Campeones otra vez

3 July, 2012, 1600 hrs., Madrid

I'm sitting here in my collegiate hot box, a different version of the sauna I endured in Granada. It has been milder so far but it is very difficult for me to be in this room without needing to sleep due to the temperature. I know that it has been preposterously hot in the USA lately so I know, boo hoo cry me a river. I will contend that the A/C is better/existent in the USA though. "My Window Faces the South," as in the Bob Wills song, so during the afternoon it really starts to bake. The convection takes hold! There are these great things in Spain known as persianas, which remind me of a storage unit door, and they are on most windows (such as these) to prevent light from entering. Great for daytime sleep or some level of heat abatement. Luckily I never really need to be in here. I had some trouble finding it from the train station, but I asked a group of people, some geezers- on the street who were passionately debating what they wanted to eat for lunch, and I know we would have a similar worldview. They were very patient and helpful and one of them assured me that I was "amongst convinced Catholics." To be polite I said that that must be why they were helping me, and one of them said that there are plenty of Catholics who wouldn't help you at all in this situation. Funny Catholic sighting, in the wild! Anyway so the building itself- It is an interesting scene, since I am segregated from the other teachers who opted for the dorm housing, as they are all on the same hall and I am at the end of a different floor, alone, on a hall with actual college students who occasionally do things like smoke inside or light off fireworks inside. I can't figure out what the deal with the building is either, since along with the "normal"college population there is an interesting mix of hearing impaired people with interpreters, people in wheelchairs, Europeans visiting for a math/physics conference, and the "profesores estadounidenses," even though all of the other teachers in the dorm seem to be from Canada (Calgary, Alberta), except for me and one Texan. The other Americans are from Kansas, Ohio, New Jersey, and Tennessee, and they all live with families. There is also a lady from France who teaches in Las Vegas (they have schools there?), speaks Spanish with a French accent, and looks like Elizabeth Taylor's diminutive, less alluring sister. She wears massive cat glasses that look like Keith Richards' circa '66. She cracks me up.

I have been riddled with technical difficulties so I again apologize for the presence of multiple preludes. I thought I was poised to post what I had composed in different places before now, when I have had two days of class, but the Internet situation has been intermittent or nonexistent. Nonetheless I will post what I have that you haven't seen, even as it amounts a voluminous amount of material, or un montón, as they say in these latitudes.

Yesterday I went to the celebration welcoming the Spanish soccer team back home from Ukraine and the European Cup final. I found the right bus when I saw a mother and her two children in La Roja garb, and asked them which bus to take. It was funny, and this will happen in a second language- after she told me I added some superfluous comment about noticing the scarves, which I considered friendly, and the woman's body language said, "Get away from my children, weirdo." Something similar happened to me at Ellwood Thompson's once, in English, by the bulk egg cartons. If this sounds sexist, feel free to challenge me- but in my experience as a man (I can speak with authority since I am indeed a man) it is usually better to avoid speaking to women when they are alone with their young children. It always seems like there's a good chance they think you're a pedophile or something. It's like screwing with a bird's nest. The mother is going to swoop down immediately. Anyway- it was what you'd expect- people singing and dancing, drinking beers and waving flags. I stayed about 30 minutes although I assume it lasted all night like every Spanish celebration. Some people on the subway this morning (and yesterday) have looked very tired, possibly because they were up all night dancing in fountains and the like. I watched the 4-0 drubbing in the cafeteria here in the building with one mathematician Polestress (Polacka?)/fellow soccer enthusiast and a rowdy band of students singing songs such as the title for this post. They would occasionally bang the tables and break into song, or scream obscenities at the Italian players. My aesthetic praise of Xavi was venerated with his lovely through ball that assisted the third goal, but no one knew it. One difference with college cafeterias here is that they sell beer and liquor, yet they (the students) were all responsible with it. At an American university there would be a massacre in a situation like that. I was tempted to go out and celebrate the win with the locals, but I knew it would be an all night affair and my first day of classes was the following day. Speaking of which, the classes are in a relatively new building that is some kind of cross-cultural organization with Latin American governments. The inside of the building looks like a spaceship, but it is very clean. This morning the president of Honduras was supposed to be there, so there were lots of guys in shades and Zara suits, smoking in the street with heavy cologne on beforehand.

Anyway, what follows is what I have written heretofore, and the chronology will be mixed. I will eventually get around to posting some pictures even though I find that very tedious/suck at it. There have been technical challenges too boring to enumerate with that too. Also, the pictures of food I happened to just post to Facebook are all made in Amuuurika and posted there because I got distracted with old files when I was aiming to post Spain pictures. I did post two for comic effect. I still haven't found a suitable venue to watch the Tour de France. No one else in the group seems to care, sadly.

Lastly, Happy 4th of July!

30 June 2012, 0030 hrs. Sevilla, Andalucía

As before, I’m going to offer a prelude for this one since I had written a few times without posting. Again, it’s ridiculously long. I’m not doing this on purpose- my account has been very difficult since they keep taking security measures against me since I am abroad, and they are working, because they mostly keep me out. I’ve also had intermittent Internet access. I wanted to apologize briefly (I keep my apologies short/nonexistent) for some of the mechanics in the last entry. Done. I also need to clarify a few things that you, the loyal reader have inquired about:

)      

s           a.) Yes, the Timberwolf-ettes were real and I was ensconced in their section of the plane. There    was no foxtrot. I couldn’t execute a foxtrot if you put a gun to my head. All of the other observations/Tum requests happened: “Dark Lover,” engagement ring, etc.

             b.) A sunburn  hangover was just that- a hangover as a result of sunburn. Dehydration is   dehydration.

              c.) Johnny Thunders wrote a version of “Chinese Rocks” for the pre-NY Dolls band he was in with Richard Hell, later of the Voidoids, called the Heartbreakers. The Ramones version was composed by Hell and Dee Dee Ramone, which explains why it is a song about being a junkie. I referenced it for the temperature. Nick Cave makes an allusion to this in a song, attributing the song to Thunders (“Phillip Larkin did his best stuff riddled with a pox / And Johnny Thunders was half alive when he wrote ‘Chinese Rocks.’”) Hence my confusion. 

              d.) Foxtrot at Gunpoint” could be a good name for a band that plays punk rock shows in people’s basements for free.          I overstated the scope of the Alhambra, which the Visigoths didn’t touch. They basically showed   up in Spain, started the monarchy, and left.

I hope you enjoy what follows, and thank you for reading. Had a great first day in Sevilla which you’ll hear about later, since I need to sleep. I also just ate one of my most memorable meals here yet, and it was made by me after I went to the Corte Inglés (massive mall/grocery store in most major cities in Spain) and spent 14 euros on a mango, two oranges, pasta, pineapple juice, chorizos, 6 eggs, 2 Leffe Blondes (very cheap here), one potato, and a cut of meat I can’t remember the name of which was massive and delicious. My metabolism is usually way too fast for my own good, and today I hadn’t eaten much before dinner. In the hostal kitchen when I was making it a French girl came in (everyone here seems to be French, even though the place is basically empty- I have one person in my room with 8 beds) and looked at it/me askance. She asked if it was all for me and I said yes, since I am doing my best to dispel stereotypes about American gluttony abroad. Cricket noises ensued. I also didn’t eat enough today, like I said, and only had an apple and a huge bocadillo de calamare (2 euros). She couldn’t speak English very well and blamed it on being in Cádiz (oldest continuously inhabited city in Western Europe) and in the sun. Ok. Come on now. Nice excuse.

28 June 2012, 0930 hrs. Granada, Andalucía

I have just mounted a coup to attain one air conditioned night of sleep before I leave Granada for the even hotter Sevilla (where I know I have A/C purring in anticipation of my arrival. I have no idea what I was thinking by booking a place without it). This morning I woke up feeling a little bit better even though yesterday I was sweating so much that my eczema on my arm and my back started bleeding. At least it made me look like a tough guy, along with the eye patch. (There was no eye patch). I have lovely new eczema all over my body because it has been so inflamed since I’ve been here, and the sunburn hasn’t helped. I’m still having a great time and am not complaining. Really I’ve only felt miserable on the flight and well, the last two nights of sleeping in a sauna. Other than that I really want to convey the idea that there are people in a salt mine somewhere right now, possibly with their own eczema, and I’m basically doing whatever I want and traveling. Still, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the condition my skin is in, since it isn’t too pleasant.

So back to the coup d’ A.C. There was a Korean boy and his sister (Chinamen, if you prefer) who were here last night. Never got their names. The sister speaks perfect English, Spanish, and Korean (as far as I know) and lives in Málaga, birthplace of Picasso. The boy came back wearing the Spanish flag as a cape after Spain beat Portugal last night in the semifinals of the Euros. (More on that later). None of this is important except that I now have the capeman’s bed, since it appears that they have gone. In case they haven’t, I composed a note:

                 

            Brother/Sister from Málaga:

I seized the opportunity to get a bed with A.C. for my last night. It appears that you all are gone. If you’re not, I’ll gladly return to the sauna where I belong!

                 

                Thanks,

                 

                Nathan

My eczema has been so awful that I bought some (legal) herbs from a guy selling them next to the cathedral for 17 euros, and they actually helped. The tea that they made tasted like a combination of a bicycle tire tube, rotten mushrooms, and dirt, but it did seem to calm some of the inflammation. I also went to una farmacia and got some medicine. So hopefully that recovery is moving in the right direction. Unfortunately when I am in Madrid I won’t have air conditioning either.

For the Spain-Portugal match I went to a quieter place that the receptionist here recommended (not the one who was playing the Beatles- a different one who is Argentine and also pretty since I am still in Spain), where people weren’t screaming at the screen. I had dinner while I watched it and hung out by myself since I wanted to watch the match and had no one to go with. Normally my rule for eating in a restaurant alone, which I don’t mind doing,  is to sit at the bar, but they didn’t have one so I sat on the patio facing the screen, kind of on the border between the inside and outside. This also might have been my earliest dinner yet since I ate at maybe 9:45. There was a guy playing accordion about twenty feet away, with an upright bassist and a Spanish guitar, so it was a pleasant scene. They were good but employed an automated drum track, which they didn’t need since the guitarist’s style was very percussive anyway. My seating arrangement was funny because there was a couple sitting perpendicular to me, although across from one another, who I had to look between to see the game. They sat there the whole time and said maybe ten words to one another. They weren’t Spanish- maybe German or Dutch. The woman ate a tiny bowl of soup and had two small beers (una caña is a small beer, and una jarra is more like a pint, but probably some metric thing). The man ordered something that contained maybe one half of an entire pig and arrived magnificent with a hanging presentation on a hook that appeared designed to hold a bird feeder. 

The match went to extra time and I was sick of sitting there, so I made my way back to the hostal. The streets were just as you’d expect at that moment- not a single car. All the restaurants/bars/cafés had the match on, and the ones that didn’t have a TV had ways to keep watching it by looking through the storefronts where it was on, as a policeman whose beat was the plaza behind the patio had done, as well as the African guy near me selling purses. It made me think of Green Bay on game day for some reason, of all things. I walked past a few of the other places showing it, where people were yelling at the screen and carrying on a lot more vivaciously than the place I had eaten. Somehow my place was smoke free. Maybe there was a sign I didn’t notice, yet they put an ashtray on my table when I sat down. Maybe they thought I was so nicotine addled that I had to eat alone outside at a smoke free restaurant in the summertime? Anyway, the others were smoke filled of course. I learned a new expression at the first match which was, “Xavi, juegas como Goya.” (Xavi, you play like Goya.) I liked the description as Xavi (midfielder for FC Barcelona and for me one of the best tacticians in soccer, and old-fashioned playmaker: slow, precise, and very difficult to dispossess) has a style that shows not just effective play but also a (possibly) Platonic ideal of what soccer should look like. Roger Federer is the same way- obviously a deadly player but one who plays with real majesty. We'll see how he does soon at Wimbledon.

So, here is some Goya for cannibalistic beauty’s sake:

New expression: “Xavi, juegas como un caníbal” 

After walking past a few places and seeing how different they were than the quiet one I was in, I came back to the hostal and watched the rest with the Argentine receptionist who was watching it online while she was at work. She said that she would get in trouble if “they” (The Man?) found out, but she was doing it anyway. I practiced some Spanish with her and waxed philosophical about the aesthetic superiority of Spain’s style to Portugal or Italy, even though most of what I said was based on older iterations of the team. She speaks English well but when she listened to me she basically didn't understand me, or understood about 70%. So after the penalty kicks, which were interesting because you could hear reactions down the street because our feed was delayed- each time you’d just hear screaming and not know what to expect. The last one, you knew. I believe it was Cesc Fabregas who cemented the victory, and this time the screaming down the street was sustained. I went to bed around midnight and periodically through the night/morning I heard people in the street chanting or singing (I didn’t sleep well because it was probably 95 degrees in the room). I woke up this morning around 8 and it was deadly quiet outside.

So, today I am going to see the Alhambra from the inside, and possibly García Lorca’s house. There are also caves with flamenco shows in them (the gypsy quarter) so I may check that out too although I could see flamenco in Sevilla too.

One last musing for you and yours during this festive holiday season, to borrow a phrase from Frank Zappa: I think that Granada might have the most dada of all the bums in the world, or the weirdest. (My bum geography is still limited on the scale of things though). There seem to be two types. One type is pretty standard compared to bums everywhere. They will offer you something that appears to be free, like a rosemary sprig. Then they will claim that you have now bought it and demand money. They are aggressive. I haven’t fallen for this personally but I have seen the rosemary sprigs come at me! I thought of a ploy I had seen in New Orleans, where a guy will say he’ll bet you $5 he can tell you where you got your shoes. If you bite he’ll say, “You got ‘em on yo’ feet, on Bourbon Street!,” or whatever street you’re on. 

The other types are more mysterious and bizarre. I saw one of these the first day and it was a little scary. They seem like street mimes or living statues or something, but somehow they are beggars. This one guy at the bus stop when I got off was dressed as a clown, and he was inside of a box in a squat. His face was painted to match the box- at first I didn’t think it was a person- and he was making whistling sounds. Then, he took a few waddling steps and it looked like an inanimate object coming to life with a clown face sticking out. Then he froze, whistled, and moved his head only. At that point I turned away because it was strange. Yesterday I saw a similar guy, also in clown attire, lying in a window sill, with only his eyes moving, like a fake dead person, I guess. That they think these bizarre tactics are going to get people to give them money is beyond me. “Hey, you just scared the crap out of me! Have some money!”

I went back to la Mirada of the Alhambra during the day and there was a guy singing flamenco songs and playing the crap out of a classical guitar. There was a second singer who also clapped along to the music, which is part of the deal, traditionally. I can’t describe the clapping but supposedly Andalusians even clap that way at soccer matches due to the flamenco influence. I was struck by how similar the music sounded to Arabic songs. I surreptitiously filmed him on my phone, but when I looked at what I had it appears that I got excellent footage of my left knee and the trash can. I’ll post what I have if it is worth seeing/hearing and learn to use my phone better in the future. Over and out.

28 June 2012, 1930 hrs., Granada, Andalucía

“Dale, limosna mujer /No hay mas pena en la vida que ser ciego en Granada”

All right I need to bring up this citation again since it isn’t nearly as obscure as I thought- you see it everywhere in Granada, their own instant PR I guess along the lines of “New York, New York” or "My Kind of Town" or whatever. Bad examples. BAD. They have it in tile at shops and there is a placard thing in the square in front of the cathedral. Still, I like the expression- even as the portion I initially omitted is very important since the song chides a “limosna” mujer- presumably the (begging woman) who the singer is telling cannot be hurt as much as being blind in Granada.

Take that LIMOSNA face! Nothing that you experience is worse than something minor like BLINDNESS!

So, I have just got back to the hostal and for the moment have excellent news.

          -The Chinamen have decidedly vacated (and are no longer the issue) 

  

      -The A/C is on, and it feels superb in here

 

         - No other luggage is in any of the five other beds behind the locked door two room section that I am in. As for the door, I have gotten me up and barred it in homage to Scottish poet Robert Burns. 

      This means that likely I will have A/C and a private bath and kitchenette for my last night in Granada. The kitchen sucks, but I can still look at it and feel like I’m getting a deal. (There is also a “safe box” which looks like a primitive microwave or a bomb from an 80’s movie. No one has used it.)

The bad news, and those of you with hostal experience know this, is that 5 loud Australians could show up in the middle of the night and be assigned to this room. Such things happen in hostals. The night I had the botellón and got home at God knows what hour, there was a Belgian sucka in what had been my bed the afternoon before, and he was gone the next day. 

In addition to that I just got back from the Alhambra’s inside, and it was spectacular but took what I am going to call the whole day. The train for Sevilla leaves at 8:15 or so and I suck at waking up early and I don’t know how to get to the station yet, so I am going to go to bed as early as possible. This is why I am so elated about the bed situation. That said, as I crossed one of the many lovely plazas here coming back from the Alhambra, there was what looked like a concert being set up. All you saw were chairs in the audience and four tympani on the stage. Maybe it is a tympani concert. That would be awesome and I would stay up to go to it. Since I’m in Spain (that could be a refrain for this thread) I would imagine that the concert will start at some ridiculous hour. But hey, it’s another night and another reason to celebrate. Walking back through what are now familiar streets I saw the same guy who sold me the herbs and looked in the pharmacy and saw the same pharmacist. The shop where I had talked to these guys about the Spain versus Portugal was closed. I was in there buying some post cards and I asked them what they think the score will be tomorrow, since that is what some people (mainly my dad) I know ask me about Virginia Tech football before a game. It must not translate or they didn’t really want to give an answer but they did say that Portugal was nothing but Cristiano Ronaldo and Spain was a true team. People in Andalucía don’t always feel that way, since the team has two Andalusians and they sit the bench- gives Buñuel’s “Un perro andaluz” a new meaning! Playing like a cannibal! Anyway, I had considered buying another souvenir from them, since they were very nice and gave me directions on my first day (after I had seen the clown box creature).

Clown Box Creature would also be a great name for a band that sucks and plays gigs like the Chili Cook Off at the Diamond.

Speaking of gigs, the Alhambra has a stage. I guess Pink Floyd played at Pompeii, so maybe it makes sense that there is a concert venue. I want to give you my impressions of it but I will start by explaining that for whatever reason this place has stirred emotions in my heart, ones that I did not expect. I will do my best to enumerate them even as my instinct is to keep that sentiment private. 

First, and this isn’t an emotion- the logistics of getting the tickets are a little unusual to my way of thinking, since after I bought it online I had to go to a bank called Caixa (Which had a guy protesting in front of it with a sign saying ?Dónde está mi dinero?) and insert my debit card in the ATM, and the ATM printed the ticket. Whatever. I lived. So, when you get there it is a Babel-like atmosphere, as there are many languages milling around the same place. This ought to not be surprising but English is the one everyone will use, whether it is their first or not, since it is the one everyone most likely has in common. It is always strange in that situation when a native speaker of English talks to you and it takes you a moment to realize that they’re speaking English and that they’re not speaking with a (possibly incomprehensible) accent. I was later told that this was the most visited site in Europe- which puts it high in the running for most visited worldwide. 

The Jorge Luis Borges poem, “Alhambra” is there on the walls as you enter along with La Alhambra and the same word in Arabic. This makes sense because the Arab Dynasties that built and inhabited the palaces of the Alhambra often had poetry inscribed on vessels used to transport water. Water is everywhere there and there are fountains you can cool off in by getting your hat soaking wet, or marble pools that you can take your shoes off and stand in. From the Generalife, which was like the summer home of the Palace of Nazari, there are fountains that run down to multiple pools of water. Evidently water and fountains are in many mosques, or maybe all (?) since Muslims are supposed to bathe before worship.

Allow me to transcribe the great Borges, as these words will certainly be more evocative than my description:

Grata la voz del agua
a quien abrumaron negras arenas,
grato a la mano cóncava
el mármol circular de la columna,
gratos los finos laberintos del agua
entre los limoneros,
grata la música del zéjel,
grato el amor y grata la plegaria
dirigida a un Dios que está solo,
grato el jazmín.

Vano el alfanje
ante las largas lanzas de los muchos,
vano ser el mejor.
Grato sentir o presentir, rey doliente,
que tus dulzuras son adioses,
que te será negada la llave,
que la cruz del infiel borrará la luna,
que la tarde que miras es la última.

Now, they’re not that evocative if you don’t know what the FRACK they mean. So. “Grato” is a word for pleasant, or welcome, and a lot of the poem is just simply praise to the splendor of the elements of the architecture, but certainly with reverence to the legacy and the perspective of the Arabs who no longer “have” it, and have lost it. There is also an element of honorable defeat in the face of knowing an eternal truth or having an eternal perspective. Borges was a voracious reader of Arabic and Persian poetry and probably saw at the Alhambra a convenient architectural metaphor to encompass the splendor of a lost age. Interestingly, he was fascinated with the theme of blindness, and went blind by the time he died. We have already beat the being blind in Granada thing to a bloody pulp. Also noteworthy is that Al-Qaeda have literally made claims to “Al-Andalus” (named after the Germanic tribes that followed the Romans, but now known as Andalucía.) When I read it, it had more of a universal gravity, the poem that is- I must have ignored “rey doliente” (grieving king). The lines that relate to the lost splendor of the height of the Muslim caliphs are in the last stanza:

“Vain the scimitar

Against the long lances of the host

Vain to be the best

Welcome to feel or foreknow, grieving king

That your pleasantries are goodbyes

That you will be denied the key

That the cross of the infidel will erase the moon

That the afternoon that you see is the last.”

Again, the sense of acceptance in the face of the defeat of history is there. I don’t think this is an endorsement for Islam or something, but just a reverence for the past and the sense of wisdom and the sensation of being in the presence of something timeless and powerful that you experience by seeing the place. Clearly the “cross of the infidel” is a clever mix of images between Muslim and Christian terms, to perhaps further convey an eternal nature of the Alhambra. Also, the Alhambra is clearly an architectural example of religious warfare, not unlike the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

There. I arrived at what I wanted to say! The Alhambra cannot help but lend an eternal sense of man’s place on earth, his true finite smallness, and the real magnificence of the scope of eternity. If the Alhambra can be as glorious as it is on Earth, than imagine the palatial nature of heaven.

Also, and this is by far my most profound observation- the last two lines of the poem are not that different than Goldfinger telling James Bond to “choose your last witticism carefully Mr. Bond, it may be your last!” So Borges actually stole that from Ian Fleming. There can be no other explanation.

Last thoughts on this and then we’re on to something else:

  

       a.) The word “scimitar,” which I had to look up, is a type of Arabic saber. Only Borges would come up with a word like that.

    

          b.) Zéjel is also an ancient Arabic poetry form that only Borges would use/know. The man spent a lot of time in libraries. He probably had a higher tolerance for dust than me and would be the type of person who would actively pick up a cat. He might not have ever had sunburn though, since he was always inside.

Amateur redaction hour is over! Anyway, as I read this I was struck and moved, and I hadn’t even entered the place yet. Interestingly enough, there was a Shiite woman below the poem on a bench (I would have take a picture of the poem but I was respectful since I assume you can’t get pictures taken as a Shiite?). When I saw her I immediately felt guilty for being so flippant about the fact (and it is a fact) that I need to wear something similar to the beach, and that I had mentioned it recently.

A day at the Alhambra is kind of like a day at the beach, sun-wise. Better said, it is more like a hot yoga class with gorgeous architecture, fountains, and gardens everywhere. It is quite athletic and involves many stairs. What is amazing is that the buildings, and especially the Palace of Nazari, are cool and pleasant inside even though they were designed in the tenth century or so. Physically speaking, it was just a hot day with dry air and dust. 

Being in Granada, you see quickly how Spanish cyclists are known as climbers, because just to get to the entrance you have to walk up a lot of very steep hills. On the way back down I saw a few guys making a climb. In the background of a lot of Granada lies some punishing cycling terrain, and I have seen a lot of guys in small groups with jerseys riding. You notice it just walking around, and there is often a lot of wind, which blows hot like the feeling you get when you put your hand near a fan belt- sure the air is moving, but it isn’t going to cool you off.

I still don’t like Contador.

I don’t know what time it is but I ended up going out for a bocadillo and a Coke, which I was craving. My first Coke here- The Coke is less carbonated and tastes a little more like sugar. The aforementioned concert was about to start up so I sat on the steps nearby and watched. It was a full on orchestra, not just four tympani. Fittingly, they were playing selections from the opera “Carmen,” which was appropriate on the eve of my trip to Sevilla. A section of cool kids seemed to form around me, since some of them were smoking, texting, and having melodramatic teenage conversations about their respective devotion to one another. There were several euro mullets. I stayed for a few numbers and then went back to the hostal with a room with A.C., the Koreans vanquished (not really). I really enjoyed watching the conductor, who must have been about 40, as he took such pleasure in cuing different sections of the orchestra and mouthing the phrasings. My seat was in a spot where I could see what he was doing since I sat to the side of the orchestra. I tried my best to be serious about it and not just think of scenes from Bugs Bunny in “The Rabbit of Seville.” That was based on a different opera so it was pretty easy to not get distracted. They had tables in the back of the chair section so what look like venerated types in the community could sit and eat during the concert. Naturally there was beer everywhere too.

That should be it for Granada. Till next time, your worthy constituent, Nathan.

1 July, 2012, 0000 hours Sevilla, Andalucía

This is my last night in Sevilla, checking in incidentally at tango’s famous “hora cero.”  Tomorrow I am off to Madrid where the actual purpose of this trip, or at least the most salient purpose, will begin. I am dreading the idea of not having air conditioning but I am excited about the prospect of some stability, free lodging, and a schedule. I will miss having a kitchen. Tonight I took my last opportunity to cook and made a sort of improvised calorie bomb- another pasta dish where I used the potato and 6 chorizos, and sautéed them with some of the remaining Leffe Blonde. Between the olive oil, oil in the chorizo and the water I used to deglaze the pan, it created a semi-sauce. All I had was salt and pepper so I salted it like mad as well as the pasta water. After I cooked the chorizos and the potatoes and added the beer and the water for a limited pan sauce, I drained the pasta, left some of the pasta water for salinity and added an egg, and mixed it all together while it was still hot which cooked the egg in its own way. (There were two pans; one had pasta and the other had everything else, and the egg was last. Bad description) I was thinking of the Roman straggliata or however it’s spelled as my design premise, since I’ve needed to burn through 6 eggs in two days and was sans tomato anyway. It actually came out quite well. It was fitting on the eve of the European Cup final that I composed my own Italian-Spanish war. As usual it got started very late, but by now that feels normal and I am not actually starving by that time. At least that was the case tonight, even though all I had eaten was a mango and two oranges, two eggs and a quart of pineapple juice. Oh and I stopped for a small ice cream that I had to beat the clock to eat since it melted immediately. I went to the Real Alcázar, the Cathedral, La Giralda, and La Plaza de Espana today. Probably no musings on those since this is approaching 5000 words, although the Alcázar was my favorite. The cathedral was also massive and absurdly gaudy, supposedly containing the body of Christopher Columbus, even though he is also buried in the Dominican Republic. (When I left there was a guy on the street playing a Muddy Waters song, which sort of detracted from the historic feel of the moment). I saw the neighborhood of Santa Cruz, the Jewish Quarter which was scourged during the Inquisition, and has streets named life and death thanks to the path of the survivors/those killed. There is a lot of violence in the history of Sevilla. I didn’t have time for the bull ring, unfortunately, or the Archives with Indies building. To be honest I got a later start since I needed to give my skin a break from the sun, even though I can get sunburn as long as it’s daylight, basically. Sevilla is an easy city to get lost in, since the central grid goes back to the Middle Ages, before Robert Moses taught people how to design cities. I will witness the traditional carnage of the bull fight in Madrid.

Vain the scimitar!