There’s a Reason for Everything….

Today turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant day. As I normally do on Fridays (my days off), I slept in, cooked myself a small breakfast, got dressed and headed to the supermarket to get groceries for the weekend. I always go to the supermarket on Fridays during school hours because that’s the only time that I’m certain I won’t see a bunch of my students. Unfortunately though, I do sometimes see some of their parents.

After I made it back from the supermarket and put my groceries up I decided to walk down to the beach. The weather has been so sunny and warm lately and today was no exception. I did have to contemplate this for a while. Although I really wanted to walk down there, I was also thinking about the distance, the time and the fact that the kids would probably be getting out of school very soon and I would probably run into a lot of them. Eventually though, I decided that I just had to go. It was too beautiful outside and I felt that I should take advantage of living in a beach town before I have to go back to the states.

About 5 minutes after I began walking to the beach I noticed an older lady standing on the sidewalk looking at the bus schedule with a confused expression on her face. The reason why she stood out to me was because she was brown-skinned, and that’s just something that I don’t see every day in Jávea. As I started to walk past her she stopped me and asked me a question… in English. She asked if the bus stop was where she needed to be to go to the port and I told her that it was, but that the bus only came every hour. She then showed me a sheet of paper that she had with her containing the address of a hotel that she was going to be staying at and she asked if I knew where it was. I told her that I was familiar with the name of the road and that I knew that it was in the port area but I wasn’t exactly sure where. She said that she was just going to walk there and I showed her the direction to take.

After picking up on my American accent she asked where I was from. I gave her my usual response (the United States) and when she asked me what part I said Atlanta. “I’m from the states also,” she said, and she told me that she was from Florida. I was stunned. I haven’t met another American person in Jávea since I’ve been here. I didn’t immediately pick up on her accent because it sounded a little foreign. That’s when she told me that she was Dutch, but that she had been living in the states “since way before I was born.”

After talking and walking with her for a little while she told me thanks for the information and she encouraged me to go about my business. I had no problem walking with her but I decided to go on just because she said something about it so I put back on my earphones and continued walking to the beach. I glanced back at her a couple of times just to make sure that she was going in the right direction and then I kept thinking to myself, “What are you doing?” “You have just met a person who is black, speaks English and is from America.” How often does that happen in Jávea? NEVER.  I knew that I had to keep talking to her… just because.

After about 5 minutes of walking I immediately stopped and waited for her. When she saw me waiting there she looked pleased and said, “I’m glad you’re still here, which way do I go?” I told her that I would be happy to find the place with her and she told me that she would love my company. So we walked and talked the whole way to the port. When we finally got there it took us about 15 minutes to look for the place. The address that she had contained a name and a street but it didn’t have a building number. After asking a couple of people if they knew where the place was, trying to call the place with a number that went straight to voicemail and going in the wrong direction, we finally found the hotel that she was looking for. It was in a slightly hidden area.

Once we finally found the hotel we were faced with another problem, no one was there and the building was locked. We looked at the door which had the check-in and check-out times. The office supposedly opened back up (from siesta) at 4:00pm. But we were there at 4:07pm and the place was empty. For a couple of minutes we stood there and waited and talked about how crazy the system was. To be honest, this didn’t surprise me at all, I have gotten used to the fact the Spanish people don’t care about much, especially schedules.  After waiting for about 5 minutes, we decided to sit down at a café and have a cup of coffee.

If there was ever a day to sit outside and have coffee today was it. The weather was so perfect. It was warm, there was a slight breeze and we had a great view of the sea. We sat, drank our coffee and talked for a while about everything. I found out that she was a nurse in the states and that she had a lot of family in Holland and Amsterdam. She told me about all of the trips that she has taken to London, South Africa, and other wonderful places in the world. She told me that she was here visiting and that she had some friends in Jávea but she didn’t want to stay with them because she wanted to be “independent.” I completely agreed with her. I told her that I was in Jávea teaching English through the Fulbright program, for which she responded, “You go girl!” It was a great conversation.

After we finished up our coffee we decided to try the hotel again. When we showed up the front office was still empty. We kept talking about how strange it was. Eventually, I decided to call a number that was on the door under the sign “para más información” (for more information). When I called, someone finally picked up. I told the man that we where outside of the hotel and that no one was there. That’s when he told me that the office is only open on Monday and Tuesdays and that there was a box on the wall outside the door with the key in it. I gave him the lady’s name and he gave me the code that I needed to open the box. I finally opened the box and got the key. Because the conversation was in Spanish and the lady didn’t speak it, I told her what happened. We laughed about how interesting the experience had been and she thanked me.

Dutch Cheese

Then she said, “Well you’re going to check the room out with me right?” I said “sure.” I didn’t have anything else to do. We finally got up to the room and it was very nice. The place wasn’t really hotel; it was more like a set of apartments where you could rent out rooms. She had a studio apartment, it had a nice bathroom and kitchen and a great view of the sea. She decided to take some things out of her suitcase. That’s when she pulled out a couple of packages of Dutch cheese that she had brought back from her recent trip to Amsterdam. As she was beginning to put it in the refrigerator she asked if I wanted some, I told her “no thanks” but she gave me a package anyway. She talked about how good it is. I can’t wait to try it!

After she got situated she decided to go back outside with me and call her friend, who she would be spending the day with. She spoke Dutch the whole time that she was on the phone and although I didn’t really understand everything, I was surprised at how similar Dutch sounded to English. But this could be because she speaks very good English also.

For about 30 minutes, we sat on a bench outside while she waited for her friend to pick her up. She talked about how great of a city Amsterdam is and how I should go one day soon. She told me about her family members there, and said that she had a niece that would be happy to show me around. I told her that I would love to go. I’ve heard so many wonderful things about that city. We also talked about a ton of other things. She kept talking about karma, how there’s a reason for everything, and how she was so happy that she met me. She said that if she didn’t miss her bus from Benidorm to Jávea and had to catch another, and if she didn’t go in the opposite direction when she arrived in Jávea, then she wouldn’t have met me (and she possibly would have had a more difficult time getting to the hotel). She wouldn’t stop mentioning this.

When her friends finally arrived (a women and her husband) she introduced me to the both of them, we talked for a little while and I said goodbye. We had already exchanged email addresses earlier that day and she promised that she would write. She told me to give her a ring if I ever stopped by the port in the week in a half that she would be in Jávea, and I definitely took her up on that offer.

The Sea

After leaving them (I was with her for at least 3 hours) I was in such a good mood that I decided to sit on a bench in the port and read for a little while. It was so relaxing. There were many sailboats in the sea today and I watched them sail, I listened to the peaceful waves and I read my book. After a while, I started to see some of my students and thought that it was time to head back home.

Later, I started to think about what the lady was saying about karma and the way that things work. If I had never done my grocery shopping early and forced myself to walk to the beach, I would have never met her. And if I wouldn’t have decided to turn back around and help her find the hotel, I wouldn’t have Dutch cheese, plans to visit Amsterdam and a new wonderful friend…

There’s a reason for everything.