The Nadine Scene

When the bus drops me off near the center of town, I am immediately struck by the activity around me. It is late, and yet the square is abuzz with the anticipation of what is to come. Even as the late hour beckons, shops are streaming with patrons and bartenders begin to prepare for the busy night ahead. For here, even though it is late, the night has not yet begun. Everywhere, preparations are being made; families eat their dinners, ice cream is handed out to children, and the strolling of the promenade begins. This is what I have come for, to be part of the night long stroll. It is an old custom and one in which everyone participates. Everyone is here: the young, the old, and the in-between. Whole families roam about, grandparents pushing strollers while parents hold hands or admonish older children. Packs of teenagers roam like wild animals, sneakily stepping off the path to inhale a forbidden cigarette or else they sit giggling together, bottles of beer and wine in their midst...

I don’t think I ever imagined the kinds of challenges I would face when traveling alone, especially in a place where my language skills, while allowing me to get through the most basic interactions, are not strong enough to lead to the kinds of conversations that create intimacy and friendship. One of the things that can get especially nerve wracking is interacting with new people and entering new places. It gets overwhelming, not being sure what to expect and all the while being concerned about whether you’re going to accidentally say the wrong thing, without even meaning to. At least if you’re speaking the same language, you’ll know when you insult someone. Suddenly, actions that are so inconsequential in normal life take on major significance. Going to the grocery store. Riding the bus. Ordering coffee. I can’t tell you how many times in the last several weeks that I’ve stood in front of an establishment, preparing myself for walking inside. Just yesterday, I practiced saying “d...

There is truly nothing to report about the rest of my stay in Belgium. J. left early on Sunday morning, to catch a flight that would hopefully get her back to the US in time for the World Cup final. I strolled along the Grote Markt, picking up some English language newspapers and catching up on my news over coffee. After a while, I returned to the hotel to catch up on work, which is what I did for the rest of the day, until it was time to find a place to watch the final game. I must say, even though soccer (football!) is something I don’t pay all that much attention to, the World Cup has been fabulous fun and I have every intention of cheering Spain on to the bitter end. And a bitter end it was, as we all sat around the bar with our fingers crossed and our breath baited. I don’t think anyone anticipated the unscored game, the double overtime. I was lucky enough to find a bar with a lot of other fellow Spain fans, all of us biting our nails and jumping up when we thought things were...

I want to go on the record that everyone told me that I should stay in Bruges, not Brussels, and after visiting, I have no idea why. Don’t get me wrong, Bruges is a very pretty city; many parts of it are actually designated as World Heritage Sites. And renting bikes to get around was a lot of fun, especially since I perfected my map reading while biking skills in Amsterdam. But honestly, after a few hours and a tasty lunch, I was ready to hit the city again. So while I’m glad that I went, I think I would have gotten very bored if I had spent three days there instead of Brussels. Although I could probably have eaten my weight in chocolate if I tried. And it was a beautiful city – just see for yourself: When we disembarked from the train station in Bruges, we noticed signs for the Cactus Festival. Seeing as how I had just been informed that one of my cacti back home had gone on to that big desert in the sky (through no fault of its caretaker – it was probably killed by the shock ...

We had better luck getting to Brussels, making an earlier train that we expected. And the train ride was rather uneventful, at least until we got to the Brussels-Nord Station. Turns out that there’s a Red Light District in Brussels too – and it is right outside of the train station, so you have the full opportunity to view the merchandise before you get off the train. Luckily, Brussels-Nord was not our stop! Turns out our hotel was just a block away from the Brussels Train Station and we were ready to hit the city in no time. But first, lunch. Boy was that a mess! It turns out that there are fewer people who speak English in Brussels than in any other city we’ve visited. And unlike Paris, where Spanish got us by in a pinch, there was no way to communicate with people unless we spoke French or Dutch. I must admit that this was kind of surprising to me, given the fact that Brussels is the seat of the European Union. Nonetheless, I was happy to go along with it – I knew going into thi...

On our second day in Amsterdam, we were still recovering from the insanity that was Paris. So we decided to take it easy and rent bikes for the day. Now that was interesting. J. happens to compete in triathlons, so the bike was no big deal for her. I fall down the stairs on a regular basis and would prefer training wheels. But somehow, I was talked into it and before I knew it, I was navigating Amsterdam on two wheels with map in hand (a pretty difficult skill by the way, reading a map while riding a bike – I’m surprised I survived). First stop, the Rijksmuseum. On the other side of town, parts were under renovation, but we still got to see a lot of the Dutch masters, as well as some cool pottery. Overall, it was a really nice museum (with a pretty good gift shop too), but when we were done, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to go to another one. So the Van Gogh Museum was going to have to wait for another day (I took pictures from afar though). Outside the Rijksmuseum is a fun little p...

