Monday, April 21, 2003

Monday, April 21, 2003   Okay so Thursday night was overload… too many people, too many parades.  Friday night we went to the campground bar and watched the TV.  Can you imagine American TV dedicating a channel to a religious event… non stop… with play-by-play and a color commentator?  Nope, didn’t think so.  They didn’t even break for commercials… every once in a while a semitransparent ad would appear at the bottom of the screen.  Wonder if the advertisers get time off in Purgatory for buying time?  Then we pretty much took the weekend off… a few minor tinkering with the van. (danger, danger, car talk)  Still trying to figure out what’s wrong with the heat control (always on).  I found the cable connection behind the control face plate, seems to be fine… can’t seem to find where it comes through the firewall…  There is a suspicious assembly on the heater hose that looks like a patch or connector, and might be where a valve used to be… but no sign of where the cable actuator would have been.  The heater itself is pretty accessible on top under the hood, but it looks like old cardboard and I’m reluctant to open it up.  Strategy number one is to cut a small amount off one end of the heater hose and take it to a supply house and see if they can sell me new hose and some kind of valve.  If I can run a new cable into the cab and mount a knob somewhere like installing a manual choke, great, if not, wouldn’t be a big deal to have to open the hood to shut off the heat.  Too much to ask Rhona to do while we are on the highway I guess….  Let’s see, need a harness, a boom….  Anyway, option two, would be to collect a couple corks, already have the hose clamps (hose clamps and gray tape, first car purchases).   Remove the mysterious connector or whatever it is, insert corks, clamp, presto, the heat is off.  Hum, better be ready to patch it when the first cold morning on the highway comes along or there definitely will be some wifey hostility potential.   Neighbor with his caravan just pulled out.  A caravan is what Europeans call a travel trailer.  They seem to be very light and compact compared to the American version.  They pull them with relatively small Corolla sized cars.  The advantage is that you pull in, unhook, and off you go in your little car.  Cost is reasonable, assuming you already own the car.  Obviously an expensive way to go for tourists.   Well, I suppose the same plan could work, buy a used car, a used caravan, then sell both at the end of the trip.  Drawback I would think is pulling the trailer…  we pass them by on the highway, wouldn’t even want to think about driving in these narrow streets, let alone trying to park.  I have to admit I am a little jealous of the modern cabover campervans…  Especially the Mercedes… huge windshields.  What Rhona and I like best about our van is the windows…  The drawback to the small van is that we usually have to make and unmake the bed everyday… but we’ve got that down to a science pretty much.  But like today, going into Seville to check out the Feria, we’ll leave the bed made up.  The big plus with our situation is the lack of a huge investment, to say nothing of the cost of insurance.  If anything serious goes wrong, it would be a hassle, but wouldn’t kill our trip… just be trains, busses, hotels and hostels the rest of the way… we’d have to move at a less leisurely pace for sure.  I’m figuring it’s gone 93000 miles, asking for 7000 more isn’t unreasonable.  Oh yeah, on my todo list today, finding an Oil Filter.  Got a name and Number.. Crosland #573.  I’m hoping the internet will lead me to an equivalent I can buy here.  Failing that, I’ll just change the oil a couple times in the next weeks.  Comments, Jake?   Okay… about ready to head to the busstop…  first stop… Internet.  Then to see what’s up with the Spring Fair in Seville, 2003.   Larry 1:37:38 PM    comment []

My subconscious has been on vacation also.  While working, my routine was to submit problems every evening for consideration, then wake up… sometimes in the middle of the night, with the solution in my conscious in-box.  “That’s it!  I’ll make it out of one piece instead of four, that ought to make it interesting!” Without problems to solve, that department of my brain has been free-lancing.  This morning the inbox had a brief note:  “The title of the first book – EVERYONE’S BOUGHT THIS BOOK, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?”   I’ve been thinking I really have to work on my attitude.  Being a Californian, the assumption is that we don’t have attitudes.  Not true.  We have them, but we only use them  behind the wheel of a car.  But even on our worst day, we certain don’t approach the New York, “Hey, I’m walking here.” To say nothing of the Capital of Attitude, Philly… “What the fuck you looking at?”  with one foul curse or another as additional punctuation.   Like most other native Californians, I am attitude deprived. As a traveler the way you carry yourself can attract or repel people of evil intent.  There  is also the matter of being a good observer…  the meek may inherit the earth, but they’ll be too shy to notice.  To really be there, you have to look life right in the face… and that takes a bit of attitude.   