A Fair and Balanced Look at The Trip

A couple things to add to yesterday's epic blog entry (definitely the longest on record in the annals of The Pope of Chilitown):

1. After reviewing the piece, I realize that making fun of Glenn for eating Flaka Jaimies while not taking my own share of "credit" for eating that vile mass of grossness behind the FJs in the picture is the very epitome of the pot calling the kettle a consumer of disgusting foodstuffs. Yes, those are potatas bravas; yes, that is indeed a pile of mayonnaise glopped on top of fried potatoes; and yes, perhaps the hardest to admit (as much to myself as to you)... those are my hands in the picture, holding a fork poised over the patatas, ready to dig in. (Quick side note: Glenn insisted on taking pictures of every meal we ate. We had to wait a couple minutes after our food was served for him to get the perfect shot. Just thought it needed to be mentioned...)

Anyways, I've always been a fan of mayo and all its evil kin; I generally avoid it, but I do like to dip my potato products in it. But I know how it looks. Though I must say, the fact that the FJs are sitting in a pool in their own neon-orange secretions is pretty disturbing. And if you're wondering about the pink tinge to the potatas sauce (and I know you are), it's not straight mayo; it's sort of a whipped mayo with some hot sauce in it. Finally, we didn't eat the entire pile of mayo; there is photo evidence of this fact, when we took an FJ and sat it up in the remainder of the mayo. Like a cross-section of John Madden's aorta.

Vincent: ...you know what they put on French Fries in Holland? Jules: What? Vincent: Mayonnaise. Jules: God DAMN! Vincent: I seen'em do it. And I don't mean a little bit on the side of the plate, neither; they fuckin' drown'em in it. Jules: Uuccch!

Oh yeah, that reminds me of another joke we made about the FJs: when the waitress put the plate down on the table, I pulled it in front of me and said, "Hey Glenn, what part of the pig did you get?" This was a favorite joke of our grandpa's, involving his two recurring Swedish characters, Sven and Ollie (he's a full-blooded Swede). They get off the boat in New York and immediately go in search of the street vender selling hot dogs, because they were told to eat one as soon as they could. So they get their hot dogs, and Ollie turns to Sven and says, "hey Sven, what part of the dog did you get?"

Finally... in the interest of full disclosure, there is another story I feel I must share. I honestly forgot about it during the course of writing The Trip, but was reminded of it when I walked up to the top of the park next to Park Guell later yesterday afternoon. I fear Glenn and Noreen would accuse me of revisionism is I didn't tell the story, so here goes.

We were walking to the top of Park Guell, and took a break about halfway to look around. Remember, this is the second day. They have only begun to suspect that I don't really speak Spanish. So I gesture towards this pointy thing way off on a hill in the distance and start to expound about it being Tibidabu (the Church Thing from earlier blog entries). This old man standing close to us is listening, and has obviously gleaned two things from my English explantation: me signaling towards this pointy thing on the hill in the distance, and the word "Tibidabu." He walks up to us and says something to the effect that it isn't in fact Tibidabu, that Tibidabu is around behind the hill we're standing on. We can't in fact see Tibidabu at this point. I ask him, "okay, well, what's that thing then?" My second mistake. He looks at it, shrugs his shoulders, and says, "antennae grande."

Here's my big gripe about the Spanish language: there are so many words that don't sound anything like their English equivalent. But "antennae" is the exact same frickin' word! It couldn't have been "radidamente"? Something, ANYTHING, but "antennae"??? Because if it was anything else I could have saved face and played it off: "oh yeah, he says that's some other big church... c'mon, let's get outta here..." But nope. No hiding what "antennae grande" means. We had a laugh over that one, lemme tell you. And by we, of course, I mean Glenn and Noreen. They were very nice about it, though; they only razzed me until the end of the next day or so. Of course, it's quite possible that all the beer had something to do with that...

I'd like to say, in my defense, that Antennae Grande is in fact the self-same Son of Church Thing I mention in the previous posts about my quest for Tibidabu. You know, how I was looking at Tibidabu/Church Thing, and trying to walk to it, and also saw this other Church Type Thing even further away? That I was going to try to walk to at a later time? Yeah, turns out that's Antennae Grande. Shut up. My point is, I obviously associate CT and AG with each other, which clearly explains why I would confuse the two of them. Clearly.

