Last Wednesday, May 17th, I was fortunate to watch the Champions League Final between Arsenal and Barcelona.
I had been pretty wound up that Monday and Tuesday in anticipation of Wednesday’s match. I was preparing myself for the worst, but was hoping for a minor miracle: a young Arsenal team defeating a mighty Barcelona.
On the day of the game, I planned my time out carefully. I was to meet a new student at 4pm, then I would give a class at Casa Americana until 8pm, and finally I’d scramble over to Finnegan’s to get a good spot for watching the match on TV.
My nephew had been sent home from school with fever on Tuesday, but he was fine on Wednesday morning, so he went on back to school. However, my sister phoned me around 1.30 or so saying he had fever again, and could I please go get him from school while she finished her preparations for some clients who were arriving that afternoon.
I had intended for a bit of quiet time around the house to calm my nerves. Sure, I’d already gone to the gym, but then was dancing around to some Erasure (Two Ring Circus, if you must know) and trying to decide what to eat for lunch. I hadn’t even showered yet, so with Lynne’s sudden call, my schedule was thrown off.
I rolled the stroller over to Daniel’s school, picked him up and brought him back home. Then I realized that I was running out of time. I only had time to shower before catching the metro. Thus, lunch would have to wait.
This may not seem like all that big of a deal (skipping lunch, that is), but I had a full schedule until match time, and Finnegan’s doesn’t serve food in the evening. Once again, I was faced with a dinner of pints. On one hand, it was probably for the better, as my nerves were already shot, and it was rather unlikely that I’d be able to hold anything down. On the other, as fun as it is, drinking pints on an empty stomach can do evil things.
Lynne arrived home to take Daniel to the doctor, and I was able to catch the metro. Thirty minutes later, I was walking down the street looking for my student´s address when I ran into Paloma. We exchanged quick greetings, then I continued looking for the building number.
As it was a warm day, I’d packed a two litre bottle of water in my backpack. I also was loaded down with several English textbooks and my Arsenal jersey. I was a bit anxious about this new student Monica. Though I’d met her briefly once before, I wasn’t altogether sure what she wanted to study, and furthermore, her mother had told me to be at the house by 4pm. The student’s mother told me some other things, too, but I didn’t quite understand her at the time; I figured I would just clarify in person that afternoon.
Around 10 minutes til 4, I found the building where Monica lives, so had a few minutes to relax and prepare myself. I took the opportunity to have a few pregame smokes, then a few sips of water, then was about to ring the bell when Monica walked out of the building. It seems that I would be teaching her brother for half an hour before she and I began. Oh.
The mother greeted me upstairs at their flat, then promptly introduced me to her 19 year old son. He was going to have an exam the following day and needed me to help him review conditionals. “Oh fucking hell,” I thought. “I need to review conditionals, myself.” This guy, like most Spanish teenagers studying English, doesn’t speak much English. Thus he proceeded to tell me in Spanish what he needed help with, and I was lost. Finally, I grasped what he wanted, and decided to consult some of the books I’d brought with me.
I immediately discovered a problem when I opened my backpack. Somehow, I’d failed to close the top on my water bottle securely, and now a litre and a half of water was washing around in my bag. My books were saturated, and my jersey was a sopping mess. “Oh fuck,” I said to no one in particular, but my student seemed to understand as he looked at my ruined books.
Suddenly I was babbling, trying to think of what to do. The backpack fortunately is somewhat waterproof and had actually contained the water inside the bag. I lay my jersey on my leg and tried to continue with our lesson.
45 minutes later, the guy felt pretty comfortable with things. I wished him luck on his test, and then his sister came in. After a quick check to gauge her level of English, we worked on translating an abridged version of Braveheart into Spanish; it was a homework assignment from her school. I tried not to get all weepy (as I’m a pretty big fan of this film), and almost let out a “Freedom!”
All in all, I felt things went reasonably well. At a quarter to six, I indicated that we needed to wrap things up, as I needed to be across town by 6.30.
I collected my things as the mother paid me, and then I looked down at my jeans to see that after sitting for an hour and a half with a wet soccer jersey in my lap, I looked like I’d pissed myself.
“See you next week,” I said casually, trying to act as if nothing appeared unusual. At the door, I turned to give a final hasta luego, and was horrified to notice a small puddle left in the chair I’d been sitting in.
“Well that went well,” I laughed as I raced down the street to the metro to get to Casa Americana, pausing only once to throw out an empty water bottle.
I sweat through my next class, literally. I was a drippy bastard by 5 minutes to 8, but no matter. It was time to kit up, don the wet jersey, and put the t-shirt into the bottom of my backpack to try and absorb some of the water. I’d worry about the true extent of the damage later.
8.10pm Finnegan’s. 35 minutes from kick-off. I saw a couple of folks I knew, and had a brief word. I was a bit irked, because the place was already filling up, and I wasn’t able to get my usual stool in the smoking lounge. Thus, I’d have to stand in the main bar area, where the TV, though bigger, doesn’t have quite the same picture quality as the plasma TV in the other lounge of the bar. I was cursing myself for not cancelling the 6.30 class that evening when I looked over and saw another colleague from Casa Americana. He’s a regular at Finnegan’s, and is known as Michigan Dave.
Dave has been around Casa Americana since the days my sister worked there. I’d met him once in February but he hadn’t been the most chatty of guys. I decided to break the ice. “Are you here for the match?” I asked, knowing that as a regular, he was just as likely to be there for pints.
“Indeed,” came the response. Now came the trick – “And the team?”
“Uh, I’m supporting Barca,” he said, looking at my Arsenal badge, “but it doesn’t really matter,” which ultimately gave me the opportunity to slide into the empty stool next to him.
We got to talking, and after he was reminded where I come from, he went into a great rant about how ridiculous unicards are. We agreed on the matter, and then I suddenly realized that he was likely to go on and on unless I found a way to change the subject. I could appreciate the fact that he was from Michigan, where no such item exists, and I pointed out that many of us in Dallas couldn’t quite comprehend the concept of unicards, either. That said, there was really no need to have a 30 minute conversation about them.
My intercambio friend Paola showed up, which was a welcome surprise. “Sorry, about the only Spanish you’re going to hear from me during the game is a couple of mierdas and maybe a joder or two,” I joked.
There’s always a little buzz of excitement in pubs when they turn the music down and turn up the volume of the game on TV. Showtime.
As the ref blew the whistle to start the match, I checked the level of my beer and decided I’d better refill. Dinner was hours away…
Arsenal started brightly (he writes in his best Soccernet style) and the game had a pretty good vibe in the opening minutes. Meanwhile, my heart was in my throat, and pounding. Oh please let us win this one…
Twenty minutes into the game, our keeper took out the Barca striker just outside the box and got himself red-carded. Oh fuck.
I actually almost left: maybe I could study some Spanish at home, or walk around the city, or get bitten by a dog, or get mugged or something. There wasn’t much hope for a 10 man Arsenal against a full squad of Barcelona.
Of course I stayed, and am very glad. A few minutes after the keeper was sent off, Arsenal scored off a corner kick, Sol Campbell no less, and the score was 1-0 to the Arsenal. “Holy shit, we could do this,” I thought, right about the time the muse on my shoulder was saying, “there’s no way they’ll win.”
At half time, I popped outside for a few smokes. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” I breathed. The second half is going to be so much more tough.
There were a fair amount of Arsenal supporters in the bar – both English and non. Many Spaniards who supported clubs other than Barca were still electing to support a Spanish team in the final. After all, Sevilla had just thumped Boro in the UEFA Cup, and two Euro wins would bode well for Spanish football. True, but I was proud of my team, and appreciated those few Spaniards that were supporting Arsenal.
The second half arrived with a full Barca attack, and ohlordyloo, it was game on. Arsenal, with 10 men, were playing out of their heads. They were defending well, and even getting forward a few times. Midway through the half, I had a sensation that we could win.
Alas, Barca is Barca, and they equalized in a controversial goal in around the 70th minute. “It’s over,” I thought, “We’ll never be able to get through extra time, and God forbid it goes to penalties,” remembering last years FA Cup, last years Champs League Final, and the FA Cup from a week ago.
Arsenal’s second keeper, a Spaniard, was having a fantastic game, but I didn’t think his luck would hold out. Sure enough, Barca scored a go ahead goal off an incredible angle to take the lead nine minutes from time.
We’re fucked.
As a fan, I stayed until the end, and that final whistle, I felt relief – it’s over.
I knew a guy who supported another English team, and recall how he’d say how “gutted” he felt when his team lost a big match. (It was Palace, of course, so how many “big” matches are we talking about, eh?)
Likewise, I lived with Tim during a time where we saw the Pirates, Penguins, Steelers, and Knicks all lose heartbreakers, and I’ll never forget his emotion.
Emotional? Yes. Sad? Yes. Gutted? No.
Arsenal played their hearts out, and though Barca was arguably the better team of the season (and possibly on the night, though with 11 players), I was proud. We hung in the game and almost made it happen. Contrary to negative commentary by the press in past articles about Arsenal´s lack of enthusiasm, Arsenal did play with a passion, a passion that I’d never seen. I was happy to be an Arsenal fan (one who recently saw Highbury for the first and last time), and believed our team could walk off the pitch with their heads held high.
Don’t go thinking I was smiling and shit, I simply was trying to look on the bright side. (This IS the life of Bryan don’t you know). On the way out of the bar to a taxi stand, I consoled a fellow Arsenal fan (Spanish, no less) who was still standing in front of the television in shock. “It’s going to be ok,” I said.
As I sat in the back of the cab on the way home, my mind rode the emotional roller coaster. Meanwhile, my stomach was doing the “fuck you, we have no food and are drowning in beer” dance, which I’ll point out has the ability to alarm a certain taxi driver. I called my sister and asked that she order a pizza for me so it would be there when I arrived home.
A few minutes later, I snarfed a pizza, then collapsed into bed.
I’m certainly not glad that we lost the game, but I’m glad that I made peace with myself before the opening kick. Barcelona are a good team, and they deserve the title of European champions. Sure, I had hoped to contact Arsenal FC and plead for season tickets or something on the grounds that it took me moving to Spain before Arsenal could win Europe. Oh well…
The rest of the week was a bit foggy, and I knew I would be feeling a little down for a few days. But, the World Cup is imminent, so there’s plenty of football going on. On top of that, Thierry Henry announced his decision to remain at Arsenal. We’ve got one of the best players in the world, and he’s vowing to finish his football career as a Gunner. Qué bien.
By the weekend, I was still feeling emotional, but starting to come round. I had pints with a friend on Saturday night, and by the first of the week, I felt back to normal, or as normal as I can feel as a guy trying to settle into a new life.
I have great days, and I have not so great days, but I can still honestly say that without doubt, I made the right move in coming for a new experience. At least I’m not having shitty days; I find something to enjoy about being here each day.
Take this afternoon, for example. I meekly arrived at my student’s house (recall the water spillage incident from a week ago) only to find that the student wasn’t there, and she would CALL me when she wanted another class.
OK, kind of embarrassing that I’d showed up expecting to give a class (I didn’t take any water this time), only to be reminded of my inability to understand Spanish. But, while I was laughing at myself at the metro, I ran into a cute little student that I sort of know from Casa American, and we had a nice chat on the ride to city. It was nice to see a friendly face on the subway.
Yesterday, I listened to Prince for the first time in probably a decade…and loved it. Sure, I was a big fan during the 1999 era (the album, not the year), but by the early 90s, really had changed musical tastes. I did find it to be the perfect thing to get the Erasure sound out of my ears…I’ve been singing “Hideaway,” for days.
Back to Prince. He went from solo, to the revolution, to the new generation, to a squiggle.
I kind of feel like a squiggle right now, but it just keeps getting better and better.
keep the faith
bryan
24/5/06
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Gotta keep laughing at myself
As I was falling asleep last night, I started thinking about how glad I was that I hadn’t passed out and fallen off the riser during the concert at the Palau on Sunday. Then, I thought about what would have happened had I actually fallen; I likely would have knocked over the majority of the bass section. For some reason, that thought made me crack up, though rather quietly, as it was pretty late at night.
This morning, I thought about other banner moments since I’ve been in Spain that have made me laugh out loud, or at the very least, bring a small smile. In no particular order, here’s ten things that have made me laugh during my first three months here.
My nephew really likes to watch me make coffee, particularly when I have to open the valve to steam the milk. The big whoosh noise is kind of fun (I’ve always enjoyed it, too), and then, after the coffee has flowed into the cup, I empty the little basket with the used coffee grounds and dump them in the trash. “Yuck,” remarks Daniel.
Having a coffee is something I do almost immediately after rising on the weekends. Usually, I get up before Lynne and Fran, but after Daniel has been up for a while. When he hears my footsteps on the stairs, he runs to greet me, as he’s ready for a bit of entertainment. “Are you going to have a coffee?” he asks. “Of course,” I answer.
“You drink a lot of coffee, bubba,” he remarked the other morning.
You can slip anything past that kid…
At Casa Americana, we mostly speak English around the office as we attempt to create an environment for the students that forces them to communicate. With private students outside of the center, however, this isn’t quite the case. My first meeting with a teenage student went OK. The mother speaks no English, and we did have to talk about the expectations, hourly rates, schedules, etc. I hadn’t really planned ahead for this, so struggled my way through the initial conversation, but felt pretty confident about things as I left their house after teaching. Each week, I’d have a little conversation with the mother, and I was proud to be able to hold my own with her.
Last week, after class, the mother commented that the first three times I came to their house, she had almost no idea what I was trying to say in Spanish, but she was now able to understand me. Menos mal.
This one is for Chris. I still manage to make every Spanish girl say “little push” out loud at least once. Leetle poosh. Ah, the things you get to do in grocery stores…
I can’t leave out the lovely afternoon in Casa Americana when the director, another teacher and myself listened to Richard Cheese sing, “I’d like to bend you over and eat you like an ice cream cone,” on a rather loud volume, while students crowded through the entrance of the office on their way to class.
In an urban environment, there tends to be a lack of trees and shrubbery. This makes for a bit of a trick for the local domestic pets, who take walks with their owners around the neighborhood. In most cases, the owners are responsible and clean up after their pet. Sometimes, though, the owners just keep on going with their animal, leaving a little pile of shit behind them right in the middle of the sidewalk. Needless to say, you have to watch your step when walking around.
A few weeks ago, I saw a lady who was cleaning her doorstep chew out a hapless owner who thought he could leave a little gift. He humbly had to clean up as the woman glared at him sternly, then was able to continue walking his pet.
On the way to the gym the other morning, I passed a similar scenario, albeit one that had gone awry. A woman was rolling her shopping cart behind her, and managed to go right through a pile of crap left behind by a inconsiderate pet owner, who apparently has a very large dog. This poor woman wasn’t paying attention, and proceeded to smear a large trail down the remainder of the block, which infuriated several shop owners, who all happened to be standing outside waiting for customers. Suddenly, everyone was yelling, complaining about the mess. I wished everyone “buenas dias,” and continued on to the gym. Come to think of it, I had an excellent workout.
Mullets – I’ve refrained from making any comments about this until now. Back in the 80s, most every guy in my school (junior high and high school, especially) had a mullet. I had one for a few years, myself, and remember the day that I had all my hair cut off (pretty much the day after senior pictures were taken in high school). Since that time, I’ve always been able to feel my neck.
Countless jokes have been made about mullets since then, and I think some comedian has a little bit that he does frequently in his shows.
Arsenal fans will recall the first time we saw Cesc Fabregas play first team football. Here was a little seventeen year old Spaniard who had a mullet bigger than life. “What the fuck is he thinking?” we asked one another. Within a few games, however, Cesc turned up with a new haircut, much much shorter. “What a relief!” was the general comment around Trinity Hall.
I really didn’t think too much about it at the time. After all, the kid was seventeen, and was a brilliant soccer player, so as far as I was concerned, he could have any hairstyle that he wanted. That said, I was a bit curious as to why he thought it was a good look.
About 10 minutes after I arrived in Spain in February, the mystery was solved. Almost every teenager in Valencia has a mullet. Though Cesc isn’t from this region, clearly this is the popular hairstyle of the moment throughout Spain. I don’t actually laugh out loud at a group of mulleted teenagers sitting around a metro stop, but I do tend to think to myself, “Gee, I’m about ready for a new trend.”
On the other hand, there’s a fair amount of girls that have a similar mullet-type hair style. I have to say that on them, it’s much cuter.
In the states, I almost always smoke Marlboro reds. I started this habit with them, and I just never could bring myself to smoke Camel. However, my favorite smoke is John Player Special, an English cigarette that comes in a black packet. Whenever I could afford to buy import cigarettes (these were only available in specialty tobacco shops, of which there are three in Dallas), I would pick them up. However, the expense was pretty dramatic. (thanks, Moe, for refraining from any additional commentary…like what my health care costs are going to be in 20 years). I did discover that JPS were much more reasonably priced when I travelled through London on trips to Valencia. Furthermore, JPS were much more available in local shops around Valencia..
Upon arriving in February, I’ve stuck with the JPS. They happen to be cheaper in Spain, now, so I’m making up for all the years I had to pay $5 a pack for them stateside.
The first three times I tried to buy John Players, the shop attendant couldn’t understand me. I was ridiculously trying to pronounce John Player Special with a Spanish accent, and was ultimately coming across like some idiot with a mullet. The blank stares I’d receive were most frustrating, and definitely not boosting my confidence in Spanish. As I gave up trying to verbally ask for the particular brand, I’d sigh and pull out a pack from my pocket and merely point. “Ah, John Player Specials,” came the reply as the attendants finally understood. Funny, ALL of them pronounced John Player Specials EXACTLY like I had asked for them. Geez.
