I'm back from Spain.
Man, what a trip.
I've been gone for, hmm, 9 days, but it feels like a month.
Lemme give you the Reader's Digest version.
Got to the airport ... the travel agent never phoned in my info to the airlines, so I had to re-do my entire itenary (which entailed flying five times, mind you) right there at the check-in desk. Phew! Luckily a little guilt ran a long way, and I was able to re-book my trip.
The flight to Madrid had the meanest stewardess I have ever met. She seemed to either be recuperating from a stroke or having slept on one side of her face for way too long but decided to take it out on us, her helpless victims.
After being delayed on the runway for two hours while a storm blew over, I made the mistake of asking for a ginger ale, you'd have thought I'd asked for her left kidney.
But I survived, landed in Madrid at 9 a.m. their time, got to my hotel and was not allowed to check in for two hours so I walked around the block for two hours feeling a strong need to brush my teeth (and have a ginger ale).
Finally I checked in, slept for a few hours, showered and was ready to take on Spain.
Madrid was ancient, gorgeous and just swept me away to another time immediately. Other than the fact that it was exceedingly difficult to find anything to eat that did not contain pork, shellfish or wheat, I had a wonderful journey.
I walked for miles using a little map and a lot of "¿Donde esta ...?"
Oddly, though, every time I met up with a proper, well dressed Madridian woman over the age of 40, she'd gave me the look of death. It seemed like everything about my shorts, tank-top, curly hair and tattoo offended them deeply. If they'd known I was gay, I'm sure pandemonium would have ensued. Their husbands, on the other hand, had far different reactions. These linen suited gentlemen with hankerchiefs peeking out of pockets looked at me as if I were a wild animal that they wanted to tame or mount or something.
It was just freaky.
I'd come to Spain expecting to find all the things my Cuban Spaniard lover is about, and instead started to find all the things she rebels against, well, in Madrid, anyway.
Granted I was staying near the opera, Madrid's version of truly uptown society, but man these folks were snobbbbbbyyyy.
I could not get myself to eat the way they did, four-course lunches and dinners after 10 p.m. So instead I gorged myself in the hotel's buffet breakfast, walked all over Madrid in the tardes (afternoon) and then sampled tapas and sangria from every outdoor caf that looked inviting in the early evening. I had meatballs and Sangria at the Plaza Mayor which was this huge many century old plaza surrounded by gorgeous buildings, outdoor cafés and lots of beggars.
I had the classic, potato and egg omelette with, yes, more sangria near the opera.
I had lots and lots of ensaladas mixtas (to remain regular as they say) ...
I visited the Prado museum to see the Spanish Renaissance paintings, darling, and, well, after two full days in Madrid, I was starting to feel like a snob, too.
Thankfully my next stop was Ibiza.
Going from Madrid to Ibiza is a bit like going from Connecticut to San Francisco. I mean I went from the uptown ascot crowd to the wild, sex- sand jet set junky sect.
My plane to Ibiza was loaded with gay men and older women who'd had way too much plastic surgery.
Thankfully in Ibiza my boy toy pal Tommy and his entourage were waiting to occupy my nights. I spent my days floating in el mar (the Mediterranean) for those like moi who have never been in this ocean before ... it's a lot more salty, so don't shave your legs less than 24 hours before a swim. OUCH!! ...
Tommy showed me the old town ... and took me into a magnificent 400-year-old fort that is now filled with tiny cafés, gay men's bars, lots of horny very young straight folks and little shops. It seemed impossible climbing the narrow stone steps farther up into the fort that anyone lived there but the place was riddled with little holes that turned into people's apartments.
It felt a lot more like Greece than a Spanish island, and I just loved it.
But I must say although there were enough gay men to fill a decent size city, there wasn't a lesbian in sight ... unless you count those rather large German women. I mean, who knows?
The boys, by the way, are little, and no, I don't mean that way. Well, I didn't check, but most of them looked as though they'd be 120 pounds soaking wet. Hell, I had more muscle than most of them did.
Tommy (who has a swimmer's body, rather buff but not overkill) explained that one of the reasons he likes Spain so much is because all the boy-boys love muscle but hate working out so its easy to be a superstar.
Well lemme tell you honeys, I put on my sexy silk top, avec rather noticeable cleavage and felt like chopped liver next to Madame Tommy. I thought our waiter was gonna pour beef sauce on my lap just to get a little closer to Tom.
