Saturday, December 30, 2017

Oxford, unabridged

In Irakleio, I bade farewell to Crete, to Greece, to all of Southern Europe. What ought I to expect of the UK? I feared that my encounters would become more pedestrian, less mythic, more disappointing. By the same token, I understood that the UK has its own rich and unique history.

If this thought process seems naive or insulting, consider that for my whole trip, I had drifted in cultural and geographic waters I’d never seen or tasted before. (Tasted?! Who tastes seawater? It’s a metaphor, but I hope you see how new this all was to me.) Back home, I could tell the difference between a raging storm and a tiny ripple. So far in my modern Odyssey, I had had to rely on the wisdom and predictions of others to educate me on what was important and what was unremarkable (although I honestly found everything remarkable), what was beneficial and what was dangerous. As fate steered me toward the UK, I began to fear that this territory would be like, or at least feel like, home. I worried that I would lose my spirit of exploration.

Thames River, looking south. Taken near Christ Church Meadow

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

I have time

Last time - wow, it has been a long while, hasn’t it - I spoke of fear, a feeling of encroachment, the sense that I was shrinking and reverting to a lesser form of myself. I determined to forge ahead in spite of my uncertainty about what exact path to take, with the hope that simply moving might help me to unearth some useful observations to live by and share with you. Alas, I did not proceed to do much with that fortitude.

However, it is worth it to try again, and to keep on trying again. In my next blog, I will finally return to chronicling my summer trip. I have time for this. I didn’t have time before, but I do now.

No, I don’t believe that. Or, I don’t mean that. “I don’t have time” (or “I do have time”) is a very common Western phrase, and in the last three months I have quietly said it to myself whenever the thought of toiling on this blog - or on travel as a vocation - has crossed my mind. The claim tidily summarizes a slew of feelings, desires, and material conditions but it is also absurdly, almost offensively inaccurate. To say “I didn’t have time” doesn’t really communicate anything at all, except to confirm some very basic data that you could see with your own eyes - that I was not writing for a while.

I mean something entirely apart from what I say, and part of traveling well in life is to understand how what I think or say differs from reality, and why it differs...or to at least know that what I say or think often differs from reality and also influences the shape of reality as I experience it. Further, in the spirit of my “Flip the Pyramid” blog, I want to be respectful of you who are taking time to read. I want to speak, and mean, with care. To get to what I really mean, I need to take you on a side quest.

Friday, November 17, 2017

Resuming the journey

Although - I try to remind myself regularly - the journey never stopped. Perhaps the journey never started, in the normal sense. We are born en route, and what is up to us is to decide what direction to move, at what speed, carrying what thoughts and feelings, keeping what company.

Alas, I have neglected this blog for a time out of fear, out of despondency, out of mental and emotional frozenness. I long to be traveling again, to be traveling forever - if not for the geophysical freedom then at least for the way I feel in my soul when the body around it stays in motion. I long to be free of the confining, corrosive fears and snapping metal jaws that growl and fight over the scraps of my spirit, my identity, over a huddled self that has learned to the detriment of every other skill how to look for and avoid anything in life that contains even a whiff of danger.

From within this place of fear, I fear most of all what I am missing:

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Crete in full-er, Part II - Siteia, Vai, Rethimno

When I arrived by bus in Siteia from Irakleio, it was mid-afternoon. The day was Sunday, the heat daunting. I hoisted my main bag onto my back, grabbed the day pack in one hand and in the other, a weighty bag of dry foods I’d bought in the last town. My hopes that being closer to the sea would mitigate the heat evaporated as I trudged a half-mile from the bus station down a broad, shadeless sidewalk (past the closed grocery store - no fresh produce today!) and then turned to follow a highway along the coast for another 1.5 miles.


The walk offered beauty and a grueling test of my endurance at the same time. On one side, and about ten feet below the sea wall: brilliant, blue sea, lazy bathers, and waves foaming and receding from the bright, rocky toes of a beach. On the other side: a two-lane highway, oppressive heat, fast Greek traffic (about which I had perpetual, very low-level nervousness) and armies of cicadas forever reminding me, “it is hooooooooootttttttt.”


