A few things seen and done in Liverpool

1) Cains Brewery: Described as "Liverpool in a Bottle" the brews have been served to Liverpudlians since 1850. The ornate red brick building on Stanhope St. was a great place to relax and soak in some brewing history.

2) Tate Liverpool Gallery: Right now they have an exhibit where you put on headphones queued up with old funk (James Brown, The Meters, etc.), while looking at modern sculptures.

3) Heebie Jiebies: Great bar with a really impressive layout - giant beer garden with a stage on first floor, arching, cavernous brick interior basement with indie and new wave music, and a richly decorated, chandaliered third floor with American funk and soul tunes. About 6 or 7 bars in the place in total - like discovery zone for drunks.

4) Cavern Club: It was very cool to be standing in relatively the same spot where the just starting out Beatles played weekly for about three years, but a bit disenchanting considering the place was demolished 20 years ago and then eventually rebuilt "to look just as it did when the Beatles played there."

5) Walk to city center with the second half of Abbey Road on my Ipod: (starting with "You Never Give Me Your Money")

6) Bombed Out Church: St. Lukes Church, bombed by the enemy in WWII, still tands erect (at least its foundations do) and is used as an open air venue for galleries, shortfilms and other arts. Very cool.

Weekend in Liverpool

A lot of factors seemed to be drawing me to Liverpool before I finally gave in and booked my flight. There’s the fact that it’s the home of George, John, Paul and Ringo, creators of the music I’ve been raised on – and I really mean raised on. My mother’s been playing Beatles songs and singing them to me since I could hold memories. The group is literally such a big deal with my grand, Irish-Catholic powerhouse of a family that at almost all get-togethers, and especially at weddings, we gather round in a giant, swaying circle and shout the lyrics to “Rocky Racoon” from the bottom of our beer-filled bellies.

There’s also the fact that I happen to have one of my oldest and greatest friends living there right now, ready to offer me a place to stay and good company for the entire weekend. As I was debating buying a ticket I started to get wind of all the Beatlemania going on back in the states as well, sparked I believe by the release of Rock Band: The Beatles Edition. All the albums were being re-released as special re-mastered or anniversary editions or something or other. I got on to Pitchfork and saw that they had had the audacity to review these re-releases, giving every single one of them 10’s I think, but still, what the hell Pitchfork. I got on Facebook and saw that my closest friends from school were having a Beatlemania party, which I was very jealous of. Anyway between my family obligations, all this hype, and the fact that the one and only Molly Boyd was there, it seemed the planets had aligned – I was going.

Easy jet is not the classiest company to fly with; in fact, it’s not even PBR classy, which is cheap but nostalgic and vaguely hip and so somehow superior to other cheap brews. Easy jet is just cheap. So naturally, when you board the plane, you can sit wherever you want. I passed several aisles until seeing a good window seat next to a woman in her 50’s or 60’s and took it. Sitting next to this woman ended up being one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. As she got up to let me in I could see immediately how nervous she was about the flight. Her movements were terse, sudden, and a bit shaky. She wore little hiking shoes, jeans, and a nice white blouse, along with tons of bracelets and other jewelry. She had heavy make-up, and hair that would be grey but was instead dyed purplish-red. Her hands shook a bit as she reached into her bag to grab her pearl white rosary and ran her fingers through a few Hail Mary’s. I felt quite bad for her. Soon she spoke: “Sorry …. I get a bit nervous,” she said. I think I commented that “it was nothing to worry about.” I then commented on here rosary, and showed her the small St. Christopher necklace I had around my neck. She smiled and calmed down a bit. I told her about my life and my travels and what I was doing in Spain.

