Today we took a quick Altaria (but not the quicker Ave) train from Madrid to Sevilla. The train left from Madrid's Atocha station, site of the most casualties of the March 11, 2004 terrorist bombings.

Me gusta Espana.

But we knew that already. Tapas style eating is my cup of tea. Small plates of good stuff, a drink or 2 and on to the next spot.

Today was an art day. Classical in the morning at the Prado, and modern in the afternoon at Reina Sophia. At the Prado you have Velasquez, Goya, el Greco, Borsch and others. They have 1 Rembrandt. I was quite unimpressed with it. Noone would stop at that run of the mill royal potrait if they didn't know it was a Rembrandt (to prove this theory, the un had walked right by it until I pointed it out to her). I liked the Goya, escpecially the dark stuff.

We took a break for lunch and sat in Retiro for a while after failing to find the pond. Then we headed over to Reina Sophia. It houses a lot of great modern art including Picasso's famous and great Guernica. They have a lot of cool sculpture and I have now been hipped to Miro. They also have a good amount of Dali (I still can't decide if he's cool or lame). And as if I didn't have the Pixies' Debaser firmly planted in my head (because I was headed to Andalucia the next day and that song's chorus is "I am un chien Andalusian") the museum was showing two films in an exhibit, one of which was Un Chien Andolou, the surrealist film the song was about in the first place.

In Madrid we didn't do real siestas, so we ended up being pretty tired.

Hola ellos! En Madrid now (via Amsterdam and Copenhagen). I've had computer problems so the blogging thing has gone out the window. But I'll try to work backwards at some point.

peace for now.

I was offended by a Danish newspaper graphic. All the headlines are about Turksh ascension to the EU (it was announced that initial negotiations will begin in a couple years, which pretty much mean that Turkey will be in the EU eventually) and one paper had a woman in a Burka made of the EU flag.

Guys, nobody in Turkey wears the Burka. In fact they never have. But even the hijab (a small headscarf) was until recently discouraged (I think now it's a little more accepted in the name of religious freedom. In Istanbul I saw a few, but only on teenage girls). The insinuation though, that Turkey will seek to foist strict Islam or conservative Islamic culture on Europe is ridiculous. Turkey is secular, almost as uch so as Europe itself. There are reasons to be against Turkish EU ascention, but the idea that Turkey wants to oppress their women is silly.

So Copenhagen is a fun town.

The un and I did a little Rick Steves tour, ate some Smorbrod, did some shopping, and got a little lost a couple times.

Neon advertising is ubiquitous on historic looking buildings, but it's tastefully done and works, in a minor league baseball outfield kind of way.

That's the thing about Copenhagen, it feels totally harmless, maybe a little too harmless. Even the red light district feels innocent, even the agreesive panhandlers seem safe.

And yeah, everything is expensive, but it's hard to really judge considering the exchange rate of a Kroner to a US dollar is something like 6 to 1.

Allison booked our Copenhagen hotel in the red light district.

Amsterdam's Schiphol airport is the single greatest airport I've ever been too. It's big, nice, fun and it works. There is stuff to do. There is an observation deck. There is even a museum (I didn't make it there though). Lot's of good food options, including an in airport grocery store.

There was also a weird blue-man-group-style message crawl in one stairwell with strange quasi political (and English language) messages. They made me laugh. The only one I can sort of remember was something like "Self confidence is ignorance".

Sabiha

So it was me, a seemingly experienced British backpacker girl and a poor German girl who had accidentally come to the airport a day late at Sabiha Gokchen airport in the wee hours today. Then came a bunch of Amsterdamers on the same discount flight as me.

The weird thing is that I was sitting there thinking "boy all these guys are really tall". Then later I went and got in line and noticed, they were all around the same height as me (5'11").

Weird huh?

Also: I've now officially been to Asia.

Istanbul has mad traffic even at 3 AM.

I've got no good reason to believe it isn't backed up around the clock.

But mass transit is good, at least in touristy areas.

I am cold people

So I've done most of the touristy stuff I wanted to do in Istanbul.

Today I wound things down walking the Istikal Caddesi and chilling in Taksim (Though I never found the Ottoman military History museum I was halfheartedly looking for) and then I headed back to Sultanahmet. I had a couple hours to burn and since the archaelogical museum was closed when I got there I decided to just sit and read on a bench in fron of Tokapi palace. While reading a young lady on the bench next to me struck up a conversation. She went out on a limb and started in English. At first I was trying to blow her off and keep reading. I was giving short answers and going back to the book.

Eventually I decided to be polite and make small talk. After talking about family and jobs and such I tried to talk politics, as I am much more interested in other peoples thoughts about public issues than how many siblings they have (that's just me folks). I asked about EU ascention and she said she didn't really know (but she did say she liked to watch the news). Her english was decent, though we did arrive at a few linguistic impasses. I was reading Soul on Ice, try explaining the civil rights and black power movements to someone with very little knowledge of American history and a tenous grasp on English.

As the conversation dragged on I start getting a little trepidatious. We had been talking for at least a half hour, and no sparks were flying. So I started thinking she wanted something from me - why continue the boring stilted conversation otherwise? Indeed she offered to tell me some story and show me something at the nearby hippodrome. I then decided she was a "guide" looking to show me around (for tips) and I declined, saying I had already been there (and I had). So now I was just looking for an out. She picked up on it, responding that I had a "spider in my mind", and that I didn't "trust her" (which I didn't deny) when I asked what she was doing for the day. I told her it was only fair as she had asked me the same thing - and I had answered. Eventually she settled on "I like green places" and that she had just come to the park to sit (a long way from her home on the Asian side if you ask me).

Somehow we ended up walking together, which I had been hoping to avoid becaus eI thought it would lead to a "guide" situation. We talked a little more and she was making some point about something I didn't get and I threw in one of my few turkish phases "Anlahmiyorum" (I don't understand) to which she replied snappily in Turkish. She explained in English that she had said a cliche meaning "It's your problem not mine". I told her she was right, that she speaks good English while I speak very little Turkish. We walked a few more blocks and she asked where I was goign and I told her I was going to the hotel to sit on the roof and finish my book. After another block we parted ways.

I said "nice to meet you". She said "nice to meet you". Then after a moment passed she turned and said "no it was not nice to meet you. You are very cold, cold people. You only want to talk about politics".

To which I replied "Uzgoonum" (I'm sorry).



I felt bad because It was never clear (and still isn't) that she was trying to hustle me. She could have just been a chatty girl. But still I don't feel that bad because I was plenty polite and is it my responsibility to entertain her?