I’ve pretty much got the public transportation poker face down.  It’s like a Knight’s faceplate or a hockey goalie’s mask.  A shield that allows you to observe without being observed, protected from whatever threats might be out there… flying pucks or menacing scowls.  I have to only make one more step, from defense to offense….  To put myself out there to obtain what I need or merely want, without the vocabulary to make a simple request.  To conquer the feelings of stupidity at not being able to speak as a two year old, to risk foolish hand signals and facial contortions…  to communicate without the benefit of spoken language… that takes some real attitude.   Our campground is a small village.  Perhaps a very well equipped refugee camp.  We live next to the well, the community water spigot.  Quite the busy spot.  We seem to ignore each other in this village, we are just living a bit too close to acknowledge each other.  Our underwear hang on clotheslines for all to see.  In the city, we are a identifiable minority.  Campers dress different than hotel dwellers.  We wear fly fisherman vests,  carry small backpacks everywhere.  Probably the hotel people don’t have room in their luggage for a daypack.  We walk a lot more, I think.  Hotel people take the cab.  We rarely eat indoors, behind glass.  But it is a bit disconcerting to be walking down the street looking for the bus stop and have a Spaniard look at us and nod, “Camping?”  Yep.  Got us.  Busted.  Next time I’m bringing one of those black suitcases with the wheels, just so people will think we’re on the way back to the hotel.   Last night after watching several processions during the day, we were lost in the barrio, surrounded by throngs of people, streets blocked at every turn by candle carrying spook people, Jesus Christ on a cross.  It was a lapsed Catholic’s paranoid nightmare.  We would enter a small square and find every street leading in to it jammed full of people coming at us.  I gave up, I handed the map to Rhona and said, you do it, you get us out of here.  She has a different technique than mine.  Instead of blindly walking on, hoping to get a glimpse of something familiar, she studies the map, trying to decipher street names.  There are over one hundred churches in the old section of town.  The map shows maybe a dozen.  There a plaza names every other street corner, the map shows only the largest.  Very few streets follow a straight line more than twenty feet.  The map is a doodle.  Rhona did well, though.  We found a small café, had Paella with a salad and Gaspacho.  Which tasted like a cold, liquid salad, very refreshing.  Still have not mastered eating Spanish shrimp.  They are served head, antenna and all.  Boiled until the shells are too soft to be easily removed, but not soft enough to chew and swallow.  Unfortunately we haven’t been able to observe a Spaniard eating a shrimp, so we have no idea how it’s supposed to be done.  Remains a challenge.  The rice, however, is worth the potential humiliation of finding out the guys back in the kitchen are laughing, watching us tear the soft shrimp apart with our clumsy fingers.   The food was delicious, as was the Sangria.  After leaving the cafe we realized we were at the old park with the monument to Chris Columbus, and soon, there was the Man on the Horse.     1:36:55 PM    comment []

Wednesday, April 16, 2003 Seville in the sunshine   We’re taking the day off.  My sense of direction took the day off yesterday and we are recovering.  Walked way too far in a pretty much steady downpour most of the day, yesterday.  About 7:30 in the evening I had had enough.  Now, in writing these little notes I am determined to be honest as I can…   there may be some who would doubt what I am about to say.  But I did it.  I told the rain to stop and it did.  Hasn’t rained a drop since.  I said, “Okay, I’d had it, that’s it, that’s enough, just stop.”  We got back to the camper and Rhona said, “Well that’s fine, as far as it goes, but we need sunshine… how about putting some effort into that?”  I thought it over and decided a little hippy sun chant might be just the ticket.  I sang softly so as not to wake the neighbors, “Little darling, I feel the ice is slowly melting… little darling, it seems like years since we’ve been here…. Here comes the sun…do-do-do-do-doooo, Here comes the sun… it’s all right…  la, la, la,la, laa- la….”  Okay, scoff if you must, but we woke up to bright sunshine this morning and it’s feeling good.  I’ll bet if I had a guitar… and, what’s more, if I could play it, we would be really toasting….   And no, I won’t be calling the Amazing Randy and claiming his million bucks anytime soon.   Rhona claims we wandered for four hours totally lost.  I say, well, yes, there was that 90-degree error in our first turn…  Other than that everything was fine.  Except for the rain part.  And the sore feet.   We did make interesting discoveries along the way..  Found this beautiful… what to call it… bar …café… felt more like a nightclub. The windows caught our eye from a distance…  oval, bean shaped glass, surrounded by stained glass in bulbous shapes all in heavy wooden frames.  