I am going to turn the mirror around
briefly: Things that I have learnt about (or been asked about) Australia from
Spain, from all those friends of mine via email and who are very present in my
daily life. There are so many things but you have to start somewhere. I’ll
leave out the copyright because I haven’t asked for their permission, but
everything is reversible; in any case there’s little doubt about that. So here
they are in no particular order:
- Let me know if the story is true: that the meat of [insert the name of innumerable and “plushable” (toy) Australian animal here] tastes like mint chewing gum. I’m not going to verify this.
- [I imagine that] when you are in Australia you are struck with –or you can’t shake- the feeling that you are at the ends of the earth.This had never occurred to me before I read it. But every now and then I get the feeling that I am upside down and it’s funny.
- Over there they sunbake facing north (For us in Spain, facing south). The brackets were excessive- but not for me. Now you should realize that next to me even Andrės Iniesta* looks dark.
- Australia is self-sufficient (…) it has been cut off from everything all its life. Imagine if Quijote had been in Australia- in order to get to La Mancha it would have taken a 6 month boat trip just to arrive in Barcelona. I like the image of a seasick Quijote disembarking and not understanding the Catalan that they spoke in the port.
- Have a great time in Australia. Bring me back some sobrasada**.
Translator’s
notes
* Iniesta -FC Barcelona’s
decidedly pallid central midfielder
** Sobrasada-raw
cured sausage hailing from the Balearic Islands of Spain.
