June 11, 2007--Monday On Mallorca: Majorca, Majorca
There are three principal cafés in our village where people gather for morning coffee and then, not much later in the day, for drinks.
As if by hierarchical design they arc along the eastern rim of the circular harbor with the one anchoring the northern end, Las Palmeras, filled in the morning primarily with men who in the past worked the fishing fleet which is still found right across from where they sit, smoke, drink coffee and Hierbas, and talk and talk and talk. In Mallorquin.
The next one down the line, La Consigna, our regular place, serves a mixed clientele—early, most are local shopkeepers, still working or retired; a little later, owners, family, and staff of the many restaurants that thread through the back streets, alleyways, and around the harbor; later still there is at least one table filled with a clutch of the village’s most-estima abuelas; and toward the end of the morning the Consigna restocks with a trickle of German and British second or third home owners—many of whom have been here for decades.
And then there is something very different--Café Cappuccino, a glitzy recent addition to the puerto which has branches across the island in only the most fashionable of settings. Here it faces the most expensive yachts and here one never encounters any locals. Its devoted following, willing to pay a premium for their café au laits while listening to the Cap’s (that’s how it is referred to) specially produced, endless tape of Brazilian bossa nova covers, is made up entirely of what one of our most delightful neighbors calls people seeking “Important Coffee.” Though there is nothing really special about the coffee, in truth Palmeras may have the best cup and deal in town, what draws the crowd, I feel, is its physical separation from the other two cafés (the gap between it and Consigna is at least twice the distance than that between Consigna and Los Palmeras).
For the important-coffee crowd which consists of multi-million euro villas and mega-yacht owners who pull into one of the area’s magnificent calas and dingy into town for a coffee and some shoulder rubbing, the Cap is the only place to sip and, much more importante, be seen.
And closer to the subject of the day, the Cap also serves as the daily gathering place for some of the area’s expatriate community. For all of them, I contend, it is the social distance from the other two cafés that being here is all about—It’s the best place to display and say, “I have all of this and you don’t.”
As semi-expats ourselves, at least in our own minds, and as one who has lingering Romantic notions of what it means to be one—does it get any better than Humphrey Bogart, Rick in Casablanca smoking and drinking his way to forgetfulness every night in his eponymous café; or, closer to home here, Robert Graves self-exiled in Déja, high up in the Tramuntana Mountains, where he settled to write I Claudius, drink (is there a pattern emerging?), engage in occult and spiritualist practices, and of course transgress—fool around, in other words, with a parade of lovers and mistresses—with our expat orientation we some mornings make our way from Consigna, after our siempre, two cortados, to Cap for yet something else to drink but more to sit among the expats who can afford Cappuccino’s prices.
And it is here that some of my Romantic musing gets tested, occasionally shattered while at the same time I find some sense of on-going community.
Yes, one of the Puerto Andratx expats settled here after a life of roaming and working at various stops around the globe, which included setting up a vast bamboo plantation in Amazonian Ecuador where not only did he work the land in a sustainable way but also built and funds a school for local indigenous children; and another had a signficant career as a filmmaker for the BBC before giving it all up to live on a boat in the harbor; but most of the others came here to retreat from whatever world they were born into and grew up in; and, after rounds of frustration and dissatisfaction, in search of a place to get lost in order to find themselves, and hearing that the local wine was both good and cheap, after some fits and stops, they wound up here; and one finds them settled in each day at the same cluster of corner tables in the Cap.
It’s an open situation—sometimes there are just two or three squinting at their papers; other times more than a dozen, including us, drift in and out, pulling tables together from the least-fashionable parts of the café, which for this group, living lives filled with their own special set of contradictions, for them, for us, this suits them, us, just fine. Actually, not one of us would want to be caught within line-of-sight of someone in Guccis who just stepped off a hundred-meter anything.
It all gets started at about 10:00 am—no one jumps out of bed here—and some days there is still a group going strong at 3:00 in the afternoon.
What do we talk about? It’s easier to say what is never discussed—what you “do” or “did” (we’ve been an intermittent part of this floating group for three years now and not one among them knows or cares that I was an educator, have a blog, or am working on writing fiction—nor do I know much about any of this about them, even with my enquiring New York City kind of mind where “What do you do?” back home gets asked even before the coffee arrives); no one discusses politics very much (expect to share a casual distaste—that’s as strong as it gets—for George Bush and Tony Blair); religion is another non-subject (I’m not sure that this is because everyone is secular or because for some who left home it is too painful a subject); and even less often is there any talk about one’s background or ethnicity (for some of the middle-aged German expats I of course suspect why that might be true); and totally neglected or ignored are any stories or sweet reminisces about families left behind, especially about children or grandchildren (a familiar central topic in my experience among the retired non-expats back in the States where there is so much spoken about my daughter who never calls or visits and my son who is a doctor and who of course is the “biggest” specialist).
