A friend of mine once ran away to Spain. I was kind of hoping she would stay there, because she had caused or been involved in quite a bit of trouble in Germany, but she came back. And stood on my doorstep. And rung my bell, to ask if she could stay. And I had to take her in, but she had to leave the next morning. It was awkward. Anyways…
I wasn’t running away to Spain, but going on vacation—I’d been invited by a friend of mine from the States, who is half Spanish and spends her summer with her European relations, of whom there are many. So I flew to Madrid—my second time ever—and my friend picked me up at the airport. I’ve been in quite a few European cities and capitals, as well as those few American cities graced with subways and undergrounds, and I must say I was quite impressed with the Madrid metro. Clean, smooth, fast—no clattering carriages or perpetual line closures of the London Underground, no endless connecting tunnels as in Paris, making you feel more a hamster than a passenger. If only there were wheels….
I was welcomed into a spacious apartment in Western Madrid, full of maiden aunts (four) and their expatriate relations (also four). And me. I had a bit of trouble keeping the aunts separate, but there was one who was a nun in Paris forever and spoke French, one with salmon-colored hair, one with curly hair and an incorrigible smile who asked me, slowly and smiling, “how…. do…you….do?”, and one other with curly hair, neither Spanish nor English, and less of a smile but a dry sense of humor. I’m no longer used to grandmothers and not used to masses of relations (my friend’s mum has four sisters and two brothers), particularly ones with whom I have no common language, so our connection is somewhat limited. And since we have no common language, and borne of my inability to understand even the simplest instructions given regarding someone else’s belongings in a different culture of which I have no foreknowledge, it is inevitable that I will, eventually, screw something up unwittingly (as I did this morning, as one of my ‘translators’ smilingly informed me on behalf of one of the many aunts as I happily munched on cherries for breakfast that the fruit available for breakfast included basically every possible fruit out there except cherries, which were for lunch). It is the stuff of nightmares—mine, at least—to be chased by an elderly lady in a floral dress (possibly a hairnet, but I don’t know the ladies in question well enough to assert this one), brandishing a toaster (not the electric kind) railing at me in a language I don’t understand. But before you get the wrong impression, no one has been anything but nice to me. Still, hairnets and floral dresses and and and and…
The bus came for us at 8 Am, but first we had to get there, across Madrid towing luggage and bearing lunch like a string of sleep-deprived, slightly lost and directionally challenged ducklings. Bus terminals are bus terminals, busses are busses, and ours distinguished itself in no feature whatsoever, perhaps only in its lack of TVs every eighteen inches. And lack of bathroom. Six hours, six hours, six hours turn into a long stretch followed by a desperate wish for a bathroom, a picnic lunch, and a repeat of the above, excepting the picnic lunch. Finally, after our music and our tempers were exhausted, we made it to Peniscola on the coast between Valencia and Barca. Our house, somehow made available to us due to the fact that the French-speaking aunt is also a nun and somehow has access to such things (apparently she has really the highest connections, or even nuns need weeks at the beach to better commune with God), had a living room larger than most student apartments in Germany and enough beds to house an army and somehow not enough for us. A tiny kitchen and one bathroom were to be shared among us seven, and a polish nun was occupying the downstairs mother-in-law apartment. A slightly musty smell pervaded the courtyard, provided by a mess of cats and kittens who had taken up residence there between the pool and the Chinese restaurant. And then two more aunts arrived, and we started stowing people on any halfway-comfortable horizontal surface available, which were few as the place was tiled and the couches musty.
A week of lather, rinse, repeat: breakfast mid-morning, when people get up, consisting of toasted baguette with olive oil and blackberry jam, perhaps a piece of fruit and coffee. Beach time until lunch. Lunch, served at three in the afternoon, is the main meal of the day and may contain several courses and for me, the vegetarian compromising for Spanish standards and eating fish, the meal invariably contained some kind of seafood. And baguette. After lunch: siesta. Considering how blistering hot it gets in the afternoon, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to sleep off your big meal before heading back to… the beach. Then dinner, which may be hot or cold, usually includes a salad, perhaps some fish or tortilla and finished off with fruit and cheese. And baguette. We had calamari pasta, omelette, tuna fish potato salad, fish steaks, normal steaks, chicken breast and other things, and chocolate or marzipan for desert sometimes.
