I went to Spain for a week in January and wrote about the whole trip in my trusty Moleskine. Here is the first installment in my lightly edited version of those journal entries. Enjoy!
1/2/07
8:24 a.m., Frankfurt time
Here starts the tickler. Arrive at Frankfurt airport – 7 a.m. Flight uneventful. Guy next to me prone to muttering to himself, but not excessively. I sleep, or read McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses.
At airport I pay way too much for a nauseating cheese-pesto wrap, an OJ and a cup of coffee. But the coffee is really good.
Now waiting for flight to Madrid. Nowhere to charge my iPod. Arrrr!
1/3/07
Granada, Spain
I am in a cafe --- Cafeteria Bar Aiza, Plz. Lorga, No. 5, Albaizin. It’s noon. The guy behind the counter has short gray hair and glasses and yells songs and whistles “Bolero” at a fast clip. I found this place at the recommendation of a guy at Makuto Guesthouse, where Marissa and the others are staying, and where I’ll meet them soon.
So to update from where I left off – oh, and I’m drinking cafe con leche after a solo cafe – I did find a place to charge the iPod, and did so. Two-hour flight from Frankfurt to Madrid uneventful. Read the Int’l Herald Tribune, which I actually really liked. Dozed a bit.
Madrid airport, then subway to Estacion, where I figured out how to get to Granada. 5:30 bus – 1.5 hr wait. Egg/veg. sandwich on crispy baguette. Buy a travel alarm clock because my cell phone is useless here. Then, 5 hr. bus ride to Granada. They show DVDs of Sneakers and Mr. Deeds dubbed into Spanish. The people on the bus enjoyed the scene with a cat being tortured. Brief stop at some hotel with a cafe and gift shop. On bus I listed to Ginsberg, McKenna, Bill Hicks, read McCarthy, wonder what’s in store. Bus skirts edge of deep valleys – snowy peaks visible in distance by
light of a nearly full moon.
Confusion in Granada. Where to go? 33 bus, luckily, stopped outside station. Climb on, ask a bearded guy with a big backpack if he’s going to Plaza Nueva. He is. Says he’ll show me where to go. I got off bus w/ him and an attractive woman he knew – walk with them along small creek running to right of cobblestone street. Air is damp and a bit chilly – I wish I had my hat and gloves. The woman, from whom I part last, kisses me on each cheek. I probably looked surprised. It starts to sink in – I’m in Granada! Spain! How to look at everything, what focus and lens to use -- ?
Start to climb steep stairs and hills, carrying suitcase in hand, getting winded but welcoming the exercise after full day of sitting on airplane and bus. Finally ascend to Rambutan Guesthouse, my first hostel. James shows me my room – a guy offers to cook me pasta for dinner. Company includes Connor, late 30s, Irish (from Dublin), bald, glasses, short and wiry. Very talkative. About everything. But warm and human. Young couple from Brown. I like them both. I try not to talk much, absorb the vibe on my own, feel it out. They play music – hip-hop, U2.
(I just had to move seats because this younger waiter here – who also sings loudly and goofily, “My bonny lies over the ocean” – was sweeping the floor near me.) Retire to bed around 2:30a – the Brown kids already asleep in room. The Belgian girls come in a little later and whisper to each other in a language I couldn’t identify. Someone turns the light out eventually. I listen to an amazing Ethiopian instrumental on my iPod – evokes waterfalls, visual patterns. Fall asleep and sleep fairly soundly, though I got cold, then hot.
Woke up at 10 am, shower in tiny shower off common room, hot water starts to run out. But it feels good. Get dressed, pack backpack for day. Walk out to cool, beautiful sunny morning, no clouds in sky, Alhambra (?) visible across the way. Incredible. Use Google Maps on old PC to find way from Rambutan to Makuto – good, only half a mile or so, is walkable. Write down directions that I hope will serve me well and depart.
Walk through narrow labyrinths of cobblestone streets, listen to birds chirp, two dogs – one lying down, the other sits and watches me as I pass. Streets quiet and sparsely traveled. Workers talk and play their radio, buses and trucks squeeze down the narrow streets.
To my surprise I find Makuto with no difficulty. And a man directs me here, where I am on my second cafe – this one con leche, and people smoke, talk, shout, the stereo plays, they read the paper. Also, I have bought hand cream. I ate tostade w/tomate. Good. Time to buy some fruit and go back to Makuto.
Posted by nedlog at March 4, 2007 7:29 PM | TrackBack