Espana!

Granada

On August 10^th I arrived in Algeciras, Spain via ferry from Tangier. I had a few hours to kill before the train to Granada, so I found an internet café, and grabbed my first beer in weeks. The diner at which I got it was dirty, hot, small, and the bartender spoke no English. I don’t know what brand of beer it was, and it was small. But it was glorious after all that time, and in that blazing heat.

            The train to Granada was about 4.5 hours long, but it was comfy and air-conditioned. Still, once I got into Granada, I was tired and didn’t accomplish anything that day. I had a delicious steak dinner at about 11pm at night, accompanied by some light tapas and wine. The waitress was kind, helped me with the menu, and checked back on me often. She was a bit flirty, and I didn’t mind.

            The next day I had reservations for the Alhambra. It was gorgeous. The gardens of Generalife were my favorite part, but the Nazarid Palace was great too. I walked around for hours, and finished up by reading some of Washington Irving’s Tales of the Alhambra actually in the Alhambra. I’ll have to return sometime though, after I’ve finished the entire tale and can enjoy the settings even more. Unfortunately, the Court of Lions was closed, so I’ll have to see it on this future visit.

I wandered around Granada for the rest of the day, taking photos. That night, I went to a flamenco dance show in Sacramonte. This area was a traditional gypsy neighborhood, where the homes were “caves” in the side of the mountain. The event was a bit touristy, but the dancing was great, and so was the sangria. Two young women danced the most, and the most furiously. A woman a bit older danced and sang, and another older woman participated a little. There was a male singer who acted like the emcee, and a male guitarist who played fantastic Spanish guitar. I couldn’t decide whether to try and take great photos or just enjoy the entertaining sight of the dance. I couldn’t understand a single word that was said, but I suppose dancing is universal. Definitely a good time.

Madrid

On August 12^th, I took the train from Granada to Madrid. It was about 4 hours long, and I tried to sleep as much of it as I could. I knew that my friends Erica, Mike, and Josh would be waiting for me when I got there. They had just arrived from the US that day. I found them all sleeping, and not quite as excited about our reunion as I was, or at least not yet in their jet-lagged state. I walked around Madrid looking for a laundromat, but it was the middle of the daily siesta, not to mention August, when many Spanish leave their homes for vacation elsewhere. Accordingly, there was little open, but I did get some good doner kebab.

That night, after sleepy little chickadees awoke, we took advantage of the Prado’s evening free entrance, and visited one of the world’s premier art museums. I’ve never been huge on Spanish artists, but there was some great work by Velasquez and others there, as well as some Italian pieces that were more close to what I traditionally enjoy.

That evening we got tapas and sangria around dusk, and the wandered until we happened into a shisha joint. The deal was free shisha with a drink, so we took advantage and ordered caiparinhas, mojitos and such.

My friend Rae had ordered me to eat at a restaurant chain called El Asador de Aranda, because she believed it to be the “best restaurant in the world,” even though she ate at one in Barcelona, and I was in Madrid. Accordingly I dragged my friends around Madrid looking for the place, even after it began pouring rain on us. Still, once we found it, and enjoyed the roast lamb that is the only entrée they serve, we all agreed that it was worth the sojourn.

On August 13^th, after a midmorning run through the botanical gardens, we visited the Palacio Real, where the kings and queens of Spain have lived for centuries, but the current royal family only uses for ceremonial occasions. The visit was ok, but it was certainly no Versailles, or even Palazzo Pitti in my opinion. However, it did have an interesting armory, featuring arms and armor from medieval ages through the late renaissance. There are more exquisite suits of armor at the Met in New York City, but the large, almost-cannon style muskets and arquebuses were a unique sight.

           

That evening, after our own siesta, we visited the Reina Sofia art museum just before closing. Picasso’s Guernica is housed there, and it was great to finally see it in person, all those years after having seen it in my grade school history book. After that we found a rooftop bar/restaurant called Gaudemus which served delicious, if expensive mojitos, with brown sugar around the rim of the glasses. We ate tapas there, and then wandered the streets. We found a street festival with people from ages 6 and 7 to 67, and maybe even older, dancing and drinking in the streets. It was quite the spectacle. The best part, however, was when a Spanish language version of “Achy-Breaky Heart” came on, and the entire street began line-dancing. This was not even the first time I had heard this song since I’d been in Spain. Apparently the Spanish love Billy Ray Cyrus. After our laughter subsided, we continued on, had a few drinks, and retired for the evening.

