Andalucía Part 1

I enjoy riddles.

They make you analyze every detail, they make you think, strategize. Sometimes they make your head hurt.

I tell riddles.

These riddles are not your average: what gets wetter the more it dries? These riddles are different, more complex. There is not a single word answer to any of them. They are called lateral thinking puzzles, if you must put a technical name to them.

I tell riddles to pass the time. I tell riddles to entertain. More importantly I tell riddles because I enjoy witnessing the power and complexity of the brain, watching peoples’ train of thought. The way this ‘lateral thinking puzzle’ goes is: I tell the riddle, it is usually short, and the others must ask yes or no questions until they get to the solution. Most of the answers are a bit far-fetched, a bit out there, they take time to get to, and they take a hell of a good thinker. They require patience, intuition, and time. These riddles work well while traveling, especially when groups are thinking collectively and feeding off each other.

These riddles helped kill time on our seven-hour bus ride from Valencia to Cordoba. That and The Shawshank Redemption. I hadn’t watched that movie in its entirety before. I also didn’t realize how much I actually like the movie. Our bus was silent. People got shushed for talking. Everyone was enthralled.

We stopped for lunch on the way. The mass of students piled into the closest café/rest stop/your average place that sells coffee, wine, beer, bocadillos, and a small arrangement of tapas, whatever you wanna call it. I, along with a select few, went down to the next restaurant and had a quick, quiet lunch.

Basic pork and queso sandwich and an orange Fanta. It does the trick.

We get back on the bus and promptly finish the movie.

We arrive in Cordoba and see the amazing mosque that was converted into a cathedral. Our tour guide was Lola, I remember her from last year. Hola Lola. She didn’t remember me. She gave the same tour, told the same jokes, calling people in our group by the same stereotypical American names to get us moving along. I wonder how many times she has given the exact same tour, with that exact same excited voice, and that exact same smile, answering the exact same questions, watching people take the exact same photos.

I take some halfhearted photos. I already have these photos.

Part of my job now is to take photos of the students, candid photos to be exact. My camera is shitty for still shots though, so I resort to short video clips of the students. They call me creepy so I try to be extra creepy. I have some hidden gems that people do not know about. Its pretty creepy.

We corral the students and load back on the bus. Another part of my job is to count heads. Sounds easy enough, but when you have thirty loud Americans that don’t sit still, some of them asking you questions, others trying to mess you up my shouting out numbers, it can be harder than it sounds. I get off. I am missing two; the other bus is missing three. We lost people. Oh well, they will just meet us in Sevilla.

We get to Sevilla at night. Due to the location of our hotel, we have to walk for five minutes to get there.

Sixty Americans, the majority of whom have rolling suitcases, making a five minute treck on cobblestone. It must of sounded as if a herd of waterbuffalo were approaching. Spanish waterbuffalo, in the middle of Sevilla. Ok I guess bulls would be more reasonable. A herd of bulls, slowly rolling their suitcases over cobblestone, tired and hungry.

We got checked in, quickly freshened up, and headed out into Sevilla. I like Sevilla. I have been there for less than twenty-four hours, twice pero me gusta.

We head to find a chino.

That is a small shop they have all over Spain. They aren’t technically called chinos but that is what the locals call them. Because they are run by Asians. The political correctness is lacking, but people understand.

We head to find a small store that sells almost anything that is usually run by a family or someone of Asian decent. We get kinda lost in the narrow, winding streets of Sevilla. When we are about to turn around we pass two girls, catching one word of their conversation, “Yeah.” I spin around and say “Hey!” A buddy cuts the crap and yells “Hey Americans!” They turn around immediately. It was shocking how efficient those two words were.

They guide us to the closest chino.

We head back to get Tapas.

I eat at the same resaurant I ate at last time I was in Sevilla. The menu is promising, we prepare to order an array of tapas, including bull tail. They don’t have half of what we want. Some places are like that, most places aren’t. We get the basics, it was good. We move onto another restaurant, a surprisingly affordable and delicious Italian place.

We head back to the awesome hotel.

I join a group that heard about a flamenco place. We get lost, but finally find it. A friend yells “this is it!” and pulls the door open. All I can see is ten+ old Spanish men staring back at us. It is close to dead silent in the place. They weren’t mean, they didn’t tell us to leave, but it was clear. We wouldn’t have belonged, we would have been to loud, we would have dropped glasses, we would have been misunderstood.

We find the rest of the students and party with them. It was two peoples birthday.

In the morning we do the Plaza de España, where a portion of Star Wars was filmed. The newer group of three films. More importantly, it was a place where Natalie Portman had walked.

Next we do the Palace, or moreso the Royal Gardens. There is grass, trees, flowers. There is a man who takes his job very seriously. We are told the rules like we are fifth graders in a china shop. I think that is the expression.

There is a pond, with a fountain, and about fifty fish. Koi if I had to guess. I feed them some of the slightly stale crust of a sandwich in my pocket I did not take from the hotel breakfast. It turns into a feeding frenzy. A few monsters make an appearance from the depths.

We head back to the center of Sevilla and do the Cathedral. The tower is last; it doesn’t have steps but a smooth spiral ramp. This is because each winter when it freezes over, members of the royal family sled down it. Also because they ride horses up it, due the height of the tower.

They didn’t let me ride a horse up it.

People wanted to race. Pace yourself I said. No one listened, I won. I felt the affects of the birthday shots from the night before. The way down was easier, but I forgot my sled.

I was hungry. We went to a small restaurant. It wasn’t good.

I like Sevilla. I do not like this restaurant in Sevilla.

