Subject:   [adventure!] Leaving Spain again

Date:   2/22/2004 6:17:23 AM

 

 

 

 

First, there are more adventure pictures up (thanks Scott!) at:

 

<weblink information removed>

 

including pictures of me with a full(-ish) beard, a full(-ish) beard with

half a mustache, and a full(-ish) beard with no mustache (a la Abe Lincoln).

The mustacheless beard look was so ridiculous that I have decided to go

with it for a while. Perhaps I´ll write more later about the effects of

beard configuration on interpersonal communication. I think this may have

been a major factor in old Honest Abe´s election.

 

Okay, I´m finally leaving Spain (again), this time hitching from Figueres

out to the Mediterranean and up from there, avoiding La Jonquera, the border

city where I got stuck last time.

 

Did you know that there are Carnivale parties in Barcelona? Oh. Well, there

are. I arrived in Barcelona on Friday morning, wandered around, and found a

cool little hostel with a kitchen. The hostels in Northern Spain tend to

have kitchens, but in the South they tend to be more like hotels, where you

just get a room to yourself, which makes it harder to meet other travellers.

Anyway, over dinner, one of the travellers mentioned that she was going to

a Carnivale party, hosted by a friend of a friend, or more accurately a

person who is in the same social circle as her friend, or most accurately,

someone who she did not know but who nevertheless (over the phone) told her

to bring some people from the hostel to the party!

 

So after dinner we headed off to the party. Well, of course not right after

dinner. After dinner, some wine, some stories, and some general lazing

about. We got there around 11, and were among the first people there. At

home anymore, 11:00 is about time for the last guests to say something about

work or babysitters and put their coats on. Yeah, I´m talking about you!

 

Before we left though, the girl who invited us, our link into the

friend-of-a-friend thing, told us that we should really have costumes. But

hey, we´re travellers (with pretty short notice), they´ll understand if we

don´t dress up. Just in case, I brought my safety goggles.

 

Some of you may remember an email a few weeks ago, where I descibed the

sensation of olive branches scratching corneas. The day after I sent that

out, I bought some safety goggles[1]. I left one pair at the place I was

staying, and brought one pair with me. Even though proper backpacking

requires the strict adherence to the only-what-you-need rule, I am keeping

the goggles along because: 1) proper backpacking also requires corneas; and

2) I´m already carrying 50 pounds worth of books.

 

When we arrived at the party, I realized that I didn´t actually have a title

for my costume. I needed an answer to the inevitable "What the hell are

you?" question. Suggestions from my newfound hostel friends were along the

lines of ´carpenter´. Now you will recall that I am currently wearing a

ridiculous moustacheless beard. I was also wearing my nice-guy sweater (to

a hot Spanish party) and safety goggles. So I came up with what I thought

at the time was a very clever title. I told people I was a traveller who

was taking his mother´s advice, which of course was to "dress warm, be safe,

and don´t grow a mustache". The Spanish people[2] found the first two

funny, but simply smiled politely at the mustache part, which I thought was

the clever part.

 

The party was great fun, and we decided around 3:00 to stay out until 7:00

(the hostel is locked from 3-7, so you have to decide whether you want to be

in by 3 or out till 7). The party went until about 5:30 and we spent the

next hour helping them clean up.

 

Two other funny things happened at the party. One was the discovery that

the host, who of course was a person in the same social circle as the friend

of the person I had just met in the hostel, was also a graduate of ...

University of Illinois!

 

The other funny thing that happened was late into the party when I sat down

and wrote something in the little notebook I keep in my pocket. The girl

sitting on the couch nearby asked what I was writing, so I handed over the

book, accurately predicting what would happen next. She looked at what I

had written on the page, then flipped through the book, perusing each page

with more and more confusion. She couldn´t read a single word I had

written. Not because she was Spanish (she spoke perfect English), but

because my handwriting is so bad. She said, before turning back to her

boyfriend, "too much dope and snow in your life". I thought that was

hilarious, partly because there is currently no dope or snow in my life, and

partly because she was so thoroughly confused by my handwriting as to become

angry with me about it. Not even my elementary school teachers, who endured

the worst of my handwriting, accused me of being a snowblind dope fiend!

 

Now it´s onward and upward (mapwise) to France. Maybe another WWOOFing

spot, maybe Paris, or maybe just right on through to Italy. Depends mostly

on the weather and the locals.

 

Have fun!

jay

 

 

p.s., those of you looking to start on adventures of your own may want to

check out www.flyzoom.com (thanks Lori!), which gets you from Canada to

London very cheaply, starting in May. Flights from London to anywhere in

Europe are still supercheap with ryanair. Those of you who are already in

Euope should wait until I get back to Canada and come and visit me then!

 

[1] It is surprisingly hard to type ´goggle´ without typing the exceedingly

high-frequency ´google´ instead.

 

[2] Here I should mention that the Spanish people were almost outnumbered by

the people from random other countries.