The days are slowly getting longer: tomorrow there will be two minutes and 31 seconds more daylight than today. It doesn’t sound like much but it adds up over the course of a mild, Mediterranean winter. The sun won’t set until 6:48 this evening. The added light and the mild temperatures make it easier to sit outside and enjoy the terrace of my favorite cafe. We are always told to enjoy the simple things in life. I don’t consider cafes to be simple things; I think they are an essential ingredient of a happy existence.
Cafes here in Valencia are as casual as humanly possible. They work pretty mush the same everywhere that I have been in Europe. You sit down and eventually some one will even take your order. A cup of coffee or a glass of wine will show up sooner or later. On this evening I sit back and take a sip and watch as throngs of bewildered tourists, desperately looking at maps, try to navigate the labyrinthine Carmen section of Valencia.
That was me only three short months ago. Now I know just about every street and alleyway in this old quarter. I come down here on my bike almost every Sunday morning. There are few other people on the streets. It is so quite that I can hear the vibrations of the church bell after it has stopped ringing as I coast silently through the narrow streets. I can get around almost wearing a blindfold now but as a writer I like to have a name for everything. I have been photographing every plaza, cathedral, street sign, and everything else of interest in Valencia so that I can remember what everything is called.
I am sitting in the Plaza Esparto which is adjacent to Plaza Tossal. My conversational Spanish has improved quite a lot since I arrived, and although I have a long way to go, I am not stumbling blindly in the language like the tourists with their maps in this beautiful old part of town.
You never finish things in a café; it is more like “to be continued.” On evenings like these—and things will only get better—Spain seems hopelessly romantic and charming to me, but what would you expect from someone who calls his bicycle “Rocinante?” We haven’t seen the server in quite a while so I walk inside to pay the bill. The girl recognizes me as if I were someone she vaguely knows and is trying to remember my name. I ask for the check and have to remind here what we ordered. I no longer have to force myself to say “Hasta Luego” when I leave, it just comes naturally.
Enjoying a café is not as simple as it seems. It is simple like a glass of wine is simple or like a wonderful olive is simple. It takes a certain amount of skill and learning to arrive at where I am now. It takes a while to know your way around and there are no maps to show you the way. All that I can say is that you will know you are there when you arrive.
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