In Which Team Pants Circumnavigates An Itinerary

Ole, Seville!

We are back to the United States. Currently we lounge in respective comforts at Soggy Acres, the name of my parent's property in North Carolina. We chose to break up our international travel with stops in Durham allowing us to adjust to time changes and process our journey. I believe we chose wisely. Plus, they have a hot tub.

Our last post found us in Granada, pleasantly enjoying the provincial hospitality of our expatriate friends' villa. From there we took the high speed train across the Andalusian plains towards Seville. Upon arrival we made haste to our pension, located in the heart of the old city. After checking in with an adorable and ancient senor who had the high voice of an old woman, we made our way to more foods and thence to the cathedral.

I must find a way to encapsulate the sights and sounds of our travels in a more efficient way than this, for to simply write full sentences and paragraphs skips over so many impressions we gathered. I believe the next post will be just that; a cavalcade of vignettes and impressions, peppered by photographs.

The cathedral surprised us, glimpsing over rooftops as we winded through the bottleneck streets at night. Its height watched us walk the cobblestones between the close walls. When we at last flowed out into the main plaza before it's grandeur we were welcomed by the sounds of a virtuosic classical guitarist. The instrument played off the ancient walls and the monuments. In a mist of natural reverberation and ghosts we strolled away and back again, unable to leave the aural enchantment. We bought his CD. http://www.torkematik.com

I think I could live here, but it would require some frequent visits to the Mediterranean coast, and most certainly to Morocco. Ever since reading Paul Bowles and falling in love with his prose in high school I have wished to travel to North Africa. It is the Moorish influences that attract me most to this part of Europe. I have little in common with Spanish machismo or the fiery passions germane to its natives. I prefer open spaces. I prefer contemplative vistas or complex and graceful architecture. I prefer more fresh vegetables. But to feel the power of this land's antiquity and the relaxing breath of el viento viejo, I yearn to stay.

The morning light is magical. Low, intense, gold and deep saffrons are splashed on everything making the surfaces glow and glimmer. Shadows are long and black. The air is cool, even damp. Breezes are mustered and bother along the streets like sleepless revelers. We take it in and breathe it out. I wish the whole day were morning.


But the days are long and morning only their start. We have learned to ride the ebb of the day's heat during the siesta and plan our days around it's surcease. Upon rising for the second time of the day we feel renewed and as though we have a second morning to explore. A fantastic pace that refreshes and slows our sense of time's passage.

Time is an illusion, siesta doubly so, to paraphrase Douglas Adams. We must press on. We depart Seville early early on a Monday morning. We return to Amsterdam.

In Which Team Pants Kick Ass and Take Names

Upon waking in our pension, the alley below comes into aural focus like a distant television set left on overnight on the Noisy Malaga Street channel. The Andalusian sky; a crystal azul mocked by solitary clouds who defy the expanse of sun-filled sky. The day is ours. We've left Holland behind. The snow, the wet cold, and the mistakes. Oh yes, we made mistakes in Holland. I am a savvy traveler, made all the more so by loosing my wife for forty-five minutes during a snow storm. But I digress...

The autobus North to Granada passes between the small mountains which separate the town from the Mediterranean. Some hills are covered with scrub. Scruffy Brillo pads bereft of greenery, balding like middle aged Greek man in a brash sun. Occasionally we see the ordered olive rows, but I wonder where the grass grows? There is none. The scenery looks like California, and then I remember the spaghetti westerns filmed here, and I say, "ah." "This land was designed by Hollywood executives and producers to appear Old West, without the fuss of paying union wages!"

Arriving in Granada appears much like arriving in Mexico: cheap buildings with advertising written in that machismo font that gives me hives. Until descending into the valley, one might believe it all looked like that. The Franco-inspired, near communist grandeur reflected in the monumental fountains and architecture suggests otherwise. It only hints at a regime's belief that all this ancient city served to highlight their impunity and divine right. But the ancient withstood the brief shadow of dictators as easily as the reigns of caliphs and catholic demagogues. Here are the baths fed by aquaducts still in use, built over one thousand years ago. Here, a catholic church is easily recognized as Muslim in style, bells replacing the muezzin's voice in the arched windows of the tower. Each most likely built on the backs of the poor or enslaved.

Our host's house is magical. Shaped like a U with an open courtyard in the middle, the stairs bring you upwards to a rooftop patio under the gaze of the Alahambra. Upon arriving, we quaff mas tinto des verana (i've butchered the spelling in favor of phonetics) and I get a lesson in slicing Iberian ham. It's placed in a convenient stand and shaved to produce paper thin, succulent slices. These hams are curred three thousand meters above sea level in the dry air of the sierra nevadas. The rare air produces rare flavors and savory "tops" to beverages.

The drinking continues until one in the morning. We weave the streets taking in pubs and tapas, bars and wines, savoring the different scenes as we eat and drink our way through the night.

We sleep like dogs.

In Which Team Pants Arrive in Spain

"No, you don't know."

These were the first words my wife uttered to me when I answered, "I know" to her question, "Do you know how much I have wanted to be here?"

Well, as it turns out, I didn't know. She's alive here in a new way. Not to imply a lack of life elsewhere, stateside and all that. To the contrary; Spain, and most of Europe it seems, evulses a creative surge in my girl's demeanor, her vivre, her happiness. It is no mere accident her name is Felicity. But it is not always evident, say, if you're her dialysis patient trying to refuse treatment, that she's a happy happy girl. It's not always evident that she is searching for the best in everyone. It's not always right at the surface that this woman gives one hundred percent of her energy, all the time, to whom upon which she focuses. She just is; trust me. And here, in Andalusia, the blossoms are in Springtime.

Malaga greets us with a warm, Mediterranean breeze that blows the night's darkness in swirls around the lit lamps and shiny streets. The evening involves us intricately with gentle nudges and eddies that pull us onto further corners of it's glow. Malaga.

Our pensione is called Rosa. La Senora calls to us after we arrive and acknowledges they do have vacancy. "Arriba" she says. From where we are not sure. Felicity thinks senora is behind a door to our left. But I believe she's on the landing above. She is. I say, "Arriba. Si?" "Si." She replies, and we climb the four flights of stairs towards her voice. On the top stair landing we are presented with a lovely, albeit tiny, room with a small balcony overlooking an even tinier (tinyer?) alleyway from which the smells and savory scents of fresh fried fish flow upwards through our open doors. Now, with my wife hungry for Spain and fish, we descend upon the alley with the gusto of a tomcat to the mouse carcass.

Our fat and balding servant does not speak english. That's OK. I'd have been disappointed if he did. I don't speak Spanish. Ha! Far from it. I speak a universally understood colloquial spooge of hand gestures and facial expressions largely gathered from my travels in the U.S. They seem to go over nicely here, except when it comes to verbs and nouns. I defer to my wife.

We did eat. I swear. The fried octopus made me weep. It was bomb diggity good eatin', to paraphrase the Cajun folk. The baby mussells, drowned in butter and lemon juice did for to make a salavation or two. We et. We did depart, well fed. We did expotition. And that's a story for manana. Which brings up the question: how do you spell the word describing the letter N with the funny squiggle cloud over it? Enya? Sail away, sail away, sail away....


I remain,


soup