The Rain Over Eyre

Dublin was a welcome sight after a less-than-thrilling plane ride, wherein I learned Aer Lingus has exorbitant baggage fees (travelers take heed!). 7Kg overweight and 56 Euro lighter, I managed to stuff myself and my things onto a city bus that stuttered its way through rush hour traffic with all the speed of a rock rolling uphill. As my fellow passengers fell in love, settled down and rasied families, I struggled to understand the way the streetnames changed every two or three blocks, the bus turning left or right every time I thought I might figure it out. An older woman (I'm sure she was just a child when the journey began) must have noticed my confusion, and offered my first taste of the exquisite Irish hospitality.

In dire need of a haircut, I finally made it to the hostel, shook off the rain, checked in to my room and set off into the rain to see what I could see of the city described to me at length by James Joyce. I ducked into a pub called The Hairy Lemon and dove right into a lamb stew, marvelling at the accompanying "brown bread" and "brown sauce," each of which lived up to their names, to a point. I'm bringing some packets of brown sauce back as souvenirs and for study at the lab. Don't tell customs.

Now, I enjoy a drink, and each country I've visited can pretty much be summed up in a single beverage. In Spain I drank wine. Prague, absinthe. Germany, Jaegermeister. Amsterdam... well, let's say for the sake of this passage, Heineken. Coming to Ireland, I looked forward to two distinct drinking possibilities: Whisky and Guinness. Well, the Guinness is delicious, I won't deny. The whisky costs more here than it does in California. However, what I did not expect to find was cider. But one of my American roommates suggested I try some Bulmer's at a pub on my first night, and I've quite taken a liking. Light, crisp, not too sweet. It maybe doesn't go down as smoothly as Jamesons or Bushmills, but it's economical.

Of course, it's mostly been that delightfully thick black brew, Guinness, that's fueled my conversations, and the Irish wit has not disappointed. That first night culminated in a "grand" sing-along that was just "good craic" (great fun). So, that's the culmination of irish lingo I've picked up, but you'll all be irritated to hear upon my return that I have taken to the accent quite ardently. Anyway, I eventually met the calls of, "Yer tey-urn ta sing one, Calleefurnya!" by leading a rendition of "Sittin on the Dock on the Bay that raised hairs and provoked the bartender to shout "Last call!"

Night number two found me in the middle of a "literary" pub crawl, where I was essentially shown, along with a large group, the favorite drinking haunts of writers like Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde and a few others I forgot by the fourth round. I wound up with a group of people at a pub called The Old Stand, making bets on the nature of musical instruments with an Irish fellow around my age named Brendan. A Scottish lass whirred around us, stopping long enough to introduce herself as Brendan's girl, then whirred away again. "Ah, Suzanne's the bollocks!" he said proudly. We got on well enough that they dragged me on to a club when the pub closed, and when the weight of the night hit me I begged off to go home to sleep (though the sun didn't set til nearly eleven, the pub crawl started at 7:30, and I apparently refuse to acknowledge drunkenness before dark). Sorry to see me go, Brendan said, "Already? But I didn't get to interrogate ya about American politics!"

"I don't know how useful you'd find me," I said, "I'm not your typical American. I'm really more of a Socialist."

At this, he grabbed me, looked deeply into my eyes, and said, "No Shit! An American Socialist! I never thought I'd see it! I could kiss ya! ...Ah, feck it, I'm doin it!" and planted one on my cheek. I left with an invitation to meet up with he and Suzanne during their springtime visits to Havana and Caracas.

It was all good craic, but every Irish person I met in Dublin begged me to get out of the city to some other berg. "Cork is grand!" "Yeah, but Kerry is beautiful." "Aye, but everyone should go see Galway." "How about Donegal?" "Oh, Donegal!" "Yes, you can't forget Donegal!"

Not to disappoint everyone, but I did not make it to Donegal. Nor did I attened the "True Irish Sporting Events" of irish Rules Football, which was described to me as 15 goalies on each side, and hurling, which seems to involve a bunch of guys knocking around a hard, baseball sized ball with a short, flat club, and more than occasionally knocking each other around as well. I should also point out that not a single Irish man discussed these sports around me, but a slew of women spoke of them with bloodhthirsty devotion.

Outdrunk, and outmanned, i once again retired for the night, and contemplated my next move: Galway.

The Dam Rain

Okay, so an overnight bus is not the best way to approach Amsterdam. Nevermind that it was full, leaving Max and I to wrestle broad shoulders in attempts to find sleep or even comfort. The true agony didn't begin til our 6am arrival. Way made our way exhaustedly to our hostel only to be informed that we could not check in until 2pm. They did stash our luggage, but the gruff Aussie manning reception lacked the international charm we'd grown accustomed to on this trip, and refused to even give a staight ansewer on where to find breakfast.

So, we wandered out into the Red Light District at 7am. At 7 on a Sunday morning, even the prostitutes have forsaken their windows, leaving only the absolute sketchiest of humanity to slither and crawl the cobbled streets, trying to push whatever it is their trying to push, and/or waiting for the chemicals to leave their systems. One guy, who would become familiar enough the next few days, seems to have mastered the art of perilously forlorn begging. A small, sad looking man to begin with, with downturned lips and recessed, unfocused eyes, he walks up to you from apparently nowhere to ask for change. "Please," he says, stepping nearer, "PLEASE," grasping at you with clawlike hands, "PLEEEAASE!" with gills veritably flapping as if he were a fish asking for a drink in the desert.

After an arduous morning where the only highlights were a hotel buffet breakfast and sitting alongside a canal in the only sunshine we would see suring our stay, we finally made it to our bedroom, where I did manage 2 hours of sleep before the snoring hit peak volume. Now that it was late afternoon I braved the Red Light District again in search of food, finidng only greasy fast food for some reason. I also spotted my first window prostitute, who waved to me from behind her pane, directly across from an 18th century stone church. I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure it was Geroge Foreman, in drag, with a purple wig.

Ultimately, I couldn't form a complete opinion about Amsterdam's particular form of window shopping - I would alternately flash between thinking about animal cages and vending machines. But I suppose in a world where this happens whether it's legal or not, forcing it into public view and regulating it might be the best-possible scenario. Of course, as the whole area is perpetually jammed with tourists, it usually appeared as just another spectacle, at least until some guy would break the illusion by walking up to a window, being let in, and drawing the curtains.

I wish I could say I bicycled through the tulip fields looking at windmills, but the weather was rotten - brought with us from Hamburg I'd guess - so the experience wound up being relatively boring aside from the Van Gogh museum. It was pretty funny getting kicked out of a Dutch bar in a nontourist area. We only went in to escape the rain, and I would have ordered a beer once I'd used the restroom. But they didn't speak english, we don't speak dutch, and the bartender seemed of the opinion we werejust trying to take advantage. Before I reached the men's room, I heard acommotion and saw Max hastily backing out the front door. Then the attention turned to me, with three or four people shouting, pointing to the door, and ultimately calling out "Sorry!" once we were out. I get the feeling this was the attitude of the entire country by the time I boarded my flight to Dublin.

One Night in Hamburg

Sorry as we were to put Berlin behind us, knowing we could not top our night in Pankow led us to the next stop on our itinerary: Hamburg. Here are some facts about the city: it has more miles of canals than either Amsterdam or Venice. It connects Germany, via rivers, to both the North and Baltic Seas, which made it, historically, a most diverse German city, with mariners from Russia, Finland, Thailand and the world over coming here for business, which they still do. It's where the Beatles honed their skills as young British rockers, playing all-night sets at the Star Club on the Reeperbahn, a street named for ropemakers, who were important to the seafaring trade, of course.

Max and I had originally routed our travels through here because there was a big music festival happening nearby. But even as the dollar rose against the Euro while we traveled northwest through the continent (or glorified penninsula, to which I recently heard it referred), our funds depleted at a quicker paces than we had hoped, and to remedy the situation we ditched the 80-Euro concert ticket and booked an overnight bus from Hamburg to Amsterdam, saving one night's hostel fee.

But the Reeperbahn remained as a draw, both for its Beatles nostalgia and for its current reputation as a world center for sin. As it turns out, the Beatles are remembered here basically in billboard form. The true nature of this ropemakers street would soon become apparent.

Passing sex shops, strip clubs, and even the occasional legitimate theater venue, with each block I became more amazed at just how many businesses could survive in a one-mile stretch sheerly on the exploitation of testosterone. Neon signs promised all kinds of unspeakable performances, and if we lingered to read them, heavily trussed and made up girls tried to lure us into some seedy venue or another. We stopped occasionally at a market to pick up a drink for sipping as we strolled, and as we reached the end of the street took note of just how light it was for 10PM; being this far north around the summer solstice has its perks.

But all the better to constrast the still-blue sky with the immensely thick, black clouds approaching rapidly. Before we had a chance to deduce that stable cover was in order, lightning struck, and heavy sheets of rain dropped on the debauched street, as if to cleanse or, more likely, rebuke it. We ducked into the nearest bar that didn't have nudie pictures on the front, shook ourselves of the raindrops and prepared ourselves for just about anything. Still, we were shocked, and not for the last time this night.

