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| Arriving in the early morning. Photo by Jessica Knauss |
My husband and I
were diehard Manolo García fans, and in spite of a severe lack of cash that saw
us in Arizona, hunched on folding chairs in a one-room apartment with little
other furniture, we purchased his 2011 album, Los días intactos. Through the wonders of the internet, we heard the
brilliant new songs the same day the Spanish did. But there was no way we could
consider going to Spain for the million-city, small-venue tour for that album.
In 2014, on the
other hand, I had been working a regular job for some time. When Manolo García
released the latest of his mind-blowingly great albums, Todo es ahora, we were able to listen for the first time together
on real furniture in Massachusetts. Because it had been so long since our
honeymoon in Spain (in 2009), we decided we would head over for that concert
tour. I would finally see Manolo García live and fulfill my lifelong dream,
which had been so thoughtlessly obliterated in 2008.
Being an
authentic artist, Manolo can’t be rushed. Instead of launching the 2014 album
with a tour, he went back to the studio with his buddies and made a five-disc collection of gorgeously remastered and re-recorded old gems, which of course I
snapped up with glee. We waited, but it didn’t look like a tour was forthcoming,
so in March 2015, Stanley and I went to Spain for the second time together and
had a grand, mostly medieval time. We spent most of the ten days in Seven Noble Knights territory, so it was
fitting that the day of our return, I was surprised with an email in which the first publisher accepted it for publication.
Later that year,
concert dates were published. We conferred briefly and my sweet, wise husband
said we should take this opportunity because it doesn’t come around often. I
think, empathic soul that he was, he sensed the giant hole in my existence
because I had never been to a Manolo García performance. We investigated the
concert venues, and they were all enormous, which felt overwhelming to our
sensitive introversion. We chose to see Manolo García at the bullring in
Valencia because the venue had the smallest capacity. I had never been to
Valencia, though I’d always wanted to.
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| Ecstatic in 2014 with an unexpectedly signed copy of Todo es ahora Photo by Stanley Coombs |
When the tickets
went on sale, I jumped on them like the lifeline they were. Eighty Euros apiece
gave us admission to a dream come true. I ceded the desk chair to
Stanley and he strategized our plane tickets with memberships and miles, and I
leaned over his shoulder to help him choose a rental car. Between the purchase
of those tickets and the time we would use them, we moved from Massachusetts
back to Arizona, so it was quite the geographic brain twister to arrange.
Two days before our
flights, on a bright Arizona May 14, I awoke to an email. (My translation follows.)
Hi Jessica,
Are you there?
Is this your email? I’m Manolo García. I received your letter and know about
the unexpected events you had when traveling.
Please answer
and tell me if you both are coming to the concert in Valencia.
A hug from this
sinner of the prairie [a cultural reference too complex to explain here],
Manuel García.
My head
exploding, I checked the from address and verified that it was coming from Carmen.
Not just any Carmen, but a talented and creative Spanish music artist who
happens to be Manolo García’s sister.
Only when I was
half convinced of the message’s legitimacy did I call Stanley in to see. Are
there words to describe what it’s like to be contacted by Carmen on behalf of
Manolo García? Not really. That day still stands out as unique. Stanley came up with a lot of scenarios, but I focused on accepting
that this was enough, that even if we never heard anything from them again, we would still
love Manolo and Carmen for all the joy they’d already brought us. We composed a message in
reply and checked every time we could as we traveled to see if someone wrote
back. Not yet, not yet, we kept saying.
Stanley and I
always divided up the labor of a journey in a way that maximized the use of
each other’s talents and made for the smoothest journey. I took care of
everything on Spanish soil except the rental car, and Stanley assumed responsibility
for all transportation, including how to behave at the airport to get the best
service. I was happy to comply with any suggestion he had because the result was always magical.
We had some
concern about making a connection at the Charlotte airport, and it turned out
that even though it’s manageable in size, we arrived at the gate only eleven
minutes before boarding. It felt like one more charm in a series of charmed
events. For example, our tickets put us into the TSA precheck line. The flight felt long, mostly
because it was on one of those fancy airplanes that pressurizes the cabin to
almost normal altitude, and when there’s more oxygen it’s harder for me to fall
asleep.
