Monday, February 26, 2007

The importance of being (with) Carlos

I've already named a couple of times on this blog a spanish friend of mine named Carlos. Carlos is the perfect personification of the spanish hidalgo: educated, well mannered to the point of looking old fashioned even to someone like me, soft spoken but with a deep laugh. Maybe defining him friend is a bit too much, probably "friend squared" is more like it, meaning he is a friend of a friend, but I like him and even if I didn't, he still would fall in that category of people who are close enough to be entitled to more than general guest' attentions, first of all a meeting whenever life brings us closer than a hour ride.

Carlos happened to come to Rome, at least that I know of, two times.

The first time was one year ago, in a warm july. He came to attend an italian course lasting two weeks but, for a series of circumstances, I only managed to meet him the last day, at his goodbye dinner, or rather at the bar in Campo dei Fiori, where people had moved after the actual dinner. It was one year, seven months and 11 days ago, I can be so precise about the date due a very memorable event happened that night: around the table of that bar, that evening, I met Susanne.

More than a year passed by before Carlos, suddenly, re-appeared in Rome. Seizing the chance given by an Alitalia special offer, he decided to come over from the Canary islands, where he's working as a police officer, and have a roman week-end at the end of november. Once again we met around a table, enjoying a good pizza together (and an awful service) with Alessandro, Ippolito and his argentinian girlfriend Nuria and her friend Mercedes, and Francesco. A pleasant, but normal evening and I didn't think much about it after the goodbyes were exchanged until last saturday, when I accidentally came to know that Francesco and Mercedes are now dating and that, as I'm throttling up and down between Germany and Italy, he's now doing just the same between Rome and Oviedo, where Mercedes is studying.

Now, my single male friends, if you cherish your freedom, you might consider asking me when Carlos will be in town next time, so you would have a chance of moving as far away as you can, he can definitely be that dangerous, that way.

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