Venezuela!

I just booked a flight to Venezuela!

I will be there from December 19 to January 9.

Christmas in Caracas and New Year's on the island of Margarita in the Caribbean.

This means I won't be at home for Christmas, which sucks, but I have to take advantage of the opportunity to go with Mariana (my roommate last year) and stay with her family to get an idea of what Venezuela is really like.

Christmas 2010 will be in Seattle, don't worry Mom.

Welcome back to Madrid

Living in Madrid makes one paranoid. Paranoid that someone will run off with your wallet, or slash your purse from the bottom, or distract you while their friend takes off with whatever you have on you.

I myself have been extremely "pendiente" of the fact that Madrid houses gazillions of professional purse snatchers, and have spent the past year convinced that I would not fall into the same "guiri" trap as my compatriots.

My first weekend back in Madrid proved that goal unachievable. While at a bar with my friend in the Antón Martín neighborhood, my purse was stolen, and everything in it. And the worst part wasn't that it got stolen. The worst part was the headache and paperwork that came next.

Things that got stolen:
1. NIE (residency card): I will not get a new one until oh maybe March which really helps since it is required by law that you carry ID and I don't like carrying my passport on me in case it gets stolen which would render me unidentifiable in the eyes of the law here
2. Keys: it cost me 39 euro to get three new keys made
3. Debit cards: they ran off with my debit cards and bought 200 euro worth of metro passes. In order to get new cards I visited my bank three times in three days.
4. My cell phone: cost me 39 euro to replace it, and 4 trips to the Vodafone store in 3 days because their system was "down".

I now have the "denuncia" from the police station which states that yes, Maya Sparks, guiri, did get her stuff stolen, and we put a huge stamp on it to prove that. Took me 2 trips to the Comisaría in 3 days to get all the paperwork done.

It was bound to happen though, everyone has a purse snatching story, and some much worse than mine. My roommate's cousin had her card duplicated and the password stolen, and had upwards of 5,000 euros charged to her credit card from various countries in Europe. Thieves caught the travel bug apparently. What they had done was during the middle of the night taken apart the ATM machine and put their own machine inside it which was able to copy the card while the card was inside the machine, then with a camera mounted above the ATM, they read the password as the person types it on the keypad. After she discovered her money was gone a few days later the bank said they could take no responsibility because the ATM was outside of the bank and therefore outside of its responsibility. Unbelievable.

Propaganda at its finest

If Oliver Stone took the time to interview expats from Venezuela and Bolivia and other "socialist" nations, he might begin to see the reality of living under the so-called Bolivarian revolutions. Poverty, corruption, crime, and a stifling of freedom of the press.

Qué viva la puta revolución!

My new piso

Sorry about the 3+ month hiatus, I have been busy touring Italy, Northern Spain, and every restaurant in the metropolitan Seattle area. A few pounds heavier, but oh so happy with all the food I have eaten, I am back in Madrid, and ready for a new school year.

I am living further from the center which at first I was hesitant about because I love being able to walk to everything. But I am within walking distance of school, and nearby all of my private classes, and my roommates are great. Silvia, my coworker, owns the house, and Ana is an English teacher at a nearby school. And another plus: I don't have to stand on a stool to reach my bed.

Above: some pictures of my new place, plus the view from my room.

Barça 2, Manchester United 0

Last night Barça beat Manchester United 2-0 which makes them essentially the best football (sorry, soccer) team in the world. They won the Spanish Liga, the Copa del Rey, AND decisively, the Champion's League final.

This is the amazing 2nd goal by Messi, Barça's Argentinian player, who may possibly be the best player in the world:

Denmark

The weekend of May 15-17th, while madrileños were busy celebrating their patron saint, San Isidro, I jetted off to Denmark to meet up with my friend Kaeleen, who had been sent to Helsinki for work (lucky girl). For some time I have been a bit curious to see how life is in the northern European countries, especially since republicans keep scaring everyone and saying that the U.S. is going to turn out like them socialists in Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia. Which yes, would be the end of the world as we know it.

