On to Segovia

"It is the center of the most ravishing and troubling, sensuous and mystical of all Spanish spectacles – Holy Week in Seville." – Fuentes, from the Buried Mirror











August '18


The small old cities outlaying beyond Madrid, Avila and Segovia, are geographical and architectural impressions of a distant past that has been so well preserved as to create the illusion that history is still alive today. One says that it may be illusion because we are never quite sure – especially here from the states in which the cathedral is not part of our cultural tapestry – whether we are merely picking through facade or investing in something that is real. As we visited Avila one cannot help but feel this tug and pull all the way through. Home of St. Theresa, a sainted Carmelite who pushed mightily for stricter reform on the conduct of the monastery of the time, is without a doubt highly revered – she was reformer, participant, writer, missionary and creator of multiple other convents. Yet what a strange impression it leaves on the traveler to see that all of the religious iconography and all of the building, books, statuary, have only visual fodder for tourists. The town of Avila is a fortress and overlooks the valley, walls substantial, and walking platforms for Roman soldiers to watch for the advance of peering tribes. Seemingly to protect the religious contents that live inside. In America, we may have a tendency to build back over such ramparts and start anew. Older churches tend to blend in with the community but the neighborhood and the church seem to be two separate distinct features of our history. In Avila and Segovia the cathedral and monastery are the community and we can see a hundred little instances of the hints of life at that time. The aqueducts in Segovia tell us that water had been added into the cultural priorities of defense and religion and whatever farming or herding might have been the chief pursuits of that time. The castle at the end of the town reminds us of rulership and another instance of a separation between the religious center and the administrative necessity, obviously in charge of the military, fed by farmers surrounding. At the least, these walks and these observations remind us of the elemental nature of life in the Spanish village.

Elemental Madrid

"Look at the map of Iberia. It is like a taut bull's skin, crisscrossed by the paths left by men and women whose voices and faces we in Spanish American dimly perceive." – Fuentes, from The Buried Mirror










Before you meet your guide for a first foray into tapas in Madrid, there are images of long dark streets full of pulsing bars and all other sorts of eateries; or maybe longer yet calles, bright and elegant, showing the same numbers of people but by brightly lit windows, perhaps along the Grand villa. And then you meet your guide in your own hotel and he is quite enthusiastic, Australian by origin, but speaks a variety of languages, one of them certainly Spanish. The small district that we walk to is the so called Bohemian Arts district, but indeed there is nothing that strikes you as particularly Bohemian, but instead it is quite regularly beautiful, the small tapas hubs crafted in deep woods and advertises by artful signs. We sit in the back end of one as a Spanish crowd nibbles at smoked salmon and Iberian jason. Small cold glasses of cerveza are handed out at an intensely fast pace and the regulars, who no doubt know the bartenders well, do nothing much more than raise their glasses and make brief eye contact and there is another and then another landed on the table. "The jamon here is all from nearby farms. The Spanish take their jamon very seriously and this is probably the most common tapas that you will ever find." Those thin slices are layered across the plate and, even despite the chewiness of the fat, eats so well – much like raw bacon – that it creates a certain kind of craving that can only be satisfied by the cerveza in the other hand. We tried the dried salmon over a simple white cheese similar to mozzarella and then some stuffed olives. The tapas culture seemed so elemental and obvious once you began that night's ordering and sampling. Because the entire table tends to order the same tapas, you have something so easily to talk and comment about as you sit and await the next one in order. They are both light but with enough substance that you are not drinking on an empty stomach but you are also not going to get so full as to want to end the evening as a result of a bloated stomach. We went to two other tapas bars, tavernas, one a wine and cheese shop offering a wonderful concoction of gorgonzola, honey, olive oil. The Riojo wine became a necessary balance to the creamy subtleties of the cheeses. Our final stop was for the sweet: a thick slice of cheese cake, dashed off by a dark chocolate, and paired by a brut of sorts. We walked back past a packed jazz venue, "one of the true jazz spots in all of Europe." The district was just picking up now. It was a tuesday night. Many, including no doubt families, would not see their beds by one in the morning, only to wake up a handful of hours afterward, ready for espresso and toast.

