Tiles In Portugal

Lisbon, Portugal

Lisbon, Day One

Bookstore In Porto

Porto, Portugal

Porto, Portugal

Porto, Portugal

Porto, Portugal

Porto, Portugal

Church Entrance In Astorga

Note #1

I took the subway, and a couple connections, from the airport to the center of Madrid. 

I got out of the underground and quickly found my hostel. 

I was still tired and hungry from travelling when I walked the street.  Blocks passed but I took no note of my surroundings.  A daze was walking through Madrid.  Then I had a thought that made me pause and note my surroundings: “Doesn’t this feel like south America?”  I scanned my memories for what felt so familiar about that place.  

The Reina Sofia Museum was close by.  Groups had gathered in front of the museum.  An iron gate barred the tall entrance.  A couple stood at the entrance reading a notice.  I joined them.  I looked at the museum schedule and asked: “what time is it?”  “The museum is closed today.”  The wife of the couple told me.  She pointed at the fine print on the posting.  As I walked the streets the thought surfaced that my surroundings felt like Buenos Aires, but with cleaner streets and more tourists. 

It is a mistake for the new world to model itself too closely on the old world.  The parts of BA that look like Madrid were never going to be as grand as Madrid.  If a city in the Americas doesn’t take the opportunity for self-definition all its achievements will hint at anticlimax. 

            I walked into the Prado museum and saw thousands of paintings and sculptures.  Each piece would have been the highlight of lesser galleries.

In my hostel a group gathered for the final match of the Spanish soccer season.  It was a match between Atletico Madrid and Barcelona.  They invited me to sit on one of the common room couches with them and share a few beers.  The game started shortly after. 

Madrid needed to tie the game to win the championship.  Barcelona, the more famous team, put the pressure on early in the first half.  Madrid was lucky if they fought out of their side of the field.  Two Madrid players were injured early in the game.  One of the injured cried as he watched from the sidelines.  Both teams were playing hard, but Barcelona scored the first goal before the first half was over.

I remember thinking it an exciting game.  This boded well; after all, I would be spending the length of the world cup in Europe. 

The second half was much more hotly contested.  Most of the playing was at the center of the field but gradually the pressure was on Barcelona’s defense.  Madrid scored, giving them the advantage they needed to win.  I cheered for Madrid.  I realized that I had also cheered when Barcelona scored.  That was the goal that won Madrid the game.  

            An English gentleman suggested seeing if there were any parties in the street.  We left the hostel but there were no revelers.  We walked for blocks and there was not even a jersey to be seen.  We finally got to the bar neighborhood and found the party.  The fans were chanting: “campiones, campiones,” Spanish for champions.  Our group chanted with them: “champinones, champinones” Spanish for a type of mushrooms. 

We made our way down to a main road where there was a roundabout with a statue of Neptune.  The police closed off the street to traffic and we passed their blockade where they checked to make sure we didn’t have alcohol.  At first there were only a couple hundred uniformed people chanting in the empty street. 

When we returned that night it had become a carnival.  It took up whole blocks.  Men with plastic bags filled with beer cans for sale roamed the crowd before the police line.  Food carts were set up.  There were drummers, and firecrackers, and flares.  The celebrating went on for hours.   

            At one thirty in the morning, amid shouts, the music and chanting stopped.  The fans scattered around me.  I saw a police line advancing with batons on the fans that stood their ground.  Bottles fell on the police.  The police promptly rushed the people in the street and I ran and the people ran behind me.  Eventually I stopped.  I saw food stands rushing to pack up.  There were youths knocking over garbage cans in the street, and kicking bags of garbage as if they were soccer balls.  For a moment everyone had stopped running.  I heard a commotion behind me, and when I looked there were near a thousand people rushing towards me.  I paused just long enough to warn the people I was walking with that they should run.  Later I heard reports that there had been tear gas and flash grenades used, though I doubted those claims.  Police convoys patrolled the streets for hours. 

            From there I joined the pilgrimage trail of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain.  After a couple days, and having walked 50km, I had injured my foot.  It became a whole leg injury after I continued to walk on it.  I spoiled the ending of the pilgrimage and took a bus to Santiago de Compostela.  It’s very likely I will try the pilgrimage from the beginning in September.

           

            Tomorrow I leave for Porto, Portugal.  I’m very excited about that.

Cathedral At Santiago De Compostela

The Shepherd And The Pilgrim

First Day On The Camino

Leon, Spain. Starting On The Pilgrimage Camino

Then There Was A Soccer Riot

Retiro Park Madrid

Opposite Reina Sofia

Welcome to Madrid

The Beginning

I’ve been led to believe that Spain is a beautiful country.  By the time you are reading this I will be there or have been there.  Spain: the heat, the architecture, the late nights, tapas, and siestas.  I have plenty of expectations for Spain.  The problem with a travel blog is that it can spoil the impact of the sights when one visits them.  The blog can either bring your expectations closer to or further from reality. 

On the first leg of my European travels I will: Start in Madrid, walk for about two weeks on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage trail, go down the coast of Portugal, and cross back into Spain.  I will travel along the coast and inland of Spain.  From there I will see Southeastern France, Northern Italy, and Slovenia while on my way to Croatia.  There is an extended stay planned for Croatia. 

Nothing after that point has been determined with any finality.  Southern and Eastern Europe will be close at that point.  I would like to make my way west once I start running out of money.  I’ve saved up a modest sum for this trip, but not nearly enough to finish it, and there is no return ticket to Seattle for now. 

This is not my first experience at travel.  On my last trip, in South America, I visited beaches, cities, national parks, and historic centers.  I intentionally rotated between different types of attractions to keep things interesting and to prevent locations from blending together.  My love for travel was cultivated in South America.

On that trip, I met a hostel owner who would spend half a year at a time on a beautiful Brazilian beach.  Not only did she seem disinterested by the place, it seemed to depress her.  I found that beach and town one of the most captivating places I had ever visited.  It was strange that what she looked forward to was returning to Sao Paulo, not an attractive city, until I realized that what she looked forward to was the company of her family and her friends.  When the novelty of the beach town wore off she needed something more than just the place and transient guests in her hostel.  Much of the allure of travel is in novelty.
            Hopefully this blog inspires you to travel.  The blog may help make the expectations for where you want to go more realistic.  It took a long time for me to realize that what I love the most about travel is the movement itself.  When I would briskly step out into the road and breath deep with an excitement in my chest.  Everything was beautiful, nothing was wrong, nothing out of place, especially not myself.  That is not a feeling that can be spoiled by a blog, nor guaranteed by traveling, but it has kept me going.