PiÃ³ro » Spain

Road Trip

Matthew Pioro — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 21:27:08 +0000

There’s nothing like driving from Granada to Barcelona in a Citroen C5. You feel like a rock-star with the Hives blaring on the CD player. To keep up with traffic you hold an effortless 150 km/h. The highway is much nicer than the town. It’s much better than getting lost in the Albayzin, Granada’s old Arab quarter, going down the wrong way on a one-way street, reversing downhill to try and correct your mistake, blocking off an intersection as you try to do a 31-point turn under the direction of two Castilian-speaking construction workers as the locals shake their heads in disbelief. With no scratches and a smoking clutch later, you get to the hostel swearing that you’d never rent such a big car in Europe ever again. And this is the beginning. There’s still nine hours until Barcelona. The rock-star feeling goes away after Marcia. Martha comes down with a bout of food poisoning. There are little bags of gastro-intestinal goodness that you leave in gas-stations along the way. You share the car with a Texan who lives in New York and a Belgian anarchist would has to be in his home country in two days to stay on the dole. The ride is so fun. The Texan gets off the toll roads and sneaks into Barcelona. He parks the car for the night. The next day your “that car” as you blare Miss Kittin and the Hacker going around and around a Barcelona traffic-circle. You miss your turn-off five times. Somehow you weave through the chaos and the car is returned. You’ll worry about the bill later.

Itâ€™s a kind of fruit

Martha Heckman — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 21:23:19 +0000

If you ever again, or for the first time, go to Granada, please stay at Rambutan. It is in the Albayzin, the old Muslim district across the Rio Darro from the Alhambra. Worlds cannot describe how wonderful it is … well yeah I guess they could, but more than I am prepared to write in this cyber cafe. The people were great, the food was great, the view was great, watching the rising sun shining on the Alhambra after staying up all night drinking Alhambra beer was great. Even the psycho kitty rescued from the cactus patch was great.

We didn’t want to leave, even after over-extending our stay.

Oh yeah, and the rest of the city is pretty cool too.

On a Golden Shoestring Maybe

Martha Heckman — Fri, 21 Jun 2002 10:54:45 +0000

So our lonely planet has been helpful, don’t get me wrong… it’s just that I’m not so sure about their idea of a shoestring budget. Either that, or the prices have gone up in the past year. We haven’t had much success, or enjoyment out of the places that the book recommends, accommodation and mostly food wise (they’re pretty good at suggesting an itinerary, the obvious places to hit). But maybe this is a good thing, as we have had lots of enjoyment when we find something on our own, or through word of mouth.

Such as when we finally got instructions to the good restaurant in Lisbon by the French speaking construction worker… lto Minho… where the food, which was all ordered for us by our friend who knew what we should eat better than we did, was incredible. When the bill arrived, we had to do a double take as we were sure that there was no way it could be right, or that maybe the rest of the bill was coming later…

Or Flamenco for instance.

We were inundated with advertisements for Flamenco shows in Seville, but the price just wasn’t right, though it did sound like fun.

So, when we heard about the free Flamenco shows at a local bar, we were all over that… problem was, we couldn’t find the bar. Many people had been there, but usually after a lot of drinking, and if you’ve been to the old city, the streets can confuse even the most sober directionally-enhanced people. On our last night in the city, we hooked up with some Canadians from our hostel (see: This just in: Canadians are the new Australians), who had been there already, and we managed to find it without too much difficulty. The sets may have been a little short, but the performances were genuine, and the price was right! Flamenco is something to see. We sat right up close, were you could really see the expressions… so serious… almost angry, or painful… very passionate… not really supposed to be funny, but for me was on the verge of farce as I kept picturing an inebriated Tim Wilbur up on stage.

The bar was something too, a good mix of locals, tourists, young and old. And on the back patio, which felt like one I’d been to in Montreal, we reminisced about College street (see: This just in: Canadians are the new Australians), and felt a little silly.

We were very happy to have met our fellow College/Dufferinite though, as when discussions turned to Granada, it was she who told us about Rambutan…

This just in: Canadians are the new Australians

Matthew Pioro — Sat, 15 Jun 2002 18:46:26 +0000

ANDALUCIA—Tired of not meeting anyone in Toronto? Go to Spain. Hear locals say, “You too? You’re lying. Everyone says they are from Canada.” Sit in the common room of your pension with five other as one says, “So, are we all Canadians then?” Nod in agreement. Go to a flamenco show in Seville and reminisce about the Starbank corner store at College and Dufferin because your new friend lived in a house just north of it. Be a walking ad for College Street as your new friend guesses (correctly) that your glasses are from Rapp and your girlfriend’s necklace is from Red Pegasus. (I’m serious. This really happened.) See the world and stay close to home.

Pay No Attention to the Flamenco Pushing Australians

Martha Heckman — Sat, 15 Jun 2002 18:31:00 +0000

Arriving in Seville, we found out that the way the hostels work, is that they quote you one price on the phone to get you hooked, and once you show up, tired, dirty, and ready to crash… oops, that room isn’t available, but you can have this one that is more expensive.

So we decided to shop around.

A middle aged Australian man saw us hostel shopping, and in his attempts to sell us incredibly inflated Flamenco tickets, brought us to a hostel that he knew, where he spoke very fast and very good Spanish with the owner, arranging for us a room. We mistakenly told him that the lowest price we could find was 30 euros, but that we were looking for less. We should have lied and told him that we had found 24 euros, or even less… oh well, we are learning the street smarts as we go.

So, tired and dirty and ready to crash, we took the 30 euros room, and felt a little hoodwinked, and majorly bummed… the bathroom had no toilet seat, the yippy dog didn’t seem to like us, and we didn’t even know where we were (crazy tiny, winding streets).

We decided to just stay the one night, and after eating some lunch, we would go looking for another place.

So we sat, in the actually very nice central patio, full of chirping birds, and many, many plants, and nice shade, and made friends with the dog, and found the clean bathrooms down the hall with the toilet seats, and chatted with a med-school girl from California about Jose Saramago and free Flamenco, and found out what street we were on, and met a local painter/artiste, and talked about literature and art, and were given free delicious strawberries from the owner, and decided that it totally rocked and that we would stay. The end.