3-3 at the Mestalla

"Puta! Puta! Puta! Puta!"

- the four stands of the Mestalla last night

It was clearly a dive. 

The Valencia player put out his arm and the Villareal guy went down like he'd been hit with a baseball bat. The referee pointed to the spot, though, and then the crowd started on the above chant. I remember what "putain" means in French, and if it correlates with the Spanish, I have to agree with their sentiments. 

Puta, indeed. 

It would be a cliche to say that it changed the course of the game, but it did. It went from a 3-2 win to Valencia to 3-3 with ten (?) minutes left on the clock. Valencia worked hard for the next five, ten minutes to get the winner, but it wasn't to be. Villareal closed shop, played for a draw, and got it. 

So 3-3 it finished. 

It was a very good game, though. Probably the best I've seen in my time here; it was fast-paced, attacking, real end-to-end stuff. It was like a Premier League game, but with two sides who can pass, dribble and who are committed to aesthetically pleasing football. The passing was polished, the movements were slick, and the players willing to dribble and take on the opposition. It was miles better than anything I saw in Italy, and (sentiment notwithstanding), a better spectacle than the Arsenal flogging a hapless Premier League club. 

If I had to be cruel, I'd say that Valencia deserved it. Every time they gained the lead, they sat back. They were 2-0 up in the first half after dominating possession, and then they conceded a goal in injury time. They lost the lead in the 75th minute, regained it three minutes later, and then sat back again. So something like this was going to happen. 

But it's better to be pleasant than cruel. And it was a very nice game of football. 

On grime

"You look like you've been in a few hostels, but I'll just explain the rules."

- the guy at reception today

I guess I'm finally dirty enough to qualify as a backpacker. 

When I first started this thing, I would walk into a hostel and look at the scruffy, unshaven backpackers with a kind of wary-eyed awe. They looked seasoned, at ease with their surroundings, and above all, dirty. They had a certain kind of worn-in filth that's the result of months of lax hygiene and infrequent showers. I didn't have that kind of grime at the time, and I felt more like a visitor to a zoo than a genuine lodger of hostels. 

I have that dirtiness now. I'm fairly sure of it. The receptionist confirmed it. And today, I had seven hours on a train to contemplate it. There's about 5 millimetres of grime, grease and sweat covering my body. There's an awful funk that comes from my beanie whenever I take it off. And while I take frequent showers, it's probably negated by the necessity of wearing the same set of clothes for weeks on end. 

Sometimes, I feel like I'm the captain of a huge cargo ship of microbiota, and I have a duty to guide my flora to safe harbour. My protozoa, and especially my fungi, have been with me for quite a long time, and I hate to think what'll happen to them once this trip ends. I'll probably miss them when I get back to Australia and have the luxury of shampoo, soap and clean clothes ever day. 

I think I'll go take a shower now.

Cordoba

"You have built what you or others might've built anywhere, but you have destroyed something unique in the world."

- Carlos V, King of Spain (1516-1556), about the cathedral in the Mezquita

Cordoba's all yellow. 

It rises from the banks of a muddy yellow river. The walls are made of sandstone, and the buildings are covered with yellow plaster. The alcazar is made from yellow-tinged rock and the Meqzuita is made up of rough-hewn, yellow sandstone. From the banks of the Guadalquivir River, as you cross the old Roman bridge, it seems like the city's made out of yellow mud. 

The Meqzuita's a strange thing.  It was started in the 8th century and kept expanding as the Cordoba emirate kept getting richer. In the 12th century, it had overtaken the Damascus mosque as THE reference point for Islamic architecture. The guide book says it's the greatest visual representation to homesickness ever constructed, and it's not wrong. 

When you walk in it, it's cavernous and dark and so eerie. It's a hall of marble pillars and red-and-white brick arches, with dim lanterns hanging from the ceiling. The sense of history is almost palpable. If you close your eyes, you can hear the muezzin call to prayer, smell the orange trees in the courtyard and see the host of muslims kneeling in the direction of Mecca. 

