Luck of the Irish . . . in Spain

When leaving the country for a year, certain items of business should never be left to chance. For example, flight details. In my case, neglecting to check my itinerary and arriving three hours late to the airport, thus missing my flight to Madrid, served as a fitting start to my first two weeks in Spain. During this time, many of my initial plans and expectations were turned on their head, a fact for which, ironically, I now feel grateful.

The unexpected turn of events began in Madrid, where, as a result of my original blunder, I had a layover that lasted five hours instead of 45 minutes. After I'd circled the terminal for the sixth time to keep myself awake, a girl with two carry-ones bigger than mine approached me to ask if I wasn't teaching English in Spain for the year like her. (She had heard me speaking English on the plane and seen the size of my bags.) As it turned out, Christine, as she was called, was headed to Seville, too. We were not participating in the same program but our responsibilities as "English conversation assistants" in our respective Andalucian towns were essentially the same. The five hours flew by as she and I shared her last remaining Snickers bar, while exchanging photos, stories, and thoughts about the future.

Originally, I'd planned to arrive in Seville at nine in the morning and take a bus straight to Cadiz, my ultimate destination where, armed with a stack of ads I'd printed from various websites, I would immediately begin the dreaded apartment-hunt. Buy by the time we made it to Seville, it was already dark and I had not slept or eaten in almost 24 hours. Christine invited me stay in the four-star hotel where she and all of the participants of her cushy for-profit program had reservations. I hesitated, imagining the most attractive-sounding and affordable apartment in Cadiz being snatched by a more responsible ERASMUS student while I slept between silk sheets in Seville. Then I realized that this was my chance to see one of the most romantic cities in Spain and accepted Christine's offer.

After I had bathed in a sparkling white bathtub lined with intricate blue and yellow Spanish tiles and Christine had fulfilled her duty of Skyping her boyfriend in Texas, we got dressed and headed to the most central part of town: el Barrio de Santa Cruz. Once we'd scoped out a few of the tapas bars teeming along the narrow cobblestone streets, we decided that one seemed as good as any and sat down at the next free table we saw. Here I found the exception to my own rule, that a spur of the moment decision always guarantees a rewarding adventure. The tapas we ordered--vegetable croquetas, plain cold roasted peppers, pork with an underwhelming chile sauce, olives and somewhat stale bread--did nothing to wow us. Consulting the guide book beforehand probably would have helped. Still, we both enjoyed the ambience created by the people crowding into a small space, some standing at chest-high tables, enjoying each other's company, if not the mediocre food.

After dinner, we walked to the Cathedral, a mammoth medieval wonder lit from all angles by warm, dewy lights. Then, exhausted, we headed home pausing every so often to observe a particularly popular tapas bar or beautiful building facade. Back in our hotel room, we collapsed into bed and slept for nearly twelve hours -- another blessing I couldn't fully appreciated until I'd arrived in Cadiz, where I found the act of sleeping nearly impossible.

The Cathedral in Seville

   Christine from Texas in Seville

Casa Caracol is a small hostel in the center of Cadiz, run by a rowdy interational bunch of Brits, Aussies, and Kiwis. The guests I met hailed from all over the Western world (Italy, France, Austria, Argentina, Germany, America, and Ireland) and seemed much more interested in getting to know each other than in getting a good night's sleep. The common space and kitchen, which in the worst design for a hostel I've ever seen, opened directly onto the five bedrooms, hummed at all hours with foreign languages. With sleep out of the question, I resigned myself to the never-ending party. And, looking back, it's a good thing I did, since it was there that I met Shane and Aoife, an Irish couple my age who've filled my time in Spain so far with unexpected pleasure.

With three of my Irish friends before a homemade dinner at 2PM ;

left to right, me, Aoife, Joe, and Shane

Obviously blessed with the luck of the Irish, Shane and Aoife (a Gaelic name, pronounced Eefa) found a beautiful apartment on la Playa Victoria, the greatest beach in Cadiz, before the end of their second day in Casa Caracol. I, on the other hand, discovered that all of the extra preparation I'd done before arriving was completely for naught. Since I had arrived on the first day of the academic calendar, nearly every posting I'd printed back in the States had been snapped up by someone else already. It was clearly going to take much longer than I'd expected to find a free room in a shared flat, much less on that I liked. Shane and Aoife offered to put me up in their new place for a much more reasonable price than Casa Caracol, until I found a place. And thus began my week of Spanish-Irish immersion.

  The view from Shane and Aoife's balcony

What could such a thing involve? First, big dinners at two in the afternoon, siestas, swims in the ocean located yards away from where we slept, drinks on the balcony at sunset, all the Spanish music we had on our iPods, outings to the weekend botellones or public, outdoor BYOB parties where even the police can be found with a beer in hand. And for the Irish component, remembering that shyte means shit, turd, third, and aubergine, eggplant, trying to defend all the bad my country has done the world in the eyes of foreigners, becoming familiar with Irish music, humor, and drinking games, and acquiring comebacks for repartees you would never hear in America, such as "Cheers, big ears," "No prob, big nob."

Who would have thought that, by coming to Spain, I'd make Irish friends and gain a new-found interest in Ireland? If missing my flight and choosing Casa Caracol as a place to rest my head were big mistakes, I've forgotten it already. For me, the satisfaction of a good plan can't rival the joy of a chance encounter, especially when it's the result of an apparent miscalculation (or missed flight). Maybe it's just the Andalucian's easy-going way rubbing off on me, but here in Spain, I've learned that wrong turns rarely lead to dead ends and very often to pots of gold.

Dylan Moran, one of my favorite Irish delights:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl_Lacg5m3g&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up7rG-Wzxnw&feature=related

(a taste of the shyte I get on a daily basis)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdrVkPBy5nw