Between Sea and Sky

Before I tell you about our three day vacation in Cinque Terre. I have to disrupt the chronology of this blog by describing my CURRENT location. I am on the bus from Ferrara, Italia to Krakow, Poland. Marya and I bought bus tickets between Ferrara and Krakow a long time ago, while we were still in the states. We thought it was a good idea since we had to make the trip pretty quick, between finishing Ferrara Buskers Festival yesterday and being expected at BuskerBus in Poland tomorrow.

It wasn't easy to book the tickets. For one thing, the destinations Ferrara and Krakow are spelled differently depending on if you search the Polish version of the website or the Italian version. And I don't mean a little different. The Polish transliteration of “Italy” is, you guessed it, “Wlochy.”

Anyway, we had our tickets and set out to find the bus stop, which, after calling several Polish travel agents, we determined was at the train station (The address of the station? A road that does not exist.) We also picked up the clue that our bus would say AGAT on it. So we waited at the Ferrara train station. It was hot. Like 40 degrees hot. Finally, 45 minutes after the arrival time, a bus pulled into view across the street. We grabbed our gear and hustled over. The staff did not speak English, or Italian, but we should them the tickets, said Krakow a few times, and they let us on. We sent our big blue show suitcase in the car of our new Austrian friends (more on them later.) And it's a good thing we did, because all the luggage was jammed in the hold like Tetris, with two holes exactly the size of our personal bags. Marya and I took our instruments onto the bus with us.

On the bus there were approximately two empty seats total. There was also a serious language barrier. Marya and I stood awkwardly in the aisle as the driver took off towards Poland. After an awkward pause, another guy working on the bus came and asked a woman if she would mind moving so that Marya and I could sit together. (At least that's what I imagine he said.) And the woman graciously agreed. So here we are, on the bus, to Poland. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. We left off in...

Cinque Terre

The train ride from Roma to La Spezia was pretty uneventful. We were in a nearly empty car and spent our time conversing with the guy selling snacks in broken Italian. At La Spezia we switched to a local train to take us out to the little town Riomaggiore. Now, for a traveling circus, we have very little luggage, but for a pair of tourists, we have quite a bit. It was not easy to board the little regional train with everything, but we finally got squeezed on board. As we rode along the sea-cliff, gasping at the views, the conductor came around to check our tickets. It turns out this particular ticket requires validation. The conductor threatened to fine us 50 Euro each, but ended up settling for a 5 Euro warning (bribe?) We paid off the conductor just as we reached the station and had to hump our oversized bags down the entire length of the train car in order to disembark.

We were left in the town of Riomaggiore, a small fishing village turned tourist haven on the coast of Italy, near Genoa. The town is built on a steep hill so that the houses sit almost on top of each other. There are no cars. Riomaggiore is the first of five villages connected by a hiking trail along the coast. People come to Cinque Terre (which means “five towns”) to hike between the towns, hang out on the beach and sample the locally produced wine and olive oil.

Marya and I checked into our hostel, which is really just a small, top floor apartment with a lot of extra beds crammed into it. The apartment was beautiful. We were on the top floor of a building on the main street. We shared a room with two very charming Australian women, who we got along with swimmingly. Good thing too, because it was tight quarters. We went out to eat at the restaurant across the street and had some delicious local delicacies, which we washed down with some of the local red wine. The wine was great: strong and spicy.

(View of Riomaggiore from our room.)

The next morning we set out to hike north to the next few villages. We had a loose plan of making it two or three villages down and then taking the train home. The first portion of the walk was along the cliff over the ocean on a wide, paved path. The Via d'ell Amore (Lover's Path.) It was packed full of tourists, including several large tour groups. We were a little worried that we would be surrounded only by tourists for our whole time here in Cinque Terre.

We made it to the next town in about half an hour. Manarola is a beautiful little beach town. We stopped in the local grocery to pick up some picnic lunch supplies. The next section of the main trail was closed due to rock slides so we had the option of taking the train to the next town or of taking some smaller trails that run further inland. We chose to take the inland trails, hoping to get a little off the beaten track. It took us a little while to find the trail we were looking for but once we found it we knew we had made the right choice. The trail climbed up the steep mountains that rise almost directly out of the water. The hill sides are terraced with thousands of kilometers of hand built stone walls. This allows the locals to grow grapes and olives on the steep, but fertile land. We spent the early afternoon climbing through these vineyards and olive trees with occasional views out at the stunning coast line. The best part? Zero tourists.

