And now we're off!

And so we reach the end of another examining tour (the seventh in six years!) and how has it been? Well, I can report that it’s been pleasantly cyclical. Starting at a tapas bar in Zaragoza with the standard offer of beer, fried chorizo and nuts, tidying my nutshells on my plate as I went along, I ended the tour in a terrace bar in historical Teruel eating local cured meat (famed in the region and pictured), drinking gin and tonics and throwing my peanut shells on the ground just as everyone else. I think that’s progress as far as Spain in concerned.

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One thing that does still mark me out as firmly being from northern Europe is my propensity for sitting out in the 36 degree sun when no-one else is. And this hasn’t gone unnoticed either; in Zaragoza I was given a free iced espresso for my boldness and just in my last morning in Teruel while eschewing the shade offered by one of the numerous umbrellas in the local Plaza de Toro, my South American waiter told me that no-one could stand being out in the sun and how could I. I told him I was from London, to which he replied sagely, “Ah, yes. I understand now.”
But apart from throwing nutshells on the floor and being a bit more choosy about which type of cured ham I eat, is there anything else that I’ve gained from these three weeks in Aragon? I’m pleased to say that, yes, I think there is.

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One big difference I’ve noticed, and perhaps an unsurprising one for some, is a difference between how I’ve been treated as an examiner here compared to Italy. As readers of last year’s blog may remember, examining in Italy was characterised by a vast array of sweets, cakes, savoury items and drink brought to me and gifted by centre reps, exam candidates and anyone else who thought that ‘a happy examiner is a good examiner’. It was also thought good practice for female candidates to dress in a manner that might ‘impress’ a male examiner – a recognised and recommended exam strategy.

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However, here in Spain, cakes and ladies (two of life’s great pleasures) dressed to pass an exam weren’t highly in evidence. In one of my last centres though, I did get an omelette sandwich, biscuits and coffee (pictured right) but this has been an exception rather than a rule. Not that this has been a problem as it’s been quite pleasant to be treated as a normal person. Although the odd bit of ham and cheese delicacy wouldn’t have been turned down had it been offered. Perhaps a brief note in my end of tour report to that effect?

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Other things to note are that when a candidate says they like cheese and jam pizzas, they mean ‘jam’ as much as when they tell me they like their mother’s ‘soap’ for lunch. Pronunciation, eh?

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But overall a fine time has been had, blighted only by those only mornings. Still, I’m now in Madrid on a proper holiday and making the most of Shaun’s hotel room while he’s here too (Shaun pictured with regulatory beer in Plaza Mayor). The question is though, in 36 degree heat, for my next drink is it going to be a G&T or a beer?

And this is Zaragoza!

After almost 2 1/2 weeks in, I think I found a kind of gourmet tapas bar that serves more than just ham and cheese in bread. I passed it on the way back from a school I was in and saw the delights on offer and had to try some - I kicked off with a bite-sized piece of cod with hollandaise sauce, topped with some pancetta, and followed with various bits of slightly toasted bread, with different cheeses and slices of aubergine, mushrooms, etc. Lots to be eaten and I fairly stuffed my face. Nice.
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This will be my last post before I finally leave Zaragoza (only two more days examining left before a break in Madrid), so I thought I’d post a few pictures of the touristy parts and some other highlights.
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If I had to choose three places to visit on the popular tourist trail, I’d go for the Aljaferia, an Islamic pleasure palace which now houses the regional parliament (pictured). While it might not be as grand as Granada’s Alhambra or Cordoba’s Mezquita, it was free to get in and hardly anyone was there, making it a pleasure to stroll around. Plenty of Mudejar architecture (for which Zaragoza is well known) to marvel at, too.
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We then have La Seo cathedral, the smaller of the two cathedrals in Zaragoza (you can see it behind Becca and me). It forever seemed to be just closing when I went to visit, but finally got in yesterday. Very impressive Arabic/Christian architecture, etc. Not too flashy with the gold and marble inside, although perhaps slightly over-doing it on the carved plaster and alabaster. A rather interesting sculpture of everyone’s favourite saint, George, spearing a very small dragon (think of a young comodo dragon) through the head. Although most of it was in the white of the plaster, they’d daubed on some red for blood at the part where the lance went through the other side of the dragon’s head. Realistic touch, no?
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Then there is of course Pilar, the main cathedral at which the virgin Mary appeared to inspire St James to continue his ministry in Zaragoza. Rather a grand old thing with plenty of towers. They say it’s the much rebuilt closest tower to us in the picture that Mary appeared at the top of.
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And then there’s the beautiful park (and now I’m onto 4 places). See how wonderful the long running fountain is!
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And then we have me with a gin and tonic. Taken this afternoon. Was on a late examining shift today and as the weather was so good (sunny and 33 degrees), as soon as the sun had passed the yard-arm, I got myself a refreshing beverage The quantities they pour into drinks here are also quite refreshing – the glass you see holds half a pint easily.
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And that’s all for now. Time to pack and prepare for the small village of Andorra three hours south of here.

