Madriding high

26.11.10


Madrid, Espana


T-1000, advanced prototype, liquid metal; living in Madrid


Well well well, I am now on the other side of my 23rd Thanksgiving and looking back. It is always a bit bittersweet to be reviewing an event you were fiercely anticipating, regarding it now as a memory instead of a heavily circled calendar date, heavy with so much promise. The good news, however, is that Sean and I will be celebrating the holiday twice more this weekend. I reckon there is at least one benefit to being out of the US for Thanksgiving, which would be the multitude of parties/dinners that expatriates throw on the only days they can: the weekend. Saturday and Sunday will be our unofficial Thanksgivings, complete with turkey, stuffing, and pies galore. Further, the camaraderie and general cheer is amplified by the fact that, for many of us, this is our first Thanksgiving on our own in a completely foreign place, and so we redouble our efforts to capture the magic that we took for granted back home. While finding a pigskin or sweet potato is rather difficult here, the gusto with which we search for them is phenomenal. As of this moment, all this is pure conjecture, for the first dinner is tomorrow night with Melissa Ward, Holly Vanderwal, and some other American/Spanish celebrants (how peculiar to have 4 LTHS grads


The changing landscape, the hunched-o'er-bike maneuver


celebrating Thanksgiving together 4-6 years post-graduation in Madrid?). What I anticipate is plenny o' good cheer, but what I fear is an overenthusiastic production in the form of painted smiles and a few too many sips of champagne (when have I ever had champagne for Thanksgiving?). I sit here today and wonder whether tomorrow will be genuine and delicious, or simply a stage for us exported Americans to allow our common foreignness and manufactured spirit-o'-th'-season to resonate to dangerous levels and bring about the destruction of a tradition we are trying to preserve. But mostly I'm wondering what will be on the table.

There is much to update and so very little time. Allow me to abbreviate the last week with a few of the finer points. We have discovered a website known as warmshowers.org, which provides hospitality to touring cyclists such as ourselves. So far, we have used it successfully four times: in Moustey and Bayonne, France; and in Elizando


Elizandoooo!!! A Basque Country fan favorite



and Guadalajara, Spain. These hosts have been some of the nicest and most accommodating people we have met, and they do it out of a keen interest in cycling and an appreciation for what we do, occasionally having a nice round-the-world trek under their belts. Although we at first rejected this way of meeting people, as we felt it was too artificial and relied on forced or staged kindness, we are beginning to realize that it is merely a way to meet those who share a common interest as we do.


Thumbs up for warmshowers! And the Pyrenees!


The going from Bayonne to Madrid was not what I was expecting, although hindsight tells me I should have seen it coming. I knew there would be mountains, and many of them, but I had no feel for the sheer magnitude of desolation in this Spanish countryside. Not only are the towns separated by dozens of kilometers, with some not



The changing landscape, changed once more



having any servicios, but along the road we have encountered fourscore or more destroyed or otherwise abandoned stone huts or houses with no obvious purpose. OK, this exists in America, too, no? But I have never seen American villages boasting a 50% decimated building rate, as we saw in Barahona the night we camped in the middle of town on the hill next to the church. That night, the wind was perfectly calm, and we heard not a single sound. Course, this was not half as unsettling as the previous night, where the town of Agreda put us up in la parrochia - a free room run by the church and set up for pilgrims or


Wild parties abound at Castle Hilltop


travelers - where we had to change multiple heavily bloodied sheets before sleeping (I got the bloody bed!). Why we did not get a picture of this was purely out of concern for the law.

Other highlights? I have never before received so many intense gawks and stares, at least not since I got that fifth arm removed. Spaniards are not at all afraid to let you know via gaze that they are dumbfounded or at least interested in what


Palacio de Algo/Here is a key



you are doing in their town. Also, cities are extremely painful to navigate, but we rode from Guadalajara to Madrid without a map, something we chalked up as a rip-roaring success. Finally, speaking Spanish has never been more relevant, which is a major road block in any learning program. I'd say put the kids in the middle of a market without any food or water and have them find their way into a van with no windows for the promise of a "sweet sweet." That'll teach 'em.