by Sima Kalmens

The crowd parted rather quickly, loud enough for me not to discern between screams of awe and laughter. I saw a shaggy-haired demon heading towards me, staring venemously with tiny, rubber, black dots–eyes. I panicked and turned rapidly to follow my friends, but the demon had found his target. He grabbed my arm and lightly hit me with a stick. The crowd was amused but quickly closed in again. The demon disappeared, the sound of his stick hitting the sidewalk the only marker of his presence.

No, the Alpine yuletide does not involve public humiliation. I had walked right into the middle of an old pagan tradition: men dressing up as demons and running around with sticks, hitting people. Welcome to Christmastime in Salzburg, Austria, a tiny valley town alive with history and beauty, surrounded by the Alps, and at this time of the year, decked out in Christmas markets, which warm the December chill, and weird traditions.

So I was lucky enough to be properly initiated into Salzburg, but despite the title of this post, that wasn’t all I did. The highlight of my weekend in Salzburg was the Sound of Music tour, a four-hour endeavor that took me to all the classic film’s principle locations: the lake, the houses used as the front and back of the Von Trapp residence, the gazebo, and St. Michael’s church–from the wedding scene–which is located in the small town of Mondsee just outside of Salzburg. It was amazing, as well as mildly surreal, seeing all the places that had existed only on my television for thirteen years. However, my favorite part of the tour was seeing the Austrian countryside through the windows of the tour bus as it rolled down the autobahn. I saw rolling green fields, the towering Alps, glistening lakes, and small houses dotting the uneven terrain. I had the opportunity to get off the bus and take pictures of the town of St. Gilgen–and Wolfgangsee, the lake–and Mondsee, which is one of those charming Alpine towns that only seem to exist on postcards.

Salzburg itself is a charming Alpine town, the likes of which also appear on postcards: old European buildings, churches, orange-lit Christmas markets selling traditional glühwein (hot spiced wine) and stollen (Christmas bread), and the ambiance of local authenticity. Despite modern times, Germanic tradition seems to be deeply rooted in Salzburg. St. Nicholas walks around, distributing peanuts and candy to children, the demons float through the crowds with their sticks, carolers sing on the steps of the Dom Cathedral, and vendors at the market dole out–for money, of course–every handcrafted good imaginable. The Christmas spirit is alive and well, and despite the evening chill, I’m happy to be there among the demons.

by Sima Kalmens

The day draws near, very near. On October 2—this Friday—the International Olympics Committee will announce the host city of the 2016 Summer Olympics.

I look forward to the Olympic Games, summer and winter, biennially, but the 2016 bid is particularly important and exciting. Two of the bids are Chicago and Madrid (I actually had no idea what the other two bids were until I snuck a peak at Wikipedia, answer to all questions).

I am a bred Chicagoan, having lived there for the last sixteen years. I use linguistic aberrations such as pop when talking about soft drinks and some people pick up on my Midwest accent. So the prospect of the Olympics being held fifteen minutes away from my house (everything is 15 minutes away in Chicago) is horribly exciting. To think! No airfare, no hotel fare. Just gas money, horrible traffic, and time wasted trying to find parking.

What makes the bid even more interesting than the possibility of the Olympic Games in Chicago, is the fact that the other bid city, Madrid, is my current place of residence. Therefore, I cannot help but take part of the festivities. I consider it cultural immersion, not betrayal.

On Sunday, I attended the candidature celebration at La Plaza de Cibeles and contributed to the human mosaic of Madrid’s Olympic logo:

This is the aerial view of the incredible human mosaic, which thousands of madrileños assisted in making:

While it is entertaining being part of Madrid’s Olympic pride, my corazonada is for Chicago, because, well, I don’t need a $1,000 ticket to get there.

by Sima Kalmens

I remember getting on the train five years ago, during my last visit to Spain. The train was white and sleek with minimal purple writings. The impeccably neat interior boasted a relatively wide aisle and comfortable, roomy seats. The train took off smoothly and within minutes, Anger Management was playing on the video screens descended from the ceiling. En route to Seville, I gazed out the window as the brown and green Spanish countryside whizzed by me.

For those of us who prefer our transportation to stay on the ground, the Spanish railway company, RENFE, boasts the train that combines the comfort and convenience of ground transportation with the speed of airplanes. AVE, which stands for Alta Velocidad España and also cleverly, and appropriately, employs the use of the Spanish word for bird, is the gem of Spanish railway services.

AVE service premiered in April 1992 with daily routes between Madrid and Seville, conveniently in time with the 1992 World Fair that was being held in Seville. By 1994, the trains were running faster, cutting travel time from Madrid to Seville by 40 minutes and completing the route in two and a half hours. Madrid is 471km away from Seville.

The Madrid-Málaga line was completed in 2007 and the anticipated Madrid-Barcelona line debuted in 2008. Madrid and Barcelona are 600km apart and the trip takes a little under three hours, punctually ending at Barcelona’s Estacio Sants.

RENFE began offering middle-distance services via AVANT in 2004. Routes include Madrid-Toledo, which takes less than 30 minutes, Madrid-Segovia, Barcelona-Huesca, and Málaga-Seville.

