Dawg Redux
Adam called me yesterday again from Madrid. This was a surprise because I thought he had left since I hadn't seen him since Sunday. What the hell's he been doing for the past 4 days I wondered!?? Hanging out with Italian women backpackers! Yeah!
Adam sorta arrived here in Europe on a lark. He had some extra cash and couple extra weeks and had a friend in Warsaw so he decided to fly over arranged to meet up with her in Prague. He bought an 8 day rail pass and used every day on it zipping all over Europe before and after. He bopped down here last Sunday (to my surprise) and was like "Hey! Let's hit the town!" and I was like, "Hey! I'm married and have a 3 month old!" But we still wandered around on Sunday evening and I showed him the town as best I could and gave him some tips on Spain - like the fact everyone comes out at night... LATE. He was wondering, as I did when I first arrived here, where the hell everyone was! I also showed him where some good tapas places are. Adam was cool as hell about the food, really willing to try anything. He's a vegetarian but eats fish and the Spanish love seafood. Unlike my visiting family, the more wild the food was, the more into it Adam was. We ordered a bunch of stuff like sardines and octopus and eels and he loved it.
While we were wander, I made sort of side comment about travelling in Europe. Adam didn't think to, you know, bring a book or anything on European travel (like a Let's Go guide or a Lonely Planet) so he was just walking off the train stations, finding the cheapest place to stay and hanging out mostly alone. Having backpacked around Europe in 1998, I told him that wasn't the way to do it at all... he had to hit the backpacking hostels because you always meet other travellers who are usually very cool and they have common rooms to hang out in, etc. So on Tuesday, he checked himself into one, met some a group of other travellers - notably the Italians - and was going non stop for two+ days when he finally called me yesterday. Yeah! That's the way to see Europe!
So he came over last night and we had tapas at a place next to the house and I lived vicariously off his stories of the past two days and it was fun. We also geeked out a bit after in the house on the computer - he showed me part of his dissenting home page Dangerous Books where anyone can drop a review. Very nice.
Adam is supposedly taking off today for Paris then to London and home, though he was talking about extending his trip a bit. ;-) All in all, a very good visit. I'll post a pic of us hanging out soon...
-Russ