I'm in Nice, typing on a French keyboard where the a is q, the m is a comma, the w is z, and the punctuation is impossible. Beqr zith ,e.
I actually wrote the Barcelona post from Nice, and after that city but before this one we went to Olot, a small town in the northeast of France. We stayed for three nights with a family that two years ago was Johns host family.
We got the small Spanish town experience, nights out with Johns host sisters friends to the parks, the bars, and the forest (its a really cool forest).
The family was great. The daughter, Miriam, seemed to know everyone in the town and all the hot bars. She is our age and going to go to college in Barcelona. The son, Arnou, played Nintendo Wi with us. The Mom, Montse, made us huge lunches, including a ridiculously good paella. The Dad, Miguel, was the Patriarch of the Family. When he came home, everyone gathered around him, waiting to hug him, kiss him, and ask how his day was.
John's description of their typical family scene was dead-on. Montse and Miguel are in the kitchen. Montse is on the phone, replying, "Vale, vale, vale, vale, vale, vale" ("vale" means "okay"). Miguel is at the table, smoking a cigar and eating from a plate stacked with ham.
One time during lunch, the family poured wine into a jug with a straw-like spigot at the top. Then, they used the jug to pour wine into their mouth through the spigot. Montse and Miriam held it close to their mouths, as if waterfalling a bottle of water. King Miguel held the jug a foot from his face, pouring the wine into his mouth like one of those fountain-statues we saw around Spain, like a Viking celebrating after a battle.
Later on in the lunch, Miguel asked Sam why he was eating so little.
"I have a small appetite," Sam said in Spanish.
"At 10 in the morning, we eat," Miguel said in Spanish. "At noon, we eat." "At four, we eat." "At seven, we eat." "At 10, we eat." "And at 12, we fuck."
So that´s Miguel, the coolest dad in western Europe. He was also serious and passionate about the need for Cataluña (the area in Spain in which he lives) to get its independence.
One night, I came home early, sick. Miguel made me some tea.
We made small talk for a minute.
"No estàs en España," he said. In English: You are not in Spain.
I was confused for a second, before I realized what he meant.
"Estoy en Cataluña?" I said.
"Si, en Cataluña!" he bellowed.
We spent the next hour and a half discussing Cataluña's struggle for independence from Spain. The language barrier presented a significant obstacle to full comprehension, so I might have misunderstood some of what he said. But I got the gist.
Cataluña is a part of Spain in the northwest that includes Barcelona, Spain's second largest city. The people in Cataluña speak Catalan as well as Castillian (what we think of as Spanish), and Catalan is more like French or Italian than it is like Spanish. The culture is supposedly different, too.
Cataluña, according to Miguel, is the engine of Spain. He said that the two places of greatest industry and business are Cataluña and the Basque country (the other area in Spain where there is a major separatism movement) and that greater Spain screws these two areas by extracting far more wealth than it gives back.
I told him that California suffers a similar fate, with the national government pulling out more money than it puts in.
He replied that to help the rest of the country would be okay, but that Cataluña was being hung. He put his hands around his neck so that I would understand. That Cataluña was being castrated. He made a chopping gesture, again to help me understand.
"And," he said in Spanish, "In the US, states can make their own laws."
I said that the freedom was not absolute, giving the issue of abortion as an example of the national government going above the states. He replied that the United States was still far less unitary than Spain. He presented the American states' differing execution laws as an example of laws in American states that differ far more than laws in Spanish provinces do.
The money issue and Cataluña's inability to make its own laws were important, but Miguel was most angry about what he perceived as larger Spain's disrespect for Cataluña.
I told him what Elena had said in Barcelona about Cataluña's separatist movement: in a globalizing world, separatism hurts efficiency.
"Si, tiene razón, he said. "Pero quiero unión con respeto," In English: Yes, that's a reasonable argument, but I want a union with respect.
He gave me a lesson in Cataluñan history. Cataluña once extended into France and Valencia (Spain's third-largest city), and the islands of Mallorca, Minorca, and Ibiza were part of Cataluña. All of that territory was lost when Spain forced a unification.
To an extent, I sympathise with Cataluña's separatists, if all of what Miguel says is true, especially about the unfair financial situation. But I buck against it, too. At some point in the conversation, I remarked on the sadness of the separatists' situation, saying they fought over sovereignty instead of issues that could create progress.
"But we are fighting for progress," Miguel said in Spanish.
And I guess many of the fights in America are no better. Fights over gay rights, abortion, stem cells, religion in daily life, flag-burning, and other sexy issues distract from the conditions that will have a far larger effect on our standards of living, such as how to protect the environment and what our foreign policy should be.
I asked why Cataluña didn't unite with the Basques in the national government to gain more rights for the provinces, especially over taxation. Larger Spain would still have a majority, Miguel said. So Cataluñans call for separation.
