Spain Again

I love Spain. I don't even really know why but I do. That's why I was super excited for this last week, why I enjoyed it the whole time I was there, and why I will now recall what transpired fondly.

We left from Zurich airport on tuesday night on a flight that happened to also be transporting some sort of elderly spanish tour group. Los abuelitos couldn't figure out how to read their tickets so boarding took a really long time, further delaying an already late flight. This concerned me because, for some reason, I though we were heading into another time zone and losing an hour - God knows what I was thinking! Anyway, we eventually arrived in Madrid and, after what seemed like a good 30 minutes of taxi-ing, we entered the terminal and headed for our gate. We were on one of the moving walkways behind a guy in a wheelchair and who we presumed was taking care of him. However, she did not and when he reached the end of the walkway he kinda just came to a complete stop, blocking the path. This could have caused a disasterous pile up but, due to my quick thinking, I grabbed his wheelchair handles and moved him out of the way thus averting disaster.

The next leg of the flight to Valencia was more uneventful. We arrived a little before midnight and took taxis to our (4-star) hotel. We made plans to meet the next morning at 5:15AM to go to La Tomatina and promptly went to bed to get our 4 hours sleep. We got up, took taxis to the train station and, to our surprise, were not the first ones there. A bunch of Brits, Americans and Aussies had a similar plan it seemed.

We took the train to Buñol - the scene of La Tomatina - and began our day with ham sandwiches and a good litre of Sangria. We then stumbled upon the site of the - at the time ungreased - greased pole. We hung out there for a while, waiting for stuff to get going. Rachel spotted a presenter from MTV or Much or something and we proceded to shout and wave at him. We also ran into Chris, Steve and Phil which was good. When 9AM rolled around, men started to lather up the pole with some fat/soap - we're not 100% sure which. They then tied a massive leg of smoked ham to the top of it and hoisted it up, planting its base in a manhole and wedging it in place to prevent it from wobbling.

At this point, riduculousness began and would only continue to escalate for the rest of the day. You see, traditionally, in order for the tomato fight to start (something that everyone is obviously keen for), someone has to make it to the top of this pole and cut down the ham. I neglected to mention that the pole is about 3 stories high and very, very smooth and slippery. As you can imagine, getting the ham is a very difficult thing to do. Add in the fact that 50% of everyone there was already drunk at 9AM and, well, you get the idea. People were clambering over eachother, standing on top of eachother, falling off and landing on the road, groping, grabbing, being violated, kicking, pulling etc all around this pole. I'm certain that good teamwork could have done the trick but, alas, it was not so. The pole climbing took so long in fact that people started getting antsy and fighting in the street. People would soak their shirts, ball them up and throw them at eachother. As, Steve can tell you, it hurt!

By about 11AM, the organizers must have lost faith in the ability of the hoard to climb the pole and decided to unleash the tomatoes despite the ham maintaining its greasy throne. Trucks of tomatoes were distpatched down the main road with people atop them, throwing tomatoes at the crowd below. After the first truck went by, you were lucky to see maybe one tomato - my first thought was that it was rather disappointing. However, when another 5 trucks went by and dumped their entire loads on the street, it was actually pretty amazing. At one point i was up to my knees in tomatoes. I actually saved a girl from drowning when she fell over and no one else noticed. Tomatoes flew everywhere from everywhere. The crowd was so thick that the only part of you that was exposed was your head. I took a bunch in the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and throat. What's more, the tomatoes tasted and smelled absolutely disgusting. Despite this though, it was unimaginably fun. It was good to just go in and get stupid messy!.

When the fight was over, the participants were quickly herded out of town (presumably so it could be cleaned up). Locals would hose you down as you went past, a welcome relief from the heat, smell and mess. It was also good because you had to satisfy a certain level of cleanliness to board the train back to valencia. You also had to have a shirt which, frankly, was nearly a problem as mine had been ripped in half. I ended up wearing it like a vest - I hope someone has a picture!

We returned to our Hotels and showered and then headed to the beach where we'd arranged to meet Chris, Pat and Phil. Took a dip in the gloriously warm mediterranean and then sought out dinner. No one else had been to spain before so I suggested they go for paella. I managed to get Valencian style meat paella that supposedly had chicken and rabbit in it. I couldn't tell the difference between the meat in it so we'll say there's a pretty good possibility that I ate and enjoyed rabbit! That night everyone was knackered and, despite an expressed intention to go out, we headed back to the hotel to sleep.

The next day we checked out of our luxurious digs after taking advantage of the free breakfast and took a taxi to La Ciudad de Las Artes y Sciencias (Its official name is in Valencian but I don't know that...). Basically its a massive park that has an opera house, science museum, IMAX theatre and aquarium all housed in some of the most modern and progressive architecture I've seen (in person). We went to the aquarium first, saw a dolphin show, took some pictures. I've always loved aquariums. We then went to the Science Museum which was in a really cool building and had some less conventional exhibits. I thought it was pretty cool. I'd like to go back there and maybe spend some more time perhaps...

That took us through till the time we had to leave to catch our bus to Madrid. Easily the most comfortable 4 hours I've ever spent in a vehicle, not entirely sure why...

When we got to Madrid I navigated us through the metro and got us to the hostel. We checked in and while doing so were invited to join a pubcrawl. So we did. It was fun. We got early morning doners. Yum.

So, on Friday we took a trip to el Palacio Real, the Royal Palace. I was happy about this because it was one of the few places i didn't make it to on my last trip to Madrid. I got in trouble a couple of times for not reading signs. One of them was for going through a door that took me to the exact same place going through another door I was allowed to go through took me to. Dumb. Its a pretty cool palace, the decorations are rediculous. I also loved the armoury there. Medievil weapons are cool and I especially liked the old rifles and pistolas. The mechanisms are fascinating and the scale of some of the guns is pretty impressive too!

We then headed to el Retiro, A big park in Madrid's center. We hung out here for a while, some people caught up on sleep, Rachel and I chatted and I got a sandwhich. We then decided to visit La Reina Sofía Museum. I'd been there before but didn't mind because it's huge, has a load of temporary exhibits and I'm a big fan of the artists in the permanent collections. However, this did tire me out and I was in desperate need of food after.

We found some yummy tapas for dinner and then booked it to a place where some people wanted to watch flamenco dancing. I'd seen it twice before, both times for free, and didn't feel like paying 25EUR this time around. Instead, Bianca, Shannon and I went and got some beers and hung out in a park. When the Flamenco finished, we went to a churro place I'd been to last time I was in Madrid. We got 12 Churros and a litre of chocolate and were told that because it was para llevar (take out) only we weren't allowed to eat at any of their otherwise empty tables. So, we walked into the middle of a plaza 10m away and ate it there instead. The girls then found a store that was open late, did some shopping, and we headed back to the hostel.

We awoke early saturday to attempt to get to San Sebastian for some bull running. We ended up missing it but bought tickets for that nights bullfight. Upon realizing there was nothing worth seeing in San Sebastian, we headed back into central Madrid and ended up in Plaza Mayor. We checked out a cool market there, bought some beers and then headed to the park behind the royal palace for a good nap. I woke up to having been pooped on by a bird. On my wrist, the same place I had been pooped on some months prior in Marseille. Gah. And it got on my camera strap. After resting, we swung by the hostel and headed back to San Sebastian for the bullfight. It was interesting to see again as I'd forgotten all of the ritual and ceremony that is involved. I hadn't, however, forgotten the blood. That sort of thing tends to stay with you. Perhaps ironically, went for dinner afterwards and I got a beef burger. Yum.

Next morning we took a bus back to Valencia (so we could fly back to Madrid to fly back to Zurich - don't get me started). Rachel, Shannon and Steph had managed to get on an earlier bus so Bianca, Olivia and I met them at the Valencia bus station an hour later. Olivia and Bianca grabbed some lunch and we went to relax in Turia Park - used to be a river until it was diverted back in the '60s. Shannon and Olivia napped while Rachel, Bianca and I went for a walk and an ice cream. Saw some graffiti on an old building that we had seen an exhibit about in Madrid - was pretty stoked about that. Took a taxi to the airport and had a fairly uneventful flight home.

However, when we got the to the Zurich HBF there was some sort of Indian festival on (well, being taken down) and they were still serving curry! Had some dahl and some korma and a samosa. Had been missing the Indian food!

So yeah, a great trip overall! I look forward to my next trip to Spain!