Switzerland has been a fantastic blur so far, and tonight I finally have some time to recap events. Before coming here it seemed that the pictures of sweeping mountains and cute cabins told the entire story, but the reality of the place has still struck me like a semi truck.
After the first evening in Geneva, I woke up early to see the city. My hostel sat close to the headquarters of the International Red Cross and the UN, and so I walked about forty minutes to reach them. The UN had surprisingly few visitors, and so I was able to get a few pictures of the big UN sign, modern art in the square outside of it, and rows of national flags leading up to the main structure. Surprisingly, even after the killing of Osama Bin Laden, security seemed to have no issues with any number of pictures. Across the street from the UN, a small but very vocal demonstration of Iranians called for a permanent UN monitoring force to be deployed to Iran. After checking out the Ghandi statue, and discovering that a UN tour wasn't happening with my trusty traveling companion, my bulky Osprey pack, I called it a day for that part of Geneva.
Another famous feature of the city is its enormous water jet at the base of Lake Geneva. I went to check it out, and was impressed, then continued to the rail station. Now would be an appropriate time to describe in brief the rail system, since railcars may see the most of me during this vacation. The entire country is latticed with railways between all the major towns, and in many regions it appears that inter-town traffic occurs more often by train than car, bus, and boat combined. The fleet is modern, and the soft felt textured chairs of second class cabins nestle against huge windows overlooking Switzerland's scenery. I have yet to encounter a wait longer than 15 minutes for any individual connection, and I have yet to see a train substantially late.
I headed out of town along the breath taking Northern side of Lake Geneva next. The train ride cruises through grassy hills and wineries above the lake, and offers a magnificent view of the water and terrain rolling away from the shore.
After parting vision with the glassy waters of the lake, I continued on towards Bern and stopped to find lodging in Fribourg, a smaller town. The last night had been a nearly sleepless one due to roudy French youngsters, so I opted for the solace of a bed and breakfast. This turned out to be a night in someone's suburban house. My host was an engaging Czech woman who spoke six languages and promised one hell of a tasty breakfast. To finish the day, I strolled through the suburbs attracting strange looks from the residents (imagine an unshaven stranger with a large bag wandering through your peaceful, infrequently visited neighborhood). It tickled me a bit to respond to the quizzical gawks with a big wave and smile.
At one point I came across a mysterious looking trail heading off into the woods, and of course took it. It ended above a reservoir where I read my excellent fantasy novel "The Name of the Wind". After a few hundred pages I packed it in, went to sleep in the perfectly supine comfort of a freshly made bed and absence of other house guests, and awoke well rested the next day. The breakfast was as fantastic as promised, and I left the neighborhood in Fribourg quite pleased with my selection.
The only problem was that I had yet to see any mountains, and was in Switzerland!
With this in mind, the next destination was meant to be the Berner Oberland area, but mild confusion with trains and an overly fascinating book saw me continuing past my mark slightly before Bern, and onto Lucerne. There I spoke with the enormously helpful staff at a Swiss information desk who clued me into the concept that there are huts, as they called them, scattered throughout the high country in the alps.
With the image of a rugged night spent with the four planked walls, the howling wind, and my manly fortitude in mind, I headed zealously to the nearest open one in Englesburg. The hike up to the hut was surprisingly rigorous (my flat-lander lungs are wimpy on flat land, much less in thin alpine air and with a fat pack tagging along). It may have been my loopy head from mild elevation sickness, but the moment I got higher up into the hike and saw the huge mountains and snowy caps spread before me, I started laughing to myself. It was a perfect day with clear, cold air, and flowers swaying in the sun and wind, and I had tasty orange juice, my camera, and all the time I cared to take.
After passing a childrens' slide of several hundred meters in length, the grass around which was mowed by goats, I came to a cabin which would have completely satisfied my desire to be in nature. It was situated high up on the sleep, had a commanding view, and sat in a sweeping field of wild flowers and vivid green grass. This cabin was however boarded up, and after checking my map I continued.
