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Spain

 

MONDAY, JUNE 16: 6:05PM: Panic sets in when I shut computer off about 4:20PM, dinner cooking, already 99% packed, but no shower. RUSH out of shower (finishing apple sauce and salad from a hurried dinner to clear out the refrigerator, having frozen the ONE tray of milk and BAGGED it this time) at 4:32 and the phone rings "We're on our way." DOUBLE panic: dress and down to mail (and the car is THERE, and I poke my head in and berate Fred for not calling me sooner), and check my mail (NONE!). Grab bags and down to car at 4:50 EXACT. Slow traffic-jammed Van Wyck, long way around, to airport at 5:50. SHORT Lufthansa line, but at LEAST I get aisle NEXT to person at window---maybe get them to switch? Bag, unlocked, checked through to Barcelona. Shoes off, belt NOT off, keys and even PEN into separate basket. THEN at 6:04 onto DEPARTURE line, longest of all. But it moves FAST, get through at 6:20, taking (ah, HERE!) pen out and shoes off. Others get FILM cartridges checked individually. Fred pees. NO window, board at 8, having done puzzles nicely, with earplugs against screamng, running children. At 8:14 he announces a 7-hour flight. Off at 8:25, smoothly, watching views over marshes near airport, but it's nearly dark and we're into clouds and she's not about to give me her seat. I say "No dinner" after asking her if she speaks English, having seen her read ONLY German newspapers and magazines, and she OK's it. Then swallow a sleeping pill at 8:50, put on eyeshade---and plane starts bumping, noisily, with scraping sounds, rubbing sounds, vibrations, and turns turns turns. Seatbelt sign's almost always on. Dinner served by 10, kids shouting livelily. Was 1/6 of the way at 70 minutes, or 9:35, and 1/5 of the way at 84 minutes, or 1:24, which is 9:49, which is past. 1/4 is 105 minutes, or 1:45, which is 10:10, coming in five minutes. Lousy flight, bumpy, no sleep, crowded, no windowshades up, then CLOUDS. Long flight, pee twice, lots watching silly movie, put music on only at the end for a diversion, and count hours through my wakefulness, but not really anxious or depressed.

TUESDAY, JUNE 17: Land at 9:26AM, seeing not much except just before landing: farmlands. To gate at 10AM, ANOTHER flight leaves at 10:25. LONG wait in HOT lounge, Fred and I chat. To bus-line 10:56. Off 11:28 for 1:45 flight. Roll 1 (of 8) #11-17 of Alps from Munich-Barcelona flight, and videos til then at 11:53 when CLOUDS cover AND lunch arrives. #26 Nice at 12:21? Big airport to EAST? #27 Marseilles, #28 Arles---No to both, as #29 is Hyeres-Toulon from the detail on the map. 12:31 Hyeres out of sight at 12:34. #31 first of Spain to #35 last. 12:36PM: At first I thought I'd chosen the wrong side of the plane from Munich to Barcelona, because the snow-peaks off to the left didn't seem that high, but then we passd what seemed to be right ABOVE them, and I took many pictures in the variable clouds, and then lots of videos to give the idea of floating above the contrast of river and roads in the valleys, then the villages and towns, then the roads up into the hillsides, the farms, then the hiking trails to the snow-glaciers, then the pink-tinted old glaciers mixed with the pure-white of new-fallen snow. But JUST as the clouds closed in, lunch came with its bit of ham, two bits of cheese, a roll and butter, two smorrebrod, and a lovely chocolate bar, named, appropriately, Lufley. Then the clouds cleared when he said we'd just flown over Milan, and will be going over Nice and Marseilles, and the uplands of the wonderful train-ride came back to memory: Rousillon, the gorges, Utelle, and other places in the hills above Nice. Then an outlying island and wharves which must have been Nice, and then another community which I questioned might be Marseilles, with the two large islands offshore and the point on which we stayed to round for our first-night's restaurant, but then looking at the Lufthansa route-map, it became quite clear that we were passing over the terminal islands of Hyeres, with its distinctive peninsula and off-shore islands, so I could NOT have been Marseilles, from the map, and SURELY not anything anywhere NEAR Arles. But photoes to #30, having taken exactly TWENTY pictures in the last half-hour, and lots of videos, and then we set out across the cloudless, ice-color-foamed breakers in the cold blue waters of the (is it???) Golfe du Lion, the map says, though I never even HEARD of it before, and wait to pick up the coast of Spain around Cadaques and Port-Bou, of Dali-note, where Jean-Jacques and I drove past on our wonderful trip in his Sunbeam. Clouds building up again, sadly, at 12:47, which means we have only about 25 minutes left to fly, and should be hitting Spain any minute. HOW DIFFERENT from the flight last night: into the dark with dimming Connecticut out the one-person-removed window, and she wouldn't even SUGGEST she exchange with me, since it seems that even SHE didn't have dinner, though I might have slept through, because first they hadn't served it, and then they were finished serving it. Certainly I feel QUITE good (aside from forcefully clearing my ears for the descent, hampered by earplugs against the screaming babies, who were mercifully silent during the darkest part of last night), and a boat-wake below seems to announce the immanent coast now at 12:50PM. Assume something? Land 1:11, GOOD. Off 1:21. To baggage (down and up with poor directional signs) to 1:33, toward bus at 1:50. On bus 1:54, all 11(?) of us from that flight, and Pablo has to return in a cab to get more from the next flight, and Carol arrives to find NO ONE at the airport and makes her way to the hotel by taxi. Off at 1:57, to hotel at 2:28, down streets I don't recognize, room 002, in the Catalonia Princessa. Unpack and about to walk at 3:10 but then shit. Back at 6 after GREAT trip: 6PM: Absolutely GLORIOUS walk through Barcelona. Decided NOT to take cameras (or credit cards or ATM card to be stolen, after Pablo's repeated warnings about pickpockets) and when I dropped off my notebook when I took a shit, I FORGOT to pick it up, so I couldn't even WRITE! Looked at the map and wandered toward the "city center," but ended on Comerco, far "to the right," though I saw numberless pleasant outdoor cafes, all with a moderate number of pleasant people enjoying their free time; side streets remarkable for their narrowness and variety of goods offered; and the Old Market del Born, worth the trip for its Caribbean decaying splendor. Then find myself on Colon, with enornous government buildings, huge roadways, and ship-masts in the proximity, and look at that "li'l ol' map" again to find I wandered way off AGAIN. Decide to strike due north on an incredibly narrow street, at which point I began to be impressed with a LARGE number of EXTREMELY handsome boys and young men going about the streets, on business, as tourists, as unknown, uncaring wanderers wonderful to behold. By accident I found myself in front of a tourist office, bought a 1E map that had only marginally clearer markings than the free one (with card, if needed, in case I needed to get a taxi to get back to "the triumphal arch"). When Fred looked at the map, he said "We aren't near ANYTHING," but on the final leg back, when I found myself at the Rambla, knowing I had to make my way practically across the map, it went VERY quickly, includng a visit to the Eglese de St. Philip Neri, enormous and empty compared to the dazzle of the Cathedral, and Sant Pere Mes Baie, which I thought I had to turn FROM, led RIGHT INTO the hotel, so my earlier "turn left, turn left, turn right, turn left, turn right, turn left" wasn't necessary AT ALL. From the Information office I continued straight north to one side of the Cathedral, with mysterious old doors (which turned out ALL, on all three sides) led into the Cloister which, along with the Cathedral, was CLOSED from 1-4:30 for a price of 4E, which DOES let you up onto the terraces [not the tower, which no wonder I could see no one on] and into a few other entries, like the choir and the sacristy, I assume. Watched both the widow in black and the angel in white fold up their chairs and move away when hardly anyone gave them anything. There MIGHT have been some genteel cruising going on at the benches at the foot of the cathedral door, where I "just happened" to sit, blockng everyone's view of the most distant direct shot of the frontal door and tower, unfortunately festooned with garish green fisherman's netting for some restoration process. But when I finally got in at 4:45, it was STUPENDOUS! More than a dozen side chapels resplendent with what seemed to be newly applied goldleaf (or godleaf, as I'd emended), and rather than paintings, all the altar-pictures were CARVED out of wood, mostly in the 16th century by mainly unknown local artists. Even some of the unrestored chapels are brilliant in their dusty decay and glitterless gold, and they had a surprising number (5? 6?) of actual mausoleums and TOMBS of various saints, includng St. Eulalie, the patron of the cathedral, and then there was the CLOISTER, which had ANOTHER dozen chapels, some under repair, some with only a forlorn statue, as of poor St. Joseph, and others turned into shops, which remminds me of the "Capitulary Room," which the Barcelona section from Fielding's guidebook doesn't even mention: a plush hideaway in red velvet and Venetian paintings and even more extraorinary chandeliers than were present in the cathedral and all the chapels. The CHOIR was an extra, though it wasn't at all up to Auch, but the forest of pinnacles rising from the back of each choir stall was a spectacle itself. The place was jammed: people taking pictures, talking, looking down at tourists, actually PRAYING in the number of chapels reserved for that purpose, and I forgot to mention the Crypt and Sacristy as possible areas of further exploration when we're left off there tomorrow at 1PM, just in time for the 4E charge. Took a shower, nice as Fred said, teeth plaqued with two lush chocolates he brought me from somewhere, and got back to add these few words by 6:54, time to go BACK and add from the beginnng to catch up to date. Finish now at 7:15 and close to get ready for 7:30 meeting with the group downstairs----we ARE downstairs----outside our room! 35 peop[le, only NINE men, and there are four Spanish languages: Spanish, Catalan, Basque, and Galician. MANY of the women are catholics from New York, LOTS from Florida, and Arizona, California, and CHILE. Off at 8:15 to walk colorful streets, and Fred remarks about how much time I spend looking UP at the TOPS of buildngs. Along a busy street and wait outside as Pablo goes down to get tables set up. It looks like a cheap dump upstairs, but downstairs it's GOOD and CHARMING. 11:02: Absolutely fucking incredible. Dining at Cullera de Boix, translated by the wild-red-haired waitress bringng down an EXTRAORDINARY tree-root fashioned into a spoon at the end of an absolutely phallic mass of tree roots as ball-sac, stretching up into an intrigueingly curved and shaped phallus at the end of which hovered a SPOON. We sat at three enormous tables, and at first I feared we'd be seated with terrible people, but the last-to-arrive, from California, sat IN on the seat, and Fred sat at the end, and I sat across from him and thankfully Maria, with her husband Doug, sat next to me, and with her Spanish, at least, we were able to find out that the table of 8 or 9 ravishingly beautiful women at the next table WERE celebrating a bachelorette party, and the waiter kept bringing the bottles of red Temperanillo when Fred emptied them, and it seemed that Pablo kept paying for them, and the tapas never ended: salads, and artichoke hearts, and fried squid, and deep-fried olives, which I had to identify for them, and raw salmon, and what-I-thought-was-salt-but-they-insisted-was-parmesan-encrusted ham, and bread charged by the basket, and deep-fried mushrooms, of which the Gargantua of them Fred exchanged from his plate to mine, and we ate, and ate, and the waiters took away the plates which I piled up, and the third bottle of red Temperanillo arrived and was emptied, and finally the cassis, or raspberry, or whatever, sorbet arrived, just in time for me to place my BOWL beneath the bottle-spray from which the waiter was supplying a stream of pure cassis. Lovely, and I'm so drunk that I'm REALLY enjoying it, and Fred's so loose that he finally confesses that what he's so depressed about is that James has written checks on HIS CHECKING ACCOUNT for over $2000, but possibly so that he could continue to support his child, so I could ask Fred "What was more important, your relatinship or a couple thousand dollars," and "do you BELIEVE him when he says he loves his son," and "You HAVE known him for OVER SEVEN years," and then Fred confesses to 15 years, saying he met him in 1988, and he's got to decide what side of the argument he comes down on, NOT like his emphasizing that he CANNOT disappoint his sister ny not spending a vacation with her, which neither he nor she really WANTS, instead of taking advantage of the ship's DEEP discount of over 50% on a balcony apartment for six days in the Caribbean, and I find myself saying, "Now that I KNOW why you're asking (since he arranged the tours with JAMES as the partner, but now he knows he CANNOT take James), I might be able to do a couple of the trips FOR you, possibly the Hawaii cruise, and maybe the Florida, or maybe the New Orleans couple of days, but otherwise I MUST protect MYSELF and do what I want, as well as what he wants, and we FINALLY get the final coffees and we leave about 11PM and the group BLINDLY goes down the street, hoping they KNOW where to turn right, then turn right AGAIN, to get back to the hotel so that I can type this, while Fred detours to the lobby to indulge in his diarrhea while I type this, and he comes back to the room and I finish at 11:16, DYING to get to sleep! But first I have to do teeth, and flip on television for a GREAT animated series on dinosaurs, and then some sports show that's sexy, and finally get to bed at 11:59PM, getting INSTANTLY to sleep.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18: Fred JOLTS me awake by putting on the light at his bedside, and I turn to look and he LEAVES it on, and I look at my watch and it's 7:04AM! Hadn't wakened ONCE to pee at night, and STILL felt as if I were hardly awake. Pee and dress and we're up to breakfast at 7:30, and the place is crowded already. In my dizziness I think I say hello to some people not on our tour. Sit with two other women who chatter away, and Fred recommends the melon, cold and delicious, and even with two cups of chocolate, good and sweet, and rolls and quiche and omelet and cheese and sausages and fruit I STILL feel half awake. Talk of travel and work and back at 8:23 to try AGAIN to catch up with this, feeling that it's QUITE out of order still, out of sync with my notebook. FINALLY catch up with everything in my notebook and all my random memories by 8:40AM, try (and Fred KNOCKS, because when I excused myself from the breakfast table to come up here, I discovered I didn't hve my key, and Fred SAID that the lights stayed on when we left the room, so of course I left MY key in the slot). Get his and so he has to KNOCK to be let in, putting something ELSE in the fridge which he filled last night with his fa-laters, but he gave me four large round chocolates, two of which I ate to stave off hunger last night, and two of which still remain. He moves around and I finish, reminded that last night he asked if he could read---something, and I thought he meant THIS, and I said "You know how to turn it on?" and he meant my Barcelona extract from the FIELDING (remembered the other F-name at breakfast when I talked about indexing it), but said "Thank you for offering to let me read your journal," which in fact he doesn't seem to be keeping this time around, though later he DID keep it. Now 8:43 and GOT to get ready for rest of day! GREAT breakfast selection, though bacon is absolutely UNCOOKED. Fred hogs bathroom until 8:48. Tipuana trees with yellow blossoms. On bus 8:57, jockeying for seats already, Fred sitting at separate window in front of me, which turns out to be GREAT, since Pablo says we keep same seats but move THREE forward on driver's side and three back on other, though I THOUGHT he confused right and left, but he talked as if he han't. #36 tipuana at 9:20. Roll 2: #1 Sagrada Familia---FABULOUS. To 9:48. Park Guell at 10AM, starting #7 park pavilion. Buy Barcelona book 8.1E. Through #22 to 10:55. MORE time at Sagrada Familia, MORE time in Park Guell is my FIRST reaction, but, then, I DID see most of it, and Sagrada Familia should be seen in twenty more years. #23 Museu do Cuidad (Tapies Foundation?) from bus 11:18. #24 Casa Battlo. #25 Miro Park at 11:30, on way to Montjuic. 11:49 off at Montjuic. #27 and 28 port and city. #29 fountain on hilltop at 11:58. "Ten minutes on top? indeed. Back and wait for carol, then "Wiggy" (who turned out to be Milagros) at 12:05, off at Cathedral at 12:22. Inside 12:32, close at 1, #30 and 31 side chapels at 12:42. Pix pix to 1:05, and out to Hotel Colon to SHIT with great relief. Amuse bouche: black caviar and COLD LEMON WEDGE, fabulous. Tuna, GREAT peach and artichoke, and orange and walnut and honey dessert, my veal, and 12E rosé and 1.8E water. 61.43E for GREAT quiet lunch til 2:34 with only one smoker and our group of five women at the END. Seems cooler out after cool lunch. #32 cathedral at 2:39. #33 and 34 Cultural Institute Courtyard. #35 sorta normal street at 3:18, #36 narrow street 3:19. Hotel at 3:22 to recharge! Lie down! Out at 4:07. #37 Sagrada Familia at 4:41. Roll 3: #1 4:45 on line for elevator for 2E. Up about 5:03 and down 5:24, pictures. #11 model at 5:26, 500 foot tower at end. English movie 5:50-6:11. #19 parting shot at 6:40, exhausted. Back 7:10 after GETTING money (120E) on third try. Leave 8:14 to crappy dinner that Fred loves to 9:15, plain shrimp, too soft calamari, too-dry ham, mediocre Rioja for 12E. Sit in park, to Hotel for two rum-cokes for 12E, back at 10:30 and QUICK to bed at 10;42---ice-sated and cool at last. 11:15 Fred back, writing, and I finish ice in my glass.