One weekend, we took a little trip out of town with two other families who had children in Daniel’s class, and I got to talking with the two mothers, one of which was interested in helping me get a girlfriend, a Spanish girlfriend. I explained that I was pretty pessimistic at the best of times, and was extremely particular, but I played along. After all, this was not the time to turn down help.
During the rest of the weekend, and several times since (when we met for coffee or something), I pointed out individuals that looked interesting.
Five times in a row, she glared at me and said, “She’s not Spanish. She’s from Eastern Europe.”
I no longer play that game with her, but I do have a pretty strong desire to visit Armenia and Romania…
I’d rather skip all the times that I’ve misunderstood what someone was telling me, but I’ll share one moment. I arrived at the little bar across the plaza from my work, and greeted the girl that works there (she’s not Spanish, either, by the way). “Probably not, but I hope so” I replied to her question (of whether or not Valencia was going to win the soccer match that evening) as I plopped my keys, wallet, glasses, smokes, and phone down on the counter.
“Er, what I said was, don’t put your stuff down, as I’m just wiping the counter top off.”
They tell me that it takes months before you start understanding all the different ways that people can say things. Pretty embarrassing for me that I couldn’t understand her even with her South American accent.
Finally, the metro station. Ever since I marvelled at the way Chris would zip through the turnstiles on the London underground a few weeks ago, I’ve tried to improve my technique. Both in London and Valencia, you have to put your little pass in a little slot, then the pass pops out a different slot as the gate opens and you walk through. Chris sort of does it like he’s doing a magic trick, whereas I’ve always been a bit more cautious. (Part of this might be because once, at a professional football game, I watched a guy try to go through the turnstile too quickly, only to have it jam, which resulted in the guy racking himself. Pretty funny in it’s own right)
Anyway, I’ve been trying to sort of pop my pass into the slot, and retrieve it as quickly as possible as it pops out the other side. Unfortunately, the other day I forgot that the metro passes in Valencia can only go into the slot in one direction. When they go in the wrong direction, the machine stalls, and the gates don’t open, and everyone gets really pissed behind you. “Oh my god I’m going to have to go talk to the guy in the ticket booth,” I thought to myself, dreading the thought, as it’s right up there with having to explain to the principal at school as to why you thought it was a good idea to light a Bunsen burner after having left the gas on for a couple of minutes.
As I contemplated my next move, the machine sort of burped, out came my pass, and I got a do over, so in the end, I was able to move on through the turnstile after putting the card in the right way.
Off to class...
keep the faith
bryan
16/05/06
This morning, I thought about other banner moments since I’ve been in Spain that have made me laugh out loud, or at the very least, bring a small smile. In no particular order, here’s ten things that have made me laugh during my first three months here.
My nephew really likes to watch me make coffee, particularly when I have to open the valve to steam the milk. The big whoosh noise is kind of fun (I’ve always enjoyed it, too), and then, after the coffee has flowed into the cup, I empty the little basket with the used coffee grounds and dump them in the trash. “Yuck,” remarks Daniel.
Having a coffee is something I do almost immediately after rising on the weekends. Usually, I get up before Lynne and Fran, but after Daniel has been up for a while. When he hears my footsteps on the stairs, he runs to greet me, as he’s ready for a bit of entertainment. “Are you going to have a coffee?” he asks. “Of course,” I answer.
“You drink a lot of coffee, bubba,” he remarked the other morning.
You can slip anything past that kid…
At Casa Americana, we mostly speak English around the office as we attempt to create an environment for the students that forces them to communicate. With private students outside of the center, however, this isn’t quite the case. My first meeting with a teenage student went OK. The mother speaks no English, and we did have to talk about the expectations, hourly rates, schedules, etc. I hadn’t really planned ahead for this, so struggled my way through the initial conversation, but felt pretty confident about things as I left their house after teaching. Each week, I’d have a little conversation with the mother, and I was proud to be able to hold my own with her.
Last week, after class, the mother commented that the first three times I came to their house, she had almost no idea what I was trying to say in Spanish, but she was now able to understand me. Menos mal.
This one is for Chris. I still manage to make every Spanish girl say “little push” out loud at least once. Leetle poosh. Ah, the things you get to do in grocery stores…
I can’t leave out the lovely afternoon in Casa Americana when the director, another teacher and myself listened to Richard Cheese sing, “I’d like to bend you over and eat you like an ice cream cone,” on a rather loud volume, while students crowded through the entrance of the office on their way to class.
In an urban environment, there tends to be a lack of trees and shrubbery. This makes for a bit of a trick for the local domestic pets, who take walks with their owners around the neighborhood. In most cases, the owners are responsible and clean up after their pet. Sometimes, though, the owners just keep on going with their animal, leaving a little pile of shit behind them right in the middle of the sidewalk. Needless to say, you have to watch your step when walking around.
A few weeks ago, I saw a lady who was cleaning her doorstep chew out a hapless owner who thought he could leave a little gift. He humbly had to clean up as the woman glared at him sternly, then was able to continue walking his pet.
On the way to the gym the other morning, I passed a similar scenario, albeit one that had gone awry. A woman was rolling her shopping cart behind her, and managed to go right through a pile of crap left behind by a inconsiderate pet owner, who apparently has a very large dog. This poor woman wasn’t paying attention, and proceeded to smear a large trail down the remainder of the block, which infuriated several shop owners, who all happened to be standing outside waiting for customers. Suddenly, everyone was yelling, complaining about the mess. I wished everyone “buenas dias,” and continued on to the gym. Come to think of it, I had an excellent workout.
Mullets – I’ve refrained from making any comments about this until now. Back in the 80s, most every guy in my school (junior high and high school, especially) had a mullet. I had one for a few years, myself, and remember the day that I had all my hair cut off (pretty much the day after senior pictures were taken in high school). Since that time, I’ve always been able to feel my neck.
Countless jokes have been made about mullets since then, and I think some comedian has a little bit that he does frequently in his shows.
Arsenal fans will recall the first time we saw Cesc Fabregas play first team football. Here was a little seventeen year old Spaniard who had a mullet bigger than life. “What the fuck is he thinking?” we asked one another. Within a few games, however, Cesc turned up with a new haircut, much much shorter. “What a relief!” was the general comment around Trinity Hall.
I really didn’t think too much about it at the time. After all, the kid was seventeen, and was a brilliant soccer player, so as far as I was concerned, he could have any hairstyle that he wanted. That said, I was a bit curious as to why he thought it was a good look.
About 10 minutes after I arrived in Spain in February, the mystery was solved. Almost every teenager in Valencia has a mullet. Though Cesc isn’t from this region, clearly this is the popular hairstyle of the moment throughout Spain. I don’t actually laugh out loud at a group of mulleted teenagers sitting around a metro stop, but I do tend to think to myself, “Gee, I’m about ready for a new trend.”
On the other hand, there’s a fair amount of girls that have a similar mullet-type hair style. I have to say that on them, it’s much cuter.
In the states, I almost always smoke Marlboro reds. I started this habit with them, and I just never could bring myself to smoke Camel. However, my favorite smoke is John Player Special, an English cigarette that comes in a black packet. Whenever I could afford to buy import cigarettes (these were only available in specialty tobacco shops, of which there are three in Dallas), I would pick them up. However, the expense was pretty dramatic. (thanks, Moe, for refraining from any additional commentary…like what my health care costs are going to be in 20 years). I did discover that JPS were much more reasonably priced when I travelled through London on trips to Valencia. Furthermore, JPS were much more available in local shops around Valencia..
Upon arriving in February, I’ve stuck with the JPS. They happen to be cheaper in Spain, now, so I’m making up for all the years I had to pay $5 a pack for them stateside.
The first three times I tried to buy John Players, the shop attendant couldn’t understand me. I was ridiculously trying to pronounce John Player Special with a Spanish accent, and was ultimately coming across like some idiot with a mullet. The blank stares I’d receive were most frustrating, and definitely not boosting my confidence in Spanish. As I gave up trying to verbally ask for the particular brand, I’d sigh and pull out a pack from my pocket and merely point. “Ah, John Player Specials,” came the reply as the attendants finally understood. Funny, ALL of them pronounced John Player Specials EXACTLY like I had asked for them. Geez.
One weekend, we took a little trip out of town with two other families who had children in Daniel’s class, and I got to talking with the two mothers, one of which was interested in helping me get a girlfriend, a Spanish girlfriend. I explained that I was pretty pessimistic at the best of times, and was extremely particular, but I played along. After all, this was not the time to turn down help.
During the rest of the weekend, and several times since (when we met for coffee or something), I pointed out individuals that looked interesting.
Five times in a row, she glared at me and said, “She’s not Spanish. She’s from Eastern Europe.”
I no longer play that game with her, but I do have a pretty strong desire to visit Armenia and Romania…
I’d rather skip all the times that I’ve misunderstood what someone was telling me, but I’ll share one moment. I arrived at the little bar across the plaza from my work, and greeted the girl that works there (she’s not Spanish, either, by the way). “Probably not, but I hope so” I replied to her question (of whether or not Valencia was going to win the soccer match that evening) as I plopped my keys, wallet, glasses, smokes, and phone down on the counter.
“Er, what I said was, don’t put your stuff down, as I’m just wiping the counter top off.”
They tell me that it takes months before you start understanding all the different ways that people can say things. Pretty embarrassing for me that I couldn’t understand her even with her South American accent.
Finally, the metro station. Ever since I marvelled at the way Chris would zip through the turnstiles on the London underground a few weeks ago, I’ve tried to improve my technique. Both in London and Valencia, you have to put your little pass in a little slot, then the pass pops out a different slot as the gate opens and you walk through. Chris sort of does it like he’s doing a magic trick, whereas I’ve always been a bit more cautious. (Part of this might be because once, at a professional football game, I watched a guy try to go through the turnstile too quickly, only to have it jam, which resulted in the guy racking himself. Pretty funny in it’s own right)
Anyway, I’ve been trying to sort of pop my pass into the slot, and retrieve it as quickly as possible as it pops out the other side. Unfortunately, the other day I forgot that the metro passes in Valencia can only go into the slot in one direction. When they go in the wrong direction, the machine stalls, and the gates don’t open, and everyone gets really pissed behind you. “Oh my god I’m going to have to go talk to the guy in the ticket booth,” I thought to myself, dreading the thought, as it’s right up there with having to explain to the principal at school as to why you thought it was a good idea to light a Bunsen burner after having left the gas on for a couple of minutes.
As I contemplated my next move, the machine sort of burped, out came my pass, and I got a do over, so in the end, I was able to move on through the turnstile after putting the card in the right way.
Off to class...
keep the faith
bryan
16/05/06
Monday, May 15, 2006
Wow, I sang at the Palau last night!
One of the things I was worried about after making the move to Spain was integrating myself into the community. My previous trips have always been for two to four weeks. So, I have been particularly interested in measuring my progress from week to week. It’s been difficult to measure, so I mainly go off of gut feeling: how many days in a row do I feel like I understand what is being said, how many dirty looks do I receive on the metro, how often have I felt like an accepted member of the community, etc.
True, I don’t really physically appear Spanish, but, since I’m NOT Spanish, that makes perfect sense. The language barrier continues to become less of an obstacle, though it’s a slow process. It’s easy to become frustrated, because just when I’m thinking I’m understanding what’s going on in a conversation, I blink, and in an instant, I don’t have the slightest idea as to what’s happening. A friend of mine in Dallas used to say that sometimes, after a full day of speaking and listening in English, her second language, she would just be wiped out, and wanted to speak in Spanish. I have a much better understanding of this after a few months immersed in Spanish. Some days my head hurts so much that I collapse in exhaustion, unable to think or speak in any language.
Then I go to sleep, wake up the next morning, and do it all over again.
Now, I made the decision to come to Spain, of course, and arrived expecting plenty of challenges, including countless obstacles with the language, and to a certain extent, some difficulties feeling accepted as part of community.
Besides staying pretty involved at Casa Americana, the cultural center where I teach, I have allowed my sister to talk me into attending some rehearsals with the community choir of Alboraya’s music society. “It’s a good bunch of people, it’s fun, and you’ll be able to stay close to music.” As usual, she was right, and I found myself looking forward to rehearsals each week. Besides the mere social gathering, the choir was preparing for an upcoming concert in El Palau de Musica; we had been invited to join another choir along with an orchestra in singing Vivaldi’s Gloria.
As I mentioned in a previous write up, this is not the time to let opportunity slip by. Singing with an orchestra in a really nice music hall? How could I pass that up? My only previous experience like that was when I got to accompany Joe Jackson in a show in the London Palladium, but since that actually only happened in my dreams…
Besides the music hall experience, we were going to sing in Latin, so it’s not as if I really had to understand Spanish in order to sing the piece.
So, through April, we met two to three times a week for choir rehearsals. Frequently, I would hammer out the bass part on the piano for our section; my sister was doing the same for the altos. Rehearsals were fairly interesting. Most of the time, they were conducted in Valenciano, which I really don’t understand at all. It’s one thing when you’re quietly sitting on the back row of the choir, but when you’re with seven other guys trying to learn a really complicated section of music, look out. I appreciated the fact that our section leader (who knows the music well and was able to direct us…he simply needed me to play the notes on the piano as he recognized that I played better) was most patient with me as he asked for several phrases and strings to be replayed over and over. Never mind the music scale in Spanish goes “Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, si do,”.
Once, he kept saying, “mi, mi, mi,” and I failed to realize that he was asking me to play the note E. (In English music theory, we learned the scale by letters; C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and C). Furthermore, I didn’t quite know the word for “measure” in Spanish (or in Valenciano). Some nights I didn’t know if I was helping or hurting the group.
Just when I was thinking I should leave the piano plunking to someone else, several guys thanked me profusely for helping them to learn their part. It felt good to be appreciated.
Choir practice usually runs from 10pm to midnight. After a few hours teaching English, singing for a few hours wasn’t always at the top of my list of what I felt like doing. But, I kept showing up at rehearsals, and found a little time to practice at home, too.
I was starting to get a bit worried as we neared the end of April. Gloria is a rather complicated piece, and most of the choir doesn’t read music. Thus, they have to learn by hearing the part over and over again (thus the significance of me playing the bass line repeatedly for my section). The only problem with this was when we tried to join all the parts together: sopranos, altos, tenors, and bases. The words train wreck came to mind once or twice as we tried to sync up. However, we were meeting a lot, and I felt that we might have a chance of pulling it together in time for the concert.
Outside of choir, I finished up April, and then spent a few crazy days taking care of my nephew. My parents helped, too. Probably a not so relaxing way to spend the final days of their visit, but Lynne was in Barcelona and Fran was in Madrid. So, the three of us rallied, and Lynne and Fran returned at the weekend to discover their child was intact.
Sunday, the 8th of May was Mother’s Day in Spain. We celebrated by having one last family dinner, then my parents hit the airport and returned to the states. It was an interesting departure. I was sad to see my folks go, but was ready for a bit of a break. (uh, my sister and brother in law are probably saying that same thing right about now, after I’ve camped in their house for 3 months). At any rate, I think the past three months finally caught up with me by the second week of May.
One of the observations I have made after living in Spain for three months was that there are moments where you might not feel as welcome as you might like. It’s not as if people are running around telling you to get out of their country, but there’s a cold feeling you get from people. I experienced this same thing when I moved to Boston from Texas. As difficult as that move was at times, I ultimately preferred living in that area to living in the southwest.
I wasn’t freaking out or anything, but did mention my observation to a couple of people during coffee or intercambios. One girl, whose kid goes to the same school as Daniel, mentioned that she felt the same thing on a regular basis: it’s not an American thing. Nor was it only a Spanish thing. Basically, some cities, some regions, some areas of Spain (like in many other parts of the world) might appear a bit more closed to outsiders…non-natives, if you will. Let me be quick to say that I’m not judging Spain. Many cultures tend to be a bit more reserved and closed initially, then gradually become more accepting with time. As I mentioned before, I prefer the northeast to the southwest in the United States. Even with the close knit communities where you feel like a stranger, I feel a comfort level that is difficult to describe.
At any rate, I was experiencing a period where I was feeling a little distant from the rest of the community. Maybe I was having a letdown after my parents left. Maybe I was feeling a little short on music (I only have 50 cds over here). No sé.
Meanwhile, Arsenal finished their domestic season in style, completing a come from behind win to steal fourth place in the league, ensuring that they’d play European football in the next season. All this on the last day of the season, in their last ever match in Highbury stadium. Quite the emotional bit. And, they’ve still got a final to play against Barcelona, which has kept me up one or two nights recently.
Back to choir practice. We held rehearsals every night last week, with the exception of Monday. The concert was coming quickly, and we still had a lot of work to do.
I was feeling a bit out of sorts, but was making it to rehearsals, and enjoying myself, all things considered. I was still having some panicky moments about our progress, but I was beginning to think that we might just be able to pull it off. Maybe.
On Wednesday night, the 10th, I finished up my class, metroed to Alboraya, had a quick beer, then joined the rehearsal. Emotions were a bit tense, particularly from the director, who was kind of on the hook for having us prepared to sing this in the first place. Since there was no looking back, our choir was going to perform regardless of the fact of whether we knew the music or not. I was feeling pretty comfortable with my own ability; I’d been practicing at home, and pretty much knew the music. (note – true, I haven’t sung in a choir in 18 years, but I’ve stayed fairly close to music since that time (and yes, getting your ears blown out at a rock show DOES count). I’d argue that I can play piano better than I can sing, but I can also argue that I don’t sing like a complete dink. Part Shane McGowan, and part lead singer of Moenia. Unusual combination, I agree, but then again, I’m a bit unusual, raro.
So I’m minding my own business, singing in practice with the rest of the group, and I’m thinking a bit about the weird feeling I’d been having over the past week. Suddenly, the director stops us and makes a comment to the guy immediately to my right: “You’re singing too loud. Tone it down.” This other guy has been a bit odd from the get go, but here I am, an American, singing in the community choir of Alboraya, Spain. I’m not thinking it’s my place to start passing judgement.
