Movies watched: 11 (The Cleaner; Superman; Bob Trevino Likes This; Austenland; Deep Cover; Star Trek (2009); Star Trek: Into Darkness; Ghostbusters; Ghostbusters: Afterlife; The Summer Book)

Recipes tried: 9 (Frittata di pasta; Sweet Corn Gazpacho; Pesto Pork Tenderloin; Lemony Zucchini Pasta (with cottage cheese); Grown-up Salisbury Steak; Skillet Hot Honey Chicken; Coconut Rice with Shrimp and Corn; Roasted Asparagus with Savory Butter Sauce; Stir-Fried Pork and Plums with Fresh Herbs)

Recipes I liked from the above: 7

Recipes that were inedible: 1 (the cottage cheese one)

School meetings before school started: 5

Emergency meetings once school started because someone is moving to a new job: 1

Health appointments: 10

Vaccines: 2

Days without a washing machine: 24 (9 more to go before a new one comes!) 🙁

Electrician appointments to fix the outlets in my kitchen: 1

Air fryers that broke: 1

Dates: 1

Unexpected geeky jokes I appreciated: 1

Offices I have lost access to: 1

Temporary offices I can use for a couple of hours a week: 1

National Days Celebrated: 5 (Pepperoni Pizza Day; Dumpling Day; Blasphemy Day; Star Trek Day; National Ghost Hunting Day)

New classes started: 3

Stand-up comedy club meetings: 1

Books finished: 4

What I’m watching: The Guilded Age; Alien: Earth; John Oliver; Bob’s Burgers; TaskMaster; South Park; Strange New Worlds; Upload; Outlander; The Serpent Queen; Acapulco; The Morning Show; The Simpsons; Only Murders in the Building; Lowdown; Assassin; Colbert; Seth Meyers; Jimmy Kimmel, once

Trips to Paris: 1

In Paris:

Days we had to book someone to pick us up at the airport because of a transit strike: 1

Days we went to the wrong Sorbonne campus but then had to stay there because my IBS-D decided that I had to stay in the bathroom for an hour while Melissa patiently waited and we missed the conference lunch: 1

Nice lunches we were able to have afterwards: 1

Great presentations we gave after lunch: 1

Servings of duck: 2

Servings of lamb: 2

Servings of beef, which I usually don’t eat: 3

Crepes: 2

Lemon tarts: 3

Creme brulees: 2

Pain au chocolat: 2

croissants: 3

eclairs: 1

desserts with pistachios: 4

tabuleahs: 2

eggplant dishes: 2

Servings of house-made pistachio ice cream at a lovely Lebanese restaurant: 1

Drinks in the courtyard of the History Museum: 1

Champagne-filled dinner cruise conference events, complete with a sexy singer who sang right to me a few times: 1

Webpages for Paris museums that were easy to use: 0

Museums explored: 5 (Consiergerie, Louvre, d’Orsay, Catacombs, Cluny)

Fairy Doors found: 1

Times I watched Foucault’s Pendulum, which proves the Earth turns on its axis, and wondered why we’re still debating the shape of the Earth: 1

Perfect Turkish restaurants for when we needed vegetables desperately: 1

Times Melissa and I realized that, in packing light, we had brought purses that were too big to enter the Catacombs with & we bought smaller utility purses in a shop by the Louvre: 1

Churches explored: 2 (St. Germain, Notre Dame)

Times we discovered, by ranking them, that we are picky bitches when it comes to cathedrals–Notre Dame wasn’t in either of our top 5 lists: 1

Used scarves bought from a kilo store: 3

Nights we put on a heating treatment for our tired feet and watched Austenland, which Melissa had not seen before: 1

Nights we watched Emily in Paris, which Melissa also had not seen: 3

Nights we did a wine tasting in the Louvre wine caves with just six other people (8 wines; 8 cheeses): 1

Times we were in a place frequented by great writers of old (Deux Magots, etc.): 2

Times I tried really hard to fall down, but managed to catch myself, resulting only in bruising: 2

Times my IBS was so bad that I threw up a couple of times and then found a massively bad bruise on my hand that must have come when running to the bathroom: 1

Times we tried to go to Shakespeare and Co, only to find a line around the block, so we went to the English-language bookstore near our flat for gifts.

Meals at Angelina’s: 2 (one was our “birthday” dinner, since we hadn’t gotten to celebrate either of our birthdays together. It was essentially a high tea, with champagne).

