Plan B: Romance for one

My time in Valencia solidified my love for a number of things: football, croquetas, bandanas and most importantly, rum. As student life came to an end I was faced with the daunting prospect of choosing a career. Inevitably I created a Plan A and a back up Plan B.

Plan A consisted of applications to wear a suit and sit at a desk for the rest of my working life whilst attempting to have a mini break every month to halt any monotony. Plan B consisted of a year long, or however long it took, rum tour around the Caribbean in pursuit of becoming an international jet setting sugar cane daddy and then to import the best of the best back to U.K. Alas, I had luck with Plan A and so the dream of Plan B was put back in its metaphorical oak barrel until it was ready for consumption: February 2017. Time for a rum-fuelled-sun-soaked-beach-based-communist-Carribean romantic get away for one in Cuba...

 Havana

Shortly after touching down, I find myself on Oilda and Alberto's roof terrace with a honey dipped cigar in my mouth and on a guided tour of every Havana Club rum in their bar. What's my favourite one Alberto asks? I answer and he gifts me a fresh bottle of it for "recuerdos".

Best Model Railway (L),Worldy (R)

The following morning I wake up to see that a poster of Fidel and Che have been watching over me as I sleep, thanks guys. As Oilda cooks me an omelette I have a flick through her ration book, looking up to see her adding something a little un-me to the eggs. Three breakfasts later and I'm still too scared to ask: why is she adding creatine to the mixture?

My walk into Havana Vieja takes me along the beautiful Malecón, during daylight I receive far less female attention for "fuky fuky", and then down the Paseo Martí which was site of a recent Louis Vuitton catwalk. Clad in my latest Cedarwood State gear I take to the catwalk to showcase Simon: SS17. Unfortunately the only heads I seem to turn are those of the kids playing football across whose makeshift pitch I walk.


Any ron aficionado will visit the Edificio Bacardi in the city which apparently commands stunning views of Havana if you slip the guard a couple of dollars. No such luck, I was turned away at my first attempt to hustle the system. Next stop is the Havana Club museum, the highlight was either the worldy giving the tour or the expert model railway around a sugar factory - I err on the side of the latter, what a model.  Nestled between the museum and the only Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Cuba is Restaurante Dos Hermanos, a site frequented by Ernest Hemingway, Lorca and me and my American friends to enjoy a few tragos of Havana's finest spirit. In Havana Vieja I finally got sight of the classic Cuban grocer's saying "if your peppers and onions fall from your trolley into a muddy puddle, pick them up and pretend nothing has happened".

Every Bristol alumni will know the link between our city and Havana: each has a camera oscura. This was a close second in my rationale for visiting Cuba as this is Latin America's only dark room for viewing the city on high and what a treat it was.

The following day I venture into Vedado - the leafier part of Havana and take joy in enjoying a cigar in the same spot as, in no particular order, me, Kate Moss and Hugo Chavez at the Hotel Nacional. Nearby is the Edifcio FOCSA, world famous in 1956 for being the second tallest concrete building in the world, where I partially enjoyed the views of Havana from the 33rd floor (a 1990s Soviet lookout) the only inhibiting factor to my enjoyment was the lift journey up, as it was in this very shaft that a snapped cable led to a fatal accident a few years ago. Next is a visit to the now open US embassy which is cut off from view from the Plaza Anti-Imperialista by 138 flag poles (now that frosty relations have thawed, the curtain of 138 black flags no longer fly). Daylights's final activity is a walk up the Avenida de Presidentes to experience a chronological tour of statues of the founding fathers every 500m.

After a long day of touring, it's time to enjoy a beer with Alberto. Would you like to add lemon juice and a tablespoon of salt to the beer? No thanks! As sun sets, I prepare myself for a visit to the famous Fábrica de Artes and its accompanying restaurant El Cocinero, both housed in a former peanut oil factory which is no easy visit for an agnostic anaphylactic. My choice of transport is the Bicitaxi, a manual Tuk Tuk, and inevitably man-to-man I get asked what football team I support, this month's answer is Arsenal. Who are my favourite players he asks, I panic and choke...err...err...Westcott and he nods in approval. This is a parish town a few kilometres from where I live in Surrey, home to a bakery with one of my favourite loaves of white bread. Theo Walcott, so close. Inevitably the driver gets tired and turfs me out so I flag down a black old Chevrolet to take me the rest of the way on my peanut pilgrimage. The Club is closed, disheartened I order lobster and then return to the casa to watch the Hispanic news from Miami with Oilda where I learn to steer clear of a particular neighbourhood where there is a rabid raccoon at large.

With my parting anthem, a Cuban twist on Only You by Yazoo, the following morning I head for the bus station for my 20 hour trip down to Baracoa on the south-eastern tip in the Guantanamo province. The journey gets off to a roaring start when the driver puts on Cuban favourite "Sanky Panky" at full volume. These buses are notorious for having aggressive air conditioning which I suppose as a by product creates a lot of condensation which needs to be vented out of the bus. One of the vents above where a lady was sitting must have been broken with the condensation dripping on to her which created for me a kitsch mini cascade to entertain me in tandem with Sanky Panky and for her an annoying deluge of water entering in and around her handbag. How long could you endure this for? She lasted 10 hours before moving. Night falls and we stop for some dinner and I enjoy a fried chicken leg with a guy from Bilbao. I since discovered that he was an air conditioning technician back home but I suppose that's the point of a holiday: distancing yourself from your profession and thus not opting to assist the wet lady. We continue to drive through the night.

