Back in June of last year, I got this crazy obsession to spend a month in Paris.  In those foggy days in my little apartment at the beach in San Diego, this obsession seemed to totally take over my life for like, I don’t know, 72 hours.  Maybe that doesn’t seem like too long but it was as I was TOTALLY obsessing.  Also I didn’t have a lot of money in the bank, and that made me obsess even more.

Well, enough about obsessing.  Whatever happened in that 72 hours, I managed to find an apartment for 1000 euros for the month, and I managed to convince myself (with the help of quite a few other people, who also obsess a lot about Paris, I have a feeling) that I could live here, for 25 euros per day after rent.

Well, now I am here.  For a month!  And the rent is paid. Now I have to stick to the rest, but I already kind of blew it.

I got here yesterday.  The only snafus of the day were at the airport – I needed to get a crapload of euros (like 800) to pay for my apartment when I got here, and the first ATM I went to was first shut down, then opened back up a few minutes later, then said my card(s) were no good.  So I checked with an info guy and he directed me to an ATM in another terminal.  En route I had a fairly comical interaction which was indeed so comical, I’m not completely sure I would even consider it a snafu.  I was pushing my cart with my stuff on there, and there was a sort of cart “accident” in front of me, so I slowed down but the guy in front of me, who was one of the ones in the cart accident, backed up and grazed his heel on my cart.  He about had a meltdown there.  He was going on like I had severed an artery or something… seriously, he could not have felt anything unless he was one of those glass people like that dude in Amelie.  Anyway after that 5 seconds of fuss I was at the other ATM and got the money and got a cab and then voila, I was here.

Once I got here, and got into my little attic apartment in the Bastille area, I went out for lunch then supplies.  This is where I sort of blew my budget, on my very first day.  Actually, after spending 45 euros on a taxi and then 1000 on the apartment, I was kind of like “what the hell I just won’t count day one.”  So I went out and spent 20 euros on some substandard Thai food and crap wine and then another 75 euros but on a lot of food and 4 bottles of wine.  It doesn’t count, plus it is going to make the next few days way easier!  After this though, it is all about the budget.

In the late afternoon, after unpacking all my goodies, I took a short nap and then walked down to the Seine and the Notre Dame.  There weren’t that many people in front of Notre Dame, but there sure were a lot of youngsters drinking down on the quai.  Which brings me to this: there are a lot of youngsters drinking in public in general.  Now, I am not against public drinking, in fact I am a serious advocate of it.  As long as those involved are nice about it and don’t litter.  Or sit in the way of folks from the neighborhood who are out for a walk, especially if you are going to play quarters with a couple of 12-packs of Kronenburg.   I was crossing a bridge over the canal that leads up to the Place de la Bastille to get back home, and there are these concrete post thingies coming up at either end, and some kid is passing me with his beer and then proceeds to deposit his empty bottle, right there on the post.  Dude.  Can you not find one of the gazillion garbage cans the city of Paris has put all over the friggen place?  This is one of the moments when I really truly wish I was born with the language gene. (If someone can please tell me, how to say “Pick up that bottle and put it in the garbage, young whippersnapper!” that would be great.  (Only, if you are going to suggest a comparable French word for whippersnapper, please don’t mess with me and give me word that would get me in trouble with the whippersnapper and/or the police.)

The Place de la Bastille was a little nutty too.  Heck, I thought all the partying I saw there before was due to the Techno parade that I went to twice there.  Wrong!

I love my street though and there is everything you could possibly want or need within a five minute walk.  And the only thing I can hear, even though the crazy Place de la Bastille is right up the street, are the birds singing.

Today I got a bit of a late start (normal for me) and had no real plan, but it being a beautiful day, and a Saturday, I headed out to the Parc Villette. Got on the subway, and of course some weirdo sits next to me.  He starts poking me and I just shake my head.  He pokes me again.  I shake my head again.  He pokes me again.  Asks me if I speak French.  No, I say.  Espanol?  No, Italian.  Heh.  That shut him up.  (By the way I don’t really speak Italian.) Then he pokes a woman standing in front of us.  I think he asked her for the time, because she sort of smiled and pointed at her wrist a la “dude, you have a watch.” But he poked her again so she told him the time, then he got up and left.  Me and her exchanged a shrug, the “what a weirdo” shrug which, thankfully, is kind of universal.  My first full day in Paris, and already I have the What a Weirdo Shrug Exchange with a local.  Awesome!