Days in Salamanca

"Pachamama is a goddess revered by the indigenous people of the Andes. She is also known as the earth/time mother. In Inca mythology, Pachamama is a fertility goddess who presides over planting and harvesting, embodies the mountains, and causes earthquakes."











It is written of Spain that no matter how much you may come to love the rustic countryside or the lively streets of the cities at night, it will be, in the end, the Spanish people and their zest for celebrating the long and sunny days the best. There's no better example of this shift than finding oneself at a small little place like Pachamama, on the other side of the Tormes River, at ten at night diving into a steak as large as the plate itself, and realizing that it is quite possible you are eating early, not late. It takes the mind, body, spirit some time to come to this shift; in America, we are now quite interested in eating our dinners as early as possible, so as to digest, then getting ourselves to bed by nine so that we can dial back up our schedules as early as possible: a quick bowl of cereal, a cup of coffee, a rush to a car, a rush to a school, a rush to a job, and then, as we ponder our hunger for a few hours, decide on that quick lunch counter we can get to with whatever spare time we might have. Let's face it, after a short while in Spain, we all ask the question 'how do the Spanish get away with this?' It's a question that is so not new that the writer has to wonder if it's worth asking. It wasn't until I cut through my steak that night, under the lights of the outdoor patio, under the fading light of the long Salamanca day, the I too would have thought it nothing more than cliche, go with the flow, eat when the rest of the folks do, and leave it at that. But I now want to know more and I want to know if I could get away with any of this back here in our fairly rigorously maintained schedules of the great midwest. The first thing that is recognized after a few nights in Spain is that there are a lot more hours to account for in any given day than what we are used to. It is not abnormal in the least for the standard American to already visualize a night of watching sports before the altar of the TV (I too watch far too much baseball) even before we arrive at home. This comes, I assume, to a feeling that one's day needs some escape, not an extension, as the Spanish might. If we have spent the last eight hours generally doing things that we would never choose to do – whether in terms of tasks or environment – than our homes become places to hide, escape, and generally get away from. The Spanish, on the other hand, are merely reengaging one more time at night and the hours from 8 until 1 or 2 in the morning are experienced much like the second part of the day to be enjoyed, to wander, eat new foods, and breath in the night air sprinkled with stars. This is one of two main revelations that I experienced in Spain: there is more life to be lived here because nights open up not as escapism, either via TV or bar drinking, for example, but a time of magic, wonder and culture. This insight alone is life altering, for unhappiness, we imagine, comes from our minds and bodies simply not living the way that they would choose naturally, a near definition of American culture. Virtually every component of American life that is deemed healthy, or a part of wellness, is something that is ardently added on – a good workout, a diet, a cleanse, time stolen back for meditation or maybe for plucking the strings of a guitar in ones basement. None of these things work seamlessly into the contours of scheduled lives; instead they are add-ons, escapes, or contrasts to our lifestyles. As I was sitting there in that seat out on that outdoor patio with my steak as big as a plate, I knew that I didn't particularly want that large of a portion of red meat and had actually made a mistake of choice as I ordered. But it was ten at night. I was still up. Awake. Alive. Looking out at the groups of people coming in for simple, not drunken, drinks. The steak was quite beautiful. Later that night I slept the sleep of a saint.

On the Streets of Salamanca

"Living as we do in the age of the baseball cap, it is rare and refreshing to discover a genuine hatter – one that provides a generous selection of elegant and practical hats not only for ladies and gentlemen but for shepherds, farmers, amateur aviators, adventurers, jungle explorers, and nostalgic crooners." – Peter Mayle, from Provence A-Z