We found ourselves in the middle of what I would have called a traditional German sailor bar, complete with booths shaped like rowboats and guides to the various seafaring knots one can accomplish with a single string of rope. I stop short of calling it any kind of typical experience, though, because on the stage an MC tinkered with a synthisizer, playing bizare, dancey, bass-heavy renditions of popular showtunes like "Que Sera," singing along into a microphone whenever he at least thought he knew the words.

It was such a stark contrast to the neon gluttony outside the door that we almost forgot where we were, and if the drinks hadn't been so expensiive we might have stayed for a second round. But we discovered upon exit that the rain had passed as quickly as it had blitzed - it was dark and dry, and the streets were packed with people, mostly men, from all over.

We bustled our way through the crowds, picked out another tame looking bar, and had more to drink. Eventually we talked ourselves into experiencing this unforeseen niche of Europe, for experience's sake. We found a club advertising a striptease, paid a 5 Euro cover and found ourselves in a very old building, with old-timey player-paino music and a very vintage burlesque show taking place. As a woman, complete with archaic coif, danced with fans and feathers, we accepted the waitress's offer to bring over beer.

"That will be 25 Euro. Each."

Quaint as it may have been, forty dollars for a bit of nostalgic titillation wasn't going to cut it, and when she told us we had to buy the most expensive beer the world has ever known or get out, we opted for the latter. Shocked anew at how pricey things could be on this street where just about every human dignity was for sale, we were lured across the alley to another club - another strip show. Assured it was just 10 Euro, and no funny business with overpriced cocktails, we paid the fee and entered what seemed to be a normal, slightly glitzy bar. Then we turned a corner, and in the blink of an eye unturned that corner. Our testimony of just what we witnessed varies in the subtle details. Let's just say Max and I differ on just how many performers were involved in that show. As we made our way hastily back to the street, the doorman tried to stop us. "Big show about to start. You don't want to miss it."

"What show?" we asked, perhaps naively.

"Right there," he said, pointing to a stage deocrated only by a giant motorcycle. "Huge show."

I'll let your imagination run with that, as we did, high-tailing it back to the suddenly very modest street. Suffice to say, we finished the night at your typical, wholesome alcohol and dancing venue: The Funky Pussy Club. Honestly, when you got past the name it was just like any place in any town anywhere, and the drinks were reasonable. We danced awhile, got tired, ate a wurst of some kind, and grabbed a taxi back to our hotel, which, being just two blocks from the bus station, was seedy in its own charming way.

I should point out that much of Hamburg seems to be rather upscale. Since just about every product that passes into Germany comes through here, it houses a phenomenal number of shops featuring just about every internationally known brand, from luxury to low end, and an impossibly huge chunk of the city center is actually a giant, open air shopping mall. Pretty boring, really, which is exactly why I led with the scummy stuff. After a decent night's sleep, we milled about until we found an internet cafe and waited for the bus, with high hopes for Holland ahead.

Pankow Blues

For all of its extremely foreign splendor, Prague was maybe the whitest city I've ever visited. Going to Berlin, a mere six hour bus ride, proved world's away, as the largest German city is also one of the biggest emigrant destinations of the past two decades, the streets filled with a melange of skin shades, accents and languages, all lending to the sort of extremely cosmopolitan atmosphere you can only hope to find in the most amazing of places.

So I should not have been surprised to experience the unexpected, but that's exactly what happened on our seventh night in town.

So, I'm going to have to jump around in time a little bit for this one, starting back in the year I spent living in San Diego. I made friends with several regulars at my local watering hole, but spent a lot of time in particular chatting over beers with Tom, a Southern California born-and-bred blues drummer who is about as earnest about music as anybody is about anything.

Though he'd just finished getting a degree in music theory that made him an avid classicist, Tom's old blues, rock and roots band still had a fan in the form of a European booking agent, and last summer the Mississippi Mudsharks kicked off a tour of the continent here in Germany (I'm in Hamburg now). When he returned to Ocean Beach in the early fall, he told me he'd fallen in love, and was moving to Berlin in the winter. I might have been disappointed, except of course that I was on a similar path. We traded emails, made loose plans to meet up, and left it at that.

When Max and I arrived late friday, we immediately experienced the first of a few thunderstorms we'd encounter in Germany. If it's raining, it must be laundry day, and between the weather and a couple of additional days working, I did not spend as much time exploring the town as I might of liked. However, on Sunday evening, Tom found us in our hostel bar and led us on a whirlwind tour of East Berlin that left us finally feeling we'd arrived.

