Last night just might have done that for Halloween. But first, I have to leave the cool autumn of Essex and go back south to Barcelona, Spain.
There we were, on an overnight train heading for Granada. I’d done the overnight crossing on Marine Atlantic before, and every trip, either from Port aux Basques or North Sydney, went the exact same way: “Should we get a sleeper cabin?” Hemming and hawing. “Naw, the chairs will be fine. Plus, I’m barely even tired.”
The chairs are never fine, and about 25 minutes in, you’re tired. We’ve still never gotten a sleeper.
So, when we got to the ticket agent in Barcelona, and he said the sleeper was only an extra 30 Euros, the thought of saying no never once crossed my mind. We were separated though, so I ended up with an old Spanish guy who tried to make communication with me, to little avail; I shouldn’t have told him I could speak a little French, because high school verb conjugation isn’t exactly a big help in real conversation. The other two people in the squat cabin – about as big as a room in Burton’s Pond – were an Asian father and son. Three of our compadres went out for drinks, but once the light went out and door locked, I was terrified of moving, lest I infuriate the Spanish guy, who had already done a lot of hand waving and yelling.
Now, I can rhyme off some really bad sleeps I’ve had. 1) Last year, when I ate chicken that was in our fridge for eight days, got food poisoning, and kept waking up every 15 minutes or so to throw up in the garbage can next to my bed. 2) The year before that, when I thought I got the Swine and kept having messed up fever dreams. 3) The first night I spent in the hospital when I got my appendix out. 4) Anytime I tried to sleep on the damn Marine Atlantic chairs.
The top five list was rounded out by my night on the Spanish train. And, to be fair, it belongs somewhere near the top of the list.
The room was warm, everything restricted and claustrophobic. I think the fact that I felt I couldn’t move or get out made the room seems ten times as small. The bed was pretty much my exact size, which actually wasn’t a huge deal for me, but who builds a bed to my dimensions? Then I got thirsty but didn’t dare budge (I was on the top bunk, it would have been a nuisance), and then I got leg cramps, mingled with the ongoing insomnia and feeling that the train ride would never end.
It was about this time that the clicking sound started. Every time the train went on any type of curve, there was a click, click, oh thank God it sounds like it sto—click.
I tried moving my bag in the overhead cabin, thinking that was the problem. Nope. I tried wrapping it up in my damp towel I’d laid across my feet to dry. No better. I shoved my bag against the back wall, thinking the angrier I got at it, the more likely it was to let me sleep. Nope. I tried covering my head with my pillow. I ripped my bag out of the bin and placed it in bed next to me – the bed that was no bigger than me when I didn’t have the bag – to no avail. I jammed my earbuds in, turned on my iPod, and it worked . . . until the battery died halfway through the FIRST song. I tried to ignore it. That one worked the least.
And then, I figured out it was the chained lock, dangling from the holster near the door. Grab, click, problem solved. The night was better from here on – maybe because I was so exhausted from the struggle.
The worst part was, I knew Devin was out trying to sleep in a chair, while I had a bed. No matter how miserable I was – and miserable I was – I knew I wasn’t allowed to complain. Consider this my venting.
When we arrived in Granada with the rise of the sun, I ran to the platform and was never so happy to breathe the fresh air.
We had a day in the city, a southern city built at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, capped with snow even at this latitude. We did what we do best – wandered without a reason, and lucked out. After Pâté at an outdoor café, we found ourselves pointed towards the Alhambra, an ancient and sprawling fortress and palace complex that reflects the Moorish influences of the Muslim leaders that ruled in Spain about the 14th century. Basically, it looked like Pentos from Game of Thrones (which was actually filmed in Morocco, not unreasonably far from southern Spain).
The spot was a major tourist attraction, and when we found out that we’d have to wait a few hours before even being allowed in, I was ready to say shag the thing, let’s explore. Lor was having no part in not seeing the castle though, and for not the first time I put my faith in her and it ended up working out better than I could ever have hoped for.
After we had our ticket, we had a few hours to spare, so we went behind the palace, to the Spanish hillside. Imagine this: sandy hills in all directions, peppered with scraggly olive bushes and dusty trails beneath a burning sun. Right in front of us was the city, behind that the mountains slowly climbing to snowy heights. Un freakin’ real.
