Return of El Caganer

Remember what I told you last year about a very special Spanish Christmas tradition? (Special as in special.) It's baaaaack.

According to this little notice in the paper the other day (the front page no less!), that lucky someone with the dubious honor of being el caganer (literally--there's no way to make this sound more posh--the sh**ter) is Lionel Messi, soccer player extraordinaire.

I'm sure his mother is very proud.

(again, if you are gaping at this with no idea why we are talking about Christmas and poo and a guy named Lionel, read this then come back)

No refills

Want to know another cultural difference between America and the rest of the world?

Here, when you order a soda in a retaurant, this is what you get:

The only soda fountains are in McDonald's.

A "refill" looks like this:

And when it's gone, it's gone. Time to order (and pay for) another bottle.

Ah, real free refills, I kind of miss you.

  

Shrimp, Spanish style

Step 1: Dump enough sea salt in a saute pan to create a nice comfy bed for the shrimp. Don't be shy.

Step 2: Turn up heat as high as it will go.

Step 3: Lay shrimp on salt.

Step 4: Let the salt burn, smoke and blacken while it imparts a deliciously smoky flavor to the shrimp.

Step 5: Open the window.

Step 6: Make sure the shrimp have parts that are browned and crusty, that's where the flavor is. 

Step 7: Take off the shrimp heads (sorry to my fellow squeamish Americans, but they are de rigeur in Europe) 

Step 8: Consume with gusto.

Perritos calientes

*Important note: I apologize for the rather sub-par photography in this post. These photos were taken directly following the Epic Flamenco Flop of '11 and I don't think my senses were functioning properly quite yet.*

Went out for tapas the other night and this is what the waiter surprised us with:

They are what they look like: hot dogs.  Oh so culturally relevant.

At least the sangria was Spanish.

Let's talk elections

Picture quality is of the iPhone style, sorry about that. 

Today I want to talk about the upcoming election.

Oh lordy, not that election, please no.  Let's talk about the Spanish general election, coming up on November 20th. Spaniards will get to pick a new prime minister and get some new faces in parliament too.

Here's the rundown: Candidates have two weeks to campaign (!!!) (are you listening America? I said two weeks!). The two main parties in Spain are the center-right Partido Popular (known colloquially as the PP) and the incumbent leftist Spanish Socialist Worker's Party (the PSOE, its Spanish acronym, or the Socialistas).

Up for the Socialistas is Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, and in the PP corner we have challenger Mariano Rajoy. Rubalcaba has a cooler last name while Mr. Mariano takes the lead in the first-name category, don't you think?

Anyway, the center-right PP is expected to win by a huge margin, both in the parliamentary and prime minister divisions. This seems reasonably fair, given as the Socialistas are in power at the moment and during the current economic crisis they have been about as useful as a hole in the head. Spain's unemployment hovers around 22%, Madrid is thisfreakingclose to finding itself on the EU bailout list, and things aren't looking good for a long while to come. Arguably things would be bad no matter who's running the government, but nonetheless it's always more comforting to find a specific group to blame. Sometimes it's even true.

The debate was on the night before last, and it's the only face-to-face meeting that the candidates have.  It felt more serious than an American political debate, which is as full of strutting peacocks as a petting zoo. Here the candidates sat down at a plain table in a plain studio, with no glitzy decorations or layers of makeup, and they talked for a couple hours straight. Now, politicians are politicians anywhere in the world, so they talked a fair bit of nonsense and seemed at one point to be engaging in a high-stakes game to see who could lie with a straighter face, but still it was refreshing.

It's an interesting time to be in Spain. The euro zone is crumbling, and Spain is at the bottom of the dog pile. Things just keep getting worse, and the newspapers are full of angst and apocalypse.

Will things get better with the election? Probably not. But with a guy named Mariano at the helm, anything's possible.