Great Expectations

Every coin has two sides, every sword has two edges and the pendulum swings.
I came into this country inevitably with preordained expectations. Expectations that I felt were reasonable, but entering into a foreign situation with any expectations is always dangerous because one can always depend on being greatly disappointed by his or her own expectations. The opposite, however, can also be true and one can be pleasantly surprised by what a place and its people have to offer.

I am leaving Spain in 1 week.
Every morning, I walk to school alone but along the way, I am hardly alone. If my timing is right, I am greeted by a timid little dog, name Curro who inches irresistibly towards me so I can give him a few good scruffs for which he invariably performs a sprightly little dance of excitement and gratitude. And if not Curro, it is the peacock who greets me, looking like some great cobalt and emerald seraph for his utterly disinterested and plain looking lover. And if not the peacock, it is the little goat herder with whom I see eye to eye. His skin is a perfect weathered caramel from the sun and his eyes always glisten out of the depths of his profoundly carved crows feet. I am always met by his smile and some emphatic and incomprehensible greeting before he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a fistful of candies and shoves them in my hand shouting, “Caramelos!” No rules against taking candy from strangers here, though he is hardly a stranger at this point.

Everyday, I cross a wide marble checkered plaza bordered by orange trees and backed by dramatically sheer mountains. I climb 33 marble stairs in a brightly tiled staircase to my brightly tiled apartment which looks out across the plaza and towards the valley. My lunch, always exquisitely prepared by my two roommates, sometimes with my contribution, lasts for 2 hours followed by a siesta for another two hours. I give a private lesson in English or go to choral rehearsal or flamenco class.
Everynight, I close my eyes to the sound of wind pushing hard on the thin glass and weathered wood of my two balcony windows, or to the sound of goat bells tinkling off the mountain behind me, or to the sound of trickling water in the fountain below.

Then I wake up…usually, to the sounds of someone laying on their car horn for more than 30 seconds. That’s never enough, so then they give it another blow. Forty seconds this time. There is always someone parked in the middle of the busy street corner under my window where the fruit shop and the butcher shop receive their daily deliveries and the construction workers must pass with heavy loads. Loud. These people are so loud. And they like to be in your business. But sometimes it’s for the best because whenever there is a downpour and I arrived too late to take my clothes down from the line, rest assured, the neighbor will have already gone to the roof and gathered all my clothes before the downpour.