Life Is Good

I guess that saying that life is good when someone is at the beginning of what is not much more than the longest vacation of his life is stating the obvious. Forget about the fact that I need to get out of this apartment in four days and I don’t have any good leads. Never mind the lousy standing of the U.S. dollar in Europe at the moment. I am in understandably high spirits.

I got up early this morning and looked at the map to find the apartment I needed to cheeck out. The woman from the apartment agency gave me the keys to a place that she described as sort of basic. She apologized for the working class neighborhood and the fact that the place doesn’t have an elevator and the apartment is on the fifth floor. I was planning on taking a couple of busses to get there until I noticed that it was next to the Patraix metro stop. The closest metro stop to where I live is about eight blocks away through a neighborhood full of shops. I stopped to look at a cool pair of shoes that I saw on a previous walk. I don’t want to buy anything until I move so I just looked.

The metro charges by zones that you have to pass through. The Patraix stop lies directly west of here so it is in the same zone. I cost me a 1.20E in the automated machine at the station for my ticket. The metro looks pretty new and it is super efficient and clean. It let me out only about three blocks from where I was going.

The neighborhood was fine and I wouldn’t have any reservations about living there but I had a few problems with the apartment. As it is on the fifth floor with no elevator I thought that hauling a bike up and down every day would really be a challenge. The kitchen wasn’t good enough for someone who is planning on doing a lot of cooking. To its credit the place had a great balcony off of the main bedroom. I don’t think that I will take it but I have it as a backup.

When I returned the key to the agency I got invited to a new restaurant opening cocktail party. As I don’t know a single person here I am hoping to meet some people. I spent the rest of the morning at an internet café tracking down apartments to share on a Spanish variety of craigslist. I’ll go back tonight to see if I got any responses.

The weather is still unbelievable. I went jogging through the Jardin del Turia park this afternoon wearing only my short sleeve Mexico soccer jersey and shorts. A lot of other people had the same idea. When I got home I had a glass of wine and smoked a really fine Cuban cigar that only cost 1.25E. I sat on my 8th floor balcony as I smoked my Gonzales cigar and listened to Latin music on my iPod. I am totally committed to listening to only Spanish music, at least for a few months. I have enough of it so I won’t have to hear the same song twice, although I heard a lot of great tunes this afternoon that I wouldn’t mind listening to over and over.

I know that when I mention Gloria Estefan a lot of people will role their eyes, but her stuff in Spanish is really good. Her CD, Mi Tierra, is magnificently produced by her impresario husband, Emelio. I have a lot of Benny More hits on this playlist. I was first introduced to this old-school Cuban crooner from the soundtrack of the movie The Mambo Kings which is a great place to start if you want to explore Cuban music.

Right before I left the States I called a friend who had just returned from Mexico on business. He told me about a singer who was currently in heavy rotation on the radio there. I downloaded a few of hr songs before I left and when I got here and turned on the radio in the apartment, her single, Limon y Sal, was playing. I like the unsentimental lyrics and the catchy chorus grabs me like it does everyone else in the Spanish-speaking world:

Limón Y Sal
Tengo que confesar que a veces no me gusta tu forma de ser.
Luego te me desapareces y no entiendo por qué. No dices nada romántico cuando llega el atardecer. Te pones de un humor extraño con cada luna llena al mes.

Pero a a todo lo demás le gana lo bueno que me das sólo tenerte cerca siento que vuelvo a empezar.

CORO:
Yo te quiero con limón y sal, yo te quiero tal y como estás,
no hace falta cambiarte nada,
yo te quiero si vienes o si vas,
si subes y bajas y
no estás seguro de lo que sientes.

Tengo que confesarte ahora
nunca creí en la felicidad
a veces algo se le parece, pero
es pura casualidad.

Luego me vengo a encontrar con tus ojos me dan algo más
solo tenerte cerca siento
que vuelvo a empezar.

CORO
What the lyrics mean in a nutshell is that she knows her lover has faults but the good outweighs the bad. I can send you the song if you email me at leftbanker@gmail.com
Hasta luego.