Mr. Adam Goes to Spain Vol. 6

If to err is human, then my most recent correspondence is the lasso that hauls me down from the clouds to dwell among the mortal folk. It is the fishing hook I cast into my own lip and heave myself, hitherto unsodden, into the ocean of humanity. In other words, I’m not perfect… anymore. First, the pictures that didn’t make it, here they are:

In class at CEGRI

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A final glory picture from Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh

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The video from Riverdance

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Second, Braveheart’s director was not “_____” as the last message stated, it was in fact Braveheart himself, Mel Gibson. Now, on with installment six of Adam in Andalusia.

Walking the streets of Granada, slurping the remains of an orange from my sticky fingers, I came to a realization. Each day I live here, I pen another paragraph or two into the most incredible chapter in the book of my life. So often we live through amazing experiences focusing on only on the difficulties and responsibilities that dampen our enjoyment of the moment, but then look back and through the haze of nostalgia and realize how gratifying those times were. I want to make it clear, most of all to myself, that this is not one of those situations. Yes I have school work, yes I have responsibilities, but for the most part I’m living free, seeking new sensations, new spectacles, and finding them every day. Be it a Valencia orange on a hot March day, or visiting a new city or country every weekend, my life today is constant satisfaction.

About now I sound like the grand daddy of all braggarts, boasting about how great my life is, and how I know it. That’s fine. As long as I can get one message across; we’ve only got so much time on this planet, and it’s certainly not enough to spend it living inside the radius of familiarity. So, set a foot outsize the comfort zone, I guarantee you won’t step into a mine field. What you’ll find is a world eager to be discovered, waiting not to be seen in the glossy pages of a magazine, nor to be marveled at through the cathode ray tube in the living room, but one that embraces with open arms those willing to scour its surface looking for knowledge and experience, and rewards those explorers with the sights, sounds, and sensations that, in attempting to convey the vicarious experience, pictures and words are dreadfully deficient. Peru’s Machu Picchu, Granada’s Alhambra, Argentine steak, Rio de Janeiro’s Ipanema beach, Ireland’s lush countryside, Paris’s Louvre and Madrid’s Prado; descriptions, photographs, videos, do none of them justice. These are sensations that have to be lived, have to be allowed to stimulate all five senses (although I don’t advise sampling the yellow snow in the Alps, just like at home the peculiar discoloration has nothing to do with atmospheric conditions) in order for their sensations to be fully felt and recorded.

I was scared, anxious, maybe terrified when I flew into Lima, Peru to begin my South America trek last summer. After a few initial hours of sheer amazement stemming from the distance between the world into which I had just set foot and that I had left behind, I discovered that my trepidation was baseless. In fact, the traveler culture into which I blindly stumbled was startlingly friendly and receptive. I soon found that, with the help of my travel guide book, I could show up in any South American city or village, one I’d never heard of much less seen on a map, and find restaurants and hostels, as well as a whole slew of new friends from every other corner of the globe to hang out with for a few days, then say goodbye to and do it all over again somewhere else. And with the proliferation of the internet, no matter the size of the town, I was never more than a few blocks away from contact with home in the situation that I had the desire to reconnect with friends and family.

This past winter I read a news item about a high school senior, who, when assigned a report about Iraq, instead of hopping on the nearest computer to Google factoids, hopped the next plane to Kuwait and tried (though he failed) to taxi across the border into Iraq. What he did was reckless and stupid, but I give the student respect for one reason; he shunted the mediated experience of books, the internet, and television for a first hand encounter. He didn’t settle for the Wikipedia entry on Iraq, he went to write his own. Beyond the obligatory advisory statement about moderation in spontaneity (look before you leap) what I mean to draw from this anecdote is justification to claim that we lack first hand experience with much of the world outside our own, and the best way to remedy that is to get out there and live among it.

As hard as it sometimes is to leave the routines, the friends, and the loved ones behind, the liberation of the traveler’s trail brings with it the realization that the rest of the world is a pretty amazing place, as well as a new appreciation for what it means to be at home among the familiar. Specifically, no matter how exotic another corner of the world is, for someone else, it’s just home. It’s hard to look at a place that type of perspective on a place you’ve known for your whole life (for me, Traverse City) but looking at it from an outsider’s perspective, I understand why all those tourists plug the passageways on hot summer days (and no, it’s not to frustrate the locals).

