Bunbury

7 – Hidden treasures and the sleep of the dead

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Thursday, July 24th: We decide to go back downtown and do some more shopping. We pick up some breakfast and coffee and ask about the tourist bus tour I’ve read about. It’s leaving in four minutes, so we also tick off the physical exercise for today. At La Aljaferia we decide to take a longer stop because I hadn’t seen it last year, but was told it was beautiful. Hello, what understatement! It’s amazing! We take the whole tour, I even sit down and learn about flags. At this point I am either confusing people with my interest in this topic or with my tour shirt. A girl is looking at me, looking again and then pinching her mother and then the two of them are looking at me. (If you read this, make sure to say hello next time! ;)) Some time later we learn that we already have 200 followers on our Insta account. Pretty amazing for my little „Schnapsidee“!

Near this beautiful place we find another beautiful place for coffee and snacks. The waitress speaks a little English and understands a bit of German, but she is so nice that I quickly gather the confidence to place our order in Spanish. Apparently she’s so thrilled about me trying that in the end she gives my kids another churro for free and I don’t have proof but she may have given us a huge discount. I love this city and its people.

But of course, my new found self-confidence needs to be hold back and so we walk into another supermarket where I choose the self-checkout. Because it’s quicker? Because you don’t have to embarrass yourself by not getting anything the cashiers say? All valid reasons. When you are not me. Self-checkouts hate me in every country as I have now discovered. It’s not working as planned, one of the employees needs to come to the rescue. And another one. The third one is staying until we’re done and out of the store. Next time remind me about it, please.

We get back onto the bus and take the rest of the tour. At Plaza España we decide to check out the ice cream parlor I had seen on Instagram which my kids demanded to visit because the icecreams there are huge. And covered in chocolate. The bus is the same we need to take back to the hostal, only into the opposite direction. I suddenly decide that we need a rechargeable bus ticket. We wanted to get that earlier, but then the sudden leave of the tour canceled that plan. My husband does not feel so well, so I park him with the kids on a bench and promise to be back soon. Well, I probably would have if I knew where to buy this ticket and when I finally found it, that I was waiting in the wrong queue. But again – the people of Zaragoza, so helpful and cute. And: I met another Arde fan! When I was leaving the counter after I got my ticket, a guy was smiling at me and started singing „Qué vida tan dura“ and I answered him and this was one of the best seconds of my life so far! So, an eternity later I arrive with the ticket and we get on the right bus. My husband is sleeping, not even a strong coffee at the ice cream place can wake him up for long. So we have our delicious chocolate covered icecream (which is working much better in theory than in 32 degree weather when the ice is melting, but the chocolate is too hard to bite) and try to find the bus stop to get home to the hostal. My husband appears to be really sick so we put him into one room and let him rest. Checkout is at noon, that’s sufficient time to recover, get up, put a rooftop box back on and leave.

In the middle of the night, I wake up. There’s noise and people talking loudly and running around. I have the feeling that I did cause it because I suddenly remember hearing music or a noise like an alarm clock. Was it my phone? Did I not turn off an alarm to remind me of something? You know these sounds you hear, but somehow build into your dreams? I check the phone. No, my playlist went off as planned, no alarm set and the music wasn’t too loud. I think I hear someone saying „We need to find the one!“ Okay, if you need to find someone downtown Zaragoza listening to Bunbury to go to sleep, I might be guilty as charged. I open the door hesitantly. Are they waiting for me? Do I have to go to jail now for my taste in music? I hope they let me make a last phone call so I can tell my husband he has to take the kids home. I open my eyes. The hostal floor is empty. I still hear muffled talking, but I foremost do smell something. Apparently someone was smoking and the fire alarm went off. I f*cking slept through a fire alarm.

6 – Welcome home, Alice!

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Still Wednesday, July 23rd: I’m trying to find a camping site because we don’t want to leave a wet tent in the car longer as needed. But apparently, Zaragoza is not much into camping (which I totally get). So we have to do with two rooms in a hostal, near the city centre. They send us a message, if we can’t find parking spots on the streets, they cooperate with a car park within walking distance where we get a discount. Not ideal, but I’m fine with it at this moment.

Outside Zaragoza there’s a traffic jam on the highway and we lose some time. But we unfreeze and the damp clothes dry a little more.

