And thus, of course, here’s the follow-up list:
1. Patra’s knee-slapping jokes (I think there were 3 or 4 this year, and they were all gems)
2. Taking flamenco lessons in a bar, ie, doing as much drinking as dancing
3. Our terrace. Our terrace on perfect days, meals on the terrace, hanging laundry on the terrace, drinking sherry on the terrace at sunset
4. 300 children
5. Seeing one of my 300 children on the street and feeling like a star
6. Saying hello to all the old men taking their morning, afternoon, and evenings walks
7. Living in a cubist’s dream
8. Being halfway between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean
9. Taking Sevilla for granted since it’s just an hour away
10. Hearing Spanish every day, especially the awesome accent the old men have here
11. Being constantly inspired by the beauty of this town
12. Cheap tickets to everywhere else in Europe
13. Being serenaded by an incredible flamenco guitarist
14. Doing yoga in an old Spanish patio
15. The Friday market
16. Olive oil, organic eggs, fruit in season all year round
17. The cliff
18. Flamenco parties every Friday and Saturday (and spontaneous flamenco in the street)
19. The fact that everyone knows how to clap in rhythm here
This list is actually harder than the last, because many of the things I will miss aren’t as concrete as the things I won’t miss. That is, I will miss all the smells of this town, all the strange and beautiful things I see every day, I will miss the sounds in the streets of the old men talking, of bands practicing for Semana Santa, I will miss the feeling that everyone welcomes me in. And I will miss hundreds of people—Patra and Adan, Emma and all the Brits, Santi and the women we danced flamenco with, my co-teachers, the choir members, the shop keepers and café owners, all the townspeople I’ve become accustomed to seeing…and, as I said above, the hundreds and hundreds of children who I love more than I thought possible. But the year has come to an end and I don’t belong here anymore. Such is life. On to the next adventure.
Showing posts with label Root for the Pueblos Blancos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Root for the Pueblos Blancos. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Putting the "blanco" back in the pueblo
Arcenses take the designation of their town very seriously: as the quintessential "pueblo blanco" of Andalucia (as some guidebooks describe Arcos), townspeople take great care in keeping up appearances. Spring cleaning for inhabitants of the old town means scraping off the last year's layer of whitewash and reapplying bright new coats of the calcium-based cover. And what better way to remove an entire wall of paint than with a butter knife? And why not reapply with a paintbrush best suited to fine detail work in small watercolors? These seem to be the tools of choice for my neighbors...
Painting with a mini-paintbrush:
Because chipping paint off with a butter knife requires supervision:
Painting with a mini-paintbrush:
Because chipping paint off with a butter knife requires supervision:
Monday, March 9, 2009
Picnic with the Brits
On Sunday, Patra and I trekked out to the mountainside with about twenty British expats. The expedition had been postponed from February 8th, aka "International Yoga Day" to March 8th, "International Womens' Day." Just as fitting, I suppose. While the men barbecued, a good dozen of us ladies brought out the yoga mats and stretched in the gorgeous Andalusian sun. Though there were a few stares from picnicking Spaniards, we were lucky to escape much notice.
Emma leads us in the triangle pose
Patra and I do the tree pose together
And while we stretch, the men busy themselves with meat
Maggie, on the left in the red sunblock facepaint: my favorite little Brit ever
Emma leads us in the triangle pose
Patra and I do the tree pose together
And while we stretch, the men busy themselves with meat
Maggie, on the left in the red sunblock facepaint: my favorite little Brit ever
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Saga of Malaga
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When my parents lived in Morocco, they would often show up to take a bus to a neighboring town only to find out the bus had left long ago. Having filled to capacity, why wait around until the scheduled hour of departure?
Apparently Morocco's northern neighbor employs similar logic. My friend Hilary and I showed up at the bus station this morning at 7:45 am to catch the 8:05 bus to Malaga, as it was listed online. We waited around until just after 8; I asked another bus driver about the trip to Malaga (it's always best to let someone know where you're going at the Arcos bus station) and he informed us the bus had left probably around 7:40 am. Frustrated, I explained that the time had been listed differently on the bus company's website. He looked at me pityingly, as if to say "why would you trust the internet?" Better that than the Arcos' tourism office, which had told me that there was no direct connection to Malaga, and that we would have to take the bus west to Jerez instead (thereby losing ground). At least the internet had informed me that the Jerez-Malaga connection actually goes through Arcos...but still, it had let me down.
