Spy, Clown

If a voyeur is someone who clandestinely watches the actions of others, what would you call a person who compulsively eavesdrops on the conversations of strangers? An écouteur perhaps. Whatever you call it, I’ve become it. I feel like a spy as I stand at the counter of a café sipping my coffee and trying to understand what is being said around me. It’s not that I care what they are saying; I just care about being able to follow their conversations.

Just about every day I stop at a café right behind the bus stop. I order a cortado, a shot of espresso topped off with hot milk. I couldn’t even make a guess as to how many cortados are consumed in this country every day. The coffee is excellent everywhere and you can buy it everywhere. There is a sit-down café at the big grocery store by my house. There are probably five other cafes on the same block.

People wash in and out of cafes in waves throughout the day like tides. Crowds flow into the cafes in the morning for a coffee and flow out again to go to work. In the early afternoon the rush is on for another coffee or a caña, a small beer often served in a wine glass. From about 2-3 in the afternoon is the lunch hour. After 6 p.m. people start leaving work and usually take another coffee. From about 8 until late people stop by the cafes for beer, coffee, or coffee with brandy. I haven’t noticed many people drinking wine in the cafes as they do in other parts of Spain that I have visited.

The tapas hour that I grew accustomed to in Madrid, Sevilla, and Toledo is quite different here in Valencia. First of all you don’t see the Serrano hams hanging in the bars. Although they are sold everywhere here, it is not sold in cafes, at least not in the same way as in other parts. You won’t see dozens of hams hanging above the bars nor the special racks that mount the hams for easy carving.

The afternoon and early evening tapa hour that is positively frantic in Madrid, is barely noticeable in Valencia. There is no shortage of bars that have the same sort of tapa fare as they have in Madrid and elsewhere, but you won’t see the throngs of people scrumming the bar area of the restaurants. In truth, I am still trying to figure out the rhythms of Valencia.

It seems to me like every part of Spain has its own secret tide chart that dictates the rhythms of daily life. You can’t go wrong or look too out of place if you stick to drinking cortados and cañas. For a spy like me, the important thing is not to stick out; you have to try to blend in with the crowd.

When I speak Spanish it is impossible for me to blend in. I will always have an accent. Because I speak it imperfectly I find myself speaking in a more animated fashion, at least during short exchanges. I speak with a more sing-song cadence to my speak which I have found lets people know that although my Spanish is imperfect, I’m not retarded. In fact, I may even have a sense of humor. I had a coffee before I got on the bus today and I saw in the paper an article on nutrition. It had a graphic of the food pyramid. I told the girl at the cafe that my pyramid´s base is coffee, then beer and wine, next cigars, and finally pork. She didn´t laugh and asked me if that was all. She did laugh when I asked her if there was anything else.