Getting to Seville, trying out guitars, and eating fancy tapas.

Once again we got up fairly early. Checkout time was at the rather ludicrously early hour of 10; considering the schedule we’d been keeping, that was a tall order. Still, we mostly managed it – we were officially checked out on time, though we took a little more time to actually leave the room. Hey, what can I say, we had a lot of bags.

Fitting all the bags into the car was an act of supreme spatial-relationship management. Plus some tools: Eli and Mila had borrowed from friends a baby backpack that turned out to be too big for Yelena; it was the last thing fitting into the trunk, and it just would not go in, because it would not collapse further. So, I went to the front desk as asked to borrow a screwdriver and monkey wrench, which I used to adjust the backpack so that it would pack much flatter. Success! And so we left.

Driving to Seville took only a little longer than Granada did yesterday, and we arrived well in time to check into our respective hotels and then have lunch. Mila and Eli are staying in a small room in a cute hotel that’s well-located in the Santa Cruz neighborhood. Everything is clean and new. Eric and I are staying in a cheaper place; things are clean but not new, and a little tacky; the location is a bit off the beaten path, though still in Santa Cruz. What ours does have is a lovely open-air patio/hall leading into it, decorated with traditional Sevillian tiles and hung with ivy and other plants. So we are happy with it.

For lunch we chose a place out of the guidebook, called Café Altamira, on Plaza Santa Maria la Blanca. We sat outside (as we try to whenever we can). Eli, Eric, and I drank beer – apparently the European version of Heineken. (Like Fanta sodas, Heineken sells a much tastier version in Europe than it does stateside.) Mila had a big mixed salad called ensalada altamira that contained, among other things, lettuce, tuna, and white asparagus. Eli had the pollo altamira, which was an unspecial chicken-in-spicy-sauce dish. I had a baked goat cheese salad that was quite delicious, Eric had a roasted pepper-and-shrimp salad, and we shared berejenas altamira, which were a little like monte cristo sandwiches made with eggplant instead of bread: eggplant slices surrounding ham and cheese, egg- and breadcrumb-dipped, and fried. Those were pretty tasty. We also all shared a plate of patatas bravas. For dessert Eric and Mila both had the flan, which was good enough. Eli had a so-so chocolate tart, and I had a disappointing apple tart that turned out to be 90% custard.

After lunch we took a stroll around Santa Cruz, and happened upon a guitar shop. Eli was interested in possibly buying a flamenco guitar. He went in to try out various guitars; I came along to translate. Eric and Mila went back to the hotel. The guitars were beautifully made, by an artisan in Valencia. They were also enormously expensive. The guy had Eli try out the best guitar first – a €6,000 guitar, which Eli found to be so nice that it ruined him for all the other guitars. But €6,000 was never going to happen. What Eli was really hoping for was a small local artisan selling his own wares, maybe even getting a decent flamenco guitar for €500. Still, I thought it was fun to visit the shop.

For dinner we went to a place that had outdoor seating and served tapas, located around the corner from Mila and Eli’s hotel. It wasn’t in any guidebooks, but the menu looked appealing. Good call! It was an excellent meal.

It was called Bar-Restaurant Catalina. One of the items on their menu was a sort of toasted bread with topping. We ordered one topped with onion jam and brie, baked, with cole slaw on the side. It was so good we ordered a second one. We also had an eggplant gratin, some fried chickpeas with a coddled Cornish hen egg, a small chunk of Argentine beef, some jamón iberico, and a duck confit lasagna (with handmade noodles) with truffle sauce. Oh, it was all so very good.

We drank fino sherry – Tio Pepe to be exact. While we were drinking, a couple of young women in Tio Pepe uniforms came by to give us gifts from Tio Pepe as a reward for having ordred it: two pens. We also had some very good beer from Granada (which we’d first drunk at the Moroccan restaurant in Málaga) called Alhambra Reserva.

In the end this was one of our best meals, and also one of our cheapest. I don’t know how, but it just was not too expensive.