THURSDAY, JUNE 19: 12:15: UP to pee and take last two 1/4 melitonin to try to sleep. Dream at 3:16: I'm working on an odd index which will be in a tiny box at the bottom of the first page, and I have to work from an author's handwritten list that includes about 20 items written in tiny script on a piece of paper. Maybe 15 names, then a concentrated middle section that contains a list of technical terms like "shift," "left," "right," "center," all on page 1. The manuscript is only about two pages, and everything is rather self-evident, but I have to ask whether my little boxed index will have a title, like "Term definitions," and whether there should be two or three index-entries for IT, like "Term definitions," "Definitions, term," and "Table of term definitions," or "Index of term definitions," or "List of term definitions," and I'm afraid the author's concentration on his OWN terms will make it difficult for me to explain the reasons and logic for MY terms. Wake intermittently after that, wanting to remember the dream for transcription, but finally up at 6:30, with Fred stirring, and think I might shit, but only pee, finishing this at 6:39, feeling much more awake NOW than I did yesterday morning when the light jolted me awake at 7:04AM. Fred's UP, had BAD dream, and is HYPER: singing, talking, putting things on my laptop with "I love you Robert" written on the top. WHAT is up with him. Pack to 7:08, still blessedly easy to close bag, though getting more junky, and find THREE MORE pills in the bag, probably lost ONE evening's worth? Down at 7:15. Such "significances:" IBM 704 computer took my first programs, and 316 was the name and address of a gay bar on East 59th Street long ago. Fred IS Adrian, making a fool of himself with taking rolls, yogurts, and even a SPOON to assuage his need for stuff to nibble on, even though, like Adrian, he might throw most of it away, like "leaving the cheese in the fridge," though how would anyone know it was FREE? Back at 8 and start typing, Fred doing teeth, mine packed away. He leaves for lobby at 8:16, we're due out at 8:20 and away on bus at 8:30, hopefully for a LESS WALKING day. AND not cold (packed jacket away) and not rainy (packed umbrella away). Finish this up to date at 8:17, relieved and MUCH more awake than yesterday morning. Hope I'm acclimated by now. Pee and out at 8:20. On bus 8:26, everybody counting, and leave at 8:37: GREAT tanned body on bike. #22 Columbus tower and Montjuic 8:56. #23 "All About My Mother" climax-cemetery at 9:05. Out of highway A2 traffic jam, NEAR Barcelona, at 9:35. Bofill's "hollow" apartment around 8 courtyards "living together." #24 Montserrat from highway. Start up 10:05 to Montserrat. Bus stops at 10:27. #27 DOWN at 10:33. Pee 10:40 and up to church at 10:45. Virgin shown ONLY 8-10:30 and 12:15-6:30! #26 top funicular at 10:54, having VIDEOED in "no video" church. Line for funicular at 11, on at 11:15, up at 11:20, OUT 11:26 on demand, only scheduled. #30 house and #31 train to St. Jeroni--1 hours. Then on SIDE to San Miguel--50 minutes, and clamber for view, then toward St. JEAN, 20 minutes, but AGAIN take pictures and at 11:54 decide to try for noon funicular down, and it's now 11:59 and I'm waiting for it to leave. Went UP in front and came DOWN in back, waiting, and it goes 12:03:00 exactly to 12:08.48, halfway under 3 minutes; did NOT pack NEW roll of film!! Funicular down is CLOSED when I get in, but guy comes down and says "We're going down at 12;20, and 20 minutes til next up." So if I go DOWN at 12:20 and UP at 12:40, it'll be too LATE, so NO WAY. Get on line for black virgin at 12:18, probably longest of day just after it opens, and into passage beside side altars at 12:30, and to stairs up, marble reliefs, at 12:41, videoing at every stop. In at 12:47, using video. Look out over rapt audience fillng church for choir at 1. Around to entrance at 12:51, getting choice spot in back right next to door, and 32 choir boys file in at 1, after interminable mumbled prayers. Watch until 1:04, videoing, and then out to get into MUSEUM at 1:06, paying 3.5E, when I thought it was 4.5E for seniors, and rush through videoing best stuff, and to cafeteria, pushing in front of kindly British couple who let me in front of them to get my 2.65 mixed sandwich, a triple-decker of ham and cheese, and rush to john for a pee and two cups of dirty-tasting water which is welcome nonetheless. To bus, rushing, at 1:28, not NEARLY the last, and leave at 1:36, agreeing to, but NOT, booing Milagros, last and late for the SECOND time, but obviously she doesn't give a shit. Stop at 3:37 after nice ride past lots of hills, fruit trees, irrigation sprays, and have a beer and a sweet roll and a packet of almonds, joining Fred for his espresso, and back to bus and off at 4:10. Rolling flat, hot countryside that Pablo says is typical. We get told (and I write at the top of the page) that we meet for dinner in the hotel at 8:30, Dionisio is our driver, and tomorrow the bags are out at 8AM, we gather 8:50 and leave at 9, and breakfast starts at 7:30, and we get to Zaragoza at 5:41, due back on bus at 6:40, and into cathedral at 5:49. #34 and 35 of Ebro and cathedral from tower and Mauresque (plateresque) roof at 5:14, after 1.5E elevator ride and walk up stairs. Down at 6:20, 6:36 video camera runs out, and take LOTs of photos in incredible place that's HARDLY a church, but more of a museum. Through #36 taken. Bus not THERE yet, and I video rowers on river, and on bus at 6:46. OTHER stupid women are last on bus, and we leave at 6:51. We're to stay at the NH Sport Hotel. At 7:01 the temperature is 41 degrees Centigrade, which I convert to 106 degrees Fahrenheit. To hotel at 7:09, LONG way for a "20-minute walk back for the light-show at the cathedral", and unpack, the bags having been taken to room 309, right across from the elevator, and at 7:28 I change to roll 4 after taking #37 of my bag-contents on my bed just to finish the roll. Then shower and video two bullfight kills to 8:12, then Fred showers, and there's another bus, and we're down at 8:27 to sit in lounge and wait for main dining room to open to TWO enormous tables for 20 each, as it seemed, and Fred empties the first bottle of red wine with the strange cheese-tomato-pureed meat canolis, not very good, and then too-rare salmon with GREAT crisp lettuce in oil and vinegar, but a second and then a third bottle of red wine comes, and though the OTHER table has bottles of white, I never have any. Fred gets more and more wild, while I talk with Carol about St. Kilda and her trips, but Fred glows before the fatty and the skinny opinionated one, an Aries along with me and Carol, to Fred's Taurus and fatty's Leo, obvious from her hair. Fnally Fred gets his picture taken and EVERYONE conspires to fill his table with empty bottles and more and more pictures are taken, and he and crowd get louder and louder, he insisting "and it's only the third day of the trip," and I've used MORE than half my two hours videotape and am on fourth roll of film, thank goodness I took more than I thought I'd need. I can't stand the fuss downstairs by 10:11, so I just leave while others are negotiating for coffee. Watch TV on Everest and brush teeth completely for the first time in ages, feelling good after the VERY cleansing shower before dinner, and finish brushing teeth at 10:44 and start typing this and finish at 11:08, putting this away and getting to getting to bed even BEFORE Fred gets up from downstairs, obviously to say what a great time he had last night when he groans awake in the morning. At least I'm up to date with this. Bed 11:15. Fred shuts his light off at 11:53, which I thought he'd NEVER do.

