The Spanish Imposition

El Camino

2006-09-29T15:31:00.000+02:00

If anyone is still reading, I'm still alive. (Well, I'm still alive even if you're not reading. Whatever.) It's Day 8 of my walk across Spain--we've come almost 200k so far and have about 550 to go. My feet are sore and a little blistered but they haven't mutinied yet.

Today we stopped after only about 20k because it was starting to rain. That makes us sound horribly wimpy--we can walk in the rain. Stopping was really more about doing laundry, which maybe makes us sound wimpier, I dunno. Bad pilgrims. Anyway, I'm writing this from a laundromat/internet cafe and listening to some Brazilian pilgrims trying to figure out the washing machines.

Here's what it's like. All the towns on the route have albergues, which are like hostels only with even fewer comforts. Some have all the beds in one room, other have a few different rooms. Bunk beds, most have sheets and pillows but no blankets. You're supposed to bring a sleeping bag but my friend and I, the most half-assed pilgrims ever, decided sleeping bags were too heavy so we have to scrounge. We at least haven't had to sleep in a chicken coop yet, like the two slightly hapless Brazilians we met the first night did. Anyway, you usually have to be in by 10pm. This may well be my least favorite part of the camino--it doesn't matter how tired I am, I pretty much can't go to sleep at 10pm. Whatever. I wake up between 6 and 7 because by then other people are up and being loud. Change clothes, brush teeth, find coffee and protein. Finding coffee and protein that early in Spain is hard but we've done okay so far. Walk. Walk. Fruit break. Walk. Walk. Lunch. Walk. Coffee. Walk. Find albergue, shower, sit, eat. Drink. Drink. Drink. (Not really, but there is this crazy old Italian guy who calls me (in Italian) the old drunk.) Sleep. Repeat.

We started in Roncesvalles, in Navarra just on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. Went all the way through Navarra and are now going through La Rioja. Lots of grapes. Lots of big dramatic scenery--mountains, big fields, open blue sky. Lots of interesting people. Names seem sort of irrelevant and I'm bad with them anyway, so people have names like the Italian, the chicos, old and young Bob Marley, the guys who like churches, the bus drivers. Lots of languages--most people speak English but not everyone. I've managed to have a few broken conversations in both Italian and Portuguese, and am getting lots of Spanish practice as well. I've already had three arguments in Spanish about the fact that Catalan is a separate language and not a dialect of Spanish--the conversation is frustrating as hell but I also kinda like it because I'm getting good at having it in Spanish.

Last night the bus drivers gave me a forty (yeah, as in forty ounces of bad beer) and I sat on a curb drinking it and smoking. How is this purifying me again? Wherever I go, there I am....

What the fuck was I thinking?

2006-09-20T17:16:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow I'm gonna wake up at 6am to take a bus to Pamplona. Then I'm gonna take another bus to Roncesvalles, just on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. And then I'm gonna walk to Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia. That's 750km. It's a religious pilgrimage called the Camino de Santiago. I'm not looking for god, just adventures and cheap travel and muscle tone. We'll see what I find. It seemed like a good idea back when it wasn't gonna happen for a few months.

I dunno what's gonna become of the blog, exactly. I'll try to at least make occasional "I'm still alive" posts. Wish me luck!

I am the eggplant

2006-09-17T15:16:00.000+02:00

Okay. This afternoon it finally stopped raining and the sun came out. I take back the mean things said to myself about Santander. I do think the people here are particularly unfriendly, but whatever. (Dear waiter from this morning: Yeah, I ordered a second piece of toast and a cup of coffee. It was pouring rain and there was nothing else to do but eat more. Fuck you and your raised eyebrow.)

Santander is mostly on the bottom of this peninsula that's surrounded by a bay to the south and the ocean to the north. On a map it looks like a short walk to the ocean part of the peninsula. It's not. Its a very long walk. But it was exactly what I felt like doing today. The sun came out just in time. I threw away my umbrella. (I imagined myself very dramatically throwing it into the ocean, but that would be littering.) It was beautiful. Part cliffs, part beach, waves, surfers. At the end of the peninsula is a little pool with walruses, of all things.

So. This is it for this part of the trip--nine hours on a bus tomorrow and I'm back in Barcelona. No real deep reflections on the trip, at least not yet. They'll go in the book. (Promise you'll read the book if I ever write it, even though you'll already know what happens. I'll add some new stuff. Or I'll just make shit up.)

Sixty feet under

2006-09-16T14:00:00.000+02:00

Fucking hell I had forgotten how much I hate rain. It's been raining for days but I mostly managed to stay out of it. In Cangas de Onís it thunderstormed, which was at least interesting. This morning there was a rainbow. I'm trying to be positive. But then my feet got soaked and my umbrella inverted and that sucks so fucking bad. Grrr.

Anyway. There are these caves with prehistoric paintings outside of Santander. Seemed like a good thing to do on a rainy day, since caves have rooves. But the caves are 1.5k from the bus stop, uphill, in the rain. Stop whining.

The cave (there are allegedly four, but you could only visit one) was very impressive. They let you go about 20m down and it's all dark and spooky and puddle-y and full of stalacmites and stalactites. And the oldest of the paintings is thirty thousand years old. Wow. Painting is kind of a strong word; it's an outline made by blowing crushed oxidated iron against a hand placed flat on the wall. So the ancients found a use for rust. You know the turkeys that kids draw by outlining their hands? It looked like that, but with no beak. The "newer" ones (only fifteen thousand years old) were actually paintings, of horses and deer and bison, and better than anything I could paint. Excavation of the cave started in the early 1900's and was originally funded by the prince of Monaco.

Thirty thousand years; that kinda makes my head spin. I'm not sure how they date things made of iron, and my Spanish skills don't really support that kind of conversation. Maybe the rust had some carbon in it, I dunno.

I meant to wear sneakers to the cave, but then I forgot and showed up in my flip-flops, which are on their very last legs and have no traction. Not exactly caveworthy, and there was even a warning at the entrance about wearing appropriate shoes. So I was a little worried. But fear not, this is Spain, where even my most ridiculous shoes are borderline practical. The flip-flops were fine.

The best train ride ever

2006-09-15T13:40:00.000+02:00

I'm sure that's not really true. It wasn't even a nice train, and it was all rattle-y and stopped about every three minutes and kept blowing its horn really loudly. But it was beautiful. Heading east, mostly through the mountains following a little river and sometimes cutting north to the coast. They call the north coast of Spain the costa verde (green coast) and it is so pretty. I won't bore you with ramble-y landscape descriptions, but I'm a sucker for ocean and mountains together and, if not the best ever, it was the best train ride I've ever been on.

The train stopped in Santander, the last stop on this leg of wandering around Iberia. On Sunday I'm back to Barcelona and then off to start the Camino de Santiago. All I really wanted to do today was walk on the beach, but it rained. Again. I think I've seen more rain in the past three days than I had in the previous three months. So I went to the art museum. Free museums are so great.

I'm not sick of art museums yet, but I don't always have much left to say about them. But this one did have this weird abstract piece, this amorphous sculpture (I think it was called The Blob) with a face projected onto it, repeating a very muffled monologue. But it wasn't really a face because it had no nose and the eyes slanted up at 45-degree angles. It was strange looking. The fun part was that almost the whole time I was there, the museum employees were laughing uncontrollably at it. Nice change from the typical stern, bored, frowning museum guards.

My name is Samantha, and I'm not an alcoholic

2006-09-14T18:01:00.000+02:00

The Picos de Europa are a little mountain range in eastern Asturias (pico means beak, and also peak) that I would like to be hiking through but I don't really have time and I'll be doing plenty of hiking very soon. I'm pretty sure Congas de Onís is not one of the highlights of the Picos, but it worked for me because it's easy to get to. It feels touristy even in September and you need a car to get to the good hikes. But still, it's in the mountains and I took a nice long walk by the Rio Sellas, passing little farms with cute houses and horses and cows and sheep.

So, cider (sidra, en español). The restraint that Spanish people show towards alcohol amazes me. A Spanish person will go into a bar, order a beer, drink half of it, and then leave. It's partly a cost thing, I guess: Alcohol is cheap here. (Beer is often cheaper than water or soda.) But it's also a cultural thing. I really don't think I have a drinking problem. But where I come from, if you've paid for alcohol, you drink it. If you're given alcohol you pretty much drink it. To do otherwise is alcohol abuse. I don't even think that's funny, but it's ingrained.

One of my favorite memories from living in Spain was going to a Basque cider house outside of San Sebastián back in April. My current trip through Asturias has been almost nothing like that Basque adventure, but I have drunk a lot of cider. They make it here (there are apple trees all over Asturias), it's really popular, it's really good, and I've had it for lunch and dinner every day that I've been here in Asturias. Which is where the restraint thing comes in (or doesn't, I guess). When you order cider here they bring you a whole big bottle, about the size of a bottle of wine. Cider has less alcohol than wine, but more than beer, and a whole big bottle is more than I need, especially in the middle of the afternoon. But once they put the open bottle on the table, well... I've been drinking a lot of cider. Is it possible that it's good for me? It is made with apples....

Oh, and I'm on a quest. It's good to have goals, and one of my current ones is to like blue cheese. People who like blue cheese really like blue cheese. It brings them joy, and I feel a little left out. I wanna feel the joy, too. But it's not working. When I eat blue cheese it still tastes like feet.

I'm sorry, what was your name again?

2006-09-13T17:34:00.000+02:00

The Oviedo art museum has a room full of El Grecos. Twelve, to be exact--the twelve apostles. Each has the apostle's name painted on top, but I guess the Greek was confused or something, because next to the painting labeled San Mateo is a sign saying the painting was mislabeled and it's really San Felipe. And the one labeled San Felipe is really San Mateo. San Bartolomeo and someone else are similarly mislabeled, but there was no more information than that given. Seems like a strange mistake to have made, and I wonder how anyone noticed it; the paintings didn't seem to include a lot of identifying features. Maybe if I knew my apostles better it would be obvious.

I was a little skeptical about Oviedo. For no good reason whatsoever, but doesn't Oviedo just sound like someplace that might not be nice? Turns out it's lovely, and Asturian boy (his name might have been Jordi, but then maybe that was his friend's name) is two-for-two.

It's not that different from most other medium-sized Spanish cities, really, but it's nice. It seems exceptionally clean, and the little Spanish balconies that cover the buildings are filled with plants and flowers. There are lots of cute little squares and nice cafes. And the bus station bathrooms are well-stocked with toilet paper; that almost never happens in Spain. Very likeable.

So real

2006-09-12T16:15:00.000+02:00

People from Asturias love Asturias. (Asturias is a little autonomous region on the north coast, just east of Galicia.) I met an Asturian guy a while back and he made me a whole list of places here that I have to see; I'm trying to get to as many as I can in a few days. Stop number one was Luarca, a little fishing village that speaks directly to my obsession with authenticity. The port is tiny and filled with little brightly-colored fishing boats and a tired-looking orange tugboat. Old men fish off rocks and there are signs all over saying (more or less) "Be careful because we don't respond to accidents."

The land sweeps up into cliffs on both sides of the bay, making for nice views and lots of little hidden rocky cove-y beaches. On the bigger beach were a few families left over from tourist season; kids playing futbol, dads fishing, grandmotherly types sunbathing even though there was no sun. A few rogue raindrops, but mostly it was just cloudy all day, which seemed fitting.

I'm sure I'm not the only tourist here, but I like to think I am. I feel like a fly on the wall in someplace real, that's not trying to sell itself or be anything other than what it is. Thank you, Asturian guy whose name I can't remember.

Volver

2006-09-11T15:53:00.000+02:00

Picasso really got around, including geographically. He was born in Málaga, and before Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, the south of France, and I forget where else, he lived in Galicia in A Coruña. I didn't really mean to come to A Coruña; I didn't want to come to Galicia at all until I walk here next month on the Camino de Santiago. But to get from northern Portugal to Spain by bus or train, the options are Galicia or Madrid. I sure as hell wasn't going to Madrid, so I opted for A Coruña because it's on the water and you'd think there would be Picasso stuff here since he lived here. There is a little museum in the house where his family lived, but visits are by appointment only and never on Sunday. Joder. But it was okay. A Coruña juts into the water in all directions and it was warm and sunny so I walked and walked and walked.

I like ports; I think they're beautiful and romantic in a way that most other industrial sites can't pull off. After the boats and cranes and containers, the Coruñan coast gets all rugged and rocky and green and kinda looks like Ireland, except for the naked guy sunning himself on a rock and the fact that the sun was even shining. Then it gets beachy. It's not the nicest beach, but there are pieces of something in the sand that make it look full of diamonds the way some sidewalks do, and sun shinking on water always looks nice. Walking on the beach I accidentally went too deep and got my pants all wet, but it was okay. I have to be pretty content to not mind wearing wet jeans.

It's nice to feel like I (kind of) speak the right language again, although I accidentally asked for cerveja (Portuguese) instead of cerveza (Spanish) when ordering a beer, and I keep catching myself wanting to say obrigada instead of gracias for thank you. I learned the important Portuguese words, anyway. And Galicia is in Spain, so they speak another language in addition to Castilian Spanish. Gallego is a lot like Portuguese, so maybe my mistakes will just make me blend in.

Think crazy thoughts

2006-09-10T15:48:00.000+02:00

My last full day in Portugal didn't go exactly as planned. Patricio said I should go to Braga and Guimarães, and that I could see them both in a single day. So I got up earlyand was gonna do that, but when I got to the station the next train to Guimarães wasn't leaving for two hours, which wouldn't leave me much time there and at that point I didn't really even know where I was sleeping tonight but was planning on Braga, so I blew off Guimarães. Blew it off entirely, because I already bought a bus ticket to go back to Spain tomorrow. So I'll just have to come back to Portugal.

In Braga I met Armando, Ricardo, and Paula. I usually like the people I meet when I travel, but I really liked thse guys. They're fun and goofy and argue about stupid shit just for the hell of it; they reminded me of my friends back home. They taught me some Portuguese (I've already forgotten it all, of course, but one way of referring to partying in Portuguese translates to "banging your helmet") and introduced me to some really good Portuguese beer. Good times.

The sight to see in Braga is Bom Jesus (Good Jesus): a complex of god, gardens, and fountains built into the side of a hill with a lot of steps. It's apparently a pilgrimmage site and the Lonely Planet says some people climb the steps on their knees. (I only saw people on foot.) I went to Bom Jesus with Armando, who is a semi-professional photographer. He generously brought his camera to take pictures for me, and then very nicely told me that I suck at modeling. So there goes that life backup plan.

O Porto

2006-09-09T16:25:00.000+02:00

In Porto, I'm staying with Patricio, the most metrosexual straight man ever (and in Europe that's saying a lot). In his bathroom are no fewer than five different kinds of hair product. He has really nice crystal. He cleans. I've somehow found the only vegetarian in Portugal, but he cooks. Really well. He might be perfect, except that it's hard not to get a little self-conscious. He dresses better than I do, and smells better than I do, and has better hair than I do and, well, he's just prettier than I am. All this recent ego-bruising has to be good for me. I'm just gonna keep telling myself that.

Anyway, Porto. Northern Portugal, on the Duoro river (Duero en español, as in ribera del duero), home of Port wine. Well, not exactly--the grapes are grown farther east in the Duoro valley and the wine is aged just across the river from Porto in Gaia. Porto has a port wine museum, but there's no port wine at the port wine museum. I felt robbed. But, most of the wine caves in Gaia have free tours and tastings. And it tastes really good. I love port wine. They stop the fermentation process early by adding brandy, which makes it both sweeter and more alcoholic than regular wine. Port wine production got big in the late 1700's, and a lot of the companies were started by British people, so the wineries have names like Croft, Sandeman, Offley. Blah, blah blah.

The riverfront in Porto is touristy, but walk away from the river and it gets authentic and gritty pretty quickly. Lots of clotheslines, lots of cats and dogs, old ladies in housecoats, barely dressed little kids running around.

I've been kind of a bad tourist in Porto. I've been sleeping in and having long lunches and not seeing all the sights. I went to the contemporary art museum, which is nice in that scratch-your-head kind of way and has a really nice garden. And there's a photography museum, housed in the former appeals court/jail. Portuguese criminals used to be sent to Africa, but the ones with money could pay to stay in Portuguese jails. Those payments helped fund the construction of the jail/court, and now that it's a museum one of the main exhibitions is of photographs of Africa. It all comes together.

And they eat these awful sandwiches here. They don't taste bad, they just are bad. They couldn't be more debaucherous even if they were covered in chocolate. Take a hamburger, and then add ham, salami, and sausage. Then cover the whole thing in melted cheese--a lot of melted cheese--and then cover all that in hot sauce. It's called a francesinha, which I think technically means "little French girl." Whatever. Maybe the single unhealthiest thing I've ever eaten but, fear not, I had it with a Coca Cola Light.

Out of the woods

2006-09-04T19:38:00.000+02:00

It was Sunday afternoon and I was sitting in one of those white plastic chairs outside at a bar drinking a Coke (Coca-Cola Light, whatever) from a glass bottle. The radio was playing. It felt very 1950's. Then a group of maybe 30 people started doing this traditional-looking dance in a little gazebo next door. While Coldplay and then Queen on the radio mixed with the traditional-sounding music from the gazebo, I was having all these thoughts about American culture taking over and wondering what Portuguese pop music would sound like if not for American influence. Then I remembered that Coldplay and Queen are both British. Nevermind.

Luso is on the edge of the Buçaco Forest, and I came here to go hiking. But the forest is a lot smaller than I was expecting. I was able to see most of it in about three hours, which left a lot of time for sitting in plastic chairs drinking Coca-Cola Light, which was okay with me. Luso only has about 2000 people, so there's not a lot to do outside the forest. I went to the community pool, and ate grilled cuttlefish (I love cuttlefish), and read the Economist. It was nice. While I was sitting in the plastic chair with the Coca-Cola Light I met his old guy who, when he realized I don't speak Portuguese, decided I was French. He kept calling me Madamoiselle. Aside from the typical ?How old are you? and ?Are you married?, I couldn't understand most of what he was saying. His nephew, who kept apologizing, spoke some Spanish and was kind of translating. The old guy wanted to know where my parents were, and where was I staying, and he knows the woman who runs my hotel. He bought me a Coke. It was very cute. And when I left, he made me say good-bye in French.

Old Europe

2006-09-03T18:54:00.000+02:00

Sometimes I pretend I'm a photographer. I go around getting excited about light and finding random things beautiful. Pretend jobs are fun like that. And I really think the sun is brighter here in Portugal. Is that possible? It shines every day and turns everything it touches beautiful. Really.

Coimbra (smallish city in central Portugal) is a pretty good representation of my idealized Europe. It has the narrow streets and the cobblestone and the churches and the cafes, but it's not all overdone and touristy like so many quaint European cities are. Maybe it's because I arrived in the evening, with the sky glowing and the moon just out, and wandered aimlessly for a while. The old stone buildings look really nice in that kind of light and the streets were full of people. Outdoor cafes and people calling down from balconies to people on the streets. It's just so charming.

There are big open squares here and old stately buildings, slightly obscured by tangles of wires (bus, train, electric, I dunno). And it's just a little bit gritty. The streets are so narrow and winding that some feel more like dark alleys and you wonder who might be lurking around the corner. The buildings are old and a lot aren't in great shape. They look old, but in a Clint Eastwood kind of way: They're experienced; they have character. It's just perfect.

My first full day in Coimbra started out cold and cloudy, but with this fog that made everything look like an impressionist painting. There were people pushing old rickety carts of fruit through the streets to sell outside. How can you not be a sucker for shit like that? And then the sun came out.

Coimbra is home to one of the oldest universities in Europe--it dates back to the twelfth century I think and, in addition to being a university, is also a tourist attraction that you can pay to visit. "Fuck that," I thought, "I've seen European universities--I even worked in one." Then I remembered that the university where I worked is all of about twenty years old and decided this one might be worth shelling out a few euros for. And it was. There's this preserved fifteenth century library with Oriental rugs and beautiful wood furniture and old books stacked up to the ceiling. I've gotten nothing done in some pretty nice libraries in my time, but nothing like this. (I bet it doesn't have wireless, though.) And the university used to have a prison, so that university-related convicts didn't have to live with the common criminals.

And I saw more fado, in a dark smoky bar where old guys were passing guitars around and taking beer breaks. And I had dinner outside in the most tucked-away square ever. And when I left it was on a train, not a bus. Perfect.

Lost in a forest

2006-09-01T10:58:00.000+02:00

Sintra is must-see. It really is. But it pissed me off. First things first: former royal family retreat, an hour away from Lisbon, mountains, castles, palaces.

The Palacio Pena, the really big one, is inside the Parque Pena. I.e., it's in the middle of the woods. The guy at the tourist office told me to go there first because it gets crowded. He told me exactly how to get there and it sounded easy but, with my bad memory and one of the worst tourist maps ever, I went right when I should have gone left and walked waaaay out of the way, finally entering the park through a back entrance. Which should have been fine. The park isn't that big and I had a map. The worst map ever. Most of what was on the map didn't seem to exist in the park, and most of the landmarks in the park weren't on the map. And there was no scale or compass (trust me, north is not always at the top of southern European tourist maps). I thought I was okay because there were signs pointing to the palace. But then the third sign was in between two paths and the pointy part of the arrow had worn off so you couldn't tell which way to go. I ended up trying both (both uphill of course, because that's where castles are--on top of hills) and neither worked.