We arrived at a tiny town around lunch time. We walked in to town through the back door, with the trail literally passing through the backyards and alleys of the houses. We stopped for lunch in a courtyard in front of the little stone church. We ate between a vineyard and an olive orchard overlooking the Mediterranean.

After lunch we continued on to Corniglia, which was an early Roman settlement. Apparently wine flasks from Corniglia has been discovered in the ruins of ancient Greece. The town is beautiful, of course, high on a bluff over the ocean. After exploring the town we decided to press on one more town to Vernazza, where we had heard there was a beach.

About half way down the path to Vernazza, we noticed a small trail branching off the large one and heading down thousands of feet towards the ocean. There was a rock at the crossing and someone had scrawled in Sharpie “Spiaggia Beach” with an arrow. We decided, what the hell, lets see where this little path leads us. We started a steep, scrambling descent. A few meters down the trail we found an extension cord anchored to a rock that you could use to steady yourself as you scrambled down. As we made our way down the narrow path we continued to see signs for “Beach”, then “Free Beach”, “Naturist Beach”, “Naturist Beach, No Gay!”

We were not quite sure if we had made the right call here, but we pressed on. Finally we reached a cliff just above the beach and we could see people down by the water. Sure enough most of the men where naked and the women topless. It was at this moment that Marya witnessed a truly bizarre thing. She saw a snake fall 40 feet off a cliff and land on rocks below. The snake lay stunned on the rocks for a second and then started slithering back towards the forest. Needless to say, this put us on edge a little bit. We steeled ourselves, we had come this far, and we picked our way down the cliff to the beach.

We found a semi-isolated spot on the beach and went for a much needed and refreshing swim. The water is beautiful, clear, blue and just the right temperature. We were happy we had chosen to hike down. As we dried off on the rocks, we started to consider the question of how to get back to civilization. We could not easily scramble back up the way that we had come. It was crazy steep, and there were trails branching off everywhere. We had noticed a tunnel, like a small train tunnel through the mountain just above the beach, but we had discovered that it got pitch dark just a few meters in and was too dangerous and scary to proceed.

I asked an older local couple how far the tunnel went in broken Italian and the man told me it went on for “Ten, fifteen, thirty minutes. By foot back to Corniglia.”

After walking back and worth several times, unsure of what to do, we saw three Italians headed toward the tunnel. One of them had a flashlight. We decided to follow them down the tunnel. It seemed like this might be our only chance to get out. The three Italians turned out to be two Italian tourists and one local guy (the one with the flashlight.) We followed closely behind them, trying to see by the faint glow of the tiny flashlight. At some point the local guy caught on the the fact the we were following him and attempted to speak to us. We got out a few words, basically establishing that we couldn't understand each other. We walked in silence down the tunnel while the Italians conversed for what seemed like about 20 minutes. We fought off the mild panic of having no idea where we were, who we were following or how long this tunnel went on for. Finally, we saw a light at the end of the tunnel, unfortunately it turned out to be two people riding a moped down the pitch black tunnel and not the other side. We finally did see the opening, however and we thanked our local guide profusely. We had made it back. We got on the train and went straight home to the safety and calm of our hostel. We decompressed with what remained of our local wine.

The next morning we took it easy. Had a nice breakfast in our hostel/apartment, did some laundry in the sink, and generally relaxed. We then got on the train and headed to the furthest away of the five towns. We wandered around Monterosso delle Mare, had a grapefruit and a gelato and hid from the mid-day heat in the narrow, winding streets.

When it had cooled off a degree or two, we set out down the path to Vernazza, the only town we had still not seen. Another beautiful climb through the vineyards. The trail turned out to be hard and hot, and we made it to Vernazza in need of a swim. Fortunately Vernazza has a beautiful little port where everyone hangs out, moors their rowboats, and goes swimming.

Marya and I went for a lovely late afternoon swim in the little harbor in the shadow of an old stone church. We hung around Vernazza, had a sorbetto and hopped on the train back home to Riomaggiore.

