Settling In, part 10

So on the Saturday night of our date with Amy and Eric, Mike picked me up outside St. George’s and drove to the parking garage under the Plaza Mayor, in the center of the old part of town. We walked till we found Bolo, in a charming old-fashioned storefront painted in red enamel. Eric and Amy were already seated, and naturally the restaurant was otherwise nearly empty, since it was before 10 p.m.

I enjoyed getting to know Amy and Eric better, and I enjoyed the cocido and its ritualized presentation, too. At Bolo the dish came in individual earthenware pots. The waiter first poured some broth and noodles out of the pot into a bowl. The liquid was the yellow of chicken soup, but it had a much stronger flavor from the sausages and other meats that had been simmered in it.

We talked about ourselves and our children, our backgrounds and our reactions to Spain. “What’s it like living in the suburbs here?” Amy asked.

“Pretty much like any suburb at home, except we’re closer to the city and the public transportation’s good,” I said.

“I can’t imagine living in the suburbs,” she said. “We’re really city people, I guess. I love that I can walk downstairs and get the newspaper at the corner kiosk.”

“What do you do for things like grocery shopping?” I asked.

“Well, there are little shops near the apartment,” she said, “but usually Eric drives us out to the Jumbo market on Saturday, and we can stock up for the week.”

“Where’s that?” I asked.

“It’s in the northeast corner of the city. A lot of city people who have cars go out there. It’s a shame that everything is closed on Sunday, though, because it’s miserably crowded on Saturdays.”

“I think there’s supposed to be one Sunday a month when the stores can stay open,” Mike said.

“Really?” I said. “I didn’t know that. How do you find out when it is?”

“I think it’s supposed to be in the paper,” he said. “Or maybe there’s a sign at the store.”

Amy and Eric’s girls got to and from the American School on a school bus, but when Sarah, the older one, had a volleyball practice there was often a dilemma about how to get her home. “Do you think it’s okay to let her ride public transportation?” Amy asked. “She’s a city kid, she knows how to handle herself, but I don’t know about this.”

I said I’d ask Ana for her. And then the waiter came over to serve the next part of the cocido: the meats. There was chorizo and morcilla (blood sausage), chicken and beef. Still steaming in the earthenware pot were the cabbage, chickpeas, and potatoes for the last course.

“Do you like the teachers at the American School?” Amy asked.

“I think Mr. Tribe is fantastic. Do you like Anna’s teacher?”

Anna had Cindy Phoa, the other fifth grade teacher. “I think she’s fine,” Amy said, “but I’m glad they all go to Mr. Tribe for science. He’s quite a live wire!”

Julie had described some of Mr. Tribe’s antics to me. He was notorious for his sneak attacks on kids wearing sweatshirts with drawstring hoods. He’d come up behind an unsuspecting kid, flip the hood over his head, and swiftly pull the string so the kid was peeking out of a little space in the front. When a student was caught tipping back on his chair Mr. Tribe took the chair away, and the kid had to kneel for the rest of the day. Julie loved him, but she was a little scared of him, too.

“What I’m not satisfied with is the Spanish class,” Amy went on. “Sarah’s taking French as well as Spanish, and the French department is wonderful—very demanding. They don’t seem to be learning much in Spanish, though. When I complained to the Spanish teacher, she said that most of the American parents don’t care if their kids learn any Spanish, and when Spanish homework starts to interfere with the other subjects, they bellyache about it and demand that it be reduced. Can you believe that?”

After my brief experience with the military wives at Ana’s house, I thought I knew what Amy was talking about. It seemed that not everyone was as thrilled to be in Madrid as I was. Some of the people who rotated through one country after another didn’t really care about plugging in to the local culture.

As we continued to talk, Amy mentioned some of the Spanish books she was reading—biographies, histories—and I was tremendously impressed. “But I have to tell you about my dirty little secret,” she said. “I’m addicted to Hola.” Hola was a weekly celebrity-watching magazine—a big-format one, like the old Life magazine, with a similar emphasis on glossy color photos. I’d read one or two issues but couldn’t get clear on the Spanish aristocrats and film stars Hola covered—they were all new to me. Well, except maybe Julio Iglesias. But Amy had already become a junkie for news about the Spanish royal family, much beloved in the country and, frankly, much more to be admired than the laughable British royals we had followed at home. My new intellectual friend was also a gossip maven.

We had our final course of vegetables and chickpeas and declined dessert, full as we were. The restaurant custom was to offer dessert and coffee separately, as different courses. Most of the desserts were not that appealing to us anyway—the popular items were flan, crema catalana, and natillas, all custardlike desserts. Ana had explained that one could go to a bakery to buy fancy Arab-style pastries, which were considered very elegant, but that cakes and pies were not common in restaurants.

“How about a walk to work off a little of that meal?” Eric suggested. We took a stroll around the lovely old neighborhood, famous for the nearby Convento de las Descalzas Reales, a convent that had some magnificent paintings. Across the plaza was Cornucopia en Descalzas, a restaurant I had read about. The owner was an American woman married to a Spaniard, and the place was known for cocina creativa—creative cuisine—something different from the usual menu of plain but perfectly prepared meat and fish dishes. The place looked lovely, and I resolved to return.