20 years ago today – Day 34

April 6 – train to Sevilla and back

I am up while it’s still dark and Mike still in bed. I am walking through Malaga to the train station. The Saturday morning streets are quiet but not empty. They are full of shadows, crazies and misfits. Like creatures of the forest, they keep their distance but I am on my toes. The train station is quiet too. There are many people but they aren’t talking much at this hour. I buy my ticket for the 6:30 am train to Sevilla and wait.

The train is mostly full. I am sitting across from two men. One is my age, in his mid-30s , and the other is mid-twenties, darker and more attractive. Just by the way the confer with each other about everything I assume they are a couple. The older fellow is definitely English, judging by his accent, and the younger is German. They ignore me as they go over a guide to Sevilla together.

When the younger fellow goes for a walk, I strike up a conversation with the Englishman. His name is Vic and the German is Andre, though Vic calls him Andy. A week ago they started an intensive Spanish class in Malaga together. It will run for five more weeks and they are using the weekends to explore the area. Like me, they are on a day trip to Sevilla. The younger one returns from his walk and eyes me suspiciously as he sits down. He and Vic keep to themselves again.

The weather is lovely again and the scenery is enthralling as the train crosses the mountains into the Guadalquivir River valley. My first visit to Sevilla with its Semana Santa festivities seems like a month ago but it has only been ten days since our first full day there.

We arrive an hour late, leaving me only 45 minutes to pick up my mail and catch the return train. As we are getting off, Vic asks where they can find the Tourist Office. I lead them there. It is near the post office. I am acting like a hurried tour guide. It’s strange how this city I barely know feels like an old friend. The day Mike and I rode into it seems like a month ago, and yesterday at the same time. It was actually eleven days, something I figured out on the train. Andy is suddenly warm to me as we stop in front of the cathedral, and his sweetness shines through. I realize what I took for aloofness was actually shyness. I’d like to hang out with them but I have no time to linger. We say our goodbyes.

There are five (count them!) letters waiting for me at Poste Restante. I only have time to check who they are from – Mom, Seph, Mark (a fellow I was dating just before I left) and two other friends. What a thrill, just to know that people are thinking about me! I am on Cloud 9.

I spend the trip home reading and re-reading them, especially Mark’s because he obviously misses me. Three military men, two navy and one air force, crowd into my booth as the train fills up. They are boisterous and silly and not at all attractive, except maybe the air force cadet who is far too young to possess any sense of poise. One of them speaks a few words of English and tries to talk with me but can’t say anything intelligent. I am relieved when they get off before Malaga. A young, attractive woman takes their place. She is a social work student who has just finished her studies and is on her way to meet forty other students in Tenerife in the Canary Islands, her first trip outside of Spain.

The train arrives at 4:30 and I meet Mike back at the room at 5, as we had agreed last night. I ask him what he did today and he just shrugs and says ‘the usual’, as if he is usually in Malaga. He says he didn’t see anything worth recommending. I get this visual of him with his hot pink sunglasses walking around the city with his map, guide book and his camera slung over his shoulder, looking ripe for a mugging.

We snack, walk around the city for two hours – he’s right, there isn’t much extraordinary here other than the weather – and have a light dinner in a café. When we get back to the room, I spend the last hour before bed writing a letter to an ex-boyfriend Seph.