Monday, October 26, 2009

Tales of the Alhambra, Madrid and Skipped Flights

Leaving on this trip, I went through the effort to find a tent in Niger, not an easy thing to find. Thanks to my PCV neighbor, Meagan, I was able to get a 'BugHut,' which is basically a mosquito net with a door held up with poles. It's great for Africa, light and easy to pack around. We used it a bit in Tunisia, the only problem was when it started to rain; no rain-fly so I had to hustle all my stuff under cover... at least the BugHut dries out quickly in the sun.

So coming into Granada, when will and I learned that there was absolutely NO available hostals in town, we thought 'oh, hey, we can camp.' Then we checked the weather. And we were assured by weatherunderground.com that no rain was coming. So we went for the camping option.

Unfortunately Granada is a bit colder than both Niger and Tunisia... go figure. It was just cold at night really, being in the mountains. Our first night I was FREEZING, even all bundled up in a sweatshirt and long pants, a stocking hat and SOCKS!

We ended up staying in Granada for four or five days.

Granada -

Granada is a nice place. I think it might be the capital of the bohemian world. You can see many, many... well, what Americans might call 'hippies,' but not quite the same thing. Our buddy, David from Poland, put it a good way when he asked, 'What do you call them... natural? This is the best place in Europe to live homeless, since it's warm and the people are nice.' And that about sums it up. Natural and living off the kindness of others. But man, do they have awesome dogs. So well trained. I even saw a dog helping itself to water from a water fountain, up on it's hind legs lapping at the stream of water spurting up. Quite cool. Good dog.


The big highlight of Granada is the Alhambra (which in arabic means, The Red One, so really, people keep calling it, The TheRedOne). Up on a hill overlooking town, it is quite a sight. We were shown a great vantage point by David a couple nights before we were to visit the actual Alhambra.

The Alhamba is famous mostly thanks to Washington Irving, who wrote the book 'Tales of the Alhambra,' saving it from being lost to time and forgotten. What a life that guy had. Traveling around Europe learning the language and culture for years. Became an ambassador for the states to Spain. Just writing and traveling. Wouldn't that be a great way to live? Ah... the aristocracy.

It actually requires buying tickets in advance to get into the highlight areas of the Alhambra, even with a specific entry time on the ticket. It is never fun to feel like you have a time-limit to see a place, especially when paying 13 euros. So maybe that has something to do with my opinion of the place, but I found worth the visit, but no more impressive than the alcazars we had already seen in Sevilla and Cordoba. Inn really it is more impressive, but it's due to the setting and not the architecture really. Set up on the hill, overlooking the city, a little hut would still be an attractive place to visit.


It really was a great place to visit, especially the Generalife, which, though it appears to refer to the insurance company, actually means 'Architect's Garden' in Arabic.

Will and I had a great time just sitting on the main path in the Generalife people watching, he sketched the scenery and I just happily wrote away and wandered off to take photos every once and a while. Good afternoon.

It was a nice time in Granada, aside from the cold nights. We boarded an overnight bus for Madrid a couple hours after seeing the Alhambra and woke up at the southern bus station for the capital.

I think many of my best pictures on this trip so far were taken here, so check out the picasa album.


Madrid -

First off, arriving at 630 in the morning, we had a couple hours to kill before we could check into our hostel... So we sat in a park near the place for two hours. It was so cold, I did something I hadn't done since I visited Paris last December: I put on shoes and socks. Shocking, I know.

Our first day in Madrid was full of museums. We saw the navel museum, which, if you're into models and swords and stuff, is a cool place. And of course, we were, so it was a full two hour visit. Plus it's FREE.

Then, that evening we were able to visit the Prado museum, again, for FREE. Everyday, from 6-8 the museum is absolutely free. What a great way to give people access to the arts. Two hours is NOT enough to really appreciate the museum, so most people visiting the city for just a couple days would probably still pay for entrance. But if you lived in the city or were visiting for a couple days, what a great way to see the art inside without breaking the bank. Two hours here and there, taking your time to see smaller sections... very nice.

