A bit more Gibraltar

Breakfast was included in the Hotel charge and it was not bad at all, I managed to concoct a bircher muesli with the yoghurt and muesli and fruit they had, and although the coffee was not the best, it did have caffeine in it which is the main thing. It also occurred to me that my Spanish was 100 times better than when I had left Australia when I was able to understand the person at the hotel reception. Unfortunately my vocabulary is still nowhere near big enough to hold a good conversation but it is growing.

The business centre of Gibraltar is like an English tourist town, the pubs are all typically English, the menus are typically English, most of the tourists are English but from what I could gather, most of the workforce was Spanish, everyone I spoke to anyway. The history of the Area is violent and the old cemetery has many graves for people who died as a result of injuries received at the battle of Trafalgar. Across the water you can see the coast of Africa, the straight between the two continents is quite narrow and strategically you can see why the British want to keep it and why the Spanish want it. Historically however the Spanish probably have a better case.

The cable car to the top of the rock was a short experience and gave a taste of the views from the top. I had a ticket to go into the attractions around the rock so I meandered my way around the narrow roads and stopped at the cave with its stalactites and stalagmites (to remember which one is which just think that a stalactite has to cling tight to the ceiling) and opens up into a large cavern that has been fitted out as a concert hall, the things to do before I die list has just grown by 1.

The real star attraction however are the apes; you cannot have an open bag or a plastic bag with you as they are very good at stealing food; when they see an open bag or a plastic bag is is a signal to them that a free feed is in the offering. The young were very playful little fellows and of course the grooming of each other (de-lousing) was very common.

The military history of the rock is on display with impressive tunnels and old fortresses. By the time I had walked back down from the top and viewed the sites I was glad that it had lived up to my expectations. It was however just a day trip, and that was probably all I needed, It was time to get even further out of my comfort zone and go to Morocco.

A bit of Granada, A bit of Gibraltar

The Alhambra was built by the Muslim rulers when they occupied the south of Spain. It is a grand old palace with magnificent gardens with water features to match. The symmetry of the structures was was not apparent at first, it appeared to ramble and meander but it became apparent that the structures were very much based on squares, rectangles and right angle triangles. The tour guide, Arik, pointed this out the previous day but to actually notice it you had to look at the parts of the buildings and gardens in isolation. An aerial shot might be a good way to get the idea, when I get home I will try the old google earth to see how it looks from above.

It was a two hour trip around the Alhambra and that was walking fast with a small number of tourists on the site; on the way out the queues to buy tickets were very long and I would hate to try to get around quickly when the place was full. It is an amazing place however and a highlight of the trip. I also gained the benefit of having an English passport, the art exhibition inside was free for EU citizens, even poms.

At the conclusion of the trip around the Alhambra it was time to leave Granada and cross something off the things to do before I die list, Gibraltar.

Hello Gibraltar.

I had a hotel booked in a place called La Linea De La Conception. It was the last town on Spanish soil just before the frontier to Gibraltar. The coach took a few hours to get to the town but on arrival it drove right past the hotel and into the bus station, this was the easiest time I had ever had in finding my accommodation so far. The hotel had the most impressive sounding address so far:

El hotel Asur Campo de Gibraltar
Avenida Principe De Asturias
La Linea de la Conception

On the bus was Nicole from Lake Tahoe in California, the other place where the range is called Sierra Nevada. She was off to Marrakesh in Morocco to find some skiing. I did change my mind about going to Morocco due to the issues in North Africa at the moment, but a chat with her and I changed it again, I was going after Gibraltar.

Although the light was dimming I could not resist dropping into one of the old dart's southern colonies. A bus took me around the island and the very friendly bus driver, who has an aunt living in Warragul in Gippsland Victoria, dropped me off at a pub on the way back. The bus ticked was a return and had written on it from frontier to frontier, which is highly logical and goes very well with the old dad joke:

“I'd like a return ticket please”
“Where to”
“Back here”

All the pubs there make a point of advertising that they are an English pub and they sell English fish and chips, I'm not sure that is something to boast about but with the predominantly English tourist population it is probably very effective advertising. A couple of pints of London Pride and a bowl of “English” chips with salt and vinegar filled the very gaping hole. It was a good sleep that night, I must have walked in excess of 20 kilometres that day and I had to lance another blister on my poor right foot that was suffering terribly.

Sierra Nevada

An early start to day 2 despite the late night at La Buleria saw me having a quick wander around the Alhambra without going inside, that was for tomorrow. Then it was off to the Estacion di Autobus for a trip to the Sierra Nevada mountains. The road was narrow and winding, the bus big and wide but the scenery was spectacular. I got off at a pueblo named Pampaneira. There were two other villages further up but it was only 5 km between the 3 so it was a great uphill hike along another goat track.

Pampaneira is a very attractive pueblo with the typical Muslim architecture and narrow lanes. Apparently when these places were built there was a rule that the roads had to be able to allow for two way traffic, but back then traffic was donkeys. The next pueblo was Bubion which was similar to Pampaneira except with more spectacular views, and last was Capileira with had the same advantages over Bubion that Bubion had over Pampaneira. Between Bubion and Capileira I met some American tourists who were walking down rather than up, they were quite impressed that I did the reverse and had nearly made it to the top in only 50 minutes, I told them that Aussies walk up hill, ski uphill and mountain climb downhill head first without a rope; I'm not sure they believed me. Of course the great advantage to going downhill is that if you get tired you can just lie down and roll the rest of the way.

From Capileiri it was only another 2 km to the river that cut through the valley so me being me I gave that a go also, another goat track and if anyone is interested the rocks were sedimentary. On the way there were some stone huts that apparently served no purpose, they would of course make good accommodation for a lone traveller who could not help himself and continued to walk aimlessly without thought of how to get home.

Later at Capilieri I had about 2 hours for the bus so it was time to relax, the Pizzeria made me a sensational vegetarian pizza with cheese, tomato, capers, mushroom and artichoke. Unlike my experience in Australia, the artichokes were not preserved by pickling in vinegar so they did not put that vinegar taste on the pizza. The accompanying beer (of course) went down superbly with the pizza. The bus stop was only 100 metres away and conveniently next to a fresh water fountain that was fed from a mountain spring, it was a cheap way to refill my water bottle.

On these little and big trips I tend to get infected by ear worms that are appropriate at the time. On this occasion, and on the way up, it was the long and winding road, I suppose I was just lucky that I could not think of any song that described a bus rolling down the side of a mountain killing all the passengers because the driver was on a mobile phone. I really don't like people using their mobile phone when they are driving, it's worse when you have passengers, it's worse again when you have a bus load of passengers, and of course it is worse again when you are navigating the long and winding (and narrow) road.

The hostel had organised a flamenco guitarist to play in the common area that night with food and drink provided, of course high on the tappas menu was jamon (hamon but clear your throat when you say the H). As the only thing there that I could have was cheese I got a discount on the cost of the eveining, I so have to get one of these flamenco guitars (not to mention about 10 years solid practice). After the night was over myself an another Aussie chap whose name I forgot and did not write down (that's why I write everything down, my short term memory tends to be found wanting at times), went back to La Buleria. This time it was packed with locals and the number of performers that descended on the place was double the previous evening, they were playing inside in the bar and outside on the terrace. The locals sang along and danced leaving myself and my fellow Aussie to watch and feel a little inadequate. 3.00 am and the locals were still going strong but the foreigners were not. It was time to go, the next day was a busy one.

Down to Granada

The bus to Granada was long and boring, it kept on stopping in small towns to let people on and off and it was a waste of a day really. If I had have done my homework I would have found an overnight bus so I could have slept and saved on one nights accommodation. I could also have left the evening prior and so had one extra day on my holiday in effect. Oh well, you learn by your mistakes which is why I'm so smart.

The normal email that gives directions to the hostel from the bus station did not arrive so I was flying blind with nothing more that a brochure that showed the location of the Hostel and the surrounding 200 metres with no street names. I was in luck however as within that small locality there was the biggest landmark in Granada called the Alhambra. There was a fellow in a bar near the bus station who pointed me in the right direction, it was about a 4 km walk and I was glad I had a single room that night so I could take my time to sort myself out without disturbing others, the problem with arriving late.

The following morning it was a free guided tour with an Aussie tour guide named Arik, he was normally a professional guitar player and was in Granada to learn how to play Flamenco. He had also done a rehearsal session with Florence and the Machine which was impressive. Also on the tour was Eva, also an Aussie and Amy from New Zealand aye. Eva was couch surfing where you look up people online who are willing to let you sleep on their couch for the night. The website has ratings for each one and photos of the owner/tenant. I assume those without ratings have either not had a customer or none of their customers had survived and were in shallow graves in nearby scrub. I often wonder why murderers always put their victims in shallow graves and not deep ones, perhaps they are lazy by nature.

The tour explained the Muslim history of the area and its eventual conversion to Catholicism and took us around some of the sites that typified the area. At the conclusion it was beer time then back to my solo touring. I agreed to meet Eva and Amy at 830 that evening to see if we can catch some Flamenco. The flamenco tourist scene in Granada is very expensive. We picked up another hitch hiker on the way, Caitlin from Canada, but that made up for the fact that Eva had to cancel due to accommodation issues. I heard from her later so I was happy that she was not in a shallow grave in nearby scrub.

