La Vida Toca (La Guitarra)

(Yes, I know my title makes no sense whatsoever.)

Alright ladies and gentlemen and the rest of you, I know I was bitching a little too much yesterday about living in Spain and all that. It was a bad day all around, but it's over. Sometimes people get jealous when I talk about living in Spain. (And maybe they should be.) But if my post yesterday says anything of worth it's that life in Spain isn't all sunshine, amazing cuisine, and gorgeous bodies. But (much more often than in the US) the true beauty of living here is the little surprises that come up in one's day to day life. 

It's the little differences that add so much value to the experience of living here. Not just the strange, entertaining differences like there are no penalties for growing up to three marijuana plants for personal use; or everything closes between 2 and 5 in the afternoon for siesta; or it's completely legal to be naked anywhere in Spain; or or everyone owns eyeglasses as fashion accessories; or it's perfectly acceptable to bring dogs and children into bars. But there are other differences too, things that seem never to happen in the US. 

Like today. We had a few errands to run and the partner had a break between work calls (the trip to Ghana was canceled at the last minute). So we went down to the new mercado by the train station. Our little market is something like if a mall and a farmers' market had a baby: It's indoor, but there are all kinds of stalls with fresh fish, meats, cafes, flowers, vegetables, and (for some reason) one little hardware store. I wanted to get some more herbs for my balcony boxes. The flower shop, however, only had one edible herb which was something I already had. We meandered the streets for a while, stopping by all the flower/plant shops in town.

Before going home we stopped into Cafe Sitges which is run by a couple friends of ours. We ordered a couple of coffees and paninis. After a few minutes two men walked in carrying guitars and dressed in medieval garb. At first I though some kind of festival must be going on nearby. (These things do tend to spring up periodically.) But it turned out they were some kind of traveling musicians out of Terragona. They ordered a couple glasses of wine and sat down at one of the tables. 

Then, as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do (as I think it was for them) they began playing their guitars and singing. It was absolutely beautiful. If you've never heard decent Spanish guitar music you're seriously missing out. Not to mention, one of the guys playing was absolutely beautiful himself. It turned out they were part of a program where students earn money for school by performing as wandering minstrels. Their Web site (in Spanish) is here. They played several sweet romantic songs as we sipped our coffees and ate. Their voices leaped and twined around one another as their fingers danced intricately over the strings. Some of the regular crowd in the cafe sang along.  

It was one of those brilliant and yet completely unexpected experiences. Like something you'd see in a movie about Americans traveling to Europe. Spain is like that. You stumble on random instances of beauty almost every day. A shopping trip turns into a parade. A walk to a friend's house leads you into a neighborhood festival. Stopping by your favorite cafe yields gorgeous men making gorgeous music.