Life in Spain

Lost in Translation

In the apartment where I´m staying in Spain, the door is virtually
impossible to unlock on the first try with any sort of ease. So one day,
I finally entered the apartment after being frustrated by the lock for a
good 10 - 15 minutes and I saw my host brother in the kitchen. I felt
comfortable with him at this point and I wanted to express my disdain for
the lock so I decided to tell him that, ´That door is a bitch.´ because
this is the expression that I would use for a similar situation at home.
So I translated to Spanish and said to him, ´La puerta es una puta!´
Judging by the way his jaw dropped to the floor, I immediately understood
that ´puta´ was a little bit too strong of a word to use. I´m not sure
exactly how this expression translates to English, but i´m guessing that
what I said is not very close to ´That door is a bitch.´ Instead, it is
probably closer to something like, ´That door is a motherfucking whore.´



Eres un Asshole

I’ve also found that swearing really has no effect in any language that isn’t native to you. ‘Puta’ is probably the harshest Spanish word, but to me it really doesn’t sound any worse than ‘gato’ (cat). That’s why, even when talking in spanish, I’ll still swear in English. So, if I’m watching the Running of the Bulls on TV with my host family and some guy gets trampled or takes a horn through the chest, I don’t say, ‘Mierda!’ I say, ‘Oh Shit, Son!!’ For example, here’s an actual transcript of a conversation I had with a woman in Granada after she chased me down, gave me some stupid fern, read my fortune and wanted money….

Jesse (pulling out change): ‘Solo tengo $.75’ (I only have $0.75)

Woman: ‘No, cuesta $2.’ (No it costs $2)

Jesse: ‘No tengo nada mas.’ (I don’t have anything else.)

Woman (Grabbing my arm): ‘Lo siento, pero cuesta $2’ (I’m sorry, but it costs $2)

Jesse (Snatching arm away and storming off): ‘Pues, lo siento tambien, pero no tengo nada mas, bitch!!’ (Well, I’m sorry too, but I don’t have anything else, bitch!!)



And a Side of Calamari also....

Everyone loves having a good dream and I’m no exception. But through the years, I’ve noticed that with the majority of dreams, there is usually a seemingly plausible situation juxtaposed with something really strange and implausible. Something like, ‘I had a dream that I was playing a game of baseball with my childhood friends.’ Plausible. ‘….but for some reason, we were in Saudi Arabia, and Mike Piazza was the catcher.’ Implausible.

A perfect example of this happened to me one night in Spain. In the dream, I was at my hometown Wendy’s and I got into a shouting match with some guy who had jumped ahead of a bunch of people in line, which is something that could conceivably happen. But as I woke up and thought about the dream, I remembered that when the guy jumped the line, he ordered catfish. Catfish!! Even in my barely conscious state, I thought to myself, ‘Now I know I’ve been out of the states for a while, but I’m still pretty certain that I can’t walk into Wendy’s and order the ‘Catfish Combo.’

On an additonal note, during the dream I actually remember saying to the guy,
‘Whatever, you’re an asshole anyway…. *5 second pause* … And by the way, who orders catfish at Wendy’s???’
I guess that even in my unconscious state, I still knew something was up.



Metallica? AC/DC? Nahhhhh

The most popular music station in Spain is called Europa FM and generally plays an assortment of soft rock, which reminds of a little story from back home…
I have begun to notice a phenomenon that occurs with me when listening to
music. I tend to associate different music with different things, which
is normal, but I have made one particularly strange connection between a
type of music and an activity. I associate soft rock…. and heavy weight lifting.
See this occurred a long time ago when I used to lift everyday at the
YMCA during my senior year of high school. LiteRock 92.9 would always be blasting on
the radio, so my mind developed this inextricable link between soft rock
and working out. I’m still affected by this today because now I have an
iPod and I just feel like I’m not getting the most out of my workout
without the mellifluous sounds of soft rock being constantly streamed
into my head.
I’ll tell you one thing though. The clash of soft rock and the adrenaline-fueled
bad-ass attitude of the weight room definitely leads to some atypical
conversations….

