blurbs

One Friday we spend a cold evening at a Moroccan-themed bar in Zafra with two American girls (one from our very own Midwest) and a crowd of Spanish college students home for the holidays. It’s not clear how this group has spontaneously formed, but it’s a good collection of people. I’m sitting next to Alva, a model of Spanish hipness in her tights, denim shorts, and high-top sneakers. Her black hair is carefully styled into a tall pouf and her eyelashes extend for miles. She tells me it’s her life’s dream to go to New York City, that as soon as she finishes her studies and finds a job, it’s the first thing she’ll do. I ask her what she’s studying. ‘Medicine,’ she answers, taking a long drag of her cigarette.

On my left, Levi is talking to Manu, a self-proclaimed club kid with a beefy build and quite a lot of gel in his hair. He’s playing techno songs on his cell phone, raving about the power of that music. ‘I love all music,’ he says, ‘but this’….he rubs his forearm. ‘This makes my hair stand on end.’ He shows us a video of a concert he recently saw with Alva; strobe lights pulse through the crowd as naked women dance onstage. ‘Porno party,’ Alva says in English, giving a wide-eyed nod from behind her beer. Manu tells us a story about stumbling home one night to find a half dozen strangers watching tv in his living room. ‘This is my apartment…’ he says. ‘What’s up man?’ one responds. He just sighs in resignation and goes to bed, hoping to find them gone in the morning.

Rosa, a few years older than the rest, is a student of one of our American friends, and she speaks better English than she likes to reveal. She says she’s embarrassed by her errors so she avoids speaking altogether. I force a few phrases out of her, and she agrees to have some English-only conversations before her next exam. She corrects my Spanish grammar as I speak. The Argentines I knew were always quick to do this, and I’ve missed it in Spain; I think the people here tend to see it as impolite. It’s by far the most useful language-learning tool though, and it’s refreshing to encounter it here.

Amanda, who is more American in her dress than any of us Americans, tells us she’s always wanted to learn English but it’s just too damn hard. ‘My name is Amanda, hello,’ she laughs, insisting that this is all she knows. She excitedly shows us her Hot Topic-style SpongeBob shirt. ‘Bob Esponja!’ she says, pointing. ‘Y Patricio!’ She’s one of these nonstop smilers and the mood is contagious. We’re all laughing all night.
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Christmas Eve here turns out to be the botellón, an early-evening drunken disaster on the Plaza. Someone’s car speakers are repeatedly blasting the techno song that took over Europe this summer. Bottles smash, shots lined up on the benches, there’s a guy puking under our balcony and someone pissing outside the hotel. The party has cleared out by 10pm, and the city sleeps in on Christmas morning.
•••••
On Christmas Day, Levi and I drink the Guinness we gifted ourselves and watch the rain through the French doors.
•••••
We get locked out of our apartment tonight, conveniently also without a cell phone. We bang on the door for a while, but our neighbor’s out of town. We walk to the home of a friend of our landlord to try to get a hold of him, but she’s out of town. So we track down a phone book at the police station and call the landlord from a payphone, but the listing is bad. Running out of ideas, I ask the Italian guy who runs the pizzeria for his phone to give the number one more try. No dice, but the owner’s son, a big hairy guy covered in flour and olive oil, grabs a menu and heads to our door. He unsuccessfully tries to jimmy the lock with the laminated paper for a while, then finally sighs, shrugs, and kicks the door in.
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