Welcome to the world of all-purpose Spanish phrases. The above is one such, generally used to express varying levels of disbelief or shock. In my experience, it spans the emotional spectrum from a semi-committal "huh, you don't say," to a freaked-out "whoa, dude, that's totally bizarre", and thus is appropriate for all manner of occasions, from the on-going saga of your host grandmother's allergy medicine (And none of the doctors knew what was wrong!? Que raro...), to a(nother) mysterious irregularity in the bus schedule (The 34 usually comes at 12:05 but today it came at 11:57? Que raro...). Lots and lots of things can be raro, which lends to it's all-purpose nature, and makes it an excellent opener to a blog post about some weird things that I've seen during this first month in Alicante.
I feel as though lots of people have been asking me that: What's the weirdest thing you've seen? What's so different in Spain than in the States? For the most part, it seems like it's been Spaniards who want to know - my host father keeps asking me if I recognize things, if we have something like this in the States. He seems almost disappointed that the answer is generally, yes. It's not as if things here are the same as they are at home, because of course it's different here. I'm in a different country, different culture, different history, different brand names (sometimes). But the fact remains that there have been very few things that I have noticed and thought - Wow, that's odd. (Que raro.) It's happening so infrequently, in fact, that I've been keeping a list of the weird things, adding one or two every five days or so. They're not all strange-weird. Sometimes they're just cool, like
1) the fact that postal workers here, the ones who drive around the big yellow vans and collect mail from the big yellow receptacles, wear normal clothes. Not only normal, but the postwoman I saw while waiting for the bus the other day was really nicely dressed. In the States she could have been going to work in an office, and a nice one at that.
But sometimes they're strange, like
2) the guy at the plaza, walking around the children's playground with his daughter, who was running circles around him. He was disposing of a cigarette (because as of January 1st it's illegal to smoke in children's parks, which people don't seem to be protesting nearly as much as not being able to smoke in bars. Go figure), but more importantly and noticeably, he was wearing pink pants. Okay, you're thinking, that's weird... but not that weird. Allow me to elaborate on the pants. They were unflatteringly tight, considering the man's less than svelte build, and appeared to be of a denim-esque material, although perhaps they only gave that impression because the fading on them was reminiscent of faded jeans. Except pink. And tight. And on a middle-aged man walking through a park with his daughter. Maybe you had to be there.
And then sometimes they're just funny-lookin', like
3) that other time at that other bus stop (because bus stops are prime observation posts) when a guy stopped his Vespa at a nearby traffic light. This in and of itself: not unusual. Well-dressed guy, probably in his late twenties or early thirties, leather jacket, motorcycle helmet, headed home for the midday meal on his snazzy little almost-motorcycle. And then I looked down, and the illusion was shattered by the enormous (and I'm talking enormous) package of diapers sitting on the Vespa "floor" between his feet.
Or there's irony, like
4) the sloppy graffiti adorning the side of a building adjacent to a vacant lot along the bus route from the university to el centro. It reads "No tirar basura."//"Don't throw trash."
And then, the raro to end all raros, there's
5) Kung Fu Fighting. As in the song.* Every afternoon, periodically, one can hear, clearly, from my room, strains of that epic musical piece, played over some sort of loudspeaker at such a volume as to be heard, I would suspect, by the entire neighborhood. Not the whole song, just part of it. Then, a few hours later, the ritual is repeated. Twice, sometimes three times a day? My schedule is such that I haven't been able to pin down exact frequency or timing, nor have I ascertained location. It's all quite a mystery. And it's (in the Spanish tradition of repeating words for emphasis) raro raro raro.
*For those of you unfamiliar with this essential piece of culture, I attempt to include as an example, this (provided I actually know how to attach a video to a blog post):
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