The voyage to Denia, in the province of Alicante (Alacant by the Valencian spelling), was mostly uneventful. I suppose on the flight, I did take a Percocet, left over from a recent surgery, to try and sleep, which instead caused my entire body to sweat profusely and my vision to blur, and almost passed out leaning against the aircraft’s bland plastic interior. Other than that, then, it was mostly uneventful.
I moved into my apartment directly, though I paid (overpaid, I suspect) for a short-term rental in case I couldn’t find housing in time. On ground level, in addition to an overpriced beach store, three restaurants open onto the street. I often see their cooking staff taking a smoke break in the central courtyard, or hear them chatting through doorways hung with chain-mail curtains. Two are identically nondescript and loud, one owned by a Brit and one by a Dutchman. Mediocre live music and drunken chatter from these keep me awake until one in the morning at the latest. The third serves Afghan and Persian food and is significantly less irritating.
My east balcony faces a large Mediterranean-style house surrounded by a curious variety of tree leaves; needles, fronds, mittens, and sheafs. Blue flowered vines droop from an evergreen, one of a series lining the property, and creep along the top of the dividing wall. To the right, the Montgó peeks out atop a puzzle of red shingles, and to the left, a swaying window of branches allows occasional glimpses of the sea. My bedroom opens to the opposite balcony which faces inwards onto a handful of date palms that tower over the four-story building and the courtyard’s lawn. I share the humble apartment with Abhisek, an Indian-Bengali man of 34.
From here, I can walk effortlessly to Playa de la Marineta, a small sandy beach with a pop-up bar, protected by the Port of Denia, and a bit further south to a rocky pier in the direction of Les Rotes, a neighborhood of million-Euro homes occupied by retired English, Dutch, Germans, and Russians masquerading as a fishing community. According to Juan, the building’s handyman, there are fantastic spots in that area to snorkel.
Juan worked as a day laborer for many years, renovating home interiors from what I could tell, Occasionally his power tools will wake me around 9. He seems to be perpetually rolling and smoking cigarettes from a bag of loose tobacco, even inside restaurants, though only if he’s by an open window. Nobody else seems to mind, so I’ve decided not to either. He has fed me more than once and bought me drinks a few more times than that, which makes it easier.
The first time we spent together was when he drove me to La Xara, a nearby town, to fix up an old bicycle he had. I was skeptical that it would be salvageable; the tires were completely flat, the frame more rust than paint, and as we lifted into the back of his cherry-red Ford hatchback, I noticed the rubber gearshift handle (which must be replaced with an identical, proprietary part from the manufacturer) had almost completely rotted away. The hatch wouldn’t shut all the way, which he assured me was not an issue until we came across a bored-looking federal police checkpoint. They didn’t seem to care, though Juan told me he could have been fined heftily if they had.
The bike repair shop didn’t seem to have a name or address, as it operated out of the distillery of a former monastery, and was only open on weekends. Since converted into a small outdoor music venue, the modest buildings have kept the same name, La Mistelera, after mistela, the type of sweet wine it once produced. An Italian man named Alberto did most of the repair work, and he confirmed my suspicions about Juan’s spare bike. Fortunately he had a used stock in much better condition, and I eventually took home an old but fantastically light road bike, along with a helmet and simple bike lock, which Juan advised me to replace with a sturdier one quickly. Meanwhile, a group of hippies and alternative-looking youths had started to gather around the stage, where a soundboard was leisurely being assembled. As it happened, we had arrived just before an open mic hip-hop set was scheduled to begin.
La Mistelera deserves a quick description. The courtyard is barely maintained, if at all, with vines and shrubs growing carelessly out of cracks in the pavement and aging garden beds. Its single restroom is generally well kept, however. The chairs are mostly plastic, and tables covered in stains of ash and beer sit across from a modest playground, complete with rusting swing set. Vendor stalls consisting of little more than a folding table and some knickknacks sit wherever they can find space. Plastic Nerf weapons litter the area, including an impressively colored rocket launcher.
Banners from an assortment of protests and causes hang from rafters, loosely grouped by theme. For example, the bed sheet demanding (in Valencian) that bikes be allowed on the Spanish high-speed rail system is naturally inside the bike shop. A large sign painted with a cry to end the genocide in Gaza hangs from a second floor window, only visible from the street. On this occasion, keffiyehs were draped in front of the DJ kit, and another Palestinian themed poster hung behind the stage, implying that the show’s proceeds would support charities in Gaza, though I never heard how exactly. After a long conversation and a couple of beers each—sold by the can out of a cooler—I rode my newly acquired bike home. Because my mother is probably reading this, I did wear the helmet.
The second time Juan and I hung out was a result of the first time, as the the rear wheel of said bike went completely flat a day later. He offered to take me to a shop closer to town, where he parked on the sidewalk and argued with the cashier over their customer policy. He then took me to a bar on the pier with a beautiful view of the sea, and we talked for a while about the nuances of the English and Spanish languages, our respective national politics, and other light topics.
The other people in my program, the auxiliares de conversación or conversation auxiliaries, are some of the only young adults I’ve met so far, the others being predominantly Moroccan and South American waiters and bartenders, and a substitute teacher at my school, a 24-year old recent graduate from Jaen. Unfortunately, my second day in the office was her last, so as far as I know I am now the youngest “staff” member—according to Spain’s labor ministry, ‘conversation auxiliaries’ in my program cannot be classified as workers. Of course, that didn’t stop the tax ministry from fining the Andalusian regional government 5 million euro last year for failing to tax their income for social security, something which every other region is also doing, with the exception of Aragon.
That’s about par for the course regarding Spanish bureaucracy. I am now working on my empadronamiento, essentially local registration, which is necessary to receive a TIE, which will be important if I want to stay in Spain longer than my visa period of one year. Unfortunately it’s virtually impossible to schedule an appointment on the local government’s website, mostly because they manually update the time slots twice a week. As far as the program, if last year is any indication, we can expect to paid for the first time in November or December in a single lump sum, and of course the ongoing litigation between the federal and regional governments (Castilla de la Mancha joined Andalusia in canceling the program entirely within their borders) could at any time result in the dissolution of the 50-year old program, and with it my only way of legally earning reliable money in Spain. So I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Irony Poison 