Some of my favorites from the Prado were Goya and Velazquez. Especially the Goya pintars negra, his black paintings. So different from his portraits, dark, indistinct faces, but still full of emotion. Many twisted and... yeah, good stuff. Dark, but good, especially considering that this was all in the age of doing light portraits and landscapes. I always find those transitions between types/eras of art very fascinating.

The next day we were able to get into the Reina Sofia for free also. The same idea as the Prado. Brilliant! We also played frisbee in the park with a couple of dancers, Sarah and Maryann, from New York and Marco, another of the Italian guys we've met. Sarah and Maryann were Americans, but unlike almost every other Americans we met, they didn't make us cringe and speak in Haussa or Zarma so they wouldn't know we're Americans also. They spoke Italian and Spanish, were traveling right, in our opinion. Were laid back and into seeing a place for real. In other words, good companions for me and will for a couple days in Madrid.

Why are so many Americans abroad loud, annoying, and totally clueless? They also don't even try to speak foreign languages for the most part, or if they do try to speak, it's all American English-ized. Of course, we should probably distinguish between backpackers and what we've been calling 'tourists,' the people who have a tight schedule to keep, secluded hotels to stay in, and no interaction with the locals, other than in souvenir shops. But enough of that... onto the Reina.


The Reina is more focused on modern art, featuring a large collection of Picasso. It houses his masterpiece, Guernica. What is especially impressive about the exhibit is that in the adjacent rooms to the painting, the museum displays a series of studies Picasso made for the piece and a series of photos for the work in progress (including changes Picasso made part-way through). A cool look into the way such a piece comes together.

The Reina also has Miro and some famous pieces from Dali, like The Great Masturbater. It's a very living museum and the exhibits seem to change all the time. Also, it's great at incorporating a variety of art, not just painting and sculpture, but sounds, video, even dance art (no caged dancers, but the costumes and videos of performances).

Madrid definitely has it going in terms of art museums.

After two days staying in a hostel, we met up with Will's friend, Carrie, and stayed with her and her fiance for a night. They gave us a GREAT walking tour of Madrid. We saw the big park (I forget it's name), and quite a few different neighborhoods. We went for tapas and tea and hookah, and more tapas, and then a birthday party. Great great time and why you should make friends with people in places around the world so you can see the real life of a place.

Thanks to Carrie and Alberto!!!


So unfortunately (well, actually turns out it could be fortunate), my plans in the UK fell through. Josh's buddies had second thoughts about having us come to stay and join them on their trip (word must have reached them in advanced about who was actually coming) [too many parentheses?].

So, showing up to the airport a couple, four, hours before our flight to London, will and I decided we didn't want to go to the UK if we were to just continue getting hostels and seeing sights. Let's face it, the UK just isn't that exciting and it's EXPENSIVE. I've been there before. I would like to hit Scotland or Ireland again, but not now. So before our flight took of, I had decided to skip it, bought a ticket from Madrid to Brussels in two weeks time and decided to just jump back onto my original plans there, cutting out the middle.

So now I'm here in Benavente, staying with my Peace Corps neighbor, Meagan, the very same Meagan who gave me the BugHut. So not only did the BugHut return home, but I have a place to stay, free of charge for two weeks. Working on my Spanish and cooking real food in a real kitchen. Plus I'm going to take a bath tonight. A good break from the constant movement of being on the road, recharge for the last leg. Plus, it's a good start to the adjustment to a new, colder, climate.

More on the town and our visit to Salamanca later.

New Picasa albums for Granada and Madrid.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

¡Hola!


Wrote this post about a week ago now, but have been waiting to get some pictures uploaded before I posted it. So, a week later, here's my post about Barcelona, Sevilla, and Cordoba. I'll get one about Granada and Madrid up later this week.

[Just a quick update on what I'm up to now: My buddy's friends in England sort of un-invited us to their house and their trip to the lake district in the North, so my and Will decided to stay in Spain. I've moved in for two weeks with Meagan, former neighbor across the river from me in Niger and now English teacher in Benavente, Spain. More on all that in a later post]


-10/10/09-

So it´s been a good long while since me last update; why break from established proceedures and write frequently just because I´ve left Africa?

