The Reason for the Season

Taking a cue from D, allow me to say that Christmas time is upon us again. This year, I don’t wanna be a selfish asshole and so thought of doing something charitable for a fellow human being for a change.

Here’s my grand plan. I want to get all the local celebrities together in accomplishing a worthwhile cause. That’s right, everyone who’s had (rightfully or otherwise) their 15 minutes of fame to be together in a recording studio. Dino Guevarra. Kim de los Santos. All the current Star Struck competitors and the show’s various alumni and alumnae. All the current Star Circle competitors and its various alumni and alumnae as well. Mystika. Madame Auring. Angelito Nayan. Angelo dela Cruz. FPJ. Gen. Garcia. Asia Agcaoili. The cast of Mulawin.

Just about everyone who’s been the topic of countless lunch breaks, wakes, beauty parlor sessions, and GMA cabinet meetings.

All of them would be gathered to cut a charity record ala Band Aid and its most recent and equally useless reincarnation, Band Aid 20.

And what worthwhile fund raising cause would necessitate such an outpouring of love and support under my orchestration?

I wanna raise funds for someone’s medical operation.

For whom?

Jasmine Trias.

Yup, I want that fucking orchid surgically removed from her right ear because it’s beginning to annoy me.

Testis

That’s right. I admit it. I have a Friendster account. I barely check up on it now because I have pathetically few friends. I won’t say how many because it’ll only depress the hell out of me.

Tang ina, even my 12-year old niece is kicking my ass in this regard. I’ve done the math and for every 12.8 friends she has, I have only one. Ah, the .8 friend – at least my friends are whole. These fractional friends turn out to be backstabbers so be always wary of them.

That being said, I had to access my Friendster recently because my dear old buddy Charles invited me to be his friend. I felt more sorry for him because he only has three friends – me included. Being the nice fucker that I am, I thought of writing a poignant tribute to him by making him the following testimonial – his one and only thus far:

"Whenever I think of Charles, I think of the words "true friend." He was wearing a shirt which had "true friend" printed on it when I met him. Other than that, I fucking hate him."

I’ve only written two other testimonials which are equally as heartfelt and mushy as the one above.

Here’s the one I wrote for my dear friend Sandy. She’s the one who turned me into the blogging universe. I bought her a stick of peppermint gum to thank her for this.

"try to form a mental image: it's the early eighties and sandy has an outfit on directly ripped-off from cyndi lauper's "girls just wanna have fun" video. me (with my rather fashionable flock of seagulls hairdo) and her are in choo-choo junction in greenhills. a posse of jeff kutash wanna-be breakdancers pass our table and one of them sings out loud, "the more you live...the more you suck..." sandy, the true friend that she is, stands up and and taps the guy on the shoulder. metallic gigolo guy goes, "wha?" sandy just rips away electric boogaloos' left dangling earring! then we both hightail it out of choo-choo junction singing, "and i ran, i ran so far away!" ha-ha, that's sandy for you..she'll go be-yatch on anyone's ass...sniff, sniff...(tear falling, voice cracking) for a friend..."

And here’s the last of my testimonials to Mart. I’m also the first one to give him such a tribute but then again, I still haven’t returned his GTA Vice City PS2 game.

"the only thing i can say about mart is that he's a REAL person. he's a real person in the sense that he's not a kickass terminator android sent from the future into our present (w/c is the "past" of those evil machines who are the rulers of the future world) to kill the mother of the future leader of the rebellion of the humans. get it? *sigh* hello! so that the mother will not give birth to the future leader?!"

Do I know my friends or what?

So now I’m back home again.

I couldn’t sleep my first three nights here because I miss my apartment in Barcelona. Hell, I miss Barcelona.

My last night there, I took a break from my packing and had dinner with Neera and Cleveland at Els Quatre Gats. Its name is Catalan for “the four cats” and the numerical reference is for the four Barcelonese modernistas who opened it in 1897. Picasso and other artists and writers used to frequent it a lot but not anymore because, um, they’re all dead.

It didn’t surprise me anymore that the maitre d’ as well as three or four waiters were all Pinoys. If you ever find yourself missing talking Filipino in Barcelona, go to any of the popular and top end restaurants and you’ll see familiar faces there.

Neera was also flying out of Barcelona on the same day I am. She was going home to London to celebrate Deewali with her family.

It was a great dinner because the food and dessert were delicious. But more than these and the beautiful setting, we three had such a fun time when I started with my Pope jokes.

