Not So Deep Thoughts

Which you MUST accept. (If you happen to live in the US and have cable TV)

Mad Men - 10PM/9PM on AMC

Watch. Love.

And for sale on E-bay

Dad, wanna go halfsies on this? You know you wanna!

(Thanks to Nate for the heads up)

Well, made it safely back to Madrid.

Nathan and Edurne have been kind enough to offer me their spare bedroom for awhile, and I’m gonna spend the next few days getting my bearings straight again.

It’s good to be back and see all of these smiling faces welcoming me in.

I have a ton of pictures to upload from Belgium… But before I do that, I should get y’all up to date with some of the photos I took before I jetted off. Here’s a few.

Bar&Co - June 11

Me! Playing Guitar!

Rastro Walk

Rufus in Concert!

Looks like Nate!

Catch up with y’all soon.

I’m on vacation.

God… I feel guilty even writing that. It may not be of my own volition, but I’m definitely on vacation.

I still have trouble grasping that for the last 3 1/2 years, I’ve been living in countries that offer its citizens a minimum number of vacation days a year. In Spain - 30 calendar days. Belgium - 20 days, premium pay. Czech Republic - 4 weeks.

And others are even more unbelievable:

Denmark - 6 weeks, of which 5 days can be “sold” back to the employer - omsorgsdage (carer’s leave). (nothing rotten there!)
Austria - 5 weeks
Tunisia - 30 work days
India - 60 days… WTF!?!?!? 60 DAYS!?!?! When the hell do they work? Somebody must be fucking around with Wikipedia again.

I’m sure this isn’t as cut and dry as it seems, regardless, it IS a fact that the United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacation or holidays As a result, 1 in 4 U.S. workers do not receive any paid vacation or paid holidays.

I happen to by one of those ‘one in fours’ that they speak of who have never received paid leave from their work. I have taken time off from my job before, but they weren’t in any rush to actually PAY me to not work. And I’m used to it.

I’ve worked every summer that I can remember. During the rest of the year, any time off to take a break had to be carefully planned. You know the whole ‘double hit in the wallet’ deal with unpaid vacations - you’re spending money and not making any at the same time. I was told by my employers that if I didn’t want to suffer in the times when there was little work (AKA - forced unpaid vacation) that I could try to double up on class the month before and/or after.

I ask my students who are taking 4 weeks vacation this August what they’re going to do with there time off and most say that, apart from a week trip here or there, they’re just going to sit at home an relax. And, now that I’m doing the same (just unpaid), I find myself wondering how they do it!

I’m restless. I’m uneasy. I must have inherited my father’s great work ethic and some other distant relative’s inability to kick back. I feel like I should be doing something productive with my time. I need to chill out…

So, it’s my last weekend in Belgium. I’m going back to Madrid on Monday morning. And the rest of my time here will be spent just hanging around with Annelies and some friends of hers. A wedding tonight and some QT tomorrow night. There’s no work in sight and there ain’t nothing I can do about it until I get back to Madrid, so I might as well shut up and enjoy the ride.

We’ll see how much I complain about being restless when someone first pays me to take time away from work. That’ll be a nice day I imagine. I’ll invite all y’all to swing by and watch the clouds drift by until the stars come out and we can work together on counting ‘em.

-Peace

(Stolen off my brother Chris’ blog)
My brother has an interview in the Hartford Courant!

Michael Gladis looks the very picture of 1960 Rat Pack-era cool, in his short hair and thin tie, twirling a partner around on a dance floor before a jazz band in front of the heavy red curtains of the Friars Club of Beverly Hills.

It seems a long way - in time and place - from Farmington, where he started his life in theater by volunteering for productions at the town’s all-girls Miss Porter’s School, which he knew would need male actors.

Damn not having the internet!  I missed telling you guys to all watch my brother Michael on his new show Mad Men.  It was on LAST night on AMC.  Damnit.  Well, you can always download it off the internet and watch it dutifully next week.

I’ll be home on Monday.

-Peace

My father left a comment on my last entry recommending that I come ‘home.’ And it’s ‘home’ where I might find myself again soon.

Just not the way he thought it.

CT will always be my ‘Home’ home, but, even though I don’t have any place in Madrid to call my house, Madrid remains my current home. And it seems that with the complications and disappointments of this summer (both in Belgium and Madrid), I might have to go back and start building up my life again. Starting with the basics - apartment and job.

If I come back next week, I will have the generosity of my friends to get my through the end of July and maybe even ’til the beginning of September (at a very fair price.) But in the end, I’ll be looking for a new permanent residence. So if anyone knows about a place opening up in August or September that isn’t absurdly expensive, let me know.

As for work, I have my lovely job with Atribord awaiting me in September, but August is still anyone’s guess. Ideas?

I hope that this blog will go back to its usual happy-go-lucky self once the world gets back on even keel again. My love and hugs to everyone who has been there to help me up and sweep the dirt off my back.

(Still don’t have internet and the closest place is 25 min away on foot. Will be connected again as soon as possible.)

