Meet Zahra, Abbey, and Abbey's friend from London, eat mexican food, Abbey's afwul drink, delicious chilaquiles, drag-cabaret, wok to walk, meet other random group of people, carry around food for four hours as we go to another club, lots of free drinks on the house because that one guy knew the owner, then finally ate and went home. Or I waited outside the metro station for "a good minute" because I got confused on the time change.
As usual, I went to Abbey and Zahra's place, but this time we were joined by Zahra's London friend Amit. Our first stop was a Mexican restaurant, and there I found on the menu something I had not had since Mexico: chilaquiles, which are essentially Nachos smothered in a sauce (in this case green chili-chicken sauce) and topped with cheese and sour cream, the nachos becoming slight soft. My only wish is that I had found them sooner. Abbey got a drink called a "Vampiro" because she was dressed as a vampire and found it fitting, but on trying it she said it tasted like "sprite, bloody mary mix and pizza mixed together". I was skeptical of her assessment but upon trying it, she was spot on - it did taste exactly like sprite, bloody mary mix and pizza, plus the tequila base and the sprinkle of hot chilies around the rim. Maybe the description appeals to you all, but it was the worst drink I'd ever had.
After eating we got in our costumes and headed out on the town, first heading to a place that Abbey and Zahra had in mind but that I had no clue about. So we walked in to find a drag queen telling jokes and singing. It was some sort of drag cabaret, and it was when we arrived mostly empty, so we got good seats. We kicked back for a while, listened to the drag queen talk, and after a while s/he noticed us in the back and made mention of our Halloween costumes.
A note about Halloween in Spain: Halloween, as it is celebrated, is an American holiday. It is, however, rapidly becoming popular in Spain. We saw several people out on the streets in costumes, yes, but it's still quite common for someone to say "oh, you're dressed up to celebrate Halloween, that's cool!" implying that there is still definitely a strong sense of novelty and foreignness attached to it. But the darkness of Halloween, the novelty of being able to dress up, etc. are aspects which mesh very well with the Madrid nightlife/party scene, and thus it will definitely hold a secure spot in Spanish culture, though it may end up being a more teen/adult thing than a child-oriented holiday like in the US.
Anyway, after leaving the drag cabaret we were getting pretty hungry again (a few hours had passed since eating, and we hadn't eaten too much at the restaurant) so we went to the awesome Wok to Walk, which is basically a quick-service Mongolian barbeque: pick your items and sauces and then they cook it up for you. Tasty and healthy.
So upon leaving Wok to Walk, we saw some other costumed peoples out on the street and decided to greet them, because we hadn't seen any in quite a while. The guy "leading" this new group seemed to be in the know about places to go around town, and we went to one club for a few minutes then he said he knew the "boss" at another club, and we went there for a couple of hours, him getting us lots of free shots and free drinks until we were too tired, and still very hungry because we had not yet eaten our food and had been carrying it around with us for two hours.
The next day was a day of rest and doing nothing of worth. How relaxing!
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Days Forty-two through Forty-Six
This was undoubtedly a work-centric week.
Either option sounds alluring to me. Probably deceptively so.
After work, Matt, a member of the management section at the embassy but also one of the people talking at the Brown Bag luncheon, invited some of the interns out for a drink and only Dylan and I decided to come. We headed to a nearby Irish pub (they're strangely everywhere here, and strangely all populated by actual Irish bartenders) and got a few beers, and at one point we were joined at the bar by a woman who happened to be from Nebraska, who sold her bar in Omaha to travel around the world and write a book about whiskey. She was also very drunk (having been drinking from her own flask in addition to her beer) and spilled half her drink all over Matt's suit. Lucky Matt.
After Matt left Dylan and I talked for a while, he being probably the last intern I wasn't well acquainted with. Pretty decent guy.
Unfortunately the Marine bar didn't serve vodka martinis, nor did they even have martini glasses, and that upset me a lot because I was banking on that being an integral part of my costume, but everything worked out and I just ended up walking around with a wine glass instead of a martini glass.
It was a karaoke party, and I was roped into singing with the rest of the political section and I actually did a decent job with the US Embassy Political Section's choice, "Back in the USSR". Ah the irony!
Monday
Monday evening I ended up going to CICO, el Centro de Intelligencia contra el Crimen Organizado - Center for Intelligence against Organized Crime - which is exactly what it sounds like: a police and criminal database center which helps police to track down organized crime. I came with my officemate/supervisor Eric and a couple of DEA guys, and questions in hand we hopped in Rick's (one of the DEA guys) car and headed over in about a 5 minute drive from the Embassy. Rick ended up parking up on the curb as we made our very ceremonious entrance just as it started to rain (which, compared to the drought for my entire first month here, I was grateful for). The police guards welcomed us inside and we all four squeezed in about a 3'x3' elevator, less than comfortably. The CICO building was nice but not overly fancy, but we met up with our contacts in the conference room which was fairly fancy. One of our two contacts spoke very explicitly and clearly - the other, who was likely from Andalucía (the southern region of Spain) spoke with an accent best summarized as "yeah, I'm going to drop the last third of my words. I dare you to follow what I'm saying," and I had a hard time following through on that dare. Nevertheless we got some very valuable information on the drug situation in Spain which I will be more than happy to direct you to when my finished report becomes freely available on the US government website next Spring.Tuesday
Another early night home and early night to bed.Wednesday
Over to Abbey and Zahra's to cook dinner and hang out, but of course have to leave at a reasonable hour because it's a weekday. I cooked spaghetti-stuff in the kitchen while they kept yelling at me to hurry up.Thursday
Thursday there was a "brown bag lunch" which means everyone gets their own lunch and then brings it to a meeting. This one was on foreign service and life in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, collectively referred to as API. The crux of the discussion was over how API service is completely different from any other aspect of the foreign service and the embassies there are completely different from any other embassies in the world. Service there was described as borderline Peace Corps - working out in "Provincial reconstruction teams" working with locals in, basically, rebuilding their country - putting in infrastructure or agriculture improvements, teaching, etc. But then there's the other type of position there where you're in the giant war rooms with the generals, meeting the heads of the Iraqi army on a daily basis, and helping make decisions that are going to affect the fate of an entire country for generations to come.Either option sounds alluring to me. Probably deceptively so.
After work, Matt, a member of the management section at the embassy but also one of the people talking at the Brown Bag luncheon, invited some of the interns out for a drink and only Dylan and I decided to come. We headed to a nearby Irish pub (they're strangely everywhere here, and strangely all populated by actual Irish bartenders) and got a few beers, and at one point we were joined at the bar by a woman who happened to be from Nebraska, who sold her bar in Omaha to travel around the world and write a book about whiskey. She was also very drunk (having been drinking from her own flask in addition to her beer) and spilled half her drink all over Matt's suit. Lucky Matt.
After Matt left Dylan and I talked for a while, he being probably the last intern I wasn't well acquainted with. Pretty decent guy.
