Real Talk: Spain

Well I can´t tell you where I´m going, I´m not sure of where I´ve been
But I know I must keep travelin´til my road comes to an end
I´m out here on my journey tryin to make the most of it
I´m a puzzle, I must figure out where all my pieces fit
-The great Dolly Parton

And a very good day to you from España! Right now I´m sitting in an internet cafe in Valladolid, Spain, having just taken an excruciating bus ride from Segovia and awaiting my next bus to Burgos. My wise and tarty friend Alex, currently about a month into her stint working in East Timor, recently made a very good point in her blog that about a month into your stay in a new country, a combination of homesickness and moderate irritability start to set in. In short, the novelty of experiencing a totally different place and lifestyle, while exciting at first, eventually wears down a bit, and you become less tolerant of the location´s idiosyncracies that were once amusing, but now just highlight the inconvenince of not being home. Don´t get me wrong, I´m not trying to compare my friend´s research project on sanitation and drinking water in East Timor to my trip backpacking around Spain just for the hell of it. Nor am I trying to complain - because backpacking around Spain just for the hell of it is pretty awesome - but I feel like I need to get a few things off my chest so that I can return to fully loving the hell out of Spain. So, without further ado, it´s time for REAL TALK: SPAIN EDITION.

1) Spanish people are REALLY loud. I´m not saying this is universal, but I have encountered SO MANY people have only two volume levels: mumbling (usually in a customer service capacity) or screaming like you´re trying to communicate across a football field (often found in small enclosed spaces, like aboard buses and trains, and in museum lobbies). The bus system in Spain is pretty reliable, and a lot cheaper than traveling by train, so I have been utilizing it pretty standardly. Without fail, every time I have gotten on a long distance bus, a pair of loud Spanish women of any age will sit directly behind me (no matter how many open seats there are) and proceed to talk at each other as if they were trying to communicate in front of the speaker system at a Van Halen concert. It´s just a little bit grating after a few hours. And I feel like every woman sounds like she has been smoking 3 packs a day since she hit kindergarten. I don´t mind the throaty voices; I´ve just been shocked on a number of occasions when a girl I take to be my age starts speaking with the voice of an emphysema patient.

2) I don´t get siestas. I don´t. I´ve tried, and the only time it remotely made sense was when I hadn´t slept in 30 hours because I had just flown from Seattle to Madrid. I get that it´s the culture here, and I have tried to embrace it. But it just strikes me as a HUGE waste of time. Yeah, I love naps...but I´m on vacation. I sleep in. And nothing here seems to open until 9 or 10 am anyway, so it´s not like museums or stores are open from 5 am and they need an afternoon break. It´s just like the entire city shuts down for technically 2 - but often 4 - hours a day. I want to go out and see sights, but nothing is open. I tried to nap during siesta, but it just makes me feel disoriented when I wake back up, and then I can´t get to sleep until like 4am that night. I tried just chilling at cafes and drinking sangria - but three hours a day is a long time to drink alone without admitting a serious substance abuse problem. I tried to hang out in parks and read, but I´ve torn through so many of my books that I have almost nothing left to read. I´d buy another book...BUT NOTHING IS EVER OPEN. That brings me to my next point:

3) NOTHING IS EVER OPEN. Not even pharmacies. Seriously. I ran out of shampoo, contact solution, and toothpaste all on the same day. Unhappily, that was yesterday, a Sunday. I walked all over Segovia trying to find a single open farmacia, and could not find a one. All day. Forget shampoo; people need medicine on Sundays, right? I feel like I´m complaining a lot, which I don´t mean to do. I think I´m just in a sour mood because I couldn´t brush my teeth this morning and I washed my hair with bar soap last night (after holding out a few days to find shampoo - it needed to happen). So I just feel...gross and kinda weird. And I miss home. I wanted to call Kevin or my parents a few days back just to check in and hear a familiar voice, but Segovia aparently has no internet cafes near the old town, and the only one I could find after wandering around for an hour was closed. Of course. During non-siesta time, too. Then I tried three pay phones, none of which worked. So I guess I´m just a bit irritated. But, in the words of Arrested Development, ¨don´t let that spoil prison for you!¨

I´ve actually had quite a lot of fun since my last update. The weather is wonderful, so I´ve been in really good mood aside from my minor grievances listed above. So from here on out, no complaining. Just good old fashioned cheerful notes on what´s been up as I´m travelin´through.

