Jun 10th, 2010
Salamanca and Segovia
It has decided to rain on us for the rest of our trip. This is sad but we are making the best of it. If it starts to really come down we duck into a cathedral or a museum or, you know, as a last resort, a bar.
Here we are in Segovia and the rain has started to play an on and off game with us. The three hour bus from Salamanca, not a drop of rain. As soon as we were settled and heading out to see the town a serious downpour started.
So we had a little vino tinto while it blew over. Then as we strolled down towards the aquaduct started again. Now we are in a bar for a caña (small beer) while the latest bout blows over. Irene keeps trying to order something other than beer and is utterly failing to communicate her desires. She will say the word to be greeted with a blank stare. She will then write it down and they will say “ah!” and repeat it back to her almost exactly as she said it. Sometimes in think they are just messing with us.
Here are some random observations about Spain:
•The bread is mostly terrible.
•Everything comes with a side of fries.
•If it doesn’t come with fries it has canned tuna in it.
•Vegetables are sold at the markets but this is just for show. You can’t actually get any at a restaurant.
Tonight we feasted on suckling pig (a speciality in the region). We have discovered it is shockingly easy to polish off a bottle of wine with dinner.
Posted in Journal Entry, Spain | No Comments
Jun 8th, 2010
Wait Time in Salamanca
It’s early in Salamanca, and we’re in the in-betweens. In between when everything is closed and when it opens. In between awake and asleep. A living limbo in the train station. You know… You’ve been here. Now it’s our turn. This morning started at 4:15 when I stepped out of my sleeper, and Ken stepped out of his. No co-ed sleeper cars for us out of Basque country. My roomates for the evening were (I surmised) two adult sisters and their mother. When I opened the door into the sleeper (to which I was directed by the uniformed attendant), Mama sounded off like an alarm. All I could do while she was overcoming my injustice in loud, protesting Portgese is stand in the doorway as unthreateningly as possible and hold my ticket and my ground. Eventually, I understood that it was less my filling a bunk as my filling a bottom bunk that got her going. I pointed at myself and then at the top bunk. Polite smiles exchanged with the daughters, and I was presented with the ladder to climb to the top bunk. That was somewhere in the neighborhood of 11:00.
I slept. Ken seems not so lucky. He looks tired. A 24-hour coffee shop inside the train station is our salvation. The weather turned during our daytrip to San Jean de Luz yesterday. We got caught in the rain, and thus kicked off our waiting time earlier than expected. Whereas now we’re waiting for a reasonable hour when other businesses will be open, last night we were waiting out the rain and waiting for transport back across the Spanish-French border to San Sebastian earlier than we otherwise would have been. As we arrived here this morning, we saw that we brought the rain with us.
So, I’m glad to be at least partially-rested, warm, dry, safe, and caffeinated. I’ll take this moment to extol the utter fantastic-ness of traveling with a smart phone. Ken and I tend to compose these little ditties during the inevitable wait times that accompany travel and upload them when a wifi opportunity presents itself. This is the first trip of its kind where I’ve had my own snazzy gadgetry, and I’ve really enjoyed keeping up with the news, writing emails (without hunting down any Internet cafés or navigating funny keyboards), uploading pictures to Facebook, and posting my few entries to this blog. Being this connected changes the way it feels to travel.
Speaking of the news, Spain is in the headlines in the US because public workers here are threatening to strike over wage cuts due to take effect this month. We’ve heard a lot of protests in many of the places we’ve visited. I assume they’re all focused on the economic situation, which I only vaguely understand. Other than the seemingly frequent protests (and the increasingly favorable—for us—exchange rate converting dollars to euros) our personal experience as foreign tourists has not called real attention to Spain’s economic hardship. I personally hope it stays that way for us and that we continue to avoid inconveniences (such as a strike by public workers) for the remainder of our stay. That the country and its people are struggling is clear. Reading about concerns that the EU and/or its currency could fail bother me a lot. I’d always thought the whole notion of the EU was/is lofty. I wish I knew more about the situation here (in Spain particularly) but much more than that, I wish it fixed, rapido.
That about taps my tired brain for this early morning. We’re going to try for a bus into town where we’ll occupy more wait time getting breakfast. Hola from Salamanca!
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Jun 7th, 2010
Basque-ing
The triumphant return of gelato flavors of the day: for me it was a bit of a departure from my cafe safe-zone. I tried a queso, which I would compare favorably to cheesecake only more tangy, and a rice pudding, which was very good. Irene had cocunt and whiskey which she reports as bieng “tasty”.
Our time in Bilbao was brief but sufficient. We rolled into town in the afternoon and, after a brief respite at our hotel, set out for a stroll around the old town. We stopped into a bar for pintxos and a caña (small beer) and then more strolling. We came across an unexpected bagpipe band which had the whole street singing. We had dinner at a local bar and then to bed.
The next morning found us early at the Guggenheim, Gehry’s architectual masterpiece, in what was clearly Seattle weather sent here to cool us off and remind us of what we’ve missing back home. The current exhibits were a Rosseau collection, which demonstrated that he is known despite his lack of skill as a draftsman, and Rauschenberg who is known for reasons that entirely escape me.
We did both, however, enjoy the works of Anish Kapur. Creator of the Magic Bean in Chicago (or as it is officially known, Cloud Gate). One installation that was a lot of fun was a big air cannon that would shoot buckets of red wax against the corner. Every so often a man would enter the room, load up the cannon and, with a loud bang, fire. He would then exit the room where he would joke with the guards about his aim.
We bused it from Bilbao to San Sebastian in the afternoon. Not much to say about San Seb. It’s a pretty little city on the Bay of Biscane and we spent a pretty lazy day there hanging out by the beach and generally just resting. Oh yeah, we did have some ice cream (see above).
Today we hopped the commuter train to French Basque country in the guise of St-Jean-de-Luz. I tried to make the switch to French seamlessly but outed with a few “si”s and “dos”s and “gracias”s. The woman behind the ticket counter laughed at me.
All day I would revert to Spanish. After two and a half weeks of “gracias” I’m running on autopilot. When we get back to Spain I’ll probably say “merci”. Oy.
When we arrived St-Jean was a quiet, sleepy little town but by late in the afternoon it was alive with tourists.
Tuesday is market day, and for my money French markets are the best in Europe by a wide margin. We were seduced right away by a stinky cheese vendor and picked up a wedge of soft Brie-like goat cheese. And once we had that we had to pick up some meat (chorizo), bread (some kind of corn bread with sunflower seeds), fruit (strawberries) and dessert (gâteau de basque with a cream center). Picnic by the beach? Yes!
There’s not a whole lot to see of St-Jean so we spent a good deal of time hanging out in cafés drinking wine (or in Irene’s case, Kir and wine). During our second café stop we were driven inside when the sky that had been threatening all day finally opened up.
Due to a slight mix up about the bus schedule, no need to apportion blame, we were darting from awning to overhang on a soppy dash to the bus station. Fortunately we could take a bus to Hendaye and from there catch a train back to San Sebastian. Where it was also drizzling.
We catch a late night train to Salamanca tonight were we will get in way too early for anything to actually be open. Not sure what we are going to do when we get there. No baggage check in the train station, only in the bus station which is nowhere near by. Should be fun. I’ll let you know what happens.
Posted in France, Journal Entry, Spain | No Comments
Jun 5th, 2010
Jun 4th, 2010
