Well I think this thing still works. I have been having an extended break from blogging. I had an incredible holiday at home and was lucky enough to see and do everything that I wanted. My objective was to disconnect from everything over here and reconnect with friends and family. I actually started writing up a passage of what happend at home and I hope to finish it one day. But things have been moving very quickly since I got back and I have had no time to write, let alone relax.
My first bombshell was learning that my boss has handed in his notice. This is less than ideal but given the stress he has been under for our refit it is understandable. The second bombshell was learning that we were leaving the shipyard as planned. This is incredible and I do not know many boats that have left shipyards on time in the Mediterranean.
Obviously leaving Barcelona was a sad time for me. I had to say goodbye to two very special people Sam and Nancy. When El Fuerte and Uncle Phil left me on RoMa I was a blubbering mess. I was a less a blubbering mess for Sam and Nancy because I was a bit philosophical about it. I travelled across France to see Uncle Phil. I travelled across Spain to see El Fuerte. I'll fly to middle earth to see my Wife. Family and Friends. Of course I will see Sam and Nancy again. Ain't no mountain high enough Bitches.
From Barcelona we steamed to Antibes, France. My long dormant French part of my brain has stirred to life. Slowly my Spanish brain will eb and fade. We are here for a little while and I must say it is quite nice to be somewhere familiar I took one of our Engineers to Monaco today and I have to admit I make quite a good walking tour guide. Another avenue to explore, I really am a talented fellow.
Speaking of which. I got to play music for 4 hours at our dock BBQ before we left. I think I did quite a good job and had some good feedback in the morning. I drank a healthy amount of beer.
before
after
I do not remember drinking all of that beer. I will blame my many and numerous fans.
It's been a while since I really complained about something in earnest. On my most recent journey of some length I travelled with British Airways. I am not sure about you but I have not heard many complimentary things about British Airways in my lifetime. Luckily for me my trip home was with British Airways from Barcelona to London to Singapore to Sydney. In Sydney I swapped over to Qantas and I have never been so happy to straddle a Kangaroo.
When I first mentioned my trip on British Airways a few of my crew members were only to happy to tell me what a great Airline BA is. It is worth noting that these crew members all hail from the UK. It is also worth noting that I was more than happy with most of my travel experience. My problems all stemmed from the cabin service.
I have some theories on the dire service that was apparent and I think the main problem are character traits of the English and their endless propensity for drinking. Having spent a fair bit of time with Sam recently I thought it would be quite fortifying to have a few drinks in the Barcelona airport. Unlike the rest of Barcelona the only drinks I could find there were beer and wine. Having picked up a weird ailment which renders me allergic to beer and being still shy of red wine I settled on a glass of blanco. I then noticed on the first leg that although the plane was very empty the flight attendants seemed almost shy to offer alcohol to us. Every other international airline I have travelled with literally throw alcohol at you. BA has learned that throwing alcohol at the English is a bad idea. Especially if they are flying.
When I reached Heathrow I saw the very familiar English pubs that Heathrow is full of. I was reminded again of the genetic English imperative to drink heavily before, after and during all occasions. On the second leg to Singapore I got very hungry. On other Airlines there always seem to be service staff looking to help. However there were large tracts of my trip to Singapore where I wondered if the cabin staff were still onboard. There didn't seem to be any snack service and meal time seemed to be dictated by how many gaunt passengers were awake looking expectantly around like dogs who had lost their owners.
On the third leg my increasingly exacerbated features were enough for me to get two breakfasts. Having been in the same plane for two legs I noticed how dirty the wings of the plane were. Maybe my time as Deckhand has damaged my brain but I can not remember seeing a plane with dirtier wings outside of a sandpit. The entertainment on the fight was also hamstrung. Serving up large advertisements before every selection and not a hell of a lot of to watch. Emirates had a more sophisticated system 5 years ago.
In BA's defense we did arrive everywhere on time and my luggage arrived in Auckland. Maybe 30 hours of travelling just made me tetchy. I do have a solution for BA. It involves placing all English passport holders in the hold with the geese and other animals. This will free up cabin space for the more discerning travelers and everyone will be happy. Except for the English, but lets face it. They never are.
