Mr Chorizo’s Mailbag #1 – listener questions and feedback

The weirdest thing happened.

I got my Spanish passport last week.

That’s the topic of my most recent article, Becoming a Spanish Citizen.

Afterwards, I went to the gym, did some work, ate some protein. Had a normal day.

Later that evening, I put a picture of my new passport up on Instagram.

The caption was “Soy español, por fin. ¡Viva España!”

Little did I know, Instagram was (in my case) automatically posting my pictures to Threads. In case you’re not paying attention, Threads App is an imitation of Twitter produced by the Meta conglomerate. Meaning Insta is constantly trying to get you to use it. I had downloaded it once, a couple years ago, and quickly gotten bored.

So I was quite surprised when Instagram started sending notifications about all the comments I was getting on Threads. I had to re-download the app to check them, but my passport photo was quite popular over there – with 700 likes and 500+ comments.

Reading the feedback I’d gotten, I found there were two basic types of comments: Short ones saying enhorabuena (or congratulations, if you prefer) and longer ones explaining that actually, I’m not Spanish at all.

The blood of the crusaders runs in my veins

My lawyer had mentioned this previously, and I didn’t believe him. He said that some people want to make a big deal out of the distinction between Spaniards by birth and “nationalized Spaniards”.

Turns out he was right: dozens of people (complete strangers on an app I don’t use) came out to tell me that by their criteria I’m still a foreigner. I guess they have a sort of “ethnic” understanding of what being Spanish means.

This was an unexpected welcome into Spanishness – and I should say that probably 3/4 of the comments were positive. But still, it was a lot of negativity.

In any case, I don’t put too much stock in the opinions of random weirdos online. I get along with all sorts of people in face-to-face interactions. It’s like Mike Tyson says:

“Social media made y’all way to comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.”

Anyway, I’ve got a lot of listener feedback to get through today, so instead of adding long shoutouts to the next few episodes of the podcast, I thought I’d do it all in one place.

Let’s call this one Mr Chorizo’s Mailbag.

Karen likes my voice

I got a long comment recently from Karen, who also made a donation.

“Hi Daniel! In this age of content overload, your podcast holds my attention completely. Your Voice—with a capital V—is compelling, and your writing is incredibly thoughtful, well-researched, and actually nuanced. Thanks so much for what you do!”

In an email she explains that she’s spent years producing live programs for NPR, as well as podcasts (independently), and originally found my monotone monologues to be boring – but upon further consideration finds what I’m doing quite compelling.

“I don’t even skip your promo bits” she says.

Obviously, I’m flattered. One of the reasons I delayed for years in making a podcast, is that I figured I’d just sound like one of those people hosting a late-night jazz show on your local NPR affiliate. My parents used to listen to that stuff and I thought it was mind-numbing.

So rather than bore people in that way, I decided not to throw my hat into the podcasting ring. (Thanks to my friend Lily for finally sitting me down with a mic an making me do this.)

My first several dozen episodes were also recorded, mostly, late in the afternoon when I was very tired. That just made me sound even more monotone. Now I’m trying to record early, while I’m still caffeinated, and speak a bit faster. Anyway, thanks for listening, and thanks to Karen for her donation.

Ana hates my (Spanish) accent

Some randomer on Insta (she might also listen to the podcast) commented on my Spanish passport that “maybe it’s time to work work on my accent in Spanish”.

I have complex feelings about this. Accent is strongly tied to identity, and I made an effort to drop my cowboyish Southwest US accent when I moved to Madrid and started teaching English. These days, I don’t exactly regret doing that… but I do regret giving in to the sorts of pressures that made me think I had to.

Thing is, I was young, and getting told off by a few British coworkers around the language school for not speaking “the Queen’s English” affected 22-year-old Mr Chorizo more than I’d now like to admit.

So I’m a bit touchy about accents.

What problem Ana has with my accent in Spanish is also a mystery to me, because to be perfectly honest, I don’t hear my own accent much. So… uh… I guess if Ana doesn’t want to listen to me, she can probably find something else to do with her time. Not sure what to say.

(I would imagine that “not hearing your own accent” is a large part of how accents work, but that’s another topic.)

Also, on a more positive note, I got this from Stephen – who’s Irish, living in Tenerife: “You should become an audio book or meditation podcast reader. Your voice and speaking cadence is incredibly relaxing!”

Thanks, Stephen.

(If only they knew how much I tried to sound less relaxing!)

Darren wants to know why I became Spanish

Over on Facebook, Darren wants to know why I became Spanish. A lot of people asked this, actually, because they’ve been here for 10 or 15 or 20 years and they’re not really thinking about going through the nationality process.

While it’s true that in theory a long-term residence permit gets you most of the same benefits as Spanish nationality, I always wanted to go “all in” on Spanishness.

For one thing, because I just can’t stand renewing my residence card every few years: you have to start looking for an appointment with Immigration six months before your old card expires, refresh some horrible government website 10,000 times, go in for fingerprinting, and finally, wait 45 days for your new card.

The DNI process I just went through makes it clear that they can print a card in 5 minutes, so what’s the purpose of the 45-day wait, exactly? It might be psychological. All I know is that I always felt like something of a second-class citizen going through that.

Another reason I fought for Spanish nationality is that it makes my wife Morena’s life easier, at least in theory.

