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Yesterday at the Busco Cafe I had two glasses of vino tinto, and some olives, and I met Layla, a woman of 30 who studies physics in Zaragoza and is from Turkey. I asked if she´d been to Alanya because I have a close personal connection to that town, and she said yes she grew up there. No shit!
She´s in Spain because of a broken heart on the Lycian Way. also a place I know sort of and want to spend more time on. Wow! She was planning to spend the whole night drinking and dancing and had not rented a hostel or anything; also planned to go swimming this morning in the sea. I applaud her energy. She encouraged me also to go dancing all night and yes there was a show called Happy Techno that sounded pretty fun but after my second wine I had run out of pleasant conversation and all I wanted was bed, so came back to Itaca Hostel, had a very good hot shower and slept hard, as I have since I got here, somehow sleep is deeper and hotter and more sleep like, sort of like the orange I had this morning was more orangey than oranges at home; I have heard there are no GMO foods in Europe though I don´t believe it, but it was a damn good orange.
Layla liked the name of my hostel, Itaca, and said she feels Ithaka is her home because it is Odysseus´s home and that´s her people. Fascinating! I love Turkey so much because yes, yes, yes, that is where all the myths really happened...
anyway ...
walked to a flea market this morning, got lost, asked directions in the fruit store, found it eventually. Bought a blue T shirt for 1 euro. Thought about a purse but it was 15 and had a weak stitched connection on the strap ... it was cool though very soft leather, small but not too small. I ate my orange in the plaza, sacrificing my clean hanky to blow my nose in. Clean hankies are precious. I walked back and got lost a few more times and found the Basilica del Pi, which was awesome, a hexagonal-angle red-brick big old church, beautiful, a large square with the wet sand ground, cafe tables under awnings, some good accordion-fiddle-guitar buskers, and a super cool sculpture that was like seven stories tall, like 8 silver giant wires anchored in the ground and twisting up into the sky in 4 pairs, like unraveled coat-hangers twisted back together again to make a tall skinny unruly tepee. I would have taken a picture but didn´t have phone with me, on purpose, it is always the case that I have more fun and see more with no phone on me. Call me superstitious and you´ll be right but I´m the one that´s right.
Also this morning in my lostness I encountered a marching band, heard it first, they took up the whole narrow street ... dancers first, maybe 30 or so of them, all youngish like high schoolish folks wearing blue-striped T shirts with some sort of lyre-shaped red insignia on the back, and white pants and blue and white striped espadrilles ... then the drum major with a red whistle, and perhaps 15 drummers, and about 3 trumpets in back. The dancers did a simple sort of step left and right as they walked forward, and also all carried these things ... like a wooden paddle with a hooked blade-shape on the end, or some had those big wooden forks you see hanging in peoples kitchens... decorated with flowers. Blue and white flowers. They were loud as hell and awesome, and set off a bunch of fireworks too, super cool. I had taken some random side street and had just passed a club I forget the name, coral humoristas or something, one or two old men outside drinking from bottles. The fireworks were set off right around there, so maybe they were related.
I´m drinking a nice cold San Miguel. Shitty beer but is still good. My friend from the hostel here said he will give me one of his to try when I´m done. He and his buddy were in the doorway when I left this morning, drinking San Miguels, and I asked if they knew where the Placa Salvador was and he said no idea, very big happy smile. I found it, the lady at the fruit store helped me, said ¨ven,¨ to show me how to get to Carrer de Saint Pau, etc.
Saw lots of people drinking beers this morning, from giant big-gulp-sized glass tankards, and sangria, with these enormous straws like 2 feet long. Church bells too, sure, insistent, not like mellow but like, get your ass in here, church bells.
Of course most of my rambles are necessarily in touristy areas because that´s where my hostel and the museums are, so I am among the hordes of tourists, overhearing American bickering and German whatevering, looking at peoples´ clothes, bag choices, etc. There´s shitloads of delicious looking pastries everywhere but somehow I am just not hungry for the pastries, I dunno. They are far cheaper than at home, like the usual cost here is 2.5 euros for a coffee and a croissant, maybe that´s not FAR cheaper but it is cheaper. Lots of donuts.
Also, a word on buskers. Yesterday and today keep seeing guys with a speaker playing their background music and singing, loud a capella, these Italian love opera type songs, some with intermittent dramatic speeches, in Italian. Fun, but weird. Also a guy playing on pan pipes the song Carmela Soprano used to listen to when she did housework, I know because I watched the Sopranos all the way through a couple of times. It was so beautiful I just about started to cry, though I was sad anyway. Also I saw a clown. But he wasn´t doing anything just standing there with a huge top hat with an orange scarf around it and too short pants, and a suitcase, and some people nearby that had maybe just been soliciting his clown services, I dunno, I was walkin. I was expecting more street performers but maybe I go to bed too early. Maybe they are out there now.
On the Ramblas this morning too there was a huge parade of people with a banner commemorating WW2 soldiers, a lot of ladies carrying black and white photos of their fallen men, someone pulling a speaker playing some patriotic song and many ladies singing along, lotsa red carnations. It was sweet. I like that Ramblas. The flower shops smell nice. The tourist shit is easy to ignore. There are so many people it´s easy to just flow. I dont feel pressured. I like it here.
I might go to the Picasso museum. What would Picasso do?
Earlier I said it reminded me of Athens but It´s not as much like Athens really. There is more space, feels like; the streets are narrow and so on but less cobblestones, more streets, I dunno ,... it just feels like there is more room. People seem more relaxed. There dont seem to be as many damn cars, cars are not even really part of it, you can just walk in the street except at the huge arterials.
I´m all sweaty. It was raining a tiny bit this morning but then it was muggy and now it´s sunny. My friend with the beers is gone, wtf.
Today I have only had one coffee, one apple and one orange. Is it really 3 pm, probably because I slept like crazy last night. Yesterday here´s what I ate : ... a cappuccino ... a sandwich and coffee ... a slice of mushroom pizza that was absolutely fantastic and had roasted garlic on it ... a bunch of spicy cashews that I carried all the way from home ... wine and olives. Jeez no wonder I´m hungry now. Maybe I will actually go to a restaurant and spend money and eat a real meal. Crazy.
She´s in Spain because of a broken heart on the Lycian Way. also a place I know sort of and want to spend more time on. Wow! She was planning to spend the whole night drinking and dancing and had not rented a hostel or anything; also planned to go swimming this morning in the sea. I applaud her energy. She encouraged me also to go dancing all night and yes there was a show called Happy Techno that sounded pretty fun but after my second wine I had run out of pleasant conversation and all I wanted was bed, so came back to Itaca Hostel, had a very good hot shower and slept hard, as I have since I got here, somehow sleep is deeper and hotter and more sleep like, sort of like the orange I had this morning was more orangey than oranges at home; I have heard there are no GMO foods in Europe though I don´t believe it, but it was a damn good orange.
Layla liked the name of my hostel, Itaca, and said she feels Ithaka is her home because it is Odysseus´s home and that´s her people. Fascinating! I love Turkey so much because yes, yes, yes, that is where all the myths really happened...
anyway ...
walked to a flea market this morning, got lost, asked directions in the fruit store, found it eventually. Bought a blue T shirt for 1 euro. Thought about a purse but it was 15 and had a weak stitched connection on the strap ... it was cool though very soft leather, small but not too small. I ate my orange in the plaza, sacrificing my clean hanky to blow my nose in. Clean hankies are precious. I walked back and got lost a few more times and found the Basilica del Pi, which was awesome, a hexagonal-angle red-brick big old church, beautiful, a large square with the wet sand ground, cafe tables under awnings, some good accordion-fiddle-guitar buskers, and a super cool sculpture that was like seven stories tall, like 8 silver giant wires anchored in the ground and twisting up into the sky in 4 pairs, like unraveled coat-hangers twisted back together again to make a tall skinny unruly tepee. I would have taken a picture but didn´t have phone with me, on purpose, it is always the case that I have more fun and see more with no phone on me. Call me superstitious and you´ll be right but I´m the one that´s right.
