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.

Riding the midget bike in the rain

Some folks at work put together a plan for a group overnight bike ride in Parque Alto Tajo in Guadalahara. It really reminded me of Walnut Canyon in Arizona. Its the coldest and least densely populated part of Spain, or so they said. We were on a field trip in Jaen when we got the invite, so we didn't hear about it until we returned, so there was very little time to get ready. What was there to prepare? 1) we don't have mountain bikes and this was an off-road tour, 2) for some reason i brought my newer nicer tent for one person to spain instead of the older danker one for two, 3) i have a set of panniers but becky has none. So at the last minute all this crap was rounded up and we were off just in the nick of time. I had borrowed Andrea's bike for Becky, and was hoping to find some time to work it over. It had both brakes rubbing and needed a tune up. One guy showed up, a friend of some of the guys on the trip, who just seemed so familiar. i realized he looked kind of 50% Jimmy Stewart, and 50% Sean Penn. Then I realized, no, its Cmaeron form Ferris Bueller. When we got to the trail head, I found that "my" bike, borrowed from Luis's girlfriend was actually smaller than Andrea's. I remembered this person as a tall slender woman, so i thought the bike would only be a little small. I had to ride Andea's with the seat post dangerously maxed out, my lungs compressed from hunching over, and my heels hitting the panniers. To top it off, despite that it had already been hot as balls there was cold rainy weather coming in. Its funny, few people want to ride with me because they think i like rides that are way too long, but under this set up I was the one sucking wind, weak and timid. Becky reconfirned that she totally hates mountain biking right out of the gate. The guy who "knew" the route sent us on a ridiculous side trip and took a wrong turn at the most straightforward intersection in the whole route. This delayed us long enough to keep us out as the rain started coming pretty hard. The gloves I bought Becky weeks ago were too small, consequently she had no gloves, and her hands got really cold. So I gave her mine, and guess what...my hands got really cold. Luckily there was a shelter where we could sleep inside with a fire, so i never used the tent we borrowed (apparently made of bricks and lead). I have gotten cold while camping out in wet weather before and I know if I hunker down in my sleeping bag I'll eventually get warm again. But I was really glad we could have a fire indoors. The problem was it was like the snoring olympics that night, so there wasn't much sleep to be had. Every man on the trip was sawing logs. And then theres eating. Do you gas up the car before or after the trip? Before, right? Bodies are like cars, you put in fuel and it goes. That shit doesn't fly in this country. Food can be summarized as "too little, too late". And everything always has to be a big fucking group activity, so you can't just say "sorry we're wierd foreigners and we eat early. we're just going to eat something quickly right now." Instead EVERYONE other than us has to begrudgingly eat earlier than they wanted to. They don't make you feel like a dick about it or anything, I just don't get why everyone always does everyhting at the same time here.

Sorry about the bitchfest. All in all this was a beautiful place, and the people were nice...but I'm never doing this shit last minute again and I'm never going to borrow someone elses bike for more than 10 minutes. Either I am prepared or I don't go. Next time I'm outfitting my surly with nobby tires.

post backlog #2

If you look in Google Earth, Almeria is surrounded by mysterious seas of white rectangles. These are structures built of white shade cloth for pseudo-indoor crops. I guess the white protects them from the sun. They look kind of like something to keep E.T. in quarantine. Becky thought they looked like refugee camps. Adding to the wierdness is that the countryside is full of ruins abandoned during the 20th century when people just picked up and went to the cities. Often you can't even see the ruin from a distance, but you can see the amazing growth of cacti that were apparently planted as ornamentals long ago. Most hillslopes are terraced, another vestige of recently abandoned agriculture.

A local researcher showed us around his various study sites. We were closing to turning cannibal when our hosts finally decided it was about lunch time at 4:00. This followed a hearty breakfast of toast with tomato and olive oil seven and a half hours earlier. After all that all i got was gaszpacho, and some pisto with a gross egg i didn't eat for lunch. So this long awaited meal amounted to tomatoes more or less. Later, i lobbied for pizza for dinner, and the spaniards thought two app. 12-inch pizzas was sufficient food for 4 people and figured i just didnlt know what i was asking for when I ordered two larges. Spanish people eat like children. The Mediterranean diet is just a clever way of saying starving. I wonder if its like this in Greece, Italy, or other Mediterranean nations. We insisted we were getting more food and if there was extra, well, we could eat it the next day. We ate it all, no problem. I know porky americans are in a poor position to tell other people about nutrition....but shit, these people eat nothing. Over here they don't eat the pizza directly with their hands. They put each slice on a little cardboard triangle. i don't know if they are afraid of getting their hands dirty, or the pizza dirty. i think its related to the fact that they use throwaway plastic gloves for selecting produce, and for pumping gas.

I was happy to get to see the Tabernas badlands, which I've been reading about in geeky science papers for years. This is also one of the main sites for western movies of the 60's. I hate westerns, but I like to see the sets. I used to work near similar sets near Kanab, Utah, like the Bonanza ranch for example. Many of the so-called spaghetti westerns were not shot in Italy but in Spain (Paella westerns). There is actually a place there called "Texas Hollywood", which seems to be some sort of movie set/ tourist trap. It has a typical old west main street with the saloon, etc., in addition to a Mexican pueblo, in addition to various arabesque structures. I think the nonsensical name "Texas hollywood" is indicative of something: if you asked a typical small town Almerian to tell you what they know about the United states, Texas and Hollywood are certain to be mentioned right after New York. When I move back to the states I'm going to open up a place called Paris Alps Rome, it will have all kinds of Europy shit like cathedrals and escargot. One of the study sites was a set from the young Indiana Jones television show. Literally, there's all this erosion and runoff monitoring equipment right next to a deteriorating and fake (styrofoam) mine entrance that was made for the show. I think the last crusade has some shots from here as well, maybe the high speed tank chase part with those zany Nazis up to their typical shenannigans.


When we got back to Madrid some friends invited us to an anarchist squat bar. I was skeptical, most "anarchist squats" in the states are junkie hives. This one was a derelict building that has been taken over as a community center where noone actually lives. They have a community garden (apparently on the roof), FREE spanish classes and legal assistance for immigrants (the poor kind not the united statesians, woe is me), a bike workshop, and various art projects and workshops. Again in the states, for this to work there would have to be strict no drug, no booze rules, but this place has a bar. And its cheap, and they have reggae shows there. They sell beer in "minis" which despite the diminutive name are the largest beers you can find (0.75 L, i mean this is approaching Bavaria proportions) for 3 euros. Of course one would be shared among like 5 spanish people passing it around spreading herpes and swine flu, but I like having my own big boy beer in hand and i'll just catch my own diseases thanks (in recent months i have been totally ravaged by almost every cold to come down the pike, so i'm a bit sensitive on this spit and disease sharing issue). I wish I had the insider information to know about places like this a year ago.

may is over, post backlog #1

A couple of becky's random shots from el Escorial. the monastery-palace of felipe 2 (one of those inbred Hapsburgs form Austria with their f-ed up noses and hairlips), and the dehesa landscape of the nearby mountains. It's worth going to Escorial only for calzones.


Still wonder why i don't like Spanish food?? Well, let me serve you up some tripe and eggs. This was from the Fiesta de San Isidrio, the patron saint of madrid. People put on their special costumes and go over to the park for drinking and traditional foods, such as tripe. Have you ever cleaned your stove with a sponge soon after cooking, and the sponge touches hot metal and emits really rank steam probably containing botulinum at the least or maybe ebola. That is what tripe smells like. The cuchinillo (roasted suckling pig) is not nearly as disgusting, but it really reminds me of dissecting a fetal pig for 3 weeks in a biology lab. We met an ecuadorian friend and a colombian firend over there at the festival, in addition to a spanish guy and had a fine old drunk in the sun sort of day. Its really funny when we can't totally speak spanish (we are getting better though) and they can't totally speak english, the conversation has a way of drifting in and out of the two languages, and sometimes just combines them in the same phrase. This is why some clever sod coined the term "Spanglish". Despite that this city of millions sponsored a festival in one park, apparently nobody thought it might be a good idea to provide a toilet anywhere. The gutters ranneth with urine.