Still, they fight peacefully. By this time, Montse was in the kitchen, making a new batch of tea. She agreed, saying that Cataluña would be persistent but would not make violence. In the Basque country, some separatists are terrorists.
"Better to educate," Miguel said. "Better to educate American students who come to live with us."
In Nice, we have lived the high life on the cheap. We are staying with family friends of John's family (the family knows Sam and me as well).
They are incredible, giving us a living room in which to sleep, taking us out to fancy, delicious dinners, holding guided tours of Nice, inviting us along with them to a friend's house on top of a hill overlooking Nice and St. Jean (a neighboring city), and bringing us to all the hot beaches.
Nice is a beautiful, vibrant town surrounded by the Mediterranean and Roman ruins. We have relaxed in preparation for Amsterdam and loved it.
Tonight, we get on a night train to the Netherlands. Soon, I'll be writing from across the continent.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Prostitution evasion methods
Barcelona! It was crazy!
Too crazy to go chronologically. Barcelona will be better conveyed by a video montage that captured our time there.
This is the point where I would cue the video montage. But I don't have a camera. Or sound. Or audio-visual editing capabilities.
Cue the description of the Barcelona video montage:
The first day.
Cut to the first moment we stepped out of the metro station, our warm welcome to Barcelona:
It's broad daylight, abut 6 pm. An obese man walks around La Ramblas naked. We don´t know why.
Cut to dinner with Carmen, the Barcelona woman with whom we fell in love when we met her in Granada:
No sound. Just the Beatles "With a little help from my friends" playing over stills of us eating.
Cut to Sam and me exploring the nightlife:
I exit the hostel. A girl looking about a year younger than me grabs my arm and asks if I would like a handjob. I decline. In the nightclub, Greenday's American Idiot is playing to a mostly American crowd, and the crowd, for unknown reasons, is loving it.
The next day.
We met up with John's friend Edward and Edward's French-speaking friend JB. We head to the beach. At the beach, the camera gets a helicopter shot of Edward, JB and I swimming out to the rocks.
Later that night, John uses his Spanish to sweettalk our way into Shoko, a big, classy club on the beach, for free. The video´s narrator remarks how amazing it is for two well-dressed French and three badly-dressed Americans, all male, to get into a club for free.
Cut to the prostitute-saturated walk back to the hostel:
The prostitutes are aggressive. Some come up to you in twos are threes. About a third leave when you nod your head or say, "No." Most persist.
"Why 'No'?"
"We don't want anything."
"You don't want a good time?"
"No."
"I wasn't talking to you," one said to me. "I was talking to your friend."
"He doesn't want anything either," I said.
"I want to suck your dick," she told John.
"Well I don't want you to suck my dick," he explained.
They're tactics are pretty consistent, but some got creative.
"Hey funnyboy!" one said to Sam. I guess when being obvious fails, try abject meanness?
The third day.
Cut to shots of us looking at the buildings designed by Guadi. Best art I have ever seen.
Cut to dinner at my Dad's friend Elena's huge, ridiculously nice Barcelona pad, with a pond in the back by the patio:
More still shots of us eating, with the Sound of Music's "My Favorite Things" playing as mood music.
Cut to the walk back to the hostels after clubbing:
Earlier in the day, John and I had decided to have some fun with the prostitutes at their expense (and without paying for any of their services). John wanted to tell them he was a gay dancer. I wanted to tell them I was a journalist for the International Herald Tribune. (Each fulfilling our own fantasies, I guess.)
John came home around 3:30, a little too late for the prostitutes. But I headed home with Sam around 2:30, prime time.
The first prostitute made the subtle choice of miming oral sex and asking, "Sucka Sucka?"
I whipped out my...moleskin note pad and pen. I smiled broadly. She seemed confused.
"Hi, I'm Thomas Seercy from the Barcelona branch of the International Herald Tribune. We're doing a story on prostitution in Barcelona, and I'm wondering if I can get an interview."
She took a moment to register that I really meant "interview," then walked away without a word.
It worked 10 out of 10 times, the last prostitute summarizing the attitudes of the other ones with an amiable "Fuck you." They want anonymity, I guess. They really flinched at the word "prostitution." Perhaps they try not to see it that way.
The next day, we left on a train for Olot, a small town where John knows a family. It's amazing how easily we can hop cities. From Madrid, in the center of Spain, to Malaga, in the southeast, and eventually to Olot, in the northwest.
Too crazy to go chronologically. Barcelona will be better conveyed by a video montage that captured our time there.
This is the point where I would cue the video montage. But I don't have a camera. Or sound. Or audio-visual editing capabilities.
Cue the description of the Barcelona video montage:
The first day.
Cut to the first moment we stepped out of the metro station, our warm welcome to Barcelona:
It's broad daylight, abut 6 pm. An obese man walks around La Ramblas naked. We don´t know why.
Cut to dinner with Carmen, the Barcelona woman with whom we fell in love when we met her in Granada:
No sound. Just the Beatles "With a little help from my friends" playing over stills of us eating.
