Passion for Spain & Latin America

Amanda Wiggert McCarthy

The call came as I was running out the door, to my summer waitressing job in London. Bollocks, I thought, as I raced back to grab the phone. And so it all began. “Amanda, it’s Professor Mckay”. Oh dear. What could my history teacher from Edinburgh University want with me mid summer and how on earth had he tracked me down to my brother’s sofa? “I’m calling to tell you that you are going to Salamanca next year on some new EU wheeze called Erasmus. I forgot to pick anyone last term. Going to take the first three I find who speak Spanish. ¿Tú hablas español, no?”

Not really, would have been the honest answer to that. My parents were living in Chile at the time and I’d worked in a sandwich bar in a ski resort there the previous summer. But from “hamburguesa con fritas” to “Renacimiento y Baroque” was quite a leap. “Salamanca. Is that in South America?” “Salamanca. Is that in South America?” “No, Spain, middle of nowhere” came the reply. “You’re number 3. Have a nice summer”.

So it was I landed in Salamanca, didn’t study very much history at all, contrary to eager expectation fell not for a Latin lover but a German 10 years my senior and set up the language school we were to run for 30 years.

I love Spain. The whole caboodle. The large places and the tiny ones. The sierras and the costas, food markets and tapas bars. The sun.

The Spaniards: Generous, noble, prickly proud of Spain in a way that makes me want to give them a cuddle. Light and laughy for daily usage, they are also serious steady friends.

This blog is homage to times spent with them: at football stadiums, restaurants and markets. In the kitchens, txokos and tapas bars. In the streets and squares and cafés. Up the mountains, by the sea.

I’m so grateful the stars aligned and I got to be number three.