Luckily, this bus driver, this new ally of ours, had plenty of suggestions. First he mentioned going to Ronda, but decided against it since there wasn't an Arcos-Ronda bus for a while. Another random man joined in the conversation, suggesting we go to Algeciras and take a bus up the coast from there. The bus driver and I looked at each other, rolling our eyes. Algeciras? No thanks. Finally the bus driver decided we should take a bus to Villamartin, a town to the east of Arcos on the Sevilla-Malaga route. Besides, "In Arcos," the bus driver said, looking around conspiratorially, "There's nothing. Look around! Nothing here. Just a cafe. Now, in Villamartin, there's a guy."
Hilary and I raised our eyebrows to show appreciation of that fact. "A guy?" I asked.
"That's right," he said, and folded his arms and held his chin up. "He'll look like this. He'll be walking around. You can ask him anything--he knows it all. He'll help you."
Needless to say, we were sold. The bus to Villamartin would be leaving in about an hour. I casually mentioned to the bus driver that maybe we would drink some coffee in Arcos' cafe until the bus showed up. He shook his head.
"Now's not the time," he assured. "It's not the time to drink to coffee. When you get to Villamartin you can drink all the coffee you want." I shrugged. The weather in Arcos was nice enough to Hilary stayed outside and waited for our Villamartin bus. When it showed up an hour later, our bus driver ally rushed out of the cafe. "Where were you?" he asked, in surprise. "I was drinking coffee that whole time! And you were out here!"
Our ally lit up a cigarette and stood around talking with the Villamartin bus driver, a handsomer, taller, and more Spanish-looking version of George W. Bush. When asked if the bus was leaving soon, GW shrugged. He didn't seem to be in a rush. Still, as Hilary was trying to pay for her ticket at the front of the bus just after I'd gotten on, GW closed the door immediately, started up the engine, and started pulling out of the station. "There's no time!" he told Hilary, as she was trying to get out the exact change for her fare. "Just sit down--we're outta here!" Hilary stumbled to her seat as the bus lurched backward.
Hilary and I spent the trip to Villamartin in eager anticipation of meeting this famous "guy." We wondered if the legends could be true. We soon found out: they were. The "guy" was an older man seated in a small information booth at the Villamartin station, who looked up from the article on Obama he was reading to address us merrily. I told him we were on our way to Malaga; he let us know when our bus would be leaving and then proceeded to discuss the merits of taking the route through the mountains, full of beautiful white towns, instead of the coast, full of garbage-dump-inspired developments for Europeans on holiday. I agreed, shuddering over what would have become of us if we'd taken the Algeciras route up the Costa del Sol (seriously: Costa del Trash-heap is more adequate).
Having gotten our information, Hilary and I sat down to long-awaited coffee and sugar-coated churros. We noticed the guy leave his information booth and flit through the station, greeting friends, giving out information, ushering customers to the correct buses, calling drivers to make sure they were on schedule. We were impressed. If only Arcos had a guy, we lamented, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with. Still, if we'd caught our original bus, we'd never have met our original ally, GW, or this guy. And, as the guy shepherded us toward the bus to Malaga, and we shared tearful goodbyes, we knew it had all been worth it. Besides, losing three hours of exploration time in Malaga is not exactly unfortunate...but that's another story.
Friday, October 24, 2008
The Wild Cats of Cádiz
Another early morning: Patra and I once again try to obtain our residency cards.
We took the 7:15 am bus to Cádiz, the capital city of our province; also, the oldest city in Europe. “Cádiz?” you might say, “But I’ve never even heard of Cádiz! How can that be the oldest city in Europe?”
Perhaps you’ve heard of Hercules? Legend has it Cádiz was founded by Hercules when he parted Europe and Africa at the strait of Gibraltar. No big deal. History would have you believe the Phoencians founded Cádiz in 1100 AC (what does that mean? My map’s information says AC instead of AD or BC. Damn these Brits!) I prefer the Herculean version. Also, a guy on his way to India (known to us as Christopher Columbus) set sail from Cádiz in 1492. Needless to say, Cádiz has had an important place in history.