At midnight we descended on a place called La Buleria following a tip from Arik. It could more correctly be called ascended as it was up a fairly steep hill but however. This place is not known by tourists but when the locals but when the Flamenco Performers finish putting on a show at the commercial venues they go to the Buleria and have their own jam sessions. So It was a private and free flamenco show for us. The owner of La Buleria is a very accomplished Flamenco Guitarist but his son is a magician.

The area where La Buleria is situated is on the side of a hill. The houses and bars are in actual fact caves with a facade build onto the front to give the appearance of a house. Inside though there is no mistake, you are in a cave house. 

Valencia Day 2

The following day it was business as usual, the rain did not go away so I got a bit wet walking around but if I wasted the day then I would not get it back and I was off to Granada the following day. The central market was typical of the markets in the other cities, very vibrant and busy, I managed a quick top up for the evening dinner and returned to the Hostel to put it in the fridge and do some washing.

The centre of the arts and science is the hottest modern architecture I have seen, if I was using an old film camera then I would have gone through half a dozen rolls of film, the lineal park must be more that 2 kilometres long and there are a number of those magnificent stone arched Roman bridges crossing it, I have a suspicion that they will still be there long after the more modern buildings we have today crumble into the ground. In the old city I found an artisan at work making a cello. I just caught site of him through the glass door so I knocked and asked if I could take a photo of his studio, very kindly he agreed, he made double bass', violins, cellos and violas. His hand carved head to be fitted to the cello under construction was a very nice piece of sculpture. The whole piece was being constructed in maple, it was the highlight of the day and could not be found in any lonley planet guide.

It was supposed to be a quiet evening in and it was I suppose, it just went on for a lot longer than I had planned. Noemi who was working in Reception joined us followed by Dr David Hutchison a professor of Geology from New York State. If anyone had thought that they had seen the worlds most beautiful woman then they should go the the hostel and take a look at Noemi, I think they would have to re-assess. She could speak English, Spanish and Hungarian. David and I had a great chat about science, he knew more than me of course so I did learn a few things, I also learned that there are two subclasses of igneous rocks. We went through a few of the photos I had of the rock formations in San Sebastian (yes I took photos of rocks because I thought they looked interesting) and he explained the way they were formed and folded.

Later I spoke to Janine and Ryan from Sacremento California. Janine is a union organiser and almost seemed apologetic about it, possibly because of reactions that she has had from others in the past. I think she has much to be proud of, companies pay expensive lawyers to look after their interests so why shouldn't workers have someone to represent them. Those who disagree with unions should give back their 8 hour day and weekends and go get a job in a mine where the only safety equipment is a canary. So my quiet evening stayed quiet until about 1.30 when it was time to hit the sack again.

The next morning was breakfast, pack up and off to the bus stop for the 9 hour trip to Granada. It was now the 24^th of March and my flight from Seville to Dublin was fast approaching. It was time to get my backside down south, hopefully there would be less Aussies and would become exotic again but I seriously doubt it.

Look out Valencia

The bus to Valencia was a great chance to catch up on some sleep. There were still some great scenery and some of the landscape was very similar in appearance to western Victoria, the ground was very rocky and the farm fencing was primarily dry stone walling. If you remember your high school geography you will know that there are 3 types of rock: igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic; the plains of western Victoria are volcanic so the scoria rocks there would have been caused by the cooling of lava and so are igneous, the rocks here appeared to be granite and therefore are also igneous but lack the honeycomb type patterns cased by the gasses present in the scoria when it cooled.   The professor of Geology I was to meet in Valencia would have come in handy on that trip.

The instructions on how to get to the Hostel in the email were very easy to follow so checking in and getting rid of my luggage was relatively easy. A quick trip to the tourist office I was then armed with a map so I had a nice walk around the ciudad antigua got some groceries and went back to the Hostel for dinner and to see what I could do for the evening. The Hostel bar was run by an Aussie named Ashley and his very lovely colleague Daphne. Daphne spoke Spanish, frnch and English, Ashley could speak Aussie and some Spanish, his specialty was swearing. I was beginning to see why I was losing my exotic appeal, those bloody Aussies were everywhere. Maybe I should keep to the small towns in which the Aussies don't frequent. The Hostel was very well run, very clean with great facilities and was up with Vertigo in Marseilles as the best so far. I managed to get the shopping done in Spanish Without hesitating so I am clearly improving, the next day in the market was a similar experience.

I found a bar in the ciudad antigua called the Jimmy Glass Bar and they had an act from New York City called the Pete Robbins Quartet. It was a bit of an issue finding it at first as reading a map without glasses in dull street lighting but as I got closer it just became a matter of following my ears. Pete Robbins was not big in stature but he belted out the sounds from his sax like there was no tomorrow. The guitarist, Nickel Plum, was standing in front of Pete in the queue when they were handing out height, his fingers were like lightning on the fretboard, he was playing a very nice hollow body Gibson. The bass player Simón Jermyn, played a 6 string bass which I don't see very often, the fretboard on those things is ultra wide and boy could he play it. The drummer Kevin Brown forced me to actually believe that a drummer can be a musician, he could have done a solo percussion show without a doubt. They all had a chance to demonstrate their talent individually through the various songs and it was another great night of jazz, more upbeat than the Madrid set the previous evening which is not a criticism of either, just a note of difference. They even managed to fit in their own version of Sweet Child of Mine.

Unfortunately when the gig was over it was wet and windy outside and I managed to get myself a bit mixed up in my directions so I stayed out longer than I needed to.

Madrid, short and sweet

The bus to Madrid was again shortened by some blogging and a lot of sleep. There were of course the magnificent views of the landscape and wind farms. Not sure what the fuss is about in Australia about them being a blight on the landscape, I find them a very interesting and reassuring site seeing these things generating electricity without any unwanted by-products and only a small ground footprint. I'm sure the furry, feathery and scaley animals around these things would prefer that than the continued damage caused by our dirty brown coal generators, so would our children. More pontification from the pontificator.

Madrid was only a whistle stop on my way to Valencia. I would have liked to stay longer but I had higher priorities (literally as I plan to visit Televez which is the highest altitude pueblo in Spain). The hostel in Madrid was relatively quiet when I got there. A couple of young Aussies were there, funny I haven't seen many so far, Brendan and Julia had not long finished university and were doing some travel before getting back to the grind of looking for work. The resilience of people in a crisis is a good way of judging character, Julia had her backpack taken from a hire care not long before I arrived and they were hard at work arranging replacement passports, getting clothing and organising themselves to continue their trip. Some people would have dropped their bundle and maybe even jumped on the next plane home but Julia and Brendan put it down to experience, did what they could to remedy the situation and got on with things.

Madrid is a bit of a party town for tourists although that would be unfair on the city as a whole; it has a very vibrant and mature culture but the backpacker scene is definitely slanted to the young party animal. Mathew from County Kerrie in Ireland was one of those party animals, he was at the front of the queue when they were handing out carefree attitudes, his hobbies are drinking alcoholic substances and arm wrestling. James from Iowa in the good old USA is a lieutenant in the army. He had served in Afghanistan as a private. He liked to party also but had a couple of truckloads more self discipline than Mathew, which is not a criticism of Mathew, there was a lot to like about both of them. I showed James the speech from Lieutenant Colonel Tim Colins to his troops prior to the invasion of iraq, it can be found at : http://journal.dajobe.org/journal/2003/03/collins/

It should be compulsory in every officer training course.

Then there was Isabella from New York, she was going to get a tatoo, when she described to me where she was going to get it (I'm talking anatomically not locality here) I suggested that it should be a titoo. I then received a lesson in female anatomy as to where the chest stopped and the breast started, it was a verbal lesson only. She changed her mind later and decided not to get it.

A large group, 15 at least, of young English backpackers descended on the hostel at about 6.00 pm. The whole nature of the place changed in an instant, they were clearly there to hit the night spots and got themselves well primed (as did Mathew) prior to going out.

I spoke to a fellow named Jaoa from Portugal, he spoke Spanish and Brazilian (Joke Joao if you ever read this, we all know the Brazilians speak Portuguese as do the Portuguese which is logical when you think about it). He was a muso and was in the process of organising a Celtic music festival spanning multiple countries, how cool. He pointed me to a place not far from the Hostel where there would be some Jazz, that started at 9.30 pm. In the interim a group of us went to a tapas bar. The problem with going to places mentioned in those lonely planet travel guides is that they are full of people who read lonely planet travel guides so the place was jammed full of bloody tourists. There was one funny moment though when a German tried to have a conversation with me in Aussie, they don't do the accent very well but he knew all the good lines like “gidday mate” and “shit yeah.”

The Jazz bar had a sensational jazz act playing, the pianist had talent oozing out of his pores and the American guest trombonist was a magician. The rest of the band weren't there for the ride either. I had to take a back step in the exotic stakes at the bar, although as I found out being an Aussie in the more populated areas is hardly new for the locals, they are everywhere, Jodie however is a very nice looking and happy go lucky medical student from Alaska. I was going to ask if she had a 3 bedroom brick veneer igloo at home but I didn't want to appear as dumb as I looked so I resisted. Also sitting with us were cousins Guiomar and Nuria. Guiomar is a Doctor working in an emergency ward and Nuria is an architect. Nuria was at a bit of a crossroads career wise and was in the process of upskilling herself so she could use her architectural knowledge for more public good. They both spoke perfect English and Spanish of course. We were then joined by David another local but he was working in Scandinavia, he is also a blogger so take a look, go to blogspot and search for David Gambarte. Another Dutchman joined us whose name I did not get, he had the ability to talk a lot but he did have a very interesting past so it was all very worth listening to. The Pianist was Guiomar's piano teacher, I wonder if she could play as good as him.

