brad

Perth time flies...lazily

I’ve been in Perth basically a month. I am stuck in not-working mode, haven’t achieved anything… and not too fussed about it. Lots of fun in recent times.

Last Friday was the final of the Australian University Games, so I went and watched the (mixed) Ultimate final. First guy I saw was ex-Frankfurt Jens, now living in Sydney and here as a journalist turned coach. The final 17-5 scoreline meant most of the fun was in the crowd. Friday night went down to Fremantle, meeting uni-mate Brett who returned from a couple years in the States about the same time as I came back. Little Creatures has a pub/restuarant inside the brewery. Excellent beer, steak sandwhich and nachos. Saturday afternoon was my first time at Perth’s frisbee golf course (9 holes) with heaps of AUG people with perfect blue skies and a cold beer. Lets not pretend I’m good at it. On Saturday night, Mal who I met on a bus from Copenhagen to Berlin in 1998 and partied with there and in Prague had organised a 4hr river cruise. Oysters, Mussels, Prawns etc for starters, buffet dinner and all you can drink, cruising up to East Perth, then Fremantle and back, DJ music… that’s the life. Sunday brunch with Jens and the UNSW Ultimate crew on Beaufort st, visited cousin Al and walked around Lake Monger and then watched Australian Idol over a BBQ at Gary’s place. Monday was a public holiday here, so a group of my oldest friends went picnicing in the Swan Valley at Houghtons winery in 27 degrees. A footy was brought out. Tuesday night I went down to a climbing wall for the first time in a long time (not good at that either) and Wednesday the start of a new Ultimate league.

I’ve now come down with a head cold, had dinner at Thomas and Monika’s and am looking forward to my brother’s arrival tomorrow for a week or so.

I Still Call Australia Home... but it feels funny

I guess this is the first anize post, entered from Australia. That sounds like an excuse for a beer. Cheers anize! I�m now waiting for 105 eMails to download via modem, ugggh. Time to fix my index and get this Aussie entry in.

Gday!

So I arrived in Perth and hit a bed some 35 hours after leaving my previous one. The journey was full of events and deserves a blog entry itself. All in all it was OK and I think I should have jetlag pretty well covered. (My laptop thinks its 16:33 instead of 22:33). I guess I expected more obvious emotions to surface during this homecoming than I’ve felt till now. Australia was home, but having not lived there for over 6 years, I’ve neither left one behind or arrived in the one I left. Also expecting new things to start happening, there’s not such a huge sense of having arrived already. Perhaps until plans starts shaping up I’ll feel like I’m still travelling. I dunno.

Mum’s lamb roast tasted like home.

Those in colder climates but warmer temperatures might enjoy knowing it was bloody freezing last night. It got down to 3C. Beautiful blue sky day though (maxed around 16) and temps will get up to 23C by Sunday and 25C next week. Not quite beach weather and I’m not at this Oktoberfest, but spring flowers are blooming.

I haven’t got around to writing any kind of todo list yet, but it’ll be pretty big. Luckily I’m in no rush. Time, now, to read those eMails.

Algarve Arrival

So I’ve got sunburn, cracked lips, bruises, aches, scrapes and the general exhaustion that you get after a long beach tournament (sleeping less than 4hrs a night). After the round robin, Australia exceeded our own expectations (drinking team) to be third, but since we had 5 honorary-australians, we were a tyro team and ineligible for semis. Kicked back to 5th we officially came 6th after losing again to the Belgians. Bugger that, we beat the Yanks and Poms and had as much fun as anyone, even the Irish. I may actually write properly about it all at some point. Photos are fun.

I met up with my folks and arrived in the Algarve where its warm and sunny. Now its a quiet week in an appartment here, then a flight from Faro (7:05am what!) to Dusseldorf, and get across to Frankfurt that night for the midnight run to Singapore and then Perth.

Magic Bus arrived

So I’m in Portugal. Its hot, sunny and windy. Barcelona and the bus ride here were very cool. I needed a bit of rest and basically followed the fun crowd till we got here. Tent is up, I saw Patrick and Sofia and some other early arrivals. Tomorrow things should really hot up. Excitement.

Farewell ol Munich

This feels somewhat of an anticlimax. Since I left Munich in March and was only here for a few days, the fact that today is my last day here for the foreseeable future doesn’t have the shock value I guess I was expecting. Tonight I get on a plane to Barcelona, there’s quite a few loose ends and I still need to send off my Abmeldungsformular (deregister my residence). mmm I should get off the Internet and do them.

Too little blogging

So much for keeping up. Even worse, I left my PDA stylus lying around somewhere in Finland so its not like I have lots of material waiting to be copy and pasted here. Must have been bad karma from people who think I write too much.

I�m now back in rainy munich after a whirlwind tour post the Ultimate Frisbee world championships in Turku. Sorry about my lack of reporting from Worlds, but there seems to have been quite good coverage. The day after I lost my wallet on a bus in Turku as I was about to depart. Un-Finnish someone seems to have taken advantage and pocketed it. So I stayed back the extra day trying to get it back, chasing down bus #1 and getting back to the hotel. Since I had passport, airplane ticket and an Australian credit card separate, it wasn�t too bad. Thanks Stoffel for shooting me some money, which I then bank transferred back in Munich. Thanks also to the US Junior chaperone Mike, as well as the Matt and Brad from Brazil for the beer tasting session after my unfruitful search. The biggest upshot was bumping into Hayden and some NZers the night before they left for St Petersburg and catching up on some time we should have found during the tournament.

Ari, my flatmate from Granada was now in Helsinki, where I�d missed him before the tournament due to a trip to Belgium. So I headed to his place (sorry, I mean Tiina�s place) where we spent a great day. We had some lunch and headed out to Suomenlinna (an island in the harbour), picking up Wes (Ultimate player based in Graz, Austria) on the way. Evening back in Helsinki, Tarja and a friend of Ari�s joined us to give me a more authentic Finnish ambience. They spell the game Yahtzee, ‘Yahtzy’ in Finland.

The next day I headed off to Tallinn, Estonia, a 90 minute boat ride away. Finding accomodation wasn�t as easy or as cheap as I�d have liked, but thats what I got for seat of my pants planning. Tallinn was beautiful and the weather continued to be perfect after the first couple days of the tournament. I bumped into quite a few Ultimate players in Tallinn, most just doing a day trip. A whim turned into the plan, so instead of exploring the surroundings more thoroughly I took the five and a half hour bus to Riga. Arriving late afternoon, staying in an Australian run hostel right near the bus station I was sorted in no time and took to exploring. I met lots of cool people here, including a surprisingly large number of Australians (aren�t there always).

The next day was spent with an Australia mixed frisbee player’s neighbour. (Keah’s neighbour Jeremy). After some faffing where I forgot where the place “Blinoff” was where I wanted to have breakfast, we eventually headed out to Sigulda. I found the ‘Switzerland of Latvia’ a bit dissapointing truth be told. Riga seemed like a fantastic city (when the weather is good) and you can eat really well for around �5. This place is changing too fast. Go soon.

Night bus to Tallinn, arrive 05:00, 08:00 ferry to Helsinki, shop for souvenier/presents that I never quite found what I wanted and then flew back to Munich. It would be nice to head back there with more time. And visit South America. And New Zealand. And friends in the States. And Costa Rica. But I�m only here till Friday and then it goes Barcelona, Portugal, Australia.

Australia?

I told you there�d been too little blogging.

Brad hits Baltics

Plans went out the window and I’ve bust a gut post Turku through Helsinki, Tallinn, Estonia and now Riga, Latvia where my grandmother was born. If you think I’m going to write a longer blog entry with the sunshine I’m having, you’d be wrong.

The bad news is I’m looking at a night bus to Tallinn tomorrow, Friday morning ferry to Helsinki and flight to Munich in the afternoon. Time is precious, photos good.

Movements

Ok I’m a little more organised, its not surprising I’ve had some confused eMails. The plan is now to fly to Munich this Saturday (24.07), from there to Helsinki on 29.07 and be at Worlds in Turku from 31.7-8.8. I then have a few days until I fly back to Munich from Helsinki on Friday 13.08. Another very busy week until I return to Barcelona on 20.08 and then take The Ultimate Magic Mystery Bus to WBUC in Portugal, which should leave on the 22nd.

What happens after that? Wait and see.

Barcelona (again)

I arrived in Barcelona on the night bus 6am Tuesday morning. I wasn’t sorted for accommodation, so chilled at the train station, then went and did my washing while I thought about plans. I’d considered staying at Tim’s at Casteldefells, but I couldn’t reach him for a while and it turns out to be not so convenient. Doris came to the rescue, offering some floor space (I’m getting through people’s hospitality in Barcelona one by one). By this time I’d dumped my bags at a youth hostel and met an Australian (Lucy) who was headed to Sagrada Familia. Remember me mentioning that? So back I went and took photos. At 7pm I dumped my stuff at my generous host and met the Ultimate Frisbee crew at the Port Olympique beach for some throwing and running some time after 8pm. Slow and unfit, at this stage I’m just happy to get through sprint training without dying. You think I slept well? You bet I did.

Wednesday was a slow day, getting up late and organising things via Internet. I have flights from Munich to Finland, but still no fixed plan how I’m getting to Munich or from there to Portugal. Lots of options. Back to the beach, this time only Elena, Mary-Jo and Alexa rocked up, so I didn’t have to watch sweaty men’s’ backs as we ran. Much better.

A prophecy true

On the 13.05.2004, Bell wrote: “Think you’ll make it over to Worlds? August 1-7, 2004 in Turku, Finland… it’s only a hop, skip and a jump away…”. At the time I poo-pooed the idea (see the comments on this post

HOP: Hop over to Portugal. Play against South African Mat, who I met in Italy a couple years back at Pasticciotto. Mention I was born in Jo’burg. He comes back a while and says “Would you like to play Worlds with us?”. I thought he was talking about Beach Worlds in Portugal. He was talking about Worlds in Finland.

SKIP: Skip a heartbeat waiting for the ok from team captains. This took a while (06.07).

JUMP: Jump into action figuring out how to get there, how to get fitter and all the other things I need to do.

I’ve bought a return flight from Munich to Helsinki (29.07, returning on Fri 13.08). My first two evenings back in Barcelona were running training (1st night shuttles (sprints with turning around), 2nd night too many 400m and 8×50m sprints), joining people who’ve been doing their program for 8 weeks. Rest night tonight.

Good call Bell!

Parallel to all this ran the story of Beach Worlds in Portugal. Around the time I was playing at Bar do Peixe, Father Tongue eMailed me saying Jess in Italy was looking for Australians to fill up a team. Last I’d heard this was being organised in Australia and was too difficult, so I wrote Jess what I knew including the comment “I’d like to make it, I didn’t think I was going to be in Europe, but that’s looking more likely the more I procrastinate”. After travelling a while with Pablo and Steve, my Inbox had about 10 eMails about Team Oz at Beach Worlds. Jess had forwarded my eMail and written “And lets welcome Brad (Australian) to the team…”. I can’t wait to play for Australia. Thats a dream.

Bilbao

By the time I bought a ticket to Bilbao, the weather still hadn’t cleared up, Pamplona was finishing up and I wanted to see the Guggenheim museum. After a long drought I heard Australian accents. Hundreds of them. I found myself a Hostal that turned out to be the worst value I’ve had on this trip. I took it thinking that the Guggenheim might be shut tomorrow and therefore wanting to get there quickly. Despite the lady in the Hostal telling me it is shut on Mondays, its actually open in July and August. The museum was good. The architecture is simply wild and perfect for displaying art. I’m not sure why there are no comfortable seats in front of the art. The ground and first floor were excellent, the second floor had the type of modern art I just don’t get. If anyone can explain Mark Rothko to me, I’d be very appreciative. I really liked James Rosenquist’ stuff, that is the kind of modern art I can get into. The 12m high flower puppy outside is very cool. I wonder how hard it is to build a mini one in the garden?

After dinner and a very long Internet session (don’t ask, nothing worked), I tried to get into the Hostal at 3am, to find my key which I’d had problems with upstairs would not open the door at street level no matter what I tried. While considering all options before ringing the bell, a Japanese guy came up and asked for help. It was an interesting story he told. He’d come from Barcelona where he’d been robbed (“Do you know the Rambla?”, “yes, I know the Ramblas well”) and come to Bilbao where he has a friend. But his friend is now in Belgium and he has no money and nowhere to stay. The guy is not carrying any bags. What would you do? At this point there was a small chance he was legit, but you go on instinct and I didn’t trust him. I said in his situation I would try stay at the police station. He said he’d been there and they suggested the bus station. (Possible, but the police and bus stations are very far away from where he is now, in the old city full of tourists) By now I’d decided to ring the bell. I knew it was unlikely the Hostal people would come down, they would just open up, but he possibly didn’t. I told him he could talk to the Hostal people when I rang the bell and maybe they would help him. He says no, they won’t help him when they know he has no money. So I say I can’t help. Then he asks for money for a phone call, which was good because its so laughable I knew my instinct was right so I asked “who are you going to call?”. He left. They let me in. I slept. 4ish.

So why oh why did the Hostal guy bang on my door at 9am? I’d latched myself in which was good, because he was trying the key when I woke up. The day before I hadn’t had change and he wanted his money now. They had my passport number. Bastard! And the bed was too soft. I got outta there and gave him dirty looks. The weather was bad again and I wasn’t sure where to go. Eventually I decided to skip San Sebastian (I’ve been there in 1998) and got a ticket on the night bus back to Barcelona. This is the first time this trip I’ve saved a nights accommodation by travelling at night. It still sucks. We still do it. Why Barcelona makes sense now? You’ll have to keep reading.

Burgos

Arriving in Burgos at 23:40 was always going to be a mistake. I’d called Chicho (Ricardo) to get some help on accommodations. Unfortunately he couldn’t help but said there’s plenty of Hostal’s and that time of night is no problem. I didn’t believe him, but it sounded easy, I’m lazy and so arrived at midnight to be locked out of all the cheaper places. Splurged on a decent hotel for the night and moved the next day. oops.

Chicho is an Ultimate frisbee player who got things started in Granada when he was studying there. Friday we met up to move my gear and have a look around town. Burgos is small and quickly seen, you only need half a day or so. So we went and had a beer with Pablo (another Pablo, this one actually Spanish), grabbed a disc and went for a throw in a park. I took some night photos of the sites and had a quiet one. Saturday morning I checked out the Cathedral which is definitely worth seeing and then went for a walk. I bought a bus ticket for Bilbao the next morning and headed out to a Monastery where I studied on the grass in the sun (it was still quite cool) and had a little look around. Can anyone still do roman numerals? Is MDCCXIV the year 1714? (ie. 1000 + 500 +2×100 +14), I’ve no idea, I’m guessing. Evenings Chicho and I grabbed a bite and then met his friends for some beers. They drink red wine mixed with coke here. Why? I stuck to Beer.

Pablo's right

You can’t find postcards without the place name all over it anymore. That sucks. Looking through the postcards in Gijon, there was one I wanted. On a 5 for 60c rack, I figured they’d probably charge me 20c or similar. The girl behind the counter says “Its five for 60c”, I answer “Me no write much, only want one”. She grins and says just take it. Free is good.

little things Spain

From what I’ve written my increasing enjoyment of the little things Spanish as well as the difference between regions is not yet obvious. Since Madrid, I’m feeling far more confident with Spanish. This opens up far more rewarding encounters with strangers and reading things. Only some of these experiences are easily shared, for example:

The sign in a pastry shop window in Gijon, “se hacen tartas eroticas”, which entertains this english speaker as “we have erotic tarts”.
An Oviedo restaurant offers a �6,50 menu del dia. The drink options are sparse: water or wine. Interestingly enough wine comes in a 1L bottle, water in 33cl (330ml or 11.16 Oz for the 2 little guys). Fine by me, I had wine.
In apartment building stairwells there are buttons for light switches and buttons for doorbells. If its dark, I hit the glowing light switch. Do this late at night in Oviedo and the bell wakes up the Hostal. oops.
Its amused me for years how the Spanish react to a drop of rain. They must be raised to believe they’ll melt. Umbrellas fly up, people start running and before you can say “Monkeys wedding”, the streets are deserted and everyone’s inside. Sitting on an Oviedo park-bench enjoying a mix of cloud and sun, learning Spanish, some raindrops spat down. I looked up to see a dark cloud has almost passed, with lots of blue behind it. I shifted on the bench to take some tree cover and 3 minutes later had the park and sunshine almost to myself. The previously buzzing cafe across the path was now empty and the staff came out for a rest

Asturias

The chances are good that nobody noticed, but the “most recent location” was Oviedo before I backdated this post. Truth be told, until recently I’d never heard of the place. Now you have too and I can tell you more about it. The provincial capital of the Asturias, pop200 000: its a neat, well kept, attractive small city. Asturia is in Spain’s north west; like Andalucia’s Alpujarras, between mountains and sea. I’d realised the similarities between Asturia and Austria, but when an American asked where I’m from and then told me I speak amazing English, it took a while to realise he’d misunderstood Australian as Asturian. I’d never originally considered going there, but heading north opened up the possibility of meeting Ari or Earl in/near Pamplona and a whole region of Spain I was yet to explore. Nobody told me the weather sucks. Once I’d gotten more information the plan was to spend time on the Bay of Biscay beaches (raining) and the Picos de Europas mountains (snowing). Why make plans?

I found things to do instead. Drink cider (sidre) for example. They pour it with the maximum possible vertical drop which is slightly impressive and for some reason they do this while looking away. At �2 a bottle, a little spillage isn’t the end of the world, and as we may slightly have overdone it probably not a bad thing. But distilling this part of the trip down to cider would do Oviedo an injustice. I really liked it. It has a funny layout: at first you get lost a lot despite its small size, but even after a few days you wonder how you never saw this street, plaza or bar before. The Cathedral is nice, but there’s not too much to see in town. I mainly learnt Spanish and hung out in cafe’s, while my friends were at classes and surprised myself with decent conversations at the Hostal (own TV and shower, yeah!), Tourism office and on the street. I tried waiting the weather out and seeing what Ari and Earl were doing, but it was not to be. After a daytrip to nearby Gijon on the coast, I left Asturia and backtracked to Burgos.

Some Photos

I just put up Barcelona and Segovia photo albums, on http://dirtmine.com/brad/gallery/Spain.

Barcelona shots are mainly from the Forum, I’ve a half written entry about that which will make it here at some point.

Farewell Madrid

On the bus ride to El Escorial (01.07), my journal/log was almost up-to-date although I hadn’t finished my rant on the Forum. That night in Madrid was an even later one with Missy’s crew, namely Vanessa and Mark: one of those nights where every time you think its about to end there’s just one more bar or club to check out, or maybe a kebab that needs to be eaten. At some point we were joined by a Transylvanian and a couple Madrilenos. 11ish the next day my Hostal people woke me up to tell me I hadn’t paid for tonight and they’d just sold my room out from under me. Loverly. So I packed and moved and it was no fun. The rest of the day was pretty quiet, a few chores, some Spanish and a beer with Alex.

By now I’d decided not to go to the Tournament in Burgos with the Madrid frisbee people this weekend (4 teams and too many players….) and instead accepted the free ride with Missy’s group’s bus up to Oviedo in the north. We were having too much fun not to and it was fun being their group’s mascot. I think they thought I was weird, for example Q:”What are you going to do in Oviedo”, A:”I don’t know, I haven’t read what’s there yet”. Q:”Where are you staying?”, A:”Oh I’ll find something when I get there”.

Therefore the 3rd was my last day in Madrid and I headed to the Prado museum. I’ve been very culturally with it recently, checking out art all over the place. I think I’ve now seen more art museums in Spain than in the rest of Europe combined. From the total ignorant I was in 1998, I now…. lets just say I’m less ignorant. Goya knew the benefits of being an artist, you get the girl to pose and then take her clothes off. Now I’ve got your attention. The next few photos include some of the Prado’s famous works and some I just liked. Minus flash and without tripod, you’ll have to excuse me if they’re a bit blurred.

Saturday night and the Gay festival in Chueca was still rocking. You bet we went there. First up there was the floats procession. Pictures do say a thousand words. I checked it out incognito. Hours later we hit the streets and spent ridiculous amounts of money on ridiculous amounts of alcohol and had a pretty good time. Thanks to much Ultimate training, I was ready for the bus at 08:45 the next morning. It left late.

Backdated posts, Segovia, Museo and el Escorial

While staying in Madrid, the busrides on daytrips to Segovia and el Escurial generated time to fill in some weblog gaps from the past while. Rather than post one uncombersome entry I’ve done some backdating on the following posts:
Geneva
Metro Controllers
Barcelona
Bar do Peixe
Lisbon to Madrid

Then we get to nowish.

I can’t tell you much about the scenery between Madrid and Segovia, although I looked up once and saw some cows grazing. The city itself is small and uninspiring but has 3 huge tourist sites: the roman aqueduct, the cathedral and the gloriously situated Alcazar. Very impressive, you still only need a few hours here. Arrival back in Madrid coincided nicely with ex-Seville Frisbeellana Stephan�s last night in Spain (for now), which was a reasonably quiet dinner with nice folks in an english speaking place where he seemed to know everybody. Nice timing that we met up again.

Wednesday morning got the ever exciting washing done. The Reina Sof�a art museum was next on the program. The Dali exhibit was impressive and of course strange, a Lichtestein exhibit of abstract and pop-art light entertainment (unfortunately none of his “Brad” works). A monochrome exhibit that I ran through in less than two minutes reinforced my long held idea that modern art is sometimes less about art than presenting an idea that claims to be art. What is artistic about a 2×2 black canvas? White? Do a series of these or throw 50 such works together and apparently it means something different. Suffice to say I miss the point. The regular exhibits focus on Spanish works leading into modern times. With names like Dali, Picasso, Miro and a personal less well known favourite Juan Gris, there was a lot to see. The jewel in the collection, Picasso’s Guernica while no doubt brilliant, didn’t grab me the way its fame says it should. �3 well spent.

After a bit of Spanish study on a shaded grassy spot in the Retiro, I went out and had a throw with the frisbee people. Do discs fly a lot further when its hot? Maybe something has finally clicked in my backhand or I had a good day but it was sweet to toss it far. Lacrosse players were sharing the field: that looks like a hard sport to learn. A beer and the end of Portugal vs Holland followed. Back in town, Chueca was buzzing with an open air gay and all-sorts street festival. In an awesome small-world scenario, I was gawking at the transvestite on stage when the girl I was standing next to turns around and says “Braaad!”. Well if it ain’t Missy from Philly, last seen in Lisbon! Out with her school group, this chance meeting needed to be celebrated so party we did. A GOOD day.

Up relatively early I headed out to el Escorial without much clue whats there. In the mountains, any relief from the Madrid heat was welcome (Corey said it was 110F…ie43C). Set in a lovely location, the attraction is a renaisance monastery and royal residence (built by Filip II). Full of priceless art, sumptuous rooms and the tombs of most Spanish royals, history buffs will get the most out of it.

eMail catchup

Friday Inbox clearout: 4hours 30 mins, 164 emails read, 35 emails written
Time to get back to backpacking and see more of Madrid. Last here in 1998 everything I saw yesterday felt like the first time, except Plaza Mayor whose statue rang a faint bell.
Hopefully some updates will make it here this week. Thanks for all the messages.

Lisbon to Madrid

Two lines of eMail had arranged that I’d join the famous Bostonians Pablo and Steve in their hire car post tourney trip, which needed to get to Madrid by their Friday flight. More we did not know or need to. So it went.

With post tournament Monday speed we drove into Lisbon and met Tim and Minsu for lunch (rice and seafood claypot: yum) and sight(re)seeing. An �8.50 glass of port was the last time I’ll copy Steve. A stroll through Barro Alto led us into a bar for England vs Slovakia (4-2). Well lubricated we headed off to Michele’s concert and the remaining frisbee players. 3 bars later it wasn’t surprising that Pabs missed his camera and I’d forgotten the barman hadn’t had change for a �50 note. A late start Tuesday had Pablo creating chaos and getting hooted at doing Uturns wherever he could and often where others wouldn’t. His camera never showed up, but the barman was back at work and happily gave me my change. With much of the day gone and Steve navigating, we only made it as far as Caceres. What can I say about a Spanish city where everything is shut by 12??? We nearly starved and I’m sure Steve went to bed thirsty. Breakfast was good and cheap and we made it to Salamanca via some cool scenic roads. Roadwork cones gave Pabs an excuse to drive a slalom. The stern looks followed by supressed laughter as we passed the traffic control guy were classic. What else should one (or three) do in Salamanca but sit in Pl. Mayor and watch the girls walk by? (This question could also be applied to Spain in general.) We managed to fit in a stroll, visited the cathedral, ate paella, watched football (byebye Germany) and witnessed Pabs doing his best to lose his lightweight tag, long after claiming he was done drinking today. Salamanca did not stop by 12pm. Thursday’s arrival in Madrid stimulated more Uturns, first getting to a Decathlon outlet and then trying to find their airport hotel. Portugal-England delayed dinner, which turned into a Happy Birthday Steve morning. How Pablo could book him a flight so early on his birthday that the alarms went at 04:30 I do not know. In preparation for more solo travelling, I went back to bed.

Alive

Not been blogging a while and with this keyboard won�t change that much. I am well and in Salamanca. Was a while in Barcelona, went to Lisbon/Bar do Peixe via Madrid and am now travelling with a couple friends and a hire car. Birthday was good. Weather great. Much fun.

Bar do Peixe

Not enough superlatives have been invented to truly cover how good I find this (beach hat ultimate) tournament. In 2000 I signed up, largely on a friend’s recommendation that its his favourite and not knowing much more about it. Now its much harder to live up to the hype. Yet time after time it does. Its my favourite. The day I miss one of these will be a sad one.

This year’s most significant addition was Chappy’s Arkansas crew. Having lived in Munich a while ago, last year he brought out his gf and some young teammates for a 3 week European Ultimate adventure. We all enjoyed that immensely, but one weekend coincided with BdP. We said he should’ve included BdP in the plan so this year he did. He also brought around 5 more players. I’m curious to see how this trend continues.

Getting to the beach was more of a story this year. Meeting Minsu at Miquey’s, Tim then drove us to first to Madrid where we enjoyed an excellent Paella dinner with Miquel and picked up ex-Munich Santa Barbara Alicia. Waking up on BdP day one and my 29th birthday in a 4 star hotel somebody else was paying for: Sweet! The drive was easy, despite too much luggage. One of the rest stops had swings. The Portugese border control didn’t seem too phased by the German, Finnish, Australian, American and Spanish passports they received from our car. Maybe they get that all the time? Games are starting…

I scored a great team. We were never going to win the tournament, but I finally got to play on the same team as Patrick and Kaleen. Big Steve (aka little irish man) and I teamed up again after a one year break and the hat threw Bruno and I together again. Munich’s Stoffel, Lisbon’s Marco, Arkansas Rachel and Vanessa (pre foot ligament injury) made a team that never quite got name, song or team photo together and had a heck of a good time together not doing it. After losing our first two games, we got it together (the wind probably helped) winning 6, one more than Pablo wanted. My post-Bronchitis lungs still didn’t cope with running around, but Patrick’s ventillator helped get me through much better than in Geneva. I’m not going to write about the shenanigans, but special mention to all the bonfire musicians who really took off this year.

BdP keeps getting more and more digicams, but the websites are famous for appearing on Portugese time. Buddha’s photos are up. Maybe check back in 6 months for some more links.
madu
mine

Barcelona

What to write about Barcelona? If you haven’t been, you should definitely have it on your list of places to visit. Its especialy attractive to beach ultimate lovers with a fun team and end-of-season hat tournament: the porron open. This must’ve been my fourth time in town. Other than the Forum, there wasn’t much touristy that I wanted to do, although I probably should have checked out how much the Sagrada Familia has changed since I saw it last. An unfinished Gaudi project, the church is scheduled to be completed by 2040. The first time I visited, it was suggested that the whole plan may never be built. Now with tourists visiting in droves and funding the building, optimism prevails. Apparently there is some concern about consecrating the church, because its not right to charge tourists as much as fur the building site.

Yep… I’m writing about what I didn’t do. Much of my time was spent hanging out with the Ultimate crew and/or lying in parks or on beaches enjoying the weather and scenery. For those who still haven’t caught on… the women here are sensational eye-candy. When not too distracted or drowsy, I learnt a fair bit of Spanish, despite the prominence of Catalan. Its a good life. I stayed a few days in Hostel Miquey while he was working in Madrid and then moved to Andy’s flat on the same street, but 15 mins uphill. Late nights were had and a couple excellent bbqs including the farewell party for Oscar (England), Nadia (Italy) and Masumi (Japan). Quickly it seemed and it was time to get across to Lisbon for Bar do Peixe. I jumped on the bandwagon, organising a lift with Tim.

Estrella

Estrella is in my opinion easily the worst beer I’ve had on this trip. Taking a closer look at the label I notice it advertises the awards its won. The only one in the last 90 years… an Australian gold medal. We must have more medals then we know what to do with… and perhaps even more bad beers. Shame Australia Shame.

Forum

I was quite excited about the Forum, thinking it was intended to stimulate a dialog and transfer of information and cultural ideas about problems the world is facing and potential solutions and improvements. I hoped it would fit into what I’m looking at and that some new leads or ideas may come from it. I went to the Forum for information and dialog. I got art and commercialism. Unfortunately it promised more than it delivered and turned out to be a disappointment.

Unknown to me at the time, Barcelona residents are either anti-Forum or simply have no idea what it is (despite saturation marketing of the logo). Built on the site of an old sewerage site and supposedly for all, the unemployed and homeless claim they got or are getting a raw deal and the better off benefit most . �21 day tickets and much more to participate in the Forum dialogs excludes many. After buying a 3day �42 ticket, one long day was enough for me. The forum site is expansive, with loads of exhibits and in between lots of street theatre, food stalls and the like. The highlights were the street performers, especially the acrobats who did even cooler stuff than a dragon.

The exhibitions tended to be glitzy and not very deep. Depressing facts without solutions, commercials and art were the general content, rather than a systems approach to solving problems. Where does an individual visitor to something like the forum go with statements like: “Nature is the greatest obstacle to the future of the free market system and cannot be treated as an adversary. The message has to be: protect the ecosystem or perish” or even this one, “For all humans to live like Europeans or North Americans the surface of the Earth would need to be three times as big.”. Still this globe and satellite photos were cool and the Saatchi and Saatchi written Toyota advert will appeal to some.

The Forum’s only ‘free’ dialog component involves inviting a dignitary for a question answer session. I wanted to hear Klaus T�pfer, a German politician now the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive-Director of the United Nations Environment Programme. I can’t remember hearing a bigger waffler. The man spoke and spoke and spoke and never said anything. The moderator had to cut the question and answer session to two questions and still he rabitted on without actually answering the question. A Spanish girl and I tried to get hold of him afterwards (we both spoke German) and managed to get some comments from him in a couple minutes before his minders dragged him away to TV. Waste of time.

Maybe I should have stopped at my first photo, The Beer Experience. At least I got to take away this quote from Lao Tse: “He who knows he has enough is rich”. I was also reminded of one I’d seen before, “The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas” (Linus Pauling - of course it helps that he was a genius).

metro controllers

This entry is for Jasper Mane, I doubt anyone else will find it interesting.
I just had my ticket checked on the metro. Here they have a system where you need to swipe a ticket to open the gates and get to the platforms, so I’m a bit surprised they check at all, but they were serious. 4 middle aged women in black slacks and maroon jerseys accompanied by a security guard and a big muzzled Alsation. They swipe tested all cards and scrutinised passports. I didn’t see anyone get caught cheating.

Geneva

Getting to Barcelona was a mission, Geneva was relaxingly easy(jet), with a passenger playing guitar while waiting to board and the tournament picking me up from the airport. Munich’s R� and Nata were waiting for Barcelona Chris as I walked out (I’d not recognised him with hat): the first of many ‘hello again’s. The rest of friday was chilled, hanging out by the fields with the spanish crowd and whoever else turned up (the Irish) and relaxing until the welcome party. Stephan� played disc, beach volleyball and american football. He does not tire.

The Talampaya Open is a big fun good level co-ed tournament with 32 teams in this anniversary edition (3 from spain, only 2 from germany). For me a lot is about the people, which is tough to write about. Old friends galore including some unexpected ones and as at most tournaments, meeting some fine new ones. My Canary Island team Mubidisk were great people: will be even better when I understand all they’re saying. Luis (38) in particular has amazing skill at making friends and having fun without a common language.
The parties were a welcome grill (bbq/braai), an open-air 100 000 people festival and a private costumed (“Cartoons and Superheroes”) party. Beat from Zurich again got his costume designer talents going and turned out a teamful of The Muppets: Animal, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, Kermit, the cook, the chicken, the old geezer in the gallery - he made them all. Other theme teams turned out Smurfs and Asterix characters. Two teams went pink-panther. I got to dance with Smurfette and Miss Piggy… dream on kids, you never know what’ll come true. I never took out my camera all weekend, but Buddha’s site has photos from three people.
With all this going on and great weather, that Bronchitis stopped me playing was a disappointment, but couldn’t ruin the weekend. Too soon it was time for another round of goodbyes, I’d lost another disc and it was over. Javi had the same Tuesday afternoon flight, so I tagged along with him, Dianne and Alia. Despite being cooler and wet, the day almost turned into the trip highlight. Hot chocolate and chocolate croissants for breakfast, a random walk picnic lunch under cover and then a pretty wooded area near the river, a beautiful cemetary and an unexpected just-walk-in zoo: good going for a day without expectations. The positive, happy attitudes of the two girls was just infectious: great company. The afternoon flight back to Barcelona went without a hitch and plan Spain resumed.

Travel not quite as planned

I’m now in Barcelona, enjoying summer sunshine with a warm glowing memory of Geneva and looking forward to visiting the forum, but this entry backtracks to last Thursday and how I got to Barcelona in the first place.

The plan did not involve starting to write a journal/blog entry in the business class lounge at Malaga airport. If I’d planned things like they turned out, I might have fitted in the Picasso museum. The plan, built as it was on rushed silliness, involved arriving in Granada Wed afternoon, picking up my tent and thermarest, seeing people and then a painful day-long train ride to Barcelona to teach me for booking flights too hastily. The plan was to use the journey to teach me some Spanish.

What’s the point in plans? Events happened: Tuure took me to the doctor since the coughing had gotten ridiculous. (Bronchitis was diagnosed and medicines prescribed, meaning I can now only salivate at the well stocked help-yourself bar.) The next morning 8:30 train turns out to be all of one carriage and completo. Wave goodbye (no way to sneak on) and find out the next night train is also already full. You’d think they might be able to find a second wagon to hang on the trains. Bugger. I’ve done funky train switching before to make connections, but nothing would get me to Barcelona tonight, only tomorrow morning, close to my flight and not allowing me to dump gear I don’t need in Geneva at Miquey’s place. I don’t think all that well at 8:30 at the morning at the best of times, but the train options sucked so badly, something needed to be found. I decided before paying more for a night train from hell, I was going to look at last minute flights and recheck all options on the Internet. Unfortunately I had no chance of making a 9:20 Granada-Mallorca-Barcelona connection I’d already considered. While waiting for an Internet place I found to open (at 11), I rang up my insurance company (so nice to hear a friendly Australian) to suss out my chances of claiming some travel expenses either getting to Barcelona, or letting that flight slide and going one-way from here to Geneva. I forgot to write down her name and its gone, but she said if I claimed it the way I told her the story and went with a reasonably priced solution, I should be able to claim. This will be put to the test.

Internet showed that some of the �90 flights I’d been looking at were no longer available. Renfe confirmed that train options were hellish and over �100. One-way Geneva flights were all well over �200. AirEuropa to Barcelona from Malaga via Madrid was �5 cheaper business class at around �170. A few hours with lounges and a free bar or packed full night train with a crappy sleeper car - you tell me?

I can now tell you that AirEuropa stewardesses are well endowed and wear jeans. This fact was really the only thing that went right first time the whole long day (Miquel had to stay in Madrid with work and it was past 2am till I got a key to his place) and yet most of the time passed quite enjoyably. All we need now is the insurance to play ball and this may turn into a good day just yet. Falling into bed, I realised that looking forward to tomorrow had taken on a new meaning: things couldn’t go wrong more than today and things worked out in the end.

Farmacia visit #3

Third time’s hopefully the charm. After enough coughing for this year (thankyou) and two nights bad sleep, it was time to head back to the pharmacy. This time, I’d skipped 14 chapters in my Spanish book to learn medical vocab and we were going to have a conversation, since I knew what I didn’t want and didn’t know exactly what I did want. The “I’m not sick, but have a sore throat” lozenges hadn’t worked, so I told him that. He threw away the box I’d brought back with me. I told him I did not want antibiotics, since I do not feel ill, I only want to treat the symptoms so I can sleep and cough less. Out came 30 400mg tablets of Ibuprofen. Not quite what the (I’m not a) doctor ordered. I told him that phlegm isn’t in my dictionary. “Flema” he said and it sounded right, so I agreed and it turns out the Spanish side of my dictionary does too. (He added “moco” as an alternative, which turns out to be mucus. Useful vocab this). To make sure all was understood I added that I mean in my chest now, not so much in my throat.

I now have 125mL of Bisolvon, a reddish syrup, which I’ve never heard of and so far hasn’t produced any better results than the honey rum. Chalk another one up for rom miel before I take my bedtime dose. I declined the throat spray he offered since I noticed the active ingredient was the same as the lozenges that aren’t helping. At least he agreed the cough syrup is better. It tastes bad enough that it should work. I’ve since gone back to chapters 11 and 12. Never did go to Malaga, still need to make plans.

Frisbee Rugby with a Labrador

Strangely enough Frisbee wasn’t a reason I wanted a blog, but is getting into most entries at the moment. This story was too strange not to tell. So Flo and I jogged down to Parque de Alamillo (a really big, grassy park with playgrounds about 30mins from where we live) and were throwing backhands, when a Labrador (lab) appeared and started chasing the disc. Normally this results in playing dog ping-pong where the dog runs after the frisbee till exhausted without ever catching the disc. Not this lab, he wanted to play rugby.

In an instant, Newton’s laws had me sitting on the ground checking to make sure I hadn’t landed on the dog and not quite believing what had happened. The lab was fine, having run through my shins with plenty of momentum, he’d come out safely on the other side. (For the ultimate players, the disc was caught) I got up sheepishly and had a look at the dog ‘owner’ expecting some sort of laugh or apology. Nothing doing. Ignoring us he called the dog who ignored him and kept its eyes on the frisbee.

Flo said in Spanish that some manners would be in order, then dropped it and asked the guy to walk away since calling the dog wasn’t working. The guy responded aggressively and started to come over with the statement “the park is for everyone”. Indeed. It would have been fun to show the validity of this statement by spear tackling him. Before he arrived, we started ping-ponging the dog, he got the idea and followed Flo’s suggestion. The dog kept ignoring him and played nicely with us till we stopped throwing when the ‘owner’ was almost out of sight and waited for him to leave.

Beautiful dog, he just needed to be taught Rule #1.

This reminds me of the winter session in Edinburgh, where a little Jack Russell just wouldn’t stop chasing the disc. Eventually someone threw to the freezing dog ‘owners’ who dropped the disc allowing the dog, getting it for the first time, to run off with it. Ultimate has nothing to do with dogs, but they do add fun to frisbee.

midweek syrup

Wednesday nights in Seville are pretty good. Last night we farewelled Petrina who heads back to the states in a few days. The last remaining five were from Australia, Austria, Canada, France and the USA. There were four common languages, but it was only my fault when anything other than Spanish was spoken. Ths spaniards, more likely to have real jobs. had gone home earlier. We got back around 4am.

Unfortunately I’ve picked up yet another bug and am coughing my bronchials out althogh I feel fine otherwise. Everyone seems to get sick here, I don’t know what it is. The best medicine I (well, Stephan�) could think of was rom miel (honneyed rum) and I certainly don’t feel worse today, so lets chalk that up as a success.

Now that my presence on anize.org has somewhat stabilised, its interesting seeing the response from different friends and family world-over, some totally unexpected and most welcome. Its nice to know anyone who cares can just drop by any hour of the day and catch up on some of my life and now photos (lets advertise that again shall we… and now photos). Even better when those reading this drop me a line (yes, this is an unashamed plug for eMails and comments from you).

I’ll shortly be heading off for a run with Flo, tomorrow he’s planning on a daytrip to Malaga for the Picasso museum. Its a slightly weird plan, but I’m thinking about tagging along. Having recaught the Ulti buzz, I’ve now booked a flight to the tournament in Geneva next weekend, where I’ll play with the Canary Island guys. Flying EasyJet return from Barcelona means two things: 1) I need to get a wriggle on up to Barcelona and 2) I’ll probably spend early June there before heading across to Portugal. I’m not sure what to do about revisitting friends in Granada and Salobre�a. I also need to pick up my tent, so a plan will form.

Photo Site Online

Once again Volker, that absolute legend has been good to me. His server now hosts my photo gallery, which now contains loads of recent photos.

Many are only screen quality, upload times were otherwise too long and I’m sick of this Internet Cafe already. Photos from my last Saturday night in Munich, Granada, Alhambra, Alpujarras, Sevilla and the tournament in Madrid are up.

And the winner is Ultimate

I love this game. I love the people that play this game. Madrid was fun. I drove up with the Seville Frisbeellanas on Friday, enjoying the scenery far more than I remembered Valencia to Madrid in 1998. There are a lot of Olive trees. Seville camped about 10kms from the fields, while Granada and most other teams stayed in la residencia in the same sports complex as the fields and cafeteria.

Stephan� had recruited an Italian player who flew over to help them out this weekend. In a typical Ultimate circle it was Lorenzo, who I met at his first tournament in Lecce in 2001 and seen a few times since. All the Spanish information eMails coming out of Madrid were written by German Johanna who played on my team at that same hat tournament. He had no idea I was in Spain, she had unfortunately been warned. I like surprises.

Arcadio - who I stayed at in Las Palmas in February - was next and it was great to see him. Then Ivan from Tenerife who played on team Garoe in Las Palmas in Feb. My few words of Spanish were more than I had then. It was great to see how much he’s learnt, same goes for his whole team: Guayota (Tenerife) beat Patatas Bravas (Barcelona) in the final. Congratulations to both teams.

At the other end of the table, Granada Tapa and Seville Frisbeellanas squared off to decide the wooden spoon and which Andalusian team would win a game at this tournament. I’m pleased to say we swapped seeding as Tapas pulled out a close win (8-6??). All these guys had learnt and improved a lot over the weekend, had a great time and everybody won. This attitude was confirmed after the game in a marathon cheer session, including singing, dancing, games and photo sessions. It was no surprise that Frisbeellanas won spirit.

I could write a lot about all our games, but I’ll try keep it shortish. We started with only 6 players against Guayota. They made no fuss and matched us for numbers, cruising to a 11-0 win making very few mistakes. I knew then they are for real. I had to get used to the idea of being “the go-to guy” and playing savage (every point) all weekend (I played all but 3 points, one to wipe blood off a knee (Ibuprofen helped)). With 8 people, we scored 3 points in our second game against Patatas Bravas B. Not their best game, it was nice to see and play Pedro, Tina, Sofia, Gabriel, Andy etc. Portugal B were beatable, but we didn’t and I don’t remember the score: hi Sofia, Bruno, Ze Luis et al. Disct�rics A were memorable for the reunion with “Jerome”, who I hadn’t seen since Feb 2002 in Barcelona after which I tried to find him a team for Rimini. We played well this game, forced to think a bit since they always marked me straight-up to make long throws more difficult. Our tall guy (yay Josh), learnt to expect overheads (hammers) in this game. At the end of pool play, I was most surprised to be facing Portugal A, who having planned on challenging for the tournament had lost two pool games. There was never any question about the result (they’d beaten Seville 15-0), but I was so happy to play with Patrick, Michele and the others. Both teams used the game to relax, have fun and teach. I think it was 8-4 or so.

Dinner was fantastic with excellent and lots of food, plenty to drink and spontaneous singing, dancing and merriment. A few players had birthdays. The neighbouring bar provided booze (Atis Tirma had their own rum) and a dance floor. I was pretty tired and left around 2-ish.

9am and we had Portugal B again (not very clever scheduling, but hey). Unfortunately they were now only 5 people. We jumped out to a lead, but still managed to lose the game. When we started playing 7vs7, we clogged what had been free lanes, but lost (4-5 or 5-6) because I had a shocker. Everyone else played well. Spirit was still high. And then the long awaited game against Seville that I already covered. We were 8 people both days (Peter was sick Sat, Tao missed Sunday), they were around 15, so I think a big difference was familiarity with the people on the line and a bit of structure.

Oscar’s speech at the ceremony resulted in Miquey demonstrating break-dancing in front of the grandstand. He did an amazing job of it, we call him BigMiq for a reason. Onya Miquey.

Studying boy and Ulti in Madrid

My UWA eMail server is down right now, which kinda sucks. Last few days have been pretty quiet. Unlike Granada, Seville has grass to lie on, so I’ve been hitting it pretty hard when the weather played along. Mainly just studying spanish and not going out much. Pretty dull for a Blog.

Sunday found where the Seville crew play Ultimate and had a bit of a training and game. Not being able to communicate in spanish is big motivation for study. A typically international fun Ulti group - they’re gonna do some serious clogging when they play 7vs7 hehe. A Beer in the park afterwards (spanish people questioning why one person would drink the biggest glass himself… I’d guess it was maybe 0,6L - they should see a Beergarden where everyone drinks by the litre) and then back to Stephane’s amazing terrace looking over the river at Seville. Probably the best possible view here. Wow.

This weekend its up to Madrid for … whatever this tournament is called. I’ve been thinking of it as Spanish nationals, but Portugal come too, so maybe the “Iberian Championships”. Whatever, its gonna be fun and I’ll definitely come back having learnt some more casual spanish and having seen and surprised the odd familiar face. I’m considering whether to stay up that way a while or come straight back with the Sevillanas. This will be the first time I’ve pulled my cleats on since German nationals last year (July?), so I’m definitely gonna hurt afterwards. Granada Tapas are seeded last (14th), so too high expectations will not be a problem.

Everywhere's really the same

I’m talking about p3 (actually inside cover==p1) of the May tourist magazine for Seville. The biggest entry would be ”Sevilles’ best known meeting place; Flaherty Irish bar”. That could be anywhere: gotta love the Irish.

Oops

The link to the new photos in the Alhambra entry wasn’t new at all. Good-ol copy-paste error. Its now right - and the photos are worth taking another look here.

Granada-Capileira-Sevilla

Goodbye Granada (for now), wow Alpujarra and Feria or Bed in Sevilla or Seville.
24.4.04 14:32 another farewell party
24.4.04 14:11 Sal�t Lady B
24.4.04 14:20 free spanish classes
26.4.04 20:45 Tranquilo en las Alpujarras
27.4.04 22:00 wasted day
28.4.04 20:09 Feria in Sevilla
2.5.04 15:00 Crook

24.4.04 14:32 another farewell party
Last night was cool. Farewelled crook Nadia & Tereza with an afternoon coffee & tinto. Internetted & the Finns were starting out at the flat. We must have got out around 1. Melanie & Oscar came back to Duo which was sweet. Finally finished the �5 Camera film. Will be fun getting developed. Mel Z: Wenn ich bis ende Mai dir kein CD geschickt habe, erinnere mich daran. Tuure’s mates leaving 2pm & drank like their last night. Ari & I got back after 6. Got to know Vanessa & Jan�t(sp?)-yet more fun, interesting people.
24.4.04 14:11 Sal�t Lady B
Man that was funny. I woke up hearing Lady B cleaning up the living room after last night (good: we don’t have to). I packed & put my bags out. Resting on the couch my plan is to wake, shower & maybe breakfast when Ari wakes. Instead, something like:
LB:”When you leaving?”
B:”Dunno exactly. Some time this arvo.”
LB:”You must leave at 12”
B:”sure” (watch says 12ish)
LB:”You must leave at 12”
B:”? I’ve left the room???”
LB:”You must leave. To the street”
B:”I don’t understand”
LB:”yes you understand”
B:”I must leave the appartment? I don’t understand! Why?”
LB:”You must leave at 12. You only pay until 12”
B:”I am out of the room, the room is cleanable, its no problem”
LB:”its not a problem for you, its a problem for me.”
B:”why?”
LB:…nonsense “it should look nice”
B:”!!! I’ve been here 3 weeks, nobody new is here now, there’s no reason why you need my stuff gone now”
repeat… B:”I don’t understand this. Its crazy!”
LB:”Go!”
B(getting nowhere & realising there’s nothing new to understand. in English):”forget it”
LB:”I’ll call the police”
B(I had to laugh at the idea):”call”
She called her daughter & came back for more whingeing. Around now I started feeling sorry for her if she has nothing better to do. After at least 30mins, Ari must’ve woken. He has far more spanish.
45 minutes later we weren’t much the wiser. There was absolutely nothing for her to gain from the whole fuss. She had her money & wasn’t getting more. She whinged that I’d paid too little (every cent was agreed beforehand), that a weekly price is 6 days not 7 (the school already got paid a day extra since normal price is arrive Sun leave Sat. We were fully in placate mode. She whinged all sorts. Eventually Ari asked blatantly what she wants. Me to leave. We had a conference…asked if showering & getting my stuff from the kitcheh was ok if I left straight after. Ok but rapido. So I did. The end result was I left 75 mins later than I otherwise would have :)
Now drinking a fanta & figuring out where to go. Will head to the bus station & see whats convenient. Currently favouring Alpujarras (�rgiva, Pampaneira, Bubi�n, Capileira) or the beach rather than the direction Jaen, Cordoba, Sevilla. Get out of a city for a bit. Maybe get a place in Sevilla for a month ~May.
24.4.04 14:20 free spanish classes
Gustav gave me some sweet info yesterday. The place where they teach language teachers needs guinea-pig pupils and offer classes for free. Great Idea! In Granada they have classes starting in June. Other places probably have the same deal: go look for it.
The last few weeks have been way too expensive for long-term travel, where money=time. I guess I’ve gotten used to short jaunts from Munich & spanish school wasn’t cheap. Now I can hopefully learn more on my own & later in summer or perhaps even in South America try this out. Speaking of S.A. Vanessa mentioned family contacts in Peru (Lima and I think somewhere else).
26.4.04 20:45 Tranquilo en las Alpujarras
The Alpujarras are a sensational destination, although I recommend visiting soonish before it loses some of its charm due to growing tourism and foreign ownership. Geographically, its a region on the other side of the Sierra Nevada mountains from where I was at Wednesday. Squeezed between 3400m and the sea are winding roads, gorges, terraced slopes and towns full of traditional, square, white plastered, clay roofed buildings with distinctive chimneys. Alpujarra’s higher reaches are a national park, full of wildlife. I’ve seen a couple eagles soaring overhead and there’s supposed to be vultures around. If the conditions are right, you can see Morocco’s Atlas mountains. I don’t recall seeing the stars this clearly anywhere in Europe (inc. Alps, Norway or Sweden). If you like hiking, rock climbing, horse riding, mountain biking or driving slaloms, you should be ok here. You can sit in front of a fireplace with wine or on a sunny terrace with locally produced, natural tasting food & a beer. Its better with a vehicle.
So how did I get here? Saturday I made it to Capileira, since my bus destination Bubi�n didn’t have any affordable beds free. I was rather pleased to find Capileira was celebrating its annual fiesta & the unadvertised campsite had a �11 bed going (thanks to the anon. english couple for the ride). An overdue siesta was replaced with a 2hr conversation with the rather spiritual Nieves. To be more precise…a 1/2hr conversation which currently takes 4 times as long and a lot of patience. Some Spanish guests then shared dinner they’d brought and it was fiesta time. Typical small town bash, especially the barn dance…which still reminded me of Pingelly although the music was a lot different, every baby, kid, teenager right through to pensioner was out past 3am and I didn’t see a keg. I was exhausted.
Recovery sleep & Sunday a lazy day which started by repairing bits of the hosts ill Windows ME PC & then lunch & spanish in the sun. I came back just as Peter was going up the road/track with paraglider Carlos to bring the car down. Sweet. After that there was nothing to do except lie in the sun and read. Bring deck chairs. After Pizza, we went back up the track to see the stars away from the village lights. Awesome. On the drive down, we pulled over to watch some fiesta fireworks going off below.
Today was more tranquilo. Went up into the national park, then lunched and had one of those ‘only when you travel’ conversations with the nice neighbouring table Flemish couple (Antwerp). After walking to Pampaneira & back Luis made Tortilla & its time to diarize & read. The fire crackles and 6 month old campsite dog (Coco/Loco) next to me agrees its couch time.
27.4.04 22:00 wasted day
Oops - the last bus from Orgiva to the beach leaves 8something am. This is bad considering I got up at 9 and was planning on getting there in the afternoon. While grabbing lunch and hatching a plan (to get to either another Alpujarra town or the beach depending on where I could get a ride to…and from there to Seville in the next couple days) Jessica oferred a ride from here to Seville tomorrow. Easy…but cancelled, so I’ll be on that early bus. These things happen when you go with the flow.
28.4.04 20:09 Feria in Sevilla
Sevilla/Seville depends on language: don’t be surprised to see both spellings. Regardless how I spell it, I’ve arrived. Its ”feria” time, the spring festival described as ‘Andalusia celebrates for a week its love of horses, music & beautiful women’. I’m looking forward to it, walking from the bus station, I saw plenty of the last in fancy bright dresses. Apparently Sherry is the drink of choice. Meeting Stephane and the frisbee crew later.
On a different note, I finally finished ”Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” on the bus. A very impressive book, probably not for everyone, but there’s a lot in there to think about and plenty of quotables.
2.5.04 15:00 Crook
Feria was good, but I haven’t seen any of it since the first night. Been not very well in bed and now losing my voice, but hey, I got to read, Zen & Motorcycles again. I’m about to print out my insurance certificate and claim form… something I should have done before I needed them :) Soon to be read here - “how farmacies in Spain simply give out Antibiotics without a doctor or proper instructions on how to use them”. You heard it here first.

Alhambra: more than a beer.

My Thursday at the Alhambra was awesome and I have some new photos which don’t go close to doing it justice.

What a great spot, sitting on a wall between the the Alcazaba towers! Looking at a watch-tower & uncovered ruins here and overlooking both the Albaycin & Granada. If this city had some parks & grass, it’d be ideal.
Carl & I had arranged to meet this morning at 8am (those who have spent a while in Spain will recognise how drastically early this is) to get here for the 8:30 opening and buy tickets, since the Internet ones were unavailable (sold out?) I’d joyfully announced sunshine for at least the next 5 days, so was rather shocked when I saw it was pouring at 7:45. Faith prevailed & I decided the rain was to scare off the hordes. The rain stopped as we walked here, we queued max 30 mins for tickets & scored a 9:30 entry to the moorish palace (Palacios Nazar�es). (You can stay as long as you like, but entry is controlled via 1/2hr slots.) It is stunning. Go here!
I have loads of photos and am super enthusiastic about some. Can’t wait to see them large. The weather helped. As it was fining up, blue skies and morning shaded sun gave soft light and limited the contrast between light & shade. Now some detail is impossible to photo. Come here and see it for yourself!
Now that I’ve photoed the Albaycin, I need the sun to get over to the afternoon side so I can photo back at Carlos V’s palace. I have time and Spanish vocab to learn, so why not chill out on a lookout tower in the sun & watch the tourists go by.
Continued: 15:30 got the photo, the difference is enourmous- well worth the wait. Went to all the bits I hadn’t seen yet & headed along the Partal garden & across to the Generalife palace & gardens. Very nice. The tourists had found a litter of kittens and were gawping & picking them up. H