Grenadine turns into Granada

I have come to place where they sell tuna paté ready mixed with ketchup, and many men look like hedgehogs.

Goodbye Paris with your fur and your fizzy wine. Hello Granada. Neither Canada nor the Caribbean but apparently a nice place a bit upwards from Malaga in Esh-pane. Who knew?!

At least it starts well. Dad takes me all the way to Luton without even once telling me in pulses to “STOP. BEHAVING. LIKE. A. PIG!”. And even pays my excess weight charges (baggage not blubber.. I think. Thanks Ben!) to Easyjet.

On the plane, I sleep on the man next to me because he is soft. Soon, we are to land. Hola España! It all rushes back: Una cerveza por favor! Montañas! I do like mountains generally and these ones are particularly great. From the air, they look like piles of ash, squashable, moveable, manageable, like cat litter.

And then we touch down and I am in Spain. Flying’s funny like that. And dayyyyuum son! Or rather sun. It is hot in herre. 18 grados, papa! Mr. fur hat comes off.

I see unsmiling girls with thick eyeliner eating pizza-flavoured crispy puffs. I see signs in Spanish. Doner Kebap. Just a ‘p’ different, but it speaks volumes. Everything is new and strange. I am Ariel singing “I wanna be [pause] where the people are”. Or rather Aladdin and Jasmine where they’re on that carpet...

I am slapped out of this festive moment by arriving at Hostal AB. Where I am to stay. A pipe-cleaner of a girl leads me to my room. It has but one dying light bulb and the air tastes like cigarillo.

I am saved by a man called Paul Fox. Also at Durham, we know each other from Tonk Hector’s oral classes. We meet at the cathedral and even though a gypsy wearing a Kickers t-shirt tries to make me buy some heather, it is beautiful. Where my hostel is, is straight streets and high-rise buildings, with green and white plastic sunshades. But here the streets are thin and odd and cobbled and feel hand-drawn. We wander, we talk… and thar-she-blows! I find 50 euros on the floor!

Dinner is on me. A strange affair in a deserted pizza restaurant with a flamenco show. I’m not sure what I think about flamenco. It requires great bodily control and all that but it does rather make one look like a horse. It certainly makes this woman look like a horse. Her tufty pony tail does not help. But anyway, the best thing about the meal is that the food comes through the front door. A.k.a from another restaurant/ a man on the street.

The next day flat hunting begins. You find flats by reading adverts in the place in phone booth where prostitutes usually put their cards. I visit some crackers. A place that smells heavily of dog (there is a dog there) and cheap cheap banana sweets. A place with two Cypriot sisters of forty, with grey faces, grey dressing gowns and Malboro reds. A place that has no windows. Not a one. Not a single window. A place with windows… but Taiwanese midgets.

All of these places I see. None of these places I can bear. And it is Valentine’s Day. There was a time when I was 14 and got 2 cards through my door, and only half of them were from my dad. Now I am 22 and allein, ganz allein. In Host-hell AB.

Once again, I am saved by a man called Paul Fox. And an invention called buffet libre. Fresc Co is the Best Co in the world. Rafts of salad components, pizzas, soups, pastas, chicken in yellow sauce, little, bashed-up fruits, whippy desserts, beer, coffees and infusions : as much as you like, 10 euros. 10 piddly little eurons. And, as a Valentine’s day gift, a bottle of 8% abv Lambrusco Rosado given – given! Can you imagine! - to each couple. The hall (for it is a hall; of the church- rather than Harry Potter kind) pings with bottle pops, and happiness. Maybe not happiness for wives brought here 12 years running by sweaty husbands. But for Paul and I, and our many, many plates, happiness is here.


Fast-forward three days, and happiness is found in less edible, but better things. In lying on hot white stone in a park with strong sun on my back. In seeing “Mong. Because Mong is your friend” oil paints in the Chinese shop. In having found a good flat. With 2 Italians, a Spanish boy, a French girl, a sun terrace and no smell of dog/sweets. And in listening to Blazin’ Squad in my new yellow bedroom, writing this.