2010

March 3. La Alhambra

Finally, the place I'd come here to visit. La Alhambra. I won't get into a long description on La Alhambra's history or what it looks like. A thousand travel writers have described it far better than I ever could.

I will say that the road up to La Alhambra is steep and long but worth the effort. It winds up the mountain at something like a 30 degree incline. Note the benches by path: The seat is level, but the right leg is twice as long as the left. I imagined I was a Moorish rebel fighting my way to the palace. I think I would have died of cardiac arrest. Then I imagined I was in Napoleon's army fighting against the Spanish. It wasn't any easier.

In La Alhambra you were impregnable. The palace complex is studded with guard towers and thick walls. It has access to fresh water and extensive gardens with an almost indefinite supply of food. If an army besieged La Alhambra, there was no chance of blockading it and starving the population out. The army would be obliged to attack and waste itself on the steep hillsides. When the Spanish conquered Granada in 1492, they completed the Reconquest of Spain. But they never assaulted La Alhambra. Even with 200,000 men the Catholic Monarchs had to bribe Boabdil, the last sultan, to leave his fortress.

By the time you reach the top of the winding path, you're not in Granada anymore. La Alhambra seems separate from the city, like it's another place, another world. The history of the complex spans centuries, and walking from one part to another is like travelling through time. The waterways resemble Roman aqueducts. The palace represents the height of Islamic architecture in the Middle Ages. Carlos V's gaudy 15^th century palace can't compare. A plaque on one wall is dedicated to a Spanish veteran of the Peninsular Wars. When Napoleon's troops evacuated the Alhambra, they set explosives to destroy the whole complex. A crippled veteran came through after them and removed the fuses. If he hadn't been there then, La Alhambra wouldn't be here today. Finally, several rooms in one tower are dedicated to Washington Irving's visit in 1827. I'm reading his book, Tale of the Alhambra, now. 

March 2. Chill day.

I stayed out late buying drinks and munching on free tapas. When I found a place that sold Corona, I couldn't help but down a few. We finished the night in a Chinese tapas bar. I called it the Dim Sum place, because I think tapas and dim sum have the same idea—try a little bit of everything.

By the way, “rejo” is not short for “cangrejo.” At the Chinese tapas place, I recognized everything on the menu expect “rejo.” I'd never heard of that dish before, so naturally I had to try it. Cangrejo is Spanish for crab. I thought rejo might be slang for cangrejo. I don't really like crab, but it was something new.

It turns out that rejo, in the world of Spanish tapas, means fried octopus tentacles. They were about three inches long, curly, breaded, and crispy. They looked kind of like American curly fries, except you can see the little suckers on them. They tasted horrible, but now I know what “rejo” means.

I woke up late the next morning. I wanted to visit La Alhambra early because I'd heard that tour groups fill the place in the afternoon. Since I didn't get out of bed until after 10, I decided to put the Alhambra off for a day. I spent the day just walking around, and I'm afraid I don't have much to report. The Turkish and Moroccan restaurants are great; there's no danger in walking alone at night, even with an expensive camera; and Grenadines (Granadians? Granadenses?) are very friendly and outgoing.

March 1. Walking Granada.

New week, new month, day 13 of the big trip. Today was a holiday in Andalucía, celebrating the region's designation as an autonomous region. There weren't any big festivals, but there were a lot of people out enjoying their day off. I was told that the Alhambra would be filled with tourists today, so I decided to save that sight for later.

The Oasis hotel offers two walking tours from local guides. Both are outstanding. The first is a general tour of the city. The guide—a young Englishman; I can't for the life of me remember his name—gives an excellent tour. Most walking tours are pretty boring. The guide leads a group of tourists around like a flock of sheep, occasionally dropping a bit of trivia that isn't interesting to anybody. This guide gave us a great history of Granada that was both detailed and exciting. He recounted the city's history from the first Roman settlements to the Reconquest of Ferdinand and Isabella. He told us legends of Jewish and Muslim gold hidden under old houses in the city. When they were expelled, the Jews and Muslims weren't allowed to take their money with them, and many hid gold and silver in and under their homes with the intent to return someday and reclaim their wealth. Every old house is rumored to have a stash of gold in the basement.