Of course, someone in the 16th century decided to build a cathedral right in the middle of it, so the effect is kind of diminished. The cathedral's so out of place that it jars the senses. You have a mosque that speak of God through the repetition of pillars and arches, through the use of space and light and shadow. It's elegant and graceful and so profound. And smack in the middle of it, you've a bunch of statues and paintings and clutter, that speak more of the mundane than the transcendent. It's pretty shitty, and I wholeheartedly agree with Carlos V. 

End result, you walk out of the Mezquita with a profound sense of loss. And you wonder what it would've looked like if it hadn't been desecrated by the Catholics. 

Pictures Of Me

Pictures of you, pictures of me

Hung upon your wall for all the world to see

Pictures of you, pictures of me,

Remind us all of what we used to be

- Pictures Of You, The Last Goodnight

This one's about photos.

Over the months, I've taken a lot of photos - of scenery, of buildings and streets, of people and sometimes even of me. On the bus from Granada to Corboda, I've been thinking about the reasons why I keep snapping away. 

One reason is so I can have something pretty for my laptop wallpaper; and I DO have an awesome set of wallpaper pics now. I keep changing from the Alhambra to the Rose Valley to Tintern Abbey, to the Aya Sophia to the Cinque Terre to.... you get the idea. Currently, it's one from the balcony of the Generalife in the Alhambra, overlooking the Nasrid Palace and the Albayzin.

Another reason is for physical proof that I've been in these places. I've got notions that, way in the future, I'll be cranking up the old laptop and showing the hypothetical grandkiddies where grandpa went when he went mad and needed six months abroad for soul-searching. I'll be showing them pictures of Venice before it sank back into the lagoon, and they'll roll their eyes and say "whatever". 

The third reason, and perhaps the most sensitively poignant, is that it's the easiest way to establish a connection to these places. You see something majestic, or beautiful, or something that's a high-point in human civilisation, and you don't want to walk away. You want to take something back with you, to leave your mark, to connect with these places and not forget about them after a few months back home. And picture taking is the easiest way of doing this. One click, and you've frozen a vista that you've seen with your own two eyes. 

But photos never capture the immediacy of the moment. There's not a photo that details the sound my feet made when I crunched into freshly-fallen snow in Sarajevo. There's not one that recreates the sense of awe I felt as I stepped into the vastness of the dome in the Aya Sophia, nor one that shows the way that shafts of light punctured the dusty air of St Peter's Basilica. There's no way of recording the eeire stillness of the Rose Valley in Cappadocia, nor the sound of the fountains in the gardens of the Generalife in the Alhambra. 

And there's nothing but my memory to remember the chill of the waters off Dubrovnik, the blackness of the sea and the sky, the howl of the wind and the recklessness of drunken idiots squatting on the rocks. I think a lot about that night, but there's nothing left which reminds me of what happened. It's just me and my memory, and even that will fade as the weeks and months roll on. 

So really, it's kind of pointless. And depressing.

Still, it's my first day in Cordoba, and I shouldn't spend it typing in the dorm. Gotta step out and get me some photos of the Mezquita while it's open. It's one of the grandest buildings in all of Spain, doncha know. And I can always do with more wallpaper pics. 

Three Kings

"Usta va fiesta?"

- my first comprehensible sentence in Spanish

It's the Three Kings Festival today, and the city's pretty much dead. Monday night, there was a huge parade of Santas and Pharaohs and Wise Men down the Gran Via Colon, but today, half the shops are closed and everyone's walking around looking like they're nursing a giant hangover. 

It's a pretty strange parade for an outsider. You've got a few of cohorts of Roman legionnaires, Berbers and Moors. Then a couple of guys on stilts. Then a float of a Pharaoh, and a couple of Wise Men, and then one of Santa on a neon-trimmed sleigh. All of whom throw sweets into the crowd. Dads hold up confused babies to see the parade. Kids worm their way through the crowd to pick up sweets on the floor. And everyone cheers and waves as the lollies rain down from on high. 

