Torre, Torre, Torre(guardiano)!

About 30 kilometers up the road from Los Barrios the Franceshis have a lovely place on the beach in the quaint seaside hamlet of Torreguardiaro. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea and provides a wonderful vista of The Rock (not the Nicholas Cage-Sean Connery movie) as well as the north coast of Africa. We arrived shortly after sunset as the atmosphere was bending the last rays of the sun into brilliant oranges, reds and pinks before yielding to the turquoises, azures and violets that heralded the descent of night. In the bay before us was a scene so stereotypically Mediterranean that it was almost comical in its detail: A tiny row boat bobbing up and down in the surf beneath a moon carved in a crescent and hung with delicate care above the bay. Just to our right on the shore was a pile of copies of the boat in the bay, tossed there presumably by their sailors rushing to get home for dinner or perhaps just an aperitif; it was only 6:30, after all. I am reasonably sure I had seen the painting in a Greek restaurant before.







I know the second picture is blurry but I like it anyway, particularly in its thumbnail form. Unfortunately, many of the pictures from the condo turned out this way; it seems that at an ISO setting of 400 or greater, the Nikon Coolpix P90 produces quite a bit of digital noise and the pictures, once blown up, start looking pretty fuzzy. My only other option that night was to use a wide-open shutter, but that would've caused motion blur. Excuses, excuses, I know. Thankfully, my lovely fiance found a tripod for us to use the last day we were down in Andalucia, but more on that in due time. Once the light had completely drained from the sky, it was back to Los Barrios for some delicious pastries and another night at El Garaje.

When We Were In Baelo Claudia, We Were Roamin'

So it was that at 8:30 on the morning after our arrival that Alex came bounding into the room Sarah and I were sharing, much to my surprise. In the ten years that I had known the man I had come to believe that he was unaware that 8:30 in the morning existed. Apparently it only took a journey across the ocean to meet up with his best friend for him to discover it.

Considering that Alex and I had been up drinking until three o'clock the previous evening I was quite surprised to find myself in good spirits; Sarah had gotten a full night's rest and seemed a bit tougher to rouse. But rouse she did and we wandered around the picturesque village for a bit, listening to the din of a protest by city workers. Turns out there's a bit of corruption in Los Barrios and these unfortunate government employees hadn't been paid in four months! So they take to marching through the streets of the village every Friday, banging on drums and waking the town quite early to remind the denizens their plight. I have no idea how the mayor, who stands accused of skimming from the city's coffers, manages to avoid a nasty fate at the hands of those in his employ, but he does.

Fearing that I wouldn't properly capture the moment, Sarah snatched my camera and jumped straight into the crowd, snapping a few nice close-up shots of the put-upon before handing me back the camera apologetically. I wasn't really upset, though; I'm nowhere near brave enough to take my camera and jump in the middle of something like that. After we purchased some sangria it was off in Alex's parents' car to parts unknown. Or Baelo Claudia, to be more specific.

Located next to the sleepy hamlet of El Lentiscal on the Costa de la Luz, Baelo Claudia is an ancient Roman ruin that was founded in the second century BC (the age of settlements in Europe will never cease to astound me). Baelo Claudia's prosperity culminated in the first half of the second century AD when it was named a Roman city but shortly afterwards entered a period of decline; the city was abandoned completely sometime around the seventh century.

From Los Barrios, the ruins are a roughly one-hour drive along the coast but a drive well worth it. The E-5/N-340 runs along a cliff side south out of the bustling port city of Algeciras, affording a stunning view of the Straight of Gibraltar and the mountains of Tetouan, Morocco! The government of Andalusia has a good site regarding the ruins as does Andalucia.com. Baelo Claudia is cheap for foreign tourists at 1.50 euros and free for citizens of the European Union (and if you're an EU citizen reading my blog, leave a comment and thank you for dropping by).

The museum has some interesting artifacts from the excavation site as well as some good information, although the audio program is Spanish-only. But the real majesty is to be found in the ruins themselves. Neither Sarah nor I had been to a Roman ruin site save for the one in the heart of Barcelona and if you haven't been to one and you're planning to visit Europe, find one. There really is nothing comparable to it in the US though I imagine some of the ancient Native American sites in Central and South America might not be too far a cry. The path winds through Baelo Claudia, taking the traveler past an aqueduct, the fish-salting factories, a basilica containing a statue of Trajan and the habitations and baths that were the hallmarks of Roman city planning.

