Saturday, March 4 ---
--- 9:00 greets me and pulls me out of bed (I hate that woman), so I get ready and head out for another day in Barcelona. Just as yesterday, the weather is phenomenal -- sunny, warm, blue skies for as far as you can see. I take the Metro over to Casa Battlo, another of Gaudi’s works. This one has a colorful scaly, wavy roof that makes it look like a dragon, and it has wavy, swelling grates around the windows that look like eyes. Very cool to look at, but you can’t go inside, so I snap a pic or two and then make my way to the Cathedral again.
This made such and impression on my yesterday, especially the cloister, that since it was on the way, I decide to stop again. It truly is amazing; one of the best things I’ve seen so far. It’s just so peaceful in that cloister -- the water from the fountain is gurgling, the sun is painting everything with its light, and the bright white geese are being fed. It’s a postcard moment for perfection and tranquillity.
I finally pull myself away from this and head for the coast. On my way I see quite a funny thing -- a fry vending machine. No drinks, no candy, just fries. Pop in your pesetas, wait a minute or two, and voila -- piping hot potatoes for you!
Aimlessly traipsing along the water, waving to the restaurant from last night, I stop to snap some pics of the beautiful Christopher Columbus statue that’s right on the water. It’s the first thing you see as the boats dock, and it consists of Chris standing atop a tall column, pointing to the West, specifically America, I presume, and at the base are a bevy of other winged statues. It’s quite pretty, especially with the mountains hiding in the background.
And those mountains are my next stop, the top of which contain the Olympic Village. I make my way up, gradually winding towards the top (the guy I asked at the bottom said it should take no more than ten minutes. A solid twenty minutes later, I get to the top a hot, sweaty mess, ready to run back down and kick hombre in the chops. 10 minutes my ass. Hermes and the Flash would have had a hard time making it in less than 12...)
I walk around the main stadium for a few minutes -- it’s nothing spectacular, just your average stadium with a track running around a grass infield, places you can’t even go to -- but the beauty comes from when you imagine what happened there. All the nations uniting and competing together in peace -- you can almost hear the cheers, see the flags waving, the stands packed with fans. Awesome.
I am about to leave when I get a phone call from Mother Nature, so I head to the head. Only reason I’m bringing this up is because the toilets had no seats. None of them (and I encounter this several other times over the course of the week -- in hostels, train stations, restaurants.) Now normally this wouldn’t matter -- that’s part of the joy of being a boy -- but this time I had a VIP to drop off (Very Important Package), so it was. Long story short, I was forced to make like a hummingbird and hover, and by the time I was done my legs felt like lead weights, nearly forcing me to fall over when I tried to stand up. They should make that an Olympic sport (don’t think they’d get too many requests for it on pay-per-view, though...)
After this exercise in athleticism, I wander around the village some more -- there’s the gymnastics / volleyball arena, the giant corkscrew communications tower of Telefonica (I hate Telefonica. Damned phones are harder to figure out than Taiwanese logarithms...), and the palatial National Museum across the street. They’re all quite magnificent, but the best is a little grove of trees in the back of the main stadium (which was built for the World’s Fair in 1929 and rebuilt for the ‘92 Games). They’re covered with blossom and smell absolutely divine. I must have looked like a moron to those walking by standing there with my eyes closed and nose in the air, but who cares? It was sublime.
After the stadium, I had seen all the sights I wanted to, so I take my time walking down the hill, this time meandering through a nice little park, passing (and watching for a few minutes) a small soccer stadium where the local kids were playing. (Interesting bit here is that the fields they play on are all dirt, so there’s this swirling cloud of dust that follows the action like a shadow.)
I stop for a quick bite at a sandwich shop back on Las Ramblas, where Tom Jones or all people serenades me from the speakers, telling me about how he’s burning down the house. I then head back to the hostel, but find the room devoid of life (human, that is. I’m sure the bacterial and viral communities were still burgeoning...), so I decide to go for a run. I run halfway up the big mountain in town, and then back down along the water, still amazed at how beautiful this town and the weather are (now I’m in shorts and a T-shirt and I’m more than comfortable.)
