I freeze, I burn

Date: Apr 16, 2010

I remember in college I took a lit class where we studied one of Petrarch’s sonnets in which he said and I paraphrase: “I freeze, I burn.” The juxtaposition of the two positions always stuck with me, and today was another reminder of the duality of life. To wit, I love Sevilla, I hate Sevilla.

It was a hell of a day by any standard, and while it was literally hell when going through it, in the end it was just another situation which one laughs at with a little perspective and a very tall glass of wine.

We arrived in Sevilla late morning and parked our car in an underground garage. One of those twisty, curvy things with scrape marks on both sides reminding you that you can over and underestimate the curve. Here they’ve added a new aspect, a climb out of the ground to a blind corner with traffic coming from both directions. Once again I came to appreciate the gutless wonder, Clio. She’s small enough that with nothing more than a little trepidation, I can negotiate the exit. After parking the car on the third level, all the more fun with the additional curves, we proceeded to find our hotel. Our two requirements were a garage for the car, and internet for the whiny geek. The tourist bureau gave us some recommendations and we set about finding them. What they didn’t tell us was that tomorrow begins the “festival of April,” and almost everything is filled and at double the price to boot. Eventually we came across a little pension, with, naturally, neither a garage nor internet access. However, at this point we didn’t care.

Our room is small, but clean and does nicely. The dona running the place does so from her throne on the first floor (0ne floor up) she sends down a basket with the key which you return to the basket when you leave. To pay for the room, the money goes into the basket which disappears into the air. The vestibule is totally Spanish. Flowers pots surround the tiled floor with a big urn in the center. The blue tiled walls look spotless and everything has this freshly cleaned appearance Our room is windowless except for the little window which has a grill on it to prevent anyone from entering from the vestibule, unless, of course, they take the key from the basket which doesn’t seem to disappear quite as quickly as the money. We can hear every conversation as it bounces off the tiled walls and floor.

Opera music wafts over the area from some unknown source, but adds to the ambiance. From her perch, she buzzes the electric door by which all entrances and exits take place. No doubt who’s in charge here.

We proceeded out to discover the city, but that’s just mundane touristy stuff. The real meat of the day came when we came back to move the car to a parking garage closer to our pension. We started to move the car around 5 p.m. and by 8 we finally succeeded. I’ve been in some pretty atrocious traffic in San Francisco and the various freeways on the bay area, but this topped it all.

Take all the things I’ve said about driving in the Portuguese towns, remove the hills but add an extra 800,000 people and you begin to appreciate the situation. The problem is that only the locals know the rules. For example, there are virtually no left turn lanes on anything approaching a major road. You can wind up going down a street and seemingly every direction except the one you are going is a one way street. There are thousands upon thousands of people on motor scooters weaving in and out of traffic and some of the drivers appear to be still wearing diapers. My daughter won’t even let me get one of those little atv things which only go three mph for my grandsons, much less weave in and out of traffic at horrendous speeds. Who are these parents?

We tried to get into a correct lane to get where we wanted to go, but it turned out to be an underground tunnel which took us way beyond where we wanted to go. Then we were in the far left lane and had to negotiate moving over five lanes of traffic which was bumper to bumper and not moving. Cars from the right are forcing their way into your lane, scooters are zipping between lanes of traffic on your right, and just when you think you’re getting somewhere by actually moving over a lane, you now have cars on the left and right forcing their way into your lane, and scooters are now zipping by on both sides. All of this means that you have to keep your eyes on what is happening directly in front of you, while at the same time checking your rear view mirror and both side mirrors. I’ve always said I had multiple personalities, but I’m not a fly with compound eyes.

Without going on and on and on, because that is what we actually did, we managed after two hours to get to our garage, but, Ta Da, it was now full. This meant we had to start all over again to get to another one. We finally made it and had to take our suitcases about ¼ mile with the continuous, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk of the suitcase wheels on the cobble stone streets and sidewalks. We passed our intended parking garage, and Ta Da, it’s not full anymore. Well, I’m not moving the damned thing until we leave town!!!

I was totally trashed! Carol knew how I felt, and thank god I had her to read the maps and give me at least an idea of where we were, even though we didn’t know how to get back. I told her the only thing I could compare it with was remembering how I felt after the last final on the last day of finals when you had three of them that day.

However, I found a ice cream shop had a wi-fi zone where I could check email. A big tub of Chocolate/Orange gelato and that aforementioned TALL glass of wine helped put everything in proper perspective. It’s hell when you are going through it, but in the end, it’s just like the rest of life, something to laugh about, and hopefully something about which you will be able to tell a good story.

More about the glorious city of Sevilla later, but for now I finish with a few tid bits.

One of the breads here is called “Bimbo.” Carol asked me how I’d like to have a toasted bimbo for breakfast. I knew there was no good answer to that and I merely took another sip of my Café con leche, and made some comment about the flowers on the table.

The rain in Spain falls mainly in Portugal. It rained like hell yesterday, but as soon as we crossed into Spain it stopped. The forecast was for five days of rain, but so far all is good.

Carol and I had a disagreement today. I said the aristocracy as depicted in the paintings made them look “Ugly as sin.” She said they were “Ugly as mud.” Ugliness is in the eye of the beholder. She also said it was no wonder the men all had courtesans. I knew this was another of those statements about which I had better keep my shut. I think she’s testing me.

Make-up and fashion are back on the Iberian Peninsula. The Portuguese wear hardly any cosmetics. The

Spanish ladies wear a full complement of the former, and dress very stylishly in regards to the later.

You can’t get anything to eat before 8;30 at night. What with the laissez-faire attitudes of Spanish waiters you don’t finish your meal until 11. It’s like the midnight buffet on cruise ships. How can anybody sleep after that. No wonder they wander around until ungodly hours of the night.

Well enough of this. It really was a great day and I wouldn’t trade it for a day at home. We’re doing what we love to do, being together and living large.

Carol and Jim