This story is getting way too long. It was infuriating. I was lost in the woods. I was talking to myself to remain calm. I finally found someone to ask for directions, understood when they were given in Portuguese, found the palace, and calmed down. The views were slightly hidden by the first real clouds I've seen in Portugal, but the whole thing was still pretty impressive. Nice art, nice Portuguese tiles in most of the rooms, even nice bathrooms. And it is pretty cool that it's hidden in the middle of the woods (now that I've stopped hating the woods). Like an enchanted forest. Back in the center of Sintra is the National Palace. Also very nice with more Portuguese tiles, which are one of my new favorite things.

But the real highlight of Sintra was this cat I met. In Spain and Portugal both, you see cats everywhere; you'd think they'd be used to people, but they're usually really skittish. Which is why I was so excited for this little white cat with one blue eye and one green eye. He was so friendly. He rubbed up against my foot and when I pet him he fell down and he was purring and he was playing.... It really doesn't take much with me.

A little slice of heaven

2006-08-31T12:30:00.000+02:00

In keeping with Portuguese people being generally quieter than Spanish people, I get cat-called a lot less here than I did in Spain. But I get honked at a lot. Sometimes the guys yell something from the cars, but mostly they just honk. Pedro says it's because Portuguese guys are shy.

Mehmet told me that Portuguese people have an inferiority complex about Spain. I asked Pedro's friend Paolo (as if anyone would own up to having an inferiority complex) and he said no, he just doesn't like Spanish people.

A lot of the buildings here are tiled on the outside. It's called azulejo and the tiles often have a lot of blue but not always. It looks really nice, but up-close photos mostly don't work out so well because the tiles are old and so usually a little worn when you look closely. I passed this building today whose tiles were in really good condition, even up close, so I stopped to take a touristy picture even though there was a guy standing right outside. (I mostly try to act like a tourist only when no one's watching.) The guy told me they weren't the original tiles. Caught! No wonder they looked so nice. I told him they would make a nice photo, anyway. And then he asked me if I wanted one of the original tiles. He works in the building and told me that they recently remodeled and retiled the building, but they have lots of old tiles laying around. What luck! Maybe I should act like a tourist more often. Unfortunately he couldn't find any and was about to go look in the garage when an older guy who I'm guessing was maybe his boss showed up. After some animated discussion in Portuguese, it turned out there were no extra tiles--none for me, anyway. Damn. Would have made a really good souvenir, with a good story to go with it. I got nice photos, anyway.

I didn't really do much today, which is why I'm kind of rambling. But I did have pasteis (pronounced posh-taysh) de nata. It's a little tart-like thing, with a flaky crust and filled with heaven. I suck at describing food: It's sweet, it's creamy (nata means cream), with a slight flavor of cinnamon or nutmeg. Kinda like creme brulee a little? I dunno, but it's sooooo good. It is so good. I dunno why they don't seem to make it anywhere else, but come to Portugal. Try it. You'll like it. You'll love it.

Ouch

2006-08-29T21:24:00.000+02:00

Ouch. Nothing like two hot nineteen-year-old Estonian girls, massage therapists hitchhiking across Europe, to make you feel old and ordinary. My ego hurts.

Anyway. Évora is an hour and a half-is east of Lisbon. It's walled and quaint and cobble-stoned and, I had heard, must-see. And I probably would have agreed two months ago, before I started seeing walled, quaint, cobble-stoned towns on a very regular basis.

Évora is really nice, I just couldn't get that into it. It's really hot, and I kept getting lost. Which really wasn't Évora's fault. I'm always getting lost (especially now without my compass) because I have no sense of direction, and I was stubborn and didn't get a good map from the tourist office because they were too big. I spent most of the day grumpy, anyway.

Back in Lisbon, I finally saw some Fado, so the day wasn't lost. Fado is kinda like flamenco, but a little more restrained and without the dancing and clapping. It didn't speak to me quite the way flamenco does, but I did like it. You can't go too wrong with good guitar and gaping-wound vocals.

And they drink beer with coffee here. I don't think they drink it a lot, but apparently dark beer mixed with coffee and sugar and I dunno what else is a traditional Portuguese drink. (Either that or my new friend Pedro was just fucking with me.) I disliked it less than I thought I would, but that's the highest praise I can give. I forget the Portuguese name for it, but it means "kick in the cunt." Ouch.

The plural of octopus is not and never has been octopi

2006-08-28T21:12:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I basked in evening sun and suspension bridges; tonight I'm basking in my dinner. I found the perfect restaurant. It's a little hole in the wall. It's not really in the middle of nowhere because it's pretty close to the city center, but it's on a dark, otherwise residential street and marked only by a string of Christmas lights and a handwritten sign in the window.

I ordered octopus. I really like seafood, but I'm so picky about it that I often don't bother ordering it. But this was really, really good. Eat until it hurts good. And they brought me cheese just like my food friend said they would, and it was really really good too. And the waiter/cook/owner didn't argue when I told him I speak Spanish. And I had bread, cheese, octopus, water, too much wine, and coffee all for 10.95€. I do like Portugal.

Before dinner, I did touristy stuff. Two art museums, one modern and one a collector's collection (Calouste Gulbenkian, sounds like Guggenheim, right?). Señor Gulbenkian must have really liked René Lalique, because he had a whole room full of his stuff. Some glasswork and mostly jewelry. Really nice jewelry. I also really like René Lalique.

The contemporary art museum had this great installation made out of books. Imagine an open square made of stacks of books, maybe five feet wide and about ten feet high, with openings on two sides so you can walk through. Inside, the ceiling and the floor are mirrored, except for a thin mat that you walk across. Not sure if the description works, but the effect is you feel like you're walking across this bridge with nothing underneath, the books just go up and down forever. There was a sign discouraging people who fear heights from entering--I'm not sure it was that realistic, but it was a little disconcerting.

Beef Kung Pão

2006-08-27T20:51:00.000+02:00

So. It's my first night in Lisbon and I'm having Chinese food for dinner. I can explain. Kind of. I walked all day and I'm really tired and don't have it in me to look hard for a restaurant or walk very far. But everything around my hotel has menus in about ten different languages and really annoying waiters outisde trying to draw you in. Except this one mostly empty Chinese place. So here I am. The beef is fair, the rice is awful, and the wine that I somehow accidentally ordered myself a whole bottle of is good. Could be worse, and at least I'm not getting a bad impression of Portuguese food from some tourist hell restaurant.

Anyway. I was ready to leave Faro this morning. How I managed to make an anti-semitic* virgin-seeking Muslim fall for an infidel like myself is beyond me, but Mahmet was getting to be a little much. Time to move on. Even in the capital, Portugal feels almost entirely calm and quiet compared to Spain. And so far, Lisbon has been completely manageable: I showed up in town without a place to stay but found a room pretty quickly. The bus station is far from the center but the metro is easy. I haven't gotten even slightly lost yet. And most people speak English; in fact, I think I'm annoying people by trying to communicate in the Russian-accented bad Spanish that I try to pass off as Portuguese. (Written Portuguese looks like Spanish; spoken Portuguese sounds like Russian. Weird. Several times I've almost answered questions with da instead of sim for yes.) In Spain people mostly appreciate the "English-as-a-last resort" attitude; here, not so much.

But I digress. Lisbon is sort of a filled-in U shape surrounded by the Rio Tejo. Six km west of the center is an area called Belém. (For having a fairly smallpopulation, Lisbon feels spread out.) I arrived in Belém really tired and all sweaty because I thought it would be a good idea to walk there. 6K is a pretty long walk when it's hot and there's no shade. Anyway, I mostly went to Belém to go to this design museum that's there. The museum is in this large complex that reminds me a lot of the Contemporary Culture Center in Barcelona: very modern and open and airy and confusing as hell. Once I finally found it, I liked the museum: kinda art but kinda different. It had a lot of furniture, and it was pretty funny to see what was on the cutting edge of design fifty years ago: A lot of it looked like it could be from Ikea today. They also had some nice glass art, wich is one of my new favorite things.

After the museum I paid 1.50€ to go to the top of a tallish building. Deep thought: Lisbon is really nice. It has nice architecture (lots of the buildings have these cool tiles all over the outside) and lots of green space. Plus, everything looks beter when it's really bright and sunny. It's really windy here, but the wind is somehow doing good things for my hair; that's never happened before. After the view I sat by the river (it is so calm here) and basked in the fact that I'm in Portugal. I took a bunch of pictures of the setting sun shining on this suspension bridge. Bridges are cool anyway, and this one is especially nice because it's a nice shade of red.

So, Lisbon. I like it. Bad Chinese food and all.

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*I'm not stereiotyping. I asked him what he thought about Israel, and he asked me if I'd been to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. I have. He started talking about how big the house was, and how wealthy the Franks were, and how the Jews had too much money and the German government had to do something, and that he wrote as much in the Anne Frank House guestbook.... And here I felt guilty about getting stoned after going to the Anne Frank house.

Livin' is easy

2006-08-26T14:44:00.000+02:00

The nice beaches in Faro aren't really in Faro, they're around Faro. For five euros round trip you can take a boat to an island with nice beaches. Perfect. (Actually I don't really like boats that much (I get seasick sometimes), but never mind, I'm taking a boat to an island to lay on the beach. Perfect.) I just had to get to the boat.

Walking is one of my favorite forms of transportation. It's reliable, easy, and good for you. I really didn't care that it was a long walk from Mehmet's place to the boat. But he insisted on taking me to the boat, and on biking there. He said it was a short walk to the gas station to fill the flat tire, and that we'd be riding on trails, not in traffic. Both blatant lies. It was a really long walk, mostly uphill, to the gas station. I didn't realize until it was too late that the bike was too big for me. The seat didn't go down quite far enough. Really, really painful. And then once we filled the tire and started riding, it was all on city streets, with cars and stoplights, pedestrians, traffic circles. And then we hit the cobbled sidewalks.

Poor Mehmet. His intentions were good; he was really trying to help. That didn't make me want to strangle him any less when I finally got off the bike. BUt then I got to go to a remote island and I calmed down. The island was a lot more remote than I'd expected; the boat ride took an hour. But once I finally go there it was really, really nice. It wasn't deserted, but it wasn't really that crowded either. The sand was white and soft. The water isn't the brilliant blue/green/teal/turquoise and everything in between of Croatia, but it's a very pretty shade of blue and it shines like glass and is the perfect temperature. A few times this trip I've had these nearly overwhelming feelings of contentment, these realizations that I'm exactly where I should be, doing what I should be doing. It happened when I was hiking in the Pyrenees and when I was driving with my friend around Castilla-La Mancha, and again today at the beach. It's a very, very good feeling; if I could get it chemically I'd be hooked. Anyway, it was a great day to be at the beach because it's really friggin' hot here. It's less dry than Spain was and the sun is intense. I haven't seen a Portuguese cloud yet.

Ferol is the name of the island (I think). Aside from a four-wheeler with a trailer that some guys were using to move butano or something, the only vehicles on Ferol were two shopping carts chained together. (I didn't ask.) All signs pointed to everything being screw-you expensive, but I had a decent sandwich and a beer all for 2.50 euros.

And. I had decided to go topless. I was alone, a day away from leaving town, and in no danger of running into anyone I know. No tanlines. I had sunscreen. Maybe it would be freeing and liberating. I was gonna try. Until I noticed that no one else was topless. This is so not Spain.

In another country

2006-08-25T14:28:00.000+02:00

Quick, go--first thoughts on Portugal: It's a lot quieter than Spain. People don't talk as much or as loudly; doors aren't slammed as much; there are fewer motorcycles. People speak more English and smoke less than in Spain. It's cheaper here.

I was kinda supposed to be in Lisbon today; I'm only in Faro because of the terrorists. See, the bus ride from Sevilla to Lisbon takes 7.5 hours, and at the bus station they told me to buy the ticket ahead of time because they buses often sell out. So I bought the ticket before I went to Cádiz, which was back when I thought I might not be able to charge my iPod for months. (And I need a new charger because my old charger got ruined by shampoo, which exploded because the terrorists made British Airways make me check my bag.) Seven plus hours on a crowded bus without music seemed like cruel and unusual punishment, and the bus stops in Faro, a mere 2.5 hours from Sevilla on the south coast of Portugal. And I've been feeling beachy lately and I have a place to stay. So here I am in Faro.

Right after I got here I had a drink with this Italian-Swiss guy that I met on the bus who has perhaps the nicest teeth I've ever seen. He had an hour to kill before catching another bus to Lagos to go surfing. So we're at this cafe and this old guy sits down with his little dog. I think it was some kind of poodle. The waiter brings him a Coke, a glass of ice, a glass of water, and a saucer. After pouring some Coke into the glass with ice, he pours a mix of Coke and water into the saucer and feeds it to the dog, who's sitting on his lap. He was one of those older guys whose mouth is always smiling, and when the dog's ear got in the Coke he wiped it off with a napkin. It was the cutest thing ever. So far so good.

I'm staying with Mehmet, a Turkish civil engineering student. We had lunch at this place that felt like someone's backyard, where an old guy with about three teeth cooked sardines on an old beat-up grill and told war stories that I could only barely follow. (Portugal had some involvement in Angola. I did not know that. Later I saw another older guy with some names and Angola 1972 tattooed on his arm.)

Mehmet is Muslim and seems to be in something of a transitional state with his faith. He doesn't eat pork and he prays, at least sometimes, but he started drinking occasionally when he came to Portugal and he's currently reading the Koran to get a better sense of things. And he wants to marry a virgin. I wanted to start trying Portuguese wine, so I ended up pre-partying (there's a term I haven't heard since college) with one of the more devout Muslims I've ever personally met. Bizarre. He lives a longish walk from the city center and thought we should ride bikes to the bar. Sounded like bad idea jeans to me (I can't ride a bike properly when I'm sober), so I was relieved when one of the bikes had a flat tire. But he really didn't want to walk, so I rode on the back of his bike. (We've gone from college to junior high.) Not on the spokes, because there were no spokes: I was on the seat and he was on the pedals. It was a little fun and exhilirating, but mostly scary and painful. (I had to hold my feet up and back the whole time to keep them out of the way of things like walls and oncoming traffic.) And sobering, so the pre-partying ended up being for naught. And I can't tango.

I'm back!

2006-08-24T14:10:00.000+02:00

Yesterday wasn't the first time Spain has started to all look the same, or the first time that this trip has started to wear on me. It doesn't make for great writing (or maybe I just don't like to own up to being unhappy). I didn't really want to go to Sevilla en route to Portugal. I wanted to go to Cádiz--I hadn't been before, my guide book raves about it, and it's close to Portugal. Sevilla is really, really nice, but it's really hot and I've already been there. But the buses to Portugal leave from Sevilla and I couldn't easily find a place to sleep in Cádiz. My room in Sevilla is cheap, but also windowless and musty as hell. The toilet is across the hall and the shower is a curtainless corner of the room that's impossible to use without soaking everything. The walls are Spanish-tiled, but the tiles are falling off. Pretty gross. The people at El Corte Inglés told me that Apple, not El Corte Inglés, is sold out of iPod chargers. It's hot and touristy, and I've spent the better part of the past two weeks surrounded by really good friends and, okay I admit it, yesterday was kinda lonely.

But that was yesterday. Today I got up early and took the two-hour bus ride for a day trip to Cádiz. Totally worth it. I just like it here. Cádiz is a good size--small enough that you can get your bearings pretty quickly but big enough that after a few hours of walking around I ws still finding things. The architecture is different enough to look new. And the really long hot sweaty walk to El Corte Inglés paid off and I found a new iPod charger. I love Cádiz.

I've been inland for most of this trip. It never occurred to me to be bothered by that, but it's really nice to be on the water again. And it's new water, kinda of: Cádiz is on the Atlantic coast, not the Mediterranean. It's not really as beachy as I thought it would be: the 4.5km "beach walk" described in my guidebook is only about .5km of actual beach; the rest is sidewalk with a view of the water. But whatever, I put my feet in and convinced myself that salt air is good for my cold. And I met the cutest puppy, who licked my hand and very gently bit my finger. His owner glared at me, but fuck her. And I got excited about travel again. And I'm going to Portugal tomorrow. Life is good.

One more try

2006-08-22T22:23:00.000+02:00

Four years ago I came to Córdoba. I was with seven other people in two rented cars. Several of us had fairly strong personalities, and none of us really spoke Spanish. We showed up without a place to stay, had trouble finding a place to stay, argued about where to stay. Once we finally found a hostal, I promptly got myself mugged, sending some of us to the police station and leaving the rest on hold for what I think was a really long time. Without cell phones. We managed to somehow make it out of there without hating Córdoba or each other. (Well, we don't have each other now anyway....) That said, I liked Córdoba much better on the second try. No muggings, no fighting, no tears. I did get a cold, but I deserve it.

I think my favorite thing about Córdoba is the courtyards. It's the Muslim architecture--you see it all over Spain and especially in the south, but Córdoba just seems to do courtyards better than anywhere else I've been. We saw flamenco under the stars in a courtyard. Touristy, yeah, but it wasn't bad and the setting went a long way towards making up for any lack of authenticity. I was convinced our hotel was the same place where my less-broke friends stayed four years ago because I was sure I recognized the courtyard, with its plants and tiles and fountains. But then I passed another place that I was evenmore sure was where they stayed. And then it happened again. Okay, I clearly have no idea where they stayed. ...Which isn't to say that all the courtyards look the same; they're just all really nice, and nice is apparently all I remember about the one from four years ago.

My least favorite thing about Córdoba is salmorejo. I had seen people eating it, got grossed out, and then accidentally ordered it myself because I didn't know what it was called and was feeling adventurous. It's like gazpacho but thick and creamy. Really thick. It actually doesn't taste that bad (I had ordered it and was gonna pay for it, I had to try it), it's just that gazpacho is really good, and even kinda healthy. This stuff can't possibly be healthy. And even worse, it is such an eyesore. It's this light, bright orange that looks like a cross between Thousand Island salad dressing (gag) and that "cheese" dip they sell with nacho chips at sporting events (wretch). Pretty foul.

Deep(er) thoughts

2006-08-20T22:10:00.000+02:00

Flamenco is like pornography that you don't have to feel dirty about.

When the music's over

2006-08-18T22:08:00.000+02:00

So I finally got my backpack back from British Airways. I was hoping for some kind of severance package, but not at all surprised by the lack thereof. I was so happy to have my stuff back I couldn't even be grumpy. And now that I've calmed down and am wearing clean underwear, I mostly just feel sorry for British Airways. They didn't mean to lose my stuff, and they let me use their lounge when I was stuck in Heathrow for an afternoon. That's still way more than you'd get from any of the American carriers.

One major problem remains. My shampoo exploded and one of the things it got all over was my iPod charger. After pulling a few fabulously stupid electrical stunts, I've now convinced myself I need a new charger. But there are no Apple stores in Spain. Maybe a regular electronics store will have one; if not, my future bus trips just got a lot more painful.

Whiiiiine

2006-08-17T20:45:00.000+02:00

Oh Christ, where do I start? First, thanks to everyone who checked in on me after the blog disappeared for a while. I'm alive and well, mostly. Seattle was great. Went canoeing, went to the beach, had sushi, hot tubbed. Had friends waiting for me in Madrid and getting into the apartment we rented there ended up being a nightmare, but aside from that the three extra days in the US weren't really a problem.

The problem was that, three days later, getting back to Spain still meant getting through Heathrow and the carry-on restrictions hadn't yet been relaxed. So I checked everything. I am so fucking cooperative when given no other choice. Never ever ever ever ever ever ever check luggage. Of course they lost my bag. They lost everyone's bag.

And, two days later, my bag is found but still in London.

At about hour 27 of the trip, I finally left the Madrid airport, dutifully carrying my clear plastic bag with my passport, cash, credit cards, tampons, and some Excedrin I'd smuggled on the plane (don't tell). And nothing else. No public transportation at 3am, so I shelled out for a cab. I did magically find my friends without the aid of my phone which, in the middle of this debacle, was a little piece of incredibly good luck. Sleeping on the street in our neighborhood would have been pretty horrible.

Tuesday was mostly a write-off--slept all day. No one answered at any of the baggage claim phone numbers. So today I trucked back to the airport. FUCK the Madrid metro. Fuck it. The stop near our apartment is closed. To get to the airport you have to get off the metro, take a bus, and get back on. You're always changing lines. It's slow. Fuck it. Then once you get to the airport stop you have to take another bus on the highway, in traffic, to get to Terminal 4. Who designed this?

I'm in survival mode: I don't even try speaking Spanish to the Spanish staff at the British Airways counter, except to confirm that they speak English. They make a phone call, hand me the phone, and leave me on hold for a while. I'm surprised by how well I can understand one of the desk clerks flirting with another customer; maybe I should have done the negotiation in Spanish after all. He tries to draw me into their conversation and I'm glad I've temporarily forgotten how to speak Spanish. I've been wearing the same underwear for three days--I can't be charming under these conditions.

Someone finally answers they phone. They've found my bag. In London. Call back tomorrow. So. Not only do I still lack all of my possessions except those in my Ziplock bag, but I have to get right back on the fucking subway. After I take the bus on the highway to the subway. I'm starting to feel defeated.

What's keeping me sane are my friends here who are both good sanity checks as well as approximately my size. That counts for a lot.

Grounded

2006-08-12T20:43:00.000+02:00

Maybe I should just move to Seattle and work at a record store. I guess I'm a little suggestible these days....

