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...

Talavera de la Reina, 1981      I teach English privately to various groups of students in my apartment on the Calle del Prado. One student is a history teacher who, according to her, speaks the best Castilian Spanish.  Her Spanish is the real McCoy, absolutely. None of this Talaveran slang, and certainly no cutting off the ends of words as the Andalucians have a tendency to do. She's from Madrid, something she remarks upon every occasion she can get.       "I'm not from Talavera, you know. I'm from Madrid."  She moves her shoulders back and forth as if to emphasize this important point. She wants help with her English as the group she's in is more advanced, so we decide on meeting an extra time each week to do an exchange. She'll coach me with my Spanish and I'll help her with her English.        I quite like being told how to pronounce Castilian Spanish correctly. It's so much easier than reading rules and regulations fr...