Around-the-world cyclist II

So the guy I mentioned in a previous post (Julian Sayarer) seems to have broken the world record for cycling around the world, though its not yet official. He blew through Spain in 3 days, came through Madrid even. You'd think this would be news like the Tiger Woods thing that I just can't get my head around (now wait, was he in a car wreck or cheating on his wife? how are thee things related? why was he expected to tell the press abotu his extra girlfriends? were they driving his car? all at the same time? really, what is the deal with the car wreck, I cannot find one intelligible article about this supposed scandal...), but it ain't. Great cycling acheivements are rarely news. I actually entertained the thought of trying to guess where his route would pass so i could watch him ride through my city. Didn't though, wouldn't have guessed the right route anyway. So it seems he averaged 109 miles per days which puts a hurtin' on James Bowthorpe's record of 103 miles per day just a few months ago. This is despite numerous parts failures. I checked his twitter posts every day, and I read through his entire blog and became quite a fan. I liked the down-to-earth vernacular posts (e.g. wheel fucked...again), and the honesty of his pretty decent writing even when he got caught in seemingly random rants about police (i don't like them either), chinese people (the ones in my hood are ok by me), and Mark Beaumont (the guy who Bowthorpe beat, before Sayayer beat Bowthorpe). I even let a little anti-Americanism slide in his writings (I ain't the world's biggest patriot, but it's tiring to her smug euros bash your country when you know their countries behaved NO BETTER, MAYBE WORSE, when they had alot of power[I mean Spain, England, France, Holland, Germany, Italy, and more]). I let it slide because he said he could have ridden down the Oregon Coast for the rest of his life. I've done that ride, and I agree totally.

Then a wierd thing happened. He finished in glorious style and all he writes about is how much he hates Mark Beaumont, the guy who got the record before Bowthorpe. I mean he rips the guy. The word "cunt" was used, even. Granted, from what I've read about Beaumont even on his own web page, Mark Beaumont is kind of a self-promoting prom queen, but he also set the record, raised a little money for charity, and regardless of any self-aggrandizing motives he contributed to documentaries about his ride that will inspire people to ride bicycles. He apparently made some money off of his endeavor. What is the big deal, this is not a life poorly spent. Maybe he's just smart, getting paid to do bike tours.

The problem with Julian Sayarer, my recent short-lived former hero, is that he defines himself by what he's against rather than what he is about. I understood that the title of his website "this is not for charity" meant, instead "i'm doing this because I think bicycling is awesome and there is no need for additional motivation to do a ride like this". But this is a case in point, it sounds as if he's saying "I think charity sucks", even though he's not really. And unless he writes something better about how awesome, difficult, easy, lame, exhausting, uplifting, boring it was to ride around the freaking globe on a bike and encounter different cultures and scenery, unexpected aid and threats, hammers and nails rain, exploding tires, and freely given best-burritos-of-your-life, we'll never know how he defines himself, we'll only know he's not Mark Beaumont.


James Bowthorpe, the guy who did ride for charity, defined himslef by what he was for and has raised 100,000 pounds for Parkinson's research. I think I'd rather have him keep the record really. He didn't mention one word about the guy he beat, except that he set a high standard and was tough to beat. That's the kind of record holder you want.

Beaumont's page
http://www.pedallingaround.com/start/

Bowthorpe's page
http://www.globecycle.org/

Various

Random recent pic. La Pedrera, Sierra Guadarrama. pretty nice.

1. I couldn't figure out how to watch football last year. The pay services primarily work in the US, and it seemed impossible to find links to games online. Some Irish bars show American football. The problem is my game is always the late game, so I would have to get on the metro, ride into the city center to be there for kickoff at 10:00pm, blow 25 euros on pints and then one of two things would happen. Option 1: Its tied in the fourth and the bar closes because it a slow sunday night. Option 2: The bar takes pity on you an stays open, but the metro line you need to get home stops running at 1:30, leaving you stranded.

But I have watched the last five games (all wins by the way) in my own home, start to finish. If you live in Europe and suffer my plight of last year you need to download 2 programs: stream torrent an sopcast. Then go to myP2P.eu and find a link to your game. These ain't the best broadcasts, often the image sucks, or you get kicked off (like me last night), or it takes 20 minutes to get it to work. But its something, and for that I am thankful. I watched a game which was commentated by two Danish guys apparently sitting in a bedroom. Sometimes its an English feed with a couple completely unknown NFL players commenting, with some middle aged British guy. Its cool just for the surrealism.

