Vacation Notes: Spain
Sep. 24th, 2013 04:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pen_gruntIt’s been a week and it already feels like vacation was forever-ago. That was something we did in the distant past! Adjusting to the time change going overseas was a breeze; you’re so in do-different-things mode that the hours you sleep seem largely irrelevant. Coming back, however… I still haven’t stopped waking up at 2-3 a.m. thinking that it’s time to get up for the day.
So this is going to be a big, long update. Originally I was going to do it in one post but then…my god that’s a lot of text. So first is Spain. TLDR summary? Vacation was awesome and there were lots of cool things and it was also tiring. Spain and England are both culturally different than the US, but in much more subtle ways than, say, Morocco.
SPAIN:
First we went to Spain. We took an evening flight, landed in Amsterdam at 10 a.m. and then went on to Barcelona. We got into Barcelona at about 2p.m.
Day 1 Barcelona:
We get in at 2. We take the bus from the airport to a main intersection and try to find our hotel. We end up taking the very-long-way around instead of the very-short-way (that we find later…and this ends up being a common theme in our trip as a whole). We are staying in Bari Gothic—which is the oldest part of town. We check in, we nap and shower, we walk around the city, we kill time until the restaurants begin to open.
Most restaurants in Spain don’t open for dinner until 8:30-9:00 p.m. Because Spain. It’s very common for things to be closed from 2-7 or so, and naps are had. Siestas; they are so Spanish.
We had dinner and then walked around some more. It was getting late, but we were still up-up, so we decided to play cribbage on Las Ramblas (the main pedestrian walkway that has lots of shops open in the day).
There were people selling cans of beer for a Euro a piece that kept harassing us in varying degrees. Mostly friendly, so we didn’t think much of it. Later we learn that they are pretty much just scoping us out and figuring out where our wallets are. We learn this because, when we get up to leave, one of the guys—in saying goodbye after chatting us up—grabs Derrick’s belt. We are all rather surprised and don’t know how to react. It’s just one of those social situations where you freeze because you’re not sure WTF the person is doing and why.
Of course, you know what’s next. We find that D’s wallet is missing. Because tag-team pickpockets—the guy behind D reached in his front pocket and nabbed the wallet. The culprit(s) are long gone. We call and cancel D’s bank card. They can’t do much with his driver’s license, but it’s a pain. He has no credit cards. Luckily *I* had been the one that had taken out cash, so D only had about 50 Euros in his wallet. Not a cripplingly expensive lesson, but a lesson nonetheless.
I spend the rest of the trip being his pretend sugar-mama and doling out cash for him when he needs it.
Day 2 Barcelona:
Beach day!
We wake up and walk over to one of the largest open-air markets in the world. There, we procure fresh (fresh!)-fruit smoothies (they have them in all kinds of wonderful and weird combos…like dragonfruit-coconut and passionfruit-kiwi), fruit boxes (again with a huge variety of fruit), and fresh figs. This is where people actually go to do their shopping, so there’s a lot of other stuff too—all super fresh—like sheep’s heads and offal and fish for the day (lots of squid and octopus and such).
We grab coffee on the way and walk to the beach. Interesting thing? You can’t really get brewed coffee anywhere overseas. The closest thing is Americano—which is a shot of espresso with water added.
We play cribbage on the beach. We go swimming in the ocean. The beach is packed (it’s Saturday) and, like any good European nation, boobs are out. It’s nice, because you don’t have to worry about finding a changing room. Just strip down and re-dress right there on the beach! Voila! Women are about 50-50 on the topless sunbathing. It’s not uncommon but it’s not like people are just walking around with their boobs out when not trying to tan. The best thing is that it’s just no big deal. (We had the same experience in Lithuania and even Mexico… it’s just very refreshing compared to all the shrieking and wailing and gnashing of teeth that a stray boob here and there incites in the US.)
We meander on the way back to the hotel. The cool thing about Barcelona (and all of Spain, really) is that you can turn down almost any street and find something impressive—whether it’s an ancient church or roman burial tombs (!) or just some nifty architecture or a cool shop.
We picked up gelato on the way back because gelato is everywhere—and delicious.
