I’ve just arrived in Zaragoza, Spain for the Innovate conference. It’s 2:30 in the morning, Spain time, and I’m a mess.
Why? It all started when I realized my housekeeper had washed my passport (my fault, not hers) just a few days before I was to leave. I spent a large part of the week getting a replacement and in doing so pissed off a bunch of people because I had to reschedule or cancel meetings.
Then, we rolled out the new TechCrunch look on Thursday night, so I didn’t sleep much (I was up until 5 am taking my beating in the comments like a man). On Friday, after little sleep, I rushed to Tiecon to moderate a panel on Web 2.0 that ended at 4 pm. My flight to London was at 7 pm and I hadn’t packed yet, so I rushed home, packed and got to the airport just in time for the flight.
Other than getting no sleep on the flight because I’m 6’4 and the flight attendants bang my knees every time they come by with the trolley (and then give me a dirty look), everything went smoothly in London and on the flight to Madrid. But then things fell apart. Mostly because I had gone two full days without sleeping, and I was pissy about all of the damn “too green” comments about TechCrunch.
People here in Spain don’t speak Spanish. Or at least the Spanish that I learned in high school from my Mexican Spanish teacher. I don’t understand what they’re saying, and they certainly don’t understand me. This lisp thing, whatever the reason for it, just sounds wrong to me. Even getting a taxi to the train station from the Madrid airport was impossible.
And the conference, as I mentioned, is in Zaragoza, far from Madrid. I knew I had to buy a train ticket. But I wrote the name down wrong. Instead of Zaragoza, I wrote Zarazoga. So I needed to say (with a lisp) Thhereathhoga, but I was saying Zaragoza. They literally couldn’t understand me. And when they finally did, they notified me that the train was sold out.
I’ve never heard of a train selling out. You go to the train station, you buy a ticket, you get on the train. They don’t sell out.
I went to the informatioin booth to find out what hotel I should stay in, and try to book a train ticket for tomorrow. They didn’t speak English, and my Lating American Spanish got me nowhere.
Then I realized I could rent a car…I mean, how big is Spain anyway? If all of Europe is the size of the US (it is, economy wise, but close enough), then Spain must be about the size of the bay area, right? I could rent a car and probably beat the train there.
I got a car (this was actually pretty easy), got a map and headed off just as the sun set. I drove West towards Portugal becasue it was dark and I misread highways A1 and A2 on the map (don’t do this). Zarazoga is actually East. That killed an hour. When I finally found the right way, it was very dark and very late and the only music on the radio was really bad Euro club music (no Gypsy Kings). So I pulled out my iPod and cranked up Eminem because I was feeling angry and sorry for myself. I had the iPod in one hand and a Red Bull in another hand and the steering wheel in there someplace. People here drive really fast, I noticed right about then, and pass aggresively on either side of you (just like the US). But this car has power steering and my car at home doesn’t and I oversteered trying to move away from the rushing lights and nearly killed myself.
And by the way, Spain is significantly bigger than the bay area.
But I finally arrived in Zaragoza at about 1 am after a very long drive across a significant part of this country. I had the hotel address written down, but the streets here aren’t marked. They just aren’t. I dare anyone to prove otherwise. Being who I am, I refused to stop and ask for directions in my broken Spanish. I just drove around the city for an hour, street by street, until I found the hotel.
Everything is good now though. The hotel has excellent wifi access. I may not leave the room again until I have to leave. 
Update: Did someone link to this? The comments keep coming, and they’re getting a big aggressive.
I apologize for any offense, none was intended. I was mostly making fun of myself. I’ve lived in Europe three different times and have visited Spain on multiple occasions. I enjoyed my time there and the people, as always, are very friendly.
Mike, You just described half the reasons why I do not leave home, unless I am ready for an adventure!
Ah, adventures in Spain. When I was a student a small group of us flew to a conference in Barcelona. Arrivig at Madrid airport we found all flights canceled, they had an airplane accident in Barcelona. We ended up renting cars and driving 600km all the way to Montserrat, some of the road being tiny mountain road. The “hotel” was a monastery – unheated cells. Ahh, and we had to bribe som customes officers to release our wine and other party supplies that they were about to confiscate …..
Yep, it’s Barthelona, not Barcelona. There’s a reason why the Spanish say they don’t speak the language in Mexico.
Surely there must be a young Spanish TC reader amongst those 53,951 who can act as tourguide for a handful of pesos?
Hey Mike, it really isn’t that bad, other than the language issue. I remember when I arrived in the US like 17 years ago, I couldn’t get one thing done with my high school English. I have so many anecdotes I could write a book.
BTW, I finally couldn’t make it to Zaragoza myself (and I’m kinda pissed about that but there’s nothing I could do, and we were one of the selected companies to present), but perhaps next time you take on the offer of joining me for the trip
It would’ve been a walk in the park…
Paul, the currency in Spain is the Euro, not the peso.
Wow. Did you know that Spain is 194,885 sq. mi. per Rand McNally World Atlas?
Dude, what a trip! I was not even expecting that when I saw you at TiECon after my own panel, and told you you were in trouble because you had not packed.
Relax, enjoy the city now that you are there, and drink a couple of bottles of Blecua – it is a great red wine that is made over there. Just as Mike Sigal.
Mike this was great – you haven’t written in this natural voice for too long and I miss it
wish I could have tagged along, sounds like fun!
What a great post. It reminds me of flying to England with all my stuff the year I was studying there. I got in early, rented a car and headed off to the university. But I had been up all night and forgot about the wacky wrong side of the road business and ended up driving head on into traffic. Very ugly. Have fun in Spain.
Hahahaha! I shouldn’t laugh, but I can’t help picturing a drunk-on-Red Bull Michael with a map in one hand speeding down a Spanish road in the middle of the night. You almost killed yourself AND the most popular Web 2.0 blog all in one night. Glad you made it, I’m waiting for your reply on the latest post.
very nice post.
it’s always worst when you arrive late without a booking for transport or a hotel, don’t know the city and preferrably when you eave the airport it starts to rain heavily. oh yeah. and you have heavy luggage. but the next day is always better
rock on…
I guess mike you are turning to mike 2.0
I’ve just figured it out now: Mike wanted to rent a car anyway, so he can drive over to Fred to discuss fixing TechCrunch… Mike, just remember, it’s in the other direction
Hey Michael see you on Tuesday
hope I still have an hotel
Mike> great you finally made it. I’ll buy you a beer this monday so that you recover
Awesome post — I’m traveling for seven weeks this summer, including Spain, and I need to gear up for shit like this!
Jeff Jarvis would say: Spain Hell…I’m glad your trip was successful.
A post from Crunchnotes’ past! Great story. Very natural…very funny. Keep ‘em coming.
Dont worry Michael, now you have arrived, and you will start to enjoy the wine, the food, the people, etc. I am sure you will have a wonderfull time in Spain.
Dont forget to try the “tapas” you will have plenty of them in Zaragoza!
BTW: We are many who read your blog from Spain!!
How do you think I feel – I live here and they speak at least 4 differernt languages depending on where you are. See ya at the event. And BTW – Spain is much bigger than you think!
A combination of Michelin and GoogleMaps is sorting out my navigation needs…
But i’ll let you know if they work.
Wow Mike… what a story… I am glad to hear that you are finally settled.
Great story Mike – very funny!
When you ever want to come to Germany – we speak english and our streets are market perfectly. But we have other problems too, incl. radio stations with bad music and gasoline prices that spinn your head
mike,
your right spanish here is different than mexican and trains do sell out if you arrive on a three day weekend in madrid, lots of people traveling…kool you had the ipod, music can be a bummer at night…the streets are marked but they are marked on the actual corner of the building and difficult to see at night…good to hear the hotel had wifi…if you are still in spain dont hang out at the hotel and go out to get some tapas, youll forget all your sorrows and enjoy the good food…next time your in madrid we’ll have to take you out…
haha! Very funny! Welcome to Europe…
Arguably the lisp thing is the correct Spanish..anyway Spain is about 200k square miles. All of California is about 163k (found at http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/area.shtml)
…so a bit larger than the bay area…
I thank RedBull you are still alive and hope to see you soon!
Hey Mike,
welcome to Europe – at least you didn’t lose your sense of humour en route!
By the way, I related this story to Pilar (my Spanish wife) – her response was “we have no problem understanding Mexican Spanish in Spain – it must have been Mike’s Mexican Spanish!”