After two full days in Paris, I know I was looking forward to an easy day of travel. We were taking the train from Paris to Amsterdam, and after an interesting metro experience with too much luggage (I think it’s an American thing), we arrived at the Paris station only to figure out that the ticket machines would not accept American credit cards. Luckily, the ticket agent would, but by then, we were going to either pay triple for first class or miss our train. In the interest of sanity and saving money, we decided to take a later train and armed with the appropriate tickets, set out to find a place for a café au lait where we could wait for the next train. A few hours later, bagged lunch in hand and postcards sent off, we were comfortably ensconced on our train to Amsterdam, complete with Internet and smelly European passengers (seriously people – smoking makes you smell bad!). Upon arrival in Amsterdam, I managed to completely screw up our directions and send us off in the wrong d...

We were up bright and early on Wednesday to take the trip down to Versailles. We wanted to get there before the crowds and it proved to be a good thing – even first thing in the morning, there were quite a few people out and about! But we were lucky – I think we were easily among the first 50 people let it. And my goodness – what an amazing place! Walking through Versailles was just incredible – and made even more so by the fact that this time, I had a working audio tour. The opulence was astounding and reminded me very much of the old Newport mansions my mom and I used to tour when I was a child. But it was so much more than that – the history of the place is practically alive. Just seeing the Queen’s chambers as decorated by Marie Antoinette is enough to take your breath away. And the art work is stunning. I was amazed, walking around, to see all of the statues and busts of famous politicians and advisors to the royals. It was weird, in a way, to know that these men were so famou...

With only two full days to see Paris, we knew we had to get an early start. And to see everything, we decided to get a Paris Pass, which included free entry into most of the museums in the city (including Versailles and the Louvre), a metro pass, a free wine tasting, and a whole bunch of other great tourist things. But first, we had to pick it up. Turns out that the Paris metro system is pretty easy to navigate, if you’ve used any other major city’s subway. So soon enough, we were on our way and waiting outside the bike shop to grab our passes. Now, note to proprietors: if you say that you open at 9:00, and paying customers arrive at 9:00, don’t make them wait for 30 minutes before you are willing to serve them. So while the Paris Pass was a great idea, the Fat Tire Bike Shop needs a little more work. There were places to go and things to see, after all! After we finally got everything we needed, our first stop was the Eiffel Tower. It was only a 5 minute walk from the bike shop and ...

As many of you know, I don’t cook. Not home in the States and to date, not here in Spain. While I’ve been known to put together an edible meal or two (see the earliest blog posts) during the course of my life, I do my best to make sure that it doesn’t happen too frequently. And here in Spain, I’ve had even less need to actually cook something. I have generally been eating some fruit for breakfast, going out for the mid-day meal, and either eating some cheese and vegetables for dinner or just snacking on tapas while I am out at the bar (in Andalucía, tapas come free with a drink – I think it’s the bar’s way to make sure the patrons don’t get too unruly!). While we were traveling Europe, we ate out every meal, as there weren’t even any kitchens to cook in. In fact, prior to Friday night, the most I had done is heat up some gluten free rolls I picked up in Malaga. And with good reason. Here’s what the controls on my oven look like: As you can see, there is the dual consideration ...

It’s become obvious to me that there are two kinds of tourists in the world. There are those tourists who look forward to going to a new place in order to learn about new things, experience a new culture, and meet new people. They don’t expect things to be the same as back home, they are open-minded, and when necessary, they are willing to experience a little discomfort because they understand it’s temporary. And then there is the other kind of tourist – the ones that travel to a new place and expect everything to be exactly the same as at home. You know they type: they refuse to eat anything new, they get upset when no one else speaks their language (whatever it is), and they consider anything that is different to be bad. Quite honestly, I’m not exactly sure why these tourists bother to leave home, but they do, and I’ve had the pleasure of running into just as many of the second group as the first. I was especially annoyed when one of the latter groups showed up in my regular bar ...

Somewhere along the trip, most likely in the Barcelona airport, J. and I coined the term “going American.” It’s what happens when you’re tired, hungry, and just plain annoyed that no one is behaving appropriately. And I don’t mean behaving appropriately in the way of one’s own culture, but rather, acting with basic human decency towards other people. Because no matter where you are, there is no need to be rude, cut off people in line, or otherwise knock them aside and pretend you didn’t notice. In these instances, the only recourse is to “go American” and remind people that they must behave like adults. Because there are a lot of people out there who clearly forgot the rules they learned in kindergarten. The first problem at the Barcelona airport was that even though we arrived with plenty of time to get to our flight (and search for some breakfast too), a language school had descended on the airport. Hundreds of teenagers, accompanied by parents, siblings, grandparents, and the oc...

Okay, I’ll admit it. Barcelona is mostly a blur. We arrived late and after spending an hour trying to find our friend S. in the airport, who flew in from England to meet us for the weekend, we were ready for a drink. Finding S. was like living in a bad Laurel and Hardy sketch. Me: Where are you? S: In front of the coffee shop next to the tourist office. Me: I’m in front of the coffee shop next to the tourist office. S: No you’re not, because I’m there. Me: Well, I can’t see you, so you must not be there. S: But I am here. Me: So am I. So where are you? I kid you not, this conversation went on for thirty minutes. At the end of the day, we were BOTH in front of the coffee sohp next to the tourist office. In different terminals. The two terminals were so far away that you had to take a 10 minute bus ride to get from one to the other. And no one would let us take a taxi to go get her, even though we needed a taxi to get to town anyway. But logic wasn’t working on the airport t...