2. Spanish douche style: Spain has their own special douche fashion. It's pseudo hip-hop (late 80's), part frat boy, part Miami vice and ALL douche in spiky hair gel flavors. They rock the popped collars, pink shirts, and faux hawks. Some of the older ones grow pencil line beards. The hairstyles can only be described as Vanilla Ice, with lines etched in or white sidewalls. There is almost always: 1) a shaved part, 2) a spiky part, 3) short shellac spiky bangs glued to one half of the forehead part. There is also multiple face piercings, always with white or black beads instead of naked metal. This might be accessorized with a kefiyah, aka a paisley "jihad" scarf like back last year when Rachel Ray became a jihadist in a dunkin donuts commercial, maybe even in douche pink or turquoise...though i have noticed that that is fading. Its so '08. They are fond of tight Don Johnson color tees, and this is commonly worn under an all white ensemble featuring a fur lined hooded jacket. They have these incredible pants over here, which manages to simultaneously mimic skinny jeans and gangsta sag. The trick is that the waist actually fits, and the legs are tight, but the crotch of the pants is almost own to the knees. Its like when a toddler has shit in his diaper.

3) We made plans to travel in France and Andorra between x-mas and New Years. New Years in this town:
beat that, chump.

4) Strange anthropological observations: In the metro or trains stations sometimes its so busy that the escalators get real crowded. Like most places, people are lazy and would rather wait in a line to ride an escalator than take the stairs right next to it. I don't blame anybody, some metro stations are better than the stair master. That's not the wierd part, this is: the escalators break often, and when they do everbody crowds onto the stairs and avoids the escalator. I see a broken escalator as a perfectly servicable staircase, some people could climb the stairs and others the escalator so there wouldn't be 10,000 people all on top of each other. But they avoid the non-running escaltor like its dangerous or illegal or something.

5) Lard Alert: I knew I needed to drop a few pounds but I was shocked when I found out I was over 210 pounds!! My eating habits have always been somehwere in between cookie monster and Bacchanalian orgy. But I stayed reasonable thin by exercising alot. Gradually, my spartan exercise routine got replaced by a spartan train ride to and from work and a spartan work-eat dinner-have a beer or two-sleep lifestyle. The month long trip to the states didn't help much, since me and my old friend Thai-food-that-doesn't-suck had to become reaquainted. Thats not even mentioning Mexican food and plenty of it. Most Americans have no idea just how incredible unlimited chips and salsa is, they just take it for granted. Well I'm telling you A-holes, its awesome and you won't know that 'til you go somewhere it doesn't exist and it will hurt your soul. It will make the baby Pancho Villa cry. But awesome aside...all of these things had resulted in my highest weight ever.

So my plan is simple but effective....1) Skip the beer. I am allowed to drink beer if i go to a party or if we're out for the night. But I don't need three hundred extra calories just because a beer sounds delicious after work. Tough but necessary. 2) Exercise pretty much every day. the weather and my broken derailleur is not favoring alot of cycling right now, but we go to the gym twice a week, and i started running again. I've worked back up to 6 mile runs, and I don't even mind it in fact its fun. So we've been back a month and I'm at 200 pounds now. I need to drop at least another 5. Lard sneaks up on you.


6) I haven't had alot of beaurocratic nightmares lately, plus i try not to dwell on annoying shit (it ain't good for me), but this one is so frickin' funny...Becky finally got her national ID card this morning after entering the country last February. Since it took so long it will only be valid for two months, and its already time to renew.

Julian Sayarer

...just read about this guy on a blog. He is closing in on the world record for circumnavigating the globe on a bicicyle at an incredible pace of 111 miles per day. He's been riding for 149 days and is now in the states before returning to France to finish.

http://www.thisisnotforcharity.com/index.html

Hot pocket

Do you remember the jingle from the television commercials for hot pockets? I don't mean all of the lyrics...but it was a call and response thingie, where the response is a three note "Hot pocket!". I've adapted it for everyday use. If you get perfect liftoff on your next farmer blow, you can sing "Snot rocket!". Did you just buy a motorcycle? "Crotch rocket!" If you just discovered there's another wall outlet behind the dresser..."Light socket!" Did you just run interference on that douchey guy that's trying to get with that girl you like in sixth period "Cock block it!". It need not be applied only for things ending in "...ocket" either. it will work for many 3 syllable combinations, especially when its two words, the first being monosyllabic. "Sock monkey!" There you go, my gift to you, a multipurpoe jingle to enhance your day, every day.

speaking of vega$

this rocket from my past courtesy of greg. i still have a copy but its nearly completely faded. binion's horseshoe, that monument to the old & real vegas, used to have a glass case with a million dollars in cash in it. for years you could go get your picture with a million bucks, for free.

