Gushing

Last night I started to write up a blog post about what I have been up to lately but studiously avoided detailing Jonathan’s visit because I figured people probably don’t care to listen to me gushing about how wonderful it was. I finished and it was a very dull paragraph that can be summed up in one sentence: I finished school, went to Rota, Jonathan visited, took my last final, the end. I deleted that paragraph and today am going to go ahead and gush about Jonathan’s visit, if you don’t care to read gushing, you’ve been warned… Well, alright, I suppose I should briefly mention that I finished classes at the center the first week of May. I think I did pretty well in all of them, I’m not worried. We had a goodbye dinner and most of the Illinois people have by now all gone home or are traveling. The Monday after school ended, Lauren and I went to visit Dan which was a crazy trip, but fun. Lauren’s FB album pretty much says it all. It was great to see the brother even if it was only for a few hours. We got home just in time to go up to our class at the University and then go back to our respective places to sleep and sleep and sleep. Then the next day was Wednesday. Jonathan came on Wednesday. I took the bus out to the airport to meet him there and sure enough, there he was. It was really very surreal after just seeing each other on skype for five months. Needless to say, we were happy to see each other. So we took the bus back into the center and checked him into his hostel which worked out just fine and then I started the process of showing him around. We went into one of the churches on his street which was open and found out Mass was going to start in about half an hour, so we went out and wandered a bit before coming back for Mass. We ran into Lauren there which was nice. Then after Mass we walked to my house and back to show Jonathan where I lived in relation to him, and then did more wandering with the vague purpose of finding dinner. I had always wanted to go to dinner in the plaza Bib Rambla which has all these cool lantern-lit pavilion extensions of restaurants, so we splurged and went. The atmosphere didn’t disappoint (lanterns are cool) but the food left something to be desired. The appetizer dish and Jonathan’s dessert (yogurt mousse) were good, but the main dish was a disappointment. After that we wandered more until eventually we found a spot in a different plaza (there are a lot of plazas, by the way) and chatted until it was time for Jonathan to walk me home which was nice since I didn’t have to worry about getting comments from random guys on the street or anything. Thursday we met up in the morning and went to Mass at a different place, visited a park and then walked to my school so that I could show him around and also pick up my mail. I also got to hear part of Jonathan’s recital that I had missed since the center has a piano and the secretary is nice and opened up the library and gave him permission to play. While he was in piano world, a bunch of admiring visitors stopped in to see who was playing. It was nice to hear him play again. Then it was lunch time and we had lunch at a little cerveceria. After lunch, we did more walking and park visiting (lots of parks) until it was time for me to go to class. Went and picked up my backpack, Jonathan met my Señora, bumped his head on the lamp hanging in the entry way and then we walked up the mountain. We went early so that I could show him a bit of the campus and so that I could load the Rota pictures on FB. The internet even at the University is pretty terrible, so it took forever, but eventually I got them loaded. Then I went to class with Lauren and Jonathan stayed outside in the sun while we were inside being Berlanga-ed. After class we stopped by the house to drop off my backpack and ended up getting fed and meeting my Señora’s daughter briefly. Jonathan bumped his head on the lamp again and then we left to go meet my friends. We went to two different tapas bars and had a fairly good time although it wasn’t ideal for actually having my friends get to know Jonathan because there were too many of us. Oh well. The purpose was accomplished, they met him. Friday morning we went to Mass, had lunch somewhere and then wandered over in the direction of Plaza Nueva. We ended up going up the Paseo de los Tristes while waiting for it to be time to go visit the Alhambra. We were a bit daring and went down a little path to go sit on the grass (gasp!) by the river and watch these pretty little birds. We decided they were probably called “Hopping Yellow-Bellied Split-Tails” just based on our observations. Jonathan snuck up on them to get a picture, but unfortunately you can’t see the bird very clearly. Anyhow, that was nice and then we went up to the Alhambra in a rather roundabout way since we missed our turn and then came up with our own route following the map. We went up, up, up just to go back down again and then go back up. Probably why that particular alley was overgrown with weeds… Anyhow, we got up to the Alhambra and the ladies at the ticket booth told us we had better book it to the palaces since we could only get in at 3:30. Turns out their idea of how long it takes to walk there is a little off, we got there fifteen minutes early after speed walking our way through all the rambling people. We got into the palaces and enjoyed it, took lots of pictures and even tried taking cutesy pictures of the two of us, but none of them turned out. We went all through the Alhambra until about 7:00 when we were both exhausted and hungry so decided to call it a day. It was great to go back to the Alhambra in the spring when all the roses were in bloom. Gardens that were pretty in February were even prettier in May. So we staggered down the hill looking for a place to eat forgetting that it was a Friday night so finding a place to sit and eat was, well, difficult. Eventually we found a place and even more eventually we actually got our food. Bocadillos have never tasted so good. Then we went over to Bib Rambla and got the famous ice cream with Lauren and Jen. We were all a little bit giggly/slap happy, which was fun. When we were walking home Jonathan and Jen were singing some We Might be Giants song that they both knew and the girls in front of us eventually stopped and asked us to sing happy birthday (in Spanish, fortunately Jen lives with a two-year-old who loves that song, so she knew all the words) since it was one of the girls’ birthday. We obliged, it was pretty funny. Then Saturday we had kind of planned on going to Córdoba, but hadn’t bought the tickets ahead of time. So we just went to the bus station in the morning hoping to get tickets, but when we got there the line to buy tickets was practically