madre

Our apartment is interior, which in Spanish architectural conventions means that its windows open to an interior rectangular patio surrounded by other apartments. In the summer, when our patio neighbors' windows are open, you can hear the life of dozens of the homes of this working-class barrio--telenovela stars monologuing, talk show hosts screaming at each other through the static of ancient radios, children laughing, babies wailing, cats meowing from windowsills, a lapdog downstairs expressing its impotent rage, the construction workers on the ground floor singing while they hammer and drill.

We 're right near a corner of the patio, and just caddy-corner from the apartment of a woman in her fifties. She's South American, by her accent, although she's been here long enough that her grown children speak with the lisps and smooth cadence of Madrid. Her window to the patio is in her kitchen, so around meal times, we get a full blast of her volatile emotional life. The family is in the living room behind her as she prepares lunch, chopping garlic and onions with furious whacks of her knives on the cutting board. She throws down pots and pans and slams shut cabinet doors, all the while screaming at her family in the next room. They don't come see her enough, they don't care enough about her, they say mean things to her and never take to her advice. She's a good woman and a good mother, goddammit, and they should be better children.

The kids respond the same way every meal: we're always here, Mom, we call every day, we eat nearly every meal with you. But there's no calming her once she's in her stride.

After the meal, she's back in the kitchen to do the dishes. Apparently the heat of the stove, or possibly that of her fervor, has become unbearable, because at this point she often whips off her shirt and does the washing up bare-chested, her naked top half in full view of anyone who cares to look into the patio. Free from her elastic bonds, she really lets loose, bellowing out the window about her terrible children, about how her shows are all jumping the shark; the bills, the rent, the government, the nagging phone calls from various parties--nothing in her world is safe from her braless recriminations.

Dishes done, she retires into the more soundproof recesses of her flat (presumably after donning her discarded shirt) and we enjoy a few hours of the relative quiet of jackhammers and yapping yorkies.

marsella

Spanish summer--hot, lazy, and blissfully relaxed. We didn't manage to find any work after the first week of June, so Levi and I have been bumming around, living off the savings and taking it very easy in our neighborhood. We allowed ourselves one luxury, a three-day trip to Marseilles, a gorgeous city on the Mediterranean coast of France.

A photo I took in 2010 of the city's central harbor

Levi participates in several online photography forums, and through one of them had connected with a French photographer from Marseille. A few months back, he and his wife came to Madrid for a long weekend, and we met up with them. They invited us to come visit, even offering a place to stay. I'd been through Marseilles for a couple of days on a backpacking trip when I first came to Europe in 2010, but Levi had never visited anywhere in that region. It's the most photogenic city I can imagine, a street photographer's dream. So we found a cheap flight and planned a trip for July.

The house across the way from ours, from the terrace

We arrive, assuming Mathieu and his wife Yolande would offer us a bedroom and some sightseeing advice. In fact, when he picks us up from the airport, Mathieu tells us that his neighbors were away on vacation and that we would be staying in their empty house. It's a two-story row house in a beautiful neighborhood outside of the city center. It was built by Napoloean's troops during his urbanization efforts in the previously rural area. There's a balcony and a jacuzzi tub and an espresso machine and a cuddly black cat. It's a far cushier vacation spot than we could have hoped for.

After a shower and some coffee, Mathieu, who is enjoying the unencumbered summer afforded to teachers, drives us on a tour of his Marseilles. He came here from Vietnam as a small child, and aside from some time in Paris, has lived in the city his whole life. His children, now grown up and moved out, were raised here. He knows the place better than any guide book that exists. He takes us outside of the touristy (albeit stunning) center an into the surprisingly old-fashioned fishing villages on the outskirts.

One of the swankier of the harbor villages; that restaurant in the background is said to be one of the best in the region

Marseilles in a collection of villages that have been gradually incorporated as the city grew, but have managed to maintain their unique identities and small-town feels. The ones on the coast are tiny clusters of tiny houses built around harbors crammed with fishing boats. Some are humble to the point of reminding me of Thailand with their corrugated metal roofs and clearly homemade boats, and some are plus little hideaways with mini pleasure cruisers and restaurants offering €70 bowls of bouillabaisse. Mathieu tells us that even the most modest of the houses in these villages would go for millions, were they ever to be sold, but the owners almost exclusively hand them down to family. It used to be that waterfront property was a simple fisherman's occupational necessity, but now it's a coveted spot for the glamorous, corrugated metal and all.

Mathieu and his wife invite us to their house that night for a little dinner party. I don't understand a word of French, but thankfully there are English and Spanish speakers in the group, and we have a lovely time. French rosé, champagne, eggplant souffle, stuffed tomatoes, fresh salad and cream pastries...Yolande is an incredible cook; I think I could probably live and die at this table.

Another shot from 2010, city center

The next day, Mathieu has photography plans for Levi. He's taking him to the development lab where he has his high-quality prints made for expos. Levi's thrilled but it's not likely to be entertaining to me, so Mathieu hands me off to Genevieve, an old friend of his we met at dinner the night before. She's a retired teacher and a huge Marseilles history buff. She leads me on a two hour walking tour around the city's central port, pointing out important buildings and recounting their histories.

She knows construction dates, architects, and anecdotes. She shows me the area where the Greeks built their agora when they settled here 2600 years ago, the Roman-constructed port, and the Napoleonic fortress. We stop for fresh-squeezed orange juice at a cafe in a modern-art structure overlooking the sea.

We meet up with Mathieu, Yolande, and Levi at a Vietnamese restaurant in the neighborhood, then get ice cream at a place that makes it by hand from fresh fruit. We end the day with dinner in Mathieu and Yolande's back yard.

Levi and I at the calanques in Cassis

On our final day, Mathieu brings us out to Cassis, a ritzy coastal town near Marseilles on the calanques, a series of rocky coves that offer gorgeous beach and boating space on the Mediterranean. The place is the archetypal Riviera town: touristy, overpriced, over crowded, but undeniably beautiful. We walk around for a couple hours and have a picnic in a park before heading back to Marseilles.

Levi in the ritzy tourist hub of Cassis (this one's mine, as evidenced by the questionable framing)

That night Mattieu brings us to his favorite pizza truck. Marseilles, with its large Italian immigrant population, claims to be the home of the world's first pizza trucks. The pizza in Spain can't be called anything better than edible, so when we caught whiff of the Napoli pizza trucks that dot the city, we decided we could have one non-French meal. We bring several and brought them back to the home of Mathieu and Yolande's daughter Emma and her boyfriend Xavier. We spend the evening eating far too much of this delicious pizza (tasted like home) and drinking wine.

Eating a slice while we wait for the whole pizzas..couldn't resist

It was a perfect getaway. It's a fantastic city and, more importantly, Mathieu and his family and friends showed us unsurpassable hospitality. Lovely weekend.


Photos, unless otherwise stated, are courtesy of my talented novio Levi Shand. See more of his work at levishand.com

conflict

People in Madrid are plenty nice--they certainly don´t have the reputation of Parisians or New Yorkers for rudeness and aggression--but if they´re unhappy with you, they will make it damn clear. I´ve told the story of the furious upbraiding of a whole train car for refusing to give up a seat to an old woman, and over the past few weeks I´ve witnessed several interactions that confirm my initial impression that Madrileños are not to be fucked with.

On the subway home from work one afternoon, a middle-aged guy and his elderly father got onto the train. The father is decked out in all the trappings of the tourist--an open map, walking shoes, and a camera case strapped (rather unwisely, I thought) around his waist. The train was a bit crowded and they found themselves pushed up next to a couple a grungy-looking types, two guys in torn jeans and dirty t-shirts. The father was looking at his map, but the son, suspicious of the neighbors from the start, kept watch over the situation out of the corner of his eye. A couple of stops down the line, an unwelcome hand is on the camera case, and the son is screaming. ´´Get your filthy hand away from my father´s camera! Thief! Thief! There´s a thief on the metro!´´ The guy´s face gives him away--he clearly had designs on the camera-- and his friend is throwing him under the bus, putting space between them, pretending to be absorbed in his iPhone. The son´s still yelling. ´´Where the hell is security? Someone call security! Thief!´´ He´s shoving the would-be perpetrator against the wall when other travelers finally get involved, entreating him to relax before this gets ugly. When he and his father disembark, he stands at the open doors of the car, yelling to everyone getting on ´´Watch your things, there´s a thief on this train!´´ while the failed criminals disappear into the crowd.

