Yes. That's urine too.

In Madrid, circumstances often prompt the asking of the following questions:

'What's that man/dog doing?'
'What's that smell?'
'What's that on my foot?'
'Is that rain?'

Urine is the answer. Pretty much all of the time. It's got to the point where you only have to hear the words 'what's that-' and you respond without thinking. Piss.

Monique and Jo can tell the difference between canine and human urine from anywhere within 4m of the original site of urination. I think that means you are officially a Madrileno.

Here the night time street cleaners (who I think are paid according to how much they shout outside Monique's window) are washing the streets down.

But, really, I think that could be piss too.

Oil.

This looks good to me now.
Iberia has changed me.

Cheese and olive oil. It's like the inbreeding of cholesterol. You know it is especially good when a fat crust halo hovers above your food. It's like a challenge. When the food you want to eat has a visible reminder of martyrdom.

But, O, to go down in such a blaze of olivey glory.

At a restaurant with Lucy we got our mandatory fake 'free' bread with our food. And I looked at it in disgust. How am I supposed to eat bread without olive oil? What the hell do you think you are doing waiter man? Are you mad? Are you loco? I may be foreign but I ain't no fool. Bring me my goddam oil! I know my rights.

Sadly though, on that particular day, I forgot the word for olive oil. Like water from olives. The water from olives! Please, please senor! Where is the water from olives? And while I did say all this in Spanish, (I learn languages at a hyperbolic rate because it's pretty likely that I am the smartest person in the world) the waiter looked at me like he'd never heard anyone ask for olive water before. When he figured it out he surlily (yes, that's a word) gushed olive oil over essentially everything we had. And I said, that's right. You pour that oil senor.

I'm now considering beginning ordering olive oil before food and drink. Don't want to get screwed over again. Time spent without olive oil is wasted time my friends.

Our boys!

Got nothing funny to say. There is nothing funny about the redemption of Diego. If I die, he gets it all. He's earned it.

Not a single goddam bar in this entire city showed the Australia-Croatia game. Bloody Brasil-Japon everywhere. Brasil-Japon. Brasil-Japon. God. I was even willing to go sit at one of those muchacho bars where the likelihood of me being mistaken for a prostitute (or similar) was high to bloody certain.

Instead I sat at this computer, alone, desperately trying to click on to any online radio station that would broadcast it to me. I clicked and I clicked and I clicked. And I cried. And then I got some pissweak FIFA 'live update' thing which made a crowd cheering noise everytime anyone scored a goal in any game. And I'd scream 'Who! Who??'

Then I called my football faithful parentals and they kindly placed the phone next to the radio so I could listen. The static to understandable commentary ratio was about 65:35 but, you know, beggars and choosers. Had the one working speaker (result of my persistent failure to remember to keep gripping things) uncomfortably close to my ear and a little mic to keep telling Dad, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can hear. Is Simunic still on the field? They should get him off. Get him off the field! My neighbours must be rather confused at the dog-whistle pitched squealing coming from my shoe box quarters.

Have considered appropriating one of my sister's spare sheets as some kind of patriotic banner from her balconey but I have no textas. Otherwise, all of Corderra Barrio de San Pablo would know Australian football has finally reached it's much delayed puberty.

Let's not talk about Brasil. Let's just say, lucky I know some Portuguese.

My god. The sales are here.

Sometimes I talk to clothes and accessories.

Not talk talk, but a little bit. Like, I'll walk past a pair of shoes or a dress and I'll say 'Hel-lo'. It's not intentional. It just comes out from somewhere. Usually this is in my head, but not always. Not enough.

I had placed myself under a shop moratorium from Monday until Friday when Lucy came. I planned to use her visit, and her possession of pounds, to shop through her. During my moratorium I did not go into a single shop. But I did catch myself gasping- actually out loud gasping- at a pair of shoes during this moratorium. And I talk-thought to these shoes 'I'll see you on Friday. I'm under a moratorium'.

Anyway, today I planned to go to Segovia. Honestly I got to the station at the right time and everything. Several queues, information personnel and wait-for-your-number-to-be-calleds later I was not in Segovia. I was still very much in Madrid and still very much ignorant as to why I could not get anyone to sell me a ticket to Segovia. And I thought, fine, Madrid is clearly conspiring against me. It does not want to lose me to a day trip. Fair enough, fair enough.

So I plugged in my sister's iPod and blasted some Wolfmother. Not my favourite band, but sometimes you need your music to take a bat to a thousand glass windows for you. I wanted everyone who could hear that clangy buzz to know that I was angry and yet mysteriously outwardly calm. And be a little afraid. Like a fighting monk - we look peaceful but just you watch yourself.

Then I wandered. Doing my best to ignore the fact that I had again failed to leave the city. And I came across this:

And suddenly the world was beautiful again.