Up a strange ramp,  inside the front door was an old anvil mounted to a stump.  The bar curved off to the left with a small area of tables… the far wall of that room had rows of bookshelves, above wine cabinets with latticework doors.   The main room to the right was on a platform three feet above the bar level.  The ceiling was striking, large orange panels, streaked with white wash…  The back wall could have been a Glowaski, if Doug ever decided to take on a restaurant wall…  Heavy plaster, lumpy even, divided by an irregular open steel framework into a series of different sized rectangles.  There was a large hanging array of spotlights like you might find in a disco.  Where the walls met the ceiling all round the room there were industrial looking stage lights and speakers.  The music at a gentle volume was jazzy, it took a few moments to recognize one of Rhona’s favorites, Dire Straits.  The building had obviously been some kind of factory, and the steel framework of the building had been cut and modified as if the room itself was sculpture.  Towards the end of the main dining area, two large steel mobiles were hung, shifting patterns of simple shapes.  At the far end, a rock wall.  The stones were large and rounded with no obvious method of attachment to each other.  There was one large stone near the top that extended beyond the area of the wall onto the adjoining surface.  There was this feeling of mystery about it… oh yes, a large steel door at the bottom right corner with a huge safe like handle… you know, the star shaped rods extending out with balls at the ends?  The bar and back bar was an assembly of heavy steel bars and angles, and thick wooden timbers.  A steel and glass partial false ceiling extended out over the stools, wrapping to match the curve of the bar.  A bit of a hanging balcony, New Orleans feel.  There were several relatively small pieces of art, odd colorful characters, at different places in the room… but the room itself was the artwork.  There was mixture of the familiar and the unusual, everything warm and harmonious.  The comforting sound of familiar yet jazzy music, the images and constructions, all contributed to a feeling of security yet daring adventure.      As everywhere else we’ve been, the staff was friendly and helpful… the beer cold, served in a large white stein… not quite German liter sized, but much bigger than the usual Spanish glass.  Rhona had a glass of excellent Spanish white wine from a nearby town, Huerta.  We’ll definitely have to investigate that further.  Mark and Colleen…  this wine business is full of interesting possibilities.  I suppose there are people who spend their lives traveling the world, identifying, categorizing wines….  I guess Rhona and I will stick with the sipping part….   There was a break in the rain while we were in the café, but it was coming down hard again when we reached the street.  By this time we had sorted out the map, realized the magnitude of the first wrong turn, and understood just how far from where I thought we were we actually had come.  I, of course, insist that discovering that bizarre café was reason enough for the detour.  Navigation in Seville is difficult, whether you are holding the map the right way or not.  Many of the streets are so narrow and winding that there are few obvious landmarks.  The huge weathervane on top the Cathedral comes in to view, then disappears, then reappears in totally the wrong direction.  Or so it seems.    We have found our own landmarks, after four days of wandering…  The Guy On The Horse… I’m sure there is more than one guy on a horse in this town, but this one has a sword raised, the horse is reared up, and they are in the middle of a big traffic circle.  The Campers…  There is some kind of demonstration going on not too far from the Guy On The Horse, people in front of the Plaza de Espana living in small tents protesting something… seems to be local politics, sometime I’ll stop in and find out if there is an English speaker willing to explain it to us.  Oh yeah, most important, the Tobacco Factory, and the right turn at the corner, which if missed, takes us completely in the wrong direction, which we have done at least twice already, and Rhona is determined to never let happen again.  These are all landmarks on the way back to the bus stop… that take us back to the campground each evening.  On general principle, we prefer to park at campgrounds and use the local transportation to get around… here in Seville we could drive into town… there does seem to be a lot of free parking, and the route is pretty simple.  But they close the campground gates at 11… very understandable.  We could, and some do, free camp for the night.  But the bus ride is pretty much fun anyway… like last night.   After fleeing the center of the city looking for a non-tourist restaurant, we crossed the river.   Walking down a side street we saw a sign – a Tex Mex restaurant….  How could we pass that up?  Tex Mex it wasn’t, but it was definitely edible…  The rice was white… the Mole was black, the Enchiladas were filled with some groundup something, not sure what it was…  the Nachos were the most authentic part of the meal… Rhona said her Margarita wasn’t bad… and me, I’m still practicing that Jarra word… la cerveza grande seems to be working better, actually.  