After the band finished we stayed around chatted for quite some time, eventually Guiomar left as she had to be in a fit state to work the next morning, and I suppose with a job like hers it pays to be in control.

Unfortunately it was not a great sleep that night, the poms arrived in very noisey dribs and drabs and Isabella got up early to travel elsewhere. It did not matter that much however as I was due on the bus at 10.00 am. I'm not sure that I gave Madrid as much credit in my mind as I should have, I met some great people and I'm sure if I stay away from the party tourists I could make my next visit longer.

Salamanca day 2

First full day in Salamanca and I had to make the most of that card. I was up early and headed into Plaza Mayor for breakfast and coffee. Inside the square there was a brass band warming up and they were shortly joined by more. Within about 30 minutes there were about 10 bands lined and one at a time they marched out of the square through the streets playing their instruments and dressed in their very elaborate and colourful uniforms. There was quite a large crowd and quite a bit of competition for prime photo locations. It was like the running of the bulls except there were bands instead of bulls. People would stand directly in their path and snap away and remove themselves at the last possible second. The whole spectacle was unexpected which probably added to the pleasure.

What I did fail to do the previous evening though was record the hours of opening for the various places, my well planned route became a number of cross town journeys and even then I only managed to use the card on three of the locations as the rest were either free or ones in which I had no hope of making because their hours of opening were too short and clashed with higher priority locations. I had managed to squeeze about the half the value of the card before the bloody siesta caught me out again, and of course being a Sunday the places did not reopen, oh well an expensive souvenir.

At 2.30 it was time to find a bar to watch the Liverpool game, unfortunately I could only find the Spanish games being shown in the bars and by now the blisters on my poor old right foot were getting a bit painful so I trudged back wondering what the result of the game would be. I stopped at the bar around the corner from the hostel for a coffee and saw they were showing the game I wanted, unfortunately I had spent so much time looking in other places it only had 30 minutes left, but that was enough to satisfy me for a while, in two weeks I get to see them live.

Earlier when I walked around I noticed that there were floodlights. In the paths around the more grand buildings. A walk around at night confirmed that and the various cathedrals and plazas were lit up which made for a some great photo opportunities. After that is was back to the dorm to upload photos and get some sleep for my trip to Madrid the following day.

A young lady from Madrid was the only one left that evening, Stephanie is originally from the island of Sardinia and speaks Italian, Spanish and a little English, she was doing work experience in Madrid and was in Salamanca for a weekend away. She spent the day touring a town near the Portuguese border. When she saw the photos of the brass bands marching through town she exclaimed hoy! In Spanish hoy means today, it is pronounced exactly the same as an Aussie would say oi. Oi is used to get someones attention, oi you! In Spanish you would use oiga, which literally means hear me. Even though my Spanish is improving every day I still can only think in English which means I then have to go through a translation process in my head then speak the words. When I hear someone speak I have to identify the words familiar to me, translate them in my head and piece together something meaningful, I very rarely understand the entire sentence but I get the gist of what they say. Which is of course a long way of saying that I thought Stephanie said oi which was a strange response until the wheels in my head did a few laps and I realised she said hoy in a surprised voice because she did not realise that was happening that morning in the Plaza. We also had a good laugh about sir snore-a-lot and were quite happy that he was on a plane to Germany, over there they call it yodelling.

There was time for one more unexpected event in Salamanca. At about 2 am I again heard snoring and immediately blamed Stephanie, in with the ear plugs and it was then a broken sleep frequently disturbed by the snoring of Stephanie, or so I thought. Sometime in the night, and it was after midnight as that is when I went to sleep, a new guest managed to sneak into the room and claim the bed in the corner near Stephanie's, it was that chap who was impersonating a drove of pigs. In any event I left for the bus stop prior to either of them waking up so I left Stephanie in the room with the drove of pigs and went to the bus stop to go to Madrid.

Salamanca

It was an early bus from Vallodalid the next morning but I was happy to be out, staying in a hotel is not very social so I didn't meet anyone and the town did not really offer a great deal. A few hours later I was in Salamanca, I immediately loved the town when I saw a street sign that said turn right for Portugal.

I did not have any breakfast prior to leaving Vallodalid so I ordered a vegetable sandwich at the cafe in the bus station. I was not exactly sure what to expect from a vegetable sandwich and technically I could not fault the lettuce and asparagus but tomato is a fruit and egg is neither a fruit or a vegetable. I suppose if the resultant life form that would have been produced had the egg been fertilised been severely brain damaged then it could be classed as a vegetable. There were two problems with that though, the first is that it would have been pure speculation and required the passing of a lot of variables between fertilisation and birth, the second is that the word vegetable would be describing the quality of life of the hen or rooster after birth, not a noun labelling of the muscle tissue as meat; so I rejected any thought of the egg being classed as a vegetable. Rejecting the tomato is technical but it is a fruit as are pumpkin and melons and anything else where you eat the seed and or the seed container.

They use the white variety of asparagus in Spain as opposed to the green variety that is predominant in Australia. Now to a mind like mine the white asparagus resembles an organ that is commonly found on male people, uncommonly found on females and commonly found on people claiming to be females. The name white asparagus is not really accurate, it is more of a flesh tone. The fact that about 2 cm of this phallic vegetable was sticking out of the bread made the first bite very awkward indeed.

It was about a 2 kilometre walk to the Hostel which was a bit laboured with the backpack weighing me down, but the sites of the town made the walk an absolute delight; the old town is almost entirely constructed of the bone coloured stone and magnificently preserved, there was enough urban decay to keep me happy as well and they even made use of some of this decay as a feature. If Adelaide is the city of churches then this place is the city of Adelaides, they were everywhere and each one of them filled with very elaborate stone carvings on the walls, over and around the doorways.

The Hostel was perfectly place on the south west corner of the old town, I was however too early for check in so I dumped my bag with reception and set out camera in hand. First stop was the local bar for some coffee and toast. I know my Spanish is not that good but it's not that good but bloke behind the bar I found very difficult to understand; ordering a coffee and toast was easy enough but the local accent was different to what I was accustomed to and so I had great difficulty with the rest. Things improved somewhat when he asked where I was from and I told him Australia. All of a sudden I was exotic which changed the conversation completely and he started to use simpler words and speak clearer. I had not been exotic for a couple of days now and was starting to have withdrawal symptoms and suffering from relevance deprivation syndrome.

There are not many English speaking Spanish people in Salamanca compared with the other towns I have been to. That coupled with the local difference in the way they spoke made life more difficult but was a very cleverly disguised blessing. In the two days I was there my ability to listen and respond improved more than in the previous week.

After a quick coffee and bite at the local bar I zig-zagged my way to the Plaza Mayor (may – your). Plaza Mayor is a big open space surrounded on all 4 sides by an identical structure containing restaurants. The outdoor tables were blazed in sun and there were people everywhere. It was at one of these restaurants where I decided that my difficulty with the language was a local accent, the waiter was just as difficult to understand as the barman but I did get my glass of beer because ordering a beer in Spanish is one thing I can do, I am also extremely practiced in ordering red and white wine.

I must of taken 50 photos in the couple of hours I had and but at about 2.00 pm the siesta caught me out and it was time to check into the hostel and do my laundry. The wireless internet at the Hostel was very poor and could only really be received when standing in reception. I had done a considerable amount of writing on the bus from Vallodalid and more whilst waiting for the washing to be complete but posting it onto my blog was not really practical.

I now know why washing machines a fully automatic; in the hostel situations it is wise to stay with your washing so that when it is complete you can remove it immediately and free up the machine for someone else. I would have hate to have been around in the days when it was manual, it takes a long time, especially when you are using a dryer also.

There is a central market next to the Plaza Mayor from which I got some very nice and extremely strong locally made cheese, it was similar to a parmegiano in texture. I do have a real objection though to these fresh food markets, not just in Spain because we do it in Australia also; The site of obviously still half alive (dead) crabs and lobsters is appalling. We do not have half dead cows or sheep in butchers, if we did people would object at the appalling suffering of the animals, I don't know who decided that the suffering of an animal from the sea is less valid than the suffering of a land creature but I would love to find that person and lie them down on a bed of ice in a market stall for few hours. Every now and again I feel the need to digress slightly so I can pontificate. The cheese and the half empty (wine bottles can never half full unless they are in the process of being filled, a half empty bottle of wine is always a site that can only bring pessimistic thoughts) also helped to fill in time whilst sitting the lavanderia using the lavandera to wash my clothes.

The visual of the town of Salamanca increased my curiosity somewhat about its history so I purchased a Salamanca Card which gave me entry into all museums and places of public interest that required an entry fee. I never used it straight away of course as there was a certain matter of a rugby game being shown on the big screen in the Irish bar near Plaza Mayor. I was amazed at how many local Spanish people like rugby, in Zaragoza there were only about 7-8 people in the bar to watch the game, in Salamanca there were 50-60.

With the game done and dusted, and half of the second game, it was back to the hostel to organise my day for tomorrow. The hostel had 20 bed mixed dorms but people tended to keep within their groups. I went through the guidebook and planned a route through the city to get to the various museums and make the most out of that card for which I paid 16 euros. I had another sir snore-a-lot but not quite the drove in the Zaragoza dorm so the earplugs I saved from the plane trip to Abu Dhabi did the job.

