I know that you all have been waiting with bated breath for the next installment of Itenerance since I left you on a cliffhanger--I first want to apologize for what may appear to be laziness on my part. I really have no excuse except to say that I am in Europe, and if you wantto live vicariously through me, you first need to let me live a little. Now, without further ado, I bring you what happened to me a week ago in Zurich.
So, in Montpellier, almost a month ago now, I met these Swiss girls. One of whom, unwittingly invited me stay at her parent's house if I made it to Zurich. Well I have a Eurail pass and no plan, so I milked that resource pretty quickly, probably to her surprise, as I'm sure she was just being nice when she invited me. So, in any case I show up in Zurich (more precisely, Erlenbach) at the Nuscheler home just in time for dinner. They are seriously, as you'll come to appreciate, the greatest family ever. I only sort of kiddingly asked if they wanted to adopt me, they said yes--I might take them up on it again. Back to the story, we had dinner and about ten other kids showed up after dinner. I forgot to mention, that aside from Marlon (the model whom I met in Montpellier) there are two other sisters, the parents, and an uncle figure (Walter). All of the girls unfortunately have boyfriends, but it was really cool to see the 20 something family interaction in another country. I got the feeling that living at home was very typical (the universities dont really have dorms--the country is really small).
Well after talking for awhile, I went to sleep, tired from a day of hiking in the Alps, only to wake up at 3 AM with a stomach ache. That would compound over the next day into the worst stomach bug I have ever had. I literally did not consume anything for two miserable days. Also in that time, when my entire world was a bathroom and a bed in that order, I found out that my grandfather passed away. I have truly never been more miserable, I just wanted to be at home in bed in Athens. You'll remember my grandfather from my second post ever back in September. It's amazing how quickly things went downhill for him, but he is ina much better place, although I will miss him greatly.
About the time I finally recovered, 72 hours after I first felt a stomach ache, I had been nursed back to health by three Nuschelers who force fed me bowl after bowl of chicken bullion and tea--both of which I tried my hardest to reject. I finally made it out of the 400 year old house ( yeah their house, less than thirty feet from Lake Zurich is as old as Jamestown). Loni, her girlfriends and I went to see a chick flick. I was just happy to be alive really (ok I'm being a touch melodramatic).
The following day I finally saw a bit of Switzerland (pictures to come when I get home I promise). We walked around Zurich for awhile, ate some vegetarian food, saw the biggest numbers on a clock face in Europe, and hung out in one of the quaintest largest cities of a country in the world. I mean the swans outnumber the people. You can row into town on a skiff. And there is literally a chocolate shop on every corner. It's so....Swiss.
I can seriously not say enough nice things about the Nuschelers. They tolerated me long overstaying my welcome and nursed me back to health from the grips of death (ok I'll stop), and they spoke in English the whole time I was there just for me. I've been really blessed with the people I've met so far on this trip, and they were obviously no exception. Well, I would talk about Vienna, but I need to get on my train for Prague. So, as always, more to come.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Como
For various reasons that I will broach later--It has taken me a long time to get to this post, but have no fear, I hope that another two will be following shortly behind. To get you up to Vienna where I now sit in a hostel, with my laundry going, takeout Chinese food and a Tsingtao in hand, and absolutely no excuse not to write (I thought of and tried them all already), you must first go through Milan and Lake Como.
I was not all that enthralled with Milan. For starters, Italy was on strike when I got there because it was a day that ended in -y, and as a result the Last Supper was closed, naturally. Other than that, there were really only the outsides of a couple of buildings that I wanted to see. The Duomo, La Scala, and of course the San Siro (the qa'aba of soccer as far as I'm concerned). The first two can be accomplished I about two minutes, but the San Siro--well including in a few hours to wander through industrial parts of Milan--that takes a while longer. Then when you get there, it's just too big. There's no real way to comprehend it, so you just turn around. And walk back around the ginormous horse track between it and your hostel. That horse track incidentally is surrounded by a wall. What do Italians do to walls? Graffiti. How big is this wall? 3 or 4 miles long. Where is the wall? Next to the shared stadium of two of Italy's biggest three soccer teams (by far the biggest sport) who oh by the way, hate eachother. Yeah, you can imagine the epic calcio graffiti.
