Mallorca

First of all I apologize for not being more diligent with this. Midterms, exhaustion, stress, and other distractions have kept me from writing but I’ve gotten through all that and back into some down time so I’m going to do my best to fill everyone in and get you all up to speed.

Two weeks ago (it really has been a long time since I’ve done this…) I went to Mallorca. I went with Brandon and a former SLU student Melisa, who now goes to SMU in Dallas, and her roommate Chelsi. In an earlier post I described Cadiz as a Spanish San Diego, only nicer. Similarly, Mallorca is like the Hawaii of Spain, on steroids. Seriously, this is one of the most pleasant places on the planet. I’m honeymooning there when the time comes (not anytime soon mind you, but that’s how much of an impression this place made on me).

I was there in February, a month that brings gray, gray, and more gray to both St. Louis and Ohio. I dread February; it’s usually a month that is full of conversations that start off with mere despair and depression but eventually you realize that you have abandoned your faith in humanity. You start off innocently enough, you still think there is hope, “dude let’s just go. Get your keys, cash out your account and let’s go to Florida.” As the month goes on you slip into morbid philosophical discussions like, “If death had a door, what would its doorbell sound like?” By Valentine’s Day you give up on philosophy and discuss more practical issues, “would you rather be eaten shark or run over by a bus?” (The answer, of course, is a bus. You have greater access to buses in St. Louis and you are so miserable that practicality trumps the bad-ass effect of being eaten by Jaws). But in Mallorca the only real question is, “do you want to eat and then go to the beach or beach and then eat?” (The answer, of course, is eat on the beach).

We were there for three days and the airfare and lodging was less than €100 per person. You know, me writing this is pointless. I should just show you pictures and comment on them so it doesn’t sound like I’m gloating so much. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one the most pleasant places on Earth, Mallorca:

This is the main attraction of Mallorca, the Cathedral. My Spanish art teacher tells me that it is the tallest Spain, all I know is that it's freaking gorgeous. Inside the cathedral there is an exhibition by very famous contemporary artist from Mallorca named Barcelo. His work inside the cathedral is somewhat controversial because of the clash of styles between the Gothic architecture and the very modern work he created.

His work fills in an apse in the cathedral and it depicts a man seemingly coming through the wall (Christ), a massive wave with fish coming through the wall and a land scene with trees and rocks.

Other things that we did including touring the castle (right next to the cathedral) and walked around a site that used to be Arab bathhouses.

This is the view of the harbor of Palma (the capital city of Mallorca) from the castle.

Arab bathhouses:

This, of course, is where I spent most of my time. We stayed in a hotel that was literally 45 feet from the Mediterranean in a city called Plamanova. The beach. (Reminder: This is FEBRUARY):

OK kiddos, that's all I've got from Mallorca. If you're green with envy, well, that's kinda what I was aiming for. I'll end this with a artsy photo of me not looking at the camera. Which reminds me, none of these photos are mine. All photos seen here or that I've been tagged in on facebook were either taken by Chelsi or Melisa. I was in such a rush to get to the airport on time that I forgot my camera, but I think they filled in okay. More posts in the very near future. I promise.

It was the best of nights, it was the worst of days: Jerez, Cadiz, Sevilla Pt. 2

Brandon and I arrived in Sevilla and had no idea what we were doing or where we were going. As little as I knew about Cadiz I knew even less about Sevilla. We went to the tourist office in the train station and had them book a hostel for us and then set off to find said hostel. Naturally we couldn’t find it. Sevilla, like Cadiz, has tight little roads and walkways with tall buildings on each side, which is very disorienting for foreigners. We wandered around for a while in scene that I’m sure if looked at from overheard resembled two mice in a maze looking for the cheese. We found another hostel in the labyrinth and checked in there.

OK it’s at this point of the story where I get really, really, really stupid. If you have some imagine of me as pristine angel who is vying for sainthood, please close this window now, I’m just going to disappoint you. We good? Only people who want to hear about the drunkest night of my life left? Good. Oh who am I kidding, there’s only like 4 people actually reading this and two of them are my parents and they already know this story. Anyway, enough of the disclaimer, on to my belligerence.