And not that it really matters, but the fact that Tibidabu was obscured at that point added to the confusion. If I'd seen both CT and AG, I would have clearly been able to identify CT as Tibidabu.

Clearly.

The Trip

Well. I think I am recovered enough from The Trip to try to reflect upon it.

I will continue to refer to the episode as The Trip, which encompasses several aspects of the journey of last week:

1. Literal: My brother Glenn and his wife Noreen, visiting me, Jerod, in Barcelona.

2. Slang: The surreal quality to the entire experience.

3. Literal: Stumbling around Barcelona in a food and alcohol induced stupor, bumping into walls and tripping over curbs, dogs, etc.

I will try to present this day by day. I can't promise things will end up in the right order, but hopefully most pertinent and/or entertaining events will be covered.

Wednesday: already covered in the previous post, but here is a picture of the fabled, fierce, loathsome beast:

Thanks to Noreen for sending this picture! Check out her photo-journal of The Trip.

Thursday: we walked up to Park Guell, which is the big spot on top of the (guffaw) "mountain" in the upper part of the city. Gaudi lived in a house up there for a long part of his life and designed an entire pavilion. Even though their hotel was fairly close to the park, it is still a long uphill hike to get there, and then we went off-road to get to the highest point. By the time we exited we were parched and tired. I think at this point we went down to Sagrada Familia to check out more Gaudi (the huge church in the middle of town that he's most famous for), and then had a quick beer and bite in a bar in the 'hood. Glenn, defying all expectation, had an egg and potato sandwich instead of pork.

At this point, things get a bit fuzzy. I am almost positive we went downtown. Yes, yes, I'm sure of it. We walked around on the waterfront, just chillin' and taking in the sights of Barcelona on a Thursday night. We ended up at two different bars this night, each about as different as they could possibly be:

Bar 1: the local Catalonians' hangout. We walked in and the only people inside were a group of older gentlemen and a few ladies, drinking beer and playing dominoes in the back. We ordered some food and drinks, and just relaxed for awhile.

Turns out there was a floorshow. This one Catalonian gentleman was quite intoxicated and clearly upset about something. He stormed away from the group at the table and went to the bar to settle up his tab. There was an exchange between him and the bartender, during which he would occasionally throw his head to the side to curse out the group at the table behind him. He ended up throwing his money at the bartender and cursing him out too, for good measure.

This was obviously a semi-annual occasion. Everyone pretty much ignored him, though sometimes one person or another would taunt him in one of those dismissive, sing-songy voices. As he was finally leaving, they all actually serenaded him, with what I imagine amounts to the Catalan version of "na-na-na-na-hey-hey-hey-goodbye." He was throwing the devil horns all around the bar, which is the equivalent to him flipping the bird to the bar in the states. Really, it was quite entertaining. Glenn was determined to go back over the weekend, but we never did make it.

We ended up at the second bar on accident. We were going to just head to the metro station and then home, but by some trick of the light I accidentally lead us all the way down to the water (a good four blocks too far). It's not as bone-headed as it sounds, there really are some extenuating circumstances... but still. I won't make excuses. Movin' on to...

Bar 2: Irish bar! Guinness on tap! Good times!

There are a whole lot of island transplants in Barca. Lots of Brits and Irish. Lots of British and Irish bars. This one was full of people having fun. We had a couple rounds of Guinness, and then... it's almost too terrible to recount...

Jello shots. Yes, that's right. It was like I was in 8^th grade again. I mean, seriously, wtf? What kind of Irish bar worth its salt breaks out motherfuckin' jello shots on a Thursday night??? Turns out it was the owner's birthday. You'd think that would just entail IVs of Jamison or something... that probably happened later.

The best part was when the bartender set his entire tray of shots down at our table because he didn't want to carry them anymore. Glenn and I just looked at each other, shrugged in that way when brothers resign themselves to their collective fate, and did our best to address the situation. (Noreen was off at the bar chatting with some of the regulars.) It's actually kind of touching when you think about it: brothers, back to back, facing a bar full of enemies determined to ruin their night... in this case, it was in the form of a dozen vodka-infused shot glasses of jello.

