There's a certain strangeness in the untimely return to a home that you've made your peace with leaving.
A month ago, I *knew* I was seeing Lugano for the last time, at least for a long time. Maybe I'd return there in some distant future, a real person, with a job, with a life, with a new set of eyes. I'd look at the lake, stare up at the mountains, and think to myself: Ah. When I was young and wild and this was my home... And what a beautiful home it was.
Maybe it's just me...
Poetic musings aside, returning seemed natural. I boarded a flight to Malpensa, as I had done dozens of times before, and put myself on autopilot. I knew I would land by noon, waltz through customs (ha! who am I kidding? this is Italy, customs isn't a thing) and catch a 12:15 bus, getting me to Lugano by 1 and up at Franklin by 1:30, at the latest. No concerns about misplaced or incorrect directions, just sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.
And what an odd flight it was (seems to be a trend on this trip) the flight was completely full, not a single empty seat, and it seemed that half the passengers were carrying instruments. By my count, just in my direct line of sight, there were 2 banjos, 2 guitars, a saxophone, a trombone, a trumpet, a flute, and something that looked kind of bagpipe-ish. There was also a large man in a tuxedo...he isn't an instrument, but is certainly worth mentioning. And only a couple of them seemed to know eachother. I eavesdropped for nearly an hour in hopes of a clue, but there was nothing... It didn't help that they were speaking danish :-/
Flash forward one flight/busride and I'm in Lugano, like I never left, like I'm just getting home from a weekend trip all road-weary and full of stories...only I don't have keys...or a bed...or a clean change of clothes...and campus is a ghost town... It's very strange.
Novia meets me at the train station, we buy chicken legs from the supermarket, and walk up to Airone (one of the dorms being used for summer housing)
We curl up on her bed with Hercules the animated series loaded on YouTube and our chicken legs in hand and revel in our reunion.
When Alessandra gets out of class, we hitch a ride with her dad up to the Herman Hesse trail, a walking path in a neighborhood above Sorengo where, apparently, Herman Hesse did much of his musing, and did some musing of our own (and by musing, I mean wandering, goofing off, and taking pictures)
Then we explored the graveyard where he is buried, an extravagant array of stone sculptures and old photographs, some of the graves dating back as far as the 1600s. It's hard not to get lost in the vast maze if it all.
Cross it off the Franklin bucket list (you know, the one I never completed despite my proximity to everything on it...)
Later that evening, it was Eurocup time!! I know, you didn't know I was so in to football/soccer and now every post mentions the match in some way...I guess I just get caught up in the spirit of the continent... Anyway: Italy vs England! And, of course, being in Switaly, watching the game in an Italian household, eating pasta, we were rooting for the hometeam.
And I'm going to say it: most uneventful game ever. But Italy won after overtime and penalty kicks, England cried on the queen's shoulder, we cried with joy that the game was over and we could go to bed, and Switzerland cried because in the next match they would have to pick between Germany and Italy...like picking a favorite child...
So then it was bedtime, I slept forever, woke up, got a sandwich from Valf (a little deli/corner store near the Franklin campus whose sandwiches often haunt my dreams) and sat in the sunshine, devouring it with the joy of a thousand kids on Christmas. I'm pretty sure other things happened...but now I'm distracted by the memory of sandwiches and may be drooling slightly on my trusty wifi enabled device, which is making the screen all slobbery and hard to type on...
Whatever... The next day was my birthday! Woo! Older!
I had a brilliant plan to go to SwissMiniature, but upon realizing it was 20 CHF to get in, 10 to get there, and all my people were in class so I couldn't drag them with me, it lost some appeal. Instead, I read in the great outdoors and basked in the last warm country of my adventure (until the US...but we don't talk about that)
Evening came and I dragged my peeps out to dinner at Giardino (the restaurant under the dorm I lived in the last two years at Franklin) there was pizza and ice cream and good friends and a poorly prepared toast. It was like the classiest 6-year-old birthday party ever, and I was 100% happy with that.
Time flies...the next day was my last full day in Lugano. Novia and I walked downtown with the intention of kebabs, but upon deciding it was too hot for piles o' meat, got mango gelato instead...gelato is food, right?
That night we had a farewell/graduation/birthday dinner at the spaghetti store, a restaurant on the lake that is apparently a Lugano staple... Accidental bucket list addition and subtraction...with whoever was still around. Good food, good people, good conversation, a good final excursion in my Switalian home. We strolled along the lake with our gelato, talking about the strangeness of saying goodbye.
One flight to sweden later: greetings from Stockholm.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Copenhagen: Fire and Rain
Because nothing I do ever makes much sense, I woke up early my last day in Copenhagen and went on the free walking tour (I was determined to understand this city before I left...DETERMINED)
I walked the block to town hall from the hostel, grabbed myself a cup of tea from 7-11 (these are all over Copenhagen. Not a Starbucks in sight, but a million and a half 7-11s) and stood on the steps, watching weddings, waiting for the tour guide, and hoping for a warm sunny day...because I was left pantsless after a slight tearing incident left my only pair of jeans a little less decent for public wear...The weather gods did not oblige.
Danish weather is a strange beast. Over the course of a three hour walking tour (Yes, Gilligan, I said a three hour tour) we had freezing rain, umbrella slaughtering wind, blazingly warm sun, we lacked snow--much to my pantsless/closed-shoeless/sleeveless delight-- but otherwise, Denmark really covered all the weather bases
But I digress.
The walking tour was lead by a Norwegian girl named Aurora. She was super cool and really knew her ish, but what was the main lesson of the tour? Copenhagen is very flammable.
I know you come here for tales, not history (that's what Wikipedia's for, right?) but I'm going to drop some fun factoids on you anyway...Sorry for making you learn.
So, like many cities, Copenhagen had a great fire. It was started late one night when a kid knocked over a candle in the restaurant his parents owned, or so the story goes. Generally, even in days of yore when firemen had to walk 10 miles uphill both ways in the snow to get anywhere, a 1-candle fire in a relatively built up part of town right near the water doesn't do much, but this fire burned down more than half of the city...How could that happen?
Well, the city gate was between the fire and the canal and, as this fire happened at night, the gate was locked. In order to open the city gate, they people of the city needed the permission of the king who was, at this time, asleep at the palace. The firemen discussed and, I imagine, did a lot of "But *I* woke the king from his beauty sleep LAST time"ing before deciding that the king really shouldn't be disturbed and it could wait until morning. Well, morning came, the city was 50% destroyed, the king woke up, opened the gate, they smothered the remaining embers and that was that...
SERIOUSLY? They didn't think that the king would be more pissed off that his city was DESTROYED than that they woke him up? I like sleep as much as the next guy, but that's insane.
70 years later, the flammable folks of Denmark have ANOTHER GREAT FIRE, this one starts on a naval base almost exactly where the last fire stopped and spreads to destroy the OTHER half of the original medieval city. Copenhagen just can't catch a break
Flash forward to 1992, a good year for Denmark, they had just won the Eurocup and were feeling pretty good about themselves. They wanted to celebrate the strength of Denmark as a nation, and what better place to do that than at the one building that was spared from not one but TWO great fires! And how did they choose to celebrate? Fireworks...Fail...Copenhagen weather being what it is, the wind picked up and threw off the path of the fireworks, sending them straight into the palace and, you guessed it! Burning it to the ground.
Flash forward to the end of the tour when I ask Aurora what is going on in the city at night that I should check out. Apparently, it's Sankt Hans! A festival to celebrate midsummer in which they...light bonfires and burn witches (or these days, dolls of witches)...Haven't the Danes learned their lesson about lighting large fires in the city center?
Anyway, the tour ended, I bought the guide a beer over lunch, and went about my way.
Now, the one thing that anyone knows about Copenhagen is that there's a statue of the little mermaid there and anyone who's anyone knows that if you don't come back from Copenhagen with a picture of the mermaid, you probably haven't actually been to Copenhagen, with that in mind, I looked at a map to see how far she was from the endpoint of the tour...The answer: REALLY FAR...One thing you may not know about Copenhagen is that is is home to the second oldest amusement park in the world, Tivoli...so I located that on the map...Not really far...And then the downpour came...
I had a tough decision to make: I could either walk really far, in the freezing rain, to a statue of a mermaid, see it, and walk back, probably still in the rain...OR I could go to the theme park, ride roller coasters in the rain, get completely soaked through, grab dinner, and then walk three blocks to the hostel and pass out...
The choice was clear: Mermaids could suck it! I was going to Tivoli!!
I went on all the rides, wandered the park, watched kids use round tables as a log-rolling game, saw a pantomime show where people got fish-slapped, saw a big-band show on the mainstage, watched them burn witch dolls on the pond and got yelled at for my inappropriate footwear.
It was the right decision even though now I've apparently probably never actually been to Copenhagen....Oops...Worth it...
Next stop: Lugano (again? Yeah, I know, backtracking isn't usually my thing, but I couldn't resist spending my birthday with friends...)
I walked the block to town hall from the hostel, grabbed myself a cup of tea from 7-11 (these are all over Copenhagen. Not a Starbucks in sight, but a million and a half 7-11s) and stood on the steps, watching weddings, waiting for the tour guide, and hoping for a warm sunny day...because I was left pantsless after a slight tearing incident left my only pair of jeans a little less decent for public wear...The weather gods did not oblige.
Danish weather is a strange beast. Over the course of a three hour walking tour (Yes, Gilligan, I said a three hour tour) we had freezing rain, umbrella slaughtering wind, blazingly warm sun, we lacked snow--much to my pantsless/closed-shoeless/sleeveless delight-- but otherwise, Denmark really covered all the weather bases
But I digress.
The walking tour was lead by a Norwegian girl named Aurora. She was super cool and really knew her ish, but what was the main lesson of the tour? Copenhagen is very flammable.
I know you come here for tales, not history (that's what Wikipedia's for, right?) but I'm going to drop some fun factoids on you anyway...Sorry for making you learn.
So, like many cities, Copenhagen had a great fire. It was started late one night when a kid knocked over a candle in the restaurant his parents owned, or so the story goes. Generally, even in days of yore when firemen had to walk 10 miles uphill both ways in the snow to get anywhere, a 1-candle fire in a relatively built up part of town right near the water doesn't do much, but this fire burned down more than half of the city...How could that happen?
Well, the city gate was between the fire and the canal and, as this fire happened at night, the gate was locked. In order to open the city gate, they people of the city needed the permission of the king who was, at this time, asleep at the palace. The firemen discussed and, I imagine, did a lot of "But *I* woke the king from his beauty sleep LAST time"ing before deciding that the king really shouldn't be disturbed and it could wait until morning. Well, morning came, the city was 50% destroyed, the king woke up, opened the gate, they smothered the remaining embers and that was that...
SERIOUSLY? They didn't think that the king would be more pissed off that his city was DESTROYED than that they woke him up? I like sleep as much as the next guy, but that's insane.
70 years later, the flammable folks of Denmark have ANOTHER GREAT FIRE, this one starts on a naval base almost exactly where the last fire stopped and spreads to destroy the OTHER half of the original medieval city. Copenhagen just can't catch a break
Flash forward to 1992, a good year for Denmark, they had just won the Eurocup and were feeling pretty good about themselves. They wanted to celebrate the strength of Denmark as a nation, and what better place to do that than at the one building that was spared from not one but TWO great fires! And how did they choose to celebrate? Fireworks...Fail...Copenhagen weather being what it is, the wind picked up and threw off the path of the fireworks, sending them straight into the palace and, you guessed it! Burning it to the ground.
Flash forward to the end of the tour when I ask Aurora what is going on in the city at night that I should check out. Apparently, it's Sankt Hans! A festival to celebrate midsummer in which they...light bonfires and burn witches (or these days, dolls of witches)...Haven't the Danes learned their lesson about lighting large fires in the city center?
Anyway, the tour ended, I bought the guide a beer over lunch, and went about my way.