It seems reasonable to say, after spending only a few days in Salamanca, that to visit is to love it. What do we seek in travel? Sunshine that runs high and clean and that washes across a brightness of architecture that is naturally golden anyway. Labyrinthian roads that are so narrow barely a small BMW can nose along its cobblestones. Mammoth wooden doors chiseled out to fine art. Food at every turn and every back alleyway. Pleasant people. Adventure. In a word Salamanca is an adventure for the eye. Although we spent our first day here in a wild dream state, post jet lag, and that  in that state of mind the entire city looked like a Cezanne, the city had quietly and comfortably become known to us, located as we were right along the Paseo del Rector, no more than two blocks from the Puente Romano, itself a bridge that still shouldered original Roman handiwork at some 26 archways. Underneath the bridge, a bike path that split into both directions and at either end. The American, as he begins to eye up a city, especially in his home state, continuously awaits to stumble across patches of the city that should not be trespassed due to safety concerns, but Salamanca brightens and gratifies once more on this front, and has a sense of a quaint village filled with, gasp,

happy people at virtually every curve in calle. We had stationed on our schedule a bike tour through our tour guide and walked up along Calle Vera cruz past Universidad de Salamanca to the bike shop where we met three bikes parked on an uphill. We assumed that the guide would be English speaking only because our drivers and guides to this point had all been Spanish but spoke English certainly far better than we could Spanish, but our guide did not. She was exceedingly kind and offered to do the tour anyway with her slight ability as she said with English. What most certainly could have become a pitfall in our tour became one of the more memorable two and a half hours of our entire trip because it was our best and only forced interface with the language. At certain spots we would stop to take a look at a view of a building, the bridge, a cathedral, and by exchanging back and forth our comments in our respective language we were able to work out the context of what we were trying to say. At one point she showed us the backside of a manufacturing facility, quite old, dilapidated, and something to do with such factories not doing so well in this region right now and I asked what it produced. There was no way for her to say the word in English and so she quickly looked it up on her phone and it turned out it was fertilizer that was produced there, not the most elegant product for the outskirts of such a dazzling city, but nonetheless understandable. We had a short laugh, and she called out, "ok, c'mon" and we launched out to our next stop down the path.

La Cocina Espanola

"We started up the road into the woods. It was a long walk home to Burguete, and it was dark when we came down across the fields to the road, and along the road between the houses of the town, their windows lighted, to the inn."
– Hemingway, from "The Sun Also Rises"










August '18


I had remembered the list of tapas inns and more formal restaurants that our receiving tour guide in Salamanca had written out for us. At that moment, before we had even walked into the city, sitting there on the couch in the lobby of Hotel Rector, there would have been no way to fully understand what a daunting task it must have been to quickly sign off only a small handful of places to eat in a city that is, without exaggeration, door after door after door eating establishments. With a quick glance at the website, I could see that el Mason de Gregor located at the far edge of the Plaza Mayor and did not need any reservations before the true dining hours of eight and beyond. We arrived to open tables, white tableclothed, on the sidewalk, and the waiters dressed in full white regalia, dark haired, and quite serious. Next to us the conversation from the table was interestingly English (from England) and something that had more of a Dutch accent. We felt now, surrounded by Spanish speakers, our own American, and European English to our right, like we were steeped inside an episode of Poirot or some other similarly cosmopolitan program. There is nothing quite like this and takes some time to wonder about at a later time. The air here still quite light, but under shade from a boulevard tree; some minor car traffic along the calle near the Plaza; other small restaurants just around the corner beginning to fill up; the air warm; the waiters serious; and a menu that offers some

ver elegant offerings...these are the moments that I think we visualize as we are thumbing through our tour guides and daydreaming of what it might look like. Salamanca never fails the traveler at this level of wishful thinking and as my own suckling lamb arrived and Carly's lamb chops (5), we were literally imbibing Spanish culture. There are several things that makes, in my mind anyway, after a short visit, a soulful refuge of culture is its labyrinthian side calles, uncountable eating establishments, and all commanded over by the original intent of the city as both a university and religious mecca. One could possibly make the point that this moment is a sort of golden era of travel because, compared to the past, these major influences – university, religion, eating establishments – are experiencing relative peace, if not relative and full belief. If religion had been all powerful in the past, sometimes to the point of control and violence (think inquisition) or if the university did not always have such influence (think its early conception in the 1500's when it was trying establish credibility), these things are now all in tact and beautiful and very accessible in time of peace. The next morning we would take a bike tour of the city with a native Spanish speaker from Salamanca. She was very pleasant and willing to share in her insecurity over own ability to speak English. There was no animosity in her demeanor, something that most Americans are sensitive toward as they travel Europe. I was nothing more than another man with a daughter on equal terms with this wonderful guide. As we sat at the table at meson Gregor, it was similar. It was neutral and professional. The suckling lamb was a carver's dream, knifing away at portions for what seemed an hour. Carly learned to cut away the purely meaty portions of lamb chops and when she had succeeded in getting to the red it was something of an accomplishment. The table next to us continued to speak in hushed European tones. The plaza Mayor, just beyond the arch in sight was beginning to whisper in the streets.