This 30 minute walk dilated to about 8 hours, measured in physical labor. My bottled water quickly dwindled, my body ached from about 40 extra pounds of freight and beneath my pushed-up shirt sleeves and pants I swam in sweat. I started to get a headache and feared heat exhaustion. I cursed myself for not getting a hotel in the city center. What was another 50 or so Euros a night compared against dying out on the road from heat stroke? What if I turned around now, went back and got that expensive hotel room even though I was also still paying for the first hotel? It would be worth it, wouldn’t it?

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Crete in full-er, Part I - Irakleio

(For those desiring chronology, the comes after Athens and before Oxford. You may recall I have mentioned Crete before, but only in passing in order to describe a catharsis on a bus ride.)


Irakleio was my first destination. The day that I arrived, my host was away on very important business, so her daughter greeted me, got me settled, and left me to my own devices. Meanwhile, my remote host kept up a steady, hospitable stream of text messages to make me feel welcome and give me ideas of things to do. As great as these ideas were, one of my first priorities (as always) was to visit a grocery store.


A side note: I cherished these “chore” moments, despite how stressful they sometimes were. In Greece, for instance, avoiding food allergies and translating foreign words had the added challenge of requiring transliteration of Greek characters into the Latin alphabet (at least until I figured out I could download the additional alphabet to my phone). I love(d) the mundane, intimate perspective I received in each city I visited. Even in my home country, everyday encounters, however mundane and loathsome they can be, carry the potential to surprise me with quiet, intimate reverberations that are absent from grand and flashy places and events.


Getting back to my story,

Monday, August 14, 2017

Regret, Nostalgia, Present Purpose: before I talk about Crete, lets talk about talking about Crete

I’ve hidden from this blog for almost two weeks. I returned to the States almost a month ago. More than three months ago, I lost my job. For the better part of the last ten years (or maybe longer) I have paced the perimeter of a rectangular, American yard bounded in barb wire that stretches between the standard posts of job, belly, bed, and discontentment. Upon this wire and wood I dependably rub my life raw.


A couple of days ago, I reflected on my toxic engagement with my past, future, and present. From each point in time and space, experiences fall behind me, loom before me, and coincide with me. Past and future are easy (if dangerous): small, potent fictions I manufacture and abuse with simple thoughts and gestures, easy to destroy and in the creative destruction of which to be mutated or blown apart, but how do I engage the invisible and enormous present with its endless power and obscure intent? How do I grapple with an imperceptible, unavoidable proto-thing that my feet step in and upon and which also steps in and upon me? How do I speak this brand new language always being born in my ears and on my lips, read words that are written for the first time every time? How do I touch or let go of a thing in our mutual moment of immediacy and formlessness?

Monday, July 31, 2017

The morality of irresponsibility

Have I really been back for almost two weeks? My awareness is distended, straddling an ocean, split again to span a whole continent, divided in five to occupy several nations at once. My body is thus lankier than normal, joints loosened and dilated as if I had spent time on a rack, eyes widened by bright, interrogative light, my mind severed by the demands of this interview from cogent routines. Yet somehow the flesh is not encumbered, nor especially painful or awkward under my supervision. If there are chains, I don’t quite sense them yet. Likewise the mind has not ceased to function, I simply do not recognize its functioning right now as well as I normally do. I float, but not as if driven there by torment and escapism, not disembodied. Perhaps superembodied?

Thursday, July 20, 2017

Athens: Bathing in the Spring

[note - Chronologically, this came after Venezia and before Crete]

My time in Athens was very short, but has left an enduring impression on me. That first evening in Greece, from the moment I stepped off of the underground, I witnessed the underlit fountain of culture, which showers the city that surges and foams outward in all directions, which showers the entire Western world in its influence. The Acropolis leaps skyward in the middle of Athens, an abrupt promontory flooded in light, a head wound exploding from this mind responsible for so much of how the West thinks, legislates, makes art.

This monument is so grand, so glorious, even in its decay, even in the profoundly empty spaces - the pedestals that do not hold statues of Zeus or Athena any longer, the columns that do not stand, the roofs that have long since collapsed and crumbled.


How tragic to witness that Greece now reels so badly from a modern crisis fabricated from modern, petty myths and monetary legends - our global obsession with values that are calculated, transacted and then forgotten in milliseconds...a new height of superficiality, of expendability...an infinite array of infinitesimal threats assaulting the root of our shared, cultural tree.

