Here’s the thing about Dublin: It is a damn fine city to hang out in. Lovely pubs, nice daytime strolls, plenty of nightlife. I am going to do a full-on Ireland countryside tour in August, but I was able to enjoy a preliminary Dublin jaunt this month to whet my appetite. 

I met with a couple friends there, one of whom had lived in the city for a couple years during the days of the Celtic Tiger. Colleen called up some Dubliners* to hang out with, enlivening our nights and also proving to me that, yes, I am unable to keep pace with Irish drinkers. And with everybody else, actually … which is troubling as I have lately had plenty of practice. 

Again, if you can manage to stick with local-type people during your travels, do so. That way, you can hang out with international types and feel popular and cosmopolitan, while your friends back home are stuck drinking with people from the same country as they are, which is not as cool. 

*Fun fact: the Irish “you” plural, when they address groups of people, is “youse,” similar to the manner of Italian mobsters on TV shows. It is the Irish “vosotros” form, if you will, and I like it very much. 

Our jaunt to the Irish countryside.

Overlooking the river

At Trinity College in Dublin

At St. Stephen’s Green in the city.

Tourist checklist:

We went to the (very worthwhile) Kilmainham Gaol and became depressed about Irish history — lots of Irish patriots were locked up and executed there. We went on a day trip to the Irish countryside and were all like, “yep, that is some green countryside over there.”  And we went to the Guinness brewery and got slightly weirded out at how excessive that place is. As my friend put it, it’s not so much a brewery as some sort of temple to the Guinness demi-god. But if you go, beer is included in the price of admission! Also it’s fun to see the place and have a drink in the rooftop bar overlooking the city. 

We wandered St. Stephen’s Green, we hung out around Temple Bar. We saw a really good, interesting, funny play at the Abbey Theatre and then discussed it afterward over drinks, like sophisticated adults. Then we went dancing at the gay bars downtown! Huzzah.

A pint at Grogan’s, one of my new favorite spots. I like Beamish, even better than Guinness 1) possibly because I have a mystical, possibly ancestral connection to County Cork, where this is brewed or 2) I am secretly a damn hipster and Guinness is just too mainstream, or 3) maybe I just like the taste. Take your pick.

Statue of Molly Malone, from the famous Dublin street ballad. Lady is MERE CENTIMETERS away from a nip slip right there.**

**And yeah, Europeans, we spell it “centimeters” instead of “centimetres,” what of it? We also spell them “center” and “theater.” AMERICA.

We sampled the city’s gay dance scene as well, places called The George (which I liked, although the bouncers were kinda jerks), and The Dragon (which I didn’t like because it was far too crowded and not many people were actually, ya know, dancing.) Both have cover charges, by the way.

Otherwise we just wandered in to likely-looking pubs, some “meh” but mostly good, and ate a lot of heavy fried things. I remember it all quite fondly.

Our day trip was to Glendalough, a gorgeous ruin/graveyard/park only like an hour’s drive outside Dublin. There are like, bogs and sheep and glorious green hills and it’s all a little ridiculous after awhile. But, do be careful if you’re renting a car — manual cars are crazy expensive to rent, and driving stick on the opposite side of the road is rather stressful if you’re not used to it. Not that I would know firsthand; I blithely allowed my friend to shoulder that burden. But the stream of muttered curse words coming from the driver’s seat, and the smell of burning clutch, indicated that it was not entirely stress-free in the early going. We made it there in one piece, but I was extremely glad I didn’t have to drive.

Our lodgings were quite nice: Jurys Inn on Parnell Street, close to all the major stuff in Dublin. When you travel with job-having adults, you tend to stay in actual hotels, instead of the usual round of hostels. But this one had a few specials going, so we got onto a pretty sweet deal.

Then, back to Spain… but don’t worry, Ireland, I shall return.

The sequel! Córdoba and Sevilla. 

Oh, I’ve toured Spain. I’ve toured the crap out of this place. And yet I still have places to go! I STILL HAVEN’T BEEN TO BARCELONA. Not to mention the northern part of the country, which I hear is awesome! Spain, why do you have so many things to do? Why can’t you knock it off, already, and let a girl just hang out in her apartment, wearing fat pants and watching Parks and Rec? But no. Instead I have to go to more places. FINE.

I’ve been to Cadiz and Granada, but ya also gotta hit up Córdoba and Sevilla if you want to qualify for your basic Andalucia (southern Spain) tourist certificate.* So I rolled on down to the bus station and headed south once again.

*This is not a real thing

Granada is a lovely old-world maze of narrow streets, with the giant Alhambra dominating the hillside; Sevilla is the more cosmopolitan, worldly version of Andalusian beauty; and Córdoba … well Córdoba is cute, too.

