We are in The town of Gernika, Spain, still in Basque country. A couple of our peregrino ( =pilgrim ) friends from Poland are sitting on a bench outside our hostel lamenting the loss of their girlfriends. one a graphic designer, one a photographer, both newly unemployed, both dumped by their women. one has a sore knee. They covered 100 km in 2.5 days, but somehow have slowed up enough to be in Gernika with us tonight.
Other companions in out room at the hostel:
Valentina, a tall and lovely young Veneziana
Nicole and Daniel, a middle-aged couple from the French Alps
Yanna, the picture book version of a German freulein with blond pigtails and rosy cheeks
Vicente, a shy Spaniard
There are a few too many of us in one room. Daniel the Frenchman says we are "like chickens in a coop."
We are all tired from walking 22 kilometers today from Makrina to Gernika. after showers we feel much better.
Bob and I strolled through the town and ate pintxos, which is the Basque version of tapas. I had the best one yet tonight: a fresh slice of the local bread topped with a slice of Spanish jamón =(the best ham you could imagine: a harder, drier version of prosciutto, sort of) and a slice of a cured green chile pepper and a local goat cheese and a sweet sun dried tomato).
Gernika is a town with a shocking past. in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, Franco hired German aircraft to bomb the city, since they were on the side opposing him, and we're Basques to boot, which he didn't find very appealing. This was (I think) the first air strike ever ( remember planes had not been around long in 1937.)
Most of the city was destroyed utterly, and many civilians were killed. This disturbed Pablo Picasso so much that he painted his masterpiece Guernica (Guerra in Spanish meaning war),and subsequently left the country and lived in France in exile until Franco was gone.
After winning in the civil war, Franco oppressed the Basque people, prohibiting the use of their language called Euskara and their self-government. this did not go over well.
From what I have leaned here from the Vascos who have talked to me, they do not consider themselves Spaniards , and find it incredibly important to maintain their own culture and identity separate from the greater Spanish culture.
It's very hard to get Wi-Fi ( here pronounced "wee-fee") so I can't post enough here. There is an unbelievable amount of stimulation here, and enough happening each day to fill a book.
Monday, September 8, 2014
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
We are on the Renfe train bound for Irun this morning. I am so relieved to be able to just
sit here and do nothing for 5 hours after our long and difficult travels yesterday.
Our overnight flight to Paris was delayed, so we missed our connecting flight to Madrid the next day and sat for 6 hours at the airport. At least I got to hear many polite French people saying "Bonjour Madame," to me all afternoon, which I really liked, and to see some very strange Coca Cola bottles in a restaurant refrigerator. Inexplicably, they bore labels with names like "Cyril" "Ivan" "Sandra" and "Stephanie", all in typical bold red and white Coke font. While I was noticing these things, Bob was being outrageously overcharged for tiny coffee (12 euros. Fortunately on the Renfe train it's two for 3.75€.)
We did subsequently sit next to a very lovely young woman on the plane, however: she was studying Spanish from a German textbook, and we began to talk (in Spanish, not German, which I know nothing about.) She explained to me how to pick out fellow Germans at the airport. "Backpacks, sandals with white socks." She's moving to Madrid to study. She's already a nurse. She gave me a big hug when we parted, which I thought was a very great thing after only an hour of chatting.
We found our hotel, which is in the Letras district of Madrid, right in the center of the city. Out room and bathroom were extremely stylish ( more on that later), but not only could we not swing a cat in it, we couldn't even swing an ant in it. Now I understand what all the people are talking about on Trip Advisor and hotels.com when they complain that there is no place to put luggage and still walk around in a hotel room (I just defaulted to crawling over the bed to get places, and I stayed on top of it when Bob had to move around the room. )
Having just installed a new bathroom at my house, I know the building code in Madrid must be vastly different from the one in Massachusetts. Six inches between the front of the toilet and the wall would not fly with Rick my building inspector at home, nor would 18" shower doors. Six-foot-four-inch Bob had to squeeze through the shower door sideways. Fortunately , the ceilings were 9' high, which lessened the visual difficulties at least.
However, it was one of the cutest bathrooms ever, with modern beautiful materials. Since I have many designer and architect friends, I will go into detail here( skip it if you don't care.) The walls sported 12x18" tiles with a gorgeous deep yellow glaze. The sink top was curved glass, with a chrome modern faucet that had painted flowers on the top. the shower stall had more cool big tiles with painted flowers (think mod 60's flower power ) in red , green and yellow, and a marvelous red shower panel with several types of body jets, hand held sprayer, and a big rain shower head to top it all off. Squeezing through the tiny but great-looking frameless glass door to get in ( for all you design people out there, they had to make a hinged and a stationary panel even though the whole thing was only 30" because the toilet blocked most of it and a door wider than 18" couldn't swing open :-) Using this awesome shower was the only reward we received for getting up at the crack of dawn to catch the train.