The next thing I know, this guy, who just got dinged by the director, takes a pot shot at me, and responded to the director that I basically wasn’t contributing. In short, I immediately felt the guy had thrown me under a bus. It was the kind of comment that was beyond inappropriate…to me, it was as if the guy had stood up in the middle of a bar mitzvah and announced that all Jewish people were crap.
There was a moment of awkward silence in the rehearsal room as people realized that the comment had been directed at me. I was shocked, bewildered, and hurt. (additional note – in my previous choral experience, I’d always understood the objective to be that all voices combined as one; it’s important that no one voice stand out.) I was concentrating on hitting the proper notes (the other guy has a tendency to get off key on a regular basis), and immediately took offense to his remarks. However, I’m not one to stand up and make a scene, particularly when I’m new to the culture, the country, and the language.
My mind raced during the remainder of the choir practice. I got more and more angry, more and more hurt, and immediately left the room as the rehearsal came to a close. I smoked three cigarettes in succession outside as I tried to get my composure back. How come the director didn’t thump the guy for speaking out of turn? How come the rest of my section didn’t stand up and flog the guy?
One or two folks smiled a few encouraging words to me as they left rehearsals, but I didn’t feel much better…I was still too shocked.
My sister came out, we had a few words with some of the other choir members about the fact that the other guy was out of order, and then we went home.
I didn’t sleep well that night. I kept thinking that I was the displaced person, and had no business singing in this choir. Furthermore, I allowed myself a moment to wonder if I had any business staying in the country. Perhaps I was making a big deal out of nothing, but with the recent emotions I had been feeling, I wasn’t prepared to just blow this off as a minor incident.
I spent Thursday trying to decide if I should go ahead and leave the choir, allowing for the rest of the group to sing. I didn’t want to completely beat the crap out of the guy, but I’m certainly not feeling inclined to wish him well on his Saint’s Day.
Because I’d been a bit quiet Wednesday night and Thursday, my sister assumed that I’d just blown the comments off. She was a bit surprised when I quietly said that I’d decided to sit out rehearsals on Thursday night, and was likely going to sit out Friday night and the concert, too. We talked about it a little more, and I was glad that she elected not to pressure me too much about my decision, choosing instead to let me collect my own thoughts.
I didn’t have classes Thursday night, and instead spent a few hours getting loopy in Finnegan’s. I wondered if I had made the right decision to drop out of choir. I wondered if I had blown the whole thing out of proportion, and allowed my emotions to get the better of me. I looked forward to a quiet night at home with my brother in law as I stumbled home from the metro to dinner.
I arrived home as my sister was leaving the house for choir. “There’s still time to go,” she said as she collected her music and keys. “Nope. I need a bit of time, okay?” I replied.
Fran and I were chatting in the kitchen about his new mobile phone when the landline rang: a choir member was calling to speak with me. She gave me the full court press, and indicated that she was speaking on behalf of the entire choir. I said I needed a bit of time to think things through, but appreciated her call.
I slept a bit better that night, mostly on account that I had consumed so many pints.
Friday morning, I got up before Lynne took Daniel to school. She mentioned that my absence from practice the previous evening had raised an uproar; the choir discussed it for thirty minutes, and I think the entire alto section threatened to come over and kidnap me from home and take me back to choir. Everyone was truly sorry that the incident happened, and also that I felt so hurt about it. My sister was sent home with countless messages from choir members asking that I please come back to the next rehearsal. The director made an additional apology that he fully intended to have a word with the other guy, as this type of incident couldn’t be tolerated.
While I would have preferred that all of this had simply passed by quietly, I was quite touched by the reaction of the choir members, and thought about it during the rest of the morning.
At lunchtime, another choir member phoned to see how I was doing…and to ask that I please come that evening to practice; they needed me there, and they wanted me there.
One of the exercises I do with my students is to have them fill out the “getting to know you” questionnaire that floated around the email circles several years ago. In it are several questions like, “do you prefer to sleep with one pillow or two?” or “do you like pizza more than lasagne?” and stuff like that. One of my favorite questions is, “Have you ever gone out of your way to befriend someone?” If the student doesn’t understand the question, I explain that the question is basically, “do you ever try to make someone feel more welcome?”
The question has always interested me because I’m intrigued by human nature. I know plenty of Spaniards that have gone out of their way to make me feel welcome here. I now know many more.
Friday night, I met up with Lynne and a few others to have some quick tapas, then we headed to the music society to rehearse. Upon my arrival, I was overwhelmed as all the choir members came up to give me hugs, kisses, handshakes, etc. So much for a quiet return to the show, eh.
One of the more active choir members presented me with a letter on behalf of the choir expressing their interest in having me remain a member of the choir. The director personally reiterated the same thing.
Truly touched, I did turn supershy, and was ready to get on with things, particularly the rehearsal. It was time to put the incidents and events of the week behind me. We had a concert in two days time.
We practiced with the orchestra that evening, and though I was glad to be back with everyone, I was a bit nervous about our ability. Things didn’t seem to be coming together. I also wondered where the other guy happened to be; he wasn’t in practice.
It was past midnight when we finished rehearsals, and we were a ways from being ready for primetime. But, we would meet on Sunday afternoon before that evening’s concert….needing a little luck. I found out on the way home that my little buddy had gotten himself a four week vacation from singing in the choir.
A few of us went for late coffees and ice creams, and Lynne and I got home around 2 or so. Even with an espresso, I was asleep as soon as I hit the pillow. It had been an emotional week and I was drained.
Saturday was pretty relaxing, and a pretty good Bryan day. After a little family time during the first half of the day, I hit Finnegan’s to watch the FA Cup Final. I haven’t missed one of these in at least 10 years, but this is the first one I’ve watched from Europe. The rest of the times have been in the Dubliner, at 9am in the morning.
I thought happily of those good times as I watched Liverpool and West Ham. I didn’t have a particular team I wanted to support in this particular match, but did want to see a good game. I was fortunate, because this game was even better than last year’s Arsenal-Man U final. Finnegan’s was packed, and I found myself powering through ciders at an alarming pace. One of the barmaids gave me a concerned glance as the game went to extra time. I was holding my own, though knew that I’d have to be sure not to fall asleep on the metro on the way home, cos´ I was well on my way to being hammered (excuse the W Ham pun).
I had a nice conversation with an Englishman who had lived in the area for three years or so. He was pretty drunk himself, and finally said farewell as Liverpool stopped the final penalty and won the cup.
Finnegan’s cleared out pretty quickly, and I stayed behind and drank a couple of Corona’s, just for old times sake, and also to soak up some of the sweetness that a handful of ciders tends to leave.
I slept very late on Sunday, allowing for the alcohol to leave my system, and allowing for some much needed rest. Lynne and I spent a little time practicing, then got ready to meet the choir to travel to the Palau.
It was a warm day, so once again, I carried my dress shirt and coat separately. I would put them on before we went on stage.
The Palau overlooks the riverbed that runs through Valencia. It’s a beautiful building surrounded by nice fountains, but I was a bit surprised to find that the auditorium itself was rather small. I was delighted to find the acoustics excellent. We were going to be singing with a second choir, similar in size to ours. However, this was really our first time to sing with them, which made for some rather frantic moments some two hours before we were to perform the real deal.
I suited up, and one fellow smoker and I went outside (through the emergency exit) for a quick smoke, which turned quicker as the security guy came to tell us that we weren’t allowed to do that.
Back inside to find our places for the performance, and at 7.45pm, we were all waiting in the stairwell off-stage for our big moment. I took the time to get warmer and warmer, and then unfortunately allowed myself to remember all the previous times that I’ve been singing on stage in a choir and have passed out cold. Three times in my life. Besides that, I’ve passed out two other times, both at church related functions (though you need not assume that this is the reason for why I don’t attend church on a regular basis). So, I’m sweaty, thinking bad things, and getting that little panic going, and then it’s time.
Out on to stage we go into a packed house. I had just convinced myself that, after an entire choir had just gone out of their way to welcome me into their community, the least I could do would be to remain vertical for the duration of Gloria. Vivaldi fans will know that this is a 30 minute deal, so this was not going to be as easy as just a couple musical numbers.
The orchestra started, the director was zipping along, and BAM.
“Gloria! Gloria!” we sang, yours truly included (vertically upright).
A bit of sweat, a few wrong notes, and half an hour later, we finished our last “Amen.”
The audience went nuts with applause, and seemed truly appreciative.
Five minutes later, I’m outside trying to cool off and smoke a couple of cigarettes in record time.
Handshakes with the director, pats on the back to other choir members, we congratulated ourselves on completing the task at hand. My sister and I later agreed that we probably needed a few more rehearsals (like a month), but we can be overly critical of ourselves, as we know the music that we were singing. It’s a necessary part of performing, I think, to acknowledge where one might have done better. However, it’s equally important to appreciate the fact that people enjoyed the performance so much, having no idea that any mistakes were even made.
So with great relief, I finished a pretty tough week doing something pretty cool.
Personal crisis abated, its time to look forward. I’ve got tons of Spanish to learn, and I’ve got a new student who has a huge project due in about 8 weeks. I’ve just got to take things one step at a time, and take it as it comes. Sobre la marcha, as the saying goes here.
Arsenal-Barcelona on Wednesday. The Champs League Final. So much for an emotionless week.
keep the faith
bryan
15/5/06
True, I don’t really physically appear Spanish, but, since I’m NOT Spanish, that makes perfect sense. The language barrier continues to become less of an obstacle, though it’s a slow process. It’s easy to become frustrated, because just when I’m thinking I’m understanding what’s going on in a conversation, I blink, and in an instant, I don’t have the slightest idea as to what’s happening. A friend of mine in Dallas used to say that sometimes, after a full day of speaking and listening in English, her second language, she would just be wiped out, and wanted to speak in Spanish. I have a much better understanding of this after a few months immersed in Spanish. Some days my head hurts so much that I collapse in exhaustion, unable to think or speak in any language.
Then I go to sleep, wake up the next morning, and do it all over again.
Now, I made the decision to come to Spain, of course, and arrived expecting plenty of challenges, including countless obstacles with the language, and to a certain extent, some difficulties feeling accepted as part of community.
Besides staying pretty involved at Casa Americana, the cultural center where I teach, I have allowed my sister to talk me into attending some rehearsals with the community choir of Alboraya’s music society. “It’s a good bunch of people, it’s fun, and you’ll be able to stay close to music.” As usual, she was right, and I found myself looking forward to rehearsals each week. Besides the mere social gathering, the choir was preparing for an upcoming concert in El Palau de Musica; we had been invited to join another choir along with an orchestra in singing Vivaldi’s Gloria.
As I mentioned in a previous write up, this is not the time to let opportunity slip by. Singing with an orchestra in a really nice music hall? How could I pass that up? My only previous experience like that was when I got to accompany Joe Jackson in a show in the London Palladium, but since that actually only happened in my dreams…
Besides the music hall experience, we were going to sing in Latin, so it’s not as if I really had to understand Spanish in order to sing the piece.
So, through April, we met two to three times a week for choir rehearsals. Frequently, I would hammer out the bass part on the piano for our section; my sister was doing the same for the altos. Rehearsals were fairly interesting. Most of the time, they were conducted in Valenciano, which I really don’t understand at all. It’s one thing when you’re quietly sitting on the back row of the choir, but when you’re with seven other guys trying to learn a really complicated section of music, look out. I appreciated the fact that our section leader (who knows the music well and was able to direct us…he simply needed me to play the notes on the piano as he recognized that I played better) was most patient with me as he asked for several phrases and strings to be replayed over and over. Never mind the music scale in Spanish goes “Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, si do,”.
Once, he kept saying, “mi, mi, mi,” and I failed to realize that he was asking me to play the note E. (In English music theory, we learned the scale by letters; C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and C). Furthermore, I didn’t quite know the word for “measure” in Spanish (or in Valenciano). Some nights I didn’t know if I was helping or hurting the group.
Just when I was thinking I should leave the piano plunking to someone else, several guys thanked me profusely for helping them to learn their part. It felt good to be appreciated.
Choir practice usually runs from 10pm to midnight. After a few hours teaching English, singing for a few hours wasn’t always at the top of my list of what I felt like doing. But, I kept showing up at rehearsals, and found a little time to practice at home, too.
I was starting to get a bit worried as we neared the end of April. Gloria is a rather complicated piece, and most of the choir doesn’t read music. Thus, they have to learn by hearing the part over and over again (thus the significance of me playing the bass line repeatedly for my section). The only problem with this was when we tried to join all the parts together: sopranos, altos, tenors, and bases. The words train wreck came to mind once or twice as we tried to sync up. However, we were meeting a lot, and I felt that we might have a chance of pulling it together in time for the concert.
Outside of choir, I finished up April, and then spent a few crazy days taking care of my nephew. My parents helped, too. Probably a not so relaxing way to spend the final days of their visit, but Lynne was in Barcelona and Fran was in Madrid. So, the three of us rallied, and Lynne and Fran returned at the weekend to discover their child was intact.
Sunday, the 8th of May was Mother’s Day in Spain. We celebrated by having one last family dinner, then my parents hit the airport and returned to the states. It was an interesting departure. I was sad to see my folks go, but was ready for a bit of a break. (uh, my sister and brother in law are probably saying that same thing right about now, after I’ve camped in their house for 3 months). At any rate, I think the past three months finally caught up with me by the second week of May.
One of the observations I have made after living in Spain for three months was that there are moments where you might not feel as welcome as you might like. It’s not as if people are running around telling you to get out of their country, but there’s a cold feeling you get from people. I experienced this same thing when I moved to Boston from Texas. As difficult as that move was at times, I ultimately preferred living in that area to living in the southwest.
I wasn’t freaking out or anything, but did mention my observation to a couple of people during coffee or intercambios. One girl, whose kid goes to the same school as Daniel, mentioned that she felt the same thing on a regular basis: it’s not an American thing. Nor was it only a Spanish thing. Basically, some cities, some regions, some areas of Spain (like in many other parts of the world) might appear a bit more closed to outsiders…non-natives, if you will. Let me be quick to say that I’m not judging Spain. Many cultures tend to be a bit more reserved and closed initially, then gradually become more accepting with time. As I mentioned before, I prefer the northeast to the southwest in the United States. Even with the close knit communities where you feel like a stranger, I feel a comfort level that is difficult to describe.
At any rate, I was experiencing a period where I was feeling a little distant from the rest of the community. Maybe I was having a letdown after my parents left. Maybe I was feeling a little short on music (I only have 50 cds over here). No sé.
Meanwhile, Arsenal finished their domestic season in style, completing a come from behind win to steal fourth place in the league, ensuring that they’d play European football in the next season. All this on the last day of the season, in their last ever match in Highbury stadium. Quite the emotional bit. And, they’ve still got a final to play against Barcelona, which has kept me up one or two nights recently.
Back to choir practice. We held rehearsals every night last week, with the exception of Monday. The concert was coming quickly, and we still had a lot of work to do.
I was feeling a bit out of sorts, but was making it to rehearsals, and enjoying myself, all things considered. I was still having some panicky moments about our progress, but I was beginning to think that we might just be able to pull it off. Maybe.
On Wednesday night, the 10th, I finished up my class, metroed to Alboraya, had a quick beer, then joined the rehearsal. Emotions were a bit tense, particularly from the director, who was kind of on the hook for having us prepared to sing this in the first place. Since there was no looking back, our choir was going to perform regardless of the fact of whether we knew the music or not. I was feeling pretty comfortable with my own ability; I’d been practicing at home, and pretty much knew the music. (note – true, I haven’t sung in a choir in 18 years, but I’ve stayed fairly close to music since that time (and yes, getting your ears blown out at a rock show DOES count). I’d argue that I can play piano better than I can sing, but I can also argue that I don’t sing like a complete dink. Part Shane McGowan, and part lead singer of Moenia. Unusual combination, I agree, but then again, I’m a bit unusual, raro.
So I’m minding my own business, singing in practice with the rest of the group, and I’m thinking a bit about the weird feeling I’d been having over the past week. Suddenly, the director stops us and makes a comment to the guy immediately to my right: “You’re singing too loud. Tone it down.” This other guy has been a bit odd from the get go, but here I am, an American, singing in the community choir of Alboraya, Spain. I’m not thinking it’s my place to start passing judgement.
The next thing I know, this guy, who just got dinged by the director, takes a pot shot at me, and responded to the director that I basically wasn’t contributing. In short, I immediately felt the guy had thrown me under a bus. It was the kind of comment that was beyond inappropriate…to me, it was as if the guy had stood up in the middle of a bar mitzvah and announced that all Jewish people were crap.
There was a moment of awkward silence in the rehearsal room as people realized that the comment had been directed at me. I was shocked, bewildered, and hurt. (additional note – in my previous choral experience, I’d always understood the objective to be that all voices combined as one; it’s important that no one voice stand out.) I was concentrating on hitting the proper notes (the other guy has a tendency to get off key on a regular basis), and immediately took offense to his remarks. However, I’m not one to stand up and make a scene, particularly when I’m new to the culture, the country, and the language.
My mind raced during the remainder of the choir practice. I got more and more angry, more and more hurt, and immediately left the room as the rehearsal came to a close. I smoked three cigarettes in succession outside as I tried to get my composure back. How come the director didn’t thump the guy for speaking out of turn? How come the rest of my section didn’t stand up and flog the guy?
One or two folks smiled a few encouraging words to me as they left rehearsals, but I didn’t feel much better…I was still too shocked.
My sister came out, we had a few words with some of the other choir members about the fact that the other guy was out of order, and then we went home.
I didn’t sleep well that night. I kept thinking that I was the displaced person, and had no business singing in this choir. Furthermore, I allowed myself a moment to wonder if I had any business staying in the country. Perhaps I was making a big deal out of nothing, but with the recent emotions I had been feeling, I wasn’t prepared to just blow this off as a minor incident.
