Day 51 Recipe for Meeting the Parents

Start with one part boyfriend already suffering from nerve wracked exhaustion; add three nearly sleepless plane trips: Madrid to Miami to Sao Paulo to Brasila for a total of 24 hours; stir in one lost bag containing almost all of his worldy possessions, add in 5 hours time difference in the wrong direction, mix thoroughly until completely exhausted; within several hours of getting off the plane, serve raw to his girlfriend's extended family and friends with a topping of almost no common language. Results may vary.

Even with this inauspicious start, I was welcomed by Patricia's family with an openess and warmth that was more than I ever expected. The Brasilian people are a warm and gregarious people in general and her family is especially so, making me feel like one of them. They struggled through language difficulties with patience and kindness. I struggled to stay upright and conscious as I was plied with wine and food until what was 8 am for me, when I retired to my own room with a private bath and balcony in her parents house. I was warned to lock my door for reasons I did not understand at that time. I was too tired to care.

It wasn't until morning that I found out why I was told to lock my door. It seems that in the Brazilian culture, they do not see privacy the same way Americans do. People feel free to wander into rooms as they wish, with only locked doors indicating a desire for privacy. Luckily, I didn't accidentally expose myself to the servants or family before I found this out.

I was thrilled that I managed to meet her family and friends without making a total fool of myself. I think so anyway, maybe they were just too polite to point it out, I don't know.

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.