Early afternoon we are in Zaragoza. Finally! I have been missing this city for a year and I can’t even tell why I love it so much. I’m sending pictures and the chat group is mocking me a bit for my obsession. Maybe it’s a thing you only get to discover when you’re from another country, I don’t know. But one thing I know is that this city clearly has its preferences for a certain band member – or how do you explain that within walking distance from our hostal I went past a car from a „Jota Company“ and even a „Jota Jota Café“, huh? What are you saying? It’s a dance? Well, that’s probably what they want you to believe. Because they have neighbours from the other team and don’t want to start a fight because in the end we all like the same big picture. That’s maybe also the explanation for the sign of another company that went by something like „Pepe Power“; they are very subtile, those Zaragozanos (wait, do they call themselves that?).

What’s not so subtle is the fact that Spanish cars are obviously much smaller than Grrrmaneta who measures about 2.30 metres with the rooftop box. Spanish car parks have mostly entrance for a maximum height of 2.10 metres. We know that now. So we are driving around Zaragoza, trying to find a parking spot. After the sixth round my husband stops at the Delicias train station which is miles away from the booked accomodation, hands me the keys and says, „You drive! You wanted to come here, so you find us a parking spot.“ Sometimes I’m extremely good at this game and only five minutes later I pull into a spot near the hostal. We can only stay there for one hour because it’s not possible to download the parking app when you don’t have a Spanish tax number. I’ve seen this before when I wanted to order something from Spain. No tax number, no business. Sadly, the machine also does not accept my credit cards, does not give change or accept overpaying, so we put our last small coins in there to buy us some time to get at least the kids and some stuff for two nights into the hostal. The place is nice; I hate the steep steps at the entrance, but for two days I think I can manage. After settling in the kids, handing them tablet and phone just in case, I shove things from the backseat into the front of the car while my husband is emptying the rooftop box and shoving more stuff inside Grrrmaneta. Then the rooftop box comes off. And gets shoved INTO the poor Grrrmaneta. But now we have the 1.95 metres and the car will hopefully fit into the entrance of that damn carpark!

Spoiler: The height fits perfectly, but I think I haven chosen the lane for Smarts or motorbikes because there are very ugly sounds like scratching at both doors. But when I check, everything looks fine. I try to lay out some of the still damp clothes on the rooftop box inside the car to not ruin them completely in the next two days and get some more stuff for the kids before I leave for the hostal.

We decide to finally eat something, so we catch a bus to Plaza España and head into the city centre. It feels like coming home. Joke about as much as you like, this town is something like my spirit animal and I can’t wait to come back in September. Finally, my family is a bit impressed. After we went to a shop I promised the kids we would visit, we see the basilica. Several black cats come to greet me on the way, as clocks, coffee mugs, t-shirts … „Hello, Alice, welcome home!“

After a snack and refreshments, we make plans for the night. One of our followers is from Zaragoza and we want to meet and have dinner at El Tubo. Apparently it’s not hard to spot our little group and so we’re off with her and her husband to the heart of the city. We run into a group of friends of them who give us their table at the bar. We order drinks, an assortment of croquetas and some patatas for the kids. It tastes heavenly. We talk a bit, about my trip last year and this one and my upcoming travel when our friend is reaching in her purse and pulls out a card. „I wanted to show you this. A friend got it for me.“ Holy mother and all crying, laughing and somehow other emotional gods of Spain! I’m holding in my hand a piece of cardboard with a very familiar signing. I’ve seen this many times on the internet when people showed their most priced possessions – it’s an autograph with a personal dedication from Enrique Bunbury himself.

For a split second I regret the croquetas because my fingers are not clean. I need to take those white gloves from the museum with me when in Spain, I have to remember this. Our friend is telling how she got this beauty and I can’t stop admiring it and trying to wrap my head around it that I am holding this. It’s clear, I am in Wonderland. And people walk around with these things in their pockets here like I do with desinfectant wipes or lip balm or something. And then more magic happened when she says: „I want you to have it. I have another one and I know you will value it and take good care of it.“ Have you ever seen a grown woman (at least on the outside) tearing up in El Tubo over a piece of cardboard? The people on this evening do.