—Written by Ida Emerson & Joseph E. Howard
—Performance by Michigan J. Frog

—§—

Our Boston Terrier Rosie, and that leaky bag of feathers, Chiapas, have begun interacting. Chiapas makes a great show of innocently swinging from his rings, luring Rose closer and closer until she's in range. Then Bam! He nips at her. For her part, Rosie thinks it's all a game and keeps coming back for more.

Thus underscoring Dave Barry's notion: He loves dogs "because they are morons."

Chiapas and Rose form a sort of food chain. I gave the bird a piece of my apple turnover. Chiapas sat on the door to his cage, holding it in one foot and nibbling, most of it falling on the floor. Rosie lurked beneath, snarfing up the crumbs.

—§—

I previously wrote that Chiapas is a talking parrot. His one word is in Nahuatl and sounds like "suckitup" or "buckaduck". Or something. That's all he's said for a week.

So I was surprised this morning when I let him out of his cage and he said, "I LOVE you."

Now, this bird was bred and raised in Chiapas or Oaxaca by non-English speakers. I assume that if he speaks any English, he learned it from his owner, Clint. A tall, raw-boned Texan. Drives a pickup. Wears a cowboy hat. A man's man.

I simply cannot imagine Clint training his parrot: "I LOVE you. I LOVE you. I LOVE you. C'mon, pretty bird. I LOVE you."

Perhaps he'll explain himself in the comments section. We'll see...

Chiapas says "I LOVE you" for the second or third time. I call Jean. "Jean! Jean! Ya gotta come hear this. Chiapas is saying 'I LOVE you.'"

Jean comes in. "Yeah. Right." (Always the skeptic.)

With Chiapas perched on my hand I say, "Chiapas! I LOVE you."

"Puckapuck."

"No, Chiapas. Say 'I LOVE you!'"

"Chuckleluck."

"Honest, Jean. You gotta believe me. He really says it."

"Sure he does. I gotta go now, Sweetie. Things to do. Don't bother me anymore."

She leaves. I glare at Chiapas. He says, "I LOVE you."

This is not happening in chilly weather. Must have been 85º.

It started out as a typical tropical rainy season thunderstorm: intense, violent, noisy. Our Boston Terrier, Rosie, snuggled up next to my leg, shaking as she does whenever there's thunder or fireworks. Poor thing.

Suddenly the courtyard was filling up with hailstones the size of garbanzo beans.

Much of our living space communicates with courtyards through open archways. Ice, ricocheting off paving stones, started to accumulate on our carpets and upholstered furniture. The responsible members of the household broke out mops and squeegees. I broke out my camera.

Twenty minutes later it was all over. I looked around, assessing the damage. Broad-leafed tropical plants haven't evolved to withstand hail. This Plumeria tells it all.

One of my former English students, Arturo, was visiting. He told me he thought that the last hailstorm in San Miguel was in 1980. That would have been before he was born. At this rate, odds are good I won't be around to see another one.

Many allow dining in elegant colonial courtyards. Most offer some variation on Mexican cuisine. Many are moderately priced, so Jean and I can afford to eat in them frequently.

Above, we see Jean in a typical courtyard restaurant. She is negotiating with a little girl selling Chiclets—a typical if sad scene in any Mexican city.

It's a lovely, sunny day. The courtyard with fountain, tiles, and graceful arches creates a serene space for us to relax in. The cast iron furniture, the festive Corona umbrellas, the Spanish-speaking waiters surround us with warm Mexican ambience.

But we won't be ordering enchiladas today.

The dragon statues and the Chinese lantern give it away. We are in the Palacio Chino, the Chinese Palace. The Mexican Chinese Palace, going by the pottery chimenea behind Jean's right shoulder—with a red dragon painted on it. Culture fusion.

We love Asian cuisines. But we've given up on Japanese restaurants, at least in the states of Guanajuato and Querétaro. The delicate flavors of Japanese food doesn't register on Mexican tongues, so sushi bars amp up the vinegar in the rice, overwhelming the taste of any topping. And as I've mentioned before, these places cater to Mexican tastes with offerings such as tekka maki with chipotle sauce (tuna with smoked jalapeño chiles).

Chinese food is another matter. As a couple who lived for decades in the San Francisco Bay Area, our Asian palates are fairly sophisticated, and I can assure you that the menu at Palacio Chino is anything but authentic. However, Szechwan cooking shares many flavors with Mexican food—assertive and spicy, so it's a good choice when you're jonesing for Chinese.

Jean ordered General Tao Chicken. This consisted of chunks of chicken meat dredged in cornstarch, deep fried, coated in a brown, sugary sauce fired up with lots of long red dried chiles. I ordered Orange Peel Beef, which consisted of chunks of beef dredged in cornstarch, deep fried, coated in a brown, sugary sauce fired up with lots of chiles. Oh yeah, the cook threw a few strips of orange peel into mine.

Both dishes were delicious, though surprisingly similar.

We had to wait a half hour for our meal because we threw the kitchen with a request for steamed rice. Plain rice is generally not served in Mexico. Rice, insofar as Mexicans are concerned, is supposed to be served with vegetables mixed in, the way God intended. Did we want fried rice? No we didn't. So they had to cook our steamed rice to order.

We also wrong-footed them with a request for palitos—chopsticks. The waiter spent several minutes looking for some. He finally brought us nice bamboo ones, manufactured in China, presented in a little paper sleeve. They appeared to be intended for the American market, judging from the amount of English on it. Chinglish, rather.

Please try your Nice Chinese Food With Chopsticks the traditional and typical of Chinese glonous history and cultual.

Instructions:

1) Tuk under tnurnb and held firmly
2) Add second chcostick hold it as you hold a pencil
3) Hold tirst chopstick in originai position move the second one up and down

Now you can pick up anything:

For me, there's something comforting about reading stuff in Chinglish. I'm reassured I'm patronizing real Chinese people cooking real Chinese food, and not some "Magic Wok" stall staffed with gum-chewing teenagers named Dawna.

Your better Chinese restaurants don't insult you by offering fortune cookies. The Chinese Palace isn't one of them. My fortune read, "Si lo tienes, muestralo." (If you've got it, flaunt it.)

That's it for now. Have a glonous day.

My expression reflects my reaction to Chiapas having just pooped on my shirt. (Can't complain: I don't think you can housebreak birds.)

Parrots make wonderful pets. They're affectionate, playful and intelligent. In many ways, they're more interesting than dogs or cats. For example, they're moody. At the moment, Chiapas is sulking, because I brought him back from our walk in the park too soon. In his opinion. Brat.

Chiapas is a little grouchy in the morning. I give him a half hour after he wakes up to pull himself together while I fix breakfast. I share a corner of toast with him, and he helps himself to my coffee.

By late morning, his sunny personality is in gear. He wanders around the house, climbs on his cage and a nearby hammock, and rides around on my shoulder. He eats more than I expected: sunflower seeds, fruit, lettuce, crackers and granola bars. He's much more civil with me after I feed him.

And of course, best of all: Parrots talk. At this point, Chiapas knows one word. (Well, he's only a year old. I don't know many humans who can talk at that age.) His one word is in Nahuatl. I don't know what it means. Probably "Eat my shorts, Spanish devil."

Chiapas is a Yellow-headed Amazon (Amazona oratrix) and proud of it. His race has been kept as pets by Aztec kings. He treats me like a servant.

The popularity of Yellow-heads has contributed to their becoming an endangered species in the wild, as has destruction of the wild itself. An estimated 7,000 still live free. Today, trade in parrots is legal only for birds born in captivity, in an attempt to preserve the wild flock. Almost all of the parrots you see come from breeders, as does Chiapas. Hand-fed as a chick, he bonds easily with people.

Well, that's enough for today. Now I'm gonna go play with my parrot.

Or on their mothers' hips. This little girl appears to be receiving cellphone training.

It wasn't just kids who came for the fun.

I hope you'll forgive me for saying this, but at first, I mistook this old woman for one of the costumed dancers.

The festivities started late. Of course. The children waited semi-patiently.

And waited. Note that the boys are holding backpacks. Why would they bring them to a parade?

Eventually a throbbing beat became audible, bit by bit building in intensity. A truck appeared.

The beat became unbearably loud. I felt it deep in my chest. No wonder—the trucks were carrying take-no-prisoners sound gear.

Here we see an array of monster speakers, powerful amps, a professional mixer board, a laptop loaded with MP3s—and a 3600-watt generator. No way the truck's own electrical system could power this rig.

Nobody does amplified sound like Mexicans.

There's something transcendental about immersing oneself in the music, dance, and culture of native societies.

But they couldn't really compete. A shame. I like banda music, but at least as far as El Día de Los Locos, their day is gone.

The dancers followed the music; ten thousand of them, all costumed, all moving to the beat.

Some were on stilts; others wore ten-foot-high costumes. Note the window in this figure's chest.

If you expect political correctness, you're in the wrong country. We got Aunt Jemima...

... and Osama bin Laden, holding a placard depicting a plane flying into the Parroquoia!

To Osama's left, you can see candy flying through the air. The dancers throw candy to the spectators. People with parasols hold them upside-down to catch it.

Kids used backpacks or plastic bags to hold their loot.

Some gringos joined the dancing.

But to me, they seem a little off point. Dressing up in drag misses the playful innocence exhibited by everyone else. Kind of embarrassing.

Three hours later, the parade was over. The little ones were zonked out.

The crowds dispersed, except for the party animals, who would celebrate at San Antonio Plaza late into the night.

In a surprisingly adept coordination of municipal services, street sweepers, with their homemade brooms, were cleaning up litter before the spectators even had a chance to leave.

El Día de Los Locos used to annoy me. It's disruptive and noisy. This year, instead of fighting 'em, I joined 'em. I stood, jammed in the middle of a happy crowd while a six-month-old drooled on my shoulder and a five-year-old clung to my jeans pocket so as not to be swept away by the crowd. I caught candy in the air and gave it to nearby kids. I laughed with their parents.

And like Victor Hugo, the four-year-old grandchild who lives next door to me, I staggered home, exhausted, and took a nap.

—§—

It wasn't always crazy. According to Jesús Ibarra's informative June 15 article in our bilingual newspaper Atención, the tradition of dancing in the streets of San Miguel de Allende began in the 19th Century as orchard workers gave thanks to San Pascual Bailón for a good harvest.

(I'd provide a link, but Atención's website doesn't allow linking to archived articles.)

San Pascual Bailón was a Franciscan monk who once danced before a painting of the Virgin Mary, saying "Lady, I can't offer you great qualities because I have none, but I offer you my farmer's dance in your honor." Perhaps this is why orchard workers chose to dance in thanks to him.

Pascual Bailón has a white light experience.

So El Día de los Locos began as an expression of thanksgiving by the devout to an extraordinarily humble and pious man. Over the decades, it has evolved into this:

More than 10,000 people, many drunk or stoned, dancing through the streets in a parade that takes three hours to pass.

—§—

The day of the parade of the Locos started peacefully enough. Dancers and onlookers alike were going to need cold water, so vendors came to provide it at a good price.

A few guys set up styrofoam-and-salsa stands for people who couldn't subsist on candy thrown by the dancers, but fluids would be the big sellers today.

A couple of people tried selling semillas—sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds—but they didn't seem to be having much luck.

The parasol seller had a field day. It was going to be sunny and hot, so a little shade would be very welcome. Look at the size of the bundle on his back. He sold them all—$25 pesos each. I figure his markup was 400%. Little did I know what the parasols' real use would be.

But the familiar guy selling cheesy foam-rubber map puzzles didn't seem to get any takers. Of course, he never seems to get any takers. I've seen this guy around the Jardín for years, and haven't seen him sell one. Maybe he really doesn't sell any. Maybe it's just an excuse to get out of the house.

The next order of business was: clear the parade route.

Of course, no temporary NO PARKING signs had been put up the previous day. So at least some of these cars were legally parked. But see, you're supposed to know where the parade is gonna go, and not park there on parade day.

The red car was making a howling metallic sound as it was towed. Made my teeth ache.

Of course, just try to get these guys to tow cars on, say, Garita, a narrow street where parking is prohibited, with permanent signs advising motorists of the fact. Savvy drivers know not to try to drive vans down that hill. The five or so illegally parked cars you'll find there any given day will make that impossible.

Some spectators came early, to get good viewing spots. This Celaya half-marathoner has a great one, right on the curb.

As the crowds built, people started stacking up.

Turns out coming early didn't buy you anything at all.

That half-marathoner? He's back there somewhere, as is the curb.

A few lucky people watched from their balconies. This guy profitably used the time waiting for the parade to start, brushing his teeth. He must have spent fifteen minutes brushing. I'm pushing it if I spend two.

After the parade started, his friends came out to enjoy it with him—and his minty fresh breath. I may be mistaken, but I think he's flossing as he watches. Guy's really into oral prophylaxis.

In the next post, we'll take a look at all that craziness that happened after the dancing started. And, we'll find out what the parasols were for.

—§—

A month ago, San Miguel was just coming into the hot, dusty season, a great reason to be someplace else. Today, the rainy season has begun. Our timing was perfect. Looking west from the bluffs overlooking town, I can see a cloudburst obscuring my view of the Sierra de Guanajuato.

We've got another couple of months before everything turns green and wildflowers carpet the hillsides.

Prickly pear cactus—is it our Official National Plant? After all, it's on the flag. I take Rose up to the Landeta County Park for an outing, and to get a cactus fix. To assure myself I'm really back in Mexico.

The fruits are ripening. Soon roadside stands will be selling them. Tunas. Gringos call them prickly pears and mostly don't eat them. They're missing out.

They taste a little like watermelon. The beetles know. A bird pecked a hole in this tuna and created a feast for the insects.

I went to Spain for stimulation and excitement. I came home to get away from all that. In Europe, I tried to take in an entire country in one gulp. Here, I can quietly contemplate minutiae.

Yep. In mid-2002 you could buy a euro for $.95. Today it's $1.35. But waiting until the dollar gets stronger won't work. Probably won't happen anytime soon. I'll wait a couple of years though, until the restoration work is completed and the scaffolds come down.

For years, we've visited The UK, France, Germany and others. Spain just wasn't on my radar. When I did think of it, the image in my mind was of a decaying colonial power, responsible for despoiling of the New World, itself crushed under Franco's fascist dictatorship. A non-player on the European stage. My main reason for going there this year was to enjoy a European holiday in a (probably second-rate) country where I now spoke the language.

What I discovered was one of the most exciting countries I've ever visited; a vibrant, sparkling society with a history as deep as any, combined with a 21st-century outlook.

I mean, always on their cellphones.

I'd hate to be the boyfriend. He rows, she talks. To someone else. Who do you think is top dog in that relationship?

What do you do with your weekday mornings? These two young ladies dress up, find a park bench, and drink beer.

I wonder if it's legal to drink from open containers in public spaces? They should be careful or they may be called on by the fearsome Guardia Civil.

They're instantly recognizable in their tricornos, unchanged for more than 150 years.

Trusted and admired today, they once functioned as enforcers for Franco. They still enjoy more powers than police in most democracies. Members of the Guardia Civil were often involved in coup attempts, one as late as 1981.

Munching on sunflower seeds, this tattooed and pierced man looks like a likely suspect to me—someone the Guardia might be interested in.

But appearances are deceiving. He's innocently fascinated with the same puppet show as this little girl is.

Ever been blown off by the counterman at a New York diner? Think waiters in Paris are rude? Think again. I've never met hospitality workers more impatient and uncaring as Spanish ones, and Madrileños are the national champions.

For which reason I felt obliged to include this man in my gallery. He was kind, gentle, patient. His place became a regular stop for us. Here he's bringing Jean soup and me my order of deep-fried whole baby squid.

Don't knock 'em 'til you've tried 'em.

Street musicians abound. This traditional Spanish musician is playing his traditional Spanish erhu (two-stringed violin).

OK. He and it are Chinese. He drew a lot of listeners, and a lot of euros in the open erhu case at his feet.

Speaking of musicians, this little drummer came hurtling by me, banging away.

He looks like something out of Lewis Carroll.

One day, he'll sit quietly in the park, smoking, watching other little boys running around.

Madrid has many, many parks—some of them huge. They're great for people watching on a sunny Sunday.

A father helps his little girls rollerblade; a hokey-pokey master teaches moves to a young couple, their enstrollered baby nearby.

"You put your left foot out..."

The park is great for getting a little physical exercise, or for reading and getting a little tan...

... or for catching a few Zs.

This man, his head resting on his shoe, became immersed in a cloudburst seconds after this image was taken.

Crowds surged for the metro. Pickpockets worked the crush at the train doors, grateful for the good fortune occasioned by the rain. Old, familiar acquaintances by now, Jean and I exchanged greetings with them as we headed for a warm, dry café´.

Occasionally my father would take me on the most exciting of adventures: riding the train to New york City. After an hour which I spent with my nose pressed to the window, we'd get off at the Hoboken Terminal and take the steam ferry across the Hudson River to Canal Street in Manhattan. On the way back, we'd stop in the oyster bar in Hoboken and eat 5¢ oysters until I felt sick, while waiting for our train home.

All too soon, the steam era ended, replaced by diesel-electrics.

Railroads never were the same for me. The change had to come: steam locomotives were inefficient and polluting. But to me they were romantic. These days, whenever I travel to a place that has a train museum, visiting it becomes a top priority.

The Museo del Ferrocarril in Madrid is a good one.

On entering the museum building (an old railroad station), I was greeted by this sweet little 0-4-0 switch engine.

It hardly seems big enough to pull anything, but it was used to make up trains in Spanish switchyards a century ago. The restoration work is exquisite, and typical of all of the exhibits.

A brilliantly executed cutaway locomotive allows the mechanically-minded to examine the workings of a golden-age steam locomotive.

I spent a long time minutely tracing energy flows in this specimen.

The museum contains maybe 20 locomotives and even more rolling stock. It's not in the same class as that greatest of railway museums, the National Railway Museum in York, England, but you can easily spend a day exploring this one.

Like any good railway museum, exhibits cover more than the trains themselves: baggage handlers, for example.

Burlap sacks and brown paper packages tied with rope—a far cry from today's corrugated cardboard boxes with styrofoam inserts. Someone chose to depict the handlers as happy souls, the one on the left with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Verisimilitude at the expense of political correctness. If this place were in Indianapolis, you'd have a concerned parent's group raising hell over that cigarette.

Advertising posters, to today's travelers, seem transparent in their approach to luring customers.

"The courtesy of Spain and the train at your service"—¡Tu abuela! Once you've ridden the railroad in Spain or encountered a waiter in Madrid, you get a whole new understanding of the expression at your service. Or the word courtesy for that matter. In the USA—maybe. In Morocco—absolutely. In Spain—puhleeze.

(The figure in the poster isn't exactly a paragon of masculinity, is he? I mean, just what was the artist trying to say here? And who in Renfe management approved this thing anyway?)

Hundreds of other artifacts of belle époque industry are on display. They don't make 'em like this filigreed magneto telephone anymore. No batteries needed! Just turn the crank and talk. A simpler era indeed. Cell phones work better, but once again, no romance.

On the right, an ornately gilded device for impressing embossed seals into tickets. To discourage counterfeiting.

Much railroad building was financed through a national lottery. You turned the crank of this machine to mix and draw lottery numbers, presumably in front of impartial witnesses.

For some reason, this magnificent Fargo truck is included in the collection.

No plaque or placard explains why it's here, but for my money, you could show it in the Prado and I'd be delighted with it.

Hundreds of toy trains are on display. Not scale models—toys. Overlooked by most railroad museums.

They bring back memories of the Lionel electric trains I got for Christmas. Sometimes, my dad would even give me a turn with them.

Below, a box for a train set—an example of truly awful product packaging art.

Lets face it: Your pubescent sister just isn't gonna show that kind of interest in your train set. She's got other things on her mind. And your little brother in the blue shirt—what exactly is he thinking? Mom and dad better take him to the psychologist before things get out of hand. (Kid looks like Jack Nicholson.)

This is the way a passenger car is supposed to look. Classy. Not like some cheap piece of extruded aluminum.

It's the only thing in the whole museum that interested Jean, standing here checking it out.

The passenger car serves as the Museum coffee shop.

Weird, huh? I mean the passenger sitting at her dining car table with its elegant little lamp, talking on her cell phone—a jarring anachronism.

We visited the Railroad Museum on a Saturday, when admission is free. Got there just as it opened. By early afternoon, families had arrived and the place was crawling with kids. They were having a great time. Their fathers were having an even better time. And it was time for us retired folks to go.

I wonder what this place means to those children? Maybe no more than a museum full of 18th-century furniture means to me: interesting, but not connected to my past. The Museo del Ferrocarril, on the other hand, plays strongly into my childhood. For me, visiting these places is always an emotional experience.

Menu prices in Madrid will take your breath away, especially in the joints that cater to tourists. A sit-down dinner in a typical restaurant often runs $100 for two, without alcohol. One way to beat the cost of eating out is to patronize a taberna.

Tabernas are a kind of bar and they usually serve tapas (snacks), important for sustaining blood sugar levels in a country that doesn't eat dinner until 10-11 PM. I get weak with hunger well before restaurants open in the evening. Tapas bridge the gap between lunch and dinner, and we often eat them instead of dinner.

Their most interesting external feature is tilework, as seen here on the Taberna Tirso de Molina, named for a 17th-century dramatist. Of course, having expropriated his name, the taberna was obliged to include his portrait on the façade.

Unaccountably, Taberna Tirso de Molina devotes the remainder of its extensive tile murals to the spirit of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Other tilework is devoted more to advertising than to bellas artes, but is no less compelling for that. Here's an image from a beer ad.

She looks like a dreamy Maxfield Parrish subject.

Another taberna illustrates 19th-century winemaking; shown here is wine being transferred from fermenting tanks to barrels for aging.

A Santa Clara Valley ultra-premium winemaker I know uses a cast iron pump just like the one above. Claims it doesn't "bruise" the wine like electric ones do.

La Taberna Encantada uses a tile mural for a nameplate...

... and to create an innocent image. Not open when I went by, I couldn't check to see if the place was in fact enchanted. I'm guessing it's dark and full of cigarette smoke, like all the rest of them.

You can fill a day, enjoying the artwork decorating these places. Many are concentrated between the Lavapies area and the Puerto del Sol. It's a kind of outdoor museum, with the advantage over the Prado that the exhibits will feed you.

As far as I'm concerned, a city just can't have too many fountains, and this one makes a pleasant stop for pedestrians making their way from one museum to the next.

Fountains, of course, have water emanating from various nozzles. This becomes problematical when jets emerge from human figures. In the case of the famous Manneken Pis in Brussels, orifice location becomes a joke in bronze. So often, though, it's just awkward.

I mean, exactly what is the artist trying to say here?

These buildings, one 19th-century, one 16th, illustrate the point. Lots of wall, not much glass.

Sometime in the mid-19th Century, cast iron began to replace masonry, allowing designers to open buildings up to admit more light and permit something new for retailers: display windows. Nowhere is this more evident than in Manhattan's SoHo.

I found some cast iron architecture in Madrid; for example, the Mercado de San Miguel.

Not long ago, this place was a bustling hive of small vendors' booths. Currently it is not being used, but I can't imagine that it will remain idle for long.

Most of our buildings in San Miguel de Allende are masonry, and display windows are small. Shops are dark inside, and you have screw up the energy to go inside them if you want a look at the merchandise. In contrast, most of what's inside Madrid's Mercado de San Miguel is visible from the street.

A small cast iron building houses a café on the Paseo del Prado. Diners sitting inside maintain connections with passers-by. No walls to create barriers.

It's an inviting place. The openness of the lacy ironwork makes you feel like you're already half inside the café as you pass by. Why not come all the way and join us?

The ultimate achievements using spidery iron frameworks and glass were the great glass pavilions, of which the Crystal Palace in London was the largest. It was destroyed by fire in 1936, but Madrid's much smaller Palacio de Cristal still stands in Parque del Buen Retiro, just east of the Prado.

Being Spanish, tiles are incorporated into the framework. The shell of the pavilion is almost completely transparent—even the roof.

Like so many Spanish monumental buildings, it's beautifully maintained. The Palacio de Cristal is used today for special gatherings and performances. That it is a working building improves the odds that it will remain a Madrid landmark, and a great place to retire beside on a sunny Sunday.

While we didn't use Madrid's buses, we did appreciate the Mitsubishi ads featuring a Boston Terrier. We miss ours, having left her in Mexico. (Muffled sob. Sniff.)

Taxis cost too much. In Madrid they are rarely less than €10 and can quickly run up to €20-30; money better spent on museum admissions or tapas.

Some people like to take the double-decker buses that circle through tourist-interest areas...

...but they cost a whopping €15.30 per day. Besides, they don't run frequently and you look dorky sitting in one.

No, I prefer the Metro at €0.65 per trip. Plus your average platform wait is around two or three minutes. You can't even get a taxi that fast.

Modern subway trains look nice. Graffiti-proof paint and discontinued use of slashable vinyl upholstery keep cars from being trashed.

The only signs of vandalism are diamond-scratched windows and moronic stickers applied to interior surfaces. (They'll always find a way...)

We spent a little quiet time with a map to learn the system. It just doesn't work to jump on a train and go. While at first glance, metro system maps look formidable, they always yield to patient study.

For example, the red line on the map took us directly where we wanted to go most of the time. Our apartment was toward the upper right; the city center toward the bottom left.

On the Metro, we had the opportunity to meet unique and interesting people.

It's always tough to break the habit of licking your new lip stud. (To my friend Bill R: Lots of single girls in Madrid, Bill.)

Then there's all the free entertainment.

Nothing like a man playing I Did It My Way on his cornet to speed your journey. The machine by his feet added a reggae rhythm. He had us all popping our fingers. Just look at those happy faces.

You buy tickets to ride the subway. Here, Madrid could use a little kaizen—the Japanese improvement process. Below we see a ticket booth in a typical state: Staffed, but out of service.

He's behind bulletproof glass. He better be.

Well, no matter. We can just walk over to the ticket vending machine.

Oops. It's out of service, too.

We could go back to the man in the ticket booth and try to explain the situation. But experienced Metro riders we are, we know he'll just tap his "out of service" sign and motion toward the vending machine.

I have to admit this situation occurred only once in more than two weeks of riding the Metro. But often one or the other ticket vending solution was fuera de servicio and we had to look for another.

(What do those guys do sitting behind their windows? They show all the hustle of a French street cleaner. Or a USPS counter clerk.)

A single ticket costs €1; one good for ten rides is €6.50. Don't lose your ticket. (Our tour leader in Tokyo taught me to keep my Metro ticket in my "happy place" so I wouldn't.)

Fast, efficient, clean and cheap. What's not to like? "But," you ask, "are they safe?"

Well, No.

Between the Paris and Madrid Metros, I've experienced four pick-pocketing attempts, two of them successful. I'd have saved money if I'd rented limos instead.

So why do I do it? Well, there's something empowering in mastering the Metro. Makes me feel like I'm getting a handle on a new city. I get a sense of belonging. With a great show of impatience, I sweep past befuddled tourists squinting at their maps, saying loudly to Jean, " Let's take the green line toward Casa de Campo and transfer at Callao."

And while I did get robbed twice, I beat two other attempts, and the ensuing sense of triumphant satisfaction made the whole thing worth it. It's like people gambling in casinos: They know that in the long run they're going to lose their money. But they do it anyway, for the thrill when they do manage to beat the house.

The tree, the street lamp, and everything to the right of the corner of the building is real. All the rest is trompe l'oeil. A blank wall has been skillfully transformed into windows, awnings, more buildings, and blue sky.

Now let's pull back.

Aw crap! Ignorant little mouth-breathers destroyed this charming work with meaningless scrawling. Others came along and put even more graffiti on top of the old. And someone posted bills on top of the spray paint. Makes me think murderous thoughts.

Madrid is a grittier city than Barcelona. Most Barcelonan spray-can delinquents confine their defacements to freeway retaining walls and roll-up steel security shutters. Not so in Madrid, where almost no wall is sacred. Even buildings along the Paseo del Prado have been tagged.

However, the deterrent of having graffiti artists create special images on security shutters still seems to work even in Madrid.

Wonderful, huh? Salvador Dali with a spray can. I think he would have loved it.

I'm not sure what "official residence" means. The King and his family don't actually live here, so it's more an "official non-residence." Maybe it's like 220 North Zapata Highway, Laredo, TX where so many expat San Miguelenses "live."

"Am I a U. S. resident? Sure am, Podner. Ah rent a mailbox condo in the Lone Star State."

Same deal, except the King's place is nicer than ours.

Juan Carlos uses this pile of marble to greet foreign dignitaries and for various other ceremonies. Oh, yeah. And to make a buck off tourists. Costs €8 to get in the place; €9 if you want the guided tour. (Which, believe me, is well worth avoiding unless you like being herded in a docile group while some functionary spouts mind-numbing statistics.) I bet the place is a moneymaker: Thousands were there when we visited.

Unfortunately, your eight euros doesn't buy you the right to take photographs inside, an annoying policy that seems to have spread all throughout Spain. Being an actual paid guest of the palace, I felt entitled to lift three images from the Palacios Reales website (in Spanish). May I be forgiven if I have overreached my welcome.

The Throne Room

The Porcelain Room. (Where Jean remarked: "Nice clay.")

The Royal Armory.

The palace contains 2,000 other rooms. We, the Great Unwashed, were permitted to see a couple dozen of them. No touching. The rooms we saw were decorated with works by Velázquez, Caravaggio and Goya, among many others. Exquisite frescoes, tapestries and carpets were everywhere. There were individual pieces of furniture worth more than my house.

The Music Room contains five Stradivarius instruments. I wonder if they're ever played, like those in the Violin Museum in Cremona. Keeping instruments like these locked up behind glass is a crime. They were created to be played; they need to be played to stay healthy; and the world deserves to hear them played. Jean and I walked into the Music Room and I said, "Gee. They sure look nice. I wonder what they sound like?" Weird.

Outside, where I was grudgingly allowed to take pictures, we admired the ornate lamps.

Note the lack of graffiti. It can be done, folks.

To the south, the palace faces the Catedral de la Almudena. It's there so the King can get to church when his own private chapel needs cleaning.

This couple took pictures of each other standing in front of it. You can always count on tourists to put a monument in perspective.

(Once I watched as busloads of Japanese tourists visiting the Grand Canyon snapped endless photos of themselves in front of the sweeping view from Maricopa Point. Meanwhile, Chinese gamblers, taking a break from Vegas, were doing the same in front of the restrooms.)

The palace has a museum store that we checked out in case they had any Goya prints for sale. They didn't.

But they did have some extra-long floppy pencils and little spiral-bound notebooks. So you could sketch the interior of the Dining Hall. I mean, if it's allowed.

The Palacio Real de Madrid is just one of seven royal palaces. King Philip II kicked off the second home fad when he ordered this one built in 1734. It's a sort of town 'n' country home, surrounded by lots of open space.

The westward view from the palace is of a garden called Campo del Moro.

Nice view, considering it's in the middle of Madrid. Nobody's gonna build a Wal-Mart near the King's place.

No expense had been spared in making the building like new while insofar as possible retaining its authenticity. Real antique furniture filled the public rooms. You were permitted, even expected, to sit on furniture like the 17th-century bench pictured above.

Below, Jean relaxes in an old leather and wood armchair, keeping an eye on the newly hatched pigeons in the laurel tree just outside the window.

As of now, there are 92 paradores. Mosty are large old properties that have historical significance. While not budget accommodations, they offer truly elegant surroundings at mid-level prices. All of the furniture and fixtures are high quality as is maintenance of the facility. Beds are comfortable. WiFi is available in every room and—unusual for Spain—actually works. You get free razors, toothbrushes and toothpaste without having to ask for them. There are huge, fluffy white towels to wrap up in after your shower. Rooms all have mini-bars with reasonable prices: I bought a coke for the same price as from a vending machine. They have a dining room offering three good meals a day. There's a bar with drinks and tapas for when the dining room isn't open. The staff, government employees (whom I expected to be as customer-conscious as post office clerks), all turned out to be the most courteous, helpful, accommodating hospitality service folks we met anywhere in Spain.

Bedrooms had low, wide doorways. I'm 5' 9" tall, and ours was barely high enough to clear my head.

The doors, I imagine, were made recently, but still use the 17th-century wire hinge design. The bedrooms originally were nuns' cells, and while comfortable, manage to give off a feeling of being cloistered.

In the bar I saw large pottery containers. I asked the bartender what they had been used for, and he told me "Wine storage."

I had trouble believing that. First of all, I suspected that the bulk of each jar was underneath the floor, hidden like an iceberg, which would make for a heck of a lot of wine. And secondly, the simple wooden tops laid on top of the jars would not have kept oxygen out. Any wine stored there would have gone sour in a matter of days or weeks.

Later, driving through the countryside, I saw houses with unburied jars standing alongside. Many were plumbed. Other jars were lying around in groups, as if for sale.

They turned out to be water storage jars and every house has one for keeping a reserve for when the supply is intermittent. The jars are called tinajos, very close to tinacos, the word we use for the plastic water storage tanks atop our houses in Mexico.

When we return to Spain, we'll spend more time traveling through the countryside. And we'll plan our trip well in advance so that we stay, for the most part, in paradores. They are the crown jewels of Spanish hostelry. To check out paradores for yourself, look here.

Almagro's is large, and while lacking shade trees, provides an expanse where children can play impromptu futbol games.

The plaza is aligned east-west, with shady arcades on the north and south sides. In an unusual architectural twist, the arcades are formed by wooden balconies supporting two stories fronted by continuous rows of windows.