The history of a city that had once been forcefully, at times violently, divided is unquestionably inspiring, even given the horrific sequence of events that led up to it. I can remember touring part of Okinawa, back in high school, where Japanese soldiers and people had fled the invading US forces, only to commit suicide by opening grenades in caves or hurling themselves from a cliff. Being forced to mull over the inhuman acts of war - people driven mad by fear, hatred and greed - can be jarring at best. It's not exactly the sort of stuff that makes for a delightful venture through a foreign culture, so I made the deliberate decision not to visit anything commemorating the Nazi regime or their holocaust.

I feel it important to mention because there seems to be a feeling in the world that not to face up to the atroicites of the past is to risk repeating them. I frankly do not feel I need these visceral reminders in my life - as a student of history and rhetoric I understand and am appalled at the willful destruction reaped by those with power, and almost moreso at the willingness of masses to enjoin it at their behest. Stirring up anger at these memories, feelings of righteousness and vengeance, doesn't feel right. Am I really, as an American in 2007, going to come over here and shake my head at a half-century ago?

But the draw to that wall is too alluring. As much for the fact that the Russians seemingly enacted their revenge for 20 million lives lost on East Germany, as that West Berlin stuck out in the middle of it all as an island representing freedom and opportunity, even as it was surrounded on all sides by concrete, barbed wire and snarling hounds. Tom's girlfriend remembers seeing westerners peering over the wall from observation towers, curious at the lives led on the other side. We visited a museum at Checkpoint Charlie that details the great lengths people would go to in order to get into West Berlin, burrowing tunnels and folding themselves inside machines to smuggle themselves past the armed Russian guards.

I suppose a case could be made that it's just dessert for the atrocious policies and unprovoked violence of the 'third reich,' and that it's tough to turn around and sympathise with such a culture's subsequent suffering - but maybe it's also dangerous to do so if we wish to stay on the side of human progress and peace, and avoid the sort of rueful sentiments that separate people to greater degrees than borders do. Living past one's sins, be they personal or national, is complicated work - a great function of religious faith I believe - and facing the stigma of history with both humility and dignity almost impossible.

Today, Berlin is proud of its (at least superficial) unity. We stayed in Mitte (meet-uh), which means the 'middle', of town. Once a part of East Berlin, it's now testament to the pervasive power of capitalism, with hundreds of shops, clubs and restaurants. But there's a different side to it as well, as it retains a quasi-leftist underbelly. Max and I were particularly fond of a place called Cafe Zapata, which is a large building and courtyard once slated for demolition, but which squatters have turned into bars and artist lofts. The courtyard, or biergarten as it were, is filled with metal sculptures, seating made from reclaimed junk, and young Berliners sitting around chatting over beers, enjoying music. Vaguely postapocalyptic and almost a little too hip, it's nevertheless one of the most free-feeling places I've been. Somewhere between the rusting helicopter husk and the endless unintelligible strings of graffiti, these guys have created their own monument to Berlins wayward past, at once humbled and spirited, reflecting violence and oppression, but optimistic that legitimate inroads can be made towards a more positive future. I'll stop short of saying the place perfectly encapsulates the mood of Berlin, but in a week filled with parks, museums and dance clubs built under train overpasses, it was my second favorite spot to see, and has helped my understanding of this pretty fascinating place.

Of course, the best waited for that last night. The plan was to meet up with Tom for a couple of beers, then head out to a nightclub until the sun came up (which, this being the solstice in Northern Europe, is like 3:30am). We caught the train up to Pankow, an East Berlin neighborhood a little off the tourist path, and found the bar Tom frequents now that he's no longer in Ocean Beach.

The Garbäty is a small place, an eighteenth century building refurbished by hand by the bar's owner. It was packed almost to overflowing by a crowd ranging from twenty to seventy, all of whom were rapt in attention to the rock band performing on a small corner stage. Now when I say all, I mean ALL. I have been to popular concerts back home that cost $70 to get into and still seen people milling around, more interested in chatting than enjoying the music. But in this place, even those of us in seats without a clear view of the stage were caught up in the classic rock covers. These guys rocked it out, even succeeding in putting their own stamp on some Beatles tunes, which I'd previously thought impossible.

After a couple rounds of beers, the band finished up, and Max and I chatted with the one or two English-speakers who greeted us welcomingly. Anya explained to me that, before the wall came down, if you wanted an electric guitar, you built one. 'Stormin' Norman (didn't say where he got those scars and we didn't want to know) enthusiastically brought over a round of tequila shots, toasted 'Prost!' and joked about anything possible.

Then, someone came over to Tom and said, 'So-and-so says they're going to play some if you want to sit in.' So, he jumped up to the stage with a few guys and started jamming out blues tunes. These guys had never played together before, but it worked. It was tight and rhythmic and moving and, as Max says, 'Mind-Blowing.' Tom kept the shuffle upbeat while the guitarist's traded riffs and solos, the yamulke-wearing bass player kept it rolling, and the singer alternated between wailing soulfuly into the microphone and belting out a Delta-style harmonica. It was more fun to experience than I can say, and we whistled, hooted and quite thoroughly enjoyed every minute.

We never did make that dance club, but hey - those are the same the world over, right down to the records played. This was a bit of recently acquired Americana, which might not have worked so well back home, but here has been filtered through reprisals and discovery to get right back to authentic; mournful but upbeat, not for a moment jaded, and just plain celebratory of life'S highs and lows. Man, I wish you could have been there.

The Man Behind the Iron Curtain

After a few days showing Max Barcelona, the two of us had three days to kill en route to Berlin. With no deficit of ideas on where to spend this time, ultimately we whittled it down to someplace we could get a cheap, direct flight to from Barcelona, where we could then find affordable passage to Germany. Italy might have been the top of both our lists, except we agreed there were too many different parts of the boot to choose from, and that this country would require more like three weeks on a later visit, preferably with our girlfriends, as opposed to scruffy each other. Krakow was too complicated to get to, and Moscow too expensive to stay (did you know it’s currently the most expensive city in the world? Even more than New York or London. crazy).

So we found another Eastern European destination: Prague. Admittedly, we knew very little going in. For example, what is their currency? The Crown, or Kroner… even after three days there we’re not sure, and still have trouble adjusting to the exchange rate. What’s the name of the river their famous bridge, the Charles, crosses? The Vlatva? Something like that. And who is this Charles, and why is his name so simple when every other word on the map features long strings of consonants and bizarre shapes over some of them?

So we entered the center of Bohemia blind, stumbling through what is essentially a small city, trying to comprehend just how quickly this country, which had been oppressed in turn by the Nazis and Soviets, had turned things around so rapidly to have become a very Capitalist place, with fancy restaurants and Cosmopolitan interests to go with the occasional provincial attitude. Basically, tourism has had a lot to do with it. Coming out of college I remember hearing stories of $5 hostels and 20-cent beers. Though still cheap by European standards, the cost of living has quite compensated for the years of grey quasi-communism.

We did find some cheap beer, and shrugged our shoulders anytime one of the impossibly tall, beautiful, high-cheeked girls would ask us questions in incomprehensible syllables. Ultimately, the joy of the place whittled down to some crazy, creepy castles and churches, evidence of some bitter winters I suppose.

I wish I could say that I learned a lot about the Czech Republic, but it was about as foreign a place as I’ve encountered since Japan, and other than a souvenir bottle of absinthe I have taken away fairly little of it. I did, however, get a good amount of work done. It’s an exciting life, isn’t it?

Adios España

Disculpe! Once again I have been remiss in updating the ol’ blog—in fact I am now two countries removed from Spain, both sequentially and geographically. I will write about Prague and Berlin (my current locale) sooner than later, and promise more than a couple more posts in the next week, and even a few photos, I think.

But, for now, here are some reflections on my ten weeks in Barcelona. It’s easily the most elegant city I’ve ever visited, inhabited by sophisticated folk who, at times, party maybe a little too hearty. Las Ramblas, also known as Ciutat Vella (Catala for Old City), are a prime example of this.

Described by my subletter as the “dense warren of streets below l’Eixample” and above the Mediterranean (apt I thought), it’s a fascinating labyrinthine hodgepodge of medieval through 18th century architecture, with narrow, cobbled brick streets and alleys winding every conceivable direction. A smattering of museums, churches and landmarks dot what is otherwise a heavily-touristed gothic urban playground. At odd hours of the night, revelers from the world over indulge on tapas, sangria, paella and single cans of beer sold at every turn by South Asian immigrants for 1 Euro (a much better deal than any of the bars offer).

As I have discovered in too many of my global wanderings, prostitution runs rampant on the streets, in this case mostly African girls, who are as beautiful as they are strong and predatory. Often in my meanderings, one of these lovely ebony women would spot me from a block away and chase me down, grabbing my arm and soliciting me with the sort of sex-service lingo that I can only imagine they learned from sailors on shore duty (as humorous as they are, I will let your imagination run wild on this one). A simple “No,” usually would not suffice, however firmly stated, and the tricky part was extracting myself from their vicelike grips. As powerful as some of these girls are, however, they are not as scary as the brick-built German six-foot blondes Max and I stumbled across last night while searching for an East Berlin dance club. Like I said: everywhere.

