war zone Valencia

I arrived in Valencia on Saturday night and as I walked to the hostel a marching band came out of nowhere and passed through the square. This should have been my first clue that something was going down in Valencia.

The hostel was cool and I met a few people to go out with that night, Joey from Texas and Alison from London. Alison went home around 2 or 3 but J and I found ourselves in a series of bars and clubs (you ever have that moment when someone asks you what time it is and you look at your watch and it's a quarter to 6 and you have no idea where the last three hours have gone? it was like that).
I have become one of those odious women who lies about her age. Or who allows other people to lie about her age...but when the extremely attractive Dutch boy you've been talking to for a couple hours reveals his age as 21 and asks how old you are, and your jaw drops open as you think of something to say, and your quick thinking drinking partner pipes up with "Twenty-five. She's twenty-five." you might not come clean either.
Actually it's weird...personally I think I look like I am 30 years old...not a lot older and not a lot younger. But maybe because I´ve been hanging out with a lot of younger people lately I've encountered a LOT of surprised looks when I say I'm 30. I've heard everything from 23 to 28 when people try to guess. I am loving this and am going to play it up as much as I can, especially since all the sun exposure I've been getting and will continue to get is going to age me superfast in the next two years or so. Leatherface here I come.

The next day everyone in the hostel was awakened by a combination of church bells and loud explosions. But we were all too hung over to actually get up and investigate. Sad.
When I finally did leave the hostel I came across the remnants of a fireworks display in one of the squares and tantalizing glimpses of dissolving parades - like a group of women dressed in black wearing mantillas, or yet another marching band. An altar/stage was set up in the square near the hostel (I saw several of these in squares throughout the city) and people were preparing for a pageant and poetry recital featuring kids dressed as monks and (what looked to me like) pirates. Probably not pirates though.
I wish I could tell you what it was all about but I'm still not sure I know. I think it was the Feast of Sant Vicent Ferrer.

Monday was a holiday which meant absolutely nothing was open but I finally got to see the parade.





After watching the parade for a while I wandered around some more and found a large square filled with people...well as filled as it could be considering a huge chunk of it was cordoned off because that's where the fireworks were set to go off.


The coloured things on the strings are explosives. As some sort of anthem played (Valencian I assume) and people sang under their breaths a couple of guys came out to set up miniature rocket launchers under the strings.
When the music ended one of them lit a fuse and that started one of the most violently loud and powerful pyro displays I have ever seen.
It sent small spinners of fire and coloured smoke into the air.


At ground level the square started filling with smoke and you could see bright fires flare. The impact was earth shaking and I had to plug my ears. The whole place looked like a war zone and people were loving it.


That night Alison and Joey and I went out again even though it was a tough slog finding any open bars or clubs (you'd think that on a holiday people would be partying....?? no.) and finally ended up dancing till 6 at Venial which is apparently Valencia's oldest gay bar (and conveniently just down the street from the hostel!) it was pretty empty but the Kim Cattrall lookalike was fun to watch.



Finally yesterday I went to the cathedral and saw wonderous things like the Holy Grail (yes! the real one! maybe.) and a saint's dead withered arm in a box. I will never understand relics.

knee deep in sheep (and other wildlife stories)

Palma at night:



After a couple of nights in Palma I was done with it and decided to take this antique train

up to a small town in the north of the island called Sóller, where I had what is possibly the best hotel room so far...18 euros for a double bed, a giant palm tree outside my window, and a sink. Perhaps my standards have gotten low but I nearly squealed out loud when the door opened to reveal this little paradise. I ended up staying there for four nights.
The best part (and here I'm being sarcastic) was the built in wake up call. Every morning around 7:30 or 8 two of the world's most adorable charming sweet little children went out to play soccer in the courtyard under my window. This game usually involved slamming a large red rubber ball against the ground, the tables, the chairs, the walls, the doors, the windows, the dogs, and against each other. Then the trash talk would start.
"MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"
"GAAAAAAAA!!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGH!""
"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"
"MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"
And so on. Their vocabularies were somewhat limited.
After the kids went in for breakfast the dogs took advantage of a little alone time to chase each other and make strange dog sounds in the courtyard.

On my second day I did a really nice hike to a nearby beach in a cove, the Cala de Deia. It took about three hours to get there and maybe an hour and three quarters to get back. I blame this on the fact that I could not stop taking photographs and also that I took several wrong paths on the way there.
Hey. If you were at a fork in the road and one of the paths was blocked by a giant white horse, which way would you go? I opted for the path of least resistance. It was the wrong choice.
Elsewhere you have to walk through farmers' fields and pastures and someone had taken it on himself to post a sign indicating that the destination was in the opposite direction of where it actually was. Thank god for Germans on the trail with detailed maps.









Finally I found the place...I was expecting naked swimming (Lonely Planet says so! It must be true, all day every day!) but found a few hikers and families hanging out on the garbage strewn rocks. The water was beautiful and extremely powerful - you can't see from my photos but the waves were really rough and the water was pounding the rocks so hard you could hear them boom.




