Category: Practical Matters

How to Mail Your Postcards in Spain.

7/7/2017

You bought postcards in the airport of Beautiful Barcelona, Marvelous Madrid, or wherever your plane landed. You bought more postcards at cute little street vendor booths. You want to send them back home to make your friends jealous of your totally awesome vacation.

But where do you buy stamps? Where is a Post Office box or the Post Office? Fear not, the answers are here.

Buy stamps in a cigarette store?
You'll see “Tabac” shops everywhere. Along with tobacco products they also sell—guess what? Stamps! You ask for sellos (say-ohs). Make sure you get internacional (inter-na-see-onal). Or say Unidos Estados (oo-nee-dose es-tah-dose). That's the United States. Right now a stamp costs about 1.30 Euros for either a postcard or letter. Oh, and bring Euros. U.S. dollars aren't accepted.

You're ready. You wrote a glowing description of your travels on the back of the postcard. You want to pop it into a mailbox and head out for more shopping. You don't see anything that resembles the U.S. Postal Service drop-off boxes in their official red, white and blue color scheme. Or anything with that general rectangular shape that has a hinged door to indicate where your postcard should go.

Postal drop boxes in Spain are yellow. They are cylindrical.
They have “Correos” painted on them. They look like this photo. You might have to hunt just a little bit, but you'll find the smallish lid that lifts up so you can send your postcard to your BFF. Hint: See those three things that look like flaps? It's one of those.

You might need to pay a visit to the Post Office. Look for "Correos." It's hard to miss the bright yellow sign. You can purchase stamps, envelopes with international postage printed on them, packing material, and such.

There's another very good reason to know where the Post Offices are located. Should you need to purchase something from amazon.es (the Spanish Amazon site) during your travels, you can have it shipped to the Post Office of your choice. Be sure to bring your passport when you go to retrieve it, because if you don't, they won't release the package to you.

Now it's time to finish writing those gorgeous postcards and send them to everyone on your list!

It's the Little Things That Matter. Like Flushing.

7/7/2017

Okay, so you've been smitten by the photos and my blog about Barcelona and La Sagrada Familia. (And you haven't even seen my pictures of Valencia yet!) You decided that Spain will be your next destination vacation. Awesome! There are a few “little” things that you'll find very handy to know when you get there.

How To Flush a Toilet.
Imagine yourself in the Barcelona airport. You just walked off the plane and need to use the restroom. You don't know how to read the sign unless you speak Spanish, but you do recognize the little man and woman icons. You get in the queue. Your turn comes, you're finished in the stall, and you look for the flush handle. It's not there! A line of women is standing outside the door restlessly waiting for their turn. You panic.

No, wait, you don't panic because I'm going to show you pictures of the unusual (for us Americans) flushing apparatus that can be found in Europe. So you can flush with confidence and stride proudly out the stall door.

The commode lid button.
This one's easy to guess. It's shiny, it's a button, and there are no other options. What are the big and little crescent shapes? The little one is for a little flush of water. You press both buttons at the same time for a big flush. And that brush right next to the stool? You're expected to use it when needed.

Photo credit Soak.com

The wall plate.
This one's not intuitive. It looks more like a dispenser of some sort. This is a round button design. It also comes in a square plate option to make things a little more confusing. Once again, the smaller plate is for a small flush and the large plate is for a big flush. This same design can sometimes be found on the commode lid.

The wall button.
You're getting the hang of this now! It's a regular old button you push. Note handy toilet brush that's hygienically mounted off the floor.

Yet another variation of "guess what happens when you push here" button.
This design is tasteful, sleek and modern. Note polished nickel accents around buttons. And there's that pesky toilet brush again.

Success! You have mastered the complexities of European plumbing before you even set foot on the continent!

Personal Care Culture Shock

5/23/2017

“Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore,” said Dorothy to her terrier in The Wizard of Oz.

I'm in Spain. My Spanish language skills are woefully inadequate. As I fumble around creating a new life in L'Eliana, I have goofy experiences.

Personal Care Products
I hoped to find American cosmetics and body care products in Spain. No such luck. No Burt's Bees lotions or lip gloss. No Dr. Bronner's soap. No brand names that I recognized. So far I hadn't found any non-toxic products, but my search continues.

The stores didn't carry my favorite products; I had to start from scratch. Reading cosmetic package labels and translating them with my phone app was hilarious.

My translator app didn't know what Nispero meant. It's a "loquat," which is a fruit that originated in China.

I ran out of body wash and I'm rather particular about what I use. I don't care for heavily-scented products. I'm sure the sales clerk in the store thought I was completely crazy as I lifted the caps and sniffed every bottle of body wash on the shelves. There was too much scent and too many unpleasant chemicals in the formulas.

Switch to Plan B: buy a bar of soap. That seemed simple enough. I selected a bar that looked relatively non-toxic, with pictures of pretty white flowers and olives (for olive oil, I guess) on the wrapper. Of course, I sniffed the package. It had a pleasant citrus scent. Score!

I happily carried the bar of soap back to my AirBnB apartment, unwrapped it, and placed near the bathroom sink. But wait! What was that scent? Not citrus. It took me several minutes to figure it out. The soap smelled like CHERRY KOOLAID! Gaaaawww!