The next day as I was about to leave, I decided to download the latest This American Life episode onto my phone. Those of you who know me, my know about this unhealthy addiction that I have to that show, and like all addictions, there is a dirty side, that unfortunately my phone takes the brunt of. For some reason, TAL fries my phone. I don't really understand it, but this time in Milan, it actually killed my phone. All the way to the "Connect to ITunes" screen of death. Which I know you're thinking is not that big a deal...just connect to iTunes and restore. Except, read my last post and you'll see that my computer is no longer with us, or at least the screen is not. Now, you're thinking, oh well, I'm sure you'll find a computer at your next destination. Except, that the directions to the next destination are on the phone/or my email if I can access that. So there it is, easy fix, just find an Internet cafe. Except that the first one is down due to a virus. And the second through fourth are closed, because it's a day ending in -y. And I just have fifteen minutes till my train leaves, when at long last, I get the information I need at the fifth Internet cafe and sprint to the train station just in time.
I don't know what you know about Lake Como. I just remembered vaguely that Hemingway talked about it in Farewell to Arms. Well fun fact number one is that the Bellagio in Vegas is named after a small town on the lake that is pretty impressive (although this is not where Clooney lives apparently). Fun fact number two is that for 17 euro a night you can see Bellagio from about a quarter mile away in your awesome room with a view in the Mennagio Hostel. Place was legit. The first night there, the hostel cooked maybe five pigs worth of meat on an open flame outside and served it with pretty much all the wine you can drink and fresh strawberries for dessert. I met about a half dozen people there, and egged on by our fearless Belgian leader, Earnest, who has vacationed in Como some sixty or seventy times. We decided to head to Lake Lugano the next day.
Basically Lakes Lugano and Como are incredibly gorgeous. Nestled in the Alps, the best way to see them is from well the Alps. So my two days in Como were spent trying to get to the tops of mountains. Once by finestra and once by hiking. The hike was accompanied by a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches and Swiss chocolate. Either the sandwiches or the mineral water at the top of the mountain would come back to haunt me a few hours later when I got to Zürich. Photos will come when I get a chance.
I was not all that enthralled with Milan. For starters, Italy was on strike when I got there because it was a day that ended in -y, and as a result the Last Supper was closed, naturally. Other than that, there were really only the outsides of a couple of buildings that I wanted to see. The Duomo, La Scala, and of course the San Siro (the qa'aba of soccer as far as I'm concerned). The first two can be accomplished I about two minutes, but the San Siro--well including in a few hours to wander through industrial parts of Milan--that takes a while longer. Then when you get there, it's just too big. There's no real way to comprehend it, so you just turn around. And walk back around the ginormous horse track between it and your hostel. That horse track incidentally is surrounded by a wall. What do Italians do to walls? Graffiti. How big is this wall? 3 or 4 miles long. Where is the wall? Next to the shared stadium of two of Italy's biggest three soccer teams (by far the biggest sport) who oh by the way, hate eachother. Yeah, you can imagine the epic calcio graffiti.
The next day as I was about to leave, I decided to download the latest This American Life episode onto my phone. Those of you who know me, my know about this unhealthy addiction that I have to that show, and like all addictions, there is a dirty side, that unfortunately my phone takes the brunt of. For some reason, TAL fries my phone. I don't really understand it, but this time in Milan, it actually killed my phone. All the way to the "Connect to ITunes" screen of death. Which I know you're thinking is not that big a deal...just connect to iTunes and restore. Except, read my last post and you'll see that my computer is no longer with us, or at least the screen is not. Now, you're thinking, oh well, I'm sure you'll find a computer at your next destination. Except, that the directions to the next destination are on the phone/or my email if I can access that. So there it is, easy fix, just find an Internet cafe. Except that the first one is down due to a virus. And the second through fourth are closed, because it's a day ending in -y. And I just have fifteen minutes till my train leaves, when at long last, I get the information I need at the fifth Internet cafe and sprint to the train station just in time.
I don't know what you know about Lake Como. I just remembered vaguely that Hemingway talked about it in Farewell to Arms. Well fun fact number one is that the Bellagio in Vegas is named after a small town on the lake that is pretty impressive (although this is not where Clooney lives apparently). Fun fact number two is that for 17 euro a night you can see Bellagio from about a quarter mile away in your awesome room with a view in the Mennagio Hostel. Place was legit. The first night there, the hostel cooked maybe five pigs worth of meat on an open flame outside and served it with pretty much all the wine you can drink and fresh strawberries for dessert. I met about a half dozen people there, and egged on by our fearless Belgian leader, Earnest, who has vacationed in Como some sixty or seventy times. We decided to head to Lake Lugano the next day.
