never been to spain

You may now safely add that song to the list of Three Dog Night tunes that you’ll probably never again catch me whistling with any authority. You may thank Iberian Airlines for that favor.

There is no need to refresh your computer in disbelief- I’m actually in Europe. The deal is that my wife lived here once for a year after college, and has since wanted to return on vacation before she turned 35. Thus, here we are. Since I honestly don’t deserve a vacation after spending the entire summer “working” at the ballpark, catching a week of fall ball in Phoenix, then popping up to Denver to catch a World Series game, this trip is intended to serve as a “Cultural Unit” in my continued home schooling experience.

What was my honest first impression upon landing at the airport here in Madrid? Jesus, am I ever thankful to be off that airplane!

The next thing that stuck in my mind was a children’s “ride”/photo booth on the airport concourse in the shape of a tiny fiberglass biplane. I was intrigued by the fact that the ride had buttons that could be pushed to create simulated sounds of machine gun fire and dropping bombs… in an AIRPORT! For crying outloud… am I the only person who remembers “three-one-one?”

My third impression as we rode into the city center was how eerily beautiful this enormous cemetery was laid out along a hillside, before being peppered with headstones and aboveground crypts. I don’t know if we will have time to visit that place before we leave. Even if we did, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have “enough” time to offer it the thorough inspection it deserves.

My already odd sleep pattern has been completely thrown out of whack by the traveling. For instance, I just woke up at 5:00 am local time. Like, huh?

I’d been having one of the strangest dreams, so I’ll probably be better off awake for a while. In the dream I was sitting in a small café minding my own business when Weird Al Yankovic approached me and asked if I wanted to help him write a spoof song. Actually, he called it a parody, but I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

He mentioned that he was feeling down, and that he could only find joy by collaborating on a song with a random Spaniard. I offered that I was not a Spaniard, but instead from Albuquerque. Pausing for a moment to sniff the air and taste it with what appeared to be a slightly forked tongue, Weird replied, “That explains the smell of root beer.” Following a moment of silence punctuated by an accordion rim shot, he added, “Old Spain, New Spain… what’s the difference?” In the real world, I could have listed at least seven, but unsure whether he was in my dream or I was in his, my mind drew a blank.

Given Al’s great depression, I recommended that we retool Yip Harburg’s 1931 classic “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?” Either he though it a great idea, or he didn’t care enough to argue. For the title, we settled on, “”Buddy Can You Spare a Euro?”

Now that I’m awake, I find that I am unable to recall the majority of the lyrics that we had hashed out. I assure you that we had a fantastic time, and Weird was all smiles- even when the bartender would carve off slices of Al’s hair and serve it to customers as top’ums with their beer. These are the only lyrics that I remember:

Once I wrote a blog. I wrote it well, constructed it with rhymes.
Once I wrote a blog, it was swell. Buddy can you spare eighteen dimes?

Overall, I would not hesitate to rate the dream at least an 8. After all, at least I didn’t dream about standing at the baggage claim carousel counting suitcases.