Minutes until we wouldn’t have been able to place the order for our birthday dinner: 4. Our server ran to put it in!

Times we discovered a closer entrance to the metro: 1

Times it took wandering around before we realized we could not exit through that if we were on line 12: 3

Days we left Paris right before a massive strike that would have meant we couldn’t leave: 1

I am not going to see it in all its glory, but I’m at the Halloween capitol of Europe.

(Death with a King keyring, in honor of my 6th GG, Thomas M. King, born in Derry on 8 April 1695, who emigrated to the Pennsylvania colony)

I got to Derry on Saturday, after securing what was likely the last room in the city (though it’s across the river, in “Waterside”).

The Derry Halloween festival was running all weekend. The city is decked out, but I have to say I felt out of place being dressed for the season Sunday: only the kids were done up that day.

My festive wardrobe was more appreciated at the conference yesterday, where I gave my paper on Juan of the Dead.

Today, I’m just in my low-key Gaiman’s death get up, sadly, when some of the other adults in town have decided to join in.

My body just isn’t up to more. My IBS has been wrecking its havoc, I had to use my cane a bit already, and I’m definitely coming down with something.

After grading this morning, I managed to go out and get something to eat and hit a store for some provisions in case I can’t leave my room tomorrow: storm’s a-coming!

(What?)

A storm WITH A NAME is coming!

(Like a hurricane?!?)

Yup! Exactly like a hurricane. And since it’s a UK hurricane, it has a name I’m not sure how to pronounce: Ciarán.

The storm is a “danger to life” to Southern England–we’ve got an amber warning here, which means flooding (not a kidnapped child, like in the US).

I couldn’t find a gif of this, but here’s the video of Meryl Streep warning about a storm in Only Murders in the Building.

So: difficulty walking + no cabs at all because of the crowds + cold weather + my cold + my lungs still not bouncing back after COVID + cold weather- and cold-induced asthma + an upset stomach + a typhoon or whatever = me not being out in all the festivities tonight.

(a totally normal decoration to have on a bridge)

All I want are hot toddies and bed, but getting my hands on whiskey at a store has been surprisingly difficult (WTF, Derry?1?!). Thank goodness there’s a pub next door.

Happy Halloween!

(Death with a scarf from Vanessa & a glass of verdejo)

Full days in London: 5

Hours of sleep on the way: 4

Hours of sleep on the way back: 0

Servings of lamb:

Servings of gazpacho: 4

Visits to the Barbican Conservatory: 1

Times an emergency announcement said we should leave the Tube station: 1

People other than Melissa and I who attempted to leave the station: 0

Steak and wine fancy lunches: 1 (for just twenty pounds!)

Museums / Galleries: 5 (British Museum, British Library, Wellcombe, Barbican, Tate Modern)

Plays: 4 (Dr. Semmelweis, A Strange Loop, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Tambo and Bones)

Of the 4, plays about injustice: 4

Of the 4, plays about injustice regarding Black Americans: 2

Of the 4, plays without a curtain call: 1

Of the 4, plays with an actor who was playing a robot who could mime sitting at a desk, for a really long time, despite physics: 1

Of the plays with an actor who was playing a robot who could mime sitting at a desk, for a really long time, despite physics, who then crossed his legs: 1

Nando’s: 1

Pounds off our Nando’s dinner due to my points from Dublin: 3

Times we listened to a French server struggle to pronounce “ham” in a way that English speakers could understand: 1 (two groups, though)

Time I ordered the special, forgetting that “ham” means prosciutto in England: 1

Times I bought a bunch of souvenirs at the British Library, got absolutely soaked when leaving the library, and had all the souvenirs spill into the street as the paper bag they were in fell apart: 1

Time I was glad one of the souvenirs was a purse, because I was able to fit all of the other souvenirs inside it: 1

Times relearning that the Greeks thought Persian men were feminine for wearing eyeliner, jewelry, and pants and that while Alexander the Great adopted Persian horse-riding robes, he drew a line at the pants that surely would have made riding more comfortable: 1

Conferences attended: 1

Days Melissa made the mistake of having the conference coffee: 1

Days when I was about to give the first presentation of the day, but it had to be delayed because someone doing maintenance in the building got out the jackhammer: 1

Times I learned some people thought monk fish looked like monks: 1

Visits to the Coral Room: 1

Times realizing the food there is very expensive, but not very good: 1

Visits with Courtney and Liam: 1

Pubs with Courtney and Liam, including my old neighborhood pub in Bloomsbury: 2

New favorite historical paintings: 1

Times we discovered bank accounts had been opened in our names by a scammer: 1

Amazing Indian birthday dinners, including the best broccoli of our lives: 1

Pimms in a can: 1

Times we dropped in on some old friends before a play and they fed us pasta with homemade rocket walnut pesto: 1

Bottles of wine we demolished before heading to the play: 3

Night we got out of a play, and I marveled at the sky, and how, after all these years, I remembered how to get home from the drizzly London streets: 1

Times our Airbnb host sent someone to meet us with the keys at the wrong time, due to not reading our messages correctly: 1

Times our host was entirely unhelpful about the wifi: 2

Times we found syringes in the Airbnb: 1

Times we discovered our host had left the door from the bedroom to the apartment patio unlocked, after having slept there a few nights and left important things like our passport there during the day: 1

Times we realized, after getting back, that our host had overcharged us by about $500 dollars: 1

Times Airbnb tried to contact him: many

Times he took his whole listing down rather than answer us or Airbnb: 1

Days in the British Isles: 77

(the days in Scotland have their own blog)

Whiskeys, few of which I’d had before (details below): 63

Gins (details below): 11

People who came to visit me: 5

Trips to Murphy’s ice cream: 7

Flavors of Murphy’s tried: 8

Trips to Galway: 1

Times a woman had spread out her whole life on my reserved train seat and seemed genuinely surprised when I asked her to move: 1

Times when Denise had an Irish man fall hard for her in a pub: 1

Times it got awkward when he pushed me through the hostel door and then physically tried to stop her from also coming inside and then sent her rambling phone messages for weeks: 1

Favorite restaurants (details below): 14

Favorite dessert, besides Murphy’s: Lemon Pie from Padoca’s

Servings of Fish and Chips: 12

Servings of Lamb: 10

Servings of Duck: 9

Trips to Krewe: 9

Trips to Toscana: 9

Trips to Nando’s: 13!

Problems getting a taxi during the world cup: so many!

Italian Thanksgiving dinners with my coworkers and students: 1

Pickpocketings: 1

Lasagna pizzas: 1

Times I didn’t like lasagna pizza, which I should have anticipated, since it was exactly as advertised: 1

Trips to the Blarney Stone cancelled due to back problems: 1

Times I did stand-up comedy: 3

Times I got a whole beer spilled on me right before I went on stage: 1

Pubs visited: 23

Favorite pubs: 4 (Bankers & Lincoln’s Inn & Palace Bar & Dingle Whiskey Bar)

Wine Tastings at a Rioja even: 26

Riojas loved: 3

Guys who tried to steal my bag when I first got to Dublin: 1

Boats coming off trailers on I-80, on the way from my house to SFO: 1

Students with Covid: 1

Times my direct loans disappeared from the DOE site: 1

Times my credit score went up: 2

Calls and emails to try to figure out if my direct loans had been forgiven via the TEPSLF program: 8

Times DOE told me to talk to Mohela and vice versa: 8

Clarity about my loan situation: 0

Hangers for my clothes, in the same narrow cupboard as the broom: 5

Drawers for my clothes: 0

Times a guy chased me down to let me into a museum, when I found it locked: 1

Hats purchased: 3

Hats I owned / wore before that: 1

Times I had homemade food: 4

Fancy sweaters purchased: 2

Waistcoats purchased: 1

Museums and Galleries (details below): 26

Times foreigners stopped me on the street to ask for directions: 6

Canes forgotten by the door of my CA apartment: 1

Replacement canes purchased: 1

Cane umbrellas purchased: 1

Times cane needed: 0

Wonderful students: 11

Fantastic co-workers: 4

Times my co-workers admitted they were worried that I was going to be “an asshole” and that they were relieved I turned out to be “a ray of sunshine.”

Times in a grocery store with Viking ruins on display: 1

Days without shaving my legs: 74

Live Plays attended: 13

Movies in the theatre, not counting short films: 14

Books read: 23

Mummies seen: 8

Engagements: 1

Rings exchanged: 2

Times I walked by Glen Hansard’s house: 1

Short Films (as part of a festival): 36.

