The Albatross

I have been trying to perfect the art of packing.  Over the years I felt that I had pared the necessities down to the basics, but this year somehow I lost sight of the grand simplicity that I had aspired to.  It all started with a new slightly better Adolfo suitcase–just don’t do it.

Last summer when I picked up my bag from the airport I noticed yet another of my zipper pulls had disappeared.  I don’t know how the baggage becomes so totally mangled in transit, but it does.  My last bag was actually a nice size for quick trips because it was small enough to be a carry-on.  But for five or six weeks, it gets a bit cramped.  The last couple of summers I noticed that I was jamming more and more into the poor thing and it was as heavy as a load of textbooks by the time I headed for the airport to fly home (which may have contributed to the zipper pull problem–but I don’t really see how).  It did “expand,” when necessary (and it is generally quite necessary when I do my yearly hunt for travel bargains.)

I save my little shekels all year so that I can blast through the European end-of-summer sales and bring home a new pile of clothes.  I used to feel a bit sheepish about it–but no more.  I have come to feel totally unapologetic on this point.  The clothes in Europe are more stylish, they fit better, and I can almost guarantee that I won’t be wearing the same sweater that someone else in the office has.  Not to mention that many countries in Europe regulate the frequency and seasons that stores may drastically reduce their prices.  When the sales occur–as in the last weeks of July–the prices are dirt cheap, even at the nicest boutiques.  Of course, it is like a feeding frenzy inside these shops and its best to stand clear of the women at the bargain tables.  Honestly, when the stores close their doors for the evening the places look like they have been looted.

So given the need for a few souvenirs, gifts and the yearly clothes stash, my new larger plum Adolfo bag allowed me to expand my packing capacity.  The bag had a hefty looking wheel base for added balance and stability-also, more internal structure.  What I didn’t adequately test drive was the handle, which turned out to be a bit flimsy in comparison to the wheels, nor did I simply lift the thing up to see how heavy it was while still empty.  The slightly heftier construction weighed more as well.  Adding that to the increased dimension–I was no longer a lightweight traveler, and I regretted this every time I lugged the thing up a set of stairs from the metro.

I have a list that I just print out now to pack.  It has everything on it so I don’t even have to think.  I have a little camping organizer pouch for the toiletries–from R.E.I–I’ve had it for maybe 15 years and its still just the perfect little thing to carry most of what I bring besides clothes.  So that wasn’t a problem.  The problem was that with the bigger bag I could bring more crap–some of it is necessary, some not.  For example, the umbrella.  Anyone who has visited  northern Europe on a rainy year will verify that you simply don’t want to be caught without one–you will just end up buying the first one you find during the first downpour.  Then there is the requisite rain-jacket–sometimes needed, sometimes not–but if you don’t bring one you may end up shopping for one on the fly.  I also always pack an extra duffel bag just folded inside my other bag, since there is inevitably overflow by the end of the trip that needs to be carried-on.  Then there are the shoes.  Its just always so damned hard to decide how many shoes to bring.

So, bottom line...here are the things I packed that I didn’t use at all: a second pair of jeans, a pair of cotton pants, a pair of cropped pants, two pairs of shoes, my rain-jacket, a towel, my swimsuit, a “modesty” scarf for the cathedrals, and several medium weight tops.  Ok, some of these items I could well have used, but most were just taking up space because I had more space to take up. I could have actually eliminated about a third of what I brought.  Lumped into a pile, it was probably a few pounds of extra crap to haul up every set of stairs–for which the only benefit was perhaps stronger arms and sore knees. 

I took a look at my bag this evening.  It really fared pretty well overall, aside from the piece of plastic that was torn off the underside on my long haul up the steep cobblestone alleys in Mértola (which dragged along the ground for about half the trip until I finally just ripped the thing completely off).  But like so many other bloated American schemes, my packing needs downsizing.  My suitcase has become an albatross around my neck. 

I’ll be shopping for another new bag this year–the same carry-on size I had before–only with hefty wheels and handle.  This time, however, I’ll sling it over my shoulder and carry it around the store for a half hour before I even think of rolling it up to the register.  With my new “old” sized bag the decision about how many shoes to bring will resolve itself.  All that extra crap just won’t fit.

Love Parades in the Time of Cholera

Cholera was inching its way through the province of Valencia, just south of Barcelona during the time we were visiting Spain.  Concurrently, the Love Parade celebrations were also inching their way through Spain, as well as through the rest of Europe.    

On our first Friday in Lisbon we passed through the large square down by the old port–the former gateway to the city.  Tents and scaffolding were being erected and the signs on the billboards indicated that the upcoming activities were in celebration of “gay pride.”

On Saturday night, our last night in Lisbon, we wandered down to the square to see what was going on.  The performance was in full flower and a sizable crowd had gathered there, though I must say that this celebration was nothing–and I mean nothing–like the Love Parade celebrations which go on in Germany.  This year’s Love Parade in Duisberg, Germany being a good example of the wild abandon and chaos that usually reigns (although fortunately, in most previous Love Parades there haven't been stampedes and with people injured and killed).  I attended the Love Parade in Berlin, in 2003, apparently the last year Berlin was willing to host the parade, since it had grown to a gathering of a million and a half by 1999.  In 2003, when I attended, it was still attracting crowds of approximately 750,000.  Pride parades seem to be cousins of the Love Parade, although most are an abbreviated size by comparison (but apparently not the Pride Parade in Madrid).  Like the Love Parades they are held in the summer months all over Europe and are tremendous fun to watch-both a fashion carnival and a techno music extravaganza.

The performers at the square in Lisbon were in drag–belting out their tunes with a great deal of flourish and pizazz and the crowd was loving it.

But this was just a hint of what was to come in Madrid.  Having no idea that a gay parade was planned for the Saturday that we were arriving in Madrid, we rolled into town in the midst of the post-parade gay euphoria.  We remembered at this point that our hotel had advertised that it was “gay friendly” in the literature.  It was.  And its location was obviously in the center of the gay quarter of the city.

Interestingly shaped breads and other hot items were displayed in the windows along our street and rainbow flags hung from the lamp posts several blocks around our hotel in all directions.  It was full party mode.  We were astounded.  I had never seen so many gay men on any single street in my life (who weren’t part of a parade).  I found it rather festive, but my male traveling companion was a little nervous. 

It seemed that gays from around the globe had flocked to Madrid to see the sights and strut their stuff.  The party continued through Sunday night.  By Monday, however, only occasionally did we see a gay couple on the same tourist routes that we were taking.

Madrid seems generally to be a rather chaotic city–only a small part of the chaos being the gay pride celebration.

The culmination of the chaos occurred for us, however, only after we had returned to the hotel on Monday.  After dinner we had stopped for ice-cream which we had taken to a nice little patio on the hotel roof that looked out over the street.

I was just savoring the last scoop of pistachio when we saw smoke billowing up from below.  We looked over the wall and could see that something was ablaze below our building.  My first thought was, “This is the 5th floor and I’m getting the hell out!”  We alerted the man at the desk on our way past him and we all hurried down the stairs into the street. 

Sirens were blaring and the first to arrive was a police vehicle.  A strapping young officer sprang from the police car with a fire-extinguisher and ran to the trash bin that was aflame. (There were large bins along the street for debris from local renovations, but the paraders had supplied a great deal more flammable trash to the containers over the weekend.  It appeared that a smoker may have tossed his cigarette into one receptacle and a nice blaze had erupted.  The steel bin contained the fire quite well really, but there was always the danger that something nearby would catch fire–then the whole street might burst into flames.)  The officer braced himself and pulled the trigger.  Nothing came out of the extinguisher however, and the melting plastic in the bin continued spewing impressive billows of acrid smoke.  The officer whacked the thing.  Still nothing.  Chaos ensued.  But by this time the fire engines arrived and everyone in all the buildings up and down the street had come out to see what was going on.

We took the opportunity to make our exit for a half hour or so, in search of bottled water.  Good thing, apparently, since cholera was threatening to encroach on the neighborhood.  When we returned, the fire was out, and aside from the street being temporarily closed to traffic while the mess was being cleaned up, there was nothing to get in the way of sleeping.  It was 1 p.m. after all–our witching hour.

Siesta

The siesta was invented by someone south of France, I’m sure.  So when in Rome...
The Romans were all over the Iberian peninsula leaving the remnants of their feats of engineering along with other cultural tidbits.  So perhaps the siesta is one of those?  Spain actually gets the credit for inventing the “siesta”, but it is a practice that one finds throughout southern Europe.  I must admit that by midday throughout my travels in blazingly sunny Spain, I felt like a crumpled wet dishrag and wanted nothing more than to get my soggy body as prone as possible around 4 p.m or so each afternoon–preferably under an air-conditioner.

Our pension in Seville was quite charming–an old Spanish townhouse on the second level of the building with a grand central courtyard into which all the guest rooms open up.  The family who owns this floor–and perhaps the whole building–live somewhere further down the corridors.

When something is needed guests are asked to ring a bell.  After which a frail old man hobbles down the hallway with his cane and tries his utmost to accommodate whatever the need is.  After the first encounter, we were too wracked with guilt to ring the bell–knowing full well that we would be wrenching the poor man from some comfortable sofa.

Our room had an "old world" feel and was full of vintage furniture–a huge carved wood wardrobe, a lovely little vanity with a mirror, an old iron bed, and little carved wood nightstands.  However, it had one very serious drawback–it was stiflingly hot and there was no air-conditioning (actually, not even a fan). It had windows which opened into another little sitting room that was between our room the one next to ours, but nowhere–it seemed–did the windows open up to the outside.

Consequently, in the heat of summer the rooms are intensely warm.

Every afternoon Seville almost shuts down between three and six o’clock.  But the large stores remain open and these stores are probably the best place to be at that time of day–shopping in some air-conditioned wonderland.  I did just that inadvertently one afternoon.  My camera died in Portugal and after a few days of hoping that it might heal itself, I decided that in the first large city I came across I would just break down and purchase one–which I did on my second day in Seville.  Exhausted by the whole affair, I had to lie on the big iron bed for some time and decompress.  To fill the time until dinner I tested little camera buttons and dripped with sweat as though I was in a sauna.

Honestly, siestas have the same sort of therapeutic benefit as saunas.  You become so drained of energy that you relax entirely and almost lose consciousness, then as you pull yourself back from the edge of oblivion you feel surprisingly relaxed and refreshed. But in any case, there is nothing else to do until dinner-time but melt, so you might as well do it lying down because “dinner-time” in Spain begins after 8 p.m. and goes late into the night.  Until the sun stops baking the city and the evening breeze starts up, the inhabitants live in a suspended animation–only to come back to life around 9 p.m. with a vengeance.

By the time we left Spain we were well on the way to perfecting the fine art of taking a siesta and staying up until 1 a.m. The next time I visit Spain (and I have every intention of exploring more of this lovely land) I will gladly stay once again in this charming old pension.  But it won’t be in July.

Fado

I am inching toward the beginning, only to never reach it, but to then high-tail it to the present and back again. 

Upon our arrival in Lisbon we realized the fado festival was underway and our hotel was located at its center.

   

"Fado is  Portugal’s blues or rebetika or tango or flamenco. They stand on emotions...it is an emotional kind of music full of passion, sorrow, jealousy, grief and often satire. Yet fado differs from its musical cousins in its poetic mystery and its ability to fuse dichotomous traits: impossible pain and fervent joy, life’s cruelty with love’s intensity.”

In celebration of St. Anthony, the Portuguese decorate the alleyways and squares and spend three weeks of June eating snails and grilled sardines, drinking their favorite libation, and listening to the fado singers into the wee hours of the morning.

I can personally testify to this since our room was in Alfama–the oldest sector of the city built on Roman ruins.  It was the center of what is now Lisbon when the Moors occupied the city and has remained the area where the sailors and poor of the city tend to live.