Now, the one thing that anyone knows about Copenhagen is that there's a statue of the little mermaid there and anyone who's anyone knows that if you don't come back from Copenhagen with a picture of the mermaid, you probably haven't actually been to Copenhagen, with that in mind, I looked at a map to see how far she was from the endpoint of the tour...The answer: REALLY FAR...One thing you may not know about Copenhagen is that is is home to the second oldest amusement park in the world, Tivoli...so I located that on the map...Not really far...And then the downpour came...
I had a tough decision to make: I could either walk really far, in the freezing rain, to a statue of a mermaid, see it, and walk back, probably still in the rain...OR I could go to the theme park, ride roller coasters in the rain, get completely soaked through, grab dinner, and then walk three blocks to the hostel and pass out...
The choice was clear: Mermaids could suck it! I was going to Tivoli!!
I went on all the rides, wandered the park, watched kids use round tables as a log-rolling game, saw a pantomime show where people got fish-slapped, saw a big-band show on the mainstage, watched them burn witch dolls on the pond and got yelled at for my inappropriate footwear.
It was the right decision even though now I've apparently probably never actually been to Copenhagen....Oops...Worth it...
Next stop: Lugano (again? Yeah, I know, backtracking isn't usually my thing, but I couldn't resist spending my birthday with friends...)
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Copenhagen: Failure and Friendship
1 sleep later: I woke up for a free walking tour (because this city confuses me and I needed help) but upon seeing the windy grey cold raininess that was the outside world, I gave myself another 2 hours of sleep.
I woke up happier, but no less confused by Copenhagen. I found a less confusing map and set out to wander, knowing that I couldn't get lost in a city this small. Wrong. I somehow managed to walk off the edge of the map, in the pouring rain, the map got soaked to the point of uselessness, and then POOF! Three turns later, I was somehow at the back gate of Christiansborg Palace...I swear this city has portals.
Insane.
I wandered the grounds, accidentally broke into the king's library, made friends with snails, offended grandmas who didn't realize I spoke English by "looking too happy" near the Jewish museum... Idiots.
Drenched and confused, I returned to the hostel, changed, and seeking order: found a pub crawl flyer and decided it was a better idea than exploring on my own anymore (plus: it was a VIKING PUB CRAWL!! There were supposed to be horned hats!! I can't say no to hats!!)
I walked to the meeting point, got told it had changed, walked to the new meeting point, got told it was at the old meeting point, waited 30 minutes and gave up. Vikings can get hammered without me. (lol...Vikings...hammered...lol)
Mildly defeated, I returned to the hostel, hoping to find adventure, or maybe just a beer and my bed... Whatever, if there weren't horned hats I wasn't going to be picky.
In the lobby, I ran into Sunny, who was chatting with a group of guys who had just checked into her room, and like that, the night took a positive turn (friendly faces will have that effect on you)
We chatted for a while about how disturbingly sweet cider is in Scandinavian countries, why Justin Bieber is interesting (but still worthy of some degree of musical disdain), and why I'm so friggin good at identifying accents--which, by the way, is a great party trick I've cultivated whilst overseas.
At some point, two of the guys went out for a smoke and never returned. Upon realizing this, a third guy rallied the troops (me, sunny, and the fourth guy) to go find them. We made it about a block before deciding that this likely wouldn't work and ducked into an incredibly lively little bar near the university (always a safe bet for reasonable night life options)
Once we wrestled our way into a table and got ourselves 4 of the house beer, we people watched and reveled in the eclectic mix of vintage music the dj was spinning--yes, on actual vinyl! I was pretty pumped.
We decided to wander out and...erm...lost(?) sunny and Aussie number 4, so number 3 and I continued on in the original quest of finding thing 1 and thing 2. We made it to the bar 3 thought they may have gone to, but when we realized they were charging a cover, we re-prioritized and headed to the hotdog stand.
Danes love hotdogs. It is pretty much their only street food and it's on every street corner... Oh, and they eat the bread/condiments on the side, which was interesting.
Overwhelmed and hungry, I asked the two Danish men behind me what I should order, this sparked a long discussion about the best kind and why I was lucky to have made it to this particular stand because it was the best in the city (the same guy had run it in the same location for 15 years or more) and how they often drove across the city just to go there. They decided on my order (a bacon-wrapped hotdog with ketchup, mustard, and onions...bread on the side) and placed it for me to insure that I got the right thing. By this point, number three was long gone... Oops...
The hotdog was an epic success, I thanked the men profusely for their input/assistance and asked if they had any other recommendations for my time in Copenhagen.
"Well, what are you doing now?"
I told them that I was just going to walk back to my hostel and maybe sleep.
They debated and discussed in Danish and then turned back to me and said, "No, that won't do...We're going to the moose."
Here goes nothing...
They ushered me off the main square and down a side street to a superbly crowded little place called The Moose, pushed their way up to the bar, greeted the bartender, and emerged with three beers telling me I was not allowed to pay them back for it because *they* were *real* adults with *real* paying jobs and, having once been in my shoes, they were just doing the right thing and that some day soon, when I find myself in their position, they are sure I'll do the same for another broke young traveler and they would consider that to be me paying them back.
Fair enough, sirs, fair enough.
We wandered into the back room, a graffiti-coated chamber of fooseball and couches, and talked about life, careers, youth, and idiot mistakes made at bachelor parties.
We departed The Moose and went our separate ways.
Upon realizing how bright the sky was, I took a moment to check the time (3:45) and then decided to sit and revel in the glory of the brightness of summer solstice when one is that far north... It's pretty cool.
I'm about to leave when a man sits down next to me, apologies, introduces himself, apologizes again, and then begins asking me deep philosophical questions about enlightenment and the significance of loneliness. He told me of his life in Pakistan as a doctor and how, living in Denmark, he couldn't be a doctor anymore and was working 18 hours a day at a kiosk just to make ends meet and help out his parents and siblings in Pakistan. He asked how I could travel alone, said he'd lived in Copenhagen for three years and hadn't seen any of the sights because he couldn't see the significance if he had to do it alone. He asked if I would go with him so he could see Copenhagen while he still had time before work, but I chose to sleep, telling him my insights on the zen of solo travel and encouraging him to give it a try as my parting words. It may not have been what he wanted, but it certainly didn't hurt.
I got home, climbed the 6 flights up to my room, and went to sleep, content with the evening's recovery and sincerely hoping that the doctor had taken my advice.
The ability to see the significance of expanding your own worldview and being alone with your thoughts is a skill worth cultivating.
I woke up happier, but no less confused by Copenhagen. I found a less confusing map and set out to wander, knowing that I couldn't get lost in a city this small. Wrong. I somehow managed to walk off the edge of the map, in the pouring rain, the map got soaked to the point of uselessness, and then POOF! Three turns later, I was somehow at the back gate of Christiansborg Palace...I swear this city has portals.
Insane.
I wandered the grounds, accidentally broke into the king's library, made friends with snails, offended grandmas who didn't realize I spoke English by "looking too happy" near the Jewish museum... Idiots.
Drenched and confused, I returned to the hostel, changed, and seeking order: found a pub crawl flyer and decided it was a better idea than exploring on my own anymore (plus: it was a VIKING PUB CRAWL!! There were supposed to be horned hats!! I can't say no to hats!!)
I walked to the meeting point, got told it had changed, walked to the new meeting point, got told it was at the old meeting point, waited 30 minutes and gave up. Vikings can get hammered without me. (lol...Vikings...hammered...lol)
Mildly defeated, I returned to the hostel, hoping to find adventure, or maybe just a beer and my bed... Whatever, if there weren't horned hats I wasn't going to be picky.
In the lobby, I ran into Sunny, who was chatting with a group of guys who had just checked into her room, and like that, the night took a positive turn (friendly faces will have that effect on you)
We chatted for a while about how disturbingly sweet cider is in Scandinavian countries, why Justin Bieber is interesting (but still worthy of some degree of musical disdain), and why I'm so friggin good at identifying accents--which, by the way, is a great party trick I've cultivated whilst overseas.
At some point, two of the guys went out for a smoke and never returned. Upon realizing this, a third guy rallied the troops (me, sunny, and the fourth guy) to go find them. We made it about a block before deciding that this likely wouldn't work and ducked into an incredibly lively little bar near the university (always a safe bet for reasonable night life options)
Once we wrestled our way into a table and got ourselves 4 of the house beer, we people watched and reveled in the eclectic mix of vintage music the dj was spinning--yes, on actual vinyl! I was pretty pumped.
We decided to wander out and...erm...lost(?) sunny and Aussie number 4, so number 3 and I continued on in the original quest of finding thing 1 and thing 2. We made it to the bar 3 thought they may have gone to, but when we realized they were charging a cover, we re-prioritized and headed to the hotdog stand.
Danes love hotdogs. It is pretty much their only street food and it's on every street corner... Oh, and they eat the bread/condiments on the side, which was interesting.
Overwhelmed and hungry, I asked the two Danish men behind me what I should order, this sparked a long discussion about the best kind and why I was lucky to have made it to this particular stand because it was the best in the city (the same guy had run it in the same location for 15 years or more) and how they often drove across the city just to go there. They decided on my order (a bacon-wrapped hotdog with ketchup, mustard, and onions...bread on the side) and placed it for me to insure that I got the right thing. By this point, number three was long gone... Oops...
The hotdog was an epic success, I thanked the men profusely for their input/assistance and asked if they had any other recommendations for my time in Copenhagen.
"Well, what are you doing now?"
I told them that I was just going to walk back to my hostel and maybe sleep.
They debated and discussed in Danish and then turned back to me and said, "No, that won't do...We're going to the moose."
Here goes nothing...
They ushered me off the main square and down a side street to a superbly crowded little place called The Moose, pushed their way up to the bar, greeted the bartender, and emerged with three beers telling me I was not allowed to pay them back for it because *they* were *real* adults with *real* paying jobs and, having once been in my shoes, they were just doing the right thing and that some day soon, when I find myself in their position, they are sure I'll do the same for another broke young traveler and they would consider that to be me paying them back.
Fair enough, sirs, fair enough.
We wandered into the back room, a graffiti-coated chamber of fooseball and couches, and talked about life, careers, youth, and idiot mistakes made at bachelor parties.
We departed The Moose and went our separate ways.
Upon realizing how bright the sky was, I took a moment to check the time (3:45) and then decided to sit and revel in the glory of the brightness of summer solstice when one is that far north... It's pretty cool.
I'm about to leave when a man sits down next to me, apologies, introduces himself, apologizes again, and then begins asking me deep philosophical questions about enlightenment and the significance of loneliness. He told me of his life in Pakistan as a doctor and how, living in Denmark, he couldn't be a doctor anymore and was working 18 hours a day at a kiosk just to make ends meet and help out his parents and siblings in Pakistan. He asked how I could travel alone, said he'd lived in Copenhagen for three years and hadn't seen any of the sights because he couldn't see the significance if he had to do it alone. He asked if I would go with him so he could see Copenhagen while he still had time before work, but I chose to sleep, telling him my insights on the zen of solo travel and encouraging him to give it a try as my parting words. It may not have been what he wanted, but it certainly didn't hurt.
I got home, climbed the 6 flights up to my room, and went to sleep, content with the evening's recovery and sincerely hoping that the doctor had taken my advice.
The ability to see the significance of expanding your own worldview and being alone with your thoughts is a skill worth cultivating.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Judging by covers, not just for books
I landed in Copenhagen at noon without having slept in over 24 hours (why not on the longer-than-most-European-flights flight, you ask? Two words: crying baby. If this thing was a big bad wolf, it could have easily blown all those piggy houses down, even the stone one, no huffing or puffing required. And it was thrashing about in the seat behind me...joy)
After ditching the enfant terrible, I hopped on the metro toward my hostel, confident that I had the directions and address in at least three locations, just in case. The directions were simple: leave the metro stop, walk straight, hostel is on the square with the fountain. First mistakenly judged cover. Directions: not simple. Directions: lies.