There is though considerable talk about real estate (what’s for sale and especially for how much); also about the state of local land development (the municipal government is corrupt, the mayor is finally in jail, and the environment is being ruined); how difficult it is to get anyone of the “locals” to do anything, much less on time, no matter how simple the job (it’s all mañana, mañana); the price of things (too much and getting worse—even the obvious millionaire expats among the group, particularly they, are careful when the cuenta comes to divvy up the separate charges to the last cent); of course there is lots of chat about where to eat, which is a highlight of almost everyone’s day (the most recommended places are those serving large portions and offering good value for the euro); and then there is endless gossip, mostly good spirited—little Schaudenfreud is in evidence here--about other expats not that morning at the table and celebrities in the news (I have been stunned to see how universally well-known Paris Hilton is and how much debate gets stirred up as she moves from court to jail to house-arrest to the hospital and finally back to prison).
From what gets talked about, more from what is either not discussed or no longer important in our expat friends’ lives—careers, politics, family ties, and such—one here is less about a résumé or pedigree than about what you bring to the table today. Not even yesterday, but this morning. I like that simultaneous sense of freedom and expectation.
But what I don’t like is how many expats here too much depend upon defining themselves by enforcing local differences—fishermen from aristocratic abuelas from middle-end from high-end second home owners from the super-yacht crowd from the Cap expats. Human nature I suppose, but still unattractive in even this otherwise paradise.
Perhaps this feeling is the result of bringing too much of an American perspective into this more class- and caste-bound environment. At least that part that represents the best of America’s myth of social mobility and blending.
But we can’t seem yet to stop ourselves from being thus American. We keep seem yet to not try to probe these differences. And so when we talk about our favorite places we often tell about a local bakery we like that has some of the best confections we’ve ever encountered (and as Jewish people from Brooklyn, we know cake!) no one else, even though they have lived here for 20 years and need to walk or drive by the place on their way into town every day, no one has ever shopped there or even noticed it. Perversely, confessedly that’s largely why we mention it. But we now understand that though the other day we told a couple of dessert-obsessed expat acquaintances about it that there is virtually no likelihood whatsoever that they will ever set foot in that or any place that caters so exclusively to locals.
And try as we might to get folks to say why they insist on using the British spelling of “Mallorca,” which is the way “natives” spell it, and continue stubbornly to use “Majorca,” no one has a good answer. We of course when with expats do as the expats and do not press for an answer nor do we wonder out loud why those who have also been here 20 years or more, forget going to the bakery, seem to insist on not speaking even one word of Spanish, always saying “Thank You” when their coffee is brought to them.
Even I know “Gracias.”
As if by hierarchical design they arc along the eastern rim of the circular harbor with the one anchoring the northern end, Las Palmeras, filled in the morning primarily with men who in the past worked the fishing fleet which is still found right across from where they sit, smoke, drink coffee and Hierbas, and talk and talk and talk. In Mallorquin.
The next one down the line, La Consigna, our regular place, serves a mixed clientele—early, most are local shopkeepers, still working or retired; a little later, owners, family, and staff of the many restaurants that thread through the back streets, alleyways, and around the harbor; later still there is at least one table filled with a clutch of the village’s most-estima abuelas; and toward the end of the morning the Consigna restocks with a trickle of German and British second or third home owners—many of whom have been here for decades.
And then there is something very different--Café Cappuccino, a glitzy recent addition to the puerto which has branches across the island in only the most fashionable of settings. Here it faces the most expensive yachts and here one never encounters any locals. Its devoted following, willing to pay a premium for their café au laits while listening to the Cap’s (that’s how it is referred to) specially produced, endless tape of Brazilian bossa nova covers, is made up entirely of what one of our most delightful neighbors calls people seeking “Important Coffee.” Though there is nothing really special about the coffee, in truth Palmeras may have the best cup and deal in town, what draws the crowd, I feel, is its physical separation from the other two cafés (the gap between it and Consigna is at least twice the distance than that between Consigna and Los Palmeras).
For the important-coffee crowd which consists of multi-million euro villas and mega-yacht owners who pull into one of the area’s magnificent calas and dingy into town for a coffee and some shoulder rubbing, the Cap is the only place to sip and, much more importante, be seen.
And closer to the subject of the day, the Cap also serves as the daily gathering place for some of the area’s expatriate community. For all of them, I contend, it is the social distance from the other two cafés that being here is all about—It’s the best place to display and say, “I have all of this and you don’t.”
As semi-expats ourselves, at least in our own minds, and as one who has lingering Romantic notions of what it means to be one—does it get any better than Humphrey Bogart, Rick in Casablanca smoking and drinking his way to forgetfulness every night in his eponymous café; or, closer to home here, Robert Graves self-exiled in Déja, high up in the Tramuntana Mountains, where he settled to write I Claudius, drink (is there a pattern emerging?), engage in occult and spiritualist practices, and of course transgress—fool around, in other words, with a parade of lovers and mistresses—with our expat orientation we some mornings make our way from Consigna, after our siempre, two cortados, to Cap for yet something else to drink but more to sit among the expats who can afford Cappuccino’s prices.
