Barcelona -- Gaudi

Day 6 -- Monday April 19th

We made friends with the guy at the desk at the Atlas Hotel, where we stayed while in Barcelona. He was an Indian transplant to Spain. Seems like Indians run a lot of businesses there. Anyway, this guy was very friendly and gave us lots of good directions and asked us to be safe, etc.

It was a very happy moment when we handed off the keys to the rental car. The line was incredibly long. When it was finally our turn, I realized we hadn't filled up for a hundred km or so. The guy said I could go fill it up and come back. No thanks... Turns out it was full enough anyway. Renting the car turned out to be a pretty good deal. Less than 40 euros/day.

One of the first things we saw (or heard, really) was a guy running down La Rambla screaming, apparently hot on the trail of somebody who'd just stolen something of his. "Policia! Policia!" he yelled. I couldn't tell exactly what happened, but it seems like he tackled the robber. Nice.

This day would be a big walking tour of Barcelona. We stopped and saw the Gaudi Museum from the outside. We hardly paid a single museum entry fee -- partly, we are cheap, but also, one could spend an awful lot of time in boring museums :) This guy, Gaudi, is a famous architect around these parts. He was an eccentric character and his architecture style fits with that.

Casa Battlo. Locally called House of Bones. Gaudy tended to design things with a bit of a spooky skeletal nature. Gaudi also famous for using no straight lines. Didn't use blueprints. Only sketches.

Stopped in a high-end cosmetics store called Kiehls which Anita likes and is cool because it has a Harley parked inside. They were nice enough to give us some free sample sunscreen. I could've bought some but the 40 euros seemed a little steep. On we went to the Sagrada Familia, which is a cathedral largely designed by Gaudi. His lack of blueprints was a tiny bit problematic for them on this complex structure. Gaudi died in 1926, but they're still trying to straighten it out.

Gaudi's Sagrada Familia cathedral, still under construction. Good place for ping pong.

An interesting story about Gaudi is that he ended his life in penury, begging every rich person he knew for more money to finish his cathedral. He was hospitalized when he was hit by a streetcar. He was wearing ragged clothes, so, not recognizing the famous architect, they put him in the paupers' hospital. His friends found him the next day, but he insisted on staying in the poor people's hospital where he died a few days later. His primary benefactor, a guy named Guell, had died in 1918. The next place we visited required a few miles walk -- the Parc Guell. You can read about this and all of Gaudi's other stuff on the Wikipedia page about him

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Gaudí

where there are links to his major works including Parc Guell, Sagrada Familia, and Casa Batllo. Briefly, the Parc was designed initially to be a garden-oriented housing development for rich people. Didn't work out, so Barcelona made it a municipal garden.

Anita photgraphing the famous multicolored mosaic dragon. ("Mosaic" refers to the thousands of tiles that it's made from. This mosaic style is classic Gaudi.)

By the way, later, when we got to Madrid, Anita's friend Adam reminded me that Barcelona is the location of the story The Shadow of the Wind (Momma and Tess, you've read this...). Might've been fun to keep an eye out for some of the specific places in the book.

Next, we got lazy and took the metro back down to the waterfront where we walked another 5 miles. More on that later!

on the road to Barcelona part dos

So now we're in Day 5 -- Sunday April 18th. We've left Pamplona and are on the way to Zaragoza. Lots of wind farms in the Spanish countryside here. Also some big solar arrays the likes of which I've never seen in the US.

When we arrived, we stopped into a place that sold good old pizza. Wow, was it nice to get something that was exactly what we expected. Plus, the place was showing the Monte Carlo tennis tournament final in which Rafael Nadal was finishing up his devastation of the competition there. (Unfortunately, because Nadal played so damned well in Monte Carlo and in his previous tournament or two, he was too tired to attend the Barcelona which I'll describe in a later entry.)

Zaragoza is a medium-sized city. Seemed to be a lot of large, unused infrastructure. (Wikipedia: Zaragoza hosted Expo 2008 in the summer of 2008, a World's Fair on water and sustainable development.) The thing that attracted our attention is the Aljafería Palace, built in the 11th century by the Moors. Christians took it over early in the 12th century.