Basically Lakes Lugano and Como are incredibly gorgeous. Nestled in the Alps, the best way to see them is from well the Alps. So my two days in Como were spent trying to get to the tops of mountains. Once by finestra and once by hiking. The hike was accompanied by a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches and Swiss chocolate. Either the sandwiches or the mineral water at the top of the mountain would come back to haunt me a few hours later when I got to Zürich. Photos will come when I get a chance.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Riviera
Well my computer broke, so I now have a 3 pound, fragile, expensive (actually it was free, but still) paper weight to carry around half of Europe for the next three and a half weeks. Due to this the rest of my posts will be brought to you on part by the wonders of technology and the iPhone--this means that I'm not certain they will include photographs, so you might have to check back when I get stateside for photos not taken on a phone.
Let's see, I left you in Montpellier, which was, I have no idea how many days ago. After Montpellier I went to see Avignon, also known as the second Rome, because it was home to the popes from sometime around the 14th-16th centuries. Avignon is a very cool town, with four UNESCO world heritage sights all within about a block of eachother. The first is the papal palace, which is not that impressive because it's been ravaged by what sounded like a dozen or so fires. Then there is a bridge across the Rhone, which doesn't quite make it across. Apparently building a bridge across the Rhone was so difficult at the time, that the builder of the bridge was canonized (made a saint) and a popular childrens rhyme grew up around the bridge in Avignon. Then there was what I thought was an impressive view from a park above the aforementioned architecture (more on why I used past tense to come).
After Avignon, I went to Aix-en-Provence, a city known for having been the home of and subject of most of the paintings of Cezanne. By this time in my trip, I am a little tired of museums though, so I decided to use Aix more as a resting point. One interesting aspect of my trip so far has been the fact that by staying at hostels, I have made friends with a lot of tourists but not very many locals. Well this week in France, is the equivalent of SAT week, where all of the high school seniors have to take a test for the chosen field they want to go into. As a result many have to travel a few miles to their testing center and stay in hostels, so I met several 19 and 20 year old French kids this week which was cool for a change.
The first French kid I met in Aix was a soccer fan as well, so we went to watch the last leg of the Barca-Real clash despite the fact that he had a physics test in the morning that would determine his future. When I got to Nice, I met some future art students whose tests seemed quite a bit easier than the future engineer's (I guess that's reassuring). Both Nice and Aix are much bigger than I had imagined, so I was eager to get out of the town and into a smaller town in the Riviera for at least a day. This was accomplished thanks to Villefranche-sur-mer, which is a pretty awesome town only to be outdone by Eze, which overlooks it from the cliffs 2000 feet above. I spent most of the day getting sunburned in Villefranche (I always forget about sunscreen on my calves, just call me Achilles...), and then made the 45 minute walk up the cliffs to Eze. Apparently this was a very popular walk for Nietzche back in the day, and it was on this walk that he wrote the third part to some expose or something. In any case, Eze is truly incredible. It reminds me of Minis Tirith in the LOTR movies. It's built as though it were one large building wrapping around the mountain, and as you keep walking in concentric circles up the mountain, you move into the next level of the town. Shops and houses are built into the mountain like grottos or caves. And on top is a castle turned garden which offers views up the coast some 60 miles and out to sea, all the way to Corsica (90 miles) on a clear day.
Sidenote on the Riviera, I can't even really begin to describe the wealth in Provence and especially on the Cote d'azur. The yachts are all probably in the millions. The people are beautiful. And everything but the wine is very expensive. In addition, Cannes starts up in a week and about a week later the Monaco grand prix starts, and then it will get really crazy in these parts. While those both would have been cool to see, I'm glad to be in the relative relaxation of Italy now, where I can at least talk to information desks and hope to understand what they are saying. All in all, I think that I want to live in France someday, but for now, the rest of Europe beckons. Lake Como today. More to come.
PS sorry for the typos--it's a phone, people.
Let's see, I left you in Montpellier, which was, I have no idea how many days ago. After Montpellier I went to see Avignon, also known as the second Rome, because it was home to the popes from sometime around the 14th-16th centuries. Avignon is a very cool town, with four UNESCO world heritage sights all within about a block of eachother. The first is the papal palace, which is not that impressive because it's been ravaged by what sounded like a dozen or so fires. Then there is a bridge across the Rhone, which doesn't quite make it across. Apparently building a bridge across the Rhone was so difficult at the time, that the builder of the bridge was canonized (made a saint) and a popular childrens rhyme grew up around the bridge in Avignon. Then there was what I thought was an impressive view from a park above the aforementioned architecture (more on why I used past tense to come).