What I found thirty minutes later defied and surpassed my expectations. Evidently growing tourism in Switzerland has made many of the originally spartan alpine cabins into more of bed and breakfast type joints than cabins. Mine lay on top of a stone foundation set into the slope, and could house as many as forty people for the night. At the door I was greeted by a triplet of giggling Swiss girls who informed me that I should swap my climbing shoes for gators. Gators! How comfortable they were, and how great of an idea that is. Guests get more comfortable footwear, the hut never needs to clean the floors. It's all about the little things right?
For dinner (The huts, high in the Alps, serve dinner, what?) I had a large beer, appetizers of salad and soup, and chicken curry, all of which were well prepared and delicious. After dinner I went outside and worked on the book some more, then passed out in one of five bedrolls, arranged like sardines, and empty except for me. This time of year evidently is a low point for tourism. I see this as a huge win. The climate is warm, the snow is melting, the flowers are blooming, and all of this is for the sparse few who come.
The next morning I got up relatively early for a breakfast of lower end specialty cheeses and bread, and then headed out to hike for the day. I took one path for about two hours until I came to a snowy impasse (Deep snow with no footprints over it, signifying that no one had come this way yet, over meltoff rivers. This seemed like a bad idea.) There I stopped to finish my book and eat a lunch of a breadloaf I had brought with my from Engleburg. My perch was above a massive cliff falling off several hundred feet, and I could see the caps of three mountains from where I sat. Up from the valley below the wind slapped across my face, and that day was equally as sunny and clear as the others.
After reading for a few hours, having gained a new appreciation for the fiction work of Patrick Rothfuss and suddenly desiring his sequel books, I started back to the hut. Two hours later I made it in, ate another fantastic dinner while talking to a pair of Austrian tourists about Switzerland, television, food, and their life in general. A new employee of the hut had showed up as well. He was a short, stocky man with one of the most savage beards I have seen in a long time. He spoke little to no English, and his demeanor towards the two Austrian women and myself at lest appeared to be practically bristling.
Another more jovial worker explained quietly that the huts being made accessible by lifts, and then commercialized was a subject of much debate in Switzerland. The had been initially intended only for real mountaineers. I took this to be an apologetic explanation for his friends seeming stance.
After the Austrian women finished eating and left to sleep, I kept talking to the other employee for a while. His English was not fantastic, but it functioned, and with the help of my trusty laptop and Google Translator (Yes, the mountain hut also had fast wireless internet...) we are able to talk a bit, and I was able to learn a smattering of German.
The next day I ate another great breakfast and headed by train to Interlaken, situated near several of the most noted and Rick Steve'd (Praise be to his flawless word in all manners travel related) mountain ranges in the nation. I found a hostel for relatively cheap, booked it for the next, and started in on my next book "The Death Instinct" about intrigue surrounding a 1920 terrorist attack on the New York Stock Exchange.
The next morning (today) I got up and headed for the train station with a map of the areas mountains in hand. I wanted to take a lift if possible. It was a cloudy day, so not ideal for going high, and in this light I picked a route that my already purchased Swiss Pass would render free. The train ride up to the mountain town of Lautbrennder threaded through verdant dales and past sweeping waterfalls, and on arrival I hopped out already amazed by the views to be had.
I may have been too amazed, because suddenly I was very dizzy and my head hurt, or in other words I had myself some nice elevation sickness. I stopped the skipping and running around I had been doing, and set to a slow walk. A nearby cafe/supermarket was open, and I stopped in to grab some tasty chocolate and water, just in case the dizziness was dehydration. The next leg of the journey up was by bus, and so I sat outside waiting with mingled other tourists.
One guy had a Barcelona FC shirt, so I chatted with him a bit. He was with a group of Americans from the Midwest, who appeared equally as excited to be in Switzerland as I was. The bus pulled up and I reached for my pocket to get my pass anndd.... realized my Swiss pass was missing and probably left on the train. This was bad. I had been in town for nearly an hour, and the Swiss pass would cost several hundred Francs to replace. Without it every minor train or bus trip would cost 5-10 dollars at the least.
Said train on which the pass may or may not have been left had been scheduled to leave in two minutes, so I hopped on and frantically tried to search it, not finishing my task before it left my mountain town.
