Espana Strikes Back

So yesterday, the day after my one week anniversary of arriving in the States, I got the strongest pangs of homesickness for Spain that I have registered. I'm not quite sure what brought it on, but I found myself sitting in Bighead's slightly depressed, desperate to hear Spanish and drink a clara (a drink which is half beer and half sweetened seltzer water). No doubt most people cannot understand the allure of such a nauseating sounding drink, but I was jonesing for it. I went up and down Cambridge aching before I realized that I should just go to the Coop and read some Lorca which I did. Unsurprisingly, it only made things worse, and so I grabbed for that great American writer Sarah Vowell.

I picked up her latest, Assassination Vacation, and loandbehold it begins with a preface equating historical tourism to the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Damn, even she's against me. The thirty pages or so I read rejuvenated my spirits, but I still felt a little disheartened because let's face it, my enthusiasm for my country just didn't match hers, although the whole experience definitely gave me a shot in the arm.

I think it may have been brought on by my failed attempt to write an email to Chachi and Joaquin because I don't have accents or tildes on these keyboards, and I can't find a computer with MS Word that makes it easy to add them, so I gave up, deciding to wait. I also noticed some hand motions on TV which were quintessentially Spanish body language, and I watched a little Mexican tv, but it also was unfulfilling since the Mexican accent although beautiful and clean, still doesn't sound quite right to my ear...a little too exotic and sibilant. I need my elegant lisps. Thhhhh DAMN IT Thhhhhhhh!! There was a great gossip program on, though, called the Fat Man and the Skinny Lady, and guess what?...they were in Madrid, but they didn't speak to a single Spaniard, so my thirst for the Spanish tongue went unsated.

Today I feel a little better. I'm apartment-sitting for the girls who went to the Vineyard today, leaving me and Schnocone behind because I don't really have the desire to spend the travel money, even though I'm not quite poor anymore.

PS--Where's Beulah? Calling all Beulahs?