Labels: journal, personal, spain

posted by Tony at 11:33 PM | 0 comments

Granada

A day trip to Granada from Estepona is a bit ambitious, at roughly 2½ hours each way. It was worth doing, though – the Alambra is so beautiful. So we got up this morning at the crack of dawn (8:00am – the time zone is a little weird here), piled into the car, and set off for Granada.

We had purchased reserved tickets two days earlier, but we told that the only time available was at 7pm. This meant the earliest we’d likely leave would be 8:30, and we wouldn’t get back to the hotel till 11pm. Yelena, who doesn’t like long car trips much, would have her schedule thrown (in as much as she has one now), and would probably be awake for much of the night. So when we arrived in Granada around 1:30pm, we hoped there would be a better solution.

There was, and there wasn’t. What they failed to tell us on the phone was that they only reserve some of the entry times; others are only available at the door. So we discovered that we could purchased tickets for a 3pm entrance right then and there. The only catch was, our reservations for 7pm were already paid for, and it typical bureaucratic fashion, they could not be changed. I had to call to complain (no one working there could take my complaint), but it didn’t do me any good. In the end, we decided it was worth it to us to forfeit the 7pm tickets and by new, better ones.

With our 3pm tickets to see the palaces, we were allowed to enter the whole of the Alhambra at 2pm, which left us enough time to have a nice meal first. We had a sit-down meal outside at a restaurant called Mimbre. Positioned at the top of the hill, next to the Alhambra, Mimbre is about the only choice for a sit-down meal; therefore it is to be expected that the meal will be expensive and unexceptional. It did not disappoint. It was generally pretty good, though the service was very lackluster. (It took a very long time to get the check; it took 5-10 minutes to get the waiters attention to ask for the check, and another 10 minutes before he brought it. I was ready to walk out – I prefer to pay, but only if they will bring be the check.)

In the interest of keeping the meal quick, we skipped appetizers and just had main dishes: grill salmon for Mila, steak frites for Eli, baby calamari with hot pepper for Eric, and fried baby fava beans with ham for me.

The Alhambra itself was beautiful. Worth driving 5 hours round-trip, worth paying twice, worth braving a cranky baby. The intricately carved and decorated walls are truly astounding.

We left at about 6pm, and drove straight back to the hotel. We had considered driving down the hill toward town and seeing the center of the old city, but encountered some construction work and decided not to – instead, we drove out the way we drove in: along the backside of the hill, connecting straight to the highway.

Back at the hotel we thought we might order in, but all the options we could find seemed lackluster – overpriced Spanish food as one choice, Indian or Thai as the others. So Eli and I got the name of a local place that would sell tapas to go, and we drove off to get some. I don’t recall the name of the place – something “de Gaudalmina” (the name of the river in Málaga).

We got a rather large seeming spread: tortilla española, green olives, roasted red pepper salad, marinated mushrooms, lomo de puerco, slices of chorizo Riojana, small chorizos served whole on toast, a half hard-boiled egg served with mayonnaise and a shrimp, smoked cod on toast, smoked salmon w/ crab salad, Idiazabal cheese, a chicken tartelet, and some pieces of chicken wing. It was all quite good, though the chicken wings were nothing special. We thought we might have leftovers, but we ended up eating every last bite of everything.

All told, we are getting to bed at a pretty reasonable time, too. This is good: we got up early today, and will need to get up early tomorrow as well, to check out.

Labels: journal, personal, spain

posted by Tony at 11:40 PM | 0 comments

Málaga

Today we went into Málaga. We had intended to go to Granada today, but couldn't reserve any tickets by phone for today (we were assured reservations were a must), so instead we reserved for tomorrow.

We arrived and parked, and decided to have a Moroccan meal — Mila said she was tired of having to work so hard to avoid pork and shellfish all the time. The Moroccan restaurant recommended by our guidebook was a few blocks away from our parking lot, in a neighborhood full of Moroccan restaurants and sex shops. This restaurant was particularly covered in traditional Moroccan design. The food was very good — we started with fresh pita and hummus that was positively swimming in delicious extra virgin olive oil (yum) followed by a plate of kefta. Then Eli, Eric, and I had couscous (veal, chicken, and mixed, respectively) and Mila had a tagine of chicken. We finished with hot mint tea and pastries. Every song that they played was something Mila recognized from her belly-dancing classes; they even played the Cheb Mami song that Mila and Eli use as a tool of last resort to get Yelena to sleep. When the waiter asked us if we knew how to eat hummus, I thought, he does not know who he's talking to. The restaurant was unfortunately too stimulating for Yelena, and we ended up taking turns walking her around outside.