I got a bit twitchy. I kept thinking I was behind all the other women. 'I don't know their stock. I don't know their stock!' I walked in to shop after shop totally disoriented. Half of the shops are multiple levels and the clothes are packed so tight on the racks you'd need forceps to extract a pair of jeans. I actually felt my hands twitching. I'd start walking in one direction and then turn, for no reason, to the opposite direction. Pause and then turn into a different direction again. And then I'd just have to leave. Flustered. But happy. The sales are here.

But my entire world is 85 litres plus hand luggage. I just cannot stuff that backpack anymore. And I'm alreading leaving my mu-mu with my sister when I leave Madrid. It seems that the ironic beauty of a mu-mu does not transcend even the smallest of cultural barriers. Why mu-mu? Why?

But I have found fashion Esperanto. The stripey shirt. I still like it. But I have started wanting to very, very slowly stick very long needles into the bodies of those who wear them.

Sorry this whole entry is on shopping. But, you know, I didn't get to Segovia. A girl's gotta console herself. And my only friend in this entire country is the red mark through a price tag.

My brief engagement.

My friend Lucy, who's living in London, arrived in Madrid at 9am on Friday to stay for a few days while Monique's in Portugal.

By around 2pm she decided she would make me her wife.

By around 2:06pm my name was replaced by 'Wifey'.

Spanish sun. Sangria. You know.

Lucy's once-in-a-lifetime, use-it-well-now-or-die-wondering working visa is an iceberg drifting south, melting in the cruelty of global warming. I laughed. I have a European Union passport but the innability to correctly pronounce my own surname in my supposed national language. People like me laugh a lot. I'd marry ya, I said, y'know if gay marriage was legal in the UK. It was siesta time.

Lucy said it is legal and perfect. We could have a wedding and we could both wear dresses and if anyone challenged our love we'd cry discrimination. I thought it may be slightly more difficult. Lucy said we could work it somehow. I'd just have to show up. Get Lauri to research it.

I started to wonder if you should invite your parents to your sham lesbian wedding.

This was taken during our betrothal. Look at us. Giddy with fake love. Rowing on a lake in a park which, prior to Lucy's arrival, I walked for 3 and a half hours without finding. My aversion to guide books has also extended to looking at maps (ever) and, for some inexplicable reason, reading street signs. I just think it's a dead giveaway that you're not local. Lucy read maps and endorsed the purchase of this significantly floppy hat - which I had forgotten I have wanted since I was 18. I think I would marry most people with those two traits.

Lucy left on Monday. As it turns out, alas, we cannot have a fraudulent marriage. No same sex couple can get married in Britain. It's called a civil partnership and in order for a civil partner of an EU citizen to get residency in the UK you have to prove you are financially co-dependent, are in a committed relationship of at least 2 years in length, can support yourself without the assistance of public funds and have documents to prove you are the two sole occupants of your home in Britain (including any dependants).

It's just like Romeo and Juliet.

So any one else planning on marrying me for a visa, my hands are tied. It has been investigated. Thoroughly. Sorry. Would if I could but, you know, discrimination and stuff.

The Cup of Life runneth over.

I can't explain why, but I love Australian football like my third born son Diego. He's a little bit slow. Pedro and Manuel have set the bar pretty high for him and he has issues. And a slight lazy eye sometimes. But still, his victories are my victories.

We watched the Australia Japan game in an Irish pub in Madrid. They sold Fosters and a fusion Irish-Spanish cuisine which is wrong in theory and, god, so much wronger in practice. There were 6 Irish boys, 2 Aussie guys, 4 Japanese, an American and 3 Queenslanders. They're different you know. Like that son that I sent away and never talk about because I'm embarassed by his Asperger's Syndrome and significant physical deformities.

(I suspect during the course of this blog I may become a prolific giver of births to sons.)

Anyway, as the game went on and I considered re-offering the Japanese Queensland and some parts of the Northern Territory (I'd like to visit Kakadu one day. That'd be kept under Australian control in my terms of proposal) in exchange for the victory I had to keep getting Monique to translate. God how I hate unbiased commentary. They hardly even talked about the supreme injustice of the Japanese goal. They even said that Australia was disoriented and had only a few really strong players. There not a single mention of the Australian spirit at all! Maybe the Spanish don't know, but the Australian spirit means that we want to win, a lot. I mean, doesn't the world know about the Australian Spirit?

The whole time all I could understand was 'Cop-a-feel, Cop-a-feeel!', 'Key-well!'. I like to think I understand soccer. There's like 3 rules or something. But rules a game do not make and I was crazy eager to get Mum's half time extremely over-priced half time call to Monique's mobile. I kept saying that we were too frantic to score but that was only because I had to say something to justify my intermittent squealing. Sometimes being a girl really undermines your credibility.