Back to our own epic journey, though. Just as the sky began to fill with light, our bus crossed the long bridge to Cádiz (surrounded by water on three sides). We stopped at a seemingly random intersection and several people got off. Thinking of last week’s stop in the middle of nowhere, I grew nervous (to quote our prez: “Fool me once…don’t fool me again!”) As we pulled away I saw a street name, Avenida Jose Leon de Carranza, which rang a bell. A few blocks later when the bus stopped again, I looked anxiously at Patra. “I think we get off here,” I said. She frowned, but followed my lead. Only after we disembarked did I remember the actual street name where we were supposed to get off: Avenida Ramon de Carranza. Once again, this burst of inspiration occurred as the bus was pulling away. This time, though, we were no longer on it. Oops.
We reoriented ourselves—luckily we’d both printed maps of the city beforehand—and started walking briskly up a main street. It was only a little after eight a.m. when we began walking, and thus my mistake wasn’t too costly; we arrived at the correct office at a quarter to nine, still fifteen minutes before it would even open. I was feeling hopeful; there were only a few other people in the office ahead of us. Also, in the past week, I made several more copies of just about every document ever given to me having anything to do with Spain: I made copies of our apartment lease, my Spanish bank account information, the page in my passport with an exit stamp from Mexico (what does that have to do with Spain? Nothing! But you never know…). We were Prepared.
At a few minutes past nine, Patra and I sat down with two immigration officers and pulled out our application sheets. They shook their heads. “No,” they said. Wrong sheet. I had a minor heart attack.
They handed us new forms, which we filled out as quickly as possibly in the office. This was fairly easy to do since the new form asked for EXACTLY THE SAME INFORMATION as the form we had first presented. Oh, except we had to check a box on this one indicating that we were the ones studying/working in Spain, not the relative of a person studying in Spain. Which is, I’m sure, extremely important.
Having filled out our new documents, we raced out of the building to find a place to make a single copy (of course, they couldn’t just give us two identical sheets to fill out). Finding the place to make copies closed, we entered a store in which we saw copy machines. The copy machines, as it turned out, were not for the general public since the store was actually an office, but a woman there took pity on us and made one copy each of our application forms. We hurried back to the immigration office and had to wait behind two or three people who had showed up since we’d left.
In that time, I noticed a poster on the wall with smiling people of different ethnicities pointing at the camera. The inscription read “Somos inmigrantes, como tu!” (We are immigrants, just like you!) I have yet to verify this, but I think Spain is fairly lenient about immigration. In the past two decades or so, it has become a popular destination for immigrants now that it’s generally recognized as a first-world country. The sign seemed cheery enough, but I felt a little indignant. “Me? An immigrant?” Oh right, I was at the immigration office…still, it felt strange to be identified with a word that is certainly loaded in the US.
Once again, we sat down with the immigration officers. This time, everything went smoothly. They took one copy each of: our application forms, our two letters from the Andalusian government explaining our work situation, and the information and visa pages of our passports. Five pieces of paper in all. We left the office relieved, but weighed down by the extra hundred or so unnecessary copies we still had.
After a quick croissant at a nearby café to celebrate our soon-to-be legality, Patra and I parted ways. She left for Seville by train to meet up with a friend, and I wandered the streets of Cádiz. Past the ruins of a Roman amphitheater, past the yellow-domed cathedral that you’re sure to see first in a google-image search of the city. Here I was walking along the coastal wall, large boulders on the ocean-side to fend off the tides. The sun was out, palm trees lined the sidewalk, I was feeling successful…and something started to smell fishy. Not a huge surprise, since I was next to the ocean and, up ahead of me, several fishermen cast their lines into the water. But then I looked down: the rocks below the wall were crawling with cats. And just ahead: a man down among the cats, setting out water and food. He left a trail of empty tinfoil—greasy with the remains of fish—and satisfied cats.
As infestations go, this one didn’t seem too bad. Not as cute as an infestation of koala bears certainly, but nothing like rats. I continued down the walkway toward the beach. After the land ends, a path along a breakwater continues out to the ruins of a castle on a tiny island. I took out my camera and framed the shot with cats in the foreground. After taking two pictures, I realize one scrawny black cat was advancing on me with eyes flashing. One black cat might not have been able to do much, but a herd of several hundred? I know what happened to catwoman; I’m not interested in superpowers. I continued on to the beach to stick my toes in the Atlantic once more.