Baracoa

I awake in the bus as it twists around the bends up and over the rainforest protecting Baracoa from the rest of the Guantanamo province, far from any Slipknot and nursery rhymes at Camp Delta. On arrival, I find Barbara's house and settle in for some breakfast on her terrace, not being able to see the kitchen, I look across the bay and wonder if these eggs also come augmented with creatine or perhaps another exercise supplement.

Once digested, I head over to the tourist office to see what excursions are on offer today, Baracoa is famous for its countryside pursuits. My first offer is a trip to a nearby fishing village and pretty river, I also get offered the quad bike expansion pack which is advertised by pointing towards a pink quad bike toy complete with frilly handle bars and a purple unicorn down the side. I opt for the basic version and wait for three other people to turn up to fulfil the minimum requirement for the tour. No one arrives but instead I join a charming French couple to the nearby beach which turns out to be a cracking day out; white sand, crystal clear waters and a ratio of beach vendors to us at around 5:1. We spend the day relaxing and talking as a man walks back and forth every half hour to announce that he is from Angola. Another street vendor is looking to trade tourist towels for his own produce. For Antoine's large towel, 20 mangoes. For my small, quick-dry trekking towel I get laughed at every time he walks past; a savvy investor. Another vendor tempts me with a £5 freshly cooked lobster hand caught that morning. I'm given the option of eating in an hour from one already caught or in a few hours for him to swim out to the coral wall with his knife so he can bring me back one to be cooked. As Bond as this sounds, it's lunchtime and I opt for the quicker option. Delicious. To counter balance this very enjoyable day at the beach I get dealt a blow that every lone traveller too timid to ask new friends to rub in sun-cream gets, a fierce burn covering the unreachable parts of my upper back. Mine is in the shape of the USA complete with a peninsula for Florida and even lower on my side a Cuba shaped splodge, no joke.

Internet is Cuba is not very easy to come by, on this island there are only 240 wifi spots found only in main city plazas and premium hotels. To access you need to buy a 30 min or hour code in the ETECSA office, the state-owned telecom company. In a country where state salaries equal approximately USD 20 a month, there is little incentive for anything more than a grimace and to see someone crack a smile is as rare as a British supermarket aisle not containing anything with salted caramel. I have only seen the Zootopia trailer but the scene with the transaction with the sloths is the stand out comparison for how I bought my internet cards on this day.

It's now back to the house for supper: we are eating Teti, a local small fish, cooked in a tomato sauce. I since have discovered that this is the local aphrodisiac which can explain now why I received a round of applause when I entered the Casa de Trovar to listen to some live music. Later in the evening, we sit in the Plaza with a bottle of rum and meet some of the locals. There seemed to be a spontaneous Adele recital; of course Cuban favourite "Roying in the deep" was on the set list. The final guy I met that evening coincidentally studied Economics, now a masseuse, I deliberated whether I had chosen the right career.

Mum's Flapjack #1 (L), Antonio Maceo (R)

The following day I set out on an excursion to climb the local mountain, el Yunque, similar in shape to table mountain. Pedro, our guide, couldn't haven't been less untalkative but I suppose that's what you get when you get someone who only drinks water once at night and wants to conserve moisture throughout the day. The town had been at the centre of Hurricane Matthew for almost 9 hours three months earlier and this was most evident in the hills where towering pines were scattered all over the floor, the vultures flew between the still standing trees singing their "a-hoo-hee-hoo" song between one another. Half way up I ate a red berry which another girl offered me and after that had a "I'm going to keel over" paranoia for about 20 minutes but then this subsided just in time for me to enjoy the marvellous views from the top alongside the bust of local hero Antonio Maceo and the first of the two flapjacks that Mum had given me for the flight out but which I had subsequently promoted to emergency snax. On the way down, covered in clay following a tropical shower, we jumped into the river for a swim and it was at this point that I thought about all my friends sitting at their desks in London eating a minging sandwich with back ache from their poorly adjusted swivel chair. Back in town I stumble upon a rumbo group playing to hundreds in one of the back streets accompanied by a professional dance troupe - this is it I've found the classic Cuban postcard moment - and then a drunk man causes commotion by repeatedly darting for the centre of the dance floor to gyrate his hips aggressively and pat his belly. The shows goes on as he is shuffled on and I continue in pursuit of Cuban postcard perfection towards the statue of Columbus by the water before night falls.

It's time to move on and the following morning I head to the Viazul bus station to find my bus to be delayed a few hours. It's here that I befriend my soon to be German travel partner, who tells me he's jumping in a truck with a few others and would I like to come. Before long we are bombing down the road on our way to music and revolutionary capital Santiago de Cuba, once home to the Bacardi dynasty. In a strange twist of events every time our driver pulls us into one of the lay-bys where vendors wait to pounce on tourists he's the one to scoop up everything he sees: 10 chocolate bars, 15 artisan wooden pots and about 50 bananas. We cruise around the sunny coast and I rigorously check my GPS to look out for the road that leads to the only checkpoint with Guantanamo bay - no sign at the road's entrance. It's on this journey that I suddenly notice a common theme to public toilets in Cuba, the cubicle wall height is just above my belly button in almost all places so now I understand one of the downsides of being really tall.