After dinner we take a walk down the beach or up to the castle, to the jewelry-sellers. Spain doesn’t seem to come to life until 10 or 11 at night, when everyone heads for the promenade. Clean, well-dressed and well-styled families stroll along the beachfront promenade, past the caricaturists and painters, past the grandiose sand statues and castles lit with candles, the puppet theatre and the comedian, past the jewelry stands and restaurants and ubiquitous Africans selling knockoff handbags and sunglasses; music drones from one or many bars. The possibilities for evening entertainment are endless:
My friend’s little sister and cousin, both nineteen, had met some guys here on vacation four years previous, and these guys were still here. Like many small towns with locals with small dreams, a job that pays halfway well is reason enough to stay. (Here I must qualify my comment—this is coming from someone who sees no reason to stay put in any one country for more than a year or three, much less one town: therefore, take with a grain of salt). So they stayed. And the girls recognized them, which was reason enough to meet up again for a drink. My friend and I left, giving the sister the house key. The ladies left for their night on the town and we went home, but we unfortunately threw the extra bolt on the door, meaning that regardless of them having the key, there was no way they were getting in. So they had to scale the awning to get on to the second-floor balcony and its attendant door at five in the morning, possibly (though I have no verification and do not wish to make undue accusations) inebriated. Still, no fractures and no harm done…
…and even more fun when it was our turn a few nights later. Less inebriated but still without keys, it was up to my friend’s brother to scale the wall from the downstairs window, hoist himself onto the neighboring balcony and clamber onto ours.
I am the only person present who doesn’t speak Spanish. Even the polish nun, holed up in her downstairs apartment against the deluge of our delegation, even she speaks Spanish. It’s a giant game for me, to see whether and how much and what I can understand of the conversation. To make it more difficult, the conversation topics change as often as a fifteen-year-old going on her first date. What is yeast, whether Russia is next to Southern Germany (the French-speaking nun is known for her inane questions and questionable grasp of geography. And of card playing. And of history—she claimed Germany still forced-sterilized the mentally handicapped), cooking tips, latex allergies, vegetarianism, you name it. Sometimes I get the drift, much of the time I have no idea whatsoever, and the complete lack of logical connection confounds the foreigner. Watching TV is even better, because at least there I have pictures to help me out on the contextual clues. I can sometimes even follow the news, though of course I miss all the (important) details. It’s not the first time I have sat at a dinner table in someone’s house in some country and understood nothing. It doesn’t bother me to not understand. Personally, I thrive on mixed-language conversations. I don’t know any Spanish myself, though, which while reducing my opportunities for causing hilarity / humiliation, also limits my ability to contribute to the conversation without explicit translation. Sometimes, when I make a wrong guess, it’s like watching a movie with the wrong subtitles on, as if the picture were from one film and the subtitles from another.
One of the aunts—I am not sure which one, but I am pretty sure it’s not the one who speaks French—argued that this is not Spain, this shows me (the real tourist) nothing of Spanish life, of Spanish people. So many French tourists, some Danes and Swedes, there is no authenticity, no culture. I am aware of this. This visit is not like my visit to Seville, filled with ancient courtyards and reeking of slightly musty tradition and orange blossoms. Awash in light and sound, filled with browned and tanned tourists, the impression I have is of a picture come to life—everything perfectly designed for description on a postcard: “hi Mom, we’re in Spain, the weather is great, the water’s great, we’re having a blast. Lots of love!” Little variation, much enjoyment, and a sun tan to make anyone jealous. Unless you burn. In awkward places. Like I did. This is vacation, this is beach, this is Florida and Ibizia and SoCal and Cote d’Azur. This is sand and sun and brown little children eating sticky sandy chocolate and sand-filled SANDwiches. This is my grandparents’, this is many things, many vacations, many places.
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