Thursday, August 31, 2006
Hasta luego madrid.
This is my last day here and after 5 months I don't really have any friends outside of my flat. As a goodbye I went skating in Retiro park, but unusually some girl threw a frisby at me and said "quieres jugar?" I said I needed some water and I'd be back in 2 minutes. We had two teams to pass and try and capture the frisby. I got to practice my Spanish with everyone and everyone was really nice and it would be an excellent time to get phone numbers or just arrange to meet up again. You learn so much just by listening to conversation.
This is what I've been looking for all this time why did it have to happen on my last day here. Maybe there is some significance to all this? Any ideas people?
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Sevilla
Jerez
"Live baby prawns and snails, c'mon form an orderly queue." Where is everybody I would be straight there! I was saying "Get them before he eats the lot."
I arrived at the bus station and gave Phil a bell. A friend form my TEFL course and was now living here with his wife to be. It was very nice for them to put me up (Ho my god a phrasal verb nightmare) for those few days, so thank you very much.
Phil said he was going to the beach and I thought that would be a change to what I'd been doing, so I went along. Later my lip was feeling really bad and I felt like shit so went to the
pharmacy. The lady in the pharmacy said keep out of the sun as the sun activates the virus and gave me some viruderm. Whoops. Pictures below for those who like that sort of thing. Staying out of the sun in Spain is easier said than done, and I was thinking I would need to change my plans. I wasn't going to go strainght back to Madrid when Sevilla was just a few hours away if that. So I decided that I would go to Sevilla but just
for the day and then on to Madrid.
Cadiz o cadi
This is another town where finding accommodation proved to be problematic. I think it was my 10 attempt at a hostel and they had one double room left, so I went for it. Just as I did some more people turned up asking for rooms. I chilled out in the room for a while my lip was now hurting quite a bit and it was about 40 degrees outside, it's a small town and I was stopping here for two days which should be plenty of time to see everything. When I did venture out I found this stencil of dog foot prints that must have been for a good 100m from the pavement through this park and then into the pond. Different and quite interactive and more importantly in the shade. Back to the title, I was now getting a taste of the food and he accent down here. The food is fish based mostly just fish, I went for some pijotas for 2.55 euros para llevar (take away). These 
were whole fish gutted and then fried and a fair size bag, very nice if a bit messy. I think that my Spanish has improved but I was struggling down here. They speak so fast, I think the Spanish speak fast but with the Andaluz accent it's even faster. Why is it faster? Because the cut the ends of words off eg "Dos Mas?" becomes "Do ma?" etc. As for nightlife I found the usual Irish bars which always seem to be the place to go. 
Malaga.
This town was different! The day after I arrived I woke up with a man in my room! No not like that!!!!!!!!!! Here's the story. When I arrived there was one hell of a party going one and I mean everywhere. Wow, I was thinking, I'm going to stay here a few days. But finding somewhere to stay was proving difficult I was in double figures of asking at hosteles and pensiones. I finally got somewhere. I thought I don't want to go out straight away and peak too early so I had a siesta. When I went out after the 
town was dying down! I found some bar with a bit of life and asked the crack. Apparently there was a week long party that finished the day I arrived and it would be a bit dead from now one. Plan B!? OK move on but for now get pissed. The local brew down here is Cruzcampo which has a different taste! IE like piss. Plan B was Tinto verano, ie summer red nice refreshing and stronge enought to do the job.As said before I woke up quite early with some guy in my room, who started making excusses that he was with the hostel. No!! You're after my stuff.
I then checked the door the key was just spining in the door. I finally managed to get it locked but after that I just couldn't sleep and ended up getting up early to leave. When I was having a wash I spoted the start of a cold sore. I think the stress of mountain biking, trying to find somewhere to stay and unexpected visitors has had and effect. Yes, the door did lock but now it wouldn't unlock and I couldn't get out of my room. More stress this was the most expensive place I stayed the whole time and the worst.
Next stop cadiz.