Apparently her pre-flight jitters were all pre-flight, because as soon we got off the ground and leveled out she was visibly much more collected. She offered me a Mentos, I took it. Five minutes later she gave me the rest of the package and wouldn’t let me say no. Five minutes after that, she handed me another package, this containing halls menthols. “It’s another kind of mint,” she said. Once again, I couldn’t say no. It got better from there. As the flight attendants began rolling their carts down the aisle, she began insisting that she buy me something to drink and eat (you have to pay for this stuff on Easy Jet, because you already saved a shit-ton of money on your ticket, and they need to stiff you any other way they can). I told her I guess I’d have some tea, but I didn’t need any food. She got my English breakfast tea and also ordered a can of Pringles and a Kit-Kat bar. She opened the Pringles, ate one of them, and then handed me the rest of the can. “I know you want to eat,” she said. “I have sons.” She then handed me the Kit-Kat, too. Each time, saying no was not an option. After landing and going through customs (the immigration officer had quite a few prying questions to ask about this “Molly Boyd” I was coming to visit), I ran into my stranger-turned-benefactor one more time. It had been a rather late flight, as it was now about 1:30 in the morning. She asked how I was getting to my friend’s place, and I said I’d be taking a bus. “Do you have enough money?” she said. “Yes, I do,” I told her as firmly as I could. She looked at me with a very concerned face, stuttered, and then shoved a folded up note of 20 pounds into my hand, which I had not seen her holding. At first speechless, I then simply shouted "thank you so much!" as she walked away. Thank you, you British angel you.....

Day one started off strong, and we began a bit of a day drunk in the early afternoon. It seemed I had brought a bit of the Spanish sun with me, as Molly and Constant commented that it was unusually nice weather for Liverpool. The sun was out, and the great white English clouds sat row after row above the buildings, looking slow and officious. Beer one was at the famous Cain’s brewery close to Constant’s neighborhood. The building was impressive – a red bricked building with a tall, almost church like tower that can be seen from miles away. Molly, of course, got a whisky and soda while Constant and I tried out their “Formidable Ale.” It was a bit like an IPA but sweeter and very, very smooth. Delicious. See it in all it's formidableness below...

Beer two was at a campus bar near Liverpool University. Another ale for Constant and I and another mixed drink for Molly. Our last stop for the afternoon was a “tequila bar,” where you could get shots for only a quid. The walls were lined with every flavor imaginable of tequila, which was fine with me, because the stuff straight up doesn’t usually sit well with me. For round one I tried “black currant” and for round two “Irn-Bru,” a popular soda in the UK from Scotland. By the end of this we were more than sufficiently “pissed,” as they charmingly refer to it, for the sun to still be up. However, this did not stop Constant from making a risotto when we got back to his place, and a damn good one at that. It consisted of Asparagus and red and orange peppers wrapped in bacon and drizzled with olive oil, and then some rice cooked to perfection. Although he said it was “so easy,” I couldn’t have made it, and so was impressed as well as grateful. As time rolled by at the apartment, Constant got sleepier and sleepier while Molly and I got more and more restless. Eventually he decided to just call it a night and let Molly and I have our own fun for the night. Understandable…Alas, he had had class that morning and Molly I had done, well, jack. Not much needs to be mentioned about our night; we did exactly what you would imagine two Irish, former Catholic grade school classmates who haven’t seen each other in almost a year or more, would do. Ales were drank, I think a little dancing to James Brown happened, and at one point, as I was getting a bit confused with the currency, I spilled something like 20 quid in coins all over the bar and just had the bartender take whatever the pint of Estrella Damn had cost, hurriedly shoving the rest back into my pockets. We had a fantastic night, but embarrassingly enough for me, it ended in incessant hiccups which I could not control. That was the sign it was time to go home I guess.

When I woke up and finally checked out pictures from the night the next day, I had to laugh out loud. I had attempted to take several pictures of the Liverpool skyline at night from Albert Dock on the way home, and each one was blurred beyond recognition. I suddenly recalled getting the shot focused, holding the camera still, pressing the shutter and then violently hiccuping right before each picture took. Twas quite frustrating. Here is the hilarious result:

We got moving and checked out the Liverpool World Museum. After the aquarium and bugs/fossils, Constant and Molly opted to check out the space/galaxies exhibit, while I went to the Ancient Egyptian one (far superior). We saw this as an analagy for our takes on life: Constant prefers to peer into the wonders of the future and the infinite universe while I prefer to gain wisdom from the past. Anyway, ancient Egypt is cool, but standing in place to read exhibits while you’re achy, sweaty, and have a headache is not. Pretty soon we met back up in the lobby to head back to the docks/Constant’s apartment to rest up.

