soledad penadés

repeat 4[fd 100 rt 90]

I found one person lying in the middle of a town while browsing Google Maps. Can you beat it?

Ok, so I finally arrived to Spain, after loooooong queues at Gatwick Airport (just three open desks for checking for Berlin, Belfast, Geneva, Madrid and Valencia… doesn't sound good!). Then almost an hour of delay -including the weird travel we made from the South Terminal to the North one, then more delays for getting my suitcase at Valencia. Seems like they didn't empty completely the tape from suitcases belonging to the previous flight. So they had to remove first all the remaining ones before allowing ours to enter the building. And gosh! they didn't look like working.

Also, the supposed to be automatic door didn't work properly. Someone had to force the door with a screwer.

This kind of things makes me feel ashamed of being spanish. And I didn't even try to go to the toilets. I didn't want to be welcomed with the characteristic unpleasant smell of spanish public toilets.

Then we had to walk a long path to arrive to our car. As you should know if you are willing to travel to Spain, there is a high probability of finding construction works wherever you go. These works usually are quite annoying and are very badly signalled, as in this case. They were refurbishing the parking and it was quite complicated to get to and from it, specially if you go with big luggage items.

Anyway, we managed to go out from there and find our path (a bit of femenine intuition and common sense works wonders!) through the motorway, and finally arrived home.

This evening we had a little walk around to have a look at the city and see how it changed since last time I was there (it's been almost a year since then). They have demolished lots of buildings (people doesn't refurbish things in Spain, they destroy everything and then start from scratch) and have even built a SUPER UGLY shopping center. It should have been called the Cement Delight - imagine a big mass of grey cement without any aesthethic taste in its shape, which doesn't look like agile but as a "big something", stuck in the middle of a neighbourhood, without any relationship with the decorations of surrounding buildings.

I really hate that contrast each time I come back to Spain. It's really disgusting. Each time you come back, you find there's something else which has been removed from your personal history. That building which had a nice icecream shop where you treated yourself on summer, has been demolished. That garden where you played, has been replaced by a public parking. And the list could continue forever. Of course nothing is forever but we really don't need to destroy all our memories, do we?

Anyway, time to go bed. I just slept like 4 hours today and am really tired!

No sé qué sentido del tiempo tengo, pero me da la impresión de que el resto del mundo está en una dimensión diferente a la mía, donde el tiempo transcurre más lentamente que para mí.

Y lo digo porque he estado avisando a gente de que voy a estar en España estas navidades, para que luego no vengan con la excusa, ya tantas veces escuchada, de que no pueden quedar cuando bajo porque ya han hecho planes, y ahora me dicen que ya me confirmarán, porque ahora es demasiado pronto.

¿Pronto es un mes del cual se trabajan dos semanas en España? ¡Pero si para mí hace nada aún era septiembre!

Luego es cuando llega la semana antes y llamas y te dicen, oh, pero ya hemos quedado para ir a N (donde N puede ser desde un Zara, a tomar café con la prima de la amiga de la hermana de no sé quién). Y tu piensas que al Zara pueden ir en cualquier momento, y que la prima esa, aparte de ser una insulsa, la tienen ahí al lado todo el año.

A lo que quiero ir a parar es a que, encima de que te tomas la molestia de avisar y tal (cuando lo lógico sería que la gente fuera detrás de tí y te preguntara impacientada si vas a volver porque tienen muchas ganas de verte por navidad, sobre todo después de dar tanto por saco con que te has dejado la millor terreta del món para irte ahí arriba con los hijos de la Gran Bretaña), o no muestran el menor interés, o directamente no hacen acto de presencia, o ni te llaman para disculparse por las razones anteriores.

