Valdevacas de Montejo, the Best Parents in the World, and Enrique

I will warn you all in advance that this post will be lengthy. My heart is teeming with emotions and gratitude, and my life the past few weeks has been so full of memorable experiences that I truly can't afford not to explain them. Take a deep breath, prepare a sandwich and a glass of milk, and read on if you so choose.

Does anyone else see Wyoming here?

The first great adventure that I have had these past few weeks was my weekend trip to a small town in the province of Segovia called Valdevacas de Montejo. My friends Isaac, Marina, and Andrea invited my roommate Kelly and I to spend the weekend in an albergue, which was essentially a building with a mess hall, a couple of rooms full of bunk beds, and a few recreational spaces. We all drove up together, listening to pop music and analyzing the lyrics on a level deeper than they were ever written to pass the time as our car wound through the Sierra de Guadarrama. (Is Beyonce's song "Single Ladies" a feminist song? We never came to a definitive conclusion.) Once we were there, we did a little hiking around the beautiful region to become acquainted with it, and I was shocked by how similar to Laramie the slightly green but arid landscape looked with its mountains in the background. We took a couple of hikes around other areas, one to see an old Romanesque church that was set on the banks of a small river next to a rocky cliff where enormous vultures made their nests and occasionally flew in large flocks. (Having started the hike immediately after a nap and therefore in a post-sleep haze and stupor, I forgot my camera and therefore can't provide a picture of the gorgeous site.) Another hike took us to a different church, and it was almost transcendental to be in a place of such immense geographical beauty that also possessed such a rich cultural heritage. It was also so fun to get to know my friends better and to make a few new friends, like Alfonso, Pablo and Alba, with two of whom I ended up taking a guided tour of Madrid just a few days later and then getting a meal and chatting.

A beautiful church in the middle of the countryside.
How could you not fall in love with Spain?

On the way back from Valdevacas de Montejo, I stopped with my friends in a small town a little bit out of the way from the main path home to see a city that was supposed to be very beautiful called Aranda de Duero. Since I didn't go into the experience with any expectations, I was truly blown away by what I think is the most beautiful non-cathedral church that I have ever seen in my life. The white stone out of which it was made reminded me of a citadel featured in the movies of The Lord of the Rings, and the facade was so ornate and so full of overwhelming detail that I kept taking pictures of it.

An up-close perspective of the stunning facade

Ana and I prepare our pitas and decide to eat barefoot
to appreciate fully the texture and feel of Mother Earth

My next adventure took place with Ana in the city that we both love, Madrid. Ana proposed that we start our afternoon by eating vegetarian pitas from a Middle Eastern food chain called Maoz, and after ordering our overly stuffed falafel pitas, we went and found a spot of grass next to the Palacio Real to enjoy our meal and each other's company. We ended up going to an art exposition and also seeing a traveling exhibition of the photographs of Lewis Hine, a man who dedicated his life and his lens to photographing some of the bleak conditions of the working class poor in America, the child laborers burdened by heavy work schedules and unsafe jobs, and immigrants recently arrived to the United States of America. His photographs were beautiful and haunting, and they heightened my sense of gratitude for having been born in conditions much more favorable than those of the people depicted in the photographs. Ana and I finished our great day together by going in the Café Gijón, the coffee shop and restaurant where Madrid's literati would meet for informal but important gatherings to discuss politics, art, and other topics in meetings known in Spanish as tertulias. I had long wanted to enter this cafe given its renown as a former writers' and intellectuals' haunt, but I just needed a push from Ana to be willing to pay the gouging prices they charge for a small coffee, a coffee that nevertheless ended up being more than worth its price.

My next adventure lasted an entire glorious week and only ended recently. I am still basking in the warmth of my time with my parents, and I am still feeling the loss of their presence as the afterglow of their light and love continue to linger. My parents arrived in Madrid early in the morning on April 27. When I saw them at the Barajas Airport, I hopped over the railing dividing the expectant waiters and the jet-lagged arrivers. There was no time for propriety and for heeding the rules. It was amazing to be with them, and all three of us instantly started to catch up on every detail of all of our lives, making it almost impossible to finish a train of thought as so many thoughts and feelings flooded our dialogue. When the other couple with whom we were to spend our vacation also arrived, all of us caught taxis into the city center where we would spend the next few days.

From left to right: me, thrilled to be with my
parents; my beautiful mother; my beautiful father;
Paula, the well-read philanthropist; and Peter,
the lawyer and successful businessman

In Madrid, we did so much. I wore all four of my guests out by walking them up and down the main city streets of Madrid, making sure they saw the highlights of Habsburg and Bourbon Madrid. We punctuated our walking tour with delicious meals and the more-than-occasional scoops of helado, more or less the same as Italian gelato, a rich, smooth ice cream that is truly addictive. Together we toured the Palacio Real and marvelled at the unbelievable wealth of even a single room in the palace, such as the private monastery or the dining table that could easily seat 50 guests.  We had reservations on Saturday, April 28 for a late lunch at Sobrino de Botín, a restaurant established in 1725, thereby making it the oldest surviving restaurant in the world according the the Guinness Book of World Records. The food was delicious, the conversation was, as always with my parents, exceptionally rich, and at the end of the meal a cute waiter let us take home the plates that the Johnsons so liked without charge. It was a perfect lunch.

