blah blah and blah... what a great life you lead....

Mr. Fototaker. yea right. I wish everyone could lead a month in my shoes. In the two plus years in San Francisco, I walk around with no money in my pockets, because I didn't have any. I would ask for pocket money from my sister but that was always used to buy things for her....

Now I am returning to my empty apartment in southern Spain. Yeaaaaa, you're thinking what a great life. Well, I've been saving up my money (wot money) over these last few years in the states so I can do the maintenance I need to get my apt back to living condition again. I just paid a small fortune (seems that way for me) to ship my stuff to the East Coast and later hope to fly in the winter months to get my stuff, two suitcases at a time. yea yea yeaaaa, what a great life!!!

I just shipped out 20 damn large boxes, suitcases and plastic containers full of my USA life. I thought it would be NO more than 10, so when did this stuff all come from? Plus I never have money to buy anything,..... where did it all come from? To enlighten you a bit: my "souvenirs" are usually my own photos or a receipt from a bus ride, the entry fee paid to enter a state park, etc and I do have a LOT of those; or a free brochure from some place I stopped at.... wow!! this guy's got some great memories!!!!

Yea, yea, yeaaaaaaa what a great life!

So, now everyone thinks I got this great free "benefit" of flying any where free. "Come visit, you can fly free".... yea right.

So I sit in a military terminal in the middle of nowhere, can't go anywhere because I'll have two huge suitcases to watch and lug around! How fun.....

What a great Life!!!!

So, I sit there waiting for a flight and it may take a day or a month (it's happened before) but heck: it's free!!! I love sitting there reading too dam many books, not taking a shower for days/weeks and hey, I don't have to dress down or get dressed every night or morning!! Plus those airport bench chairs are sooo comfortable too!!

Yea right. What a great Life!!!!

Let's see: 560 lbs of stuff shipped to the East Coast. Two suitcases to fill up.... wait for another flight, sitting there all day and it's not open at night, so I have to leave each day and go "somewhere". Maybe a shady tree on the runway would be nice? It shouldn't take more than a few years of flying back and forth, right?

Yea, yea, yeaaaaaaa what a great life!

ooooh, go stuff it!!!! I am goneeeeeeee (but still not done packing nor cleaning!!!)

thoughts and more

I've been driving around a lot, trying to see as much as I can before I leave to live in my spanish apartment next year. In the past weeks I've driven to Big Sur, wound my way to gorgeous Fremont Peak State Park, and have a lot of weekend trips planned for the months to come. I can now even say I went to the Gilroy Garlic Festival and though it seems more like a commercial convention that just happened to have garlic stuff on grassy dusty fields, it was enjoyable up to a point. I've seen a lot, more than I ever have of my home state, but I want to see even more before I depart.... Yet another long week in Eugene next month gets me some more funds to add to my "get Tony to Spain" pot, and have extended the trip a few days so I can see some places in the Northwest that I never was able to see while living there. These little trips are memorable aside from the images I am capturing, and something I will remember long after my SF experience is forgotten.

The departure dates next year aren't set in stone yet but it can be as early as early spring or as late as mid-September. It all depends if I am able to sell my car and how long I need to wait till it's sold. Though I'll have a LOT of work in my apt, at least I'll be home finally and no more trips.

My Spain return will be so strange since first having a car in the late 70s, to be planning to be somewhere ~ anywhere ~ without a car! I've decided from my San Francisco experience to just rent cars when needed since I walk a lot and take the bus - public transportation is so much reasonable and reliable in Europe than it can ever be here. Plus the transport companies don't insult and yell at you as they do here.

While I am happy to get back to my own place, it leaves a lot of projects unfinished. Living with my sister has helped me - and I hope she feels I have helped her also - but it has left me with a giant repair bill in my spanish apt. I'll be busy for months! At least my apt will finally get finished to how I wanted it from when I first moved in, plus I have a few ideas and personal projects I'll begin in the hopes of moving air around in my apt, to prevent the huge heat problem I have during the summers. This year my little town has been hitting 90s and 100s on a regular basis for some weeks, something that has never happened while I was there 15 years till the very last two years prior to departing ~ I guess the sad reality of global warming is striking home.