In this picture you can see me thinking: perhaps dissolving the Queensland parliament will allow for the movement of Peter Beattie into Canberra thus revitalising the federal Labor Party.

Obviously we won. You know that. And if you don't, I don't know why you are my friend and can you please stop reading my blog and leave me alone. And it was great. As the Japanese left I felt I had to console them. I said 'Bueno! Bueno!' because I thought 'Origato' might be patronising. I patted one on the back. They seemed to really appreciate it.

So next it is Brazil. It shall indeed be a challenge. For me. I shall challenge all of Madrid and their horrible, inexplicable, frenzied support for Brazil. I'm not a patriotic person. But I may just take the flag Mum made Monique pack just to counter all of the Brazil paraphenalia. Might even wear it as a bandana or some kind of cape. I'll be honest. I could get bashed. But I'll do it for Ostraya and our boys.

Cuenca. Say it. It's fun.

My conversation with my sister went something like this:

Monique: Let's go to Cuenca (pron. Kwen-ka). It has the best name in Spain.
Celina: Splendid. I am endlessly easy going and carefree. And what is there, dear sister?
M: Hanging houses. They hang from trees.
C: Hang from trees you say? That sounds implausible and troubles my powerful mind. How could such a thing be so?
M: No, it's true. My friend went there. They like hang from Willows or something.
C: I trust you implicitly.


And so we went to Cuenca, with visions of houses hanging from trees dancing like sugarplums in our heads. And this is what we found. 'Suspended from willows' apparently sounds very similar to 'slightly overhanging from cliff faces' to some people. Monique later remembered that noone actually told her that houses were suspended from large fauna. She had, in fact, made it up at some point and forgotten that it was all her own big fat lie. She had been rather nervous on the 3 hour bus ride there.

But all was not lost in Cuenca.

It was in fact rather amazing. The kind of place that you would imagine medieval Spanish cities were like if you ever imagine medieval Spanish cities. All tilted terraces and dark crumbling alleys and nonsensical flashes of colour. And not another English speaking tourist. Not a single American twang. Glory, glory.

And we just wandered and wandered. All day. Well, not all day. We collapsed into siesta at some point. Picked a nice lookout and lay down. People actually climbed around me to get a view. I probably looked really rude, maybe even American, - especially when a mother lifted her child up so he could stand at the small slither of seat left at my propped up feet - but I was taking a stand for siesta. Everyone should be lying down. We all had things to do, let's not get crazy.

After we got rested up we got all intrepid. Pine wood fences no barrier for us. Not the Ribeiro girls! Ha! We laugh at your attempts at public safety Spain! And we found ('found', like we discovered Tutankhamen's tomb) these old ruins. We didn't know what anything was - I have this great aversion here to reading any kind of information guide, it's not the Iberian way.

But it was one of those times when you just had to keep saying 'wow' and breathing out slowly. And laugh because all you can say is 'wow' and you sound like an idiot. And just try desperately to suck in everything through your pores the way you do when you know you'll never be in a place again.

And then swearing, but all with great, great reverence.

Most levels of hatred towards us are entirely understood. Welcome, even. Honestly, courted.

My living fifths.

Noone should ever mock what free accomodation they are offered. But sometimes, sometimes, that free accomodation is in a comically small studio. So small in fact that someone at the shorter end of the average height range for her age can touch opposite walls at the one time. And in such circumstances, and when their gorgeous sister is away in another country, a moderate level of public mockery is acceptable (and considerably safer).

So, like, other people and stuff.

I always thought publishing a blog would be a great exercise in arrogance. Like people really care what I'm doing every freaking day. But I do understand some of you, my dear friends, have rather 'low intensity' jobs and often look for diversion and I thought perhaps I'd give you another page to browse. 'Cause really, there's only so many times that www.ratemypoo.com is funny.

I did not, however, expect this blog to consist exclusively of photos of myself thus making it look very much like I am in love with myself.

So, other people.

This is Jo and Monique outside the theatre next door to Mon's apartment. Mum and Dad please do not freak out. The amount of graffiti in no way reflects the extremely high level of safety in which we all live here. It's just the local gangstas.

Monique and I on her balcony. Monique still loves surprising people with the fact that we're sisters. Especially with the fact that I am her older sister. She always slides it in to conversation in a way to maximise freak out. She reckons a lot of people probably don't believe we're biological sisters. I believe they think she's the adopted one. She has the air of someone not raised by their biological parents.

This is Jo. Here she is having a Calippo. I think that rather than having a Calippo, really you're best off just sucking on a tube of your own frozen saliva. Push Pops were phased out for a reason. Saliva is not a confectionery item.

