Posts Tagged ‘oviedo’

Shaft…. john shaft… erm… Originally uploaded by itsjustanalias.

Time is different in Spain. Most people know about the customary late-nightness but it goes further than that. I was asking some students about what they did at the weekend and their answers were confusing. They went to a party which began on Friday afternoon and finished on Friday morning. So we discussed it a little:

Madrugada, often translated as early morning (sometimes dawn) is often used with what we would consider the day before, so Friday Madrugada is for us, Saturday Morning (between midnight and 3 or 4am). Although it is commonly used for early morning as late as 10pm (such as today, when Liz met someone at the shops they said what an early riser she was (que madrugadora!)

Mañana, also morning, usually refers to the time from dawn to lunch, which could be 2pm or later, so sometimes I get confused when students say good morning.

Tarde, afternoon, which runs from after lunch to dinner, so until 10pm. When something starts in the afternoon here, it’s often at 6pm.

Noche, night, usually from 9 or 10pm to midnight (after which it’s madrugada). The prime time for TV programmes is 10pm, the equivalent of newsnight begins at around 12:30am.

It takes a long time to get used to the changes, it’s still surprising to hear our neighbours chatting away and watching telly at 2am on a week-night… according to the newspapers, the Spanish sleep less than any other nation, because after those late nights, a lot of them still get up and go to work for 8am.

Chestnut drop in centre Originally uploaded by itsjustanalias.

Along the paseo de los alamos (the boulevard in front of the park) there are a number of art nouveau style ice cream stalls. In the past month a few of them have changed their spots and started sporting ‘castañas asadas’ signs. It’s chestnut season and, much like in the UK, a bag of roasted chestnuts is a fine autumn treat.

The old ladies in the outdoor bit of the market (the part where the local smallholders come in to sell whatever they have) is a good bellwether of the current state of veg. Things are turning green, not so many figs now, not so many lettuce or tomatoes. Now it’s more in the way of kale, cabbage and greens. But they all have a tray or two of chestnuts (and apples and pears still). Liz prefers to get her chestnuts from one particular old lady who looks about 300, thin and crooked with a deep lined face that suggests a lifetime of hard work. She stands a little apart from the other sellers, under a tree, next to her tartan shopping trolley and her only goods for sale. A mountain of chestnuts. Liz asked for half a kilo and she ‘misheard’ and sold us a kilo, but that was okay because they were delicious.

Detalle de los Callos de Bacalao con Boletus y Morcón Originally uploaded by jlastras.

Now that Liz is here, we have resumed our ongoing project to find the best lunch menu in town. It’s a difficult project but the rewards are excellent. On Friday (for the unwritten rules state that we can only do lunch one day a week, for wallet and waist related reasons) we tried a bar just round the corner, called Punto y Coma (full stop and comma: not anything to do with comas). I give a class at 3:30 on Fridays so we polled up at just before 2. This was a smart move because the tables were empty. Despite that, a lot of them had reserved signs so we ended up in the bar area rather than the restaurant. This wasn’t a bad thing, it let Liz examine the packed bar. Now, when I say packed bar, in Spain that seems to mean one deep, everyone with access to the bar itself, using it to rest their wine glasses, their plates of nuts, crisps, olives and hams, rather than an English packed bar which is basically a chaotically formed queue. Liz remarked on how well coiffed the ladies were and how smartly dressed everyone was (look at the shoes!!). We thought about this for a few minutes before figuring out that we were just round the corner from the centre of government of Asturias, and that this was probably the local for the local politicos and their staff.

The food was excellent, I started with callos with chickpeas… callos is a specific type of tripe, not something I’d normally go for, but hey… if you never try new stuff… Apparently this combination is typical in Madrid, the Asturians have a different serving method we’ll get to in the future. It was lovely, the tripe was in very small pieces so rather than rubbery, it melted in the mouth. Liz had a tuna and rice salad that came formed into a cube. Then Lubina (no idea what it translates as but it’s fish) while I tucked into chicken with garlic. My poor students… there was a ton of garlic, even the accompanying chips had a garlic flavour. After that we had a cream cheese with quince jelly dessert, and coffee. All for €10. At about nine that night Liz said ‘where shall we go next week?’

principesasturias Originally uploaded by tunelko.

As I’ve been on the hard daily commute to work (that 7 minute stroll past the pricipality’s seat of government, a couple of cafes, a square with a statue of a chunky lass with baby and the posh theatre) the last couple of day’s I’ve noticed a bit of activity. There have been groups of men laying cables, others building things out of scaffolding, yet more constructing a white google shed with the google map locator flags on the side. Today I saw groups of camera wielders and their assistants. One of the constructions was revealed to be a big screen, on which I saw Al Gore, Woody Allen and others saying things like ‘it’s an honour’ and ‘strewth’ (okay, no one said strewth but they could have).

