Journey thru Spain

Sulabh Agarwal (Jan '04)

We drove more than 10 hours in France before the Spain border finally appeared. I realized from the signs that in fact it is not Spain but Espana. Why does the world mis-spell the name of a country which likes to be called a certain way is still a mystery to me? While the whole drive in France was on flat roads, Spain was all mountains right from the word go. It was either these large mountains (I learnt that these were called Sierra-Nevada) or extremely dense habitations – felt almost like that of a densely populated location in India. The speed limits (generally 100/120 kph) exist for name sake. There was a point at which I was driving almost at 150-160 trying to tackle those mountain curves like a video game and a few cars were still zooming past me almost making a joke of my speed.

Our first stop was Bilbao and it was already too late to go and see anything. We just wanted to find out the hotel and crash. It was not easy at all, as I realized that there was hardly anyone who speaks English like we do. It is mostly just Spanish that they know, maybe un peu Français and extremely little Anglais. But with a combination of these languages and using a bit of traditional sign language, I could barely communicate. But, at the end of any communication, I was always unsure – if I was able to communicate my thoughts or was able to correctly interpret what I heard. It almost feels like experiencing the age when there was no common language and people communicated through signs. But, I will have to give the Spanish people credit to their making an attempt to communicate, unlike French, who would not speak English even if they know it.

The first few words I picked up in Spanish were derecha and ezquiarda which stand for right and left. But the way they are pronounced is Derrrachchchaaa and esssquirrrddaaa. The "r" sound is not just one r but multiple r’s and the ending ‘a’ is again stressed and continued for a while before starting next word. Some other intricacies in the language that I found interesting were that of calling the sound of ‘v’ like a ‘b’. So, hotel Nervion was actually pronounced as Nerbion.

As we reached the hotel, we were temporarily parked outside the hotel on a place meant to be a bus stop. We were still trying to trade-off the 14 euros hotel underground parking or looking for street parking. Just then, a bus came there. It stopped besides our two cars (parked in a space reserved for bus stop) and was not at all disturbed by the cars occupying its regular spot. But somehow, I still felt the urge to remove the car from the place and wanted to just take a round and come back, hoping that by that time the bus would go. I got out of that spot and it took more than an hour to return. It was a mesh of one way roads and it was nothing like parallel and perpendicular roads. They went in all directions (also up and down considering the hilly nature of the place). On this detour of mine, I passed thru some not so good lanes of Bilbao. There were big, fat, dark men and women just roaming on the road looking at people passing by and gave me a feeling similar to the not so good areas of the DC downtown. The difference here was that there were too many of those and I was afraid that I may be stopped anytime and mobbed on these roads. Somehow after passing these roads, I got into some freeway which was a different kind of freeway. It had red lights every km or so but no place to take a u-turn. The exits did not look like coming back on the road to the other side. It took a few illegal turns and a few rounds before I finally reached the hotel. I found that our other car was still parked at the bus stop and it was probably not so bad to park at the bus stop.

Next day we saw the Googanhiem museum, that I can confidently say is something that will be remembered from our generation in the coming ages. It is a very recent (1970s) creation but an extraordinary one. The walls of the place are all curved and no two are parallel. The titanium foils on the outside, the water garden and the extra structure to absorb the bridge makes the building look magnificent.

Getting out of Bilbao was another 1 hour long hunt trying to figure out our way. Coffee was out staple diet on the whole trip. Every few hours we took a café break. It was interesting to see that the sugar pouches provided with the coffee had more than 2 spoonfuls – my guess is that Spanish people like desis have a sweet tooth as well. The delay caused by our road hunt, the coffee break and the rain caused our plans to change and we decided to skip Segovia for the day and just do Burgos. 

The cathedral at Burgos was extremely beautiful. From the outside - as you can see in the pictures – as well as from the inside (photography not allowed). There were different prayer halls, each with exquisite carvings in stone or bronze. There were small and big rooms with one wall full of deities from top to bottom. There were lots of carpets hanging on the wall which I suspect may have come from our land.

Till now I was wondering that I had not seen any desi in Spain or even a desi restaurant. It just seems like the first place where I did not see any desi other than us for such a long time. Maybe it is the Spanish economy which has not been like the other developed world or maybe it was there immigration rules that made Espana unattractive for desis to come. But the absence of tourists as well was inexplicable.

