AUGUST 1st: JULIAN BOURNE

Two Spring semesters ago my Technical Translation professor took 0.5 points away of my final grade because in the final exam, consisting in translating the user’s manual for a toaster, I translated “dele la vuelta” as “turn it over” instead as his preferred option “put it upside down”.

I was still picking up my passport from the hand of the policeman at the passport control booth of Granada’s tiny airport when I heard someone shouting at me “Hombre!”, “Hombre!” It was him, Julian Bourne, my professor, who of course didn’t remember my name and that made him resort to such a typical Spanish standard way of calling someone.

There he was, with his casual outfit that sometimes borders on outlandish and his chaotic hair as if he had just been “upside down”. Unmistakable.

As my friend Anjuli would say, we were both “ryan-air-ing it” to London-Stansted and after some minutes of nice conversation declining to small talk about the weather I decided to put an end to it and visit the men’s room for a last leak before the flight. When I came out from the restrooms he was already mingling with the people at the line to enter the gate which actually freed my mind of new topics of conversation for the next 2 hours.