A walk through Palencia

(If a picture is worth 1000 words, a regular computer must be worth at least 5.5 netbooks. I definitely use my computer much more often than my netbook. It's easier to type on, faster, and just plain prettier. Really, the only thing my trusty but slow netbook has over my beloved laptop is an SD slot. And that, dear readers, is only important when one is meaning to create a picture post. Say, in order to introduce one's blog audience to one's new home. I'm afraid it hasn't happened yet. But: what kind of writer would I be if I relied solely on pictures to give you an image of the place? Let's see what I can do to paint one first. The actual photos will come later.)

So, you're a traveler arriving to Palencia on the bus. You arrive in the station, grab your bag, and walk out into the late-September sunlight. You're on a non-descript street with a park on the other side, a dusty and much-used children's climbing structure in the center. You're not sure what direction to go and ask a couple of bored-looking teenagers, who point toward a round-about.

At the roundabout, things start to get interesting. There's a shoe store whose window is stacked with knee-high boots, a pizza place, a typical Spanish bar with metal countertop and stools. Even at this time in the afternoon, when the streets are empty, there are people there reading the 'Diario Palentino' and drinking hot, sweet espresso out of tiny cups. You walk past a shuttered bakery whose window is piled high with glossy truffles, fluffy cakes, and cookies packed with nuts and chunks of chocolate. Mental note: come visit later.

At the other end of the intersection you pass onto Calle Mayor, the nervous system of the city, a narrow stone pedestrian street that makes up most of Palencia's downtown. Beautiful old buildings in various archetectural styles and soft colors rise on both sides, most supported by columns that form a colonade for walking underneath. At first, the Calle Mayor resembles an outdoor mall--and in many ways it is. Flashy fashion boutiques crowd one after another, jockeying for space with banks and cell phone stores. But start to look carefully, and you can find almost everything you need here. A bakery, wafting the scent of new cookies into the street; Pilar's Imprenta for all your stationery needs; an electronics store; a supermarket; a coffee shop. This side of the Calle Mayor is particularly architecturally stunning. The Provincial Office is here, with a spun sugar spire; an old university facade looks like a Venetian Palace. On one side a brief passage leads to the Plaza Mayor, or town square, a small but bustling stone plaza where children play in the evenings on the statue in the center. On the other is a street that opens toward the cathedral, whose pinions are topped in those same evenings with a flock of storks and whose grandeur is surrounded by one of the town's only true plazas, filled with trees and open-air cafes.

You reach the halfway point. Calle Mayor is bisected by Calle Cestilla, a bustling automobile throughway. If you turn right here, you can find the striking coral city hall, topped by white icing flourishes. You'll find the city's theaters here, too, and the green cast iron Mercado de Abastos, filled with butchers and produce stands. But you keep going straight, and the pedestrian street continues.

A grand casino with turn-of-the-century architecture serves famously delicious meals on one side of the street, a laundromat and fabric store shore up more fashionable shops on the other. In a few moments, you can see 'La Gorda,' the smooth soapstone sculpture of a woman that marks the street's only fork. Walk to the right and you'd eventually find yourself on the banks of the Pisuerga river, with its assortment of stone and metal bridges arching over the green water, ducks swimming underneath and branches trailing in the current. But you choose to walk to the left, and the end of the Calle appears. You've reached the Parque Salon, an expanse of manicured trees and flowers that features children riding merry-go-rounds in the evening and whose benches fill with the elderly as the sun goes down.

Past the Parque, continuing north, the town changes. To the south, the city has an old, classic feel. Now, you are in modern neighborhoods, apartment buildings whose first floors are packed with bars and shops. The Plaza España welcomes you with a fountain and a scattering of cafes. Soon after you pass the boxy Escuela de Idiomas, where students of all ages study German, English, French, Italian. You see busy playgrounds set with spindly trees and clusters of churches in brick, concrete, sandstone.

Walk far enough and you will pass the rusty red brick walls of the Fabrica de Armas, a working gun factory. Keep going: now there are car dealerships, industrial warehouses, a giant mall, a hospital and famous nursing school. If you had enough time, you could walk all the way to the edge of town and into the hills--and from there you could see the whole town, the neighborhoods dissolving into the plains beyond, and a giant statue of Jesus Christ (called the Otero here), watching over everything.

Moving forward

I've been thinking a bit about what I want this blog to be in the coming months, as I embark on this crazy adventure. Thinking so much, in fact, that I've been too preoccupied to actually write-- sorry about that.

When I was in China, there was a lot on this blog of "then we did this, then we did this." I got plenty of positive feedback for the way in which that sort of thing was executed, but it was very much a day-by-day recounting. I want to do that, too, to be sure, but I've had much more exposure to blogs since that year and I know there are other options. I want to get more comfortable with shorter entries (see the past few for examples), as well as more in-depth discussions of little ideas, links to interesting content elsewhere, things like that. I have to admit that I'm not really well-versed with all that Web 2.0 stuff, which is part of why you haven't seen much of it (or anything) in this space. But I want that for this blog; it's something to aspire to in any case.

I also have been thinking a bit about how personal I want to be in this space. The China part of my blog did not have nearly so wide an audience as this coming portion will have. How much of my anxieties, fears, quirks, and embarrassing mistakes can I share here without crossing a line, or without opening myself up to criticism and mockery? I'm not sure. I'm going to try to be frank and hope people will reserve judgment.

So, with this in mind we move forward. I'm quite behind, as I've been out living Australian life the past 11 days and haven't been keeping you all up to date. I imagine that the entries to come as I catch up will have to be quite heavy on the "then I did this" sort of content. But I will try to make it as colorful as possible. Believe me, it's been wonderful. I want to do it justice.

A bit of background, before I launch in:

I graduated from Wesleyan University in Connecticut last May. I decided that this year would be a year to have adventure. I moved home to my parents' house (rent free), got a temporary project-based job at a local engineering firm writing content for a biographical website, and saved money like a fiend. During that time I discovered Couchsurfing, an amazing worldwide movement that has changed my life (with no exaggeration.) The idea of couchsurfing is that you open your home to travelers in your area, and when you travel other people open their homes to you. This helps keep costs down, but more importantly it means you meet real people who live where you are, learn about daily life and culture, get great inside tips on what to see and what not to see, and so much more. I did a bit of hosting with my family in Boston, and now I will be surfing around the world. I am also a member of SERVAS, which is basically a UN-sponsored version of Couchsurfing.

From May until December 2008 I worked full time and planned a yearish long trip that will take me through Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, India, Jordan, Turkey, Greece, Croatia, and a great deal of mainland Europe. I read travel blogs and guides, applied for four different visas (China, Vietnam, India, and Australia), went to 7 shoe stores looking for light hiking boots, and took approximately 100 separate trips to REI. And then on January 2 I departed, and Things began to happen. There will be a separate entry on "how to plan a trip around the world," but that is the basic story of how I started on this epic adventure.

Now: onto San Francisco.