Santiago de Cuba

Close to some tectonic plates, this beautiful city is built on an undulating terrain like Lisbon and whose narrow streets give reason why the city has become home to most of the country's motorbikes. I understand that in interests of cost, drivers skimp on fuel and instead go heavy on the cheaper oil. The consequence being that the streets can be thick with clouds of black smoke but this only adds to the fun. No sooner after arriving at my casa I'm celebrating Santiago's 29th birthday with his two other Argentinian friends and we go out for a celebratory meal. After dinner we head to find some live music and settle on a place and order a bottle of rum. I suddenly hear the same hissing, kissing noise from Havana and realise we're surrounded by the local Jiniteras, multi-talented ladies of the night who are your tour guide, friend, language partner and then all else at a price. Opting for the free option they lead us on to a local party to dance salsa and before I know it I can consider my "daggering under duress" box ticked. Uncomfortable, I flea when they're not looking.

Idyllic Goat Beach

I would recover in the serenity of my colonial house but I have promised to meet Norbert by the cathedral so we can trek out of town to visit the mighty Morro fortress built to ward off pirates and enemy attack. After looking around our taxi driver takes us down to the nearby beach for a swim. Expecting Cuban ladies aplenty, we see that the only other person there is a shepherd with his 75 goat and perch in the shade listening to reggaeton booming out his car chatting about everything. Where's the bin for our cans we ask? Here, he says hiding the cans under some rocks and then we head off back to the city.


We spend the afternoon chatting to the daughter at his casa who shows us the government book of guidance of what can and can't be brought into the country from clothing to food, electrics etc. This is crazy but it's also a good point to note here that you can only bring in maximum one swimming pool, FYI future travellers. She's studying towards a 7 year medicine degree after which she expects to earn USD 10 a month, mental. We watch a beautiful sunset over the Sierra Maestra (refuge for Fidel and all others on Granma) and then head out for dinner with his local friend and much to my amusement there is a Chicken Gordon Blue on the menu.

The following day after tasting some of the finest craft malt beer (disgusting), I visit the city's famous cemetery where some of the greats are interred: Emilio Bacardi, Jose Marti and Fidel. I managed to catch glimpse of the final ceremony of the day for the changing of the guards for Jose Marti's tomb. Two soldiers stand either side the tomb entrance whilst a lone guard approaches them from the barracks doing what I can only describe as a copy version of John Cleese in the Ministry of Funny Walks. Once altogether, the three of them turn around and return to the barracks marching as above all in unison. Nice ceremony but who is guarding Marti? In tandem 8 soldiers lower the red, white and blue flag from its pole. Today is a gusty day so the soldiers whose task it is to jump and catch the lowered flag do so rather comically as the flag flutters in the wind and the soldiers are left jumping like a cat trying to catch a ball dangling on a string. Later in the evening we watch some live music in one of the plazas and it was here I noticed something really fun about older tourist couples in Cuba. The lady, a dancer at heart and dressed in purple, stands by herself progressively getting into the music and dancing alone. The man, clad in Berghaus and Birkenstock with a cam corder over one shoulder and DLR camera on the other, stands motionless a few metres behind his wife. Then enters the third character, a young sexy Cubano who is a talented salsa dancer who grabs the wife, spinning her around, making her dancing dream come true, sending her into a middle aged Nirvana. The man watches on, disgruntled and awkward, knowing he hates the situation but cannot do anything to correct it. (N.B. I know this will be me when the time comes.)

The next morning I take a walk around the city and stumble upon a Mexican lady giving an interview for Cuban TV in a coffee shop, she's defending the view that not all Mexicans are border crossing criminals. Waiting for the interview to finish so I can get a coffee I meet Hernando, an older guy wearing Ray Bans with one of the frames missing but still looking cool. I invite him for coffee and we chat about English literature where he tells me he's a big fan of Cello Homie. I don't know who this is; a gangster musician? He can't believe I don't know who this is and proceeds to write Sherlock Holmes on the paper, it's just pronunciation. We talk about languages and he claims to speak 8 including Russian and Chinese. He then tells me that my English needs a bit of work and my Spanish a lot of attention which makes me think I don't want to spend any more time drinking coffee so down mine and order the bill. The Mexican lady walks past and Hernando invites her too but she sweetly passes and moves on. He then follows me into a modern art gallery giving me a tour of the works and rather comically talks through the paintings in one way and then the gallery attendant comes to speak in my other ear telling me that Hernando is wrong and gives me a new explanation. With Cello Homie in one ear and the institution in the other I don't know what is right and wrong so leave them both to walk to a nearby bookshop.

Coincidentally the Mexican lady who was giving the interview is in the bookshop with the rest of her crew. She's bought a tatty second hand copy of Lorca's poems and proceeds to flick through and recite the famous "Iré a Santiago" to me and I think this is probs the most OTT arty moment of my trip. I speak to another of the crew who is a documentary maker whose film is premiering tonight in the Santiago International Festival for Documentaries. They ask if I want to come to the premiere but I have a bus to catch and have to decline. Every traveller's dream is to be accepted into the local film industry but I imagine is deterred by not having an outfit for the red carpet: zip off trousers and fleeces are not quite smart enough for the paparazzi I bet. It's International Woman's Day and this fact is rather inappropriately used by one of the street hustlers in trying to sell to me that the local prostitutes are in particular need of love and respect on this day. Ignoring this I return to my casa to sit in the rocking chair and watch on TV Nicolas Maduro giving a politically charged address to a room full of women in celebration of the special day before catching my night bus to the next destination.

