Five Weeks In Jail

On my flight from Minneapolis to Paris, I was sitting next to an older man who told me that his final destination overseas was not Paris, but Algeria. His daughter worked at the American consulate in the capital city, Algiers, and he was going out there to spend five weeks with her. At first it sounded like he was going to be having an interesting trip, but he soon explained that it would likely not be an overly enjoyable stay. As American citizens, both he and his daughter would be at high risk for kidnapping and extortion. The compound where his daughter lives, and he would be staying, is surrounded by high walls and razor wire. Any time they leave the compound they cannot just walk around or drive a regular car - they must request an armored vehicle with a security detachment. "I'm about to spend five weeks in jail" was the way the man described his stay in Algeria.

Side Stories Incoming

With the publishing of yesterday's post on the end of my time in Europe, I've finally wrapped up the posts related to my day-by-day experience. If you read all, or even most of them, I applaud you. I know that reading the travelogue posts has at times been like reading the more tedious parts of the Old Testament book of Numbers. Since I didn't proofread any of them, I imagine they're also riddled with typos.

Going forward, I am now going to do a series of posts related to individual incidents or experiences that occurred on the trip. A lot of these got brief mentions in the travel log posts, but I think these are worthy enough to get slightly expanded discussions. Most of them will be short posts, and the plan is to try to publish one per day.

When this series of side stories is finished, this blog will return to usual nonsense that I write about.

Paris: Aftermath

I was expecting some sort of security screening when my flight from Barcelona landed in Paris, but this was not the case. The only additional difficulty I had was that the rail line from Charles De Gaulle Airport to Gare du Nord having maintenance work being done on it, so I had to take a bus to a train station further down the line and then wait for a train to Gare du Nord. My hostel for my second time in Paris was nearby Sacre Coeur and about a fifteen minute walk from Gare du Nord. That night was the quietest I have ever seen Paris. Hardly anyone was walking around outside and, except for the sound of passing cars, it was eerily quiet. With the terror attacks having occurred about 24 hours prior, I could understand no one wanting to go out on a Saturday night. As for myself, I had a few plans for what I would do during the last few days while I was in Paris before returning to America, but all of those had been thrown out the window. I would just have to be adaptive and roll with it.

On Sunday people were again out and about, but nearly all sights were closed. I was walking along the Seine River and came to the area around the Eiffel Tower. With the tower closed, the usual long lines for going up the lift or stairs were nowhere to be seen. There were, however, a lot of news crews from around the world in that area, so I'm pretty sure I showed up in the background of at least one news report somewhere. I remember there was a BBC crew, an American crew, a German crew, and several others. After examining the scene around the tower, I crossed the Seine to the Tracadero Esplanade and from there I walked north to the Arc De Triomphe. There were extra flower wreathes around the eternal flame, and as I walked around Paris I saw a number of makeshift memorials that people had set up. I made my way down the Champs Elysees, detouring for a final fast food meal, and eventually making my way down to where the Egyptian obelisk is. There was a Ferris Wheel that was being set up nearby, along with a lot of stalls that appeared to be Christmas related. The park leading up to the Louvre was closed, so I had to go around it. When I got to the Louvre it was really weird to not see a long line of people coming out of the glass pyramid entrance. I decided to just keep going and followed Rue Rivoli, a street that runs in the same direction the Champs Elysees would run if it kept going in a straight line. That took me past the St Jacque tower and the St Paul church and all the way to the Bastille column. It was nighttime by then, and I turned towards the Seine and walked first to Ile St Louis, cut through the center of the island, and then onto Ile de la Cite. There was a line of TV reporters on one of the bridges there, so I may have made another background appearance as I passed behind them. I crossed to the south side of the Seine but only got a short distance before I started hearing people shouting. Several police officers were telling people to move back and I could hear sirens moving in. While I was curious, I also knew it was time to leave. I went back to the north side of the Seine and circled around to come back to Notre Dame Cathedral to use the nearby metro station, but the police were setting up barricades and I couldn't get close. So, I found the next nearest metro station and took it back to the area by my hostel. Later that night I would learn that it was a false alarm and nothing actually happened, but understandably the police were not taking any chances. Before going to bed I hiked up the steps to Sacre Coeur and took in the sight of Paris at night. It looked the same as the last time I had been there, but I knew it wasn't.

The next morning I went back up to Sacre Coeur to go into the church itself. A few soldiers were standing around. Not too many individual tourists were up there, however, the Chinese tour groups, who seem to be incapable of being intimidated, were out doing their thing. Missing from the stairs leading up to the church was the normal gauntlet of salespeople, an absence I didn't miss. Inside Sacre Coeur the people enforcing the no-photo policy hadn't show up for work yet, so I was able to get a few proper photos. When I finished up there I came down the hill and then took the metro to he south side of the Seine near Notre Dame. Whatever happened the night before had been cleared up and traffic was moving along as usual. I walked around a bit before crossing onto Ile de la Cite and then I did a loop around the cathedral before going in. There was a mass wrapping up as I entered and I spent some time inside the cathedral before leaving and heading over to the west end of Ile la Cite and then on to the Tulleries Gardens near the Louvre. While there I visited the Orangerie Museum. I had always passed by it on the way to the Louvre, so it was finally time that I went in. The Orangerie isn't a big museum, but it does have Monet's famous water lily paintings. The paintings (eight total) are in two oval shaped rooms and curve around the rooms to give you the impression of being in the middle of Monet's garden and having a 360 degree view. There are also some other paintings, but most people come for the water lilies (kind of like how there's other stuff in the Academia, but everyone really comes for David). Back outside the museum I saw that the Ferris Wheel was not open yet, but it appeared the crew setting it up were testing it. The metro brought me back to the hostel, where I ate dinner and used the internet. That night I took a walk, starting at the military academy and then moving to the Eiffel Tower. One side of the tower was lit up with the colors of the French flag. When I got up to the Trocadero esplanade, I felt the rain starting to come down, and with that, my umbrella from Istanbul finally got its first usage. I took the metro to the Arc de Triomph and then did a final night walk along the Champs Elysees to the end of the commercial zone before returning to the hostel.