On the way back from the beach, I saw the cat-man catapult himself from the rocks below onto the dividing wall. He walked off as though there was nothing unusual about the company he’d been keeping for the past hour or more. A lone cat sat on wrong side of the wall, the side reserved for people. As he passed it, I wondered if there would be some recognition between the cat and the hand that feeds it, but no. I wondered: does he name them? Does he love them? Perhaps this city inspires men to do to crazy things, things that can be hard from which to divine meaning: to divide land masses, to conquer what’s beyond the horizon, to tame a starving mass of clawed animals into submission.
Cats watch me warily...also, the ruins of a castle in the ocean as background
The cathedral of Cádiz...can you spot any cats in the foreground?
The cathedral from the front
We took the 7:15 am bus to Cádiz, the capital city of our province; also, the oldest city in Europe. “Cádiz?” you might say, “But I’ve never even heard of Cádiz! How can that be the oldest city in Europe?”
Perhaps you’ve heard of Hercules? Legend has it Cádiz was founded by Hercules when he parted Europe and Africa at the strait of Gibraltar. No big deal. History would have you believe the Phoencians founded Cádiz in 1100 AC (what does that mean? My map’s information says AC instead of AD or BC. Damn these Brits!) I prefer the Herculean version. Also, a guy on his way to India (known to us as Christopher Columbus) set sail from Cádiz in 1492. Needless to say, Cádiz has had an important place in history.
Back to our own epic journey, though. Just as the sky began to fill with light, our bus crossed the long bridge to Cádiz (surrounded by water on three sides). We stopped at a seemingly random intersection and several people got off. Thinking of last week’s stop in the middle of nowhere, I grew nervous (to quote our prez: “Fool me once…don’t fool me again!”) As we pulled away I saw a street name, Avenida Jose Leon de Carranza, which rang a bell. A few blocks later when the bus stopped again, I looked anxiously at Patra. “I think we get off here,” I said. She frowned, but followed my lead. Only after we disembarked did I remember the actual street name where we were supposed to get off: Avenida Ramon de Carranza. Once again, this burst of inspiration occurred as the bus was pulling away. This time, though, we were no longer on it. Oops.
We reoriented ourselves—luckily we’d both printed maps of the city beforehand—and started walking briskly up a main street. It was only a little after eight a.m. when we began walking, and thus my mistake wasn’t too costly; we arrived at the correct office at a quarter to nine, still fifteen minutes before it would even open. I was feeling hopeful; there were only a few other people in the office ahead of us. Also, in the past week, I made several more copies of just about every document ever given to me having anything to do with Spain: I made copies of our apartment lease, my Spanish bank account information, the page in my passport with an exit stamp from Mexico (what does that have to do with Spain? Nothing! But you never know…). We were Prepared.
At a few minutes past nine, Patra and I sat down with two immigration officers and pulled out our application sheets. They shook their heads. “No,” they said. Wrong sheet. I had a minor heart attack.
They handed us new forms, which we filled out as quickly as possibly in the office. This was fairly easy to do since the new form asked for EXACTLY THE SAME INFORMATION as the form we had first presented. Oh, except we had to check a box on this one indicating that we were the ones studying/working in Spain, not the relative of a person studying in Spain. Which is, I’m sure, extremely important.
Having filled out our new documents, we raced out of the building to find a place to make a single copy (of course, they couldn’t just give us two identical sheets to fill out). Finding the place to make copies closed, we entered a store in which we saw copy machines. The copy machines, as it turned out, were not for the general public since the store was actually an office, but a woman there took pity on us and made one copy each of our application forms. We hurried back to the immigration office and had to wait behind two or three people who had showed up since we’d left.
In that time, I noticed a poster on the wall with smiling people of different ethnicities pointing at the camera. The inscription read “Somos inmigrantes, como tu!” (We are immigrants, just like you!) I have yet to verify this, but I think Spain is fairly lenient about immigration. In the past two decades or so, it has become a popular destination for immigrants now that it’s generally recognized as a first-world country. The sign seemed cheery enough, but I felt a little indignant. “Me? An immigrant?” Oh right, I was at the immigration office…still, it felt strange to be identified with a word that is certainly loaded in the US.
Once again, we sat down with the immigration officers. This time, everything went smoothly. They took one copy each of: our application forms, our two letters from the Andalusian government explaining our work situation, and the information and visa pages of our passports. Five pieces of paper in all. We left the office relieved, but weighed down by the extra hundred or so unnecessary copies we still had.
