Flowings of Your Everlasting Taffyman

same update as on the one for class, more when i get cheap internet



Conversations


Madrid

Welsh, student living in western England.

In Madrid late one night, a young drunken Welsh lad, saw that I was awake, typing away or drawing silly pictures on my computer one night, and waved me out of my solitude, and proceeded to chat up a storm, which led many near by to become disgruntled but we ventured forth in to the lands of laughter and good conversation, while all the while he stood facing my bunk bed tapping his fingers on my closed lap top and I sat semi nervous on the top bunk whilst Krystin kicked the mattress beneath me to warn me of the hour.

I’m not sure I even caught his name, and the next day I realized he probably wouldn’t have talked to me (and didn’t for the next two days) had he not been drunk, but we had a good time.

The conversation began, simply, “Where are you from?” I asked noticing his strange accent (not quite English and not Scottish, but hardly thick or distinctive at all…) and he said Wales, which I gave a weird look at him for (knowing that Welsh accents are usually quite distinct) he said, well I live in England, and I thought ok that might do it… and asked where, and he said “in between Manchester and Liverpool” which I then laughed at, because once again you got some distinctive accents there and I explained why I laughed and he said “yeah isn’t it weird, how like every town has a different accent?” and then we started talking about that, and how in Britain just about anyone can tell where a person is from if they are local (sometimes down to the neighborhood of a city) or about where they are from just because of the way they speak, (something I’m quite fond of guessing in secret, which is why his case posed a particular challenge being not quite anywhere specific)
Anyway are conversation began in ways of speaking, then switched to words in English, the similarities and differences (mainly focused on American vs Britain, leaving Canadians, Aussies and Kiwis for another day)
So we proceeded to discuss the fact that different cities/regions have different words for things, with him occasionally spitting out phrases I couldn’t understand, and me occasionally using my casual and very anti formal American slang (which I do without realizing it, sometimes even in papers, (( as a warning)))
And then we started discussing why he was able to understand me while I couldn’t understand him, which lead to a conversation very briefly on the media, and then flooded into politics, after I explained that I had recently heard that our vice president shot a man but would not go to jail…
Anyway we started comparing notes, on the US, Iraq and Afghanistan, the EU, but mostly on the British political system and its similarities and vast differences to the US system.
For instance I got to explain why we had Bush for a president despite losing the popular vote, and he got to explain the trend toward conservatism that Tony Blair has recently turned to (his theory was for reasons of legacy)
Our similarities side began to add up when comparing leaders, and we especially noted the trend towards the middle that both sides of our respective political parties (in each country) tend to start running to. That popular middle ground…. While both of us complained about wanting a left party that leaned left and a right party that leaned right, (Each of us agreeing that we would surely vote left, if we felt they were left enough)
I started wondering how to get this on track for a globalization spin, so I brought up Britain’s position in the EU, and he explained how more and more he was sick of the west’s view of globalization being something so horrible, the classic “they will take our jobs” line of the right along with the popular “its hurting people economically in other countries” line of the left, had left him with a feeling of frustration. He felt personally that the west could offer several jobs, and that that was capitalism so why not, and that the thing to do, (not that globalization is unstoppable) was to stop complaining and speed up the possible process of making it work for all. (I heard very similar things in India).
By making it work for all, he meant using systems of government to ensure equality and relative security to all, and felt that this was the EU’s intention, but that the countries who stall or do not work to make the changes help their citizens are merely hurting themselves… In this sense, the EU is the world on a smaller scale. That’s about it from what I remember.
Barcelona.
This would run a lot more into Krystin’s topic
But I went out with 2 guys one night to get tapas (some nice Spanish food, that I don’t eat cuz I’m a picky eater, and I don’t understand why every Spanish dish(except Paella) has jamon in it…?
Anyway, a night on the town in the heart of Barcelona eventually led us down the more seedy streets of the Gothic Quarter (as a side note Barcelona is one of my favorites cities in the world)
Anyway I was with an English guy from Manchester and an Aussie from Perth, and the guy from Manchester had seen a pub earlier in the day called “Manchester” and thus he had to take us, more for laughs then for anything else.
Our conversation was mainly centered on four things: traveling, food, comedy and very seldom politics.
The traveling bit we got out of the way early all of us fairly well traveled, which led to the conversation on American junk food, and Australian delicacies such as oh say anything but wombats and koalas apparently….
It was kind of funny as the English guy went down a list of anything he could think up, including snakes, crocs, roos and grubs, and the other guy checked off each item as if it were nothing and compared them to what he figured we would know, I think he said he hadn’t had British blood pudding (or whatever that stuff is called) which I had to agree didn’t sound too good.
From there we started going into comedy tv and comedians, which was a fairly interesting conversation I found hard to follow noting that I had only seen like three of the shows…but apparently British comedies are often exported to Australia where they tend to do quite well if they aren’t too dry…. The British guy explained why American comedy doesn’t do too well in Britain, mainly it is too blunt or too posh as in too fancy and wealthy, where as British comedies go after the middle class working family, or typical office situations which everyone can relate to. The Australian shows minus one (that one Kylie Minogue was on-she is now a pop singer) almost never do well in Britain because Brits are too classy for low brow beer humor, was the general opinion….
Anyway both of these guys were huge fans of American cartoons like Simpsons, south park and family guy, (all pushing the extreme) and would settle for things like cheers, friends and seinfeld which they found appealing (in that middle class sense)

