The Spanish Way of Life: Church, Tapas, and Indecent Exposure

After a 30 hour flight, I arrived in Madrid tired and smelly but excited. I was greeted at the airport by Rafa, my Spanish amigo. Within five minutes of being in the country, we were at a local Churreria buying churros for breakfast. This is how I want every adventure to begin: with doughnuts and chocolate.

I am super lucky to be living with the best Spanish family in the world while I am in Madrid. Rafa, Carola, and their four kids have been so amazing and welcoming. They made me feel like part of the family immediately. After our churros breakfast, I even went with them to Sunday mass. The best part about Spanish church - aside from scoring some brownie points with the big guy upstairs, and more importantly, my Nanna - is that after mass, they go and have a few beers and some tapas. This is a great initiative to make church more appealing. After lunch, they also took me for a walking tour of Madrid and we had some more beer and tapas. So basically, it was a full day of eating and drinking - my two favourite things. I could really get used to this Spanish way of life.

Rafa and Jorge

One downside to Madrid life is the fear of being pickpocketed - and as you all know, I have been emotionally and psychologically scarred since my mugging on the booze cruise in Cambodia. Madrid's pickpockets are notorious for preying on tourists on the metro and in crowded areas. However, I have developed a threefold strategy to avoid being targeted. Firstly, I try and look Spanish. I do this by putting my hair up in a bun and embracing the stubble (hard to imagine, I know). Secondly, I try and look like I'm tough, so I bought a Men's Health magazine in español which I pretend to read on the metro. I make sure the cover with the naked werewolf from True Blood faces out so people will think I'm tough by association. Thirdly, when I'm going out I wear really tight jeans where even I have trouble getting my wallet out of my pocket. Ain't nobody getting into my pants. 

On the subject of pants, I went on a pub crawl on Friday night and things got a bit cray. On the first hour of the crawl, there was unlimited sangria, so naturally the rest of the night is fuzzy. I was happy for the night to remain a mystery, unfortunately a photo has surfaced of me mooning the camera. I mean, it's not a bad enough photo to get me fired from the Cronulla Sharks, but still. I usually don't even like taking my shirt off at the beach but here's me with my ass hanging out on the streets of Madrid. Spain has changed me.

Here's the censored / more offensive version

That very night, I was determined to adapt to the Spanish social timetable, as they tend to go out late and party till much later. The metro starts at 6am so my mission was to stay out until then. I succeeded in that regard, but as soon as I got on the train I chucked a Ross Gellar and slept through my stop. When I woke up the train was going in the opposite direction towards where I had just come from. It was a hot mess express. Perhaps I'm not so good at being Spanish after all.

Of course, I'm not here to party - I'm here to learn. I can hear your scoffs from here, but I've actually been taking four hours of Spanish lessons a day. The first morning of class was a bit stressful as I was forced to sit a Spanish test to determine my level. I had to answer 80 multiple choice questions and sit an oral exam even though the only two words I knew were 'amigo' and 'paella.' In the immortal words of Bridget Jones, "oh bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger." So I answered the 80 questions to the best of my ability, and I think I did alright - everyone knows the correct answer is usually C, anyway. But when I got to my oral exam, the teacher spoke some rapid-fire Spanish, saw the fear in my eyes,  consequently drew a big red X over my test and classified me as a beginner. Um, yeah, I could've told you that.

I'm slowly learning the language and I now understand things like colours, numbers and household furniture. However, I'm finding it really hard to pronounce certain words properly and not sound so Strayan all the time. Whenever I try to roll my R's I end up sounding like a defective lawnmower running over a possum. I just can't do it. It has also been brought to my attention that the squiggly little line above an ñ actually makes a whole lot of difference. Apparently, if you pronounce an ñ the same as you would a normal n, it can radically change the sentence. For example, "how old are you?" can be misheard as "how many anuses do you have?" It feels a bit like this language is setting me up for acute social embarasment. Luckily, my Spanish family are there to steer me away from such faux pas.

In my time away from class, I've been able to do a a bit of sightseeing. Today I took a trip to Toledo, a UNESCO World Heritage site 70km south of Madrid. Toledo is a really pretty, old town with lots of  ornate churches, synagogues and mosques. My only complaint is that the town consists of an intricate network of narrow cobblestone streets, but these really big cars chug through it anyway and cramp it's style. As well as causing congestion, the cars look really stupid, like Austin Powers doing that three-point-turn in Dr Evil's lair.

Bloody Toledo Drivers

The Top of Toledo

In conclusion, when in a new country, don't ask people how many anuses they have, and don't expose yours in public.

A Stopover in the Gong

Welcome back, dear reader, to the corner of the Internet where I visit exotic locations and talk about all the weird shit I see. When I last left you, I was in Japan, marvelling at their bathroom innovations, picking octopus out of my vegetarian salad rolls, and exposing my genitals at traditional hot springs.