I asked the conductor about possibly having seen anything, and he had seen nothing. I decided to just search the sucker myself, despite the fact that it would retrace my entire earlier journey if I didn't get off. My search yielded nothing, as did the lost and found in the starting town, and the next train out. I chatted to an employee on the next train who informed me that there were four trains on the route I was on that ran during the day. Since I had been in town an hour, I realized it could be on almost any of them depending on how rotations worked. I decided to wait in the mountain end town to check each.
Fortunately I had the presence of mind to retrace my steps and realize that the pass may have fallen out of my passport where I kept it in the town, and not on the train. It had in fact, and with joy I picked it up out of a dubiously brown, and slightly smelly mud puddle. If not for the filth I would have kissed it. I celebrated with some inexpensive cheese and a small Swiss beer while waiting for my bus.
The bus came, I hopped on and talked to the German/English speaking driver for a bit before we left. The passengers all got off fifteen minutes later by the operating center for the lift to take us up higher into the mountains. Five minutes later we boarded the cubicle glass structure, and it floated away on huge steel pulleys. WE gained about 500 meters of height and went maybe a mile in the thing as it swayed back in forth in the wind. Some of the passengers looked like the might be getting sick. I myself was fascinated with the huge cliffs sprouting up all around us, and the mountains looming in the distance.
We transferred again onto another lift, this one taking us higher and over a ravine straddled only by a thin steel bridge. The bridge had a walking ramp of about two feet width, and two steel cable handholds. It was maybe 150 feet long, and stretched across a chasm that stopped at least 300 feet below the bridge. I resolved to come back the next day and cross that sucker to see what it was like. (There might/ almost definitely is a harness mandate; I shall see tomorrow.)
The second lift took us up to a tourist town with many hotels and restaurants. I eyed the plates of a few patrons, which looked ok but not fantastic. Humorously the prices per entree were around 35 Francs, or $43. The summit of the next cable car trip was entirely foggy on the summit came, so I opted instead to hike high above the tourist town. I considered making the eight mile hike up to the summit out of sheer youthful brashness, but as it was late, cloudy, and getting rainy, I thought better of it, headed back to my hostel, read my action thriller a bit, wrote this, and am now going to sleep.
This country is a unique and breathtaking place,
Tim
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Now letters from Switzerland
Dear readers,
I regret to inform you that I no longer write to you from Spain. Fortunately I now write to you from Switzerland.
The trip out this morning went off well despite my alarm waking me an hour late resulting in a briefly tense moment in the airport.
On arriving in Geneva, I set to finding a hostel for the night to set some visa card shenanigans straight, the location I found was about 40 dollars, quite a high price for a dark room shared with five smelly (by empiricism) dudes, but beggars can't be choosers in a city where most of the lodging is entirely booked.
I walked through the clean streets, hearing French, German, Spanish and more at every block, and am now in a gorgeous public library. Almost everyone else has left the laptop room because 20 minutes ago, a modern interpretative dance performance began in the lobby.
There is a shirtless French guy screaming profanities and literary references at the top of his lungs at an auctioneers cadence (in French of course), and a guy hitting a bunch of drums and metal sheets with a big spoon behind him. As far as I can tell it is about the pain of modern culture.
Soon I will have an initial travel itinerary set and go to read my lovely new books on the shore of Lake Geneva.
Obnoxiously self satisfied,
Tim
I regret to inform you that I no longer write to you from Spain. Fortunately I now write to you from Switzerland.
The trip out this morning went off well despite my alarm waking me an hour late resulting in a briefly tense moment in the airport.
On arriving in Geneva, I set to finding a hostel for the night to set some visa card shenanigans straight, the location I found was about 40 dollars, quite a high price for a dark room shared with five smelly (by empiricism) dudes, but beggars can't be choosers in a city where most of the lodging is entirely booked.
I walked through the clean streets, hearing French, German, Spanish and more at every block, and am now in a gorgeous public library. Almost everyone else has left the laptop room because 20 minutes ago, a modern interpretative dance performance began in the lobby.
There is a shirtless French guy screaming profanities and literary references at the top of his lungs at an auctioneers cadence (in French of course), and a guy hitting a bunch of drums and metal sheets with a big spoon behind him. As far as I can tell it is about the pain of modern culture.