Favorites: Sheeps of Fury; La Madeleine

Episodes of Law & Order I watched in my little room while grading and prepping, since two television stations were dedicated to that show in the afternoons: not sure

Episodes of Law & Order with Ann Dowd in them: 2

Trips to Glendalough & Bray: 1

Trips to Belfast: 2

Times I was horrified by the past and present state of Belfast: 2

Times Irish Republic people told me I wouldn’t be able to understand Northern Irish people: 9

Times I wasn’t able to understand Northern Irish people: 0

Liberties Distillery Private Tour: 1

Live Stand-Up Shows attended: 8, including Hannah Gadsby and Jim Gaffigan

Hints given about the Guinness Quiz while on a trip to Belfast: 2

Guinness Quizzes won: 1

Whiskeys:

Meh: Jameson; Nikka Day; Paddy; Kilbeggan; Teachers (peaty); Bushmills; West Cork Bourbon Cask; Teeling Pot Still, Single Grain, Single Malt; Powers Single Pot Still; Sailor’s Home Single Pot Still; Fercullen Falls Small Batch; Hanson; Slane Triple Casked; Silkie; Mad March Hare Irish Poitin.

MMM: Redbreast 12, 15, 21; Jameson Black Barrel; Green Spot; Writer’s Tears Copper Pot; Fercullen 8; Method and Madness; Teeling Small Batch; West Cork Calvados Cask Finished (a little fruity); West Cork Glengarriff Series (lightly peated); Red Spot; Liberties 3 year, 5 year, 13 year; Writers Tears Single Pot Still; Bowmore Single Malt Scotch; Fercullen James Fox exclusive; DWD; Clonakilty; Connemara Peated Single Malt; West Cork Black Cask; Writer’s Tears Cask Strength 2022; Auchentoshan American Oak; Dingle Single Pot Still; Dingle Samhain; Dingle Fourth Pot Still Release; two more at Dingle Bar I can’t remember.

Woohoo: Redbreast Lustau, 27, and Single Pot Still; Midleton Very Rare; Glendalough Double Barrel; Roe & Co; Blue Spot; Gold Spot; Clonakilty Single Grain; Tullamore Dew Carribean Rum Cask Finish, Black 43, 13 Single Malt; Limavaldy Single Malt; Fercullen 14; Drumshambo Pot Still; Midleton Barry Crockett; Glendalough Single Malt 7

Gins: Skye Gin; The Secret Island; W.N. Rhubarb; Dingle; Gunpowder; Bertha’s Revenge; Glendalough; HaPenny Rhubarb (too sweet!); Dublin City; M&S Rhubarb Gin; Audemus Pink Pepper Gin

Fav Restaurants: Nandos; Beshoff’s; Coffee Bean on Mary Street; M&L; Pi Pizza; Ard Bia in Galway; Krewe; Toscana; Bullet and Duck; Cedar Tree Lebanese; Queen of Tarts; Red Moon Thai; Saba Thai; Kopitiam Malaysian

Museums and Galleries: Trinity (Book of Kells; Long Room) (X 2); Newgrange; Jeannie Johnson; Christ Church (X 2); National Museum of Archaeology (X 3); National Gallery; Hugh Lane Gallery (X 2); St. Patrick’s Cathedral; Marsh’s Library; St. Michan’s; St. Audoen’s; Oscar Wilde House; National Library; Dublinia; Leprechaun Museum Night Tour; Joyce Tower; Sweny’s Pharmacy; Chester Beatty; EPIC Immigration Museum; Guiness Storehouse; The Giant’s Causeway; Dunlace Castle; Murals in Belfast / Peace Wall (X 2); Barracks Museum (Art and Design); Walking Tour (2); Glasnevin Cemetery

Hours in Scotland: 101

Great Meals at Rishi Indian Aroma: 2

Indian meals total: 3

Lamb servings: 3

Great meals at Antlers in Portree: 2

Times discovering Drambuie is an Isle of Skye liquor: 1

Times trying Drambuie: 1

Times discovering I much prefer Scotch to Drambuie: 1

Salmon servings: 3

Great salmon servings: 1

Haddock servings: 2

Gins at Gin 71, including a Finnish one: 4

Amazing Sea Bass at Gin 71: 1

Bites of haggis: 1

Bites of local bleu cheese: 1

Times I discovered I like haggis more than bleu cheese: 1

Rainbows: 4

Times I thought about climbing up to Ewan’s castle: 1

Times I passed a woman who broke her ankle trying to climb to Ewan’s castle: 1

Times I slipped in the mud around Ewan’s castle: so many

Times I got most of the way to Ewan’s castle and then a couple coming down warned me about how steep and slippery it was, so I finally listened to the universe and stopped climbing: 1

