A walk through Linares

For a while now, I've been promising a description of my new home, Linares, a small city of 65,000 in northern Andalucia. In fact, I've had that very sentence written in a "draft" version of this blog for a few weeks, but if I'm following the 'open and honest blogging' policy I've begun this year, I have to explain that the "coffee conundrum" from the last true update here turned into a full-blown depression. I've had a few great recent adventures which kept me mostly sane (a wonderful weekend in Sevilla; an adventure in a nearby UNESCO Renaissance town), but for about a month I was seriously considering ending my European adventure, flying home, and seeing what the universe might offer elsewhere. I've had delays in blogging before, but none came from such a dark place. I'm happy to report that I seem to be getting past it, however, and I'm feeling ready to share Linares with you.

(Unfortunately, part of that Sevilla adventure involved the loss of my beloved camera, which means that for now this will have to be a tour solely in words. Photos to follow, however. I hope.)

When I first arrived in Linares, I was disappointed, I'll admit it. In an ironic twist, I spent last year having strangers tell me that Palencia was ugly when I thought it lovely; this time, I'd had people tell me Linares was pretty, and I found it initially the kind of boxy, utilitarian eyesore that represents the Franco- and post-Franco era building booms throughout this country. I had looked forward to the tangle of streets in the downtown area that google maps showed me (I've always loved getting lost in winding alleys) but found them actually TOO confusing-- for whatever reason, it's the standard here to only mark streets at the beginning and end, meaning that even the locals don't know the name of the streets (and confused apartment hunters from foreign lands are out of luck.) At first arrival, I was told that there was little in the way of live music--a perennial favorite activity for me--and was brought several days in a row by different people to the same "only cool bar in town" (Elviris, which does have a funky charm in its cheap drinks, old-school Americana decorations, and classic rock soundtrack.) For the first several weeks, I didn't see any posters advertising events, my tried-and-true method for finding out what's going on in a small town. Things were looking decidedly dark.

My outlook started to improve with a trip to Jaen, which I wrote about in the Spain Scoop post linked here last week. The city, which is the county seat of our province, has a reputation as ugly and isolated-- however, I found it lively, agreeable, and actually quite pretty. After that trip, I began to accept the possibility that things might not be exactly what they seemed. It's been a struggle, but in the past few weeks I've climbed out of that disappointment, and this is the good in what I found:

It's true that most of Linares is not an old place-- it launched from a tiny village to a successful mining town in the 1800s (and was thus one of the richest places in southern Spain for a time.) The settlement itself dates back to Roman times, in the form of Castulo, an ancient town whose ruins lie a few kilometers outside Linares. Still, there is a small "casco antiguo" or old town--a kilometer-square patch of grey-brick roads lined with orange trees and 200-year-old houses in various degrees of romantically crumbling disrepair--which still holds onto some charm. My own apartment lies on the edge of this area, next to an empty 19th century palace. A small statue of a rooster (which gives this 'Plaza del Gallo' its name) looks out onto the larger Plaza Nueva, a raised brick triangle lined with trees and set with benches, surrounded by ornate plasterwork buildings. I pass the plaza several times a day and catch glimpses of many an older couple chatting on the benches, furious mini-soccer game studiously avoiding the statue in the center, or teenage couple looking for somewhere to canoodle in peace.

In the opposite direction, a long, narrow street lined with old-style brick houses runs along the crest of a hill. It's customary to leave entryway doors slightly ajar, and the observant visitor can occasionally catch glimpses of beautifully-kept courtyards within. After a few hundred yards, the street runs through the postage-stamp size Plaza Siete Esquinas, with its arcing brickwork and elegant wrought iron fountain. Most mornings I take a right down a small hill here, toward the elementary school where I teach.

During the day, I can sometimes here the chiming bells of Iglesia Santa Maria between lessons on telling time or the castles of the United Kingdom. The church is one of the oldest in the city, and its tall, brown, octagonal steeple hints at its history as a mosque once upon a time. I always take a moment to appreciate the church's austere beauty before stopping at the small, family-run grocery across from the school to buy fresh pears, pomegranates, and whatever butchery product the owner can up-sell to me that particular day.

Following the alley around the Iglesia Santa Maria Plaza, one finds the Plaza del Ayuntamiento (city hall) spread out down wide, sweeping stairs. To one side, that bastion of Spanish urbanity Corte Ingles (the kind of department store that no longer exists in the US) takes up almost an entire block, and past this a long boulevard pauses at a plaza with fountains and statues of miners before dissolving into industrial blocks and, later, stands of olive trees. Across the street, the old city hall, another 19th century brownstone confection under constant renovation, sits waiting to be inhabited again. And in between, the brick plaza is lined with palm trees and discreetly arcing fountains. This weekend it was the site of a craft market, where I bought multiple pairs of 2-euro earrings and a beautiful, handmade stool made out of the stump of an old olive tree. In good weather, coffee and tapas bars put out tin tables to take advantage of the sunshine.