After Avignon, I went to Aix-en-Provence, a city known for having been the home of and subject of most of the paintings of Cezanne. By this time in my trip, I am a little tired of museums though, so I decided to use Aix more as a resting point. One interesting aspect of my trip so far has been the fact that by staying at hostels, I have made friends with a lot of tourists but not very many locals. Well this week in France, is the equivalent of SAT week, where all of the high school seniors have to take a test for the chosen field they want to go into. As a result many have to travel a few miles to their testing center and stay in hostels, so I met several 19 and 20 year old French kids this week which was cool for a change.
The first French kid I met in Aix was a soccer fan as well, so we went to watch the last leg of the Barca-Real clash despite the fact that he had a physics test in the morning that would determine his future. When I got to Nice, I met some future art students whose tests seemed quite a bit easier than the future engineer's (I guess that's reassuring). Both Nice and Aix are much bigger than I had imagined, so I was eager to get out of the town and into a smaller town in the Riviera for at least a day. This was accomplished thanks to Villefranche-sur-mer, which is a pretty awesome town only to be outdone by Eze, which overlooks it from the cliffs 2000 feet above. I spent most of the day getting sunburned in Villefranche (I always forget about sunscreen on my calves, just call me Achilles...), and then made the 45 minute walk up the cliffs to Eze. Apparently this was a very popular walk for Nietzche back in the day, and it was on this walk that he wrote the third part to some expose or something. In any case, Eze is truly incredible. It reminds me of Minis Tirith in the LOTR movies. It's built as though it were one large building wrapping around the mountain, and as you keep walking in concentric circles up the mountain, you move into the next level of the town. Shops and houses are built into the mountain like grottos or caves. And on top is a castle turned garden which offers views up the coast some 60 miles and out to sea, all the way to Corsica (90 miles) on a clear day.
Sidenote on the Riviera, I can't even really begin to describe the wealth in Provence and especially on the Cote d'azur. The yachts are all probably in the millions. The people are beautiful. And everything but the wine is very expensive. In addition, Cannes starts up in a week and about a week later the Monaco grand prix starts, and then it will get really crazy in these parts. While those both would have been cool to see, I'm glad to be in the relative relaxation of Italy now, where I can at least talk to information desks and hope to understand what they are saying. All in all, I think that I want to live in France someday, but for now, the rest of Europe beckons. Lake Como today. More to come.
PS sorry for the typos--it's a phone, people.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Montpellier
Under the direction of two friends back home, I was told to go to Montpellier, France next. I was under the impression from my very small map that it was on the coast, but I was pretty wrong about that. Basically, it’s a college town, home to the oldest medical school in the western hemisphere and who knows how many study abroad programs. From what I could tell the town is centered around a very large plaza or promenade about two blocks from the train station. The narrow medieval streets wind out from there into dozens of plazas and gardens.
Although, my hostel closed literally every day from 10-3 for the worlds longest sieste, I quickly made friends with Marc, a Londoner who speaks fluent French. We ate dinner at an American burger place (I know I know) with a couple of his French friends and then went to discotheque where a DJ spun well into the night. One problem with France is that the beer is very expensive, so I think I’m switching to wine. After spending way too much money and dancing with nobody in particular, we retired to the hostel.
The following day I had the brilliant idea that I was going to bike to the beach. Remember, Montpellier is a beach town, or so I thought. The town has these awesome rideshare bikes, I am a huge, huge fan ( I think I already said that in another post). In any case, Marc tagged along but was a little hungover from trying to show up the American on how to drink beer (he killed me). He was originally not going to bike to the beach, but then we ran into two attractive Swiss girls who were going to do the same thing, and he became more open to the idea. After literally an hour and a half of trying to figure out how to rent the bikes (oh I forgot to mention that May 1 was not only a Sunday but a holiday in France, so everything--bike rental offices, trams, and buses--was closed) we finally hit the road for the beach. It turns out, the beach is 15 kilometers away (9 miles). And, if you don’t initially know about the bike path that goes there, it takes a very long time to get there. Finally three hours after checking the first bike out, we made it to the beach, hungry and exhausted. After several hours of listening to the Swiss mock most things about America and trying my best to mock them equally relentlessly, we reluctantly hit the bike path back for Montpellier. All in all, a great day.
I spent one more day in Montpellier before heading out East for Provence. I am now writing from Aix-en-Provence after a day in Avignon. I will blog about this later though. Sidenote, I really wanted a Budweiser and a hamburger yesterday after I woke up to the news about Osama bin Laden, but the reaction here in France, while one of relief, is a lot more muted, perhaps rightly so. I am pretty sure that I am in love with France and really wish that I knew how to speak the language. Although, it is amazing how far you can get with bonjour, merci, au revoir, and some sign language. More to come. Photos from Montpellier.