Trinidad

Evident tension in air, moments before Domino fight

Portion size for every breakfast is excessive. You'll be served an entire papaya, pineapple and two bananas every day, close to full loaf of bread, omelette, two litres of juice, a thermos of coffee and a litre of boiling hot milk. This morning there was a pink compote as well which I dived into with my teaspoon and began to eat. Confused, my host asked me whether all Europeans eat jam straight from the spoon like I do. Feeling like an idiot, I apologise and say no. This incident sets me back a bit for most of the day which I spend walking around this charming town, home to some of the most picturesque streets, corners, churches and houses that I've seen in Cuba. The city's seemingly infinite peaceful charm was finally pierced when I walked past a bunch of local geezers playing dominoes. Clearly something was amiss as all four of them were shouting at each other at full volume as if they had all deleted each other's Brickbreaker scores and then suddenly, just as I used to do when I became bankrupt after landing on someone's hotel on Mayfair in Monopoly, one of them flips the board up with the dominoes flying everywhere and three run off in different directions carrying their stools leaving the fourth to lividly and neatly stack the dominoes back in their box. I meet a German guy and two French guys and we decide to check out the infamous Discoteca Ayala, a club in a cave, in desperate search for some stalactitties. We have an excellent time pretending we are VIPs on our make shift table which we have placed close to the centre of the dance floor with people dancing around us and enjoy the reggaeton beats being blasted out by Havaneando DJ Alberto. As fun as this club was, no human can tolerate a cave where they are playing the reggaeton vocoder remix of "I'm a Barbie girl" and we swiftly make an exit.

The following day I go horseriding in the nearby valley with two German guys who were nice but not overly talkative. This became evident when we stopped for lunch in a campesino's farm to meet two loose Italian blokes who were wasted on the freshly pressed sugar cane juice mixed with rum. In the most emotionally charged Italian they ask me what is wrong with the two Germans as despite "la bella vita" and rum and Cuba they thought they looked as if they were at a funeral. The Italians then stumble off to mount their houses as we tuck in to our delicious spit roast pork, being serenaded by José on his guitar singing absolute gobbeldy gook about Simon Bolivar. On return, we gallop through the sun kissed valley as a rickety old sugar plantation train passes by. As we enter the town I suddenly have a rush of feeling presumably brought on by José's singing and understand why my parents called me Simon. Of course, astride my horse I am Simon Bolivar and as I trot past the locals I look at them with eyes which say "I want your gold, I am a conquistador". Later in the evening I meet two great Danish blokes and a Norwegian guy. The latter unfortunately gets up mid meal to announce that he would love to stay to hang out with us but he has agreed to go and play Uno with another traveller so must be on his way. We meet some American girls and before long are trundling back to the cave for one final dance where we bump into UNO again who is looking a bit flustered in his post-cardtal state. In the club I meet some more air conditioning technicians, they're everywhere! One of the bouncers taps us on the shoulder: cave is closing, everyone out.

In the morning I meet up with the Danish guys again to go to the beach. One of them goes in search of some breakfast and about a minute later I turn around to see him being led to a restaurant by a man who is leading a horse in his other hand. We go for a swim and it's here I notice another cultural observation. If you ever find yourself looking in the sea and wondering if the group of people swimming is Cuban or non-Cuban, a good tip is that it is likely that non-Cubans are swimming and are in swimming gear whereas Cubans will be fully clothed and sitting in the water, passing a bottle of rum amongst each other. We head off soon after we realise we can't stand the Cuban lady who keeps shouting to her friends sitting 30m away and get in the Danish car, saying thank you on our way to the nice man with the word Chlamydia tattooed to his right bicep who has been watching the car. The Danish guys kindly drive me to my next destination and we say farewell.

Playa Larga

I've come here to scuba dive so have little to no expectations about the place. It turns out to be completely charming and I find myself with a panoramic view of the Bay of Pigs and continuing the trip theme of being given accommodation painted in any hue of pink and or purple. I ask my host if there is any toilet paper available and he says there isn't but that he hoped to find some soon. I asked him what he did and he shrugged and pointed towards the napkins.

Foreground: Mum's Flapjack #2
Background: Bay of Pigs

In the restaurant where I was having dinner you see one of the typical scenes of tourists in Cuba. A group of guys who are all smoking cigars feeling like Scarface within but looking like amateurs from the outside. To top this all off the guys were sitting in silence with a go pro in their top pocket and filming the whole event - I've realised only old Cuban men and women look good with these in their mouth. I head over to the local bar/24h snack bar/"shopping centre" where I stumble upon the fortnightly community showcase of local talent. Here four local singers are taking it in turns to sing Cuban traditional songs in an operatic style which is really really entertaining, one pretty lady and three guys, one of which is clad in a head to toe England football tracksuit. I get speaking to one of the organisers and our conversation is interrupted every time a woman walks passed where he makes a kissing noise and asks me if I think they're a hotty. To fit in, I oblige and say yes to everyone. I ask if he has a lady and he says yes but that she is very ugly. It soon transpires that his woman is the lady on the stage who he blows kisses to every time their eyes make contact - I suppose this is the multi-faceted Cuban way.



Aside from the great diving, the highlight of the day is the fact that the scuba centre and the sea are divided by a main road with a 80km/h speed limit. The point being that to return the gear after a dive you get out the water head up the hill and then waddle across the road as quick as you can with an oxygen tank on your back before any passing cars. I cannot imagine doing this on a dual carriageway in England. I spend the rest of the day with the scuba guys and end up listening to drum and bass and drinking rum on the beach with a charming Austrian couple; the choice of music stemming from the fact that the guy took Maths class with Krooked from Camo and Krooked back in the day. In the morning I hop in my 1954 Ford en route to the next destination.

