Andorra and Back Again

That's pretty much how it felt, anyway. We just got back to Mérida from one of the most interesting and amazing adventures we've had. The good people here in Spain decided that our mid-year meeting should take place in Andorra, so we were forced to travel halfway across the world to get there (it seemed about that far, but was really only 10 hours driving each way...). I was initially a bit confused by the decision to do the mid-year conference for Spain grantees outside Spain, but now that I've actually been to Andorra (and spent some time there - I think I was there in 1990 or so, for a few minutes...), I believe the decision was fully justified. My description of the Andorra visit is going to have to appear in two parts, as I'm right in the middle of an important project for my research and I can't really afford to sit here for half an hour and describe all that there is to experience and enjoy in Andorra just now. Suffice it to say that Rick Steves is kind of a travel snob now, and the more I experience of Europe the less I trust the things he has to say. Don't bother reading up on Andorra from his perspective, it's one of the places he claims he goes "so you won't have to." I say, it's well worth a visit, especially if you're already in Spain, Portugal, or even southern France.

Of course, I have to admit that my experience of this wonderful little mountain principality was heavily tainted by a few factors. One of those is that we were given exceedingly nice lodgings in a hotel I would not be able to afford on my own. Another is that we met many of Andorra's dignitaries and were hosted by these and other kind souls of the place in a way that I am unlikely to ever experience anywhere else. It is also a true fact that Andorra is at least half-full of Portuguese people, which is generally a good thing, as they are almost universally kind, friendly, outgoing, and cheerful. Oh, and they love good coffee, which means the Andorrans must have good coffee, which means I had access to good coffee, which I brought back to Spain in bulk. So I probably didn't experience the Andorra that Rick Steves visited. And I still encourage my readers to consider it a worthwhile destination.

I dedicate the remainder of this posting to one of the highlights of our visit to Andorra la Vella. A number of people advised us to go to a place called Caldea, which is Catalán for hot springs or something similar. When we arrived in town, one of the first things we noticed was the building that houses this Caldea, a tall spire of glass pointing jauntily toward the sky. I was originally hoping to sneak in an afternoon of snowboarding on our only free day, but by the time I figured the cost, the number of hours, and the amount of work that would be, it was 3pm and I wasn't feeling much like slamming my body into the icy slopes for the next few hours. I discarded that idea and decided to give the hot springs (technically, it's a spa. That's right. I went to a spa instead of snowboarding.) a chance. And I'm frightfully glad I did. It just so happens that a wonderful human named Lan is a member of the exclusive club that is Caldea. She invited us to accompany her as guests to the members-only section of the health spa, where we were given bath robes, towels, and sandals for flip-flopping around the grounds. We were also each given a free bottle of ice-cold water, which was really the icing on the cake for me.

Caldea is a 3-story indoor hot springs resort. Technically, it only has interesting pools and experiences on two levels, the intermediate floor being basically a large restaurant. Technically, it's not all indoor either, as there are two jacuzzis outside on the members-only upper level and some other pools outside on the all-access level (to which I did not venture). We were fortunate enough to have access to both levels of water wonderland, but after having explored most of the facility we decided that there is really no reason to go downstairs when you can go upstairs. Aside from the foot-scraping lazy river, the grapefruit pool, the saunas, and the huge hot tub, the members-only floor has a Turkish bath feature known as a hammam. As it turns out, this is apparently a feature originally introduced to Spain by the Moors, and is technically a part of the Arabic baths, though I really cannot say what the differences would be between these two complexes. Neither here nor there.

This particular hammam is a large-ish domed structure that looks something like a bread oven from the outside. Upon entering, one is greeted with a blast of hot vapor, smelling heavily of eucalyptus. Once the door has closed behind the visitor, s/he realizes that there is nothing to be seen, and the only sound is that of trickling water. Waiting patiently for the pupils to dilate sufficiently to offer some visibility, one gradually realises that if one had, as one initially intended, walked forward heedlessly upon entering, one would have smashed one's face into a tall column of three inverted cones, one on top of the other. It is down these cones that the deliciously cold water trickles to create the cavernous chamber's only ambience sound. As the darkness is lifted from one's eyes, it becomes apparent that the walls are lined with alternating seats and settees, each of the latter having under it a small opening from which the chamber's fragrant steam emits in a constant plume. For convenience, or perhaps to ensure proper sanitary conditions, each settee is also accoutred with its own water hose.