One thing I've missed out is this has been my first experience with andaluz. What's that I hear you say. For those who are trying to lear Spanish this is very difficult as the drop sylables to speed up conversation. We do a similar thing in English. But wow does it speed up conversation.
http://spanish.about.com/cs/pronunciation/f/rate_of_speech.htm
Cansado en Granada!
OK, the plan for day 4 in Granada: get up at 8 to go to the alambra to get a ticket for later in the day. I woke up at 12 aching all over, pink with by the sun and scratched all over my legs and arms. Yes, I know, I've been saying to loads of people how much I miss Mountain Biking but this is one thing I don't miss. The saddle from hell had done plenty of damage and I can't ever remember feeling like that from riding before.
Needless to say that I didn't go to the alambra. Should I say go or should I say do? I don't know! To me using to do is like ticking something off. If that's the case what's the point. One of the things about traveling for me is not to just do all the tourist things and if I'm going to be doing more traveling in the future I can't do every museum in every city I visit. I know going to Granada and not going to the alambra is like going to Paris and not going to see the Iffel tower. But so many people have been to Granada and not been to the Sierra Nevada. I'm struggling to think of one man-made thing that can't be out classed something produced by nature. For any Christians reading this and want to comment about the hand of God, let me know and I'll send you the link to my Atheist blog site and we can discuss such thing over there. So what do I really mean by nature? Well I'm 
including people in that as well. The people I met when I was touring around Mexico have had more lasting affect than even the pyramids at Teotituacán. But are people not shaped by our suroundings? If so then why not look at every aspect of the place. Why come away from Granada thinking wow wasn't the alambra so beautiful and why not why was there so much feminist stencils on the walls! I did get a few looks taking all these pictures but thats good, I think. I always want to meet the real people from the place. Some times it can be problematic. I recomended to one of my students to use the bus in London and keep asking the way with people on bus. But I wouldn't recommend Brixton to one of my students as a place to visit. Depends on the place I guess!The night before I was with the lads in a bar and we had a few beers and were spouting
off in English and I paid for the beers and the barman gave me twenties change and I needed tens to settle up with the lads so I asked the barman to change the twenty for two tens. There was a few people next to use and one of the guys heard me ask the barman in Spanish and commented on my Spanish being very good. I guess it has improved and I even spotted a grammatical mistake in one of the stencils regarding the time-frame of the action. It's not being anal, it's just you get it drummed into you, like with my students. Another thing is, always leave something else to go back to see 
or do. But if you do that too much then when will it stop. I do want to travel but also settle down. But where and when? Another friend said you can plan but sometime you just can't plan so far in advance and you have just got to let things take their course. Well well, time to crash out again. The day after this one in at the time of experience and taking the pictures not tomorrow if you get what I mean, will be Malaga. Cadiz, Jarez and Sevilla. To sum up I didn't do the Alambra Palace but who cares?
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Goin' south!
Day 1 Granada:
When I went to visit my mum, I looked up a friend who I used to go mountain biking with. He said he was going to Granada with another friend so I arranged to meet them out here. After a 6 hour journy on the coach I arrived in Granada and gave Tiger* a call and we arranged to meet at puerta real at 9, just outside Burger King. When they turned up they were in a bad state. A few days earlier they had done a ride to one of the sumites and then across to some others ie spending a few hours over 10,000 feet. So they had some of the symptoms of altitude sickness. Just when Tiger was describing their symptoms Neil gave us a demo of one of these by pucking in a bin. We made our arrangements for the day after and the boys went back to their hotel to chill, leaving me to explore Granada's nightlife.
Day 2 Granada: I met up with the lads at 10:30. Easier said than done. I found a few interesting bars and got talking then it was about 4:00am. Whoops!
