EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALAugust
13, 1999
Valencia
Connecting
The road meanders between hills and valleys. It’s half-desert, too, and then
we’re beyond the scratchy meadows and winding our way between orange groves, in one
of Europe’s most intensely farmed regions – a fertile strip of Mediterranean
orchard that’s been occupied for more than 50,000 years – long before the Moors
arrived – growing and trading products from the land and sea. It’s behind us,
sadly, the Atlantic and all that’s brown in between. We’re on the other side
now, and Valencia sits in the middle of these obedient groves, on the course of the Rio
Turia, its mouth emptying into the Mediterranean like bath water.
Our search for a phone line for publishing takes us through a handful of central
hostals and hotels:
The London – a massive room with three beds, an imperial bathroom, a phone line
one can tamper with easily, only the windows face due west, and it’s a greenhouse,
utterly impossible to inhabit until well after dusk.
The Florida – jam-packed with weekenders, the lobby’s a shouting match, the
room phone is the kind that’s mounted on the wall. After a brief discussion with the
concierge, he’s excited. "No, no, no you can’t take that off the wall, no,
impossible."
El Cid – after ringing, the stumbling proprietor can’t understand why we keep
asking him about a phone in the room. He’s slapping the ancient rotary dial behind
the desk, grubby, smelling of booze and Valencia’s powerful sewer.
The International – overlooking the city’s strategically central train
station. The receptionist is a skunked bottle-blond with perfect lip-liner. She lets us
inspect the rooms ourselves, and Rich gets under the bed and pulls the phone out of the
wall. This will do, comfortably.
