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Published: March 23rd 2012
Burj Khalifa
the tallest building in the world and surprisingly beautifulKiwis have to fly. And a long way if we want to get to exciting and exotic places.
So our Europe Odyssey begins in Dubai, about half-way to half-way round the world, in an attempt to stave off jet lag and jet legs. We also hoped that flying Emirates would ease the pain...and it was a great travel experience - friendly staff, delicious food (resolutions not to eat too much went out the window before transit in Sydney)...HOT TOWELS (note to Air NZ...you should never have got rid of those).
But 15 hours in cattle class is 15 hours in cattle class and quieter engines mean not a jot if there’s a baby screaming all the way in the seat behind you.
So movies are the answer. I watched five new releases and Crazy Stupid Love without the sound on as my meal arrived simultaneously and the movie was better off for it. The Descendants was disappointing, My Year With Marilyn was an improvement mainly because of the brilliant Kenneth Branagh, The Muppets I fast forwarded to hear Man or Muppet although that wasn't particularly exciting, but my next choice was The
half of Burj Khalifa
so tall you can't get it all in one photo Ides of March. Excellent and now I understand the thing about Ryan Gosling. Are we there yet? No, so I went for well reviewed The Tree of Life, which was so self-indulgent I lost the will to live, even though it starred Brad Pit.
Why am I telling you what I did on the plane? Because it's very hard to find the words to describe Dubai. OMG comes fairly close. Big and Amazing are inadequate…a Disneyland for grown ups? a triumph of man over nature? a glorification of the excesses of wealth? the ultimate expression of capitalism through Islam? It's astounding. It's often surreal, especially when the air is misty with sand blown in from storms in Doha.
If you're wondering what the photo is at the top of the blog - we're outside the giant aquarium that's INSIDE the Dubai Mall.
It's also delightfully confusing - we ate at a Chinese restaurant where the staff were so eager to please it was unnerving and they hadn't quite got the menu translations right. We avoided the "Slippery Chicken Film", "Deepfried Chicken Gizzards" and "Old Kitchen Cabbage".
From its first settlement
Dubai Creek
the ancient dhows still working around 2000 BC, Dubai has been about trade. We bought nothing as everything is made somewhere else. It is one giant money exchange in the middle of the desert and it's future proofing itself with tourism before the oil boom runs out.
Don't mention the recession!! Even our Indian taxi driver insisted on remaining resolutely upbeat about life in Dubai - accepting he would have to uproot his family and go back to India if he lost his job. Non-Emiraties are merely worker drones in the city and no job means no stay.
We found Dubai less a relaxing stop-over, more an invigorating assault on the senses - a combination of ancient civilisation and the ultimate in global consumerism.
Then on to Madrid, the highest European capital, which welcomed us with an icy blast and a view of snow on the distant hills. But it felt a comfortable city planned on a human scale. Our hotel is just off Puerta del Sol, one of many plazas surrounded by restaurants and full of buskers.
We are serenaded each evening by a mariachi band and the hum of hundreds of
Dubai Mall
a beautiful indoor waterfall complete with diving sculptures people shopping, dining and socialising in the pedestrianised streets below. Most shops close around 2pm then open again about 4pm till about 9pm. But as with the smaller shops in Dubai, some stay open, some stay closed, who knows? Except the malls - the malls are always open.
We found a fabulous local market nearby for tapas + wine, and all the main art galleries were within walking distance.
I visited the Prado Museum during its free time of 6-8pm along with hundreds of Madrilanos and visitors - how wonderful it is to queue for an art gallery! Paintings I've known since school - that I never thought I'd actually see...El Greco, Velazquez, Reubens, Rafael, more Goya than anyone really needs to see and best of all, Heironymous Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, in all its bizarre hellfire and damnation-meets Where's Wally glory.
I managed to drag Rhys to the Reina Sofia, Madrid's main contemporary art collection. The curation seemed to me eclectic to say the least, not helped by a lack of English translation, but we did 3 out of 4 very big floors. Spain certainly loves and supports its
Deira markets
in the spice souk artists.
The fast train sped us out of Madrid at up to 300km an hour into what we would consider desert, then down off the La Mancha plateau towards the Mediterranean for our week in Barcelona.
On our first day I had two iconic Barcelona experiences within a few minutes... 1. an attempted pick pocket while standing in a jam packed metro to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, the main tourist hot spot. Worse than feeling my jacket pocket zip being slowly opened was spinning round to find only well-dressed women behind me - who was trying to fleece me? I glared at them all as I jumped off the train, then the feeling of violation kicked in. They would've only scored a used tissue, as we'd been well forewarned about this regular practise on the metro, but it was an unpleasant travel wakeup call.