So in my last night in Barcelona, we laughed out so loud that the other tables were looking our way. But we didn’t give a shit…

Pope Joke No. 1

The Pope was visiting New York City because a rich Italian-American was donating a hundred million dollars to the Vatican.

After the Pope’s private jet landed, he waited for his limo so he could go to the ceremony which he was already running a bit late for.

“I’m sorry your Holiness,” an official said. “The limo driver called in sick and we’re trying to look for a replacement.”

The Pope thought that since he knew how, he could just drive the limo himself.

He sat down in the driver’s seat and took the limo away much to the official’s surprise.

As he knew he was really running late, the Pope drove quite fast and was weaving in and out of traffic.

A motorcycle cop saw the Pope’s limo overspeeding and stopped him.

He taps the driver side window and the Pope brings it down.

The cop recognizes him and just mutters, “Can you wait for just a minute sir?”

He then talks to his chief on his radio.

“Hey chief, what’s our protocol on handing out speeding tickets to VIPs?”

“It depends,” the chief says. “You have to consider how high the person goes up. Why? Have you got a VIP?”

“Yup,” the cop says, “I’ve definitely got me a VIP.”

“Well, how high that this guy go up?” asks the chief.

“I don’t know…but his driver’s the Pope!"

Pope Joke No. 2

The Pope is walking around the streets of New York and sees a kid eating a huge amount of chocolates.

“Young man, don’t you know eating so much candy is bad for you?” the Pope asks the kid with a smile.

“Fuck you!” the kid says.

The Pope is taken aback at first and then started to say, “Do you know who I am?”

The kid shakes his head.

“I am the vicar of Christ. The spiritual leader of more than a billion Catholics. The representative of God himself on this Earth. No, no, no, young man…Fuck you!”

November Novembered

I went to the Teatre-Museu Dali yesterday in Figeres with Shrivanam and Gajanan. Figeres is not that far from Barcelona - it´s just about 80 kilometers away - but the fucking train we took, the so-called Catalan Express, moved as slow as Keanu Reeves would think at an elementary school spelling bee and so it took more than a hour and a half to get there. This sleepy Spanish city is the birth place of Salvador Dali - in my book one of the greatest artists who have ever lived and probably the weirdest mofo at that - and the Dali museum celebrate some choice pieces of his life´s work.

I´m a little pissed with myself that it was only yesterday when I found the time to visit the Dali museum, even more so that it was Shrivanam who had to ask me to go with him and Gajanan to Figeres. That´s right, Shrivanam. He probably wouldn´t know what art is even if it crept out of his rava masala dosa and bit him in the pashchAta. This sudden and miraculous interest in Dali and Figeres was borne out of Shrivanam´s desire to squeeze in as much as quality time as he can doing touristy stuff before he goes home to India this week (his visa´s also up and he´s fucking devasted to leave Spain and all its luxurious First World amenities denied him in his country like, you know, a washing machine that he just has to plug in and push some buttons to work - instead of the one he has back home which he has to have sex with) and figured that we could go to Figeres first and then onward to the resort town of Cadaques, his preferred destination.

It´s EUR9 to get in and Gajanan was hesitant to come in because he´s not pretentious and pa-feeling artsy fartsy like Shrivanam. However, the day was as cold as a spinster´s nipple and as Gajanan would then have to wait for us outside the museum, he decided EUR9 wasn´t too steep a price to pay for the warmth the insides of the museum afforded.

Shrivanam was fascinated with this Cadillac Dali turned into an art piece. He had me take his picture standing next to it. I told both of them the amazing fact that this car was supposed to have been owned by Al Capone but they didn´t really give a rat´s ass. I guess knowing about 1930s gangsters and Prohibition would be too much to expect from my friends from the subcontinent.

I first got to know of Dali when I was in elementary looking through art books in my school´s library. I was fascinated by the works of the Renaissance masters and thought that everything produced in the classical style was the end all and be all of art. And then I saw Dali´s painting "The Temptation of St. Anthony." Damn, I thought, the theme is also religious but this work of art was unlike anything else I´ve ever seen. What the hell was this Dali guy on? And can I have some of it? (although the "The Temptation of Saint Anthony isn´t in the Dali museum in Figeres)

The first impressive painting I saw was this portrait that Dali made of his wife Gala. Well, he did about a billion paintings of her and this one´s the famous portrait of Gala with her right boobie hanging out of her dress. The technical aspects of the painting are incredible. It´s drawn to detail and so realistic that I found myself craving for a baby bottle full of Nido while looking at it. Dali and Gala met when she was with her Russian poet husband and they visited Dali in Cadaques. Dali made ahas to Gala and the poor Russian poet found himself without a wife but with more material on bitterness and deceit than he could shake a stick at for his art.

I was even more impressed with these paintings Dali made which, when looked at a certain fashion and position, would seem to be three-dimensional. He used two nearly identical paintings and stuck mirrors between these. When I stared with both eyes open at that point where the two angled mirrors are epoxyed together, it´s like magic - I see Dali tickling Gala´s foot while painting her portrait. Every detail is jumping out like the bullet-time effect from The Matrix. Shrivanam tried looking at the paintings too but he bitched that he couldn´t see what the hell I was all worked up for. You know why you couldn´t see shit, Shrivanam? It´s because you´re humorless and witless. You wouldn´t know what artistic sensitivity was if it crawled out of your kamatara and sprinkled itself over your pav baji.

As impressed as I was with all the art work found on the first two floors, I found the exhibit "The Secret Life of Salvador Dali" at the third-floor more unforgettable. All of the pieces there are scribblings done in black ink on paper done when Dali was just, I think, goofing off. Like when he was on the phone ordering chicken wings from Domino´s and he was put on hold. What he could do? Why, create detailed drawings of unicorns and other imaginary creatures prancing about. I usually pick my left toe nail when faced with the same situation. There was one piece where Dali wrote "September Septembered" but I forget now what the drawing was. For some reason, I just found that phrase so noteworthy that I couldn´t get it out of my head. I did a Google search on it but couldn´t find anything which relates it to Dali (or anything about the actual phrase for that matter).

I think that out of all of the museums I´ve been to here in Spain, the Dali museum would have to be my favorite. Damn, I wish I could have gone earlier so I could have come back a second or even a third time. You know, when I´d be with people who´d actually enjoy being there and be utterly fascinated by everything Dali. Because, shit, Shrivanam only liked that one piece of jewelry designed by Dali and made with diamonds in the shape of a beating heart. Yup, Shrivanam was utterly hypnotized by this - imagine that, moving jewelry! What will these clever Spaniards dream up next? Circumnavigate the Earth with those structures that magically float on water? Gajanan begged us to go back to Barcelona because he felt really cold in the twelve degree late afternoon weather.

"Please...this would cause some problems...if I stay here any longer," Gajanan pleaded with us.

I remember we were walking to the train station when I seemed to be hearing castanets magically following us. I wondered who would be dancing the flamenco outside in this attrocious weather and I asked Gajanan if he could see a crowd watching people dancing playing with castanets.

"What castanets?" he asked. And I explained it to him what they are.

"Oh, no castanets...those are just my two testicles shivering in the cold autumn air."

Just kidding.

Gajanan didn´t actually say that.

He said, "cold November air."

I´m coming home.

My visa´s almost expired and the company lawyer said that I have submit my work permit to the Spanish Consulate back in Manila for my working visa. Apparently, working visas can only be issued by the Spanish consulates/embassies located in the applicant´s home country.

I am fucking happy. At the same time, well...

I got back to the apartment around midnight yesterday after stuffing my face full of Basquian tapas (another Filipina waitress at the tapas place called Txapela - she gave me free beer). I turned on the TV and "Castaway" was on. I caught it right at that scene where Tom Hanks was on his raft with his makeshift sail and he was about to encounter this huge wave which previously fucked up his previous attempt to get off the island. His sail deployed at the perfect moment, his raft goes over the wave and he´s delirious with happiness. He´s laughing and celebrating because, finally, he´s on his way back home.

Then, Tom Hanks sees the island that´s been another home for five years. The reality hits him that he´s saying goodbye to this place which, for good and bad, has sheltered him and kept him alive. He is sad.

I think I feel that way about Spain now (although technically it´s not an island but a peninsula - allow me some license to wax philosophically). I am sad to leave but absolutely happy to be going home.

Actually, I shouldn´t be so goddamn emo about it because I should be coming back to Barcelona in about two weeks with my working visa. It´s just that I think my boss back in Manila needs me more there and it feels like, for me personally, that being here is more of an indulgence than actual necessity. We´ll see. I´m still trying to figure things out myself. I love being in Spain but I also realize that the only times I´ve been really happy here was when I was being a tourist and not doing the stuff that I was actually sent here to do - you know, that work thingy.

