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Of the many things I would not, as a young man, have predicted about my life at present, perhaps the most surprising is that I would spend dozens or perhaps hundreds of hours drinking gin in Spanish airports and train stations (I am writing this in Terminal Four of Barajas Airport in Madrid, where the cashier in duty free was kind enough to ask whether I needed —
no, gracias —
the customary sealed bag for my half-pint of Gordon’s). I didn’t start learning Spanish until three years after college, and I didn’t visit the country until I was almost 30. As a young man, I wasn’t scared of flying and had no need for such balsams to get through it. And finally, I used to think gin a repugnant swill old people pretended to like out of feigned sophistication.