But it was nothing compared to the visual violation I experienced as we emerged from the metro station... 2. Blinking in the bright sunlight, we were towered over by the huge form of La Sagrada Familiar, long term legacy of 19th century starchitect Antoni Gaudi. I'd been dying
Dubai Creek
old souk area to see it and expected to experience awe and admiration for this feat of creative brilliance.
Instead I had an overwhealming feeling of...
what the??!!! The sky was filled with the most apalling dogs beakfast of towers, turrets, tumbling masonry, nonsensical over-ornamentation and mish-mash of architecural styles. The effect is of a giant sandcastle - the kind where you dribble wet sand to create lumpy spires as high and as skinny as you can. In fact a giant sandcastle would be elegant by comparison.
I'd expected to be spell bound by beauty and whimsy, instead I was shocked by the unmitigated ugliness of conflicting styles and construction methods, scaffolding, netting, huge unfinished bits and a complete lack of sense or order. It's like the biggest DIY disaster in the world. Millions flock to it and pay about $50 to go inside - you couldn't pay me to go in, I'd be too scared bits would fall off.
Any potential beauty is marred by enormous cranes sticking out at all angles that would put a Dubai building site to shame. The eclesiastic edifice was begun by Gaudi in 1882 and won't be finshed
A metro station
even underground Dubai is a work of surreal art till at least 2020. Apart from being embarassed that a New Zealander is currently heading the building project, I couldn't help wishing while walking round with thousands of others taking photos - why didn't someone take Gaudi aside before he started..."Look Ant, you've done some nice apartment blocks, just leave it at that, a cathedral is beyond you... just STOP IT!!!"
But the SF is now such a big tourist attraction that poor Barcelona just has to keep pouring money into its cavernous extremities.
A much cheaper iconic activity is a walk down the string of pedestrianised roads collectively called Las Ramblas. And if consuming exorbitantly priced sangria and pizza along with gormless tourists and over-excitited young Spaniards is your thing...Hola! But more fascinating streets lead off la Rambla, particulalry in the old city precinct known as the Barri Gotic.
I could've explored the maze of narrow lanes for days, discovering dark historic tapas bars and trendy boutiques as well as the gorgeous gothic buildings housing museums and galleries, the remains of Roman settlement and the Cathedral.
You never know what could be down the next lane -
Berj Al Arab
from the metro - as near as we got busking is not quite the right word for a classical guitar and harp being played on the steps of an ancient stone church. As we rounded the Cathedral on a sunny Sunday morning we saw hundreds of locals joining in a traditional folk dance in the square, chucking their coats and bags in the centre of their circles and hopping either sedately or enthusiastically to a brass band on the cathedral steps.
Barcelona is a brilliant city for walking. Muntanya de Montjuic, a hill jutting up over the port and topped by an impressive castle, is riddled with paths but also accessed by car, bus, metro and a touristy but irresistable cable car. It provides stunning views, gardens for relief from the sea of densely packed buildings in the city below and cultural venues such as the Joan Miro centre and Olympic Stadium.
The most magnificent building is the Palau Nacional which houses the museum of Catalan art. All this arty stuff was becoming a little exhausting for Rhys, but my research had discovered that the Picasso Museum (usually 11euro - about $17) is free from 3pm on Sundays. I spent a happy 2
the Mall of the Emirates
shops inside shops...inside shops hours on a chronological journey with the master art marketer while Rhys went off to find an internet cafe.
We are enjoying Spain imensely - the people are friendly and helpful (except those in supermarkets, but they are shitty the world over). But... they nearly all smoke and just chuck their rubbish on the ground - in a park, on the beach, on the street...they don't even look for a rubbish bin even though there are plenty around. The streets are washed and swept and the beaches groomed, so maybe they see littering as a way of keeping people in jobs.
The minimal Spanish I'd tried to learn wasn't much use in Barcelona, which is in Catalunya and Catalan is more than just a different accent, it's a whole new language - with both languages on signage, menus, packaging etc but no English. We find "Hola!" smiling and pointing to be the universal lingua franca.
And however hard we try not to look like tourists it's just impossible. The minute we hove into view anyone with any English at all will greet us with "Hello" rather than "Hola", even when Rhys
Madrid
the grandure of Madrid Cathedral isn't wearing shorts and his battered Aussie hat.
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Hilary
non-member comment
So you are off again! How long are you away for this time? Please keep me on your blogging list as I hear more from you when you are travelling than when you are at home! Hola!