Thursday, June 29, 2006
Little Sister Arrives Today.
Today we have visitors. My sister Yvonne and her husband John, after driving around Spain and Portugal are staying for a couple of nights. Nothing unusual about that you say, it happens all the time.
Well, not to expats it doesn't. Visits are few and far between and are meant to be savoured. Who was it said that an expatriate is a foreigner in two countries: the one he lives in and the one he's left behind. The life of a person in a new land does not start like that. You don't arrive thinking that you are a foreigner or an outsider, (must read that book by Albert Camus) - its a feeling that unfortunately grows the longer you stay.
Does everyone feel the same? Unlike most of my countryman who live in this country I don't live in one of those British ghettos by the sea. And unlike them I have to speak Spanish to be understood for nobody around here speaks any english. So I thought that the occasional feeling of isolation had something to do with my struggles with the language but it seems not. I just recently finished a book by the american broadcaster and writer William Shirer, The Nightmare Years retelling his life in Germany and Europe in the 30's. His german appears to have been flawless as his exploits will show and it was therefore somewhat of a surprise to read that after 20 odd years he expressed exactly the same sentiments. That a foreigner can never truly feel at home in a foreign country. Once he realised that he went back home, to america.
So anyway, I've ended up doing the same thing as my father who lived in a foreign land for most of his life. Which I suppose would surprise him a little if he could think about it now which unfortunately he can't. But he was running away from a broken home, hard work in the fields for an un-loving step-mother and so he did what most of the Irish do, ran off to england at the age of 14.
But enough of gloom, lets go back to the beginning. I have always enjoyed the experience of meeting a friend ( or relation ) in a foreign land. The emotion of seeing someone you know far away from the normal places. And Spain has usually been the country where most of the meetings have occurred from way back in 1979 when I refused to go on holiday by plane and insisted on driving there. With no real idea where in Tossa del Mar that my friends were staying we met them straight away purely by chance riding their hired bicycles in the street as soon as we got there.
The most absurb arrangement ( and the more vague is usually the better ) has to be with my mate Keith - "see you at 12 by the startline" ( of the 1987 Austrian Grand Prix). Of course, with my spanish girlfriend passing the time of day with every stranger she meets we were extremely late and found Keith with his legs crossed dying to go for a pee but not wanting to lose his place by the fence right by the startline.
Happy Days. One of the joys of being older is the ability to look back at happy memories of different times before the world became so complicated. We know more, but seem to comprehend the human mind even less, and are stuck by the sense of time running too quickly through our fingers. We see more than ever with our eyes now wide open but with the sense that there's so much more to learn and understand and that the time allocated to us is fast running out.
Well, not to expats it doesn't. Visits are few and far between and are meant to be savoured. Who was it said that an expatriate is a foreigner in two countries: the one he lives in and the one he's left behind. The life of a person in a new land does not start like that. You don't arrive thinking that you are a foreigner or an outsider, (must read that book by Albert Camus) - its a feeling that unfortunately grows the longer you stay.
Does everyone feel the same? Unlike most of my countryman who live in this country I don't live in one of those British ghettos by the sea. And unlike them I have to speak Spanish to be understood for nobody around here speaks any english. So I thought that the occasional feeling of isolation had something to do with my struggles with the language but it seems not. I just recently finished a book by the american broadcaster and writer William Shirer, The Nightmare Years retelling his life in Germany and Europe in the 30's. His german appears to have been flawless as his exploits will show and it was therefore somewhat of a surprise to read that after 20 odd years he expressed exactly the same sentiments. That a foreigner can never truly feel at home in a foreign country. Once he realised that he went back home, to america.
So anyway, I've ended up doing the same thing as my father who lived in a foreign land for most of his life. Which I suppose would surprise him a little if he could think about it now which unfortunately he can't. But he was running away from a broken home, hard work in the fields for an un-loving step-mother and so he did what most of the Irish do, ran off to england at the age of 14.
But enough of gloom, lets go back to the beginning. I have always enjoyed the experience of meeting a friend ( or relation ) in a foreign land. The emotion of seeing someone you know far away from the normal places. And Spain has usually been the country where most of the meetings have occurred from way back in 1979 when I refused to go on holiday by plane and insisted on driving there. With no real idea where in Tossa del Mar that my friends were staying we met them straight away purely by chance riding their hired bicycles in the street as soon as we got there.
The most absurb arrangement ( and the more vague is usually the better ) has to be with my mate Keith - "see you at 12 by the startline" ( of the 1987 Austrian Grand Prix). Of course, with my spanish girlfriend passing the time of day with every stranger she meets we were extremely late and found Keith with his legs crossed dying to go for a pee but not wanting to lose his place by the fence right by the startline.
Happy Days. One of the joys of being older is the ability to look back at happy memories of different times before the world became so complicated. We know more, but seem to comprehend the human mind even less, and are stuck by the sense of time running too quickly through our fingers. We see more than ever with our eyes now wide open but with the sense that there's so much more to learn and understand and that the time allocated to us is fast running out.
// posted by daniel @ 12:30 pm 
