Mad at Madrid

Not unlike porn the first time I saw Madrid, I fell in love with it.  This was just last September when I spent a couple of days in Spain's capital from Barcelona as my friend Lucy and I were on our way to Salamanca.   I fell in love with it because of the subtle differences Madrid has with Barcelona.  For instance where Barcelona is cleaner, well-run, and is on the cutting-edge of modern architecture,  Madrid is sruffier,  untidy, and it still has buildings from the turn of the century and the golden age of Art Deco.  Barcelona is all about the cool and the trendy while Madrid,  the classic and the old-fashioned.  It is a distinction which an old soul like me understood straightaway.

I've been to Madrid several times now -- it's only a two and a half-hour bus or train ride from Salamanca -- so much so that I'm known in my class as the guy who's there all the time. Whenever I'm asked what I did during the weekend, inevitably I would answer that I was there. The two times I was absent,  the reason I gave was that I was in, yes, Madrid.   To be fair, I was back  there for good reasons and not just to to see the damn place, I met up with two friends on two separate weekends and I took my Mac there for repairs.   

And so I found myself in Madrid last weekend with Sakinah.  Yes, her.   Let me clarify for the record  though that we're just friends.   I have feelings for her, sure, but I...well...I guess someday I'd let her know.    Anyway, two events transpired on Saturday morning which totally changed the way I feel about Madrid.  

The first was when we were boarding the train on the subway on our way to see the football stadium Santiago Bernabéu and the home of Real Madrid.   Sakinah got into the train first.  I was following her when these two girls got infront of me and blocked my way to get to where Sakinah was further inside the train.   I tried to get around them but three other girls had already surrounded me from behind and therefore all five kept me in a close circle.   Fucking bitches.  You think I don't know when my wallet or backpack are about to be stolen or slashed? I come from the Philippines!   And so I took the two girls infront of me and pushed them aside. I said to Sakinah, "What the fuck is it with these people?"  She shook her head and we moved to the other side of the train.  I kept looking at the two girls I pushed aside but they were engaged in casual conversation and not looking at me at all which was unusual because I just, you know, manhandled them.   At the next stop all five girls got off the train.

The second nefarious occurrence happened when we got to Santiago Bernabéu. I was waiting for Sakinah to finish buying Real Madrid souvenirs when this middle-aged and portly Middle Eastern fellow approached me.   He looked very much like a tourist making a pilgrimage to the stadium -- he even had a digital camera around his neck.   

"Excuse me," he said, "do you know the nearest Bank of ______?"  (The name of the country where Sakinah is from)

"No I don't," I said, "but are you from there?"

"Yes, I work there.  Say, do you have a euro bill?  I've never seen one before."

"Not on me right now," I said.

"Oh my friend, don't worry I won't rob you.  It's just that I've never seen one.  I was hoping you could show me one of yours."

"I keep my wallet inside my bag because some girls tried to rob just now but if you're from ________,  my friend is from there too."

"I see," he said nonchantly, "look, I'm here with my wife and I just want to see a euro bill.  Here,  let me show you my wallet to prove to you that I'm not a robber."

He shows me his wallet and it's thick with 50 euro bills.   But I thought that the fucking asshole hadn't seen a euro bill before.

"I just want to see a small euro bill,"  he continued.

Just then Sakinah has finished buying souvenirs and joins me.  

"Hey, this guy is from _______ too,"  I told her.

"Oh really, which part of  ________ are you from?"  she asked.

"I'm really from Pakistan.  I just work there,"  the bastard said and then turned to me again, "so do you have a small euro bill?"

"Why are you asking a euro bill from him?"  

"Because I haven't seen one yet."

"No, he doesn't have one," Sakinah said curtly and we both turn away from him.

I hear the guy say as we leave, "So you don't have one?"

"Jesus," I said to Sakinah, "what is wrong with this city?  In one morning, people have tried to steal from me twice."

"They're just stupid," she said, "stupid," repeating her favorite word for people who annoy her, for emphasis.

So there, I have no idea why this last trip to Madrid yielded those two incidents.  Maybe it's a case of racial profiling.  If you're Asian and you're wearing an expensive jacket that will identify as a mark to these thieving bastards.   You know, someone who comes from an Asian country not used to such demonstrations of petty criminality.  I remember now my Japanese friends here at the dorm who told me that they won't soon go back to Madrid because they almost got robbed too when they were there.   I know.  I know.  No city is perfect.   Crime is to be expected in places where tourism is one of the main industries.   It's just a little disappointing that my opinion of Madrid could turn on a dime because of a few filching assholes who are probably visitors  very much like myself. 

