Ang lubags mo
We traveled 7,525 miles over 20 hours, two airlines, four airports, and one pair of underwear.
To drink Fundador brandy. Loads and loads of Fundador brandy.
And, damn, that trip was worth giving up half my liver for.
But I am getting ahead of myself. And I’m sure my three female readers don’t want to read about the benefits of wearing day-old underwear (because I am reserving that five-part column for the holidays).
For those of you who are drawn to this column like an accident along the
But these men weren’t even the luckiest bastardos who were being whisked away to
But the most swerte of them all was the bastardo who didn’t have to engage in any cardiovascular torture with his kumpares. Nor did this bastardo have to twiddle out text messages to vote for his favorite team. Hell, he didn’t even have to suck away at any snake venom (unless offered a lucrative movie deal). The only thing he had to do was forsake dignity, surgically attach himself to the leg of the challenge’s organizer, and offer several body parts for abuse in exchange for an article on
Ah, España. I have always dreamed of visiting
After extensive tongue work, I experimented with my newly minted accent when we finally got to the motherland. The first thing my fellow LuBaGS and I were on the lookout for at the
The female teller, a woman in her mid-fifties who wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and was a firm believer that there is no such thing as too much lipstick, looked at me and sneered, “Que?”
“Um, barya manang tindera?” I clarified, rubbing the dollar between my index finger and my thumb.
She edged closer to her glass window.
“Cambio, Señor?”
Wow, I thought. I discreetly bobbed my head to see if it was that obvious. This was quite embarrassing. Although I admit that the poor circulation of my legs during the flight could have caused some blood clotting.
“Ethte?”
“Cambio!” she exclaimed shrugging her shoulders.
Okay, wit was that bad. But what could I do? I was wearing the same pair of underwear for the past 24 hours (and counting). So I reached nimbly into the crook of my pants to perform some quick calisthenics. But when the moneychanger saw me reaching down into my nether regions, she burst into a litany of cuss words that sounded exactly how the coño kids used to talk in high school. After my adjustment, a loud buzz rang out and in a few seconds I had the chance to appreciate the full force of the Spanish gwardia sibil’s anti-terrorist unit. Apparently the word cambio was not used properly when it was transported to the Philippine Islands. The word was probably first used here by DOMs.
After they had confiscated my underwear and I was released from police custody, the Fundador staff handed out a travel kit that contained a complimentary bottle of Fundador Solera, a map of historical landmarks, a few postcards and two small yellow pompoms. I knew what to do with everything else in the kit, but was unsure as to the purpose of the pompoms. Were we supposed to use them as a fashion accessory? Were we supposed to wear them to differentiate us from the other traveling bunch of nine jaywalking Asian tourists in
Instead, we were welcomed by a dour, hunched man named Esteban who sported a paunch and a
After the LuBaGS and I spent an entertaining but ultimately futile evening trying to convince Esteban to dress in a flamenco outfit, he reluctantly drove us to the Domecq winery, a thousand-hectare expanse of manicured vineyards that stretched out almost into the horizon. We were welcomed to the estate by Don Beltran Domecq, the ambassador-at-large of the House of Domecq, makers of Fundador — the brandy that has brought together many a barkada by leaving them in happily drunken stupors. Don Beltran was the epitome of
In essence, Don Beltran is the type of man whom metrosexuals develop a man-crush over. And this was the type of man that all genteel men aspire to be. And you could be just like the Don, too, if you were white, European, well-educated, white, European, and the director of the founders of the House of Domecq. I believed that I could aspire to be this type of man. After all, I am espasol white.
Before we took the grand tour of the Domecq vineyard, the Don invited us to partake of a traditional Jerezian breakfast. As a vegetarian, I eagerly anticipated a healthy countryside breakfast, which I thought would be filled with Spanish bread (what, walang Spanish bread sa
However, maybe there was a purpose behind this high-protein meal. Either this meal would be used to demonstrate the state-of-the-art cardiology services of Jerez hospital or this was meant to be an interactive tour where we would be to take part in vineyard labor such as grape-picking, yolk-pulling, or udder-squeezing (hey, there were some cows in the vineyard).
Before the pork fat could permanently clog any blood vessels to the brain among the other LuBaGS, Don Beltran gave us a little geography lesson. “Jerez (remember gentlemen, the lithp, the lithp — RJ) de la Frontera is a municipality found in the province of Cadiz in the autonomous community of Andalusia in the southernmost portion of the Spanish peninsula.” He pointed out the province on a Renaissance-era map of Spain. “Cadiz is the oldest city in Western Europe founded some 3,100 years ago. This area of the Mediterranean was invaded by waves of civilizations. Among the first civilizations here were the Phoenicians back in 1000 BC who traded goods along the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians came here and introduced the vineyards. So we introduced wine to this region almost 3,000 years ago. That’s why I mentioned that what we produce here is the most civilized of all alcoholic beverages.”
“The Sherry district zone is called by several names — Jerez or Xeres or Sherry. This is almost the same name given to the area by the Phoenicians who called it Xeres. Then in 400 BC the Romans took over this region and called it Jerez. When the Moors invaded, it was called Xerix or Sherrich in 611 BC. But since the English are so bad at languages, they called it Sherry.” Don Beltran smirked. “So sherry is the worst name among all three, but it is interesting and unfortunate that we have to call it by all these three names.”
“Yes, Don, them English are such bad peoples.” I tried to impress the gentleman with my rudimentary world knowledge hoping that he would adopt me and brainwash me in the ways of gentlemanliness. “They eat kidney pie, they have bad teeth and they spell words with an extra letter u.”
“I’m half-English,” Don Beltran remarked.
I gulped. “But your teeth aren’t, um, that bad, Thenor Beltran,” I said, laway spraying from my mouth.
He took his panyo from his pocket and patted his nose. “And why are you spitting at me?
“I’m not thpitting, I am trying to talk with a Thpanish accent.”
Don Beltran politely signaled to the driver of our bus. “Esteban, please take out the horse whip.”
So I bent over and prepared for my first gentlemanly flogging from the good Don. Before this tour was done, I would be a gentleman before I knew it.
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Next column: Ang LuBaGS mo part dos: Going Jeretic in the Vineyards. For comments, suggestions, or blah blah blah, please text PM POGI <message> to 2948 for Globe, Smart and Sun subscribers. Or please e-mail ledesma.rj@gmail.com.