April in Paris: Wednesday

Wednesday, April 6th

The Joys of Traveling Solo

• Katherine, Amy and I went in different directions on Wednesday, each with a specific goal in mind. Katherine donned a black skirt and Mary Jane's (and mourned her lack of a straw hat) as she set off to recreate nostalgic scenes from Linnea in Monet's Garden in the gardens and house in Giverney where the famous artist had lived and painted. Amy took off for Versailles to get sunburned amid the twisting and spiraling hedges and flower-beds after having absorbed all she could of the interior of the palace, while I set out to wander Paris at my leisure. I took the metro over to the Isle de la Cité, and wished that the line for the San Sulpice chapel was not so long (curse you Dan Brown and your sensationalization of pretty, historical churches!) but kept wandering instead, pretty much blown away by the sight of the riverwalls, washed white in the sunlight, slanting away from the water. 
• Notre Dame. It was amazing. Once again, words cannot do it justice, unless you are Victor Hugo and prepared to write a several-hundred page novel that is really just an excuse for rhapsodizing about gothic architecture; I am not, alas (hah). But I do need to say that yes, the gargoyles are just as individual and interesting and ugly-cute as Disney would have it, and yes the soaring flying buttresses are more graceful in their function than one imagines possible, and yes the ribbed ceilings on the inside makes one think of Roman tombs and ancient rites and long-dead architects, and yes the stained glass windows are breathtaking in the their dual beauty - they are gorgeous to look at, and the rainbow light washing over the pews and sculptures is equally lovely... Oh my. I just sort of gaped and walked and breathed in dust and cool air and tried to be as present as possible. I lit a candle in one of the side niches, not thinking twice about the 2 euro charge, and watched the tiny flame flickering in the gloom, feeling awe-filled and peaceful. 
• I left Notre Dame, regretfully I admit, and wandered around the whole structure, craning my neck to get a better look at the gaping gargoyles, then stared surreptitiously at the young gendarmes wandering around who would have been cute were it not for their MASSIVE machine guns and camo outfits and utterly silly hats. British family nearby~ Mother: "Do you see the soldiers, Danny? Look at the soldiers." Danny, (age 5 ish, literally hanging from her hand and staring at the sky, the ground, and everywhere but in front of him): "I caaaaaan't, I caaaaaan't seeeee theeeemmmmm! Where aaaaare theeeeeyyy?!?" Mother (exasperated): "Right in front of you, honey; right in front you! See the big guns?" Danny (still flailing, falling and dancing): "Nooo! Where aaaaare theeeyy?!" Mother: "Big guns! See the big guns! Right there!" Danny (sees them, stands stalk still, eyes like saucers, and begins to walk normally, a bit scared): "Oh... REALLY big guns." The gendarmes were unimpressed. 
• Across the river from Notre Dame, half-hidden behind clouds of pink blossoms covering the trees that line the street, is the most amazing bookstore I have ever been in. Shakespeare and Co. was begun by Sylvia Beach, a US expatriate, in the early 20th century, and it was this bookshop that originally published Ulysses when it was banned in the US and the UK. ...!!! Yeah. Also, Hemmingway, Ezra Pound, D.H. Lawrence, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and other incredibly talented artists spent rather a lot of time in and around the little book store. In case that wasn't enough, it is also perfectly quaint and cute and oh my, a book lover's dream. There were books stacked from the floor to the bare beams of the ceiling, teetering in piles and leaning against shelves and paint-peeling walls, covers shining and new or frayed and trailing little threads of ancient cotton binding. The rooms were tiny and cozy, and the titles that jumped out at me are the ones that fill my Really Glad I Read That and Really Need to Read That lists, respectively (far too many of the latter, alas. I need to get reading.) and seeing eight different copies of Jane Eyre displayed on one shelf and The Illustrated Guide to Shakespeare on the next made my heart happy. They have new stuff too, of course - not everything in this shop reeks of dust and age and antiquated language. Freedom (written, I think, by a Mac grad) and The Pale King are two titles recently recommended to me by some of my modern-lit inclined compatriots, and both were visible among the bilingual poetry collections and personal essays (handbound). The way through the shop is as convoluted and twisted as the plot of a good murder mystery, and the nooks and crannies that abound are chalk full of more books, in seeming disarray. The stairwell, decorated with the likenesses of the authors who visited Shakespeare and Co in its heyday, led to a second story that boasted not only faded velvet armchairs, a moth-eaten couch, a reading... closet (?) filled with notes from readers past, and a study room, but also a piano and a window with a petal-filled view of the Seine and Notre Dame. Oh my.  When I eventually dragged Katherine and Amy back there, later that evening, the piano was singing Chopin's sonatas softly from beneath its blanket of books, the couch was cluttered with University students studying diligently, a bilingual creative writing workshop was proceeding in English and French in the study room, and the multicolored party-lights in front swayed over the heads of the coffee-drinking, wine-sipping, pastry-nibbling, page-turning patrons perched on the delicate chairs that littered the walkway. But I am getting ahead of myself. While there I decided to indulge and get myself a tote bag, the better to tote about my tourist necessities - lunch, camera, sketchbook, paints, water bottle, wallet, phone (though it was dead), passport and ipod (since there were no lockers in the rooms, alas) and the invaluable map. The cool, artsy bag was all sold out at the moment though, leaving the too-colorful, not-quite-childish (though still quite wonderful) alternative. I didn't complain.
• Lunch in the Luxembourg Gardens, all hot sun and park benches, unsittable grass and thick shade under blooming chestnut trees. I sketched and munched my lunch, seated on the marble steps burning my left side slowly, and watched a family's snail-speed progress down the stairs. A little girl, 5 or so, hopped carefully from one step to the next, counting "Un, deux, trois, quatre..." while behind her her curly-haired brother, no more than three, danced anxiously on the edge of the step, shifting from one foot to the other, wailing high and incoherently. At last he stepped down, nearly toppled, righted himself, and began to prance and shuffle in misery and anxiety on the edge of THAT step, repeating this process twice more until his mother set down her bags and came to gather him up. A single strip of grass invisible beneath the carpet of bodies, bocce ball under sycamore leaves, a cat on a leash, flowers on the trees.
• The Rodin Museum was a bit of a walk from the Luxembourg Gardens, but a beautiful one - what part of central Paris isn't beautiful though. The museum was amazing. The gardens around the old chateau were full of beach trees and silent statues, and at the far end a fountain splashed quietly between the lilac bushes and writhing metal figures. I sat and sketched a little more, not because I thought I could capture any of the sculptures (I could not) but because I needed to just sit and be present. It was so incredibly peaceful. Inside the museum was beautiful too, with the wood floors, picture-windows and crystal chandeliers of the original chateau still intact; it was the perfect place for these sculptures not to be displayed but for them to live. Graceful hands, fingers barely brushing each other, and the smooth erotic Kiss that makes one's heart ache for love like that, and widespread wings stretching in an ecstasy and exultation of bronze, marble, iron. Lovely.
• A mosey, a wander, a meander, a saunter later, past the place where Napoleon is buried and over the bridge that separates it from the Tuleries, then through the gardens and past the long paths that stretched under the dun-colored sycamore leaves (tiny and thick with fuzz)... Eventually, I arrived again at Le Louvre. Oh my. I sat for a while in front of it, perched on the edge of the fountains, and peered through the segmented glass of the (in)famous pyramid to see how the light refracted images of ancient stone upon the brilliant surface. I won't try to write about the inside, merely that like the Musée d'Orsay the Louvre lets EU students in for free!!!, and that the paintings were more amazing than I had imagined possible, and that the Mona Lisa was small and perfect and crowded, and that twilight falling through the lovely windows cast shadows upon Greco-Roman sculptures that had seen the light of a thousand thousand days. So much beauty in one place, so many of the images that I have studied and copied and imagined for years... I discovered on this trip that Paris is a beautiful city, and one that I could learn to love, full of history and culture and elegance. But, even were the rest of Paris to be blasted from existence, leaving nothing but a radio-active ruin in its wake, if it were to fall off the face of the earth or be swallowed by storms or sands, or if the Louvre were plucked up and set down on a desert island surrounded by Shrieking Eels and Vermicious Knids, it would be worth braving the radioactive wastland/desert/lake/Eels/Knids/etc just to spend a few hours gasping at the marble hallelujah that is Wingéd Victory, or the sensual slouch of the Venus de Milo, or the war-cry of Liberty Leading the People. I was in awe.
• Back along the Seine to Notre Dame, golden in the evening light, and then back to Shakespeare and Co with Amy and Katherine (because, you know, why not) and then boeuf bourguignon at a little cafe in the Latin Quarter, under a striped awning and a brilliant crescent moon.
• Wine at a Montmartre cafe later, watching as the water streaming down the gutters lifted a crust of cigarettes and cherry-blossom petals and sent it crumbling about the tires of mopeds and vespas parked by the sidewalks. The moon swung up over Sacre Coeur, and the night was warm and perfect as we wandered back to the hostel. Paris, je t'aime.

April in Paris: Tuesday

Tuesday, April 5th

The Joys of Traveling with Friends

• Breakfast in the hostel, croissants and baguette, and lots of tea. We then hopped into the metro and emerged from the dusk of the interior by the banks of the river, blinking in the bright light. Waltzed and sashayed along the walkway by the banks, imagining the Amelie soundtrack playing, and reached the Musée d'Orsay around 11, and admired the massive clock faces and turn-of-the-century decoration. The museum was once a train station, built upon the ruins of of a palace, but was self-consciously constructed (circa 1900) so as not to clash with the grand Palais d'Honeur or the Louvre just across the Seine. It must have been the most beautiful terminus, ever. As a museum, it is still incredibly lovely, with the high, spacious center gallery that must once have been filled with the smoke and groaning of its locomotive inhabitants; now instead of tracks and ties there was a pristine marble floor, and the walls are lined with sculptures and paintings instead of newspaper stands and impatiently waiting travelers; the massive clock faces still remain, however. It was gorgeous. We waited in the expected, through not unmanageable line, and somehow, miraculously, got in for free. God bless EU student cards. The things are amazing. This meant that we a) missed a second 45-minute-wait line, and also did not have to pay the £10 ticket price. Renoir, Monet, Manet, Whistler, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Degas, Bouguereau, and so many more. It was overwhelming, but in a wonderful way.
• Divine pastries. Flan and apple tart, pulled apart with sticky fingers on a street-side bench, eaten hurriedly and greedily, crumbs flying.
• The Jefferson girls' school - Amy got all excited, and told us Paulie Jefferson's life story. 
• Schwarma and falafel sandwiches in the Latin Quarter, followed by gelato, because, you know, why not. 
• Met Katherine's friend, tried to go to the Pere Lachaise cemetery, but it was closing - crashed back at the hostel instead, then walked around after dark, saw the whirling scarlet arms of the Moulin Rouge windmill, glowing in the gloom, (resisted bursting into song, but only barely) and climbed Montmartre to stare at the lightwashed Sacre Coeur. Still gorgeous, and better to view in the company of two or three other people, I discovered. Late night dinner - French onion soup with a slice of cheese-coated baguette floating in the salty broth, and roast chicken served by a silly boy with dreadlocks and a cute grin, who didn't even tease us about our lack of French. 

April in Paris: Monday

Some times I get lost in my life; days merge and blend and I am carried along on the current of the moments; sometimes I catch myself fretting over what one of my friends calls "white girl problems" (I just had to spend four hours in the library studying my incredibly interesting Irish poetry for the Celtic Lit class I am taking in Scotland, my life is so hard; oh NO I had to spend a few hours in banks to fund my trip to Spain; oh darn how annoying that the flight landed in Beauvais instead of Paris and I have to take a bus; Gosh the line for the Musée d'Orsay is so long!; the sunburn that I got in the gorgeous, 73 degree weather stings when I carry around my new, indie tote bag. ... Whitegirlproblems. Hahaha). When that happens, I tend to forget, momentarily, just how wonderful my life is, and how incredibly lucky I am. Having the amazing opportunity to spend five days in Paris reminded me of that, and (puts on tearfully grateful Academy-award-winner voice) I would like to thank my parents, for giving me the opportunity to come here...

But really.

Mom and Dad, I do not know how to express how grateful I am to have had these amazing experiences, and to have been lucky enough to spend time in some of the most beautiful places it has ever been my good fortune to visit. Paris was amazing. Thank you, so, so much. I will try to share a little bit of it with you, despite my clear inadequacy of expression. But first, a bit of music. April in Paris: Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. It was a feeling.

[I have too many words: I am going to break this up by day, since it is a massive post anyway. Words words words words... Love to you all.]

Monday, April 4th:

The Trials of Traveling Solo

• Madrid subway angst, duffle bag slamming against my side and pulling on my shoulder as I ran from one Ryanair desk to the next. But really, who puts a check-in-desk in the cafeteria?!
• Short flight, skimming the clouds over the Atlantic. The lemon-yellow backs of the chairs blazoned with inescapably large diagrams of all the disasters that could possibly occur in an airplane, and what one ought to do about them (because when the plane crashes a flimsy plastic bag of air, in either oxygen-mask or life-vest form, will totally make everything better...). Flight attendants trying to sell smokeless cigarets, perfume, jewelry, in addition to the usual food/soda/alcohol, with all the persuasiveness of born salesmen, hawking wares on a Barcelona street corner. French mixes with the English and Spanish announcements, and I start to realize that I am going to a country where I speak NONE of the language. The rest of the flight is spent flipping through the guide/phrase books, thumbing pages in excitement tinged with worry.
• Hurried walk through the Beauvais airport, and I worry a little bit when I leave the building and they have not yet stamped my passport, but decide there is nothing I can do. 15 euro later I am on a bus to Paris, seated next to a bright, though cynical New Yorker who I found interesting (he spent a year teaching English in Spain!) but depressingly negative. I resisted the urge to stereotype, with little success: well dressed, hip, slightly effeminate, intelligent and aware of it, pessimistic and confident, he seemed to fit the mold of the ivy-graduate New York resident pretty darn well. 
• Metro. Oh my. The Paris metro isn't really that complicated: the lines are color coded, there are maps pretty frequently, and the trains come with startling regularity. But to get onto the metro, one needs a ticket. And to purchase a ticket, one needs to operate the ticket machine. And to operate the ticket machine, one needs to understand French, OR to have absurdly good luck. Apparently I have the latter, because I get a ticket out of the machine eventually, but it took far too long, and involved a lot of me pushing random buttons, and struggling with the lack of direction-key buttons (instead there was a  cylindrical metal bar which one could roll to move the selection up or down. This took me several minutes to discover). I spend the whole ride double and tripple checking my map, angsting about whether I was on the right line, the right direction, etc. etc. I needed somewhere there to slap me upside the head and tell me to take a chill pill - I did know where I was going, I got off at the right stop, I found my way to an information booth, then wandered about until I found my hostel, checked in functionally, and all was well. Really, I should have more faith in my traveling abilities, apparently, since I haven't gotten really lost yet.
• Le Village Hostel was bright, clean, and quirky, with squeaking wood floors and colorful curtains, with cheerful student-age employees and a manager who was so incredibly French: mid-40s, tanned, with a bit of a paunch over which his skin-tight shirts stretched comfortably, a peach- or nude-colored scarf tossed carelessly around his neck and a hat perched jauntily on his balding head, which was perpetually threatening to slip off, due to his slightly nose-in-the-air saunter. I caught him singing in poorly accented English along with awful euro-techno-remixes of every bad American pop song you have ever heard, most of which should never, ever be synthed and put to a driving beat. It was hilarious. The only thing was, I was supposed to meet my friend Katherine and another Mac girl, Amy, in Paris, and we were staying in the same hostel, but due to my temporarily deceased phone and her lack of computer, we had not been in contact in days and I had no way of getting ahold of her. I left a note at the desk, crossed my fingers, drew a deep breath, and set off to explore Paris all by my lonesome.

[A brief rant.] Ordinarily, I like being alone. It's an empowering feeling, walking through a city on the other side of the world by oneself, knowing that you can go anywhere you please, on the slightest whim. Sometimes, however, being a young woman walking alone can be unpleasant, or even unsafe, and that is a feeling which I am at once unused to, and angered by. Saint Paul is, overall, a pretty safe city, especially in the Macalester area, and Edinburgh is pretty darn safe as well (too full of college students for anything much worse than drunken debauchery to go on), and to be honest I am just not accustomed to feeling as though a solitary walk in the late afternoon is something that I should think twice about. Probably I was never anything but safe, but as I wandered away from Le Village Hostel, I did not feel as though I was. I walked the half-block up to the steps that lead to the Sacre Coeur church (cathedral?), which shone white and pristine atop the Montmartre crest, looking for all the world like a misplaced bit of the white city of Gondor, Ecthelion transported out of middle earth and into France, brilliant and tall. All I wanted to do was enjoy the views of the city and the sight of this incredible building and breathe deep the Parisian air, but I found my wrist caught by a vendor trying to sell me string bracelets, who then wanted to talk about my life, and was just a little too interested for my taste. Moments after I extricated myself and hurried away, I was approached by two different men who wanted to practice their English and talk to me, despite the fact that I told them I was in a hurry, and was meeting friends, and did not make eye contact any more than I could help. It made me profoundly uncomfortable when the second of them would not take the hint and leave, and especially so when, after I barely acknowledged his comment that I had beautiful eyes (How could he know? I was doing everything I could not to look at him so that he would leave me alone; perhaps rude, but clear, I thought) he followed me down four flights of stairs to the street where the hostel was. Perhaps farther, but I stopped looking behind me and tried to go swiftly without appearing to run. My mother used to call me fearless when I was a child, and it wasn't incorrect~ I probably would have worried her less if I had been a little more afraid of the usual things - fast-moving vehicles, deep water, etc. I am still not used, truly, to feeling afraid. I hated it.

People talk about the cultural differences between America and Europe, or even between the UK and continental Europe, and they aren't kidding. There were no repressed, reserved, adorably shy Scottish boys on my travels, which was just fine, but the different sorts of attention my friends and I received in our wanderings was... interesting. Spanish men catcall and look more than any other people I have ever encountered, but unlike the guys in the states who stare and whistle there is, generally, no intention behind it, no aggression really, mostly just ... appreciation? I mean, when a fellow thrice my age with a fully white beard is making comments about my behind, it's hard to take it seriously. Generally, in Barcelona, I could just roll my eyes and keep walking, and was more on the flattered than the offended side of indifferent. In Paris though, perhaps because I speak no French and therefore felt just a bit more insecure and unsure of myself, and perhaps too because of the rather sketchy area where the hostel was, the comments and the looks were a little harder to shrug off, and felt just a little more persistent, a little more aggressive. It was only really a problem when I was walking by myself that afternoon, and only in that bit of the city, but it was just enough to make me think about all the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies classes offered at Mac, and about all the talk of feminism and female empowerment. I appreciate them, in a general sense, but because I have lived a privileged life I have always felt like for myself, feminism was a bit moot since I have always been treated as an individual and not noticeably different from anyone else based on gender alone. In retrospect, feeling my femininity imposed on me, as it were, by the people around me was an interesting experience, though in the moment, wishing only to exist in my happy little world-traveler-bubble, I would cheerfully have forgone the cultural experience in favor of feeling more at ease. Anyway. Things to think about.

• Left the hostel, walking this time in the opposite direction. I realized rather swiftly that the Moulin Rouge is still the Moulin Rouge in function as well, and the area around it, while interesting, was full of signs and shop windows advertising products and services that I was slightly uncomfortable contemplating, so I turned and began to walk south toward the city center, the Seine, the Louvre, and the Paris of so many books and movies. I walked past churches and shaded buildings, a cathedral or two, and the shining façade of the Opera House, gleaming with golden statues and a hundred grinning or grimacing masks. Broad grey streets and tall white buildings bedecked with fragile, fanciful swirls and curls of plaster wound their way down to the river, and quite suddenly I found myself staring Lady Louvre in the face, shining pyramid and russet stone brilliant in the evening light. Every figure on the sides of the building was outlined stark against the twilight sky, grey clouds underlit with blinding light, and the realization that so many of the most beautiful paintings and sculptures in HUMAN HISTORY are inside this building! shook me to my core, and I could not stop smiling, even knowing I wouldn’t go in for another day or so. The poplars lining the Seine shivered in the breeze, and the darkly shining sky overhead gave the whole scene a surreal, magical feeling.
• I walked back through the darkening streets, feeling my elevated heartrate from the overwhelming loveliness and the realization that this was PARIS; I kept to busy streets, despite the temptation of narrow cobbled allies and sidestreets, residually cautious from my earlier scare, and found with pleasure that I could navigate the city with relative ease and a map. I love maps, and getting myself around with them is one of the finer pleasures in life, and despite the fact that mine was not a particularly GOOD map (it was one of those tourist ones, where the cartographer got all excited about pretty buildings and cool monuments  and decided it would be really cool to put in pictures of said buildings, etc. However, nice as the pictures are, they mean that you cannot see the streets. Unfortunately, streets are kiiiiiinda necessary on maps…) it was functional enough to get me the 7.5 miles from Montmartre to the Seine and back. Huzzah!
• Ate tons of carrots, apples, and apricots (purchased at a local grocery store) for dinner. ...You did notice all the baguette consumption that happened in Spain, no? Fresh produce tasted soooo good. Afterwards, 11:30 pm ish, went to bed, hoping to run into Katherine and Amy in the morning.
• 12:15 am, awoken to "JANE!!!" and an unidentified dark head bobbing excitedly at my bedside. Turns out, Katherine and Amy were staying in the same room as me. Either the hostel worker was being sneaky and REALLY nice and put us together on purpose, or else it was a brilliant, ridiculous coincidence. Chatted cheerfully and groggily for a while, then crashed back to sleep.

MAD:

[adjective] wildly excited or confused; frantic
[abbrev. / accron] Barajas Airport, Madrid, Spain.

Madrid was a little crazy. The airport abbreviation made a bit too much sense, for my liking - our stay there, while good in a general sense, was an overwhelming and exhausting whirlwind. To put it into perspective, though, anything would have been tough to come back to after the perfect relaxation that was San Sebastian. Grey, smoggy Madrid, under overcast skies with streets as steely as the clouds and a metro system that rattled and stank of urine and grease, full of people busy and driven and rushing... well, suffice it to say, it was a hard transition. It was made more difficult by the way it began, of course: a long, tiring bus ride, followed by a slightly stressful metro trip - thank goodness Anne knew how to manage the metro - and a short trek to our hostel. Up to that point, everywhere we had stayed had felt comfortable, friendly, and full of other 20-something college age travelers like us. Hostel Numancia, however, which we had booked only because it was the only hostel we could find for less than 20 Euro a night per person on a Saturday night, was rather different. Five silent floors up in a rickety glass elevator brought us to the hostel, where the condescending, slightly arrogant desk worker with too much gel in his hair asked us if we hadn't received his email. "Cancelled - reservation. Email say, cancelled - you reservation," he said, and at our horrified looks he gave an exasperated little huff then asked us to sit where we were while he helped the large, chattering group of Spaniards who had arrived. At this point it was nearly 6:30 on a Saturday evening, and we traded not-quite-panicked glances when we realized that we really would not be able to find anywhere else to stay, and began discussing in undertones what we could bribe the greasy-haired, pasty-faced fellow with to get him to let us sleep on the couches upon which we were anxiously perched, despite their clearly insufficient length and slightly threadbare quality.  After what I swear was 25 minutes, at least 20 of which were purely social chit chat with the cheerful 30-something Spaniards, he turned to us and told us that they would figure something out. ...You couldn't have told us that earlier?! Oh my. Eventually, we ended up in a room with a double bed at the end of a long, dark hallway, and while we were extraordinarily thankful for a bed at all, and the privacy was nice, we also felt very isolated and not quite creeped out, but heading in that sort of direction.

After a little nap we headed out in search of food, still debating whether or not we wanted to go out drinking and/or dancing. After our long day, and the exceedingly long night before (see previous post for the ridiculous details), however, we decided we should just enjoy our dinner, then get some sleep. We wandered about in the crowded nocturnal streets, feeling that somehow this was not quite real; a new city at night time can be a strange feeling. It was made still more odd when we began to notice people in zombie make-up peppering the throng through which we were walking, then more of them, then still more. At first it was just some black make-up, then a bit of fake blood, but soon we were encountering protruding bones, guts spilling and white contacts turning brown eyes ghostly. Pirate zombies seemed particularly popular, and there were several military zombies, some scrub-clad nurse zombies, and what appeared to be construction-worker zombies complete with punctured hard-hats and gore-crusted orange vests. It was so incredibly surreal. I think it would have been quite funny had we not been exhausted, a bit put out over the hostel, and rather bewildered. My Spanish is not quite good enough for me to be able to enquire in a casual way what was going on - no matter how I phrased it in my head, it always sounded stilted and strange - Why are you dead? Why do you have blood on your face? What is [gestures wildly] this??? By the time a couple of undead fellows with particularly convincing make up approached us and began growling in my ear, (growling!) we had had quite enough of that, thank you, and began walking swiftly in the direction of (what we hoped was) the living. A burger and some very vinegar-y salad later, we were feeling slightly better, and headed back into the quiet building and up the creaking elevator and down the pitch-black hallway to our room. (I later discovered that it was Marcha Zombi Madrid night, whatever that means. An annual zombie convention?)

The next day went better, thank goodness. We checked out of Hostel Numancia, not at all sorry to leave,  and checked ourselves into the next hostel, which was bigger, busier, and full of friendly kids our age; we loved it, and not only because the previous one had been so unpleasant. Cat's Hostel is in what used to be a 16th century palace, and looked rather like a mosque - Moorish influences, I suppose. There was a central open space, roofed in a stained glass dome, and tiled exquisitely in deep maroons, rich blues and softly gleaming golds. The two mexican girls and Irish lad in our dorm-style room were quite pleasant, and we left the hostel for the day in vastly better spirits than we had been in the day before. We went first to Lidl - beloved, cheap Lidl - and got ourselves very fresh baguette - still hot - and other provisions for the day before wandering off. We walked through plazas and squares, markets and allies, and were surprised and a little disappointed to discover that things really do close on Sundays in Spain - whether from vestiges of a religious structure that no longer really exists in most other parts of the world, or simply because having a day off is civilized. Probably a good thing for me, financially - there were far too many pairs of lovely shoes tempting me, and if more places had been open I would not have been able to resist. We ended up sitting at a cafe for a while in the late afternoon, chatting and watching the pigeons and the people, and generally catching our breath. That city moves so quickly! I realized I am not used to places that are so big, and really, have spent no time in them - the twin cities are rather small, and I have not been to New York, London, or even Chicago. San Francisco is the biggest city I am familiar with, and even San Francisco is not really large, just condensed. Edinburgh is lovely city, but also manageable, comfortable. Perhaps if I spent months in Madrid it would feel manageable to me as well, but as it was, it was a bit overwhelming. After catching our breath, we crossed the street and ambled over to the Prado Museum, in plenty of time, we thought, to make the 5:00 pm free entrance time slot (it was then 4:30). Of course, we should have realized that when the biggest museum in Spain offers free entrance hours, it causes quite a stir. We waited in the longest line I can ever remember seeing for at least 40 minutes, in the rain (because that is the way these things go, of course) but then, rather miraculously, we got in. The museum was wonderful, and huge - full of dark old paintings from hundreds of years ago; de Goya, Velasquez, el Greco, and more. It was worth the wait, and worth the dash (through tidal-waves of spray from passing vehicles) back to our hostel that evening.

The next morning, far too early, we got up and Anne (the angel) offered to accompany me to the airport, braving the ever-aromatic subway in a frantic rush as, underestimating the time it would take to get across the city, I spent the whole way panicking slightly. A rushed hug, a fumbled subway ticket and far too many snail-speed escalators later, I found myself dashing up and down corridors, translating directional signs in my head and praying that I was not going the wrong way. I was not, and Ryanair allowed my bag on as a carry-on (I had serious doubts that they would, despite it having worked on the flight TO Spain) and then I was on the plane, high above the city, exhaling.

That was when it hit me: I was going to PARIS.

San Sebastian

Take a deep breath, and close your eyes. Now imagine you are on a beach – the kind with the perfect sand, fine and golden and warm, that seeps between your toes and leaves flecks of mica sticking to your ankles. The waves don’t quite crash, but fall in flecks of turquoise and white foam all along the crescent margin of the bay, from the distant docks to the north to the rocky coastline of the south, far and away to your left. The rocks are black in the shadow of the mountain – small as mountains go, but impressive in its drama, a sheer cliff and steep green slope, capped with trees, walls, and what might be a tower. Rising above the docks far to your right is the old city, all yellow sandstone and red roofs, delicate balconies trailing vines; it looks tiny now, but you know that as you walk the narrow streets (which are so small it is clear they were never intended for cars, and sometimes don’t fit them at all) the buildings are three and four or even five stories each, so that the detailed moldings around the roofs are impossible to admire without straining your neck. Those streets are always shadowed, but bright still in the sunlight, a church or ancient wall visible down every one. High above the old city on the crest of the Urgull mountain you can only sometimes see the white walls and ramparts of the castle, half-hidden in the treetops, stark against the azure sky; the Benediction is visible always, however, Christ’s massive visage and extended palms a sight seen all over the city. The sun is hot on your cheeks and shoulders, and the air smells like salt, and flowers, and newly cut grass, and dusty heated sand; spring just starting to anticipate summer. Behind you, hidden behind the arched terrace that supports the seaside boulevard, the newer portion of the city rears up its head, glass-bedecked and strewn with hotels, lovely shops, and somewhere back in there, a 14^th century cathedral. It’s hard not to feel content – stomach full of the baguette and chorizo you just devoured, and the crisp apples picked up at the farmer’s market this morning, with the delighted screeching of children and the worried cries of gulls mingling with the sounds of the surf. Your fellow beach-goers know how to enjoy the moment - swimming right out into the waves, straight toward the boats tethered about the emerald-and-inky-hued island that looms mid bay, or else flat on their backs, baring too much tanned skin to the sun. One man manages to light, smoke and extinguish a cigarette without moving from his position prone on the sand or even opening his eyes, talking rapidly in the Basque on his phone all the while. Impressive, that. Life, you feel, is good.


This, my friends, is San Sebastian.


A tiny little town on the north coast of Spain, almost to the French border and a thriving center of Basque language and culture, San Sebastian is quite literally the closest I have ever been to heaven. When Anne and I got off the bus, dazed, sleep-deprived to the extreme and rather lost, we were still struck by the loveliness of the town (it is a testament to the beauty of the place that it managed to penetrate the fog of cranky grogginess in which we were operating, the product of literally no sleep, and a seven hour bus ride. Awful combination, let me tell you). The buildings just got more older, prettier, more interesting as we moved toward the water and the town center, 'la Parte Vieja'  and our hostel, trying to ignore the way our bags pulled heavily at our shoulders and cursing our Barcelonian sunburns. We experienced the occasional inconvenience of the Spanish siesta when we showed up at the tourism office at 2:40 pm and, after some very perplexed peering though the windows during which period we wondered if we were still lost, we discovered the little sign indicated that the office was closed from 1~3:30 pm. We sat on a bench on the edge of the tree- and flower-lined street, scrunched our brows and tried to imagine such a  thing occurring in the states, and failed, but were then so distracted by the tulips dancing in the ocean breeze and the tender yellow sycamore leaves that we forgot to be frustrated and simply basked in the sunlight. Eventually the Spaniards returned from their siesta, we found our way to our tiny, adorable hostel, and exhaled in relief. The hostel was a single flat, four bedrooms, a kitchen and  a bathroom, and the room Anne and I had to ourselves was particularly nice, with brightly curtained windows and, instead of a locker, and ancient wooden chest. The key we were given to lock it literally resembled the key found by contrary Miss Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden -  unnotched, thick round metal stem with a single, simple tab at the end. Thank goodness we felt the hostel itself was safe, because the "security" provided by this key made us stifle delighted laughter behind our hands; if anyone had twiddled a hairpin in the vague direction of the lock, it probably would have opened. Thankfully no one did. 


The helpful hostel worker (who, upon discovering that I spoke some Spanish and needed practice, cheerfully ignored everything I said in English) gave us a map, circled important sites, places to eat, and things to do, and shooed us out into the sunlight. All weariness forgotten, we wandered about the Parte Vieja for a while, jaws agape at how gorgeous it was, before finding our way to the docks and then the bay. I don't know how to express quite how beautiful the bay was, and can only beg you to look at the pictures that are going up on facebook because no matter how hard I try I don't think I will be able to convey how perfect this place was. The bay is shaped like a large C, with a small mountain at each end and a broad white beach along the curve of it, and between the hills in the mouth of the bay rests a small, rocky island, with a lighthouse just visible at its peak. The water was perfectly aquamarine blue, and with the sun upon it, sparkled. The narrow streets of the old town and the wide sunny avenues of the newer area stretch away from the promenade along the waterfront, and despite the fact that there are plenty of tourist sites and a functioning city center, the place also just feels relaxed, sleepy. We felt like we could truly exhale. We wandered all afternoon before at last getting DIVINE gelato, which turned out to be our dinner since we decided to crash at our hostel before looking for food, but fell asleep literally as soon as we got in.  

The next day we set off, first in search of breakfast, then wandered for a while. We walked around the base of Urgull, the hill upon which the castle sits and just marveled. Though I didn't remember it at the time, the bit of the Atlantic at which we were gazing in awe is called the Bay of Biscay (I really like that name) and it crashed in violent splendor upon the rocks at the point. After walking the circumference of the hill, we began our ascent in the green silence up the wooded slopes. The fortress at the top was spectacular, and we peeked through the cannon-sized openings in the battlements, ran our fingers over the rough gold of the sandstone and leaned against the walls that dated back before the Napoleonic occupation of the site. One of the informational signs (which, unusually, was NOT in either Spanish or Basque but also in English) told about a particularly ruinous bit of the castle which once had housed a gunpowder storage chamber, but which was struck by lightning several hundred years ago; the explosion caused extensive damage not only to the castle but to significant parts of the old city as well, apparently...! Somehow this struck us as rather funny, because really, what are the odds of the lightning striking the ONE bit of a building that happens to be packed with gunpowder..? I suppose that's what you get for keeping your ammunition on the top of a mountain...