Straight out of the metro is the wrong street...and it ends in a square with a fountain...without the hostel. The correct street? Actually 4 down from the exit from the metro stop... So I made my way down the CORRECT street and, after a decent walk, ended at a square with a big fountain. I walked all around it looking for the hostel and it was nowhere to be found, so I kept looking down the street...nothing. I eventually find a map and locate the address on it and walk to the street. I look and see the hostel, only the "square" is a widened sidewalk with cafe seating and the "fountain" is a small dribbling statue. Hostel direction fail.
I walk into reception, a brightly colored and eclectically decorated bar with hats for lampshades, jackelope skulls mounted on the wall, and a giant padded platform for reading/napping. Awesome, hip, homey, I thought, a great place to meet people... Cover-judgement fail 2. Most of the people in the bar/lounge area are locals, stopping by for cheap beer rather than friend making. Also weird? The hostel has a completely separate entrance, meaning post-check in you have to leave the building to go to your room. An odd hostel indeed. Also apparently the beds flip on a central axis, so if you're too far on one side, it tilts and tosses you off. This greatly upset the Finnish footballers in my room...
Anyway, after waiting 2 hours for my bed to be ready for me, I battled with the idea of a shower/nap combo, but in the end, decided that exploring was more important...and by exploring, I mean food. So I looked at a map, got confused, ditched the map, saw a lot of pretty buildings that I was pretty sure were important in some way, followed my nose to Thai food, and somehow found my way back to the hostel. After convincing myself that I still shouldn't sleep, I went down to the bar to watch Portugal kick asses and take names, because my brain still thought it was in Lisbon.
Apparently my glazed over sleep depravation read as serious boredom, so I got whisked away to chat with a Norwegian/Texan/Brooklynite stage manager named Sunny.
At 1 AM, we agreed it was bed time and parted ways.
More Copenhagen adventures and misadventures are forthcoming. iPod typing is just more than my eyes can handle at this point.
After ditching the enfant terrible, I hopped on the metro toward my hostel, confident that I had the directions and address in at least three locations, just in case. The directions were simple: leave the metro stop, walk straight, hostel is on the square with the fountain. First mistakenly judged cover. Directions: not simple. Directions: lies.
Straight out of the metro is the wrong street...and it ends in a square with a fountain...without the hostel. The correct street? Actually 4 down from the exit from the metro stop... So I made my way down the CORRECT street and, after a decent walk, ended at a square with a big fountain. I walked all around it looking for the hostel and it was nowhere to be found, so I kept looking down the street...nothing. I eventually find a map and locate the address on it and walk to the street. I look and see the hostel, only the "square" is a widened sidewalk with cafe seating and the "fountain" is a small dribbling statue. Hostel direction fail.
I walk into reception, a brightly colored and eclectically decorated bar with hats for lampshades, jackelope skulls mounted on the wall, and a giant padded platform for reading/napping. Awesome, hip, homey, I thought, a great place to meet people... Cover-judgement fail 2. Most of the people in the bar/lounge area are locals, stopping by for cheap beer rather than friend making. Also weird? The hostel has a completely separate entrance, meaning post-check in you have to leave the building to go to your room. An odd hostel indeed. Also apparently the beds flip on a central axis, so if you're too far on one side, it tilts and tosses you off. This greatly upset the Finnish footballers in my room...
Anyway, after waiting 2 hours for my bed to be ready for me, I battled with the idea of a shower/nap combo, but in the end, decided that exploring was more important...and by exploring, I mean food. So I looked at a map, got confused, ditched the map, saw a lot of pretty buildings that I was pretty sure were important in some way, followed my nose to Thai food, and somehow found my way back to the hostel. After convincing myself that I still shouldn't sleep, I went down to the bar to watch Portugal kick asses and take names, because my brain still thought it was in Lisbon.
Apparently my glazed over sleep depravation read as serious boredom, so I got whisked away to chat with a Norwegian/Texan/Brooklynite stage manager named Sunny.
At 1 AM, we agreed it was bed time and parted ways.
More Copenhagen adventures and misadventures are forthcoming. iPod typing is just more than my eyes can handle at this point.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Not dead yet...
First things first: Lisbon lasted longer than expected, three nights became five nights, I write you now from the airport on my way out.
I wish the reason for this was purely pleasure... :-/
When last we spoke, it was night two, I was watching Portugal beat Holland in a Eurocup match, and I had grand plans to leave to my next city, wherever that may be, in a day or so.
So what happened?
Portugal won, free beer for all--If Portugal wins, we all win--I ate a glorious hostel-family dinner (a proper 3-course meal, plus dessert and drink for just over the cost of a grocery store meal, this alone easily places my Lisbon hostel in my top five, a fierce competition indeed) met some lovely people, and, despite feeing out of sorts, went out on an adventure.
It was Sunday, and my new friends the CanadiAsians decided that shouldn't stop it from being party night, so we searched far and wide for the white whale, a club open on Sunday. A leap of faith, a 40 minute walk, and a sketchy bridge across train tracks/ wander behind a police station later, we found an Irish pub in which to watch the NBA game AND a club with agreeable music and no charge for ladies (a definite plus) we danced like mad people, we tired ourselves out, and we walked back to the hostel.
A good time was had by all, and I went to sleep with all reasonable intention of going on the walking tour in the morning, but this was not in the cards.
I did wake up in the morning...in full on flu-bug death mode. Fever, chills, pain, yeah, travel had caught up with me, and it was not pretty...it never is.
I tried to get myself out the door, but my body wouldn't allow it, it seemed my day was to be spent popping aspirin and sleeping. As much as I hate to do it, even the most dedicated traveler has got their off day, this was mine, and fortunately it paid off! After rescheduling my flight plans to accommodate illness and extending my stay in Lisbon for two more nights, my body recovered (yeah, it took a full 24+ hours of sleep and all the orange juice money could buy, but it was worth it to be back on my game by noon the next day) and all was well.
I decided to stop trying to make the walking tour and instead wandered my way up the winding roads, past the ruins of the roman theater (an unexpected bonus! They've uncovered about a third of it, it looks like a huge construction site in the middle of the street, but if you're nosey and creep through the gate, you realize that you can go in and walk around and read all kinds of informative tales of roman times) to the Castle of Sao Jorge. After deciding to spend the 8€ to get in, I made a full afternoon of it...got to get your money's worth, amIright? So I strolled around the grounds, stalked peacocks, napped in the sun on a particularly cozy portion of the castle wall, accidentally kicked my shoe off of said portion of the wall, ran down from my perch to fetch it (and succeeded, a good thing since I am only traveling with one pair of shoes and I'm not partial to hopping) got laughed at by a courtyard full of people, got photographed by the quintessential Asian tour group, watched a group of old Portugese men play poker, reveled in the simple science of periscopes in the Ulysses tower, listened to a fado performance, watched a feral cat slaughter a pigeon, and became the personal photographer for a French couple. After deciding that was enough adventure for one day, I made my way to the supermarket, bought nectarines, and made my way back to the shady elephant for a snack. I befriended a great dane puppy, gave a nectarine to a homeless man, got judged by a hip 4-year old, and, deciding I had earned a nap, returned to the hostel and passed out for 3 hours in the way that only a recovering sick traveller can (1 shoe still on, fully clothed, half vertical, probably drooling a little, completely unwakeable)
Fortunately: Lisbon does food late. I went downstairs and joined hostel family dinner, duck rice--like Portuguese pallella/jambalaya with chorizo, bacon, and duck...I will master this recipe and eat it regularly and be such a happy camper. Made new friends, caught up with old friends, and, feeling well rested from the nap and guilty for having slept a full 24 hours the day before, decided to join my hostel folks on the pub crawl. Bar one was good, bar two was too crowded, but not bad...UNTIL a bar fight broke out between the guys standing on either side of me (not people I knew) and one guy punched the other guy so many times that he passed out on the ground. Generally, this means you have won the fight, you let his friends help him up, maybe punch him once more for good measure, high five your friends and go about your life... Not in Lisbon... Apparently in Lisbon, this means it's time to CURB STOMP THE UNCONSCIOUS GUY. Seriously? How is that ok?? Security eventually pulled him off and I, still trapped in the middle, watched with bated breath as a bunch of people tried desperately to wake the guy who was down, eventually succeeding after a full 3 minutes (doesn't sound too long until you're me and think you've just witnessed a man get beaten to death/coma/whatever...then anything more than instantly is too much)
What's worse? The near-death guy is the one they kicked out even though he didn't throw a single punch. Deciding this was not an establishment I had any interest in supporting, I went outside to breathe, settle my nerves, and wait for the crawl to move along.
We walked to the next and last place, but no one really felt much like dancing, so half an hour later, we walked home.
I arrived home to an empty room (odd when there are six beds) and slept the restful slumber of someone who was so very glad she had not been curb stomped.
I woke up to a full house, planned my direction for the day, and peaced out for my last day of Portugese exploration: Belem Tower, not actually the golden gate bridge, Discovery Monument, Jeronimo Monastery, postcard buying/writing, and a nice long walk back along the river.
The actual sightseeing was quite successful, uneventful, and not really blog-fodder, but interesting and successful.
The story comes when I bought stamps. I asked for fourteen stamps and was buying 10 postcards, marked at .5€, I thought... In my mind, I approximated that this would cost about 19€ at the most...so when it came up to 30€, I was a little shocked, so I asked for a breakdown to which the woman said, "postcards 1€, stamps expensive. You want less stamps?" but I needed 14, so I just went with it. Upon arriving at the cafe to write them, I discovered the problem...I said fourteen...She heard forty...
That said: if I had your address, I tried to send some gloriously unconventional mail rather than buy more postcards...we'll see how far the Portuguese postal system will let me push it when/if things start arriving in a week or so.
Frustrated at my stamps, I decided a nice long walk was exactly what I needed... Only when I got outside it had dropped 20 degrees and a storm was blowing in... And I was just getting over being sick and without a jacket...I walked 2 blocks and then quit and took the tram home. I returned to the hostel, finished writing and addressing 40 pieces of mail, saw it was nearly shots o'clock, and decided to participate one last time...then shots turned into gooodbye beers, which turned into dancing, which became a great end to what started as a rocky evening.
Once all the darling hoodlums went out/to bed, I stayed up the rest of the night talking with Luis, who was working the night shift, about hostel life, it's ups and downs, about home, about travel, about people, and life experience--and even a little about music, Kanye, dubstep, and the internationality of club music.
As the rowdy drunk folk rolled back in, I knew it was time to pack my bags and say my goodbyes.
I kind of miss it all already :-/
I wish the reason for this was purely pleasure... :-/
When last we spoke, it was night two, I was watching Portugal beat Holland in a Eurocup match, and I had grand plans to leave to my next city, wherever that may be, in a day or so.
So what happened?
Portugal won, free beer for all--If Portugal wins, we all win--I ate a glorious hostel-family dinner (a proper 3-course meal, plus dessert and drink for just over the cost of a grocery store meal, this alone easily places my Lisbon hostel in my top five, a fierce competition indeed) met some lovely people, and, despite feeing out of sorts, went out on an adventure.
It was Sunday, and my new friends the CanadiAsians decided that shouldn't stop it from being party night, so we searched far and wide for the white whale, a club open on Sunday. A leap of faith, a 40 minute walk, and a sketchy bridge across train tracks/ wander behind a police station later, we found an Irish pub in which to watch the NBA game AND a club with agreeable music and no charge for ladies (a definite plus) we danced like mad people, we tired ourselves out, and we walked back to the hostel.
A good time was had by all, and I went to sleep with all reasonable intention of going on the walking tour in the morning, but this was not in the cards.
I did wake up in the morning...in full on flu-bug death mode. Fever, chills, pain, yeah, travel had caught up with me, and it was not pretty...it never is.
I tried to get myself out the door, but my body wouldn't allow it, it seemed my day was to be spent popping aspirin and sleeping. As much as I hate to do it, even the most dedicated traveler has got their off day, this was mine, and fortunately it paid off! After rescheduling my flight plans to accommodate illness and extending my stay in Lisbon for two more nights, my body recovered (yeah, it took a full 24+ hours of sleep and all the orange juice money could buy, but it was worth it to be back on my game by noon the next day) and all was well.
I decided to stop trying to make the walking tour and instead wandered my way up the winding roads, past the ruins of the roman theater (an unexpected bonus! They've uncovered about a third of it, it looks like a huge construction site in the middle of the street, but if you're nosey and creep through the gate, you realize that you can go in and walk around and read all kinds of informative tales of roman times) to the Castle of Sao Jorge. After deciding to spend the 8€ to get in, I made a full afternoon of it...got to get your money's worth, amIright? So I strolled around the grounds, stalked peacocks, napped in the sun on a particularly cozy portion of the castle wall, accidentally kicked my shoe off of said portion of the wall, ran down from my perch to fetch it (and succeeded, a good thing since I am only traveling with one pair of shoes and I'm not partial to hopping) got laughed at by a courtyard full of people, got photographed by the quintessential Asian tour group, watched a group of old Portugese men play poker, reveled in the simple science of periscopes in the Ulysses tower, listened to a fado performance, watched a feral cat slaughter a pigeon, and became the personal photographer for a French couple. After deciding that was enough adventure for one day, I made my way to the supermarket, bought nectarines, and made my way back to the shady elephant for a snack. I befriended a great dane puppy, gave a nectarine to a homeless man, got judged by a hip 4-year old, and, deciding I had earned a nap, returned to the hostel and passed out for 3 hours in the way that only a recovering sick traveller can (1 shoe still on, fully clothed, half vertical, probably drooling a little, completely unwakeable)
Fortunately: Lisbon does food late. I went downstairs and joined hostel family dinner, duck rice--like Portuguese pallella/jambalaya with chorizo, bacon, and duck...I will master this recipe and eat it regularly and be such a happy camper. Made new friends, caught up with old friends, and, feeling well rested from the nap and guilty for having slept a full 24 hours the day before, decided to join my hostel folks on the pub crawl. Bar one was good, bar two was too crowded, but not bad...UNTIL a bar fight broke out between the guys standing on either side of me (not people I knew) and one guy punched the other guy so many times that he passed out on the ground. Generally, this means you have won the fight, you let his friends help him up, maybe punch him once more for good measure, high five your friends and go about your life... Not in Lisbon... Apparently in Lisbon, this means it's time to CURB STOMP THE UNCONSCIOUS GUY. Seriously? How is that ok?? Security eventually pulled him off and I, still trapped in the middle, watched with bated breath as a bunch of people tried desperately to wake the guy who was down, eventually succeeding after a full 3 minutes (doesn't sound too long until you're me and think you've just witnessed a man get beaten to death/coma/whatever...then anything more than instantly is too much)
What's worse? The near-death guy is the one they kicked out even though he didn't throw a single punch. Deciding this was not an establishment I had any interest in supporting, I went outside to breathe, settle my nerves, and wait for the crawl to move along.
We walked to the next and last place, but no one really felt much like dancing, so half an hour later, we walked home.
I arrived home to an empty room (odd when there are six beds) and slept the restful slumber of someone who was so very glad she had not been curb stomped.
I woke up to a full house, planned my direction for the day, and peaced out for my last day of Portugese exploration: Belem Tower, not actually the golden gate bridge, Discovery Monument, Jeronimo Monastery, postcard buying/writing, and a nice long walk back along the river.
The actual sightseeing was quite successful, uneventful, and not really blog-fodder, but interesting and successful.
The story comes when I bought stamps. I asked for fourteen stamps and was buying 10 postcards, marked at .5€, I thought... In my mind, I approximated that this would cost about 19€ at the most...so when it came up to 30€, I was a little shocked, so I asked for a breakdown to which the woman said, "postcards 1€, stamps expensive. You want less stamps?" but I needed 14, so I just went with it. Upon arriving at the cafe to write them, I discovered the problem...I said fourteen...She heard forty...
That said: if I had your address, I tried to send some gloriously unconventional mail rather than buy more postcards...we'll see how far the Portuguese postal system will let me push it when/if things start arriving in a week or so.
Frustrated at my stamps, I decided a nice long walk was exactly what I needed... Only when I got outside it had dropped 20 degrees and a storm was blowing in... And I was just getting over being sick and without a jacket...I walked 2 blocks and then quit and took the tram home. I returned to the hostel, finished writing and addressing 40 pieces of mail, saw it was nearly shots o'clock, and decided to participate one last time...then shots turned into gooodbye beers, which turned into dancing, which became a great end to what started as a rocky evening.
Once all the darling hoodlums went out/to bed, I stayed up the rest of the night talking with Luis, who was working the night shift, about hostel life, it's ups and downs, about home, about travel, about people, and life experience--and even a little about music, Kanye, dubstep, and the internationality of club music.
As the rowdy drunk folk rolled back in, I knew it was time to pack my bags and say my goodbyes.
I kind of miss it all already :-/
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Galaxies far, far away.
Here's for yesterday, because actual yesterday got away from me...I guess it's for today too.
Yesterday, I checked out of my hostel in Sevilla and, with 5 hours until my bus, made my way to the now much talked about planet of Naboo.
5 hours to make it to Naboo, back to the hostel to grab my backpack, and make my bus? How far far away can this galaxy be?
Ok, I'll stop with the nerdy cryptic thing...
Yesterday I went to the Plaza de Espana. Google it. I'll wait...
A) it's friggin cool. Built for the 1929 Ibero-American exhibition, it is a semi-circular building with tiled alcoves depicting each of the provinces in Spain...and it has a moat that you can row-boat around.
B) does it look familiar to you? If not, look again...Anakin and Padme's entrance to Naboo in Episode 2 was filmed there, also, parts of Lawrence of Arabia...but seriously...Naboo...awesome.
I stayed there for an unbelievably long time, wandering the weapons exhibit, listening to a man play Spanish guitar in an alcove with amazing acoustics, and going from pushy vendor to pushy vendor telling them that if they could teach me to play the castanets, that then I'd buy a pair...I am still without castanets, but it was fun seeing how frustrated they were with me and each vendor just trying to out teach the others so I would buy from them.
Apparently I'm unteachable.
Anyway, then it was bus time. I picked up my handy dandy backpack and made my way to the bus station where began my 7-hour ride to Lisbon.
Buses and I have a love/hate relationship. I love taking the scenic route, the rolling landscapes, farm land, industrial wasteland, sprawling highway graffiti, slums, and suburbs that are otherwise hidden from the location-specific traveler. I hate the inability to roll down windows, the snorers, the phone-talkers, and the ever present stench of the on board toilet, even if the door is never opened.
But you take what you can get and you appreciate the experience for what it is: a 30€ adventure.
The highway to Lisbon is lined with sunflower fields, olive trees, horses, cows, and sheep. Bulls rest in the shade of low hanging trees, and I struggle not to name them Ferdinand and warn them about bees. A Portuguese woman tries to teach her Spanish friends useful phrases and they reply by singing Ai Se Eu Te Pego. The bus driver compulsively checks the Eurocup scores, and the bus almost tips when we pass a city on fire, swarmed with bucket-toting helicopters, emitting thick orange-brown smoke. The sun sets as we pull into Lisbon, and I begin my trip to the hostel mapless and in the dark.
The hostel directions are simple: take the green or blue subway line to the station where the intersect, exit, turn right, dead end, turn left and then...forget the rest of the directions, realize that you left the paper you wrote it on next to the hostel computer in Sevilla, that your wifi-enabled device is dead, and that no one, no matter how well known it is among travelers, can ever point you in the direction of a hostel. Ask the nearest hotel if you can use their lobby computer, get told it's .5€ for 15 minutes, agree out of desperation, get your information in 1 minute, flat, and profusely thank the woman at the desk, who hands you back your .5€ and says with a wink, "only 1 minute? We say internet was down."
<3 people.
I walked into the hostel just in time for "Shots O'clock" a Yes! hostel tradition of free shots at 11:30. I then sat down with the only two people who didn't speak English...at all..and spent an hour chatting in broken Spanglish and hand gestures, also in last night's cast of characters: a drunk Canadian who worshipped Biggie Smalls, an Oregonian who went to high school with a Franklin friend, a British stag party, and a VERY forward (though ultimately unsuccessful) Slavic man.
Upon realizing it was 5 am, it was bedtime.
Today I missed the 10 am walking tour, as was to be expected, and instead, followed cool graffiti up to a church, accidentally invaded a baptism, found a supermarket, and feasted on fresh-baked bread, ham, and cheese in the shadow of a statue of an elephant.
Now, back at the hostel, I'm watching the Portugal/Holland Eurocup match...the hostel bar has stopped serving the one Holland fan... I think I like this place.
Yesterday, I checked out of my hostel in Sevilla and, with 5 hours until my bus, made my way to the now much talked about planet of Naboo.
5 hours to make it to Naboo, back to the hostel to grab my backpack, and make my bus? How far far away can this galaxy be?
Ok, I'll stop with the nerdy cryptic thing...
Yesterday I went to the Plaza de Espana. Google it. I'll wait...
A) it's friggin cool. Built for the 1929 Ibero-American exhibition, it is a semi-circular building with tiled alcoves depicting each of the provinces in Spain...and it has a moat that you can row-boat around.
B) does it look familiar to you? If not, look again...Anakin and Padme's entrance to Naboo in Episode 2 was filmed there, also, parts of Lawrence of Arabia...but seriously...Naboo...awesome.
I stayed there for an unbelievably long time, wandering the weapons exhibit, listening to a man play Spanish guitar in an alcove with amazing acoustics, and going from pushy vendor to pushy vendor telling them that if they could teach me to play the castanets, that then I'd buy a pair...I am still without castanets, but it was fun seeing how frustrated they were with me and each vendor just trying to out teach the others so I would buy from them.
Apparently I'm unteachable.
Anyway, then it was bus time. I picked up my handy dandy backpack and made my way to the bus station where began my 7-hour ride to Lisbon.
Buses and I have a love/hate relationship. I love taking the scenic route, the rolling landscapes, farm land, industrial wasteland, sprawling highway graffiti, slums, and suburbs that are otherwise hidden from the location-specific traveler. I hate the inability to roll down windows, the snorers, the phone-talkers, and the ever present stench of the on board toilet, even if the door is never opened.
But you take what you can get and you appreciate the experience for what it is: a 30€ adventure.
The highway to Lisbon is lined with sunflower fields, olive trees, horses, cows, and sheep. Bulls rest in the shade of low hanging trees, and I struggle not to name them Ferdinand and warn them about bees. A Portuguese woman tries to teach her Spanish friends useful phrases and they reply by singing Ai Se Eu Te Pego. The bus driver compulsively checks the Eurocup scores, and the bus almost tips when we pass a city on fire, swarmed with bucket-toting helicopters, emitting thick orange-brown smoke. The sun sets as we pull into Lisbon, and I begin my trip to the hostel mapless and in the dark.
The hostel directions are simple: take the green or blue subway line to the station where the intersect, exit, turn right, dead end, turn left and then...forget the rest of the directions, realize that you left the paper you wrote it on next to the hostel computer in Sevilla, that your wifi-enabled device is dead, and that no one, no matter how well known it is among travelers, can ever point you in the direction of a hostel. Ask the nearest hotel if you can use their lobby computer, get told it's .5€ for 15 minutes, agree out of desperation, get your information in 1 minute, flat, and profusely thank the woman at the desk, who hands you back your .5€ and says with a wink, "only 1 minute? We say internet was down."
<3 people.
I walked into the hostel just in time for "Shots O'clock" a Yes! hostel tradition of free shots at 11:30. I then sat down with the only two people who didn't speak English...at all..and spent an hour chatting in broken Spanglish and hand gestures, also in last night's cast of characters: a drunk Canadian who worshipped Biggie Smalls, an Oregonian who went to high school with a Franklin friend, a British stag party, and a VERY forward (though ultimately unsuccessful) Slavic man.
Upon realizing it was 5 am, it was bedtime.
Today I missed the 10 am walking tour, as was to be expected, and instead, followed cool graffiti up to a church, accidentally invaded a baptism, found a supermarket, and feasted on fresh-baked bread, ham, and cheese in the shadow of a statue of an elephant.
Now, back at the hostel, I'm watching the Portugal/Holland Eurocup match...the hostel bar has stopped serving the one Holland fan... I think I like this place.
Friday, June 15, 2012
All I do is eat...
And talk to people...and try not to sunburn... It's a good life.
As previously stated: yesterday was a designated food day (sometimes, when you're going broke, you have to plan these things)
After the sandwitch incident at lunch, the lemonade, and the blogging in the sun, I bought a giant bottle of water and curled up in the shade on the sun-warmed steps of the church on plaza del Salvador, watching small children playing soccer in the square.
At 8, I made my way over to plaza alfalfa for the start of my tapas and wine tour: 3 tapas bars, 3 local wines, all the tapas.
The first bar greeted us with "cherry wine", a white wine aged in cherry wood barrels, plank-smoked cod in a roasted red pepper sauce, sardines with brie and a fig sauce, and, my personal favorite, vinegar ceveche'd bocadillo on a bed of tomato purée, brushed with garlic/herb olive oil and drizzled with a balsamic reduction...I'm drooling a little...
The second bar gave us a summer wine, local red wine with fresh sparkling lemonade. We started with grilled pork on a bed of fries, topped with a carbonara-like white sauce, then came a cheese-stuffed roasted artichoke heart in a balsamic/olive tapenade, then breaded cod topped with cheese in a sweet tomato purée, and finally, a green tomato/eggplant/goat cheese terrine drizzled in olive oil, then Spain beat Ireland in their eurocup match, the streets erupted in cheers, then on to the third bar and the least interesting tapas (sangria, olive oil marinated tomatoes, papas bravas--potatoes in hot sauce, spinach and queso blanco crepes, and fried eggplant with tomato purée.
I spent a lot of time explaining myself as a solo traveller to a middle-aged Texan couple...
Anyway, on my way out, I met 2 Swedish girls who decided that I looked like fun and needed to join them on their night out and POW! I found myself on another pub crawl. We toasted the decision in Swedish and, for the 6th time in the last 2 years, I was applauded for my Swedish pronunciation...apparently I have a bright future as a Swede.
1 Aussie chef, 1 laid-back Kiwi engineer, 1 break-dancing Fin, and 1 Argentinian Google employee later, it was bedtime and I meandered back to the hostel.
Upon waking up, I realized that I leave Sevilla tomorrow and should probably print my boarding pass...but then I realized that I never booked a flight...oops... After searching flights to anywhere at all and not finding anything under 90€, I decided to search trains, nothing under 100€, I then switched to busses and, glory glory, found a 30€ trip to Lisbon!!
DONE!
But not really, first the site crashed any time I looked at international lines, then when I found a way around that it wouldn't accept my credit card...struggle city...
I took to the internet in search of the bus company's office...it was in Madrid, and the ticket office listed in Sevilla had apparently closed 2 years ago...but after much message board trolling I found the address of the NEW ticket office! And it was still open! For another hour!
I ran there without even getting lost and, after confusing the women in the ticket window with my exasperated fast-talking english, eventually ordered my ticket in broken Spanglish for the right day, time, and place and was even able to get her to apply the young person discount. Win for me.
Far from my hostel and needing to update my famiglia on my next destination, I went to the ultimate free wifi point and unofficial US embassy, Starbucks.
In my hour there, I met 5 other Americans (4 students and 1 traveller) all there for free wifi, comfy chairs, and air conditioning on what was likely the hottest of my days in Sevilla. After a nice chat about life, travel, people, sunburn, and blogging, we exchanged names (greetings, new friends--if you make it here!!) and parted ways.
After this lovely distraction, I walked over to Naboo, but it was closed :-( I guess that will be tomorrow's story. And no, I'm not explaining myself until that point.
Did I mention it was hot today? It was hot today. That in mind, I was reminded of my dad's tale of his time in Sevilla and a glorious ice cream shop near his hotel that he couldn't remember the name of. My mouth wanted it. It was time to do this the only way I knew how: walk to the hotel he stayed in and explore every street, stopping in every ice cream shop and having a small scoop of a different flavor in every place until I had gone to every possible heladeria within comfortable walking distance of the Hotel Cairo.
5 shops later, I've got 2 front-runners (both winners in my eyes...and by eyes, I mean mouth)
The first, Rayas, has some 35 different flavors of the richest, creamiest, most decadent ice cream you've ever tasted. It's very industrial looking, even your change is dispensed automatically, but it was amazing. It's no wonder some nights there's a line out the door. My flavor of choice? A custard base with almond and dark chocolate fudge swirls.
The other frontrunner, La Fiorentina, is a little more charming, window banquettes, tile counter, marble floors, and their lemon mint sorbet was glorious and refreshing, perfect for a toasty Sevilla day. They had more like 20 flavors and at least half of them were fruity.
It seems that people in this neighborhood have allegiances to one or the other, you see people walking past one and then walking back with cups from the other.
I don't know how they choose... I think my allegiances lie firmly with quality frosty treats, regardless of origin :-)
As previously stated: yesterday was a designated food day (sometimes, when you're going broke, you have to plan these things)
After the sandwitch incident at lunch, the lemonade, and the blogging in the sun, I bought a giant bottle of water and curled up in the shade on the sun-warmed steps of the church on plaza del Salvador, watching small children playing soccer in the square.
At 8, I made my way over to plaza alfalfa for the start of my tapas and wine tour: 3 tapas bars, 3 local wines, all the tapas.
The first bar greeted us with "cherry wine", a white wine aged in cherry wood barrels, plank-smoked cod in a roasted red pepper sauce, sardines with brie and a fig sauce, and, my personal favorite, vinegar ceveche'd bocadillo on a bed of tomato purée, brushed with garlic/herb olive oil and drizzled with a balsamic reduction...I'm drooling a little...
The second bar gave us a summer wine, local red wine with fresh sparkling lemonade. We started with grilled pork on a bed of fries, topped with a carbonara-like white sauce, then came a cheese-stuffed roasted artichoke heart in a balsamic/olive tapenade, then breaded cod topped with cheese in a sweet tomato purée, and finally, a green tomato/eggplant/goat cheese terrine drizzled in olive oil, then Spain beat Ireland in their eurocup match, the streets erupted in cheers, then on to the third bar and the least interesting tapas (sangria, olive oil marinated tomatoes, papas bravas--potatoes in hot sauce, spinach and queso blanco crepes, and fried eggplant with tomato purée.
I spent a lot of time explaining myself as a solo traveller to a middle-aged Texan couple...
Anyway, on my way out, I met 2 Swedish girls who decided that I looked like fun and needed to join them on their night out and POW! I found myself on another pub crawl. We toasted the decision in Swedish and, for the 6th time in the last 2 years, I was applauded for my Swedish pronunciation...apparently I have a bright future as a Swede.
1 Aussie chef, 1 laid-back Kiwi engineer, 1 break-dancing Fin, and 1 Argentinian Google employee later, it was bedtime and I meandered back to the hostel.
Upon waking up, I realized that I leave Sevilla tomorrow and should probably print my boarding pass...but then I realized that I never booked a flight...oops... After searching flights to anywhere at all and not finding anything under 90€, I decided to search trains, nothing under 100€, I then switched to busses and, glory glory, found a 30€ trip to Lisbon!!
DONE!
But not really, first the site crashed any time I looked at international lines, then when I found a way around that it wouldn't accept my credit card...struggle city...
I took to the internet in search of the bus company's office...it was in Madrid, and the ticket office listed in Sevilla had apparently closed 2 years ago...but after much message board trolling I found the address of the NEW ticket office! And it was still open! For another hour!
I ran there without even getting lost and, after confusing the women in the ticket window with my exasperated fast-talking english, eventually ordered my ticket in broken Spanglish for the right day, time, and place and was even able to get her to apply the young person discount. Win for me.
Far from my hostel and needing to update my famiglia on my next destination, I went to the ultimate free wifi point and unofficial US embassy, Starbucks.
In my hour there, I met 5 other Americans (4 students and 1 traveller) all there for free wifi, comfy chairs, and air conditioning on what was likely the hottest of my days in Sevilla. After a nice chat about life, travel, people, sunburn, and blogging, we exchanged names (greetings, new friends--if you make it here!!) and parted ways.
After this lovely distraction, I walked over to Naboo, but it was closed :-( I guess that will be tomorrow's story. And no, I'm not explaining myself until that point.
Did I mention it was hot today? It was hot today. That in mind, I was reminded of my dad's tale of his time in Sevilla and a glorious ice cream shop near his hotel that he couldn't remember the name of. My mouth wanted it. It was time to do this the only way I knew how: walk to the hotel he stayed in and explore every street, stopping in every ice cream shop and having a small scoop of a different flavor in every place until I had gone to every possible heladeria within comfortable walking distance of the Hotel Cairo.
5 shops later, I've got 2 front-runners (both winners in my eyes...and by eyes, I mean mouth)
The first, Rayas, has some 35 different flavors of the richest, creamiest, most decadent ice cream you've ever tasted. It's very industrial looking, even your change is dispensed automatically, but it was amazing. It's no wonder some nights there's a line out the door. My flavor of choice? A custard base with almond and dark chocolate fudge swirls.
The other frontrunner, La Fiorentina, is a little more charming, window banquettes, tile counter, marble floors, and their lemon mint sorbet was glorious and refreshing, perfect for a toasty Sevilla day. They had more like 20 flavors and at least half of them were fruity.
It seems that people in this neighborhood have allegiances to one or the other, you see people walking past one and then walking back with cups from the other.
I don't know how they choose... I think my allegiances lie firmly with quality frosty treats, regardless of origin :-)
Sweaty, sticky, Sevilla
Yesterday, I woke up to the sounds of construction starting on the street outside my ground floor hostel room. In much of the world, this would mean that it was early in the morning and I would be grumpy and groggy and growl at construction workers when I walked past them to find tea and a quiet shady place to nap...but I'm in spain...so nothing starts before noon.
This either makes Spain a great country or a terrible alarm clock.
Upon realizing that it was the heat of the day (mid 90s F and humid with MAYBE enough breeze to nudge a paper boat on a good day) I decided that wandering aimlessly was out of the question so I set out in search of the cathedral. With the help of those nifty "walk this way-->" arrow signs I found my way there with only 2 wrong turns. Unfortunately for me, they are apparently closing early for something religiousy this whole week and I had just missed the last entry. Tragic.
I went across the way and bought a bottle of mind-numbingly cold water and decided to find a grocery store, make a salad, and sit on one of the hammocks on the roof of the hostel for a siesta, some brainstorming, and hopefully some people meeting.
I met two people, both of whom spent a solid 15 minutes ranting at eachother about how dumb it was to think you could make friends when you travel because people are just too different and no one can connect in a weekend or even a week and how our hostel was a gem because you could spend a month there and never have to speak to anyone. It actually made me so sad that I had to leave the room.
It was now late, and I was in need of friends, so I did the only failsafe option: pub crawl. 2 brothers from Wisconsin, 1 Australian rock band, 2 girls from Quebec, a Swiss bartender, and a "who's nerdier" argument with our Spanish guide (which I won. He thought having glasses counted for more points than my simple skill of being able to list the members of the justice league, which he couldn't do. My win was deserved.) later, I was much happier with life and people, walked back to the hostel and passed out.
Today is a food day. I accidentally ordered 6 sandwitches at lunch (it was all 5€, how was I to know??) they were smallish and delicious and I'm only mildly ashamed to admit that I ate them all. Nah, not even mildly, mostly just impressed.
When I was walking away, I saw a street stand selling liter bottles of fresh-squeezed lemonade. I couldn't resist.