After a quick croissant at a nearby café to celebrate our soon-to-be legality, Patra and I parted ways. She left for Seville by train to meet up with a friend, and I wandered the streets of Cádiz. Past the ruins of a Roman amphitheater, past the yellow-domed cathedral that you’re sure to see first in a google-image search of the city. Here I was walking along the coastal wall, large boulders on the ocean-side to fend off the tides. The sun was out, palm trees lined the sidewalk, I was feeling successful…and something started to smell fishy. Not a huge surprise, since I was next to the ocean and, up ahead of me, several fishermen cast their lines into the water. But then I looked down: the rocks below the wall were crawling with cats. And just ahead: a man down among the cats, setting out water and food. He left a trail of empty tinfoil—greasy with the remains of fish—and satisfied cats.
As infestations go, this one didn’t seem too bad. Not as cute as an infestation of koala bears certainly, but nothing like rats. I continued down the walkway toward the beach. After the land ends, a path along a breakwater continues out to the ruins of a castle on a tiny island. I took out my camera and framed the shot with cats in the foreground. After taking two pictures, I realize one scrawny black cat was advancing on me with eyes flashing. One black cat might not have been able to do much, but a herd of several hundred? I know what happened to catwoman; I’m not interested in superpowers. I continued on to the beach to stick my toes in the Atlantic once more.
On the way back from the beach, I saw the cat-man catapult himself from the rocks below onto the dividing wall. He walked off as though there was nothing unusual about the company he’d been keeping for the past hour or more. A lone cat sat on wrong side of the wall, the side reserved for people. As he passed it, I wondered if there would be some recognition between the cat and the hand that feeds it, but no. I wondered: does he name them? Does he love them? Perhaps this city inspires men to do to crazy things, things that can be hard from which to divine meaning: to divide land masses, to conquer what’s beyond the horizon, to tame a starving mass of clawed animals into submission.
Cats watch me warily...also, the ruins of a castle in the ocean as background
The cathedral of Cádiz...can you spot any cats in the foreground?
The cathedral from the front
Friday, October 17, 2008
The Sea, The Sea!
Today was an early day, as Patra and I set off to obtain residency cards. This must be done at an Oficina de Extranjería (immigration office), of which there are only two in the province of Cádiz. It also must be done within thirty days of your arrival in Spain; I had been here 20 days already and Patra was at something like 23. We chose to go to the office in El Puerto de Santa Maria, a town on the beach with a reputation for being awesome. The bus to Puerto, though, left at 7:20 in the morning so we were up much earlier to get ready and make it to the station on time. Luckily, this time we didn’t have to walk in a downpour. It was somewhat eerie to walk in Arcos while still dark, though, as the white town is awash in an orange glow from streetlamps at night.
Once on the bus, we traveled west toward the Atlantic. The moon was like an overripe winter melon in the sky, rotting at the bottom. Mist clung to the fields; lone farmhouses stood as though without foundations.
From this dreamlike beginning, the industrial entrance of Puerto was a shock. The bus stopped by an unimpressive bus shelter just before a busy roundabout. Expecting an actual station, I didn’t get out of my seat. “Jenna,” Patra said, “This is our stop.” I got off the bus with grave misgivings. We scanned the map at the bus shelter for Avenida de la Constitución, where we were supposed to find the office, but couldn’t find the name anywhere. We asked a woman seated at the shelter; she said she may have heard of the street, but she really couldn’t be sure. We went across the street to the train station and asked for directions there. Following those directions, we ended up ten minutes away at Avenida Diputación. The man hadn’t understood us. We looked at the map in Patra’s guidebook, also lacking Constitución. We decided we would walk in the general direction of the historic part of town, since there was, at least, a tourism office where we could hopefully get a better map of the town.
It was nine-thirty when we arrived at the tourism office, which didn’t open until ten. There were women directly inside the office and we poked our heads in as politely as possible to ask if they could just give us one map. “We open at ten,” they said abruptly, then shut the door. We asked a woman on the street if she knew where Constitución was. Her eyes opened wide. She told us it was possible to walk, but very long and complicated. Downtrodden, we went to a café and ate croissants until ten. Back at the tourism office, a much friendlier man showed us maps of the town and pointed out all the highlights, as well as a ferry we could take to a neighboring town if we wanted. Desperate to get to the immigration office, we thanked him and asked if he could just show us how to get to Constitución. He pointed it out—maybe five or six blocks from where we were. Neither long, nor complicated.