A smaller street out of the plaza leads to the heart of town, an area called "Ocho Puertas" (eight doors) that is the only approximation of "main street" in a town with no real center. It's a bustling shopping area with Madrid-style old buildings topped with icing flourishes and lined with balconies, and people come from all over the countryside to shop here. The diversity of stores calls to mind Palencia's Calle Mayor-- tasteful  cafes, bakeries, an art supply shop, a household appliance store, the requisite Zara (an extraordinarily popular European low-cost clothing store), and a seemingly unending supply of shoe-and-boot outlets. The streets here are lined with stylish streetlights, and for good reason-- at sunset, Linarenses turn out in droves for the "paseo" I grew to know and love in Palencia. It seems that it doesn't matter where you go in Spain, the people love their nightly strolls. Here one also finds the promised tangle of streets, replete with more shoe stores, a lovely coffee shop, and a produce market.

Another popular strolling spot lies just beyond Ocho Puertas: the Paseo de Linarejos is a wide boulevard lined with intricately tiled benches and the tallest, stateliest palms in the city. It starts from the beautiful (and, depending on your perspective, sadly or happily little-used) yellow-and-white art deco bullring and finishes at a confection of a church about a mile away. The paseo is popular with dog walkers, old couples, mothers with strollers, teenage skateboarders, and the occasional wayward underage drinker. Its sides are crowded with sweet shops, bars, and an old-style churro cafe. On Tuesdays and Saturdays a gypsy market sells all manner of clothing and fresh vegetables.

As for live music-- it's harder to find than I expected, but I've been happy with what I've found. Andre Segovia, who I recently heard described as 'one of the most important artists in the history of guitar', was from Linares, and the museum devoted to his life sits on Plaza Nueva, a two minute walk from my apartment. The museum hosts piano and classical guitar concerts fairly frequently, and they are almost always free and definitely always beautiful. Linares is also home to a variety of peñas, social clubs based around a topic, from sports to bullfighting to flamenco, and the flamenco peñas periodically host small free concerts with local artists and tapas at hand. The taranta, a particularly powerful and mournful genre of flamenco, has its origins in Linares and other mining towns in Jaen and the neighboring region of Almeria, and I'm growing to appreciate the pure emotion and vocal power singers of taranta display. On the other side stylistically, I've even attend a rock show, at a great theme bar on Paseo de Linarejos (Pub Fiction, with Pulp Fiction decorations, obviously.)

Lastly, but certanly not least, the great and mighty tapa deserves more than a mere mention in a passage on flamenco. Jaen (and the region directly south, Granada) is famous as Tapa Country: not only are the tapas here often generous, but by law they must come free with every drink. (Notice I say tapas and not pintxos-- see last summer's posts on Basque Country for discussion on that subject.) A night out in Linares is not complete without a stop for tapas, which can take the form of a big plate of jamon serrano, a homemade empanada, a small portion of meatballs in savory sauce, or a half kebab. On Thursday, Friday, or Saturday nights the bars overflow with Linarenses eating, drinking, and making merry until well past midnight, making slow circuits around the city to eat a bite here and a morsel there. Catholicism is one thing here, but tapas are a religion, too, and one I certainly can get behind as I settle into my new Andalucian life.

Use Your Words

One of the most well-loved stories of me as a baby finds me in the kitchen with my mother. She is at the counter fixing me some kind of soft baby something for dinner; I am in my high chair babbling away--I've just started talking. Of course I don't remember any of this, but in my mind's eye my mother spoons out the soft what-ever-it-is and fixes me juice in a plastic sippy-cup. I start to fuss, waving my arms and crying in that nasal toddler whine. My mother can't figure out what's wrong -- are the high chair straps too tight? Do I need changing? But she remembers what I don't, that I now have tools to express what it is that is so upsetting me.

"Alissa, use your words!" she implores. I stop crying almost immediately.
"Oh," I say. "I want the orange cup."

Of course, that was almost a quarter of a century ago, but I've been thinking about it a lot recently. Gaining fluency in a language feels a lot to me like that Orange Cup moment. There were moments of extraordinary frustration when I first arrived in Spain in September, of course, but I don't think I realized exactly what I was missing out on until I found it again. It's been a long time since my Chinese was at the level my Spanish is now.

Two weeks ago I took a long-weekend trip to Basque Country in the north. It was a fantastic trip-- the weather cooperated as much as almost-constant-rain can cooperate, the countryside was gorgeous and green. Friday brought me to Bilbao, vivid and gritty; Saturday through Monday to San Sebastian, equally as exquisitely delicious and cultured. And through it all ran a ribbon of newly-discovered communication.

