New vent

http://avoidwork123.tubmlr.com

Vampires

Rostam from Vampire Weekend has a side project, which releases July 7th.

http://dscvry.net/

I like electronic music, but the vast vast majority of it is pretentious and at bottom NOT ENTERTAINING. Vampire Weekend is nothing if not entertaining, and I really enjoy that mentality applied to electronic music. The Postal Service with less sentimentality and more fun. There's such a vast world of music these days, and it's so easily accessible and malleable. This is indie music that created by people who enjoy the creations of Timbaland and are happy to admit it. Very fresh.

Blogs are cool

Wanted to share with y’all a cool exchange from The Atlantic’s blog world. I read both Sullivan and Coates regularly (I prefer Coates because Sullivan is too angry), and it’s really cool to see a couple of big-time journalist/bloggers have this serious conversation for all the world to see. This is a completely new thing in the world, only possible in the past few years. Good to be alive now.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200906u/andrew-tanehisi

Day of rest

Breakfast goes only until 10:00 here, so although I was asleep by 10:30 last night, I set an alarm knowing how tired I was. A good thing, as the thick shades and soft sheets kept me asleep until my phone started buzzing at 9:30 this morning. For breakfast there was cereal, eggs, toast, and tomatoes (apparently I could also have had beans, further evidence that the english are an odd lot). Coffee too, the European version of which I have become fond of in my two weeks here. I´m not sure what the difference is, but it seems smoother, less acidic. More pleasant to drink and easier on the stomach too.

After breakfast I went up to the roof patio, which looks out of the whole river valley, green and gold hills divided by highways and railways branching out from Cordoba just a few miles east. One train line, heading straight west to Sevilla 100km distant, runs just a few hundred yards south of where I sit. Far enought not to be distrubing but close enough that I watch each flying by with boyish interest. The high speed "AVE" trains, in particular, make a perculiar whistling noise at full throttle. Some sort of resonence in the rails, I presume.

I read and wrote there until the sun became too bright and hot, retreating first to the shade and then downstairs for a cold bottle of wine. I lay in bed for a time, watching what seemed to be a thousand birds playing in the orange tree outside my window. By 2 o´clock I was pleasantly drunk and, now a bit hungry, wandered out to find some food before everything closed at 3pm. I found a little pizza place, labeled simply "Restaurante," and was pleasantly surprised to get a menu in English! I quickly devoured most of the pepperoni pizza while listening to the colorful banter of the staff and friends up by the bar. Spanish is a very beautiful language, pleasant to listen to even (or perhaps especially) when you don´t understand a word of it.

I walked slowly home then and after such an exhausting morning fell fast asleep for my own siesta. I slept for almost three hours then, bringing my total for the day to 14! Mission one well on its way to being accomplished. After a workout and shower, I switched to a now-open room upstairs to be away from the street noise which had intermittently disturbed me last night. That task complete, I came out to enjoy the evening air on the roof patio. The sun, just short of setting behind the castle above, still shown bright enough to warm by head and neck. I read in just that spot while the town woke up below me. Eventually the sun went down and I put on some music instead, sitting there until the stars came out and then returned to my room for sleep and another busy day on the other side.

Introductions

Al-Mudawar Rural Casa is an unremarkeable stucco building on a quiet side street in Al Modovar del Rio, 25km west of Cordoba, Spain. I opened the engraved and thickly banded metal door into a dim entryway with whitewashed walls, beautiful brown and blue tiled floors, and an arched exit facing a bright central courtyard. My room is simple but equally beautiful. Two twin mattresses are supported by a black wrought iron frame, the bars of the headboard twisting and twinning like snakes and vines. It´s flanked with matching 3-tiered night stands, each topped by small, red-shaded lamps matching perfectly the bright red of the bedspread. Facing is a tall bureau in finely-grained wood matching the brown-tiled floor. Over the bed hangs a finely wrought lamp, which itself hangs below a broad star of David, finely carved in wood stained to match the floor and bureau.

So often in my travels for work, nothing but my pants and shirts leave the suitcase. Unpacking all my tshirts, socks, and even shoes into this many-drawered bureau, knowing I´d be here long enough for the bother, was a surprising pleasure.

After all this, the bathroom is the true beauty. Special attention has been given to the stucco here, with small diamonds pressed into a not-quite-random pattern. The tile rises half-way up the wall, white bordered with deep green in three different styles. The wash stand is tiled in a lighter green. It supports a shining copper spout above a clearly hand-made bowl painted in swirling blue, orange, red, and two shades of green. Above it all hangs another hand-wrought lamp, this one set with finely-etched orange glass.

After a quick shower to wash of the grime of travel (with ample pressure and hot water, thankfully), I set out to find some food. This turned out to be my first encounter with the famous Spanish siesta. The restaurants and shops nearby were almost all closed. I had thought that the siesta lasted from 3pm-5pm, and perhaps that´s true in the cities, but here it is a rather longer affair. The folks of smaller towns prefer, it turns out, to take their ease until 9pm. My attempt to fulfill biological needs thus foiled, I took a bit more circuitious route back to the inn. Perhaps related to the siesta tradition, I found the people immediately very friendly. I had to tell at least three old ladies "no habla español" after they just walked up to be and started talking!