Dinner last night and a bit of strolling around Plaza del Sol was all we could do in the short time we were in Madrid, but we certainly have much to report.The street of Madrid are buzzing at 11pm, with people dining and wandering around everywhere. I asked the guy sitting next to us at dinner if this was a typical Monday night, and he said oh yes, we Madrilenos are always out at night eating and having fun. I asked what time most people went to work, and he told me 9am, and laughed, and added that wasn't important, the important part was what happens at night. Two people told us to go to the top of the Corte Ingles to see the great view, but after riding up ten floors of escalators, we found we were in the wrong building. Back down again, we found a cafe and got a table streetside. our waiter looked suspiciously Inca, so I asked him if he was a Madrid native, and he said no, he was from Ecuador. We learned that most of the staff are actually from Latin America, and many have eaten the local delicacy cuy, which is guinea pig. The head waiter claimed that the wild ones were no good, but the ones bred for consumption were OK. But this is Spain, and I haven't seen any cuy on the menu, though TV chef Anthony Bourdain featured them in a segment he did on the cuisine of Peru. This is all true.
Our overnight flight to Paris was delayed, so we missed our connecting flight to Madrid the next day and sat for 6 hours at the airport. At least I got to hear many polite French people saying "Bonjour Madame," to me all afternoon, which I really liked, and to see some very strange Coca Cola bottles in a restaurant refrigerator. Inexplicably, they bore labels with names like "Cyril" "Ivan" "Sandra" and "Stephanie", all in typical bold red and white Coke font. While I was noticing these things, Bob was being outrageously overcharged for tiny coffee (12 euros. Fortunately on the Renfe train it's two for 3.75€.)
We did subsequently sit next to a very lovely young woman on the plane, however: she was studying Spanish from a German textbook, and we began to talk (in Spanish, not German, which I know nothing about.) She explained to me how to pick out fellow Germans at the airport. "Backpacks, sandals with white socks." She's moving to Madrid to study. She's already a nurse. She gave me a big hug when we parted, which I thought was a very great thing after only an hour of chatting.
We found our hotel, which is in the Letras district of Madrid, right in the center of the city. Out room and bathroom were extremely stylish ( more on that later), but not only could we not swing a cat in it, we couldn't even swing an ant in it. Now I understand what all the people are talking about on Trip Advisor and hotels.com when they complain that there is no place to put luggage and still walk around in a hotel room (I just defaulted to crawling over the bed to get places, and I stayed on top of it when Bob had to move around the room. )
Having just installed a new bathroom at my house, I know the building code in Madrid must be vastly different from the one in Massachusetts. Six inches between the front of the toilet and the wall would not fly with Rick my building inspector at home, nor would 18" shower doors. Six-foot-four-inch Bob had to squeeze through the shower door sideways. Fortunately , the ceilings were 9' high, which lessened the visual difficulties at least.
However, it was one of the cutest bathrooms ever, with modern beautiful materials. Since I have many designer and architect friends, I will go into detail here( skip it if you don't care.) The walls sported 12x18" tiles with a gorgeous deep yellow glaze. The sink top was curved glass, with a chrome modern faucet that had painted flowers on the top. the shower stall had more cool big tiles with painted flowers (think mod 60's flower power ) in red , green and yellow, and a marvelous red shower panel with several types of body jets, hand held sprayer, and a big rain shower head to top it all off. Squeezing through the tiny but great-looking frameless glass door to get in ( for all you design people out there, they had to make a hinged and a stationary panel even though the whole thing was only 30" because the toilet blocked most of it and a door wider than 18" couldn't swing open :-) Using this awesome shower was the only reward we received for getting up at the crack of dawn to catch the train.
Dinner last night and a bit of strolling around Plaza del Sol was all we could do in the short time we were in Madrid, but we certainly have much to report.The street of Madrid are buzzing at 11pm, with people dining and wandering around everywhere. I asked the guy sitting next to us at dinner if this was a typical Monday night, and he said oh yes, we Madrilenos are always out at night eating and having fun. I asked what time most people went to work, and he told me 9am, and laughed, and added that wasn't important, the important part was what happens at night. Two people told us to go to the top of the Corte Ingles to see the great view, but after riding up ten floors of escalators, we found we were in the wrong building. Back down again, we found a cafe and got a table streetside. our waiter looked suspiciously Inca, so I asked him if he was a Madrid native, and he said no, he was from Ecuador. We learned that most of the staff are actually from Latin America, and many have eaten the local delicacy cuy, which is guinea pig. The head waiter claimed that the wild ones were no good, but the ones bred for consumption were OK. But this is Spain, and I haven't seen any cuy on the menu, though TV chef Anthony Bourdain featured them in a segment he did on the cuisine of Peru. This is all true.