Valladolid day 2

I knew as soon as I was in Europe that I seemed to dress differently to the locals. The people in Milan, Marseilles and every place so far in Spain all dressed better than me, they all had button up shirts, trousers or jeans and jackets, leather jackets are very popular. I wear baggy cargo pants and T shirts almost regardless of the weather. On my first morning in Vallodolid it was 3 degrees Celsius but the sun was up, no clouds and the forecast was 17 degrees, T shit weather. So baggy cargoes, bright yellow T shirt, white cross trainers and out I went. I not only got the usual strange looks from the relatively well dressed and rugged up locals but the attention of the police. Another awkward conversation with my Spanglish and his Spanish I worked out he wanted to know if I was a local. I told him I was a tourist from Australia and that seemed to satisfy him, visual discrimination I call it.

The tourist office was very helpful and before long I was on a bus to the pueblo (village) of Penafiel, the “n” is supposed to have a tilde across the top giving it a “nya” sound, pen-ya-fee-el. At the top of the hill overlooking the pueblo is the magnificent castle built by (for) Don Juan Manuel, he later became a waiter at a small hotel in Torquay England when he was short of cash. No one in this town spoke English so it was a bit of a challenging day, for some reason buying two bananas for breakfast was a bit of a no no as the woman in the shop tried to stop me from breaking two off a bunch:

“Dos solo por favor”
“Dos kilos”
“No dos, para desayuno”

She then muttered something unintelligible and gave me two, never argue with a fruiterer wielding a knife.

The main industry of this town involves repeating a biblical miracle, they change water into wine by pouring it onto grape vines, growing the grapes, harvesting the grapes, crushing them to extract the juice, fermenting it in barrels then putting in a bottle; it's a bloody miracle.

The sensational old castle at the top of the hill is now a wine museum. I was in heaven, the ruins of an old castle surrounded by vino, all I needed was a surf beach out the front and I think I would have stayed there forever.

The siesta caught me out again, I was going to walk around the local wine centres in the town but at 2.00 they all closed, in the end I decided not to wait the 2 hours for them to open again so it was on the bus back to Vallodalid and a lazy afternoon doing not much.

Vallodalid

San Sebastian was the best location so far in Spain, the weather was not kind but I got to walk in the steps of Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington, see some of the most magnificent scenery and meet some great people.

The bus to Vallodolid took over 5 hours, 6 if you include the stops and unfortunately by the time evening came around I had seen everything worth seeing.

I took the opportunity of seeing the doctor at the local community clinic whilst I was there as I had been suffering with a sore throat and ear. I rehearsed my lines impeccably:

“Tengo dolor en mi garganta y oreja”

But of course when it came time to use them in anger I fluffed them somewhat and had to play mimes to get the ear included. I also stuffed up a bit (lot) in the conversation, I didn't realise it at first but the very attractive young female doctor did; in Spanish “but” is pero and “dog” is perro, the difference is the roll of the double R. So I spent the entire stuttered conversation saying dog instead of but. It all comes from overcompensating, not being used to rolling the R I tend to practice it a lot and it becomes almost a habit to do. Note to self.....

A brief drink and tapas and early night was required, for some reason the bus trip tired me out.

San Sebastian day 2

The following day I walked in the opposite direction up a hill and along some country lanes. If you replace the eucalypts in the dandenongs with birch and oak then it would be quite similar. I'm not a horticulturalist or agriculturalist or any sort of culturalist for that matter, I do know beetroot when I see it however and that was beetroot growing through the cracks in the sidewalk. There was a little isolated spot that people used to offload their crap instead of disposing of it properly, people do shit in their own backyard here also.

After a very long and tiring walk it was good to get back for some lunch. There was a small matter of booking a bus ticket and getting some food on the way. It is actually very relieving to talk to someone with no English skills whatsoever because it puts the onus on me to speak Spanish. Finding the bus stop was easy and after a brief conversation with a local and the application of the very useful “habla mas lento pro favor” I found the ticket office just around the corner. A brief stop at the most magnificent delicatessen for some rice, mushrooms and bread and a cheap bottle of red it was back to the hostel. On the way back there was a hardware shop with a cork screw that fits onto a drill, when I get home I'm going to get one of them, I could fit it to my air drill and keep my compressor in the kitchen.

A new pair of poms had arrived in my absence; Kiera from Devon and Mim from Nottingham. It was disappointing that kiera wasn't chewing on a piece of straw and wearing an old straw hat, I though everyone in Devon did that. They were wwoofing which stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. According to http://www.wwoof.org/

“In return for volunteer help, WWOOF hosts offer food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic lifestyles”

Cheap farm labour by the sounds of it, in the USA they call them Mexicans.

Kiera had an issue with her rear bike brake so after lunch I went out to take a look, my conclusion was it needed a new cable so Kiera had to take it to the bike shop. I then set out on another walk in the opposite direction from the morning stroll. I did notice what looked like a light house on top of a hill on the peninsula to the west of the old town. The walk was very steep past the rich houses along a road that did not really cater for pedestrians. At the top was a fairground of sorts, the cloud was very low and the park was not operating. They still charged me 1 euro 80 to get in, why I'm not sure, I suppose if it keeps the gate keeper in employment then I don't mind paying.

Walking around a deserted amusement park in low lying cloud is a very eerie thing to do. I half expected a clown to come out chasing me with a chainsaw whilst laughing uncontrollably, the fact that it was a bit of a disappointment when one didn't made me question my sanity somewhat. There were some ruins at the bottom of the cliff that looked like they had a track leading down to them. I walked along the road in the general direction of the ruins and found there was another entry gate at the other end of the park. After another difficult conversation with the other gatekeeper who assured me that San Sebastian was down that road I felt safe to take that course of action. If she was wrong of course I would have had to pay another 1.80 to backtrack.

About 1 km down the road I found the track to the ruins, it was a goat track at best and made me wish I had proper hiking boots if only for the grip. It took only 10 minutes of walking to the site, it would have been only 5 if the goat track had some grip; it appeared to be a landing harbour for row boats but I could not find anything on google, and if google doesn't know then who does? Walking back up the goat track was just as treacherous but in the end I managed both directions without mishap.

Kiera got her bike fixed and it was the brake cable, I love being right. Some cheese and cheap red wine and back to the pub to watch Real Madrid v Lyon. I had a 7.40 bus trip to Vallodolid the next morning so it was a very easy night.

San Sebastian

The bus to San Sebastian was about 4 hours but it went very quickly thanks to copious amounts of sleep. The hostel was different to the others, more like a shared apartment. Christina, Gordon and Sarah were the hosts, Gordon and Sara were American.

An immediate tour of the town was in order, old buildings, urban decay and a surf beach, what more do I need, sun! At the top of a hill overlooking the entrance to the harbour there is a fort built by Napolean; well not by Napolean personally, I'm sure he, like Augustos, had access to cheap labour. I'm not sure how the Duke of Welly managed to kick the French out it was certainly a robust and imposing structure with a number of canons. The battle that saw Napolean defeated at San Sebastian destroyed the old town and it was rebuilt in the early 1800s.

The local Basque language is totally different from the Spanish languuage. They use the letter x a lot and they form their letters differently, if I had to guess I would say it had Greek origins but no one could tell me and factual information about the origin of the language. They have a strange drink here called Kolimotxo (kol-ee-mo-cho) which is red wine and coke, not sure what they see in it personally it made a perfectly good drop of red taste like a perfectly bad drop of red mixed with coke.

It was off the bar that evening with a young German chap and Gordon and Sarah from the Hostel to watch football. We were later joined by a French/Canadian couple from the hostel and a pair of Russians ladies. This was very exciting to me because when I got asked a question with a “yes” answer I got to say jawohl, oui, da, si to cover all basis. I can't claim to have invented the line, infact it came from an episode of Get Smart, but I think I could claim to be the first one to have used it legitimately.

Zaragoza day 2

The collective noun for pigs is drove; one of the people sharing my dorm sounded like a drove of pigs the way he snored. I was in and out of sleep until 4.00 am when I gave up and slept on a couch downstairs. I found the other two room mates having breakfast later in the morning complaining about the drove of pigs in the room. the weather was also quite bad so it was time to get out the running gear and jog around the town.

Parque Tio Jorge was very impressive and shortly after I was running along a path that followed the Grand Imperial Canal. Whilst the Canal was impressive I think if I were a Ceaser I would have built it wider than the river, not because it was necessary but because I could. I'm sure Augustos had access to cheap labour, but he did choose practicality over vanity on this occasion. Not much to see running west, an old shot tower that I concluded was used during the inquisition, if you drop the head of a non believer from the top it would be perfectly catholic by the time it reached the bottom. Running in the other direction there were some more Roman sites but after two and a half hours of running my legs were telling me it was time to go back.

Another cold shower then off to the Estacion di autobus to book a fare to San Sebastian. I found that the busses were about one third of the fare of the trains which was worth the extra hour or so in travel time. The train from Barcelona to Zaragoza was 55 euros whilst the bus to San Sebastian was only 22 euros. That sorted and Zaragoza done it was time for a lazy evening, i found out that the drove of pigs was still staying in the hostel so the staff kindly gave me a single room at no extra cost; sleep was somewhat easier that night.

I am finding however a less social clientèle in the hostels as the trip goes on.

