Foreigner Beware Of Crinkly Forehead

A few weeks ago, I went to the doctor’s. It was a big event for me. I’d never been in need of medical attention before. Not in Spain, anyway. I’m of robust design, you see. I don’t pander to fancy foods that can’t be eaten with a spoon and I don’t get illnesses that can’t be cured by spending an afternoon in bed. However, a rebellious mole on my back was starting to morph into an octopus and it needed to be stopped by a professional.

Health centres are confusing places. I glanced around in a daze for ages until spotting a desk with a person who wasn’t either bellowing into a phone or being harangued by patient-staff scrum. I approached the woman stationed there and told her that I had an appointment at 11:30. Turns out that this was the desk where you make appointments and not the desk where you go when you already have an appointment. Once this was clarified, I asked her where I needed to go next. Up to the third floor, she said.

I followed her directions and arrived in a big central waiting room surrounded by four walls with lots of doors with names on them. Only then did it occur to me that I was missing a vital piece of information.

I returned to the desk lady for help. “Sorry,” I said, “I don’t actually know which doctor I’m supposed to be seeing. Could you tell me their name, please?”

And there it was.

The dreaded Crinkly Forehead.

I repeated my query, only to be met with yet more crinkles towering over a blank stare. I asked again. The crinkles assumed attack formation. I tried once more, in really simple Spanish, words spaced at one second intervals (I’ve had some practice at this, as you can tell). I repeated my question three more times. Still nothing. In an act of desperation, I grabbed a pen and paper from the desk and wrote it down. Finally, the name of my physician was divulged.

The most flabbergasting aspect of Crinkly Forehead is that it can spring into action BEFORE verbal communication even has a chance to commence. This happened to me in my local phone shop. As I handed my phone to the girl and drew breath to ask if she could please top it up with twenty bucks, I found myself confronted with a quizzically cocked head disfigured by crinkle over crinkle over fucking crinkle! They were humping each other, I swear! Then they called for re-inforcements and a bundle of veins as thick as anacondas after a meal of jungle elephants joined the wrestling match and… Christ, I did not know that the rosy baby bottom face of a twentynothing could even do that!

I’m guessing her inner thought process must have gone something like this: She looks like a foreigner, so whatever she is going to say will be incomprehensible. But I will try to help, because I’m a good person. But… what if she tries to make me speak in English?!?! Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God! I’ve only studied it for ten years at school, I can’t say a word!!! What am I going to do, WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?!?! At this point, she reaches the conclusion that it’s safest just not to understand anything.

The Crinkly Forehead is the nemesis of every language learner, tourist, or foreigner in general. It is the iron curtain, the NATO missile defence shield and the wall Trump is gonna build all rolled into one.

Once the contortions commence, once you spot the merest ripple, the slightest tell-tale twitch in the face that may have been smiling benevolently at you just a heartbeat ago, dear language learner, you are doomed. It is the manifestation of Blue Screen of Death in a real live person. A re-boot can only be effected once the obstruction has been removed, and the obstruction, my hapless foreign friend, is YOU.

Attempting to engage with Crinkly Forehead is not like flogging a dead horse. It’s like flogging all the sausages, lasagnes, burgers and chicken nuggets that its macerated remains found their way into, expecting the clapped-out old mare to re-assemble and run the Grand National. It ain’t gonna happen. No chance. Go home. Talk to Siri.

I, my dear people, will be talking to my mole. At least it is forthcoming, if only with tentacles.

 

I think we all need a restorative wedge of cake after this.

Keen observers will have noticed that this very same specimen featured in the previous post, but from a different angle. C’mon… it still looks delicious, does it not?! If it fails to appeal, maybe hairy chested man in the back will do it for you…?

 

[Note for nerds: This post was also published on my new language blog http://multilingualbychoice.blogspot.com – please pop over for a visit to discover what you’ve been missing!]

 

Language Matters: C-Words of Difference

A while back, I had a facebook chat with an American friend who left the US about a decade ago and settled in Costa Rica. It went something like this:

Her: So, now you’re in Spain… how’s your Spanish coming along?