Friday: a blur. I think we went to the Picasso museum and had a traditional Catalonian-meal at the oldest restaurant in Barca (second oldest in Spain). Big piles of seafood and cannelloni for starters, I had a delicious salmon steak with potatoes for the main meal. I believe Noreen had lamb and Glenn had the beef. Glenn and I drank the first wine of The Trip.

The Picasso museum was fine, they had a fun exhibit about the influence of the circus on Picasso. The evolution of the charlatans in his painting, how they mirrored his own evolution as an artist, etc. The museum doesn't have any of the pieces people would generally think about when considering Picasso, but it has a ton of his earlier works (he grew up in Catalonia).

Friday night, I honestly don't remember. I think we tried to go see a movie but nothing was playing we much wanted to see, and they won't let you into the theater after the movie starts. Seriously, it's like going to a symphony in the states; even if you're five minutes late they'll turn you away. In the end, I'm pretty sure we just went home sort of early to get our sleep for the weekend (G&N were still dazed from the jetlag and hadn't been sleeping much).

The weekend? Lots of food, wandering around town, seeing museums; I didn't participate in all of the activities of the weekend. Honestly, I was still recovering from Thursday night. Here's the thing; I really haven't been doing any of these sorts of things while I've been here. I've been over this ground some before; I haven't been drinking or eating out hardly at all, been meditating and writing and studying and walking around town during the day, in the sunshine, rather than at night. I would say that might be the nicest thing about this town, especially in the winter; it's easy to choose a nocturnal lifestyle, sleeping all day and going out all night, but it's equally easy to choose the opposite. Spending as much time as possible in the daytime sun, which necessitates going to bed at a semi-reasonable hour since the sun sets between 4-5 for a lot of December and January. I had been doing the latter for most of my trip; suddenly switching was like jumping into a mountain lake. Ultimately refreshing, but a shock to the system.

I know at one point we discovered the cuppa chocolate. This was truly an amazing discovery. It's real, delicious, homemade chocolate melted into a cup. Nothing like what you picture when you imagine "hot chocolate." And I'm sure that everyone reading this is completely familiar with what I'm talking about, but it was revelatory to me. One of the prime moments during the trip when I said to G&N, "I am really glad you guys came at the end of my trip rather than at the beginning." Cause if they'd come earlier, well... let's just say I would most likely be approaching two bills at this point.

Jesus, what else happened over the weekend?

At some point we decided that Glenn needed to buy an entire leg of ham. One of those enormous haunches you see hanging in restaurants and meatoriams ("carneceria" in Spanish). We were going to dress it up like a baby so Glenn could carry it around town with him and smuggle it onto the plane home. I envisioned something out of Midnight Express; Glenn with 20 pounds of pork duct-taped to his body, trying to get past the dogs at the airport. Are they trained well enough to ignore the deliciousness? Would they let him pass because he didn't smell like drugs? Seriously, it's a suspense thriller waiting to happen.

Uhhhh, lesse... oh yeah! The sampling of the greatest sandwich in the world. That might have been Friday actually. Glenn had read about this sandwich in an article written by our favorite cookbook author, Mark Bittman. (Yes, we have a favorite cookbook author. Shut up.) The reason I think it might have been Friday that we went is that I can't imagine Glenn being able to wait any longer to try it. But it could well have been Saturday.

In any case, Glenn thinks he might have had a Monte Cristo in 2003 that was better, but that the flauta d'ibéric definitely makes his top three (as long as we're not considering hotdogs as sandwiches in the debate). I wish I were making up any part of that previous sentence.

For my money, a fine sandwich. I had two bites and it was quite nice. The bread especially is great; we went back later and I had a cheese sandwich on the flute, which I enjoyed even more.

There is a famous market off La Rambla (turn west at the Dunkin' Doughnuts) that we hung out in a couple times. We had lunch there once, I remember that... friend artichoke, some fish, eggs...

The thing is, when you're in any sort of food-store with Glenn, you have to be very careful. You can't turn your back for a second, or else, poof! He's gone. We contemplated one of the kid-leashes for him at one point, after losing him for fifteen minutes, only to find him with his face pressed against the glass of the artisan cheese display.

How can I describe this? Glenn is, at heart, a connoisseur. He devours films, books, art... and food and drink. And cross-sections of all of these; books and films about food and drink, for example. And he is also an anthropologist of sorts; when he discovered something new, he gets kind of obsessed until he has a chance to sample it. This can take the form of a new soul-food joint in Chicago, or a piece of fruit he saw from afar in a huge open-air Barcelonian market.

