The plains of Spain, and other journeys
Well, it's been a jet-setting couple of weeks for me, in which Z and I travelled on some free promotional holiday/trial honeymoon to Spain he got by virtue of being a lucky-bastard-Sagittarius and then I went off to Belgrade to spend time with my grandmother.
Both of these exeperiences exceeded my low expectations and for once left me feeling energised and refreshed and more ready to face such onery as cleaning house and going to work.
Due to some administrative error we ended up going to Costa del Sol in Spain (as opposed to Tenerife) but never being one to scoff at free holidays we didn't care. It turned out to be terrific anyway. Hot and beautiful and reminiscent of our childhoods and the lands we'd left behind. Predictably all my old post-traumatic neuroses came out but still I managed to go into the water without drowning and ride a horse without doing damage to my Central Nervous System, so success on all fronts.
For the first three days we just spent time by the sea, reading and playing cards and expanding my very poor grasp of Spanish, and then we rented a car, bought a map and set off to explore the backroads of Andalusia.
Previous holidays had highlighted distinct differences in temperament between Z and myself (in a nutshell: I wanted to eat and be lazy, he wanted to be active and explore shit) but this time we managed to maintain mutual respect and harmony (although it was touch and go for a while when meals got delayed). Overall it was wonderful, like an adventure.
We saw a village where they used donkeys as taxis, a museum of tiny things (including stuffed, dressed fleas, a town built on a cliffedge and a village in white stone that was so steep only scooters could negotiate the perils of its cobbled streets. The latter also had something like six massive churches which suprised us not in the least because only those heavily into the mortification of the flesh would have chosen to live, not to mention drag bricks uphill in that place. It was pretty though. We also saw a place of perfect sandy beaches and near constant wind (for a week afterwards I was leaving sand in my wake, like fairy dust)where we ate amazing fish for a few euros and fed the heads of prawns to an ugly little one eyed stray dog. Driving around we saw the rock of Gibraltar, and the coast of Africa and elderly Spanish ladies dancing to flamenco music in an empty square.
For most of it we hadn't encountered a great many people, that is until we went into a town called Fuenjirola on our last day and realised that it may be where all the British people come to die. For miles and miles and miles we were faced with dual visions of endless lines of bars on one side and endless lines of shuffling aged in bright swimwear on the other.
It was odd, our segment of Spain was like a time warp in which only music of the eighties was played and I saw several people who appeared to be sporting mullets of their own free will. And aside from hearing every song Julio Iglesias has ever made (over and over and over again) it was quite plaesant actually and allowed me to imagine that perhaps it was all just a time warp and that was perhaps why all the people were there, that maybe they had been shuffling their way to eternal preservation for the last twenty years.
Both of these exeperiences exceeded my low expectations and for once left me feeling energised and refreshed and more ready to face such onery as cleaning house and going to work.
Due to some administrative error we ended up going to Costa del Sol in Spain (as opposed to Tenerife) but never being one to scoff at free holidays we didn't care. It turned out to be terrific anyway. Hot and beautiful and reminiscent of our childhoods and the lands we'd left behind. Predictably all my old post-traumatic neuroses came out but still I managed to go into the water without drowning and ride a horse without doing damage to my Central Nervous System, so success on all fronts.
For the first three days we just spent time by the sea, reading and playing cards and expanding my very poor grasp of Spanish, and then we rented a car, bought a map and set off to explore the backroads of Andalusia.
Previous holidays had highlighted distinct differences in temperament between Z and myself (in a nutshell: I wanted to eat and be lazy, he wanted to be active and explore shit) but this time we managed to maintain mutual respect and harmony (although it was touch and go for a while when meals got delayed). Overall it was wonderful, like an adventure.
We saw a village where they used donkeys as taxis, a museum of tiny things (including stuffed, dressed fleas, a town built on a cliffedge and a village in white stone that was so steep only scooters could negotiate the perils of its cobbled streets. The latter also had something like six massive churches which suprised us not in the least because only those heavily into the mortification of the flesh would have chosen to live, not to mention drag bricks uphill in that place. It was pretty though. We also saw a place of perfect sandy beaches and near constant wind (for a week afterwards I was leaving sand in my wake, like fairy dust)where we ate amazing fish for a few euros and fed the heads of prawns to an ugly little one eyed stray dog. Driving around we saw the rock of Gibraltar, and the coast of Africa and elderly Spanish ladies dancing to flamenco music in an empty square.
For most of it we hadn't encountered a great many people, that is until we went into a town called Fuenjirola on our last day and realised that it may be where all the British people come to die. For miles and miles and miles we were faced with dual visions of endless lines of bars on one side and endless lines of shuffling aged in bright swimwear on the other.
It was odd, our segment of Spain was like a time warp in which only music of the eighties was played and I saw several people who appeared to be sporting mullets of their own free will. And aside from hearing every song Julio Iglesias has ever made (over and over and over again) it was quite plaesant actually and allowed me to imagine that perhaps it was all just a time warp and that was perhaps why all the people were there, that maybe they had been shuffling their way to eternal preservation for the last twenty years.