Friday
The embassy Halloween party was Friday night, and it was actually quite nice. Lacking really any costume whatsoever, I made some last-minute Macguyver moves: I made an origami gun and covered it with the gold foil wrapper from a candy bar, and took a regular black tie and somehow managed to tie it into a bow tie (don't ask, but it was impressive). Slicking my hair over, with suit, white shirt, bow tie and golden gun, I was a last minute James Bond.Unfortunately the Marine bar didn't serve vodka martinis, nor did they even have martini glasses, and that upset me a lot because I was banking on that being an integral part of my costume, but everything worked out and I just ended up walking around with a wine glass instead of a martini glass.
It was a karaoke party, and I was roped into singing with the rest of the political section and I actually did a decent job with the US Embassy Political Section's choice, "Back in the USSR". Ah the irony!
Days Thirty-nine, Forty and Forty-one
Friday
Friday Night I met up with Erasmus friends again: two Brazilians, two Spaniards, and three Italians. We headed to 100 Montaditos and got to talking about my absolute favorite thing to discuss amongst multilingual groups: language. Everyone was imitating the accents of everyone else, one of the Brazilian guys is very good (I assume) at doing Brazilian accents, and I finally got the opportunity to ask a Spaniard what my accent was like when I spoke Spanish. They said (and this is the most important part) that I didn't sound like a gringo, but that they couldn't quite place me, but sounded like a hybridized Latin American accent. I've also been told by Mexicans that I have a Spanish accent, so assuming that Spaniards would not hear a slight Spanish accent if I had one, I'm inclined to believe I have a mix of Latin American and Spanish accents, which is honestly exactly what I want.Saturday
Not much during the day; In the evening I went to Zahra and Abbey's place and met Erin and Romina. We started out making a delectable bit of rum-sangria before heading out and going to a nearby bar where we were roped into getting free shots (oh lord, how ever did they convince us?) and dancing to the music which is, in Spain, perpetually American pop music. Then went to a Mexican restaurant - the first genuine Mexican I've had since being here, and the massive pile of guacamole-smothered nachos were fantastic, as were the mojitos which are by far the best I've ever had.After everything wound down I decided to walk home. 3 miles of very interesting (read: urine-scented) sections of the city, but also some very neat views. The Bridge of Toledo is wonderful lit-up at night and I hope to get a picture of it soon.
Sunday
Nothing Important to my recollection. I stayed in and went to sleep early.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Analysis on the "End of ETA"
If you recall, a few posts ago I gave a short history of ETA and Basque separatism. Brush up if you need to, because on Thursday evening, something important happened:
ETA declared an end to its armed conflict. The so-called "last armed conflict in Europe" has come to an "end".
I put "end" in quotes with good reason, and that's the reason I am writing this post right now: the armed conflict is probably not over.
Some context: as of a couple of weeks ago, a group of people got together in San Sebastian (one of the principle cities of the greater Basque Country) and decided to call for an end to the Basque conflict once and for all. This meeting has been attracting some pretty big names: Gerry Adams (former head of the IRA (Irish Republican Army)), Koffi Annan (former Secretary-General of the UN), as well as the attention of people like Jimmy Carter and Tony Blair. They got together (or in the case of the latter two just sent words of encouragement) and have been making proclamations and such calling for the end of ETA. One would be inclined to say that with a group of names like that, you could get some damn important things done. But there's an important piece of the puzzle that wasn't there: the Spanish Government. I.e., despite the fact that it was a meeting of former heads of state, it was not in any way official.
So with this conference calling for the disbanding of ETA, two days ago, ETA issued a press release and a video (interestingly they released both in Spanish, and released them to Basque newspapers and to the BBC and NY Times - not to any Castillian Spanish news outlets (one last "screw you" to Castillian Spain)). In this press release, they said that they would end their armed campaign. And that's pretty much all.
Now we get into a question of immense subtlety. They didn't make any other concessions other than an end to their armed struggle. What, let's ask, were the demands being made of them by the peace conference?
- An end to the armed campaign - check.
But then there are the following: - Apologies to the victims.
- A handover of all ETA's arms.
- The permanent disbanding of the organization.
See where I'm going with this? No worries if not - there are two possible analyses here:
The first is that ETA is feeling pressure. They have less than a month to strike a deal with the lenient and amenable PSOE before they get voted out of office and the hardliner, non-negotiating PSOE comes in, cracks down on ETA and sends them all to prison for life. And although they can't bring themselves to completely give up everything and apologize for their wrongs, they're extending their hand as far out as they can before the PP cuts it off.
The second way to look at it is that ETA is being very savvy and the PSOE is the side under pressure. With this huge, A-list peace conference ongoing, international attention is on Spain to bring about a final resolution to the conflict. In addition the PSOE, about to lose in a huge way, is looking for a way to gain some votes, and bringing an end to a half-century-old conflict is definitely a way to do it. So perhaps ETA, knowing the dire straits in which the PSOE finds itself, is extending its hand just far enough so that the PSOE can try to hold on to it for dear life. In this analysis, ETA finds itself in a strong negotiating position and that is why it's not apologizing, not giving up its weapons, and not completely disbanding - it hopes to walk out of talks with all of that stuff still intact, or at the very least use those terms as negotiating points to stay out of prison.
In all likelihood it's a combination of the two analyses. The peace conference seems to provide the perfect cover for ETA to end its fight and have its surrender be "in the name of democracy" instead of "because we're beaten" and thus they can save a lot of face. And it's common knowledge that the PSOE is done for - possibly forever - unless it can pull off a miracle between now and the elections - and the end of ETA may qualify.
So what happens, then, if PSOE doesn't negotiate on ETA's terms?
Then the armed conflict continues. That's ETA's backup plan, and that is the main reason they're not giving up their weapons.
Days Thirty-Five through Thirty-Nine
Monday
Nothing much, unfortunately.Tuesday
Today ended up being pretty nifty, because I got two free meals. At 10:30 I was sent to go to the newcomer's meeting at the embassy. Let it be known that the US embassy isn't just the State Department - it houses some 20-30 different agencies like the FBI, DEA, ICE, DHS, etc. And we had to sit in a room and listen to each one of them give a presentation on their individual section. Some of them were informative - who knew that the USDA has a foreign service section? - but others were the same old laundry lists of details: "the XYZ agency investigates Xs, distributes Ys, and cooperates on Zs." Oh yeah, and the thing lasted two hours.Fortunately though, there was a barbecue afterward at the ambassador's residence, and believe me when I say that Ambassadorial hamburgers taste like no other hamburger. Maybe it was veal, maybe it was just expertly cooked, but it was some choice, delectable, savory meat. Wine and beer were offered at dinner, but I don't think that anybody wanted to be the first to start drinking at work - we are in Spain, yes, but we're American nonetheless. Does the adage "when in Rome..." apply to an embassy, since it's technically American territory?
Anyway, after work we were invited to a formal reception at the Ambassador's residence. The occasion? The Broadway musical version of "The Lion King" just came to Madrid (as "El Rey León"), and the show's writer/producer was in attendance at the embassy. The ambassador gave a very long speech to introduce her, and it just so happened that right before he started speaking I was standing next to the podium. Thus for the entire speech I was stuck between the Ambassador's wife and El Rey León's Spanish version producer who were both being introduced and speaking a little, so I was stuck awkwardly in between.