The two floors are residential; undoubtedly pleasant on peaceful days (like when we visited), awful during weekends and festival weeks. Stacks of chairs hint at the incipient arrival of weekenders, only an hour's drive away in Madrid.

Note the long, brown beam supported by all those white columns. My inner engineer compels me to comment on details of their construction.

In the 16th Century when these were built, tall, straight oak trees could still be found in nearby forests. Half a millennium later, these old timbers have endured as only oak can, a phenomenon that causes me to wonder every time I see it, whether in an old English stone cottage or a half-timbered house in an ancient German city.

The trees from which these beams were cut were left to dry for years after felling. You can see this today because they have not warped and twisted like the ones in wetter climates such as England. While very long by today's standards, still several had to be pieced together to make the 400'-long arcade.

The beams were joined together using a variant of an old structure called a butterfly. In the photo on the left, you can see a wooden butterfly, on the right you can see one made of iron.

(Sorry. I get off on this kind of stuff.)

An open ironwork belfry supports the town clock bell on city hall.

I don't see these often. Too bad; I think their airy, delicate look is charming. The airy, delicate communications antenna behind the belfry does nothing to enhance the structure's beauty. Why the hell do they do stuff like that? San Miguel has antennas sprouting all over its colonial buildings. They would be every bit as effective sprouting over the ugly Gigante building at the edge of town.

And while I'm bitching, look at the telephone line strung across the town square in the first photo. Almagro has gone to a great deal of effort and expense to preserve the town. Why allow someone to screw it up?

Almagro looks as much like a colonial-era town as possible when you have cars and electrical lines and election posters.

A note to San Miguel's Architecture Police: This is the way a colonial city is supposed to look. White. That palette of earth tones we're restricted to using: they didn't have paint in those colors in the 17th Century. They had white. That's all. Our brick reds and ochers and yellows and browns are lovely. OK by me if everyone cooperates and uses them. But don't be talking about authenticity to justify your regulations. Authentic is white.

Jean and I sat under umbrellas at a café in the square and drank cokes. (Two bucks a pop for eight ounces—the standard price in Spain.) Next to us sat two local women talking. Once in a while, one of their children would check in, then run off to do more kid stuff. Neighbors would stop by, and ask if they had seen this person or that, or would just sit and gossip for a bit before going on with their day.

It seems like a nice, safe town. Small children have the run of the plaza without parental supervision. People walk their well-behaved dogs without leashes. Reminds me of growing up in a small town in New Jersey.

And unlike their reputation in Mexico, policemen seemed to be genuinely concerned about the welfare of citizens.

In this benign atmosphere, no threatening or dissolute characters live. And wonder of all wonders, there's no graffiti.

After shooting, I noticed the nest on a roof ornament.

A nesting pair stood guard over what I assumed were baby storks, although they weren't visible.

In another part of La Mancha, I finally got to see chicks. They were in yet another nest, this one in a chimney just the way it is supposed to be.

For some reason, seeing these storks was special; more so than seeing, for example, the egrets that live in Parque Juaréz next to my house. Something about their mythology. For example, whoever has storks nesting in her chimney will have good luck. Or her next baby will be a boy. (Bad luck?)

Someone has set up a web cam on a stork nest. You can watch two parents and three fuzzy babies in real time. And you can listen to the noises they make, as well as the sounds of traffic, dogs barking and children playing. Check it out here.

We re-energized ourselves with a cup of excellent Spanish coffee. Note the profound lack of tourists here. My kind of place.

(I'm afraid coffee has been ruined for us. Throughout Spain we drank nothing but espresso with a little water added to make café Americano. When we get home, we'll have to look into getting our own espresso maker. I can't imagine going back to drip.)

Driving the small back roads through farmland, you occasionally see wells with crude mechanisms for raising irrigation water. One such has been preserved in the main plaza.

This one was probably driven by a power takeoff from a tractor via a flat leather belt. The gear train turned the wheel which scooped up water, one bucket at a time, and dumped it into a flume which fed the fields. It's an old design; its ancestors probably were mule-driven.

They don't make 'em like that anymore.

But we didn't come here for coffee or wells. A hint of our true objective appeared on the four tiled benches that surround the well.

The quotation is from Chapter 2 of Don Quixote, referring to his delusional tilting at windmills, thinking they are giants. The tiles depict him charging one while Sancho Panza looks on in consternation.

The windmills somehow have been preserved, just as they were when Cervantes wrote about them at the beginning of the 17th Century. They're just up the road in the town of Consuegra.

The hilltop we visited was, as we expected, windy. The windmills had been built where they would work best.

Only one of those at Consuegra was still in working condition, and it is operated only in October, during a Saffron festival for some reason.

I would have liked to view the millstones and the gears, but the buildings were closed. Not enough visitors come here in May to warrant staffing the site; a pity. However, from the outside, I could observe at least a few things about how they worked.

The main axle and vanes are mounted on a conical top that can be rotated, to face them into the wind so as to extract maximum power. In all the mills I saw, the top had to be rotated manually, by swinging the long beam at the rear into the lee. In contrast, many Dutch windmills and all of the old Aeromotor-type windmills once familiar on American and Canadian farms employ mechanisms for automatically pointing into the wind.

The beams apparently serve another purpose. The stone towers are cylindrical, meaning that masonry walls would have to withstand considerable shear forces; perhaps enough to knock them over. The long post serves as a brace to resist these forces. The towers of Dutch windmills are more cone-shaped, making them self-bracing.

I could also see that the vanes were attached to the rotors weakly, so that they would break away in unusually high winds, again to protect the mills from being knocked down.

The windmills represent a technology that was developed through trial and error, before the days when physics became well enough understood to permit paper designs. Yet, I could see a sophistication in their structures and mechanisms. On another distant hilltop, we could just make out the shapes of modern windmills generating electricity. Their designs are the result of computer simulations of blade shapes and airflows. They extract far more power from the wind than these 300-year-old mills. But they are nowhere near as romantic.

They grow wheat and raise sheep and goats here. Agriculture is still comfortably small scale although farms appear to be larger than the family holdings in France or Japan.

Where fields are too stony, grapes and olives grow. You find such crops in the most pleasant places in the world: Province, Italy, Greece, California.

Speaking of California, the state flower is the California Poppy, and in certain parts of the countryside, you can see vast fields of them, glowing yellow-orange in the sun.

In Spain, wild poppies are red.

These are the same poppies that grow in Flanders Fields. My Dad bought paper versions of them on "Poppy Day," in remembrance of soldiers who died in the First World War.

The flowers took my breath away: such intense color, and so much of it.

Cervantes wrote about the barren, windswept plains of La Mancha. I couldn't find them. After 400 years, La Mancha has been made to bloom.

Here, churros are made by specialists who stand over vats of hot oil, extruding large spirals of dough from a machine, whirling it in the air until it contains maybe twenty turns before plunging it into the cooking pot. Unlike the churros at San Augustín, Spanish churros are not sugared, are not very sweet. But the crusty, biscuit-like flavor is more than enough.

Even more outstanding is the chocolate. Spanish hot chocolate is made with water, a little sugar, and more than 50% dark chocolate. If you let it cool, you can almost stand your churro up in it. It's incredibly rich.

You can't really drink it. You can slurp a spoonful, or you can do like the Madrileños and dip your churros in it.

Jean and I went to a place that specializes in chocolate and churros. We each ordered a serving. At the table next to us, three natives ordered a cup of coffee apiece and one order of chocolate and churros to split among themselves. We were wrong; they were right. There was no way we were gonna finish ours. We each consumed half an order and staggered out of the café on the brink of a sugar coma.

I don't know how the Spanish do it, breakfasting on this stuff. For me, once in a lifetime is all I can take.

Jean checks the quality of Ritz Hotel coffee.

Well, it was just the break we needed. Footsore, we were pampered with: china and silverplate service, linen napkins, our very own anthurium blossom, two coffees and eight small cookies on a paper doily. Twenty minutes of just sitting, far away from sirens and unmuffled motorcycles and crowds of tourists.

Cost: €18.70. That's $25. Before tip.

It was worth it.

The interior makes the exterior look plain and dowdy. But we were not allowed to photograph inside. You're pretty much not allowed to photograph inside anything in Spain anymore.

The theater is a riot of flowing shapes and exuberant decoration.

Who would have thought you could make brickwork curve like this? Privately funded, stone was too expensive. Economy forced architect Domènech i Montaner to find delightful and creative solutions that we can all enjoy today.

Playful decorations appear everywhere. A building that's fun to look at—what a concept.

You can see toward the bottom of the column that some tiles are missing. The Palau de la Música Catalana needs renovation. So this is what it looked like when we returned the next day.

We repeatedly ran into this situation. On the Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Euhàlia, for example, you can see weeds growing from cracks and crumbling stonework.

That meant we couldn't view the beautiful Neogothic exterior, hidden as it was under scaffolding. The front elevation is spectacular, but it was invisible under tarps this May. From the side, it's all scaffolding and cranes.

More than anything, I wanted to photograph Gaudí's unfinished masterpiece, La Sagrada Família. When I got there, this is what I saw.

Yeah, they're working on the unfinished portion of the church. Also, they're renovating the parts that have been crumbling over the years since construction was more or less halted.

If you make an effort to peer through the scaffolding, you can see some of the delightful details.

But the architects who are guiding the building's completion don't share Gaudí's concept. It's becoming a mishmosh of different styles. A pity. There are some wonderful interior views, but again, we weren't allowed to take photos.

Disappointed, I headed back to the Plaça Sant Jaume for some people watching. Sure enough, a huge crane was setting up for some project, right smack in front of City Hall.

The good news is that Barcelonans are taking good care of their city. Ever since the 1992 Olympic Games put Barcelona on the map as an international tourist destination, they've been scrubbing, restoring and rebuilding it. And it appears that the work has accelerated recently.

The bad news is that a substantial number of the sights were inaccessible or views of them were blocked. Since the focal point of my visit was to photograph Barcelona's incredible collection of buildings, I was disappointed. The photographs I've shared with you in this series of posts are the result of careful selection of sites and camera positions.

I'm going to have to return. I don't know if that's good news or bad news. Good news, I guess. It's a warm, livable city, worth an extended stay. Meanwhile, it's back to Madrid, this time by plane. I want to see if I've learned how to run the gantlet of pickpockets at the airport successfully.

Dragons guard neoclassical staircases.

Nearby is the building that houses the Catalonian Legislature.

Jean clowns around a statue of a mammoth, a favorite of children as well. The mammoth, I mean.

A small peaceful lake attracts amateur boaters.

Knots of schoolchildren are a sign you're in a good park.

La Cascada is a wonderful fountain containing the first work Gaudí did as an assistant architect on the project. Unfortunately, it wasn't wonderful this day. It had been drained for cleaning, and the stench was unbelievable.

On the right, a gardener waters the lawn, Mexican-style.

These huge herringbone gears are left over from the 1888 International Exposition. We engineers love this kind of thing.

Nearby a peaceful street leads away, lined with Sycamores and urns.

The urns are examples of those intriguing art deco details you find all over Barcelona. I love the snails crawling over the lip.

Two men are playing that quintessential French game, pétanque.

A place like this really helps you let off tension. It's not always necessary to be running around, fighting the crowds, seeing all the sights before time runs out. Sometimes, a day in the park is just the ticket.

Maybe Barcelonans look good because so many of them smoke. Maybe they're not really in shape.

Mexican people are modest. They are rarely, if ever, seen in public partly undressed. Not here.

Showing skin is good. Underwear is meant to be seen.

Hair should be colored, and any color is OK, for both men and women.

Convention is nothing; your statement is what counts.

The dog walker on the left is abusing his pet, strangling it with its leash which, you'll note, is attached to the animal's collar, not its harness.

The French Bulldog on the right is abusing its owner. It's chewing on a plastic water bottle and its human can damn well just wait there until it's done.

Not every Barcelonan is slim. Jean and I were sitting on a bench eating our lunches when this old guy sat next to us, hocked a big loogie at our feet and lit up.

We moved to another bench. He fell asleep holding his cigarette. I hope he doesn't smoke in bed.

Here's a crowd attracted by the window display of a candy and pastry maker.

They don't look like typical Catalonians.

Mannequins reflect society's appearance ideals.

In Barcelona, they are: be skinny, color your hair, show some skin and above all, make a statement.

The Arc de Triomf was built to serve as the grand entrance of the 1888 Universal Exposition. It was at this exposition that Barcelona introduced the modernisme architectural movement to the world.

About the upper four sides of the arch are friezes of a decidedly unmilitary nature.

They are said to represent the Reception, Reward, and Apotheosis of Industry, Agriculture, and Trade. That sure is what it looks like to me.

So one might assume the event celebrated by this arch is the triumph of the economy. But then, what's with the bats?

It turns out they're are devices from the coat of arms of Jaume I. In 1229, he conquered the Moors in Mallorca—a triumph of a different sort. So I guess this arch commemorates both the defeat of the Infidel by Christianity and the vanquishing of Planned Economies by Free Markets.

Makes more sense to me than the French one. Their arch celebrates French military victories, from the Napoleonic Wars all the way up to the... er... Napoleonic Wars. Those that they won, anyway.

The playfulness of modernisme Catalonian architecture shines through in the goofy domes with ribs, crowns, stars and arched windows. Horn-blowing angels nod to an older tradition, but art deco wings give them away.

They sort of say, "Just kidding."

In all, I think it's a fine monument, defining the north end of Passeig de Lluis Companys, a broad pedestrian way flanked by ornate lampposts and palm trees.

Now, turn 180 degrees. What do we see?

How could they?

Who issues building permits around here? Don't tell me the Mayor and the City Council and the Planning Commission didn't know about this monstrosity. I mean, why didn't they just put an oil refinery there and be done with it?

That governs least, governs best. That allows eyesores like this, governs not at all.

Octopus 'R' Us. Just Octopus.

OK. Just octopus and squid. But that's it. No clams, no hams.

Can you make a living like that? Maybe not. The place is never open. But then, a lot of businesses in Spain seem never to be open. Doesn't mean they're not in operation. Just not when I'm there.

The other day I was enjoying a meal of lightly breaded sauteed seafood and thinking about how ordinary foods like octopus had become to me. My plate contained octopus, squid, whitefish, fresh sardines and barnacles.

Yep. Barnacles. They're really, really good. Poor man's clams. Much appreciated in Spain, restaurants tempt patrons by displaying bowls of them in their windows.

I liked mine so much that next chance I got, I ordered a whole plateful of them. Really. I'm not lying.

Unless the sun strikes the neighborhood at the right angle, it's usually dark and sort of eerie.

Romanesque arches give on to small plazas. Some contain tables where you can get a drink.

Gargoyles unexpectedly jut from walls.

Barcelona is really old. Way older than Madrid. A Roman wall and bastion a few yards from our door mark the original city perimeter.

In Roman times, Madrid was a cow pasture.

Almost completely hidden by medieval walls, a few Roman columns remain.

These may have been reconstructed after falling. To me, they are like the old roots of the city. There are not many cities in the world that have been in continuous existence for over 1,600 years.

Walking through the old city, glancing through an opening on my left, I saw this:

What the hell was she doing in this hallowed place? Some airhead bimbo strutting around—looking for what? A party? A date? C'mon! She doesn't belong here!

Then I realized that in 350 C. E., another girl just like her undoubtedly strolled here, wearing a skimpy toga, shopping for myrrh—very much at home in her own city, as is our modern girl.

Catalonian, Spanish and Barcelonan flags.

Catalonians think of themselves as a people separate from, and superior to the Spanish. Generalissimo Franco, in an attempt to keep the unruly province under control, outlawed teaching of the Catalan language in schools and its use in official communications and documents. The people cheerfully disobeyed him, and today, Catalan is very much a living language.

So much so that the airport taxi driver spoke to us in it. Now, everyone who lives in Catalonia speaks Spanish, so it's not like he couldn't, too. And almost no one getting into his taxi at the airport is likely to speak Catalan. So why the posturing? Rude SOB.

Menus, directional signs and the like are all in Catalan, and pretty much comprehensible to Spanish speakers. Rapidly spoken Catalan is not.

We can all parse this sign. Quiet: Hospital Zone.

But if someone read it rapidly over the telephone, I for one just wouldn't get it.

Even the name of the region is different, partly because the Catalan alphabet lacks the Ñ:

Catalonia—English
Cataluña—Spanish
Catalunya—Catalan

Here's some more Catalan words that might interest Spanish speakers or students:

E: Anchovies
S: Anchoas
C: Anxores

E: Chorizo
S: Chorizo
C: Xoriço

E: Chocolate
S: Chocolate
C: Xocolata

Failure to understand a foreign language can create some strange situations. The other morning I ordered the breakfast special that had been scrawled on a chalkboard at our local café: Flauta de Tonyina Canya Tallat. I was served a tuna-and-anchovy sandwich and a beer.

They were performing traditional Basque dances as part of a cultural program taking place on or near the Barcelona Cathedral Plaza. I was reminded of folk dancing exhibitions in the Jardín, the ones that are put on by people from the cultural center.