A couple of days later I did another hike which took me in the opposite direction up into the hills through terraced sheep grazing areas.

I walked past one field containing a giant donkey which Hee Hawed at me as I passed. I may be a farmgirl but that was a first.


At one point I found myself surrounded by sheep who were rather surprised by and unhappy about my presence. Most of them ran off ahead while some ran down the steep side of the hill. One little lamb was caught all along with me on the trail and it couldn´t get down the side. So it ran ahead of me bleating what sounded like "MAAAAAA!!!" which made me feel bad but what could I do...it was getting dark and I wasn´t about to hang out there all night. It would turn around every few minutes and glare at me and yell for its mother and then run off ahead again.


Later as I walked home I saw a duck attack and kill a duckling. It was extremely disturbing and I'm not quite sure what I saw...all I know is that the duck grabbed the duckling in its beak and shook it and pecked at it until it wasn't moving anymore. Even after the thing was clearly dead the duck kept coming back every few minutes to go at it again. An older woman walked past with two small children and they stopped to watch the ducks...I found myself cringing thinking "please don't see please don't see" but luckily this was in between attacks.

After leaving Sóller I went to the Cuevas del Drach near Porto Cristo on the east side of the island. These are a massive system of caves filled with stalactites and stalagmites and one of the the worlds largest underground lakes. It takes about 30 minutes to walk through the caves and there are probably a couple of hundred people on each tour. At the edge of the lake an amphitheatre of sorts has been set up and everyone files in to sit on benches and listen to a brief concert of classical music played by musicians on a boat floating through the lake. It´s all very Phantom of the Opera. Actually the music was kind of nice but they should not make it mandatory because Í'm pretty sure that a large chunk of the audience was not feeling the vibe. Like the Three Stooges in front of me for example...a beefy father and son team who actually smacked one another upside the head and giggled as the concert was going on. Alas nobody was poked in the eye.
After the music ended we were all ferried across the lake on small white boats and then exited. As I was waiting for the bus to take me back to Palma I was staring into space, lost in thought...I heard the ladies beside me giggling and when I actually focused on what was in front of me saw a massive peacock staring at me. Staring at me and taking a large peacock dump.
Later a bus ran over the poo and the ladies laughed harder than ever.

all man from the waist up

On Wednesday the guys convinced me to go out to check out a club that possibly had good music ("you can sleep when you´re dead." Can you believe that line worked? Twist my rubber arm.). So around 1:30 we set out for a place just off Placa Catalunya, I think it was called City Hall.
When we got there the bouncer informed us it was going to cost 10 Euros to get in. F&%* that! So we turned around, got a couple beers, and started walking back home along the Rambla. Then our luck turned; one of the guys ran into a girl he knew who just happened to be handing out free passes to the club we had just tried to get into. So we headed back up and went in (just behind some poor american suckers who were actually paying the cover), prepared to dance.
What we found was a concert that was just starting (at 2:30am!). I have no idea who it was but it was a dude in leather pants and a big puffy leather jacket and converse high tops singing while another guy played the synth. Things got better when the guy took his jacket off and wasn´t wearing anything underneath...but the best was when THE DANCER got up on stage. A painfully painfully thin man who was all woman from the waist down (high heeled boots, stockings, garters, a half girdle) and all man from the waist up (white tank top, suspenders, white collar and cuffs, black tie, hat, beard...and possibly eyeliner) stood behind the singer...cigarette held off to the side like he didn´t want to smell the smoke, he had the best dispassionate robot dance I´ve ever seen in my life. Seriously this guy was awesome; his facial expression did not change once. We couldn´t keep our eyes off him - I´ve never regretted not having my camera on me more.
The music was a bit tedious so we were all very happy when they got off stage and a dj started playing. That was short lived however since after one song another band took over...they had very amusing hair and outfits but after a few more songs it was unbearable and we had to leave.
It was all worth it for dancing guy though.

In Palma de Mallorca right now...it appears that my ´dorm´ is a room with 2 beds that I have to share with (ewww) a BOY! That I´ve never met before. Hostels - you never know what you´re gonna get. No I don´t mean it like that, you perv.

The overnight-no-cabin-cause-i-am-cheap ferry ride was fine, I slept for a few hours on a couch in the bar area where they kept playing Amelie on a loop and two Irish guys with a massive stack of beer cans in front of them talked loudly of their various sexual exploits. All very interesting.