Me: I’m getting there. Curious though that no sentence seems to be complete if it doesn’t contain either culo*, mierda** or coño.

Her: What is coño?

Me: Uhm… CUNT.

Her: ?!?

[*arse **shit]

The fact that my American friend, who’s certainly no prissy, had not encountered this term, despite having lived for many years in a Spanish-speaking country (and being fluent in Spanish), speaks volumes. Latin Americans, on the whole, aren’t given to peppering their soft, mellifluous language with expletives.

The Spanish, on the other hand, have a reputation for being straight-talking and potty-mouthed. Since I’m quite partial to this communication style myself, I fit right in, but, I must confess, even after four years in Spain, I’m still a bit shy of the c-word.

I should get over myself. Cunts get dropped into conversation left, right and centre. It’s no big deal. You could be showing someone an infected mosquito bite and they’d exclaim, ¿Qué coño es esto? – What the hell is that!? Or you might have had a glass of wine too many at the expense of coherence when your still relatively sober drinking buddy confronts you with ¿De qué coño estás hablando? – What the hell are you talking about? 

¡Coño! as an exclamation by itself can mean a million different things, like “Are you shitting me?”, “What the hell were you thinking!?”, “WOW!” and “FFS!”. You get the idea.

If something’s “a big bloody hassle”, then it’s a coñazo – literally: a BIG CUNT.

So, there you have it. The Spanish are comfortable with their cunts.

Until they move to an English speaking country and discover that not everyone else is.

A Spanish friend of mine, who’s been living in London for more than two decades, avoids the ubiquitous little English word “can’t” at all cost.

The subtle differences in English vowel sounds are a real coñazo for Spanish speakers. Spanish only has five vowel sounds, while English has more than twenty. For Latin Americans living in the US, this is not so much of an issue in this particular case, but in British English pronunciation, can’t and the ‘unmentionable’ are dangerously close. Too close for comfort for my friend, who painstakingly resorts to “cannot” instead.

 

You may also be interested in my specialist language blog, see here: http://multilingualbychoice.blogspot.com

 

Hair My Cry, O Blog!

When you move country, the first thing you’ve got to occupy yourself with is finding those people (and services) without whom your daily existence would be a living hell. For example:

• Somebody who gives you a place to kip and store your belongings
• Somebody who plugs the internet into said place
• Somebody who tosses you a handful of peanuts every month for whatever tricks you’ve learned to perform along the way
• Somebody who fiddles files your taxes so you don’t go to prison
• And, most important of all,  somebody who slashes the unruly growth on top of your head every once in a while so you get to maintain the outer appearance of a humanoid life form

I thought my move to Central Spain a few years ago was a brush stroke of genius on the follicular front. It is a dry region. Unlike North London. Those with curly hair will understand.

Remember this one going round on fb? = ME AT 7AM!

Shortly after my arrival, I stumbled into a nearby hairdressers called “Diseños” (Designs). Sounded like a creative sort of a place, I thought, and the fact that La Friseuse in attendance was close to my own age and also sported curly hair, gave me hope. I’m gullible like that. I imagined her channelling her creative juices into giving me a flattering cut that would, perhaps, make my witch’s chin stick out a bit less.

But no. My veteran Figarette happened to be of those people, who had figured out their solution to their hair troubles, and that would just have to do for everybody else. She herself had resorted to straightjacketing her wiry mop into a rectangular shape, which kind of suited her, but sometimes, one glove does not fit all.

This pretty much illustrates the result. And also my facial expression post-“redesign”. (Just imagine a sticky-out chin instead of a snout.)

Since I don’t really care for having a square head – I’m already German, let’s not forget – and adding the fact that the salon’s “design” component referred more to its prices than the craftsmanship, I went in search of a new chop shop as soon as my rebel locks had managed to break free from their cuboid confines.

