Malaga

This is just what the doctor ordered after 3 bus trips from Barcelona to Valencia, to Granada, then here to Malaga: warm Mediterranean air, good food, and best of all, a big super-clean room on the Alameda Principal with a view of the castle. And it's got TWO power points (I never thought I'd so excited over electricity), a spotless wash basin, towels... OK, it sounds totally mundane but after a long walk from the bus station these things suddenly become very important. The cold went full-blown, not seriously but enough to annoy (coughing and sneezing), by the time I reached Granada yesterday morning. Valencia was excellent, but it took a lot out of me (a couple of encounters with surly and unhelpful folk, which I would've been more inclined to ignore if I'd not been feeling a bit crappy).

I was glad things felt easier in Granada, and thankfully I was feeling energetic enough to get through the Alhambra, because that place is like a mirage, complete with fountain oases. When I finished there I beat the midday heat and savoured my first meal of the day at a sidewalk eatery before I wrote yesterday's post. I had my second great seafood paella (inland, ironically), with some vanilla bistado (milkshake), which was my second choice after finding out they hadn't started making their horchata yet. I've grown quite addicted to this horchata stuff... I think it's made from coconut husks or something like that. [Edit: it's made from tiger nuts. Isn't that illegal? :)] Nevermind, it's great, try it if you get a chance. The food is great in Spain, so much variety, and cheap, too. For example, the meal I had the sidewalk eatery at Plaza Neuva was 7.50 euros, for salad, paella, dessert and coffee! Excellent value, really. Normally it's dessert or coffee, but I think the guy was being nice to me, because he also gave me creme caramel custard, which arrives cold in this upside down cup and sat on this steaming hot plate. I couldn't quite figure out what to do with it, because I saw this silver tab on top. I pulled it, and luckily didn't pull it too far since the air let the custard drop on the edge of the plate and I managed to catch it...

That wasn't quite as embarrassing as the paella in Valencia. To make a long story short, I ordered the paella marisca even though what I really wanted was the paella Valenciana, which had two words I knew: pollo (chicken) and conejo (rabbit). The word marisca sounded familiar, but I couldn't remember what it was, and it wasn't in the food glossary section of the Lonely Planet guidebook. But, being an intrepid sort, thought I would be fine with whatever came.

Well, what arrived on my plate was the two BIGGEST prawns I'd ever seen in my life. At least I think they were prawns. I've seen prawns before, after all, I live in Vancouver and I've seen them writhing around in the boats in Richmond. Thanks to Eliza and her love of seafood, I've learned to enjoy it, since I didn't grow up with it and didn't even try any until I was 18. I've drawn the line at taking live prawns and dunking them in the hotpot, but I'll eat them once they've been cooked. And these prawns in Valencia were cooked, I know. But, they sort of didn't look like the sort of prawns I'd seen before... they looked more... COMPLICATED. They were like some kind of hybrid prawn-lobster, with big beady eyes staring up at me. They had pincers, for goodness sakes, and these enormous feet. I swear, I had this fleeting thought of leaving them on the plate and just eating the rice, but they formed such a large part of the dish that it would've been totally ridiculous to just leave them like that, akin to ordering a fondue and just eating the bread.

What a quandary. I looked around for the waiter, to see if he did this as some kind of joke. At least it would have proved to me that he had some sense of humour. (Well, I knew he had one, since I saw him joking around and smiling with some Spanish patrons. I think he just didn't like me, for whatever reason.) I stared at my plate for a little while, wondering what to do. I mean, these two prawns were so huge that end to end, they formed a complete circle around my plate. What on earth is in the water around Valencia???? I swallowed hard and steeled myself against any sort of weak constitution that might invite nausea at the thought of prying apart these freakish creatures of the sea. I ignored the snapping sound of the monster head coming off the rest of the body, then took my fork to try to get past the crustacean and inside to... ??? Well, it tasted like a prawn, anyway. By the time I finished, there was this veritable pile of exoskeletal remains, and of course let's not forget those beady eyes. I couldn't look at them any more, so I took the lemon rind and crusts of the bread roll and piled them on top, like a burial mound.