Making my way back to the hostel among the sea of people and sidewalk shops that are proliferating with each passing second, I shower, pack my stuff, and then jump on a train to Valencia. The area outside Barcelona is great -- it’s right along the water, the towns are modern and pretty (they have brightly colored, very boxy buildings, just like you’d expect. In fact, it looks a lot like Miami to me.) That illusion is shattered, though, when we start going through the mountains -- literally. The train tunnels are carved right into them, so we alternate between picturesque scenes of shoreline and complete blackness. It’s really quite a nice ride, and I arrive in Valencia around 9 in the evening.
Problem is, it’s dark, the train station I’m at isn’t the main one (I learn this later), it’s in a rather inhospitable-looking part of town, and these loud bangs keep going off every few minutes or so, sounding a spot too close to gunshots. Plus, the two people in the station are of no help -- one can’t even point to where we are on a map, and the other speaks Spanish about as coherently as an Italian with a mouth full of marbles. I start to panic a little bit -- I have nowhere to stay, the one guy doesn’t even know what a hostel is, I look like an easier target with my huge backpack than a person in a wheelchair with a lap full of gold, and the bus driver I ask is no help either. Uh oh.
Luckily, my savior comes to me in the form of a short, stocky bald man (George?) on the bus. He knows several hostels, even tells me where to get off the bus. I love this guy. I get off, find the first hostel he mentioned, get to my room and go to sleep, a little apprehensive, the loud bangs continuing in the background.
Sunday, March 5 ---
--- Oh, the joy that can be hostel life. My bed, which even when nothing is on it strongly resembles the letter U, obtains an even more pronounce curve when I actually climb into it. That said, it offered me (and my weary back) about as much support as a B-cup bra to a pair of double Ds. Because of this, I got about as much sleep last night as the parents of a newborn or as an insomniac on amphetamines -- take your pick.
I get up, get ready, and am on the road by 9, casually carousing around town. (This, after passing through the lobby and seeing guess who behind the desk? That’s right, my savior from the bus last night. Small world...) It’s a Sunday, so not much is open except for churches, but that’s really all there is to see here anyway, so I’m in luck. The first one I stop at is the Church of St. Joseph of the Mountains, a rather tiny church whose acoustic setup has such an echo, you’d think you were in the Grand Canyon. “This - this - this - this - is the word - word - word - word - of God - God - God - God.” Kind of strange. I’d go mad after listening to an hour of this, and I’m ready to split after five minutes, so I leave, but not before I notice that this church has chandeliers hanging from the ceilings. Tons of ‘em. Quick question: who the hell puts chandeliers in a church?
No on answering, I split and make my way to the big cathedral in town. I ask several people where it is, even pointing to my desired destination on a map. By the time I find someone who knows what they’re talking about -- a kind, old man with a brown tweed jacket and nifty aviator glasses -- I’ve long since left the comfy confines of the map. I try and negotiate myself back, not relying on the local yokels (their directions are about as accurate as those given to you in Boston. Pops, Jack, back me up on this one...), but on my ultra-crappy map (you know you’re in trouble when there are only five or six street names on the whole thing. “What street did I just pass, oh -- the unnamed street. I though I was on that. Oh wait, I am...” Try finding your way around with that thing and you’ll know why I had so much trouble.)
I finally get there after a nice walk, the streets line with orange trees (not too surprising once I remember the phrase “100% Valencia oranges”), plus the requisite dog poop (wouldn’t be Europe without it). I pass through the Torres de Quart (the Towers of Quart, a pair of giant medieval looking things that sky above one of the main streets (oddly enough, the avenue of Quart)) and arrive at the cathedral set amongst a small plaza with a fountain of a lounging man spurting directly beside it (and it’s a good thing there’s the water all around him to wash him off because the hundreds of pigeons that are sitting on him have covered him with a fine paste of poop. Must be murder on the complexion, stone skin or not...)