Nevertheless the food and wine were good at the reception as always, and this time there were some new little morsels like a "Manchego soup" which basically tasted like watery liquid Parmesan cheese which I promptly chased with a mouthfull of wine to get the flavor out of my mouth. It wouldn't have been bad in the right context, but it wasn't a flavor I wanted hanging around in my mouth all night.
Wednesday
Wednesday happened to be my co-intern Romina's birthday, and she wanted to go to a nearby sushi place for lunch to celebrate. The restaurant was a mere 5 minutes' walk away, and Clark strongly recommended we get the "menú ejecutivo" - the "executive menu" - and although at E15 it was on the expensive side, it was a birthday after all, and it did come with what looked like a lot of food. Here's what it came with, in courses brought out each one after the other:- Little appetizery bowl of ramen-like noodles
- Four pieces of a vegetable roll, four pieces of salmon roll
- Three pieces of fried fish
- A bowl of actual ramen. At this point I was starting to get pretty full and I hoped my next dish wouldn't be too large...
- What appeared to be an entire flank of grilled salmon, about 8 inches long, on a bed of rice. I struggled through eating the entire thing
- A bowl of ice cream of a flavor of one's choosing. I opted for ginger, and after letting my neighbors at the table sample it, we all decided that mine was by far the best.
Thursday
Nothing really, I don't think. I stayed after work with Eric for a while to go over the INCSR - International Narcotics Control Strategy Report - this year's version of which I am spearheading. It will be online at the beginning of next year on a US government website.Friday
Nothing during the day, but evening to follow...
Day Thirty-Four: The Prado Again
Today I was supposed to wake up (relatively) early and go to the Rastro - a giant outdoor craft fair/flea market sort of thing, but my alarm didn't go off and I slept until 11. Noticing a pattern here?
In the evening, though, I met my two co-interns Romina and Erin to go to the Prado, and I found myself again seeing things that I hadn't seen before. Someone's feet started hurting so we left early, but even on our way out I saw rooms and thought, "I don't think I've seen this room yet, have I?" Even after three visits, I still haven't seen everything. Make no mistake - it is an *enormous* museum filled with *enormous* amounts of awesome paintings and sculptures from every imaginable era - Roman and Pre-Roman statues, medieval Christian frescoes, all the way up to modern photorealistic paintings. But Goya, the nothing-special darling of Spanish art, takes up a quarter of the entire museum.
In the evening, though, I met my two co-interns Romina and Erin to go to the Prado, and I found myself again seeing things that I hadn't seen before. Someone's feet started hurting so we left early, but even on our way out I saw rooms and thought, "I don't think I've seen this room yet, have I?" Even after three visits, I still haven't seen everything. Make no mistake - it is an *enormous* museum filled with *enormous* amounts of awesome paintings and sculptures from every imaginable era - Roman and Pre-Roman statues, medieval Christian frescoes, all the way up to modern photorealistic paintings. But Goya, the nothing-special darling of Spanish art, takes up a quarter of the entire museum.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Day Thirty-Three: The Day of Protest
October 15th, 2011, was a day of global protest.
Millions of people in cities all over the world rose up together to decry ~" the abuses of the superwealthy, the cuts to social programs, and the compassionless approaches to ending the world financial crisis"~.
Madrid is thought to have had the largest protest in the world -attendance estimates range from 10,000 to 500,000, but it was, in all likelihood, somewhere in the low hundreds of thousands, likely on par with Barcelona and Rome which were in the 2-300,000 range.
American news sources like to portray the worldwide protests as "inspired by Occupy Wall Street," still throwing the idea around that the rest of the world still continues to - or ever did - take its cues from the US. But no, that's not where the protests began. They began in Madrid, 5 months ago, in a movement called 15M (quince-m - "keensay immay" - the 15th of May), which in May occupied Puerta del Sol - arguably the heart of Madrid - for about a month. And back in may it wasn't like the OWS protesters occupying Zuccotti park; imagine ten times that number of people occupying a site relatively as important as Times Square.
Anyway, the main occupation trickled off over the summer but there have been ongoing protests all year over cuts in education etc. Well on October 15th, all the disparate groups got together and this was the result:
(skip around, watch to about 2:30 then skip to 4:00)
By nightfall it had turned into this unbridled mass of democratic energy:
It was powerful. A movement capable of assembling this many people is one to be reckoned with - imagine how many people sympathize without attending.
Who knows what's in store for the people of this country and this world? Time will tell.
Some pictures from the event:
Days Twenty-nine through Thirty-two
Tuesday
Work as normal, more or less. It was about this time that I started one of my workplace traditions: coffee with sweetened condensed milk. The NEX (pronounced like "necks" - Naval EXchange - the duty-free, tax-free American products/food store in the embassy) ran out of milk, and out of desperation for something to put in my coffee, I went with sweetened condensed milk. And it turned out to be excellent. With fresh coffee, fresh sweetened condensed milk and a dash of cinnamon, I had essentially created a cinnamon dulce latte but for a fraction of the price. Zahra was overjoyed by this discovery and has pleaded with me every day since to recreate it.Wednesday
Wednesday is Spain's national holiday: a celebration of lots of things: Spanishness, being Spain, and oh yeah, discovering the new world. And let's be honest, everyone, if Spain has ever deserved credit for anything, it deserves several hundred years of credit for that. So, it being a holiday (and the American embassy getting off both US and Spanish holidays) I slept in and did nothing in particular until midday.After that, though, the good stuff started: I went to Plaza de España:
Then headed to the palace:
Then finally met up with my roommate and some Erasmus friends and went to the Temple of Debod again to hang out and have a mini-picnic in the falling twilight.
Thursday
Nothing much happened today. I got home earlier than usual, and, as I always do, tried and failed to get to bed early.Friday
All the interns decided to have a movie night tonight. After spending about thirty minutes trying to decide which movie to rent from the NEX, we settled on Limitless and finished out our workdays. My fellow interns Cassandra and Erin, who live together and work in the same section, got a gig house-sitting together for one of the State Department employees who was away for several days. Cassandra and Erin humbly offered up this house-sat apartment for our movie night, and I arrived to hear that the NEX guy hadn't put the movie in the case. But we had pizza and wine and generally had a good time, finally deciding to entertain ourselves with Taboo, which proved extremely fun. After playing that for several rounds we decided to go out and met up near a bar with some of Cassandra's Spanish friends (Cassandra had previously lived for 3 years in Salamanca and consequently had accrued several friends). We had a good time, got a couple of too-expensive beers, and I got home early and slept in. Very in.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Days Twenty-six, -seven and -eight: the Voyage to Bilbao
I began this weekend with a plan to take a trip with fellow interns (and, quickly, friends) Abbey and Zahra, to Barcelona. But booking bus tickets and hostel rooms at the last minute is not a viable option, as we discovered the hard way. We even looked for overnight rides, train rides, plane rides, and even considered renting a car which we weren't even licensed to drive in Spain, but nothing seemed to pan out for Barcelona. Finally, our searches for tickets began to reveal no more available seats, so we set our sites elsewhere.