We wandered along the curve of the land and through back alleys, finding a meal difficult due to siesta, a midday nap that’s not exactly common in St. John’s but a big thing here in Spain. Eventually though, a café opened their doors, and I found out that a full hamburger includes an egg on the patty.
By then, it was time to reclimb the hill though the Puerta de las Granadas (Gate of the Pomegranates), entering a little forest and nature walk in the foothills with a tumbling watercourse alongside the path.
We started at the Palace of the Generalife and the upper gardens, rife with stunning architecture, greenery, and fountains. That’s the big thing about this spot – the designers understood the aesthetic appeal of water, and used it everywhere. It was an incredible spot, a step back in time but also to a different world, where the mundane procedures of running a country seemed second to the pomp and splendour of living like royalty in a southern resort. Somehow, it felt a lot friendlier than the other castles we’d seen up to this point.
After we’d been through the palaces, walked between flowered archways, seen the archaeological excavation still ongoing, and sat along the walls staring out at the uncomplicated lives (at least from a Western perspective) of the Spanish in Granada, it was time to make a move back to the train station, to get to Almería before it got too late. Along the way, we passed a throng of people crowding the streets and climbing buildings, waiting for their football team to arrive home. How European of them.
This train ride was much better, and more subdued even. The carts were all but empty, and we sat together but lost in our thoughts, gazing out as the sun set on the Spanish desert. Isolated villages, many of them abandoned, slipped on by, just like the rows and rows of olive trees.
In Almería, it was a few hours shy of midnight, but still a bit late to be in a brand new, foreign city, looking for our hotel in a confused jumble of a map. After staring for a while and mapping out a course, we took to the dark (yet warm) streets, weaving a course through the high stone buildings and palm trees. The Hotel La Perla was closer than we thought, just across from the city square that is the Puerta de Purchena. Two rooms of three beds – it wasn’t the ballroom of the Ritz Hotel or anything, but it was more than good enough for five travel-weary Canadians.
Well, not entirely travel-weary. Once we’d thrown our bags down and our heads on a pillow for a few minutes – in between watching Spongebob Squarepants in Spanish – it was time to head out. For an early night.
Somehow, it got to be 4 am. That just happens on warm Spanish evenings in Almería, I guess. We went to a small outdoor bar near the hotel, and struggled through enough Spanish to get a few glasses of wine. When we’d drained those, we got another . . . and found out that, because people don’t tip in Spain, if you do, then the bartender will like you. With that glass of wine came a shot. By now, things were shutting down here, and so we set off to find somewhere with music.
After a cab driver pointed us in the right-ish direction, we wandered farther down towards the harbour, and came upon the Mae West bar. Let the fiesta begin. The dance floor was lined with young people, waiting for something . . . turns out it was a dude with a headset, guiding them through Salsa, Marengue, Tango, Chachacha, and Mambo dancing while DJs cranked out some very Spanish-sounding tracks. I don’t know Spanish, but it was easy enough to stand near the back and follow someone else’s lead. And a whole lot of fun.
I have no idea what time the lesson ended, but I do know that four Newfoundlanders were the last ones out of the dance floor by a good half an hour. That’s how you have an early night when you’re used to George Street, I guess.
Late nights don’t make for incredibly early mornings, although we did ok, with varying degrees of sleep and hangovers. The sun was shining and it was more than 20 degrees out . . . perfect for the beach. We had a little bit of a wait for the bus to Cabo de Gata, a natural park with a spectacular beachside, so we lay down for a spell along the beach at Almería before the hour-long trek to the real deal.
And real deal it was. The beach, next to an old abandoned castle-like thing, restaurant, and beached boats, went on for miles of empty coastline until it reached the feet of some impressive mountains. Other than a guy with a kite and some fishermen, we were the only ones there. The day was a bit overcast, and the water cooler than it had been in Barcelona (maybe because, geographically, we’re getting out of the enclosure of the Mediterranean and closer to Gibraltar and the open Atlantic?), but it was still great for swimming, throwing a Frisbee around, and laying in the sun, when it decided to come out.
