This call will be 6c a minute. Please Hold.

Background note: Although Telefonica technically doesn't have a monopoly on the telephone service, the competitive company (one), has such limited service that it is almost as if they do own the market.

My Spanish education will never be over. I realized this yesterday as my boss called Telefonica's Customer Service number. Although it was actually the second Customer Service number. The story goes something like this:

Wednesday afternoon he discovered that sometime during 5 and 6 pm the telephone line and internet service went down. So, he called Telefonica number one. After some minutes of arguing with the woman on the phone that the cause was not in the school, she agreed to send a repair man, although warning him that if the repair man found the problem in the school it would cost 50 euros per hour. Agreed.

In Spanish time, the repair man arrived early. Thursday, mid morning. And he discovered that the problem was in the Central Switchboard. So he returned to Telefonica and reconnected the telephone line. The end.

However, we then noticed that the internet wasn't working. Actually, after a lot of head scratching and unplugging and plugging in again, the router was declared broken. The router, which was working fine before the mess up with the telephone line. So again, on the phone with Telefonica.

Now, I'm not sure how they do this, but it appeared as though they have some kind of radar for potentially long conversations. So, the woman at the first Customer Service number gives my boss another number to call. He calls number two, where the famous sentence is repeated in an automated voice, "Thank you for calling Telefonica. This call will be 6 cents a minute. Please hold. A representative will be with you shortly." And then the music began.

My boss sighed audibly and said some rude things about Telefonica. He promised that he had timed this before, and he was always left on hold for at least one minute. I was thinking about when we had our telephone line installed in our new apartment and my husband told me, "You can let the Telefonica man inside the house, but DO NOT accept anything from him, and DO NOT let him install anything." Apparently, they have a trick of plugging in a Telefonica telephone whenever they install a line and then charging the ignorant client rent on the telephone every month! Jose's grandmother had been paying 6 euros a month for 25 years!

Suddenly, there was a woman on the phone. My boss explained the situation and his part of the conversation went a little like this:
"Ok, yesterday our line was cut and the problem was found to be from there. But now, our internet is down and the router is broken. ...... No, the router is broken, there aren't any lights on the outside of the box. ..... No, it isn't a Telefonica router. .... But, that's not the point. The point is that before you cut my telephone line, everything was working, and now it doesn't work. .... Oh, a Telefonica router? And how much will that be? .... 59.90? .... No, no, do not order me a router! If I decide I want a Telefonica router, I will order one myself! .... No, the purpose of this call was NOT to order a Telefonica router, it was to complain that Telefonica broke the router I had. .... No, I have not ordered a Telefonica router. .... Ok, I'm hanging up now. .... NO, I will not hold to answer any questions about the performance of the Customer Service Representative, you are charging me six cents a minute!"

How, in the world, do people stand for companies charging them to call and complain about their service?!

Go out and write your will!

When my husband came home earlier this week and said that we really need to start thinking about writing our will, I was a little surprised. At first, I agreed with him based on the fact that there are certain wishes I would like to have written in case of my early demise. And it's always good to have things settled, right? But after listening to his reasons for writing the will, I was more than surprised; I was shocked, angry, frustrated and hated Spain a little bit. It turns out he had been researching the laws of inheritance in Spain and brought home some information I did not expect.

If you are married and living in Spain, and if you have significant possessions, go out and write your will!!!

Here are the basics of inheritance, according to Spanish Law:

Everyone's estate is divided into three parts. First is the "Legitima" which is the part that must go to the party determined by law. For the sake of this post, I'll call it the Legitimate third. I'll talk a little bit later about how the law determines who this third goes to. The second third is the "Mejora", which can be used to improve the inheritance of the inheritors from the Legitimate third. I'll call it the Improving third. The last part is "Libre Disposicion", or the Free Third. This part can be destined to anyone the owner wants.

At this point, notice that the owner of property, whether they have a will or not, has absolutely no control over one third of their property, limited control of one third, and complete control over the last third.

So what does that really mean? And who gets the Legitimate third?
First scenario: One spouse dies, leaving the other spouse and some children.
If the couple didn't have a will, everything is divided equally between the children. Although the spouse is left with no part of the inheritance of his or her spouse, they do have complete use over one third of the inheritance (but do not own it).
If the couple did have a will, it looks like this: One third of the estate goes by law in equal parts to the children, according to the Legitimate third. The dead person could have chosen to use the Improvement third to either give one child more of the inheritance or divide it equally between the children. And the Free third could be given to the spouse. In any case, the spouse has the use of the Improvement third, but does not own it.

Second scenario: One spouse dies, leaving the other spouse, no children and parents.
If the couple didn't have a will, everything goes to the parents. The spouse has the use of half of the inheritance, but again, does not own it.
If the couple had a will, the Legitimate third goes to the parents! The other two thirds can be destined to anyone, but if left to parties other than the spouse, the surviving spouse has the use of half of the inheritance.

There are other scenarios with different regulations, but they are a little more what you would expect, so I won't post them. To say the least, I was shocked by what I learned. Call me very American, but this seems to be beyond belief. Imagine, you work all your life to buy a house, save your money, plan for retirement. And suddenly, if one spouse dies, their half no longer belongs to the couple, but the children, or parents, instead. It's actually impossible, and illegal, for a widow to sell a big, old house to move into a smaller place (or take a world cruise, who cares, it's her money!), without the agreement of her children, since they are now part owners of her house.

Incredible.

So, as soon as Jose and I buy a house we're going to the notary and writing out our will, in order to protect ourselves the most we can from our unborn children!

Missing the baby!

As I've said before, I've now been living in Spain for more than three years. Before coming here, I was in Hungary for a year. So that makes more than four years living outside the US.

