Category: Uncategorized (So Far)

Prior to the vast changes in my life that occurred after I started working with Jerry back in 2014, the happiest time of my life was the five or so months I spent in Spain, mostly in Madrid, back in college. When I left, I made myself a promise: I would return after graduation.

That I let my fear talk me out of keeping that promise was the greatest mistake of my life.

When I arrived in Madrid on Sunday, I got off the train and said to myself, "I'm in Madrid." A smile spread across my face like light spreads across the horizon at dawn.

It took almost twenty-four years, but I'm back in Madrid.

I find a city where much has changed, and much has remained the same, and as I walked the city that first afternoon (first over by the Prado, and then to the Reina Sofía, and then through the Parque del Buen Retiro), I also found--within my heart--the first tentative golden glow of a dawning self-forgiveness.

Thinking back on that distant conversation with my host sister:

As an American, I had pretty much a knee-jerk reaction against authoritarianism of any sort, believing without any particular examination that democracy was clearly the best system. At the time, I saw no reason to fight with my host sister's assessment--better to listen and try to understand how people feel than interject my own feelings into a conversation about (and within) a culture that is not my own.

But I'll never forget that particular choice of words, "Superbuenas." During my stay, I'd heard the line about how when Franco was alive, at least the trains ran on time. And maybe they did. But during his rule, Franco imprisoned and executed hundreds of thousands of people. So I'm guessing there were and remain a whole lot of people who wouldn't have minded that the train schedule be bit less precise, and really didn't find things superbuenas at all.

A conversation with my host in Barcelona made it clear that Franco has not yet ceased to be a polarizing figure in Spain, notwithstanding that he died over 40 years ago. Despite the liberal nature of the monarchy--in which the king remains head of state, but all the real power of government vests elsewhere--I learned that for some people, there remains a strong association between the present-day monarchy and Franco's dictatorship.

The placards on the tower in San Sebastián spoke only a little of the civil war, and seemed to consider Franco's summering in the city as a positive thing. I wondered if Franco's affection for San Sebastián is now built into the rivalry between Bilbao and San Sebastián on the soccer pitch, if, as with Barcelona against Real Madrid, there are strong political undercurrents underpinning the mutual antagonism.

I found myself thinking back to something my host sister told me all those years ago. She and I were talking, and she was sharing her perspective about the current (at that time) situation in Spain, how some things had moved forward and others hadn't. Freedom was great in its way, she said, but she noted that when it came to a sense of thriving, people tended to struggle a lot. She said this to me:

"A la gente no le gustaban Franco porque era dictador, pero las cosas estaban superbuenas mientras estaba vivo."

("The people didn't like Franco because he was a dictator, but things were super-good when he was alive.")

The climb up the tower featured on the tower's interior walls many old photographs from the past hundred or so years in San Sebastián, as well as some placards that gave a history of the city and its environs.

One of the placards mentioned that Franco had summered in the city from the end of the civil war until his death in the autumn of 1975. It had never, ever occurred to me that summering would be a thing a fascist dictator would do. Wasn't he too busy, you know, executing people and stuff?

This one goes out to Ricardo, obviously.

When I told my friend Ricardo that my proposed itinerary for my trip included San Sebastián, he told me that San Sebastián was one of his favorite places in all of Europe.

He mentioned a selfie he had taken there, and directed me to where he'd taken it from. It's atop a hill on the west side of town, he said, and added,

On top of the hill is a small amusement park, and in the amusement park is the tower I was on top of. When I was in San Sebastián in both 2012 and 2015 there was an old lady who ran the admission stand to the tower and she had a small dog named Miru. I wouldn't be surprised if they're still there. Pay whatever the admission fee is and then march up the stairs to the top and you'll be where I was.

The hill is called Monte Igueldo, and it's prominent from pretty much everywhere in the city, and so I and a friend walked there one afternoon. The theme park is mostly closed right now--it's not yet the high season--but the tower was there, and it was open, so I told the friend that I pretty much had to climb the tower. When we got there, sure enough, the old woman was working the concession. I asked her, "¿Dónde está su perrito?" ("Where is your little dog?") She opened the door to the admission booth to reveal him on his bed. She said he was tired from running around. I told her that my friend had told me about the tower and her and her dog, and that was what had brought me there. She said, "When you come back down the tower, you can hold him and we'll take a picture and you can send it to your friend." I smiled and thanked her and climbed the tower.

The views were every bit as good as Ricardo had promised. I particularly enjoyed the vantage to the west, where I could see a bit of the rugged shoreline and a spot where the ocean waves churned against the rocks, and the foam from that churning turned the water white and turquoise against the deeper blue of the water further out. Even from where I stood, I could feel the energy of that spot. My friend had told me on the walk over about a big change in her life, a break-up after many years of relationship, and she sat on a bench atop the tower and faced that roiling surf for a long time. I let her be. I know what witnessing and internalizing the energy of the world can do for you when your heart is looking for answers.