That is where we started — Córdoba, as I mentioned before, was the capital of Muslim Spain during the days of the Caliphate, before the Muslim kingdom fractured into smaller pieces. The major remnant of this time is the grand Mezquita, a giant mosque. After Christians took over, they basically plonked a Gothic cathedral in the middle of it. But it’s a testament to the Mezquita’s size and grandeur that the cathedral seems sort of tiny in comparison to the rest of the building that surrounds it.

Christian cathedral, with glimpses of the Muslim architecture behind it.

The Mezquita’s repeating red-and-white striped arches are iconic, and the vast chamber is impressive and otherworldly. It would also make a sweet, sweet place for a game of hide-and-seek or tag. Or “ghost in the graveyard,” even, I’m not picky. Not sardines, though, because that’s boring.

Córdoba also has some lovely plazas and restaurants, and we happened to arrive for the celebration of Las Cruces, one of the many Spanish holidays where the theme is some variation on “outdoor drinking.” This time, it was “outdoor drinking next to decorated crosses and sorrowful pictures of Jesus.”

This is a picture of one of the main crosses, but this photo was taken before people took up their drinking positions around it.

But Córdoba is a smallish city, and 24 hours is more than enough time to enjoy it. Then it was on to Sevilla, a city with a much different flavor. 

Pretty much every major Spanish town has a massive cathedral, some sort of royal residence/fort, and probably an art museum. Sevilla has these. They are very nice.**

**After awhile, you just run out of things to say about churches and castles.  

Sevilla was once the major port city. This was where the plunder of the Americas flowed in, brought inland through the Guadalquivir river where it was less likely to be stolen by pirates. So Sevilla was big-time during Spain’s golden age, and the city’s size reflects that — a few wealthy Golden Age homes have been turned into museums, there are tons of great cafe areas, like a billion ancient little churches, and a pretty solid shopping district.

But my favorite part is newer: It’s the park district and palace built for the 1929 World’s Fair. Lonely Planet was sorta dismissive of the place in its description, but I thought it was fantastic. Most importantly, it was different then the typical old-world Spain stuff. I wanted to have a picnic there.

Aha! See how nice?

Also, because I love flamenco, we checked out one of the city’s better (free) performance venues. Flamenco is a gypsy art form, and if you’ve seen it, you know it’s supposed to be intensely emotional. Purists say that flamenco is only “real” when it is spontaneous — flamenco performed for an audience, therefore, is only a shadow of the real thing.

And I’d be willing to bet that a lot of the staged shows, where they charge you 50 euros for a sub-par meal and a performance, are pretty stilted and bad. But I don’t think it’d be possible, or wise, for me to just try to hang out in the gypsy barrios and wait for somebody to break out a guitar. So we went where basically everybody recommended — La Carbonería, which looks like a converted garage but puts on a hell of a show. Passion and talent, and alcohol, and they don’t even charge you admission. Just, get there early if you want to go.

OH YEAH, and also? I know I come from an age where everybody thinks they have to record every experience and put it online immediately, but there is something to be said for shutting up, putting away your camera, and living in the moment. In other words, when the fiery Flemenco dancer is electrifying everybody with her jaw-dropping moves up there, how about you don’t spring up and take her picture, or try to record it all? Camera flashes — not to mention horribly rude people standing up to record her on video — are a huge buzzkill for everyone. So let the lady work in peace, all right? You are bugging everybody. I feel like I see this kind of thing a lot on my travels: Something awesome will be happening, some great performance or whatever, and instead of just enjoying it, everybody is jockeying for prime camera position. Good lord.

Travel notes:

Cordoba

Hostel was Hostel Fonda La Corredera. Fantastic location, clean and quaintly old-time Cordoba. But the bathrooms on our floor were hilariously tiny (and we are not very large people, my friend and I), and it wasn’t a terribly sociable place, if you want to make friends. Also, the place is closed from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. every day, so you can’t check in or leave/pick up your luggage at that time. My friend and I had to just wheel our luggage from the bus station to a restaurant and take a leisurely lunch until the place opened. I know, right? Friggin’ Spain.

Good food to be had at Calle de la Plata (Calle Victoriano Rivera). Eat the salmorejo! It’s basically tomato spread that you put on bread. Sounds boring… but it’s tasty, very typical of the city and comes with extra fixings. The huevos rotos are also awesome there.

Sevilla

Hostel was Hostel One Sevilla, which was pretty well located in the large city (far from some stuff, but in a city of Sevilla’s size, that is hard to avoid). It’s very sociable, a cool building, free internet. Some of the bedding wasn’t as clean as we’d have liked? But overall I’d stay there again.

The courtyard at the Casa de Pilatos, a museum that is a dead rich guy’s house

The Cathedral, which is actually more impressive from the outside than the inside, I’d say

A view of the bridge between the neighborhood of Triana and the old city of Sevilla, overlooked by a matador. 

