27 March, 2008
Living in Spain Pictures, Trip 1 Updated
at the site.
Check them out!
24 March, 2008
Living In Spain. Audio Post 1. Saint-Jean-de-Luz
23 March, 2008
Bordeaux France, to Albi, France
from Bordeaux to Albi. We made the first leg, but were delayed in
Toulouse as we missed our connecting train due to delays on our train
from Bordeaux.
Anyway, our time in Bordeaux was fairly short - about a day and a
half. We arrived on Friday afternoon in the fairly consistent rain
from St. Jean-de-Luz (French Basque area). We wandered around
Bordeaux for that night and then day tripped the next day to a little
town inland called St. Emilion. St. Emilion is a tiny little town in
the middle of serious wine country (hello - Bordeaux, France).
We did a little tasting and some wandering and some chilling out at a
cafe for a while. It was really nice to go out there. We actually
had a sunny day, although it was (and still is) freezing everywhere we
go. Wandering outside in the low 50s/upper 40s is not so fun if
you're only moderately prepared for the weather.
They seem to have the same early spring weather as most people in the
states do. Some days of nice, warm-ish weather paired with days of
what is left of winter. When we planned the trip, the forcast was
different - appreciably warmer. Oh well. C'est la vie, n'est pas?
Anyway, back to St. Emilion - the countryside was beautiful. Their
vineyards look different than what we know from Napa/Sonoma. The are
much lower to the ground. According to one the of the wine shops we
did tasting at, the lower vines produce higher quality grapes - which
means that they produce higher quality grapes compared to Napa/Sonoma
accordingly.
We have no idea if that is true or not. Nonetheless, it was fun, but
cold. It was nice to be under open skies for the day. We finally
headed back to Bordeaux for our second and final night there. We ate
at fabulous little Italian restaurant (recommended by an English
local) - called Le Bistro. I had one of the best Arrabiata pasta's
I've ever had and Andy had an excellent (which is high praise from
him) Calzone. If you are ever in Bordeaux - go there for dinner.
We left Bordeaux this morning, got delayed briefly in Toulouse (as
mentioned earlier) and finally headed to Albi. Just to give you an
idea of how cold it really is here - it snowed very lightly, but
definitely was snowing, three different times on us today. Once at a
train stop and twice here in Albi. We finally arrived here and
eventually settled into our hotel and headed out to the main site
here- the St. Cecile Catherdral - one of the most beautiful
Cathedrals I've ever seen. Everything was painted in it. In COLOR! A
bishop hired 7 Florentine painters to come and paint the ceilings, the
walls, the pillars - almost everything. It's just stunning. It was
also really cool to be there as it's Easter and all that.
We leave for Carcassone early tomorrow morning and are spending the
night there. It's supposedly quite the medieval town and full of
history. Andy will love it being the history guy he is. I'm hoping
for not raining and a little warmer than freezing point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcasonne
http://www.cntraveller.com/Guides/France/Bordeaux/Default.aspx
More soon. Picture uploading is slowed down, as the Net connections
have been spotty.
20 March, 2008
Living in Spain: Graffiti everywhere
ink pens and actual paint and brush are used. Graffiti is on almost
all the walls, all the over passes, in the Metro system, scratched
into the windows of the train cars (like you'll see on BART sometimes)
The ground has stickers on them (some are ads, and some are like the
Obey the Giant ads).
To be fair, some places are very clean, and we've seen certain
shopkeepers and others handwashing the sidewalk in front of their
store, their steps, or mopping outside their business.
I suspect it is less that Madrid has more graffiti than any other big
city, I just think that they have made the decision not to fight it.
There seems to be no abatement program, nor a longterm plan (or funds)
to systematically clean it up. They do have street sweepers (to pick
up the loose junk on the ground)
I've not lived in New York. I believe that one thing that Rudy
Guiliani did was fight the small crime first (vandalism, broken
windows, and graffiti) with the intent to not let neighborhoods
visually fall into dispair, possibly leading to bigger issues.
Madrid seems like a pretty safe city. To our eyes, we've not really
found places that are any sketchier than say parts of the Mission (and
we wouldn't even go into Hunters Point). Avoiding the pimps and their
employees, and keeping a wary eye about seems to help make you a
harder target for those that target tourists.
