Posted by: Culebronchris in Untagged on
Dec 17, 2009
I have tried, lots of times, to use Spanish Yellow Pages and Directory Enquiries. Usually without success.
One of the problems is that Spanish phone books are divided geographically but not always consistently. For instance our phone number is listed in Pinoso but that for our next door neighbours is listed in Culebrón - maybe the ten metres makes a difference! And both our listings are incorrect anyway. One reason is because the English and Spanish forename and surname systems are different. As Christopher John Thompson I am listed as Sr. Jhon (sic).
Another problem is that lots of people simply aren't listed at all. They just aren't there.
Yellow Pages seems to be based on the ordinary phone book so it has the same general structure. If you want a plumber then you look under the section for plumbers. Next you have to look under each town or village as well. In Culebrón the local town is Pinoso but if there's not a listing there you have to start going through the nearest towns, Sax, Salinas, Novelda, Monóvar, La Romana, Alguena, Elda, Petrer etc. So it's a lot of flicking back and forth as you search for that elusive plumber.
The operators at Directory Enquiries don't necessarily live near us. For all I know the call centres are based in Peru or Ecuador - all they have to go on is a database. So, if you ring asking for a plumber in Pinoso and there's nobody listed for Pinoso (remember lots of people aren't) then they too start asking for nearby towns. It can be very wearing.
The online version is better in that it trawls wider so having asked for a plumber in Pinoso it lists almost all the plumbers it can find anywhere. The trouble there is that the numbers are often simply wrong. When I was looking for a solicitor (ages ago) I rang the first six numbers. Four of them were private houses and two were unobtainable. I gave up.
I just checked, there are no plumbers listed for Pinoso in Yellow Pages. I know of three firms personally. That's why the only reliable way to phone someone is to know their number and that's why we collect business cards.
Most spanish websites, when they are working, have some sort of contact option on them. Usually one of the choices is email. Now I like email because it gives me time to prepare the question in Spanish. The replies too are easier to understand as there is time to study them. Well I suppose they would be except that I've never had a reply so that has to be pure supposition.
Sometimes the emails yield results. My bank repaid a mistaken charge as the result of an email but they never wrote back or acknowledged receipt of it. In fact, one time I went to the branch about a week after emailing. I asked the chap why he hadn't responded. He looked in his inbox, found my email and said that he never read his emails as he was too busy.
I had a brief skirmish with my credit card company when they reduced my credit limit drastically without mentioning it and for no good reason. I would email and they would ring me on my mobile. The fact of clicking on the box marked "email" in the section asking how I would like my response never made any difference.
I think that not responding to email has something to do with the Internet still being relatively underused in Spain, something to do with poor customer care, because Spaniards like to talk and because keeping information to yourself seems to be something of a Spanish obsession.
Lots more in a similar vein at
life in culebron and life in cartagena
Posted by: Culebronchris in Untagged on
Sep 24, 2009
I'm living in Cartagena at the moment and when I came across the local narrow gauge railway just next door to the more conventional train station it set me researching. I apologise now to all the train buffs who spot the many generalisations in this entry
Posted by: Culebronchris in Untagged on
Aug 29, 2009
We went out for lunch with some old pals today and we went to a reasonably decent restaurant in town. We had, probably, the most traditional meal in Pinoso and I was a bit surprised when it seemed to be something a bit out of the ordinary for them.
Then I checked my blog and found that I've only once made reference to it once,
here. A wrong to be righted.
Rice, cooked in a paella pan is a standard meal all over Spain, all over the World come to that, but the famous paella, the one from Valencia usually has prawns, other seafood and chicken. The one in these here parts comes with rabbit and snails. The meal in and around Pinoso goes something like this.
First you choose an assortment of bits and bats to start that are put on the table for everyone to share. Toasted and oiled bread served with some alli olli and grated tomato, salad, olives and nuts come more or less as standard. The rest will be to your choice, whatever they have on today plus some staples, usually things like small fried squid, clams, dry cured ham and cheese or, one of my partner's favourites, deep fried cheese with tomato jam.
The freshly cooked rice itself will be served with a flourish. The big paella pan will be placed in the centre of the table on a scorched mat or holder of some kind or if there are a lot of you it will be popped onto a small stand placed beside the main table. It is essential that you make appropriate cooing noises at this point. If the pan is on the table you will be asked if you want plates as it often makes sense to eat directly from the pan (more room for the wine glasses!) Throughout the meal each passing waiter will check that the food is good. The appropriate and only answer is smashing - "Muy rico!"
The main course despatched there is the regular range of puddings. Once upon a time the choice was flan (creme caramel), ice cream or seasonal fruit but nowadays it's just like going to a Harvester in that the pudding list is extensive and sickly sweet.
At coffee time though there are a couple of last minute flourishes. Normally they will plonk a bottle of smeet wine, Moscatel or Mistela on the table though today we got Fondillon - thick, syrupy sweet wines. Sometimes, often, you are offered an alternative like Orujo de Hierbas - a spirit distilled from the left over pulp of wine making grapes flavoured with herbs - even better when you get offered both. Along with the digestif come perusas. My partner calls them dust cakes. A sort of individual sized sweet bready cake full of bubbles and dusted with caster sugar.
And that's it. A light snack that, along with the habitual after meal conversation will take you from the normal sit down time of 2pm to around 4 or 4.30pm. Only a couple of hours to go before you can get yourself a few tapas to hold off the inevitable hunger pangs before you chow down to your evening meal at around 10pm.
