//donkey with banjo
There's a donkey wearing an Indian headdress and playing a banjo staring down at me from the ceiling. Nope, I'm not on drugs, I'm in Spain.
Spain was never supposed to be a big tourist thing for me, it was always going to be a chill out recovery phase, to relax from the hard work of constant sightseeing. My last couple of weeks have been a lot of wandering, sitting, pretending I know how to meditate and drinking beers with random people on hostel rooftops.
I've been through Valencia where I had many drunken adventures, Granada where I saw a pretty Arabic and Christian palace, Seville where I saw more of the same, Jerez de la Frontera where I had an Arabic bath, and now I am in Cadiz.
Cadiz is said to be the oldest city in Europe, having been founded by Phonecian sailors in whenever BC. Yep, I'm a history buff. It's a cool city but they're all starting to look a bit that same. I did manage to find a clothing store that was obviously designed to empty my wallet ‑ I spent a week's worth of money there in about fifteen minutes, then ran out with my eyes closed. The shop assistant recommended a restaurant for dinner so I and a guy from the hostel went there, me wearing my funky new outfit. It was on the beach, the food was incredibly good and it cost us ten euros each, with drinks. It was a giant success so I felt a bit better about my enormous cash outlay.
After being in Italy and seeing first hand the extent to which one's impressions of a place can change after a few months, I feel totally unqualified to comment on Spain or any of the cities I've visited here. I'll say some things anyway but take them with a grain of salt.
Ok, like Italy the whole place smells of dog pee. Nothing new there. The vibe is more relaxed than Italy, the people seem happier but the waiters are still rude. The hostels are about half the price of Italy, they all have kitchens and everyone hangs out in hammocks playing guitars. Mostly due to La Tomatina the country is currently overridden by Aussies, we are like a plague.
The bars do tapas in Spain which is similar to Italy's aperitifs, so eating is cheap. There are lots of buildings with pretty blue tiles. The palaces are mostly a mixture of Arabic architecture with Christian influences, proving that once upon a time the two religions got along. The beaches are better than in Italy but not quite up to Aussie standards. The buildings have more character than I've seen in most other parts of the world. Flamenco is alive and kicking and is not just for the tourists. Breakfasts are still a lot of cake and biscuits, but they seem to have also caught onto cereal here. The architecture really is striking and the cities have public gardens! GREENERY! Pretty revolutionary stuff happening in Spain.
I like the place but somehow I feel kind of removed from it. I think it's all the hanging out being cool that people do here ‑ not really my scene. It's probably also a lot to do with the way I've approached it ‑ viewing it as a place to relax, party, go to La Tomatina and make my way down to Morocco. I find that I don't have much to say about it, it's just more of western Europe, more of the same with a slightly different flavour.
Fantastic place and a lot of fun, but it hasn't touched my heart. Italy feels more like home in the way that your dodgy little one‑room flat might feel more like home than the penthouse suite of the Hyatt...
So, I'm sorry there are no lyrical musings on Spain. I had a lot of fun here but going on drunken nights out in Spain is the same as going on drunken nights out in Australia, except more expensive and with better Mojitos.
I'm hoping that Marrakech will dish out a little much needed culture shock.
Showing posts with label spain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spain. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
la tomatina
the tomato fight
After two hours of sleep, we dazedly crawled onto the bus and caught as much sleep as we could on the way to Buñol. When we arrived we staggered off the bus again and headed down the windy road into town with 60 thousand other crazies like ourselves.
Locals had set up little stalls selling goggles, swimming caps, t-shirts, food and cheap beer. As we ambled down the road we came across a lot of costumes, including some drag queens, a guy wearing goggles, snorkel and a giant floatie, and I posed for a photo with a group of poms wearing orange wigs and white cricket gear. The atmosphere was charged with expectation and trepidation. So far, not a tomato to be seen.
The tiny town square where the fight takes place was already packed by 9am and the fight wasn't to start until 11. Sticking with five other girls from my tour group, I picked out a spot in a sidestreet near a wall. So began the warm up to the main event.
Some crazy local guys near us started the annual tradition of t‑shirt ripping early, t‑shirts went sailing through the air and more and more guys ended up bare shouldered, Some girls were also attacked but most of us were wearing at least two shirts and a sports bra, some had even duct‑taped their clothes to their bodies. One girl was completely unscathed except for the skin on her knuckles, which had done battle with many a Spanish nose, and won. Some people were standing calmly while others were singing and dancing and pushing. We were jostled for 2 hours, the crowd getting crazier and crazier, the locals getting scarily over the top.
Before the fight even began we saw a girl faint, several broken noses, someone break into a nearby house and throw bits of the door from the balcony into the crowd (a group of Aussie guys tossed it back and hit the guy on the head, before the police arrived and arrested him). Some forgetful local had left their window open and their white couch glistened in the sunlight, enjoying its last few moments of pristine cleanliness before a world of tomatoes ruined its beauty.
All this time, the competition to capture the ham was in progress. There was a wobbly pole with a ham stuck on top and a lot of very smelly fat all up and down it to make it slippery. Guys and some girls clambered over each other to pull off globs of fat in their hands and render the pole climbable enough to finally reach the ham. Finally it was touched, which signals the start of the fight and the tomato trucks rolled in.
My rib cage was nearly squashed when the trucks rolled past, dumping tonnes of tomatoes into the crowd. The first tomato bounced off someone's head near me and a friend giggled as she squashed it into my hair. We all got a bit dirty and then the tomatoes ran out. We stood around, waiting, grinning at our first taste of the fight. Truck two rolled past, more of the same, until finally truck three dumped its load and suddenly we were in a river of tomato juice halfway up our shins. The white wall behind us was splotched with red, our hair was disgusting, our faces were covered, our goggles saving our eyes from the acid.
