Spain: Percentages of a Whole ~ The Infinite Abyss

January 29 - February 5 2011

So sometimes whatever plan you think you are going to have for a trip must occasionally be altered, changed, or in this trip, all together scrapped and rethought. The original plan was that Becky and her friend Laura were going to go to Southern Spain a week before me, travel the area, then head to Morocco. A week later I was to fly into Southern Spain, make my way to Morocco to meet them then a week later be on my own to do as I pleased when they made their way back to Spain and eventually to Istanbul.

What ended up happening was that I arrived a day before Becky did; Laura couldn't come at all, and the two of us worked our way north through Spain instead of south through Morocco. Although I enjoyed having the ability to change and alter the plan to best meet our current situation, I could see that diverging from the initial plan was killing a little piece of Becky's organizational soul. Due to a massive paperwork fail and some bad luck, work permits and visas paperwork were not in order in time for Becky and Laura to legally leave the country requiring Becky to turn her 2 week holiday into a 1 week holiday and necessitating Laura to cancel her trip altogether. Some how, in Becky's anger, I became the perpetrating culprit in all this - I could only apologize profusely for the wrongs I had obviously done her and tell her that I would take lots of pictures and try my best not to look at an Spanish women while I was there for a week on my own. She was less than placated.

My holiday was left unaffected but Becky's was cut in half. Trying to make the best of her week, we decided to table Morocco for another trip and just stay in Spain, which as it turned out was the right choice. Even with 2 weeks, time would be way too rushed and too many things would have to be condensed and passed over to accommodate our time frame.

I spent the first day by myself in Malaga touring the sites and hanging out with this girl I had met at the airport the previous evening. We had take the same shuttle bus into the city from the airport but when I had said goodbye to her on the bus, gone to my hostel and fallen asleep; she had preceded to stay up all night with a bunch of Erasmus students at a bar, drinking and dancing and not sleeping. When I ran into her the next day, she looked as if she had spent all night doing exactly that. Turns out this was the first weekend that she has had free from her husband and child in half a year and I got the impression she was trying to pack in all the excitement and adventure of the last 6 months in an elongated weekend. She wasn't failing.

Fortress in Malaga

After we randomly ran into each other on the street we spent the morning looking at fortresses and palaces and engaging in general travel chit-chat. She was an interesting chick. Born in Hungary, raised in Austria, married to a Spaniard and somewhere along the line picked up an impressive amount of English. She spent the better part of an hour telling me how she plans to pass this on to her child, allowing him to learn three different languages. I couldn't help but be jealous of the obvious opportunities accompanied with speaking several languages fluently. I think allowing a child to be fluent in more than one language is one of the greatest gifts a parent can bestow.

We parted with her needing to catch a bus to Granada and me needing to catch a bus to the airport. I found out the night before that the simple directions from the airport to the hostel were not as simple as the hostel manager might have made it seem, rendering Becky's success percentage for a solo mission into town quite dismal.

After I picked her up from the airport we spent the rest of the night talking about our next move out of town. We walked around for awhile, went out for dinner than decided to head to Granada. As I knew that my brother had previously been to Granada when he studied in Spain for a semester, I emailed him asking for any advice he could give on the city. Turns out the only things he could helpfully mention about Granada was how having money while you were there would be a good idea, and if not, he could point me in the direction of a nice grate to sleep on to keep me warm during the night. Also, if this be the case like it was for him, he could recommend a good corner for optimal busking. But I would need a hacky sack - which I didn't have, or ever had, or will ever have.

Above Alahambra

Granada was a gorgeous mountain town that still seemed to retain its history, architecture and pulse from its previous Islamic roots but also had showed its modernity as a thriving Spanish city. This juxtaposition created a vibrancy and eclectic atmosphere in and around every corner we walked. The street music was fantastic and the city was eclipsed by the Alahambra palace that loomed from the mountain above. Becky and I spent the day traveling through the Alahambra appreciating the architecture and Islamic influence in the grand palace. On another note, I was actually quite impressed with the amount of Spanish I still retained. It seemed that everyday that I was in Spain I was speaking, listening, and reading better (as most museums I went to were solely written in Spanish) than I was the day before. Its nice to know that somewhere up in the dark recesses and void I call my brain this stuff still remains, dormant and ready to be called upon one day when I am sitting in a bar, conversing with a Spaniard over a discrepancy of how many beers I have had. Thank you brain.

Now, I have always been able to associate Tapas with being Spanish appetizers but I guess I never truly understood the implicated awesomeness that is the Tapas bar experience. Every bar having a different Tapa on special, and all being accompanied by a beer or 4, the tapa experience was just a bit short of magical. You crammed yourself into this noisy, standing room only place where you shouted out orders to servers who would return timely with assortments of meat platters and pork baguettes to be consumed with beers, music and a beautiful understanding that as soon as you finished this tapa, another one would be promptly brought to you. It is a concept that should be more widely adapted. Why sit and eat appetizers when you can stand? You just make that much more room for more and you are one step closer to the bathroom that the beers will undoubtedly necessitate.

