Europe 2009, Epilogue

The previous posts describe what we did and when we did it. I suspect that if I could summon up the energy to read them, I'd find the tone to be grumpy and picky and petty. "Here are a couple people with the time and the money and the good health to spend 3 weeks in Europe and they're actually complaining about things? They think it's terrible that they can't buy a train ticket ahead of time? Oh, the poor dears!"

And sure enough, grumpi-, picki-, and petti- ness are inappropriate. Herewith some of the fun, surprising, enjoyable, strange things about the trip, in no special order -- and subject to later modification and extension:

• The Saint George's Day concert at Royal Albert Hall was wonderful.
• Opening and closing times in Spain are meant to be indicative, not definitive.
• Spaniards like frankfurters and potato chips -- and serve them as tapas.
• People in Spain -- old and young and in-between, male and female -- are all but universally friendly and helpful. Would that we might be so welcoming to the poor Spaniard who comes to this country with no more facility in our language than we had in theirs.
• Wine by the bottle is cheap and good (but not quite so cheap and good, I think, as in France and Italy).
• Wine by the glass is by the glassful. The waiters, God bless them, fill that glass right up to the brim.
• White wine in Madrid in "vino blanco," so red wine should be "vino rojo," right? Wrong. It's "vino tinto," or just "tinto."
• Barcelona probably has 5 percent of its labor force employed cleaning streets and sidewalks. Madrid, 10 percent.
• At home, we frequently leave the house without locking any doors. In our Barcelona apartment, we needed 4 keys to get in. And a fifth to get out onto the balcony. In the apartment and on the street, we always felt safe.
  
• Street musicians in Spain are very good, even if they are partial to terrible old Frank Sinatra songs.
  
• Even as pedestrians, we never did adjust to the traffic flow in London. We'd get to a curb and wonder, each time, "OK, are the cars coming from the left or the right?"
• Sitting in the sun and drinking a little wine, either in a sidewalk cafe or on the boardwalk at the beach, is a wonderful way to pass a couple hours. (Maybe I should experiment a little and see if that's also true back home.)
• This might sound like a complaint. But it's not. Just an observation: I don't want to take any more trips where there are going to be lots and lots of tourists. I'm happy to give up the lovely weather (even if it means I have to do my wine drinking inside a cafe instead of on the sidewalk) if it will get me shorter (nonexistent) lines and less crowded streets.
  
• And this might sound like a complaint too. But it's not. Again, just an observation. I don't want to spend any more 8-hour stretches of my life cooped up in an economy-class airplane seat. Either don't take 8-hour plane rides, or hang the expense and upgrade to something that might be almost comfortable.
  
• Barcelona's Metro is probably the worst we came across in our last three trips to Europe. Which means it's only about 10 times better than Washington's.
• I like espresso ("cafe solo" in Spain) and cafe con leche, and I like the sweets sold in Barcelona bakeries (of which there are many).
  
• Contrary to our expectations and contrary to what everyone told us ahead of time, we found Spain more expensive than London. (Although the Knightsbridge section of London was, in fact, pretty darned pricey.)
• Three excellent museums: the Victoria and Albert in London, the Thyssen in Madrid, the Cathedral in Toledo.
• Having your own laptop in a hotel or apartment is terrific. Lugging it onto planes and subways and taxis, not so much.
• Skype is wonderful. We phoned the U.S. often, and occasionally made phone calls within Spain. Total cost: less than a dollar.
• We like living in apartments in working class / middle class neighborhoods. The whole experience is much more exotic than staying in a 3 or 4 star hotel, which just seems like a little bubble of America.
• With London being an obvious exception, I prefer tend to avoid restaurants where the menus are in English. How hard is it to say "I don't know anything about Spanish [Catalan] food. What do you recommend?"
  
• You can get two kinds of ham sandwiches in Spain -- pressed ham and Iberian ham (jamon Iberico). Pressed ham is like the ham lunch meat in this country, except better; Iberian ham is a lot of fat with a chewy, indigestible strip of leather running down the middle. In both Madrid and Barcelona, every cafe and many bakeries offer both kinds of sanwich. In the Madrid and Barcelona airports, only Iberian ham is available.

As I said, subject to modification and extension.