Sitting in that dark, steamy room, cold water trickling down the central column, skin pressed hard against the hot, (hopefully) clean tiles of the settee, I had the rare, increadibly peaceful, blissfully welcome experience of nearly forgetting my place. Would that it had lasted forever.

My Foot's All Better!

Seriously, it has been a few weeks or months or whatever since they drilled holes in my bone, and I can officially report that nothing has changed in well over a year. Or was that two years? I can vaguely remember having foot surgery, but that's about it. I do have this interesting scar on the outside of my left foot, and occasionally (like this weekend) the area under that scar aches a little bit--maybe from pressure changes or something, I don't know how these things work. But the point of it all is that I play soccer when I have time, I run and walk all over everywhere, and I generally have no complaints about the metal screw in my 5th metatarsal. I highly recommend it for anyone whose stupid stress fracture refuses to heal, and of course has insurance that covers such things. Don't forget about the insurance, because stimulus or no, I don't reckon the feds are too excited about fixing your fractures just yet (they're going to have to boost taxes a bit more for that to work out...:)

Alicia asked me to mention something about the good people at Carrefour and their amazing pricing system, so I thought that would be paragraph two for today's entry. Yes, the great supermarket chain that has installed itself in many of the locations formerly occupied by Continente here in Spain (I suspect the two chains traded stores across Portugal and Spain, but have no external information to confirm that hypothesis) has a pricing system that is truly worthy of note. See, like many stores, they advertise. So some guy comes around every week or two and jams an advertisement booklet into our mailbox. This booklet is full of all the deals you could possibly want, if you weren't living about a mile away from the place and aware that you were going to have to carry all those purchases across the unreasonably long Roman bridge. Sometimes those deals are so good that we're convinced we must be reading wrong. Most of the time, we're not reading wrong. But when we get to the store (bus passes are nice on those days), we somehow inexplicably fail to read the black and white of the signs, such that items marked "2 for the price of 1" or "2nd item at 50% off" are invariably rung up by our kind cashiers at full price. Thus far, I have been completely unable to convince a cashier that in fact the sign on the shelf reads "ITEM DISCOUNTED." So I leave a lot of stuff at the register. Occasionally, I am informed that those prices haven't gone into effect yet (even though the advertisement is already circulating throughout the city, and the sign on the shelf announces the discount), or perhaps that the sign just hasn't been taken down yet (even though the date on the sign includes today), but usually it's just the blank stare that says "you're obviously not from around here, the price you get is the price that the system assigns, regardless of advertised prices in print." I have never felt that the cashiers are rude or mean about the pricing stuff, usually they're more than happy to send that lady on the rollerskates back to double check the prices. I am starting to think that the company that operates this particular Carrefour store has a couple policies that are at odds with my own view of the world. The first policy is that signs and advertisements will intentionally be sent out before they're in effect and after they're no longer in effect. This allows them to catch those of us who are either real go-getters or too lazy to head out for the sales during the actual sale period, preventing us from capitalizing on the savings advertised. We get there when those prices aren't in effect, and rather than leave empty-handed, we buy what we can. The second policy, one that makes me a little bit more unhappy, is that they very intentionally put signs up over items to which those signs do not apply. They're far better at this than any supermarket I have ever visited, going so far as to confirm that either the size, or brand, or both, of the item advertised is the same as the one over which the sign is placed. Meanwhile, the product actually discounted is two shelves over and two shelves up. They are careful not to put the product's upc or barcode or whatever that number is called on the signs, thus preventing me from even that method of price confirmation. There are a few of those handy pricing machines around, but those only tell you the price for the single item, so you can't (as far as I know) tell if the second item will be discounted or not until you get it up to the register. I generally don't worry about holding up the line any more, I just want to make sure I like all the prices before I pull out the old credit card. My conclusion from all of this is that it's generally less of a hassle to go to Dia or Arbol, which are within reasonable walking distance, for all of life's essentials. If I ever feel the powerful urge to buy some cured fancy cheese or something like that, I have the lady behind the glass case at the deli section chop it up, wrap it, and slap on a price sticker. That way, at least I know how much it's going to cost before I get in line.

