The spur of the moment
2007-03-27 08:55
David Moseley
My ex-girlfriend (let's call her Monya because, well, that's her name) called me from Spain. She was cheerfully inebriated and wantonly desperate to see me.
It was eight in the morning South African time and she was insistent, in the charmingly sloshy manner of all mildly intoxicated callers, that I come visit her.
"Pleash come. It'll be show nice to she you" among other, less printable requests, were her inviting words. And as her cellphone clattered to the floor and the sounds of gurgling and a toilet flushing hurried across the continents I thought to myself, "that's hot. I have to go".
My introduction to Spain involved a churlish customs official haranguing me for bringing 40 tons of Rooibos into the country. He wasn't convinced it was tea, and after much rapid-fire Spanish and wild gesticulating, I realised he was insisting that I pull out all my clothes, including my Sponge Bob underpants, for closer inspection.
Finally convinced that I wasn't a Dutch narcotics peddler he waved me off in perfect English."Thank you for your co-operation. Please enjoy our beautiful country. And do try to get some sleep today. You look a frightful mess." Si, senor.
From Madrid I made my way to Salamanca where, amongst raucous bouts of drinking and eating chorizo sausages, students from all over the world go to study Spanish. Salamanca bustles with pleasing streets and romantic alleys and I quickly learned how to order a beer and a Whopper from Burger King. It's all the Spanish you'll ever really need.
We all know what hockey players are like!
In Salamanca every café offers varieties of food from mashed fish bits to fried rings of dough called churros. They squeeze the dough from a tube into a broiling vat of oil, whip it out and serve the smouldering heart attack with a cup of the thickest, deadliest melted chocolate you've ever seen. This seemed to be the breakfast dish du jour and I, for one, am never eating All Bran again.
Because of the lifestyle, Spanish men all seem to be of lank, loping posture and disposition with beer bellies all round. The women, on the other hand, are quite heart-achingly gorgeous. And, a reliable source informs me, rather keen to settle down at the first opportunity they get. This was evident in Valencia.
I was patiently minding my own business at a bar when three Spanish belters sat down next to me. They started nattering excitedly to me in brisk, incoherent Spanish (for it was six am), and from what I could tell they were asking what I did for a living, and why such a rakish chap was sitting alone, at a bar, at six in the morning. The language of pick-ups is universal you see.
Just as they started pawing at me and stroking my hair my considerably handsomer friend Julian stepped from the gents with the air of a man who had just bested Achilles in a Greco-Roman wrestling match. Their collective jaws dropped.
But their ardour was immediately dimmed when he told them that Monya was in the Ladies and played hockey. "And we all know what women hockey players are like" he informed them cryptically.
With that harrowing news Monya stepped cheerfully from the loo waving gaily as my new friends sped into the Valencian night, or morning actually, throwing fire crackers at anyone who wasn't paying attention. Ole.
Next week: Will David rekindle his lost love? Why Valencia isn't for ants, why the airport industrial area in Barcelona is a must-see tourist attraction and five good reasons why you should never bring a woman's luggage home without a woman attached.
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