This being my first midday nap country I have ever visited, it was a little strange at first. I guess when they said that everything would be closed during siesta hours, for some reason I didn't understand that everything would be closed during siesta hours. We arrived in Cordoba to an absolute ghost town; nothing open, nothing happening and no Tapas! We took in Cordoba without sounds or people and let its eeriness guide us down deserted alleys and empty riverside promenades. We thought it a perfect time to post up at some abandoned vantage point with a couple beers (purchased the previous day of course when stores were actually open to buy beer from) and wait for the city to wake up. We found out, oddly, that the city asleep was very similar to the city awake. Stores were not so much closed for siesta, but closed for business due to their collapsing economy. It was a sad note of the trip that was emphasized mostly in Cordoba than anywhere else we visited in Spain. So, calling another audible, we decided to rise early the next day and make our way to Seville.

Seville had the biggest cathedral I have ever seen. And yes, I know that if I had been to Paris that would be the biggest cathedral I have ever seen, but I haven't. Seville was obviously built around its enormous cathedral that dwarfed anything at its perimeter. We walked around it and took endless amounts of pictures of the ever-changing monstrosity that seemed to shape-shift as we went, throwing casted-shadows in our path that distorted and altered its immensity and furthered to demonstrate its wonderment and ingenuity.

Cathedral in Seville

Leap frogging on the previous day's idea, we managed to get to the local shop before the midday snooze fest, buy a few beers and post up on the banks of the river for the duration. Spain would emerge from its rejuvenating slumber to find us drifting the streets in a cerveza haze, hungry for Tapas, pork, and sangria.

Sevilla was where Becky and I would say goodbye. She would head back to Malaga to catch a return flight to Istanbul and I would spend another week traipsing about tapas bars and see where the Spanish wind would take me. I stood on the bus platform waving goodbye to a salty and displeased Becky, jealous of my additional week I was about to enjoy not working. Her bus pulled away and waned in the distance and as it turned out of sight another bus turned into sight as it approached the bus station platform. The bus got closer and I could finally make out the sign in its window indicating that it would be continuing on to Madrid. I, having no better plan I mind, ran back up to the main terminal to ask about booking a ticket on that bus. Night bus you say? Gets in at 6:30am the next morning you say? Perfecto.

Paella!

I bought a ticket on the spot and sat in satisfaction as my plans started to echo with an ever-enlargening grandiose voice. I would get a great night sleep on the bus, arrive in the early morning, wake up with Madrid, enjoy a coffee at a cafe as the sun christened a new Spanish day in front of my eyes, and when I was fully satiated on caffeine and baguettes, I would walk the streets to find a hostel that would most definitely be a stone's throw in any direction I chose to walk. It will be a morning fit for a lonely planet article. “Madrid in a Morning”, I would call it, by Nick Grasso.

Well, not only did the wind take me to Madrid, but along for the ride was the coldest cold front that Madrid had seen in the month of February in the last 20 years. Already, my gradiose-voiced plan was was being reduced to a muffled, crystallizing wimper - turning to ice as soon as it left my mouth. The bus made its way to the bus station in the dawning moments of the day somehow 3 hours earlier than planned. Not only would I not be waking up with Madrid for another 4 hours but the cold was cutting through me, leaving me mentally incapacitated and unable to recollect and differentiate between right and left.

The bus station dumped me in an area void of hotels, hostels, bars, or glove vendors for my fingers that now required visual confirmation to attest to their actuality. Desperate times called for desperate, legally-ambiguous measures. I first started following these guys without a clear idea of what I was doing or where they may have been going but as the walking continued, the blood circulated and the synapses re-fired: a plan was born. I followed these guys down several backstreets and alleyways, totally disoriented but too committed to this plan to back out at that point. I stayed close enough to still be able to follow through with the plan, but far enough away as to not draw attention to the creepiness that I was without a doubt exuding. I watched as they slowed at a building while one of them reached into his pocket for, what I hoped were, his keys. Jackpot! I took my position, poised and primed and within proximity to pounce at the appropriate time; they threw open the door, crossed the threshold and started up the steps just as I broke into a run behind them and flailingly threw my foot into the door jam, preventing its closure and my potential hypothermia.

I made my way to the barely warmer building staircase, sat down and shook uncontrollably. And so there I stayed for rest of the night. Me, my chattering teeth, and my ill-equipped attire, curled up on the steps against the wall trying to will any heat from the other side of the wall to my side. I sat there eeking out an existence while several times people that I assumed lived in the building would walk by me with a Spanish look of perplexity and disgust which could only be meekly met with a look of vagrancy and destitution.

My grand plan ended up being a 4 hour stint on a cement block staircase waiting for my testicles to make some sort a descent and for my extremities to return to a normal hue. As my finger tips thawed out, so did my impressions of Madrid - I arose from my cocoon of despondency and found myself a hostel. I went out and bought a new layer of clothing, finally got that coffee I wanted, and proceeded to walk the frigid streets of Madrid. I ended up spending the majority of my time with this Dutch guy, who was in town to show his modern art exhibit that I didn't care enough about to go see. Interestingly enough, you have to wait a very long time into the night for bars to open. Agreeing to go out for a beer doesn't ever seem to mean that you will be leaving your hostel before 12:30 in the morning. I guess this might be part of the reason the siesta is necessary for these guys. After 4 days of museums, tapas, city walks and countless attempts to recreate one of Hemingway's bar tabs (a quite massive endeavor), it was time for me to move on to Barcelona.

