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Published: September 26th 2006
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After a few cool, cloudy afternoons, Sunday breaks in a dazzling shower of sunlight. There are flies buzzing over the Plaza Mayor - enough that you want to run and take cover - and while I’m sure there’s some scientific correlation with the sudden change in weather, I’m not the guy to explain it. Instead I fight a losing battle with the little bastards as I drink my afternoon coffee, swatting at my bare feet and the sides of my head with a copy of
El Pais.
There are spiders, too: tons of them. This has fascinated me to no end. Walking the streets you see little silvery threads glinting in the sunlight. They cover the gates and the balustrades; you see them lifting and falling with a change in the wind. For a remarkable afternoon, all of Salamanca seems to be stuck inside this manic snare. At the sidewalk cafés, or sitting on benches, people are pulling at their arms and swatting at their hair and making crazy blinking gestures, like epileptics. Now, a lesser man might go on to spin some terrible metaphor about being caught in Salamanca’s seductive web; but while my reluctance to leave
after eight days might make said metaphor utterly apropos, I’ll let you guys connect the dots at home.
I’ve decided to stay an extra night; Karla and Diana are throwing a birthday party for a friend. At the supermarket, browsing the shelves of wine for an offering, it dawns on me that the reason Spaniards are full of such gusto might have much to do with the fact that they can get shit-faced for about €3 a night. There are dozens of bottles in the €1-2 range; I pick up a Crianza that, at €4.90, is practically Rothschildean by comparison. While I bear no small amount of resentment toward the guy who pushed a €10 bottle on me at a local café, I come to the giddy conclusion that for the weeks and months ahead, Spain has just gotten - impossibly! - that much more fun.
The party doesn’t start till half-past 10, and already there are drunk and swaying girls propping each other up on the couch when I arrive at one. Jackie - the birthday girl, part of a strong Mexican contingent in the room - totters by on a pair of heels, a
loose, open dress draped across the wisp of her back. Clinging to the edge of a few circles, I realize how dramatically my Spanish is improving. Though if you’ve ever heard a roomful of Mexican girls in drunken conversation, you’ll know that rudimentary Spanish is about as useful as advanced Farsi.
Javi - a handsome, charming Spaniard who tends bar at a popular club - hands me an amber-colored shot, urging “
Pruebalo” - "Try it" - with a very mischievous smile.
Travel Tip #1071: Never accept a drink from a Spaniard unless he’s already taken a sip, danced a happy little dance, and proven that the stuff tastes like daisies dipped in rainbows. A shot of Stroh (80%!a(MISSING)lc./vol.) feels a bit like drinking a bowl of flames and putting your head through a window. My eyes tear up and I choke back the parts of my stomach lining that have found a way into my throat; while I’m making little sucking faces and trying to find my lips, Javi gives me a boisterous slap on the back and offers, “
Uno mas?”
It’s a long and painful night. There are two Moroccan guys who are all
smiles and friendly chatter when they hear I’ll be visiting their country in November. I wish they’d stop handing me drinks. There seems to be some unspoken agreement among the Mexicans in the living room that the gringo needs to get drunk, and ever the gracious guest, I’m working hard to oblige. Javi hands me another shot of Stroh, questioning my manhood with some comment about “
bolas.” I’m worried that my manhood -
bolas, stomach and all - will be painting the bathroom walls by the end of the night, but if I’m going to stand here and represent the Stars and Stripes, Mount Rushmore, the Bill of Rights and Judge Judy, there’s no way I’m backing down from a challenge. The second shot of Stroh goes down a bit smoother than the first, but that’s probably because I’ve lost most of my nerve endings. Some girl is talking to me in very urgent Spanish, but for some reason, all I can hear are bits and pieces of Bizet’s
Carmen in my head.
By mid-day we’ve stumbled out of bed, coming to terms with the wreckage of the living room. There are still some bodies left over from last
night, along with the empty bottles and cigarette butts and crusted bits of guacamole stuck to the countertop. We’re cleaning the place in our PJ’s - at times, you’ve got to miss college. My throat feels like whatever the internal equivalent is when, after spending too much time in the sun, things begin to flake and peel.
Karla comes into my room, her eyes puffy and wet, as I’m packing my things. These are happy tears: she’s just found out that she’s passed all the exams for her psychology major. After five years, she’s ready to leave Salamanca behind. She suspects she’s getting a bit old for this, too. She’s looking at all her options: Barcelona, London, Paris, Berlin. I suspect we’ll be crossing paths again before long.
On the walk to the train station, weighed down like a beast of burden, the streets and plazas have begun to swell. I’m working overtime to resist the temptation to turn back. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there’s no better time to leave a place than when it still makes your soul sing. And like the bell tower in the Plaza Mayor, which chimes Beethoven’s
Ode to Joy at noon every day, there are long, sonorous peals striking a chord in every corner of my heart.
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