Soon I will have an initial travel itinerary set and go to read my lovely new books on the shore of Lake Geneva.
Obnoxiously self satisfied,
Tim
Monday, April 11, 2011
Ira Glass is a gamechanger
Dear Readers,
I write to you from my blearied state tonight to share something I found surprising, excellent, and definitely relevant to anyone's life. You will find out what soon enough, but first an explanatory tangent.
Lately I've taken an interest in the art of storytelling. This act/hobby is so important because almost literally everything in our lives revolves around interacting with and engaging other people, and the majority of those interactions are stories in one form or another.
As with all important things, I turned to the vague entity that is the internet for my guidance. The internet has a few things to say to me, and you for that matter on the subject.
Some quick bullets:
Share focus with the listener.
Ask questions and regularly provide answers. Always have listeners wondering.
Provide vivid details of whatever you are describing rather than phrases like "And then this happened."
Even better than the conventional wisdom was Ira Glass's analysis, which more or less blew me away. The man is just a raging dynamo of witticism, fun and wisdom. Earlier tonight, I sat there in my bed watching him spout knowledge while trying to go to sleep, and decided that I had found at least one new hero. I have only left my pleasantly supine repose to speak with you on account of his piece, and the sheer casual force of the sucker.
Here is a link to the first video in the series of four, others can be found in the sidebar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loxJ3FtCJJA
If you are interested in writing, radio, any creative act in general, or even at the most basic level, talking to people, I highly recommend checking it out.
Until later,
Tim
I write to you from my blearied state tonight to share something I found surprising, excellent, and definitely relevant to anyone's life. You will find out what soon enough, but first an explanatory tangent.
Lately I've taken an interest in the art of storytelling. This act/hobby is so important because almost literally everything in our lives revolves around interacting with and engaging other people, and the majority of those interactions are stories in one form or another.
As with all important things, I turned to the vague entity that is the internet for my guidance. The internet has a few things to say to me, and you for that matter on the subject.
Some quick bullets:
Share focus with the listener.
Ask questions and regularly provide answers. Always have listeners wondering.
Provide vivid details of whatever you are describing rather than phrases like "And then this happened."
Even better than the conventional wisdom was Ira Glass's analysis, which more or less blew me away. The man is just a raging dynamo of witticism, fun and wisdom. Earlier tonight, I sat there in my bed watching him spout knowledge while trying to go to sleep, and decided that I had found at least one new hero. I have only left my pleasantly supine repose to speak with you on account of his piece, and the sheer casual force of the sucker.
Here is a link to the first video in the series of four, others can be found in the sidebar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loxJ3FtCJJA
If you are interested in writing, radio, any creative act in general, or even at the most basic level, talking to people, I highly recommend checking it out.
Until later,
Tim
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Beyond expectations
Dear reader,
Early this week a friend asked me if I would like to go on a Saturday boating trip. I try hard to accept invitations to things like this, so of course I agreed. He described the voyage as a few hours out to a small island, some snorkeling, and then a return by sunset. Free wine was also mentioned. This description conjured in me, as I'm sure it does in you, an image of a lazy trawl accompanied by the romantic luminescence of the day's end.
I arrived at the dock slightly late, still panting from my jog to get there in the hot sun and fresh air of Alicante in Spring. In front of me sat a speed boat. My initial thought was something to the effect of "Woooooooo". As we boarded the driver smiled and shook our hands, then told us to tie our stuff in. We were informed that sitting down would not work, because it would harm our backs.
We drifted slowly out of the sheltered port, and the captain opened up the engine. The craft, a long slender rubber raft with two rows for passengers immediately planed out, then picked up to skipping over the huge sea waves. We gained speed and each wave became a small jump. Standing up and hanging tightly to handrails designed to keep passengers intact, our mouths were plastered open by the wind. I have no idea how fast we were going, but it felt like sticking my head out of a car window at the least.
After careening for about a few minutes, with the whole group laughing hysterically at how much fun the trip was, we stopped to admire the city of Alicante from a new perspective, far out in the water. Everyone's hair was plastered far back on their heads, like some grotesque 50s prom group, and no where could an unsmiling face be found.
We were then informed that the boat had only been traveling at half capacity.
We picked up again, this time going much faster and jumping even higher, and continued to stop at several more scenic locations along the coast including the nearby town, a pool where there are evidently sunset swims on Sundays, a nude beach (!? Did not know there was a nude beach 15 minutes from my city, Spain is interesting), and finally another long sandy beach.
We stopped there about 900 feet off of shore. The water was roughly fifteen feet deep, and a clear turquoise. We could see the details of the sand below us, and nearby a group of Spaniards were scuba diving and spearfishing. The captain handed out snorkels and we jumped into the water, which was shockingly cold but refreshing.
I got a mouthful of water as I jumped in, and was surprised to see how salty it was. Puget Sound at least never seemed so strong. It was also very easy to float. I could stoop swimming and put on my snorkel mask, and just sit there with my eyes just at water level without any effort, the rest of my body entirely submerged.
We swam around for a bit, traveling in a wide circle from our boat. A nearby old Spanish man waved to us from his sailboat, and we swam over to say hi. The man was docked with a friend, both of them being in possession of very handsome craft, and when we came closer he invited us aboard and asked if we would like a drink. I sat there and drank a Spanish beer while he shared stories about his life and advice on good destinations, and then we said goodbyes to him and his party and went back to our boat.
The sun was still intense, but lowering in the sky, and we dried ourselves off and put the snorkels away while our guide offered everyone some Sangria. (Largely fruit based wine mixture.) I had a few small glasses, and then we made the return voyage, zooming along the water. I'm not sure that I have had too many more exhilarating experiences than feeling the light of a gorgeous sunset with strong, warm wind in my face.
On reaching the dock, we got off, thanked the captain, paid what was a very reasonable 20 euros for the trip, and went home skipping.
What an excellent way to spend an evening,
Tim
Early this week a friend asked me if I would like to go on a Saturday boating trip. I try hard to accept invitations to things like this, so of course I agreed. He described the voyage as a few hours out to a small island, some snorkeling, and then a return by sunset. Free wine was also mentioned. This description conjured in me, as I'm sure it does in you, an image of a lazy trawl accompanied by the romantic luminescence of the day's end.
I arrived at the dock slightly late, still panting from my jog to get there in the hot sun and fresh air of Alicante in Spring. In front of me sat a speed boat. My initial thought was something to the effect of "Woooooooo". As we boarded the driver smiled and shook our hands, then told us to tie our stuff in. We were informed that sitting down would not work, because it would harm our backs.
We drifted slowly out of the sheltered port, and the captain opened up the engine. The craft, a long slender rubber raft with two rows for passengers immediately planed out, then picked up to skipping over the huge sea waves. We gained speed and each wave became a small jump. Standing up and hanging tightly to handrails designed to keep passengers intact, our mouths were plastered open by the wind. I have no idea how fast we were going, but it felt like sticking my head out of a car window at the least.
After careening for about a few minutes, with the whole group laughing hysterically at how much fun the trip was, we stopped to admire the city of Alicante from a new perspective, far out in the water. Everyone's hair was plastered far back on their heads, like some grotesque 50s prom group, and no where could an unsmiling face be found.
We were then informed that the boat had only been traveling at half capacity.
We picked up again, this time going much faster and jumping even higher, and continued to stop at several more scenic locations along the coast including the nearby town, a pool where there are evidently sunset swims on Sundays, a nude beach (!? Did not know there was a nude beach 15 minutes from my city, Spain is interesting), and finally another long sandy beach.
We stopped there about 900 feet off of shore. The water was roughly fifteen feet deep, and a clear turquoise. We could see the details of the sand below us, and nearby a group of Spaniards were scuba diving and spearfishing. The captain handed out snorkels and we jumped into the water, which was shockingly cold but refreshing.
I got a mouthful of water as I jumped in, and was surprised to see how salty it was. Puget Sound at least never seemed so strong. It was also very easy to float. I could stoop swimming and put on my snorkel mask, and just sit there with my eyes just at water level without any effort, the rest of my body entirely submerged.
We swam around for a bit, traveling in a wide circle from our boat. A nearby old Spanish man waved to us from his sailboat, and we swam over to say hi. The man was docked with a friend, both of them being in possession of very handsome craft, and when we came closer he invited us aboard and asked if we would like a drink. I sat there and drank a Spanish beer while he shared stories about his life and advice on good destinations, and then we said goodbyes to him and his party and went back to our boat.
The sun was still intense, but lowering in the sky, and we dried ourselves off and put the snorkels away while our guide offered everyone some Sangria. (Largely fruit based wine mixture.) I had a few small glasses, and then we made the return voyage, zooming along the water. I'm not sure that I have had too many more exhilarating experiences than feeling the light of a gorgeous sunset with strong, warm wind in my face.
On reaching the dock, we got off, thanked the captain, paid what was a very reasonable 20 euros for the trip, and went home skipping.
What an excellent way to spend an evening,
Tim
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Granada
Little boys love castles. That's basically the whole of it. Somewhere, deeply ingrained in the male psyche is a calling to build, forts camps, bivouacs, walls, and most of all, castles. Understandably then, a guy such as myself who still has a fair bit of growing up to do, (here's to it never completely happening), goes nuts over the chance to see a good example of medieval, stone-layed, authentic, castle badassery in its real form. This weekend I went to Granada and visited perhaps one of the most epic castles in Europe.
Prior to arriving in the city, I was already bounding with excitement for our visit, which I displayed by passing out for four hours with my trusty travel blanket on the bus. Our first night there featured a walk around the historic city, and through some gorgeous old buildings, the highlight being a tour of a massive cathedral.
Later in the evening, we went to a live flamenco show. Unlike regular dance shows where the audience sits separated from the dancers in seats facing a stage, the room the some seventy present students sat in was small. Its edges were lined with chairs, and a seven foot by thirty foot dance floor stretched across the room. Before the dancers came out, a waiter took drink orders and presented assorted Spanish beers, wine, and water to the audience. Having the band playing ten feet away, and the furiously dancing performers so close that movements of their elbows and decorated canes often came close to grazing my face made the experience unique and memorable.
I finished the night by going out for tapas, a drink of choice served with whatever tasty snack the house happened to be cooking up at the moment. We had about four, each time getting a different entree with our beer. (The beers were cañas, which are effectively only two thirds of a drink, so over the course of two hours we effectively drank very little.) That night I went to sleep with sweet dreams of a castle in mind.
*** At this point I would like to insert a short rant, skip ahead past the stars if that is not your style.***
At about three, our faithful protagonist, me, was awoken by drunken cries and excessive laughs from the next hotel room over. They came from a group of girls who I generally like, and who are certainly great people, but that night were just horrendous. The sounds came and went through the thin doors of our hotel for about two hours keeping me, and probably some others awake. Normally I don't care about losing some sleep and am all for fun, but when the next day is going to involve a lot of walking, and a lot of walking through some of the most amazing views in Spain, I want to be awake. If you're going to get way too drunk on a vacation reader, go have your fun in a damn bar and keep it relaxed back at your hotel.
***End rant***
I got up still a little tired, but ready to go the next morning at seven. Breakfast was an amazing buffet of meats, egg, wheat bread, and all kinds of fresh fruit. Two cups of coffee made me quickly forget what tired even was. It was time to go!
We took a bus over to the Alhambra, (The name of the castle), where we met with our tour guide. She had one of the coolest things I had yet seen for tours, a bunch of earpieces for the tour members to wear so that they could hear her without being anywhere near. (Photo) The one downside was that if she walked more than thirty feet away, half the tour would have to grab their ears in pain and pull away the pieces from the loud static. I just kept mine off when wanting to wander.
The tour threaded through a morning forest coming to life with birds and the Spanish day, and up through a massive gate into the Alhambra. The enterior of the castle is an enourmous complex of gardens, stadiums, dance halls, and sleeping quarters, and we wound our way through all of these. Even the relatively non-touristy Spaniards at the monument held a fearsome array of digital cameras, lens bags, and video cameras to document the experience. The best terms I can offer to describe many of the gardens and steps are preposterously pretty. I have attached a few photos, but they do not do real justice to the scene, especially since my lovely but finicky camera prefers to shoot at low aperture settings, and so does portraits like a champ and landscapes like a loser.