A wet Lazy day in Barcelona and a trip to Zaragoza

Sunday was a lazy day mainly due to rain. I managed to get myself a local SIM fro my mobile phone thanks to the very helpful Dani from the Vodaphone shop. Although he spoke good english we managed to get the job done in spanish, es muy importante hablo Espanyol, pero habla mas lento por favor. I booked accomodation in Zaragoza and a train then walked around the main town, some washing back at the hostel and an evening in the bar with Ronald. Anna came by and had a drink with us but had exams the following Monday so was not in a position to indulge, diet coke only. It did seem like a bit of a waste spending the day not doing much it was good to slow down for one day (if not the evening).

Bye Bye Barca

Barcelona Sants Estacion has security like an airport. No one was allowed on the platforms until just before boarding and baggage was put through an x-ray device. There were a lot of Americans on the trip and a few locals and one hombre exotico. The train reached a very impressive 300 kilometres per hour and I got to Zaragoza very quickly. Some directions to the hostel from the very helpful lady at the officina di tourismo, a short bus ride and a short walk later I found the hostel. This is getting easier.

Zaragoza is an amazing place, as long as i can walk down down narrow streets with blistered feet and take pictures of old things then I am happy. The Roman ruins are gave me some excellent photo opportunities and some of the more recent buildings weren't far behind. Once again God had the prime real estate, I wonder how his property portfolio went during the GFC. The more recently built bridge of the river was a rather plain structure whereas the one that was built quite some time earlier by the Romans was an absolutely magnificent structure structure of stone with imposing arches.

I ended up in an Irish pub again to watch the rugby, England v Scotland. The poor barman was Scottish and had to put up with a bar full of poms whilst expecting to be on the receiving end of a flogging. As it turned out the match was quite close but that didn't stop the patrons from giving the barman a hard time. After a brief chat with Merick and his lovely girlfriend Vincenta I went back to the Hostel. Merick was a pom living in Zaragoza; he worked as an English teacher and and was a singer in a band, even poms can be interesting.

The basement to the hostal was a large open room with an arched roof. They had a Jazz evening going.I got some Spanish lessons from Ella and Blanka, a couple from Zaragoza who were both intensive care doctors at the local Hospital. The band was fronted by Natalia Calderon who had a great voice and looked good in the process. I recommend everyone check out her music at myspace, natliacalderonjazz, very worthwhile.

Barcelona Day 1

I met my room mate the next morning, he arrived when i was asleep but was very considerate. His name was Dag, pronounced daaarg, if he ever visits Australia he will be most grateful that dag is also used as a term of endearment. Dag was from Sweden and was heading to Lisbon with his bike for 2 weeks riding. He never quite made it day one however as there was only one train on which he was allowed to take his bike and that had left. He was succesful day 2 however, I hope he had better weather at his destination location than Barcelona was having.Australian farts smell differently that Spanish farts, I know this because everyone on the bus was giving me strange looks and visually accusing me of being the offender who released the distasteful odour in the bus. They were correct of course but I'm not sure how they decided it was the bloke in the red T shirt. I suppose if you are going to fart in a crowded bus then you have to face the consequences. In my defence however it was an accident and society was to blame.

Parque Gaudi was the first stop via autobus numero sessenta y cuatro. I have been teaching myself Spanish for a while now but this was the first chance to test it on native Spanish speakers. My most useful phrase taught to me by the very helpful, and as I was later to find out the most social, Ronald was habla mas lento por favor or speak more slowly please. Ronald was a native of the Netherlands and spoke dutch, English, Spanish and French. The bus stop was only 5 minutes walk from the hostel as was the excellent metro system, so far the 3 cities I have been in are spoiled for public transport, Melbourne could learn a lot from these cities although the population densities no doubt change the economics.

The evil bus driver took me about 2 kilometres past my stop which was entirely my fault of course, but blame shifting is a good way make yourself feel better when you stuff up. I back tracked on foot to Parque Gaudi, the 2 kilometres was not an issue but it was unfortunately uphill also. I hope none of those blisters on my feet burst, I could imagine walking would be quite painful if that happened. The parque was bursting with tourists; it was an amazing spectacle of architecture and the mosaics were absolutely captivating. One added advantage of the location was the commanding views over the city of Barcelona. The tiered gardens were also quite magnificent. The place was alive with flamenco guitarists and people selling crappy souvenirs probably made in China.

One interesting fact that came out of the trip to Parque Gaudi was that the higher up you go the fewer American and Japenese tourists there are. When I got to the top tier of the park to take some scenery photos there was a complete absence of them.

The remainder of my day was mainly walking downhill through some very social plazas, and through the beautiful old town district. Lunch was at a cafe called Bember where they spoke very little english. One of the things I had to ask people was to please talk to me in Spanish so I could continue the learning process. This wasn't a problem in Bember in fact the reverse was true, trying to get tapas vegetariano proved to be a lengthy affair but I got there in the end. The waiter, Nestor, came over later to find out where I was from, he did speak some english and proved a very useful teacher. Some blanched almonds, vegetable soup, mushrooms and two glasses of vino blanco later it was time to go. The staff kindly posed for a photo as I left.

The main market in Barcelona was the highlight of the day, the mushroom stall had some very strange varieties that we would not see in Australia (and some we would). I'm sure with enough time and patience you could poke a stick at all of them but you would need lots of both. The stall holders had a definite sense of artistry in the way they arrange their fruit and vegetables, it seemed a shame to buy them and upset the . Next door was "Hogan's" an aussie bar in Barcelona. They had Fosters Lager on tap but apart from that and the plastic crocodile on the wall it was not really very aussie. The two bar staff were also not from Australia, Ursula was from Slovenia and Lisa from Sweden; the Irish bar in Marseille at least had more than one Irish beer on tap. I bought an Argentinian beer solely because I have never had it before and left a short time later. Not that there was anything wrong with the place in general but I was there to look at Barcelona not the inside of an Aussie bar with a Jewish owner staffed by a Slovenian and a Swede serving Argentinian beer to poms.

The old part of the City of Barcelona is made up of beautiful old buildings shading narrow lanes. The general cleanliness of the place was a start contrast to Marseille and Milan. Milan wasn't that dirty, just full of dog poo; Marseille had slightly less dog poo (and one slightly flattened dog poo) but there was a fair amount of rubbish in the streets. Barcelona had no dog poo or rubbish, the former of which was probably assisted by relatively small number of dogs compared with the other two cities.


New Room mate Ronald and I went to a bar near the hostel for some relaxing drinks and food in the evening.  Ronald spoke Spanish, Dutch and French and is a wallpaper hangeruperer, he does not like the title interior decorator because they have a reputation that he was not willing to have associated with himself.  For some reason the poem from Robert Lowell called "Skunk Hour" sprung to mind because of the line

"And now our fairy decorator brightens his shop for fall." 

So Ronald hangs wallpaper, not the cheap stuff you get in a local hardware but a high quality vinyl product with a very intricate textured mosaic pattern.  He was in Barcelona hanging paper in a fertility clinic, his description of the interior of the clinic made it sound a very interesting place.  Ronald also plays curling, so his denials about his sexuality are on shakey ground but he still gets the benefit of the doubt supported by evidence of his wandering eyes when nice young ladies walk through the bar.

We were Joined by Romina, a tennis coach originally from Essex in England but living locally and Anna who was an engineering student in Barcelona.  I'm not sure what the English know about tennis, apart from being the inventors of the game, but Spain has been far more succesful in recent (and not so recent) times.  I'm not sure if Romina is the reason for their success but if I were her I would be making that claim.  Romina could speak Spanish and English of course, Anna could speak Spanish, French and, despite her claims that she was not that good at it, quite good English.  We got back to the hostal at about 1.30 am but we had to be quiet as Dag was sound asleep.  It was a big day and the blisters on my feet were getting bigger.

Bye Bye Marseille

I got to personally farewell Nehjma, Flossy and Ehouarn the following morning then I headed off to the railway station to catch my train to Barcelona. I really would have liked to have said farewell to Kara also, we got along like a house on fire, but circumstances worked against us seeing each other again. I have since tried to find her on facebook to no avail, I hope she either finds my profile or reads this blog and leaves me a message. Kara was at a crossroad in her life but I know she will be fine.

As the train pulled out I bid farewell to Marseille, the city of beautiful scenery, the worlds best hostel, people that could charm a field full of cobras, bollards and dog poo (one personally endorsed by me).
The trip was uneventful although the things to do before I die list did get horribly long, I do really have to stop looking out of windows. I did get to do a lot of writing and I did get to meet the previously mentioned Patricia Lopez ROK.

I was asked for my passport at the French Spanish border by a group of Police, one of them found out I was from Australia and wanted to talk rugby to which I duly obliged. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I was out of bed at an ungodly hour cheering England on only 2 weeks earlier as they defeated France at Twickenham; I think I would have got that body cavity search and a bit of torture if I did.

I changed trains at Figueres Vilifant for the Barcelona leg. That morning Flossy told me that the rail guage in Spain in different from the rest of Europe so the train could not go continuously; sounds like the old problem we had with trains going from Victoria to New South Wales. As mentioned previously the muy guapa Patricia helped me with the handwriting of my new friends from Marseille. When we arrived at Barcelona Sants Patricia very kindly pointed me in the right direction for the metro train to my Hostel.

Trying to buy a train ticket should be easy, deme un billete de tren para Maria Cristina por favor. Unfortunately the reply was at 2 million lilometres per hour and totally unintelligible to me. I now have a very useful phrase in Spanish also, habla mas lenta por favor, please speak more slowly, hopefully that will prove more succesful than parle vous Anglaise ever did. Fortunately for me the printer behind the ticket counter was not working and one staff memeber was looking a little frustrated. One fixed printer later I was given a free ticket and pointed in the right direction by a very grateful staff member; once again I used my power for niceness instead of evil and was duly rewarded.