I spent Thursday trying to decide if I should go ahead and leave the choir, allowing for the rest of the group to sing. I didn’t want to completely beat the crap out of the guy, but I’m certainly not feeling inclined to wish him well on his Saint’s Day.
Because I’d been a bit quiet Wednesday night and Thursday, my sister assumed that I’d just blown the comments off. She was a bit surprised when I quietly said that I’d decided to sit out rehearsals on Thursday night, and was likely going to sit out Friday night and the concert, too. We talked about it a little more, and I was glad that she elected not to pressure me too much about my decision, choosing instead to let me collect my own thoughts.
I didn’t have classes Thursday night, and instead spent a few hours getting loopy in Finnegan’s. I wondered if I had made the right decision to drop out of choir. I wondered if I had blown the whole thing out of proportion, and allowed my emotions to get the better of me. I looked forward to a quiet night at home with my brother in law as I stumbled home from the metro to dinner.
I arrived home as my sister was leaving the house for choir. “There’s still time to go,” she said as she collected her music and keys. “Nope. I need a bit of time, okay?” I replied.
Fran and I were chatting in the kitchen about his new mobile phone when the landline rang: a choir member was calling to speak with me. She gave me the full court press, and indicated that she was speaking on behalf of the entire choir. I said I needed a bit of time to think things through, but appreciated her call.
I slept a bit better that night, mostly on account that I had consumed so many pints.
Friday morning, I got up before Lynne took Daniel to school. She mentioned that my absence from practice the previous evening had raised an uproar; the choir discussed it for thirty minutes, and I think the entire alto section threatened to come over and kidnap me from home and take me back to choir. Everyone was truly sorry that the incident happened, and also that I felt so hurt about it. My sister was sent home with countless messages from choir members asking that I please come back to the next rehearsal. The director made an additional apology that he fully intended to have a word with the other guy, as this type of incident couldn’t be tolerated.
While I would have preferred that all of this had simply passed by quietly, I was quite touched by the reaction of the choir members, and thought about it during the rest of the morning.
At lunchtime, another choir member phoned to see how I was doing…and to ask that I please come that evening to practice; they needed me there, and they wanted me there.
One of the exercises I do with my students is to have them fill out the “getting to know you” questionnaire that floated around the email circles several years ago. In it are several questions like, “do you prefer to sleep with one pillow or two?” or “do you like pizza more than lasagne?” and stuff like that. One of my favorite questions is, “Have you ever gone out of your way to befriend someone?” If the student doesn’t understand the question, I explain that the question is basically, “do you ever try to make someone feel more welcome?”
The question has always interested me because I’m intrigued by human nature. I know plenty of Spaniards that have gone out of their way to make me feel welcome here. I now know many more.
Friday night, I met up with Lynne and a few others to have some quick tapas, then we headed to the music society to rehearse. Upon my arrival, I was overwhelmed as all the choir members came up to give me hugs, kisses, handshakes, etc. So much for a quiet return to the show, eh.
One of the more active choir members presented me with a letter on behalf of the choir expressing their interest in having me remain a member of the choir. The director personally reiterated the same thing.
Truly touched, I did turn supershy, and was ready to get on with things, particularly the rehearsal. It was time to put the incidents and events of the week behind me. We had a concert in two days time.
We practiced with the orchestra that evening, and though I was glad to be back with everyone, I was a bit nervous about our ability. Things didn’t seem to be coming together. I also wondered where the other guy happened to be; he wasn’t in practice.
It was past midnight when we finished rehearsals, and we were a ways from being ready for primetime. But, we would meet on Sunday afternoon before that evening’s concert….needing a little luck. I found out on the way home that my little buddy had gotten himself a four week vacation from singing in the choir.
A few of us went for late coffees and ice creams, and Lynne and I got home around 2 or so. Even with an espresso, I was asleep as soon as I hit the pillow. It had been an emotional week and I was drained.
Saturday was pretty relaxing, and a pretty good Bryan day. After a little family time during the first half of the day, I hit Finnegan’s to watch the FA Cup Final. I haven’t missed one of these in at least 10 years, but this is the first one I’ve watched from Europe. The rest of the times have been in the Dubliner, at 9am in the morning.
I thought happily of those good times as I watched Liverpool and West Ham. I didn’t have a particular team I wanted to support in this particular match, but did want to see a good game. I was fortunate, because this game was even better than last year’s Arsenal-Man U final. Finnegan’s was packed, and I found myself powering through ciders at an alarming pace. One of the barmaids gave me a concerned glance as the game went to extra time. I was holding my own, though knew that I’d have to be sure not to fall asleep on the metro on the way home, cos´ I was well on my way to being hammered (excuse the W Ham pun).
I had a nice conversation with an Englishman who had lived in the area for three years or so. He was pretty drunk himself, and finally said farewell as Liverpool stopped the final penalty and won the cup.
Finnegan’s cleared out pretty quickly, and I stayed behind and drank a couple of Corona’s, just for old times sake, and also to soak up some of the sweetness that a handful of ciders tends to leave.
I slept very late on Sunday, allowing for the alcohol to leave my system, and allowing for some much needed rest. Lynne and I spent a little time practicing, then got ready to meet the choir to travel to the Palau.
It was a warm day, so once again, I carried my dress shirt and coat separately. I would put them on before we went on stage.
The Palau overlooks the riverbed that runs through Valencia. It’s a beautiful building surrounded by nice fountains, but I was a bit surprised to find that the auditorium itself was rather small. I was delighted to find the acoustics excellent. We were going to be singing with a second choir, similar in size to ours. However, this was really our first time to sing with them, which made for some rather frantic moments some two hours before we were to perform the real deal.
I suited up, and one fellow smoker and I went outside (through the emergency exit) for a quick smoke, which turned quicker as the security guy came to tell us that we weren’t allowed to do that.
Back inside to find our places for the performance, and at 7.45pm, we were all waiting in the stairwell off-stage for our big moment. I took the time to get warmer and warmer, and then unfortunately allowed myself to remember all the previous times that I’ve been singing on stage in a choir and have passed out cold. Three times in my life. Besides that, I’ve passed out two other times, both at church related functions (though you need not assume that this is the reason for why I don’t attend church on a regular basis). So, I’m sweaty, thinking bad things, and getting that little panic going, and then it’s time.
Out on to stage we go into a packed house. I had just convinced myself that, after an entire choir had just gone out of their way to welcome me into their community, the least I could do would be to remain vertical for the duration of Gloria. Vivaldi fans will know that this is a 30 minute deal, so this was not going to be as easy as just a couple musical numbers.
The orchestra started, the director was zipping along, and BAM.
“Gloria! Gloria!” we sang, yours truly included (vertically upright).
A bit of sweat, a few wrong notes, and half an hour later, we finished our last “Amen.”
The audience went nuts with applause, and seemed truly appreciative.
Five minutes later, I’m outside trying to cool off and smoke a couple of cigarettes in record time.
Handshakes with the director, pats on the back to other choir members, we congratulated ourselves on completing the task at hand. My sister and I later agreed that we probably needed a few more rehearsals (like a month), but we can be overly critical of ourselves, as we know the music that we were singing. It’s a necessary part of performing, I think, to acknowledge where one might have done better. However, it’s equally important to appreciate the fact that people enjoyed the performance so much, having no idea that any mistakes were even made.
So with great relief, I finished a pretty tough week doing something pretty cool.
Personal crisis abated, its time to look forward. I’ve got tons of Spanish to learn, and I’ve got a new student who has a huge project due in about 8 weeks. I’ve just got to take things one step at a time, and take it as it comes. Sobre la marcha, as the saying goes here.
Arsenal-Barcelona on Wednesday. The Champs League Final. So much for an emotionless week.
keep the faith
bryan
15/5/06
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
The Jesus and Mary Chain
OK, I was having my coffee this morning up on the terrace when I began humming a song that I hadn't heard in awhile. I have no idea why I was thinking about TJMC, but just when I was about to burst into song, I started thinking about the confusion I've had with names since I've been in Spain.
Normally, I've always been pretty good at remembering names, though in the last couple of years several friends have had children, and 4 or 5 of those little girls are named Isabella. I happen to really like that name, but suddenly had a tendancy to call every little girl Isabella. I have no valid explanation for this.
Upon arriving in Spain, I was already struggling with the language, particularly in situations when I'd meet someone for the first time. I've more or less gotten over the language hurdle, but now have a new problem: everyone seems to have the same name.
This is not a new phenomenon to the world, but it is to me, because now, on top of having to understand the language, I've got to really focus on remembering the name of the person I'm talking to. Maria Jose is so common, that I've repeatedly botched it, even when they go by their nickname.
There are countless nicknames, as I was informed when I first joined a gym. There were three women standing there, and Maria Josefina introuced herself to me ("I go by Maria Jose"), then introduced me to girl that worked there (also Maria Josefina, but she goes by Pepa), and finally to the third girl, again named Maria Josefina, but she goes by Mariajo. Neat.
I haven't been able to keep them straight since that first day (with the exception of Pepa), so just smile and wave when I see them.
I thought it would be easier with the guys. I was wrong; it's just as tricky. Jose or Juan is super commmon, and it's perfectly understandable. However, trying to remember Juan Carlos, Jose Carlos, Juan Manuel, Jose Manuel after having a few glasses of wine is almost impossible, for me at least.
No disrepect for these names or the culture is intended here. I truly appreciate the significance and think it's wonderful. That said, my personal trick has always been to find some sort of association to help me remember people's names, much the way the Old Monk referred to me as ESBryan. How many guys could they possibly have coming into their bar that would have 6 or 7 pints of Fuller's each night I certainly don't know, but they were able to keep my name straight.
I've had a habit of using a person's workplace in conjunction with their name, especially since I rarely know someone's last name. Thus, Dubliner Julie will always be Dubliner Julie, even when she leaves that bar and works in some other place. The same goes for Fireside Beth.
If not the workplace association, I'll find other means. I have a good friend Paula from the states, and over here, I would refer to her as Paula intercambio. This helped me differentiate her from someone else with the same last name. I was perfectly content with this, until I started another intercambio with a girl here. Her name is Paola. Paula - Paola. Hmmm, I've had a few slip ups, simply because sometimes my Spanish "au" sounds like my Spanish "ao".
In the states, I've got a good friend named Chris. In Spain, I know at least 6 Cristinas, several of which go by Cris. This made for some confusion when I was explaining to Intercambio Cris how Stateside Chris and I had been in London the weekend before. I had just figured out a way to minimize further confusion, when Cris (mother of a schoolfriend of Daniel) walked up, said hello, and introduced us to the woman with her, also named Cris. Yikes.
Scrambling to find a way to associate all the names, I looked at the baby girl in the stroller being pushed by the second Cris and said, "Wow, how pretty your child is. What's her name?"
"Isabella."
I give up. I'm going for another coffee.
cheers
bryan
Normally, I've always been pretty good at remembering names, though in the last couple of years several friends have had children, and 4 or 5 of those little girls are named Isabella. I happen to really like that name, but suddenly had a tendancy to call every little girl Isabella. I have no valid explanation for this.
Upon arriving in Spain, I was already struggling with the language, particularly in situations when I'd meet someone for the first time. I've more or less gotten over the language hurdle, but now have a new problem: everyone seems to have the same name.
This is not a new phenomenon to the world, but it is to me, because now, on top of having to understand the language, I've got to really focus on remembering the name of the person I'm talking to. Maria Jose is so common, that I've repeatedly botched it, even when they go by their nickname.
There are countless nicknames, as I was informed when I first joined a gym. There were three women standing there, and Maria Josefina introuced herself to me ("I go by Maria Jose"), then introduced me to girl that worked there (also Maria Josefina, but she goes by Pepa), and finally to the third girl, again named Maria Josefina, but she goes by Mariajo. Neat.
I haven't been able to keep them straight since that first day (with the exception of Pepa), so just smile and wave when I see them.
I thought it would be easier with the guys. I was wrong; it's just as tricky. Jose or Juan is super commmon, and it's perfectly understandable. However, trying to remember Juan Carlos, Jose Carlos, Juan Manuel, Jose Manuel after having a few glasses of wine is almost impossible, for me at least.
No disrepect for these names or the culture is intended here. I truly appreciate the significance and think it's wonderful. That said, my personal trick has always been to find some sort of association to help me remember people's names, much the way the Old Monk referred to me as ESBryan. How many guys could they possibly have coming into their bar that would have 6 or 7 pints of Fuller's each night I certainly don't know, but they were able to keep my name straight.
I've had a habit of using a person's workplace in conjunction with their name, especially since I rarely know someone's last name. Thus, Dubliner Julie will always be Dubliner Julie, even when she leaves that bar and works in some other place. The same goes for Fireside Beth.
If not the workplace association, I'll find other means. I have a good friend Paula from the states, and over here, I would refer to her as Paula intercambio. This helped me differentiate her from someone else with the same last name. I was perfectly content with this, until I started another intercambio with a girl here. Her name is Paola. Paula - Paola. Hmmm, I've had a few slip ups, simply because sometimes my Spanish "au" sounds like my Spanish "ao".
In the states, I've got a good friend named Chris. In Spain, I know at least 6 Cristinas, several of which go by Cris. This made for some confusion when I was explaining to Intercambio Cris how Stateside Chris and I had been in London the weekend before. I had just figured out a way to minimize further confusion, when Cris (mother of a schoolfriend of Daniel) walked up, said hello, and introduced us to the woman with her, also named Cris. Yikes.
Scrambling to find a way to associate all the names, I looked at the baby girl in the stroller being pushed by the second Cris and said, "Wow, how pretty your child is. What's her name?"
"Isabella."
I give up. I'm going for another coffee.
cheers
bryan
Friday, April 28, 2006
Goals and Gols
About a year ago, I was spending quite a bit of time exploring options for “my life, the universe, and everything.” I met frequently with a friend who is particularly skilled at making sense out of organized chaos, namely my life. One evening, he suggested that I identify some goals for the next year, three years, and five years.
It was excellent advice, and I appreciated the reminder. I’ve always been a big fan of lists, from items to get at the store to ranking my top ten CDs. Goal setting goes right along with that, and I had slacked off documenting my goals in recent years. Without too much effort, I put together three sets of goals, and after putting them down on paper, was able to read them, reread them, and reread them. I noticed that once the goals were documented on paper, they sort of stared back at me, daring me to take action, achieve them, and thus be able to check them off the list, particularly the one year goals.
My friend, when reviewing my list, remarked that I’d put nothing down about relationships, girlfriends, marriage, etc…in any of the lists. The key here is, “achievable and realistic,” I replied, only half-jokingly.
Being able to measure progress is an important part of goal setting. True, some goals are easier to measure than others. I used to work at a place where they never would really tell us what the target profit was, then they would try to hold us accountable for the results. Not only did I find this really dumb (and mentioned this more than once in the conference room), it was incredibly frustrating. Besides the inability to achieve results (against what target?), my professional side took a hit as it becomes tremendously difficult to convince yourself to get up and go to work each day when you don’t even know if you’re accomplishing anything.
Here in April 2006, I took a moment to review the list I wrote last year, and have been very pleased with progress. The number one objective last year was to simply change jobs, I think I’ve done that. One of the other big objectives was to improve my Spanish. I’m fairly certain I can safely check that goal off the list. Smoking level down, fitness level up. Check.
When I arrived in Spain a couple of months ago, I drew up a new set of objectives for 2006. The short list came easily: live a better life, be a better person, and take advantage of every opportunity. Yes, pretty vague, but still measurable.
For example, I got to put a tick in the “take advantage of every opportunity” category a couple of Saturdays ago when I went to the Grand Prix in Valencia to see some Formula 1 racing. I’d never been to a car race before, but Fran had an extra ticket, and he, Daniel and I spent a few hours out at the track. Ultimately, I confirmed that the cars go really fast. I once had a colleague that absolutely lived for this stuff. After sitting in the grandstand and feeling the rush as a race car roared past, I now better understand what he was raving about. Groovy.
Easter is quite the holiday experience in Spain, but I have seen a lot of the processions during Semana Santa before. During Easter break, though, everyone either leaves town for the holidays, or stays local because they are participating in the activities of the week. Fran’s brother Xuso and family were involved every night in a procession...all of them.
We ended up staying local ourselves, which ultimately made things a bit close. Unfortunately, we’d been unable to find suitable accommodations for our own weekend get away, since the rest of the country was already doing the same.
Thus, the past couple of weeks have been a bit quiet. I did manage to pick up a few extra classes, and also did some intercambios to keep myself occupied. I’m fortunate that my sister and folks were around, otherwise I might have forgotten my birthday. We had a little barbeque on Easter Monday, along with a cake my sister made, and now I’m 36. Thanks to everyone for the e-cards, well wishes, and emails. It really means a lot.
For me, April has additional significance beyond taxes, Easter, and my birthday. It’s the time of year when things really start to heat up on the football front. Valencia CF has been doing well in domestic play, and I told the coach Quique Sanchez Flores as much when I got to meet him a few weeks back. I had just come from a pub where I watched Arsenal get through to the semifinals in Champs League. I had a few beers in me, and of course I was sporting a bright red Arsenal jersey, which probably didn’t leave the best impression, but I still got his autograph, and he called me his buddy. I think I did gain a little respect when I inquired about one of his injured midfielders, a player who actually played for Arsenal the year before. VCF didn’t compete in Champs League this year, but will likely finish a very nice season as runners up in La Liga. Well done.
Arsenal, on the other hand, have had a sub par domestic run, which is very frustrating when you consider their accomplishments of recent years. However, they’re on the verge of reaching the final of Champs League; if things go well tonight, they’ll play in the final for the first time ever.
