Chris Keegan: January 2008 Archives
Another day more european musings:
Day 2 contd. 4th May - Barcelona
I arrived in Estacio Sants de Barcelona at around midday and spent an hour in the station fiddling with my computer before I finally braced my self and went out into the day. A feeling of pessism and paranoia was all over me and I lacked the willpower to shake it off. I became obsessed with looking over my shoulder and nothing felt good.
I had only two tasks for the day; first find the port and get my ticket from Iscobar (the ferry company); second try to find some accomodation for Tuesday night, this ocurred to me only after I'd collected my ferry tickets and I wondered where I would stay upon my return.
I found may way to the Port easily enough and with my one major task for the day completed my attention turned to my stomach. My disinclination to interact with other people was compounded by my experience with trying to communicate in Spanish. My efforts wound the Barcelonans up firstly because my spanish was so shit and I kept spluttering out french phrases only to answer english when they asked if I was French and secondly because they speak Catalan. My early conversations didn't go well. So by the time I was properly hungry (having only eaten a couple of bits of more or less stale baguette at the hostel at 7.30am that morning) I was in no mood for dealing with surly Barcelonans. So it ended up that I walked for about a mile past perfectly good cafe after perfecty good cafe before I took myself by the collar and walked into one - and even then only because it had started raining and it was getting ridiculous. I don't think I was cut out for travelling!
Even when I was in the midsts of the crowds of the Rambles after lunch I felt strangely alone, conscious of my massive backpack and sweating as I searched in vain for somewhere to stay on Tuesday. Once common sense kicked in I wisely headed away from the crowds of the most touristy part of Barcelona I'd seen (which granted isn't saying much) and head back towards the quiet dereliction of the Avinguda del Paral-lel, where I quickly found a hotel (of course, Hotel Paral-lel) and booked a room for tuesday.
After I'd sorted my room and had what I considered to be my first success I started to feel better and began to wander in an enjoyable way. I take pleasure in seeing the bleak sides of the city away from the well trodden tour guide paths and into the quiet unease of the back streets. Barcelona is no different to anywhere else and I found myself in comfortable surroundings soon enough. As in Perpignan, people with problems, not shopping or consuming but working or escaping or marking territory. In Barcelona the lanes are made dangerous valleys by tall buildings with ornate balconies where people hang their clothes to dry.
I knew there was a park that ran parallel with my favourite street Avinguda del paral-lel so I headed uphill towards that, enjoying the weight of the pack if not the hotness of my feet warning of blisters to come (why did I pack my smart boots rather than my walking boots?).
I felt smugly pleased then when I wandered up to a small park with a grand view of the city from which vantage point I could feel superior to the tourists who had driven up and yet had no pack to carry. On a minor note I could also enjoy the specatular view of the port and the city and caught my first glimpses of Barcelona's big ticket tourist items like the gaudi cathedral with its concommitant cranes.
I sat in that park and listened to Ole by John Coltrane and felt good for the first time since I left home.
Then I waited and wandered until I got on the ferry to Palma. Yawn.
ps If you have the opportunity to travel with Iscomar Ferries my recommendation is to avoid it.
Day 2 contd. 4th May - Barcelona
I arrived in Estacio Sants de Barcelona at around midday and spent an hour in the station fiddling with my computer before I finally braced my self and went out into the day. A feeling of pessism and paranoia was all over me and I lacked the willpower to shake it off. I became obsessed with looking over my shoulder and nothing felt good.
I had only two tasks for the day; first find the port and get my ticket from Iscobar (the ferry company); second try to find some accomodation for Tuesday night, this ocurred to me only after I'd collected my ferry tickets and I wondered where I would stay upon my return.