FRIDAY, JUNE 20: Hard to go to sleep. Dreams. Up at 5:03, disppointed to remember no details, and shit and pee. Back to bed, hard to get to sleep, and then JOLTED awake at 7:08 when Fred touches my feet in the middle of an EXTRAORDINARY sequence of dreams that included 1) trying to have sex with three extremely long cocks and four WOMEN, 2) an ELABORATE dental procedure I forgot to pay for, 3) familiar rock-hopping to get through a way home, and 4) a coven of female singers, centered around a cabalistic set of performances in GREENLAND. I guess it STARTED with the sex (now I start on it at 7:15AM), when a darkly attractive man assumed I was staying at HIS place for the night, and in the dream I was STONGLY reminded of my disappointment with myself that I didn't accept Dror's invitation to stay overnight, and, based on that, I resigned myself to saying yes, and my discomfort was heightened when shown a picture of three naked women, the middle one of which I thought was "Ava Gardner, who was NEVER shown with bare breasts," but it turned out to be someone else, and the bottom, older, fatter, woman was some incarnation of Shirley(?) [Louise] Anderson(?) [Fletcher] who was Nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Then the photo came to life and some squat sexy Italian man was trying to excite the bottom woman by playing with her flaccid, wrinkled nipples, and I could feel myself getting SLIGHTLY hard at the sight of his extremely long and sexy cock getting harder and longer, and I merely endured myself there until another sexy guy started sucking on his cock and he turned his ass toward me in an obvious request for me to fuck him, which I was not, in this world, about to do. Feeling extremely embarrassed, I was astounded (in retrospect, not in the dream, where it seemed perfectly normal) to be in a dental chair enduring the final phases of an EXTREMELY difficult and complicated dental procedure in the back of my mouth, which was finishing by the dentist, who was vaguely like Dr. Auerbach and a male version of the very attractive Dr. DeMatteo, by a rotary stiff pad on the end of a dental drill smoothing out the flesh on my upper and lower mouth surfaces, which didn't hurt, even felt comforting, though I assumed I was THOROUGHLY deadened, and then he finished with what I felt to be a flat cotton swab to take up the blood and fragments of skin, but I tried to move it around, and finally he let ME take out what turned out to be the end of a long long white string, like a soft dental floss which was unraveling from a spiral of solider material. Then, I was in his office looking at a poster, debating when to tell him that I didn't have the cash in my checking account to pay him then, but I knew he wouldn't mind if I waited to pay him later, and the POSTER was of a number of singers, a VERY old gray-haired woman who had a VERY famous name, who had taught a somewhat younger woman that I knew vaguely, who had taught Barbara Lea, with which fact I impressed people who were gathred at the foot of the poster, admiring the excellence of the coven of singers who'd gathered in GREENLAND to participate in some vaguely occult ceremony-performance. THEN I left the room and saw a VERY short woman, large head in a babushka, rolling in on rollers under VERY pygmy-like feet, and I thought SHE might be Barbara Lea, but of course Barbara wasn't that short. THEN I was outside, going south to my apartment in Manhattan, and came to a VERY familiar wall of stone, broken down in spots where I had to jump across, and ending in puddles with stones just under the surface that I could JUST jump to if only the young guys coming from the other direction would let me have the space to jump and splash a bit withut getting mad at me. Not NEARLY all the odd details, particularly about the singers, but it's now 7:27 and I've GOT to get dressed for breakfast, which Fred wants NOW! Pack very quickly to 7:33, putting bags out and getting down to breakfast. Back up at 8:25 to wash my face with the last TINY bit of soap glued to the top of the sponge: when I looked for soap to wash my face and COULDN'T find any, probably because we used one and Fred packed away the second for his fa-later use, and in desperation I looked to the sponge which may have absorbed some soap from the shower when it was in the "soap-dish position" at the edge of the sink nearest the tub (the tub, of course, had no soap dish, and the knob on the "knob-up" shower-water diverter kept COMING OFF, so that it had to be screwed back on again and again, and ON the sponge was a piece, like a bandaid, that I thought might have been a piece of paper, but when I pried it off, it was obviously the last razor-thin sliver of soap Fred had put on it to dry, so I DID have soap (and it turns out that both their shampoo and their soap is VERY concentrated: only a BIT produces a MOUNTAIN of lather) I took the last plate, and Carol was left without one, but when I went for a fruit bowl and there wan't one there, and Carol asked what I was looking for, she gave me HER unused fruit bowl. I characterized the Chilean woman, Maria, as wandering around with her palms held facing forward, dangling from helpless arms, with a wide-eyed expression of absolute betrayal and loss, pacing back and forth before the breakfast buffet LOOKING for something which was obviously MALICIOUSLY denied her, until someone would ask her what she was looking for, and it would be a few inches from where she stood. Recalled an exchange between her and her exasperated husband, "But how was I to know?" "Because I TOLD you!" Then I said to Fred that I wanted water, and he said he did too, and went to the counter and took ALL the LAST of the water in the bottle, and smiled when I said I wanted water, and he said "No, you just said there was water there." So I had to stand with the empty bottle until the waiter replaced it in my hand, and I at least had the benefit of COLD drinking water. Back to shit again, this time continuous and chocolaty (as opposed to the tiny turds this early morning), and type this to 8:41, time to pack my shoulder bag with my slippers, which I kept on, and my comb, which I kept out of my dop kit, and get down by 8:50 to wait for the bus. Bus goes at 9, but pauses to return to hotel for someone, and then on to Pamplona. FLOWERS ALL OVER. Windmills on hilltop, HOT sun in windows. Spain uses 26% NUCLEAR energy, high in Europe with Finland. EVERYTHING: 1) Bush's taxes favoring rich, 2) Spain asking BUSH to support asking Britain's Gibraltar to be returned to Spain, 3) 6 of 10 people living in Spanish houses cannot SAVE, and construction keeps costs high for low value---ALL money going into few RICH (profit-takers') pockets. We need a WORLDWIDE workers' (SLAVE'S) revolution. 4) Berlusconi, and other top rulers demand IMMUNITY from punishment BEFORE they give up their power. 5) US Supreme Court will become CRIMINALLY CONSERVATIVE---publish a web-site book "SLAVES" SAYING all this---the new, good, Marx/Lenin revolution. OLEANDER is the name of the poisonous flower (which is all over Spain) I've been trying to think of for three days! Fred says he LIKES GCT/OAT's Ireland tour! Stop in (Old Navarre) Olite Palace at 10:49. "Civil Gothic" architecture. Into castle (for 1.8E) at 10:54. #1 restoration drawings at 11:03. Palace to 11:22, not very interesting interior, with kids SCREAMING at each other from tower-top and pushing past in narrow hallways. #5 church at 11:27. Nice Parador. #6 castle towers at 11:50, after CLOSED St. Peter's. Tried to walk AROUND town, but can't because upper road ends without issue at the top of a cliff above the road. 1.5E for galleries under the plaza from 12-12:06, not terribly interesting, but a video "to prove I was there." 12:12: Fred said "Olite was a wonderful stop," but I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. I went to the underground "Gallerias de la Plaza," and the piped-in music was too dim to be picked up by my video, which tried to give SOME idea of what it was like without wasting a picture. Tried to go around and get a top view of the castle, but the road ended in a dead end which made me AGAIN pass the small family group (grandma, mama, and two kids) who looked at me quizzically as I passed them on the way from St. Peter's down to the main square again. Didn't bother to take a picture of the nicely restored Parador, because it was very like many others: old wooden-vaulted ceilings, upholstered side chairs like royal fittings, old paintings and quasi-tapestries on the walls, tiles on the floors, and a nice bathroom marred by a worker pounding on a tile to disintegrate it in order to replace it. Some of our group sat in the restaurant which prominently displayed the sign: "For registered guests only." Um-hm. Back to bus and type to 12:16. Bus goes at 12:17. Puntillera kills bull with puntilla (short sword) if torero fails three times to kill bull, seen on TV yesterday. ALL towns are full of tourist books. Pamplona stop at 1:14, after driving in BIG circles for 24 minutes: "Pamplona is the city of deja vu," says Pablo wittily: did he have to use that line before? He ALWAYS thanks Dionisio at the end of the day, TRYING to bring him back into our minds for a tip. Off bus at 1:24. #7 bull-run street at 1:31. #8 town hall at 1:43. Great Cafe Iruña on main square at 1:52. Hemingway loved it, good gazpacho, my duck, his asparagus, dry skinny checken, duck confit VERY fatty, but GOOD cuajada with honey and sugar and a LITER of rosé, all for 21.5E. Circle square in heat and back to video Hemingway statue and MISS vidoing the cutie crossing street. On bus 3:27 and bus goes at 3:30 EXACT. 46 degrees = 110F, or 109.4, to be exact. Out of CITY 3:43. #4 between Pamplona and San Sebastian at 4:01. Arrive Hotel Amara Plaza, room 210, at 4:52. Wondeful Attenborough lemur TV special to 5:35. Leave at 5:40, Fred depressed and staying in. I video cathedral at 6PM. To bar at 6:06. Rum coke 5.3E and .5E tip. Wheelchair and baby carriages with parasols. Hippies and bent old ladies. Pretty waiters and tables who say "You forgot your keys," (like Fred lost his sunglasses, bifocal and $350?, at Iruña lunch) and "Thank you very much." Single women and couples and me. I sit for an hour. Old ladies here for 40 years?? Trophy husband, gorgeous in black trunks, jogging with nondescript little woman. Fathers and mothers, mothers and daughters, LOUD groups, swimmers changing clothes. A few male couples sharing a bottle of water, shirtless skinheads with tatooed pale formless bodies. One black man at 7:13. 7:20 awful trio: accordian, membrane-less tambourine and a keyboard flute starts "entertaining." "Senors and senores." Look at beach 7:35-7:38, one topless woman, no attractive guys, and return to hotel at 7:54. Finish shitting and showering at 8:11, pleased. Fred is STILL mmissing his $350 sunglasses, but later Pablo calls Iruña and they say they'll send them on to Oviedo, hoping it's the RIGHT pair. To dinner 8:25, talking a LOT about my trips to Sete Quedas, Angel Falls, Sutherland Falls, and women COMPLEMENT me: "You should WRITE," and up at 9:55 to find my BINOCULARS are now misaligned! Start typing at 10:05, and stop at 10:15 when Fred returns NOT to walk. I walk ALL AROUND URGUEL 10:30-11:45, hot and EXHAUSTED. BUT, saw BIGGEST SHOOTING STAR!!! Bed 12:01.

SATURDAY, JUNE 21: Pee at 6:22, up at 8:15 and breakfast 8:33, HUGE selection and varied, up to brush teeth totally at 9:30 and down at 9:54. Off at 9:56! Stop in JAMMED Bilbao at 11:17. #10 Bilbao street and Fred at 11:34. Old town 11:25-11:40. #11 church AFTER videoing music at 11:54. #12 "old" Web building 11;57. Wait for bus in heat 11:59-12:15, idiot being led by hand to fountains to rinse out bottles. #13 train station from bus at 12:20. NO cameras inside, so I leave stuff and get off bus at 12:28. Temperatures on meters between 36 in the shade and 42 in the sun. Start acoustiguide at 12:55, but have to speed forward when I want to interrupt #1 description to hear about a particular piece. Parts of the same floor aren't connected, hardly ANY directinal arrows, and layout is IMPOSSIBLE to understand, so I get a VERY negative first impression. They say "No reservations for restaurant," but the restaurant makes it clear that was only for the "menu of the day" in the cafeteria, NOT the elegant Berasategui restaurant, obviously the best in Bilbao and possibly in SPAIN. To restaurant 1:45-4PM! Took menu, EXCELLENT food. Leave on bus at 4:58 after taking 3:30 in film and through #21 at end of the "Puppy" by Jeff Koons. To hotel 6:20, sleeping quite a bit of the way with earplugs in to stop AWFUL Spanish screamer on CD. Watch TV to 6:50, Fred goes to MASS! Puzzles to 10PM, feelng lethargic and willing to TREAT myself on MY vacation, having SEEN all I want of city. After Fred comes in, he has "picnic" at TV, and goes down for drink. I take pills and eat the two cheeses he'd left for DAYS, and get into bed at 10:33 after reading travel pages, and Fred RETURNS just as I'm getting into bed at 10:23.