Me standing under a pretty old Moorish arch

A courtyard with orange trees. Note the mathematical patterns in the architecture which is a hallmark of Muslim architecture in general.

Prior to and during the trip, I boned up on Spanish history some by reading the generous history section in my book, "National Geographic Traveler: Spain" which I think is a great guide.

Charlemagne (b. 742, d. 814) did a lot of fighting in NE Spain and established Catalunya as a buffer zone between Moslem Spain and Christian Europe. My dad pointed out to me an interesting bit of history that I hadn't heard or read before: Charlemagne attempted to conquer Zaragoza, but failed. Apparently, as he was heading, tail between legs, back to France, his rearguard took a lot of heat from Moslem/Moorish fighters. This event inspired the song of Roland which you can read about on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanson_de_Roland
One of the stranger parts of this epic poem/song, in which Roland is the hero, is that Roland, after his forces are demolished, blows an olifant (named after elephant .. it's made of an elephant's tusk) horn so hard that his head explodes and he dies.. Yikes!

A few hours later, we rolled into Barcelona. We drove up the main strip in Barcelona called La Rambla. With amazing ease, found a place to temporarily park and check in to our hotel. Parking at the hotel was interesting. For one thing, we had to drive around the block and a couple of crazy drivers nearly squashed our poor little Seat (and poor little us) when 3 lanes suddenly became only 2. I hit the brakes and the two vehicles on left and right came within inches of taking off the left and right side-view mirrors. Navigated onto the pedestrian-dominated side streets and went down the exit ramp into the parking area. They parked the car New York style -- that is, put it on a lift and moved it into an overhead car slot somewhere out of view. Barcelona is a very crowded place. After going out for a not very exciting dinner (we got stuck in a tourist trap type place), we hung it up for the night.

On the road to Barcelona (+more Picos)

First, let's have a look at a few of Anita's pictures from the Picos / Casa La Xerra.

The flock of sheep that we rumbled on the way to the middle of nowhere destination that the iPhone picked.

Milo, the cute puppy, while he's waiting patiently at the door for somebody to throw him some scraps. He also likes to chase balls as if his life depended on it.

Our amazing breakfast.

Now. Continuing where we left off in the last entry, we headed to cave, Cueva de Tito Bustillo. We joined the tour group in the nick of time as they headed into the cave. As we headed into the bowels of the earth, it dawned on us that nobody on the tour, including the guide, spoke a word of English. We did glean a little bit: the guide showed everyone how to view the 25k year old paintings from various different angles, such that the relief allowed various different images to emerge. The cave walls were not flat like a usual canvas and the prehistoric people took advantage of that. There were also big painted stalagmites -- some of the earliest known phallic symbols present in the cave.

On we went to Bilbao. I've mentioned the roadways before and and Anita had a picture of a viaduct that I'll include now. Pretty serious infrastructure. No wonder Spain is doing almost as badly as Greece these days...

Viaduct going up in N. Spain

We got there and parked in "libre" parking. I looked up this word and it means "free". Great! Well, I had my doubts... We walked out to see the main attraction in Bilbao: the Guggenheim Museum which was designed by the famous starchitect (star architect), Frank Gehry. Surrounding the Museum itself are various cool pieces of artwork.

Anita with a flower dog

A scary spider outside the Museum

Anita and I with the Guggenheim in the background

We basically got thrown out when I started photographing the inside of the building which is against the rules (apparently .. hey, I can't read Spanish). Arriving at our car, we realized that, indeed, "libre" didn't mean "free". It meant "available" .. but it was only a few Euros.