Drinking is expensive here, especially mixed drinks. To combat this, Brandon and I bought a fifth of Smirnoff and a six pack of coke and proceeded to quench our thirst. After essentially killing off the bottle we called the girls we had met in the Madrid train station two nights earlier (I told you they would come back into play) and agreed to meet them somewhere. Needless to say, I was, oh shall we say, “buzzed” when we met up with them. I also hadn’t eaten all day, so we all thought it best to get a little food, which is just what I ate, a little bit of food. Not nearly enough food, I would come to learn. Or actually having food in my system might be completely moot with how hammered I got that night.

So, with the vodka already doing its work I had a glass of wine at dinner, or maybe two. After dinner we did a bit of a bar crawl, mostly trying to find a place that was still open. It’s hazy exactly how many places we stopped at before reaching what was going to be my final destination. I think we went to two bars, and two rum and cokes and a number of some cinnamon flavored shots, before we found a crowded little stand around bar. They had musicians, but no stage, everyone was standing and occasionally a song would break out. I ordered another rum and coke and at this point was quite drunk. I was having a fantastic time though. I met an older Spanish woman and an older Spanish man, both of whom I spoke impeccable Spanish with. Whatever normal hesitancy I have with speaking Spanish with the locals drowned in the alcohol. The older guy and I talked for probably 45 minutes before the forces in my stomach started working against me. The wine, the rum, the vodka, the cinnamon shots, they had all come together in collective effort against me. My forces were no match, and all of the sudden I was violently ill.

At this point I want everyone to know that I’m planning on composing a formal apology letter to Sevilla and its people, in Spanish. However since I’m doing it in Spanish it may take a while.

So yeah, I got sick. I threw up. I threw up a lot and in numerous venues. Brandon, who was also very intoxicated himself, and I tried to walk to back to our hostel. I say “tried to” because honestly, I had a towel on my head to wipe vomit from my mouth, keep the torrential rain off my head, and because I probably thought it looked cool at the time. I have never been so drunk in my entire life, and this is coming from a 20 year old college kid. It was a stumble back to hostel. It also might have been an authentic, get a Priest to come out and confirm it, touched by an angel miracle that we found the place. We were both smashed out our minds and we managed to find a needle in a haystack, and I’m not sure we found it on our own volition. I threw up again at the hostel in a trashcan and passed out.

The morning came all too quickly, as it often does after nights such as this. I threw up before showering and knew that I was in for a long day. As the night before was the drunkest I’ve ever been, never in my life was I as hung over as I was Sunday morning. We lugged ourselves out of bed; I threw up again, gathered our belongings, and called a cab. It was pouring rain, we didn’t have any dry clothes as the clothes we had on last night were still went from the monsoon. The cab took us to bus station where I again, threw up. I had finally removed all foreign material from my body; I was ravenous and thirsty but wasn’t going to be burned again: no food until Madrid. Unfortunately for me the problem was two fold, let’s say that I was loosing water out both ends. By the time the bus came I had gotten the courage to take down some water; my body gave back the water before I got on the bus.

There was a bathroom on the bus, thank God. But it was one of the most unpleasant places to be, even by my standards (keep in mind my head was in a bus station toilet earlier that day). I used it a total of 4 times on the 7 hour ride back to Madrid. We stopped in the middle of our trip, I was dying of thirst. I ran into the station and bought 500ml of water and, like an idiot, drank all of it. 10 minutes later I gave back 500ml of water. We hit traffic on the way back and sat for an hour. Sleep was impossible; the bus was noisy, crowded and bumpy. I wanted to die. Hell is a 7 hour bus ride with the worst hangover of your life. I was finally able to hold down water by Madrid. I skipped school the next day; just because I could drink water and not throw it up didn’t mean I was still retaining water. A good 48 hours after I stopped drinking, I started getting over my hang over. It was the best of nights and the worst of days.

It was the best of nights, it was the worst of days: Jerez, Cadiz, Sevilla Pt. 1

My good friend Austin from Colorado is doing a semester at sea, and fortunately for both of us he was going to be making port in Cadiz, a city in southern Spain while I was doing my study abroad in Madrid. Austin and I were roommates freshman year at Saint Louis and lived on the same floor as my current roommate in Spain, Brandon. We coordinated a trip for the three of us meet up in Cadiz this last weekend. As has become typical with me on this trip, transportation, the getting from A to B, was difficult to the point of comical. Needless to say, the trip to Cadiz was no different.