We shower and nap and have dinner in a tapas place. At first I was all…8-10 Euros for a glass of wine?! That’s kind of expensive, but I guess… And then you realize that selling wine by the glass is NOT very common there. 10 Euros is for the whole bottle. Wine is much cheaper over there than it is here. I have a very successful ordering experience…or so I thought. Because the first waiter was having fun and understanding me well and I was understanding him well (he was making jokes about how my companions didn’t speak Spanish…in Spanish) but the second waiter, um, thought I was French. Somehow. And gave me a French menu. I guess my Spanish is notsogood.
Day 3 Barcelona/Valencia:
We spend the morning in Barcelona, leisurely wandering and having breakfast. It’s Sunday and Spain is capital-C-Catholic, so lots of things are closed. We take a quick trip on the Metro to visit La Sagrada Familia. Which is supposed to be a big touristy thing that you MUST GO SEE. What is it really? Like the ugliest church in the world. Seriously, it looks like a hive constructed of insect spit. They’ve been working on it constantly for hundreds of years—making it uglier and uglier as far as I can tell.
We walk to the train station and get on our fancy train to Valencia. It’s not the super-fast train, but it’s fast. It’s clean and relaxing, and we get to see a lot of the Spanish coast (which looks beautiful).
We get to Valencia, check into our hostel and get ready for the evening activity…which is a futbol (soccer) game. At Mestalla stadium. Barcelona vs. Valencia.
Now, we’re only familiar with American stadium customs, so a lot of our assumptions were false and also proved to be to our detriment. We assumed that you couldn’t take much into the stadium with you. This is false. You can pretty much take what you want.
Which leads to the second point…they don’t sell many concessions. People can (and are expected to) bring their own food. We got some cheap bocadillos (little baguette sandwiches), but that’s about all they had. (And stadium food is super-cheap because…well, they’re not aiming to make money off concessions there.)
And the third point? They don’t sell alcohol at the stadium. At all. Which is weird, because you can smoke (cigarettes) and smoke (pot) there…but you can’t drink. (As an aside, smoking is very popular in Spain. There’s not really very much in the way of smoking bans—save for enclosed spaces like the train.)
The logic of this became clear as we got into the game. I would not serve alcohol if I were them either, because the fandom is insane and intense. It was great to watch—the whole stadium hums and vibrates. Even if you’re not cheering for a team or you don’t really care much about futbol, it’s hard not to get into it totally and completely. All of a sudden you’re whistling at a call (the Euro version of booing) or waving your arms around in agony and dismay. We sat behind a woman who personally chastised the players when they didn’t do well. We sat across from a dedicated cheering section that sang THE WHOLE TIME--all sorts of different chants and cheers.
Oh, and there was this weird call for a moment of silence before the game…and then a very sad lone oboe started to play from somewhere. I wish my Spanish knowledge were more nuanced so we knew WTF SadOboe was about. Alas, I may never know.
We walked home from the game through the main park in Valencia. It was super-big and would have been lovely to run in—alas, we did not run once on vacation. So much for packing the shoes. The game started at 9 p.m. so we didn’t leave until 12 a.m. or so. We stopped on our way back to play on some playground equipment. At midnight. Stone-cold sober. Because we are 10 years old in our hearts.
Day 4: Valencia/Madrid
Our fast-fast-train to Madrid doesn’t leave until about 2, so we putter around Valencia and discover, much to our dismay, that Valencia would have been a rather lovely place to spend a bit more time. We like it better than Barcelona (which seemed very very touristy—both for Spanish natives and other). Valencia is more low-key.
The train across Spain only takes 1½ hours (for comparison, the distance from Barcelona to Valencia took almost 4 hours). We arrive in Madrid and find ourselves turned around almost immediately upon exiting the train station. Eventually we find our way to our hotel. We’ve splurged a bit and have a rather large room with two levels and a kitchenette. We decide to go grocery shopping.
Here’s a fun task: trying to order jamon iberico (thinly-sliced, cured-for-years ham made from pigs that are only fed on acorns so that the meat is sweet and nutty and melt-in-your mouth…it’s amazing) from a butcher that speaks almost no English. Gestures go a long way though, man. So does apologizing for your bad Spanish with a big smile and also saying, “But I’m trying to learn, forgive me.” Pretty much anyone will have patience with you then.
We buy bread and salt and yogurt and juice and gazpacho and olives (also fun—because you order those from the olive woman) and jamon and cheese and wine. Wine is 2-5 Euros for a bottle of good stuff.
We drop off our purchases and wander around the city…managing, somehow, to take a wrong turn at the gelato stand (which sells, in addition to normal gelato flavors, things like Red Bull, Smurf, and Salmon gelato…we did not partake in the stranger flavors), and getting fairly lost. I’ll go into a bit about maps in every country later, but suffice to say that a majority of Spanish streets are not on your average map. Eventually we make it back to our hotel and to our pre-purchased dinner. (And horrifying demonic potato chips...they are supposed to be friendly smiles.)
Becky (my sister) reveals to us that she hasn’t pooped in three days (because of taking pain meds). This prompts a multi-day quest through Spanish Pharmacies to find appropriate laxatives (also fun since, well, little English is spoken and Pharmacies in Spain are specialized. You might go to a pharmacy and find that they only sell stuff for your feet. Or they only sell stuff for colds. It’s weird.).
This also kicks off Poop Watch 2013 on the trip. Which becomes important later. (This was the vacation of Watches. In addition to Poop Watch 2012, we also had Baby B Watch 2013; we checked in online about once in every city just to make sure that we hadn’t missed the arrival of Baby B—it became a morning announcement point.)
Day 5: Madrid
Madrid is different than Barcelona in that people actually seem to live and work there (as opposed to just being there to capitalize on tourism). We see a lot of people going about their business days.
Madrid still has the same charming tendency to give you surprises when you turn down random streets—you might find a church though an alley or even a public square that has no right to be there. Oh, there are a LOT of public squares in Madrid—and they all have pretty statues or fountains and clean plazas.
After getting a cappuccino at a little café we walk over to the palace. It’s definitely worth seeing; room upon room of old, decadent Spanish wealth is on display. A lot of the palace is open to the public (for a small ticket fee), as is the armory. It was pretty and dripping with all the trappings of royalty. I mean, a palace is a palace, right?
We wander around the bit by the palace for a while; the cathedral and the parks and the rows and rows of statuary, and then decide to grab a snack. We end up sort of accidentally in the San Miguel Market. It’s like a mini Barcelona market with a greater emphasis on prepared food (tapas-tapas-tapas). We have sangria (which is SUPER popular in Spain) and tapas with foie gras, baby eels, chorizo and octopus (not all together).
We walk around the city for another few hours and end up at another sidewalk café (because every café in Spain is a sidewalk café, in part) and have glasses of tinto de verano—which is red wine, lemonade, and club soda. We decide to recreate the concoction back in our room, sending D out shopping for us. With only 15 euros, he got 2 bottles of wine, jamon, bread, etc.
Day 6: Madrid
The way our vacation was structured was to have one major “thing” to do per day, and then have the rest of the day flexible. So our last day in Madrid was the Prado Museum day. We started off by getting a traditional breakfast of chocolate and churros (the chocolate is somewhere between pudding and hot chocolate in consistency, it is warm and you dip your churros in it…it is amazingly good).
The Prado is one of those “big” museums with big, important, internationally renowned art. But damn, if I never see a Virgin-Mary-and-Baby-Jesus again, I can still die happy. Seriously, Spain. I know you love Jesus, but it was excessive. Also…apparently…titmilk. Um. Did I need to see paintings of the holy mother squirting breastmilk at random faithful (and/or baby Jesus)? There wasn’t just ONE titmilk painting…there were many.
This, combined with the beach and all the naked lady statues all over Spain led us to one sweeping conclusion: Spain: Land of Boobs.
We wandered about the Prado grounds, stopping in a lovely park (and watching someone flat-out throw up in the middle of a path) and taking pictures of the local churches (so many churches) and such.
After that, we did a little shopping at some of the big Spanish shops; El Corte de Ingles (also the place where we got groceries…it’d be like having a Byerlys in the middle of a Daytons), Zara, Skunkfunk, etc. Paella was consumed for dinner because, you know, when in Spain. . .
Day 7, part 1: Madrid
We bid farewell to Madrid very early in the morning. We caught transport to the airport and got on a Ryan Air flight to Morocco. Oh, Ryan Air. Playing your triumphant “on time arrival” announcement after being an hour late. . .
Okay, so this is getting really long. That’s Spain though. Lovely. Enchanting. Great food. Clean. Churchy. Cultural n’ stuff.
