Sunday morning we got up a little bit earlier than we had the day before so that we could drive the truck out to some of the little villages (pueblos) that he wanted to show me.  Took about an hour to get there and it was a beautiful drive all along the way as we climbed and snaked our way up through the Andes mountains.  We would take this same path later and go into the Amazon jungle farther north on the Pan-American highway.  The mountains were huge, beautiful and were covered in a lush patchwork of greens like nature's quilt with what seemed like every square inch a manicured farm area.  We drove by many people working the fields and they did it all by hand.  It was really quite impressive to see the amount of work they did, all by hand.  Especially when you then lifted your head up to see that virtually every square inch of land for miles in every direction were tilled and worked in this manner.  The people were dressed in their native attire with brightly colored wool wraps and layers of clothes, braided pony tails and distinctive hats.

 

The farther up we drove the more I felt my heart racing.  It was the altitude.  It was really a dramatic feeling but not too scary.  Pablo said the same thing always happens to him too.  I figured he would have been used to it from living there for 27 years before moving to Europe.  A lot of people get altitude sickness when they go to Quito, Riobamba and the Amazon in general due to the altitude.  Usually the symptoms are an accelerated heartbeat, nausea and headache.  I had a headache for a bit on Saturday and a touch on Sunday but after an aspirin I never had any other problems.

 

We stopped before getting to the first town at a little restaurant—think fancy shack with a bunch of benches and nice people serving your choice of three breakfast items.  This was the first place I encountered cuy (guinea pig).  The woman at the table across from us ordered stew with cuy.  Just looked like regular pieces of meat in there to me but I sure didn't want it.  Instead I got boiled potatoes with some yummy orange sauce and two slabs of yummy cheese on top.  Never figured out exactly what the cheese was but it was soft, mild, a touch salty and tasted fantastic.  Wasn't going to complain, love my cheese! 

 

Pablo had potatoes but then had fried pig skin instead of the cheese.  When I say pig skin, I'm not referring to some thin crispy pork rind puffy in a Doritos bag I have seen people eat state-side.  I mean take a pig, scrape/shave the hair (I am imagining that they do this since the skin looks supple, if that's a good word for it), cut the skin off in 3 to 4 inch wide strips that are about 1/2 inch thick and then fry them in oil.  They get a lovely golden color but don't get crispy.  Just looks, although I can't say from tasting it, like chewy fat.  It’s very popular there and with Pablo.  Never tried it and don’t plan on it.

 

After our breakfast stop we went to two little towns that I don't know the name of and drove around.  You really had to know where you were going because there were no signs.  The first town had their big Sunday market happening so there were a lot of little stands set up with all kinds of clothing and trinkets for sale along with practical things.  Was very interesting to drive through.  Pablo said that on the weekends all of the people from the bigger cities come out to the small towns and on the week days it is the other way around with the big city markets.  Made sense. 

 

In the second town we made it up to close to the top of the town where there was a small church that was the oldest church in Ecuador.  Not a lot to look at but it was significant to the history of the area.  When we went back to the car we noticed that there was a lot of water leaking from the front of the truck. We checked everything but didn't find a problem and it didn't overheat as we continued on.  We were very careful and monitored every sound closely though.  The truck would go into the shop tomorrow to be checked out before our big road trip into the Amazon! 

 

On the way back we stopped at a little park and took more pictures.  There was also another little church here that looked so sweet and innocent as a typical old church on the outside, but when you stepped inside there was a lovely neon display of godliness.  Seemed cheesy and over-done but the town was quite proud of it so more power to them.  We returned to Riobamba after we finished our pueblo-hopping adventure and met up with Pablo's family so we could take the weekly trip to the cemetery. 

The trip to the cemetery was very interesting.  While the city of Riobamba is fairly large but there is apparently really only one cemetery to be buried in and everyone that has any money has their family buried there.  The graves ranged from small markers, very uncommon, to multilevel tombs and then there was the enormous mausoleum.  Everything was very ornate with tons and tons of flowers.  I would have liked to have photographed the cemetery but that just seemed in poor taste.

 

Speaking of flowers, I swear that they must spend around a hundred dollars every week buying these huge bouquets of roses, carnations, lilies, and all kinds of flowers and fillers to plant around the grave sites and put in the huge urns that adorn it.  The visit was mostly a giant production of taking out the old dead ones from last week, pull a few weeds, put the new ones in, water them, make the sign of the cross and move on.  The Yaulema Torres family has two graves.  One is a big multilevel, mostly underground one where Pablo’s grandparents and father are buried and the other is a small grave nearby where Margi's baby that didn't make it years ago is buried. 

 

This process of the weekly visit, flower changing and all was an interesting activity to participate in.  The importance of family and ritual in the community is very strong.  As far as religion goes, 95% of the population of Ecuador reports themselves as Catholic.  Pablo's family is Catholic.  Catholicism to them is a little lighter than what I’ve grown up with.  Other than wearing the occasional rosary (which isn't meant to be jewelry) and making the sign of the cross and kissing their fist when leaving and entering Riobamba they don't do anything particularly Catholic.  But they are very proud to be Catholic.

 

After the cemetery, Pablo and I drove to a little shop where we got ice-cream clown cones with Superman ice cream.  Lots of fun to look at and eat, although somehow I didn't remember Superman ice cream being bubblegum flavored.  Oh well, took me back to the days when I was little and my papa used to take my brother Jeff, cousin Andrea and myself to the ice cream shop for Superman ice cream and rainbow sherbet.  A bit later we went with Margi, Santi and Stephi to another town nearby to pick up another niece, Evelyn, who was about 5.  Never figured out or met Evelyn’s parents.  But was a sister’s child because Pablo is the only boy out of five children.

 

We ate some dinner at a cousin’s or family friends’ restaurant until both girls passed out from exhaustion and then headed back to Riobamba.  They were a lot of fun at the restaurant because they tried really hard to talk to me.  But they talked really, really fast!  We practiced counting in Spanish and English (took me the whole night to get them to get up to eleven and twelve), recited lots of fruits and vegetables and a few animals.  When we got back we just hung out the rest of the day at the house and called it an early night so that we would have a full day to get the truck checked (remember that leaking problem?) and head to the Amazon jungle!!  Oh, one other note, this trip was the first time I asked about the giant blue painted hearts on the roads—some big, some small.  Turned out that is how they mark where people died.  Was shocking to see how many hearts there were in some areas.

 

Monday Pablo took the car in the moment the shop opened at 8am.  I spent the morning reading my book and watching American TV shows.  They didn't finish until after lunch so we got a later start than we’d hoped.  We packed quickly for our trip to the jungle and hit the road.  We drove along the same path as the day before to the little towns but kept going and going.  The views were amazing and I took lots of pictures.  It was amazing the way that people packed into pickup trucks and on top of foliage cleared from the road in big trucks.  No seatbelts, kids hanging out of windows. . . if you could find room on a vehicle you had a ride.

 

We stopped at The Banos Zoo that was full of beautiful birds and other tropical animals--ones that you were not likely to see very much of unless captured and held captive in this setting.  They all looked healthy though, just bored!  We stopped at a second bird sanctuary type place that was a little sadder in the presentation of the animals, ate Chinese for dinner and went into a town just outside of Banos so I could email my family that I was okay.  My cell phone did not get service anywhere so I just left it at the house.   

 

Tuesday we got up early and drove around more taking lots of pictures, eating here and there (lots of time in the car), and then we saw this sign that said "Monkeys" and had to stop.  Okay, really it said "Monos" but same thing!  We turned down a road expecting. . . and closely watching. . . to see monkeys in the trees.  The road was a bit treacherous and most cars could not have made it.  Thank god for our big truck with giant wheels.  We considered turning around but didn't.  It was the coolest "jungle"-looking road though. 

 

After a mile or so and no monkeys we were getting really disappointed until we realized that there was a place at the end of the road that was where the monkeys were.  We walked down a path and started seeing a monkey or two up in the trees.  We got so excited. . . and then there was one on the path in front of us.  As we walked down the path the guy who ran the place (really just his house in the jungle) greeted us and started telling us about the monkeys.  A few seconds later the monkeys started climbing us and getting really friendly.  It was a lot of fun!  There were 17 monkeys there including an adorable 5 month old baby in diapers.    There was also an older baby who would ride the back of a lab as if it were his mother.  Cute and funny. 

 

After the monkey excursion, one of our stops was to walk down to this amazing waterfall called Pailon del Diablo or El Diablo.  When I looked up this waterfall online afterwards it turns out that it is reported to be one of the top ten most beautiful waterfalls in the world.  And I cannot disagree!  We walked downhill for about 20 minutes on a well-groomed jungle path to a suspension bridge that connected the two sides of a giant river from a gorgeous waterfall.  The view was amazing.  On the far side of the bridge was a bar that looked over the edge and was the neatest tropical little getaway.  We ordered a few beers and watched the waterfall and then walked back over the bridge to the waterfall side. 

 

On the waterfall side there was a path to walk up and then down to get as close (and wet) as you could get to the waterfall without swimming in it.  The sound was deafening and the ground continually trembled from the force of the water.  There was a bright green and black stick bug that caught my eye.  The few other folks and Pablo didn’t believe me at first that it wasn’t just a twig. . . until I made it move.  The walk, no, the hike back up to where we started was quite the workout.  It helped we were a bit damp from the waterfall but suddenly the 90 degree weather, steep climb and few beers all took their toll.  Well worth the effort though!

 

After exploring a few more areas by truck we headed back to Riobamba so that we could have dinner with his three sisters, four nieces/nephews, mother and few other folks.  I'll save Wednesday and heading to the Esmeraldas for good beach times for later!  Oh, one other thing.  Everyone is really nice and friendly there and we were frequently picking up folks, families, bikers, etc. in one area of the jungle and dropping them off a few miles away.  Hitchhiking was very easy for them but not something I would have done myself. 

Okay for those crazy fools who have followed my travels so extensively. . . the adventure continued, or at least part of it, as I decided to go to Ecuador to visit Pablo.  He visited his family in his home town of Riobamba, Ecuador for a month when the long process to get a Visa from the US government to visit here never seemed to go anywhere.  As Americans, we can go anywhere we want for the most part, but if you are from another country it is a really hard and long process. 

 

After finding out he wouldn’t be able to come to Seattle for at least another six months, he decided to take his annual trip to see his family and I decided to go there instead.   He was going to give up that trip to come see me instead if the Visa thing had worked out.  Turned out that for essentially $300 and some airline miles I could make the 12 day trip.  $300 for a trip to Ecuador?  When was I going to ever go down there?  And the perspective of being there living locally. . . couldn’t pass up the chance.  Plus I wanted to see him again. 

 

Being the proud gentleman that he is and the fact that he has a few houses down there I knew Iwouldn't have to pay for pretty much anything. . . so how could I not go!!  Don't think terribly of me please!  Just as in Madrid, I TRIED to pay for things all of the time and did whenever I got the chance.  But that wasn’t cool for him and let me fill you in that Ecuador is a third-world country.  That means things are pretty darn cheap down there so that didn't add up to a lot of dough. 

 

So here's the overview of the trip and then I'll dive into some details!  Flew out of Seattle at 6:10pm on Thursday November 15th and got to Los Angeles just after 9pm.  Killed a few hours and made some calls while waiting for my almost 7 hour flight at 1am from LA to Panama City, Panama where I had a one hour layover before hopping on my final 3 hour flight to Quito Ecuador.  I landed in Quito at 1:40pm and saw Pablo looking down at me with a big smile from the floor above as I made my way to the customs section of the airport. 

I was really relieved because there was this tiny little part of me that was afraid I wouldn't recognize him right away.  Thankfully that wasn’t a problem.  He looked exactly the same and there weren’t as many people as I had imagined there could be.  Whew.  After I finished with the customs agent, I got my luggage and walked out to the area where everyone meets there visitors and there he was standing front and center greeting me with the biggest hug.  It was great to see him.  When we got to his car he opened the trunk and revealed a lovely flower arrangement with roses and a balloon.   

 

We headed out from Quito, the capital, to Riobamba, where he is from.  The trip takes 2.5 to 4 hours depending on what route you take and traffic.  We hit the traffic part so we stopped along the way for dinner at an Italian restaurant his friend owned and eventually made it to his house a bit after dark.  Dinner was some tasty pizza, not quite the traditional Ecuadorian cuisine but that was fine with me after 20 hours of travel and airplane food. 

 

Riobamba is one of the bigger cities in Ecuador, but is a far cry from the central hub that Quito is.  As we got to Pablo’s house he parked on the side of the street he pointed to a closed up restaurant with big metal doors and said that's my house up there.  I did look up and see windows but thought it really strange when he opened the door to the restaurant for us to go in.  It was dark inside because it was closed.  The restaurant wasn't very big, like a small cafeteria style diner and to the left when you walked in was a stairway that led to more seating upstairs. 

 

Under the stairs Pablo moved aside a table and bench seat to reveal a small door that we walked through to go into the adjoining garage.  It was really weird and I asked him if this was breaking and entering because that's what it felt like.  He laughed and said that no it was just the way they went in when the restaurant was closed.  We walked up a set of stairs in the garage and that took us to the floors above the restaurant where his family lived.  It was truly a different living experience for me. 