I suppose one of the reasons people travel is to be able to see strange local traditions first-hand - like getting pelted with hard-boiled lollies in the middle of the night. It's strange because the Spanish Christmas season has been building up to this point. There's a quiet lull between New Year's and Three Kings Day, and then it ends in a bang. Three Kings Day is the day that presents are distributed. And it's kind of cute watching the kiddies try out their toy motorbikes on the streets. 

But then again, one of the best days in a long while came the other day, when I realised that EVERY bar in Granada offers free tapas, whether advertised or not. Fried ocotopus, grilled squid, jamon bocadillos... it's enough to make an alcoholic out of anybody. 

The "Grand" in Granada

"Do not cry like a woman for something you could not defend like a man."

- the last king of Granada's mother, to her blubbering son

In 1492, Boabdil, the last King of the Moors, surrendered his throne to the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. With him went 700 years of Muslim rule in the Iberian peninsula, and the end of the dream that was Al-Andulus. As he rode out, he took one last look at the city, with the red brick of the Alhambra on one hill, and the glistening white plaster of the houses of the Albayzin, he started to cry. At which point, his mother made her famous remark. 

I reckon that if Boabdil's mum had been in charge of the defences, Granada would still be the capital of Al-Andulus. 

Whatever the case, Boabdil's tears are understandable. Granada is a beautiful city, and the Alhambra is breath-taking. There's a grace and a simplicity about the Nasrid Palace that puts the grand houses of Europe to shame. It's quite humbling, to be honest, to walk through courtyard after courtyard and see this Muslim idea of heaven portrayed in marble and plaster and water. The Nasrid Palace has to be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. 

Thank God I took a shitload of photos, because I doubt I'll remember the details.

Feliz Ano Nuevo

It's a new day, it's a new dawn

It's a new life for me

And I'm feeling good

- Nina Simone, Feeling Good

So this is how 2009 starts.

I'm in the dorm, listening to the rain and typing on my laptop. John Coltrane's playing on youTube, and I'm waiting. Soon enough, that magical moment will arrive when my traveller's card ticks over and all those lovely euros pour from the ATM and into my wallet. My mind's half drowning with gluttonous thoughts.

Sevilla's not much fun with only 5 € in your pocket. 

****

It's 4:00am in Melbourne at the moment, so I imagine the birds have started singing in the pine trees behind my bedroom window. They start pretty early in the summer. In about an hour or two, the sun will rise. The inky blackness of the sky will bleed into a deep, intense blue, and then fade away as the first rays of the sun hits the atmosphere. The sky will turn a vivid pink, and then an orange and then will be all but forgotten as the sun crests the horizon and shines upon a new day. 

****

The rain's stopped, and John Coltrane's stopped, and I'm still waiting for the hours to tick by. It's been like this for about a day and a half now. It's certainly put a dampener of the new year. 

I spent the first half of New Year's Eve trying to figure out how I'd manage to stretch 5 € over two days. I wandered aimlessly through the mazy side-streets and peeked longingly into cosy little bars and restaurants. I stood in the Plaza Nuevo as the clock struck midnight, as the firecrackers burst, as everyone started sipping champagne and munching on grapes. 

I spent the second half of it trying to get drunk in a bar by the Alameda de Hercules. Met up with some people from the hostel who shouted me a couple of drinks. It's difficult when you're living on the charity of mates, and it's even tougher when you're faced with the distinct possibility that you're a pauper but for a single paper note in your wallet. 

It's doable, though. 

****

Had a look at the dashboard widget just before, and it's 4:30 in the morning. 

It's the 2nd of January in Australia, and it's almost time now - it's just a matter of hours before the dawn of the first business day of the year. I'm hoping it's the start of a new dawn for me as well. For you see, I transferred the fund from my bank account to the traveller's card a couple of days before New Year's. It takes two business days for the cash to get through to the traveller's card. And as the day dawns and the transactions start to flow, that longed for moment will arrive...

And I'll know how I'll feel.