Spain travel journal part IV

Hotel Catalonia
Seville, Spain
7/1/09
8:34am

Sadly I didn't write yesterday. And in that time I seem to have managed to lose my pen and my pencils. So I'm writing this with a pen I borrowed from Adam.

Okay, gotta do this quick:

-Had a buffet dinner at the hotel.

-Played cards with the usual group ("Idiot"; you might know it as "My Palace").

-Sleep.

-Slept in; had to skip shower, no sign of breakfast.

-Bus took us away. We passed all the tourist towns that have ruined the coast.

-Stopped at a gas station for a break.

-Bus took us to Seville -- Sevilla here (se•VEE•ya).

-Saw the Spanish pavillion from the 1929 America fair thingy; had pizza for lunch.

-Took a tour of Seville Cathedral (3rd largest in Europe, after the Vatican and St. Paul's(?)). Wish American churches were this beautiful.

-Guide showed us around a palace (European/Moorish style). Can't remember what is was called, because it was very hot and I was very thirsty.

-How hot was it? Well, Seville is nearly the hottest place in Europe. We took this tour at the hottest time of year and the hottest time of day (2-5).

-FINALLY got some water.

-Toured the old Jewish Quarter and Seville's famous bullring. Excellent.

-Bus took us to the hotel.

-Took a shower. (It was very hot out.)

-Buffet dinner.

-Played cards (usual group) in our room.

-Played more cards (just Adam, Brianna, and me) while most people went to a discotech on a boat (NO, I didn't want to go! Not gonna pay 20 euros to sit in the corner while everybody rubs their genitals together!)

-Talked in our room for a while with Brianna, Adam, and two Pennsylvania girls who also stayed and are pretty putupwithable.

-Slept, woke, showered, buffet, breakfast, bus.

***

On the bus
8:56am

So the social situation here has seen some great improvement. Card playing, mainly, which was very fun. Also, apparently that beer really was nonalcoholic. Good. But that just raises the question: why? Nonalcoholic beer means you get all the disgusting flavor with none of the kick. Ew. Besides, this didn't stop a dozen other people from finding drinks (or at least claiming to). Yay!

Anyway, now we're taking a bus ride to Cordoba, which is actually the city I've been looking forward to seeing the most, just because it's always reminded me of Civ III. We'll be there for a couple of hours, then we'll take the AVE (?) train back to Madrid.

Hotel Florida Norte
Madrid, Spain
5:50pm

Bus dropped us off by the recently restored Roman bridge across the Guadalquivir.

-A few pictures, then my camera was out of batteries. Sad.

-We walked across the bridge to the big mosque.

-Pay 20 euros for a disposable camera at the gift shop. Jeez. [Really, what a rip-off]

-The mosque was built between the 800s and 1200s. When Christians reconquered Cordoba, they decided it was too cool to tear down, so they built a big cathedral in the center. Perfect!

-After that, pizza for lunch (doves walking through the open storefront past the bar), walked around the narrow streets (one cockroach scampering around our feet), and bought regolos [gifts] (a little leg hugging puppy in one store).

-Also, a little Scottishy dog guarding the entrance to the mosque.

-Took the AVE train to Madrid (250 km/h).

-Giant baby head sculpture at the train station. Plus, indoor rainforest complete with birds and turtles.

-What is it with animals today?

-Bus brought us here. Nice hotel.

-Going out to dinner at 7:30.

7/2/09
7:14am

-Slept in, missed breakfast.

-Toilet kept gurgling after flushing it. Hm.

-Bus took about half of our group and twelve from a different EF tour group to a big monastery/basilica/palace/school/library. I can't believe I forgot what it's called. Wiki it when I get home. [It was El Escorial]

-Lots of royal paintings and dead kings and queens in gold caskets.

-Freezing in the monastery; awesome.

-Bus to Segovia: big spindly Roman aqueduct, narrow streets, um... interesting sandwich for lunch (basically cheese/tomato paste), then a restored castle.

-Castle originally built by Romans to protect the city; expanded by later Kingdoms (taller towers, deeper moat, etc).

-Water soothes thirst.

-Water tastes good.

-Bus back here.

-Went to big mall across the street with others; didn't see anything worth buying.

-D'oh. Forgot to describe dinner. Went to a buffet place. Delicious. Then played cards til midnight.

On the plane
Over the Atlantic near Newfoundland
7/3/09
6:00 PM

I never mentioned this -- just forgot, I guess -- but we took the metro (the subway) on our second day in Madrid. It was a little embarrassing, actually; when the train (car? I'm going with train) stopped, I got off and, realizing it was the wrong stop, had to step back on. Yeah. Anyway, the reason I mentioned it was because we took the metro again. Both last night and the night before. I have no idea why. Forty-two people trying to keep track of each other, crowding through everyone else in the underground, stuffing themselves like sardines into just two cars full of pistoff looking strangers, and then "This is our stop! Get off the car! Up against the wall! Now! Everybody! Go! Now! Now! Now!"

Ugh.

The Spanish must be more understanding. Or more used to tourists. Something like this would not go down well in New York City. [heh, I think NYC gets that a lot and they too ignore]

The reason everyone decided this would be such a great idea was so we wouldn't have to walk to the restaurant. I know I would've preferred it. Probably.

The restaurant was a sit down place (it was awhile since the entire group had gone to one of these; I think the last one was the tapas place on our second day in Madrid). The waiters and chefs all seem to be in a hurry to feed us and get rid of us. I don't blame them.