Despite the poor domestic season for Arsenal, it’s an historic year, as this is their last season at Highbury, where they’ve played since 1913. Next season, which starts in August, they’ll play in a newly constructed stadium close by.
I was fully aware of this last April when I added, “get to Highbury for a match” to my list of one years goal. At the time, I didn’t know that I’d be moving to Spain, but I’d also discovered that Chris and Lori were pregnant with Regan, who was born just after the season started last August With so much happening in the second half of 2005, neither Chris nor myself really thought too much about getting to a game. We both had sort of agreed to look for options, but meanwhile, kept telling ourselves that the season was really long. There would be plenty of time.
Suddenly, it was March 2006, and young McKee and I looked at a calendar to realize that we had about three home matches left at Highbury to choose from, which sort of narrowed the window.
We selected a date, Chris got permission, and we found flights to England (Chris – Dallas – London, Bryan – Valencia – Londres). Hotels weren’t as easy to find, but Chris did well to get us into a place in Islington, North London. Home of Highbury.
As we started to pat ourselves on the back and say, “wow, we’ve organized a weekend getaway in no time at all!” I checked the internet to see about tickets for the football match, and was alarmed to see that I might have to sell a vital organ. I was aware that we were hoping to see Arsenal – Tottenham, a right London derby, which would make things very difficult. Ticket availability would be scarce at best.
Last Friday, April 21st, I left Valencia for London Stanstead via Ryan Air then took a train to Liverpool Street Station, and arrived at the hotel to find that Chris, who had arrived earlier in the day, had checked in, but wasn’t there at the moment. Reception issued me a key to the room, anyway, and after stowing my gear, I walked around town to find an ATM, and hopefully Chris.
I located an ATM with no problem, then walked right by the pub Chris was in on my way to order a drink for myself in the hotel pub. Chris walked in moments later, and the weekend officially began.
Over a drink or two, we quickly caught up on the events of Dallas and Spain, then discussed the important question of just how in the hell we’d find tickets for this match, and how much would we have to pay?
After the girl at reception agreed to keep alert and notify me if tickets became available (not that her laughter gave me much hope…she’d initially exclaimed, “Do you TRULY understand how big this match is ?!?!”), we walked around Islington a little inquiring about tickets, then took the tube out to Highbury.
Chris rides the tube as if he’s been doing it all his life, and has an impressive ability to find the easiest route to said destination in a matter of seconds, from any point in the city.
We arrived at Highbury stadium (whoops, I almost wrote hallowed ground, which would have made me the millionth person to try to use that phrase with a sports arena), and it is impressive. And small. Like any other stadium that didn’t have a game being played in it at the exact moment, it was really quiet. I needed a few moments to take it all in, as this was my very first trip to North London. Highbury sits in the middle of a residential area, not unlike Wrigley Field, or to some extent, Fenway Park. The new stadium will be 500 meters away, but still in the neighborhood. People can literally go home and take the laundry off the line during half time if they want. It’s a concept a bit foreign to this Dallas native, who thinks the soccer stadium in Dallas is right next to the middle of nowhere. I definitely prefer the neighborhood scene.
The team store was already closed for the day, and we hadn’t seen anyone standing around holding two tickets for sale. Thus, we were about to head back to the tube, when I recognized some other guests from our hotel, some fathers and sons who had come for the game, too. It made sense that we try to seek their insights on our problem. We followed them up the road to the team entrance to the stadium, then realized that the Arsenal players were arriving one by one to board the team bus, which would take them to their hotel for the night, standard practice in sports the night before a game.
I felt rather like a giddy school boy as we stood with a few other folks to catch a glimpse of Arsenal players as they drove inside the gate. Lehmann showed up in a Mercedes hatchback, Senderos rolled by in a Range Rover, Pires drove a massive Lincoln Navigator, and Reyes was driven in a Mercedes sedan.
I wasn’t the only giddy one. The Irish group was just as excited to see the players, and they had some particularly humorous remarks about the whole scene. Chris isn’t shy, and struck up a conversation with these guys, and they immediately tried to offer words of support. “Lads, it’s going to be very tricky, being a derby and all,” they said, but one of them took my phone number and promised to call if they came across anyone with tickets.
Chris suggested that we go to Leicester Square, which has a lot of brokers selling theatre tickets. It was worth a look to see if they might have match tickets, too. Nope. No luck.
The square was a bit touristy, but we found a pub to hide in. We were both a bit antsy about the ticket hunt, but pints always helps the situation. I took advantage of cask conditioned Abbot Ale, and Chris jumped on the Guinness.
We went pint for pint, and had some potato wedges, fish and chips, along with some hearty English mustard. A nice chat, several hours, and I don’t remember how many pints later, we tubed back out to our stop at Angel. From there, we headed down the street to another pub.
Sobriety became just a memory, and we found ourselves in yet another put sitting on a rooftop terrace. The barman didn’t have match tickets, nor did he have any good ideas about getting any by game time. He did, however, kindly help me to clean out my loose change, which had grown to a colossal mound in my pocket. Pints in England have odd prices, like 3 pounds 21 pence, which accumulates a lot of coinage if you pay in notes, as we had been doing throughout the evening.
The terrace was nice, but getting cold. Chris grabbed his coat, and we hung out a bit more. That meant another pint. They closed at 11, which prompted us to go down the street to an Indian restaurant.
In the curry house, we both ordered the multicourse menu, but the day had caught up with me, and I was no longer hungry by the time the food started to come out. Chris, on the other hand, proceeded to chow down, finishing all of his menu, and a good bit of mine. Quite the impressive display, and a small reversal from the late nights at IHOP, Denny’s, or wherever where I’ve been known to have eaten $20 worth of food in a single sitting, while Chris had only a side of hash browns.
By midnight, I needed sleep, so we returned to the hotel and crashed.
I didn’t feel top notch on Saturday morning, but after a fried breakfast at the hotel (ooh! quite lovely for a hangover!) I felt a bit better. We bumped into our Irish friends, who were loading up on carbs themselves.
Around 10, we decided to go for broke, literally. After politely declining the offer of a taxi with the Irish, Chris and I hit the ATMs, cashed up, then headed for Highbury on the tube.
Saturday, April 22nd, might be the very best day in the history of English weather: bright sunshine, a cool breeze, pleasant temperature…and two guys shitting their pants because they didn’t have match tickets to Arsenal-Tottenham three hours before match time.
Chris and I were in our kits, and received appreciative looks from other fans on the metro. We met two guys en route who had flown in from South Africa the night before, and I could have sworn I heard one of them murmur, “Wow, you guys are fucked,” after realizing we were ticketless.
When we initially got on the tube at Angel, the queue was so big that a man opened up the turnstile and advised us to pay at the other end. We gladly did this, though we didn’t know exactly what was going on. No worry. At the Highbury stop, a nice lady sold us two day passes for the tube, then wrote us a receipt, clearly this is something they do frequently to maximize efficiency on the tube.
We exited the tube station onto Gillespie road, into the mass of Arsenal. Policemen on horseback were everywhere, and excited fans and vendors crowded the streets around the stadium. We scouted about a little, then I realized that no one was going to just hold up a sign saying FOR SALE: 2 TICKETS; REASONABLY PRICED; AVAILABLE FOR 2 AMERICAN IDIOTS WHO DIDN’T BUY TICKETS IN ADVANCE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.
Chris has always had good luck acquiring tickets right outside of venues, except once. One Saturday evening a few years ago, he invited me along to the art museum where they were doing a reading. On that occasion, he only found one ticket, which he used for himself, leaving me to find a cab in downtown Dallas so I could get back to the monk. Those who have been downtown on a Saturday evening will know that usually there are only 4 or 5 people downtown on a Saturday night...and even fewer cabs.
I remembered this incident as Chris murmured, “Who’s selling tickets?” every five seconds as we walked around. In my entire life, I’ve never been able to solicit anything. In contrast, Chris does this almost as well as he rides the metro.
Around 10.45, a man acknowledged Chris, and ended up selling his own ticket for 100 pounds. I stood on the corner while they went down the street to do the deal.
Minutes later, Chris handed me a ticket and said, “One down.” Whoosh, or should I just say whoo.
At 11.15, as Chris continued to murmur, a man talking on a cell phone motioned for us to follow him. Down the street, and into a betting shop Chris and the man went. I hung out on the street and smoked a cigarette.
During the longest 10 minutes of my life, I wondered if Chris had been attacked inside the betting shop (the previous ticket transaction had taken all of 1 minute). I analysed the consequences of, in the event that Chris did NOT exit the betting shop, waiting until after the game ended before calling Lori to let her know that I’d lost Chris. Oosh.
Whoo-oosh.
Chris walked out of the shop, we walked a few steps, then he stopped, smiled, and said, “We’re in.”
My heart pounded as we went to the stadium entrance. What if the tickets were fake? What if the sweat from my hands rubs off the ink so they can’t see that it’s a ticket?
Chris went on through with ease, but the electronic bar code reader didn’t accept my ticket. Gulp.
I tried a second time, then the attendant inspected my ticket, then motioned for me to use another turnstile as he called another attendant over to report that the gate was malfunctioning. Suddenly, my gate opened, and I was standing next to Chris on the right side of the fence.
Our tickets were for the North Bank, the rowdiest section of the stadium. Chris and I basked in the sunshine an hour before kickoff, and just marvelled at the scene. The pitch is a beautiful green, and pretty enough without any players on it. Then, the goalkeeper came out to begin his warmup, gave us a little wave, then practiced stopping shots as the stadium continued to fill up.
As the start of the game drew nearer, Chris and I continued to sit together and watched the teams warm up, though we realized that eventually, Chris would have to go sit in the actual seat from his ticket stub; the stadium was truly going to be close to capacity.
The match began promptly at 12.45, and the entire North Bank of the stadium immediately stood up and burst into song. “Stand up if you hate Tottenham!” chanted everyone merrily, in the direction of the away fans’ corner, which was surrounded by stewards and police (for the fans’ protection...this is English soccer, yeah?).
Sure enough, the last two empty seats to my right were taken with the arrival of a couple, so Chris stepped out of the aisle to grab another seat, leaving me surrounded (safely) with energetic fans.
As first halves go, Tottenham played much better than Arsenal. There were a few frantic moments when I thought we’d let a goal in, but we held the line. As our seats were behind the goal and to the right, we had to stand up almost every time the ball came down to our end, which was frequent. Throughout the half, the fans sang songs, many directed at the players. Not complicated songs, mind you, but basically singing a player’s name over an over again. For example, “Jo-se An-ton-i-o” was heard from all sides of the pitch when Jose Reyes had possession of the ball. Many other songs weren’t quite a polite. “Who the fuck are ya?” was the question the Arsenal fans sang to the travelling supporters.
The seats themselves reminded me of the seats they used to have at the Inwood Theatre, before they replaced them with the cushy nice ones. These at Highbury weren’t uncomfortable, and certainly better than the bleacher seats I’ve had to sit on in other stadiums. Besides, when 10,000 people stand up at once, all the chairs clunk together at once, and I believe Chris commented that it sounded kind of like a herd of buffalo.
The first half ended scoreless, and as people went out for refreshments and bathroom breaks, I turned around and saw Chris standing a few rows behind me. He’d found a few seats together that were quite close to my original seat. Thus, we’d be able to watch the second half together.
I stepped out for a quick smoke, and ran into one of the Irish, who was delighted to discover that we’d gotten into the match, and furthermore, we’d paid less for our tickets than he had thought we might have to.
I appreciated a personal moment as I watched all of the fans rushing about trying to buy concessions, talk to their friends, go to the bathroom, and get back to their seats before the game resumed. What a cool day.
Chris and I compared our thoughts of the first half of the match. We weren’t playing well, and the second half didn’t start much better. Thierry Henry didn’t start the game, and neither did our midfielder Fabregas; the important Champs League match was going to be three days later, and those two would need a lot of their strength for that game. Meanwhile, Tottenham had all of their stars out, and were successfully taking the game to Arsenal.
Chris said, “shit!” about 1000 times during the second half, and the three little red haired boys sitting in front of us turned around and grinned almost each time, as did their father, though the father’s smile wasn’t quite as big.
Early in the second half, the crowd began chanting for the arrival of Henry, who could asily change the tide of the game for us. Sure enough, he came on in the 62nd minute, as did Fabregas. They had an immediate impact, but unfortunately, this impact affected both teams. Two Arsenal players collided in spectacular fashion (it couldn’t have been any more keystone cops like), and normally in cases like this, the other teams kicks the ball out of play, stopping the game to ensure that the players are okay. In this case, the Tottenham player played on, and, as the referee didn’t blow the whistle, proceeded to head on down the field, cross the ball into the box, where a bastard named Robbie Keane tapped the ball in for a Tottenham score. This little incident created quite a bit of controversy, and the normally cool, calm, collected Arsenal manager loudly complained to the assistant ref, and also had a few heated words for the coach of Tottenham.
The goal sort of silenced the crowd, but we were still cheering our team on. The North Bank began singing Tottenham were cheats, somewhat merrily, I might add. Once we hit the 80th minute, I began to think that today wouldn’t be our day. However, with 6 minutes left in the game, Henry collected a pass from upfield, then turned and scored a classic goal…the kind of goal we were hoping to see at Highbury. The stadium erupted in a fervor, and became even more excited when a Tottenham midfielder picked up a second yellow card and got sent of. For the remainder of the game, Arsenal threw everything forward in hopes of scoring a winner, but at full time, we settled for a draw.
Maybe not the barnburner, but certainly worth the price of admission. The atmosphere alone is just great…and as usual, I didn’t do the experience justice in my description. But, next time you have a few hundred pounds and happen to be in London between August and May, feel free to check a match out.
Chris and I exited the stadium with the rest of the crowd. The officals had asked that Tottenham fans exit the stadium in one direction, asking the Arsenal fans to exit in the opposite. The effort to maintain peace and order is pretty intense.
Out on the street, we wanted to let the crowds die down before trying to get back on the tube. We tried to check out the stadium shop, which was again closed. Then, we decided to walk over to the new stadium, where we found a fifty something gentleman snapping pictures with a disposable camera. “I’ve been coming for 50 years,” he said to no one in particular. Then, sort of turning to whoever happened to be standing in the general area, he motioned to the glass picture windows that covered half the side of the new stadium and asked, “Fancy a job as a window washer, boys?”
Something told me that perhaps he’d been saying those two lines for the past few months each week after an Arsenal match. No matter, he was a very nice man, and ultimately directed us back to the same tube stop to get back into central London.
Beer sales are prohibited in English football, with some random exceptions. This was a particular day where Highbury did offer Budweiser at the concession stands, but we elected to skip the brews until post match.
On Chris’ suggestion, off to Earl´s Court we went via the tube. It was across town, and took a few minutes, so we were ready for pints as soon as we got off the subway. Fortunately, Chris knew the place we were going, and within minutes, we were drinking his coveted John Smith Ale. Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it was now 4pm. The pub’s kitchen would reopen around 5, so I, like I’ve been doing for years, put pints before food, and hoped that I wouldn’t be too incredibly drunk by 6pm.
As we sat at our table and talked about the game, I looked over and saw a little poster offering a free t-shirt when you order 8 pints of John Smith Ale. Great. Like we needed an excuse to order 8 pints of beer anyway. We settled in for what would probably be an outing where we’d eat twice in the same establishment, but were entertained by the FA cup match between Liverpool and Chelsea.
Chris got to talk to Lori during all of this, and we also had a couple of little chats with an Englishman who had been at the Arsenal match himself. He’s a season ticket holder, and told us a few funny stories about seeing the new stadium, other matches, and his overall opinion of the afternoon’s match. He told us several stories about guys who were drinking 12 pints of beer a day, 5 or 6 days a week. He did this with a glass of red wine in his hand; people are consuming a bit less beer in England these days, but only a bit. I had no beef about the red wine…look where I live.
My appetite returned, so I decided to order the ultimate hamburger, which had beef, sausage, bacon, egg, mushroom, and cheese on it. It was a bit difficult to manage, but I was facing the corner (instead of the rest of the bar), so only Chris really had to put up with the poor manners. “Kind of hard to control, eh?” he casually asked while using his knife and fork.
Sometime between 8 and 9, we needed some fresh air, so staggered out onto the road and walked around. We were actually in Chelsea and Fullham areas, which helps one to sober up rather quickly. It’s not that I ever feared that we’d be thumped because we were wearing Arsenal jerseys in the wrong part of town, but there was no real need to try and test that, either.
As the sun finally went down, we found ourselves entering Hammersmith, West London. Clash country. But, outside of a little glance about, I knew I wanted to leave the trip to West London for another weekend. This weekend was all about North London and Arsenal.
We headed back to our Angel stop, had a quick change in the hotel, then walked around Islington. By this time, it was close to 10pm, and everyone was stepping out for the night. We walked down Upper Street, which was full of bars, restaurants, pubs, shops, and people. Since we weren’t in any particular hurry, and still pretty loaded on pints (Chris got the t-shirt, by the way), the walk would do us good.
25 minutes later we arrived at Higbury & Islington tube station, which is the other tube stop that gets you to the stadium ground. It was nice to put the whole area into geographic context. Yes, I’m aware that I could have just read a map, but after looking at tube maps all weekend, everything appears to be within walking distance. I don’t consider 25 minutes to be excessive, but maybe I wouldn’t want to do it everyday, you know?
Chris opted to find a little Chinese restaurant for dinner, and I quickly agreed. Every Asian restaurant that I’ve been in has tended to be super quiet. This place was booming, full of tables of chatty customers. No one was being particularly obnoxious (except for a couple of drunk guys in the corner), everyone was just enjoying the Saturday night. Next time I eat Chinese in Texas, I’m going to make an effort to be more noisy.
We called it a night around 12.30 or so, and, after a very full day, planned to sleep late on Sunday.
