My first day of the Biblioteca Nacional. Yeah, nothing says, “Happy 4th of July” more than going to another country’s national library to look at some of their old texts. I was going to meet up with Greg and another guy I met Friday so we could eat some BBQ and celebrate together as Americans, but those plans went awry when we found out that the place in mind was closed so the owners could be on vacation, and then a backup place we found was only serving meriendas until 8pm, when it opened up the regular menu for the Spanish dinner time. In the end, we ended up eating in the Cafetería del Retiro, eating bocadillos, aka meat or eggs on bread. From there, we went to the YSA FHE, which was fun. More or less, celebrating my American-ness was a bust, void of my beloved BBQs, watermelon, root beer floats, and fireworks. But at least there was some flat, homemade root beer leftover from Friday’s activity and I had Kit Kats to share. And how I ended up with them is a story all on its own.
I never imagined when I began learning Spanish that words like “tabaco” and “cerveza” would really be necessary to know, for me at least. Come on; I’m LDS and don’t drink or smoke! I have no need for such things in my life! Well, in a way, Europe has had a bad influence: I’ve drunk tea, eaten coffee- and wine-flavored foods, and now I was on a ridiculous hunt for a tobacco shop! (I thought the tea was peach juice and didn’t know about the flavorings, but, even still, they are just flavorings.)
Okay, before you get to thinking I’ve gone off the deep end, forgetting my standards and values, and that I completely forgot I was going to talk about Kit Kats, just listen. And Mom, your girl is still able to go to the temple. To explain: Tobacco shops here also sell useful stuff like stamps to send postcards to my family peeps and stuff like metro cards that are necessary for saving and buying a month’s pass. In fact, they are the only place where you can get the card to use the metro, and then you can renew it monthly or whenever in the metro itself, but the original card is only sold in tobacco shops. Why?! I don’t know. I mean, what does public transportation have to do with tobacco?! I didn’t know this until Friday, and I was in such a hurry that when I found that out, I decided to wait until the next day. Only to find out that tobacco shops don’t reopen after siesta time on Saturdays. Of course. Teresa helped me find an open one in a department store, but they didn’t do metro cards. Worse, the tobacco shops wouldn’t reopen until Monday morning! (Good for helping me keep the Sabbath, I suppose!) So, Monday morning I went to find an open one. The first one I saw was a closed stand and the second one was an actual store. All the hunting seemed to be in vain when I told him I wanted a (discounted) youth’s pass and he replied that I’d need to wait for 20 days. 20 days?! That’s how long I had left in Spain
Oh, but there’s more. After burning my brains out trying to figure out the beginnings of this thesis project of mine and what to look at in the National Library, I found out about our BBQ dinner dilemma. And I was hungry after not having eaten lunch. Put simply:
- The aforementioned conditions combined with a couple of others=grumpy Ariel.
- Grumpy Ariel+fruit+Parque del Retiro pond=happy Ariel.
Later, Greg and I met up to find a place for dinner (and the other guy didn’t show), and along the way we stopped at a couple more tobaccos, and I finally had success when I gave up on the youth pass and paid the 17 euros extra to forego the age check and get the pass then and there.
Who would’ve known I’d spend my holiday in a foreign library and hunting down tobacco shops? Talk about 4th of July a la española!
Gosh, I miss my country, my friends, and my family. God bless!
No comments:
Post a Comment