We retired to the beach, to soak up the sun and lounge and swim (just a little) and to acquire the second layer of sunburn in as many days. Bad choices, perhaps, but it was heavenly.

After a short visit to the old cathedral and a brief siesta, we set out in hunt of tapas, which, when eventually located, turned out to be AMAZING. Mushrooms soaked in some kind of gravy-ish-sauce tooth-pick-pinned to chewy baguette, Spanish tortilla thick with spinach and cheese and potato, shrimp lightly grilled and drizzled in salty olive oil and orange-zest sauce, and fishy bacalao in another tortilla, mouth-parchingly salty and reeking of the sea. It was absolutely delicious. Then, because it was Friday night, we decided to go out dancing and/or drinking, and once again, we discovered the madness that is Spanish night life. Here is the way that went:

• 12 am - Get ready to go out, finish our naps, get properly attired, etc.
• 1 am - head out. Stare longingly at the gelato stand (still open). Realize that three times in two days is probably a bit much.
• 1:20 am - arrive at the club, in time for the beginning of the "English Party" supposed to begin at 1:00. Apparently, though, this is equivalent to when they say a Macalester Kagin dance starts at 10:30 - ie, don't show up until midnight unless you like empty dance floors. No one was there; we were quite upset (having already paid cover) and went to a bar to get drinks to console ourselves.
• Met two silly Basque boys in the bar, one of whom spoke some English, while the other spoke none. With a lot of Spanglish and a lot of explaining, we ended up having a really nice chat, and they told us they were headed to the club we had just vacated - apparently by 2:30 there would be people dancing. Sooo, we went back with them, danced with them, and I spent quite a while translating bad pop music on the request of the non-English speaking fellow ("Er, caliente y frio, eres sí cuando es no, eres... in? And... uh.. eres up y abajo, ummm incorrecto, correcto, eres negro cuando es blanco, we... um... besos? Yeah?.... crap. Darn it Katy Perry, sing slower!"). We also had to explain the pronunciation differences between particular curse words and large stretches of sand, and there was a space of a few minutes where one of the boys was simply chanting, "Beach, bitch, beach, bitch, beach, bitch"  under his breath, trying to get the pronunciation correctly. Mildly hilarious.
• 4:00 am - I was getting antsy, and was starting to think that a) going to bed might be nice and b) that if we waited much longer I would have to pry the nice Basque boy off with a crowbar, so I hinted to Anne that it was time to take off, and despite the passisonate Spanglish protests to the contrary we left. We were chatting away as we did so, and had not gone a hundred yards before the group of kids behind us asked where we were from. They were all Basque as well, and were learning English, so we chatted with them for a bit. They were also very nice, and when they told us that there was a disco to which they were going, and into which they could get us for free, and when Anne gave me the puppy-dog eyes, we of course ended up going along with them. 
• 4:30 am - got the second club, and were impressed with the fact that after a hushed word to the bouncers, we walked in without paying,  but somewhat unimpressed with the venue - good music, but not that many people on the dance floor. 
• 4:45 am - the club begins to fill up. Apparently this is when people go dancing, in San Sebastian.
• 5:15 am - club now actually crowded. Had a great time dancing with the group of boys.
• 5:45 am - I put my foot down, and tell Anne we need to go, despite the fact that yes, we had been having a good time. Reluctantly, she accompanied me out.
• 6:00 am - walking back, met a group of Erasmus students, who asked where we were from. Chatted briefly.
• 6:10 am - were called to by a group of men; I ignored them; Anne, laughing, called, "Sorry, we only speak English!" over her shoulder but instead of deterring them, one of them ran up to us. He asked where we were from as well, and that conversation lasted a little while, while I kept interjecting, "Okay... okay, ... okay... OKAY, we have to GO!"  while the Spaniards laughed. 
• 6:25 am - bed at last. Brilliant night. 

We left lovely San Sebastian the next morning, munching on pastries and staring gloomily at the canal and the buildings, whistful and disgruntled at having to leave. The seven hour bus ride under grey skies was made even more mournful by the thought of what we were leaving behind: sun and sky and a little Basque paradise. 

Barcelona Notes

This is a rough, soon to be filled-in sketch of my time in Barcelona. Rapid-fire notes so I don't forget too much. Come back for a few more details, and proper sentence structure, in a week or two. :)

SATURDAY, MARCH 26

• EPIC BANKING – back and forth to three different Royal bank of Scotland branches. The main one was gorgeous, (thank goodness for one redeeming factor – they were no help, but their ceiling was astoundingly beautiful) (mental note to self – go back with a camera) and useless, but I got it sorted in the end.
• Lovely Indian dinner at Red Fort, our new favorite. So much curry.
• We attempted to go dancing. Clubs closed. Slightly disappointed at the failure. I decided to pack instead.
• I realized that Ryanair really means it when they say one bag. This means no “personal item” – my purse and computer bag also have to fit in my duffle. Brief dispair.
• Later-I had ice cream and Belle and Sebastian with Karen. Angsting to Mom via skype. Still despairing.
• Still later – I accepted that I do not need my sleeping bag, reluctantly removed said security blanket from my duffle, and can fit other, more important things. Like my computer. And my wallet. Finish the icecream. Despair over, replaced by mild anxiety.