You reinforce the typical American stereotype. Big thumbs down from the rest of your countrymen trying to break that image.
yeah, thanks VCBg, that’s great.
Be sure to send an email next time you’re coming over, I’ll get you set up in no time…
And yes, trains do sell out, days in advance, in fact: it was a long week-end in Madrid, everyone runs out of the city. Just thank the gods that you didn’t get here before the 1st and 2nd of may long week-end, you probably wouldn’t have been able to get a car, either…
And I won’t even get into the ‘spanish’ thing. Ours is the real one, and that’s that
Yes Jope, stay at your home, don´t come to the Spanish “thing”, be in your real one, you will miss: Mc Shit, fat people, guns in the supermarkets, the goverment hanging people, don´t smoke, don´t, drink, don´t fuck, don´t.. don´t..
Frustration, be rich, be slim, be young, be famous, be more rich, more more rich, don´t… sandwich, job, sandiwich, prozac, sadwich,job..
Peso in Europe? What is happening with the American Public School sistem? The goverment spend everything in bombs?
Horrible story, Mike. I’ve had similarly awful things happen to me, so I know the long, dark teatime of the soul that sets in around 1am as you’re driving lost in a foreign country.
The preceding said, I loved the writing. If/when this Web 2.0 things gets boring you should do more writing about things you feel passionate about. There is a genuine and compelling voice that comes straight off the page.
P.
I think you just scripted the sequel to Planes Trains and Automobiles. You should have been tipped off that you were really in trouble when it was easy to rent the car. I hope you were so mad during the conference that you just argued belligerently with everybody, always closing with “Hey, who just drove here from Madrid in the middle of the night, me or you?!” Great writing.
Well, my English is not very good (so, I apologize).
One of the posts talks about the spanish currency (“pesos”). Often people outside Europe thinks Spain is is located between Mexico and Argentine (so theirs must be our currency).Concerning language, I learned English at school and then used to listen (still do) broadcasts from Rota Airbase (US military), not far from home. As you may guess, it’s hard to me now to understand a BBC “brrroadddcastttt”. Indeed, it’s hard to me understand what people talk in the Norht of Spain (I’am andalusian). So dont’n worry and try one of the satellite programs in spanish (there are international channels by satellite).
Anyway, in this part of my country (I mean Andalusia) people always do their best to understand “outsiders” . The reason must be to have been invaded so may times: phoenitians, greeks, romans, goths, muslims and Mcdonald’s
Greetings!!
you americans are really funny
spain is one of the easiest european countries to get by.. is that the reason why you get it all wrong down at the gulf?
sorry for the stereotypes
@jeremy: it’s NOT “barthelona” – or just as much as it’s “nueva york”. they speak catalan in barcelona.
“Mexican Spanish teacher” hahaha, Maybe you must change your teacher and learn spanish of spain..
))))
This post was very fun, you make me laugh.
Every region in Spain has its own accent, being Madrid’s one of the most regular and Zaragoza’s one of the most characteristic as well as hard to understand
. Even harder if you are used to Mexican Spanish.
In Catalonia, the region whose capital city is Barcelona, we speak both Spanish and Catalan. In Spanish “Barcelona” is pronounced Barthelona, whereas in Catalan it is said Barcelona, more or less like you pronounce it.
Lo bonito de los USA es que hasta un subnormal como este puede triunfar.
hahahahhaah! men i wil traslate your post, to show this cowboys a big true.
“The nicest thing of U.S is that even a retard like Mike can triumph”
You should try to show the address wrote in a paper next time you have this kind of problems. It’s that I do with Icelandic addresses… really difficult pronunciation.
Hehehe, you should have visited the BBC webpage about speaking “real” spanish:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/cool/argument_flash.shtml
I hope it helps you with the rest of your trip.
XD, is too much harder drive from Madrid to Barcelona than drive from Madrid to Zaragoza, the north of spain is harder to drive than the south. I know because, I live in spain and I travel to lot of places in Spain.
And we got the same problem with English we learn it at school but when we talk to a English Native or in UK, we can´t know what he is saying because they talk too quick. And spanish from Mexico are different in pronunciation that Spanish of Spain, similar but different.
