I flicked through the pages the contents were enough to make my skinny minny brain puzzled and perplexed. The only subject of the book was the Spanish word, ‘se’.  Can’t be that bad, can it?  I can hear you mutter. And you’d be correct. He’s just a wee word is this ‘se’.   But, gollee wollee, he certainly does change the meaning of sentences. He evolves and revolves, slipping and sliding just like any elusive anti-hero we all love to hate. Let’s look at some uses of ‘se’. El niño se llama Juan.     (The boy calls himself Juan.  The boy is called Juan.) Ella se llama Ana . ...

My neighbour across the hall,  the Lady from Leon,  rushes over to  inspect my purchases from the Simago supermarket as I step out of the lift. My arms are yanked almost out of their sockets with heavy loads of potatoes, onions, apples, tomatoes, garlic, bottles of gaseosa , and even a rotisserie chicken. Her head disappeared into my net bags as she  poked and squeezed, examined everything carefully for freshness. With huge grunts and groans she then glanced up at me and announced,  “Why pay high prices at Simago for vegetables that aren’t even fresh?! Next week, you and I will go together to the market.  I’ll show you how to really shop.” I guessed she was right. The merchandise at the weekly market was indeed probably fresher, so I decided that I might as well agree to go with her.  The following week arrived and The Lady from Leon rang my doorbell.  Before we could even say an  'Hola' the lift unexpectedly arrived. Many ...

It's 1981 and I'm living in an apartment on the Calle del Prado, Talavera de la Reina. Based on what I can understand of discussions on the transistor radio about the assassination attempt on President Reagan, it sounds as if a Mr. Brady has a serious brain injury. I wonder who Mr. Brady is?  I get busy with tidying up and washing dishes, all the time wondering about the significance of the shootings. Why would anyone be shooting at the President and this Mr. Brady? I don't have an answer. If the people on the radio do, then they're talking just too rapidly for me to comprehend. Might as well get on with my day. I plan on going to my exercise class, something I really look forward to. In fact, I just bought a new leotard and tights and can't wait to wear them. On the way to the gym I always stop off for a few minutes at my Cuban friend's apartment located close by. She's a poet who smokes endlessly. Any time you see her she's puffing dramatically an...

I'm living here in Talavera de la Reina, on the Calle del Prado. There aren't many people who speak English, which is good. I want to improve my Spanish, and I want to get to know the Spaniards. I lived in Andalucia for four years and learned a lot. Later, I also studied Spanish at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia. I should be well-equipped to at least get by here in Talavera de la Reina. Right? Hmm.  Hope so. People talk of being immersed in a foreign language, of thinking, eating, drinking, even sleeping with the foreign language. That's how you learn. You need to become obsessed. You need to memorize vocabulary lists, and you need to write and re-write verb conjugations until you get them completely correct. Never, ever forget that accent mark. And, never, ever place an accent mark where it doesn't belong! That subjunctive? We all know of it. It's one of the hardest parts of Spanish grammar. How do we forge through it? I love the 'if...

It's 1980 and I'm living on the Calle del Prado, Talavera de la Reina. I seem to be constantly chastising my young son for leaving his room in a mess. " Pick up your toys and put them away." " Make your bed." " Put your books back on the shelf ." It's usually a rush to get him dressed and out the door in time for school. The school bus stops in front of the Simago supermarket across the road. Many times I just wear really casual clothes, figuring that I'll dress nicer later when I venture out to the gym or shops. I usually manage to brush my teeth and splash water on my face before venturing out, but that's about all. There's this other mother I meet every morning at the bus stop who is the exact opposite, even first thing in the morning.  She always looks as if she's going out to some fancy restaurant, or to a cocktail party. She tends to wear stiletto heels, a beautifully tailored suit with shoulder padding, and a f...

Summer in Talavera de la Reina was hot and dusty. The stench of body odour was putrid, so much so that each time I went to the Simago supermarket just across the road I'd use all my will-power to hold my breath long enough to prevent the ripe aromas from corrupting my nasal passages. There was no air conditioning in the apartment, and the only way to get cooler air was to open the windows, but that gave carte blanche to mosquitoes and flies, and who knows what else.     The local people used to bathe in the Tagus, the river that runs through Talavera, and ended up getting sick due to raw sewage that made its way from Toledo. Somehow, they didn't appreciate the significance of the contaminated water, so they'd keep splashing about in the river, even bringing small children with them. Their theory was that your body gets used to the water, builds up resistance to any germs lurking about. Hadn't they been swimming in the river for generations? And weren't they still ...

I'm a real fuss-pot when it comes to food. I don't like milk. I don't like butter. I don't like cream, and I don't like mushrooms. Nor do I like creamy cheese. You'd think therefore that Spanish food would have been appealing to me since it tends to be cooked with garlic and olive oil. It is appealing to me and I gobble it up without hesitation. That is, the food that I cook myself.     When it comes to restaurant food, that's another story.     One day I was having lunch Luria, the Spanish wife of a colleague of my husband's. I tend to order the same things over and over regardless of where the restaurant is, for I've figured out what dishes are free of the yucky things I don't like. Now that we were back living in Spain, it's my old favourites, filete de ternera a la milanesa and ensalada mixta that I ordered. I looked forward to squeezing the slice of lemon you always get. It's really a very happy meal, it seemed to me. Luria, on th...