SUNDAY, MARCH 27

• Pack all morning, except for a brief visit to the ATM and a hostel – Theo is a month too young, darn it all. Steely determination to overcome my own stress, planning for the summer, then packing completed.
• Pie for lunch, with Alice and Karen!
• Airlink bus to the airport. It was really interesting to see the outskirts of Edinburgh, the way city blends with suburd, and how different (and similar) those suburbs are to our own in the states.
• Ryanair security line for 40 minutes. A total pain. Easy in the end however.
• Somehow I managed to let my stamped boarding pass fall into the trash slot when I threw away my water bottle, after it was checked but before going through security. Looked incredibly sketchy fishing around, making faces with one arm all the way inside the trash bin, up to the armpit. Got it out eventually, and only got a few odd looks. Did not die of shame. This was a success.
• Had to walk out of the airport building, across the tarmac and up a very wobbly, very creaky set of stairs which felt as though they were going to pitch me over backwards at any minute to get into the plane. Sat next to a lovely American girl, a University of Edinburgh exchange student as well, who was also going to Barcelona for her break, and had a lovely chat. Anxiety starting to wear off.
• ARRIVED. OH MY.
• Bus, then taxi to the hostel. Anne was not there yet, waited around for a while, upstairs in our room, then later downstairs. The anxiety was starting to return when I discovered that our room had a balcony, and I pulled the curtain aside, tugged the sliding glass door a little wider, and all anxiety fell away as I stepped out into the night. The hostel is on a broad sandstone terrace, bright and sunwashed in the day and glowing softly golden at night, full of palm-trees, pigeons, street musicians, and the scent of flowers and cigarettes. The edges were lined with tables full of restaurant patrons laughing loudly over their late dinners, and two different groups were playing music. A collection of kapoira dancers were flipping and kicking in one corner, surrounded by a group of admirers, and an accordion player in another area sauntered behind the rose- and glowstick-vendors hopefully pushing their wares at potential customers who lounged at the fountain’s base. Some of my fellow hostel-goers in a different room had bought a thing of bubble mix, and the bubbles wafted up past the sandstone balcony where I lent then rose to get lost among the brilliant stars. I braced myself against the heavy wrought-iron railing, and breathed deep, feeling as though I was breathing in Spain just a little with every breath.
• Anne arrived; massive amounts of hugging and I’m-so-sorry-where-were-you and no-I-am-sorry-where-were-you? And then we set to drinking and catching up and reminiscing, and the night got infinitely better. We met our roommates – two Brazilian girls, one of whom spoke a little English and a lot of Spanish, so we muddled through with some Spanglish and managed to communicate fairly well. My Spanish no es muerto! Puedo comunicar mucho mejor que pensé sería posible! Y puedo intentar más! He tenido conversaciones más o menos functionados totalmente en Español!  Ah. Makes me so happy. The girls were lovely, of course, totally gorgeous and very sweet.
• Anne’s friend Greg, a Sophomore at Stanford and a total sweetheart, exhibited his relative youth and inexperience by getting totally smashed then getting sick. On our bed. And in our hall. Despite the fact that he does not stay here. Mopped with paper towels, real towels, sawdust and a broom, (when he heard, the Janitor said, - Es su amigo, no voy a limpiar right before he  handed me the sawdust) put Greg into a taxi, no longer felt like going out and went for a wander instead. Got catcalled a bit more than Anne was comfortable with, though mostly it just made me laugh. We also had pushy vendors trying to sell us roses, beer, flashing lights and noise makers, with varying levels of respect for espacio personal and of persistence. The beauty of the place made up for the pushiness though.
• Listened to one of our roommates, Jackie, a Berkeley student, gripe about one of the cute Hostel workers and the skinniness of Spanish women (true, but it doesn’t stop them from being gorgeous) before drifting off.
• Slept. Finally.

MONDAY, MARCH 28

• Woke up in time for breakfast – green apples, a little on the soft side, delicious aromatic mint tea, swiftly soggy cereal and baguettes both with butter and jam and also with baloney. Missed having water - thank goodness the tap water in Scotland is delicious, but now I am so spoiled! I am used to being able to drink from the tap. It's perfectly safe is Barcelona, but... not at all tasty. 
• Anne went back to sleep for a little while, and I showered (pressing the water button on every 25 seconds, trying not to freeze or be scalded in the changeable temperature) then we went for a walk.
• BARCELONA IS GORGEOUS. Words simply fail me. I cannot appropriately describe the beauty of it. Sunshine on worn sandstone facades and broad patios, alleys so narrow that the moisture dripping from the fern- and ivy-covered balconies lingers on golden flags for hours without the sun, statues of titanic proportions and equal beauty, capitols and moldings curling in intricate spirals and florets, flowers everywhere, wide ambling boulevards lined with barely-leafing sycamores and restaurant tables, street artists and musicians and vendors all convinced that your experience of the city will not be complete unless you have paid them, artartart everywhere! Then there is the ocean, cradled by the massive docks and the rocky outcroppings on either end of the bay, and the cathedrals, tall and ancient and crusted with carvings and decorations, and the churches, and the ROMAN WALL which we walked past (oh my goodness gracious. I touched something that was shaped and hewn and placed not just centuries but MILLENNIUMS ago. Just about died with nerd-happy-overload). I was in a state of overwhelmed euphoria. 
• We went to a market, which was also beautiful, and also absolutely overwhelming. Stalls literally overflowing with anything and everything you could ever want to eat were crammed next to each other and were crowded by tons of shouting, waving, bag-toting shoppers, and we passed piles of fruits, of chocolates, of nuts, of candies, of peppers, of fish and meats and breads until our heads were spinning. It was kind of like the best farmers' markets you have ever been to, but multiplied by about ten, and as full as every farmer has ever wished their market would be. We eventually purchased baguettes and chorizo, and a flat of divine strawberries - the kind that melt in your mouth and would probably be bad in another day so it's a darn good thing you are eating them now and heaven can not possibly taste this good - !
• Walked with our food to the docks, and sat in the sun and basked, looking at the Mediterranean Ocean. Amazing.
• Toured the city for a few hours - past a cathedral, and up and down alleys. They would be called closes or wynds in Edinburgh, but there they would not be full of balconies, and the stones would be grey rather than a lazy, laconic sandy-gold.
• Siestas. They are wonderful.
• Had dinner at the hostel - baguette (again - going to turn into a baguette!) and an absolutely delicious stew: chorizo and garbanzo beans in a spicy red sauce, served by a very nice Irishman with pretty eyes and amazing cheekbones.
• People in Barcelona are all secretly zombies. Or vampires. Or simply nocturnal. The club took a group of people out, every night, with cover paid (AMAZING, since cover at clubs is something approaching 10 euros - bleeeaagh) but they did not leave the hostel until 1:45 am. ...!!!! The clubs themselves did not close until somewhere around 4 or 5 am. THIS IS MAD. First night, went to a club called Shoko, with questionable music, large bamboo stalks on the floor, and not enough people dancing. But it was quite literally on the beach, and a reasonable walk home - it took us about 35 minutes, but in the warm Barcelona night that was merely a pleasant period in which to sober up. Went to bed later, but pretty pleased with our experience. 

TUESDAY, MARCH 29

• Somehow, someway, we made it to breakfast by ten. Lots of tea happened, and lots of slow chewing of bread, and general disbelief that we were awake and at least nominally functional. 
• Braved the metro station, which turned out to be quite simple really, and made it to Parc Güell, and marvelled at Gaudi's genius. Really, the man was a wonder. Gaudi originally constructed Parc Güell with the intention of it being an upper class residential area, an apartment complex for wealthy Barcelonians with a keen appreciation for aesthetics. It was never realized, however – in part because of the distance from the city center (laughable today, thanks to the metro, but a significant way to go, back in the early 20^th century) and in part because there was not enough financial backing or interest, I believe. However, what does exist is stunningly beautiful. I had hazy memories of Senior year Architecture with Mr. Seigerson, and remembered squinting hard at the slightly discolored, blurry slides. Even then it was clear that this was a place, and an artist, far out of the ordinary. The real thing was absolutely amazing. There were columns and arches that leaned in casual grace from walkway to walkway, crusted with deceptively organic-looking rocks and clay whose natural appearance belied the meticulous attention to detail that must have gone into their construction. The undulating wall, sparkling with brilliant tiles and flanked by carvings and statues, was at once a thing of beauty and function; the day we were there it was hot enough that the bench was nigh invisible, hidden by hundreds of weary legs as people flocked over to take in the views and to find a seat simultaneously. The buildings twisted up out of their roots like growing things, looking like some mad hybrid of the colored turrets of the Hagia Sofia and the cottage that so tempted Hansel and Gretel, with tile and glass and swelling stone. If ever there was a true union of art and architecture, I think it must be found in Gaudi’s work, since not only is it beautiful and interesting, but it also incorporates nature: the structures in the park enhance rather than dominate the arid, mountainous landscape, and compliment it in shape and color.
• Because one bit of Gaudi was definitely not enough, we went next to the Sagrada Familia, which was absolutely beyond words. The cathedral is unfinished, and won’t be completed for at least another 25 years – and it was begun early in the 20^th century as well. More than 100 years on one building, and who knows how many architects and craftsmen as well. Apparently many retiring architects of the highest caliber like to contribute to the Sagrada as their swan song, meaning that the structure, though still adhering to Gaudi’s basic design, evidences the incredible efforts of many different artists. It is literally impossible for me to do it justice but I will try.