Glasses of Wee Angus Merlot, from Australia, chosen because I have two great great . . . s from Scotland named Angus: 1

Tours of the Isle of Skye: 1

Sightings of Nessie at her Loch: 0

Other tourists on the bus tour: 3

People on the bus (out of 5) who had been extras on Outlander: 2

Rocks picked up to take home: 5

Times I heard the fairy pipes at Kilt Rock: 1

Whiskeys tried*: 20

Times the guy at The Whiskey Shop totally remembered me from all those mini whiskeys I bought the last time I was in: 1

*Woohoo: Glen Allachie 8; Talisker 8 2020 (new favorite!)

MMMM: Glengoyne 18; Tobermory 12; Bunnahabhain 12; Talisker 10; Talisker Distiller’s Editon; Talkisker Distillery Exclusive; Glenfiddich; Glenmorangie; Arran 10; Dalwhinnie 12; Lomand Signature Blend

Meh: Caledonian Bay Blended; Glen Scotia Double Cask; Talisker Port Ruighe; Talisker Skye; Balvenie; the other Talisker 8

Not sure, cause it was in ice cream: Blair Athol

(101 hours / 20 whiskies=one new whiskey every 5 hours)

Or: "Fáilte go hÉirinn"

I got to Dublin almost a week ago, to start my almost three months here. 
My first challenge was confronting my weird little room. I'm in StayCity, which bills itself as a cross between a hotel and an apartment. In terms of size, it's a hotel room, but it has a range, a microwave with delusions of grandeur, a tiny and somehow messy sink (the water splashes everywhere), a kettle, and a dishwasher.
I'm on the first floor, so I feel weird opening the curtains. While few people use the alley behind the hotel, I don't necessarily want to be seen in  my jammies (or my nothing).
The weirdest thing about my room, though, is that I don't know what to do with my clothes. There are places to hang my coats and umbrellas, but there are only five hangers sharing a narrow space with an ironing board. There are no drawers, however. I've folded my sweaters, pjs, and trousers: my suitcase has to live on the floor as a makeshift drawer. My undies and socks are in a grocery bag.
I'm not sure how the designers of this building expected us to store our clothes, but the staff assures me drawers are definitely not provided.
Still, the location is great. It's central to everything, in a vibrant immigrant neighborhood; there are stores around me specializing in foreign food, including Spanish and Moldovan.
I do hours of work every day on my head, as is typical of hotel living. It's probably not the best for my neck. As the boy and I used to do when traveling, I find Law & Order to have on in the background (it's on all afternoon). Sometimes it's MASH instead--they show it without the laugh track, which is wonderful.
The staff at CEA, our partnership organization, are wonderful and welcoming. Our orientation included a walking tour, which luckily included the grocery store with viking settlement remains below it, and a look at Bram Stoker's office window and the view from it.
My students are a joy. I'm hoping we'll be able to stay in person the whole term, but my first student tested positive at the end of the first class. We've all been in close quarters, and it's likely that we'll get it. That said, I would rather it run through us at the beginning of the course than at the end.
Denise is coming to visit this Thursday, though, so I hope I can fight it off long enough to enjoy our time together instead of having to quarantine.
I've eaten at Nandos three times so far. My grocery store tv dinners have been saving me money at night, but none have been appetizing. One was so tasteless I thought I might have Covid. 
The one thing I forgot at home was my cane, which I will inevitably need at some point (cobblestones and overflexible ankles don't mix well). I got an umbrella cane, but it's not sturdy enough if I really hurt myself. I'm going to have to shop where the discerning gentlemen do.
I didn't bring my favorite hat: my bowler. I wanted to get something new. A morning of looking yielded two: a fedora and a paddy cap.
Last Friday's was Ireland's annual culture night, featuring free events everywhere. I went to a comedy club a few minutes from my place. Two of the comics were great (one was a California transplant, like me). Only one bombed, but the audience was still nice. Since my mom doesn't want me to get up on stage while I'm here, I'm looking for a way to get up ASAP.

