Hey everyone, sorry for taking so long to write something new, I've had all kinds of essays to get cracking on, but I can finally take a break before starting the next one.
At 7am on Friday, March 7th I woke up aggravated and tired as always. But it was time for a trip! The night before I had packed all my stuff as usual and I hustled out the door without waiting for the others to pack and get their stuff together after the usual long night of drinking. Carrying my backpack, faithful courier bag and my bag of bocadillos and homemade cookies (made the night before!) I showed up in the near-dark at the plaza GG (Gabriél y Galán) where the bus was to show up and soon thereafter boarded and of course when everyone sees each other for the first half to full hour it's just talking and shouting crazy pointless things as if affirming solidarity through stupid jokes and ramblings about where people had been the night before and what might have caused whatever several boys to be so late. Usual routine for us.
Soon thereafter, though, most everyone was attempting to sleep. A peaceful quiet settled on the bus, only interrupted by the occasional riotous laughter of inside jokes or whatever it might be. At lunch time we stopped at this saloon-looking place where we were allowed to take out our sandwiches and eat. Smoky and inhabited by lots of dirty and tired-looking truckers, it was very much a saloon and on the television, moreover, was the arguably redneck-y sport of motobiking, except across the Sahara desert, very interesting. It was originally in English, done by Australians, but as it was that we remained in Spain, it was overdubbed and held my interest only as long as I could stand to not be annoyed by losing what the people were trying to say that I could have understood if they just used subtitles. I enjoyed my bocadillo (because I separated the dry, wet and fat! so fresh, so good) and savored my own hand made (albeit strangly shaped) chocolate chip cookies that Kathy helped me make. Kathy is a sweet string bean with a great knowledge of cooking and a cheerful spirit, I quite enjoyed cooking with her! Alas soon we were back on the bus and I couldn't manage to sleep. I never can. Those buses are not made for people of my size, the part of the seat that is curved to (one assumes) fit into the neck of the average person hits me in the middle of my back and there's not enough leg room and I always walk out of the bus aching and sleepy. I had, luckily, figured out that I could take Bethany's blanket with me and at least stay warm and cozy even if I couldn't sleep. So I would sit and think and write and read my book (La Bodega, great book) and watched episodes of Good Eats and whatever I could think of. On our way to Barcelona, though, I discovered that I had something on my iPod that I had never listened to and really really loved! Becca had given me the soundtrack to the movie Frida starring Penelope Crúz! The more I listened to it, the more Spanish it was and the more I loved it! Of course it's Mexican, but the lyrics are in Spanish and the sound of the music mimics that of Spain rather closely.
I quite enjoyed that up until we started to see signs in Catalán about Barcelona and finally arrived! I must note here that you may not know that Spain is divided into 18 autonomous communities, several of them sporting unique people such as the gallegos of Galicia (with celtic heritage who speak Gallego) the Basques of País Vasco (Basque country, they speak Basque or Euskadi, noone quite knows what heritage they have, it predates Roman invasion, this place is home to the independence terrorists, ETA... wikipedia that) and the Cataláns of Catalunya (added French heritage who speak Catalán, site of the book La Bodega). We went straight to the hotel, which was honestly a good distance away from central Barcelona and by the time we arrived, we only had about two hours to prepare for dinner. I must note here that we always have to dress up for dinners that we eat in the hotel, although I always forget this. Luckily, however, I generally pack nice enough things anyways that it's no sweat to pick out something to wear to dinner. It's a nice feeling to be prepared.
So we went to dinner, all looking nice, and what did they bring us? I'm not sure I know how to categorize it apart from a horribly conceived pile of pasta, meat paste and white sauce. It was like something Mexican except without flavor, without tomato sauce, without chile peppers... it was flat and tasteless and rather disgusting. I had about one or two bites and just couldn't eat any more. The second plate they brought out to us was better but still poorly constructed: a baked until dry chicken breast with no seasoning whatsoever, a strong black olive puree lining the plate and unsalted french fries. Who is running this kitchen, a middle school cook? No, a middle school cook would have salted the french fries. The chicken was like putting tough sponge in my mouth and the olive puree attacked my taste buds with an insipid pungency, while the french fries washed it all down with a greasy starchiness. The vegetarians, of course, got lovely perfectly steamed asparagus tips with bearnease sauce and lovely fresh green salads. It is not often that I envy the vegetarians, but they seriously got the nice end of the deal here. Good call, veggies! That dinner was pretty disappointing... but I went upstairs and enjoyed the multilingual TV, watching National Geographic in German and some German TV shows. The Italian shows were too over the top and the French shows were kind of boring and the british shows were all news... and I wanted to hear something other than Spanish. Ya, ser gut.
Well the next morning we were up and out at a nice reasonable time to visit Parc Guell created by the famed Catalunian architect Antonio Gaudí. Visiting this place, first of all was in great weather, and second of all it's absolutely beautiful. In the moment that I stood out on the high plaza of Parc Guell I fell in love with his architecture. Everything was made in a mozaic style, but with different materials - sometimes with carefully placed stones, sometimes with multicolored tiles... An important detail of Gaudí's work is how most things are intended to imitate nature, at least to recreate the form of something natural, be it a ribcage or a tree trunk or the human form or the curved forms of animals like lizards or whatever it may be. Anothing important detail is how he managed to take national styles like the mix of Christian and Arabic architectures to create a Spain-noveau style that surpassed everything in its ornate detail and nearly impossibly perfect construction. Gaudí was married to his work and was always on site to make sure everything when according to how he liked. Learning about him in art class reminded me more and more of my sister, I remember her saying one day of her architecture models at the A school at UVA that she 'just kind of put(s) them together, (she) usually (doesn't) plan it out beforehand.' Apparantly that was also the method of Gaudí, completely inspired in the moment he would make models for the builders to give them an idea of what he wanted to do them since most of his ideas were not written in books or common practice at all. For example some of his later works (which I will talk about soon) included arcs created by hanging chains upside down from two points and adding weights wherever to point the arc or to lean it in some direction. This gravity-induced arc is mor like a parabola than any sort of semi-circle arc one might see in old Christian or Roman architecture. Parc Guell is home to his famous lizard mozaic that sits on the ascending stairs from the two entrance buildings. http://www.barcelona30.com/photo_gallery/photo_gallery_b4b5fa3b6e914640757687f43679105f.jpg
Right above that is a little sitting area where I sat and sketched the two buildings at the front and the back of the snake head above the lizard (or dragon, depending on who you ask). It's difficult to draw the work of Gaudí and to me it keeps turning out like something of my fantasy, something kind of silly, seemingly impossible to architectually realize... but no, Gaudí did it. I quite enjoyed attempting to draw the Pórtico which kind of made me think of a ribcage, and at the same time in a movie as if there were a path lined and enclosed by evenly-spaced trees. There was a circular nature to it, with pin bones or sorts sticking out fot eh sides and this incredible tunnel effect appearing like one staring down the endless throat of a giant python. The stones were placed very carefully so that they fit a specific form but the individual stones stuck out seemingly randomly to give the effect that perhaps by some odd chance this might be a natural form, a gift of nature that these rocks just happened to have settled in this way. Ladies and gentlemen, the genius of Gaudí.
Sitting on the top balcony looking over the park and in the distance seeing the blue and shining Mediterannean sea, I could hear the sounds of an old street musician playing trumpet and the gentle hum of people bargaining over the plethora of unique art vendors. There was a variety of art deco earrings, tons of ornate and jewelled hair clips, tons of hand-fitted pendants, a whirlwind of scarved, a great deal of cheap sunglasses and Fork Art! Becca I know you'd love this, it was this guy sitting there with a bunch of forks and several tools and he was twisting and pulling them into beautiful shapes as parts of necklaces or bracelets or pendant holders. I drew two of them for memory and continued walking until I took a seat to just stare at the sea. As I did so, I noticed two people right beside me taking a picture of one of them next to a little piglet figure! I guess they're travelling the world documenting the adventures of piglet, I liked that. In the distance I could also see the top fo the towers of the Sagrada Familia, and tons of cranes. Always cranes everywhere. I craved coffee and felt the need to have a picnic there. It was beautiful and breathtaking and rather relaxing. With the sun gently beating down and the wind sweeping up towards us from the sea I was content.
From there we were let loose near a cathedral to find lunch. My first goal was to find Mercat de la Boquería, the largest open air market in Barcelona! Well, we did indeed find it, Katie and Kristen and I. We found a lovely little bocadillo place and I got this incredible pork tenderloin sandwich with Kas, which is kind of the smaller brand of Spanish Fanta. There were all kinds of fruit and vegetables and fish and pork and anything you could ever ask of a market, it was there. On our way over to the market, however we saw a couple of shops we were interesting in going back to visit, but most interesting of all we passed a group of people moving a large caricature of a dragon! Yes, they were just casually walking down the streets of Barcelona pulling and pushing a 20 foot long dragon made of cloth and metal and wood with beautiful curvatures and nice contrast of a variety of reds and blacks and blues. I wish I had gotten a picture, it was just wierd. Anyways on the way back we got some nice ice cream and chocolates from a nice little chocolate shop and just savored our snacks as we wet back to meet up with the rest of the group before going into the Picasso museum.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Mi iPod
(ThyPod... anyone?)
It's very interesting how I have put use to my iPod on this trip. I will tend to listen to my iPod while walking anywhere, or travelling by bus or train, or reading something or when I can't hook up to a computer's output with my headphones - and I will watch vidoes whenever stationary and bored or trying to sleep. The basic list of what I listen to is as follows:
PODCASTS
(right now) NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me - 25 episodes (I love to listen to this early in the mornings to help me wake up and put me in a good mood
KCRW's Good Food - 16 episodes (I listen to this at all times and again and again, it's a really great podcast that really is all about food and how to make incredible things, interviews with people that have great ideas on food and about restaurants and everything)
NPR Food - 18 episodes (significantly more journalistic and boring than KCRW's Good Food... but still interesting since I love food)
Wine Library TV - 4 episodes (with Garry Vaynerchuk - if you took a rowdy guy from a bar, put him in front of a camera and injected lots of wine knowledge into him, this is what you'd get - very entertaining if not necessarily productively didactic)
and a variety of one-episode downloads that aren’t that great, except I wish I had more than one Prairie Home Companion episode
PLAYLISTS
*Broadway-type songs (Spring Awakening, Into the Woods, Avenue Q, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Spamalot, Footloose, Phantom of the Opera, How to Succeed, Wicked, and random other songs from Rent or Little Shop of Horrors or whatever I've sung with the VC) Celtic Rock (Enter the Haggis, Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphies)
*Celtic Traditional (The Chieftans, Dick Lee/Hamish Moore, Gráda)
*Chronicles of Narnia
*Frank Zappa (Apostrophe)
*Iona (albums Beyond these Shores, Book of Kells, The Circling Hour, Open Sky)
*Lord of the Rings
*Maria Schneider (albums Allégresse, Concert in the Garden, Sky Blue)
*Metal (Epica - The Divine Conspiracy album and most of Consign to Oblivion and as many others as I managed to download last semester, and several works by Kamelot)
*Nightwish (albums Oceanborn, Century Child, Once, Dark Passion Play)
*Once Upon a Mattress PDQ Bach (album The Dreaded PDQ Bach Collection Volume 1 - 4 discs)
*Quiet As the Moon (a Peanuts themed album by Dave Brubeck)
*Relaxing Mix (Iona, Lament by Rhythm and Brass, Venus by Holst, Sleeper Car by Wynton Marsalis, some Charlotte Church, Hush Hush Hush by Herbie Hancock and Annie Lennox, Banana Pancakes by Jack Johnson, Some Devil by Dave Matthews, Moved Through the Fair by Enter the Haggis, Mockingbird and Numbers On Paper by Mose Allison, Round Midnight as done by Bobby McFerrin and Chick Corea, Monk's Mood by Danilo Perez, Princess Leia's Theme and A Window to the Past and Anakin's Theme by John Williams, The Breaking of the Fellowship and May it Be and The Return of the King by Howard Shore, Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap, Alleluia and Gaelic Blessing and God Be In My Head all from VC, Magnum Mysterium which I picked up from Kirby, The Islander and Koulema Tekke Taiteilijan (it's Finnish or Suomi) by Nightwish, 2 A.M. by Casey Driessen, I Got it Bad by Swing Speak - remember them? they used to come to Poplar Forest every year, when did they stop?)
*Star Wars (all albums)
*The White Album as played by Phish, is it bad I don’t have the Beatles playing it?
*New Playlist 1 (I discovered this cool function that everyone else probably already uses all the time to create a playlist on the fly - which is helpful since I don't have my computer here - this is of Spring Awakening since I forgot to add it into the Broadway playlist and I listen to it all the time)
Top 25 Most Played Songs:
1. MOST PLAYED - Bulería Soléa y Rumba (Maria Schneider)
2. Three Romances Part 2 Pas de Deux (Maria Schneider)
3. Three Romances Part 1 Choro Dançao (Maria Schneider)
4. Three RomancesPart 3 Dança Ilusória (Maria Schneider)
5. Hang Gliding (Maria Schneider)
6. Never Enough (Epica)
7. The Mirror-Blue Night (from Spring Awakening by Duncan Sheik)
8. Adyta (Epica)
9. All That's Known (Duncan Sheik)
10. I Believe (Duncan Sheik)
11. The Obsessive Devotion (Epica)
12. The Pretty Road (Maria Schneider)
13. Aires de Lando (Maria Schneider)
14. The Song of Purple Summer (Duncan Sheik)
15. The Guilty Ones (Duncan Sheik)
16. The Islander (Nightwish)
17. The Bitch of Living (Duncan Sheik)
18. Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind (Duncan Sheik)
19. La'petach Chatat Rovetz: The Final Embrace (Epica)
20. Spring Awakening/Left Behind (Duncan Sheik)
21. 2 A.M. (Casey Driessen)
22. My Junk (Duncan Sheik)
23. Touch Me (Duncan Sheik)
24. December Ends (Enter the Haggis)
25. A Window to the Past (from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by John Williams)
Right before I go to bed, I generally watch one or two episodes of the many Good Eats episodes, two Iron Chef episodes or the one Oliver's Twist episode that I have on my iPod. Other than that, my choices of music depend entirely on my mood and how I feel at the time. While on El Camino de Santiago, for example, I would listen to things that sounded more befitting of the countryside as I walked through it enjoying the scenery such as Casey Driessen or Into the Woods (quite fitting indeed) or celtic traditional music. If I were, however, pounding up the side of the mountain and I needed some aggression and motivation I might listen to metal like Epica or Kamelot or Nightwish. If I were just relaxing or reading or walking through Salamanca I'd be likely to enjoy some Maria Schneider (particularly Buleria, Soléa y Rumba) and if I felt like some comedy I would be likely to listen to Avenue Q or Monty Python or PDQ Bach. It's entirely dependent on my mood, like ice cream flavors or satisfaction with the motivation of the United States public as a whole.
What I've listened to a lot less than I expected:
Jazz - Wynton Marsalis, Maynard Ferguson, Ellington, Basie Band, Miles Davis (I really just can't enjoy his stuff, maybe class overload), Mingus, Los Hombres Calientes
As I have pointed out before I feel like I understand Jazz really well but I might have just had an overload of it over the past couple of years - so much so that I got the feeling that I was missing out on listening to other stuff - so I picked up metal and Celtic and some Pop...
Surprise favorites:
@Justin Timberlake (after seeing him do live performances and comedy on SNL and listening to his music more, I've come to see him as a real musician and rather talented entertainer who really can sing and isn't insane and egotistical - I think I even saw him perform one time with Arturo Sandoval)
@Frida Soundtrack - Becca gave this to me, there's such a mystical quality to it with great songs in Spanish which is nice to practice here - I have listened to this a lot, particularly on El Camino de Santiago
@Leo Kottke – I don’t actually have any of his stuff on my iPod but it’s a very interesting story – as a child my parents had many tapes for me to listen to as I went to sleep and one of them was the story of Paul Bunyan, this particular version having as background music Leo Kottke. Well of course at the time I had no idea who that was but I loved the music. I used to listen to it just because of the lovely and uniquely rhythmed 12-string guitar in the background. It is lost somewhere in history, probably not even produced anymore. As I grew up sometime in high school I started listening to Prairie Home Companion and every once in a while the host, Garrison Keillor, would have on the show a guitar player that had a sound that I recognized very well – Leo Kottke! Every time I hear his stuff it makes me want to go and buy several of his albums and indeed while I’ve been here I’ve been finding every recording youtube.com holds of Mr. Kottke which happens to be a good variety.
@Casie Driessen (I love the bluegrassy sound with the variety of jazz)
@Bonnie Rideout - album Scottish Fire (I got this at the JMU music library, contrary to the album title it's a nice collection of rather relaxing Scottish folk songs)
@Jibbs - Is that Yo Chain? (the first time I heard this rap song it was a music video on MTV, I seriously thought it was a joke - it still makes me laugh. Do yo chain hang low, do it wobble to the flo', do it shine in the light, is it plat'num is it gold, could you throw it over ya shoulda, if you hot it make you cold - do yo chain hang low?)
@Sting and Cheb Mami - Desert Rose (I like the sound imitating a muslim muezzin - the guy who would go up on a high minaret and call the muslim town to prayer)
@Gentle Giant - particularly the Selections from 'Octupus' on their live album 'Playing the Fool Live' - incredible musicianship and mind-blowing ability to sing abstract counter melodies
@Béla Fleck and the Flecktones - Live at the Quick - just flat out awesomeness
And... that's about it. My mind works in strange and unusual ways, so that I actually have cravings for music in the way that pregnant women have cravings for pickles or ice cream. It's completely (or at least seemingly so) random and very specific. I never know what's coming next.
It's very interesting how I have put use to my iPod on this trip. I will tend to listen to my iPod while walking anywhere, or travelling by bus or train, or reading something or when I can't hook up to a computer's output with my headphones - and I will watch vidoes whenever stationary and bored or trying to sleep. The basic list of what I listen to is as follows:
PODCASTS
(right now) NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me - 25 episodes (I love to listen to this early in the mornings to help me wake up and put me in a good mood
KCRW's Good Food - 16 episodes (I listen to this at all times and again and again, it's a really great podcast that really is all about food and how to make incredible things, interviews with people that have great ideas on food and about restaurants and everything)
NPR Food - 18 episodes (significantly more journalistic and boring than KCRW's Good Food... but still interesting since I love food)
Wine Library TV - 4 episodes (with Garry Vaynerchuk - if you took a rowdy guy from a bar, put him in front of a camera and injected lots of wine knowledge into him, this is what you'd get - very entertaining if not necessarily productively didactic)
and a variety of one-episode downloads that aren’t that great, except I wish I had more than one Prairie Home Companion episode
PLAYLISTS
*Broadway-type songs (Spring Awakening, Into the Woods, Avenue Q, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Spamalot, Footloose, Phantom of the Opera, How to Succeed, Wicked, and random other songs from Rent or Little Shop of Horrors or whatever I've sung with the VC) Celtic Rock (Enter the Haggis, Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphies)
*Celtic Traditional (The Chieftans, Dick Lee/Hamish Moore, Gráda)
*Chronicles of Narnia
*Frank Zappa (Apostrophe)
*Iona (albums Beyond these Shores, Book of Kells, The Circling Hour, Open Sky)
*Lord of the Rings
*Maria Schneider (albums Allégresse, Concert in the Garden, Sky Blue)
*Metal (Epica - The Divine Conspiracy album and most of Consign to Oblivion and as many others as I managed to download last semester, and several works by Kamelot)
*Nightwish (albums Oceanborn, Century Child, Once, Dark Passion Play)
*Once Upon a Mattress PDQ Bach (album The Dreaded PDQ Bach Collection Volume 1 - 4 discs)
*Quiet As the Moon (a Peanuts themed album by Dave Brubeck)
*Relaxing Mix (Iona, Lament by Rhythm and Brass, Venus by Holst, Sleeper Car by Wynton Marsalis, some Charlotte Church, Hush Hush Hush by Herbie Hancock and Annie Lennox, Banana Pancakes by Jack Johnson, Some Devil by Dave Matthews, Moved Through the Fair by Enter the Haggis, Mockingbird and Numbers On Paper by Mose Allison, Round Midnight as done by Bobby McFerrin and Chick Corea, Monk's Mood by Danilo Perez, Princess Leia's Theme and A Window to the Past and Anakin's Theme by John Williams, The Breaking of the Fellowship and May it Be and The Return of the King by Howard Shore, Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap, Alleluia and Gaelic Blessing and God Be In My Head all from VC, Magnum Mysterium which I picked up from Kirby, The Islander and Koulema Tekke Taiteilijan (it's Finnish or Suomi) by Nightwish, 2 A.M. by Casey Driessen, I Got it Bad by Swing Speak - remember them? they used to come to Poplar Forest every year, when did they stop?)
*Star Wars (all albums)
*The White Album as played by Phish, is it bad I don’t have the Beatles playing it?
*New Playlist 1 (I discovered this cool function that everyone else probably already uses all the time to create a playlist on the fly - which is helpful since I don't have my computer here - this is of Spring Awakening since I forgot to add it into the Broadway playlist and I listen to it all the time)
Top 25 Most Played Songs:
1. MOST PLAYED - Bulería Soléa y Rumba (Maria Schneider)
2. Three Romances Part 2 Pas de Deux (Maria Schneider)
3. Three Romances Part 1 Choro Dançao (Maria Schneider)
4. Three RomancesPart 3 Dança Ilusória (Maria Schneider)
5. Hang Gliding (Maria Schneider)
6. Never Enough (Epica)
7. The Mirror-Blue Night (from Spring Awakening by Duncan Sheik)
8. Adyta (Epica)
9. All That's Known (Duncan Sheik)
10. I Believe (Duncan Sheik)
11. The Obsessive Devotion (Epica)
12. The Pretty Road (Maria Schneider)
13. Aires de Lando (Maria Schneider)
14. The Song of Purple Summer (Duncan Sheik)
15. The Guilty Ones (Duncan Sheik)
16. The Islander (Nightwish)
17. The Bitch of Living (Duncan Sheik)
18. Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind (Duncan Sheik)
19. La'petach Chatat Rovetz: The Final Embrace (Epica)
20. Spring Awakening/Left Behind (Duncan Sheik)
21. 2 A.M. (Casey Driessen)
22. My Junk (Duncan Sheik)
23. Touch Me (Duncan Sheik)
24. December Ends (Enter the Haggis)
25. A Window to the Past (from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by John Williams)
Right before I go to bed, I generally watch one or two episodes of the many Good Eats episodes, two Iron Chef episodes or the one Oliver's Twist episode that I have on my iPod. Other than that, my choices of music depend entirely on my mood and how I feel at the time. While on El Camino de Santiago, for example, I would listen to things that sounded more befitting of the countryside as I walked through it enjoying the scenery such as Casey Driessen or Into the Woods (quite fitting indeed) or celtic traditional music. If I were, however, pounding up the side of the mountain and I needed some aggression and motivation I might listen to metal like Epica or Kamelot or Nightwish. If I were just relaxing or reading or walking through Salamanca I'd be likely to enjoy some Maria Schneider (particularly Buleria, Soléa y Rumba) and if I felt like some comedy I would be likely to listen to Avenue Q or Monty Python or PDQ Bach. It's entirely dependent on my mood, like ice cream flavors or satisfaction with the motivation of the United States public as a whole.
What I've listened to a lot less than I expected:
Jazz - Wynton Marsalis, Maynard Ferguson, Ellington, Basie Band, Miles Davis (I really just can't enjoy his stuff, maybe class overload), Mingus, Los Hombres Calientes
As I have pointed out before I feel like I understand Jazz really well but I might have just had an overload of it over the past couple of years - so much so that I got the feeling that I was missing out on listening to other stuff - so I picked up metal and Celtic and some Pop...
Surprise favorites:
@Justin Timberlake (after seeing him do live performances and comedy on SNL and listening to his music more, I've come to see him as a real musician and rather talented entertainer who really can sing and isn't insane and egotistical - I think I even saw him perform one time with Arturo Sandoval)
@Frida Soundtrack - Becca gave this to me, there's such a mystical quality to it with great songs in Spanish which is nice to practice here - I have listened to this a lot, particularly on El Camino de Santiago
@Leo Kottke – I don’t actually have any of his stuff on my iPod but it’s a very interesting story – as a child my parents had many tapes for me to listen to as I went to sleep and one of them was the story of Paul Bunyan, this particular version having as background music Leo Kottke. Well of course at the time I had no idea who that was but I loved the music. I used to listen to it just because of the lovely and uniquely rhythmed 12-string guitar in the background. It is lost somewhere in history, probably not even produced anymore. As I grew up sometime in high school I started listening to Prairie Home Companion and every once in a while the host, Garrison Keillor, would have on the show a guitar player that had a sound that I recognized very well – Leo Kottke! Every time I hear his stuff it makes me want to go and buy several of his albums and indeed while I’ve been here I’ve been finding every recording youtube.com holds of Mr. Kottke which happens to be a good variety.
@Casie Driessen (I love the bluegrassy sound with the variety of jazz)
@Bonnie Rideout - album Scottish Fire (I got this at the JMU music library, contrary to the album title it's a nice collection of rather relaxing Scottish folk songs)
@Jibbs - Is that Yo Chain? (the first time I heard this rap song it was a music video on MTV, I seriously thought it was a joke - it still makes me laugh. Do yo chain hang low, do it wobble to the flo', do it shine in the light, is it plat'num is it gold, could you throw it over ya shoulda, if you hot it make you cold - do yo chain hang low?)
@Sting and Cheb Mami - Desert Rose (I like the sound imitating a muslim muezzin - the guy who would go up on a high minaret and call the muslim town to prayer)
@Gentle Giant - particularly the Selections from 'Octupus' on their live album 'Playing the Fool Live' - incredible musicianship and mind-blowing ability to sing abstract counter melodies
@Béla Fleck and the Flecktones - Live at the Quick - just flat out awesomeness
And... that's about it. My mind works in strange and unusual ways, so that I actually have cravings for music in the way that pregnant women have cravings for pickles or ice cream. It's completely (or at least seemingly so) random and very specific. I never know what's coming next.
El Camino 1
Early in the morning in the 'Buen Camino' albergue in Palais de Rei, I awoke refreshed and excited about my day. It had been so cold during the night that through the single window in our room, the air had made my face pretty cold during the night, but I managed to stay reasonably warm otherwise under my double-layered blanket that Bethany had made for me before leaving for Europe. One side is a dark blue fleece and the other side is a green plaid, a nice celtic-ish blend just for me! At any rate, as you can imagine it is enough to keep me warm with something else, but perhaps not the best choice as a single cover while sleeping. But I was comfortable enough. The night before I had carefully arranged the things in my borrowed backpack as such: in the central bottom would be clean clothes and things I would need to use every night, in the central top would be clothes that wait until Portugal, towel, shoes then dirty cothes. On the bottommost pocket would be things I might need on the trail - first aid, food etc... Before I arrived there it was just an unholy mess of things... which isn't to say it was much neater inside after I rearranged, but definitely easier to use. The night before I had also set out the clothes I would need and upon waking up all I had to do was dress, put away my PJ pants and pack my blanket on top of the pack and be on my way.
As mentioned before, I had no idea what to expect... would it be a medieval trial of robbers and dangerous spaces along the trail with a fire swamp and Rodents of Unusual Size? Who could say... well many people but not me at least. So I scurried in the brisk cold morning air - everyone else seemed to have long since left the place, I was getting up at about 10am (I would find out later that the norm would be to leave the albergue by 8am) - and got dressed and closed up my back. Having asked the night before, the daughter of the owner of the albergue showed me where the path led from where we were and I set out in that direction. From the town there was a pleasant little stone stepway onto the path that seemed very much like what I would expect the path to look like - similar to the much trodden Appalachian Trail. While there was a little bit of mist, the scenery was similar to the deep countryside of VA leaving winter but with tons of rain, lots of leaves and no red clay - great cold blues and heavy dark greens, leaves fluttering in the cooling wind... all the while with lots of very tall evergreens and shrubberies. It surprised me how much green I saw, heavy strong grass and very fertile looking plants all over. Every once in a while I would see a splash of flowers coming from nowhere - just a bunch of purple flowers or a couple of tiny white blossoms. Beautiful.
The dirt trail led through meadows and on the sides of hills and over mountains and every once in a while I would pass by a stone tablet in the ground, very much what one thinks of when you think of the 10 commandments, and inscribed deep in the stone would always at the top be a depressed square and in the middle of the square would be a 3d impression of a scallop shell (Concha) which is the sign of Saint James (Santiago), and if I was lucky it would have an additional inscription below that - 46.7 km (or whatever it might be) to Santiago. There was always a stone tablet at a crossroads to indicate which way the trail to Santiago led and when it still seemed unclear there were always yellow arrows blazed in spraypaint. There were many yellow arrows and many stone tablets indicating the amount I had travelled, and it was very motivating. As I walked along the path listening to music I could tell that I was making progress and actually getting an idea of where I was in my day's travel. The first day was a long long one - 33 kilometers. Roughly half of the entire trail I was to go.
As I walked along the trail, I realized what I had gained from my years of being a Boy Scout - I knew how to hold my backpack and I was strong enough to hike quickly and pick the best places to walk and after a little while I came to a little road (there were lots of roads of all kinds crossed on El Camino) where there was a huge stack of sticks. I saw one particularly off to the side on the ground that was about as tall as I am, guessing 6 feet tall and just barely taperingfrom 5'' around to maybe 3.5'' around. It probably weighed 5 lbs or less and I decided that I would like for it to be my walking stick! I took out my trusty knife and began carving a handle of sorts as I continued listening to music and hiked on. As I hiked, I saw farms as far as the eye could see. If it wasn't forest and there was a road nearby, there were at least 3 farms within sight. These farms consisted of great stretches of land, large squares of firm green grass with cows or sheep or goats grazing, with a stone-founded house at it's front with beautiful wood roofing and usually a dog to the side, or several walking around in front. These houses were more often than not close together with their farm-land stretching out to the sides and all around. There would always be many of these constructions all over the place that I can only assume were used for storing things off the ground. It would be two pillars of either brick or stone with mortar supporting wooden stilts that held up what looked to me like a realy long dog house. It usually had a cute little triangle roof hanging off the sides to protect from the large amounts of rain that the region usually gets, and between the large but not airtight wooden planks on the side I could sometimes see sacks of perhaps grain and sometimes piles of dried corn (maíz). I had never seen these stilted dog houses before, but let me tell you they are EVERywhere. There was a wide range of decoration on them, from nothing whatsoever to elaborate conchas and signs of Santiago to simple solid paint.
It was perhaps 1.5 to 2 hours before I arrived in San Xulian do Camino. I don't recall in particular having passed anyone but with my walking stick in hand I arrived into this little village at the top of a hill where there was of course a grouping of stone houses with sheds/barns and a stone church with a tall bell tower to tell the hour and call people to mass. As I passed some cute little dogs and the occasional barn cat, I came up to an Albergue/café where the owner was helping a man in a plaid button down shirt, hiking pants and boots, a nice little black fanny-pack kind of thing on his side, an artistic bandana tied around his neck and a black skull cap. In his Italian accent I heard through his short beard that he was from Venice and has been hiking since France. After he asked for some coffee he was also offered and given some Orujo de Hierbas which come to find out is traditionally a home-made liquor of over 50% made from the solid remains left after pressing grapes for wine. Seeking for some kind of breakfast, I asked for some bread and butter since I already had some water with me. The owner was very obliging and gave me a plate full of fresh local bread, butter, Spanish olive oil in a glass service piece and strawberry marmelade. This bread, I must guess, was made from stone ground flour with a nice firm crumb and incredible bubble networking and a crispy but golden and tasty crust. It was unspeakably delicious, even without the flavorful and perfectly soft butter, fruity olive oil or veeery sweet and delicious marmelade. I was already convinced that I was going to experience some of the best food available in Galicia on this hike. I watched as the owner decanted his jug of orujo into a serving bottle and I asked him a little more of why it was outlawed. He didn't quite know and supposed that the police we unhappy about losing the tax money of having it produced in houses. That is a pretty good reason to me, however unfair it might be. The longer I sat there and enjoyed my simple breakfast, some other people came in, the first of which were the two German ladies that I recalled briefly speaking to in Palais de Rei. After them came in a group of 4 people who I came to learn were from Catalunya. Once I was ready to go and paid the small fee and headed out on the trail with the Catalans.