Could have just gone to Vega$, ok maybe not

I guess its time i got around to writing about our trip to Italy. Three independent parties had suggested that we could skip Venice- we've seen it in the movies after all, and theres one in vega$ anyway. Our Australian friend David told us it smells like the diaper wiff we always get in our local train station (false, Aluche rocks the stench by far). Other folks told us its expensive as hell (true) and absolutely full of douchey tourists like us (true). But heres the thing, theres no other place like it, except of course the one in vega$. Amsterdam also has some canals but the charcater of the city is totally different. Also Venice is not that crowded outside of the top five tourist destinations. The secret is that Venice, in its impossible to navigate entirety, is the destination, not some cathedral or museum (one caveat here: the Palazzo Ducalle does have five Bosch paintings...just something to think about). i enjoyed every second of wandering the streets and bridges, Becky had dreams about being lost there, which was true most of the time. You will pay with your own organs for a gondola ride (had to do it)and see so many other kidney-less tourists doing the same, that it feels like you're on a water ride at the Epcot center. Despite the kidney loss and the hordes it was pretty fun, our gondola guy was funny and weaseled into several pictures. On the other hand you can bring an old soda bottle to a wine shop and have it filled with wine for a couple bucks. it's kind of like my old fantasy of 7-11 selling big gulps of beer. So you can destroy the other kidney fairly cheaply. Go to Venice if you can, its cool, bring organs. Oh yeah whenever you order a coffee or a beer, it costs more to have it at a table. So remain standing unless you want a 5 euro coffee.


Next we went to Florence, Pistoia, Pisa, and the Tuscany region for a few days. In the cathedral (the Duomo), there is an enormous cupola with a painting on the inner surface. I'm pretty sure it was modeled after the cover of a Dio record, or maybe it was Grim Reaper. Seriously, there's demons eating people alive, the nine rings of hell, the judgement day and all of that. I guess this is supposed to frighten you into christianity. Later we ran into the fake David by Michelangelo. Why the fake David? Well, the real one was moved inside of a different museum to protect it from vandals. But who gives a shit, I already saw that thing in Caesar's Palace. Renaissance art doesn't do much for me. It just seems to be about inexplicable gratuitous nudity, rippling muscles, oversized hands and feet and undersized penises. I understand that it was a big change from relatively flat medieval art lacking perspective,it emphasized the human form, and occasionally portrayed something other than Jesus but you know I think I like medieval art - granted theres only so many Jesus's I can bear to look at. Anyways- David- he looks like Jay Cutler, the most overrated cocky dickbag of a quarterback ever. I hate Jay Cutler, and Denver Broncos are so much harder to hate now that he's gone. The Boticellis were worth seeing though, and no Jesus, just good ole paganism. I was so sick when we went to Pisa, we just turned around and left after we finally got there. Tuscany really was beautiful, its medieval towns are surrounded by open countryside in contrast to alot of places. Food was decent but it won't make you do a backflip like everyone tells you. I'll take enchiladas or chilis rellenos anyday.



Finally we went to Rome. At first it was just mediocre, we were tired and kind of in the "I've seen so much stuff I'm failing to appreciate Rome" rut. Things were pretty, including nice views from some famous steps, some famous fountains and plazas (more renaissance, woohoo), but it wasn't stunning. Not until we blundered into the Pantheon. That is a legit 2000 year old Roman temple still standing, with columns like redwoods. Its the sort of thing that our country likes to copy in all of its official buildings, but this is the real thing. The next day we visited the Colliseum, and the adjacent archaeological park. The park consists of the Palatine Hill and the Forum. We had a book which said most visitors leave the forum underwhelmed. Of course my previous knowledge of the forum was gained at Caesar's Palace- its a place with Gucci and Louie Vuitton stores, animatronic statues, and a fake sky that changes. Turns out the real forum is awesome, I don't know what kind of dolt could leave there underwhelmed. It's a junkyard of columns and foundations, arches, and temple fronts. Every rock fragment in sight was a piece of an ancient building. I've never seem anything remotely similar. Everywhere you go in this part of the city there is some excavated something several feet below the modern street level. It may be a gladiator training facility, a reconstructed tile floor, or a colony of nasty feral cats. After all this the Vatican was so unimpressive, except the pope mummies were pretty intriguing. The impression you get is: WHAT DISGUSTING WEALTH!!! When they pass around that plate for cash, you can rest assured they ain't feeding those freeloading poor people with the cash. They spend it all in dipping popes in molten gold and encrusting them with rubies. We blew off the Sistine chapel entirely because we suck at being tourists.

..by the way i'm getting lazier about pictures, these are all Becky's pics.

Dear jerk sauce:

OK, I just got back form a geek conference in England, now we are off to Italy tommorrow. The tourist trifecta: Venice, Rome, Florence

We will be in the States from 30 Sept until the 26 Oct. That first week of Oct we will be in Michigan. Then we'll fly to phoenix and stopover briefly in Flagstaff. Then its 2 weeks of field work in Northern Arizona and Utah, with a pass through Moab. We will again pass through Flag to return the car rental, then continue on to Vegas for the final few days of our stay in the good ole US of A.

So contact me by email, and we'll catch up. Vegas friends can also reach me at my folks house in the twenty somethings of oct.

Friends in Europe and the States who were considering a visit: november is still pretty open. let us know whatever you decide.

