How Many Men Does it Take to Turn a Bus?

About a forty minute train ride outside Lisbon is a place called Sintra. It was a small bourgeois town back in the day, which has left it a place of quaint streets that line a river and beautiful labyrinth gardens with stone statues. There are many tourist attractions in this tucked away place, including the famous yellow castle, and another more ominous stone one that looms over the city from a nearby hill. The most interesting thing we saw during our visit there, however, had very little to do with these historic structures. In order to get to the yellow castle, you have to take a city bus not unlike any in North America. The real challenge comes in the driving of this bus through the narrow maze-like streets, which are compounded with steep hills that funnel from all directions into the town´s centre. I wouldn´t be confident driving a Mini through this town, and yet somehow the bus drivers are able to maneuver along the single-lane roads with two-way traffic and make the hairpin turns up the hills. There were multiple times during our way up to see that castle that one of us said something along the lines of, ``Man, I wouldn´t want to be a bus driver in this place. I don´t even know how they do this.´´

Well, after viewing the castle for about fifteen minutes (naturally we were pretty cramped on time to make our train back to Lisbon) we headed back down the hill. This was where the real fun started. We came to start to round one particularly tight T in the road that was at a steep angle only to find some obstacles. I will try and describe this picture in words, so do your best to visualize it. Obviously it will help if you´ve spent as many rainy days as I have inside playing the boardgame Rush Hour. So, slightly to the left of the end of the T, adjescent to the building that faced us as we approached the intersection, there was a parked tuk-tuk/autorickshaw, which prevented a wider swing for us to make the right turn. Kitty-corner to this, on the immediate side of the building we would be turning around to complete the right turn, was a large van that prevented us from taking the corner sharply. It became clear pretty quickly that even with the driver´s expert abilities there was no way we were going to fit through. Several attempts followed as driver tried to maneuver us through with literally centimeters on either side between the building wall at the point of the T and the van to our right, and we began to draw a crowd. Everyone watching, including a six-year-old child tried to provide their expert advice on how best to back up and get through it. Finally, to the load of about 40 anxious tourists´ relief, a police officer showed up, and we thought we would get things going. Naturally, what we received was a shrug and a headshake. ``It´s not going to happen.´´

An eastern European man from the back of the bus then came forward with a new plan: ``We will pick it up and move it.´´ It was met mostly by laughter, but he obviously wasn´t joking. He pushed his way to the front, convinced the driver to let him off and started to try and pick up the tuk-tuk by himself. A few men out of the local crowd started to join him, and it was pretty clear from that point that we weren´t going to be the ones not helping. With about six men on the job, the rickshaw was successfully pushed back, allowing for a bigger swing to make the turn.  The crazy European man then exclaimed that we would move the van. Again with the laughter, but he proceeded to try. The six of us who worked on the rickshaw also joined him, but there wasn´t much we could do. We got back on the bus and we were greeted back on the bus with cheers from all for our tuk-tuk heroics. This celebration was short lived, as after about another ten minutes of trying, we couldn´t get through. We needed literally two inches shaved off the width of the bus and we would have got through, but it wasn´t working. This is when the bus driver simply opened the door and yelled in a deep, commanding voice, ``Hombres!!´´, or ``Men´´.  It was a one word, testosterone fueling challenge that turned all of us in to King Leonidas for five minutes. Almost every single man got off that bus and was joined by others from the street. With twenty of your finest foreign bankers, retirees, future medical students, eastern euro crazies and local portuguese men, we lifted a storage van clear off the ground and about a foot and a half ahead. It was all that we needed to get through the tight turn, down the hill, and to the train station in time for us to get back to Lisbon to grab our bags and head to Porto. With centimeters and seconds to spare.

Qualitative Research from the Mediterranean

It's time to play everyone's favourtie game: Cultural Observations!!, where the massive generalizations I make have a p value far less than 0.05 and may or may not be based on single encounters.

1) The trendiest haircut in Mediterranean Europe is something we have nicknamed "mullet dreads". I know you're all reading this and hoping its not what it sounds like... but it's exactly what it sounds like. A 1980s Canadian must have come to Spain, hooked up with a Rastafarian, made some babies with hair styled halfway in between, and the marketed that idea until no end. It's a completely shaved head, with about 5 or 6 dreadlocks coming off the very bottom part of the back of the head... and even worse than how it looks is how shockingly popular they are. I know in North America we're usually a couple years behind the Euro trends... but I really hope this one never catches on.

2) Spanish dogs are the most well behave pets in the world. People just don't put their dogs on leashes in Spain. They just walk around with them in the city, and the dogs don't bother anyone. I have no idea how this works. My only plausible hypothesis is that Cesar Millan, after being born in Mexico, traveled to Spain to get in touch with another Spanish culture, and consequently righted every dog in the country.

3) Spanish children have no bedtime. Kids play in the streets until past midnight, and in general everything is a little later. I mentioned in my previous post that the clubs stay open until six. I think it's likely because of the siesta - a midday break (2-4) when everything shuts down and everyone takes a nap. If Stephen Harper instituted that in Canada, maybe I'd even vote for him next time (that's a lie).

4) There are more Australians in Europe than Europeans. I bet I've met half of Australia's 28 million people in the last week.. and they're always a great time.

5) Portuguese is just Spanish but with one of those head colds where you can't really pronounce any of your letters. Honestly. If you want to know any word in Portuguese, take the Spanish word, remove any of the sounds that make it sound like and actual word, add a sound similar to the "j" in the french je at random somewhere in the word, and you've got it. Basically just try and sound like a deaf Spanish person. As you can tell, I'm mastering the language beautifully.

It's been an amazing time so far. Internet and computer access are tough to come by, but I'll try and squeeze a couple more posts in before I head back to the red and white. Much love, muchos gracias, dos cervezas por favor.

A Shotty Guide to Touring Barca

Barcelona! We are about to leave this wonderful city after spending three amazing days that I wont be able to do justice describing. I guess I will start with where we are staying - One Sants hostel. It all started when we met the guy who runs the hostel - Raphael. Take a second and try and picture this: if Mic Jagger and Captain Jack Sparrow had a son, and that son was Brazilian.... he would be Raphael. The group of people staying here are some of my favourite travel buddies I´ve ever met. People are from all over, but they are all just here to have a great time. We met a couple guys from Pittsburgh, who were consequently Buffalo Bills fans, and got the ¨Bills You Make Me Wanna Shout¨cheer going on the first night... It´s been a staple ever since. This is clearly cultural sharing at its finest. You´re welcome Spain.

The first thing we did when we got to the city was go out for dinner to a place Raphael recommended. He let us know that it was a tapas restaurant that was also a champagneria (they make champagne) and that you get really cheap glasses ($1.50) when you eat food. So we set out to navigate our way through the city with our tourist map.  We got to the area of the restaurant with ease, and then spent the next half hour walking through the wide stone streets and narrow alleys looking for a sign for Champagneria. Finally, we turned down one of the small alleys to find a hole-in-the-wall place with people packed in and pouring out of it. It was set up as a long thin bar, the kind where everyone is standing and you have to fight your way through sweaty people and spilly champagne drinkers to get to the bar and order. Nothing on the chalkboard menu was in English, and no one behind the bar spoke a hint of it. We relied on Justin's broken Portuguese, which sometimes can be like Spanish, to find our way to delicious tapas and champagne. This may be my favourite experience thus far even though it was so far from the classy sitdown bubbly restaurant I had envisioned we were going to.

Each night at the hostel, the employed Party Girl takes everyone out to some bars to get the real European experience. On the first night, the first place we went was a shots bar (shooters for those of the previous generation). They had over 600 different kinds of shots, most of which I had never seen or heard of. You could get one called a toasted marshmellow, in which they lit the bar on fire, gave you marshmellows on a stick, and you burn the marshmellow, dunk it in the shot, each the marshmellow and the take the shot. Wild. So before we got to this place, I made a deal with one of the guys who was staying at our hostel from LA to take a surprise shot provided he payed for it and bought the one after. I´m going to preface this story with just saying sorry to my Grandmothers for the mental image you´re about to get. haha. Anyways, after he ordered the ¨Monica Lewinsky¨for me, everyone around us at the bar literally stopped and stared, and I knew there was a story in the making. I was promptly blindfolded, and the bartender (a Spanish guy) then hopped on the bar facing me and put my hands on his thighs. Following instruction, I opened my mouth and tasted whipped cream... on a dildo. The name started to make a lot of sense. After a hilarious performance from the bartender, in which I was required to yell out that the acts I was performing were for love and not for money, beer shot out of the top of the ¨member¨ in the general area of my face. There is video a photo footage of this in case anyone really needs to see it. haha. Needless to say the nightlife in Barcelona is something to experience - amazing DJs, 5-floor clubs, clubs that open onto the Mediterranean beaches... and they´re all open until 6am.

During our daytime here, we have packed it with sightseeing and time at the beach. In total, we have probably spent around 5 waking hours actually at the hostel, every other moment we´ve been trying to take in Barcelona. Probably the most interesting thing about Barcelona, and maybe what it´s most famous for is the architecture. Quite a few buildings in the city were designed by the modernist architect Gaudi. His buildings, usually inspired in some way by nature, tend to look a lot like the illustrations in Dr Suess books. They´re actually incredible. He also designed a massive church here called Sagrada Familia, which was like no other building I had ever seen, or even seen pictures of. On the outside, there was a modern, almost heavy feel to the design. On the inside though, it had stain glass windows that painted white walls all the way to the enormous vaulted ceiling with rays of oranges, greens and reds. I haven't toured much of Europe, so I am unable to really offer any great comparison to where Sagrada Familia stands in comparison to others if similar fame. But I can tell you that Justin and Adriana, two of the people I am travelling with who have seen a lot of Europe were joined me in feeling overwhelmed by its size and unique design. Something to see if you ever get the chance!

Now, to Madrid for a day and Seville for a couple more. I am hoping that by the end of the trip, the tan and beard I'm working on will help me truly fit in with with the Spaniards. I'll keep you updated on that front.

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Another, Slightly Different Adventure

Well, I'm off once again. I created this blog so that I could tell you where I was when I went places outside North America, and in my first travels since India, I'm headed to Spain and Portugal. This is obviously a different kind of traveling - one that I've never really done before. This has no sense of philanthropic action or soul searching as my previous expeditions have. This time it's about a sightseeing, eating, drinking, lounging, partying last hoorah with a couple of beauties from undergrad. In two months time, I'll be in med school. Which means ill be sitting in a library corner crying over the histology slides that all look pink and spotty. This is my chance to get away beforehand... A kind of reward for working hard (hardly working?) over the past four years and a primer to buckle down for the next 4 (times ten?). I'll try and post a couple times over the next couple weeks and let you guys know what I, and the rest of my delinquent friends (looking at you Gordo) are up to. I've never added pictures on my blog before, but I hear its all the rage. We'll see what happens. You know what they say: When in....Lisbon?