Monday, August 31, 2009

On the Baldosa in Galicia Spain

It's 12:10 during the day here. This is a critical temporal crossroads on the Baldosa (one of the numerous pedestrian streets of bars and cafes in Vilagarcia de Arousa, a small city in Galicia in northwest Spain on the Atlantic coast) and in all of the thousands of bars and cafes in Spain, a country where hanging out is more popular even than futbol (soccer).

At noon, which is an odd time here between breakfast and lunch (lunch is at 2:00), half the people just got going and are having their breakfasts of cafe con leche and churros (long fried donuts) or croissants or other sweet carbs. The other half are having beer or coke or water or wine and some kind of free tapas that come with, the aperitivos.

The point is that everybody is having SOMETHING and talking passionately and gesturely to SOMEBODY. Passersby join their friends, and cousins as if by design, but actually just because it's what they do. There are kids running in and out and the clinking of real coffee cups and silverware and drinks served in glasses made of glass and women talking loud and men, and horns honking nearby and police whistles and grandparents and babies, louder and LOUDER as the pre-lunch crowds rise and swell. Crescendo. Fullness. By 2 pm not one place left to sit. Still they come. They stand.

At 3 pm the whole street of round tables and metal chairs is empty. It is low tide now.

Today is the LAST day of August and this is Spain, Galicia, Vilagarcia at their raucous summertime best.

1 comment: