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publish mr-worldwide pt 1, and add next/previous in series links

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@ -104,677 +104,3 @@ description: >-
- Culture
- History
# Munich, Germany
I arrived in Munich late at night on January 14th. My friend Caitlin met me at
the train station, and walked me over to her house to drop my stuff off. Jetlag
hit me real good at this point, so I only barely remember her taking me to a
nearby biergarten to get some food and catch up. The next day we headed down to
the center of the city, and she showed me around the sights, like Marienplatz
and the Frauenkirche (one of many famous churches in Munich).
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="munich-victory-gate-2018.jpg" width=4048
descr="Siegestor (Victory Gate), Munich, 2018"
%}
As we walked and ate our way through the day Caitlin updated me on all of the
things that I should expect to be different in Europe, like how water is never
free anywhere, nor are public restrooms; like how many buildings which are still
used and lived in are older than our entire country; like how people use cash
instead of card, and get irritated if you make them break a large bill, or they
just might not do it at all; like how even in a large city like Munich
everything can still be closed on a Sunday.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="munich-moosach-2018.jpg" width=3036
descr="Moosach neighborhood, Munich, 2018"
float="right"
%}
The thing which struck me most about Munich was how quiet it was. The din of
traffic is so ingrained into me that I don't even hear it until it's not there.
And to not hear it inside of a city was very strange. More than sound, there was
a quietness of life. It didn't feel like people were rushed, with too much to do
and too little time. People crowded onto the subway, but not with impatience,
and people walked home from the train station after work without hurry. It was
like the priorities of the whole culture were different in some fundamental way
that I could never quite put a finger on.
Caitlin worked during the week, and so I was set free into the City for a few
days. I visited more churches, ate more food, hung out at the library figuring
out the next steps of my travels, and just generally wandered around the city.
One snowy day I had lunch with a distant relative on my mom's side, who is an
artist in Munich. I met her at her studio, and from there we wandered around
various museums, where she gave me a private guided tour of the exhibits. We
talked about politics, and about how immigration is affecting it, and about
Trump (of course), and about art, and school, and our different cultures. She
told me that Europe had always looked to the U.S. as a kind of older brother,
but now that image was starting to fall apart, and I told her about the tiny
house and minimalism movement that is hopefully picking up steam in the U.S.,
and about my friend who is living in a van and traveling around the country. I
learned a lot that day, and when I headed back to Caitlin's afterwards I felt
much more at home in the country and continent than I had before.
A week after arriving it was time for me to continue on. One cold morning I
hopped onto a bus, rode through a snowy Switzerland, and hopped off into a
bright and sunny Milan.
## Milan, Italy
My first impression of Milan was: "Wow, this place is sketchy". The streets were
dirty, old, and covered in graffiti. There were homeless everywhere, people
selling bootleg clothes in the street, scammers targeting tourists, and a
general disheveldness which Munich didn't have. But on the other side of that
coin, Milan is one of the fashion capitals of the world, and everywhere I looked
there were also beautiful people in expensive looking clothes, driving fancy
cars, and eating at fancy cafes. Where Munich was simple and wealthy, Milan was
lavish and disparate.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-street-2018.jpg" width=4048
descr="The streets of Milan, 2018"
%}
My hostel in Milan was called the Ostello Bello, and was probably the best one I
could have gotten as my first hostel in Europe. The hostel's downstairs area was
a restaurant/bar, with some tables reserved for hostel guests. Upon arriving
they immediately sat me down at one of those tables, where others were sitting,
and said "this is Brian, talk to him". They did this with every person who
arrived, as well as giving us free food and drinks, so that every night turned
into a small party.
It took a while for me to fully break out of my shell and get used to meeting
people in hostels, but if it weren't for Ostello Bello it might not have
happened at all. Every night I got to hang out and make friends with people from
South Korea, Scotland, Argentina, France, Switzerland, and locals from Milan
too. So despite all the negative things I'm going to have to say about party
hostels later, I'm grateful for Ostello Bello.
As far as Milan itself, the thing which impacted me the most was the Duomo. And
boy did it impact me, so much so that I visited it twice. It's the third largest
church in the world, but my experience of it was even better than when I would
go to St. Peter's, the first largest, later on. The interior is so cavernous
that all sounds echo virtually forever, creating a low hum which reminded me of
the Hindu Om. To think that the words of a book carried such force that, 2000
years later, people were erecting and maintaining incredible structures like the
Milan's Duomo in their honor floored me. There's a lot of criticism which could
and should be leveled towards the Catholic Church, but damnit they know how to
build a building.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-duomo-2018-0.jpg" width=1292
descr="Milan's Duomo. In the lower left, tourists being scammed by a dude with pigeon food, 2018"
%}
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-duomo-interior-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
descr="Interior of Milan's Duomo, 2018"
%}
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-duomo-interior-2018-1.jpg" width=727
descr="Milan Duomo's creepy ass statue of Saint Bartholomew, 2018"
float="right"
%}
Besides the Duomo I also visited some museums and other sights, like the Sforza
Castle, walking from one to the other as the days went on. Walking became a
frequent past-time for me during my traveling. Between Google Maps and the
external battery pack I always had with me, there was never a worry about
getting lost, and with hostels generally being clustered near the sights it was
rarely more than a half-hour walk to any given thing I wanted to see. So I got
used to walking a lot, and taking public transit infrequently, and never once
used a taxi or rental car while in Europe.
Five days after arriving in Milan I left it, having made many friends and
having learned a lot about Italy and Italians. I also learned I was spending too
long at each city: It was almost 2 weeks into my 3 month-max trip (for visa
reasons), and I'd only been to two cities! From then on I kept to two or three
days per city, depending on how much I cared about it, with a couple of five
day-ers when I really needed a rest.
## Ravenna, Italy
After the hecticness of Milan I needed something more quiet. Before leaving the
U.S. a friend had told me about Ravenna, the once capital of the Western Roman
Empire and now small Italian city, where some of the world's oldest Christian
structures still reside. Mosaics retain their original quality over time far
better than many other mediums, and Ravenna was full of ones from as early as
the 6th century. While not as glamorous and fast-paced as Milan, Ravenna really
hit me with the depth of its history. As someone from the U.S., I'm not
accustomed to seeing anything built before 1500, and yet here were buildings in
excellent condition which were built a thousand years prior.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="ravenna-mosaic-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
descr="Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, 2018"
%}
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="ravenna-mosaic-2018-1.jpg" width=727
descr="Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, 2018"
float="right"
%}
Something else which took some time to get accustomed to was using cash (what a
segway!). By this point in the trip it had become somewhat second-nature, but
only by way of many mishaps previously. In the U.S. using cash is usually a
backup option, with credit/debit cards ruling supreme. ATMs never give out bills
bigger than $20, and no establishment would ever complain about having to break
a $20 except for maybe the smallest purchases. In Europe the ATMs (or cash
machines, whatever) almost always give out €50 bills, which absolutely no one
wants to break except big chain stores. It's a giant pain. I still remember the
exact location of an ATM in Munich which gave me €10 bills, it was that exciting
of a find, and I went out of my way to go back to it more than once.