So we sat and looked at places the bus lines ran to (the bus being by far the cheapest way to get around Spain, though the slowest), and after trying to fit in Córdoba or Seville or Granada, decided on Bilbao, a city in the Basque Country. It was relatively close, it was cheap, and it had the Guggenheim, which is a world famous museum.
So on Saturday morning we headed out, across the vast open plains of northern Spain, to the Basque country in the north, nearly to the Atlantic Ocean.
The land in between Madrid and Bilbao can only be described as plains interspersed with mountains, with very little in between except churches and tiny towns that have, in most ways, probably stayed exactly the same since before Columbus (apologies for these pictures; I was taking them from a moving bus behind a not extremely clean window):
Look at that last one. That's a castle in the middle of a tiny town. How would you like to be able to say "yes, I am aware that it's the twenty-first century, but I do live right next to a castle." Part of me wants to say that would be awesome, but it is a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, so perhaps not.
As we made our way further north the sky got darker, and eventually we realized that we were about to encounter our first rain in Spain as we got to Bilbao. A light trickle merely wet the windows, though, so our first night in the city wasn't ruined. And lucky for us, because we had a lot to see during the night.
Upon arrival, we first had to take the Bilbao metro to our hostel. The guidebook I was using described it as "ultramodern", and upon entering the sleek tunnels I found myself in full agreement with that description:
Our hostel was in the "casco viejo" - the "old heart [of the city]", which despite being the "heart" of the city, was nowhere near the heart of the city. We took the metro for a couple of miles and upon getting to the casco viejo made our way to the hostel, which looks like this:
It's only the green part at the bottom of the building, but still, that's a pretty awesome looking modern building. Bilbao is an incredible contradiction in this regard: it has some of the most modern and even avante-garde architecture in the world (the flagship of that being, of course, the Guggenheim, which I shall get to soon) right in the middle of centuries-old cathedrals and other buildings (for example, tell me this isn't a very stereotypical rainy old European street scene:
). It is very unusual in that regard, but I like the vibe quite a bit.
We walked the town at night looking for a place to eat, but wandering through an old "Hippie Market;" that was the actual name, I didn't translate it - I told you that English is absolutely everywhere here in Spain.
However, there's also another language here, and I should use this time to tell you about the Basque Country in greater detail. El País Vasco - The Basque Country - is an "autonomous community" of Spain, which is roughly equivalent to a state in the US. But the history of the Basque country is on the most unique of any of the autonomous communities in Spain or anywhere else. The Basque Country is home to the Basques. The Basques call their country "Euskadi" and they speak the language known around here as "Euskara". Who are these Basques, you may ask? In one sense, no one really knows. The language and people are literally the oldest in Europe, having existed in more or less their present location since before the Romans. The Basque language is not clearly related to any other language in the world, whereas essentially all of Europe's other languages are related to each other, descended from the ancient "Proto-Indo European" language spoken by the Proto-Indo Europeans who lived in the Caucasus Mountains and who moved into Europe and India roughly 8 to 10 thousand years ago, bringing their language with them. As a result of the Indo-European migrations, almost every language - and people - from Gaelic to Sanskrit, from Ireland to India are descended from these people and their language. Except, that is, for the Basques. It is thought that the Basque language and people are the last of the original languages and people of Europe, who lived here more than ten thousand years ago, and who all were overcome by the Indo-Europeans, whose languages we now speak today. [If you're further interested in this, I suggest you read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo_European_languages]
That unique origin is part of the Basque historical and cultural legacy, but beyond that they also have had a long history, going in and out of independence throughout the Roman Empire and the middle ages. They existed more or less peacefully in modern Spain, until Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco singled them out and oppressed them as an unwanted minority. The Franco-ordered but Nazi-enacted bombing of the Basque town of Guernika was one of the first major atrocities of the WWII era, and was the inspiration for the famous Picasso painting "Guernica."
In response to this oppression, a group known as ETA (Basque: Euskadi Ta Askatasuna - Homeland and Freedom) was formed and would later be known as the principle terrorist threat to Spain during the latter 20th century. Via bombings, assassination, ransoms and other terroristic means, ETA waged a campaign for full independence for the Basque Country which made it simultaneously feared and hated in Spain. Over the past decade or so, police action has led to the arrest of most of the leaders of the organization, putting it near its end, and there is currently talk in the press of the "final end of ETA". But the terrorism of ETA was only one of the means by which some Basques pursued their independence, and exists a slew of thoroughly peaceful political parties seeking Basque independence as well. Though ETA grew to be hated and reviled by most Basques, there is still some support for the peaceful political independence of the Basque Country (of which Bilbao remains the cultural heart).
Anyway, that bit of politics and history aside...
We walked around looking for a place to eat and found...not very much at all. Though the town was thoroughly beautiful at night...
...restaurants were disturbingly hard to find. We did, however find a grill/pub restaurant near our hotel, and there I got something delicious: a steak which, had it been cooked in any other way and in any other setting I would have found inedibly undercooked, but it was seasoned to such utter perfection and accompanied so well (steak fries and roasted red peppers) that it proved to be one of the best meals of my life. Serendipity dwells in Bilbao, I suppose.
After eating we retired, thoroughly worn out, to our hostel. Upon trying to get towels from the front desk, however, we were forced into conversation with the very drunk night employee who talked to me for about thirty minutes about the Euro crisis and other stuff that was too incoherent for me to remember.
The next day we had a plan: The Guggenheim. I got up earlier than anyone else though, I enjoyed my provided hostel breakfast (cereal, toast with jams, cookies, that sort of thing) but then I made my way up to a park which overlooks the city. I got some great pictures from there (some of these I took that evening, though, from the same park):
Eventually we all got up and walked the 20-minute walk to the Guggenheim. I'm sure many people have seen pictures of it before not knowing what or where it was, but it's in Bilbao, Spain, and it is a thoroughly unique architectural wonder:
Impressive though the exterior may be, the inside was more amazing still, but unfortunately photos were not allowed inside. The upper floors were full of modern art which I must say I didn't really like or feel the need to contemplate much at all. But the ground floor was unforgettable. The first gallery I went in was filled with 10-foot-tall, 4-inch-thick, curved walls of solid rusted iron. They gave the distinct impression of canyon walls as one walked through them, and the echoes of one's footsteps reverberated a hundred times between them, making it a visual, auditory, and tactile experience. Some of the walls ran parallel; others curled up into a spiral. If there's any such thing as an artistic, mature playground, this was thoroughly it.
One exhibit involved 100 TV sets spread out evenly on the floor, and 100 chairs sat before them for anyone to come, take a seat, and watch. And on each and every screen was playing a different interview with a different person, and each person was telling a sad and depressing story of their situation in life - friendless, abused, sad, everything. I couldn't stay in that room for too long.
Near the TV room was a cave made out of packing tape. And I don't know what the standards are for packing tape caves, but this was huge, and had to involved thousands and thousands of rolls of packing tape. And inside the cave, aluminum-foil people stood anchored to the walls, and aluminum-foil wires connected them to aluminum-foil dynamite and real books on human society, political science, psychology, philosophy etc. In another room of the cave, thousands of pop cans lay strewn across the floor. In another room, movie posters decked the ceiling and walls. It was a cave of the human condition, of our waste, our minds, our entertainment. And it was extremely creepy.