Siempre siesta

The best thing in the world is siesta. Some people might say, 'hey, Celina, what about the love of fellow man? What about the the miracle of life?' And to those people I say, shut up, I'm sleeping. Because siesta is the best thing in the world.

I haven't even been here a week and already a life sans siesta frightens me.

It has it's own magnetic pull. I'll be walking, well intentioned, to a museum and then I pass some grass. And I'll think, god that grass looks comfortable. And then it's almost like I black out. It's like Iberian Celina momentarily and placidly possesses me and before I realise what I've done I am under the shade of some tree with my Spanish fan fluttering above me and my bag under my head. And in siesta I have come to discover nothing. It's amazing. I am almost totally without thought. And it's not that crappy empty mind that they try to get you sucked in to at yoga. It's an absolute contended stupor. A temporary, glorious lobotomy. Lobotomies get too much bad press.

You can have no guilt about spending all of your time doing nothing because it's cultural. It's like the law. And really, what else do I have to do? I am redundant. Monique keeps saying that "Madrid is a city you have to experience and Barcelona is a city you have to visit" (I may have to lobotomise her if she says this one more time). And while I haven't been to Barcelona I hear they don't do siesta and so I agree with her. Barcelona is dumb.


In this picture I am in the midst of a super siesta. It was a little bit radical. Usually siesta is from about 2 to 5 or something. Here it's about 9pm and I'm half an hour in to what became a 4 hour marathon siesta. I actually stayed lying on my sister's balcony while she and Jo watched TV, read and went to bed or left. Did not even go to the bathroom. Rather proud of myself. Some would call this being a big fat lazy blob, but I don't care. Because I'm always chilled out. Because of siesta.

THINGS I HAVE NOTICED SO FAR: Spanish people love naked.

Not technically 'naked', I admit. But naked is a much more fun word than 'public partial nudity'.

In Madrid, where there is grass, there is flesh. And there isn't much grass so the flesh to grass ratio is very high. This photo doesn't really capture it but it's as good as you're going to get without me being charged with invasion of privacy or something. Sorry about that. Having naked in the title probably got your hopes up.

My sister loves me.

There is no greater expression of sisterly love than attempting to light a twig-stick bonfire on your sibling's back as she tries to be all local and siesta.

My sister and Jo also have had great fun in teaching me incorrect Spanish. Essentially it involves me asking everyone if they want to have sex. Somewhat awkward for all involved, but I had to high-five them on that one.

I love shoes.

Very much.

My limited Spanish skills already includes the ability to ask for the other shoe to try on, to request size 37 and answer whether or not they fit well.

I love these shoes like my second born son, Manuel. Not quite as much as Pedro, but I'd still summon super-human strength to lift up a car should they somehow get trapped under one.

and oversized cocktails

This place was something of a temple to Anglo-American tack. But the 3E cocktails were as big as my head and so it has the discerning approval of Jo and Monique.

... I really do love shoes.

I request comments on these shoes because I am somewhat conflicted about them.

I do also like Spanish culture. I do. Especially when that culture involves shopping. Then, I really like Spanish culture.

I promise I'll see some Picassos tomorrow.

And so it begins...

Can't say I really have all that much to say honestly. It's just that I finally came up with a blog name - crap as it may be and as much as it cannot live up to the weeks of group deliberation - and I thought I should probably blog something or other.

Not that there's nothing to say in actual fact. I am rather surprised that I got here at all - really did not deserve to given that I bought my insurance at 4:45 the day before I left and was still packing at 11pm. ButI like to think that adds an interesting danger element to my daily life.

But I am still rather jet lagged thus I shall tell a story through pictures taken with my camera, who I have come to call Pedro because I love him like a first born son.

Everytime I am in a hotel that has even remotely fancy pants, I have an enduring and inexplicable urge to behave like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. I can't explain it. It just happens. And sometimes, I also photograph and publish my shame.




I suspect this was also related to my joy at being in the homeland of Junichiro Koizumi, arguably the hottest prime minister in the world. Although... that Helen Clark...

Anyways, got in to Madrid after another marathon flight which surprisingly was not made more bearable by Big Momma's House 2 or both the American and Japanese versions of the true life story of the rescue of dog-sleigh-dogs by Antartic scientists. Strange but true. I did, however, take some comfort in the fact that it looks as though all the check in staff in the world really, really want me to live. I get getting seated right near the exit door and I believe this is their way of saying "I want you to live the most Celina".

Anyways, I should go. My sister and her friend Jo were really excited about watching the Spanish version of Deal or No Deal - and really, when it comes down to it who isn't? - but it appears not to show on Sundays. So we are off in search of perhaps soy, but more realistically anything which is without ham. It could just leave me with water.

So thus my story in pictures is just me crapping on. What a surprise.

Hasta la vista.