Cut to Sam and me exploring the nightlife:
I exit the hostel. A girl looking about a year younger than me grabs my arm and asks if I would like a handjob. I decline. In the nightclub, Greenday's American Idiot is playing to a mostly American crowd, and the crowd, for unknown reasons, is loving it.
The next day.
We met up with John's friend Edward and Edward's French-speaking friend JB. We head to the beach. At the beach, the camera gets a helicopter shot of Edward, JB and I swimming out to the rocks.
Later that night, John uses his Spanish to sweettalk our way into Shoko, a big, classy club on the beach, for free. The video´s narrator remarks how amazing it is for two well-dressed French and three badly-dressed Americans, all male, to get into a club for free.
Cut to the prostitute-saturated walk back to the hostel:
The prostitutes are aggressive. Some come up to you in twos are threes. About a third leave when you nod your head or say, "No." Most persist.
"Why 'No'?"
"We don't want anything."
"You don't want a good time?"
"No."
"I wasn't talking to you," one said to me. "I was talking to your friend."
"He doesn't want anything either," I said.
"I want to suck your dick," she told John.
"Well I don't want you to suck my dick," he explained.
They're tactics are pretty consistent, but some got creative.
"Hey funnyboy!" one said to Sam. I guess when being obvious fails, try abject meanness?
The third day.
Cut to shots of us looking at the buildings designed by Guadi. Best art I have ever seen.
Cut to dinner at my Dad's friend Elena's huge, ridiculously nice Barcelona pad, with a pond in the back by the patio:
More still shots of us eating, with the Sound of Music's "My Favorite Things" playing as mood music.
Cut to the walk back to the hostels after clubbing:
Earlier in the day, John and I had decided to have some fun with the prostitutes at their expense (and without paying for any of their services). John wanted to tell them he was a gay dancer. I wanted to tell them I was a journalist for the International Herald Tribune. (Each fulfilling our own fantasies, I guess.)
John came home around 3:30, a little too late for the prostitutes. But I headed home with Sam around 2:30, prime time.
The first prostitute made the subtle choice of miming oral sex and asking, "Sucka Sucka?"
I whipped out my...moleskin note pad and pen. I smiled broadly. She seemed confused.
"Hi, I'm Thomas Seercy from the Barcelona branch of the International Herald Tribune. We're doing a story on prostitution in Barcelona, and I'm wondering if I can get an interview."
She took a moment to register that I really meant "interview," then walked away without a word.
It worked 10 out of 10 times, the last prostitute summarizing the attitudes of the other ones with an amiable "Fuck you." They want anonymity, I guess. They really flinched at the word "prostitution." Perhaps they try not to see it that way.
The next day, we left on a train for Olot, a small town where John knows a family. It's amazing how easily we can hop cities. From Madrid, in the center of Spain, to Malaga, in the southeast, and eventually to Olot, in the northwest.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
An in-depth education on walruses
I have a cell phone! The number is 693272366. Dial 011 to become international. Spain´s country code is 34. All that put together: 011 34 693272366.
I actually got the cell phone the same day I posted the last blog post but later in the day. That day, we saw Ocean´s 13 in in Spanish. Baffling. Anyone (who understood the dialogue) care to explain the need for a fake FBI agent? Or a fake nose on Matt Damon´s character? Or for George Clooney and Brad Pitt to go shopping for matching parkas together?
After the movie, Sam and I looked for a club or a bar. We stumbled into a pretty sketchy area of Valencia. Even though it was only 1:30 a.m., we had trouble finding anything still open. The first place we entered was called ¨Mel´s Bar.¨I opened the door. The lights were dim. The bar was almost empty, and no music was playing. A bartender stood around doing nothing, a lady sat on a stool near the back, and another lady, this one a bit thick, stood in the front. As we opened the door, she stared suggestively at us and danced to the lack of music, waving her hips.
¨What do you want,¨she asked.
¨Nothing. Lo siento.¨
We scrambled back out the door.
The next club we went into: The lights were dim. The bar was almost empty, and no music was playing. A bartender stood around doing nothing, and two men who looked like bouncers but weren´t guarding anything stood up front. Two ladies were at the bar. Neither had a drink.
One of the bouncers raised his eyebrow, as if to ask, ¨Which one do you want?¨
¨You don´t want!¨ I said, my Spanish failing me a bit. "Goodbye!¨I said, my Spanish failing me a bit.
Amazingly, the third ¨bar¨was another identical prostitution house. What´s with Valencia?
Finally, back in our quarter of the city again, we found a salsa bar (which was cool, but no one was dancing) and another regular bar. In these bars, the ¨employees¨were bartenders. We were glad.