There is not much green space in Parc Villette, but a lot of museums and an exhibition hall and a merry go round.  It is big, a canal runs through it, and it was packed with families enjoying the warm weather with their kids.  As it is everywhere, it was fun to watch the little kids run and play.  The rock venue the Zenith is there; and there were a lot of young girls sitting in a long line waiting to get the spot on the rail for this evening’s show.  I had no idea who it was so went to see if I could hear what appeared to be a sound check.  But it was Sting singing King of Pain and there is no way, no how these girls are lining up for Sting.  Turns out it is Enrique Iglesias. Also, that was not a sound check.  Unless Mr. Iglesias is covering a Sting song, something I highly doubt.

I took the metro back to Oberkampf, then walked all the way back up the Canal St. Martin.  The whole canal was lined with people hanging out, talking, playing music, eating, drinking.  I even saw four chicks playing an accordian and three wind instruments.  I walked and walked, back towards the Bastille, sort of having a race with a tourist canal boat.  I’d be way in front, but then I would stop to look at something, and the boat would catch up.  Then I was in front, then I stopped to buy an orange.  Then the boat was in front.  As you can see, traveling with me is a thrill a minute.  I did learn that when the tourist boat on the Canal St. Martin has to be lowered in those lock thingys, it makes the most cool refreshing breeze.  Kind of like walking into a cave.

Once home, I had a real bee in my bonnet to go out and have some wine by a canal like everyone else in Paris seemed to be doing.  So I got some Burgundy and some potato chips and headed down to that canal that goes to the Bastille from the Seine, which is decidedly more upscale than the Canal St. Martin but a lot closer to my apartment.  There, I spent the late afternoon writing, reading, and drinking red wine while the sun set over the rooftops across the canal.  Well, I say reading but what I was really doing was watching people walk by, or drink on their yacht, or reveling in the fact that I could drink Burgundy out of a glass while the cops drove by.

Now I am back in my apartment, where I will eat Alsatian sausage, mashed potatoes and some sauteed tomatoes.  This is actually most likely my meal for the next three nights.  Before you think I am unhappy about this, or that I am crazy to come to Paris and not eat all those fine restaurant meals, know that this is the way I want it to be.  If you could have a month in Paris and eat sausage at home, or a week in Paris and eat out all the time, what would you choose?  I know some would say the week; but for me, it is all about The Month.  And I am so lucky, and I know that.  Lucky.

Time is going by fast.  So fast, that it is kind of crazy.  Time is accelerating in general, but somehow I thought that when I got here, it would slow down.  It has not.  It goes faster.  Before I know it, it will be next year, next years trip.  Before I know it, my nephews will be teenagers.  It could be tomorrow.  I could be dead tomorrow, so I will keep traveling, but if anyone knows a way to slow time down, could you please let me know.

Anyway.  Right now I am in Sondrio, a town high in the north of Italy on the border of Switzerland. What is it, Saturday?  I think it is Saturday… last Saturday then, I was in Padova, the highlight of that particular Saturday being the two minutes I was completely alone in the Scrovegni Chapel.  Completely alone! Me, Giotto, and two minutes of complete silence.  It was, is, one of the most amazing two minutes not only of this trip but of any trip and possibly of my entire life.

I also had a very nice Sunday in Padova.  There was a bio-market in the main Piazza, and a really cool exposition of dozens of local mushrooms, and got to see an old friend in the afternoon.

Monday, headed west to the town of Acqui Termi.  Essentially I went there to have a little slowtravel get together, but it was a bit like flying from San Diego to Alexandria, Virginia to have a couple of drinks with friends.  Still, if there was any place to eat, drink and sleep for 36 hours, Acqui Termi is as good a place as any.  Even if it took 7 hours to get there and 6 to get out.  It poured rain the first night, and I mean poured, making rivers everywhere.  Rivers coming down the street, rivers making my lame umbrella a cruel joke. Rivers reminding me that sometimes, the travel gods have to have a hehe moment.  In these moments, what else is there to do, but to eat, drink, sleep.  Thank the gods for wine and chocolate. (Maybe the travel gods are in a lucrative marketing scheme with the wine and chocolate gods, and when the rent is due, they have a whole program worked out.)

Anyway.  Left that town and once again, was reminded of the simple fact that it does not pay to deviate from the plan; my plan being, take the 8:54 train to Genoa and then the 11:40 to Milan Lambrate to meet Kim.  My motus operandi was to have the least connections possible.  There were all manner of other 6 hour trips I could take to MIlan, but they involved multiple changes.  I got up early though, and though I could maybe make it on the earlier train to Genoa and then Milan, getting me in a couple of hours earlier.  Ha.  Got to the station and made it on the train only to hear the announcement that this particular train would not go all the way to Genoa.  Uh.  Could you not have relayed that information in the station?  Allora, not really.  Instead I got off the train with all the other passengers and boarded a really comfy Trenitalia chartered bus, and enjoyed some nice views of some rivers, and then the morning rush hour traffic.  Basically my deviating from plan A resulted in some extra time hanging out at the Genoa train station.  One cafe macchiato, a cappucino, a cornetti, and one prosecco later, I was on my way to Milano.  Finally.