On my final full day in Paris I spent a lot of time walking and standing around. If it hadn't been for the terrorist attacks I would have done a massive sightseeing blitz, but instead I checked off a few low priority items that I hadn't done during previous times in Paris. I slept in that morning and then made a quick stop at the Petit Palais before going over to the area around the Army Museum. The Rue Cler neighborhood is near there and the morning market was still out when I arrived. Afterwards, because the military academy was close by, I walked over there, to the end of the park that leads up to the Eiffel Tower. I was spending a few minutes just looking around, but then got interrupted by one of those people collecting signatures for something. With my moment of serenity shattered, I went back towards the Army Museum, and nearby saw some small sheep that were grazing in a park. Then I walked to the Rodin Museum and toured the gardens. Back in 2012 I visited both the gardens and the museum, but I remembered that most of the good stuff was in the gardens, so I skipped the museum this time. While there I was able to recreate a photo I took from 2012, of my shoes while sitting on a reclining chair. After the gardens I took a long, scenic route to Ile de la Cite and came to the Concierge, a former royal administration building that doubled as a prison. I had always skipped over the Concierge because it didn't seem interesting from the descriptions, but it was time to find out for sure. My suspicions were confirmed, and though it wasn't the best use of my time, at least I knew for future reference. For the last part of the day I took the metro out to the La Defense financial district. The sun was setting and all the skyscraper lights were coming on. Next to La Grand Arch some sort of Christmas venue was being set up. I walked the length of the esplanade, from the arch to the next metro station on the line, trying to take it all in one last time. Then, it was a final ride back to the hostel. There would be no night walk, since I had to get up early for my flight back to America.

I got up at 6:30am the next day and left the hostel around 7:20am to walk to Gare du Nord to catch the train to the airport. The ride costed ten euro and I had managed to spent all but a ten euro bill from my wallet, so I thought that I would be leaving Europe having managed not bring back any extra funds. The ticket machine for the train took only coins. At the airport there was a convenient change machine next to the ticket machine, so it seemed reasonable to expect the same setup would be at Gare du Nord, but this turned out to be a false assumption on my part, and I ended up paying by credit card. I therefore have a ten euro bill still with me to this day, but I am putting a positive spin on it and thinking of it as an incentive to go back one day. At the airport I got my backpack inspected after passing through immigration, but otherwise nothing notable happened. My first flight took me from Paris to Minneapolis and was only half full, so after takeoff everyone spread out and I had the seat next to me open. I watched a few movies and stand-up comedy routines on the flight to pass the time. Nine hours after departure, I landed in Minneapolis, where I had to go through immigration and then a second security check, because I guess the one in Europe wasn't good enough for TSA. While standing around in the immigration line I was talking to this girl from England who was actually supposed to be on the same flight as me to Denver, though she had to go through extra screening because she had brought food in her backpack and I never saw her again after she walked over to the line for declaring food. When I cleared security and immigration I only had a few minutes before the scheduled departure of my flight to Denver. I hurried to the gate, but when I got there I saw that the flight was delayed by fifty minutes. With nothing to do, I just sat it out and waited. The flight to Denver was about two hours and when I arrived a friend of mine picked me up from the airport and took me back to my home in Boulder. The journey was over. It felt really weird the next day, after three months of traveling across Europe, to wake up in my own bed. I think it was then that it fully sank in that I was home.

Barcelona: Finale

It was after 9:30pm when I arrived in Barcelona and about 10:00pm when I got to my hostel, which was nearby Placa Catalunya, the main square of Barcelona. There were a few rookie travelers in my room. I could see bits of myself from 2012 in them. The only thing I did for the rest of the night was to take a walk down Las Ramblas (a famous series of streets, about a mile long total) to the harbor. Barcelona was not the last city I would be in before returning home, but it some ways it felt like the finale of the trip. The next, and last, city in line was Paris, which I had already visited back in August at the start of the trip. Barcelona was also the final city I would be exploring in Spain, making it the climax of the country I had spent the most time in. I had five nights in Barcelona, giving me plenty of time to look around without being hurried. I would also try out lots of churros con chocolate.

The next morning I left the hostel around 10:45am. Originally I thought I would get some photos on the Ramblas, but the sun was in a bad position for that so I instead went into the Bari Gotic (Gothic) district. In Bari Gotic I tried out a churros place I had seen online. The churros con chocolate were okay, but I had tasted better ones elsewhere in Spain. After that I visited the Barcelona Cathedral. The exterior of the cathedral looks like other Gothic cathedrals in Europe, but the inside has an interesting golden/yellow glow. In the cathedral's cloister the small flock of geese were still keeping watch. Over the centuries, geese have been kept in the cathedral, originally as an alarm system. Geese are easily startled, so anyone trying to break into the cathedral would cause them to flip out, and wake up the priests. Today the geese are just for show and to maintain the tradition. Barcelona's cathedral also has a rooftop terrace, though I skipped it since I had done it the last time I was in Barcelona and didn't feel the need to go up again. When I left the cathedral I followed a self guided walk through the narrow lanes of Bari Gotic. Along the way I saw the old columns of the Roman temple of Augustus and at the end of the walk I was over by the old royal palace. I then went over to the nearby Santa Caterina Market, which is a covered market much like others I had seen in Europe. After looking around the market I went back to Placa Catalunya. The sun was in a better spot for photographing the Ramblas at that point, and I started my walk down them. Las Ramblas is normally Barcelona's busiest pedestrian street, but since it was November it was a little less crowded than normal. While going down the Ramblas I detoured into the Boqueria Market. The market is probably the most touristy covered market in Barcelona, but I did see a few people who looked like locals doing some serious shopping. I didn't buy anything but spent some time looking around before returning to the Ramblas. At the bottom (southern) end of the Ramblas you reach the harbor and a monument to Columbus. It's somewhat ironic that Barcelona would honor Columbus, one of the people whose voyages would actually shift European trade to the Atlantic and away from Mediterranean ports like Barcelona. At the waterfront I got a small bit of bird poop in my hair. I got some poop on me back in 2012, so I guess I have now set a precedent. Thankfully I was able to clean it out without much trouble, and I walked onto the Ramblas Del Mar, a modern extension of Las Ramblas that goes into the harbor. I then continued on to the beaches at Barceloneta. The sun was going down as I walked by the beach and I stopped by the big metal fish. I took the metro back to Placa Catalunya and bought some groceries to make dinner. That night I did a walk through the Eixample district, past various houses designed by Antoni Gaudi, and on up to the Sagrada Familia church. Not too many buildings had floodlights on them, so it was actually a little disappointing. Back at the hostel I uploaded more photos to social media.