Also, children here have filthy mouths

Besos:

I once lamented the double-kiss greeting that is standard in Spain. On account of the awkwardness.

I’ve gotten better at it. But there are still issues, sometimes. First of all, this is usually not a kiss so much as a “touch cheeks briefly on one side, then another, while making kissing noises.” For the first few months, when I could sense that kiss-time might be approaching, I would thrust my face out and wait, in agitation, for a confused Spaniard to realize that I was expecting him to put his face on there. Eventually I got better timing, and now that hardly ever happens. But sometimes I get overconfident and shove my cheek out eagerly, hitting the other person’s cheekbone with too much force. Then I overcompensate by laughing too loudly and run away.

Europe! What is the deal with you not understanding that peanut butter is awesome?

Seriously. No one here gets it. You can buy peanut butter here — some clever supplier realized all these expats crave the stuff, and duly supplied it — but it’s expensive and Europeans in general have zero curiosity about it. Spaniards of my acquaintance seem to assume it’s horribly fattening and bad for you (which, sure, but c’mon, it’s no worse than Nutella), and one friend seemed outright disgusted by it. And he’s never even tried it! This perplexes me. 

Swearing

“Bad words” are way more acceptable in Spain. Contrary to stereotype, Spaniards speak to one another very very informally. You use the informal “tu” for “you” in Spanish with most people here, whereas Latin Americans address each other much more politely. And that informality also extends to frequent use of words like mierda (the s-word) and joder (the f-word)* which I hear out of the mouths of 10-year-olds all the time. “Mierda” won’t get you remotely in trouble, although “joder” is somewhat frowned upon in school, at least. When the kids want to ask to go to the bathroom, they actually say, “Puedo piss?” Which means, obviously, “can I piss?” This is simply the way it is said. It’s informal, but nobody gets told not to say it.

My favorite little detail — you know the song “Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?” It’s a classic; the tune is recognizable anywhere. It’s a back-and-forth thing, “Laura stole the cookie from the cookie jar!” “Not me!” “Yes, you!” “Couldn’t be!” “Then who?”

In Spain, the lyrics to that tune are “Who took a piss in the sleeping bag?” This is sung at school. “Teacher took a piss in the sleeping bag!” “Not me!” “Yes you!” 

Although it occurs to me that it’d be pretty easy to figure out the answer to this question. One must merely ask, “Who among us smells of urine?”

There, mystery solved. 

** Observe (cough, cough, parents) that I scrupulously refuse to swear in English on this blog … even though I sometimes really want to. 

My friends and I are delighted by the sight of U.S. dollars for some reason

We never see anything but euros or pounds or Czech crowns or whatever, so when we see a greenback, it somehow enchants us. So ugly and and green! And dollars seem so oddly small compared to European currencies! It’s a nostalgic thing right now.

Spaniards are super big on family and sharing — I like this, but I also find some aspects of it strange 

My students go hang out at their grandparents’ houses, like, every Sunday. They play with their cousins, they see their aunts and uncles. I would have liked to do that, growing up. Big extended family gatherings were only like three times a year, what with everybody roving around and scattered in that very American way of ours.

It’s now common for young adults to move back in with their parents in the U.S., which I think is perfectly reasonable, but in Spain, the kids straight-up don’t ever leave until they get married or circumstance forces it somehow. I know one Spaniard, my age, who has lived in one bedroom her entire life. She went to college in Madrid, so there was no need to move. Her brother and sister, also in their twenties, still live there. They all seem quite content with each other. I think it’s a fine system, but it also blows my mind to think that, at my age and with all the random apartments and different cities I’ve lived in, I could just as easily have never left my cozy little room in Omaha. I both find the good in that idea, and find it inconceivable. In America, it’s simply not done.

Spaniards are also pretty laid-back about sharing their things. Families are always renting rooms in their apartments, for example — in the U.S. it’s considered such a huge deal to have some stranger in your home for extended periods, but here it’s normal. Lots of Americans live rent-free with families in exchange for English lessons for the kids, for example.

Maybe because other people are always in your business anyway, you might as well? This busybody attitude can be fun to watch, particularly at school, where the kids are far less concerned about “their” stuff than we were. When I was in elementary school I hated lending my school supplies out to people, because they might come back all grubby or not come back at all. But here, if someone asks, “does anybody have a pen?” the surrounding students whip out writing utensils and practically throw them at the borrower. It’s nice.

Emotions are always running high

The kids are quick to rally around a crying classmate. Tears break out way more frequently here than I remember from my school days, among both boys and girls. And immediately, even if they’re not particularly friends, other kids swarm in with hugs and pats and sympathetic words. If anybody cried when I was in sixth grade, everyone just froze or pretended not to notice, or a select few girls would follow you to the bathroom, where you’d have fled in shame. Here, everybody just comes in for a hug, the tears dry up and you go about your business. These kids can sometimes be absolutely terrible to each other, mind you, just like American kids. But there is a more general sense of camaraderie and shared emotion here. However, that means that when one kid is singled out and bullied, it’s almost even more tragic. 