The guide pointed out the caves near the Alhambra. Gypsies took up residence in those caves when they arrived in the 15^th century. Today they're populated by modern day hippies (the guide's term, not mine). When I think of living in a cave, I think of campfires and sleeping bags. But apparently most of the caves are quite comfy. They've been excavated a bit to give them clean rooms. Most have electricity. Some even have heating and air conditioning. Today the caves are barely regulated, and anybody can find an empty one and live there as a a squatter. The only catch is that the unoccupied caves are used as public bathrooms. If you move into one, you have to clean it out. Still, modern-day bohemians from all across Europe live on the (literal and figurative) fringes of Granada. They come into town on the weekends to sell handmade jewelry, play guitar, or juggle for tips. It's like a Phish concert that never ends.

Granada's a surprisingly vibrant city. I had the impression of a quiet town that had the Alhambra and little else. I was completely wrong. Along with the squatters, Granada has a large student population thanks to a nearby university and a wide-ranging student exchange program. The population is young and young-at-heart. The nightlife is busy with a good mix of Spanish and foreigners. If you speak a little Spanish, you can meet lots of locals and have a really great time.

The other tour is a street art tour. Granada has graffiti everywhere. Some of it's just shout-outs from local kids, “Maria, I love you!” “FC Barcelona!” A lot of it is political slogans, “Down with fascism! Viva socialismo!” “No nazis! An end to racism!” But Granada's also home to some amazing artists. Working with airbrushes and cans of spray paint, they make works so dynamic that they ought to be in the Reina Sofia. Many of the works remind me to the Mexican muralists of the early 20^th century. One particular painter, El Niño de la Pintura (Son of the Painter), makes a living painting houses in his unique style. A decade ago he was a criminal, often arrested for painting on public property. Today, he's a national treasure. The government gives him public walls for painting, and sometimes they erect a thick layer of glass over it to preserve the work. We saw a building with El Niño's work that was about to be demolished. The city had ordered that the wall with the painting be carefully removed before the building could be destroyed.

Our guide told us one amusing anecdote from several years ago: A local man had commissioned El Niño to paint a mural on his house. It costs tens of thousands of dollars but they say the work was beautiful. The house is in the middle of the city, and the section of the house that was painted is part of a continuous wall that runs along the sidewalk. The Granada government didn't know the painting was a commissioned work. They thought it was illegal graffiti, and they painted over the whole thing! The home owner went on vacation, and when he got back the whole wall was eggshell white. There was a pretty big lawsuit, and the government was a little more careful about covering up graffiti.

Anyway, the street art tour focuses on the works of El Niño de la Pintura. He painted a stairway in a local park. The stairway zig-zags up a steep hill, and every inch is covered in paint, images from a vibrant and dynamic Spanish town. A local school commissioned him to paint their outer wall. He painted a long parade of figures from Louis Armstrong to Mario and Luigi. The tour gave me a new perspective on Granada. It's a city that ought to be as famous for its modern life as for its ancient monuments.

February 28. Granada. Arrival.

The above-mentioned floods slowed my trip to Granada. I was scheduled to arrive by train at 9pm. I arrived at 10. I checked in at Hostel Oasis, a relaxed place near Plaza Nueva. The streets around Oasis were part of old Moorish Granada. They have the same twisting plan I've seen in modern Arab towns in the Levant. It's easy—but fun—to get lost in the narrow streets. The pedestrianized cobblestone walkways are about big enough for three people to walk abreast. The side streets are little narrower. The streets are lined with Arab restaurants and souvenir stands. It's a little bit of Morocco plopped in the middle of Spain.

February 28. Córdoba. A walk around town.

As in Madrid, I booked a train for the evening so I could spend the day in Córdoba. There's not much to see in the city—the Alcazár with its beautiful gardens, the Tower of Calahora with it commanding view of the city—but it's a beautiful place to wander. I spent most of the day walking up and down both sides of the Rio Guadalqivir (if you can pronounce that, tell your Spanish professor to give you an A).

 In the last few weeks, Anadlucía has seen the worst rains in the last 40 years. Many cities including Córdoba suffered severe flooding, and several people were killed. When I arrived, the rains had stopped but the water hadn't fully receded. The Guadalqivir flowed over its natural banks and up to the floodwalls built on either side of the river. It had covered biking paths paved next to the banks. Where it receded, it had left a thick layer of mud over the paths. Near one bridge there are two small islands on which two centuries-old houses stood. One small house was still safe above a steep brick foundation. In the other the first floor was completely underwater.

The city of Córdoba is much larger than it first appears. The Moorish part of the old city is rather small and easy to cover on foot. It's tightly enclosed and gives the impression that the city is tiny. Step outside of the old town and you appear in a large and modern Spanish city. Not that there's much for a tourist to see, but it looks like a really nice place to live—large enough to stay interesting, but not so huge as to be frustrating.

Did I mention that I'm homeless and unemployed right now? And that I have no idea where my next home will be? It's fun to be a wealthy vagabond, though I'm constantly thinking about my next destination. 

February 27. Córdoba. La Mezquita-Catedral

Today was my day to visit La Gran Mezquita-Catedral, the ancient mosque/cathedral in Córdoba's old Moorish center. I should call it Granada's church/mosque/cathedral. The site was originally a Visigothan church. When Muslim forces conquered the city, they bought the church from the locals and converted it into a mosque. In 1236 Spanish armies reconquered the city but left the mosque in place. Three hundred years later, King Carlos V converted the mosque into a Catholic cathedral. He commissioned frescoes of Mary and the Saints all around the exterior. In 1523, he built a huge Baroque chapel right in the middle of the mosque.

 

The chapel looks completely out of place in the center of the ancient mosque. The elegant simplicity of countless perfectly aligned columns is bluntly interrupted by an ornate and garish altar and chorus. There's no effort to blend the two styles or transition from one place to another. The chapel just forces its way into the mosque with no regard to relation or aesthetics. In the 1500's, at the height of the Inquisition, this is exactly what Spain wanted.

Those attitudes are still somewhat present today. Quoting from the English-language brochure found at the entrance of the mosque:

The cathedral of Córdoba is not simply a monument or a temple of different cultures; nor is it a mosque, but the Mother Church of the Dioceses. The term “cathedral” derives from the “cathedra,” or seat of the bishop, from where he acts as the pastor of all his people. That is why a cathedral is the express image of the Church of Christ that preaches, sings, and adores throughout the world....It is a historical fact that the basilica of San Vicente was expropriated and destroyed in order to build what would later be the mosque, a reality that questions the theme of tolerance that was supposedly cultivated in the Córdoba of the moment.

And at the end of the brochure:

It is the Church, through its Cathedral Chapter, that made it possible to keep the former mosque of the Western Caliphate, the oldest cathedral in Spain, and a World Heritage Site, from becoming a heap of ruins.

The Catholic authorities want to make very clear that the site is a Cathedral, not a mosque. I was put off by the chauvinism displayed by the Church authorities. They seem very interested in emphasizing the Christian past and treating the Muslims as barbarous invaders. It seems sad that they converted the Grand Mosque into a cathedral; sadder still that they built a chapel right in the middle of it.

But then I started thinking about modern monuments and beliefs we find repugnant today. The obvious example is the Nazi Party. Now, I do not intend to compare Muslims to Nazis. I intend to consider how we treat ideologies we find abhorrent. A thought experiment:

We've all seen the film in which Soviet forces in Berlin blow up the swastika atop the Reichstag. We've seen how Nazi art and architecture was removed, neglected, or destroyed. Yet artists in the Nazi regime produced some truly brilliant works of art. Subtract the inhuman philosophy that inspired them, view them simply for their aesthetics, and many of the paintings and structures are truly beautiful. Remember that the Bauhaus movement was tied to the Nazi party and many of its top artists were hardened anti-Semites. Today we admire Bauhaus art, but we don't consider that the Nazis admired Bauhaus as well.

We can admire Bauhaus art, but we can't admire Nazi art. We can't because we cannot separate the artists from the despicable ideals that inspired them. The images we associate with Nazi philosophy must either be cleansed of fascist associations or completely destroyed. The few items from the Nazi era that we do admire have lost all associations with Hitler's rule. We must think of them as part of post-war Germany. In a way, we strip their Nazi past and rechristen them as modern German.

This is the same treatment the Catholic monarchs gave to the Moorish structures. Though they were wrong, they found Islam as repugnant as we find fascism today. They could appreciate the beauty of a place like the Mosque of Córdoba, but only if it was stripped of its Muslim associations. And that's just what they did. They converted the minaret into a bell tower, and declared that the mosque was now a cathedral. Only then could they appreciate their Moorish heritage.

I don't wish to justify the damage they wreaked on the Córdoba Mosque. It's a shame they couldn't leave it intact. But I understand their motivations. I wonder if, half a millenium from now, some young tourist might wander ruins in Berlin and wonder why the Soviets tore those swastikas down.