 

When you walked in the "house" after the entry way to the right was the living and dining rooms (and presumably a closet of some sort but I didn't really ever check it out) and to the left were the kitchen/laundry combo room we never used, bathroom and then Pablo's room on the left side of the hall and on the other side of the hall his sister, Margi, her daughter Stephi's and Santi had rooms.  Stephi was 4 and Santi 21.  Outside if you went up a few more steps and turned or did a dance or something were the room/apartments to other family members including his sister Susanna, his mom, another sister, her husband and their daugher, Evelyn. 

 

There might have been more people/family living there but it was a lot to keep track of and I kept meeting people so fast I couldn't quite keep up.  Pablo's room was definitely the biggest (since he owned the whole place, according to him) and had a tv, bed, couch and chairs.  He said his whole family rented from him in his two homes and used his cars and shared the costs for them.  Not his whole family of course, as there were like 64 family members and only he and his cousin in Berlin live outside of Riobamba.  Thank goodness I didn't meet all of them. . . only about 23 or so. 

 

Saturday morning we slept in a bit which was a good thing since I'd been tired from all of that airport/airplane time.  The time difference was only three hours.  Sounds stupid that sitting and doing nothing is tiring but it is.  For breakfast we went downstairs to the restaurant and I met his mom and sister Susanna with at least a nod and a smile.  Nothing says breakfast and good morning like being greeted by large roasted pig heads out on display.  His mom made us plentiful helpings of roast pig, hominy, potatoes with some type of tasty orangish-creamy-ish sauce and a side of salad with pickled vegetables. 

 

Then she put out a plate of pig heart, liver and intestines.  I was a trooper and tried all three even though Pablo insisted I didn't have to.  They didn't taste like much and were very chewy and rubbery.  Nothing I feel the need to try again.  My only insistence was that I was not going to eat cuy at all (guinea pig for you English speakers).  I'd had two as pets growing up and did not feel the need to get to know them in any other fashion let alone know what they tasted like.

 

After breakfast we wandered around the neighborhood, pretty much the center of Riobamba.  They lived in the perfect location there.  We went to the nearby train station and the local market festival that was going on there then to another outside Saturday market where there were lots of local blankets, clothes, dolls and other handicrafts for sale.  I saw the building that he went to school at and other little landmarks around.  Crazy me I didn't take any pictures, camera at the house, because I figured I'd have plenty more opportunities.  That didn't end up happening until the last morning but you'll have to wait to the end to hear about that. 

 

We walked to a place that was sort of a mall but I would compare it more to Pike Place Market on the lower levels with all kinds of produce and a cheap knock-off booth row of all kinds of clothing and stuff upstairs.  Fake designer shoes, jeans, clothes, watches, jewelry and other stuff I just didn't have a need for.  Interesting to look at though.  After our midday adventure we went back to the house to meet up with Margi, Stephi and Santi for lunch at a nearby restaurant.  I quickly learned that they never seem to eat at home unless it is their own restaurant food which was the same every day.  It was a nice lunch and we had some conversation with a bit of effort but it was fun. 

 

After lunch we took a cab to see if Pablo's truck was ready for a little road trip since he was having oil changed, new brakes and all of that tune up stuff done to it.  It wasn't ready so we hung out for awhile until Pablo could go back and pick it up at the end of the day and then we made it out to a dinner at around 9:30pm with about ten family and friends. 

 

I talked to Margi during the dinner about the news footage that was on TV covering a political bombing in Riobamba about 4 years ago.  It was really interesting learning about the political instability and the aftermath of all of the women that went into labor unexpectedly and early during the bombing.  Lots of problems and post-traumatic stress issues for the moms and problems with the babies including learning disabilities.  Stephi happened to be born early during that period but it wasn't directly related to the bombings but made getting medical attention a challenge. 

 

Dinner was interesting because they brought everything out as it was ready so some of us were waiting quite awhile. . . then after awhile it was just me waiting and waiting and waiting.  Then they finally figured out the waitress didn't put my order in.  Was kind of funny, definitely funny to the rest of them.  I was just glad I wasn't too terribly hungry.  My dinner was churrasco which was thin-cut beef cooked in oil with a fried egg on top, cooked in oil, served with french fries, cooked in oil.  I swear they may have dribbled extra oil on top just to make sure it was all shiny.  Everything there, as in many of the places in Europe, is fried and served with french fries.  After a few days this really did a number on my digestive system!  Unfortunately while it all slid down my throat with greasy ease, it did not continue as smoothly through the rest of the system but no more details for you!!

 

After dinner we decided to go out and try to take on the town to find a little dancing or nightlife.  We drove around, "cruised the strip" like in the 50's if you will, and honked and got honked at by tons of people that Pablo knew.  Was almost creepy that Pablo seemed to know half of the town.  Almost felt like we were local celebrities.  Everybody knows Pablo's truck (kind of like my little red, striped rocket ship!).  We found a little bar that was playing a good and interesting mix of music, current stuff, not salsa sadly for me, and had some beers and ran into a friend of his and his girlfriend.  We stayed for a few hours, danced a few songs and then called it a night.  There weren't any places that were overly busy even for a Saturday. 

 

I'll save Sunday's activities for the next segment.  But if you are wondering about the weather it was pretty much partly cloudy and in the low to mid-sixties so it was very nice.  Light coat at night and short sleeves and sunglasses during the day. Riobamba is known as the chilly city because it is much colder than it’s neighboring cities do to the elevation.  We’d be in the upper 80’s and 90’s as soon as we went into the Amazon jungle and the beaches. 

So here I am heading out of my hostel on Monday morning about to do something drastic.  Not like it is that crazy but c'mon, for me it was a bit considering how planned my trip was and that I am heading back to a city mostly to spend more time, relaxed time, with a great guy I met.  I had Pablo's phone number of course but had decided to really daring and surprising (you have to admit that it is a really romantic thing to do too) by going back without him knowing I was coming.  I got all cheesy and bought a ticket that would put me back in the Museo de Jamon at the same time as when I met him exactly one week later.  Heck, I even wore almost the exact same outfit for total dejavu.  Of course I was really counting on his work schedule being the same and other little details like he was really a genuine good guy and hadn't just moved on to some other tourist and was willing to let me stay with him per his offer.  In some ways that was a lot to gamble on, in others, not really!  I knew it really wasn't a risky gamble.

 

My train (the fancy super fast AVE train again) delivered me to the Madrid train station at 3pm.  I was really nervous/excited the whole ride and tried to watch some stupid movie they were showing but the connection for my earpiece was broken so unless I pushed the plug in hard and held it there was no point.  So instead I tried to distract myself by trying to memorize every word in my Spanish phrase book that I could to help with upcoming conversations.  I got to the train station, checked my bags into the storage area there and then took the underground metro to the Puerto del Sol station and headed towards Pablo's work.  By the time I surfaced from the metro station I was starting to feel a little stupid and kept going through all of the what-if's and whatnot.  But heck, you only live once, I had such a blast with him I wanted to see him again and best case it would be a fantastic surprise for him, worst case a disappointment for me and I'd have to find a hostel and still take some time to relax. 

 

His work was only 5 blocks from the station so I headed straight for it so I wouldn't have to think too much about changing my mind.  Not that it was was going to happen at this point.  I was careful when I approached the building because it is on a corner and the two sides on the corner are all glass and pretty easy to see in and out of.  Was going for the element of surprise here.  I was approaching the glass corner so tried to be discreet about looking in.  I walked past on the main street and saw that there was maybe one customer in there and two employees visible. . . neither were Pablo.  That sucked and alarmed me a bit.  But heck, that wasn't a much different crowd from a week ago.  Not wanting to look obvious and walk back by, I just continued up the block and circled it from the backside.  Then I walked by the other window.  At first I didn't see him but then he walked out from the kitchen to the front and I knew it was time to make my move.  

 

So anyway, the rest of my time in Madrid was another 4 fun-filled days and I headed to Portugal.  Oh, you wanted a little more?  Okay, just a bit.  I walked in the front door and one of the other guys working recognized me and I gave him a little "shh" signal.  I headed straight to Pablo and ordered a beer like I would any other day as if it were nothing.  He reached for a glass and then did a total double-take when he saw who it was.  It was perfect.  He could not believe I was back and kept stammering with an ear to ear grin.  I quickly asked, as cool and casually as I could, if he knew of any places I could stay now that I was back in town.  He said his place of course as if there were ANY other options!  It was hilarious.  For the rest of my almost hour there he was a total nervous, happy wreck.  I loved it!  He went from being the suave, cool guy the week before to a nervous school-girl kind of guy.  He even messed up the only two other customer's orders and they ordered a simple sandwich and a beer.  It was so cute.  He wrote down his address for me, gave me his key with instructions as to what key worked where and I eventually headed back to the train station.  I grabbed my stuff from the station, took a cab to his apartment and hung out there for a bit.  Eventually I took the metro to go back to the center, grabbed a bite, made some calls to family, chatted with Tiffany (about boys of course) online and met him just before he got off of work.

 

Apparently my re-appearance was all the talk at his work and I felt like everyone was staring.  They were all really excited for him that this car racing chick from Seattle that he had had such an amazing time with, and had apparently been very sad about when she left, came back just for him.  Everyone waited on me hand and foot, kept my glass full, gave me lots of free samples and plenty of winks and smiles.  David of course took the best care of me.  We were famous.  As soon as he could get off we headed out to one of our usual haunts to catch up.  I didn't want to dance that night, just talk and catch up.  It was a perfect night and my plan couldn't have worked out better!

 

Turned out his schedule was the same as the week before, which is what I had counted on, so he only had to work from 9a-2p the next day, had all of Wed off and sadly worked from 2p-midnight on my last night, Thursday.  My counting on his schedule being the same is also a part of what made going back there at this point a good move.  I slept in on Tuesday when he went to work and then we met for lunch and wandered around the local parks holding hands, riding in a little rowboat, chatting for hours on end and stuff like that.  During my second visit during the time when he was working I spent relaxing at his apartment, at internet cafes or shopping in the neighborhoods and when he was off we went out in the late mornings and evenings--it was perfect!  We did go salsa dancing again at the Havana Club and towards the end I decided I was going to need to take some classes to be a better dance partner when I got back to Seattle.  Oh on my last afternoon in the Museo de Jamon it was really funny, and a tad embarrassing, because they named a dish "una Seattle" after me and would call out that instead of the real name to the guys in the deli side to make.  I never knew which sandwich it was but I'm sure it had cheese in it.  All of the guys (about 12 at this point) thought it was hilarious and would call it out as serious as possible and crack up Pablo. 

 

One of the days I bought my ticket to fly from Madrid to Lisbon, Portugal.  I got a good deal on the ticket and ended up ahead of my budget with the change in plans even with this unexpected flight.  My flight left at like 7am on Friday morning.  We were used to being out most of the night anyways so we stayed up all night and then he accompanied me to the airport to wait with me.  He was so sweet and it was a nice way to say goodbye.  I was so tired on the plane it was crazy--crashed hard in an uncomfortable chair at the airport gate since the plane ended up being over an hour late and then crashed on the plane.  Wouldn't have done a darn thing differently!  When we parted he said that he really wanted to come visit me in Seattle and would like it if I would visit Ecuador with him perhaps the next summer.  I told him I'd call him when I got home in a week and a half or two and we would talk and see what happened. . .

So by know you've read the nightmare that was my Saturday night.  Pure bloody, vicious insanity I tell you!  I am still amazed I made it out without some crazy disease or something.  I was covered in bites though.  30 or 40 of them and when I first woke up and saw them I was dreading the itching that would soon follow.  Thank god that the itching at its worst wasn't too bad.  The first thing I did Sunday morning was go downstairs and write my blog at the hostel computer about the night and inquire where the best place to get some bug spray was.  El Cortez Ingles would be the obvious choice but there was nothing open on Sunday.  When I say nothing. . . I mean NOTHING.  It was crazy.  I ate dinner at Burger King because it was the only restaurant open (and it was cool to order a beer with your "meal"!).  This super nice guy from New York named Fernando was in the lobby area when I was sharing my nightmarish story and asking about the bug spray and he offered to pick me up some on his trip to some far away open store.  I really didn't believe he would find any and was thrilled to death when he stopped by a bit later with a magical bottle of anti-bug juice.  Thanks again Fernando!!

 

I spent the day on Sunday walking down the waterfront to the Plaza Espana which was very pretty.  Then I wandered my way back up to my starting point, weaving my way in and out of local parks, buildings, universities and whatever I ran across.  I ate lunch at Starbucks because Burger King and Starbucks were my only open options this Sunday.  Later when I got back to the hostel I ran into Fernando again and we started talking about travel plans and he had just gotten a ticket to the Alhambra.  We'd talked about it a little earlier and he knew that I had had a hard time getting one.  Somehow he magically got a ticket by clicking the buy button at the exact moment someone cancelled theirs.  It was crazy good luck on his part.  He was so nice and helped me try to get a ticket.  We spent a bit of time online trying to see if the same magic would happen for me but it never did.  I talked to Fernando a bit about my temptation to forgo Rhonda and Granada since I couldn't get tickets and instead surprise Pablo in Madrid.  I looked up train and plane tickets (thanks again to Fernando for turning me onto kayak.com--best site for plane tickets ever!) and came up with a very doable plan B. 

