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. 

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.

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.

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.

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 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…

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. 

Forgoing my worrying over my motorcycle’s current condition/location, I am feeling quite good at the moment.  Not sure if it’s the excitement of continuing my adventure or the fact that I have gotten quite comfortable in traveling in this style and have a lot of confidence in what I am doing.  I’m not so much flinging myself into the unknown as I felt like I had done so when this whole thing began.  Not to say this has become routine, but that I have become very aware of my surroundings and my confidence is growing daily.

However the bike is still occupying most of my mind.  Let me give a bit of the back story here.  When I left my bike in Munich, I had contacted the local BMW dealership and repair facility and requested that I store my bike at their facility.  It apparently was a common request that they fulfilled willingly, for a fee.  So I got it into my head that ALL BMW dealers offer this service.  So four hours before my flight left Madrid for Helsinki, I headed off towards the Madrid BMW dealership.  After getting quite lost and frustrated, I finally arrived at the dealership only to find out that the repair facility was at a different location.  Not far, but on the other side of the major motorway that had given me so much trouble getting to this first destination. 

So I head back onto the road, get sufficiently lost again and finally locate the service center by driving down at least one sidewalk and heading down a few one way streets in the wrong direction out of sheer frustration (sorry mom).  Entering the BMW service department, I get what I think is a strong of good luck.  It appears that the service manager only speaks Spanish and I cannot get my point across as to what I need.  Turns out that there was a local man from Madrid, that had lived in the states for many years was in the room with us.  He overheard my struggles and offered to help.  I thought I was home free.  As luck would have it (and if you know me by now, my luck is only bad) this center doesn’t offer storage and will not give on the policy.  So the gentleman helping out suggested that I submit the bike for some service and be a bit late in acquiring it when the work was completed.  Seemed reasonable. 

So we spend most of my remaining moments before I needed to head to the airport filling out the service request forms and booking the bike in.  The manager states that the work can be scheduled for the following Thursday, and said that was fine and I was not in a hurry.  Once everything was completed, I requested that they call me a cab to take me to the airport and the manager refused!  Confused as to why, we inquired as to why they would not and he politely replied that they refuse to hold the bike until Thursday, but I can return Thursday morning with it.  And if I refused, they would charge me 50€/day storage fee.  Trying not to blow my top, I try to finagle a different result.  After too many futile attempts, I abruptly leave and thank the gentleman that had helped in the translation.  As I do not want to miss my flight, I do the one thing I can think of. 

Yep, long term parking.  My only hope here was that the fees for the long term lot in Spain were not as offensive as in NY.  Yup, you guessed it, I was dead wrong.  How does 350€ per month sound?!?  After I recuperate from the shock of the price given to me by the parking attendant, I ask the woman gently if she knew of any other option since the six or so weeks planned in Helsinki would cost me over 500€.  She then explained to me that at the airport near one of the arrival passenger pick-up points, there is an unofficial motorcycle parking area.  I thank the woman and with desperation setting in, I head to the terminal arrivals. 

I reach the area mentioned by the woman and do a slow drive by.  Just as she mentioned, there was a sidewalk area opposite the terminal that was under an overhead walkway that joined the terminal with the parking area.  On the sidewalk area behind a steel railing, a dozen or so motorcycles were parked.  With a small sigh of relief I drive a full circle and pulled into the section with the other bikes.  Now normally, I would not think to park a bike illegally at an airport.  But throughout Madrid and the rest of Spain, I and every other motorcyclist freely park on the sidewalks without any repercussions.  I remove all valuables, lock up the bike and hoped I would see it again.

After I arrived in Helsinki, I started freaking out about it being there.  So I found out a friend who was in La Alberca with me was going through the airport.  So I emailed him and asked if he could check on the bike for me.  He sent me back a message a few days later saying I have nothing to worry about.  That was four weeks ago. 

Ok getting ready to land.  I feel like I’m going to throw up…

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…

Otherwise the time was spent working with Maria at the Dog Hut and getting certain things with Bluu dealt with.  Not really much fun as there was a lot to do and most days were quite filled.  We did continue on with the tradition of family dinner Sundays and I was also given quite a treat for my birthday.  Maria contacted my mom and got my favorite desert recipe for her mother to make.  Enough to make one a lil homesick. 

All in all a good couple of weeks, albeit a bit stressful.  I am quite excited to be back out traveling again, with a long list of things I want to do.  If I can accomplish just half of them, I will be one happy guy.