Mallorcan Mensajes: Capital

After much negative/concerned feedback that I received from last post, I would like to emphasize that I am very happy here. Obviously there are many aspects of my American life that I miss, but this is a new experience that is being taken in stride.

This past weekend was spent in Madrid. Being the capital city, Madrid is enormous and in two and a half days my group obviously just skimmed the surface of the vast sea of sights. We visited the Prado Museum, the congressional building, the royal gardens, the royal palace, the Museum of Reina Sofia and the “rastro” flea market. We also ate the best bocadillos de calamari (fried calamari sandwiches) in all of Madrid and had famous “churros con chocolate”. Obviously I like anything to do with food but it was also very cool to see paintings by Velázquez, Picasso, Miró, Dalí, El Greco, etc that I had only read about in books during my high school classes. We stayed in a very nice hotel (Hotel Liabeny) that was right in the center of the city (Plaza del Sol). We also had a good amount of free time at night to try different restaurants and thoroughly (and professionally) inspect the nightlife. The girls in my group like to bar hop for sangria, and by obligation I partake. However, I usually have a tapa (and maybe a cerveza or two) at each location rather than sangria. I don’t know what it is about Spanish food, but I’m constantly hungry. I might come home extremely overweight, but it’s all in the name of culture so I’m not too worried about it. Overall the trip was a very good time, but I couldn’t help but notice some peculiar cultural differences as we toured Spain’s noble past in a not so noble present.

Most interesting to me were the reminders of Spain’s rich history coexisting with the politics of today and the economic crisis associated with it. In the same five minutes a visitor can leave a tour of the royal palace, having seen priceless treasures and indescribably ornate grandeur, and walk past three beggars, palms skyward, looking for enough change to get them through the day. I guess this kind of juxtaposition exists in all cities, but never had I seen such an extreme level until this trip to Madrid. Porcelain walls, silk embroidered wallpaper, golden furniture-the list goes on- but what does it all mean when over 20% of the Spanish population is unemployed? I respect the countless man-hours (and woman-hours) that were spent in creating the art that is the royal palace, but I found it hard to accept its existence and its purpose at this point in time. Obviously it was built in an era of economic stability but I feel that it sends the wrong message to the Spanish people of today. Pride (orgullo) plays a large role in Spanish culture and I’m sure that any Spaniard would say that they are proud of their palace and their history. Fair enough, they should be, but I feel that places like the palace should instead serve as a reminder of what used to be and as a motivation to reach this level once again.

This said, it was interesting to me that even with the problems that Spain is having, after leaving our tour of the Congressional building, we each received a backpack containing a pair of fleece gloves, a hat and a scarf. I was overheard commenting (in Spanish) on this irony to our group leader by a a woman next to me, and she responded that the problems are not with Spain, but with Greece, Italy and Portugal. I don’t possess the Spanish language firepower to win an intellectual argument so I didn’t push the subject, but I was taken aback by how irrational this statement was. Every day on the news in the U.S. a different European country is blamed for market volatility so it's hard to follow exactly what's going on, but do people in Spain really deny that they’re a large part of the problem? Granted, Spanish culture possesses the “tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow” mentality of putting off work but there’s a sizable difference between being laid-back and irresponsible. Do all Spaniards let national and personal pride get in the way of their financial responsibility? No, but given this culture, Spain’s participation in the EU allows for justification of constant finger pointing. Personally, I don’t agree with the “I’ll do it tomorrow” culture that I’ve found here, but I can accept it. I can’t, however, agree with or accept that an entire population can be too proud to feel even partially responsible for such important and serious global economic turmoil. Regardless, I do not have data to back up my opinion and I’m not qualified to make further commentary on this subject (whether you want to hear it or not), but this is a significant cultural difference that I have personally seen here. Whether it’s true for the rest of the population here or not is certainly debatable.

Anyway, economic talk aside, in my “cultural encounters” class we’ve discussed some culture shocks at length and besides the “tomorrow” culture that I’ve referred to at length, there are a few others. Two that share the same theme as “tomorrow” culture are slow paced walking and constant tardiness. Spanish people are notoriously late and no one seems to walk with purpose. New York City has some of the fastest walkers around, and that’s because time is money. The opportunity cost of enjoying a leisurely stroll doesn’t outweigh the money that could be made if the time was spent working. Here in Spain, apparently this isn’t the case. I’m familiar with the term “island time” but this a nationwide phenomenon. As I travel more I’ll definitely report back. And for the record, I do enjoy the tranquility when I don't have anywhere to be.

I’ve been keeping up my regimen of swimming and biking/running almost every day and my knee has been feeling a lot better. Looking forward to hopefully feeling normal again by the time I get home. I’ve made some friends from England and we’ve been hanging out with international students (called ERASMUS kids: basically a government-paid study abroad program for Europeans) so it’s been very refreshing to branch out from my very small and very female CIEE group.

This weekend I’m off to Barcelona for a big concert called “Sensation”. It’s supposed to be unreal. Thousands and thousands of people in a stadium all wearing white. Definitely won’t be bringing my camera but there are plenty of YouTube videos showing the craziness that ensues. I’m flying out of Mallorca alone on Friday but I’m staying with a friend from Colby and a lot of my friends that are abroad in Europe will be there so it’ll be a nice reunion (if I can find them). Until next time.

Matt