Yes, I was a bit shocked to hear that the average income tax is 50%, but Danes take advantage of a very efficient health care system, where even the most advanced surgeries are covered (and they don't have to wait forever like opponents would have you believe). If they are laid off, there are extensive unemployment benefits. Generally socialist and capitalist systems are considered mutually exclusive, leading me to think that entrepreneurship would be stifled in Denmark, but it is quite the opposite. We stayed at a B&B in Kalstrup, a half hour outside of the capital of Kobenhavn, with Eva and Asger, an incredibly nice, well-traveled, tri-lingual Danish couple. I spent our car rides to the train station and back inquiring about Denmarks pseudo-Socialist system. Asger said now that he is a retired schoolteacher and principal, Eva and he run the B&B which actually earns them more money than teaching. The taxes on small businesses are very low, compared with larger corporations. While he was teaching, he was taxed so heavily that for every 100 DKK he made, he pocketed 38. ($1 USD=5DKK) Small businesses are encouraged to not get to big, or else they are heavily taxed. This would seem to be a positive, as more small businesses competing is better for consumers, and you don't risk the problems that occur when a sector is run by large conglomerates who have one objective.

The highlights of Denmark I would have to say were Tivoli Gardens and Eva and Asger's house. Tivoli Gardens is the oldest amusement park in the world, opened in 1843, and was Walt Disney's inspiration for Disneyland. It was like walking back in time, before the current over-commercialized super expensive theme parks took over. There was a pirate ship, a Chinese themed stage, a Dragon boat lake, and a ton of things going on--concerts, interpretations (one free-style dance show that was a bit strange) and a night rock concert. Kaeleen and I had some amazing Italian food as well (though expensive, because hey, it is Denmark).

The second highlight of the trip was of course Eva and Asger's house and beautiful yard. We stayed with them on the top floor of their A-frame house, and they made us breakfast every morning, with organic fresh-baked bread, cheeses, and soft boiled eggs. They introduced me to Norwegian brown cheese (it has various names) that is a soft cheese that is caramelized. I am now a convert. On the last day I was there, Asger led us on an expedition trying to find brown cheese for me to take back to Madrid. We found it and I bought 2 packages of it, one of which was quickly consumed by Mariana (my roommate) and I in less than a week. Eva insisted I liked it because of my Norwegian heritage. Kaeleen returned to Seattle and found the cheese in Ballard, which makes sense. I told her it would be way more likely she found it there than I find it in Madrid, despite the proximity to Scandinavia.

All in all a quiet and tranquil stay (emphasis on tranquil). It is worlds away from Spain, as you would expect for a country whose population is barely that of the city of Madrid.

Pictures:
1. flower pot in Eva and Asger's yard
2. Tivoli Gardens in Kobenhavn
3. Eva and Asger in front of their house
4. amazing Norwegian brown cheese
5. Kaeleen and I on the swings that Asger built
6. Kaeleen taking a picture at the lake near Eva and Asger's house in Karlstrup

Oooo la gripe

I have to admit. I spent two days stressing out about the swine flu or "la gripe porcina". I read everything I could, I informed my roommate, she laughed as I launched into explanations I had read in the NY Times and the Economist. People began arriving in Spain infected with the flu, and mask-covered pedestrians started sprouting up everywhere on my walks home. A bit unnerving when people are dying in México.

Another principal worry of mine was my friend Margarita and her family, who had returned to México City in January after spending a year working in Seattle. She had sent me a new email in March with their new phone number in the DF house but I had yet to get a hold of them. Increasingly worried, I called them the other day and Diana, her 15 year old daughter picked up. This is a synopsis of the conversation:

Diana: Hello
Maya: Diana!!!!
Diana: Hi Maya, how are you? (Apparently my gringa accent gives me away)
Maya: Oh my gosh, are you ok? Is everyone ok?
Diana: Yeah we are fine.
Maya: Are you sure, everyone is fine??
Diana: Yeah, we are fine, what's up?
Maya: Ummm, I was worried!
Diana: Why?
Maya: The swine flu!
Diana: The what?
Maya: The SWINE FLU!
Diana: Oh, that.

Apparently they weren't really too worried about it, even though everything was shut down, and according to them the subway was practically empty and everyone was walking around in masks. As Mariana, my roommate from Venezuela, put it, "Maya, que nosotros latinos estamos acostumbrados a movidas. Esta gripe no es nada para nosotros." Translation: "We latinos are used to crazy things going down. This flu isn't anything." So I have stopped worrying, and if the flu hits Madrid "a saco" I will deal with it then. No hay que flipar.