Whereas on the previous day I had seen a lot of things, on the next day I saw only a few, but in more detail. In the morning I largely retraced my steps from the night before in the Eixample. I passed by the Block of Discord, with it's audacious house facades and came over to the La Pedrera house, also called Casa Mila. It's the most famous house designed by local architect Antoni Gaudi, though I've never gone it because I refuse to believe that the seventeen euro entry fee accurately reflects how good it is. On my way to Sagrada Familia I stopped by a churros place, which was better than the one from the day before, but I thought the churros were a little small. It took a few more minutes of walking after that to reach Sagrada Familia, Barcelona's famous under construction church. Circling the outside, I could see some of the progress that had been made since my last visit, though there is still a lot of work to do before the church is done. Like Casa Mila, the Sagrada Familia church was designed by Antoni Gaudi, however most of his design plans were lost during the Spanish Civil War. The work that's being done on the church now is trying to line up with the plans that survived, though some artistic liberties have been given to the architects that have worked on the church since Gaudi's death back in 1926. Entry fees for the church go towards funding the construction. Officially the goal is to finish Sagrada Familia by 2026, but I don't think anyone will be surprised if that goal isn't realized. Whereas the Barcelona cathedral looks a lot like other churches you see in Europe, Sagrada Familia might be the most distinctive church you'll ever see, especially inside. The interior columns branch out like the branches of a tree and the smooth curves on the walls have a very organic look to them. While I was inside the sun was also hitting the stained glass windows at just the right angle to bathe the interior in reds, blues, greens, and yellows. A lot of churches have stained glass windows that add a bit of colored light to the inside, but Sagrada Familia's windows absolutely paint the interior. I spent a bit over an hour at Sagrada Familia before leaving and then took the metro to Placa d' Espanya. There's a bull arena there that is now a mall. I walked from the traffic circle up to the area where the Magic Fountains are located and then caught a bus to the top of Montjuic, which literally translates to "mountain of the Jews." At the top of Montjuic is a fort that is now open to the public. During the days of the Franco dictatorship, the forts guns were more for keeping the locals in line than defending the city from invaders. The views that day were decent, but the sun was going down and fog was starting to move in. As I stared out at the city, I was struck by how much it reminds me of Los Angeles, but with fewer skyscrapers. I hiked down Montjuic, passing the Sardana Dance sculpture and the old Olympic diving pools. There was also a park with a short zip-line that I made use of. When I got to the bottom I wasn't totally sure where I was, but I was on a street that led directed to Las Ramblas, so I just followed it there and got reoriented. By then it was getting dark and I got some dinner. At night I walked around Bari Gotic.

I ended up talking to two other people at the breakfast table the following morning - a guy from Ireland and a girl from Turkey. The guy was on a similar trip to mine, and the girl was the manager of her town's Burger King and had come to Spain for some management training and was visiting Barcelona before she was to return to Turkey. Later in the morning I tried out a new churros place further down and a few blocks off the Ramblas. The churros were good, but the bakery had no place to sit so I had to walk around and find a bench. True, I could have eaten them while walking, but I personally think churros con chocolate is strictly a sit-down sort of food. Afterwards I took the metro up near the side entrance of Parc Guell and rode the escalators up the hill to the entrance itself. Parc Guell is another product of Antoni Gaudi, though it was originally intended as a gated community for rich people. No one wanted to move in, so it got converted to a park. I started out at the Calvary viewpoint and then hiked around the upper part of the park for an hour or so. Up there I found the vista that I sat at back in 2012. As I was hiking I could see that the fog over the city was clearing and the sun was in a better position, so I went back to the Calvary viewpoint and got some photos. I then slowly made my way down towards the Monumental Zone, walking along the viaducts. The Monumental Zone contains the park's most popular sights but is my least favorite part, so I didn't pay to get in. Also, back in 2012 it was free. Officially the reason for the entry fee to the Monumental Zone is to limit crowds, and I don't doubt that that's part of the reason, but I also think it's clear that it gives the city another way to make money from tourism. Bypassing the Monumental Zone, I exited the park and did the long walk back to the metro. I then went over to Barcelona's triumphal arch and the park that is near it. The dragon fountain at the park was running and I walked around awhile before making my way through the El Born and Bari Gotic districts back to the Ramblas. Along the way I tried out chocolate covered churros, which were good but I decided I liked traditional churros con chocolate more. Eventually I wound up back at the hostel and ate dinner. While at the hostel I went online and looked to see if there were any ice cream or gelato shops that caught my eye. I saw one that was near the town hall in Bari Gotic and later in the night I paid it a visit. The gelato was good, which surprised me since I had been having mixed experiences with gelato in Spain. At this point I had mostly exhausted my sightseeing list for Barcelona, and still had a day and a half left, but Barcelona is one of the few cities where that's not a problem for me.

With little left to do, the next day felt somewhat like a filler day, but that also meant I relaxed more than the previous days. I tried out yet another churros place in the morning. The churros themselves were fine, but overpriced. Later I paid another visit to the La Boqueria market before moving on to the El Born district. I was heading towards the Sta Maria del Mar church when I realized another churro place that I had looked up was just a short detour away, so I went over there but found the place was closed and a note on the door stated the owner had a family emergency. With the detour over, I walked to the church and took note of the memorial outside of it, which is dedicated to the (crushed) 1714 Catalan revolt that tried to break Barcelona and the rest of Catalunya away from Spain. Inside Sta Maria del Mar you can see dark marks on the ceiling. During the Franco regime, the church decided to align itself with Franco, and angry locals set it on fire. Being made of stone, the church survived, but smoke from the fire has stained the ceiling. Near Sta Maria del mar is the El Born cultural center, which I visited next. I went in just out of curiosity, and found that in addition to exhibition rooms, it also holds an active archaeological site. Much of the El Born district was leveled after the 1714 revolt and a fort was built in the area. Today the remains of the old city street plan are being unearthed. When I left the cultural center I walked to a metro station and then took the metro to Sagrada Familia. I gave the exterior one more look, but the main reason I was back there was to try another churros place. These were fairly priced and I also tried out a caramel filled churro. Caramel is probably not the best thing to pair with a churro, but it was okay. When I finished I took the metro to Barceloneta to take in the beach one last time. I took a seat on a large outdoor cement chair near the outdoor gym. As with most outdoor gyms, some of the people were seriously working out, and some appeared to just be there to show off. After sitting for awhile, I got up and walked out to the end of one of the piers and looked out over the sea. It was about 4:30pm when I left the beach and then I walked all the way back to the bottom of the Ramblas. There I committed a great act of patriotism by eating at the McDonalds on Las Ramblas. I sat in the outdoor seating area, making it one of the few times on the trip that I intentionally did people-watching. Having shown my support for Team America, I returned to the hostel to use the internet. When the sun went down I walked over to the Magic Fountains for the sound and light show that goes on there most Fridays. The fountains "perform" according to a programmed routine that is accompanied by lights and music. I think I stayed an hour before leaving. On the way back to the hostel I detoured to get more gelato from the place by the town hall. As I was preparing for bed I uploaded photos to social media and was about to go to bed when I decided to refresh my news feed. It was then that I learned about the terrorist attacks that had just happened in Paris. Not all the details had come out, but it was clear that it was bloody and a number of people had died. I had mentally prepared for many possible travel interruptions, but a terrorist attack was not one of them and I wasn't sure how it was going to affect my flight the next day. After awhile I realized that I was just going to have to wait, so I went to bed.

Most of the next morning was spent reading news articles and verifying my travel schedule. I found that all flights were still on schedule, so nothing had changed on that front. I left the hostel at 11:00am and after that still had a little time before I needed to leave for the airport. With that time I walked around for awhile, got one last serving of churros, and sat on a bench at Placa Catalunya. When the time came, I got on a bus to the airport. I had anticipated heightened security at the airport but it didn't seem any tighter than normal and I got to my gate with a lot of time to spare. As I was sitting at the gate I really wasn't sure what to expect when I got to Paris. In a few hours I would be there, but it wouldn't be the same as when I was there in August.

Pamplona: The Walking of the Tourists

It was 6:25pm when I arrived in Pamplona, and being November, it was already dark outside. I was only going to stay a single night in the city and then leave in the late afternoon the next day, as there were only a few things I wanted to see. Pamplona is best known for the annual San Fermin Festival, during with the Running of the Bulls takes place. Since I was there in November, long after the festival, (I believe San Fermin is in August) there weren't too many other travelers in town, and I would instead be doing what you could call the Walking of the Tourists. Pamplona is also one of the cities on the Camino Santiago pilgrimage route, so if you visit you'll probably see a few backpackers with seashells attached to their backpacks (the seashell is the symbol of St James, who supposedly came out to this part of Europe and walked from the southwestern corner of France, across northern Spain, and finished at the place where the city of Santiago de Compostella now stands). After checking into my hostel I walked around town and scouted out the area and grabbed a meal. Being Sunday night, just about everything was closed, but our good friends, the defenders of the American Way, Burger King, were open for business. The guy at the cash register recognized that I was American, which always becomes obvious whenever I open my mouth, and asked which state I was from. I told him I lived in Colorado and he told me that he had visited America awhile back, but not Colorado. After eating I did a little more walking and then returned to the hostel.