As mentioned before, I had no idea what to expect... would it be a medieval trial of robbers and dangerous spaces along the trail with a fire swamp and Rodents of Unusual Size? Who could say... well many people but not me at least. So I scurried in the brisk cold morning air - everyone else seemed to have long since left the place, I was getting up at about 10am (I would find out later that the norm would be to leave the albergue by 8am) - and got dressed and closed up my back. Having asked the night before, the daughter of the owner of the albergue showed me where the path led from where we were and I set out in that direction. From the town there was a pleasant little stone stepway onto the path that seemed very much like what I would expect the path to look like - similar to the much trodden Appalachian Trail. While there was a little bit of mist, the scenery was similar to the deep countryside of VA leaving winter but with tons of rain, lots of leaves and no red clay - great cold blues and heavy dark greens, leaves fluttering in the cooling wind... all the while with lots of very tall evergreens and shrubberies. It surprised me how much green I saw, heavy strong grass and very fertile looking plants all over. Every once in a while I would see a splash of flowers coming from nowhere - just a bunch of purple flowers or a couple of tiny white blossoms. Beautiful.
The dirt trail led through meadows and on the sides of hills and over mountains and every once in a while I would pass by a stone tablet in the ground, very much what one thinks of when you think of the 10 commandments, and inscribed deep in the stone would always at the top be a depressed square and in the middle of the square would be a 3d impression of a scallop shell (Concha) which is the sign of Saint James (Santiago), and if I was lucky it would have an additional inscription below that - 46.7 km (or whatever it might be) to Santiago. There was always a stone tablet at a crossroads to indicate which way the trail to Santiago led and when it still seemed unclear there were always yellow arrows blazed in spraypaint. There were many yellow arrows and many stone tablets indicating the amount I had travelled, and it was very motivating. As I walked along the path listening to music I could tell that I was making progress and actually getting an idea of where I was in my day's travel. The first day was a long long one - 33 kilometers. Roughly half of the entire trail I was to go.
As I walked along the trail, I realized what I had gained from my years of being a Boy Scout - I knew how to hold my backpack and I was strong enough to hike quickly and pick the best places to walk and after a little while I came to a little road (there were lots of roads of all kinds crossed on El Camino) where there was a huge stack of sticks. I saw one particularly off to the side on the ground that was about as tall as I am, guessing 6 feet tall and just barely taperingfrom 5'' around to maybe 3.5'' around. It probably weighed 5 lbs or less and I decided that I would like for it to be my walking stick! I took out my trusty knife and began carving a handle of sorts as I continued listening to music and hiked on. As I hiked, I saw farms as far as the eye could see. If it wasn't forest and there was a road nearby, there were at least 3 farms within sight. These farms consisted of great stretches of land, large squares of firm green grass with cows or sheep or goats grazing, with a stone-founded house at it's front with beautiful wood roofing and usually a dog to the side, or several walking around in front. These houses were more often than not close together with their farm-land stretching out to the sides and all around. There would always be many of these constructions all over the place that I can only assume were used for storing things off the ground. It would be two pillars of either brick or stone with mortar supporting wooden stilts that held up what looked to me like a realy long dog house. It usually had a cute little triangle roof hanging off the sides to protect from the large amounts of rain that the region usually gets, and between the large but not airtight wooden planks on the side I could sometimes see sacks of perhaps grain and sometimes piles of dried corn (maíz). I had never seen these stilted dog houses before, but let me tell you they are EVERywhere. There was a wide range of decoration on them, from nothing whatsoever to elaborate conchas and signs of Santiago to simple solid paint.
It was perhaps 1.5 to 2 hours before I arrived in San Xulian do Camino. I don't recall in particular having passed anyone but with my walking stick in hand I arrived into this little village at the top of a hill where there was of course a grouping of stone houses with sheds/barns and a stone church with a tall bell tower to tell the hour and call people to mass. As I passed some cute little dogs and the occasional barn cat, I came up to an Albergue/café where the owner was helping a man in a plaid button down shirt, hiking pants and boots, a nice little black fanny-pack kind of thing on his side, an artistic bandana tied around his neck and a black skull cap. In his Italian accent I heard through his short beard that he was from Venice and has been hiking since France. After he asked for some coffee he was also offered and given some Orujo de Hierbas which come to find out is traditionally a home-made liquor of over 50% made from the solid remains left after pressing grapes for wine. Seeking for some kind of breakfast, I asked for some bread and butter since I already had some water with me. The owner was very obliging and gave me a plate full of fresh local bread, butter, Spanish olive oil in a glass service piece and strawberry marmelade. This bread, I must guess, was made from stone ground flour with a nice firm crumb and incredible bubble networking and a crispy but golden and tasty crust. It was unspeakably delicious, even without the flavorful and perfectly soft butter, fruity olive oil or veeery sweet and delicious marmelade. I was already convinced that I was going to experience some of the best food available in Galicia on this hike. I watched as the owner decanted his jug of orujo into a serving bottle and I asked him a little more of why it was outlawed. He didn't quite know and supposed that the police we unhappy about losing the tax money of having it produced in houses. That is a pretty good reason to me, however unfair it might be. The longer I sat there and enjoyed my simple breakfast, some other people came in, the first of which were the two German ladies that I recalled briefly speaking to in Palais de Rei. After them came in a group of 4 people who I came to learn were from Catalunya. Once I was ready to go and paid the small fee and headed out on the trail with the Catalans.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
En Busca Del Camino
In the morning I woke up to see the time... 9am... damn. My bus would leave the station at 9:30. Luckily everything was packed, I just needed to get dressed and get OUT! I rushed down the subway and waited patiently to switch trains and finally get down to the station at the southermost point of the city of Madrid! I made it! I got to the station with several minutes to spare and flew down to the bus portal when I realized as I looked at the ticket that I had absolutely no idea where the bus might be. Damn. I hunted and hunted as time ticked down. Alas I could not find the bus that would take me to El Camino. I missed it. Shit. What do I do? I was freaking out, sweating and imagining a great failure of this whole trip. Why did I let him arrange the trip for so early! WHY? I know I'm terrible at getting going in the morening, I can't even spell it I dislike it so much. Waking up means stopping sleeping which we all know is a wonderful thing. Anyways, I went up to the ticket booth and asked if I could get a replacement ticket for a small fee. Of course not, Europeans aren't friendly with customer service I have found. No, of course I had to buy a whole new ticket. $50 (€30). Oh bother. Fine, I'll bite, I need to get to Lugo. And so I did! I made the next bus out an hour later to Lugo in far northern Spain.
It was a long long bus trip, and actually something very interesting and unexpected happened right in the middle of it. Remember this is happening on Palm Sunday a week before Easter, officially beginning what the Spanish call Semana Santa (literally translated as Holy Week). As we were passing through Medina del Campo, our bus approached a large cathedral and was stopped as a long long procession marched into the church. There were various groups of the parade that were dressed up in different ways, but it appeared as if most all of them had a long-sleeved robe down to their feet covered with a crucifix studded cape, all of them wearing white gloves and carrying palm fronds and wearing medalleons set on what appeared to be rosary-like necklaces. There were lots of kids and a gigantic float bearing a resemblance to Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem to the greeting of people with palm fronds that required the opening of the great wooden doors at the entrance of the cathedral. There are always gigantic wooden doors at the entrance of any great cathedral, although before I had never seen any of them opened, I guess now I know what they're for. There were also dummers and flute playes, remeniscent of the US revolutionary war, although I'm unsure of what the historical coincidence of that might be, just perhaps the time period of origin - mid to late 1700s. I should also note that the float was on great big wheels, I was actually expecting - from the stories I had heard about Semana Santa - that the men would be carrying it on their shoulders, but it was a noisy fun parade that erhsp better expresses the sentiment of the celebration in opposition to the more serious and depressing processions of the Passion that I would expect to come later in the week.
