Archive for December 2007

Nerd Quest, Part II




I know I posted the first part of the Nerd Quest way back when I started this, but it occured to met that I never got around to posting photos of Tintagel, which is especially unfair, as Tintagel may have been one of the best places I saw the whole time I was away.

Ireland, Part Two








Trim at dusk on the day it didn't rain.

Ireland, Part One



Upper lake, Glendalough




Left: a grave in Trim; right: ivy growing in Laragh


Last day



Back in London, where I have about 30 more hours before heading back home; with the endpoint to this whole trip so close in sight, I am so tired and ready to be back in Brooklyn that I'm only a little sad at the thought of saying goodbye to this entire trip. On my last day in Spain, I took the rickety, improbable bus up into the Albacin neighborhood in Granada to take in one last look at the Sierra Nevadas from the Plaza San Nicholas amidst dreadlocked tourists with their 40s and small dogs, flamenco guitar players and necklace vendors (who can shut down shop and scatter in a matter of minutes when the police come). None of my tour books mentioned that bus service, but anyone who ever visits Granada should take it through the Albacin at least once, if only to see for yourself how a wide bus is somehow manage to trundle through narrow, winding, steep cobbled streets without killing anyone. The view doesn't suck either.

it seems that anyone who consumes thorn apple root feels deep trust in the people he is with at the time

In Sevilla, which is so hot I´m wearing a tanktop and finding excuses to stop walking around so much in the unfamiliar sun; I only have a few minutes left of what I´m pretty sure is free internet at the Tourist Office, so for now I just wanted to say that the high point of being in Spain (aside from making it to Chapter Two of Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal) has definitely been the Antiguo Museo de Brujería, or museum of witchcraft, which tragically does not have a huge internet presence, unless you count numerous directions to the travel sites that tragically advise their readers to´walk past the witchcraft museum¨ on their way to bigger, less unexpectedly awesome and kitschy venues. The museum itself is about five euros (though the guy gave me two books for free, so it sort of balanced out) and made up of several dimly lit rooms that house a comprehensive exhibit of medieval poisons and hallucinigens (from which comes the title of this post) and a collection of false relics, including but not limited to: the holy grail, the head of elizabeth bathory, the hand of a hanged man, a mummified mermaid, a fairy floating in a jar of formeldahyde, the elixer of eternal youth, an impressive array of stuffed mythological animals and a case of what I can only describe as 'penis monsters.' And, lest you think being a witch was all potions and sex with demons, the basement includes a slightly more somber collection of torture implements and accounts of witch trials. BEST MUSEUM EVER.

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