I.
Friday night I stayed with Thomas, a fellow American teaching at the city language school. After a night roaming the city, we went on Saturday morning to an event called Arrozes del Mundo-- Rices of the World. It was a paella cook-off in the immensely diverse neighborhood of San Francisco, where virtually all of the immigrants that flock to Bilbao for its industry settle. Thus, the "del Mundo" portion came from the twist each entrant was supposed to add to the paella, a little something from his or her own country.

Thomas and I arrived via a long, straight street lined with Caribbean grocery stores, halal butchers, and African produce stands to find a crowded plaza filled with the most amazing smells. We threaded our way through rickety tables piled high with chopped ingredients ready for the flame-- everything from couscous to mango to pomegranate--and watched as a group of Moroccans danced and sang in the space between the swings and trapeze in the plaza's small plaground. We'd brought breakfast with us, but there didn't seem to be anywhere to eat. Finally, we found a seemingly empty table to one side of the festivities-- there was only one man sitting toward the end. After some inquiry, it became clear that the man was waiting for his group, but we could sit and eat our pastries and drink our coffee in peace for just a little while. And so we did, savoring the colorful chaos in the plaza. Finally, Thomas turned to me. "It's pretty amazing that we can do that," he said.

"Do what?" I asked.

"That we can ask him if we can sit down. That he can explain to us the situation. That we understand each other." It seemed small at the time, but so did the cup color I preferred so many years ago. He was right-- the ability to understand and communicate with people in another country improves and enriches one's traveling experience to an extraordinary extent.

The next day, I took the bus to San Sebastian. Feeling disoriented, I took a walk in the post-lunch quiet through the narrow streets of the old town. In the distance, I could hear singing, and I walked toward it. In front of a tavern, a group of some 15 men stood in a semi-clump-circle as two others performed some kind of rollicking song and dance, circling around each other, patting each other on the back, and gesturing exaggeratedly. I arrived for the tail end of their song-- after perhaps thirty seconds the crowd broke into applause and started to hug and kiss their goodbyes.

I smiled to myself. walked a few steps away, and pulled out my map to check where to find a nearby hiking path that would take me up to a famous lookout point over the harbor... but then I stopped. There's something about talking to strangers in a foreign language that is both terrifying and freeing. What did I have to lose?

I turned back and, practicing my most polite, formal Spanish, tapped one of the men on the shoulder. "Excuse me," I asked, "Can you explain to me why those men were dancing? What was that about?"

The man I'd accosted interrupted his dancer friend, who was chatting nearby. "This pretty young girl wants to know what you were doing!" he said.

The dancing man smiled broadly. "We were in the army together around 1939 or 1940, and every year since then we get together in the first weekend of June and have lunch at this restaurant. And you know, we've had something to drink now. And when we Basque men drink, well, it starts here [he pointed to his mouth] and travels up to here [then to the top of his head] and ends up here [finally he gestured to his throat.] And we have to sing! So when I saw this other gentleman there, who I hadn't seen for years and years and years... well, we decided to sing an old song together."

We spent some minutes talking before the group broke up for Saturday siesta. At the end of my subsequent hike,  watching the waves far below, I reflected on just how my language skills had served me. Without them, my memory would have held an interesting, exotic interlude of dancing and music,  brief and mysterious and without depth. Instead, the story I took home was so much more nuanced, so much richer-- a piece of these men's lives instead of a one-dimensional tableau.

II.
A week later I found myself in a different part of the country, exploring the ancient university city of Salamanca. The city is known for its stunning architecture, including a beautiful, enormous 500-year-old main square and the gorgeous facades of the university buildings themselves. There's a legend that goes along with those facades: the architect hid a tiny frog among the many elaborate carvings, and it's said that those who can find it are guaranteed luck in love and scholarship.

One evening at dusk I walked to the Plaza Mayor, filled with students sitting on the still-warm flagstones eating and chatting, with tourists snapping photos and old people out for their paseos or watching the world go by. I chose a seat next to an older man who immediately struck up a conversation with me. When I told him I was American, he explained he had lived some years in Germany and so always tried to help tourists and visitors in Salamanca because he knew what it meant to be a stranger in a foreign land. After the initial pleasantries, he started to ask me what I'd seen so far in Salamanca, and I was forced to confess that although I'd stood for some minutes in front of the university facade, I hadn't been able to find the frog.

"You couldn't find it!?" he said horrified. "Coming to Salamanca without seeing the frog is like not coming to Salamanca at all!... Okay, come with me. We're going to find the frog right now." And so it was that I found myself taken firmly by the arm, weaving my way through the crowd following this insistent old man. I chatted with him about his childhood in the city ("Everything is so much bigger and spread out now!") as we walked. When we finally arrived in front of the university, the stone was pink-tinted from sunset. With my new friend's help, I was able to spot the frog within a few minutes, perched precariously on a well-hidden carved skull.