Music was provided by three recorder-like instruments and a drummer.

The notes, all of them, are produced by fingering with the left hand only. The musician on the far left is using his right index finger over the end hole of his flute to produce a vibrato.

The men are wearing those wide floppy Basque berets—wide enough to act as an umbrella in the rain. They were for sale in shops here and there, but I couldn't imagine wearing one, as much as I would have liked one. They're just too un-Mexico.

Following the female dancers, a group of men emerged, dressed as sailors, carrying oars and a seaman's chest on their shoulders. Another man leapt on top of the chest and performed a kind of jig.

An odd performance; six guys straining and grimacing while one dancer jumped and spun, took bows and garnered applause.

While basques have never had a navy, they are avid and skilled seamen. Basque fishermen probably beat Columbus to America, while catching codfish and salting and drying them on shore in Newfoundland.

The crossed keys on the dancer's banner aren't related to the Basque flag or coat of arms. I would guess they are the keys of Simon Peter, loved by fishermen because he was a fisherman too. Does one of you have a better explanation?

As is the case with so many folk festivals, this one had an ad-hoc feel to it. Among last-minute items overlooked were dressing rooms.

A little public semi-nudity wasn't gonna get in their way. The program called for swapping the blue sailor suits for white ones, so they just went ahead and got the job done without worrying about appearances. We could use guys like this in the Administration, if you ask me.

At the bottom of the photo is Gaudí's gorgeous mosaic lizard. No fewer than five people are sitting on it. Why?

They are posing for photographs.

There are 12 heads in this photo. At least ten are holding cameras. Six are in the act, at this moment, of taking a photograph.

I swear, if a few more cameras were sucking photons out of the lumeniferous ether, it would become prematurely dark in this locale.

It wasn't helping that I too was there, taking pictures. I was being jostled by other photographers, and jostling others in turn. Objects I wanted to photograph were obscured by bodies, either posing or shooting.

I shot the following images in less than five minutes:

Good grief!

The digital revolution has empowered legions of new photographers, who can click away for hundreds of shots in a single day at little cost. So they flood into scenic places, which become scenic no more, because the scenes are full of camera-wielding tourists.

This year's tourist guides tell you it's OK to take photographs in places like the Prado or the Thyssen as long as you don't use flash or a tripod. Not so. The guides are out of date. I haven't found a single museum that permits cameras anymore. It's becoming obvious why the new rules are needed.

After an hour of repeatedly checking back, I finally caught a moment when the wonderful lizard was devoid of posers. I was setting up when suddenly, another brassy model came along and spoiled the shot.

Oh, wait. That's Jean!

So many people were sitting on the iconic Serpentine Bench that not enough of it showed for a picture. I had to be satisfied with a rear view. Every Gaudí structure became a strange attractor, a nucleus for swirling clouds of tourists.

My expectation of a peaceful, relaxing afternoon strolling through Parc Güell, snapping pictures of stunning architecture was shattered. The only way to get a sense of being in an actual park was to get away from the structures, themselves; off into the plantings.

That's what this photographer did.

From this vantage point, we can see past one of the park's dreamlike gatehouses, across the city to the Mediterranean Sea.

Towers on the gatehouses were patterned after real mushrooms. The botanical name of the model for this one is Phallus impudicus. I'm not making this up.

All of Gaudí's phantasmagorical curves and color are in play here.

The details are playful and arresting. Here a feline head—a leopard?—forms the spout of a fountain. It's mounted on a red-and-gold Catalan shield.

Many people used the fountain to wash their hands or to get a drink on this hot day.

A wall contained scores of designs formed from broken tiles. I could only photograph a couple of them because of restoration work.

Quilter Jean says these are clay quilts. Exactly.

The tiles were artworks created for use at Parc Güell, each a complete composition in itself. After firing, all were smashed and the pieces reassembled into mosaics. What a concept!

This is called the Room of a Hundred Columns. I didn't count them

The columns are the only classical elements in the design. Even so, Gaudí gave the room a ceiling with his trademark curves...

... and mosaics.

A primitive gallery offers shade and relief from fractured colors and shapes.

The coarse, jagged stones create a form of such precision, such soft curves.

A fence formed of palm leaves protects the grounds from intruders.

The spikes at the top are the most fearsome I've ever seen.

The main square is ringed with the famous Serpentine Bench.

I photographed it from behind for reasons I'll give in the next post.

Parc Güell is an artifact of a real estate development gone bad. Count Eusebio Güell commissioned it as the focal point for a suburb of exclusive homes. But the Count violated the real estate adage: Location, Location, Location. At the time, nobody wanted to live this far from downtown. The Güell heirs were prevailed upon by the city to donate it. We're all lucky they did.

About the size of apricots, they contain 3-5 large brown seeds shaped like wedges taken out of a sphere.

The flesh is less than 1/4" thick. It has a mild, slightly tart taste. Kind of a generic fruit flavor. It's not gonna be the next kiwi, believe me.

The label in the store read nisperos. Do any of you know what it's called in English? Or its botanical name?

Bulking up above the rectangular pile of stones are four oddly-shaped towers, with roof friezes and iron ornaments that manage to incorporate lightness without diminishing the building's authority.

Our short stay here didn't allow for a real look at Barcelona's architectural gems. I can see spending a month next time we visit, just to study the buildings.

Not truly Moderniste, this lighthouse surmounting a mansion in Passeig de Gràcia suggests the playfulness to come.

Taking the concept of lighthouse towers with tall thin ornaments to full development is Casa Terrades...

... informally known as Casa de les Punxes (the points, in Catalan).

With Casa Lleó Morera, the architect managed to break free of straight lines, of simple Euclidean solids. Now things are beginning to curve.

The dome appears to be a form called a truncated ellipsoid. (This is a really interesting notion to us geeky engineers.) The dome has been covered in tiles, and from the look of them, they're not square tiles.

Sadly, the Rotonda is decaying, but you can bet it will be saved. Barcelona is putting tremendous resources into preservation and restoration of its buildings.

Wonderful forms and colors crop up in small ways as well as large.

The most famous of the Moderniste architects is Antoni Gaudí. Casa Batlló below, is one of his designs.

Surreal curves, reminiscent of Salvador Dalí's melting watches, complete the breakaway from any kind of convention; yes, it has floors, doors and windows. But it's all distorted: comprehensible, yes; normal, no.

That's Casa Amatller to the left, designed by the first Modernist architect, Josep Puig i Cadafalch.

Some kind of spirit was alive in Barcelona at the turn of the last century. An artistic explosion occurred in which creativity broke free of convention. The energy still present in these buildings resonates with me, an engineer who participated in the startup and flowering of Silicon Valley. I see in Barcelona the same freedom to imagine, to create and accomplish that I enjoyed, working with a bunch of guys that created the Information Age.

Barcelona remains a vibrant design center. Modern buildings sustain the spirit of the Moderniste movement.

This could have been just another ugly cube. But just look at what the tiles have done to it! Another free-thinking architect, another risk-taking client.

—§—

In the sidewalk cafés beneath my window every table is occupied, mostly by tourists. They are the lucky ones. They have made it through the gantlet of caricature artists, mechanical cricket vendors and three-card-monte operators to the relative safety of the watering hole.

Even then, they are prey. The raucous bleating of a saxophone accompanied by an accordion drifts up to my window. It's annoying. Soon the alleged musicians will attack the crowds, hats held out for coins—demanding payment to make them go away. The Spaniards, the French, the Italians will ignore them. The British and the Americans will pay them off out of guilt. The Japanese will give them too much money because they are simply bewildered. It is the law of the street...

—§—

One way to make a buck off tourists is to pose as a living statue. Here's one of my favorites.

I'm always a sucker for angels. I put some coins in her... uh... urn. She slowly, almost mechanically, broke into a beautiful smile and with sweeping arms, blew me a kiss, before freezing again.

Living statues set up shop everywhere tourists throng. Most are not as gracious as my angel, which doesn't slow Jean down one bit.

See? She's already friends with the wax fruit lady. Friends for a couple of euros, that is.

Later, we walked past a bronze John Wayne. I averted my gaze, not wanting to encourage this sort of thing. I heard Jean calling to me. I ignored her, making a great show of photographing a brick wall. Soon both Jean and a male voice were calling me. I turned...

Honest to GodI What if my friends see this?

Jean told me later that when I wouldn't turn around, the statue told her "John is a bad boy," and drew his gun.

—§—

Out on Las Ramblas, shortly after arriving in Barcelona, we were taken down like newborn Dik-Diks. Hungry and thirsty, we stopped at a sidewalk café and ordered breakfast. Asked if we wanted orange juice, I ordered one, knowing it would probably be expensive.

"Large or small?"

"Large." (Well, I was thirsty.)

This is what we got.

"Large" meant "huge, canned and €10." The full tab—for bacon and eggs, juice and coffee—€35. "But John," you ask, "how is this possible—a $40+ breakfast?"

Here's how:

€10—One large canned orange juice
€18—Two orders bacon and eggs
€7—Two coffees
€4—Charge for outside table service
€4—Regular service charge
€2—EVA (tax)
---------------------------------------------------
€35—Total check

—§—

The herd moves on, its lost members already forgotten. The lions, sated, slumber. They'll be hungry again, tomorrow...

And when Europeans travel in the spring, where do they go? Well, they sure as hell don't go to Norway, where the snow is still on the ground. No, they come to warm, sunny places: Northern Africa, Southern Italy, Greece, and—Spain. The squares and sidewalk restaurants are overflowing with them.

You could tell who the tourists were, because they all looked lost.

I usually feel like a doofus, standing on a busy street, frowning at a map. But in Barcelona, I fit right in with the crowd. There's something satisfying about seeing sophisticated Europeans just as flummoxed as we ignorant Americans.

Surprisingly, it's a young crowd that vacations here.

Many don't have that employed, career-oriented look. Nor do they look particularly well-heeled. My guess is that they are members of the huge state-supported army of unemployed European youth.

There seems to be a lot of piercings and varicolored hair among them. You know why men are attracted to women with tattoos? They're thinking, "There's a girl who's capable of making a mistake she'll regret for the rest of her life."

They've apparently decided not to apply for jobs in customer service or sales.

Nordic blondes know they'll get a warm reception in Spain. Their coloring and dress just scream "I'm from Sweden, and I'm looking for fun."

You don't often see them traveling in little homogenous groups. These must be newly arrived. They're not paired off yet.

Long, tiny braids are abundant.

This young woman manages to achieve a sort of good-time gal effect with hers...

... while this one projects an untouchable innocence.

Barcelona attracts people from all over: Asians, Africans, Americans—a truly cosmopolitan city.

Tourists eat food on the street, something they probably wouldn't do back in Paris.

But we all let our hair down when we're on vacation.

This woman had the most interesting profile...

... with her flattened nose, her enhanced chin and her perfectly pyramidal form descending.

I'm accustomed to seeing young people with hair in vibrant colors not found in nature. The results of their experimenting invariably look bad, usually because of the do-it-yourself dye job.

This mature woman obviously had hers done in an expensive salon, and while startling, it somehow works.

This woman was surveying a sidewalk café, looking for a suitable table.

Humpf. None met her approval, so she sat on some steps and wrote out some postcards.

Finally, we have Mr. Sensitive.

It's hard to imagine he's a European. He looks like a Special Forces drill sergeant. You could land a helicopter on his flattop. Maybe he's a retired American military man. I didn't ask him. I was afraid to.

My original idea was that we would travel in the shoulder seasons. We'd avoid summer crowds and we'd get out of San Miguel during the punishingly hot month of May and the insanity of the Independencía and the stupid San Miguelada in September. Europeans have already figured that out.

Back to the drawing board, I guess. How about April and October?

They made a unique sound, being made up of eleven players, most of whom played instruments I'd not heard before. This uniquely Catalan band is called a cobla and is missing one of its normal complement of exactly twelve players, the effect of which I felt not at all. I mean, what exactly is a cobla supposed to sound like, anyway?

This young man is playing what appears to be the world's longest, loudest oboe. It resembles a shawm, an ancestor of the modern oboe, but his instrument evolved for outdoor playing. To say it has a piercing voice would be understatement.

The band contained four of these woodwinds, two tenoras (like the one shown in the photo) and two soprano instruments called tibles.

Four other players had familiar instruments: two cornets, a trombone and a double bass, so we can dispose of them without further comment. But the remaining three were wierd. This man is one of the two fiscorn players. A kind of trumpet on steroids, the fiscorn is a relative of the flügelhorn, if that helps. (God, I loved writing that sentence.)

The fiscorns sounded loud, brassy and unrefined, as you might expect from their appearance.

True wierdness, though, is reserved for the band leader. He is playing two instruments: the flabiol and the tabal.

The flabiol is the one-handed flute he's holding in his left hand. The tabal is the tiny drum hung on a strap around his neck and supported by his flute arm, freeing his right hand to strike the drum with that dinky little wand.

The reason the cobla is playing today, as they do every weekend day, is so that people can dance the sardana, Catalonia's national dance. Passers-by drift into the plaza and form rings of as many as twenty dancers and, holding hands, spontaneously begin dancing.

When one ring gets too large, another one forms, until the whole plaza is filled with rings of dancers.

The sardana is a slow, graceful, but intricate dance, containing as it does 76 steps performed in groups of four. It requires intense concentration to know where you are in the sequence and what steps to take next.

More than focused, though, the dancers seem to be transported, as if they move onto a higher plane while dancing.

This is not some cheesy reencatment of a folk dance done to entertain tourists. Ordinary citizens come out to the plaza for their own personal enjoyment. They don't care if you watch them or not. Because of this, what you are seeing has solid authenticity, and is all the more moving for that.

Why? Well, Columbus's voyage was not formally complete until he reported to Fernando and Isabel, who happened to be in Barcelona at the time. After all, they were the King and Queen. It wouldn't be seemly for their royal selves to travel to see Chris and besides, his home port was the crummy little burg of Cadíz, a place too poor to provide royalty-grade accommodations.

So Columbus, tired and hungry, sailed all the way around the south and east coasts of Spain to deliver the good news to his backers. And that's why Barcelona erected his monument on the waterfront: because Columbus's journey was completed successfully here.

Columbus pointed the way and now Spain had an actual colony to plunder besides those dinky Canary Islands. They were playing keep up with the Portuguese. Columbus made sure the Spanish claim to the lands he discovered would be legal by holding a ceremony in which the West Indians supposedly agreed to become a Spanish colony.

All those depictions of Columbus planting the flag and kneeling in the surf while the inhabitants looked on—in grade school I was taught that this was a noble event, when in fact, it was just a real estate scam. As Woody Guthrie said, "Some men rob you with a six gun and some men rob you with a fountain pen." Columbus returned to Spain with notarized statements of witnesses claiming the West Indian natives accepted colonization.

In less than fifty years, New World gold and silver was pouring in, setting off currency inflation that would ruin the Spanish economy, not to mention funding endless and pointless wars in Northern Europe and Italy. Inflation worked its magic of transferring wealth to landowners and noblemen while impoverishing merchants and smallholders. Industrial development came to a halt. Why make when you can buy?

And so Spain became the trust-fund kid of Europe, dripping with pricey goodies, but with no skills for survival when the money ran out. What once was the intellectual and artistic heart of the continent lost its leadership role. Over the long haul, Spain didn't benefit from its American holdings; it was destroyed by them.

And what about the West Indians? We all know the story. Columbus brought with him diseases that essentially caused genocide. The bulk of the population died out from measles, various poxes and venereal diseases, and had to be replaced post-haste with sturdy Africans, inured by centuries of contacts with Europeans and Arabs.

All over Spain and Mexico, I see statues of standing, fatherly Spaniards, either in monk's robes or armor, succoring kneeling Indians. Enlightening the heathen. Only after I became an adult did our view of relations between indigenous people and the colonialists come to recognize the terrible truth. Contact between east and west was an unmitigated disaster for westerners. And as it turns out, it sparked a great deal of misery in Europe as well.

(Some scholars, particularly Catalans, think Cristóbal Colón was Catalan, not Italian. It's interesting to note that Colón, with the accent over the o, is neither a Spanish nor an Italian word. It is a Catalan word and it means "pigeon.")

I wish I was always that happy. Oh, I'm sure he has his melt-downs, but he's clearly in the moment in a way I've long forgotten.

After I caught this image, Jean, never shy with strangers, marched up to the mother and asked if we could photograph her child. She said OK and called him over, explaining I wanted to take his picture.

Oh, jeez no, Lady! Don't make him pose. Aaahhh. Too late.

He solemnly posed. I kept on snapping off shots, mostly to show appreciation to his mother for allowing me to.

Not wanting to photograph the top of his head, I stooped down. Instantly, he stopped posing and engaged me in a crouching game. Success! He's not posing anymore.

What a cutie!

The acoustics in these narrow medieval streets are wonderful, making the music ring, sustaining the notes. After the Bach, the women played The Windmills of Your Mind and more, one crowd-pleaser after another.