I don't know, or want to know, what I ingested that day as torn t‑shirts were thrown through the crowd, landing on faces, heads, shoulders. I kept my mouth closed as tightly as I could and watched the madness of the centre of the square.
Suddenly a friend materialised and said 'come into the middle, it's awesome!'. I grabbed her hand and we slipped through the tomato‑juice lubricated crowd into the middle of the mosh pit.
At this point the madness really began. We were all covered with tomato, it was in our hair, our ears, our nostrils, our mouths, our shoes. I was wading through a lake of tomato juice, slipping against body after body, not even throwing tomatoes because my main mission was just to stay upright. My arms were around the shoulders of the nearest tall guy and my legs were wrapped around whoever was standing nearest to me. My mine‑site issue steel caps were doing their job very well. I laughed when some British guys near me said "man this is insane, I want to get out of here, these people are nuts, I'm scared."
Eventually I squeezed out of the crowd into the street and joined the other tomato‑pasted zombies. People's eyes widened when they saw me so I got the impression that I was fairly tomato‑ed. When I got in line for the first hose (the locals water everyone down after the fight) the girls in front of me said "oh my god, you should go first, you need it more". Sadly my disposable camera was out of film by that point so I couldn't capture the moment forever.
The rest of the day was spent picking tomato seeds out of my hair, washing and re‑washing my underwear (still smells like tomato juice, might have to accept that it's time for it to go)
and sleeping.
La Tomatina was some of the best fun I've ever had. Welcome to Spain.
After two hours of sleep, we dazedly crawled onto the bus and caught as much sleep as we could on the way to Buñol. When we arrived we staggered off the bus again and headed down the windy road into town with 60 thousand other crazies like ourselves.
Locals had set up little stalls selling goggles, swimming caps, t-shirts, food and cheap beer. As we ambled down the road we came across a lot of costumes, including some drag queens, a guy wearing goggles, snorkel and a giant floatie, and I posed for a photo with a group of poms wearing orange wigs and white cricket gear. The atmosphere was charged with expectation and trepidation. So far, not a tomato to be seen.
The tiny town square where the fight takes place was already packed by 9am and the fight wasn't to start until 11. Sticking with five other girls from my tour group, I picked out a spot in a sidestreet near a wall. So began the warm up to the main event.
Some crazy local guys near us started the annual tradition of t‑shirt ripping early, t‑shirts went sailing through the air and more and more guys ended up bare shouldered, Some girls were also attacked but most of us were wearing at least two shirts and a sports bra, some had even duct‑taped their clothes to their bodies. One girl was completely unscathed except for the skin on her knuckles, which had done battle with many a Spanish nose, and won. Some people were standing calmly while others were singing and dancing and pushing. We were jostled for 2 hours, the crowd getting crazier and crazier, the locals getting scarily over the top.
Before the fight even began we saw a girl faint, several broken noses, someone break into a nearby house and throw bits of the door from the balcony into the crowd (a group of Aussie guys tossed it back and hit the guy on the head, before the police arrived and arrested him). Some forgetful local had left their window open and their white couch glistened in the sunlight, enjoying its last few moments of pristine cleanliness before a world of tomatoes ruined its beauty.
All this time, the competition to capture the ham was in progress. There was a wobbly pole with a ham stuck on top and a lot of very smelly fat all up and down it to make it slippery. Guys and some girls clambered over each other to pull off globs of fat in their hands and render the pole climbable enough to finally reach the ham. Finally it was touched, which signals the start of the fight and the tomato trucks rolled in.
My rib cage was nearly squashed when the trucks rolled past, dumping tonnes of tomatoes into the crowd. The first tomato bounced off someone's head near me and a friend giggled as she squashed it into my hair. We all got a bit dirty and then the tomatoes ran out. We stood around, waiting, grinning at our first taste of the fight. Truck two rolled past, more of the same, until finally truck three dumped its load and suddenly we were in a river of tomato juice halfway up our shins. The white wall behind us was splotched with red, our hair was disgusting, our faces were covered, our goggles saving our eyes from the acid.
I don't know, or want to know, what I ingested that day as torn t‑shirts were thrown through the crowd, landing on faces, heads, shoulders. I kept my mouth closed as tightly as I could and watched the madness of the centre of the square.
Suddenly a friend materialised and said 'come into the middle, it's awesome!'. I grabbed her hand and we slipped through the tomato‑juice lubricated crowd into the middle of the mosh pit.
At this point the madness really began. We were all covered with tomato, it was in our hair, our ears, our nostrils, our mouths, our shoes. I was wading through a lake of tomato juice, slipping against body after body, not even throwing tomatoes because my main mission was just to stay upright. My arms were around the shoulders of the nearest tall guy and my legs were wrapped around whoever was standing nearest to me. My mine‑site issue steel caps were doing their job very well. I laughed when some British guys near me said "man this is insane, I want to get out of here, these people are nuts, I'm scared."
Eventually I squeezed out of the crowd into the street and joined the other tomato‑pasted zombies. People's eyes widened when they saw me so I got the impression that I was fairly tomato‑ed. When I got in line for the first hose (the locals water everyone down after the fight) the girls in front of me said "oh my god, you should go first, you need it more". Sadly my disposable camera was out of film by that point so I couldn't capture the moment forever.
The rest of the day was spent picking tomato seeds out of my hair, washing and re‑washing my underwear (still smells like tomato juice, might have to accept that it's time for it to go)
and sleeping.
La Tomatina was some of the best fun I've ever had. Welcome to Spain.
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