Much as it was a wonderful opportunity to experience life in Talavera de la Reina and visit the surrounding villages, we found the people in this part of Spain an awfully serious bunch. There was no stomping of the feet, no clapping of the hands like what you found in Cadiz. There was no Andalucian humour and no loud shrieks of laughter were to be witnessed. would daydream about moving to the coast, to the Province of Tarragona. packed up to leave Talavera de la Reina for the coast.  After several months one year of living here my Spanish has improved remarkably. Well, that's what I think, anyhow. After one year of living here, in this arid part of Spain where very few foreigners reside, we are deliriously happy about moving to the Mediterranean. We hear wonderful things about Salou, Cambrils, and all the villages along the coast of Tarragona. Apparently the whole coastline is international. People from Sweden, Yugoslavia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United States, a...

It's 1980 and we have just moved to Talavera de la Reina, Spain. We're living in a long skinny apartment on the Calle del Prado, right downtown. Our neighbours are curious when we first move in. They stare politely at the boxes being unloaded and piled up in the lift, and smile shyly.  But, they keep their distance after a few days once they realise that we're harmless and won't disrupt the peace. Well, all except one. She's the Lady from Leon  whose apartment is directly opposite the lift. She knows everything that is going on, all the comings and goings of everyone on our floor. And every time she sees me she either wants to accompany me or find out where I was. She laughs a lot, talks a lot, then talks some more and giggles some more. She wears the old-fashioned clothes that women tend to wear here once they reach the age of 50. Sometimes it's difficult to get away from her, for every time I exit the lift she opens her apartment door and starts chatting....

Talavera de la Reina, 1981      I teach English privately to various groups of students in my apartment on the Calle del Prado. One student is a history teacher who, according to her, speaks the best Castilian Spanish.  Her Spanish is the real McCoy, absolutely. None of this Talaveran slang, and certainly no cutting off the ends of words as the Andalucians have a tendency to do. She's from Madrid, something she remarks upon every occasion she can get.       "I'm not from Talavera, you know. I'm from Madrid."  She moves her shoulders back and forth as if to emphasize this important point. She wants help with her English as the group she's in is more advanced, so we decide on meeting an extra time each week to do an exchange. She'll coach me with my Spanish and I'll help her with her English.        I quite like being told how to pronounce Castilian Spanish correctly. It's so much easier than reading rules and regulations fr...

1980, Talavera de la Reina I was teaching English privately in my apartment on the Calle del Prado. One little group was made up of two colleagues who were advanced students of English and who worked together at the Colgate company, just outside Talavera de la Reina. They were always punctual, and always very well dressed, complete with suit, tie and shiny shoes.  They were always very formal and respectful, even using 'usted' with me, despite the fact that we were  around the same age, in our early thirties. They had studied English extensively and were coming to me for conversation. Many times I'd use National Geographic as a way to get them to converse in English.  They thought the articles and photographs fascinating and the quality of the paper outstanding. Sometimes we just chatted about this and that. I always liked the challenge of guiding the conversation and then later of coming up with a spur of the moment dictation based on what we had just been talking ...

February, 1981, and we're living in Talavera de la Reina. I'm teaching English to two children whose parents own shops in the town. All of a sudden the doorbell goes and I find the parents standing in the doorway in shock, panic-stricken. "We've come to pick up our children, señora." "Yes, they need to come now. Right now.  Hurry up!" "Why? What's happened?" I'm surprised to see the parents for they never burst in like that in the middle of a lesson. "Shots. There were shots fired in the Parliament in Madrid." "Nobody knows what is going to happen!" They all leave just as fast as they had appeared. I wonder what they're talking about, what's going on? The one person who'll know is the portero. He knows everything about everything and about everyone. Even what he doesn't know he makes up. Still, he's a good person to talk to. Downstairs I go to look for the portero. He's panic-...

A favourite expression in Spain in the early 1980's is 'manana', tomorrow. Want to go to the movies? Sure, how about 'manana'. You call the plumber and he tells you that he'll come by, 'manana'. Or worse, he might say, 'pasado manana', the day after tomorrow! Why aren't you working? Oh, I will, 'manana'. When will I see you?  'Manana'. Time has different meanings here in Talavera de la Reina in 1980. Things don't begin on time, things don't end on time. Things somehow just happen, and continue to happen for as long as people want. Let's go to the Prado manana. Okay. What time?  En la tarde. In the afternoon. Yes, but at what time?  That's when you get the shrugging of the shoulders and the hand waving deftly in the air. What a silly question to be asking. What time?! Everyone hangs out at the Prado in Talavera de la Reina. There's a nice duck pond and lots of benches with old men sitting on them. They ...

It's 1980 and we're living in Talavera de la Reina at Calle del Prado,11. Our apartment is above a furniture store across the road from Simago, a large supermarket. Nice central location!  Early afternoon in our apartment building is full of smells, some not so bad, and others, well, they take a bit getting used to. Garlic, cheap cologne, black tobacco, sweat and even more garlic all whiff up your nostrils and explode in a gigantic kaleidoscope of olfactory dizziness. It's lunch time, and the occupants next door get ready for the main meal of the day. Our next door neighbours own a restaurant just down the road. By the way they entertain every  day one would think that their restaurant was actually inside their apartment!  Through open  windows you can  hear the lady of the house whisk eggs which she uses to fry up her special tortilla espanola. Pungent odours of fried garlic  mysterioiusly float through the air and settle  onto wi...