After touring the castle area itself, we left to walk through a series of fascinating and well tended gardens. These were nestled in the hills above the Alhambra, and from then we were able to catch an even better view of the monument. We concluded our tour walking through a springtime grove of trees and hedges, and back to the original area where we had first received our earpieces. My camera died right as I reached the exit gate, having preformed its duty admirably.
I opted to stay in Granada that night. We walked up into a neighborhood across a great green valley from the castle, and looked at it in the night. Spanish towns do something pretty cool with their greatest monuments, which is to focus dozens of spotlights on them to illuminate their forms in orange light in the dark. This effect is augmented because of the energy conservation of the Spanish people, since almost all house-lights are extinguished past eleven.
The park we went to appeared to be a hot spot for the local youth. There were dozens of young people in its square, many drinking from various bottles of alcohol. (This is called botellon in Spain and is illegal, although only to only a mild extent in terms of actual enforcement.) The stars were gleaming all across the night sky, and we could see the city for miles from our perch. We sat there enjoying the moment for half an hour, and walked back home to sleep.
The next day we woke up, walked through the city for an hour, and caught an afternoon bus back to Alicante having immensely enjoyed the weekend.
It feels like traveling might turn out to be pretty addictive,
Tim
Edit: Photos forthcoming, something is wrong with google upload at the moment, so I will continue to try at occasional intervals.
Prior to arriving in the city, I was already bounding with excitement for our visit, which I displayed by passing out for four hours with my trusty travel blanket on the bus. Our first night there featured a walk around the historic city, and through some gorgeous old buildings, the highlight being a tour of a massive cathedral.
Later in the evening, we went to a live flamenco show. Unlike regular dance shows where the audience sits separated from the dancers in seats facing a stage, the room the some seventy present students sat in was small. Its edges were lined with chairs, and a seven foot by thirty foot dance floor stretched across the room. Before the dancers came out, a waiter took drink orders and presented assorted Spanish beers, wine, and water to the audience. Having the band playing ten feet away, and the furiously dancing performers so close that movements of their elbows and decorated canes often came close to grazing my face made the experience unique and memorable.
I finished the night by going out for tapas, a drink of choice served with whatever tasty snack the house happened to be cooking up at the moment. We had about four, each time getting a different entree with our beer. (The beers were cañas, which are effectively only two thirds of a drink, so over the course of two hours we effectively drank very little.) That night I went to sleep with sweet dreams of a castle in mind.
*** At this point I would like to insert a short rant, skip ahead past the stars if that is not your style.***
At about three, our faithful protagonist, me, was awoken by drunken cries and excessive laughs from the next hotel room over. They came from a group of girls who I generally like, and who are certainly great people, but that night were just horrendous. The sounds came and went through the thin doors of our hotel for about two hours keeping me, and probably some others awake. Normally I don't care about losing some sleep and am all for fun, but when the next day is going to involve a lot of walking, and a lot of walking through some of the most amazing views in Spain, I want to be awake. If you're going to get way too drunk on a vacation reader, go have your fun in a damn bar and keep it relaxed back at your hotel.
***End rant***
I got up still a little tired, but ready to go the next morning at seven. Breakfast was an amazing buffet of meats, egg, wheat bread, and all kinds of fresh fruit. Two cups of coffee made me quickly forget what tired even was. It was time to go!
We took a bus over to the Alhambra, (The name of the castle), where we met with our tour guide. She had one of the coolest things I had yet seen for tours, a bunch of earpieces for the tour members to wear so that they could hear her without being anywhere near. (Photo) The one downside was that if she walked more than thirty feet away, half the tour would have to grab their ears in pain and pull away the pieces from the loud static. I just kept mine off when wanting to wander.
The tour threaded through a morning forest coming to life with birds and the Spanish day, and up through a massive gate into the Alhambra. The enterior of the castle is an enourmous complex of gardens, stadiums, dance halls, and sleeping quarters, and we wound our way through all of these. Even the relatively non-touristy Spaniards at the monument held a fearsome array of digital cameras, lens bags, and video cameras to document the experience. The best terms I can offer to describe many of the gardens and steps are preposterously pretty. I have attached a few photos, but they do not do real justice to the scene, especially since my lovely but finicky camera prefers to shoot at low aperture settings, and so does portraits like a champ and landscapes like a loser.
