The journal is done, posted. We’ve been home for a week as of today. The jet-bashing is finally subsiding. Up at 5am this morning to post these final entries. Only time to do it, as we’ve been thrown, arms and legs flailing, into work, bills, laundry, friends, AMERICA. It’s nice to be home, but disorienting. Spent 13 hours solid in front on a computer monitor working huge Photoshop files yesterday. Ugh. Check the end of part Tres for the final days. And thanks for all the comments. —Andy, 6/17/00, San Pedro, California, USA, Earth. ESPAÑA EN TRES PARTES. UNO; We leave today. 5pm. Reach Sevilla, Spain, home of my abuela on the 21st by 8pm. On the 22nd, she will have been on earth, in the vacinity of Torreblanca, for 87 years. She will meet her 4-year-old American grandson, Emmet, for the first time. I am armed with a G3/400 PowerBook. I will use it. No phone or phone jack at my Aunt Lola'a apartment where we intend to stay most of our trip. I'll have to seek out a little hole in the wall (literally), to post entries. Meet me here on occasion. And squeeze St. Christopher for me. Love, Andy, 5/20/00, andyjenk@bendpress.com 5/21, Sevilla He seriously wanted to kill me, I could see it in his eyes as he screamed and waved his fist out the window. I was driving a brand-new Chrysler mini-van and trying to curb park it like we do it back in the hood—LAX. This irrate man was a taxi driver and apparently he didn’t want me curb parking in the taxi zone. Yes, it was the taxi zone. Hell, I’d been in Sevilla for 30 minutes and in this car for less than 5. My passenger, cousin Antonio, is giving me directions. Cars behind me are honking. I’m driving a stick for the first time in 10 years. Taxi driver has now opened his door brandishing a thick, miniature baseball bat with a leather handle. What to do at this point? I cannot reason with a yelling man, much less a Spanish one—I’m the ugly American with horrible Spanish diction. Meanwhile, 15 meters* (remember, I’m in Spain now) away awaiting me on the curb are my 87 year-old grandmother—my mother’s mother—my mother, wife, son, 2 aunts, 1 uncle and two more cousins. I blanked out and could not get the car in gear. I was too focused on that club and his now seemingly Popeye-like forearm holding it. There was no way he was actually going to come over here, right? Would he hit the mini-van—which I refused insurance coverage on just moments earlier, knowing for certain that American Express covered it. They do cover rental cars, I’m sure of it... I sped away. So did the cabby. He had a fare in there, after all. Though once, in Manhatten, a cab driver Lew and Spike and I had, took a knive from his glovebox and scratched the fender of another cab that was muscling in on us. Moments later they were both in the street knife fighting like a scene straight from West Side story—only one was Asian and the other Paki. So I guess I’m lucky. As soon as we had stepped on the Spanish airliner—part of the Iberia fleet—back in London, I got a strange vibe from the “locals”. Snooty superiority, or, more like they didn’t really give a damn. But maybe that’s just part of the stewardess archetype (sorta like there’s a cabby archetype). But then, if you had to walk in a 3 foot-wide** aisle serving a bunch of blank faces for hours on end with no escape... Anyhow, buy the time we landed in Sevilla, the on-air voice giving all the passengers directions and instructions, had stopped translating into English. You’re in Spain now, bitch-ass punk, better pay attention. Don’t go parking in the taxi zone. * 15 kilometers = 3.1 miles ** Oops, I mean... ?? meter wide. 5/22, Torreblanca Slept solid. Temperature is perfect for sleep at night. Not hot, not cold. Just cool and comfortable. Was awakened during the night by a cat outside that sounded eerily human. Then the neighborhood rooster. It’s 2:30pm LA time (10:30am here). Outside the narrow streets are alive with sound. All the homes in this old Sevilla neighborhood are pushed together and at least two stories high. The streets are all one-way and no wider than 20 feet including sidewalk (on only one side), which trucks drive on. There are no lawns, only flower boxes on second or third floor windows. All this creates a sort of ping ponging with any sounds and it seems you can hear what is happening in any part of the barrio at any given time. I forgotten about all the 2-stoke mopeds and scooters here... they burp through the streets like drunk mosquitoes, accelerating and braking staccato-like to avoid collisions with cars or peds or walls.There are no sound ordinances for these things. No mufflers. I saw one with a rubber hose for an exhaust system. You know the feeling you get when you go back to your old grade school? Everything just seems small yet sort of comfortable in a strange way? You were small and so everything seemed big, now you’re big and it makes that bigness seem even smaller. That’s how I’m feeling. Only everyone here speaks Spanish. 