            The largest façade of the church faces the north, and that is the one which was immediately visible as we approached. This was also the only outer façade that was wholly Gaudi’s work. It is a celebration of life, centered around the nativity, and is literally an explosion of art and creativity and beauty. Every inch of the massive face of the building was blooming, growing, nearly breathing with detailed carvings of every type of plant and animal imaginable, so that even the angels and Madonnas paled in comparison, overwhelmed by the palms beneath which they reclined or the oxen, chickens and even turkeys which clustered about their feet. The two columns on either side of the door rested upon the backs of two massive carved turtles, one an aquatic one (on the ocean-side of the door) and one a land-crawling tortoise (on the side of the building which faces the mountains). Any one sculpture would have been lovely and impressive in its own right; when viewed together it was an incredible, overwhelming outburst of gorgeous detail.

The details on the west-facing side that I walked around were similar in style to the sculptures on the front, with gargoyles in the shape of lizards, openmouthed to spit the rain from between their teeth in bad weather, and with walls inscribed with graceful letters. Around the south side, however, the artist and consequently the style changed utterly. If the north was a celebration of nativity, the south, centered around images of the passion and the crucifixion, was a glorification of the starkness of life, and pain, and death, and bare angles sharply shown. The faces of the disciples were square, anguished, and as expressive of their stony nature as were the rib-like columns arching nakedly. It was shocking, in contrast with the lush loveliness of the opposite façade, but strangely beautiful in its own way.

Inside, the cathedral was flooded with light. Stained and unstained glass windows set shafts of sunlight streaming in wide swaths across walls and floors, and the pale grey stone and impossibly high ceilings helped fill the space with cool light. The columns branched like trees, limbs forming geometric patterns against the facetted ceiling, shades of grey and silver and sometimes gold overlapping in complicated shapes like stars, flowers, gemstones. The spiral staircases the curled upwards looked like sealife made large, shaped like shells or coral, the nautilus-sweep of the stair visible through round perforations in the rails. The golden canopy over the altar was bedecked with glass ornaments, grapes and leaves and talks of grain, and within the space of white and soft grey the brilliant yellow seemed almost overwhelming in its intensity.

Everything about the Sagrada demands that you look up, following the columns in their assent or the windows in their glory, or the light to its skylight source. My psych professor last semester talked about looking up during our discussion of moods in Distress, Dysfunction and Disorder last semester. “I have a project for you,” she said, and instructed us to try walking for a few minutes some time soon, with our eyes on the ground four or five feet ahead, steps short and a little slow. “Don’t smile,” she added - forget smiling, we discovered, walking like that made us want to frown. She next told us to lengthen our stride, to walk with purpose and intention, “And look up, or out into the distance,” she added. The difference was palpable. I could actually feel my spirits rising with my gaze. Since then, looking up has become an intentional thing for me, a way of being present to the moment and to the beauty that surrounds me, be it in the form of tree tops, Edinburghian chimneys against the grey sky, decorative balconies and sculptures, or the incredible heights of an unfinished cathedral, a century in the making. As choir music wafted down from the loft galleries, and as I walked, washed with the colors of the glass windows, it was as close as I have come to a religious experience in quite a while.

• After the high of the Sagrada, Anne and I discovered we were starving, and got pitas at a nearby pita shop after walking the rest of the way back to the hostel. Skyped with Teddi, and wished she were there to join our trio, as she usually does.
• Long siesta, once again. Thank goodness.
• Slept through dinner. Went to a cheap but decent little restaurant around the corner for tapas – patatas bravas, tortilla Española, y ensalada verde. Fueron muy buenos.
• We returned to the hostel, and ended up playing cards with a few of the other residents, including an Argentinian and an fellow from Portugal. Went out dancing, again on the beach, again lots of fun, until we lost each other. Mild worry led to rather serious worry led to very serious concern led to not-quite-panic. But, I learned that I can report someone missing in Spanish, and can deal with a bit of a crisis without completely losing my head, even if I do tend to mildly overreact. Better safe than sorry I suppose. Friend found at long last, we went to sleep somewhere around 6:30 am, and slept until noon.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30

• We were rather less than functional the next day, but somehow ended up have a truly glorious time anyway. We got pitas again (so tasty) and sat in the courtyard to eat them. Watched the tourists and the vendors and the pigeons, and laughed at the little boy frying to feed/chases them (who ate the bread he was trying to entice them with off the ground eventually). We ended up at the beach, flopped out on the sand with our jeans rolled up to our knees and the sun on our faces, and got very good at turning down masseuses and vendors of all sorts, and at ignoring a rather adventuresome nudist who refused to stay put on his towel but seemed instead determined to share his nudity with the rest of us, wandering further and further up the beach, wholly unconcerned.
• SUNBURN
• We napped for a while, then got an absolutely delicious dinner: paella, with both seafood and chicken (I ate the shrimp with the antennas and the eyes. It was mildly distressing, but so, SO good) and then a plate of grilled asparagus, which tasted particularly lovely after not enough vegetables in days, and because we were treating ourselves, we also each got a glass of rather lovely wine. It was all mouthwateringly good. The only problem was that the restaurant was playing club music – Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Taio Cruz, etc. – and the flirtatious waiters were dancing as they poured our drinks and served our food (and also as they crumpled up the napkins, receipts and trash and tossed them over their shoulders onto the floor beneath the tables. Considering this was a rather nice place, this was more fascinating than distressing, and also simply quite silly looking). This meant that by the time we left, we were both bobbing our heads and thinking fondly of dancing. The only problem was that we had a bus to catch at 7 the next morning, and we were not 100% sure how to get there, meaning we would need a couple of hours to wake up and pack and get ourselves to the station. So, we decided that it would be almost easier to just stay up, considering we had been virtually nocturnal for the last few days anyway, and subsecuently had a wonderful night out, followed by a sleepy morning packing and metro-ing, and a very, very exhausting 6.5 hour bus ride to lovely San Sebastian in the north of Spain.

San Sebastian up next. :)

Delicate, Indelible

Dearest friends: I am behind. And I am going to write something (hopefully) eloquent and persuasive about the new and rather permanent change to the skin I'm in, and about the accompanying birthday celebrations, but not at the moment. I am writing like mad about Spain, attempting to keep myself on top of things, trying to remember every second, and so my birthday will wait. Sorry you all must as well. Love to you all.