Last week's highlights, in review:
Monday: Called Telefónica to remind them in polite (read: groveling) fashion that my telephone line remained out of service and it would be make my existence so much more wonderful if they could find their way to resurrecting it. Then went to gym, the first time in nearly a week.
The gym I go to here is situated along a main drag, three or four blocks away. Nowhere as nice as a gym I used to go to in another district of the city, but much, much closer. The old gym was a big, flashy, hetero exercise palace. And this one? A small two-story hole in the wall crammed with machines, weights, and -- being a gay gym -- sweaty males.
I have nothing against guys. Some of my best friends are guys. But speaking as a hetero, it would be nice to have some representatives of the other gender in the mix. On the other hand, it's nice to get to the place via a three-minute walk instead of a Metro ride followed by a half-mile hike.
And that sometimes is life: one big trade-off.
Monday evening: me at home. The phone rings, the first time that's happened since returning to Madrid four days earlier. I pick up, it's a Telefónica technician. Yee-ha!, think I, practically skipping about the flat in jubilation, my service has been restored!. Two hours later, I try to make a call and discover the line has reverted to its previous state of sullen, unhelpful deadness. Grumble, grumble.
Tuesday: Made the daily call to Telefónica, begging for them to restore service. Gave up on waiting for the brief times I get to piggyback a local wireless network. Went to an internet joint in Sol, a place I've gone to when necessary since arriving in 2000. A large room tucked away in a large, old building that fronts on the immense plaza that is the city's central point -- packed with computers, run by some Argentinians. Argentina-related banners, travel posters and sports posters cover the walls, rock and pop generally plays on the in-house music set-up. All that, plus time online, for one euro an hour. A busy place in past years. This day nearly empty -- just me and one or two other people. Spent an hour doing mail, etc., then returned to life in the city center.
Tuesday evening: signed up for evening Spanish classes at a school I'd studied at in the past. My first time in classes in a year or so. And for the first time ever, I found myself in a group below my level with the language. A strange sensation, me being more accustomed to either finding myself with others on more or less the same level or in a class at a level clearly superior to mine -- often meaning for me, in the second case, a feeling of struggling and flailing about to keep from being left completely behind.
The profesora: Eva, an adorable Spanish 20-something with good energy. The other students: a Japanese male with black-framed glasses, shortish spiky hair (day job: the Japanese embassy), a slender, 30ish German woman (working at a bank, in Madrid to be with her sweetie), a tall, slim, curly-haired, bearded 30-something French male. The Japanese male seems reserved, doesn't talk much. The French male talks a fair amount, mostly funnies with Eva. The German seemed nice but remained mostly quiet, except for sudden brief explosions of slightly whacked-out commentary. Will be interesting to see what future classes are like.
In addition to all that excitement, during the course of the day I discovered that the freezer portion of the flat's refrigerator had stopped freezing things. Couldn't yet tell if it would pull itself together or if this was the beginning of something ominous.
Wednesday: Called Telefónica, did the daily begging routine, this time letting them know that it was important for my work to have a working phone. They seemed to hear that.
Went back to the gym. Took myself to see the current Woody Allen movie, which has been doing good business here in Madrid. His previous film, Match Point, was a high-quality production all the way down the line. Except for the story line, which lost my interest as it slid into melodrama until I realized I was looking around the theater because I didn't want to watch what was happening on the screen any more. Once I'd absorbed that, I got up and left -- only the fourth or fifth time in my life that I've walked out on a film. Scoop felt much more lightweight than Match Point, more thrown together. Sloppier, clumsier. But also at times real damn funny. I found myself laughing out loud a lot. And at times found myself feeling a little annoyed or impatient. Not many films have produced that combination of feelings in me. (The verbal shtick that Woody Allen's character spews? Funny for a while. Less funny with endless repetition.)
The freezer officially died during the course of the day, and it felt like the rest of the refrigerator had begun warming up. Bad. On the other hand, the phone rang during the evening, first time since Monday evening's false alarm. Once again, a Telefónica technician, this time telling me the line had been restored for real. And this time it actually had -- happy happy joy freakin' joy!
[continued in entry of November 17]
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Browsing at a collectors' market -- la Plaza Mayor, Madrid:
España, te quiero.
rws 4:07 PM [+]
Comments:
Wouldn't it be funny if Telefonica offshored its customer service to a place like Peru? Course, they'd have to teach the Peruvians how to speak Spanish with a Castillian lisp.
Mad, the Spaniards are getting used to hearing Castellano spoken with other accents, and are getting used to having latinos from other parts of the hispanic world around, along with Moroccans, sub-Saharan Africans and Eastern Europeans. The flood of immigrants here -- mostly illegal -- during the last few years has been mostly unstoppable. So Telefó need to offshore any jobs -- the offshore is now onshore, if you get my drift.
Bugger -- that should have been 'Telefónica wouldn't need to offshore any jobs....' I need a copy editor.
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