Also this morning in my lostness I encountered a marching band, heard it first, they took up the whole narrow street ... dancers first, maybe 30 or so of them, all youngish like high schoolish folks wearing blue-striped T shirts with some sort of lyre-shaped red insignia on the back, and white pants and blue and white striped espadrilles ... then the drum major with a red whistle, and perhaps 15 drummers, and about 3 trumpets in back. The dancers did a simple sort of step left and right as they walked forward, and also all carried these things ... like a wooden paddle with a hooked blade-shape on the end, or some had those big wooden forks you see hanging in peoples kitchens... decorated with flowers. Blue and white flowers. They were loud as hell and awesome, and set off a bunch of fireworks too, super cool. I had taken some random side street and had just passed a club I forget the name, coral humoristas or something, one or two old men outside drinking from bottles. The fireworks were set off right around there, so maybe they were related.
I´m drinking a nice cold San Miguel. Shitty beer but is still good. My friend from the hostel here said he will give me one of his to try when I´m done. He and his buddy were in the doorway when I left this morning, drinking San Miguels, and I asked if they knew where the Placa Salvador was and he said no idea, very big happy smile. I found it, the lady at the fruit store helped me, said ¨ven,¨ to show me how to get to Carrer de Saint Pau, etc.
Saw lots of people drinking beers this morning, from giant big-gulp-sized glass tankards, and sangria, with these enormous straws like 2 feet long. Church bells too, sure, insistent, not like mellow but like, get your ass in here, church bells.
Of course most of my rambles are necessarily in touristy areas because that´s where my hostel and the museums are, so I am among the hordes of tourists, overhearing American bickering and German whatevering, looking at peoples´ clothes, bag choices, etc. There´s shitloads of delicious looking pastries everywhere but somehow I am just not hungry for the pastries, I dunno. They are far cheaper than at home, like the usual cost here is 2.5 euros for a coffee and a croissant, maybe that´s not FAR cheaper but it is cheaper. Lots of donuts.
Also, a word on buskers. Yesterday and today keep seeing guys with a speaker playing their background music and singing, loud a capella, these Italian love opera type songs, some with intermittent dramatic speeches, in Italian. Fun, but weird. Also a guy playing on pan pipes the song Carmela Soprano used to listen to when she did housework, I know because I watched the Sopranos all the way through a couple of times. It was so beautiful I just about started to cry, though I was sad anyway. Also I saw a clown. But he wasn´t doing anything just standing there with a huge top hat with an orange scarf around it and too short pants, and a suitcase, and some people nearby that had maybe just been soliciting his clown services, I dunno, I was walkin. I was expecting more street performers but maybe I go to bed too early. Maybe they are out there now.
On the Ramblas this morning too there was a huge parade of people with a banner commemorating WW2 soldiers, a lot of ladies carrying black and white photos of their fallen men, someone pulling a speaker playing some patriotic song and many ladies singing along, lotsa red carnations. It was sweet. I like that Ramblas. The flower shops smell nice. The tourist shit is easy to ignore. There are so many people it´s easy to just flow. I dont feel pressured. I like it here.
I might go to the Picasso museum. What would Picasso do?
Earlier I said it reminded me of Athens but It´s not as much like Athens really. There is more space, feels like; the streets are narrow and so on but less cobblestones, more streets, I dunno ,... it just feels like there is more room. People seem more relaxed. There dont seem to be as many damn cars, cars are not even really part of it, you can just walk in the street except at the huge arterials.
I´m all sweaty. It was raining a tiny bit this morning but then it was muggy and now it´s sunny. My friend with the beers is gone, wtf.
Today I have only had one coffee, one apple and one orange. Is it really 3 pm, probably because I slept like crazy last night. Yesterday here´s what I ate : ... a cappuccino ... a sandwich and coffee ... a slice of mushroom pizza that was absolutely fantastic and had roasted garlic on it ... a bunch of spicy cashews that I carried all the way from home ... wine and olives. Jeez no wonder I´m hungry now. Maybe I will actually go to a restaurant and spend money and eat a real meal. Crazy.
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