During breakfast the next morning, I was talking to a Canadian and we decided to meet up for a late lunch of tapas. Being near the end of my time in Spain, and having never had tapas before, it seemed like a good opportunity to finally check that item off the list. I would only have a few hours in Pamplona before and after the meetup, but there were only a few things to see so it wasn't an issue. The day's sightseeing started at Plaza del Castillo and then went over to Pamplona's cathedral. The cathedral has a neoclassical exterior and a gothic interior, a combination you don't see too often. It also has a small museum in the cloister. After the cathedral I walked to the White Horse Ramparts that look out over the modern part of the city. It had been a foggy morning and the fog still hadn't totally lifted, so visibility was limited. From what I read, on a clear day you can see all the way to San Sebastian from there. Near the ramparts is the France Gate, which is the traditional entryway into the city for pilgrims on the Camino Santiago. I then walked over to the pen where the bulls are held at the start of the Running of the Bulls. A short distance ahead is the spot where the humans start their run. On the day of the festival, the humans get a short head start before the bulls are released, and then it's a crazy and dangerous half mile sprint to the arena. There are small signs on buildings that indicate the path of the run, and I walked the entire length of it to the arena. It is possible, though highly unlikely, that a human could outrun the bulls all the way to the arena. I'm not sure if you get a prize or something for doing that, but I imagine you would need to start at the front of the group of people and then just run like Usain Bolt. There's a bust of Hemingway outside the arena, and as you can imagine, he's something of a local hero. Interestingly, (or sadly, depending on who you ask) all the bulls who run in the festival will later that day be killed in the arena during bull fights. When I finished up at the arena, it was time to meet the Canadian and I went over to the Pamplona Tourist Information office, where we decided to meet. I got there first but only had to wait a few minutes for the Canadian to arrive. We spent the next hour or so checking out different bars and trying a few things. The tapa that I remember most looked like a very small cake with some sort of fish inside it. When we finished the Canadian did me one last favor and got a silly photo of me posing with the Running of the Bulls monument near Plaza del Castillo. We parted ways and then I had a little more time to explore Pamplona before it was time to grab my backpack and head to the train station. Like the Running of the Bulls, my time in Pamplona was short, but I had accomplished what I set out to do. I was now on my way to the finale of my time in Spain, the great city of Barcelona.

San Sebastian: Endless Summer

A seven hour train ride is not my idea of efficient travel, but on the plus side I got to listen to a substantial amount of some audiobooks that I had saved on my iPod. Yes, there are still some of us who use iPods. I received a warm welcome, literally, when I arrived in San Sebastian at around 4:30pm. It was unseasonably warm the entire time I was there, to the point where it felt more like late August than early November. For me this was a particularly big bonus because San Sebastian is one of my favorite places in Spain but I have never been to the seaside city during the summertime. I made a reservation for my next train and then exited the train station. Just outside is the river that flows northward out into the ocean. I followed the river to the last bridge and then crossed over into the old town, where my hostel was. After I found my hostel, I hardly used a map again the entire time I was in San Sebastian. I remember the city well, at least the coastal parts where I was in during my stay. Later in the day, after dinner, I took a walk around town to reacquaint myself with the city and not long after that I went to bed. There wasn't much of a plan for the next two days. San Sebastian doesn't have too much in the way of historical attractions - it's a city known more for its beaches than its museums - but during my time there I think I managed to get a decent balance of sightseeing and relaxing.

The next day I didn't set out from the hostel until the late morning. For the most part I retraced my steps from my previous visit in 2012. I looked around the old town for awhile before starting my climb up Monte Urgull; the hill next to the old town. There are the remains of an old fort up on the hill, along with a large statue of Jesus at the top. In the fortifications under the Jesus statue is a small museum on the history of San Sebastian. Although I couldn't fully read all the displays, the images and models were enough for me to see how the city used to look and how its expanded over the years. Hiking across Monte Urgull, I started to sweat a little. I was not expecting such a warm day on the Atlantic coast in November, but I also wasn't complaining. Summer weather without summer crowds is fine by me. I came down the hill and started the long walk around the bay. After passing the city hall I went onto the beach itself. The last time I was in San Sebastian a rainstorm had just passed through and not many people were on the beach, but with sun shining brightly a lot more people were out that day. The tide was coming in and I had to be careful not to get wet from a stray wave. I passed by what I refer to as "Fort Isabel," a turreted restaurant that protrudes onto the beach, and exited the beach further on where the rocks jut out and divide sections of the beach. I then kept going, but on pavement, passing through a small park and all the way to the end of the beach. The tamarind trees (I could be wrong about what type of trees they are) still had their stalks and leaves for the year. In 2012 I was in San Sebastian in April, when all of those trees are pruned and don't have any new growths, so it was interesting to finally see what they look like with leaves on them. To get to the viewpoint atop Monte Igueldo, the hill at the other end of the bay, I got on the funicular that goes up to the amusement park on the hill and then climbed the tower at the top of it. The tower has the best views of the city and I'm pretty sure the same lady and her dog that were working there were also there in 2012. I got photos from up the top of the tower and then just spent awhile looking out over the city and surrounding area. Eventually I came down, though I certainly could have spent longer up there. I then did the long walk back towards the old town, though I stopped along the way over at the Buen Pastor Cathedral. When I got there I saw that it wasn't going to be open to the public for another half hour, so I walked to the beach and just sat around until the opening time came. I then went back to Buen Pastor and took a look inside. Buen Pastor has a fairly plain interior, but it was free and I wasn't exactly in a rush to get anywhere. After leaving the cathedral I took a little time walking in one of the newer districts just south of the old town, before taking the road that circles around Monte Urgull. It was evening when I returned to the hostel to eat dinner and check email. At night I took another walk around town and got some decent gelato. While on my walk I went over to the Gros district, just east of the old town and on the other side of the river. There's a large building there that looks like cement blocks but apparently holds a theater, a few shops, a restaurant, and a modern art gallery. The Gros district is also home to San Sebastian's second major beach, which has larger waves than the main beach because it has nothing to break them (the main beach has an island out in the bay that minimizes the waves). After awhile I returned to the hostel and went to bed.

When I left the hostel the next day it was again late morning. This time, however, I came out to the sight of a half-marathon in progress just a few blocks from where I was staying. The finish line was in the old town and I got there a minute before the winner crossed the line. It must be a popular race because I saw at least a few thousand runners go by during my two hours along the last leg of the racecourse. There was a tower that had been erected nearby where I took a seat and the guy in the tower was playing music and continually letting the passing runners know that they were on the final kilometer of the race. When I left the race area there were still lots of people running by. I walked to the nearby beach in the Gros district and then spent some time watching the surfers out there. The waves weren't that big but still big enough for the surfers to catch and ride them. I then did the loop around Monte Urgull again and when I came back around to the old town it looked like the last of the runners were crossing the finish line. A lot of the runners who had already finished were flooding the bars in the old town and crowding the streets. My train to Pamplona was in the late afternoon, so I still had a little time before I needed to grab my backpack. I spent that remaining time just walking and relaxing. It was over soon enough, and I departed San Sebastian. Ahead of me I had a short stay in Pamplona, followed by the finale of my time in Spain.