The tree-like pillars supporting the roof of the Sagrada
Familia's central nave

Our next collective adventure was Barcelona, where my father had an AGIFORS conference in which he presented his research on improving sales analyses of airlines to maximize revenue. Because the conference was held in the business rooms of a certain hotel, we all stayed in an ultra modernist, bathed-in-red hotel that was funky and chic, an interesting change from the stately, neo-classical feel of the Westin Palace, my folks' hotel in Madrid. Using the Hotel Porta Fira as our base, we explored the city of Barcelona and its surrounding areas. The most stunning part was perhaps all of the Gaudí, the architect whose permanent print marks many buildings in the city. We took a guided tour of the Sagrada Familia and learned about the natural flow and form of art nouveau and how Gaudí used them in his unique version of this architectural trend known in Catalonian's language as "modernisme." We also entered the Casa Batlló and enjoyed a residential and non-religiously based building designed by Barcelona's best architect.

We also had the privilege of ascending to the top of the Columbus statue and enjoying some spectacular views of the city of Barcelona from our elevated vantage point. We also visited the beautiful Gothic cathedral where Columbus was greeted by the Catholic Monarchs after returning from his first trip to the Americas and where the first batch of indigenous Americans were baptized as Catholics. Being the sucker that I am for old, majestic architecture, I loved the old neighborhood of Barcelona and was happy to be able to explore it more with my parents and to consider the gravity of the events that happened there throughout history.

Given the length of time that we were in Barcelona, my family, the Johnsons and I were also able to take some great day trips. The first was to Andorra, one of the smallest nations in Europe and a country about which I knew little. Andorra la Vella, the main city in the country, is primarily a shopping destination, and the streets were lined with fine chocolatiers, jewelers, fashion stores, and things of the sort. Though the town was much more commercialized and less quaint than what I had imagined, the surrounding Pyrenees mountains were twice as tall as I expected and were overwhelming in their beauty.

The imposing mountains cradling Andorra la Vella

Other days trips included a car ride and an afternoon climbing around Roman ruins with my mother in Tarragona. We were impressed with the old amphitheater right on the coast of the Mediterranean, the sea that the Roman Empire once entirely encircled. When we were done in Tarragona, we headed north along the Costa Brava to a small seaside town called Sitges. Know for being progressively gay-friendly and full of great beaches, my mother and I enjoyed some drinks and a chicken sandwich there and walked with our feet in the sea. Throughout the entire day we sustained a soul-sharing conversation that was healing and beautiful for me. Knowing our father would also enjoy returning to the tropical climate there on the seaside in Sitges, we returned with him and the Johnsons the following day, only my mother and I came back more intrepid and decided to fully submerge in the still quite frigid waters of the Mediterranean. The entire town is precious, from its nice beach homes to its antiquated little church to the openly-gay couples sunbathing and caressing on the soft sand of its beaches. It was idyllic.

Sitges, a perfect coastal town on the Mediterranean

Other adventures with my parents included getting our car impounded for unknowingly parking illegally on Barcelona's Montjuïc, a mountain that has both an old fortress and the buildings used in the 1992 summer Olympics, eating one of the fanciest meals of my life in a restaurant housed in a building designed by Gaudí, and other such things. We also enjoyed more quotidian pleasures, like laughing about the chocolates we kept eating called "lenguas de gato" ("cat tongues"), catching up on the news and updates of many members of my extended family and their exciting and evolving lives, and savoring the daily sights and smells of superb Spain.

The Spanish heartthrob touches his enthused fans

My parents left on Saturday morning and, thanks to Iberian Airlines' inefficiency, my folks missed their flight home but made it in time to see my sister Laura's master's graduation. I have spent the last two days in Madrid with the Johnsons, helping them purchase artwork, wine, paella pans, and other such goodies to remember their time in Spain. With them and with Ali, I had the privilege of touring the Royal Tapestry Factory, a fascinating building where the painstaking and laborious work of making tapestries continues at its sloth-like pace. I also had the unparalleled opportunity and privilege to attend an Enrique Iglesias concert with Ali. To thank her for hauling my leaden suitcase up to the distant Barajas Airport and for then waiting there for hours as our delayed plane finally made its way to rainy Madrid, I took Ali to the show to see a god of "Latin Pop" music who is the child of the dual cultures of Spain and the USA. Ali and I talked about the benefits and drawbacks of law school as we waiting in the seemingly interminable rain to enter the Palacio de los Deportes, and once the show started, we shook our booties to the rhythms (divine, if you're an Enrique fan and caught the joke) and appreciated Enrique's dexterity with and tenderness towards his crowd, as well as his body, beautiful from head to toe. We had a spectacular time and could easily say in accordance with Enrique's new hit's lyrics that we, too, "like how it feels."

Life will return to "normal" here for the next two months, although after my definitive decision to return to the United States next year, I know these last two months will be unlike any before. I have already begun my Spanish "bucket list," and I will spend the rest of my time enjoying this country with which I have fallen so deeply in love and which I will miss when no longer here. I will try to write with greater frequency given that I plan to live with amplified intensity, so keep your eyes peeled for the last of Bob's adventures in the glorious land of Spain! (For the time being, that is. There will certainly be a return.)