III
Of course, not every experience is enriched by language skills. Rewinding to that same weekend in San Sebastian, I had intended to finish my trip with a blues/jazz concert at a bar near my hostel. Unfortunately, the actual concert schedule was different than the one the bar had published, so when I arrived the music had already finished. Disappointed, I consoled myself with an expensive cocktail and the paperback book in my bag.

As I read, I became aware of a man to my left-- he sat down at the heretofore empty grand piano and started to play around with scales and glissandos. There were people sitting around me in groups chatting, but as the man's musical doodles started to become something more, I noticed a change in the bar. The jazz riffs grew, strengthened, and eventually became a full, gorgeously harmonic improvisation-- and the energy in the room changed, as well. Now, as the music subtly transitioned from one genre to another, I closed my book and noticed conversations all around the bar dropping off into silence.

After a few minutes, a particularly powerful crescendo marked the end of the impromptu performance. The man got up and left without so much as a bow, but it didn't matter. We all burst into spontaneous applause-- the English-speaking businessmen in the corner, the Spanish tourists at the table behind, the Basque teenagers next to them, and me.

Sing-a-long

The Lemon Society is one of my favorite nightlife spots in Palencia (see its listing my "things to do in Palencia when you're (not) dead" entry). The inexplicably English-named watering hole, with its colored lights, sleek bar, and menu scrawled in crayon on the wall, is funky enough to appeal to me but trendy enough to attract a crowd of late-20s-to-late-30s Palentinos on almost any night of the week. It is a lovely size for cozy conversation; I enjoy its reasonably-priced local wine selection, served in oversized glasses; and (perhaps most importantly) it is one of the foremost venues for live music in the city.

At least once a week, The Lemon Society plays host to one of the many small-time rock, pop, folk, or blues bands currently touring around Castilla y Leon. I've seen classic-rock tinged duos, punk-pop outfits, and even once a Louisiana-style-blues band imported from Tennessee. Often these bands are only stopping in a few places in Castilla y Leon-- Burgos, Salamanca, Leon, or Valladolid (all much bigger cities), and Palencia. I'm convinced that the Lemon Society has something to do with that, and I'm grateful.

This past weekend's concert lived up to my Lemon Society standards. The artist was the lead-singer of a much-loved pop-rock band from the 80s and 90s called The Lemons (strange name coincidence.) Everything seemed to be well-balanced that night: I went to the show with a group of friends, a mix of Spaniards and foreigners (which I find is often hard to maintain in a ceaselessly foreign environment where spending time with other visitors can be almost too easy.) On other nights the bar had been suffocatingly full, but tonight the crowd level was perfect--large enough to transmit excitement and energy but still with room to breathe. The green and purple lights threw shadows on excited faces as we waited for the show to begin.

It was during that waiting period that I noticed that the atmosphere in the bar differed from what I'd experienced at other shows I'd seen there. Unlike me, it didn't feel like these were people who had just popped in to see who might be performing tonight. They were there with purpose, with expectation. When, a few minutes later, the singer appeared and began to work his way through a lush acoustic guitar-and-harmonica set, they all seemed to stand up a little straighter. And then something happened that I'd certainly not encountered before: as he reached the chorus of his first song, I heard voices joining in all over the bar. Quiet voices and rough voices, from the perfectly-coiffed fashionistas to the boisterous drunk in flannel at the front. I'm always a fan of a sing-a-long, so I closed my eyes and let the sound wash over me.

The set continued: a quiet ballad segued into something more fast-paced and rollicking, and the crowd went along for the ride, clapping and swaying. The energy in the room was palpable. Looking around, it seemed like an awful lot of people were smiling. I couldn't figure it out-- how did everyone in this bar know the lyrics to all these songs? I finished my wine and leaned over to teach one of my Spanish friends the word "sing-a-long." In return, she offered something of an explanation. These songs, she said, were beloved covers from the 1980s.

"In the 80s, after Franco, pop was one of the first arts to recover. Everyone was crazy for music in those days. Those songs brought people together. A lot of people still remember the words." She smiled. I noticed she was tapping her toes to the beat.

The concert was winding down, and I had an early train to catch the next morning. But for a few moments more I sat bathing in the sound of voices raised in unison, now seeing the proceedings from a new perspective. People here are loathe to discuss that part of their history, but (or perhaps thus) I am often surprised by how the specter of Franco still lurks. He's still here, in more than just bad memories-- he's present in the way people think of themselves, their religion and their country; in the absence of nationalistic fervor or even flags (an attitude which for me is reminiscent of Japan) -- and even in something as small as a singalong in a crowded bar.

More thoughts on this to come, I expect.