Monday, July 17, 2017

One foot in either world - or, the return

Here is an odd circumstance, either promising or unsettling depending on how I look at it - as I begin to investigate where to live when I return to my hometown, I find that the exact same apartment I lived in several years ago is once more available.

A good thing or a bad thing? I loved living in this place, and moved out primarily due to rising rent. It now costs about 33% more than it did when I lived there. Still, it is a very nice apartment, other than the somewhat noisy neighborhood it is in, as well as its remoteness from...well, almost anything, including grocery stores (about a 2km walk).

This is an easy, familiar, readily-available option. It would solve a lot of logistical problems of my return immediately. What does it do about my higher-order problems, though? The idea of signing a lease here raises in me fears of regression. The sense that I am walking backward down a path that I have already worn smooth. Am I not supposed to advance from where I am into a different and/or better future? Isn't literally returning to where I came from going backward?

One simple thing that would profoundly mitigate this decision - something I have learned in the course of my journey that I really want right now - is regular company. I recognize that this will come with its own challenges, but I think it would be very nice to have a roommate (and, by the way, if a 2 bedroom apartment were to become available in this complex where my old apartment is available, the per-person cost would be about 20% less than what I used to pay there). It would be an economic, social, and perhaps even spiritual improvement over my current set of options, which seems to be:

- Live exactly where I used to live, exactly how I used to live (alone)
- Live in a different city (or country!), exactly how I used to live (alone)
- Hopscotch from friend's house to friend's house, which operates at best as a delaying tactic and during which time I must nevertheless resolve a number of lingering clerical and financial concerns.

I still need to find work, rescue my possessions from a storage unit, and move forward with my life. I especially need to move forward with my life. This epic trip was meant to be phase one - now I just need to figure out a phase two.

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Venezia - Lie Back and Float (6/22 to 6/26)

Taking the best symbolism from the ten-hour delay I endured, waiting for my Volotea flight to arrive in Sicilia and shuttle me to Venezia on the 22nd of June, I shall say that this tedious, dazed, hungry and tired day I spent in Catania’s airport modeled for me how I ought to treat my time in Serenissima (Her Serene Royal Highness), in the Floating City, in Venezia - that is to say, I should take it slowly.


It should be noted that my airport day was its own, modest adventure in a bottle

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Keep traveling - the grace of shitty first drafts (credit to Anne Lamott) - minor edits 2017/07/15

I have been very tired again, recently. This occurs more frequently the longer I have been traveling, and it saps the energy I have to explore, and also to reflect and write about those explorations.

It is okay, though. One doesn't always have to get it right the first time. Fortunately, one sometimes doesn't have to get it right at all.

Monday, July 10, 2017

Sicilia: a homecoming four generations in the making

The older woman across from me pointed out the train window. I looked over my shoulder past the hurtling landscape of southern Italy, neck protesting at the sharp angle, and immediately forgot the pain as I saw, glowing in the late afternoon sun, the island of Sicilia.

She and her husband were Sicilian, returning home. Across the aisle a Russian mother and her two children sat. They were visiting on holiday, as I was. All of us had embarked on this seven hour journey from Roma, all of us felt the gathering anticipation of arrival.

Sunday, July 9, 2017

Flip the Pyramid - Mirth and Mischief, Folly and unfoiled earnestness: hijinks in Oxford, Africa in Crete (7/6-7/9)

My regularity with this blog has been less than regular, so once again I’m time-jumping to the present to reflect a bit more on where I am, after which I will get back to where i was.


And where am I? After last night, I can’t quite be sure. Was it all a dream, as the good-natured fairy suggested (but wait...how can he have suggested it if it was, in fact, a dream), or did I and Hippolyta’s other “fourth cousins” truly gallivant about in the gathering silk skirts of an Oxford evening, opening mysterious briefcases, attending amateur drama auditions (to play the role of bats - “whEEEEEEE-NEE-Nee-Nee-nee-nee-nee,” which, on the authority of that dubious troupe is the sound that bats make), breaking into confidential files, witnessing a streetside spat/pursuit between Demetrius and Helena, spying on a video chat between Lysander and Hermia that occurred behind a pub, attending to dapper-suited Egeus’s fatherly woes and his plans to make his daughter marry Demetrius, kill her, or have her forswear men (reasonable options, surely), and otherwise scouring the streets for snippets of an embellished, and wildly-entertaining performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Napoli (a fitting city to visit in the past while catching up to the present)

I fear that I do not do justice to any of the places I have visited, or the people whom I have met. Writing is like drawing a map: you attempt to create a convincing fake, a sufficient approximation, to allow someone to abstract reality, pretend to stand above it even while they move through it...kind of like a maze.