I did, however, spend plenty of time in nearby Barceloneta, a small, triangular neighborhood stretching along the town beaches. A short walk and a shorter train ride from my apartment, an afternoon on the sand took over my siesta hour as a retreat from work and the Vegas-like atmosphere of the Ramblas. The Mediterranean, of course, is flat, so my normal interest in the ocean was not met, but on non-crowded days I found no deficit of relaxation.

I should point out to anyone who doesn’t know: I am not your typical tourist. I don’t visit museums for the most part, I don’t stand in line to mill about any famous landmarks, I don’t take walking tours, bus tours or bicycle the streets. In Costa Rica I did not visit a volcano nor hike through a rain forest preserve. My interest is more in seeing the people of a local culture do their thing, to eat what they eat, and to figure out what they do for fun. This may be a boring way to travel—I don’t know—but I have little interest in shopping and less in being photographed in front of places made famous by postcards.

In ten weeks of Spanish living, I fell into a sort of easy routine. On weekdays I would wake up and head down to the local café, where I’d order a coffee and small sandwich on a brioche. There I would sit on the terrace, sipping two or three cups and writing in a notebook—a story, or maybe even a book that hopefully one day will be read (I still like it anyway). I’d then go home to fit in a few hours of work before heading to the beach or taking a walk around different neighborhoods. Then I’d come back to work some more until later in the evening, when I’d go out to a local bar to play pool with my roommate, or seek out a tapas bar, or some small café bar where they had relatively cheap beers and low key music. Occasionally I’d meet up with some fellow expats and discuss anything that might come to mind over beers and wines. For example, it would appear that immigrants from Latin America are considered excessively polite here, using formal requests rather than the familiar demand, “Da me” (gimme).

On Sundays, when my local café was closed, I’d wake up and walk to one of the nearby Gaudi buildings, where cafes would still be open for the tourists, and I could sit and admire the architecture. These will be my lasting images of Barcelona, even when it’s flavors have faded from my memory. Though I never managed Spanish well enough to really assimilate into local culture (and they’re not the friendliest of peoples anyway), I do feel as though I understand a small fraction of the character of the place. For living in a country that has so recently gone through Catholic, fascist and socialist regimes, and whose unity to this day is strained between rival languages and political factions, they seem to set aside their petty human differences and fascinations to behave with a semblance of dignity, perhaps a latent response to the Party Mecca their city has become for the UK and the rest of Europe. And the US, of course. And their own youth on weekends. In the end, I don’t think 99.99% of the Spanish people were terribly sorry to see me leave.

Penultimate BCN Post

I am not a very good catholic, which is probably due to the fact that I gave up the church almost twenty years ago, as much for a lack of interest as for the opportunity to sleep late on Sundays and avoid the heavy perfumed air of the Masses (I have allergies). This is also probably the reason I was surprised this morning to find just about every business in my neighborhood closed.

I actually had to do a little bit of research to figure out that the reason is Pentecost, which comemorates, essentially, the birth of the church and the descension of the holy spirit, signifying the objective salvation of mankind, etc. etc. I should note that the one business on my block actually open is the chicken roaster on the corner, and I have never seen it so crowded, with a line out the door. I can only surmise that there's some connection to salvation and to fowl cooked on a spit. I might go for a wing later.

In the meantime I apologize for the recent lack of updates. Between a heavy dose of work, plotting the next stops in my Euro-itinerary and a short trip to Portugal, I have been too busy to write. Actually, I have been writing a lot, creatively, so that in years to come I may say with absolute sincerity that I found inspiration on the sun-toasted streets of Barcelona. Another truth is that, having adapted to the Spanish lifestyle, I haven't really found a single theme to wax clever about; just a bunch of smaller events I will recount here.

"Wait!" you might say, "A trip to Portugal and you haven't anything to say for yourself?" Well, it's hardly Portugal's fault that my surf trip to a small fishing village about 50 miles north of Lisbon proved rainy and windy, with one afternoon of sun and a couple of brief moments of bliss in the ocean during the four days spent marvelling that any culture could eat more pork than the Spanish. Nor is it Portugal's fault that my flight out was delayed a great many hours, forcing my most lasting impression to be of the Lisboa Airport. Ultimately, it was a less-than-thrilling trip, Lisbon itself underwhelming in the shadow of Barcelona's splendor, with rundown buldings prevalent and a language that made me grateful to find Spanish speakers to converse with. The public transport was good. Now let us close the book on Lisbon.

