No Sign of Life at the Villa
Before I write about pretty much anything, I have to journal first. No matter the genre or the length, I have to sit down with actual pen and paper and put it all out there before any shape forms for the story. And when I sat down to journal about the two weeks I spent in the Spanish countryside, I realized it was kind of a shitty situation. Hannah, Tessa, and I heard back from our first and only Workaway less than twelve hours before we had to get there. Trasierra was a villa turned hotel, nestled in the hills about two and a half hours north of Seville. The late reply meant we had to find a way to get refunds for the Airbnb and bus tickets we had bought when we thought we were suddenly without accommodation for two weeks. When we got there we realized that the full time workers didn't speak English. Our rooms were cold and terribly insulated. Between the three of us we had one orange and half a baguette. Our host, George, was supposed to be back to the villa around nine that night. Around midnight we gave up and went to bed. The next morning around noon we finally met George. He was perfectly polite, and about 70% twiggy legs. He spoke with the kind of British accent that makes you want to discuss "the rabble" and over forty year old scotch. With his nice pants that never went past his ankles and the leather elbow patches on his navy blazer, he looked exactly how you expect someone to look if they own a Spanish villa turned hotel. We called him Mr. Trasierra because we never actually learned his last name. He gave us free rein of the whole property, including a huge pantry full of lovely things like chocolate and pasta and oatmeal. The three of us spent all day exploring the villa and seeing no one. Every room was full of books, which we picked over and took back of our own rooms so we would have something to entertain us if we were forgotten again. Monday morning Hannah, Tess, and I wandered around the property until we found signs of life. The two workers who had picked us up led us to a courtyard and through several gestures, told us to clear the whole thing. We spent the next two weeks clearing the entire villa of dead leaves and weeds and these terrible little palm tree seeds. We spoke to no one but ourselves. We ended up walking six miles into town to buy our own groceries three separate times. There was nothing about the whole two weeks that was not odd and unexpected, and sometimes, pretty shitty. That being said, I don't think I have laughed as often and as hard in the last year as I did during those two weeks at Trasierra. Every morning Hannah, Tessa, and I downed a cup of instant coffee while watching the fog burn off the Spanish hills. Then we zipped up our coats against the constant wet that is a Spanish winter, and got to work. We spent so much time in the dirt that our fingers were stained brown. Time crawled by and we pulled weed after weed, piled them into buckets, walked those buckets to a burn pile. It would have been mind numbing if we hadn't spent the time making terrible jokes and talking about if we believed in soulmates, and how we wanted to be remembered, or if we needed to be remembered at all. Trasierra was not at all like I expected it to be, but I have such a soft spot for that lonely Spanish villa because in all of the strangeness there was so much beauty. Like the time we watched the sun set over hills covered in olive trees. Or when Tessa and I stripped down to our underwear, climbed to the top of the villa's tower, and laughed as Hannah took pictures of us. In the end, it didn't matter that we literally ate the clover we weeded from the courtyard, or that we spent two nights huddled around one candle after the storm took out the power. Hannah, Tessa, and I were together and we were happy