As far as politics, it was funny, for 3 worldly guys semi well educated and such we preferred to get the old well how do you feel about bush question out of the way and then move away from politics. But I think when you look past that level, you got three guys complaining about paying too much to travel (knowing full well the fact they are able to puts us in like the top 5 % of the world’s wealthiest, and still we complain) We scoff and joke about the silliness of the Danish printing anti Muslim cartoons in their papers causing riots and the deaths of several protesters… meanwhile we tend to each proclaim the glory of the free press (me especially loving European papers and news because its less censored, but just as hyped)
And then we discuss foods and television, suggesting snacks and programs to download or buy the dvd of ignoring the fact that most of the world cant afford that food or even dream about that computer of tv or dvd player…..All night the english guy had been trying to use his debit card at the atms finding they had cut him off for the day (reached his daily limit) which he hadn’t and I started wondering about our dependency on global banking, electronic transactions, etc…
So the next time I was at an ATM I took out extra money, just in case the same thing happened to me.




Later in the hostel in Barcelona a group of 8 or so of us, Germans, Americans, Aussies, Canadians, and Argentineans spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out the name of a set crème dessert with vanilla beans and sometimes raspberry sauce…. That was funny with 8 minds looking through translation dictionaries hoping to stumble on the right word, hoping even more that if one of us did we could convince the others that that was indeed what we were looking for. Its not flan, its not tiramisu, its not pudding, its not…. Etc etc.. French German Spanish three types of English not one of us could figure out the word.
But a girl from Toronto made my day and said she drinks coca cola and Orange Juice together which is a drink im quite fond of, and that I have never been able to convince anyone is good. I think I fell in love.



Ignoring the Anthropology student/free lance writer I met last night who gave me a lecture on ethnography while I was typing a paper on Anth methods…

I had a conversation with a Turkish man tonight that I may go visit again..
We have become quite fond of Kebabs (apparently “Gyro” is trademarked or something)
So I was out for a late bite, and the guy asked me if I was Australian and I said “na, American” with a sigh like I tend to do… and he apologized saying that he cant tell English speakers apart by country. And I nodded figuring its probably like how I cant tell Germans from Austrians or Dutch even though they are apparently quite different, but assuming that he wasn’t from any of these countries I asked and he said he was from Turkey. Having been there I asked where and he said Istanbul (because everyone from Turkey says that) and I remarked how it was one of my favorite cities in the world, life, beauty, culture, history, millions of people, whats not to love? anyway I started wondering whether he was Turk or Kurd but he answered without me asking saying as a turk in Austria he felt like Istanbul was still the most beautiful place in the world. He said he had lived in Vienna for three years and that every night he still dreams of the city. What is it that is so great?
You are free in Istanbul he continued, true you have laws and rules and such but there is a natural chaos that comes from a city like that (his closest comparison was New York). He loved that in his city you could find anything, you had everything you needed, 4 religions on one block, not being a devoted Muslim by any means he noted the beauty of the mosque (while sipping beer). “In the mosque” he said “you have light from everywhere, unlike in the churches of Europe which as dark the domes allow for light and color, warmth, and carpets…”
He was a cook by trade but an artist by birth, by love, by nature and noted the colors of Istanbul or the mosques, etc. His colorful paintings decorate the room. (and being a bit of an artist myself) I asked him about them.
He started discussing the symbols and colors, the compliments etc, and then started talking about the Turkish (oriental) in Austria and how the Austrians don’t have color, or life, expression in their art, they don’t express from the heart, (according to Austrians who buy “oriental” art) and so the “oriental” art is extremely popular and it is easy to get a show, etc.
He also noted that his parents (who were still practicing Muslims, and didn’t let him sell pork in his store) were quite famous amongst other Turkish people in Vienna because they came very early and helped many of the people around here get legitimately in touch with the Austrian Gov’t for social services and visas and such. Pretty cool guy, makes a delicious sandwich.