Spotter: “You ready to max out on this bench press bro?”

Jesse(adjusting iPod): “Yeah man. Let me just throw on ‘Big Yellow Taxi’
and then I’ll pound this shit out.”



No Douchebags Allowed

Speaking of the gym, every now and then I’ll go through my closet, find a shirt that I don’t wear very often, cut the sleeves off, and just use it as a shirt to work out in. And more often than not, these were shirts that I had accumulated from my old alma mater, Freeport high school, during my years of playing sports. So, one of the first few days in Spain, our university gave us all shirts. I knew that I wouldn’t wear it too often, and it therefore became a ‘gym shirt’ candidate. But luckily for me, right before I snipped the sleeves off, I came to the realization that some shirts just weren’t destined to be made into a sleeveless gym shirt.
A Freeport Basketball team shirt? Fine.
A Freeport weightlifting club shirt? Even better.
But a sleeveless University of Alcala Spanish Studies shirt??? Somehow I don’t think that would garner too much respect in the weight room.



Is the ToothFairy real too????

I´ve seen some great things while traveling in Spain, but the one thing that left me more in awe than anything wasn´t a skyscraper, castle, or cathedral. The thing that mesmerized me the most was actually a bird, but not just any bird, a stork!
Let me share a conversation…

Jesse (Looking at the sky): ´Jesus! Look at the size of that bird!´

Alisa: ´Oh my god! Its huge´

Jesse (Fighting off the urge to say 'That's what she said.'): I´ve never seen anything like it. It must have like a 20 foot wing span.

Somebody: Oh, you guys haven’t seen the storks yet?

Jesse: ´Whoa. I thought that storks were made up? You mean to tell me that they actually exist??´

Alisa: Í guess so???´

I couldn´t take my eyes off of these giant birds and I quickly understood why the myth of the storks delivering babies makes perfect sense. You think a raven is carrying a baby halfway across the world?? Hell no! But a stork, shit they could carry grown men around without breaking a sweat.



This was a common scene in Medieval Spain.



’Are the Batteries included?’

Having already discovered that Spain is very sexually open, I was not surprised to notice a plethora of sex shops in downtown Madrid. In fact, most of them are simply called, ´SexShop´ and all the signs on the doors are in English. I find this a bit unnerving. I mean, if a store name and all the things on the store are in English, wouldn´t one assume that they´re trying to attract tourists? But my question is, do American tourists really go to sex shops while traveling in Madrid?? I wouldn´t think so. But in reality, I hope that tourists do go to the sex shops because I bet you would overhear some funny conversation in the streets…
´What first hunny? The Palacio Real, the Plaza Mayor?´
´Yeah that´d be cool, but before we do anything, I need to run to the SexShop and pick up a french tickler.´



’We have a Scuba team on the case right now???’

So, the first day I got here, I met a girl who flew from Philly, to London, and then to Madrid and she was pretty upset because the airline lost her luggage. This is nothing out of the ordinary, but I was talking to her for a while and she informed of some interesting protocol that the airline follows when they lose a suitcase. First, if they don´t find your suitcase within a week, they give you 100 Euros, but if they can´t find it after 2 weeks, they claim it as ´lost,´ you never get it back and they give you 200 more Euros for your trouble. What the hell is that??? My real question is, ´How are they not able to find a suitcase? It´s either at the airport in Madrid, London, Philly, or still on the plane. I mean, there´s nowhere else that it can be, right?? It´s not like there´s a secret hatch on the airplane that randomly opens up mid-flight and drops luggage over the North-Atlantic.



I’d Like to Buy a Vowel

So, I was watching Spanish Wheel of Fortune the other day and the contestant chose Q as his first consonant. I laughed to myself and thought, ‘What a dumbass. Who picks Q first?’ But then, after the Spanish Vanna Blanca uncovered about 4 Q’s, I quickly remembered that every other word in the Spanish language is ‘que.’ This made me realize how much the different language affects everything, and got me thinking about whether or not other cultures and languages have Wheel of Fortune. Like, would it even work in Chinese? Or what about one of those languages that only has like 12 letters, like Hawaiian?? I imagine that Hawaiian Wheel of Fortune would be pretty lame…
‘Um… I’ll take an L.’
‘Okay… and there are 13 L’s….’