Having knocked out the Guggenheim by late afternoon, we headed on to Pamplona, a city about 1/3 the way to Barcelona from Bilbao. From Pamplona, we'd only have another 4 or 5 hrs driving to reach Barcelona. The guidebook said that Pamplona was kind of a sleepy little town. So we picked a cheap hotel in the middle of the city. Once we arrived, we realized that the guidebook had lied. It was Saturday night and Pamplona was happening. This wasn't what we needed that particular Saturday night. After being stuck in a people-jam (and people are harder to rumble than sheep) for 15+ minutes, and hunting for a parking spot for half an hour, we managed to bring our little Seat (the car make as you'll recall) to a halt. Then we headed into the thick of things to look at the cheap hotel. Well, it turns out that it was too cheap. Like Prabaker said in Shantaram, one can find "a cheap hotel, a very cheap hotel, a too much cheap hotel, and even such a cheap hotel that nobody in a right minds is ever staying there also." With its grungy single bed, shared bathrooms, and flophouse appearance, this was one of the latter. We went back and stayed at a 75 Euro/night place near where we'd parked. We also got a fine dinner at a place I noticed right by the parking spot we found. For the first time in Spain, I think, the service was fantastic. There was this 18 year old kid who was a service enthusiast and treated us very well. We hit the sack happy that night if a little wasted.

The next morning, we woke up and got breakfast at a cafe where Ernest Hemingway used to write in the main Plaza in Pamplona. In his book, The Sun Also Rises, an annual Pamplona fiesta is the backdrop. After breakfast, on we went. Our next (brief) stop before reaching Barcelona would be Zaragoza, named after Caesar Augusta. Say Caesar Augusta really fast with a Spanish accent and you hear "zaragoza"... ¡hasta luego!

rural Spain; Picos de Europa

(In the last entry I made you click on the Picasaweb links. This time, I inserted photos for you. Do peruse the whole photo set at
http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20100413SpainLoRes#.)

Nothing too exciting happened on the way through rural Spain on our way to Casa La Xerra. A couple of observations:
* The countryside looked healthy. From the airplane on the way into A Coruna, the organic look of the agriculture -- small fields interspersed by equally large forests -- looked nothing like typical agricultural land in the US. On the drive we saw a lot of that up close. Also, as I noticed when I was in Switzerland in 1998, the cows there just look fatter and healthier.
* The freeway construction there in northern Spain is pretty intense. They're shooting for US-style gigantic roadways. Evidently, some Spaniards are not too happy about it.

Having plugged our destination into my trusty (ahem..) iPhone, we navigated our way into the hills north of the Picos de Europa. Having left the main paved roads now, we wound up some gravel roads, taking various turns according to the Phone. The gravel roads became dirt roads, and we began wondering if we were making a mistake. After driving through a flock of sheep (like you sometimes have to drive through buffalo in Yellowstone), we reached a dead end -- exactly the location marked on the Phone. Great. This was certainly not it. It was some kind of obscure picnic area. It was 8 pm by this time. The situation could be salvaged. Looked up directions on the Casa La Xerra website. Translated the Spanish and had some rough idea how to get there. Drove as directed. Still couldn't find it. Began asking random roadside Spaniards. My Spanish sucks. Their English sucks worse. Finally broke down and showed a guy the website on the Phone. He had a eureka moment -- "Oh!! Casa La Sierra!" I had been pronouncing it Casa La ex-erra .. not sierra. One of his friends was good with ad lib sign language and explained how to get there. Finally we made it!

By this time I was starting to feel like a mute. I couldn't talk to anybody (except of course Anita). Usually I joke around with people I encounter and I couldn't do that... I figured communicating with the owner of La Xerra would be like that. Ana met us and was happy to see us. She had a little dog, Milo, following her around. He was a non-barking, big personality, little dog. We talked in broken Spanish and English for a few minutes, then she revealed that she speaks French! Boy, was I excited. I could finally talk to a stranger. It was surprising how voluble I could be in French when it was the only way to communicate. Ana and I talked about hiking the nearby Picos. She showed me a map and pointed out some ideas. We dropped our stuff off in the room which was gorgeous.

Here is a view from the window (which doesn't show the room).

She told us about her favorite restaurant down the hill. We headed there and were greeted by 15 suspicious stares when we walked in the door. These were a bunch of locals. Playing cards. Smoking. Oh well, we were hungry so sat down. They took their time serving us. Finally did and I took a sip of my beer. Tasted .. ok, but something seemed weird. I read the label -- "cerveza sin alcohol." My spanish is poor. But "sin", I was pretty sure, meant "without." Funny they seemed to be playing tricks on me. I took the beer to the counter and got one with alcohol... Food was not too bad. Then we got out of there.

