Climbing a mountain like ascending a staircase

We are rugged and awesome. Day by day we tread mountain paths fit for goats, with goats, to pluck olives and almonds, and provide animals with acorns, which will in turn provide them with life. There is so little water here that we don't bother to flush the toilet, we wash it down manually with the dark, cumulonimbus water which pours freely into our changing, chosen receptacles from the open pipe of the washing machine. We knife and devour prickly pears straight from the cactus and drink water we bottle ourselves from the stream at the top of the tallest mountain around.

Yes, we are awesome because of this, and more. Goats may tread this land and feed on it even when there is no grazing––on bark and twigs and such––but only we can claw out the rugged earth and conform its rocks to our stone walls. While mastering these things, a piece of clothing may rebel against us; it may say, "Nay! Let us not be put to such a test!" But when it agrees with a stick or stone that they should meet and tear, we subdue the troublesome clothing with thread and make it one piece again.

Actually, the earth was already cut for us, but the stones were heavy enough that we could only pile them with much gusto and manliness, the three of us, Ryan, Ian, and myself being the only human males on the farm, the women off somewhere else. When cigarettes are smoked here, though not by Ryan or me, they are only hand-rolled, and my forearms ache with a day's worth of hefting stones and mixing concrete.

To contribute to our hardcore awesomeness at this farm, we know Merav, a traveling Israeli who, like us, left making goats' cheese to come to Spain. In her case, she worked with troubled kids, teaching them simple life principles through agricultural labor and the stewardship of animals. In philosophy, she wants to be like Zorba the Greek, and though the book has topped my reading list for a while, I have not read it. She tells me about how Zorba worked random jobs, did random things, and kept life simple, enjoying every little moment along the way. As she speaks of Zorba, one can detect that, in her life, she would love to marry a man like Zorba and live in a mud-and-stone house that they built. Simple.

In many ways our lot is like the Old West. We are isolated, at least from the city; waterless to the extent that we took our first showers yesterday, after five days, and wear the same dirty, durable jeans; we live among scrub brush and hardy, centuries-old olive trees. When Ian and Sally moved here from England, there was no water at all, forcing them to construct a network of wells. They carved the road out of rock to get to our house from the main road, and when someone comes toward us, our doorbell is a pack of dogs, whose ears and bodies perk up with attention to what we cannot hear.

Now they have electricity, and even receive internet for free after allowing the company to use their land, if needed, to provide better access. But if you turn your back on the house, and block out the clicking hum of the power lines, then it would not be so surprising to see revolutionary pistoleros coming down the road, or perhaps a group of marching pikemen in their bright, feudal tunics, their regality suggesting that the local lord had a money, influence, and a penchant for fashion.

Bus stations

The middleaged Spanish barmen have the look of culinary opportunists, standing invitingly at a room-long bar where I am sending vibes to pastries, wishing they would leave their protective glass casing and come towards my belly... It is the bus station in Granada, which we visited at 4:30 AM when we arrived and to which we've returned at 7 after a rough sleep in the cold, headrest-less metal chairs. The barmen are the same, with the somewhat snappy dress that suggests professional and clean, but not intimidating; with the look in the eyes that says, "Please ask me a question, and let me answer it with a sandwich, beer, or pastry."

Crossing back and forth over the United States' Eastern Seaboard, I became well acquainted with Amtrak stations. I have noticed, whereas some stations are real gems (many great holdovers from older days, New York City's Penn and DC's Union Station being fine examples) most lack tremendously in the culinary department. In fairness, one can find a good steak or such during meal times on the train itself, but, if one is laid over in Jacksonville, one is relegated to chips and cookies from one vending machine, ice cream or soda from another, and – is it oddly? – hamburgers from another machine.

The irony is, with such a breadth of vending machines, Jacksonville is an upscale station compared to others.

Enough of this ragging on Amtrak. What this contrast really is to me is an interesting glance into cultural values. For the Spanish, it is important to have – if not healthy – fresh food, beer & wine, and espresso readily available while traveling. The barmen, who seem to have served for years, pass us everything on a ceramic plate, with real silverware, and one can watch the crema as it slides down the glass to finely settle on the espresso halfway down. We in the States don't demand such treatment, nor do we demand such a professional level of service from, for instance, the grills one may find in a Greyhound station. I wonder: if stations were supplied with fifteen-different-species-of-sweet-and-savory-(and chocolate!) pastries, would we even eat them? Are napolitanos too rich for our blood? Do we eat so fast that we don't have the time to fully experience an eclair? Or, hey, do we just not like sweet fillings and puff pastry because they are bad for our pastry, and we have a figure to watch?

Regardless, I think all of our lives could be enriched by more bocadillo cutters: machines like those which divide ham into cold cuts, they split a thick hoagie roll into a sandwich bun in the twinkling of an eye, the invisible blade almost completely halving the thing with a satisfying twang! twang!! twang!!! To me, the onomatopoeia could be better heard as awesome! awesome!! awesome!!!