I am a proud American, but if I become the LOUD AMERICAN TOURIST that
is so common, I will start as a target, and end as a victim.
I don't prefer that, and to circle back, I think Madrid should
consider the image they are projecting by not cleaning up after their
residents.
Hasta proxima!
17 March, 2008
Live in Spain. Trip 1 to San Sebastian, Bilbao, then France (Bordeaux, Albi and Carcasonne), Then Barcelona
location (close to the Prado and the Retiro Park) for a great price so
now we can start traveling!!!!
We kick off our travels with a two week journey up to the Spanish and
French Basque regions, then up to Bordeaux, then over to some tiny
medieval towns in southern France around Toulouse and then down to
Barcelona for a couple of days and finally over to Madrid.
We left our apartment in Madrid yesterday morning to catch a train up
north to San Sebastian. It was a 6 1/2 hour train ride, which is
about all the time I can handle on a train. I now know that I cannot
read on the train, whereas Andy can read on a ship in a storm in the
ocean and not have a problem. Anyway, not being able to read just
makes the journey longer for me. Thankfully, the scenery did change
periodically, especially as we started to get into the foothills of
the Pyranees to get to San Sebastian.
We arrived in San Sebastian yesterday late afternoon. It is a
beautiful city. It was nice to see an ocean again (Atlantic Ocean).
The most popular cite for San Sebastian is the promenade across their
beach and looking out onto their small inlet of water and out onto the
ocean. It was such a clean town too (nice change from Madrid). The
Basque region is known to have the best tapas in Spain (they call them
pinxtos here in the native Basque tongue of Euskara). The are also
known for the fresh Cider and a local wine called Txakoli. I was
fortunate to discover Txakoli before we left the states and am very
happy to be in the land of it. It's definitely one of my favorite
wines. Andy even likes it too. The cider is really good too. It's
different than the typical cider you would get at an Irish pub or
something like that. It's very fresh and apparently, you have to drink
it soon after it's poured or it goes bad. We did a txikiteo (tapas
crawl) last night in San Sebastian. I, of course, struggled to find
anything I could eat, so I had many samplings of Tortilla Espanol. (I
will be so sick and tired of Tortlla Espanol well before I even leave
Spain to return the states next year.) I think Andy enjoyed it, it's
different than Madrid. It's a tapas crawl at super speed.
We slept fairly well and woke up today, ate breakfast and got on a bus
to head to Bilbao - home of the Guggenheim Museum. We will be going
tomorrow to see that. In the meantime, we've so far wandered around
Bilbao (another beautiful, clean city) for the day. We were even so
fortunate to eat lunch at a vegetarian restaurant here (yay!!!!
finally, some vegetables and something other than Tortilla Espanol).
It was fabulous. Tonight we will do another txikiteo as Bilbao
competes with San Sebastian for the best pintxos/tapas in Spain.
Andy will have to tell you which town is better, as I will no doubt
have more Tortilla. We will end our day finding some Irish pub to
celebrate what is left of St. Patrick's day. We have both been very
good and have been wearing green all day :)
We're off to the Guggenheim tomorrow!!!
07 March, 2008
Craigslist Madrid postings are full of scammers
scammers offering apartments in Madrid for great prices.
The hook was they were quickly called away to be a doctor in Africa
(or Nigeria <-- key point there) and had pictures that were WAY to
nice than the other places.
The fotos were like the ones already in the frames at the store (or
like the girlfriend that Napoleon Dynamite had)
We have responded to a few of these "housing ads" and got big long
letters asking for a bunch of info, and trying to pull at our heart
strings.
Well, Christians though we are, we are not going to fall for any
Nigerian scam, even if it is helping out someone helping orphans
Nigeria.
So a warning for those of you looking for apartments. The sites that
have the ads in english, have many more scammers on them. Use www.loquo.com
www.segundamano.es and www.sublet.com instead.
Buena Suerte,
Petronius
Friday the day of Trial, Madrid Spain
cortinas blocked as much light as they did, and the people in the
street didn't wake us.
Shower, shave, and shine up, and we hit the street again, looking for
some food, and aiming for a long walk.
We went all over town, down the gran via again, the Plaza de Espana,
over to the Palacio Real (but not into it) and had lunch, on the Plaza
Mayor.