Because I insisted on flying British Airways (was in Seattle for a job interview), the thwarted terror attempt thwarted my return trip to Spain. My refusal to get stuck in London meant three extra days in Seattle. Bummer because I have friends in Spain right now waiting to visit me, but at least I'm stuck in a cool city where I have a place to sleep. I sat in an independent coffee shop this morning wearing a sweater and feeling grungy. (Okay, the sweater was brand name and probably expensive, but it was also itchy and borrowed and too big. That counts.) Good coffee. I walked through a park and went to the art museum. It had an exhibition of glass art: very different, very cool. And. Seattle Art Museum: SAM. I made friends with a guy on the street collecting money for the DNC. I told him I have six dollars, a friend, and an ATM card that doesn't work. He told me to keep trying to convince Spain that Americans aren't all bad. And he invited me to go sailing tomorrow but I already have plans to go kayaking. I went to book stores and record stores and a newsstand. (Does life get better than a used book store with a resident cat?) The sun eventually came out. I bought good Belgian beer at an organic grocery store. Just when I was really thinking I could get used to this, I realized I'd paid $8.25 for a glass of wine with lunch. Ouch.

All come praise the infanta

2006-08-04T09:06:00.000+02:00

Maybe France or Italy had more, but Spain has produced a fucking lot of great artists. There's this famous Velázquez painting called Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor) of Felipe IV and his family. (Velázquez was the royal family's official painter when Felipe IV was ruling.) It centers on Felipe's little daughter, the infanta Margarita (isn't infanta just about the most dramatic word ever?). She's wearing this big fancy dress and surrounded by servants and midgets (what was it with European royalty and their midgets?) and a dog and Velázquez himself is in the painting, painting. Picasso painted all these interpretations of Las Meninas that, even thought they look nothing like the original, do somehow kind of get at its essence. (There are a bunch on display at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, and the dog in one of them prompted on of my favorite Mom quotes ever: "Oh. I thought that was a cute little triceratops." It did look a lot like a triceratops.)

Anyway, the Prado Museum in Madrid has the original Meninas and, as part of a special exhibition, some of Picasso's interpretations. Very cool. The museum in Barcelona has a print of the Velázques painting, but it's way better to see the real things together. The problem is they're still not really together: The Meninas are in another room, separated from the Picassos by a large hallway, so you can't see everything up close at the same time. It would be so easy to move the Meninas into the Picasso exhibition. It's the same museum, they don't even need to get anyone's permission, they could just do it. It would temporarily take away from the Velázquez room, but that's what temporary exhibitions do.

Oh well. Anyway, as I already knew, Madrid is much better as a destination than a connection.

Guernika

2006-08-03T09:06:00.000+02:00

I don't know anywhere near enough about art or writing to come up with anything appropriate to say about Picasso, really. (Except to go on about how huggable he was, but I've already done that.) I'll try to stick to the facts. It's the 25-year anniversary of the return of Guernica to Spain, and the museums are celebrating. As Picasso wanted, it was in New York at MOMA until Spain went back to being a free country. After Franco died, it got to come home. I like that story. Not the evil dictator part, but I like the idea of New York keeping it safe for a while, and I like that it's back in Spain now.

I had the Guernica story a little wrong. Picasso had been commissioned by the Spanish Republican government (the side that lost the civil war) to paint something for an upcoming world exposition. He had already started work on what would become Guernica when he found out about the bombing--it affected him and provided final inspiration and a title, but it wasn't exactly the case that the bombing happened and then he decided to do the painting. Which really shouldn't matter. I mean, there was a war going on and people were dying and it was terrible and he created this phenomenal piece of art espousing the horrors of war and it ended up being particularly influenced by one specific tragedy. What's the problem? There isn't one, besides the obvious, but, well, I dunno if it's my soft spot for the Basque country or how proud they are of their Peace Museum in Guernica or what, but I found myself a little disappointed--disappointed really isn't the right word, but I don't know what is--that the painting had just a little bit less to do with Guernica than I had originally thought. I know that's ridiculous, but....

One little pig

2006-08-02T18:33:00.000+02:00

Roast suckling pig is really popular in Segovia. A new Spanish pork product! I was excited, even if the cuteness implied by the name inspired even more guilt than usual about my carnivory. But you know what? I wasn't that impressed. It was good, but it wasn't that good. Maybe I chose a bad restaurant, or maybe I just prefer my Spanish pork a little more mature. And cured. I dunno.

I like Esteban Vicente. He painted shapes in two or three colors on large canvases (think Rothko, slightly scaled down and with more circles). Stuff that might make me say "So what's the big deal?" if I didn't like it so much. But he's got great colors and makes it work. Unfortunately the Esteban Vicente museum in Segovia (he's from Segovia) was half full of a temporary exhibition of sculptures by this guy Gottlieb, a contemporary of Vicente's. I think they went to art school together in New York or something. I like sculpture. I even like some modern sculpture. But modern sculpture that looks like cardboard cutouts of arcs and stars glued together and painted yellow and black just doesn't do it for me. And it took up so much space that would have otherwise been filled with stuff that I like, dammit.

Segovia's other art musuem is one of those free bank-sponsored spaces that hosts temporary exhibits. Most Spanish cities have at least one. One of the exhibitions was this series of September 11-based paintings: before, during, after. Not what I was expecting to see. It was really well-done, though. You knew just what you were looking at, but it was abstract enough that you could look without recoiling. Maybe that's too easy for me to say, though, since I wasn't actually there for September 11.

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I've been to the Russian and now the Spanish version of Versailles, still not the real thing though. Felipe IV was a grandson of Louis XIV and ruler of Spain after his side won the War of the Spanish Succession. (Catalunya backed the other guy and paid for it.) He built a Versailles-like palace with fountains and gardens in La Granja, just outside of Segovia. The fountains weren't turned on, which was kind of a bummer but understandable given that they serve no real purpose and Spain is in a drought right now.

European royalty back then must have been a pretty good gig if you could get it. And didn't get beheaded or anything. They got to live in these fabulous palaces with great art and beautiful gardens. I guess European royalty today have it even better though: They still get to be rich and usually beautiful, don't really have to do anything, and are pretty safe from the guillotine. I don't remember wanting to be a princess when I was a little kid, but it sounds pretty nice right now.

Remember the princess who lived on the hill

2006-08-01T22:42:00.000+02:00

There's just no pleasing me. Speaking Spanish all the time is hard and makes me feel like an idiot, but the sound of American tourists makes me want to run screaming. Segovia felt like tourist hell when I first got here, made me want to hightail it to the nearest pueblo. Right, because I fit in so well with rural Spaniards. I am so full of shit. Segovia is touristy, but for good reason.

It looks like a fairy tale. The cathedral is huge and beautiful and there's an aqueduct and this castle with what used to be a moat. (Another confession: I don't really understand how aqueducts work. But the one here is big and old and impressive nonetheless.) It's hilly, so there are all these great views of the countryside with cute Spanish houses and more churches and mountains in the distance. And it's surprisingly easy to find places where tourists don't go.

I went to church today. I can explain. There's this monastery. Visits are free and I have a strange affection for monks and I had read that they chant at 1pm. So I went. While poking around the part of the monastery that they let you see, I got just a little bit envious of the monks. They live in this incredible building, surrounded by beautiful countryside and looking over a valley to the castle. It's so pretty and peaceful, and what do monks have to worry about, really? Anyway, I went to their daily mass to hear the chanting. Far be it for me to judge (I really mean that, I'm not being obnoxious), but it wasn't that good. Which makes sense: Chanting is a lot like singing (they were doing more singing than chanting, even), and not everyone can sing well. I bet you don't have to pass a singing test to become a monk, and there were only eight of them--not surprising that they didn't form a great choir. They were kinda fun to watch, anyway. One of them kept yawning and another one kept coughing and there was this short bald one who was adorable (Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey?). And a young one, who fascinated me. He looked younger than me, and had a cool haircut and a vaguely trendy beard sans moustache. And he's a monk. I mean, I guess most of the old monks were once young monks (at around what age does one generally become a monk? I dunno), but monkdom is just one of those professions (like school bus driver or professional Santa Claus) that you only picture older people doing. (As an aside, speaking of facial hair, the moustache sans beard remains popular among older Spanish men. I get a kick out of it, but the Magnum PI look is a little dated.)

So anyway, I'm one of five people in the audience at the eight-monk mass. Luckily there were people in front of me so I could follow their lead for sitting, standing, kneeling, and crossing myself. The kneeling part really hurt. I spent the last half fretting over communion. I'm not Catholic; I can't take communion. That would definitely fall under the category of fucking with religion. But what if I'm the only one who doesn't? What if they offer it to me? I know how to say "I'm not Catholic" in Spanish, but should I maybe not even be here if I'm not Catholic?

....It was fine, of course; I didn't have to explain myself and wasn't ostracized or expelled. Churches do make me nervous, though.

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In a span of about 24 hours here, I met four north Africans. One is a dead ringer for Art Garfunkel. I got an earful from a Moroccan guy about how George Bush is evil and wants to kill all the Muslims. He doesn't like Spanish people because they're closed and drink too much (he doesn't drink or smoke or eat pork or have tattoos), but he bought me a beer. And I had an Egyptian guy, in the context of Iraq, tell me that the US has a right to defend itself but that he doesn't want to go to the US until after Bush stops being president. I read in the paper today that the number of foreign workers in Segovia province has quadrupled in the past year or so.

I also met this old Spanish hippie. He had a really long beard and was smoking a cigar and told me that he lived in New York in the 1960's. But when I asked him where, he said in the Kennedy airport terminal. Whatever.

I wasn´t supposed to be here today, either

2006-07-31T18:17:00.000+02:00

Okay, so it was mostly my fault and I'll get over it. But just for today, I fucking hate Madrid. I really thought that I had mastered Spanish buses: they're confusing and you have to ask lots of questions and I have to say como (what) a lot, but I can make it work. Then today hit a whole new low. I was going from Plasencia to Segovia, had to change buses in Ávila. No problem. When I asked for a ticket to Ávila, the bus driver said something incomprehensible about Barco de Ávila. When I asked him to repeat himself he mocked me, muttered some more, and gave me a ticket to Barco de Ávila. Okay, whatever. From Barco de Ávila it should be clear how to get to Ávila. I've got lots of time. No problem. At Barco de Ávila (an hour away from Ávila), he makes us all get off the bus and line up to get back on the bus where he's now selling tickets to Ávila or continuing on to Madrid. It's the same bus, same driver, same ticket machine; there's no reason he couldn't have sold me a ticket to Ávila back in Plasencia. And the tickets are expensive. I hate this bus company. Pero, bueno, I'm headed to Ávila as planned. No problem. After ten minutes or so the bus stops and the driver yells something. I don't hear what he says because I'm listening to music, but buses stop in pueblos all the time. He's probably just announcing the stop. We're definitely not in Ávila. As we're pulling away it occurs to me that a lot of people got off at that pueblo, including this girl who I thought said she was going to Ávila. And there was another of the same company's buses sitting right there. I wasn't supposed to get on the other bus to go to Ávila, was I? Wouldn't the bus driver have mentioned that when I bought the ticket? Or yelled at me when I didn't get off? He clearly thinks I'm an idiot foreigner, wouldn't he want to get rid of me? This may be a problem. Nothing I can do about it now, though. We're clearly heading in the direction of Ávila; I spend the next hour praying to no one that we actually stop there. We don't. Now there's a problem. I really don't want to go to Madrid, and I really don't want to deal with the asshole bus driver now that I've ridden farther than I paid for. But that's what's happening.

It could be worse. At least I know I'll be able to get from Madrid to Segovia. But I hate Madrid. It's hot and chaotic and an hour out of the way. Buses to Segovia probably leave from the main bus station, but who knows where the bus I'm on will drop us off? And this isn't exactly inconsequential: My hotel in Segovia told me they'd give the room away if I'm not there by 4pm. I should still have enough time, and if not I can call and explain; they probably won't really give the room away. But I don't want to have to call, I hate talking on the phone, and what if they're assholes like the bus driver and they do give the room away?

It takes forever to get into Madrid, but at least we go to the main bus station. I sneak off the bus without the asshole driver noticing. It's 1pm, Segovia can't be more than an hour away, and I think the buses run all the time. No problem. I ask at the information booth where to buy a ticket to Segovia. "Otra estación". Fuck. I throw a little yelling fit. Not sure whether my yelling in English made me look like more or less of a wacko. Otra estación means I have to get on the metro, which is hotter than fucking hell and not fully functional, at least it wasn't two weeks ago.

Turns out I can get to this other station without changing metro lines, which helps, but because of the construction I have to go the long way around on a circle line. Luckily the metro is nowhere near the inferno it was two weeks ago, but it takes forever. I'm really grumpy. I spend the ride being annoyed by everyone around me: Stop fanning yourself, it's not that hot; button your shirt, it's definitely not that hot; lose the sunglasses, you're underground. Sixteen stops later, all the up escalators in the station are broken.

Joder.

...My tale of woe pretty much ends there. I made it to Segovia, they hadn't given my room away, no more yelling fits. But still, just for today, fuck Madrid. Okay, I'm better now.

Last thoughts on Extremadura

2006-07-30T17:48:00.000+02:00

Blood sausage could not look more revolting. It's like a big turd, served up on a plate, but it's really, really good. I'm a little embarassed to be seen eating it, it looks so much like poop, but it's worth it. It's really popular here, especially in Guadalupe, although maybe only among tourists since they seem to be the only people in the restaurants. Most of the restaurants in Guadalupe are on the square in front of the monstery and I'm imagining that they all share one big underground kitcen, because the food is pretty much indistinguishable. Not bad, just all the same.

Extramaduran food in general is pretty hearty. (I think sometimes they put jamón in their gazpacho.) One of the popular dishes here is migas, basically stuffing but with big hunks of assorted pork products. Because of the hunting thing you see rabbit and partridge on menus a lot. I never got around to trying either (bad me!), but I did have duck once here and liked it more than I usually like duck. And torta de casar, soft sheep cheese, is really popular here. I wasn't that impressed: I pretty much like cheese as long as it's not blue, but I think I prefer regular old hard sheep cheese. If you order wine here without specifying red or white, you usually get vino de pitarra; not sure what that means exactly, but it's starting to grow on me. It's light red and kinda spicy and served cold; it even works okay with fish. Cherries are popular in northern Extremadura; they drink this cherry-based liquor that I wanted to like but tasted like terpentine.

And they do lots of stuff with acorns (bellotas). They make this acorn liquor that's not bad, way better than the cherry liquor, kinda subtle and sweet but not too sweet. I had this desert made from acorns and almonds and eggs that was also subtle and sweet and good. And like everywhere in Spain, the really good expensive jamón comes from acorn-fed pigs. Not just for squirrels.

The Birds

2006-07-29T17:37:00.000+02:00

Swans are such assholes. They're all pretty and graceful but once you get within ten feet they start hissing at you. Fuckers. Ducks, on the other hand--I love ducks. They make funny noises and I like their feet and they stick their butts in the air to eat. There's not that much to do in Plasencia, the last stop on the Extremadura leg of my trip, but there is this bird park. I like animals anyway; after spending most of the past few weeks looking at buildings, I really liked them today. And except for one cage-like thing with real plants and grass and stuff, they were all free, so minimal guilt issues. There were ducks and swans and owls and hawks and cranes. And peacocks, which may be the most brightly-colored things I've ever seen. I sat and watched one for a while, displaying its (his? the pretty birds are usually male, right?) feathers to no one in particular. There was this cute little hoppy bird minding its own business and the peacock kept following it: It would get close and then kinda start stomping, taking small but really exaggerated steps and waving its feathers around. Little bird was not impressed. I, on the other hand, am apparently pretty easily impressed.

Anyway, Plasencia is nice enough, but there's just not that much to say about it. It has some typically nice architecture, some churches, museums that don't open. There's a hunting museum here; that I'd like to see, but it never opened. And what I can only imagine are some kind of mutant ninja mosquitos. You never actually see them, but I'm suddenly covered with these giant welts that itch so bad I could easily let them give me a nervous breakdown. I'm blaming the fact that I haven't met anyone here on my constantly scratching myself.

There's this street near my hotel called Calle de los Quesos (Street of the Cheeses). And at the bottom of the street sign it says Dedicada a Hernán Cortés. Kinda random.

....And that's all I got to say about Plasencia.

Like a virgin

2006-07-27T12:21:00.000+02:00

Extremadura is brown and green and relatively flat. Not breathtaking or anything, but I kinda like it. The sun is always shining and the sky is a pretty shade of blue and it all looks like a nice simple landscape painting. Heading east towards Guadalupe it gets hillier (the Sierra de Guadalupe mountains are over here--you're never too far from mountains in Spain) and there are these funny tall skinny leafless trees. Imagine the landscape painting (now with mountains) and then add some rows of black vertical lines, little kid-style. It kinda looks like that.

I came to Guadalupe to see the Monastery of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Back in the fourteenth century a shepherd had a vision or found an icon or something (sorry, details) and so they built the monastery here. Way back when, the virgin of Guadalupe was made the patron saint of all the Spanish colonies in the Americas, which is why there are a lot of Guadalupes from Texas south. Guadalupe, Spain, is a big pilgrimmage site, and really touristy. The monastery itself is incredible: huge, 14th-16th century gothic with Mudéjar tiling on the turrets. I got a little pouty because to go inside you have to take a guided tour. Which would be fine, except it's a group tour and the group is a bunch of other tourists. I hate tourists. They're loud and they bring their kids and they get in my way. It wasn't so bad: The guide spoke loudly and clearly so I could mostly understand, even with the dull roar of the group on the background. The monastery has some really nice art (Goya, el Greco), jewelry, chandaliers, woodwork. After taking us through the non-virgin parts of the monastery, the tour guide left us with some sort of priesty-type person (monk, friar, I dunno). I couldn understand him very well, but I did get that he really wanted us to be quiet (¡Silencio!). After that, whenever I couldn't understand him I just pretended that he was telling the people who were still talking that they were going to hell. He herded us into this little room and before I knew what hit me, there was the virgin and there I was, kissing part of her. I'm not religious, but I usually dont fuck around with religion, either. If I don't believe in the virgin, what business do I have kissing her? But once I finally realized that that's what I was about to do, it would have been obvious and awkward and weird to just leave the line. So I kissed her. What could happen, really? f there's a hell I'm already going there, independent of this one minor act of heresy. And who knows? Maybe I've been blessed or had my sins forgiven or something. It's kind of a weird setup with the virgin (who's really just a very dressed-up doll), and not just because they treat you like a farm animal before you get to see her. She's normally facing the congregation (or whatever you call it--facing so that the people attending the church service can see her). But the tour takes you back behind the alter (or whatever you call it) where they spin her around on this microwave-style turny thing. Remember in Inspector Gadget there was the boss (or maybe he was the bad guy or something, I forget) who would spin around in his big chair, say a few words, and then spin away? It was kinda like that.

I forget why I decided to stay three days in Guadalupe. There's not much to see besides the monastery, and the forced guided tour ensures that seeing it only takes an hour or so. But changing my itinerary once I got here would have meant negotiations and phone conversations that I just don't feel like dealing with so I've had a lot of free time here. In addition to reeeaaallly long lunches, I've been doing a lot of walking. You can see Guadalupe itself in about ten minutes, but if you keep going pretty soon you're out in the Extremaduran countryside. It's pretty hilly, and it doesn't take long before you're looking down on Guadalupe in its entirety: the stone monastery in the middle surrounded by white houses with their orange Spanish rooves, with mountains and nothingness all around. I was coming back from wandering a while in some direction the other day when I started hearing voices. Really. But wouldn't god know better than to talk to me in muffled Spanish? Turns out the monastery loudly broadcasts some sort of message every day at noon. No religious experience for me.

On the bus ride here I met this Chilean man named Valter (not sure how you spell it, but he was very clear that he's not Walter or Wally). Valter came to Spain to visit his son who lives in Madrid, but the son was busy working all the time so Valter hit the road. Isn´t that sad? But good for him that he's not just moping around Madrid. He had been in Trujillo, home of Francisco Pizarro, and after Guadalupe was going to Medellín, home of Hernán Cortés, and then to some other Extremaduran town, home of some other conquistador. I asked what he thought about the Spanish taking over (most of) South America and he said that European dominance was inevitable, he was just glad it was the Spanish who came first and not the Dutch or the English. I've got no problems with the Dutch or the English, but Spain does have better food.

The peak of self-absorption

2006-07-25T11:28:00.000+02:00

Fifty euros and two trips to the Vodaphone store later, I have a new cell phone. Not much of a silver lining to the robbery story, but I do like this new phone better than my old one. Always the way, the stuff I'm really bummed about losing wasn't worth anything monetarily (which I think is why I wasn't being that careful with my purse in the first place--I knew there wasn't anything worth stealing in there): two Infant of Prague charms that my mom gave me before I went to Prague last year, my compass, the tuna kuna. And that fucker who robbed me probably won't even get the beauty of the tuna kuna because he probably doesn't speak English. The compass should at least be easy to replace, but it had sentimental value. I had had it for years and it saved me from all kinds of directional mishaps. Everyone I've traveled with has mocked my compass and then eventually benefited from it. I made it part of an interactive photography exhbit at this weird modern art museum in Helsinki. I loved that compass.

Okay I'm a twit and I deserve no sympathy. I admit it. That's not gonna stop me from feeling a little bit sorry for myself for a while. The other problem is I lost my Spanish identity card and if I need that card to get back into Spain from the US I totally fucked. I'm mostly not thinking about that right now.

