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Note: This entire entry is finally finished as of 5:05pm Pacific
time. If you read this entry between 2pm and 5pm, you probably
missed this big section where I fill you in on part of the Spanish
tour. So you might want to read it again/see what you missed. I'm
just saying. Enjoy!Written today:So, the last entry about Spain had travelling Heather learning to use the Metro in Barcelona. This was on Monday, a day I spent trying to walk to all of Gaudi's buildings (and failing miserably), discovering my crippling fear of heights in the spires of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, learning how to use European keyboards to send David email and finding out how greasy paella can be.I awoke early on Tuesday morning with my day outlined neatly. After checking out, I was going to find a place in the train station to lock my big pack, buy overnight train tickets to Granada for that evening, then head on up to Gaudi's playland for the wealthy (now a city park): Parc Guell. The pictures of Parc Guell fascinated me: lots of broken pottery mosaics (I've done similar things myself) and fairyland architecture. It was a sunny day, warm and clear, and it seemed like a perfect day to head up there. I got to the train station and hooked up with some cool American women who helped me find the Consigna (Left luggage lockers). I then got in line to buy my tickets for the overnight train ride. Too bad there was a train strike in Granada that day. None of the ticket agents spoke English, but I got the drift. It was a one-day strike, but it happened to be the one day I needed to get to Granada. I didn't want to find another room in Barcelona and spend my day travelling on Wednesday; I wanted to travel overnight and explore Granada on Wednesday, travelling out to Orgiva for market day (to meet Holly, my sister) on Thursday. How dare they strike right then! To make a long story a little less long, I spent far too much time trying to find a way to Granada that night that did not involve a bus ride. I get nauseous on buses; I get claustrophobic on buses; I hate long-distance buses. In the end, I got on a bus at 4pm (after spending the entire day in the train station dealing with this and not seeing Parc Guell at all) and rode for 14 hours. I got to see many different towns from the vantage point of their bus station at night; I ate bocadillos ("sandwiches" which consisted of white cheese on crusty or hard baguettes). I got a seatmate about 7 hours into the ride (right when I was finally getting sleepy) who (luckily) was a nicely dressed middle-aged man who kept wanting to buy me coffee ("Quiero dormir" I kept telling him, but thanked him anyway). There were several other women on the first part of the bus ride who spoke english. There was an Asian woman who spoke no Spanish whatsoever who always asked me how long the breaks were (I at least knew my numbers and could understand this particular bus driver). She annoyed/amused me early on by getting very angry about people smoking on the bus. There *were* signs all over the place saying "Prohibido Fumar" (No Smoking), but it seemed to be loosely enforced at best. She kept saying in heavily accented English, "It says No Smoking! I get sick when you smoke! Stop smoking, you're making me sick!" I told her to say, "No me gusta fumas" (which may or may not be entirely correct, but gets the point across) but she refused to even try any Spanish. One good thing about the Asian woman: she made my get up of earplugs (which everyone thought were part of a radio) and eyeshades look mild; she had earplugs, eyeshades AND a breath mask (the kind I wore at Burning Man for dust) and looked very odd and rather scary sleeping on the bus. The other English speakers were a couple of gorgeous women from Nigeria. Oh! For skin like that, all sleek and smooth, brown with golden highlights, begging to be touched. And cheekbones and big brown eyes that made me whimper when they looked at me. Beautiful, beautiful women, and very friendly/kind to me. They got off the bus before I'd gotten up the nerve to ask if they'd like to exchange addresses, but we ate at a couple of rest stops together and it made the time pass sweetly.
I got into Granada at 6 am Wednesday morning, and I spent about a half an hour wandering around, buying tickets to Orgiva the next morning, and trying to call a hostel. There was a pretty girl who looked rather Spanish-but-not kinda eyeing me at the phones, so finally I decided what the heck: "Hablas ingles?" I asked her. "Si!" she answered excitedly, "y tu?" She threw me off, responding in Spanish like that. Turns out she's hispanic, grew up bilingual in Texas, and had just finished studying in the north of Spain. She wasn't a backpacker - she had a wheeled suitcase - but she had just left her boyfriend at the train station in Madrid the day before and wasn't looking forward to travelling alone either. So we hooked up. She was shocked at my age (27) as she had guessed me only a year or two older than her (20). Still, she did all the talking, as her Spanish was flawless and mine was halting at best. That day I spent with her did nothing for my Spanish, but we had a great time. After obtaining a hostel room (an adorable room overlooking a main square - thank god for earplugs!) we walked up our street, up the hill, to the Alhambra, where we spent most of the day. It rained on us right after we got done with the palace, so we bought umbrellas and trudged through the gardens in the rain. She was a diligent about seeing everything as I was, which was a relief (we kept each other going). I loved the gardens so much, even in the rain. We took lots of pictures of each other, which I will *try* to post here (I don't have very good scanning skills and I can never get fetch to work for me . . . ). There's an email I sent to David that afternoon: Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 08:26:11 -0800 (PST) Heya, I«m in Granada and sharing a room with a sweet hispanic-american who«s blessedly fluent in Spanish in this town where very, very few people speak English. Not that I«m not better at it now, but it«s such a relief.... Her name I cannot pronounce, so I just call her ¬Jyess¬ Muy bonita. We found each other looking dejected at 6¬30 am this morning - neither of us wanted to be alone. Did the Alhambra - we both wanted to make sure we saw every bit of it, even though we were both tired, hungry and it was pissing down rain on us for several hours. David, we were there from 9:40 - 4:40pm!! It«s now one of my FAVORITE places on this earth - especially the gardens...oh, I wish you could see the gardens! I wish I could go there whenever I wanted to, it«s so beautiful, fanicful and just plain overwhelming in it«s beauty..oh, I said beauty already.... I kept thinking of Jeff and how much fun he«d be to explore the place with, what with his arabic fetish and all....I want to be a queen and live there, can I, please? I DON«T even need the palace, just build me a room in one of the buildings in the garden...one with a view (it«s all a view). Plants much like California, rain much like California. People friendly. Tomorrow I«m taking Jyess with me to Orgiva (I think, if I can convince her - she wants to see it, I think) and maybe to Beneficio... (Note: Jyess didn't come to Orgiva with me, but we did exchange email addresses.) The less said about 14 hours on a bus (7 sharing a seat with a nice man in a suit who didn«t speak a word of English...) the better, I think. I«m so tired. I«m going to catch up on my siesta time now....
Love you! Than night, Jyess and I wandered up the hill to the gypsy caves, where we saw the end of a very passionate gypsy show. I might have more to say about this when I get the pictures back. On the way back we almost got run over by a maniac driver that had us clutching each other on the edge of a narrow street (that was bordered by the sides of buildings on one side and the river ravine on the other) and shrieking until he stopped inches from us, parked the car, and got out with a smirk. Jerk. Now we're all caught up (more or less) to this poem, which I wrote on the early-morning bus ride to Orgiva the next day: From my personal journal 3/23/00Poetry break
Riding a rickety old bus
I can feel the temperature drop | ||
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