Surely my experiential maps are full of dead ends, skip crucial landmarks, embellish excessively about this or that turn that could have been described in a handful of words. So how can I begin to walk you through a city such as Napoli, overwhelmed as it is with vital detail, and which demands navigation in three dimensions more completely than any other city I have ever visited?

There’s got to be a better way, or “wherever I go, there I am, blocking my path”: Mazes and Labyrinths, Plans and Accidents

My chronicle has gotten way behind schedule. I still want to write about Napoli, Catania, Venezia, Athens, Irakleio, and Sitia (as I catalog these cities, I straddle my time in Rethimno and as soon as I cross over this wall and hop down to the next backyard, I will have to add it to the list).

First, I have to air some dirty laundry. I have to try to clear my head.

I become dispirited, and so my thoughts and energy diffuse. Or perhaps I am not being fair to myself - maybe I am resilient beyond anyone’s expectations, and I am simply frustrated at my apparent lack of “success” (we may try to define that later). Maybe I despair at the destructive, chaotic, or ineffectual results of my attempts to focus my resources down a particular path. Whatever the reason, I end up not writing.

I haven’t stopped doing, although an increasing percentage of my doing feels like it is happening somewhere five kilometers to one side, and I am observing it in miniature through a telescope. Moments that shake and stir me have dwindled significantly, and with increasing frequency I have the appalling experience of feeling like I am observing a remote-control doll of myself in the moment and not really being in the moment. A side note, remembering something I wrote earlier - one element of this phenomenon is that as my sense of connection with the world around me goes down, my number of photographs goes up. Cause, or effect? Illness, or placebo? Perhaps, adding to the list of potential causes for my malaise, I am only tired.

Thursday, June 29, 2017

Stardust (words for the people I have met)

Anything I say will barely hold a candle to the light that has glowed upon me during my travels. I must try, though, so here is the shard of mirror that I hold up to their lamps (thanks to M.H. Abrams for the metaphor)


Writing this post poses dilemmas, since I feel bound to protect the identities of all of these people just as much as I do my own. Additionally, I have not asked anyone if I can write about them, so rather than composing detailed profiles, I am going to follow the metaphor of stardust and scatter glimmers instead.


Hopefully this honors all of them in some, small way.

I fall a little bit in love, everywhere that I go, or “A, you ignorant slut!*”: dirty, orchaostral Roma, Part II 6/12 to 6/17

[note - title originally read 6/17 to 6/22, I corrected this to 6/12 to 6/17]

*credit to Saturday Night Live, USA TV show, for the modified quote


I fall a little bit in love, everywhere that I go. It has happened on this trip, on past trips, on trips to the grocery store, on trips down the hall from an office to a photocopy machine, probably even while I was tripping over my own feet (love has that catastrophic quality to it). I have loved so many people that I may be the Wilt Chamberlain of platonic love.


This certainly does not mean that I love people in a strictly platonic way. Oh, no, no, no. And I should not be embarrassed by what I feel, or by what I do, in any of its forms (with the one caveat that I wish to be compassionate and respectful, never careless or hurtful of others, as I love). I should not be embarrassed, apologetic, or defensive about this. It is good and natural to love.

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Dusty feet, dirty streets, redolent heaps of interstellar life: orchaostral Roma, Part I (dates fixed - 6/12 to 6/17)

[note - title originally read 6/22 to 6/27, I corrected this to 6/12 to 6/17]

When I arrived to my short-term home, I was greeted by a shout. Looking up, I spied my smiling host, peeking out of a first [second] story window and raising a hand to greet me. Gestured directions took me around a corner to the entrance, where I waited while her quick, muffled footsteps descended unseen stairs. The large, wooden door before me opened, she appeared in that dark, cool portal out of the bubbling soup of a summer afternoon, and she welcomed me in. My Roma host showed me the basics of her home and asked if I needed a shower. I did, and when I emerged, she invited me to join her for dinner and conversation.