SUNDAY, JUNE 22: Dream 6:48AM: I'd been working at IBM for a short time after a LONG time away (as if I'd gone back to work, say, a year ago), but I'd been away on a series of long vacations and returned to an office that I didn't quite recognize. To add to the "usualness" of the IBM-work dream, it was preceded by a "subway frustration" dream in which I had to get to work, but didn't know the route or the time, but just after 9AM, with some relief, I found myself in walking distance of the office, and then, without transition, I was IN the office looking for my old desk. I found the general area where I was (this might have been based on the huge "Japanese Stock Exchange" photo by some modern artist I saw at the Guggenheim Bilbao yesterday) seated before, but as close as I could locate the location of my old desk---an old beat-up wooden one in rows and columns of similar ones--- I found only a trio of chairs around an empty space as if a small writing group, or judging committee, had taken over the area. No one I recognized was at any adjoining desk, so I went to the "front of the room" which had formerly been occupied by rows of offices of senior members of the department and their secretaries. As in other dreams I looked for familiar managers: a large bald guy whose name I don't remember who moved from programming to computer-department management or maintenance, and only after a few minutes I thought "I bet they'd know Herman Washington." But the offices had been taken down, or rearranged, and where an old secretary had been, at the left end of the rank, I opened the door to find a tiny medical, or dental, office, with three nurses arranged in chairs, their arms folded in anticipation of an emergency, or at least a patient, and I went to the center nurse, apparently in charge, and asked where the secretary was moved to whose office HAD been here. She suspiciously thought I was trying to pull a fast one, and had never worked here before and was possibly trying to steal something, so she followed me into the hallway, saying I should leave or she'd call the office police, and I kept moving away, and when she kept following and ill-advisedly put her hand in front of my face, I grabbed her thin, bony right hand and BIT HARD on her two middle knuckles, not drawing blood but feeling the tendons between the bones crunch, and she cried out in pain and said I was a terrible person, but I got rid of her. But I still couldn't find any people that I remembered, and I was concerned because I NOW had the memory that I'd worked there for two months before, without getting paid, and had put some half-completed work away in storage before I left, and now I had to convince them to pay for the two months' previous work AND find my current work, if only to prove that I HAD worked there recently, and sadly I had no way of working things out, and I knew I'd have a bunch of bills to pay soon, and could only hope that a check from the company would clear the bank quickly so I could pay the bills that were due soon (rather like my current bill/money position at THIS moment). Now 7:01, just a perfect time to take a shower before waking Fred between 7:15 and "7:30 at the latest." Get out at 7:16 and he's up already, watching TV, and I say "You look alert." And he says "Oh, no, I have a sore throat, and I didn't sleep very well so I'm tired----" Sorry I asked. He goes into the shower at 7:20. RUSH to pack my bag, reorganizing and getting fresh underwear and socks and deciding NOT to take umbrella: these must be only LOCAL GRAY skies. Stop typing at 7:34 to pack for bags out at 8AM. Bag out, restart 7:50, Fred hacking, putting in eyedrops, taking bag out. Put bag out and down to again exceptional breakfast 7:55-8:25, saying hello to everyone, cursing the husband who takes the coffee and hot-milk pitchers to HIS table, letting the rest of us cool their heels waiting for him to finish, then asking if "I want milk in my coffee?" when I just want hot chocolate, thank you very much. Return without Fred, dawdling and talking to EVERYONE, and brush teeth quickly and return to typing at 8:29, determined to catch up on the last two days, which I do finally, now at 8:44, and saying that I'm getting TIRED of the trip, maybe following too close on the Swissals trip to let me rest from the exhaustion of seeing something new every day, packing and unpacking, getting along in a language I barely know, avoiding terrible foods that I don't know the names of, putting up with Fred's endless talking with the women that he later says are BORING! I've left out toothbrush and paste, comb, slipper bag, and ready to put on clean socks. Wearing the "NYC Ballet" teeshirt the second day, and the little one who looks like Jane Roberts says "Oh, what's on your teeshirt," without having the nastiness to say, "I saw it yesterday but didn't ask then." But, actually, maybe she didn't SEE it yesterday. Fred's rummaging in the bottles in the fridge to get his stuff out, to put with the hard apple and the double slices of camembert he squeezed into a split roll and put into his pocket with heaven knows what else fa-later. Now stop at 8:47 to finish dressing and get down to bus. Out at 8:50. Chile's husband PAYING BILL at 8:54! Again fuss over seats. Leave 8:57. Off bus at 9:08---CLOUDY! #22 old-town Cathedral at 9:13. #23 church altar (flash) at 9:35. To Hotel Parma at 9:33, and find that San Telmo's opens at 10:30, but the Aquarium at 10. Over to Aquarium at 10:11, 7E. Great oceanarium with rays and turtles and sharks swimming around, and a good tunnel with a glass plate in the FLOOR to get the 3-D effect of the sharks and rays swimmng over and under. Nice tropical fish displays, lots of uninteresting shells downstairs, but lovely huge areas, with plans for a great ARCTIC area. Leave and #24 hippies asleep at 10:32 at exit of Aquarium. To museum at 10:45, free. Painting of altar boy (smiling, with Mass cruets) with man (priest?) behind with closed eyes, open mouth, and upturned head (orgasm?). Leave at 11:36, having shit a TINY bit and tried video and photos of sexy stuff, and TOM in 3-D also, and meet Fred to show him the one, and he points out the other two! #28 bandstand at 11:56, just before getting in bus. Leave 11:57. Basque must TRY to be different: mendebola is WEST? TOTALLY different words and spellings. Pass a house, on cliff, whose SIDE fell off: 1.5 rooms exposed, hanging open to the air, at 1:15. Pass Bilbao and find that museum is LOST in the distance from the highway, mixed with other buildings and not standing out at ALL in the grayness. #29 La Arena Bridge, 800 meters long, at 1:26. Stop at Castro Urdiales for lunch [after BACKING OUT of blocked streets and cops blocking one-way streets so we can exit] at 1:54. Marisqueria Alfredo 2-3:09, GREAT for 42E plus 4E tip. GREAT waiter, and I had been at Meson Marinero, next door, with Florence and Ken. Board a COOL bus at 3:46, with one-liter beer and 7-8 pinchos and one each of Fred's mussels and gambas. GREAT corner table and waiter. Off at 3:48. #31 Laredo Beach at 4:06. To Santander Hotel Chiqui at 4:50, and to room 208 at 5:01 to pee again. #32 from room at 5:05. To lobby at 5:32 to ask about regular tour to Picos de Europa, and woman says she'll check, but later says she has to phone up the office and asks for my room number. Hope she follows through. Fred bitches because there's no air conditioning and no fridge, but it feels cool with the windows open, and hope it will be cool enough tonight to get out my clean khakis and my long-sleeved shirt to use my last CLEAN clothes with FIVE days to go: 16 meals, but who's counting? #33 and 34 from one point at 6:15, and #35 cliffs at 6:20. #37 from farthest point at 7:02, and we fear rain is coming and get back rather fast, tiring quickly, Fred saying his right knee is gone from the trip up Mount Igualdo this morning with the group, hot when the sun finally came out. To room at 7:43 to shit a bit again, beginning to worry me, and shower to 8:05. Finished film roll 4 and took roll 5 through #3 on walk. Unpack and fuss with stuff until 8:36, then sit down to catch up with this at 8:50, ready to dress and get down to meet everyone for dinner in the hotel tonight at 9PM, the EARLIEST they'll seat anyone for dinner! Just as we get down they open the restaurant, and Fred and I sit at a table for four (the only table for two is reserved for Pablo and Dionisio), and Fred says "We'll be taking our chances," and I say "Sure," and the couple who turn out to be Michael and Joan, from near St. Petersburg, Florida, sit with us and we chat for a bit about the Guggenheim, Fred telling them about our dinner (and our lunch at Castro Urdiales) and then I start on the Scientific American article about Chaos Theory and the work of Jackson Pollock, and they listen, and even at the end she said "Well, we really enjoyed the evening, and we learned something, too." I hope they weren't being ironic. We were told we had to order our wine, and I called for a bottle of rosé that Fred agreed to, and it turned out to be fairly good for the lordly price of FIVE euros! I leave a tip of 1E on the plate for a LONG time, but no one takes it, so I take it back, and a bit later the plate is snatched ANGRILY away. We're ready to leave at 10, and Fred says "Are we really going to be the first to leave?" and I say "We are already," and then he asks if I want to go out, and I say that I just want to see how it IS outside, and go out to find the streets and pavements rapidly drying, FEW people on the street, but there's a loud KID screaming in the outside bar, so I cross the street and sit on a wooden bench that's only damp, then move to a concrete seat that's even dryer and farther from the kid, and then people start chattering near where I'm sitting, so I start following the waves in toward shore, where two widely-spaced machines are raking (and probably sifting for lost solids) the sand in wide swathes right at the tide level, and when I get to the strange promontory, I find it being quickly eroded by the incoming tide, so I sit on a concrete bench until my neck is sore watching the tide comng in slowly, wetting and then covering the broad expanse of sand that surrounds the promontory, making it smaller and smaller. A woman passes talking angrily to her man, and then a half hour later passes in the OTHER direction, STILL berating him for something. Others pass and I stare out, but then the strand is GREATLY reduced about 11PM and I decide I've seen ennough, and go back toward the hotel and say hello to one pair of women who seemed not to recognize me, and then Milagros and, I think, her partner: a thin-faced gray-haired woman who seems the epitome of old-mail schoolteacherishness, and she startles me by smiling sexily and saying, quite loudly, "Hi, fella, what're ya doin this evening?" I'm too astounded to answer, thinking possibly she thought I was Fred and that she and he had exchanged such pleasantries before. Into the lobby past the TERRIBLY sad looking little woman from Prospect Park, and THEY smile a greeting to me as I enter. Again accost the clerk who says that the bus company isn't answering, probably because it's Sunday, and tomorrow will probably be too late, but I encourage her to leave a note for the person in the morning to try when the office opens, because just POSSIBLY the office mght open at 8 and the bus leaves for the Picos de Europa at 9AM or later. She says she'll leave the note, but I'm not entirely sure she will. Get to the room and find it dark, expecting that Fred's in bed, but the room is EMPTY, and I put on the lights with my card, remembering that the lower panels, which he said were OPAQUE during the daytime, became TRANSPARENT when it was dark outside and light INSIDE, so they CAN see in. I take my pills, drink water, look askance at my ruffled bangs in the mirror---even I might have trouble recognizing that it's me---and then start typing about the evening, finishing about 11:30PM, preparing to be comfortable in bed with earplugs to shut out the kids STILL shouting right outside our front-and-center windows, and a sheet to warm against the cool breeze---AND the sounds of the practice fireworks that banged in the distance, and once QUITE close and loudly, and sent up flashes of light from the vicinity of the students in the college that's taken over the palace that no one can visit on the promontory. Then shut this off and prepare for bed at 11:30. Bed 11:45, Fred watching Spanish "Sex and the City" while writing in his journal.

