A Life in Waiting

Not sure if this is a good thing or not, but apparently today I’m in a reflective mood.  I seem to be thinking about things a tad deeper than normal lately, not sure if it’s because of any particular pivotal moment or just because I’m too tired to do anything and to awake to sleep.  Well actually I probably could sleep right now, but as I just napped and need to go out in an hour or so, sleeping didn’t seem like a great option.  So ignore any typographical or grammar mistakes as I am in a bit of a daze right now and tend to stutter-write when I’m like this.  Stutter-write would be a term I just coined meaning to write the same word more than once in a row row since my hands are going faster than my mind can handle at the moment.

How does that Top Gun quote go?  You’re writing checks your body can’t cash, or something like that.  I sometimes feel like that quote suits me.  As I’m traveling and in new places constantly, I try to get as much in as possible.  Dinners, gatherings, whatever there seems to always be something going on and I don’t seem to know how to say no.  I don’t want to miss any of these amazing opportunities, but sometimes my body just can’t seem to catch up.  Not to mention that for the past days I have been suffering from the worst bout of allergies that I’ve ever experienced.  I rarely if ever have any allergy type symptoms but man I got hit hard this week.  Teary eyed, runny nosed and sneezing constantly.  I think it has to do with the fact that I’m staying in a beach house that was closed up for a few months and there’s a larger presence of dust and mold than most places normally possess.  So sleeping at night is a commodity that I don’t have much of these days.

Wow, staring at the screen again.  Perhaps I didn’t have as much to say as I thought.  I was told that the best way for a writer to break through writers block is to write down every thought in his head.  Which is what you’re seeing right now.  Well I’m filtering all the ones that might get me arrested or in trouble somewhere, but basically this is all my mind is capable of right now.  Must make you feel a bit smarter than me at the moment.  Hmm, so I suppose I was supposed to get inspiration from something I just typed?  Perhaps I haven’t written enough yet. 

Well going back to what I wrote earlier this morning, I am a bit disappointed in the lack of photos that I’ve taken.  Few contain me and surprising less contains other people.  Seems I only take  landscape photos.  I need to work on this.  But it’s hard for me sometimes.  Like yesterday for example, I was attending a very cool festival in Punta Umbria called Romeria.  It is the celebration of the patron saint of agriculture (I probably should know the name) and it is a village wide celebration.  It’s actually celebrated all over Andalucia, but I happened to be around for the Punta Umbria one. 

I had invited Antonio and Carmen (wow, a little out of sync here.  I haven’t written about my week with Antonio and Carmen yet in Malaga and Prado del Rey.  But oh well, you’ll piece it all together later.  Antonio and I were in Pueblo Inglís together and have become really good friends since) over to Punta Umbria as I have had a beach house all to myself for the past week (double wow.  I haven’t spoken about my time in Sevilla with Carlos and his super generous offer of letting me stay in his beach house indefinitely yet either).  Well regardless, they accepted and came for 3 days.  On the second day of their trip here, we went to this Romeria with an old school friend of Carmen’s and all of their friends.  Amazing time, even more amazing people.  I really felt as if I was a part of the core group of friends as I was included in everything, even though only a handful spoke English.  Shit, there was a point I was going to make here.  (pause)  (longer pause) 

Ah well.  As the longer pause represents almost a full day, I will wrap this up here as I don’t think I can reproduce the same feelings I had yesterday when writing.  So sorry for the incompleteness, but I hold no responsibility for it. 

Ok, this is slowly becoming a failed project.  I was really hoping to document my travels for my own posterity and to keep everyone back home up to date, but I am failing miserably.  What one would think to be an easy task, has become near impossible for me.  And even when I do write something, it’s either about not writing something (like now) or it’s a recollection of events from a few weeks prior that is devoid of all emotion and feeling as it is too far back to remember them.  It’s dying a slow death and I can’t decide whether I should try to continuously resuscitate it or just Kevorkian the damn thing.

I wish that I had done a better job of keeping track of everything, but I have no regrets.  See I don’t view myself as a tourist, even though I may be one.  I’ve been in so few churches, no official buildings and couldn’t tell you what the most important thing to see in Sevilla is.  Those things are not important to me.  I mean yes, the history and the stories that those places represent interest me, but I’d rather discuss them with friends over a bottle of wine than get a guided tour.

