SPANISH ACCENT OR SPEECH IMPEDIMENT? DISCUSS.

                Mr. DouGall sent us on our way with a box full of bottling “mistakes” or “over/unders” as they call them back home.  It’s whenever the manual bottler either over fills or under fills a bottle they usually just get set aside to give away or for employees to drink.  We hit the road, thankfully that we have a tour manager who gets paid to drive us around.  As we head to Zaragoza the landscape changes to more of what I expect Spain to look like.  It’s half wine country and half high elevation desert similar to eastern Washington state.  It’s different but still beautiful.

                Zaragoza is a stark contrast to Lierganes.  It’s a fairly large city and our hotel is an extremely nice one downtown with the biggest beds that we have had on tour.  The club itself is really nice.  It’s definitely a rock and roll club/bar that is dark with pictures of rock bands and guitar players all over.  The stage was very small and we were cramped but the sound was awesome.  The promoter is named Alex and he takes us to a tapas restaurant.  I knew I would love it when we got there.  The place looked like shit on the outside, but the interior was very warm and welcoming.  Wood paneling and white table clothes would occupy the interior while a bar stood in front of a line of hanging Chorizo sausages and other cured or dried meat. 

            This meal was my favorite so far and not just because of the food.  The whole Spanish attitude towards food is so different than what we are used to.  For Alex it was as much about the socializing as it was about the food.  There was no menu.  Food was just brought out in courses for everyone to share.  The pacing was very slow and relaxed allowing for time to talk and get to know each other.  From start to finish we were there for well over two hours.  They brought out several bottles of good Spanish red wine first, then a salad with endive, olives, tuna fish, carrots, egg, and cabbage. The next course was a selection of various sausages and chorizo with cheese and bread.  Then more wine.  The main course was a traditional Spanish dish of rice mixed with pig’s blood, fried potato slices, and fried egg.  I think it was call Murcilla.  As horrible as it sounds I thoroughly enjoyed it. We all did, except for Marco.  Growing up in Italy, pig’s blood is somewhat common and he was forced to eat it as a child so he hates it.  It just means that there is more to go around for the rest of us.  We follow this with more wine and then dessert.  Dessert was like tiny little Klondike bars covered with whipped cream and chocolate sauce.  By this point we are pretty drunk and absolutely stuffed so they bring out a “digestive” shot.  It turns out to be shots of a very sweet and somewhat thick white wine.  After some coffee we finally stumbled out with only twenty minutes to go before we have to hit the stage.  Once again I’m wishing I could play lying down.

            The show was really great.  It was a small room that was packed with a lively crowd.  We played well considering all the rich food and wine we had ingested at dinner.  After our set we sold merch and started hanging out with the locals.  We met a girl named Shelan and her boyfriend Alex.  They were super cool and spoke English fairly well.  We took the opportunity to practice our horrible Spanish and had a really fun drunken conversation.  I’ve heard about how people from Spain have a lisp when they talk, but I had no idea how pronounced it would be.  The letters c, s, and z are all pronounced as a “th” sound here.  Imagine a Spanish speaking Sylvester the cat.  After a while, Shelan and Alex said they wanted to take us to another bar where they had some friends, so we packed up our gear and started walking with those two, Alex (the promoter), and some other people from the show.  We dropped Whit and Bj off at the hotel because they didn’t want to go out and then the rest of our group went to a cool local bar. 

            It was a small spot, but it had a cool atmosphere and a Dj.  Shelan seemed to know lots of people at the bar and she also knew the Dj so she told him a bunch of Americans were with her and to play American music.  Marco tells us that Americans are kind of exotic in this area and that’s why there was such a fuss about us being there.  I remember thinking his music selection was funny, but by the next morning none of us can remember what he played.  We were too busy talking to everyone who knew any English at all.  I met a girl named Reyes who was very excited to practice speaking English. I was embarrassed because her name is pronounced with a rolling “r” and for the life of me I can’t make that sound.  I sound like an old cat purring while having a stroke.  We decide to go by her nickname of “queen” which works much better for me.  Shelan thinks it’s funny that I can’t make that sound so she keeps yelling “Ryan” with the most exaggerated rolling “r” that I’ve ever heard.  Reyes tells me she just got a job in Detroit that she starts in a few weeks.  I reassure her that her English is great and that she will love it.  I decide not to tell her Detroit is a shithole.  The whole night is basically stupid conversations like this, half of it lost in translation, but we are happy for the new company.  It’s what I love about touring: meeting strangers at the beginning of the night and saying goodbye to what feels like old friends at the end.  This particular night ended at four thirty when we finally decided we had enough so we said our goodbyes and went back to the hotel.  I slept like a baby.