This is the US Embassy in Madrid calling...

The counter clerk at the US Embassy dispenses with the case at hand and picks up another pink folder from his stack. I'm watching from across the crowded waiting room, eager for our pink folder to reach the top of the pile.

He pulls out a badly damaged US passport and flips through the warped, delaminated pages. I lean into Jack and giggle, "It looks like it went through the washing machine." The clerk shows it to his colleague. An object of intrigue. Then he calls a young man to his window, a US college student here for a year abroad. "Yeah," he says, "I forgot to take it out of my pocket and it went through the wash." He stuffs his new passport application under the window. The clerk asks why he hasn't completed the form. "I can't remember my parents' birthdates, so I left them blank." He cannot apply for a new passport without a completed form, but the Embassy clerk is very agreeable and asks the student, "Would you like to call them right now?" How utterly refreshing, such a simple solution to a problem. "Sure." The student tells the clerk his mother's phone number, the clerk dials, and lets the younger man around the counter to talk to his mom. My heart aches for her.

2 a.m. in Salt Lake City. The phone wakes her, heart pounding. "Hello, this is the US Embassy in Madrid." She is nearly in cardiac arrest now. "I have your son here." She thanks God that he is alive though the panic hasn't subsided. She will feel the weight that moment for the next several days. The clerk hands the phone to our young college friend who was careless with his laundry last Saturday morning after a long night out in the bars of Madrid. "Hey, mom. I need your birthdate...."

I squeeze Jack's hand as we share a glimpse into the grand journey ahead.

Damn theives

It's been a bad week on the pickpocket scene for Jack. Last week his Blackberry was pinched from his backpack despite vigilant measures.

And here's an irony - this week we finally had our appointment to extend our visas for the remainder of the year. It's been a long and unpleasant haul trying to get these visas. Most people we talked to said to forget the visas and just roll the dice. But we have followed every painful step to get our visas above board. After the appointment we went out for lunch to celebrate with Ysabel, who was there as our Spanish speaking advocate. It all seemed realively easy.

Until Jack's passport was stolen on the way home.

Now we begin the passport replacement, damage control, etc.

Another day. Another adventure.

We are reminding ourselves that your happiness in life depends entirely on how you choose to respond to what life throws at you.

Police report filed. Appointment at embassy already made. Photocopies of everything on file.

We just have to get that replacement passport before December 1 when we airline tickets to escape for a couple of days. I've been bribing the kids with the days out of school for a couple weeks now. Can't miss that. I think we'll be good to go.

I've got apples baking in the oven, the apartment smells wonderful, and everyone is healthy. Amen.

PS - NEVER have anything in your pockets on the Metro.

Something's happening here

Friday the 13th is nothing special in Spain. It's Tuesday the 13th that is bad luck here. It must have been one of those opposite day kind of things. Remember those from when you were a kid? Because Friday the 13th was a magic day for me.

I got up, turned the TV on, and sat down on the worn out couch in my stripey pajamas with my coffee to watch the news. Up until now, that's what I did, just pretty much watched and heard noise. But on Friday, I heard words. I sat transfixed. I heard words coming out of the mouth of the weather woman. I heard rain and sun, and I laughed realizing that she was speaking absolute drivel. Why was I assuming that just because I couldn't understand her that she was witty? The sports guy came on and I heard more words. I hollered to the rest of the family. "Something’s happening in here! I CAN HEAR WORDS!"

This must have happened to everyone else earlier, and maybe they aren't as excitable as I am. (Claro.) Apparently they have been hearing words, sentences, ideas for some time now. But for me, it's just starting to happen. (Other than, of course, the predictable or ridiculously simple, repetitious, boring conversations we've been having since we got here.)

I don't hear complete sentences. But just hearing separate words spoken at breakneck Madrileño speed is a joy.

Tia keeps telling me I'm on a predictable path. It's just that I haven't been seeing many of the landmarks. But perhaps they are out there after all. When I look at myself, it's like watching the kids learn to walk. But painfully slowly.

The kids are having noticeable breakthroughs too. Anna is in a watch-and-absorb mode, still not sure how to push all the jumble in her head out of her mouth. But you can see it simmering. You can see the light flickering in her eyes as she develops confidence. She delights in joking with school mates and being the one to interpret for me when scheduling an appointment with the plumber.

And Alex. Well it's difficult to shut that kid up. He pretty much assumes the lead all the time, whether we want him to or not. The conversations are simple, but fluid. He rattles off conversations with bartenders, Jack's compañerios de trabajo, the Chinese students in his class, the regulars down in the Dia Zone. Heck, if you know that boy, you know he talks to everyone. And a limited vocabulary is not going to slow him down; he just works around it.

Jack's been our fearless leader since we arrived. Out in front solving problems. Lacking self consciousness and able to get things done in a way that constantly surprises me. I simply don’t know how he does it.

I've been the one in the rear on this linguistic journey. But, I'm starting to enjoy the ride. Not always. I still have daily Spanish flashes (embarrassment-induced hot flashes). But, I have a smile on my face a little more often.

Today Anna's teachers told me how great she was doing. I walked home with that feeling you get after it rains in Nevada. The air is filled with the smell of desert sage that you breathe deeply. It gives you the sense that everything will be alright.

Está bien. Si, todo está bien.

¿Tiene mas preguntas?

I try to take the perspective that everything here is an adventure even when it is, in fact, a royal pain in the back side. Being here is an exercise in developing coping mechanisms. So, I decided I needed to develop a good attitude and a coping strategy for dealing with the almost daily sales calls from the internet service provider with whom we do not have a contract, Jazztel. My guess is that they figure if they call often enough, you will pay any penalty charges applicable to break your current contract and switch to Jazztel just to stop them from calling so often.

Here is how the phone calls go at our house. The phone rings. We all groan. We know that it’s likely the person on the other end of the phone is going to speak - what else - Spanish. Dread. (Okay, mostly it’s me that completely dreads this.) We all try to dodge answering. But it could be someone we love, so we have to answer, right?

When it’s Jazztel, the sales person always asks for (imagine this in your best Spanish accent) Yan Patreek Eyes. In the beginning this was a blessing for me because I could always hand the phone off legitimately. But Yan Patreek isn’t always home.

At first, my strategy was to always say, “No hablo español. No entiendo.” I felt that I needed to at least explain why I was hanging up on the sales person.

But then I decided that it was bad for my self confidence to say that I don’t speak Spanish. So I started saying (in Spanish), “I don’t speak Spanish well; please speak more slowly.” But I still couldn’t understand the callers so the calls still ended abruptly. And still they persisted in their frequent calls. By this time, Anna was developing her own Jazztel coping mechanisms as well.

Eventually, I developed Approach Number Three: I decided to view the calls as opportunities to practice Spanish. Rather than dreading the calls, I tried to convince myself that I was looking forward to the calls. I figured that would teach them a lesson. I practiced explaining every single time they called that we have internet service. We don’t need new internet service. Please don’t call us again. Yes, I can say all those things in halting Spanish.

But the phone calls didn’t end. Last week I had a new idea. In Spanish class, we’ve been working on three different forms of past tense. I decided to practice all the forms of past tense that I know on the next Jazztel victim. So I wrote out my script and taped it to the wall over the phone. And waited.

Tonight I got my chance. I was thrilled at the ring of the phone. Heart racing, I launched into my counter attack.

¿Es Jazztel? (Sí.)
Nuestro respusta es no.
Ahora la respusta es no.
Esta mañana, la respusta ha sido no.
Ayer, la respusta fue no.
La semana pasada, la respusta fue no.
El mes pasado, la respusta fue no.
El primer diez veces nos llamó, la respusta era no.
¿Tiene mas preguntas?
______________________

Is this Jazztel? (Yes.)
Our answer is no.
The answer now is no.
This morning, the answer was no.
Yesterday, the answer was no.
Last week, the answer was no.
Last month, the answer was no.
The fist 10 times you called us, the answer was no.
Do you have any more questions?
______________________

I didn’t allow myself to pause for a moment until I finished – proud to get four different verb tenses in and realizing that I should have stuck future in as well.