After the day had passed, myself and Lor decided to get closer to the mountains. I said the beach stretched for miles, but that was the voice of hindsight speaking. It looked a lot closer than that. Saw a spectacular sunset along the Mediterranean – capping off the last full day of our Spanish adventure – and a cool abandoned town that looked like a movie set at the edge of a beachside boardwalk, but by the time it got dark and the stars started coming out, we were barely to the base of the hills. We didn’t have a watch, but it had probably been about an hour and a half since we left our friends. Pfff, they probably don’t think we’re dead. Still, we should head back.
That’s what we did, trying vainly to hitchhike the last few kilometres and coming up empty handed. Know how the getting back usually seems much quicker? Not so this time, maybe because it was so dark we couldn’t recognize anything, until we found an abandoned wine bottle where our camp had been. We hoped they had moved on to the restaurant, and hoped even more that they hadn’t gone to the police.
Once they’d gone through the motions of being glad to see us in one piece and being pissed that we’d been gone so long (running through the what-ifs), we sat down for a drink and some tapas. By then, it was time to get our bus, the last one for the night.
As we were walking back, it passed us in the opposite direction. Umm, what?
Why do I always find myself running to get some form of transportation, in a situation where I miss it I’m unequivocally screwed? Getting stranded in London is one thing; getting stranded in the Spanish desert is quite another. We held tight to our schedule, hoping that the bus was just doing a loop and would be back for us soon.
When it came back, it was like the light that shines down at the end of every episode of Touched by an Angel. When it turned right and we were left, it was like when you thought for a second the guys on Titanic had seen the iceberg in time, but it still rips the shit out of the hull.
Crap. Better luck next time . . .
Thank God it was on a roundabout, and thank God even more that Devin made the night by chasing the bus halfway around the circle.
The next morning was rainy but warm. Devin parted ways in the mid-afternoon, bound for Seville for a few nights; we headed to the outskirts of the city, to see what we could see.
Remember how this is always our thing, and it always works out?
In a few steps and with a few turns between rocky hills, we were in the thick of the Spanish desert, moreso than before. Every step was like walking through the set of a Killers music video or album cover. I want to read Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises now, because apparently, had it taken place in 2011, it would have been about us – wandering through the desert with some real good friends who I’d barely known a few months ago, it certainly felt like something out of a story. A pretty spectacular one, at that, with a real happy ending.
After collecting our things at the hotel and having one last meal at a café – no paella, unfortunately, but another good egg hamburger combo – and a, erm, few last bottles of wine, we got a cab to the airport, and bade Spain farewell in twilight.
At least, until our next meeting.
What a gorgeous country though. In much the same way the Scandinavia is Europe but a world onto itself, so too is Spain a distinct being in the European framework. It’s a country that loves its beaches, its siestas, its wine, and its romance – in other words, a country that doesn’t take itself too seriously, because it doesn’t need to. Its people live good lives largely because they don’t take things too seriously.
There’s a lot that can be taken out of a place like that, and I hope that, when it comes time to go back to the real world, I can take something of that world with me. It was only yesterday that Harry pointed something out – this trip isn’t about Life of Johnson. It’s about our lives, the things that we see and the things that we do, and what we make of them. If I learn only one thing in this entire semester of school, I hope it’s something like that.
* * *
Now, Halloween. For her midterm break, Mary Walsh went back to Canada, where she put on the Marg Delahunty Viking suit and accosted the mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford. Turns out she got in a lot of trouble for that stunt, a bit surprising since she did bits like that for the last twenty years, to a lot of people more important than Rob Ford.
Anyway, I never know what I’m going to be for Halloween until the days before it, but when Lor came to me two days ago and said that she was going as Marg and wanted someone to be Don, my costume was all but made.
Last night, at the Crown’s Halloween party, few people were dressed up, and fewer still knew who we were supposed to be, but we knew we had a pretty sweet costume. It was at this point that we found out that Don was back from picking Mary up at the airport.
Drinks were cast down, tabs left unpaid, as we sprinted to their cabin and rapped on the door, for a 22 Minutes-style accosting of Mary Walsh herself (“Mary Walsh, Mary Walsh, I hear you kill children with your liberal sensibilities!”). I don’t know who gets to do this, or who then gets invited back into their residence for some pictures and some candy from Canada. Lucky, lucky, undeserving bastards, I guess.
Happy Halloween.
Cheers,
rb
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