Unfortunately I can't go through and describe every exhibit in detail, but those were the highlights.
The fact is, after that, we had no real plans for what to do in Bilbao. It was already Sunday evening, the other museum in town were closing, and we discovered to our chagrin that the other museums in the town were closed on Mondays. So, to my resigned indifference, Abbey and Zahra determined that we were to leave at midday Monday.
That decided, we made the most of our evening, getting artisan pizza and beer, and meeting the other occupant of our 4-person hostel room. Having glimpsed his short stocky pants early in the day we jokingly referred to him as Danny DeVito all day long, but meeting him we realized that was nothing like Danny DeVito. In fact, he was a professional chess player in Bilbao for a tournament. We talked a bit about where were were from (he somehow had heard of Oklahoma, but hadn't heard of Wisconsin, where Abbey's from).
After talking for a while we went to bed, and getting up somewhat early the next day we wandered around town, saw some nifty shops, and then managed to get our way on to the 2-o'clock bus back to Madrid. And that's the story of Bilbao.
So we sat and looked at places the bus lines ran to (the bus being by far the cheapest way to get around Spain, though the slowest), and after trying to fit in Córdoba or Seville or Granada, decided on Bilbao, a city in the Basque Country. It was relatively close, it was cheap, and it had the Guggenheim, which is a world famous museum.
So on Saturday morning we headed out, across the vast open plains of northern Spain, to the Basque country in the north, nearly to the Atlantic Ocean.
The land in between Madrid and Bilbao can only be described as plains interspersed with mountains, with very little in between except churches and tiny towns that have, in most ways, probably stayed exactly the same since before Columbus (apologies for these pictures; I was taking them from a moving bus behind a not extremely clean window):
Look at that last one. That's a castle in the middle of a tiny town. How would you like to be able to say "yes, I am aware that it's the twenty-first century, but I do live right next to a castle." Part of me wants to say that would be awesome, but it is a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, so perhaps not.
As we made our way further north the sky got darker, and eventually we realized that we were about to encounter our first rain in Spain as we got to Bilbao. A light trickle merely wet the windows, though, so our first night in the city wasn't ruined. And lucky for us, because we had a lot to see during the night.
Upon arrival, we first had to take the Bilbao metro to our hostel. The guidebook I was using described it as "ultramodern", and upon entering the sleek tunnels I found myself in full agreement with that description:
Our hostel was in the "casco viejo" - the "old heart [of the city]", which despite being the "heart" of the city, was nowhere near the heart of the city. We took the metro for a couple of miles and upon getting to the casco viejo made our way to the hostel, which looks like this:
It's only the green part at the bottom of the building, but still, that's a pretty awesome looking modern building. Bilbao is an incredible contradiction in this regard: it has some of the most modern and even avante-garde architecture in the world (the flagship of that being, of course, the Guggenheim, which I shall get to soon) right in the middle of centuries-old cathedrals and other buildings (for example, tell me this isn't a very stereotypical rainy old European street scene:
). It is very unusual in that regard, but I like the vibe quite a bit.We walked the town at night looking for a place to eat, but wandering through an old "Hippie Market;" that was the actual name, I didn't translate it - I told you that English is absolutely everywhere here in Spain.
However, there's also another language here, and I should use this time to tell you about the Basque Country in greater detail. El País Vasco - The Basque Country - is an "autonomous community" of Spain, which is roughly equivalent to a state in the US. But the history of the Basque country is on the most unique of any of the autonomous communities in Spain or anywhere else. The Basque Country is home to the Basques. The Basques call their country "Euskadi" and they speak the language known around here as "Euskara". Who are these Basques, you may ask? In one sense, no one really knows. The language and people are literally the oldest in Europe, having existed in more or less their present location since before the Romans. The Basque language is not clearly related to any other language in the world, whereas essentially all of Europe's other languages are related to each other, descended from the ancient "Proto-Indo European" language spoken by the Proto-Indo Europeans who lived in the Caucasus Mountains and who moved into Europe and India roughly 8 to 10 thousand years ago, bringing their language with them. As a result of the Indo-European migrations, almost every language - and people - from Gaelic to Sanskrit, from Ireland to India are descended from these people and their language. Except, that is, for the Basques. It is thought that the Basque language and people are the last of the original languages and people of Europe, who lived here more than ten thousand years ago, and who all were overcome by the Indo-Europeans, whose languages we now speak today. [If you're further interested in this, I suggest you read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo_European_languages]
That unique origin is part of the Basque historical and cultural legacy, but beyond that they also have had a long history, going in and out of independence throughout the Roman Empire and the middle ages. They existed more or less peacefully in modern Spain, until Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco singled them out and oppressed them as an unwanted minority. The Franco-ordered but Nazi-enacted bombing of the Basque town of Guernika was one of the first major atrocities of the WWII era, and was the inspiration for the famous Picasso painting "Guernica."
In response to this oppression, a group known as ETA (Basque: Euskadi Ta Askatasuna - Homeland and Freedom) was formed and would later be known as the principle terrorist threat to Spain during the latter 20th century. Via bombings, assassination, ransoms and other terroristic means, ETA waged a campaign for full independence for the Basque Country which made it simultaneously feared and hated in Spain. Over the past decade or so, police action has led to the arrest of most of the leaders of the organization, putting it near its end, and there is currently talk in the press of the "final end of ETA". But the terrorism of ETA was only one of the means by which some Basques pursued their independence, and exists a slew of thoroughly peaceful political parties seeking Basque independence as well. Though ETA grew to be hated and reviled by most Basques, there is still some support for the peaceful political independence of the Basque Country (of which Bilbao remains the cultural heart).
Anyway, that bit of politics and history aside...
We walked around looking for a place to eat and found...not very much at all. Though the town was thoroughly beautiful at night...
...restaurants were disturbingly hard to find. We did, however find a grill/pub restaurant near our hotel, and there I got something delicious: a steak which, had it been cooked in any other way and in any other setting I would have found inedibly undercooked, but it was seasoned to such utter perfection and accompanied so well (steak fries and roasted red peppers) that it proved to be one of the best meals of my life. Serendipity dwells in Bilbao, I suppose.After eating we retired, thoroughly worn out, to our hostel. Upon trying to get towels from the front desk, however, we were forced into conversation with the very drunk night employee who talked to me for about thirty minutes about the Euro crisis and other stuff that was too incoherent for me to remember.