We´re in Granada, Spain at the moment, and what has encouraged me to get back into this blog a bit is that we´ve found a cyber cafe that will let us upload pictures to picasa! So I´ve been catching up on uploading photos from Tunisia (and a second album of new Tunis pictures), which are a good three weeks old now, and will be working on the Spain ones soon as well. Incha Allah.

After spending a couple days in Tunis, seeing the Bardo museum and inhaling as many cwarmas as we could, we spent a long night in the Tunis airport waiting for our flight to Barcelona. So, the buses and trains to the airport stop running at eight PM or so and don´t start running again until around seven the next morning, meaning that to catch our 7AM flight, we would either have to catch a Taxi or spend the night there. Seeing as the taxi costs money and sleeping on the floor at the airport is free.... well, being ex-Peace Corps volunteers traveling on a small budget, that was an easy choice. I bet it made for quite the sight to see us three set up in a corner of the sidewalk just outside the airport entrance cooking pasta on a camp stove. Not sure we could have gotten away with that in Europe.

At the airport in Tunis, the third musketeer, Josh, decided to split ways with us in Spain. He´s currently walking the Camino de Santiago, and if all goes well, we´ll be seeing him again in Madrid.

So, arriving in Barcelona, our trio became a two-some of Will and myself.



Barcelona -

What a great city to visit. And I imagine a pretty good place to live as well if you can get just out of the most touristy areas. The parks, oh the parks! I think we spent every day in Barcelona seeing a new park. And we could easily spend the entire day in just one. Park Guell, the landscaped area just north of town, designed by Gaudi was very impressive. The park at Montjuïc was massive and includes the Olympic facilities from the 1992 games. It would be great to live in a city with so many fine sports grounds.


The arcitecture on many buildings is amazing. Again, Gaudi can be thanked for much of the most impressive areas, but other Modernist arcitects also contributed. That, combined with the gothic and enlightment era buildings creates something akin to Paris with medival village, with something almost futuristic.

We didn´t actually go in the Sagrada Familia, but it was impressive from the outside and we spent at least an hour sitting on the sidewalk enjoying it.... and another hour in a small park across the street which also has a nice view of it over a pond.


We, almost literally, ran into our Niger PCV friend Vicky and her sister on the street one day. Small world! So they joined us for something of a high-lite day of park viewing. They´re traveling kind of the same course I am from here, but hitting everything first and in a shorter time frame.


So after a good five days enjoying Barcelona, meeting some great people, and sitting in the sunshine in the parks we decided we should really see more of Spain since we´re here, so we boarded a train heading south to Seville.

Seville/Sevilla -

The train ride was long. The night BEFORE the train ride was a long one too, so I think we spent most of the first five hours sleeping. I was awake for the first hour or so, and watched a truly impressive sunrise over the city. With the train sliding along, the sun would appear and disappear between the buildings and over the water. Was a great sight.

In fact there were quite a few sights to see outside the windows. Spain is a very pretty country. I would love to spend some more time here sometime. Maybe bike across it. The plannning begins....

We pulled into Sevilla about 7, something around twelve hours on the train.

Central Sevilla is a maze of twisting streets, as it has been since medieval times. We found the hostel alright, but got lost that night walking around (without a map) and learned to never leave the house without one; a rule that was broken at least once and resulted in half an hour of wandering back from a bar. But, really, it wasn´t that long till we got a hold of the city.



Sevilla made a great first impression on a friday night. It has a laid back atmosphere, but people, as with everywhere in Spain, came out about midnight to enjoy life. We wandered along the river and then through town and in every square there were groups of people sitting around socializing and drinking. The bars were going till late, and not just with young kids, it´s a common thing for older generations to stay out late as well. It´s a wonder anyone can get up in the morning at all, but about 9AM the city comes back to life.

We stayed in two different hostels in Sevilla and met quite a few fellow travelers, as you tend to. That´s the great thing about hostels, the common living space lubricates the social contacts you make and, then again, so does a shared bottle of wine.

We saw the sights of the old part of town. We actually paid (!!) to go into the Alcazar, which is a centuries old conglomeration of moorish and christian palaces and royal accomidations. It started out originaly as a muslim fort, and then the Almohades built the first palace on the spot, which was constantly updated by subsequent rulers (muslim and catholic alike) until the 16th century. The parks here were great, and as we´ve become park experts, you can trust me on that. Lots of water integrated into the landscape and flowers. Ended up taking a nap in a little corner of the place, only to wake up to a giant peacock wandering on by. Good way to awaken.

