RE: WE'RE GOING TO OKTOBERFEST!
Sent 3 October 2001 from Barcelona
I, also, would like to say "Buenos Noches" to everybody.
Those of you who have just joined us may want to read Natasha's e-mail below first (sorry if you get it a couple of times, still trying to work out this godforsaken address book problem).
Now, first of all Natasha, the 'someone' who once told you about the best things about travelling blah blah blah, was ME. About a week ago. OK. That clears that up . Except for the fallacious references to grey hairs.
I am really missing each and every one of you. Seriously. Especially that guy, you know the one? The one with the thing?
Whew! What to say? "I like travelling! I love taking things!" a la Bender would be a good start.
I do genuinely love Spain. Right now, we´re safe and sound in Barthelona after three very
restful (days)/hectic (nights) in San Sebastian. Met and spent a lot of time with a cool Swedish dude who´s invited us to stay with him in Stockholm. Rock. Also, caught a film at the San Sebastian Film Festival - it won the Publico de Perlo award or something. It was called "No Man´s Land" and was set in Bosnia during the recent
war. Unfortunately, it was mostly in Bosnian/Serbo-Croatian. Fortunately, Tasha kind of understands Serbo-Croatian and it was sub-titled. Unfortunately, I don´t understand Serbo-Croatian and those sub-titles were in Spanish. Fortunately, there were some scenes involving NATO forces who spoke in their native languages. Unfortunately, this was generally French and a bit of German. Fortunately, the Bosnians and Serbs didn´t speak French, so they often resorted to English at those times. I liked those times.
Good movie, though (I could follow the pretty pictures...) Very disturbing ending.
Anyway, love San Sebastian and Tasha and I are contemplating returning to live there... Tomorrow we leave Spain and end the day in Nice. Should be in Munich by Saturday!
Other funny/better-you-than-me story:
Tasha and I were in Granada almost two weeks ago. We arrived in the afternoon of the Thursday and were scheduled to leave on the afternoon of the Saturday. On the Friday, I suggested we go up into the mountains behind Granada - the Sierra Nevada - as something a bit different to do, to check out the wilderness and the tiny villages that have been there for over a thousand years in the Las Alpajuras. We could go for a nice walk, come back to Granada the following morning, check out the Alhambra and then be ready to catch our bus from Granada at 3pm. Seemed like top idea, right? (Well, it did...)
The morning of the Friday was bright and cloudy, getting progressively less bright, until the constant rain made our surroundings seem quite dark. Undeterred, we caught our bus at
midday and arrived in the small town of Capileira (I think) - population 600 - about 2 and a half hours later. We found a little restaurant and elected to stay in there for a few hours rather than get washed down the mountainside. At around 5pm, we started thinking we should maybe catch the last bus back to Granada. However, the seemingly constant downpour eased up and the sun appeared. Our chance was at hand! We skulled our beers (they were travel beers), gathered up our gear and made our way down the road to the next town below us - Bubion - which was
about a kilometre away, downhill. The scenery was magnificent, the air crisp and clear, the weather a little better. By the time we reached Bubion, the rain started up a little again, but we were getting thirsty anyway, so we found a bar and took refuge. By the end of the beer, the rain had stopped again, and we took the opportunity to walk to Pampaneira, the next town. This time, we took advantage of part of a footpath called the "G7", which apparently is part of a walk from Greece to Algeciras in the south of Spain (!) and this time the view was even more spectacular. By the time we reached the town, the sun was beaming brightly and we decided to stay the night after all, and catch the 6:30am bus the next morning, to get back to Granada by 9am.Tasha´s alarm was one hour out. We got to the bus stop at about 7:15am, but the bus was not 3/4 of an hour late. We asked a local the time and realised that we had well and truly missed the bus. Why didn´t we just catch the next bus, I hear you ask? Well, there were 3 buses a day, and we had missed the morning one. The next bus off the mountain left at 4pm. If we caught that one, we would arrive in Granada approximately 3 and a half hours after our Busabout bus left Granada. There wouldn´t be another Busabout bus for another two days and it would be the second last for the entire season anyway. Things were looking dire.
But we had no choice. The major "town" of the Alpajuras, Orgiva, was about 17 kilometres away. We probably wouldn´t be able to catch a bus to Granada from there (the same buses went through there as through Pampaneira) but we might be able to catch a bus to Malaga and then try and meet up with the Busabout bus further down the coast.
We started walking at 7:45am as the sun started rising, sticking the thumbs out just in case. After numerous rejections, the fog came up and obscured everything just as it became light, to ensure that we didn´t even have a view while walking.
After walking around 6 kilometres, we were picked up by two LEGENDARY German tourists who were going to Granada, who were really lovely, offering us cookies and inviting us to stay with them in Hamburg and who ensured that I could tell you this enthralling, anti-climactic story.
OK. You go squish now. Anyone who doesn´t want to receive this e-mail should be aware that Moe has it. Go kill Moe.
Yours in side
love the rilestar
PS Probably shouldn´t let Tasha´s parents see this hitch-hiking story, whoever is responsible for such information dispersal...
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