out the door, so by the time we would have gotten up there, the bus would have already left. So we went back to the center and got breakfast at Helado Boy’s and then went to Garcia Lorca. Randomly ran into Lauren again, and while she studied for our exam which we took yesterday, Jonathan and I ate our bocadillos and oranges and people watched. Then Lauren had to go to lunch, but Jonathan and I stayed in the park pretty much all afternoon. We dozed, talked, read, prayed the rosary and just in general enjoyed the park. We also tried out the exercise machines and witnessed a catastrophe when one of the little boys also “exercising” bonked his forehead on something and started bleeding all over the place. Fortunately he got some help from a guy nearby and ended up being well enough to walk home. We went to Mass at San Juan de Dios which is a very, very gold church. Seriously, it’s crazy. Very pretty, but crazy. We got there early turns out and they were praying the rosary…at ramming speed. It was actually really, really hard to concentrate on praying with these little old ladies chanting the rosary all in one breath. There were a ton of extra prayers at the end too that we didn’t know. Then after Mass we went to “O Mamma Mia” which turned out to be a really tasty and not too expensive Italian place. We got pizza and a salad and then went to a park and were a tad goofy. Well, maybe more than a tad, anyhow, it was fun. Sunday was a very interesting day; we went with my Señora to her pueblo. First, we went to the place where she was born, and where she and her siblings have a summer place that is rather run down at the moment. I guess every summer they have a big cleaning party and make it livable. When we saw it there were tadpoles in the swimming pool and spiders in all the windows. This is where the rose bush is. We picked some kind of bean and got several bags full and then collected a bunch of roses. After gathering all the good blooms, we got in the car again and went to the cemetery where my Señora and her sister-in-law put flowers on the graves of their husbands which was sad. Especially the sister-in-law since hers had only been dead for 3 years. My Señora has been a widow for 8. After that, we stopped by “real quick” to visit some friends of theirs. We showed up and they gave us quite the welcome. The family consisted of the grandparents, their daughter and son-in-law, two grandchildren and another couple of friends. The younger guys were doing the cooking, the grandparents and women were sitting around the table eating tapas and the two kids were playing. As Jonathan said later, tapas at a bar are nothing compared to the real thing. We had some beans (the same kind we’d just been picking) in olive oil and sprinkled with salt, chorizo of a couple different types on bread, fried potatoes and these little cakey things. Oh, and wine. The grandpa was very vigilant in making sure that we never stopped eating and drinking the whole time we were there. It was not a quick visit, we were probably there at least an hour despite the fact that my Señora kept saying we were just about to leave…which meant that I kept guzzling down my wine so that we could go, but then we wouldn’t, so the grandpa would have Jonathan keep pouring me more. Yeah, fortunately the glasses were small. At one point the little boy asked (or rather, demanded) that his dad change the CD that was playing in the background. Guess what his favorite CD turned out to be? Crazy Frog. Of all the things to hear in the patio of a little house in a tiny pueblo in Spain...I guess little boys are not that different no matter where you are. Eventually we did actually leave and go to my Señora’s country house, which was actually incredibly nice. Our apartment is pretty nice, but her house in the pueblo is at least 5 times as nice. We met the dog, the cat and the chickens, ate cherries, got a tour, and hung out for a while. Rocío and Jose were going to come, but didn’t end up coming but “mujer” did and I finally found out her name: it’s Dori. The four of us ate paella for lunch and then after lunch more relatives showed up and we had coffee and dessert. While we were drinking café con leche and munching on pastries, somehow the four ladies ended up having a very heated discussion about communism vs. the dictatorship. It was my Señora and her sister against their sister-in-law (the one with the cute little grandbaby Paola). My Señora and Dori thought that the dictatorship was bad, but better than what would have happened if the communists had won, while the sister in law thought the opposite. It was really interesting to sit back and watch them. I think my Señora and Dori won, but I have to say that it was really due to the force of Dori’s personality. No one can argue with her for long, she’s much too sharp in all senses of the word. So, that was a fun day. When we got back we went to Mass and then randomly ran into a procession which we followed around for awhile. It was nice to see and hear one again, they’re just so cool. It was nothing compared to Semana Santa, but still it was cool and Jonathan got to see it and have a taste of what it was like for me around Easter. Needless to say, we were never hungry enough to eat dinner after a whole afternoon of pretty much non-stop eating. Monday morning we met Jen and Rebecca for churros in the morning and then went up to the Albaycín to San Nicolas. We hung out up there for a while and eventually wound our way back down to a Tetaría for lunch. We also stumbled upon giant asparagus and some impressive graffiti. Then we went to another park and dozed on a bench in the shade for a while until we felt the need for ice cream so we went to Lauren’s and got Stracciatella which is the best kind of ice cream out there, and Lauren’s place has the best version of it. I will miss it. Then we went to the Cathedral for Mass in the evening and then went in search of a place my Señora had recommended for dinner. Eventually we found it, and my Señora was not kidding, it was a great place. We had pizza, a bottle of the house wine (it was funny, the waitress had us smell it and taste it before she would pour a full glass) and then a plate with three types of pasta on it. It was wonderful. Plus, it was just a really nice atmosphere, quiet, good music, nice lighting, friendly waiters etc. I also had some pretty good company, so it made the last evening just perfect. Then we sat in the park (yep, another one) and digested for a bit before going back to our respective lodgings for a few hours of sleep before getting up at 4:30 to take Jonathan to the airport and say goodbye. If those six days were not the best ones of my life, they are certainly up there near the top. I’m really glad he came.