We needed a relaxing day like this after our somewhat harrowing tunnel experience the previous afternoon. We cooked in our little apartment and had a nice home cooked meal. We topped it off by walking down to the beach, looking at the stars and listening to the waves.

Our final morning in Cinque Terre we woke up, packed up and checked out of our weird little hostel. We went over the the Bar Centrale to get on the internet and have a cappuccino. We were just a little bit nervous about the fact that we still didn't have confirmation from Ferrara Buskers Festival that we had a hotel room for tonight. We decided to head towards Ferrara on faith, and try to call from a payphone in the train station.

I will leave off here, for the moment and let Marya tell you about our traumatic stop over in Firenze, our whirlwind tour of Venice, and our triumphs at Ferrara. I have to get back to watching this weird Adam Sandler movie they are showing on the bus which is dubbed over with the narration of a single Polish guy.

Roman Holiday

Listen up, fancy pantsies, we don't have all day. Things have been busy (except for today, when we woke up at 9:30, spent an hour eating a continental hotel breakfast, and have been laying around in the giant bed we made out of two beds in our hotel room). But busy nonetheless! This blog has fallen sadly by the wayside, gone the route that all my previous journals have taken, illustrated as follows: Stuff happens, I write about it, more stuff happens, I take some notes on it, fully planning to write about it, lots of stuff happens, the journal is days out of date, stuff keeps happening, I give up.

But not this time, boys and girls, no! Listen as we take you far back into the days of yore...

ONE WEEK AGO:

Turns out a 20+ hour ferry ride from Barcelona to some unknown port city near Rome with nothing but “Deck Passage” printed on your ticket is CRAZY. Also pretty fun. 10:30pm, we were herded onto our giant boat with the rest of the flock, but split off soon when most people went to their cabins and we continued up to Deck 10 – the party deck. Conveniently located under Deck 11 (the pool/disco/dog kennel deck), Deck 10 has a casino, restaurant, bars – plus ample couch space. That's where all the Deck Passage riff-raff collect, ready to spend the night crashing on Grimaldi Line's sofas.

Lucky for us, a German man (who only reinforced our notion that all Germans speak excellent English) befriended us. He was traveling with his dog (who reinforced our notion that dogs are really cute) and knew the inside secrets, like where the best sofas were (at the 24hr restaurant) and whether that guy at the disco was gay (he wasn't). We stuck with him until 4am, dancing at the disco, met up with him again the next day, lounging by the tiny pool, and followed him to successfully catch the train to Rome. Thanks, Christian (we think that's your name even though we realized none of us ever were introduced)!

Long cruises must be weird. You're traveling, but really you're just sitting, wondering what to do. It's like some crazy limbo state – surrounded by water, bored but guilty for being bored, not really anywhere at all and everyone's wearing a bathing suit. Mark and I listened to Radiolab and ate almonds. Actually, that sounds pretty fun. Hmm.

Anyway, we eventually made it to....

ROME:

When in Rome, do EVERYTHING.

That was our mindset when we landed there, and who could blame us (besides maybe the Pope, I guess). We somehow had to see a city with over 2,500 years of history in just 2.5 days. Ponder that golden ratio, Leonardo! I think we did a pretty good job of it, though. Which also means I don't really want to write about it because there's SO MUCH to say. Oh, the beloved tragedy of excess.

Night 1 - Hostel with a tiny door inside a giant door next to St. Peter's Basilica, beds that sagged in the middle even if you weren't lying in them, delicious pizza bread from a 24hr bakery.

Day 1 – We spent the morning at the Colosseum with 10 million other tourists baking in the sun (plus some men dressed as gladiators posing for photos), then walked to the Basilica of St. Clement, which we've lovingly dubbed “The Turducken Church.” A Turducken is a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey, baked together and served only in the United States of America. This church is an 11^th century church built on the remains of a 4^th century church, which was built on a 1^st century Roman house, that also had a Mithric temple in its basement. So many things in Rome are like that – everything just piled up on top of everything else. For me, it's so hard to comprehend history, really, when it goes back so far. There's no neat separations. My brain couldn't handle the idea that where I stood deep beneath the ground used to be someone's sunny front porch. Very cool.