Whatever. Robberies, like all things that suck, build character. And the trip to the police station was actually kind of fun, if an exercise in futility. The cop who took the report was telling me how horrible George Bush is and how Bill Clinton was a much better president. Then he started giving this other cop a hard time for smoking in the office. I said "But you´re the police, you can't smoke in here, it's illegal!" (Smoking in any office building is illegal in Spain.) And he said "Don´t yell at me, yell at him, I don't smoke!" You probably had to be there, but it was all very entertaining, and very Spain.

People just ain't no good

2006-07-24T13:23:00.000+02:00

I wrote such nice things about Cáceres. Then some dickless piece of shit stole my purse and there went my notebook. I still mean the nice things I wrote, but I dunno if I have it in me to rewrite them all. I've lived in Barcelona and New York, I know how to not get robbed. I got all stupid about small towns and wasn't being careful. I don't wanna talk about it.

The old part of Cáceres is very old and very preserved: The walls are still up, the buildings (15th and 16th century) are all made of stone, the streets are narrow and cobble-y and authentically hard to walk on. Beautiful houses and churches, ivy, gardens. The houses have the crests of the families who built them carved in stone on the front. When I first got here I thought it was kind of an eyesore that a lot of the buildings (especially the churches, maybe because they're tall?) have big piles of crap on top of them. Maybe I've been in the city too long (or maybe I need to go back to the city, where I know how to take care of myself...): They're not piles of crap, they're birds' nests. And not just any birds, they're storks' nests. Very cool. They have these little bodies with big wings and long skinny legs and beaks; they make these loud woodpecker-like noises by opening and closing their beaks really fast. They look just like the cartoon storks that bring the babies.

The night I got here I was walking around feeling lonely and sorry for myself because I don't have any friends (here--I don't have any friends here) when I met this guy Valentín. The Spanish word vale doesn't exactly translate; it's sort of a catch-all expression for yes/okay/thank you/I understand. You don't learn it in Spanish class, but you hear it constantly. Valentín is a pretty cool name, but Vale is an even better nickname. Somehow Vale and I got on the topic of bullfighting. He didn't change my mind or anything; I think killing for sport is wrong, period, but it was an interesting conversation and one of my favorite Spanish phrases, es complicado, kept coming up. He said that the bulls that aren't used for bullfighitng live for a year or two in shitty conditions before they're killed, whereas fighting bulls live like kings (viven como reyes, he kept saying--don't know what that means exactly, though) for four or five years before they're killed. He assured me that after they're killed, fighting bulls are used for meat and leather. Let's assume that Vale isn't full of shit. If I had to choose between a short shitty life followed by an unpleasant death and a longer good life followed by an unpleasant death, I'd want to be a fighting bull. Not the point, but it did make me think a little. And apparently it's really hard to become a bullfighter because they make a lot of money and have a little mafia thing going. Vale also told me that Extremadura is really backwards and undeveloped compared to the rest of Spain: no airport, no communications infrastructure, no jobs. Apparently the service industry is the biggest employer in Cáceres; he specifucally mentioned street-cleaning. And drugs seem to be big here. No wonder tourists get robbed.

Cáceres has been designated as some kind of European culture capital for the year 2016 (whatever that means). I get it: It has history, some art, some good museums, a university. And all kinds of music. On Saturday night I heard a group of oboes and clarinets playing in one of the squares. Then in the museum courtyard was a music/spoken word concert. The music was five flutists (flautists?), an upright bass, and percussion. The spoken words probably would have been cheesy in English, but they were in Spanish and I was thrilled that I could mostly understand them. Then in a different square was a guy with a guitar singing Spanish folk songs. And no one was even collecting money. One of the bars had live music and that was free, too.

Slightly less cultured were the three Spanish military guys I met on Sunday. We drank beer and played darts (dartos, en español); I even beat one of them. The one from Asturias may have been a little bit of a warmonger: I asked if he thought there should be a more international presence in Iraq and he said yes because he wants to go. (At least I think that's what he said.) Or maybe he just likes to travel, I dunno.

Dude looks like a--

2006-07-22T12:03:00.000+02:00

Now. European guys of all nationalities are way more metrosexual than their American counterparts. They wear cropped pants and sandals and use all kinds of hair product. Straight European guys are also far less fearful of looking gay than American guys are--they'll hug other guys, touch their arms, dance with them, whatever. Neither of the aforementioned facts really explains the guy I just saw wearing a skirt. Not a kilt, a skirt. He was kinda hip: He had a mullet and piercings and was holding hands with an attractive woman. He was also wearing a skirt: a red, clingy, slightly above the knee skirt that I think was made of cotton. Definitely not a kilt. Whatever.

Francisco Pizarro, of Incan infamy, was born in Trujillo, Extremadura. Trujillo now has a Pizarro statue, a Pizarro museum, a Pizarro Restaurant, streets named after several members of the Pizarro family. I don't know what I propose they do instead, exactly, but it seemed like a lot of glorification for someone who killed a whole lot of people. Surely others have waxed more poetically than I can about judging historical figures by current moral standards. And Pizarro certainly did some good things for Spain. I get that his hometown is gonna make a big deal out of him; it just seemed a little unbalanced. The museum didn't even touch on the fact that taking over entire civilizations and killing people isn't very nice--maybe it was lost in my bad translation, but I don't think so.

Anyway, in addition to all the Pizarro stuff, Trujillo has what I'm pretty sure is the shittiest plaza in all of Spain (there's one in Badajoz that's pretty awful too, but at least that one is under construction and so ostensibly being improved.) Pizarro had this sidekick named Almagro. I don't exactly know the story (in addition to not understanding everything I read in Spanish, I tend not to remember very well what I've read), but they had some kind of a falling out and Pizarro's people killed Almagro and then Almagro's people killed Pizarro. The Plaza Almagro in Trujillo is way over on the edge of town, even farther from civilization than the bus station, and it's so crappy and neglected that you have to wonder if it's a political statement. Almagro wasn't from Trujillo.

Oh, the streets of Rome

2006-07-20T18:17:00.000+02:00

I don't usually get excited about ruins. They can be kind of impressive, sometimes, but my typical resonse to a ruin is something like "Yup, that's really old, hmm" and then I move on. Mérida, on the other hand, is a whole town full of Roman ruins. It doesn't even pale in comparison to Rome, since I've never been. Mérida used to be Augusta Emerita, starting back in 25 BC when it was founded, apparently for veterans of the Roman wars in Cantabria. Which kind of made it a Roman retirement community, huh? Anyway, Augusta Emerita was the capital of Roman Luisitania and basically the capital of the whole Iberian peninsula for almost 800 years, until the Muslims took over. Mérida now is the capital of Extremadura, which is pretty much the same, right?

Anyway, the ruins. There's a whole Roman theatre and an amphitheatre. They take advantage of them by having a classical theatre festival every year (how cool is that?), but I happen to be here during some of the very few summer days with no performances. Poop. Would have been money well spent, even if I couldn't understand the words. Anyway, the amphitheater is where they had the spectacles that people liked, mostly gladiator-type stuff and fights between animals. You can see what used to be box seats where the rich people sat, and tunnel where the performers entered. The theatre is where people had to go, for stuff like politicial speches. Both apparently held thousands of people, although they didn't seem that big. And weren't ancient people really short? Maybe they were really disproportionate or something, but the stairs were sooo steep. I really had to stretch to climb them, but the tunnels weren't much taller than me so the Romans couldn't have been much taller than me, either. Maybe that's how they built up their leg muscles, I dunno. But there's lots more. The remains of two excavated houses are open to visitors. Some rooms had nice mosaic floors that were really well preserved, and one of the houses had these cool indoor ponds with openings in the roof above to collect rain water. There's a cemetery with some preserved masoleums, aqueducts, one of the longest Roman bridges anywhere, the old town forum. Also the circus, which nearly gave me a nervous breakdown because I could. not. find it. The place allegedly held 30,000 people, how do you miss something like that? (Okay I have driven circles around the Michigan highway system looking for the Palace of Auburn Hills which holds 21,454, but the roads are confusing down there and it was dark.) Well for one thing, you had to walk down an unmarked tunnel to get to the circus. And then once you go through the tunnel, there is no fucking circus. There's an open field with some rocks, and they call it preserved. This is why I don't usually get excited about ruins. But overall, this place is really amazing. The stuff is over two thousand years old. Joder. Makes you feel very small and insignificant, kinda like looking at the ocean.

Mérida was great, but it really kicked my ass; the stuff is all spread out, and to see everything I walked around all day and it's hot and kinda humid. Whine. I'm exhausted, I'm sweaty, I'm dirty, I'm sunburned, my feet hurt, I can't possibly smell good. (Reminds me of this Bob Dylan song--I was bald...) Brutal, just like the Romans.

Sexual politics of meat

2006-07-19T17:51:00.000+02:00

My literary hero Julie Powell once described some marrow-based dish as tasting like sex. That's kinda how I felt about my lunch today. I've been in Extremadura all of about three days now and (still) haven't really eaten anything particularly extremeñan. There's nothing else to do here in the afternoon anyway, so I decided to blow some money on a big lunch; what I thought was the restaurant associated with a local cooking school (the Lonely Planet fucks up again) turned out to be an Argentinian steak house. No suckling pig or artisenal cheeses, but omigod that was a good piece of meat. Big and thick and tender and barely cooked with big rocks of salt on the outside. How is it that Argentinian food is so good and Chilean food is so bad, when they're right next to each other? Don't the Chileans know what they're missing? In a pathetic attempt not to gain ten pounds in a single day, I ordered water instead of wine. About halfway through I decided that was the nurtitrional equivalent of taking a bus instead of a cab to go blow all your money at the casino. Red meat that makes you want to moan needs red wine. I just won't eat for a few days--it was worth it. The meal came with a free shot of some Argentinian liquor; it was kinda sweet but I'm not sure really what it tasted like. I tried asking the waiter, I really tried, but all I got was "It's like Coca-Cola." Hmmm. I can't understand Argentinians. They have these strange accents and they might as well be speaking Catalan or Portuguese. But I'd run away with one tomorrow if he'd only cook for me.

Anyway. Badajoz has some not bad art museums. And a gun club. This is the first I've heard of guns for personal use in Spain, I thought they were illegal. Apparently hunting is a big thing here. Even kids can join the gun club, with a parent's permision.

I was born in a small town

2006-07-18T17:39:00.000+02:00

Mondays can be kinda boring because the museums are usually closed, so I went to this little town called Zafra that doesn´t have any museums. Some churches, some cute little squares, and the friendliest people ever at the tourist office. One thing I´ve noticed about Spain is that people seem to really like the towns where they live, even ones that to me don´t seem to have a ton of merit. Not just tourist office employees--I´m talking people who don´t get paid to like their towns. When I ask people what they like about where they live the answer is usually something about the people, and in smaller towns the words más tranquila usually come up. I don´t go around asking small town Americans what they think of their towns (and maybe the Spanish people who strike up conversations with foreigners aren´t representative), but I´m pretty sure the responses would be a lot less positive.

Anyway, Zafra. As the weather gets more extreme, so do the siestas. I was forced (forced!) to have beer for lunch because I accidentally waited until siesta time to eat. Bars, restaurants, grocery stores, everything was closed. I finally found the one open bar in town, but they weren´t serving food, period. I had my heart set on gazpacho--I keep craving these very typical Spanish foods and then not being able to find them. The place had gazpacho on the menu--I´m sure there was a big drum of it in the kitchen. All someone had to do was put it in a bowl; they could have charged me more, I would have paid. But that´s just not how things work here.

Sick of myself

2006-07-17T13:16:00.000+02:00

Madrid only got worse. The hostel was so hot that I was sweating just laying in my bed. Got maybe an hour of sleep and my 5am alarm was mostly a relief. At 6am, the streets were still crowded with people for whom it was still Saturday night. The subway was not only hotter than hell, it was packed full of drunken zombies. Got to the bus station insanely early for my 8am bus (but with the metro various forms of broken, I wasn't taking any chances) and it was closed. Sat outside and waited for it to open. I have a confession to make: I really like bus station cafeterias. I like them the way some people like diners: they have character and are usually staffed by competent older men who also have character and it's Spain so the coffee is always good and they always have jamón. I had my heart set on café con leche and tostada con aceite (thick slabs of toasted bread with olive oil and salt, so good) at the bus station, but when it finally opened I found the cafeteria closed for repairs. The only other bar around didn't have tostada, only pastries that were nowhere near good enough to be as unhealthy as I'm sure they were. I'm all whiny for some reason--good thing I'm back to traveling solo because I'm really not very good company right now. And. The extreme tolerance I had been cultivating for bus travel? Long gone after having a car for three days. The trip from Madrid to Badajoz took six hours. I think it's only about a four-hour drive, but we stopped in every fucking pueblo in between. And my assigned seat was an aisle seat right behind the bus driver, which meant I had to either listen to crappy bus-driver-preferred radio (they all listen to crap) or turn my iPod up dangerously loud to drown it out. Jeez, I'm so grumpy I don't even like myself right now. Maybe it's the weather or something like that.

Anyway, six hours and three bus drivers later, I finally got to Badajoz, on the western edge of Extremadura. Extremadura is on the western edge of central Spain and is the poorest of the autonomous regions. Weatherwise, it's as if I'm descending farther and farther into hell. 41 degrees today, that's 106 F. The average summer temperature in Extremadura is 38, which is about 100F. Ouch. Arriving in a new town in Spain on a Sunday is always a bad idea: You'll feel really alone because Spanish people mostly don't go out on Sundays, expecially in small towns. Add 41 degrees to that culture, and you get a ghost town.

Badajoz seems to be in kind of a transitional state. There are some improvement projects going on, but overall it feels kinda neglected. It has a nice plaza with a big church and a fountain, but most of the other buildings are pretty run down. Like most Spanish towns, it has a castle; unlike most Spanish castles, it's in near total disrepair. Which I actually kinda liked. I probably wouldn't want to look at a falling-apart castle every day, but I've seen a lot of castles and this was at least something different.

The streets and plazas in Spain are pretty much all named after someone. One thing I like about Badajoz is the street signs (when they exist) tell you who the person was. Bad example: Calle Hernán Cortés, Conquistador 1485-1547. I can't really get behind naming things after Hernán Cortés, but that's not the point. For someone like me know doesn't know jack about history, the extra information is nice.

I wasn´t even supposed to be here today

2006-07-16T12:58:00.000+02:00

Madrid is ruining my small town vibe and making me grumpy. I woke up in Almansa today, as far east as you can go in La Mancha. I wanted to get to Badajoz, which is all the way across the country on the western edge of Extremadura. It would have been doable in a day if it were a weekday, or maybe if I had just gotten up earlier, but getting across Spain just wasn't in the cards for me today. The only place you can get to from Almansa is Albacete and the bus didn't leave until 2:30. Albacete and Badajoz are both smallish and far apart and going between them on a Saturday asfternoon wasn't happening. Madrid isn't directly between Albacete and Badajoz, but it's not that far out of the way and you can get anywhere from Madrid, so I'm here for the night. I really don't feel like being here; about the only thing that appealed to me less was staying a night in Albacete. (It's just kind of a hole.)

Madrid is great; I'm psyched to spend some time here next month. But tonight I'm getting over a minor bender and all I want to do is sleep. I'm gross and sweaty. I have no energy for or interest in going out, and I'm staying in this hostel full of young dolled-up British girls who are gonna be a total pain in the ass when I'm trying to sleep later. And one of the metro stations is closed so to get from the bus station to the hostel I had to get off the metro and take another bus just to get back on the metro which, by the way, is about a thousand fucking degrees, no air conditioning, no ventilation. Joder. If only I had that benefactor I could have just rented a car, since it turns out I really can drive a manual car, more or less. But no benefactor for me, just a slight detour and a hostel full of young people making me feel old. Whine.

While I've been writing this, one of the ubiquitous rose-selling south Asians approached the couple at the table next to me. And the guy part of the couple started negotiating with the rose guy. I lose all kinds of respect for any guy who buys me one of those stupid roses, but to try and negotiate a lower price for one? So many magnitudes more lame.

The good thing about today was I met this old lady on the bus from Almansa to Albacete. She was so cute. She asked me to help her off the bus. While we were waiting in Almansa I had told her that I was trying to get to Badajoz but might stay overnight in Ciudad Real. She said I should take the train there and when we got off the bus she walked me to the train station (not far away), holding my arm the whole time. Preciosa.

Lost in La Mancha

2006-07-15T15:21:00.000+02:00

Don Quixote was a total fuck up. I love him. (Now I just gotta finish the bookÂway too heavy to carry around on this trip though.) And I kinda love La Mancha, too. It's hot and dry and the scenery is repetitivee and the cities are mostly nothing special, but it speaks to me the way things sometimes do. I really like the scenery: the wheat shines golden in the sun and the fields alternate reddish and gold and green (karma, karma, karma, karma) and there are mountains in the background. There are some really pretty river valleys and we saw waterfalls and almost went rock climbing in flip flops but I chickened out. Got mildly accosted about speaking English by cell-phone-throwing idiots whom we weren't even talking to, but that's part of it, too.

We decided we're in the Cleveland of Spain. I've never been to Cleveland specifically, and I'm okay with that, but someone who's only been to New York and Boston and San Francisco can't really claim to have seen the US. I want to see Spain, all of it, and it's not all museums and beaches and aesthetic appeal.

The creek

2006-07-14T14:56:00.000+02:00

I grew up about a block away from a little creek. My cousins and I spent countless Saturdays exploring the woods around the creek; we'd go to the party store and spend all our money on Paydays and Jolly Ranchers and then hang out in the woods all day. Sometimes we'd even go swimming—there were lots of cleaner swimming options but the creek was close. Our parents would not have approved, so we had to be a little sneaky. The little river running through Alcalá del Júcar (river seems like way too strong a word, it's tiny) reminded me a lot of the creek in my old neighborhood; kinda dirty and buggy, with some little trails around that didn't seem to go anywhere in particular and felt more removed from civilization than they really were. More charming than it probably sounds.

Alcalá has the river, a church with a fake bell, and an old castle. We (met up with a friend of a friend of a friend whom I somehow managed to convince that bumming around remote central Spain was worthwhile) got to the castle just behind some kind of senior citizen outing and the old people were singing—very cute. Rocky hills rise up around the river valley, making for dramatic scenery and scary driving. It's funny how some of the things I don't like about small towns can become more appealing when I'm just visiting. If there's not much to do, you just start drinking earlier.

Peaches come in a can

2006-07-13T14:30:00.000+02:00

Holy fucking christ it's hot here. (Here is Cuenca, in Castilla-La Mancha, in the middle of Spain.) The day I got here I saw a thermometer that read 52 degrees. Clearly that was wrong, that's almost 130 Fahrenheit and people weren't actually dying in the streets, but it didn't feel too far off. Luckily there are faucets and fountains with not bad water all over the place; I drank so much water my stomach hurt, but was still thirsty all the time. And if I carried my water bottle around for long without drinking, the water got hot. I totally understand siestas. It's a dry heat, but it's still really fucking hot. There's kind of a breeze, but it's only slightly more refreshing than a hairdryer. And apparently there's a heat wave that's hit the entire region except Cuenca, so I'm not even in the hot part of the middle of Spain. It cools off at night anyway, so there's that.

The old part of Cuenca is on this hill that comes up out of gorges made from two rivers. They're little rivers, I dunno how they made such deep gorges. Anyway, there are these houses built into the side of the cliff, casas colgadas they call them; when you walk onto their balconies you're over the gorge. There are good views if you walk across a long scary windy bridge that crosses the gorge. The bridge has a big construction sign next to it.

Back in the 1960's a group of Spanish artists was fed up that there was no forum for contemporary art in Spain and that the works of most Spanish artists were displayed outside Spain. So, led by this guy Fernando Zóbel, they started their own museum. The Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art is in one of the casas colgadas, and it's perfect. The house was built vertically so you keep going up and up and the rooms are small so the art fills them up without making them cluttered and there are views across the gorge and gush, gush, gush. It's really fantastic. And I love Fernando Zóbel; check him out if you like contemporary art that's not two-piles-of-dirt contemporary. And there I was, looking at the displayed book of Zóbel sketches, when what do I see but two pages of the Cambridge (MA) skyline. Turns out he went to Harvard. And they had this great Zóbel quote about how Cuenca is out of the way so only sophisticated tourists would come to the museum. I took it personally, even if in reality I'm broke and smelly.

Speaking of tourists, there don't seem to be any here. That can't really be true, because when I was making reservations a lot of the hotels were booked, but I dunno what the other tourists are doing. And there's no one around period during the afternoon. I'm all for siestas, kind of, but even the grocery stores here close for 3+ hours in the afternoon. Grocery stores are air-conditioned, what's the point of throwing the employees out on the street?

The hills around Cuenca are rocky and go up in steps with pine trees growing on their tops, making stripes of grey and green. The countryside is green and gold and brown with the occasional field of sunflowers, although both the fields and the sunflowers themselves are smaller and less intense than I remember from my first trip to Spain. They grow apples and peaches here; I was bummed that they apparently don't use the apples for sidra (hard cider, way better than what you get in the US), but I bought some peaches and omigod wowowow they are so good. So much better than any peaches I've had before, ever. Small pleasures. I bet you could make something sidra-like using peaches, and I bet it would be good.

On the bus ride out of Cuenca, the bus river pulled over and got out to buy a loaf of bread. I love Spain.