So if you’re able, if your roots haven’t already sprouted and anchored you to the ground, and even if you think they have, find a way and go. If you’re still in college, study abroad, if you’re past that point, horde your funds like Ebenezer Scrooge and make it happen, or scour the internet for travel scholarships, they’re out there. I’m not suggesting a week on the beach in Mexico, far from it. What I am suggesting is either a study abroad trip, or a backpack, three changes of clothes, and a travel guide (Lonely Planet, Footprints, Rough Guide, and Let’s Go all make good ones) of whichever locale calls to you (Southeast Asia, South America, and Europe, are popular destinations, and in order of increasing financial necessity), and wearing the nomad’s hood for a chapter or two.

Am I telling you how to live your life? Absolutely, I am. But that’s only because I’ve got your best interests in mind, like mom and dad, except my message includes further caveats. While they’re telling you to finish school, get a job, and get married, I merely condone finishing school, getting a job and getting married. Make sure that before you get to the end-game, whenever that might be in your own book of life, you’ve done EVERYTHING you wanted to do, on this side of the planet and every other.

Stepping down from the soap box, the past four weekends have been eventful here in Spain. I spent the first one in Barcelona exploring the city and living among Catalan culture. Catalonia is a former kingdom in the northeast corner of Spain that lost full independence after the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939. Early on, the Spanish rulers attempted to squash the Catalonian culture by outlawing the use of the language and imposing other restrictions on the culture, but today it is encouraged and most public information is listed in both Spanish and Catalan. To the untrained ear (mine), the language sounds like a cross between Spanish and French, which makes sense considering Barcelona’s proximity to France. Just about everyone in Barcelona speaks Spanish, as it is still their official language, but many people speak Catalan among themselves. While eavesdropping I was only able to pick up certain words or phrases, but in print, the language appeared quite analogous to the accompanying Spanish. That’s not to say I could sit down and read War and Peace in Catalan, but if I had a copy in Spanish too, I’d probably be able to decipher most of it. That begs the question of why I’d want to read War and Peace to begin with, but I suppose hypothetically anything’s possible.

I stayed with a friend from Michigan named Paul, which was cool for a few reasons. First, it was free. Second, since he is studying abroad there, he was able to show me around the town and I got to meet a number of his friends, whose company I enjoyed thoroughly. Third, he didn’t charge me anything to stay with him. Fourth, it was directly above a LIDL discount grocery, the same chain I discovered in Edinburgh last month with an amazing half kilo of real fruit yogurt for only 50 Centimos. I’ve recently discovered that we have a LIDL here in Granada as well, although I’ve yet to visit the location due to the fact that most of my food needs are filled at home when I’m here. The other reason I haven’t visited Granada’s LIDL yet is the fact that most of their food is terrible, so much so that I’ve launched an investigation into the causes of this extraordinarily common attribute. To date, my only conclusion is that there is one key ingredient that every product populating their shelves lacks; taste. Apparently there is a positive correlation between the price paid for food and the quality of that food, and LIDL contributes to that theory by having both low prices and bad food. Other than the yogurt and a few other select items between the sliding doors out front and the freezer shelves in back, their stuff is certified grade-A terrible. So if enjoyment is integral to your food consumption experience, look elsewhere. The fifth reason that staying with Paul was cool was that one of his room mates is from Morocco, so I was able to pick his brain about where to go and what to see, and also how to avoid death as efficiently as possible during my coming trip to the country. Finally, sixth, I didn’t have to pay a Euro for room and board.

Among the attractions we visited in Barcelona is La Ramba, a walkway that runs the few miles from the city’s port into the downtown area. It’s flanked by shops, cafes, restaurants, and markets, and populated by dozens of street performers, who are a major part of the attraction of the area. Included here are some photos from La Rambla.

A guy you might know

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A cowboy street performer. There are a surprising number of cowboys I’ve seen around Spain, not sure what the attraction is there.