It was the Prince of Asturias prizegiving ceremony. They’re kind of like the Nobel prizes except the Nobel committee never gave a prize to Bob Dylan (2005 Arts) or Fernando Alonso (Sport) and the world’s press seems to ignore them. They do tend to pre-empt the Nobels too, although I doubt Fernando Alonso is in line to bow the the Swedish king any time soon (and I’m not sure they’ll be so quick to give anything so nice to Hamilton). This year, it’s Rafa Nadal, Google (Larry Page turned up), The fight against Malaria (catchy organization title), Margaret Atwood and Ingrid Betancourt among others. The Theatre Campoamore is being done up, with velvet drapes and flags out back. The lights are being placed and the royal police guard have been standing on street corners since Tuesday. The prince and his wife will be dishing out the goodies, the national TV gang will be reporting it. The ovetense will be mostly ignoring it…

And now the after action report. Except there isn’t one. I was working and as I wandered home (my normal route was blocked so that the cars to carry the Royals the 400 metres from the theatre to the Hotel Reconquista can wait nice and close) I noted the prince giving a speech on the big screen… there were a few hundred still gathered, I walked on feeling all republican (on days when I’m John Irish, I feel proud to be a citizen not a subject)…

Para el desarme Originally uploaded by itsjustanalias.

“Spinach?” I was wandering through the market, the part where local folk bring their market garden produce to sell, tying to choose just which apples, figs, onions, mushrooms and the like I wanted. “Spinach?” Repeated the woman, “For the disarmament”.

Of course I’m translating, but El Desarme is what she said. Erm, I said.

“Desarme, desarme. You need spinach?”

I’d seen signs up in a few restaurants, they said El Desarme menu, spinach chickpeas and cod (the lovely bacalao, preserved in salt and then washed before cooking), followed by callao (I think) which (I think) is a tripe based stew, one of my students described it to me a few months ago, followed by rice pud.

El desarme is a tradition, rather than anything organized. It commemorates one of the battles of Oviedo in the Carlist wars, or the second Carlist wars. It’s also part harvest festival food (although why they need to use the tripe I’m not sure, the rest of the pig’s available no?).

So of course I bought the spinach and some bacalao and (heretically) added onions and tomato… it was lovely.

The nine day San Mateo festival comes to an end today. There has been a lot of stuff on in various different places in the city, ranging from a classic car show to an unforgettable (but not in a good way) polka band in the park. I’m not really a fiesta kind of person, and it’s not nearly as much fun when you’re not in a group (so if we’re here next year this is a good time to visit) but I’ve done a few bits and pieces.

There are two signature events in San Mateo, according to the local TV, one is the parade on the day of the Americas in Asturias (lots of floats, lots of latin rhythms interspersed with pipe bands marching past) which was on Friday, and a big fireworks display in Parque Invierno (winter park) at midnight last night. I missed the fireworks because I had walked up the Naranco mountain to see the sunset and by the time I got back I just wanted a beer and a sit down for a while. However, it was covered live by TPA, the local TV station, where two reporters gamely batted back and forth ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahhhhs’ and comments like ‘that’s a blue one, oh, now a yellow, maybe silver’. The fireworks, while not on a Chinese scale, were pretty impressive.

The other major theme of San Mateo is the chiriguitos, the outdoor stalls where you can get a drink and a buttie. Really they should be thinking of changing the name to the buttie fest, because combined with the chiriguitos, today is another day for bollos, bread baked with a chorizo inside (although I prefer the ones with black pudding). Almost everyone on the street has a carrier bag with their bottle of wine and bollo preñado. Last night was the busiest so far. The steets were packed, and amazingly, for streets packed with people who all seem to be drinking (1000 mojito drinkers in Cuban corner is a sight to behold), I haven’t seen a single fight. Not one, and not too many incapably drunk people. I cannot imagine how a citywide street festival lasting nine days with a significant drinking component would play out in the UK. No, actually I can imagine it and it wouldn’t be pretty.

Some of those B&W chemicals Originally uploaded by zeneziz.

I’ve done a couple of weeks of my photography course so far and I’m really enjoying it. It’s a private course run by an Oviedo photographer called Ricardo Moreno. He’s got a studio and darkroom just around the corner. I stumbled across it while I was looking for english academies (it’s in the same building as the fantastically named Brian School). His photos were all over the walls and they looked really good, when I chatted to him he was a fervent film photographer despite earning chunks of his crust from (digital) wedding photography.