We spent the afternoon wandering the Palantine Hill, the hill where the she-wolf suckled Romulus and Remus, where Emperor Augustus was born and lived, and where Nero built his extravagant grounds. It's where the word “palace” comes from. It was okay, I guess. I've seen bigger hills.

From the hill, we could look down on the Roman forum. Also astounding and entirely mind-bogglifying. We ran down into it like little wolf children and walked around in the setting sun, our feet in the same place Julius Caesar’s feet, the Vestal Virgins' feet, and thousands of other Romans' feet used to be. It made us immediately want to watch the HBO series Rome.

On the walk home, we stumbled upon Piazza Navona (a large and beautiful and crowded plaza), an ancient castle, and also the Pantheon, which is just there, in the middle of a plaza, surrounded by restaurants. All of Rome is like that. You're walking to a grocery store and pass by 3 beautiful churches, 2 Roman ruins, and a dog peeing on an ancient column. To find our way back to our hostel, we followed the lights of St. Peter's Basilica. Don't worry, we know we're sweet.

Above and below: The Roman Forum

When we stumbled upon the Pantheon.

Day 2:

We walked through the Capuchin Crypt, where for over 400 years the monks have used the bones of their order to decorate. They still do it. Patterns and scenes and stacks. Some of the skulls (of which there are hundreds), were old and dusty, and some were still juicing. I was pretty freaked out, but they seem to like it. This is what my good friend Mark Twain had to say:

“The reflection that he must someday be taken apart like an engine or a clock...and worked up into arches and pyramids and hideous frescoes, did not distress this monk in the least. I thought he even looked as if he were thinking, with complacent vanity, that his own skull would look well on top of the heap and his own ribs add a charm to the frescoes which possibly they lacked at present.”

Oh, Mark, you do have a way with words.

After Bonelandia, we took a tourist stroll, over to the Trevi Fountain, down the Spanish steps, into the Pantheon. The Pantheon is (how can I put this so I sound really smart?) SO COOL. It's a building that has been actively used as a church for TWO THOUSAND years. The same marble floors, the same roof, the same bronze doors. The reason it's still around when so many other Roman buildings fell is because it was dedicated as a Catholic church in the 600s, so they took care of it instead of letting it crumble. So bizarre, to see this ancient temple filled with statues of Mary and Jesus. And Raphael's tomb, what?

Wanders, all the stores closed because everyone in Rome just takes off the month of August, fountains to fill our water bottles, lunch at the steps of a church.

We spent our late afternoon visiting 2 churches that have paintings by Caravaggio in them. If you don't know about him, know that I am obsessed. He did things in the 1500s that no painter had ever really done – his saints have dirty feet, he used prostitutes as models for Mary, he devotes half a canvass to a horse's butt, and his angles are extreme (I think his angels are pretty normal though). Plus he was wild. Much of what we know about him now comes from his extensive police records. These are two of my favorite paintings that we saw:

The Crucifixion of St. Peter: http://www.shafe.co.uk/crystal/images/lshafe/Caravaggio_The_Crucifixion_of_St_Peter_1600.jpg

The Conversion of St. Paul: http://www.albany.edu/scj/jcjpc/figures/st-paul.jpg

We eat tired picnic dinners on benches after busy days such as these. Bread and cheese and tomato and balsamic in a plastic travel container we brought from home.

Day 3 - 6:30am, we were up and coffeed, ready to spend our last morning in Rome as the first people in St. Peter's Basilica. We maybe weren't the first, but we were among them, wandering with no lines through the biggest Christian church in the world. It's very beautiful and very quiet and there are many bored guards who tell you where you can't go. The more I think about it, the more I remember how huge it is. We paid extra to climb over 500 stairs to the roof of the dome, both the inside (where I secretly touched one of the mosaics), and the outside, where we stood up in the cupola and watched the rising sun over Rome.

Again, we know how sweet we are.

And now, dearest readers, you are caught up with our adventures in Rome (assuming you successfully made it through this novelette). You have our tales of train misadventures and Cinque Terre hikes and Ferrara Buskers Festival shows to look forward to. Right now, Mark is lying in bed watching footage on his camera from yesterday's shows. There's a giant stack of coins on our nightstand (since both $1 and $2 are coins in Euros). We have to get ready to go out and perform again today.

