Day 151 Barcelona

Even though I was sick, I liked Barcelona right away. It has a more artsy feel than other Spanish cities and, thanks to the remodel for the Olympics, it has newer transportation facilities and is very easy to navigate. I took a room at the “legendary” Kabul backpacker’s hostel right on Plaza Real, next to the entertainingly crowded center of activity that is La Rambla. It is a kilometer long boulevard with a center pedestrian strip of cafes, pet shops flower shops, street performers of all types, lots and lots of people, and an endless source of people watching entertainment.

I had been traveling since Granada with Peter, a classic rough and ready Aussie, and had followed his lead to the accommodations. At first, I was pleased with the hostel, if not my noisy roommates. After all, free breakfast and dinner, free wi-fi, good lockers, great location, and cheap too. I was feeling really lousy and decided to spend the first day in the city in the hostel resting, doing laundry, and catching up on blogging. It was good to relax for a day even if I felt like crud.

The evenings were where I changed my mind about the hostel. The hostel is very slick and well designed to handle large volumes of people. Specifically, people who fly in to party all night and then fly home—not backpackers. There is no guest kitchen or any place that even vaguely resembles a quiet place to sit. The hostel’s main mission is to ply its patrons with cheap beer (2 liters for 4 euro during happy hour) and pummel their brains into party mode with excessively loud dance music. Forget trying to use Skype for anything but text chat. Then trying to sleep with 11 roommates who thought the dorm room was party central until 4 am was not fun. I politely asked them to be quiet or go somewhere else with no effect. Only after I asked them impolitely with a particular four letter word they realize that that tall guy with the blanket and eye mask was serious about sleeping.

I was in no mood for crowds so I went up to beautifully serene Montserrat, about an hour out of the city. A very steep aerial tram carries you up to the monastery perched in the rocky mountains. I walked the route up to the highest chapel; a two and a half hour trek that only took me an hour. And then I rock climbed to the top of the mountain above. It was an excitingly steep climb but the sun was shining and the air was clean and fresh and I could not help myself. At the top I was rewarded with a 360 degree view that took what was left of my breath away. On a weekday it is the epitome of serene-I did not see anyone for four hours. It was nice to sit and smell the wild rosemary that fills the air with its savory scent. Not wanting to go down the same way, I took the much quicker and even more exhilarating way down the other side. I reached another trail and made the mistake of thinking that the path leading down was the way down. Oops. I headed down the valley toward the monastery, climbing down rocks and steep trails. After I went a long way down, I discovered that unless I had ropes and real climbing gear, I would not be going any farther if I was to avoid a painful death. Nothing else to do but to hike back up. Way up. I was already exhausted and the opportunity to get the tram back down was running quickly out. By the time I made it back up I was covered in sweat and strangely itchy. Cue the ominous music here.

I got back to the hostel and took a shower, noticing that I was not only itchy, but also rather patchy red all over. This was bad. I was not feeling like a happy camper. Luckily, I found a pharmacist that spoke enough English to tell me that he thought it was my laundry soap not anything from the mountain. The previous day I had washed everything I owned with the cheap soap from the hostel. Doped up on Clariton and armed with new soap, I proceeded to rewash everything a couple times. The guy was right and the next day I was much better, still sick though. The exertion from climbing was not good for me I think.

I could not stand the noise of the hostel any longer and moved to another eight blocks away. The advertisement said free wi-fi and a kitchen. Of course, after I checked in and paid, I discovered there was no wi-fi and the kitchen was only a sink and a refrigerator. Insert explicative here. The room however was better. Each bed was in its own cubicle with curtains, a light, and an outlet. And quiet roommates.

The city:

The creations of Antoni Gaudi in the city are stunning. Sagrada Familia, La Pedrera, park Guell, among others will leave you stunned. The man was either a genius or a lunatic or possibly both. They are definite must see places if you get anywhere near Spain. I also hit the Picasso and Dali museums. The Picasso museum here gives a good over view of his entire oeuvre, although I like the collection in the Paris museum better. The Dali museum is just plain disturbing. Disturbing as in a so-bizarre-I-can’t-look-away fashion. There is no question that he was either doing some serious drugs or was totally insane. I loved/hated it.

Barcelona is great for such a large city. I saw a lot that I do not have the energy to write about at the moment and there is much I missed that I will have see on another visit. I am too under the weather to really enjoy it.

Day 145 Valencia

I was starting to get a cold during the last few days of Granada and it hit me hard in Valencia. Maybe it was the cold or the mediocre hostel or the gloomy weather or something else, but the city failed to exert any charm on me. I stayed one night and was happy to leave. I did wander over to the impressive new arts and sciences buildings, although, I had no interest whatsoever in going inside.

I am sorry to have had such a lousy experience in Spain’s third largest and reputedly pleasant city. I think it was only a bad set of circumstances so I won’t hold a grudge. It did feel good to get on a train out of town though.

One interesting thing about traveling is the occurrence of chemistry. In some places, as in Granada, the perfect mixture of elements comes together: Friends, atmosphere, good lodging, good weather, great food, and positive attitude. At those times things cannot get any better. When those things are missing in various degrees it totally changes the feel of places. This explains why some people love the places that others can’t leave fast enough. It is part chance and part attitude. I guess that is life in a nutshell.

Barcelona here I come.

Day 142 Granada

Granada is a lovely place that has a very comfortable feel. I was lucky to get in through an affirmative action program for non-dreadlocked people. Inexplicably, the second most popular hairstyle is the mullet, often with dreads in the back. I felt like a minority with conservatively short hair.

The hills around the city are filled with cave dwellings that originally created by Gypsies and now are predominately occupied by hippies. I think the long-term exposure to the hemp masters rubbed off on the general population. It still doesn't explain the mullet thing though.

The city is dominated by the huge and beautiful Alhambra, perched on a hilltop in its midst. There is a saying here that says, “If you die without seeing the Alhambra, you have not lived.” I can only imagine what it was like when it was occupied. According to the guidebook, when the last Moorish ruler, Boabdil, was finally pushed out by overwhelming forces, he looked back longingly at his beloved Alhambra and his mother told him, “You do well to weep as a woman for what you could not defend as a man.” Dang Mom, that’s a little harsh, don’tcha think? I feel for the guy, the place is spectacular.

I stayed in the Oasis, the best hostel of my travels, right in the center of town. It was a combination of a really fun group of people, free wi-fi, a cool bar, cheap delicious dinners, and nice facilities. Throw in lots of tapas, kebabs, beer, poker, intimate flamenco, many funny conversations, inebriated chess matches, and a hilarious Argentinean and it equals the best time I have had in a long time. Tapas come free with drinks in Granada and make a tasty and cheap way to eat at noon or 7:00 or midnight or much later. As good as tapas are, I still recommend the juicy, 3am kebab to finish off the evening. My friends included Patrício from Argentina, Sam from Scotland, Gid from the UK, Bianca from Australia, a bunch of Americans, Herberto the indecisive, and what’s his name from NY.

I had a very good time in Granada.

Day 136 Cádiz

I liked Cadiz right away. I found a great hostel a few blocks from the bus station and the beach. It is called Casa Caracol and has no sign, just a friendly snail painted on the always locked, marine blue door. A gentle knock opened the door to the warm embrace of an eclectic mix of dreadlocked and/or beach blonde surfer dudes. They have a great combination of humility, a love of life, and generosity. It was fun talking to them and going to the beach, although I did decline their frequent offers of herbal pleasure. Most strange about the hostel is that it has the nicest and cleanest kitchen of any place I have been. And it has wonderful down comforters for the beds. And it has free wi-fi. And it is only $18/night.

Cadiz has a wonderful warm feel to it as well as I walked around the streets filled with local families walking, shopping, and playing in the streets and plazas. It feels like a cozy small town. This is really interesting since in February it has the wildest carnival in Europe. According to my guidebook, it makes New Orleans Mardi Gras look like a bible study group. That is saying something. It would be nice to hang out on the beach with the dudes for a month, but I have to move on.

On my out of town I had three deliciously filling tapas and a beer for less than $5. Gotta love that.

The one negative comment I have for Cadiz could be true for beaches anywhere; one of the dudes was running on the beach playing frisbee and got a used drug syringe stuck in his foot. That is scary.

Day 132 Cordoba Spain

The train to Cordoba was a pleasant four hour break to relax and have some quiet time after the constant din of Madrid. Too bad Cordoba was only two hours away. This is the problem with not speaking the language. I arrived in Malaga on the south coast, spent an hour an half killing time and then went the two hours back to Cordoba. It was good for a laugh at least. I don’t let things like this bother me or I would never be able to travel as I do.

Cordoba was better than I had expected for a few reasons: La Mesquita, orange trees, Arab baths, and food. La Mesquita is an enormous mosque, built on the site of a Christian church, that was convereted back into a cathedral. When you walk into the silent, dimly, yet artistically lit, forest of 850 columns and arches, you cannot help feeling that you have walked into a movie set. It feels unreal. It is truly a beautiful and serene place that goes on forever. That is, until you get to the middle. Right in the middle is a fairly standard and enormous Christian Cathedral. It is a bizarre juxtaposition and comically sad. The intent was to take back the space for Christianity. It looks like someone stuck an “I Love Jesus” sticker on a Quran.

La Mesquita’s courtyard is filled with orange trees and fountains. The sweet smell of orange permeates the space, immediately enlivening the senses as you walk under the intricate designs of the Moorish arches. Listening to the low splashes of the fountains, relaxing on the sun-warmed stone steps, and letting the oranges’ fragrance occupy my attention was a travel experience to remember. Ahhhhhh…….

It only got better at the Arab baths. It was like sneaking into a Moorish king’s palace bath. Everything is covered in intricately carved designs, candles and tiny star shaped holes in the arches and domed vaults provide light, and small pools in separate columned rooms allow for privacy. You start in the cold room for one minute. When I say cold, I mean looking-for-ice-cubes in the water cold. Then you move on to the warm room. It has the largest pool and is just warmer than body temperature. Stay as long as you like and then move on to the hot room for five minutes and return to the cold. Repeat. I went through the cycle three times before I was called for my rosemary scented oil massage. I was jello before the massage. I walked out of the baths feeling like a new man, incredibly relaxed and smelling of rosemary. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

Later, feeling a bit peckish, I hit a tapas place and had two that were outstanding. Rabo de Toro y Chocolate, shown, is bull’s tail and chocolate. Forget grabbing the bull by the horns, take that sucker by the tail and bite it. Served on a layer of pudding like mashed potatoes, the meat was shredded, molded into a nice round, and covered with a barely sweet chocolate, pine nuts, and some kind of small seeds. Oh, can’t forget the olive oil. It was a flavor combination I have not experienced and was intensely fascinating to eat. The other tapa was smoked quail stuffed with foie gras, accompanied with braised melon. I should not have to tell you how good that was. Ahhhhhhh…..

It is needless to say that I liked Cordoba very much. Even the former mental hospital turned hostel was nice; it had big rooms with private baths, good breakfast, and right next to La Mesquita.

Next up: Sevilla!

Day 130 Madrid

It is good be back in Spain again. I am staying at Cat's Hostel in the Heurtas district, near the museums. The hostel is high-tech with wristbands that operate the doors and even the lockers. It is geared toward the young twenties crowd with one upstairs bar and a cool cave bar downstairs that has a surprisingly good live band on the weekend, cheap beer, and too much smoke.

I have been hitting the museums, one a day to avoid burnout, and have found a very good way to improve the museum experience.

Number one: walk slowly, looking at each for a few seconds as you pass, if it speaks to you, stop. If not, keep walking. I stopped trying to find artistic merit. If it doesn't jump out at me, I keep on going. There are whole wings of museums that I breeze past, saving my energy for the good stuff (Rafael, Chagall, Renoir, Hopper).

Number two: Because major museums can be dreary with a heavy dose of artistic death, violence, and general unpleasantness, it is good to lighten the mood a little. Now this works much better with more than one person, but I still found it fun. As you walk past the boring pieces think of humorous alternate titles for the works. Really funny ones will leap out at you if you are in the right frame of mind. I found myself trying hard to suppress chuckles in the quiet echoing rooms. These two techniques got me through the three major museums in half the time and allowed me to avoid post-museum lethargy.

The Palicio Real, throne room shown above, is over-the-top impressive. It is a good example of fit-for-a-king. Apparently, if you rule a country full of poor peasants, nothing is too expensive for the royal family. I am sure they all wanted to out do the other kings and queens to show how important and powerful they were, but come on. Too much is too much. The best part of the palace was the armory--advertised as the best in the world. Now that was impressive! Not so much for the elaborately decorated armor that royals wore—if you were a king wearing armor, there was no doubt as to your status—but for the sheer barbarity and of the weapons. You immediately understood how different life was back then. Not for me, thanks.

Madrid is party central for the younger crowd and not really my kind of place. I am moving south to Cordoba soon.

I have heard many young Americans on the streets and in the hostel. On the whole, they tend to be very loud and oblivious. A few made me embarrassed to share their nationality. Hopefully they learn from their experience here.

Day 50 Life Happens

This is Patricia. We met in Washington DC where she was visiting from Brasil to learn English better. We clicked, spent three weeks together, and then went our seperate ways. After spending a month in Portugal and Spain, I desperately wanted to see her again. Can you blame me? What to do? Go to Brasil of course!

I searched and searched and finally found airlines that would give me e-tickets; apparently, some airlines still don't have e-ticket systems. I bought the tickets and located the Brasilian Consulate in Madrid. I wanted to make it to Brasil in time for her birthday party and the Consulate's website said I could get a visa in 48 hours. I had 5 days before I flew and everything was going fine...

Cue the ominous music.

I got an email five hours after I bought the expensive tickets. It was Expedia telling me that, " due to technical problems beyond their control," they were sending paper tickets to me--at home. This was a problem since I was in Madrid, Spain! Okay, what to do? A little research indicated that it is possible to have my Mom get the tickets and expedite them to me via UPS worldwide services, giving me leeway of one day. If everything goes fine, it will work. That solved, I headed to the Consulate, waited for 3 hours and was told it would take 10 days and they have no expedited services for visas. Problem number two.

Now what do I do? Beg of course! And to my great surprise they were very pleasant and flexible, telling me that if I showed them the tickets they would give me a visa in 48 hours. Problem number three.

I did not have the tickets. I went back to the hostel, found an internet cafe and printed the documents that I needed for the visa, and also a confirmation email from Expedia, in hopes that they would accept that. I returned to the Consulate the next day and waited 4 hours to beg some more. They said they would do it! I was thrilled. It would have cost another $1500 to change the tickets to a later date.

I was checking the tracking number for the tickets every few hours. They finally arrived two days later in Vancouver at 5:00--a half hour past the last UPS international drop off time, costing me another day. My one day leeway was gone. I was nervous.

So far I had seen almost nothing of Madrid: a few blocks around the hostel, the metro, the Brasilian Consulate, and the train station. I had one day where I could do nothing but wait, so I went out. It finally stopped raining for a bit and I went on an obligatory museum trip and saw Picasso's massive Guernica and many of his other works. As powerful as Guernica is, the best paintings for me were the Salvador Dali pieces. I have seen many of his works in pictures and posters and found him interesting; seeing his paintings in person was an experience not to be missed. No reproduction can capture the vivid and incredibly small details that completely change the viewing experience. The man was a genius and completely insane. I stood there, stunned, for a long time trying to wrap my mind around his hallucinogenic scenes. It didn't work. I left reeling mentally and wanting more.

I was dead set on getting some classic Spanish paella and managed to drag my friend Adrian (ex-special forces guy from Seattle) to what is reputed to be the best paella place in town. I was not dissapointed. It started off well, being seated in an elegant courtyard, drinking excellent sangria. Plus, the other patrons were exclusively Spanish, a very good sign. What arrived was a massive black shallow pan, over two feet across, filled with saffron colored rice, a bounty of seafood, and chicken. It was all that I had dreamed of and more. I was about half done when realized that I could scrape the crunchy layer off the bottom of the pan--pure, undulterated, culinary heaven! It was worth the trip just for that.

We headed out later to see the biggest Irish pub in Europe. It was infact, very big, solid smoke, and boring. Off we went to find some foosball action and ended up at a very local bar filled with animated middle-aged men in business casual wear. We played a few games of foosball until a 60-ish guy in a suit showed up and wanted to play. Adrian had been bragging about how good he was (except for a female Dutch bartender that gave him a good beating once, but that is another story) and he did beat phillip and me easily. Not so with the the old local guy. The guy must have been playing all of his life, his play was astoundingly controlled, accurate, and powerful. I think Adrian only got the ball to the other side of the table once. It was hilarious how hard he got slapped down. I declined being humilated myself. We couldn't drag Adrian away from his new friends and we left him there, drunk and getting more so. We headed to another Irish pub and then another local bar. This is the point at which I thought that maybe we should not let the Irish guy lead us. I managed to get back to the hostel by 3 am, not in the best shape, but at least not mugged.

I was up at 7 am to hit the Consulate and get my visa. I stood in line, with great effort, for an hour and a half and picked up my visa with a very big smile and many thanks. I slept most of the rest of the day and stayed in the hostel bar that night. The tracking website said that my tickets were in Germany.

The next morning I was up, packed, and waiting for my tickets to arrive by their promised 10 am deadline. I had to be at the airport by 1:00 pm and I was more than a little concerned. At 10:30 i had not seen any sign of them. I checked the tracking numbers again, discovered that they had just been delivered, ran down to the reception desk, and had my hopes crushed. The tickets were indeed delivered--to the wrong address. The desk clerk called UPS on my behalf since I cannot speak Spanish other than to order food. They said they would work on it....

While I was hanging on to a glimmer of hope, I was resigned to the fact that all my efforts came close, but not close enough to make it on time and avoid forking out a big chunk of change. The smooth meshing of very different systems on different continents was too much to ask for. I was on Skype at about 11:30 telling my very beautiful and dissapointed Patricia that it was unlikely to happen, when the unlikely happened--life smiled on me--and the desk clerk handed me the tickets.

And I was off.

Day 48 Rain in Spain

In Spain it rains mainly on the plains, mountains, coast, cities, and everywhere this time of year. I arrived in the dark and took the metro from the train station to within two blocks of my hostel. The metro system here is fantastic with about 191 stops and about 11 different lines. The hostel is the high-tech MAD Hostel with wristbands that operate the doors and lockers in the rooms. The beds are too small and close together, but they have free breakfast and wi-fi. At $20 USD/night, who can complain?

One of my roomates, Phillip from Ireland, was mugged just outside the door of the hostel last night. He was walking along about 1 am, enjoying a good beer buzz and particularly tasty and messy kebob, when someone grabbed him in a choke hold from behind. He woke up laying on the cobblestone one camera lighter. Listening to Phillip, it sounded as if his seeing the kebob laying in the street with its juicy goodness violated was what most bothered him. Fortunately, they must have been in a hurry, they left him with his wallet. All humor aside, he was shaken by the experience and it was an unpleasant warning to the rest of us to be careful in the dark and narrow streets.

My other roomate, Jake, a 18-year-old Austrailian is a refreshing change from others I have met. He is very young and naive about the world, yet he ventured out on his own to see it for himself, which is unusual for the pack-mentality that is normal for Austrailians. He also broke one of our stereotypes that we had of Aussies--he didn't like to drink. Luckily, there were plenty of his fellow countymen around to uphold their reputation. And they worked very hard at it.

I went out to get some good Spanish food with Jake, Adrian (Seattle), Sarah (American Peace Corp worker) and against my protestations ended up at a Lebanese restaurant. It was cheap and we got what we paid for. Although, I must say that the sangria was absolutely delicious. The interesting part was watching them smoke a sheesha (spelling?) They are big water pipes in which they smoke flavored herbs mixed with a small amount of tobacco. I tried a little just to experience it and was not overly impressed. The smoke was completely cool and tasted minty instead of like tobacco. I just don't see the attraction other than that people like to look cool sitting around sucking on the things and blowing smoke. After a while it made me feel a little sick. It might have been the food too.

At this point, I have not seen anything beyond a few blocks of the hostel.

Day 46 Vigo Spain, A Birthday Bore

Day 46 –On to Madrid

On getting back into Porto, I jumped on a four hour train ($15) north to Vigo, Spain, arriving at about 10 pm. I splurged for my birthday the next day and got a decent hotel room to catch up on sleep and veg. It was the hotel Chess Mexico whose only relationship to Mexico was the Aztec design in the foyer. For only $50/night I got a hotel room that would go for 3-4 times that at home. I spent my the first half of my birthday walking the boring town of Vigo, which is mostly a seaport/ship broker town. It was Saturday and almost everything was closed because they are more evening oriented there. I did have a very good and massive fried calamari sandwich for $3.50. The second half of the day I stayed in my room and relaxed with my complimentary hotel wi-fi.

I wanted to go see the Islas da Cieres, the legendary vacation spot of the gods, but it has been doing nothing but rain and the visibility is poor. So I am off to Madrid on a eight hour train right now, in a first class cabin. First class was $18 more to get better seats, a movie I can’t understand, and more legroom. For such a long trip, it is definitely worth it, except for the movie. I have an offer by a Lisboa friend to use his Madrid couch to crash on while I am there so maybe I can save some money. We’ll see, I was supposed to give him more warning, I just didn’t want to spend another day in dreary Vigo.

My Portugal average daily expenses:

Algarve (south) $45/day
Lisboa/Porto $62/day
Madeira $198/day including airfare