And it is here that some of my Romantic musing gets tested, occasionally shattered while at the same time I find some sense of on-going community.
Yes, one of the Puerto Andratx expats settled here after a life of roaming and working at various stops around the globe, which included setting up a vast bamboo plantation in Amazonian Ecuador where not only did he work the land in a sustainable way but also built and funds a school for local indigenous children; and another had a signficant career as a filmmaker for the BBC before giving it all up to live on a boat in the harbor; but most of the others came here to retreat from whatever world they were born into and grew up in; and, after rounds of frustration and dissatisfaction, in search of a place to get lost in order to find themselves, and hearing that the local wine was both good and cheap, after some fits and stops, they wound up here; and one finds them settled in each day at the same cluster of corner tables in the Cap.
It’s an open situation—sometimes there are just two or three squinting at their papers; other times more than a dozen, including us, drift in and out, pulling tables together from the least-fashionable parts of the café, which for this group, living lives filled with their own special set of contradictions, for them, for us, this suits them, us, just fine. Actually, not one of us would want to be caught within line-of-sight of someone in Guccis who just stepped off a hundred-meter anything.
It all gets started at about 10:00 am—no one jumps out of bed here—and some days there is still a group going strong at 3:00 in the afternoon.
What do we talk about? It’s easier to say what is never discussed—what you “do” or “did” (we’ve been an intermittent part of this floating group for three years now and not one among them knows or cares that I was an educator, have a blog, or am working on writing fiction—nor do I know much about any of this about them, even with my enquiring New York City kind of mind where “What do you do?” back home gets asked even before the coffee arrives); no one discusses politics very much (expect to share a casual distaste—that’s as strong as it gets—for George Bush and Tony Blair); religion is another non-subject (I’m not sure that this is because everyone is secular or because for some who left home it is too painful a subject); and even less often is there any talk about one’s background or ethnicity (for some of the middle-aged German expats I of course suspect why that might be true); and totally neglected or ignored are any stories or sweet reminisces about families left behind, especially about children or grandchildren (a familiar central topic in my experience among the retired non-expats back in the States where there is so much spoken about my daughter who never calls or visits and my son who is a doctor and who of course is the “biggest” specialist).
There is though considerable talk about real estate (what’s for sale and especially for how much); also about the state of local land development (the municipal government is corrupt, the mayor is finally in jail, and the environment is being ruined); how difficult it is to get anyone of the “locals” to do anything, much less on time, no matter how simple the job (it’s all mañana, mañana); the price of things (too much and getting worse—even the obvious millionaire expats among the group, particularly they, are careful when the cuenta comes to divvy up the separate charges to the last cent); of course there is lots of chat about where to eat, which is a highlight of almost everyone’s day (the most recommended places are those serving large portions and offering good value for the euro); and then there is endless gossip, mostly good spirited—little Schaudenfreud is in evidence here--about other expats not that morning at the table and celebrities in the news (I have been stunned to see how universally well-known Paris Hilton is and how much debate gets stirred up as she moves from court to jail to house-arrest to the hospital and finally back to prison).
From what gets talked about, more from what is either not discussed or no longer important in our expat friends’ lives—careers, politics, family ties, and such—one here is less about a résumé or pedigree than about what you bring to the table today. Not even yesterday, but this morning. I like that simultaneous sense of freedom and expectation.
But what I don’t like is how many expats here too much depend upon defining themselves by enforcing local differences—fishermen from aristocratic abuelas from middle-end from high-end second home owners from the super-yacht crowd from the Cap expats. Human nature I suppose, but still unattractive in even this otherwise paradise.
Perhaps this feeling is the result of bringing too much of an American perspective into this more class- and caste-bound environment. At least that part that represents the best of America’s myth of social mobility and blending.
But we can’t seem yet to stop ourselves from being thus American. We keep seem yet to not try to probe these differences. And so when we talk about our favorite places we often tell about a local bakery we like that has some of the best confections we’ve ever encountered (and as Jewish people from Brooklyn, we know cake!) no one else, even though they have lived here for 20 years and need to walk or drive by the place on their way into town every day, no one has ever shopped there or even noticed it. Perversely, confessedly that’s largely why we mention it. But we now understand that though the other day we told a couple of dessert-obsessed expat acquaintances about it that there is virtually no likelihood whatsoever that they will ever set foot in that or any place that caters so exclusively to locals.
And try as we might to get folks to say why they insist on using the British spelling of “Mallorca,” which is the way “natives” spell it, and continue stubbornly to use “Majorca,” no one has a good answer. We of course when with expats do as the expats and do not press for an answer nor do we wonder out loud why those who have also been here 20 years or more, forget going to the bakery, seem to insist on not speaking even one word of Spanish, always saying “Thank You” when their coffee is brought to them.
Even I know “Gracias.”
posted by Steven Zwerling at
10:23 AM
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