SAN SEBASTIAN (continued)

So you know how in my last update I said I was probably just going to grab some tapas and some wine and head to bed? Yeah...that definitely did not happen. I did make my way back to my hostel, where I ended up hanging out in the common room with two Austrian chicks, an American hippie (he denied being a hippie, but we convinced him later that night that he needed to embrace it), the Argentine owner of the hostel, and this young American kid (only 19) who works at the hostel and reminds me of who Shia LeBeouf obviously wants to be. His parents were Basque, but he was born and raised in the States, worked on motorcycles most of his life, went to a liberal arts college, dropped out after a year, innovated some crazy car part with this friend of his father´s, then used that money to travel all over the world, working odd jobs here and there for room and board. Really cool kid. Anyway, the two ex-pat locals took us to get some great pintxos (I had a crepe with monkfish, shrimp, and this awesome green sauce) and then to a non-touristy bar which was like a 20 minute walk through town in the FREEZING POURING rain. But it was totally worth it. We had this drink called Calimocha, which is a mixture of cheap red wine and coca cola. It tastes as bizarre as it sounds. After a few of those, some shots, some beers, etc., I made friends with the guitarrist of the band who was playing at the bar. They were playing a lot of American covers, as well as some Manu Chau and Juanes. Somehow (I´m fuzzy on the details) I ended up getting on stage and singing ¨No Woman No Cry¨with the band. It was a LOT of fun, and everybody seemed to really like it. We all eventually stumbled back to our hostel somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 am, and I of course slept through my alarm and missed my early bus the next day. It wasn´t an expensive ticket though, and the crazy good time we had the previous night more than justified paying for a new ticket on a later bus.

VALLADOLID

I arrived in Valladolid excited to see the sun again. It was warm and sunny, and I found a really cheap hotel in a central location. After having stayed in a comunal environment for the previous 5 or 6 nights, I was so stoked about having some privacy and taking as long a bath as I wanted. After some relaxing, I headed out at about 10 to grab some dinner, having finally gotten it through my thick skull that nobody goes to dinner before that time. Well, it seems this doesn´t apply quite as much in Valladolid. Almost everything was closed, so I ended up going to a wine bar called Vinotinto and ate some iberico ham and bread and drank some wine before taking a stroll through the central plaza area and then heading back to my hotel. Not that exciting a night. But I made up for it the next day. I booked a late train to Salamanca so I could enjoy a full day seeing the sites in Valladolid. A little background: Valladolid was once the most important city in Spain, but the powers that be decided that it Valladolid was getting too big for its own good and so the smaller Madrid was made the capital of the newly-united country, much to Valladolid´s chagrin. Charles V even tried to move the royal court to Valladolid, but it was hugely unpopular and only lasted a few years. Consequently, Valladolid has a TON of history, art, culture, and architecture...but not that many people around to appreciate it. It was one of the least touristy cities I´ve been to. Frankly, I didn´t even know it existed until I read For Whom the Bell Tolls early in my trip. So I started my day out exploring the city, heading first to the Plaza de San Pablo and the lovely church therein which bears the same name. There were a number of incredible statues inside, many of which were figures of El Cristo Yacente (Reclining Christ), which were super-realistic portrayals of Jesus´dead body after his crucifixation. The detail of the wounds would make Oscar Romero shudder. After that, I headed over to the nearby National Sculpture Museum, and saw some pretty amazing sculptures. Mostly religious, due to the huge importance of the Contrareforma (counter-reformation) period, in which the church pretty much mandated that all art had to address the greatness of the true faith. After that, I wandered through the Parque de las Moreras and made my way over to the Casa de Cervantes, where Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra lived for a few years and (possibly) wrote the prologue to Don Quixote. It was a lovely little house with a recreation of what his home may have looked like. The guides were incredibly informative. I think I might have been the only person there all afternoon. One of the guides and I struck up a conversation about Don Quixote (I told her I was trying to read it with limited success in Spanish) which led to discussing antiquated words, which led to bonding over the Game of Thrones series (her daughter is reading them too!). After I closed down the Cervantes House (siesta time!) I wandered over to the Casa De Colon (Colombus House) devoted to the life and voyages of Christopher Colombus. It didn´t reopen for another few hours, so I walked around for awhile and eventually decided to park on a bench and read some more Don Quixote. After a while, this older dude sits down next to me. Literally every single other bench was open, so I got a bit sketched out. But the Spanish have a different perception of personal space, so I didn´t want to overreact. He sat there for a few minutes, then started drumming his fingers on the bench, and eventually commented in Spanish on my e-reader, saying something about it being a touch screen. I nodded and returned to my e-book. He started mumbling intermittently, not looking directly at me, so I wasn´t sure if he was talking to me or not. Either way, his voice sounded like it had been ravaged by emphysema and he wasn´t making an effort to enunciate, so I couldn´t make out a lot of what he was saying anyway. So I just ignored it and kept reading. Eventually, he looked at me and told me I was very attractive, that I had a ¨precious face¨ (creepiest compliment ever). I shrugged it off, thanking him for the sentiment, but said I couldn´t really understand him. He smirked, then said ¨yes, you understand¨. I tried to return to my book. Then he pulled out his keys and told me he wanted me to go back with him to his place. At this point I got sufficiently creeped out, put away my book, and said I had to train to catch within an hour (not true), and wished him a nice day. He protested, telling me I should be able to spend more time with him, and I curtly told him no thanks, I had to go, and I started to walk away. I made it about three blocks when I got this cold feeling all over me and turned around and saw the guy was following me. I made a couple of quick turns and increased my pace. About five blocks later, I checked my periphery and realized he was still following me and seemed to be gaining. At this point I freaked out and broke into a run, and I could only think about those slasher films where the female victim is running as fast as she can, and Michael Myers or Jason or whatever serial killer just walks calmly and steadily towards her. Everyone knows she is going to die. Even she knows it. Luckily I had spent the last couple of hours exploring this part of the city, so I had a pretty good idea of where I was and made a series of erratic turns at full speed. I don´t know how long I ran, I just know when I turned around, I had lost him. I have literally never been that scared while travelling alone. It was midday in an incredibly public place, and I have gotten lost by myself at night in some of the sketchiest parts of South America, Memphis, and New Orleans and never been that scared. I really don´t know what would have happened if I saw him again. Probably yelled for the police. It just scared the shit out of me even though it was probably nothing and he probably just wanted to catch up to me to make another entreaty. I don´t know. I think I need to take up kickboxing. Anyway, I finally made my way back to the Colombus museum and composed myself. The museum itself was kind of a let down. There was a really great history leading up to his voyages, and then a few artifacts from the Americas...but not much mention of the people of the ¨New World¨ that were more or less obliterated after he ¨discovered¨ them. I thought it was an odd and convenient omission. After the museum, I headed over to the train station to catch my ride to...