Sure enough, it was 10.30 or so before we even opened our eyes Sunday morning. We looked outside to see rain, something we hadn’t seen thus far in the weekend. Chris had to book a hotel for Sunday night, and decided to stay on where we were. I had to be at the airport by midafternoon to catch my flight back to Valencia.
We broke one of my rules and had a few coffees in a Starbucks down the street, as there was no other café open. This place was two story, and we found a couple of comfy chairs and just enjoyed the lazy morning. I saw a cute girl with a tattoo of little animal footprints going up the small of her back, which goes down in my book as really cool.
Around 2, it was time for me to leave, so I called a cab, and Chris waited with me out on the front stoop of the hotel A quick, expensive visit to London, to Arsenal…there was no better way to spend a weekend. We said our goodbyes, I got on in the cab, and headed for Liverpool Street Station, and caught the train back to Stanstead.
At Stanstead, I had to stand in line for about an hour, only to discover that I had to pay an extra fee for failing to tell them I wanted to check my bag. This required me to get out of line, go stand in another line (that was very short, thank goodness), pay 5 pounds, then return to the original desk for my boarding card. I wasn’t too pleased, but what could I do.
Once I had my boarding card, I stepped outside for a couple of powersmokes, and ended up seeing a couple that had been outside of Highbury on Friday night watching the players arrive. I don’t know if they saw the game or not, because I didn’t actually talk to them. My weekend was wrapping up, and I didn’t feel too chatty.
Due to me being a bit of an idiot, I queued in the wrong line to board the airplane (Ryan Air does sort of a cattle car approach, like Southwest), and as a result, got a bit of lip from the flight attendant and got to stand at the very back of the line. I actually was second to last onto the airplane. This meant I got a crap seat, and this didn’t help my mood. I sat in silence for the entire flight back to Valencia.
We touched down around 9pm, and, being on the very back row of the aircraft, I got to get off the plane last. The positive to this, of course, is that I hardly had to wait for my bag, which was toodling down the carrousel when I arrived at baggage claim. I grabbed my gear, had a quick smoke, then hailed a taxi for Meliana, where I returned to an empty house, Lynne, Fran, Daniel, mom and Dad were on a trip of their own, and would return on Monday.
I enjoyed a quiet Monday thinking about my fun expensive weekend. Sometimes, you have to just throw caution into the wind and blow budget. I enjoyed it so much, I might even have to do it again, though I’ve already got to fly back to the states in August, which is going to cost a ton. (Note to self: one of the goals for the rest of 2006 is to make more money. Okay, some money.)
Monday was San Vicente Day, another regional holiday. I prepared my classes for the rest of the week, then met an intercambio friend at Finnegan’s for a few pints.
Tuesday, April 25, was the away leg of Arsenal-Villareal in the Champs League semi final. Villareal is pretty close to Valencia, so Arsenal fans were all over the place. I was wearing my kit, too, though experienced a few dodgy moments where people gave me dirty looks in the metro and city center.
After a few weeks of break from teaching, I couldn’t afford to try and reschedule a class with a student, so I missed the first half of the match. But, at 9.30pm when my class let out, I sprinted down to the street to Finnegan’s to join the crowd of Villareal and Arsenal fans. The match was horrible actually. Arsenal played worse than they did against Tottenham. That said, Villareal weren’t getting through Arsenals defense. I was watching the game by myself, due to the crowd in the bar. I could see my Arsenal mates (ok, there are really only two of them), but there was no room.
I saw the game heading towards a draw, which would enable Arsenal to go on through to the final…under the aggregate rule. Then, in the 90th minute, the referee ruled a foul to be a penalty…against Arsenal. Oh my god.
My teams have crashed out of so many games in penalties, and it kills me very time. (I was in a bar in Boston back in 1998 watching England lose to Argentina on penalties…the barman actually asked me not to throw anything or wreck the place)
No, I don’t get violent, I just get shattered.
So, I kept one eye closed and the other on the television screen, then found myself screaming…..Lehmann, my little buddy in the Mercedes hatchback had guessed correctly, stopped the shot, and the final whistle was moments away.
Full time. Arsenal goes through to the Champs League final. Though they didn’t deserve to win the match, they deserve to be in the final (they played much better and got the result in the first match).
Immediately after the game, the Villareal fans exited in sadness. I grabbed another beer, then met up with my friends for a bit of celebration. I happened to meet some girl from Iowa who had been living in Ireland for the past year; she was taking a whirlwind trip through Europe before heading home. I wished her luck, indicating that I was just beginning my time in Europe.
I felt kind of bad for the taxi driver who drove me home Tuesday night. He was listening to the match recap on the radio, and was in tears for the entire ride. I offered a few words of consolation as I paid my fare, and also told him that I’d been in his shoes several times myself.
Wednesday, I woke up still feeling very full of Arsenal, my weekend joy had stretched into midweek.
I celebrated my good feeling by going to pick up my official ID card. I’m now an official resident of Spain. Fucking cool.
One of my intercambios invited me to the movies later that night, so I tagged along with a few women (who all live in Meliana) and we saw “Eres muy guapo,” a French film that was dubbed into Spanish. It was my first movie going experience in Spain (tick it off the list of goals), and amazingly enough, I followed most of the diaglog. Yes, Moe, it was typical French plot…older man meets younger beautiful woman, and once again, I loved it.
So here it is Friday morning, 11am, and I’m trying to wrap this up and get to the gym. I have found that I may have just picked up a couple of new classes, as word of mouth is spreading that sometimes Bryan gives away copies of his music to his students.
Right. Keep the faith and all that. I’ve got to, since Arsenal vs Barcelona is two weeks away.
bryan
It was excellent advice, and I appreciated the reminder. I’ve always been a big fan of lists, from items to get at the store to ranking my top ten CDs. Goal setting goes right along with that, and I had slacked off documenting my goals in recent years. Without too much effort, I put together three sets of goals, and after putting them down on paper, was able to read them, reread them, and reread them. I noticed that once the goals were documented on paper, they sort of stared back at me, daring me to take action, achieve them, and thus be able to check them off the list, particularly the one year goals.
My friend, when reviewing my list, remarked that I’d put nothing down about relationships, girlfriends, marriage, etc…in any of the lists. The key here is, “achievable and realistic,” I replied, only half-jokingly.
Being able to measure progress is an important part of goal setting. True, some goals are easier to measure than others. I used to work at a place where they never would really tell us what the target profit was, then they would try to hold us accountable for the results. Not only did I find this really dumb (and mentioned this more than once in the conference room), it was incredibly frustrating. Besides the inability to achieve results (against what target?), my professional side took a hit as it becomes tremendously difficult to convince yourself to get up and go to work each day when you don’t even know if you’re accomplishing anything.
Here in April 2006, I took a moment to review the list I wrote last year, and have been very pleased with progress. The number one objective last year was to simply change jobs, I think I’ve done that. One of the other big objectives was to improve my Spanish. I’m fairly certain I can safely check that goal off the list. Smoking level down, fitness level up. Check.
When I arrived in Spain a couple of months ago, I drew up a new set of objectives for 2006. The short list came easily: live a better life, be a better person, and take advantage of every opportunity. Yes, pretty vague, but still measurable.
For example, I got to put a tick in the “take advantage of every opportunity” category a couple of Saturdays ago when I went to the Grand Prix in Valencia to see some Formula 1 racing. I’d never been to a car race before, but Fran had an extra ticket, and he, Daniel and I spent a few hours out at the track. Ultimately, I confirmed that the cars go really fast. I once had a colleague that absolutely lived for this stuff. After sitting in the grandstand and feeling the rush as a race car roared past, I now better understand what he was raving about. Groovy.
Easter is quite the holiday experience in Spain, but I have seen a lot of the processions during Semana Santa before. During Easter break, though, everyone either leaves town for the holidays, or stays local because they are participating in the activities of the week. Fran’s brother Xuso and family were involved every night in a procession...all of them.
We ended up staying local ourselves, which ultimately made things a bit close. Unfortunately, we’d been unable to find suitable accommodations for our own weekend get away, since the rest of the country was already doing the same.
Thus, the past couple of weeks have been a bit quiet. I did manage to pick up a few extra classes, and also did some intercambios to keep myself occupied. I’m fortunate that my sister and folks were around, otherwise I might have forgotten my birthday. We had a little barbeque on Easter Monday, along with a cake my sister made, and now I’m 36. Thanks to everyone for the e-cards, well wishes, and emails. It really means a lot.
For me, April has additional significance beyond taxes, Easter, and my birthday. It’s the time of year when things really start to heat up on the football front. Valencia CF has been doing well in domestic play, and I told the coach Quique Sanchez Flores as much when I got to meet him a few weeks back. I had just come from a pub where I watched Arsenal get through to the semifinals in Champs League. I had a few beers in me, and of course I was sporting a bright red Arsenal jersey, which probably didn’t leave the best impression, but I still got his autograph, and he called me his buddy. I think I did gain a little respect when I inquired about one of his injured midfielders, a player who actually played for Arsenal the year before. VCF didn’t compete in Champs League this year, but will likely finish a very nice season as runners up in La Liga. Well done.
Arsenal, on the other hand, have had a sub par domestic run, which is very frustrating when you consider their accomplishments of recent years. However, they’re on the verge of reaching the final of Champs League; if things go well tonight, they’ll play in the final for the first time ever.
Despite the poor domestic season for Arsenal, it’s an historic year, as this is their last season at Highbury, where they’ve played since 1913. Next season, which starts in August, they’ll play in a newly constructed stadium close by.
I was fully aware of this last April when I added, “get to Highbury for a match” to my list of one years goal. At the time, I didn’t know that I’d be moving to Spain, but I’d also discovered that Chris and Lori were pregnant with Regan, who was born just after the season started last August With so much happening in the second half of 2005, neither Chris nor myself really thought too much about getting to a game. We both had sort of agreed to look for options, but meanwhile, kept telling ourselves that the season was really long. There would be plenty of time.
Suddenly, it was March 2006, and young McKee and I looked at a calendar to realize that we had about three home matches left at Highbury to choose from, which sort of narrowed the window.
We selected a date, Chris got permission, and we found flights to England (Chris – Dallas – London, Bryan – Valencia – Londres). Hotels weren’t as easy to find, but Chris did well to get us into a place in Islington, North London. Home of Highbury.
As we started to pat ourselves on the back and say, “wow, we’ve organized a weekend getaway in no time at all!” I checked the internet to see about tickets for the football match, and was alarmed to see that I might have to sell a vital organ. I was aware that we were hoping to see Arsenal – Tottenham, a right London derby, which would make things very difficult. Ticket availability would be scarce at best.
Last Friday, April 21st, I left Valencia for London Stanstead via Ryan Air then took a train to Liverpool Street Station, and arrived at the hotel to find that Chris, who had arrived earlier in the day, had checked in, but wasn’t there at the moment. Reception issued me a key to the room, anyway, and after stowing my gear, I walked around town to find an ATM, and hopefully Chris.
I located an ATM with no problem, then walked right by the pub Chris was in on my way to order a drink for myself in the hotel pub. Chris walked in moments later, and the weekend officially began.
Over a drink or two, we quickly caught up on the events of Dallas and Spain, then discussed the important question of just how in the hell we’d find tickets for this match, and how much would we have to pay?
After the girl at reception agreed to keep alert and notify me if tickets became available (not that her laughter gave me much hope…she’d initially exclaimed, “Do you TRULY understand how big this match is ?!?!”), we walked around Islington a little inquiring about tickets, then took the tube out to Highbury.
Chris rides the tube as if he’s been doing it all his life, and has an impressive ability to find the easiest route to said destination in a matter of seconds, from any point in the city.
We arrived at Highbury stadium (whoops, I almost wrote hallowed ground, which would have made me the millionth person to try to use that phrase with a sports arena), and it is impressive. And small. Like any other stadium that didn’t have a game being played in it at the exact moment, it was really quiet. I needed a few moments to take it all in, as this was my very first trip to North London. Highbury sits in the middle of a residential area, not unlike Wrigley Field, or to some extent, Fenway Park. The new stadium will be 500 meters away, but still in the neighborhood. People can literally go home and take the laundry off the line during half time if they want. It’s a concept a bit foreign to this Dallas native, who thinks the soccer stadium in Dallas is right next to the middle of nowhere. I definitely prefer the neighborhood scene.
The team store was already closed for the day, and we hadn’t seen anyone standing around holding two tickets for sale. Thus, we were about to head back to the tube, when I recognized some other guests from our hotel, some fathers and sons who had come for the game, too. It made sense that we try to seek their insights on our problem. We followed them up the road to the team entrance to the stadium, then realized that the Arsenal players were arriving one by one to board the team bus, which would take them to their hotel for the night, standard practice in sports the night before a game.
I felt rather like a giddy school boy as we stood with a few other folks to catch a glimpse of Arsenal players as they drove inside the gate. Lehmann showed up in a Mercedes hatchback, Senderos rolled by in a Range Rover, Pires drove a massive Lincoln Navigator, and Reyes was driven in a Mercedes sedan.
I wasn’t the only giddy one. The Irish group was just as excited to see the players, and they had some particularly humorous remarks about the whole scene. Chris isn’t shy, and struck up a conversation with these guys, and they immediately tried to offer words of support. “Lads, it’s going to be very tricky, being a derby and all,” they said, but one of them took my phone number and promised to call if they came across anyone with tickets.
Chris suggested that we go to Leicester Square, which has a lot of brokers selling theatre tickets. It was worth a look to see if they might have match tickets, too. Nope. No luck.
The square was a bit touristy, but we found a pub to hide in. We were both a bit antsy about the ticket hunt, but pints always helps the situation. I took advantage of cask conditioned Abbot Ale, and Chris jumped on the Guinness.
We went pint for pint, and had some potato wedges, fish and chips, along with some hearty English mustard. A nice chat, several hours, and I don’t remember how many pints later, we tubed back out to our stop at Angel. From there, we headed down the street to another pub.
Sobriety became just a memory, and we found ourselves in yet another put sitting on a rooftop terrace. The barman didn’t have match tickets, nor did he have any good ideas about getting any by game time. He did, however, kindly help me to clean out my loose change, which had grown to a colossal mound in my pocket. Pints in England have odd prices, like 3 pounds 21 pence, which accumulates a lot of coinage if you pay in notes, as we had been doing throughout the evening.
The terrace was nice, but getting cold. Chris grabbed his coat, and we hung out a bit more. That meant another pint. They closed at 11, which prompted us to go down the street to an Indian restaurant.
In the curry house, we both ordered the multicourse menu, but the day had caught up with me, and I was no longer hungry by the time the food started to come out. Chris, on the other hand, proceeded to chow down, finishing all of his menu, and a good bit of mine. Quite the impressive display, and a small reversal from the late nights at IHOP, Denny’s, or wherever where I’ve been known to have eaten $20 worth of food in a single sitting, while Chris had only a side of hash browns.
By midnight, I needed sleep, so we returned to the hotel and crashed.
I didn’t feel top notch on Saturday morning, but after a fried breakfast at the hotel (ooh! quite lovely for a hangover!) I felt a bit better. We bumped into our Irish friends, who were loading up on carbs themselves.
Around 10, we decided to go for broke, literally. After politely declining the offer of a taxi with the Irish, Chris and I hit the ATMs, cashed up, then headed for Highbury on the tube.
Saturday, April 22nd, might be the very best day in the history of English weather: bright sunshine, a cool breeze, pleasant temperature…and two guys shitting their pants because they didn’t have match tickets to Arsenal-Tottenham three hours before match time.
Chris and I were in our kits, and received appreciative looks from other fans on the metro. We met two guys en route who had flown in from South Africa the night before, and I could have sworn I heard one of them murmur, “Wow, you guys are fucked,” after realizing we were ticketless.
When we initially got on the tube at Angel, the queue was so big that a man opened up the turnstile and advised us to pay at the other end. We gladly did this, though we didn’t know exactly what was going on. No worry. At the Highbury stop, a nice lady sold us two day passes for the tube, then wrote us a receipt, clearly this is something they do frequently to maximize efficiency on the tube.
We exited the tube station onto Gillespie road, into the mass of Arsenal. Policemen on horseback were everywhere, and excited fans and vendors crowded the streets around the stadium. We scouted about a little, then I realized that no one was going to just hold up a sign saying FOR SALE: 2 TICKETS; REASONABLY PRICED; AVAILABLE FOR 2 AMERICAN IDIOTS WHO DIDN’T BUY TICKETS IN ADVANCE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.
Chris has always had good luck acquiring tickets right outside of venues, except once. One Saturday evening a few years ago, he invited me along to the art museum where they were doing a reading. On that occasion, he only found one ticket, which he used for himself, leaving me to find a cab in downtown Dallas so I could get back to the monk. Those who have been downtown on a Saturday evening will know that usually there are only 4 or 5 people downtown on a Saturday night...and even fewer cabs.
I remembered this incident as Chris murmured, “Who’s selling tickets?” every five seconds as we walked around. In my entire life, I’ve never been able to solicit anything. In contrast, Chris does this almost as well as he rides the metro.
Around 10.45, a man acknowledged Chris, and ended up selling his own ticket for 100 pounds. I stood on the corner while they went down the street to do the deal.
Minutes later, Chris handed me a ticket and said, “One down.” Whoosh, or should I just say whoo.
At 11.15, as Chris continued to murmur, a man talking on a cell phone motioned for us to follow him. Down the street, and into a betting shop Chris and the man went. I hung out on the street and smoked a cigarette.
During the longest 10 minutes of my life, I wondered if Chris had been attacked inside the betting shop (the previous ticket transaction had taken all of 1 minute). I analysed the consequences of, in the event that Chris did NOT exit the betting shop, waiting until after the game ended before calling Lori to let her know that I’d lost Chris. Oosh.
Whoo-oosh.
Chris walked out of the shop, we walked a few steps, then he stopped, smiled, and said, “We’re in.”