Madrid: Tertiary

Normally when I arrive at a place in Europe, the first order of business is to make arrangements for my departure to the next place. When I got off the train at Madrid's Atocha train station I went over to the ticket office and took a number. The line at Atocha is always long and slow, but some reason it was particularly slow that day. After half an hour the counter had hardly advanced and I was still 30 numbers away from getting called, so I decided I would come back later and I left. I walked to my hostel, which was the same one that I had stayed in during the second time in Madrid. To pass the time I did a lot of miscellaneous things like buying groceries and trying a different sandwich at the Museo de Jamon bar. When it was early evening I walked back to Atocha and the line at the ticket office was now much shorter. The next city I was going to was San Sebastian, in the northeast Spain. There was no reason to extend my time in Madrid and I opted for a train that left Charmatin Station at 8:00am. It would mean getting up early, but I could always get more rest on the train ride and leaving early would mean more time in San Sebastian. Back at the hostel I ate a late dinner, though I guess in Spain it would have been a more normal dinner time. I wound up not going to bed until after 2:00am because of how long it took to upload photos to social media and the time I spent writing.

It was a very gray day in Madrid the following day. The main event of that day was a day trip I did out to El Escorial, a former royal palace and the headquarters of the Counter Reformation in Spain. I caught a late morning bus, which 45 minutes to reach the town El Escorial is in, and then it was a ten minute walk from the bus station to the palace. Although a palace, the exterior of El Escorial looks more like an asylum or jail, which I guess is fitting for a place dedicated to hunting down anything perceived as a threat to Catholicism. The dull colored stones seemed to match the overcast sky above. The inside is a completely different story, but no photos are allowed, so I was only able to sneak a few shots. The interior isn't quite as grand as the royal palace in Madrid, but still has a lot of nice stuff in it. I finished up with the palace in the late afternoon and then walked back to the bus station to catch the next bus back to Madrid. As I was waiting I was thinking over and comparing my visit to El Escorial and my day trip to Toledo, which I did from Madrid back in 2012. Toledo is probably the more worthwhile day trip from Madrid, but a proper visit to Toledo requires most of the day, whereas El Escorial can be done in much less time. Back in Madrid I did a final daytime walk that took me up to the St Anton market and then back down to Plaza Mayor. Before dinner I wrote some reviews of the last few hostels I had stayed at. After dinner I packed up my backpack and made sure I was ready for the next day's departure. I only went out briefly at night and didn't stay up late because I would be getting up early the next day.

Or so I thought. I'm at a complete loss to explain what happened, but when I woke up the next day I found that it was just past 8:00am and my cell phone alarm was ringing, silently. That was the first time that had ever happened and I didn't remember silencing the phone. Even on silent, it should have been vibrating, which would have easily woken me up. Regardless of why it happened, it meant I had missed the 8:00am train. Thankfully my packing the night before meant I could leave quickly and get the Charmatin Station to catch the next train, which was at 9:12am. It was a slow train, however, and I settled in for a seven hour ride to San Sebastian.

Cordoba: The Overlooked Cousin

The bus from Granada took me on a two hour ride to a train station at Antequerra Sta Ana, at which I had to wait forty minutes for my train to Cordoba. During the transit from Granada to Cordoba I had passed through a rain storm, but on arrival in Cordoba it was merely cloudy, so my umbrella from Istanbul still wouldn't be getting any usage. Cordoba was the last city I would be visiting in southern Spain before returning to Madrid and then going north. After unpacking I took a walk around town, going down to the Mezquita, the river, the fort, and looping back the long way to the hostel. Cordoba's historic core is a bit smaller than the ones in Seville or Granada, and the city as a whole gets a little less tourism than the other major towns in southern Spain. In that sense, Cordoba feels like the overlooked cousin of the major cities in southern Spain. At one time it was the leading city in nearly all of Europe. Today its glory days are long gone, but it still has a few things going for it. For dinner on my first day I did something a different in that I got a frozen pizza from a grocery store. That's not a remarkable thing for me to do back in America, but when I travel I normally avoid buying anything that requires baking, as not all hostels have ovens in their kitchen. The hostel that I was at did have an over, and this particular pizza had Iberian ham on it, which I had never had on a pizza before, so I could justify purchasing the pizza as a new experience. Later in the night I was out and about in the city when I bought a small frozen yogurt from a chain that I had seen across Spain. Unfortunately, I accidentally ordered plain yogurt, which I think is disgusting. Still, I forced myself to eat most of it as some demented form of self punishment for my mistake.

