Pobrecita!

The Pobrecita I am referring to in the title of this post is Spain, I am actually unsure whether it is a feminine or masculine noun, but judging by the A at the end, I will assume, for the sake of this title, that Spain, is in fact, a lady. A poor little lady.

So why do I exclaim ¨¨Pobrecita¨ towards the nation I currently call my home? Is it the floundering economy? The lack of respect when it comes to European nations? The violence of ETA and turmoil in Pais Vasco? Nahh...its the coffee man, its always the coffee.

Well, here is a little thing, I was thinking about earlier today, when walking through the city of Pomegranite. Café, in english, is a classy little coffee shop, something Parisian, ideal. If one was to say, ¨I went to a café in Europe,¨ the image of a large plaza, bird flying about, old people walking in pairs, maybe a little rain falling, pops in the mind, doesn´t it?

Come on. It does. The idea, the romantic idea of a café, your tiny mug of coffee, your sense of emotional fulfillment. Its there, I know it is.

Well, what if I were to say, ¨I went to a cafeteria in Europe¨? All of a sudden, you imagine, your lunchlady, a pepto colored tray, hair nets, stacks of premade cheeseburgers heated under red lamps. Alas, in Spain, a café IS a cafeteria. And, so, it is done.

Well, what I am getting at here is that Spain got the short end of the stick, somehow, English defined café, a french word, as the classy European coffeeshop, and caféteria as, well, worse than a diner. Ouch.

Maybe its inherent bias, Don´t we all look at the French to be the creators and perpetrators of all things sensual (here, I do not mean SEXUAL, although that works too, I mean Art! Philosophy! Fashion! TASTE!)? Or it may be a fluke, a coincidence, a misnomer that developed into a term, that led to a permanent bias for anyone taking in the cultura of Spain.

However it happend, it did. And now, when I go grab a café con leche (which itself, significantly less present in the US economy taste better and is more user friendly than the ominpresent espresso of Italian descent), I am sitting not in a café but infact a cafeteria, without lunch lady Doris, but in a grand plaza, with all the old people and birds I can handle.

So, I pity Spain, not because of real reasons, but because somehow, their coffee shops are lost in translation.