They say that all good things come to an end but I say that’s bullshit. All good things can just be postponed for a little while before you come back to them later. Think of it like my mother snoring in front of the TV - just because she’s dozed off doesn’t mean she’s finished watching Young and the Restless re-runs and I can have the remote. So after Japan, I postponed my world-tour and came home to Wollongong for a brief intermission.

My extended stopover in Wollongong offered up a variety of delights, including a wedding, a few birthday parties (one ending in police intervention), a Heffernan invasion on a cruise ship, multiple viewings of Frozen, and a 30 day food cleanse that only lasted 30 hours. Stay classy Wollongong, I love you.

And now I’m off again. First I’m heading to Spain, where I will be doing a 4 week Spanish language course in Madrid. Then I’ll be revisiting the Netherlands and London, hitting up Scotland for the Commonwealth Games (competing in diving and equestrian), sailing around Greece, and ending the European leg with Turkey… a turkey leg, if you will. Then I’m going to swing through the US and take a bite out of the Big Apple before ending things with a bit of Californication.  

The number one question people have been asking me is how the hell I can afford to do this. The short answer is: illegal activities. The long answer is: I can’t tell you over the Internet or I will be incriminating myself in illegal activities.

Now, with that policy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ in place, I bid you adios.

But first, let me take a pre-departure selfie.

A Love Letter to Japanese Bathrooms

Japanese innovation has brought the world some amazing things: sushi, Pokémon, karaoke, CDs, karate... but nothing can compare to the wonder that is the Japanese toilet.

Maybe it is because I have just come from Cambodia, where most of the bathrooms look like the set from Saw, but I have become enamoured with the cleanliness and efficiency of Japan. Firstly, the seats are warm but not in the gross public rest stop way. Some toilets have an in-built air freshener and others play music to both soothe you and cover up certain other sounds. And yeah, there's also a bidet to give you a hose-down; it's new, it's different, it's a little exciting.

Same

These are features that need to be adopted worldwide. Frankly, it's 2014 and I am a disgruntled citizen knowing that Australian toilets are subpar. Haven't we suffered enough? Movies come out later for us than the rest of the world, but we deal with it. We don't get all the different flavours of m&m's. but we satisfy ourselves with crispy. Wearing Santa costumes at Christmas can be ridiculously hot and uncomfortable, but we sweat through it. We suffer in silence, but no more! This is where I say we take a stand - or a sit, rather - and demand to be on the frontline of toilet technology. Let's be number one when it comes to doing number two!

I bet you're thinking, 'Nathan, perhaps you're getting a bit too worked up. Take a chill pill, it's only a dunny.'  I see your concern and I raise you a urinal anecdote. So, I'm in this shopping mall on the hunt for some Hello Kitty merch, when I need to use the bathroom. I find the urinal and I notice that there is a red and white target painted on the porcelain and there's a small computer screen at my eye-level. Attached to the urinal is a motion detector which can sense when my 'stream' is hitting the target, the more forceful my 'stream' the quicker a bucket on the tv screen fills with water. If the bucket gets filled to the top, you win a prize or something, I don't know because I got performance anxiety and only filled the bucket just past half way. This may seem silly, but just think how much cleaner the floors are when you give a guy a reason to aim (yes, sometimes we need a reason.) Side note: I'm 95% that I was being filmed for a perverse Japanese game show, so keep an eye out!

Bathing in Japan has also been a transcendental experience for me. In Tokyo, I visited a traditional onsen (hot springs). The first thing to do when entering an onsen is to take off your shoes and don't you dare step on the carpet while wearing them (I learnt that the hard way). You then put your shoes in a locker and give the key to reception, all the while feeling self-conscious about how your feet smell a little funky from a long day of walking around the city. The receptionist gives you another locker key, one you wear on a strap around your wrist, and let's you pick a style of  yukata - a casual kimono. You then go to the locker room - divided by gender, of course - and change into your yukata.  So far so modest. You can then get some food or drink in a communal area before heading to the gender-divided baths, and that is where all modesty dies. You get handed a towel, unrobe, and let it all hang out. Initially, I was cautious, but the predominantly Japanese clientele seemed to have no qualms about strutting around as naked as their name day, so I took their cue and unleashed the kraken.

The baths were amazing. There were about eight different tubs of varying temperatures, including an outdoor rock pool. Before entering any of the baths they ask you to shower, because this is the cleanest country on earth. There was a row of showers along the back wall, but all the shower heads were pointed waist-high and there were little plastic stools you had to sit on to shower. Sitting down to shower was a weird experience for me, but I bet all the Occupational Therapists in the house are like, "hell yeah, go shower chairs!" After bathing, I put my yukata back on, grabbed a hot tea from a vending machine, and went to one of the relaxation rooms. The relaxation room consisted of rows upon rows of recliners each with their own personal TV. I kicked back, threw a blanket over my legs so I wouldn't Sharon Stone Basic Instinct anyone, and watched a Sumo Wrestling match on TV. Now that's what I call bliss.