A maze of narrow alleyways wind through the steep hillside, laundry hangs from the windows and balconies, and the buildings lining the alleys are decorated with Portuguese ceramic tiles and painted in bright cheery colors–with a coral pink being perhaps the favorite.

The view from our window was lovely, even though the bathroom was a bit cramped.  But at night we could see the full moon across the water in the bay and we could hear the thumping beat of the fado festival from the street by the wharf below.

I’m sure that fado comes in all sorts of shapes and colors–some being more “of the people” and some being more refined.  But there is a festival atmosphere throughout Lisbon–and especially in Alfama.

Around every corner the smell of grilled sardines fills the air and little groups of locals gather in a corner bar or square sipping ginja (a tasty sour cherry liqueur) as soon as the heat of day begins to wane.

 
But the music really only starts up after sunset.  Forget sleeping.  Just join the party.

Wildflowers in Bloom

My legs are stiff.  Instead of attending to my blog, yesterday I most irresponsibly took to the mountains to escape the heat and the crush of civilization in the city.  I have missed the mountains.  In spite of the beauty of the places I have visited in the last five weeks I have also missed standing atop a ridge and seeing perhaps 50 miles or more in all directions.   

We could feel the air temperature dropping even as we drove up the canyon and it seemed easier to breathe.  As a last reminder that even up the canyon the hothead yahoos are ever-present, we saw some poor soul trying just to turn her vehicle around on the shoulder of the road who was honked at and yelled at by two passing vehicles.  But surprisingly, within a quarter mile up the trail, one could only hear the leaves rustling, insects buzzing and an occasional scurry or flapping from deeper in the brush.

Sadly, when hiking these days, one must choose one’s path partly on the basis of whether or not it is used by mountain bikers.  This trail was not—in fact we passed only two hikers in approximately five hours.  That was divine.  The wildflowers were obviously in full summer bloom and the aspen groves lined the trail the entire way–opening up into glorious meadows in a few spots with a chorus of color.  And even when we were not near the stream the aspen leaves wafting in the breeze imitated the sound of rushing water.

But lest it sound too idyllic, we were sweating like pigs, being eaten alive by deer flies, and walking through stinging nettle with shorts on—on the way up.  The humidity yesterday was high for Salt Lake City and additionally, there had obviously been a lot of recent rainfall in the mountains.  The heat of the day was sucking the moisture from the soil and plants–creating a kind of greenhouse feel.  We quickly became sticky and hot from the steep rise in elevation.  I was suffering, in particular, because I have been roaming Europe at sea level for weeks now and the elevation was taxing my lungs a bit more than usual.  This particular hike starts at about 7,500 ft. and climbs to 9,760 ft. on the ridge above a small lake.  I had to stop repeatedly to breathe in the stretch near the top, because it was so steep.

But the pay-off is the view from the ridge.  We could see Antelope Island in one direction; Park City in another direction, and a cascade of peaks looking south down the range of the Wasatch mountains.

The stretch of the trail on the ridge and down to the lake is a bike trail and a few bikers whizzed by us.  I took the opportunity to curse them after they had passed.  I usually do this silently, but yesterday, I held up my fist and cursed them aloud!  Just around the bend a few minutes hike away, there they were—one rider fixing a flat tire and the others giving visual support and trying to maintain their cool.  I noted that perhaps the cursing actually worked.  We hiked down to the lake and enjoyed the isolation—since during the time we were there no one else was at the lake.  We ate our apples, cheese and crackers and watched a few bikers inching along the ridge from Guardsman Pass.  On the way back up the slope another couple of bikers rode past us down the trail—these going somewhat more slowly.  I noticed blood oozing from the corner of one of their mouths.  We had seen them on the ridge from below lingering there for some time.  From that distance we were not sure whether or not they were hikers or bikers.  I then thought, “Perhaps I should be a little more careful with my curses. But then, well, the guy is still alive, so maybe it just slowed him down.”

The hike back was perhaps the most tranquil.  The air had cooled and the light was fading quickly.  The insects had stopped buzzing, humming, and biting and the woods seemed almost eerily—but soothingly—silent.  On the downward slope I was all too aware of the nettle and managed only to brush my fingers across it.

