The other day on the Andalucía news (the closest thing to local news we have), the top story was the lighting of Christmas decorations in Málaga. When I changed the channel to the national news, the top story was about how much the lights in Madrid were costing the government (their lighting was the same day). This was all on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, which made me feel right at home – all the Christmas stuff starts right after Thanksgiving…whether they realize it or not. However, this was also right after a huge terrorist attack in Mumbai, which is what I wanted to hear about….not Christmas lights.
The news comes on in the afternoon and at dinner time (6-9 p.m. or so). We have Andalucía news and Spain national news. I have yet to figure out when international news is on. We definitely don’t have BBC, CNN International or any other international news service. At this point, I would even settle for Fox’s international channel…I would get angry at it, but at least it would give me some stimulation.
I’m already sick of the television news here. Actually, that’s not true. It’s more of a love-hate relationship. Half the time when I try to watch the news there is something cultural on (like flamenco or a visit to a museum). I’ve seen the Christmas markets in Sevilla, twice, and several different flamenco groups/performers warming up before a show in Granada or Sevilla. I’ve also seen an accessories store in Córdoba where everything costs 2€. Yes, this was a story about fashion accessories and it lasted a full four-minutes. I like the cultural stories because they give me some insight into Andalucían things like flamenco, however, I miss hard-news stories.
We only get nine channels on our television: that’s when the weather is good. Today we don’t have all nine. I think we have seven because it’s been rainy and windy. At any given time there is at least one show (usually three) dubbed from English into Spanish. The voices are usually the same across the different shows meaning Buffy and Lisa Simpson project the same sound.
We’ve discovered a few television shows we like. One of them is called Pekin Express and is basically the Spanish version of the Amazing Race (which none of us had watched in the US). Teams of two are racing from Moscow, across Russia, Mongolia and China until they get to Peking (next week is the finale). It’s entertaining and easy to follow and it was easy to start watching in the middle of the series.
We also have been watching Ponme una Nube, a telenovela (soap opera), for a few weeks now, but really I’m not that interested in it. We still can’t figure out if the kids living with one woman are her children or not (they call her by first name instead of mom and she’s not married and looks too young to have kids). The show is about two women who run a café. (A nube is a cappuccino, but the term is not widely used in Spain, or in the rest of the Spanish-speaking world for that matter.) For a weekly show, the writers have managed to follow the daily-show format of using the most ridiculous story lines ever. In one show, a character can go from meeting a man, to making out with him in his car so her friends don’t see, to engaged to him, to finding out he has several girlfriends (and he’s fooling around with both her best friend and her cousin), to getting angry with him and finally breaking off the engagement (and crying about it, of course). It makes Desperate Housewives look like non-fiction.
My favorite television show is called Andaluces por el Mundo. Each episode takes place in a different country (sometimes just a city) and documents the lives of people who are originally from Andalucía, but now live in that place. We’ve seen the Czech Republic, Israel, Hong Kong, Costa Rica, Buenos Aires and Moscow. I like it because it’s the closest thing to the travel channel and it shows real people who take the audience to their offices, homes and a few tourist sites. The Israel episode went through the shuk (market), visited the kottel (Western Wall), and the Dead Sea. Cecilia and I watched the Buenos Aires episode and saw tons of familiar places. The Costa Rica episode was the funniest because one of the people featured talked about how life in Costa Rica is much more relaxing than life in Spain. We couldn’t understand this because life in Spain is pretty damn relaxing…work five hours, eat a huge meal, take a nap for three hours, work a few more (if your job actually requires it, most don’t). Half of Priego only works in the morning. The other half opens their stores late and shuts them early. I’ve worked in retail and I know how tempting it is to do this, but here it’s the norm: closing at 8:30 can mean closing at 8:20 and no one cares. Some shopkeepers are honest about it. I’ve been told by store-owners that they will be open until 8 or 8:30 depending on their mood that day.
Another thing we have found is a cooking show on Saturday and Sunday mornings where people go cook with a chef, then go home and recreate the two-course meal for their friends. It’s an entertaining show, but the food isn’t always that appealing. One episode tried to pass a veggie (sautéed in oil) and egg tartlet (in tons of pastry dough) off as a quiche AND something healthy all at the same time. Course number two was a fig and cream parfait. Some times the stuff is ridiculously hard to make like braised date reduction sauce and sometimes is really easy like horchata cream (horchata is almond milk) – aka, horchata in a sauce pan, heated, stirred up and then cooled.
Our bad TV wouldn’t be such an issue if we had internet…but I’m not opening up that can of worms (see previous blog entries).
No comments:
Post a Comment