Circuitous Coincidence

Day 12

Wandering is an art. But everyone is a critic, so it’s more popularly known as getting lost. Today was proof that wandering can be a fulfilling act, lifting my nose from the map, abandoning the search for the right way and letting curiosity have its way. Meandering look for the garbage bins I saw behind our apartment a building with doors thrown open and splashes of color brimming in bins. Stuffing the bag of garbage in the nearest bin I could find I high tailed it over to investigate what looked to be a market. Dodging the usual ham legs hanging from the ceiling and fish scattered on icy blocks, my heart reached out in joy towards the bins of fruit, my eyes jumping across apples to oranges settling longingly on mangos and persimmons. Adrenaline urging me on I round the corner, pleasantly surprised my plump tomatoes and slender cucumbers nestled by potatoes and bushels of herbs. I’m tickled with every glance. The Plaza de Merced Market. Hopefully today is the first of many visits.

I may or may not have purposely wandered my over to the Rose garden again… but I felt I should get centered and inundated with tranquility before heading to the Police HQ.

Subtly employing Foucauldian techniques of centralizing control the USA has streamlined bureaucracy so that it almost runs itself. Standardization, professionalism and uniform modus operendii’s have made America one the most efficient countries in the world. Spain couldn’t care less about efficiency. The police head quarters put people in a queue outside that moves at the speed a hermit crab must crawl across the ocean floor going against strong rip tides. This is to say, I wait 2 hours, and maybe gain an inch. Today though, I jumped the line using the old “I’m not cutting, just going to ask a question” line and plead with puppy eyes to be let in to get my residence card. Slam dunk. I’m in. but not so quick you dumb American girl. My entrance to the building only lets me wait in an even longer line for extranjeros (foreigners). …. Long long story languishingly short…Spain didn’t have all my information in its archaic system. I’m instructed to go to another building and give them the handwritten note from the Police, fill out a lot of forms, go make copies of everything, AND THEN, come back to the police and play the wait in line until your eye twitch causes an aneurysm. Then you don’t have to worry about extending your visa because you’ll ask to be shipped back to America where they actually work normal days and the doctor would actually be in to treat your life threatening disease. Because lord knows if I tried to go to a Spanish hospital to treat my anuresym they’d tell me they close mid-day for a coffee and siesta. Come back after 5pm and we’ll make you fill out forms is all they’d tell me. Sunglasses go on and I clench back tears of frustration.

Wander back to my favorite café for some wifi connection. I tap into the everlasting Ethernet and load up on some feel good emails from home. They know me so well at the café by now the waiter just brings me the green tea with honey, no sugar packet. It’s just me and him, its 3pm, siesta time for the rest of the world. A lovely escape from Spain while I’m still in Spain.

Later wandering after sunset leads me along Paseo del parque and I incidentally discover the hot hangout for the pre-teen Spain crowd. Awkward hand holding and gaggles of girls litter the benches and steps. Bike riders, skate boarder wreak mayhem amongst the flows of pedestrians on their way to the main drag. Who wouldn’t love to be young in the city? Expectation and anticipation lights their eyes and I can only wonder what they must be thinking. So I wander into their thoughts, leaving my own, letting my brow unfurl, and the energy of the night guide my step. I end up back at my apartment, even though part of me is still sitting at the edge of Spanish culture, peering tentatively into the mystery of its ways.

Wandering is an art. As I traverse Spain I’m opening up little by little, so it might wander its way into my heart.

peace & love my friends.