C’est La Vie et C’est Jolie (Part IV)

I kept staring at the page without actually reading the words. I finally realized I had been doing that for quite some time and thought it would be a good idea to flip to another page so that my prince didn’t think I was a slow reader. As I turned to the next page and tried to keep pretending to read, I got a little frustrated and abruptly closed the book. My prince turned to me and said, “¿La música te disturba?” He asked me if the music was disturbing me.
I replied quickly that it didn’t at all. How could anything coming from him disturb me? How in the world would I be disturbed by his presence? He then said he could lower the volume if it was too loud and annoying. I said he didn’t have to do that at all; that I was tired of reading and eager to finally arrive in Madrid.
“Is it your first time in Madrid?” He asked.
“Yes, I am very excited to visit Spain for the first time.”
“Nice! You are going to love it. Madrid is a very dynamic and fun city.”
“Are you from Madrid?”
“No, I am from Valladolid, but I live in Madrid because I go to college there.”
“Oh OK. What is your major?”
“I’m studying Economy, but I actually like to paint… I do that sometimes when I have time. I also like to read poetry.”
Could he be dreamier than anything in this world?
“Really? What is your favorite poem or poems?” I asked very intrigued yet thrilled.
“Well, I don’t have a favorite poem per se, but I like ‘El seminarista de los ojos negros’ by Miguel Ramos Carrion.”
This is an amazing poem that I learnt in middle school and talks about this girl who is in love with a seminarist with black eyes and slender, tall figure covered by his black gown. It’s such a romantic yet sad story because the seminarist dies mysteriously and the girl ends up being old and alone because she never got to be with the love of her life.
My prince then said that he had learnt it by heart because he just loved it. I asked him immediately to recite it for me. As he was reciting it with his Spanish accent, I thought that was a very delightful moment that I would never forget in my life. Suddenly I thought I was probably asking too many questions and stopped talking. My heart that had been beating normally during the conversation with my prince started to beat faster again. I thought I had to do something to keep our chatting going.
“What were you doing in Rome?” I asked at the same time I was thinking the question could have been too abrupt and inappropriate.
“I just was there visiting for the first time, and you?”
“Same.”
Great answer! That’s going to keep the conversation going. I had to come up with another question:
“What did you like about Rome?” I asked thinking I would probably have looked obvious that I still wanted to talk to him.
“Everything! Rome is… Rome!” He smiled. “What about you?”
“Well, everything too. But Villa Borghese was the best of all. It is amazing how in the middle of this immense and busy city you can find such a peaceful and inspiring place. I wish I could live there and have the whole time in the world to read and write unaware about the world and its issues… the people and their problems. I would probably forget that I had to come back to work and wake up every day to face my problems and the try to solve the problems of others. I could forget that times goes by so quickly that as a fast as a blink, a whole life could be taken away…”
As I was talking, he was nodding as though he could identify with what I was saying. His eyes brightened even more and his smile could not have been more enchanting. I stopped and smiled at him and told him that I was a cheesy dreamer and builder of fictional, surreal images of the world in my head. He told me that he too liked doing that randomly pretending the world was his to play with. Suddenly, the sign to fasten our seat belts came on and the pilot was announcing we were close to landing on the Barajas Airport. My prince told me he didn’t feel the two-hour flight thanks to our conversation. I smiled shyly and nodded stupidly. Finally, as we had landed perfectly and were waiting for the flight attendants to open the doors, he said that if I wanted to, we could meet at a bar before I left Madrid. I just said, “Yeah, it’d be nice!” and smiled. But in my head I was jumping and crying out of excitement as though I had won the lottery. He took out a pen that read “Viva Italia” in red letters and asked me for a piece of paper so that he could write down his name and phone number. I quickly grabbed my book and handed it to him.
He smiled at me and shook my hand, “It has been nice talking to you. Give me a call.” He winked at me and stood up to get his little handbag that had put in the overhead compartment. I held my book closed to my chest as though the very Garcia Marquez has autographed it. I didn’t want to look at his handwriting too soon because I didn’t want him to think I was so desperate. After all, I was acting cool!