This time, I asked about the price first. Twelve bucks, I was told, and one can’t argue with that. In North London, you wouldn’t even get a drunk on the Tube to drool on your head for that. Like I said, I’m gullible.

Now, haircare professionals do have a bit of a reputation for enthralling their captive audiences with tales of their all-inclusive summer break at CattleProd Resorts, but THIS was something else.

If you are acquainted with British English, you may have heard the expression “talking the hind leg off a donkey” – a disparaging reference to a tedious person’s excessive loquaciousness. At forty minutes in, I was very nearly at the point of fearing that my extremities would drop off due to necrotic tissue damage induced by the most inane of moronic monologues I had ever been subjected to in my entire life.

But the ceaseless chatter wasn’t the worst part. What really drove me to distraction was that the girl would stop short after every snip in order to accompany her onerous outpourings with wild gesticulations. At one point, überchatty scissor sister was exposing all the parts of her body to me which had ever been nibbled on by a mosquito. Don’t ask me how we got there. I can only assume that those bloodsucking creatures are, in fact, totally soundproof.

No, I told her, a blow dry really wasn’t necessary. Yes, I was aware that it was the midst of winter, but putting on my woolly hat would probably stop my dripping fringe from freezing to my eyebrows on my way home, and I’d see myself out, thank you very much.

On my second visit, it was the owner who cut my hair. (I had made sure he was holding the fort all by himself after peering through the window at a stealth angle). He was pleasant, professional, and, above all, soothingly SILENT. I was in and out of there in twelve minutes flat. INCLUDING a blow dry. An 87% time saving on my first visit. And the cut was good.

This week, it was high time to excise the felt mats once again, and so when I walked past the salon on Tuesday afternoon and found it empty but open, I  decided to seize the opportunity. I wish I hadn’t. As soon as I entered, I spotted her, slithering out from behind the spiral staircase. Miss Verborrhoea.

As she led me to the washbasin, I felt my eardrums tighten in anticipation. So far, she’d not actually uttered anything besides standard salon protocol. Maybe she’d been on speed last time, and had sworn off it since then.

All was well for about five more minutes, until she suddenly stopped working the warm lather into my pelt. Did I mind if she nipped off to the toilet for a second, the water tablets her doctor had prescribed made her want to pee every five minutes.

Did I enquire, with a caring look on my face, what terrible affliction would require such a sprightly 20-year-old to be popping diuretics? You bet I did not. But I would find out. In excruciating detail.

Thank heavens it’s still summer here in Spain. My hair dried in an instant as I shot through the door into freedom at supersonic speed an interminable hour later.

Baby’s Got Whiff? Dip It In Perfume!

Spanish babies are a malodorous breed. To disguise their offspring’s offensive stench, Iberian mamas have a powerful weapon at their disposal: Half-litre bottles of “Baby Cologne”. You want proof? Here are some pics I took this very morning in my local supermarket:

“Low in alcohol”

Now, I must confess, I know nothing whatsoever about miniature humans or the fancy potions that are meant to maintain their olfactory acceptability. It was my Spanish teacher who first drew my attention to this cultural difference in paediatric hygiene a few years ago, when she told me about her frustrations in trying to hunt down such a product in North London chemists after the birth of her first daughter, reaping nothing but raised eyebrows and contemptuous glares.

I can’t get my head around the concept either. Surely, most people dunk their whelps in a warm frothy bath at the end of the day in order to remove suspect residues, probably employing some sort of industrial cleaning product which is already lightly perfumed. Why would anyone expose their little princess’s pristine peachiness to any more chemicals than are absolutely necessary? And chemicals they do contain:

Contains one third less alcohol than other brands, apparently. And a healthy dose of Tirdeceth-9 Octane… WHAT?!  Oh, but look, it’s soap-free!

The question at the top reads, loosely translated, “What does it do for my baby?”, and then goes on to explain that the product lends an “original smell and wellbeing”, and that it “stimulates [the baby’s] senses owing to its special fragrance and your cuddles, which it loves so much”. I guess nobody would want to risk making physical contact with an untreated beast… Theres’s also a series of warnings, including “avoid contact with eyes”, “do not ingest”, “keep out of the reach of children”, “do not use near naked flames or heat sources”.