Wish our thighs luck.

-Marya

A Work In Progress...

As I write to you I am sitting on a boat, cruising from Barcelona to Civitavecchia, Italia. “But wait!” you say. “That wasn't the plan!” Yes, yes, we were supposed to crawl through the tourist ridden Riviera and make our way to Ferrara. Well we decided screw it. Andiamo a Roma.

But I am getting ahead of myself. We left you, reader, after our successful shows at Barceloneta. After another night in our dark cave room, (where I have been sleeping beautifully, by the way) and a great breakfast, we knew what we had to do. Eat lunch.

We had a perfect lunch of heirloom tomatoes, queso mescla curado (hard cheese made of sheep, goat and cows milk) and cucumber on baguette with a little balsamic and olive oil. We have a pretty sweet food set up by now so we can really get our picnic on.

After lunch, we jumped on the Metro to spend the day at Sagrada Familia. Sagrada Familia is a Catholic cathedral designed by Gaudi. Construction began in the late 1800s and is expected to be finished around 2030. We decided to wait in the line and pay the price to go in. The line stretched around the block, but moved quickly and in no time we were at the gate house. I spoke to the cashier in Spanish but remembered to request audio tours in English. Potential disaster averted. Ask Marya about the Pita incident. That minor disaster somehow escaped the blog.

We inadvertently started our tour in the school house, where some of Gaudi's tools and abstract methods are on display. Needless to say, I was deeply inspired by his genius. It reminded me in many ways of Leonardo da Vinci. A mathematician's mind, an artist's soul.

The cathedral is totally breathtaking. Stepping inside, it is impossible not to have a spiritual experience. Branching, tree-like pillars rise 100 feet over head, supporting the intricately detailed mosaic ceiling. Stained glass windows filter the light of the late afternoon sun, illuminating different parts of the cathedral with different colors and qualities of light. If you have seen it, you know what I mean. If you haven't, you have to go.

Another amazing thing about Sagrada Familia is that it is a work in progress. As you tour the grounds, work goes on. The basement of the museum still houses a plaster workshop where artists create scale plaster casts of the work to be done on the cathedral. The Sagrada Familia that our children visit will be different from the one that we visit today. My favorite piece in any museum is always the unfinished sketch, the painting where you can see the graphite drafting marks. Sagrada Familia has this quality and feels like a temple of creative genius as well as a house of prayer.

In other words, we liked it.

After our visit, we returned to the hostel where we made dinner and Marya gave me a haircut. I spent the evening making little models and drawings inspired by Gaudi's architecture. Marya read on her kindle and knocked-out. Yeah, we know how to party.

We awoke to our last morning in the cave and our last day in Barcelona. Packed up and headed out. We had a mission to do 5 shows at Barceloneta and then go to the beach. We had a bit of a time limit since we had to catch our ferry to Rome at 8 pm.

Shows were rough. Slow traffic and hot sun. Few people wanted to stop and hang out. We made three valiant efforts and got off one and a half shows before we packed it up. I did an excellent crowd building dance, which Marya insists I mention. Sometime it takes some wild dancing to keep our own spirits high, even if it doesn't end up attracting a crowd.

We did succeed in attracting a group of boys from Jersey, which in Europe apparently doesn't mean the Jersey shore, although these guys could have passed. We also had one of our best adult volunteers. He really pulled off the neon safety vest and spinny helmet with style.

After shows we went down to the packed city beach and grabbed a sandy spot. It was a perfect beach day and the beach was packed with locals and tourists alike. We went for a quick dip in the Mediterranean, enjoyed a cold beach shower and headed home. We had time for a quick dinner and last minute repacking before we headed to the ferry. It was a bit of an adventure to bring all our stuff on the metro. I am pulling the caravan of rolling bags and Marya is saddled with her backpack and trombone. We have a huge food bag now too, which adds to the difficulty of navigating. We stuck to the wheelchair accessible routes and eventually made our way to our metro stop.

After asking only three people, we found the ferry terminal that we needed. I will let Marya take over telling the story of our ferry journey.