Galician food review: did we eat like kings or peasants

Months before going to the North, a basque guy told us we would eat like kings. I told him we are vegetarians, so we will probably eat like peasants. Because of the apparently excellent seafood (oxymoron in my opinion, how can you even approach it with that stench?), Galicia especially really has the rep for good food. There are actually pulperias, which means octopuserias. The north ended up somewhere in between king and peasant for us silly stubborn vegetarians, as we still relied heavily on pizza (only good for about four days in a row…), but there were significant improvements in some areas.

1) Pan Gallego: FINALLY, we went to a place where people eat brown bread, and they hand it out like it’s air. You don’t buy a whole loaf, because they are baked into rounds of like a half meter in diameter. Graded on a worldwide basis, this bread gets a B. It’s not exactly German barley bread, or brown Irish soda bread, but it’s a solid effort. I have heard lots of Europeans disparage American bread, because they think we only eat airy wonder bread. But every grocery store in the states has good reasonably fresh brown bread sometimes with walnut, sunflower seeds or any of many other interesting ingredients. American bread is excellent if you buy the right kind, which is not hard to find (as I said…..every grocery store). In contrast, all I can say is that in general Spanish bread is basically something you keep around in case you run out of toilet paper. Most Spanish bread is bland white bread, which is kept uncovered all day so that if you don’t buy it in the morning you can etch glass with it. If you succeed in biting through it you find that it is full of powdery sawdust. For the first time in my life I do not routinely buy bread when I go to the store. Not so with pan Gallego, graded on a curve for Spain this bread gets an A.

2. Queso de Tetilla: This is the nun’s tit cheese, named so because it is often made in convents and has a characteristic breast shape, complete with a nipple. Recently we had a british visitor who was a cheese enthusiast, so my Spanish coworkers were trying to explain the tetilla. He thought they were saying that the cheese was made out of human breast milk. In general cheese is an area where Spain does pretty well, and In contrast to bread totally kicks the ass of the US. To this day I still don’t understand what “American cheese” is nor do I want to. All I know is that United Statesians simply prefer an English cheese, cheddar. In our defense, we are clever enough to add chilis into a cheese, so although our time honored traditions are weak, our innovations are strong. Our standard cheese we buy in Madrid is queso Manchego, which is a blend of sheep, cow and goat milk which runs along a gradient of aging. This one is good, especially the curado, considering its the cheapest thing in the market. I don’t know a lot about the somewhat more expensive tetilla, but we went to markets where old ladies were selling super fresh cheese alongside all manner of local produce. Contrast this with Madrid’s frankenfood imported from Almeria’s creepy white tent agricultural system. I have confidence in the quality of the Galician cheese. I bought one that seemed to be smoked a bit, although this was subtle. It was good and versatile and reminiscent of Gouda, and of a similar softness. Like gouda its a little bland, but if that’s what you are looking for the cheese gets a B+.

3. Galician white wine: You are served a teapot-like thing and then drink it out of bowls. I think we had one from the Rias Baixas region, but as I am a wine ignoramus I don’t really know. It was a white wine, which I normally don’t like. This one gets an A-, damned good but I’d still prefer a decent beer.

4. Galician beer: Estrella Galicia replaces the hegemony of Mahou and Cruzcampo in the north. All three of these are complete garbage, so its hard to notice the difference. Ocassionally, Galician bars will have a portugese beer on tap, Superbock. For a medium light lager, Superblock absolutely crushes all Spanish beers that are not made in Barcelona. So Galician beer gets a C+, only on the merits of the occasional presence of the neighboring country’s beer.

5. Pimientos de padron: When I first came to Spain I had no hot sauce, and nothing more exciting in the roomie’s spice cabinet than paprika and black pepper. I went to the produce section of the grocery store, and asked if they had pimientos picantes. I was directed to a bag of pimientos de pardon. I was so pissed, they were about as hot as an icicle down the front of your pants. I showed them to my roommates, who were afraid of them because apparently most are not hot, but occasionally there is a wild ass one in the bunch which melts your face like a laser. Knowing the Spanish take on chilis I was skeptical to say the least, as some Spanish people think their patatas bravas are spicy (only once did I experience spicy patatas bravas and those were not in a restaurant). I have seen pimientos de padron as a tapa before in Madrid, one of the few truly vegetarian ones. But tapas aren’t usually free in Madrid, so I was reluctant to shell out 4-6 euros for a small dish of food that wouldn’t come close to satisfying my nutritional requirements, and despite everyone’s recommendations would not even be hot…at all. I mean no detectable capsaicin, like an Anaheim chili.

So with some trepidation I finally tried the things in Ferrol, just down the road form Padron which is the source. As I predicted, I never encountered a hot one. But John did and Becky did. Basically all these are are whole fruits, stem and all, fried and salted so that the outer skin is a bit singed. You eat it whole except for the stem and the former sepals, like you wound a pepperocini. I had no idea what I was missing because these are truly awesome, at least in Galicia. The flavor is somewhere in between fried okra and New Mexican green chili, without the potential slime problem of okra. We had them like four times, I want some now. A.

