Two Months

Two Months


Today marks my two month anniversary here in Valencia and I was really anxious to pass this milestone thinking that my Spanish has improved greatly. To that end I sacrificed my own dignity last night and watched a really horrible movie with actors I absolutely cannot stand—call it taking one for the team. I can’t think of what the movie is called in English but it stars Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, and Keanu Reeves all intertwined in some ridiculous love triangle, or quadrangle. God, the shit I’m willing to endure for my personal edification.

I guess that tomorrow is officially my two month anniversary so I really got a head start on the Spanish shot in the arm. This morning I cranked out about 40 pages of a novel in Spanish. It is by the Spanish author Susana Fortes, who I discovered two years ago when I was in Madrid. I read one of her essays in the RENFE (Red Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Españoles) magazine on the high speed train from Madrid to Sevilla, or the AVE as it is called here. AVE is the acronym for Alta Velocidad or high speed and it also means bird in Spanish. I loved here essay called, Trenes de Memoria, so I bought a couple of her novels. The one I am reading now is called, El Querido Corto Maltés.

The novel is a bit of a chore to read but I did crank out 40 pages in a couple of hours. I had to look up about 15 words that were essential for comprehension. I was quite pleased with all of the vocabulary that I encountered that I have learned since I arrived two months ago. I can’t wait until I can read almost anything with full understanding.

I really enjoy reading the columns in the Madrid paper’s Sunday magazine. I don’t read El País every day because I am too cheap to pay for it, but every time I find it I am rewarded with good writing and excellent reporting.

I am sitting out on my balcony, smoking a Cuban cigar, and enjoyng the last hour of daylight (1 minutes and 5 seconds more daylight than yesterday) on this sunny winter afternoon. By the way, it got up to 68° today. Among the many pleasures of my balcony is listening to all of the song birds that my neighbors keep for pets and leave out on their balconies—they sure beat the hell out of listening to little dogs yapping. I was thinking about buying a bird myself and then I became too overwhelmed thinking about all of that responsibility. I guess that I’ll just stick with the vicarious experience provided by my neighbors. If you are reading this, neighbors (and I know you aren’t), thank you.

After lunch today I took a bike ride down to the beach and noticed the cool sailboat fountain that you see in this post. I think that my photography is improving because I adhere to a simple rule: take lots of pictures because with digital they are all free. Out of 50 shots I might get a couple that are adequate and the rest I simply delete. I’ve taken more pictures in since arriving in Valencia than I have in the rest of my previous life. To be honest, I’ve never been to keen on visual art and I’ve always found taking pictures to be a huge bore when I travel. Now I just take my little Nikon digital everywhere I go and snap a picture here and there.

The birds are all quiet now as the sun hides somewhere behind the buildings to the south west. It is still comfortable although my nose is a bit cold—nothing that a glass of brandy can’t fix. I have plenty to talk about when I talk politics in my favorite bar later this evening. I poured over a couple of newspapers this morning while I had a couple of coffees.

The big news is that my neighborhood has been declared a Zona Auditoriamente Saturada, or ZAS, which means that the neighborhood bitched enough about the loud discos that stay open to all hours of the morning and now must close earlier. The clubs hate it, I love it. There is a disco almost directly below my bedroom and some mornings there were 100 drunk kids from the Erasmus program (a foreign exchange program for college students featured in the French film, L’Auberge Espangole) singing soccer chants at the top of their lungs. Valencia is well known for its late, late night life, and although I am all for people having a good time, there is something to be said for common courtesy. I’m sure none of those snot-nosed Erasmus punks would like it if I were outside their windows screaming at the top of my lungs while they were trying to sleep. The new law will keep me from pouring boiling oil on top of the late nighters.