Seemed like the only folks in Ibiza who were interested in moi were old drunks from London. Sigh. Story of my life. The more they drink, they more they love me.
Anyway I was anointed fag hag extraordinaire and taken into the boy bars with Tommy and company ... quite an experience to be looking out over 400-year-old stone steps and walls, the distant twinkly lights of the old town and meanwhile watch a parade of drag queens on stilts promenade by.
After four days of sun, fun and grilled sole with the head on, (had to cover it with a napkin it kept staring at me) it was off to Barcelona.
I expected to like Barcelona the most and did.
This city seemed to capture the best of Madrid and mix it with Paris and the edge of Manhattan. It was a big city that never felt overwhelming with something for everyone.
I walked the Ravel, a kilometer or so of street acts, peddlers, cafés and flamenco dancers and then cut into the wondrous old gothic quarter which wound me round and round tiny old streets too small for a car or even a large tourist, where laundry clinging from iron balconies perpetually dripped on my head.
At 10 at night, I dressed up and went out to the adventure called dinner. One night was a Spanish Renaissance place that fed me half a lamb pulled out of some wooden fire. One night a Basque meal of salt cod and tomatoes. I had more tapas and sangria and way more cheese than anyone should ever eat, and still expect to wear tight jeans.
I visited the beaches created when an industrial area was turned into housing for the '92 Olympics. I counted five beaches and hundreds of restaurants on a port nearby. It was so amazing to go from the center of the city to the beach in a 6-euro cab ride. Then to walk from a beach filled with families and children to an entire nude beach in a matter of minutes. ... And yes ... as it turns out ... they really were that small. ... Sheesh don't these guys take vitamins over here?!
I took a tour to visit all the modernist buildings of the mad-man architect Gaudí, who seems to have done to buildings what Dali did to canvas. My favorite was the gothic church with what looked like baskets of fruit perched on top.
Barcelona was either filled with lesbians or filled with rather aggressive women wearing back-packs who seemed to love to make eye contact and not look away no matter what. I don't know if they were cruising me or doing some sort of rite of passage thing that I was not privy to, but what do you expect from a city that loves bullfights?
That's gross by the way. Shit, 15,000 people gathering around to watch some jerk torture a bull. Someone needs to send PETA out there PRONTO!
I walked so much in Barcelona that the bottoms of my feet are covered in blisters, but I just never seemed to tire of the way the streets would wrap around and around and into something new and yet all made sense. I loved the modernist buildings next to the two- or three-century-old ones. I loved the gothic sections, remnants of the 14th century (although they weren't very nice to Jews around then, were they? Hmm.) ...
Actually when I went in search of the Jewish quarter I couldn't even find it. This was the section in the old city left after what was a large thriving community of Jews were either murdered or exiled. Nice.
What do you expect from a country that refuses to make anything without ham?
Anyway, that was many centuries ago, so I moved on. Forgive and forget sorta thing. ... Went to the Picasso museum to view his blue period, which I loved because it's dark, moody and, well, blue -- all the things that appeal to the New York aesthetic.
On my last night in Barcelona I visited the port for a huge plate of really frightening fried tiny fish with huge mouths filled with teeth. I just could not eat them for fear of them biting back. But the wine was wonderful and the olives glorious and all seemed just fine with the world.
And now I'm back.
And my muchacha is presently cooking me a Latin break-lunch that includes eggs and plantains, and I am rolling in the welcome that comes from having left her and run away to the country of her ancestry for nine days.
Was she worried? ... Hmmm. I don't know, but the attention is sweet and fruity like sangria.
Sangria by the way was fabulous in Madrid but disgusting in Ibiza. They put something in it that makes it taste like wine-flavored Alka Seltzer. In Barcelona, they add bubbles, too.
That's called fizzing up a good flat thing, amigos. ... Just leave the damn sangria alone.
Anyway, I'm back in my nice gray, brown and beige home ... enjoying a fabulous lack of red. There are no fish with heads on them here ... that I'm aware of, anyway ... and the evil stroke stewardess is a distant memory.
Next time I start with Barcelona and work my way into the tiny towns in the south, and I have go to learn how to say, "Stop staring at me or I'll stab you in the throat" in Spanish.
Adios!!
P.S. - All kidding aside ... Spain was mucho fantastico.