The next day we had a plan: The Guggenheim. I got up earlier than anyone else though, I enjoyed my provided hostel breakfast (cereal, toast with jams, cookies, that sort of thing) but then I made my way up to a park which overlooks the city. I got some great pictures from there (some of these I took that evening, though, from the same park):
Eventually we all got up and walked the 20-minute walk to the Guggenheim. I'm sure many people have seen pictures of it before not knowing what or where it was, but it's in Bilbao, Spain, and it is a thoroughly unique architectural wonder:
Impressive though the exterior may be, the inside was more amazing still, but unfortunately photos were not allowed inside. The upper floors were full of modern art which I must say I didn't really like or feel the need to contemplate much at all. But the ground floor was unforgettable. The first gallery I went in was filled with 10-foot-tall, 4-inch-thick, curved walls of solid rusted iron. They gave the distinct impression of canyon walls as one walked through them, and the echoes of one's footsteps reverberated a hundred times between them, making it a visual, auditory, and tactile experience. Some of the walls ran parallel; others curled up into a spiral. If there's any such thing as an artistic, mature playground, this was thoroughly it.
One exhibit involved 100 TV sets spread out evenly on the floor, and 100 chairs sat before them for anyone to come, take a seat, and watch. And on each and every screen was playing a different interview with a different person, and each person was telling a sad and depressing story of their situation in life - friendless, abused, sad, everything. I couldn't stay in that room for too long.
Near the TV room was a cave made out of packing tape. And I don't know what the standards are for packing tape caves, but this was huge, and had to involved thousands and thousands of rolls of packing tape. And inside the cave, aluminum-foil people stood anchored to the walls, and aluminum-foil wires connected them to aluminum-foil dynamite and real books on human society, political science, psychology, philosophy etc. In another room of the cave, thousands of pop cans lay strewn across the floor. In another room, movie posters decked the ceiling and walls. It was a cave of the human condition, of our waste, our minds, our entertainment. And it was extremely creepy.
Unfortunately I can't go through and describe every exhibit in detail, but those were the highlights.
The fact is, after that, we had no real plans for what to do in Bilbao. It was already Sunday evening, the other museum in town were closing, and we discovered to our chagrin that the other museums in the town were closed on Mondays. So, to my resigned indifference, Abbey and Zahra determined that we were to leave at midday Monday.
That decided, we made the most of our evening, getting artisan pizza and beer, and meeting the other occupant of our 4-person hostel room. Having glimpsed his short stocky pants early in the day we jokingly referred to him as Danny DeVito all day long, but meeting him we realized that was nothing like Danny DeVito. In fact, he was a professional chess player in Bilbao for a tournament. We talked a bit about where were were from (he somehow had heard of Oklahoma, but hadn't heard of Wisconsin, where Abbey's from).
After talking for a while we went to bed, and getting up somewhat early the next day we wandered around town, saw some nifty shops, and then managed to get our way on to the 2-o'clock bus back to Madrid. And that's the story of Bilbao.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Observations
I'd like to take a moment and make some commentaries upon nothing particularly pressing.
Everyone here is thin. Outside of the Embassy I see maybe 10 fat people per day, and even then not nearly as thoroughly obese and fat as can be found with ease in America. I have seen only one obese person in all of Spain. But as a sort of counterbalance, there are enormously more smokers here than in the US. I read a recent study that posited that declining smoking rates in the US could cause higher obesity (instead of smoking out of boredom or nervousness, for example, Americans eat) and based on these observations of Spain I'd say the idea at least merits further investigation.
Almost everyone is very nice, too. They were even more so in the Basque country. Whereas a Madrileño is polite but not overly kind, the people in Bilbao were uniquely courteous, attentive, and cheery. One waitress beamed at us for ordering some little snacks.
People
The people here are, in many ways, decidedly different from those in the US. Physically there are immense differences. Though there are many completely caucasian/white/european people here, there are definitely higher populations of North Africans and Latin Americans, and, very unexpectedly a lot of East Asians who seem to be almost exclusively Chinese. And the Chinese population is also very boxed in to disturbingly particular roles. Please note that I am in no way passing judgement, merely observing very peculiar but very acute trends. There are "Chinese Shops" everywhere, where they sell almost exclusively Chinese food; convenience stores are almost universally run by Chinese, and when walking through the city at night, hordes of people (you'll run into about 30 on a long night out) walk around public places selling beer on the street. And every single one of these people I have seen has been Asian and, based on the accent, almost definitely Chinese. It is freaky how monolithic and caste-like this system is.Everyone here is thin. Outside of the Embassy I see maybe 10 fat people per day, and even then not nearly as thoroughly obese and fat as can be found with ease in America. I have seen only one obese person in all of Spain. But as a sort of counterbalance, there are enormously more smokers here than in the US. I read a recent study that posited that declining smoking rates in the US could cause higher obesity (instead of smoking out of boredom or nervousness, for example, Americans eat) and based on these observations of Spain I'd say the idea at least merits further investigation.
Almost everyone is very nice, too. They were even more so in the Basque country. Whereas a Madrileño is polite but not overly kind, the people in Bilbao were uniquely courteous, attentive, and cheery. One waitress beamed at us for ordering some little snacks.
Language
English is absolutely everywhere. Nearly all important signs in public places are in English, and it's not rare for them to be exclusively so. Store after store after store bear English names. Foreign students come to Spain to learn Spanish but that's after learning English in addition to their native language. Some knowledge of English is just completely assumed in European society. I met a German girl who slipped in some English, and I asked "oh, you speak English?" and she replied, "I'm German, of course I speak English". French is at times second, though; for example, signs in the Metro are in Spanish, English and French, and I've heard several French songs and seen various French stores, but also in competition are Spain's other languages: Basque (from the North), Galician (Northwest) and Catalan (East and Northeast). I had assumed I would see at least some Arabic, but to my surprise there is none at all. And among the Chinese populations of course, everything is in Chinese.
Products
Almost everything is smaller. Portions at restaurants are smaller, toilet paper isn't as wide, and napkins are infuriatingly small. It's also strangely common to be served a small dish with a small fork - maybe in so eating it more slowly, a small portion seems larger. Or maybe it's just a more efficient allocation of resources.
Bread, ham, wine and a lot of produce is incredibly cheap. 30 cent fresh-baked baguettes, E1 trays of sliced sausage, ham or chorizo, and 85 cent wine are common, and all are exceedingly good for the price. In turn, though, dairy products are more expensive in general, as are most sweets and things like peanut butter, which is really hard to find here.
Bread, ham, wine and a lot of produce is incredibly cheap. 30 cent fresh-baked baguettes, E1 trays of sliced sausage, ham or chorizo, and 85 cent wine are common, and all are exceedingly good for the price. In turn, though, dairy products are more expensive in general, as are most sweets and things like peanut butter, which is really hard to find here.
Food, Drink and Dining
This is an alcohol and caffeine society, but in a very different way than the American. Americans sip coffee through the day and have alcohol all at once; the Spanish have their coffee at once during their extra-long lunch breaks, then sip their alcohol over the course of the evening bouncing back and forth between bar/cafés. There is absolutely no distinction between an alcohol-serving and non-alcohol-serving establishment, as even coffee shops serve beer or wine, and a lot of bars serve coffee. A lot of bars also have standing room only, because people are supposed to have a cup of something, get a little snack (like a tapa or pintxo (pronounced "pincho")) and move on to the next venue. But at the same time, full-blown restaurants are not very common either. The idea of sitting down somewhere for a long period of time - whether to eat your fill or to get drunk - is not as engrained in this society as it is in America. CORRECTION: This is not quite right. There are two seemingly opposed trends in this regard: there's the bar-hopping, tapa-eating, multiple-small-meals aspect, but then there's the part of the culture where waiters don't bother you unless you need something, don't bring the check until you specifically ask for it, and lunches are two hours long to allow people to simply sit and enjoy a meal. I guess it all depends on mood. END CORRECTION. It is a society in motion, and that motion is propelled, at least in part, by food and drink and music and all of that good stuff.