They do classify as 'Things' I suppose.



The Most Handsome Woman I’ve Ever Seen

Have you ever seen somebody out on the streets that you look at and honestly cannot tell whether or not they are a guy or girl? I always thought it was funny whenever I come across people like this because I inevitably end up trying to reason out the sex of the person with my friends. This very thing happened in Madrid whenever I noticed two people making out in the Metro station and it led to this conversation….

Jesse: ´Whoa, Alisa. Check it out. Lesbians!´

Alisa: Ýeah just what I want to see…´

Jesse (looking closer): Wait, actually. I´m not sure about that. Is that one a guy or a girl?´

Alisa: Hmm Í was wondering the same thing. I think it´s a girl, but if it is, she´s pretty muscular.´

Jesse: Í don’t know though. I think it might be a dude. Look at that haircut.´

Alisa: ´This is true. And very broad shoulders.´

Jesse (watching them walk away) Well… maybe it is a girl. Those look like some big, child-bearing hips?´

Alisa: True….

This continued for a little while longer, and I really started to feel bad for this person and the bad hand that they were dealt in life. I mean, honestly, when you have people standing around debating your sex, you know that you´re pretty much scraping the bottom of the attractiveness barrel. And believe me, I know that I´m no Tom Brady myself, but at least when people look at me, they know I´m a dude.
(Oh yeah. Upon further thought, I really don´t feel bad for this person at all considering that I´m the single one and they´re the one making out at the train station in the middle of the day.)


Remember to put on your PJ’s

Something else that I thought was a myth before coming to Spain was the concept of the ‘siesta.’ I just never thought that in a developed country, people would actually leave work for 2 hours to go home and take a nap. But it’s true, if you go to a store between 2PM and 4PM, the door is locked and everybody is at home sleeping. This is such a strange phenomenon to me and I just don’t think that the siesta would go over very well in the USA. I mean, can you imagine walking into a Pittsburgh steel mill and overhearing a bricklayer say something like this…
‘Alright, we need to rebuild the blast furnace today guys. But, if we we work fast, we should be able to finish this shit up right before naptime.’



‘I’m sorry, but you’re just not McDonalds material’

One thing that immediately jumped out at me in Barcelona was the confluence of multiple languages that were heard in the streets. In fact, since tourism is such a big industry there, it’s not uncommon for the natives to speak many different languages. This became evident when I went to the Barcelona McDonalds and noticed that the guy working the register spoke 4 different languages. At first, I thought, ‘Isn’t this guy a little bit too highly qualified to be working at a McDonalds?’ But after thinking about it, I’d be willing to bet that it was probably written right into his job application..

‘EMPLOYEE MUST BE FLUENT IN CATALAN, FRENCH, SPANISH, AND ENGLISH.’

Let’s just say that’s it’s a far cry from McDonalds application of the US where there is only one requirement..

‘EMPLOYEE MUST BE A HUMAN BEING.’


McDonald's USA is even more desperate than I thought.



‘Somebody get that letter opener out of her hands!!’

I recently went to Hallmark with a friend of mine who was trying to find a Birthday card for her mother who was turning 50 that month. I expected to see cards with paintings of flowers and poems about growing wise on the road of life, or some bullshit like that. But instead, I was just appalled by how insulting and rude the cards were. I swear, they were all like,

‘You’re 50 now, your hair is turning gray, deep wrinkles cover your face, and your days of beauty are far behind you…’ and as you open the card to the middle… ‘‘but at least it will all be over soon! Happy Birthday!!!’

What’s the deal with that? Did Jack Kevorkian just get hired as a writer for Hallmark or what?? Last time I checked, a greeting card is supposed to make somebody feel good, not make them want to slit their wrists.

(And yes, I realize that this joke has absolutely nothing to do with Spain. I just happened to write it while I was here)




- Originally written July 2007