We arrived at the office a little after ten; already the waiting room was filling up. I recognized one girl from our orientation in Sevilla and she told us that this office required you to have a copy of your every page in your passport, as well as extra copies of your information and visa pages, and any other pages with stamps on them. Flustered, we hurried out of the office and to a nearby copy center. Back at the immigration office a few minutes later and several pounds more paperweight in our bags, we found that six or seven people had showed up since we left, thus surpassing us in line. We sat down to wait, like all the rest, for the one woman handling all of our cases.
After about an hour, the girl we knew was called in to the office. She emerged, triumphant, twenty minutes later. We congratulated her, feeling all the more closer to our own eventual success. We did sudokus to pass the time, read up on the news from the US in Spanish, and kept counting down the people until it would be our turn. In Spain, you don’t take a number or sit in line. You enter a room, ask “Quién es el último?” (Who’s the last one?) and keep track of the line in your head. This system, for the most part, works just fine. Also, you become more aware of everyone around you, begin to put them in a hierarchy based on their timeliness.
It was getting close to our turn, when the one woman handling immigration cases decided to take a lunch break. This was deflating, but I still had hope. There were three people ahead of us. If each one took twenty minutes, and the woman came back by twelve-twenty, then we would definitely get a chance to give her our paperwork. I felt bad—but also a little smug—about the people who were showing up just now. They had no chance of getting into her office before two, when she would close for the day. The woman came back from lunch at about twelve-fifteen and we were back in business. One appointment before ours lasted only five minutes. When we were finally next in line, I told Patra that I had been getting nervous, but at least now we had nothing to worry about. No coming back to Puerto for us!
We entered the caseworker’s office, sat down. I pulled out my application form and handed it to her. She looked over it for a few moments, then said, “You live in Arcos?” I confirmed this, thinking maybe she would say something about how beautiful the town is. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I can’t process your papers. You have to go to the office in Cádiz.” I felt slightly comforted by the fact that she used the phrase “Lo siento” for us. This is taught to Americans as the equivalent for “I’m sorry,” but it’s much stronger than the casual way we sometimes use our own apologetic phrase, much more full of regret. At least, I thought, she wasn’t just a jerk.
Patra and I left the office. We’d waited for over two hours just to be turned away. What’s more, we hadn’t been aware that there would be any division between who has to get their cards processed in Cádiz or Puerto.
At least, we agreed, it was a beautiful day. And we were exploring a new town, albeit what we saw the most of was the inside of a government office. Walking past a fruit store, Patra stopped in for a pomegranate to cheer herself up. My consolation was the ocean. It was easy enough to find, just a few blocks from the immigration office. Past hibiscus bushes and dunes, we came upon a wide expanse of beach. We rolled up our pants and took off our shoes and felt the sand give way beneath our toes. We wandered to the water’s edge and waded in. As soon as the first wave slide over my feet, I felt completely rejuvenated. So the day didn’t go as we had planned. So we will have to go to Cádiz next Friday, our last possible day to register for our residency cards. None of that mattered when I realized that I am alive, I am living in Spain, and the ocean is just forty-five minutes away from my cliff-top town. The day once again became dreamlike, and this time it wasn’t interrupted.
(My feet in the Atlantic! At last!)
Once on the bus, we traveled west toward the Atlantic. The moon was like an overripe winter melon in the sky, rotting at the bottom. Mist clung to the fields; lone farmhouses stood as though without foundations.
From this dreamlike beginning, the industrial entrance of Puerto was a shock. The bus stopped by an unimpressive bus shelter just before a busy roundabout. Expecting an actual station, I didn’t get out of my seat. “Jenna,” Patra said, “This is our stop.” I got off the bus with grave misgivings. We scanned the map at the bus shelter for Avenida de la Constitución, where we were supposed to find the office, but couldn’t find the name anywhere. We asked a woman seated at the shelter; she said she may have heard of the street, but she really couldn’t be sure. We went across the street to the train station and asked for directions there. Following those directions, we ended up ten minutes away at Avenida Diputación. The man hadn’t understood us. We looked at the map in Patra’s guidebook, also lacking Constitución. We decided we would walk in the general direction of the historic part of town, since there was, at least, a tourism office where we could hopefully get a better map of the town.