Streets of Salamanca

"Parrots, stars, and in addition the official sun and a brusque dampness brought out in me a meditative taste for the earth and whatever covered it, and the satisfactions of an old house in its bats..." – Neruda, from "Contradicted Communications"










Puente Romano

Night comes
and she settles down
(I am thankful)
slowly over the Puente Romano
where I am drawn
so much
like a walking ear
to music
spilling out of the doorways
of sunken taverns.
Night comes and I find myself
in love
with things only of age,
of the brittle
imperfections
of centuries' old
cobblestones and arches
that I imagine
assembled by the hands
of leathery Romans – wives
must wonder
at what happens
to we men,
that imagination,
how carved stones
turned to story boards
of times past
would have tantalized
us far beyond
the flesh of this time.
We walk inside
the glow
of the streetlamp
together,
the city in one hand,
night of Cervantes
in the other
and just as any love
it is disappearance
as always
that is the vice of man.
Rio Tomes,
spillway of silver
rocks and brick –
these are the trinkets
I might hold
of history
and stand as a fool
waiting
outside the cafe
at night
as the last light
clicks off inside
and she never
arrives
to open the wide
wooden door.

My Spanish Kitchen:
A Panoramic

"Just then, from one of the boats tied up to Brown's dock, a rocket rose with a whoosh high into the sky and burst with a pop to light up the channel." – Hemingway, "Islands in the Stream"











The jet lag had not last long after the first day and Sam was very happy about that. It was one of the things most feared, he remembered, of traveling overseas and losing the six hours. If you don't make up the sleep jet lag can stay with you an entire trip and a cast a shadow over everything that you did. They had woken up at the noon the next day to the buzzing of the phone on the side table next to the bed. The room was so dark that it would have been impossible at that moment to tell what time it was exactly; there were brown shudders that left absolutely no light into the room and it felt much like a cave, very cool, very dark, the walls like concrete. "It is time to get up," he said, as he reached for his phone and saw that it was 11:30 in the morning, only half an hour before the time that they were to pick up Allyssa. This would be the end of it, Sam thought, all of this work to make this trip, the mother would be furious, the only rule that they had for the entire trip was to pick up Allysa by noon, a simple seven minute walk across the city village and there were the dorms at Juan Frays Collegio, as simple as that. "Everybody will have to get dressed right away." He lifted the blankets off of Sarah's head, who always slept with covers up over her face and especially her ears to stay warm. "You can go by yourself," was the first thing that she said, of course. "No we must all go ever there, we promised," Sam said. He had turned on the main light in the hall and the room was now quite light and white and it seemed unusual to have slept for 12 hours, like a time travel, and he felt a sort of lightness throughout his entire body and felt like he could go on forever now that the jet lag was washed out of him. He walked over to the Katie's bed. She would be far more difficult and of course would not want to walk over for any reason whatsoever and so he thought about leaving her right there and they would be back quite soon anyway. "Katie, it is time to get up, we don't have any time. No showers." In the bathroom he quickly put on as many clothes as he could quickly find and combed very quickly, then flipped an espresso pod into the machine and let it run for two cycles, the coffee aroma smelling so spectacular that he wished he could sit right there and drink coffee all morning, a little cream, watching the street just below the window where the student's cars had parked, and the balconies above were quite with colorful flags waving from them. He looked at his phone, a missed call, from Allyssa, "where are you, my director is wondering." He knew this could be the end of things right here. He had worked so hard for this trip and did not want it to end this way, not like this.