"A womanizer" is what he is, says Vincenza di Lauro, who also came to El Cordobes "just to pop in" with Ferdinando Ianniello. Albaida gives her a friendly hug. Like a mediator between cultures, Dennis Hesen explains that the sun always rises when Manuel Albaida enters the room. Although the 54-year-old has lived in Beuel almost since his birth, his parents moved here from his native Cordoba. Still, he considers himself to be one hundred percent Spanish, even though his Spanish passport has expired.

This makes Albaida one of the 188,000 Spaniards counted in Germany at the end of 2021. With many of them, he shares the story of his parents' generation coming to Germany as guest workers in the 1960’s. Until his untimely death at 54, his father Albaida had worked for 38 years at Didier-Werke in Dollendorf. His 83-year-old mother has since returned to her native Spain.

For Albaida's older sister, who also grew up in Germany, Thomasberg has become her home. Manuel Albaida feels at home in Beuel. With his store at the corner of Paulusstrasse, he forms the center of a small Spanish "enclave" with a Spanish kindergarten, a Spanish parents' association and the peloqueria of Rebeca Dovas, who has opened her Spanish hair salon opposite El Cordobes.

Dovas has her child with her in a stroller. Wordlessly, Albaida opens a can of "Limonada Limon" for her. No words are needed. The 33-year-old, who was born and raised in Germany, also considers herself one hundred percent Spanish. "That's of course cool," says Albaida, and Dovas adds that Spaniards are also very popular in Germany: "Everyone likes our music, flamenco and food."

Albaida laughs as he can relate. As a teenager, when he was still training to be a car mechanic, he already danced flamenco. He used to make his way through Bonn pubs, spreading Spanish music with his friend Manuel Cabello (54). He still makes music today, “Los Manolos" having been successfully setting the mood in many places for almost 40 years.

Whether in pubs or in front of thousands of fans at festivals or on Bonn's market square: "After fifteen minutes, they're all standing," Albaida quotes Dieter Bohlen (from the German music scene). In 2017, Bohlen pressed the buzzer on the RTL show "Das Supertalent" for the four-member group from Beuel with an average age of 57. Even though a ten-year-old dog trainer then won over the audience in the final, the TV appearance was one of the highlights of Albaida's music career. "Nevertheless, we have remained unorganized and make music only because it's fun for us," he says. That's also how he takes on (almost) every job. Whether Los Manolos play in front of two or 2,000 people is not important to him.

He enjoys the life he is able to lead. He is proud of his three children and still has plans. Anyone who was surprised that the man from Beuel opened a Spanish specialty store at the start of the Corona pandemic, of all things, was told that someone had to make sure that it continued. "Next year will be my year," he says with a laugh. He does not intend to become a millionaire. It's enough for him to have his friends and to be able to think normally, to be human and not arrogant.

Albaida would be happy, however, if he could hand over the chairmanship of the Spanish Parents' Association founded by his father to younger people after more than 22 years. With 700 members, the cultural association is, by its own account, the largest Spanish parents' association in Germany. "Then I would simply have more time to take care of my cars, for example," he says. After all, he was a workshop foreman at Peugeot for 16 years. Maybe then he wouldn't always have to put everything off until "mañana," tomorrow. And his friends wouldn't call him Mañana-Manuel anymore.

(Original text: Stefan Hermes / Translation: Carol Kloeppel)