Two things happened on Friday that I absolutely must tell you about. First, and most important, I think I've found a place to buy sour cream. YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE how hard a task this is in Madrid! I'm used to the U.S., where sour cream can be had at any grocery store and some convenience stores, but here, the small stores don't have it, the natural food stores don't have it, the "productos latinos" stores don't have it, the discount supermarkets don't have it, and even El Corte Inglés -- the venerable, oft-loved and oft-hated Spanish department store chain that has everything -- doesn't have it. I looked online and found that there are threads on forums dedicated specifically to the question of "Where can I buy sour cream in Madrid?" Some kind soul posted a tip about a tiny store called Taste of America, and I took a detour on my usual Metro trip home from my internship on Friday to visit it. They didn't have any sour cream either, but the lady proprietor told me that she had just put some on order ("I know it's not available anywhere -- that's why we keep ordering it here!") and said she'd hold some for me when it arrives, which will probably be Wednesday. Yes!

The Taste of America store was interesting. It was like an outpost, isolated amidst the Spanish-ness pressing in from all sides. It was a very small storefront. So small, in fact, that I expected it to be for a smaller country -- y'know, "Taste of Israel" or "Taste of Jamaica" would have seemed more accurate to me. Anyhow. Besides (hopefully) sour cream, they sell cake mix (loads of cake mix), frosting/decorating supplies, bagels, that peanut butter-jelly stuff where it's stripes of both in a single jar, A&W root beer, and lots of spices. I was also able to get cumin and chili powder, which I had drawn blanks on at every other store I'd tried.

The other thing that happened that I must write about: As I was walking back from the Metro stop, I came upon a small crowd gathered on the street, and I stopped to see what they were watching. There were three people, two girls and a guy, all about 20 years old by my guess, standing and dramatically telling fairy tales to each other in Spanish. Two video cameras were being manned by a crew to record this. There was also a dedicated sound guy with a huge silver microphone about the size of a Pringles can. I have no idea what this whole event was for. When I was there, the guy storyteller, standing in the center of his two companions, was telling about the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf. He had part of it set to song, which he "taught" to the girls and then they all sang together. When he got to the parts of the story where the wolf blows and blows and blows the house down, all three would act it out. It had the feel of a kids program -- girl: "Oh, really? There were three pigs? Tell me about them!" guy: "Well, this part has a song. Can I sing the song?" girl: "Yes, please do!" other girl: "Yes, do!" [guy sings and they all laugh and exaggeratedly sing along] -- and even though it had a slightly overacted feel to it, the bunch was great at ignoring the crowd that had gathered, acting like they just happened to want to tell fairy tales to each other on this normal street in front of Ópera Pizza and the Metro station, like any other typical 20-year-olds. They didn't have cue cards or prompters or any kind of script to read. I'm impressed by their ability to keep up perky perfect dialogue by memory/improv for such a long time! When I left, one of the girls had just begun to tell Snow White (Blancanieves). I went back to my apartment for my camera, returned back to the spot in about 15 minutes, and in true Madrid fashion, everything was gone -- no crew, no storytellers, no crowd. It was like it never happened.

In other news, I went to a fútbol game. OH YEAH!!! It was my first in any kind of a major league, since I don't think the Minnesota Thunder really counts. The team was Atlético Madrid, which is Madrid's second-best-known major league team behind Real Madrid. By what I hear, Atlético has the reputation of "the people's team" while Real Madrid is perceived as more exclusive (although it's better-known throughout the rest of España than Atlético). I went to the game with five other people from the language school, including my apartmentmate, Charlie, who will be interning with Atlético doing international marketing but had never been to an Atlético game. Quite an experience -- the stadium was nearly full at 45,000 fans, the other team (Celta Vigo) scored a goal in the first few minutes, and Atlético fought back to tie the game well before the first half was over. The game ended with the score still tied 1-1. According to the people from the school who know fútbol better than I, Atlético didn't play very well. It was still a higher level of play than I'd ever seen.

There was a fan who was extremely into the game who was running back and fourth along the fence separating the seats from the field. He was gesturing wildly the whole time -- I think he really, really wished he was the team's boss or coach. He was almost more fun to watch than the game! And we had somehow gotten ridiculously good seats -- third row, center of the field -- so we had a great view of him.

Oh, y'know what? They let you bring food in to the stadium! The only things you can't bring in are water bottles with the caps on and tin cans, because they don't want you to throw them. During halftime, everybody pulls out bocadillas (baguette sandwiches) and chips that they bought before the game in any of the dozens of bar/cafes in the neighborhood surrounding the field.

My internship! I'm doing an internship with a wind energy development and investment firm and I haven't written much about it yet! It's really good -- the people are so nice and I'm feeling very welcomed. At the moment, it's looking like a lot of computer/web work. Originally, I was supposed to write a few pages of content in English and Spanish for their existing website as my first project, and then they found out that I can actually design/code new sites. Now, I'm supposed to build at least two entire sites for them -- one brand new and the other a complete rebuild of their existing one. Should be pretty fun, especially since I haven't built a site in a while. It doesn't have too much to do with environmental policy, but I should be able to learn a ton about their work when I write the content, and anyhow, my Spanish isn't at a high enough level yet where I could even reasonably participate in that kind of work. But I'm learning quick! My table is in the main room of the office where at least six others work, so I pick up bits of conversation. It's a great group of people to be around and I feel useful. And they drink lots of café (or tea or hot chocolate or what have you -- their building has a "coffeeshop" of free coffee/etc vending machines), so I join in with that. I think I've had more mint tea over the past week than I have in my entire life before this point...

I've Got a Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas is the most popular song in Spain. At least it was a week or two ago, and that doesn't seem to have changed much. Go into any store, anywhere, wait a few minutes, and you'll probably hear it (and also "We Weren't Born to Follow" by Bon Jovi and something by Lady Gaga). It's interesting to me how much of their pop music is American/English language -- I'd guess it's around 50%. American culture in general has an almost eerie popularity here -- you can buy Boston Celtics jerseys in El Corte Inglés and I ♥ NY t-shirts in the Rastro and watch CSI: Miami on TV...

Last random note: orange juice. I was always taught it was "jugo de naranja" but here it's "zumo de naranja" or simply "zumo," and it's very popular. A bunch of bars/cafes even have machines to make it fresh -- y'know, flashy-looking juicers with a hopper of oranges on top. It doesn't seem at all unusual to walk into a bar and order a cup of orange juice. I like this.

That's it for now. Till later,

Andy