Wednesday, December 10, 2003 Epilogue

Chicago airport. We have a lay over here for four hours, but our flights have been smooth so far. We are waiting in the AA lounge. Here is what happened since I last wrote, before we left Spain.

The night we were supposed to eat at El Córdobes at their invitation (Monday night) we were too tired, so I called Antonio and told him that we would come in the next day, our last. And yesterday we did eat a late lunch at El Corbobes Bar La Mesquita. We ordered our broiled chicken with its broiled green peppers and salad. Then Antonio brought us a surprise starter of Manchego cheese and Jamon Serrano. Then he brought out toast with smashed tomato on it and then toast with Salmorejo (a very thick Andalucian tomato Gazpacho) on it. By the time our chicken came, we were almost full, because both of us eat less since we have had the flu! But we did eat a splurge of flan for dessert. Lunch was “on the house”. We took home our leftovers for dinner that night.

That morning Pili had picked me up in the pouring rain and the two of us had gone to look at the store in Triana, but the red striped pants I had coveted from the window the day before were way too big and I didn’t like the feel of the material. I ended up getting a soft, warm sweater for ten Euros and a blouse for nine Euros and a pair of corduroy and Lycra pants with gold beads on them. Then we zipped over to the big Triana market half a block away so Pili could get ingredients to make a soup for Soleá when she came home from school. The market is huge, with open stalls selling meats, chicken, fish, vegetables, eggs, bread and other food. Pili says that it is very fresh, much fresher than the MAS. That big Triana market seems to me much more real “Spanish” in its layout and attitude and funkiness than the MAS, which is more of a regular supermarket. Although in the MAS, when you put your fruit in a bag, you weigh it and press the code and a sticker comes out with the price. Then you stick the sticker onto your sealed bag. I have never seen this in California or any other US state. But the big open Triana market just seems much more Spanish to me and I wish I had more time to explore it. -Maybe next year. Pili wanted me to go with her to pick up Soleá because she was running late and it was still pouring rain outside. But I had to get back to our apartment for the house cleaner, so Pili dropped me off first and then went to pick up Soleá from preschool. Freddie was feeling sick again so he had stayed home and slept. He also cleaned the counters in the kitchen even though we were expecting the house cleaner. He had defrosted and cleaned the freezer the day before.

By two forty-five the house cleaner had not arrived so I called her. She said, “But you told me you were resting and didn’t need the cleaning.” She said she would call Blanca, our landlady, and do it tomorrow. I then called Blanca and found out that Blanca had given her the wrong apartment number. Apparently the Italian opera singer who was to perform in the opera that evening was the inhabitant of the apartment the cleaner had been directed to. So our house was dirtier than I wanted to leave it when we left but it was Blanca’s fault and it will be cleaned. Blanca didn’t seem to care and we got back the part of our deposit that wasn’t used to pay the gas and electricity and the extra week’s rent. Blanca commented that we had never made it to Los Gallos this year. Our sickness had destroyed those plans. Did I mention that Pili had almost grown up at Los Gallos? Her father, Andres Dominguez, had played guitar there for many years during Pili’s childhood. Just like Paquito does now, Andres would go to Madrid or other places to work. Pili would be left alone with her mother, just like Soleá is left with her now. How history loves to repeat itself.

Freddie and I were starving by the afternoon and that is when we finally braved the rain and went to El Cordobes to eat. After we returned from our lunch, I called Pili, who had wanted to leave as early as possible to help me return the phone so she could avoid some of the horrible traffic that is worse in the rain. I unplugged the phone and put it in the box I had conveniently saved, and Pili and Soleá and I went to the phone store near Nervion where Pili had discovered that I could return it instead of having to mail it as Telefónica had told me earlier. It felt good to finish up that business. Then we went to the shopping center Los Arcos and to the Zara store there to get Soleá some clothes. Pili loves Zara and we also went to a Zara near Calle Sierpes the day we walked from Triana. By the time we finished choosing boots, skirts, a blouse and a jacket for Soleá, who was strong-minded as usual and very hard to please, it was almost nine o’clock. But now Soleá would have some nice, new clothes that Pili liked, to wear at her fifth birthday, which would happen in two weeks. I was exhausted and distracted by the need to finish preparing for our trip the next morning.