Eventually I made it back to Al-Mudawar, whereupon I decided taht wine was the best option to fill my stomach until the restaurants opened again. This proved pleasantly efficient, although booze as food is a project of diminishing returns. I felt fine (read: drunk) for a while, but eventually the hunger catches up even more fiercely than before. I wandered out of the hotel at about 8:30, hoping that someone might take pity on the confused Americano. Turns out that they´re strict about their siestas. I was allowed to sit down early, even got a beer for my trouble, but no menu was provided until about 10 after 9.

The wait turned out to be well worth it. I started with a gespacho, "Andaloz" style. It was creamier than the usual, luxuriously so, and came initially with no other vegetables at all. To this were added fresh tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and onions, leaving them crisp and tastey. This soup was thoroughly delicious, outshining the main course by a wide margin. The latter was baked cod, drizzled with herbed olive oil and a roasted red sauce (I think). It was good, very good, but was nothing I hadn´t had before, and too rich besides. The soup, on the other hand, was creamy beyond any tomato soup I´d had before while remaining crisp and bright as any salad I can remember.

I enjoyed all of this in the midst of a growing street festival. My table was under almost constant assault from small children, who ran freely down the steep street and from one house to the next, including the restaurant on whose patio I was relaxing. I left the fiesta behind and headed home, thoroughly exhausted and pleasantly full. I fell hard asleep to the cacophony of nightime birds and running children in the street outside my window and the neighborhood all around.

Here at last

I arrived to a cloudy, warm afternoon in Cordoba. Despite repeated assurances to the contrary, from multiple people, I discovered quickly that English skills are almost totally absent here. I had come hoping to rent a moped, but my rudimentary Spanish (¿Donde puedo alquilar una motocicleta?) was unequal to the task. I made my way to the "Mezquita," a very old (9th century) mosque-turned-cathedral (13th century). The old stone and almost deserted streets excited me as I approached the city center, but close in I discovered that the structure was surrounded by a solid ring of hostels, hotels, bars, and restaurants. Charming as some of these appeared, they too had their attendants, in the form of dozens of tour buses and their middle-aged, map-clutching occupants. I had thought I might stay in Cordoba first, but had a backup room reserved in a small town about 20km west, just in case. The tour buses and the bustle they brought steered me quickly to the latter option.

By this time I was growing quite frantic with hunger. A bus would have been the cheaper option at that point, but it meant a long walk back to the train station and an unknown wait. A 30€ taxi fare (which, I might add, was negotiated entirely in Spanish) seemed the better option, so off we went in search of this "Al-Mudawwar Rural Casa."

I saw the town from miles away. It covers the eastern slope of a tall hill. The hill juts south from the main line forming the northern wall of this river valley. The town is capped at the hill´s highest and most southernly by a great medival fortress. It looks out over the broad valley, standing watch, I imagined, for the Moorish invaders from whom this land was reconquered in the 13th centrury. The town´s whitewashed walls and tile roofs fall steeply away below, and it was through these narrow, steep streets that my intrepid cabby navigated for close to 30 minutes. He stopped frequently for directions (having dismissed the printed map I offered with a stream of passionate Spanish and hand-waving), but these seemed to lead away from the target as often as not. Finally, we found the inn. I was so relieved that I attempted to give the cabby a 10€ tip; I think this may have offended him, for he yelled that it was too much and insisted on only the previously agreed upon fare. I did not belabor the point, turning instead to my new home for the week.

Tales of the rail

Barcelona was most prominently, this morning, grey and smoggy. From the airport, I boarded a clean, bright, modern commuter train that would put anything in the US to shame. The city we rode through, however, had an almost third world feel to it. Grime and water marks covered brighly colored but architecturally uninspired apartment blocks, butting up to the train tracks with only a narrow strip of rubble and trash in between. I´ve read that Spain has the most ambitious rail infrastructure program in the EU; all well and good, but perhaps there are other matters to which they might divert some small amount of those funds. Not unique though, I hear China´s the same way.

I did enjoy a wonderful dash of humanity at the main rail station this morning. I was waiting in line to purchase my ticket to Cordoba when two guys about my age walked up and asked in Spanish where I was going. Feeling embarassed about my rudimentary skills in their language, I replied with only "Cordoba." They seemed disappointed by this, but after conferring for a moment asked, in English, if that went by way of Madrid. I replied affermatively, and they then offered me, free of charge, an extra ticket to Madrid for the 10:00 AVE (the Spanish high-speed line)! 10 minutes later I had exchanged this for a ticket all the way to Cordoba, saving me a cool 60€. Humanity is good, I think. Especially the spaniards.

After leaving Barcelona we passed for two hours (going, and this is way cool, over 150 mph) through drab, stone strewn hill country. This land had none of the majesty of the mountains I´ve known before, nor the stark beauty of South Dakota´s badlands. This might have been forgiven if there had been much in the way of vegitation, but some peculiar feature of the climate in this corner of the Iberian peninsula must stifle the plants even as it wears the hills down to rubble.

At about 12:30 we made our last stop before Cordoba in the city of Zaragosa. I stepped off the train to admire briefly the very beautiful architecure of the trian station there. America´s inattention to municipal architecture is a sure sign of our decadence and decline. I stood there snapping pictures amid a crowd of party boys chanting something to one among them wearing nothing but a speedo (or briefs, perhaps?) and a head-to-toe coat of gold paint. A Spanish bachelor ritual, perhaps?

We pulled out of the station, under the first blue skies I´d seen thus far, into a different Spain. The crumbling hills drew apart, with wide rolling vallies in between and natural terraces of green and brown up their sides. This is what the American southwest would look like with an extra foot or two of rain each year. So here we are in the Spain I have heard so much about.