I hope you all are enjoying the blog, leave us a comment to let us know you are following along.

La Policia Guapa

Hello, distant readers, and what it long time it's been! How the days add up when you're on vacation with no responsibilities in a city where even the toddlers stay up until 3am. It's 12:21am here and Mark and I just finished eating dinner. Which would be weird except six other people in our hostel are just now MAKING dinner.

I'll stop driving you mad with Mediterranean jealousy and start filling you in on our Mediterranean adventures:

SUNDAY:

We Metroed our way to Park Guell, a public park designed by Gaudi, Barcelona's favorite Modernist architect. Picture gatehouses that look like they were made from dripping candy canes, stone walls with more mosaics than stones, and excellent views of the city. Oh, and approximately 8.3 million tourists. We meandered and listened to the many musicians populating hidden corners, then headed back to our hostel to get ready to go out and perform.

Remember all that translation work we did? This was the day to try it out. We spent the Metro ride quietly reciting such common Spanish phrases as, “There are still front row seats available,” and, “I will now balance this bicycle on my face!”

We set up in the plaza outside La Catedral, that 14^th century church we've been known to frequent. The plaza was full of people, and all we had to do to get a crowd was unpack and set up our suitcase. We did two shows there, not our best ever, but definite improvements. Interesting fact to note: Turns out many tourists don't speak English OR Spanish. We had volunteers from Holland and France, and audience members from Poland and Portugal, but very few people we could actually communicate with.

Speaking of communicating without words, after our second show, we were standing behind our suitcase drinking some water when a police car (Guardia Urbana) started cruising past. We desperately avoided eye contact, but when they were directly in front of us, Mark turned to look. He says that the car held the ONE overweight policeman in Barcelona (all they rest are super-buff babes, sometimes with saucy berets on). All the man had to do was waggle his finger out the window in the international sign of “Oh no you don't” and we knew. Time to move on.

It was getting dark, but we moved to just outside the church of Santa Maria del Mar (another beautiful ancient building). Much smaller space, and a different type of crowd – not as desperate to see all the official sights, more excited to sit and eat gelato on a bench after dinner. We did one show there and everyone was lovely. Interesting fact to note: During the show, two policemen on motorcycles cruised down the sidewalk. We just kept going, and so did they! Five minutes later, they cruise back past us, ignoring the fact that one of us was juggling knives on the other's shoulders. Mark thinks maybe they had bigger fish to fry that day.

MONDAY:

Mark and I took a day trip to Montserrat (along with those same 8.3 million tourists). Montserrat is a mountain about 1 ½ hours outside the city with a famous monastery almost at the top. We took a cable car up to the monastery (which now also has a little museum, shops, a hotel, restaurants, and information centers surrounding it), and then walked up up up a trail to visit a couple of the hermit refuges hidden up near the peaks. The tourists thinned the higher we went, although we did run into a pair of Russians in mini-dresses and heels pretty far into the wilds. Everything was beautiful: the views, the weather, the refuges, the Russians.

Once we climbed down, we went into the monastery’s basilica. It was a wonderful combination of old and new. Ancient statue of Mary carved out of wood – Pieta painting from 1998 that has Mary and Jesus floating above the mountains. Pretty cool stuff.

And at night, we stayed up far too late in a park with some other travelers from our hostel playing a game that involved flipping a coin and saying the word “banana” at the end of every statement. Don't ask banana.

TUESDAY:

We had to move again, since our hostel was full. So much for not making too many reservations beforehand, *cough* Mark *cough*. Now we're in a nice place, quiet, with cute flower table clothes and a little windowless cave room in the basement that stays dark as long as you want it to. We spent the morning moving, and took our time in the afternoon getting ready to go out.

To make a redundant story short, we did another show by Santa Maria del Mar. Police rolled up near the end, stopped, and when we finished our hat pitch, I gave the hat to Mark and went over to talk to them. Unfortunately, I did not successfully carry out my plan to start crying. Fortunately, these two policemen were of the buff babe variety. They asked me if I could understand, I confirmed, and they proceeded to tell me about how this was illegal, blocked the street, etc, and if they came back again and we were doing it, they'd take our stuff. I'm not sure how I understood this all in Spanish – probably some sort of police telepathy. I apologized, we left, and (after a quick falafel pick-us-up) moved to Barceloneta, the nearest city beach.

