Thursday, August 30, 2007

Chipping away at the backlog

Okay so I'm here at a stable computer for a while, so I can start to chip away at all the internet stuff I have to do. As you've no doubt noticed, the promised 'what I've been up to' post never materialized 'tomorrow' as promised. Well, c'st la vie. You're not going to get it tonight either. What you will get is:

-My latest route on Gmaps

-New Photos on Flickr (only some, as I've hit my limit for the month. I'll add more in a couple of days when its September.

-Some Bonus Videos!

First, standing on a bridge that crosses an inlet connecting a massive 'etang' (don't know the english word, but a lake-like body of water with mixed salt and fresh water)


And then, the Pyrenees where they meet the sea


Just getting all that crap and a couple of emails done took me all evening though, and I spent the day riding 100 km in wind, so strong at points, that I had to shift onto the granny (easiest) ring to go DOWN hill. So I'm tired and thats all ye gets from me. Now off to drink heinekn and watch poorly dubbed french TV.

Missin' you jerks as always.;;

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Roadmap

Latest Gmap route, Everything from Toulouse to Montpellier. I suggest zooming out to get an overall perspective. I did the math to subtract the distance travelled by ferries, and from Toulouse to Montpellier have put down an aditional 1307 km, give or take a few. I'll add that to the former total but I think I must be near 3000 by now.

More tomorrow- like on what I've been doing and stuff.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Solo Formentara

On Ibiza right now, paying for overpriced internet while killing time; my ferry to Barcalona is delayed and wont get me back until after midnight. In the mean time, here are some highlights of ten days on Formentara, sunning it up and sitting in on Ian's amazing project. I've got lots to say about the Halve Maan (mostly about how awesome it is) but I'll save it for Barca where net access is reasonably priced.










Thursday, August 9, 2007

The Barca Triangle

I opened the door to find myself facing a squad of riot police in full combat gear. Some had sledgehammers and one had a battering ram.

I blinked a couple of times.

They blinked a couple of times.

I gather it normally doesnt go like this.

Recovering slightly from the shock, I tried to close the door, but was no match for a bunch of police. They kicked it back in and pushed me against the wall as they filed in, a real life and more ominous pack of stormtroopers fanning throught the building.

Sagrera, the four-house squat, home to about 15 people, and my temporary lodgings, was being evicted.

I was in full kit, leading my bike out the door when it happened. I'd planned on getting up early to hit the road and head south to valencia. As such I'd cracked the door just when the police were about to start bashing it in. It was july 31st, the last day they could do it before the justice system shut down for the august break (ah, spain). They lucked out and I did all the work for them. One by one they found sagrera's residents sleeping unaware (again, the luck provided by a silent entry), corralled us all towards the front of the house, took passports, and gave everyone about 2 minutes to gather their things before tossing us into the street.

I felt shitty for being the doorman.

The Sagrerans, no doubt, felt shittier. Their home was gone.

This was my exit from Barcelona. I'd tried to leave the day before but was tempted by offeres of a cava bar that serves tasty sandwiches and cheap bubbly by the bottle, as well as an afternoon of box wine in the ocean. Couldn't leave. The kids laughed at me joking about how it was funny to witness yet another get stuck in barcelona. Its rather easy I gather, and I wouldn't have been the first soul swallowed.

It really is a city that doesn't sleep. Dinner really does start around 10 oclock, and everything else follows that. Revellers - locals and the tourist swarm that continues to grow unabated every year - gather in the streets until the sun comes up, only broken up when the city crews come through with their trucks and spray the streets down nightly, wetting the decent places to sit and (thankfully) washing the ubiquitous streams of urine away in anticipation of tomorrows scorching heat.

Its hot - really hot - and the daily siesta (2-5 pm) makes getting practical things done difficult. Moreso, however, the laidback lifestyle and the way that the spanish days seem to slip into darkness before you notice makes getting practical things done difficult. I failed at my two main missions - shortening the stem on my bike (starting to get really nervous about carpal tunnel), and finding white gas for my stove. Not that I didn't try, but neither product seems to available in BCN. The language barrier was probably holding me back too.

I lucked out in hooking Sagrera up as a place to stay. A friend I'd met in Amsterdam had given me the name of a couple of her friends and slightly sketchty directions to their squat. Look them up if you're in Barca she told me. After a couple of nights of couchsurfing, and the failure to find another couch, and a night on a Barca Bench I went searching.

I'm a friend of Amanda's I said, to a couple of skeptical looks. Apparently when they heard 'Simon' was there asking for a place to stay, they'd thought I was someone else, a less welcome guest. I was told I could stay, and after a couple of days had made a house full of friends.

Connecting with the sagrera clan made BCN come alive for me. I talked a lot of political theory and refined some of my ideas and ideals; I lived in an alternative social space with a high degree of political awareness and came a step closer to harmonizing those ideals with actions, towards praxis.

Stopped for one week and stayed for three. Hitting the beach. Hooning it up in Barca's steady but rather laid back traffic. Taking a four day camping trip with new friends up near the french border - waterfall, swimming hole, campfire, wandering cows, and all. drinking box wine on the terrace till late in the warm summer air.

I'm sitting in an internet cafe on the Island of Formentara right now visiting one of my oldest and best friends - Its a wierd place, an Italian vaction colony and the refuge of the super rich yachtees who want somewhere more exclusive than Ibiza to park their floating hotels. But more on that later.

Next stop is a quick tour back through Barca, then up the Costa Brava, across the French border and eastwards. More from the road.