The course doesn’t have a syllabus and when he asked me what I wanted to achieve I said I wanted to produce a film portfolio (I had shown him one of my best of flickr photobooks) and he said no problem.

It’s been a looooong time since I had darkroom time and I realised very quickly that when I was doing B&W stuff in school and university I was doing it very badly. I spent two hours producing one print the other day and really enjoyed the slowness of it, the patience required and the stepwise testing process and choosing what contrast and exact times I wanted. The end result is a print I’m really pleased with (the first from the Bronica- thanks Anne) and I like the fact that it’s not instant, not easy to produce, not instantly replicable. I won’t be ditching the digital by any means, but I’ll certainly make the most of a massive darkroom and lots of time to play.

Walking around the city the last few days I’ve seen various preparations going on. Bars are suddenly sprouting extra outdoor bars, plazas are getting stages built in them, the park has a new children’s play area. All of this is for San Mateo, Oviedo’s big annual fiesta. It runs from the 12th through to the 21st and, despite my students rubbishing the lineup, I’m quite looking forward to it. Every day there’s kids stuff in the park, there’s theatre, there are concerts, both free and not free. I read in the paper that the council is being very serious this year about the noise pollution, and that the live music will have to finish by 2:30am on weeknights and by 5:30am at the weekends.

Among the artists playing the free gigs by the cathedral are Tomatito, Estrella Morente and Amaparanoia (all of whom I’d pay to see). On the 19th it’s the Day of the Americas in Asturias and the flags are being hung right now. There’s going to be a big parade. One of my students said that I should try the bocadillos (sandwiches, but made with crusty bread) especially the calamares. She was chuffed to learn the alliterative squid sandwich translation.

The photo is from the opening speech/fireworks/Asturian anthem/holding up of a chicken in which the dean of the university gave a speech which basically went like this:- Oviedo, it’s great, we love it, aren’t we lucky to live in such a great city, I mean it’s bloomin fantastic, and when we do this again next year let’s hope that Real Oviedo are in the second division (that would be an upwards move, and that got the biggest round of applause), viva Oviedo, viva San Mateo.

The holding up of the chicken made the front page of today’s paper, I have yet to read it to figure out just what that was all about.

Cubo Originally uploaded by _Germán_.

This is literally true. And the reason is this, bins are emptied every day (hear that Daily Mail reading, rat phobic biweekly bin collectees?). Every day. At around 8 in the evening the Cubo Express company drops off empty bins outside each building (including any recycling ones depending on the day) and at 11 or 11:30 the Oviedo Ecologico, or, Bin Men empty them. Then the empty bins are collected. It’s a fine system, most of the time.

The exception is Sunday. There’s no collection on Sunday so the kitchen bin with Sunday lunch stuff has to wait until monday evening. And if you had fish on Sunday that may be fish heads. And if you were out on Saturday and missed that collection you may have more odiforous fare.

Then on Monday night everyone empties their weekend’s bags, and if someone isn’t scrupuplous in checking for leaks before they leave the flat you might get fish juice leakage in the lift.

This can be problematic (it didn’t happen to me… I just needed the air freshner and a gas mask).

Before the summer timetable at the academy I’m working in, I was able to head to the swimming pool for their opening at 9am. Now I have classes at 10 so we had to pick a different time. Fortunately I’ve got a decent break between morning classes and evening. Even so I was a little wary, it’s the summer holidays, would the pool be full of yoot? Would we get a decent swim?

I needn’t have worried. We went to the pool in Parque Oeste (West Park) and because it was after 11am the outdoor pool was open. They have two 50m pools, one inside and one outside. And there were only two lanes in use, and a half dozen sunbathers lying around the edge of the pool. As soon as I dived in I realised why. The water was a tad chilly, we were only in July and I guessed it would warm up.

Now, the water’s a lot warmer (well a couple of degrees, very important degrees) and there are a few more people, so many that Liz and I have to share a lane (with each other!) Still, the outdoor pool is fantastic, crystal clear. It feels like a private pool, there are so few folk. The lifeguards have the easiest job in the world, because almost all of the swimmers are proper swimmers, no old ladies three abreast yakking, last time we went there was only one chap who wasn’t doing crawl, and that’s because he was with his two sons. There are plenty of other pools in which messing about is the norm, and of course, there’s the sea too, so it’s really nice to have a place where you can actually get your head down and just swim, without worrying about collisions or splashing the blue rinse brigade (giving rise to the immortal Halifaxian quote: Oy, we don’t need no channel swimmers around here).