I’ve already professed my abject ignorance on the subject, but I thought I’d check some figures before hitting the ‘publish’ button. Owing to my work, which I do on rare occasions to finance my cake habit, I have access to a vast database detailling the sales of consumer goods by country, including toiletries and cosmetics. From this, I gather that “Baby and Child-specific Fragrances” are chiefly sold in six countries: Brazil, Spain, Mexico, France, Russia and Italy. This does seem to be a bit of a Latin thing…

Spain is the world’s second largest market (after Brazil), generating retail value sales of US$55.3 million in 2014, and Nenuco and Johnson’s (see my photos) are indeed the leading brands here in Spain. In annual per capita terms, Spanish consumers spent US$9.60 on its defenceless victims aged 0-11 years of age,  while Brazilian parents dowsed millions of tiny botties with US$11.50 worth of the stuff in 2014. Sales in the other countries I mentioned were rather minimal by comparison, hovering around the 1 dollar mark per child.*

So, people, do tell me, are babies sanitised in this way in your country…? Or do they prefer them au naturel?

 

[*For data source, click here]

 

 

Tapas On A Winning Streak!

All good things must come to an end, as did Toledo’s annual tapas competition, which drew to a close last Sunday. For the entire month of November, local bars and restaurants had been showcasing a new breed of extravagant tapas, specially created for this year’s contest. (Yes, there were voting slips, prize draws and stuff!)

I have no idea how many different creations I tried throughout my innumerable outings,  as there were A LOT of participants this year. Anyway, here are some of the highlights:

Pork balls. Very satisfying 🙂

Sliver of fried pork with sauteed vegetables on bread, topped with raisin sauce. Looked better than it tasted, was our combined verdict.

Puff pastry filled with seafood. The white stringy things, in case you’re wondering, are baby eels (gulas). These are very popular on tapas, and can take a bit of getting used to.

One of my absolute faves: lamb topped with caramelised onion and manchego cheese, served  on a curry bun

Octopus with cauliflower mousse and coffee vinaigrette. This place has a knack for the outlandish, and it usually works, but this time, it didn’t. It really didn’t. Pretty to look at, though.

Now, what could go wrong with a tapa entirely consisting of cheese? I tell you what: Absolutely nothing. Gimme more!

Foie gras “Oreos” filled with manchego mousse

More foie, this time in the shape of a truffle. You were meant to mix it with the bread crumbs. Interesting concept, but it was a bit like eating lard mixed with sand.

A dollop of beef stew on sliced potato. Simple and delicious.

Rabbit, fancily “rolled up” and drizzled with chestnut compote. Divine! This may have been my overall favourite.

I’m the only one with her eyes trained on the food rather than on the camera… typical!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grumpy Mornings

I’ve had no water (again!) since last night, so I was just a tad grouchy this morning. Over brekkie, I read this post about someone having a really shitty day, which helped to put things into perspective somewhat.

Shortly after, and still in a huff, I trudged out to buy some groceries, and it occurred to me that this situation can’t be much fun for the owner of the vintage clothes shop tucked away in that corner:

On the way back, loaded up with broccoli, carrots and oyster mushrooms, I treated myself to a coffee and a sliver of cake for €1.20.  And when I got home, the water was back on, HURRRAAAAH! Life’s OK again now 😉

The Kraken Is Served!

It was Maria’s birthday party last night, and she laid on some fantastic food for us. There was Spanish omelette, there was cake, but it was the octopus that starred as the pièce de résistance. Quite literally.

I’d had several exasperated messages from Maria that morning about the beast’s recalcitrance to be turned into a meal. It was by far the biggest she’d ever wrestled with, apparently.

Enough to feed the starving hordes…?

She won. Here he is, the gangly sucker, dismembered and in the pan!

