Hay que vivir (one must live)
Hay que vivir. Hay que + the infinitive form of the verb in Spanish is One must...
The title of my post today is "one must live." It has become my favorite phrase in Spanish.
Last night in Ourense it rained all night. I woke up to the sound of the rain several times through the night and what a beautiful thing. It has been raining on and off since Friday, and now, as it's Tuesday, it is still raining. Today my students had an exam and my boss told me that I didn't need to come to my classes as they had exams and I had planned, with one of my co-worker friends to go on a hike, she finishes work early on Tuesdays and as I didn't have work today due to exams, we thought we'd take advantage of our day and go for a hike. Despite the rain, we were both willing and eager to go hiking. We drove to the nearby town of Allariz, parked and started walking along the river. We took umbrellas but after about 3 minutes of walking with an umbrella, I got annoyed and put it away, as did my friend. I hadn't brought an umbrella with me as I think they are extremely obnoxious, but my friend had brought me one and told me "I knew you weren't going to bring one for yourself." I guess I'm that obvious.
We hiked for about 3 hours along the river, climbing up stone walls to avoid the overgrown riverbanks and through mud and marsh. It was beautiful. We saw ducks swimming and watched the rain penetrate the river with numerous drops. We felt the cool rain drip on our heads and down our faces as our bodies were warm with sweat from the hike. Afterwards, we went to a bar for a glass of wine and a pincho (tapa) of bread with a sardine. Delicious. We had a cool, crisp, dry, Albariño wine (white).
Then we went to a restaurant for an amazing 3 course lunch, where we split a bottle of wine and then enjoyed café con leche (coffee with milk; a strong, baby latte). We had an amazing conversation and toasted about 15 times, to life, to love, to living, to the rain, to feeling alive, to feeling.....
I feel that there are many people out there who are not really alive, and what a pity that is. We have one life, so far as I know, and why not enjoy it? Hay que aprovechar. (One must take advantage)