Tired now. More observations eventually.
Tired now. More observations eventually.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Days Twenty-one through Twenty-five
Monday
After work Monday I went to an embassy event called the Caixa Forum with my fellow intern Carolyn. It was a small event (maybe 40 people) in a classroom-like setting, and the subject was "España en el Espejo de Europa" - "Spain in the Mirror of Europe". The professor gave a lecture (in Spanish) on why Spain is "different" from the rest of Europe, and he arrived at a few conclusions.First, in 1898 Spain lost the Spanish-American war (to America, of course) and in so doing lost the last of its colonial possessions in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. This initiated a period of complete national mourning - everyone thought that Spain was dying, because it was an end of an empire that had once owned literally half the known world. The cultural impact was profound, and not something that other European countries ever experienced in quite the same way.
Second, Spain didn't get involved in either of the World Wars. What this caused was a massive population boom relative to the rest of Europe. From the beginning of the century until the civil war, Madrid went from a few hundred thousand people to more than a million.
However, Spain's governmental structure could not match the population explosion, and things like social services and, most importantly, education, were doled out by private institutions. And the most powerful private institution in Spain was, of course, the Catholic Church (broad definition of the word "private", yes, but bear with me). As a result, Catholic schools sprang up like weeds, contributing to a decidedly more religious population today than, for example, France, which now has so many agnostics and atheists that the remaining Catholics are outnumbered by Muslims. Spain's percentage of Catholics is still something like 75%. That's a huge difference for two neighboring countries with such strong historical ties.
Tuesday
Tuesday I had to go sign another condolence book, this time at the embassy of Kenya, in mourning the loss of a Nobel Prize winning professor. I entered, and (speaking English as I was in the Kenyan embassy) was shown to the condolence book, and the receptionist went to get her "boss". I never learned exactly who he was - he may have been the ambassador - but he sat and watched as I signed the book. It was a bit unnerving but I feel I properly conveyed the sympathies of the US Embassy.Wednesday
I went to the Caixa Forum again to finish up the series on Spain, and this lecture was over the Spanish entry into the EU and the end of the Franco regime (Franco being the rightist dictator who ruled Spain from the 30s to the 70s). The democratic roots of the post-franco order were being planned out for decades, so that when he finally died, the new democracy was put in place virtually without any conflict. One observer at the time of the transition, noting the lack of bloodshed, called Spain "boring".Thursday
I was surprised halfway through the morning as Elaine, Political Counselor at the embassy(my supervisor's boss, essentially, but mine as well), tasked me with attending a conference on Defense in the culture of Latin America. Weird, I thought, especially since she was telling me to go right that minute. It turns out that it was right around the corner at the headquarters of the European Commission in Spain. I made my way in and watched the presentations for a few hours (over drug trafficking and South American Defense Councils and all that good stuff) and enjoyed the coffee break in between sessions.That evening I went to dinner at an Indian restaurant, and it was one of the best meals of my entire life. Free appetizers, a massive assortment of sauces and chutney things, and chicken, simmered in spicy creamy sauce and tender beyond compare. It was so delicious that I didn't even care that I lost my phone.
Friday
The high point of Friday was likely the fact that we got to meet the Ambassador. His name is Alan Solomont, and he is a Jewish American individual, appointed by President Obama as ambassador to Spain. Despite his august role, he was very down to Earth, asked a lot of questions, was very friendly, and further cemented my feeling of being thoroughly disturbed at just how nice everyone at the embassy is.
Days Nineteen and Twenty - Holy Toledo!
Oh my, Toledo, you have won me over in fantastic ways.
The beginning of the day, though interesting, pales in comparison to the rest of the day. Suffice it to say I took the metro to the bus depot where I bought a round-trip ticket to Toledo.
A little background on Toledo: Toledo is one of the oldest cities in Spain. It was a Roman town, and the Roman capital of a province of Spain. After the fall of Rome it was the capital of the Visigothic kingdom in Spain until that was invaded by Muslims in the 700s; from then on it gained renown as a "city of the three cultures" where Muslims, Christians and Jews all lived in relative harmony. That is, of course, until the 1400s when the Christian Spanish kingdom of Castille y Leon took over the area, and then after the unification of Spain towards the end of the 1400s and the subsequent inquisition, all the Muslims and Jews either fled, were converted, or went into hiding. That aside, the city of Toledo served as the capital of Spain for quite a while, and as a result of its long history it has accumulated a *ton* of impressive architecture which I shall reveal.
Toledo is a city that is better experienced visually than textually, I think, or at least the side I saw was that way. Traveling with a group of international students we didn't get the chance to stop in a lot of small shops - we planned to see the big sites and we saw all the important ones:
After climbing the hill from the bus depot, we turned around a saw a view like this.
Notice what you don't see: city. This is a town which, more or less, has stayed the same size for 500 years.
It keeps its tiny streets:
Three people across. And cars drive down these, and it's kinda scary when there's a car coming and there's not really any space to get off the road. Luckily they go about 3 miles per hour.
The heart of the city is dominated by a gargantuan cathedral:
And at one point we went in a little church to the north:
which had some enormously tall church towers which, to our surprise, we were able to go up. From the top, we were able to look back over the fantastic city:
The tall tower is, of course, the cathedral, as is that little dome a little to the right. You can see the rest of it stretching really quite far back.
From another angle:
The large building on the left is the military history museum as well as the city archive/library, and I heard in retrospect that it was built on what was originally a Roman building.
Moving on from that building we ate at a tiny restaurant in a back alley. Well, it was as small as a back alley, but compared to some of the other streets, it could have been a major thoroughfare. I got a dish of cheese-stuffed red peppers with roquefort-covered romaine lettuce hearts and a sort of pepper salad; it was fantastic.
Moving on we went to the western wall of the city:
It's Roman.
For some two thousand years this wall has stood here. Roman, Goth, Moor and European have stood sentry over these walls. And it makes sense - Toledo is on a hill virtually surrounded by a river and then huge, wide plains. It is an amazingly perfect fortification, and it has been used as such since before we can even imagine. Some of the wall had graffiti on it which made me very sad. But then again, some of the walls had age-old Arabic engraved on them. And thousands of years ago, Romans probably graffitied these walls themselves. This city is layers upon layers of history and people and culture.
Passing once more into the city we tried to go by a Mudéjar statue of Jesus called Cristo de la Vega. Mudéjar is a word which refers to the Muslims who remained in Spain after the reconquest but who did not convert to Christianty - thus the statue was a Muslim statue of Jesus.