It was an early wake up for me the next day because I planned on visiting the Mezquita during its free entry period, which is the first hour of the day that it is open. The Mezquita is a Catholic church that used to be a mosque. The mosque, in turn, was built on the site of a former Visigothic church. Normally mosques were destroyed when Spanish armies forced the Moors out of a given city, but in this case the mosque was largely maintained and added onto. The biggest remodeling that was done to the building was that in the center a section of the mosque was redone to look more like a traditional church, which means that in the middle it looks like part of a cathedral was picked up and transplanted into the building. The rest of the interior is largely the same as it was when the building was a mosque, with a forest of double arched columns. If you stand at one end of the interior, you almost get the illusion of the arches extending into infinity. Also inside, you can find the only remaining prayer niche leftover from the mosque, though interestingly it faces south, and not towards Mecca. When the free entry time ended, myself and the other tourists were ushered out of the building by the staff so that the daily mass could start. I spent a few more minutes checking out the Mezquita's courtyard, which reminded me of the courtyard in Seville's cathedral. When I finished up there, I went back to the hostel for breakfast and getting a few other things done. It was late morning when I set out again for the day. I had already seen Cordoba's biggest attraction and there weren't too many other things that I was interested in seeing, so I spent a lot of the day wandering around the city. One of the first things I came across was the ruins of a Roman temple dedicated to the imperial cult. I passed through a few plazas, walked lots of roads, and came down to the river where I crossed to the south side. There's a park along the riverside that I followed until I got to the Museum of Al-Andalus Life. The museum itself is fairly modest, but it's in an old tower which has good view of the old city. After the museum, I crossed back to the north side of the river and near the Mezquita I stopped by the Calle de las Flores; a street lined with hanging flower pots that line up with the view of the Mezquita's bell tower. I then walked around the western part of the old city, next to the walls. In there you can find the city's old synagogue, which is one of only three medieval synagogues in Spain (all the others were demolished or coverted to churches when the Jews were expelled from Spain at the end of the 1400s). I did more walking in that area, slowly making my way back towards the central part of the old city, and got some decent gelato along the way. Then I returned to the hostel for a little while to check email, upload photos, and whatnot. When I headed out again I wound up back at the Roman bridge near the Mezquita and sat on a bench on the bridge and did some reading. When I was done I got up and returned to the hostel to make dinner. Nothing much happened the rest of the day, and there was now only one thing left to do before leaving Cordoba.

That last thing to do was to visit Cordoba's Alcazar (palace) during the free entry hour in the morning. The Alcazar in Cordoba is not as good as the one in Seville, but I wasn't going to complain since I was getting in for free. The actual palace part has very little in it, though the gardens are nice. I then returned to the hostel for breakfast and ended up chatting with some of the staff for awhile. When that was done and I was packed and checked out, I still had an hour before my train to Madrid, so I did one final walk around town. That hour passed by real quick, and I was soon back at the hostel for my backpack. I walked to the train station and caught my 1:35pm train to Madrid. My time in southern Spain was over.

Granada: A Second Look

On the day that I left Ronda for Granada, I was musing in the morning about how I was having fewer transportation issues overall than the previous time I was in Europe. I really should have known that I was jinxing myself by thinking that. On the afternoon train ride to Granada everything was going fine for awhile but then everyone on the train was informed that the train would be stopping at a station along the way and then we would all have to be taken the rest of the way to Granada by bus. This wasn't too bad, but it set up complications for the next leg of the journey. When I arrived in Granada I saw that the train station was under renovation and no trains were arriving or departing from it. As I later found out, the construction was to adapt the Granada train station so that it could become part of the AVE high speed rail network. Several other people that arrived in Granada were trying to figure out how they were going get to their next city, and no one was making any progress, so I thought it better to leave the station and come back later in the day. Granada's train station is a ways out from the center of town and it took me about 30 minutes to walk to my hostel. At the hostel I was able to go online and gather some more info on what was being done for train/bus service out of the city, and after storing my stuff I went out to catch a bus back to the train station. I got on the right bus, but heading the wrong way. Because the bus route was a giant loop, I figured I could just wait for the bus to turn around and then stay on it until it reached the train station. A ticket inspector told me otherwise. I had to get off, buy another bus ticket, and then wait for the next bus. It was late in the day when I got to the train station, but on the plus side there was no one in line at the service desk. With the trains not operating in Granada, the national company that operates the train system was using buses to get people to another train station west of the city, and from there people could get onto trains going wherever. I made arrangements for my departure from Granada, and now could start seeing the city. The last time I was in Granada I only had a short time there, so I was looking forward to getting a second look at the city. It was nighttime when I got back to the city center and there were a lot of people out in their Halloween costumes. A walked around a little, but I didn't want to stay out late because I was getting up early the next day.

The reason I was getting up early was because I was going to visit the Alhambra Palace, but I didn't have a reservation. If you don't have a reserved entry time, you can still get in by purchasing one of the non-reserved tickets that go on sale each day at the entrance, but you'll want to show up before the Alhambra opens to make sure you get one. On my previous visit to Granada I had been in the same situation and I showed up an hour early just to be safe, but this turned out to be unnecessary as there were 200 unreserved tickets available (and not many people ahead of me in the line). Remembering this, I showed up the Alhambra this time only 30 minutes before opening, and again easily got one of the unreserved tickets. Seriously, I could have showed up at opening and been fine. That said, I should point out that both of my visits to the Alhambra have been in non peak season times of the year (in 2012 I was there at the end of April and in 2015 at the start of November) and it could very well be that if someone wants to buy an unreserved ticket during peak season they really do need to show up an hour early. Anyways, let's get back to the story. Since the last time I was in Granada I selected the morning entry time, I decided to do the afternoon entry time for the sake of doing something different. The down side to this was that I had to carefully arrange the rest of my schedule for the day. It was Sunday, so lots of sights opened late and closed early. The sun was now up and I went back to the hostel to quickly eat before heading out again. At first I was thinking of getting photos along Calle Darro, a scenic street that borders the Alhambra, but light at that point in the morning was terrible, so instead I did a self-guided walk in the area around Granada's cathedral. I went into the Royal Chapel and saw the tombs of the Spanish monarchs buried there. For some reason no photos are allowed in there, which is really odd since no amount of photography is going to damage a stone coffin. Afterwards I did a long walk through the old Moorish quarter, called the Albayzin, and then went up to the San Nicolas viewpoint. There's a ledge up there with a good view of the city that everyone likes to sit on. I got some time on the ledge myself, though I had to wait for a spot to open up. Right next to me was a guy playing some of that high speed Andalusian guitar music. I took a brief look inside the San Nicolas Church that's up there, but it wasn't too interesting. There's also a mosque nearby, but it was closed to the public at the time. I walked down the hill from the viewpoint to Plaza Nueva. There I saw a few people doing a public flamenco show. I think that counts as at least a token flamenco experience. The sun was in a better position at that point in the day, so I went back over to Calle Darro. The street, which becomes Paseo de los Tristes further down, has been declared by UNESCO as the most beautiful road in the world. I'm not sure I would go that far, but it is a beautiful street. When I was done there, it was getting close to my 2:00pm entry time for the Alhambra. I hiked back up to the entrance (the Alhambra is up on a hill) but instead of going in the main gate I went in the Justice Gate, which put me between the Alcazaba (fort) and the Charles V palace. I went into the Alcazaba first. There's not too much to see in there, but the towers have panoramic views of the entire city. I then checked out the Charles V palace before entering the Alhambra's main attraction; the Palacios Nazaries (the old Moorish palace). While much the same as I remembered it from the last visit, there was a new area open to the public with a restored lion fountain. I followed the route though the Palacios Nazaries, reading room descriptions in my guidebook pages. Exiting the Palacios Nazaries put me in line with the last major area of the Alhambra; the Generalife Gardens. Being early November, the sun was already starting to go down even though it was only 4:00pm. I spent an hour in the gardens before leaving the Alhambra and returning to the center of town, where I walked around for a little longer before getting dinner and uploading photos to social media. That night I went out for churros con chocolate and did a night walk around the city. I also realized that I still hadn't used the umbrella that I had purchase in Istanbul. Rain was forecasted for the next day, so perhaps it would finally happen.

