Hazy Weekend in Madrid

Everybody thinks that writers live hedonistic, lazy lives. Actually, we're hard working people who put in 60+ hours a week chasing our muse. Then we reward ourselves by being hedonistic and lazy. Last weekend was one of those rewards.

A friend was down from London last weekend, and with Almudena dutifully taking care of the kid, we went off with some Spanish friends for two consecutive all nighters. I don't do this terribly often (read: not often enough) so I make sure to do it right. Madrid has tons of great bars and restaurants, and lots of late-night randomness.

High Points:

1. Watching a drunk Londoner try to pick up Spanish girls by using random Spanish words. "Hola", "Hola", "Umm. . .tortillas", "Que?", "Uh, Sean, get over here!"

2. Getting an entire bar to start calling him "El Mutante."

3. Getting directions from some drunken illegal immigrants in the street and being led to the best bar I've been to in Europe.

4. Unprintable.

5. Hanging out in a cool club, and discovering an hour later there's an even cooler club downstairs.

6. Sharing sleep deprivation with good friends.


Worst Moments:

1. Going to Macumba hoping to hear DJ Dave Clarke, only to find out it's a kiddie bar. I mean, it was like they went to every high school in central Spain about two years ago telling them to come to Macumba in 2008. They also must have handed out illustrated brochures telling them all how to dress. I have no idea how we got in.

2. Getting out of Macumba and realizing we were in the middle of nowhere, with no taxis in sight.

3. Monday morning. Back to the reality of writing.

Spanglish for Africans

Last weekend we visited a friend in the Madrid suburb of Torrejón, one of the older suburbs near where the U.S. had a military base. Julián loved the ride, sitting on our laps and staring out at all the cars on the highway. He also gave a lot of attention to the two African immigrants sitting across the aisle, who were either going home to the very mixed barrio that is Torrejón or going to work in the nearby industrial park. I've noticed that raising him to be bilingual has made him very interested when someone is speaking a language he doesn't understand.

I'm not sure what he thought of these guys. They were speaking some language I couldn't identify, but every now and then they slipped into Spanish. It amazed me to hear Africans doing what us guiris do, mix our language with the local one. But a moment's thought would show that it's only natural.

So what do you call their version of Spanglish? Spahili? No, Swahili is East African, and I'm pretty sure they were Nigerian. But which of the 512 Nigerian languages were they using to make their own Spanglish? Hausa? Igbo? Yoruba? It's nice to think that there are people speaking Spausa, Spigbo and Sporuba out there. Lots of Spaniards complain about immigrants and their bad language skills, but isn't Spanglishizing the first step towards fluency?

All the other immigrants do too. The French speak Spench, I've heard Romanians speaking Spomanian, and the Germans. . .well, never mind.