Housekeeping
I have had some feedback from a reader that I spend a lot of the time writing about drinking alcohol. I am sorry if this concerns you but in the paraphrased words of another reader."I am a sailor and a writer so I am doubly fucked when it comes to booze" and believe me when I say I am what is considered a very light drinker only drinking once a week and sometimes not at all.
This time next week I will be in the throws of high velocity suitcase transportation. I am taking a very well deserved break and going home. By the time I leave Barcelona I will not have had a holiday for about 15 months. That is a quite a long stretch and it is safe to say I have really just been hanging on in there for a while.
I have noticed a few interesting things since I have had my holiday approved. The first thing is my iron clad immune system has already taken a holiday with me getting quite sick this week. I even had a sick day on Thursday, the first I have had since I started working on boats.
The second thing is more of a feeling. Along with the obvious excitement I feel quite odd about going home. What is this oddness? Well I expect it shall be explained in full when I have been home for a few days. My worst nightmare is that I return home to find New Zealand run by talking apes and its people enslaved and dumb.
Determined not to have just another night in Barcelona the traveling team tricycle (Sam, Nancy and Myself) assembled on Saturday the 31st of December to visit Sitges for the weekend. My Saturday morning was filled with massive bouts of de ja vue. Not only had I just finished an evenings watch on board but we were to meet at the train station. The train station looked oddly HDR and smokey.
Not wanting to mess with a winning formula Sam and Nancy were late. Sam also wanted to have a pre trip drink. We convened at the very same Mexican cafe and my vocal chords replayed some eerily similar conversation snippets from our last trip to the Mexican cafe.
With our Margaritas hitting the spot quite nicely we were soon on our train to Sitges. I had been meaning to get to Sitges for quite a while. It lies about 45 minutes west of Barcelona and is a famously beautiful place, full of beautiful people and it is also well renowned for being fabulously gay.
Soon enough our train arrived in Sitges and like an Enid Blyton book gone horribly wrong we were soon rambling through the streets to our lodgings. Our lodgings were the result of many a minute debating on the best possible vantage point to savour Sitges and the beginning of a new year. Situated on the hill to the east was such a place. The Melia Sitges was a wonderful hotel. It ticked many boxes and even had ever so slightly warped lounge music in the glass elevator.
View from my room
With Sam taking his yearly session in the adjoining health spa and Nancy in tow I pottered about devouring my mini bar and unpacking my many bags. I think I even managed to have a nap of sorts before we all convened and traipsed down the hill to the marina. It is an odd behavior from working on boats that sailors find themselves pulled to marinas or water. Maybe we like the stuff.
Sitges Town
Sitges Marina
The Marina was well appointed and full of day trip style craft. It also had quite a few weekend wanderers if the many restaurants were anything to go by. We settled ourselves down in a bar serving Japanese food and ordered some very exuberant looking Tequila sunrises.
For the record until earlier this very day I had not drank a drop of alcohol since that Steak House evening. Needless to say after a couple of Sunrises I was feeling very festive and expectant at the prospect of my first Spanish New Years eve in a paradoxically both sleepy and sleepless town.
After a saunter up the hill and a pause to take in the magnificent sunset. It was time to prepare for our evening out.
One of the first things I learned about Spanish New Years was that is customary to don red trousers for New Years evening. Having not worn red trousers since my hey day I felt necessary to wear a garment which I had not worn before. A Michael Pattison design. My loud shirt is very loud and screams unintelligible things. I also dare not put a picture of it online for fear of it breaking the internet.
We assembled in the hotel cocktail bar at about 8pm and were ushered outside by the strange walking barman who could see trouble brewing a mile off. He did take the time to to brew a trio of very drinkable gin and tonics and walked them out strangely to us.