Thank you and goodbye.

A new experience in 6 years of examining: Normally when I finish a lower level exam, I say something along the lines of, “Thank you, we’re finished. Good bye”, and if necessary wave goodbye just to ensure the candidate gets the point. However, yesterday I had just finished testing a Grade 1 candidate (the lowest level) and said my little phrase but nothing happened, so I waved and said goodbye again. The little 7-year-old, let’s call him Manuel, looked confused and waved back at me. To hammer home the point that the exam had finished and that eh should leave. I ‘beeped’ my stopwatch and repeated that we were finished, said goodbye and gestured to the door. Little Manuel continued to look confused, waved at me again and them pointed to the door. Nothing was happening, so I got up and opened the door and gestured for him to go outside, which he duly did. Sitting back at my desk, I allowed a wry smile to creep across my face at the incident. However, the smile nearly turned into a laugh when I say little Manuel come back into the room and sit down, somehow thinking that I just wanted him to stand outside for a bit. Foolishly repeating ‘We’re finished. Go!” to know avail, I tried the Spanish for ‘finish’, but I didn’t know it, so tried ‘finito’ instead. That didn’t work either. Poor little Manuel was really starting to look worried know as I tried not to laugh. It took another trip to the door and pointing for him to go to his teacher before he finally got the point. Poor lad.

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Unfortunately, not all experiences are as jolly as that. Regular readers may remember that last Friday I was being picked up to stay at a hotel, actually named a casa, somewhere out of Huesca. Well, hotel it wasn’t and casa it was – the owner of the school (in Sarinena) had converted the top floor of his house into a holiday apartment, and it was there I was locked in for the night. I say locked in because the guy’s father (who helped complete a rather convincing, yet cleaner, ‘Steptoe and Son’ double act – they kept bickering while showing me how to turn the light to the room on) had locked up by 11 o’clock, just when I’d arrived. Not that this was a problem because the place I’d been driven to was a village of 400 people and there was essentially nothing outside.

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The journey to Villanueva de Sigena (birth place of the physician Miguel Servet, who was the first European to describe the pulmonary system, and who wisely left the place for Geneva at his earliest opportunity) was scheduled because I was supposed to be closer to the centre I was examining at on the Saturday morning. Unfortunately, the village was almost as far away from the town I was examining in (we passed through it to get to the casa) as the place I was in previously, but had the added bonus of being nowhere with no food or drink to be had - breakfast was a 07:30 15-km drive back to Sarinena to a roadside cafe for a stale croissant and a coffee. The only purpose for the trip seemed to be for the fawning owner of the casa, who himself owned the academy I was examining at, to make a quick buck by charging for a night’s accommodation. Here's a picture of me at computer with water. Good to carry that stuff around. Life blood, don't you know?

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It’d started to look bleak the moment he picked me up from Huesca, with this guy trying to describe in stilted English how his school was bigger (80 metres square) than the one I’d previously been examining at. He continued to try and tell me how he was single-handedly rescuing the town’s local economy, although from watching him and his Mrs, the business acumen was all hers. The fawning and helping continued right until the exams finished (12 noon) and I’d given the results to the centre, whereupon the guy in particular lost interest in me and started to ignore me, despite my needing assistance getting at least to the train station 2 km away (I was also with my luggage) to get a train that left a full four hours after I’d finished examining.

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It took over an hour to negotiate a lift to the station (only three hours waiting left), during which time he could’ve driven me to Zaragoza and back, and this after I was told I could get the bus to the station. Happy with the thought of leaving this self-serving couple, I agreed to the bus and asked where it went from. Details were vague and this made me make them get exact details. After an amount of arguing (him with locals), it turns out there was no bus – good job I asked for details. I asked about taxis I might get after eating lunch, too. But no, none to be had. So eventually, a lift was agreed, but only after I’d stopped at the supermarket next door to pick up beers and light bread products to see my through my waiting. There are various other incidents with this guy which helped damn him in my mind, but I’ll leave it there for now.

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When finally left at the small station (only 2 ¾ hours left), I found it very difficult to summon the manners to thank the guy for the lift. He seemed cheery and just glad to be rid of me, and to be fair, me of him too, pleased to be armed with a six pack of beer to drink in the Aragonian sun. There’s a short word I can use to describe this man, and it can be used both positively in the phrase, “He’s a *, but a good *”, or more commonly negatively, collocating with, “He’s a right *”. It’s the latter of the two that I’m thinking of here.