It was a beautiful trip though.  The train wound through the mountains of Liguria and we went over many rivers.  Everytime we went over a river, I was like, is that the Po?  But it would take a better riverologist than me to answer my question.  Actually, I am somewhat of a river lameass.  I need to brush up on my rivers.

This entry is getting a little long so I will try to fast forward.  Crap, I am trying to SLOW THINGS DOWN.  Oh well.  Speaking of crap, in this town of Sondrio, there is a place that is called Il Crap.  I am serious!  I do not know if this is the local dialect or what, but it relates to the monastery, or a castle, that is on the top of the hill.  One thing that you may be asking, and that indeed I have been asking myself is, what the hell I am doing in Sondrio.  But the cool thing is, I like asking myself questions like “where the hell am I?”  (As long as it is not raining rivers. In this case, this question kind of sucks.)

Well what I am doing here is, looking for the family of my friend Chris Spene.  His grandfather came from here, in the 1800’s then migrated to America – the family name here is Spini.  So it is Chris here, and his wife Jen and Kim and me.  And we have nothing to go on, but somehow here we have found some Spinis and ended up in a bar tonight in a place that seriously, I never ever in a million years I thought I would be in and now Chris is with some Spinis and me and Kim and Jen are hanging out drinking wine. Where the hell are we? We are in travel land.  The land where maybe the rivers don’t involve water; where maybe the rivers involve the thread that binds us together.  Rivers of blood – the blood that binds us.  Rivers of desire – the desire to understand the parts of ourselves that we do not know.  Rivers, that never stop, coming down, down, the mountains and that carry memories, carry history; maybe we do not know the mountain, maybe we do not know the river.  But we will.  And the moments that we find a particular river – well those are the moments that we remember.  Right?

Onward.

If there is a Hell, it is probably being an Amalfi coast bus driver.  Just being a rider was getting a little irritating.  I never rode the bus with people who thought it was a personal cab service before.  Interesting.

Anyway.  The best part of our time on the Amalfi coast besides spending Sharon’s birthday with her was staying at the Holiday House Gilda outside Positano.  I loved opening the kitchen door every morning to the most stunning ocean view.  It rained a lot, so I sat in the window and watched storms come and go.  It would be clear, then the storm would pass, then it would be sunny again.  This is how it went for many days. 

Staying there was like living with an Italian family for a few days.  The people who run the place were so wonderful.  We just completely fell in love with them.  Every day Rosa, Daniela and Gilda would make breakfast and talk to everyone.  They made us pancakes!  With syrup!  And fresh eggs every day.  I would never ask for pancakes in any hotel much less an Italian one, but believe me when someone puts them down in front of you, you just eat them. 

One morning, there was an Australian woman there with her husband and daughter, and it was her birthday but she did not know that the B and B people knew – Rosa had seen it on her passport when she checked in.  So at breakfast they brought out a cake and everyone sang.  You should have seen the look on the womans face, she was absolutely stunned and both she and her husband had tears in their eyes.  Plus we all got rum soaked cake for breakfast.  Awesome!

We also loved Giuseppe, Gilda’s husband, who would always bring us treats, including a bag of fresh balls of bufalo mozzerella, the last of which we ate today, with lemon infused olive oil on some crackers, overlooking the ruins of Pompeii.  Grazie mille, Giuseppe.

I felt like they were family when we left and I did not really want to leave.  It was a really special few days staying there.

Now we are in Pompei and we have been twice to the Scavi.  It is truly incredible, seeing all the vineyards and trees and plants mixed in with the ancient houses.  I am glad we went two days instead of one because we could not even do it all in two. 

It is our last night in Campania, so I guess we need to go and have some pizza… it has been an incredible couple of weeks here – the insanity and the glory of Naples, the beauty of the Amalfi coast… the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompei.  And still there is so much to do here. 

Tomorrow we head back to Rome and Colleen leaves Saturday.  Then I head north.  My energy is lagging a little, what with all those buses and ruins.  Perhaps some long train rides will rejuvinate me.

