The Parrot Invasion and Other Bird Mysteries

After breakfast on the roof terrace under more perfect blue skies, we took a trip out to Casa de Campo yesterday, in what Madrileños seem to refer to as 'the forest' to the west of the city. It's one of Madrid's many strange features that make it different to other European capitals (can you imagine the entire of west London being given over to a massive forest? Didn't think so). The metro goes out to the southern edge of it so you emerge with it stretching out in front of you with the Sierra in the background. It's a very Spanish looking landscape, quite dry and sparse with relatively small trees. We set off for a walk through said trees in the bitter cold and in under a minute had spotted some little green parrots. I'd glimpsed some before in amongst some pigeons but thought they might be quite rare, but not here! After walking a little further we came across literally hundreds of them squawking noisily from the trees, ground and air. They're a brilliant green in the sunshine, with blue/grey wings that flash when they fly. My picture doesn't do them, or the number of them, justice unfortunately as they're very hard to photograph and fly off easily. I thought they might be native, but I've just looked it up on the internet and found this article from 2002 that says that they're Argentinian and people bought them as pets, set them free because they were too noisy and now they're flourishing. From what we saw in the small section of the forest we explored they certainly look like they have been dramatically increasing in numbers, but you still rarely see them in the city centre.

This isn't the only bird mystery I've been wondering about. What are the huge flocks of birds that fly in formation over west Madrid towards the Sierra every evening and where are they going? Why do wood pigeons skim the trees at dusk, gathering at the Palacio Real in a massive flock? If anyone can tell me I'd greatly appreciate it! Anyway, Casa de Campo's nice for an escape from the bustling city, and I'm sure will be great for a day out picnicking when its a bit warmer.

After a sucessful wander last Saturday, this week we decided to do it again but to make it more interesting by picking a random metro stop out of a hat along with a 'mission' to complete and splitting into competing teams. We met in Sol and Chueca was picked out with the task of getting a photo with the strangest looking person so off we went. I must admit, my team got a bit sidetracked by coffee and sheltering from the cold, but we did explore a new bit of town between Chueca and Alonso Martinez. My flatmates, however, excelled themselves with a series of photo's including one with the pointy-bearded barman in El Tigre to claim victory (drinks were on me), despite Luke being on crutches due to a knee operation. (Sidenote, many Metro stops have lifts, but those that don't aren't easy to negotiate on crutches with small flights of stairs all over the shop). Unfortunately we decided it was too cold and late to do the next mission (find the best thing for free around Gregorio Marañon) but are going to have round 2 next week.

Lastly, I'm on the job hunt again as my language school job isn't giving me any hours due to lack of students, so more info on that coming soon...

Felizes Tres Reyes

...Or Happy Three Kings to you. Today is (another) national holiday here in Spain for Three Kings, which many people, particularly Catholics, take much more seriously than Christmas itself. This is when children recieve their presents, instead of christmas day, delivered by the three wise men that bothered Jesus when he was born (or, 12 days after as it is here - the Bible doesn't actually mention them being there on the night), one from the Orient, one from Europe and one from Africa, who magically fly around the world by camel... sound familiar? All this must be a bit confusing for kids. Are they competing with Santa or what?

Umbrellas out in Plaza de Ciebeles

Anyway, there's a huge parade through every town in Spain on Reyes Eve as I'm gonna call it, and the one in Madrid is pretty huge and broadcast live on TV so we went down and joined the crowds in Plaza de Ciebeles to check it out. It started off with some light drizzle and an odd musical interlude telling the story of the Kings featuring a man playing an upended piano suspended above the stage with projections on it, before the parade started coming down the Paseo Castellano. Its very much a kids event, with loads of toddlers hoisted on there parents shoulders and even up step ladders waiting to catch the sweets thrown from the floats, but it was pretty full of adults too who were clearly loving it (and also trying to catch sweets).