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Left at the abandoned station, I took half a breeze-block from a tumbled down wall, positioned it near to the track and sat and waited (see picture above), strolling around the station from time-to-time, taking in the bare sights of the Spanish plains, which included some stalks nesting on top of a water tower. As soon as I got my camera out to take advantage of this feast of nature in a scene of abandoned desolation however, they stopped flapping about and settled down to sleep, as if sensing a Guardian photo entry in the offing. Still, I did have my beers, which I drank safe in the knowledge that it’d be most unlikely I’d ever be returning to Sarinena again and that Zaragoza was only a further hour away by local train service. An hour which mercifully passed asleep, no doubt partly due to the beer.

Back to medieval times...

Without wishing to do overly philosophical, it seems days can be good or bad. Indeed, I often find that they can be a mix of the two, like yesterday, with many gradations between and also with extremities. But where am I going with this? Well, I suppose I’m trying to describe today, which really has been a curious kind of a day.

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Being a Sunday, it started with a lie in and a bath back in Zaragoza – the benefit of a bath outweighing the benefits of breakfast, which finishes at the ridiculously early hour of 10am on a Sunday. The knock on problem here was that I couldn’t get any tea. Not normally a problem, but I hadn’t had any tea in over three days and things were getting bad; I could think of nothing else and thoughts of finding a fix the leaf were the motivation for every action that morning (I hadn’t realised how bad the need was until breakfast at the hotel had already finished). So, before I attempted anything else, I found a likable looking cafe and ordered a tea. Or what passes for tea in Spain. It was hot-ish, weak and very milky, but it was tea and incredible for it. Seldom had a cuppa tasted so good. So good, in fact, that it lasted under a minute and had to be replenished with a second. Upon finishing said tea and a croissant, I felt invincible and ready to deal with whatever the day was going to throw at me.

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Of the two things to comment upon today are a bull fight and an ‘Arab Market’, as a banner told me. Let’s start with the market. Wandering through the old town I became giddy as a child as I noticed that a variety of stalls had been set up, replete with over-hanging bunting, medieval music and sellers dressed in medieval frocks. No idea what the purpose of this festival was, but very pleasant it was, as you could sample local goods and, for kids, try and shoot rubber arrows through a hoop while wearing a kind of olden-style smock. As the picture tries to show, it was a lively place and recreated a kind of sanitised market of old – the only things missing were the petty muggings, disease and disfigurement and people covered in shit. Still, good to see that we’ve moved on.

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The stalls sold a variety of things from dried herbs (very nice smell wafting across the square) and potted anchovies to little wooden shields and swords for children and lots of freshly cooked pork products (even nicer smell). And it was while chomping down on a half-baguette filled with such freshly roasted pork and drinking beer that I began to wonder how much pork and beer one might’ve actually found in an Arabic market of old. If this market was anything to go by, it seems it’s pretty much all they ever ate and drank. Anyway, all very jolly.

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The second main event for the day was the bullfighting. It was last week that I noticed there was a mini bullfighting festival on and, being a lover of animals, anti-fox hunting and against the purely ritualistic killing of animals, I thought I’d go along and see what it was all about. I was going with the thought that I didn’t really know what happened, and thought that seeing it would educate me. Now some might say, “They kill bulls with swords, what more do you need to know?” Indeed, what else is there to know? Well, I was thinking of the Walter Bagehot quote, “the [best] cure for the House of Lords [is] to go and look at it”, and so thought I’d go and have a peek (not that I’m advocating anything quite so treasonous as doing away with lords with swords). From a literary and historical perspective, turns out Hemmingway was also rather into it too (thanks for the ‘heads up’ on that one Shaun), but he was a bit of a queer fish – he took his pregnant wife to a bull fight in Pamplona in the hope that it might have a ‘positive effect’ on the unborn child, although what the 'positive effects' could be are anyone's guess. He even took part in some fights himself. Amazing thing the internet, eh?

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Anyway, disclaimers aside, off I went and milled amongst the crowds to sit at my ringside seat (25 euros to sit on some concrete three rows from the front – bargain!). And how was it? Well, the pictures really speak for themselves. Pre-stabbed bulls are put in the arena and baited, stabbed and then, after about 15 minutes or more, are finally killed with the fatal plunge of a special sword. Not quite as straight forward as that, as there’s plenty of show to be had. They also had to make the eight bulls that died last almost three hours (any hopes of a huge free barbecue of freshly slaughtered beef at the end were in vain). As a slight side factoid, I understand that in Korea, before they kill the dogs which are to be eaten, they torture them a bit first as this makes the blood pump round the body more quickly and thus makes the meat more tender. Any verification of this, especially in relation to beef, would be welcome.