Which leads us to today's installment of
Vicarious Consumption.
Our dinner menu:
Emperador a la Plancha
Ensalada
Pan y aceitunas (bread and olives)
Emperador is swordfish, and a Plancha is an iron, or a grill pan or or frying pan ( in this case the grill pan; you don't want to iron your fish unless it is very wrinkled.
The swordfish was pretty good, but not the best I've ever had. The white wine recommended by our waiter was DELICIOUS,though, crisp and refreshing with a distinct hint of apple. It was called Max something.
Tonight I bought a peach (delicious) at a market and took a chance on an appetizer called croquetas (OK). I am sure I have not had any great food yet, but I will find it.
Vicarious Consumption.
Our dinner menu:
Emperador a la Plancha
Ensalada
Pan y aceitunas (bread and olives)
Emperador is swordfish, and a Plancha is an iron, or a grill pan or or frying pan ( in this case the grill pan; you don't want to iron your fish unless it is very wrinkled.
The swordfish was pretty good, but not the best I've ever had. The white wine recommended by our waiter was DELICIOUS,though, crisp and refreshing with a distinct hint of apple. It was called Max something.
Tonight I bought a peach (delicious) at a market and took a chance on an appetizer called croquetas (OK). I am sure I have not had any great food yet, but I will find it.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Leaving home tomorrow!
I will be regularly including a sub-heading in this blog called "Vicarious Consumption." One of my friends has requested that I chronicle in delicious detail all the food associated with our trip. I will do anything she wants, since because of her I get to eat four Maine lobsters at a time and all the freshly picked mussels I can eat every summer. However, I am only intermittently interested in gastronomie, and exhaust my interest in food preparation quickly. I can't sustain making many great meals in a row, though I think I have produced a few along the way. I will have to take a bit of a different tack from other food blogs as a result. Here is the first installment.
Vicarious Consumption (I didn't know there was a Pepto-bismol font)
I'm not really in Spain yet, but I have to say our farewell breakfast was pretty tasty: Monte Cristo sandwiches, cantaloupe and Swiss chard from the garden, very strong coffee, and in a surprise improvisational beverage coup, homemade wild grape juice. I am far more into plants than I am into cooking, but the two do go marvelously hand in hand, like estimable Bob and me. I was out taking a practice hike in the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge (ARNWR--it's across the street from my house) with my fully loaded backpack (approx. 25 lbs.) when I spied a vine with ripe purple grapes hanging father inconveniently above some poison ivy. Throwing caution (but not cliches) to the wind, I picked them, and juiced them when I got back home. To my surprise, since I loathe bottled grape juice, the stuff is GREAT. Like fresh squeezed lime or lemonade, it is tart and refreshing, and I am sure bursting with anti-oxidants. On the do-not-be-too-jealous-of-us side, notice the bottle of faux syrup which is on the breakfast table ("Log Cabin.") Since we had to buy so many things for our trip like real hiking pants and fancy quick-dry everything, I decided to forfeit the far superior real maple syrup at $22 a bottle, though everyone was upset. Also notice the pants hanging to dry on the deck in the background. Some say that is very white-trash, and is certainly not allowed if you live in a condo complex with rules. And the deck chairs are plastic.
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I include this picture of my eggplant because I am going to miss my garden. I am highly enthusiastic about growing just about anything, and fall in New England is prime time for transplanting and harvesting. I hope to find some oportunidades to engage in some garden activities while I'm in Spain to ease my botanical withdrawal symptoms.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Introduction and Disclaimer!
As this is the beginning of my blog, I feel compelled to include a brief disclaimer about the value of its future contents. Like E.B. White's dog Daisy, the Scottish terrier who "suffered from a chronic perplexity", my point of view is questionable.
Still, I hope my readership will be as entertained by my efforts as I usually am myself. Like Daisy, I hope to die "sniffing life, and enjoying it."
Estimable Roberto will also be telling our tale, mostly in pictures, as he is accustomed to do so by his many years of storytelling through the camera lens. (For those of you who don't know, Robert was a television and film director for 30 years prior to becoming a UCC minister in Concord, MA.) His blog address is bobencamino.com and there will be lots of pictures of me there.
:-) Natalie/Natalia
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