I’m on a modern long-distance train, looking out the window The multiple blues of the Mediterraneanmingled with the reflection of my own face, which was looking at me funny through the window. When I think about the coming and going of the convoy, countless images of houses and trees appear before my eyes; When I come back to reality, my own eyes watch me curiously and questioningly. how far away I’m gone now.
Train journeys always give me a strange combination of excitement and nostalgia, sometimes a different mix of emotions that I can’t manage myself. Maybe everything, tender, always ends by emphasizing the good versus the bad, so that we can move forward without dragging too many signs with us. Regardless, getting on the train excites me and wakes me up a little nervous, full of anticipation.
Years, decades later, like dozens of people, I used the train to get home The calendar is always marked for me with joy, a bridge during career work or a snowy holiday. Between Cercanías, the metro, and a train with a Talgo at best, and a train at worst, it took five hours to get home. familiar sheepdog anyone lovableFederico García Lorca, which connects Catalonia to Andalusia and more specifically Barcelona to Seville. And in the middle, in Valencia, I got off, saying goodbye to the people I met in the car who still had a lot of hours to go and wish them a good trip.
Very affordable price in these covered wagons students of the 90sI’ve come across men, women, travelers and tourists, but above all, I’ve come across as many, many stories as García Lorca’s endless stops. And almost all, if not all, they talked about immigration. Starting new lives elsewhere, far from the place of origin. It was. Even if we started talking about the weather, the delay of the train, or the lack of space, the topic of immigration always came up at some point in the conversation. of the grandfather to Catalonia firstly, they talked about the roots of the uncle who started living in Valencia, the grandchildren who read Catalan and returned to the city for the summer, the sausage ‘like nothing like’, the tradesmen and desires, the traditions and ‘how expensive everything is now’ but above all the roots. We talked about roots, including me. Valencia, Andalusia, Murcian, Catalan, Extremaduran, Majorca, Castile-La Mancha… And I don’t remember a single moment in those long train journeys between south and north. someone criticizes Education immersion policies in Catalan neither make fun of Andalusian unemployment benefits, nor do they ‘nanosValenciano questions Galician folklore, or the diversity that exists not just inside that wagon, but most importantly outside it.
Then years passed and it was less than three in four hours between Barcelona and Valencia and Intercity and Euromed arrived. And long conversations about the bonds that bind us together, our love, our common bond, are over. And I’m going by train today, and soon they will be too. Andalusian elections I think about all this, and my only wish is that these enterprising and brave people, from whom I learned so much in the shepherd’s night, convey their tremendous tolerance to them, and that their lands continue to be a land of openness, not pasture. enemies of diversity.