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But back to the ritualistic killing of animals for entertainment. Before now, I had no idea what the difference was between a toreador, matador and a picador (as in the publisher), but now I know and this is your lucky chance to learn too:

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toreador: general term for a bullfighter

matador: the principal bullfighter and the one that performs the final kill

picador: the mounted assistant who enrages the bull and weakens the shoulder muscles with a lance (you can see this in the picture – unfortunately for the blindfolded horse, it gets a bit of a bruising from the bull and a stab with a lance from an assistant if it tries to move away from the fight. You can click on it to see an enlarged image)

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While it might seem all bad for the bulls, I’m pleased to say that although the first bull was killed very quickly and the second just simply refused to die, no matter how many swords had been stabbed into it, the third bull got one back for the team and took out the youngest matador, a cocky young fellow by the name of Pablo Belando, gouging him so that he had to be raced off by the other toreadors (see how deftly I use these terms?). As he was wearing a white costume with gold embroidery, I imagine he'll have the very devil of a time getting the blood out. There are of course jokes to be had with the lad’s surname and how he won’t ‘be landing’ somewhere soon, etc, but it’s getting late so I’ll leave that for you to have a go with.

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So, all-in-all, a rather curious experience but not one that I’ll be repeating (Hemmingway-esque pregnant women in tow or not), even though I could see why people could be enthralled by the whole spectacle, especially when it was clear that half-a-tonne of bull (hopefully not like this blog) can still do some damage. Can be quite edge of your seat stuff.

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I’ll leave you with a wine recommendation. There’s some tasty stuff from the region called Somontano (variety of grapes), which you could try next time you’re feeling particularly middle class. Here’s a helpful link:

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http://www.cellartours.com/spain/spanish-wine-regions/somontano.html

One step forward...

And so it was to the Roman town and medieval city of Jaca, population 12,000, (declared a city and capital of the region by Ramiro I when retaken by the Christians from the Moors in 760), moments south of the French border. I only had about an hour and a half’s exams there, making the four-hour round trip more of a chance to see the roads through and along the mountains than examine candidates, as you can see from the first of today’s pictures. My timetable here in Huesca, and Jaca, has been a little more varied than normal owing to the local centre rep, a middle aged ex-pat lady, being one who doesn’t quite seem to have got the hang of organisation yet and her side-kick, an American twenty-year-old woman, who reinforces enough stereo-types to make you think that Dickens was right to use them so liberally in his writings. Having spent much of her life in the Bronx, the buoyant American girl, of Spanish heritage, speaks with a thick, loud (it’s necessary to step back) New Yorker accent and is keen to draw comparisons with US and Spanish soccer at every opportunity, partly due to her interest in the game as she plays for the Zaragozan women’s team. I understand they’re in the ‘King’s Cup’ semi-finals this weekend, don’t you know?

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The examining in Jaca was unremarkable. However, there was a candidate who took a different approach to giving directions. The idea is this: I show a picture of a town and ask how to get from A to B, eliciting phrases such as, ‘turn left’ and, ‘it’s on your right’. Upon asking how to get from the post office to the school on the map, rephrasing when met with a blank expression, the girl simply came out with, “by car”. Clearly.

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As mentioned, my trip to Jaca by bus was interesting enough, but of greater importance to me was the ordering of a beer and salmon and cheese roll at the station cafe before I left on my journey -ordered and delivered without the need for repetition, pointing or quizzical or bored looks from the server. Thinking that my Spanish was making small steps forward, I boarded the bus with a spring in my step and thoughts that with a little more practice I’d be holding witty conversations over rioja and olives or something.

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Once the examining in Jaca was over, I had half-an-hour to kill before my bus back to Huesca (over 1 ½ hours). Thinking I’d need a quick nibble to keep me sustained on the journey, I sat outside at the cathedral-side cafe (pictured, just visibible to the lower left) for a beer and to order a small cheese and ham roll. Growing in my confidence using Spanish, what could stop me? Asking for a ‘queso y jamon bocadillo’, the bored and weighty waitress seemed to ask if I wanted both cheese and ham. I repeated my ‘bocadillo’ bit and away she went coming back first with my beer and then, as time was beginning to run out, with my food order.

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To my surprise, my roll was in fact two large plates filled with food (pictured), one packed with cheese and ham, the other stacked with toasted bread – enough for four easily. Could she not see I was just one? Had I not asked for just a bocadillo? Either way, there was nothing to do but tuck in, as I was keen to make the most of my now expensive and considerable repast before I had to scarper for the bus. I was hoping to get a quick visit to the cathedral in too, which meant a bit of speed eating. Thankfully, the normal pale yellow hard cheese was supplemented by a little goats’ cheese, brie and something smoked; some walnuts and little slices of quince also helped the quantity go down. At times like that I have to wonder whether it was just a good chance to off-load some left over bits of cheese and going-off bread on a tourist without the ability to do anything but eat and pay. The unfortunate part of the whole business was that after dashing down the great quantity of yet more cheese and ham (that’s mostly what I eat as it’s what I know how to say), I popped inside the cafe to use the ‘servicio’, and saw on the counter a mouth watering range of reasonably priced tapas which I’d unknowingly passed up on. Still, bloated as I ended up boarding the bus, I didn’t need to eat again when I got back to the hotel. It sometimes seems like one step forward and three steps back...