Madrid
The two richest sports teams in the world are not baseball teams, they are not football teams, and they are not basketball teams. They are two Spanish soccer teams, Barcelona and Real Madrid. They are both worth more than a billion dollars, and pay more to their players than the Yankees due to theirs. The two best goal-scorers in the world play on these two teams, Ronaldo for Madrid and Lionel Messi for Barcelona. Every time they play each other it’s called El Clasico, and most of Spain comes to a standstill. So, what happens when they meet five times in a three week span over the Easter season when most of Spain is off for two weeks? Craziness. What happens when two of those games are the semifinals of the European Champion’s League (the biggest annual club sporting event in the world)? I found out when I went to Madrid.
Another aspect of this rivalry that you must understand is that, imagine it were Red Sox vs. Yankees but New York is the capital of the US and almost everyone in Boston wants New England to break off from the United States and form their own country. Barcelona is in Catalonia. Catalonia is probably the most economically stable part of Spain. Catalans have their own language. They have their own architecture. They have their own culture. Spain considers the likelihood of secession serious enough, that it does not recognize countries that break off from other countries (ie. Spain has no diplomatic ties with Kosovo or East Timor). Now you can understand a little bit about the importance of the soccer game that I went to Madird to watch.
Last side note before I begin the story in earnest. Brooke and Gerald (friends from my days at Clarke Central) were incredibly generous with their time and Brooke’s bed and made my spontaneous trip to Madrid not only possible but legen-dary.
Ok, so we went to Gerald’s friend’s apartment in Madrid to watch the game. Basically Messi dominated. Actually, the entirety of Barcelona dominated with about 80% of the possession. So, I chose the wrong sity to watch the game in. A 2-0 loss by Madrid virtually eliminates them barring a miracle in Barcelona tomorrow night. To illustrate the sadness at the loss--every time Barca scored, you could hear groans everywhere. In the apartment building people literally pounded the walls with their fists. The city was so sad and dead; nobody went out (despite the fact it was a holiday--I think).
The next day, Brooke, Gerald and I went on a free walking tour of the city. Madrid is surprisingly small, and the tour only lasted about three hours. Apparently, the palace has an unknown number of rooms and rivals Versailles in size. As a result though, all of the buildings around it are not so grand, including the cathedral…from the palace side (the main entrance) the cathedral kind of looks like the Alamo (so as not to offend the royals), but from the back, out of view of the palace, it is pretty impressive. This prompted men to say that it is like a Spanish woman.
After the walking tour, I took my first of many siestas in a row, and then Gerald and Brooke had a bunch of friends over to go out. I reintroduced the Danish drinking game, and after a couple hours of pregaming, and a couple hours of buying beers off vendors and trying to find a discothèque, we finally found one around 3 o’clock and danced like mad till five.
The next day was not really down to do much, but I made it to the Reina Sofia museum with Brooke to see Guernica and other Picasso works. This museum is way better than the Picasso museum in terms of Picasso works (ironic). The permanent exhibit focuses on the Spanish Civil war, mostly as seen from the communist perspective (or at least the anti-Franco perspective). Some of the artwork is very impressive, but a lot of it is a little too modern I think.
I almost forgot to metion that I finally got my haircut in Madrid. My barber realized pretty early on that I wouldn't object to anything she did to my hair because I couldn't really. So, she kind of cut it like Ronaldo (you'll see picture soon). It looked ridiculous for a day or two, but now it's kind of growing on me (no pun intended, really). Thanks again to Brooke and Gerald for an awesome time in capital of Spain. I had a blast. More to come very shortly.
Picture explanation--a very fat man in a superman costume, Brooke, Gerald, and I infront of the Plaza Mayor and the cathedral respectively.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
La Rambla
Warning: This post is more adult themed than usual; it also only chronicles about five hours of my trip, so you won’t miss much if you skip it.
Background: La Rambla is a pedestrian walkway in the middle of a boulevard in Barcelona. It runs in a straight line for about a kilometer from the docks area into the heart of the city. The walkway is made of masonry laid in such a way as to give an optical illusion of a sort of wavey pathway if you look at it at just the right angle. La Rambla never sleeps; you will soon understand why I know this.
