Madrid, pt 2

The next morning I awoke early after a sleep-deprived night. The heat perhaps. Still tonight was going to be The Night regardless of how tired I felt, as it would be the last. I ventured onto the train to Principe Pio. A bewildering, bustling town to my tired and slightly hungover eyes. Not just me feeling disorientated: got asked for directions for which I was, unsurprisingly, no help.

There were vast walking trails through Casa de Campo. Needed to cross some busy roads to get to it.

First: lunch. A public garden – the vast grounds of a palace. I sat facing a large fountain surrounded by vivid floral colours. Very few people about. Perfect.

Afterwards I looked for a way out that was nearest the de Campo walk. Going back through the way I entered meant a circuitous route. My map showed what looked like an exit. So I made for that end of the grounds. Unfortunately the only exit gate was locked. So back to the main entrance. And there stood what I would describe as local security personnel. The guy called me over. He spoke in Spanish, gesturing towards my bag – a flimsy little rucksack. I played incredulous, which didn’t take much acting. He jabbed at my bag still on my shoulder. Me: genuinely astonished. And making that clear. The language barrier didn’t matter now that his suspicions were made obvious. But if he really wanted to see what was in my bag but not speak English he’d have to be really explicit about it. OK, so I was tired and a bit cranky now. This security guy was becoming especially miffed, as I was voicing my astonishment that he could believe I could possibly be concealing something that would be harmful to – well, I had to give this some careful thought, as I was not (nor had any intention) of entering the central building but was heading for the exit. Had there been a report of my suspicious behaviour. Anyway, as his sign language became exaggerated to the absurd, I finally opened my bag to reveal what bit of lunch I’d saved for later and a bottle and a half (I think) of drinks. What I carried clearly wasn’t heavy or bulky. I was quite angry by this point, and he gestured for me to calm down. But that was not going to happened. It seemed as if I’d been suspected of carry explosives. And so as he led me out, his colleague arrived, who also didn’t speak a word of English. Imagine the number of English-speaking visitors to the capital of Spain, and those employed to deal with them… The British have, perhaps rightly, garnered a reputation for bad behaviour on Mediterranean holidays. Then what would be topping the list of abilities an applicant needs for the job of protecting important tourist sites? OK, so I’m labouring the point. But I was annoyed. Of course terrorists come in all shapes, sizes and colours. And maybe I do look young for my age, or I dress more as a young person. But it was odd to feel discriminated, and singled out as a suspect. Fine to be subject to that in an airport, or even upon entering a museum. You’d normally grin and bear it, right?

After explaining (pointlessly) I only wanted to get to Casa de Campo, that’s where I headed. I entered via a car park, and couldn’t seem to find an easy way to get to its tourist centre so ended up sliding down an embankment. My near-white shorts slightly tarnished, I reached the visitor centre. It was everything most people would expect: a sprinkling of cafés, fast food stands, all surrounding a large lake. Very warm, bordering on hot, there was an air of serenity. It was a separate thing from what I currently felt: still wound up, a quiet anger bubbling away. Perhaps I had been feeling somewhat keyed-up if not stressed, keeping in mind what I planned for that night. Of course there was no reason I had to have that as a plan, but it became an obsession – the thing that had to be got out of my system. Well, I guess most people have an itinerary on holiday; they set themselves a list of activities, which, if any are not achieved results in a sense of failure. Holidays have a way of making people uniquely miserable because of this. They arrive with their expectations of enhanced pleasure, where even the familiar activities – eating, going for a walk, sunbathing – have to be better there on holiday (especially anywhere more exotic than the UK, some fantasy of an idyll. Then it just takes one thing to go wrong. None such hell as paradise tainted – didn’t some wise traveller once say?). For many, so much depends on those few days, or however long; it is the escape from the banality of normal life. For me there is one unfamiliar activity that becomes the focus. And if it goes badly then I carry with me the failure until the next chance – which is often months.

After sitting facing the lake, eating the remainder of my lunch I headed out on one of the walking trails, but as I approached a sign to a metro station it seemed the sensible thing to make my way back.

I was, after all, tired. And there’d likely be plenty more walking that night.
Back at the hotel I tried to sleep. Needed to sleep. But sleep would not come. Maybe I hadn’t shed the residual anger from earlier, or some kind of apprehension about my intention for the night. Or simply the heat.

Finally after about two hours of no sleep, I resolved to go through my exercise routine, and then eat and start on the vodka.

Read the full version: SC US   SC UK

Part 1 below…

 

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Madrid, part 1

Taken from Sin Cities, daytime in Spain’s capital.

Part 1:

Next morning I had to get out by 10:30 (or 9:30 UK) for the room to be cleaned. It really didn’t need cleaning, or any towels changing. But I’m British so I just accept the protocol. Got a suspicion they just wanted me out; maybe to check the room, to check I’m not in there – alive or dead. I’d already heard the busying sounds of other rooms being cleaned, anticipating a knock on my door at any moment. No surprise then, on my way out I had a slightly awkward encounter with the girl as she was pulling all her cleaning paraphernalia out of a room. I always feel lazy and mildly embarrassed in not having vacated my room before their arrival on the floor. In Hamburg that embarrassment was intensified by the mere fact of my being there.