Still, we had just as much fun not finding a normal bar as we did when we actually found one. That´s the great thing about traveling with friends, totally independent of authority of almost any kind. The normally fun experiences are great. We´ve loved bar-hopping, going to clubs, seeing the Alhambra, visiting the Prado...But we´ve also loved the smaller things that we´d take for granted back home. Here, even the small things are new. The activities that would be part of daily life, were we back home, are exhilarating to do now that we´re exploring. We were amped to eat breakfast when we went to the giant farmers market that Valencia made out of an old cathedral . Each day is an adventure. Finding the route to the beach or the clubs is a big deal, like we´re hiking through the city and finding a way down the mountain. We celebrate when we find an especially good restaurant because not only are we eating well, but also because we are successful adventurers. Even mistakes are fun. Accidentally stumbling into prostitution houses is part of the exploration. We are completely on our own, exploring totally unknown cities together.
The next day, we woke up late, went to the park, had more candy than we could handle, and chilled. We actually found clubs that night, and they were pretty insane. None of them have cover charges, so we just go in and out as we please.
The next day, we woke up early (11 am) to go to the Valencia Arts and Sciences museum, which is supposed to be the biggest science museum in Europe. We thought it was good, not incredible.
Then we entered the Arctic part of the aquarium, where we saw walruses having sex.
Walruses.
Having sex.
Best museum ever.
In the night, we went to a bullfight with Jack and Ruby, two people we´d met back in Granada, and Ruby´s cousin Abby, who lives in Valencia.
Jack is a character. He´s ridiculously British, about our age, with a fast, dry, typically British wit. When we met before the bullfight, he pulled us along to the season´s ticket section.
¨Yeah, Ruby´s dad is a real bullfighting aficionado, so we have one season´s ticket,¨ he said. ¨But we only have one. Guards will come up to us before the fight and ask to see our tickets. Just wave your hands like you´re baffled and say, ´No habla espanol,´and they´ll go, ´Pfff,´and leave.¨
The event we saw was actually a prelim to the real Tuesday night bullfight. Here, young boys our age who are not yet legit matadors show their stuff against untrained bulls. Then, the bulls that will fight on Tuesday are paraded around.
The fight was interesting. I wasn´t rooting for either side, and yet I was on the edge of my seat.
First, some men in green and pink costumes tease the bull by waving around pink and yellow capes, letting him charge, and moving out of the way. Then, picadores step into the ring, egg the bull on, juke his charge, and stick small spears into his back. Then, the matador enters, teases the bull some more, this time with a red cape, and then, at the end, jukes the bull´s charge and sticks a sword into his spinal chord.
The bullfight felt like a tradition to be respected. Much of the fight was ceremony. A man on a horse came out at the beginning to ¨clear the crowd¨from the ring, even though there was no one in the ring. Everyone who interacted with the bull was in full costume.
The bullfight was thrilling. It had the acrobatics and grace of a dance. It had the primal fighting you´d expect from an action movie. Its competitors stretched their athletic ability in a manner you might see at a sports match.
Against my respect for the tradition and the fight´s ability to rivet me, I felt sorry for the bull. I didn´t root for it to hurt the humans, but I didn´t root for the humans to win, either. I felt horrible when the picadores tricked the bull and stuck him with spears. And, during the first slaughter, the bull died slowly. At the end, he stumbled a bit. Then, like a dog going to sleep, he sat down on its hooves. I imagined him trying to rest from a patently unfair fight. It was a fight he didn´t understand.
Someone came out and pulled his ear. He jerked up. They stuck him again with a sword, and he died. A horse came out and dragged the bull away.
I can´t speak for anyone but myself, but to me it was too brutal to be enthralling.
We went out for drinks with Jack, Ruby, and Abby. Then Sam and John hit the sack, and I went out on the town with Abby and her sketch Valencian friends.
Today, we actually got train tickets (Barcelona) in advance this time. See? we´re getting better at traveling every day.
I actually got the cell phone the same day I posted the last blog post but later in the day. That day, we saw Ocean´s 13 in in Spanish. Baffling. Anyone (who understood the dialogue) care to explain the need for a fake FBI agent? Or a fake nose on Matt Damon´s character? Or for George Clooney and Brad Pitt to go shopping for matching parkas together?
After the movie, Sam and I looked for a club or a bar. We stumbled into a pretty sketchy area of Valencia. Even though it was only 1:30 a.m., we had trouble finding anything still open. The first place we entered was called ¨Mel´s Bar.¨I opened the door. The lights were dim. The bar was almost empty, and no music was playing. A bartender stood around doing nothing, a lady sat on a stool near the back, and another lady, this one a bit thick, stood in the front. As we opened the door, she stared suggestively at us and danced to the lack of music, waving her hips.
¨What do you want,¨she asked.
¨Nothing. Lo siento.¨
We scrambled back out the door.
The next club we went into: The lights were dim. The bar was almost empty, and no music was playing. A bartender stood around doing nothing, and two men who looked like bouncers but weren´t guarding anything stood up front. Two ladies were at the bar. Neither had a drink.
