Some Neat Things About Spain

-The art museums: Francisco Goya’s dark gloom, the breadth of Wilfredo Lam, THE Picasso Museum, Dali’s blobblish reality. I learned so much from a brief study in all of these revolutionaries. I feel inspired to work—not an easy feat for a museum.

-When the cheese plate of five kinds and a pumpkin jelly arrived the first night, I thought, “Oh man I’ll never finish all that,” and then totally wolfing every moldy crumb.

-Stepping on the gravestone of Don Juan’s inspiration. Humbled by the portrait of death in the chapel at the hospital for the needy that his money built.

-Collapsing into bed after 24 hours of travel. Waking up four hours later, at 5 PM, to a note from Puhg that said he went to take out Euros. He walked in the door with a bag of mini vanilla drizzled donuts.

-Peeping below a street grate our last night in Madrid and seeing a statue lit in the sewer.

-Being in Frederico Garcia Lorca’s bedroom. Touching the desk he wrote Blood Wedding at. I looked out the window onto orange trees, he must have eyed them while searching for the next line of dialogue.

-Dinner at the hip beachtown pub where each dish was better than the last. Grilled cubes of tuna, teeny fresh blueberries in goat cheese arugula, herb butter, plump mushroom risotto, a creamy rice pudding covered in cinnamon and apple slices. In the top five meals of my life—easy.

-Being uninterested in the vast amounts of potential shopping unless there were pastries or craft supplies in the window. (Coming home several croissants fatter, my bag scrapbook paper and cupcake stickers heavier.)

-Losing my voice for the first two days of the trip and the very moment my nose cleared up and how incredible it felt to just speak whenever I wanted to.

-Puhg trying to change out of his clothes into his trunks on the Malaga beach, using a light rustling tee shirt to cover his crotch. The freezing cold ocean swim that kept my blood cool on the long pier walk home.

-Eatin’ at the oldest restaurant in Seville. Drinkin’ thick hot cocoa at the oldest chocolateria in the world.

-Prancing in the sun of a World’s Fair site, craning my neck to see Columbus’s tomb while mass was in session, being woken up by huge Corpus Christi processional bands and marches. The tired, gritted Catholics carrying the floats of Mary and Jesus. The onlookers proudly beaming. Watching the crowds under blue Pringle architecture.

-When we decided we were just going to take a taxi to the Grenada bus terminal. Best 10 Euros ever spent.

-HOLY COW THE ALHAMBRA. The roses, the clusters, the starred ceilings, the fountains, the math, the geometrics, the Allah. An afternoon at the Arab baths being scrubbed and laying on hot stones, crocodiling in warm pools, pouring bowls of water on each other, mint tea. We rounded out the Islam with a visit to the Arabic part of town. We got henna tattoos of each other’s names, ordered the hummus and a date cookie.

-Grenada hours dwindling we thought about going to the lookout point. Why not, we guessed. All we wanted besides that was to find a good dessert. Nothing was speaking to us, we wandered up the hill to see the cathedrals lit in orange—never possible to capture on film, sat on a patio and ate a dense cakes. Sometimes if you want something, it will appear.

-Madrid’s premier park complete with turtle ponds, a glass castle, and a jazz musician playing “Hey Macarena” on repeat.

-Unable to sleep, I nestled into the nook of our airbnb window. I wrote pages upon pages for my new screenplay. Inspiration doesn’t take a vacation.

-The bustling tapas markets. 1. Sick myself from too much honey in my tea at Alcazar, trailing behind Puhg as he wandered around sipping a mojito and poking at various croquettes. 2. Hungry as a hound, eating everything in sight, scarfing it down. 3. Coconut strawberry smoothies and accidentally buying four pieces of gorgeous candy that cost 10 EUROS.

-The trains. The cows, the hills, the backdrop of a 1920s musical about Europe?, crops and tiny bricked towns, towers of unmighty consequence, arbitrary ruins.

-The night we dressed up, had fancy dinner, the desserts weren’t good, I got a gelato on the way home, tripped in my wedges in the middle of the street and fell flat on my face, skinned my arm, but did the ice cream cone drop? NOT A CHANCE.

-A long cab ride to the Caixa Forum, which was extremely underwhelming. At least the Magic Fountain was across the street…it turned off, waterfalls and all, one minute after we arrived. We waited around for an hour hoping it would start again. Asked a hot dog vendor who told us it takes a siesta 1-4 PM.

-Sagrada Familia’s pillars are different heights and spaces apart, to represent being in a forest. The exterior looks like a drip castle. The school where construction workers could send their children was brown and wavy—like a gnome home. I went into the teeny stained-glass room apart from the tourists to pray. Ave Maria. The Jesus looks like he’s floating away on a golden umbrella.

-We trekked to Four Cats because we heard it was cool. It was $25 for lunch so we went across the street to a Indonesian spot and ate amazing fritters and spring rolls. Later we found out Four Cats’ menu isn’t the main event, it’s sitting where Dali and the greats once worked. Well, whatever. The food looked lame.

-We rambled Las Ramblas all the way home. Puhg looking for European shoes as we ventured. Oh, dinner was a delight. We didn’t have reservations but luckily showed up when the wait was only 30 minutes. The menu had a nose on the cover. Accurate, smelled divine in the hole. We got squished into the bar and listened as people got turned away for hours. Three desserts.

-Both having colds for a couple days, my two handkerchiefs got more use than they were made for. Oh, Lord, what crusty little rags ended up in my new fake Chanel bag.

-The Madrid palace! The huge sweeping white courtyard!

-One night I pitched an article for an online publication and the editor asked me if I could finish it by morning. I stayed up late, in Barcelona, in Spain, writing Saved by the Bell jokes until 2 AM when I finally passed out because we had to go to see Picasso’s early works in the morning.

-I had a headache for our final night. We laid in the sun on the rooftop pool. I ate veggie ravioli and a sushi roll slowly. I took breaks from packing. I was sad. This is how it ends? If I were better we might take an evening walk, we might find a new little café, we might stand on the balcony. But sometimes it’s nice to want to go home. And after 24 hours of travel complete with some Euro McMuffins, a ton of reading, a little Better Call Saul, and one bout of tears when immigrations hassled us and cattled us around the Miami airport--we were. And it’s good to be back. The water is free and I don’t have to say “gracias” a million times to compensate for all I can’t say.