The middle of nowhere

2006-07-11T10:57:00.000+02:00

There´s no nice way to say this: Ademuz is pretty crappy. It has some nice scenery, red hills like in Teruel, but that´s it. A lot of the houses are literally falling apart. But, I wanted to see small towns so here I am. I got in around 5pm on Saturday and went to buy some fruit to supplement my recent ham and bread diet, but everything was closed. It felt deserted, and as I walked around I imagined giant cartoon arrows flashing and pointing at me: “She´s not from around here! Outsider! Foreigner!” (Does contemplating how self-absorbed you are make you more self-absorbed or less?)

Luckily the one other person on the bus from Teruel to Ademuz made friends with me. He´s from the Canary Islands and really likes Ademuz and had never met an American before. He likes the scenery and the quiet and the people here. (It continues to amaze me that sometimes I can have entire conversations in Spanish but buying bus tickets still trips me up sometimes. It is getting easier, though.) I´ll keep being honest: We probably wouldn´t be friends if we lived in the same town and/or spoke the same language. But we don´t and we don´t, and he made what probably would have been an insufferably boring weekend kinda fun. Ademuz has a pool with a little outdoor cafe and the whole town seems to spend the weekends there. It´s a little bit of a walk down an unmarked road and I never would have found it by myself. The people here are nice and friendly and nonthreatening now that I´ve gotten over the town itself (says the girl from the rural midwest). The people are nice BUT. I missed the second half of the Germany-Portugal game because they switched the bar TV to coverage of the pope´s visit to Valencia. The friggin´papa. He looks like Hannibal Lecter.

And my hotel reminds me of the general store from Little House on the Prairie. It´s a hotel, bar, restaurant, banquet hall, and store, all in one big building with a huge front porch. There´s a little river that runs through the town and the Ayuntamiento (city hall) stocks it with fish so people can go fishing. I think that´s cute (I know they do it all over the place, but it´s still cute.) The river turns red from the dirt when it rains.

So Ademuz was okay. I wanted to run like hell when I first got here, but I´m glad I didn´t.

¡Teruel Existe!

2006-07-08T20:27:00.000+02:00

Apparently the population of Teruel province (roughly the southern third of Aragón) has decreased by about 50% over the last hundred years. There´s this ¡Teruel Existe! (Teruel exists) campaign to promote the province. I´m not sure what it consists of, exactly, but I´ve seen a lot of ¡Teruel Existe! bumper stickers.

The 6:40am train was less painful than I thought it would be. We passed all these wheat fields that looked really nice in the morning sunlight. Sun shining on wheat fields makes me inexplicably happy. And closer to Teruel, the dirt turned red and there were red hills off in the distance. Kinda cool.

I got to Teruel city right in the middle of Fiestas del Angel, the yearly weeklong celebration of the founding of Teruel. I guess that´s why I had so much trouble finding a hotel room. It´s kinda cool that I´m here for this festival, but the museums are closed all week because of it. I went to the cathedral, but there really wasn´t anything else to do but walk around. There is some cool architecture here: A lot of Muslims stayed in southern Aragón after they lost ruling power (in Spanish they´re called mudéjars) so there´s a lot of Islamic influence. And a lot of very red brick. (Does that have anything to do with the fact that the dirt here is red? I dunno.) But Teruel is really small—you can see all the interesting buildings in about an hour, and then what do you do? Worse, most of the plazas are blocked off in preparation for the night´s festivities, so there aren´t even good places to sit and observe. And festivals like this are really good for making you feel like a total outsider, if that´s in fact what you are. Whine.

For lack of anything better to do, I took a little siesta today. I had the TV on in my hotel room and the local station was covering the festival. I´m pretty sure I´ve seen all there is to see here, because everything they were showing on TV looked familiar. Then they switched to interviews with various locals, and when I went back out a while later I found that the interviews were being recorded live a block away from my hotel. Small towns are good for stuff like that.

But. All of these Teruel stories are a long digression from what´s really important here, and that is the ham. The streets of Teruel smell of ham. Not all of them, but enough that I can say it without really exaggerating. It is so good. Omigod it is so good. I´m not really a food person; I like food, but I´m not very good at talking about it. I was trying really hard to figure out what was different about Teruel ham compared to regular old serrano ham (which is already pretty fucking good), but I´m not used to thinking about food that way. The texture is a little different: cut a little thicker and slightly drier. And it was a little bit smoky; it almost tasted a little bacon-y. That´s all I got. It was just really, really good. And, a whole plate of it only cost three euros. In fact, I had a plate of the best ham ever, three tapas, and two glasses of wine all for four euros. I didn´t really need the second glass of wine (which was actually the third before 9pm--I was bored in Teruel, okay?), but when bartenders are giving out free alcohol you kinda have to drink it.

I didn´t really get the maño thing before Teruel. Zaragoza is a biggish city, with presumably more non-Aragonians; Torla was full of hiker tourists; I wasn´t in Huesca long enough to notice much. But here in Teruel, people are definitely more brute-ish. Drunken fighting (mostly good-natured, but still), yelling, shirtless fat men singing loudly. Okay, so there is this festival going on, but I´ve been to other Spanish festivals and they´re normally far less brutish. There isn´t even a good ice cream place here.

Aside from being more brutish, Friday night´s festivities were pretty typical for Spain: drinking, music, fireworks, little kids up way past any reasonable American bedtime. On Saturday morning the park and bus station were full of passed-out people. I saw one guy wake up from sleeping in the grass, pick up a pair of hot pink thong underwear that for whatever reason were laying next to him, put them on over his jeans, walk about 20 feet away, and pass out again, face down, the pink triangle of the thong displayed prominently on his ass. Maños.

While I was at the bus station waiting to leave Teruel it started raining, hard, and the red dirt made all these red rivers running down the streets. It would have been miserable if I´d been outside in it, but from inside the dry bus it all looked pretty cool.

Jose, can you see?

2006-07-06T22:02:00.000+02:00

So the Fourth of July came and went. I celebrated by pretending to be German. It was an honest mistake: While watching the futbol game, the bartender asked "¿Alemania?" and I said "Sí", meaning that I was cheering for Germany in the game. But of course he was asking me if I am German--by the time I realized that it seemed too late to explain. At least he didn´t try speaking German.

Anyway. The posting at the park and three different TV stations´ weather reports all said it was gonna storm today. But one channel said it was gonna rain in the afternoon, and I´m only here for three days, and it was clear at 9am. So I went back to the park hoping for the best but knowing I might end up wet and miserable far away from civilization; I don´t even have rain gear. Sometimes you get lucky. I hiked from about 10am until about 3pm and at about 3:30 it started raining. A good part of the hike I did today was around the side of a mountain--exhilarating but kinda scary. It would have been easy enough to go over the edge. I didn´t. I saw some chamois deer, and ate lunch on a rock by a waterfall. I wouldn´t want to live in the wilderness, probably not even close to it, but it really is great to be out in it now and then.

Torla, the town where I´m staying, is really cute. Just what you might imagine for a little village tucked away in the mountains. Of course it´s full of tourists, but it doesn´t feel touristy. Wilderness tourists are more innocuous than city tourists, I think, even if they do smell a little worse.

Monteperdido

2006-07-05T21:40:00.000+02:00

Zaragoza is perfectly nice but completely missable unless you´re reeaaallly into Goya or want to see all of Spain. I´m glad I came, though. Hanging out with Angel and Gustavo made me feel like kind of an honorary Spanish person for a few days, even if they did keep calling me gringa.

On the morning of my last day in Zaragoza, Gustavo and I did some limited sightseeing, limited because it was a Monday and almost everything was closed. Zaragoza has a former Muslim palace and we went to that; it was interesting but hard to get excited about after seeing the Alhambra in Granada. And one of the banks here has a very small collection of Goya paintings and we saw that. In the afternoon, I sat on the couch and watched TV--can´t remember the last time I did that. Passed out for a while from a migraine (maybe too much TV is that bad for me) and Angel woke me up for dinner. With Gustavo, the still-shirtless neighbor, shirtless neighbor´s girlfriend, and their drag queen friend. He wasn´t actually dressed in drag, but I´m pretty sure he dresses in drag. Maybe I overuse this comparison, but he really did belong in an Almodóvar film. I couldn´t understand most of what he said because my knowledge of Spanish profanity is embarrassingly lacking. Angel wasn´t wearing pants.

Anyway. Today I left Angel and Gustavo and their crazy friends to go to Parque Nacional de Ordesa in the Aragonian Pyrenees. It´s supposed to be the nicest part of the Pyrenees. After a five-hour hike today, I believe it. There are waterfalls everywhere, and these bright yellow flowers, and rock that looks all different colors when the sun hits it. The hike I did started out foresty; for a while the tree coverage was so thick you could barely see the sky. In the middle it opened up and got grassy, following a stream for a while, and the end was high enough up that you could see a little bit of snow left at the tops of some of the mountains and there was a huge waterfall. And there was this little herd of cow-like animals with fuzzy stuffed animal ears. (They were wearing bells, so they weren´t exactly part of the natural scenery, but whatever. I liked them.)

I´m a little bit stressed that my shoes don´t fit quite right, because these are the ones I´m planning to wear on the Camino, but I always stress about shoes. I didn´t get blisters, anyway.

ZaragOH!za

2006-07-03T15:40:00.000+02:00

(it´s what the signs all over the city say)

So Zaragoza. It´s fine. I´m not blown away or anything, but I wasn´t expecting to be blown away. Goya is from around here an there´s a good small art museum with a whole room full of his etchings. There´s also a museum dedicated to Pablo Gargallo, a sculptor from here, in this cool old palace. Churches, Roman ruins, plazas, fountains. El Corte Inglés.

Maño is a term for an Aragonese person (Aragón is the autonomous region where Zaragoza is; it´s right next to Catalunya). Maños are stubborn brutes, apparently. The eat these candies here called adoquines that are really hard and chewy and take forever to eat (you have to be a stubborn brute to finish one) and are supposed to have a jota (some kind of Aragonian song) inside. I learned all of this from Angel and Gustavo whom I´m staying with. Angel pretty much speaks English and Gustavo speaks some, but they´d call me a gringa if I tried speaking English to them, so Zaragoza is good for my Spanish.

It feels a little like a sitcom. Gustavo is Mexican and the whole house is very decorated with colorful things from Mexico. Angel keeps telling him not to talk to me because I need to learn Spanish not Mexican. Angel is a judge and Gustavo is a law student and they have another roommate who´s never around and apparently smokes hash all the time. This bothers Angel not. Last night their neighbor came by. He wasn´t wearing a shirt and he was really sweaty and carrying a man´s purse. He drank one of their beers and then left. It was at least as funny as the Spanish sitcoms I´ve seen.

Odds and ends

2006-06-29T14:21:00.000+02:00

So. I leave Barcelona tomorrow. This is kinda it. The blog's going out with more of a sputter than a bang because I've been running around like a mad woman all week trying to get packed.

I'm sad to leave. Barcelona really grew on me, and the six months flew by. But I get to spend the next four months traveling around Spain and Portugal so I can't feel too bad. The general route of the trip is Aragón, Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura, Madrid, Castilla y León, Portugal, north coast of Spain. Then back to Barcelona for a day or two and then the Camino de Santiago. By then I should be completely broke, so back to the real world.

I'll post updates but probably not daily. I wish I had something more thoughtful to say. But I'll have lots of time for deep thoughts once I get packed and hit the road. Oh, and here are pictures from my Croatia trip. Adios, Barcelona!

¡Venga Torres!

2006-06-28T21:47:00.000+02:00

Fernando Torres is a Spanish angel. He's precious. And Zinedine Zadane is a big scary machine. I'm so bummed that Spain is out of the World Cup. It was really fun to watch them here, and their team is so cute. (Their average age is 24, though, which makes me feel super old.) Damn futbol.

"I very much like your friend. And you are like your friend."

2006-06-26T17:42:00.000+02:00

While we were at the beach for the Saint Joan festival, my friends met these Italian guys who are visiting from Naples and made plans to go out for dinner the next night. The friend who actually speaks Italian ended up bailing, so last night I had dinner with a friend, this girl who goes to the same dentist as my friend (none of us speaks Italian), and these three Napolian (Neopolitan?) guys who don't really speak English or Spanish. So random. It was the kind of bizarre social situation that would never happen to me in the US, but happens here all the time. We made it work, kind of, and my friend's got me sold on the idea of travelers' karma. I'm gonna be on the road for a while pretty soon--I hope I end up having dinner with strangers who make an effort to communicate with me even if we don't really share a common language.

Anyway, tried to go cava (champagne, they call it cava here) tasting today. Bought train tickets to Sant Sadurni D'Anoia, where the cava place is. The problem with taking trains here is there are often no routes or schedules posted. They have screens that show which trains leave from which tracks at what time, but the information only shows the final destination of the train. If you're getting off at one of the many stops en route, you often don't know the final destination of your train. So you usually have to ask someone. But Sant Sadurni sounds a lot like Sant Celoni. And Sant Celoni is a much bigger city and more people have heard of it. By the time we realized we'd been following directions to Sant Celoni rather than Sant Sadurni, we were an hour away from Barcelona in the wrong direction. With Sunday train schedules and the fact that we didn't really know how to get to the cava place once we were in Sant Sadurni or how late it stays open, we decided to cut our losses and go back to Barcelona and watch futbol. I don't really even like cava that much, but I was all set to start liking it today. Oh well.

TNT, dynamite

2006-06-25T20:10:00.000+02:00

I'm not entirely sure what we were celebrating last night. It was the feast of Sant Joan, which coincides with the summer solstice and is celebrated by staying up all night and setting off fireworks. You can buy real fireworks for personal use here, and the DIY scene at the beach rivaled the small town Fourth of July fireworks I grew up watching. There were so many that the air never really cleared; I spent the whole night in a haze of firework smoke. They really like the loud ones, too--I think the city must be a little desensitized now after all that noise. (Actually people set off loud fireworks all the time here, usually just not so many and not for hours on end.)

It's funny, all Americans have the same reaction: This could never happen in the US, and someone could get hurt. If the scene at the beach last night somehow happened in the US, I think the police might respond with tear gas. And little kids were lighting fireworks--they really could have been hurt. I almost got hit in the head with one. That near miss aside, though, it was fine. Anarchy never broke out, even though it felt like it could have, and I'm pretty sure nobody died. Americans can be pretty uptight.

You gotta move

2006-06-24T14:58:00.000+02:00

Nothing makes me hate myself quite like moving does. Why do I have so much crap? And why can't I bring myself to get rid of it? Every time I move I swear that from now on, in the new life I'm about to move to, I'll be better about acquiring things. I think I have gotten a little better. I acquire less than I used to, but still too much.

Anyway, I wasn't even planning on packing today. I was home this afternoon doing laundry and watching the Spain-Saudi Arabia game, and then I was gonna go in to my office to use the internet. But I couldn't find my office key. Before I started freaking out about it I realized that I'd probably put it in the wash, and I was right. But right after I had finished my laundry, I started the washing machine again with nothing in it to try and clean out the soap dispenser. (Admit it, you're fascinated by all this.) Once you start my washing machine the door locks, so my office key was stuck in the washing machine and I had some time to kill. That's when I started packing.

The bigger of my two suitcases is now bursting at the seams, and getting it to my office (where it will live for the next four months while I travel) is gonna be a really sweaty job. And I still have almost all of my shoes, some clothes, hand bags/purses, and all my office stuff to try and shove into my smaller suitcase. It's not gonna work. I knew it wasn't gonna work; my stuff didn't fit in two suitcases when I came here, and I have more stuff now not less. Ugh. I hate moving. I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it. Okay, I feel a little better now.

With god on their side

2006-06-23T20:27:00.000+02:00

I'm happy for Ghana. I'm not just saying that, I really mean it. They're all over the US in terms of who has more to gain from the World Cup. And I can stop trying to think of a good response to "The US has everything, why do you want them to win the World Cup, too?" I've been asked variations on that a lot. It was fun cheering for the US; it was fun to get excited about the US instead of just feeling ashamed of it. And now I can just cheer for Spain with no divided loyalties. (Well, I'd also like to see Korea do well, and Spain and Korea may play each other in the next round. Es complicado.) And the Spanish team is cute.

What's less okay is that the Italians beat the Czechs, but I guess having a team to cheer against makes things more interesting.

Deep thoughts

2006-06-22T12:54:00.000+02:00

I think that if I were a flamenco dancer, after each show I'd end up having sex with the first person to cross my path. It's just that passionate.

The itch

2006-06-21T13:25:00.000+02:00

Okay. All this gushing I've been doing lately about Barcelona and my neighborhood and Spain and my apartment? It still holds. It does. But. If it's gonna work long-term with me and Europe, they've got to move their window technology into the mid-twentieth century. For god's sake, install some fucking screens, Europe! I tried to convince myself that it's more natural or rustic or authentic or something to have open windows lead right to the great outdoors, but fuck that. Screens keep the bugs out and let the breeze in and they work really well and I really, really miss them. It got hot here, I have to have my windows open. So now I am covered in mosquito bites. I couldn't sleep the other night because I couldn't stop scratching them. I finally broke down and went to the pharmacy yesterday to buy something to put on them, but it doesn't work very well.

Apparently there are these bad Asian tiger mosquitoes here, but I don't think they're what's getting me because the tiger mosquitoes apparently give bites that are really painful. If only I hurt instead of itched. Itching can nearly make you go insane. It's awful. Plus it's pretty embarrassing to be out in public and constantly scratching yourself (at least the bites are pretty much confined to my feet, ankles, and arms). So now I've started using my heavy-duty 95% DEET bug spray that I bought for Russia (St. Petersburg was built on a swamp), but it's really scary stuff. It has disposal instructions. I may die or grow a third leg or something, but at least I'll hopefully stop itching.

Bloody as hell

2006-06-20T12:37:00.000+02:00

My friend and I tried to recreate our Basque country adventure tonight by making a cider house-like dinner. Well, she made dinner; I just showed up an hour late with some bread. Whatever. It's hard to get good steak in Barcelona. (Well, that's what I'm told anyway. I didn't even help with the shopping. I suck.) But still, we had cod and big pieces of very rare beef and cheese and walnuts and cidre. Very good. No singing or bread throwing or Basque boys with unpronounceable names, though.

And we started planning our next trip to that area, which will be on foot in September as part of the Camino de Santiago, a religious pilgrimage across northern Spain. We're not religious, but it's a cheap way to keep traveling and it's supposed to be beautiful and life-changing, even for heathens. I'm also hoping to lose some weight. Anyway, we decided that we don't need sleeping bags or wide-brimmed hats, and confirmed that we'll be starting from Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees. This may be even more half-assed than the Croatia trip was, but still, progress was made.

Road to nowhere

2006-06-19T12:56:00.000+02:00

No one ever tells you much about Gala Dalí, except that she liked sex and her husband Salvador was obsessed with her. Even the Castell Gala Dalí, the castle that Dalí bought and designed for her, doesn't have much actual information about Gala. She was Russian, married to Paul Eluard, left him for Dalí. What did she do, what were her interests, what was she like? I dunno. But she did live the last ten or so years of her life in this castle in Púbol, a tiny town in northern Catalunya not too far from Cadaques/Port Lligat, which is where Dalí was living at the time. She had the place to herself, and Dalí only came over when he was invited. The Gala Castle is almost boring compared to the Dalí museum/house in Cadaques--no cricket cages or Michelin men or photos of Stalin. It's mostly just really nice: some Dalí paintings and drawings, some tapestries, a nice terrace and beautiful garden. Oh, and a giant stuffed horse when you walk in (made me think of Catherine the Great, I can't help it). And she's buried downstairs. This is Dalí, after all.

Getting to Púbol was more interesting than the museum itself. My guidebooks were no help at all. The museum's website said to take the train to Flaça, that Púbol is 4km away, and if you don't want to walk you can take a taxi. Okay. I figured there would be signs or information of some sort at the train station, but no. The woman working at the station said I should take a cab, but had no information on how long it would take or what it would cost. Also, there don't seem to be any cabs in Flaça. I waited for a while at the alleged taxi stand, but none came. Tried to walk to the city center but Flaça doesn't seem to have a city center; it doesn't seem to have anything besides a train station, two banks, and a closed pharmacy. The only map at the train station was of bike paths around Girona province. There was a bike path to Púbol, which passed through another place called La Pera, and there was a sign near the train station that said La Pera and had an arrow and a picture of a bike. Following a vague sign into the Catalunyan countryside seemed like the path of least resistance. So I started walking. 4km isn't so far. I had my compass. What could happen?

For once, walking blindly in what seemed like the right direction actually worked. The path went through woods and fields, with very few sings for La Pera, and even fewer sings of human life. For a while I was pretty sure I'd made a wrong turn and might never find my way out of the wheat fields, but then there was La Pera and from there there were signs for Púbol. The walk to La Pera took about an hour, during which the only humanity I saw was a bus full of Russians (there was a sign on the front of the bus written in Cyrillic). As I was leaving the museum, Russians were going in. Between La Pera and Púbol I passed some cars. Everyone seemed to be lost; they kept stopping and looking at maps and looking around confusedly. Dalí definitely found a remote place for her. A few houses, a church, the museum, a gift shop, and a restaurant are all that seem to be in Púbol, and the gift shop and maybe the restaurant are only there because of the museum. La Pera is a little bigger, more houses anyway, but doesn't seem to have any stores or restaurants or bars at all. Or people. There were signs of life, like cars and clothes hanging out to dry, so it clearly isn't an actual ghost town, but it felt like one. It was cute, just deserted on a Sunday.