My heart pounded as we went to the stadium entrance. What if the tickets were fake? What if the sweat from my hands rubs off the ink so they can’t see that it’s a ticket?
Chris went on through with ease, but the electronic bar code reader didn’t accept my ticket. Gulp.
I tried a second time, then the attendant inspected my ticket, then motioned for me to use another turnstile as he called another attendant over to report that the gate was malfunctioning. Suddenly, my gate opened, and I was standing next to Chris on the right side of the fence.
Our tickets were for the North Bank, the rowdiest section of the stadium. Chris and I basked in the sunshine an hour before kickoff, and just marvelled at the scene. The pitch is a beautiful green, and pretty enough without any players on it. Then, the goalkeeper came out to begin his warmup, gave us a little wave, then practiced stopping shots as the stadium continued to fill up.
As the start of the game drew nearer, Chris and I continued to sit together and watched the teams warm up, though we realized that eventually, Chris would have to go sit in the actual seat from his ticket stub; the stadium was truly going to be close to capacity.
The match began promptly at 12.45, and the entire North Bank of the stadium immediately stood up and burst into song. “Stand up if you hate Tottenham!” chanted everyone merrily, in the direction of the away fans’ corner, which was surrounded by stewards and police (for the fans’ protection...this is English soccer, yeah?).
Sure enough, the last two empty seats to my right were taken with the arrival of a couple, so Chris stepped out of the aisle to grab another seat, leaving me surrounded (safely) with energetic fans.
As first halves go, Tottenham played much better than Arsenal. There were a few frantic moments when I thought we’d let a goal in, but we held the line. As our seats were behind the goal and to the right, we had to stand up almost every time the ball came down to our end, which was frequent. Throughout the half, the fans sang songs, many directed at the players. Not complicated songs, mind you, but basically singing a player’s name over an over again. For example, “Jo-se An-ton-i-o” was heard from all sides of the pitch when Jose Reyes had possession of the ball. Many other songs weren’t quite a polite. “Who the fuck are ya?” was the question the Arsenal fans sang to the travelling supporters.
The seats themselves reminded me of the seats they used to have at the Inwood Theatre, before they replaced them with the cushy nice ones. These at Highbury weren’t uncomfortable, and certainly better than the bleacher seats I’ve had to sit on in other stadiums. Besides, when 10,000 people stand up at once, all the chairs clunk together at once, and I believe Chris commented that it sounded kind of like a herd of buffalo.
The first half ended scoreless, and as people went out for refreshments and bathroom breaks, I turned around and saw Chris standing a few rows behind me. He’d found a few seats together that were quite close to my original seat. Thus, we’d be able to watch the second half together.
I stepped out for a quick smoke, and ran into one of the Irish, who was delighted to discover that we’d gotten into the match, and furthermore, we’d paid less for our tickets than he had thought we might have to.
I appreciated a personal moment as I watched all of the fans rushing about trying to buy concessions, talk to their friends, go to the bathroom, and get back to their seats before the game resumed. What a cool day.
Chris and I compared our thoughts of the first half of the match. We weren’t playing well, and the second half didn’t start much better. Thierry Henry didn’t start the game, and neither did our midfielder Fabregas; the important Champs League match was going to be three days later, and those two would need a lot of their strength for that game. Meanwhile, Tottenham had all of their stars out, and were successfully taking the game to Arsenal.
Chris said, “shit!” about 1000 times during the second half, and the three little red haired boys sitting in front of us turned around and grinned almost each time, as did their father, though the father’s smile wasn’t quite as big.
Early in the second half, the crowd began chanting for the arrival of Henry, who could asily change the tide of the game for us. Sure enough, he came on in the 62nd minute, as did Fabregas. They had an immediate impact, but unfortunately, this impact affected both teams. Two Arsenal players collided in spectacular fashion (it couldn’t have been any more keystone cops like), and normally in cases like this, the other teams kicks the ball out of play, stopping the game to ensure that the players are okay. In this case, the Tottenham player played on, and, as the referee didn’t blow the whistle, proceeded to head on down the field, cross the ball into the box, where a bastard named Robbie Keane tapped the ball in for a Tottenham score. This little incident created quite a bit of controversy, and the normally cool, calm, collected Arsenal manager loudly complained to the assistant ref, and also had a few heated words for the coach of Tottenham.
The goal sort of silenced the crowd, but we were still cheering our team on. The North Bank began singing Tottenham were cheats, somewhat merrily, I might add. Once we hit the 80th minute, I began to think that today wouldn’t be our day. However, with 6 minutes left in the game, Henry collected a pass from upfield, then turned and scored a classic goal…the kind of goal we were hoping to see at Highbury. The stadium erupted in a fervor, and became even more excited when a Tottenham midfielder picked up a second yellow card and got sent of. For the remainder of the game, Arsenal threw everything forward in hopes of scoring a winner, but at full time, we settled for a draw.
Maybe not the barnburner, but certainly worth the price of admission. The atmosphere alone is just great…and as usual, I didn’t do the experience justice in my description. But, next time you have a few hundred pounds and happen to be in London between August and May, feel free to check a match out.
Chris and I exited the stadium with the rest of the crowd. The officals had asked that Tottenham fans exit the stadium in one direction, asking the Arsenal fans to exit in the opposite. The effort to maintain peace and order is pretty intense.
Out on the street, we wanted to let the crowds die down before trying to get back on the tube. We tried to check out the stadium shop, which was again closed. Then, we decided to walk over to the new stadium, where we found a fifty something gentleman snapping pictures with a disposable camera. “I’ve been coming for 50 years,” he said to no one in particular. Then, sort of turning to whoever happened to be standing in the general area, he motioned to the glass picture windows that covered half the side of the new stadium and asked, “Fancy a job as a window washer, boys?”
Something told me that perhaps he’d been saying those two lines for the past few months each week after an Arsenal match. No matter, he was a very nice man, and ultimately directed us back to the same tube stop to get back into central London.
Beer sales are prohibited in English football, with some random exceptions. This was a particular day where Highbury did offer Budweiser at the concession stands, but we elected to skip the brews until post match.
On Chris’ suggestion, off to Earl´s Court we went via the tube. It was across town, and took a few minutes, so we were ready for pints as soon as we got off the subway. Fortunately, Chris knew the place we were going, and within minutes, we were drinking his coveted John Smith Ale. Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it was now 4pm. The pub’s kitchen would reopen around 5, so I, like I’ve been doing for years, put pints before food, and hoped that I wouldn’t be too incredibly drunk by 6pm.
As we sat at our table and talked about the game, I looked over and saw a little poster offering a free t-shirt when you order 8 pints of John Smith Ale. Great. Like we needed an excuse to order 8 pints of beer anyway. We settled in for what would probably be an outing where we’d eat twice in the same establishment, but were entertained by the FA cup match between Liverpool and Chelsea.
Chris got to talk to Lori during all of this, and we also had a couple of little chats with an Englishman who had been at the Arsenal match himself. He’s a season ticket holder, and told us a few funny stories about seeing the new stadium, other matches, and his overall opinion of the afternoon’s match. He told us several stories about guys who were drinking 12 pints of beer a day, 5 or 6 days a week. He did this with a glass of red wine in his hand; people are consuming a bit less beer in England these days, but only a bit. I had no beef about the red wine…look where I live.
My appetite returned, so I decided to order the ultimate hamburger, which had beef, sausage, bacon, egg, mushroom, and cheese on it. It was a bit difficult to manage, but I was facing the corner (instead of the rest of the bar), so only Chris really had to put up with the poor manners. “Kind of hard to control, eh?” he casually asked while using his knife and fork.
Sometime between 8 and 9, we needed some fresh air, so staggered out onto the road and walked around. We were actually in Chelsea and Fullham areas, which helps one to sober up rather quickly. It’s not that I ever feared that we’d be thumped because we were wearing Arsenal jerseys in the wrong part of town, but there was no real need to try and test that, either.
As the sun finally went down, we found ourselves entering Hammersmith, West London. Clash country. But, outside of a little glance about, I knew I wanted to leave the trip to West London for another weekend. This weekend was all about North London and Arsenal.
We headed back to our Angel stop, had a quick change in the hotel, then walked around Islington. By this time, it was close to 10pm, and everyone was stepping out for the night. We walked down Upper Street, which was full of bars, restaurants, pubs, shops, and people. Since we weren’t in any particular hurry, and still pretty loaded on pints (Chris got the t-shirt, by the way), the walk would do us good.
25 minutes later we arrived at Higbury & Islington tube station, which is the other tube stop that gets you to the stadium ground. It was nice to put the whole area into geographic context. Yes, I’m aware that I could have just read a map, but after looking at tube maps all weekend, everything appears to be within walking distance. I don’t consider 25 minutes to be excessive, but maybe I wouldn’t want to do it everyday, you know?
Chris opted to find a little Chinese restaurant for dinner, and I quickly agreed. Every Asian restaurant that I’ve been in has tended to be super quiet. This place was booming, full of tables of chatty customers. No one was being particularly obnoxious (except for a couple of drunk guys in the corner), everyone was just enjoying the Saturday night. Next time I eat Chinese in Texas, I’m going to make an effort to be more noisy.
We called it a night around 12.30 or so, and, after a very full day, planned to sleep late on Sunday.
Sure enough, it was 10.30 or so before we even opened our eyes Sunday morning. We looked outside to see rain, something we hadn’t seen thus far in the weekend. Chris had to book a hotel for Sunday night, and decided to stay on where we were. I had to be at the airport by midafternoon to catch my flight back to Valencia.
We broke one of my rules and had a few coffees in a Starbucks down the street, as there was no other café open. This place was two story, and we found a couple of comfy chairs and just enjoyed the lazy morning. I saw a cute girl with a tattoo of little animal footprints going up the small of her back, which goes down in my book as really cool.
Around 2, it was time for me to leave, so I called a cab, and Chris waited with me out on the front stoop of the hotel A quick, expensive visit to London, to Arsenal…there was no better way to spend a weekend. We said our goodbyes, I got on in the cab, and headed for Liverpool Street Station, and caught the train back to Stanstead.
At Stanstead, I had to stand in line for about an hour, only to discover that I had to pay an extra fee for failing to tell them I wanted to check my bag. This required me to get out of line, go stand in another line (that was very short, thank goodness), pay 5 pounds, then return to the original desk for my boarding card. I wasn’t too pleased, but what could I do.
Once I had my boarding card, I stepped outside for a couple of powersmokes, and ended up seeing a couple that had been outside of Highbury on Friday night watching the players arrive. I don’t know if they saw the game or not, because I didn’t actually talk to them. My weekend was wrapping up, and I didn’t feel too chatty.
Due to me being a bit of an idiot, I queued in the wrong line to board the airplane (Ryan Air does sort of a cattle car approach, like Southwest), and as a result, got a bit of lip from the flight attendant and got to stand at the very back of the line. I actually was second to last onto the airplane. This meant I got a crap seat, and this didn’t help my mood. I sat in silence for the entire flight back to Valencia.
We touched down around 9pm, and, being on the very back row of the aircraft, I got to get off the plane last. The positive to this, of course, is that I hardly had to wait for my bag, which was toodling down the carrousel when I arrived at baggage claim. I grabbed my gear, had a quick smoke, then hailed a taxi for Meliana, where I returned to an empty house, Lynne, Fran, Daniel, mom and Dad were on a trip of their own, and would return on Monday.
I enjoyed a quiet Monday thinking about my fun expensive weekend. Sometimes, you have to just throw caution into the wind and blow budget. I enjoyed it so much, I might even have to do it again, though I’ve already got to fly back to the states in August, which is going to cost a ton. (Note to self: one of the goals for the rest of 2006 is to make more money. Okay, some money.)
Monday was San Vicente Day, another regional holiday. I prepared my classes for the rest of the week, then met an intercambio friend at Finnegan’s for a few pints.
Tuesday, April 25, was the away leg of Arsenal-Villareal in the Champs League semi final. Villareal is pretty close to Valencia, so Arsenal fans were all over the place. I was wearing my kit, too, though experienced a few dodgy moments where people gave me dirty looks in the metro and city center.
After a few weeks of break from teaching, I couldn’t afford to try and reschedule a class with a student, so I missed the first half of the match. But, at 9.30pm when my class let out, I sprinted down to the street to Finnegan’s to join the crowd of Villareal and Arsenal fans. The match was horrible actually. Arsenal played worse than they did against Tottenham. That said, Villareal weren’t getting through Arsenals defense. I was watching the game by myself, due to the crowd in the bar. I could see my Arsenal mates (ok, there are really only two of them), but there was no room.
I saw the game heading towards a draw, which would enable Arsenal to go on through to the final…under the aggregate rule. Then, in the 90th minute, the referee ruled a foul to be a penalty…against Arsenal. Oh my god.
My teams have crashed out of so many games in penalties, and it kills me very time. (I was in a bar in Boston back in 1998 watching England lose to Argentina on penalties…the barman actually asked me not to throw anything or wreck the place)
No, I don’t get violent, I just get shattered.
So, I kept one eye closed and the other on the television screen, then found myself screaming…..Lehmann, my little buddy in the Mercedes hatchback had guessed correctly, stopped the shot, and the final whistle was moments away.
Full time. Arsenal goes through to the Champs League final. Though they didn’t deserve to win the match, they deserve to be in the final (they played much better and got the result in the first match).
Immediately after the game, the Villareal fans exited in sadness. I grabbed another beer, then met up with my friends for a bit of celebration. I happened to meet some girl from Iowa who had been living in Ireland for the past year; she was taking a whirlwind trip through Europe before heading home. I wished her luck, indicating that I was just beginning my time in Europe.
I felt kind of bad for the taxi driver who drove me home Tuesday night. He was listening to the match recap on the radio, and was in tears for the entire ride. I offered a few words of consolation as I paid my fare, and also told him that I’d been in his shoes several times myself.
Wednesday, I woke up still feeling very full of Arsenal, my weekend joy had stretched into midweek.
I celebrated my good feeling by going to pick up my official ID card. I’m now an official resident of Spain. Fucking cool.
One of my intercambios invited me to the movies later that night, so I tagged along with a few women (who all live in Meliana) and we saw “Eres muy guapo,” a French film that was dubbed into Spanish. It was my first movie going experience in Spain (tick it off the list of goals), and amazingly enough, I followed most of the diaglog. Yes, Moe, it was typical French plot…older man meets younger beautiful woman, and once again, I loved it.
So here it is Friday morning, 11am, and I’m trying to wrap this up and get to the gym. I have found that I may have just picked up a couple of new classes, as word of mouth is spreading that sometimes Bryan gives away copies of his music to his students.
Right. Keep the faith and all that. I’ve got to, since Arsenal vs Barcelona is two weeks away.
bryan
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Una pesadilla con un final feliz
Well, no sooner had I put my cap back on my pen a couple of Wednesday afternoons ago, feeling very clever, I suddenly found myself in a place called “hmmm, this sucks.”
It basically started like this: Fallas had just ended, and though I’d lived through a couple of questionable days at the beginning of the week, by Wednesday I felt pretty darn good, and concluded that a few bad days in the bathroom was simply a result of something I’d eaten over the previous weekend (on top of the glasses of wine, pints of beers, and chupitos).
As I excused myself for a second time during my class that Wednesday evening, I thought to myself, “Perhaps 4 Guinness and a fry up with double egg and sausage wasn’t such a good idea.”
As I got up for the third time later that night (or should I say early Thursday), I began to think that something was more than just slightly amis. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, how can this moron not tell when he’s ill? Well, let’s consider the facts. I’ve managed to survive the past ten years or so on a diet heavy in pints and bar food; I once ate the German plate seven nights in a row at the Old Monk, changing only the flavor of the accompanying beer for a bit of variety. I’ve always known that I had “rotten insides” (a term that a fellow junkie and I coined to describe our eating habits), but I’ve tended to console myself with the fact that at least I wasn’t a vegetarian, too.
So, Thursday I didn’t feel so hot, and elected to skip the daily trip to the gym. I somehow roused myself to get to class, but felt a bit guilty when I had to excuse myself several times, leaving my students with the instruction to practice speaking aloud the phrase, “Bryan is in the toilet but he’s OK.”
I’ve always loved poop stories, and was finding the whole personal experience pretty humorous, all things considered. Around my fourth or fifth trip downstairs that night, however, it finally occurred to me that I might be on my way to a bad dehydration trip.
I consulted my sister (whose bedroom is right next to the guest bathroom…how could she not know that something was up?) on the matter, which meant that additional folks were consulted: family, friends, neighbors. Normally, I would have preferred to have kept this little adventure a bit more low key, but as the mystery continued, I was starting to get a bit nervous, particularly about the possibility of dehydration. Around 5am on Friday morning, my sister met me at the edge of the hallway as I was returning from yet another trip to the john, and indicated that we’d go see the doctor later that afternoon after she finished work. Meanwhile, I’d plan to take it easy and drink Gatorade for the day.
As my nephew went off to school Friday morning, he remarked that once, he, too, had had bad kaka. I actually appreciated the commiseration.
Lynne and I metroed off to the hospital that afternoon, and a nice lady at the reception desk entered my name in the computer. My parents had come here for treatment once or twice before themselves, so this lady knows the whole Barlow family.
The visit with the doctor went pretty quick. Lynne stepped in to assist with the translations, though whether in Spanish or English, the shits still sounds bad. The medical assistants took a blood sample, then told us to come back in a while for the results and diagnosis. Lynne and I had a coffee (I had water) and sat in a park across the street for a bit.
Finally, around 8 or so, the doctor called me back in to the office with the news: I had gastroenteritis…bad kaka, if you will. I was to take some stuff called Sueroral, which is basically a super powerful Gatorade with a couple of extra bits (to repair my insides)for the next few days. Additionally, I would need to follow a pretty limited diet for the next week. All in all, considering the circumstances, I was in pretty good health.