Overall, the onsen was a very relaxing way to see another side of Japan... and another side of the Japanese... Let's just say, I saw a lot of samurai swords that day.

The 10 Types of People You Meet While Volunteering Abroad

You come across a wide-range of personalities when you volunteer abroad. Everyone becomes a 'voluntourist' for their own different reasons and have their own set of expectations for what their experience will be. However, after volunteering in Cambodia for six weeks, I have found that there are ten different archetypes that people tend to follow…

1. The Brangelina 

This is the person who falls in love with all the local children and you’re pretty sure they are going to stuff one into their suitcase. Their heart is in a constant state of melting and they always have a new photo to show of their students being adorable. This isn’t actually an annoying attribute, however, because the children are admittedly very cute. The Brangelina is a sweetheart and much more tolerable than some of the others...

2. The Cultural Supremacist 

This is the volunteer who assumes that the developing country they are in should conform to the norms and standard of their home country. They are surprised when things are different and they show a clear distaste for the customs and practices of the country’s culture. They expect toilets to be clean, signs to be in English, and food to be Western. They leave you wondering, “why the hell did you even come here?” Avoid spending time with this type of volunteer. 

3. The Misery Guts 

This is the person who is always complaining, be it about the weather, the food, or the price of shampoo. They never have anything nice to say and they mope around from day to day, making them terrible company. They are similar to The Cultural Supremacist but more negative than ignorant. However, if you enjoy hearing about dry throats and sore muscles, you will love spending time with The Misery Guts. 

4. The Tightarse

This is the person who, while not necessarily poor, is terrified of spending more than $2 a day on ‘unnecessary’ expenses such as food or transport. The Tightarse is understandable yet also infuriating when it comes tot settling the bill. You can’t know for sure, but you strongly suspect that they just  took money out of the waiter’s tip. They suffer from 'borrower's amnesia' meaning that they can't remember that time when you loaned them money or when they said, "I'll get the next round." The Tightarse can get very old very fast. 

5. The Explosive Spender 

At the opposite end of the spectrum, we have The Explosive Spender, has no qualms about making it rain. They are the ones who order three meals at dinner because they don’t know what they feel like. They can be a lot of fun to be around because they are quite often generous, and hey, if they want to shout the whole bar a round of shots, who are we to stop them? Sometimes, however, their lack of thriftiness can make living in an incredibly poor country a little bit uncomfortable and make you feel like an entitled whitey. 

6. The Walking Lonely Planet 

This person is the know-it-all that you hate to come to for travel advice. They have either been here before or been in the country for a long time, so they are automatically the authority on all things ‘local.’ You mention a cool café you just discovered, they will give you five reasons why another cafe is better. You mention how you got lost on your way home, they will sit you down for two hours and draw you a map. Basically, they are well-meaning but insufferable. Sometimes, you just want to discover things for yourself. 

7. The Loose Canon

This is the person that is only volunteering so that they have something decent to tell their parents. They have come to the country to volunteer but they have also come to get loose. You usually find them wasted, in the process of getting wasted, or recovering from being wasted.  They are the ones that convince the rest to go out drinking on a school night. They are the ones that order you a vodka redbull while you’re explaining to them why it would be a good idea to go home. The Loose Canon is a lot of fun to be around, but be warned, once you get sucked into their rabbit hole of looseness, it can be very hard to crawl back out. 

8. The Wanderer

This is the volunteer who has forgotten what their home looks like. They have been travelling for months or years at a time and their return ticket is not yet booked. You admire them but you also find their existence exhausting. You can’t quite tell if they are ‘lost’ or just plain cool. Sure signs that you have come across a Wanderer: they have hippie-length hair tied back with an Aztec print headband, they have an inspiring travel quote freshly tattooed on their hip, and they have bracelets up to their elbows. 

9. The Experimenter 

This person is up for anything. They are in a foreign country and they are determined to experience everything it has to offer. If this means eating a hot dog that may actually contain dog, they will do it. They are the ones that learn how to say more than just “hello” and “thank you” in the local language, which you respect but also fear makes you look bad. It is clear that they are having an amazing experience but their stomach isn’t happy about it.

10. The Eater, Prayer, Lover

This is the person looking for enlightenment in a foreign country but ends up trying to force it. You can tell that they think in voice-over and you can see them squirm while they try to meditate at temples. Get one drink into them and their peaceful façade will crack as they wail about their most recent breakup. They are here to get through some stuff and you can’t blame them for that. However, some distance from them is necessary before you punch them for recounting their ‘life changing lunch.’