In the local supermarket I felt again like the conspicuous tourist, struggling to find what I needed (anything vegetarian and nutritious). Too early for buying the vodka (which would have been conspicuous!) or for lugging it about, as I’d not be going back to the hotel for a while.

I went for a walk into the hot dusty scrub-land beyond the city’s suburb. Actually there was a park near the stadium, swathes of lovely violet flowers. The sun and heat can make a lot of unexceptional things beautiful. Few people about too – and I consider that a good thing, unless I’m in the city. Here you can play spot the single lady. Only that involves no more than a furtive glance. In the city such an activity brings with it connotations of a structured mate selection with all its parameters. What I mean is you are more bound by the well-established rules of the urban environment. There is no idle glance in a shopping precinct; less so on a train. It is simply more intense, more significant, perhaps because it’s more likely to be observed by others. Here, where few pass my path, I am probably more acutely aware of being alone. Even though they say you can feel more lonely in a crowd, I think that’s only true if you visit the busy places you used to with others. As traveller in a tourist hub, I don’t allow myself the chance to feel lonely, despite being alone. There is far too much sensory information, coupled with one’s own thoughts about where to go and what to do in the next few seconds. Ah, yes, the constant planning. I hardly ever structure my day in a new city beyond finding a place to eat lunch, find the right shop to buy that bottle of vodka.

So really I only ended up on this walk, occasionally glancing at my phone map. With so much time, you can allow yourself to become lost. Well, I ended up leaving the park trail after it became increasingly desolate and found myself on a main road near an industrial estate. Still way too early to think about heading back, I eventually found a safe place to cross over and headed towards the station I considered alighting from the previous night. This may sound silly but I wanted to prove to myself that it wouldn’t have been so bad if I had, that I could’ve walked from there to the hotel with ease (allowing for the extra weight in luggage). And it was a relatively easy journey. But of course it was daylight, I had plenty of time, with no heavy load on my back.

My memory of that evening is patchy and probably not worth recalling. Suffice to say, I bought the obligatory 70cl bottle of vodka, drank about a third of it, and stayed in my room.

Part 2 to follow soon.

 

 

Hamburg!

Late September into October. After the heady months of spring & summer when things can get out of control, when you feel more pressure to have that great holiday, this seemed the best time to take risks. Well, calculated risks rather than reckless ones. Anyway…

Extract from Sin Cities:

….Well, I had planned it for the second night. A night after a long day I tried to fill with a walk along the canal. The weather was good – about 18°C with hazy sun. That part of Hamburg is not the best place for sight-seeing, but the river walk is well-pedestrianized for more miles/kilometres than most could cover in a day. In the daytime the town centre was packed with tourists and had a sense of urgency, like most urban areas, but there’s something particular about Germany. Crossing roads can be chaotic and risky if you don’t keep strictly to the pedestrian crossings. One thing noticeably different to the UK: people there take more care crossing roads. Not that I’m claiming German drivers are more reckless, I guess they’re better at optimizing their journey times. One thing that can be unnerving is how some drivers regard the requirement to stop at a green crossing as discretionary; if they think there is no one crossing in their immediate path then why waste time waiting? Go figure! Not that Hamburg is by any stretch the worst for that; the dense network of roads in Düsseldorf can really test your nerves.

A daytime jaunt felt like justification before the second objective: buying the booze. Well, that was a no-brainer. Vodka is the best for maximum intoxication with minimum consequences (in relative alcohol terms). It all seemed fairly straightforward. You start out with a fixed plan. But things often get complicated when the drink is involved even though, initially, back at the hotel, it seemed simple: get drunk, shower, go out on the town. The town contains The Reeperbahn – a notorious district for prostitution. But also – I didn’t realise in my naivete – for crime. Or maybe, in fairness, I just got unlucky. I certainly got careless.

Continue reading  Sin Cities UK  SC US

 

To begin with…

You won’t have heard of me but I’ve been writing/publishing fiction for over a decade, under a different name. It’s only in the last few years have I seriously taken up travel writing. At first it was just a matter of documenting my rather unusual experiences – those that might seem jaw-dropping to some, and merely offend the sensibilities of others. From what started as a summer project (a diversion from having just completed my fourth novel) turned into obsession, and thus eventually a book entitled Sin Cities – now published on Amazon. It has elements that should draw in readers, such as sex and crime (of which I was a victim), but adding an 18+ restriction seemed to have made the title unsearchable from casual browsing. Much of the content is not something I can write about on this forum, I should think, without getting into trouble. I am at least considering including extracts from my daytime experiences, with the occasional photo, and maybe even some further observations on the nature of leisure travel. But I’ll try not to get carried away.

I hesitated about starting this blog. I’m not exactly the most adept at the travelling experience, or navigation. I have a terrible memory for names of places, locations, roads etc, even ones I pass through frequently – although maybe that’s a case of forgetting something I didn’t need to remember (until someone asked me for directions, which I believed was such a rarity these days especially when the person asking is fairly young). I don’t have the kind of money to visit exotic locations; a 3star hotel is about the limit. And as much as I’d like to see a Bird of Paradise my kind of fantasy travel is confined to Europe.

The paradoxical nature of foreign holidays is that they’re often stressful; too many expectations; fears of things going wrong; things going wrong; never being quite prepared enough. And then there’s airport security (about which I’ve written a short essay – a bit of a rant really). I’ll include some of my experiences of all that.

Thanks for reading. Hope you’ll return to my blog.