Viñales

The 4 points on Cuba's political compass

I don't spend long here but enough to watch the sunset over the mogotes and an evening dancing in the plaza. In the morning I go horseriding again and go to a tobacco plantation and have a guided tour of a crap cave which made me realise how much I hate caves: they are an excuse to charge people to point a rocks with a flashlight and ask what the rock looks like. The answers I was given for the shape of these rocks were in no particular order: a fox, a baby dinosaur, an eagle and a devil. Was bullshit and would not recommend the cave. Later in the afternoon on the way to Havana, we are stopped by the police who ask the driver if he can spare any change so they can buy some alcohol.




Havana

It feels good to be back in Havana as I cross the corner closest to my casa, a dog rushes past with a pig's head in its mouth looking for a quiet place to have some good noms. I spend my last evening in Havana weary eyed after a long trip with everyone in the casa and at midnight I found myself saying no to the espresso that everyone else is drinking whilst a dubbed Scarface is playing in the background.

Last chance to catch Havana's street art

This seems like a fitting end to my time here, odd and amusing. Cuba can be best described by how drivers of old American cars wish for their car doors to be closed: there is no common logic. These old rickety cars either need a lot of love and for doors be shut very slowly or to have the full force behind them to slam it shut. Sometimes the service you get is fast paced and energetic, sometimes slothful and frustrating.

Either way I found myself on the plane back sat next to someone reading the newspaper from 15 February 2017 (?) in preparation for Plan A again. It's time to put Plan B back in the oak barrel for a few more years of maturity. 

Carpe Annum

(L-R) Coco, Juanita y Concepción 

Last year I had a conversation with a friend about maintaining a long distance relationship whilst being abroad in a country where the girls are notoriously beautiful and the food (especially Valencian paella) is second to none. After a long period of consideration we decided that, for me to get the most out of my year in Spain, I needed to try to eat as many Spanish babes and bang as much paella as I possibly could. So how have I done? As tasty as my friends Coco, Juanita and Concepción look, I'm yet to eat them and I don't plan to before I leave in the next two weeks. As far as the paella is concerned, I've been slightly more successful. One morning after the night before, I woke up in a hungover stupor sitting on a sofa with one foot quite happily sitting in a plate of a paella and the other (still in a cast from my Parkour injury) on a chair next to the paella. Partial success.

The run up to exams recently has been filled with the inevitable time spent in the library and trip to Ibiza. A group of us took a trip to the latter a few weeks ago for a long weekend with the intention of learning about the Eivissenc dialect and how it compares to our more familiar Valencian dialect. I had an awesome time and went for lots of swims.

Life in the fast lane

Three particular observations from the library are worth pointing out. First, excess Spanish public displays of affection do not limit themselves to outside the four mighty walls of learning. It is very common to see a couple fondling each other, opposite you, and exchanging saliva whilst highlighting their notes. Second, it is not uncommon to see cool people smoking a spliff during their revision break. Third, at 6 o'clock everyone has a tea-time break called 'Merienda' where everyone seems to bizarrely congregate to slurp on their carton of milk and peach juice and nom on Bart Simpson endorsed break sticks before returning to normality again. Other than that, most things are the same unsurprisingly.

Before I came here I optimistically predicted that I'd be going to Benicassim with all my new (and cool) amigos. I am saddened to tell you that this is not happening and I am in fact returning to the motherland later this month. However, I did ask myself how it would be staying forever and entering abuelohood here. Again, this dream was shattered when I went to one of the city's parks and saw a respectable looking abuelo walk straight under a tree to rub his face against the leaves of the low hanging branches before moving on to tickle the top of his head with a bit of lavender. I understand how this might be a nice thing to do at lunchtime but I'd prefer a different sort of retirement.

(Ibizan) Sunset on the Adventures of Simon Baker

I could continue and complain that my lectures are copied and pasted from Wikipedia or be cynical about the advert draped over one whole side of the football stadium that advertises holidays to Turkey and Greece with a photo of Venice, but these are minute things in an otherwise wonderful city. I've thoroughly enjoyed being here and being with the fantastic people that I've met along the way. Sin duda, a year I won't forget.

Muchas gracias y hasta luego,

Simon

Hello,

It's been seven months since I arrived here and I'm still confused about one thing: do Spanish people stare at me because I'm outrageously good looking or because I look ridiculously foreign? I've resisted the traditional Spanish hairstyle thus far but I'm starting to think that, as I only have just over two months left, it might be time for me to get the traditional chop for the sake of belonging and being stared at less.

My quest for linguistic perfection is continuing and every intention I have is a good one. For instance, when I was booking my bus online for a recent trip to the north of Spain, I had the choice between two seats to myself or one next to a stranger. Obviously I chose the seat next to the stranger as I figured that this (10 hour journey) would be a perfect way to meet and practice with what I predicted could be a friend for life sitting next to me. Unfortunately, Fortuna had something else in store for me and she decided to place me next to a charming man who not only smelt of durian but also I immediately suspected that he couldn't speak a word of Spanish. I gradually worked this out whenever he passed me his ringing phone and saying "it's for you" and I had the lucky opportunity to speak to his shouting friend every 15 minutes. Not a problem, I'm sure I'll get plenty more opportunities.

Punctuality in Spain is notoriously awful. There was a special announcement in one of my classes to say that the following week the same class would actually be starting on time and that it wouldn't be 30 minutes late like normal. In another class the teacher stood up fifteen minutes in (having been fifteen minutes late) to say that she was stopping the class as we were covering the material too quickly. These aren't really issues for a country where you know that tomorrow is another (working) day but here things are quite different.