I left Madrid (Madrid post soon to come) late in the evening Friday and decided that I would simply stay up all night Friday night in Barcelona rather than book a hostel to simply sleep in for six hours before catching my train to Montpellier. Like most of my trip, I had no plan for when I got to Barcelona. I checked my bag into a locker at the train station and set out for La Rambla as it was already eleven at night and I figured I would go someplace where other people would be--also the train station closes from 2 AM to 5 AM (as does the Metro--why? I don’t know). I ate a gyro, drank a San Miguel, and set out for La Rambla.
The first thing of note besides the tourists, was the vendors and peddlers. I suppose maybe this happens in some large cities in the US, but I can’t imagine it happens on nearly the same level as it does here in Europe. Basically middle aged men, usually of Southern Asian decent, peddle just about anything and everything. It starts with these incredibly annoying almost like turkey calls that you put on your tongue. They make a really loud shrill noise, and for some reason unbeknownst to me, everyone sells these things by blowing on them until they must be deaf. When the sun goes down, the whistles go away and are replaced with these sort of cool helicopter like thingies that glow in the dark. You sling them into the air with a rubber band, they go up about fifty feet, and spin to the ground gracefully. I actually kind of want one of these things. The funny thing about this particular merchandise though is that La Rambla is surrounded by trees. I saw at least a dozen of these thingies stuck in the branches of the trees. The activity for the next two hours of course becomes trying to shoot the stuck thingies down with other thingies. I did not witness a successful thingy rescue. Around midnight, the thingies go away (as most people out at this point are over the age of someone who would actually want to buy a thingy, except for apparently me) and are replaced with cold beer (specifically six packs of Estrella), the only thing that I’ve bought from a peddler. This is when the peddling takes on a stroke of genius. It is not exactly legal to drink on the streets of Spain, but when you are caught, you simply need to throw away your drink. This of course means that it is not exactly legal to sell beers on the street either. I seriously wondered how they kept the beer cold and hidden when the police walked by. The answer is that they hide the beer in manholes, the sides of trashcans, and other Easter egg like hiding spots. It sort of reminds me a bit of the stash houses in The Wire. Speaking of The Wire and stash houses, beer peddlers also indiscriminately peddle hashish, marijuana, and cocaine when they hold the beer out in front of you. We’ll say that beer peddling begins around ten or so and overlaps by about an hour and a half with glow in the dark helicopter thingy peddling. Around three, the beer peddlers dwindles by about half and are replaced by suppliers of meat filled pastries--okay, so I may have bought one of these also.
Overlapping with the beer peddling time (not with thingy peddling time though), the prostitutes appear on La Rambla. There are probably somewhere between one and two hundred, 99% are from West Africa. I guess it was my Irish rugby jersey that gave it away, but they only propositioned me in English. They are also very aggressive about it. First they make clicking noises, then they try to walk arm in arm with you, while discussing activities and rates and what not. There is no way to avoid them. Even if you are in a group or with a girl, they still come up to you. That is unless you’ve refused them on several occasions (I was in La Rambla a long time last night). One came up to me and literally just held a normal conversation for about ten minutes with me in between propositioning about a dozen other guys and girls. She was actually really nice. Eventually she walked off.
The last group of native people on La Rambla are the pickpockets. I met one of them as well around five as I was walking back to the metro. He was initially very nice, and then he almost grabbed my wallet before I realized what he was doing. I made fun of him for being a bad pickpocket. He was somewhat sheepish about it, but then he asked where I was from. I told him the states (he didn’t speak any English, so apparently my accent in Spanish isn’t too horrible). He accepted that for about a minute, and then he turned. He asked if I liked killing Iraqi babies. Then he began to slap me, starting jokingly and eventually becoming almost full-on slaps, while his friends got closer and laughed. He very much wanted me to throw a punch. Instead I threw a few Spanish curses at him and walked into the metro station while getting showered with Estrella cans by his friends.
There are many great things about Spain--I love the laid back culture, the food, the fact that everything (lunch, dinner, bedtime) is pushed back about five hours from typical American times, the public transportation (they have free rideshare bikes!!!), most of the people in general, but I have several grievances as well. The one example I have is that there is an entire industry of cleaning the streets and sidewalks every night. EVERY night they wash EVERY street and sidewalk with fire hoses because people pee anywhere and everywhere. There are also thousands of street sweepers--people with brooms and dustpans--because people drop their trash everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, I love that they realize how important city beautification is to tourism, but the fact that it is in their culture to simply accept this as a fact of life dumbfounds me. Do they not realize that they are paying an incredible amount of taxes because they can’t hold it until they find a real urinal or trashcan (which are everywhere)? It also has to kill the economy. I’m certainly not a neocon or anything, but having tens of thousands of government street-cleaning jobs has to be one of the least economically efficient things I have ever heard of (except maybe our handwritten census).
