listening and talking

The first week of intensive Spanish classes is over. It's been a bit like living under water. Among other things it makes me feel like a small child and reduces most of my Spanish conversations to the same level. And while I know how important practicing your basic language is, it seems so much easier often - especially at the shops- just to grunt and shrug and point.

I guess that's true of a lot of people. not just language learners.

Apparently there is a new generation here in Spain, the Ni generation. Ni students, ni workers. In an economy such as Spain's, which recently had the second highest income in Europe according to our tapas guide , lots of this newly shaped generation won't have grown up with any experience of working hand to mouth. For those living in families with work, I expect that's making for some new - or possibly old - family dynamics.

It's hard to see here in the centre of Madrid, as a foreign tourist, how this is taking shape. But it does seem clear that those who do have work, work pretty long hours. Siesta not withstanding.

I engaged my basic Spanish in a conversation with the woman running one of the bread and pastry shops nearby. It seems slow, lots of shops look closed, is this the crisis? Yes it's the crisis she said. But it's not a crisis. The poor are getting poorer. The rich getting rich. The banks are doing very well. Everybody knows - to quote Leonard Cohen.

Also doing well, and not all affected by the crisis,  are some of the restaurant/cafes/bars in the squares throughout the old city. Grette and I were enjoying a beer out of the wind, with olives and crisps,  we heard again the twittering sound of lots of conversations. I expect that it isn't endemic to Spain, but we haven't really noticed that busy chirpy noise anywhere else.  I think if you are going to spend an hour or so sitting around with a drink, chatting, then you'll have to be good at the chat. And I have no reason to imagine that the conversations are particularly deep or hilarious. But it  does suggest a kind of easy going but lively engagement.

I have to admit that we we were having beer the crowd was pretty much the same mix and age as the crowd you get after work in Edgar's in suburban Ainslie, so it may well be we haven't stumbled on much of significance here.

Anyway, if anyone would like to add comments to this blog. that would be great!