  I’m not sure I’m getting what I want to say out, so here’s an example.  A few days ago while I spent an evening at a dinner party with Carlos and some of his friends, I met a traveler from NY as well.  Well not a traveler, a tourist.  He was in Spain for 2 weeks and then heading back to NY immediately following.  A typical American holiday.  The problem that I have with his time here is not in the brevity of the trip, but how it was spent.  In his two weeks he has been to every major city in Spain, Barcelona, Grenada, Sevilla, Madrid, Toledo etc.  Because of the great distances between these cities, half of the trip already has been spent in airports and train station and not actually doing anything.  The other half of the trip was spent solely in finding the big monuments and churches in each city by following his travelling bible written by Steve ____.  He spent no time in the culture, he complained constantly to me about how the food was horrible here, not spicy enough, and how he couldn’t get a decent American breakfast anywhere.  By the end of his two week trip he gladly stated that two weeks in Spain was more than enough and that he was happy to go home.  And now as he is back home, he will tell all about his glorious time in Spain as he marks one more place off of his list of accomplishments.  That to me, is a tourist. 

Now if was traveling like the above, I would be almost finished with Europe by now, and not stalled in one of the first countries I arrived at.  I would have a Flickr account loaded to the max with photos of all of the grand sites in Europe and a blog bustling with activity of my adventures here.  Actually I wouldn’t mind the last two, but for me they are not the objective of my trip, but a nice compliment to it.  In these pasts weeks/months of being here, I have met some of the most amazing people, been invited into the circles of tight friends and experienced things that no tourist will ever experience. 

I don’t know.  I really have no idea what I am writing right now.  I shouldn’t even put this up online as most of its drivel, but I promised to myself that whatever I wrote I would put there, because I wanted to capture the feelings and emotions of this trip.  So being as there has been next to none of that lately, I feel the need to do so now.  The funny part of this whole thing is how my outlook of all of this has changed.  The real reason I started writing this blog, was to document my travels not just for posterity, but to have a real account of what is what like to up and move overseas whether it be for a short period of time or permanently.  I had looked long and hard online of someone else’s account of a similar journey, but found none.  So I was going to fill that niche.  Now as I look back I understand why there isn’t any out there. 

The longer I stay away from home, the longer I journey through foreign places, the more I believe in the necessity of it all.  Your perspective truly changes.  Priorities get all mixed up and you really start peeling back the layers of yourself and see something different.  It’s humbling, yet strangely empowering.  Since the very first day arriving here and things not going as planned, I have learned to accept, no love the unpredictability of it all.  I’m not saying that I led a very structured, organized life prior, but well I suppose I did. 

So what now?  As I type those words I’m trying to figure out on what level I want to answer it.  What now as in do I keep writing this blog?  What now as in where do I go next?  What now as in what do I do now that my perspectives, priorities and everything else has changed?  Somehow I don’t think an I don’t know cuts it.  But I don’t know.  On all levels, even ones I didn’t list above. 

Well as the rest of the house is waking, another story I didn’t tell, I should probably wrap this up.  Just know that every day I am experiencing a lot more than my blog reveals.  If I were you, I’d ask me about it rather than waiting for it to appear here.  The chance that it makes it on here is growing slimmer by the day.

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.

Talk about a long travel day.  It started out with a two hour train ride from Helsinki to Tampere, Finland.  From Tampere train station a ½ hour bus ride to the Tampere Airport followed by a three hour flight to Frankfurt where I had an overnight layover.  When I arrived in Frankfurt the couchsurfer who generously offered to host me for the night, was waiting for me at the airport.  What a pleasant surprise!

I ended up going with him to a small German village that was only five minutes from the airport, where Carston (the couchsurfer) lived.  The village was tiny.  A guess of maybe two thousands inhabitants, it had only one market and one restaurant/pub that I could see.  We went for a nighttime walk through the town and I was amazed at how clean, orderly and attractive this place was.  Almost too nice.  Everything was perfectly in place and just spotlessly clean.  True German efficiency at work here.

As a most gracious host, Carston offered me my own room and bed after we shared a bottle of wine and compared travel stories.  After a restful night sleep, I hop on the early bus and head back to the airport where I now have six hours to kill waiting for my flight out. 