It tasted like a grape, by the way.

Monday night was highlighted by a really great jazz show called WTF (which stands for exactly what you think it does). It was really cheap to get in, and the drinks were really, really expensive. Cheap bottle of beer, 5 euro. Shot of liquor, 9 euro. But the music was great and the space was very cool; mostly people sat on the floor, but there was room for about 30 people to sit in some pews that were set up along one wall. If you're ever in Barca on a Monday night and are looking for something fun, I would highly recommended checking it out (just google "wtf barcelona"). It starts and ends early, too, so you can go out after if you are so inclined.

Tuesday was the official "trying to fit in everything that we wanted to do but hadn't gotten around to yet because the week flew past" day. We started out going to a museum we had wanted to check out that was having an exhibit about the Republican Spring, a worker's movement in the 1930s, pre-Franco. When Noreen went off to check out another museum, Glenn and I took a return trip to Montjuic to try to get to the elusive cactus gardens.

Remember when I said Glenn tends to obsess about new stuff when he gets his mind set on something? The cactus garden is the prime example. He saw a reference to it on Saturday I think, and then mentioned it enough that Noreen and I teased him about it at every opportunity. Every time we'd get slightly lost, one of us would make the "oh jeez, he's trying to steer us to the cactus garden" joke.

Turns out it was closed for renovations. So we hopped the fence and skulked around inside like a couple of clumsy ninjas for awhile and then headed back to La Rambla to meet Noreen. We got there early and decided to have a beer (big surprise, I know), thereby fulfilling another of Glenn's life's goals; sipping an enormous beer while sitting on La Rambla.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention: Glenn and I shared a bottle of wine with lunch and then drank some weird fruity liqueur things at this store that sells goods made by local nuns. Two things: 1) yes, local nuns. 2) I mean "fruity" in every sense of the word.

This is important only because, after drinking beers all night (since it was their last night in town), I thought back dizzily to that bottle of wine and (especially) those fruity liqueurs. I had a moment where I wanted to give myself a handmade tattoo on my forearm, Memento-style: "never, ever drink fruity liqueurs mid-day if you're planning to sit in an Irish bar all night." The Trip ended as it began: sitting in an Irish bar drinking Guinness. Only this time we had enormous stacks of chocolate and a huge bag of candied fruit (don't ask, and don't ask). Just in case the sugar from all the alcohol wasn't enough for a proper hangover the next day.

Suffice to say Wednesday was interesting. It would have been fine, but I had to write my horoscopes. Really, all day to write 3-4 pages of content shouldn't be a problem. But when the computer screen is all wobbly and you don't regain your equilibrium until late in the evening, well, it's not as easy as it sounds.

And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Art thou bored? Snap into a flaka jaimie!

Wanted to just send the latest and greatest really quick...

1) Finally went and saw Madrid. What a great town! I loved it. Even though I was only there for one afternoon and evening, I am definitely planning to go back. Not on this trip, but definitely within the next couple years. It has a completely different feel than Barca that I'd really like to explore. I'll try to spend more time explaining it later.

2) Return date set, and it's really close: beginning of February. Three weeks! I've been here over three months now, it's amazing how quickly the time has flown past. Sad to be leaving but also content that it's the right time. The energies are pulling me home, to figure out the next great adventure. So I'll be seeing a lot of you soon...

3) Just wanted to say real quick that the flight from Madrid to Barcelona was the most beautiful one I've ever taken. I love those little short-hop flights; an hour or two on the plane, feel like you just sat down then it's time to disembark in a new place, etc. On the flight to Madrid I had an aisle seat so I couldn't admire the view, but the flight back I got a window and it was amazing. I just gazed out the window the whole time. Taking off out of foggy Madrid, bursting out into the sun above the clouds and the watching the clouds from above, a few mountain peaks cropping out in the distance and the tops of clouds looking a vast snowfield you could walk on...the clouds dispersing over Spanish countryside colors I've never seen before, like an enormous abstract-geometrical piece of art...coming in over Barca, seeing the port and Montjuic overlooking the water, feeling that familiar sense of being home that I'd only ever felt with Seattle before...banking way out over the Mediterranean, down into the airport, over old farmsteads and dilapidated barns...