I wonder how the Pubolians felt about Gala Dalí moving into their town's castle. This is definitely the most remote place I've been in Spain so far. I saw several tractors today.

Trying not to make a spring break reference

2006-06-18T20:49:00.000+02:00

I'm not that into clubs, or electronic music, or DJs. But there's this Sonar thing that's going on this weekend (a big modern/multimedia art and "advanced" music festival), and I was interested mostly because it's a big deal. People come from all over. Last night some of the Sonar DJs were spinning for free at the beach, and it was perfect. It wasn't smoky, or hot, or even that loud, or crazy crowded, because the beach is pretty big so you can spread out. Way more laid back than your typical club scene. I liked the music, too--maybe I like electronica but I'm just very selective? And it was a really mixed crowd which is always fun. There were the requisite scantily-clad beautiful people, but there were also old people and goths and dorks and this one guy who looked a lot like Ozzy Osbourne (who, now that I think about it, is kind of an old goth dork) and a French Belgian in a pink cowboy hat. Very cool. And of course Pakistanis selling cans of beer for half the bar price. They must have made a killing last night.

The festival of Corpus Christi is going on now (there's always some kind of religious festival happening here). I don't really know anything about it, but during the festival, in the cloister of the cathedral, they have this fountain with an egg balancing on it. It's just one stream of water shooting up (think kitchen sink faucet turned upside down), with a hollowed-out (chicken's?) egg dancing on top. The egg rolls and moves around a little bit, but it stays up. That's some kind of trick, right? An egg can't just balance on top of a little stream of water. Right?

Skip a life completely

2006-06-17T12:51:00.000+02:00

I wiped out so bad walking up the steps out of the subway today. I guess I slipped or something (I think maybe I tried to skip up the stairs after hearing the word skip in a song on my iPod) and I fell forward on my hands but then my hand slipped and I fell on my elbow and then my foot slipped and I started sliding backwards. My iPod hit so hard it bounced (that thing is unbreakable) and skipped to the next song (speaking of skipping). Un desastre. Between being embarrassed, laughing at myself, and writhing in pain, I had a hard time convincing the passers-by that I was okay. It really did hurt, but I'm still cracking myself up over how comical I must have looked.

Anyway. It's pretty rare that I find myself in situations that legitimately feel like they might culminate in orgy, but tonight was one of those oddities. My friend lives with an artist, and on Friday nights he and his artist friends do these "jam sessions." There's a girl dancing in front of a screen that she's also being projected onto, and the artists paint on the screen. I use the word dance loosely; they call it modern dance but it looked more like very casual yoga (tumbling?). She didn't necessarily follow the beat of the music (I'm also using the word music loosely--for part of the time it just sounded like people fighting and then it switched to a tennis match) and she was smoking the whole time. The artists got started by painting some of her silhouettes on the screen though, so she served that purpose. It lasted over an hour, with the artists painting over things and adding to and changing each other's work, and the audience of maybe thirty people sitting in a few chairs but mostly on the floor drinking 1.50€ cans of beer. It was really intimate to watch the creative process from the start and to see a painting knowing how it came to be. I'm in awe of artists anyway, but to be able to perform spontaneously yet on demand and in front of an audience (and really well) is just beyond my comprehension. Towards the end the music had this pretty intense beat and the dancer was putting her foot on this guy in the audience and these girls next to me started making out and--Okay I made up the part about the girls making out, but it wouldn't have been out of place. No orgy either, but it felt like it could have happened. So Barcelona.

Roque and a hard place

2006-06-16T11:23:00.000+02:00

My ranking of World Cup teams:

USA
Spain
Teams from Spanish-speaking countries
Of the two teams currently playing, the one whose country would benefit more from winning
Of the two teams currently playing, the one with cuter players

So I was definitely cheering for Paraguay over Sweden tonight. The Swedes are tall and blonde and that's kinda cute, but their uniforms are all yellow so they look like giant bananas running around the field. Surely Paraguay needs more of a lift than Sweden does. And there's this guy Roque Santa Cruz who plays for Paraguay. Mmmm. I think I'm in love.

So I was bummed that Paraguay lost. The good news is, cute boys aside, I've kinda gotten into futbol. It's really exciting, and it helps with the baseball withdrawal.

Not Aragorn

2006-06-15T11:33:00.000+02:00

I saw one of my students from last semester today. Wearing a Hooters shirt. Weird.

Anyway, I'm going to Aragón (it's just west of Catalunya). The lease on my apartment ends at the end of the month. After that I'm gonna hit the road and wander around Spain for a while, but I wasn't sure where to start. I was waiting for inspiration. Then I went art shopping with some friends, and one of them bought a painting of a scene in Aragón by an Aragonese (Aragonian?) artist. The painting is of a desert with trees, and apparently those kind of trees only grow in the Aragonese desert. So I'm off to the desert to find the trees. Very exciting.

The woman who sold him the painting is also from Aragón and knows the artist. The whole transaction was very good Spanish practice because my friend buying the painting doesn't speak Spanish and the woman selling the painting didn't speak much English. It got really confusing filling out paperwork to get the tax refunded (when Americans and maybe others buy expensive things in Eurupe they can sometimes have the tax refunded but you have to fill out forms and stand in a line at the airport), but it would have been a confusing conversation even in English so I didn't feel so bad.

And isn't "I decided to go to Aragón after a friend bought an Aragonese painting" the perfect opening line for something (not sure what yet)?

The love fest continues

2006-06-14T11:21:00.000+02:00

I love my neighborhood. It's wonderfully gritty and full of character and free of tourists. There's a ton of construction going on (someday I'll be able to say "I lived in Poble Nou back before....") and it's noisy and the construction guys call me guapa but it's okay because they call everyone guapa. I can get jamón serrano right next door. And isn't this the best vacant lot ever? (It's right across the street from my apartment.) It's the quintessential vacant lot (that's a mattress in the middle, just behind the orange noodle-y thing).

One of the English-language weeklies had an article this week about bars in my neighborhood, and had this to say about P.K.2, which is just down the block from me: "As we were walking in, strippers were walking out--always a good sign. The business card does state 'Todo tipo de celebraciones.' Beyond the strippers the beer/sangria bongs are worth a stop." I went to P.K.2 once with this preppy French guy (long boring story) and I was a little afraid he was gonna end up served on a platter. The beautiful people don't come here.

I can lay on my bed and look at the sky (more a property of my apartment than the neighborhood, but whatever).

And. I saved the best for last. I live across from a mental clinic (it's right next to the vacant lot). With a homemade sign. Priceless.

Andre Agassi circa 1990

2006-06-13T11:53:00.000+02:00

I like to think that I'm, if not smooth, at least functional at European double-cheek kissing. But it feels absolutely ridiculous to me to do it with other Americans. I guess I haven't been here long enough. Aside from some unnecessary cheek kissing, tonight was about as American as Barcelona gets. I took off work early to drink beer and watch sports in a bar where everyone spoke English, and then ate fried bar food for dinner with Americans. I did have to ask the English bartender to repeat herself three times before I understood that she was asking me if I'd had a soda earlier, though. Accents are hard, a fact that is somehow both reassuring and demoralizing for my troubles with Spanish. And I was sitting next to a Red Sox fan, who confirmed that there is no baseball in Spain.

There's futbol, though. The World Cup would be a lot more exciting if the Americans hadn't gotten their asses kicked by the Czech Republic. I have to admit, though, my heart wasn't fully in it; I've got no hatred for the Czechs. With the Italians, though, it's personal. Don't fuck with my friends, otherwise I'll cheer against your futbol team.

Like a boil

2006-06-12T11:58:00.000+02:00

I slept in really late today. I woke up around 10:00 and went back to bed. I never fell completely asleep after that, staying just conscious enough to bask in the fact that I could stay in bed as long as I wanted. It was great.

Anyway. It took 5+ months, but I officially and completely realized today that I love Barcelona. I didn't even do anything particularly interesting: walked around a little, read at a cafe, went to the beach. But today it all finally clicked. It took a while. Just in case I didn't make it abundantly clear, either intentionally or inadvertently, I was a little miserable when I first got here.

Barcelona has three tall buildings. The Torre Agbar looks like a giant condom. (A friend pointed out recently that condom is kind of a euphemism; it looks more like a penis than a condom. Okay, so it looks like a giant penis.) It lights up at night. The other two are right next to each other down by the beach; people call them either the twin towers or the two towers. (I stick with two towers--there were only two twin towers and these aren't they.) From my apartment, the Torre Agbar is to the northeast and the two towers are to the south. I used to sometimes pretend that the Torre Agbar was the Empire State Building and the towers were the twin towers, and that I lived in pre-9-11 Chelsea, not winter 2006 Barcelona. I never do that anymore.

I don't necessarily love Barcelona in a "need to stay forever" kind of way. Maybe more in a "we'll always have Paris" kind of way. It grew on me. I love jamón serrano and outdoor cafes and how cheap good wine is. I love the art scene and the beach and the mullets and piercings. And flaky as they are, I even kinda like the people. They're pretty patient with my bad Spanish and nonexistent Catalan and are always telling me to calm down when I rush myself (tranquila is a word I hear a lot). I like cities that have an energy or a mood that you can feel. I felt New York's right away; Barcelona's took longer, but it's definitely there. I'll always have 2006.

Blog-icide

2006-06-11T15:57:00.000+02:00

If anyone's still paying attention, yeah, I disappeared for a while. Trust me, you didn't miss much. The only people who would be amused by Benidorm stories were there. I'm glad to be back. Don't ever go to Benidorm.

Anyway, today I went to this festival called Hamaka (Spanish for hammock). It's about bringing artists and audiences together, and with a lot of relaxing. Getting there wasn't at all relaxing: The festival was happening at a castle on the far end of Montjuic, this mountain at the southwest corner of Barcelona, and we had a hard time finding it and it got hot on the (really long) walk there so I was way overdressed and sweaty. But once we finally found the place, there were portable lounge chairs set up and we ate ham while reclining and it doesn't get too much better than that. There was music. First was this guy Bitxe whom they refer to as the Catalan Bob Dylan (lots of harmonica, oh joy oh bliss); he played a bunch of his own stuff and then did Visions of Johanna with a Catalan accent and it was adorable (think Viss-ions of Yohanna). Then there was a really good jazz band. There was a guy on a bike riding around among the lounge chairs pointing at people and taking them for rides in a little seat attached to the back of his bike. There was a guy wearing pants made out of newspaper. If you sat in his chair, he'd blindfold you and massage your feet and put scents in front of your nose. There was a beer guy walking around with a keg of San Miguel on his back. And it was almost entirely noncommercial; except for the beer, everything was free. The musicians weren't even selling CDs--kind of a bummer actually because I probably would have bought one from the Catalan Bob Dylan, but still the blatant lack of money-making was nice. And it was so Barcelona, in its creative, weird, laid back way. Finally things are back to normal.

You should write that down

2006-06-05T12:57:00.000+02:00

Benidorm kinda feels like the set for some weird western film. There are mountains in the background, and the city in front of them looks fake. And the movie is full of statisticians....

We went on a little hike today; hike is kind of a strong word because it was all through neighborhoods and on paved streets, but it was uphill. The sea really is pretty here, and the mountains are nice. I'm trying to be a little more positive--it's only working a tiny bit, though.

...and this conference is killing my blog. I'm trying to have interesting observations and fun stories, but I'm at a statistics conference in a lameass resort. It's hard. It is fun, but only because my friends are here. Last night a bunch of us got drunk and ate these really awful kebab sandwiches and talked about masturbation in the hotel basement. That's all I got.

Pretend you're somewhere else

2006-06-04T11:24:00.000+02:00

One more thing about Croatia (I'm taking a break from hacking on Benidorm). Remember their currency is the kuna? Well. They have two-kuna coins and on the back of the two-kuna coin is... (wait for it)... a tuna! A tuna kuna! It's my favorite coin ever, and it's pure coincidence that it's so funny because it's not funny at all in Croatian. (The Croatian word for tuna is tunj, which doesn't rhyme with tuna, and the Croatia word for two is dva, which doesn't sound like tunj). Sometimes you just get lucky.

Benidorm is not Spain

2006-06-03T12:36:00.000+02:00

Gibraltar is England inside of Spain in a way that's kind of okay. The signs are in English and there's fish and chips, and there's also jamon serrano. And monkeys. There are no monkeys here in Benidorm, just crappy food and British tourists. I had a ham sandwich for lunch (it wasn't great ham but at least they have ham) and they put butter on it. Butter. There's no butter in Spain! Okay, I guess they put butter on toast sometimes, but ham sandwiches are made with olive oil. Period. Who are these people? And. The hotel cafeteria (in no way is it a dining room) doesn't serve coffee at dinner, only at breakfast. I've gotta get back to the real Spain.

Paradise prison, without the paradise

2006-06-02T12:21:00.000+02:00

I hate Benidorm. Oh Christ, I hate Benidorm. Even the guidebooks say it sucks. It's ugly high-rise buildings and theme parks and British tourists. And that's it. Well, and the beach, but even the Mediterranean doesn't save it. And the fact that I'm here for a statistics conference definitely doesn't save it. The weather's good. But that's as positive as I can be.

I feel all defensive about Spain here, like I need to tell everyone who will listen that this is so not Spain. I may turn into a giant pain in the ass.

Self-service

2006-06-01T12:20:00.000+02:00

I do like coming home to Barcelona. Uh oh.

Anyway, on the one day in town between the Croatia trip and a statistics conference (ugh) we went to CCCB, Centre de Cultura Contemporània Barcelona. It's a confusing collection of buildings with exhibitions on all kinds of stuff; the main one now is about Chernobyl or, as they write in Catalan, Txernòbil. About as uplifting as a Holocaust museum, but very interesting. I know it's a colossal understatement, but what a tragedy.

Russian humor is really dark. The exhibition talked about how people used humor as a coping mechanism and had some sample jokes. One was something like "Reagan calls up the Pentagon and tells them to stop the nuclear program against the USSR--they've gone self-service." Ouch. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see that going over very well in an American museum. It seems like the sort of thing that would offend people, or people would think it would offend people. Especially since a lot of the jokes used the words shit and fuck.

Also, they showed some really graphic pictures of babies and animals born after Chernobyl with all kinds of severe problems. I just don't see that happening in the US.

And I'm kind of disturbed by the fact that I don't remember the Chernobyl accident's happening at all. I was eight--that's plenty old enough to remember something so monumental. What the hell was I doing?

A hard rain

2006-05-31T12:38:00.000+02:00

You're not allowed to smoke on Italian trains, but people still do. There's not much reason not to since, according to the sign on the door in front of me, the fine for being caught smoking is seven euros. Does that deter anyone?

Trst is sorely lacking in restaurants, but we found a cute little homey one (toilet was a hole in the floor, whatever) and I've officially come around to white wine with seafood. After all the white wine, the waiter brought us free grappa. Then he brought us something ouzo-like. By this point it was pouring rain and we kinda wanted to have coffee and wait out the rain, but we really couldn't have handled any more free ouzo so we made a run for it. I spent the whole trip back to the hotel cursing Trst and rain at the top of my lungs. I hate Trst.

I woke up this morning to what I thought was a beautiful sunrise outside my window. it was actually a street light, and it was still pouring. I hate Trst. We spent about an hour alternating between MTV and CNN on the hotel TV hoping the rain would let up, but it just got worse. We ended up taking a cab the three blocks to the train station, and it was five euros well spent. I hate Trst.

The last stop on the trip was a sprint through Venice, from where we fly back to Barcelona tonight. I was so grumpy from the rain this morning that I didn't really even want to go to Venice. Heading straight for the airport and sitting there for six hours sounded better than doing anything outside. But even though it was crowded and cold and rainy (at least it wasn't raining sideways anymore) and a little smelly, I really loved it. The canals are cool and really didn't smell that bad, and the tourists stay pretty concentrated in a few areas so there are neighborhoods that aren't crowded at all. We walked around and ate pizza and had coffee and went to the Basilica San Marco, which is where St. Mark's remains are buried. That was all we had time for, but it was great. I'll definitely have to go back.

Dead man's town

2006-05-30T12:35:00.000+02:00

May 29

When the boat dropped us off at 7am in Rijeka, there were no accommodation-offering old ladies to greet us. Rijeka was cold and grey and industrial. We took one look around and said fuck Rijeka and hopped the next bus to Italy. The next bus wasn't for seven hours, though, so we had some time to kill. We had coffee. Walked around a little. Had coffee again. Slooowly. Waited for it to be lunch time. Had lunch. Waited for the bus. Left. I admit we didn't exactly give Rijeka a fair shot. But after the paradise that was southern Croatia, this cold cloudy dirty port city just didn't measure up. Maybe nothing would have measured up. Sorry, Rijeka.

One good thing about my shitty geography is it makes for pleasant surprises every now and then. Like Slovenia. I didn't know Slovenia was between Croatia and Italy, but apparently it is so I went through Slovenia today. It looked pretty and green. Very exciting.

Anyway, stop number two on our tour of depressing port cities was Trieste, Italy. Or, as they say in Croatia, Trst. Who needs vowels? Trst is a little nicer than Rijeka, but not all that impressive so far. I wanna go back to Dubrovnik!

One thing about Croatia is it's not an easy country to get around. Maybe if that doesn't change it will keep it from becoming unbearably touristy, I dunno. You can't really go between coastal cities by train, because the trains pretty much only go to Zagreb, the capital, which is way over in the northeast part of the country. So to go 200km you'd have to take a train all the way across the country and back. There are buses, but they take a long time because the roads are two-lane and all twisty. Even driving like a maniac, it takes a while to cover any ground. And there are boats, but they're also very slow and never seem to drop you off in quite the right place. I'd be glad to deal with those complications, though, if they keep away masses of tourists.

A bigger boat

2006-05-29T08:47:00.000+02:00

Went swimming today and I did a pretty bad job of putting on sunscreen, so I have some patches of sunburn. Then I fell in the shower and hurt my arm. But at least I'm not seasick. I was really nervous about taking so many ferries this trip, because sometimes I get seasick and it's really, really awful. But so far so good, just some post-boat dizziness and that's manageable.

The beach today was all rock and the rocks were so white that they almost glowed. Very cool. Also very slippery, but whatever. (Not as dangerous as the shower, it turns out.) I felt like I was in a Corona commercial, only better because I wasn't actually drinking Corona. Corona sucks.

Tonight we're on another overnight ferry to Rijeka, a port city in the northern part of Croatia. Apparently not much of a destination, but it's where the boat goes. We had to take another cab across Hvar Island to get to the ferry port, and the ride today was even scarier than yesterday's. I mean, exhilarating. I swear, the driver accelerated around curves. Tight curves with steep inclines, around the sides of mountains. He looked a little scary, too, so I wasn't sure whether to be more afraid of going over a cliff or being sold into the human slave trade. Exhilarating. In the end, he just dropped us off at a deserted port in the middle of nowhere. Two hours before our boat was supposed to leave, the place was an absolute dead zone. Lucky for us, though, it was a dead zone with an open grocery store across the street, so we got some ham and bread and cheese to eat on the boat. (The food options on our last overnight boat sucked.) We even found some decent-looking wine that appears to have a screw cap; if not I'll have to endear myself to the boat bartender. And even though the port bar never opened, our boat did come for us. Of all the places I've seen in Croatia so far, the Stari Grad port two hours before departure is the one where I'd least like to be stranded.

My phone is becoming less and less useful. First it stopped working as a phone when my credit ran out in a country that doesn't recognize my ATM card. But I could still get text messages (mostly from Vodaphone, whatever), and it has a clock. But then last night it somehow got turned off, and then when I turned it back on I managed to enter my pin incorrectly three times so now I'm completely locked out. Which probably means a trip to the Vodaphone store back in Barcelona (never a good time), and also means that our only timekeeping device is my alarm clock. Time for me to get a watch.

Ties, war, Tito

2006-05-28T08:36:00.000+02:00

We left Dubrovnik early this morning to go back to Split to take a boat to Hvar Island. I managed to stay awake for most of the bus ride this time (including another swing through Bosnia) and I'm still kinda feeling the afterglow of how great it was. The most beautiful bus trip ever.

The Lonely Planet says Hvar attracts international jetsetters. I was hoping for Mick Jagger, but all we saw were the same tourists we've been seeing all over Croatia. It's really nice though, even without Mick. There's a little bay with boats and there are some nice churches. (A nun kicked me out of one because I'm wearing a tank top. It happened right after a little kid told Shane to stop talking. They didn't think much of us in that church.) There's also an old fortress up on a hill; it's now a catering facility but still pretty cool to walk around.

The boat from Split drops you off on the wrong side of the island, so we shared a cab with some annoying British women to Hvar town. They really drive like maniacs here. We were on this narrow two-lane road with hills and curves and the driver kept passing people and I'm pretty sure the car left the ground going over a hill. And the British women kept distracting him with unnecessary details about their plans in Hvar, causing him to occasionally turn around and look at them, swerving a little in the process. I guess it's not a real cab ride in a foreign country if you don't fear for your life at least once.

In all the Croatian cities we've been to so far, the sidewalks are made of marble, at least in the old parts of town. It looks cool, but marble is pretty slippery and so are both pairs of shoes I brought with me. Marble is also really hard, so I've been walking extra carefully. I hope I don't fall.

Another good thing about Croatia (whose Croatian name is Hrvatska--why does everyone else call it Croatia?) is there are cats everywhere. All the restaurants we've been to have a cat or two wandering around.