If she’s “married to a Spaniard”, she can get nationality faster, which will make travel a lot simpler for her. (Indian passports aren’t among the world’s strongest, so for her we’ve had to do things like go Madrid for an interview at the US Embassy, just so she can get a tourist visa for a three-day conference in Vegas. And getting the UK visa is even worse. It’s time-consuming and expensive.)

Finally, I’m looking forward to using my Spanish nationality in order to vote against Pedro Sánchez. I’m not super political, but being unable to vote was annoying the last decade or so.

Nancy and Glenn are coming to Spain

Here’s another comment from over on my donation page:

“I’ve been wanting to move there for years, now Glenn is convinced as well, but for now we’ll spend 88 days there starting mid January. Gadding about as usual, flying out of Barcelona April something. Love to buy you a drink. Our oldest son, (a ginger) is your age. Not as wry.”

Thanks a lot Nancy and Glenn for your donation – also, for donating multiple times over the last few years. (Indeed there is nothing stopping one from making frequent donations. Just sayin’…)

I’m glad you have a ginger son. Growing up ginger isn’t easy – or at least wasn’t where I grew up. But I came out of it with a decent sense of humor about the whole thing. At this point, I’d say my hair isn’t even ginger anymore – it’s just some sort of boring no-color.

But I’ve still got the ginger beard, which is only a little bit white. Anyway, here in Spain a lot of people would call me “rubio”. I’ve got an article about ginger stereotypes out there somewhere, it’s called Do gingers have souls?

And by all means, anyone who wants to have a coffee, alcohol-free beer or sparkling water with me can hit me up in any of the many places online – here on the contact form, or Instagram, etc.

If I’m in town when you’re in town, I’m usually happy to meet up.

Jim wants to play Dungeons and Dragons

I mentioned Jim, AKA Seamus, on my previous episode as a donor. But it turns out he’d also written to me a while ago to ask about Dungeons and Dragons.

Honestly, I know nothing about D&D. But there are a lot of shops related to that constellation of subcultures down in the Arc de Triomf area, here in Barcelona. That’s where the anime kids hang out, and there are shops for comic books, board games, etc. Also, that’s on the edge of Chinatown Barcelona.

Barcelona doesn’t have an “official” Chinatown. But there’s certainly an area around the Arc de Triomf with a lot of Chinese businesses. A couple of my favorite restaurants are down there, and the supermarkets if you’re looking for Asian ingredients. More about that in my article on the best international restaurants in Barcelona.

Other than that, I used to know a guy in Madrid who ran Dungeons and Dragons sessions (or whatever you call it) and I’m sure with a Google search or a bit of time on Meetup.com you can find groups in any bigger city.

Thanks Jim, for your donation and for all the comments!

“Leaving the Pier” wants to teach English

Message on YouTube from Leaving the Pier:

“Hi Daniel, I love your podcast and content (and especially the humor). Do you think a person can still earn a wage to cover basic needs for a single person by teaching English in Spain these days?”

I answered this on YouTube and my answer here is about the same: it really depends on what you mean by “basic”.

I was teaching English down in Madrid from 2005 to 2015. My salary during that time was around 1000 to 1500€ a month (and zero in summer, usually). And my rented room plus bills cost 250 to 300€. These days renting a room is going to cost a lot more than that – maybe double.

Food is more expensive as well. And as far as I can tell salaries haven’t improved.

So my answer is “maybe” you can cover your basic needs as a single person, especially if your needs are very basic. I have a longer article about making a living as an English teacher. It might be somewhat out of date. Anyway, there certainly are people making it work. But I don’t know if it’s as big a market as it used to be.

Additionally, the big advice I have would be to make a backup plan as well. I almost got stuck in English teaching forever, and some people never manage to escape.

If you have a secondary (better) career option, you’ll save yourself some trouble later on.

Thanks for listening!

A few thoughts on humor…

I don’t know why I suddenly got a barrage of messages referring to my sense of humor, but I did.

My sense of humor mostly consists of trying not to take things too seriously. I know that sputtering along in self-righteous indignation in front of a camera is what people have gotten used to seeing these days – well, that or selfie videos of people having screaming or crying fits while sitting in their cars.

So maybe my “sense of humor” refers to the fact that I’m not doing any of that. Otherwise, I’m just trying to describe things honestly and without the crutch of partisan slogans. I don’t think anything I say on here is a real knee-slapper.

Morena would perhaps like me to mention that I often display the sense of humor of a 10-year-old – the word “wood” is one of my favorite jokes, and I really enjoy Louis CK’s standup bit about Phoenicians.

(Being from Phoenix myself makes it even funnier.)

Other than that, like many have pointed out, I’m just a relaxing guy speaking in a monotone, with a terrible accent.

Thanks to everybody for listening. I appreciate you.

Yours,

Daniel AKA Mr Chorizo.

P.S. Shoutouts as usual to Raul over at biketourinspain.com, who’ll take care of all your cycling-tour needs. I’ve been on two of his tours and they were a lot of fun: the Route of Don Quixote and also a week in Extremadura, Spain’s Wild West. You could also sign up for a walking tour in one of many lovely locations around Spain or Europe with Walks Tours – I did their “alone in the Prado” Museum tour last year and highly recommend it. Or try a food tour with Devour Tours, started by my friend Lauren back in the day. They also have several cities around Spain, Europe and beyond. Enjoy!