After lunch we headed to the old town, eventually ending up at the Alcazaba, which is the ruins of an old Moorish military citadel. We toured the ground and decided to visit the Castillo de Gibralfaro, a sort of ruined castle that is attached to the Alcazaba by a long connecting wall running up the mountain. The wall is off limits, though, so you have to walk along side on a footpath. It seemed like a good idea before we started, but it turned out to be murder. Basically, we walked up a mountain in the middle of the city. The views at the top were spectacular — we were so unbelievably high up. We were also worn out and cranky, and decided to walk down the long way, the road the accesses the top for cars and busses.

At the bottom, we decided to grab some food and head home — stuffed baked potatoes, a regional specialty (Eli: just butter; Eric: mayo, cheese, ham; Mila: mayo and vegetables; Me: mayo, cheese, ham, corn, and olives), which we took home with us to eat at the apartment. Then we stopped for ice cream at a place on Marques de Lario, a large fancy pedestrianized street in town — sort of their Michigan Avenue. The ice cream was very good. The potatoes turned out not to be such a great idea; all that mayonnaise didn't sit well with me, for one thing.

A fun day nonetheless. And we played euchre again.

Labels: journal, personal, spain

posted by Tony at 11:46 PM | 0 comments

Hanging out + Casares and Estepona

Today we’d elected to take it easy, since the past two days had involved a lot of time in the car, which was hard on Yelena. We hung around, wrote and read, played with the baby, swam, walked, that sort of thing, until quite late in the day. Lunch ended up being an assortment of whatever was around the apartment, rather than an organized meal.

When we did leave, we headed to the pretty pueblo blanco of Casares, which is quite nearby and recommended as a beautiful place to see. And it is a beautiful place to see – improbably cradled on a ridge coming off a mountain, streets going here and there, up and down, with beautiful views of green fields, large white wind turbines, Gibraltar, and the mountains of Ceuta and Morocco.

What Casares did not have was open restaurants. There were restaurants everywhere, but every last one was closed, so we eventually left town and headed to central Estepona, the town in which our resort is located.

Downtown Estepona is quite nice, and very pretty in parts. We found a little square filled with plants, called Plaza de Flores (“Square of Flowers”), and ate in a restaurant on it, called Meson Cordobés. It was decent, but we could have done better with more time and less hunger. I had an ensalada andaluza (lettuce, onion, tomato, and tuna) followed by a tasty dish of pork chunks cooked in a house sauce with cumin in it. Eric had a fish soup that he enjoyed very much, followed by the same pork dish. Eli had a goat cheese and tomato salad, followed by a steak with “paté sauce” (“salsa paté”), which was very much like bearnaise sauce, and was good. Mila had an ensalada de la casa, which was like mine but also had shredded beets, hearts of palm, corn kernels, and other goodies in it, followed by fried fresh anchovies with olive oil and vinegar, which had been recommended by the host. The anchovies were a bit much, but we asked for lemon and then they were pretty tasty. Still, a plate with nothing on it but fried anchovies is an odd dinner. Eric and Eli had beer to start with, while I had manzanilla (or possibly just fino, though I ordered manzanilla); we shared a bottle of Rioja with dinner. For dessert Mila and Eric each had a flan, which was a huge disappointment.

We are home now, and it remains to be seen if Yelena will go to sleep easily.

Labels: journal, personal, spain

posted by Tony at 11:57 PM | 0 comments

Gibraltar

Guidebooks tend to give lackluster reviews of Gibraltar, but we decided to go anyway, since it was close. I would say that it is worth doing – to see the rock, not so much for the town itself.

We followed the advice of guidebooks and parked in an underground parking garage in La Línea, a couple of blocks from the border crossing, and walked to Gibraltar. (Lines to get into and out of Gibraltar by car tend to be long, and once you get in, there are few places to park.) At the border, a man at a desk asked us if we wanted a tour… while we object to be solicited for tours, he was at an official desk in the border crossing building, and it seemed like it might be a good idea. For €25 apiece, they would drive us by taxi-van all around the rock, including admission to the various caves, we’d get a guided visit to the barbary apes, and we wouldn’t have to ride the cable car (a bonus for acrophobic me). So we said yes.

The taxi driver/guide was a voluble man who told us lots of interesting stuff while careening up narrow roads with inadequate guard rails along very steep slopes. I enjoyed the tour, though it did rather push my fear-of-heights buttons.

Stop number one was a lookout point with a monument to the pillars of Hercules. Morocco was visible through the mist across the straits, and the mountains and hills of Cádiz province stretched out to the west. We looked around, took some photos, and then headed back to the taxi for stop number two: St. Michael’s Caves. These are large, beautiful, natural caves filled with stalactites and stalagmites, and also housing a concert halls. We emerged and drove up to stop number three, the barbary ape reserve, which is a spot in the road that runs along the ridge between peaks. This was our summit view, rather than the actual summit (fine by me). On the western side was a steep slope running down to the town and Atlantic, and on the eastern was a more-or-less sheer cliff drop down to beaches on the Mediterranean. It was very cool and entirely vertiginous. And of course, there were the apes. The apes are very cute, but can be dangerous. The ones by the reserve are more tame, and will sit on your head, apparently whether you like it or not – as I was taking pictures of the group, an ape popped up on Eli’s head, moved over to Mila, and then climbed onto Eric, before getting off. I have photographic evidence – of the ape itself, and of our guide encouraging it with peanuts. Then we drove on two stop number four: the Great Siege Caves, which are rather like a cross between a mine and a fort. These were a bit Disney-ish, with mannequins in costume acting out scenes around us (not animatronic, fortunately). The nicest part of this stop was the northward view of Spain, with the interesting sight of the road out crossing the airport runway. Then we were driven down the rock into the center of town, and dropped off.

So that was worth doing, because those sights are really the best part of Gibraltar. The town is perfectly nice – a little slice of England, with the wrong architecture and the wrong weather – but it’s also a duty-free shopping town, making it rather like a mall. We ate a late lunch at the square at the northern end of the main street, in outdoor seating, at a place called The Tunnel. Fish and chips all around, washed down with beer and cider. Yum.

So we headed out of Gibraltar, on foot. We walked out of town, walked across the runway, walked through border control, and walked back to the garage. Ha! Border control was pretty lax, though the Spanish police officer made sure to see Yelena’s passport, out of everyone’s.

We drove home, stopping for groceries on the way. (An earlier attempt to by ground coffee for the apartment accidentally resulted in a bag of roasted chicory, and no coffee.)

I made dinner, mostly with things picked up from the store. Artichokes were cheap and plentiful, and I also got some eggplants. Eric helped me cut the artichokes down to the hearts, which I started sautéing in lots of olive oil, with garlic and lemon zest. I diced the eggplant, and thought it might overpower the artichoke, so I took some of the artichoke leaves and boiled them up in a little water to make an artichoke stock. Just as the artichokes were starting to get crisp on the edges, I added the eggplant, drizzled with more oil, and cooked it like that for a while. Then I added lemon juice, a little water, the artichoke stock, and the few tablespoons of red wine I had left over from my transatlantic flight. I cooked it all on low until was cooked, and then tossed it with cooked pasta (linguini, I think). I tossed two cans of bonito del norte into the mix before serving it. It was very good, though it would have profited from some olives. Instead, we pulled out the aged firm cheese we’d bought in Ronda, and grated that in.

We played euchre for the first time after dinner – something I’d have thought we’d have played more. After the game (Mila and Eli victorious again), we discovered that Yelena, though she’d been put to bed before dinner, was happily lying awake, kicking, and cooing. It took a while to get her down again. So this was the latest night yet!