Attention: Click the following link for the soundtrack to today’s blog post:

Soundtrack! 

Is it playing? OK, now we can start.

Scotland loomed pretty large in my youth. 

If you don’t know who this is… I have nothing to further say to you.

I grew up watching Highlander (the original movie and TV series!) and Braveheart. I had a lot of emotional investment in the lives shaggy men who wore kilts and spoke with outlandish accents. So I was pretty pumped about going to Scotland. It was even weirdly nostalgic, in a way.

Me, on the Isle of Skye in the Highlands.

Scotland is gorgeous. The weather isn’t always nice, but it just adds to the drama, really… and the people were super pleasant. Really cool old cities, but the countryside is probably more memorable. Much of our trip was spent driving around, and then stopping to gape at things.

Isle of Skye again. It was, like, friggin Middle Earth up in there sometimes, except with nicely paved roads.

Loch Lomond, with my friend/chauffeur Emily gazing across the waters.

Some of the landscapes are sort of alien-looking, especially when the fog sets in.

…and then we got caught up in an insanely rad swordfight and just completely lost our damn minds. 

Related note: Hey, remember the days before Mel Gibson was revealed to be a hateful — or at least violently disturbed — person? Those were good times.

We started our trip in Edinburgh. Edinburgh was awesomely gloomy — I also got a somberly cerebral vibe from the place. Lots of smart people came from Scotland, after all, and the buildings have a very learned, university-like mien. Although some of them were actual university buildings, so… yeah, I suppose that makes sense. It’s in my top-five prettiest European towns, I have to say.

Ruins of an old abbey

We also went to Stirling, so here’s a couple little photos:

I enjoy a good graveyard, and also a nice wrought-iron gate every now and again.

You’ll probably do a lot of driving if you go to Scotland, which can be a challenge. Wrong side of the road, often in the rain, while keeping an eye out for wandering sheep. Sometimes down to one lane, for both directions of traffic. Trust me, readers, when I tell you it is very good that I was not driving. Recall the name of this blog. I am a high-strung person. It would have been bad.

So I, wisely, made my friend Emily do it. Emily is level-headed, and has some experience in driving on the other side of the road. She was to be the steady hand at the wheel; my contribution was eating all our road snacks and distracting her by yelling, “look at that!” while she was trying to negotiate difficult turns. I also repeated whatever the GPS said, in case she didn’t hear it the first time. 

We drove along Loch Lomond; we rejoiced when our hostels turned out to have wifi; we mourned when they did not. We wandered into the Highlands, where I successfully resisted the urge to knock Emily over and scream, “THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!” I spent one happy morning watching British children’s programming, which is quite droll. We freaked out every time we saw baby lambs gamboling adorably alongside the road — those things are cute, y’all.

We had haggis as part of our Easter dinner (it was actually really good). We drank tasty dark beers and we listened to folk music, both Scottish and otherwise — I know I’m getting a tad homesick, because I might possibly have gotten really really excited when some people at one hostel started playing Dixie Chicks. We scrambled up hillsides and nearly got knocked down by the wind. We saw some Highland cows, which to me look like made-up animals and not real things. It was Easter, so I found some jelly beans and ate the whole bag in one go. Pretty standard, really.

Here’s a more detailed breakdown, for people who are interested or who want to head to Scotland someday:

Edinburgh

Tourist attractions! Edinburgh castle, and then Holyrood House — Edinburgh Castle is a bigger deal, as it was more militariliy important, but Holyrood House is equally interesting.

We booked a tour with “The Real Mary King’s Close,” and toured the remains of a 18th- and 17th-century neighborhood, now entombed underneath other buildings. I am reminded to once again be thankful that the plague is no longer a regular feature of urban life. We also hit up the National Museum of Scotland, which is glorious for history nerds like us.

Pubs! The White Hart Inn, which we stumbled upon in search of food and then realized that it was in the guidebooks — one of the oldest in Edinburgh, and Robert Burns used to eat there. The meat pies are pretty good, too. One of the rare times when showing up to a guidebook-suggested place didn’t result in spending a ton of money at a hugely overcrowded place.

The Bow Bar, which has fantastic beer and a knowledgeable barman. Also Sandy Bells, which we mostly went to for the live music, although that does get crowded.

Lodging! Argyle Backpackers Hostel. Reasonably priced, a short walk from the old town, homelike and friendly. Very nice! However, I was intellectually bested by an overly complicated showerhead.