Posted by: Culebronchris in Untagged on
Jun 2, 2009
Historically it's not often that we British are on the same side as the Spanish. We've been allies with the Portuguese since 1373 though. Odd then, that at the beginning of the 19th Century British, Portuguese and Spanish troops fought shoulder to shoulder against the common enemy. We Britons call it the Penninsular War the Spanish call it the War of Independence.
Posted by: Culebronchris in Untagged on
May 11, 2009
My wife, Maggie, and I had just come back from Mérida in Extremadura. In a blog I write on Google (link at the bottom of my signature in the forum posts or just Google life in ciudad rodrigo) I'd mentioned the Roman Museum that we'd visited there. As I set down to write my personal diary I was just about to echo the words I'd used in the blog post about "the Splendid Roman Museum" or more accurately the Museo Nacional de Arte Romano. As I wrote I was thinking forward to how to describe the trip around the monastery at Guadalupe that we'd done after the Roman stuff and my pen hovered.
In some ways the Roman museum wasn't that good. The building was great, the display was uncluttered, the labelling was relatively informative but there was no context - nothing about the place that art took within Roman society, nothing about artists, nothing about technique, nothing about changing styles over the centuries, no interactive displays, no opportunity to try your hand at something. And the shop was a joke; shops are obviously about making profit for the museums but, alongside the T shirts are the books and DVDs that continue the work of the museum. Not in Mérida they didn't. Not in Spain they don't.
The Guadalupe Monastery tour was much more Spanish. A guide ushered a party of maybe 50 people into some space. She started talking before the last people at the back were in place. She was competing for the Fanny Craddock and Patrick Moore Speed Talking Award. Most explanations consisted of a date, a name and a fact. This crucifix was carved by Michelangelo in 1523. Christopher Columbus received a letter here from Isabel and Ferdinand in 1491 granting him permission to sail to the Indies. Sometimes the facts were interesting enough, did you know, for instance, that one of those illustrated books that monks used to spend their time colouring weighs in at around 70kgs which is why the books are fitted with wheels? But again, no context; nothing about the daily life of a monk, nothing about why they were colouring books or what place the books had within the monastery or a wider context. And why was Cristóbal Colón (that's Columbus to you and me) in Guadalupe anyway?
More than 30 years ago I did a tour around St Peter's in Rome. The story about Michelangelo's work there, on the dome, has stuck with me all this time. In Versailles, in a room a bit short of furniture, the guide made up for it by describing what the room would have contained and why it would have been like that given the social and political setting at the time. Someone who took me around Peterborough Cathedral told me about how the masons worked and left me with something to remind me of that story every time I search for their marks in the stone.
When I wrote this I realised that, with one possible exception, I've never actually been to a good Spanish museum. Lots of them are fine but in most of them the owners don't really want to give away too much information. The possible exception, that I've come across so far, is the Palm Museum in Elche which has videos of men shinning up palm trees to explain what they did in each season, working models of irrigation systems and lots more in a similar vein. It's quite a small museum but at least someone thought about what it was trying to demonstrate rather than just popping a few things in some cases. I hope, I'm sure, there are other good ones too. I just haven't found them yet.
Posted by: Culebronchris in Untagged on
Apr 22, 2009
Shocking I know but on Monday we celebrated the return of the prostitutes to the provincial capital of Salamanca. A tradition that seems to have spread to our own little town - we did it by going down to the river and having a picnic the main element of which was a local pie stuffed full of bits of pig. Actually we ate our hornazo in the kitchen but we were by the River Águeda in spirit and we did go to stare at the picnicers a little later in the afternoon to show solidarity.
Apparently, back in the 16th Century Philip II (the one who got his beard singed by Drake) decreed that the prostitutes from the town brothel in Salamanca should be shifted across the river Tormes for the whole of Lent to ensure that the menfolk remained chaste. The women were put under the care of a priest, un Padre, who became known as Padre Putas (Father Whores) - it's quite amusing in Spanish but it loses something in the translation I feel. The women were allowed back into the city on the second Monday after Easter Sunday and the students went to meet them with plenty of food and drink as they were rowed back across the river.
Randy students no longer have to wait for the Lunes de Aguas for sex and as most of the prostitution in Spain is now run by Eastern European and Latin American gangs I suspect the work routine of the prostitutes is pretty much unaffected by Lent. Nonetheless, the feasting still remains, at least symbolically.
The day is called Lunes de Aguas which only seems to translate as Monday of Waters and I can't find out why - maybe it's to do with crossing the water of the River Tormes.
This item is copied directly from my blog, the address of which is at the bottom of my forum posts, or you can find it with googling life in ciudad rodrigo.
Posted by: Culebronchris in Untagged on
Apr 13, 2009
Ciudad Rodrigo is a grand place to pass a day: big impressive buildings, history oozing through the streets, great pavement bars with tasty tapas and, to crown it all the prices are really low. There is one tiny problem though, well it's a problem if you live in Alicante or Murcia, Ciudad Rodrigo is on the other side of Spain in Salamanca province!
Posted by: Culebronchris in Untagged on
Mar 24, 2009
I don't know if you have ever found yourself musing on something. Anidle thought drifts into your mind. It happens to me when I'm mopping, or gardening or ironing which, when I think about it must mean that it happens tome very rarely! But take an example. In the UK, before the coming of the railways there was no agreed time. There didn't need to be really. You knew when to get up and when to go to bed and how you measured the space in between was up to you, or the local church clock.
The thing that set me thinking was a description of the Via de la Platain a book I read about a district called Entresierras, close to where I live in Salamanca My Spanish isn't up to much but an obvious translation was the Silver Route. Except it isn't - the plata in this case isn't from the Spanish for silver but in Latin meaning paved. The Via de la Plata is an old Roman Road that goes from Extremadura, in the South West of Spain to Astorga in Leon.