I have encountered so many irrepressible, generous people in Italy. If behavior and body language tell the true story, then they love life, they move eagerly to find and fulfill themselves, they embrace the gift of presence and company that other people may provide. Those whom I have been blessed to meet are relentlessly curious beings, gleaming with facets and always carving new ones - they pursue wisdom about people, language, art, science, travel, and so many other things. Finally and significantly, they love to share - not just materially, but of their time, beliefs and physical space.

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Backtracking to Firenze - Museo Galileo, Uffizi, the Arno

Firenze has art, science, and the same sort of mind-blowing churches that every major city in Italy boasts. Firenze also has the Arno river, and amazing sunsets.

I already talked a bit about what I did not like about Firenze, so I want to balance that out, starting with the Museo Galileo.

Wonder, investigation, invention. Fortitude and sacrilege, purity of purpose and commercial cynicism. Artistry and calculation.

The world we inhabit contains world after world - some which we discover, some which we create, some into which we step intentionally and some which can only be accessed by tripping and falling on our faces into a fragrant flowerbed of discovery. All of the worlds pollinate one another. Science is one such world (which of course contains yet more worlds), toiling in the fields to reap knowledge of those connective tendrils - or scattering careless seeds from which future fruit may grow and be discovered.

Monday, June 19, 2017

Can I, or May I? The Grammar of Desire, What is Taken for Granted, and the Self as Site of Discipline and Terror

The child asks, “Can I go to the bathroom?”
The adult responds, “I don’t know, can you?”

When I was young, I and almost everyone I knew was confronted by this challenge. We had already learned the lesson about gatekeeping: that in many cases, one did not simply address a need. Instead, one sought the blessing of whomever, at the moment, possessed control of our bodies and who decided whether it was permissible to address that need.

Now, we were surprised by a higher-order puzzle. We sensed, even in our unsophisticated state, that this was a cheap shot, but that didn’t matter. Our duty had compounded: where before we had to run our needs up a chain of command, and not-infrequently actively suppress those needs, we now had to solve riddles. What response would satisfy the Sphinx who guarded the holy gate to the toilet?

Blog To-Do List, in honor of reaching the one-month mark - edit 2017/07/05 - to-do list done!

Edit 2017/07/05 - all done!

Much more has happened than has been written about. Here, then, is my short list of things I plan to expand upon here:


  1. Write a little bit about Firenze, because I did enjoy its stunning sunsets and some of the art I found in the Uffizi. I also want to post a few cool pictures from Museo Galileo.
  2. Extol the many virtues of Roma (as well as the virtues of its neighbor, Tivoli) at length, and chronicle my long-overdue victory over restaurant food. For now: wow.
  3. Praise Napoli, which is one of my favorite cities I have visited so far. I had an idea about calling Roma dirty in order to rescue, to redeem the notion of dirty, but Napoli has Roma pretty well beaten when it comes to making a mess. I will have to rethink that idea. Maybe I can still call Roma dirty (remember, I mean this as a good thing - a great thing) if I focus my Napoli writing around its subterranean qualities.
  4. Deliver another semi-philosophical, semi-psychological essay, which has been stewing for about a week and which I will cross of this list first.
  5. Write some anonymous or composite profiles of people whom I have met, which I have been wanting to do since the first week.

By the way: holy cow, I have been traveling for a month.

Monday, June 12, 2017

Hey, what happened to the virtual tours?

Tonight I reread some of my older posts, and realized that I started this blog with fairly detailed descriptions of cities and locations, and in the last week or so have shifted almost completely to impressionistic psychoanalysis, or something like it.

I hope this doesn’t too badly disappoint anyone who wanted a written travel show. I have the ability, from time to time, to deliver that sort of experience, but it seems my energy lies in another direction.

Sunday, June 11, 2017

Cinque Terre has some stuff to say

So I will let it speak for itself [editor's note: this hike was split between two days].


