Two days we spent with the Brits before we waved them away, just like they waved us out of the Football European Cup a few weeks earlier. Saying goodbye was harder for them than for us, because they cried a bit, while we smiled a lot. And when their car vanished beyond the crest of the mountain, Teodora and I looked at each other wordlessly. There was no need to vocalize anything, we shared the same thoughts, the same feelings.
Then we laughed our asses off. The kind of sardonic movie laughter, after the villain laid out his evil masterplan to the hero on how he will enslave the world, get filthy rich, and have sex with the hero’s mother. Only that we were just astonished. Even though they were Brits, they were wealthy and sane, with ambitions and dreams. And still, they flew off onto another continent to work for the next 5 months while leaving their home and pets in our care. We turned around and looked at their home. It was ours now.
The house was almost a century old, initially built by indigenous Spaniards, who utilized it the most fashionable way: a barn for animals. But the Spaniards are long gone and with them the animals. As soon as the Commonwealth colonized the little village of Valle Solo they started modifying the property according to their wishes.
Standards neither seemed to apply to Spaniards nor to Brits, which led to the suffering of the Germans.
“I’m telling you,” Teodora said for the hundredth time, “you’re too big. Do you see me having problems walking through the door?” She walked from one room to another to the next and started jumping in between. “See? I’m not banging my head!”
“That doesn’t mean anything, dwarf,” I snapped back and rubbed my head. I must have banged my head a few dozen times in the first three days alone until I slowly realized my future. Modern problems require ancient solutions, so I started walking like the Hunchback of Notre Dam through the house to avoid lasting brain injuries (months later, when we traveled to Germany to see friends and family, people got concerned about my posture and why I flinched while I walked through doors. Only then did I realize, ducking my head became a muscle memory).
The rest of the house was an assortment of oddities to anyone growing up according to DIN norms.
All windows were barred with heavy iron rods, sending ambivalent vibes. From the inside, it felt like a prison, from the outside an impenetrable fort. Every door was triple and quadruple locked and Youtube started giving me video recommendations for self-defense courses. The ground floor had so many levels it was littered with steps. And all of them had different heights.
I know imperfections provide a house with a soul, but since I grew up in Germany, all it did was give me a headache or two.
It also had a huge living room with a big TV, couch, and a table that could easily have been the one where Jesus had his last meal. The kitchen was large, we had two bedrooms and baths and a garden and terrace both in front and behind the house.
And we neither had to pay anything nor kill anyone to live here.
But the location was the best. Not only is southern Spain an amazing place to be, with beautiful landscapes, long beaches, and spectacular mountains, but also remoteness and tranquility if you searched long enough. Tenerife was the perfect place to be during pandemic. Without tourists to turn the town into a shitshow, we could spend time in peace, talk to locals, drink with expats and play with ourselves. But as soon the restrictions were lifted, the masses arrived. The nights became louder, the music worse and the alcohol consumption of neighbors rose.
Valle Solo was different. The village was situated along the rim of a valley, where millennia ago a vast river crossed the land towards the ocean. The only remnant of this tributary was a single gaunt and dried-out waterbed. The houses here were archaic at best, prehistoric at worse. The landscape was littered with old and half-broken buildings. Some lived still in caves carved in the mountains' walls. It was rural, it was rustic, it was typically Spanish.
Our home sat at the foot of the valley, connected by a single road to both sides of the mountain.
Half of the mountain behind the house belonged to the British Empire and the next neighbor was about half a kilometer away. It was the perfect place to sit down and think about our lives, hone our skills and try to bring value to the world.
On the flip side, it also meant there was absolutely nothing to do. There were no bars, no restaurants, and (almost) no people.
We came from one of the most touristic islands in Europe to an area so remote and silent, you could hear my farts echo through the valley.
Needless to say, we were totally in love with our new home.