After Burgos, our next stop was Madrid. We spent as much time in the hotel as we spent on the M-30/M-40/M-50 (the three ring roads) trying to figure out our way to the hotel and out to the city. The need for east/west/south/north indications on the road was so badly felt (as I have felt all thru the 4 months in France). I guess most of the Eurpoeans have a magnetic needle in their vehicle or they are very good at looking at Sun/Moon/Stars to figure out the direction of the road. One of my to-dos from the trip is to master that technique before planning the next trip.

The first thing we saw in Madrid was a restaurant with a falafel, and this place had a full vegetarian menu with about 4-5 vegetarian fast food options. I was ecstatic to find a place which displayed vegetal (called begetal) food and we could just pick and choose from the menu and not spend 15 minutes explaining the definition of vegetarian food and then confirming if the waiter got the correct meaning.

After having a quick bite, it was time for some site-seeing. We went to the Mayor Plaza (later we discovered that there is one in every city), which was a mini Covent Garden of London. A semi-mela and nautanki combination was a good time-pass, but lacked the depth and variety of the magnificent Covent Garden. On the stalls, some of the prominent selling eateries were potato chips, Soya been seeds and chocolate coated crisps.

Then, we went to see the royal palace. The palace again was a disappointment from the outside. It had no great carvings, or anything that would suggest that it was royal. The size of the outside courtyard is huge though mostly empty. The palace from inside is huge with many rooms. The rooms from inside are nice with different color combinations used for each room. One room may have a yellow influence which reflected in the chandeliers, wall color, furniture, carpets and paintings. Then the next room could have blue influence and the next could have pink influence. The notable rooms were the Chinese room where it was Chinese pictures painted all over on the walls (similar to the one’s I recollect in Claude Mone’s house) and the room with similar Arabic influence. Possibly, these would be a form of gifts from rulers of these regions to the Spanish kings.

There were some strange observations that provide some insights into the Spanish society. There were the lottery stalls at street corners and while in India these are mostly surrounded by the rickshaw walas and the laborer men, in Spain these were apparently bought by well-to-do women and they were not at all afraid to buy them in front of their two very small children standing next to them. Another place we saw kids were the pubs. They were sitting at the same table as their parents and were part of the smoky environment. Unique to Spain, not even in US or France, women felt safe roaming on the streets alone or in groups at midnight. We felt that there were more women on streets than men. Either they have nothing better to do or their population is more than men in Spain.

What is done using a central round about in France or after passing a few red-lights in the US (as it is allowed only on certain ones), is done in a unique way in Spain. All major streets would not allow any direct u-turns but there is a semi round about on the side. Though this method may take a little more space but it definitely does not hold up traffic on the major roads and still makes it convenient for the drivers to take a u-turn – something that the rest of the world can learn from Spain.

The evening in Madrid we saw a proper Christmas mela. We were quick to buy the Santa Claus caps, which had twinkling lights and all this for a euro each. This huge crowd was right in-front of a store called El Corta Ingles. This store was beautifully decorated to match the decorations on the street. Lots of kids on the street with their parents kept the streets buzzing. My guess is that this was the day of Christmas shopping for the families.

In the night, TV had a big surprise. TV5 which is supposed to be a French channel showed a documentary on Mumbai. Then BBC covered a lot on India and at least 5-6 times there were advertisements for Indian programs. And believe me, the next day we saw a Hindi, yup Bollywood movie – Humara Dil Aapke Paas Hai on TV. It was almost after 4 months that I saw a desi movie and this was at the least expected venues, especially given that there were apparently no desis in Spain.

Next day, we voted to go to Sergovia and skip the parks of Madrid. I was very enthu to see the Alcazar castle at Sergovia since I heard that it was the same castle that was used by Disney in so many movies. In Sergovia, we saw a 5 km long Roman Aqueduct, which was used to transfer water to the castle and the town. Given the mountainous terrain and the absence of pumping technology at that time, it seems like a difficult task to transfer water and the grand aqua duct made it possible. Then, we saw a huge Cathedral and a really beautiful one. Though we could not see the inside as the Cathedral was closed and no one there had a clue as to when it opens. But, even the outside view was more than worth the visit. Then we saw the Alcazar castle. I could picture the Disney movies looking at the castle as it takes you right into its stories. The castle from inside got burnt in a fire and had to be re-stated, which made it less magnificent from inside.