 

I had a lot of fun talking with him and we decided to head over to the other side of the river bank to have a drink and hang out, then went over to Rubec's for tapas.  We parted ways for me to go to the bull fight and he went to do other stuff.  But we made plans to meet up at the hostel later that night to go try and take on some of the Sevilla nightlife.  I'm honestly thinking that I did not go to Sevilla during it's most social season but I still had a good time.  I knew that even if Sunday wasn't a crazy night for going out at least the two of us would have fun.  Now let me tell you about the bullfight. 

 

I have always wanted to see a traditional bullfight to see what happens.  Depending on the country you are in or part of the country bullfights range from a bunch of dressed up guys just clowning around with the bulls but nobody really gets hurt to bulls getting speared and killed after to the fight away from the eyes of the audience or right in front of the audience.  This bullfight I was attending was considered the most traditional sort with three bullfighters, matadors if you will, each fighting two bulls in a three-round fight.  Three matadors, six bulls, battle to the death.  I'll just give you a flavor of what happens because it is rather gory and I don't want anyone to get upset or grossed out.  What struck me the most in the entire process was that while the bullfighters are some of the most highly statured people in the community, what takes place and the utter unfairness of it for the bull (sorry but he pretty much has a snowballs chance in hell of doing anything but dying) makes it seem like something I wouldn't be too proud of.  Let me tell you what I mean with the process of the fights.

 

So the day was beautiful and sunny and I didn't mind my seat in the sun.  It did get a little warmer than I would like but not a big deal and it was around 4 in the afternoon so the hottest part had passed.  I was really nervous to bring my camera in because they said on the ticket that they were not allowed and would be confiscated but I had it hidden in a pocket that wouldn't be searched.  There were no searches and I think every third person was taking pictures or video so I did take a few video clips and photos.  The pomp and circumstance of the event started with the three bullfighters, I'll remind you these were the amateurs, riding in full regalia on horses followed by back up fighters (I think they were pro's) and assistants on foot all prancing around the large ring in the arena that seated up to 15,000 people.  It was a big place and it was probably 1/3 full of spectators.  There was no announcing or anything to tell you what was going to happen or who was who but after 2 minutes of prancing and the owners of the ring doing something, everyone cleared the ring and the first match began. 

 

As I said, there are a series of three stages to the fight.  In the first stage the bullfighter rides a horse that is decked out in full leather protective gear and hhe uses two spears for this round.  He has six or seven assistants who all run around the ring waving capes--colors don't matter, the bulls only track motion.  As soon as they are all in the ring they release a bull.  The bulls in this event were not quite as large as the one's the pro's fight and I want to say these were like 450 kilo where the big ones are like 600.  I didn't have that in my notes, going from memory so if I'm far off don't freak out!  The bulls are quite big no matter what.  A lot of people feel that bullfighting is a positive thing because if it wasn't for the sport this particular breed of bull would be extinct.  The breed is naturally very aggressive when provoked and is known for their die-hard fighting ability.  If it wasn't for this sport, no one would keep them around.  This isn't a big selling point for me but it is a big deal to a lot of locals.  So when they release the bull the assistants run around trying to get the bull's attention to get him riled up and charging as they cowardly run behind these big protective walls while the bull rams his head into it trying to figure out where the guy went. 

 

The bull clearly looks confused with the entire process.  It is only his instinct that drives him to charge at this waving motion in front of him.  The assistants do this for 3 or 4 minutes until the bull is panting and frankly really confused.  Once the bull is in this state, the fancily-clad bullfighter directs his horse to get in close proximity of the bull.  Initially the bull isn't really interested.  The horse on the other hand is in a terrible predicament and I thought this was the worst part of the entire thing.  While the horses are in this protective wear that is like a giant leather drape that goes down to his knees and includes a headdress, he is in a very alarming situation because the headdress covers his eyes.  This poor horse has been in other bull fights and knows what is going to happen but can't see to do anything about it.  This is the only way the bullfighter could get him to go that close and not move when a bull comes charging at him.  How awful for the horse!  I felt terrible for them and it almost broke my heart to watch.  And of course the very first fight was the most dramatic of all.  Just so you know, it wasn't until the late 60's that the horses ever wore armor.  Most horses only lived to participate in a few fights before dying in battle or from complications.  Somehow that is supposed to make me feel better.

 

The bullfighter maneuvers the obedient horse who has no other choice but to follow instructions close to the bull.  The assistants antagonize the bull so that he moves in the right direction.  Then while they are still distracting him the bullfighter approaches the bull and spears him between the shoulder blades in a dramatic and very effective manner while the bull reacts and charges at the horse with the rider on it.  In this first round with the first bullfighter he delivered the first spear without a problem.  The poor horse took quite the blow with the bulls charge and you could hear and almost feel it even though it was on the far side of the ring from where I was sitting ($ seats = sit where action is).  From this far vantage point I could see blood clearly pouring down the bulls sides.  So now he is hurting and much more upset.  The assistants give the bullfighter another long spear and they repeat the process.  With this first matador he ran into a problem with the second spear.  He delivered it okay but didn't let go soon enough and as soon as the bull started charging and attacking you could tell he wasn't expecting the full reaction the bull gave.  Ahh, the amateur.  The bull charged a few times in quick succession and then lifted the horse with the fighter on him up in the air and flipped them.  The horse definitely got hurt and was freaking out because now he was on the ground, blindfolded and getting attacked.  Luckily he got up quickly and the bull had focused his attention on the fighter who was dazed and then got flipped a few times by the bull before the assistants could distract it and medics rush the bloody, unconscious fighter away.  It was a very dramatic sight and the sounds of the audience just intensified the experience.

 

Now you might think that this kind of thing happens a lot.  I would have too but from the tour the day before it was explained that this type of accident rarely happens.  For example in all of European bullfights there are maybe 5 injuries a year.  And there are a lot of fights--Sevilla has like 160 a year just in their city.  The last 2 deaths from fights were in 1962 and 1992 (I remembered and had put that in my notes!).  Somehow at the end of the event they let us know that the guy was still alive but he was a bloody, unconscious mess when they carried him out of the ring on a stretcher.  One of the other bullfighters came in to finish the other two rounds.  So round one is the two big spears delivered to the bull's shoulder blades on horseback while assistants work to tire the bull out.  The next round is where it just starts seeming really cruel and stupid.  With the exception of the first fighter's incident, the horse round is probably the safest for the fighter.  He barely even gets close, it is the horse that takes the brunt of it.  In the second round the assistants continue to tire the bull and after two significant spearings he is bleeding a lot and panting heavily.  He is confused, hurting and you just feel sorry for him.

 

The assistants do more work than any of the fighters and I felt like they put more of themselves on the line in the process, at least on the human side of the battle.  The bullfighter now appears on foot carrying two four foot long "bocadillos" which are short spears that have many barbed tips on them.  In this round the fighter puts three sets of spears into the already weakened shoulder blades and they stick in.  The barbs on them work deeper into the poor bull the more he fights.  Doesn't really seem fair or heroic at this point does it?  The bull fighter does get a lot riskier getting that close and you do see some close calls with the horns of the bull but he is getting so weak and tired that it isn't hard for them to find an opening and take it.  After all 6 bocadillos are in, there is an appetizer named after these spears fyi, the bull is covered in blood and exhausted.  A few of the bulls barely even remained standing for the last round, one broke a leg early in this second round and another one just fell over.  Very sad to watch the bulls at this point because their instinct is still making them try to fight but they just don't have the strength to do it and I swear from the far side I was watching that I could see the helplessness and sadness in their eyes knowing they weren't going to get out of this alive.

 

Round three.  This is supposed to be the most dramatic but it really seemed more like mercy killing, with the exception that the mercy should have been shown to the animal long before.  In this round the fighter is on foot again, puffs up his chest and prances as authoritatively around the bull as he can.  He knows the bull doesn't even have the energy to charge and he walks around it like he should get all of the credit for this conquest.  Just doesn't seem like a conquest.  When he is done fluffing his feathers for the crowd, or some random girl he probably has in the audience, he takes a sword and spears the bull in the heart to kill it.  It is truly a relief at this point.  Then the fighter cuts off ears and/or the tail.  He need two of the three trophies from the fight to be successful--ears and the tail are each worth a trophy point.  Doesn't seem like a big accomplishment or challenge to take it from a dead animal.  The moment that is done horses come out and they rope the bull to the back of the procession, run the body around the ring to show it off and cart it to the back.

 

If you are wondering what they do with the dead bulls, I'll tell you.  Part of the meat goes to the owner, part to the bullfighter (along with $ prizes for both) and then the rest goes to the owners of the stadium who sell it to local restaurants who serve the meat up in tapas later that night.  It is supposed to be a big honor to eat the meat of a fallen bull.  I didn't have any myself.  So those are the rounds--two spears on horseback, six short devastating spears on foot and the final sword finish to a bull that can barely do anything but still stand if they are doing good.  How charming.  This repeats for 6 bulls as each matador gets to kill two bulls to try and earn his trophies.  There was a strange intermission where they let a really big bull out in the ring and assistants got him a little riled up.  Then they released like 15 cows into the ring and all of a sudden it was like a calm pasture with cows.  The bull calmed down, got really confused but wasn't going to attack the cows or anything.  Then after a minute they lead the cows out, spear the bull twice and then lead him off out of the ring.  We never knew what happened to him but with those injuries I doubt he would have made it long.

 

So, my take on bullfighting?  Really glad I went because it was interesting to watch.  The event was gorier than I was expecting to a point and I'm glad I wasn't sitting any closer, but I just thought it was sad.  I wasn't impressed by the esteemed fighters because I didn't feel like they did a lot of work and the bull was more victimized.  If anything bothered me the most it was the poor blindfolded horses.  I couldn't imagine being one of those horses knowing every time I'm suited up I'm going to get painfully charged from a direction I can't predict and by an assailant I cannot see.  I really hated that part.  Don't think I would go to a fight again but I am really glad I went.  I might have gone into a little more detail than I planned but now you really know what it was like to be there.  Now onto the rest of my night!

 

After the bullfight I went to the Burger King for a fancy dinner with a beer as my drink choice with the meal deal.  Felt crazy to drink beer out of a BK cup!  I met Fernando after dinner at the hostel and he had tried while online to get me an Alhambra ticket while I was at the fight.  Isn't he nice???  We would have had fun going together.  No luck there but while I was sad I was going to miss it, it also made my decision to go back to Madrid really easy!  I gave Fernando my hostel info and reservation in Granada and bought my train ticket back to Madrid for the next day.  I was so excited it was funny.  Part for getting to go back and see Pablo, part for just randomly changing my so thoroughly planned out trip and part for knowing I was really going to have some settled, down time that I really needed.  We got dressed up to go out to Boss, a well-known club there, and had one heck of a time hailing a cab.  We got creative, adventurous, looked around and finally found success with a cab.  The driver was a sweet older gentleman who was celebrating his 37th wedding anniversary with his wife the next day.  He gave us all kinds of marriage advice.  Didn't take notes though.  The cabbie drove us to where the club was and dropped us off but it turned out to be closed.  Not the right time of year??  We didn't know but wandered down the street to where a bunch of people were getting rowdy in an Irish Pub called Betis 54. 

 

The pub was lively, we had a good time, enjoyed some cheap beers, some amazing grape/berry vodka something that tasted like melted grape popsicle and then Fernando tried his first swig of Absynth.  Eventually we met Martin from Latvia who was a suave James Dean type character who'd moved to London and he introduced us to some of his other friends there.  We had a lot of fun hanging with Martin and then Jeff and Ashley who were from New York just like Fernando.  Those two were drunk but in a fun, amusing way!  Oh, a little about Fernando, he is a 28 year old sweetie with a great sense of humor (yes ladies, can't believe he is still available on the market last I heard) who does social work with autistic children.  His Spanish speaking skills came in handy as he grew up in El Salvador until turning 17 and moving state-side.  I think we made it back to the hostel around 3am, I hosed down THOROUGHLY with bug spray (although I'm sure they needed a few more days before feeding again!) and went to sleep.  Monday I woke up with only 2 new bites.  I packed and got ready to go back to Madrid to suprise Pablo and hope to god he was as great as I thought he was.  If not, I was going to need to find a place to stay!!  But you'll have to read the next installment to find out how that went. . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was getting a little burned out on the city to city to city. . . hopping and wanted a break.  I started thinking, well started thinking this on Friday when I first couldn't get a ticket, that maybe if I couldn't get a ticket to the Alhambra that I would just go back to Madrid and chill out.  Pablo had invited me to come back and stay at his apartment and there was an appeal for a chance to just live like a local, take a break from all of the tourism and sightseeing and spend some time with a really great guy.  I was torn though because to do that it would mean giving up the hill towns in Rhonda, two fun clubbing nights in Granada and maybe even a Lagos in Portugal, to make the time worthwhile in Madrid, and I was already down to less than a week in Portugal as it stood.  I wasn't going to make any decisions yet but thoughts were brewing in my head.  My plans to go out that night after the Flamenco show were not strong enough to fight the sleepy bug that was knocking on my head.  So I decided that if I could forgo a Friday night, I could pass up a Saturday night too and went to bed.  Now I could go into detail about the hell that was this night. . . but you should really go to my first Spain blog story titled "My friends told me not to see the movie Hostel" and read it for the hours-old, first-hand account story that is that blog.  This night turned into a bloodbath nightmare that I will never forget.    Read or re-read that blog and then you will be allowed to read the next segment of this city's adventures!