Labels: journal, personal, spain

posted by Tony at 11:34 PM | 0 comments

Ronda

Today we drove to the beautiful hill town of Ronda, which Eric and I had been to before. Ronda is built on two wedges of rock rising up out of the land, with a gorge between. One side of the town had sharp slopes down, and the other side has a sharp sheer drop. The town does not have walls on all sides because it would have been totally unnecessary.

We did not get an especially early start. We all had things we wanted to do in the morning... I wanted to lie in the sun a little and swim in the pool. (The outdoor pool is lovely, but utterly frigid. While I was swimming, I thought, I can handle this, it’s like northern Michigan. When I got out, I thought, no, it’s not as warm as that.)

The road to Ronda twists and turns through the mountains. They are very beautiful, rocky mountains – some of them almost completely barren, others covered with brush. Occasionally you’d see a small olive grove, or something similar, tucked into the rock. As a driving experience, it was not entirely edifying. Mostly, Yelena did not like it and began to cry halfway through, and there wasn’t much for us to do but push on to Ronda. (I think she was crying for a combination of car sickness, hunger, uncomfortable car seat, and poopiness; enough to make the strongest baby ornery.)

We arrived around lunch time, and so found underground parking in the mercadillo side of town, and headed to the nearby Restaurante Pedro Romero. The restaurant is dedicated to the art of bullfighting, and sits across the street from the bullfighting stadium, the oldest one in Spain. Lunch (dinner, really) was very good. We started with cream of squash soup, eggplant salad with peppers and prawns, and fried goat cheese (semi-ripened) with apple compote, all good. Yelena ate a little of my apple compote, which was nothing more than an apple cooked until it was mushy – an excellent compliment to the cheese. (I took Eric’s salad as a vocabulary lesson in the difference between “ensalada” and “ensaladilla” in Spain: Eric’s ensalada was a lettuce salad with cooked eggplant and peppers mixed in, garnished with two prawns. Something closer to a baba gannouj would have been called “ensaladilla”.) Our main courses were cochinillo (suckling pig, roasted); rabbit cooked with onions, carrots, peppercorns, and bay leaves; and perdiz escabechada (partridge marinated and served cold). I had considered all three dishes before settling on the rabbit, because other people were having the other dishes. I’m glad I had it – I think it was the best dish, in spite of being difficult to eat (fiddly bones and small hunks of meat). The partridge was disappointing, because not enough had been done to counter the native dryness of the bird. The cochinillo was remarkably strong-flavored (though perhaps it always is, I don’t recall); I found it tasty but a bit too funky.

For dessert, I had the lemon sorbete, which is (despite the multiple translations in the menu) not a sorbet, but rather like a granita, or a New England-style frozen lemonade (assessment: yummy, but a little too acidic). Mila had the chocolate-walnut bizcocho with a sort of crème anglaise (not good, because the bizcochos were, shockingly, freezer-burned). Eli had a sort of vanilla pound cake, sliced and drizzled in orange liqueur (yummy). Eric ordered something called tocinillo de cielo, described as a sweet caramel custard, but literally translating as “little bacon of heaven”. The literal name was quite mysterious until it came out, and suddenly it dawned on me that this large brick-like slab of thick yellow flan, with a brown top, looked quite a lot like a nice hunk of smoked fatback. “Little bacon of heaven” indeed! In any event, it was yummy, and the entire large slab was eaten with everyone’s help. (Well, not so much mine: the texture was too thick for me, and I am picky about texture.)

After lunch we walked around town, crossing the very old “new bridge” to the older ciudad side of town, and wandering here and there, stopping at a cliff-side plaza on the western edge of town, and then heading downhill to cross much older “old bridge” and to take a look at the even older “arab bridge”. The views of the gorge are rather breathtaking from all bridges – lush, green, and unbelievably deep.

We headed back as the sun was approaching the horizon, and it was dusk when we reached the hotel. Yelena fussed less on this leg.

Supper was a nice cold meal of tortilla de patata and ensaladilla rusa purchased to-go from a tapas joint in Ronda, some nice cheeses also purchased in Ronda, cured olives from France, and a bottle of Ribero del Duero Crianza 2002 (from a vineyard called Arribeño). The wine is fairly cheap, and good; the food was all lovely. Ensaladilla rusa (“Russian salad”) is a sort of tuna-and-potato salad made with mayo, carrots, and peas, and it really hits the spot, as does tortilla de patata.