Having Fridays off from school is a luxury that really promotes travel and Brandon and I decided to maximize our trip by leaving for Cadiz on Thursday night, that way we could have all of Friday to play. There are two ways to get to Cadiz from Madrid: train or bus. Obviously the train is faster and more expense while the bus is slower and cheaper. For those of you who don’t know this about me, I have inherited a lot of characteristics from my father. Another thing that you might not know is that I occasionally (and lovingly) refer to my father as the “Cheap Bastard.” With these two pieces of information in hand the choice between bus or train is very clear (even clearer when you incorporate a third piece of information: the Cheap Bastard is bankrolling my trip). We took the last bus of the night out of Madrid at close to one o’clock in the morning after meeting some fellow Americans in the bus station. They were also taking a weekend trip, theirs to Sevilla, a city not far from Cadiz (keep this in the back of your mind, they come into play later). We were slated to get into Cadiz at 7:45 AM. Believe me, over seven hours on a bus isn’t nearly as glamorous as it sounds, but Brandon and I chatted for a while, popped a few sleeping aids and drifted off. There was a pit stop about halfway between Cadiz and Madrid where we again met up with the same group of Americans from Toledo going to Sevilla but we were soon back asleep on the bus.

I woke to the sound of Spanish gibberish over the loudspeaker and a good number of people standing up, putting on coats, and gathering luggage. I looked at the clock, it was a quarter past 7, too early to be in Cadiz but it sure looked like everyone was getting off the bus. I asked the women ahead of me in Spanish if we were in Cadiz, she said “Si, Cadiz.” Good enough for me. I woke Brandon, got my stuff together and got off the bus. I still had doubts as to if we were really here so I asked another man once outside the bus if we were in Cadiz and he gave the same answer the woman had given before. It was dark and I had never been here before, who was I to question their answers even if we were in Cadiz a good half hour before we were supposed to be there?

Austin was going to meet us at 9:30 when he got back from Sevilla so Brandon and I got a few cups of coffee and started killing time. The dual bus/train station had machines where you could buy a ticket and displays for arrivals and departures. Both Brandon and I found it strange that there would be arrivals and departures for Cadiz on those boards since we were in Cadiz, but we didn’t let it bother us too much.

At this point I know what you’re thinking and you’re right: clearly we were not in Cadiz. I suppose Brandon and I chalked up the anomaly of Cadiz being on the arrival/departure boards as “those crazy Spanish, trying to sell you tickets to place you already are!” or something like that. No? Not buying it? Well look if you’re reading this you’re obviously a friend of mine so cut me some slack okay? I really thought we were in Cadiz.

After coffee and bread, washing up and sunrise we decided to take a walk around. I hadn’t done any research on Cadiz before I left, but I did know that it was a coastal town (obviously since my friend doing a semester at sea was making port there) so Brandon and I set off to find ourselves an ocean. After walking about 8 blocks in every direction and someone saying “I think I can smell the ocean this way,” we found ourselves landlocked. One of us said what the other was thinking and we went back to the train station, where I asked an employee there what city I was in. I felt a little like Robin Williams in Jumanji when he comes out of the game and asks what year it is, I mean honestly, how often do people come up to ask what city they’re currently in? She said that I was in Jerez. I bought a train ticket and informed Austin that we would be late.

Cadiz is nice. No, Cadiz is really nice. Cadiz is the San Diego of Spain, only nicer. Yeah, that’s the kind of nice I’m talking about. We met up with Austin and his friend from semester at sea named Bubbers. We spent the day walking around, enjoying the sun and the palm trees. We found a little park and took a bus to the beach. It was windy and in the low 60s but it was by far the most pleasant day I’ve had weather wise in this country. I put on a green pastel polo and let myself get carried away by the promise of sun. Later that night, the rain came and we wound back and forth among the tight little streets from bar to bar until we settled on one that was infected with semester at sea students. We rubbed elbows and downed drinks. The semester at sea kids were anxious to be off the boat for the first time but mostly I was having a good time with Austin. Brandon and I left before Austin did and wound up taking an incredibly indirect route to the hostel, but made it there safe and damp.