Vamos a ver. ¿Vale?

EUR355

Shrivanam wants to kill himself over EUR355.

He was in Frankfurt, Germany over the three-day weekend visiting another Indian who´s working on a different project for our company´s office there (why am I not surprised that two Indians were picked for the Frankfurt project?). Shrivanam invited me to come with with him but spending three days in Frankfurt is, honestly, two and three quarter days too many to see all the sights it had to offer. I had to change planes there on my to Barcelona last August and had two hours to kill. I went out of Frankfurt Airport and walked around a bit. I thought I was so lucky to be on my way to Barcelona.

Shrivanam was booked on the 10:30 pm flight last Monday and scheduled to touch down in Barcelona at 11:30 pm. The thing is, the airline´s ticketing system fucked up and overbooked passengers on his flight and so he was offered to either move his flight the following day at 10:30 am or get on his originally scheduled flight. If he picked the former, the airline would put him up at a five-star hotel for the night plus give him EUR300 for his troubles but he´ll have to be absent for work onTuesday. Shrivanam chose the latter as he was anxious to report back to the office the following day being a good and faithful employee.

I absolutely love what happened next. After he made his decision, the airline´s computer system crashed and his flight got delayed for two hours. So, he managed to arrive in Barcelona at the ungodly hour of 3:00 am. The subways aren´t still running this early and so he had to get in line for a taxi for 45 minutes in the rain and the fare cost him EUR20.

Last Tuesday, he got to work late at 10:45 am.

The both of us had to go to another building and were walking together. He just kept talking about the EUR300 he said no to. How it could have squared off his expenses for his trip to Frankfurt plus some more left over to buy a jacket (Philippines - 2, India - 0). Or he could have used it to buy a digital camera because he was so impressed with mine. He´s only got this crappy Kodak film camera which he has to manually wind forward to take another picture. I remember when he showed it to me and said what model it was.

"That´s the Kodak something, something."

"Hmmm..." I said while examining it like a medtech would a bloody piece of feces in a beaker.

"It´s not the Kodak something, something, something with a larger viewfinder and which is fully automatic." Shrivanam added.

Like I give a flying fuck.

We walked in silence but I would see him shaking his head now and again with a sad look in his eyes.

Since Tuesday, Shrivanam hasn´t been going with Gajanan and me to lunch. He said he was trying to save enough money so he´d feel a little better about the EUR300 and the taxi fare for EUR20.

Last night while walking home, Shrivanam and I passed by this Sony store and saw that one model of the Cybershot cameras was on sale for EUR185. He hit his forehead with his flat palm and gave out a sound which I believe only he and the people from his village back home in India are physically able to emit.

I asked him what the matter was. He said that he gave our colleague from Singapore who´s returning to Barcelona next week EUR220 to buy him a camera there.

What´s the big deal I said. Maybe your camera´s better because it cost more.

"No, no, no...that Sony camera is 4 megapixels and uses rechargeable lithium batteries. The camera he bought for me is only 3 megapixels, looks bigger, and uses regular batteries."

I tried telling him to just forget about it and try not to think about it too much. He responded by saying that he couldn´t just forget about EUR300, EUR20, and EUR35 (the difference between his camera and the Sony Cybershot on sale) and in his usual way he made it appear that he was right in feeling this way and I was wrong for trying to make him feel otherwise.

Well, I´ve never been happier to be wrong my whole life and, you know what, I would have been more than willing to pay EUR355 to see Shrivanam this miserable.

Bilbo

Sunday morning in San Sebastian and the impossible happened. I didn´t think that mornings in San Sebastian could ever get any colder than yesterday but it actually did. I could see my breath coming out through the nose and mouth. Dude, it´s not even winter yet.

The four of us rushed to the bus station from our meeting place at Consitution Plaza. We found out after getting there about the clocks being turned an hour back and so got tickets to the Bilbao bus leaving at ten in the morning.

Agatha and I were talking when she took out a cigarette. She went to one of the bus drivers for a light. I asked her how she knew that he smoked and had a light.

"Well, it´s in the nature to of their job to be in one spot for hours on end without much to do and so smoking´s the only thing they´re left with." she said.

"Plus he´s Spanish," I said, "At our office in Barcelona there is no such thing as a no smoking area. The employees bring their ashtrays to work for heaven´s sake. Have you ever tried quitting?"

"Yes but when I had to take my exams I picked it up again."

"How´d you do?"