A Falla: Bacchus having a bath

The mother of all holidays here is a celebration called 'Fallas' where the city shuts down and the party begins for 5 days straight. This is something I had been looking forward to since I had arrived and it is quite impossible to describe to the outsider how the whole thing happens. Each neighbourhood has a sort of society called a 'casal faller' that raises money to build vast papier-mâché structures called 'fallas' and these are placed in each neighbourhood for all to walk past and see. Valencia is known to be the European capital of fireworks (as I was told by a drunk man) and it is with no surprise that the law is changed for the duration of this festival so that you can throw almost military grade explosives in the street. It's impossible to sleep. Everyday at 2pm for the first 19 days of March there is a firework display in the main plaza called the 'Mascletà' which is more to do with sound than light. It is worth a watch for the last minute or so of the video, look at the decibel count. There is a 30min firework display every night followed the inevitable street parties throughout the streets of the entire city. On the last night of 'Fallas' all the 'fallas' (the structures) are gloriously burnt and it is an absolute pleasure to see roughly €200,000-300,000 go up in smoke. Book your flights for next year.

How to burn €s

I've become marginally interested in Parkour here and tried to perfect something similar to this trick the other night and managed to do some damage. I found myself the following morning sitting in a wheelchair waiting for an X-ray alongside the elderly (who I presumed all had Parkour injuries as well) as well as a Jim Morrison lookalike staring at me and talking to himself. After unsuccessfully asking for some crutches, I found myself hopping out of the hospital with the same hop I entered it with and I sat in the back of a taxi whilst the radio appropriately played REM's 'Everybody Hurts'.

New Balance/No Balance

The Spanish don't tend to say goodbye too often. Instead they opt for 'hasta luego' which means see you later. Although they're very friendly, they do have a competitive edge. For instance if you're in a lift and someone else enters they'll immediately greet you. The lift silence commences until they get off/you get off. At this point it is common to say 'hasta luego'. Very friendly. But what you don't realise is that there is an unwritten competition whereby the person who says 'hasta luego' in a more ridiculous way gets a point, and instead they say something along the lines of 'awa wego' or 'aaaaaaaaaao' or' 'ao'. This is very fun and now that I've cracked the game I'm starting to rack up points which I hope will lead me to Spanish paradise (fluency). You should play it as well.

¡Aaaaaaaaaao!

Writer's Blog

It's tough being a blogger. It's hard to constantly satisfy my dedicated readership with periodic insights and opinions about my adventures abroad. I've finally emerged from this creative drought (Christmas in the UK and exam period tumbleweed) and am now ready to deliver what so many of you have been asking me for.

Trying new things: tasty rabbit

I come from England where exams are very important, timetables are drafted months in advance, special exam halls are set up and lined paper (a basic necessity for any first world exam) is kindly provided by whoever is setting the exam. Here, things are slightly different. There is no such thing as telling the student the structure of an exam, the concept of 'past paper' does not exist and the student is notified about the time and the place of the exam less that 48 hours in advance. When it comes to the actual exam there always seems to be a nail for a clock, but no clock, plain paper is handed out sparingly and the student is expected to write essays and aim for the highest mark, 1/1.

Revising was made bearable by two things. First, reading through my notes and discovering words that I had misspelt consistently. In one of my classes, the lecturer always used to speak about 'Los Pactos de...' and I was never able to grasp the '...'. I had written down a mixture of Barmacoa, Barballoca, Bonamaclao, Bomacloa and Balmacloa, but never the correct 'Pactos de Moncloa'. This shows me that I should stop shying away from my dictaphone in an attempt to look 'cool' and secretly record my lectures like the Erasmus student that I actually am. Second, revising in my room gave me ample opportunities to look outside my window and see the hilarious world below. On the street where I live there is a weekly flea market for stolen bicycles, books etc. but there is an unfortunate lack of parking. A group of innovative entrepreneurs have come up with a genius and illegal idea to direct market goers on to pavements, help them park and charge them a couple of euros for this service. The police know about this and often stealthily creep up on these entrepreneurs. For me, the voyeur from above, this provides excellent amusement as I can see the game of cops and robbers in full swing; the entrepreneurs loitering in the streets trying to look as if they are on the phone or waiting for someone, the cops surprising them and the entrepreneurs running away, hiding behind cars and peeping around corners to see if the coast is clear.

It must be normal to stare out of windows here. Everyone in Valencia lives in flats and from time to time whilst eating my breakfast on the 6th floor, I see a Chinese man smoking on the 12th floor in the building opposite staring intently at me. This ability to stare at people is one of the great perks of living in a flat. One might think that those that live in flats are unable to keep pets in the same way as those that live in houses, but recently I've come to the conclusion that this is not the case. It's normal and accepted here to take your dog for a walk and allow him to do his business anywhere in the street and as long as no one is looking (except me who is staring from above) and you can keep walking on as if you were leaving a banana behind in Mario Kart. I've seen rabbits and snakes in flats, something I can understand, but the other day I saw a man taking his pet pig on a lead to do his business on the pavement. The pig was oinking away as happy as he could be and unphased by all the passers by taking a second look at what they had just seen and believed to be a pig taking a crap in the middle of a city. We're looking into buying a hamster.