We are in Positano and the one internet cafe charges 8 euros per hour so I am going to make this brief… I KNEW I should have written before I left Naples where it was only 2 euros an hour!  Oh well.  We were so exhausted at the end of every day in Naples… there is so much to see and to do and we were trying to jam way too much.  We wore ourselves out there.

Naples is like two worlds.  One side of the wall is crazy, with noise and energy and a lot of traffic.  On the other side of the wall, there is some leafy garden that is so peaceful that if you did not know the crazy was on the other side, you would never believe it.

Also, I think I can safely say that Naples is the only place I have every deliberately walked in front of a bus.  It is the only way to make them stop.  I guess I thought when we came to Positano everything would be all mellow.  Not!

It is very beautiful here of course and 98% of the people are tourists, definitely a change there.  It is more expensive for sure… we got here yesterday so that we could celebrate my friend Sharon’s birthday with her.  So we took the ferry from Naples and got here and hung out a bit.  Then at a wine bar, a glass fell off the table and somehow a shard hit the ground and bounced up to cut Sharon’s leg very badly.  There was a lot of blood and after some not knowing what to do (though, for some odd reason, I had a huge bandage in my backpack) the woman behind the bar got hep to what was going on and she came out and butterfly bandaged the cut, then called the red cross.  Three guys came down the hill and stiched Sharon up, and it was quite intense.  On her birthday!  But she was super brave and then the red cross guys were done and had a coffee and a cigarette.

Colleen and I then went to check in to our B and B which is a bus ride down the road.  What they don’t really tell you is, the walk from the ferry to the bus OR a cab involves a lot of steps and a hill.  So, you pretty much have to use a porter, which we did, and then after all that excitement we said screw the bus, we need a taxi.  So we get our taxi and we are pulling up to the B and B when WHAM! Some lady rear ends us.  Cristo.  It was loud and we were a little shaken up, but the entire front bumper of the car behind us was completely ripped off.  I am a little sore in my neck and my shoulder but I am not sure if that is from the accident, or from pulling suitcases around.  Or both.  Anyway, we are OK and now we have a new friend, Rosaria from the wine bar who saved Sharon.  Sharon invited her to dinner and we all ate outside at the edge of the bay, overlooking the sea and it was tremendously beautiful. And now she has a scar but also this new friend who is so awesome that it is worth a scar, I think.

It was really wonderful to be a part of this celebration in this place.  And it is very weird to go from Naples to Positano!  Truly.  I kind of wish there was a bus or two to walk in front of.  (Actually, there are, but I have to share them with a lot of other people and somehow it is just not the same.)

Well, gotta go, I am going to the wine bar to hang out with Rosaria.  What else is there to do on a rainy day in Positano, especially when the wine is cheaper than the internet!

Well you haven’t.  Unless you have been to Naples.

This place is crazy.  Crazy AWESOME.  It is full of color and energy.  It SCREAMS.  Both Colleen and I are pretty blown away.

Our first day here, when we got into a cab and scooters were basically heading in our direction in OUR LANE, and we saw little kids on scooters with no helmets and people stepping into the street in front of cars without looking and into traffic, while, say, reading the newspaper… Cristo.   We are talking a major rush and then we got ripped off by the cab driver but I knew we would, so whateves… and then some good looking guy approached me on the street and it turned out to be Marco, our landlord who led us into our building where on our floor there is some kind of club for immigrants.  OK so that was maybe 5 minutes total that we had been here, because the cab only took about 45 seconds.

Went out for pizza and the Naples football team was playing and there were two large parties in a small room, suffice to say we could not really talk but the atmosphere and the pizza were awesome.  Friday, our first whole day, we had this grand plan to go to the Duomo and the Archaelogical museum but the streets here are a museum.  A living museum.  Courtyards have treasures, scooters carry entire families, there are bronze skulls and giant shrines, there is shit and there is garbage and there is humanity.  And there is pizza, so we stopped to have one for lunch, with a bottle of Falanghina.  Duomo and museum?  Niente.  Did go to a couple of other churches though including one that has a Donatello sculpted tomb.  When we went in to this small church there was a sort of scary, sullen looking caretaker, but then I walked by him and he asked where I was from and broke into the hugest smile, then gave me a flyer. 

Later that evening we were lucky to meet up with Bonnie who writes the Napoli Unplugged blog and her husband Steve, and then Robbin who leads wine tours around here. We all had dinner then walked down to the Borgo Marinaro which is an area full of bars and restaurants behind the Castel dell Ovo, a huge fortress like castle right on the sea.  Our waiter kept saying he loved us all (Steve said, you don’t love ME, laughing) and the whole scene was fun and vibrant and, well, what you think Naples would be like on a Friday night.  Or maybe any night. 