We went to pick up my mountain bike and the guy was just putting a new inner tube in it. A bit last minute! Well that's not all. I gave the bike a bit of a test ride. I just need to say that I have not ridden a bike in the last year so the bike felt ok to me for a short test ride. I paid the 30 euros for the two
days and set off. It was only until I got to the steep hill out of Monachil when the gears started to slip. Streached chain symdrome. I headed off back to the shop.I finally got to the lads' hotel and got ready for the ride. Neil was having a rest day, but Tiger looked keen. We have a long history of riding together and 
even a small ride will turn into a race. At the start of our riding history I was the fastest mainly due to putting in a lot of training. Tiger then got the bug for time trialing and started training big time and is a bit of a speed merchant. I'm was still hoping that my down hill skills would still be what they were and I could whoop ass on the down bits.
It was not looking to good as far as the weather was concerned, but the cool mountain air was a 
nice change to stuffy Madrid. I was more then keeping up with Tiger and managed to pull away on some of the climbs. Probably due to what he had been doing in the previous days and what I hadn't been doing. A restaurant was a welcome site when the wind got up and even more so when the rain started. After sheltering for a hour or so there was a lul in the weather and we made a dash back to the hotel. So I got my chance to test out Tiger's downhilling and to see if mine was still what it was. I was a bit rusty on the bike but not too bad. It's still the thrill it always was and I want to keep up with doing more biking for that reason. We got back to the hotel and it started to RAIN, and I mean rain. The road was like a river.
Day 3 Granada:
Well day 2 was in the end just a warm up for day 3. One thing, sorry two things about the bike I rented: 1 - riding from the shop to the lads' hotel I did notice that the saddle was not that comfortable, and I just couldn't get a good possition. 2 - I just had flatties (flat platform peddles) good for technical riding but not so good for uphill and turning circles. Both the lads had step-in peddles. A big advantage for efficiency on the uphill section. OK that's my excusses out of the 
way.
The first section was familiar tarrain for myself and Tiger, not so for Neil. Both the lads seemed in better spirits today we went out the night before and they had managed to eat some food the previous days they had not eaten much and they had been feeling run down. I was keeping up with them and we got the the restaurant surprisingly quick. We decided to push on without stopping. OK this saddle 
thing was getting to not quite so an uncomfortable stage but more a painful stage. For none mountain bikers: when climbing off road you sit down a lot more than when climbing on road. If you stand up you loose traction and go nowhere. I think I was fit enough to keep with the lads from doing my skating but with using different muscle groups my legs were feeling it and I kept loosing them. Also I was finding it hard to just concentrate on riding when I was in so much 
pain from the saddle. I finally got to the stage where I was walking. But the good thing was there was that there was not much more uphill to do on the track we were taking and I found the lads around the corner at the col.
OK, more or less all downhill now. I knew I could smoke Tiger but what about Neil. Neil's an ex-motocrosser and now has a Yammy 600 sport, ie 165mph, 
so 40 mph + is would be just quarter speed for this guy. Gulp!
Although I was knackered on the uphill, I felt back to normal on the downhill and especially more so on the technical sections.
Just as the uphill seemed to be going on and on, the downhill just kept giving and giving, and with the odd surprise. Anybody riding around here will encounter, not sure what they're called,
thorny vines and bushes. I now had a bloody arm and Neil soon would have his head scratched up. Down at the bottom of the vally the track now turned into some very nice single track and I had a few moments. I knew I could do the sections it's just that you sometime bottle it at the last moment. "OK from now on I'm going for it!" And it does work, it's almost like the terrain knows, and if you attack it, it lets you go.
The lads were being more careful, with their step in peddles and were pushing some of the sections. In the picture to the side you can make out the line of the track which is rideable. A bit past this section and we arrived at a restaurant and we stopped for some food. I did my traslator bit with the menu and the barman said the fastest things to cook were the tortilla and musaca, so we went with that. After this it was a shortish road ride back to the hotel. After a shower and a 
rest we went to town for some cervezas y tapas. * Tiger: pronounced like the Whinney the Poo Tiger not the wild animal. Why? Well, his number zero hair cut combined with a ventilated helmet and lots of sun, meant that Paul was now sporting tiger strip sun tan lines on his head