MONDAY, JUNE 23: Wake at 5:34AM (eyeshade seems to have worked, light QUITE bright from outside with drape OPEN to allow breeze in) with dream: I'm in college (but as somene in his 30s or 40s) connected with a group that wants to make a name for itself on campus, so we decide to put on plays. A small advertisement (like Village Playwrights) gets us LOTS of volunteers for acting, screenwriting, costumes, stagehands, and even extras, with different people in charge of each group. I think I should get the names of all the people from each leader so that I can write a school-paper article that would appear in the same issue with ads for the production, and I talk to a former editor, who's really rather cute, about the possibility of getting a cut-rate for the ad if the article is also published, taking that duty away from the newspaper staff, but the former editor says HE wouldn't do it that way, nor, probably, would the current editor. Then there's a problem with the writing: a rewriter of a Chekhov short story, the source of our play, wants to describe the play as written by HIM, but with a small group in authority we get him to admit that it IS a rewrite job, and the program should read: Written by Anton Chekhov, Adapted by Whoever Didit. When I'm talking with school authorities in the auditorium, I can hear a chorus singing in the background (and wake with the song "Seeing is Believing" from "Aspects of Love" echoing in my head), and marvel that we've gotten so far already. It looks like it's going to be a great production, and I wake and type this on the john, now about 5:45AM, thinking that the next Village Playwrights meeting is Tuesday, tomorrow, and production ideas may be coming faster than I expected, and the road to production of MY plays might be getting shorter---and I have to remember to give Bill Petersen $30 to repay his payment for the LAST meeting's dues to the Center. And when I glance in the bathroom mirror, I see that my right glass-earpiece has left a hard-to-wash-off STAIN on my right temple, and I have to change the last "left" to "right," otherwise it's REALLY weird! 9:17AM wake with an IBM dream: I'm returning from a trip (again!) and am supposed to talk to the main analyst, John Someone, about a new kind of time-analysis program. He's standing in the middle of a group of programmers who are eating their lunches standing up, and I ask if I can talk to him, so he separates himself from the group and is a full head taller than I am, and I'm surprised I never noticed he was so tall. "You did the jobcard program," he observes, and I ask sommething like "When did you stop using it?" He looks surprised and says "Oh, we're still using it." I say "I thought maybe it would be used for expensive things, like machine time, but not for personnel time." "There was always a problem with people fillng them out." "Yes, I'm embarrassed to say I was one of them. Was I supposed to fill them out for the week I've been back?" He looks at me with the obvious affirmative answer. Then it turns out I have to finish the job by October 15, which I jot down in my little travel notebook, incongrously in my hands at IBM, at which time he's going in to a hospital, Grigson, for some kind of operation, "And then I'll be rehabilitating for a number of months," he says, indicating a strength-recovery program that involves curling small weights to exercise his biceps. I'm curious what the operation is for, but I don't know him well enough to ask, and he doesn't seem about to volunteer the information. Finish a VERY brown-pasty shit, the first in a long time after tiny-hard-turd shits, and leave the bathroom at 9:31AM to finish this at the open window, looking out on a gray rainy day---even though the clouds look like they might be thin between the gray below and the blue sky above. Fred's still asleep. Even though I don't think the weather will last: Pablo said the forecast was for a sunny day, but it's probably just as well we're not going to the mountains on a day that might be so cloudy there's nothing to see. Only a few people wandering the beach, some in what may be blue athletic uniforms, and most walkers on the promenade have umbrellas, though a few are workers with a blue-and-white segmented umbrella, one cleaning off a white car parked across the street (to remove the salt?), and another spraying the small boxed firs around the entrance---since it's obviously not for water, it may be some kind of insect repellent. The "peninsula" of sand looks much larger at this point, the inlet behind it almost gone from this angle. Cars drive in and out of parking places below with windshield wipers going. Last night a series of three areas of light seemed to indicate we were facing more TOWARD the coast than ALONG it, since these lights seemed to be from the next three towns along the coast to the west. No more fireworks this morning, either in sound or light, and only one person, in trunks, is wading in the water, as opposed to the hundreds, maybe even thousands, swimming in the ocean yesterday when we arrived, even though it was cloudy and a bit cool. The tops of distant mountains were obscured even then. Then the PHONE rings, Fred leaps up to get it, and I ask "Did you ask for a wakeup call?" He answers "Not at eight o'clock." "What time do you think it is?" "Ten minutes to eight?" "Look again." "Or is it twenty to ten?" "Yes it is." "How was breakfast; did you eat yet?" "Not yet." "Oh....is it actually raining now?" "Yes, it is." "Oh, what a surprise," and he goes into the bathroom. Dog walkers, car horns, people walking without umbrellas but in ponchos and rainhats, and the day's begun at 9:43, the TV time agreeing to the quarter-minute with my watch for the first time in ages. Check, and actually the TV is only ONE SECOND ahead of my watch---this being more of a COINCIDENCE than anything like accuracy. Breakfast served from 7:30-ELEVEN, and everyone gasps, but we're sure to be there as late as 10:30 ourselves. Nothing to rush into the day FOR. Maybe last calm day of the trip. Now 9:52, Fred still in the shower, so we'll probably CLOSE the breakfast room at 11AM. Have to check the bulletin board for whatever museums Pablo recommended. The Fielding says "Therefore, in bad weather, there's little to do here. Two museums: Fine Arts and Prehistory." Fred's almost out of the bathroom at 9:55. Breakfast 10:07-11:06, not finding the egg until only a swatch of yolk was left in the warmer, next to a cache of gristly greasy bacon. Tried guanabana jam, too sweet and not as tasty as guava; white wine was OK, but not replaced when Fred emptied the bottle; orange's juiciness somewhere between US and Spain's best; Nestle's kid's chocolate bland; the very pale ham seemingly too fatty; amd guests who seemed mainly on crutches or with some debilitating disease that gave them crutches AND a vacant stare while his wife (or nurse) fed him AND the lack of awareness that she had to wipe off a VERY offensive bit of breakfast from his chin. Then out to the promenade to see not much until I'm drawn to the former promontory: now the area of interest is an almost submerged shoal on which the incoming and outgoing waves almost cancel, but interact with gorgeous moiré patterns that reinforce, cancel, parallel, overlap, ignore, interweave like the finest thrown silken cloths. Corderoy patterns of extreme fineness; lines of amazng distinctness; lozenges that vanish again and again as successive waves brush the top of the submerging mesa. Then I see small legged pebbles that turn into inch-long crabs, some of which attack little black slits in the sand that turn into other crabs which wheel about them in combat, some which fall down a decline and disappear by burrowing without fuss into the softer parts of the sand. At last there's a three-inch almost-transparent fish that bends to counter the currents to try to get back into deeper water. Watch until I'm tired---at one point prepared to say "I was hoping you'd come out, Fred," but it turned out NOT to be Fred. Back to hotel at 11:50 to check the board (no more anis candy, and mero isn't very interesting) to find only the gardens and minizoo around the Palace, and the Municipal Museum in the center of town which is only open 10-1 and 5-7:30. Fred has an interesting Olympics coverage program on, and I get finished with this at 12:25, no idea where the rest of the day will go, but probably get out the New Yorkers to read. Read New Yorker til 2. Leave hotel 2:16. Bus 1 to La Magdelena 1E. Then Tren Touristico through peninsula for 1.8E, 2:53-3:07. #4 Royal Palace at 2:48. #5 "Old Man and Sea" ships. #6 Hotel and point 3:06. #7 HUMBOLDT penguin from southern South America 3:15, my Nth penguin? Zoo 3:08-3:38, then walk up hot walk in nice neighborhood to shit in Hotel Real at 4:04, no tasting menu, so it's off our list. Look at map and there MAY be a road down, but ask a man with a girl in his arms and he finally shows us the STAIRWAY that will take us to the Promenade below, just as long as we lock the gate at the bottom. Fred stops in Zacarias 4:50-5 to have a lunch snack and glass of wine, and then we're to Cathedral for the crypt (inadvertently), cloister, and altar 5:20-5:35. #8 Franco's horse's ass at 5:47. To Museo Municipal 5:53-7:05, telling Fred "They had a bunch of mediocre stuff (and one Goya) that they didn't know what to do with, so they came up with this ridiculous narrative and connection of Portrait, Nature, Still Life, Realism, etc. To Zacarias 8:25-10:30, 115E, good. Interesting 9 cheeses and honey; warm chicken breast and leg in vinegar and salad; cold octopus and herring and awful razor clams and oysters and cod that Fred eats most of, while I have most of shrimp and my share of the lobster claw. Our tiny lamb chops tasty, rosé wine good, two bottles of it, and ice cream, flan, and strawberries and whipped cream for dessert. To bus stop at 10:27, #1 just passed. Bus is LOADED with KIDS, cute guys, I take a # picture, and at 10:50 to hotel for videocamera (took only a still camera on the previous walk) and out at 10:55 with ONLY NYS driver's license for identification. Back to hotel at 12:35, barefoot, have shot 17 mnutes of video, sorry there weren't more sexy guys and that there were FEWER young women swinging their bodies around---even KIDS, thinking they're sexy when they're NOT. The fire's still burning outside, crowd still loud, and it's STILL HOT. Fred up to pee and look at fire when I get in, and I wash my face and to bed at 12:45.

TUESDAY, JUNE 24: He set call for 6:45AM! Up at 6:51 when phone rings, wash face, pack, and bag out at 7:26AM. Down to breakfast 7:29, quick food, best is still fresh orange, and back to room at 8:12. Brush teeth and use rubber tip and twixt-brush, leave room at 8:25, and to bus at 8:30 and the bitch took my seat and won't give it up! I debate standing in aisle, but everyone shouts to me to find a seat up front, and Meelyn (Fred says her name is, the gabber) offers to share her front seat with me, so I luck out after all. Off at 8:33, to Altamira at 9:11 and sit in bus until it opens at 9:30, and we're the first group at 9:55, they take 20 every five minutes. Leave bus at 9:37, in to mueum at 9:40, to cave line at 9:52, in and video 9:57-10:01. Leave cave 10:24. #12 life expectancy: 21 years in cave-time, 24 years in Mesolithic, 19 years in Rome, 25 years in 15th Century, 32 years in 18th, 50 years at start of 20th and 80 years at end. 11:06 to toilet after going through all, and did Altimera have ONLY bison and horses? Buy book for 3.5E: it shows ONLY the part they chose. #13 Museum at 11:04. Leave at 11:21. To Santillana del Mar at 11:27. Sobao is butter-rich sqwuare cake, Quesa is cheesecake, and Corbata is "tie" puff pastry. COOL and cloudy! "Heat wave in Southern Spain!" At 11:35 it starts RAINING, and get sobao for .7E and sit to "rain sorta stops" 12:15-12:20, but STILL raining and people are leaving. I'm FIRST back to bus, STILL raining, at 12:38. Leave at 1, having read "Altamira" in the shop and the New Yorker on the bus. 1:33 to San Vincente de la Barquera and stay 1.5 hours, back to bus at 3:15. To La Maruja at 1:55 after looking at practically every other restaurant in the city: either they were closed, or had no "dia" menu, or didn't have what we wanted, or threatened to have other people from the tour. My "special pea" with ham and potatoes and carrots, Fred's paté: anchovy and cheese. His HUGE steak and my milanese of veal so old it was beef, with fries, and his creme caramel and my natijas---and rosé wine, and good complementary Manzanilla sherries to start with, good lunch for 34.5E. Race to the bus, me peeing in the bus station, and board at 3:15 and we LEAVE at 3:15 exactly. RAINY, cloudy, lightning and a TINY bit of sleet against the windshield. Into Oviedo at 4:50, traffic jam, and to Hotel Regente at 5:10 and alphabetical key-card distribution with city maps, and to room 603 at 5:23. Unpack a bit and out at 5:38 to cathedral, dark and NO videos or pictures, with some good altars (high-altar brochure for .7E), then pay 3.5E for Sala Sanctum, two crosses, a silver chest, and an onyx-casket inside an outer room with ten or twelve VERY slender columns of 12th century saints elaborately carved. Then up to the museum with lots of mediocre religious paraphenalia like copes and chalices and monstrances and crucifixes, and paintings, up to 1960, and lots of wooden statues of angels and saints, and a LARGE tanned St. Sebastian, but no pictures again. Leave museum 6:26, still raining lightly. #14 of Oviedo cathedral at 7PM, and #15 somewhat better angle. #17 Botero and Teatro and building at 7:09, under Fred's umbrella, to hotel 7:30 after shooting some modernistic loin-clothed muscular males, and #19 and 20 from window at 7:35. Type, and dress quickly and down for dinner in the sub-basement breakfast room at 7:59, I getting in first to farthest table, which happens to be served first, and Carol asks to join us, and when I make some anti-Nixon statement she says "Thank goodness, I thought I was the only Democrat in the group." She and Fred talk of travel through asparagus soup, good tuna salad, pork chop and soupy mashed potatoes and practically the same canned peas, and a pink pudding for dessert with chocolate dribbles on top. We share a rosé with Carol for 9E, comparatively expensive, and listened to Pablo talking about 8:30 bags out, 8:30 breakfast AFTER another group down here so be prompt, and then bus leaves at 9:30 for the LONGEST driving day, stopping in Lugo for lunch before getting to Santiago de Campostela, at last. Up at 9:25 and stare out window at clearing Picos de Europa beyond the cathedral tower, and lovely hills to the left down the street. Take shirt and pants off and STILL sweat, and finish this at 9:50. I've been counting the last ten days, now down to three, and only nine more meals, only four to worry which FISH I'm going to have, and then HOME. Out of clean clothes, but will wear these shorts and socks for ONE last day on the bus, changing to clean ones for last two days on trip. Won't take a bath tonight because I'll probably be up about 6AM tomorrow after going to bed EARLY tonight to make up for only 6 hours sleep last night. LOUD motorcycles on street through open windows, the only alternative to suffocating in this again-air-conditionless room. Better have better accommodations in Santiago, or the tips won't be very good at all. AND I've GOT to get my proper seat on the bus tomorrow---or ELSE! Now 9:55 and sleep is the ONLY thing I can think of! Oh, yes: last night's celebration and midnight bonfire was to celebrate the SHORTEST NIGHT of the year, WORST for my getting sleep! Finally get to bed 10:13, TIRED.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25: Get to sleep fairly quickly, but then up at 12:55AM, pee, hoping the lights will go out, and they don't. Wake somewhat after 2, and the lights are still on. Wake at 3:30 and the lights are finally off on the cathedral, but there are other lights outside, and the TOWN sends a pink glow into the fog which has settled over the town so that nothing can be seen of any horizon. Up at 5:30 to pee again, depressed with INCESSANT thoughts of the bitch who took my seat yesterday, and how I'm going to get on early, and if she's in my seat going to threaten her, or physically move her, or get Pablo to move her, or just sit in some OTHER desirable seat and let someone ELSE have a problem with her. Keep thinking to do Actualism, and keep not doing it, finally obsessing on Ally McBeal's real name, going through the alphabet, thinking it was some strange polysyllabic nonsensical name, and just before dozing off again (or when waking AFTER dozing off again), I come up with "Callista Flockhart" and doze back off again, cursing the light flowing in the windows, but no sign of dawn as yet at 6:30. Up again needing to pee at 7:27AM, feeling almost as if I'd had enough sleep, and, figuring the telephone is going to ring at 7:30, get up to shower with a shower-handle which simply will not fit, or stay, in a loosely connected, loosely rotating, loosely totally ineffective, "hanger" on the bathroom wall, so that it has to be hand-held, so I don't soap very much and get out quickly, having cleansed myself enough that I'll feel OK putting on dirty shorts and socks for the LAST day before changing for the final two days. Out at 7:42 and Fred's awake enough to ask what time it is, and when I say "7:43," he says the phone will ring in two minutes, and gets up to shower, and the phone rings at 7:48 when I'm doing this, wasting time and energy and thought, looking out at the sort-of-drizzle across the steet, and go to the window to find only the lower stretches of the near-hills on the left visible, the top of a construction derrick to the right dimming as it reaches the top about four stories above us on the sixth floor, and the steets wet and most people in sweaters and jackets, so I guess I'll wear my long-sleeved shirt AGAIN today, hoping it might warm up by Santiago, but making sure to take my umbrella out of my bag, just in case. Stop now at 7:55AM. Pack and Fred leaves the bathroom in time for me to shit while reading the Santiago article, the LAST, and put my bag out about 8:19 to find Fred's bag gone ALREADY. Bells ring incessantly outside, and Fred has the TV on VERY loud to show me the flickers of porno between channels, and that the rainstorm is moving into France, so that it'll be sunny in Santiago. Finish this now at 8:23, having gotten out my umbrella and ready for breakfast. Down at 8:29 and MANY of the people at OUR tables haven't left yet! People wander around like Miss Chile, eyes open, hands figuratively out: where's my SEAT? I'm determined to sit at MY table, and as luck would have it the two women, finishing, welcome me, and there's a setting amid their garbage, so I eat comfortably while Fred and Carol share the NEXT tiny table, with Fred making fun of Carol's "keeping quiet in the morning" by saying "As we were saying about Proust," and "As you were saying about the Iliad." AND harumphing and puttng away spare food, so I'm SURE she has a good taste of what I have to put up with. Up to the room to pee and FINALLY flush down the piece of shit that's been rotating in the bowl the last six or seven times, AND leaving the lid up so SOMEONE will clear the diarrhea from the bottom of the lower lid. Finish that at 9AM, looking down to see the bus still jockeying for position with the other busses for loading the luggage, and I'm determined to get down early to claim my seat, so I finish this by 9:05 and pack the rest of my stuff and put on my shoes and get OUT. Bus moving across the street as I look out window for the last time at 9:10AM. Off at 9:30 after HUGE seat fuss, but I'd come in ABOUT first, and CHECKED my seat based on my sitting CLEARLY behind the rear exit, and so I KNEW where my seat was, despite Fred's assertion that HE had my seat, and he frustrated me by NOT listening to my explanation, but saying "It's not that important to me, if you want that seat, I'd actually rather prefer this one," which is clearly an evasive lie, and I think to berate him about it, but it's not worth it so I let it drop---until now, of course. I even videoed the mean-spirited singing by the woman who INSISTED on my seat yesterday. Pablo: HAIL (better than my original typo: HAIR) fell on Santander JUST after we left yesterday. "Cloudy" today. DRAMATIC clouds over eucalyptus (to be replaced by magnolias in 20 years) forests and viaduct valleys and abandoned playas (I suggested "because they have only three days of sunshine each summer"). Stop in Villuir 10:50-11:10 for coffee and my ice cream for 1.4E, tasty, and Fred ogles a sexy set of blue jeans in the seat next to him: a BIT chunky for me, but clearly an object of attraction. LA Coruna is Spanish, A Coruna is Gallician! Though I think it's REALLY INSANE that San Sebastian is SO Basque, and the far west is SO Gallician, when we should be aiming for ONE COMMON language, not 657 oddities spoken by only a dozen people, DESPITE what the anthropologists claim. 12:40 sun comes out. 1:23 (PAST two hours for driver) decide to take ONLY camera to Lugo: "I can't imagine where they're hiding the old town." Off bus at 1:32 in Lugo. #21 wreath of angels in Cathedral at 1:44. #22 Jesus and John on float. #23 Cathedral at 1:54, start walk around town-walls, though I remember Rottenberg-an-der-Tauber as having MUCH more romantic walls, with mostly ALL houses within the perimeter of advanced age: here the old houses were usually FACING the walls from the OUTSIDE, while most of the inner construction was NEW, or old so decayed that NO one would want to retrieve it. #24 wall and pilgrim, inadvertently taken with his staff, but I saw a FEW like this, and they clearly prided themselves ON being pilgrims, as the one in the square in the afternoon who looked as if he might take a sip from the fountain to celebrate his pilgrimity. We're to meet at the bus at 3:30, at Gate Bispo Aguirre, and dinner will be at 8:30. Also record: THURSDAY, breakfast at 7:30, tour at 9AM, no fixed seating. River tour meets at 3:45 at the upper parking area. #33 cathedral at 2;21. Down from walls at 2:27, having taken 31 minutes to circle it, hot and not THAT interesting, though Fred liked some of the joggers, and I liked more the buildings on the PERIPHERY, taking many pictures of them, rather than decayed houses in the center, which I took my share of photos of. Disappointed that I didn't have my video in the Cathedral, though I made up for it in the chapel of the museum later that afternoon, though I'm running VERY short of videotape---though I check now and find I have 18:15 left, MUCH more than I thought I did, so I can record almost EVERYTHING I want until the battery gives out tomorrow. Put in ORDER in Cafe del Centro at 2:40, flabbergasted to count TWENTY-FIVE of our passengers there, but I figure all their orders must be finished by now, so we'll have time to order and eat. They insist the problem is getting the waiter's attention to order, and I almost PHYSICALLY push myself to get the guy to take our order: the three singles sitting at three tables as the last to arive. Appetizer I have of cheese, salami, ham, and OMELET is Revuelto, and it's HUGE, with little egg and LOTS of ham and mushrooms, and then order meringue milk ice cream for dessert for 10.7E, and he gives me my second bottle of beer FREE! Which explains my extra tip from the 9.5E fixed-price meal. FULL, however, and out last to catch up with Fred and pass him, but as we leave at 3;24 we come to the meeting point for Pablo to raise his board and start walking the group toward the bus. I took through #35 on the wall and the last was of the lion and the church at 3:28. ALL back to bus LATE and the bus leaves at 3:35. First sight of the cathedral at Santiago at 5:15, incongruous in the middle of old buildings on a height surrounded by modern construction, obviating the fact that we've been traveling on the Camino de Santiago for the last 50 km or so from Lugo. To Hotel Ciudad de Campostela at 5:32, disapointingly far from the Cathedral, which is mainly UP hill, and into room 302 at 5:46, and Fred has not YET received his package from Pamplona, and he says "I'm sick with anticipation." I know how THAT is! Up quickly while he retrieves his bag to bring it up while I shit to 5:50, reading New Yorker, a good short story that I'm wrecking by reading in TINY snippets of available time. Then he says I can go out, and I say I'll go first to the Museo San Paulo de Antealtres, which the map says is open til 7PM, rather than the 6:30 my Fielding gave, and then to the Casa de la Parra, which might not even BE there, since it's not on the map. When I leave I discover I've left my NOTEBOOK on my bed, so I take notes on the Fielding pages on Santiago, since I'll probably NEVER be using them again after this. Leave hotel at 6:01, first of anyone, and struggle uphill, trying to follow the map, getting lost, locating the Plaza Cervantes and TRYING to find the Monastery, and an Italian (I think) looked at the map and found BOTH the Monasterio AND the Convento under some OTHER listing, but I went on what I thought was Ana-something but turned out to be Preguntorio, which led me to the Monastery, which was closed, but I tried another street and somehow, by a miracle, found myself in front of "Museo" which was a fantastic church that I gladly took a video of the ELABORATE gold altarpiece, and then paid 1.5E to get a good English program and a SWEET girl who told me exactly what to see. Got into museum at 6:32, she assuring me that she would NOT close at 7PM exactly, and I took #36 St. Michael Archangel at 6:44, #37 document number 8 on the map, from 1/1/986, or 1017 years old! Then start Roll 6: #1 number 61 on map (tray from 1740), #2 number 55 (Christ tied to the column, 1700), #3 number 56 (Pieta, mid-18th Century), #4 G, Main Altarpiece below, without flash, #5 D, Altarpiece of the Flight from Egypt with flash, #8 ALL of cathedral at 7:24, before which time I tried to get into the museum but, though it closed at 8, he wouldn't let me in because the last entry was ONE hour before, and I got VERY mad and told him, though he didn't understand: "So I'll NEVER be able to see it!" #10 parador, with entry: "Hostel de los Reyes Catolicos" at 7:38, having met a couple from the tour who said the way back to the hotel was "That way," and tried to enter the crypt, closed, then the main church, videoing some, including one of the group putting her fingers into the five finger-holes at the bottom of St. James' column. Out, frustrated and late, to take #11 of a monastery which was ALSO closed, though it was admitting students who seemed to be LIVING there. Back to the hotel at 7:57, tired from walking and SURE to give this location a bad review, and shit and read New Yorker until 8:05 and unpack and put on shorts for the first time, and Fred comes in about 8:15, too late to take a shower, and I dress as he leaves ridiculously early for dinner, and I'm down after him at 8:24 and look at the AWFUL schedule for Friday, and we're actually in to the dining room at 8:27, getting a nice table right in the doorway, and we invite Carol to sit with us, since she really wants to anyway, and we share the first bottle of white wine (Ribeiro D Cancelo 2000), and Pablo comes in to make the announcement about tomorrow: Breakfast 7:30, tour of cathedral and "palaces around it" at 9AM, over about noon, then free time until river tour leaves from the upper parking lot at 3:45, back about 7:30, and at dinner he said he'd collect the credit cards for the tour price on the bus afterward, for those NOT going to Madrid, as both Fred and Carol are. Then he starts to talk about Friday and he's booed off the stage, saying "I'll talk to you after you've had more wine," and then flabbergasts me by asking if he can join us at the table! He's a vegetarian, getting a grand salad while we start with a soupless Menestra, which I'd hoped would be like minestrone, but wasn't, but WAS OK, as opposed to the awful local fish that he didn't even know the translation of, and I didn't eat much of, and we talked of Morocco, Spain, his undone thesis on the Anti-Art manifesto of the 80s with an artist I'd never heard of, and even HE admtted "I'll finish my thesis and not be able to get a job." We order a second bottle of the white, and then the waiter look disturbed when we order a third, and it turns out there are none cold, so he suggests the local "country wine---something like a new wine, not fully fermented" to quote Fielding, which is ALSO good, and he makes us sign a chit for 10.5E for it. We drink it all, along with a bottle of water, and then Pablo makes his final speech, slurring and saying "It must have been the wine," and then I'm up at 10:06, shit AGAIN, and start typing at 10:13. Fred comes up and we chat about porno, he showing me the sheets of photos he has interleaved with his journal pages, and we watch Andi McDonald and Dennis Quaid and Greg Kinnear in---was it "The Dinner Party"? on TV, and I finally catch up with this, having lowered the blind, but I'm SURE Fred will say it's too hot and raise it back up, and it's now, fantastically, 11:31, and he's set the alarm for 7AM, madly, since we don't leave until 9AM, but he's done it and "I won't wake you if you don't want to," So I finish now at 11:35, MADLY! And to bed and 11:45!!

THURSDAY, JUNE 26: Take two aspirins and shit at 4:33--less than 48 hours left! Up at 7:56, shit and shower to 8:18. Breakfast 8:21-8:36, alone and great and not overeating and not having to talk to ANYONE, being one of the last few breakfasting, Fred talking endlessly to two depressing women. Pack and brush teeth and down at 8:58 to bus, pissing in lobby when Fred monopolizes bathroom. Tour: LOTS of convents, monasteries, churches and hospitals! Tour off bus at 9:35, noting that, to return, go to the RIGHT of the Parador-front, to Rua San Francisco, end at statue, right to Joao XXIII (Juan, two, three, in the joke), then down to the left for the bus), due back at 3:15, though I'd noted earlier that it was 3:45, which OTHERS agreed with, though Pablo refused to acknowledge that he may have put too much ink at the top of the 1, making it look like 4. To square, and talk, and Parador to 10:16. Parador SNACK (I take two free cookies and a churro from a back table that Fred almost dares me to take, saying "He's watching you all the time," but I couldn't even tell who or where "he" was). That goes to 10:45, not QUITE the three hours in the Cathedral and surroundings as advertised. We're still going around outside to 11:23. #12 fungus growth at 11:02. #13 UP at tower at 11:14. #14, south portico, only Romanesque one, at 11:20. Inside at last at 11:23, taking lots of videos as many groups jostle and dozens wait in line to caress the statue of St. James over the altar. #18 whole altar, landscape at 11:42. Organ has more than 800 pipes, one of few that aligns them BOTH horizontally and vertically. Out at the start of noon mass, after Katherine gets warned THREE TIMES about not talking while mass is starting, and some women are offended by it. I dash to Pilgrimage office, not finding Fred, and pick up a few brochures to 12:09 in the dumpy office up grotty stairs with bikes stored underneath. San Martin's cloisters are NOT open to the public, but "For a moment, you can see," and get into a large bare space that the double-front cloisters at the Parador made look extra plain and rather dirty and unkempt. Then around to left to church entrance, down steps, and pay 1E as senior (majores) for GREAT altarpiece and then three whole floors of mediocre churchly stuff, depressingly much of it semi-modern and not even valuable as gold. Just when I wish I could find a john, I find one at 12:33. Think maybe this is one of the five wishes that I'll be granted for slipping under the rope around the St. James column (as many others, including women from the tour, were doing) and trying to fit my fingers into the short-hand niches of the five fingers worn in over time, but didn't bother to touch my head to the statue's on the other side, as most did, nor did I feel it necessary to insert my RIGHT hand into the lower lion's mouth while my left fingers were occupied in their slots. Satisfying pee, though for a few moments I found mmyself inextricably locked into the john, trying abut six times to turn the lock, open, no, turn lock, open, no, turn latch, no, etc, dreaming of pounding for someone to help, but then I SAW the lock unlocked and pulled at an angle on the latch and it opened---and I left it open, as the man who vacated it as I came upon it had. Around the sacristy, filming almost nothing, then do #19 in the choir stalls at 12:37, glad I had so much video left. Into the cathedral crypt at 12:44, paying 3.5E for the triple ticket, and #20 12th Century Choir at 1:02, and a model at #21. #24 jeweled church stuff at 1:23 in what turned out to be the church treasury, which I didn't recognize from the backside, only appreciated when looking at the map of the various treasuries in the church where the entrance to the treasury was closed after 2PM. #26 Goodyear frontal at 1:44, named for some Spanish, non-Akron, Goodyear. #28 Sala Capitular, which had to be translated later to me as Chapterhouse, at 1:54, time running out. Video statue above and crypt to 2:05, few people on line, and finishing with about 12 minutes of video. Lunch worrying me until I wander down San Francisco and find Pico Sacra with 6E Menu del Dia with Chuleta con salada and patates, and choice of Santiago Torta and fruit salad, with 1/2 wine which turns out to be a GREAT half-bottle of white (no rosé offered, only bianco o tinto) Destro, Val do Miño, good after peeing, which she knew I wanted in totally empty restaurant where she pulled herself away from scrubbing the floor to put my cutlet onto the fire, producing a perfectly sized and cooked cutlet, too many too-pale fries, and a good vinegary lettuce-tomato-onion salad, with a hunk of bread that I ate the top off. Then the powdered-sugared poundcake of the torta, just enough food and good buzz-making wine that had me HAPPY on the bus later. Then three gals pass, having had lunch, looking for ice cream, and I have 1.5E almond-coated ice-cream bar, and then cookie and booze samples and am induced to get the good-tasting Crema de Orujo, which Pablo says is just a generic name for spiced flavored firewater, for 10E, which they wrap for me for my liquor purchase on the trip. Back to bus at 3:10, FRED's back already, but few else. Leave at 3:19, warm, but I---AM---HAPPY!!! I write with bliss. Back to hotel and find no one waiting to leave for tour, and Pablo says it may have to be canceled with only 10 here, where minimum is 12 and 16 signed up "I should have taken names," and someone else commented, "He's still young and has a lot to learn." He rushes back and forth to the hotel, and someone on board suggests we may have left the parking lot too early, and, at the last minute, one of the women (the one who sat next to me on the plane to Madrid, who seems old but unusually competent) runs down to meet Pablo and say that two others in HER taxi and three others in ANOTHER taxi had gotten stalled paying their bill in a restaurant (and later endlessly discussed: "But she owes you 1.5E for the cake, and I owe you 3E for the wine..."). And I LATER, no, earlier, find that ... is a USUAL Spanish punctuation, called puntos suspensivos, standing in for "I could add a lot more, but you know what I mean." Sort of an abbreviation for "etc" or "et al." Leave at 3:51, Pablo fussing that it takes EASILY over an hour to get there, the boat leaves at 5, and though he doesn't expect traffic and we end on a freeway, we may NOT get there on time. #29 attempt at Cathedral rising over the undistinguished silhouette of the modern town around it, at 3;57, but I fear it's vanished into the trees. Doze a bit, though the countryside is VERY green and sunny and hilly, and get to O Grove at 4:51, very sunny, waters deep blue, and stop at 4:56 at a tall fellow frantically waving at Pablo. Onto boat at 5:03 with a Spanish group that gets blue tickets and first shot at the underwater glass panels, and we get red tickets for sloppy seconds. Push through a dozen SALESMEN, uncharacteristic so far, except a few times on Santander beachfronts. Boat away at 5:04. We're at the Rias Baixas, on the west coast, rather than the Rias Altas, on the north coast. #31 fishing trawler, missed, and #32 trawler from back at 5:20. #32 ropes growing mussels at 5:43, not the greatest views or waters. Video passing over lots of SHELLS, yellow starfish, tiny minnows that probably won't show up, and generally inferior views compared with almost anywhere, especially the South Pacific. They grow clams, oysters, and scallops. #37 taken of me, drunk, with unknown tourist and mussel shells, one hopes. I don't know if I have my pink eye THEN or later. Start Roll 7. Off boat at 6:17, warm and disappointed, though full of salty, rubbery, sometimes disgusting mussels, at least 30 of them, and almost a full bottle of wine (three among 4 of us, but I had more than others). Fred and others hilarious with drunkness. Pee in bus station as at start, and onto bus at 6:32, which goes at 6:35. To hotel at 7:51, Pablo insisting on taking my Visa in hotel lobby for the $45 (overpriced) tour. To room at 8PM, Fred missing, and in the mirror find my burst blood vessel in the nose-corner of my right eye. Fred says he'll be staying up, saying he can't possibly close the blind because it's too hot, and I get tiredly into bed at 8:10. Try Actualism and think I might not sleep, but actually have a dream of coming to a subway platform and seeing a #2 long train coming in and leaving, and then a short #5 that I try running for, but it pulls out before I can get there, so I clearly DID sleep. Up at 9:03 to pee, and Fred's in bed, without face mask, with blind down and room darkish, and I take a sleeping pill---had taken my evening pills and my two night-pills before going to bed at 8:10, and put out my morning pills along with my morning melitonin quarter-pill. I think I conk right out, no problem with pre-flight nerves, though counting that I have about 18 hours left before home.