At any rate after passing through that parade and taking a break for lunch in the middle of nowhere (I got a lovely grilled bacon and cheese bocadillo), we arrived in Lugo at 5:30. As we were arriving in Lugo actually, in the median of the road there were beautiful prple and yellow flowers that reminded me to JMU, come to think of it there were flowers all over the place, and tons of green grass and heavily sprouting things, which would only mean one thing: water and lots of it. We arrived in this little station that had a bunch of vacant ticket booths, a tiny little magazine store and a café. Well I looked around for the guy that was supposed to sell me my ticket to Palais de Rei, no luck. Apparantly they just come in whenever they feel like it. Great. I went into the café and got some café con leche and chomped on some of the treats that I had gotten for the trail, some honey roasted peanuts, some little bread crackers and iberico chorizo. And waited. And waited. Well the guy wasn't going to show up so I sat down and wrote some letters to Bethany - I did tell her that I was going to write every day on the trail. Why not, right? I had all the time I wanted to myself and plenty to write about. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned the beautiful stationary that she got for me - a nice parchment-like colored paper simply masculine with a frayed edge and nice crispness. Besides that she also got me a lovely wax stamp with a cool elaborate medieval K on it with several kinds of wax to seal with. If you'd like an example send me your name and address and I'd be happy to send you a personal letter :-). Anyways I finished a postcard and a letter and the guy still wasn't showing up. So I decided to explore the town a little bit. According to Wikipedia:
' In the region of Lugo in the autonimity of Galicia, located on a site above the Minho river and named after the Celtic god Lugus (let's remember that all of Galicia was inhabited by Celtic peoples), it is the only city in Europe to be surrounded by completely intact Roman walls (the Romans of course inhabiting all of Spain for 500 years), which reach a height of 10 to 15 metres along a 2'5 km circuit ringed with 71 towers. The walk along the top is continuous round the circuit. These 3rd century walls are protected byUNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural organization) as a World Heritage Site. The bridge over the Minho is essentially of Roman date, though many repairs over the centuries have effaced its Roman character. '
There is also a large plaza with a little playground and everything, I sat there for a while and took some pictures of the scenery with my film camera but I decidedly had nothing to do. I wandered around the scene, up and down streets hoping that when I returned to the office there might be someone to get a bus ticket from... and indeed when I returned there was someone - €2.50 to get to Palais de Rei, I'll take it! It did take a little longer for everything to get ready, I didn't know what to do except just sit there - purgatory between Madrid and El Camino de Santiago. What sin had I committed to have to sit doing absolutely nothing for 2 hours? Oh yeah, I missed my bus. Damn you karma. Anyways, the bus was eventually ready and it was a short half hour ride to arrive in Palais de Rei which is just a little closer to Santiago, I guess a day's hike closer that I perhaps could have hiked, but I decided I wanted more time to be in Santiago which later I would be thankful for.
The bus arrived in a little stone town with windy hilly streets at twilight. Unsure of what to do, I got off the bus and unloaded my pack. I'm not sure if I mentioned, but I had absolutely no plan whatsoever for El Camino, I just assumed that I would find places and be alright - and hoped that the trail would be obvious and reasonable. I was utterly and absolutely lost in the middle of nowhere without a map and without any idea of what to do. It is a somewhat invigorating feeling to be dropped off with no clue where you are, but I had a streange faith that everything would be alright and wasn't worried. As the sun continued sinking, I unusually did not listen to my iPod but instead tried to take in what I was seeing. This is the beginning of my journey, this is the beginning of my trial and insight. I felt comforted and intensely curious, as I walked down the steep stone path on the side of the cobblestone street into a stone plaza surrounded by small-town buildings. In the center of the plaza seemed to be a fountain with a statue in the middle of it, covered by a large steel beam canopy. As I got closer, I realized that the statue was of a pilgrim with the iconical robe, hood and walking staff with a drinking gourd and scallop shell (concha). I was in the right place I supposed. As I continued looking around, I just happened to see an open door and a sign that said 'Embasía de los Peregrinos' - Pilgrim's Embassy - again I'm in the right place. I went in and explained to the man that I just showed up with no plans or anything and needed help beginning my trail, finding lodging for the night and getting a pilgrim's passport. The pilgrim's passport is a tradition of El Camino where a pilgrim gets a very literal passport of El Camino where in each place you travel through (ideally everywhere you spend the night) you receive a stamp or 'visa' if you will to prove that you were indeed there. At the end of the trail I had heard that you could receive a certificate proving your completion of the pilgrimage. I was keen to acquire such proof of the journey and so made sure to ask for my passport. The incredibly nice man did indeed print me a passport and give me some information for the trail and walked with me to a nearby place called an 'albergue' or pilgrim's hostel to spend the night. I thanked the man for his hospitality and felt rather good about the experience, there is nothing more comforting than genuine generosity and friendliness. The albergue (al - bear- gay... not gway please) was named 'Buen Camino' which I would come to learn later is the common well wishing of the trail that everyone says to everyone in good faith - as you pass anyone on the trail is it considered a sort of blessing to tell them 'Buen Camino'. The very nice man from the embassy introduced me to the owner of the albergue, a lovely woman of her forties, and she led me inside. As I walked into albergue Buen Camino, the stone façade turned into a lovely wooden interior with a very clean and welcoming dining room with all sorts of Camino information on the side of the bar. The lady asked me all about where I was from and where I'm going and shared the embassy man's curiosity of how I could arrive without any planning. 'It'll be fine,' I told her, hoping not to curse myself (hint: I didn't). After asking the lodging price of €9 (none too shabby, eh?), she asked her daughter of 16-18 or so to lead me up to the rooms and to find me space in a men's room, and I found myself in a very nice small room with 7-9 beds and a rather homey feeling. The beds were set with basic sheets and pillows, and I first unpacked and plugged in my iPod to charge and soon went downstairs to the dining room. Undecided on what to do, I asked the lady for some food and she offered a bacon tortilla sandwich - sounds perfect! I watched the lady pull out some obviously fresh eggs and a hunk of home-cured bacon, she sliced the bacon herself and fried it perfectly in a pan over a flickering blue gas flame, thereafter perfectly mixing the eggs and bacon in a lusciously firm on the outside slightly soft on the inside tortilla on some very fresh and flavorful bread. I was in heaven. If you don't already know, my favorite food is bacon, my favorite meal is bacon and eggs. I thought I had tried the best ways to have bacon and eggs already, but I stood corrected. It was incredible, perfectly salty from the bacon, outrageously flavored from those angelic brown bits from the correctly fried bacon (noplace else in Spain seems to understand the concept of bacon frying, it's always fatty and limp), soft and sweet from the fresh local eggs... just perfect. I put to the side of it some peach juice which is very popular in Spain, which fit the southern home-food theme. All of a sudden as I sat there I noticed that I recognized the song from the concert I went to by Jarabe de Palo (I finished a blog from a while ago about Madrid, if you haven't read it, it's up... you have to go back to find it). As I continued sitting there, very friendly people came in and chatted with me about where we're from, where we're going and all that, in fact they were three people about my age, a girl and two guys. The mentioned that they were planning on going to the same place the next day and that perhaps we could hike together! I was pleased with that and continued sitting there for a while savoring my tortilla bocadillo. After a little while I saw the mother/owner pour some shots and beers for some of the guys in the bar, but I didn't recognize the alcohol, it came out of a sort of water jug and had a yellow-ish color. She told me that it was called Orujo de Hierbas and explained that it was a Galician treat and that the kind that she had 'está prohibido, la policía tienen miedo' - it's prohibited/illegal, the police are afraid. I didn't know quite what she meant but she offered a free little shot just because I had never seen or tried it before. Obligingly and curious I downed it and realized that I loved it! It was very sweet and flavorful of herbs, kind of minty and only had a tiny burn. I had no idea what there was to be afraid of except that it would be so easy to just drink this until I had no idea what was going on, but I settled for the free little shot, I was hoping to encounter more of that later on the trail.