OK, so I’m on a train going though Western Spain and Southern France and I haven’t slept yet (it’s 8 AM). Thanks for reading my tirade, and I promise happier posts to come about Madrid and France.
Background: La Rambla is a pedestrian walkway in the middle of a boulevard in Barcelona. It runs in a straight line for about a kilometer from the docks area into the heart of the city. The walkway is made of masonry laid in such a way as to give an optical illusion of a sort of wavey pathway if you look at it at just the right angle. La Rambla never sleeps; you will soon understand why I know this.
I left Madrid (Madrid post soon to come) late in the evening Friday and decided that I would simply stay up all night Friday night in Barcelona rather than book a hostel to simply sleep in for six hours before catching my train to Montpellier. Like most of my trip, I had no plan for when I got to Barcelona. I checked my bag into a locker at the train station and set out for La Rambla as it was already eleven at night and I figured I would go someplace where other people would be--also the train station closes from 2 AM to 5 AM (as does the Metro--why? I don’t know). I ate a gyro, drank a San Miguel, and set out for La Rambla.
The first thing of note besides the tourists, was the vendors and peddlers. I suppose maybe this happens in some large cities in the US, but I can’t imagine it happens on nearly the same level as it does here in Europe. Basically middle aged men, usually of Southern Asian decent, peddle just about anything and everything. It starts with these incredibly annoying almost like turkey calls that you put on your tongue. They make a really loud shrill noise, and for some reason unbeknownst to me, everyone sells these things by blowing on them until they must be deaf. When the sun goes down, the whistles go away and are replaced with these sort of cool helicopter like thingies that glow in the dark. You sling them into the air with a rubber band, they go up about fifty feet, and spin to the ground gracefully. I actually kind of want one of these things. The funny thing about this particular merchandise though is that La Rambla is surrounded by trees. I saw at least a dozen of these thingies stuck in the branches of the trees. The activity for the next two hours of course becomes trying to shoot the stuck thingies down with other thingies. I did not witness a successful thingy rescue. Around midnight, the thingies go away (as most people out at this point are over the age of someone who would actually want to buy a thingy, except for apparently me) and are replaced with cold beer (specifically six packs of Estrella), the only thing that I’ve bought from a peddler. This is when the peddling takes on a stroke of genius. It is not exactly legal to drink on the streets of Spain, but when you are caught, you simply need to throw away your drink. This of course means that it is not exactly legal to sell beers on the street either. I seriously wondered how they kept the beer cold and hidden when the police walked by. The answer is that they hide the beer in manholes, the sides of trashcans, and other Easter egg like hiding spots. It sort of reminds me a bit of the stash houses in The Wire. Speaking of The Wire and stash houses, beer peddlers also indiscriminately peddle hashish, marijuana, and cocaine when they hold the beer out in front of you. We’ll say that beer peddling begins around ten or so and overlaps by about an hour and a half with glow in the dark helicopter thingy peddling. Around three, the beer peddlers dwindles by about half and are replaced by suppliers of meat filled pastries--okay, so I may have bought one of these also.
Overlapping with the beer peddling time (not with thingy peddling time though), the prostitutes appear on La Rambla. There are probably somewhere between one and two hundred, 99% are from West Africa. I guess it was my Irish rugby jersey that gave it away, but they only propositioned me in English. They are also very aggressive about it. First they make clicking noises, then they try to walk arm in arm with you, while discussing activities and rates and what not. There is no way to avoid them. Even if you are in a group or with a girl, they still come up to you. That is unless you’ve refused them on several occasions (I was in La Rambla a long time last night). One came up to me and literally just held a normal conversation for about ten minutes with me in between propositioning about a dozen other guys and girls. She was actually really nice. Eventually she walked off.
The last group of native people on La Rambla are the pickpockets. I met one of them as well around five as I was walking back to the metro. He was initially very nice, and then he almost grabbed my wallet before I realized what he was doing. I made fun of him for being a bad pickpocket. He was somewhat sheepish about it, but then he asked where I was from. I told him the states (he didn’t speak any English, so apparently my accent in Spanish isn’t too horrible). He accepted that for about a minute, and then he turned. He asked if I liked killing Iraqi babies. Then he began to slap me, starting jokingly and eventually becoming almost full-on slaps, while his friends got closer and laughed. He very much wanted me to throw a punch. Instead I threw a few Spanish curses at him and walked into the metro station while getting showered with Estrella cans by his friends.