Why isn't the word marisca in the Lonely Planet guidebook?? Should I have taken this as some sort of clue??

I tipped the waiter in Granada. I've only eaten at maybe three or four restaurants the entire week I've been here, the rest of the time I'm just grabbing a bocadillo or something handy to eat on public transport, and I'd say this guy was the first one who deserved a tip -- he actually stopped by to see if I wanted anything. I know you're supposed to be aggressive when it comes to getting served in Spain, but I swear if you don't jump up and down to get somebody's attention, it could be literally hours before someone notices you. I hypothesized that because I was alone, maybe they thought the other person wasn't there yet, or in the servicios or whatever. I never know what's behind the stares. I've been travelling for years, and I can only ever just guess why people are thinking when they stare, short of actually going up to them to ask.

Spain is a very social country. People are socializing practically every hour of the waking day, so seeing someone eat on her own must be very, very strange. Maybe they think I'm a social leper.

I've had some interesting conversations, though, don't get me wrong. Like this guy I bought jewellery from in this narrow alley full of hawkers in Granada after my big siesta-time meal. Like others in Spain, when he found out I was from Canada, he gave a hearty shiver -- Canada! FRIOS! Every time this happens, I shake my head and say, Vancouver, no frios, to which they display some gesture of doubt. With this guy, I tried to tell him that Vancouver is beside the Pacific Ocean, but I saw him wrap the jewellry in the slowest motion ever (the faster he spoke, the slower he wrapped), while babbling on about clearcutting and water, so I gave up. Whatever I'd said would never be remembered once whatever he was on wore off. (Whew, was that English?)

The bus ride from Granada to Malaga was gorgeous. I kept staring at the Sierra Nevada mountains slowly disappearing in the burning red of the sunset, and trying to snap photos with the available light, while the busload of Spanish people listened intently to what must've been some important football match. I kept hearing::

"GO-GO-GO-GO-GO-GO-GO-GOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!"

and the guy beside me kept slapping his hand on his forehead.

RETURNING TO MALAGA:

I'm ready to head out again, so I'll just be expedient and cut-and-paste an e-mail I wrote to a friend in Denmark today, with some modifications:

...I've been in Spain a week, and I still can't quite figure out the siesta times, it seems to vary from place to place. Or maybe even more arbitrary than that -- the proprietors just close whenever they feel like it! It's fine for visitors like me, but it's a wonder anything ever gets done.

I was in a beautiful cathedral this afternoon, and was thinking of how much money was invested into such a building. From the time and money of its initial design, maintenance, additions, renovations, restorations, etc., if you can imagine from the perspective of a poor person begging in front of it, how vulgar it must seem for the church to pour its economic resources into a structure, all in the name of glorifying God, rather than putting more money into the community. Sure, the church has all sorts of patron saints dedicated to helping the poor, but there's something quite twisted in a building that represents enormous capital investment beside buildings that are dilapidated...

That doesn't sum up my feelings about the beautiful churches and monuments and other places of interest. It's just a thought. But it's something I couldn't help thinking when I listened to the audioguide narrative that mentioned the two massive pipe organs on either side of the ornate two-tier choir lofts made of tropical hardwoods, organs that contained nearly 4,500 pipes each. Does God look down on this with approval? Do the clerics and religious architects ever stop and ask themselves if this is what God really wants? Massive edifices of untold hours of labour and enough money to float a country? I keep thinking of colonialism and all that the (collective) church has done to strip indigenous people of their culture in the name of missionary work, and also fill the cathedrals with imported materials such as the tropical hardwood. As much as I appreciate the beauty of the artwork and the design and care that goes into creating such buildings, I also can't help but think of what must've been sacrificed to achieve them. Am I the only one who thinks this way??