My departure plans have also changed; I originally planned to bus to the East Coast and stay with friends before I fly out but as a traveler of the very mean and dangerous Greyhound buses (crazee drivers and corporate Greyhound doesn't care), plus the pleasure of being within ghetto bus stations in this grand country, I've decided not to subject myself to that demeaning dangerous and last ugly look at America - I want my last weeks to be nice and positive.... thanks Greyhound for opening my eyes to your careless drivers and sloppy operations, though if not for those dirty windows, I would've never seen a section of americana that I only see and hear about on CNNi and the evening news.

I am now hoping to fly out of California on a "comfortable" cargo plane to the East Coast, then make my way somehow across that big pond to Spain. It won't be an easy nor reliable journey, but I've done it before and one last roller-coaster ride (hopefully) won't hurt!I need an out, an escape from this unreal virtual world... I'm dying each traffic jam at a time, and it's draining everything out of me. I'm only happy when I am on the road, but being on the road isn't so wonderful any longer. I need to fly... escape out of this mess... and live my own life alone. No more false lies about happiness in the future, no more dreams of being happy anywhere with anyone.

The faces that turn to grab you and lie are everywhere... I just want something static, alive, real and one way: unchanging. I need to just GO!!

back in the City from Spain

... and what a heck of a looong flight it was ~ slept very little on the journey which for me started in Rota early Wednesday morning by cleaning up everything a final time. I love seeing my apartment so clean and "empty" and I will return one day though not soon enough. Arriving at the Sevilla airport just before 8am, I had enough time to check in and relax, if that is possible in an airport that is filthy, dirty and so old the bench leather coverings are crusted and wrinkled, and the gate waiting areas have floor spill drops so old and so visible, I would be embarrassed to say I worked there. I thought about a complaint but know it would get the standardized form-letter complaint reply and nothing would be done. I've suggested and complained on previous occasions about poor service, airport workers allowing people to smoke within the airport and not saying anything, etc., but the spanish are accustomed to their lifestyle, and complaints or suggestions do not last long in the system.

Aboard the Sevilla to Barcelona flight, I was distressed after we took off and I didn't have my camera out and at the ready; the raindrops as it again poured as we took off were so beautiful upon the tiny cabin windows that I wished I could have recorded its slow movement across my window.... by time I did get out the camera, the raindrops were gone being high above the clouds and in Barcelona it wasn't even raining any longer. There my next segment was delayed due to heavy fog at Munich, which was a change from the usual Frankfurt. I dreaded returning to Germany as a passenger due to their double security checkpoints but was later pleasantly surprised when after finally arriving and moving fast to the next gate - which of course seemed to be miles and miles away - I didn't have to pass through any security checkpoints at all! Even as we were still taxiing to the Munich terminal, the PA system in the aircraft warned all travelers to hurry to their connecting flights as the airport security can be very slow and time-consuming.

Seen in the men's restrooms in the Munich airport, a great airport when compared with the old and filthy Sevilla airport. Seems that the urinal designers thought ahead in an attempt to inprove the aim of those using these facilities. I've seen this before but was never able to get a picture and this time I was prepared! A few others saw me snapping pictures of the urinals and thought I was crazy till I pointed out to them it wasn't the urinal but the fly I was interested in... then the response was laughter.... and in an airport, who can't use a bit of laughter?