There are many great things about Spain--I love the laid back culture, the food, the fact that everything (lunch, dinner, bedtime) is pushed back about five hours from typical American times, the public transportation (they have free rideshare bikes!!!), most of the people in general, but I have several grievances as well. The one example I have is that there is an entire industry of cleaning the streets and sidewalks every night. EVERY night they wash EVERY street and sidewalk with fire hoses because people pee anywhere and everywhere. There are also thousands of street sweepers--people with brooms and dustpans--because people drop their trash everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, I love that they realize how important city beautification is to tourism, but the fact that it is in their culture to simply accept this as a fact of life dumbfounds me. Do they not realize that they are paying an incredible amount of taxes because they can’t hold it until they find a real urinal or trashcan (which are everywhere)? It also has to kill the economy. I’m certainly not a neocon or anything, but having tens of thousands of government street-cleaning jobs has to be one of the least economically efficient things I have ever heard of (except maybe our handwritten census).
OK, so I’m on a train going though Western Spain and Southern France and I haven’t slept yet (it’s 8 AM). Thanks for reading my tirade, and I promise happier posts to come about Madrid and France.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Spain Part 1
On my flight from Dublin to Barcelona, I made friends with a very, very Irish couple and a Canadian girl. We were probably the youngest people on the plane, and the Irish couple were easily the most fun. We exchanged phone numbers and promised to meet up. Alas, only the Canadian girl and I ended up out later. We walked around the streets of Barcelona aimlessly for about five hours. The parks in Barcelona at night are really incredible, and I’m pretty sure most of the people there do not sleep, ever. We strolled through las ramblas until about five in the morning, Easter morning. This was a mistake as I wanted to wake up and go to mass at la Sagrada Familia. Turns out, as it’s still being built for the next fifteen years, they don’t hold mass there, so I had to go to the old cathedral instead in the gothic quarter of town and listen to a mass in Catalan (not Spanish).
My hostel in Barcelona was pretty nice and pretty far from the city, so I ended up spending a lot of time there (also there was free internet for the first time in a long time--so I caught up on the office and how I met your mother). I also had a room to myself, so (shocker) I slept a lot. When I did make it out in the city, I saw Park Guel, a park designed by Gaudi with a couple of houses in it--one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. I also eventually made it to La Sagrada Familia. While the outside is probably what it’s famous for, I think the inside puts every church (probably every building) in the world to shame including St. Peter’s in Rome. It’s designed like a forest on the inside with each of the columns being like a tree. The column then breaks off at the capital (the capitals are made to look like knots) into several branches to support the ceiling which (you guessed it) looks like palm fronds. The whole building is filled with the perfect amount of light, and the colors are simply amazing. If you ever make it to Barcelona, you have to, have to go here.
One bummer about Spain is that they take la sagrada semana seriously. So, since I arrived here at the end/ after holy week, not a whole lot was going on. Most people are still recovering from what I can tell. This means that this is probably among the least exciting times to be out at night in Spain. Take for instance Zaragosa where I went after Barcelona--the place was literally dead on Tuesday night. I went out to grab a beer with a couple of English guys that I met at the hostel (cleanest, best hostel ever). Nothing was open except a couple of Irish pubs and this one place with a lot of music and dancing. We decide to immerse ourselves in the Spanish culture and went to the one with music and dancing. Turns out, it’s the Colombian bar in Zaragosa. So, we immersed ourselves in Colombian culture for a night. It was pretty ridiculous.
Zaragosa is a pretty neat town. It has nothing on Barcelona, but it is far enough off the beaten path that nobody speaks English there. Not even the information person at the tourist desk. Not even the train ticket salesman. Nobody. From what I could tell, the city has been around since Ancient Rome. There are a ton of preserved Roman ruins all over the place including an almost entirely intact amphitheater. Then, there are a ton of castles, palaces and churches from the middle ages. Then there are a ton of ridiculously modern buildings to boot. The patchwork give the city a very ADD feel, but it’s still a beautiful city regardless of even if it has trouble deciding who it is.
Now I am in Madrid. I came for el clasico and to see my friends Brooke and Gerald. More to come on Madrid.
Side note on the pictures. The cathedral with the bridge is in Zaragosa as is the pig head. The market in Zaragosa was out of control awesome. There were about a thousand meat/fish/vegetable vendors. It was the best farmers market ever, well not for the pig...
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