6. Galician breakfast: I keep harping on this, and I am aware that different cultures do different things, but the Spanish breakfast is wholely inadequate. It’s not that the foods are bad, there just isn’t enough calories or volume. The toasted bread with crushed tomato and oil of the south is largely replaced by croissants in the north, both of which I totally enjoy, but even if I was a 5 year old girl I would still be hungry. This is not a matter of culture, it just doesn’t make biological sense. Bodies need fuel BEFORE making demands of them, even if the demands are only a normal workday. This becomes especially poignant when you are cycle touring. Riding a bike all day you can rip through 4000-10,000 calories. If you burn more than you have in the tank you go into a caloric deficit and begin eating yourself. Once you go down this path (called “bonking” for the “bonk” sound you make when you fall down and can’t get up), it takes hours to recover even if you then have a giant meal. People undertaking endurance activities know that you eat before you feel hungry, because if you feel hungry you can expect your day of activity to end shortly. The problem in Spain is that if you ask someone if they have something else available to eat (meaning more substance) they look at you as if you can’t possibly be asking that. Of course, the kitchen isn’t open yet…why would the kitchen be open? D+ (the croissants are tasty with jam and butter at least, make sure and eat the butter you will need the calories).

7. amount of food. with the generous giving away of bread for lunch and dinner, and the generally larger size of the food, I wasn't walking away hungry from meals not called breakfast. So this was a big upgrade. B.

the backwards caministas

OBEY

these people are looking for the pirate ship from "The Goonies". Chunk is in the middle.

here is "the riddle of steel" pondering the riddle of where the hell is the campground. crom's beard!

We are back to the hellhole vampire city after two fabulous weeks of vacation. And the best part is that we still have two weeks of vacation in Italy coming up next month. The northwest is my new favorite part of Spain, although the cities are underwhelming (hard to beat Barcelona), the general attitude of people and the rural surroundings really take the cake.

I am sort of running a half-assed cycling blog here, with the hopes that it will one day be useful to touring cyclists. So far none have ever left a comment....but just in case they are out there I should go into a little advice about getting around with your bike on the train. This ain't Amsterdam, ace. Spain is lagging behind Europe in making its trains bike-compatible

Do to outlandish luck, and a successful hapless dumb foreigner act (we are good at this because we are in fact hapless dumb foreigners) we arrived in Santiago de Compostela from Madrid with our bikes, on an overnight sleeper train. I really made an effort to find out under which circumstances you can bring a bike, and under which you cannot. The information is not made available easily and when you get the information it is totally ambiguous. so its a crap shoot. Generally speaking you cannot bring a bike on a national train (meaning a long distance train usually with only a few stops). The exception seems to be if you have paid the high price for a family sleeper cabin. Even then you are limited to 4 bikes per cabin, though even as a bike enthusiast i have trouble seeing where the bikes would be stowed. They are supposed to be dismanteled, although really they only require removal of wheels and pedals, and supposed to be bagged but apparently wrapping in plastic is sufficient. We had bought tourist class beds which are 4 to a cabin, unisex and with strangers. So at the platform with 10 minutes to spare we had to rip the bikes and gear apart, squeeze through cavernous hallways to our separate cabins and appease our roomies about our bikes taking up the whole cabin. We had only 10 minutes to spare because despite arriving 45 minutes early, we had to wait for the platform number to come up onto the board only 15 minutes before departure. Then a horde of people who had actually arrived later than us beat us to the line to the escalator, then we got turned away from the escalator and told to use the very slow and busy elevator. I had it easier than becky, because her cabin was full of old women who brought such large bags that they could not lift them into the overhead storage and thus consumed the only logical place for a bike frame (on end, fork stuffed into the closet), So we actually put the bike frame precariously overhead. Most of the ladies were satisfied, but one kept bitching that it was dangerous. it was really her fault that there was no place else for the bike to go....but we were totally bending the rules to the breaking point, so we had to try and make everyone happy. My cabin had one guy, so i had time to help becky, and stow my stuff without creating a major ruckus although i felt like i was creating a major ruckus. However, even after finishing I was so stressed I couldn't sleep for hours.THIS IS THE WRONG WAY. HERE'S WHAT TO DO INSTEAD: If you want to travel on a nice efficient national train you must do so on one with sleeper cars like ours, these are called trenhotel. But shell out the bucks to buy the cama familial. Otherwise you need to string together multiple regional trains or media distancia trains which are much better able to accommodate bikes. When you search the RENFE (spanish national train company) website, many regional trains will not come up. So you have to be clever, and chop your trip into segments, and search based on these until some regional train options pop up. On our way home yesterday we took a regional train from Oviedo to Leon. This was exactly like the commuter trains in the cities. With a little bungee magic I was able to secure my bike vertically to some rails so that it did not block any exits and i could be free to take a comfortable seat and read. The stretch from Leon to Madrid was a regional express, which had an entire care empty in the back with d-rings for securing bikes and wheelchairs. We also saw a media-distancia train with a specila handicap/bicycle car. it took 9 hours mind you, but it was so much better than the stress from the trip to Galicia, and it only cost 35 euros each, and no bike disassembly.

