Week 25

By Aaron

Lost in Translation: This Monday, I lost a glove.  I realized it on my way out of teaching a class at Torre Picasso, a large office building where many of my students work.  This building has a set of administrators in the lobby who issue security key cards to guests, and I asked if a glove had been returned to the desk.  No one had seen any stray gloves, and so I asked to return to the floor where I had just taught.  After an extensive search, I came up empty. I went back to the desk and reported my lack of success, then turned to leave. Just as I was resigning myself to walking around with a cold hand, a security guard near the door stopped me and said something very quickly.  I asked him to repeat, and he started to do so before saying "wait here" and walking across the room.  Moments later he approached carrying my glove!  While his garbled message was likely something to the effect of "I found your glove - you dropped it on the way in" I like to imagine it involved a lot more intrigue.  It's a mystery lost to time and my feeble Spanish ears.  All that said, this entire exchange was conducted in Spanish, and I felt fairly confident that I was getting the gist of almost every phrase!

Exploring the City: In an effort to do anything possible to further drag out the holiday festivities, Joni and I went to a performance of Circo de Hielo on January 15th.  I believe this is an annual tradition in Madrid, setup in a temporary space at the edge of the sprawling Casa de Campo. Imagine, if you will, something that resembles Cirque du Soleil...but with the thrilling addition of an ice skating component!  I was very nervous but also very entertained - until we progress enough to be able to take in more traditional theater, color me a budding circus fan. We witnessed a woman hang from the ceiling by her hair, a woman skate around on ice skate-stilts, a group of women carry sticks topped with spinning plates while figure skating, acrobats, and two strong men contort themselves into poses at angles I thought were only possible underwater. It amazes me what people can do.











We hit up another discount Wednesday movie, this time taking in the much heralded La Ciudad de las Estrellas. Or, as you may know it, La La Land.  American movies tend not to have literal translations, which often leads to comical new titles.  Joni learned this week that The Sound of Music in Spanish is called Smile and Tears.  Our Spanish is still not quite advanced to see a dubbed version of a film, so we opted for the original English version with Spanish subtitles (commonly represented with the acronym V.O.S.E. - versión original subtítulos español).  As was the case when we went to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the theater was packed for a midweek showing starting after 10 PM. These showings are simply so much cheaper that it is difficult to pass up, and for a couple of teachers without any extremely early classes we are certainly planning on more of these rather late movies.

Puerta de Toledo - which Joni walked by after work on the way to the movies

Memorable Meal: This past Sunday on our way home from Circo de Hielo, we stopped to pickup some fruit at our neighborhood fruit stand.  We are getting to know the men who run this place, and on this particularly empty evening at the store (close to 10:30 PM) we struck up a conversation.  This turned into about 25 minutes of an informal language exchange, discussing different places where the men have family all over the world.  Nearer to the end of our conversation, we were offered strawberries from the store.  We hadn't really eaten dinner that night, and this was definitely the most memorable moment of the week that involved food.  Voila!

En la clase: I began a new class this week with a student at Idealista.  If you recall from earlier posts, this is a company that specializes in helping people search for housing (a platform that fosters person-to-person interactions - think Craigslist but with more structure).  Idealista has office space on the fifth floor of a building about 20 minutes from our apartment, and the security protocol is way more relaxed than at Torre Picasso.  I arrived and told the lone door attendee that I was here to teach English, and he told me that the elevator was right behind me.  Puzzled that he didn't care to ask for ID, I thanked him and boarded the elevator.  When I arrived on the fifth floor, I entered through the only accessible door to find roughly 100 people spread out at computers in an open floor plan.  There was no clear secretary or point-of-entry for guests, so I asked the closest person where I could find my student.  He was very kind and told me to wait.  Which I did, for approximately half an hour, to eventually meet my student and discover he had been in a meeting.  I think this is going to be a good experience, and it's nice to be in a new environment that also feels familiar (Idealista shares the green and white color scheme with WCS, my beloved former employer in Washington D.C.).

Joni gave Ignacio, her 8 year-old student, another American treat this week.  The sweet of choice this time around was a classic peanut butter cookie, complete with embossed fork marks.  While the reaction was not nearly as euphoric, Ignacio was over the moon for the cookie and said that he preferred it to the no-bake peanut butter cookie he'd sampled last year.  Joni credited the predilection to the fact that classic homemade cookies just aren't a thing here.  I've had Spaniards tell me that one of their highlights of visiting the United States was trying Mrs. Fields' cookies.  Yes, that is one of the best things about the U.S.

Final Notes:

• While sitting on a park bench next to a statue of Miguel de Cervantes, a high school-aged girl approached me and asked about my backpack.  She said she had been looking at it on Amazon, and wondered if it was any good.  I love this bag and it's traversed the globe with me, so I unleashed a really good accounting of the many times the backpack had saved my life.  Actually, this was in Spanish, so I mainly told her it was really good and really hard (I meant to say 'tough' but I have no problem giving the bag some street cred).  Then she asked several questions about me and why I was here and THEN SHE COMPLEMENTED MY SPANISH.  It was undeserved, to be sure, but I was actually able to have an organically generated conversation entirely in Spanish and that felt real good.  The whole exchange was nice, if a bit bizarre.  Few people in the states would approach a stranger on such grounds, and to date I've not noticed anything missing from my possession (a valid concern, as I've heard many stories of pickpocketing).  Chalk one up for humanity - good people with honest inquiries exist!
  
• While the Sometimes Choir is on hiatus, Joni and I still have the pleasure of singing in church.  This past Sunday we performed the song "Will You Come And Follow Me?(The Summons)" as a prelude to the worship service at Community Church of Madrid.  It was wonderful to sing a duet accompanied by our fearless pianist/choral director Amy, and a good way to start out our week
• Finally, we'd be remiss not to mention that Joni's dad Jeff had surgery in Ohio on Tuesday.  It was a big part of our week and we were incredibly grateful for ready access to video chat.  The operation went smoothly, and our thoughts and prayers are with Jeff as he embarks on the road to recovery.