AND I fulfilled a nearly lifelong dream of mine. When I was quite young, probably 11 or 12, I read about the fact that all rainbows are circular, but given the angle of the light as it is refracted through the water molecules, if you're on the ground the horizon always gets in the way and cuts the rainbow in half. So the only way you can see a full, 360 degree rainbow is to see it from above. Whenever I'm on a plane on a sunny day over clouds, I try to keep a lookout for one... and on the flight back from Madrid I saw TWO. The first one I wasn't even looking for; I was just admiring the view and caught it for about three seconds. It felt like a mirage, I wasn't even sure if it was just a trick of the plastic window I was peering through. But the second one, the one I was watching for, lasted about ten seconds and was much clearer. It was really quite lovely, and completely surreal. Mostly because I've been quietly hoping for the moment for 20 years.

So yeah, all in all the most beautiful plane ride I've ever taken.

And finally...

4) Glenn and Noreen are in town! My brother and sister-in-law, two of my favorite people in the world. They got in yesterday afternoon, I met them at the airport, we went and dropped off their stuff at the hotel and then just hung around their neighborhood for the evening. It was two tons of fun. They are staying in a place about a mile from my apartment, and really close to a lot of cool places (I'll keep track of everything we do and write up a description next week).

The highlights of the evening:

a) Figuring out how to say "we would like your finest food stuffed with your second finest food" in Spanish ("querríamos su más fino de alimento estar llenado con su alimento segundo más fino.")

b) The first running gag we've got is Glenn's pork obsession. That boy loves him some pork. So we go to a bar for a snack and a drink, and are picking out some tasty morsels... I order us potatas bravas, which are the local pub far standard (basically fried potatoes covered in a mayonnaise sauce)... and Glenn points at these truly disgusting looking little sausage things. He claims he thought "they were some kind of roll"... but Noreen and I know better. So he gets his plate of mess, and Noreen and I start digging into the potatoes... and Glenn looks at us, and then down at his sausage platter... and asks me, "so you're not going to have any of this?"

Let's get one thing straight here: I haven't been eating meat for about two months now. I went over this territory before; it's not a moral decision or anything, just haven't felt the urge. And I've told Glenn this on many occasions; "you guys have to come, really, but just know that I won't be participating in your porkfest." I made it really clear that I would try certain dishes with meat on those occasions we went out, or if it was really special or something... but not very much and certainly not some wiggly little fried sausage things. But here's the best part...

Noreen asks Glenn how they are. He pauses, chews thoughtfully (really giving it some thought), and says, "they're like really really good Slim Jims." So that was pretty funny. I termed them "Jaimie Delgados," but Noreen knew a Mexican slang term for "skinny": "flaka." So we figured that "flaka jaimies" was a far better phrase for Glenn's snack.

still shinin'

Man, you turn around and it's been a week and a half since you're added any content to your blog. Time flies etc...

So against all odds and history, even for here, the sun is still out and shining pretty much every day. It's in the low 60s if you're in the sun. Everyone I've talked to is completely blown away by the weather; it is NOT the norm here for winter. It's obviously a great big wonderful present for me from the universe...either that or global warming...

What... is... going... on... I've been here three months now! The trip is officially winding down. I will have to return home soon, to reclaim my cats before they would have to move into a house with my highly-allergic dad and our cat-chasin' dog...officially this deadline is the end of February, but I need to get home a fair bit before that, of course, to give myself enough time to figure out what comes next. I'll keep you posted.

Went for a walk the other day and stumbled across the river that skirts along the outer edge of the city... they don't make it easy to get to, as far as I can tell. I am planning to go check it out again, at a different part. I was doing my usual route to the Mediterranean, but once I got down there I turned right instead of left and just kept walking. Eventually got to the place where the river meets the sea. There were a lot of fishermen. I tried to walk along the river back up into town, but there are a lot of fences and freeways out that way so I kept running into blocks. Finally just turned back towards the city center and resolved to return again later.

Jeez, just realized that I haven't even said happy new year! HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! 2006, we hardly knew ye... I hope everyone had a (mostly) safe and (exceedingly) wonderful holiday season, and I wish you all the very best for 2007.

Peace in the Middle East.