A Life in Waiting

Hmm, final chapter might not be the proper phrase as everywhere I have traveled to so far in Spain I’ve thought those same words above (except for Valdepeñas, but I’ll get to that later).  But for now, I am still referring to Madrid.  It is now Sunday morning and Kris and I part ways.  Well actually I part ways, she stays right there.  See her mother was returning to Madrid for the night and well let’s just say she has more of a right to the spare bed than I.  So as it another beautiful sunny day, we head to a local café with an outside terrace and have the Spanish delicacy of Chocolate con Churros, which is basically fried strips of dough that you dip into a cup of hot milk chocolate.  Not the healthiest start to the day, but certainly a good one.  We say goodbye and I head into the city once again to do a bit more exploration on foot.

I do really enjoy this city.  However it doesn’t hurt that it’s the beginning of spring and the sun is shining brightly with a nice cool breeze rolling through, and everyone seems to be happier as a result.  Following the advice given to me, I grab the bike after walking the city for a few hours and head over to Parque del Retiro as previously mentioned.  I spend the rest of my afternoon enjoying the afternoon sun with a mixture of writing, napping and people watching. 

That evening I head back over to the Plaza de Santa Ana where I have my old room waiting for me at the Hostal Lucense.  Debating over how I should spend my final night in Madrid, I remember that a friend of mine who was a fellow Anglo in the Pueblo Inglís program was back in Madrid and is always up for a night out.  As it turns out Nick was already meeting with a few other friends and invited me along to join them.  Turns out that his friends were from the most recent Pueblo Inglís class of which Nick was training to be one of the MC’s for future classes.  The group consisted of three Canadians, one of their cousins from Germany, a Brit looking to live in Spain and me.  Ended up out for a nice dinner followed with a bit of traditional Spanish tapas bar hopping.

Monday morning.  I pack up my bike and decide to get an early start on my departure from Madrid.  It is only a 2+ hour drive to my next destination, but I figure I would take a slower route and perhaps enjoy some of the scenery on my way there.  But of course, I would get lost first…

Ok as mentioned before, Madrid has been an adventure for me driving wise.  Well this day was no different.  Apparently there are some massive tunnels deep underneath the city.  I had a glimpse of them during my last trip into the city, but nothing like this time.  When I say I spent a good ten minutes at a time under the city in these tunnels, I am not exaggerating.  First they are huge.  Larger than any other tunnel I have driven inside before.  Four or five lanes wide, they split off into dozens of different directions burrowing deeper and deeper underground.  I was quite amazed.  Well at least during my first trip through.  Yes, that is correct, it took me a grand total of three passes within the tunnels before I found the correct way out.  Including one complete circle underground.

So being I lost so much time navigating through the Madrid underground, I decide to stay on the Autovia to Valdepeñas.  It actually turned out for the better as the area directly south of Madrid, including my destination city of Valdepeñas, was far from beautiful.  Very flat, dry and not much vegetation.  Valdepeñas was not a destination of mine because it was a noteworthy city, however it is a very large wine producing area, but because the ride to Cordoba and Sevilla was longer than I had wanted to travel from Madrid I decided to spend a day or two in the area.  The only real highlight to my time in Valdepeñas, was the brother and sister from So Cal that I ended up staying with for one night.  They were in the area on a English teaching contract and enjoyed the small climbing community in the area.

As the area was such a disappointment, I decided to hightail it out of there and shoot off to Cordoba and Sevilla a day early.  I inform my hosts, pack up my gear and head out.  Now this little city is a true definition of a sleepy town.  So when I walked outside to load up the bike, I was quite surprised to find out some bastard stole my bike cover!  I mean come on!  I left my bike unattended in an undefined parking area for SIX WEEKS at one of the most major airports in Europe and not one issue.  One night in a tiny ass village in the middle of nowhere and they steal something.  I was pissed!  Didn’t touch my tankbag or anything inside it and no scratches on my saddlebags, so it was somebody who just wanted the cover.  So I did what any rational person would, drove around the city looking for it!  It wasn’t vandalism or a major theft, so I figured there was a good chance it was already in use somewhere.  But no luck.  The bastard got away with it.

With such a bad start to my morning, I just take off out of town towards Cordoba.  A little over an hour later I roll into Cordoba.  Now I know very little of this city, except that it’s on my way to Sevilla.  So I look around as I enter the city and see a huge Mosque in the center.  Figuring that’s a good place to start, I aim for it and park outside.  Super paranoid now, I lock it down tight and make sure it’s in a good trafficked area.  Turns out the Mosque in nestled inside an old Moorish walled city.  So I take a walk through.  As I enter the walled city within a city, I’m thinking how beautiful it is and well taken care of.  This thought is still lingering as I make another turn down a small path that dumps me out into tourist central!  A medium sized square filled completely with a mixture of American tourists with their cameras, beggars, scam artists and plenty of neon lights and tourist trap shops.  I quickly exit the area and find out that almost all of this inner city is like this.  As I wrestle my hand away from one of the street woman who was trying to get me to buy some crap from her, I get overrun with a busload worth of tourists and can’t navigate my way back to the street.