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Changing location after this evening’s examining to a hotel owned by the owner of the next centre - nice. Only it’s not called a hotel, it’s called a ‘casa’ on my itinerary. I get the impression I’m going to be in someone’s guest bedroom. We’ll know more by about 22:30 tonight. And so to the unknown we go once more.

Of Tractors and Trains...

I’ve now moved from the cosmopolitan heart of Aragon that is Zaragoza, to the more regional northern city of Huesca. Given the choice of travelling by train or by bus, I normally favour the train, because it’s comfier and there’s usually more space. Added to this that a Zaragoza to Huesca high speed rail link has recently been built, it figures that the train is the better option of the two, even if it is a little more expensive. Or so I though. Always keen to consult local knowledge I asked what the best way to get to Huesca was. My first source of information, a teacher, was sure that it was the bus because “the connections are better”. OK, 1-0 to the bus. Still unsure as this went against my expectations, I sort help using my ‘best’ Spanish from a school secretary. The answer was a little more than I could deal with, but I did pick out that the bus was ‘bueno’, something to do with the ‘conexion’ apparently. 2-0 bus, so bus it was.

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Luckily both bus and train go from the same place, the newly built, imposing and mostly empty Zaragoza station. There was a train at quarter past the hour, taking 35 minutes, and a bus on the hour, no arrival time given. The bus was earlier and had all those connections benefits. What these were, I had no idea, but the two locals seemed pretty sure of their benefits. My feelings of satisfaction at taking the bus were quickly dashed upon the rocky shores of heavy traffic as, after five red traffic lights in a row, we were fifteen minutes into the journey (when the train left) and still in the heart of the city. The question of ‘connections’ soon became apparent when I realised that the bus wasn’t direct along the highway, but a winding effort, ‘connecting’ various small villages, some only big enough to have one plaza and a modest church. It was when we got stuck behind the tractor that I really felt like I was back in my childhood, getting the slow and meandering ‘No 17’ local bus the 11 miles to school. It’s amazing to think that I thought an hour was a reasonable amount of time to travel 11 miles on a bus. How we grow up, eh? Back in the present, if it hadn’t been the case that I had absolutely nothing on for the rest of the day, I might’ve felt like gouging my eyes out with soup spoons coated in granulated sugar, but as it was, I was able to read my book and listen to the excited chatter/buzz of the 20 or so pensioners out on a day trip.

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And what of Huesca? Well, it’s a small place, population 49,000 says the Lonely Planet. After checking in I felt really thirsty, and in a mood of self-righteousness liberation, I thought that rather than pay the hyped-up prices for a bottle of water from the mini-bar, I’d be more local and pop into a shop and get one for a tenth of the price instead. Unfortunately, this is where my logic failed me - I was in a small town and not the regional capital, and hadn’t readjusted my expectations regarding shop opening hours and purveyors of liquid goods. Wondering round for some time in the searing afternoon heat, mouth feeling like sandpaper and only a raspy sound able to come when speaking, I finally came across a cafe with tables outside. Take the table or carry on to a shop. I opted to carry on, sure that I’d find at least one shop open in the afternoon in the time it would take a waiter to notice me, come out to serve me and then bring back a drink. A risky strategy and one that, this time, didn’t pay off. 15 minutes later I was back at the tables, rasping (and sounding a little more Spanish for it) to a waiter for a cerveza. And a ‘grande’ one at that.

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My wanderings did reveal some of the highlights of Huesca, though, an interesting town with plenty of cobbles that might feature a kind of Spanish ‘Papa’ and ‘Nicole’ from the old Renault Clio ads – small streets where you might expect to find ‘papa’ in a tryst with a long-legged, dark Carmen-esque beauty while Nicole pops down a side street for a known, but pretendingly secret, assignation with a Jorge or the like. I’ll keep my eyes peeled and let you know if I actually do see such a thing.

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I also happened across a ‘Singer’ sewing shop. Can’t remember the last time I saw one of those, although I think it might’ve been when a child in Norfolk somewhere. In true juxtaposition, the sewing shop is right next to the town’s one ‘Rock shop’ selling Metallica CDs and other popular music. You really couldn’t script that kind of thing, and even if you did, it would probably rate as being as unbelievable as a Curtis / Hugh Grant film. Yet it is here. Look, there's a picture.

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Before I head to Jaca (near the French border) for some exams this afternoon, I’ll leave you with this exchange that made me thankful I was examining language and not factual information:

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Candidate: I went to Norway on holiday.
Ben: Where did you go in Norway?
Candidate: I went to Copenhagen.
Ben: Really, What did you see?
Candidate: I saw fjords. They are islands of ice in the sea.
Ben: Hmm. Where else did you go?
Candidate: I went to Ireland and I saw the Isle of Arran.