AVE now has 1,835km of track in service throughout Spain and is well on its way to becoming the world’s largest high-speed service with the most kilometers of available track.

RENFE does not compete with airline prices and choosing AVE service over cheap airlines will not necessarily save you money. However, the convenience of train stations’ central locations beats the lengthy, and expensive, commute to and from the airport. Furthermore, you completely avoid the drama that is airport security. Same price, less hassle? I’ll take that anyday.

by Sima Kalmens

I am probably one of the few people in Madrid who did not take full advantage of La Noche en Blanco this past Saturday. That does not go to say, however, that I did not take part in the festivities. I did. I put myself right in the middle of the action on the stretch of Calle Alcalá between La Plaza de Cibeles and La Puerta del Sol, where it was difficult to stop moving even for a moment to take a picture.

Having been in Madrid for only a week and a half, La Noche en Blanco was, in a way, sprung on me. I found out about it the Thursday before and although I read about it, heard about it, and talked about it, I was still not sure exactly what it was until Saturday night when I exited the restaurant where I had eaten dinner and found myself among throngs of people walking this way and that.

First stop: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. Being in an art museum at 23:00 is certainly not something I have ever done before. Exciting would not be the exact word I would use to describe this event, but for lack of a better word, it was exciting. I spent a large chunk of time in the museum courtyard/garden. Although there were other visitors strolling down the gravel paths, the dark shadows cast by the trees at midnight and the misty yellow lights created a very private ambiance. And there was this outside (I did not go inside because the line was too long):

Second stop: the migration from La Reina Sofia to La Plaza de Cibeles via the tiny streets in between (not quite a stop). It was packed. I lingered to look at some street vendor items, but too much lingering seemed to make people impatient, so I floated on. On the way, I noticed some interesting bars and cafés. For future reference, I suppose.

Third stop: La Plaza de Cibeles. In front of the behemoth of intricacy that is the Palacio de Comunicaciones, there was a ginormous screen playing a hip-hop dance lesson. I found it more interesting to observe others struggling with the choreography than dancing myself, although I am sure that my own moves would have been severely entertaining for others as well.

Fourth stop: the walk down Calle Alcalá (also not a stop). The view of the illuminated buildings and signs was incredible. Unfortunately, my probably obsolete camera did not do the scene justice:

On the walk down Calle Alcalá, I learned that sostenibilidad is not defined in the dictionary. I even got to write my own definition of the word (among many others’)!

The next day, I heard about a gazillion other events that I could have attended, but as I was not in the mood for metro hopping all night, I was content with my evening and my first taste of La Noche en Blanco.

by Sima Kalmens

I arrived in Spain from the United States last week with the awareness of cultural differences seated somewhere in the back rows of my mind. The rest of the seating area was densely occupied by my excitement. I was finally in Madrid!

Conveniently forgetting all the Spanish I know as soon as one of the Barajas employees asked me something, I incoherently mumbled something along the lines of es bueno while lugging my stuffed suitcases towards the row of taxis. As soon as I got into a taxi, I realized that I was completely clueless as to how tipping works in Spain; this preoccupied me for the entire 30-minute ride. I knew that tipping is not as big a deal in Europe as it is in the United States, but that was the extent of my knowledge. How much less of a big deal is it? What if I undertip and the taxi driver hates me? I realized I didn’t even know how to say “keep the change.”

The total came out to 34E. I decided it would be acceptable to round up, so I gave the driver 40E. To my confusion, I got 6E back in change. Apparently, expecting the driver to keep the extra 6E as a tip was a purely American thought, one that has not yet crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

Although I must admit that it is considerably easier not to have to fiddle around with a pencil after receiving the check at dinner, trying to figure out the tip (basic arithmetic is not one of my fortes), the odd feeling of leaving only 50 cents or so still remains. Which brings me to another point.

I am simply not accustomed to change being worth anything. In the United States, change is petty money. People often forget they even have any. Here in Europe, clanking change has more variety than anything with the word variety in it. There is a 2E coin, a 1E coin, 50 cents, 20 cents, 2 cents, and 1 cent. Seeing the number two on American money is rare, with the exception of $20 bills and quarters (25 cents), of course. A $2 bill in the US is ooh-d and ahh-d over, and kept as a collector’s item, while 50 cent coins are rare and 2 cent coins are virtually unheard of. So you can imagine my unrest when I leave a restaurant table adorned with a huge pile of coins; in the US it is considered disrespectful.

Cab fares and restaurant tips aside, in the past week I have come to the realization that the metro is a prime location for cultural observation. While it is not necessarily the corazón of Madrid life, it is nevertheless a bustling center of people coming, going, and interacting. Greetings aren’t hugs or macho slaps on the back. Quite the contrary; they’re docile kisses on the cheek full of cariño or hearty handshakes.

The madrileños seem genuinely interested in each other, a refreshing change from American indifference, where the phrase “how are you?” is usually a mere equivalent of “hello” and the speaker does not stop to hear the answer. Having gotten lost more times in the past week than I would care to admit, I have gotten in the habit of asking fellow pedestrians for directions and have discovered that they are more than happy to ensure that I reach my destination, even if they themselves cannot offer adequate directions.

I could get used to this.