There was even a little internet kiosk there but it was prohibitively expensive and I only spent 30 minutes on it to say hello and I made it to El Camino. Afterwards I went upstairs to take a lovely relaxed shower and then chatted in what little German I knew with some ladies by the dryer before going to bed for a rather pleased and relaxed rest.
I had no expectations of El Camino and didn't know what might be coming but as mentioned before I felt a sort of faithful peace that people had been along this trail for hundreds of years and that I can't possibly be in any danger or trouble - so I'd go with the proverbial and Taioist flow. I'm not sure if I mentioned my preparations for the trip - I needed to prepare a reasonable pack, some trail food and a knife. It took me a long time to decide what to bring, expecting to have my pack on my back all day up and down mountains, so I decided on a large supply of socks and a more limited supply of shirts and pants, attempting to save some nice clothes for Easter with Caroline in Porto. I went to Carrefour (the ubiquitous, even wal-martish Spanish food store) and got some cured Ibérico chorizo and some honey roasted peanuts and some cracker/crouton sorts of things that look like tiny loafs of bread, I figured they would be a source of filling starch if I needed it - I also brought on the trail my water bottle - a large bottle with a pop top (I'm not quite sure what to call it, but it's an easy open sort of thing where you just have to pull the top part up and it opens the bottle to be able to suck out the contents - trust me you know what it is) that must hold 24 oz or so. The knife I bought for €5 or so in a store near my Salamanca home from a very friendly vendor, a very simple reasonably short model with a plastic handle and flip-open forged blade with a stud to aid quick opening. I was considering it first of course for protection after my Porto incident, but after that I use my knifes every day - open fruit, open letters, cut random strands off clothing, hunting small game, peeling things, carving small sticks... things like that. I must say above all I was thankful that I had gotten that thing. I appreciated the easy-to-clean nature, easy-to-open, rather strong nature of the knife and I think it will last for a good long time.
To answer some questions asked of my last post:
1. The Thyssen-Bornemisza art museum in Madrid is named after its owner, a collection that started in the 1920s by the extraordinarily rich Heinrich Baron Thyseen-Bornemisza de Kászon, a German-Hungarian entrepreneur and art collector, the collection was continued by his son and sold to the Spanish government in 1992 for $350 million. It remains one of the greatest and largest personal art collections in the world. The family is now renowned for the horrific private participation of family members in the WWII genocide. Uplifting, I know.
2. Die Fälsche does indeed mean the counterfeiters in German and those counterfeiters in the movie that I saw were the Jewish prisoners under orders of the Nazis to counterfeit the British pound and American dollar. The counterfeiter prisoners, although of course still prisoners held to the same cruel indifference as all others, were shown some preference, given nicer beds and better living space and some autonomy in their work. In return for successfully recreating the British pound so that the British banking authorities couldn't even tell the difference, the prisoners received a ping pong table.
3. I have not been able to attend any church services except that of the Catedral Nuevo of Salamanca a long time ago since we have always been travelling on Sundays otherwise, however this upcoming Sunday I will indeed be free to attend a church service and I will be hunting around for a good place in Salamanca to go to, although I think I might visit a place close to the river that has a gorgeous altar and as I accidentally walked in on one time, a thriving community. The one service, as you may remember, was a traditional Catholic service entirely in Latin without any homily or communion which I found strange, although there was reasonably no congregation to connect with.
4. Yes, I am definitely still listening to a lot of Maria Schneider, I think I will try to take time to write about my iPod habits and trends sometime.
It was a long long bus trip, and actually something very interesting and unexpected happened right in the middle of it. Remember this is happening on Palm Sunday a week before Easter, officially beginning what the Spanish call Semana Santa (literally translated as Holy Week). As we were passing through Medina del Campo, our bus approached a large cathedral and was stopped as a long long procession marched into the church. There were various groups of the parade that were dressed up in different ways, but it appeared as if most all of them had a long-sleeved robe down to their feet covered with a crucifix studded cape, all of them wearing white gloves and carrying palm fronds and wearing medalleons set on what appeared to be rosary-like necklaces. There were lots of kids and a gigantic float bearing a resemblance to Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem to the greeting of people with palm fronds that required the opening of the great wooden doors at the entrance of the cathedral. There are always gigantic wooden doors at the entrance of any great cathedral, although before I had never seen any of them opened, I guess now I know what they're for. There were also dummers and flute playes, remeniscent of the US revolutionary war, although I'm unsure of what the historical coincidence of that might be, just perhaps the time period of origin - mid to late 1700s. I should also note that the float was on great big wheels, I was actually expecting - from the stories I had heard about Semana Santa - that the men would be carrying it on their shoulders, but it was a noisy fun parade that erhsp better expresses the sentiment of the celebration in opposition to the more serious and depressing processions of the Passion that I would expect to come later in the week.
At any rate after passing through that parade and taking a break for lunch in the middle of nowhere (I got a lovely grilled bacon and cheese bocadillo), we arrived in Lugo at 5:30. As we were arriving in Lugo actually, in the median of the road there were beautiful prple and yellow flowers that reminded me to JMU, come to think of it there were flowers all over the place, and tons of green grass and heavily sprouting things, which would only mean one thing: water and lots of it. We arrived in this little station that had a bunch of vacant ticket booths, a tiny little magazine store and a café. Well I looked around for the guy that was supposed to sell me my ticket to Palais de Rei, no luck. Apparantly they just come in whenever they feel like it. Great. I went into the café and got some café con leche and chomped on some of the treats that I had gotten for the trail, some honey roasted peanuts, some little bread crackers and iberico chorizo. And waited. And waited. Well the guy wasn't going to show up so I sat down and wrote some letters to Bethany - I did tell her that I was going to write every day on the trail. Why not, right? I had all the time I wanted to myself and plenty to write about. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned the beautiful stationary that she got for me - a nice parchment-like colored paper simply masculine with a frayed edge and nice crispness. Besides that she also got me a lovely wax stamp with a cool elaborate medieval K on it with several kinds of wax to seal with. If you'd like an example send me your name and address and I'd be happy to send you a personal letter :-). Anyways I finished a postcard and a letter and the guy still wasn't showing up. So I decided to explore the town a little bit. According to Wikipedia:
' In the region of Lugo in the autonimity of Galicia, located on a site above the Minho river and named after the Celtic god Lugus (let's remember that all of Galicia was inhabited by Celtic peoples), it is the only city in Europe to be surrounded by completely intact Roman walls (the Romans of course inhabiting all of Spain for 500 years), which reach a height of 10 to 15 metres along a 2'5 km circuit ringed with 71 towers. The walk along the top is continuous round the circuit. These 3rd century walls are protected byUNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural organization) as a World Heritage Site. The bridge over the Minho is essentially of Roman date, though many repairs over the centuries have effaced its Roman character. '
There is also a large plaza with a little playground and everything, I sat there for a while and took some pictures of the scenery with my film camera but I decidedly had nothing to do. I wandered around the scene, up and down streets hoping that when I returned to the office there might be someone to get a bus ticket from... and indeed when I returned there was someone - €2.50 to get to Palais de Rei, I'll take it! It did take a little longer for everything to get ready, I didn't know what to do except just sit there - purgatory between Madrid and El Camino de Santiago. What sin had I committed to have to sit doing absolutely nothing for 2 hours? Oh yeah, I missed my bus. Damn you karma. Anyways, the bus was eventually ready and it was a short half hour ride to arrive in Palais de Rei which is just a little closer to Santiago, I guess a day's hike closer that I perhaps could have hiked, but I decided I wanted more time to be in Santiago which later I would be thankful for.