The next morning we met Austin and Bubbers in a park so they could get internet access and all of us could enjoy the sun. To say the park was pleasant would be an understatement. It was the kind of place that you could spend the entire day just sitting and watching. It seemed like all of Cadiz had come out to play that Saturday morning and I took my camera out to snap a few pictures of the locals. I even caught some kids playing soccer on tape. There’s a video of these two Spanish boys play fighting. I’ll post both of the videos at the bottom of this entry. Austin and Bubbers had to get back on the boat to get down to Morocco. This was a day earlier than we had originally anticipated, and having seen quite a bit of Cadiz Brandon and I decided to take a train up Sevilla. We said our goodbyes, bought our tickets and were in Sevilla around 7:30 that night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzgY7CVmn7k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypn_c92bOG0

Seeing an adorable golden retriever puppy in Cadiz and the endless series of yellow labs in Madrid prompted this post

I miss my dogs. It’s strange that this is happened here and now considering that I live away from them most of the year anyway and I have an entire continent to distract me from my home life, but the fact of the matter is I miss my boys. Some of you have heard me talk about them, some of you haven’t. Both dogs are incredibly sweet and one is just as useless as the other. Beckett is a young Golden Doodle (a hybrid of Golden Retriever and Poodle) and Sebastian (often called Sea Bass by my parents and I) is an English Sheepdog/Irish Wolfhound mix.

Beckett is a terrorist. I’ve told many people that my dog is a terrorist and I’ve informed Beckett that I know that he is a terrorist, but Homeland Security be dammed, he will not be deterred and remains flippant to my warnings. I hear you asking, “just how exactly is this dog a terrorist, Joel?” Well good people, he started small by stealing socks/underwear/hats/other objects left on the floor. A laundry dog, if you will. But then he upped the ante by taking said socks/underwear/hats/other objects left on the floor and putting them in our swimming pool. You never really get used to pulling your favorite pair of underwear out of the filter of the pool. But even these acts of resistance are tame in comparison to his most egregious sin to date: when I got home from Ireland, Beckett ate my passport. My dog didn’t try to steal my identity, he tried to destroy it.

He also has the bravado of terrorist. His self-importance and holier-than-thou attitude is probably his greatest strength. It makes him absolutely adorable and forgivable for not only the sins he’s committed and the sins he is currently committing, but the sins he will undoubtedly commit in the future. Here’s a typical scene with the Beck Boy: the family is sitting together watching television. Beckett will stroll into the room with Sea Bass flanking him. One member of the family will notice that Beckett has something in his mouth. Beckett knows you see it. Beckett wants you to see it. So you will ask him to come here and he will come exactly 2 inches outside of arms length, flaunting the sock or whatever piece of treasure all the while. Luckily Beckett isn’t brilliant and using a highly sophisticated collaborative effort by two human beings where someone drives the terrorist to the other which then allows the second human to retrieve the object from Beck’s mouth. One or both of the humans will scold Beckett and make him promise that he won’t do it again, to which he casts his curly head over his shoulder and gives the now patented. “who me? Oh, well. Go fuck yourself,” look. It is the most effective response that always brings a smile and occasionally prompts me to pick him up off the floor and bring him to eye level for more thorough interrogation. It always ends with him in my lap licking my face and me play fighting against it while laughing my ass off. You can’t help but love this dog, even though he is detrimental to the well being of your valuables.

Sea Bass is the consummate side kick. He’s the grunt worker, the enforcer, the cheerleader. He’s the Lennie to Beckett’s George, for those of you who are up on your Of Mice and Men lingo. Loyal, dutiful, faithful, and not terribly bright. Like his boss though, Sea Bass is outrageously lovable. It’s his sweetness that overwhelms you. The dog likes nothing more than being petted and having you bear with his bad breath for a few pats of the head. When we first adopted Sebastian from a less than ideal situation he was so skinny I called him my Kenyan Sheepdog. I think this confused him so he put on a few pounds and I didn’t call him that anymore. Physically he is all legs. He looks like a canine version of the big walking machines on the snow planet in “Return of the Jedi.” Grace is simply unattainable for him, but it is all forgiven when you see the big goofball slip on the wood floor or accidentally tumble into the pool.

The two of them are really quite a duo; by duo I mean less Batman and Robin and more of a curly haired Pinky and The Brain. Beckett is a spoiled, bratty, useless dog that leaves a trail of destruction behind him and Sea Bass is always there dutifully tagging along. “So, what do you want to do today Beck?”

“The same thing we do everyday, Sea Bass. TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!”