 

I left the Museo de Jamon and it's tasty lunch, among other interesting attributes, to head on foot down towards the Prado Museum which I would tackle a different day, the Jardin Botanica (Botanical Gardens) and the Parque del Buen Retiro, a huge, glorious public park.  This was one of those times again, of the hundreds of times, where I thought everything looked so much closer on the map and walked it only to realize by the end it was a long, long distance to walk.  But I did it all on foot.  The botanical gardens were beautiful and were a great showcase of all kinds of flora and fauna.  The park was amaing.  The size is almost overwhelming as it seems to go on forever in all directions.  There are tons of joggers running, lovers making out, parents out with their kids, street performers performing, hippies drumming and rowers sculling on the tiny man-made lake.  Very entertaining and beautiful.  Why can't I live by a park like this??  Darn Europe for being better than Seattle for these things!

 

Nearing exhaustion and needing more food again I headed back to my hotel and photographed my very swollen ankles.  I think that 24 hours of barely moving between airport, plane and train time freaked my body out.  Maybe I'll put up my before and after pictures.  I truly had kankles which was funny because I've always been very proud of my ankles.  Twas a sad time.  But I still wore a skirt and sandals out that night even though I looked like I should be pregnant with ankles like those.  I decided to do the pub crawl as planned, waited the appropriate amount of time (until 10pm) and headed out to get some grub and sip some cervesas along the way.  Somewhere along the way back to the hostel I decided to go ahead and meet Pablo when he got off work.  In fact, here, I'll quote you what I wrote in my notes earlier that night, "Museo de Jamon, where the bartender flirted and asked me out.  Think I'll go, he's cute and could be fun."  So I went to the Toreo pub and was fairly unimpressed.  The bullfighting memorabilia was nice but the people were few and odd.  There was a seemingly nice guy who wanted to buy me a beer at another place but wouldn't take no for an answer and kept following me.  I just walked into a pub a few doors down and started talking to someone as if I knew them until the guy left.  The person looked at me odd but got the picture when the guy left.  Then I moved on exploring different types of tapas as I went.  I did have a cheat sheet with me because I didn't want to eat pig brains and other un-appealing things just because I didn't have the names memorized.  Had some interesting and surprisingly spicy things even though I asked ahead of time.  As a major spice-wimp I know my meter is set to really sensitive and I was in a land of numb tongues.

 

I kept an eye on the clock and timed my arrival at Pablo's work to 11:45pm so I could look all casual, have a beer and a plate of cheese (god I love my cheese!) and be available when he got off.  He saw me the moment I came in and rushed over.  He had to go take care of some things in the back and introduced me to his very good friend David who would take good care of me.  David was really nice and was patient with my Spanish.  He kept making sure I had a full glass and double checking if I needed anything more.  He wouldn't even let me pay my bill--of course I think that was more Pablo's doing.  Pablo got off just before midnight (was supposed to work until 12:30am but I guess he made an arrangement with the guys if I showed up), had changed his clothes and was ready to hit the town.  He asked me if there was someplace I wanted to go and I said I didn't know so he grabbed my hand and we headed up the street.  I thought we'd be going far but we made it to the next block and he paid the covers for us to go into the Havana Club.  A salsa bar/dance club.  It was a fun place but let me tell you, the only salsa I've danced in my life was with Novelia in Ibiza--thanks Novelia.  But that left me far from an expert or even fairly competetent compared to my other dance club experiences. 

 

He got us drinks right away, asked what I wanted and since there was like 10 mojito's lined up on the bar I answered a mojito.  I still think he believes that is one of my favorite drinks.  It is not.  Okay drink, but that's about it.  We chatted for a bit and then he wanted to dance.  You know me, always up for dancing, but I was humbled here.  Thank god he can dance and lead well.  I would stop him a lot and have him show me what he was doing and sometimes we'd just go back to a basic step to make life more enjoyable for me.  Hitting the fast forward button and holding it, we danced a lot (did I mention he is a fantastic dancer and moves really, really well??? big deal for me), talked a lot, etc. . .  and then after exhausting our feet hit a few bars and then settled in an Irish pub to chat the rest of the night away.  Can I tell you that I loved the over-the-top coupons for the bars--12 beers for the price of 3.  Yup, they really appeal to the drunk college kids!  And there was a good number of them (mostly American).  Anyway it was a fun night and he walked me to the front door of my hotel at a very late hour.  Pablo told me he really wanted to see me again and asked if I would meet him at his work when he got off at 2p the next day.  He started at 9a--sucked for him!  I said ok. 

 

The next day I got up nice and early and did the Prado Museum.  It was everything I wanted it to be and having seen tons and tons of museums and art at this point I navigated it in its entireity in a matter of 3 hours.  Darn I'm efficient!  I window shopped my way back and finalized plans with Katie, the gal I met in Athens, to meet in Segovia on Thursday.  Then I met Pablo at his work.  We went to a nice place he liked for lunch and chatted away.  It was funny for me because he was so tired.  That's probably mean but it was nice seeing someone try so hard when they were soooo tired.  We parted so that he could take nap and agreed to meet at 9p that night.  I headed back to the Palace that wouldn't allow me entry the day before, enjoyed my visit and then took a nap as well.  He showed up at 9pm at my hotel as promised and we visited like 8 bars and clubs and danced our way through as many of them as possible and chatted while not dancing.  Again another late night and he wanted to hang out with me on Wednesday because it was his day off.  I had plans to go to El Escorial and the Valley of the Fallen, a full day trip, and told him that I would give him a call when I got back.  Guess he liked me.

 

I'll give you a few details about him so that you'll have a better idea.  Pablo is 34 (not quite a year older than me), grew up in Ecuador, moved to Berlin about 5 1/2 years ago because his cousin moved there (didn't speak German at the time), then moved to Madrid about 8 months ago.  Never married, no kids, yes has had real relationships, is a super nice, genuine guy.  Speaks Spanish, German and some Italian, only a touch of tourist-English as I would call it.  That's all you get.  Oh and he has a sense of humor a lot like mine.  Lots of jokes.  El Escorial was impressive (see how I'm just moving on?) and took about an hour by bus to get to.  There weren't very many people in the castle/fortress/tomb/church building but there were still guards in every room.  Was really weird because I felt like all of the guards were keeping track of me.  It said no photos in the painting rooms and I was very, very careful about that.  But that didn't mean that I couldn't take pictures of the outside from the windows.  Every time I would hold out my camera to the guard and point outside and they would nod that it was okay to take a picture of outside.  They watched me like a hawk.  Then as I would leave they would radio to the next guard (yeah, loud and not very secretive) that the woman in the purple shirt was coming into their area.  I would say I heard that announcement in about 90% of the rooms I entered.  Same nodding happened every time, without incident, if I wanted to take a picture.  Maybe there's some giant art security notification up about me or someone who looks like me that I didn't see. 

 

After El Escorial I took another bus to see the Valley of the Fallen.  This is quite an impressive site.  Built in the 1950's as a monument to the Spanish citizens of both sides that perished in the Spanish civil war, it is a giant cross that towers over the land with rocks that were taken from the church that is the cave below the cross.  Built completely by prisoners.  Good job fellas.  I took a cable car to get to the top of the cross and got some impressive views.  Then I went down to the basilica and was taken in by the depth of the place.  Decent amount of art but it is just a cold, drippy, spiritual-feeling church.  A giant cavern.  And drippy.  They literally took the stones out of the hill to create the cave that is the church and used them to build the cross on top.  There was nothing done to stop water from seeping in through the walls of the church so there are buckets all over the place catching drips.  It is kind of sad because the ceiling is so neat looking--carved to look like an ornate tiled ceiling but it isn't as complicated as it looks.  You just have to make sure you don't get drips in your eye when you look at it!  The outside of the basilica is just as impressive.  Everything just feels massive.  A very holy feeling place at least in its effectiveness of humbling humanity by sheer size alone. 

 

I ended up getting back to Madrid around 7:30pm but took a nap and didn't call Pablo until around 10pm.  Of course now I feel a little guilty about waiting so long since he hung around his home and just waited for my call all day.  Hopefully I was worth the wait.  This was Wednesday and the night before I had really wanted to go to this giant club in Madrid called the Palacio Gariva as it was touted by many sources.  We never made it there (hey my feet were tired and I was otherwise entertained) so we made it a priority that night.  It wasn't as packed as it could have been but it still played great music, had giant well decorated rooms and some hot dancers on stage.  Another long night filled with good times and good dancing. 

 

Thursday was my day to go to Segovia and spend the day with Katie.  As with the evenings before, Pablo wanted to see me again, and heck, I wanted to hang out with him too.  We were getting along quite nicely at this point.  He worked until midnight so I had the day to hang in Segovia and the start of the evening to myself.  I managed to get to the bus station at the far end of town Thursday morning and took the hour long bus ride out to Segovia.  Katie met me at the bus station and we had a relaxing day wandering the really, super small town of Segovia, having lunch, getting online and just chilling.  She's a student studying Spanish there and was about to start her second quarter there.  She's from the midwest in a small town and loved the small town that is Segovia.  I would have felt the need to break free after 3 days but that's just big-city Jackie.  At lunch we watched people at the table next to us eat a pig.  A baby pig that looked like they just tossed him straight in the oven.  Didn't bother me but just looked fake.  The churches there were pretty--only looked from the outside, the aquaduct was neat looking but my favorite part was the castle there.  Walt Disney, back in the day, visited it, loved it and designed the Sleeping Beauty castle after it.  When you look at it you see it right away.  They had a few little displays with knights on horses and rooms with art.  One picture had a child with lifeless eyes staring at you who reminded me of that creepy kid in Omen.  We eventually parted ways at the bus station as she had some friends to meet and I wanted to take a short nap before my last night in Madrid.

 

Eventually I met up with Pablo, we hung out chatting and stopping at the various bars but no dancing.  Feet need a break sometime!  We ended up staying up the whole night wandering the city until I had to hurry back to pack my stuff and then he accompanied me all the way to the train station and waited with me for a little bit in their cool (not temperature-wise!) tropical garden area with lots and lots of little turtles.  When we parted we left things quite simple in that we would call/write and keep in touch.  Nothing more, nothing less.  He headed off to work and I enjoyed my first super-lightening-fast ride on a high-speed AVE train.  Like 160 mph--that felt fast!  Especially compared to that god-awful overnight train. 

Greetings!  So you definately know that I really enjoyed my time in Ibiza.  What a marvelous clubbing and beach vacation paradise!  I must go back!!  Would be fantastic to do right after I win the lottery!  Guess I should buy a ticket then huh. . . so let me tell you about my travels TO  Madrid before you learn about my fun times IN Madrid.  Then I need to go to the 7-Eleven at the top of my hill and buy a lottery ticket.

 

Let me preface this with a little timeline so that you know approximately how tired I was before reaching Madrid.  So while I did do the relaxing thing with naps and long leisurely beach time, I would estimate that I got around 6 hours per 24 hour period of sleep in Ibiza which was more than I got in Barcelona.  From my arrival back at my hotel in Ibiza Saturday morning to my plane landing Sunday afternoon in Barcelona, I would put that grand total at about 8 hours.  So I was a little pooped upon my return to Barcelona.  In my original plans it seemed purely logical to have given myself the afternoon to tidy up any sightseeing that I hadn't been able to fit in on the prior 4 days (that potential to-do list was long).  Plus as all of the travel sites and people said, it was the perfect thing to take an overnight train from Barcelona to Madrid because it would save me the hotel expense as I could get a sleeper "couchette" and have had the experience of taking an overnight train.  Well on paper it sounded great.  In reality I didn't need the extra time in Barcelona and even though I bought my ticket two days earlier than was recommended I still couldn't get a sleeper car.  Just a seat that reclined farther back than the standard ones.  For a 9 hour train ride.