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Good language for an elementary candidate, though...

"The King is a thief!"

Eschewing the delights of Zaragozan evening entertainment and dining this evening, I find myself relaxing in the tranquillity of my hotel room with an empanada de carne (meat pasty), some beers and the wonder that is spotify.
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It’s been a busy old weekend touring and seeing the sights of Zaragoza, but there’s also been the examining thrown in for good measure, and it’s this that I choose to focus on for today’s blog. For those reading that aren’t in the Trinity examining game, I should say that while these minor anecdotes really are minor, in the frozen wastelands of initial and elementary grade examinations (asking about colours and pets or, at higher grades, asking what people did on holiday), these offerings are as purest gold and worth savouring.
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To set the scene, I’ve a couple of pictures of me at desks preparing to examine – handy things, timers. In the first picture you’ll notice that the windows are shaped in something of a church-like way for a classroom. This isn’t because I was in a converted church of historical merit, but because a lot of examining I’ve been doing has been in Catholic schools. Lots of them. The school windows seemed to be designed like this so that they’d let in less light (a psychological comment?) and make you think of the hallowed and symbolic environs of a place of worship, perhaps transforming the teacher into the role of a priest in a way that could evoke thoughts of transubstantiation. What that would make me as a visiting examiner, I shouldn’t like to comment for fear of blaspheming... Whatever the actual reason, I’ll say one thing for these Spanish, they do like their popes and their churches.
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Further churchy influences can be seen in the second picture. Here I get the private joy of the head teacher’s office (itself with its own private toilet, albeit without an actual toilet seat, but with toilet paper) with a picture of Mary above my left shoulder and the blessed John Paul himself beaming beatifically from directly above me, as if giving me his authority to examine, just as Paul laid his hands on the first pope, etc...
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One topic that made me prick up my ears was one by a lad on graffiti, and its value as art art. Getting in with the youth lingo, I asked if ‘tagging’ was graffiti or vandalism. On this he was quite sure, vandalism, definitely. On learning that he did graffiti himself, I tried to elicit an example of the first conditional (If you..., you will...). Asking him, “If a policeman sees you, what will happen?” he simply replied, “Run away”. Smart lad.
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There was another lad who failed but was talking about denim and the history of ‘jeans’. Quite the topic as you might imagine. Anyway, somehow we got onto the king (quite the leap in topic) and he suddenly opened fire with both treasonous barrels, branding the king a thief for taking tax payers’ money and chastising the rest of the world for thinking that the Spanish were all lazy, having siestas all the time and doing no work. I asked him where he thought the stereo-type came from but he was unable to answer.
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Another examiner was doing low levels and asked what day it was. The reply was that, “Today is yesterday”. Quite honestly, after a week of examining it really does seem that way sometimes.
There was one kid whose topic was ‘war hammer’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_Fantasy). After marvelling at the little model he’d come in with, painted with extreme care and attention, he went on to describe the gaming shop where he spent most of his time. Should you ever be in Zaragoza, you’ll know it because it has “three main shelves, one for war hammer, one for future and one for Lord of the Rings”. If you’re still in doubt, the owner has blond hair, a wife who’s 36 and a small child of 3 years old.
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One girl was talking about her favourite band, La Oreja de Van Gogh, a band with no connection to Van Gogh except for being Spanish. Unable to sustain a topic on the band for a full five minutes (pitiful effort for a favourite band?), she veered off onto Van Gogh proper and the differences between Van Gogh and Velazquez, coving three topics in one.

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To end this blog, I’ll leave you with a picture of the bin in my hotel room. A friend once commented that ‘confusion and cheese are the two certainties of life’ and if this is the case, one can only assume that kittens and biscuits are two of life’s certain pleasures. What the link is to the other caption is, I couldn’t / shouldn’t possibly say. However, as mentioned earlier, these Spanish do like their Catholicism.

Some bread with your fried breadcrumbs, sir?

