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5+ years in Spain, and I still marvel at Madrid’s subway like a first-time tourist. I sip tea out of a Madrid Metro coffee mug, festoon my refrigerator with Madrid Metro magnets, pay dues to Andén 1, a local enthusiast group, own their book about the metro and a thicker official history published by the…
Industrialization drove thousands of rural families into Spain’s big cities last century in search of money and work. The fictional story of one is told in Surcos, a 1951 neo-realist film that chronicles the grim disintegration of the Pérez clan amid the temptations and shams of a heartless Madrid. A local screenwriter told me about…
Eight hours, 291 kilometers, through 91 tunnels, over hundreds of bridges: this is the route of the Glacier Express, described by rail guru Seat61 as one of Switzerland’s two most scenic train trips. I had sampled the first before the pandemic, craved a return to Switzerland to round out the short list. Please regard this…
“Tim, your Spanish vocabulary is better than mine!” This wasn’t true, wasn’t close to true, but last month I still felt buoyed by the Spaniard’s compliment as I shuffled to the busy Ventas café counter for our next round of drinks. Capcioso was the word I’d just used, that had so impressed my companion. He’d…
The non-EU expat who logs five legal years in Spain can reach for a glittery brass ring at the end of year five: a “larga duración” residence permit, either for Spain alone or for both Spain and the rest of the European Union. I opted for the second, got it, post today to share juicy…
The photo above was snapped in Algiers during World War II. The attractive young woman is a French Jewish refugee, had fled the Nazis with her family in 1940. She would soon marry the serviceman shown and move with him to the United States. Three-quarters of a century later, I met her online. Edith is…
Feast your eyes! Pretty slick, no? Better than I deserve! And the spatial, three-dimensional novel may look better still, even with cover text and ISBN bar code. (I pause to lovingly heft the paperback that now graces my computer desk, to fan its crisp pages, inhale that dreamy new book smell. And you thought I…
I am or was a client of all of the businesses listed below and recommend them to others. Services range from the short-term (at the century-old Peluquería Moderna, which cut hair I no longer have) to the life-transforming (at ICUA, which relieved me of 117 grams of prostate tissue). I receive no compensation from any…
Almost three years since my last installment! I again offer my advanced age as an excuse, lament that I never thought to employ this dodge for late homework assignments in fifth grade. FAMILY TIES … … strike me as sturdier here than in the U.S. Many Spaniards live unselfconsciously with their parents into their late…
Internauts visiting this page only yesterday saw a pop-up in the lower right corner, modified to look like: The pop-up was furnished by Complianz, a WordPress plug-in for webmasters who want to comply with European Union data protection laws. Transitophile made cookies! I didn’t know how or why, had tried to be rid of them…