Sangria!

As soon as I set foot in Barcelona, I knew I was going to love it. Music, food, and beautiful labyrinthine streets pulsated with the city as people walked around with an air about them that convinced anyone they encountered that they loved living in Barcelona. An unspoken pride that they took in their city, confident that nothing really needed to be said to justify such an aesthetically sprawling place like this.

I checked into my hostel and walked around the old town, gawking at buildings and churches that had to have been hundreds of years old, refracting hundreds of thousands of stories and tales of people, their interaction with, and contributions to this amazing place. I came across this street band that caught my eye: A stand-up bass, acoustic guitar and fiddler singing Catalan songs that captivated me for the three hours I sat listening to them. I got a chance to talk to them as they were putting their equipment away and I ended up buying 2 CDs from them that I still listen to regularly (as I am writing this post actually!).

The history of this place was so amazing. Everywhere I went there was something interesting to learn, entertaining to watch and, in the case of La Sagrada Familia, thought-provoking to experience.

I don't want to speak too much about it because I do feel that one of the reasons I loved it so much was due to how little I knew about it before I went, so here are the basics: it's a cathedral, Antoni Gaudi designed it, when it is finished it will be the tallest cathedral in the world, and they have been building it for over 100 years.

Gaudi first took over the design in 1883 from Fransisco de Paula del Villar because of disagreements with the head architects advising the project. When Gaudi took over the daunting and massive project, only the crypt had been completed. Even though Gaudi was a young 31 years old when he took charge of what would undoubtedly be considered his magnus opus, I wonder if he ever really understood that he would never live to see the completion of the cathedral? Gaudi dedicated the rest of his life to overseeing the cathedral, knowing full well that he would not be around to see his dream realized. In 1926, Gaudi was hit by a tram car in the middle of the Barcelona and died 3 days later. At the time of his death, only about 15 to 25 percent of the cathedral had been completed. He was 73 years old when he died.

To me, this is an interesting thought. Of course, most people are cognizant of their miniscule finiteness and the fact that it will one day come to an end. The time we spend walking this earth in our perceived consciousness will one day exhaust any future momentum and whatever we may have been working on in whatever capacity will be halted, left as a percentage of a whole. I do not know what went through his mind, but Gaudi must have been aware, knowledgeable and content with the fact that he would never see a completion to his life's work. I feel like this runs contrary to what most people spend an entire life preparing themselves for. Making sure we get to 100% completion in whatever way that might mean for oneself. Gaudi understood what most people don't: that things are never as big as one person. Sure, we may leave legacies, acts of infamy, or resounding impressions on many people but greatness is not shouldered by any one individual. People, as I have come to believe, never wind up being anyone. Life is cumulative and to reach this accumulation requires the involvement of the world around you and your interactions with it.

The entrance to La Segrada Familia

I just recently read John Steinbeck's, The Grapes of Wrath and in one of the opening chapters there is a passage that I thought pertained to these sentiments. The main character, Tom Joads, is walking on a Kansas road back to his family's farm when he runs into his old preacher:

"I figgered about the Holy Sperit and the Jesus road. I figgered, 'Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe,' I figgered, 'maybe it's all men an' all women we love; maybe that's the Holy Sperit-the human sperit-the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of.' Now I saw there thinkin' it, an' all of a suddent-I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was true, and I still know it.”

Now the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent and revealed deity had left me long ago, but I could not help relating this passage back to how I felt walking through the halls of La Sagrada Familia. I could not sit here and very well tell you what the propulsion of my life is actually fueled by, but I do know that the series of moments that I get to string together, learn from, and gain happiness from, could never have been accomplished on my own. And it could very well be possible that someone else's happiness or good-fortune in their life is indicative of or somehow linked to an interaction that I played a part in - some past encounter that we shared and made some self-discovery during. To quote my favorite novel, again, Steinbeck - East of Eden:

"The direction of a big act will warp history, but probably all acts do the same in their degree, down to the stone stepped over in a path or a breath caught at sight of a pretty girl or a fingernail nicked in the garden soil."

All experiences affect us greater than zero, and maybe the pleasure and pain derived from one experience can inversely affect the ebb and flow of another's. Or then again maybe it is not that simple. Maybe the preacher was right, maybe the whole shebang can be summed up as one big human soul that everyone shares a part in - where the accumulation of our lives end, others will enjoy facets of past interactions that will live on without us completing more of the percentage of the whole.

Like the narrative told in the walls of Barcelona, the interactions, contributions, and stories are stitched into the fabric our lives and in the lives of people we share it with. Gaudi may have envisioned this masterpiece but it has become much bigger than that now, much more meaningful for so many different people, and in so many different ways - its meaning being etched into the stone of the walls he erected for hundreds of thousands of people to visit and ponder - including one American who finally found a glove vendor.