from mosqito to mezquita

My infatuation with Madrid ended abruptly.

Dave woke with massive red welts on three limbs and the back of his neck.
He said they itched like hell... hives? bed-bugs? fleas?...
From behind the counter at the local Farmacia, the farmacia assistant, a young, petite, dark-eyed, raven-haired Spanish senorita said, after we showed her the damage,  "The Farmasist says they are definitely mosquito bites!" in English with a thick Irish accent, and sold us a cream to relieve the itching.
After two days Dave says the cream doesn't work.
He has never reacted like this to Aussie mozzie bites but as I pointed out to him he may have been the only body in Madrid 'sin' alcohol in the bloodstream.

They certainly didn't bite me!

We are now in Cordoba where the MUST SEE attraction is the Mesquita, a name which has an unfortunate similarity to mosquito.

As well as Dave's predicament, on that last morning in Madrid, we woke to the sound of workmen bashing and clattering metal poles as they constructed a temporary exposition building in the Plaza Mayor next to our apartment, which now seemed to smell musty. When we went out for coffee, the air was thick with a fine cement dust as men with a disturbing jackhammer dug up the ancient pathway near our front door.

Reality intrudes! This leads me to reflect that when we read our guidebooks or visualise ourselves in the new destination, these are the irritations we fail to imagine. And when we write to friends or family, or take a photo or create a blog post, we are always selecting what to notice and record from an infinite number of possibilities. 

Did I mention that I had a queasy stomach all day in Toledo and spent an hour lying, head in Dave's lap, on a park bench outside the cathedral, too lethargic to tour inside?

Did I say that I found it a gloomy place with its endless narrow streets and grey stone buildings?

Or that the place was overrun with tourists, ugly en masse, each group like a homogenous clump in its own way. The Japanese in odd combinations of clothes, shading themselves with parasols and following a fan held high by their tour guide. 

The elderly Americans, slightly stooped, moving gingerly across the uneven stones. Or groups of noisy adolescents, much more interested in each other than their historic surroundings.

On my last night in Madrid I woke with nightmares and some of the anxieties from home resurfaced. I hadn't invited them along on the trip but there they were, my travel companions.

As Dave's petanque friend, Jean Philippe once said to me, “Wherever you go you take yourself.” Something we tend to ignore when we plan a trip. Do we think we can escape not only the weather or work or troubled relationships , but that we can escape ourselves?

I did wonder in Madrid if I could be someone else there. I remember a friend writing to me from Spain where she was teaching English nearly 40 years ago, pleading with me to come to stay with her.

What if I had gone then? Would I have stayed? Would I now speak several languages? Would I be a journalist? Would I have married a Spanish man and have learned to dance and have lots of dark eyed babies?

How much does our environment, the place we are in, the culture we inhabit, the language we speak, the people we are with, affect who we are?

I did feel different in Madrid. Lighter. Excited. Happier. But it was transient Perhaps as the paintings of Adam and Eve at the Prado remind us, paradise is indeed lost. The serpent awaits in the branches of the apple tree. The beggar with a fat baby on her breast waits outside the chapel.

Before I left Adelaide, I was walking with some friends along the River Torrens. It was a golden autumnal day. If I had been there as a tourist I would have noticed swans and fluffy cygnets on the muddy brown waters, the smell of juicy green grass as we climbed the hill to the stunning Gothic architecture of Carclew. Then I would have paused and admired the view over the city from Colonel Light's statue, the trees of the parklands, the distant mauve hills, the spire of Saint Peter's cathedral. When we travel, we notice more. We direct our attention to where we are . We ask “Why is this cathedral beautiful when the block of flats next to it is not?” [a discussion Dave and I had over a campari the other night].

In Cordoba I notice that there are jacaranda trees and date palms and orange trees and bougainvillea, but there were only stunted olive trees between here and Madrid.

I want this blog to be not only a narrative about the places we visit and our experiences, but also an exploration of why we travel and what we learn as we go.

How does the personality of Madrid differ from that of Barcelona?

Why ARE these art works hanging in this gallery? Who controls the cultural narrative?

Who are these people and what matters to them?

Anyway, we arrived in Cordoba two days ago, after a relaxing ride on the fast train, which I had booked on line before we left Australia.

Our hotel here is a tranquil, comfortable 2 star place with a pretty courtyard garden. Coincidentally we moved from an apartment in Cava San Miguel in Madrid to Hotel San Miguel in Cordoba. 

I was seduced by the passion and sensuality of Madrid, but Cordoba has stirred different and deeper feelings.

 More about that in our next post!