The bus arrived in a little stone town with windy hilly streets at twilight. Unsure of what to do, I got off the bus and unloaded my pack. I'm not sure if I mentioned, but I had absolutely no plan whatsoever for El Camino, I just assumed that I would find places and be alright - and hoped that the trail would be obvious and reasonable. I was utterly and absolutely lost in the middle of nowhere without a map and without any idea of what to do. It is a somewhat invigorating feeling to be dropped off with no clue where you are, but I had a streange faith that everything would be alright and wasn't worried. As the sun continued sinking, I unusually did not listen to my iPod but instead tried to take in what I was seeing. This is the beginning of my journey, this is the beginning of my trial and insight. I felt comforted and intensely curious, as I walked down the steep stone path on the side of the cobblestone street into a stone plaza surrounded by small-town buildings. In the center of the plaza seemed to be a fountain with a statue in the middle of it, covered by a large steel beam canopy. As I got closer, I realized that the statue was of a pilgrim with the iconical robe, hood and walking staff with a drinking gourd and scallop shell (concha). I was in the right place I supposed. As I continued looking around, I just happened to see an open door and a sign that said 'Embasía de los Peregrinos' - Pilgrim's Embassy - again I'm in the right place. I went in and explained to the man that I just showed up with no plans or anything and needed help beginning my trail, finding lodging for the night and getting a pilgrim's passport. The pilgrim's passport is a tradition of El Camino where a pilgrim gets a very literal passport of El Camino where in each place you travel through (ideally everywhere you spend the night) you receive a stamp or 'visa' if you will to prove that you were indeed there. At the end of the trail I had heard that you could receive a certificate proving your completion of the pilgrimage. I was keen to acquire such proof of the journey and so made sure to ask for my passport. The incredibly nice man did indeed print me a passport and give me some information for the trail and walked with me to a nearby place called an 'albergue' or pilgrim's hostel to spend the night. I thanked the man for his hospitality and felt rather good about the experience, there is nothing more comforting than genuine generosity and friendliness. The albergue (al - bear- gay... not gway please) was named 'Buen Camino' which I would come to learn later is the common well wishing of the trail that everyone says to everyone in good faith - as you pass anyone on the trail is it considered a sort of blessing to tell them 'Buen Camino'. The very nice man from the embassy introduced me to the owner of the albergue, a lovely woman of her forties, and she led me inside. As I walked into albergue Buen Camino, the stone façade turned into a lovely wooden interior with a very clean and welcoming dining room with all sorts of Camino information on the side of the bar. The lady asked me all about where I was from and where I'm going and shared the embassy man's curiosity of how I could arrive without any planning. 'It'll be fine,' I told her, hoping not to curse myself (hint: I didn't). After asking the lodging price of €9 (none too shabby, eh?), she asked her daughter of 16-18 or so to lead me up to the rooms and to find me space in a men's room, and I found myself in a very nice small room with 7-9 beds and a rather homey feeling. The beds were set with basic sheets and pillows, and I first unpacked and plugged in my iPod to charge and soon went downstairs to the dining room. Undecided on what to do, I asked the lady for some food and she offered a bacon tortilla sandwich - sounds perfect! I watched the lady pull out some obviously fresh eggs and a hunk of home-cured bacon, she sliced the bacon herself and fried it perfectly in a pan over a flickering blue gas flame, thereafter perfectly mixing the eggs and bacon in a lusciously firm on the outside slightly soft on the inside tortilla on some very fresh and flavorful bread. I was in heaven. If you don't already know, my favorite food is bacon, my favorite meal is bacon and eggs. I thought I had tried the best ways to have bacon and eggs already, but I stood corrected. It was incredible, perfectly salty from the bacon, outrageously flavored from those angelic brown bits from the correctly fried bacon (noplace else in Spain seems to understand the concept of bacon frying, it's always fatty and limp), soft and sweet from the fresh local eggs... just perfect. I put to the side of it some peach juice which is very popular in Spain, which fit the southern home-food theme. All of a sudden as I sat there I noticed that I recognized the song from the concert I went to by Jarabe de Palo (I finished a blog from a while ago about Madrid, if you haven't read it, it's up... you have to go back to find it). As I continued sitting there, very friendly people came in and chatted with me about where we're from, where we're going and all that, in fact they were three people about my age, a girl and two guys. The mentioned that they were planning on going to the same place the next day and that perhaps we could hike together! I was pleased with that and continued sitting there for a while savoring my tortilla bocadillo. After a little while I saw the mother/owner pour some shots and beers for some of the guys in the bar, but I didn't recognize the alcohol, it came out of a sort of water jug and had a yellow-ish color. She told me that it was called Orujo de Hierbas and explained that it was a Galician treat and that the kind that she had 'está prohibido, la policía tienen miedo' - it's prohibited/illegal, the police are afraid. I didn't know quite what she meant but she offered a free little shot just because I had never seen or tried it before. Obligingly and curious I downed it and realized that I loved it! It was very sweet and flavorful of herbs, kind of minty and only had a tiny burn. I had no idea what there was to be afraid of except that it would be so easy to just drink this until I had no idea what was going on, but I settled for the free little shot, I was hoping to encounter more of that later on the trail.
There was even a little internet kiosk there but it was prohibitively expensive and I only spent 30 minutes on it to say hello and I made it to El Camino. Afterwards I went upstairs to take a lovely relaxed shower and then chatted in what little German I knew with some ladies by the dryer before going to bed for a rather pleased and relaxed rest.
I had no expectations of El Camino and didn't know what might be coming but as mentioned before I felt a sort of faithful peace that people had been along this trail for hundreds of years and that I can't possibly be in any danger or trouble - so I'd go with the proverbial and Taioist flow. I'm not sure if I mentioned my preparations for the trip - I needed to prepare a reasonable pack, some trail food and a knife. It took me a long time to decide what to bring, expecting to have my pack on my back all day up and down mountains, so I decided on a large supply of socks and a more limited supply of shirts and pants, attempting to save some nice clothes for Easter with Caroline in Porto. I went to Carrefour (the ubiquitous, even wal-martish Spanish food store) and got some cured Ibérico chorizo and some honey roasted peanuts and some cracker/crouton sorts of things that look like tiny loafs of bread, I figured they would be a source of filling starch if I needed it - I also brought on the trail my water bottle - a large bottle with a pop top (I'm not quite sure what to call it, but it's an easy open sort of thing where you just have to pull the top part up and it opens the bottle to be able to suck out the contents - trust me you know what it is) that must hold 24 oz or so. The knife I bought for €5 or so in a store near my Salamanca home from a very friendly vendor, a very simple reasonably short model with a plastic handle and flip-open forged blade with a stud to aid quick opening. I was considering it first of course for protection after my Porto incident, but after that I use my knifes every day - open fruit, open letters, cut random strands off clothing, hunting small game, peeling things, carving small sticks... things like that. I must say above all I was thankful that I had gotten that thing. I appreciated the easy-to-clean nature, easy-to-open, rather strong nature of the knife and I think it will last for a good long time.
To answer some questions asked of my last post:
1. The Thyssen-Bornemisza art museum in Madrid is named after its owner, a collection that started in the 1920s by the extraordinarily rich Heinrich Baron Thyseen-Bornemisza de Kászon, a German-Hungarian entrepreneur and art collector, the collection was continued by his son and sold to the Spanish government in 1992 for $350 million. It remains one of the greatest and largest personal art collections in the world. The family is now renowned for the horrific private participation of family members in the WWII genocide. Uplifting, I know.
2. Die Fälsche does indeed mean the counterfeiters in German and those counterfeiters in the movie that I saw were the Jewish prisoners under orders of the Nazis to counterfeit the British pound and American dollar. The counterfeiter prisoners, although of course still prisoners held to the same cruel indifference as all others, were shown some preference, given nicer beds and better living space and some autonomy in their work. In return for successfully recreating the British pound so that the British banking authorities couldn't even tell the difference, the prisoners received a ping pong table.
3. I have not been able to attend any church services except that of the Catedral Nuevo of Salamanca a long time ago since we have always been travelling on Sundays otherwise, however this upcoming Sunday I will indeed be free to attend a church service and I will be hunting around for a good place in Salamanca to go to, although I think I might visit a place close to the river that has a gorgeous altar and as I accidentally walked in on one time, a thriving community. The one service, as you may remember, was a traditional Catholic service entirely in Latin without any homily or communion which I found strange, although there was reasonably no congregation to connect with.
4. Yes, I am definitely still listening to a lot of Maria Schneider, I think I will try to take time to write about my iPod habits and trends sometime.
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