As my ass has gotten quite sore sitting here on the floor (the only place I could find power), I am finding that I have written enough today about my adventures.  The only thought going through my head right now is wondering how my bike is.  Is it still there?  Has it been the subject of theft, towing or some other act?  I’m sure it’s fine, but I can’t get it out of my head that I am going to arrive and find my lock and chain attached to the railing with nothing on the other end.  Man would that be a miserable way to begin an adventure.

Wish me luck and hopefully I’m stressing for nothing…

As hard as I tried, I couldn’t get myself to write about my past experiences.  Given, my time in Helsinki was rather stressful and busier than one might expect, but I still should’ve had time to write about my five week journey from Munich to Madrid.  But every time I sat down to write, I was overwhelmed by the amount of things that happened and the lack of being able to remember all the details.  And as hard as I tried, I couldn’t find a way to summarize.  It seemed pointless to write sparingly about certain events that I had such detailed memories and experiences. So here we are yet again with another attempt to chronicle my journey through Europe and keep it from being (constantly) referred to as “A Post in Waiting”.  Thanks Ria!

So here’s the skinny of my last motorcycle trip broken down into a cute little timeline.

Jan 28^th-Flew out of Helsinki to Munich where my bike was patiently waiting for me.  Stayed with Klaus who had hosted me last time I was in town.

Jan 30^th - After picking up my bike from the BMW dealership and getting it prepared for the first time, I headed off to Cologne, Germany in near freezing wind and rain.  Also first experience on the Autobahn!

Jan 30^th – Feb 7^th – Partied in Cologne for Carnival, one of Europe’s largest week long parties.  Stayed with about 40 other Couchsurfers, most of whom were on average ten years my minor.  Spent one night in Belgium and a day in Maastricht, Netherlands to see a different style of Carnival.

Feb 7^th – Feb 8^th – One night in Paris.  Didn’t see the Eiffel tower, didn’t go to the Louvre.  But man, did I have a blast driving through the traffic of Paris.  One of the most exciting things I’ve done so far.

Feb 8^th – 12^th – Bordeaux, France.  Man what a beautiful, fun city.  I would live here.  Large city atmosphere, with a small town feel.  Plus some of the most amazing architecture.  Stayed a few nights in a 200+ year old home and then another few days with an 8person family just outside the city.  Drove through miles and miles of vineyards and took a daytrip out to Europe’s largest sand dune, Dune de Pyla.

Feb 12- Daytrip to San Sebastian, Spain.  Such an amazing costal city.  Absolutely amazing.  Wish I spent more time here.

Feb 12^th – Feb 14^th – Bilbao, Spain.  An hour past San Sebastian.  Very cool industrial city turned artistic center.  Did some riding along the coast and a good hike out to an unforgettable point with 270deg of ocean view.

Feb 14^th – Feb 15^th- Madrid, Spain.  Scheduled lunch with the group for Pueblo Inglis, the English language immersion course I taught at for a week.  Had Spanish paella for the first time and got to see a private showing of Spanish Flamenco.  One of the most difficult cities to drive in.

Feb 15^th – Drove out to La Alberca, Spain just outside Salamanca.  Wow.  Some of the most amazing mountain roads I’ve ever ridden.  These roads were designed with motorcycles in mind.  Drove through countless olive groves, and villages with populations of under 100.  Beautiful.  The trip took twice as long as I kept stopping to take pictures that do little justice to the area I was in.

Feb 15^th – Feb 22^nd – Pueblo Inglis in La Alberca.  About the most fun one can have while working for free.  Had a semi-private villa with maid service, 3 excellent meals a day and an endless supply of Spanish wine for the price of… talking.  Excellent program designed to help Spanish business professionals gain more confidence with their already high level of English by forcing them to speak and listen to English 24/7.  Made some great friends, some of whom I will be visiting with very shortly.  The afterhours were spent dancing and singing and just having a great time.

Feb 22^nd – Feb 24^th – La Alberca, Spain.  As I was quite exhausted from the previous week, I spent two nights in the quiet village of La Alberca. 

Feb 24^th – Feb 25^th – Drove back to Madrid and met up with a few Australians that I had befriended in La Alberca.  Went out for some oxtail and drinks.  Following day had difficulty finding a place to store my bike for my upcoming trip to Finland.  Last minute decision to leave it at the airport.  Madrid is still holding strong as the most difficult city to drive in.

Feb 25^th – Flew from Madrid to Helsinki as funds were running low and had some business to attend to.

Feb 25^th – April 8^th Helsinki

Now that wasn’t too hard.