Thing were going great (although expensive on the plaza) until the
salad showed up with tuna on it, and the tortilla español (entera)
really was an entire plate sized pie, and everything went downhill.
The sad part was that they had two salads,
Ensalada Mixta y
Ensalad Mixta de Bonito
Spanish speaker that I am, I asked about the Bonito, and the camerera
mentioned that it was a nice piece of atún on top of the normal salad.
Since Nicci eats nothing with the face, I didn't even concieve that
the "normal mixta" would not be the "Bonito" without the bonito (no
atún)
WRONG WRONG WRONG.
So, that was a $60 lesson. Food on the plaza is not cheap, and with
the Euro being at 1.5 a dollar, our 40 Euro meal whacked us pretty good.
When y'all come visit we can eat on the plaza again, but beware the
ensalada mixta.
So, we were in a good mood right? We walked around some more, and
checked our book for a vegetarian restaurant. We were going to go to
the second location of our favorite veggie restaurant. We walked down,
turned the corner and the place was gone.
NOT SO GOOD.
We needed food, and spain was conspiring against us. We ended up going
the The Wok, near the Plaza de España, about 10 block walk from where
the first restaurant wasn't.
Thankfully the wok was good, and we managed to get to our beds safely.
We slept well that night, amazingly.
Staying at the Hotel Ateneo on Calle Montera, Madrid Spain
We got to our hotel, collapsed a bit and hit the streets. This is the
same hotel we stayed at last time we were here. Our room this time was
MUCH SMALLER. I think this was my fault, as I wrote them before we
arrived to ensure we are on the side street and not on the main street.
In case you hadn't heard the Spanish enjoy to party and drink and
smoke. The streets ring with el ruido late into the night, and poor
timechange suffering American's can take issue with those people en la
calle.
So, we showed up with our Three Bags (not 5) unpacked a bit, and did
the quick walk around town. I was still limbering up my lengua (or
tongue) as Nicci isn't very helpful in Spanish yet. I told the guy
downstairs to expect my bags the next day, and he seemed to think this
happened all the time. That encouraged me.
Bueno.
We went to the Plaza Mayor, the Puerta del Sol and started to figure
out the streets. I was armed with my map, my Moleskine. For dinner
that night, we went to the Irish bar for some Irish Breakfast for
Nicci and some fish and chips for me. Last time we were in this bar,
Nicci was deathly sick and we were at the end of our trip. Oh, and
someone puked on the floor that time, so we needed a better memory.
It was good, and on the way back to the Hotel, we got some Chocolate
con Churros (really thick chocolate in a cup, and fried dough sticks)
Yummy. Que delicioso!!
We slept and did ok. Our room was a bit hot, the bed a bit hard and
the pillows long and thin.
We'll see how tomorrow goes.
Petronius
Smells and Smog in Madrid, Spain
and other airborne pollutants much more than before.
The cars here are like ours, BMW, Opel, VW, Mitsubishi and many more
that we don't have in the states. The SmartCar (Smart Car?) is
everywhere (and those frigging things are so cute), they can park
facing OUT from the curb when everything else is parallel parked.
Mini's look big next to them.
Anyways. Clearly, we are from the SF Bay area (or at least I am) and
in general, you don't smell a car that drives by in Alameda, or San
Francisco, or really anywhere in America. A Diesel car (or one running
on vegetable oil, or Biodiesel) might smell terrible or like Krispy
Kreme donuts (depending on where they got their oil for their
biodiesel, but generally cars make noise, not smells.
We ran to a park near the Plaza de España today (se dice el Parque del
Oeste)(Western Park) and it was great to get into the park, because we
had to run down the Gran Via. Three lanes each way of smells.
Adding this pollution smells to the "natural smells" or Nicci would
say "Gross animal smells" is the smell of Ham, Cigarette smoke, the
smell of "Puros" or cigars and anything else on the wind.
I've not smelled any Spaniards themselves, and they seem to be as
clean as any other type of person. Sometimes they are overwhelming in
their cologne and perfume, but this is something I've noticed.