The first course was pasta. The second was salad. Both of these were originally served with meat. Apparently, this was one time the vegetarian option was more delicious than the omnivorous option. I pretended not to be delighted by this.

So I've now had Spanish salad so many times I've memorized the recipe. Not much to it, really:

-lettuce
-large tomato chunks
-Mediterranean olives (with the pits)
-carrots (optional)
-sweet pickles (optional)
-olive oil
-vinegar (often in large quantities)

It's the last one (and the third one...sort of) that kind of got to me. That didn't stop me from working through eighty percent of the salad. I would've finished it but it was then that the waiters arrived with ice cream (in little squares, as though it had been cut from a big square like clay). This was possibly the best ice cream I've ever enjoyed. Vanilla. Really rich. Thick. Creamy. Yum.

Then we left the restaurant and walked to the Plaza Mayor. The fair was gone. Still big and old and frescoes on one wall and big clocks and stuff. More human statues. One was a guy with a briefcase, coat, and newspaper, dressed in a suit, who kept doing push-ups and giving a stoogey vaudeville performance for little kids. There was also a guy playing classical music on a xylophone (well, what else could you really play on a xylophone?) and a goat covered in ribbons.

And then we were...

Wait. No. I need to say something first.

I'm going to jump back in time, say...six months or so. Back when I had a cold (or the flu) like a mother and I spent all day in the basement watching Mario Batali, Mark Bittman, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Claudia Bassols buzz around Spain for hours (or, for them, months). I'd be lying if I said I hadn't derived a certain amount of influence -- of what exactly I had to look forward to -- in this country which I quickly realized I knew very little about. On the show the group is never larger than perhaps six people. They drive around in breezey convertibles with sunglasses and water and they know all about the windmills and palaces and mosques and skyscrapers and statues and people and restaurants and churches and cathedrals and castles and aqueducts and islands and beaches and seas and rivers and history and culture. And...they eat a lot of good food. They spend about their time eating or talking about eating.

This is how I came to expect I'd get to eat a lot of Spanish food: gazpacho, paella, oranges, etc. I was realistic, of course. I knew the tour had to feed forty people three meals a day and we would certainly not be eating food of the quality the show portrays. I also knew I wouldn't have the freedom they had. Or all the time...or...all the fun...

But what I did expect was to get to eat a lot of Spanish food. Not great Spanish food, but...Spanish food.

We ended up eating over half our meals in airports, airplanes, and at buffets in the hotels. You know how airport and airplane food is. And the hotel food was mainly Espanizations of American food: cereal, cinnamaon rolls, toast, salad, bread, pasta, pizza, and so on. And none of it was of the highest quality. Ifyaknowutimean.

When we weren't eating on the plane or at buffets, we were eating in restaurants. Usually really small places where you pay at the counter. And at these places we had pizza or pasta about half the time. The rest of the time, I would have salad or quiche while everyone else had paella or tapas. And even those were not of the highest quality. Ifyaknowutimean.

And of course, the atmosphere and environment of these places were also important. Even when I did get to enjoy some gazpacho or tapas (and believe me, it was rare) it was usually in the hotel. Exquisite.

So I went to Spain and ate some Europeanized American food and some crappy almost Spanish food. It sort of felt like eating in the cafeteria of the Spanish Theme Park Orlando. Sigh.

And that's why I was so happy about what we did after leaving the Plaza Mayor.

We walked down the windy streets with the tall tenant buildings. We passed people running from bar to bar, enjoying Spanish nightlife. Past shopping centers and restaurants. Then we passed under an arch. And we came to an old brick building. And we went downstairs.

And we ate churros.

It was perfect. The churros were neither crappy nor American. The chocolate came in cups with spoons. Rich and dark and hot like fire. And not too sweet. Then the churros, all hot and ???, on their own plate. Delicious delicious delicious. The atmosphere was right, too: everybody was at small individual tables, not the usual long tables. You didn't feel like the eyesore in the restaurant; the big group of teenagers surrounded by Spanish night goers. And we had a choice about coming here! We didn't have to! We didn't need to! They would've let us just go back to the hotel.

This was the only moment on the trip I had that remotely resembled the show.

It was perfect.

But it had to end eventually. We walked back to the hotel through the nighttime, past the glowing opera house and the royal palace and the shiny, honking, buzzing Madrid traffic.

Everyone in the Seattle group got to sleep until 6 AM. Everyone else only had until 3 AM. Ha ha!

Had a small breakfast. Roll and fruit cocktail. So long, hotel. Took the bus to the airport with a group of Southern College kids who went to London, Paris, Switzerland, Italy, Barcelona, and Madrid. At the airport, the security thing decided it hated me so I got to be patted down (or felt up) by a security guard. Sandwich and chips for lunch. Then on the plane.

In the air.

So long, Spain. I'll be back.

PS: My Plan When I Get Home

I've been thinking about this since before the trip even began. I plan to spend the second plane trip sleeping (who knows, right?) so hopefully I'll get to stay up and do this:

After I've reunited with the family and presented souvenirs and given these notebooks and the photos in lieu of describing the trip, I will make myself a quesadilla with hot sauce and not too much cheese, drink a Dr. Pepper (not diet; it's a special occasion) from a glass with ice, and sit down to play Civilization IV. [and he did!]

Suck it.

 
 
   
 
 
 

Look closely at the 2nd photo; it looks a lot like this one taken by our friend hbunny in June 2007!