True or False:

1.      We got to see King Felipe VI of Spain while we were there.  False.  Unless he was disguised as an Uber driver, we never crossed paths.  We did get a nice tour of the Royal Palace in the middle of Madrid though. King Felipe and his family don’t really live in the Royal Palace, however.  They live in the “Hunting Palace” known as Zarzuela.  We were not invited there. Neither were we invited to any of the other six palaces the Royal Family owns. 

2.     There are many beautiful women in Spain.  True.  So many, in fact, that Felipe had trouble picking a queen when he was younger.  He dated one woman who came from a family with a drug abuse problem.  This would be alright in America, but apparently not in Spain.  He dated another woman who was an underwear model, but that turned out to be a “no.”  He finally met Letizia, a television journalist, and they now have two daughters.

3.     It is my own fault that I accidently drove my rental car into “old town” Malaga, where there were no other cars, but 80,000 people milling around a public square.  False.  It was NOT my fault.  The GPS told me to go there.  

4.     I saw a building in Barcelona that was so ugly it made me cry.  True.  It was a church, The Sagrada Familia, designed to look like a creepy, eerie, melting cathedral on the outside.  The walls look like they will cave in on each other any minute.  Its architecture symbolizes everything that is wrong with the institutional church—which is a heaviness to me.  But up close, and inside, the basilica was sheer beauty—hope and inspiration.  It felt like resurrection from all that is dark and deteriorating.  Its spires and vaulted arches thrust beyond all human darkness and deterioration.  The last night we were there, we stood outside the church and listened to a solo violinist.  His haunting and lovely music brought tears to my eyes.  I bought three books on the architect when I got home—Antoni Gaudi. 

5.     All the trains ran on time, the buses had great bathrooms, and the flight plans were flawless for our trip.  False. False. And false.  Let me begin with a traveler’s tip:  old men with enlarged prostates should not book a 7-hour ride on a bus that has no bathroom.  They did make one pit stop at the two-hour mark.  But only the fact that I ate and drank nothing for ten hours before that trip enabled me to keep my dignity.  My previous experience as a world traveler (in the Philippines) led me to that caution.

The high-speed trains we took departed and arrived on the exact minutes of the schedule.  (Malaga-Madrid, Madrid-Barcelona)  But the inter-city train between Seville and Cordoba was in its own lazy time warp. Consequently, we didn’t get back to Seville that night at a normal time for supper—say 7 p.m. or so. We got back at 10:30 p.m., which happens to be the normal supper time for everyone else in Spain.  It reminded me of being back in my college days, when I’d head off to an all-night International House of Pancakes for a midnight feast.  Except this time, we were three old people, and we feasted till almost midnight on veal medallions and pork neck.

And we had a bit of a plane problem trying to get home.  Our airplane broke.  Something about an “essential switch” not working.  They grounded the plane and sent us to Brussels instead, telling us we could catch a flight back to Chicago from there.  It all worked out okay, and we were able to fly over the Atlantic instead of having to swim it.

6.      Spain is a great place to go for history, art, and literature.  True.  I started reading Miguel de Cervantes’ epic novel, Don Quixote, right before I left for the trip.  It was especially thrilling to read it while in Spain, seeing the deserts and mountains and plains that form the setting for the work.  

The artists that most caught my eye were Picasso and El Greco. The thing that impressed me about both of them was their insistence on seeing the world through fresh eyes.  In particular, where others saw the glory and “righteousness” of war, these two artists often saw the human side of it--a good thing to keep in mind late in our trip when Hamas attacked Israel and Israel maneuvered to attack the home of over a million Palestinians.  There is no escaping the war machines that are set in motion.  

The most interesting period of Spanish history—to me—is the medieval period, when Jewish, Christian, and Muslim populations and scholars lived in relative peace with each other.  For all the dastardly stories we read in history, there are also examples of peace breaking through.  These stories are as worthy of our attention as any battle.

7.     In Malaga, I jumped a five-foot fence, trespassing onto private property, trying to get into our Airbnb.  False.  It was the neighbor lady who jumped the fence, trying to help us when the hosts didn’t show up to let us in.  

We couldn’t get to the lock-box that had the key in it, as it was behind a locked gate.  So, being in better shape than me (Cory, my gym coach, hasn’t taught me how to leap 5-foot obstacles yet) the nice lady jumped over it.  But she couldn’t get the lock box open once she got there.  

Thinking I would have better luck than her, she took me around to the side of the building, up a stairway, over a wall, across a roof, and over another wall.  But I couldn’t get the lock box open either.  We were still standing there three hours later, waiting for the host to show up and help us, when the same neighbor lady returned from a pizza party.  She called the host for us, said something in Spanish, and managed to get us into the place within five minutes.

8.      Even before we got home, Jie was trying to line me up to go to Morocco, Greece, China, South America…anywhere.  True.  But timing is everything.  I’m going to need a few months, or years—to get that wicked GPS, and that trek over walls and across a high roof in Malaga—out of my consciousness before I agree to travel anywhere except in my own car.

9.     Don’t ever take an Uber in Spain or Portugal.  False. Talking to taxi and Uber drivers was one of the most delightful parts of the trip.  They gave us great restaurant tips, told us their life stories, introduced us to local color and traditions—and got us where we needed to go quickly and safely.  Except for the one taxi driver.  Jie had a little "conversation" with him over how much he was going to charge us to take us to a park.  He told her one amount, and then upped the price when we started to get in the car.  And so we all got out until they “worked it out.”  Jie, as usual, got us good deals.  But this particular taxi driver evidently didn’t like losing his con to a woman, and so he let us know it with his grim silence and aggressive driving that time.

10.  I’m glad I went.  True.  I had great traveling companions with Jie and Brenda (a friend from our Urbana Church.)  Spain and Portugal are marvelous countries with fascinating stories, noteworthy people, interesting land forms, and gracious populations.  I’m privileged to have traveled there.  But now I need to recover—and maybe someday I’ll tell you the rest of the story of trying to drive in Malaga with that rental car.