9/13/14
Andorra La Vella, Andorra
Today I turned 27, and I feel old.
If I think back to ten years ago how I thought my life would be at this
point, it is nothing like that at all. I
fully expected that I would be married at this point, pursuing my passion in
academia, with a PhD in Mathematics, possibly a post-doc or an adjunct
professor at Princeton. When I think
back to five years ago, it was during the dark times, and I have no memory of
what I might have been doing for my birthday at that point or what was going on
in my life. I have blocked it out. I assumed that that was the new normal and
that I would have no interests besides Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Twilight,
and Narnia, that there would be no women in my life besides Padme, Arwen,
Bella, and Susan, and I had no friends.
Now, excluding my family, there are four women in my life whom I love
dearly, each by very different definitions and uses of that word, and I have more friends than I ever
had. Now, well, recently, I seem to have
lost interest in all of my old interests, except work, travel, and philosophy, but I have
cycled through so many interests and passions in the past five years that I
have lost count.
Five years ago, I
certainly did not expect my life to be going this well. While the happily ever fantasy I dreamed
about ten years did not exactly come to fruition, the doomsday scenario I
feared five years ago did not either, so I can be happy about that. Happiness is such a fickle thing. On paper, today was a great day. I said, “Catalonia Complete,” and I
celebrated my birthday in Andorra. I
rekindled an old friendship, and I am steadily building a new one. Why then, did I feel so miserable all
day? It is in my nature to try to
overanalyze everything to try and overlook the simplest answers. Could it have simply been that I spent the
day driving on winding mountain roads and walking around in the hot sun with no
food and almost no sleep? Could I have
just been tired and cranky? Did I really
have to start questioning my whole travel routine, that I was getting jaded of
these WHS runs, that Catalonia could not really do anything for me?
Let's start at the beginning. The flight was long and boring, and I got
some sleep but not enough. I had extra
legroom, but I had misunderstood the seating chart and had opted out of getting
a seat with even more legroom. When we
landed, there was a long line at customs, but, when I got there, she just
looked at my passport for the next empty spot, not even scanning it. Seriously, that’s how easy it is to get into
the EU? I didn’t complain, much better
than Canada. It was another ordeal to
get the car, but I got GPS, and I was told I could in fact drive it into
Andorra. My first stop was the Olympic
Stadium. As I was driving towards the
city, it finally hit me, “I’m in fucking Spain!” Of course, it would be better to describe my
day as being in Catalonia. I saw more Catalonian
flags than Spanish ones, and all the road signs and street names were in
Catalonian, not Spanish.
The stadium was
mamash, and I knew there was a viewing gallery where you could see the inside
of the stadium. I wasn’t sure if you
could just stand under the archway or actually go all the way inside to make it
official. I also didn’t know where it
was, so I started to circle counterclockwise.
I wound up walking 330 degrees around when I could have just walked 30
clockwise. At least I got to see the
whole stadium. I was spent from that
walk in the hot sun, and I did not recover until I got to Andorra. I finally got to the viewing gallery, and it
was official. You could go inside the
stadium. I was so happy. It was the last time I was happy the entire
day. I took my first official U in Spain,
glad I got to do it in the Stadium, since that was the whole point of the trip,
headed back to my car, and put in the Gaudi site. I was to be my first WHS of the trip, and I
was now almost an hour behind schedule.
I had allowed an hour of Dutch Time, but it wasn’t yet noon, and it was
almost all gone. I figured that I would
probably just Lavaux the rest of the sites to make up the time.
I planned to just park the car outside the
Casa Batlló, light up my cigar, take a picture, have a sip of water, and be on
my way. I knew that the next site was
close by and would have some souvenir shops nearby, so I would share the cigar
between the two sites, my stash running low.
There was one problem with this plan.
There was no safe place to pull over and take a picture. The nearest spot was like three blocks
away. In the end, whatever time I had
hoped to recoup got absorbed into this Dutch Time for the parking. There was a tobacco shop on the way to the
Guadi site, so I walked in, hoping to reload.
I asked if he had any sealed boxes.
He laughed and shook his head. At
that point, I should have walked out of there, but they had Cohiba Siglo II, my
favorite cigar in the world. The problem
is, there is no way to tell a fake one from a real one without smoking it. I smelled and felt it, and it seemed
fine. After two puffs, I suspected that
it was fake. I tried peeling the band
off, and it was glued sealed, a clear sign of it being fake. I threw it out and lit up my Partagas. The Guadi site, while architecturally
interesting, was a huge letdown. I took
my picture and headed back to the car.
After that, I planned to go to the Palau de la Musica Catalunya, which
seemed to be in the touristy part of the city.
I just found one souvenir shop, and the selection was lacking. Parking, this time in a garage, was another
ordeal. I had to drive all up and down
the garage, reversing in and out of tight spots, until I finally went to the
floor he wanted. Again, the Palau was
underwhelming. I still had plenty of
cigar left, and the touristy part was actually by Parliament. Perfect.
I would add in the Parliament to help make Catalonia Complete more
Official. The parliament building is
called “Palau del Parlament,” simple enough.
I put in to my GPS, “Palau de, “Palau de Congressos de Catalunya,” and
it seemed to be in the right spot. When
I got there, it was all wrong. Apparently,
it was just a convention center, not the actual Parliament, which was far away,
and I was already 1:15 behind schedule, having exhausted my Dutch Time. If I really needed it, I could stop by at
sunrise on Monday before breakfast. I
had collected the bear minimum for souvenirs, so I was good. Okay, I am mamash tired, so I need to pause
to rest my eyes for a bit before I continue with the rest of my voyage through
Catalonia.