The cathedral isn’t quite as imposing as I would have though, but there are two parts of it: the basilica, a smaller domed building whose insides resemble a Greek cross -- short naves and a circular area in the center with the altar -- and the cathedral itself. Once you get inside this part its high Gothic arched ceilings make you wonder where they hid it -- you sure couldn’t see it from the outside. This is your more traditional cathedral, set up like a Roman cross -- one long leg crossed by a shorter one, the altar lying at their intersection. The church looks and smells great -- they have a guy of the clergy walking around spreading frankincense and myrrh, a touch that just adds to the experience.
I make my way around the church admiring the paintings and the religious zoo (yep, they’ve got caged deities, too) and the chandeliers (yep, both the basilica and the cathedral have ‘em, too. What is up with this? It makes about as much sense as putting balloons in a confessional or selling hot dogs in a courtroom. With those things dangling from the heights I feel like I should be served a fancy meal, not a load or self-righteous drivel...)
Having made my way around the lower levels, I do like Ed McMahon says and reach for the stars, climbing up to the top of the church’s giant belltower. It takes a while, longer than expected, and I must admit to being a little winded (yes, even I can get tired. You wouldn’t know it from the sounds of things, though...), but when I get there, it’s well worth the cardiac taxing. You can see the entire city from up here -- the Torres de Quart, the Serranos Towers (the twins of Quart’s towers on the other side of town), etc. It’s really beautiful.
I stand here for a few minutes, watching the man teach his two sons how to spit from the tower and hit the old people below without getting caught (how’s that for familial bonding?) and taking in the view, and then I head back down to see the Holy Grail, the cup the church claims to be the real McCoy, the legendary icon itself. Even if it isn’t, it sure is perty -- it’s a golden, bejeweled thing housed behind glass in a nice little chapel. It has what appear to be rubies and pearls on it, the top looking like your standard cup, the base like a crown, and the middle, thanks to the two curving handles, like a heart. Like I said, authentic or not, it’s quite something to look at.
Next, after making a donation to the homeless people who open and close the doors for visitors, I jump into the central market, a teeming mass of cramped stands and even more cramped people hawking and buying everything from music to magazines, antiques to art, postcards to pornos. It’s quite hectic, and I make my way out, casually chomping on churros and wandering the streets of Valencia.
Having seen all I came for and then some, I gather my things and head off for the train station. This takes longer than expected thanks to three hearty helpings of bad directions. While I’m waiting for what I hope to be the right bus, I find out what those banging noises were from last night -- fireworks. Kids throw these whoppers into the corners and let the echoes take hold.
I grab a quick bite to ear (patatas bravas, a tasty tapas of fried potatoes, mayo, and some type of barbecue sauce, and a ham and melted cheese sandwich on a baguette -- which reminds me: a ton of the shops serve cuisine that is heavily French -- baguettes, croissants, etc., which seems strange at first, but then I read that the French once ruled Spain in the 1700s, so there you go...) I pay, rush over to the train station, wave hello to the helpful old man from this morning with the aviator glasses (I told you, small world...) and jump on a train to Madrid. (As I’m leaving, apparently in my honor, they’re having a big fireworks festival right down the street from the train station. Truly touched, I leave, a single tear growing in the corner of my eye as the train pulls away from the platform. “Thank you, Valencia. I love you, too...”)
The scenery outside Valencia again summons images of Florida to my mind thanks to the endless groves of orange trees, but then the mountains come and shatter the illusion for the second time in as many days. These are huge compared to the ones yesterday, and they run parallel to the track for a good hour before disappearing into the distance. In this time the land becomes more of what you imagine from rural Spain -- lonely farms sitting on acres of bright red dirt. Quite beautiful.