As soon as I arrived at the gate, I was boarded and after four others behind me followed, the cabin doors were closed and we took off inside a recently-delivered new A340-600 plane that was beautiful to relax and enjoy this 11-hour flight back to San Francisco!! Not only first- and business-class areas look nice but even the economy class area was a delight! Each and every seat in the aircraft had its own LED touch-screen media center that allowed passengers to view music videos, see a wide selection of movies, listen to over 10 styles of radio-system music, or even learn about the airline company! As a result, I watched a total of four on-demand movies throughout the long-journey, interrupted frequently by my getting the camera to snap away at the gorgeous sunset that lasted half of the long-haul flight and amazingly enough turned even more flaming red just as I thought the sunset would finally end after four hours! It turned out it was to end but as the flight route took us from Germany to the Americas on a northwestern curve taking us over the Norwegian Sea, Iceland, Greenland, then just north of Hudson Bay then toward Vancouver Island, BC..... it seems when the plane finally took its downward curve just as I saw the sunset colors fading; remembering in San Francisco a month ago, the bearing angle of the sunset then was about 240-degrees, so when we turned southwesternly, according to the visual map of our route, we turned toward the sun and that accounted for it glowing once again to finally end later after six hours!!!
Amazingly enough, the last two hours were the most colorful as the horizon burned with an intense flaming-red color. I believe this is the very first time I have seen such a sunset lasting more than three-hours, plus no sunrise! In fact, I saw two sunsets on this flight!!

The movies I saw were Eagle Eye which I've wanted to see but hate SF theaters, Ghost Town which I thought was stupid but cried during the last 15mins of the movie, Vicky Christina Barcelona, and Nights In Rodanthe - an excellent movie which I am glad I watched after seeing it starred Richard Gere and Diane Lane. I also cried during the last 10mins of Nights In Rodanthe for the sad ending though it ended on a happier note....

It seems strange to be back in the City, and in a place where I have a car as I had to walk during my month in Spain which I don't mind at all if I were wearing the proper shoes for that type of activity. Even with the high amount of walking, unfortunately I gained weight instead of losing ~ I blame all that great olive oil in the spanish food eaten out in town, and cooking at home ~ the first time ever I've gained instead of lost weight in my trips to Spain. Perhaps all I really need to do is stop eating enough for four or five persons at a sitting!! hahahahaaaa

sigh.....

last night's storms

Last night it actually hailed in Rota... it was already past the sunset - there was no color at all - and the hail struck my balcony windows with such a force I actually thought someone was throwing pebbles against the glass. Accompanied by thunder and lightning, it made me wish I had brought my tripod but of course where would I set up to shoot? hahahahaa

the day after the storms, gorgeous clouds (cell cam pix)

More cleaning and packing, moving things from one box that was packed more than two and a half years ago, into other boxes to make more space. Finding things I haven't seen since... well, since I initially left Rota over two years ago.

One thing you should remember if you own property in this part of Spain and are using an agency to rent out your place: I've discovered one cannot trust the lousy Rota real estate agency I used when I left - these people don't even need to be licensed here - were the only ones who had keys to my place, along with a friend. When I told him I was returning for three weeks in January of 2008, he mentioned he would setup my bed as it was dismantled. I said sure and thanks so much!! A few weeks later he asked if I had allowed someone to come into my apartment. I didn't and told him that; it appears someone was in my apartment and used the bed! Once I got to Rota, I could see what my friend had seen and I thought the same thing: the real estate agency as they were the only others with a key. Though I complained and demanded an explanation, they didn't claim any responsibility for it. I've mentioned this to many spanish and american friends living in Spain and am told this happens quite often. Some worker in that agency knows that the owner is gone, the place is empty and just takes the keys and uses it at their convenience to have a party of two or of ten, and leave a mess. At least I didn't have a lot they could do in my apartment, as I had hardly anything but lots of boxes, but I have heard some horror stories in Sevilla and other places. So, be very careful and always have friends with an extra key to call and ask to have them check your place.

I cannot believe it's only three more days I have three remaining days in Spain and by the end of this new week I'll be back in the big City. YUCK! Now to figure out how to get my stuff to Rota!!!