By the time I arrived, the cranky kraken’s miraculous transformation into a delicious meal was already complete 🙂

Toe Woes And Other Weekly Highlights

Finally! Pool season! I enjoyed my first splash of the summer on Wednesday, courtesy of my pal Olga, whose apartment complex has a pool. Usually, we get to have it all to ourselves between 4-6pm, before the wild hordes arrive. (The wild hordes comprising a mum and her two toddlers.)

The only bad thing about pool season is that it prompts me to contemplate my wonky toes. Actually, there’s aesthetically challenging parts to be found at both ends of my legs. But let’s not go there…

I mean… have you ever seen anything more crooked in your life?!

The next morning started with a nice breakfast with my friend Gill in a medieval church-turned-concert-venue-bar-art-gallery-and-café round the corner. And it was a very special day indeed: It rained. No, it poured. In Toledo. In July. Totally unheard of. It’s usually dry as a nun’s nasty in these parts from June till September. Even the frequent summer thunderstorms don’t yield any precipitation.

The wee bowls of fruit salad were a surprise addition. A bit strange, though, as they had cucumber in them.

Later on, drinks with Maria:

There she is, perusing her water bill. She’d not got to the bottom of it at that point, hence the glowing smile.

And on Friday morning, I was notified that I had shot to international fame once again: An article I wrote eons ago was published. Yup. In the world-renowned trade publication that is… Potato Business. Here’s the proof.

You’re all overwhelmed now, aren’t you, by the glamour and relentless excitement that is my life… and by my twisted tootsies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Full-On Cherry Season!

I love cherries. We’re in mid-season, and soon they will be gone for another year, so I felt I needed to mark the occasion with a quick snap taken outside my local greengrocer’s  🙂

I’ve complained before about my disenchantment with Spanish fresh produce (you can read about it here), but cherries are a delightful exception.

 

The German National Character Explained In Three Culturally Loaded Phrases

You may as well admit it: Dissecting national stereotypes is almost as entertaining as delving into the Daily Mail’s gossip pages. So, I thought, why not throw a bit more fuel on the fire?  I may well live to regret this…

Having now spent most of my life outside of Germany, by living instead in the UK and in Spain, I’ve been brooding for quite some time over what defines my birth culture. As most of my readers will be aware of by now, I like to shunt my hare-brained ruminations through the prisms of either food or language, and for this exercise, I opted for the latter. I’ve picked out three phrases that every German will have uttered at some point in their life, and which, I hope, will shed a flicker of light on the collective German psyche.

At first glance, these statements will seem rather innocuous – banal, even – to non-Germans, but don’t be deceived. I am going to attempt, as succinctly as possible, to convey some of their cultural significance.

1. “Wenn das jeder täte!” (= If everybody did that!): Why Germans are partial to public shaming

Germans have a legendary reputation for sticking to the rule book. This is rooted in their (not entirely erroneous, I’m sure you’d agree) belief, that for society to work smoothly, a set of guidelines needs to be obeyed by the majority. And as tempting as it may be, at times, to weasel your way round them, Germans take great pride in resisting, because, “wenn das jeder täte” (if everybody did that), the whole system would descend into chaos. And nobody wants that. It would be just sooo disorderly…

Foreign visitors have been known to watch with incredulity when witnessing an upstanding German citizen venting their indignation at somebody caught in the act of flaunting rules, some of which may, perhaps, seem rather trivial. For Germans, however, impeding minor infractions, such as failing to pick after your dog or making too much noise on Sundays, is seen as a collective responsibility.

If you crossed the street in Germany while the little red man was telling you not to, be prepared for your fellow pedestrians to pull you up on it. In the UK, this would NEVER happen. The reason given by Germans as to why they feel the compulsive need to police pedestrian crossings is “to not set kids a bad example”. Needless to say, any criticisms of rules conceived to protect lives of innocent children are dead in the water. Besides, unlike in the UK, Germany’s birthrate is horrendously low, they need to conserve numbers.