On the no degrees of separation front, Steve and Bonnie know Kevin and Kim Clarke who I know from the Slowtalk boards and have met a couple of times (Kevin and Steve worked together) and then, this woman shows up as she is a friend of Robbin’s-  she looks familiar, and then when she says her name is Vienna I ask her if she used to work at Gainey Vineyard in Santa Ynez Valley.  Yep.  I have just run into someone at a cafe in Naples that I once met in Santa Barbara county.  Now that is crazy.

Yesterday we walked way too much, but still managed to make it out at night for a free MTV concert in Piazza Plebicito.  It was kind of lame (too much talking, not too much music) but it was fun to watch the youth of Naples eat a thousand take away pizzas and on occasion suck each others faces off.  There was a lot of screaming a la Beatlemania, too.  We went to a wine bar before we went home where I watched Maroon Five play two songs (lame) on MTV while sitting in an apartment five minutes away.  Everything they say about the garbage here is true.  Walking through a green area on the way home, for no apparent reason, a broken office chair is sitting there.  Furniture is randomly dumped, and an insane amount of broken baby carriages.  But then you pass a recycling area and there are cardboard boxes broken down neatly and set on the side.  There is no way to make any sense of this city, but I do not want to.  I love it here.

There is an Indian family at the computer next to me, talking to more family, on a webcam.  Wonder where they are.  I will emerge into a sunny Sunday, and I wonder if I should have a pastry or a glass of wine.  Maybe both.  I have so much more to say.  But I can’t say it now because there are, seriously, 20 Indian people looking at me on a webcam.  Should I wave?

I am in Rome, on the second day of 42 in Italy.  Today the sky is blue and I am completely exhausted.  But I keep walking.

Rome can do that to you.  It is like there is some invisible propeller pushing me forward.  Some people might like to start a trip in a quieter place, but I like the energy.  I like the propeller.  I also like to sit in cafes when I am exhausted.  It is this balance that keeps me going much of the time.

Anyway.  Yesterday I got in so early that most Italians were not even awake yet.  There should be a law that prevents airplanes from landing after midnight and before 7 AM, I do not care what continent you are on.  But the travel gods were smiling on me, and my room at my inexpensive B and B was ready!  So basically I slept until the mid afternoon of my very first day.  Whateves, I have been to Rome before and also, I have six weeks.  So who cares. You know you are tired when you can sleep through the sound of jackhammers.  Go with it.

Once I got up and out, about 3 PM, I just started walking… and then all of a sudden the Colosseum was in front of me.  That always happens in Rome… that thing is everywhere.  So then I got a bee in my bonnet to go to this bar I went to with my friend Lisa on our first trip here, but I think it is a restaurant now.  Or I could not find it.  So I ended up in some little wine bar. White wine, proscuitto, melon… the sky was blue but when I saw a couple of guys walking down the street with sacks of umbrellas I knew rain was coming.  Sure enough, all of a sudden it starts to rain.  What to do?  Have another glass of wine, of course.  There was a gay couple at the table next to me from somewhere in America, and they had been gone maybe 45 minutes when the server found one of the guy’s wallets on the ground.  He had dropped his wallet… no doubt that one will get blamed on the horrible street crime in Rome, of which I have seen exactly niente (Not that I have never seen crime here, because I have, more than anywhere else. Just wondering how many things get dropped not stolen.  Right?)  I looked all afternoon for a pink shirt to tell the guy his wallet was safe at the wine bar, but all the pink shirts I saw had Italians in them.

Then I walked back… and changed my clothes and walked another 45 minutes west to meet with Italian craft beer aficionado Andrea Turco.  We met at Open Baladin, a bar with many Italian craft beers in the bottle and by the tap.  This place is cool – all kinds of trippy rooms to sit in decorated like your grandma’s grandma’s house.  (Yes, two grandmas, I am not that jetlagged.)  So we had a beer there and then went to a restaurant in Trastevere called Bir and Fud, which serves Italian craft beers and some really great food.  The place was packed and we ate a lot of starters and then a pizza and drank more beer.  I was not tired anymore.  Trastevere on a Tuesday night.  Packed beyond belief, people everywhere, drinking outside the bars, in the streets.  I love Italy.

Today I woke after enough sleep but I think I have some kind of weird postponed jetlag, so I get out and try to walk it out of my system.  Ended up at the Colosseum again (that freeking thing is EVERYWHERE) and was hanging out on the street looking out over the Forum when a gladiator tried to pick me up.  Well, not a gladiator but a guy dressed like one.  His name was Luca and it took him about 35 seconds to find out where I was from and how long I was in town for.  After a two second pause, he then asked if I wanted to go have a drink later (no grazie) or maybe then, a pizza? (No grazie.)  Come ONNNNN… (No grazie.) After another two second pause he ciaoed me and went off to greener pastures.  Ah Roma… I get older, she stays exactly… the same.  It was not even 11 AM.