5/23, Torreblanca It’s raining tonight. Fine with me, but everyone here seems disappointed. My biggest fear (beside being killed by a cabbie) is that it’ll be too hot, so hot we’ll just want to stay inside and be bummed about how hot it is. The rain is nice and, after all, it only falls on the plain here in Spain, so by tomorrow afternoon when we reach the coast at a small “village” called Matalascañas (literally translated as Kill the Cane), it’ll stop. Today was the birthdate of my abuela (grandmother) and primo (cousin) Jose Andres Medina.. My abuela is 87, primo 16—a local region chess champion, who’s mother is concerned he shows too much interest in the girls during his chess tournament travels. We had a small family birthday party and sang the traditional song in both languages. We took Emmet, my four year-old, up to the roof and played a game of football (soccer) while avoiding clothes lines. I’d bought a cheap soccer ball earlier in the day with the “Sevilla” team banner and colors. I was berated by the familia... you see, Los Betis, another Sevilla team, even though they suck this year, are always the favorites. I should have remembered this, seeing as I wore their uniform as a kid. Then I was criticized for not buying a leather ball. I’m wearing my alien-ness on my sleeve, but, my Spanish is improving. As is Emmet’s. As for Kelley, my Georgia-born, Wyoming -raised wife, she has to put up with people forgetting she’s mono-lingual. She just nods now, she’s given up asking me what they’re saying—though I try to keep up with the translation. People here talk with passion, fast and furious and often over-lapping each other. Or, again, maybe this is just my inexperience with the language/culture. Torreblanca appears to be a middle-class neighborhood. Filled with hard-working people who seem to enjoy their time off. There is a small bar on virtually every corner. And in the cool evenings, the streets are filled and loud. People bring their chairs out on the stoops—literally, the sidewalk—and talk. The kids play soccer. Cars drive by on occasion, giving a friendly honk for folks to clear the way... and people do, almost subconsciously. It’s a delicate balance of man and machine. This barrio has accepted the car after being designed years and years ago without it in mind. Granted, all the cars are the size of old Honda Civics. Forget bringing a Lincoln Town car in here. Driving in Sevilla is a bit like most bigger cities I’ve driven in, except without the general negative attitude. People swerve and cut and speed and putter, but no one gets pissed (the cabbie at the airport seemed to be the exception). No “road rage” or whatever it is we call it. Sure there are assholes, but are they are just assholes and people seems to generally let it go. Controlled, zen-like chaos... with traffic circles thrown in every mile or so. The intimidation of it all dissolved after one trip into the city. Granted, I’ve had a passenger seat guide each time, my aunt Lola... and though she’s virtually blind, she knows her way around very well. My mother, and her dusty memory of the place, also makes suggestions from the back seat. I mostly ignore them,out of fear. Knock on wood, no problems so far. Hang on St. Christopher, tomorrow is the 100km drive to the beach. 5/24, Matalascañas My aunt Lola must be about 63. Over the last 5 years she has lost most of her eye-sight due to some sort of macular degeneration thing. Which is a terrible thing for a single, very independent, older woman to experience. She’s had to give up driving, reading. Has a hard time dialing a phone. But since we’ve been here I haven’t heard her complain once. Not once. On top of that, she is a selfless and generous person. And she talks non-stop. The combination of her and my mother and grandmother yakking and their voices bouncing off the marble floors which lay everywhere here... oi Dios mio*. Everything must be discussed and analyzed and argued** outloud. All at once. It is a din. I’m not sure if it’s more annoying if you understand or do not understand the language. The drive today was uneventful, Kel and Em slept while I endured the trio’s yammering (much more tolerable in a well-insulated car). I tuned out and watched the landscape which is a lot like Central California’s rippling, farmed hills. Except for the 50 foot bull-shaped billboards, white stucco farm houses and olive trees. We stuffed ourselves into the van in the early afternoon, out in the street just in front of abuela’s house. Neighbor’s poked their heads out to see what was up. “Oh the American ñieto is here.” They all know... most of these people have been here all their lives and they’ll remember me as the 9 year-old hooligan who threw eggs from his grandmother’s store, flipped Juaquin on his back in the street after watching a Bruce Lee movie and wore a sweater on which his mother embroidered U.S.A. All the locals called me “Oosah” because of