Utterly frustrated still (I’m sure the morning didn’t help with my shortened fuse), I try to walk around the city a bit and determine that it has zero to offer me.  Ignoring my need to pee and my ever growing hunger, I set a course for Sevilla.

As I am experiencing so many things daily, I struggle to find time to record my adventures.  It’s more important for me to really get as much as I can from this trip rather than to just take pictures and write about my day here.  I’m sure I should easily be able to do both, apparently I can’t.  The taking photos problem is a mixture of both lack of skill or eye, and simple forgetfulness.  As far as the writing is concerned, I need to be in the mood to write as it doesn’t come naturally to me.  I can’t just sit down every time I have a free moment and jot down my immediate thoughts, I need to somewhat prepare myself for it.  Although I am getting a bit better with it.

So I am now exactly one week behind on my writings, which doesn’t like much but it really is.  I’ve visited a dozen cities, slept in five different beds and met an uncountable number of new people in those seven days.  It’s rather overwhelming actually.  So I’ve gotten in the habit of doing a modified timeline with small notes on where I’ve been and some things I have done so I can remember back as best as possible.  See for me, every day is as important as the next and I don’t want to lose one.  Or thirty like what happened with the first half of this trip.  That all being said, I am currently sitting in a bed in Prado del Rey, a smaller city in Andalucía, Spain recovering from a typical Spanish evening that ended at six in the morning eating frozen pizzas.  So how about we travel back in time to a lovely place I call last week.

On Friday morning I took to the city alone.  Kris had plans for the day and I try to give myself a walking tour of every city I go to.  As for someone who never was a large walker, I have really found that it truly is the best way to discover new places.  The bike works great for traveling to the cities, but is best left somewhere to patiently wait for me until I’m ready to leave.  When you walk a city, you can get an immediate read on the type of place you’re in.  And the people watching that you can do is priceless.

Whenever I do end up walking a city, I typically don’t carry a map or have a set agenda.  It kills the mood and it defeats my purposes for traveling.  I don’t really need to see every church, museum or national monument as every city has dozens and they all start looking the same after a while.  I am more interested In the culture.  How people live.  How they spend their time.  Are they happy or just going through the routines as we are all programmed to?  Well Madrid was alive.  People everywhere seemed to be happy, friendly and helpful even if they don’t know their own city to well.  (Directions to particular streets tend to come up lacking, not out of lack of desire, just lack of knowledge of the many confusing names all through the city) 

As confusing as Madrid is to drive in, it becomes quite basic in layout once you start exploring it.  Beautiful architecture deep rooted in history, a cleanliness that didn’t border on sanitized, and plenty of lively tapas bars that really just have a great feeling to them (not to mention dirt cheap!).  I spent around 5 hours walking the city and testing a few different tapas selections and headed back towards my host’s home.

After letting my feet take a breather, Kris cooks dinner and informs me that we’re meeting a few friends of hers out in the city that evening.  So we get cleaned up and take a walk through a city that is under a soft glow from the lights of the city, and a nice spring breeze.  We end up at a pretty trendy uptown lounge to get well introduced then head out for what turned out to be a crazy night at a Brazilian pub with live music and plenty of Samba dancing.  Wow, do these people love to dance!  Given there was a rather large Brazilian audience, but everyone was just up and out on the dance floor.  It was so bad that even the guys that had no one to dance with and were sitting off to the side, seem to be unable to control the lower half of their bodies as their legs danced along without their permission.  It was a great night out.  The following morning wasn’t exactly marvelous, but well justified.

After Recovering the following morning, I went out and gave the BMW a much needed bath and once over.  After riding through the rain a few times and then sitting for 6 months next to a heavily trafficked airport road, it was getting pretty funky.  Not to mention that Kris had offered to take some photos of me with the bike to correct the incorrect photo on the header.  After a few hours (it’s pretty tough cleaning a bike without a hose) I got myself cleaned up as well and went out for a quick photo shoot.  After the standard me and bike shots, she headed up onto her balcony as I did a few laps around the block to get a good riding shot.  After confusing all the neighbors with my dozen or so laps around the block, we called it quits.

That evening we ended up meeting a few more of Kris’s friends out in the city for some traditional Spanish cuisine.  However as we all failed to realize that it was a Saturday night, we ended up going to a so-so spot that was too hip on the presentation of the food and allowed the quality/quantity suffer for it.  As it was a Saturday night, the evening ended with a small bar hop to some pretty cool music centered spots that had a strong feeling of a few places I used to frequent in the village.

To be continued…

I am in Madrid’s version of Central park, Parque del Retiro, sitting in the grass and listening to a man playing the accordion quite passionately in the distance.   All around me there are people jogging, biking, strolling or just laying in the sun picnicking.  Everyone enjoying the clear blue skies and the spring like temperatures.   It’s one of those days that really make you feel alive.