C’est La Vie et C’est Jolie (Part III)

Picture taken by Monica Colon

Oh his smile! I wished I could have frozen the time to admire him forever. My hands were sweaty and my feet cold. I wanted to talk to him, but my lips could not stop smiling. The moment was awkward, and he continued walking toward the main door of the basilica. I saw him walk away from me. At that moment I knew the chances to finally meet and talk with my prince were almost impossible to happen. I was very disappointed and frustrated. I hated myself for being so shy. Suddenly, I had this impulsive feeling to run after him and tell him something… My friends found me. They were upset because I took my own route and left them behind. I apologized to them; nonetheless, I still wanted to leave them behind and run after my prince. After taking some pictures and walking around the basilica, we decided we were hungry. So, we left the church and walked away from the Vatican.
We ended up at Piazza del Poppolo and ate in “Babette Caffé & Ristorante,” an expensive restaurant but with excellent Italian food and wine. At that point, I did not care about my posture and eating manners. It was pointless pretending to be somewhat prince-like when my prince was not there. My friends noted my taciturn attitude and asked me what was wrong. I just smiled and said I was still amazed by the beauty of the Vatican and could not believe I was there. Nonetheless, my fake smile and deep sigh told the truth. My friends didn’t ask. They didn’t want my wandering and sadness to ruin their fun in Rome. I tried to keep up with their conversation about the romantic Rome during Christmas time. Suddenly, one of my friends asked me if I was homesick and missed my family. I nodded. That was a good excuse. I pretended to be sad by the fact it was Christmas, and my family was on the other side of the world.
I realized then how sad it was to actually spend my time and energy thinking about someone and be so obsessed about him to the point I forgot about my family; the people who always have been and will be there for me when I need them. In my head, I had created a fictitious person whom I thought was interested in me when in the real world, he probably had not even noticed me at all. How sad it was that moment of realization about my lack and need of love for someone that only existed in my head. It was sadder to realize that I had spent almost a whole paycheck on this trip and flown for about ten hours to understand I needed love. I had to stop thinking about that; otherwise, my whole trip would have been ruined by my pathetic thoughts. Therefore, I decided to keep having fun and visit the rest of la romantica Roma with my friends.
On our last two days in Rome, we visited Il Pantheon, Il Museo Vaticano, Piazza di fiori, where we ate a wonderfully and gloriously delicious gelato, and finally, Piazza di Spagna, Trastevere, and Villa Borghese Park, which was the last place we visited before we left Rome. We walked for hours admiring the tranquility and freshness of the park inside a very busy city. We felt as though Rome was giving us a break from the other tourists and the amazing buildings that have been touched by so many people during so many centuries. This park was the good-bys and the come-back-soon from this dreamy city. At that point, I was resigned to keep on my journey to Spain. I had to leave my prince behind with Rome and just keep this amazing adventure in my journal as a simple nice Europe-trip story.
At the Fiumicino Airport, my friends and I were waiting to depart to Madrid. We were going to spend New Year’s Eve there. We could not be more excited about that. After two hours waiting, we finally boarded the plane and found our seats, one in each row. I wished my friends to have a nice trip and sat down on the seat next to the window. I pulled out my book, “Love in Times of Cholera” by Garcia Marquez- one of my favorite authors, and started to read where I had left off: “To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he…” I was interrupted by this person who was putting his luggage in the overhead compartment. I could not see his face till he sat down. I closed the book, sat up straight, and fixed my glasses. It was my prince! It was him sitting next to me. Good heavens! My heart started beating like crazy and my blood stopped flowing to my legs as they froze. NO! This time I was not going to act like an idiot! Destiny, or rather, sublime Destiny had brought my prince back to me to give me a last chance to hide my shyness and act… “cool.” Dear Lord! What is cool anyway? Would that help catch his attention? “Sagrado Corazón, ¿que hago?” I thought. I sighed heavily and reopened my book to pretend to be reading again: “but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.”

“¿Pero lees García Marquez?” My prince asked with his tender, Spaniard, and masculine voice.

“Santo Dios del Cielo, he is asking me something. I need to respond now! Say something for crying out loud! Be cool though! Cool? Gosh! Stop talking to yourself and answer him the damned question!”
“Si, García Marquez es mi escritor favorito.” I told him as serene as I could ever have possibly been considering that he was so close to me.

“¡Vaya, que bien!” He replied as he took out his earphones to listen to his music.

I thought, “Great! This is just perfect! He’s going to listen to his music, and this is the end of the conversation.” Somehow, I felt relieved that he was not going to continue asking me questions, but at the same time, I really wanted him to keep talking to me so that I could continue admiring his prince-like face and voice with a seductive Spanish accent. I kept reading without actually paying attention to the story. My eyes were just staring at the page while my mind was set up on wanting him to keep asking me questions. The plane took off.