Oh, and another thing? In Spain, Columbus Day is very much a Thing. There are signs on most shops saying that they'll be closed October 12th. There's a big Columbus statue in Barcelona, pointing toward America. He's mentioned many times in the palace descriptions in Madrid. Huh. Who knew?
So this is going to be a big, long update. Originally I was going to do it in one post but then…my god that’s a lot of text. So first is Spain. TLDR summary? Vacation was awesome and there were lots of cool things and it was also tiring. Spain and England are both culturally different than the US, but in much more subtle ways than, say, Morocco.
SPAIN:
First we went to Spain. We took an evening flight, landed in Amsterdam at 10 a.m. and then went on to Barcelona. We got into Barcelona at about 2p.m.
Day 1 Barcelona:
We get in at 2. We take the bus from the airport to a main intersection and try to find our hotel. We end up taking the very-long-way around instead of the very-short-way (that we find later…and this ends up being a common theme in our trip as a whole). We are staying in Bari Gothic—which is the oldest part of town. We check in, we nap and shower, we walk around the city, we kill time until the restaurants begin to open.
Most restaurants in Spain don’t open for dinner until 8:30-9:00 p.m. Because Spain. It’s very common for things to be closed from 2-7 or so, and naps are had. Siestas; they are so Spanish.
We had dinner and then walked around some more. It was getting late, but we were still up-up, so we decided to play cribbage on Las Ramblas (the main pedestrian walkway that has lots of shops open in the day).
There were people selling cans of beer for a Euro a piece that kept harassing us in varying degrees. Mostly friendly, so we didn’t think much of it. Later we learn that they are pretty much just scoping us out and figuring out where our wallets are. We learn this because, when we get up to leave, one of the guys—in saying goodbye after chatting us up—grabs Derrick’s belt. We are all rather surprised and don’t know how to react. It’s just one of those social situations where you freeze because you’re not sure WTF the person is doing and why.
Of course, you know what’s next. We find that D’s wallet is missing. Because tag-team pickpockets—the guy behind D reached in his front pocket and nabbed the wallet. The culprit(s) are long gone. We call and cancel D’s bank card. They can’t do much with his driver’s license, but it’s a pain. He has no credit cards. Luckily *I* had been the one that had taken out cash, so D only had about 50 Euros in his wallet. Not a cripplingly expensive lesson, but a lesson nonetheless.
I spend the rest of the trip being his pretend sugar-mama and doling out cash for him when he needs it.
Day 2 Barcelona:
Beach day!
We wake up and walk over to one of the largest open-air markets in the world. There, we procure fresh (fresh!)-fruit smoothies (they have them in all kinds of wonderful and weird combos…like dragonfruit-coconut and passionfruit-kiwi), fruit boxes (again with a huge variety of fruit), and fresh figs. This is where people actually go to do their shopping, so there’s a lot of other stuff too—all super fresh—like sheep’s heads and offal and fish for the day (lots of squid and octopus and such).
We grab coffee on the way and walk to the beach. Interesting thing? You can’t really get brewed coffee anywhere overseas. The closest thing is Americano—which is a shot of espresso with water added.
We play cribbage on the beach. We go swimming in the ocean. The beach is packed (it’s Saturday) and, like any good European nation, boobs are out. It’s nice, because you don’t have to worry about finding a changing room. Just strip down and re-dress right there on the beach! Voila! Women are about 50-50 on the topless sunbathing. It’s not uncommon but it’s not like people are just walking around with their boobs out when not trying to tan. The best thing is that it’s just no big deal. (We had the same experience in Lithuania and even Mexico… it’s just very refreshing compared to all the shrieking and wailing and gnashing of teeth that a stray boob here and there incites in the US.)
We meander on the way back to the hotel. The cool thing about Barcelona (and all of Spain, really) is that you can turn down almost any street and find something impressive—whether it’s an ancient church or roman burial tombs (!) or just some nifty architecture or a cool shop.
We picked up gelato on the way back because gelato is everywhere—and delicious.
We shower and nap and have dinner in a tapas place. At first I was all…8-10 Euros for a glass of wine?! That’s kind of expensive, but I guess… And then you realize that selling wine by the glass is NOT very common there. 10 Euros is for the whole bottle. Wine is much cheaper over there than it is here. I have a very successful ordering experience…or so I thought. Because the first waiter was having fun and understanding me well and I was understanding him well (he was making jokes about how my companions didn’t speak Spanish…in Spanish) but the second waiter, um, thought I was French. Somehow. And gave me a French menu. I guess my Spanish is notsogood.
Day 3 Barcelona/Valencia:
We spend the morning in Barcelona, leisurely wandering and having breakfast. It’s Sunday and Spain is capital-C-Catholic, so lots of things are closed. We take a quick trip on the Metro to visit La Sagrada Familia. Which is supposed to be a big touristy thing that you MUST GO SEE. What is it really? Like the ugliest church in the world. Seriously, it looks like a hive constructed of insect spit. They’ve been working on it constantly for hundreds of years—making it uglier and uglier as far as I can tell.
We walk to the train station and get on our fancy train to Valencia. It’s not the super-fast train, but it’s fast. It’s clean and relaxing, and we get to see a lot of the Spanish coast (which looks beautiful).
We get to Valencia, check into our hostel and get ready for the evening activity…which is a futbol (soccer) game. At Mestalla stadium. Barcelona vs. Valencia.
Now, we’re only familiar with American stadium customs, so a lot of our assumptions were false and also proved to be to our detriment. We assumed that you couldn’t take much into the stadium with you. This is false. You can pretty much take what you want.
Which leads to the second point…they don’t sell many concessions. People can (and are expected to) bring their own food. We got some cheap bocadillos (little baguette sandwiches), but that’s about all they had. (And stadium food is super-cheap because…well, they’re not aiming to make money off concessions there.)
And the third point? They don’t sell alcohol at the stadium. At all. Which is weird, because you can smoke (cigarettes) and smoke (pot) there…but you can’t drink. (As an aside, smoking is very popular in Spain. There’s not really very much in the way of smoking bans—save for enclosed spaces like the train.)
The logic of this became clear as we got into the game. I would not serve alcohol if I were them either, because the fandom is insane and intense. It was great to watch—the whole stadium hums and vibrates. Even if you’re not cheering for a team or you don’t really care much about futbol, it’s hard not to get into it totally and completely. All of a sudden you’re whistling at a call (the Euro version of booing) or waving your arms around in agony and dismay. We sat behind a woman who personally chastised the players when they didn’t do well. We sat across from a dedicated cheering section that sang THE WHOLE TIME--all sorts of different chants and cheers.
Oh, and there was this weird call for a moment of silence before the game…and then a very sad lone oboe started to play from somewhere. I wish my Spanish knowledge were more nuanced so we knew WTF SadOboe was about. Alas, I may never know.
We walked home from the game through the main park in Valencia. It was super-big and would have been lovely to run in—alas, we did not run once on vacation. So much for packing the shoes. The game started at 9 p.m. so we didn’t leave until 12 a.m. or so. We stopped on our way back to play on some playground equipment. At midnight. Stone-cold sober. Because we are 10 years old in our hearts.
Day 4: Valencia/Madrid
Our fast-fast-train to Madrid doesn’t leave until about 2, so we putter around Valencia and discover, much to our dismay, that Valencia would have been a rather lovely place to spend a bit more time. We like it better than Barcelona (which seemed very very touristy—both for Spanish natives and other). Valencia is more low-key.
The train across Spain only takes 1½ hours (for comparison, the distance from Barcelona to Valencia took almost 4 hours). We arrive in Madrid and find ourselves turned around almost immediately upon exiting the train station. Eventually we find our way to our hotel. We’ve splurged a bit and have a rather large room with two levels and a kitchenette. We decide to go grocery shopping.
Here’s a fun task: trying to order jamon iberico (thinly-sliced, cured-for-years ham made from pigs that are only fed on acorns so that the meat is sweet and nutty and melt-in-your mouth…it’s amazing) from a butcher that speaks almost no English. Gestures go a long way though, man. So does apologizing for your bad Spanish with a big smile and also saying, “But I’m trying to learn, forgive me.” Pretty much anyone will have patience with you then.
We buy bread and salt and yogurt and juice and gazpacho and olives (also fun—because you order those from the olive woman) and jamon and cheese and wine. Wine is 2-5 Euros for a bottle of good stuff.
We drop off our purchases and wander around the city…managing, somehow, to take a wrong turn at the gelato stand (which sells, in addition to normal gelato flavors, things like Red Bull, Smurf, and Salmon gelato…we did not partake in the stranger flavors), and getting fairly lost. I’ll go into a bit about maps in every country later, but suffice to say that a majority of Spanish streets are not on your average map. Eventually we make it back to our hotel and to our pre-purchased dinner. (And horrifying demonic potato chips...they are supposed to be friendly smiles.)