Anyway, we finished up a little after nine, next bus to the campground, past the Tobacco Factory, the Guy On The Horse, and the Campers, was at nine forty-five… no problemo.  Down to the bridge, back across the river…  through the side streets and plazas to the Tobacco Factory….  Damn, missed the right turn again… no Guy On The Horse, no Campers….  Backtrack to the next big roundabout…  there He is down there in the rain, on his Horse… we get to the Campers and realize that the bus has been gone for about five minutes….  Next bus at midnight.   We wander back to the Cathedral…  there is something still going on, a procession is definitely coming this way… we’ve been in town all day, walking in the rain, seen lots of tall hat guys and floppy hat guys walking around (three floppy hat guys in the back seat of a tiny car, that was cool.)  But not a single procession… no candles, no statues… nada.  Rhona has put her foot down.  Or rather, refuses to continue putting her feet down… wants to put her butt down, on the nearest chair.  So we grab a table at the first café we find, just around the corner from the Cathedral.  Love to watch the people… even this late they are walking with such energy… and seeming lack of destination.  There always seems to be as many people returning from where the rest are going with the same level of intensity.  We sat, had a little desert, until we couldn’t put off returning to the bus stop any longer.  We walked around the Cathedral through the crowds.  The huge stone building is flood lit, an amazing jumble of spires, arches, domes, and mysterious figures.  The street is a mosaic of black and white stone, a geometric pattern across the plaza, slick, shining in the lights.  People of all ages stand in clusters, waiting for the next procession to enter the Cathedral.   Around a few corners in the narrow twisting streets we heard, “Do you speak English?”   We turned to find an elderly English lady… not the Gypsy hustler we were expecting.  With our attention she went into her spiel…   How she was supposed to meeting friends, and how they had been delayed on the ferry crossing from Tangier, and how she had the key to their apartment, so she was alright, we should understand, but her money had been taken when she left her purse in a cab, and would we be so kind as to part with just a few Euros to enable her to buy a little snack?  I looked at Rhona and she looked at me…  I guess it was just the sheer novelty of being hustled by this little old lady that struck us…  I gave her a few coins and we walked on looking for the Guy.  On his Horse.   This time we were about forty-five minutes early… but the bus was there waiting, the driver opened the doors and let us sit.  A few minutes later this friendly fellow climbed on with packages wrapped in brown butcher paper…  He offered the first open package to the driver, turned to us and said in very good English, “Because he’s a friend, but there will be some for you, too.”  He had deep fried crab… like crab cakes, but finger sized.  The second package had deep fried shark… he said to be careful of the small bone in each….  We really weren’t hungry, but they were delicious.  Then one by one, more people arrived.  The driver and the fish guy stepped outside, and people just stood around talking and smoking.  It seemed that most knew each other, I suppose this is a nightly event…  there was just this friendly party like feeling so different from any Muni bus I’ve been on.  When the time came for departure, everyone climbed on, conversations continuing…  Off we went past the Campers, on our way back to our Camping. The bus turned off into a residential neighborhood a mile or so before it reaches the Campground.  Rhona and I are familiar with the route by now.  We stopped on a small side street and an older couple got off.  As the bus pulled away a young girl in the back shouted something in Spanish… the driver stopped immediately, opened the doors, and called to couple in Spanish, “Where are you going?  To the camping?”   The lady stood on the sidewalk outside the open door, trying to explain in halting Spanish that they knew where they were going…  Another passenger jumped up, asking first in Spanish, then in English, finally in German, “Where do you want to go?”  There was this feeling of community concern… we were all pretty sure these people were lost, we just couldn’t seem to explain it to them….  But once the question got asked in German, the woman immediately responded… “Yes, the camping, the camping….”  We got them back on the bus, to everyone’s relief.   Once at the campsite stop, the fellow that had taken the lead with the German couple, began heading off down the road in the wrong direction.  At this point there are about a dozen of us… Rhona and I quite firmly got the group turned around going the right way…  After all, we’ll got the walking the wrong way part down pat.  It was just a lovely bus ride.   And today, a restful day of relaxing and recovering in the sunshine.  That song from Hair is on my mind…  “Let the sun shine… let the sunshine in….” 1:35:43 PM    comment []