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Other street performers

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These displays are from one of the main outdoor markets just off La Ramba

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Antoni Gaudí is one of Barcelona’s most prized former-citizens. Gaudí was an architect whose style can best be described as Art Nouveau, in this case meaning eccentric, colorful, even a bit uncanny. A number of his houses, a park, and Barcelona’s iconic Catedral de la Sagrada Familia (Cathedral of the Sacred Family), remain today as reminders of his genius. The construction of the Cathedral, which began in 1884 has outlived Gaudí, who died in 1926. Photos of Gaudí’s work here:

A house he designed

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Some shots from the interior

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Justin and I up on the roof

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A smoke stack

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Another of his works

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A prototypical Renaissance façade. The buildings at almost every corner are curbed like this to allow more sun into the city’s intersections.

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The last attraction of note (that we visited) in Barcelona was the Picasso Museum. Picasso spent a great deal of his life in Barcelona, and donated a great deal of his personal collection to the museum before his death in 1973. I don’t have any pictures from the museum as they frisked us for cameras, but my favorite parts were those that included art from the later stages of his life, when he started experimenting in cubism, which is a far more abstract and unique art form in comparison to more traditional portraits and still scenes of his early portfolio. Here are some of Picasso’s cubistic works:

Three Musicians

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Las Meninas, a reinterpretation of Diego Velazquez’s 1656 masterpiece

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Here’s Velazquez’s version

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Guernica

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Arlequin et femme au collier

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L’aficionado

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That’s it for Barcelona. I WILL be going back later this summer when the beaches are serviceable, and staying at the hostel where all my friends stayed on this trip, which was about 20 feet from the sand of the beach and only 20 Euro a night in the high season. Unfortunately it was cold as a December dip in the Arctic (although I’m not sure December is necessarily any colder than other months in the Arctic), so we didn’t spend much time relaxing in the sand, but this summer that’s an integral part of the plan.

Here are the rest of the photos from Barcelona:

The harbor

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A few shots from the 1992 Olympic Village

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The Cathedral of the Sacred Family

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Shots from an amazing fountain/light show in the city center

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A video from the show

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Paul and friends getting ready to go out for Carnival (although in Spain the festival’s biggest manifestation is in Cadiz)

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Yeah, it rained, but not as hard as it winded

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The beach

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Public disturbance; if you look near the center of the flock you’ll see a man in black leather jacket and jeans terrorizing the pigeons

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The following weekend began with a Friday trip to Cordoba, one of Spain’s most historic cities. It was the capital of the Moorish empires in Spain between the years 711 and 1236 when it was retaken by the Christians during the Reconquista (Reconquering), and also, up until the inquisition in the late 1400’s, the home to a sizeable Jewish population. This particular trip was done in conjunction with my language school, CEGRI, and therefore things were a bit more structured than most of our weekend trips. We spent the first couple hours on a tour of the old Jewish section, la Judería, which didn’t retain much in terms of identifiers except the old synagogue (one of a few in Spain to survive the inquisition). Nonetheless it was a very picturesque section of town, framed by high whitewashed walls, polished stone walkways, abundant potted foliage and flowers, and one really good flamenco guitarist. Photos and video:

In the synagogue

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The streets of the old Jewish quarter

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The flamenco guitarist

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The next part of the tour took us to Cordoba’s mosque, one of Spain’s most recognizable buildings due to its internal arches’ red stripe motif. The mosque’s construction began in 784, and after Cordoba was re-conquered by the Christians, instead of knocking down their Muslim enemies’ place of worship (common practice in those times, along with the destruction of their monuments and palaces) they plunked a cathedral right smack dab into the center of it. How does this work? In my opinion, it’s a bit like a strawberry, banana, and pickle milkshake (with apologies to those who might actually thing), part of it just doesn’t go. Most of the interior contains geometrically-gridded columns, attached at the top by the red striped arches. The footprint of the building must be at least mile square, so the repeating arches make a cool effect forming long diagonal corridors. However, right smack dab in the middle of the mosque sits the cathedral. From inside the mosque, the outer cathedral walls look like parts that are simply sectioned off, but take a step onto the cathedral’s Roman-cross floor plan, and it’s like stepping through a religious portal, as the ceilings suddenly scrape the sky, the walls are covered with intricate decorations and paintings, and precious woods and metals become the construction material of choice.