It was nine-thirty when we arrived at the tourism office, which didn’t open until ten. There were women directly inside the office and we poked our heads in as politely as possible to ask if they could just give us one map. “We open at ten,” they said abruptly, then shut the door. We asked a woman on the street if she knew where Constitución was. Her eyes opened wide. She told us it was possible to walk, but very long and complicated. Downtrodden, we went to a café and ate croissants until ten. Back at the tourism office, a much friendlier man showed us maps of the town and pointed out all the highlights, as well as a ferry we could take to a neighboring town if we wanted. Desperate to get to the immigration office, we thanked him and asked if he could just show us how to get to Constitución. He pointed it out—maybe five or six blocks from where we were. Neither long, nor complicated.
We arrived at the office a little after ten; already the waiting room was filling up. I recognized one girl from our orientation in Sevilla and she told us that this office required you to have a copy of your every page in your passport, as well as extra copies of your information and visa pages, and any other pages with stamps on them. Flustered, we hurried out of the office and to a nearby copy center. Back at the immigration office a few minutes later and several pounds more paperweight in our bags, we found that six or seven people had showed up since we left, thus surpassing us in line. We sat down to wait, like all the rest, for the one woman handling all of our cases.
After about an hour, the girl we knew was called in to the office. She emerged, triumphant, twenty minutes later. We congratulated her, feeling all the more closer to our own eventual success. We did sudokus to pass the time, read up on the news from the US in Spanish, and kept counting down the people until it would be our turn. In Spain, you don’t take a number or sit in line. You enter a room, ask “Quién es el último?” (Who’s the last one?) and keep track of the line in your head. This system, for the most part, works just fine. Also, you become more aware of everyone around you, begin to put them in a hierarchy based on their timeliness.
It was getting close to our turn, when the one woman handling immigration cases decided to take a lunch break. This was deflating, but I still had hope. There were three people ahead of us. If each one took twenty minutes, and the woman came back by twelve-twenty, then we would definitely get a chance to give her our paperwork. I felt bad—but also a little smug—about the people who were showing up just now. They had no chance of getting into her office before two, when she would close for the day. The woman came back from lunch at about twelve-fifteen and we were back in business. One appointment before ours lasted only five minutes. When we were finally next in line, I told Patra that I had been getting nervous, but at least now we had nothing to worry about. No coming back to Puerto for us!
We entered the caseworker’s office, sat down. I pulled out my application form and handed it to her. She looked over it for a few moments, then said, “You live in Arcos?” I confirmed this, thinking maybe she would say something about how beautiful the town is. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I can’t process your papers. You have to go to the office in Cádiz.” I felt slightly comforted by the fact that she used the phrase “Lo siento” for us. This is taught to Americans as the equivalent for “I’m sorry,” but it’s much stronger than the casual way we sometimes use our own apologetic phrase, much more full of regret. At least, I thought, she wasn’t just a jerk.
Patra and I left the office. We’d waited for over two hours just to be turned away. What’s more, we hadn’t been aware that there would be any division between who has to get their cards processed in Cádiz or Puerto.
At least, we agreed, it was a beautiful day. And we were exploring a new town, albeit what we saw the most of was the inside of a government office. Walking past a fruit store, Patra stopped in for a pomegranate to cheer herself up. My consolation was the ocean. It was easy enough to find, just a few blocks from the immigration office. Past hibiscus bushes and dunes, we came upon a wide expanse of beach. We rolled up our pants and took off our shoes and felt the sand give way beneath our toes. We wandered to the water’s edge and waded in. As soon as the first wave slide over my feet, I felt completely rejuvenated. So the day didn’t go as we had planned. So we will have to go to Cádiz next Friday, our last possible day to register for our residency cards. None of that mattered when I realized that I am alive, I am living in Spain, and the ocean is just forty-five minutes away from my cliff-top town. The day once again became dreamlike, and this time it wasn’t interrupted.
(My feet in the Atlantic! At last!)
Friday, October 3, 2008
Cliffhanger
I've never been on a blind date, but I felt today as though I was in the same type of situation.
I boarded a bus in Sevilla bound for Arcos and sat anxiously as the bus meandered through other small white towns on the way. First came the town of Espera, which translates to "wait" or "hope," both of which I was doing at that moment: waiting and hoping for something better. Nothing against Espera, but it's tiny and the school's playground that we passed was pretty run-down. I wouldn't want to teach kids with low morale due to rusted monkey bars. Espera did have a nice fountain, though; I'll give it that.
Next we passed through Bornos. Also white, also nestled into a hillside. Some nice horses but no castle. Once again, I breathed a sigh of relief that I would not be spending the next 8 months of my life there.