I had no idea where to go once I got to Maria Christina so I just walked aimlessly until I found a lovely plaza with a nice bar and tables in the sun. After about two hours of talking to the lovely Maite from Bilbao who spoke Spanish, Basque and English we were joined by my new unofficial tour guide Maria, there are a lot of Marias in Spain. Maria basically lived next door to the Hostel and offered to show me where it was. Maria also wrote a list of things to do in Barcelona, some of the nicer towns to visit as I wandered around Spain and a complete guide to vegetarian eating in Spanish. Arise Maria Royal Order of the Koala. My supply of Koalas is running out so I will have to ration them somewhat in future.

Despite arriving in Barcelona at 2.30 pm I did not get into the Hostel until about 9.30 pm, it is a very social place Barcelona. Hostel Pere Trarre's is very clean, quiet the beds comfortable. This time I was on a bottom bunk so no mountain climbing equipment needed. I was the only one in the room but after I had been asleep for an hour someone else checked in but was very quiet and considerate. It was a very good night's sleep and much needed after the festivities of Marseille.

Marseille day 3

Heading out in the opposite direct down every narrow stairway, lane, alley and dead end street and taking numerous photos I headed back at about 3.00 pm to clean out my camera again and have my own siesta. Unfortunately the staff wanted to clean room 8 after I had only a 30 minute snooze.

With that plan ruined I headed west along the beach. The west of Marseille along the beach is the most magnificent visual I could have imagined. Every corner produced more incentive to keep walking and to keep taking pictures. I was very happy that the cleaning staff woke me up, without that I would not have made my way along this stretch of coast line. If anyone only had one day in Marseille, then this would be the place to see.

Back at the hostel Camille was very happy with he way her interview went and was given sufficient indication that she was succesful to allow herself to be congratulated and to celebrate. Joining us was Ehouarn, Flossy, Camille of course as the guest of honour, Nejhma and Samuel. We also had a brief visit from Fatiha and Fidy of whom I knew nothing about. Nejhma was working in Marseille although I never did find out what she did besides look good and laugh a lot. Ehouarn was also working in Marselle and was also not too bad in the kitchen. Accompanied by Wine (lots), cheese, bread, salad we settled in for the long haul. Conversation was mainly in French so Camille, Flossy and Samuel translated for me. Ehouarn had some basic English skills as well so whilst I did not understand entirely what was going on, for the most part I was kept informed.

Samuel is an interesting character, he spoke French, English and Spanish , he also managed to sleep through the Spanish party the previous evening so he wondered what all the fuss was about. The only disaster was Nejhma attempting English with a mouth full of lettuce.

Camille, Nejhma and Flossy were admitted to the Royal Order of the Koala.

It was a humbling experience to have a table full of people write you a farewell message in your notepad.

Some wrote in French and some in English.

Nejhma: Philippe un Australian parmis les Francais venant d' un peu pas partout, meia de ne pas demander ou

Camille: Just one stuff (thing), keep a room free for me! See you in Melbourne

Ehouarn: Bonsoir Philippe. Bienvenue en FRANCE, on ne t'aura pas connu longtemp. Mais tu nous fait rever avec ton voyage en Europe. Merci encor pour ta benne humeur et tes grand geux ouvert sur le monde

Translating their handwriting to type this was very difficult, they did have a lot to drink and that probably made their writing worse. I have the lovely Patricia Lopez to thank for helping me whilst we sat next to each other on the train between Figueres Vilifant and Barcelona Sants. Patricia is from Barcelona but works in France, she can speak Spanish, French, English and Catalan. She also wrote me a message:

Pues te vos a dour una buena vuelsta a Europe en 60 dias! increible y sobretodfo, sin sin panar! Buen Corage.

PD: Tu hija es muy guapa

I'm sure my daughter will be happy about the last line.

From this day forward she is now to be known as Patricia Lopez ROK.

Samuel learned that going for a cigarette was going outside for a fag and that it was grouse, so I wasn't the only one learning.

Marseille day 2

Tuesday the 8th of March was my first full day in Marseille. The breakfast at the hostel was a very social affair in total contrast to the hostel in Milan. I was very sluggish after the previous evening and nursed down some coffee and muesli but found that laughing does cure hangovers. We exchanged some horror hostel stories and the clear winner was a young Irish lady who was sharing a dorm with an older woman and her daughter in Nice. The woman had a portable hikers stove and every morning regardless of whether or not others were sleeping she would cook eggs, breaking them by banging them against a window. There was howling agreement that Vertigo was the best hostel we were likely to find which meant that from my point of view it was all downhill from here.

I started around the port and made my way to a little cafe and bar for a strong espresso followed by an aimless but purposeful walk around the city armed with my new digital camera. A tip for people, date and time stamps on photos look stupid and if you are going to use them make sure that the date and time is correct.

Marseille is characterised by narrow lanes which double as busy thoroughfares and bus routes, positively charming urban decay, dog poo but not to the same levels as Milan, and bollards. I think that the bollards are the only defence mechanism against people parking where they shouldn't. Wherever there was not a bollard to stop cars mounting the sidewalk, there was a car parked there, anything went, if your car would fit then it was a legitimate parking place.. Whoever manufactured bollards in in Marseille is probably enjoying a very comfortable retirement.

I spent the day walking around the town aimlessly but with a purpose. Around one narrow lane a couple of young guys were involved in a fight over a mobile phone, as I got around the corner they stopped and sheepishly explained what they were doing. Apart from the mobile phone bit I had no what they were saying so I replied with a "no parli francais, Australian," to which one of them took up the human kangaroo pose and said "kangaroo," oui was my reply; all of a sudden they were all smiles and chatting among themselves making stupid kangaroo motions as they walked off. With great power comes great responsibility and on this occassion I can say that I used my exoticness for niceness and not evil. It also dawned upon me that kangaroo sounds very nice when the letter R is softly rolled and the stress is on the last syllable.

Melbourne may have China town but Marseille has Africa Town, rows upon rows of shops selling African food, clothes, furniture and trinkets. Without being disparraging the area had the feel and look of a shanty town with a chaotic mish mash of different stores in run down narrow streets. It was fascinating and I would advise anyone to go there if they visit Marsaille; not that I could give you directions because I did not have a clue where I was in relation to the Hostel.

I found that the most useful question I could ask anyone was "parle vous Anglaise" to which the most useless and most common answer was "No." That said I I always managed to get by, it just took patience. Reading the local signage and pronouncing the words out loud was a great way to learn some basic vocabulary and clear my throat at the same time.

Finally I made my way up to the grand cathedral at the top of a cliff and overlooking the world. God really knows the three Ls of real estate. It was most certainly a grand building and whoever did the fitout should come and help me renovate my bathroom. Far and away the most impressive feature however was the comanding 360 degree views over the water and land. Not far out was the Island that was one of the locations used by Alexander Dumas in his novel the Count of Monty Cristo. The trip up to the cathedral produced some great photo opportunities along the narrow streets with their buildings accesses that I would describe as quaint at the risk of offending people, but unfortunately I can't think of a more appropriate word, anyway quaint is good. I b ecame a victim of dog poo on the way back from the cathedral.  Yes Marseille has the same problem as Milan but on a smaller scale, possibly because their dogs are smaller.  I did manage to prevent myself from putting my full weight down on the squishy mash but I did leave my tread pattern in it.  Oh well, all that time walking around doggy poo streets and only falling victim once was probably not a bad outcome.

Getting back to the Hostel was a relatively simple affair; if you want to find water then walk downhill and keep doing so until your feet get wet. Which of course means that if you continually walk uphill you will get more tired more quickly. It was time to empty my camera and start the process all over again. I do need to carry a watch though because I had been walking for eight and a half hours. Job done and a refreshing (warm) shower I had a chat with Flossy who wanted to go to the bar and watch Barcelona V Arsenal in the Eurpoean Champions League. We got a new guest in our room, Camille was from New Caledonia, spoke French and English and was in Marseille for an entrance interview to study Osteopathy very exotic.

The bar was full and a few of our fellow hostel guests were also there. Unfortunately for Flossy his beloved Arsenal were on the receiving end of a flogging and a few bad refereeing decisions. The day was over, my legs were tired, Flossy was not happy bed beckoned. Unfortunately the Spanish guests in the room next door thought that a party until 3 am was more attractive to them than sleep, perhaps they had an afternoon siesta and so were not feeling as tired as the poor suffering souls in Room 8. The following morning at breakfast was a hate session for the people in room 9 and the unanimous decision was to take them into the middle of the harbour and use them as crab bait if they did it again. Fortunately for us and them they left that morning and were never heard from again.

Arrivedeci Milano, Bon Jour Marseille

Centrale Stazione is very big and the intercity train from Milan to Ventimiglia was very long. It was allocated seating so i was in a cabin with some locals who played cards and ignored everyone else (me) for the few hours we were stuck together. They did get off in Genova which does look like it is worth a visit one day. The train pulled out bang on time and with that I did bid farewell to Milan; city of grand architecture, Juliet balconies, friendly people, angry pizza cooks and dog poo. Milan was just a whistle stop on the way to Barcelona, next time it will be a destination.