SALAMANCA

I really loved Salamanca. I had some friends who did a summer course there during high school and I´ve always been a bit jealous of not being able to go. Salamanca is absolutely beautiful. Most of the city, and certainly almost all of the old town, is constructed from sandstone, which gives the city a dignified continuity that would look like it was trying too hard to be pretty anywhere else. After arriving and checking into my hotel (Don Quixote-themed, as it happens), I treated myself to a fancy dinner in the exquisite Plaza Mayor, which is illuminated at night to magnificent effect. I ate at an outdoor table at Meson Cervantes, and had a few glasses of wine and the roast duck breast with a house grape sauce, which I´m pretty sure I will spend the rest of my life trying to recreate. It was incredible. I wandered around a bit more after dinner to get a feel for the city, then turned in around midnight. The next morning, I decided to do a full walking tour of the city to get a survey of all the sights, which took about three hours. I had booked three nights at my hotel, so I was in no huurry to cram in everything on day 1. I popped into the lovely Cathedral and wandered around. It was almost chilly inside the huge stone structure, which was a nice respite from the near 100 degree temp outside. Afterwards, I wandered over to see the old Roman Bridge before going over to the Convento de San Esteban (Saint Steven Monastery), which was also gorgeous. I let myself get a little lost in Salamanca, and it was a wonderful way to get to know the city and find my way back, finishing my day with a trip to an Asturian bar that makes its own cider. Two cups, please. The next morning, I started my day with a visit to the Museo Taurino (bullfighting museum) which had a great collection of memorabilia from bullfighters throughout the years. Then, I went to the Museo de Salamanca to take in some roman, medieval, renaissance, and modern art. The location was superb: very peaceful. Then I headed to the university, found the infamous frog carved into the facade, then rounded out my day with a visit to the Museo de Art Nouveau y Art Deco, which had a bizarre collection of 1920s and 1930s art, sculpture, and (creepiest of all) children´s dolls and toys. After a few fresh mojito and another dinner in the Plaza Mayor, I turned in and caught an early bus to Segovia the next day.

I have to leave off here...my bus for Burgos leaves in 20 minutes. I will explain the glory of Segovia in my next post. Until next time, hope all is well!

Hasta luego,
A-bear