I have also hooked up with a small group of literate expats (a local online group), giving me the opportunity to discuss politics, art and literature at a bar into the late hours over beer and wine. We even comingled with some locals interested in practicing their English, so I had some interesting bilingual conversations about local customs (and prejudices), particularly the relative rudeness of Spaniards vs. those from Latin America (their words, not mine). I am also told that my Spanish improves once I've had a few drinks in me, which could make travel through Germany difficult.

I also received a visit from the one and only, famous to this blog, Roy Dank. His vacation began with a DJ gig in the Ramblas and concluded with a series of cold showers, as our hot water heater went out. Amid sporadic siteseeing, a poorly timed illness and some fine meals out, one highlight was arranging a barbecue on my patio to show Omar and neighbor-friend Raul how we Americans like to play with fire. Though the Catalan sausage, lamb ribs and veal were substituted for burgers and hot dogs, los hombres were fascinated by my grilling techniques, and vowed to embrace the American custom as their own this summer.

But, like I said, most of my time has been spent at work, which will continue to be the case as I move on. In a few days my buddy Max arrives, and a week from tomorrow we are off to travel the east and north. Though unsettled at the moment, I believe our trip will go like this: Prague, Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam. Hamburg may be replaced by some unforeseen alternate, as the idea of visiting as many distinct countries as we can seem exciting, and we're anticipating a number of days spent in berlin. But, either way, it should be a good time.

Then Max returns home and I go on to Ireland, with possibly a stop in Scotland if I get my act together. From there I will travel to Seattle to meet my lovely girlfriend (her absense on this trip is the reason I am skipping Paris). She and I will drive down to Portland, then on to Ashland, Oregon, and finally I will conclude my travels, arriving home in San Diego in late July, settling in the SoCal city once again, for a while, to surf and be in a relationship (not necessarily in that order). At least until Hawaii beckons with its sweet siren song and turquoise waves.

The Running of the Buses (Donosti) [Revised]

*Revised for friendliness and grammer.

The weather has been improving, which one would normally expect as spring creeps in, but with the global climate growing inpredictabile of late, it's tough to count on anything.

Which is why my planned visit to the Basque town of San Sebastian proved complicated. The small city on the northeast coast of Spain, just a short 20-30 miles from the French border, was my first-choice residence in this country, strictly because it's known to have some of Europe's best surf. Ultimately, settling in Barcelona proved a better idea, both in terms of price and wider-spread availability of amenities like broadband internet, but a nine-hour busride couldn't keep me away from that funky little beach town on the Bay of Biscay.



However, choosing the right days to go was difficult. I needed more than a forecast for sunshine, already a rare commodity in the month of April. There also needed to be an incoming swell- something born in the North Atlantic, like around Iceland, and mellow winds that weren't going to destroy the good breaks. My attentive studies of the various forecasts showed a promising window beginning on a late Sunday and heading into midweek.

Catching the right bus can make or break a trip, as I should have learned pretty quickly when boarding in Barcelona. It was getting late on a Saturday, and already the seats were near full as we departed for the overnight trip via Irona, and the more famous Pamplona. The driver brusquely directed each passenger to specific luggage compartments and was obviously in a desperate hurry to leave. Little wonder most of us didn't have the courage to argue or question his methods despite the confusion of multiple languages and a collective uncertainty about just where this bus might go. Only one passenger did, and he made me instantly regret politely offering my place in line. But who ever heard of a belligerant priest? Padre was apparently reluctant to give up his fabric briefcase, which he clutched as if it contained so many precious relics. He and the driver had it out, with some hint of foul insults tickling my uncomprehending brain. To be honest, I think that briefcase held booze.

Regardless, the ensuing mood probably had a lot to do with a young Oklahoman couple's decision to board without question. I heard these honeymooners speak English to each other during the wee holy fracas, and when they happened to take a seat across the aisle, I decided to casually strike up a conversation as the bus left the station. Lucky for them, because they were anticipating a short, twenty or thirty minute busride to a hotel room they'd resrved on Playa San Sebastian, a beach on the outskirts of Barcelona. I inoccuously made some incredibly lame American traveller's joke about nine hour busrides and they looked at me as if I was a tornado about to flatten their Dairy Queen. I helped them arrange to disembark at the nearest stop on the way out of town, but I still wonder how long they would have stuck out that trip before they began to wonder if they were even still in Spain...