Our next stop was Cordoba on the way to Malaga. Cordoba revealed a couple of features about Spain. First were the large olive plantations we found on our way to Cordoba. These olive trees were always found in pairs of 2. And then there were the orange trees all over. Though most of these oranges were very sour, as the ripe ones were already gone to the market, I guess. Second was the mosques (known as Mesqitas) turned into Cathedral in the Centre Cuidad (centre of the city). It is not just in Cordoba, but almost in every Southern city, which had Muslim influence earlier, has a mosque converted into a Cathedral. The Cathedral closed early for Christmas, so we could not see the interiors. The outside had beautiful Muslim architecture in different colors.

From colors I just remembered to mention the colors of Spanish houses. The Spanish are not afraid to use bright colors on the outside walls of the houses. Bright yellow is their favorite and a bright blue or a pink is not uncommon. Typically made to two stories, these houses were not all the same and probably thought thru for designs. There is a lot of use of tiles in the outside of buildings for decoration.

Malaga was mostly spent in our flat in Club La Costa in the bed or watching TV. We must have seen more than 10 movies, most of which we started from the middle and don’t even know the name. And believe it or not. We watched the second day of the test match live all night on the TV. Our stay in Malaga could not have been better as we got a full flavor of a desi vacation with desi food, many movies and now cricket match.

We tried the beaches of Malaga. The outside temperature was mostly around 15 but the water was freezing. The beaches were small ones and many of them were dirty to at least half the extent of Juhu Beach. Whether those plastic bottles and the trash came back from the sea or was thrown directly on the beach, the fact remains that the beach were not very clean and inviting. We were told that these were on Mediterranean Sea and the one on the ocean was warmer and better, though about 150 km away. Somehow in our laziness we never went that far and preferred the comfort of sofa and the TV.

The nearby town of Fuegenrola had at least 4 Indian restaurants on the main street. It was a different face of Spain as we had not seen a desi till then, forget about a Indian restaurant. But three of them were closed when we tried to get a masala tea in them. The fourth one which was open was cleaning the restaurant and showed no interest in going out of the way to serve tea to the visitors from their homeland out of time.

Next day we were called for a complimentary breakfast at one of the restaurants here in the resort. As expected this guy Steward, a British, was pitching the resort for us to become member. He did take more than an hour of our time before we could get onto the way of Sevilla (I am still not sure whether to call it Seviya or Sevila). I was looking forward to see one of the touristy cities of Spain. We could only see the Mesqeita turned cathedral and the Moorish Alcazar castle from outside as they closed early for Christmas. We were planning to come back to the Cathedral at 11.30 pm to attend the Christmas Mass but by 7 pm the whole town was closed. There was nothing really to do. No restaurant was open or any other shop. So, we decided to skip the Mass and started our way back to Malaga after having a quick look at the Espana Plaza.

We lazed the next few days in Malaga. We did go out to see Marbella and Rhonda (nearby villages), but we were mostly using it as a change to our TV viewing rather than hard core site-seeing. Rhonda had a beautiful bridge (naturally carved out of river), but the best moment there was sitting in the sun and having coffee while watching down the mountains.

It was our last day in Malaga and it was high-time to see what the city had to offer. We were quick to narrow it down to the Picasso museum. There was a long queue and we got to entry only after waiting for about half an hour. Having seen Van Gough Museum in Amsterdam and Claude Mone’s in Paris, Picasso was definitely a shade bit more classy. But, he was very repetitive. The same concept of using the eyes at different places and it felt to me that very little thought had been given before/while making a painting as to what he was trying to convey. Dali, on the other hand (I saw his museum in Barcelona), was a genius. Picasso again, like Van Gough and Claude Mone, was more brand than actual talent to the extent he got publicity and acknowledgement. 

Granada was our nest stop after Malaga. There is a beautiful Alhambra palace made by the Muslim rulers. It almost felt like a pilgrimage place looking at the queue to get the tickets. Just like Tirupati or Vaishnodevi, they have limited tickets and there is a time mentioned on the ticket when you can get ‘darshan’ of the palaces and guess what, you have a stand in a long queue (about 250 m) to get the ticket. By the time we came to the ticket window after standing for about 1.5-2 hours in the queue, there were no ticket left anymore. The only ones available were for the parks surrounding the palace. My eyes were desperately looking for some black marketer, but there was none to be seen. So, we did the tiirath though the photographs on the postcards in the gift shop outside. The carving seemed to be very intricate, similar to a Rajasthani or a Moghal well carved palace/temple in India.