I leave for Dublin on Tuesday.

Not surprisingly, I’m losing my mind.

In the past, when I’ve gone abroad for a while, I’ve packed just one big suitcase to check & then end up having to buy another bag to come back with me. This year, I’m skipping that step. My checked luggage will include a big suitcase and a duffle (how else could I actually pack warm clothes?), but I will have some room for what I buy there, after taking all the supplements and eating all the grits that are coming with me.

In the midst of all the panicking and packing, I’ve been googling my future neighborhood. There’s a Nandos just a five-minute walk away, so I may not be able to lose weight this Winter.

My greatest challenge right now is that my insurance told the pharmacy that I couldn’t have a 90-day supply of my medications. I spent several hours on the phone the other day, resulting in a request for an emergency authorization. We’ll know tomorrow how that went.

If they don’t approve it, I will have to pay out of pocket for two months and then fight them for reimbursement when I get back. Without insurance, it will be over 700$ to take the meds I need.

This has been your reminder that American healthcare is mean and dumb.

When I was working out what I would do in Spain between my two conferences, I came upon a brief mention of Peñíscola in a guidebook. I did my k-12 education in Pensacola, FL. Most people believe the FL version is a misspelled version of the Spanish one (misspelled ’cause Florida), so I wanted to check in on my namesake. Would their high school mascot be the Tigers too?

It should have been fairly simple to get to Peñíscola–a regional train could move me between stations, and I was assured there would be plenty of cabs.

But my regional train was delayed–and then the train went slower than usual, so I ended up getting to the train station 5 hours later than I should have. A station agent called a cab for the group of us hanging out by the station, and then each cab driver who arrived said they would radio in for another one, until the group was whittled down to me.

The station is not scenic, unless you’re into graffiti, and it was by an industrial plant with a weird smell.

After 45 minutes, it was finally my turn. My cabdriver was distressed when he learned my hotel was on the castle hill. Cabs don’t go there at night, when all the tourists are out. I had to listen to him complain about having to drop me off outside of the castle walls to his boss. “No,” he said in Spanish, “I can’t talk to her; she’s English.”

I was super cranky when we finally got there; navigating the steep little walkways didn’t help.

But the staff at Hotel Joanna was excited when I finally arrived. They showed me to my adorable room, and I ventured to their restaurant for food and this view of the moon over the Mediterranean.

Things were definitely looking up in the morning. First, there was this breakfast for hotel guests:

Second, I had realized I didn’t pack properly for Spain. All of the other women were going around in either shorts or sun dresses. Even women my grandmother’s age were rocking hot sun dresses! Naturally, I thought about how my culture wants women of my age and curviness to cover up. But when in Spain . . .

In Zaragoza, right before I left, I picked up a sun dress in a boutique by my hotel.

It wasn’t my usual style. The question I asked myself while shopping was “which one would my new boyfriend want me to wear.”

I put it on for my one full day in Peñíscola.

It was very hot, so I sweated all through my clothes, but I did manage to go to the Museum of the Sea and the Castle.

The Castle was built, centuries ago, by Templars, on the ruins of a Moorish temple they destroyed. After hiking up through the castle and not falling over, even though I and this sign were worried about it, I thought about going to the garden, but I just didn’t have it in me to make it down there. Both the castle and the garden have been featured in Game of Thrones.

I took a nap and graded my students’ work. Then I headed back out for souvenirs and a walk down to the Mediterranean, to finally get my feet in.

I had yummy fish for dinner, house-made strawberry and lemon ice cream, and a serving of a rice-based digestive.

Although I looked all over, Peñíscola just doesn’t have postcards. I guess they’re tired of the jokes?

The next morning, I had my last breakfast there, read the warnings about the extreme heat wave (they said trains might not work, since the tracks could warp, in addition to the regular awful things that heat does) and then left for Valencia.

I got to the train station early, only to discover that the station was arranged weirdly. In most stations, platform 1 is right beside the terminal. Here, the signs all said that Platform 2 was–and then you got 1 and 3.

I asked the station agent if indeed the layout made no sense. He confirmed the weirdness, and I spent my remaining time there explaining, in Spanish, to Spaniards, how the station worked. It was standing-room only on the train for a few hours, but at last I arrived in Valencia, which I’ll write about next.

As you might remember from the last post, I was only able to head to Tarragona after mostly getting over my rotavirus.