Speaking of lines, have I mentioned how polite the people of Mérida are about lines? If I have and you remember it, skip on down to the next paragraph. If I haven't, or you don't remember, read on: this is a good thing. Here in Mérida, unlike literally everywhere else I have ever been, people are kind of polite about lines. I can't even begin to remember how many times I have been sent to the front of a line by someone who just didn't want to get out of the store any time soon. It's quite odd. I have even felt compelled to do the same a couple times when someone shows up behind me in line with only a few items. The other nice things about lines here is that people arriving in a line-waiting situation announce their arrival with the question, "who's the last person in line." How crazy is that? Imagine waiting the crowded waiting area in the Cincinnati DMV for your license renewal or tags or something, and someone comes in behind you and hollers [man that word looks weird] out "who's the last person in line?" It's really quite phenomenal. This happens in banks, in post offices (even where you take those numbers), grocery stores, butcher shops, pretty much anywhere there might be a line. I have yet to be pushed out of the way or line-jumped here. Don't try that in Portugal... We even fight over who's getting into the line first for the waiting room to wait for the second waiting room before getting in line to board the plane (mind you, nobody ever has a big carry on bag in these situations, it's just some innate drive to be on that plane before the rest of the passengers). Well, at any rate, the good people of Mérida, Extremadura, Spain, must be about the politest waiters-in-line or line-waiters in the world.

That ends my line digression. The next topic up for discussion today is when I'm going to get those $800 that are now being promised to me as a means of saving our economy. I'm all for stimulating the economy and all that, but when do I get to have my economy stimulated? My economy isn't a very patient one, and we here in Spain are suffering more than most countries, so where's my stimulus? I'm not mad or anything, but it's about time they showed me some green for all the hard work I've done over the 2008 calendar year. I filed early so I could get that "refundable tax credit" as quickly as possible, and now I'm being told I'll have to wait until June. People last year were getting those things before June, I can guarantee you that. So I ask you, is this a change for the better? Sure, they're telling me I'll get more than I did last year, but think how much interest I could make on the earlier credit last year than I will be able to this year - it almost evens out. Plus, with inflation and so on, I'll bet that the "$800" I'm supposed to get this year (I'm still deeply skeptical about this money) turns out to be less valuable than the less-than-$600 that they actually gave me last year (bonus question: can anyone figure out why I got less than the $600 that everyone was talking about for couples filing jointly?). I guess in the greater scheme of things this is still all George W's fault (it will ALL be his fault until something good happens, don't you think?), so I'll write him that nasty email I've been meaning to send for quite some time. Meanwhile, somebody figure out if they can speed up the refunds a little bit. That way I can get that camera and stimulate the economy. Uh, Nikon is still a US company, innit? Sweet.

Speaking of U.S. companies, why in the world are Levi's so expensive in Europe? I know they're kind of pricey for jeans these days even in the States, but I'm talking 70 or 90 EUROS for a pair of 501s. I know for a fact you can get those for $35 at any department store, and sometimes they're even on sale for less than that. The minimum wage over here is like 600 euros/month. I'd guess the average work month here is 20 days, with holidays and fiestas and all, and if we're being really generous we can say they "work" 8 hours on a work day. So that's 160 hours and 600 euros in a month, which comes out to 3.75/hour. Pretty sweet. Let's convert that to U.S. cash at $1.28 to 1 EU, and we're making $4.8 an hour. I'm thinking they probably get to keep all of that, right? Actually, on that point, I'm not sure. Of course that's the minimum legal wage, which means that in real terms very few people make that little (I've read in a couple places that it's not much more than 1% of the total population in Spain, though I don't know if that accounts for illegal immigrants as well). Nonetheless, that's not an awesome wage, especially if you're looking to drive a car (which drinks gas at aroung 1 eu/liter) and live in a house with electricity (that stuff isn't cheap here, even though it's practically all hydro- and solar power). So if you move to Spain, 1) do it legally, and 2) make sure you've got a job where you make more than minimum wage. I'm just saying...

Anyway, we're off to Andorra in just over a week, at which time it looks like I'll be somewhere between chapters and looking for something to do with my time. If only for the 4 days of the trip. Ok, so I'll take something to work on even for the trip. Man, give a guy a break. It's 4 days. I'll be driving half of that time!