I found may way to the Port easily enough and with my one major task for the day completed my attention turned to my stomach. My disinclination to interact with other people was compounded by my experience with trying to communicate in Spanish. My efforts wound the Barcelonans up firstly because my spanish was so shit and I kept spluttering out french phrases only to answer english when they asked if I was French and secondly because they speak Catalan. My early conversations didn't go well. So by the time I was properly hungry (having only eaten a couple of bits of more or less stale baguette at the hostel at 7.30am that morning) I was in no mood for dealing with surly Barcelonans. So it ended up that I walked for about a mile past perfectly good cafe after perfecty good cafe before I took myself by the collar and walked into one - and even then only because it had started raining and it was getting ridiculous. I don't think I was cut out for travelling!
Even when I was in the midsts of the crowds of the Rambles after lunch I felt strangely alone, conscious of my massive backpack and sweating as I searched in vain for somewhere to stay on Tuesday. Once common sense kicked in I wisely headed away from the crowds of the most touristy part of Barcelona I'd seen (which granted isn't saying much) and head back towards the quiet dereliction of the Avinguda del Paral-lel, where I quickly found a hotel (of course, Hotel Paral-lel) and booked a room for tuesday.
After I'd sorted my room and had what I considered to be my first success I started to feel better and began to wander in an enjoyable way. I take pleasure in seeing the bleak sides of the city away from the well trodden tour guide paths and into the quiet unease of the back streets. Barcelona is no different to anywhere else and I found myself in comfortable surroundings soon enough. As in Perpignan, people with problems, not shopping or consuming but working or escaping or marking territory. In Barcelona the lanes are made dangerous valleys by tall buildings with ornate balconies where people hang their clothes to dry.
I knew there was a park that ran parallel with my favourite street Avinguda del paral-lel so I headed uphill towards that, enjoying the weight of the pack if not the hotness of my feet warning of blisters to come (why did I pack my smart boots rather than my walking boots?).
I felt smugly pleased then when I wandered up to a small park with a grand view of the city from which vantage point I could feel superior to the tourists who had driven up and yet had no pack to carry. On a minor note I could also enjoy the specatular view of the port and the city and caught my first glimpses of Barcelona's big ticket tourist items like the gaudi cathedral with its concommitant cranes.
I sat in that park and listened to Ole by John Coltrane and felt good for the first time since I left home.
Then I waited and wandered until I got on the ferry to Palma. Yawn.
ps If you have the opportunity to travel with Iscomar Ferries my recommendation is to avoid it.
I went to see this I wouldn't say eagerly last Friday at the Watershed and I have to say I found it an enjoyable film on the whole but nothing spectacular. There was a schism in our group between those that found the whole thing perfectly interesting and enjoyable and those who found the last twenty minutes so disjointed and irritating that they came away hating the whole thing.
<SPOILER ALERT>
For me whilst the last section of the film did seem somewhat choppy, basically from the point where the Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is killed, but I felt this wasn't incongruous and the pace of the film did need to change at that point. One thing I did feel was that it was interesting to lose the (a) main character like that in mid flow, I certainly didn't expect it, but it did make me feel a stronger connection with his wife, Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald), only to have her killed off at the end of the film, which was irritating.
</SPOILER ALERT>
And flirting with irritating even when in the cause of exploring themes of chance and self-determination is a dangerous thing for a film to do. I found the existential musings in the film quite agreeable on the whole, enough to overcome the irritations but others didn't.
I did like Tommy Lee Jones' performance, it is what he does best after all, but I particularly liked him as the lawman without a purpose other than to act as a kind-of narrative counterpoint to what's going on. A literary device to add depth to the story he only exists in the film to comment on what's going on in the broader sense and ends up more or less helplessly following the events with a kind of resignation that everything will turn out badly regardless of what he does. At one point he even has to ask a neighbour to call the police because he has no jurisdiction. But his voice is important and helps the film a great deal.
So on the whole I thought it was a decent film, nicely written, nicely filmed with good performances all round. Worth watching a second time to get into the subtleties a bit more. And hopefully not get lulled into a dream by TLJ's final monologue like I did the first time!
<SPOILER ALERT>
For me whilst the last section of the film did seem somewhat choppy, basically from the point where the Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is killed, but I felt this wasn't incongruous and the pace of the film did need to change at that point. One thing I did feel was that it was interesting to lose the (a) main character like that in mid flow, I certainly didn't expect it, but it did make me feel a stronger connection with his wife, Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald), only to have her killed off at the end of the film, which was irritating.
</SPOILER ALERT>
And flirting with irritating even when in the cause of exploring themes of chance and self-determination is a dangerous thing for a film to do. I found the existential musings in the film quite agreeable on the whole, enough to overcome the irritations but others didn't.
I did like Tommy Lee Jones' performance, it is what he does best after all, but I particularly liked him as the lawman without a purpose other than to act as a kind-of narrative counterpoint to what's going on. A literary device to add depth to the story he only exists in the film to comment on what's going on in the broader sense and ends up more or less helplessly following the events with a kind of resignation that everything will turn out badly regardless of what he does. At one point he even has to ask a neighbour to call the police because he has no jurisdiction. But his voice is important and helps the film a great deal.
So on the whole I thought it was a decent film, nicely written, nicely filmed with good performances all round. Worth watching a second time to get into the subtleties a bit more. And hopefully not get lulled into a dream by TLJ's final monologue like I did the first time!
Well there just aren't, are there? Eh?
I'm on my way down to Portsmouth for part two of the leasehold valuation tribunal and I was going to explain a bit about that and then post the next installment of the european adventure journal. Unfortunately blogging is not very social and therefore I was forced to interact with real people (friends who are kindly putting the ungrateful isolationist up for the night). So you'll just have to put up with the journal. I am going to have a bit of a rant about cycling and recycling in Bristol, but those topics will have to wait too.
Day 2 - 4th May
The people in Perpignan are defined by a journey, mostly one from Paris to Barcelona or in my case from London but it doesn't matter what the starting place is only that this is a transitory place. As I wandered the mostly deserted streets last night the only faces I saw were those of the disaffected; almost every person that I saw had a hand stretched out. I spoke to an old spanish man in a dirty suit camped outside the station - his car had broken down on the way to Barcelona, could I spare 10 euros to help him out. I walked along the canal, beautiful on a sunny day, less so bathed in the grey drizzly light, fearful of the group of crusties and their dogs camped out under the railway bridge. The first question in my mind as my pulse quickened not why, but what if? The next station is Cerberre!
My first thoughts when talking to the spaniard not, how can I help but I don't want to be conned, or robbed or worse when clearly this was a soul down on his luck, What's 10 euros to me? Just pride.
The whole place felt like the wrong side of the tracks. Maybe because it was a place so unaccustomed to not being drenched in the mediterranean sun that the grey skies and rain fitted like a shroud and banished all but the unhappy wanderers to safety and warmth wherever it could be found. On the literal other side of the tracks where the estates lay any pretence of civilisation were left far behind - characterised by tipped over bins, dogshit on the pavement, drinkers in the cafe not enjoying an aperitif as is the wont of the French but avoiding something sinister. On the streets the youths hurried on some clandestine urgent mission, crossing the tracks in their dark hoodies hunched.
I feel like the tone of my journey has been set by the place and it doesn't make me feel good. I spent the night sleeping fitfully feerful of being robbed in my sleep. But why? My Laptop, Palm, Phone, everything stolen? So what. All the trappings of a material life none important in the slightest. What of the human beings? Each of them with their own journey and yet I assume the worst. This is going to be a long journey.
Normally when I travel my yearning for home is everpresent reminding me which direction to go. But this time I have no home. My tristesse has no cure, I just need to keep moving and hope something turns up.
Day 2 - 4th May
The people in Perpignan are defined by a journey, mostly one from Paris to Barcelona or in my case from London but it doesn't matter what the starting place is only that this is a transitory place. As I wandered the mostly deserted streets last night the only faces I saw were those of the disaffected; almost every person that I saw had a hand stretched out. I spoke to an old spanish man in a dirty suit camped outside the station - his car had broken down on the way to Barcelona, could I spare 10 euros to help him out. I walked along the canal, beautiful on a sunny day, less so bathed in the grey drizzly light, fearful of the group of crusties and their dogs camped out under the railway bridge. The first question in my mind as my pulse quickened not why, but what if? The next station is Cerberre!
My first thoughts when talking to the spaniard not, how can I help but I don't want to be conned, or robbed or worse when clearly this was a soul down on his luck, What's 10 euros to me? Just pride.
The whole place felt like the wrong side of the tracks. Maybe because it was a place so unaccustomed to not being drenched in the mediterranean sun that the grey skies and rain fitted like a shroud and banished all but the unhappy wanderers to safety and warmth wherever it could be found. On the literal other side of the tracks where the estates lay any pretence of civilisation were left far behind - characterised by tipped over bins, dogshit on the pavement, drinkers in the cafe not enjoying an aperitif as is the wont of the French but avoiding something sinister. On the streets the youths hurried on some clandestine urgent mission, crossing the tracks in their dark hoodies hunched.
I feel like the tone of my journey has been set by the place and it doesn't make me feel good. I spent the night sleeping fitfully feerful of being robbed in my sleep. But why? My Laptop, Palm, Phone, everything stolen? So what. All the trappings of a material life none important in the slightest. What of the human beings? Each of them with their own journey and yet I assume the worst. This is going to be a long journey.
Normally when I travel my yearning for home is everpresent reminding me which direction to go. But this time I have no home. My tristesse has no cure, I just need to keep moving and hope something turns up.
As I mentioned the other day, I went to Europe last spring to ponder the future of my life. I wrote up my thoughts on the google map that I created to track where I went (click on the various flags to see the original words).
It's not such a good interface for for reading though so I thought I'd put them up here too, plus it gives me the opportunity to tidy them up a bit.
Day 1 - Perpignan - 3rd May
Reality strikes home. I've arrived at the hostel where I'll be spending my first night on the road and, well, it's raining. And a bit rough around the edges. And my plan to use the t3 with the hacked tomtom maps has pretty much come to naught - it looks like I'm gonna have to buy some maps after all.. sigh... And the free bus from the airport fucked off before I'd gathered my wits so I had to wait ages for a taxi, which then cost me 25 euros.
But on the flip side, I've negotiated everything in French so far, booked my seat on the train tomorrow morning and a room in the hostel (the oldest in France according to the yellowing newspaper report on the wall). This place is designed for better weather...
Let me describe the scene to you, not what I was expecting at all. The common area that I'm sitting in has the feel of a waiting room in a train station. The chairs are brightly coloured and cheerful enough but the whole place has an air of slow decrepitude - uncared for over the course of decades, this is like the victim of the slow torture of a committed serial killer; utterly atrophied and unable to resist being slowly picked apart.
The sound of french television the only interruption to the silence (that and the occasional footsteps echoing in the corridor). It's not a good sound. Who's idea was this again?
It's not such a good interface for for reading though so I thought I'd put them up here too, plus it gives me the opportunity to tidy them up a bit.
Day 1 - Perpignan - 3rd May
Reality strikes home. I've arrived at the hostel where I'll be spending my first night on the road and, well, it's raining. And a bit rough around the edges. And my plan to use the t3 with the hacked tomtom maps has pretty much come to naught - it looks like I'm gonna have to buy some maps after all.. sigh... And the free bus from the airport fucked off before I'd gathered my wits so I had to wait ages for a taxi, which then cost me 25 euros.
But on the flip side, I've negotiated everything in French so far, booked my seat on the train tomorrow morning and a room in the hostel (the oldest in France according to the yellowing newspaper report on the wall). This place is designed for better weather...
Let me describe the scene to you, not what I was expecting at all. The common area that I'm sitting in has the feel of a waiting room in a train station. The chairs are brightly coloured and cheerful enough but the whole place has an air of slow decrepitude - uncared for over the course of decades, this is like the victim of the slow torture of a committed serial killer; utterly atrophied and unable to resist being slowly picked apart.
The sound of french television the only interruption to the silence (that and the occasional footsteps echoing in the corridor). It's not a good sound. Who's idea was this again?
I spent a typical Friday night debating with myself whether to play with razor blades, eat some paracetamol or watch a film. In the end I decided to watch L'Enfant. Which was a good decision as it goes. L'Enfant is good. Very good in fact, especially after a spat of films that, as Monty might put it, set in... like a vulgar little tumour. L'Enfant falls into the category of cheeky 90-minuter...
(ok, so it's 100 minutes but fuck accuracy, hey, la la la, look at me, I'm a journalist, I'm the king of the fucking world; one day I'll write about the time I went to the Frontline Club in London to see John Fisher Burns speak, the west's longest standing journalist in Iraq, he works for the Washington Post, but I need to work up a fucking head of steam for that).
Back to the point, so after the recent epics that are "Lust, Caution" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Crawford" (the former, meh, the latter yeh), this film is vivacious with performances that had a palpable and infectious energy. I was even reminded at times of Goddard's A Bout de Souffle (Breathless), such was Jeremie Renier's performance as Bruno, albeit L'Enfant is nowhere near as cool. It's timing was impeccable throughout, though, with everything moving along at a brisk pace without feeling rushed, it even ended at precisely the right moment, which is more than can be said of some of the longer films that I've watched of late.
You should see this film - it's the best thing to come out of Belgium since C'est Arrive Pres de Chez Vous (Man Bites Dog).
(ok, so it's 100 minutes but fuck accuracy, hey, la la la, look at me, I'm a journalist, I'm the king of the fucking world; one day I'll write about the time I went to the Frontline Club in London to see John Fisher Burns speak, the west's longest standing journalist in Iraq, he works for the Washington Post, but I need to work up a fucking head of steam for that).
Back to the point, so after the recent epics that are "Lust, Caution" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Crawford" (the former, meh, the latter yeh), this film is vivacious with performances that had a palpable and infectious energy. I was even reminded at times of Goddard's A Bout de Souffle (Breathless), such was Jeremie Renier's performance as Bruno, albeit L'Enfant is nowhere near as cool. It's timing was impeccable throughout, though, with everything moving along at a brisk pace without feeling rushed, it even ended at precisely the right moment, which is more than can be said of some of the longer films that I've watched of late.
You should see this film - it's the best thing to come out of Belgium since C'est Arrive Pres de Chez Vous (Man Bites Dog).
Sitting here under a roof (fortunately) under the joyless January sky it seems timely to resurrect the blog version of The Isolationist. The rain is falling, my mood darkening, all of the portents are bad. What better time to start something new (old, new, old).
I don't know what I'll write about; maybe food, film, politics, running, climbing, bristol, life, shit that it is. But it'll be euro-centric, not american. Mostly this relates to food though, in food there will be no talk of cups, what a stupid fucking idea cups as a measure is. But who'd not talk about America and politics this year? Eh?
To start the ball rolling, over the next few days I'll be publishing my journal from when I went to Europe last spring after I broke up with my girlfriend. How exciting, how wrist-openingly exciting, I bet you can't wait for the red water to come.
Welcome to The Isolationist's world, it's pretty bleak.
I don't know what I'll write about; maybe food, film, politics, running, climbing, bristol, life, shit that it is. But it'll be euro-centric, not american. Mostly this relates to food though, in food there will be no talk of cups, what a stupid fucking idea cups as a measure is. But who'd not talk about America and politics this year? Eh?
To start the ball rolling, over the next few days I'll be publishing my journal from when I went to Europe last spring after I broke up with my girlfriend. How exciting, how wrist-openingly exciting, I bet you can't wait for the red water to come.
Welcome to The Isolationist's world, it's pretty bleak.
