While eating cold "nachos" with un-melted cheese that tasted like they had been bonfired in a smoky pit of charcoal....me and Stacey began to ponder the ridicularity (its a word) of our lives here in Spain. Not only do we go to school two days a week and have never done a lick of homework, but we spend the rest of time traveling to every other country in Europe and/or Africa on government loans that we will never be able to pay back. Life is great - but there are quite a few struggles we are forced to overcome daily.
Chapter 1: The "nachos" We had some leftover meat from making burritos the night before, so we had the brilliant idea to finish it off by making nachos in our kitchen the size of a half bathroom. So I plug in the oven and start covering the shelf from someone else's oven to use as our nacho pan. This shelf has never been washed, and "I'm not washin it" so we cover it with aluminum foil and put the nachos in the oven, that, as it turns out, was not preheating, because the single outlet in the kitchen had blown out, but it had blown out right after it started to heat up – so it was lukewarm , if that, so we thought “if we just leave the nachos in there for like 15 minutes the cheese might melt”. It didn’t. Our second brilliant idea was to stove-top cook the nachos on the shelf using two burners you have to light with a match. Instead of heating up the nachos, it burned the nag never-been-washed shelf, and charbroiled the bottom chips. Smoke was rising as we looked for marshmallows to roast on the bonfire….we might as well, right? The cheese started to get stale, and age – as did we, so we decided what the hell we will just eat it cold. We own no oven mitts to take the shelf to the table, so we stood over the stove and ate our smoky nachos. Just to contribute to our nacho-making endeavor, this was all done by working by the light of the stove flame in the dark of the night. (the kitchen light had gone out weeks ago and we can’t ask our dueña for another one – to be explained later) . Someone had put their desk lamp in the kitchen for a shadowed half glow to work in, but that fell on the floor and broke two hours after it was put there because you have to limbo under the one foot long cord that is draped over the flame of the stove. Real safe. Anyway, we began to think about every little thing that is the craziness of the Spanish lifestyle….and here are a few things we came up with. -As if the light that used to work had to receive permission from the god of lights before it could turn on, it took approximately 7 minutes to heat up. “Hey Stace, do you wanna cook dinner in thirty? Cuz we should probably get that light goin’.” So we stand there in the dark and wait, refusing to feel around in a kitchen that even the moonlight never touches to start getting stuff out of the also broken fridge light to make dinner. -The laundry cubby off of the kitchen is a story in itself. It’s on a 1x1 foot balcony, a definite after-thought of the original architecture of the apartment. First of all – there is no dryer, so if you want to wash your clothes one must ask themselves, “Will I be needing these jeans in the next two to three weeks?” If no, you may proceed. In the shit hole that is our house, the state-of-the-art washing machine has a door, but that doesn’t mean it’s attached. One must shove a broomstick up against the door to keep it shut so it doesn’t flood the kitchen with laundry water. *see picture* If the broomstick doesn’t suffice, you must also shove the bombona up against the door, as well. (a bombona is basically a propane tank that gives your apartment hot water and stove fire). *To further explain the true luxury of what we call the bombona, one must light the fire box to heat the shower. It’s no big deal until you are in the middle of your shower and you realize all the gas has run out and you are going to have to call the bombonero man to bring you a new one, hopefully by the end of the week. (this is all while you are slowly dying of hypothermia). After a three-hour wash cycle, you need to find somewhere to hang all your clothes. Outside won’t work on the line from the 1930’s because it’s always raining or freezing. Instead, you must hang it around your room on chairs and curtain rods until it dries six weeks later all crustified, which cause them to be hard as rock, and may or not be used as a lethal weapon. -The design of the bathroom will always remain to be a mystery to us all. The bidet (for those of you who aren’t lucky enough to have seen one, dictionary.com’s definition of it is “a small, oval basin used for washing one’s genital and/or anal area”) is placed where the toilet should be, so to get to the toilet you have to contort your ribcage to be able to sit down. The wonderfully placed bidet is used for storage of objects like books, magazines, towels, and the toilet paper roll. We refuse to think about the possibility that any of our dirty Spanish roomates use it. -Back to the kitchen. The dishes and cutlery are a separate issue worthy of it’s own mentioning. You want soup? Well, you have to eat it off a plate. Because the bowls in Spain are a one-centimeter deep plate that allow you to eat three spoonfuls of soup or cereal. Cooking on the provided pans is a joy in itself. The handle and the pan spin unsimultaneously from one another, so when you are cooking, let’s say….eggs, you pick up the pan and the entire pan spins away from the handle and pours all over the gratings of the stove, and you don’t clean it up for 7 months. If you do succeed in keeping the food inside the pan, you will consume bits of pan along with your delicious meal. “Oh pepper! What a nice touch!” “I didn’t put pepper in it.” “Oh, then it’s just pan.” Mmmm. The knives. Period. They’re bent and/or not attached to the handle, and when they are, the blade is on the top of the knife.
Chapter 2: Sleeping -The prison blinds that adorn your windows let not a speck of light into the room, so don’t count on waking up during daylight hours. You will need alternate methods of despertando. If for a very very slim reason, the decibel levels of the consistent thirty minute long beautiful church “bells” (as in dongs, and only dongs, no dings) do not do the trick, the leg on the five-star resort beds that have springs bruising your face and hips will suddenly collapse during your deepest slumber, sending you jolting into the corner of the room and clawing for your life. True story.
Chapter 3: Leaving the house -If you can sneak past Dueña (the landlady who hasn’t shaved a day in her life, nor brushed her teeth, NOR showered) without her stopping to scream at you for ninety minutes in her Andalcian gibberish, a very complicated task, you can breathe some “fresh” air. (you practically smoke 12 packs a day when you’ve never smoked a cigarette in your life) -As you venture outside, you stroll down the one-inch sidewalk dodging everything from dog shit to broken glass and slow walkers. Sometimes a frisky moto-bro will bruise your ass as he slaps it on his way past you going 50 km/hr. If you make it out alive, you sometimes have to use ninja skills to get away from a mob of 13-18 year old Spanish chicos who grab you from all directions. Then you realize. It’s. Sunday. Nothing is open, no food, no stores, no nothing. If it’s not Sunday, and the stores aren’t closed due to either siesta or personal vacations, all you will find is a delicious shot of coffee in a shot glass, or some ham. Qué aproveche! While thinking about all of the pleasures of Spanish life and dying of laughter, I took off my sweatshirt and punched a cup of apple juice off the table and onto the floor, spilling it onto the bed, and into the outlet….severely electrocuting myself and staining the white sheet that hasn’t been washed since we moved in. Shit, now I gotta do laundry and sleep in a sleeping bag for four weeks as my sheets form a crusty layer while drying. While I'm up I'll put the stick of butter on the furnace while it's on from 4-10 pm so it softens up enough to make cookies. *Written and illustrated by Sabrina Norris-Turin and Stacey Tallian. None of the above is a dramatization. Not based on a true story, but...an actual true story.
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