 

Here I was in Barcelona, very tired and now needing to kill time for about eight hours before my train left at 10:20pm.  I checked my luggage in at the train station and headed to my old familiar Barcelona stomping grounds.  In Ibiza when contemplating what to do here, I did come up with the great plan of relaxing and napping on the beach.  That was fine and dandy until it started raining in Ibiza as my plane left and then turned to chilly cloudiness upon arrival in Barcelona.  So much for a beach nap!  I wandered a few new areas, ate a very long, very leisurely and thankfully very tasty lunch in a recommended restaurant.  Was very glad I went there because the food was really cheap but the restaurant, food and presentation was of the type of place I would rarely afford myself in Seattle.  I did see some interesting outside art and did some nice window shopping but mostly killed time for the afternoon.  Paying more for a direct train (5-6 hours, I think) and a hotel night might very well have been worth it.  But heck, if this is the worst decision I made on my 77 day adventure then big deal!

 

Jumping ahead (because heck, it was boring for me too) my train left on time as they pretty much all did.  I was happy to learn that my seat reclined more than the usual ones, but of course not enough to be conducive for a long, luxurious night of napping.  I was also lucky (or so I thought) that there were three seats per row.  Two seats on the right side and a row of single seats on the left.  I got the single seat.  Yeah, nobody bugging me for bathroom runs or elbows creeping over into my precious space.  Social as I am I didn't care to meet or talk to anyone on this train ride.  Just sleep.  I quickly discovered as the train started moving why the time it took to move the train between point A and point B was 9 hours. . . the train moved at like 30 miles per hour.  Freakin' slow!  And we stopped somewhere between a million and a million and two times on the way.  About 2 hours into the train ride there was a man that got on the train that was noticeably, and I mean couldn't be more obvious, drunk.  I hadn't been able to drift off for more than about 15 minutes in that time because the lights were on full bright the whole time.  Plus there was a family of about 80 (there were a lot, I couldn't get an exact count in our car of 60 or so people) that kept arguing about lord knows what. 

 

Drunk guy kept wandering the aisles innocuously until he decided to plop his rear down in the seat behind me that had recently been vacated.  We were all a bit relieved because we thought he was going to pass out blocking the aisle way.  Drunk man apparently decided that he would put the tray table down, like the airplane kind, and put his head on it to nap.  He was less than delicate about this process and shook my seat way too often.  Then for the next two minutes he kept trying to figure out what to do with his arms and hands which apparently, to start, needed to be on the top of my headrest pulling my protective sheet and hair at the same time.  People were watching him as he grumbled, in some new language he had invented, to himself.  I was relieved when the commotion stopped.  That is until his restless hands started reaching around the front of my chair and trying to touch my arms.  I batted them away numerous times until I finally had to turn around and tell him to stop (in Spanish of course).  People continued to watch then look away.  In fact the guy sitting directly across from me scrutinized the guy quite closely but didn't intervene.  After my protests for him to stop had no effect he decided that it would be more appropriate for him to just start grabbing at my more feminine features located on the front of my person.  This was coupled with some unappealing requests to cuddle and have sex.  What an amazing offer!  It took the guy in my row, who waited a tad to long in my opinion, getting up and threatening to kick his butt to finally get the guy to move.  I wanted to do a lot more (like disable him with a swift kick to the groin and then some) but I had yet to see this kind of violence in Europe and didn't want to be an ugly American.

 

Gross!  I was so surprised no train personnel ever came through because I wanted him dealt with.  Kicked off preferably, with force.  Eventually he finished the night off wandering up and down the cars until he passed out a few rows back in a seat.  He would wake up every 20 minutes or so screaming like a banshee in some drunken gibberish and then pass out again.  Was a bit disturbing for everyone in our car.  Now I would have gotten up to find a train person but there were some Moroccan "thieves", my only true encounter with crime, that would wander the aisles looking for things to steal.  I would have taken my important stuff with me but once the guy passed out I didn't care as much.  It was interesting that while these thieves were walking up and down the aisles looking for things to steal--blatantly I tell you--the rest of us had some unspoken code that we would watch out for each other.  If someone was sleeping the rest of us would make obvious eye contact with the guys to make sure they knew this was a "no steal" zone.  Weird.  So much for getting any sleep.  Probably got a total of an hour for the whole nine hour journey.  I wasn't nervous, just not able to sleep.

 

Train arrived in Madrid at 7am and it took me just about an hour to transfer through the metro subway system, get to the Puerto del Sol (the very center of Madrid--in fact it is the centerpoint where all distances are calculated) and make my way up the five flights of stairs to my hotel.  Was a hostel but really like a hotel--even had my own full bathroom.  When I got there at 8am they said I couldn't check in until noon.  No matter how much begging or pleading I did, they were very firm but did let me leave my bags there.  Great.  Now I'm practically like the walking dead and have four hours to kill in a new city.  I grabbed a bite for breakfast (that is after I tried to order a spicy sausage instead of a breakfast pastry and left in frustration because they didn't know what I was talking about) and decided to check out a few squares on the way to the Palacio Real that was open on Mondays.  The squares were interesting, took some pics and the Palace looked beautiful from the outside but was closed due to some royal event because the king and queen of Spain still use it.  Ok, I'll check out the nearby gardens and Oriental Park.  All pretty, took lots of pictures and made my way, on foot, back to the hostel exactly at noon.  4 hours of walking + no sleep meant that the minute my head hit the pillow I was out.  Woke up about 2 hours later perfectly refreshed (how?  I don't get it either.  My perkiness does frighten even me at times!).  Showered and decided to plan out the rest of the day and the evening's prescribed pub crawl. 

 

Okay, so I've been trying to decide exactly how much I really want to share from this point on.  That has been my procrastination reason so I'll just find out while I write it.  We're at that little crossroads where I met someone who is quite fantastic and made Madrid one of my favorite cities on my trip.  Yeah, yeah, a few of you know but the rest of you are just chompin' at the bit aren't you.  If not, make me feel special by lying to me or else you wouldn't be reading this lengthy thing.  So I'll open the door a bit and leave a little cliffhanger at the end of this part. . . Rested, showered and refreshed I headed the few blocks needed to explore the area where I would be doing the Rick Steves' pub crawl.  Can you believe you are still hearing his name?  He has a 6 or 8 bar crawl mapped out starting with this place that has a lot of bullfighting memorabilia in it.  As I approached the street, I saw where it was but didn't feel the need to go inside.  The second place on the list was the Museo de Jamon (yes, that does translate to the Museum of Ham--but it isn't a museum, just a bar with a ham and cheese deli downstairs and a restaurant upstairs).  I was actually standing at the corner of the Museo de Jamon when I saw the first place but as I looked inside they had lovely large signs with pictures of the bocadillos (sandwiches) and other foods that they served.  Me?  A little brain-tired and super hungry.  The bar?  Easy to order from with pictures and just a few feet away.  So I went in.

 

I don't think there was more than one other customer in the place aside from me, the two servers at the bar area and the guy in the deli side to the left.  The place is pretty big and well known in Madrid, even has another location or two in the city.  Very popular at night.  There are no stools or chairs to sit on which I was a little disappointed about but hey, I could see pictures of what I was going to get and it was darn cheap.  One of the servers came over to me and asked what I wanted so I told him that I wanted this particular ham sandwich and a beer.  I really didn't notice him at the time because I was getting my guidebook stuff out to figure out what to do with the rest of my day and the other 4 days I would be in Madrid.  He kept asking me where I was from, if I spoke Spanish, "a very little" I said.  He got my beer and hollered to the deli guy to make my sandwich.  Then he started chatting and then flirting asking if I was here on vacation, told the other guy that I was from Seattle and asked if I could fit him in my suitcase to take me back to Seattle.  I was sort of amused but honestly not paying him a ton of attention as I had stuff to figure out and figured he did that to all the singleton gals that came in.  Don't get me wrong, he was cute and very nice but that's not where my head was.  He would leave and come back and make small conversation, compliment me on my good Spanish-speaking skills and refer to me continually as "guapa" even though he knew my name.  You can look that up if you want. 

 

I probably stayed there for about an hour looking through my stuff and talking to him off and on.  Oh his name?  Juan Pablo.  Yeah, how about that for a name?  Sounds like a bad Swiss Mocha "Jean Luc" commercial from the early 90's!  Now, of course, I feel a little bad that I kept trying to blow him off on that visit but as I was getting ready to leave he offered to take me out later that night if I came back just before midnight when he got off work.  As I left, I told him simply that there was "a possibility" that I would and I honestly felt that that was it.  I was about 50/50.  He seemed really nice and was cute and all but heck it was my first night and I thought about how annoying Enzo in Milan was after I tried to blow him off yet he popped up again the next night against all odds.  Five nights versus two?  It was always fun having locals show me around town as I'd had happen a number of times already.  Who knows. . . (okay, well you obviously know what I decided later that night but I'm going to make you wait to read about it!)  Hmmm. . . .

 

 

1.  Bring lots of memory for your camera.  I took 2500 pictures and used up just over 5 gigs.  I am not in love with all of the pictures but I felt free to take pictures with reckless abandon and have got a lot more to choose from than I would have otherwise.  Also, take higher quality pictures (which require more memory) because you never know when you are going to want to blow up that perfect pic and frame it in your home.  I've got a few of those to frame!

 

2.  Might have said this in the other one but buy postcards everywhere you go.  I would only buy one or two but I'm so glad I did.  I was anal and only bought ones that looked like what I saw--no unbelievable sunsets if I was there by day.  It was a great way to get pictures of things that I couldn't do unless suspended from a helicopter.  Plus there are always things under construction and there is only so much appeal to scaffolding in my humble opinion.  The postcards were a great way to supplement my pics.

 

3.  Buy postcards to send to friends and family and send them once.  I had grand plans of sending one every other week to my family and friends but abandonded that after each one eventually got a check mark next to their name.  If you've got down time and you are bored that's great but they'll have more fun hearing your full stories and seeing pics when you get back.  Be sure to carry a miscroscopically printed contact sheet of everyone you think you might want to call or mail while you are gone.  And bring multiple copies.  Keep a copy in your email in box too in case you need to look them up.

 

4.  If you are a crazy person like me and like to go back over your pictures and memories down the road, save all of your ticket stubs and interesting local maps like I did.  I am 4 weeks into my scrapbooking ( I will admit is really looking like a scrapbook no matter how functionally done I claim it to be) where I am putting my postcards I bought, ticket stubs, confetti and fliers from clubs, tassel things from drinks, metro passes and a few of my own pics to round out the story.  I absolutely love what I did for Italy and Greece is coming along quite nicely.  It is so much fun to relive my trip looking at all of the mementos and picking what pictures to insert.  It's also a handy way to give friends a quick view of your trip without requiring a 3 hour slide show.  Of course my not having a job has really made the time easy to find to construct it!

 

5.  Don't buy crap!  I sent home 3 shoe-box sized boxes on my trip.  They were 70% filled with the stuff in #4--postcards, maps and stubs, my guidebook pages so I could identify stuff in my pictures later.  The rest was little souvenirs for me and my family.  How many times are you going to wear a t-shirt, use a bag or hat with a city name on it.  I bought a lot of inexpensive jewelry, one nice ring, a hat and shirt that I have worn a lot (racing because it's from the Grand Prix in Monaco) and other than that I felt like there wasn't much I wanted.  When you go to enough places you see the same souvenirs over and over with just a different city name on them.  Unless you are in LOVE with it, don't buy it.  I love my ring the most because I wear it all of the time, I spent an hour with the guy I bought it from, it is unique and every time I look at it I think about Mykonos, my trip and it is a tiny empowering reminder of how many times people keep telling me "well I could never do something like that, taking a big trip all by myself."  Still don't get why people think it is such a brave thing to do.  I just had to do it!

 

6.  Take pictures of all of the people you hang out with.  You remember them as much if not more than the places you go.  Plus pictures are more meaningful with people in them.

 

7.  If you are traveling by yourself, take those one arm photo's of yourself places.  They don't all turn out good but it's fun to look back through them.

 

8.  Oh yeah, stop and make notes every day or two of the pictures you took.  It is amazing how quickly you forget and it really sucks when you can't remember the names of the places that you loved!

 

That's all for now!

Spain:

 

 

So you know by now that Ibiza was definitely living up to and exceeding every expectation I had for it.  Yup, Jackie was a very happy girl.  I will admit that the Pacha night was the highlight and highpoint of the Ibiza adventure but there were still very many good times to be had.  Would you like to hear about them?  Good, because I'm not stopping now!  Friday after I got up I shopped, wrote updates on my blog to get out of the hot sun (plus everything closes from 1:30-4:30 for siesta) and feel like I'd accomplished a little something, sunbathed, napped, showered and got ready to go out.  Had some dinner next to the place I ate the night before called Transylvania--yummy veggie paella and buy one get one free beers.  Friday night was the much anticipated and very hyped grand opening party for El Devino.  I started again at the Comic Bar where Felipe and Eric remembered me from less than 24 hours earlier and kept me entertained until I headed over to Barcelona Street in the center of town where all of the pre-clubbing action is.  Checked out a few places in the crowded scene of overlapping outdoor bars, enjoyed a drink and eventually made my way to the dock to catch the 2 Euro boat that takes you across the harbor to El Devino.  I had made a comment in my notes that it was very frustrating having a hotel so close to a cluster of gay bars.  There were continual groups of hot, hot, hot guys walking by but it was nearly impossible to tell which way the ball bounced in their court.  And Peter I did say how much you would like it here!  Oh well, save that for the clubs!  I had bought a ticket ahead of time for El Devino for 25 Euro (50 Euro door charge).  Off to El Devino I go. . .