Becky (my sister) reveals to us that she hasn’t pooped in three days (because of taking pain meds). This prompts a multi-day quest through Spanish Pharmacies to find appropriate laxatives (also fun since, well, little English is spoken and Pharmacies in Spain are specialized. You might go to a pharmacy and find that they only sell stuff for your feet. Or they only sell stuff for colds. It’s weird.).
This also kicks off Poop Watch 2013 on the trip. Which becomes important later. (This was the vacation of Watches. In addition to Poop Watch 2012, we also had Baby B Watch 2013; we checked in online about once in every city just to make sure that we hadn’t missed the arrival of Baby B—it became a morning announcement point.)
Day 5: Madrid
Madrid is different than Barcelona in that people actually seem to live and work there (as opposed to just being there to capitalize on tourism). We see a lot of people going about their business days.
Madrid still has the same charming tendency to give you surprises when you turn down random streets—you might find a church though an alley or even a public square that has no right to be there. Oh, there are a LOT of public squares in Madrid—and they all have pretty statues or fountains and clean plazas.
After getting a cappuccino at a little café we walk over to the palace. It’s definitely worth seeing; room upon room of old, decadent Spanish wealth is on display. A lot of the palace is open to the public (for a small ticket fee), as is the armory. It was pretty and dripping with all the trappings of royalty. I mean, a palace is a palace, right?
We wander around the bit by the palace for a while; the cathedral and the parks and the rows and rows of statuary, and then decide to grab a snack. We end up sort of accidentally in the San Miguel Market. It’s like a mini Barcelona market with a greater emphasis on prepared food (tapas-tapas-tapas). We have sangria (which is SUPER popular in Spain) and tapas with foie gras, baby eels, chorizo and octopus (not all together).
We walk around the city for another few hours and end up at another sidewalk café (because every café in Spain is a sidewalk café, in part) and have glasses of tinto de verano—which is red wine, lemonade, and club soda. We decide to recreate the concoction back in our room, sending D out shopping for us. With only 15 euros, he got 2 bottles of wine, jamon, bread, etc.
Day 6: Madrid
The way our vacation was structured was to have one major “thing” to do per day, and then have the rest of the day flexible. So our last day in Madrid was the Prado Museum day. We started off by getting a traditional breakfast of chocolate and churros (the chocolate is somewhere between pudding and hot chocolate in consistency, it is warm and you dip your churros in it…it is amazingly good).
The Prado is one of those “big” museums with big, important, internationally renowned art. But damn, if I never see a Virgin-Mary-and-Baby-Jesus again, I can still die happy. Seriously, Spain. I know you love Jesus, but it was excessive. Also…apparently…titmilk. Um. Did I need to see paintings of the holy mother squirting breastmilk at random faithful (and/or baby Jesus)? There wasn’t just ONE titmilk painting…there were many.
This, combined with the beach and all the naked lady statues all over Spain led us to one sweeping conclusion: Spain: Land of Boobs.
We wandered about the Prado grounds, stopping in a lovely park (and watching someone flat-out throw up in the middle of a path) and taking pictures of the local churches (so many churches) and such.
After that, we did a little shopping at some of the big Spanish shops; El Corte de Ingles (also the place where we got groceries…it’d be like having a Byerlys in the middle of a Daytons), Zara, Skunkfunk, etc. Paella was consumed for dinner because, you know, when in Spain. . .
Day 7, part 1: Madrid
We bid farewell to Madrid very early in the morning. We caught transport to the airport and got on a Ryan Air flight to Morocco. Oh, Ryan Air. Playing your triumphant “on time arrival” announcement after being an hour late. . .
Okay, so this is getting really long. That’s Spain though. Lovely. Enchanting. Great food. Clean. Churchy. Cultural n’ stuff.
Oh, and another thing? In Spain, Columbus Day is very much a Thing. There are signs on most shops saying that they'll be closed October 12th. There's a big Columbus statue in Barcelona, pointing toward America. He's mentioned many times in the palace descriptions in Madrid. Huh. Who knew?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-09-24 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-25 05:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-25 04:20 pm (UTC)