February 26. Cordoba. In the House of the Broken Doors

“Ahí me voy otra vez. Ahi te dejo Madrid!” I sang Shakira as the train took off. The AVE train gets from Madrid to Córdoba in less than 2 hours. I got into Córdoba a little after 10 on Friday night. I went to the Hostal Alcázar. I'll call it Hostal de Las Puerta Rotas, or Broken Door Hotel. None-I mean none-of the doors worked. The hotel has two buildings, each with its own exterior door. The door to my building was jammed. I had to ram the door with my shoulder to get it open. When I got checked in, I found the door to my room wouldn't shut. I slammed it as hard as I could but it got stuck halfway in the door frame. After I got checked in, I sat in the lobby and took advantage of the free Internet. Two guests arrived, and the owner—a tiny little elderly woman—asked if I could help her with the door to the other building. That door must have been ten feet tall and just as wide. It felt as thick as an oak tree, and it wouldn't budge. I pushed it. I rammed into it. I kicked it. I turned around and gave it couple of big mule kicks I learned in jujitsu class. My bruised knee didn't like that.

I apologized to the old lady and went back to my room. I don't know how they got the door open. Maybe's the owner's husband has a crowbar just for that occasion. Or maybe the local firefighters have a Jaws of Life.

 

February 26. Madrid. Ass over tea kettle

I didn't mention my trip down the stairs, did I? The Cat's Hostel has two floors. The lobby is on the ground floor, and the rooms are upstairs, accessible by a steep staircase. The wooden staircase goes up about twenty steps to a small platform before it turns left and goes up about twenty steps more. This morning (Friday) I was checking out. I had to take my bags downstairs where the staff would hold them until I left for the train station. I'm on a six-month trip, so my bag is big, really big. This orange and black duffel is about three feet long and two feet wide. When I sling it over my shoulder and hold it in front of me, I can't see my feet. That's bad.

I was carrying this 50 pound duffel and my backpack down the first set of stairs, and I couldn't see where my feet were going. I thought I'd reached the platform halfway down, but there was one more step to go. Where I was expecting my foot to stop it kept on going. I leaned back to catch my balance but the fifty-pound duffel pulled me forward, ass over tea kettle. My bag hit the floor first, then my head, then my shoulder.

But it didn't end there. My legs went up in the air and flipped down the last set of stairs. My left knee banged the first stair. My right knee hit the third. I made another full revolution before I managed to plant my hand on the last step and stop my fall.

I sat still for a second trying to feel if anything was broken. Everything felt all right. The strap on the duffel was twisted around my neck. My left arm had a big scratch. My ankle was cut. But that was it. Better still, the hostel was quiet. It was early in the morning, and most people were still asleep. They say the stupidity of your actions are proportional to the number of people watching. That is, if nobody saw you do it, then it wasn't stupid. I untangled my duffel and looked up just as some young English guy offer me a hand and asked, “Are you all right? That was a hell of a fall.”

“My body's fine,” I said. “But I think I broke my dignity.”

Anyway, I'm telling you this to explain why I went back to the hostel after the Reina Sofia. My left knee hit that step pretty hard and it feels terribly sore. I don't think anything's torn or broken but it might tear or break if I walk around all day. I already have to lug that goddamn bag all around the train station. I don't need to spend the next four hours marching around Madrid.

February 26. Madrid. Cubism

I said earlier that I would go back to the Prado and look at the works of El Greco. I said I wanted to explore the link between El Greco and Picasso. I didn't make it back to the Prado, but I was right about the Greco/Picasso connection. Actually, it's something that Picasso himself acknowledged in his painting. Since I don't have any training in art, I'm quite proud of myself for finding the connection on my own.

Unlike my trip to the Prado, in the Reina Sofia I focused on one area—Cubism, especially “Guernica.” I never really understood Cubism, but I've become interested in the movement since I took a new focus on composition in my photography. Maybe that needs some explaining.

In my photography, I focus on composition, especially the orientation of basic elements. The subjects don't matter as much to me as how their shapes relate to one another. When I look at my photos, I don't see happy couples or ancient ruins or nature scenes. I see parallel verticals, intersecting diagonals, attention-drawing points and implied shapes. One philosophy of cubism is to reduce subjects to their most basic geometric elements. Faces become two circles and a triangle. People become boxes and vertical lines. Baroque architecture becomes, well, cubes. The same elements that I look for in my photos are the only elements that the cubists put into their paintings.