 

Balthazar, all the way from Africa, apparently

It's quite a surreal procession really, giant birds, the smurfs, the Royal Guards on horseback, a pirate ship, mildly terrifying giant fish, flag waving cheerleaders, a gigantic samaurai who looked like he was muttering silently to himself and much more, followed at the end by the Three Kings themselves. Now, one of the Kings, Balthazar, from Africa, is usually black. However, this is Spain, not a country known for its political correctness (see also the national basketball team narrowing their eyes for a photo at the Beijing olympics). Did they have a black person filling this role? Of course not, they had someone blacked up. Oh dear.

Fireworks, as seen from Gran Via

This aside, the event was great fun. It's nice to have a big communal celebration like that at this time of year, and this one brings out the wide eyed kid in everyone. You've got to be pretty sharp to catch any sweets though, or up-end an umbrella as many people did. Some pretty impressive fireworks afterwards too.

Seeing as today was a national holiday, it was high time for a drink afterward, and we headed over to Malasana for a couple at a little cafe whos name I always forget that plays bossa nova non stop. Then to circus themed Malabar on Plaza Dos de Mayo with its very friendly staff before venturing into Chueca to a bar that serves huge plates of tapas (see below) with a decent sized beer for 4 Euros a pop while huge animal heads stare at you from the wall, and then on to a Olivers, an ordinary looking bar with an unexpected cellar club with neon lights stretching from end to end (also see below) and a very hit and miss music policy. All that, and I didn't see one person breaking the smoking ban. In fact, people looked quite happy standing outside.

Needless to say, I'm quite hungover. But hey, what are public holidays for eh?

Happy All Saints Day

So it turns out my second day of my intensive training course is in fact a public holiday, although no one seems quite sure what its for but its known, rather vaguely, as All Saints Day. Apparently there are absolutely loads of public holidays in Spain – I looked at a calendar, they're often more than once a month! From what I've seen, this seems to reflect the Spanish work ethic in general. Shops close at night (no 24 Tescos around) and most things apart from cafe and restaurants close on Sunday, even though there's still loads of people who would use them. There always seem to be more staff than is really necessary as well. It's an attitude much less orientated to making money than in the UK where your expected to work long and unsocialble hours in a lot of jobs. I, for one, love it, its more a work to live than live to work and probably leads to a much better quality of life.

The first day of the training was actually easier than I had expected. I thought we were being thrown straight into classes that afternoon, but we only had a morning session teaching us the method and style they use. So today I'm doing the homework (which is pretty long) and preparing for lessons tomorrow afternoon. They don't tell you what level the student your going to be teaching is so you've got to judge and adapt as you go along. It sounds quite exciting to me really! It turns out at 24 I'm the grandad of the group of trainees, most of them are 22 or 23, mostly in the same position as me although a couple have taught before. With it being a holiday today, we had the opportunity to go out last night and get to know each other a bit which was great and they seem like a good bunch. I think the less said about last night the better to be honest but we somehow decided to go out in Chueca, the gay district, which makes Canal Street look like an Essex stag do, and ended up seeing a little more of it than expected. About 8 inches more I'd say.

The entrance to Reina Sofia isn't quite Tate Modern but its pretty cool

For some slightly more cultural entertainment, I'd gone to the Reina Sofia museum on Saturday (its free after 2pm), which is the more modern of the main art museums in Madrid, with Picasso's Guernica being the main attraction. They also have a load of his preliminary sketches for it, intresting to see it developing. There's lots of old Spanish Civil War propaganda posters and photos too. My knowledge of the civil war pretty much goes as far as reading Homage To Catalonia by George Orwell so I'm curious to find out more after seeing those. It's easy to forget that Spain was a dictatorship until as recently as 1978. The thing I was most interested in seeing there, however, was their collection of Miro paintings, some of which my parents had around the house when I was little and apparently would hold me in front of to stop me crying. Disappointingly though, there were fewer than the guide book had made it sound, and they felt like a bit of a sideshow to Guernica which people were crowding into the next room to see. There is, however, a huge Miro on the building opposite my training offices which is pretty cool.

On with 'lesson planning' for tomorrow, I think they just throw you in at the deep end and see how you do to start with so its not too nerve racking but I'd rather not sound like a complete idiot!