Ok, heres what we did: We stayed a night in Santiago de Compostela. So heres the deal about this town. A long long time ago, someone found some bones in the future site of the cathedral. Due to some miracle revelation and the stamp of approval by some bishop, these bones were somehow pronounced the remains of St. James the apostle of Jesus, a man who was excuted in Jerusalem. How did he get to Galicia, well that link involves a holy unmanned boat, and the miraculous enclosing of the remains in stone. No flying spaghetti monster, however. Why noone questions the obvious truth...that someone elses bones were found...is a matter of religion. My god has meatballs and thousands of noodley tentacles. Why James? I don't know, there were 11 other apostles after all. I guess you've got to rule out Judas, and Peter was already taken in Rome, and Thomas was a doubter of Jesus's zombie skills, and John was kind of an asskisser. Whos left...Sneezy, Dopey, and oh yeah St. James. So anyway, since the pope bought all this it became truth, and for centuries religious pilgrims have poured to the cathedral site from all over Europe.There are numerous pilgrimage routes culminating on the cathedral. Anyways, its a nice city and a nice cathedral well worth visiting. It is third in importance only to Jerusalem and Rome for catholics, though I reckon most American catholics don't know much about this.

We rode out of there on a hilly inland route towards a Coruna. It was really confusing because 70% of the towns are so small they don't appear on the map, towns have multiple names (Spanish and Gallego, yep Galicia has its own language) and the road numbering system appeared to be different from our map. But we made it. The really small roads are nice for their lack of traffic, but if you tend to worry about where the hell you are I'd suggest sticking to the secondary highways. A Coruna really pissed us off because it turned out to be a a big city we could not escape. Our escape route spontaneosly turned into a full-bore freeway, and we decided to get the F out on the train to Ferrol. I will say that the beaches at A Coruna were very nice, otherwise we didn't give this place a second look.

The short train ride went around the bay through awesome little houses and farms. In Ferrol, we stayed with John, an affable former roomate of Becky's. He is some form of naval engineer who works at the ship yard, and gets a monthly stipend (in addition ot his salary) for living expenses. His stipend is 50% more than my salary. He gave us a bar tour of Ferrol and showed us a couple absolutely perfect and almost empty beaches. All of the Medditerranean is currently writhing with human flesh, but these far superior beaches are empty! Somehow, despite barely speaking Spanish, he knows how to get every barman to bring out a secret stash of liquor concoction for free. One guy had replicated Bailey's perfectly, and another guy had found a way to recreate the gummy coke bottle candies as a drink. I also managed to learn what a kite suit is and actually witness kite surfing, and get shitfaced which is one of John's specialties.

Aftre this break, we started our ride for real, taking the western coastal highway, then an overland route to the north coast. Up to this point we were having trouble finding places to camp. But as of the town of Viveiro the character of our tour changed a bit. Here is is possible to go on a beach bum bike tour. You can ride in the morning, early afternoon, and arrive to ste up camp with plenty of time to go to the beach and have a swim. The water is cold usually, but it only takes a few minutes to get used to. My favorite was in between Foz and Ribideo, where awesome waves were crashing into a tiny beautiful beach around sunset. Although I previously had an aversion to developed campgrounds, a hot shower is key in this circumstance. If you had warm weather you could repeat this cycle for at least a week...ride a bit, hang out at the beach, ride a bit, hang out at the beach. Shortly to the south was As Catedrais, which at low tide features all sorts of water sculpted arches, passage ways in the rocks. As with a lot of places that are cool, its popular, so you have to put up with hordes of humanity. But definitely worth a stop.

Shortly after Ribideo, we entered Asturias, and the first thing we saw was an Asturian bagpipe and drum band. This is also where we started following the northernmost pilgrimage route backwards. it was funny watching the look on pilgrim faces wondering who was going the wrong way, us or them? Luarca is a notable town along here, a it sits in a canyon with a small harbor with a light house. The view from the light house featured the distant green hills so typical of Asturias (and the labels of Asturian dairy products, this is happy cow country), a nice beach, and efficiently stacked town built on the canyon walls which reminded me of an old world Bisbee, except for the aforementioned oceanic business. We camped on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, unfortunately there was no super easy beach access that night, but it was awesome. Finally we made our way to Cudillero, a foggy harbor town, also incredibly steeply built on cliffs. Then we spent one night in Oviedo. We decided we wanted to finally go get shithoused at a sidreria on our last night in Asturias. We passed up an expensive looking one in the tourist district, and then literally the next 5 or so were closed. Considering that we were in the biggest town of Asturias which is famous for its cider throwing bars, this is absurd.... and I guess I already said how we got home. Luckily it won't be long before I get out of this city again.

random darts

1. Next teusday, we are off to galicia/asturias for 2 weeks of cycling. I will be really happy to be somewhat cool again and see some green somewhere in my field of vision. I love deserts, but when the summer rolls around I am really craving wet greenness.

