How Spain Changed My View of Austin
I wrote the following little article and submitted it to a small local magazine called Austin Traveler in October, 2005. They published it (and you can read it online here), although it was a slightly shorter, edited version. I'll take what I can get! What follows is my original...
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In the late nineties for me and my girlfriends, all of us on the way to finding ourselves, Austin was just the place we suffered through in between trips abroad to “real cities” like Barcelona, Seville, Paris, and Lyon.
However ridiculous it might have been, it was so easy to blame Austin for our discontent. There was, after all, nothing to do in Austin. No night-life. No interesting people. Austin was clearly the problem. So I set out to prove how satisfying life could be if only I lived in a better place.
I chose Salamanca, a fairly small University town in Spain, haven to students of Spanish and escapees of miserable towns void of opportunity all over this side of the globe. My fellow travelers were much like me, from such lifeless hell holes as Los Angeles, San Antonio, Boston, and New York. We totally identified with one another.
When I first met my traveling companions, busses were dropping us off at the plaza, a kind of town square central to most Spanish cities. We stepped off our busses, casually dressed in our Bohemian best, eager to do in this town all that our hometowns wouldn't allow.
That first day at the plaza was bustling. Beautiful children played while their mothers called after them in musical words we could not yet understand. Young professionals and students walked through the plaza, deep in thought. It was obvious that they were contemplating their love for Spain, or an exciting romantic affair, or how happy they were to be alive in such a city.
We ordered sangria, cerveza, water (with no bubbles), and tapas in broken Spanish. The springtime sun was crisp and bright. There were smells I didn't recognize: new foods, unknown flowers, wonderful smells of the people and the city. We waited patiently for the exotic Spanish waitress to bring our drinks. She was exceptionally beautiful, overflowing with Spanish life and love. She welcomed us to her city as we smiled overconfidently at one another, introduced ourselves, and gave the condensed stories of our lives.
We lived in Spain for three months and the time flew by. With only two weeks before we would leave, I looked again at the city, at the men and women I spent time with, at the places I frequented. They were eerily like those people and places I knew at home. Without realizing it, I had recreated Austin abroad. It was uncanny. I talked to my fellow travelers about it, and we were stunned to realize we all did it. When we settled in and stopped being tourists, when we were buying groceries, going to class, studying for a test, looking for a job, - when we were living - the city became a home.
Now near the end of our trip, we examined the patterns in our lives and shared the parallels we uncovered. The three of us from Austin bantered:
"'Miguel's' off the plaza - that's the Starbuck's on Congress. Man, I even go there every Saturday.”
"The park behind the cathedral - that's townlake where I run."
"That strip off the plaza, that's the drag."
And it wasn't just places. It was people too.
"Matilde - she's my mother. We have the same freaking conversations."
"Jaime - that's my boss. I hate that guy…"
So-and-so was someone's ex-husband, business partner, boyfriend, girlfriend. What we were trying to escape, we decided, was inescapable.
On the last day of the trip, we waited one more time at the plaza. As always, it was lively. Children played and they were still beautiful, but only beautiful in the way that snotty-nosed children who aren't your own are beautiful. They refused to come when they're mothers called and made excuses, as children do. Young professionals and students crossed the plaza, but they lacked the love struck gaze I had previously imposed upon them.
We ordered sangria, cerveza, and water (sometimes with bubbles) in perfect Spanish. Spring had faded into summer and what was once sunny and crisp was uncomfortably hot. The smell of French fries from the café and fumes from city busses festered in the heat.
We had gotten to know Fuente, the exotic Spanish waitress, and we were impatient for her to bring us our drinks. She was still beautiful. With ten weeks behind us though, she seemed ridden with the same peculiarities as the next girl.
Somewhat sadly, she had become human, and she looked exhausted. She was. Fuente worked a lot because she hated her town and she was saving her money to leave, to get to a place where she could really live. Somewhere where the city wasn't so void of life and opportunity. Somewhere in the United States. Somewhere maybe, like Austin.
____________________
In the late nineties for me and my girlfriends, all of us on the way to finding ourselves, Austin was just the place we suffered through in between trips abroad to “real cities” like Barcelona, Seville, Paris, and Lyon.
However ridiculous it might have been, it was so easy to blame Austin for our discontent. There was, after all, nothing to do in Austin. No night-life. No interesting people. Austin was clearly the problem. So I set out to prove how satisfying life could be if only I lived in a better place.
I chose Salamanca, a fairly small University town in Spain, haven to students of Spanish and escapees of miserable towns void of opportunity all over this side of the globe. My fellow travelers were much like me, from such lifeless hell holes as Los Angeles, San Antonio, Boston, and New York. We totally identified with one another.
When I first met my traveling companions, busses were dropping us off at the plaza, a kind of town square central to most Spanish cities. We stepped off our busses, casually dressed in our Bohemian best, eager to do in this town all that our hometowns wouldn't allow.
That first day at the plaza was bustling. Beautiful children played while their mothers called after them in musical words we could not yet understand. Young professionals and students walked through the plaza, deep in thought. It was obvious that they were contemplating their love for Spain, or an exciting romantic affair, or how happy they were to be alive in such a city.
We ordered sangria, cerveza, water (with no bubbles), and tapas in broken Spanish. The springtime sun was crisp and bright. There were smells I didn't recognize: new foods, unknown flowers, wonderful smells of the people and the city. We waited patiently for the exotic Spanish waitress to bring our drinks. She was exceptionally beautiful, overflowing with Spanish life and love. She welcomed us to her city as we smiled overconfidently at one another, introduced ourselves, and gave the condensed stories of our lives.
We lived in Spain for three months and the time flew by. With only two weeks before we would leave, I looked again at the city, at the men and women I spent time with, at the places I frequented. They were eerily like those people and places I knew at home. Without realizing it, I had recreated Austin abroad. It was uncanny. I talked to my fellow travelers about it, and we were stunned to realize we all did it. When we settled in and stopped being tourists, when we were buying groceries, going to class, studying for a test, looking for a job, - when we were living - the city became a home.
Now near the end of our trip, we examined the patterns in our lives and shared the parallels we uncovered. The three of us from Austin bantered:
"'Miguel's' off the plaza - that's the Starbuck's on Congress. Man, I even go there every Saturday.”
"The park behind the cathedral - that's townlake where I run."
"That strip off the plaza, that's the drag."
And it wasn't just places. It was people too.
"Matilde - she's my mother. We have the same freaking conversations."
"Jaime - that's my boss. I hate that guy…"
So-and-so was someone's ex-husband, business partner, boyfriend, girlfriend. What we were trying to escape, we decided, was inescapable.
On the last day of the trip, we waited one more time at the plaza. As always, it was lively. Children played and they were still beautiful, but only beautiful in the way that snotty-nosed children who aren't your own are beautiful. They refused to come when they're mothers called and made excuses, as children do. Young professionals and students crossed the plaza, but they lacked the love struck gaze I had previously imposed upon them.
We ordered sangria, cerveza, and water (sometimes with bubbles) in perfect Spanish. Spring had faded into summer and what was once sunny and crisp was uncomfortably hot. The smell of French fries from the café and fumes from city busses festered in the heat.
We had gotten to know Fuente, the exotic Spanish waitress, and we were impatient for her to bring us our drinks. She was still beautiful. With ten weeks behind us though, she seemed ridden with the same peculiarities as the next girl.
Somewhat sadly, she had become human, and she looked exhausted. She was. Fuente worked a lot because she hated her town and she was saving her money to leave, to get to a place where she could really live. Somewhere where the city wasn't so void of life and opportunity. Somewhere in the United States. Somewhere maybe, like Austin.
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