Petronius
06 March, 2008
Eating out in Madrid:
Our first few days in Madrid were different than the last time we were here about 5 years ago. I will say, I looked at the city very differently this time knowing that I was going to live here for about a year instead of just being on vacation for a couple of weeks. It's a very different ball game. The biggest question is could I survive and could Andy survive trying to support me. I know that even by the average American standards, I am on the healthy side. For most of you who know me, you know that I am daily worrying about my water intake, exercise, protein, fruit/vegetable consumption, etc. In the Bay area, it was very, very easy to be healthy. Excellent produce everywhere, no smoking, very vegetarian friendly, lots of activity options (yoga, dance, pilates, running , biking, you know - everything). Eating out was not usually a challenge - certain establishments were always avoided (e.g. seafood restaurants, steakhouses), but I always had vegetarian options whereever I went and at the very least, could always ask for vegetarian options and the chefs were always willing to accomodate.
My life has drastically changed. I can't tell you how difficult it is to be vegetarian here - and this is supposedly not as bad as some other European countries. It's astounding. Not only are there very, very few vegetarian friendly restaurants, going into a 'normal' restaurant here is an absolute nightmare. I can eat tortilla espanol and olives - and that's about it. That's okay if I'm on vacation for a couple of weeks, but those being my only options for lunch and dinner every day for a year? I don't think so. Supposedly, lentils are common (haven't seen that yet) but they're always cooked with sausage, so still no dice. I can get cheese sandwiches occasionally - but still I can only eat so many cheese sandwiches in a day.
Early on I perked up a bit when we were here a couple of days and were eating at a place that actually had an ensalada mixta!! I could hardly believe it - we ordered that in hopes for even iceburg lettuce. But much to my disappointment, I found out the hard way that even the basic salads come with tuna on them. If vegetables are served anywhere, they are just another avenue for putting meat into their bodies. It's disgusting. I used to think walking around Chinatown in SF was offensive. That's almost nothing to here. So many animal limbs hanging on display everywhere - if they could exchange air for meat - they would. I would also not be so irked if I knew I had an endless source of ethnic restaurants to choose from as an alternative. Um, it seems that those are also rare. We went to a Japanese place one night and were told there were probably 10-20 Japanese retaurants in ALL of Madrid - a huge city of millions of people. We had 10 Japanese places in Alameda alone. Not bueno. We've seen a couple of Chinese restaurants - since they are in Madrid, they are not veggie friendly at all (it's like they've never heard of tofu and they are Chinese!!!!)- not to mention super sketchy. If they are anything like the Chinese place we tried in Salamanca last time we were here - talk about bad Chinese food. We're still in search fo Thai. We came across a couple of Indian restuarants today. Who knows about anything else.
I know to not expect tons of variety when I go to small towns in the states or back to the south or the midwest, but silly me, I just thought that most cities of millions of people in a European country would have decent selections of ethnic food. Well, let me tell you not in Madrid. You have to aggressively search for the few that exist. Andy and I have spent hours upon hours searching for eating establishments that have anything I can eat - forget the requirement of it even being healthy!!
All in all, it seems that the locals eat meat/animals as their occupation and smoke as their hobby. There are also many pastelerias around, which are their bakeries - were they sell baked goods/sweets, etc. I would defintely say that the Spanish have amazing sweet tooths also. These are more eating options for vegetarians, but I just don't know many vegetarians who would be okay with living on nothing but tortilla espanol and pastries for months on end for every meal of their day. Eventually, some protein and vitamins are required. I honestly have no idea how the Spanish have survived. Between the chain smoking by all who are above the age of 12 and the unvaried consumption of sweets, bread, and animals (often fried) - I can't imagine what their health situation is like. True they don't have nearly the obesity problem that we have in the states - which is probably largely due to the walking/strolling lifestyle they have (which is a good thing), but still - no amount of strolling can save your lungs from a pack of cigarettes a day or your colon from eating nothing but animal flesh and sugar.
In the end, it seems that the non-smokers are probably as rare and discriminated against as the vegetarians. It doesn't seem to be an active or hostile discrimination, but moreover it is a complete lack of accomodation (most restaurants serve the same food as the ones down the street) in regular restaurants and the inability to conceive of a person who would not rejoice in eating animals every meal and smoking all day everyday. Being healthy or vegetarian or having variety here are concepts so rare and foreign as men having babies or bunnies flying. There is no way a vegan could survive!!!
