We had been in our rental for five hours and we hadn’t seen a single soul from the terrace windows off the living room. The place was deserted. There are cars around, there are plants in the common gardens, the grass is freshly mown, but there was no sign of life. It was like the Truman Show but without the fabulous weather. We arranged the children into various rooms to sleep, and after a number of shenanigans involving the exchanging of rooms and some typical bedtime screaming, the little monsters finally succumbed to their own sagging energy levels. I settled down to watch the second half of the Portugal v France quarter final, but before I switched on the TV, I paused for a short period of total calm and glorious silence.
And then…
AAAAuuuuUUUUrrrrRRRRrrrrRRRR!
This low-pitched, unsettling lupine howl from what seemed like a distant location deep in the forest made us sit up with a start, stabbing the silence, smothering the stillness and penetrating the peace. I looked at Bonny Bee, she looked at me, and in that instant we knew one thing: we wouldn’t be taking any family walks in the forest during our stay.
I watched the thrilling and appropriate end to Cristiano Ronaldo’s overhyped and tarnished international career and switched off the TV with a grin as wide as Lionel Messi’s trophy cabinet. The howls had subsided, so I decided to go to bed. Next day, we decided to explore the village some more. Because of Bonny Bee’s working schedule, rarely anything takes place before lunch, so we parked in the centre and went in search of a place to eat. For such a small place it had a large number of cafés and restaurants, all of which were full every day.
One place we settled on was to appease the children. For the last week we had eaten local food, so they deserved a little decadence and we found a place that served pizza and burgers called Las Titas. We sat on the terrace in our summer clothes and froze. We have truly become Valencianos. For that reason, we made our way inside and found a large table with benches each side in that typical US diner fashion. It had an Arizona gas station motif and the décor contained parts of cars and road maps. This type of place could have been in a much larger city, so to be in this village was very impressive. And the atmosphere was rocking – on a Saturday lunchtime.
The pizza section of the menu would make an Italian gesticulate most vigorously and probably walk out, kicking open and slamming the door shut as they left. I love the way the Spanish troll the fastidious Italians by murdering their hair-splitting culinary pedantry and doing new things with them. For example, I had a Pizza Tejana, a Texan take on the round Italian-style grilled open sandwich, which contained the usual tomato-based sauce, mozzarella and oregano, but also had some pulled pork with sriracha, chicken taco, bacon, onion, and a smoked cheddar-bacon sauce. It sounded so abominably delicious, or deliciously abominable, that I had to try it. After ten minutes, it was the first dish to reach our table. The children looked with envy at my pizza and asked for some. I reluctantly handed out three pieces, but despite having eaten only a little over half of it, it was much more filling than I could have imagined.
And it was delectable, truly a sign that innovation can win out over stubbornly clinging on to a form of superstitious nostalgia. Despite being a case of blasphemy the equivalent of taking a ton of pineapples scraped off a thousand Pizza Hawaii and dumping them on the grave of Gualtiero Marchesi, we weren’t on Italian jurisdiction, so we felt smugly satisfied.
The staff in Las Titas were extremely efficient, happy, kind and knowledgeable. And I think we will be back a couple more times. We stepped out into the village and went for a walk along the bay. San Cibrao is a lovely place, and the people so kind and welcoming. There is a saying: the Spanish will welcome you with open arms but they will never wrap them around you. In Valencia as well as here, we have met and spoken to hundreds more people in the short time we have been here than we ever did in Saarburg over fifteen years, but in both places, there is that same kind of reluctance to make any further steps towards sealing the connection.
You will nearly always meet casually and by chance in places you often frequent, and not through making any formal rendezvous, like to go to an event or restaurant. My theory is that in countries like the UK, Australia and the US, people move houses pretty often, so they pick up friends all the time, whereas in Old Europe, people generally stay where they are and the bonds they made in school and in their neighbourhood remain their friendship circle for life.
It was a cold, murky day, so we just hung around the village at the playground and the café next to it. The weather was going to improve the next day, Sunday 7 July, so we decided to make the most of it by taking a trip to a place called Foz and then on to Ribadeo. Foz was another quiet seaside village with little going on, but it had a few enticing restaurants near the promenade. We settled on one with a menu that was as hilariously translated as it was enticing. Their “Pig trotters with tickets” seemed like just the… ticket. And who could resist “Hake stuffed with hedgehog”? The most original surf ‘n’ turf menu item ever.
