So tomorrow is the biggest holiday I celebrate after New Year’s. I hope I don’t have to remind everybody why it is so meaningful to me. I find it extremely considerate of the American people to have such a huge yearly celebration in honor of my arrival on the continent.
Today I want to share my memories of the most curious 4th of July celebrations I’ve had.
On July 4, 2001, I was in Valladolid, Spain, at my first international conference. We stayed at a former convent that had an enormous iron gate that still closed at sundown and restricted our social lives to a great extent. We slept in former nuns’ cells. These were tiny, very narrow rooms with big windows in the doors. This meant that anybody passing down the hallway at night would see you lying in bed. Dressing and undressing was a very complex affair because there was not an inch of privacy in those little rooms.
We were students, constantly out of money and always hungry. The former convent served meals but every dish was covered with a blanket of salt that crunched on our teeth when we ate. Even in the absence of nuns, the convent was still stubbornly trying to mortify its inhabitants’ flesh.
The professor who brought us to the conference took pity on us and told the owner of the bar located in the same building where the conference was held to put everything we ordered there on his bill. There was this really fresh and amazing jamon serrano served with bread that was still hot from the oven and tiny cups of coffee, and this was what we subsisted on.
I’d planned a huge celebration for July 4th and even set aside some money for a real meal at a real restaurant. I was traveling with my Venezuelan friend Leticia and her daughter and I warned them that it was hugely important to celebrate the occasion in style.
In the morning, we visited several sessions at the conference and then passed by our favorite bar. Of course, Leticia just had to choose this moment to see a very cute guy and decide to hit on him.
“Can you take Vivien home?” she asked. I will get the guy’s number and see you in half an hour.”
Twelve hours later, there was still no Leticia and I was impotently trying to prevent her seriously hyperactive 9-year-old from razing the entire neighborhood to the ground. I had no experience with hyperactive kids, and Vivien’s pills (as well as her clothes and toys) were locked in her convent cell which could only be opened with the key Leticia had on her.
All of the money I’d saved for the fancy meal went to pacifying the irate Vivien who decided it would be fun to humiliate as many passersby as possible. The breaking point for me was when she saw a teenager with Down’s Syndrome and started yelling, “Hey, look at the retard! Let’s take pictures of him to show everybody.”
I managed to drag Vivien back to the convent even though she was yelling, “This is not my mother! This is a stranger who kidnapped me! Help! She wants to abuse me!” Passersby would stop but, as good luck would have it, Vivien and I look very much alike, so I had no trouble persuading people that she was my kid.
Leticia came back to the convent at 2 am. “This was the best day ever!” she said. “I haven’t had such a relaxing time in forever. Wait, where are you going?” she asked as I stormed off.
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