Footnote to a Spanish Keyboard

I don't know if I hate the French Keyboard or the Spanish keyboard more. In France (and Belgium and likely countless places), they use keyboards that don't folow Qwerty. It's awerty or something. Like the old keyboards from elementary school kids would switch the keys around on, except the A in the wrong position actually types and glory be you're doing important stuff on the internet and not programming infinite loops in basic for kicks. So half the time we paid for WORLD WIDE WEBBIN on this continent was spent deleting the typo that would not be so on were we graced with an American keyboard. But we got used to it after awhile, and by the time we were in Spain we were pressing the wrong keys all over again, because you see, in Spain, keyboards make sense again. Except for how awesomely in reach these characters are: ñ ªº€Ç?¡. Some don't even require the shift button! But the Spanish keyboard is devious because the apostrophe key, while in the same place as on the American keyboard, is a different, uglier apostrope, the ´ instead of the ', and i've been using it all along and I hate the way it looks on my blog. At least it's completely obvious that I have to be careful with a French keyboard. Spanish keyboards have a false sense of security because if you squint hard enough, they look just like American keyboards. And my fingers respond by thinking the vertical apostrophe, straight and ferocious as an attacking ferret, is in the place it should be, but it's not, it's by the zero in the number row, all the way up there near keyboard heaven(which is where the blessed function keys live their eternal lives peacefully and idly), and just far enough that it hurts my ring finger to reach for it, but not physically, only emotionally, because my finger knows that this friend of mine, my friend that is always there to help me when I need some contraction, is in someplace unfamiliar, tricked out of its proper place by this Spanish keyboard, a keyboard that only knows deceit and treachery.

SCOTT´S CULINARY ROMP THROUGH EUROPE, MADRID EDITION

I admit I get a little enthusiastic sometimes, and sure it might be embarassing, but I mean it when I´m enthusiastic. Sometimes, I think my enthusiasm is warranted, like, for example, when I´m sort of pissed that I ate so much meat on this trip in a country that has so much meat in it that I like to imagine half the country has scurvy, despite obvious empirical knowledge that scurvy is not plaguing the fair people of Spain and knowing that there is no correlation between eating too much meat and having scurvy . . . FOR NOW. So I´m enthusiastic because I´ve been craving me some delicious vegetarian cuisine, and knowing that imagine how happy I was when walking around my new digs in Madrid(Cats´s Hostel! I know, it´s perfect right?) post-Sean and Scott Roughest and Toughest European Tour 2007, sponsored by Maoz Vegetarian, I saw a green sign with the outline of a woman in black holding a platter, and the words Vegetariano, Macrobiotico rigth beside her. This place is ´La Biotika,´ right at the corner of Amor Del Dios and C. St. Maria, and it´s a place to get enthusiastic about. Like most restaurants in Europe, there´s a menu of the day at La Biotika, and when I had lunch there today, this menu consisted of the starters of vegetable soup and salad, the latter of which was topped with walnuts, almonds, and a sesame sauce. The soup was mild, with a little spice at the end, and so hearty it was almost creamy. I saw the chef, a very friendly dude, cut the parsley fresh and top the soup with it. The platter was Bulghar wheat, creamed pumpkin, and green beans with tofu, arranged in a trinity in the center of the plate. At first, I thought the portions were somewhat small, but they were actually quite filling, so much so that I barely had room for desert, which was red tea and honey with an orange cake topped with kiwi and coconut shavings. Every part of it was delicious, and at the excellent price of €8.60, I felt like I was getting a really good deal. Besides the food, the dining space itself was refreshingly modest. Most of the vegetarian restaurants I´ve been to, including some in America and one in Montpellier called Tipti Khali, have eastern themed decor or some style that reminds you you´re having an alternative food experience, and frankly, it´s kind of tiring. La Biotika looks like any cafe, even having an easily visible window to the kitchen where the chef lays plates for the waitress to take. There´s nothing in the decor reminding you that you´re wise and possibly Asian(I´m looking at you, Great Sage) for eating vegetarian, leaving the focus entirely on the food. And you know, food tastes better when you´re not feeling patronized by the room.

Oh yes, Sean left, and he´s long safe in Baltimore by now, and I´m here across the Atlantic for another six weeks. I´ve gone nearly 36 hours on my own in Europe, but I´m still composing the Official Blog of my Thoughts on what the next six weeks will bring, and how the past five weeks have changed me(hint:only somewhat) so, stay tuned. For now though, I´m split between reflecting and planning for the hectic month ahead. I bought a round trip ticket to Lisbon today. I´m riding the night train tomorrow and I´ll wake up on Sunday to a new city, a new country, and a new month. I´m still trying to figure out how I´ll get to Morrocco, and I´m not evening worrying about Lithuania for now. And that feels great. I feel unrushed. Not less nervous about everything, not less awkward, just not in a hurry, not anxious about where I´ll sleep or how I´ll get places. Those questions always get answered, and nothing will be ruined no matter how they´re answered.

In Madrid

I broke my vegetarianism accidentally for the first time, for a total of maybe seven times I have broken my vegetarianism on this trip. Sean often buys meat from supermarkets, and I´ll occasionally have a little taste, mostly out of curiousity for what European meat tastes like (It´s unsurprisingly familiar). I broke my vegetarianism in Carcassone to try a regional speciality called Cassoulet, which is a casserole dish composed of a hunk of duck, a gratuitous sasusage, and white beans. It was hella medieval, served in a heavy clay bowl, but it was a taste of France. Today, the restaurant we went to near the Reina Sofia museum had a good menu del dia, and we entered this placed called ´la sede´despite some apprehension I had for the slick industrial chic design. Think decadent ikea catalogue. The meat snuck into the dish I ate, though I´m sure it wouldn´t have seemed so sneaky to someone who read Spanish, but I ate it, becauseÍ´m on vacation, and hey, it´s european cusine.
Also, I slept in my first bed last night, after five weeks of camping.

Plans

So here are my plans for the post-Sean part of my trip, the Rough and Tough travel experience a la carte. I´ll spend three days getting my gumption in Madrid, then head to Lisbon for some nights. I was considering going to the running of the bulls in Pamplona but I´m leaning towards forgetting it because it´s going to be stupid packed in that tiny Navarre town. I mean, sure, it´s going on while I´m here, but I don´t want to sleep in the fields of Pamplona while I´m at the Fiesta. Instead, I´ll head down south to Morrocco, Marrakesh and Casablanca. I know, I thought I was only going to be on one continent too. Well, Maroc is cheap and it´s not far south of Spain at all. It´s only a two and half hour ferry ride from Algercias(or some town called something similar) to Interzone, and it´s under thirty euros. I´m thinking of flying to Marrakesh on a budget flight and railing my way up the coast though. Then I´ll ferry across and spend some time in Granada, see the Alhambra, then head to Seville for a few days. I might stop by Toledo, but most likely, I´ll catch a flight from Madrid to some place where I can take a flight to Vilnius, Lithuania. This is where my plans are kind of sketchy, however. Cheap flights can be had from Germany to Vilnius, but getting from Madrid to the German airports for cheap might be a problem. I do want to see Vilnius though, for family reasons(it´s the most significant ethnic background I have) and just because I´m interested in the town. They have a breakaway republic in Vilnius called Uzupic that has it´s own constitution. One of the articles of the constitution is that everybody has a right to love, pet, and take care of ´the cat´. It´s not said what cat they are talking about, but it is clearly a cat of LEGENDARY PROPORTIONS. This cat has power to sway the law! This is clearly the town I was destined to drink coffee in. I´ll get to Lithuania somehow, and not by train because like hell I´m passing through Belarus with a transit visa. Even if somehow I don´t end up in Lithuania, I´ll bide my time somehow, maybe cycling through Spain or actually visiting Italy. I´m forgoing the Italian adventures in this trip even though I had planned to spend a significant amount of time in the country before. I have many thoughts on this matter, most of which have only been thought of while I´ve been traveling and are UNDENIABLY based on the EXCELLENT travel skills I have learned in my first five weeks in Europe. Based on the experience points I gained in Europe (I´m seriously at level 60 right now and still quickly rising) I have a very good explanation of why Italy isn´t where I want to go on this trip, but I´ll save it for a more focused blog. So after Vilnius I´ll probably travel to either Slovenia or Prague, depending on what I´m in the mood for, then possibly visit my friend Eric in Berlin, but that hasn´t been completely sorted out yet. After all that, I´ll catch a cheap flight to London or book it on a train and arrive just in time to sleep in the airport for a night before getting on my flight back home. Sounds good to me for a sketch!