What many people don't know is that Muslims, too, hold a high regard for Jesus and revere him as a prophet and holy man, though not worshiping him as the son of God. However, there is the much more stringent Muslim prescription against graven images, so I'm not sure if Mudéjar were more lax on the idol thing than other Muslims or whether it was just a Christian statue done in Moorish style.
After that we walked around a bit more, seeing the Judería - the ancient Jewish quarter - and an old synagogue, but unfortunately my camera was running somewhat low on batteries at about this time so I had to keep my photography to a minimum. I plan to go back at some point, as the ride is only about E5 each way.
About this time, I parted from my Erasmus friends and met up with my coworkers who had come late. We first went to a bar and got three Gin and Tonics to end all others - One raspberry, one rose, one tropical fruit. The care and detail in their preparation were so lavish that they were about ten minutes in the making. Raspberries were individually crushed, rose water was spritzed in, mint leaves were rolled up into a rose shape. And I must admit, the taste did indeed merit the length of preparation.
Our drinks imbibed, we made our way to a nearby "Muslim Cave" museum, which was once a place where Muslims worshipped in secret after the Christian reconquest. But here's the cool thing: their secret hiding place was an old Roman basement. This, like the wall, was another piece of evidence that this city was a literal mountain of history and culture of untold and ancient scale.
One of my coworkers, Abbey, had actually lived in Toledo a year ago, and as such she knew all of the awesome places to go. First we were off to an "Irish" bar where we got some cider, then to a vegetarian restaurant. Pizza Arabbiata, soup made out of spinach, piñon nuts and raisins (actually quite common; I've seen it everywhere and it's absolutely delicious). And then after eating we realized that it was too late to catch the 10:30 bus home, so we sought lodging for the night.
Where did we go? The place where Abbey had lived last year - part dorms, part hostel, but very cheap and perfectly fine for a mere place to stay for the night. Our lodging secured, we headed out to the Explorer's club (a club decked with jeeps, sabertooth tigers, dinosaurs, and Egyptian statues), where we passed the rest of our evening.
The morning came with free breakfast in the dorm thing, followed by our bus ride home. And that's the story of Toledo.
The beginning of the day, though interesting, pales in comparison to the rest of the day. Suffice it to say I took the metro to the bus depot where I bought a round-trip ticket to Toledo.
A little background on Toledo: Toledo is one of the oldest cities in Spain. It was a Roman town, and the Roman capital of a province of Spain. After the fall of Rome it was the capital of the Visigothic kingdom in Spain until that was invaded by Muslims in the 700s; from then on it gained renown as a "city of the three cultures" where Muslims, Christians and Jews all lived in relative harmony. That is, of course, until the 1400s when the Christian Spanish kingdom of Castille y Leon took over the area, and then after the unification of Spain towards the end of the 1400s and the subsequent inquisition, all the Muslims and Jews either fled, were converted, or went into hiding. That aside, the city of Toledo served as the capital of Spain for quite a while, and as a result of its long history it has accumulated a *ton* of impressive architecture which I shall reveal.
Toledo is a city that is better experienced visually than textually, I think, or at least the side I saw was that way. Traveling with a group of international students we didn't get the chance to stop in a lot of small shops - we planned to see the big sites and we saw all the important ones:
After climbing the hill from the bus depot, we turned around a saw a view like this.
Notice what you don't see: city. This is a town which, more or less, has stayed the same size for 500 years.It keeps its tiny streets:
Three people across. And cars drive down these, and it's kinda scary when there's a car coming and there's not really any space to get off the road. Luckily they go about 3 miles per hour.The heart of the city is dominated by a gargantuan cathedral:
And at one point we went in a little church to the north:
which had some enormously tall church towers which, to our surprise, we were able to go up. From the top, we were able to look back over the fantastic city:
The tall tower is, of course, the cathedral, as is that little dome a little to the right. You can see the rest of it stretching really quite far back.From another angle:
The large building on the left is the military history museum as well as the city archive/library, and I heard in retrospect that it was built on what was originally a Roman building.Moving on from that building we ate at a tiny restaurant in a back alley. Well, it was as small as a back alley, but compared to some of the other streets, it could have been a major thoroughfare. I got a dish of cheese-stuffed red peppers with roquefort-covered romaine lettuce hearts and a sort of pepper salad; it was fantastic.
Moving on we went to the western wall of the city:
It's Roman.
For some two thousand years this wall has stood here. Roman, Goth, Moor and European have stood sentry over these walls. And it makes sense - Toledo is on a hill virtually surrounded by a river and then huge, wide plains. It is an amazingly perfect fortification, and it has been used as such since before we can even imagine. Some of the wall had graffiti on it which made me very sad. But then again, some of the walls had age-old Arabic engraved on them. And thousands of years ago, Romans probably graffitied these walls themselves. This city is layers upon layers of history and people and culture.
Passing once more into the city we tried to go by a Mudéjar statue of Jesus called Cristo de la Vega. Mudéjar is a word which refers to the Muslims who remained in Spain after the reconquest but who did not convert to Christianty - thus the statue was a Muslim statue of Jesus.
What many people don't know is that Muslims, too, hold a high regard for Jesus and revere him as a prophet and holy man, though not worshiping him as the son of God. However, there is the much more stringent Muslim prescription against graven images, so I'm not sure if Mudéjar were more lax on the idol thing than other Muslims or whether it was just a Christian statue done in Moorish style.
After that we walked around a bit more, seeing the Judería - the ancient Jewish quarter - and an old synagogue, but unfortunately my camera was running somewhat low on batteries at about this time so I had to keep my photography to a minimum. I plan to go back at some point, as the ride is only about E5 each way.
About this time, I parted from my Erasmus friends and met up with my coworkers who had come late. We first went to a bar and got three Gin and Tonics to end all others - One raspberry, one rose, one tropical fruit. The care and detail in their preparation were so lavish that they were about ten minutes in the making. Raspberries were individually crushed, rose water was spritzed in, mint leaves were rolled up into a rose shape. And I must admit, the taste did indeed merit the length of preparation.
Our drinks imbibed, we made our way to a nearby "Muslim Cave" museum, which was once a place where Muslims worshipped in secret after the Christian reconquest. But here's the cool thing: their secret hiding place was an old Roman basement. This, like the wall, was another piece of evidence that this city was a literal mountain of history and culture of untold and ancient scale.
One of my coworkers, Abbey, had actually lived in Toledo a year ago, and as such she knew all of the awesome places to go. First we were off to an "Irish" bar where we got some cider, then to a vegetarian restaurant. Pizza Arabbiata, soup made out of spinach, piñon nuts and raisins (actually quite common; I've seen it everywhere and it's absolutely delicious). And then after eating we realized that it was too late to catch the 10:30 bus home, so we sought lodging for the night.
Where did we go? The place where Abbey had lived last year - part dorms, part hostel, but very cheap and perfectly fine for a mere place to stay for the night. Our lodging secured, we headed out to the Explorer's club (a club decked with jeeps, sabertooth tigers, dinosaurs, and Egyptian statues), where we passed the rest of our evening.
The morning came with free breakfast in the dorm thing, followed by our bus ride home. And that's the story of Toledo.
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