They were playing hammer-zithers, also called cimbaloms. These instruments are associated with folk music but produce beautiful renderings of any music with a sort of sad melody.

Zither-players seem to be singularly focused on their instruments. The women didn't react to applause, didn't interact with their audience. They rarely looked up and they never smiled. No dramatic movements like your concert pianists or lead guitarists. Zitherists are quiet, inward-looking people.

Less than a half-hour later, we ran across this man. Zither-O-Rama!

This guy was out today simply to enjoy performing. No CDs on display, no basket for coins, just him in his suit and tie, sitting on a fold-up stool, his instrument perched on a milk carton. A quiet, cautious man, perhaps a bookkeeper, the corners of his zither case carefully reinforced with steel angle brackets, his tuning wrench close at hand, a virtuoso of old Hungarian tunes.

Casa Beethoven sells mostly sheet music, mostly for piano, but some for other solo instruments, voice and even full orchestral scores. You know it's a serious music lover's place because it has busts of classical composers and boxes and boxes of music for you to take home and play.

A hundred years ago, the most common way you got to hear music was to perform it yourself. Actually, the bulk of classical music—a vast heap of sonatas, rondos, trios and the like—was written for performance by amateurs.

The twentieth-century advent of recorded music changed all that. Many in my generation still took obligatory piano lessons, and also learned another instrument for the school orchestra—mine was the clarinet. My children picked up guitar (what else) on their own. What will their children do?

In the 19th Century and earlier, they had recorded music too. But the technology was primitive.

Casa Beethoven sells music-box movements. They have 60 on display for you to try. Turn a little red crank, and out comes chimey music.

The selection is eclectic. Check out some of the titles:

– The Internationale (the Communist anthem)
– Luces en la Ciudad
– Happy Birthday
– The theme from Doctor Zhivago
– El Golpe
– John Lennon's Imagine
– Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender

What Casa Beethoven doesn't sell is CDs. If you want to hear it, you have to play it yourself. Even if that means only turning a crank.

Here in Ciutat Vella, our neighborhood, some shopkeepers have taken to preempting graffiti artists with graffiti of their own.

Taggers apparently respect the work of other spraycan artists. They leave doors like these alone. They'll sometimes tag the porous granite wall right next to one, but they won't spray the door itself. The key seems to be that the work must be done by artists whose vision and methods are the same as used in graffiti.

They certainly look better than gang tags, even if they aren't exactly what you might have in mind for a 1000-year-old neighborhood. And when the doors are rolled up or swung open, you don't see the designs anymore. A clever solution to an intractable problem.

Posing in front of a door thoughtlessly left blank by its owner, here is an intrepid blogger in full field gear...

... wondering how pickpockets so readily single him out.

Step under the arch, you're confronted with an explosion of fruits and vegetables. I don't think I've ever seen so many varieties in a single glance.

Displays were artful and prices weren't always sky-high—surprising in this expensive city. The strawberries in the pyramid are priced at €1.49 per kilo—about 90¢ a pound. Cheap, but these are the same strip-mined strawberries you get in U. S. supermarkets, the ones with texture and taste like cardboard. Hardly worth eating.

Didn't they introduce fish genes into strawberries some years ago? To improve shelf life?

We do a little better as we penetrate farther into the interior of the market. This fruit cooked in sugar syrup looks exquisite—a far cry from Del Monte canned peaches.

Have any of you run into dragon fruit? Apparently they are appearing in markets around the world. Everywhere except Mexico, that is. Mexico hardly needs another fruit, thank you very much. We've got more than enough wonderful local-grown produce of our own.

The Spanish know how to do preserved meat: chorizo, salami, and especially, ham. Acorn-fed ham, dry-cured, aged a couple of years. This stuff redefines what ham is.

Ham is sliced to order—by hand. It's sliced longitudinally, parallel to the bone, and each ham must be approached individually, to optimize the pattern of fat and red meat.

Porters race around with hand trucks, replenishing the stalls. That young man has the kind of job I would have loved when I was his age.

Barcelona is a major mediterranean fishing port, and seafood is rushed to La Boqueria. In contrast with the fishy compost pile in San Miguel's Gigante or Mega supermarkets, these fish are shiny, with clear, bulging eyes and a sweet odor. Europeans won't buy rotten fish.

But they will buy preserved fish, and none more so than salted, dried cod. Check out the prices on this stuff. The thick, boneless fillets are pushing $20 per pound!

Once you've bought your fish, you have to season it, and after paying those prices, you're not going to want to shake a jar of Schilling paprika on them. Here, you can give spices the sniff test before buying a baggie or two.

Now we're gonna look at the heavy hitters. The vendor didn't bother to post a price on these black truffles. If you have to ask, you can't afford them. Harvested in the wild by trained pigs, these babies are the other fruit of Spain's oak forests, after the exquisite ham. I've never seen so many truffles in one place before. This looks like a five-year supply for the French Laundry Restaurant.

Tiny little wild strawberries from the Pyrenees: you'll never look at strawberries the same way again after trying these. But again, if you have to ask...

What's amazing is that these little guys last only a day, so the vendor will have to sell them all or give the leftovers away. But if there's no more equity left to pull out of your house, forget Alpine strawberries. You'll just have to settle for some handmade candies.

There are some great food stores in the U. S. You got your Whole Foods Markets, your Central Market in Austin, your Draegers in Menlo Park. None of them holds a candle to this place. The only market I've seen that's on par with La Boqueria is the one adjacent to the Tsujiki Fish Market in Tokyo, and that one's more of a shopping area than a single market.

... and follow the street to the left.

Triangulating by cellphones, we finally hooked up with Tomas who escorted us to our flat. As we walked, he explained that our unit was on the fourth floor. No elevator.

Hey, OK. We can use the exercise, ho, ho, ho.

So we're living in a fourth-floor walk-up, the kind of apartment you got in Hell's Kitchen after immigrating from Sicily. Except it isn't a fourth-floor walk-up; it's a fifth-floor walk-up. I'd forgotten that in European buildings, the first floor is up one flight of stairs.

Tomas grabbed the bag Jean was carrying, leaving me with my backpack and a suitcase. By the time I'd climbed to our door, my vision was blurring. But the apartment made it all worthwhile.

We have a combination dining and living room, two bedrooms, two baths, a full kitchen and a laundry, all for about half the cost of a good hotel. And we couldn't be better located. We live in a quintessential old European neighborhood, with 12th-century churches and Roman ruins steps away. Likewise, the Esplanade and Las Ramblas. We're near a metro station. We're surrounded by restaurants and shops.

One major drawback: no internet access. Ordinarily I work around this problem; I haven't had a connection in any room we've stayed in so far on this trip. But in this case, those stairs separate me from a connection. Moreover, most hot spots in Spain have proved too lame to handle a blog upload. In every case, I've had to hardwire to somebody's ethernet. And it's hard to find places that will let me do that.

One other problem: the locks are so new that it's almost impossible to open the doors, requiring much jiggling of keys and tweaking of knobs to get in. Over the last couple of days, Jean and I have gotten the hang of it, though.

This evening, a woman rang the bell to our apartment. In courtly Spanish, she explained she lived on another floor and was having trouble with her door. Jean replied, also in Spanish, that opening the doors was difficult, but that she would help the woman get into her apartment and show her the tricks. After a number of exchanges, the woman's partner came up and asked if Jean was going to be able to help them out—in English! Turns out they're from Mendocino, not far from where we lived in California. If the partner hadn't come up, I wonder if either Jean or the woman would have realized they were two Americans talking to each other.

(The apartment rental agency: www.visit-bcn.com.)

Intact is the ornately mullioned north window, the curved roof, the winged lions and globe at the peak of the façade, and the wonderful old clock surmounted by a crown. I'd love to show you the elegant belle époque wings that perfectly flank the center vault, but pulling back would reveal the detritus of a construction project. Maybe the project will include razing that awful '60s-era clock poking out of the roof.

Inside, what once was a series of platforms alongside panting steam locomotives is now some kind of tropical garden.

How many ways is this bad?

First of all, what the hell do tropical plants have to do with train travel? Seriously, nobody cares about them. They're thinking about the night train to Paris.

Then there's the issue of the heat and humidity inside the building: good when you're touring a conservatory of rare plants, bad when you're shlepping a hundred pounds of luggage, trying to make your train. Hundreds of nozzles on tall poles spray mist for the benefit of the bromeliads—and the discomfort of the passengers.

Finally, with that unique logic that works only in the minds of bureaucrats, the paths through the plantings are roped off. Yep. No public access is allowed in over 50% of the train station.

Why does space matter? Let's take a look at the effect of insufficient space on customer satisfaction.

These are passengers waiting in line to buy tickets. The average wait when this image was taken was about an hour. The lines result from too few ticket windows. Because there's not enough space. Because so much is taken up by plants, the humidity and heat from which make the waiting even less bearable resulting in displays of bad temper.

You can avoid waiting in line by getting a numbered ticket for a turn at special "reserved" ticket windows. "Now serving #689." You only can do this on certain qualifying routes. The rules are too arcane for the likes of you and me, so the counter where you get your numbered ticket is staffed by an official. This expert in train schedule arcana asks you about your route, then explains your choices as to which trains you should take. Pick the right one, and you qualify for a ticket to avoid the lines. Pick the wrong one, and you're sent back to the purgatory pictured above.

Holding a ticket for your turn won't save you any time. What you have to do is watch for your number to come up on a tote board. Then you have about 60 seconds to make it over to the indicated window before your turn is given to someone else. When I took a number from the official, I asked how long before my turn would come up. He said about an hour and a half.

There's one other option. If you're tech-savvy and can read Spanish, you can beat the wait.

Before using one of these touch screen ticket vending machines, you need to analyze train schedules between your origin and destination, selecting two or three alternatives based on time of departure, number of stops and type of service. You also need to have your credit card handy, with your PIN. Finally, you have to perform a mind meld with the designer of the touch screen menus in order to comprehend the page-to-page navigation scheme. A couple thousand hours of web surfing experience is essential. All this is good, because it disqualifies 99% of ticket buyers, so there's no lines.

With these prerequisites in place, it took me and Jean only three tries to buy our tickets for the trip from Madrid to Barcelona. But it sure beat waiting in line.

I'll briefly mention two other customer satisfaction opportunities for RENFE, the national railroad company. First, we have the customer service center.

I was amazed to find this airy, uncrowded office with comfy chairs and bright-looking attendants, given the hell-hole of the ticket windows. Planning the next stage of our travels, I asked for a schedule for the Barcelona—Bilbao route:

"We don't have any."

"Where can I get one?"

"In Barcelona."

"Are there trains that run from Barcelona to Bilbao?"

"I don't know."

It became clear why the Customer Service Center was uncrowded.

Then there's the matter of the ladies' restroom.

These women were waiting with all the resigned patience of Mexicans paying their power bills. Jean, an impatient American, took one look at the line and stomped off to find another solution.

We passed through an airport-style security point and finally reached the departure lounge, where the combined cybernetic capacity of RENFE was unable to assign us a platform until five minutes before scheduled departure. An informational sign informed us that we would be denied boarding two minutes before scheduled departure. Hmmm. That left us three minutes to get from one end of the platform to the other, assuming we immediately noticed when our gate number came up on the announcement screen.

A stampede of panicky passengers ensued when our platform was announced. We formed a line which crept slowly forward, our progress impeded by an officious little prig who made a great show of carefully inspecting each ticket. He actually lisped. BarTHelona.

(Lisping in Spanish is like a 1930s Hollywood starlet, newly arrived from Possum Crotch, Missouri, speaking with a British accent. It's affected, snobbish.)

Our tickets having passed inspection (graTHias), we boarded our train for the four-hour ride.

Aircraft-style seats, a pretty good meal (better by far than the airlines) and occasionally interesting scenery—once you get on the train, it's not a bad experience. It only takes an hour longer than flying and costs about €60 less. Now if only you could buy tickets online...

I love the old Spanish symbol for DE, the combined letters D and E to make the character Ð. I'm reminded of the old way of writing the in English: Y^e.

The sign for the Taberna La Delores has a wonderful fin-de-siècle look.

Delores knows how to entice men to patronize her bar, with her bare shoulders drawing your eye and her arm reaching, offering a beer. And the look on her face: it says "If you're a good boy, sailor, things could get serious." Hard to say no to her.

Madrid, like most cities that the Allies didn't completely flatten, is full of monuments. Here's one just to illustrate the point.

Naked bronze people with winged horses. Just screams "Agriculture," doesn't it. Still, I love these sculptures; important ingredients in European cities.

Now, we'll spend a moment contemplating the ugly.

The little cretins have spraypainted the unpolished granite facing of this building that faces the Reina Sofía Museum. The damage is permanent; you can see where attempts at cleaning have failed to completely remove the writing. Usually taggers restrict themselves to concrete canvases that can be repainted or left as is, depending on location.

Whenever I see this stuff, I think uncharitable thoughts; a test of my spirituality.

Then there's state-sponsored ugliness.

These abysmally ugly elevator housings were slapped up against the classical façade of the Reina Sofía Museum. Looks like an oil refinery. What were they thinking? The authors of the Fodor's Guide call them a "playful pair of glass elevator shafts." The authors are jerks.

This museum of 20th-Century works is anchored by three Spanish modern masters: Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, and Joan Miró. The galleries are chronologically ordered so you can follow the development of modern art. I particularly enjoy the works of Dalí, which, while woefully underrepresented here, nevertheless contain some brilliant pieces.

The centerpiece of the entire museum is Picasso's huge canvas depicting the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. The museum guide calls it the "greatest modern painting." I don't think so. It isn't even Picasso's greatest—it's not in the same class as works like Three Musicians. But for Spaniards, it's a patriotic piece, and much-loved.

Perhaps the greatest art museum in the world is the Prado. Colonial-era Spain used New World gold and silver to commission works by Europe's greatest artists. Which explains how such an incredible collection came to this country. The Prado, like the Reina Sofía, centers on three great Spanish painters: Francisco Goya, Diego Velásquez, and El Greco.

I learned about Goya's daring portraiture of King Carlos IV and his inbred family.

What at first appear to be stately portraits, turn out on closer inspection to be caricatures.

Carlos's vacuous expression clearly shows the effects of generations of inbreeding on intelligence, and of pampered isolation on character. What, me worry?

Meanwhile, Queen Maria Luisa clearly is in the catbird seat. Hers is the nasty smile of someone who has clawed her way to the top and who dominates everyone around her. Only the pride and cluelessness of his subjects would have allowed Goya to get away with these satyric official portraits.

Given such a wonderful collection, the Prado fails on two accounts. First, the written and audio guides are sparse and unenlightening. The works hung here invite investigation, but their deeper meanings are glossed over. You'll not get your art history education at the Prado.

The other deficiency is poor lighting, evident in this image of Goya's The 3rd of May.

But these defects barely detract from the experience of viewing these superb canvases. Everywhere I turned, I ran into another painting I'd only seen in someone's coffee table books. I expect to return to these museums several more times during our stay here.

(Turns out you're not allowed to take photographs in the Prado or in the Reina Sofía, a regulation of which I was unaware until an angry official confronted me and demanded I erase any images I had captured. A little sleight-of-hand allowed me to conceal the few I've shared with you.)

When I see a sign like this, I get an almost irresistible urge to follow the road, to see what's over the hill.

A Moroccan stop sign.

In Mexico, they say "ALTO." Here, you can't even sound out the word. But its meaning is unmistakable.

This walk-away fruit vendor has what seems to be the standard offering in Marrakech: pineapple and cocoanut.

Street vendors in San Miguel have less elaborate presentation, more different kinds of fruit, and they'll sprinkle chile powder and lime juice on it for you. I've learned to like it that way.

Men hold hands. To me there's a sort of sweetness to the custom.

Once during an all-male dinner party in Seoul, one of the Korean guests held my hand while we stood side-by-side, appreciating our host's koi collection. I felt terribly awkward, at the same time realizing that I was just uptight and that I was holding back from experiencing a moment of friendship. As U. S. culture demands, I stopped holding hands with males when I approached adolescence. Moroccan and Russian men, among others, don't develop an aversion to this simple gesture.

A cute kid goes shopping with his mother. Or his grandmother. Or Michael Jackson for all I know.

All together now: AWWWW.

Jean triumphs in the bazaar. His asking price for the quilty looking cloth on the floor was Dh 1800.

Her price was much less. It took Jean a half hour to strike a deal for Dh 700. Way to go, Jean. I think.

Morocco deserves a harder look. We'll be back in a year or two for a look at more of the country. We'll rent a car and follow the arrows on that directional sign, to see the really, really big souk at Fez, to visit a couple of oases, to drive into the Atlas mountains.

And Jean will bring much bigger luggage. Empty luggage. You know why.

The clothing on the mannequins clearly is meant to be worn in the bedroom. But after days of seeing caftan-clad women, a glimpse of this store window is faintly shocking. Hard to imagine Moroccans wearing this kind of thing.

On the street, a woman in a red jelaba and yellow barboush talks to the driver of a modern car.

