Into the Country

Sometimes it does pay to have friends, and my friendship with an American paid off when his host family invited the two of us on a trip into the countryside of Andalusia. This is great luck; most Americans sit back in Seville these days, waiting for the first program-sponsored trips to begin. Granada and Córdoba and Cádiz will happen for all of us, but those will surely feel more like a tour and less like an adventure. In this sense, out in the middle of nowhere, I was exposed to something more authentically Spain, where the stereotypical children kick soccer balls around in the tiny streets and the toros graze off in the hills. I caravanned with three Spanish friends, their two wives, a seven year old daughter, and a grandmother. They told us stories -- slowly and simply so we could understand -- and we talked about history and they asked us questions about our own country. All that just does not happen every day.



The town of Aracena sits just below a few big bluffs. The Sierra de Aracenas stretch as far as the eye can see. It reminds me of that Thanksgiving in the woods out in the boonies of Tennessee. There are old Roman ruins from before Muslim conquest at the top, along with a traveling biker gang.

We sat in the small town of Fuenteheridos for tapas, beer, and conversation, watching people live very simple lives; Some sold necklaces and others roasted nuts in the streets. My American friend and I were surely the only native English speakers for miles.




We were told Almonaster la Real has one of the most beautiful views in Spain. It is a very small town in the provence of Huelva, which reminds me that small is one of those relative words. Less than 2,000 people live there. After following narrow roads up a few steep inclines, we ended at the top.



Up on the hill watching over the city sits the Mezquita de Almonaster la Real. This mosque was built in the 9th century and renovated by Christians in the 16th. Inside you see the striking crossover of religions, present everywhere in the south. Remnants of Arabic writing and Muslim architecture are everywhere.



As night fell, we were wonderfully exhausted and cramped in the car driving home. I surprised myself by how well I spoke Spanish, but it still such a difficult thing to do. People who began the day as strangers ended the day as friends, and language had nothing to do with any of it. If I had been dumped out of that car on to the side of the road, I would have no idea how to get home, and there is a great power and feeling of freedom when you do small trips like that. Signs like this, ones that point every direction, are a reminder that Seville and a lot of things are far far away. 

The Guadalquivir

I had a run by the river today. It was the first run in many days, which makes it the kind of run where sweat feels different. It is saltier and heavier, and tastes stronger as it runs down your face, burning harder when it hits your eyes. When this kind of run is over you feel all the better because you released bad things the body needs to get out, the kind of waste that sits in people who never move until something serious happens to their health and they realize they should change something. These first runs are necessary, part of a process I love, and the next one will feel stronger and lighter as will the one that follows that. This is how running goes.

This run was important for me also because it was my first run ever in Spain. Having done it in a few parts of the world already, it takes on an almost spiritual significance, a way of coping and understanding and organizing life in your head. The steady tap-tap-tap of your feet slows things down when the world is flopping around you. I will not admit to culture shock, but I will say things have been difficult. Important details are missed in rapid Andalusian Spanish, important turns are missed in a complicated city, and important phrases are butchered to the banker, the grocer, and the bartender. The program here rightfully turns your whole world inside out, and running, as it has been for me many times in the past, is the best sort of addiction.

Things aren't that bad. We are provided plenty. Tomorrow I will sit in a plaza in one of the oldest cities in Europe eating tapas and drinking beer, watching people walk the same narrow cobblestone streets Christopher Columbus walked over 500 years ago. A friend said during lunch the other day that sometimes she looks and her life and just laughs. It is a feeling I can relate to, and I'm lucky to enjoy such things.


In Spain I run along an important and historic river. Starting in the mountains outside Cordoba, it flows west to the ocean. During Columbus's time it was full of wooden galleons carrying gold from the Americas to Seville, making this the capital of the world. This was the highest point Spain ever reached, the world's first global empire operating in every time zone South America to the Philippines. The Spain of today does not resemble the Spain that once was, sidelined, overlooked -- one of history's great falls from grace.



Jan Morris calls a chapter in her book on Spain, Sol y Sombra -- sun and shade -- and it highlights the difference in temperatures between the two, especially true in Andalusia. You certainly do feel that here. Wintertime in the shade and you need a jacket, but no matter what, if there is sun, you feel some sort of warmth. I have not felt that in other parts of the world and that is a part of Spain that resonates with me and I'm sure a few others.

Young people do things like this for a number of reasons, and in this sort of program I have seen a lot. For a few sorority girls, it's all a party and one big hangover that they'll probably wake up from in a few months time. For others it almost seems mandatory, something that school or family required, so they suffer while friends remain comfortable at home. At times I am idealistic and think anytime an American goes abroad it's a good thing because so many never will. Other times I cover my face when I hear them talk aloud. I have talked to good Americans about bad Americans, and a general consensus remains: we have an idea why the world hates us. Each day I try and make the image better, piece by piece, like that girl who throws starfish into the water.



I looked at the river one last time today and thought about my own reasons for being here. They certainly are a little vague. I want to learn Spanish in the only way you can. I want to live this city, and take some of it with me the next place I go. All this might change a million times, and that will be just fine too. My view is that you don't have to know, especially at my age. You just have to try and find out.