Photographic evidence:

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The tower in the mosque’s courtyard

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After the mosque, we had about three hours of free time in the city, during which we were able to either explore the sites on the list of things to see that the program had provided us, or simply relax. We chose to explore the city a bit, at first choosing two or three sites from the list of eight locations, thinking that would keep us busy for the entire three hours we had available. We couldn’t have been more wrong. Every site we visited was, apparently, housing an entry in the Cordoba Scaffolding and Tarp Exhibition, and thus hidden behind those two construction materials. Everything from the Roman bridge to a plaza mentioned in Cervantes’s Don Quixote was under the cover of the metal skeleton and blue plastic skin, so we passed from one to the next in rapid succession. I suppose if we had been in town to examine the astounding new techniques in renovation work we might have been greatly impressed, but alas, we were not. They might have been unique and fascinating attractions otherwise, but not being able to examine a spectacle that, in the eyes of a tourist acquires its value from being seen and observed, does the scorpion-in-the-sneakers-stomp all over its appeal. I give Cordoba a B-, and the mosque, as it alone was worth the visit, is the only thing that prevents the grade from dipping into the low C range.

Other photos from Cordoba:

He is strong like bull (then again, maybe it’s just that nose ring)

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The building on the right is exterior of the mosque

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We did a tour of some ancient gardens

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JT and Stacy race through a maze. Guess who won (hint; not JT)

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They grow a lot of these oranges throughout Spain, however the rule is that if they’re in the street, they’re not to eat. Not that anyone will try to stop you from eating them, but that consuming the types of oranges they plant in the streets and public space are face-contortingly sour, and I do speak from repeated personal experience. These oranges are being picked to be made into marmalade, or so I was told.

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The Beatles Abbey Road 2006 (L to R, Chris, Carl, JT, Ben)

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The Roman Bridge, a archetypal example of state-of-the-art renovation techniques

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The patio of some building I stuck my head into

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The following weekend my brother-from-another-mother Jared flew into Granada to spend his Spring break with me in the land of the Spaniards. Since my final summer before heading off to college, Jared and I haven’t seen more than a day or two at a time of one another, and no more than a couple times a year, so I was excited at the prospect of being able to terrorize southern Spain together for a few days. The first night I showed him the Albayzin, Granada’s early Moorish quarter, as well as a Flamenco show in the Sacromonte, Granada´s principal Flamenco neighborhood. These were both cultural and remarkable experiences for Jared, but the most notable cultural experience of the night was his introduction to the Turkish kabob. At home we think of a kabob as a few pieces of chicken or steak and some vegetables roasted on a stick. This is a ghastly mimicry as kabobs go, and living here has precipitated my introduction to the real thing. With Granada’s ever present Muslim influence, and relative proximity to Turkey, we have an abundance of Kabob shops, where countless Americans flock to be shown the light in the form of a real kabob. What it is, is a cylinder, three feet tall and one foot in diameter, that rests vertically and rotates on a spit with a small heater keeping the meat in proper condition. Kabobs are pitas filled with either chicken, lamb, beef, or falafel, your choice of various fresh vegetables, hummus and/or plain yogurt. The process works as such: walk in, tell them what type of meat, vegetables, and sauces you want, and no matter the time of night, you’ve got yourself a delicious kabob for only three Euro. I’m partial to the lamb with lettuce, green peppers, onions, carrots, hummus, and yogurt kabob, but everyone seems to have their own “killer combo”. If there is such a thing as love at first taste, I beheld it that day. Although I suppose had I had a mirror the first time I demolished a kabob, I would have witnessed the same phenomenon.

A short video from the Flamenco show

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Jared in his first kabob shop

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The terrible two in front of the La Fuente de Isabel la Catolica (Fountain of Isabel the Catholic, of Isabel and Ferdinand fame)