In spite of general intentions to go to bed earlier, we seem to go to bed later every night. Yelena did go to bed without much fuss last night, though Mila did leave her sleeping on the bed and didn’t try to move her to the crib right away.

Labels: journal, personal, spain

posted by Tony at 11:30 PM | 0 comments

Bumming around and doing nothing

Mila has brought her computer, and the hotel comes with high-speed internet, so apparently I will be able to update this blog as much as I have interest. I do not promise daily updates.

Today was the designated bumming-around-and-doing-nothing day. We bummed around and did nothing. Eli and I had massages (Mila and Eric’s come tomorrow). Lunch was thrown together from various items purchased at a grocery store – I had bread, bonito del norte, and lettuce. Quite nice.

We had a little walk around the beach at the resort. It’s quite lovely here: well-groomed tropical landscaping.

In the evening we drove to Marbella for a nice dinner in the old quarter. We had a little difficulty finding it – and then when we thought we’d found it, and had parked and gotten out and begun walking, still couldn’t figure out where we were on the map I was carrying. We found a public map, but it lacked a “you are here” spot, and so it wasn’t very useful. So I gave in and asked for help.

Have you ever wondered why it is that men won’t ask for directions? I’ll tell you why. Asking directions doesn’t help much, because the world is full of yabbos. I asked a guy, working in a trinket shop, (in Spanish), “where are we on this map?” He stared at my map for a while before offering useless general information: this street here is back there (we knew that). He didn’t seem to think the map showed anything remotely near where we were. Except it did. I think he must not have ever looked at a map of Marbella. How else could you explain not recognizing it at all?

We found the old town my way: heading off in the most likely direction and getting lucky.

Dinner was not at either of the recommended places we were thinking of, but instead at a place that looked promising and had seating outside on the narrow pedestrianized streets of old town Marbella. It was called El Cortijo, and proved to be quite good. We started with country bread with olive oil, tomate, and jamón iberico; baked sheep’s milk cheese with blueberry sauce; and fried baby calamari (so cute, so tasty). For entrees, Eli had duck breast with cherry sauce, Mila had roasted lamb, Eric and a pork joint, and I had grilled sea-bass. It was all good, but I felt Eric and Eli had the best ones. Eric’s pork was more like a ham cooked until it was falling over the bone. We skipped dessert and headed back, taking a short detour through the beautiful old town.

Alas we had push Yelena’s bed time to far. Arriving at the hotel, she woke up and would not go back to sleep again for quite a while. Poor thing. I confess I went to sleep myself anyway.

Labels: journal, personal, spain

posted by Tony at 11:30 PM | 0 comments

Arrived in Spain

Flight long and irritating. Didn’t watch the movie; tried to sleep the whole time. Didn’t succeed. Didn’t sleep enough the night before I left. Ate weirdly the evening before I left. Arrived more or less miserable.

Called Eric from Heathrow and found out... oh, but here the story gets long. Let’s go back in time:

About a week ago, student protests erupted in France (the land of the student protest) over a proposed change in labor laws (as I understand it) making it easier to fire (and therefore to hire) people under 26. The goal was to decrease unemployment among the young by giving them the same labor rights as every American enjoys – that is to say, virtually none. Well, the student population, who are young themselves, but generally don’t hit the labor market until around 26 anyway, were having none of this, and took to the streets.

In the days since, there have been countless manifestations everywhere. Yesterday, when Eric was taking a train for Cognac to Angoulême, to catch a train to Bordeaux, to catch a train to Irun (on the French-Spanish border), to catch the overnight train to Madrid, to catch a train to Málaga, to take the train to the Málaga airport, to meet me after my flight... French students took over the Angoulême train station, delaying trains. The protest dispersed in time for him to leave at the appointed time, on a train that was supposed to have left earlier; but when he got to Bordeaux, he discovered that the train he was catching there was also delayed, and he would miss his connection to Madrid. This would throw off his travels plans to the point where he wouldn’t be able to arrive in Málaga until 10:47pm, 2½ hours after my flight arrived. Finally arrangements were made to put him and the few others who were traveling to Madrid that night on a special train from Hendaye (on the other side of the border from Irun). So they arrived in Hendaye at 1:40am and were shoved into tiny couchettes that Eric, being claustrophobic, found to be utterly miserable. Arriving on Madrid in time to catch an early train, Eric discovered that, in contrast to every single train he had taken so far, these trains were already booked up, and the earliest train he could get on would arrive in Málaga at, you guessed it, 10:47pm.