We set up on a wide pedestrian avenue, no cars for yards and yards. We did 3 successful shows, slowing drawing a crowd from the people walking to and from the beach. During the last show, a police car cruised by, but didn't mind at all. Inconsistent reinforcement is worse than no reinforcement at all. We'll be headed back there tomorrow.

Above picture: The van is Port Authority, not police, but we didn't want to alert them either, so we pretended we were just taking pictures. Needless to say, we were relieved when they left.

OH, BY THE WAY:

On Thursday, we're taking a ferry to Roma. Change of plans! I can't wait. Mark is practicing his Latin. From there, Cinque Terre, Ferrara, and Poland. Andiamo!

The Kitchen Sink

Friends, Romans, Friends of the Romans, lend me your eyeballs. We haven't written in a few, but the reason is good: We're in BARCELONA! You can't expect us to keep our pearly white skin forever by hiding inside, updating our blog and pushing our glasses up along bridges of our sweaty noses. There are Gaudi buildings to see! Beaches to saunter! Seafood to avoid! Adoring audiences to woo!

Speaking of which, let's move on to the obligatory part of any diary (electronic or otherwise) in which we describe the events of our lives in chronological order to your great interest.

IN WHICH WE VISIT A CIRCUS SQUAT:

Two days ago, Mark was recovering from his 4am jet-lagged crazies. During the day (relatively crazy-free), we met Eduardo, a Barcelona Couch Surfer from the Circus group, at a Metro station and he showed us around La Nave, a circus/dance space nee warehouse. Everything is free there: entry, classes, equipment. Besides us, there were lots of aerialists, a lone juggler, and a little boy who came at the end and stacked up as many mats as he could haul in order to jump off them and do a flip. Pretty cool, all in all. Mark, I'm sure, will want me to mention that we finally practiced standing-on-head while he was standing too. That sentence is confusing. Look at the picture. I'm not fully up in it, but you can get the idea.

IN WHICH WE (ALMOST) GET PICKPOCKETED (Moms can skip this one...):

We headed back to our hotel, showered, rested (SOMEONE may have taken a widdle nap...), and got ready to go out to perform. Instruments in hand and matching shoes securely on feet, we headed to the metro. Our plan was to perform outside Barcelona Music Buskers Festival ,doing short, unamplified, music/finale only shows (in case the policia showed up to bust up our gringo spectacle). While Mark was buying a ticket (using his ATM card – an important point to remember later), I scoped out a youth standing a little too close to us. Immediately, I was suspicious, but then thought, “Is that just because his hair is slicked back? That's discrimination.” Still, I stood with my back to the machine, watching him.

On the metro, he sat with a friend who was carrying a sweater. In Barcelona. In August. Also a point to remember. Like I said, I was watching them. I also watched a Metro policeman watching them...

We got off at our stop. So did they. We walked up to the exit. So did they. On the way up the stairs, one of them tapped my trombone and mimed playing violin. While Mark mimed trombone, I looked behind, and slowed down to make sure I could see what Slicked Hair was doing behind Mark. This is what comes of living in a big city long enough to not trust anyone.

Alas, none of my distrustful Sherlocking wasn't enough to prevent us from getting stuck in a sticky situation. The way outside was through a 2 door turnstile. Everything happened sort of fast, but the end result was all four of us stuck between the 2 doors: Me, Slicked Hair, Mark, Sweater Guy. Clearly, Moms, we realized this was a bad situation. Mark realized this, and looked back to see a hand coming out from under the sweater, reaching towards his back pocket. Mark (with his passionate fake Italian heritage, remember?) knocked the guy's hand away, and we busted outta there. Psh. Amateurs.

IN WHICH WE REALIZE NOT EVERY TOURIST SPEAKS ENGLISH:

Reaching the beach walk a little shook-up but still determined, we scoped out some official bands, then found a spot halfway between two of them. We set up our instruments, did some warm-up kicks, and Mark started to woo walkers. It took about 1 ½ minutes to realize that NO ONE was speaking English. Not the group of giggly girls. Not the probably drunk man. Not the blonde family.