So in addition to needing to keep an eye on your cash and get more out
periodically, you also need to keep an eye out for places which will break your
bills, and plan accordingly. Before leaving the U.S. I had gotten a debit card
with free international ATM withdrawls at any ATM, so finding places to get cash
out wasn't a problem, but breaking it always was.
But by the time I got back home, I missed doing everything in cash, and even
kept doing it for a while in spite of my culture. While having to find places to
break fifties was a pain, a little friction to making random purchases wasn't
necessarily a bad thing. Instead of impulsively buying whatever was in front of
me, I was incentivized to wait until a better opportunity arrose, generally by
waiting until I could buy multiple things at the same time, which generally
meant buying more efficiently because I was putting thought into it. Also, by
always paying in cash, I had a better sense of how much I was actually spending
day-to-day. In the U.S. we abhor inconvenience, but in my opinion our reluctance
to use cash is a good example of how that abhorance can be to our own detriment.
## Florence, Italy
The train from Ravenna to Florence (or, as Italians spell it, _Firenze_) was
uneventful. Finding the best route between cities turned out to be pretty
straightforward. There's an app called GoEuro which helps compare different
methods like bus, train, plane, and taxi/ride-sharing. There's another app
called Rome2Trio which does roughly the same thing. And there's a bus company
called FlexBus which I used quite a bit; their prices are good, their buses are
new, and the UI of their site was made in the last decade.
Florence was by far my favorite city in Italy. On the one hand it was very
trourist-friendly, and on the other it still retained the feeling of being a
historic city. I split my time there between visiting museums and churches and
finding the best/cheapest spots to eat. Before leaving home, a friend had told
me to avoid any restaurants with pictures on their menu; they're targeted at
tourists and priced accordingly. So my strategy for finding food involved
marking off hole-in-the-wall spots in my maps app whenever I came across them
during the day, and returning later when I was hungry
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
descr="Florence's Duomo near sunset, 2018"
%}
On my second day in Florence I was sitting by the Uffizi, eating a panini, and I
randomly met an art history student from Madrid who was also visiting Florence.
Together we went to a bunch of museums, saw the David, and just generally hung
out. I asked her a lot of questions at the museums, because, to be honest, I'd
never understood what to make of art in museums.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-2018-1.jpg" width=2688
descr="River Arno, and the houses which still stand on it, Florence, 2018"
%}
I'd already learned that, even if I could see a picture of something online,
seeing it in person is way different. In person the colors in a painting pop out
more (many even have gold leef paint which doesn't really show up in pictures at
all, but makes a world of difference), there's a lot more detail to be seen, and
the size of some is absolutely baffling. I also enjoy learning about history,
and the history of art is effectively the history of the world. So museums had
become a meditative place for me; I could go to one and just wander, taking in
art pieces at whatever rate I liked, learning and thinking about history as I
went.
<div style="text-align: center;">
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-painting-2018-0.jpg" width=2688
inline=true
%}
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-painting-2018-1.jpg" width=2688
inline=true
%}
<p><em>Not pictured, the crowd of selfie-ers behind my trying to get a shot with
The Birth of Venus, Florence, 2018</em></p>
</div>
What had always confused me, though, was how to _judge_ art. As in, what makes
one piece better than another, or what makes one artist better than another? Why
do some paintings become famous and others remain obscure? What my friend from
Madrid told me is that there's not really a metric. Some paintings become famous
for historical reasons, either due to where they were originally displayed or
some story associated with them. Same for some artists. Ultimately it's up to
the individual to judge them. There was a painting in the same room as the
famous Birth of Venus painting which I liked far more, and was happy to admire
it alone as throngs of other tourists vied for good selfies with the more famous
piece.
I left Florence with a greater appreciation and understanding of museums, as
well as a good friend who I would be able to visit later while making my way
through Spain.
## Rome, Italy
Rome surprised me when I got there, though, to be honest, it's not clear what my
expectations actually were. The city center, aka the tourist center, is
absolutely _massive_, and all of it is completely tourist-centric. Living in
Rome must feel like living inside of Disney World. The city no longer exists for
its residents, but instead has been completely swallowed by the tourism
industry. Every street corner and storefront is filled with souvenir shops,
overpriced food, clothing stores with "I <3 Rome" shirts, gelato shops, walking
tour agencies, bike rentals, "experience" vendors (helicopter rides over the
Colosseum! Oh my!), shitty jewelry stores, and so much more, all aimed at
someone who has too much money and not enough time to spend it all.
My hostel was one of the cheapest I could find, but I was only staying two full
days so it was fine. Seeing all of the sights of Rome in only two days is not
recommended. The first day I went straight to the Vatican, getting there as
early as possible to try (unsuccessfully) to beat the line. St. Peters is the
largest church in the world, but being rushed I wasn't able to enjoy it like
Milan's Duomo, and a lot of it was closed off unless you wanted to pay more. I
wasn't able to spend enough time in it to enjoy it.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-3.jpg" width=4048
descr="Pope for the day, Rome, 2018"
%}
The Vatican museum was more enjoyable than I thought it would be. For starters
it's huge, with tons and tons of things to see, including the Sistene Chapel. I
took my time wandering around. After the museum I left the Vatican and wandered
over to some other sights, like the Castel Sant'Angelo and the Pantheon. As the
day wore on, and more and more tourists started pouring out, everything became
impossibly crowded. It was difficult to really enjoy anything, what with
everyone taking their phones out to capture anything and everything the
guidebook said to, without really taking the time to take in the thing itself.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-2.jpg" width=4048
descr="Did you know that Rome has more Egyptian obelisks than any other city in the world? That's a rock fact. Rome, 2018"
%}
This was something I began to struggle with while I was in Rome. It wasn't
always clear to me _why_ these people cared about these sights, with myself
being included. My pessimistic self would say that people just want the social
media points gained by a nice selfie in front of Trevi Fountain, and that the
tourism explosion which has started in the last decade is driven by that
narcissism. My more charitable self might say that everyone understands that the
journey matters more than the destination, and that seeing the sights isn't
really the point, but rather prefer the adventure taken with friends and/or
family, and so they snap a quick picture and continue on with their good time.
The reason people travel and visit tourist spots is really only their business,
and I can't be one to judge. It just seems unfortunate to take an entire city,
arguably the most important city in written history, and turn it into a theme
park for the sake of people who don't actually care all too much about it. I
carried this realization with me for the rest of my trip, that tourism is a
deal-with-the-devil; it takes the money of people who, ostensibly, find some
place interesting, in exchange for driving away the original inhabitants of that
place who made it interesting in the first place.
Later on I would learn that the creep of tourism and the dreaded plague of
"gentrification" were spoken of as the same thing in popular destinations. The
problem of wealthy people driving out the inhabitants of a city in order to take
part in the city culture, which the original inhabitants created, is a global
one, and one I'm certainly a part of. I moved to Denver because I liked the
culture of that city, and was fortunate enough to be able to afford to do so,
but then left only three years later, and was now doing the same in even shorter
time periods in cities the world over.