I like alioli. I do not like this alioli.

I ordered patatas bravas. Simple fried potatoes with a garlic mayo sauce. I received a glob of their attempt at alioli. With a few fried potatoes in it. Seventy five percent mayo. Mmm.

I ordered ham and cheese stuffed pork. I still don’t quite know what I received. I ordered bread. I don’t know the technical definition for bread, but that was pushing it.

I reluctantly paid and left. I got a beer, it helped.

Then we departed for Granada. That is a whole new story. I like Granada too. I like skiing more. I drank a beer on the ski lift. It was icy slush before I could finish it. I had never felt temperatures that cold before.

 It was great.

I am finishing a seven and a half hour shift at the front desk. I had the same shift yesterday. I can’t complain. I push two buttons. I answer the phone of mothers back in the states who think I am Spanish and try to speak Spanish to me. I speak English after a while. I mess with the fellow students. I am a pain.

It is a miniscule price to pay to be back.

The Adventure

I had heard stories. Great ones.

I had kicked myself for not going last time. I made sure not to make the same mistake again. I tried to convince people. Ten of them stepped up, others had excuses: tired, sick, heard rumors that it was going to be boring, that it wasn’t worth it. They made the same mistake I did.

The Segorbe flaming bull run was incredible. Thanks to my fellow Valencianos back home, I had a general idea of what to think, where to go, what to do, what not to do, but honestly I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I was told when I got there to walk uphill. I was told to not fall down while being chased by the flaming bull. I was told to kill the time before the morning train in a nightclub called Eden. I was told that some of the locals wouldn’t want us there.  I was told to befriend a family that lives in the streets where the bull ran.

The advice was golden.

 We got there, walked uphill, loaded up on snacks and drinks in the supermarket. Then we had a few hours to kill. So we walked around the small town, took pictures, found a restaurant, watched a soccer game. Just regular ole Segorbianos.

Kinda.

I had patatas bravas. They were good. I love alioli and you should too. Specially with patatas bravas. Or with chicken, on sandwiches, in pasta,  by the spoonful.

I digress.

We scope out the bull run. It is a loop of barricaded streets through the center of the city. There are main barricades that are about twenty feet high and made of wood.  There are smaller barricades at the entrances to people’s homes, or the apartment style buildings that are all over the old European cities. The buildings sometimes have restaurants or stores on the first floor and apartments above. Well not the first floor, the ground floor. The first floor is the second floor. The ground floor is floor zero. It’s complicated.

I digress.

There is a ringing of a bell. Actually sounds like a group of bells being rung. The crowd starts running; I dip behind the closest barrier I can find. I see smoke, then fire, then a huge brown bull blazes by me. I could have touched it. Might have been singed by the flaming horns, but I could have touched it. Spaniards are taunting it, whistling at it, throwing rocks at it, trying to keep it active. As if flaming horns aren’t enough.

The Americans that are with me are loving it. One has a ‘go-pro’ on, a small camera that attaches to his chest.

The locals somehow figure out we don’t belong.

 One tells me I can’t stand behind his barricade. He points to a rickety fence as though he wants me to sit on top of it. It didn’t look like it could withstand my weight, never mind a five hundred pound flaming charging animal. I play dumb. I stay behind the barricade and begin talking to a woman and her boy. She asks me where I live, how long I am here, if I have ever seen anything like this before. I ask her about the bull, about other festivals, what to do until our nine o’clock train in the morning.

 It is a blur of Spanish, flaming bulls, running, laughing.

The flames are out. They are trying to get the bull into the back of a truck. The bull is being a bit grumpy. I can’t understand why.

They bring out other bulls to help lead it into the truck. A man approaches with an electric prod. If that is what it is called, a stick with a taser on the end. The bull finally gives in; the woman tells me he is heading back up into the mountains until next year. She says he is treated well and respected.

What a life.

We make our way to a bar, then to Eden. I wouldn't quite describe it as Eden, but it was fun. The local kids were nice. They loved my beanie, not going to lie; I thought one of them was going to steal it. We drink, we dance, we have six hours to kill. We leave about 6am, and walk to the train station. At first I am not cold, and get some sleep, but an hour and a half of sitting on cold concrete in forty degree weather gets the best of me. I have to move. I wander through the town at dawn. I don’t remember the last time I saw the sun rise.

 I stumble into a busy coffee shop. Twenty men stare at me. I can’t imagine what I look like after staying up the whole night, running through the streets, drinking wondrous amounts in a club, then sleeping on cold concrete. I sit down and manage to mumble a barely audible café con leche por favor. I get a small pastry as well and zone everything out. The coffee warms me and gets me out of my daze.

All of the sudden everything is quiet. I turn around, everyone is gone. It is time for work; the men are laborers, most likely construction workers. It is me and the bartender, whom I have a feeling doesn’t like me. We exchange a few words and he disappears into the back. I get up to leave and say Chao he answers with hasta luego.

Hasta luego. I will never see that man again.

 Well I guess that is what I thought about the study center, the chino guy, the man who kneels and prays while begging next to the Cathedral, the fat gypsy lady who hands out rosemary, the short scary ancient lady with patchy hair who begs near Wok to Wok, the gray haired woman who walks two little white dogs, the cheese man in the Central Market, the Pan de Queso guy, the Consum cashiers, Lola from the tour of the cathedral in Cordoba, the hippies who sell pieces and small trinkets in Reina, the guys that wear twenty hats and never sells any, the old man with a turban who is very insistent that you buying a rose for the beautiful girls, the poop smears, the Torres, the fountain, the smooth tiles, the black pillars, Valencia.