I teach private classes in a fancy neighborhood full of fur coats and BMWs where people literally look down their noses at you. There´s a little shop near the metro I take home and I duck in for some snacks. A woman in full mink walking on a mahogany cane enters the store, carrying a large, open bag of sunflower seeds. She plops it down on the counter and says politely, ´´I would like to return this.´´ The shop attendant, a girl about my age, looks confused. ´´But you opened it.´´ ´´Well yes, how else would I know if I like them? They´re not as good as the ones I usually buy and I want to exchange them.´´ The shop girl, clearly not endowed with immense patience, explains in no uncertain terms that this is patently ridiculous. The lady can´t believe what she´s hearing--her manners rapidly erode as she spirals into a ever-louder rampage on the deterioration of customer service in this country. They both look at me, each expecting me to support her case, so I run away.

Sometimes it´s obnoxious and absurd, but there is a certain admirable boldness in it. So many people here are perfectly willing to cause a scene, no matter how large or small the issue. I prefer to go about my day in peace, generally not screaming at anyone... but I must admit I enjoy the show.

granada

Levi and I hadn't been on a trip for a while, so when a coworker offered to drive us to Granada, a city in Andalucía where she regularly visits her boyfriend, we jumped at the opportunity. Granada was a stronghold of Arabic war until 1492, when the crown defeated the last Emir in Spain, bringing the whole country under Catholic Spanish rule. It's therefore a great architectural mix of Arabic and medieval Spanish. The Alhambra, the Arabic palace, still reigns over the city from a hill in the center. It's incredibly well-maintained and absolutely gorgeous. Great tapas, great weather, great walking through steep labyrinthian streets. I actually brought out the camera this time, so I'll let the pictures do the talking.

The view from our balcony. We reserved a place for 30 euros a night, but upon arrival were informed that the heater had exploded, seriously damaging the apartment...Luckily, the owner had a friend who rents rooms and had one free. It was a serious upgrade.

The Alhambra from our terrace.

Levi relaxing on the terrace in the morning.

Typical street in Albaycín, the old central neighborhood where we stayed. Alhambra peeking out.

Zafra!

Couldn't get enough of the views of the Alhambra.

View in Sacromonte, the Gyspy quarter of the city.

Bad photo, but beautiful archway. In the Alhambra.

Levi squinting in the Andalusian sun. In the Alhambra.

In the Alhambra.

Central patio, Alhambra.

Patio, Alhambra.

Palace gardens, Alhambra.

View from the fortress of the Alhambra.

In the fortress, the oldest part of the Alhambra.

Best view in the city. The Alhambra, foress, and Sierra Nevada in the distance. From the San Nicolás lookout.

Wonderful weekend.

jóven

The elementary school where I teach is a bilingual school, meaning the students study English for several hours a week and also study two subjects in English, in our case Science and Art. This means I'm a Science teacher several times a week for my second-graders, which I love.

We're studying plant life, and today I had them drawing a flower and labeling its different parts. They're all working quietly when Ainhoa, a sassy, too-smart-for-her-own-good type, beckons me to her desk. She asks me, "Teacher, why do I have to learn these things? If I need to know about a flower I can just look it up online."

I froze.

This kid was born in 2006. She's never known a world without Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, or Twitter. She learned to google when she learned to read. She was barely forming sentences when the first iPhone came out. For her, all the information in the world is, and always has been, readily available whenever she needed it.

And as she stared up at my with critical, demanding eyes, I had to admit she had a point. Why does she need to know about the reproductive organs of a rose? I forgot all that immediately after high school and have never suffered as a result. In fact, when we started this unit in the book, I had to refresh my memory on the various parts of a flower.

I googled it.

But of course, the flower isn't the point. It doesn't really matter that Ainhoa remembers where the stamen is, or what function the sepals perform. The point is that she starts developing an understanding of the world around her, hopefully igniting an interest and a curiosity that will lead her to an intellectually fulfilling life. I don't want to fill her head with the loose facts she might encounter in a Google search; I want to teach her how to examine things thoughtfully and critically.