 

I actually had to wait in line about 45 minutes to get in here.  Sucked being a regular person.  Where's my world-class, kiss-ass service of the day before?  Oh well, I guess it is a humbling thing to live like the masses.  The club was big inside but I felt like it was overly divided into sections that all had the same music playing.  It was very full and had it's share of hotties and moneyied folk wandering around but was lacking some of the luster of Pacha.  Music was great, dancers were entertaining and ambiance and decor were fantastic.  I danced a lot and had a great time but didn't really meet anyone.  Talked to about 4 different people or couples over the course of the night out on the enormous patio and they were great but no connections.  Somewhere around 4:30a I decided I was done there and walked across the street to catch a taxi.  But, I was a little disappointed that I was going to toss in the towel so early. . . and there was a lively looking bar just across the street called Keeper, so I went in.  Of course they were playing the Pink Floyd Proper Education remix and I had to bust through the crowd at the front door to shake my groove thing.  I did get some strange looks as I was on a mission and was going to succeed at taking full advantage of that song!  My timing was perfect as the song had just started. 

 

The bar/club was big and had lots of people in it so I decided it was a good move.  Unfortunately they followed my song with something un-dance-worthy and I had to part ways with the dance floor for a few.  I grabbed a beer (oh the joys of taxi'ing everywhere!) and perched my behind on a seating thing off to the side but still fairly central to the action.  Do I sound like a female club predator or something always positioning myself for the best action and interaction?  I hope not, but this is how I make sure I have a gosh-darned good time all the time.  I avoided some "less than tasty", as I wrote in my notes, guys and then a sweet 26 year old who's name escaped me from Trento, Italy sat next to me and whe chatted for almost two hours.  He spoke a marginal amount of English and my three and a half weeks in Italy gave me just enough Italian to converse in a unique mixture of Italio-nglish to keep a lively conversation going.  Would have been easier if he spoke Spanish too but Italian and Spanish are so close that I cheated and it seemed to work!  I have to say, I wasn't interested in the guy outside of a fun chat but his come-on tactics where so un-rehearsed that it was really flattering and refreshing.  You could tell he hadn't gotten out a lot.  Not to say that I've had a lot of those lines used, but come on, we all watch the movies and tv. . . you know what I'm talking about.  It was cute!  I decided to call it a night around 6:30a and on the ride back had the best conversation with a cab driver in Spanish the whole way back.  I never felt better about my conversation Spanish skills at that moment.  Was a good note to end on.  Did I mention that the Trento guy was cute?  He was (lucky me!).

 

Saturday I slept in until 10am so that I would have plenty of time to catch the 11:10a boat to the gorgeous island of Formentera just off of Ibiza in a glass-bottom boat.  It was only a block away since it docked right at my beach.  I got there at 10:35 to buy the ticket so then I could grab a sandwich at the grocery store before we left. . . except that the flier times didn't match the posted times.  Boat left at 10:30a.  Darn it.  So I ate cornflakes with yogurt and strawberries at a little bistro instead trying to decide what to do.  Decided that I would go to the sea caves on the other side of the island.  The gal at the hotel looked up the bus schedule for me and said I had an hour and a half for the bus.  So I got online to kill time and update the blog, pay bills, check emails, the usual stuff.  Turns out her schedule was old and the bus was about 30 minutes earlier.  Wasn't worth the price of a cab ride for it so I decided to check out the castle above Ibiza Town and hit the beach again.  After that I took a four hour nap.  Isn't that what a vacation is all about?  Oh yeah, and hitting the clubs on a Saturday night!

 

I had dinner that night at the same spot as the night before because the veggie paella was just so good and who can argue with getting free beer too.  And there was a big Madrid Real game on the big screen I wanted to watch.  It was funny because I had the same waitress this night and she asked me if I liked soccer (in Spanish of course) because I was watching it so intently.  I told her I loved it.  She laughed and said I was like a man because I drink beer and like to watch soccer games.  Then I told her that I race cars really fast and she threw up her hands and busted out laughing.  Might have been funnier to be there but I had to share anyways!  After dinner I walked by the Comic Bar on my way to my hotel to do my hair and saw Novelia and Carlos.  I was going to call them in my room but now I didn't have to.  I had tried to decide all day what club I wanted to go to this night and it was mostly a toss up between Space and Priveledge.  I had settled on Priveledge because it sounded fantastic and is the largest club in the world.  How could I not go for the over the top-largest club in the world?  That is where they were going to so it worked out perfectly!  Oh and they would drive and Felipe had free passes for us too!  What a great life!

 

I hurried up to fix my hair and then hang out with them for awhile until the magic midnight hour when I had a very important phone call to make.  It was Karl and Amy's wedding day!  I had a list of 4 friend's cell phones that were ready and waiting for my call so I could call and congratulate them on their big day.  They sounded so happy it was fantastic.  We did a little catching up on the phone but it was the start of their big party so I didn't want to keep them long.  Even though I hadn't been there for their bachelor/bachelorette parties I had made sure that trusted friends got them tasteful (?) dances at the strip clubs.  Had to send my love from overseas you know!  I will say that talking to them and knowing that so many of my good friends were all hanging out there, celebrating, made me homesick.  That was the first moment of the entire trip where I felt that way.     I got over it by going out and having an awesome night!

 

Priveldge was a fantastic club, definitely big but there were parts that weren't open so I don't know that I really got a true sense of the size of it.  It was in it's own area on the far side or center of the island (never looked on the map) and I think that is why it wasn't as packed as the other clubs.  It had a ton of people but it was nice because you could move around and finding room on the dance floor wasn't that tough.  The three of us danced a bit, enjoyed a drink and did some entertaining people watching.  They had a laughing gas booth where you could buy a balloon full of it for 5 Euro.  Had to try it.  Okay, tried 2 and it was fun.  Go figure!  Gave a nice head rush but later on just left you with a weak headache.  But when in Rome, or Ibiza. . . There were definitely a lot of hot guys here.  All over Ibiza but they didn't hit on girls very much.  They played great dance music all night and had some fun dancers performing.  Novelia and Carlos wanted to head over to El Devino next but I had had my fill of it the night before so I decided to stay here and catch a cab back.  We said our farewell's and I thanked them for helping make my vacation in Ibiza such a fun time.  I'll give them a call if I make it to the Grand Canaries!

 

I left Priveledge about 4:30a to go back to the hotel and sleep a little, repack and catch a taxi to the airport and fly out around 11am.  I had purchased extra Red Bulls for this morning just in case and I was glad that I did.  The plan was to land in Barcelona around 1:30p, check in my luggage at the train station, chill in Barcelona until 10:30p when my overnight train left for it's 9 hour journey to Madrid.  I'll let you know how that worked out in the next chapter of my adventure!

 Well you know that I was really looking forward to this locale and it was definitely everything I wanted it to be.  And turned out even better for me because I treated it like a TRUE vacation!  You aren't going to read about churches and the like here (although I did dip my toe in the tourist waters for a brief moment). . . instead hereis the quick overview of my time in Ibiza.  Sleep in.  Go straight to beach.  Take nap.  Shower and eat.  Get dressed to go out.  Stay out until wee hours.  Repeat.  Yup, you could fit that all in the instructional section of a shampoo bottle.  Rinse, lather and repeat.  I just added dancing and some fun beats to the whole thing!  So would you like to hear more?  Well here you go!

 

Thursday morning I got up with plenty of time in Barcelona to pack, catch the cheap $3 or $4 shuttle to the airport and take a nap while waiting for my plane that ran 1.5 hours late.  Not a problem for me.  Extra snooze time was nice and the clubs don't even get started until 1am.  The flight was smooth, napped some more and then took a taxi to the hotel.  Again had one of those, "how did I get so lucky" moments when the taxi driver pulled up to the street where my hotel was.  Just ONE BLOCK from the beach!  Gorgeous and easy.  There aren't that many public beaches and they are not as convenient as you would think in Ibiza, so my research and diligence had paid off yet again.  Plus the room was nice, bathroom bright and cheery and had a real, nice quality soft towel.  That might not seem like much but at this point I had used that small travel hand-sized towel for 18 days in various hostels so I felt like I was sitting in the lap of luxury at this point.  Whohoo!  Do I even need to mention that patio, tv and airconditioning?  Two thumbs up for this place.  I was excited to see the pool until I saw it.  Yuck, old and not very clean.  But then who the heck cares--I've got perfect beach a few cartwheels away!  Did I mention that there was a grocery store with real groceries, restaurants and a great bar across the street and a taxi stand that was only 2 blocks away?  Definitely coming back here someday!

 

So there I was in Ibiza already laying out in the perfect sun at 2:45 in the afternoon on a marvelously warm day (really warm, not too hot, like 85 degrees), wiggling my toes in the softest, cleanest sand ever and admiring the well equipped men and women on the beach.  It is truly amazing what money can buy.  Even those tans couldn't all be real but they were sure convincing.  And yes, there were lots of topless ladies around.  I'd never seen so much oil on a beach without an eco-clean up team suiting up ready for rescue nearby.  The beach wasn't crowded though.  It was just perfect.  Enough people that you felt you were most definitely in the right spot where the best beach was to be had (Six Figueres if you need the name for any reason) but not so crowded that you had to work to find a good spot.  After roasting for the recommended time on each side with an occassional basting I was ready to do the deap sea cool down.  How could the water be the perfect temperature too?  This truly was heaven.  Now if the clubs and nightlife live up to their hedonistic fame I might never leave!

 

Oh, looking at my notes I had apparently calculated some topless statistics.  Here's what I came up with while in Ibiza:  Ibiza beach was 30-40% topless (we're just talking the ladies here although there were a few old dudes that could have helped us all out with a little cover up!), Greece 5% (but it was early in the season when I went so not very crowded), France about 10% and Italy has an entirely different set of standards on the whole thing.  Only on the designated nude beaches.  Hope you got something useful out of that.  Apparently I felt the need to write it down at the time so might as well share!  I did a bold thing on my way back from the beach.  I bought a pair of flip-flops.  Now that may not sound like much to most of you but I really, truly can't stand anything between my toes.  Makes me want to toss cookies (without using hands).  But I wanted a lightweight, easy and cheap pair of shoes so I spent $5 and gave it a go.  Took a few hours to get used to but I am still wearing them now in Seattle.  I guess I really am a changed woman now thanks to this Europe trip.  What a revelation!  And they have sequins so I can count myself as tacky if I'm feeling quirky.

 

I left the beach to shower and then headed out for a 15-20 minute walk in my new shoes to the main part of Ibiza Town.  Wanted to scope out the shops and buy tickets to some clubs if needed and see what was happening where/who was playing what/what the shoshizzle was up in party town.  Found out that I timed my Ibiza arrival quite well as this was THE week of the Grand Opening Parties for pretty much every club.  Pacha was having their uber-famous "F*ck Me I'm Famous" Party that only happens 6 times a year and is probably the world's top club party that night, Friday was the huge El Devino grand opening across the harbor and just about every club had something going on Friday and Saturday that made me want to drool.  Lovin' the options!  Of course there was no choice but the Pacha party for Thursday.  This is probably the top club in the world that runs neck and neck with Cavo Paridiso in Mykonos and maybe on or two others that only cling to the top rungs a year or two at a time.  Wow, I certainly sound educated and opinionated in this area don't I?  By the way I didn't self-censor the Pacha night name--that's the official title.

 

If you are wondering what the covers are like I'll tell you.  They are not cheap.  Big clubs are 50-80 Euro (that's like $65-110 in greenbacks) per person but sometimes that includes one over-priced drink that would cost you $7-8 Euro for a beer or 9-17 Euro for a mixed beverage.  Drink prices were same at the other, less popular clubs but covers drop to 30-50 Euro.  If you buy tickets in advance you can get into a different line, wait the same amount of time and save 10-20 Euro.  Expect 2000-4000 people at the cool clubs this weekend.  Certainly does weed out the poory dressed losers with the mullets.  Of course the bouncers would weed them out with the old "dress code" excuse anyways.  There is truly something to be said about the snobbery of exclusivity.  Would suck to be on the other side of that fence.  Well now I just sounded like a Paris/Firecrotch/whatever b*tch so I'll be quiet now!  Please don't hold it against me--you can come out partying with me anytime. .. and many of you have!  Jackie is all about inclusive in the exclusive.  Don't quote me on that though because it sounds really stupid.