Stirling

Tourism! You can knock out Stirling in a day. We did the castle, which was fascinating — strategically vital for Scotland and, again, more tourist-friendly than Edinburgh castle. We also walked around the graveyard (see above) and up through the hills above the town. The Wallace monument is nearby, but we skipped it because they wanted us to pay money to see it, and we were feeling poor that day.

Pubs! We happened upon a place called Whistle Binkie’s, which we highly recommend for its great craft beers. After a few hours there, we stumbled into what appaared to be some Scottish version of Applebee’s, called, I think, “The Walls”? Hard to remember. I don’t recommend it, unless you first have your standards lowered by getting a little tipsy at Whistle Binkie’s. In that case, cheers.

Lodging! Stirling Youth Hostel was in a converted old church, made into serviceable but bare-bones rooms. Felt like the dorms at a low-rent bording school from the 70s. But we had our own bathroom, so eh.

Loch Lomond/Trossachs National Park

Tourism! We drove around and stopped by the roadside a lot. That’s… pretty much it. It all depends on what part of the park you’re staying at. We stayed at Crianlarich, which was nice but mostly serves as a jumping-off point for hard-core hikers or random motorists like us. 

Lodging! Crianlarich Hotel. Actually a Best Western — in other words, a real hotel. I never get to see the insides of these any more, so this was quite something. I felt downright classy, what with the private bathroom and all. It was pretty reasonably priced, too.

Isle of Skye (Highlands)

Tourism! Because we weren’t hillwalkers (hikers, in other words), we basically drove around to admire the natural wonders of the island, which are plentiful. Any tourist map of the island will have plenty of markings for spots to visit. You drive there, you get out of the car and scramble around for awhile. We also did the Talisker Whisky tour, which was educational. 

Pubs! Isle of Skye is quite rural. Not a hotbed of rowdy nightlife. Portree, the island’s biggest town, has a few nice pubs and one excellent restaurant whose name totally escapes me. Our nights were spent drinking in the hostel, which brings me to…

Lodging! Skyewalker Hostel sounds cheesy as hell, but it’s a great place, seriously. The accommodations are good. Not, like, jaw-dropping, but good — but the couple running the place are keen to make sure you are having an awesome time. Friendly without being overbearing, extremely helpful… it’s one of those “family atmosphere” type hostels, which I’ve come to appreciate more and more as I’ve traveled around. 

The Fairy’s Glen, Isle of Skye. 

RAAAAAARRRRR

On my whirlwind, devastatingly expensive tour of the U.K., I spent some time in foggy London-town. Which is actually in the midst of a fairly serious drought, so there wasn’t much humidity. But I digress.

I’ve been to London before, so this was a London 2.0 trip for me. It’s a very nice city, and for a dork like me who enjoys British literature and pop culture, it’s just great to say hello to the island that spawned so many things that I love. As far as straight-up gorgeous European cities go, however, it tumbles pretty far to the back of the pack. It’s hard to compete with Paris, Venice, Prague, Granada and probably a lot of other cities I haven’t been to yet.

Still:

Eh? Nice, right? This is the park by Buckingham Palace. Sorry it’s not, ah, actually an image of Buckingham, I was waaaay lazy with the picture-taking on London 2.0.

London is, as I mentioned, expensive. Consider that one pound currently equals $1.60, and the already-high prices on that menu you’re holding will make you whimper like a kicked dog — before you hastily suppress those thoughts and order yourself a nice pint, anyway.

The food — speaking of — is much better than the old British stereotype. In a sign that months of Madrid cooking have weakened my taste buds, I took my first bite of some really good sausage-and-mash and found the flavors to be too strong. I bounced back, though.

Pub recommendation: Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street is a pretty good one. Rebuilt shortly after the Great Fire of 1666, it qualifies as a tourist spot and yet also has legitimately good food and beer. It’s dim and narrow and stark, which are qualities I enjoy in a pub. 

For beer lovers: We sought out Cask Pub & Kitchen, which was Internet-famous for having amazing, incredible beer. We found it stocked with …. a lot of American microbrews. Gratifying though it was to see so many of our fine U.S. beers thus honored, it actually seemed like they were crowding out the European options, which was of course what we were there to try. My new favorite? Evil Twin, from Denmark. I paired it with my fish and chips. It was so delicious I was nearly in tears when I finished it all. I get emotional about stuff sometimes.

Portobello Road: Notting Hill’s giant weekend outdoor market, which is amazing if you want to browse through gloriously random stuff in a charming neighborhood, and also remember that the movie “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” is awesome. It makes Madrid’s “El Rastro” pale in comparison, if we’re being honest here.

Of London’s (free) museums, the Victoria & Albert is really the best one to hit up. The Museum of Natural History, the British Museum and the Portrait Gallery are all nice enough, but you can see science exhibits and paintings in America, for God’s sake. There is no need to linger on that stuff here, impressive though those London collections may be.