One of the bouncers raised his eyebrow, as if to ask, ¨Which one do you want?¨
¨You don´t want!¨ I said, my Spanish failing me a bit. "Goodbye!¨I said, my Spanish failing me a bit.
Amazingly, the third ¨bar¨was another identical prostitution house. What´s with Valencia?
Finally, back in our quarter of the city again, we found a salsa bar (which was cool, but no one was dancing) and another regular bar. In these bars, the ¨employees¨were bartenders. We were glad.
Still, we had just as much fun not finding a normal bar as we did when we actually found one. That´s the great thing about traveling with friends, totally independent of authority of almost any kind. The normally fun experiences are great. We´ve loved bar-hopping, going to clubs, seeing the Alhambra, visiting the Prado...But we´ve also loved the smaller things that we´d take for granted back home. Here, even the small things are new. The activities that would be part of daily life, were we back home, are exhilarating to do now that we´re exploring. We were amped to eat breakfast when we went to the giant farmers market that Valencia made out of an old cathedral . Each day is an adventure. Finding the route to the beach or the clubs is a big deal, like we´re hiking through the city and finding a way down the mountain. We celebrate when we find an especially good restaurant because not only are we eating well, but also because we are successful adventurers. Even mistakes are fun. Accidentally stumbling into prostitution houses is part of the exploration. We are completely on our own, exploring totally unknown cities together.
The next day, we woke up late, went to the park, had more candy than we could handle, and chilled. We actually found clubs that night, and they were pretty insane. None of them have cover charges, so we just go in and out as we please.
The next day, we woke up early (11 am) to go to the Valencia Arts and Sciences museum, which is supposed to be the biggest science museum in Europe. We thought it was good, not incredible.
Then we entered the Arctic part of the aquarium, where we saw walruses having sex.
Walruses.
Having sex.
Best museum ever.
In the night, we went to a bullfight with Jack and Ruby, two people we´d met back in Granada, and Ruby´s cousin Abby, who lives in Valencia.
Jack is a character. He´s ridiculously British, about our age, with a fast, dry, typically British wit. When we met before the bullfight, he pulled us along to the season´s ticket section.
¨Yeah, Ruby´s dad is a real bullfighting aficionado, so we have one season´s ticket,¨ he said. ¨But we only have one. Guards will come up to us before the fight and ask to see our tickets. Just wave your hands like you´re baffled and say, ´No habla espanol,´and they´ll go, ´Pfff,´and leave.¨
The event we saw was actually a prelim to the real Tuesday night bullfight. Here, young boys our age who are not yet legit matadors show their stuff against untrained bulls. Then, the bulls that will fight on Tuesday are paraded around.
The fight was interesting. I wasn´t rooting for either side, and yet I was on the edge of my seat.
First, some men in green and pink costumes tease the bull by waving around pink and yellow capes, letting him charge, and moving out of the way. Then, picadores step into the ring, egg the bull on, juke his charge, and stick small spears into his back. Then, the matador enters, teases the bull some more, this time with a red cape, and then, at the end, jukes the bull´s charge and sticks a sword into his spinal chord.
The bullfight felt like a tradition to be respected. Much of the fight was ceremony. A man on a horse came out at the beginning to ¨clear the crowd¨from the ring, even though there was no one in the ring. Everyone who interacted with the bull was in full costume.
The bullfight was thrilling. It had the acrobatics and grace of a dance. It had the primal fighting you´d expect from an action movie. Its competitors stretched their athletic ability in a manner you might see at a sports match.
Against my respect for the tradition and the fight´s ability to rivet me, I felt sorry for the bull. I didn´t root for it to hurt the humans, but I didn´t root for the humans to win, either. I felt horrible when the picadores tricked the bull and stuck him with spears. And, during the first slaughter, the bull died slowly. At the end, he stumbled a bit. Then, like a dog going to sleep, he sat down on its hooves. I imagined him trying to rest from a patently unfair fight. It was a fight he didn´t understand.
Someone came out and pulled his ear. He jerked up. They stuck him again with a sword, and he died. A horse came out and dragged the bull away.
I can´t speak for anyone but myself, but to me it was too brutal to be enthralling.
We went out for drinks with Jack, Ruby, and Abby. Then Sam and John hit the sack, and I went out on the town with Abby and her sketch Valencian friends.
Today, we actually got train tickets (Barcelona) in advance this time. See? we´re getting better at traveling every day.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Madrid, Malaga and Granada pictures
We have pictures up from Sam´s camera!
See http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2006883&id=1063440494&ref=mf.
See http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2006883&id=1063440494&ref=mf.
Our hop off a moving train in Valencia
We saw the Alhambra, built by the Muslims who ruled Spain and added to by a Christian king. By religious law, the Muslims aren´t allowed to paint or sculpt idols, so the art in the Alhambra is mostly related to geometry. And damn, they were good at geometry.
By coincidence, a girl named Isobel who I met in the Malaga hostel was living in a house right next to my hostel. She came along to the Granada, and she and I chilled and explored the city for the rest of the time in Granada.