I'm so dizzy

2006-05-27T08:26:00.000+02:00

The world is still spinning a little. There's a slight chance that it's from the liter of red wine our waiter brought us instead of the half liter we ordered last night, but I'm still blaming the boat.

We went swimming today. I don't normally prioritize swimming when I travel; I didn't even remember to pack my bathing suit this trip. But the water is so beautiful (and it's hot here) that I decided yesterday I had to swim in it. I bought a cheap bathing suit and we spent this afternoon at the beach. The people we're staying with suggested a place to go, and I was disappointed at first that there was no sand at all. It was a rock and cement beach. But it was really cool; you climb down the rocks to get to the water and then you're in this blue-green paradise surrounded by rocks and cliffs. It was pretty amazing. Before coming here I thought Cadaques was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen, but Cadaques is beautiful in a small, charming way. This is beautiful in a powerful, overwhelming way.

For dinner I dragged us halfway up a mountain looking for the perfect restaurant. I've turned into a total pain in the ass about restaurants: I don't want anything touristy even thought I'm a tourist; it has to be authentic, and not too expensive. And we did finally find, if not the perfect restaurant, the perfect view and really good wine. It was basically a hotel bar that served food and we sat outside and watched the sun set over the old town. I do such romantic shit with my nonromantic friends.

Beautiful, blah blah blah

2006-05-26T18:09:00.000+02:00

So I went to Bosnia today. Dubrovnik isn't connected by land to the rest of Croatia so you have to go through Bosnia to get there. Pretty uneventful; they didn't even stamp my passport. But still, I went to Bosnia.

The bus ride from Split to Dubrovnik was fantastically beautiful, at least the twenty minutes or so that I was able to stay awake for. The road winds around these cliffs that drop down to the sea, which is about fifty different shades of blue and green. There were people sailing, mountains in the background. It was perfect.

When we arrived in Dubrovnik we got absolutely bombarded with old ladies offering rooms. We had to fend them all off because we already had a room; some were really hard to get rid of. We already had a room because my landlord, who is fast becoming my favorite person ever, recommended a place to stay. It's cheap and in a beautiful house in a great location and the owners even let us use their washing machine. Making the reservation was a little bit of a mess, though, because the credit on my cell phone ran out while I was making the reservation. (Vodaphone must be really screwing me on international calling rates.) And I don't know how to recharge my phone since my ATM card doesn't work here. No problem, we'll just call from a pay phone. But we couldn't find any pay phones. Everyone we asked pointed us in the same general direction and said they're near the post office, but we can't find the post office either. Eventually we found a phone, got some change for the phone, and then realized that the phones only take prepaid phone cards. Shane was about ready to firebomb Croatia by this point; his anger somehow made me super calm about the situation, which probably just irritated him more (sorry, Shane). We found a kiosk and bought a phone card, but with country codes, city codes, and zeros in between, it took about ten different tries and we nearly gave up before I got the call through. But we finally made the reservation and the place is great. It even has nice art on the walls.

Dubrovnik's old city isn't really old anymore. The Yugoslav army pretty much destroyed the city in 1990-91 and it's since all been rebuilt. (Could whoever managed that project please help with La Sagrada Familia?) You can walk on top of the city walls and tell the new terracotta roofs from the old ones--a lot more new than old.

And it is just so, so beautiful here. I'm an absolute sucker for beaches and mountains together, and this is pretty much paradise. Except for the other tourists.

Makin' a kuna run

2006-05-25T18:39:00.000+02:00

I hate boats. Oh, I hate boats. The big ones don't make me seasick, but I've been on land for almost twelve hours now and I still feel dizzy and floaty. The last time I took an overnight ferry it took several days for the world to stop rocking back and forth. Sucks.

I hate boats, but I love Croatia. It reminds me more of Russia than anywhere I've been since Russia: the language, the markets, the people drinking beer at 10am. We're in Split right now, because that's where the boat dropped us off. We'd heard that once you get off the boat there are old ladies all over offering accommodation. And sure enough, when we got off the boat there was Helga offering us a room. She's not exactly old, but she made us coffee and fed us strawberries. She takes in boarders because she needs to have her eyes operated on and the government doesn't provide any health care assistance. I had been wondering if maybe I should have haggled with her over the price of the room, but if I had the eye story would have made me feel really guilty.

The Roman emperor Diocletian retired to a palace in Split sometime around the fourth century. The walls are still mostly in place and now there's a whole little neighborhood inside them. It would be pretty cool to be able to say you live inside the Diocletian Palace. There's also a seventh century church and a 60 meter tower you can climb up; it's got great views and my dizziness from the boat only made it a little vertiginous.

A little outside the center is the Mestrovic Gallery. Ivan Mestrovic studied with Rodin and sculpted male figures really well. His females were almost all a little out of proportion, but he did male bodies well. To get to the museum we took this really nice walk along the water. The sea is all pretty and green and there are mountains and people were swimming. It's great to be off-season, too, because there aren't many other tourists here.

One down side to Croatia is that their ATMs won't give me money, so Shane is our only source of kuna (the Croatian currency; doesn't kuna sound kinda dirty?). Also, the bars tend not to serve food, which is a little frustrating only because I've gotten used to Spain and we had a hard time finding lunch today. But the coffee is pretty good here and they even bring you a glass of water with it. For free. I do miss free water. All the bars in town seem to have the same drink prices. Not sure if it's a communist relic or collusion, but it means we don't need to worry about comparing prices, anyway.

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, my phone seemed to have reception all across the Adriatic, and Vodaphone was the first to welcome me to Croatia. If only I could use my phone instead of my ATM card to get some kuna....

I think it involves a boat

2006-05-24T16:00:00.000+02:00

This morning's sprint through Florence consisted mainly of haggling at the market for a leather jacket that I absolutely don't need (but it stopped me in my tracks and I love it and Mario swears it has a five-year warranty) and going inside the Duomo. Where it turned out that I did need the leather jacket, because I'm wearing a tank top and bare shoulders would apparently desecrate the church in a way that flash photography, baseball hats, and tour groups don't. I'm taking it as a sign that buying the jacket was the right thing to do. The Duomo is the fourth largest cathedral in the world; just across from it is the baptistery where Dante was baptised. Very cool: old, Roman architecture, nice art. I won't go on about it. And I think the coffee in Italy is a tiny bit better than the coffee in Spain. But don't tell Spain I said that.

We left Florence this afternoon to go to Ancona to catch the ferry to Croatia. The cops in the Florence train station were on Segways. I have a hard time being intimidated by people on Segways.

I'm not really a boat person. I tend to get seasick. But the big boat across the Adriatic from Ancona, Italy, to Split, Croatia, seemed like our best option so here we are. I am so glad we didn't rent a car. Getting the cars on the boat was somehow chaotic and slow at the same time and it definitely would have stressed me out. There was one guy who took the license plate off his car before he drove it onto the boat; not sure what kind of operation they're running here, exactly.

While we were waiting to board the boat we were cornered by this guy wearing shorts with a hole in the crotch who told us about how he used to live in Detroit but had to leave because there were too many black people there. What is it with the racists everywhere we go? He was saying that the 1950's were great, but then in the 60's Martin Luther King started the civil rights movement and brought black people to the north. Then he said he wasn't racist but that "black people are just hard on things, you know, they break things." I kind of wanted to break him. Thankfully the conversation ended when some other guy's car started rolling backwards and almost hit a bit truck that may or may not have contained explosives. Sprinting across the parking lot, the car owner was somehow able to stop the car just before it hit the truck, and in the excitement we were able to get the hell away from the racist.

Another unpleasant thing, there's guy on the boat laying on a couch in the bar area. He's got his shirt completely unbuttoned and half off, was kinda fondling his chest hair when we walked past, and had a large plate of cold cuts in front of him. Otherwise the boat is kind of okay, though. There are some people on the deck singing what sounds like a Croatian version of "If you're happy and you know it." They just formed a conga line. There's a guy in what looks like a monk's outfit wandering around. And we're drinking Zlatorog, crappy Slovenian beer with a picture of a gazelle on the can. So we may have learned the Slovenian word for Gazelle.

Flying by the seats of our pants

2006-05-23T18:03:00.000+02:00

Woke up this morning and hopped a train to Italy. No idea where we'll sleep tonight; everything in Florence seems to be booked. Whatever.

We went through this tunnel on the train and when we came out everything looked older and more run down. Sure enough, we'd just crossed into Italy. Vodaphone keeps sending me text messages when I change countries; I can't decide how I feel about the fact that my cell phone company knows exactly where I am. Calling Italy from France on a Spanish phone can't be cheap, but at least we have the option. We'll see how it does in Croatia.

Intercountry trains are funny. Going from Barcelona to Montpellier the announcements were in Spanish, then Catalan, then French. Until we crossed into France, where they were in French then Spanish, doing away with Catalan entirely. Going from France to Italy, everything was in French while we were in France and once we crossed into Italy it switched to Italian followed by English. Even though it's all the same train.

Anyway. I miss Spain. I mean, of course I miss Spain. I can mostly communicate and basically know what I'm doing there. (Funny how you have to go away to realize that.) But I think it's more than that. I think I miss the people. I miss being able to go into any bar, anywhere, and get coffee and a ham sandwich and know it's gonna be good. I even kinda miss the mullets and piercings. Uh oh.

On the second of the three trains that it took to go from Nice to Florence (we left Nice at 10am and arrived in Florence at 6:30pm), the bathroom was a hole in the bottom of the train. There was a toilet-like seat, but it just led to a hole where everything fell out and landed on the tracks below. Yuck.

Florence is really nice, but already really touristy even in May. And it's gonna be really rushed: We're leaving tomorrow afternoon to take more trains across Italy and then take a ferry to Croatia. But Croatia is the whole point of this trip; I'll travel around Italy for real some other time. Oh, and we finally found a hotel that's actually pretty nice and fairly cheap. Sometimes you get lucky.

I keep trying to speak Spanish here, hoping that people will understand me and that I'll then understand when they speak Italian back to me. It seemed to work with this adorable old man on the train from Nice, but other than that it either fails completely or people answer me in English. Oh well. Croatian will be our fourth language in four days. It's kinda like Russian so I'll try to get by in really bad Russian, but I think we'll be in trouble unless people speak some English. My Serbian landlord says that everyone in Croatia speaks English, but I've learned that "Everyone speaks English" can mean drastically different things to different people.

We met these racist Australians on the first train today. In addition to complaining about how there are too many black people in Paris, they were saying that Australia had to send soldiers to Iraq because the US saved their asses in World War II. I know a lot of people think that way; I'm not sure I do. At some point the ass-saving WWII debts have to be forgiven, right? Anyway, I also met this Scottish girl who mistook my saying I speak English for saying I am English, and when she realized I'm American started lecturing me on how I should never tell anyone I'm English because "that's the worst." Okay. People are weird.

Nice-ties

2006-05-22T14:17:00.000+02:00

Marc Chagall paintings are so fucking cool; you can stare at them for hours (okay, minutes) and keep finding different things to look at. He does really incredible things with color, and uses all these different levels of clarity and intensity so his paintings seem to be done in layers and come to you in waves. And he works all these funny little creatures into the background and they all look friendly, like you want to pet them. Chagall (he was Russian, you know, well Belorussian) painted a series of biblical scenes for the French government and theyÃ re in this museum in Nice and itsÃ really amazing. I was being that tourist trying to photograph the art because it was so, so good.

Nice also has a Matisse museum that didn't really do that much for me. There was some stuff that I liked (some dark still lifes, completely different from what he's famous for) but mostly a lot of studies and sculptures that I wasn't so excited about. And it was in this building that had a lot of things, like shutters and ceiling detail, painted on. I know it's a style, but it reminded me of one of those tuxedo t-shirts. I'm easy, but maybe not a total art whore.

Anyway, I like Nice so much better today than I did last night. The Chagall and Matisse museums are about a half hour walk from the city center, up in the hills, and you go through some really nice neighborhoods with cool architecture to get there. It looks a little like southern California, but with more character. The wealthy seem to live pretty well in Nice. And I had a really good roast beef sandwich for lunch.

I didn't feel like we were being crazy gung-ho tourists, but we did a lot today. In addition to the Chagall and Matisse museums we went to a modern art museum and the Nice Russian Orthodox church. None of the museums were that big, so we got through them pretty quickly. The Orthodox church was funded in part by Nicholas II's mother: Apparently a lot of Russians moved to the south of France in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Nicholas II's (the one the communists killed) mom was originally engaged to the tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich, but he died (in Nice, that's why the church is there; there's also a monument to him there) and she ended up married to Tsar Alexander III. Kind of a shitty deal, I think; I don't know much about Nicholas Alexandrovich, but Alexander III was ugly and an asshole.

Nice also has a really cool beach. It's rocks, not sand, but the water is all these beautiful different shades of blue and there are mountains and palm trees and big waves. The weather was perfect today, which made it even easier to fall back in love with Nice.

In addition to the museums, churches, and beach, we sort of made plans for tomorrow. We're going to Florence. My Spanish cell phone couldn't call France from France, but I can call Italy just fine. And in broken, broken Italian I was able to discern that all the affordable hotels in the Lonely Planet are booked. So we'll have to find a plan B when we get there. More adventurous that way.

Based on all of one city, France sees to have more comforts than Spain. Por ejemplo, the public bathrooms here have hot water in the faucets, and ware well stocked with toilet paper. Often they even have paper towels instead of hand dryers. But Spain is cheaper and the coffee's just as good. And French computer keyboards are nearly unusable. You have to push the shift key to type a period and they switch the A and the Z. It's their country, they can do what they want, but that's just silly.

Everybody's talkin' at me

2006-05-21T18:23:00.000+02:00

11am
We've been stopped under a Pyrenee for a while now. I'm pretty sure this isn't the border crossing, so I'm not sure why the delay.... Okay, we're moving again. There are no Spanish people on this train; everyone's either American or French. I've alienated them all with my hacking. I feel like Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy, and Shane is Jon Voight. It's just a cold, really, but it sounds awful. Good thing the SARS scare is over, or I might have ended up in quarantine or something.

And. Why can people not read their train tickets and get in the right seat? It's not that difficult. Really.

4pm
The first thing you see when you walk out of the train station in Montpellier is a McDonald's; I'm not sure if I think that's funny or sad. We were planning to stay tonight in Montpellier, for no particular reason except that it's on the way and there was a direct train from Barcelona and this Canadian girl I met in a hostel said something about it, but then the guidebook got me all excited about Nice so we decided to keep going. The guy at the train station ticket counter was the nicest French person ever, super helpful and patient with our bad French. So our main activity in Montpellier was buying a ticket on the next train out. We also walked through a little park and bought sandwiches. France is pretty uneventful so far. We don't have a place to stay in Nice and can't make reservations because for some reason my phone won't call France. Hopefully we won't end up on the streets or, more likely, crammed into the laundry room or attic of some crappy hostel.

Guys in military fatigues carrying giant guns and wearing berets pace around the train stations here in France. They're in the airports, too. You can make all kinds of jokes about the French army, but in person they're pretty intimidating.

12am
I fell in love with Nice before I really met it. Always a bad idea. It has all these art museums that sound great, and it even has a Russian Orthodox church. I was really excited for Nice, but then we got here and it's all tourists, construction, neon, and internet places. The beach is nice, and we found a hotel and had a good dinner, but so far I liked Nice better before I got here. On another note, nothing makes me feel better about my Spanish skills than trying to speak a language I really don't speak. Like French.

Nerds have a natural aversion to mullets

2006-05-20T10:34:00.000+02:00

Mullets are funny. Not when they're forced on you, though. My friend had her hair cut the other day, specifically said she didn't want it short on top, got a mullet anyway, and when she complained afterwards was told that she looks better with the mullet. I may never have my hair cut again.

Anyway, tomorrow my friend and I are leaving on, if not the most half-assed trip ever, at least the most half-assed trip I've been on in a while. We were originally deciding between Morocco and Portugal, but Morocco sounded a little too adventurous and Portugal wasn't quite adventurous enough. Croatia somehow seemed like the right compromise. We don't know anything about Croatia, but we've heard it's nice. We were planning to drive there; I was gonna learn how to drive a manual car in the airport parking lot. But we just couldn't get a straight answer on whether we're even allowed to drive into Croatia or not (maybe we need a special license, stamp, registration, whatever, maybe not), and my Serbian landlord got us half-convinced that we could easily end up in a Croatian prison. Which would make a damn good story, but probably wouldn't provide stunning views of the Adriatic. So it's gone from a car trip to a plane, train, and boat trip; and even though we threw it together pretty last-minute, it's gonna be great. Tomorrow we're taking a train to Montpellier in France, from there we'll go somewhere in Northern Italy, and from there to Croatia. On the way back we'll fly to Barcelona from Venice. We don't have any hotels booked, but between us we speak two Romance languages badly and we have a Lonely Planet. What could go wrong? Plus, I have a cold that's manifesting itself in my usual loud, hacking cough, so anyone who might otherwise mess with us might think I have tuberculosis and rob someone else. You really can rationalize anything.

¡Barça! ¡Barça! ¡Baaaar-ça!

2006-05-19T10:37:00.000+02:00

So we won the fútbol game. I got bear-hugged/tackled by some really excited strangers. It was a pretty good game: Arsenal scored first and was up 1-0 for most of the game, then Barcelona scored two quick goals in the last ten minutes or so. And the city went nuts. The police quickly blocked off most of the main streets and everyone converged on La Rambla. Everyone. There were people crawling up lampposts, kids out past their bedtimes, old people drinking canned beer purchased illegally on the street. There was so much happiness and excitement in the air--I wonder what it would have been like if they'd lost. It was a long night, but by this morning the city seemed pretty much back to normal, except for the occasional sign or streamer left out and more people than usual wearing Barca shirts. Now the World Cup is coming up, but Spanish people don't get excited about their country, they get excited about their city or their region. So we'll see how much people are into the Spanish fútbol team.

I've heard from some locals that the police here are pretty useless; I haven't really had any interactions with them myself so I don't have much of an opinion. But maybe they are a little bit lazy. I was walking around today and passed some guys selling fake designer sunglasses on the street. A cop car drove up, and the guys packed up their operation (really, really quickly) and casually walked away. The cop car kept going. Once it was gone, the sunglasses guys came back and set up shop again. Kind of an exercise in futility, no? The police would have to get out of the car to actually do anything, but I guess they just don't care.

Not football, not soccer, fútbol

2006-05-18T10:07:00.000+02:00

The Barcelona fútbol team is playing Arsenal (they're from London) for their league championship tonight. I continue to do a pretty crappy job of getting into fútbol, but this is pretty hard to miss. Everyone seems to be wearing an FC Barcelona jersey; some are carrying flags. Even more kids than usual are playing fútbol in the street. Cars honk at groups of fans. You can feel the excitement all over town; I spent the afternoon running errands, so I really did feel the excitement all over the city. I like it when cities get excited; it makes you feel like you're part of something. I felt that way a lot in New York and hardly ever do here.

There's this website here with weekly event listings and one of the events for today is titled "Unheard of Silencio en Barcelona." They say "Going for a walk around the city may seem like an unoriginal activity, but on Wednesday the 17th it most certainly won’t be. You will never have seen such a still, quiet and breathless Barcelona.... You could hug the Pedrera, lie down in the middle of a carless calle Aragó, climb to the top of Columbus’s statue and bite his finger... you could even sneak into the Ayuntamiento and steal a flag. No-one would notice. Do whatever you want. Barcelona is YOURS!"

GOOOAAAALLLL!!!!

Just drink beer

2006-05-17T11:37:00.000+02:00

So I'm having a party. I'm not a party-thrower. I like parties, but I like other people to have them. I'm afraid that no one will come, or that no one will talk to each other, or I don't know what. It's just not really my thing. But I have this deck and my friend convinced me I need to put it to use, and I have these friends in town, so I decided to go for it. And even if no one shows up but the five people who I know will show up, it will be fun. And more drinks for us that way. It's gonna be a stand around and drink and listen to music party (my midwest roots coming through): I made a playlist on my iPod and I'll buy lots of drinks. That's enough, right? I'm hoping the food will work itself out.

Anyway, the thing about drinks is they're heavy. So I started buying them early. I had exactly an hour after my Spanish class today before I was supposed to meet my friends for dinner. I convinced myself I had time to stop at the grocery store and buy some beer. Anytime you have to convince yourself you have time to go to the grocery store, you probably don't have time. But I convinced myself. Normally at 7ish pm my grocery store is nearly empty. Today it was a chaotic madhouse. I got my beer, water, and yogurt and waited in line. Normally you bag your own groceries here in Spain, but today the cashier bagged them. And did a horrible job. She put two six packs of beer in one plastic bag; of course the bag was going to break. But before I could reorganize the bags, the other bag with the water and yogurt broke and there, in the middle of the grocery store checkout aisle insanity, was my water bottle, on the floor and leaking everywhere. Mierda. I quickly decided that dealing with the grocery store staff wasn't worth it (no one seemed interested in helping anyway), so I put the yogurt in a different bag, took one of the six packs out of its bag, and carried the water bottle upside-down (the hole from the fall was on the bottom) so it wouldn't leak. So I had two six packs of beer, my laptop, my purse, a bag of clothes, yogurt, and a big hole-y bottle of water that had to be held upside down so it didn't leak. Normally when you're lugging a ton of crap around it's just an exercise in brute strength, but the water bottle meant I had to be a little bit graceful, too. Or at least balanced. It didn't work so well. I spilled a little, and I spilled a little more dragging everything up the five flights of stairs to my apartment. But I got it all inside and even had an empty water bottle that I hadn't thrown away yet, so I could pour the water from the broken bottle into the old empty one. But I forgot my physics, and when I took the lid off the upside down bottle with a hole in it, the water came gushing out all over the place. In the end I managed to salvage about a third of the water and make it to dinner, sweaty and grumpy but more or less on time. It was never about the money, it was about the weight of the water and not wanting to have to carry more water around later. But still, I have about seven centimos worth of water to show for all of that. And I'm still gonna have to buy more tomorrow.

