Aventuras in Spain

It's 1973.  I've been thinking a lot about the women here in El Puerto de Santa Maria.  I find them very surprising and very puzzling. There's nobody to tell this to as my Spanish isn't all that good. Plus, I don't want to offend anyone.  But since no one questions what's going on around here, maybe I should indeed speak up and point out the obvious, that women shouldn't be living this way? Macarena  was engaged to be married, but her fiance died in a dreadful accident. She's older than me, possibly in her late twenties. Macarena wears dowdy, shapeless clothes, and always looks morose. Her cheeks are already lined and her hands look rough and weather beaten.       "I'll never marry. I'll never have children." Her face looks wan and downcast.         "Why?" I ask, puzzled.       "Because people would point their fingers at me and say, 'She already had a man'." I feel I should tell her that indeed, she c

I'm a real fuss-pot when it comes to food. I don't like milk. I don't like butter. I don't like cream, and I don't like mushrooms. Nor do I like creamy cheese. You'd think therefore that Spanish food would have been appealing to me since it tends to be cooked with garlic and olive oil. It is appealing to me and I gobble it up without hesitation. That is, the food that I cook myself.     When it comes to restaurant food, that's another story.     One day I was having lunch Luria, the Spanish wife of a colleague of my husband's. I tend to order the same things over and over regardless of where the restaurant is, for I've figured out what dishes are free of the yucky things I don't like. Now that we were back living in Spain, it's my old favourites, filete de ternera a la milanesa and ensalada mixta that I ordered. I looked forward to squeezing the slice of lemon you always get. It's really a very happy meal, it seemed to me. Luria, on th

It's 1981. We're still living in Talavera de la Reina, but the boxes are packed, and we eagerly await the move to the Mediterranean coast. We've heard  a lot about how international it is there. People from Yugoslavia, Sweden, Holland, the United Kingdom, India, Singapore, the United States, are living and working in the Province of Tarragona. Apparently the social life is terrific. and although it's been an interesting and rewarding one year spent here in Talavera de la Reina, we're ready to move on to where the action is. One thing that's been great about this year in Talavera is that my Spanish has vastly improved. I thought I knew Spanish before coming here, but, really all I knew were verb conjugations and basic conversation. Having to speak Spanish on a daily basis with native speakers who are not used to foreigners at all has been somewhat of a challenge. And I'm feeling chuffed with myself on how well I now speak Spanish. Ha ha! A friend of mine

It's 1974 and I'm staying in an apartment in La Puerta del Sol, Madrid. I hear piano music for hours and hours. It's a pleasure to listen to the young boy practising the scales over and over so many times, The sound of his music stands out over the cacophony of women's voices speaking loudly, of radios blaring forth long advertisements interspersed with occasional long-winded monologues about something or another. I know so little Spanish that it's easy for me to tune people out. I have a temporary job tutoring English. Some of my students are wealthy children who live in fancy apartments with fancy furniture. Everything is perfect in their lives. They are all handsome and they have every material item you could wish for, from the tiny leather bound dictionary and the gold chain around their necks, to the expensive clothes purchased in boutiques. They float about serenely, with not a care in the world. They speak Spanish with the crisp Castilian accent that revea