Now playing at the palacio de cristal...rat and bear. This is bear. This is art.

La Criticona

Last weekend we went on a bike ride around Madrid with about 2500 friends. La Criticona was a special annual mass ride where people from everywhere were invited to Madrid to participate. This is somewhat nonsensical because they didn't bike from Rome, for example, just to come to this ride...but whatever. Why get all hung up on being a purist, the result was thousands of riders absolutely taking over Madrid. Teresa was up from Granada so she went along. Despite having lots of friends form work who regularly go to the monthly ride, I've never gone because: a) i never remember, b) I have mixed feelings about critical mass. On b, the cruel irony is that I have been personally responsible for about 30 rides in two cities, and have personally contributed to some of my own grievances. I have seen that being in a mass ride is exhilarating, and inspires regular people who don't ride their bikes much to ride more because they suddenly realize they are part of something. And its just fun, especially when people bring a sense of theatre and humor. If you haven't been to one, the idea is this: cyclists meet at a known time and place, and proceed to ride slowly in a group, usually in a meandering path. Most places, the mass must stay together or its defeated, so if a red light occurs which would split the mass, the riders just keep going with the aid of corkers who just sort of park their bikes in front of the cross traffic. Theres themed rides, costumed rides, and naked rides. I think they are coolest for everyone involved when they feel like a circus-parade hybrid. Although it is sort of a vague protest (of global warming, isolating car culture, construction of cities for cars instead of people, lack of bike safety, lack of bike infrastructure, marginalization of cyclists, etc.), I think it fails the most when it becomes more of a protest and less of a celebration. This leads to anger and confrontations. This is not really a venue for changing any of the above grievances, theres no follow up city council meeting and the mayor is not standing there thinking "we're gonna have to add more bike lanes". If the mayor were there he would more likely be thinking "riot squad?". Also, while the very heart of the whole thing is doing for a couple of hours one day a month, what cars can do 24 hours a day every other day, when it starts leading to feelings of revenge upon the world rather than elation at all the other cyclists and all the smiles on their faces, it can go to bad places. I have a citation for "obstructing a public thoroughfare", technically an arrest for a criminal offence (no shit), to prove it from a ride that wanted to be an Iraq war protest (of course we were 174% right, but in the political climate at that moment this was a touchy subject to say the least). Once you realize you are not changing the world with your ride, you can be free to enjoy yourself, which in turn leads to enjoyment in those around you, even many of those stuck in cars that cannot go anywhere. Usually when you are stuck in traffic there's not a juggler standing and performing on your front bumper...that's more fun than getting home on time.



Anyways, this was near the ideal. It was the biggest mass I've ever been to, and a tie for most theatrical. There were so many of us that were literally could not move for minutes at a time.

The highlights:
1) We started near the Plaza Cibeles about a km N of Atocha train station. The first indication that we were an outlandinshly large group was that, travelling in the direction of Atocha, we looked to our left and saw the front of the mass travelling in the opposite direction. They had made a U-turn at the roundabout by Atocha. At that point, we were at least half a km from the trains station...if you get out a pencil and some paper and your graphing calculator to do the difficult math.... that means the mass was a km long on a road with 4 lanes in both directions! But, what speed were they travelling, and did they reach Cleveland faster that the train from Philadelphia with an average speed of 100 km per hour?

1a) The ride was so big and slow, we could have stopped at a terrace, had a coffee, and rejoined the ride.

2) Early on, a bus became trapped in the mass. I thought when we passed he was going to be a swadling bundle of road rage. Actually he was cheering and taking pictures of the never ending stream of cyclists swarming around him. And why not he was getting paid, and you don't this somehting like this any old day.

