The closest major airport to me is Orlando. It features some of the cheapest fights in the country; but there is a heavy price to pay. Flights into Orlando are filled with children wound up beyond the comprehension of a middle aged engineer. Flights out are filled with worn out and cranky children.
Fortunately I had a short flight from Orlando to Philadelphia. I was going to Spain for training on the TETRA radio technology. On the next leg of the flight I was seated near six high school girls. They were the entire senior class from a small private high school in New Jersey on their senior trip. They were so excited they could not stand it. Everything was better in Spain. They were going to have such a good time. They'd meet all sorts of cool people and go on amazing adventures. They might not ever come back. It was just all too exciting.
Listening to them in the evening as the flight took off I found myself thinking "Ah to be young again." :) As the flight landed at the east coast equivalent to three in the morning and they were still going strong I found myself hoping that such terrible things would happen to them in Spain that a telenovela would be made of their trip :mad:; and that they'd drop a goat on them in Manganeses de la Polvorosa :mad:; and that the ghost of Franco would haunt them for kissing boys they were not engaged to :mad:.
I was with several other engineers from GE. We're using the radio system to support a project in Colombia. Our boss was there, he had been given the nickname "El Jefe" by one of my co-workers while they were in Colombia. The Spaniards got a chuckle out of that but Colombians take that quite seriously and treat him with a great deal of deference.
We spent a couple days in Barcelona to adjust to the time change. I adjust to time change by drinking plenty of water and walking around outside. My coworkers drink. I've been to Barcelona before, so I showed them the Ramblas; and we went through every tacky tourist bar on that long walk. We even stopped in the "World of Ham" where you can buy the clamp and board Spaniards use to slice ham.
That evening we met Jose, the CEO of our supplier. He took us to a restaurant in one of the back alleys of the Bari Gothic. It was like in Goodfellas, we walked through a narrow bar, through the kitchen where I felt almost singed by the wood burning oven and then it opened up into a large restaurant. We were sat near a bachelorette party. Jose turned to me and said, "I fear women in a restaurant more than a child on an airplane."
That turned out to be a wise sentiment, as we were serenaded by the shrieks and squeals of drunken women throughout the night. One of our engineers, Ken, bought them a pitcher of Sangria and the bride to be exchanged bises with everyone on our table.
As we left the restaurant late in the evening there were a number of men out on the street selling individual beers out of a six pack. They were actually drug dealers and the proffered six packs was the advertisement. There were also touts for clubs; I went to one with my coworkers Ken and Nick. They provided free shots of wretched Spanish liqueur with every drink. Nick, who lived in Fort Lauderdale for some time, was amused that a quarter way around the world they were playing South Florida club music.
Nick's girlfriend was concerned that he was going to go to strip clubs. Her friends had told her that the strip clubs were like brothels in Spain. Ken told him to tell his girlfriend to get new friends.
Jose showed us around the city the next day. He made it his personal mission to sell Spain, as he was certain that Americans, upon hearing that Spain had a 26% unemployment, would think it was like the Dominican Republic. We would envision a man dancing the merengue in a pile of filth when we thought of Spain. He felt that in order to do business he needed to demonstrate Spain was just as modern and proficient as Italy or France.
This vision of a man dancing in filth, Jose said, was the fault of politicians who were all burros of brainless monkeys. He would have preferred Berlusconi, who at least sold Italy successfully. In fact he was a fan of dictators, and said that the greatest leaders had always been dictators; like Alexander the Great, Genghis Kahn and Bill Clinton. Jose's plan was to split Spain along the Ebro River; I'm not sure which part he wanted to remain in.