Day 3 -- Friday April 16

The next day, our hiking expedition was fun. The drive was winding, and Anita felt a little queasy by the time we got to the top, weaving along a narrow road with sheer dropoffs. Scenery near the bottom of the hike involved green rolling hills and sheep/cattleherders structures.

Scenery in the Picos

Our high point was near this hiker's cabin.

There was a nice dog to greet us there.

Clouds moved in and a bit of rain started falling, so we retreated. On our way down, we stopped in a little tourist spot that revolves around a shrine to the Virgin Mary established in 722. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Covadonga
Had my search for the truth ended? Here was a holy place where they worship a virgin mother! Impressive. However, judging by the tourist riff-raff around the place, this was not the truth.

That evening, I took a few photos around Casa La Xerra.




(I love this one.)

Ana made dinner for us that night. It was like Thanksgiving. She brought out one dish after another. A preposterous amount of food. Fish soup. Squid in its own ink. I forget all the dishes. Then fruit salad for desert. Most of this stuff from her own garden. She raises squid in a pool out back. Kidding. Breakfasts were decadent too. Bread, cheese. Honey from her beehives. Ana was an interesting lady. Had spent 20 years in Geneva, Switz. doing "natural medicine". Was raised just up the road from La Xerra. Dairy farmering family. New EU rules have made it tough to be a smalltime dairy farmer apparently. I think it has to do with the Common Agricultural Policy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy

Day 4 -- Saturday April 17

The next morning, we shipped out. Our first stop would be a cave with prehistoric artwork. Ana had recommended it and arranged for us to be in a tour. This sounded goood, but I seem to have forgotten about our lack of Spanish... To be continued...

Truth-stalking in Spain

I stalked some truth in Spain with Anita from April 15th to April 23rd. This is the first entry of several in which I'll try to capture some of the adventure and fun we had there.

For pics, see the albums involving Spain at

http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice

Only my pics are there right now, but I will soon be adding Anita's. You may find some of the comments on the pics interesting, so take note of those.

Day 1 -- Tuesday to Wednesday April 13 / 14

Took off from Minneapolis on this transatlantic journey -- my first trip away from North America since 1998 when I went to Switzerland -- and first landed in Amsterdam. I guess I recall a little of the wonder of being abroad and a little about how challenging it was. Without much difficulty, I connected from Amsterdam to Madrid and then from Madrid to A Coruna. The landing in A Coruna was kinda exciting: the flight was pretty empty, but for some dumb reason, I took my assigned seat at the window with the other two seats in my row taken by a retirement-age Spanish couple. On the descent into A Coruna, the pilot must've been having a little fun because it was like being on a fighter jet in a dogfight. We swooped this way and that at extreme bank angles. When we landed, the lady beside me puked. Great. Why hadn't I taken a seat in an empty row??!!

Met Anita there at the airport quite easily and we headed back to her hotel room. I was wasted of course from traveling for the past 20 hours, but I was stoked about going to see a 2000 year old Roman lighthouse in A Coruna. So we did that. Cool place. See

http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20100413SpainLoRes#5464678496352214002

Wind was blowing like a Republican opposing finance reform at the top. We're talking Mt Rainier conditions. A Coruna is situated at the far NW corner of Spain. Anyway, view was nice and was fun to see this ancient lighthouse (but I must say it was a little tough to tell what was authentically 2000 years old in this significantly remodeled structure).

We got some early dinner that evening. Well, in Spain, they don't start dinner at restaurants until 9 pm, so 7 pm is "early" there and we had to just get "tapas" or, as Seth dubbed it when we got tapas at a Mexican restaurant one time in DC, "tap-ass" (implying the tapping of your ... pocketbook when buying tapas). The problem with ordering tapas in Spain wasn't really the cost, but rather the total unpredictability of what you're going to get. I had my spanish dictionary, but couldn't usually figure out what was coming at restaurants. Usually, it would involve huge amounts of cheese and some bread which isn't too bad.