In Spain EVERYBODY is on vacation for the month of August. You can't count on anything getting done, be it burrocrat papers, or simply keeping a shop open. Its a ghost town at our work. It the only time of the year in Madrid that it doesn't feel like someone is following you around all day pushing you because you are not moving fast enough. So, the city heat blows but you might think that some people would be stoked to hang around and enjoy a more relaxed madrid.

But heres the curious antropological fact: Instead of taking the opportunity to be rid of their fellow humanity, everybody does the same thing. They go to the beach all at the same time. I've seen it on the news, it looks like every beach on the meditteranean is hosting Woodstock. Except theres no concert to watch, its just the beach. That is a strange contrast, Americans tend to want their space but Spanish people love to be surrounded by hoardes. You couldn't pay me to go to one of those beaches right now. I like going to the beach, having a swim, reading a book in the sand, throwing sticks to dogs, whatever....but what do you do for a month at the beach. I don't understand, at all. Isn't that exceptionally boring?

2. I was thinking of Roll this morning. Haven't seen the guy in over 10 years. I think he's a hot shit tattoo artist in portland now.
"You dont learn from books, college boy, you learn with your fists!"

3. When I was a kid we went to church every sunday at the church that was associated with my catholic school. It was boring. So boring that I read the bible to pass the time. Granted it was an illustrated bible for kids, but it was big and I read the damned thing front to back. I tended to like the monsignor (this is above a normal priest, below a bishop), I don't know why, I barely ever listened to what he said because I was so enthralled by Leviticus. I puzzled quite a bit over the organ. There was a person near the alter on the ground floor, sitting at and playing the organ. The wierd thing is there was a large almost bedroom sized wooden box with pipes coming out at the ceiling. I was told these were the organ pipes. I couldn't get my head around how pushing the keys on the organ caused air to come out of the pipes, thus making the sound. The best I could come up with is that there was a team of people inside the wooden box at the ceiling. They would have to be kneeling because the ceiling would be low in there. Clearly, when one pressed the keys on an organ it would send a signal to the person manning the corresponding pipe, and they would give it a lungful. I figured the signal would be something like a stoplight.

Later my fascination with the box of pipes morphed a bit. I would fantasize about how I could get into it, or at least up there. I could swing on a rope form the giant crucified jesus, to the angel sculpture midway up. Then with a few deft moves i could just grab a curve of one of those pipes which might allow me enough leverage to get up there.

One day, I started to visualize something that the monsignor said. He said the church was God's house and Jesus's house. I'm sure I understood this figuratively, but I had a daydreaming problem. Sometimes still to this day, what is in my head is just more intriguing than the actual world and i get lost for a little while. So I thought about where in the church Jesus lived. The priests always emerged from behind the alter, and I always wanted to go back there and see what was there. I think this is part of their theatre that grabs you imagination when you're a kid, and perhaps keeps you somewhat in their thrall in adulthood. I figured they lived back there, but i guess people probably don't live in the back of churches. Anyway, it didn't seem like Jesus just lived with the priests, what would he be doing back there when they came out for mass? Just having a cup of joe and reading the newspaper? It had to be somewhere else, and the only possible explanantion was that the organ pipe box, was Jesus's bungalow apartment in the church. Another thing the monsignor said was that the church was a house of love. This of course, would influence the decor of the Jesus apartment. I imagined all white walls, except for a big red valentine-esque heart shape painted on one wall.

France pants

What the shit is this? Gondola jousting thats what. So things have settled down enough that we don't have to think about our recent roomate suicide so much, and i can write a little about our trip to france 2 weeks ago. The family came by and picked up the rest of his stuff, and told ana that he had been depressed since he was eight years old. He had never lived away from home, which is common in Spain where a ton of people stay with their family until they are about 30. Him getting his own place was the psychiatrists idea to help him fell better. But thats enough of that, we went to southern France to visit Chris and Bre, and Miles the dog.



They are doing well and have alot of the same problems we do in Spain (except one: chris makes more money than me and becky combined, oh the humanity). Also they are enjoying the opportunity to travel as much as possible. But it was good to just speak to people effortlessly in our own first language without thinking alot. Plus who the fuck can understand French, the pronunciation of Montpellier was something like Mo-Pe-Yay. Overrall i found France pretty pleasant and green. And I did not personally witness any of the famous rudeness. Just like I didn't find germans to be cold, robotic, and controlling. At first the atmosphere was reminiscent of a hot bowl of soup when we landed in Lyon. But the humidity toned down a bit for the next few days in Montepellier and although warm enough it was at least cooler than Madrid.

