Friday, June 23, 2006
I think the best part of Seville was actually making my 8:30 am train to Barcelona - the one I anticipated since my arrival, desperately fought for, and it turns out didn’t need – to find I had both seats to myself and hearing, as I settled in for the all day journey, Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven”. It is amazing how soothing your own language and something familiar from home can be. I remember as a high-school freshman reading the Senior Pages. That particular school gave each senior their own page in the yearbook that was their space to say what they wanted. There were these pictures of beautiful young women I never thought I would become, and poetry, and letters of thanks to parents or friends, and lyrics to songs – namely “Stairway to Heaven”. That song must have made a tremendous impact in 1979 because I remember page after page the seniors had included lines from the song – a song I had actually never heard being an oldies fan myself at the time.
I learned the words from the yearbook and I dreamed. I dreamed what my life would be like when I was a senior instead of a white-headed, pleasantly plump, scared, argumentative, unattractive little freshman shrimp. Much to my surprise, and despair, I was still all those things when I became a senior. Actually I was still most of those things when I became a senior in college... “There’s a feeling I get, when I look to the west, and my spirit is crying for leaving….” was the most popular line in the Senior Pages followed by “And it's whispered that soon if we all call the tune then the piper will lead us to reason. And a new day will dawn for those who stand long and the forests will echo with laughter.” It was interesting pulling the rest of the words up online today and reading them again from the eyes of a forty year old instead of a fourteen year old. I guess those words made an imprint on my soul. Despite the racing and sweating, the frustration of packing the new walking sandals that had become a necessity, hauling my suitcase, finding a cab (buses are death in Seville), and dealing with the (almost) never-helpful train people, when I saw the empty seat next to me and heard that familiar tune, my soul was instantly soothed (if not my spirit).
Seville was a bust – too much money, too little time to make the most of it. Short trips are great when everything falls into place but run into one or two problems and all is quickly lost. That problem, once again, was the train; well - my stupidity and over-sensitivity combined with these damn Spanish trains. It started off well. There was an information center at the train station when I arrived from Granada and a wonderfully helpful lady who checked hostels for me, gave me directions, told me how to take the city bus, and booked a hop on hop off bus since my time here was so short. Generally, I prefer to walk but with Seville so spread out and just one day to see it all it was, it seemed, a better idea to do the tourist bus. It was a little after 8pm when I arrived, still daylight with a nice breeze blowing and no hint of the oppressive heat of the day to follow.
The bus ride to the hotel was something akin to hell, but I did get the right bus and the right stop and found the hotel with only a couple wrong turns so I was thankful enough. The pension was just precious. Passing through the old door off the abandoned courtyard to face an ironed bar window created more than a bit of skepticism at first. I stood there for a minute before a Spanish man, who looked amazingly like a roadie for the Grateful Dead, came in behind me, passed me, and begin gibbering in a Spanish I couldn’t for the life of me understand. This didn’t look good. Then I realized he was telling me to come in through the door. Stepping through the huge rotting old wooden door, I discovered a beautiful courtyard entry, tiled in bright blue and yellow ceramics, filled with plants and furniture painted to match my mind’s eye of Spanish painted furniture – red with yellow trim and scenes of beautiful ladies in intricate dresses dancing and fanning themselves. In some places it would have been overdone, but here with Señor Garcia himself, it all seemed just perfect. The pension was three floors surrounding the courtyard which was open to the sky above. I loved walking up the terracotta tiled floors facing sunshine at every landing. It was like camping, with air-conditioning. My room was as teeny as a cat box (and smelled a bit like one) but a cute shuttered window looked out into the sky, the shower was small but hot and hard (hmmm….) and the air-conditioning rocked, unfortunately it also dripped which forced the use of earphones to sleep. All-in-all, Seville was looking pretty good.
I had made plans with someone from couchsurfing who didn’t have a place to stay but was willing to have coffee and show me around a bit. It would be nice to have a real conversation. The longest conversation I had had since Reinosa was about five minutes. Paco was a delight. I had my choice of languages given he spoke English, Spanish, Italian, German and French. He was a language professor for years but a year ago began working teaching singers how to enunciate and pronounce words properly when they sang in foreign languages – mostly he works with opera singers. He had a beautiful passion for languages – carrying a little podcast that would pick up broadcasts from around the world so he could listen to whatever language he was learning or brushing up on. Surprisingly, we spent most of the evening speaking Italian, only switching to English once in awhile when one of us couldn’t find a word or expression. I felt truly bilingual, switching at will from English to Italian. It is a bit of a false sense of ability though since it is always easier to understand someone else who also has learned the language as a second language.
We had tapas at a little restaurant around the corner from my hotel. It turned out my hotel was in Santa Cruz, definitely one of the prettier, more lively, more enjoyable areas in Seville in my opinion. Afterward we went for a walk around the Cathedral The Cathedral is indeed an impressive sight – the Muslim and Christian religions sit side by side in architecture, Muslim domes rising on one side, the traditional bell tower of Catholicism on the other. At night, all was lit in a beautiful yellow glow. Unfortunately I never had the chance to see the inside as I had hoped.