Anyway, the nine hour trip to the Basque country took less than seven, somehow, and after nearly an hour and a half determining that A) The local bus to my hostel doesn't run on Sunday mornings and B) All Basque taxi drivers hate me, to the point of screaming at me in Euskara (the native tongue, unrelated to any other known langauge in the world and apparently quite prolific with the venomous metaphors).

I then discovered that, depsite telling me otherwise, the hostel didn't have a bed ready for me until early afternoon. They did let me stash my backpack, though, and so with six hours to kill, I hit the beach, just a block away.



Here's the part my male readers have been waiting for: the topless sunbathers (sorry, no pictures). I'd sort of casually understood this actually took place, as opposed to being some 1980's R-rated B-movie comedy-romp plot device. I guess I was just unprepared to reconcile the concept that, early on a Sunday morning, it would just be me, a couple of sleeping homeless hippies, and a seemingly endless parade of women laying down blankets all around me, then getting to work with applying the sunscreen. To my credit, I did manage enough focus to read an entire novel while I sat there. On the other hand, it was a short book. Farenheit 450-something. It was about fire.

I did finally get to check-in to my hostel room, where I bunked with an Australian kid and was surrounded by an amusing variety of Aussies, Canadians and other Californians. A few of them vowed to check the surf with me, but chilly, flat waters prevailed this day and we settled for Acoustic guitars and drinks on the midnight beach under a half moon.

I hadn't stayed in a hostel for roughly ten years or so, and was the oldest person there by a good seven or eight. None of the kids staying there could really understand what I was up to when I'd set up my laptop in the lobby and get to work with the wifi signal. It honestly took a couple days for the notion to dawn on them that I am a writer and that I was actually working remotely to support myself while I stayed in Europe, not just travelling off of graduation gifts (which I totally should have done ten years ago, by the way).

The weather was gorgeous, though, and many hours were spent at the beach. However, my attempt to surf proved lackluster at best. The waves picked up a little bit for a couple of hours- right around siesta time, when all the surf shops were closed. I managed to rent a board from the hostel manager, but without a wetsuit or wax it was a very cold, slippery ordeal trying to drag a longboard across slow, weak waves. I also had to contend with the locals, who were not necessarily the greatest surfers in the world, but certainly some of the rudest. A couple of guys went out of their ways to cut me off, even going so far as to team up, leaving several empty, unridden waves, purely out of some sense of spite. I got out in less than an hour.

Of course, then I had to return, shivering, to the beach and try to locate my friends, who had set up our towells somewhere, out there, in the sand. Good luck scanning all the beach towels for familiar faces on a topless beach.



This left me to focus on the food. Thank goodness. The Basque Tapas (aka Pintxos- Euskara is one crazy-ass language) are clearly the best there are. In fact, this is definitely some of the best food on the planet. I can't say what or why, because there is such a loose definition as to what makes up a Tapa, but I got a bit adventurous on this trip and tried a wide variety of bizarre cooked and/or meticulously designed concoctions involving seafood, ham, and things that I only know didn't contain shrimp. Upon return to Barcelona I told my roommate, who's in the habit of tucking aside cash every paycheck to save for his next meal in San Sebastian, that I never wanted to eat anything else again. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, sympathetically, "I understand."

Getting back should have been easy. As I finished work on Tuesday night, I checked a current weather forecast calling for rain overnight, which would ruin a shot at any surf finally showing up in the morning. Deciding to save myself the cost of another night at the hostel, I hastily threw my things together, had one last Tapas meal and caught a taxi to the bus station. This is where my luck changed for the worse... or so it seemed.

The bus driver wouldn't let me on-board, because the ticket counter had closed and he would not accept cash. I once again learned that there's nothing like an argument to bring out my knowledge of Spanish, but no displays of contempt, no amount of bribe would change his mind in front of an equally impotent supervisor, and I was forced to return to another listless night at the hostel, which had gained some new guests in the form of Canadian teenagers who were clearly excited to be drinking liquor, and just as clearly inexpert at holding it.

Gloriously ,the next morning started with a knock at the door- a new California acquaintance wanting to check the view of the surf from my balcony. And it was good! We'd somehow avoided all but a light drizzle, and the forecast swell finally showed up, offering decent, almost fast head-high waves. And the localism was no longer a problem because, although it was a little crowded, I have gotten used to more difficult waves and hit these fun rides with more gusto than gourmand at tapa-time. Nobody was going to deny the massive smile cutting across my face. In fact, I came to realize that the Basques were overwhelmingly some of the friendliest I'd encountered yet over here. I was going to sleep well on that long busride home.