Greatly relieved, I left the hospital with Lynne, popped (dang, i almost wrote pooped)in the pharmacy to buy the meds, then headed to the metro. Our parents were supposed to call us that evening, and we were a bit concerned that we’d miss their call. As for me, I wasn’t so concerned with missing their call as I was with Fran inadvertently giving them the message that I was in hospital seeing a doctor. I had been hoping to keep the news of this whole bad kaka thing quietly contained in Meliana and half of Alboraya…no need to pass the word on to the states.
Alas, there was a problem on the metro which was causing lengthy delays, so what was meant to be a quick visit to the doctor had now turned into a half day trip. As we waited on the metro platform, I wondered if there’d be a safe haven or two in the vicinity. Eventually, a train came, packed to capacity, but Lynne and I squeezed on and returned to Meliana. (Whew! That was awesome!)
We found out later the cause of the delay: there had been a suicide on our line, basically near our stop. Rather grim news. I thought darkly to myself how unfortunate that someone had a shittier week than me.
Hats off to Sueroral, because Saturday I felt remarkably better, and even better still on Sunday. I was still avoiding milk products (except for coffees) but beyond that, pretty much eating anything I felt like.
Monday, I was back in form, and back in the gym. The escapade was behind me, and I was most thankful; it was going to be a busy week.
Fran was out of town on a business trip, and with the exception of Wednesday, Lynne had choir practice every night in preparation for her choir concert at the weekend. This meant that I would need to hang out around the house at night with Daniel.
Fortunately for me, Arsenal played Juventus on TV that Tuesday evening, so I shredded napkins in the living room throughout the game until the final whistle. Arsenal 2, Juve 0. “My team is on fire, and I don’t have bad kaka!” I said to myself while enjoying a post match drink on the terrace.
Pause here while I talk about the terrace…currently it’s my front stoop, as my room is an add-on to the terrace itself. Basically, I can open up the entire wall of my room and look out over the town, and see the Mediterranean Sea in the distance. Of course, I always have a morning coffee up there, but also tend to spend a lot of time out there at night just reflecting, enjoying a smoke, and marvelling at the moon. In the book Fountainhead, a wealthy character had a penthouse apartment in New York, and on the very top had a room built entirely of glass, allowing for a view of the entire city. Take away NYC, lower the penthouse to about five stories, and remove the millionare, and you now understand how cool my little place is. I’m very fortunate, and extremely grateful that Lynne and Fran are letting me be a guest here. Like my brother in law, I easily consider it my favorite room in a really cool apartment.
As the week continued, I felt better and better, especially after the victory by Arsenal. I felt a bit selfish for being slightly irked when a student had to cancel class; her father in law was the one who was killed by the metro at the end of the previous week. But, the more time I spend in Spain, I realize how small the world can be. The doctor that treated me has a daughter who attends class at Casa Americana where I work, in fact she lives right around the corner from the school. Even in a region of several million people, you can almost always find a connection with someone.
This point held true on Wednesday night, when I took my student to a nearby plaza for class…call it a field trip if you want. Beers were optional, so I elected in favor of the hops. After our class, he invited me to join him as he went to meet some other folks for a few drinks. Thus, I met Mercedes and Laura, two girls who work in an office near city centre. One of them had taught in a high school in the states a few years before, apparently the same high school where Dangerous Minds was filmed.
After the unpleasant time I’d had the previous week, I was glad to have an evening out. The four of us had a few pints in Finnegan’s, and though they made fun of my Spanish a bit, at least they were nice about it.
I picked up a new student at the end of the week – a fifteen year old girl who needed some tutoring. Her house is close to the Calatrava complex, and I got to familiarize myself with another part of the city on the commute, and even got to do one of those mad dashes through the metro station to catch my transfer.
Teaching a teenager was a new experience (er, teaching period is a new experience, eh?) but she and I connected over music (of course). Yet another person who likes SKA, groovy. Like me, her music tastes are diverse, but she lent me a cd of a band called Mago de Oz, which is a bit more metal than I like, but worth the listen. I’ll return the favor this week with a cd or two of my own.
Friday evening I arrived home, said a quick hello to Fran, who had just arrived back from his business trip, then Lynne and I went to her choir practice, the last one before Saturday night’s concert.
Funny, you might picture a choir rehearsal as maybe a two hour deal. In this case, we met a few folks for tapas at 9. By 10, we were at the concert hall. Two hours later, rehearsal ended, and a few of us went off for a post practice refreshment at an horchateria. After a few weeks in Spain, though, I’m used to it. After all, a trip to the doctors can take 5 hours, so why not a choir rehearsal?
Saturday was going to be a long day. The concert was in Alboraya, where Fran’s mom lives. We tend to eat lunch at her house most Saturdays around 2.30. Consider a couple of hours for lunch, and then it’s almost 5, when Lynne needed to be at the music hall for a little warmup. As Lynne changed clothes for the concert, I hoofed it to the car in search of her hair gel, which somehow was missing from her gear and hopefully still in the trunk of the car. I was unsuccessful, but returned to Concha’s to discover that Lynne had found it in her own gear…just a different bag. She and I headed off to the music hall, leaving Fran, Daniel and Concha to join us at 7 for the concert.
This concert was in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Alboraya’s choir…quite the special occasion. Three other choirs performed in addition to Alboraya, each led by a former director of the Alboraya choir. The first was a youth choir, who were fantastic. They sang a Mecano song, and a couple of other numbers in English. The other two choirs were equally talented. The crowd was most appreciative, and applauded with great ovation after every number.
Lynne’s choir was the main event, but weren’t going to sing until the second half of the show. Unfortunately, my nephew wasn’t quite up to it, so was a bit restless from the get go. It didn’t help matters when one of his little buddies arrived- they created quite a distraction together. Neither one calmed down when Lynne’s choir hit the stage. In fact, the choir had just started to sing their second or third song when Daniel began to exclaim, “Mamá, Mamá!” which earned him a trip outside to the foyer with his father. They remained out there for the duration of the concert, leaving Concha and I to represent the family in attendance. Lynne’s group did well, and it’s always a proud moment for me to see her up on stage. Emotional applause exploded after every song, and you couldn’t help but get caught up in the spirit. Quite the nice evening.
There was a reception immediately following the concert in the bar next door, and I had a few beers over in a corner with Andres and Acier, until I decided to venture into the mass of singers to pay a few compliments. I suddenly found myself surrounded by many choir members who were good naturedly pressuring me to join the choir. The director took it upon himself to invite me, as well, and as I looked around for some support of a sister (who had suddenly, mysteriously disappeared) I realized that I was probably going to have to suck it up and start showing up at rehearsals. I’d like to mention that this decision has nothing to do with the cute doctora that several choir members are trying to set me up with. There’s a concert at the Palau de la Música in May, and participating in that would be on the same level as singing in the Meyerson in Dallas. Not a bad gig if you can swing it.
At any rate, after making some feeble statement about coming to the next practice, I eventually escaped the pressure (parting words from the doctora, “see you Tuesday!”) and went with Lynne, Maribel, Andres, Roberto, and Acier to have a late evening snack. I had a chance to watch Real Madrid – Barcelona at the bar, and we finally got home around 2 or so, 12 hours after leaving house earlier in the day.
Sunday was spent catching up on rest, and Monday I hammered this little story out at Finnegan’s. Now, it’s Tuesday morning, and I’m preparing for the arrival of my parents, who get here later this week. I’ve got a feeling that things will stay pretty busy for the next few weeks. No problem by me.
Keep the faith
Bryan
04/04/06
It basically started like this: Fallas had just ended, and though I’d lived through a couple of questionable days at the beginning of the week, by Wednesday I felt pretty darn good, and concluded that a few bad days in the bathroom was simply a result of something I’d eaten over the previous weekend (on top of the glasses of wine, pints of beers, and chupitos).
As I excused myself for a second time during my class that Wednesday evening, I thought to myself, “Perhaps 4 Guinness and a fry up with double egg and sausage wasn’t such a good idea.”
As I got up for the third time later that night (or should I say early Thursday), I began to think that something was more than just slightly amis. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, how can this moron not tell when he’s ill? Well, let’s consider the facts. I’ve managed to survive the past ten years or so on a diet heavy in pints and bar food; I once ate the German plate seven nights in a row at the Old Monk, changing only the flavor of the accompanying beer for a bit of variety. I’ve always known that I had “rotten insides” (a term that a fellow junkie and I coined to describe our eating habits), but I’ve tended to console myself with the fact that at least I wasn’t a vegetarian, too.
So, Thursday I didn’t feel so hot, and elected to skip the daily trip to the gym. I somehow roused myself to get to class, but felt a bit guilty when I had to excuse myself several times, leaving my students with the instruction to practice speaking aloud the phrase, “Bryan is in the toilet but he’s OK.”
I’ve always loved poop stories, and was finding the whole personal experience pretty humorous, all things considered. Around my fourth or fifth trip downstairs that night, however, it finally occurred to me that I might be on my way to a bad dehydration trip.
I consulted my sister (whose bedroom is right next to the guest bathroom…how could she not know that something was up?) on the matter, which meant that additional folks were consulted: family, friends, neighbors. Normally, I would have preferred to have kept this little adventure a bit more low key, but as the mystery continued, I was starting to get a bit nervous, particularly about the possibility of dehydration. Around 5am on Friday morning, my sister met me at the edge of the hallway as I was returning from yet another trip to the john, and indicated that we’d go see the doctor later that afternoon after she finished work. Meanwhile, I’d plan to take it easy and drink Gatorade for the day.
As my nephew went off to school Friday morning, he remarked that once, he, too, had had bad kaka. I actually appreciated the commiseration.
Lynne and I metroed off to the hospital that afternoon, and a nice lady at the reception desk entered my name in the computer. My parents had come here for treatment once or twice before themselves, so this lady knows the whole Barlow family.
The visit with the doctor went pretty quick. Lynne stepped in to assist with the translations, though whether in Spanish or English, the shits still sounds bad. The medical assistants took a blood sample, then told us to come back in a while for the results and diagnosis. Lynne and I had a coffee (I had water) and sat in a park across the street for a bit.
Finally, around 8 or so, the doctor called me back in to the office with the news: I had gastroenteritis…bad kaka, if you will. I was to take some stuff called Sueroral, which is basically a super powerful Gatorade with a couple of extra bits (to repair my insides)for the next few days. Additionally, I would need to follow a pretty limited diet for the next week. All in all, considering the circumstances, I was in pretty good health.
Greatly relieved, I left the hospital with Lynne, popped (dang, i almost wrote pooped)in the pharmacy to buy the meds, then headed to the metro. Our parents were supposed to call us that evening, and we were a bit concerned that we’d miss their call. As for me, I wasn’t so concerned with missing their call as I was with Fran inadvertently giving them the message that I was in hospital seeing a doctor. I had been hoping to keep the news of this whole bad kaka thing quietly contained in Meliana and half of Alboraya…no need to pass the word on to the states.
Alas, there was a problem on the metro which was causing lengthy delays, so what was meant to be a quick visit to the doctor had now turned into a half day trip. As we waited on the metro platform, I wondered if there’d be a safe haven or two in the vicinity. Eventually, a train came, packed to capacity, but Lynne and I squeezed on and returned to Meliana. (Whew! That was awesome!)
We found out later the cause of the delay: there had been a suicide on our line, basically near our stop. Rather grim news. I thought darkly to myself how unfortunate that someone had a shittier week than me.
Hats off to Sueroral, because Saturday I felt remarkably better, and even better still on Sunday. I was still avoiding milk products (except for coffees) but beyond that, pretty much eating anything I felt like.
Monday, I was back in form, and back in the gym. The escapade was behind me, and I was most thankful; it was going to be a busy week.
Fran was out of town on a business trip, and with the exception of Wednesday, Lynne had choir practice every night in preparation for her choir concert at the weekend. This meant that I would need to hang out around the house at night with Daniel.
Fortunately for me, Arsenal played Juventus on TV that Tuesday evening, so I shredded napkins in the living room throughout the game until the final whistle. Arsenal 2, Juve 0. “My team is on fire, and I don’t have bad kaka!” I said to myself while enjoying a post match drink on the terrace.
Pause here while I talk about the terrace…currently it’s my front stoop, as my room is an add-on to the terrace itself. Basically, I can open up the entire wall of my room and look out over the town, and see the Mediterranean Sea in the distance. Of course, I always have a morning coffee up there, but also tend to spend a lot of time out there at night just reflecting, enjoying a smoke, and marvelling at the moon. In the book Fountainhead, a wealthy character had a penthouse apartment in New York, and on the very top had a room built entirely of glass, allowing for a view of the entire city. Take away NYC, lower the penthouse to about five stories, and remove the millionare, and you now understand how cool my little place is. I’m very fortunate, and extremely grateful that Lynne and Fran are letting me be a guest here. Like my brother in law, I easily consider it my favorite room in a really cool apartment.
As the week continued, I felt better and better, especially after the victory by Arsenal. I felt a bit selfish for being slightly irked when a student had to cancel class; her father in law was the one who was killed by the metro at the end of the previous week. But, the more time I spend in Spain, I realize how small the world can be. The doctor that treated me has a daughter who attends class at Casa Americana where I work, in fact she lives right around the corner from the school. Even in a region of several million people, you can almost always find a connection with someone.
This point held true on Wednesday night, when I took my student to a nearby plaza for class…call it a field trip if you want. Beers were optional, so I elected in favor of the hops. After our class, he invited me to join him as he went to meet some other folks for a few drinks. Thus, I met Mercedes and Laura, two girls who work in an office near city centre. One of them had taught in a high school in the states a few years before, apparently the same high school where Dangerous Minds was filmed.
After the unpleasant time I’d had the previous week, I was glad to have an evening out. The four of us had a few pints in Finnegan’s, and though they made fun of my Spanish a bit, at least they were nice about it.
I picked up a new student at the end of the week – a fifteen year old girl who needed some tutoring. Her house is close to the Calatrava complex, and I got to familiarize myself with another part of the city on the commute, and even got to do one of those mad dashes through the metro station to catch my transfer.
Teaching a teenager was a new experience (er, teaching period is a new experience, eh?) but she and I connected over music (of course). Yet another person who likes SKA, groovy. Like me, her music tastes are diverse, but she lent me a cd of a band called Mago de Oz, which is a bit more metal than I like, but worth the listen. I’ll return the favor this week with a cd or two of my own.
Friday evening I arrived home, said a quick hello to Fran, who had just arrived back from his business trip, then Lynne and I went to her choir practice, the last one before Saturday night’s concert.
Funny, you might picture a choir rehearsal as maybe a two hour deal. In this case, we met a few folks for tapas at 9. By 10, we were at the concert hall. Two hours later, rehearsal ended, and a few of us went off for a post practice refreshment at an horchateria. After a few weeks in Spain, though, I’m used to it. After all, a trip to the doctors can take 5 hours, so why not a choir rehearsal?
Saturday was going to be a long day. The concert was in Alboraya, where Fran’s mom lives. We tend to eat lunch at her house most Saturdays around 2.30. Consider a couple of hours for lunch, and then it’s almost 5, when Lynne needed to be at the music hall for a little warmup. As Lynne changed clothes for the concert, I hoofed it to the car in search of her hair gel, which somehow was missing from her gear and hopefully still in the trunk of the car. I was unsuccessful, but returned to Concha’s to discover that Lynne had found it in her own gear…just a different bag. She and I headed off to the music hall, leaving Fran, Daniel and Concha to join us at 7 for the concert.
This concert was in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Alboraya’s choir…quite the special occasion. Three other choirs performed in addition to Alboraya, each led by a former director of the Alboraya choir. The first was a youth choir, who were fantastic. They sang a Mecano song, and a couple of other numbers in English. The other two choirs were equally talented. The crowd was most appreciative, and applauded with great ovation after every number.
Lynne’s choir was the main event, but weren’t going to sing until the second half of the show. Unfortunately, my nephew wasn’t quite up to it, so was a bit restless from the get go. It didn’t help matters when one of his little buddies arrived- they created quite a distraction together. Neither one calmed down when Lynne’s choir hit the stage. In fact, the choir had just started to sing their second or third song when Daniel began to exclaim, “Mamá, Mamá!” which earned him a trip outside to the foyer with his father. They remained out there for the duration of the concert, leaving Concha and I to represent the family in attendance. Lynne’s group did well, and it’s always a proud moment for me to see her up on stage. Emotional applause exploded after every song, and you couldn’t help but get caught up in the spirit. Quite the nice evening.
There was a reception immediately following the concert in the bar next door, and I had a few beers over in a corner with Andres and Acier, until I decided to venture into the mass of singers to pay a few compliments. I suddenly found myself surrounded by many choir members who were good naturedly pressuring me to join the choir. The director took it upon himself to invite me, as well, and as I looked around for some support of a sister (who had suddenly, mysteriously disappeared) I realized that I was probably going to have to suck it up and start showing up at rehearsals. I’d like to mention that this decision has nothing to do with the cute doctora that several choir members are trying to set me up with. There’s a concert at the Palau de la Música in May, and participating in that would be on the same level as singing in the Meyerson in Dallas. Not a bad gig if you can swing it.
At any rate, after making some feeble statement about coming to the next practice, I eventually escaped the pressure (parting words from the doctora, “see you Tuesday!”) and went with Lynne, Maribel, Andres, Roberto, and Acier to have a late evening snack. I had a chance to watch Real Madrid – Barcelona at the bar, and we finally got home around 2 or so, 12 hours after leaving house earlier in the day.
Sunday was spent catching up on rest, and Monday I hammered this little story out at Finnegan’s. Now, it’s Tuesday morning, and I’m preparing for the arrival of my parents, who get here later this week. I’ve got a feeling that things will stay pretty busy for the next few weeks. No problem by me.
Keep the faith
Bryan
04/04/06
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