 

So on with the night.  Decided to go to Pacha but of course nothing really gets happening until like 1 or 2a so there was a lot of time to kill.  Well, dinner too since I was getting hungry.  Walked to the beach-side row of restaurants by my hotel and settled into a nice place and ordered a small pitcher (that is the small size just so you know) of sangria.  Hadn't had it before.  Tasted fine but wasn't anything I'd go out of my way to order again.  Then enjoyed some tasty grilled salmon with veggies and some pasta side dish.  Oh did I mention I bought some AMAZING music when shopping?  Yeah, decided that my souvenir present to my friends and family would be a custom-mixed dance CD of all of my favorites I'd heard in my travels.  Yup, you might be one of the lucky ones that gets one!  (And since I'm writing this now after having already made the CD--it freakin' rocks!  I listen to it constantly!).  The notes I wrote during this dinner are perfect--"So far I've REALLY just vacationed here--it is so beautiful, beach is perfect with soft, clean sand, 25-26 degrees celsius with a slight breeze, perfect water, beautiful coler is just heavenly, lots of hot guys!"  Yeah, in notes run on sentences aren't a big deal but I wanted to you to know the kinds of things I wrote for myself .  After dinner I took a little nap and then got my hair and makeup all pimped out and changed for night #1 in hedonistic Ibiza!

 

Of course I was still ready early but wanted to get out of the room and meet some people at least.  So I journeyed all of the way across the street to the Comic Bar that I'd walked by a ton of times by now and got myself a Vodka-Red Bull (a classic Jackie clubbing drink).  There weren't more than about 10 peole in the not so big place and I grabbed a table in what looked to be a potentially high-traffic area.  After about 2 minutes this really cute gal sitting at the table next to me asked if I spoke Spanish and invited me over.  I told her I only spoke a little and she said she spoke a little English.  Her name was Novelia, 26 yrs old, and she was there with her adorable husband of three years Carlos.  He spoke a bit more English but not a lot.  They were on vacation visiting his cousin Felipe who worked at the Comic Bar.  They are from the Grand Canary Islands (south, south of Spain) and they introduce me to Felipe, Erica the waitress and a bunch of other folks at the bar.  We stumbled through some fun conversations and they told me that I just had to do the boat trip to Formentera the next day.  After a bit we talked about what clubs we were all headed to and it turned out they (along with 80% of the rest of the island) were going to Pacha.  And because Felipe was a local and worked in the night scene he was going to drive us over and get them in for free.  They insisted I come with them!  How could I say no?  They were my new best friends on the island going to the same place I was going and were going to save me 50 to 80 Euro minimum!  They bought me a drink and wouldn't let me buy them one.  I was finally successful in returning the drink favor later in the night at Pacha. 

 

We left for Pacha at about 1:45a (Felipe left work to drive us over/get us in and then went back to work until 3a when he would meet up with us there).  Pacha was FANTASTIC!  This was my dream club and I soaked up every moment of it every second I was there.  LOVED IT!!  This was the Vatican of the clubbing world.  And as a catholic gal, that really means something to say that.  I was in heaven.  The club was packed.  I mean packed.  The line was at least an hour long but nothing makes you feel more important than getting to walk by those folks and ushered in through the super-cool door with the big bouncers guarding it!  The club was huge.  There were at least 6 areas--the gigantic main dance floor where they played my kind of dance music, a chill upstairs room where we hung out for awhile, another random room we people-watched and danced in (apparently they were completely shocked at my all-out enthusiasm for dancing), and then the separate bar building that was all about salsa.  Carlos and Novelia loved the salsa!  We spent at least an hour there with Novelia teaching me salsa dancing while Carlos took lots of photos with my camera.  About half of the pics were of him making faces into the camera which gave me some good laughs the next day!  She danced the guy part and we had a fantastic time.  Thank god for the lessons as you will later learn in my Madrid adventures. . .

 

We separated around 4:30a or maybe a little later because I just HAD to go back to that thumpin' main room.  Did I mention the amazing eye-candy guys that were dancing and the acrobatic entertainment and. . . damn, I neeeeeeed to go back!  I never did find them again but they had given me their cell number and we talked about meeting up at Comic bar again on Saturday night to go out for some good times again.  They knew they'd need Friday night off.  Why?  I just don't get it!  I got all of the dancing I could out of my system and enjoyed every stinking minute of it.  It is so much fun just to relive it by writing about it you have no idea!  I finally headed out and caught a taxi at about 6a and knew that I would sleep in that morning.  I know I went to sleep with a big 'ole smile on my face and woke up the same way on Friday around 11a.  But I will share that day's adventures in the next blog. . .

 

 

Oh so you are ready for some more?  Don't you have any other source of entertainment in your life other than trying to live vicariously through me?  That's okay, you make me feel special when you read my stories from abroad!  So I left off that Julie and Emma were going to meet me at the Marsella Bar which is about 4 blocks from my hostel later that night.   I went back to change and check email from the hostel computer for awhile when I ran into Brandon and Mark from the day before.  They were quite happy to have found a room in this nice place with the exception that I guess on their end of the building there was a child who cried for 2 to 3 hours at a time with 20 minute intermissions (probably to rehydrate).  They were sharing some liquid delights of the vodka kind with the fun guy who worked at the hostel--sorry dude, not sure that I caught your name.  We hung out for awhile and they decided that they wanted to go to the Marsella Bar with me and the potential good times to follow at the Fellini Club.  I told them that I already had them set up with two hot chicks I'd met earlier in the day. 

 

By the way, Barcelona is a fantastic party city. . . and I mean in the big nightclub way, but not so much on Mondays-Wednesday.  It's a weekend place.  The big destination places were all closed.  I would change my nights there whenever I go back.  But there was no way you were going to get me to trade a Thursday, Friday and Saturday night weekend stay in Ibiza so no complaints here!  So Brandon, Mark and I headed to the Marsella Bar and met up with Julie and Emma.  When I saw them I told them that I'd been scouting for some hot guys all night to bring for them and thought I'd done quite well.  We all had a lot of fun talking and drinking.  I had my first glass of absynth ever.  It's another licorice (why me???) beverage that is not legal in all countries because it can have a hallucinogenic effect after a few and most places will cut you off after three.  So I had 12.  No, just kidding!  They brought out a big wine or brandy snifter type glass filled 1/3 full of the almost glowing green drink.  There was a small fork and a cube of sugar along with a bottle of water with a hole punched through the lid.  I followed my given instructions and balanced the fork across the top of a glass, set the cube of sugar on the tines and drizzled the water over the sugar to melt it into the liquid. 

 

My first thought was that I didn't want to add too much water because I'm not fond of the licorice flavor and more water = more to drink.  Tasted it and it was quite strong with the licorice flavor but didn't taste fuel-like or alcohol-like.  People told me to add more water to dissolve the rest of the sugar and I did.  It actually tasted a lot better watered down more and made it easier to drink.  I waited a chunk of time and decided after feeling nothing to have another.  It went down just as smooth as the first.  Now I can truly say that I felt no effects from the absynthh aht awl, jiyst thawt duh rieoom wuz purty.  No really, didn't feel anything from the 2 but decided to be safe and didn't drink any more.  You never know!  After the five of us hung out at the bar awhile we decided to head down to Fellini Club.  Guess who we met about a block away?  That's right, Gary from Manchester.  It is too fun to call him Gary from Manchester so I never actually just called him Gary.  It was even better when he would repeat it with his accent.  He was a little buzzed and was happy to see a familiar face as he wasn't really enjoying the new friends he'd made that night.  So he joined our gang of absyhth-minded tourists.  Hah, hah.  Had to work in a stupid pun like that somewhere!

 

The club wasn't nearly as crowded this night but since the folks in my party were a little lubed with alcohol there was at least some dancing going on.  They'd switched to some good house dance music so I was happy.  And you know me, always up for some dancing.  Eventually my matchmaking skills worked for a short period of night entertainment as spit-swapping happened a few times.  Gary from Manchester had continued his beer sampling mission and became fully intoxicated as he did the night before.  He watched the pairs I'd matched flirt incessantly with each other and eventually stumbled up to me and asked or stated (was kind of hard to tell) "you fancy me don't you Jackie.?" with this odd puppy expression.  I shook my head and told him he should get a refill on his beer which he turned and did.  From then on I changed his moniker to Gary "do you fancy me" from Manchester.  Hey it was at least a little flattering in a druken move of desperation.  What more could a girl 7 years older dream of?  I headed out about 4:30a again and went to be with my alarm set at 8am so that I could take this amazing looking, guided day trip to Montserrac with a stop at a winery on the way. 

 

Was super excited to go until I woke up just after 10:30 with a terrible hangover headache.  I NEVER sleep through alarms let along sleep in that late--that was the longest ever on my entire trip so far and I was down to the final 3 weeks!  And a hangover?  What the heck!  Hadn't had one of those the entire trip and how could I have one when I only had two drinks that didn't even make me feel it??  What a rip off.  No more absynth for me.  Showered and got ready, then headed out to find hangover food.  Dang Montserrac would've been cool!  So instead I walked Las Ramblas for some more people watching and laughed to myself that it didn't take a lot to amuse people and make a buck in touristville.  People get lots of coins tossed their way for simply standing still dressed as someone or something.  And I'm not talking just one or two people--like 20 different ones in a 5 block strip.  And they all seemed to be making a haul.  Santa Claus, a giant cat, Edward Scissorhands, the Grim Reaper, a box, flowers and the customary gold and silver covered people.  Just stand still and let the money roll in!

 

Next I did the Rick Steves walk exploring the sides streets and the cool Cathedral of Barcelona with guard geese.  Yup, back in the day the geese were so noisy that they would alarm the monks and nuns of intruders.  The geese there when I went weren't so alarming and were behind a wrought iron fence to keep their rabid ways at abay.  After that I did the cable car ride up to Montjuic to visit the castle and whatever else I could find up there.  On the way back I bought my overnight train ticket for my trip to Madrid but they didn't have any couchettes left (the beds).  Wasn't looking forward to a 9 hour overnight nap in an upright chair.  Oh well, still have Ibiza before that fun ride!  Was planning on laying low that night so that I could get to bed early to catch my flight with plenty of time in the morning.  Sat in the lounge area of the hostel (really like a hotel) and tried to blog about Paris.  Brandon and Mark were there enjoying some more vodka with the same nice hostel guy and they eventually managed to talk me into going out just for an hour or two.  Was glad I went, they are fun to hang out with and I'm glad I got to know them a little better.

That's right.  Finally made it to a city where I could almost speak their native tongue.  I do speak Spanish, or at least conversational Spanish, well enough to get by, but in Barcelona they speak one of the other 8 nationally recognized dialects of Spanish.  Spanish as you are used to seeing/hearing it is referred to as Castillion in Spain and that's what I know.  In Barcelona they speak Catalyun which is somewhere between a Texas slang accent and Ebonics for Castillion.  Well as least as far as I could tell!  The three main differences I caught after brushing up before my arrival were the differences in how you pronounce "hola" and the words for please (pronounced something like sie-vou-plauw instead of por favor) and goodbye (pronounced ahh-deh-you instead of that old-fashioned adios).  Threw me off a tad in the beginning mostly because the Barcelonians, if that's what they are officially known as, are very proud of their language difference and will chastise you for using Castillion.  Was still fun though because I finally knew what the heck people were saying. . . for the most part!

 

Let me get you to Barcelona with me first.  Caught the 8:40a train from Coullioure to Barcelona and arrived at 12:48p after a mandatory stop at the border train station where they do the passport routine and make you change trains.  It still baffles me how Barcelona and Coullioure don't look that far apart on the map but still took 4 hours with an hour layover.  And the train went at a decent clip.  The second train seemed to be more of a regional train and had a very colorful mix of passengers.  There seemed to be a lot of backpackers who were sleeping on the floor and many others like myself who had snagged a seat but were quite weary from their tales for 15+ straight hours of train travels plus a diverse mix of locals.  Two of these fellows who looked like they would barely be able to pull themselves off of the train were Brandon and Mark.  As we got off the train and found our way to the local Barcelona metro system they asked if I had a place to stay.  They'd been traveling for some 15 or 17 hours straight and had tried to do the spontaneous hostel thing which didn't seem like such a grand idea at this point with heavy bags.  I told them I had a great place, good price, fantastic location and to follow me to see if I could hook them up.  They did follow me and thankfully got lucky and got a room at the hostel.  I must say, the place was great.  Nothing too fancy but clean, nice, roomy and a bathroom with spacious tub shower just across the hall from my door.  The location couldn't have been better in my opinion as it was less than 1 block from the center of Las Ramblas (the main action pedestrian thoroughfare) and a few hops ,skips and a jump (or quick metro ride) to the beach. 

 

After cleaning myself up a bit on arrival at the room I went out to explore Las Ramblas (actually La Rambla but it is about 6 streets that eventually merged together as this giant market-like street that is the heart of Barcelona--particularly tourist Barcelona).  Then onto the beachfront almost all of the way down to the EMP (Experience Music Project) like copper fish thing of a casino there.  If you are from Seattle then you know what the heck I'm talking about!  I had some beer and a fantastic apple, walnut, blue cheese salad at a dive on the beach and was nearly showered in beer when the server brought me my second beer.  For some weird reason the bottom of the glass just exploded and flew off at supersonic speed spraying beer everywhere. . . well everywhere on 3 employees.  I escaped miraculously.  Was funny, odd and sad for them all at the same time.  Eventually left my great people- and hot waiter-watching spot (yeah, yummy tattoo'd blonde muscled type with adorable face) to take a quick nap at the hostal.  Lesson learned at this juncture of my trip?  Pee when you see a toilet.  I passed the one next to the restaurant by assuming there would be one or more in the metro stations on my way back.  Wrong, not like the other countries.  That sucked.  Think I could taste it by the time I ran like a crazed tourist woman into a random restaurant outside my metro stop.  There was no way anyone was going to stop me and ask if I was a customer with the look on my face.  Happy times.  Really enjoyed the last 2 blocks back to my hostel.  Quite peaceful really after the pit stop!