Day 2 -- Thursday April 15

Rent car. Car rental guy had a British accent. Said he'd grown up in London where his folks had moved to get decent paying jobs. Car make was Seat. Probably pronounced like the first part of Seattle. But we pronounced it like a chair-type seat just for fun. It was a typical narrow European car. Ran well. Had tiny engine. Stick shift. So we took off. The wrong way. Traffic was bad in A Coruna. Plus I was driving for the first time in Spain. Their roundabouts are free-for-alls. Another crazy thing is that they don't have yellow lines for two-way roads. Sometimes roads are one way. Sometimes two way. Always the same white lines. Aaaaaahhhhh!! Busted out iPhone and got straightened out. Anita is an excellent navigator and without too much effort, we got on track for our first destination, 50 miles away, Santiago de Compostela, where there is a famous cathedral which pilgrams hike from the Pyrenees across Spain to see. See

http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20100413SpainLoRes#5464678576001538594

We enjoyed the cathedral. The Spanish seem to be pretty religious folks in general. There were less tourists and more local and visiting Spanish people than I expected. In the cathedral, they were taking the ceremony pretty seriously and I couldn't handle the chanting very long. I/we enjoyed the nearby expansive park a lot more. Nice day. Weather was quite good for us in general during this trip. 70 deg F highs. 50ish lows.

Got back on the road to cover the 200 miles to reach the B&B-type place (rural house) that I'd booked for us for two nights (Thursday and Friday nights). We had quite an adventure finding the joint. Check back here soon for that story and more!!!

Groundhog Day 2010 (my 32nd birthday)

(revised/expanded Feb. 5, 2010)

I went to the office today and sat in on one of the two classes I'm taking this quarter. Then I did a little thinking and tinkering on my research proposal which I'm presenting in March. Then I just slacked off the rest of the day! And, for a change, it was a very beautiful sunny day. I rode to school, but forgot my iPhone which I am addicted to. So I rode my bike to my house then back to campus where I took a bus downtown to meet Anita. But on my ride back to the office, I took a detour through the Union Bay Natural Area which is an ex-landfill which has been covered up and made into a sanctuary (for birds primarily). I saw a turtle and a Great Blue Heron:



My GBH picture is pretty poor but here's one that one of my colleagues (Alan Glasser) took a few weeks ago. It is a fairly awesome picture. He has a very fancy Canon 20D digital camera and a pretty nice telephoto lens to go with it. These herons are incredibly tolerant of close human presence.


Anita took me out to lunch downtown in Pike Place market to a fancy french restaurant. We ate something called la raclette. It involves a petite grill that you simmer cheese on and then put the melted cheese on some ham and potatoes that are served on the side. Tasty! The authentic French waiters were pretty funny with all their "voilas" and stuff.

We've been wanting to go up Seattle's historic Smith Tower for a while, so I decided my bday was a good day to give it a go. When we got there, they said we couldn't go up because, in the winter, they're closed during the week. Anita gave them a smile and puppy dog eyes and they let us go right up. There was a sweet old black man operating the elevator. Everything in the place has delicate architectural touches that remind you that it was built in 1909 (see http://www.smithtower.com/History.html). The view from the top is pretty spectacular my shots don't do it justice but ...

Anita on top.

The view looking south past the gladiator arenas (the football and baseball stadia) at Rainier.

View looking north. The Space Needle is visible looking down 2nd Ave.

After doing a little more work that afternoon, we burned the last of the daylight by taking a stroll through the Arboretum -- another one of Seattle's big wonderful parks. We went to my favorite spot there, an old gazebo. That evening, we both did more work (alas), but then watched the Lost season premiere. It was good. The chaos in the show (in terms of time travel) is getting out of control :) Anita made tasty coconut cupcakes sweetened with honey which were very tasty. She gave me a copy of Open, Andre Agassi's biography. So far I've found it fascinating! The next day, my friend G gave me the same book with a very nice handwritten inscription.

It was a day I wouldn't mind repeating a few times. But not as many times as Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day.