I am a little sad that I am leaving this city tomorrow.  More so than any other city I’ve traveled to while in Europe, Madrid has made me feel like I could live here.  I’m not sure what it is though.  But I do feel very at home here.  Let me think about it and I’ll try to return to this subject.

When I arrived in Madrid, I had no set plans for a place to stay.  My only focus was the condition or location of my bike.  Once that I was relieved of that stress, I drove into the only part of Madrid that I was familiar with, Plaza de Santa Ana.   Near the plaza there are quite a few hostels that I have either stayed at already, or knew of their existence as I have done a fair amount of walking in this section.  I took a chance, and went to the Hostel Lucense where I had stayed during my last visit to Madrid to inquire about a room.  I was greeted by the owner of the hostel, an older Spanish man who lives and works inside the hostel with his wife and son.  It’s a small family owned hostel, that makes me feel very welcome.

That evening as I was pretty tired from the earlier stresses and traveling, I decide to just take a small stroll through the area I was in to see about getting something to eat.  As I mentioned before, I ended up at a quite popular tapas bar right around the corner from where I was staying.  After a few small snacks and some beer, I headed off to bed.

The following day I received an email from a fellow couchsurfer in Madrid who I have been in contact with for a few months.  We had tried meeting a few times previously but our schedules never matched up well.  We were supposed to miss each other again this time as she had a planned vacation to Amsterdam with her mother for the week I was to be in Madrid.  However she had hurt her knee quite badly a week or so earlier, and decided to cancel her plans to visit Amsterdam and invited me to stay with her for the next few days.  Excited to not have to spend my time in Madrid at a hostel and a chance to finally meet up with a friend that has been quite elusive previously, I notify my hosts that I will not be staying the full time at their hostel after all and get myself packed up and ready to go.  As I am packing up, the son of the hostel owners knocks on my door and asks if I can help him before I leave with some pronunciations as he is preparing for an English exam so he can study in the states.  Without any real agenda, I head off with him to the private residence attached to the hostel and spend a nice afternoon with this Spanish family that have plenty of stories and advice to offer me.

After leaving the Hostel Lucense, I decide to drive straight over to Kris’s flat, as I am quite prone to getting lost in this city and didn’t want to arrive too late.  Well as predicted, it took me close to an hour to travel the 1.4km to her flat.  I’m not sure if it’s me or this city, but I cannot figure it out.  It’s like Boston, but with no street signs and more one way streets that always go in the wrong direction.  Not to mention that I still haven’t gotten used to the fact that bikes can ride down a lot of the walking streets that most cars are not allowed on.  I arrive in a really nice neighborhood right down the street from the Madrid’s opera house.

As Kris (my host in Madrid) had recently hurt her knee, my first night in Madrid was a quiet one.  It actually worked out for the better, as we were able to have a nice dinner in and have a chance to get to know each other a bit better.  A professional photographer and committed traveler, talking with Kris there was rarely a quiet moment as we had plenty to talk about.

To be continued…

Yup, my baby was still there!  After walking for what seemed like hours while on the downswing of a caffeine high, I finally found the place where I parked my bike.  Rounded the corner and breathed a sigh of relief as I saw the glint of my silver cover!  Not only was it still there, but nobody had messed with it.  I was so happy I did a happy dance!

Now as I was quite rushed at the time of departure in February, I didn’t leave the bike in the best of conditions.  It was quite filthy, a mixture of six weeks of airport traffic, but also from a previous ride from La Alberca in the rain to Madrid.  Not only that, but I left it with an empty tank.  But minor issues compared to the fact that IT WAS STILL THERE!!

So I spend a good half an hour getting re-acquainted with my bike and putting everything back into place.  She started right up on the first attempt, but blew out a bit of smoke at first in a fit of distaste for me leaving her there for so long.  Either that or just the result of sitting for six weeks without being started. 

I head out of the airport with my focus to find a gas station but that objective quickly changes as the sky starts to open up and dump a gallon a minute of rain on me.  I estimate that I have plenty of gas and just bee-line it to the hostel.  After about a half an hour ride in the rain, I finally arrive at Plaza de Santa Ana and park my bike in a familiar spot.  Remove my gear and head over to the hostel right around the corner.

Rain is the one factor that I hate about riding a bike.  It just makes everything so miserable.  Visibility is lessened, confidences decrease, and it’s just plain miserable riding while wet.  It’s been something that I had planned on avoiding as much as possible, but like the ride from the airport, sometimes it’s unavoidable. 

After I get myself settled, I head out in the evening rain to find a cozy spot to eat.  I stumble upon a cool looking pub that brews it’s own cervesas and serves tapas gratis (free Spanish finger foods typically consisting of a slice of bread with a variety of toppings on top.  Highly recommended!).  After two grande cervesas and a few tapas, I head back to the hostel to finish off the night with only a minor dent in my wallet.  What would’ve cost close to 20€ in Helsinki was only 7€ here.