The problem with Barcelona is that they speak Catalan, a different language. But this only happens in Cataluña. In the rest of Spain, we speak Spanish.
helge:
Yes, it is “barthelona” in castilian spanish, and in Barcelona both languages are of common usage. In catalan, Zaragoza (“Tharagotha”) is Saragossa
Next time use maps.google.es to find the way to your hotel :-p
That`s really fun to read the view you have about Spain, but at last you must watch carefully, in spain there are so many languages and dialects more than I can understand in any case young people are the solution to any problem, they probably understand English.
Finally I want to say that people looks for differences but it´s easy to see that spanish it´s spanish in any place of the world
Un saludo y felicidades por la conferencia y por cierto nosotros tampoco entendemos muy bien a los americanos, solemos aprender ingles britanico, yo no hablo bien ninguno de los dos xD y pido disculpas por ello
I have laugh a lot reading this post, thank you!
sign: spanish guy
Ey, just remember you can check and buy train tickets in RENFE website, it´s a lot easier than suffer the last time disapointments. Have fun in Zaragoza and, if you can, taste the traditional food and avoid the tourist tapas.
That was quite funny
Half of my family is from the States. I remember last summer one of my uncles came to Spain and he said that he was surprised that Spanish people didn’t look like Spanish people do in the movies. We couldn’t stop laughing.
It’s a common misconception to think that Spain is like Mexico. Most Latin-Americans are descendants from native American people (Maya’s, Inca’s, etc), not from actual people from Spain.
Also the Spanish some people in the States learn isn’t a very grammatically correct Spanish by Castilian language standards. We call the Mexican language “Hispanic” because of all the differences. There’re a lot more differences between Castilian language and Hispanic.
As some people have pointed out even in Spain there are a lot of different variations depending on the regions and even different languages. In Cataluña (were Barcelona is) they speak catalán, in Galicia they speak galician and in the Basque Country they speak Vasco. All of those languages are different from each other and although those regions speak their own language, they also speak Castilian (what you call Spanish). It’s also funny that people think that Spain is small. It’s not huge, but it’s not small. I don’t think that a very small country could have ruled almost half of the world a looong looong time a go. If you really want to visit a small country… go to Andorra, it’s right beside were you were
Another misconception people in the US have is that Europe is the only place were there’s Disco music is common. Well… actually it’s almost the opposite: American is the only continent were people don’t usually listen to Disco music.
It’s also kind’a curious how very old disco songs are starting to get over there now, like “Haddaway – What is love” from 1993 (Jim Carrey’s SNL Roxbury anyone?), “Reel 2 Real – I like to move it” from 1994 (Madagascar movie) and “Newton – Streamline” from 1995 (Spontaneous Combustion Pepsi commercial). Those are really really old s ongs in term of disco music. Imagine if 2Pac’s “Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.” songs were just getting over here like some “new” things
VCBg’s comment was kind’a harsh, although I do agree with him in a softer way, but hey! I went to Scotland just some weeks ago and… I have to admit that there were a lot of things that caught me out of guard!
Hope that your next visit to another non-US country isn’t as bumpy as it was in Spain!
If I don’t speak Spanish you don’t speak English. Next time try decent Spanish classes.
You make me laugh out hard. And you need to travel more!
sorry for your bad luck!!! But the routes here are every good, especialy because they are free (and not as many of the routes in other parts of europe)… The train service its expensive and insuficient. The best way to go from madrid to zaragoza must be a airplane … but if you want to make it cheapper you had made the right decision (except for that A1 A2 thing
an for those who speak of barthelona, and pesos, tiny roads, spanis etc… ingnorance is not a bad thing, the bad thing is not knowning your ignorance… and i’am a very ignorant folk when we speak of USA… and yes people on spain speak a lot of languages, in my humble case french portuguese english and spanish
but normaly they have a minor english
you were luck that you didn’t to one of those places were people don’t speak spanish only euskera or gallego
Only one thing… in Zaragoza streets are marked. Woww! I´m sorry you didn’t find them, but they are out there!
And, of course, as someone said here before, mexican spanish is not spain spanish at all! (thought it’s true that here we speak a bit rude in Zaragoza) But I think it’s normal and you dont have to criticize.
Hey dude!
I’m from Barcelona and i’m still laughin whith this post. Truly mad but absolutely true.
Good luck for the next time (if there’s a next time)