After a hearty meal consisting of Fabada Asturiana followed by some Secreto de Cerdo and potatoes, I invited everyone to jump in the car and head to Ribadeo, to see something new. The town itself was another maritime treasure, but of course we had to go to the playground. Luckily for us, there were a couple of decent cafés right next door. After a good hour of pushing swings, cleaning puke, returning other people’s toys, and saying “wow” after every act, I decided to take a look at Google Maps to see what I could entice them away with.
The rest of the week was mainly spent just hanging around the village and taking a few short trips to other towns. I would typically cook a large lunch at home, then we would go out for cake and a release of energy. One of the most memorable visits was to Viveiro, a town a little way westwards. The old town, with its whitewashed buildings in narrow streets reminded us of Andalucia. And the newer part, stretched out along the inlet, reminded us of Lucerne in Switzerland.
Another day, while Bonny Bee was working, I took the children to Burela, a town in the opposite direction, for cake, drinks, and a visit to quite an elaborate playground. We entered a café on one of the main streets, and sat at one of the rustic-looking tables. The woman served us with the cakes we ordered, but it didn’t end there: she kept bringing us little delicacies from the region for us to try. A very kind lady.
We headed to the playground, which when we arrived at about half past three was deserted, was at five teeming with as many kids as you can imagine, from all walks of life, all types of backgrounds, all various shades of skin, with one objective: to have immense fun with a football.
Dainoris tried joining in, but was a little clumsy – he’s still a bit of an English speaker, but his ability to understand Spanish is fine. When he starts Spanish primary school in September, we hope he will have little to no trouble at all.
Milda is a different kettle of fish: she could make friends with absolutely anyone. In fact, I think we should send her to the Middle East as a peace ambassador – she would be more successful than any fuddy-duddy politician.
Livia, on the other hand, is very approachable, but doesn’t have the social skills to keep people wanting to hang around her: she is more likely to start getting a little boisterous and end up playing alone somewhere else.
I was heartened by how easily these kids just let us newbies settle in to their environment. In the end, I was getting their ball out of the tree and chucking the kids about like we’d known each other for ever. Great bunch of lads.
And this is what I’ve learned since I’ve been in Spain: despite all the political rhetoric and the doom-mongering, Spain is a successfully multiracial society. This was richly demonstrated by the 16-year-old footballing prodigy, Lamine Yamal, whose mother is from Equatorial Guinea and father from Morocco, whose name I have seen on the backs of about half a dozen boys and young men in the last week or two.
Spain also seems to have set up its education system as well as possible too. Every school I pass looks so appealing for kids. Very often, there’s a lot of outdoor space, there’s plenty of material to pick from, every school is at least bilingual, and I don’t know many under-forties who don’t speak much English. In fact, every kid whose parent has interacted with us, has been challenged to speak to ours in English. We are attempting the same with our children in the other direction, which should be much easier, considering Spanish is all around us, but it’s taking a little time… In any case, the next generation of Spanish citizens will be just fine, if current governments can sort out some of the mess and mistakes of the past, keeping the extremists at bay.
On Sunday 14 July, I went for a walk after the Euro 2024 final, won by Spain, and another thing struck me: Spanish people are by no means to ostentatious in their flag-waving. In other countries, like the Netherlands, England, Germany, Poland, Italy, I have seen flags go up everywhere when the football championships roll around. It has become almost socially unacceptable in England for a pub not to drape itself in a huge Cross of St George or daub “It’s Coming Home” across the façade.
Here, flag-waving is very understated indeed. The number of flags I have seen, or at least noticed, would fit on fewer than both hands. But boy, can Spanish people celebrate… and it was during that walk that a few fireworks were set off about a kilometre away, which in turn set off a bit of dog barking. And it was while I was passing a modest row house that I heard from within the garden the very same haunting howling noise that had been mystifying me every night for a week. I don’t know what dog it was, but the acoustics created by the three walls of the property caused this rather meek-sized dog to sound like it was something that should be roaming the moors devouring sheep and inspiring filmmakers. But instead it was probably a little annoyed by the distant fireworks and missing its owner.
It’s funny how a certain landscape can play tricks on the imagination…
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