Cadiz to Albolote, always now

I just went for a short walk through the sleepy streets of Albolote, a small town of 15000 inhabitants, resting at about seven kilometers from Granada.  I slept here last night, in my own quarters.  I found a guitar, which was already tuned, and played a little bit.  (The area is actually famous for its guitar makers, which makes sense when you make the connection: this is Flamenco land!)
But more on this later.  First, I would like to back track to twenty-four hours ago, as I spent the preceding night in yet another historical location: Cadiz...



I had spoken with my mom the day before, while still in Sevilla, and she had asked: "Prends tu un peu le temps de relaxer, de juste... rien faire, genre t'installer sur la plage avec un livre?'' (''Do you take time to just hang out and do nothing, like, sit down on the beach with a book?")
"Well I haven't really been around beaches much, except in Nice... and even there I just took a twenty minute stop to skinny dip in the Mediterrean, before catching the train to Ventimiglia."

I have taken time to stop.  I have been meditating, actually, and I've sat in many a bus doing about nothing.  But it's also true that I've walked quite a lot over the past two and a half months.  Faithful to myself - for better and for worst - I've been curious and I've made a point to take in as much as possible about everything I get to see while being on the old continent.  However, my mother's words sounded timely and significant when I sat down with the map of Cadiz (and a cerveza fria) from the office of tourism.  My hosts lived on the other side of town (though it is a small one, on a peninsula) so there were a few "historical points of interest" on the way; but I decided I had seen enough churches already (and honestly, I just didn't feel like rolling my noisy suitcase around those paved streets), so I chose to pass on the architectural tour of "the oldest city in Europe" (Cadiz is 3000 years old!) and go for a walk along the Atlantic Ocean instead.  Only one day in Cadiz?   So be it!

This is where Christopher Colombus set sail from.
And this is where he came back to, with loads of exotic products
from "the Indias": potatoes, tomatoes, corn, etc.
  

The day was gorgeous.  "December 7th ?"  I laughed inside: "Como me gusta el sol!  Como me gusta esa luz!"

I got lost once - faithful to myself - but eventually arrived in la calle Angel.  I crossed my fingers and rang the doorbell.  I knew my host wouldn't get home until 8pm, but she'd said her roommate Clement would be there.  I don't have credits in my "handy" anymore, and it's very much starting to look like I'm not going to recharge it before I leave, in less than two weeks, so I couldn't call to notify of my arrival!  But someone did answer the door.  "Eres Clement?" I asked.  "Si."
"Eres frances?"
"Oui.  Et toi.. canadienne?"
"Ouais."

I think that every single French person I've met so far calls us Canadians instead of Québécois.  You'd think they'd be more precise, you'd think they sympathize.  But no.  They don't even say "Canadiens français"... just.. ''Canadiens'', who speak.... canadien!.   They don't make the difference, they don't necessarily know or care about our dear crise d'identité.  It seems that for them we are already different, since we live on that far away continent called America.
Clement offered me a cup of tea and a plate of noodles he had made for lunch.   We chatted a little bit, and I found out I had landed in one of those Erasmus flats, just like in that movie ''L'Auberge Espagnole''.  There lived five exchange students: from Lithuania, Poland, France, and who-knows-where-else, and they all came to Cadiz to study, learn Spanish, have a cultural experience... and to fiesta, of course.
"And you often host couchsurfers?" I asked.
"All the time!" he said, "We once slept eleven people in here!  There were three girls on the kitchen floor, and three more sharing my roomate's room. Plus all of us."

I noticed a French novel on a shelf and asked if he'd perhaps be interested in trading it for the one I had just finished.  It was Jack Kerouac's "Le vagabond Solitaire" (The lonesome traveller).  Que bueno!
Then he went on to study some more, and I took the book, as well as my juggling clubs, and went for a walk.  Screw all these landmarks; Cadiz is a maritime city, and I decided I'd just hang on the coast some more.  I walked and walked and smiled and sat for a cup of cafe con leche, until the sun began to set.

I don't know what goes on in the streets of Cadiz, but my sense is that the beach is where it's at.  People tranquilo.  People playing guitarra on the boardwalk, singing Flamenco.  Couples strolling.  Quite a romantic setting indeed.  A group of teenagers setting up for a most clever and impressive game: an exercise ball buried in the sand, and they used it as a trampoline, to practice saltos and other acrobatics!

After sundown I walked some more, guiding myself according to the changing qualities of light on buildings, and following the sounds that suddenly came out of small neighborhood bars, here and there, where locals - and their children- gathered for happy hour and a bit of soulful Flamenco. 

Back to the apartment I had a chat with M., attempting to explain, once more, what I studied in San Francisco.  She was especially eager: "Tell me what you learned."

So I tried once more; first in espagnol but eventually switching to English.  "Well, I've learned that everything we see is a projection of our psyche - it's all one - so that our sanity is directly connected to the health of our environment."  

3000 year old Magnolia?

"Everything is deeply and intrinsically interconnected: psyche, nature, one another..."  

"I learned that everything is already perfect, but that it doesn't mean we should do our best to change the world for better.  It's called paradox, and it pervades everything."

"And finally, I found that changing one's self - or ones relationship with one's self - is the hardest.  I'm still working on that, big time!"

"Tell me more," she said.  "Do you meditate?  I think we're all so addicted to thinking."

Right on hermana. "I do'' I answered. ''I try."

"I have a really hard time meditating." she said defeatedly.

"That's all there is," I said to validate her experience.  "But I read somewhere, and I always like to remember... that meditation simply is such a great opportunity to practice self-love, as in, forgiving one's self.  Because we always fail at it, and we can choose to judge, or to forgive."

"Tell me more."

"What if we just sat together, right now?"

So we did.

And afterwards, she went to sleep and I went out with the others.  It was already midnight and they were just getting ready!  

We went to a bar called Woodstock.  We met a friend of theirs, who also had a couchsurfer with her.  Around the table, there were now five different nationalities: Spanish, Russian (Lithuanian), French, Quebecoise (Canadian), German.  We spoke Spanish, French, German.  We drank tinto de verano and cervezas.  We sang Bob Marley: One Love.

L'Auberge Espagnole!

This morning I got up before all of them, made myself some tea to go, and went to catch the bus in direction of Granada... well... via Sevilla.
And here I am.  I'm staying in a family home and it is gorgeous.  Cold at night, but gorgeous.  And tomorrow I have plans to help out in the garden.  I could go to the city and visit the Alhambra  (''not to be missed!'', they all say), but I'd much rather learn how to prune the lemon tree!!

Love it!