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| T4 at Aeropuerto Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Photo by Stanley Coombs |
We arrived on
May 17. Oh, the exhaustion! Oh, the crustiness! We knew the drill about the
rental car from the previous year. It was a tiny black SEAT no one would ever
want to steal. Then we went back up the flat escalator for carts, and ate
donuts and a paleta de ibérico sandwich
with orange Fanta. That was several things off the list already.
We had no
trouble finding where to go, even though it was tough booting up Susie, which
is what we called our phone GPS navigator, in a "foreign" country. The landscape changed dramatically
every few kilometers, and we passed into Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León,
and Aragón. We saw tons of iconic Osbourne bulls.
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| You won't see these wordless liquor ads anywhere but Spain. Photo by Jessica Knauss |
When we caught a glimpse of Medinaceli, which is mentioned in Seven Noble Knights, we stopped
and marveled. It turned out to be one of the pueblos más bonitos de España. Yes, this is a thing. Spain officially chooses its most beautiful towns. Next, Calatayud was amazing with thirteenth-century churches and a million castles, but we couldn’t get to
any of them in the car, and were too tired to walk. Stanley did some amazing
maneuvers on the small streets in that car. There was a statue of Alfonso el
Batallador (notorious husband of Queen Urraca) tucked into a corner we swept by.
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| Our SEAT for two weeks. Photo by Jessica Knauss |
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| Calatayud Photo by Jessica Knauss |
When I was telling family and friends about this journey afterward, Stanley would contribute a story about when I was trying to get the above photo in Calatayud. Stanley didn't even want me to have to get out of the car—that's how tired were were—and, still getting used to the stick shift, he backed into a random invisible concrete block and scuffed the back right bumper. He was concerned that the rental company would charge us for the damage and started hatching a plan to avoid that.
Our hotel in Zaragoza was in
the middle of a big commercial area with trucks and malls. We had
trouble finding somewhere to eat and ended up at McDonald’s. That must've been a direct result of my dad, because when he called me while we were on the way to the Phoenix airport,
he asked if we were going to eat McDonald’s in Spain. As if Spain weren’t one of the best food countries in the world. But this McDonald's wasn't like any I'd been to in the United States. It had a fancy electronic ordering system, and I ate deluxe fries with curry sauce.
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| The Ebro, the signature roof tiles of the Basílica del Pilar, and lovely Zaragoza Photo by Jessica Knauss |
We slept for an
hour and a half and drowsed a little more before resolving to
go to Zaragoza's famous basilica. This place is the reason so many Spanish ladies are named Pilar. We went to the top of the tower
with the help (but not all the way) of the attended elevator. Amazing views of the Ebro, the biggest river in Spain. We walked around in the Pilar plaza a little, and when we saw a pharmacy, we got Stanley an expectorant because he thought he had either bronchitis or
Valley Fever. Then we had
gorgeous lemon and chocolate/crema catalana gelato and got back in the car to
take a Susie-led tour of Zaragoza’s posh shopping streets and the places only
the locals go. It was so attractive, I thought I wouldn’t mind living there. We ended up at the palace, but it was so late in the day we didn't have time to go in. It’s huge! We strolled around it and enjoyed the gardens with the locals at the end of the day.
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| Palacio de la Aljafería, Zaragoza Photo by Jessica Knauss |
At that point,
we headed for a big mall anchored by Hipercor (one of Spain's Walmart approximations) and shopped for detergent, hand lotion, shaving cream, black shoe polish to "repair" the car, and candy. We had
dinner there at a local joint, sharing a menú of esparragos blancos with jamón serrano and a scrumptious bistec with pepper sauce. Natillas for dessert—yum!
After a day
that lasted about 48 hours, we slept well.
Next time, a
romantically rainy day in Catalunya.
Catch up with the rest of the posts in this series here.
Catch up with the rest of the posts in this series here.
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