I obviously didn't stop being a tourist after Rome, but I made a conscious
attempt to be a better one. I put down the guidebook (or, in my case, the guide
app) and tried to explore more naturally, taking in each sight as I found it,
and learning as much about it as I could. Rather than trying to see a little of
everything, I would find something which really called out to me and focus on
that. It's a tough predicament to be in; it's important to go out and see the
world, to meet people from all different cultures and see all the ways they
live, but doing so is, often, detrimental to those cultures. It was tough to
find a balance I was comfortable with, and I'm still not sure a "correct"
balance actually exists.
<div style="text-align: center;">
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
inline=true
%}
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-1.jpg" width=1920
inline=true
%}
<p><em>All that said, the Colosseum was pretty baller. Rome, 2018</em></p>
</div>
My second day in Rome I spent at the Colosseum and the Palatino, but I was so
utterly exhausted and brain-melted I barely remember them. I left Rome
with a ton of things left unseen, but without any regret about it. Italy itself
had far too much for me to do in this trip, and I knew I'd be back one day, both
to Italy and to Rome itself. On the third day I hopped on a plane, flew across
the sea, and landed in Spain.
## Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona definitely made my list of favorite places I visited. Having come from
a city which didn't feel like much more than a playground for tourists, it was
refreshing to be in one which felt more real. Spaniards seemed to be friendlier
than Italians as well, and my hostel was filled with characters from the UK to
Brazil to Russia.
There was an architect in Barcelona named Antoni Gaudí, who died in 1926, but
left an indelible impression on the city. If I hadn't known when he lived and
died I might have thought he founded the place, he's that ubiquitous. His style
is completely strange; his exteriors look like something out of Candy Land,
while the interiors seem to come from a utopian sci-fi.
What blows my mind is that, for whatever reason, they let him build a church.
La Sagrada Familia isn't actually completed yet. Gaudí took it over in 1883, a
year after it had been started, and worked on it until the day he died. He knew
he wouldn't live to see the completion of the project, and so laid out the plans
such that it could be completed without him. The church has been slowly
constructed using private funds and donations since then.
<div style="text-align: center;">
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-outside-2018-0.jpg" width=1080
inline=true
%}
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-outside-2018-1.jpg" width=1080
inline=true
%}
<p><em>Outside faces of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, 2018</em></p>
</div>
The outside presents two faces, one a mishmash of sculpture which resembles
melting ice-cream, and the other highly geometrical, both filled with biblical
scenes and small details. Neither really prepares you for what the inside will
be like.
<div style="text-align: center;">
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-inside-2018-0.jpg" width=1080
inline=true
%}
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-inside-2018-1.jpg" width=1080
inline=true
%}
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-inside-2018-2.jpg" width=1080
inline=true
%}
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-inside-2018-3.jpg" width=1080
inline=true
%}
<p><em>The incredible interior of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, 2018</em></p>
</div>
I'd been in a lot of churches and cathedrals up till this point. Even when they
were as mind blowing as Milan's Duomo, they all followed a similar pattern:
gothic, brooding, ornate, almost dark in a way.
La Sagrada Familia is none of those things. It shirks the gothic style almost
completely, instead adopting one inspired by natural shapes and patterns. It
feels more like being under a canopy of trees than being in a building. There's
light, and color, and organic shapes, like the tree-trunk-like columns and the
flower ceiling. And yet there's also a geometric pattern-ness to everything,
which hints at an order and intent for everything in sight, so your eye is drawn
in to investigate every detail without needing ornamentation to grab it.
It's lucky that I hadn't made any other plans for that day, because I spent
nearly two hours at that church, walking around, taking it all in, sitting
and contemplating, holding back tears a lot of the time, not being successful at
it the rest. This might have been the first building I'd ever felt gratitude
for. Where the traditional catholic building has, as a foundation, a call to
authority, this one had a call to nature and humanity. And rather than being the
crackpot dream of a single person, it had been carried on and supported and
built by many others long after he had died. It was a reflection of an ongoing
change in a society which I was grateful to see.
I left Barcelona with a new understanding of churches, and what they might
represent, even for someone who's not catholic. They're a space that's been set
aside with the fundamental purpose of sitting quietly and thinking about things
larger than oneself. Thinking about one's place in society, or in nature, or in
the universe, and thinking about how that affects one's actions. Every society
on earth has these spaces, though they go by different names, and have lots of
different decorations. Each one of these spaces carries a message about what
that society has ascribed importance to, and the message La Sagrada Familia
carried with it was refreshing.
## Madrid, Spain
Originally I hadn't planned on going to Madrid at all, but in Florence I met
someone who lived there and so decided to spend a couple nights hanging out.
Going on a tour of a city is one thing, but going with a local is something
completely different. We saw some of the things a tourist is supposed to see,
like the opera house, the palace, and whatever this building is:
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="madrid-2018.jpg" width=3036
descr="This Schweppes building is called the Edificio Carrión, and is famous for reasons. Madrid, 2018"
%}
But more than that, I got to see what it was like to actually live in a city
like Madrid, as a normal person. A fancy tapas restaurant is too expensive
there, so we went to a local bar that did it more simply and cheaply. We also
ate kebab, which is the European equivalent of the corner mexican or chinese
joint in the states; a place with cheap, good food, open late, run by
immigrants.
Mostly, we walked around and talked. We talked about colonialism, and oppression
and guilt, and about the Spanish Civil War and fascism, and about Catalan and
its desire for independence, about capitalism, and the pain it causes, and about
tourism and gentrification, and about royalty and aristocracy, and about
language and culture. Like in Munich, I learned a lot, and felt a lot closer to
Spain than I had when I arrived.
I only spent one full day in Madrid, and afterwards took a bus, continuing
south, down to Córdoba.
## Córdoba, Spain
It was on the bus to Córdoba that I remembered to actually book a place to stay
there. I quickly grabbed an AirBnB in town, though, as it turned out, messed it
up and it didn't get reserved. So there was an hour there, waiting at the
Córdoba bus station, where I was trully homeless. I spent it booking another
AirBnB, properly this time, and eating some bread and cheese from my backpack,
and watching some birds fight over a loaf someone else had dropped.
This was the first AirBnB I'd gotten in Europe so far, up till this it had been
only hostels (and one hotel, in Ravenna). While I'd enjoyed hostel life
initially, especially my first taste of it in Milan, it had begun to wear on me.
What I'd found is that, first and foremost, hostels were trying to hit a certain
feel. _Good vibes_ were words which I saw in many a hostel description and
review, though didn't often actually experience. It's in the public
consciousness that backpacking through Europe, going from hostel to hostel, is a
journey filled with new experiences, new people, and lots of partying. And while
that is _true_, a lot of hostels ignore hospitality in favor of playing up to
that fantasy, to their own detriment.
A hostel's primary goal, like a normal hotel or AirBnB or whatever, shouldn't be
to provide you with experiences, or help you meet new people, or enable your
drinking and partying. These are certainly secondary goals it might have, if it
wants. But the primary goal should be to make you feel comfortable and at home.
And while the conceit of a hostel is that you are exchanging some physical
comfort for cost, by having shared bunk rooms and common bathrooms and all that,
comfort can be established through more than a fluffy bed. Some hostels I stayed
at got this, most didn't.
If someone feels comfortable in a hostel they'll open up on their own, and
naturally want to meet the people around them, go out partying, and have cool
experiences. Or not. They'll do whatever the fuck they want to. But if a hostel
is too focused on being cool and hip and showing off how good its vibes are,
it's neglecting the basics, and then there's no partying, and the vibes aren't
good.
So I was tired of party hostels, as I began calling them, having just been in
one in Barcelona a few days prior, and instead spent the night in what turned
out to be a brutally cold old building which had neither heat, sealed windows,
or cooking device with which to make a hot meal. Which is what I get for being
a snob, I guess.
In the morning I visted the Mosque/Cathedral of Córdoba. This site has had the
odd history of having originally been a church, having then been converted to a
mosque when the Moors took Spain in the 700s, and then converted back to a
christian church in the 1200s when the catholics took Spain back, and has since
been designated a cathedral. It retains much of the Moorish architecture, but
with a church in the middle, and is an utterly fascinating place which I
neglected to take any pictures of.
## Granada, Spain
This was probably one of the most interesting places I visited while traveling.
Granada was once one of the most important Moorish cities in Spain, then briefly
became a Jewish state, and then the seat of the Nasrid dynasty (the last Muslim
dynasty in Spain), and then eventually went back to being a part of the Catholic
empire. During this time it also had a large influx of Romani, and out of this
mishmash of culture it became one of the birthplaces of flamenco.
My bus got in at night, but I was lucky enough to catch the last public bus from
the bus station towards my hostel. It dropped me off in the Albaicín, an old
Muslim quarter in the city, where the houses retain the old architectural style
and the streets are narrow and winding. From there I walked uphill a ways to
the Sacromonte neighborhood, the traditional home of the Romani in Granada. Here
the people had dug out caves in the side of the mountain, and made them into
homes. My hostel was in one of these caves.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="granada-2018-0.jpg" width=1329
descr="The view from my hostel, Alhambra on the left. Granada, 2018"
%}
The hostel was small and quiet, overlooking both the Alhambra (the castle on a
hill, built by the Nasrids) and the rest of the city. The guys running it
were chill; the owner was Dutch, and the other was Scottish. The Scott had come
to Granada to live and study flamenco, and it was obvious from how he spoke
about it that he was completely in love with the art and the people. On one
night they took me out to a "real gypsy bar", as they called it.
The flamenco artists in town, the singers and guitarists and dancers, make a
living performing for tourists, but this bar is, according to my guides, where
they go after the shows to hang out. There was no music in the bar, but, as the
night went on, three or four cliques formed up naturally, each around a guitar
player and singer, with dancers circling around, the rest clapping to an
indecipherable rhythm. The Scott knew the names of a few of the people playing,
and told me that it was at gatherings like this that the musicians tried out new
things and pushed the art further. It was the "real" flamenco.
After that we got kebab and went back to the cave.
Sacromonte is situated on the face of a valley, with the Alhambra being on the
opposite side. So to get to the Alhambra I had to venture down to the valley
floor, where Granada proper is, and found a very familiar tourist district
filled with all the crap I'd seen in every other city. The Alhambra itself was
interesting, but also packed, and I hadn't realized they only sell a limited
number of tickets per day to get inside the castle, so I missed a lot of it. So
I went back to the peace and quiet of Sacromonte.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="granada-2018-1.jpg" width=1329
descr="Sacromonte and the valley below. Granada, 2018"
%}
Being uphill and difficult to access by car, the Sacromonte was, in many ways,
warded off from the wave of tourism which has swept the world and sucked the
heart out of its cities. Only those willing to carry their bags 20 minutes
uphill could disturb it. I found the absolute best spot possible, with benches
overlooking the Alhambra and the city and the sunset, sitting and drawing for
hours, and was only disturbed by one or two couples sharing the view in all that
time.
I had originally planned to head back to Munich after Granada, but after talking
with a lot of people who told me I _had_ to go to Portugal, I booked a bus to
Lisbon at the last minute and set off. And damn I'm glad I did.
## Lisbon, Portugal
Sometimes called the San Fransisco of Europe, Lisbon is a city with beaches,
historical buildings, perfect weather all-year round, earthquakes, and a large
orange-red suspension bridge across a bay. Unlike San Fransisco, it's an
affordable place to visit and the people who live there haven't been priced out
by tech companies ([yet][google-lisbon]).
Part of why I liked Lisbon so much is that, while tourism is an absolutely huge
industry, it didn't really feel that way. The Baixa district, where my hostel
was, was certainly an area just for tourists. But it wasn't very big, and once
outside of it you find yourself in somewhere like Alfama, which has been a
blue-collar district since the Moorish invasion, and retains its winding
cobblestone streets and narrow alleys. If you look at the skyline of Lisbon you
won't find any highrises or office buildings, just 4 to 5 story apartment
buildings and churches. It's a city meant for people to live, first and
foremost, with business being secondary. And so, despite being the biggest city
in the country, and 9th most visited city in Southern Europe, it still feels
quiet and cozy.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="lisbon-2018.jpg" width=1772
descr="The facade of a museum I was too poor to go in. Lisbon, 2018"
%}
Another part of what made Lisbon stand out to me was the hostel I stayed in, and
the people I met there. The hostel was _homey_. There was a small dining area
with a single long table, a small living room with couches and chairs
arranges in a circle, a decked out kitchen that anyone could use, and free
sangria every evening. Rather than focus on partying and yolo and whatever, the
owners focused on making it a home, where people would cook and eat and talk and
hang out together. So that's what we did, every night, and in the mornings we'd
meet up one more time to eat unlimited free pancakes from the kitchen. It was an
amazing time.
While I was there, a museum had an exhibit devoted to M.C. Escher, the Dutch
artist known for his tesselations, fractals, and generally paradoxical work.
Escher had always been an artist I was aware of, and a year prior to this I had
read the book _Gödel, Escher, Bach_ by Douglas Hofstadter and become even more
interested. So I couldn't pass up the chance to see his work in person. And boy,
did it leave an impression on me.
Having traveled to Córdoba and Granada in his early twenties, Escher was
impressed by the Moorish architecture, specifically the tesselating tile
patterns they used in decoration. He began trying to replicate their work, and
ended up following what amounted to a mathematical investigation of geometry, in
the context of art. The museum presented his work in largely chronological
order, and, in seeing the progression of his ideas over decades, it really
struck me both what a genius he was and how dedicated he must have been to have
spun his wheels on the same problems for most of his life.
<div style="text-align: center;">
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="lisbon-escher-2018-0.jpg" width=513
inline=true
%}
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="lisbon-escher-2018-1.jpg" width=341
inline=true
%}
<p><em>Tesselations, paradoxes, and tricks of perspective, Lisbon, 2018</em></p>
</div>
For the rest of my trip, even through Asia, I would spend my time doodling
tesselations of my own, trying to find the tricks that Escher found which let
him make such complex images. I would find some, but certainly Escher still has
the leg up on me.
Having traveled most of Southwest Europe at this point I flew back to homebase,
Munich, to recuperate and figure out what my next steps would be. I left Lisbon
promising myself that I'd be back, even considering finding a way to live there
one day. While my life plans have since changed, it's not something I've totally
ruled out.
[google-lisbon]: https://econews.pt/2018/01/29/from-google-to-amazon-technological-companies-are-moving-to-portugal-why/
## To be continued
In my next post of this series I'll tell the story of the second, and longest,
leg of my European tour, where I go to Belgium, the UK, Scandinavia, Prague, and
Berlin!

41
_layouts/post.html
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@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
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@ -26,8 +26,47 @@ layout: default
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This post is part of a series<br/>
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Previously: <a href="{{ prev.url | relative_url }}">{{ prev.title }}</a></br>
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3
_posts/2018-09-20-mr-worldwide-pt-0.md
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@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ title: >-
Mr. Worldwide, Pt. 0: Bailtrain to Bailtown
description: >-
Wherein I quit my job and prepare to leave the country
series: mr-worldwide
---
## Denver
@ -198,4 +199,4 @@ have to do".
## Bailing
In the next post I will actually leave and begin my _adventure_. Stay tuned!
In the next post I will actually leave and begin my _adventure_.

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_posts/2018-09-29-mr-worldwide-pt-1.md
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---
title: >-
Mr. Worldwide, Pt. 1: Europe
description: >-
Or: How I stopped worrying and learned to love tomatoes.
series: mr-worldwide
---
# Munich, Germany
I arrived in Munich late at night on January 14th. My friend Caitlin met me at
the train station, and walked me over to her house to drop my stuff off. Jetlag
hit me real good at this point, so I only barely remember her taking me to a
nearby biergarten to get some food and catch up. The next day we headed down to
the center of the city, and she showed me around the sights, like Marienplatz
and the Frauenkirche (one of many famous churches in Munich).
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="munich-victory-gate-2018.jpg" width=4048
descr="Siegestor (Victory Gate), Munich, 2018"
%}
As we walked and ate our way through the day Caitlin updated me on all of the
things that I should expect to be different in Europe, like how water is never
free anywhere, nor are public restrooms; like how many buildings which are still
used and lived in are older than our entire country; like how people use cash
instead of card, and get irritated if you make them break a large bill, or they
just might not do it at all; like how even in a large city like Munich
everything can still be closed on a Sunday.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="munich-moosach-2018.jpg" width=3036
descr="Moosach neighborhood, Munich, 2018"
float="right"
%}
The thing which struck me most about Munich was how quiet it was. The din of
traffic is so ingrained into me that I don't even hear it until it's not there.
And to not hear it inside of a city was very strange. More than sound, there was
a quietness of life. It didn't feel like people were rushed, with too much to do
and too little time. People crowded onto the subway, but not with impatience,
and people walked home from the train station after work without hurry. It was
like the priorities of the whole culture were different in some fundamental way
that I could never quite put a finger on.
Caitlin worked during the week, and so I was set free into the City for a few
days. I visited more churches, ate more food, hung out at the library figuring
out the next steps of my travels, and just generally wandered around the city.
One snowy day I had lunch with a distant relative on my mom's side, who is an
artist in Munich. I met her at her studio, and from there we wandered around
various museums, where she gave me a private guided tour of the exhibits. We
talked about politics, and about how immigration is affecting it, and about
Trump (of course), and about art, and school, and our different cultures. She
told me that Europe had always looked to the U.S. as a kind of older brother,
but now that image was starting to fall apart, and I told her about the tiny
house and minimalism movement that is hopefully picking up steam in the U.S.,
and about my friend who is living in a van and traveling around the country. I
learned a lot that day, and when I headed back to Caitlin's afterwards I felt
much more at home in the country and continent than I had before.
A week after arriving it was time for me to continue on. One cold morning I
hopped onto a bus, rode through a snowy Switzerland, and hopped off into a
bright and sunny Milan.
## Milan, Italy
My first impression of Milan was: "Wow, this place is sketchy". The streets were
dirty, old, and covered in graffiti. There were homeless everywhere, people
selling bootleg clothes in the street, scammers targeting tourists, and a
general disheveldness which Munich didn't have. But on the other side of that
coin, Milan is one of the fashion capitals of the world, and everywhere I looked
there were also beautiful people in expensive looking clothes, driving fancy
cars, and eating at fancy cafes. Where Munich was simple and wealthy, Milan was
lavish and disparate.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-street-2018.jpg" width=4048
descr="The streets of Milan, 2018"
%}
My hostel in Milan was called the Ostello Bello, and was probably the best one I
could have gotten as my first hostel in Europe. The hostel's downstairs area was
a restaurant/bar, with some tables reserved for hostel guests. Upon arriving
they immediately sat me down at one of those tables, where others were sitting,
and said "this is Brian, talk to him". They did this with every person who
arrived, as well as giving us free food and drinks, so that every night turned
into a small party.
It took a while for me to fully break out of my shell and get used to meeting
people in hostels, but if it weren't for Ostello Bello it might not have
happened at all. Every night I got to hang out and make friends with people from
South Korea, Scotland, Argentina, France, Switzerland, and locals from Milan
too. So despite all the negative things I'm going to have to say about party
hostels later, I'm grateful for Ostello Bello.
As far as Milan itself, the thing which impacted me the most was the Duomo. And
boy did it impact me, so much so that I visited it twice. It's the third largest
church in the world, but my experience of it was even better than when I would
go to St. Peter's, the first largest, later on. The interior is so cavernous
that all sounds echo virtually forever, creating a low hum which reminded me of
the Hindu Om. To think that the words of a book carried such force that, 2000
years later, people were erecting and maintaining incredible structures like the
Milan's Duomo in their honor floored me. There's a lot of criticism which could
and should be leveled towards the Catholic Church, but damnit they know how to
build a building.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-duomo-2018-0.jpg" width=1292
descr="Milan's Duomo. In the lower left, tourists being scammed by a dude with pigeon food, 2018"
%}
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-duomo-interior-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
descr="Interior of Milan's Duomo, 2018"
%}
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-duomo-interior-2018-1.jpg" width=727
descr="Milan Duomo's creepy ass statue of Saint Bartholomew, 2018"
float="right"
%}
Besides the Duomo I also visited some museums and other sights, like the Sforza
Castle, walking from one to the other as the days went on. Walking became a
frequent past-time for me during my traveling. Between Google Maps and the
external battery pack I always had with me, there was never a worry about
getting lost, and with hostels generally being clustered near the sights it was
rarely more than a half-hour walk to any given thing I wanted to see. So I got
used to walking a lot, and taking public transit infrequently, and never once
used a taxi or rental car while in Europe.
Five days after arriving in Milan I left it, having made many friends and
having learned a lot about Italy and Italians. I also learned I was spending too
long at each city: It was almost 2 weeks into my 3 month-max trip (for visa
reasons), and I'd only been to two cities! From then on I kept to two or three
days per city, depending on how much I cared about it, with a couple of five
day-ers when I really needed a rest.
## Ravenna, Italy
After the hecticness of Milan I needed something more quiet. Before leaving the
U.S. a friend had told me about Ravenna, the once capital of the Western Roman
Empire and now small Italian city, where some of the world's oldest Christian
structures still reside. Mosaics retain their original quality over time far
better than many other mediums, and Ravenna was full of ones from as early as
the 6th century. While not as glamorous and fast-paced as Milan, Ravenna really
hit me with the depth of its history. As someone from the U.S., I'm not
accustomed to seeing anything built before 1500, and yet here were buildings in
excellent condition which were built a thousand years prior.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="ravenna-mosaic-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
descr="Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, 2018"
%}
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="ravenna-mosaic-2018-1.jpg" width=727
descr="Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, 2018"
float="right"
%}
Something else which took some time to get accustomed to was using cash (what a
segway!). By this point in the trip it had become somewhat second-nature, but
only by way of many mishaps previously. In the U.S. using cash is usually a
backup option, with credit/debit cards ruling supreme. ATMs never give out bills
bigger than $20, and no establishment would ever complain about having to break
a $20 except for maybe the smallest purchases. In Europe the ATMs (or cash
machines, whatever) almost always give out €50 bills, which absolutely no one
wants to break except big chain stores. It's a giant pain. I still remember the
exact location of an ATM in Munich which gave me €10 bills, it was that exciting
of a find, and I went out of my way to go back to it more than once.
So in addition to needing to keep an eye on your cash and get more out
periodically, you also need to keep an eye out for places which will break your
bills, and plan accordingly. Before leaving the U.S. I had gotten a debit card
with free international ATM withdrawls at any ATM, so finding places to get cash
out wasn't a problem, but breaking it always was.
But by the time I got back home, I missed doing everything in cash, and even
kept doing it for a while in spite of my culture. While having to find places to
break fifties was a pain, a little friction to making random purchases wasn't
necessarily a bad thing. Instead of impulsively buying whatever was in front of
me, I was incentivized to wait until a better opportunity arrose, generally by
waiting until I could buy multiple things at the same time, which generally
meant buying more efficiently because I was putting thought into it. Also, by
always paying in cash, I had a better sense of how much I was actually spending
day-to-day. In the U.S. we abhor inconvenience, but in my opinion our reluctance
to use cash is a good example of how that abhorance can be to our own detriment.
## Florence, Italy
The train from Ravenna to Florence (or, as Italians spell it, _Firenze_) was
uneventful. Finding the best route between cities turned out to be pretty
straightforward. There's an app called GoEuro which helps compare different
methods like bus, train, plane, and taxi/ride-sharing. There's another app
called Rome2Trio which does roughly the same thing. And there's a bus company
called FlexBus which I used quite a bit; their prices are good, their buses are
new, and the UI of their site was made in the last decade.
Florence was by far my favorite city in Italy. On the one hand it was very
trourist-friendly, and on the other it still retained the feeling of being a
historic city. I split my time there between visiting museums and churches and
finding the best/cheapest spots to eat. Before leaving home, a friend had told
me to avoid any restaurants with pictures on their menu; they're targeted at
tourists and priced accordingly. So my strategy for finding food involved
marking off hole-in-the-wall spots in my maps app whenever I came across them
during the day, and returning later when I was hungry
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
descr="Florence's Duomo near sunset, 2018"
%}
On my second day in Florence I was sitting by the Uffizi, eating a panini, and I
randomly met an art history student from Madrid who was also visiting Florence.
Together we went to a bunch of museums, saw the David, and just generally hung
out. I asked her a lot of questions at the museums, because, to be honest, I'd
never understood what to make of art in museums.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-2018-1.jpg" width=2688
descr="River Arno, and the houses which still stand on it, Florence, 2018"
%}
I'd already learned that, even if I could see a picture of something online,
seeing it in person is way different. In person the colors in a painting pop out
more (many even have gold leef paint which doesn't really show up in pictures at
all, but makes a world of difference), there's a lot more detail to be seen, and
the size of some is absolutely baffling. I also enjoy learning about history,
and the history of art is effectively the history of the world. So museums had
become a meditative place for me; I could go to one and just wander, taking in
art pieces at whatever rate I liked, learning and thinking about history as I
went.
<div style="text-align: center;">
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-painting-2018-0.jpg" width=2688
inline=true
%}
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-painting-2018-1.jpg" width=2688
inline=true
%}
<p><em>Not pictured, the crowd of selfie-ers behind my trying to get a shot with
The Birth of Venus, Florence, 2018</em></p>
</div>
What had always confused me, though, was how to _judge_ art. As in, what makes
one piece better than another, or what makes one artist better than another? Why
do some paintings become famous and others remain obscure? What my friend from
Madrid told me is that there's not really a metric. Some paintings become famous
for historical reasons, either due to where they were originally displayed or
some story associated with them. Same for some artists. Ultimately it's up to
the individual to judge them. There was a painting in the same room as the
famous Birth of Venus painting which I liked far more, and was happy to admire
it alone as throngs of other tourists vied for good selfies with the more famous
piece.
I left Florence with a greater appreciation and understanding of museums, as
well as a good friend who I would be able to visit later while making my way
through Spain.
## Rome, Italy
Rome surprised me when I got there, though, to be honest, it's not clear what my
expectations actually were. The city center, aka the tourist center, is
absolutely _massive_, and all of it is completely tourist-centric. Living in
Rome must feel like living inside of Disney World. The city no longer exists for
its residents, but instead has been completely swallowed by the tourism
industry. Every street corner and storefront is filled with souvenir shops,
overpriced food, clothing stores with "I <3 Rome" shirts, gelato shops, walking
tour agencies, bike rentals, "experience" vendors (helicopter rides over the
Colosseum! Oh my!), shitty jewelry stores, and so much more, all aimed at
someone who has too much money and not enough time to spend it all.
My hostel was one of the cheapest I could find, but I was only staying two full
days so it was fine. Seeing all of the sights of Rome in only two days is not
recommended. The first day I went straight to the Vatican, getting there as
early as possible to try (unsuccessfully) to beat the line. St. Peters is the
largest church in the world, but being rushed I wasn't able to enjoy it like
Milan's Duomo, and a lot of it was closed off unless you wanted to pay more. I
wasn't able to spend enough time in it to enjoy it.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-3.jpg" width=4048
descr="Pope for the day, Rome, 2018"
%}
The Vatican museum was more enjoyable than I thought it would be. For starters
it's huge, with tons and tons of things to see, including the Sistene Chapel. I
took my time wandering around. After the museum I left the Vatican and wandered
over to some other sights, like the Castel Sant'Angelo and the Pantheon. As the
day wore on, and more and more tourists started pouring out, everything became
impossibly crowded. It was difficult to really enjoy anything, what with
everyone taking their phones out to capture anything and everything the
guidebook said to, without really taking the time to take in the thing itself.
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-2.jpg" width=4048
descr="Did you know that Rome has more Egyptian obelisks than any other city in the world? That's a rock fact. Rome, 2018"
%}
This was something I began to struggle with while I was in Rome. It wasn't
always clear to me _why_ these people cared about these sights, with myself
being included. My pessimistic self would say that people just want the social
media points gained by a nice selfie in front of Trevi Fountain, and that the
tourism explosion which has started in the last decade is driven by that
narcissism. My more charitable self might say that everyone understands that the
journey matters more than the destination, and that seeing the sights isn't
really the point, but rather prefer the adventure taken with friends and/or
family, and so they snap a quick picture and continue on with their good time.
The reason people travel and visit tourist spots is really only their business,
and I can't be one to judge. It just seems unfortunate to take an entire city,
arguably the most important city in written history, and turn it into a theme
park for the sake of people who don't actually care all too much about it. I
carried this realization with me for the rest of my trip, that tourism is a
deal-with-the-devil; it takes the money of people who, ostensibly, find some
place interesting, in exchange for driving away the original inhabitants of that
place who made it interesting in the first place.
Later on I would learn that the creep of tourism and the dreaded plague of
"gentrification" were spoken of as the same thing in popular destinations. The
problem of wealthy people driving out the inhabitants of a city in order to take
part in the city culture, which the original inhabitants created, is a global
one, and one I'm certainly a part of. I moved to Denver because I liked the
culture of that city, and was fortunate enough to be able to afford to do so,
but then left only three years later, and was now doing the same in even shorter
time periods in cities the world over.
I obviously didn't stop being a tourist after Rome, but I made a conscious
attempt to be a better one. I put down the guidebook (or, in my case, the guide
app) and tried to explore more naturally, taking in each sight as I found it,
and learning as much about it as I could. Rather than trying to see a little of
everything, I would find something which really called out to me and focus on
that. It's a tough predicament to be in; it's important to go out and see the
world, to meet people from all different cultures and see all the ways they
live, but doing so is, often, detrimental to those cultures. It was tough to
find a balance I was comfortable with, and I'm still not sure a "correct"
balance actually exists.
<div style="text-align: center;">
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
inline=true
%}
{% include image.html
dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-1.jpg" width=1920
inline=true
%}
<p><em>All that said, the Colosseum was pretty baller. Rome, 2018</em></p>
</div>
My second day in Rome I spent at the Colosseum and the Palatino, but I was so
utterly exhausted and brain-melted I barely remember them. I left Rome
with a ton of things left unseen, but without any regret about it. Italy itself
had far too much for me to do in this trip, and I knew I'd be back one day, both
to Italy and to Rome itself. On the third day I hopped on a plane, flew across
the sea, and landed in Spain.
## Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona definitely made my list of favorite places I visited. Having come from
a city which didn't feel like much more than a playground for tourists, it was
refreshing to be in one which felt more real. Spaniards seemed to be friendlier
than Italians as well, and my hostel was filled with characters from the UK to
Brazil to Russia.
There was an architect in Barcelona named Antoni Gaudí, who died in 1926, but
left an indelible impression on the city. If I hadn't known when he lived and
died I might have thought he founded the place, he's that ubiquitous. His style
is completely strange; his exteriors look like something out of Candy Land,
while the interiors seem to come from a utopian sci-fi.
What blows my mind is that, for whatever reason, they let him build a church.
La Sagrada Familia isn't actually completed yet. Gaudí took it over in 1883, a
year after it had been started, and worked on it until the day he died. He knew
he wouldn't live to see the completion of the project, and so laid out the plans
such that it could be completed without him. The church has been slowly
constructed using private funds and donations since then.
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<p><em>Outside faces of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, 2018</em></p>
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The outside presents two faces, one a mishmash of sculpture which resembles
melting ice-cream, and the other highly geometrical, both filled with biblical
scenes and small details. Neither really prepares you for what the inside will
be like.
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<p><em>The incredible interior of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, 2018</em></p>
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I'd been in a lot of churches and cathedrals up till this point. Even when they
were as mind blowing as Milan's Duomo, they all followed a similar pattern:
gothic, brooding, ornate, almost dark in a way.
La Sagrada Familia is none of those things. It shirks the gothic style almost
completely, instead adopting one inspired by natural shapes and patterns. It
feels more like being under a canopy of trees than being in a building. There's
light, and color, and organic shapes, like the tree-trunk-like columns and the
flower ceiling. And yet there's also a geometric pattern-ness to everything,
which hints at an order and intent for everything in sight, so your eye is drawn
in to investigate every detail without needing ornamentation to grab it.
It's lucky that I hadn't made any other plans for that day, because I spent
nearly two hours at that church, walking around, taking it all in, sitting
and contemplating, holding back tears a lot of the time, not being successful at
it the rest. This might have been the first building I'd ever felt gratitude
for. Where the traditional catholic building has, as a foundation, a call to
authority, this one had a call to nature and humanity. And rather than being the
crackpot dream of a single person, it had been carried on and supported and
built by many others long after he had died. It was a reflection of an ongoing
change in a society which I was grateful to see.
I left Barcelona with a new understanding of churches, and what they might
represent, even for someone who's not catholic. They're a space that's been set
aside with the fundamental purpose of sitting quietly and thinking about things
larger than oneself. Thinking about one's place in society, or in nature, or in
the universe, and thinking about how that affects one's actions. Every society
on earth has these spaces, though they go by different names, and have lots of
different decorations. Each one of these spaces carries a message about what
that society has ascribed importance to, and the message La Sagrada Familia
carried with it was refreshing.
## Madrid, Spain
Originally I hadn't planned on going to Madrid at all, but in Florence I met
someone who lived there and so decided to spend a couple nights hanging out.
Going on a tour of a city is one thing, but going with a local is something
completely different. We saw some of the things a tourist is supposed to see,
like the opera house, the palace, and whatever this building is:
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But more than that, I got to see what it was like to actually live in a city
like Madrid, as a normal person. A fancy tapas restaurant is too expensive
there, so we went to a local bar that did it more simply and cheaply. We also
ate kebab, which is the European equivalent of the corner mexican or chinese
joint in the states; a place with cheap, good food, open late, run by
immigrants.
Mostly, we walked around and talked. We talked about colonialism, and oppression
and guilt, and about the Spanish Civil War and fascism, and about Catalan and
its desire for independence, about capitalism, and the pain it causes, and about
tourism and gentrification, and about royalty and aristocracy, and about
language and culture. Like in Munich, I learned a lot, and felt a lot closer to
Spain than I had when I arrived.
I only spent one full day in Madrid, and afterwards took a bus, continuing
south, down to Córdoba.
## Córdoba, Spain
It was on the bus to Córdoba that I remembered to actually book a place to stay
there. I quickly grabbed an AirBnB in town, though, as it turned out, messed it
up and it didn't get reserved. So there was an hour there, waiting at the
Córdoba bus station, where I was trully homeless. I spent it booking another
AirBnB, properly this time, and eating some bread and cheese from my backpack,
and watching some birds fight over a loaf someone else had dropped.
This was the first AirBnB I'd gotten in Europe so far, up till this it had been
only hostels (and one hotel, in Ravenna). While I'd enjoyed hostel life
initially, especially my first taste of it in Milan, it had begun to wear on me.
What I'd found is that, first and foremost, hostels were trying to hit a certain
feel. _Good vibes_ were words which I saw in many a hostel description and
review, though didn't often actually experience. It's in the public
consciousness that backpacking through Europe, going from hostel to hostel, is a
journey filled with new experiences, new people, and lots of partying. And while
that is _true_, a lot of hostels ignore hospitality in favor of playing up to
that fantasy, to their own detriment.
A hostel's primary goal, like a normal hotel or AirBnB or whatever, shouldn't be
to provide you with experiences, or help you meet new people, or enable your
drinking and partying. These are certainly secondary goals it might have, if it
wants. But the primary goal should be to make you feel comfortable and at home.
And while the conceit of a hostel is that you are exchanging some physical
comfort for cost, by having shared bunk rooms and common bathrooms and all that,
comfort can be established through more than a fluffy bed. Some hostels I stayed
at got this, most didn't.
If someone feels comfortable in a hostel they'll open up on their own, and
naturally want to meet the people around them, go out partying, and have cool
experiences. Or not. They'll do whatever the fuck they want to. But if a hostel
is too focused on being cool and hip and showing off how good its vibes are,
it's neglecting the basics, and then there's no partying, and the vibes aren't
good.
So I was tired of party hostels, as I began calling them, having just been in
one in Barcelona a few days prior, and instead spent the night in what turned
out to be a brutally cold old building which had neither heat, sealed windows,
or cooking device with which to make a hot meal. Which is what I get for being
a snob, I guess.
In the morning I visted the Mosque/Cathedral of Córdoba. This site has had the
odd history of having originally been a church, having then been converted to a
mosque when the Moors took Spain in the 700s, and then converted back to a
christian church in the 1200s when the catholics took Spain back, and has since
been designated a cathedral. It retains much of the Moorish architecture, but
with a church in the middle, and is an utterly fascinating place which I
neglected to take any pictures of.
## Granada, Spain
This was probably one of the most interesting places I visited while traveling.
Granada was once one of the most important Moorish cities in Spain, then briefly
became a Jewish state, and then the seat of the Nasrid dynasty (the last Muslim
dynasty in Spain), and then eventually went back to being a part of the Catholic
empire. During this time it also had a large influx of Romani, and out of this
mishmash of culture it became one of the birthplaces of flamenco.
My bus got in at night, but I was lucky enough to catch the last public bus from
the bus station towards my hostel. It dropped me off in the Albaicín, an old
Muslim quarter in the city, where the houses retain the old architectural style
and the streets are narrow and winding. From there I walked uphill a ways to
the Sacromonte neighborhood, the traditional home of the Romani in Granada. Here
the people had dug out caves in the side of the mountain, and made them into
homes. My hostel was in one of these caves.
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The hostel was small and quiet, overlooking both the Alhambra (the castle on a
hill, built by the Nasrids) and the rest of the city. The guys running it
were chill; the owner was Dutch, and the other was Scottish. The Scott had come
to Granada to live and study flamenco, and it was obvious from how he spoke
about it that he was completely in love with the art and the people. On one
night they took me out to a "real gypsy bar", as they called it.
The flamenco artists in town, the singers and guitarists and dancers, make a
living performing for tourists, but this bar is, according to my guides, where
they go after the shows to hang out. There was no music in the bar, but, as the
night went on, three or four cliques formed up naturally, each around a guitar
player and singer, with dancers circling around, the rest clapping to an
indecipherable rhythm. The Scott knew the names of a few of the people playing,
and told me that it was at gatherings like this that the musicians tried out new
things and pushed the art further. It was the "real" flamenco.
After that we got kebab and went back to the cave.
Sacromonte is situated on the face of a valley, with the Alhambra being on the
opposite side. So to get to the Alhambra I had to venture down to the valley
floor, where Granada proper is, and found a very familiar tourist district
filled with all the crap I'd seen in every other city. The Alhambra itself was
interesting, but also packed, and I hadn't realized they only sell a limited
number of tickets per day to get inside the castle, so I missed a lot of it. So
I went back to the peace and quiet of Sacromonte.
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Being uphill and difficult to access by car, the Sacromonte was, in many ways,
warded off from the wave of tourism which has swept the world and sucked the
heart out of its cities. Only those willing to carry their bags 20 minutes
uphill could disturb it. I found the absolute best spot possible, with benches
overlooking the Alhambra and the city and the sunset, sitting and drawing for
hours, and was only disturbed by one or two couples sharing the view in all that
time.
I had originally planned to head back to Munich after Granada, but after talking
with a lot of people who told me I _had_ to go to Portugal, I booked a bus to
Lisbon at the last minute and set off. And damn I'm glad I did.
## Lisbon, Portugal
Sometimes called the San Fransisco of Europe, Lisbon is a city with beaches,
historical buildings, perfect weather all-year round, earthquakes, and a large
orange-red suspension bridge across a bay. Unlike San Fransisco, it's an
affordable place to visit and the people who live there haven't been priced out
by tech companies ([yet][google-lisbon]).
Part of why I liked Lisbon so much is that, while tourism is an absolutely huge
industry, it didn't really feel that way. The Baixa district, where my hostel
was, was certainly an area just for tourists. But it wasn't very big, and once
outside of it you find yourself in somewhere like Alfama, which has been a
blue-collar district since the Moorish invasion, and retains its winding
cobblestone streets and narrow alleys. If you look at the skyline of Lisbon you
won't find any highrises or office buildings, just 4 to 5 story apartment
buildings and churches. It's a city meant for people to live, first and
foremost, with business being secondary. And so, despite being the biggest city
in the country, and 9th most visited city in Southern Europe, it still feels
quiet and cozy.
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Another part of what made Lisbon stand out to me was the hostel I stayed in, and
the people I met there. The hostel was _homey_. There was a small dining area
with a single long table, a small living room with couches and chairs
arranges in a circle, a decked out kitchen that anyone could use, and free
sangria every evening. Rather than focus on partying and yolo and whatever, the
owners focused on making it a home, where people would cook and eat and talk and
hang out together. So that's what we did, every night, and in the mornings we'd
meet up one more time to eat unlimited free pancakes from the kitchen. It was an
amazing time.
While I was there, a museum had an exhibit devoted to M.C. Escher, the Dutch
artist known for his tesselations, fractals, and generally paradoxical work.
Escher had always been an artist I was aware of, and a year prior to this I had
read the book _Gödel, Escher, Bach_ by Douglas Hofstadter and become even more
interested. So I couldn't pass up the chance to see his work in person. And boy,
did it leave an impression on me.
Having traveled to Córdoba and Granada in his early twenties, Escher was
impressed by the Moorish architecture, specifically the tesselating tile
patterns they used in decoration. He began trying to replicate their work, and
ended up following what amounted to a mathematical investigation of geometry, in
the context of art. The museum presented his work in largely chronological
order, and, in seeing the progression of his ideas over decades, it really
struck me both what a genius he was and how dedicated he must have been to have
spun his wheels on the same problems for most of his life.
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<p><em>Tesselations, paradoxes, and tricks of perspective, Lisbon, 2018</em></p>
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For the rest of my trip, even through Asia, I would spend my time doodling
tesselations of my own, trying to find the tricks that Escher found which let
him make such complex images. I would find some, but certainly Escher still has
the leg up on me.
Having traveled most of Southwest Europe at this point I flew back to homebase,
Munich, to recuperate and figure out what my next steps would be. I left Lisbon
promising myself that I'd be back, even considering finding a way to live there
one day. While my life plans have since changed, it's not something I've totally
ruled out.
[google-lisbon]: https://econews.pt/2018/01/29/from-google-to-amazon-technological-companies-are-moving-to-portugal-why/
## To be continued
In my next post of this series I'll tell the story of the second, and longest,
leg of my European tour, where I go to Belgium, the UK, Scandinavia, Prague, and
Berlin!
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