I don't know if the views from the train are captivating or just so different to me that despite being relatively ordinary to those familiar with the country. I suspect that it is a bit of both but the spectacular backdrops and views over villages and the Mediteranean made it worth the extra it cost over a budget airline. And, just like in good old Oz, the spectacular views were interupted by the compulsory high voltage power lines and the trains and stations had lots of grafitti.

The towns of Finale Ligure, Albenga and Allassio look definately worth a visit one day. Albenga had a magnificent snow capped backdrop and the tropical feel along the beach with it's Canary Island and Washington palms. Allassio was full of magnificent stone buildings along the beach and houses all the way up the steep backdrop. The problem with travelling from A to B is that you have to make do with fleeting glimpses of A.1, A.2 etc, despite the temptation. The best thing I could do was take note and put them on the things to do before I die list.

I had to swap in Ventimiglia for a train to Nice, The scheduled arrival of the train I was on and the departure of the connecting train left me with only 10 minutes to orientate myself and find my way. This was exacerbated by the fact that the train to Ventimiglia was 10 minutes late. Without ado I rushed off the train and without question followed a bloke who was running and clearly in a rush, i was hoping that he was in the same predicament as me and knew where he was going, I was correct but unfortunately the train we rushed for left 20 minutesl later than schedule so the rush was not necessary and I would miss my connection from Nice to Marseille. He lived in Nice and so was on his way home, I'm not sure how we managed to communicate but we seemed to talk a lot without much understanding. He did however think that I was exotic when he found out I was from Australia. On the train I also spoke to Soaud, a very pregnant and very beautiful young lady who was originally from Algeria, lived in Ventimiglia and was to meet her sister in Marseille for a short holiday; she spoke French and Italian, now she was exotic.

We had a great chat for the long train ride to Nice with lots to laugh about, unfortunaltely the lots was our total innability to communicate anything except our name and where we were from. Soaud's Italian was a help but unfortunately not to the extent needed.(that I) needed.

Because this train was late we had to wait some time in Nice for the next Marseille connection. Soaud was beckoning me to follow her, or at least that's how I read her sign language. The fact that I wasn't arrested for stalking made me think I was correct. Eventually we got to Marseille but I was in excrutiating mental pain at having to ignore the temptation to get off in Canne or Monte Carlo. The list of things to do before I die just got longer.

Marseille greeted me with the most magnificent view from the top of the stairs at St Charles station. Soaud struggled with a phone card as she tried to call her sister, eventually succesful, thanks to a gentleman who allowed her to use his mobile, she then assisted me in finding someone who could help me with directions to Hostel Vertigo Vieux Port at 38 rue Fort Notre Dame, Marseille, a very impressive sounding address. I said thanks and goodbye to Soaud and inducted her into the Royal Order of the Koala, from now on she was Soaud ROK.

Mustafa was from Tanzania, he could speak French and English, I followed him along some dodgy back streets and he seemed to know everyone. We got to Vieux Port where the views of the port (wonder how they got the name) were truly magnificent. Rue Fort Notre Dame was only about 100 metres away so we stopped at a bar and I bought Mustafa and myself an ice cold and very refreshing beer. Mustafa shunned royal honours which did give him something in common with John Lennon, he was very interested though in the Australian 5 dollar note. I'm not sure if he wanted it as a souvenier or if he went straight to a bank and exchanged it for something more useful to himself, I expect the latter.

Vertigo was up a narrow side street and was totally charming. A quick check in I went to the room and got rid of my luggage. In the lounge there were some people from the USA, Ireland and France. Flossy, with whom I was sharing a room got his name when he was working in the Gold Coast, the locals had a bit of trouble with his name so he was given a nickname. I pointed out to him later that when an Australian gives you a nickname that it means acceptance.

Down on the main street I went looking for food but ended up in an Irish bar drinking beer. I was chatting to a young lady from New York who was in France teaching English. Now what an American was doing teaching english I will never know, I would have thought that they should have to learn it first. Kara of course spoke fluent French and loved beer. The bar maid was from Corsica so I pointed out to her that Napoleon was from Corsica via my interpreter and new best friend Kara, apparently it was a claim to fame that she could do without. Then Serge was introduced to me, he liked beer also, he did not speak english and I'm not sure what he did for a living. So here I was in Mareille in conversation with a person from New York who lived locally, a Corsican who lived locally and a Frenchman who lived somewhere and I was exotic? After ensuring that a rather under the weather Kara got safely home I got back to the hostel at about 1.30 am and climbed up onto the top of Mt Bunkbed (yes I was on the top again). The difference on this occasion was that the bed was robust, the mattress comfortable, the room quiet and bathroom facilities were attached to the room.

A tour of Milan

After a crappy night sleep and a luke warm shower I departed the Hostel determined to walk the soles off my feet and do Milan in one day. First stop was a cafeteria not far from the hostel for a cafe machiatto, I thought i said it well but something gave me away as not being Italian, but anyhow I got a great coffee and a glass of water for 1.40 euros. Milan is a very "zig zaggy" town so I kept the sun in my face as much as possible and found the real Milan in no time at all. Magnificent narrow cobblestoned streets, old rickety trams, new modern trams, Juliet balconies everywhere and dog poo all over the place. I think everyone in Milan owns a dog, since they all live in apartment type homes then thgey walk them a lot and don't opick up after them (with apologies to the one elderly lady who did pick up after her dog). So while the sensational buildings and grand architecture make you keep your gaze skyward, it does pay to keep one eye to the ground. If anyone is interested I did manage to avoid standing in Italian dog poo.


I found magnificent public park complete with fairground and dodgy side show operators (now we know where they all go when the Royal Melbourne Show is not on), joggers, and lots of families and, of course, lots of dogs and the occasional doggy by-product. I said uno due to a fellow jogging past with a football which he duly obliged by passing the ball to me and running past for the return; I did not however to play kick to kick with him for the next 15 minutes but is was fun. A brief chat later (when he found out I was from Australia I was exotic, I could use this to my advantage later) he carried on his jog with the ball. His football skills were a lot better than mine, I had to decline a "keepy-uppy" contest because all he would have to do was get to two to be the winner. Just outside of the park another magnificent building was the acquarium. The fountain out the front had a Hippo head squirting water into a crystal clear carp pond, which while not remarkable was certainly different. The old palace was also a sight to behold and made me wish my camera had power. Anyhow I found a use for my SIM-less IPhone and took some photos which worked out okay. In frustration at not being able to buy a cable to charge my Kodak I later bought a new camera.
　
Next was Castello Sforzesco, the photos on facebook speak for themselves. I'm not sure that we could ever build anything like this anymore, I suppose there is no need. Maybe if John Howard was still prime minister he might have renovated the Lodge to something similar, people let him get away with a lot of stuff so he could have tried his hand at that.

Knowing there was a game on at the San Siro I decided to find a good pub and watch the game on TV. I could have gone to the game, there was plenty of empty seats but I am determined that my first game in Europe will be Liverpool v Manchester City, nothing else will do. The pub atmosphere was great, the people very friendly and I was once again exotic, I could get used to the fame very easily . It wasn't looking great for the hosts in the first half but a second half blitz saw them get home 5-1 against Genoa. Inter by the way, I wouldn't watch AC if you paid me, well it depends how much I suppose, if you were to offer me $1000,00 for example to watch them then i think I would take you up on the offer but I wouldn't cheer, that would cost $2000.00 but it wouldn't be sincere. Sincerity would cost extra and would need to be negotiated at the time.


Back to the hostel via the supermarket. I had an evil plan to buy some cheese and wine to break the ice in that morgue that passed for the guest lounge. The supermarket was small, about the size of an Aldi but if the deli was in Australia it would have been called gourmet; Reggiano that would have been $40.00 dollars a kilo in Melbourne was not more that 10-15 euros here and what a great selection. My evill plan did work but not initially how i expected, the first person i got acquainted with was Mark, a pom originally from Sheffield but now living in Nottingham. We talked about the Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs as they were bands he would be familiar with from his home town, and while we got along famously, I did not go to Italy to talk to poms. Next however was Linda, a gorgeous young lady who was born in Tunisia, lived in Venice but was spending time in Milan for work. She could speak french, italian and english.  Once again she thought I was exotic, I was thinking the same about her. I awarded her with the Royal Order of the Koala.


Making mistakes is human, repeating mistakes is stupid, so after nearly topling Mt bunkbed on myself again I promptly chastised myself and did it correctly. It was hard to stop pissing myself laughing when the bloke on the bunk next door did exactly the same thing, dumb arse.


Another dreadful night's sleep then off to the Metro for a train to Centrale Stazione and then to Marseille. I don't know why other people in this Hostel don't consider others when they persist in constant chatter all night but then again, it was cheap accomodation,  and I would never have had that great evening drinking vino rosso, eating cheese and talking to the very common mark and the very exotic Linda ROK (Royal Order of the Koala).

Finding my way

Once again security at Malpense airport was surprisingly transparent. A quick passport check and that was it, perhaps my European Union passport made it easy After retreiving my bag and heading for the freedom of Northern Italy via the exit that everyone else was using, who was I to try a different approach, my reasonably freshly shaven head and 36 hour growth clearly made me look like a football hooligan and I was promptly stopped as I made my final lunge for freedom by a rather large Polizia wearing a very impressive military like grey uniform.

"Passport"
"Si"
"Where are you going now"
"Milan"
"Are you staying long"
"Only 2 days then off to Marsaille"
"Okay, thankyou"

That was the interrogation I was expecting at Melbourne before leaving so in way it did fill a hole that was missing from the pre-flight security despite missing many of the elements of my original expectation, for my faith to be restored I still required the the strip and body cavity check and a bit of torture. It did dawn on me later that being Milan on the weekend there was probably a football match on at the San Siro, so my resemblance to a football hooligan theory was probably correct.