Saturday night was the big house/techno show at Chibuku, a very hip club in Liverpool with at least three stages of dance music on different floors. Earlier in the week Molly had miraculously bought the last three tickets for the show, and we were all pretty pumped to go. Shows like this are, for me anyway, a bit interesting. I can get into it, but not nearly as much as all the people around who are blasting off on rollers and uppers and whatever else, like the girl I met from Essex who insisted that a spider had been “dub step dancing” on her head, and warned me to watch out for it. Anyway we danced/sweat our hearts out for hours. I’ve been to big name dance shows like Daft Punk and Justice, and I’d say the quality of this one was somewhere between those and the discoteca I foolishly blew some money on in Granada. The headliner, Simian Mobile Disco, was pretty good, but I was a lot more impressed by the set before them, done by a group called Fake Blood. I had a great time, but didn’t notice any dub-stepping spiders in my hair.

Sunday morning brought about a truly exciting event, something we had literally been planning all weekend, a full, traditional English breakfast. Our limbs exhausted from walking around and dancing all the previous day, we sat down to fried eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, blueberry muffins, rye toast with butter, and even some store bought mince meat pies, which I ate but Molly and Constant passed on. After breakfast, we all went into food comas and slept for another few hours – a perfect Sunday. From here on out the weekend was way more laid back. We checked out more museums (they’re all free in the UK!) and saw a movie, Zombieland, which was all right, but certainly no Shawn of the Dead. I think the movie would have been a total bust if not for Bill Murray’s excellent cameo. The man could save any movie. I arrived at John Lennon Airport for my Monday evening flight to Malaga feeling like I had only just gotten there. I didn’t meet any charming British ladies on my flight who wanted to offer me tea and chocolate and money, but I guess that kind of good fortune only happens once in a lifetime, if at all. The weekend had been “well -good,” “mint,” “proper,” and all the other ways the charming folks of Liverpool have for saying a good time.

The Iberian Peninsula's Highest

Although I did bring hiking boots and a camelback (the camelback is now kind of ruined from me putting one euro red wine in it), I had no intention of doing this before I came to Spain. I did it on a whim, which is how all great adventures should be done. While hiking between the villages of the Alpujarra almost a month ago (which was the first time I’ve ever actually gone “hiking”), something clicked, and I found myself really enjoying the experience and wanting to return again as soon as possible. My friend Eddie shared the same sentiment, and we started making vague plans to come back, this time with our eyes set on something bigger. With the fall weather progressing further and further, we realized that our chance to conquer the mighty Mulhacen might soon disappear, at least without picks and spiked boots and real winter coats. In fact a couple people had told us that the weather was already too dangerous, could change dramatically at any moment while we were up there, and leave us in a blinding fog, sub zero temperatures or worse. Above all, we were more than once told that we should go with a guide. But to go with a guide – someone to make sure we always took the most direct, quickest paths and never got lost, someone to be able to see the signs early on of bad weather and keep us away from any chance of injury or fatal error – no no, that simply would have ruined the entire adventure. We took as many precautions as we could by ourselves: got a decent map, brought rain gear, more than enough food, lighters, a flashlight, and of course checked to make sure the weather would be clear, or at least was predicted to be clear, and that was it. I called and booked a reservation for the refuge the day before in broken Spanish, and we were on our way.

My mountain climbing comrades......

Edward Miller (right): in ROTC at U of I and will join the ranks of the few, the proud, the Marines after graduation in May. Has run marathons and climbed Mt. Fuji, and is by far the most in-shape out of the three of us. Reads the new Dan Brown with the cover off, so that nobody knows he’s reading the new Dan Brown.

Josh Clermont (left): calm, collected, French.

As for me? I smoke, sometimes a lot. I’ve gone to the gym before – almost out of feeling of sheer obligation because I feel like if I’ve paid that much in tuition money for the school to build a new rec center, than I’d better go use the damn rec center once in a while – but I never enjoy it. Needless to say, I’m not in great shape.

The journey began with a bus ride out of Granada all the way up to the last Alpujarran town before the path to Mulhacen, Capileira. How the driver was able to guide a two ton vehicle all the way up the winding, narrow mountain roads filled with blind corners, all with a stick-shift, I’m not sure, but it was certainly impressive. Once in Capileira, Josh and I waited up for Eddie (he had missed the early morning bus by minutes and so was now on the next one, scheduled to come about two hours later). We bought a map, had a local guide outline our course in highlighter, and overall just got as familiar with the trail as we could in a two hour time span, which was not very much. The guide told us it would take us five and a half to six hours to get to the refuge, but we had higher hopes than that. As soon as Eddie’s bus pulled in, we were off. We had to make the refuge by sundown on a trail we’d never been on, and it was already almost three.