I found the theater to be the most magnificent portion of the city; it certainly seemed to be the most intact of the structures left behind by the inhabitants of the city. Alex and I, being the mature thirty-something adults that we are, naturally had to turn the stage into a ring to settle our gladiatorial differences. My faithful intended of course documented the great battle that ensued and left my thumb mortally wounded. We eschewed the guided map of the ruins and toured the town in reverse order, snapping pictures where we felt appropriate (and, in Sarah's case, whenever she could wrest control of my Nikon). My favorites are posted below.

A random aside that I found fascinating is that the site is so close to the coast of Africa that Vodafone sent a warning to my mobile regarding the extreme expense of roaming charges. It was at that point that I looked at Sarah and told her, "my cell phone says we're roamin'." Get it? Yeah, a month on and I don't think she's forgiven me for that joke yet.

Once we'd gotten back into the Spanish cell phone service area we gave a call to Alex's house and were informed that lunch was nearly ready and would be cold if we did not head back soon, which caught the three of us off guard; we'd been expecting to fend for ourselves in the wilds of Cadiz. We arrived to find quite the spread; Mrs. Franceschi had prepared a huge meal for Alex, Sarah and me as well as the pater familias that included fried steak and pumpkin soup. Although it looked more like something from a Thanksgiving dinner, I was assured that the feast was merely representative of the typical Spanish lunch. The food was terrific and a great way to cap off the morning.

A Special Announcement

As a part of my ongoing effort to make my blog less chronology and more personal story, I'm now going to interject a piece that has nothing to do with continuing the story where I left it. To allay your fears, however, I assure you that I will pick up both The Grand Finale and Andalusia where I left them in later posts. Right now, I would like to talk about my Holga.

I have spent several years pining for this camera, ever since my Uncle Terry purchased one for my Aunt Shelley and she brought it to Tampa. Must've been the summer of '07. My beloved happened upon me as I was beginning my picture-taking renaissance and for a year prior had put up with my endlessly extolling the virtues of this plastic photography wonderment from the sweatshops of China. It is a medium-format camera whose manufacture probably cost a tiny fraction of what I ended up paying for it here in Barcelona, but once I had found the Lomo store in our new hometown, I was destined to own one. Sarah practically begged me to buy it so she wouldn't have to hear me spew forth about it any longer.

Holgas are notable not for their quality or the quality of the pictures they take but for their utter lack thereof. Everything in this camera save for the film and the flash bulb is plastic. And leaky (as in lets in a lot of light from places that are not the lens itself). It's basically a toy, albeit one used by hipsters who have driven up the price to levels comparable to very low-end digital point-and-shoots.

But oh, the pictures! I don't know exactly how to describe them, but they have renewed my appreciation for photography to the point where I now want to dust off the film cameras that Sarah brought with her so I can shoot the way the craft was begun. The Holga's pictures are warm and vignetted (that's the distortion you see in the corners) and vibrant in a way that only post-production in Photoshop seems to be able to reproduce in my digital photos. I love them. I love the Holga. I love all those poor children in China who slaved away at making my Holga. (This is hopefully a bit of humor; I do hope Holgas are not produced in hellish sweatshops deep in the bowels of the People's Republic and I try not to support these practices through my purchases, although that is becoming increasingly difficult these days. Anyhow, Holga, here's hoping you're a fair trade item.)

I think I've gushed enough about an item for one post. I'll spare you any more flowery words. I'll give you flowery pictures instead. Enjoy and VIVA ANALOG!

The Andalusian Dog

Fair warning: this post will probably only mention a dog in passing, if it mentions one at all. I just like the name. If you don't know the reference, I recommend you look it up.

*Edit* The picture on the left is the Andalusian Dog. Right next to his Andalusian owner. In bronze. Through a plastic lens. More on the Holga later.

There are a number of things that I never expected to be able to say that I did. Most of them, interestingly, now revolve around the things that I have done in Spain. Coming to Spain is one of those. Now I'm living here with my fiance. Life takes some interesting turns. Another involves staying with my best friend Alex in Spain.