3) In Moncloa, the mass encountered another mass. Apparently we had split into multiple monstrous groups, and then recollided.

4) The entirety of one direction of Gran Via, the Spanish Broadway Boulevard, full of bikes as far ahead of us as we could see.

5) The mass observing pedestrian crosswalks, but not allowing automobile cross traffic to penetrate. The pedestrians were applauded.

6) Would-be penetrators stranded in the middle of a sea of bikes with people camping out on their hoods. A few pissed off (like cabbies, the diplomats of the automobile world), but some just laughing at the futility of their attempt.


7) We took the tunnel under Plaza de Espana. Normally this would be like riding into a meat grinder, but we made it our bitch.

8) The ride ended at the plaza in front of the palace. New riders just kept rolling in. Someone with a big stereo had started playing techno and 80s dance music. A dance party was slowly beginning. We ended up going somewhere else, but I'm curious how this all went down, looked like the makings of a good party.

9) Skeletor got our backs.


The low point: There's only one. At one point the mass was split by cross traffic in the tunnel. A few riders started a surge to encroach, stop the traffic, and rejoin the mass. One guy in a car may have nearly hit someone, and was enraged. There was a cop at his wit's end, trying to calm the guy down and tell him to wait. Not helpfully, some riders were taunting the guy as the rode past. During all of this there was a little girl in the back seat, terrified by the near accident, her dads anger, the presence of a cop, and the crazy cyclists hurling insults at her dad.

All told, a great day with one shitty moment and about 3 hours of good moments. The regular ride is at 8:00pm, last thursday of every month, Plaza Cibeles.
http://bicicritica.ourproject.org/web/node/265
I'm not sure what city has next year's criticona. First in Rome 2008 (5000 riders), then Madrid 2009 (2500 riders), 2010????? Here's the link
http://lacriticona.ourproject.org/index.en.php

pass the pork

I'm not afraid of swine flu or terrorists or socialism, I'm afraid of cars. Chances are pretty solid that mostly everyone reading this will succumb to a death linked either to cars or cheeseburgers, not pig diseases. Why are we freaking out that a couple hundred people died of the flu? Get a grip. With socialized medicine you could just go to the doctor for treatment. The people that died waited to long, or more likely couldn't afford it. It's wierd what people do and don't fear. Social medicine is not Stalin, and swine flu is not the chevy bearing down on your ass right now (don't look!). If people start turning into zombies, go ahead and be afraid. i've seen enough movies to know that shit goes downhill from there.

I haven't felt like writing at all recently as you may have noticed. I bought becky a bike so we've been taking a few modest adventures, nothing outlandish. We're talking about a possible august bike tour in scotland. I'm feeling a need to do some longer rides soon. I've recently learned about randonneuring, and although I'd heard of it I just thought it was some kind of bike race so dismissed it. I don't care about racing, i'm not fast and I'm old. But randonneuring is different...theres no winners just finishers. The goal is to ride, self supported (carrying tools, food, clothes, water, etc.), a certain distance in a limited time, depending on the event. If you complete an entry level one, you can enter the next highest level. the entry level is 200 km in 13 hours, and they range, i think, up to 1400 km in I don't know how many hours. So it's touring, but balls-out, no time to sleep or stop riding touring. So anyways, I'm inspired, And I want to try somehting like this but I'm in fairly poor shape right now heading into the summer when all riding must cease.

We've also gone over a couple times to escorial, just an hour west of Madrid to check out the town and/or hike. It's a cool small town with a palace/monastery, but most importnantly it's in the mountains in one of the few human-managed landscapes where the management actually increases biodiversity.

We almost went to Galicia for the upcoming holiday, but got smacked by the high last minute cost and the heinous 8-hour train trip. So we're hanging around Madrid while a friend visits from granada. Galicia will have to wait until june as I've got two work trips in May to the south (read: hot as balls), conveniently scheduled over weekends. So to make up for my lack of posts heres some random pics that becky took with her sexy camera.