Nothing makes sense in Spain…and there might be terrorists living in my apartment building…

March 9, 2008 · Filed under Spanish Craziness · Tagged Spain, food, Basque culture

So this morning we awoke to a troop of swat-type police patrolling the block in front of our apartment building. There were red police vans parked along the street and about 7 policemen patrolling the sidewalk, complete with bullet proof vests, black ski masks, red motorcycle type helmets, and huge guns! We still have no idea what was going on, but later when we went out for a run (I know, ME going out for a run…but I have actually started running…proud, aren’t you?) there were a bunch of other people (not SWAT type, just regular civilian clothes but also wearing the BLACK SKI MASKS carrying out arm loads of stuff from someone’s apartment, including a computer and some other electronics. They even politely asked us to hold the door for them. It was really strange, and we can’t figure out why the police would need to wear bank-robber ski masks. So, now I have no idea what is going on. To add to the madness, two days ago was the assassination of a retired Socialist councilman from the northern Basque area (my area) allegedly by the ETA (a Basque freedom group that is really vocal about wanting independence from Spain, we have seen some protests here as well). So, who knows – you never know what you will wake up to find in Spain.

On a totally unrelated subject, I ate Mexican food here for the first time, and let me tell you Spanish Mexican food is not so good. We started our meal by receiving the standard “chips and salsa” although really we got about 10 chips on a tiny plate with a small bowl of heated-up tomato paste. We ordered some appetizer that turned out to be halves of potatoes with different toppings like veggies or huge chunks of melted cheese. Then the main course (we thought it was enchiladas, because that is what we ordered) ended up being a soupy lasagna-type dish: one layer of shredded chicken, one layer of mashed sweet green tomatoes, and a thick layer of baked melted white cheese. Enchiladas? I don’t think so. Still it was tasty, and I suppose that you just have to learn to roll with the punches…the funny thing is this happens all the time, especially with food. We are constantly ordering something, thinking it will be one thing, and receiving something entirely different. For example, a friend tried to order a hotdog and ended up with a plate of unidentified meat, lettuce with yellowish dressing that resembled pee, and cheese croquets! Another friend ordered a Sandwich with Calamari on it one night and liked it so much she tried to order the same thing again, and wound up with a bowl of calamari soaked in it’s own ink sauce! I accidentally ordered pumpkin-fish soup the other day (which is actually quite good) but I thought it was goulash. You just never know what you’re gonna get. But sometimes it works out for the best…we stumbled upon the most amazing dessert called Goshua (we think, now we can’t find any recipes for it) that is made in the Basque region with a layer or thick whip cream, a thin layer of sponge cake, a layer of thicker pudding creme, and some carmelized sugar on top. It was to die for…so, you know, maybe it’s okay to order without knowing what you get!

And then sometimes…you will try to find a way to say exactly what you want to say in Spain, and as I was told by my Spanish teacher, “sometimes your words just don’t exist.” The thing is, they are words that need to exist! For example, after spending 10 minutes describing a sticker (it is something that goes on your clothes, kids love them, they could be gold stars for doing something good, they have little pictures on the front, and sticky glue-stuff on the back, etc) I found out that there is NOT a word for sticker, and I could use “pegamento” – directly translated, this means “little gluey thing” – if I needed to use this word! That doesn’t seem to be a good substitute if you ask me.

In other Spanish randomness, a roommate also bought pillowcases that are open on both ends…so the pillow can fall right through. If anyone has a good idea what use that would be, let me know…

We also tried to iron a shirt the other day (only one setting on the iron and no additional knobs to turn) and it made the shirt so crisp that it broke – literally cracked along a crease and just ripped straight through…good if you are going for the rugged gangster look, not so good for a white button down.

Our oven has 6 knobs (two of them don’t turn, including the one that changes the temperature on our oven) and none of them have any writing on them. So we tend to cook whole pizzas in about 3 minutes.

Hmmm…that might be all the Spanish oddities you can handle for now. Trust me, there are many more coming. Most of the random cultural difference are easy to adjust to, some are very frustrating, some don’t make any sense at all, and a great percentage of the time we just burst into laughter and say “well, nothing makes sense in Spain!”