Another example is littering in public – if you dropped some tissue paper accidentally, somebody is likely to point this out to you, most likely with a friendly smile. If, on the other hand, it’s obvious that you did it on purpose or out of plain carelessness, vigorous finger-pointing and some hissing may be coming your way.

Germans have a strong sense that some of the good things, which exist for everybody’s convenience and communal benefit, will be taken away if people don’t make an effort to preserve them. One example of this is newspapers sold from “honesty boxes”. These “Zeitungskästen” are positioned in accessible locations where you, the customer, is being trusted to deposit the correct amount of change before helping yourself to your daily rag.

Newspaper boxes by a bus stop. [Photos taken on Monday, courtesy of my darling brother 🙂  ]

The inner workings of a Zeitungskasten: Put your money in the slot on the right, take your paper.

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2. “Ich bin doch nicht blöd!” (= Well, I’m NOT stupid!): Don’t even try to screw me over, I’m German!

If Germans hate anything more than people willfully breaking the rules, it’s being taken advantage of. Although Germans are not a terribly gullible people, per se, Germany is what some sociologists refer to as a “high trust” society, which implies that Germans will generally assume another person, even if they are a total stranger, to be honourable and not defraud them. (However, they are inclined to mistrust certain foreigners assumed not to be sharing “German values”.)

Spain provides an interesting counterpoint. I remember a table conversation a while ago in a café here in Toledo, where I live. A story was told about somebody having been cheated, I don’t remember details. Instead of deeming the con as deplorable, it was cause for amusement – a shining example, as one of the people pointed out, of “la picaresca española”, which loosely translates as “Spanish cunning”.

According to the dictionary, “picaresca” signifies the act of “cheating or taking advantage of someone for one’s own benefit”. It’s not the first time I’d come across this Spanish cultural concept. And while scamming friends and family is most definitely out of bounds, it’s apparently OK – and downright hilarious! – to do it to strangers, as long as it’s nothing too serious. I guess that might be one of the reasons why Spain isn’t considered a”high trust culture”. Unless you have personal ties with someone, you run the risk of being seen as fair game. Oh, and the “finders keepers” concept is big time in operation in Spain. If you lost your wallet in Germany, there’s a very good chance you might get it back with all your cash still in it. In Spain… not so much.

OK, after this brief digression, let’s get back to the significance of the “ich bin doch nicht blöd” phrase. Germans don’t just blindly assume that they are immune to being duped – in fact, they pride themselves on their self-perceived shrewdness, believing that it’s just not that easy to take them for a ride. If somebody does succeed in getting one over on them, it pisses them off royally. You can easily tell when this has happened – fumes will come out of their nostrils, preceding the imminent melt-down.

And just to illustrate how deeply culturally ingrained that little phrase is, MediaMarkt, a large German electronic goods retailer, employs “ich bin doch nicht blöd” as their marketing tagline, implying that by shopping there, you’ll be getting the best possible price, rather than being ripped off by the competition.

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3.”Das hab’ ich nicht nötig!” (= I’ve no need [to to this]): Why Germans are better than *some people*

This phrase is probably the most puzzling out of the three. Let’s try and give it some context.

Here’s a couple of scenarios:

• Somebody believes themselves to be suspected of some kind of petty behaviour, e.g. taking a newspaper from the box without paying, or plundering the office stationery cupboard. By uttering this phrase, they are rejecting this insinuation/accusation, because they are better than that, they are morally above such shabbiness. (Or at least they want to give that impression…)

• The person, who says it, is gossipping about somebody, and dissing them for having acted dishonestly, or for having engaged in an ostentatious act clearly motivated by drawing attention to themselves or showing off. (NOTE: in the latter case, the haughty “das hab ich nicht nötig!” exclamation is probably just thinly veiled envy…)

The upshot is this: If you want to bitch like a German, you need to internalise this phrase, and learn to spit it out with bile-dripping disdain.

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[If you enjoyed this post, you might like to read about why you should never ever call a German woman “Fräulein”. Click here.]