Next to Granada was Valencia. It was Sunday. After checking in the hotel, we came out to look for a place to have dinner. But everything was closed. In Spain shops are mostly always closed, unless you happen to be lucky. It is an exaggeration but every afternoon from 3-5/6, they have a siesta time. So, all shops are closed. If you are late than 3 pm for lunch, you cannot get anything to eat till 7. On Sunday, no shops are open all day. Almost made up our mind to have bread butter for dinner, we saw a merry go around some distance away which was all lighted. As we approached the place, it was a full fledged mela with many theme park rides and food stalls. The place was huge like Pragati Maidan full of people with their kids, having fun. The first thing we ate was a bhutta (corn) and then the roasted hot chestnuts. It is very common to find small stalls selling these along the roads everywhere in Spain. We wanted to throw some trash and there were no trash cans to be found. We went all over and people have just thrown the trash on the road and there were literally no dustbins. We followed suit and enjoyed the evening with potato wedges and éclairs.

The city had a lot of history and character. You do not need to go and see any of the monuments from inside, but just walking on the streets tells you the story through historical buildings and monuments. While walking on the streets we came across the Palau De La Musica, where they were playing a beautiful Christmas chorus. We walked through a subze mandi – which was kindof posh with proper shops in a huge hall, but had the same buzzing atmosphere and the same noise that you will find anywhere else in the world.  

We also saw in Valencia a Bull ring, where all the bull fights happen. As the ring is only used in summers for the bull fights, there was a circus playing in the arena. We decided to hit the two birds with one stone and went inside to see the circus. The place was a house full – mainly with kids from the age 2-6 who had come with their parents. The Spanish kids though quite pampered like Indians (they all wanted a photo on elephant or wanted to buy the torches or almost anything that other kids were doing and almost all parents fulfilled the demands) but they also have the discipline of the Americans (not one kid was crying). The circus was a traditional one with lots of animals and clowns. I was surprised to see that there was no net to protect the performers while they did some dangerous acts.

On our drive to Barcelona, it was a clear, sunny day and we were on the lookout for a beach. We came across one in Plano de la Castellana. Unlike the one in Malaga, it was very clean with white sand and had a lot of width. The length was nowhere compared to the 7 mile beach at Negril, but was deserted and unpolluted. The temperature was the best we had seen in Spain (20) and even better to get direct sunshine. The water was still very cold, but it was excellent weather to lie down on the beach. 

It was the New Year Eve the next day and I had a lot of expectations from the city of Barcelona. Also, the 12 grapes that you eat with 12 bells leading to the New Year had built up the hope of a memorable New Year Eve. We were right on the main Plaza (Catalunya) in the night but it was no where like the Times Square atmosphere. Even the La Rambla street had less number of people than what we saw in Valencia. On enquiry we found that nothing happens outdoors and we may have to go to one of the parties to celebrate the New Year. We got tickets to the Olympic Stadium party which supposedly was going to host about 10,000 people for the party. Before going to the party we opened a Champagne (leftover from E2 party) in the Plaza de Catalunya and celebrated the prelude to the New Year Eve. In the party there were only about 500 people in total in that huge room when the bell for the New Year rang. And only a few other had got grapes other than us. But, nevertheless we had fun. And soon in a few hours, there were about 10,000 people. There were three big halls – one for the techno music, one for light and one for all other kinds. We went last the light music room and it had a very interesting décor with all the pictures of sea animal and soothing music. In other rooms, it was mostly that Manuj aptly described was more or less a ‘Mating Game’ that was being played. Well, that is the case at any place I guess where the parents will not search for a life partner. It was fun overall.