Which is where my metaphor somewhat falls apart. On an actual blind date you have the option of fleeing the scene when you realize the guy wearing the red rose in his lapel was once the kid who peed his pants after he was assigned to be your square dance partner. Or, if you're on the American TV show, Roger Lodge will make fun of you for a half hour, but then you're free.
Really, my situation was more of an arranged marriage. I'd seen pictures, but I hadn't yet fallen in love and was worried that perhaps I never would. That is, would I like Arco's personality? Would it be too honest or too laidback or too stuck in its ways?
To be honest, when I saw Arcos I was somewhat disappointed. The majestic view is from the south and we were arriving from the north. I'd been nourishing myself on grandiose and romanticized views of the town (fueled mainly by this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it1okjvUu0U) and the reality of its appearance just didn't seem to match up to my expectations. A problem, since I'd been going on appearance alone (like finding out Prince-Arranged-Marriage-Charming has a tooth missing when he first smiles at you--too many metaphors?) As the bus neared, I kept thinking "Maybe this isn't it? No, this is definitely it. Maybe not? No, there's the castle. This is definitely it."
The road we followed wrapped around the western side of Arcos and the more dramatic side of the cliff began to come into view (okay, so Prince-Arcos-Charming might be missing a tooth, but if you look at the right angle, you can't even tell. Actually, his teeth are pretty white...). I felt excited again.
Now I'm in Hotel Los Olivos, in a private room with a terrace that overlooks the view to the south. I can imagine the Rock of Gibraltar out there past the stretches of windmills, and Morocco just beyond that. The breeze blows Mediterranean sea salt through my hair. I'm beginning to think I could love this place, even with any flaws I may soon find. Or maybe it will really be perfect, as the guidebooks advertise.
Maybe I'll find out my Prince Arcos-de-la-Frontera is great at talking about his feelings.
The view from my hotel room's terrace
I boarded a bus in Sevilla bound for Arcos and sat anxiously as the bus meandered through other small white towns on the way. First came the town of Espera, which translates to "wait" or "hope," both of which I was doing at that moment: waiting and hoping for something better. Nothing against Espera, but it's tiny and the school's playground that we passed was pretty run-down. I wouldn't want to teach kids with low morale due to rusted monkey bars. Espera did have a nice fountain, though; I'll give it that.
Next we passed through Bornos. Also white, also nestled into a hillside. Some nice horses but no castle. Once again, I breathed a sigh of relief that I would not be spending the next 8 months of my life there.
Which is where my metaphor somewhat falls apart. On an actual blind date you have the option of fleeing the scene when you realize the guy wearing the red rose in his lapel was once the kid who peed his pants after he was assigned to be your square dance partner. Or, if you're on the American TV show, Roger Lodge will make fun of you for a half hour, but then you're free.
Really, my situation was more of an arranged marriage. I'd seen pictures, but I hadn't yet fallen in love and was worried that perhaps I never would. That is, would I like Arco's personality? Would it be too honest or too laidback or too stuck in its ways?
To be honest, when I saw Arcos I was somewhat disappointed. The majestic view is from the south and we were arriving from the north. I'd been nourishing myself on grandiose and romanticized views of the town (fueled mainly by this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it1okjvUu0U) and the reality of its appearance just didn't seem to match up to my expectations. A problem, since I'd been going on appearance alone (like finding out Prince-Arranged-Marriage-Charming has a tooth missing when he first smiles at you--too many metaphors?) As the bus neared, I kept thinking "Maybe this isn't it? No, this is definitely it. Maybe not? No, there's the castle. This is definitely it."
The road we followed wrapped around the western side of Arcos and the more dramatic side of the cliff began to come into view (okay, so Prince-Arcos-Charming might be missing a tooth, but if you look at the right angle, you can't even tell. Actually, his teeth are pretty white...). I felt excited again.
Now I'm in Hotel Los Olivos, in a private room with a terrace that overlooks the view to the south. I can imagine the Rock of Gibraltar out there past the stretches of windmills, and Morocco just beyond that. The breeze blows Mediterranean sea salt through my hair. I'm beginning to think I could love this place, even with any flaws I may soon find. Or maybe it will really be perfect, as the guidebooks advertise.
Maybe I'll find out my Prince Arcos-de-la-Frontera is great at talking about his feelings.
The view from my hotel room's terrace
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