And as we drove down the canyon, the sun–which was by now an enormous fireball in the evening sky–shot its glare sideways across the cliffs like a Maxfield Parrish painting come to life.

Not All Tapas Bars are Created Equal and Food Isn’t Always Just Food

Perhaps the most memorable meal of my summer travels was in a minuscule Tapas bar in Seville. The Bar itself was indeed tiny—consisting of only a long carved wooden bar with a marble countertop and few, if any stools, inside the building. The seating was comprised of slightly gritty tables jammed somewhat haphazardly in every inch of sidewalk next to the bar that isn’t required for foot traffic along the street. The efficient, yet jovial waiters bustle around in white shirts with rolled up sleeves and black slacks, and in some respects the operation and appearance of the place could have just stepped out of another century. I might add that the previous night we had seated ourselves at another similar Tapas bar without the slightest notion of what to expect. After perusing what seemed to be an extensive hors d'œuvre menu and eying the delicious looking fish being served on the table next to ours (which happened to be serviced by another establishment), we vacated for the fish dinners.

After a quick bit of research the following morning concerning the protocols of dining in a Tapas bar, we decided to take the Tapas plunge. We scouted out a little bar, just around the corner from Alfalfa square which offered Tapas for 2.80€ per item. What appealed to us almost as much as the price was the somewhat less chaotic location. It was still an active little street, but was not in the square. I’m convinced that what we experienced was some of the most delicious sampling of Andalusian specialties available. For starters we ordered olives, gezpacho, goat cheese, tuna with onions, and shrimp--along with cold white wine and bread. The olives were marinated in herbs and chilies and were the size of small eggs. The gezpacho was served in a glass--more like a drink--but with all the flavor of a chunky cold soup.  The goat cheese was served warm with a honey glaze and a small sprig of rosemary on top—and was fabulous on the fresh bread. Large chunks of fresh tuna were baked with large onion slices—in a sauce that was reminiscent of fine French onion soup. The shrimp were large, cold, fresh and sweet, and served in their shells. Of course, one must add the romance of the narrow cobbled calle in the heart of old Seville to the experience, as well as the fact we had been walking the city all day in simmering heat. When the sun set and the evening breeze began to cool off the city and such delectable dishes were whisked out of what appeared on the surface as a tiny little corner bar—eating such a meal was practically like dying and going to heaven.

Needless to say, we sampled another round of items (one of which had to be more goat cheese). We sipped more wine, watched the moon rise, and amused ourselves with the parade of locals trying to squeeze their small cars into the tiny parking slots next to our table.

Throughout our summer travels we tried to replicate the Tapas delirium, but we never came close. For Tapas, the center of the universe is Alfalfa square in Seville.

Contemplating the Human Condition

The human condition is generated by chemistry but orchestrated by this organism we call society. Having escaped my local environment for over a month, upon my return I am slammed against the wall of American dogmatism and hyperbole—its rather depressing. It occurs to me that the ‘news’, is to a great extent really a self-perpetuating stream of gossip, negativity and manipulation. There is something very liberating about leaving the media behind and exploring the world through sight, sound, taste and touch as I was able to do for the last month or so—in defiance of hyper-connectivity. I find that my most scintillating memories are of unexpectedly delicious meals, chilled white wine on a blisteringly hot day and the thrill of rounding a corner to glimpse some unanticipated foreign wonder. And honestly, one need not go far to experience the foreign—just beyond the familiar, really—and how far is that? But if one can travel much further, that can even amplify the joy.

We formulate our condition only in part. Our bodies dictate our level of happiness and one can do only so much to achieve and maintain a healthy physical form—but there is joy in physical well being. The human condition is, however, determined perhaps more by the level and quality of engagement in emotional, intellectual and aesthetic experience. Whether we realize it or not, we must compose and orchestrate our experience to feel its pangs, its flights of fancy, and its wells of insight. I try to remember that what is eliminated from our scope is as important as what is embraced. And from time to time I visit the Onion Cellar and savor a little glass of absinthe for my aesthetic health. "Turn on, tune in, drop out"?