Bless me, Padre, for I have sinned

Well, the first full day in Spain was full of shock and awe.

We went to an amazing place. If you look at the first picture, I should say that the tiny-looking building you see is really big – a Catholic-flavoured resort. The idea is that pilgrims walk barefoot up the mountain, taking a few days, and then  reflect in the chapel where a hermitty monk allegedly carved an image of the Virgin Mary, complete with mystical properties, in about 900AD.

These days of course, if you are slightly less catholic and can’t be bothered with all that suffering and guilt, you can take the train, book into the four star hotel, ride the cable cars, ski (if it’s not mid-summer as it now), have a 7 course meal and then say a few “Hail Mary’s”” in the chapel before returning to the bar for a jug of Sangria.

Sadly, scientific tests proved that the carved image is actually only 900 years old and was carved after the pilgrimage site was established. Obviously some 13th century bishop thought “Poverty, Chastity and Obedience” took a back seat to a good marketing gimmick.

So, in the second photo, it’s a cow and a mountain.

You get the point, right? We were in  The Pyrenees; far Northern Spain, where the local population hate being in far Northern Spain and would much rather be in an independent Catalunya, which is why the three words of Catalan I deployed at a smallgoods shop bought great service and smiles while the Southern Spaniards next to me got their bacon handled in an insolent manner.

A great tour of ancient villages and staggering mountains, amazing to a South Australian country boy like me. I’m originally from  a town founded in 1911 and named after the largest local hill which rises about 65 metres above sea level at low tide

To get there, all we had to do was catch a tour van at 8:15 am.

To facilitate this, I got up at 1.45 am. That seems extreme, but with all the travelling and timezones, I was awake at 1am, having had five hours sleep, and I was ready for the day.

Ok, so my usual plan would have been to have a cup of tea and then do some blogging, but bizarrely, this wonderful hotel does not provide kettles in the rooms, so I decide to drink a  litre of water whilst I blogged,and would then get some tea thereafter.

It took me a couple of hours to finish yesterday’s blog – it had so much tea in it for starters – and so with the laptop battery exhausted, I went off in search of tea.

Or rather, hot water. I have tea. I have a tumbler thingy. I even have a little milk & sugar for Lady D, stolen from Singapore airlines.

I approached the front desk.

“Is not possible” said the night concierge. “Not until 7:30”.

At another time, I might have smirked at the instant Fawlty Towers flashback, but I was in shock. I kept asking, but he kept repeating the basic fact.

Ok, it was about 4am, still no tea. Time to roam the streets.

I roamed the streets. I do love roaming cities at around 4 am, when they are just considering waking up, or in Barcelona’s case, considering whether to call it a night, have dessert or enjoy some foreplay in the street. That’s not a cocktail, by the way.

The only place open was an all-night baguette bar. I know, freaky, right? I went in there and received a sneering reception, a suggestion that what I really wanted was coffee, and the really strong feeling I should put one hand on my wallet and run.

A couple of lads next to me were one cent short on a 25.07 Euro order and they were getting strips torn off them.

Time to leave.

OK, so each morning, my focus is awakening Lady D from her slumbers with a cup of tea and the newspaper. Manuel at the desk (Actually, his name was Hakkim and his accent was Moroccan, but why ruin a great stereotype) helpfully informed me that they only get one copy of an English language paper, someone had taken it, and the next lot were due “before lunch, maybe”.

So, I retraced my steps to check the opening times of all the shops. Those that had a time, it was 7:30 or 8pm. Most did not mention any such info.

So, here’s the new plan, awaken Lady D apologetically “sin te, sin periodicalo”, and go to wonderful tea place on the way to the tour centre. If they opened at 7:30, we could do it.

They didn’t.

Who were open? Starbucks.

The great thing about a chain is that is the tea is absolute crap in one country, it will be in others, and they never fail to disappoint. Plastic teabags, of course, but we were desperate.

Lady D’s “vanilla rooibos” was so bad she could not drink it. My “English” “breakfast” “tea” was so bad I drank 20% of it, then added milk and several sugars and gave it to Lady D. Her mini-choc muffin was stale. My Salted Caramel muffin one was actually ok-ish.

But no more time, the tour bus awaits.

So we meet our tour guide Enrique, a lovely lady from Singapore, a lovely young guy who is a liver transplant specialist from Panama on a one year research placement, a lovely nurse practitioner from Chicago and  pain-in-the-arse, spoilt-to-the-max, aren’t-we- important couple from New Delhi.

Let’s just make sure you are paying attention. I’ve been up 7 hours, had one quarter if a cup of bad teabag tea that I refuse to count. So, technically, no tea.

We had a glorious day. To stand next to a church consecrated in Qeralbs in 972 is an incredible feeling to someone from such a young country as (white) Australia.

 

To see such wonderful fresh produce is always a joy to a food lover like myself, and to see things like squawking hens, chicks and ducks next to home grown produce is amazing.

The picture is from a general provisioner in Qeralbs and it demonstrates one of my contentions about why Spanish cuisine is so much beter than French.

A French “chocolate croissant” will have maybe five choc chips melted into a croissant. A Spanish Xoco is basically the same amount of the same pastry, pumped full of chocolate sauce until it is ready to burst and then often chocolate coated as well. Spain wins, chocolate smeared hands down.

After a full day of touring, we arrived back at the hotel really tired. I had a quick shower, and then went out to buy a kettle. Unfortunately, I did not find one.

We dined at a tapas bar, and they had no tea. They had wonderful food – the ham croquettes they have here are amazing – and the entertainment was brilliant. Basically, the coked-up, self-important floor manager with delusions of grandeur continually berated the staff for every issue, real or imagined, and the staff, being Spanish, all either told him they didn’t care or threatened to have him killed. At least, that’s our interpretation of it. Our waiter was fantastic and we really did enjoy the whole thing.

Afterwards, we strolled, hand-in-hand along the Gran Via and La Rambla before returning to the hotel near midnight, to see a fireworks display from our balcony.

23 hours awake, not one complete actual cup of tea.

But I won’t be running to one of this city’s squillion churches to confess that sin, because Spain is rubbing off on me, and I just don’t care that I missed a day.

We’ll buy a kettle today, and some tea. We will have lovely tea at the place down the road, and probably elsewhere. And it will all be wonderful. It must be. After all, another day without and I might snap.

One can only sin so much.