I started the next day with the hop on/hop off bus, learning that this was more a name than a reality. There were only four stops and all on one side of the city so it wasn’t feasible to do much more than just ride the entire tour to learn a bit and get an idea what was worth the walk to see. Moving through the day with determination, I took the entire bus tour then wandered the streets of Santa Cruz and Macarena, visited the famous Plaza de Toros, known for its bull fights, walked along the river (depressingly let go to waste), through part of the Expo area, explored the Plaza de España – truly impressive – and the Plaza of Americas before finally collapsing under the crushing heat of the day. It was 105 degrees at 3pm when I admitted defeat and returned to the hotel. We’re not talking the dry heat of Arizona – this was full on, high humidity, river-side heat. It was the first time I had been forced to a mid-day siesta in Spain. It didn’t help that I still won’t eat when I’m exploring – well except ice-cream and I don’t think ice-cream counts as food when it is used to lower your body temperature back to normal. I took a cold shower, cranked the air-conditioning to a steady drip high, and napped with great plans of the last few things I wanted to see in the evening hours. Great plans of mice and men….
Instead of exploring, I spent my last daylight hours in the train station. The frustration and downright hateful, unhelpful behavior of the counter people literally brought me to tears. At last a lady took pity on the tear streaked blonde American and helped me find a solution for getting to Barcelona the next day where I had planned to meet the girl I met on the plane to Madrid for a festival. It was almost 11pm when I finally left and I was destroyed - tired, emotionally beaten, starving, pissed I had to pay 40 euro despite my railpass when a normal ticket cost 60, and terribly disappointed to have lost the last few precious hours.
I crawled onto the bus and took the last open seat next to a shriveled little old man. Lost in my own mourning, it took me a while to wonder if his elbow was moving up and down my hips in time with the bus movements or the movements of his dirty old mind. The seats were indeed small and people had no choice but to sit pressed against each other but he seemed to be pressing a little more than necessary. I got up and went to ask the bus driver how I would know my stop since they weren’t announcing them and when I returned to my seat I very carefully sat with great intention as to leave a fair modicum of space between us – in other words half my ass was hanging in the aisle and I was sitting at a 45 degree angle. Sure enough not two minutes later he was sitting at a 45 degree angle, rubbing his elbow into my stomach and hips. Can this really turn a man on? I mean seriously – how many sexual stimulation nerves do you have in your elbow??! I got off a stop early, relieved to escape his exploring knobby protrusion. Don’t you know, there he was, at the next stop, waiting for me. He approached me and began gibbering in Spanish and trying to put his hands on me. I swear to god, if he hadn’t been about 90 I would have hit him over the head with my purse (which has my computer in it). Knowing I could crawl faster than he could run, I just gave him a dirty look, dodged his groping hands, and walked briskly in the other direction. Dirty little creep.
I wandered the streets for an hour, depressed about the train scene, pissed about the dirty old man, and desperately looking for a wireless signal to pirate. What did I find when I checked my email? The girl I was supposed to meet got called in on emergency at work. She would not be in Barcelona. Now I had the train ticket, but no one to go out with, and no place to stay. I drooped my way back to the hotel, took a Tylenol pm, and went to sleep. Does Rick Steves have this much trouble when he travels? Do you get better with this as time passes or will I always be crying in train stations, running through metro stations, and lugging my bags all over dirty streets looking for a cheap place to sleep?
Looking back over my two days as Led Zepplin played on the speakers above, I knew Seville had beauties to share that I just wasn’t meant to see this time around. Some places I think are meant to be enjoyed with the company of another. Generally I prefer my own company traveling, but Seville had so many enticing little cafes and restaurants, and inviting bars and discos, it was the first place I really wished there was another person next to me with whom I could explore and uncover this interesting city. Seville was particularly interesting as an American. It was thanks to trade with the Americas, namely tobacco, that Seville uprooted Barcelona as Spain’s trade-rich city. They obviously feel a tremendous gratitude to the Americas and our place in their history. It was strange for me as an American to realize we had such an important chapter in the history of this city. Many of their great buildings were built for the Iberia-America expo in 1929. In fact, much of their city development has been driven by exposition activities – from plazas to bridges, to an entire section just outside the city for the 1992 expo which brought forty million people to this city that year. It was a little sad to see how much they had let go to waste – weeds in the flower beds at the Plaza de Americas, trash all along the riverside, the beautiful tile work of the Plaza de España left to crack and peel in the burning light of day. But despite the waste in areas they seem also to be always striving to build new places to attract visitors and maintain their reputation as one of Spain’s leading cities.
Side note from the present - I am writing this on my train connection to Barcelona. There are six Spaniards sitting around me and every single one of them is playing with their cell phones. Six phone-tappers in a circle and me tapping away on my keyboard in the center. It is kinda funny. I am in first class and have the bitch from hell alongside one of the sweetest flight/train attendants I have ever had. I struck up a conversation with a lovely girl named Nakane from Barcelona and Alfredo from Madrid. Alfredo had actually lived in Alaska and spoke fluent English and Nakane had studied it for several years. Both were wonderful to talk with on the way to Barcelona. Meeting and talking with them helped restore my faith a bit in the Spanish people. I’m sure many are lovely once you get past the rough abrupt exterior. I must admit even my beloved Italians can be that way….
I will surely never visit again in the heat of summer, but I wouldn’t mind one day returning to the palms of Seville with a friend to chat over tapas in Santa Cruz and enjoy the mix of vibrant life here.
There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold
And she's buying the stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and she's buying the stairway to heaven.
There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure
'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder.
There's a feeling I get when I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who stand looking.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.
And it's whispered that soon if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter.
If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the May queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on.
And it makes me wonder.
Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know,
The piper's calling you to join him,
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.
And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.
And she's buying the stairway to heaven.
Comments