Zaragoza

Well, it turns out that lovely mint tea I had last night with my delicious Moroccan food might have had caffeine (or as they say here, teine - it's not cafe, it's te). I didn't sleep at all last night. I was in a state of closed-eyed awakeness.

I got up this morning, thinking that I might not go to Zaragoza as planned. This was my last Spain-rail trip. I had six days of use in a two-month period and this was the 6th, but I felt like I had gotten my money's worth.

But then as morning came, I was still wide awake (boy that tea really does give you energy) and I got out of bed and sat here debating on whether or not to go. I thought about what I would do if I stayed in Barcelona - maybe walk through El Raval again, take some photos, search out some Catalan food (since I haven't had any yet). And then I thought about what that would involve. A lot of walking. Restaurant roulette. Running into tourists.

If I went to Zaragoza, I might find a hidden gem. It's a bit off the tourist track, on the pilgrim track because of the Virgen del Pilar (more on her later), and there was supposed to be a beautiful Islamic Palace that is up there with the Alhambra. I could visit something as beautiful as the Alhambra and not have to wait in lines or fight with other tourists to take pictures?

I decided to go.

I set off on the subway to Barcelona Sants station and boarded my train. I was riding tourist class, no first class today. It felt like it, but it was still comfortable. I forgot to bring my MP3 player, which I have found is essential. Two women behind me were talking incessantly and I was hoping to sleep. Eventually I plugged in the headphones supplied by the train and watched the movie, which was the Pilgrims, but not like those Thansgiving Pilgrims, it was a story about a group of people going on a Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostelo, following the trail of Santiago. Seemed like an appropriate movie. It was apparently French and dubbed in Spanish. I hate dubbed films. The voices are so bad. It made me fall asleep.

I arrived in Zaragoza to a very big train station. I went to the tourist information office where a woman was helpig another woman find streets on a map. I don't know why, but they were locating many streets. I wanted a map and to know if I could walk to the old town or if there was a bus. While I was waiting, I heard the TIC lady say you could take bus number 34. That was the information I needed. I knew I'd find more TICs downtown (because Lonely Planet told me I would), so I left, found the bus and headed downtown.

Sure enough, when I got off the bus was another tourist information center. I went in and got a map. She circled the old town (casco viejo), showed me where we were and pointed out some things I could visit. The Cathedral of the Virgin of Pilar, El Seo (another church). I headed out and immediately found myself in a huge plaza with a very big cathedral on one side and a smaller church at the far end. I kind of thought everything would be right there, but it turned out it was just these two things. Well, there was a museum, some kind of government building, a shopping arcade and a few other things.

For some reason why I got off the bus I suddenly felt like I was going to get dizzy and faint. Maybe my blood sugar was low for some reason. Maybe I was about to have an attack of meniere's from not sleeping? I didn't know. I popped a meclizine and after the tourist information center, looked for something to eat. Fortunately I found a place that served churros and chocolate. The chocolate was good. It hit the spot.

After that I went to the cathedral. There were a lot of school children being led in. The brainwashing had begun.

So, the Virgin of Pilar, who is the patron saint of Spain. Her feast day is October 12 and is a national holiday. She also has a church in Buenos Aires and many women from Spain and Argentina are named Pilar (maybe others too, but I have noticed from these two countries in particular). Pilar means pillar. The story is that the virgin appeared to St. James (maybe James, maybe another one) in about the 1st century A.D. on a pillar. The pillar is still in the church with a little statue of a virgin on it who has a big skirt below her. There is a little chapel. Behind the chapel is a little hole in the wall where the pillar is exposed. You can kiss it. The marble of the floor, the bench and the shelf that people lean on when they touch the pillar is all worn from hundreds, thousands, millions (?) of pilgrims leaning in to kiss the pillar. Pope John Paul kissed it (according to a sign there).

Ok, now if I wasn't aware of some of these other virgin myths, I would not be so skeptical, but it really seems to me that there is something fishy about all of these stories. But what amazes me is how fervently people believe them. If I told them I saw the virgin, they would think I was nuts, but why do they believe these stories that were told during times when Christians were doing their best to convert the "heathens" to their religion. The one thing all of these stories have in common is that the apparition was during a time when the local population was not Christian, and the apparitions were very successful in winning converts. Okay, call me a skeptic, but I am.

When I got there, there was a little mass going on in the chapel. It was a mass given by a recorded woman's voice. Very strange. An automated mass. People were praying along with this recording. I walked around and actually missed the pillar. The cathedral was huge but pretty unremarkable. Other than its size it really didn't have much going for it.

I walked around, visited a museum that I thought was the Islamic Palace, but it was some old building turned art museum. The paintings were interesting, but not what I came to see. I went to El Seo, which was a little more interesting that Pilar's church, lots of styles mixed together, and a variety of small side chapels all apparently done by differnet artists/architects. Then I looked at my map and the Palace I wanted to visit the Aljaferia or whatever it is called, was well outside of the old town. Drats.

I walked, and walked, thought about trying a bus or a taxi and instead walked. I was tired, it was cold and I had to pee. Finally I arrived. A guard greeted me at the entrance to the gardens and told me it was closed until 4 p.m. tomorrow. Double drats.

I headed back to the old town since my plan of hanging out in this palace, eating lunch nearby and walking to the train station which was very near where I was, had been blown by this news that the place was closed. It looked like there was some kind of conference going on.

Walking back, I began to think Zaragoza was a strange place. There was the bus driver who was not very friendly when I asked if he went to the old town, the tourist information women who were also kind of distant, and then the guy who was yelling at bike riders for riding on the sidewalk. He told me his vision was not bad and it was prohibited to ride bikes on the sidewalk. I thought he should chill out.

I stopped in a little taverny place for lunch. Had a stuffed pepper and a pork chop. It was good. They put a bottle of wine on my table. I wasn't sure if I could refill my glass. I didn't. I realized it was one of the few times I had eaten inside a restaurant in Spain (the others were in Toledo). People smoke inside. It was kind of disgusting, but the food was decent.

By now it was siesta and most shops were closed. I headed back to Pilar's cathedral. This time I actually saw the statuette from the front because there was no mass. I could see the pillar under the little dress she was wearing. I walked around and big gates had the rest of the church blocked off. That is when I noticed the pillar.

There was a little hole in the wall with a brass frame, and a little marble bench that you could kneel on when you leaned in to kiss the pillar. I touched it just to feel what it was like. It felt kind of greasy. I imagined the build up of years of oil from people's faces and wondered how sanitary it was. The marble on the bench and the floor was worn from so many people standing and kneeling there.

And that was it. I headed back to the bus which took me back to the station which took me back to Barcelona. My last trip was kind of a disappointment, although I do have kind of a morbid interest in these virgin apparition tales. I've thought about doing a book about all of the virgin stories. Just retelling them as they are told with a picture of the virgin. For those who believe them, they would be all in one place. For those who might be skeptical or who would want to point out the similarities, and thus the suspicious nature of them all, they would be there in one place and for those who wanted to use it as a kitchy coffee table conversation piece, it would serve that purpose too. It would be fun to research it, by going to all of these different places where these virgins (in their churches) exist. So far I have seen one in Costa Rica, Argentina, Mexico and now Spain. There must be hundreds. If there is actual truth to the stories, maybe on my travels and through my research, I would be converted to a believer.

The other thing my trip today did, which I only realized as it was ending, was that it allowed me to say I began with A and ended with Z. I started in Amsterdam and ended in Zaragoza (well, Barcelona really, but you get it, right?)

And there it is. My final day in Spain.