Rainier ascent via Emmons-Winthrop

Rainier ascent via Emmons-Winthrop

Aug. 8-10, 2009 (Saturday thru Monday)

Eric Meier, Seth Meier, Cihan (the Living Legend) Akcay, (Pistol) Pete Norgaard, Ralph Swanson, Kaitlin Murdock

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20090809RainierEmmonsWinthrop#

Seth flew in Friday night late as hell as usual. We started out with the game plan of departing early on Saturday morning and going for a summit and return to vehicles on Sunday. We did manage to leave *relatively* early, but the Sunday return to vehicle was not to be. The mountain is too damned rough this time of year for that. We got out of Seattle at about 9 AM (early, huh?). Got on the trail by about 12:30. The wildflowers were gorgeous down low in Glacier Basin.

Seth, G and I were a little behind Pistolé, Ralph, and Kaitlin. We caught up to ‘em just before we hit the Inter Glacier. (It is called “Inter” because it’s between the Emmons and Winthrop Glaciers.) The Inter is a big mess right now. It’s like a mostly melted ice cube sitting in a big tray and collecting a helluva lot of rock and dirt.

Climbing it required crampons and a lot of care to avoid slipping which would mean a very unpleasant ride down the rough ice/rock surface. The thought of climbing down was rather unpleasant. In the early summer, it’s cake: the whole basin is filled with a big snowfield and you just glissade down. We made the top of the Inter at about 6 pm. At Camp Curtiss, we traversed down onto the Emmons with no trouble. (There is a fairly clear trail.) On the Emmons:

Made camp at 8:30 as dark fell. Upper camp was full on this busy Saturday night and we had to clamber down to the snow below the exposed solid-ground campsites and join a couple of guided groups. Chill set in as we dug out spots, threw up tents and melted drinking water. I believe Jupiter was the beautiful object in the sunset.

The guided groups didn’t appreciate us crashing into camp. Some curses could not be contained as we fought across a little mote between the rock and snow/ice. Somebody told us to quiet down (they were getting to sleep in prep for early departure). This is common courtesy at such a camp and they didn’t even need to tell us. They arose at 2 AM (an hour before our planned wakeup time) and started raising hell and talking like they were drinking beer in their back yards.

We were up and at ‘em at 3 AM and actually hit the trial at 5, all roped up. There was the red team: me, Seth and Ci (pronounced “G”). There was the green team: Pistol Pete, Ralph and Kaitlin. (Our ropes were roughly red and green.) My buddy Reid two of his pals had started a couple of hours ahead of us. We stayed in touch with radios. It was nice to have them ahead to tell us about any route difficulties. G as we got started:

We enjoyed the sunrise on the way up to 11.5k,. So beautiful. Venus was shining bright. I caught this shot (Anita's favorite) just as the sun rose.

Mt Stuart and Glacier Peak showed themselves in the distance. By 11.5k, Ralph and Kaitlin, who had not really trained for this trip since they were roped into it on short notice, were pretty worked and decided to hang it up. It was also at this point that Pete and I started throwing our gear into deep crevasses. I donated my fairly new (et un peu chèr) sunglasses to the crevasse gods and Pete contributed his helmet to make me feel better about myself (real slick; the good news was that rockfall was not really a concern on the upper mountain). Fortunately, I had a pair of ski goggles to use as a backup. Here's a shot of the upper mountain from about 11.5k about a half-hour after sunset:

Pete roped into the red team and on we went. At this point, the route goes up “the Corridor” and then turns right beneath gnarly crevasses. We took a break at about 12.5k to melt water. It took what seemed to be an eternity to melt enough to get going again. But good to be hydrated. It was toasty that afternoon and we were sweating heavily. On the way to Liberty Saddle at 13.5k, the route weaved this way and that around broken snow bridges. No technical climbing was required at all on the route. After reaching the saddle, the walk to the top is simple. As usual, you just put one foot in front of the other, taking one full breath per step and just resign yourself to the grueling task. Eventually you end up with a pretty nice view.

Descent was decent. Hard on the knees/ankles. Seth was raring to haul ass and I had to hold him back a little. We got back at sundown with a half hour to spare before pitch dark. Slept well and felt great the next morning. We found a way to descend without touching the Inter Glacier. We asked around at camp and found that you can just descend the ridge upon which Mount Ruth sits. It worked out nicely.