The most phallic mountains ever

2006-05-16T11:14:00.000+02:00

The Torre Agbar (Agbar Tower) was designed by Jean Nouvel (who I guess is famous but I don't know architects), who claims to have been inspired by Montserrat, a mountain range outside Barcelona. I'm skeptical, because clearly the Torre Agbar is a giant condom. But Montserrat is a little phallic, too. Maybe he was inspired by Montserrat and condoms.

Anyway, I went to Montserrat with some friends today. It's about an hour train ride from Barcelona and then you take a cable car up. There's a Benedictine monastery tucked away in Montserrat and there's also a music school; we heard the boys' choir sing in the basilica. It was as close as I've been to a church service in a while and it freaked me out a little, but the singing was good. Super crowded with tourists, though; I wonder how the monks feel about all that. We also hiked up to the highest point of the mountain range, where we met a really cool Texan and two obnoxious Canadians. More blatant regional stereotypes, I know, but it seemed backwards. Then on the train ride home we met more Texans: two women in their 60's or maybe even 70's who are here with a tour group. I wasn't expecting to like them, but they were super cool. They blew off their tour group to go to the mountains by themselves and were figuring out the subway and gave us their metro cards because they didn't need them anymore. I hope I'm still traveling when I'm that age.

Here's a better picture of the mountains.

It's... interesting

2006-05-15T08:21:00.000+02:00

I'm really good at rationalizing things. If there were rationalization (or verb conjugation) factories, I'd be all set. I'm in a little bit of trouble with the IRS because I fucked up my 2003 taxes. I wish I didn't owe them money, but if I'd paid what I owed then I would have been broke then. Maybe I wouldn't have gone to Russia after grad school; maybe I would have stayed in Boston and learned to sail. That wouldn't have been for the best. So I'm choosing to see my tax mistake as a high-interest loan that I needed for life expenses but wouldn't have taken if I'd realized it was a loan. See how well it works?

I was telling my friend the tax story tonight and in the same conversation heard myself saying that one of my top priorities right now is to make my life interesting. And it is; I'm not just rationalizing that one. People in the midwest often use the word interesting as a euphemism for bad. Not me. Things that suck are often interesting, but in a good way. And you can rationalize all kinds of sucky things as interesting. (Maybe I'm more midwestern than I like to admit.) My hero Julie Powell once said something like "The thing about being a moron is it makes your life more interesting." Same idea. If life went according to plan that would be boring. Right?

No. Sleep. Till...

2006-05-14T09:17:00.000+02:00

I heard a Brooklyn accent on the street today. After a few months away I guess I can sort of understand why some people might not need to live in New York. But I'm still an absolute sucker for it; I wanted to hug a complete stranger today just because he sounded like New York. The city can pretty much do no wrong for me. If it's pouring rain and I'm running late and I can't get a cab, it's pouring rain and I'm late and can't get a cab in New York. If it's 100° in the subway and the train won't come and I'm banging my head against the wall, I'm that crazy subway person in New York. It's the kind of attitude that I generally find intolerable in others, but I never got over it.

I don't know where I'm going with all of this, it's just what's in my head right now so I thought I'd throw it out there.

Clean, or something like it

2006-05-13T11:25:00.000+02:00

After a week of shared bathrooms and sketchy towels, I was really excited to take a shower at home. (I've come a long way with my bathroom. You get used to things.) But I came home to find that the gas can for my hot water heater needs to be replaced. And my landlord's son, who usually replaces it, isn't around to do it. My landlord said she'd send someone else over either last night or this morning.

I tried really hard to change it myself. I'm smart, I'm capable, it shouldn't be that difficult. I can't do it. I've tried before, I'll probably try again, but I can't do it. After you hook the gas tank up to the water heater you have to light it by sticking a match into a hole in the heater. And eventually my often-silent inner voice of reason always kicks in and reminds me that I'm playing with matches and a large can of gas and if it's not working I clearly don't know what I'm doing and I should stop before I blow myself up. And then I stop. I really hate that I'm at the mercy of others for something so basic, but I don't want to set myself on fire, either.

Anyway, at 11am no one had come to light the tank and I was getting bored. I had to bathe, but I just didn't have it in me to take a cold shower. It's not just that cold showers are unpleasant, they actually hurt. A lot. So I put a big bowl of water in the microwave and gave myself a standing sponge bath. That's when I heard the knock on the door. There was no way I could answer it quickly, so I still have no hot water. And even though I technically bathed, I'm still feeling pretty grubby. And my hair is gross.

So I'm not gonna date my bathroom. Every time I start to trust it, it fucks me over and leaves me feeling dirty.

Don't mess with Catalunya

2006-05-12T13:50:00.000+02:00

I think if I had a younger sibling I would make fun of it and beat up on it but also be very protective of it. I gripe about the language and the politics and stuff here in Catalunya, but people who don't live here aren't allowed to. I yelled at this Canadian guy at the hostel in Granada for calling Catalan a dialect of Spanish. I don't even know what the word dialect means exactly, but I know Catalan is a separate language not a dialect, and no North American is gonna go around calling it a dialect without getting yelled at. Then in Málaga I found myself lecturing some people on the complexities of Catalan nationalism after someone referred to Catalans as separatists. I know the same could be said of me sometimes, but people shouldn't spout off about things they don't know about.

Anyway. Some final thoughts on the Andalucia trip.
All the tourists in Granada seemed to be British; Málaga was full of Germans. I wonder why the difference.
If someone else from Málaga ever becomes famous, there won't be anything left to name after him/her because everything in this place is named after Picasso.
The Málaga airport has designated smoking areas. They're these little tables scattered throughout the airport with a square marked by tape on the floor around them; you have to be inside the square to smoke. So all these otherwise uncrowded areas of the airport have all these people crowded around the little smoking tables. I should have taken a picture, but I would have felt ridiculous.
Free tapas are so great.
Oh, and this is interesting. To get to the Alcazaba (the castle) in Málaga you have to walk up a hill. The hill is next to the bullring, and on the way up there's a spot where you can look down into the bullring (the roof is open). It looked like they were practicing, but instead of bulls there were little kids running around. Now that's an idea. Not that I actually advocate the spearing of little kids, but at least then everyone would realize what a barbaric sport it is.

Some photos are posted here.

Uncorked

2006-05-11T21:52:00.000+02:00

I think you could have beaten me with sticks today and, as long as the beating didn't take place on a bus, I'd have been okay with it. There's not that much to do in Málaga, so it was kind of okay that I was lazy and spent an hour having coffee this morning. I was observing people, that counts. I see a lot of people drinking decaffeinated coffee here in Andalucia; you can tell it's decaf because it's served as a glass of hot milk with a packet of instant coffee. Yuck. I don't think I've ever noticed anyone in Barcelona drinking decaffeinated coffee. And speaking of coffee, it is so good here in Spain. I don't know what my problem was before, but I've completely come around to Spanish coffee. I am gonna be such a pain in the ass back in the US.

Anyway, Málaga has a really beautiful cathedral. I keep thinking that I'm done with cathedrals (they can be kind of expensive and start to all look the same after a while) but then whenever I see one that's really nice from the outside I end up wanting to go in. So I paid the 3.50€ for the Málaga cathedral, and it wasn't so special. It had some nice art, though, and when this woman asked me where the exit was I understood her and was able to answer. Small victories. And Málaga has an okay modern art museum.

Málaga also has an Alhambra-like castle/fortress on a hill, but I just couldn't get that excited about it after seeing the Alhambra. [Whoa! A guy in MC Hammer pants just walked past me. Remember those pants that are tight around the calves and the crotch goes down to your knees? Straight out of 1989. I've seen a few people around Spain wearing similar pants, but these are the most authentically MC Hammer that I've seen.] It's also really cloudy today, and spring in Barcelona has made me even more intolerant of less-than-ideal weather. Makes me want to stay inside and have coffee all day. Or wine. They make sweet wine here; it tastes like port. It's good. Port is from Portugal, you know.

In another country

2006-05-10T11:37:00.000+02:00

Gibraltar, 11am. Yup, it´s a big rock.
I'm hoping for a new stamp in my passport (Gibraltar is part of England, after all) but they´re nowhere near that formal here. To get from border control to the city of Gibraltar you have to walk across the runway of the Gibraltar airport, which would be charming except that the area is patrolled by military guys with machine guns. Kinda kills the small-village vibe. There are signs everywhere that say: "You are crossing a live runway. Pedestrians keep between the white lines. Please cross quickly." Okay. The only non-zoo, non-human primates in Europe live on the rock of Gibraltar, in case you're wondering what I'm doing here. I think they were brought over from Africa at some point.

12:30pm.Show me the monkeys!
I hate Gibraltar. It´s not entirely Gibraltar´s fault; I hate the Lonely Planet, too. Piece of advice to any potential guidebook writers out there: If the only way to get to the monkeys, short of a three hour hike, is by cable car, don´t say "A fine way to access the nature reserve is by cable car" and then also say that most of Gibraltar is accessible by foot. That makes it sound like walking to the monkeys is a viable option. It´s not. (Actually the three hour hike sounds great, but I´m only here for the day and don´t have time. And guidebooks just shouldn't be misleading.) And Gibraltar doesn't help with its complete lack of signage on how to get to the monkeys. The monkeys are why people come here! Anyone who comes to Gibraltar for fish and chips or jewelry shopping doesn't deserve a sign. I've spent way too much time wandering lost around this place. And the fact that they speak English here (this is England, after all) should be refreshing, but it's just fucking me up. I can't speak Spanish, but I seem to have forgotten how to buy tickets and ask for directions in English. Joder.

2:30pm. Everybody likes monkeys.
Okay I'm better now. The monkeys are well worth the three-hour bus ride with about fifty stops and the stress of getting to the top of the rock. And what ever gave me the idea that walking to the monkeys would be easy? It's a huge rock, you don't just stroll up to the top of it. I'm an idiot.

The monkeys run around and fight and play and aren't afraid of people at all. If you get close they'll jump on you. There are signs all over saying to be careful if you have food because they'll try to steal it. The signs also say not to touch the monkeys but this nice old guy who feeds some of them takes a liking to me I guess and lets me feed them and gets a baby one to climb on my shoulder for a picture. Her name is Jessica.

You can see Morocco from the rock, but only when the clouds aren't in the way. There are these weird clouds here called levant or something that look like they were made by a smoke machine and that completely block any view. When I first get to the top of the rock it's clear, so I get to see Africa before it clouds over.

6pm. Get me off this fucking rock.
So. I met this nice Dutch boy in Granada. I fascinate him. He's very nice, but he doesn't fascinate me. Whatever. We were supposed to go to Gibraltar together but at 7am he wasn't on the bus so I went by myself. No problem. After the monkeys I came down from the rock and went to the Trafalgar Cemetery, where British soldiers who died after the Battle of Trafalgar are buried. And in the cemetery I hear someone calling my name. It's my Dutch friend, who caught the next bus and somehow found me in the Trafalgar cemetery. If only he fascinated me....

We go back to the rock and see the monkeys. Everyone likes monkeys; it was fun to see them again. But we have a bus to catch (the last bus back to Málaga leaves at 5:30) so after a quick visit with the monkeys we go to catch the cable car to leave. And it doesn't come. And it doesn't come. And it doesn't come. We can see it down at the bottom of the rock, just sitting there. Maybe it's broken? Maybe I misread the signs and it's stopped running for the day? There are cabs on the rock and we passed a restaurant, so we head back to the restaurant to see if we can get a cab there. But the trip from the restaurant to the cable car stop was all down the rock, meaning the trip back to the restaurant from the cable car stop goes up the rock. It takes forever. We're probably gonna miss the bus, but maybe if we can get a cab to take us all the way to the border we'll have a chance. But the cabs don't go down the rock; they only go up the rock. That makes no fucking sense, but whatever, we've got more important things to worry about, like coming up with a Plan B. (Actually, we're on to Plan C now.) We try to hitch a ride. No luck. We try to join a tour group. No luck. At this point we've definitely missed the bus so time isn't such a concern, but the sooner we get to the bus station, the better our chances are of finding an indirect route back to Málaga tonight. We walk. If it takes three hours to walk up the rock, it can't take that long to walk down. While we're walking down, the cables cars start running again. We end up in someone's backyard because we miss a small graffiti-covered sign marking the footpath. We turn around and hike back up for a while. I scream "Fuck you, Gibraltar!" at the top of my lungs and feel a little better. I'm doing all of this in flip-flops.

We finally get off the rock. There's a plane landing so we have to wait a while to cross the runway to get to the border. We wonder if we'll have to hitchhike back to Málaga.

12am. Home sweet hostal.
It wasn't that bad. We had to change buses and the trip took about five hours instead of three, but we did make it back to Málaga. And sucky things tend to make better stories. And we saw the monkeys. Everybody likes monkeys.

Ronda is gorges

2006-05-09T11:32:00.000+02:00

So I'm on the bus to Ronda this morning, twisting around the Sierra Nevadas, and on the side of this big hill is a car. With a tree through the roof. Like someone drove the car down the hill right into the tree and then just left it there. The tree was all the way up to the windshield, so it must have hit pretty hard. I'm choosing to believe it was done intentionally; it's the only way I can get a kick out of how comical it looked without being a horrible person.

The bus ride this morning was a little chaotic. Everything is a little chaotic in Spain. The online schedule showed buses leaving every hour or so, so I got to the bus station around 8:30 to catch the 9am bus. The guy at the ticket counter said the next bus was at 10. I asked if there wasn't a 9am bus, and he told me that maybe another bus company had one leaving at 9 and I should ask at the information booth. The guy at the information booth told me to go to ticket booth 14. So I went to booth 14 and there was a sign saying the booth was closed and to go to track 13. There was no one at track 13, but there was a bus from the same company at track 8. So I asked that bus driver if he was going to Ronda and he said yes, but not until 2:30 (was he gonna sit there for 5 hours?) and that the 9am bus would leave from track 11. And sure enough, at about 8:55 the 9am bus to Ronda pulled into track 11. So it all worked out, but with maximum confusion. Then on the way back, my bus was supposed to leave at 5pm from track 4. There was a bus at track 4 with a sign that said Málaga; so far, so good. I went to the bathroom and when I came back the Málaga sign was gone from the bus at track 4. 5pm came and went. Around 5:15 they put a Málaga sign on the bus at track 1. People started putting their stuff on the bus. A few minutes later a guy in a grease-stained jumpsuit who looked like he was still in the process of fixing the bus herded us over to a different bus across the street. I can think of no better explanation than that they try to make it confusing so people will have chaotic bus stories to tell.

Anyway, I ended up not liking Ronda as much as I thought I would--it's a lot more touristy than I wanted it to be. It has this huge gorge which is pretty amazing, but the other attractions (churches, museum, a former palace) felt a little forced. I was picturing an old deserted frontier town, just me and the gorge and some oxtail. I should have known better--the place is in the Lonely Planet, of course it's not gonna be deserted. I guess I've gotta get over the guidebook thing if I want to get away from other tourists. Still, the gorge was pretty cool. You can climb down to the bottom through this cave, complete with authentic puddles and water dripping on your head. Coming back up hurt. And there are some really nice gardens to feed my new obsession with photographing flowers. Bullfighting is big here (I guess some of the modern bullfighting techniques were developed here) but that's not really my thing. And I had oxtail. So in the end it was me and the gorge and the oxtail. And souvenir shops and films stores and tourists. Whatever. Oh, and I got this crazy map from a hostel here that had south at the top and north at the bottom. I was about ready to have myself committed before I figured it out.

Smile like you mean it

2006-05-08T14:35:00.000+02:00

Sometimes if I don´t recognize something on a menu, I´ll order it just to figure out what it is. It´s how I learned that boquerones are sardines, not sandwiches. This morning I ordered toast with sobrasada. I was hoping it would be some kind of jam, and I guess it is sort of like jam, only made out of sausage not fruit. Not bad actually, but not really what I wanted--spreadable may be my least favorite Spanish pork product so far.

I´m in Málaga now, and absolutely disgusting. The hot water wasn´t working at the hostel in Granada, and it was too early to check into the one in Málaga when I got there. So I haven´t showered and I´m in the same clothes I wore yesterday to hike around the Alhambra and hang out in smoky bars. Yuck.

Anyway, about ten years after Guernica, Picasso moved to Antibes and got happy. I like the Picasso Museum in Barcelona better than the one here in Málaga (Barcelona has more early stuff, Málaga has more cubist and weird stuff), but the museum here does have this great temporary exhibit of works from when Picasso was living in Antibes in the 1940´s. It was mostly paintings and drawings of fauns, nymphs, and centaurs. (After seeing lots of examples I still don´t know what a faun is, except that sometimes they have horns.) And they were so simple and so happy, but in a good way. The faces were mostly lines and dots and squiggles (think :-) ), but they were adorable and they kept making me smile. Sometimes I wonder if I´m really appreciating greatness or if on some level I just like things because I know I´m supposed to. But I definitely don´t go around smiling in spite of myself over just anything.

Mr. Jones strikes up a conversation

2006-05-07T16:07:00.000+02:00

The word fabulous really isn´t part of my everyday vernacular, but right now I can think of nothing more fabulous than the Alhambra. It´s architecture and art and views and fountains and history and flowers and cats. There were cats all over, it was great. But here´s my problem with trying to be a travel writer. I could try to write about the architecture or the water transport system or how beautiful the gardens are but it probably wouldn´t work. And even if it did, what would be the point exactly? People who are into travel want to travel, not read about travel, right?

Well, ignore that issue for now, I guess. There are roses growing everywhere here. I don´t know what the face-masked crowd was protesting yesterday, but Granada smells really good to me. It´s hard not to drink too much here: The tapas are free if you buy a drink, but they´re not that big. So you have to have a lot of drinks to get a free dinner. This British guy in my hostel was emptying out his locker today: half a bottle of wine, three beers, big bottle of Jaegermeister, and half a can of Limonata. Someone asked him how old he was and he said eighteen. Eighteen. I´m crashing with people ten years younger than me. Whoa. Alcoholic British boy aside, the hostel is full of Americans. But all the tourists I see in the city seem to be British. I wonder what the Americans do all day, and where the British sleep.

It´s hard to find good blues in Spain, but really who needs blues when you´ve got flamenco? There´s this thing with flamenco that it´s sort of supposed to happen spontaneously and that the really hard core flamenco-doers won´t really perform if they think tourists are in the audience. Or something. If that´s the case then what I saw last night probably wasn´t the real thing; it didn´t feel touristy but there were definitely tourists there. Whatever. It was really, really good. Flamenco guitar blows my mind; it sounds like five different instruments are being played, all from six strings and two hands. And. Forget statistics, forget travel writing, forget saving the world. I wanna be a flamenco dancer.

Down South

2006-05-06T10:15:00.000+02:00

The first time I traveled outside the US or Canada was almost exactly four years ago, and the first place that really felt like a different planet was southern Spain. So arriving in Andalucia today and having it feel familiar was nice; the bus ride from Málaga to Granada looked pretty much like what I remember. Brown and green, curvy and hilly, bull signs on the side of the road, trees that I´m choosing to believe grow olives. No fields of sunflowers, though; I guess maybe itś too early for them. The trip four years ago was eye opening and life changing and it was good to come back to the place where it happened.

The trip this morning was a little painful because of a 6am flight but otherwise went off without a hitch. When I arrived in Granada there were protesters in face masks blocking one of the main streets: They were protesting against a nauseating smell in Santa Fe, wherever that is. I like this place.

Granada was the last capital of Muslim-ruled Spain, and the big attraction here is the ruling palace from that time, the Alhambra. More on that tomorrow after I actually go to it. today I walked around the old Islamic quarter and went to the Cathedral and saw themausoleumm of Ferdinand and Isabel. It is so different from Barcelona. The Islamic architecture makes it look completely different. People are friendlier: I´ve already had several conversations with strangers here and that hardly ever happens in Barcelona. You get a free tapa when you buy a drink; I had wine and cheese today for 1.60 euros. And they speak Spanish. The accents are a little different (they drop s´s at the end of words) but that I can deal with. I respect the Catalan issue, but it complicates things. The bars seem to have sangria on draft, at least that´s what I assume tinto de verano (red wine of summer) means. All the tourists seem to be British.

It rained a little today. It´s not supposed to rain in Andalucia, ever. But then the sun came back out and made a big rainbow, so I guess it´s okay.

SOTP!

2006-05-05T12:09:00.000+02:00

On the way home tonight I saw the words SOTP INVASION spray painted on the side of a building. Assuming sotp isn´t some abbreviation or something, that´s gotta be the worst spelling mistake ever. And weird that Spanish graffiti would use the English word "stop." (Invasion is the same in English and Spanish.) But the stop signs here stay STOP, which is maybe where it came from. I keep meaning to ask someone why they aren´t in Spanish. STOP isn´t universal. Bolivian stop signs are in Spanish; they say ALTA. Well, the one Bolivian stop sign that I saw on the news said ALTA, anyway. The Spanish government is quietly freaking out about Bolivia´s nationalizing its gas, so it´s been in the news a lot lately.