I walked and walked… back up Via Cavour, and then I knew exactly what I needed.  First, a plate of pasta.  Then, a salad.  Then, a nap.  (I did not put wine in this sentence but lets face it you guys all know how I am.)  I went to a place called Trattoria Monti near my B and B that I had read about on slowtrav.  It was me in there with a whole bunch of Romans, mostly businessmen.  Some businessmen in there were drinking Italian craft beer!  Viva la Revolucion! Oh wait that is Spanish.  Sorry.  Someone please tell me there is a craft beer revolution going on in Rome, in Italian.  I cannot seem to get my languages straight these days, mostly because I do not speak any of them.  Even my English kind of sucks.

So then… it is 7:30 and very beautiful here, but I have been to Rome before and I have already seen the Colosseum and could have had sex with a gladiator, so tomorrow I will go somewhere I have never been: Naples.  I love, love, love going to places I have never been before.  (Now that I think about it, I have never had sex with a gladiator.)

The propeller is behind me again.  Gotta go.  When I write again, I hopefully will have already had the best pizza I have ever had.

Our trip is winding down.  I am in that depressed state I always get into a couple of days before departure date.  It will get better but right now, I really don’t want to leave Spain.

Girona is a breathtakingly beautiful city.  The heart of the city is divided by the Onyar river, and there are a bunch of bridges across.  Every time you cross a bridge there is a cool street, nice cafes, and lots of shops.  Every time I cross a bridge, I have to stop in the middle of it, because it is all so beautiful.

Right by our apartment there is a forest with these little ancient stone bridges, and I swear there are hobbits and fairies in there.  You can feel them.  There is something very otherworldly back there, another reality existing alongside our reality.  Like Avalon.  A few meters away and you are walking in an amazingly well preserved medieval village.  With one of the largest cathedrals in Europe on the hill.

There are trees and greenery and cafes everywhere.  I didn’t think, after Tarragona, I could be so blown away by Girona, but I am.  This has got to be one of the most liveable cities I’ve ever been to.  Of course, with all the cafes it would be difficult to get any work done.  But for an artist, or a writer, or a trustifarian – perfect.  It is perfect for me.  But my mother asked me what I would do if I were here a few more days, and she is right – what would I do?  Just don’t make me seperate the dream from the reality yet, por favor.

We had a lot of plans for daytrips from Girona, but unfortunately we both got sick.  Tuesday, we both had scratchy throats and hoped it would not progress.  But Wednesday we woke up feeling really crappy.  My brother and his band came through that day, so we weren’t going anywhere thankfully except to meet them for a little while.  Yesterday, again, no energy, coughing fits, no voices… I have never been sick like this on vacation, and let me tell you, it SUCKS.  But I made myself drive to Besalu and then, to France where we ate toast with tomato, ham and cheese and it was awesome.  I keep trying to push myself because I am already sad I have to leave, like REALLY sad.  So I don’t want to be sick, too. 

Anyway this has put a major damper on our siteseeing excursions.  I just walked 15 minutes to get to this bar with internet (which I just found out about from the tourist office, this morning) and it pretty much wiped me out.  The white wine is helping with the depression and this nasty bug.  Mom even went to the pharmacy this morning and spent 9 euros on mystery pills.  I am scared to take prescription drugs when I know what they are, so I’ll stick to wine, I think.

It was really fun to see my brother and his band here.  Our apartment is right down the street from the church of Sant Feliu, which has a funny spire (due to a lightning strike) and also, two cafes right below it.  So, since I have got here I have been wanting to stay “meet me in the cafe in the shadow of Sant Feliu.”  Weird, I know, but I am weird.  I admit it completely.  I didn’t say this exactly to my brother but I did tell him to look for the spire and then park and we would be at the cafe.  Whoo hoo!  Someday I will say it exactly like it will be in my head, forever – at least I have promised myself that this will happen. 

I guess I should mention the saints.  They are everywhere.  On the bridges, in the tiny dark streets, in the chirping of the crickets that I listen to every night in our apartment.  The nights here are sultry, and every 20 minutes a train goes by on the elevated track 20 feet away from us.  I love the trains and the crickets, too.  We went to Dali’s house on Tuesday, and in his bedroom he had a cage for canaries, and a tiny cage for a cricket, because he loved the sound they make.   So, there is the hobbit dimension, the saint dimension, our dimension, and then Dali’s dimension.  All existing side by side in this unbelievable place called Catalonia.

