Memories of Spain

It seems like only yesterday, but twenty-nine years ago this year, I was in the home stretch of my year-long stay in Spain.  By this time, I was having difficulty reconciling the need to go home with the desire to stay in Spain.  I had fallen head over heels, holus-bolus in love with the country, its people and everything it had to offer.  I often think of how different my life would have been had I stayed in Spain.  If nothing else, however, I have wonderful memories of Spain.

There are certain things that I recall with such a vivid focus that it takes me back to the exact moment I lived them.  These moments are indelibly etched not only in my mind but on my heart.  Spain had the biggest influence on my adult life beyond anyone or anything but Karen.

I remember quite specifically one of the first meals I ever ate in Spain.  I bought a pistola -- a loaf of bakery bread -- some manchego cheese, a bottle of red wine and some strawberries and sat in my room in the hostal, looking out the little window at the back of the buildings surrounding the plaza below and eating one of the most magnificently simple meals that I've ever enjoyed.  I later had a similar meal along the banks of the Río Sella, with much the same food except for a can of Coke instead of a bottle of wine.  I sat in the July sun eating beside the babbling river, alone with my food and camera while I waited for the bus to take me up to Covadonga, the site where the Reconquista began.  It was just such a quiet, tranquil way to pass the afternoon.

There was the time I was standing outside the walled city of Avila talking with a bus driver from Soria.  At once, I thought about a kid from the Midwest having a conversation beside the birthplace of St. Teresa talking with a guy from Soria, Spain, and wondered, Who'da thought?  I also wondered what the high school Spanish teacher who underestimated me would think if she saw me.

The magical Christmas I spent with a woman from Colombia, a woman from Mexico and a Jew from Boston eating the turkey dinner I prepared.  I doubt I'll ever relive such an eclectic Christmas again.

Sneaking into the five star hotel in El Saler, outside Valencia, was an anecdote for the ages.  It was almost like a commando mission the way we hugged the walls, stayed out of the lights, coming in from the beach that was no more than thirty years from the Mediterranean.  I still laugh when I think about getting to spend two nights in that hotel.

Talking with the Irish mason in Santillana de Mar under the stars, drinking beers and discussing politics.  It was a magical evening.

Walking around Pamplona during the sanfermines, seeing people who came together every year from various parts of the globe to spend a week partying, was an eye-opener.  Being in Tossa de Mar, seeing the Mediterranean from a vacationer's standpoint, was enchanting.

Reading books in the Biblioteca Nacional, seeing the putative remains of Columbus in the great cathedral in Sevilla and walking in the history of La Alhambra left me breathless at times.

I remember the sheer job of riding the narrow-gauge railway in Asturias, the bordeom of the desolation in Ribadeo, the quiet, contemplative countryside in which the monolithic El Escorial was constructed, the awe I had when I first saw the Acueducto in Segovia and the throwback in time when I had cordero asado and ate out of a communal salad bowl in Pedraza during my first puente.  I remember the busrides to Valencia, the train rides in Andalucia and that last, overlong plane trip out of the country through Málaga and then back through Madrid.

I miss Spain.

(c) 2014 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles