|
Relaxing
I spent most of the morning just hanging out in the room. A maid came in to change our towels. She explained that ours was one of the best rooms because it was off the street and the noisy plaza, so it is very quiet. She also said that most of the hostel was empty. It was full a week ago for Corpus Christi and it will be full again in July and August, but June is still somewhat of a slow season. No rain like in April and May, and yet still not as hot as July and August. I think June is good.
Sightseeing
Sometimes I almost feel guilty for not getting out and seeing more of the sights. Not everyone has a chance to come here, after all. However, I chose to stay inside and read some more of Arthur C. Clarke's 3001. Ironically, I just started reading Chapter 19: The Madness of Mankind. It talks about the killing and silliness that our religions encourage with special mention going to the Spanish Inquisition (check out "Hammer of Witches"). One guy sympathetic to the second millennium points out that all the great works of art (paintings, statues, buildings, music) are dedicated to some religion or god. How could something so beautiful be so bad?
Spain?
We thought we would try to watch another Spanish movie at the theater outside the castle area. However, after studying the movies a bit
more, we realized that they were all from Hollywood. There was one movie that looked Spanish, but it was a horror flick, so we gave up. What ever happened to that Almodovar guy?
Instead we went to dinner at a chinese place called the Gran Murall. Midori and Yai are always quick to point out how many Chinese restaurants there are in every city. One reason is because, like my obsession with pizza, they are dying to eat something with a little flavor of home. The other reason is that they are amazed at how many Chinese there are in the world. I have to admit, it is pretty impressive. I am not sure that I would be brave enough to move overseas to some little town just to open a little restaurant which nobody appreciates. Anyway, the food was quite good, and even though it is not Spanish, it is still Spain.
Internet
We stopped by the Scorpio Bar on the way back. It is the only place in town with any sort of access to the internet, so the tourist office is always happy to point addicted Americans over in the right direction. The machines there are Apple jobs packaged up in what looks like an arcade machine. You put in 100 pesetas (US0.75) for six minutes of fun on Netscape or telnet. I was able to catch up on all the news, but when I tried to send a mail using Pine, I had a bit of a problem. The -control- key does not work the same. The keyboards do have so extra symbols here and there, but more or less, everything seemed to work the same. Anyway, I could not make the machine send my message. Although travel in the 90's is easier than ever there are still little glitches that you have to learn to live with. Hopefully we will have no glitches when we take Yai back to Madrid tomorrow.
|