Tonight's plan? A wine-tasting and tapas tour.
I should probably get out of the sun...I think I'm oozing sunscreen out of my pores.
This either makes Spain a great country or a terrible alarm clock.
Upon realizing that it was the heat of the day (mid 90s F and humid with MAYBE enough breeze to nudge a paper boat on a good day) I decided that wandering aimlessly was out of the question so I set out in search of the cathedral. With the help of those nifty "walk this way-->" arrow signs I found my way there with only 2 wrong turns. Unfortunately for me, they are apparently closing early for something religiousy this whole week and I had just missed the last entry. Tragic.
I went across the way and bought a bottle of mind-numbingly cold water and decided to find a grocery store, make a salad, and sit on one of the hammocks on the roof of the hostel for a siesta, some brainstorming, and hopefully some people meeting.
I met two people, both of whom spent a solid 15 minutes ranting at eachother about how dumb it was to think you could make friends when you travel because people are just too different and no one can connect in a weekend or even a week and how our hostel was a gem because you could spend a month there and never have to speak to anyone. It actually made me so sad that I had to leave the room.
It was now late, and I was in need of friends, so I did the only failsafe option: pub crawl. 2 brothers from Wisconsin, 1 Australian rock band, 2 girls from Quebec, a Swiss bartender, and a "who's nerdier" argument with our Spanish guide (which I won. He thought having glasses counted for more points than my simple skill of being able to list the members of the justice league, which he couldn't do. My win was deserved.) later, I was much happier with life and people, walked back to the hostel and passed out.
Today is a food day. I accidentally ordered 6 sandwitches at lunch (it was all 5€, how was I to know??) they were smallish and delicious and I'm only mildly ashamed to admit that I ate them all. Nah, not even mildly, mostly just impressed.
When I was walking away, I saw a street stand selling liter bottles of fresh-squeezed lemonade. I couldn't resist.
Tonight's plan? A wine-tasting and tapas tour.
I should probably get out of the sun...I think I'm oozing sunscreen out of my pores.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Just a little something.
In case you all needed a reminder of how ridiculous my life can be:
I got to the airport earlier than I needed to (you´d think I would have learned that domestic flight on Ryanair means "get there as your flight is boarding, otherwise you´ll be bored and hungry"...I was bored...and hungry...)
But that´s not the reason for this blog.
Waiting in the terminal for the flight, I realized that there was a tiny fussy baby on my flight, fear coursed through my veins, I prepared my ears for destruction (ear plugs and all)
But that´s not the reason for this blog.
We boarded the flight, I sat in the middle over the wing and no one was sitting anyhwhere near me. The baby was asleep and in the back of the plane, all was well.
THEN: a group of young men, dressed all in bright green, boarded the flight and filled in all around me (not in my row, but literally in every row in my line of vision)
They started chanting and clapping and hitting on flight attendants, the flight attendants giggled and blushed and didn´t even try to quiet the rowdy bunch...Maybe it was their charm? They did make oragami flowers for the ladies...
But really...no one is that charming...So I wrote down any names I heard and anything I could make out from the words on their outfits and bags.
Upon arriving at the hostel (roughly half an hour ago after getting in late and getting a little lost) I did some research.
The young men surrounding me on my flight? None other than the players and coaches of Real Betis, one of the two professional soccer teams in Sevilla...
¿WTFISMYLIFE?
Yeah...Sevilla is off to a good start, I think.
I got to the airport earlier than I needed to (you´d think I would have learned that domestic flight on Ryanair means "get there as your flight is boarding, otherwise you´ll be bored and hungry"...I was bored...and hungry...)
But that´s not the reason for this blog.
Waiting in the terminal for the flight, I realized that there was a tiny fussy baby on my flight, fear coursed through my veins, I prepared my ears for destruction (ear plugs and all)
But that´s not the reason for this blog.
We boarded the flight, I sat in the middle over the wing and no one was sitting anyhwhere near me. The baby was asleep and in the back of the plane, all was well.
THEN: a group of young men, dressed all in bright green, boarded the flight and filled in all around me (not in my row, but literally in every row in my line of vision)
They started chanting and clapping and hitting on flight attendants, the flight attendants giggled and blushed and didn´t even try to quiet the rowdy bunch...Maybe it was their charm? They did make oragami flowers for the ladies...
But really...no one is that charming...So I wrote down any names I heard and anything I could make out from the words on their outfits and bags.
Upon arriving at the hostel (roughly half an hour ago after getting in late and getting a little lost) I did some research.
The young men surrounding me on my flight? None other than the players and coaches of Real Betis, one of the two professional soccer teams in Sevilla...
¿WTFISMYLIFE?
Yeah...Sevilla is off to a good start, I think.
We've passed the halfway point...
As of today, I am officially past the halfway point of my journey, and from here on forward, I go it alone.
This morning, Margaret shipped back to the US and this evening, I ship off to Seville in the south of Spain, where it is currently a gazillion degrees and sunny.
As I told my good friend Novia, I´m gonna be a charred and crispy mess if I don´t make friends who are willing to sunscreen my back early in this leg of the trip...Either that or I'll just pour a puddle (who am I kidding, probably a small lake) of sunscreen on the ground and roll around in it until I feel I am sufficiently coated... Or I'll rig the hostel showers to spray sunscreen instead of water...But probably the pig-like wallowing...it seems like a good plan...
What did you miss in the last couple of days while I've been lazily not updating like I should be?
Two of our new bunkmates almost got thrown out of the hostel for being rowdy and obnoxious (though even I must admit, their bromance was thoroughly charming), we gave in to our weak will and, after eating our weight in paella, returned to the Irish pub (especially amusing because this seems to be a trend in my life. When I was in Barcelona in November of 2008 we became regulars at Molly's Fair City, an Irish pub near the hostel we were staying in at the time, and now this Pubmance with the Michael Collins pub near the hostel we stayed in this time? I'm a SpanIrish pub fiend...) and we stayed out past metro-closing yesterday eating all the pizza and gelato Spain could provide and had to take a cab back to the hostel... So pretty much, we did nothing but eat...
Well, I guess we also failed to find some of the sights and instead, people watched and took a nap in the Parc de la Ciutadella...
I'd say Barcelona's been good to me...But now it's on to the next, being played off by a bespectacled hostel guest plucking a bluesy tune on the common room guitar.
This morning, Margaret shipped back to the US and this evening, I ship off to Seville in the south of Spain, where it is currently a gazillion degrees and sunny.
As I told my good friend Novia, I´m gonna be a charred and crispy mess if I don´t make friends who are willing to sunscreen my back early in this leg of the trip...Either that or I'll just pour a puddle (who am I kidding, probably a small lake) of sunscreen on the ground and roll around in it until I feel I am sufficiently coated... Or I'll rig the hostel showers to spray sunscreen instead of water...But probably the pig-like wallowing...it seems like a good plan...
What did you miss in the last couple of days while I've been lazily not updating like I should be?
Two of our new bunkmates almost got thrown out of the hostel for being rowdy and obnoxious (though even I must admit, their bromance was thoroughly charming), we gave in to our weak will and, after eating our weight in paella, returned to the Irish pub (especially amusing because this seems to be a trend in my life. When I was in Barcelona in November of 2008 we became regulars at Molly's Fair City, an Irish pub near the hostel we were staying in at the time, and now this Pubmance with the Michael Collins pub near the hostel we stayed in this time? I'm a SpanIrish pub fiend...) and we stayed out past metro-closing yesterday eating all the pizza and gelato Spain could provide and had to take a cab back to the hostel... So pretty much, we did nothing but eat...
Well, I guess we also failed to find some of the sights and instead, people watched and took a nap in the Parc de la Ciutadella...
I'd say Barcelona's been good to me...But now it's on to the next, being played off by a bespectacled hostel guest plucking a bluesy tune on the common room guitar.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Celine Dion ain't got nothing on this.
As promised, a retrospective of yesterday's events when I don't run the risk of launching into a rant about the kinship of travelers (if I got started, I would probably type until calluses formed on my fingers and my carpal tunnel had carpal tunnel. Want to hear my thoughts on that? Buy me a pint of Magners and we'll chat it over until the bar closes or the sun comes up--Whichever comes first--Then we'll continue the talk over pancakes at some 24-hour diner or something...See? I even ranted about not ranting...Moving right along)
Yesterday we were *supposed* to go to the beach...but we slept forever, so we put that off and decided to settle down somewhere off Las Ramblas, write postcards, and drink tea. We wandered for a bit before remembering that it was Friday and the Magic Fountain would be running starting at 9 in the PM.
We had heard of this "Magic Fountain" from (insert name of whoever told us to go here because hell if we remember) and it sounded a little like the fountain at the Bellagio in Vegas, a choreographed light and water show, set to music.
Now, when I was in Las Vegas...an experience in and of itself, we accidentally saw the Bellagio show when we were in search of air conditioning and still under 21. It was ridiculous and mostly set to My Heart Will Go On.
When we decided to go see this fountain in Barcelona, I told Margaret that I was going to be disappointed if it wasn't set to Celine Dion because *nothing* could be more fitting or gloriously tacky as a soundtrack to a fountain show than the theme from Titanic.
We eventually found a seat with only mildly obstructed views (there was a tree...but it was crowded and beggars can't be choosers) and settled in to watch the show. The fountain was built in 1929 as part of the Barcelona International Exposition and is one of a number of fountains in the Montjuïc area below the Palau Nacional...All of which were not running...at all...we were confused. About 10 minutes before 9, the fountains all down the Avenida Maria Cristina turned on and we knew the show was beginning.
It took a minute before the main fountain started spouting, but you knew something was churning about in there when all the pigeons flew off of it at exactly the same moment.
Suddenly: NAAAAAAAAAAAANTS ingonYAAAAAAAAAAAAAma bagithi Baba
Circle Of Life blasts over the speakers as the fountain begins flashing colors and jetting into the air. Then we realize ¡IT´S IN SPANISH!
Celine Dion doesn´t hold a candle to a MEDLY of Disney songs IN SPANISH...We may have been a little giddy...
Eventually we wandred home, tried to convince ourselves to go out, and decided to sleep instead, because let´s face it, being in bed before 7 AM is a great feeling :-]
Today we went to the beach, it was a little chilly/windy and we came home more browned by dust than by the sun, but a good time was had.
After showering off our color from the day, we decided we HAD to go out after last night´s early sleep and decided to check out an Irish pub that was a few blocks from the hostel, across from the Gaudi church. The place was packed with locals and Irish ex-pats alike and there was a man in the back corner jamming out on his acoustic guitar to an eclectic mix of pop hits, 90´s alt-rock, and real oldies...And there was cider on tap.
After the live music ended, we relinquished our stools at the bar, bid the bartenders farewell, and walked home. It will take a lot of willpower not to go back there tomorrow night...
Friday, June 8, 2012
F. Scott is rolling in his grave
After Wednesday night's adventure, I was unsure if I wanted another all night rager (Read: being out all night, post-metro late, far from my bed) but apparently Barcelona is the *real* city that never sleeps...
Margaret was feeling slightly better, so we decided to go out with the hostel group at 11. At 10:30, we went up to our room to reorganize and instead got caught up in meeting our six new bunkmates and realizing that the last girl who got checked in, coincidentally also a Kate, got a wrongly configured key card that apparently screwed up all of our cards and enabled us to open eachother's lockers (oh yeah, the lockers here are key card operated...it's pretty spiffy...until it's not)
After much Benny Hill-esque ridiculousness, we got the card situation all figured out. It was 11. Margaret, KiwiKate, and I ran downstairs to catch the group, fully expecting them to still be in the common room, and found that they had already left (so much for Spanish time, eh?)
Apparently we were not the only people in this boat...Also joining us in failure? Two girls from Toronto...One of whom is *also* named Kate...