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The following day found us rising at 6 AM in our discrete locations (he in his hostel, me at home), and after some initial difficulty in hailing a taxi, I ended up at the bus station. Arriving about 20 minutes after our agreed upon rallying time, 7 AM, I assumed I’d find Jared, foot tapping impatiently, waiting for me inside. What I failed to account for was the fact that four hours of sleep may not have been sufficient for someone who had spent the previous 30+ hours riding airplanes and living in airports. So around 7:30 I decided to ring my cell phone, which I’d given him to use as an alarm clock. The second call found his ear, and the first noise that came out of his mouth was intransliteratable (Is that a word? Yes, but only by virtue of the fact that I just used it) although I am compelled to find a way to describe it, possibly as the combination of the Titanic’s hull tearing open and a spaceship launching, followed by a sting of unintelligible chatterings. A query revealed that yes, he was indeed still in bed, and that yes, he would be on his way immediately. The bus to the mountains was to leave at 8, and for him to arrive on time would require a miracle the likes of which have not been seen since MTV was replaced by the 24 hour wallpaper shopping channel (That hasn’t happened yet? What a shame). To my surprise, he arrived at 7:55, and we made the bus. We were too late to rent our equipment at the bus station, which meant that we would have to spend a few more dollars on rentals, but we would soon discover that this apparent blunder was a blessing in disguise. The idea was to get up to the ski area by 9, rent our stuff, and be on the slopes by 10. Arrival at the slopes revealed a rather large kink in our plans, as the mountain, as of 9:30 was closed due to excessive winds. Inquiries at 10, 11, 12, and 1 prompted similar responses, so at that point we abandoned our quest to ski, and attempted to get back to Granada. Unfortunately, the last two seats on the 1 PM bus were taken by the two people that hopped on three steps in front of us, which meant we’d have to spend another 3 hours in the small skiing village. In any other place on Earth, this might not be such a damning prospect (or sentence as the case was) but in this little skiing village, there was literally nothing to do except café hop and take silly pictures. So that’s what we did. The company was pleasurable, and we managed to pass the time between 10 AM and 4 PM relatively quickly, early on with the hope that the mountain would open and we’d spend the rest of the day skiing, later on simply looking forward to heading back to Granada for kabobs. The redeeming factor of the day was that we had plenty of time to talk, about school, about summer plans, about future plans, about the things we really haven’t discussed during our sparse encounters the past few years.

Shots from atop the mountain:

Still looking forward to a day of skiing

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Goooooood doggie

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The pensive scholar

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Riding the ram (or whatever it is)

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Down from the mountain

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The next day, Monday, I had class, and Jared went to visit the Alhambra, then headed to Sevilla for the remainder of the week. I understand he had a fine time there with some people he met at his hostel in Granada, and that reinforced my own belief that traveling and living in hostels is about the best way to live life, and the easiest way to meet some of the coolest people on the planet.

We reunited in Malaga the following Thursday, and immediately headed to the beach to grab some rays. I’d like to go into further description about our activities that weekend, but beyond cooking like Thanksgiving turkeys on the beach and suffering from lack of kabob intake (Malaga doesn’t have the same Turkish influence), we met a number of fun people who shared our enthusiasm for baking in the sun. I did manage to make it into the water once, but it was Pluto-at-its-zenith cold. Jared left early Sunday morning, with the promise that we would discuss his return for the summer, a prospect that could extend my residence in Europe until late August (although nothing is certain yet).

The two of us in Malaga:

Tapas the first night

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A robot, come from the 22^nd century to forewarn us all of our impending doom. Or just stand stationary until someone puts money in his jar, then dance around mechanically.

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Thankful to be alive

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Baking on the beach with local Carmen

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The two of us and our local guides at a “local hangout”

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There’s something off in the distance… no, just me contemplating life again

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The dudes in the back of the car

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The beach in Malaga

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The following weekend (temporally speaking, last weekend) I attended the Las Fallas festival in Valencia. At Las Fallas, the Valencianos (people from Valencia) display gigantic Fallas, which are a lot like parade floats, except stationary, in just about every intersection in town. Fallas, through the use of exaggerated caricature, satire a political figure or issue, lampoon a pop culture icon, burlesque a historical figure, or some combination of the three. There are more than 400 of them throughout the city, although the closer to the city center you get, the larger and more intricate they become, culminating with the grand Falla, over 100 feet tall and featuring more than 30 caricatures.

Here are a few shots of the Grand Falla (like many Fallas, it contains some mild nudity):

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They spend the entire year between festivals, pouring blood, sweat, and tears into these works of art, and then late on the last night of the festival, send them up in flames. Unfortunately our one day excursion lasted only through Sunday morning, about 12 hours short of seeing the fires.