No worries y’all.

I don’t have much time to sum up all that’s happened this past week, but I’ll give it my best shot. (This’ll be doubly difficult because the keyboards in Belgium are all sorts of screwy)

Ok… Where to begin.

The women who I live with, who also owns the apartment, apparently needed the rent money more than she did my good company, so she wasn’t willing to help me out with my situation of being screwed out of my summer job and leaving the apartment for 2 months, and that maybe a reduced rent or a sublet would be an option.

So, the night before I leave Madrid, Nate and Edurne come by for a goodbye drink and within 2 hours of explaining the situation to them, they had offered and successfully moved me out of my apartment, storing my things in their spare room.  For this, I will love them forever.

The next morning, I came to Ghent, Belgium.

The next three days were spent moving Annelies out of her apartment to a lovely new one a few streets away.  (We won’t have internet/phone till the 19th, so updates will be few until then.) We didn’t have much time to get out and look for a job for me, but I felt confident that we would find something because all of her friends were convinced it would be no problem - there was plenty of official and unofficial work to be had here.

Which is true.

Just not for me.

Turns out that although Spain and Belgium are both members of the European Union, I have even more problems with my papers here than in Spain.  Long story short: AFTER I got offered a full time job, they figured out that I need to become official AGAIN - this time in Belgium.  I could have everything in order in Spain, but as a non-EU resident, I have to take care of this issue in every country I intend to work in, even inside the EU.  Whereas an Spanish citizen could walk into the country with rather few obstacles between him and a contract.

That’s for the official work, no? True.  And there’s a bunch of unofficial, under the table work, no? Also true.  So what’s the problem then?

Well, you need a contract to work unofficially. That’s what.

Many students who take restaurant/bar work, for example, sign a contract for 9 hours a week or some other absurdly low figure.  These hours are taxed and official.  In reality, these employees work up to 60 hours a week during the high tourist season and receive the rest of the pay under the table and untaxed.   But you MUST have the mini-9-hour-contract to take up the other 51 hours.

And no one thought this might be a problem.

So yeah… Looks like I’m on forced vacation.  Don’t have any clue what the next few weeks hold for me and it hurts my head to keep thinking about it.

One of these days I just want to be able to write a blog entry that fills you in like this: “Hey y’all. Everything is fine and dandy here.  Pretty much same as last week.  You know what they say, “No news is good news” (nudge nudge wink wink)

Ojalá.

I’m leaving in 12 hours on a jet plane…

And I’m packing everything I own into plastic bags, while Nathan and Edurne are rushing over with a car to take me to their house.

I’m moving out.

I’m in a pickle.

I live in a wonderful house in the middle of the city center. It’s big, comfortable and I have no reason to leave. Until now.

I will be gone for around 2 months and I have to pay for my room to remain empty during that time. Most people would sublet the room to avoid such a drain on the wallet. But I’m not allowed to.

And I can understand why. This is her house. She has lived her for decades, raised children here, married and widowed here. The idea of a strange person running around her own house for 2 months is not a pleasant idea for her. And to boot, she’s taking vacation in the last few weeks of August, and with all the other flat mates out for the summer, that means there would be a stranger running around her house ALONE.

So, that was the explanation I got when I asked her about subletting. Fair enough.

What about a discount? I’ll be gone for 2 months, your house will be free from the hands of evil subletters, can’t you cut me a deal? She offered a small sum (bills, etc) to be taken out, but the cost of holding my place in my room for 2 months will be more or less the same as paying full price.

So I present her with a hypothetical situation - “What if I give you my one month’s notice for July?” One month being the fair amount of time a renter must give the landlord between notification of departure and finding a new renter. If she wants the money for August, she’ll have to find a new person to take over my room. And that person will be a stranger. Just as much a stranger as some person I find to sublet my room - only difference is they’re there for the long haul.

She claims that’s a completely different story. Apparently, long term renters are trustworthy and subletters are risky.

I argued the logic of that point of view for awhile and the only thing she could offer me is that she would consider renting the room out temporarily if it were to a friend.

Great… It’s a good things most of my friends are looking to leave the apartments they are already renting to sublet mine for a month.

So here’s my proposal: Any Friend of Yours Is A Friend Of Mine

If anyone knows someone that needs a room for August and they’re reasonably normal and trustworthy, then they are now officially a friend of mine.

I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning, but you can still reach me on my e-mail (paulgladis@gmail.com) to arrange everything.

The Specs:
300 m2 apartment in Opera
Bedroom with balcony/TV/DVD
Private bathroom
WIFI Internet

Special Reduced Price: 400 Euros - All Included

BEDROOM

LIBRARY

SALON

KITCHEN

So yeah, if you live in Madrid, and you know someone looking for an apartment in August, and you can vouch for them: Send ‘em my way!!!

If you don’t live in Madrid, and you’ve never seen my apartment: Voila!!!!

And if you are absurdly wealthy and would like to sublet the room without actually coming to Madrid to live in it: I will have your babies.

Cheers…