KanadaKate (purposely misspelled for the sake of alliteration...Whatever guys, artistic licence) decided that missing the group was a sign from the party gods that she should stay in, but KiwiKate, Margaret, and, to a lesser degree, myself were still pretty set on making it *somewhere*. Upon hearing this, the Canadians got really excited and handed us a flyer for a "Great Gatsby Party" at one of the top Barcelona beach clubs. They had put their names on the guest list the night before which entitled them to entry sans cover until 1:30 and they didn't want it to go to waste.
A top club hosting a speakeasy 20's party that "we" were on the guestlist for? SOLD! So we hopped in a cab and headed toward the beach. We flashed our guestlist flyer and after some mild lying about how upset we are that they only wrote "Kate" down once when CLEARLY there were two of us...Oh, and pretending Margaret's name was Robyn... We descended the stairs with promise of flappers, gangsters, gin, and jazz and were greeted with...A house music remix of the jazz age greats FloRida and Sia and their smooth jazzy hit WildOnes...Yeah...
We wondered how this was in any way Gatsby themed...Then the dancers came out... A stripper chick in nothing but a line of fringe and stilettos and two men in skinny ties and fedoras... They swayed back and forth for a while in a sexual manner (I didn't know it was possible either...) and then, well, I don't even know because we gave up and left... it was not even worth the price of admission.
Once outside, we made our way to the beach and curled up in the sand. Once happily sandy, new friend-making ensued. First we were joined by a Brit, then his two American friends got jealous that we accidentally stole him and they joined us.
The cops then came by to kick us off the beach so the sand-zamboni things could come through without killing us. At this point, the American boys decided to head back to their hostel to watch the Celtics game, Margaret went home, and in twoshags shakes of a sheeps tail (lol kiwi joke) we lost KiwiKate to a posse of aussies. The britboy and I, realizing we'd been left, bought ourselves some contraband beer and took to the beach.
We talked film, befriended Iranian girls, talked life philsophy, went swimming, talked music, meandered the beach, and when we realized it was already 5 in the morning, made the executive decision to stick it out until sunrise (and, for me, until the metro opened)
One glorious beach sunrise later and still 30 minutes until the metro opened, we walked towards Las Ramblas, ate ice cream, and parted ways, he to his hostel and I to the metro stop, still encrusted in sand.
It's things like this that really stick with you when you travel. It's not every church and monument (let's face it, half the monuments you remember as "guy on horse" or "maytag man looking dude") it's the people you share the adventure with, the ones you keep in touch with and the ones you'll never see again, they're what you remember.
Ok, shit just got deep... I blame equal parts not sleeping and impending nostalgia.
I'll tell you about today tomorrow...Tomorrow we're going to the beach during proper daylight hours...
Margaret was feeling slightly better, so we decided to go out with the hostel group at 11. At 10:30, we went up to our room to reorganize and instead got caught up in meeting our six new bunkmates and realizing that the last girl who got checked in, coincidentally also a Kate, got a wrongly configured key card that apparently screwed up all of our cards and enabled us to open eachother's lockers (oh yeah, the lockers here are key card operated...it's pretty spiffy...until it's not)
After much Benny Hill-esque ridiculousness, we got the card situation all figured out. It was 11. Margaret, KiwiKate, and I ran downstairs to catch the group, fully expecting them to still be in the common room, and found that they had already left (so much for Spanish time, eh?)
Apparently we were not the only people in this boat...Also joining us in failure? Two girls from Toronto...One of whom is *also* named Kate...
KanadaKate (purposely misspelled for the sake of alliteration...Whatever guys, artistic licence) decided that missing the group was a sign from the party gods that she should stay in, but KiwiKate, Margaret, and, to a lesser degree, myself were still pretty set on making it *somewhere*. Upon hearing this, the Canadians got really excited and handed us a flyer for a "Great Gatsby Party" at one of the top Barcelona beach clubs. They had put their names on the guest list the night before which entitled them to entry sans cover until 1:30 and they didn't want it to go to waste.
A top club hosting a speakeasy 20's party that "we" were on the guestlist for? SOLD! So we hopped in a cab and headed toward the beach. We flashed our guestlist flyer and after some mild lying about how upset we are that they only wrote "Kate" down once when CLEARLY there were two of us...Oh, and pretending Margaret's name was Robyn... We descended the stairs with promise of flappers, gangsters, gin, and jazz and were greeted with...A house music remix of the jazz age greats FloRida and Sia and their smooth jazzy hit WildOnes...Yeah...
We wondered how this was in any way Gatsby themed...Then the dancers came out... A stripper chick in nothing but a line of fringe and stilettos and two men in skinny ties and fedoras... They swayed back and forth for a while in a sexual manner (I didn't know it was possible either...) and then, well, I don't even know because we gave up and left... it was not even worth the price of admission.
Once outside, we made our way to the beach and curled up in the sand. Once happily sandy, new friend-making ensued. First we were joined by a Brit, then his two American friends got jealous that we accidentally stole him and they joined us.
The cops then came by to kick us off the beach so the sand-zamboni things could come through without killing us. At this point, the American boys decided to head back to their hostel to watch the Celtics game, Margaret went home, and in two
We talked film, befriended Iranian girls, talked life philsophy, went swimming, talked music, meandered the beach, and when we realized it was already 5 in the morning, made the executive decision to stick it out until sunrise (and, for me, until the metro opened)
One glorious beach sunrise later and still 30 minutes until the metro opened, we walked towards Las Ramblas, ate ice cream, and parted ways, he to his hostel and I to the metro stop, still encrusted in sand.
It's things like this that really stick with you when you travel. It's not every church and monument (let's face it, half the monuments you remember as "guy on horse" or "maytag man looking dude") it's the people you share the adventure with, the ones you keep in touch with and the ones you'll never see again, they're what you remember.
Ok, shit just got deep... I blame equal parts not sleeping and impending nostalgia.
I'll tell you about today tomorrow...Tomorrow we're going to the beach during proper daylight hours...
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Tragedy strikes!
And I'm not talking about Ray Bradbury, though that's super sad too. I'm talking about the fact that my travel companion, Margaret, has fallen ill with an angry cold of some sort. Alas, alack. This leaves me to adventure on my own, at least in the evening hours when she's in sleep mode.
Don't get me wrong, I've got no problem adventuring alone, I'm actually pretty fond of it, but it's different to be a solo traveler than it is to know that you have a friend who is missing out :-/
Anywho, when last we spoke, I was in search of tapas...And oh what glorious tapas I found!
Margaret went on a food tour while she was in Venice (while I was in Berlin) that was lead by a local foodie who, as luck would have it, had lived in Spain for a number of years. When she heard that Margaret's itinerary included a stop in Barcelona, she gave her a few food recommendations. We decided to check one out, a tiny, though apparently very well known and happenin' even on a Wednesday, tapas bar near the Picasso museum.
A glass of wine later, we were able to snatch up a table near the back. We asked the waiter to bring us a selection (best sellers, his favorites, whatever he thought we'd like) and a glass of wine that he thought went best with them universally.
He poured us each a glass of the house white and filled the table with small plates of sausages, cured meat, smoked fish, hot peppers, and potato omelets. When we had devoured everything, he brought out little puff pastry custard cakes, biscotti, and desert wine.
No complaints from the peanut gallery.
Full and happy, we returned to the hostel and readied ourselves for the night's festivities.
"We leave at 11, sharp" does not mean the same thing in Spain as it does in Switzerland, so at 11:45, the group headed out, leaving a very tired Margaret behind, and made our way through 3 metro lines to a beach bar where a group of us gave up on the bar part and ventured into the water.
Apparently, it's a big thing on the beaches of Barcelona for people to approach you selling 1€ beers. It's a pretty sweet deal.
From there we moved on to "one of the most exclusive clubs in the city"...they let me in in my t-shirt and Birkenstocks..exclusive my ass.
The whole place was decorated with Moroccan flare, and above the bar, something was written in a language you were supposed to think was Arabic...I would put money on it being LOTR elvish...
After a couple hours of dancing, my people and I took the party back out to the beach where we built a sand turtle/mountain/cave/volcano. When we decided it was time to go, we walked back to the hostel...with little idea of direction...and by the grace of graceful things, and after an interesting stroll down the highway, we eventually found our way back. Small victory!
A cup of tea, a peach, and a de-sanding shower later, it was sunrise bedtime.
Today we pretended to be cultured and visited the Sagrada Familia church. It was churchy and strange and under construction...yeah...
I think I get less interesting at the end of every post...
Don't get me wrong, I've got no problem adventuring alone, I'm actually pretty fond of it, but it's different to be a solo traveler than it is to know that you have a friend who is missing out :-/
Anywho, when last we spoke, I was in search of tapas...And oh what glorious tapas I found!
Margaret went on a food tour while she was in Venice (while I was in Berlin) that was lead by a local foodie who, as luck would have it, had lived in Spain for a number of years. When she heard that Margaret's itinerary included a stop in Barcelona, she gave her a few food recommendations. We decided to check one out, a tiny, though apparently very well known and happenin' even on a Wednesday, tapas bar near the Picasso museum.
A glass of wine later, we were able to snatch up a table near the back. We asked the waiter to bring us a selection (best sellers, his favorites, whatever he thought we'd like) and a glass of wine that he thought went best with them universally.
He poured us each a glass of the house white and filled the table with small plates of sausages, cured meat, smoked fish, hot peppers, and potato omelets. When we had devoured everything, he brought out little puff pastry custard cakes, biscotti, and desert wine.
No complaints from the peanut gallery.
Full and happy, we returned to the hostel and readied ourselves for the night's festivities.
"We leave at 11, sharp" does not mean the same thing in Spain as it does in Switzerland, so at 11:45, the group headed out, leaving a very tired Margaret behind, and made our way through 3 metro lines to a beach bar where a group of us gave up on the bar part and ventured into the water.
Apparently, it's a big thing on the beaches of Barcelona for people to approach you selling 1€ beers. It's a pretty sweet deal.
From there we moved on to "one of the most exclusive clubs in the city"...they let me in in my t-shirt and Birkenstocks..exclusive my ass.
The whole place was decorated with Moroccan flare, and above the bar, something was written in a language you were supposed to think was Arabic...I would put money on it being LOTR elvish...
After a couple hours of dancing, my people and I took the party back out to the beach where we built a sand turtle/mountain/cave/volcano. When we decided it was time to go, we walked back to the hostel...with little idea of direction...and by the grace of graceful things, and after an interesting stroll down the highway, we eventually found our way back. Small victory!
A cup of tea, a peach, and a de-sanding shower later, it was sunrise bedtime.
Today we pretended to be cultured and visited the Sagrada Familia church. It was churchy and strange and under construction...yeah...
I think I get less interesting at the end of every post...
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Planes, trains, and automobiles.
Ok, so...
After infinitely too much transportation (Tram->Train->Bus->Plane->Bus->Metro) and 3 countries over the course of 12 hours (Netherlands, Belgium, Spain) I am, at long last, writing you from Barcelona!
(and using a real ¿SPANISH? keyboard, no less)
This keyboard confuses the bejesus out of me and the computer thinks everything I type is wrong because it´s not in Spanish, so let´s make this quick...
Left Amsterdam, took the train to Brussels, ate waffels, hopped on a flight to Barcelona, raced the closing metro (¿seriously? ¿it closes at 23:00? ¿WTF?) and checked into the hostel...where they took us on a tour of the space...in SPANISH...and warned us about the Canadians, of which there are apparently many.
In the choose your own adventure game of life, we picked the lame option and decided that, while we could make friends and hit the town, we would rather make friends after we didn´t smell like 3 countries in less than 12 hours...So we hunted down a pizza place that was still serving, ate in the park, showered and slept like the lardass lamefaces we are.
Tonight, the hostel is leading something called "Ultimate Party Wednesday"
Friends will be made, adventures will be had, and I´ll try to make this keyboard work for me enough that I can keep this show on the road...
Now how about finding some tapas...
After infinitely too much transportation (Tram->Train->Bus->Plane->Bus->Metro) and 3 countries over the course of 12 hours (Netherlands, Belgium, Spain) I am, at long last, writing you from Barcelona!