Meanwhile, Mila and Eli had nearly missed their connection in Heathrow, and Mila’s luggage did miss the connection. The airline failed to deliver the luggage to their hotel in Aranjuez the next night (it was finally delivered to our hotel in Estepona the following morning). They also overslept – poor Yelena took a long time to go to sleep, the room had no clocks (the hotel is associated with a casino), and they’d pulled down the blinds for a total sun-block, the result being that they woke up at noon, an hour past checkout time. The hotel was nice about it, and they hit the road an hour or so later, but only had time to go directly to the airport to get me. My flight was a little delayed, by the time I got out of the baggage claim, it was 45 minutes later than my flight was supposed to have arrived, and Eli and I proceeded to spend another ½ hour not finding each other.

Finally we hit the road to Estepona, stopping on the way for some roadside food – to go, but with no plastic forks, so we could eat much in the car. The hotel took some time to check into – more than average – and then Eli and I left Mila and Yelena to drive to Málaga. I thought my memories of Málaga would make it easy to find the train station (coupled with the map I was carrying), but in fact it was quite difficult, owing to the not-uncommon situation of their being clear signs for the train station everywhere but at that last turn. So we got a bit lost, and by the time we picked up Eric, it was five minutes to midnight.

We finally got to bed at 1 or 1:30 in the morning. We have promised ourselves massages tomorrow. What’s the point of staying in a fancy shmancy resort if you don’t get a massage?

Labels: journal, personal, spain

posted by Tony at 11:59 PM | 0 comments

Radio Ga Ga

Well, last night's show went OK. It felt a little off, but that was probably nerves. I tried to record it but failed for some reason. I've never used a CD burner before. Oh well.

I didn't write take a copy of my playlist, as I'd intended to. I didn't do it during the show, and didn't feel like copying it all down after. So no record. I played Blondie, Sufjan Stevens, P:ano, something by the Engineers off that tribute album to Tim and Jeff Buckley, Bjork, Bebel Gilberto, Lady Sovereign, Erlend Øye, Baby Teeth, Frank Zappa, Nina Simone, the Clash, and a mess of other stuff. I had a stack of things I was definitely going to play, but didn't get to half of them, for no really good reason except that I played other stuff. I did not play "Radio Ga Ga".

Meanwhile, I have a different drawing to use in the program guide for "stay informed". As I thought would happen, I was told, nicely, that the flag wasn't quite right. "Seemed out of place". That's fair. So the new image is perhaps overly neutral, but I like it anyway.

Labels: playlists

posted by Tony at 10:51 PM | 0 comments

Do-It-Yourself Cat and Girl

If you've ever wanted to make a webcomic but can't draw, I have just the thing for you. The erudite yet funny Dorothy Gambrell has posted this do-it-yourself Cat and Girl creation set.

Maybe you have to be a fan of Cat and Girl to really enjoy this...

Anyway, here's what I wrote. Funny? You like? Is my reference in the last panel too obscure?

Labels: neat stuff

posted by Tony at 10:58 PM | 0 comments

I am what I play?

Last night's DJ training went like this: I got there early and started to pull CDs from the shelves. (There are legions of unfamiliar CDs there, but if you look through the shelves slowly you encounter tons of familiar, good stuff.) Then Mike arrived and announced that he was going to take the back seat and put me in charge of the whole show. So basically it was my show.

So I apologize to those who would have liked to listen that I didn't mention this was happening. But I can promise you that next week I will be spinning tracks all by my lonesome and anyone who wants to hear my voice on the radio is invited to tune in. (6pm-7:30pm CST, Saturday March 18, 2006, 88.7 FM in Chicago, or streaming on the web at www.wluw.org).

