Poagao's Journal

Absolutely Not Your Monkey

Nov 01 2016

Where were we again?

Sorry for the delay…been running ourselves ragged as usual, too tired at the end of the day to post. It’s after 1 a.m. now, but I’m too far behind.

We got up early once again (I suppose that’s a given by now), and Chenbl, Carlos, Ewan and I took the metro to the bus station, where we had some breakfast downstairs before going up to join the long line for the buses to Toledo. The line moved fairly quickly, however, and not long after we were on our way. The weather was fine until we headed up in to the hills, when it turned cloudy so quickly I thought there must be a large fire nearby.

I’d decided I wanted to see the city after viewing the countours on Google Maps 3D, and if you’ve been there you know what I mean; Toledo is located on a big hill surrounded mostly by a winding river, and I’ve always loved 3D cities. Though it was cloudy when we arrived, the sun came out again as we rode a series of escalators up the hill into town. The altitude did nothing to hide the stink of piss, however. If only there were some way to provide people in public with a place to relieve themselves…but I suppose only the geniuses of the future will have an answer to that age-old question. At least the Spanish urologists must be doing a brisk business.

We stopped into a soap shop, which is a terrible idea if you want to do anything else for the next hour or so. Chenbl ended up giving the shopkeepers massages and a bottle of Chinese massage oil; he should have done that before the bill was settled, alas. The light outside was lovely but deceptive; nothing worked, photographically speaking. I swear, I have not taken more shots on this trip than any other I can recall.

We took a little “train” tram around the city, sitting with a group of smarmy blonde German kids who rolled their eyes at the slightest provocation, and then walked around, encountering many interesting renaissance instruments. One of the musicians, a middle-aged woman, had hidden a speaker under her dress, I suspected, as the bass line simply couldn’t have been coming from her violin. Or could it? I have no idea. The effect was quite nice, though.

We walked around some cathedrals, etc. The town was no longer a town, I realized. It was empty of everyone but tourists, a mere shell of its former self, which lent it a rather sad feeling. We did pass a wedding ongoing in a chapel. Chenbl had walked right in on the ceremony, not understanding the sign outside, gaining glares from the participants.

The sun had set by this point, and we caught a taxi back to the bus station, and an old, smelly bus back to Madrid. Dinner was had in the same square that I’d visited on my last trip, but where it was cold and empty then, it was now full of revelers; Madrid was celebrating Halloween, it seemed, and police were everywhere. Helicopters hovered overhead while we ate, and occasionally police convoys would speed through the square, lights flashing. This would be a good night to get in early, I thought. But it was late once again when we finally got back to the hotel.

Due to daylight savings time, our originally horribly early wake-up time of 5 a.m. became 4 a.m. in effect. So after only a few hours of sleep, we were up again to catch the 6:20 a.m. (really 5:20 a.m.) train to Barcelona. Why so early? No idea. Just the way these things go.

For some reason, the air pressure difference on the train was even worse than that of an airplane flight. What the hell? My ears were stopped up most of the way. I know Madrid is higher in elevation than seaside Barcelona, but damn. We traveled through some fog, but Barcelona was sunny when we exited the station.

We met our friend Beatriz at the hotel, and we walked over to a round mall that turned out to be a former bullfighting ring. It was converted after bullfighting was prohibited, but I swear you can still smell beef. The view from the top was nice, even in the haze. Tourists stared at us from a neighboring rooftop pool.

Walking past a massive cosplay event, we walked up to a kind of museum with a massive fountain in front, and Chenbl made a beeline to the vendors selling scarves and fold-out baskets that were surely made in China.

Our next stop was La Rambla, famous site of many thefts and mugging over the decades. We actually stayed here last time, and I’m glad I didn’t know then what I know about it now. Thankfully nothing untoward occurred this time. We went down to the harbor, and I greeted the Mediterranean once again, laughing at the fact that the Columbus Tower in Chinese sounds more like “Colon Puta”.

We stopped by the cathedral, the old Gothic one with the horrible pan flute player out front, and decided it wasn’t work the seven euros to go inside. Then it was a subway to another restaurant (why is everyone on the subway so well-lit? It’s like a studio on there) with good food while Beatriz went off to take care of some business.

Beatriz showed up with her husband, and we all walked along the harbor amid the skaters and young thieves. Dinner was eventually had at a fancy place called Mussol, where they forgot about us, let others ahead of us, and finally let us sit down after a fair bit of haranguing. The food was worth it, though, in that it was good and we were hungry.  Still, I’ve found that the Spanish brand of rudeness is rather special, tinged with arrogance in a way I haven’t seen in too many other places.

The next morning we embarked on a Day of Gaudi. First we went to the big-ass cathedral he spent most of his life working on. I have the feeling that if he were to come back and take a look at it today, he would just shake his head in disbelief. It is too big a project, has taken too long, and been mixed with too many other visions. The details of the original place are brilliant, but the entirety is just a mess.

It was only when I went down to the museum underneath the cathedral did one of the staff yell at me to take off my hat, which I found amusing as during the two hours I’d spent in the cathedral itself nobody had mentioned it. Also, it seems really arbitrary; why a hat? Is wearing a scarf ok? Why? Does it matter if you can come up with some bullshit reason for it? I wanted to point to the photos of the pope on his visit and say, “Well, that guy wore a hat in here…make up your minds!”

Our next stop was a building Gaudi had renovated, followed by an apartment complex he built, and while they were gorgeous in the details, I don’t think I could live there. For one thing, there are no right angles in the places, and I would just get turned around. But my real concern would be that Gaudi’s architecture seems downright dangerous, which no thought for safety in the face of his curious designs. They say that he never didn’t anything without a purpose, so perhaps he just had it in for clumsy people.

We had to wait in line for one of the places; the tickets specified that we get there at 2 p.m., but that was apparently a little joke at our expense by the ticket people (“Oh, you thought there would be a TIME? Oh, dear lord, you ARE naive, aren’t you, precious?”). As we waited, a professional beggar woman moaned and wailed until someone gave her some money, after which she would pipe down until that person had moved a few feet away, whereupon she would start up again. I thought I saw what might have been her handler giving her signals to turn on the waterworks when a likely mark was spotted, but I couldn’t be sure. From what I hear, they’re collected into a van at the end of the day with all their earnings.

After the last Gaudi house (the sunset on the rood was brilliant), we went down and sat on the corner of the broad avenue waiting for Beatriz. Although Chenbl was muttering, “Where is she?” every few minutes, I was glad for a pause in our hectic routine, for once not rushing off to some place, or waiting for someone to catch up, etc. I just sat and watched the people walking, the bicycles and cars, the old man who sat near us for a while before his wife arrived. I wondered who else had sat on that bench. Perhaps even Gaudi himself had sat there at some point. It was pleasant, just sitting and watching and thinking…possibly the most pleasant part of the trip so far. I could have sat there much longer, but Beatriz arrived, and we were off again, into the rush of shopping and dinner and distractions.

 

posted by Poagao at 8:53 am  

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