I’ve had a couple of split examining days (some exams in the morning and then some more in the late afternoon and evening) and the day before last, I was chomping down on some local fayre outside the local cathedral (pictured), as you do, when this middle aged Kiwi woman with two kids (10 and 8) started talking to me. Turned out she’d been travelling with them and hadn’t spoken to an English speaking adult in 3 weeks. It’d just been the three of them. Anyhows, I suggested that if they wanted to meet up for a drink they could leave a message at my hotel. At this suggestion my arm was nearly bitten off (is that the right idiom?) and the conversation-starved Kiwi (Kendal with kids Jessie and Louis) arranged to meet up with me tonight. I’ve just come back from a two-hour drink with them and I feel like I’ve been verbally raped. The woman was keen just to talk to an adult and the kids were keen to simply talk to someone new. Lots of ‘active listening’ going on and very little chat from me. Lots of experiences and comparisons with Kiwi-land. The lady turned up at the hotel with a suggested itinerary for the next three days – it was lucky that I had the perfect excuse of a weekend visitor to attend to that meant I could remain free. However, I know where she’ll be for the next couple of evenings should my guest and I fancy meeting up for a drink. Good to chat, eh?
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But what of Zaragoza? It’s been four days know and I think I’m slipping into the way of things a little. The first problem to overcome was to order drinks in a way that didn’t make it seem like I had a big neon light flashing on my head which said “I don’t know what I’m doing. Please rob me”. Help in this area came from a teacher at the first school I was examining at. At the breaks she insisted on taking me to the local bar and giving me coffee over ice (coffee and sugar missed first and then poured over ice). Not a bad tipple, really. Seeing that I wasn’t averse to it, the teacher proceeded to drill me in my pronunciation of what to ask for “una cortardo con poco cafe con jello” (excuse any erroneous spelling and language use). So, after it’d been practiced a couple of times in a role play scenario I was ready to try it out in real life. Picture it if you will, there I was, strolling confidently through the throngs of local mullet haired youths and groups of children milling around the cathedral, ready to portray the image of the urbane young hombre about the plaza. The time had come. Sitting at an plaza-side cafe, I came out with my practiced phrase. It worked a treat. No hesitation from me or Mr Waiter and out came my desired drink. Magical. Must try and learn a bit more of this Spanish business.
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Heady from my success and still having an 1 ½ hours before I needed to be around for examining, I asked for the menu (also practiced) and ordered some local specialities (thanks Lonely Planet). I started with a rioja, opting for a glass rather than a bottle, and had some Aragon chorizo con patatas a la pobre – sausage and ‘pauper’s potatoes’. It ended up being egg, chips and sausage really (pictured). However, it was all cooked very well and the poached egg was poached perfectly - suitably runny in the yolk department. I followed up with another local speciality, ‘migas’, which translates as breadcrumbs. This was essentially a very large plate of fried breadcrumbs mixed with some bacon and topped with nine grapes. And when I saw a large plate, I mean exactly that. I kind of got the feeling that no-one else had ordered it for a while and they had a load going spare. Didn’t quite get to the end of that one, though.
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That’s it for now, but I will leave you with a picture of the transport Zaragoza’s finest. The cars’ design seems to be modelled on Noddy’s, but it’s a suitably jolly image for this provincial part of Spain where, to be honest, not a great deal goes on. They are, however, very proud of the 'sustainable development expo' that took place last year and are sure that I’d heard of it as it really “put Zaragoza on a map”. Which map they’re referring to, I couldn’t say, but maybe it’s one that you managed to pick up....

They think it's all over...

I write today’s missive with a sense of nostalgia and warmth, albeit a kind of deadly warmth and nostalgia you’re pleased to have left behind. I’ve just come back from the local pub where I witnessed Manchester United’s defeat to Barcelona, and while I feel a slight degree of sadness at United’s loss, I can’t deny the happy, jovial scenes on the streets outside – the gun shots (surely just fire crackers, although they are awfully loud), the police sirens, the car horns etc. – and, more interestingly, the feeling inside a bar while watching the local (relatively) team win. The atmosphere was buoyant and this buoyancy was fuelled by alcohol and by tobacco; the strange, heady scent of Marly reds, Winston’s and other high tar tobacco products that wafted around my head and which made me feel as though I were in the pubs of central London of years past – I was almost tempted to by a pack from the machine in the corner just for the hell of it. At only 2.80, it almost seemed like a shame not to.
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While drinking in the toxic fumes of my peers, the only thing to bring me to the present and my location in Spain was the rounded, half-pint glasses with which I was being served lager in. Still, I am on the continent after all. It’s only now that I’m back in my hotel room that I realise my clothes and hair smell lightly of tobacco from the fug at the bar – a not entirely unpleasant smell as the smoke wasn’t too dense and my lingering in it not too long. Still, good to be out of it, though. The one thing I can say about the game though, is that I thought the second goal was a bit messy... Sorry, couldn't resit that pun. I don't think it'll translate into Spanish.

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But what of examining? Here’s one exchange from yesterday:
Ben: Do you have any pets?
Candidate: When I was younger, I was a fish.
Ben: Really. You were a fish?
Candidate: Yes.

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This was at my first school (pictured) which had very well prepared candidates. Luckily, I only had to fail one, and as she had some rather questionable views on immigration I didn’t feel that it was a problem. Reminds me of a young teenager I had to knock down from an ‘A’ to a ‘B’ because he said Maradona was the best football player in the world. I mean, really. He was in an English exam with an English examiner...

