Friday, March 26, 2010

Closing thoughts on Andalucía

Well...I'm leaving.
Yeah, heading off to Madrid, but I've become enamored with this place. The people, the culture, everything.

There's two things I need to highlight in this third installment of my commentary: Women and food.

Actually, it could be one. Instead of tacos de ojo it's been a month of tapas de ojo.

Talking to my Spanish roommate from back home before coming over here, we had a discussion about where the most beautiful women in Spain were. Having spent a few days in Barcelona the year prior, I suggested the Catalunyan women were very beautiful. He said that that was a very dumb thing to say and then swore to high heavens that Andalucían women were the most beautiful in Spain and quite probably the world. I laughed in his face. It was a naive thought. I mean, I'm from northern Mexico and have traveled all around Texas. Surely there couldn't be women as beautiful as that.

And I was wrong.

Andalucian women are absolutely gorgeous. That's all there is to be said on the matter and it unfortunately brings in this connundrum.
Who is hotter?
Mexican women from the north
Andalucian women
or Texan women?

You vote.

As for the food ... well...it's all been so delicious. I cannot say for certain what's been my favorite meal. Maybe it's the boquerones, a type of anchovy cured in lime and olive oil, or "pechuguitas Ithaka" chicken dumplings cured in lime or...yeah.
Interesting thing about Granada and the Andalucian coast, is that it has a lot of coastal things that wouldn't be amiss in Mexico. Mangos, oranges, limes, etc. No grapefruit, though.
And Granada has the only aguacate crop in possibly the entire European union.

What else?
Well. Nothing.

I have two anecdotes. Not my own, of course, but common lore here:

The first is that of a blind beggar who was out...well, begging for money, in the city of Granada.
A noblewoman walks by and she brushes him off. A passing knight sees this and tells her,
"Dele limosna, señora, que no hay mas pena que ser ciego en Granada"

The second anecdote deals with Boabdil, the city's last moorish ruler. Legend has it that when he left the city after turning over the keys to Fernando and Isabel, he turned back and looked at the city. He wept and his mother turned to him and said, "Why do you weep like a woman for that which you could not defend as a man?"

I understand why Boabdil wept.
I understand why being blind is a misery here.
And now I leave...who knows when I'll be back.

I'll stop by Madrid for a few days before heading back home. Maybe I'll post from the capital.

Cheers!

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