The Jazztelian was laughing on the other end. “¡Vale, Vale! Okay. Okay. I get it.” We laughed together, and I had the distinct feeling I had finally gotten the message across, and with a good attitude. When I hung up I expected that to be the last Jazztel call.

Not a minute later the phone rang again. I snatched it up. A different young man was on the phone, again asking for Yan Patreek. I launched into my response one more time, to great peals of laughter, once again. A good natured call from the first caller’s compañero de trabajo. And THAT, I believe was the last time we’ll hear from our friends at Jazztel.

One more tiny victory for the feeble Spanish speaker.

Mary was here

Eventually our party made its way into Zaragoza. Our visit there leaves me with many questions and one disagreement with Jack. And this is the overall impression I still have of the city.

Zaragoza is most famous for its basilica which is a massive temple that houses a statue of Mary – about 15 inches tall - and the jasper pillar on which she stands. The pillar is pretty big – though you can’t see much of it, it’s hidden under a skirt. The statue and pillar are part of an altar. On the back side of the altar, there is a small area of the pillar exposed for the faithful, or just the curious, to look at, touch, kiss, whatever. The church is named after it: Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar.



The legend is that the apostle James was touring Spain, pretty much like we were. But he was on mission to spread the Word. (We were just cruising around.) It wasn’t going well, he was feeling disheartened about his job, and so he sat down by the river in Zaragoza to pray. Mary appeared to him in a dream, told him to get back to work, and somehow delivered the little wood statue and the heavy marble pillar as proof that everything was going to work out. And she told him to build a church right there. That massive church that stands there now is not exactly the one he built, but he probably woke up feeling like he had a big job ahead of him.

Being who I am, I have a lot of questions about this story. Let’s take the physical presence of the pillar. Yes, I have my questions about the little statue, too, but for the moment let’s just image the problem with the pillar. The thing is pretty big – a few yards high and about a foot in diameter. That’s a heavy item to 1) just show up next to you when you wake up from your dream and 2) to move out of the way without a crane while you build your church. So, I question the whole part about the pillar being part of the dream, etc. But the pillar is part of the legend and the miracle and the thing that everyone goes and kisses. It just doesn’t add up for me. Too many logistical issues.

Of course, that’s just the beginning of my questions about the legend, but the list is just too long to include in whole here. There are many more things about Zaragoza that intrigue me.


There is another huge church, the Seo Cathedral, on the main plaza. Another absolutely massive building. The interior is chock full of everything you’d expect from a Catholic cathedral. I’m not distracted with my questions there. It’s the outside that troubles me. It’s quite beautiful on the exterior – very heavily influenced by the Moors. Here’s what I don’t get: if you are sworn enemies with another group with whom you repeatly engage in bloodbaths, doesn’t it seem funny that you would build your most venerated buildings with the distinctive mark of that enemy on it?



Okay, one more building on the plaza that you have to take a look at – the leaning tower. The obvious questions: it is a mistake or a kind of cool trick to show off? Wait, is it really leaning, or it is just me? Why would you do that? Is it in peril?

Besides all the questions, my impression of Zaragoza is that it is a city far more comfortable with being part of the modern world than Madrid is. This is where Jack and I disagree. He thinks Madrid is modern, but that I just don’t see it because we live in the old part of the city. I think Zaragoza isn’t afraid to mix contemporary art and life right in the heart of its historic district, and this is evidence that Zaragoza is much more comfortable with the present and the future. I don’t see anything nearly as modern as these grand sculptures in Madrid, particularly in the heart of Madrid.



In the same plaza with the Basilica and the cathedral, there are some fun contemporary structures that remind you that you live in the 21 century. It makes me feel good, reminders that it’s a modern world. There are some Roman ruins in the area that have been mixed with contemporary design – a statement that Zaragoza is willing to embrace it’s past while still moving forward.


I like this mixing of ancient and contemporary most about this city. It’s hip and cool and old and rich with history.