Spotting the spaniard

by ABRAHAM LOPEZ SOTO (Spain)

A leap into the unknown Poland

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"Insane" is the word that comes to my mind during my staggering ascent towards my hotel room after some pints. It's insane how beautiful everyones is here. The polish cliché of a mustached man married to a chubby woman with pink cheeks talking incomprehensibly doesn't apply at all. I came to work for six months so my first objective was to find accommodaion. I always try to blend in with the inhabitants when travelling. But apparently there's nowhere to go if you don't speak the language, which is extremely rude in my opinion. They always spot me: "Are you spanish?"They ask me, for me to reply "-tak, tak" with the childish disappointment like when hearing obligation laughs after your joke. So when I return to my room, I realize evidence that marks me as a Spaniard. The obvious one may be my deicsion regarding long warm clothes. "You're going north, Abraham. It's always cold, even in summer". Beginner's assumption. Actually, Wroclaw is the sunny pearl of Poland. Well, tonight I'll sleep in my birthday suit. Pinky promise. In order to visit the flat you're interested in it's usually quite useful to be able to actually find the doorway. Well, in that case bear in mind that Wroclaw uses a non phytogirean street number system. That advice would have been quite useful if I hadn't had to call my contact three times to primise him that I was exactly where the number 22 should be (usually, between the 20th and 24th). It is known that saying "dzien dóbry" as you pass three times by the same couple of grandmothers chatting at the bakery is hard on your self-esteem. I felt like I was looking for the Order of the Phoenix's lair. When the landlord came to my rescue, the grannies ended up laughing and greeting me. So, every cloud has a silver lining. The complex history of this city is plainly visible in many facades. This was the old Breslau of Germany with all the implications of 20th Centyru politics. For now, the next landlord is Mr. T, who guides me through one of those old wooden gates. He crosses a sober German-style corridor that disappears through a door I take for the laundry room. It actually is the main entrance. While he walks me through his tiny floor and I pretend to be intersted to live in Bag End, he tells me how much he likes my country. Once again, no questions asked, he knows. He tells me something about a broken ankle in San Sebastián but I am wondering wheter to tell him something about the quantum jump between the pictures on the website and what I see. It took me just one day to unlearn everything I thought I knew about a minimum layout dimensions required in a flat. And I did it well because otherwise I would have been freaked out by a triangular room. He doesn't even introduce me to the old tenant. After knocking on the door, the tiny guy lets me in, and in doing so we are then centimeters away from each other. I ask him his name and wjy is he leaving. This tiny mate with dark eyes and close-cropped hair answers me with all the innocent sincerity of youth: -Too small for me. Stunned, I look back to my one hundred sixty-five centimeters tall mate. I measure one meter eighty-one. At the end of the day, I maintain that little things trascend language: how the pretty waitress I was already looking at was already noting my efforts to bite into a piece of cake too big to say "hi", and how we laugh. Another gave me a knowing look when placing an advert of their new drink: "Sangria Gosé". Or how the recepcionist compliments my tireless will to speak polish... And there I am opening my door when I realize -or I decide to believe- the reason why they spot me as spanish: every time I show shyness for not speaking their language, and I try anyway to use it, their eyes seem to shine and ask me, "czy jestés hiszpanem"?