"I got perfect grades," she said with a big smile.

"It´s the cigarettes I tell you." I commented.

"Yes...and what I put in them."

We looked at each other and smiled as only two people who understood would.

The views on the bus ride to Bilbao were beautiful. The countryside in this part of the country was greener as it receives relatively more rain. I was staring at this girl who looked like Gina Gershon and she looked my way when she noticed me. I had to do a quick roll up of my eyeballs to make it look like that she was only a part of my field of vision for a nanosecond and not the full minute that I actually spent on her. She started giving me glances just to probably check if that stupid Asian guy with the rolling eyeballs would try to start anything funny with her.

At the Bilbao bus station, these Chinese girls asked me to take their picture. They were about seven. Cleveland talked to them in Chinese and found out that they´re Taiwanese exchange students who are living with families in Pamplona. It seems that I´ve we met all kinds of exchange students in this trip with the notable exception of Filipinos. It must be incredible to be so young and then be exposed to living in Europe and learning a culture so totally different from yours. Why can´t there be the same active exchange student program for Filipino college students to study in Spain?

The whole area surrounding the Bilbao Guggenheim Museo was full of contruction projects. There is an urban renewal plan currently ongoing in Bilbao which started with the opening of the Guggenheim in 1997 at a cost of USD100 million. If you´ve never seen pictures of the Bilbao Guggenheim, words can´t adequately explain the rhyme or reason for Frank Gehry´s design. It looks very different from the one in New York with the inverted cake design by the great Frank Lloyd Wright but at the same time you know they share something indescribable - like twins separated at birth and growing up thousands of miles apart.

I couldn´t help but touch the titanium plates which made up the structure. Yup, they´re a little thicker than I expected as I gave it a soft knock and a dull thud was produced.

The line to get in was very long. Agatha lost heart and said that she wasn´t going inside the Guggenheim. She doesn´t really like art and feels the money could be much better spent on other things. She just decided to walk around the city and wait for us to be done with our visit . We estimated that we´ll spent around one hour in line and three hours going around. We said we´ll meet four hours later - at five in the afternoon - near Scooby Doo. This is the giant chia pet in the shape of a dog which sits at attention infront of the musuem.

The three of us - Neera, Cleveland, and myself, got in after an hour of waiting in line. We were all disappointed to find out that the second floor was closed off temporarily and, as a result, the ticket would only be for EUR7. The first floor contains the museum´s most impressvie collection of modern art - works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and James Rosenquist. Neera being young and kooky totally disregarded the museum´s strict policy of not allowing visitors to take photos of the artwork. She managed to take a picture of a painting each by Warhol and Rosenquist, and was taking a video of another Rosenquist when the museum guides finally got to her. She said an oversincere apology which was too fake to be real.

I love this artwork of a house by Lichtenstein. From a far and looking at it headon, it appears to be a gigantic cutout of a two-dimensional house. As you approach, the solid lines seem to move and when you shift to the right it´ll slowly reveal itself to be a three-dimensional piece. That is, it took a three-dimensional design to give you the illusion of two-dimensionality.

There is another room at the first floor which had a number of tall and thin vertical pillars showing scrolling texts - yup, just like the ones you see in Jollibbee advertising pancit palabok. The message on each pillar is different but each one is so personal that we´d only dare say this to a lover: I LICK YOU...I SMELL YOU ON MY CLOTHES...I LOVE IT WHEN YOU TOUCH ME THERE...

The exhibition on the third floor was by this sculptor but we weren´t too interested enough in sculptures to linger there. Neera was goofing off and accidentally bumped into one of the stands with a sculpture on top and it moved a bit. I don´t think an apology no matter how oversincere would get her off the hook if a museum piece on exhibit at the Guggenheim fell crashing down and broke off into three other pieces - hey, wouldn´t that mean more art for the museum to display?

We got out of the Guggenheim ten minutes before we saw Agatha walking towards Scooby Doo. It rained while we were inside and the weather got a lot chillier. It was time for Cleveland and I to say good-bye to Neera and Agatha. They were on their way to Vitoria to spend the night there while we were going to take a Bilbao bus back to Barcelona.

We were all standing near Scooby Doo and it was a little sad for all of us to part. We all promised to keep in touch and Agatha extended an invite to see Madrid as Cleveland and I have never been there.

"Let´s say good-bye the Spanish way, shall we? Otherwise, it wouldn´t feel right." Agatha said.

And so Cleveland and I gave Neera and Agatha double besos like old friends do.

Left on our own in Bilbao, we had time to kill before our long bus ride and so decided to have a really good Basque dinner after last night´s disappointment. We looked long and hard for the best restaurant the city could offer and it looks like we found it.

It´s along Calle Del Perro in Bilbao´s Casco Viejo. The name of the restaurant has since escaped me but I had eaten the best salad of my life there. It´s a seafood salad with lettuce topped by octopus and lobster bits and shellfish on the side. When I go on dates from now on, I´d specifically order a salad so I can go, "You know where I had the best salad of my life? It was at this quaint restaurant in Bilbao´s old quarter..."

We also got callos, morros (caldareta using only bits of a cow´s head), and squid - all of these were just damn perfect. Well, not quite kasi alang patis.

We were the last ones in the restaurant and the waiter was busy cleaning up for the day. He asked me how the meal was and I said that it was "perfecto" and made that thing with my thumb and forefinger and kissy lips to say that it was delicious. He smiled and seemed to appreciate this Asian´s appraisal that he gave us complimentary afterdinner schnapps which, after the whole bottle of wine we finished, seemed a little excessive. But how can you say no to free booze right?

Salud. Here´s to the perfect day spent in Bilbao, Spain.

Txou-Txou

San Sebastian is just like my last girlfriend - beautiful but really cold. It´s located way up there in the northeast of Spain and almost kisses France´s snooty ass. My Singaporean colleague, Cleveland (ah, the Chinese with their penchant for American names which Americans themselves wouldn´t name their children), and I were seated next to each other in a doubledecker bus for the seven hour night trip from Barcelona.

I don´t sleep at all during night trips and this time was no exception. I had my cheap radio on which I bought at FNAC (cheap at EUR12 - fucking earphones lasted only a week) for most of the time. I remember that we were in a city near Pamplona when I chanced upon ABBA´s "The Winner Takes It All" being played by radio station KISS "efe eme." The DJ referred to the song as "The Winner CHEATS It All." I was outraged. Here´s a goddamn professional who´s supposed to know the correct titles of the songs he plays because, you know, it´s his job. I guess he figured that it´s three in the morning, he´s playing records for a radio station in the heart of Basque country, and there are probably no English speakers listening not drunk enough or awake to know the difference. Well, this English speaker´s calling on you asshole! Shape up! Don´t let me catch you slacking off again you lazy turd.

The bus pulled into San Sebastian at six thirty in the morning. Now, here´s proof positive on how extensive the Pinoy diaspora has progressed: Cleveland and I were having coffee at the bus station cafe (the only place open and warm enough at that time of the day) when two Pinays walked in. The cafe was packed as our bus wasn´t the only one which pulled in and it was crowded with pasty white faces speaking Basque and Spanish - tell me, what are the chances that there would be three Pinoys at the same bus station cafe in San Sebastian, Spain at six thirty in the morning? A hundred percent apparently.

The first thing we wanted to do was to find accomodations for tonight at the Casco Viejo which is the old part of the city. Cleveland tried booking on-line and via telephone a day before our trip but all the hostels he managed to contact were fully booked. Neera texted us and said that the hostel she and Agatha were staying in was also full for Saturday night. We must have tried ringing the doors of ten pension houses but no one would take us in. I tried asking "¿Tiene una habitaccion para noche?" but was rejected twice. Being a tad superstitious, I changed my question to, "¿Estas cumpleto?" No dice either. Our guess was these fuckers were holding out for a bigger group who would stay for more than one night. We finally got lucky when this guy who looked like Jean Reno said that, although the hostel he was working for was fully booked, he had an apartment room we can have for EUR50. Sweet. We said we´d take it without even wanting to check it out.

Our room for the night reminded me of Van Gogh´s famous painting of his room in Arles, France. It also made me want to cut my ear off. It had no windows and ventilation was virtually non-existent. The bathroom and toilet were outside and we were sharing these with two other rooms on the first floor. Our amenities were the Sharp televison which looked like it was bought when they were celebrating the return of democracy in Spain after Franco´s death in 1975 and a small electric fan. We had a lot of hangers though. The aparador was crazy full of these - there were even the fancy ones for suit jackets. Oh, a previous guest also left the August 2004 issue of Italian Vogue behind.

So now our focus was on taking in the sights of beautiful San Sebastian. You could take in a good view of the city and the Playa de Concha by climbing up Mount Urgell. There´s a statue of a standing Jesus at the top where he´s apparently holding up a toothpick - well, he did have a last supper, right? (Cleveland says it´s a lightning rod) On the way up the mountain, we met two American exchange students, Blaire and Erin. They´re both from separate campuses of the University of California and are living with families in Cordoba. I found it interesting when they said that the Spanish down south was a little different from the one we´re used to up north. There, they eat some of the letters when they speak. The big joke among the Americans is that they say "mas o menos" (more or less) like "ma o meno." Erin said that the southern Spaniards seem to be a tad too happy that the Spanish they speak is pretty hard to understand.

They got to san Sebastian the previous night from Bilbao and were heading off to Pamplona this day. Blaire said that San Sebastian is pretty much a one day city and everything could be seen in that short time. I asked about Bilbao and how long the bus ride was and it was only one hour. Cleveland and I decided to go to Bilbao the following day, Sunday, to see the Guggenheim Museum. The bus fare was only for EUR8. Blaire recommended this tapas (pintxos in Basque) place in San Sebastian called Juantxo. Juantxo turned out to be the bomb! It´s famous for its gigantic tortilla de bocadillos (omellete sandwiches) and these were just more than perfect for our brunch. I also had what turned out to be the best calamares I´ve had so far in Spain, nay, the whole world. Our bill came around to only EUR5! The beautiful blonde señorita behind the counter had to ask what we got as the billing system they have works on the honor system. I´m sure we didn´t leave one or two items out of our bill. Well, not on purpose.

Cleveland and I spent the day walking the whole stretch of the beach called Playa de Concha. It´s named after a conch shell because it curves between two distant points. I remember that it was around three thirty in the afternoon when I felt ballsy enough to take off my jacket and sweatshirt off and just walk around with my shortsleeves on. Thirty minutes later the cold wind blowing from the Atlantic made sure that I had everything back on again. As beautiful as the beach was, I´ll have to say that the view of the bridge spanning the River Urumea managed to take away my breath even more. Crossing one of the bridges, I felt like I was in Prague, Czechoslovakia because of the cold and the architecture of the surrounding buildings. (slight technicality: I´ve never been to Czechoslovakia and so can´t say for sure why I can make the above comparison) There´s a tourist train which goes around San Sebastian but it proceeds at a snail´s pace and it looks like it comes from a carnival. Even Colin Farrell riding this train without a shirt on would pretty much look like a dork. I just noted that the words "Txou-Txou" were written on the first car which I guess is the Basque equivalent for "choo-choo." The Basque language has a lot of the letters Z, X, and J in its words which makes every word I see spelled out look Greek to me.

We met Neera and Agatha in Constitution Plaza at nine thirty in the evening. Constitution Plaza looks a lot like St. Mark´s Square in Venice, Italy (another slight technicality here as I´ve never been to Italy) but only smaller. Cleveland said that they used to have bullfights in Constitution Plaza and that was the reason why the structures closing its four sides were filled with doors for rooms where people could stay in to view the action.

Agatha´s pretty cute. She´s petite with a cleft chin and gorgeous long brown curly hair. She is one-half French and lived for a long time in Brussells, Belgium but is now studying with Neera at a university in London.

We decided to all go to dinner but both girls left it up to us to make the decision where. Well, our choice turned out to be a disaster. It started out okay. I could see the restaurant was practically full and its atmosphere convinced everyone that it was family run business where Basque recipes were handed down from generation to generation. I said that it looks like it maybe a front for the Spanish mafia as it reminded me of the restaurant where Michael Corleone kills the police chief and Solloso the Turk in "The Godfather." Of course I added that the Spanish mafia could only exist in my fertile imagination and that the good folks in the restaurant were in no way connected to a criminal syndicate. I said these things out loud so the woman who got our orders would hear me. She by the way bore a striking resemblance to Margaret Thatcher.

The food was terrible. Neera said that her vegetable salad she was the worst she´s ever had (being Indian, she´s also a vegetarian but much stricter than Gajanan and Shrivanam as she doesn´t even eat chicken and fish. The first Indian I see who eats pork, I swear, I´m gonna kiss). Agatha´s and Cleveland´s paella tasted funky while the Basque cheese she got for dessert came out as a a slice of something which tasted suspiciously like cheddar cheese. Well, we picked this restaurant and felt a little responsible for the disaster.

The only enjoyment Agatha got out of it was seeing this guy at the table bext to us who looked like this other guy she really likes back in London.

"He looks like Colin Firth then," Neera said looking at the dreamboat near us.

"I guess so," Agatha added, "but my guy´s eyes are bluer."

Sigh. Looks like Cleveland and I turned into chopped liver at that point.

At around midnight, we parted ways while agreeing to meet at Constitution Plaza at nine thirty the following day so we could go to the bus station together for our trip to Bilbao. They´ve also had, ma o meno, experienced everything San Sebastian had to offer and so actually thought of going to Bilbao too. We were all too tired to go out and try the bars at Casco Viejo. I was barely awake after having no sleep the previous night and was actually too happy to stagger back to our little apartment and all the humble comforts it could offer. This day went pretty well, the crappy dinner notwithstanding, and it was only getting better - one of my life´s wishes would come true tomorrow when we go to Bilbao and see the Guggenheim.

Ignorance is Bliss

Wow. The promise of an exciting three-day weekend in San Sebastian certainly delivered. Neera´s friend Agatha's really hot. The four of us went to Bilbao to visit the Guggenheim last Sunday. Details would have to wait however as I´m a little busy with work. I just have enough time to tell you about another Indian guy working on the project whom I´ll call Gajanan (one with elephant face - I´m not kidding. Look it up).

Gajanan doesn´t actually work for our company but rather for this software developer which is a subcontractor. He´s based in southern India and, unlike Shrivanam, is a little shy and lacks his self-confidence. It´s only his second time abroad and you can tell that he wouldn´t even think twice about going home right now because he doesn´t like Spain very much.

He´s made no effort to make his life a little comfortable here. He doesn´t know a word of Spanish and actually doesn´t want to learn. Gajanan doesn´t talk to the locals unless it´s absolutely necessary - like if one of them´s gone mental and Gajanan´s held hostage at gun point - maybe then, just maybe, you´ll hear him interact with the local for a poignant, "Please dear sir, do not kill me."

Being the nice guy that I am, I haven´t been going out to lunch with the locals because I usually go with the Indians. The only thing that pisses me off is that Gajanan and Shrivanam are vegetarians. Well, they´re selective vegetarians - they´ll eat chicken and fish but not pork and beef. Both would lock heads together over a single menu and go through every item on the menu of the day to ask if this or that has pork or beef in it. The process takes a lot longer because they have to ask the English translation of each fucking item. Of course this absolutely pisses off the Spanish waiters and you should see the look of contempt and hatred they get but, god bless these two, they´re clueless to know what the "hijo de puta look" looks like. Sigh. Lunch is always such a big production number - when the time and effort put into ordering is equal to that of the Thursday Group's preparation for the Saturday edition of That´s Entertainment.

The point is Gajanan is the most clueless person I´ve ever known. He´s absolutely good with what he does for a living but other than that, well, he´s fucking Forrest Gump.

Anyways, here´s my Gajanan story. During the midnight of Saturday (or Sunday morning I guess), the clocks here in Europe were changed to one hour earlier on account of Daylight Savings Time. The four of us, Neera and Agatha and myself and my friend, didn´t know this and so were rushing to the bus station in San Sebastian to make the 10 am bus to Bilbao. We were pissed because we were late and the next bus would leave at eleven. Well we found out from the ticket office that we got to the bus station at half past nine and that the 10 am bus hadn´t even left yet - thank you DST! Agatha had this look of horror on her face when she discovered that she actually woke up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 am! "It´s against everything I believe in," she said mirthfully in that lovely British accent.

At lunch today, it was Gajanan and me only at our favorite Chinese restaurant as Shrivanam decided to go back to the apartment for lunch (cheapass!). We were talking about our respective three-day weekends - mine spent in San Sebastian and Bilbao and his which was spent at the office. He said that he went to work yesterday at 9:00 am and left around 8:00 pm. Poor guy.

Casually, I said that he must have known that the clocks were changed Sunday.

"What?"

"Daylight Savings Time. Clocks were set an hour behind." I said.

"Oh, so that´s why."

"That´s why what?" I asked.

"That´s why I was the first one to come in this morning and alone for a long time. "

"What time did you come in?" I asked, starting to laugh.

"The usual which is nine o' clock."

"Did you know that you got to the office actually at eight o`clock?"

"Well, I thought that people would be late coming in because of the three-day weekend."

"So, you´ve been walking around and living your life one hour ahead of every one in Europe for two days?" I asked.

"Yes," he said and went back to his pollo con salsa picante.

Can´t argue with bliss, can you?