The show goes like this: the first 45 minutes are totally nerve-wracking, as I struggle to line my music up well, adhering to the requirements of the format, select promos and PSAs to read, take antenna readings, and do everything else that I need to do. Then everything smooths out and I coast along till the end.

Last night's selections included:
Frank Zappa - Camarillo Brillo
Rufus Wainwright - In My Arms (confession: I meant to play April Fool, but played the wrong track. In My Arms was a more interesting choice, ultimately)
Björk - It's Not Up to You
Nina Simone - Ne Me Quitte Pas
The Earlies - I Must Have Been Blind (excellent cover of the Tim Buckley song)
Gal Costa - Habib
Grandmaster Flash - The Message
P:ano - I forgot the name of the song, but it was good. I don't know these folks well, but they come recommended by Meryn Cadell, so I played them.
Belle & Sebastian - The Blues are Still Blue or something like that.
The Aluminum Group - I Blow You Kisses
Baby Teeth - Diaghalev Was Right (a local group with a jammy, slightly out-of-control sound that I enjoy)
Ben Folds - Annie Waits
and a bunch more than that, too, obviously. I wrote down my playlist there, as is required, but didn't take a copy of it with me, so I can't remember everything.

I will be recording next week's show so Eric can hear it when he returns from his trip, and I suppose I could make it available to others who want it. I'll try to post an actual playlist next week.

I haven't drawn anything new lately, but I am still drawing... please don't think this DJ thing will get in the way of my sketching for your pleasure.

Labels: playlists

posted by Tony at 12:05 PM | 0 comments

Weather, Music, Fish

We are heading into a warm spell, so of course it's snowing.

A few weeks ago the temperature was going to drop to roughly zero, and our daffodils had been coming up early (due to a mild January), so to preserve them I covered them in newspaper and plastic sheeting. It did the trick, but I really should have taken the plastic up before yesterday — the plastic sent the whole flower bed into fast-forward, and when I did pull up the plastic yesterday, most everything had sprouted to early-April heights.

I think daffodils are strong enough to take snow, and temperatures down to 28°, so I think we'll be OK. I'm not hauling the plastic out again tonight. Not again unless the forecast says temperatures in the low 20's. Otherwise I'm just crossing my fingers.

. . . . .

Meanwhile, last night I had my second night of DJ training. The DJ I was working with before had to leave town, and so I worked with a sub, who really gave me a good training. Where the first DJ didn't quite know what to do with me, the second DJ focused on teaching me the ropes and getting me comfortable. For the last half hour he put me completely in the hot seat — choosing and cuing all the music, selecting PSAs and promos to read, and working the board. I came out feeling much more on top of things.

So anyone in the Chicago area who heard Laurie Anderson, the Wolfgang Press, Kate Bush, and the Pansy Division last night, that was me. Hi!

So this whole DJ thing just goes to show you that anything you thought you missed out on in college, you know, maybe you can still do.

. . . . .

A month or so ago we ordered Thai food, which was delivered by an old man. He gawked for a moment at the fish sculpture in our front hall, which had been made by the former boyfriend of one of my cousins, back in the 70's. The old delivery man said, that must be Chinese, or Korean, maybe 100-200 years old, or a fossil! I said no, it was about 30 years old, and iron, and from Rhode Island. (His English was not great; I knocked on the fish to demonstrate that it was metal.)

But I realized I didn't know the whole story behind the sculpture. There are parts I can't remember, and things I don't know... I think my parents bought it, but maybe it was a gift... and looking at it, I think the head of the fish must have been a re-purposed piece of decorated cast iron, maybe a fireplace fender or something.

It's a very wonderful sculpture, and I'm very pleased to have it in my front hall. We do get a lot of comments about it.

I have a confession, though: when the delivery man was looking at it, it was decorated with Christmas cards.

Here's a picture of it with Rupert, our cat — why is it that cats so often look as though they are posing for the camera?

Labels: personal

posted by Tony at 2:53 PM | 1 comments