We met a lot of people in Granada, actually, mostly at the Makuto Guesthouse (the wonderful hostel in Granada with hammocks and crepes in the morning). There were Jack and Ruby, a couple (going strong after 2 years!) from Britain, Deb, a sassy Southern bell, Carmen, a woman from Barcelona who we all fell in love with, Mel, the witty, brilliant, lesbian filmmaker from South Carolina, Korea, and Estonia, Tracy, from Calgary, which apparently is the Texas of Canada due to the high concentration of cowboys, beef, and oil, and Antee, a guy from Finland who doesn´t say much but sings a passionate Finnish anthem.
I went on a motorcycle scooter tour led by the hostel´s owner´s husband, learning how to ride and hitting 50 kph in the same day. Riding a motorcycle is one of the more exhilarating things you can do. It feels like you´re gliding, almost like skiing.
All in all, I fell in love with Granada: the tiny cobblestone streets through which no cars can drive, the plazas where musicians bang drums and pull accordions, the ancient-looking houses and buildings, the colorful bazaars that dot the roads, even the beautiful graffiti on the walls. But after three days, our time was up, and we were off to Valencia.
These trains don´t get any easier. Due to shoddy planning, we took a night train. We decided that instead of sleeping on the night train, as normal people might, we would spend the travel time partying and sleep at the hostel.
The train ride consisted of eating, an intense game of hearts we played with two Canadian girls named Kirsten and Beatrice, and a little sleeping. Until we hit the first of two Valencia stations, it was largely uneventful.
We rolled into Valencia about 30 minutes late (5;30 a.m.). The train stopped. We walked to the front of the car, and the guy in front of us opened the door. He left the train, and we followed. John stepped off, and the train started rolling forward. I was baffled. Was the train fine-tuning? Was it a parallel-parking train? It was picking up speed, though. I jumped off. Sam came a second later. At that moment, I realized two things. The train was leaving, and we were the only people who had gotten off.
¨Get back on,¨I yelled to Sam.
¨No, stay here,¨John yelled.
Sam stutter-stepped, but it didn´t matter. The train was gone.
The guy we had followed turned out to be an American from Newport Beach, as clueless as we were. It all worked out, though. We took a cheap taxi to the hostel and slept.
I woke up around one in the afternoon. In my boxers, I took in the Valencia scene from the balcony. I looked to my left, and saw another shirtless guy on his room´s balcony. His name was James.
¨Yeah, I got in at five on a train from Granada,¨I said. ¨You just wake up too?¨
¨Yeah, I got in around six or seven from clubbing,¨he said. ¨Late night.¨
I bet. Before I went to bed, I saw him hooking up with another guy near a bar down the street.
By coincidence, a girl named Isobel who I met in the Malaga hostel was living in a house right next to my hostel. She came along to the Granada, and she and I chilled and explored the city for the rest of the time in Granada.
We met a lot of people in Granada, actually, mostly at the Makuto Guesthouse (the wonderful hostel in Granada with hammocks and crepes in the morning). There were Jack and Ruby, a couple (going strong after 2 years!) from Britain, Deb, a sassy Southern bell, Carmen, a woman from Barcelona who we all fell in love with, Mel, the witty, brilliant, lesbian filmmaker from South Carolina, Korea, and Estonia, Tracy, from Calgary, which apparently is the Texas of Canada due to the high concentration of cowboys, beef, and oil, and Antee, a guy from Finland who doesn´t say much but sings a passionate Finnish anthem.
I went on a motorcycle scooter tour led by the hostel´s owner´s husband, learning how to ride and hitting 50 kph in the same day. Riding a motorcycle is one of the more exhilarating things you can do. It feels like you´re gliding, almost like skiing.
All in all, I fell in love with Granada: the tiny cobblestone streets through which no cars can drive, the plazas where musicians bang drums and pull accordions, the ancient-looking houses and buildings, the colorful bazaars that dot the roads, even the beautiful graffiti on the walls. But after three days, our time was up, and we were off to Valencia.
These trains don´t get any easier. Due to shoddy planning, we took a night train. We decided that instead of sleeping on the night train, as normal people might, we would spend the travel time partying and sleep at the hostel.
The train ride consisted of eating, an intense game of hearts we played with two Canadian girls named Kirsten and Beatrice, and a little sleeping. Until we hit the first of two Valencia stations, it was largely uneventful.
We rolled into Valencia about 30 minutes late (5;30 a.m.). The train stopped. We walked to the front of the car, and the guy in front of us opened the door. He left the train, and we followed. John stepped off, and the train started rolling forward. I was baffled. Was the train fine-tuning? Was it a parallel-parking train? It was picking up speed, though. I jumped off. Sam came a second later. At that moment, I realized two things. The train was leaving, and we were the only people who had gotten off.
¨Get back on,¨I yelled to Sam.