Cicero Baker

'What about football?' I hear you asking me. Yes, i'm still #1 fan. In fact, the other day I experienced Andy Warhol's 'Feghouli Minutes of Fame' by being in the right place at the right time. I was buying tickets for a game and the next thing I knew Feghouli was standing next to me also buying tickets. Video cameras and the press appeared taking photos of him and I was asked to give an interview about Feghouli's career ( I don't know anything about him and managed to say that I thought he had a really great game last weekend to which the interviewer replied that he had been injured- fortunately they cut this bit out). Nonetheless, although I'm concerned about my accent in this, I'm happy with my hair and also about the fact that I was neither dubbed nor subtitled. Have a look at my interview, I appear at 1:21 and 3:45.

I watched a documentary about the tough economic conditions currently faced by Spain at the moment and over half of the programme was dedicated to Valencia and the criticism over its recent (and seemingly useless) public expenditure. From here I learnt that there is a bus tour of all the wasteful and costly projects of the City. If that's not enough to tempt you to come visit me, the design festival is up and coming. I'll sign off with the slogan for the festival, something I'm sure you won't want to miss.

Valencian Fine Art

From Valencia, With Design

Laters x

It would probably be wise...

...to begin where I left off: on the topic of football. But first, I'll give my boring story an ounce of context. (Scroll if you like pictures)

Like the rest of Europe, Spain is undergoing extreme austerity measures and the high levels of discontent have been demonstrated by fortnightly protests all around the country.  The current government of Catalonia, an economically strong and independent north-east part of Spain, has decided to push for independence and to attempt to form its own country. In an attempt to ride the wave of recent discontent with the Spanish government in Madrid, the president of the government in Catalonia brought an election forward to yesterday on the promise that if he won he would draw up a referendum for independence.

Ok, back to football. Metres away from where I live in Valencia is one of the best hotels in town and when the top teams come to play, they are privileged enough to stay there. En route to my run, I walked passed the hotel and saw the FC Barcelona bus getting ready to take the players to one of the stadiums. Pretentious old me saw this fantastic opportunity to gain a sight of one of the strongest symbols of Catalonia on a potentially very important day for the region (winning the election). So I stood there amongst the other punters expecting, like always, immediate entertainment and staring at the bus driver because I knew that when he got on, the players would get on. I have to be honest and say that if it were not for the blown-up pictures of the superstars on the bus, I would have no clue who I was expecting to see (let alone their names). I waited and waited and soon convinced myself that I had wasted enough time already so I might as well keep waiting. Eventually when the door was opened and the players walked out, I was able to confirm that they looked very much the same in real life as they do on their blown-up equivalents on the side of the bus, only smaller. It also made me realise what a bizarre life they lead, being wooed, cheered and clapped on to a very common form of transport that me and you often use in the guise of a megabus. By 8pm the polls for the election had closed and within an hour it was confirmed that Artur Mas' government had failed to win an absolute majority in the election which meant two things 1) An independent Catalonia is unlikely to happen 2) Pretentious old (and cold) me had wasted time standing outside a hotel.

Before I left from England I had a look at my family tree and was hurt/grateful to see that one of my maternal ancestors' life was summed up by the short one-liner "struggled to grow a beard". This confirms that my inability to grow a full beard is not just down to my freak lack of testosterone, but also due to my beard-deficient gene pool. Nonetheless, I decided to take full advantage of Moviembre and to attempt to grow the best 'bigote' and 'barba' possible. With growth well under way, my diverse range of 100% English Erasmus friends and I headed to Barcelona for a weekend. Quite unexpectedly however, after no more than 5 hours in the city, I started speaking to a man named Daniel and he made me instantly realise that I should probably give up on the beard and moustache growing and leave it to pros like him.

There were two particular highlights from my time in the Catalonian capital. The first was a trip up to the highest point in the nearby mountainous area of Barcelona in search of an unrivalled view of the great city below. This mountain is called Tibidabo and if you are nearby I urge you to go, it's awesome. There's a small Catholic church at the top of the hill surrounded by the rollercoasters and rides of Barcelona's oldest amusement park and it is a really bizarre blend of 'religion n rides'. This is a photo I took from the very top of the church of the sprawling city below and you could easily see why I rate this place.


Secondly and somewhat more interestingly we took a train to Sant Cugat, a town north of Barcelona, to see Els Castells. This is a tradition most accurately explained by seeing and I've uploaded to YouTube a video (where my flatmate makes an opinionated cameo), do look at it first

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7lE5adZb4Y

On the day we went there three 'teams' dressed in different colours (orange, blue and green) took it in turns to create the most daring and dangerous towers in front of the spectators below. We were quite oblivious to the origins and rules of this tradition that takes one year of training to perfect, but it is easy to watch and get absorbed by the stress of seeing wobbly towers with monkey-like kids climbing over 10m high to complete it. This is quite a funny photo I took of a slacker, the laziest man on earth, not even trying to pretend he is exerting the slightest fraction of effort.



Being an Erasmus student still has its perks but I'm starting to realise the downsides too. First and foremost, you are unlikely to be on any official class registers and have to write your name in biro beneath the printed Spanish names which therefore immediately signals you as an alien for the rest of the unit. If you are so lucky to be printed on the document, it is most unlikely that you will be like all the other students and have a photo of you to accompany your name (a.k.a name to a face). Instead, your face will be determined for the year as a question mark and each time you sign the document to prove your attendance your question mark face will stare back at you, grinning. Secondly, you have to come to terms with the fact that senses of humour differ and when you bring in the element of a language barrier, it becomes necessary to invent a fake laugh to share with your colleagues in response to a hilarious joke that you completely did not understand. I'm pretty good at this now. Lastly, you have to come to terms with the fact that despite however hard you try to socialise there is always someone who will forget you and will force you to introduce yourself again. For those that like the Mighty Boosh, this is like Howard and Gideon.