I moved to Europe because I wanted to live here. I knew, when I left, that it would mean missing out on a lot of things. Some things are easy to say goodbye to. I don't miss the "convenience", the over-consumption, the compulsive spending or any of the negative parts of the society. I do miss the food, the weather, the beauty of where I'm from, and the more diverse culture. And of course I miss my family. I miss them a lot, especially when I'm not there for a birthday party, holiday or simple family meal. And it's hard to miss these things. But whatever I'm missing, I find consolation in the fact that I'm doing what I really want to do and I'm with the person I love. And missing them is bearable.

Until, that is, the baby. My sister had a baby this past summer. The first picture is of Julianna when she was about a month old, the last time I saw her. My sister and I are not particularly close, but that is only because we have almost nothing in common. But then she had the baby. And now I'm in Spain and I haven't seen the baby in two months! Here's what she looks like now:


My mom says she is getting two teeth already, smiles a lot and is drooling everywhere. And I miss the baby! I want to be there, playing with the baby and seeing her grow up and enjoying every bit of it. And it makes me very sad to know that the next time I see her, she will be walking!
It's the first time I have seriously wanted to be there more than here, and all for a baby! Who would have thought it would turn out like that?

Crisis!!

All across Spain images like these are common place. Buildings, half way done, empty of workers and movement.
This shell of a building is across the street from my apartment and it's been like this for months. I don't remember the last time I saw something being done, but I think it was in July.
The scary part, though, is that perhaps someone has already paid for one of these apartments and is waiting to move in. It's a story that is often on the news these days. One person sells his apartment in order to buy another. Because of the high demand, he must put a down payment on the apartment a year before they even start constructing it, and then pay the constructors every month until it's finished (usually about four years). For years, this high risk situation has been happening so frequently that it seems normal. Until now, when the money's gone and the work stopped.
That the real estate market would bust in Spain was absolutely obvious, even to me! I only had to take a look around at the absurd prices for apartments and houses. There's an excellent article about Spain's economy in The Economist this month. Forecasts and analysts everywhere are painting a very gloomy picture for the next couple of years as the world digs itself out of the mess it's created. I, for one, haven't noted "the crisis" yet, and am hoping that it helps me buy a house (for a somewhat fairer price!). It's anyone's guess where it will take the average Spanish person or immigrant.

Stuck in the Middle

Much more often than you would think necessary, I am asked to explain The U.S. or Spain. By explain I mean, to the Spaniards I tell them that we don't have Nationalized Health Care or Retirement because Americans are very independent people, not trusting the government to use their money wisely or efficiently, and want to be in control of what they've worked for and saved. To the Americans, I have to explain the Spaniards see Health Care as a basic human right and the government as an institution whose sole purpose is to provide them their basic needs.

Living between Spain and the US, it is easy to observe both systems (usually through the complaints of my father and father-in-law). And I must say that there are great parts in each system. A free doctor. Lower taxes. Incredibly cheap universities. But there are also terrible parts to each. Completely normal, that a system is not perfect. But what drives me crazy, every single time, is that I have yet to meet a person who, upon asking for and hearing the explanation, has not looked at me with a complicit gleam in their eye and expected me to fully support the system that they are used to. It doesn't matter if we're in Spain or the US, people seem unable to contemplate the merits of a different society. And that makes me want to stop explaining.

All Saints Day, no matter what your politics are

It's All Saints Day in Toledo, Spain. My husband and I took a walk to the cemetery, as that's where all the people are and we like it even on its unpopular days. Our first wanderings took us to Patio 42, which is now nearly the middle of the cemetery but used to be the very end. It's an eerie place with no visitors, even when the rest of the place was crawling with old people, young people, real and plastic flowers. And even though it looks very different from the rest of the cemetery of Toledo, its function is quite the same. The only difference is the principle. Patio 42 is a mass grave for the Republicans, or left-wing Spaniards, who died during the Civil War. The only identification of its existence and its dead is this single, simple cross in the bottom corner. The location and what it holds is common knowledge, but nonetheless, spread by word of mouth. Of all the grandeur and piety of Toledo and her cemetery, none is considered for this invisble space.

A hot spot for Spain, and certainly something not discussed away from home and perhaps not within it either, is the recent actions of Judge Garzon, a highly respected legal figures from the more disruptive times of ETA. Earlier this year he announced his intentions of investigating the "disappearances" after the beginning of the Civil War, in 1936. He began his work in October.

What is controversial about his new task is that since 1936 Franco has been almost untouchable. Even after the death of the dictator in 1975 and the extreme transition Spain went through (from communism to conservative governing, from making divorce legal in 1981 to legalizing gay marriages in 2004), the terrors of the Franco regime and the leaders who are still alive have remained untouched. Suprisingly, there is still much support for Franco and hushed voices when critisizing. His name is still proudly displayed on squares and statues across the country. There are still people emotionally broken from people they lost more than 70 years ago, without knowing how or where, but always knowing why and who (generally speaking).
And into this atmosphere Garzon begins his investigation. There are many people who don't want to continue down this road, which began with the first bodies discovered in mass graves along country roads in the 90s. And it's true that both sides, during the civil war, committed inhuman acts against their fellow man. But as Giles Tremlett says in his excellent book, _The Ghosts of Spain_, "What they demand is the truth, and the right to bury the dead with decency -- two rights that were accorded to te victims of the winning side long ago."

Too illustrate that a bit further, here are two final pictures, taken today. The left one, from that small cross in Patio 42. The right one, from a mausoleum at the front of the cemetery.















On the left "Fallen in the War". On the right, "Fallen in the Crusade."