a wandering woman writes : August 2006

It's a Sign

Wheylona is a self proclaimed "gringa" living in Donostia. And she got a full force belly laugh from me with this post.

Yesterday's post - End of the quiet

This post was written in my head Sunday and in Blogger yesterday, when the gods of photo upload decided not to cooperate. So here it is today, yesterday´s "yesterday's post". Be kind to this little post; it's been through a lot.

This is yesterday's blog post.

Yesterday was another sunny Sunday in Salamanca, the kind of sunny that left me wanting to snap pictures then report back here.

Yesterday was a quiet sunny Sunday in Salamanca. Eerily quiet, when I started up Calle San Pablo toward my Sunday El Pais about 10. Halfway to the kiosk, I was almost run over by my kiosk-man, who was racing down San Pablo like a madman.

He shouted something about taking advantage of a slow moment ("..mi niña", why will this 43 year old woman never tire of hearing that?) as he gently spun me out of his way. At the kiosk, the faithful amigo left to watch things during the "slow moment" set down his paper just long enough to climb inside the kiosk, accept my 1.90 euros and pass me out my El Pais Sunday magazine.

Three minutes later, heading back down San Pablo (this time directly toward my tostada) I was again greeted by the kioskman. He was racing again, greedily clutching two large cafés con leche in foil-covered glasses. And grinning ear to ear.

I savored my tostada outside a café facing San Esteban. I was alone until an older French couple decided to settle in with Le Monde, the man taking notes as he read.
With the Plaza Colon kioskman safely back at his station, San Pablo was deserted.

And so I savored the only August Salamanca Sunday morning I've left myself this year. With the students not due back till September, Spanish tourists and Salmantinos crowded on a coast somewhere, and lots of businesses closed, Salamanca is left to a few foreign tourists, the self employed (like me, the kioskman and the café owner) and the over 80. Or so it seems on a Sunday morning. Two middle aged Salmantinos were busy chatting up the café owner inside, and the old man with leg braces who carries himself up San Pablo's hill to the Plaza Mayor every Sunday morning passed me in a pair of oddly chic calf-length pants (with grey socks), his black boina at an equally chic 45 degree angle.

When I climbed up toward Plaza Anaya to make my way to the Huerto for a Sunday garden visit, I found both the Plaza and Patio Chico deserted. The raspy crawl I heard behind me turned out to be a huge golden maple leaf skipping up the cuesta.

I passed a long lazy morning in el Huerto de Calixto y Melibea, left to myself by the two or three equally solo wanderers I found there.

In a comment to my last post, Michelle mentioned she arrives Friday to begin her semester abroad in Salamanca. Something tells me she won't be alone. I'll be glad to see Salamanca turn back into a university town. Still, this is, I think, the end of the quiet.