¨No, stay here,¨John yelled.
Sam stutter-stepped, but it didn´t matter. The train was gone.
The guy we had followed turned out to be an American from Newport Beach, as clueless as we were. It all worked out, though. We took a cheap taxi to the hostel and slept.
I woke up around one in the afternoon. In my boxers, I took in the Valencia scene from the balcony. I looked to my left, and saw another shirtless guy on his room´s balcony. His name was James.
¨Yeah, I got in at five on a train from Granada,¨I said. ¨You just wake up too?¨
¨Yeah, I got in around six or seven from clubbing,¨he said. ¨Late night.¨
I bet. Before I went to bed, I saw him hooking up with another guy near a bar down the street.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
An all-natural workout
Billy, the unbelievably friendly, smart, and witty English guy with whom we went to dinner, has become the mythical protector of the trip. Whenever a problem arises, a risk is on the horizon, or we lose ourselves in the city, his holy name is invoked. Billy, if you are reading this, um, don’t freak out. But we just love you. And bow down to you every so often.
Everyone in
The night after the discoteca, we stayed in the hostel and found ourselves in a legit kickback. We met a woman from Denmark, Stina, who had graduated waitressing school, which is a three-year deal in Denmark, her boyfriend Jen, who camped in Brazil and had dreadlocks, and Julia, a girl from Australia who was travelling like we are.
A day later, we visited John’s former Spanish teacher’s friend, a teacher herself. She lived in a quintessential Spanish Mediterranean apartment overlooking the beach and the city. They served us pasta, we slept on the living room floor, and we woke up to a typical Spanish breakfast. For those of you don’t know (I was one of those in the dark), a typical Spanish breakfast is even more minimal than frosted flakes. It’s coffee. Nada mas. When Helen, our host, enlightened me, I feigned delight. I imagined myself on top of a hill looking over a sea of coffee, yelling, ¨NO, NO! Billy, save me!¨
The next night (last night), we went out for drinks with two Dutch girls. We wanted to go clubbing again, but yesterday was laundry day, and John was wearing his only clean outfit, including shiny white polyester basketball shorts.
¨Those shorts. No,¨ bouncers said.
¨Why not?¨ John asked one in Spanish.
¨Those are for basketball. You can wear those if you want to play basketball inside.¨
¨Can I play basketball inside?¨
¨No.¨
The bars were more accepting.
All in all,
Today, we took a bus to
Unfortunately, I could not find my camera while packing up in
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Train-hop to Malaga
We came to the train station early to get tickets for what we thought was a 3:30 train to Malaga. We soon realized that there was a 12:10 train for Malaga. Thinking it might be the only one, we ran hard. Panting, we jumped onto our train at 12:08. It left two minutes later.
Malaga is beautiful. The streets are sandy from the beach, the buildings all have Mediterranean flair, and the food is awesome and cheap. We want to live in this perfect beach town.
Malaga was first a Phoenician trading colony. Later, it was the chief port of the Emirate of Granada (Muslim rule in Spain). During the civil war, it was a Republican stronghold before Italian planes bombed the city to pieces and Nationalist sympthasers were killed in 1937. Today, it is a Eurotrip playground.
We keep meeting fascinating people. At the beach, we met three Spanish girls, and we spoke in broken Spanish, and they spoke in broken English. We went out to dinner with a friendly English guy named Billy. He once was Muslim but had thrown off religion and become an atheist.
He showed us the best local discoteca, and we danced the night away. In the morning, a hostel worker came into the room saying we needed to get up so that they could change the sheets. We had slept through breakfast. It was after noon. But thats (I cant find the apostrophe on this European keyboard) life right now; we have no schedule, we wake up when we please, rest when we get lazy, and improvise each days itinerary. Today, we may go to the bull-fighting museum, or the beach (which stays light past 8:30), or both.
Malaga is beautiful. The streets are sandy from the beach, the buildings all have Mediterranean flair, and the food is awesome and cheap. We want to live in this perfect beach town.
Malaga was first a Phoenician trading colony. Later, it was the chief port of the Emirate of Granada (Muslim rule in Spain). During the civil war, it was a Republican stronghold before Italian planes bombed the city to pieces and Nationalist sympthasers were killed in 1937. Today, it is a Eurotrip playground.
We keep meeting fascinating people. At the beach, we met three Spanish girls, and we spoke in broken Spanish, and they spoke in broken English. We went out to dinner with a friendly English guy named Billy. He once was Muslim but had thrown off religion and become an atheist.
He showed us the best local discoteca, and we danced the night away. In the morning, a hostel worker came into the room saying we needed to get up so that they could change the sheets. We had slept through breakfast. It was after noon. But thats (I cant find the apostrophe on this European keyboard) life right now; we have no schedule, we wake up when we please, rest when we get lazy, and improvise each days itinerary. Today, we may go to the bull-fighting museum, or the beach (which stays light past 8:30), or both.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Welcomed by Living on a Prayer and Palaces
Los Amigos Backpacker´s Hostel has clean rooms, clean bathrooms, clean showers, free breakfast, fast internet, and outrageously kind people staying in its room. We love it.
