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Covid-19 has now killed more than thirty-one thousand in Spain and nearly a million worldwide. Borders have closed; I can still travel freely to some countries, but would have to navigate various hurdles to get into others, and see no guarantee that the number and nature of these hurdles couldn’t change before trip day. It’s…
Remote, poor, sparsely-populated Extremadura is the unrespected Rodney Dangerfield of Spain tourist destinations. It didn’t make Planetware’s top fifteen list for the country, or, for that matter, U.S. News’ top twenty. Rick Steves’ Spain ‘at a glance’ map represents the autonomous community’s 41,000+ square kilometers as a big blank area between Portugal and Toledo. Transit…
What follows is an incomplete list of Spanish words and sayings that might rate utterance by English speakers. The German weltschmerz, zeitgeist and schadenfreude get occasional play in the U.S. media because no English words so ably cover the same turf. Why not pagafantas and hombretón? I have discussed all candidates below with Spain born-and-raiseds,…
Once a week I shop. This is the only time I leave the building during the coronavirus quarantine in Madrid, practically the only time I leave my apartment. If I have to tote trash and recycling to the bins by the stairs I hold my breath until I’m back in the apartment with the door…
italki is a global internet platform that links language learners with language instructors. A big, well-established platform: the about page claims five million students parsing verbs in one hundred thirty languages with ten thousand teachers. Thirteen years old now, founded by two Shanghai entrepreneurs. Betcha you’ve never heard of it. Spain’s coronavirus quarantine has made…
I first wore a mask on the Madrid metro on March 3, on the way home from our Tuesday Spanish/English language exchange. This was about four months after the coronavirus emerged in China, and one week after the first cases were diagnosed on mainland Spain. Before the statistics skyrocketed, before the fear set in. I…
You can! You want to! You should! And I did. Like this: (♦) Go to fvap.gov and click the big red Request an Absentee Ballot button. Gotta do it fresh every year. Sorry. Not my fault. (♦) Clicking the big red button starts the Federal Post Card Application process, which will not include, require or produce…
‘But is it safe to travel Egypt alone?’ Conocidos usually asked this question before any cheery yak about pyramids and King Tut. To many, ‘Egypt’ today means Arab Spring, mass protests, soldiers, mayhem, a coup d’état. Kalashnikov-toting riot police might misunderstand an elderly tourist’s intentions with a selfie stick. Couldn’t an old codger like me…
Doha is the capital city of Qatar, a pint-sized, filthy rich monarchy that juts into the Persian Gulf from the eastern flank of Saudi Arabia. I’ll wager that most Americans have never heard of it, and that the few exceptions associate it instantáneamente with Qatar’s sponsorship of powerhouse international news broadcaster Al Jazeera. I suggest…
I now understand some Spanish movies. Finally! Took me long enough. Commercial, for profit, entertainment movies, made in Spanish, mostly in Spain. Without subtitles. Only some of them, mind you, and I never understand every word, but I can now usually follow a plot line, fathom enough to be interested. A milestone! I presume that…