Jose is a self-made man; so I thought that might explain some of his odd political views. After all Ross Perot had some odd ideas too. Later that week I met a Catalan manager said that if Spain rejected allowing Catalan their referendum for independence that terrorism was a perfectly acceptable alternative. That manager and a Basque engineer both took grave offense that a Franco era politician had said that the best thing in Madrid was to take coffee in the Plaza Mayor. (I could have that completely wrong. It really didn't make sense, but they kept repeating it.) One of the Castilian engineers thought that the banking crisis was deliberately created by the EU in order to destroy wages in the PIIGS countries so that they could have cheap manufacturing there. From the standpoint of an American it seemed that the whole of Spanish politics were completely insane. :tinfoil:
The real nationalism, politics and state religion of Spain, though, is jamon. All the Spaniards agreed that their ham is the best in the world, nothing like prosciutto and it was the fault of the burros and brainless monkeys for not successfully exporting it. It occurred to me that this is what happens when you expel all the Jews and Muslims from your country.
The Spaniards took all their food seriously. Jose thought that America's greatest failure was our lack of decent anchovies. Several other engineers were aghast that even the French were starting to get their lunches from Kebap stands instead of having proper three hour lunches.
The training facility was at our suppliers headquarters in Zaragoza. We took the high speed train there. The ride is smooth, but the cars seem to sway at the higher speeds. We spent the trip there in the bar car. I wasn't drinking, but it felt like I had been pounding them as the ground beneath me kept shifting.
The first thing anyone you meet there will tell you is that "Zaragoza" is a corruption of "Caesar Augustus" for whom the town was named. There are some Roman ruins below the city that you can visit. I saw the forum, which are mostly ruined bases of pillars. The city was a Moorish stronghold, and the palace has a Moorish core. It was expanded by the Christian rulers. The main tower there (the Troubadour Tower) is the setting for the Verdi opera there "Il Trovatore." The cathedral is similarly a converted mosque; but the church that dominates the main square is the basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar. The name refers to a vision Saint James was said to have had of Saint Mary on a pillar. This is the patron saint of Spanish speaking countries and every year they have a feast with all of the countries represented. The statue of Mary on a Pillar is sold as a kitschy trinket everywhere. At the basilica you can even get the image of it on a lighter; suitable for bringing to your next auto-da-fe.
The Spanish way of life really took its toll on me. We'd eat dinner at 10, we'd make it in at midnight but our hotel was right on a main thoroughfare and we would hear revelers until at least two in the morning; then we'd be back in class at 8 in the morning. The Spaniards always looked exhausted in the morning.
At the end of the trip we went back to Barcelona and saw the headquarters for the city transportation. They have monitors up all over the place where they watch the CCTV cameras in the subway station. Big brother is watching you... step out of trains. :o
You didn't see the brand new deserted airport or the highway to nowhere? Spain isn't a third world country in so many ways, a pity you only saw the wacko political views. :(
Silly man. Next time you come to Zaragoza at least warn me and I'll invite you to a couple beers. :contract:
I thought there would be pictures. :(
Quote from: Savonarola on April 18, 2014, 12:29:10 PM
Fortunately I had a short flight from Orlando to Philadelphia. I was going to Spain for training on the TETRA radio technology. On the next leg of the flight I was seated near six high school girls. They were the entire senior class from a small private high school in New Jersey on their senior trip. They were so excited they could not stand it. Everything was better in Spain. They were going to have such a good time. They'd meet all sorts of cool people and go on amazing adventures. They might not ever come back. It was just all too exciting.
Everything is magnified when you're a kid. If a thing is exciting, it's way more exciting. If a thing is depressing, it's the end of the world. Even food tastes stronger because your taste buds are young. It's why childhood experiences are more powerful for us, and people tend to like the music they listened to as a teenager. And why things like divorce and deaths in the family are harder on kids.
Kids bounce back like a motherfucker.
Quote from: Iormlund on April 18, 2014, 05:46:34 PM
Silly man. Next time you come to Zaragoza at least warn me and I'll invite you to a couple beers. :contract:
That depends, do you live on the right side of the Ebro or the wrong side? :unsure:
;)
I couldn't get away this time through. I may have to go for a factory acceptance test in the future; if I do I'll let you know. Unfortunately I'm a lot more likely to go to Santa Marta, Colombia next.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 18, 2014, 06:27:15 PM
I thought there would be pictures. :(
There wasn't even a trumpet solo. :(
I knew that a Sav's thread about Spain would deliver. :lol: Warn us next time and we'll do a proper welcoming. :cheers: I'm in Barcelona right now and I can relate to some of the embarrassment/puzzlement that you see in the Ramblas and around it. The other day my buddies and me were walking back home after clubbing and we were sexually harassed by African prostitutes. I felt a little bit Slargosy after that.