It has started to rain and I am once again fighting tears because I have to leave.  I hope we are better by tomorrow, because we will be in Barcelona and we will need some energy to deal with that.  Home Sunday, and I am lucky, cold and tears and all – I am simply trading one beautiful place for another.  It could be a lot, lot worse.

Onward.

I’m feeling a little emotional… maybe it is the amazing lunch we just had here in Vic, an absolutely beautiful, clean and interesting city.  But let me go back a little.

We left Tarragona yesterday and I had a hard time leaving.  It is just so…. BEAUTIFUL there.  Tuesday we went to Montserrat and to be honest, we didn’t enjoy it too much.  Mostly it was a lot of tourists taking pictures and videos of some really special things and experiences (like, for instance, the black Madonna which is the patron saint of Catalonia. Click, click.)  Somehow I thought it would be a little more mysterious there, but all the gift shops, cafeterias, che ching che ching (that means $$$$$ in Shannon speak) sort of took any mystery or spirituality away, for us, at least.

After that we went back to Tarragona and bought fresh swordfish and veggies and cooked at home.  At 5 the next morning, I woke up and stayed up for the next two hours because this CRAZY storm blew in… constant lightning and thunder, for TWO HOURS.  And not just thunder, but an eight ton steel drum being pushed off El Capitan.  The house shook!  I am not kidding.  It SHOOK. I watched out my window as bolt after bolt of lightning hit the water.  I was, I admit, kind of scared.  Finally I laid back down and tried to sleep but even then I could see the lightning go sideways across the sky.  WIth eyes closed, it was like trying to sleep with a black and white TV on in the room.

I mentioned the storm to the woman at my favorite wine shop in Tarragona and she said, “we don’t have a lot of storms here but when we do, you had better run!”  Hehe.

Anyhow, that is not all of the rest of our time in Tarragona but I do want to get to yesterday, and to today, and to our lunch.

Yesterday we headed northwest to Vic, by way of Cardona because we wanted to see the parador there.  When we went to Montserrat we went down to Barcelona and then inland, so we did not see the mountain range from afar – we sort of just arrived and drove up.  Yesterday, we drove past it froma distance and it is truly amazing seen from a distance – a mass of otherworldly rocks sticking up straight out of the earth.  One can only imagine pilgrims headed there, they must have been completely blown away by the sight of it. 

It was a beautiful drive though, it seems to take longer to get THROUGH a city than it does to get TO a city at times. 

We are staying at the parador some 15 kilometers out of Vic.  It is very nice and has a view of some  craggy cliffs and a lake.  Today we came down pretty early, and walked around this awesome town… there is a Roman temple here plus a lot of really great modernistic and Gaudiesque architecture.  We had a tasty coffee, and looked in a lot of charcuterie shop windows (they are known for their sausages and other meat products here.)

In our walking, I had noticed this place called “El Merlot” that had a bunch of wine barrels in a long hallway in the front, and then a rustic looking dining room in the back.  It looked kind of cool, and we were up for an adventure (the menus are in Catalan not Spanish, so basically… forget understanding too much, even with my food dictionary I printed off the internet.)  So, we went back there for lunch.  We walked in and a woman greeted us.  OK, so I had heard that Catalans were reserved and distant. Uh, not this woman.  She said she could speak French or Spanish, and we mentioned English and she said “yeah, my English is PERFECT.”  This was with total humor and warmth.  She brought us into the dining room where an older woman (probably Mama) was grilling meats (pork, also lamb) and sausages (several pork kinds) over a wood fired antique iron grill.  Then there was a table with beans (with pork,)  fideos (noodles) with meat sauce (pork), potato salad, lentils, green salad, rice salad, pasta salad….  and a big bowl of potato chips. Basically you just help yourself to whatever you want, as much as you want.  Our jolly server brought over a carafe of white and one of red, the kind of carafe with a little pour on one side for direct in-the-mouth pours and a larger pour on the other for the glass. Our server demonstrated for us, the direct pour.  She was so awesome.

The food was fantastic.  Now, I can barely breath because my pants are so tight but it was oh so worth it.  Later in our meal, our server took, to a table of five guys next to us, four candy bars and a bottle of some amber liquid.  I was like, what is she going to do with that candy and alcohol? 

