Soccer, napolitanas, & eggs

While G was fixing breakfast Saturday morning, he realized he needed eggs and bread, so he sent me to the grocery store a block away. We had stopped in briefly the day before, so I already knew some things which are different from in the US. In the refrigerated section there were shelves of yogurt and cheese and other familiar items as well as some that weren't. "Where's the milk?" G asked me. Hmm, not in the refrigerated section. He pointed across the aisle. There were several shelves containing a variety of boxes of milk-- all shelf stable, no fresh milk. But what really caught my attention was that right next to the milk were stacks of egg cartons, also not refrigerated. Anyway, so that morning I set off for the store through a light rain mixed with snow. Apparently most people shop daily or almost daily and because most stores are closed on Sunday, everybody and his cousin goes shopping on Saturday morning to stock up for the weekend. There are some grocery carts like every store has at home, although somewhat smaller, but most people were dragging around these cute little red plastic baskets that sit about an inch off the floor and have two wheels on one side. G told me later that you have to pay a euro to rent the regular grocery carts. It was a little odd to select a carton of unrefrigerated eggs and know that I would soon be eating them, but it was fun to stand in line with all the other people and watch them and try to understand what they were saying.

Fur abounds here. There are a few jackets, but mostly it's knee length or longer coats. On the way home the first day, G and I rounded a corner and almost ran into a woman in one pushing a baby carriage--not a stroller. It looked like something out of the '50s, but now I'm used to routinely seeing fur, usually on older women.

After breakfast, G showed me around town a little. We took the Metro closer in to the city center and he showed me where the school I'm going to attend is. (It's a different location than the one at which I met him Friday.) We walked past La Puerta de Alacalá and down the Paseo de Recoletas and saw what must be 10’s of 1,000’s of lights put up for the season. I’m going to have to get back there at night when they’re on; it must be spectacular. Madrid’s City Hall is far more imposing than Seattle’s, let me tell you. In front of it was a belén, an elaborate Nativity scene. G told me the figures are all hand carved. There was running water in a little “river” and an incredible amount of detail in the recreation of a whole section of the town of Bethlehem (Belén). Afterwards we walked over to the Plaza Mayor and it was full of booths selling moss, pieces of bark, and all kinds of figures to purchase to build your own belén. G took me to one booth and showed me a particular type of figure. It seems that some years ago someone carved a figure of a famous politician squatting to, umm, answer the call of nature, let’s say, and slipped the figure into a large belén in Andalucia. It took awhile before anyone noticed it, apparently, but now you can buy “Andalusian” figures in the same position everywhere.

From there we went to La Puerta del Sol, which was packed with people milling about. Looking up every street all you could see was a sea of umbrellas. We took pictures of each other at the Kilometro Cero marker and searched unsuccessfully for the main tourist information center. The height of the tour, though, was a chocolate napolitana at La Mallorquina. Mmmmm, I’m definitely going to find my way back there before I leave in order to repeat that experience!

That evening was the big soccer game between archrivals Real Madrid and Barcelona. Half a dozen friends collected in the living room for a lively viewing of the game. It was like a Super Bowl party, complete with beer and pizza, except that almost everyone smokes. Barcelona was supposed to win easily, probably by half time, but it was a close game until the last 10 minutes, so it was a little rowdy until then. What a fun Spanish experience! Of course, since it was only midnight when the game was over, they all went out afterwards, returning around 4 a.m.

Well, enough for now; more later.