Btw, regarding the personal weirdness and strange ideas of the Spanish people you met, my guess is that a fair deal of it can be chalked down to them being engineers. :P
To be honest, I avoid the Ramblas when walking back up after clubbing. As you noticed, part of the prossies' shtick is to double up as pickpockets when they harass you. It's still a pretty funny sight to see all the dressed up high-class lot exiting the Liceu after an opera night and mix up with the drunkards and the prossies. Only in Barcelona :cool:
The thing with engineers is that they think of everything as engines, so they splice, cut, rearrange and throw away with savantic abandon :P
Yeah, in fact Momo, one of the Serbian guys, got his phone stolen by the prostitutes and only realized it the next morning after I guess a gazillion phone calls were made to Nigeria with it. :lol:
In Barcelona no one gave a second look at a group of people speaking English; but in Zaragoza we stood out. In one bar a young lady with dyed blonde hair approached us and immediately zeroed in on "El Jefe" (who is nearing retirement.) She wanted to practice her English. He lived in Florida; how interesting she was going to Miami in the fall. Could she have his e-mail address or meet him in that bar later? Como se dice "Sugar daddy?"
One of our party had lived in Panama for a few years and spoke some passable Spanish. There's some pitfalls going from New World Spanish and Castillian. He found out the hard way that "Vamos a tomar," doesn't mean "Let's drink" in Spain.
I had taken some Spanish at a community college, but it's deteriorated and I have a bad habit of pronouncing all foreign words as though they were French. Hilarity ensued when I tried to order a "Chocolate coulant" at a restaurant.
Ah well, as Voltaire said, had it not been for the Tower of Babel the whole world would still speak French. One of our supplier's had an operational manager from Montreal. Upon visiting Barcelona for the first time he read the Catalan instructions in the train stations. He said it was the poorest French he had ever encountered.
Another of our supplier's managers was an American expatriate who had married a Spanish woman. His eldest son was in culinary school. He was eager to learn how to slice ham, as the ham slicer is paid a premium in Spanish restaurants. Once again, this is what happens when you kick out all the Jews and Muslims from your country.
Our project manager kept ordering "Hamburguesa" at the restaurants we went to. He was planning to do so at a high end restaurant we were at as there was "Hamburguesa de atun rojo" on the menu. He ordered lamb instead when I told him what he would have gotten had he ordered that. Afterwards he ate Spanish food.
I request further info; how hard was the way your friend found out the meaning of "Vamos a tomar" in peninsular Spanish?
What does it mean in Spain? :unsure:
"We go to take"? Sounds socialist. NO PASARAN.
Spaniards Spanish :bleeding:
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 23, 2014, 10:07:21 PM
What does it mean in Spain? :unsure:
In a facetious context, it's slang for being in the receiving end of homosexual sexual intercourse.
That said, in regular conversation it should only attract a semi-puzzled look at best.
My favorite bit of sexual inter-dialect misunderstanding is the fact that "coger" means "to fuck" in Mexican but only "to take" in peninsular Spanish. I remember talking to a Mexican girl the first time I was in Florida and telling her "I'm sure they'll take you" (she had just had the same job interview as me with a panel of serious looking rich 50somethings). She just wouldn't stop giggling.
Sav's excellent adventure to the Old World! Fun AAR! :)
I was in Spain briefly years ago with the Navy, at Rota Spain. We used most of our free time to walk around the nearest town, or rent a car and drive around and see some sights. Wasn't there long enough but I enjoyed it.
Quote from: KRonn on April 24, 2014, 07:20:21 AM
Sav's excellent adventure to the Old World! Fun AAR! :)
I was in Spain briefly years ago with the Navy, at Rota Spain. We used most of our free time to walk around the nearest town, or rent a car and drive around and see some sights. Wasn't there long enough but I enjoyed it.