Leaving Granada on Saturday morning at 8 AM, we arrived in Valencia at 5 PM and spent the next five and a half hours wandering the city, admiring the Fallas, eating various types of street food, and having our ear drums repeatedly ruptured by the dynamite-loud firecrackers that everyone from the toddlers the to elderly delighted in toss in the streets. Early on they were startling, but as time passed, and the number of assaults on my ears reached the 1000+ mark, I became more accustomed to the explosions. Then again it might have been the hearing loss associated sudden and recurring 120 decibel sound incursions, but either way, after a while I hardly noticed them.

At around 1 AM we gathered to watch the fireworks, which lasted over an hour and were amazing, and after that we spent the rest of the night hanging out with Spaniards we met and dancing at street parties. At 8 AM we shipped back out on our bus, and curiously arrived in Granada at 3 PM, two hours faster than the initial trip. Las Fallas gets a big thumbs up, A+ for the sheer insanity of the whole thing.

Here are the rest of the pictures from Las Fallas:

An intricate Falla

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Another, one of the best in the festival

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Many Fallas have accompanying miniature Fallas, this is one of them

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An impressive façade leading to a sponsored Falla

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Look at the bottom here

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We had a lot of fun at the medieval fair

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At the challenge of the tienda owner, I completed his nail puzzle twice within 5 minutes, so I got it for free. Curiously, I haven’t been able to separate the two nails since. I guess I work best under pressure. Alex to the right in this photo.

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Two women in traditional Fallas dress

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Everyone seemed to be wearing these scarves, so we got some for ourselves. A little bargaining got us four scarves for 6 Euro. Even so, we were still probably getting ripped off. Oh well.

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A familiar street performer

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Some strange bandito

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The whole crew

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Double pen missiles and two papers. Don’t get it? Go here: http://www.rockpapersaddam.com/one.html

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A low drinking fountain. Possibly for dogs. But hopefully not.

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Carl and Ben eating Buñuelos, little sugary pumpkin pastries

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The type of ordinance the kids were tossing around like we do whippersnappers on the 4^th of July

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Carl and I… straight chilling

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From the fireworks show

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Our hero comes sprinting out of the haze as The Final Countdown blasts in the background

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Spaniards cooking paella in the streets

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Not much to speak of this weekend. I spent Saturday on the beach in Nerja, one of the Coasta de Sol’s most pleasant beachside towns, with a bunch of other kids from CEGRI and also my new German friend Marcus. Marcus just finished school in Germany, and is hiding from “real life” here in Spain before he goes home and has to find a “job”. Not a bad plan if you ask me, one I’ll consider emulating in the future.

At home things are well. The only issue I have at times is that I don’t always get fed enough. This is a rather unique problem it seems, as just about everyone else I talk to, at CEGRI or the other foreign language schools here in town seems to have a Señora who forcibly stuffs food down their esophagus. There is the small issue that I am a bit of a finicky glutton. That might seem like a bit of a paradox, or an oxymoron (and if the latter, cut off the oxy and you’ve got me down to a T, or an M as the case may be), so allow me to explain. I need to eat a lot, but I’m extremely selective in the food that I’ll eat. Andalusia is known for fish and seafood, neither of which is an acceptable plate on my palate. Spain as a whole is also enamored with ham in every form, from sliced lunch meat to cuts of it straight from the cured pig’s leg (these are the full legs of ham of which I’ve had pictures in previous emails). Surprisingly, the ham off the leg is more edible than lunch meat ham, although I’d prefer not to have to eat either. However, I feel that with the sheer volume of dishes I’ve sent back to the kitchen in this home, it would be disastrous to my quest for a full stomach to tell my Señora that I’m not going to eat ham anymore. Never one to take it sitting down, I’ve approached her about this issue a few times, and each time she parries my claims of gastric insatiation, so I’ve taken to buying my own toppers after most meals; yogurt, toastados (similar to gram crackers), and baguettes from the supermarket under our apartment building. The situation isn’t bad enough to warrant a change of homes, I still get along nicely with the family and we have good conversations.

That’s it for this time, thanks for making it to the end.

Other photos:

The Gate to Calle Elvira, the base of Granada’s Albayzin

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In class at UGranada

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One more in class at CEGRI

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Getting ready for dinner at home

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