Alcalá la Real

On Friday my (Californian) friend Luc and I went with two of our Spanish friends, Rafa and Alina, to visit Rafa’s pueblo, Alcalá la Real. We met Rafa and Alina in last semester’s Geolinguistics class (making friends was about all that class was good for), and this semester we’ve been hanging out a lot. One day we decided it would be fun to take a day trip to Rafa’s town, since he lives only an hour away by bus and his town is historically significant in the conquest of the Reyes Católicos and such (a huge part of Spain’s past).

We left Friday morning and when we arrived in Alcalá we went directly to a café for breakfast. The town is in the province of Jaén, which is one of the two most famous provinces in all of Spain for producing olive oil, so naturally we doused our tostadas in about a cup of liquid gold. I vow to never eat toast with butter again. 

A little bread, a little tomato, a lot of oil

Then we set off to explore the fortress, perched high up on a hill overlooking the pueblo. It was beautiful and empty, so we had the place all to ourselves. We then went to lunch, where once again we took advantage of the olive oil sitting out on the tables. One of my favorite things about Spain is hanging out and just chatting for hours during a meal.

Luc, Rafa, Me, Alina

After lunch we went to the museum in the town, which honestly just had a lot of very old rocks. However, even old rocks are really fun when you’re in great company, joking and realizing the fact that you can have close friends and meaningful conversations thousands of miles and vocabularies away from what you’re used to.

Alina, Rafa, Me

Alina, Me, Luc on the fortress

Since most things in this culture center around conversation with food or drink, we ended the day with coffee and more chatting. Life is hard.

I had a great time in Alcalá la Real. The town is charming, but spending the entire day with genuine friends, whether in Granada or elsewhere, is the best part of the whole experience. I really never thought I would get so proficient in a second language as to be able to make real friends outside of the discoteca scene, but there we were, eating oil and examining rocks and climbing fortresses like four peas in a pod. (As Luc so eloquently put it, in high school we learned the subjunctive tense for the basic “Yo quiero que Juan venga a la fiesta,” and now we’re employing it in social settings to convey such phrases like “Que te den.”)