On trail from Levanto to Monterosso - view north of Levanto

Travel Thought Tesserae

Tile One

I keep having to remind myself (or on blessed occasions serendipity reminds me, sparing me the chore): I am in Italy. Down into the dungeon anxiety, a nebulous sense of duty, fears about money and diet and the mechanics of life drag me. When I am swallowed by earth and stone and complaining flesh, out of the light, I know nothing, I sense nothing, I am reduced to calculations. How much? How soon? How, period?

Beneath the earth, I am nowhere. There is only one place and it is terrible - fluster-feathered, oily, damp-fattened ledgers, gangrenous page upon page of tallies, delinquencies, bills and remittances.

I loathe these books' red, subterranean spines and the creeping tendrils they send coiling up into the light to grip and crease and twist everything I am above. May I sever the vines of necessity? Math and chemistry, physics and biology, allergies and language barriers and finances - disciplines which may delight and divert but which also fascinate, transfix, entrap. How can I turn these instruments to my own devices, instead of always being their device?

Friday, June 9, 2017

In praise of Milano, profound serendipity, and beautiful souls

Close readers will notice that the other day, I mentioned that there were “a couple” bad reasons that I hadn’t blogged for a week, but I only spoke about one.

The other reason my heart hasn’t been in blogging (although I have sustained my private, meatspace journal) has been a bit of - what do they call it again - homesickness? Now here is a feeling that I don’t encounter very often.

Going back to when I boarded my flight to Milano, I remember my body panicking just a little bit. “You’re going the wrong way,” it whispered as it tugged on my sleeve. “Didn’t we do enough?” now tugging on both sleeves, “I’m exhausted! Take me home!” just about yanking my shirt off.

Home? How strange - for years and years I have looked for home, and now, after two weeks in a foreign country, some part of me wants to return to what is familiar. I suppose in a sense that this is all it takes to make a home: familiarity, routine. But there is more: I want to see the town where I live again (however much its inhabitants irritate me). I want to see my friends again. I want to present a richer feast of experiences for them to dine on.

Initial Thoughts on Italy

I am surprised by the fact that I saw more of the Romans in Spain than I have so far in Italy. Then again, I have only been here 6 days, and at the 6 day mark in Spain I had only visited Madrid, where I visited exclusively Spanish and Moorish locations. Also, I had more time to plan for Spain, and now I am flying a little more completely by the seat of my pants. I attempt, with a level of success that is probably (and helpfully) impossible to measure, to plan as I go, picking destinations on gut impulse from a guide and from the armfuls of recommendations that always-helpful, always-informed hosts provide.

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

I'm still here (and there)! But...where am I, and am I connected to you?

Have I mentioned how difficult it has proven to regularly chronicle my journey here? Reasons have varied. Here is my favorite: my ratio of living to reflecting biases itself heavily toward living lately, and I do not regret that this eats into my navel-gazing time (I had this thought on 5/30).


Here are a couple of other, less-favored reasons for my dearth of posts in the last week

Friday, June 2, 2017

Last night in Spain

I'm slowly processing the fact that this is my last night in España! I am already thinking about how to make another visit in the future (also, deseo a aprender mas Español to make my next visit more enriching...my grammar is probably off with the verbs, there).

For the last three days I have been in Barcelona. After cities like Sevilla, Córdoba, y Granada, this has definitely been a sensory shift. Barcelona is very modern, very urban. It seems a little...busier? More no-nonsense? Definitely much noisier. It is nice in its own way, but I think my affection is stronger for the other cities I visited.

Tomorrow, I depart for Milan and begin the next phase of my adventure. Here, I really go out on a limb because I know exactly two words of Italian (ciao and grazi). The language barrier is about to get a bit thicker. However, I am eager to learn and discover.

Milan, Italy's center of business and fashion, does not particularly interest me in its own right. I mean, it does host Da Vinci's The Last Supper, but it appears to cost 25-30 Euro to look at for 20 minutes. No, my main interest in Milan is its proximity to the Lakes, and in particular Lago Maggiore and Lago Como (I think I am more drawn to Maggiore because my guidebook doesn't shut up about how much George Clooney likes Lago Como. I mean, I like George Clooney but heaven help me if I visit a place just because actors like it).