Alex's mother is a descendant of some rather prominent ranchers in the Autonomous Region of Andalusia and for the last ten years he had been quite keen to extol its splendor. "You've gotta come with me to Spain, man. It's awesome!" or a similar refrain would oft be spoken. After a decade and meeting the right woman, Alex and I were finally able to make it happen: He had a couple weeks' worth of vacation time from his job back in the States, I was unemployed and had nothing but vacation time and Sarah had enough time off from school. So we decided it was time to get out of Barcelona for a nice long weekend down south.

First and foremost, I would like to say that Alex and his parents are some of the most gracious hosts I've ever had the privilege of knowing. I'll fill in the details as appropriate, but suffice it for now to say that they took great care of us, opening up their beautiful home, lending Alex the use of their car and treating Sarah and I to some truly wonderful food. Mrs. Franceschi knows how to make a lunch, that's for sure.

A smiling Alex greeted us at Seville's airport with hugs all around. The drive from the airport two hours south to the Franceschi Compound as we've lovingly come to call it was unfortunately made completely in the dark. The Andalusian night is largely unpolluted by city lights, but a half hour trek to the south brings one to the beginning of the wind farms that dot the landscape the way cookie-cutter housing tracts do in the US. And while we couldn't see the entirety of the looming, triple-bladed generators, we could certainly make out the lights they used to shoo away passing aircraft. Through these lights, we could also glimpse the eerie majesty that is these giants, silently generating electricity (safely and greenly, I might add, but I won't mount my soap box in this forum).

After two hours' drive (and about 75 minutes worth of are-we-there-yetting), we arrived at our destination tired and a bit fragrant but ready for a drink. Or three. So we dropped our bags in our weekend bedroom and set out for Alex's favorite little tapas restaurant, filling up on some rather delightful, hotel-shampoo-sized goodies. Feeling gluttonous for punishment and filled with a desire to recreate some of the days of yore in Tampa, the three of us set out for El Garaje, a lilliputian dive not far away, for another round.

Alex and I finally managed to wear out my girlfriend but we weren't going down that easily. Proud of the summer home of his childhood, Alex and I walked to the edge of town from which we could see Gibraltar off in the distance when we squinted and looked at the aircraft warning lights just right. I finally put the kibosh on the evening around 3 am, realizing we weren't going to do much of anything the next day if we didn't get to bed at some point, which is why I was stunned to be woken by Alex the next morning at 9. But, he managed to rouse us and a day at Baelo Claudia awaited us!

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men...

When I originally envisioned this blog, I imagined that I would be updating things on a near biweekly basis, filling these pages with interesting stories about the wondrous places that make Barcelona and indeed the entire country of Spain such an amazing place to visit. I thought that I would have scads of useful information that I had managed to somehow sop up simply by virtue of being here and that I would be able to share all this with you, my dear readers, informing the masses at large and gathering a following great enough to provide me with a bit of income while I attempted to settle down and make a home with my fiance in a foreign country.

As you might have gathered from the title of this post and the utter lack of updates, this was not to be. Instead, reality has intruded; the drudgery of daily life exists here for me just as it did in Tampa (please, if you employed me in the recent past in the Bay area, take no offense; I simply mean that routines are to be found everywhere). I'm taking pictures when I can and I have more than a few of them I need to post. I've put a couple of pics up on my Deviant Art site (still not as kinky as it sounds) but I've also been jumping through blazing hoops trying to settle in this country legally and wed my fiance and find a company that might be willing to sponsor me for a visa and so forth. Alas, I have let the grind of it weigh upon me and my blog has suffered for it.

So, I have decided to abandon the format that I had laid out in my head wherein I provided a chronology of my goings-on here and instead will simply report on whatever topics I feel I would like to at any given time. I'll also be supplying some of the pictures I've taken along the way and giving you a bit greater insight into how I'm thinking and feeling. I'm going to make this a bit more personal, to put it succinctly.

I will try to update much more frequently, so I hope you will continue to drop by more frequently. I would also like to read your input. Keep those cards and letters coming, people! (I mean, leave some bloody comments, would ya?) I'll be seeing you all around. And, I hope you had a Merry Turkey Day!