I arrive in Madrid, find a hostel without too much trouble -- the quaint and virtually unmarked (don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad one) Hostel Atocha, a place which offers me a double room with a TV to myself, all for 12 pounds a night. A bit wasteful, but what the hell... After checking in, I wander the streets for a while, stopping for a bit to eat at a buffet -- not too bad, it had paella, roast beef, salads, patatas bravas, etc. -- and then walk back to go to bed (after passing the requisite sex shows in the red light district. I’m always a stone’s throw away from these places or living right in them (in Barcelona we were right around the corner from the Sex Museum -- same with Valencia.) What is up with that? I guess it’s like I always say, I’m just a sex magnet...
Monday, March 6 ---
--- I get up early to go to the famed Prado Art Museum, which is supposed to open right at 9, but of course it’s closed on a Monday (and why wouldn’t it be?) So, I’m forced to do a little improvising rather early in the morning for my blood. I start by wandering around, taking in one of the many plazas with gorgeous statues and fountains (there are a ton in this city -- for everyone I mention, there are two that I don’t).
First is the Puerta de Alcala (door of Alcala), a triple arched gateway that looks a little like three Arc de Triumphs put together. It was created in honor of Charles III, the Spanish monarch from the late 1700s who is a national hero thanks to all his accomplishments with Madrid and the country as a whole.
Then comes the Plaza de Cibeles, which has the goddess Cibeles and her chariot drawn by lions in the center of a bunch of fountains surrounding her with water. It’s very cool, and at the intersection of a very busy roundabout, so getting a picture was a life threatening event.
After a short walk along a tree lined park in the middle of the street (the streets here are just huge, similar to those found in Paris -- each direction has five or six lanes of traffic, so crossing the street is a constant chore) I arrive at the Reina Sofia Art Museum (named after a previous queen -- “reina” = “queen” and “rey” = “king”) for a little dose of culture. This place has some really nice paintings in it, including galleries of Miro, Dali (my favorite), and Picasso.
Miro: This guy is a certified quack. He can paint some really interesting things, but most is absolute rubbish. One of his “works of art” consists of a big ass white canvas, and thirteen small black dots. That’s it. This one he left untitled (probably because “Utter Piece of Shit” wouldn’t go over well with the stodgy art types), but the ones he entitled El Pajaro en Espacio (the Parrot in Space) are just as bad. These consist of a red dot, a green dot, and a curvy black line. Um, hello? Where’s the frigging bird? I swear, what a waste. (He did do one painting I like -- it was of a scene of the streets in Barcelona and didn’t look anything like his other works -- you could actually tell what it was supposed to be...)
Dali’s paintings were cool, and it was strange to see his earlier stuff which looked normal -- your standard portraits, landscapes, etc. He even did some abstract Picasso-like crap. Then, he went crazy, and this is the stuff I love. I swear, I don’t know what I’m looking at, but I like it.
Random question: did you know that Ponce de Leon, other than curing the ails of aging by discovering the fountain of youth, had time to paint in his free time? Yep. (Actually, this is Alfonso Ponce de Leon, but he did a cool painting of a car crash, so I wanted to mention it.)
I wander around some more, looking at all the junk they have here amidst these great paintings -- like Picasso’s awesome Guernica, the painting which reflects the drama of their Civil War and gets better the longer you stare at it. This museum is the house of all things abstract, no two ways around it. It’s a bunch of non-sensical blobs, dots, and lines, in two or three dimensions, all readily at your disposal. Most of it is really crappy (apparently Miro had a lot of friends...) and if anyone can explain this stuff to me, I’d love to hear it. I’m all about learning...
There’s Yves Klein with his “masterpieces” of monochromatic art -- a big solid blue canvas, a big solid red one, etc. (How long’d it take you to paint these, buddy? You have to go to art school to do this?) There’s Lucio Fontana who takes out his frustration at not being able to paint on his canvases, punching holes in them and slashing them in various “complex and deep” ways.