Paco had called us on my móvil phone wondering where Freddie was, because he had forgotten that we no longer had a phone at the house. He had planned on giving Freddie a guitar lesson and thought Freddie wasn’t in. I began to feel nervous about Freddie being there without a phone and still sick. And I still needed to finish packing. So I told Pilar what I was feeling and that I needed to get home soon. We arrived home between nine-thirty and ten and then I took a shower and washed my hair so I could pack the rest of the shampoo with the things we are storing at Paco and Pili’s house. I hadn’t had time for that all day. Then we sealed up the big cardboard box with the white electric fan we bought when the weather was still hot, the blue rubber mop bucket I soak my foot in, the clothespins, dish soap, shampoo, and the round aqua rubber dishwashing pan. It has other odds and ends in it too. Pili had been afraid our things would get damp where they would be stored, so Freddie and I had unpacked everything the night before and put a lot of it in plastic garbage bags and then repacked it. We had filled the little red shopping cart and the little red carry-on that broke on our way to Spain. And we had the big cardboard box, which was loosely packed, -and two guitars. Freddie has a student guitar from Barba, which he has kept in Spain for several years so we don’t have to travel to Spain with a guitar. Now he also has the Ortega guitar, which he bought from the friend of Luisito’s. (Freddie could only carry one guitar home with him at a time due to the airlines’ carry-on policy.) So he chose his favorite guitar of course, the one he just bought from Andres Dominguez. When Paco and Pilar were ready to leave, we took all this stuff we are storing at their house and we all loaded it into Paco’s car. Pili was crying earlier, when we were in the bedroom organizing things. She is sad that we are leaving!

When they left I had to go to the Internet place to pick up some writing, the roughest draft of the Spain Chronicles X. I had already e-mailed it to someone there to have it printed but I had to wait until after six PM to pick it up. (They had very recently offered that extra service to me so I wouldn’t have to transfer it to a CD saved in RTF format every time I needed it printed. I only got to use it twice, but it saved me a lot of steps and mis-steps.) I can edit the typos that always occur much more easily if I print out a hard copy to read first. Freddie decided to accompany me and it was nice to take a last walk, a paseo, in Sevilla. The rain had changed to a drizzle so it was pleasant and nostalgic. We called Paco Lira from our móvil to say goodbye. Then we called Miguel Funi who also has this cold/flu that is going around. It felt good to tie up these loose ends and to say our goodbyes.

When we returned home to our apartment, I briefly edited the Chronicles and e-mailed them off. Luckily the phone jack was still working so I could send the e-mail. I had really wanted to send off that last chapter before we left in the morning. Then Freddie and I started to finish our packing. Before we went to sleep, I wanted to have three of the four suitcases already tied with their two brightly colored bands each, locks on each, and nametags on each. Sometimes these items get lost or broken in our travels, so each must be checked before every air trip. I knew the weight of the suitcases would be OK. And now they were filled with CDs we were bringing back to sell. I only got three hours of sleep. Freddie got even less because he stayed up and washed all the dishes and practiced his guitar before he had to loosen the strings for flying! We got up at four in the morning, packed the last few things, and met the taxi driver outside at five thirty sharp. He helped us load our suitcases and Freddie’s new guitar into the taxi and we headed for the airport. The rain had stopped and the early morning was quiet with hardly any traffic. Goodbye Sevilla. That was the taxi driver who had taken us to the post office the week before with Luisito. He loves Flamenco. We had arranged then to have him pick us up for the airport, and everything, luckily, worked like good clockwork. The airport was just opening when we arrived at six AM. Our flights to Madrid and Chicago were smooth and easy.

Friday, December 12, 2003

Now we are home. We ended up spending seven hours in Chicago because our plane left three hours late. We arrived home in Soquel at midnight, after traveling and being up for more than twenty-four hours (Think Spain time five-thirty AM leaving our apartment to nine AM Spain time the next morning arriving at our home in Soquel)! Max (our good friend, renter, neighbor, and house caretaker) picked us up at the San Francisco airport. We had a chance to visit and catch up on things on the way back to Soquel, about an hour and a half drive. But in the Chicago and San Francisco airports I kept forgetting that I had changed countries and I started to speak Spanish to people. It felt weird to hear everyone speaking English!