After touring the castle area itself, we left to walk through a series of fascinating and well tended gardens. These were nestled in the hills above the Alhambra, and from then we were able to catch an even better view of the monument. We concluded our tour walking through a springtime grove of trees and hedges, and back to the original area where we had first received our earpieces. My camera died right as I reached the exit gate, having preformed its duty admirably.
I opted to stay in Granada that night. We walked up into a neighborhood across a great green valley from the castle, and looked at it in the night. Spanish towns do something pretty cool with their greatest monuments, which is to focus dozens of spotlights on them to illuminate their forms in orange light in the dark. This effect is augmented because of the energy conservation of the Spanish people, since almost all house-lights are extinguished past eleven.
The park we went to appeared to be a hot spot for the local youth. There were dozens of young people in its square, many drinking from various bottles of alcohol. (This is called botellon in Spain and is illegal, although only to only a mild extent in terms of actual enforcement.) The stars were gleaming all across the night sky, and we could see the city for miles from our perch. We sat there enjoying the moment for half an hour, and walked back home to sleep.
The next day we woke up, walked through the city for an hour, and caught an afternoon bus back to Alicante having immensely enjoyed the weekend.
It feels like traveling might turn out to be pretty addictive,
Tim
Edit: Photos forthcoming, something is wrong with google upload at the moment, so I will continue to try at occasional intervals.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
The camera charger has arrived!!!
Dear reader,
You may have noticed that I have been posting relatively few photographs. Well good news! My battery charger for my Lumix camera arrived in the mail today! I can now take as many pictures as I see fit, and will happily be adding some to this blog. This is exciting, get excited, woooo! (For what it is worth, I have had work, even it was limited, in photography, which last time I checked would make me a pro. So there.)
That is all for now,
Tim
You may have noticed that I have been posting relatively few photographs. Well good news! My battery charger for my Lumix camera arrived in the mail today! I can now take as many pictures as I see fit, and will happily be adding some to this blog. This is exciting, get excited, woooo! (For what it is worth, I have had work, even it was limited, in photography, which last time I checked would make me a pro. So there.)
That is all for now,
Tim
Shortness
Dear readers,
Two days a week a vibrant, crawling market opens in the streets around my apartment complex. The air smells of vegetables, pastries, and fresh fruit, and the happy tones of hundreds of conversations float around in the spring breeze. Walking through the market today I noticed something that, while having seen before, I had not really considered.
Nearly everyone in this part of Spain over the age of 40 is very, very short. I saw this because I was able to look from one end of the market to the other, over hundreds of people, without any real trouble. There are for the most part only old people in my market, and it appears that the average height is around 5`2`` or lower.
I briefly asked my host mother about this, and she agreed on the fact, mentioning that in many other parts of Spain the people are older, but did not seek to explain why. I have no idea either. More interestingly, the younger children in this part of Spain are substantially taller than their parents. Maybe the nutrition in the Spanish adolescent diet has substantially improved since the time of Franco?
At the least I get to feel like Tom Cruise probably did with his Japanese cast in the last Samurai for once,
Tim
Two days a week a vibrant, crawling market opens in the streets around my apartment complex. The air smells of vegetables, pastries, and fresh fruit, and the happy tones of hundreds of conversations float around in the spring breeze. Walking through the market today I noticed something that, while having seen before, I had not really considered.
Nearly everyone in this part of Spain over the age of 40 is very, very short. I saw this because I was able to look from one end of the market to the other, over hundreds of people, without any real trouble. There are for the most part only old people in my market, and it appears that the average height is around 5`2`` or lower.
I briefly asked my host mother about this, and she agreed on the fact, mentioning that in many other parts of Spain the people are older, but did not seek to explain why. I have no idea either. More interestingly, the younger children in this part of Spain are substantially taller than their parents. Maybe the nutrition in the Spanish adolescent diet has substantially improved since the time of Franco?
At the least I get to feel like Tom Cruise probably did with his Japanese cast in the last Samurai for once,
Tim
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