Body Butter
In this dry Spanish climate, I needed heavy-duty body lotion. The local Mercado (a market much like larger grocery stores in the U.S.) had a good selection. Once again, I opened every container and took a sniff. After all, I needed to be able to enjoy the scent with lotion all over me.

The only problem was, they all smelled the same. They had kind of a fishy overtone. That made no sense at all. Then I ambled around to the other side of the aisle and saw, to my surprise, the fresh fish counter! Aaarrrgghhh!

It was difficult enough to find a scent I liked. Even more challenging when the products were near the seafood aisle!

Grocery Store Gaffes
It was challenging for me to communicate in Spanish while paying for my groceries at the check-out counter. Truthfully, my conversations were rather limited. I could usually remember “Hola” (hello), “Buenos Dias” (good morning), and “Gracias” (thank-you). Although once, under pressure, I said “Buenos Dias” when I should have said “Adios” (good-bye). Okay, so I choked.

Giving the correct amount of money was simple enough. I held out my hand and let the cashier pick the right coins. Easy-peasy!

I needed fruit and vegetables. I carried my handbasket to the produce aisle in the Mercado and made my selections. I noticed other people putting their produce in individual plastic bags, so I followed suit, except that I used just one bag to conserve resources.

At the check-out counter the cashier rattled off something in Spanish that I, of course, couldn't understand. At some point it dawned on me that I hadn't weighed the food or applied UPC labels, since our produce in the U.S. has little UPC labels on each vegetable and piece of fruit.

By the time I realized what I should have done, the cashier had already hustled back to the produce aisle and weighed the apple, orange, carrot, green pepper, and zucchini. She returned to the check-out counter with my produce bag plastered with five UPC labels. It took her three tries to properly scan all the labels because the scanner had a hard time reading them individually. They were too close together.

After all was said and done, and I'd wasted at least ten minutes of the cashier's time, I learned my new word of the day. "Lo siento." I'm sorry.

Manzana is "apple." Note to self: always remember to weigh produce and apply the UPC code.

The next time I went to the grocery store, I was prepared. Not only did I bring my reusable shopping bag, but I knew how to weigh and label produce. I was on my game. I confidently selected apples and oranges, put them in individual bags, weighed them, and applied the UPC labels.

I saw several people looking at me in an odd way. What? Wasn't I doing this properly? After careful observation, I noticed other shoppers were wearing a plastic glove on the hand they used to touch the produce. I made another grocery store gaffe! Lesson learned. Now I know where to find the plastic gloves. And I kept mine to reuse later and conserve resources.

$Picture$

That's my hand in a plastic glove. It's a weird-looking photograph in which my hand looks like an alien appendage.

Wishy Washy
Washing clothes when on the road can be a big challenge. It's difficult to find a self-service laundromat. In Spain, many homes have washing machines but do not have tumble driers. Clothes are dried on a clothes line or drying rack, which is a bit tricky on rainy days. In my case, simply purchasing laundry detergent became a daunting task that even my trusty phone translator app wasn't quite up to.

I located the aisle at the Mercado that had the best shot at having washing detergent of some sort. I attempted to read the labels. I made guesses based on the size of containers and the little pictures on them. I queried my translator app. I stood there for over an hour attempting to choose the right product to get my clothes clean.

Was it laundry detergent? Did it contain scary-looking chemicals? Was the scent too strong? (Yes, I sniffed the bottles.) Was it stain remover? Bleach substitute? Fabric softener? Dishwasher detergent? One package looked like cat food.

When queried, my translator app was marginally useful, when it could have saved me from tremendous aggravation and self-doubt. The first words I needed translated were sin lejia which meant “without bleach.” So far, so good.

The next word was quitamanchas. Translator responded “quitamanchas.” Not helpful at all. That could have been key, because it meant stain remover.

I didn't know that until I got home and asked my real computer what the word meant. Two more successes: lavadora was “washing machine” and manchas was “stains.” Now I was getting somewhere. But then another unanswered question: rozaduras. Translator responded “rozaduras.” What?

Tejidos was “fabrics,” cuellos was “necks,” punos was “cuffs.” We were getting somewhere now. That bottle was stain remover. But then blanqueante came back as “teeth whitening systems.” I don't think so.

Eventually I found bottles with pictures of washing machines and shirts. I was pretty sure I'd found the right products. The considerations at that point were whether to buy liquid or powder, what size of container, and if it contained environmentally un-friendly ingredients.

I settled on an orange box with a picture of what appeared to be Castille soap squashed into convenient little tablets. There was a picture of a happy tree, sunshine and a rainbow next to the words activos biodegradables. Even I could understand “biodegradables.” The front of the carton gave me joy: Detergente Lavadora Tabletas. “Washing machine detergent tablets.”

SUCCESS! I'm not back in Kansas, but at least I'll have clean clothes.

How to Mail Your Postcards in Spain.

It's the Little Things That Matter. Like Flushing.

Personal Care Culture Shock

Don't miss a thing!
Pop your email in the box below and I'll let you know once a month about my fun new posts.

Paula McDermid

Categories

How to Mail Your Postcards in Spain.

It's the Little Things That Matter. Like Flushing.

Personal Care Culture Shock

Don't miss a thing! Pop your email in the box below and I'll let you know once a month about my fun new posts.

Paula McDermid

Categories

Don't miss a thing!
Pop your email in the box below and I'll let you know once a month about my fun new posts.