Incomplete thoughts by the Mediterranean (in Barcelona)

I got my feet wet in the same water Odysseus swam in, and even when I don´t plan on giving my feet a little bath in the Mediterranean, if I´m sitting on the beach next to Sean with a bottle of Sangria between us, I can´t help but stand in the inches high waves on the Spanish edge of that very long sea. Really, the beach itself smells, looks, and feels like Ocean City, the beach that´s sharpest in my memory, except serious incidents of historical importance happened on these waters I´m sitting by now, and some of these incidents didn´t even happen in reality, but only in the voice of poets long ago. To be fair to the O.C., I guess some cool stuff happened on the Atlantic Ocean too, but nothing as cool as Odysseus stabbing a cyclops in the eye. And let´s be honest about our old crabby Maryland beach now, nothing of real historical importance ever happened in Ocean City, besides some dude maybe eating the world´s best funnel cake, and even that´s a stretch. I hear the cakes are better in Chicago.
Beaches are seductive, and I don´t think it´s because of the semi-nude figures switching from cavorting and lounging. It´s the rhythm of the waves. Like other seductive things, the power is in the rhythm that can´t be perfectly kept, because it´s consistantly broken by spontaneity. Chaotically joyous, it keeps your interest, tempts you to understand it, and when you´re convinced that the waves are breaking just in this certain way, a tall one rises in the distance unexpectedly. So you grin, drink some sangria, eat a pistachio, and console yourself that it´s okay to never understand the sea because probably Jacques Cousteau never really understood it either. Then you resume trying to understand the sea because there´s nothing around you that´s quite as captivating as it is, not even the pretty blond girl with long hair that billows in the wind. She´s standing in the water getting her feet wet, looking at the milky distance of the same sea Aeneas once sailed, and probably understanding it better than you are.

In Disneyworld

Or the dusty 13th century version of it. There's just a huge castle right here north of the Pyrenees, and they call it La Cite, but you can call it that castle in Carcassone that has three too many shops that sell metal swords that actually can't kill you except from blunt trauma. Not to mention terrible t-shirts that have inexplicable statements like "Good Girls go to Paradise; bad girls go to Carcassone." To do what? Eat nutella crepes while listening to some ex-hippie talk about mead and point out the holes castillians poured hot oil out of?

Well, yeah, because Carcassone is the best place we've been on the trip so far. It's even got good Indian food.

Internet time is up!

Where to

We leave Montpellier in an hour, no less than an hour now, only 50 minutes. Sean has only eleven more days in Europe, ten if you go by his system of not counting the 28th, but I'm counting it, because thinking that there's eleven more days of traveling with a friend is better than ten. But the truth is that in exactly eleven days I'll be coming back to my hotel room in Madrid, missing a tent and my constant companion of five weeks. Then, I'll be on my own. I'm not even sure where I'm going to go after that. I had planned to travel through Italy for a couple weeks, then I'd take a ferry to Croatia and a train to Prague. But I'm not sure if I want to go deeply into Italy anymore. Portugal sounds fine, as does Morrocco. And most surprisingly, I see Lithuania in my travel future. It's easy to get to and has some personal meaning to me since my grandmother's side of the family on my mother's side is from Lithuania. It's the strongest ethnic heritage I have. Besides wanting to see Kafka's grave, Fellini's grave, the Uffizi gallery in Florence, and visiting Eric in Berlin, my plan is open, and really, visiting Eric is the only thing I really want to do, everything could slip away and I'd still be satisfied with my travel plans. The road really is open, and it really does feel free.
Sean and I hadn't planned on visiting half the cities we ended up in. Bruges, Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Beaune were all places we decided to visit en route. My time alone in Europe is going to be the same, I think, unless anyone wants to give me suggestions.

nine blogs in three weeks and a few days. Not bad!

So a disaster struck,

but it struck a few weeks ago in Antwerp. I just never blogged about it. Compared to the other two unsteady times(11 sleepless hours in Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam and a tentless night on a cold hillside in Paris) it's really not that bad. I just corrupted my memory card in my camera. There's this Cybercafe right outside the Grote Markt in Antwerp that lets you load photographs through a card reader. I used this card reader but forgot to unmount the removable disk in Windows Explorer before I pulled it out of the card reader. I even though I should probably unmount before I pull this out, but I thought it could just be unloaded hot since it was a card reader. Boy was I wrong. I lost all the Amsterdam photos, my first London photos, and some Rotterdam and Antwerp photos. Bummer. There were some good ones too. Thankfully, I could format the card in my camera and I was able to use it again. So, more photos, but some are lost forever. C'est la vie.

In Montpellier

A not bad at all vacation idea for the attention-span limited set would be to book a flight to Paris and arrive early on a Saturday morning. Immediately leave Paris in the dust of a slow-moving train to Dijon(get a window seat), then book a train to Lyon, and then one more to Montpellier. Don't take the TGV trains because they're too fast. You'd reach Montpellier in an hour or three. You don't want that. You want a single day of seeing the most beautiful countryside in France, maybe in all of Europe. You'll pass by countless villages perched on hillsides, vinyards and even Nuclear power plants. And don't worry about missing your daily instake of Church steeples. France has got your back. Catch a night plane out of Montpellier and you'll be back with minimum jet lag and plenty of time to paint a picture of all you've seen out the train window called "Paris to Montpellier on a single canvas" or just call it "Sans titel" if you want to be cool. Maybe compose a sonnet sequence about the way the sunlight in France looks through the clouds. Either way you'll only spend maybe a grand total, and have a grand day in france.

The snails all play when it rains.

It rained too much recently. Our poor tent was a waterbed for most of the morning and a leaky one at that. This is only the most recent water trouble we've had to face. We were baptised by rain water in damp Amsterdam. The rain flap that covers the our tent was never waterproofed properly, so on through two rainy A'dam nights Sean had some Water Tortue going on all night long. In Rotterdam we faced our first European thunderstorm, and that's when we made the brilliant decision to duct tape our tent. We used a roll and a half of duct tape, covering all the seams on the rain flap so it looked like silver lightning was streaking down the ceiling of our tent. We did this in Antwerp, and by the time we set up our tent again in Bruges one of the tape streams was limply hanging from the rain flap. We shrugged it off. Bruges was pretty dry considering it's the rainy season and the city is right by the coast. A different, more severe tent problem was pitched in Bruges though. One of our tent poles broke. This happened just as we were packing our tent in the morning, about six hours before we needed to catch a bus in Brussels. This ain't no thang to Sean and I, of course, because we're the roughest and the toughest in Europe. We're also the luckiest. Our campground was only 400 meters away from an adventure/outdoor store. We made clear the path straight to this store, hustling in the roughest and toughest way. We found some tent poles with the help of a bespectacled clerk who could only speak a little bit of English, which she told us when we were explaining our situation with far too many words than was necessary. The poles cost 10 euros each, so we bought two, a much cheaper option than buying a new tent, which rang up at 75 euros.
The next time we successfully put up our tent was three days later and five hundred miles or so later in Beaune, where we had our second thunderstorm in Europe. In those three days we probably gained 30 rough and tough levels though, since we slept in two strange places and carried our heavy packs on our back for much too long. That's for another blog though. What I really meant to say in this blog is that there are many snails in Beaune, and they all come out after it rains. We counted at least ten or so, some curled up in their shells, other poking around slowly. I've never seen live snails before. They were new and beautiful.

We're in France

There was a broken down bus, a broken tent, unhelpful cops, and a night on a Paris hillside. Our first sight of Paris when we stepped out of the metro was the Arc d'Triumph, it was not much of a triumphant night, but the next day we stayed with some people we met over the phone that same day, and now we're in Beaune. More later.

New Photos

New photos up on Flickr. Check them out. We're in Antwerp now and the city is gorgeous. Unlike past days, our two days in Belgium have been dry. Maybe it will stay dry now that we've finally waterproofed our tent. We used a cheaper European kind of duct tape called Handy Tape. We've also seen it called Power Tape at a place in Amsterdam. They don't have ducts in Europe I guess, or they just don't tape them.

Antwerp is the first city that really felt like a European city. It's twisty and old, with a towering Cathedral and lots of restarutants with Medieval Fonts on their signs. It feels a little like Busch Gardens, which is a terrible thing to say, but that was the closest I had been to Europe before this trip. There was even a Brass Band Parade yesterday at Groteplein, the Antwerp city Center. I'll be on the lookout for huge rollercoasters named after mythical beasts.