Most of the pics are form Saint Giulhem le Desert, aka St. Bill. This turned out to be a great little medieval town in the mountains. The biggest difference between this and several medieval Spanish towns we've been to is that this one had loads of flowers and other greenery incorporated into its twisty alleyways. I don't recall Saint Bill having that urine smell of old cities. It was also overlooked by a ruined fortress. We ended the day with an awesome swimming hole in the river, of the EXACT perfect coolness that you desire at the end of a hot day, and a BBQ at one of C&B's friend's houses. I was incredibly jealous of his garden, I can't tell you how much I miss having a garden. Ok, i'll tell you.....alot.

The following day we had the stellar idea of going to the beach. The wind just was not on the same game plan and kept pelting us with stinging sand until we finally gave up and left. Eventually we made our way back to a sheltered cove with an entourage of Canadian and French people, friends and friends of friends of chris and bre. The thing that sticks in my mind from this outing was a conversation about words that people hate. Becky really hates the word "panties". I just thought it was the word for female underwear. But this other guy also hated "panties", in fact this word was almost as cringeworthy as "lover" to him. Personally I really hate "precious", and "darling", but I kept this information to myself, lest we start down a slippery slope of erasing half of the English language. It occurs to me that all four of these words could be used in a single sentence that would have offended all of us. What words really bother you?

Oh, lest I forget...the beach town Sete has canals. And In the canals, gondola jousting. This was not quite as cool as a demolition derby with cold PBR in hand (because they don't have PBR and nothign ever catches fire or explodes), but I wished we had a couple idle hours to watch. They even have shaded bleachers. Next time. Sand fell out of my pockets for days afterward.

My new roomate jumped out of the 7th floor window

Oh hi, how was your Saturday morning...well let me tell you about ours. Wednesday, after months we finally got a new guy moved in here. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but we were a little annoyed that our roommate hadn't really spoken to us about him before telling him he could move in. She left us a note Teusday night, saying she found someone and he was coming the next morning. Sure enough he was already moving in the next morning. He brought a new TV and parked in front of it most of the day. He chatted with us while we ate dinner and he was watching soccer. The usual stuff...why are you eating so early (8:00pm), do you like futbol? I didn't see him at all thursday, and fugured he went on a trip or was hanging out with his family who live pretty close. Thursday night i got up to piss in the middle of the night, and i thought i saw him sitting in the dark in the living room. But i didn't have on my glasses, it was dark, i was half asleep, and if a person is really sitting in the dark alone they want to be left alone probably. Again friday I didn't see him despite that I worked at home all day. This morning, saturday i got up and made coffee, and Becky slept a little more. We heard him get up and leave and return from the grocery store while i was drinking the coffee. A little later Becky got up to pee, and then told me she saw him standing in his underwear in his room, apparently changing, but didn't say anything because she didn't want to embarrass him. We were feeling lazy so we started watching "Lost" on my computer. Then the doorbell and the buzzer rang a million times so we went out to the door. There was 2 cops asking if there was an older person who lived with us. They were asking the next door neighbors too, so it seemed like they were unclear about where they were looking for this person. Cops just kept coming very 5 minutes, and wanting to come in our house look at the layout, were asking about window orientation and stuff like that. Since they were asking about an old person, and becky thought she heard something about a cardiac arrest...I thought perhaps there was a person who had a heart attack in an apartment. Maybe they managed to call for help, but were locked inside, and the cops were looking for a way to get in. But it appeared that the victim was down in the parking lot from our balcony. We even joked with our next door neighboors about how confused the cops seemed to be. Finally the cops came back and they wanted to go in the new roomates bedroom. We knocked to no answer, and it was locked. The cops broke in and nobody was inside and the window was open. At this moment, I asked the cop: Is the person down there young or old? -he was young. So I asked if he had dark hair-he did. i asked if he was taller than me-he was. At almost this exact moment, our old roomate Raul called on the phone. He told becky that our roomate had jumped from the window. The cops had gotten Raul's number because his girlfriend's folks live in our building. So Raul across town knew what happened before we did. So long story not so short- or new roomate of 3 days killed himself this morning after going to the store for orange juice. He is essentially a complete stranger, but this happened while we were in the next room watching TV and just waking up. Ana, our other current roomate called on the phone from work. She said he had been acting wierd and he had told her he hadn't been around because he had to go to the hospital. But I guess he said nothing else about that. Very 10 minutes there was a new group of inbestigators going to do whatever in the room. We basically begged the cops to let us leave after a few hours so we could think of something else. I'm realy glad the door was locked, otherwise we could have been murder suspects. The cops were pretty civil though, although quite confused and confusing. We ended up going to a bar. We left a key for the family. They have already picked up most of his things. I can't believe this day.