And then there’s the three works from Equipo Cronica (Team Cronica) which make all the abstract crap around it worth enduring. These three are so cool -- one’s a separation of Guernica -- literally. (They cut parts of Guernica apart and replaced them with popular figures) and the other two have scenes from film noir in various demented representations (one is a pair of men hitting each other with tubes of paint and paint streaks painted around them to make it look like a photograph. Very cool.)) I need to find out more about these guys (and of course the gift shop has nothing on them. They have truckloads of Miro and his frigging “birds” (which now that I think about it is a call for help in Morse code. Dot, dash, dot. “S.O.S. I... can’t... paint...) but these guys are nowhere to be found. Makes sense -- pawn the crap off on the idiots and keep the good stuff for yourself...)
I leave the museum to continue my never-ending circuit of the city, passing the sex show (“Hi, neighbor!”) and I see an older couple coming out holding hands. Yep, nothing says, “I love you” like a trip to the old peep show... I pass more of these mysterious people hawking tickets for something (it turns out they’re selling lottery tickets. There are tons of these people scattered across the country, so now, instead of having to trudge all the way down to the corner store to throw away your money, odds are all you have to do is stick your head out the window of your house and you can toss them your money without having to walk at all. Ah, progress...)
I finally come to a pause in the Plaza Mayor, the large square of shops and restaurants that form a ring around an open plaza. In the middle is a statue of Philip III (another ex-king) on a horse, which looks really cool against the background of the red buildings that surround him.
Then, it’s off for a quick stop in the Puerta del Sol (the Door of the Sun) which also has a statue of a man on a horse, this time against an appropriately yellow background. I leave this bustling commercial district and head to the Palacio Real (the Royal Palace), a huge building that stands right next to a great fenced in plaza.
It was built by the Bourbons ( a reference to the French people of Philip V) starting in 1734 and was (and still is) used for regal events of state. It has 2800 rooms, including the gigantic state dining room (with chairs that seem to stretch out to the horizon), the porcelain room (named oddly enough due to the gorgeous porcelain sculptures that crawl all over the walls -- vines, flowers, childlike figures, etc.), or the room with the equally ornate and attractive fresco ceiling done in an Oriental style. This place is absolutely stunning, full of tapestries, ceiling frescoes, paintings, and other artifacts (including a vertical piano, which is exactly what it sounds like -- it looks like a giant bureau with ivory keys -- and several Stradivarius violas and cellos.) It’s quite a sight.
After this, I walk approximately 50 steps and go into the equally mammoth church next door, the Cathedral Nuestra Senora de la Almudena (the Cathedral of Our Lady from Almudena). This is a great white cathedral, much like any other, but one thing stands out -- its stained glass windows. These are the most gloriously bright colors, and with the sun shining right on them they look positively radiant. Their colors are amplified tenfold by the whiteness of the ground and they cast bright colored shadows on the cold white floors and ceilings.
I leave to make my way back towards the Puerta del Sol, passing the Ayunamiento (town hall), which hilariously enough had guards in front toting submachine guns. (“Hi! Welcome to Madrid! Come learn about our system of government and our town. Don’t mind the men with the semi-automatic weapons -- we haven’t had a problem with them since the last tour group. Heh, heh, heh...”)
I take another minute to stop at a plaza, this one being the Plaza de la Villa, and the reason I stopped is the gorgeous gardens they have surrounding the base of the statue. They’re all sorts of purples, yellows, and reds, and with the sun blazing, they look amazing.
Completely tired from all my walking, I head to the Parque del Retiro (Park of Retirement). This is an absolutely giant park right next to the Prado, and it’s full of little goodies. My first stop within is the rose garden (which will, they tell me, actually have roses growing in it soon, but of course, not yet)(This brings me to a nice realization, though -- the things I’m seeing are so beautiful, their impact can’t be tempered by the seasons, only augmented.) with a trio of pretty fountains and knee-high hedges that are cut into a maze pattern. This is really relaxing, and I nip off for a little siesta on one of the park benches, the soft splashes of the fountains lulling me to sleep.