After an hour or so on the trail we came across the first and most obvious landmark along the way, the abandoned village of Cebadilla. Once a small settlement for laborers at a hydroelectric power plant, it now makes for a ominous sight and novelty for hikers. The windows on the buildings are all long since broken through, and all that’s left of the interiors is graffiti lined walls and heaps of broken glass, old appliances and other rubble on the floors. A church loomed on the left side of the road as we passed through, cross still standing erect at its crest, but no trace of any stained glass or other adornments it may have worn in the past. I pictured this as the kind of place kids in La Alpujarra dare each other to stay the night at, and I’m sure countless legends surround the mysteriously abandoned buildings.

From Cebadilla we had to walk up through the old hydroelectric power plant, back onto a trail, and then begin gaining altitude, fast. This was probably the first really rigorous part of the trail, which consisted of about a half hour long, very steep and upward winding ascent. Once the trail flattened out a bit, Mulhacen could soon be seen in the distance, still very far away. We passed little huts here and there, some looking like they might be inhabited and others long abandoned. Finally we came across definite reassurance that we were going the right way, an arrow shaped sign that read “Refugio Poqueira” that pointed the way we were going. Pretty sure this was the only actual sign during the entire ascent to the peak. Instead, markers came in the form of occasional yellow and white striped wooden posts or tiny stacks of stones that other climbers had kindly placed along the way. And actually, those worked out really well. I think we only got lost once or twice, and not for more than 15 minutes or so. Soon after the sign we took a break in the river valley below Mulhacen, cool mountain water flowing around us as we dug into chorizo, M'n'M's, manchego, apricots, rasin’s, a spainish version of goldfish, peanuts, a fine spread.

After the valley the trail got steep, and didn’t let up until we reached the refuge. This two-to-three hour stint was brutal, and at the same gorgeous. Every time I’d feel my legs burning like hell and my heart pounding out of my chest, I’d look up, lightheaded from the thinning air and see a wild landscape all around me: dark clouds forming over Mulhacen due to the dropping temperature, trees and shrubs thinning and being replaces with barren rock, a sea of valley and hills below us stretching to the horizon. The beauty of it all allows you to push yourself much, much farther than you normally would. When we finally caught sight of the refuge, although too beat to show it, we were more than pleased. Mission accomplished for day one of the excursion. We had made the hike in about five and a half hours.

At the refuge we were each given a key to our lockers, which contained two wool blankets to keep us warm in our bunks. Once again, we feasted on the groceries we had brought. Feast appears here....










We fell asleep to the sound of freezing wind whipping around the mountain bed….


Woke up around 7:00 am, paid for a five euro breakfast of cereal, coffee, toast with cheese or jam or meat paste (which was actually really good) and set off. The trail was gorgeous. We followed the "rio Mulhacen" all the way to its mouth, which lie to the west of the peak. From there the trail was at its most brutal – a zigzagging climb that seemed almost completely vertical on delolate red and brown rock that made it appear as though we were on some other planet. It seemed like we were taking breaks every five minutes to catch our breath. Small patches of snow began appearing on the path as we got close.

After three hours, we summited, and beheld all the spoils that come with it. Looking down we could see a thin layer of clouds below us and smaller mountains all around us. Granada was smaller than my thumb. Already at the summit was a duo of Polish travelers, whom we had met the night before at the refuge. Warm handshakes and congratulations were shared. Soon thereafter a Spanish couple, Miguel from Granada and Teresa from Portugal, summited from the other side of the mountain. Miguel shared with us some fruit very typical of Andalucia, called higos, that he had brought up with him. After the Poles descended, another group from Gibraltar soon came up. It was incredible. Here we were on the top of Spain, trading stories above the clouds with people from all over the world. Quite possibly the quickest hour of my life so far.

Afternoon at the Bullfight

This will come of as naive, but up till the very moment when I saw the torreros stabbing at the big beasts with colorful staves with ribbons on them, I had no idea they actually killed the bulls at these things, or at least I had no idea that that was pretty much the sole purpose of the event. Needless to say I was a bit shocked when, because the first bull was a bit too stalwart, or perhaps had not been stabbed precisely in the right spot by the fighter, a torrero had to repeatedly raise a knife in the air with both hands and slam it down onto the bull's skull until it stopped groaning and twitching. Yes, this was the most violent thing I had ever seen with my own eyes.

I was shocked, but not offended. For as much violence as there was, there was just as much or even more art, sport, and culture along with it. And did you know that, although a rarity, when a bull acutally succeeds in evading the fighters stabs for long enough or actually injures the matador to the point where he can no longer fight, the bull is considered the victor and gets to spend the rest of his life mating with loads of female bulls, spreading his seed to make future champion bulls? Either way, whether the animal goes down in a colorful spectacle of gore and applause or dies from old age and a way overworked libido, I'd say his end was way better than that of the countless other cattle that are routinely slaughtered daily and unceremoniously.

Like I said before, besides the gore, there really was a lot of sport and athleticism to this thing. Typically, there are a total of six fights, four of which we watched at this particular event before my friend Meg said she had had enough. Like me, I don't think she was all that offended, but after seeing four bulls stabbed to death, she simple didn't desire to see anymore. I don't blame her. The most impressive fight by far was the second, in which an apparently quasi famous matador, dressed in very flashy orange, white, and gold, did the fighting. (Naturaly, neither Meg nor I recognized or remember the names of any of the fighters). The guy without a doubt had the skills to back up his audacious outfit. Several times, rather than wave the red flag standing up, he got down on his knees and waved it out in a totally defenseless position. Had the bull for some reason found his orange outfit more enticing, or had he not waved the bandera with the correct motions, he would have been trampled for sure. At one point he allowed the bull to pass by him not once but two times in a row in this position before standing up. At another point he brought the flag in a little closer to his body and, rather than pull it up and allow the bull to run past him, kept it at his side so that the bull continued to circle him over and over, grabbing the beast by the neck as he spun with it in tandem. Eventually, the bull did for a moment get the best of him. As the matador attempted yet another athletic feat, or tempting of fate, he was tripped up and fell over. The bull seized the opportunity and charged the fallen competitor. The matador instictively and wisely grappled the bull around the neck with his body, so as not to be gored. Although the bull bucked and reared, he couldn't shake the fighter, and within seconds four or five torreros came out to distract him with flags from all sides. The matador apperently knew it was now safe to let go, and sure enough, the bull entirely forgot about him and charged at the array of colorful new targets around him. Next came a truly symbolic and romantic moment in the fight. The slightly trampled matador, now visibly bleading through his orange tights/pants from an injury his lower leg, wrapped a tourniquet above the wound and called off the other torreros. He walked back out to face the bull again. Blood ran down his leg from the bull just like blood ran off the bull's back from his knives. In a rather ballsy display, the matador continued to play with and tease the bull with his flag, rather than kill him right away. But eventually, an end had to come. As the bull charged for the last time, rather than meeting a raised red flag, he met the matador's rigid sword, thrust perfectly through the top of his neck and into his vital organs. The bull staggered for what seemed like a minute, unable to move, and as the matador motioned wildly with his arm, as if telling it to die, the beast reared upward and collapsed on to the ground, dead on the spot. The matador's one thrust had really been perfect.

A quick not about the people in the seats around us at the event: They were almost all American, which I guess wasn't too surprising since we were in the cheaper section of the stadium. Besides their clothes and language, something that distinguished them as fellow americans was the fact that they had brought snacks. No sooner had a group of guys sat behind us than they began eating family sized bags of sour cream and onion lays. Some girls that were with them also began busting out cookies and chips and all sorts of junk. It got weirder...... While blood was at the same moment gushing from the back of a freshly stabbed bull below us, girls to our left were talking about what kind of sandwhiches their host mothers had made them. "Is that chicken?" a girl asked in the most nonchalant voice possible to her companion, who had just unwrapped the foil from a sizable bocadillo, as a bull below us, already with several knives stuck into his back, is being continuously stabbed to death. "O no, it's an egg and cheese sandwhich," she says after taking a bite. "So good!" she adds. I think they would have offered some snacks to their other friend, but she was too busy crying her eyes out at the amazing brutality taking place before her. I guess she was a bit more sensitive.....

*The photos for this post were taken by the very cool, very talented Meg Anderson, all rights reserved, etc., etc. If you are impressed, as you should be, you should totally give her a job. Just sayin.*