But the rain never came, so the umbrella still didn't see any action. That day I got up at 8:00am, which felt like sleeping in compared to the day before. My departure from Granada was at 12:45pm. That gave me enough time to visit the last major sight I wanted to see; the cathedral. The previous day I had walked around the cathedral but didn't go in because there was a mass being held in the morning. The cathedral is the second largest church in Spain, after Seville's cathedral, and features a massive whitewashed interior. The whitewashing was originally done to help sterilize the church's interior and promote public health, and the locals liked it so much that the color stayed, making Granada's cathedral one of the brightest church interiors you'll see in Europe. Beneath the church is a small crypt where a few people are buried. While down in there I noticed a woman walk in with a small vase of flowers which she put in front of one of the tombs. She then stood there, silently, transfixed upon the tomb, while everyone else was walking around, snapping photos. Moments like these are very important, especially to tourists like myself, that these places do not just exist for our gawking amusement, but are in fact sacred sites that are important to people. After leaving the cathedral I had a little time to walk around Granada some more before I needed to grab my backpack from the hostel. When the time came I got my stuff and went over to the train station, where the bus was waiting to take me and some other people to another train station where we would connect with our respective trains to other places in Spain. I was glad to have seen Granada in a bit more detail than my first visit and hoped to come back again one day. The next city in line was the final one from southern Spain and a place that didn't get a visit on my first journey: Cordoba.

Ronda: Bridging the Gap

It was early afternoon when I arrived in Ronda and then it was ten minutes of walking to reach the place I was staying at. I had completely forgotten that there weren't any hostels I could find nearby Ronda's old city, so I was staying in a B&B, and when I opened the door to my room it felt really weird to see that I was in a private room. At the same time, I was only going to be there a single night, so I would be back to the usual hostel dormitories soon enough. I had come to Ronda because I wanted to do a brief stop in one of Spain's famous whitewashed hill towns and Ronda was the easiest to reach by public transportation. I knew from my research beforehand that there wasn't too much to see or do in Ronda, hence why I was only staying a single night. After unpacking I got a quick meal and then went over to Ronda's famous main bridge. The hill Ronda is built on has steep bluffs, and the oldest part of the city is separated from the newer parts by a gorge that's about 200ft wide and 360ft deep. The main bridge over the gorge has a pair of massive support columns that go all the way down to the bottom of the gorge. It's also called the Ponte Nuevo because it's the newest of the bridges crossing the gorge, though it's still a few hundred years old, having been finished in the late 1700s. When examining the bridge, the engineer inside me was wondering why the bridge wasn't built as a single-span arch bridge, but I guess that would have been really hard to do back then. In Ronda's old city I spent awhile looking around, though there's not too much to see. Afterwards I took a trail that lead down the cliffs and for the next three or so hours I was hiking around and under the bridge. The farther down I went, the fewer tourists there were. Eventually I was far enough down that all the people I saw there had arrived by car via the road at the bottom of the gorge. When I got far enough away from the bridge that I could only see part of it, I turned back and started the climb back to the top. Along the way I took a cutoff trail that I saw a few mountain climbers taking. It was steep but saved me twenty minutes of hiking along the main path. I took a rest at a vantage point and waited for sunset. Unfortunately the sunset light that day wasn't as dramatic as I was hoping it would be (I was hoping it would give the bridge a reddish tone that would make for a good photo, but no luck). With the light dimming I marched the rest of the way back up to the town. I bought dinner from a grocery store in town and later in the night came back to the bridge and the old city to do a night walk. There were lots of people out walking the streets, including kids in Halloween costumes. It was October 30, so Halloween wasn't actually until tomorrow, but I doubt the kids cared.

The next morning I was in for a pleasant surprise regarding breakfast. The B&B's breakfast was being served at the cafe down the street. When I got there I found out that they served churros con chocolate and ordered some. I wasn't expecting anything out of the ordinary, but these turned out to be the best churros con chocolate that I had on the entire Europe trip. After breakfast I packed my backpack and left it at the front desk while I went out to see a bit more of Ronda before departure. I checked out the smaller, older bridges that span a lower, narrower part of the gorge and also visited a church in the old city. When time ran out I returned to the B&B, got my backpack, and walked to the train station to catch my 1:40pm train to Cordoba.