(and using a real ¿SPANISH? keyboard, no less)
This keyboard confuses the bejesus out of me and the computer thinks everything I type is wrong because it´s not in Spanish, so let´s make this quick...
Left Amsterdam, took the train to Brussels, ate waffels, hopped on a flight to Barcelona, raced the closing metro (¿seriously? ¿it closes at 23:00? ¿WTF?) and checked into the hostel...where they took us on a tour of the space...in SPANISH...and warned us about the Canadians, of which there are apparently many.
In the choose your own adventure game of life, we picked the lame option and decided that, while we could make friends and hit the town, we would rather make friends after we didn´t smell like 3 countries in less than 12 hours...So we hunted down a pizza place that was still serving, ate in the park, showered and slept like the lardass lamefaces we are.
Tonight, the hostel is leading something called "Ultimate Party Wednesday"
Friends will be made, adventures will be had, and I´ll try to make this keyboard work for me enough that I can keep this show on the road...
Now how about finding some tapas...
Good for a laugh...
Picture this: old broken-down van, shaggy-haired blond, embarrasssedly whisteled along to Sk8ter Boi type, Dutch surfer boy in the drivers seat, rolling up into Amsterdam playing Everybody Must Get Stoned.
That´s exactly how Margaret and I returned to the city.
We walked back to the hostel, up the steeper-than-we-remembered staircase, checked in, dropped off our ish, met our bunkmates (2 NJ natives, a German, and an Irishman--Sounds like a bad joke...) and went off in search of food...But nothing is ever that easy.
Two road-weary travelers hit the streets of Amsterdam in search of a cheeseburger. What they find? A comedy troupe from Chicago and a show called Can´t Dutch This. We got the "America, Fuck Yeah" discount and sat next to an extremely talkative Canadian who didn´t understand why we, as Americans, didn´t have guns, and was convinced he didn´t sound Canadian. He was wrong...
We returned to the hostel to write some last-minute Netherlands postcards and befriended the hostile hostel cat. Ok, so she was only hostile toward Margaret, but she did decide that my attention belonged to her rather than to my postcards which she showed by curling up on the stamps and purring at me...What can I say? Sometimes I make friends...
That´s exactly how Margaret and I returned to the city.
We walked back to the hostel, up the steeper-than-we-remembered staircase, checked in, dropped off our ish, met our bunkmates (2 NJ natives, a German, and an Irishman--Sounds like a bad joke...) and went off in search of food...But nothing is ever that easy.
Two road-weary travelers hit the streets of Amsterdam in search of a cheeseburger. What they find? A comedy troupe from Chicago and a show called Can´t Dutch This. We got the "America, Fuck Yeah" discount and sat next to an extremely talkative Canadian who didn´t understand why we, as Americans, didn´t have guns, and was convinced he didn´t sound Canadian. He was wrong...
We returned to the hostel to write some last-minute Netherlands postcards and befriended the hostile hostel cat. Ok, so she was only hostile toward Margaret, but she did decide that my attention belonged to her rather than to my postcards which she showed by curling up on the stamps and purring at me...What can I say? Sometimes I make friends...
Monday, June 4, 2012
Let me be candid for a moment
So sometimes, when you're a longterm traveller, you pack as minimally as possible: 1 pair of jeans, 5 shirts, 1 bra, 2 dresses... But unfortunately, what this means is that on laundry day, you will find yourself distinctly bra-less... Which can be alright if you can sit at home and read or whatnot, but when you're checked out of the hostel and it's super friggin cold outside, you've just got to put on your jacket and say, "alright, world, let's do this!"
What you don't think of, though, is that awkward moment when you go inside and people expect you to remove your jacket...and the nice old Dutch/Chinese man keeps offering to turn the heater up so you can "be comfortable and take your coat off"
How do you say "I'm not cold, I'm just not wearing a bra." in Dutch?
Muzzy doesn't teach you this shit...
What you don't think of, though, is that awkward moment when you go inside and people expect you to remove your jacket...and the nice old Dutch/Chinese man keeps offering to turn the heater up so you can "be comfortable and take your coat off"
How do you say "I'm not cold, I'm just not wearing a bra." in Dutch?
Muzzy doesn't teach you this shit...
Clean clothes, happy clothes.
We checked out of the hostel this morning and trekked to the (fortunately now very much open) laundromat. It cost us 10 euro, but now our clothing is clean and dry and not just coated in grime and febreeze.
It may still be grey and rainy, but for us, the world is BEAUTIFUL!!
Amsterdam tonight, Brussels in the morning, sunny Barcelona by nightfall.
Autobots: Roll Out!!
It may still be grey and rainy, but for us, the world is BEAUTIFUL!!
Amsterdam tonight, Brussels in the morning, sunny Barcelona by nightfall.
Autobots: Roll Out!!
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Spoke too soon...
Sun: gone.
Laundromat: closed.
Murphy's law did throw us one bone amidst the gloomy damp stankness that is our life right now: 2 ridiculous Brazilian men named Daniel and Marco.
We had seen these two men the night before, Marco was trippin balls something fierce and kept staring intently in our direction across the bar. It was certainly a little odd, but we're at a beach hostel just outside Amsterdam, odd is kind if expected... Need I remind you of the man in the bunny suit?
Anyway, let's get to the part where Margaret and I return from the grocery store with spaghetti and all kinds of delightful vegetables (seriously, if we hadn't gotten vegetables when we did, we would probably both have scurvy) and infiltrate the kitchen.
Before we make it to the kitchen, we get flagged down by the Brazilians who introduce themselves and then apologize. Apparently they weren't staring, it's simply that there were monster women eating my brains and Marco wanted to make them go away, but he forgot how language worked. They apologized again and then let us go.
We laughed and went about boiling water and chopping veggies.
As soon as onions and garlic hit the hot pan, Marco reappeared (universal truth number 2, the smell of cooking onions/garlic will always summon people to the kitchen) attempted to "teach us to cook", told us our food was too much work, and then wandered away.
When food was cooked, he reappeared, served himself, and began freaking out that our pasta wasn't pasta and that we were clearly misinformed in the art of pasta making. "visit me in Dublin" he said "and I'll teach you to cook" (HA! Teach me to cook?!?)
We tried to figure out what made our pasta not pasta, it turns out that pasta is apparently only pasta if it has tomato sauce...which is false... So we took a survey of the hostel bar which turned into everyone in the bar naming their favorite non-tomato-based pasta sauce. Once he was secure in our food knowledge, he served himself another portion and joined us once more at our table.
Madness ensued.
Eventually, my food baby started kicking, so we went upstairs to drink a beer from our stash and coax the fussy food fetus into submission...then the dubstep pulsing through the floorboards from the bar below lulled us into a glorious slumber where we remained until morning...afternoon...whatever, it's all the same.
Laundromat: closed.
Murphy's law did throw us one bone amidst the gloomy damp stankness that is our life right now: 2 ridiculous Brazilian men named Daniel and Marco.
We had seen these two men the night before, Marco was trippin balls something fierce and kept staring intently in our direction across the bar. It was certainly a little odd, but we're at a beach hostel just outside Amsterdam, odd is kind if expected... Need I remind you of the man in the bunny suit?
Anyway, let's get to the part where Margaret and I return from the grocery store with spaghetti and all kinds of delightful vegetables (seriously, if we hadn't gotten vegetables when we did, we would probably both have scurvy) and infiltrate the kitchen.
Before we make it to the kitchen, we get flagged down by the Brazilians who introduce themselves and then apologize. Apparently they weren't staring, it's simply that there were monster women eating my brains and Marco wanted to make them go away, but he forgot how language worked. They apologized again and then let us go.
We laughed and went about boiling water and chopping veggies.
As soon as onions and garlic hit the hot pan, Marco reappeared (universal truth number 2, the smell of cooking onions/garlic will always summon people to the kitchen) attempted to "teach us to cook", told us our food was too much work, and then wandered away.
When food was cooked, he reappeared, served himself, and began freaking out that our pasta wasn't pasta and that we were clearly misinformed in the art of pasta making. "visit me in Dublin" he said "and I'll teach you to cook" (HA! Teach me to cook?!?)
We tried to figure out what made our pasta not pasta, it turns out that pasta is apparently only pasta if it has tomato sauce...which is false... So we took a survey of the hostel bar which turned into everyone in the bar naming their favorite non-tomato-based pasta sauce. Once he was secure in our food knowledge, he served himself another portion and joined us once more at our table.
Madness ensued.
Eventually, my food baby started kicking, so we went upstairs to drink a beer from our stash and coax the fussy food fetus into submission...then the dubstep pulsing through the floorboards from the bar below lulled us into a glorious slumber where we remained until morning...afternoon...whatever, it's all the same.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
A strange place...
Last night can easily be described using one character: a drunk 20-something British man...in a bunny suit.
I guess since this town is so empty, everyone just flocks to the hostel bar, plays pool (poorly) and gets weird...sounds kind of like the Midwest :-)
Today we discovered that travel plans needed to change, so we extended in Noordwijk for another night...
On the bright side: the sun is shining and we have found a laundromat!!
I guess since this town is so empty, everyone just flocks to the hostel bar, plays pool (poorly) and gets weird...sounds kind of like the Midwest :-)
Today we discovered that travel plans needed to change, so we extended in Noordwijk for another night...
On the bright side: the sun is shining and we have found a laundromat!!
Friday, June 1, 2012
The end is in sight...
Alright folks, ticket home is officially booked. Departure is set for July 1st from Stockholm (to JFK with a long layover in reykjavik, because why not?)
That leaves me with one more month of glorious adventure before home sweet home no longer equals hostel sweet hostel...
Bittersweet...
That leaves me with one more month of glorious adventure before home sweet home no longer equals hostel sweet hostel...
Bittersweet...
Beachy keen, jellybean!
After checking out of our Amsterdam hostel and a glorious morning of tea and pastries, we piled (read: the back seats were already full so Margaret and I shoved our luggage under the seats and got crammed into the front seat with yours truly straddling the stick shift...lol stick shift...but seriously...) into a shuttle for a very cozy ride to the sleepy off-season beach town/ ex-fishing village of Noordwijk.
We checked in to the hostel and walked around the vastly closed city, pranced around the cold ocean water on the beach with dogs and surfers, found a place that was willing to make us food, and hunted down the lighthouse that wikipedia swore was worth seeing...it existed..
This will be an interesting couple of nights...
We checked in to the hostel and walked around the vastly closed city, pranced around the cold ocean water on the beach with dogs and surfers, found a place that was willing to make us food, and hunted down the lighthouse that wikipedia swore was worth seeing...it existed..
This will be an interesting couple of nights...
...The old man is snoring
Yessiree, it's raining it's pouring...today we attempted to make it to the museumplein, made it as far as vondelpark and were so drenched that we needed to stop for a soup break. After the rain died down, we trudged back to the hostel for rain coats and dry clothes...
After all of this, museums seemed less enticing, so we grabbed our books and headed for a cafe near the university for MASSIVE mugs of cocoa, people watching, and reading... After all: people watching has always been my favorite form of sightseeing. We also ran into half of the pub-crawl elsewhere in the city. So that was pretty nifty.
Turning in early was in the cards so after failing at inviting our reclusive Canadian bunkmates out for a beer, we passed out (until our Bosnian other bunkmate's snoring got too out of control...)
Checking out in the AM and off to the beach town of Noordwijk.
After all of this, museums seemed less enticing, so we grabbed our books and headed for a cafe near the university for MASSIVE mugs of cocoa, people watching, and reading... After all: people watching has always been my favorite form of sightseeing. We also ran into half of the pub-crawl elsewhere in the city. So that was pretty nifty.
Turning in early was in the cards so after failing at inviting our reclusive Canadian bunkmates out for a beer, we passed out (until our Bosnian other bunkmate's snoring got too out of control...)
Checking out in the AM and off to the beach town of Noordwijk.
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