 

After my nap I found a cheap dinner and then set out to find a club that was supposed to be good on Mondays--Fonfone.  Yeah, it wasn't there.  Building was, but it wasn't.  Wasn't in the most appealing part of town (guidebooks mentioned the dangerous transvestite hookers that beat you up type here but I thought they looked quite pretty--think I was out too early for them ).  Found Fellini Club which was my number 2 spot for the night and the real destination anyhoo but it was really early.  So I grabbed a table at a spot on Las Ramblas and nursed a beer to pass the time.  Not long after I sat down a guy who appeared English for all intents and purposes sat at the table behind me.  I amused myself by watching three not-quite 21 year olds get hit on by these 40-somethingish English-speaking Italians for awhile.  Eaves dropping is so much fun when you can sit there with no one knowing exactly what language(s) you speak.  It is amazing how easily they are impressed!  Age does come in handy after awhile. . . or is it experience.  Whatever.  I'm better off for whatever the reason!  After about 10 minutes the guy behind me asked in as bad of Spanish as you can construct if HE spoke Spanish.  I told him that I spoke Spanish but I really spoke English beter.  He was so relieved!  He introduced himself as Gary from Manchester England traveling alone for a quick vacation in the city and we had lively entertaining conversation about travel, life and the like for over two hours.  He is a 26 year old debt consolidation trainer.  Trains the salespeople, not the overspent.  Sounds like a hoot doesn't it?

 

During the conversation I told him that I was heading to Fellini Club around 2a and he wanted to come.  I expressed a little concern as to the type of club since there were two obvious parts of what owned the Fellini Club.  One part was what looked like where I wanted to go, the other was a brightly pink-neon decorated strip club, get-what-you-need-done at a good price 'cause it's legal here type place right next door.  We, okay, I tried to inquire with the waiter as to the type of establishment "nightclub" with it's European connotations or "disco" with it's Jackie nightlife connotations.  Didn't really get anywhere so decided to just walk right in and find out!  It was a Jackie place.  Whew!  Turns out that this is THE place to be if you are trying to go out and have any fun on a Monday.  The club is big with 3 dancefloors, one of which is in a very upstairs loft that acts like the world's most effective sauna accented by cool lighting and throbbing dance music.  Cool but too overwhelming if you don't want to melt like a popcicle.  The main floor was playing a lot of 90's stuff like Smashing Pumpkins and then tossing in some Maroon 5 to keep it current.  Unique but people were groovin' to it.  We mostly hung out in the loungy seating area nursing beers we would alternate buying for each other and doing some fantastic people watching with lively color commentary.  All I am going to say at this point is that it is truly amazing when the self-consciousness leaves travelers when they leave home, have no one to hold them accountable and have a cute "foreigner" buy them some drinks.  Not the best constructed sentence but I'm leaving it!

 

Quite hilarious.  And the best part is that we kept meeting people that would sit down in our cozy corner and talk with us about the same craziness we were seeing.  Good times had by all.  Gary and I left around 4:15a when he was quite intoxicated and I pointed him in the right direction of his hotel.  Too funny.  Oh, in case you were wondering, there was nothing romantic going on with that--just fun conversation.  Thanks for wondering BH'rs!  Tuesday morning I did a crazy thing and slept in until 9:45a.  That was pretty impressive for me!  After getting ready to take on the day with a shower followed by a tasty nutella crepe (yes thank god even Spain has learned the joys of nutella!) I headed out to see the Gaudi (very thinking-outside-the-box architect/designer/artist) world beginning with the Block of Discord.  That's the fancy name for 3 large buildings next to each other that are not stylistically very well-coordinated!  Then I headed to Casa Mila which is an entire apartment-like complex he created that is super cool.  Nothing is straightforward.  In an odd way it looks like someone made a super-cool lego house and then put it in the microwave for 5 minutes and 18 seconds until it started melting a bit and called it good.  Lots of modern interpretive melting stuff.  Twisty metal, dripping facades and cascading arches.  Maybe you just have to see it to get it! 

 

After that I headed to the Sagrada Familia Church. . . that's right, another Gaudi creation.  This is an enormous unfinished church that will take at least 50 more years to complete.  It's progress is completely paid for by donations and entrance fees up to the top view point.  There are many architects who are trying to interpret what he originally intended as most of the blueprints were lost in a fire.  Lots of melty or jagged, depending on what part you are in, religious, fruit and flower themed things.  There was a 45+ minute wait to climb up the tower for some amazing views of the church in progress and the cities.  It was worth it for the views etc. but also met two fun girls--Julie and Emma--who were awesome to hang out with.  We checked out the upper areas together and then went to the Gaudi-designed and lived-in park.  Parque du Guell.  It was originally designed to be a super-lux retirement, snooty living area of like 60 acres with amazing dwellings.  Unfortunately Gaudi was a little ahead of his time and the rich and royal wanted to live right where the action is in the city center rather than on the outskirts.  Today it is a different story.  What rich, famous and or royal person doesn't yearn to dwell in a fancy gated community on the skirts of the city.  Now it is just a gigantic park in full Gaudi originiality with a few homes and buildings.  It was really quite the Guadi day!

 

After the park the girls and I decided to cab it to the Columbus Monument at the end of Las Ramblas for a nice waterfront view and then go to a place for dinner near my beach spot with the exploding beer from the night before.  We had a great time and decided we would meet up again in a few hours at the Marsella Bar--the oldest bar in Barcelona and the home of some great absynth experiences.  They'd been there the night before but liked it so were ready for round 2.  I'll save the rest of the night for the next blog submission!

 Hey, I'm back again.  Really want to get the rest of these blogs done to alleviate the guilt, make more room in my head and clear off my computer desk at home!  Sunday morning I got up bright and early at 6am so that I could catch a taxi to the train station bright and early.  Really early I guess since I had to wait for over an hour.  Better to be early than late though.  On the whole trip I never missed a flight, train, etc. . . well until the trip back to Seattle but that is the last blog and you're just going to have to hold your horses and wait for that one!  The train ride was fairly uneventful just took long as there was a 1 hour ride to Nimes and then change trains to enjoy the 3 hour ride to Coulliere.  As I approached Coullioure by train (one of the very last cities along the French coast just before Spain) I saw a station that was apparently where my hotel was located.  Only about 4 minutes away by train.  Hmmmm. 

 

Coullioure is a beautiful, small coastal town with a flavor of tourism but it felt like it was more designed for local tourists than  anything you would see advertisied in a big full color glossy brochure in some travel agency's office.  It's just a charming little town with colorfully painted fishing boats, a castle overlooking the harbor and a lighthouse hailing all sailors to it's port.  In case you are wondering why you've never heard of it and wondering how I did. . . well we'll just throw out the Rick Steves name for that one.  Glad he did though because it made for a nice stop.  Although he COULD have mentioned that pretty much everything tourist-related closes on Sunday.  Would've done it a little different.  Not that big a deal though.  Just didn't have a place to check my luggage.  Oh and thank god that 2 minutes after the train arrived I decided to get my train ticket for the next day and clarify where my hotel was.  The office closed 2 minutes after I was done with the gal and wouldn't have reopened until the next day.  Got there at 12:30p.  Discovered my hotel was indeed in the town the prior train stop and a roughly $3 train ticket was a heck of a lot cheaper than a $40-50 cab ride to get there one way.  No intra-city buses on Sundays.  Oh and there were only 2 trains remaining for the day going back to that town.  The town was called Argeles sur Plage.  And it was a nice place when I got there.

 

There was no place to check my luggage in Coullioure.  That sucked because if you've diligently read and remembered my prior blogs (have you been taking the regular quizzes to make sure that you thoroughly processed my trip experience?) you would know I can at most carry that bag on my back for an hour (after 45 minutes the eyes do start getting a little watery).  France is the only country that I ran into that had restrictions on checking in bags at train stations.  You couldn't do it.  Thanks to the fun terrorist stuff of days past and present.  Thanks guys!  So I tried to be tricky and ask if a few local hotels would "watch" my bag for a few bucks but no luck.  Some stuff about laws and responsibility.  So I trecked the few blocks into the center of the harbor town.  Sunday, tourist office is not open.  Darn it.  Got creative and decided to tour the castle-chateau, which I'd wanted to do anyways, but I could check my bag there for a nice break from carrying it.  The castle was cool and had lots of picturesque views that I took advantage of.  After the castle I decided to make my tummy happy and put some food in it at a tasty beachside restaurant called the Copacabana.  Unfortunately. . . or fortunately. . . Barry Manilow did not make an appearance to serenade me during my salad lunch.  The waiter did insist I take the seat with the best view of the beach and I'm glad I did.  You can see in the album pics I'm sure!  The tuna, rice and crab salad was delicious!

 

After my relaxing lunch I sauntered 200 feet to a prime sunbathing spot on the beach and parked it for a few hours until I was crispy and brown on both sides.  No deep frier oil though as I'm trying to cut back on the calories.  Then onto the other edge of the harbor to check out the lighthouse.  Pretty stuff I tell you.  There were a few sprinkles in the afternoon but the clouds were moving fast enough that it didn't do anything.  The day was gorgeious and relaxing and still quite hot in the upper 80's.  I do wish I could have explored the town and big wine festival that was going on in a bit more depth but it was all good.  When on the beach I was constantly serenaded by live orchestra music that was one block away.  Their beautiful music alternated with the odd accordian player who almost nailed some romantic songs as he weaved through dining patrons of the seaside restaurants.  After plenty of sun time I chilled at the Cafe Sole to wait for my train to arrive around 6:30p.  They are an internet point but only WiFi.  Note to self is to bring a blackberry or other small portable computer-like device to type this stuff out while there to save time and entertain myself.  Would have come in handy!

 

Caught the train to Argeles sur Plage which is defintiely the more touristy resort version of Coullioure without all of the colorful boats or lighthouse but has the giant inflatable chicken head on the beach and casino/nightclub. The chicken, I'm sorry, rooster head was the advertisiment for the attached inflatable amusement area for children that didn't look that amusing.  The casino/nightclub was just a casino at this time of year but the beach was beautiful, sunset impressive and restaurants full of tasty delicacies.  Okay, I had a pizza but it was really, really good!  After dinner I wandered down the long beach front to walk out on the giant spit and take photos of the progression of the sunset.  Was gorgeous.  Then back to the hotel to call it a night after a dip in the pool and a made a few successful phone calls to Kelsey, Carla, Eph and FastMike.  Gotta use up those phone cards since they are only good in the country you buy them in.  Plus I missed you guys! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I took a very early train--5:55am to Montpillier from Nice and made it there about 11am. Tiffany and I had lunch with Anne-Marie, her friend from school in Dublin who was leaving that afternoon.  After lunch T and I went to the Monoprix (think Fred Meyer) and got beach stuff.  Then we headed off to a local beach.  If anyone asked me to tell them how to get there I would be clueless.  A tram stop, a bus for a long time and then through some back parking lots and the like of apartment buildings.  The beach was heavenly.  Just right.  Not too crowded with people and it felt very local.  Not touristy like so many of the other beaches.  T and I talked for 3 or 4 hours on the beach and laid out catching up on all of the happenings since Venice.  Quite the stories we had to share!  T insisted that we have some of these special doughnuts they sell from this cart on the beach.  Of course they were doughnuts filled with nutella so how could I say no?? Yummy!

 

After our beach time we split up to shower and then met up at the Creperie de la Comedie so that we could fine tune Tiffany´s flirting skills with this cute waiter that she´d been working on for the last few days.  Well actually, longer than that.  She did an abroad program in Montpillier prior to her stint in Dublin so this was like a home away from home for her.  And I guess she´d flirted a bit with him before.  We enjoyed some tasty crepe-dinner items and then a tasty crepe-dessert of bananas, whipped cream and. . . nutella!  Yeah, I will need to go through some kind of 12 step program when I get home.  In the end she managed to casually invite him to the pirate-themed bar called Barbarouse after he was done with work.  We got there at a good hour and there were a decent amount of people there and enjoyed some mojitos and had some good times.  Then Youamu, the waiter, showed up and they had a very nice time hanging out.  Tiffany blames my encouragement for her success but I think nature was just taking it´s course.  We all parted ways later and called it a night.

 

The next morning, Thursday if it matters to anyone but me, Tiffany and I met up for breakfast, a little shopping and lunch then I headed to the train station to go to Marsailles and pick up my rental car to explore the Provence region of France.  See, now that was the shortest post yet!!  See you soon in Seattle Tiffany!