But the Victoria & Albert is about the history of “decorative arts and design.” So, furniture and clothes and art in general, but it’s all more interesting than it sounds. Opulent Georgian furnishings, hilariously large hoop-skirted dresses, cracked-out coffee tables from the 60s, and a massive room of glittering jewelry. It has lots of shiny pretty things, is what I’m saying. All within a fascinating historical context, but mostly… shiny pretty things. So, so many of them.

Also, Medieval tomb carvings. In case you’re into that.

Most other touristy stuff was too expensive, to be honest. We did go to the Tower of London, which one must visit when one is in London. Henry the VIII’s armor reveals that he 1) was every bit as fat as you’ve heard and 2) had a very high opinion of himself, judging by the laughably huge codpiece on that thing. Also, what the what?

IT IS A DRAGON MADE OF ARMOR. No idea. I guess armor by itself is not interesting enough for the kids today.

Recommended places to stay: Our place, Anwar House Hotel, was extremely well-located by Earl’s Court tube station, and a good rate for the neighborhood. Facilities weren’t the greatest, to be honest, but we are a rugged people…who are also cheap, and understand that cheapness has its drawbacks.

A view of London from the top of the London Eye, November 2008. Thought I might as well throw it in there.

Just a note to say that I intend to add more practical travel info on this blog — and I intend to edit a lot of the old travel posts to include things like which hostel I stayed at or other information I find pertinent. Be sure to comment or get in touch generally if you are heading to any of these places and want recommendations…

Also I will try to post more! But that’s tough, I am running around crazy over here. But I’ll try. 

Oh, yeah! That chunk of land over there that isn’t Spain

Among us Anglo types living in Madrid, Portugal has an excellent reputation as a travel destination. It’s cheap, the hostels are really good,* the nightlife is great. Lovely cities, coastlines and nature and stuff. So, I went to Porto a few weeks ago. “Porto” as in port wine, which originated from there.

Boats! Lake! City!

*Our hostel was “Yes! Porto Hostel,” which is part of a chain of hostels. Comfortable, lively, well-located and reasonably priced. And free breakfast. One of the best I’ve stayed at, really. 

Things to do in Porto: Drink port.

Discovery…I like port! Or at least the delicious port I got to drink. Dunno what kind of swill we have circulating in the U.S., but this stuff was good. 

Other things to do: Go on another free walking tour** and realize that you know zero things about Portugal. Go on a cruise around the lake in one of those little boats. Watch sun set over the water.

**The ones with the unofficial guides who advertise through the hostels and work only for tips. I’ve had very good luck with these.

And in my case, another thing to do is suffer the worst hangover of my life. (Unrelated to the port! I promise!). I had some cocktails, and also many shots, while not having had any dinner. This, I believe, may have contributed to my condition on Sunday morning… and afternoon. And into the evening. 

I rarely get truly hungover, but when I do, I pick the most extravagantly inopportune moments (See: my post about Segovia). Possibly my winter of consequence-free boozing made me overconfident. I have vowed to be more sensible.

Observations:

Porto is gorgeous. It also has the strangest juxtaposition of elegant charm and obvious decay. But even its decay is mostly charming — mostly. Sometimes not. 

Portuguese food is famous for excellent fish, especially cod, but Porto’s signature dishes are 1) tripe, which is disgusting and 2) the Francesinha, which is amazing.

Porto residents used to eat tripe because it was all they had left after shipping off all the other parts of the cow. It’s still quite typical there, but I declined to partake.

The Francesinha (Portuguese for “little French girl) is a white bread sandwich, technically, but mostly you’ll notice the three or four types of sausage and meat encased in a thick shell of melted cheese, and also swimming in a pool of same. There are sauces involved as well. I want another one, right now. As an American I appreciate these things.

J.K. Rowling lived in Porto, working as an English teacher, when she first hatched the ideas for Harry Potter. The university students there wear long black robes as part of an old university tradition, so you when you’re strolling about town, you do see students walking around who look like they just dropped in from Hogwarts. 

And Portuguese sounds like Russian. It’s curious. 

Strangely fascinated by this.

Porto is arrayed on high hills by the river, so you can walk on terraces and bridges and peer on rooftops below… these are ruins of homes right by the water. Prime real estate that, according to our unofficial tour guide, no one can afford to buy.

Sorry, I just like this church because it looks haunted.

Also, papier-mâché testicles. Welcome to Valencia.

Let me try to describe Las Fallas: People spend enormous amounts of time, skill and money to build intricate, enormous statues of wood, wax and other materials. Then they watch them burn them to the ground. At 2 a.m., while drunk.*

*Maybe “drunk” is too harsh a term. Spaniards do hold their liquor better than us Anglo types, I find. 

One example of a Falla, pre-burning, as viewed from my camera lens (the statues themselves share the name “Fallas” with the festival). Most of them are several stories high.