Pepé Le Shit

So at lunch the other day, I joined a table with two American girls studying at a Catholic university in Queens, New York -- Rebecca and Karen and a Portuguese guy named Pepé.   The girls are in a program which offers them the opportunity to study some of their subjects in Paris and Rome and a third European country of their choosing but this had to be either Spain and Ireland. They spend five weeks in each of the countries and are taking up Ethics in Salamanca. Pepé's taking up medicine and it's his first year.   He's got a nerdish vibe about him which is further accentuated by his black frame glasses.   What I find really odd about him though is that he's got a Russian accent when he speaks English.  I get a kick out of hearing him because he sounds exactly like Chekov in Star Trek or the Russian and Yugoslavian prostitutes I like to patronize -- oh, sorry, TMI.

The three were already in the middle of their meals when I joined them.  Pepé was pointing at a water pitcher and asking the girls what it was called in English.

"I don't know," Karen said, "a vase?  No.  It's called a pitcher."

"Peetchur?" Pepé said, trying on the word.

"Yeah, it's also the word for the guy who throws the ball in baseball."

The baseball reference only served to confuse Pepé more but he asked only because he wanted to tell us something interesting about Portugal.

"Beck in my kawntree, we hev, how doo yoo sey, wood to dreenk like this," and he cupped both his hands.

"Oh," Rebecca said, "you mean a bowl."

"No, wuhdd,"  he clarified and he drank imaginary water from his cupped hands again.

"You mean,"  I piped in, "it's a bowl made of wood.  A wooden bowl?"

"Yez,"  Pepé said.

Wow.  That's brilliant stuff about Portugal, my friend.   Portugal was once the mightiest nation on earth due to its advances in seafaring technology and all you can think of to tell us is that you still have people drinking from wooden bowls.

"Hey," Rebecca then said to me, "I was just telling Karen to subscribe to podcasts too.  Like we were talking the other day how much I love them?  You've gotta listen to the Sarah Silverman podcast.  It is soooo funny."

"Well, I would but I don't have iTunes installed in my computer,"  Karen told us.

"Hey, did you guys hear about what happened to Russell Brand?  He quit his BBC podcast because of an on-air prank that went so wrong," I said.

Then Pepé just had to interrupt us, "What is thees theeng you arrr toukking abawht? I do naht undderstann."

Rebecca was the most courageous of the three of us to try take a stab at explaining podcasts to him:   "Podcasts are recorded shows on all kinds of topics.  Name a topic and there's bound to be a podcast about it.  You download them to your computer and then listen them on an iPod."

Pepé stared at Rebecca for a few seconds and decided to change the topic and talk about something related to computers since, I guess, he thought that podcasting was bit too esoteric for his taste.  

"Ah, cohmpyuterz.  Deed yuu knoow thet yuu kehn bahy cheeep theengs on duh Eenterneht?  Layhkk a MacBoookk woohd cozht yuu fayhv hanndrehd yurrroz? Dehrr iz ah zayht I knoow."

Karen and I look at him and are incredulous at the fact that he thinks we don't know about goddamn eBay.   Rebecca doesn't give up on him though and just says that she normally doesn't make any purchases online because she's afraid of fraud or, worse, identity theft.   God bless her.

And so we ate in silence until the two girls talked about the upcoming election in the States. Rebecca said she's going to stay up all night on Tuesday to keep track of the results.

"This election though,"  Rebecca explained, "it's gotten everyone emotional.   The country is divided right now.  There is no middle ground.  You are either for Obama or McCain."

I asked her, "So, it's not true that there are a lot of undecideds at this point?  That maybe when the pollsters ask the question, people just say that they're undecided  but actually have someone in mind?"

Karen was about to reply but Pepé beat her to it.

"Deed yuu knoow thet therr iz a pahrtee forr berrdz?" (Did you know that there is a party for birds?)

The three of us turned our heads to look at his smiling, nay, beaming face.

"A party for what?"  Rebecca asked.

"Berrdz," and he flapped his arms like wings to illustrate.

"Birds?" Rebecca said.  Karen was just looking at Pepé in silence.

"Yezz.  Deh pahrtee prowtekk deh berrdz fohr peepoll knott tuh zeee dehm flahyeeng,  iiihtting, enhd hehving zehkz."  (The party protects the birds for people not to see them flying, eating, and having sex)

"That's weird," Rebecca commented.

At that point, Karen must have had enough of Pepé's maniacal desire to whimsically control the direction of the discussion and got up to leave and said that she still had some packing to do for a trip to Barcelona tonight.  I took this as my chance to leave too.  We left Rebecca alone with Pepé but I think she'll be okay.   After her next stop in Rome, she'll head out to Ethiopia as she volunteered to teach English to kids there.   I figured that Pepé would provide her ample training for this.