As I bid España farewell for now, I reflect on all the lovely people who have hosted me. I will need to make time to do some anonymized personal profiles, because these intimate meetings have been a very special part of the experience so far.

For now, I bid you all good night (or, well, happy afternoon, maybe).

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Posting in real time from Granada - some actual day-of material!

Today at La Alhambra I was moved to tears. This has happened numerous times - first, while viewing Sorolla en el Museo del Prado, then while standing in El Catedral de Segovia, at other times I cannot currently recall, and now while walking the walls of La Alhambra.

I woke at 6.15 this morning and began my trek up the cardiovascular-challenging hill to La Alhambra, then I waited in line with a friendly Australian couple for over an hour before finally getting a day-of ticket (this is by far the most sought-after destination I have visited in Spain so obtaining a ticket was a Big Deal - the Nasrid Palaces sold out about 20 minutes before I got in but I regret nothing). The sleep-deprivation, sore legs, and panicking heart were worth it.

Fast-forward to Córdoba: 5/27 and 5/28 - La Mezquita, Carmen Gastroflamenco

At last, I learned something of flamenco - both educationally and experientially. Now I know that to say I saw a flamenco show is like saying I saw a rock music show [edit 2017/06/12 to clarify: because there are many, many styles of flamenco!].

Córdoba is home to a small, yet extremely fun and informative multimedia flamenco museum, Centro Flamenco Fosforito. It is also home, as are all the southern Spanish cities I am visiting, to a hell of a lot of flamenco venues. On the recommendation of my host there, I attended a show at Carmen Gastroflamenco which, in my ignorant yet impressed opinion, was well worth every euro.

Regarding the evening of 5/25 - breathing deep with Sevillans

A young actress, originally from Sevilla, returned to study here. A local flamenco singer. Juevos con chorizo y pimientos, también con vino blanco.

Now here is what I have been wanting more of, amidst all of my sightseeing. First a long, fun and educational conversation with one of my hosts in Madrid, then smart, flirty banter with my tour guide Concepción, and now on this evening of the 25th going out for a riverside walk and late dinner with some new friends.

Okay, the night did not turn out precisely how I expected or, dare I say, hoped, but it was very nice all the same. For an hour it was just the friendly woman and I, taking our time, trading smiles and broken phrases of one another’s languages, then we were joined by her flamenco friend and passed several more pleasant hours - if slightly disorienting, due to the density of Spanish being spoken.


In the course of the evening I learned that Sevillans touch a lot (I need to befriend more Sevillans), and that when I really like something I should use encantar, rather than amar. It caused quite a bit of laughter when I “amo”-ed something. Good to know!

Regarding the day of 5/25, en Sevilla: Digging in my heels and imagination

If one can claim to know a city by the sheer number of steps one has taken along its streets, then I am well on my way with Sevilla. As has become my habit, I ambulated quite a bit, first on my own and then on a delightful walking tour with a smart, witty woman named Concepción.

Puenta de la Barqueta looking north along Calle Rey Juan Carlos

Friday, May 26, 2017

On adversity and entropy [reflections during a train trip from Madrid to Sevilla, taken 5/24]

Many times, I have attempted to discern the “purpose” of adversity. I´ve taken in others’ thoughts on the matter, and spun my own theories. My latest interpretation begins with the idea that a teleological approach is incorrect.

What if suffering is simply a by-product of phenomena like ignorance, power differences, inexperience, entropy, strong will, etc.? What if it is a mechanical function, a sort of experiential chemical reaction? As well as a result, suffering can certainly be a catalyst, the way a wave on the sea could buoy you, topple a boat, or simply shimmer in the sunlight and subside before an audience of wind, seabirds and fish.

"Ïn fact, never play that scene again" [thoughts on 5/23, Madrid]

I have a bit of an addiction to masochistic play-by-plays of bad times. How much use is that, really, other than to vent? I got it out of my system in another way. Let us simply say, for the record, that I overestimated my prowess with Spain’s complex mass transit system, and move on.

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Back to the Future - Time for a little time-disordered catch-up [5/21 review]

Ok, let’s do some catch-up. My life this week has been a comedy in the truest sense - mishaps minor and grand, but everyone is laughing, in love, or at worst harmlessly inept in the end.