Today we had our first (since our return) yoga class with Kate Single. We had had a few classes with her before we left and we really like her a lot, so we were looking forward to this, in spite of our exhaustion. It seemed to help both Freddie’s and my jet lag a lot. Afterwards we felt more centered and more relaxed. Everyone, including Kate, is commenting on my weight loss. I weighed myself this morning and I now weigh less than one hundred pounds! I have lost about thirteen pounds but I didn’t think it was that noticeable. I weighed forty-five point six kilos when we left Spain. Then I ate the airplane food so I think I must have gained a little weight! But I am still much thinner than I was. And Freddie says that I don’t look too thin! Ever since we have been back, I have been wearing the long sleeved, olive green Lycra and Viscosa sweater I bought last Tuesday in Spain for ten Euros with Pili. I love it. Here in California after we arrived it was sunny and colder than it was in Spain. But we are expecting rain here any minute; another big storm is coming. It turned out to be sunny in Sevilla the day we left too, we heard from Pili.

Thursday, our first day back, we spent unpacking and trying to remember how to work the phones. That evening, Freddie’s old friend from the Haight Asbury in the sixties, Van and his wife Susan visited us. That was last night. They were our first visitors since our return. We “played show and tell” and we gave them some things we had bought for them in Spain. It was fun. Susan will hem my new corduroy Lycra pants with the gold beads on them. That made me think of Pili and how she had hemmed by Lycra jeans with the gold embroidery on them. Susan loved those pants too. I had forgotten how pretty they were. I think I have lost weight since I last wore them! How strange.

Later that night Freddie and I tried to play Paco’s DVD on our DVD player and we couldn’t get it to play. It may only be playable on a computer! I hope not. We played the video/CD of Concha dancing with the Familia Fernandez that is on the end of Curro Fernandez’ CD and although it was great to see it on the big screen of a television, it only played in black and white! On the computer it is in color. I hope it is only our DVD player that does that. But the CD sounded fabulous on our speakers in the living room. It is even better than we thought and we still highly recommend it.

When we first arrived home, my printer wouldn’t work and I couldn’t connect to the internet to check or to send e-mail. The next afternoon, after unsuccessfully trying to fix it myself, I called a local computer store and arranged to have an expensive technician come to the house on Friday. When I went to bed that night my mind was still humming with ideas on how to fix it myself. Finally I got up and at least plugged the telephone line into the computer and got my e-mail by old-fashioned modem. This morning I called my broadband IDSL service and they got me up on line without my Airport connection. And this afternoon, after our yoga class, the technician finally came. He was frightfully expensive but luckily very good and he fixed my problems and I am back on line and the printer is again working. I can print my writing, print checks, print notes, etc. And I can again get my e-mail easily! It was nice to work with an expert who really does know a lot more than I do. By the time he arrived I was satisfied that I really did need him and that it wasn’t something I could do or wanted to try to do myself. I had tried my best.

Now I can continue unpacking, doing laundry, sorting and throwing away mail, and all the other garbage of returning home. I can also try to rest! But our house is beautiful and we have built a fire in the stove and Freddie is practicing his guitar. We called Pacquito and Pilar yesterday to let them know we made it home and we also e-mailed Francesca-Diana, Toshi and Delia, as requested. We have made some wonderful friends in Spain. It is now raining outside here. We have come from rain to rain.

Sunday, December 14, 2003

PS. Re Paco Fernández’ DVD – Good News

We went to Madeline’s house tonight and Paco Fernández’s DVD played perfectly on her DVD player! It is wonderful on a television size screen. Interestingly enough, though, the video-CD of Concha dancing on the end of Curro Fernández’s audio CD did not play on Madeline’s DVD player. This is the opposite of what happened with our DVD player. We could get the video-CD but not the DVD. Our DVD player is supposed to be multi format and it should have played it. We now think something may be wrong with our machine. Several people wrote to me and questioned the DVD format (a good question and one which shouldn’t even have been an issue on our machine). Paco had told me in Spain that these videos were made in NTSC format specifically for Japanese and US audiences. So I am not sure exactly why the DVD plays on some players and not others. And I am not sure why the video-CD did not play on Madeline’s DVD player (Perhaps because it is a CD and not a DVD). Everything, as I said before, played well on my computer. So if any of you order the DVD and cannot play it on your equipment we will refund your money on receipt of the returned DVD. But hopefully, it is just our DVD player that is not working properly. If it works, we are sure that you will enjoy it. What an incredible family, La Familia Fernández.