Todo esto, teniendo en cuenta que si bien es más fácil viajar ahora que antaño, sigue siendo un coñazo bajar a España: levántate pronto para coger el avión y no perder un día entero por coger el avión a mediodía, coge el tren o el autobús para ir al aeropuerto, factura, pasa los controles, espérate a que anuncien tu avión, sigue las flechas, busca un asiento, deja tu equipaje de mano, haz caso a la azafata, espérate dos horas como mínimo (2:30 si vas a Valencia), sal del avión, recorre pasillos, presenta tu pasaporte, recoge la maleta, busca un taxi o tren o bus para ir a la ciudad…

Puntos extra de coñazo si vas a Valencia, porque el avión tarda más y los taxistas parece que han salido de la Escuela de Taxis Pepe, donde no se saben el callejero y tienes que guiarles tú (aunque ni te acuerdes de las calles ya).

Vamos, que no es como coger un tren de Cercanías y plantarse en el pueblo. Y parece que no se valore en absoluto.

La verdad es que sienta bastante mal y da muy mala impresión. Después de esos feos que la gente hace, siento la irremediable obligación moral de no hablarles nunca más, pero como no soy rencorosa se me pasa y se me olvida. Pero todo tiene un límite, y yo estoy demasiado ocupada como para perseguir a personas ocupadillas… (también conocido como ¡que os den!)

So here are the dates!!

• 24 dec london -> valencia
• 29 dec valencia -> barcelona
• 02 jan barcelona -> valencia
• 08 jan valencia -> london

Plenty of time for seeing old friends, relaxing, tourism, and doing nothing too…

Ok let's recognize it… London can be a quite cold city (refering to the weather). Now it's almost July and this morning I went to work with a jumper over the t-shirt, which is more or less what you could bring if you were in Spain … in April.
But to compensate this kind of climatology, there are lots of coffee houses. I have never hidden that I love coffee, so this fact made me somehow happy!
Leaving apart all the numerous Starbucks, Coffee Republic, Caffe Nero, etc, etc, you can also find small independent coffees where the waiters/waitress will try to make you feel comfortable. That's quite nice, specially if you are used to the typical I don't care spanish waiters' style.

One example:
past year, although I had ticket restaurants for having lunch in account of my employer, I sometimes decided to go have lunch somewhere else, mainly to avoid eating a whole menu (because after that I felt completely aslept =_=, having to do extra-hours for free because the project manager didn't know how to manage… @£$£@&*^*!!! uhm… this belongs to another thread XD) and also to have a little break from seeing my workmates all day long. (My workmates description would be enough for one or two posts, indeed).

So I used to go to little coffee houses where I could have a pastry (something similar could be the napolitana or empanadilla in spanish :D), a coke and possibly a coffee. The last depended most of the times on the speed of the service. If I had to wait a lot for getting my pastry & coke, I wasn't going to wait again for the coffee. And I didn't have too many coffees in fact! Most of the times the people were really unpleasant and rude. Like if they were helping you or saving your life just by giving you a pastry… I am not even talking about bringing you the food and drinks to the little side bars, but simply asking you (for example) if you would like to have the pastry warmed, or not putting you the worst face they could even think of if you demanded your food to be heaten.

Another example: this past last year's eve I had to work (not during the celebrations but during the day) and I tried to find some place to have something for lunch. As expected almost everything was closed. Starbucks , pret a manger, costa, nothing was opened. I walked a bit more far and found one of those little cafe's which seemed nice at first sight. So I decided to give it a try.

They were quite kind there. They even said me "Have a happy new year". But, ok, maybe it's because it's today. They must say it to everyone. Or not!

I came back some weeks ago (after almost six months! hehe). They even improved since last time. I asked for a ciabatta and they even put some salad with it. "Do you want a glass and ice with your drink?" - they ask. They even brought everything to the table, each time smiling, no rudeness at all when putting things in the table.

And today I came back again. And not only did they do the same (little nice details like the salad for free) but also asked me if I was happy with everything. Have you even been asked in Spain if you liked the service and the food in a non-threatening way? I mean, not something like: So are you [idiot] suggesting you haven't liked my wonderful food[, stupid]?

Does it mean they are hypocrites? Or are they only trying to make everything nicer? I think if I had to choose I would prefer some so-called hypocrisy instead of that spanish spontaneity. All of us have problems but you waiter do not need to transmit yours to the clients!