IKEA Earth

These images should look very familiar. Welcome to IKEA Murcia. Murcia is about an hour from Alicante. IKEA, as usual, is situated beside the highway among a sprawl of similar box stores and, of course, a sea of parked cars. My roommates wanted to buy some things for our apartment, but I only came for the ride. I swear!

In complete disregard of local tastes and customs, IKEA Murcia sells the exact same things as the IKEA in Toronto, or the IKEA in Hong Kong for that matter. So I thought, as I wandered through the familar departments, of the consequences of this. Shall IKEA continue to expand, as a good capitalist enterprise should (and must), we will slowly see the homogenization of the home, at least the upper middle-class western home. There will be no more homes, houses, or habitations in plural form, just the singular home: No winter landscape paintings in Canada and no more portaits of bull fighters in Spain, just sleek DVD cabinets, cacti, brightly coloured pillows and quirky coffee mugs (I admit that I bought these mugs for grandma a few months ago). Still, a multi-national corporation must sometimes submit to local custom: The cafeteria did serve typical Spanish dishes (and at the same outrageously low prices). As well--something you would never see in Canada--at the self-serve beverage bar along with the coffee machine and soda pop fountain, a tap serving ice cold draught beer, free refills! Apparently the construction workers from the new mall that is going in beside IKEA quite often come and pay for the 1euro breakfast and stay for hours, serving themselves glass after glass of Alhambra (Spanish beer).

La Vila Joiosa

Vila Joiosa is a small town about an hour north of Alicante by train.
The beaches are smaller and less busy than Alicante.
On the way home there were punks on the train.







These last photos are of the beach in Alicante; behind it, the Castillo de Santa Bábara.

La vista del techo...

The view from our roof.

Lucentum

About 320,000 people live in Alicante. It is in the Valencia provence and thus has two official languages, Castillian Spanish and Valenciano (Catalan). When Iberia was under Roman rule, Alicante's latin name was Lucentum (city of light). It was a Moorish city untill the reconquista in 11C. Today its main industries are tourism and wine prodution. It has a busy modern port, beautiful beaches, and a big university.



The University of Alicante has about 40,000 students I think. It is located just outside of the Alicante in San Vincente de Raspeig. In my few days of studying here I have learned that: the University has a big contemporary art gallery surrounded by an artifical lake, free spanish films once a week, a pool, and good coffee. Here's a photo of it:



Aside from classes, I've spent most of my first week in Alicante at my favorite pastime: walking around and checking things out. I live very close to el Centro (downtown) of Alicante, which has many bars and cafes. Spanish coffee is very good, it usually costs between 50cents and 1euro for un cafe con leche. Although a litre of beer or wine will only cost you 1euro at a store, it can be very expensive at bars. I've only had one real night of La Marcha: like barhopping, although it can be localized to one place. The place to do this is El Barrio. This is a historic region of downtown filled with tiny bars and cafes. Actually, this area is where some of the first settlements in Alicante were. It is just beneath the Castillo de Santa Barbara. The streets in this area are rather alley ways, lined with tables and chairs, filled with people on the weekend. The bars in El Barrio shut their music off around 4:30am. At this point people start to flee other clubs that stay open well into the morning.

Alicante has a futbol team in the second division of the Spanish Liga, I think. I also live just down the street from La Plaza del Toros (bullring). There is a bullfight next weekend.

A few blocks away is also the Mercado Central (central market) of Alicante. Its open every morning. I've been buying my groceries here. The food in Spain has been incredible, and quite inexpensive. Tapas, finger foods served at bars, are great. The bar is covered with dishes of tapas and you serve yourself. When the waiter returns he counts the toothpicks on your plate to tally the bill. Thats how it worked where I was atleast. Tapas are around 1euro each and the choice is very limited for vegetarians.

I took a day trip to Elche on Sunday. This is an historic about 1/2 from Alicante. They have a great museum of archeaology. This is Elche-- Elx in Catalan:

Maestro Caballero 57 n3 (click images for larger view)

This is the view from my window, its Calle Maestro Caballero. The photo in the post below, taken at night, is looking the other way, down Calle Sargento del Rio Llamas. You can tell from the photos that our neighbours are pretty close. It reminds of the Hitchcock film "Rear WIndow." I can see what's going on in everyone's apartment (nothing special really) and hear what everyone is watching on tv. (There's an allusion to this in the Simpsons where Bart breaks his leg and gets a telescope to spy on the neighbourhood.) Its quite noisy in the street, especially Friday, Saturday, Sunday night. The worst is that they collect the garbage between 1:00 and 2:00am--every night! In Spain fireworks are more popular and used for many occasions: weddings especially, but also birthdays, holidays, etc. Basically there is also a lot less concern for other people here. If you can't sleep because your neighbour is watching a soccer game or exploding firecrackers, its your problem. Fair enough.


This is our kitchen. That's our washing machine, in the kitchen.


Bathroom. We have another one thats not as nice. There is a severe water shortage in this area right now. It has rained once, very little, since I've come.

I think we have the key to get on the roof of our building. I'll post some photos from there for sure.

xyz jfk mad vlc...a Alacant

Dad and Laura dropped me off at Pearson Airport in Toronto.
I had bacon and eggs for breakfast.

Toronto to New York JFK was a small aircraft. The pilot announced his name and also the copilot's with their appropriate titles and then "Tony," the lone attendant. As I had hoped, flight path took us directly over Manhattan. The crowded island had a familar oasis of trees and ball diamonds in the middle, Central Park. JFK airport is now constructing its 10th terminal. It is a daunting place, the airport, however navigable by a very reliable skytrain. I passed the last hour of my 5 in New York at the bar beside my gate.

The next and main leg of my trip was New York to Madrid. I think we took off around 930pm and landed around 1030am. Our aircraft was the biggest I have been in. There was complementary wine, which I neglected. There was also a camera mounted somewhere on the craft's, um, tail fin. Where ever it was it was fed to the screens in the cabin and we could watch top of the plane and everything below. Nothing really cool happened though. We orbited Madrid before landing. I was thinking, "its very brown." We arrived late but luckily my connection to Valencia was late as well. The Madrid airport is very late-modern, check it out:



An hour later in Valencia I was amazed to see my luggage on the little merry-go-round. I had given to some guy in Toronto, who knew? At Valencia airport they bring stairs up to the doors of the plane rather then those tunnels connected to the terminal. It was the same in Montevideo. Its like you're The Beatles or the president, I like it. So I soon learned where the trains to Alicante depart: very far from the airport. I took the local bus to the nearest stop. It was 35 degrees and I had to drag my bags another two blocks to the train station. I should have taken a taxi. I got my ticket to Alicante and left an hour later. Sweaty and exhausted I drifted in and out of sleep for two hours throught the rocky Spanish terrain. I could smell the sea when I got off at Alicante.



(click on the images for a larger view)