I had my first chorizo (Spanish type of sausage) last night. Not that exotic, but pretty good. Like salami.
Our sleeping arrangements were great, except a strangely good American pop band was playing just outside our doors. I went to bed with the sounds of ¨Living life on a prayer¨ringing inside my head.
¨Oh-oh, we´ll make it I swear. Oh-oh, living life on a prayer.¨ It was a real Welcome to Madrid moment.
Sam and I woke up early and decided to jog. I persuaded him that he could jog in his boxers, and he persuaded me that I could jog in my boxers and give him my shorts. We stumbled upon the Royal Palace and its two huge gardens, where horse-drawn buggies were setting up. It was another Welcome to Madrid moment.
After the jog, I found out why my breakfast is free. It´s bread and cereal, but there´s only whole milk, and not enough of it, so I had frosted flakes in water by my second bowl. Actually, it was pretty good. And we met two awesome English girls, their first night in Spain as well. We may meet them to go clubbing.
We can go anywhere in the city for one Euro using the Metro. Today, we saw the Prado, one of the most beautiful and overwhelmingly well-stocked museums I´ve ever seen, a gallery of Man Ray, a fabulous surrealist/bizarre-ist photographer/painter/sculpter, and a Naval Museum where Sam fell in love with antique guns.
We meet people everywhere, and all of them are nice. John, who is fluent, charms every older Spanish woman we pass. Sam and I are getting our old Spanish skills back, too. I am proud of my ability to explain to a Spanish woman on my jog that her schauzer looked like mine except that mine had blanco in addition to negro.
Tonight, we searched long and hard for a market, a type of store that apparently doesn´t exist in Spain. We found a 7/11 type store and bought ham, crackers, fruit, and grape juice.
We hit the playground, shared deep secrets, and headed to the paella place we had seen earlier in the day. It was closed, but we improvised, and ended up having a fancy duck and seabass dinner (our grad presents to oursevles).
We walked to the Sol (the central part of Madrid), found a blues bar, walked in, clapped along, chatted up the locals, learned how to eat sunflower seeds (they thought Americans didn´t know how, that sunflower seeds were somehow a Spanish tradition foreign to us, and we played along), and listened to the surprisingly good guitar and harmonica. We clapped hard on our way out, shouting ¨Arriba.¨ Clapping, singing, and giving in to our homoerotic tendencies, we headed home.
I had my first chorizo (Spanish type of sausage) last night. Not that exotic, but pretty good. Like salami.
Our sleeping arrangements were great, except a strangely good American pop band was playing just outside our doors. I went to bed with the sounds of ¨Living life on a prayer¨ringing inside my head.
¨Oh-oh, we´ll make it I swear. Oh-oh, living life on a prayer.¨ It was a real Welcome to Madrid moment.
Sam and I woke up early and decided to jog. I persuaded him that he could jog in his boxers, and he persuaded me that I could jog in my boxers and give him my shorts. We stumbled upon the Royal Palace and its two huge gardens, where horse-drawn buggies were setting up. It was another Welcome to Madrid moment.
After the jog, I found out why my breakfast is free. It´s bread and cereal, but there´s only whole milk, and not enough of it, so I had frosted flakes in water by my second bowl. Actually, it was pretty good. And we met two awesome English girls, their first night in Spain as well. We may meet them to go clubbing.
We can go anywhere in the city for one Euro using the Metro. Today, we saw the Prado, one of the most beautiful and overwhelmingly well-stocked museums I´ve ever seen, a gallery of Man Ray, a fabulous surrealist/bizarre-ist photographer/painter/sculpter, and a Naval Museum where Sam fell in love with antique guns.
We meet people everywhere, and all of them are nice. John, who is fluent, charms every older Spanish woman we pass. Sam and I are getting our old Spanish skills back, too. I am proud of my ability to explain to a Spanish woman on my jog that her schauzer looked like mine except that mine had blanco in addition to negro.
Tonight, we searched long and hard for a market, a type of store that apparently doesn´t exist in Spain. We found a 7/11 type store and bought ham, crackers, fruit, and grape juice.
We hit the playground, shared deep secrets, and headed to the paella place we had seen earlier in the day. It was closed, but we improvised, and ended up having a fancy duck and seabass dinner (our grad presents to oursevles).
We walked to the Sol (the central part of Madrid), found a blues bar, walked in, clapped along, chatted up the locals, learned how to eat sunflower seeds (they thought Americans didn´t know how, that sunflower seeds were somehow a Spanish tradition foreign to us, and we played along), and listened to the surprisingly good guitar and harmonica. We clapped hard on our way out, shouting ¨Arriba.¨ Clapping, singing, and giving in to our homoerotic tendencies, we headed home.
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