FRIDAY, JUNE 27: Wake with a sort of jolt at 4:03 and Fred's up and down to breakfast already, and as I sit to pee the phone rings at 4:04, and Fred said he left a call for me to make sure I got up. Pack everything to 4:30, washing face, eye still blood-red, but no one's said anything, even to THIS point. Down with non-portered blue bag at 4:34, finding most on a stack, and some even finished with breakfast already. Have a slice of cheese, slice of meat, a half peach, a cup of chocolate, and yogurt that someone's left on the table, eating alone as a few others finish alone and Fred chats with yet another woman about nothing (as he talked ALL the way back from the tour yesterday with the man in front of him---what DOES he find to TALK about?). Pay 10.6E for wine from few nights ago, up to room at 4:50, put in tips of $20 for Dionisio with "Thank you, Bob Zolnerzak," and $44 for Pablo, changing it darkly from Pedro, with "Thank you very much, Bob Zolnerzak." Down with final bag at 4:55, with few last ones in last elevator, and my bag goes in the bus at 8:58 as I hand Dionisio his envelope and he utters a curt "Gratias." Fill out the forms on the bus, and Pablo passes by and says "He's doing his homework," and I had to struggle to figure which hotels were bad and which good and could HARDLY remember where the GREAT breakfast was, so it wasn't quite fair, though of course I gave Pablo Lopez special mention. Handed them to him on the bus, then gave him the tip-envelope as we waited on line for the Madrid flight, and he thanked me very much. We leave hotel at 5:05, in total darkness, to the airport "via a shortcut I didn't even know existed," per Pablo, at 5:21. Get on British Airways line, then see TWO Spanair counters and ONE long line, so I go to head of empty line and sit on the conveyer belt at 5:30, reading as the others say "You can do what you want." Woman comes to MY counter about five minutes after the other liine start at 5:45 and I get window in front of wing in seat 10A. To gate 4 at 6AM, boarding at 7AM, and at 6:05 there's NO one at Gate 4---where are they? Read New Yorker, Miss Chile arrives first, fussing and fluttering, and then the rest show up, all avoiding me, thank goodness, and boarding starts about 7 and I'm on essentially last at 7:10. Crowded plane, pass a SCREAMING kid, and sit next to nice old lady with perfect view of cloudy sky. Announce a 45-minute flight. Off at 7:33, into clouds at 7:35, but then it clears for breakfast at 7:40, GREAT hot chocolate, cookies, tiny cake, OJ and a glass of water, when I take my melitonin at 7:50 with breakfast pills, and it's all working out OK. Peaks in distance, some of them clearly Picos de Europa, and then it fogs up a bit. Carol gave me her colorful card on the bus and I fished out mine and explained how I indexed and she seemed impressed. Clears enough to see fields before Madrid, and lower to see it in the left distance, undistinguished skyline with widely scattered tall buildings over about an eighty-degree vista. Land at 8:20, out, saying goodby only to my seat partner and a few near her, and the "just get drunk" guy, not even his black-suited wife, and hardly anyone else. Fred's nowhere to be seen, having not asked for euros or dollars for the rest of his trip. Shit well enough at 8:37, but WHY won't they FLUSH after they finish loading the bowl with shit and paper, letting it for ME to do? Then get toward gate C, where I forgot whether the girl said C35 or C45, but the flight isn't until 12:50, so I've got AGES of time, and the flight isn't ANYWHERE NEAR being announced. Stat typing at 8:44AM and finish now, up to date, at 9:42, tempted to type longer so that I can say that I typed for EXACTLY ONE HOUR to catch up, and babies cry from almost everywhere, the flights leave every few minutes, and I guess I'd better check that I'm off when I'm off: wouldn't it be nice to get earlier flights to get me home earlier? WHERE is this baby crying FROM: sounds like RIGHT HERE but it's YARDS away---poor echoing airport acoustics. Ok, so it's 9:44AM now and I can stop, people looking at me as they pass. AND took shoes off, NICE! 9:50: Spanair from C?? to D62? "Not confirmed yet" for 12:50 flight to Frankfort, to New Yorker to read, with earplugs. 11:15 move to D62, having stood at the inefficient board waiting ten minutes for a flight 20 minutes away to have room to be filed. Finish Herald-Tribune 11:45-12:07, finish Trib puzzle---and STILL no listing. 12:09--D64. Finish New Yorker and give it to Alz's wife. Start New York, 12:52 at LAST boarding. Board 1:04, then change to LAST-seat window, RATHER than window over wing---so much for specifications---AND away from screaming kid. Delay due to surface-supply crew's strike. 2:05 flight, clear out. Off at 1:37, VERY BUMPY in back. 1:55 clouds below. #1 San Sebastian! at 2:03. #2 and 3, one bay east, St. Jean de Luz? at 2:04. Lunch 2:21, HUNGRY! Good coast of western France, sandy and wooded, then clouds from 2:40. Back to read New York at 2:57. #4 river bends at 3:15. #5 Frankfurt 3:35. Land 3:38, spectacular suburbs. Sit and shit 3:57. Passport check, bag check, passport check, "Mandatory form" with only name and flight number and date, seeing "designated address" only as I'm dropping it in basket, and check no and don't sign. Wrong? Sit, beginning to tire, in crowded A63, moved from A65, at 4:25. Get this out and finish at 4:32, not boarding yet, though card said 4:20. hope I can sleep! Board at 5:04, KID behind, and argue it's MY window with two cute German boys who want to sit together (and cuddle?). So the girl, wherever she came from, leaves. Get all the materials (Vicks for my nose, sleeping pill if needed, passport, evening pills, readings) into pockets by 5:11. Announced as 7:15 flight (which, somehow, later, I thought was 8:15, and dreaded the length, but then about halfway through, with shorter time left, knew it was 7:15 again). Plane is crowded; we'll depart at 6:02, since we're 10th in line? Then at 5:50: "Oil termperature indicator is out---it's most important, so it's being checked." 6:16 FIXED? Off at 6:30. Clear to French coast, then cloudy. Play music. England invisible at 7:29, 1/8 done. Very last of west Ireland is clear, and goes astern at 8:10, after 100 minutes! 8:57 it says 4:40 to land; to 13:40, from 6:30, so it's 7:10, not 8:15! 11:32 seatbelt sign FINALLY goes off---INCESSANTLY cloudy. 1:08, NO sight of land even 32 minutes from landing. 32°C in NYC = 90°F! 1:18 first glimpse of land. Take hopefully wonderful pictures through #9 of CLOUDS in setting sun. Land at 1:44, 84°. Dock at 1:53, EVERYONE stands. Off plane 2AM, to luggage at 2:07. Pee and get bag at 2:16. To street at 2:20 but get LOST, finally find taxi stand and off at 2:25. In at 3:20, after FRUITLESS search for photo-delivery date. Take pills, shower, make juice, make bed, open windows, and bed at 3:14AM, or 9:14PM locally. But at 3:55 I just feel like CUMING, so I get out photos and paraphernalia and cum WITH vibrator, then search that I HAD tweezers with me on trip but couldn't find them, and bed at 4:25, or 10:25PM.

SATURDAY, JUNE 28: Up at 11:25 by my watch, 7 decent hours sleep, or 5:25AM, and cum to 6:05 with TV, then get hooked into watching Lana Yoga to 6:30, and start watching Swiss slides, have breakfast at 8:10AM, finish slides to 10:45. Then call Ken and talk to him for 10 minutes, leave word with John and Carolyn and Blanche and Charles. Talk to Spartacus 11-11:25, Mildred 11:25-11:50, and Bob Lambiase says come at 12:05. I leave word with Piri, and Bill Petersen calls and gabs. Had checked 35 messages on Juno, having to go through them TWICE to erase them, and get a ticket for "The Persians" with Spart at 3PM today. Get mail and Sunday Times from Bob, with plants, which I water. Forgot to weigh luggage before I spread things all over my table. Cream cheese lunch at 1:30 and down to meet Spartacus in lobby at 2, having forgotten Metro card and then Audience Extras card. Shop with him in J&R and price 17" high, sleeved, 220 volt, 17,800 BTU, 10.7 ER, PanCWXC183HC for $449.99, when we're early for 3PM play, EXCELLENT, and out at 4:20 to pass Prato Clothing and am lured in by "2 suits for $125" ad, and buy two suits for $270.47, at LAST getting THAT off the list! Home to start reading last Sunday's Times, have tuna melt dinner about 7:30, start the puzzles and both are difficult, but too tired to finish and bed at 9:30PM, exhausted, taking melitonin, then up and taking the last doxylamine sleeping pill.

SUNDAY, JUNE 29: Up at 6:30, having wakened briefly at 1:30 to take pill and again at 5:30. Feel almost normal. Finish the puzzle and have breakfast at 7:30, then put the AlphaSmart files into the computer while preparing six rolls of film for mailing, and get out about 8:30 to take out two big bags of newspapers, mail film, get to Key Food for $46.26 in groceries, including today's Times, and back to start reading it and doing puzzles, AGAIN hard ones, lunch about 1PM of good hot pastrami, not bothering with salad yet, and write check from John for $1400 which he picks up about 1:30PM. I unpack a bit, putting on fan because it's so hot, then lie down for a bit, but get up and play some FreeCell and Minesweeper while Carolyn calls, twice, and I find I'd underreported my IRS refund: it's $1334, not $1100 as I'd crowed to Mildred yesterday. Then decide to proofread this, sorting out souvenirs so I can type in proper details, filing them away on the shelf, and finish this at 7:30PM exactly, ready for dinner! Print pages, have dinner, and start Summary Page at 8:45PM. Get to bed 10:26.

MONDAY, JUNE 30: Up 4:54 with fragments of odd dream of two women, probably on TV, who live together and help each other sweetly. Details forgotten. Then a Gwynneth Pqltrow-type is addicted to a small pink dragon-toy which she leaves on a shelf in a shop, and someone ELSE leaves a small GREEN dragon-toy and takes HERS by mistake, and we know there's going to be emotional trauma at the loss of her talisman. Pee and type this on AlphaSmart with nightlight in bathroom. Hope to get back to sleep. Wake at 5:20, put AC on at 5:50, then up at 6:10 to play FreeCell and Minesweeper to 6:55, type this to 7AM. Put some stuff away from the table and decide to FINISH the four unfinished puzzles in the better Times puzzle book, and accomplish that, feeling very good about it, at 9AM, when I have breakfast and make inroads in the Scientific American with the torn-off cover. Come back to finish this page at 9:30, figuring the end of the month is as good a time as any to finish the description of this trip, particularly since I'm determined to finish unpacking, finish the dream and slide pages, and watch and log the two-hour videotape TODAY, which will mean that I'm caught up with the trip (along with phoning Sherryl, Vicki, and Shelley, which I've avoided so far out of sheer laziness), and can thus start on more pleasant tasks, like getting rid of items on my 8-item long-term list, seeing wonderful summer movies in movie houses, and eating in good restaurants.

SUMMARY PAGE

MON,JUN 16: Leave JFK for Munich at 8:25PM.

TUE,JUN 17: Arrive Munich 9:26AM. Fly to Barcelona 11:28AM - 1:11PM. Bus to Catalonia Princessa, walking Barcelona without cameras or notes 3-6PM: Cathedral, streets, and people. Meet group and dine in Cullera de Boix, good.

WED,JUN 18: Tour of Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, Miro Park, Montjuic, and Cathedral. Lunch in Hotel Colon. Revisit Sagrada Familia, dine in Princessa.

THU,JUN 19: Bus to Montserrat: funicular up, hike, quick lunch. Zaragoza Cathedral and elevator tower in heat. Bullfights on TV. Dine at NH Sport Hotel.

FRI,JUN 20: Olite Palace and walk and Gallerias de la Plaza. To Pamplona for city walk and lunch in Cafe Iruña (Fred leaves glasses). To San Sebastian and Hotel Amara Plaza for dinner after walk to new Cathedral and beach for drink.

SAT,JUN 21: Bilbao city-walk, to Guggenheim for art and great Berasategui lunch 1:45-4PM! Puzzles and snack for dinner and bed early for good rest.

SUN,JUN 22: San Sebastian old-town Cathedral, Aquarium, and San Telmo Museum. Castro Urdiales lunch in Marisqueria Alfredo. To Santander Hotel Chiqui dinner.
Out after dinner to watch tides race across beach.

MON,JUN 23: Late breakfast, peninsula train and minizoo, Hotel Real, Cathedral, city streets, Museo Municipal, sit in park and people-watch, dine at Zacarias. Bus to video kids celebrating shortest night of year with bonfire on beach.

TUE,JUN 24: Altamira New cave and museum, Santillana del Mar in rain. Lunch in San Vincente de la Barquero at La Maruja with Manzanilla. To Oviedo Hotel Regente and tour Cathedral and Sala Sanctum and museum. Walk streets and dine in hotel's sub-basement breakfast room.

WED,JUN 25: Stop in Villuir for ice cream. Lugo for Cathedral and wall-walk, then lunch in Cafe del Centro before bussing to Santiago de Campostela for distant Hotel Ciudad de Campostela, walk to Museum of San Paio de Antealtares, then Cathedral and streets, dinner in hotel.

THU,JUN 26: Santiago tour: convents, Parador, monasteries, churches, Cathedral and crypt and cloister and treasuries. Lunch in Pico Sacra, then tour to O Grove to Rias Baixas boatride and mussels and wine, no dinner & bed at 8:10PM.

FRI,JUN 27: Wake at 4:03, leave hotel 5:05, 7:33AM-8:20 Santiago to Madrid, 1:37PM-3:38 Madrid to Frankfurt, 6:30PM-7:44 Frankfurt to JFK, bed 9:14PM/3AM!

SAT,JUN 28: Up 5:25AM, watch Swiss slides, phone, "The Persians," buy two suits, read last Sunday's Times, bed exhausted at 9:30PM.

SUN,JUN 29: Up 6:30AM, read today's Times, proof and type this, bed 10:26PM.

MON,JUN 30: Up 4:54 to pee. Up at 6:10. Decide to finish this log at 9:35AM.