The bus ride to Milan from the airport whilst uneventful, did alert me to one thing, be very careful on the roads in Milan, the drivers have a sole purpose in their mind to get from A to B and steering around obstacles in their path is optional. As I was to discover later the footpaths are also public car parks and shortcuts for motorcycles. It is refreshing to know that it is not just Australia where the traffic laws are optional.

So Here I was at Stazione Centrale In Milan and no idea were to go next. My print out of the Hostel booking gave the address as Via Salmoiraghi, Milan, 20148. Hungry and in desperate need of a coffee hit converged on kiosk near the bus stop.

"Un cafe machiato e un foccacia di quesso, pomodoro e olivia por favor"
The mix of Italian and spanish along with the stupid accent gave the lovely lady behind the counter sufficient clues to know that this conversation needed to be in english. Her english wasn't that great mind you but it was a damn site better than my Itanish (used interchangeably with Spanalian). I did have to stop myself from talking as if I was talking to a child after a couple of words, I'm not sure why I started, perhaps it was the Faulty Towers effect. Eventually I learned that she had no idea where I needed to go and nor did the other customer standing next to me who very kindly offered me his help. Clearly I needed a map and some self sufficiency, no language barriers in that. The kiosk next door sold newspapers so that seemed like the logical place to start.

"Compro un mapa per favor"

I was proud of that statement even though I didn't know if it was gramatically correct (I still don't and I suspect that providing the word "mapa was correct" that I said "I buy a map please" how dumb was that). I did rehearse it thoroughly in my head prior to asking which did sound a bit Monty Pythonish as I told my self to conjugate the verb comprare; In Spanish mapa is correct so in Italian it was likely to be similar, and I even corrected my pronouncination of please. After 2 minutes of rehearsal in my head and out loud, briefly looking around to see if anyone was within hearing, I proudly asked for a map, it was very dissapointing when I got a strange look followed by a finger pointing down to the shelf directly in front of me which was full of maps of Milan.

Armed with my map, carrying 16 kilograms of backpack I set off in search of the elusive backpackers hostel. I was determined to walk, despite the map displaying the metro system and the hostel booking print out explaining how to get there. About 45 minutes later I decided that the extremely small print on the map and the fact that I did not have a clue where I was meant that I should get my glasses out and actually read it properly, I am always reluctant to use my glasses because the is a slight admission of getting old associated with it. Orientating the map to north, using the theory that the sun set in the west in the northern hemisphere also, and actually being able to read the print, I had regathered myself and started heading in the right direction. Unfortunalely I was so far north of where I was supposed to be (providing I was holding the map the correct way), being rescued by the metro system was now not really an option and I was skirting around the outskirts of town rather than heading through, as I was later to discover, the absolute magnificence that is the city of Milan.

The amount of civil works going on in Milan meant that the map was not exactly accurate, in fact at times it was quite difficult to sort out exaclty what was going on. I was comforted by the fact that a local who attempted to assist me also had difficulty reading the map but eventually she did sort me out and I was indeed doing okay, she was walking with her young daughter to her local school fete. I awarded her the Royal Order of the Koala by giving her one of those little clip on koalas that come in packs of 20 at cheap Melbourne souvenir shops and are made in China. I did check before I left (a number of times) and the only "Made in China" labels were on the wrapper, so while it could be assumed, it would be difficult for them to prove that they were cheap imitations. As it turned out I was only about 1 kilometre from my destination. With little more ado I arrived at the Hostel and was finally able to rid myself of the my luggage, now I know how people who have a monkey on their back feel.

Armed with 2 sheets and a pillow case I found my room, it was quite a horrible feeling when I saw I had a top bunk in a room with 3 double bunk beds. I tried to ascend the ladder but found the entire structure start to topple in my direction. Only a quick abandonment of my attempt to scale the dizzy 2 metre height that was Mt Bunk Bed stopped me from falling backwards in a screaming heap followed very shortly thereafter by a weak structure of hollow steel, timber, mattresses and pillows. On the second attempt I kept myself close to the ladder, succesfully scaled mount bunk bed and planted the Aussie flag. There was plenty of lateral movement in the bed without much prompting and it made the most horrible creaking noises as it swayed from side to side. If anyone wants to know how "rock-a-bye baby" felt as he/she was being rocked from side to side whilst being suspended high in a tree, just go to that hostel and insist on a top bunk. Incidentally I hope child welfare caught up with those parents, putting your child up in a tree in a rickety cane basket and watching it sway in the wind is a certain recipe for disaster. Moses was put in a basket and pushed down the river by his parents and that is one of the great stories from the Bible, so there is some biblical support for child abuse. But this was this was a budget hostel for a reason. Before long my bed was made and I was ready to have my first shower in 48 hours. Another reason the hostel was cheap was becasue they had small storage hot water systems. The last time I had a cold shower was when Melbourne's gas supply was disrupted by a tragic explosion at the gas plant. But the invigorating cold water along with a fresh set of clothes it made me feel a lot better.

The lounge area in the hostel was a very morbid place with people sticking with their travel comnpanions and everyone keeping the volume of their conversations very low or engrossed in whatever music was being played on their MP3 player. I had a thought that it would be a very social place but it was more like a wake (and not an Irish one). Being extremely hungry braving the streets in search of the great Italian pizza was next on the agenda. Withing the vicinity of the Hostel I found a supermarket and a number of bars with a large letter "T" on their sign, the word "bar" and curiously "Tavola Fredda" I knew tavola meant table but fredda escaped me, my first thought was that it was the name of the premises, "Fred's table" but of course that would be "la tavola di Fredda" I thought but I would not be surprised now if some native Italian speakers think that I am a dickhead. After seing more with the same name I concluded that it meant table service, I later found this was incorrect but it did the job of satisfying my curiosity at the time.  Now I know though that it means a cold buffet, that is providing google is correct, and who am I to say google is wrong. 

I found a nice pizzeria with a wood fired oven and a very extensive menu, there were some very poor looking ones in the area also so this one stood out. An empty restaurant is normally a bad sign to me, if they were any good they would be busy, but there were three delivery bikes leaving with a load each so the food was therefore in demand, just not being eaten on the premises. Being a slightly hypocritical vegetarian, I eat shell fish, I order the one with cheese, tomato, mushrtooms and shelfish. As is the case with good pizzas it arrived in 5 minutes with magnificent blistering on the thin crisp crust, the mozeralla was the real thing, not that plastic they put on in Australia, but to my horror we clearly have a different interpretation of the word shellfish; baby octopus, squid, prawns? I'm am not a marine biologist but I think that it is reasonable to assume that octopi and squid (being the plural of squid) do not live in shells. I say that without total certainty because there maybe a yet to be discovered hermit octopus that lives in discarded shells, and perhaps squid discard their shells on being caught, burt I doubt it. With prawns he has a case to argue but I would still argue vigorously against it. Apart from my obvious objection to the meat there was also the slight issue of a prawn allergy that would give me violent stomach cramps for about 2-3 hours and render the cublicle I was using for that duration useless until a thorough cleaning. Such was my determination not to offend I proceeded to pick of the offending items and put them to one side, normally I would not eat anything that has touched a prawn for fear of cross contamination but again the risk of offending was greater than the risk of a near death experience. Carefully picking off the surrounding cheese, tomato and base to a depth of 1 mm and circumference of of double the size of the offending shrimp, I was satisfied that I had done enough to avoid any issues, and I was luckily correct.

The store owner was a very dominating person who took great delight in controlling everything. His female colleague, whom I assumed was his wife was subjected to a number of vigorous dressings down I think I got the plural right, like attorneys general, it sounds stupid but gramatically it is correct. I concluded that a teenage girl who came in was his daughter as she was subjected to an immediate tirade on arrival; whilst my Italian is obviously very poor at best, the words"che," "ora," "questo" and "casa" made me think that he was saying "what time do you call this, you may as well have stayed home." She just put her hand against his cheek and went to a table and started doing her homework. She took the time every now and again to get items from the back at the request (demand) of the owner and filled my glass with a lovely vino rosso but generally she had her head buried in a book oblivious to the rantings of the owner. It didn't exactly seem like a busy chef's kitchen with lots of staff and demanding head chef serving a busy restaurant but it was certainly being run that way. With the offending items removed the pizza was magnificent, just what I expected and I wandered back to the hostel for a bad nights sleep on an unstable, hard and creaky platform that passed for a bed.

The nature of shared accomodation does not lend itself to sleeping well, expecially when there are sufficinet numbers of inconsiderate people who talk in normal voices and wander in and out of the room without the slightest thought for others who are wanting to sleep. A young man on the lower level of mount bunk on the opposite side of the room woke me, and I assume everyone else in the room, by continually and violently sniffing about 4-5 times then gulping down his bounty, he stopped after about 3 cycles of this, then went back to sleep as if it was normal behaviour. His circular breathing skills were quite magnificent and I'm sure he could have played a didgeree doo with no difficulty whatsoever. I would have thought that a tissue and a good blow would have been a far better and more efficient method, apart from the inconsideratness of doing that in a shared dorm with 5 other strangers. Another chap had his alarm set for 5 and used the snooze button 3 times. I'm not sure why these people consider this acceptable behaviour in a shared environment but I will not doubt find out over the coming weeks if this is normal or not.