I truly miss the Bay Area. Those of you living there, please enjoy the variety and healthiness for me while I'm in lung cancer land searching for veggies!!!!!!
Hasta luego!
02 March, 2008
Hello World - SFO to Frankfurt to Madrid, óle!
And so begins the journey!!
Nicci and I arrived Thursday the 28th at 4:30 (it is now Saturday night). What a long and kinda strange trip it was. For the most part it was uneventful, which is great, especially since the total time door (hotel near SFO) to puerta (hotel near Puerta del Sol, Madrid) was 22 hours.
We flew through frankfurt, and similar to the last trip to Europe, we upgraded to Economy Plus on the day of the trip. This gives us 5 more inches of legroom. Both Nicci and I like this, as I have them longs legs and Nicci likes to be able to twist hers under her, stretch them out and generally have full range of motion.
Another great thing about the trip to frankfurt on United was that it was VERY EMPTY. This means we each had 3 full seats to ourselves. We sat front and back on one side of a 747. Nicci could lay down, and I could make a good effort of getting comfortable. There were several movies, a few hours of iPod music and a total space out for about 2 hours, and we finally landed in Frankfurt.
Ahh, Germany. What a big airport. We couldn't see the city at all, but the airport was pretty big. We landed out in the penalty box (no real gate) and had to take an Autobus to the terminal. Once in, we hit the transfer counter (confirming that all FIVE of our checked bags would be sent to Madrid) and walked through customs with our carry on bags. WHAM went the stamp and we were officially in the EU.
We picked up some of the play money they call Euro's at an ATM and got some weird shaped bottles of Coke and water. It was about 11:30 local time, but our circadian clocks were screaming by this time. We zoned on the benches until they called us to jump on the shuttle down to Madrid (Barajas Airport). We crammed into this flight, and while I pulled out my spanish version of Cryptonomicon (note to Mike) Nicci immediately conked out. She was asleep before takeoff, and perhaps before pull back. I don't know what my issue was but I thought reading would be better than sleeping, but after 2 pages, I realized my error, and I zoned out as well.
I managed to wake up during the descent (nicci still out cold) and saw some of the neat features of the land north of Madrid (hilly, with a bunch of Bedroom communities). We finally landed, de-boarded, and found ourselves back in the sala de equipajes (where we'd get our baggage). As an aside, this is where, when on my first trip to salamance whilst at Wake Forest, the scary guards asked me "De Donde Es!!!" , and I totally freaked out. I now know this is "Where you from" and had a nice moment this time as I was ready for that zinger.
The bags rolled through. We got numbers 1 and 2 quickly, and then 3 showed up. A bunch more went by and suddenly a lady came up, stopped the belt, took off the extra bags, and started to walk away. Alas, where were bags 4 and 5? I asked her, in my rusty spanish (como se dice, "Where is my frigging bags?" en español) She pointed me to the people specifically there for this international madady and I (and two other americans from SF who also were missing a bag) quickly limbered up my spanish tounge and had to explain what occurred and where to send our bags when / if they showed up. By this time Nicci was fully awake and beginning to fret. No te preocupes Nicci!
Ok, so official Lufthansa form in hand, we get ready to run the customs guantlet (which we've been dreading since this idea sparked months ago). We walk up to the slide glass door, walk out and prepare for the nth degree. The next room (near the taxi's) is totally deserted. Like compeletely. Like there is no customs at all. That stamp in Frankfurt? That was it.
Hmm, maybe this is going to be easier than we think. I change some money (USA and Canadian) and get pointed towards to metro. A 15 minute walk (with only 3 rolling bags and two carryons) gets us to Barajas Metro station. Thankfully a nice person is there to explain it is only two transfers on their very detailed metro system, and the tickets are only 2 Euro each. ($3). Nice. Last time we were here, I was paranoid, and we took a taxi (to our sweet 2 star hostel) and paid like 45 Euros.
This was the last hard thing of the day (hour 20) and so we hit the metro, managed to wrestle the bags in the proper direction, and made it to Gran Via Metro Stop. Our hotel, (Ateneo Hotel) was just down the street (Calle de la Montera) and we checked in.
Bueno.
The picture is from right after this.