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The school was located just outside the city which meant that I had the joy of riding back to the hotel on one of the school buses. Even though it was a semi-private school, I was surprised at how well the kids were behaved – I escaped the encounter with all my documents intact and a full head of hair, too. Not at all like the kids at ‘Bash Street’. I also got to share school meals for two days. They weren’t good, but when were they? Metal trays with potato slop and overcooked green beans (but green they were) and some meat of unknown provenance. Kept me going, though and the kids certainly seemed to thrive on it. However, in exams were the 2nd conditional was being used (‘If I were...., I’d....), several of the students were quite vehement about what they would do to the cooks and the food.
My examining room (pictured), was a dark and windowless office with some Disney pictures here and there and a crumpled union flag in the corner. Made me feel like a mole when I appeared out into the sun after a day’s examining. But it was very comfortable and there was air-con, too. Quite a posh place, obviously.

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The evening brought a foray into a tapas bar (pictured) and some very good rioja and cheesy snacks (fried hake in cheese, fried leeks in cheese and fired courgettes stuffed with potato and cheese). Along with the tapas, I was given a small bowl of peanuts to munch away on, which I duly did, collecting the shells and putting them neatly into a little pile on the side of the dish. When the bar eventually began to fill up (about 21:30), I saw others shelling the nuts and throwing the detritus on the floor (surruptiously pictured). Clearly I’ve still got a lot to learn about bar protocol - thank you, Paulette, for the comment / tips on throwing away serviettes and the business about the brandy - I'll try it when examining at IH Zaragoza on Friday. However, there has been a significant breakthrough on the drinking & dining form which I’ll regale you with in the next blog. Bet you can’t wait.

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Until then, I'll leave you with these wise words of natural science wisdom I learnt from one 14-year-old:

"There are three types of animal: farmyard, wild and acquatic". Don't forget, you heard it here first.

And so it begins...

Before I start off on the business about describing what I'm up to here in the northern reaches of Spain (Aragon and more precisely, Zaragoza - pronounced locally with 4 'th's), I'll tell you of the dilemma I faced yesterday morning. There I was, knowing I was flying BA to Madrid at 09:30 in the morning. No problem there - I'm a quick 30 mins from the airport so I didn't have to get up too early. No, it wasn't the earliness of the flight that was the problem per se, but what to drink on the flight. Drinking when flying is pretty much an essentail and anyone that's flown with me will know that the drink of choice is gin. If there's no gin, then there can't be a flight; but gin before 11 on a Sunday? Even I knew there was something wrong with that.
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It was in this stupor that I checked in and boarded my flight, not paying attention to my seat number and, in my morning daze, thinking the gate number (24b) was in fact my seat. Boarding the aircraft I was already to turn to the right down the aircraft (door was in the middle) when the beautiful stewardess (soon to become even more lovely) asked me to turn right up the aircraft. Mildly surprised, I did as I was told and moved up towards the front, realising my ticket was for 3a. Fine. Nothing interesting there. That is until I was handed a hot towel and none of the poor sorts behind me were. "Hang on," I thought, I'm in business class (or 'Club Europe' as BA would have it). Nice one - a pleasant surprise from the nice people at Trinity. Thanks very much.
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However, happy as I was reclining in my slightly roomier cabin, the dilemma of what to drink hit home even harder. How could I not have a gin when up front of the aircraft? It would be criminal waste, but yet it was still yet to strike 09:30. Thankfully I was alert and ready to take advantage of the situation, and it was this Nelsonian quick-wittedness that saved me in the end. Being in 'Club Europe' meant a hot breakfast (very nice sausage and eggs, bacon, some fruit, warmed rolls, etc) - still no avenue for gin there. But just as I was about to be served and the moment was on me, I saw a small bottle of vodka pass through the slim stewardess's silken hands to a rotund business traveller of unknown origin. 'That's it!' I suddenly realised, the logic of it all finally falling into place. What better to have. A cooked breakfast on a Sunday morning is simply crying out for a Bloody Mary, and no one cares about the hour. The realisation, although nearly late, proved to be inspired. And so it was that I was able to polish off the delightful breaky with an equally delightful Ms. B. Mary. I've got to say, the vodka certainly helped take the edge off the tomato juice, too.
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The rest of the flight went well and the 1/2 hour delay was barely noticed, as was the hour wait for luggage in Madrid, the venture to the wrong train station in Madrid (how foreign people in London manage with 6 or 7 over ground terminals is amazing - I messed up with just two) and a near missed train due to too long perusing terrapins in Madrid station. But here I am in Zaragoza. Here's a picture of the train I arrived on in Zaragoza's terribly modern-looking station. Looks rather like a bullet-train, don't you think? Certainly zips along, too. The hotel here is sound, although the decor is a bit on the brown and yellow side - strangely it's the style and not simply overly faded fittings.
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You may get some photos later on along with tales of examining (day one down and a couple of relative corkers already). Anyway, time to go out and get something to eat. I've only another 40 minutes before someone will open a shop at 8pm and I'll be the first to try and eat anything in all of Zaragoza. The sights and sounds of Spain's 3rd most polluted city (factoid learnt today) will be laid before you soon...