Nevertheless, we persevered. Our jokes may have fallen flat, but our attempts at Spanish were definitely laughable. People were really friendly and supportive, and at the end we made enough to buy two falafel sandwiches + produce for the next few days.

A highlight: While we were crowd-building, a group with a dog walked past. As per usual, we yelled out, “Our dog act!” Usually, this gets a smile. This time, the group let their dog off the leash and sent him over to us. Cuteness and hugs ensued. This dog would run and sit and cuddle anything that could get its face low enough. Mark, seeing the potential, had the dog sit, then lay down between it and me. I lowered my face and called love to it, and, lo and behold, the dog jumped over Mark to run and sit by me. Our dog act!

IN WHICH WE WANDER THE GOTHIC QUARTER AND DISCOVER THAT GOD HATES SHOULDERS:

I think the heading pretty much says it all, but here goes: The next day, we took a tourist break, getting lost in the Gothic Quarter, which is full of narrow alleys and beautiful architecture. We went to a museum that showcases the remains of Roman buildings that lie UNDERNEATH current day Barcelona. Pretty cool. People just kept building on top of older ruins, and now you have an underground fish factory, wine factory, dye/wash house, and defense wall.

We also went into La Catedral, a 14^th century Gothic cathedral. Pretty cool. There's a Well of Geese in a center courtyard – official name, I swear. No bare shoulders allowed inside the church, though. God's orders. Some local ladies make millions selling cheap scarves to desperate tank-topped tourists outside the gates.

IN WHICH I WRITE THIS BLOG ENTRY:

We've moved into a new hostel with a nice kitchen. This afternoon, we practiced our show on the lovely roof deck. I'm typing on a netbook. Mark is practicing the Spanish translations we made today of key points in our show. Tomorrow we'll go to see Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, and then go out in the afternoon to perform our show for (hopefully) rich tourists.

Wish us luck! We'll also accept Euros.

Barcelona!

We have arrived! After traveling for roughly 20 hours, we finally arrived in Barcelona. A pretty easy trip all in all. Made better by having delicious airplane food (remember airplane food?) and ample snacks. We navigated successfully from the airport to our hotel, I even had a conversation with our bus driver in Spanish. Well ok, I said “Va al Metro?” and he said “Si.” But still it's a start!

We checked into our hotel room which is super cute, has a tiny balcony and is thankfully air-conditioned. We were happy to leave some of our luggage in the room as we sought out a super mercado. We nearly missed the inconspicuous store front, but followed a hunch and discovered a little grocery wonderland. My only complaint is that I had to get low sodium salt. Which I don't even understand.

We lunched on still warm bagette, hummus, cucumbers and tomatoes. Delicious. We tried to follow sage advice and stay up all day to beat the jetlag. We succumbed to a siesta, however, which might explain why I am sitting up blogging before 5 am. Marya on the other hand is still sleeping soundly.

After our siesta we hopped on the Metro and strolled La Rambla and the Gothic Quarter. Walking down the narrow, winding alleys I really felt like we had arrived. La Rambla and La Catedral are full of tourists, but eerily devoid of performers. There are about 8 living statues (all with permit clearly displayed) on La Rambla and that is IT. Not even a musician. There must be a serious crack-down around here.

Marya and I are hoping to try a stripped down amplification free show out in the next day or so. Something a little less conspicuous than our normal show and with a super quick set up and tear down. We will see how that works out. Hopefully we get at least one, “Lo siento, no hablo espanol, soy turista de los estados unidos.” before they throw us in the joint...

Wish us luck.

And we're off!

The Bombastics woke up early today. Really early. We were sneaking down the stairs of our apartment just before 5 am this morning to catch our flight to Barcelona. We were a little bleary eyed, but excited to finally be on the road.


Just managed to get our bags checked without being overweight. No small feat considering we have a circus in there.... Had to shuffle a few things around, so I now have three two foot long knives in my personal suitcase. Customs should be fun.

We are hoping to blog extensively throughout our trip, so I thought I should pull out the netbook and throw one up in the airport. I am feeling pretty tech savvy right now.

We are about to board our plane, make a quick stop in Toronto and then fly through the night to Barcelona. Let's just hope my accordion boards with me.