Yeah, I've enjoyed reading this too. :)
Quote from: celedhring on April 20, 2014, 07:16:51 AM
To be honest, I avoid the Ramblas when walking back up after clubbing. As you noticed, part of the prossies' shtick is to double up as pickpockets when they harass you. It's still a pretty funny sight to see all the dressed up high-class lot exiting the Liceu after an opera night and mix up with the drunkards and the prossies. Only in Barcelona :cool:
Orwell describes how people would dig up the paving stones from the Ramblas in order to make barricades during the Civil War (and apparently during times of civil disturbance.) That's hard to imagine today given the innumerable tourist kiosks and gift shops along it.
QuoteThe thing with engineers is that they think of everything as engines, so they splice, cut, rearrange and throw away with savantic abandon :P
That's why we make such good super-villains. :)
You make good super-villains because you can realistically put together a bomb (or killer robot).
Quote from: Ideologue on April 24, 2014, 01:38:14 PM
You make good super-villains because you can realistically put together a bomb (or killer robot).
The problem is, even the killer robot can't get a date. :P
Quote from: Malthus on April 24, 2014, 01:52:02 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 24, 2014, 01:38:14 PM
You make good super-villains because you can realistically put together a bomb (or killer robot).
The problem is, even the killer robot can't get a date. :P
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg2.wikia.nocookie.net%2F__cb20130901113011%2Fepicrapbattlesofhistory%2Fimages%2Fa%2Faa%2FDalek_plz.jpg&hash=15b32d1ce7229da9edacd06ed9874a9506f14612)
Maybe not exterminating everyone is the first step to having friends...
One of our current projects is in Australia; when we have people come to Florida from there they like to go to the Harley stores (we have some large ones in Florida), go to the strip clubs (the ones in Perth are supposed to be depressing), and go shooting (something they can't do back home). One of the Spanish engineers is coming to Florida in a few weeks, he's pretty clean cut so he doesn't look like a Harley type and we didn't want to ask him about strip clubs when his co-workers were about; so we asked him if he'd like to go shooting. The conversation went:
Nick: Would you like to go shooting at the gun range?
Javier: :unsure: Do you need a license?
Floridians: :lol: :lol: :lol:
I felt kind of bad since it was like Charlie Brown when the whole class laughs at him. In Florida the gun laws that we have are more like suggestions as it is; but of course Javier wouldn't have known that. :Embarrass:
Reinforcing stereotypes about Americans, I see. :lol:
Why don't you take him to Cape Cañaveral to see NASA stuff?
Shooting NASA stuff seems like a waste.
Quote from: The Larch on April 26, 2014, 08:44:47 AM
Reinforcing stereotypes about Americans, I see. :lol:
Florida embodies all stereotypes about America... and Latin America as well, somehow. :unsure:
QuoteWhy don't you take him to Cape Cañaveral to see NASA stuff?
I'll suggest that, but he had expressed some interest in seeing the theme parks.
Quote from: The Larch on April 26, 2014, 08:44:47 AM
Reinforcing stereotypes about Americans, I see. :lol:
Why don't you take him to Cape Cañaveral to see NASA stuff?
It has been just cape Canaveral for some time now, no?
Javier is in our office this week. One of our engineers is taking him shooting tonight. The conversation at lunch dealt, in great detail with firearms.
Javier: Do all of you own guns? :unsure:
All the other engineers: YES! :w00t:
Savonarola: No
I fail at being Floridian. :Embarrass:
Thief. :mad:
Quote from: Savonarola on October 29, 2014, 01:32:01 PM
Javier is in our office this week. One of our engineers is taking him shooting tonight. The conversation at lunch dealt, in great detail with firearms.
Javier: Do all of you own guns? :unsure:
All the other engineers: YES! :w00t:
Savonarola: No
I fail at being Floridian. :Embarrass:
You should immediately go out to a municipal building and fail to correctly punch out some chads.
Only if he can first become an elderly northeasterner.