It's hot out, but I'm guessing she doesn't want to be immodest in public.

There's way more construction going on in Marrakech than in San Miguel de Allende or even in Querétaro. I saw at least 30 high-rises being built. Several, like these, were going up just inside the ancient Medina walls.

As with Mexicans, Moroccans aren't interested in in living in traditional homes. They want air-conditioned apartments with wall-to-wall carpets, and many will sell their riads to foreigners for the chance to live the way westerners do.

The sign below says something like "Hamza's Cellular City.

Hamza's sign has that wonderful homemade quality I've posted about from time to time. The cellphones depicted on it are the Moroccan four-button variety: you can dial any number in the world that contains digits one through four. The Royal Ministry of Telephones and Posts predicts the technology will be in place to process fives and sixes next year.

One of Hamza's customers talks to a merchant while smoking a lumpy hand-rolled cigarette.

This man was born when the French dominated the country. He's probably ridden camels, not for fun, but because that's what he had to do to go anywhere—pre-road, pre-automobile. He watched American and British troops march to the east, on their way to drive Irwin Rommel out of Libya. He may have participated in the liberation struggle that won Morocco its independence.

Given his childhood may have been spent herding goats, he doesn't seem to be having any trouble adapting to wireless telecommunication. "Aziz! Aziz! You thief! You're taking the bread out of my children's mouths. OK. My last price is Dh 5500. Not one dirham more! You hear me Aziz?"

Check out the faces of the passengers. Do they look happy to you, like the smiling faces in Club Med brochures?

I think they're bored out of their gourds. Every night they suck down Mai Tais at the Forty Thieves' Bar and look for a date while the strains of Kenny G set the mood. And they ask themselves, "Are we having fun yet?"

Of course, they do manage to get some amount of exposure to exotic northern African culture. Take these colorful water sellers:

I love their "authentic" tribal dress. I think these costumes developed about the time the Club Met got built.

Tourists don't buy water from them. "Myron, you don't know who else has been drinking from those cups." Locals don't buy water from them either, 'cause it would be embarrassing.

So if they're not selling water, what are they doing? They're selling the right to aim your camera at them. They'll demand maybe twelve bucks a pop if they catch you shooting.

Then you got your "authentic" snake charmers. There's at least a half-dozen groups like this within a stone's throw of the Club Med.

At night, these guys will gather a crowd. No tourists were watching them when I caught this image—they were all on the Club Med bus. Or in the Forty Thieves' Bar, waiting out the midday heat.

The snakes look sort of listless and worn out. They're not particularly scary. Something about this scene saps all sense of the exotic, of danger. Maybe it's the guy smoking a cigarette, ignoring the snake at his side while he talks to his buddy with the fake Rolex. Just a bunch of working stiffs on their lunch break.

Hey, aren't snake charmers an Indian thing? Why are they in Morocco?

This actress is from an "Ali Baba" show. She's on her lunch break.

About 30 of them trudged up the street to a tent where they sat in rows, eating sandwiches. A tall scimitar-bearing Saracen in chain mail held his sandwich in front of his face when I pointed my camera at him. "Hey, foreigner. No baksheesh, no picture."

I think Ali Baba was an Arabian character. Apparently Moroccans feel they have to import exoticism from the East.

Finally, there's these stupid caliche rides. Nothing Muslim about a caliche. They wouldn't be practical in the sands of the Sahara. They're too big to go into the Souks.

I can't believe tourists are so gullible as to be taken in by this kind of thing.

Wait a minute! That's Jean in that carriage.

OK. She's in it because she just loves carriage rides. For her, authenticity has nothing to do with it.

And I guess you know that since Jean was getting a ride, I was too. I hate to admit it, but there it is.

That's our driver, Kalim, in the baseball hat. He took us around the perimeter road just outside the ancient walls of the Medina.

Kalim undertook to point out the sights along the way, while taxis and buses swerved around our caliche, honking their horns. Now, the city walls are pierced by fourteen gates, called babs. Kalim knew the names of all fourteen, and he made a point of telling us their names. Oblivious to the surrounding traffic, he would turn in his seat when we passed each and intone "Bab Nkob. Bab Nkob." (Honk, screech, insults.) At the next gate, he'd repeat the performance: "Bab er Raha. Bab er Raha." Each name exactly twice.

The only other feature he pointed out was "Bus Station. Bus Station."

Thanks to Jean, I always wind up doing this stuff, and you know—sometimes it's fun. But it always feels stupid. Let's face it. It is.

We ordered a couple of diet cokes—plentiful here, but always served only slightly cool. And of course, nobody askes for ice in these places unless their diptheria shots are up to date.

What now? Only one thing to do when one of you knows what she wants to do and the other doesn't. Shop.

The next day, it's Tuesday the 8th, our last full day in Marrakech. I'm gonna get to the Medersa Ben Youssef it it kills me. I'm so desperate, I agree to hire a taxi. For Dh 20 he takes us to that same hot dusty crossroads just north of the Souks and dumps us onto the street. He points to the road we took yesterday. "Just go straight ahead. The Koranic School is straight ahead. You can't miss it."

Easy for him to say.

We sally forth once again. I keep my eye peeled for any signposts or other clues. I see one pointing the way to the Musée de Marrakech which on my map, is near the Medersa Ben Youssef. We turn down that road. End of signs, but we find ourselves on Rue Ben Youssef. This is good.

After more twists and turns, we come to a large unmarked door in an imposing buiding. The door is partly ajar. A burly workman is standing in the opening. I ask if this is the Medersa Ben Youssef. He indicates it is, but it's closed. Baffled, we walk another half block to where we find the museum. Here we purportedly could buy combined tickets good for both the school and the museum.

On the door I see this notice:

Yes, the damn school is closed from the fifth through the eigth—the very days that we're visiting. "Thank you for your comprehension." Yer welcome.

There's nothing for it but to tour the museum. No way I'm going shopping again.

The Musée de Marrakech is reputed to lack an actual collection of artifacts, but its architecture is supposed to be beautiful, so we plunk down Dh 60 each and go inside. It turned out to be worth every dirham.

I've never seen a lamp this large. That's a pebbled glass ceiling above the lamp providing ample light to the central salon. Eerie Moroccan classical music played softly over hidden speakers.

A surprising number of visitors, mostly singles and pairs, were touring the place. Well, maybe not so surprising given that the only other place you could go was closed. In one corner, a tour group was gathered in a circle, listening to a robed man.

Looks grim, doesn't it. The guy drags those poor people in there, and then, instead of letting them look at the place, he talks to them.

Spectacular brasswork, intricate tesselations. It's all fascinating, although without human figures, I find Islamic art a little cold.

The museum is very accessible: you're allowed to sit on those cushions.

A few 19th- and 20th-century pieces were on display...

... like this jar and carpet. I doubt the museum had fifty objects in its collection.

The details of the building were the real show; for example, these painted door panels.

A more ornate panel:

Visitors offered some diversion. A photographer is too lazy or too tired to shoot from anywhere but her chair.

And what was this woman thinking when she selected her outfit?

She's gotta be French. Only the French would dare to make that kind of fashion statement.

Many museums won't allow you to take photographs. No such restriction at the Marrakech Museum. Everybody was carrying cameras.

It's no Medussa Ben Youssef, but it made for an interesting and entertaining morning.

Rose petals are scattered on our table and float in the courtyard fountain. Marrakech is a city of roses, outnumbering all other flowers combined.

The woman seated on the divan is preparing a traditional meal for us, mixing shredded potatoes with balls of dough and cooking them over a charcoal fire. The smell of the burning charcoal wafts through our bedroom window and wakes me up each morning.

A waiter told me they're called msamin, and they're a kind of potato pancake. The woman told me I could have mine plen or meeks. Meeks got me carrots and onions mixed into the dough along with the potatoes.

They are sooo good!

What else do we get for breakfast? Let's start with the fresh fruit. Whenever I see a pile of fresh fruit at the Holiday Inn, I know to stay away from the pomes and drupes. Pears are underripe and hard, as are peaches when you see them at all. Apples are tasteless or sour.

Not so at Maison Árabe. Peaches are set out for guests at the peak of ripeness, juicy and sweet. Strawberries are the kind grown for flavor instead of shelf life.

To drink: fresh orange juice (no big deal for residents of Mexico) and thick Moroccan coffee.

We get a basket of boulangerie-quality rolls and bread. (We can thank Morocco's erstwhile colonial masters for that.) A semi-tame bird shares our bread with us every morning.

Those pale pancake looking things are crumpets, an undeservedly overlooked breakfast bread. That's not a glass of milk in the foreground. It's homemade yogurt, and it redefines what yogurt should be. It has an incredibly delicate texture and a perfumy flavor.

Breakfast is a luxurious and languid affair. It's a lot of food, and I'm gaining weight. I may have to buy bigger pants before this trip is over. Fortunately, Joe, my trainer, is a nice guy. He won't scold or tease me. And I'll get beck in shape starting next month. I hope.

Just as Norteamericanos have descended on San Miguel de Allende's old colonial homes in the Centro Historico, Europeans have rushed to snap up and restore the great houses of Marrakech. Using traditional methods and materials, these places are lovingly restored to a centuries-old look.

Coffered ceilings and lintels of carved cedar, marble or brick floors, walls plastered in a traditional mixture of marble dust and egg whites—all add up to a rich, warm look. Handcrafted tin and iron lamps and handwoven carpets help create the luxurious feel.

Ornate iron grills look out onto a courtyard where Bougainvillea climbs a wall.

Antiques, bought for a song in the Souk, add exotic detail.

The first European pioneers arrived about 50 years ago, just as Martha Hyder arrived in San Miguel in 1959. In Marrakech today it's the San Miguel land rush all over again. Remodeling activity is everywhere. Prices have risen astronomically. Even so, you can buy a place here for about half what you would pay in San Miguel. But you'd better hurry. The best places are going fast.

I can only take it for so long before retreating to the peaceful courtyard of my hotel and sipping a glass of mint tea.

Exploring the Souk is like sorting through crushed rock looking for gemstones. You sift through dusty rubble, tired and thirsty, and then there's a flash of color.

Caftans from the Dyers' Souk hang out in the sun.

Yarn makers' samples hang overhead.

A pile of area rugs.

There's too much to choose from.

Tanned goatskins dry...

..while another tanner goes for purple.

Amelda Marcos would love this place.

Slip-on pointy shoes are a favorite with tourists.

I thought Mexico had a corner on color. Morocco is a dusty, dun country, but Moroccans know how to do color. In fact, it probably was they who taught the Spanish, who taught the Mexicans about making intense colors work.

Gathered in the wild as all morels must be (they can't be domesticated), these are nestled between the desert roses and some ammonite casts. The price is right: Dh 100 per kilo. About a fifth of what you'd have had to pay in California five years ago.

Make sure you check the hollow stems for earwigs!

This porter was pulling his handcart piled high with undyed yarn.

One morning, Jean and I were out walking, looking fruitlessly for some historical site or other, when a man pushing a bike called to us. Big deal. There's always a man calling to us in the Medina. But this one said, "It's Ali. From the hotel. I just got off work"

I said to Jean, "Yeah, right. I bet he says that to all the tourists. Ignore him."

"No, John. He really works at the hotel. Let's see what he wants." Jean is so naïve, so trusting, so gullible. Well, that's probably a little harsh. Actually she's warm and open and outgoing whereas I am suspicious and introverted. So sometimes I follow her lead, to my profit. Sometimes.

Ali launched into a dissertation about how lucky we were on this beautiful day because the Berbers were coming down from the Atlas Mountains to some sort of festival or craft sale or whatever (it was hard to follow what he was saying), and we could see them after three o'clock or right now or some other time and we should follow him. We trailed along southward toward the Djemâa el Fna or the Royal Palace or some other place where he told us they would assemble. Then he made an unexpected left turn into the Souk. A short cut?

Not likely. We quickly came to the emporium of a rug merchant. Ali's friend. Big surprise. They did the air kiss thing and I got the feeling I was about to be had. The rug merchant asked us if we had yet experienced Moroccan hospitality—well we must certainly accept his—come, come inside and have a glass of mint tea—where are we from, anyway?

But, but, but...

Stepping into the store, we encountered a woman weaving a rug.

What a great sales tool. Once you see this loom in action, you just gotta follow through and see the rest of the place. Of course, the loom is not the primary source of the merchant's carpets. Too expensive to make in town. They buy them from Berber weavers for a fraction of the cost.

Jean, still hoping for the best, asked the merchant if the Berbers were going to come to his store. The merchant said, "What Berbers, " and began showing her rugs.

I have to say they were gorgeous. To my untrained eye, they looked better than the expensive little beauties we'd bought in San Miguel. We might have been well-served if we had come here armed with room measurements and a budget.

Not actually being in the market, we politely looked at a few carpets and then excused ourselves. All signs of Moroccan hospitality drained from the merchant's face, replaced by an expression of complete indifference.

In the foyer, the weaver called to Jean and got her to sit down for a short impromptu weaving lesson.

Wasn't that nice? Sure was. Give me a tip please. There's no free lunch in Marrakech.

Outside, we looked around for our guide. We still wanted to find those wild mountain Berbers. Having accomplished his objective for the morning, he was nowhere to be found.

The merchant came outside to say goodbye, and no doubt to let us know we would be welcome to enjoy his hospitality on our return. I laughed and he said, "I'll see you again soon, and if not, I'll remember your smile in Paradise."

No passageway in the Souk is too narrow for some kind of vehicle, whether it's a full-sized delivery truck or a human-powered push cart. Bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles and scooters careen through alleys, beeping at everything in their paths. Mules graze pedestrians from behind, the outboard wheels of their carts threatening to run up your heels. Drivers are masters at squeezing through impossibly tight places; clearance of one inch is trivial. They're also masters at intimidating tourists, although residents seem matter-of-factly unconcerned.

Below, a scooter approaches Jean faster than the image suggests. The bicycle to its right has just swerved around her. Her apparently calm demeanor, hands clasped pensively behind her back, is proof that over the years, she has developed nerves of steel—an experienced traveler for whom the world offers nothing fearful. Either that or she's entered a fugue state.

Hooded figures prowl the alleys, while sinister groups of young thugs plan mayhem.

Ancient Moslems sit against walls, thinking inscrutable thoughts.

Figures in jelabas emerge from the gloom.

Morocco is adopting western ways as well, as these young soccer players attest.

A Gabby Hayes look-alike whiles away an hour talking with his friend.

No northern african or middle eastern market would be complete without a rug merchant or two. The Marrakech Souk has scores. Of all types of dealers, these have the worst reputations for honesty and integrity. My defenses go up just looking at this picture.

How can you trust a man wearing a zoot suit?

—§—

Buyers come to the Souk to get bargains. But getting quality at a good price takes experience and haggling skills, This woman appears to know what she's doing as she stares disapprovingly at couscous and dried peppers. She's making sure the proprietor will have a hard time justifying his asking price. "Five dirhams for that? Why, I wouldn't even feed it to my cat!"

Speaking of which, the Souk is teeming with cats, as is all of Marrakech. They're not pampered, but people take care of them and seem to treat them with affection. A fishmonger fed this one; in return she graciously accepts a stroke from a nearby foot.

The first cat I ran across in Marrakech lived in the baggage claim area of the airport. I mean, they're everywhere. Ominously though, you don't see dogs. Makes you wonder just what was in the tagine you just ate...

And speaking of haggling, Jean was unable to come to terms with this merchant for a bedspread she liked. (Yes, photographers, I see the damn lens flare, but I just had to use this image.)

He began negotiations by drawing two columns on a piece of paper. At the head of the left column, he wrote "My Price." At the head of the right one, he wrote "Your Price." Then he drew a series of horizontal lines to form two columns of boxes. In the upper left box, he wrote "Dh 6,000." That's six thousands dirhams, or about $720. then he handed the marker and paper to Jean and said, "Your turn."

Flummoxed, Jean handed the marker and paper back and walked out. You can tell we have a lot to learn about haggling.

Still game, Jean braced a dress merchant. His fatal mistake was to model that pink frock for her with a cigarette dangling from his lip. Ruined the entire presentation. Somehow, she just couldn't picture herself wearing it.

Besides, it was the red number she really was interested in.

We did manage to overpay for some wooden-handled kebab skewers from this wood turner. We just had to buy something after he demonstrated his craft for us.

He used a bow to spin the turn-piece. He held his turning chisel against the tool rest with his bare foot. Crude as that sounds, he took a square piece of wood and turned it into an ornate amulet in less than two minutes. He presented it to Jean as a gift—and we were sunk. No way we were going to get out of there without buying something.

His haggling style was masterful. Oh, he wasn't interested in profit. He wasn't into woodworking for the money. No, he was an artist. He was turning wood for a creative outlet. That's why his prices were so low. "Here. Have this amulet. It's nothing. A little gift for you. You don't have to pay me for it."

See? Before you've uttered a word, he's got you set up to be a Philistine if you even hint at the possibility of a lower price. After all, he's an artist. There's no profit in his prices. How could he possibly lower them?

So we gave him the $6 he asked for twelve kebab skewers, and another $14 for a domino set that his 12-year-old son had made. After all, what's $20? It's nothing. Especially for such a fine craftsman, an esthete. And for his kid.

Over the next few hours of wandering, we saw many other merchants offering skewers and domino sets identical to the ones we had bought. It became obvious that they were all made in a factory somewhere. Sigh.

This woman is selling ksra, traditional round loaves of bread that were actually cooked in a wood-burning oven. (Or in the Wonder bakery in Passaic, New Jersey.) For a country in the middle of the Sahara Desert, they sure seem to burn a lot of wood. Where does it all come from?

And what are those things in the red bucket beside her? Oh. Kebab skewers. Sigh.

Comestibles can get a little exotic. Butchers' stalls look every bit as gross as those in Guadalajara, where any part of the animal—I mean any part—is sold for food. I couldn't decide if the stand pictured below was for medicine or food.

They sell herbs, roots and turtles. The reddish-black stuff in the white bowl is some kind of fruit paste. Ot else it's the gunk that squirts out of ball joints when you lay too long on the grease gun.

But most Moroccan food looks appetizing.

These pastries are just as appealing as any you find in the U. S. or France. Myself, I'm trying to keep a lid on my weight, so I didn't try any, but this stall had that familiar, mouth-watering bakery smell. Olfactory temptation.

The Fodor's guide was right about the aggressiveness of the merchants. You could hardly walk twenty feet without someone calling out to you or grasping your hand and shaking it. You can't just give them the brush-off like you can in San Miguel. These guys are persistent. But they're so darned nice about it. They exude a friendliness and warmth that seems genuine. You enjoy talking with them. They make you feel good.

But you must never forget it's all an act. They're not looking for new friends. They're looking for your money. They'll be just as welcoming and sweet to the next tourist that comes along, hour after hour, day after day, year in, year out.

I resisted; he insisted. "Go on. Smell. Is very good." He was so warm, friendly and encouraging that, despite misgivings, we moved closer to the store.

Baskets of dried herbs nestled against motorbikes waiting for repairs at the greasy, dark workshop next door.

To the right of the door, carefully-shaped conical piles of powdered substances exhibited the steepest angle of repose I've ever observed in a dry material. You could never make a sandpile that steep unless the sand was wet.

Once inside, we were greeted by Mouhad Tliki, a member of the family that owns the store. He demonstrated his wares for us, encouraging us to smell and feel various herbs, spices and natural medicines. Mouhad was intelligent and well-spoken. He had traveled all over the world and speaks six languages—not at all what I expected from a Moroccan shopkeeper, which just goes to show that I still reek with prejudices.

Jean bought a mixture of four spices for seasoning fish, seafood and "salades:" cardamom, nutmeg, ginger and coriander. She also bought a packet of sanouge (naigella seed) to use "against the cold, maigraine, astma." The method of using sanouge was interesting. Mouhad placed a teaspoon of it in a square of muslin and twisted the edges of the cloth to form a little ball. This he rubbed against the palm of his hand until it became warm, then covering my nostrils with the ball, asked me to inhale. I immediately felt my sinuses opening. Magic!

We could have spent hours in Mouhad's store, and probably would have bought many things, but we restrained ourselves. The store, Herboriste Essalam, does a worldwide mail order business. It has no website, but you can email Mouhad at essalamrobio@yahoo.fr.

Now, about the man who steered us into Mouhad's store. He was not a shill, nor was he offering his services to us as a guide. In Morocco, business is done on the basis of friendships. If you need anything, you ask around until you find one of your friends who can direct you to one of his friends who can provide the service or item you need. It's relatively unimportant if the friend of a friend provides items of good quality or performs the service well. The thing that matters is that you have enabled your friend to help his friend.

The guy across the alley from Herboriste Essalam was doing his friend Mouhad a favor, and in turn, in time, Mouhad will do one for him.

—§—

Postscript:
A day after composing this post, I shot an image of the Armenia Herbalist from a moving caliche, in the dark, using only available light.

This guy has taken powder piling to new heights. But compared with Mouhad's display, his just doesn't have the esthetics. Mouhad's may not be the biggest, but certainly—the nicest.

It was built in the 12th century, when most Europeans were still living in wattle and daub houses and almost none could read and write. From our hotel, maybe five times a day, we can hear the muezzin calls that emanate from the tower—a powerful, eerie ululation.

As we walked the streets, Jean remarked "We're not in Kansas anymore." You better believe it.

While we saw some people in western dress, by far the majority wore traditional Muslim costume.

Check out the shoes these girls are wearing.

This man is waiting vainly to cross the street. Nobody yields right-of-way; it's all a bluffing game. How you cross is you step out in front of the speeding cars, mopeds and bicycles. Now that you're in the road, it's yours, and drivers either swerve to miss you (their preferred approach) or they screech to a halt, blowing their horns. It's unnerving.

Mules are still used for hauling, much more here than in Mexico. Many streets are just too narrow for trucks. But some things are the same as in San Miguel: this man demanded money when I took his photo. Note his traditional Muslim sport coat and baseball hat.

At any time of day, thousands of people are milling around the Djemâa el Fna. Many are tourists, and scores of jugglers, fire-eaters, snake charmers and other characters are out to separate them from their money. They are incredibly aggressive.

But ordinary citizens form the bulk of the crowds. The snake charmers don't bother with them. The people are here to buy fruit and vegetables at the open-air stalls or to catch a cheap meal of kefka (meatballs), couscous or harira (tomato soup with chickpeas and lentils).

Smoke from the grills fills the air and smells wonderful. I was ready to sit down at a stall for a nice plate of barbecued goat, but Jean said, "John, I don't want you going into that crowd carrying your wallet."

Fair enough, given that I seem to have trouble protecting it. But I pointed out to her that a major reason we were in Marrakech was to experience markets like this one.

Jean said, "Oh yeah. Right."

She screwed up her courage enough to enter the street food stalls, but opted to wait another night before consuming any actual food.

For those with a hankering for mollusks, we have here a man selling big fat snails. He's scooping some yummy broth in to a bowl of escargot for the customer in the foreground.

There were four of these guys, all in a row, each with a mountain of snails in a huge bowl.

If garden pests don't appeal for dinner, you can always fall back on something ovine. This woman is eating... I don't want to know... while sitting in front of a pair of roasted sheep heads. I would have chosen a different seat, myself.

Our hotel provided us with this lovely basket of dried fruit and nuts in our room. Figs, almonds, dates—biblical food. All we lacked was milk and honey.

The hotel may have bought their supply from this man. (The things on the left that look like intestines are strings of figs.)

All kinds of other stuff can be bought on the Djemâa el Fna. What better time to shop for lamps than after dark. The pierced metal lamps we buy in San Miguel de Allende probably have their origins here in northern Africa.

We did not manage to escape the guys targeting tourists. These guys beat drums and clang cymbals. But musicians they're not. Their entire raison d'être is to pose with you for a photograph. Here Jean wears the hat of the guy kneeling in front.

Click. Whirr. Then the haggling started. They'd like some money for posing. We offered 20 dirhams (about $2.40). They were offended. A hundred at least. After all, there are three of them. We stuck to our guns. One of the guys handed Jean a 50-dirham note. "Here. Take this. It's nothing. Keep it. Now, maybe you'll give us a hundred."

I was proud of Jean. She tried to hand the note back. The guy wouldn't take it. Jean dropped it on the ground along with her 20 dirhams. We walked away to a chorus of insults.

That's how we knew the price was right.

It's said that 700 balconies ring the plaza.

A half-dozen narrow streets pierce the walls of buildings giving access. They still bear their ancient names, derived from the particular businesses that concentrated in each particular one, such as Calle de Cucharillos—Knifemakers' Street.

I anxiously await the comments and criticism of these images by frequent commenter Elguapo. Billie (blog) will know instantly which of them was manipulated in Photoshop. I'm hoping to fool Elguapo. We'll see.

But some of you have already noticed that this particular one isn't—wedge-shaped, that is.

Its owner has a sense of playfulness and humor that makes me want to meet her.

"I buy gold," the signs say. "We pay the highest prices. €14 per gram." Despite the big signs, these businesses have rather marginal facilities. To get to one, you have to go through the souvenir store in front to get to the entrance. For the other, you have to walk up to the second floor—meaning, for we Americans, the third floor. You can bet there's no elevator.

What's notable is that there are several such enterprises within a block or two of each other. Is there enough gold for sale in Madrid to support more than one buyer?

Competition must be fierce. The buyers employ men wearing sandwich signs for promotion.

They offer to buy gold, silver, jewels and watches by Rolex, Cartier and the like. If you're wearing a Seiko, don't bother.

So what's going on here? Do pensioners cash in their jewelry to meet the spiraling cost of living? Are young people down on their luck trying to meet another month's rent? Maybe there are so many street thefts that it takes a whole block of buyers to handle the volume. Maybe they buy credit cards, too. in that case, they might have handled one of mine.

Whatever it is, it's weird. The streetwalkers don't hassle you. They just stand around smoking cigarettes all day, doing what has to be one of the world's most boring jobs. Sometimes they stand in clumps, two or three guys promoting competing buyers. They talk to each other, maybe about last night's game. Nobody seems to care.

During the Franco Dictatorship, most civil liberties were curtailed. In addition, a dreary puritanical moral regime was imposed. Imagine the joy when the old Fascist died and democracy came to Spain. Apparently, the Spanish people, unleashed from the old restrictions, took full advantage of their new freedoms.

James Michener writes in Iberia about the post-Franco arrival of Suecas, blonde Northern European girls visiting Spain, looking for vacation romances. Competition with Suecas quashed the traditional reticence of Spanish women to pair up with their boyfriends unchaperoned, and today you see a lot of public smooching—unthinkable in the '60s.

The new morality finds expression in public art. The façade of the Casa de Panaderia pictured above contains what have been described as "playfully erotic" frescoes.

Maybe one of you knows of another place where government-sponsored works of this nature are commissioned. I can't think of one myself.

The group of images in the Plaza Mayor is not an isolated instance. Apparently those randy Spaniards can hardly contain themselves. Here, a couple of amply-endowed nudes grace the front of a store.

Quick, Henry! Cover the kids' eyes! And stop gaping! (Sheesh. I bet they teach evolution here, too.)

Iberian fishermen were a major source of codfish in post-medieval Europe. Mainly it was the Portuguese that caught, salted and dried these fish, providing a major source of protein to Europe. The cod were caught on the Grand Banks, raising the question: Where were they salted and dried?

It had to be on land somewhere. You can't dry fish on an open boat, and fresh fish won't last a day without refrigeration. So where? Well, Newfoundland is the land closest to the Grand Banks.

Portuguese fishermen had to have landed in Newfoundland prior to Columbus's first voyage. Codfish were familiar in Portugal and Spain well before the 15th Century, and this has huge implications for primacy of discovery of the New World. The Portuguese explorer João Vas Corte-Real may have reached Newfoundland prior to 1470, beating out Columbus. And a Muslim Spaniard, Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad, a native of Córdoba, sailed east discovering new land in 899, well ahead of Leif Ericson. It may have been he who tipped the Portuguese and Spanish to the new fishing grounds.

So, who discovered America?

In any event, Cod has long been an important food south of the Pyrenees, although with the collapse of the Grand Banks Cod stocks, the best cod is becoming scarce and expensive. So I was surprised and delighted to run across this store just off the Puerta del Sol:

This store sells nothing but dried, salted cod. In New York, it might be called "Just Cod," but in Madrid, it's called La Casa del Bacalao—The House of Cod. Hmmm.

For anyone unfamiliar with dried cod, the flavor and texture is superior to the fresh fish. Iberian recipes often combine dried codfish with potatoes and onions, sometimes adding tomatoes and capers. Real comfort food, and you can get it right here in Madrid.

—§—

In Mexico, the expression for "hot dog" is—"hot dog." Kind of disappointing to see loan words used here, when a transliteration into Spanish could be so delightful.

Well, in Spain, they didn't miss the boat.

Perritos calientes. ¡Perfecto! What a great name.

You can see the heavy hand of the Spanish Royal Academy here. Gotta keep the Language pure. Can't be letting any foreign words in. Especially not Ingles.

Someone should clue the Academy in. There's what—maybe 40 million Spanish speakers in Spain. There's at least 350 million in Latin America, and that's not counting Miami. Latinos are all so busy trying to communicate with the English-speaking world that they'll bend their language any way that works. Don't believe me? Just check out the auto wreckers' yards near Nuevo Laredo. The ones with the signs saying Yonke (pronounced "JON-keh"). No, on the left side of the ocean, the Spanish Royal Academy is irrelevant.

Perritos calientes indeed. Taste just like hot dogs.

Fodor's Spain 2007

—§—

When I was a kid, I used to cut school and hop the Lackawanna Railroad for the 30-mile ride into New York City. Through a number of such trips, I developed modest street smarts; for example, keeping a $10 bill in my shoe so that if I were rolled or otherwise ran out of money, I could manage the fare back home.

Six years ago, after 40 years of corporate travel, Jean and I rented an apartment in Paris for a two-week vacation. Not without a little pride, I considered myself to be a seasoned world traveler, overlooking that I had usually been met by a host and whisked here and there without having to give a thought to finding my way or personal security.

So I was unprepared and vulnerable when, climbing the stairs out of the Barbès Rochechouarte Metro station, I was jostled by a man while his accomplice abruptly stopped in front of me, kneeling down to tie his shoe. Annoyed at the rudeness of Parisians, it wasn't until I reached the top of the stairs that I realized that my pocket had been picked.

Having left my brains in my Sunday pants, I was carrying everything of value in a single wallet: cash, credit and debit cards, California Driver's License and my passport. Une désastre!

Pickpocket "photographing" his "wife." C'mon! No woman would pose dressed like that.

When I told the police inspector that the theft had occurred at the Barbès Rochechouarte Metro station, she rolled her eyes and said, "Ooh la la! Barbès Rochechouarte! Of course! All our robberies occur there." When I repeated my tale to the U. S. Consulate officer, she said, "Oh yeah! Barbès Rochechouarte. Everybody gets robbed there."

It occurred to me that if everybody knew about the thieves at the Barbès Rochechouarte Metro station, why the hell wasn't the place saturated with cops. The only patrols I ever saw were in Les Halles; trios of cops strolling aimlessly, sucking on cigarettes and cokes. (But then, it isn't good for one's serenity to question the priorities of the French Civil Services. That way lies madness.)

One week later, carrying two new wallets, a temporary passport, a new Visa card and €100 carefully distributed in different pockets, I was getting off the metro, again at Barbès Rochechouarte, when a man stopped suddenly in front of me, while from the left, I felt a hand go into my pocket. Furious, I grabbed the hand and yelled at the top of my lungs, "Pickpocket! Pickpocket!" (Actually, I tried to use a sort of French accent: "Pique Poquette! Picque Poquette!")

All of the bystanders immediately turned their backs. (Ya gotta love the French.) The thief pulled his hand out of my grip and sped off, this time at least without profit. I was so proud to have foiled him that I strutted for weeks. Ain' no pickpocket gonna mess wit da man!

—§—

Travel-savvy, Jean and I arrived at the airport in Madrid yesterday, where I decided immediately to master the subway system rather than take a taxi to our hotel. I bought a Madrid Metro ticket good for ten fares from a machine, fumbling with my bag and wallet and change before getting everything back into my pockets.

I wound my way through the subways of Madrid flawlessly, arriving after three transfers at a station within one block of our hotel. I slept for a couple of hours, then I got up and reached into my pocket. No wallet!

Impossible! We checked all our pockets, all our baggage. No wallet!

I was enraged. Hadn't I learned how to handle myself in Paris? I'd been in Madrid for less than an hour, and some creep made his way undetected into my pocket. He was so smooth that I didn't notice the theft for several hours.

Pickpockets work the crowds at Puerta del Sol. Note the Metro sign.

On reflection, I figure the thief saw me fumbling at the ticket machine, observed me putting my wallet into my (supposedly secure) left front pocket, and got it during the crush at the train door.

It could have been worse. Well I had learned the lesson about distributing valuables about my person. The pickpocket got cash and a couple of bank cards. We immediately cancelled the cards. Meanwhile, we had carefully preserved more cash and other cards, so that we wouldn't be in a crunch if something like this happened.

Compared with the trauma in Paris, this incident was more of an annoyance than anything else. And I learned a little more about how to maintain security while traveling. Like never flash your wallet in a train station.

—§—

"Men should carry their wallets in the front pocket..."

Fodor's Spain 2007

We like to travel at this time of year because 1) May is the hottest and dustiest month in San Miguel, 2) the weather is pretty nice in much of the rest of the world, and 3) we can avoid the summertime crush of vacationers.

