On the road with Zelazowa

I went this past week to Madrid and Barcelona to meet up with friends from the States who are doing a European tour - their band is called Zelazowa. I went to their shows in Madrid and Barcelona and had a chance to hang out with them, which was great. I both by accident and by planning met up, both in Madrid and Barcelona, also with some Spanish friends and even a Scottish girl, all folks that I´ve met here. I spent Tuesday night on a bus, Wednesday night in Madrid and Thursday through Saturday nights in Barcelona. The principal players in Madrid were Bryan, Terry, Ian, Kyle and Dave(the band and videographer), Pelu and Luis, Javi, Penelope Cruz and the Spanish President. In Barcelona they were Bryan, Terry, Ian, Kyle and Dave, Javi, Hernán, Esteban, Manolito, Suzy, Marta, Oriol, the 12€ megabeer, Joaquim, Cristina, Luis, some high school friends, and me - he-ey!!! So that´s the crux of the long blog entry that I´m about to begin to finish.

After an overnight bus ride from Jerez I arrived Wednesday morning in Madrid. I spent the day walking and riding the metro around the city - great time. That night I just happened to run into one of my buddies from Jerez - Pelu - while I was waiting to get into the rock show. He and his cousin were working that day in Madrid and to cap off the day decided to go with me inside to the show. My other friend - Javi - showed up a little later. I´d made plans to meet up with him in the first place. We thought we were screwed when he showed up because I´d given his invitation to Pelu to get in. The folks at the door let us in without an invitation. How nice. Anyway, I introduced Javi, Pelu and Pelu´s cousin to my American buddies after they finished their show. So my Spanish friends spoke their Spanish and my American friends their English, and they somehow understood eachother. I was only needed to translate important things like, Hey Sean, tell this guy that I´ll go get a marker so I can sign a copy of the CD for him. My buddies had some good stories to tell from their tour so far.

I got to go backstage after the show and catch up a little with them. They were nice to answer all my questions about how exactly you go into such undefined territory as making a European tour without a manager or booking agent - oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. In addition to playing his or her instrument, each band member, and even the videographer and tour chronicler who´s travelling with them, each has his or her parallel duties like booking shows, writing blogs, arranging transportation and stuff. Pretty neat. The do-it-yourself work ethic. You do it all yourself. The band is called Zelazowa and if they keep at it you´ll be hearing about them one day...not from me I mean. www.myspace.com/zelazowa

We had kebaps for dinner after midnight that night. The funny thing for me was that it was after midnight on a Wednesday night and the folks at the kebap joint didn´t even seem to be considering closing any time soon. Anyway, on my walk home from the show I received too many sexual solicitations to count - as it turned out I was staying in a hostel in a hooker hotspot.

Thursday morning I caught a bus to Barcelona and had the pleasure of seeing some of the Spanish countryside on the way. I arrived in the autonomous community of Cataluña - where Barcelona is - to find that in addition to Spanish they speak Catalán. I should say in addition to Catalán they speak Spanish because Catalán is the official language there - the official language is something other than Spanish in a place INSIDE of Spain. And now you can begin to understand the strong secondary identities within the country of Spain. You´re Spanish but in several parts of the country you´re more defined by the part of the country you´re from than by the country as a whole. I guess it´s like that in the States but we don´t have a variety of languages to further define these mini identities, do we? Uh, I don´t know what I´m talking about.

I arrived in Barcelona Thursday night and had a nice walk to my hostel. Barcelona´s beautiful. I met up with my friends from Jerez to check out the night life in the Gothic neighborhood of the city. We met in the Plaza de Cataluña, or Catalunya as it´s written in Catalán. There are lots of people out and about in Barcelona at night but I would guess that number is doubled once the beer peddlers come out to sell you cans of beer on the street. There are probably 3 trillion of them out every night. Are these extreme exagerations as funny to you as they are to me? I´m surrounded by kids at school who tend to exagerate like that (3 trillion beer peddlers) and it rubs off on me. Sorry, continuing...

Friday morning after the biggest breakfast a hostel had ever let me have I checked out and walked out into the morning´s rain. This didn´t stop me from walking along the beach or checking out some other sites in the city. At the Sagrada Familia cathedral, which is very unique, I met up with a friend who I´d met online - Suzy. Suzy lives in Barcelona and I would be spending the next two nights in her apartment. She showed me more of the city that afternoon. We headed to Friday night´s Zelazowa show in Barcelona - part 2 of my reason for going on this trip in the first place. We, like the band I later found out, had some trouble finding the place, but we got there finally. The show that night was EXCELLENT! The music is very moving and the guys´ dedication shows when they play. Phew! I had to serve as translator that night which allowed me to SAVE the show but at the same time put me in an awkward position, having to be informed of the band´s financial arrangement with the venue. Anyway, after the show I got to go backstage again and chat with the guys. Some Spaniard made fun of my glasses in such a cutting way that I will be replacing them first thing when I return to the States. Anyway, after the show Terry, the drummer, decided to go out with Suzy and I. We met up with my friends from Jerez - I forgot to say before they were there for the weekend too. Good night.

Saturday - Suzy showed me some more magnificent parts of Barcelona. We went to the castle fort at Montjuic. We rode the cable car up to it, getting a nice view of the city only to be bettered by the view atop the castle fort - magnificent. You could see the port of Barcelona from the castle. I played on the canons at the corners of the castle fort. We then went to meet up again with the friends from Jerez for some more talking, tapas and other stuff. Suzy and I watched a seagull devour a pigeon in the middle of the street for about 3 mintues on the way to the friends. That made us stop and think about nature and stuff. We decided we would order seagull burgers that night to get back at the seagull population for eating that pigeon/we would perpetuate the cycle of rapacity.

After the talking, tapas and other stuff, I crashed for a few hours at Suzy´s place before having to head out at 4 AM to the airport to catch a 7 AM flight to Sevilla and then a train to Jerez. In Sevilla I had a nice walk, watched a protest, had a nap by the river, watched a bike race time trial, had the house chocolate ice cream in an ice cream joint, and, when it started to rain, headed to the train station.

I´m going to try changing the word order in this next sentence. I hope you like it. I back in arrived Jerez broke and tired, had two big bowls chocolate of muesli and the hay hit.

Thanks for reading. Happy Earth Day.