Midnight in Paris

I dropped my second semester of French in college because I was already taking Spanish and just didn't see the benefit. "If I want to learn it, I'll end up there one day," I said. I think that's still true. Languages are more of a commitment than we give credit for and the only way you learn is by going. Arriving in Paris perhaps a year later, lost via Charles de Gaulle, I thought about my decision with a faint sense of regret. It is a difficult place to be and not speak, indeed it is a place that makes you want to speak, but that is that and I was there for 12 hours, so I didn't make much a fuss and made my first European things happen.

I must say I thought I knew man-made things that took your breath away. I have been around some big colorful skylines and stood atop some very tall buildings at dusk and seen lots of those things people call, "a marvel of engineering," but something about the Eiffel Tower in Paris takes this to a different place. It, and buildings like it, have stood through castle sieges and military coups and sparkling romances. They have watched cities grow around them, and in this case, German tanks role up on its doorstep. I may not be much qualified to say so, but Paris must be one of the most beautiful cities in the world, rich in most things, and I can see why people love it and dream about it when they are far away.


My night there was simple and obvious: walk the streets Hemingway and Fitzgerald walked once upon a time, down to the Eiffel Tower, and make my way back. Across the Seine I went, shivering in the cold, until I rounded a corner and saw what my first friend in Europe dubbed, "the most romantic building ever built." It is one of those places you hear about and see on film everywhere, but it's not until you see it right there in front of you lighting up the night that you realize it actually does exist, and that is a special moment you remember.


At around midnight in Paris I sat in bed listening to the rhythmic breathing of a few hostel flatmates, and the sounds of a French side street below. There were two girls from New Zealand, one guy from Spain, and an Irishman. I always marvel at how hostels bring the world together, but perhaps force is a better term. These people took so many little paths to get there at that exact moment. Then I thought about my own path, and the people I know far away, the sense of awe that began that morning and continued that night, the realization something happened that for a long time was unsure, and the sun that was just now setting in Texas. Life is strange in Paris and it will be strange tomorrow in Seville. Life is always a strange sort of thing. 

A Drive in the Dark

I have been a fan of the old fashioned American road trip since the many summers of my childhood, setting forth across the midwest en route to the Canadian border. There is some sense of freedom you get alone in a car, as day turns to night and night turns to day, lost in your own thoughts and the open road in front of you; there is something primal about this sense of exploration. These days, whenever given the opportunity, I take it. It is not a surprise then that in a sudden fit of spontaneity, I got in my small blue Nissan Versa and drove 800 miles to the Florida Panhandle to finish off my last week in the United States.

The first half is lost in translation, masked by fog and the gentle lull of the night. Eventually I rested in Vicksburg on the banks of the great river before the sun came up. I have issues with paying for accommodation on short trips, so I took my typical nap in the car, protected vaguely by a well-lit parking lot, before waking with the sun and continuing along. I was greeted that morning by a three legged dog, and its overweight owner waking out of his house shirtless. Besides this, Vicksburg is peaceful at such early hours, presiding over the Mississippi from its lofty bluffs. Looking out on the massive rush of water, I felt like a story could be written around that river and its ferries and bridges alone, and that is just what Mark Twain did.



Vicksburg was a childhood fascination of mine ever since the history club took a group of us there in seventh grade. The American Civil War turned on July 3, 1863 in this very spot at the same time General Lee retreated at Gettysburg. The Union victory gave it control of the northern half of the Mississippi after a long siege lasting over a month. Civilians had to ration food, living in constant fear of an artillery shell coming through their roof. There is a large white courthouse, famous in most old Vicksburg photographs that still stands as a museum. In some sick irony, large black communities reside by Confederate cemetaries, and I wonder their thoughts on things like this. My guess is that a majority of the communities around Vicksburg live without regard for what happened there. That is not a dig at Vicksburg, but something true of most places in the world where something important happened.




I took a short drive through Vicksburg National Military Park in the early morning hours. It is very well preserved, marking actual trench locations blue for North and red for the South. History comes to life with Confederate trenches often just a stones throw away from the Union lines. It would have been a very interesting forty days, indeed. The park was largely unoccupied at eight in the morning, as I passed only a few joggers starting their day. It would be a delightful place to run, if I happened to live in this city.



Many people did find a resting place here, and there is a beautiful cemetery to remember them. It is organized by alphabet with no distinction between North and South. I always thought this speaks to their original intention, though how needless it all was in the end. I always loved that line from the 1970s: "killing for peace is like fucking for chastity," but here we are doing the same things around the world 150 years later like nothing ever happened.



By the end of that day I sat on a balcony in Panama City Beach. I remained on that balcony the days that followed and napped and read about Spain while watching the sun fall onto the horizon every night at five. In the afternoon I would either run in the neighborhoods or walk along the white beaches and later drink cold imported beers. Talks were long at dinner, and they could go on forever, all to the pleasant hum of waves washing up on shore. Somewhere across the water is where I will be, but for the moment, those 800 miles were well worth the time and I was very happy to be where I was.