The Weather Had Other Plans

So, Barcelona is supposed to be great, right? I´m sure it is, if it didn´t look like a swimming pool right now. It´s dumping buckets. I got in this morning from Madrid, and since I stepped out of the Metro, its been raining at varying intensities. I tried walking around with my guide book to look at the sights, but trying to hold an umbrella that continues to turn inside out and a guidebook at the same time is pretty impossible.

So, three cheers for Starbucks. I sat inside for an hour and chatted with some peeps from Iceland. Now Im back at the hostel - couldnt get a couchsurfing host for tonight - drying off. I may read for a while or something, I dont know. The TV behind me has gifted me in the past half and hour with: James Blunt, Lionel Richie, and Jewel.... yeah. If the weather (or music video selection) continues like this, I think I´ll just go on to the south of France a couple of days early. I guess not every city is gonna be great. Too bad though, everyone and their dog was telling me that Barcelona was the bees knees.

Off to continue my adventure in the pages of a Hemingway classic...

Boomerang

In the last 72 hours, I´ve been to Lisbon, Portugal and back to Madrid in Spain, where I now sit in a musky, sweaty internet cafe listening to random conversations in Spanish and the clickedy-clack of dozen of keyboards. You see, I was all on track to fly out of Portugal this morning on the plane flight that I purchased several months ago to leave at 10:10am. Well, this certain European airline decided to change my flight to 12 hours later, to leave in the evening. They leat me know about a month ago (I got the email in Liverpool), but since I´m traveling so much, I cant really keep track of every little detail. I pinned it in the back of my mind, and when the time came that it was about 3 days from the flight, now they tell me its too late to get another flight. I guess I could just be typing here "I missed my flight", but I paid for an hour here and I might as well use it all up, eh?

So, I got my money back, surprisingly, and took another overnight train back to Madrid. On Friday I take a morning train to barcelona, and get this - both train tickets combined are cheaper than the plane ticket! Bahahahhaha, take that stupid airline.

I´m so glad to be back in Spain. Portugal, while charming, had crappy weather, much like the UK. I think I saw the sun once, right before I left, of course. Portugal is kind of "old Europe" - not as develped and not as loud and brazen as say Spain or Germany (i hear). Sounds quaint, but you can spend a lot of time twiddling your thumbs in Portugal. So peace out I said, and back to big cities with all kinds of culture. Madrid is hopping right now - they are celebrating 200 years independance from Napoleon, and the celebration goes all the month of May. Im hoping to catch some Flamenco dancing tomorrow night before heading off to Barcelona.

And now, some pictures of the last three days......

First, starting with my most recent Madrid host, Mike. He´s an English professor here. Just imagine that really cool professor you had in college that made you understand or like something you had previously been uninterested in, and became a friend to you as time went on. I get to stay with that guy. Take a close look at the two pictures on the wall. Mike snapped the one of the right of a woman rushing out of a subway to kiss that guy. Then he snapped the one on the left a second later, and noticed that the guy reading the book was in both pictures, so he put them together (almost) on the wall. If you cant see it because of the glare, trust me.

Here I am on the night train to Portugal. L-R; Christian, from South America, Hiro from Tokyo, me, and another Brian, this one from Dublin. Hiro was so funny - not your typical Japanese guy. After two beers, he was slapping us all on the back like a Texas oilman and handing out his card to keep in touch. Brian was Irish, but had lived in Austrailia for a time, so every other sentence sounded either Irish or Australian. At 2am when we crossed the border, the train stopped for over a half an hour, so we all crowded out onto the platform. The bartender, Claudio (taking the picture here) had befriended us by then, so he was one of the guys at that point.




In Portugal now. First stop: a great flea market. I picked up a cool little blue army man that will be making appearances in future photographs. Here´s me testing out this bicycle.





Being riduculous, yes.





This one´s for my friend Tyler back in CA. This is the Portuguese Tyler. Even looks like him! This guy made all his own shirts and designs on his own screenprinting machine and sells them at several flea markets. I saw him at two different ones. My fav designs: The trumpet blowing butterflies on the little girl, and the flowers emerging from the machine gun. love you tyler, man. Follow your dreams, baby.




Just a beautiful little part of Portugal. Dont miss the man smoking in the window.






One of my favs from Portugal. Old men gather in parks everywhere and play cards like its the world championships everyday. They take it so serisously. About 10 seconds after I snapped this, the game was over and they all dispersed. Just in time!




You could hear this ice cream man about a quarter mile away. His motorbike sounded like a Kamakazi airplane. The pollution coming out of the back didnt let you forget it anytime soon either.





Can someone please explain this one to me?





This old woman was the third woman in five minutes to fuss over the correct way to wrap these flowers. I just stood there in the doorway and watched. I´m not sure she even saw me.




A dinner of sardines! They were soooo good. Very salty.





Here´s the coast.








Back to SPAIN! I arrived this morning on a night train - the same one from three days ago. Yes, not only the same train but it was the same bartendar that hung out with us out on the platform, the same staff and porter, and even one of the same guys from my room! And he and I had the same bed number assignments! Although last night, instead of hanging out with the guys, I spend 2 hours talking with an eldery but feisty Australian couple and their daughter-in-law. The man, who introduced himself as ¨Montgomery¨ (which I soon found out was his last name - he just liked saying that better first than ¨Frank¨), took pride in the fact that he had never worn or owned a pair of jeans or a T-shirt. Crazy. We all sat around, ate cheese and bread, and talked about everything from American politics to Japanese karaoke to how much they loved South Park. Sooo awesome. Sleeping on night trains is over rated. I wish i had a picture of them!



The celebration in Spain continues. Today I got to see a wonderful free concert outside of the Royal Palace.








These soldiers all took pretty good pleasure in making the rookie soliders they just passed (not pictured) salute every single one of them seperately. hahahaha






That´s all for now folks! Gonna go read some Hemingway now.