Flamenco, I have learned, is best viewed in a darkened back room. The tables that fill this room, each just large enough to support a copa de vino or two, are so numerous as to prevent moving from place to place other than by the slim catwalk near the bar.
The cafe crowd chatters until two men in black step onto the hardwood stage. One raises his hands and begins to clap deliberately as the other issues guttural notes from his throat. Then, another man, impossibly tall and gangly, steps onto the stage.
"Just wait-you're going to fall in love with him," Jess says, "as soon as he starts to dance."
His arms swoop and glide as his feet pound a rhythm, transforming him into a force of emotion.
I turn to Katie and nod as the crowd applauds. We look toward the front of the narrow room through a screen of upwardly curling cigarette smoke. A woman with a lace shawl and a long, frilly red dress comes onto the stage, and a hush descends.
Madrid is intoxicating. At once traditional (flamenco) and progressive (the wholly modern Centro de Arte Reina SofA-a), it has refreshingly wider boulevards, greener parks, tidier plazas and later nights than Florence. And since anyone who didn't study in Florence spent their semester abroad in Madrid, plenty of people had advice for my trip to Spain. "Check out the Rastro," "Go out one night in Barcelona," "See flamenco in Sevilla," they told me.
So I did.
Arriving from Madrid, Barcelona-with its modernista architecture and strange Catalan spelling-seems like a city underwater. For his Casa Batllo, Anton Gaudi created balconies that look like fish jaws and a roof shaped like a dragon. Even the sidewalk tiles are works of art. All along the Passeig de Gracia I feel I'm swaying.
Besides the sea, Barcelona is inspired by the night. We start with dinner close to midnight and move to Soph's favorite Thursday night spot on the beach, where we dance until closing time. Then to another place, up some stairs, champagne on ice, somebody bought a bottle, clinking columns of amber liquid and someone is dancing on the table and more dancing and mixers and....
Morning. I don't want to leave, but I have a ticket to Sevilla.
In that slow-moving town, the saffron from paella shows up on sidewalks and walls, complemented by arabesque tiles or matador-red trim. It goes without saying that bullfighting is part of life here: It was in the city's oval bullring that men began to fight bulls on foot, rather than from horseback.
Sevilla is like Charleston, but Spanish. It has the largest Catholic cathedral in the world and a Moroccan-style palace built for a Spanish king. On one of the narrow streets in the Santa Cruz area, we duck into a red door. It looks like it might open to a garage or a storeroom, but instead there are benches and benches of people waiting for more backroom flamenco. The woman in the red dress waits until every eye is on her. She begins to dance.
Studying away from the United States allows students to live in completely different places than anywhere else they may ever live. But one of the most rewarding aspects of spending a good chunk of time in any city (specifically, European) lies in leaving-that is, in the chance to travel through Europe from a European base. Thanks to no-frills airlines, the price of a decent dinner out in Florence can get you to Barcelona and back on the weekend.
I did not get to see or do everything I'd hoped for during my time in Spain. I didn't take a cafe con leche in Madrid's Plaza Mayor, and I can't believe I didn't make it to the Picasso museum in Barcelona. Each time I had to leave a city, I wondered if I was going too soon. Then, upon arriving in the next place, I would be happy I had moved on, only to experience the same regret when again I had to leave. This type of traveling is like tapas-you taste a little bit of everything, and by the time you find a dish you like, it's gone.
But it must be best, I think, to leave a place already wanting to return.
Where to next?
Emily Rotberg is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every other Monday.
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