[Note: please observe that the previous blog, with “Three-pio” in the title, will be / is about 5/22, while this post you are reading now is about the previous day, 5/21. Eventually we will get into a chronological order, unless I decide that’s boring, in which case, in the sage words of Samuel L Jackson aka Ray Arnold from Jurassic Park, “hold onto your butts.”]

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Three-pio! Where could he be? [UPDATE: Now includes 5/22 Segovia blog]

Today started out great but did, in fact, end up feeling a bit like being in a trash compactor.

Of course today is not the only day I haven't written about. I haven't had time, for good and bad reasons. I hope to catch up soon!

Meanwhile, here are some pictures of Segovia that I will soon discuss in more detail.


“Arriba, arriba!” the mustached train station clerk urged me. For the second time, I was attempting to travel from Madrid to Segovia, and for the second time it was not going smoothly. With just minutes to spare, I ran up the escalator, beat tracks down the length of the terminal (of course my train was leaving from platform 18, not 1 or even 6), and hustled out the door to the line of people (thank goodness) waiting to board.

The morning still wanted to give my heart one more chance to stop: I presented my pdf ticket using my phone, but the woman checking passes stared, then called over a supervisor. She spoke to me in a combination of Spanish and English. “I need to have a paper ticket?” I asked as my stomach fell out and flopped off the platform onto the tracks, where I was sure it would momentarily be flattened by a me-less train. “No, no, you are okay. Just bring the ticket back when you return.” I didn’t understand where they wanted me to bring the ticket, but I sure did understand okay, so I continued forward, bathed in a cool breeze of relief, and climbed aboard.

Friday, May 19, 2017

First Day in Madrid - I am off (and so is my body clock)

Well, it is 7.15 am and I have been awake since 4am (after getting only 2 hours of sleep), so I will try to use this time another way.


I woke up at 6am Friday after just 6 hours of sleep, thinking I had eluded jet lag (I’m not exactly fatigued now, I’m not quite sure what I am or when it will catch up with me). No matter what it was, I was raring to go, so go I did. Never mind buses and subways (however cool and thorough they are here - veritable catacombs of frequent, fast people-missiles), when in a new place I am a walker. And damned if I did not walk the heck out of Madrid today - 11 miles all told.


Madrid’s hands are overflowing with beauty and bustle. This city is a walker’s paradise. As opposed to American cities, which are designed for vehicles, Madrid was clearly designed for...well, not vehicles. There are roads of course, but the ways are serpentine, and much space is devoted to simple ambulation (and, to a limited extent, motocicletas). Getting lost is supremely easy...as much as I have poo-pooed technology and its flattening of mystery, I have to say I am grateful for mapping apps in such a labyrinthine place as this.

From Los Estados Unidos a Copenhagen a Madrid, in brief

Rapid impressions:

  • Holy cow, I am on a plane to Europe!
  • Spending most of 2 traveling days awake with only broken sleep is not very pleasant but surprisingly doable, even at 40
  • The Copenhagen Airport is really impressive, even to zombie eyes. So fancy!
  • I loved when the airport information clerk smiled when I asked her how to pronounce “tak.”
  • So many blond people!
  • I am in Madrid!


  • I am on a subway in Madrid! Everything is exciting with exclamation points!
  • I am standing on a street speaking in broken Spanish to people in Madrid!
  • I am a bit terrified because it’s almost midnight and I am having trouble connecting with my hosts. There are a few moments where my imagination is in overdrive, imagining they don’t exist...
  • My eternal thanks to the friendly servers and bartender who helped this gringo contact my hosts at midnight when my phone was almost dead. Muchas gracias, gente maravillosa!

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

The trip before the trip

Then: I stalk through a narrow and endless ribbon of chambers, shrouded and stumbling. I clamber over one threshold after another, dragging my bandaged hands along the floorboards, feeling how thickly the dust curls up in waves against my muffled fingertips. Through door after door I squint into the shadows ahead and I watch, but wind does not flap the darkness, light does not tear its dense, hanging banner. My steps fall dead. I strike my forehead on one lintel after another, I push aside endless, identical curtains of cobwebs, I trip over a perfectly-composed, momentum-staggering heap of debris over and over and as I pause to ponder how to compensate for this obstacle, I wonder as well how much farther I must travel to reach the gate.