that sweater. I went to an American school on the base during the day, but all my after school buddies where local Spanish kids. My dad was in the Air Force and on a remote assignment in Greece, so what else would I do but run around causing trouble. Stealing from my grandmother’s small grocery store, peeing in my grandfather’s empty wine jugs (he was a wine distributor) and faking grave injuries on many occasions. My mother was always overly worried about me and so I played her. What a little bastard. Yesterday my aunt’s husband, Antonio, told me my son, Emmet, is much less “malo” than I was. And all that time I thought I was really putting one over on them all... Anyhow, we stuffed ourselves into the van and Lola, once we’re out of the city, starts to show concern that everyone knew we were leaving. That we were too obvious about packing the van in the street. That “the thieves” would know we were gone and empty the place. Then she tells a story about some kids who attempted to break into her cousin’s house with a car jack—they used it to spread the iron bars, which exist on ALL the windows here. But her cousin caught them in the act and they all scattered out the tiny window space like scared cats. She described all thieves like this; 17 or 18 years old, very skinny so they could fit through the window bars, and with the wall-climbing skills of Spiderman. And that they carry out their vocation between the hours of 4 and 5am; apparently, this is the “thieving hour.” Hmmm, I should think, knowing all this, it shouldn’t be too hard to curb the problem. Lola locks everything, all the time and is continuously checking the locks while telling me to do the same. “Esta hente son loca!” she says. “Those people are crazy.” Apparently they’ll steal anything... don’t even think of leaving loose change in your car. *oh my God. **Kelley, who speaks no Spanish, had to ask my mother, at one point during a seemingly heated discussion with my abuela, if they were arguing. “No, no.” answered my mother. 5/25, Matalascañas When we reached the apartment yesterday afternoon, we unpacked and walked down to the beach. The houses, apartment buildings and businesses alike, are all painted white and are bleached even whiter by the strong summer sun. But this isn’t summer. It was brisk and cool, but comfortable. Shells everywhere. Emmet went crazy picking them up and stuffing every pocket until he was a crunchy, salty-smelling rag. A smiling one. The beach is wide and the water about calf deep for quite a distance out. Low, crumbly, waves. Driving in we’d noticed an abundance of parking, and looking around the beach, we finally realized we were virtually alone here. Walking back towards the apartment later, the streets silent and overgrown with weeds, it was like a scene out of a post-apocalyptic fantasy. Today was no different, really. Hard to find a place to eat, but when we do find locals who are open for business, they are friendly. They keep telling us July and August the place is packed. I’m thankful it is May. In the small town square where we had dinner tonight, there was considerably more life. Packs of pre-teens joked and rode scooters around on one end, and on the other, a group of teenagers, mostly girls, sat chatting and smoking on the ergonomic cement town benches. Occasionally, a moped buzzes through, weaving to dodge the kids. Up a set of steps above the plaza was a seemingly modern church structure with a service in session. Just prior to the service a rag-tag sort of parade walked through town lighting off high-powered bottle rockets. Apparently this was a procession to let people know a holy week was starting. I forget which holy week, there are a lot of them here. One of the men in the line was playing a traditional Spanish flute and beating a drum strapped around his shoulder—you could hear him throughout the town. The melody he played was obviously improvised, but sounded very Middle-Eastern or Nothern African in origin—maybe Moorish. Spain has been conquered and occupied so many times (the Celts, Romans and Moors to name three I know of) in its past, that much of its culture is a blend of diverse, ancient ancestries. At one point, the paraders took a break at a sidewalk bar for some Cruz Campos—the premier Spanish beer—and smokes. The modern blending with the ancient. In the large apartment complex there are only three cars parked out front—one ours, the other two seemingly belong to service people. At night, it is deathly quiet. Then, at 7am the service guys start snapping marble tile with their hammer and chisles. This seems to take place right outside our door. Good morning. Tomorrow we hit the road north back to Sevilla, then to Granada to visit my uncle Antonio for the weekend. By tomorrow I may start to feel remorse for leaving my compatriots back home to carry on the work of grinding out graphic design and “content”... but probably not. Adios, hasta mañana. for PART DOS click here