I am so happy to be back in Spain. There is something about this country. Perhaps it’s the smells: cigar smoke is the main one, but there are also other subtle ingredients – perhaps something they use in construction, or some idiosyncratic local cleaning product. It’s not nice smells that I’m talking about – just an odorous environment which carries for me the associations of freedom and adventure.
I didn’t expect much from Almería. I had never actually heard anything about it: just came here because there was a flight for 10 Euro, and because its position on the south-eastern tip of the peninsula makes it one of the warmest places during winter. But now that I am here, I like Almería very well. While northern Europe descends into the darkness of its wintry soul, Almería is still sunny, mid-twenties, t-shirt weather. Like good mediterraneans everywhere, the people come out in the evening and stroll around until 11pm.
In appearance, this city is more Middle East than Europe. The landscape is virtually desert, the most common vegetations are palm trees and orange trees, and the buildings have that boxy white-washed style of cities in Jordan and Morocco. And the town is built around two hills, on top of which perch fortifications remaining from the Moorish colonisation of 1000 years ago. (For any of you who don’t realise, much of Spain was colonised by Muslims invading from North Africa for about 500 years. The legacy still remains in the language and architecture, especially here in the south.) It’s just like being in the Arabic world, but without the political unrest and people making hissing noises at you.
I love the way that amazing old stuff – like 1000-year-old Moorish fortifications – in Spain are often just left to be part of the landscape, rather than being all swaddled and ‘protected’ and covered in informative plaques and declared to be national monuments. And this leads me on to realise one of my other favourite things about Spain: that urban environments are always in ‘a happy state of erosion’. Buildings here are just left to disintegrate, slowly, where in Anglo countries we have various regulations that mean a crumbling edifice cannot be left to its own devices, as it is considered dangerous, and must therefore be blocked off, or destroyed completely, and is often replaced quickly with new developments. In contrast most streets in Spanish cities seem to have a full organic range of new structures, slightly worn ones from the last half-century, very worn ones from a century ago, and so on right down to barely-vertical piles of rubble.
I have just woken up, second day here, and plugging my computer in with an adaptor I bought last night I gave myself a hearty electric shock. I don’t remember every feeling the full force of 240 volts before. It left me feeling pretty strange for a few minutes, but somewhat refreshed. I suppose that’s another advantage of leaving the safety-regulated world of the West. (I have decided that, in my own geo-political scheme of things, Spain does not count as part of the West. It’s too cheap, too unregulated and too relaxed to be Western. Of course it’s not exactly a ‘developing country’ either, but lies somewhere in between.)
I have to do some other writing now. Writing for money – while I’ve still got my buzz.
Bueno. Hasta luego.
(N.B. - all blog entries for the next month will include gratuitous examples of Spanish language.)
True fact for the day:
At Virginia Polytechnic Institute there is a guy who teaches on the use of biotechnology in plant breeding, and his name is Randy Vines.
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