A recent return to the UK confirmed my whole purpose of being here when in the Valencian airport I was able to aid a grown-up married father of two to order a burger. Clearly my Spanish is improving a little...

Laters

The people have spoken...

....and after substantial demand (one person asking why I had only done one post and the other whether or not I had a blog) I am writing another post for my dedicated fans. I have not been updating periodically for a couple of reasons: 1) I have better things to do 2) I now have things to write about 3) My fans have spoken. I am well, I am alive, I am happy, I am not alone and if that is all that you care about you can stop reading here.

Thanks for continuing. Valencia is a cool place with lots of things to do and things to see. Some say (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19682049) that it is a useless and poor city with nothing going for it anymore. This may be true to a degree but once you look beyond Paul Mason's fantastically optimistic view of the world, you will see that it's a pretty good place to be spending a year with a bucket (€2500) of free cash.

University is well under way now and the work load is ever-increasing but it is all very manageable once you realise that the difficulty level is the same as a translated first year in England. I am still pretty baffled by the timings here. Every time that you want to buy something in a shop, it is shut. Nightclubs kick off around 0300 and lectures start at 0830. Dinner time is 10pm. It took a while to adjust to but I now feel that, although I'm sleeping far less, I'm getting far more done.

I bought a padel racket the other day and hope to get out on court soon. Padel is a Spanish sport which is an exact mix of tennis and squash (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KORFX7LdFE) and it is quite popular here. I called up Christina a few weeks ago to book a lesson and when I turned up to my lesson she kindly told me that it was full and that she would call me on two days later to rebook. When the day came I waited and waited and waited for her to call but she never rang and my Padel dreams were shattered. Three weeks on, I've finally picked myself up and I'm ready to get on the court again and prove to Christina what I'm made of.


I'm getting my exercise dose from running along the river bed. There used to be a river here but in 1957 a huge flood devastated the city and so they diverted the river elsewhere. Today the river bed is a beautiful park where you can run/cycle/walk and so this is where I go. A very bizarre thing that I run past is a children's slide park in the shape of Lemuel Gulliver tied down with ropes (see left). It's a fun place to go and I would highly recommend going there if you like slides. Further down the river bed is one of Valencia's main tourist trump cards: the Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias. A futuristic and architectural triumph that plays host to many events throughout the year, one of which being the high recommended dolphin show which I am yet to go to.

My most recent passion is football and my favourite team is Valencia CF. I live right next to the stadium and now own a football shirt. I am their number one fan. This is the view from the cheapest seats, and it's a pretty cool view. I live on the street directly behind that stand opposite and so it's easy to get home from the games. When I'm not watching football, I'm playing football. Number one fan. For those of you who think I've changed, I've changed for the better. For those of you jealous of my life thus far, don't hate me cos you aint me. OK?

The 9th October is Valencia's celebration of its independence from the moors and they commemorate this with a 45 minute firework display at midnight. 45 minutes of fireworks is a very long time. On the day itself I went to a corrida de toros and it was great to this controversial tradition in full swing. When the bull dies, two horses drag it away to be chopped up. You can access the area where they do it and I was able to stand 3m away from where four men hacked away at the corpse and reduced the mighty beast to mere bits of meat. This is slightly gory so don't look to the left if you don't want to see four bull's heads in buckets surrounded by their own blood.

If you've reached this paragraph I congratulate you for your persistence and thank you for spending your time reading why my life is currently (probably) better than yours. I could continue and complain about how bad it is and all the negative aspects of my year abroad but miraculously whilst writing this I've been hit by a wave of positivity for the first time ever in my life and as I'm sure it's going to end soon I better wrap things up. My Spanish is gradually improving and I'm appreciating living here more and more. If you fancy visiting me, you should. Molly Murphy found the place to be "warm, exciting" and I'm sure you will too.

Laters.

2.5% done

Setting up your life in another country is very tiring. I’ve been in Valencia for a week now and I am only just starting to feel partially rooted. There are so many things to sort out in a place where there are so many things you do not know. However, having found a property, left the hostel, moved into a temporary property, enrolled in the university, queued in long queues, set up a spanish mobile number, set up an Oyster-style transport card, it is now time to make friends. This is no easy task. You must find them, approach them, convince them that you are not yet another dull Erasmus. I’ve been fortunate in the fact that I have a few friends out here who also can go on friend expeditions and so together, one day, we will have friends. It is also hard to not be naive about potential friends. The other night in a club, I was approached by a beautiful Spanish girl who asked me whether I wanted to meet her friend. To my dismay she then pointed me in the direction of a podgy man wearing a cap who looked a little like Peter Griffin and he was looking in my direction smirking in a cheeky way. “Lo siento tengo novia” I said, but she misunderstood this and told the podgy man that “tiene novio”. Obviously my English style is attractive to the Spanish male predator and my rusty Spanish gives of a different impression of what I would want to give off. I escaped unscathed. The search continues but I seem to be making progress. We attended a pop-up Oktoberfest in the centre of the Plaza de Toros the other night for a quick drink. The two for 1 offer came in useful as we stayed until closing time. An eventful evening. I met the Presidente del Gobierno (?), some journalists in training and had a terrific bike ride home. The following day I found myself walking around town looking for una batería for my phone having lost it on a patch grass frequented by dogs going to the toilet. I’m still getting settled but it’s increasingly looking like I’m going to have a fantastic year. Laters.