After a while, we came back down the tower, and I got to meet Miru, and he was a sweet and very cute little guy, and the señora did in fact insist that we take a picture, and then I insisted that she be in the photo with me, and here you go, La Señora del Torre y Su Perrito Miru, and now you too can witness the magic of a world that is both very, very big, and very, very small.

PS. You can find Ricardo's piece about his 2015 visit to San Sebastián here.

It's like estuary (Bilbao) versus ocean (San Sebastián). Bilbao has the more interesting architecture and city layout, plus it has the iconic Guggenheim Museum. It's the larger of the two. San Sebastián has the ocean and the beach and its famous surfing. It's smaller, and it feels that way.

From what I can tell, for most people, the ocean wins out. No one that I can recall has ever told me how great Bilbao is. But many friends, old and new, from inside Spain and out, have told me of either their love for San Sebastián or that it was a place they were told they simply needed to visit.

And for me? I don't know. The ocean is amazing. But I'm a mountain boy, and Bilbao is nestled on both sides by mountains.

It was my first night in San Sebastián, and we were out trying our best to ignore the rain and do a pintxos tour. Pintxos are the Basque version of tapas, small plates like tapas but less for sharing, though every bit as social an experience as tapas are in the rest of Spain.

They were showing the second leg of the Roma-Liverpool Champions League semi-final on the TV in the bar we were in. Liverpool had just scored their first goal, and so were up 2-6 on aggregate, and all the guys behind the bar reacted with excitement, and I declared right then that Liverpool were going through to the final. I asked the guys who worked at the bar--obviously soccer fans, every one of them, and social fellows as well--whom they would root for in the final, Real Madrid or Liverpool. I was curious if they would root for Real Madrid, as "uno de nuestros" ("one of ours"), or if they'd root for Liverpool, because fuck Real Madrid.

Most of them answered unequivocally: Liverpool.

I asked who they rooted for, mostly because I couldn't remember who the local team was. One of the guys pointed to the clock on the wall. It had the coat of arms of Real Sociedad on it. Ah, yes, now I remembered.

A few minutes later he explained to me basically everything I needed to know about San Sebastián. "The two worst teams," he said, "are Real Madrid and Athletic Bilbao." Which is to say : the team most closely associated with Franco and the dictatorship, and Sociedad's local rivals.

Bilbao was clearly far, far worse than Real Madrid.

So much for Basque unity.

They aren't kidding. Bring an umbrella.

The first Monday I was in Barcelona was Sant Jordi's Day, and as I walked around among the throngs of people--for it is a very busy day in Barcelona--at one point I came across a little stage sponsored by some company or another, where I watched a duo--a singer, who also played ukulele, and a percussionist with shakers and tambourines and whatnot--perform what seemed to be essentially children's songs. Hard to tell for sure, as they were speaking and singing only in Catalán, which to my ear falls somewhere between Italian and French in its closeness to Spanish.

At one point, the singer took a few minutes to explain something about music and European audiences. As best I could understand it--again, he was speaking Catalán--he was saying that, perhaps because of the same sort of musical traditions that we hear now in classical music, Europeans tend to hear and feel the solid pulse of a 4/4 rhythm on the downbeats, that is, the ones and threes, whereas in places like America that have assimilated aspects of African music, listeners feel the backbeats, the twos and fours. Which is to say that Europeans, when listening to a pop/rock/R&B/hip-hop song, will often clap on the ones and threes, which to anyone versed in pop/rock music will seem incredibly square.

He finished by explaining that the next song was supposed to have something of the funky feel of a rock song, and he asked people to clap along on the twos and fours.

And when he started playing the song, sure enough, the crowd split about evenly between people who clapped on the twos and fours and those who clapped on the ones and threes. Not funky, Barcelona.

---

(If what I said above about rhythm didn't make sense, let me explain a bit more thoroughly. Almost all pop/rock/etc. songs are in 4/4 time, meaning there are four beats to a bar, a bar being the basic unit out of which the song is built.

Put on a song you like and count along with the beat like this: "One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four." This should feel pretty natural. Almost everyone automatically starts counting on the one--it also just feels natural.

Once you have the rhythm of the song in your body, keep counting, and clap along with the music the way you would at a concert. Most Americans will naturally clap on the twos and fours.)

I'm sure I'm hardly the only American who is accustomed to treating coins as basically a nuisance. I generally put them in my pocket, then later drop them in the origami box I keep them in at home, a pocket in one of my workbags, or the cupholder in my car. There they'll stay until they've piled up sufficiently that it's worth taking them to the bank to turn them into, you know, real money.

But here in the Eurozone, the smallest bill is a five, and I find my habit butting up against that reality. I can't just throw them in my bag and forget about them. All those 1- and 2-euro coins add up pretty quickly.