I sat on the beach this afteroon and read and dodged creepy creeps.
Does this scenario ever actually get anyone laid?
- sitting really close to you (when the beach is practically deserted)
- staring at you for 3 minutes
- then saying "Hola! Hola!" repeatedly when you ignore the stare
- when you finally look up and say "No espanol" and "No comprende" and go back to your book, coming over and crouching next to you
- holding out his clammy hand in your face until you´re forced to shake it in the hope this will make him go away
- not letting go of said hand and then kissing it (this is when the yelling starts)
- and then kissing his fingers and touching your cheek with these nasty damp digits

They´ll go away if you start saying "NO! Adios!" really loud but what the eff. What is the point of this?
Ladies, women and girls - if ANY of you are encouraging this behaviour by actually hooking up with these guys, STOP NOW FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. Not that I think this poorly of you.
Actually, I don´t think they´re even really trying to meet people, I think they just get off on freaking random women out. Which makes me really sad and angry.

I need to learn how to say "Get the fuck away from me before I cut you, asshole." in Spanish. Anybody know how to do this?

Dali Tattoo

I got out of the house long enough on Wednesday to take the train up to Figueres so I could check out the Dali Museum up there. As usual I missed the train I wanted to take (but in this case only had to wait an hour) and got there around 2. Yet another word of advice: if you go to Figueres to see the Dali Museum please do some research in advance and print yourself out a map or something. Don't just assume you'll be able to leave the train station and magically find it. When you leave the station there's a nice little sign that points that way, but that's pretty much the only one. After 90 minutes of wandering, and asking directions from no less than 4 people, I was starting to wonder if the whole thing was some elablorate surrealist hoax (or is that something the dadaists would be more likely to do...Carrie? Shannon?) and that maybe the museum didn't exist at all.
Finally, FINALLY I found it (and it's pretty unmissable - a red building covered in yellow...I'm not sure what they are...croissants? Probably not croissants...the whole thing is topped with giant white eggs. Very cool looking.) and made my way inside.

There's a big courtyard in the middle with a huge sculpture. A guy stood up on the platform and pulled up his pantleg to display his Dali tattoo and pose for a photo. Apparently it didn't turn out very well because he left and then came back five minutes later to do the same thing.





The interior of the museum is amazing...there are about 22 rooms absolutely crammed with things to look at: paintings, sculpture, drawings, lithographs. One room is mostly taken up by one architect's attempt to reproduce the painting "Face of Mae West Which May Be Used as an Apartment" as an Apartment. It's pretty cool. To see it from the right perspective you have to climb up a ladder to a platform and look through a large lens.





I'm finally leaving Barcelona tonight on the night ferry to Palma (on the island of Mallorca). Because I'm cheap and tickets are more expensive if you don't book more than 48 hours in advance, I've taken a seat rather than a bed for this trip. I hope I don't live to regret that decision...7 hours on a ferry overnight with no bed? I'll let you know.

lemmy's groupie

I put up a few new pictures...
Here's me on a rooftop:


And me and various roommates and hangers on, drunk and dancing:


But enough about me...I love this building.


More at Flickr.

four men and a little lady

Wow....I've already been in Barcelona for two weeks and what do I have to show for it?
Well, I'm extremely well rested for one thing, as I've settled very well into the daily rhythm here in the Black Hole of Slack...this mostly involves getting up around 2 p.m., making something to eat, reading and hanging out for a while, if it's nice out going for a walk (either sightseeing or going to the beach), coming back when it gets dark, reading and hanging out some more, maybe eating dinner, watching the downloads of the day (South Park, The Daily Show, Colbert, etc etc), maybe a movie, hanging out some more and going to bed around 4 or 5 a.m.

On weekends or Mondays this may be expanded to include going dancing at a cool club called Sidecar (however in Spanish this is pronounced See-day-car)...it's the Zaphod Beeblebrox of the Placa Reial and it closes at 5 a.m. Sweet.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but in Barcelona you can walk down the street (at night) or sit on the beach (during the day) and drink beer at the same time. In fact there are dozens of gentlemen wandering the narrow streets of the Raval or the Rambla or the various Placas with 6-packs of inexplicably cold beer dangling from their hands. They'll sell you a can for 1 Euro on the street or 2 on the beach where there's not as much competition or something.

I'm not sure about the legality of this activity but I haven't seen the police do anything about it, although I've been told that all of these guys have their own little hiding places just in case. Also, shortly before I arrived in Barcelona there was the Macrobotellon...I think a botellon is an informal gathering of people hanging out and drinking, like a little street party, and a macrobotellon is just a bigger one of those. On March 17th a big nation-wide Macrobotellon was organized as a protest against some anti-street drinking legislation (I was in Malaga and it was raining and a mumbly French guy was trying to explain it to me which is why I really didn't know what it was till I arrived in Barcelona) and people went out and partied in the streets in cities all over. In Barcelona, things didn't go so well.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4818180.stm

Anyway, on most nights this isn't an issue so if you're halfway through a can of beer and it's time to go, you can just take it with you on the walk to the bar. Or, if you don't have any beer at home, you can buy one almost as soon as you walk out the door. I love this. I also love leaving the club all tired and sweaty at 5 a.m. and walking home along the Ramblas watching hookers accost solitary men...these ladies are very aggro and they really really want your 10 Euros. 10 Euros! That's a bloody steal.