I offered her a kid-friendly version of this explanation, and it sufficed to turn her back to her drawing, but I don't think she really bought it. Maybe someday when she's a biologist hard at work in her lab, she'll think back on this day and realize that I was right, but until then she's probably just going to WhatsApp her friends about what a pain in the ass her teacher is.

civil

It's a general rule on the Madrid metro (and on most public transport in the world, from what I've seen) that young, healthy people should give up their seats to people who need it more. Usually, when anyone over sixty gets on the train, a couple people jump up and offer their seat. On the more crowded lines at rush hour, however, getting a seat is such a miracle that people are hesitant to surrender it, regardless of the age or physical well-being of incoming passengers.

A few days ago I'm standing, squeezed shoulder to shoulder on a downtown-bound subway train when an elderly woman with a walker climbs onboard. She looks around hopefully at the lucky ones in the seats, all of whom appear suddenly to have very important things to do on their cell phones or in the bottoms of their purses.

A guy leaning against a wall offers this second-best position to the lady, and after helping her get secure enough to withstand the jerky stop-and-go motion, he turns on the sitters.

"Look at all of these shameless jerks, bowing their heads like they don't see her," he practically spits at the crowd, who are now addressing truly urgent iPhone crises and launching search expeditions in murky depths of their handbags. "It's disgusting, it really is. All a bunch of assholes. People these days have no manners. Fuck."

Thoroughly shamed, most of them choose to hold their ground at this point, apparently deciding that they'd come too far to turn back, but one guy (possibly because he doesn't have a smartphone to hide behind) stands up and, blushing, offers up his seat. The lady thanks him profusely, clearly a touch embarrassed by her uninvited knight in shining armor. Our hero, however, can only triumphantly mutter, "finally."

parada

The elementary school where I work four days a week is in Perales del Rio, a tiny bedroom community outside of a suburb of Madrid. If I were to hop in a car, it would take me about fifteen minutes to get from my downtown apartment to my school. Since I don't have a car, I spend a little under an hour in commute each way in a foot-subway-bus combo. At first it seemed awful, but I got used to it and eventually came to actually enjoy it. It's a good opportunity to get some reading in,and occasionally I cross paths with some interesting people.

As I approached the bus stop in Perales the other day, a woman of seventy or so, looking rather agitated, began throwing questions at me before I had even stopped walking. She´d been waiting for this damned bus for nearly half an hour, she said, and was losing patience.  She supported herself unsteadily on a garled wooden cane and was missing several teeth. Her clothes were neat but simple. I told her the bus would arrive in about ten minutes.

´I remember when this area was nothing but open field,´ she says, gesturing to the little village, whose architecture and young trees indicate no more than twenty years. ´The city was smaller then.´ She says the same thing has happened to downtown Madrid, where she has spent her entire life. ´There was a public hospital on Atocha Street, right by my house.´ She´s wistful. ´Now they´ve moved it to the middle of nowhere.´ Everything in Madrid´s city center has been slowly migrating into the peripheral areas, she laments. ´I´d never leave downtown if it were up to me. But a good friend lives way out here and doesn´t like to come into the city. I didn´t have kids because I didn´t want to complicate my life, and now my friends complicate it for me. But it´s nice to see old friends.´

It´s not all reminiscing, though. Although she remembers the city as smaller, maybe more quaint, she spent her youth under an oppressive dictatorship. ´I saw people starving. Dying of hunger in the streets. Sick and dying.´ Spain´s fascist regime, which lasted forty years and fell only upon the death of leader Francisco Franco in 1975, was initially intensely isolationist, cutting off international trade and further stifiling an economy already ravaged by civil war. In the latter half of Franco´s reign, the economy grew, but this growth was enjoyed largely by the upper classes. ´You weren´t yet in the world, honey, but believe me, it was hard.´

A couple of years ago Levi and I had lunch with an retired neighbor in Zafra, a stately, sweatervest sort of fellow with a modest but very comfortable downtown flat. He showed us the Franco-era pistol he keeps in a velvet lined box and his collection of Franco coins, lamenting that those were better times, before the euro, before these liberal Popes and progressive governments, when people had money and stability and Spanish culture was at its most glorious heights. Those were the days.