Weekend in the mountains...Asturias, Spain

Not sure when or why exactly, but over the course of the day I decided that the best way to ensure my preparedness for the following morning would be to sleep at the house of those who'd arranged the whole trip. A good enough presumption, except that it was Friday, and nothing really occludes the festivities. So I threw some clothes in a bag and had a few drinks. Time miraculously flew and I was just able to throw the last of my weekend accessories in before heading out to the center with some of the boys to celebrate the weekend. It was between 2 and 3am that I made it to Natalia's flat to yell her name from the street because my phone was dead. But I made it to her couch and considered my plan successful as I lay my head on the pillow to sleep.

In the morning I rose and reapplied my shoes and was more or less ready to go as coffee was brewed and teeth were brushed. We set the meeting at 8 in Plaza de España, where we waited a few minutes for those who had stayed at my flat and were bringing my things. Why I didn't stay there I couldn't explain, other than that I had had an idea and was convinced of its verity. By 9 the 7 of us were sat in the Mercedes bus and driving out of the city through Franco's grand militaristic portal, Moncloa. As we hit the base of the mountains clouds grew dark and wisps of rain glazed the windows making us nestle in our seats and coats and scarves and moan with stinging regret when we realized we'd forgotten treats for the ride.

All the way up through flat desert and plain we alternated sleeping and gazing and listing our top ten Madonna songs and speculating over the history of the castles and fortresses that punctuate the barren expanse of central Castilla y Leon. Past the fertile banks of the now brown Ribera del Duero wine oasis we broke out into sunlight and shortly after stopped for facilities. Water closets, cigarettes, coffees and eggs, we left refreshed and newly stocked for the drive. Mark the bearded Irishman footballer baron resumed his station behind the wheel while Kyle the Aussie accompanied his side. I sat behind with flatmate Sara and old friend fellow verbalizer Natalia, drinking wine from a goatskin and fierce liquor from crystalline flask freshly bought from the rest-stop gift shop. In the final row were Tahlei the Aussiette and her Madrileña compaña, Maria.

It was north of Burgos that the landscape began to shift. Hills grew up fast as the sky took on ancient tones of lead and stone and soon we were driving through flurries of snow around bulges and bends along the great the bellies of the Picos de Europa. Some of us had never seen these before but I remembered my awe and ocular joy in the final day of my great northern holiday when the bus snaked silently along the selfsame road. I turned to Sara and said, as sad as the endless central waste made me, the great lunges and peaks of the north made me happy. She replied that she now knew where to look for her first house. We all spun our heads round until Mark pulled the Benz over at 5000 ft and we leapt out into the cold to take fotos and gaze hungrily.

In the small towns we passed we considered the hour and realized that if we wanted to eat we'd have to find a place before the day grew too old and oven fires too cold. In one tiny outpost we turned off the road onto a path not wider than our bus and drove onto a small rise where Mark shouted, "Look, look! Real Grass!" Rain was falling and we hurried into a warm yellow and wood dining room to take a large table and the gazes of the other families spread throughout the room. The menu was simple, two options for starter and two for the main and we all went the same for seafood stew to begin and roasted lamb post stew. We laughed at nothing and passed wine and bread, slightly maddened by our journey and ready for lunch. The stew came in two great polished bowls and we meted out mussels and prawns and pieces of whitefish and crab with delicious golden broth to soak up with our bread. We watched some of us try educe the meat from narrow crab legs and peel the shells from prawns without losing any precious flesh until the bowls were removed and one great silver platter put down in their place that silenced all snickering and commandeered all attention. Glistening and steaming cuts of brown meat stood heaped upon more of itself upon fresh fried yellow potatoes all glazed in smooth gravy and singing to us each one our own names. We tried to maintain chivalry for a moment or two but people were soon leaning over the table to get more gravy soaked potatoes and warm tender meat. The rich flavors and textures were too good not to covet and we chewed like vikings and washed it down heartily with dark labeless red wine. In the end we sat lazy and slumped in our chairs, staring defeated at the remaining pieces of meat on the platter. For dessert we chose peaches or sweet cream and mixed them, and finished the wine and asked for the bill. Three courses plus bread and the wine, not even 8€ a head. I got a coffee to cut a hole through the food and brought my total to still below 9. Cheaper than sin and even still few of us had eaten so well yet since summer.

A few towns down we stopped to stock up for the weekend. The plan was, by the way, to have a cooking extravaganza, with courses and specialties by each of us. In the market we ran wild and bought vegetables breads meats and cheeses. Bottles of sidra, vermouth and wine. Back and forth to butchers and counters and shelves together and alone and when all was said and done we loaded some 8 or 9 bags with not quite 200€ of food in the back of the bus to get us through less than two days.

The roads got smaller and towns became villages became hamlets became single houses. In the fading light feeling quite silly and beat we finally found the last road we needed to take. A narrow concrete drive, snaking up along a hill, by pastures and gullies and alongside a house, where I got out to get air and met the ancient woman who tended the farm. I walked with her and she smiled at me gushing about the grass and the trees and her shoes. She wore large wooden clogs with four wooden pegs for soles that she said kept her feet dry in the field. I fell in love with her then as she clopped up the hill with me, wrinkled white and soft and clop clopping away.

At the house I heard the girls ooahh-ing inside and I was hit all at once by the gaze of the old husband and the smell of his woodstove. I could have died right there in the misty dusk, standing by the corn hut elevated on posts and smelling the smell that makes me believe there's power to the word "home". Small clusters of lights on the mountainside far in the distance past the apple orchard cascading down the hillside down into darkness. The ancients welcomed us and introduced their three bushy dogs who eyed us with skeptical interest from afar. I asked the man what his beautiful cat was named. "Quien, el? Ella? No se sabe. Gato." Cat uncurled and disappeared into the house.

Unpacked and stretched we put the alcohol out on a table by the door to chill in the night cool and the three boys set themselves to building fire. The girls sat inside and poured themselves drinks. I asked the man about wood and he led me to the space under the orio, the aforementioned corn shed, where sawdust, kindling, logs and an axe resided. He axed a few branches and asked if I was alright. I watched him replace the axe and told him yes. For the next hour we went back and forth from fireplace to axe and wood supply in varying degrees of excitement and confidence, with a fire smoking and burning always just a grade too small and when we finally gave up realizing it would do little more than melt our marshmellows while our toes all went numb we packed it all into the kitchen ready for the light dinner to follow our still-felt lunch.

Again the girls sat and sipped wines by the glass, enjoying the enthusiasm with which the boys toiled. Kyle set to work on his own house hummus and I employed mark to help me prep my signature spinach and beet salad. We chopped and mashed and squeezed and mixed until we had two beautiful bowls of salad and spread. All sat at the table and passed bottles around while plates went full of green purple and light brown. The hummus was spot on and the salad was good, but I learned then the danger of overdoing the beet. But joy was still plenty and the bottles still high in number and once forks stopped moving plates were cleared and space made for the games. Talking all the while and sipping with each pause, we started with jenga, modified of course for imbibing. Pieces had numbers and to each assigned a meaning, whether one must drink their own drink or command another to instead, the game goes well and struggles little to achieve its aim. In fact, the last thing I remember is toppling the tower for perhaps its third or fourth collapse. That's when, I'm told, I followed suit. And thus I turned in, or rather was turned, and rested my bones for the first full day of rural respite.