It's true. The baguettes at the Bread Oven are better than the widely available ones here (even if they are six times the price). And speaking of bread: today we finally figured out the Spanish word for chocolate croissants (an important part of a balanced Spanish diet) - napolitanas. I'd been getting pretty weird looks when I asked for "croissants con chocolate".
The $15 phone call
Sarah and I bought a prepaid phone yesterday without much difficulty, but had a really hard time reading the manual outlining the charges. Our apartment has no phone line at all, which is not, we hear, rare. Even local calls are expensive and charged by the minute. The rates on the cell phone varied widely - from a euro a minute during the day to nine or ten cents at night. I was excited to read that international calls from 8-12pm were only .18 a minute (about the same as our phone card), so I placed a call right away. After about ten minutes, it told me that my phone was out of money. It turns out that you have to designate your home country, and the USA isn't an option. Bummer. At least we only had 12 eur on the phone!
Terrorism in Spain
Terrorism is an even hotter topic here in Spain. I wrote before about the newpspapers' clear disgust for the war in Iraq. The recent ETA bombing and the protests that follow make the issue pretty relevant. A few days before we arrived in Madrid, there was a bombing at the airport that marked the end of the ceasefire treaty between the government of Spain and the basque seperatists. Coincidentally, the building that was bombed was at the terminal where we landed, and as we waited for our shuttle, we could see the clean-up operation. The bomb killed two people, leading me to believe that it was a fairly small incident. The wreckage was much greater. Our driver told us that there had been warning beforehand and that the area was evacuated. Two young men who were asleep in their car were the victims. The ruined area was huge, with mangled cars and concrete blocks everywhere. But everything was moving forward. The broken glass panels were replaced with boards. I was pretty impressed.
This weekend, we also saw the cameras set up for a huge anti-ETA march in downtown Madrid. I didn't catch much more than that, though.
Siesta
I think I've been a Spaniard all along, but just didn't realize it. The concept of a siesta is perfectly natural for us. I've heard before that a lot of shops close up for the siesta, but I didn't quite believe that it was still a big deal in modern Spain. But alas - during the afternon, almost every store closes to observe this extraordinary event. It's really weird to see every store closed up 0 even pharmacies. Sleeping is really awesome, and Sarah and I are catching on pretty quickly. The whole schedule is different here - after waking up fairly early and having a very light breakfast, we go to class, have a meal for lunch (which is normally the biggest meal of the day in Spain), and then go to sleep. The stores re-open around five, but we normally sleep until six or seven. Most people don't eat dinner until very late, and the night life doesn't really begin until 1 or 2am. We really dig the extra nap, though.
The $15 phone call
Sarah and I bought a prepaid phone yesterday without much difficulty, but had a really hard time reading the manual outlining the charges. Our apartment has no phone line at all, which is not, we hear, rare. Even local calls are expensive and charged by the minute. The rates on the cell phone varied widely - from a euro a minute during the day to nine or ten cents at night. I was excited to read that international calls from 8-12pm were only .18 a minute (about the same as our phone card), so I placed a call right away. After about ten minutes, it told me that my phone was out of money. It turns out that you have to designate your home country, and the USA isn't an option. Bummer. At least we only had 12 eur on the phone!
Terrorism in Spain
Terrorism is an even hotter topic here in Spain. I wrote before about the newpspapers' clear disgust for the war in Iraq. The recent ETA bombing and the protests that follow make the issue pretty relevant. A few days before we arrived in Madrid, there was a bombing at the airport that marked the end of the ceasefire treaty between the government of Spain and the basque seperatists. Coincidentally, the building that was bombed was at the terminal where we landed, and as we waited for our shuttle, we could see the clean-up operation. The bomb killed two people, leading me to believe that it was a fairly small incident. The wreckage was much greater. Our driver told us that there had been warning beforehand and that the area was evacuated. Two young men who were asleep in their car were the victims. The ruined area was huge, with mangled cars and concrete blocks everywhere. But everything was moving forward. The broken glass panels were replaced with boards. I was pretty impressed.
This weekend, we also saw the cameras set up for a huge anti-ETA march in downtown Madrid. I didn't catch much more than that, though.
Siesta
I think I've been a Spaniard all along, but just didn't realize it. The concept of a siesta is perfectly natural for us. I've heard before that a lot of shops close up for the siesta, but I didn't quite believe that it was still a big deal in modern Spain. But alas - during the afternon, almost every store closes to observe this extraordinary event. It's really weird to see every store closed up 0 even pharmacies. Sleeping is really awesome, and Sarah and I are catching on pretty quickly. The whole schedule is different here - after waking up fairly early and having a very light breakfast, we go to class, have a meal for lunch (which is normally the biggest meal of the day in Spain), and then go to sleep. The stores re-open around five, but we normally sleep until six or seven. Most people don't eat dinner until very late, and the night life doesn't really begin until 1 or 2am. We really dig the extra nap, though.
1 comment:
It looks suspiciously as if the baguette poking out of the bag has been nibbled--perhaphs that's why they're so cheap!
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