Savoring a very tasty drink I learned my second Spanish New Years custom. At the stroke of midnight we should eat 12 grapes one after the other with each chime of the clock. This all sounded like terribly hard work and another round of drinks was ordered. It is safe to say at this juncture that we were starting to feel quite loose. With the hotels guests safely at tables we felt comfortable enough to return to the hotel and order a taxi into town.
On the Taxi ride down into town Sam took over as the official travel guide and told us tall tales from the Carnival which happens in Sitges in February of each year. He also told us about a bear festival which has nothing to do with animals and other very important information. The taxi dropped us off near the beach and we discovered Sitges was pretty quiet. The third thing that I learned about a Spanish New Years is that is largely a family affair until well after 12am. A lot of the bars closed at 9:30 and the bars that did serve us were only to happy to bundle us out with a muddle of commiserations before 9:30. This was mildly disappointing. This was made all the more disappointing when some bars had crazy signs like this.
Do you need google translate for that?
Wandering the streets of Sitges I did learn that it is the home of the Barcadi family. I also learned that if you want something fluro/fluffy or sparkly you can buy it anytime of the year even when you should be at home with your family.
Thankfully we found a very luxurious and open lounge bar. The bar tender was Vampiric in nature and Sam was convinced he may have been chewing his own face off. I was enthralled and ordered the bloodiest drink I could think of. A bloody mary. The enthusiasm that the bar tender put into creating his cocktails had us wondering if he was in fact making potions instead of cocktails.
Truly venomous
By this time our loud and obvious English speaking nature had alerted other English speaking people that had come to Sitges to be both amazed and gobsmacked that there was not a hell of a lot going on before 12am. We made some new friends, some of which are hounding Sam to this very day for a catch up, such an impact he made. We happened upon a couple of young Manchester people who for reasons that escape me were determined to create as much mess and exhibit as much lewd behavior possible without being locked up. It was disgusting and I found myself wishing I had a taser.
I now have a taser.
12am came and went. We took self portraits that summed up the interesting year we were having and the one that had past.
By this time we were becoming nicely disheveled and I started losing garments and faculties at an alarming rate. One thing that I loved about Sitges that you could leave phones, bags, scarfs, body parts in bars all over the town and return to them at any stage of the night to find them exactly where you left them. This is quite a contrast from Barcelona where you are constantly on theft watch.
We ended up dancing in some quite ridiculous night spots. I know they were ridiculous because I was channeling my tree pose.
I am a tree, the bad music will flow through me and I will stand tall.
So popular was my tree pose that a tree wearing ear muffs stood beside me.
At about two am there seemed to be an influx of teenagers. I suppose that the rich children of the very wealthy descend on town once their parents go to sleep. Sam now wished he had a taser. He does not have one. Yet. We had another run in with the Mancurians. I didn't have my taser yet and in the interests of going to bed happy and rested we called it a night.
We had a very lazy Sunday in the hotel. I completed emptying my mini bar. We ordered room service and even had a tv show marathon. A perfect Sunday in a perfect little place.
Last Thursday I was subjected to one of the most gloriously decadent dinner parties since the fall of Rome. With one of our team leaving us to return to Rosario in Argentina and an Irishman going on holiday it seemed a pretty good opportunity to let loose with the boys. Organizing was left to Hector who in his infalible organizing capabilities left things until Thursday. Unfortunately the really pimp steakhouse in Barcelona was fully booked. Hector found another one in a more vivacious part of town and measuredly told us "its good eh". In retrospect this more family restaurant was far more appropriate for our gang.
Sam and I arrived on time and after some circumnavigation we arrived to find Martin and Mario inside. The restaurant was multi roomed and we entered the main part through a small passage way. We were put in the back in a huge room which had a slanting floor. This was a first for me and (un)wisely I decided to sit at the foot of the table. Hector arrived soon after and I found myself in between Sam and Hector. Sam and Hector then proceeded to have an escalating fight which lasted 4 hours; started with napkins, continued with bread involved red wine and ended up in wrestling. Perhaps I get ahead of myself I should describe what caused this escalation.
Other members arrived and we soon had 14 very hungry men who wanted a lot of red meat. The waiters foolishly bought us menus and were shooed away by Hector and Martin who from the sounds of things ordered a whole cow in various states of distress and temperature. All I could hear was mas carne MAS CARNE(more meat MORE MEAT). The wine was soon flowing and talk soon flowed into how good it was there were no women to distract us, how good the wine was and how bloody hungry we are all were.
Over the course of the night everyone got progressively drunker except for our clever Nepalese engineer who elected to drink coke all night. Hector transformed from a somewhat cheeky fellow into a whirling dervish. I actually caught this transformation on camera.
When I talked about the cow earlier I was not joking. Over four hours we ate about 11 different courses of food and I am pretty sure we ate a good part of an honest sized cow.
an honest cows head
The amount of wine we drank beggars belief and the waiters left us to to serve ourselves wine, so loud and engorged we became. We were serenaded during parts of the night by the resident guitarist. We tried to put him out of a job by getting Martin to sing for us but he was not that keen on giving up his guitar.
My favourite part of dinner was the large and nitrogen enhanced steaks which only a few of us could put away.
Of course I have neglected what was going on either side of me the entire meal. What began with a bit of napkin slapping between Hector and Sam quickly evolved into the Falklands II and I actually sat back from the table for sections of the dinner when there was no food to limit the collateral damage felt.
With the food slowing down we entered a somewhat serious part of the evening where Mario felt obliged to dress up in a napkin and spout forth how he really felt about quite a few topics of which the gravity still escape me.
There was a flaming desert served. It tasted amazing and it probably did not need the alcohol, neither did we.
I left the table after 1am and before 2am. I arose to the worse hangover I have ever had and although I made it to work I was violently ill and have not drank a drop of alcohol since. I fear I have destroyed any love for red wine that I once had. Mario and Sam made it in. Martin woke in another part of Barcelona sharing his bed with a lady, I think he convinced her that he was a singer at a bar. Hector did not make it into work until late. He had lost his phone, cash card and bicycle card on his way home. No one saw him leave. I think he just whirled home like a tornado losing parts of his wallet as he went.
As you can read there were a few casualties in the war but it was an incredible night.
I will put up the details for the steak house at a later date. It really was a find and indicative of the wonderful eateries all throughout this city. Company not included.
Last weekend I was lucky enough to take a weekend trip to Port Aventura, a large and sprawling theme park about an hour and a half east of Barcelona. I was doubly luck to be able to tag along with Sam and Nancy. Sam if you remember is my quintessential English friend who loves kebabs, booze and dispensing with pearls of wisdom. Nancy is his diamond, the foil to his sometimes odd ways.
I began this micro adventure on Saturday after a Friday evening watching over my 80 meter baby. Sam and Nancy were indisposed at 10am and suggested we leave at 12. I found an open Irish pub and skyped home to a Christmas party full of my friends. This is the first time in two years that I have not been working and I relished in an early pint of cider and the warm and effusive glows of everyone back home. I was told to take a lot of photos of my excursion so this post will be littered with them.
I subsequently wandered the streets of Barcelona for a couple of hours drinking the first of many cafe con tardo and taking photos of the Franco railway station.
Somewhat handsome chap in the railway station.
At 12pm Sam and Nancy arrived at the railway station. We had a bit of time to kill before the next train so we went to a mexican restaurant which was not serving food but had somewhat drinkable margaritas.
Mexican Christmas snow man
Two festive chaps.
At 1:40 we began the 1.5 hour train ride west to Port Aventura. It is here I must big up the Spanish train system. Not only is it far cheaper than bus, the trains are well looked after and nearly empty. The train ride west hugs the coast and it is not unlike the Riviera from Menton in France into Italy.
By the time the train ride finished we were quite excited and we leapt off the train and hurtled towards the park gates. There were quite a few hawkers trying to sell dodgy tickets. I know better than to try and talk with them, and left Sam and Nancy to parlay polite refusals in Spanish.
Dumping our luggage at the gates we entered the park and began our ascent into carefully cultivated psychologically modified theme park heaven. After a quick stop to have a fortifying drink we made the foolish decision to ride the most terrifying ride at Port Aventura. We named this ride the penetrator. It uses the same mechanism that aircraft carriers use to catapult planes off so they can take off. We all felt somewhat shaken up afterwards. If you listen carefully you can hear me saying "Jesus"
We then began a 3 hour meander through the various sections of the park and partook in various rides. There were four distinct sections open.
Mediterraneo.
The Wild West & Mexico
Sesamo Adventura
and China
Obviously there is quite a lot of park to wander about in and I think you would be hard pressed to see it all in one day. Especially in Summer when the queues are invariably longer and there is a whole other section open, Polynesia and it's water park.
After the unnerving Penetrator we chose a very sedate and very wet river ride. Thankfully my carefully chosen clothing offered some protection.
There are a few things that I noticed unique to Spanish theme parks. It is very easy to get and drink alcohol. It was not easy enough for Sams liking but given that you could buy beer every 500 metres or so and there was a wine bar which was selling hard spirits I was more than happy. Check out this beer we bought.
There was a very shakey ride called El Diablo de la Mina in the Mexican section of the park. If you think carefully back to my lessons from Hector this is a perfect example of his unified feminine masculine rule.
I also noticed some very latin graffiti. These two pieces actually are two nicknames given to different crew members by the Mexican mafia.
In the Mexican section we rode a large and mildly terrifying tower which also doubled as a spine shortening device.
I am not sure how far you need to fall before you hit terminal velocity but we were all glad when the tower engineering slowed our decent.
We had one more ride left in us. The underestimated and very comfortable Pirate ship. We found it very reassuring to scream voluminously when the Pirate ship was hitting it's straps. It was also quite therapeutic. We wondered about the untapped Pirate ship holistic therapy industry.
By now it was starting to get dark and a bit cold. Spain afforded us a lovely sunset and we retreated to the nearest town Salou.
Salou is apparently quite busy in Summer time. I have heard people wistfully describe it as a continental Ibiza. In Winter it is a lot less busy and the streets afforded the same ambience as a post apocalyptic future minus the zombies. The hotel we stayed at deservers mentioning. The Regente Aragón was a great one and my decision to get a superior room baffled Sam and Nancy. The reason of course was having dragged my Traktor all day it needed an airing.
I gave my Traktor such a thorough airing it was well past 12 when we retired to sleep. I think we talked at length about how amazing Port Ventura was and we may have snuck in a couple of episodes of a tv show that is not for the faint hearted.
It is fair to say we consumed a fair bit of alcohol the night before. So the buffet breakfast the next morning was attacked with relish.
Our second day at the theme park was to be just as good as the first day. Getting there at lunchtime allowed us to take things a bit slower. We started our day with a ride on the pirate ship. Nancy mentioned that she would like a Pirate Ship shower that she could use every morning. From the Pirate ship we made our way to the tea cups and then feeling a bit peckish we entered a Mexican cantina.
The Mexican cantina was one of those small gems that was tucked away. It was large and cavernous and there was live entertainment. For a moment I felt like I could be in a sanitized version of a Mexican Christmas.
From the Cantina we took time to take some photos with a safely inanimate cow.
It is here that my memory starts to get a little hazy. I know we rode this ride because I have a photo of it.
I know we started drinking an incredible beer called Vol Damme
I know that we rode the penetrator again because the footage at the start is actually from our very last ride. I invested post humorously in a pair of scuba googles which have a camera and video recording option for the next time I find myself in such an exciting place.
It is safe to say that by now we were pretty spent with all of the intense excitement that the weekend had provided us with. We made our way to the nearest hotel foyer and waited for the 7:20 train back to Barcelona.
In Conclusion......
Port Aventura is a great theme park one which can only be more awesome in summer time with it is open till midnight and gets 50% larger. There are three themed hotels on site and I think it would be a great hoot to stay in one of those.
As with all trips it is often the company that makes them and I am very lucky to have made to great friends in Sam and Nancy. I hope we can go away somewhere else soon.
Tune in next time for tales from a very Argentinean dinner party.