Mama came over from the wood fired grill, with two long pieces of grilled bread on a big platter.  Then she unwrapped the candy, and put it on the bread and made a sandwich.  A chocolate sandwich.  But that’s not all.  After she covered the chocolate with the bread, she took the palm of her hand and THWACK! hit the bread, smashing it down.  Several more hits (THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!) followed.  I pity the mugger who tries to rob this woman.  She practically broke the table, to the total delight of all in the room.  Then she cut up the sandwich with scissors and gave it to the men.

We just had a flan.  I totally wanted some of the chocolate sandwich but I was scared to have her make it at our table.  Well not really, but you know what I mean. 

The lunch cost us less than ten euros each.  On Saturdays they raise the price to 16 euros. I want to come back for that someday.

Off to relax at the parador… Girona tomorrow.

I love waking up in the morning here, with the sounds of the sea and the Renfe train just below.  Coming from the west coast where the sun sets over the ocean, I love to wake up to it rising over the ocean, instead.  It´s a routine I could get use to. 

There is a elementary school just below us, and this morning we were having our coffee and at 9AM, music suddenly blared (and I mean BLARED) over the outside loudspeakers.  It was Judy Garland singing “Somewhere, Over the Rainbow.”  This was the signal that school was about to start, and we could see all the kids with their backpacks hurrying to the classroom.  I think this is one of the most memorable experiences of my life, right here.  Where ARE we?  Then, at 5PM when school was done, they played a more modern, hipper version of “Somewhere” and then “What a Wonderful World.”  This is the way these kids begin and end their school day.  If anyone can save the world, the Catalans can.

Enamored as I am, I try to differentiate between the dream and the reality.  If I lived here, would the sound of the train make me happy, or would I grow to resent it?  Would the sun rising in my window wake me up and piss me off?  Would the sound of Judy Garland blaring over school loudspeakers at 9AM every day eventually lose it´s luster?

Maybe.  More likely, I would get irritated at the litter, the cat shit, the obnoxious teenagers.  You know, all the stuff that bothers me at home. 

But it doesn´t really matter, because right now, for this moment, I am in the dream.  Reality doesn´t exist.  I might have thought I dreamed that Judy Garland called the children to school, but my mother was there, a witness.  I am more in love than ever.

We are in Tarragona, and I am at once in love, in awe, and in pain.  In love with this unbelievably cool city, in awe with the Roman ruins all around us, and in pain because we have been walking so much.

But let me backtrack a little.

After we left Valencia, we went to Morella for two days.  Morella is a hill – actually more like mountain – town inland and north from Valencia.  It is part of the Valencian community, but they do have a language that seems a bit like the Catalan language.  They are known for truffles and honey there, and have some really incredible pastries.  While is it was clear that it was a bit of a tourist spot, we had a great time wandering around, climbing up (up, up) to the remains of the castello on the top of the mountain, and hanging out in our little suite in a 15th century mansion.  We ate some pretty basic food but discovered cuijada, a pudding made of honey and sheeps milk cheese.  AWESOME.

I do wish I would have had more time up there… there was a lot to see and do but it is a bit of a trek.  Someday, I will go back to this area and really explore it.

Oh, almost forgot.  Got no sleep on Friday night due to firecrackers and partying in the town that started at ONE AM… I think it may have been the beginning of the festival.  Whateves, but don´t let that small town look fool you into thinking the locals can´t party like they do in Barcelona.

Yesterday we drove down here to Tarragona, where our apartment is actually the top floor of what looks like a run down noble house from the 19th century.  From my bedroom I can see the ocean and part of the Roman ampitheatre… from most rooms, ocean views, and you can go up on the roof too.  The place is not fancy by any stretch of the imagination but who cares with the views!  Just a few minutes walk and we are in the old town, built on the ancient Roman town.  Today we had tapas in the Placa de la Font, a long skinny placa which use to be part of the Roman circus.  Just down the street, you can walk in the tunnels of what was once, the real circus.  Everywhere I look I feel Rome…. there are cats everywhere and some of the smells are awfully familiar, too.  It´s a real city at the same time, with families out with the kids and boys playing soccer in the plaza, and butchers and pastry shops and lots and lots of wine shops.  That is the old town, and just a few blocks over is the more modern area.  I found a killer wine shop over there yesterday. (Bonus! I said to mom when I came home with four bottles.)

Last night we had an incredible salad with greens, apples, feta, and manchego (Bonus! Said mom when she took the first bite) and a pizza with chorizo and dates.  Dates!  We loved our waiter who seemed to be auditioning for a Charlie Chaplin movie.

The next three days we will get in the car and explore the area around here.  Tonight though, more tapas, more looking at Roman ruins, and more smells of the sea.  If you have never thought of Tarragona before, think of it now.