Barcelona is a well planned city with lot of open spaces, lot of parking and sufficient lanes for traffic in office hours. Maybe it is the Olympics that helped the city develop the infrastructure as none of the other Spanish cities would even come close to it. La Rambla is a very populated street and all the action in the downtown was around that street. We saw the Cathedral which was magnificent with intricate woodwork inside. I lighted a New Year candle at the Church. Then we saw Dali’s museum. It is very congested and full of paintings, which could have well taken 4 times the space to display. The painting are amazing and as I said earlier, I found Dali better than Picasso, Van Gough and Claude Mone. This guy really gave his painting a lot of thought and in the same painting you can see multiple images which were related and most of them were actually thought thru by the painter. Hi command on both the sketches and the colors were amazing.

The next day we went through some of the other narrow lanes that emerged from La Rambla street. It felt like the Chandni Chowk galis. One of them, Sant Pao is mostly an Indo-Pak street. It was full of barbers and a few restaurants (none was of very high repute). We had Samosas and Jalebis at one of them which was decent and on another day had a lunch at a Pakistani place which was also good. I was not entirely sure about the hygienic standards maintained at the place. The Indians and Pakistanis there were not very well off and mostly had these small shops. The other place which had amazing food was this Moez Falafal place which only served vegetarian Falafal and fries. It was one of the best falafels I have had.     

We also visited the Sagrada Famila, one of the best monuments I saw in Spain. Made by Gaudi, it is a landmark of modern architecture. It is a Cathedral and huge towers combined into one. It is extremely beautiful and we had a debate if it should be included in the modern wonders of the world. We skipped the climbing and took a elevator to the top. It was nice up there only till we realized that we have to come down 200 meters walking. It was dangerous as there were no lights and the stairs were that of the olden kinds with long rotating steps. It was an experience in itself.

El Corte Ingles is like Shoppers Stop of India or Sears/J C Penny of the US. They are huge cloth stores and also house a mini-Walmart in the basement as a side kick. These stores are present almost in any major market and there is no other big store I saw which posed any competition to this chain. They had standardization across all stores, which reflected most in the beautiful Christmas decoration was same across all El Corte Ingles in all cities. BBVA is the big bank of Spain with branches all over. McDonalds and Burger King rule the fast food world in Spain as well, though a bunch of Pizzeria’s are giving them stiff competition. There is a Tobacs on every street. It is like a Nukkad Panwala selling tobacco and occasionally has a small coffee place like the Tabac of France. On most crossings, there is a booth which says Once. These sell lottery tickets and are another version of open stalls selling the same. Slot machines are a commonplace in many shops, especially the café’s. Though there were big and small dedicated casino’s as well.

Spanish people love to talk. You go to any restaurant and unlike France, it will be buzzing with noise with everyone sitting in the restaurant trying to make a point consciously to the person sitting on the same table and unconsciously to the whole restaurant. Even when standing in a queue or just about anywhere, the jaw bone is always working and so does the throat to make it loud.

Driving in Spain has no rules. All the 15 days that we were driving through Spain, I hardly saw anyone being stopped by a cop and most of the people drive over the limit and take turns that are prohibited. One very interesting feature of driving in Spain is the frequent use of blinkers. Just imagine a 2 lane road. Say you are on the right lane at a traffic light and it is right only lane. Also, let’s say you have cars lined up behind you to take the same right turn. Now all of a sudden you see a friend of yours on the side of the street. What you do is turn on the blinkers and just leave the car there. Get down and speak to your friend and maybe even enjoy a cup of coffee while the traffic is struggling past your car at the red light. It is so much acceptable that no one will even honk. I just could not believe its acceptance till I saw it happen multiple times.

I could almost feel that the language was changing as I moved from South of Spain to Valencia and more so to Barcelona. What was mentioned as Centre Cuidad in Malaga was mentioned as Centre Cuitat in Barcelona. Also parking lots which only had Salida written at the exit in South of Spain, in the north had Salida and Sortida written interchangeably in the North. Given the proximity to France for the Northern part of Spain and knowing the little French I know, Exit in French is called Sortie and Sortida may be a derivation of Sortie. In a nutshell, there is possibly some French influence in North Spain.

As I was about to enter France, I heard the words Bon Jour and Merci and it challenged my new habit of saying Ola and Gracious. The two lane mountainous roads had become 3 lane flat roads. The temperature decreased from the 10-20 degree in Spain to 0 - -6 degree in France. But the memories of this wonderful vacation remained with me. We drove a total of 5,300 km through different parts of Spain, each of those moments I will want to save with me and revisit someday whenever it needs a refresher.