Okay, that pause was longer than anticipated, and I almost fell asleep. I will need wrap this up as quickly as possible. Anyway, my first site the Roman Ruins in
Tarragon. The drive was fast, and I even
broke 161 at one point just keeping up with a couple of hot shots ahead of
me. I got there, and I was wowed. I certainly was not jaded at that point. Before I got out, I checked my itinerary to
see how much time I could manage there.
Then I noticed something strange.
The distance I had recorded to the next site was 2:45, while the site
after that was only another 0:30. The
latitude/longitude coordinates showed the distances to be about the same, the
second one even a little further away.
How could it take so long? Were
the roads for Tarragon to Poblet that much worse than the ones from Poblet to
Taull? It seemed off. I entered the site into my GPS, and, sure
enough, it was less than an hour. That
meant I had just recovered two hours, one of them having gone to Dutch Time,
the other available for a nice lunch in Poblet so that I could get my official
meal in Catalonia. It even meant that I
would have had time to go the correct Parliament after I realized my
mistake. I lit up an Hoyo de Monterrey
and walked around a bit, taking pictures and sharing them in various manners. It was certainly my favorite WHS of the
day. My birth minute came and went, and
then I was on my way to Poblet.
When I
got to Poblet, there was a great place to get lunch across from the monastery,
so I figured I would eat there. I went
to enter the next site, the Sint Climent church in Taull, but it was all
wrong. It was a hotel by that name, the
church of that name was far away. I went
to the failsafe, the latitude/longitude coordinates. No, that wasn’t right either. Something was very off. I looked up the coordinates again, and I had
recorded them by a one degree south, closer to the monastery than it should
have been. I entered the right
coordinates. Fuck! There was the 2:45 drive. I had transposed the two distances. On top of that, I was one Cuban short, and
the last one would only bring me to Andorra, leaving me nothing for the WHS in
France. I would have to reload in
Andorra, but I was hoping to push everything up and get to Parliament before
dark tomorrow. That was a lost
hope. Okay, so I certainly didn’t have
time for lunch. I also didn’t have time
to really walk around. I was now risking
arriving at the restaurant after they closed.
I lit up my tiny Fonseca and took my pictures at the monastery. I knew the rest of the day would be a
complete rush until I got to the restaurant.
On top of that, I was tired and hungry, but I had no time to eat
anything other than a couple of Quest bars, and I had no time for a
siesta.
I raced to the final WHS of the
day, one of the Catalonian Romanesque churches.
This one was called Sint Climent.
By the time I got there, I was so spent, so jaded, so fed up with
everything that I didn’t bother to check if they had souvenirs or even look for
a plaque. As I walked out of the car, I
decided, “Fuck the Parliament. Fuck the
Official meal.” I just lit up the H.
Upmann, took my pictures, posted one, and announced, “Catalonia Complete,”
adding some sarcastic retort. The church
was pretty cool, and, if I was in a better mood, I would have enjoyed it a
lot. Then, I had to go back down the
winding road, all the way to Andorra, and the elevation was killing me. Everything was making me sick. I almost pulled over to take an Offical
yak. Instead, I just opted to rest my
eyes. As I was trying to lean back, I
got a phone call from an unknown number.
It was Hotels.com, and they were calling to tell me that my hotel was
shut down and that they needed to transfer my reservation to another
number. Ugh. Well, the guy took care of it, and I adjusted
my GPS. I was past caring about anything
at this point other than getting to my restaurant for my first Official meal in
Andorra, my first Official meal as a 27-year-old. As I’m sure my reader does not know, Andorra
is not part of the EU or even the Schengen Area. That means that, in theory, there is a border
control between Andorra and the surrounding countries (France and Spain). In practice, there is not. I kept asking, “Am I in Andorra now?” until I
got to the Official sign. It was so
weird.
Anyway, I got to my hotel,
checked in, and took a taxi to the restaurant.
I knew that I would be in no state to drive home after the meal. It was Andorra’s best restaurant, and the
food was excellent. I opted for their
snail specialty as my appetizer, which was way too much work, and the lamb,
which is a local favorite, for my main course.
The lamb was too fatty, but I didn’t care. I was mamash toasted at that point, so I just
picked it up with my hands and ate all five chops like that. Oh, so I had wanted a glass or two of
Andorran wine, but they only had it by the bottle. They had a small bottle for a reasonable
price, so I ordered that. It turned out,
they were sold out of the small bottle, so he gave me a full bottle for the
same price. I only drank half of it, and
I poured another glass when I got back to my hotel. After the lamb, I got flan for dessert. It wasn’t on my diet, but I didn’t care. It was my birthday. If I wanted a piece of flan, I was bloody
well having a piece of flan. When I got
back to the hotel, I weighed in. I’m
convinced that the scale is wrong. The
number that came up was lighter than I had ever been since my freshman year of
college. I didn’t doubt my metric
conversion, but this was post-meal, pre-U, and it just couldn’t have been
right. Anyway, I was happy, if it was
not true. Sometimes it’s nicer to believe
a pleasant lie than face a hard truth. I
lit up a Davidoff and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so
that I can publish and get some sleep.
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