In the past, I've booked flights and hotels over the internet. At one time, you could find better deals that way, plus you could play a lot of "what if" games without annoying your travel agent. Lately I've had second thoughts about this. For example, whenever I build an itinerary, I get a gnawing feeling I'm a greenhorn in a professional poker game. Am I getting a good deal? Have I found a hotel I'll really like? Is there a simpler route or better flight times?

A while back I needed to change a flight I had booked through Expedia. Expedia is difficult to reach via telephone, so I called the airline instead. Whoops! Airlines can't make changes if you bought your tickets through Expedia. Why? Well, you're actually buying your seats from Expedia, not from the airline. So it is they who have to request any changes. Good luck trying to get them on the phone.

My friend Judy mentioned that she always books her trips through Malinda Vértiz, a travel agent who has been in the business for many years and who has done a great deal of traveling herself; in other words, a pro.

"Sure, Malinda charges you a $25 fee for booking your flight, " says Judy, "but it's worth it in terms of convenience and helping to make good decisions, and besides, you have a person to call if problems" come up.

Well, all right then. So for the first time ever, I used an agent for pleasure travel.

I wish I'd done this years ago. Malinda booked the same Mexico City-Madrid flight I would have, but she found a feeder flight from Léon that I couldn't find, with pricing that saved me money over the cost of taking the wretched four-hour bus to Mexico City or paying hundreds of dollars for a shuttle van. So, even paying her fee, the trip cost less, and she cut out hours of transit and hassle.

But that's just the beginning. She made itinerary and hotel recommendations I never would have found myself, greatly enhancing our trip. I can't say enough nice things about her. If you live in San Miguel de Allende, you'll really do yourself a favor if you enlist Malinda's aid in planning and booking your trip. Check it out.

Viajes Vértiz S. A. de C. V.
Hidalgo #1-A Centro
San Miguel de Allende
GTO, México 37700

415-152-1856 (Voice)
415-152-1695 (Voice)
415-152-0499 (Fax)
(Dial prefix 011-52 in the USA.)

info@viajesvertiz.com

I'll be posting regularly while we're traveling.

Raf on the other hand, has an ernest, nerdy look. You just know that this guy really understands alternators, even dreams about them. You're in good hands with Rafles.

The sign below clearly was lettered either by the proprietor or his 12-year-old daughter. He's a shoe repairman. We SSL (Spanish as a Second Language) people may have some difficulty interpreting his sign. Is on a Spanish word? What does reparaci mean?

Ran out of room on the first line. Had to break the word. Syllabification? What's that?

The sign reminds me of the old cartoon...

I notice that beauty salons often incorporate unflattering images of clients.

I'm certain that Abril's clients don't want to look like the woman in her sign.

And what is this unisex deal?

I understand that cosmetologists like the idea of doubling their potential market. Up north, men have patronized beauty salons for years, although I have always felt uncomfortable in them. But it's hard to imagine some macho caballero strutting into one of these places.

Laura's Beauty Salon offers "modern cuts," one of which the female figure presumably is modeling. Her hair has been formed into a handle, sort of like a coffee mug, I guess to provide the boyfriend with a convenient grip.

This electrical supply place has a mascot made out of... electricity. He looks a little devilish; appropriate for a country where electric company customers often install diablitos on their power meters. (Diablitos are tiny magnets that slow the meter down, so consumption readings will be lower.)

The mascot probably was inspired by the American character, Reddy Kilowatt. Reddy has a more wholesome appearance, don't you think? Doesn't have such a sinister edge.

I'm accustomed to professionals of the healing arts presenting themselves in a conservative, sober way. Not so, Dr. Verduzco.

He entices clients with a "happy tooth" figure, seated on a comfy chair, faced with a tool no more intimidating than a dental mirror. "Sure. Come on in! It won't hurt." Reminds me of the old "Painless Dentist" advertisements.

Finally we come to a sign promoting one of those split personality businesses you find all over Mexico.

Is it a hotel? Is it a car wash? How are the sheets washed? How are the cars dried? How do people come up with concepts like this?

Once, a clerk in a small store handed me a package of aspirins that he had pulled off the shelf from between some cans of motor oil and a pile of industrial-grade brassieres. I was bemused until I realized that I can effectively do the same thing at any Wal-Mart.

Jean and I quit touring the United States and sold our motorhome when we discovered that any one place looked pretty much like the next. The franchising of America has brought us the dull predictability of an Arby's at every offramp. The way I see it, if you're gonna put a sign between me and the scenery, at least make it unique.

But the other day, it jumped out at me. Someone had decorated it. A burning candle had been set out on a purple tissue, tissue the color of mourning.

Liborso Garcia was only 57 years old when he died. I imagine his passing was a blow to his family, he being in the prime of life and probably essential to the well-being of his family. They built this niche for him

I think about my parents every day. I like how the Garcias think about theirs.

I haven't heard that the Road Runner has entered the public domain. And I can't imagine Warner Brothers licensing him at a price this chain could afford.

(At the risk of condescending to expatriate readers, I'll point out that the name of the store is pronounced "beep beep.")

—§—

In Capitola on Monterey Bay in California, a funky vegetarian restaurant operated for some years under the name, McDharma's. Once alerted, McDonalds Corporation's lawyers crushed McDharma's with lawsuits. McDharma's lost and changed their name. I can see McDonalds' CEO wiping the nervous sweat off his brow: "Boy, we sure dodged a bullet with that McDharma's thing."

I bet he doesn't know about the latest threat to the McDonalds hegemony:

Yes, it's McNopal's, right down to the golden arches. (If any McDonalds executives are reading this, I want a finder's fee after you collect.)

Actually, I think McNopal's is less of a threat than McDharma's was. There's something fundamentally wrong with McNopal's concept. I just can't get hooked on the idea of a grilled cactus pad on a bun. McDonalds Corporation probably can let this one slide, if you ask me.

I'm thinking that if you see a lot of copyright violations, you may be in a country where maintaining your human rights is a little sketchy. I mean, if multinational corporations find the local justice system inadequate for protecting their intellectual property, what do you think your chances are?

Bip Bip.

Images like this really reach their target market.

The one below targets Mexicans, apparently successfully, because you see pigs in pots everywhere. I found this one in the Yucatán.

Frankly, it doesn't do anything for me. Yes, this image succeeds in coveying the message, "Carnitas sold here." But it doesn't stimulate my appetite, at least not directly.

It's almost as if the cartoon is a familiar joke: a smiling pig enjoying the pot. With dainty eyelashes, waving "hello." The Mexican equivalent of "Eat at Joe's and Get Gas."

(Guy could use a copywriter. "Quality and Price." Not a lot of zip there.)

Anthropomorphic food isn't just a Mexican thing. The French, when they're not eating cheese, have a thing for happy pork. And check out this image from an American chain of barbecue joints.

The pig in the pot theme crops up here in San Miguel, too.

This sign is on the door of a van. Valentín Alazañez may not even have a storefront. Here he's advertising home delivery. Same old pig in a pot, although this one doesn't look quite as happy about it.

To further whet your appetite, he offers chicharrones—crispy fried pig skin—what used to be marketed in the states as "pork rinds." (As if skinning a pig was like peeling an orange.) They're more than just a snack here. Street vendors sell single-serving plastic bags of them with sliced onions and peppers and spicy tomato sauce dumped on top. Chicharrones are also used in soups and stews.

His other featured item, cuero fresco, is another matter. Cuero fresco is fresh pork skin. You buy it if you want to make your own chicharrones. What's the advantage? Well, my friend Patty says fresh skin comes with fat attached, so you get lard as well as chicharrones. Great, if you're looking for lard.

Over in Delores Hidalgo is my favorite carnitas joint—Vicente.

At least his sign doesn't illustrate pigs being boiled alive. These fellas are singing to the accompaniment of a muchacho playing his guitar. Vicente trades on a little gratuitous patriotism, what with the red, white and green serapes and sombrero. His ad is no more appetite-inducing than the others, but at least it doesn't push raw pig skin.

The singers' expressions almost look angry, leaving me with an uneasy feeling. That is, until the smell of carnitas hits me. The savory odor of well-done pork and fresh corn tortillas is Vicente's best advertisement.

Maybe I need to re-think this.

As it happens, the problem, now that it has materialized, isn't electric shock. It's flames. Apparently a manufacturing defect caused a few to catch fire, forcing the manufacturer to recall 180,000 of them. The company spokeswoman's remarks are rich: "The fire would have been just under your buttocks."

What has happened, as I pointed out in my previous post, is that a simple device has become overcomplicated.

God only knows what's in one of these things. The controls alone require some sort of manual to decipher. Let's see. Stop. I got that one. Whatever it's doing, some time or another, you're gonna want it to stop. Water pressure: that could get interesting. Warm seat, deoderizer: we can figure those out.

But what does "standby" mean? Causes one to ponder, doesn't it?

The pink button apparently is used when ladies wish to elevate themselves on a gentle cloud of mist. The blue button is, of course, only for use by males who are members of the Omega Gamma fraternity.

Toilets have come a long way since the 16th century.

Or have they? No moving parts, no clogging, no overflow, no replacing flapper valves, no fires, no shocks, no warning labels: just a few minutes of solitude and relief. Maybe we need to re-think all this.

The Cano family sits for a formal portrait.

His elegant four-bedroom 2,400 square foot home cost about $25,000 U. S., land and construction. Note the roll-up doors on the corner—just in case Berta decides to generate a little cash with a tiendita (little store).

Lupe's house in Capilla de Milpillas.
In those days, I needed suspenders to hold up my jeans.

Most Norteamericano retirees would not feel at home in Capilla de Milpillas. Few if any gringos live there, so fluency in Spanish and love of real Mexican culture unrelieved by cappuccino and hamburger joints would be essential. Too bad, 'cause you can't beat the cost of living there.

That's why so many expatriate Americans relocate to San Miguel. Here you get the same year round gentle climate, the challenge of living in another culture and learning another language, but you get to do it with thousands of people just like yourselves.

Some people snippily refer to San Miguel as "Mexico Lite." Well, OK. I admit it's nice to have neighbors who speak my native language. But I bet that here, it's just as hard to deal with Telmex or CFE (the power company) as it is in Gomez Palacio.

Moreover, San Miguel is a beautiful city, with preserved colonial architecture and a vibrant art community. Its popularity has driven up prices, so it's not the low-cost-of-living haven it once was. Many who come here would want one of the more centrally-located homes. These cost maybe $300,000 and up, up, up.

But all is not lost. This home, which belongs to my friend Pete, cost considerably less.

Milagro, the wonder dog, deters riffraff entering the premises.

Pete's two-bedroom, two-bath home is located in a subdivision called La Luciernega, about two miles from the city center. This development of all-new homes is completely sold out; the majority of owners are people form Mexico City and other conurbations looking for vacation homes, although some are being held unoccupied for investment.

Pete demonstrates his kitchen skills with a bottle of Be-Lite.

Pete says a neighbor bought a home here not long ago for $75,000, so current values have not yet reached six figures. Tough to find a home anywhere for so little money, much less one that is within walking distance of the new Gigante supermarket, the MM Multiplex, Office Max and McDonalds; a home that's a $2 taxi or a 40¢ bus ride from the Jardín.

Milagro, taking a break from guard duty in Pete's garden. Silly dog.

Owning his house free and clear, Pete's living expenses could be amply covered by Social Security retirement benefits, with money left over for exploring Mexico.

So despite rising prices, it still can be done—retiring in San Miguel on Social Security. And what's amazing is that it can be done in a place that is repeatedly ranked among the top ten retirement cities in North America, by magazines like Forbes. Beats the hell out of a double-wide in Altus, Arkansas or a third-floor walk-up in Hackensack, NJ.

A bullfighter puts his masculinity on the line.

Mexican men are courtly and polite, generous and romantic. They comport themselves with transparent pride. They are shown respect by their women. But they do not necessarily wear the pants in the family.

Young couples who can't afford their own homes (and there are many such) often live with the wife's mother. Young husbands wind up being answerable to their mothers- and fathers-in-law. I know guys in this situation: there's nothing macho about them. Some of them actually whine. Girly men.

The women I saw in the villages of the Yucatan, Campeche, the Huasteca, submitted to no one. Many were heads of their households, the family decision-makers, ellas que cortan el bacalao (she who cuts the cod).

There's a childlike pretense about the swagger of Mexican men—of those who try to look macho, anyway.

Struttin' for the ladies.

They don't quite seem to bring it off.

At first glance, you see a lot of hyper-masculinity. Men appear to be fully in charge. But it's all just bad acting, wishful thinking, a fantasy.

The robust form, the broad, noble brow, and majestic looks...

Walter Scott, The Talisman

—§—

Every child in San Miguel knows this man.



He sells paletas—popsicles.

I don't know about you, but at first glance, his mobile establishment doesn't look too promising. The exterior of his icebox looks pretty grimy. It's cracking and chipping, little crevices for harboring germs. The Bacardi box isn't helping his chldren's-treat-vendor image. What's the water jug for?

And that nose wheel! A restauranteur that doesn't maintain his facilities, what does that say about the quality of his offerings?

But we have learned that in Mexico, things are not always what they seem. After all, we're not looking at some cookie-cutter franchise outlet operated by a bored teenager. Here we have a business owner who directly serves his customers. His personal reputation is at stake. Besides, as we know, many Mexican vehicle owners seem to hold appearances as unimportant, putting money only into essentials. In this case, essentials would be paletas.

Paletas are to American popsicles as Chuck Berry is to Pat Boone. Paletas contain no preservatives, no artificial colors nor flavorings like their northern cousins. This man's paletas are not even mass-produced. His family takes ripe fruit, whirls it in a blender with a little water, adds some sugar and freezes the resulting liquid in rectangular pallets with a single stick thrust into the middle of each. Usually, chopped fruit is added to the mix at the last minute, so you get tasty little chunks as you eat your treat.

The flavors are great, too, and way more varied than the supermarket selection: lime, cantaloupe, strawberry, papaya, watermelon, pineapple, and coconut. Milk-based paletas include piña colada, pecan and guava. If you've tried all these and your are looking for something really different, try arroz, frozen from a sweetened liquid made with cooked rice to which are added cinnamon and raisins. Avoiding sugar? There's pepino con chile: cucumber with lime juice and chile powder. It's extraordinarily refreshing and thirst-quenching.

The photograph above was taken some time ago. The paleta man has since cleaned and repainted his icebox and replaced the front wheel. His enterprise looks much more inviting now. He's been selling cold treats for decades and must therefore depend on repeat business, so I'm certain that his wares are wholesome. So certain in fact that I occasionally treat myself to one.

Photo credit: Jean Wood

But it's still every man for himself when it comes to which pastel to use. Somehow, it all seems harmonious, though.

San Miguel regulates color choices in its centro histórico too. The rule here is earth tones: browns, terra cottas, mustards. The house below has complied, although they've taken some liberties with their door.



These colors define San Miguel and meet approval by visitors. The architectural board insists the city center look authentically colonial. The only problem with their interpretation is that in colonial times, the city was white.

Outside the colonial portion of the city, the gloves come off.



You can paint in whatever way you're inspired.



That's any way you're inspired.

Nearby Delores Hidalgo allows any colors you want, Red is nice.

Photo credit: Paul Latoures

Unlike suburbia, there's color everywhere you look in Mexico.



It's a country where hot pink is a neutral.

Officer Tovar, in her "one-size fits-most" hat.

As the Mayor pointed out in his address to those assembled, our cops by and large are free of corruption. Times have changed. Today we have a professional police department bent on serving the public; not a band of government-sanctioned extortionists.

The cadets exude determination to be good cops. They haven't become disillusioned and I hope they don't.



Everytime I become jaded about our police, I run across a picture of some Eastern European cop, and I'm reminded to be grateful for the ones we have.

—§—

The city seems to have good funding this year. Nor did the outgoing administration steal everything that wasn't nailed down, so there was money for all kinds of police goodies. We got some new pickup trucks, a couple of new motorcycles and a couple of new patrol cars.



"Hand up... to request your right of way." I think this is intended to assist pedestrians, who presently are treated as fare game (Oops. That's fair game) by many drivers. Could this be a little police humor?

We got lots of new walkie-talkies, without which no traficante can properly function.



We got spiffy new bicycles, important in our congested streets.



But do you think they'd let those enthusiastic young officers ride them away? Nooo. They might scratch them or something. Better to load them up in one of the new pickups and take them back to HQ. With an officer in the bed to keep them from rattling around. Safety first.



Traficantes can be serious, too. More women are joining the police, and their presence seems to temper all of the officers. I'm finding both men and women to be more competent and helpful, and I read that experience shows they are pretty much immune to the lure of corruption, and serve as examples to the men.

Finally the celebration was over. Time to go back to work.



OK. Refreshments first. Then back to work.

If that's too tame, there's tequila:

That covers the drinks. There's much, much more. You got your toothbrushes, deodorant, dog collars, rice, watches, chewing gum, and diapers. It goes on and on. You could stock your entire house with Chivas stuff. And I'm sure there's fans who do.

I tried the Chivas Cola. It tasted like—Jolt.