I channeled Ernest Hemingway in my imagination the other day. There we were, sitting in a small café on the mediterranean waterfront of a small southern Spanish town. Except, the small Spanish town had over the years morphed into a tourist haven for retired English pensioners and Russian entrepreneurs. The small Cafe really wasn’t that small and it’s menu was printed in English as well as Spanish. The Russian version was on the back.
The October weather was warm, much warmer than New England where there were already frost warnings.
The wedding of an Irish cousin to a Spanish girl brought many of us together from Ireland England and the US for a wonderful celebration with an international tone to it.
The waterfront of Torrevieja, close to the bride’s hometown, was now a warren of condominiums and shops. I think this was not the sort of place that Hemingway would have enjoyed. I doubt if anyone in town had ever even seen a bullfight.
Fortunately, the tourist season had ended about a month ago and most of the condominiums were shuttered up for the winter season so it wasn’t difficult to get about. The bus fare was reasonable; the cabs not so bad and the restaurants were both outstanding and no muy caro (not very expensive.) And, especially for someone who doesn’t eat meat, the fish and vegetable offerings were excellent.
An explosion of firecrackers, including one that sounded like a cannon marked the start of the bride and her father processing from their house by foot around the corner to the church where the wedding was to be performed. I never got the name of the town or the church. A chartered bus had taken us from our hotel in Torrevieja to the bride’s hometown.
The wedding was great (as weddings go) and the priest said part of the Mass in Spanish and part in English.
The bus took us back to Torrevieja for the reception where they served a bunch of dead sea life. I must admit that I don’t relish eating anything whose eyes I’m looking into. Prawns, Langostinos, sea bass: “I hope you enjoy tearing me apart, limb by limb” they seemed to be saying to me.
I guess Hemingway enjoyed killing things… Not so much the thrill of the hunt as much as the thrill of the kill. Ernie liked killing things, very much like Teddy Roosevelt: “it’s a good day; let’s go out and kill something.”
But, the wedding was great; the Spanish relatives on the bride’s side and the Irish, English and Americans behind the groom. The homily in the priest’s broken English suffused with Interpretations in Spanish allowed for reflection during the course of his discourse.