We’re rocketing through the Aragon in a time machine. It’s actually an “alta velocidad” (high speed) train operated by Renfre, Spain’s national rail system.
According to the odometer at the other end of the coche (car), we’ve reached a speed of 300 kilometers an hour.
My wife and I had our first serious vacation disagreement about this. She says 300 kilometers an hour is roughly 180 mph American. I tried explaining the math to her – how it was necessary to break it down into millimeters first, then converting it into psi before building it back into the average American mpg. In this particular case, I said the exact speed didn’t matter. What mattered is that we didn’t need a cow catcher on the train. If we hit it going this fast, a cow would simply vaporize.
I looked it up later. We were both right. The high-speed train we booked out of Barcelona for Zaragoza reached a top speed of 186.41 mph. If we hit a cow, we certainly didn’t notice.
Zaragoza is located northwest of Barcelona in the more arid Aragon region. It’s similar to Catalonia in that it’s technically a part of Spain, but different in that the Aragon is not quite so snotty about it. Like most European countries, Spain is a collection of former kingdoms, regions, principalities, fiefdoms and medieval HMOs, put and held together by the sword and rampant royal inbreeding. Seriously, the histories of these places read like Monty Python sketches.
But the history I’m interested in now is my own. We’re heading back to the place I lived as a kid, to see how the old neighborhood is doing. I’m nervous. What if I discover that I should have stayed there?
In a notebook balanced on my knee is a running tally of the things I see outside that remind me of the Spain I lived in from 1958-1961. The flashing imagery is comforting: farms, vineyards, tile roofs, lemon trees, stone walls, olive groves, and dusty villages wrapped around churches.
We landed in Spain on January 3, 1958. I was only five at the time, so I don’t remember the exact date. I had to look that up as well. Actually, I asked my father before we left. He was full of all sorts of information about the years we spent abroad. He warned me about returning to Spain, that there might still be warrants out for me there.
When the Kirbys arrived in Spain, we traveled from Barcelona to Madrid and then to Zaragoza, where we rented an apartment on El Paseo Fernando El Catolico. The old man made the trip from the city to the American air force base outside of town.
I started school in Zaragoza. Kindergarten and first grade were spent in American classrooms held in a Spanish orphanage. I’d catch the bus in front of the panaderia (bakery) across the street. My friends as school were Mike, Perkins, and Joe.
We arrive in Zaragoza roughly two hours after leaving Barcelona. The city is just like I don’t remember it. Seriously, how much can you remember from your extreme youth? A kid’s head isn’t big enough to hold serious details.
I remember money though. When we arrived in Spain the first time, the monetary unit was the “paseta.” I remember this because it took half a Mason jar of them before I could afford to buy a gun that shot real corks. I plugged my little brother in the head with it and knocked him right off a rocking horse just like John Wayne shooting Indians. He still has the scar in his eyebrow.
Today, the monetary unit in Spain is the Euro. In ’58 the exchange rate was 46 pasetas to the U.S. dollar. It takes a buck sixty to buy a Euro. The cab ride to the old neighborhood from the train station costs $25.
The city looks the same except that there are a lot more foreigners. I find out from the driver that it’s because Zaragoza is hosting the International expo on clean water. Fifty years ago, we couldn’t drink water from the tap. The old man hauled drinking water to our apartment in a larger glass jug wrapped in a wicker basket.
17 Paseo Fernando El Catolico, Segundo, al la derecha is just like we left it, except that it’s a lawyer’s office now. Great. Perfect.
The place is locked and no one answers the bell. My wife and I cross the street (asphalt now instead of cobblestone) and sit in the park (tiles instead of sand) on benches that have to be the same.
We spent an hour in the park, an hour remembering nearly four years. The panaderia is a bank now and the kiosk where we bought peanuts and toys is gone. But if I tilt my head just so, and catch the angle of the sun in the right way, I can almost see Mike and Perkins and me waiting for the bus. I can even hear Nieves, our maid, yelling for me to come home.
People say you can never go home. You can if you try hard enough. You just have to ask yourself if it’s worth it—then add 40 percent for the exchange rate.