Navigating the train was easy–well, as easy as it can be when one travels alone with enough luggage for two weeks abroad and a bad back.

Arriving and getting to the hotel was a different challenge. I ended up waiting about forty minutes for a cab. At one point, I considered figuring out the buses. I asked a fellow traveler about them, since he was waiting there.

Me: “How much do you think it costs to get from here to the Tarragona bus station downtown?”

Him: “You’re in Tarragona.”

Me: “I know. This is the train station. I need to get to the bus station, which is near my hotel.”

Him: “The bus station in which city?”

Me: “Tarragona.”

Him: “But you’re in Tarragona.”

Each of us thinks the other person is an absolute idiot.

I checked into my hotel, located in the old part of the city, within the old defense walls. My room overlooked a plaza.

I was hungry, so I ordered tapas, only to discover that Tarragona tapas are not in fact small plates, since each was designed for me and four or five of my closest friends.

(Note on ordering in Spain: no restaurants will serve paella if you’re single. Paella is about 25 euro a person, and at least two people have to order it. However, each place would initially think I was ordering an entire bottle of wine when I requested my verdejo.)

A short walk took me to a Roman circus: where animals and gladiators would compete and perform. My favorite parts were underground–long hallways with small rooms, where the competitors were kept.

After exploring the underground, a guide pointed me to the way up.

It’s a good thing that I was on my own, because about halfway up to the top, I started to freak out. When I was little, I wasn’t afraid of heights. In fact, I would hide from my mom and stepdad on the roof. Something’s shifted, though, and I don’t like heights anymore, and I am crazy afraid of certain stairs: mostly the old ones in Europe, that are not made for modern feet, and/or that are open, allowing you to see how many flights you’ll fall if you trip like the clumsy chronic pain woman you are.

I am certain that there is security footage of my panic attack. And of me talking to myself, explaining that probably no one has died on those stairs in a couple hundred years.

I did make it to the top.

But I was so flustered that I went down the wrong way, exiting instead of finishing the route. And then I was too embarrassed and exhausted to go back, so I went in search of wine. I had my usual verdejo, but then tried a xarel lo, a sort of cross between chardonnay and sav blanc that is usually used to make champagne.

That night, I had an amazing dinner at my hotel: gazpacho, the best lamb ever, and catalan custard (aka creme brulee). There were also fireworks.

Each night, I had to take a shower before bed because Spain in the summer means you’ll sweat through your clothes all day–that kind of sweat where you can feel little rivers flowing on you. The shower head was a problem, though. The water pressure was high (great!), but it was SO high that it would turn the shower head until it was aimed outside the tub.

Even figuring out this problem, I was powerless to stop it. I just couldn’t have the shower head in my hand the whole time I was getting in and out.

The next day, I wandered around for a long time and ended up at the old Roman wall. It was 11 a.m., and I shouldn’t have been outside. I quickly realized that I was about to get heat stroke, so I did what I used to do in London heat waves: I lay down under a tree and read.

(In London, I would sometimes fall asleep. I have also slept in the “secret garden” at Churchill’s estate.)

When I recuperated, I finished the route and left. I ran into a Scottish woman on the way, and we commiserated about the heat. She also told me her kids were not into their trip: they didn’t care about Roman ruins and didn’t want to eat Spanish food. They kept asking for McDonalds. When we parted, I told her to stay cool.

Her: Think of the gladiators!

Me, suggestively: Oh, I’ve been thinking of the gladiators . . .

Her, laughing: Oh, get on with ye, girl!

Most afternoons in Spain, I used the afternoon siesta to grade.

That night, I went to the Roman amphitheater. I couldn’t go in, but the views were wonderful. I particularly liked the moon over the sea as well.

Back at my hotel, I tried to have the same dinner as the night before, but the main kitchen was closed. I had an okay dinner at a nearby restaurant, while writing postcards. The waiter kept going to every table around me, offering free champagne, since they had opened a bottle. They only offered it to couples, though, not to me.

Tarragona: the woman eating alone, writing postcards, needs the champagne most of all!

Then it was back to my room for some sleep before heading to Peniscola the next day.

Parting thought: Tarragona was beautiful. Also, strangely, I was always able to find my way back to the hotel without a map.

Those who have traveled with me know how insane that is. Maybe one of my previous lives was at the Roman circus.