I wake up a little later and make my way to the Palacio de Cristal (Crystal Palace), a big glass building filled with (joy!) more abstract art. An example of the high quality stuff housed within, stuff that wasn’t good enough to get into the Reina Sofia (now if that doesn’t send shudders down your spine, I don’t know what will): a big pile of plywood, an inner tube on a string hanging from the ceiling, and a tower of tires. All classics in their own right, to be sure...
Outside this junkhouse, though, is a big pond that has loads of giant goldfish / whales and birds in it, including an all black swan with a bright red beak to boot! I’ve never seen one of those before. Still having some daylight to kill, I head to the Monument of Alfonso XII, a towering statue high atop a pedestal and seated in front of a giant lake full of birds and rowboats. Feeling a bit adventurous, I rent a rowboat and head out onto the lake. It takes some getting used to, but after a while I’m cruising like I’ve got an onboard strapped to the back. It’s so peaceful out there -- just me, the birds, and a couple dozen other boats who can’t steer worth a damn and keep crashing into me. This moment, along with my jog in Barcelona and my churro-laden carousing in Valencia are my favorite moments from the trip, thus far.
I head back for another quick nap at the hostel, then walk around for a while before dinner (they don’t eat dinner here until close to 9, so I have an hour to kill.) As I’m walking through the cramped, dark, and rather uninviting side streets of Madrid -- shady in the daytime, downright light-repellent at night -- I notice some things. One, there are these giant green domed bins everywhere on the street corners, and they’re used to recycle glass. These are almost identical to the ones found in Paris -- another French connection for you (Barcelona had them, too, along with blue and yellow ones...)(Want another? To find a pharmacy in Paris, all you had to do was scan the streets for green neon signs in the shape of Greek crosses. Same thing in Spain -- they’re everywhere.)
Two, there are tons of banners hanging from the light poles on the streets promoting different candidates for regional office, something we don’t do back home (we just pay for tons of TV commercials, something we’re not sure everyone will see. Here, everyone has to walk on the streets, so that’s where they advertise. Sounds like good business sense to me...)
Three, along with the big plastic igloos and the political promotions, there are also dozens of dogs and cats wandering the streets, all without owners (Valencia had ten times as many.) Who takes care of them, and if they’re all strays, how do none of them get hit by cars? I have a hard enough time crossing the street and my brain’s bigger than my ass -- theirs isn’t. I want pointers...
And finally, what is up with all the old people here? I’ve mentioned other ties to Florida, but this is the absolute clincher -- this entire country attracts more old people to it than an Andy Williams concert of a Reader’s Digest Fan Club. Walking the streets you’d think you’re stuck in the 70s (and for many of the people, this is a truism, but I was referring to the decade) -- it’s a sea of tweed hats, slacks worn just under the nipples with big creases, giant amber colored aviator glasses -- who are these people and why are the VCRs controlling their lives stuck on Pause? Somebody give me the damned remote...
I ponder these thoughts over a nice meal of paella, tostada con queso (which is just Spanish for omelet) and flan. (I settled on this place after walking for way too long trying to find a place that served patatas bravas and croquettes. Some would have one, others would have the other, and still others would have neither. That’s the problem -- all the restaurants serve the exact same things, with one or two variations, and it’s all pretty bad. I’ve had paella and potatoes every night since I’ve been here. I know I’m just an outsider, but how about a little fricking variety, huh? I can only see pictures of the sandwiches they serve with their nasty ass cuts of meat so many times. “Ooh, look, Margie. This place has upper cow lips on a baguette. Ooh! And pig gums on a croissant! Let’s eat here!”
Agh. A little sick of the lack of variety, I go to sleep to explore my dreams -- a place where nothing is the same, only the subjects. (Food, sports, and women, in that order (from least to most aggravating...)