Valencia

On August 14^th, we took an ungodly expensive, four-hour-long train from Madrid to Valencia. Should have flown, but Erica has an irrational fear of flying, which she insists is not an “idiosyncrasy”. This non-idiosyncrasy means that she and Mike will be taking a 14-hour sleeper car train from Rome to Paris later on the trip, instead of a much shorter flight. In any case, when we arrived in Valencia, we checked into our four person hotel room, and I quickly decided I was going to the beach. No one else felt like joining, so I had the pleasure of figuring it all out for our joint trip the next day. I took bus 19 to what I thought was near the coast. I asked the bus driver in my broken Spanish if we were near the “playa”, and he responded with an annoyed stream of Spanish/Catalan that the beach was all along the route. He promptly stopped the bus in the middle of the street and let me off. I then walked the direction he indicated until I hit the sand.

I hadn’t eaten, so I thought I might grab a quick bite at a beachside restaurant, then hit the sand. I ended up spending about an hour and a half at a restaurant since the service was so slow. Nevertheless, the paella was good, and the view was great. Afterwards, I spent about an hour on the sand. I then spent about 45 minutes trying to find the correct bus back, since not only did I not get off at a real stop, but the buses travel on different streets going the opposite direction. I finally found bus 20, got off at my stop, and grabbed a souvenir business card from an escort service from the many that were stuffed in the bus stop shelter. Apparently the service was right in the same complex as our hotel. My friends were amused, and only a little worried that I might order an escort to our shared hotel room.

That night, we decided to grab some food and go to the late night aquarium. We stopped at a place that, again, ended up taking about an hour longer than we really had to spare, but with decent paella. Once we left, and wandered for quite awhile through Valencia’s revolutionary architectural, arts, and sciences park, we still couldn’t figure out how to get into the aquarium. And it was about 11:30pm. We gave up for the night, and convinced ourselves we’d try again the next night.

The next day began with a trip back to the train station to attempt to exchange our train tickets to Barcelona for a much earlier time. Our friends Elyse and Chris would be meeting us in Barcelona, but Elyse would be getting in much earlier in the day, and it was her birthday. Our original tickets would have us leave around 3pm, and not get in until 7 something. However, the only other option was for a 6:40am train that got in sometime around 10:30am. Loving Elyse as much as we did, we opted to change our tickets, regardless of how exhausted we’d be.

After the ticket exchange, we met up with Mike (who was running his own silly errand trying to track down our soccer, or futbol, tickets) outside the Valencia Cathedral. At this otherwise non-spectacular church is a relic known as the Holy Chalice. The Roman Catholic church maintains that it is the cup that Jesus used at the Last Supper. Legend holds that the cup used by Jesus there might also have been used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch Christ’s blood after the Crucifixion. In other words, by some definitions, this was the Holy Grail. I say some definitions because Erica later insisted on having an argument with me about the legendary item, and whether or not this was it. I essentially argued that the “legendary” item did not exist, but was inspired by perhaps a real item, such as this cup, and therefore this cup could be called the Holy Grail. The Church itself stated that this cup inspired many Grail legends. Erica’s argument was that since it wasn’t the cup sought after by King Arthur’s knights, etc, then it couldn’t be called the Holy Grail. Since the story itself is a work of fiction, this meant that nothing could rightfully be called the real Grail. Whatever. It was inspiring to me, and quite an experience to view the inspiration for the stories I read endlessly about when I was younger. The others were less excited. Mike didn’t even pay to come in, and Josh regretted having done so so much that he swore off most other churches for the rest of the trip.

Later we went back to the beach. Erica and I had an interesting conversation with a middle-aged Romanian tourist that insisted that Franco’s tomb outside Madrid was best and most beautiful sight in the country. We decided it was best not to argue.

That night we did actually make it to the aquarium, and saw a corny but entertaining synchronized swimming with dolphins show. The “plot”, if it can be called that, centered around humanity’s destruction of the environment, and the efforts of the “sea nymphs” (dancers) and dolphins to repair it. Wah wah. Nevermind the throwaway concessions sold outside the auditorium, or the cheap consumer crap sold in the souvenir store. But it was still fairly entertaining. Afterwards we visited the aquarium proper, though most exhibits were closed or closing. The sea lions were sleeping in a pile. The seahorse exhibit included rather humorous warnings about trying to limit one’s usage of “traditional medicines” that included seahorses. After we left, we stopped at a doner kebab place masquerading as a fine dining establishment, and went home to get our 4.5 hours of sleep.