We also tried to get into the Cathedral, which we heard was free on Sunday afternoons, but after standing in line for 20 minutes, we found out it really does cost 8 Euros to get in, and so we about-faced, and went back out, browsing the souvenir store on the way. Fun fact about the cathedral: during the 16th and 17th centuries Sevilla was THE place to be in Europe, rich and far reaching power as the gate way to the Americas. With the influx of money, the catholic leadership decided that they needed a cathedral to show off the importance of the city. So they wanted to, quote, "Let it be a church so beautiful and so great that those who see it built will think we were mad.¨It´s big alright. And Christopher Columbus is probably buried inside (though there´s a chance, the remains are not really his, having been moved from the original grave in the New World).

One cool thing we saw, FOR FREE, was the Archivos General de Indias, housing a huge collection of documents from the Spanish explorers plodding their way across the new continent. It was interesting to see many of the maps and letters they have on display in the small museum attached to the archives, but mind-boggling to think of all the thousands and thousands of pages stored away in the floor to ceiling shelves on two floors of this big building.

Last thing I´ll ramble on about in Seville was the amazing graffiti they have down by the water. In a rather drab park along the water there are tons of different pieces done by a variety of graffiti artists. Some are really good. Most are pretty decent. It´s too bad that 1) graffiti gets such a bad rap and 2) that taggers will tag in places they shouldn´t, for instance, the Plaza de España, which is also in Seville and a very beautiful building, but has been tagged in the upper balconies by a plethora of people, sad really. I guess 2 causes 1 really. Fortunately, for the most part Sevilla keeps its graffiti in the right places and it´s very enjoyable, good quality art. Check out my picasa album here for some shots. And I just found this blog on graffiti, originally (2007) in Seville and now about graffiti in general. Check it out if you´re into that.


Cordoba-

So after five days or so in Sevilla, we decided to push on and ended up heading out to Cordoba. We had heard some good things and bad things about Cordoba. First impressions were not so favorable, it seemed to be a more modern city and not something to write home about, but that was really just around the bus station. As we moved into the center of town and found our hostel we warmed a little more to the place.

Unfortunately we then went for a walk through the old, touristy part of town and ended up crossing the restored roman bridge to walk the other side of the river and found a..... well, either a very poorly done park, or one in the process of being completed, but it was not so nice. Day one impression up till dinner was only so-so.

But we made ourselves tuna sandwichs for dinner (with tuna we found in the previous hostel... thanks Wendy?) and went up to the terresse on the roof to eat them. Turns out that night was a free tapas night at the hostel bar and before we knew it was packed with people. Met a bunch of great spaniards and foreigners that night. In fact, one British cat, Liam, invited us to out the next night. He took us for tapas and beers and then back to his place where he made us a great spread of tortillas and tapas again. We shared wine with him and his house mates and then went on to hit a club with them as well. It´s so great to meet great people like that in the world, especially while traveling in a new place.

Other than some good people, we were lucky to run across a free entrance into the Alcazar in Cordoba. Not quite as impressive as the one in Sevilla, it was non-the-less a great place to see arcitecture and some wonderful gardens.

Having seen all that, we left for Granada, where we´re currently encamped, and I mean that quite literally. All the hostels were booked up, so we ended up on the outskirts of town in a campground. It´s not bad at all, but for the fact that my sleeping bag, even with an extra liner isn´t the best at keeping me warm, so it´s bundle up with extra layers and a hat. Still, brrrrr....

---Back to the present---

Check out the new picasa albums for Tunis Round 2, Barcelona, Sevilla, Sevilla Graffiti, and Cordoba. I know that's a lot of photos at once, I had to edit them down from many, many more after all. In fact I'm still trying to motivate myself to give them all captions! Also, as I'm still trying to grow as a photographer, any thoughts and criticism is warmly welcomed.

I will try to get a post and pictures up for Granada and Madrid later this week, but I'll give both you and myself a while to get over this glut of images and info. Until then, adios.