Traditional costumes for Las Fallas. Hundreds of men and women in courtly dress wander around town, looking awesome. They are accompanied by marching bands that are sort of like Fourth of July fife-and-drum people, except with way more horns, and just generally more… badass Spanish-sounding. They march around town starting at 8 a.m., with loud music and fireworks, which is exactly what you want to hear after a night of rum consumption.

Fireworks are the second most important part of Las Fallas. Valencianos spend the five-day festival happily bombing the holy hell out of their city. When I was a kid I used to spend July lighting off bricks of booming firecrackers, tossing them in the street and looking for new ways to create the most satisfying explosions. Imagine that — except multiplied by thousands, and relocated to a crowded, Medieval-style city where most people have a good buzz on.

As you eat your tapas or stroll about town, your conversations will be interrupted by resounding “BOOM!” or “shhhhrieek-CRACK” or “CRACKCRACKCRACKCRACK” or “IN CASE YOU DIDN’T HEAR ME, I WILL BOOM AGAIN” or “DID YOU HEAR ME THIS TIME? I WILL BOOM LOUDER JUST IN CASE.” Everybody pauses their discussion, then commences once again. 

But as you walk, watch for anybody making a casual flicking motion with the wrist, or a tossing motion with their arm, because they just threw something that is going to explode quite close to you. Also look for people running away from something. My days as a kid who liked to blow things up prepared me for this, otherwise I would have been very nervous indeed. 

The Fallas origins are hazy (aren’t most such things in Spain?), but it supposedly began like a thousand years ago when old-time Valencianos would take out their trash from spring cleaning and burn it — usually wooden detritus of some form or another. One year people started making little figures out of the wood, I guess, and the next year they made them more elaborate, and so on. The Fallas statues themselves are often satirical in nature, lampooning someone or something, and the Valencians are not concerned about modesty. Boobs figure prominently in many of the statues, as well as various other things Americans would find unseemly.

This man has gotten his testicles accidentally waxed off. Whoops.

This one is staged at a hospital front desk. The naked people had some Kama Sutra-style sexual misshap, and the woman in front has a bit of bowel trouble and is using a rope to keep from soiling herself. The driver ate his steering wheel, and the magician’s assistant lady got stabbed. All the signs next to the figures are in Valencian dialect, so I’m sure I missed some jokes. But you get the basics.

The Fallas are burned on March 19th every year —  2 a.m. March 20, to be exact — and I could have stayed to watch the spectacle, but that would have led to a five hour bus ride back to Madrid at 3 a.m., and then a full day of work immediately to follow. I decided to wimp out. I am not ashamed.

Still, though… this would have been cool.

That’s an image from a previous year, which I got off a different blog. The crowds are overwhelming, but I understand you can still see these things burn pretty well. They are massive, after all. Still, probably better not to have a sleep-deprivation-related breakdown on Tuesday. 

Random notes about Valencia: It’s pretty. It is the birthplace of paella. The old parts are all lovely white stone, and it has a far more relaxed atmosphere than Madrid, possibly owing to its beachy location. It has new museum park that is all crazy cutting-edge architecture — the architecture is worth checking out (see below), although the museums themselves are not really worth the price of admission unless you have a day to kill and can buy a multi-pass. I would rather have my 30 euros back. What can I say? I’m on a budget here.

Behold! The future. 

Men in bars will occasionally strike up conversations with me and my (female) friends here. Sometimes they speak English, so we understand each other better. And sometimes, after a little small talk, usually pretty routine stuff, they will comment, “You are not typical American girls!”

I think this is code for, “You have not shoved your boobs in my face or said anything incredibly stupid in the last five minutes!”  There are a lot of Americans here, either teaching English or studying, and I’d say most of the estadounidenses in my program are very decent types. But I’ve also run into boorish, entitled loudmouths — speaking, unfortunately, with an American accent. Usually these are 20-year-old study abroad students, boys and girls both, who decided to expand their horizons by getting drunk in a foreign country, as loudly as possible. They roam in packs, usually at the types of clubs I don’t prefer to visit. But sometimes you’ll find a group of D-bag bros, bro-ing it up, or some girls, who, if they aren’t actually completely vapid, really do work hard to cultivate that impression (yeah I’m a snob. What of it?).

We Americans also have a reputation for being eager to get down with whoever’s willing (wink, wink). One of my U.S.friends says she sometimes tells men at the clubs here that she’s Canadian, and they appear to lose interest right away. Apparently Canadians don’t have the same wild reputation? When I studied inCosta Rica, it was the same – as girls, we were told that Costa Rican men just expected us to be a bit on the sluttier side. “Just, FYI,” basically, so we’d know where we stood. Doesn’t seem fair, as of course none of the boys had to get that kind of cautionary speech. But do they ever?

I have no idea if that reputation has any basis in fact – I’m inclined to think it really doesn’t. A lot of people think a lot of things about Americans, thanks to our outsized pop culture engine and our dominance in world affairs generally. A lot of those opinions are unflattering, and unfair, as America is a big, complex country. And hey! People from the U.K. and elsewhere can be offensive, too. Despite their reputation, a lot of British people are quite stupid and rude. God in His wisdom has distributed irritating jerks throughout every land and nation.

Still, it seems like everyone who speaks regularly with us has some appalling story about an extravagantly stupid American. Like an American asking whether Canada was a U.S. state, or making insensitive remarks to German kids about whether they “voted for Hitler” or not. I’m hoping there’s been some mistake in some of these cases. I don’t consider myself a stupid person, but I’ve said some really stupid things in my time — everybody slips up sometimes! Really! And maybe our national stereotype of idiocy makes people see it where it actually doesn’t exist. I hope. 

Speaking of international relations: While most Spaniards are nothing but generous and kind, some have been… less nice. Most of them don’t speak English, or can’t differentiate accents anyway and probably have no idea if we’re American, Australian, Welsh, whatever, but I get the feeling that they don’t like us Anglo types.  Maybe they hate that they hear so much English – which they can’t understand – on the streets of their city, as though they’re being invaded by foreign elements. Maybe the economic crisis has exacerbated these feelings? Knowing English is a huge advantage in finding or keeping a job, and our presence reminds a lot of them that they don’t. I don’t know, but I object to getting heavily accented F-bombs thrown at me as I walk past the bars at night, probably by random dudes who know exactly five words of English, with obscenities making up the majority. Fortunately, there are enough super-nice Spanish people around to drown out the noise. And I’m trying to be extra polite to make up for my drunk-all-day, obnoxious, entitled, arrogant compatriots here.  

It is currently Lent. (Not that most of you have noticed. Heathens.)

Death at the Carnavale parade. It’s blurry, but I figure that’s somehow appropriate.

In Catholic countries, sober, penitential Lent is preceded by some sort of last-ditch, crazy hedonistic party before everybody theoretically has to stop having fun. In America, New Orleans has given us Mardi Gras, which we celebrate on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.

And lo, but Mardi Gras is a fine holiday. Upon this day we do observe most sacred Fat Tuesday by the drinking of beers and the wearing of beads. It is a long-held tradition for men to “jokingly” ask women to lift up their shirts in exchange for beads, and for right-thinking women to be unamused by this. 

In Spain, the pre-Lent party isn’t just for Tuesday; it spills all over the place, overlapping a couple of weekends or all month long, in some cases. Lots of places have their own particular Carnavale traditions, but people generally dress up in costumes and throw parades. In Madrid, they bury a sardine. It’s weird. 

About the sardine: Right before Lent begins, it is traditional to have a mock-ceremony to bury a big fake fish, or sometimes light a big paper fish on fire, as my elementary school did as part of its celebrations. (This is why I often really like Spain; lighting things on fire at a school would just seriously never fly in America.)

No one knows where this sardine thing came from. Someone told me it was a sort of “fresh start” type gesture, to bury old, smelly things and start something new. Various websites say it’s a mockery of a Lenten tradition where you bury all the rich foods that you’re not allowed to eat during the 40 days, although this also sounds odd. Whatever. All I know is, they bury a sardine.

In Madrid, there is a big city parade and various performances around town, in addition to the sardine-burying. Carnavale celebrations were banned during the Franco regime, so it was about 40 years of no costumes or fun in general, apparently. One person told me Carnavale’s festivities had their origins in the 1970s post-Franco years, but this is false, as the tradition is as old as Christianity and possibly even older. 

Earlier, I’d written about how Spaniards haven’t quite gotten the hang of Halloween costumes — they dress up as dead things, but never do anything clever or funny or just non-macabre for their costume. After seeing Carnavale, that all makes perfect sense. Why make Halloween the time of “look at my clever costume” when you already have Carnavale? I went to Cadiz, a city in the south, during one of their Carnavale weekends. I saw some very respectable costumes there, I assure you.

Uhhhh… except I was too distracted by all the drinking to take a decent picture. Still, you get the idea. This is one of the main plazas of Cadiz. 

In Cadiz, Carnavale is basically a grand-scale outdoor boozefest, where everybody drinks (and, judging by the smell, pees) in the street while wearing costumes and enjoying roaming street performers. I poured wine into a water bottle and took a walk, basically. What’s not to like?

Back at my school, the kids dressed up in costume for Carnavale day. I spent my afternoon regulating a (plastic) gunfight between between a cowgirl, Snow White, a musketeer and two Batmen. There are worse ways to pass the time. Then they had a little parade around the schoolyard where they danced around and were generally adorable. Then they lit a big cardboard sardine on fire, and we all went home. 

Sometimes you just have to go with it.