Archive for September 18th, 2008

18 Sep 2008 The joys of ham
Author:  |  Category: Food!, Mirror World  | One Comment

The food here is lovely.  Within a few blocks of our apartment (in almost any direction), there are myriads of restaurants, cervicarias (tapas bars), bars and taverns, produce shops, fish mongers, butchers, bakers, pastery shops, etc. etc. etc.  We haven’t had time/money to sample very many of them yet, but we’re eagerly stacking up opportunities.

My big language achievement last week was to order jamón (ham) at one of our local charcuterías (sort-of butcher, but more nearly “Place that sells preserved and prepared meats, sausages, and so on.  Plus cheese and often meals”.  The problem was that, having exhausted my meager Spanish by asking, “Me gustaría doscientos gramos de jamón, por favor” (I’d like 200 grams of ham, please), I was blown away when she pointed to like 15 distinct whole ham legs.  Which varied in price from 22€/kg (about US$15/lb) to 128€/kg (yeah, kids, that’s US$87/lb)!  She then proceeded to overwhelm my Spanish capabilities with questions about what kind I wanted and how I wanted it sliced.  I managed to muddle through, and she patiently put up with my confusion.  And, needless to say, I settled for the cheaper stuff this time.  Though I have it on local authority that we should try investing in a little of the really good stuff sometime…

Anyway, it is clear that ham is the local culinary specialty.  Which is nice and all, but sometimes you get tired of ham.  And then you’re kinda stuck.  Because nearly everything here seems to have ham or pork in it.  Frozen pizzas?  Your choices are cheese or six different varieties, all of which include ham.  Hamburgers?  Made with mixed beef and pork.  Chicken sausages?  Oh wait — that’s chicken and pork sausages.  There are whole cuts of chicken, beef, and lamb, of course.  But if you look for anything that contains ground or sliced meat, it’s a good bet that it has pork in it.

But no bacon.

Culinary mirror world indeed.

But man.  The ham is really good.

18 Sep 2008 Internet has arrvied!
Author:  |  Category: Adventures in Translation  | Tags:  | Leave a Comment

Also on Terran’s list of “things not to do when you don’t know the language”: trying to get internet connected in your short-term apartment.  Woo.

The details are long and involved, but the key steps involved lots of three-way conversations between people who marginally spoke each others’ languages.  Lots of stuff like “Tiene de internet?  ADSL?” followed by lots of nods, head shakes, and looking confused.

The breakthrough was to get our incredibly helpful apartment agent involved, who speaks both Spanish and English fluently.  He got on the line to Telefonica (local telco/ISP) and made the order concrete.  Then lots of waiting for us.  Then phone conversations with Telefonica representatives that went approximately like:

Them: “Hola! ??? ??? ??? Telefonica ??? ??? ??? Internet ??? ??? ???”

Me: “Er.  Lo siente — no hablo espanole.  Internet?”

Them: “Er.  Si.  Internet.  ??? ??? ???”

Me:  “Er.  Que hora?”

Them: “[sigh]  Hoy, de 4:00 a 6:00.”

Me: “Ah! Si! Muy bien.”

Having thus exhausted my Spanish conversational ability, we both gave up. But the important bits were conveyed. In the end, they called back to reschedule for the next day (i.e., today). And then the actual installer called this morning. All of these conversations were accompanied by much confusion on both ends, but in the end, it all worked out.

So early this afternoon, an incredibly helpful Telefonica representative showed up to do the actual install.  His 4 words of English nicely complemented my 4 words of Spanish, but working together we got it all sorted.  He seemed to be kind-of amused by the whole thing, and with lots of hand gestures, he got everything straightened out and even conveyed “Hey, don’t try to actually get on the ‘net yet.  The WiFi router is booted and you can talk to it, but that doesn’t mean that you actually have internet.  The line to the central switch at HQ hasn’t been activated yet.  It should be live in 30 min-1 hour.  If it’s not, give me a call.  Here’s my cell phone number.”  (I’m filling in some stuff that I inferred, but that’s the gist of it.)

It’s amazing what you can muddle through when both parties are trying and are willing to take it all with a grain of salt and a bit of humor.  And, as always, I am touched by how many of the locals are very cheerfully willing to help overcome the communication barrier.

So in the end, the good news is that we now have decent (read: unmetered!) internet access in our apartment.  That’s a huge relief.  Now we should be able to communicate with family and friends a little bit more smoothly!