Travel means so much to me, I made sure my husband knew it was a budgetary item like food and rent before we wed. In my career with AAA Magazines, I was lucky to get out of the office at least once a month. And I have always made time for personal travel.
Leah, my new colleague at AAA, accompanied me to Branson to learn the ropes her first month. By the time we returned to the office, we were asking our boss’s for two-weeks-vacation. Can you imagine a new employee getting two weeks off after less than two months of work? We were pretty persuasive and on-a-mission. For me it was a chance to visit Spain again. For Leah it was her first trip out of the country and a chance to see the works of Anton Gaudi, an architect she has studied in college. Within a week we had the whole trip planned, an Air B&B in Barcelona and my time share exchange outside Valencia for the two of us plus my husband. We planned to take a trip into Valencia city center to participate in the Las Fallas festival. Leah was crazy about fireworks and had read about this annual 5-day festival every March.
The actual trip ended up with only the two of us. The night before when checking into the airlines, I discovered my husband’s passport had expired. It never dawned on me when making the reservations to look at it. I assumed it was on the same timeframe as mine. Never assume. He kissed me goodbye and planned to meet up with us after a few days only to learn it would be cost-prohibitive plus a huge hassle. I’m not sure I would have left if I had known he wasn’t going to join us. While we had a few nerve-racking incidents as two females alone in Spain, it ended up to be a great trip and superb bonding experience.
Our time in Barcelona focused on Gaudi’s famous landmarks, the Park Guell, the Sagrada Familia, and Casa Batllo. His architecture reminds me of a fantasy with dripping cupcakes, ice-cream cones and flowers. It was influenced by his illness as a child when he spent time observing nature versus playing sports & other physical activity. Having Leah share her academic knowledge of the architect added to my experience. I returned the favor when we spent the afternoon in a Picasso museum as I had seen his work some years ago in Malaga as well as different pieces throughout my European travels. What I didn’t realize was the breadth and span of his career from the labels on soup cans to his Saturday Evening Post pieces to his sculptures, and of course, his 1958 work Fleurs et Mains which most people recognize. Leah and I also enjoyed a few jazz clubs while in Barcelona where I fell in love with the music of Lluis Coloma, a blues and boogie-woogie master. He dazzled me with his rendition of the Flight of the Bumble Bee infused with Jerry Lee Lewis’s Great Balls of Fire, so talented.
The timeshare outside Valencia didn’t meet our expectations so we decided to get a hotel in the city center and be close to the Falles action. It was an experience like no other. I’ve always thought of fireworks as after dark and lots of pretty colors. Not so in Spain, hundreds of people cram into Valencia for mascletà, a firecracker show held every day at 2 p.m. in Plaza del Ayuntamiento. We stood on our balcony and filmed it—the whole place shook like a war zone and your heart beat loud and fast for a long-time afterward (see video below). Besides the daily show, streets were decorated with lights and food trucks. They have parades with floats built out of paper, wax, wood and polystyrene foam. Many of the floats are burned at the end of the festival which seemed ludicrous. The firemen have to wet down the buildings nearby so they won’t catch on fire from the heavy burning. This burning, like many illogical traditions, symbolizes an anarchic celebration of creativity, mortality and rebirth. It’s also a tribute to St Joseph and the old carpenters’ Spring tradition of burning the wood that held up the winter lights.
While in Valencia, Leah twisted my arm to attend a bullfight. I was not prepared for the agonizing torture of these animals. The little boy behind me shouted excitedly “Vamos Torro” as I covered my eyes. The matadors gracefully enticed the bulls to charge with their red capes, however the poor bulls have been speared earlier by the picadors (men on horses with lances). The spearing is the first stage and the matadors taunting is the second stage. In the final stage, the matadors come back to the ring with a sword hidden in the red capes for the kill.
When you travel, you learn to take the good with the bad and chock it all up to experience. This particular trip ended with me crying to an airport security guard that I could not locate my friend, our luggage and the cab driver who insisted I go in and get my American money changed to Euros while he held Leah captive. We finally found Leah crying in the cab, shoved what Euro I could get into a disappointed cabby’s hands and ran like hell to board our departing flight. Not six months later, we were back in my boss’s office asking if Leah could have a month off to go to a Rotary exchange in Brazil because I got her to apply to the program and they had accepted.
Looking back on the whole episode, I have to say Terry was an exceptional boss, Spain is an awesome country that remains high on my return list, and Leah has become a very, close friend. Feliz Viaje.