So off to the Reina Sofia I went. The museum houses Picasso's greatest work, “Guernica.” The work depicts a massacre of civilians by Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War. I'd seen it before, but I never really “got” it. At a glance, it looks like a badly-drawn cartoon. It has no depth, almost no shading, hardly any color at all. I didn't see what was so special about it Maybe seeing the original work would help me understand.

The Reina Sofia has not just one, but two full halls dedicated to “Guernica.” One room shows that painting itself. Before you get to that, you pass through a hall of Picasso's preliminary works and sketches. This hall is like an education in modernist art.

Like the Expressionists, Picasso wanted his viewers, not to see what he saw, but to feel what he felt. He was more interested in emotion than image. The faces in “Guernica” are grotesque cartoons that barely resemble human beings. They are the emotions that human faces can't express.

Faces of hurt people, at the moment of tragedy, don't have expressions—they have reactions. Look at the photos coming out of Afghanistan or Haiti. Look at the faces of mothers who come upon the bodies of their dead sons. Later--at the funerals--their faces will communicate. They'll show sadness or guilt or even relief. But at the moment of tragedy, there is no expression, no attempt at communication.

Every muscle in the body tenses and contracts. The hands clamp down on whatever they're holding. The legs brace as if they might need to flee. The head pulls back, the mouth flies open, and the lips pull back from the teeth. The cheeks and eyebrows bunch up so tightly that the eyes are almost shut. And from a tightened stomach and chest they scream so loudly it hurts their own ears. It's not any shout of grief or sorrow. It's just the tense hard breath through a throat so tight it can't relax. Those screams and that look aren't any attempt at communication. They're the expression of the human animal, filled with pain and ready at any moment to fight or flee.

The body isn't strong enough show all of this pain. If the muscles could contract further; if their faces could somehow contort even more than they have, they would. And then they would look like “Guernica.”

With that understanding, “Guernica” comes to life. A painting that looks like a badly-drawn cartoon becomes an expression of terror. As I walked through the first hall, I saw Picasso's sketches and studies, “Hand Grasping a Sword,” “Bull with a Human Face.” When I finally saw the whole painting, it left an impression. It was disturbing, difficult to look at. I looked at the screaming mother and then back to the whole image. The dying horse trampling a dead body and then back to the whole image. The witness coming out of her house, and then back to the whole image. After a few minutes, it made such an impact that I had to leave.

The rest of the “Guernica” hall has two parts: paintings and sculptures that Picasso made around the same time and a photographic retrospective of the Spanish Civil War. The photography, of course, interested me more. I was surprised—though maybe I shouldn't have been—that the photos presented the Republicans in such a positive light and dealt heavily with Nationalist massacres. “Guernica” was commissioned by the Spanish Republic, and it was based on Nationalist (Nazi) bombing of civilians. But the Republicans did their share of killing as well. Nobody was innocent in Spanish Civil War, and any exhibition on the war should reflect that.

History is sometimes written by the losers,. After Franco's death there's an understandable reluctance to portray his enemies as anything other than noble martyrs. That was the theme of this retrospective.

February 26. Convent of the Incarnation.

Friday was my day to leave Madrid. I booked a train for the evening so I could spend the day in the city. Two of the girls I met last night—Audra from Australia and Brittany from the States--were on their way to El Convento de la Encarnacion. I decided to join them.

The convent started as a home for Spanish princesses. In the 1500's, it was turned into a home for Spanish nuns (many of whom were also princesses). Today it's a convent and museum with holy relics and famous works of art. The art wasn't very interesting to me, but the relics were pretty neat. The convent has bits and pieces of over 700 saints and other famous people. In the basement there's an ornately decorated room whose walls are lined with beautifully detailed wooden boxes. Inside each box is a slip of paper with a saint's name and bone from the saint in question. Some have entire skulls. Others just have a few fragments of bone. It was funny in a macabre way. But it was unsettling that people put their faith in parts of dead bodies. When I hear about weird New Age cults and their odd rituals, I wonder if Christianity is any less strange. I mean, don't we eat bread and pretend we're eating the flesh of our dead God? Don't Catholics believe that red wine is literally turned into human blood, which they then drink?

Speaking of blood, one relic has set my date for going back to Madrid. A little glass jar holds a few drops of the blood of San Pantaleón. On San Pantaleón's Day—July 27—the saint's blood liquifies. Thousands of people claim to have seen the saint's liquid blood rolling around in that jar every July. I want to come back and see it for myself.