Spain, a Smart Car and Me

It seems my best memories generally start with me, a car, an open road, and boundless freedom and time. My travels through Spain in the summer of 2009 began in just that way. After months of planning and years of longing, I was at last cruising on a Spanish highway, with no demands and a desire to milk every last drop out of my time in the glorious country that I'd loved since middle school Spanish class.

Back in 2002, prompted by the tales of a high school friend who traveled to Sevilla, I embarked on a four month study abroad experience in Salamanca, Spain, where I lived with a host family and spent my weekends traveling to various regions of the country. Unfortunately, the inexperience of youth kept me from fully "aprovechar-ing" my time there, to use a Spanglish word coined by my roommates and I meaning to take full advantage of something.

Following college, life unexpectedly led me to teaching middle school Spanish myself. Year after year as I taught lessons on Spain I grew increasingly more homesick for the cities that had captured my heart, and also intrigued by new places and events I never knew of during my time living there. I finally convinced my husband that a return trip was necessary for my peace of mind, and I began to make arrangements.

On a teacher's salary I certainly wasn't able to afford luxury travel. A rental Smart car was both my transportation and makeshift hotel room - my carefully and tightly packed luggage hidden away in the tiny trunk during daylight, only to swap places with me at night so I could curl up relatively unnoticed in parking garages or rest stops for a bit of shut eye. (That's right, you read correctly - I slept in the trunk of a Smart car!) Gas stations served as my changing room, bathroom and shower. It was anything but glamorous, and yet on the other hand it was just that. Awaking each morning with the rising sun, my afternoons were spent wandering wherever each city led me, and evenings drifted romantically in as I strolled the sidewalks basking in the chatter of blossoming nightlife.

I arrived in Spain a week earlier than my husband, in order to travel the northern Basque region for the first time and catch the last few days of the famed Running of the Bulls in Pamplona. As I made the initial drive from Madrid to Pamplona across the lazy Spanish countryside peppered with sunflowers and rustic pueblas, my heart fluttered with the joy of at long last being reunited with its soulmate, every moment filling me like a breath of fresh air.

The peaceful drive was punctuated with my arrival in the midst of one of the most frenetic festivals in the world, and after an exhilarating whirlwind of bull runs, sightseeing, city-wide concerts and street markets and a closing ceremony during which I truly and sincerely thought I might be trampled to death by festive, chanting Spaniards in an obscenely cramped plaza, I was more than ready to head back out on the Basque country road.

I found my way to quiet San Sebastian, a city that changed my world in ways I'll never be able to explain to anyone else adequately. After a few mornings of Colacao and Spanish Tortilla overlooking the beach and gorgeous La Concha Bay, I reluctantly moved on to explore a traditional market and the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. At the end of my week of independence I made my way back to Madrid and my first night in a cheap Spanish hotel, to await my husband's arrival.

Throughout the course of the next two weeks, we continued my Smart car adventure through all of the major Spanish regions, hitting up every landmark we could muster the energy for in each city. Visiting Madrid, Salamanca (my home in 2002), Sevilla, Granada, Alicante, Valencia and Barcelona, I was able to re-experience all that I remembered, while stepping anew into parts of the country and culture I'd never seen before. My students had sent me with a list of things they wanted better photos or videos of than we could find online, as well as a variety of questions ranging from "What fashion is in style there?" to "Where does the bull meat go after a bullfight?" and "Do they have KFC?". Armed with our video and digital cameras, my husband and I made sure to check every photo, video and question off our list before climbing back into our pint-sized car to head to the next destination.

We also happened upon some unexpected jewels along the way, like the Battle of the Flowers in Valencia, where a parade of beautiful floats made of flowers is followed by a playful flower fight with everyone in attendance flinging marigolds while girls on the floats swat at the flowers with tennis rackets. Our adventures weren't without flaw - we got lost countless times, we ran out of gas (as seems to be our custom wherever we travel), we inadvertently found our car on a brightly lit back street lined with expectant Spanish prostitutes ... yet we managed to maintain our relationship through it all!

Sharing Spain with someone I love was exactly what I had longed for since my time living in Salamanca so many years ago. To be able to introduce my husband to my host mother and take him to the waterfalls near Alicante where I'd experienced an unforgettable weekend way back when with my treasured friends Kate and Mike (similarly using our rental car as our hotel, parked quietly on a tucked away beach) was worth the slight ache in our backs from weeks behind the wheel. We returned from Spain weary from our travels, laughing about our mishaps, and already longing for the far-off day when we could go back with our children.

Spain has always fascinated me. From my first taste of the language in middle school Spanish class to my first glimpses of Flamenco in high school and Spanish cinema in college, I have fallen deeper and deeper in love with the culture, people and entire essence of this country. In the summer of 2009, Spain joined itself once again to my heart, and left a mark that neither word or picture can ever fully capture.