Different country different restaurant

A bit more than a day later and I am in a different continent and in a different  restaurant. And everything's in a different language.

But it's much more than that. The place I have chosen for a quick dinner is relatively small; there's about 30 people inside. There's another fifteen or so outside, even though it's November and we're in the northern hemisphere. Actually, it's unusually mild for this time of year in France. But here people sit outside even in the middle of winter - as soon as the sun makes an appearance you'll find people outside. Of course the fact that it's night-time now makes that logic less relevant, but you get the idea.

To serve forty or so people there's one waitress and two cooks. It never ceases to impress me how here in France a single waiter will manage an entire restaurant. That's not something you will see in Australia, and it sort of goes against the general labour market trend in the two countries. Restaurants and the job of the wait staff are clearly an exception. Actually in a sense in this particular restaurant there are one and a half people serving since the waitress is heavily pregnant. Her enormous tummy is bulging over her pants and other parts of her are also straining at their containing garments. She's already not a small person, and now is doing an amazing job getting around the tiny restaurant. 

The two cooks look like they've been working here for decades and look like caricatures: if you saw these characters in a movie you'd say they were overdone. The only thing missing is a half-smoked 'Gitanes' between their lips. One is behind the counter in the tiny open kitchen putting large handfuls of spaghetti into an enormous pot of boiling water and plating up veal escalopes and chips while the other is manning the pizza oven, which is just behind the front door so he's essentially standing in the doorway as he makes his pizza bases.

Although the restaurant is called "L'Entrecôte" - a pretty archetypal name for a French restaurant where you'd expect to find steak-frites, crème brûlée and mousse au chocolat on the menu, this turns out to be a pizza and pasta restaurant. Not quite Italian, since both the pizza and the pasta have a decidedly French influence, but nevertheless it's Italian-inspired.

I spot some flies circling in the open kitchen and am glad I cannot see further around the corner where presumably the salads are being made and the dishes are being washed.

Most of the people in the restaurant are seated at two long tables. When I arrive the waitress points me to a still-empty space between two groups and I squeeze between the rows until I get to the indicated spot. It's almost convivial, although I detect a certain coldness in the returned "bonjours" of my neighbours who clearly were not expecting someone to join their party. I am in between a group of four (mum dad and daughter with boyfriend) on  my left and a young couple on my right. I am facing the kitchen, and together with the two groups on either side of me and the goings-on in the kitchen I have plenty to keep me occupied during the meal.

There are too many notable things happening around me to be able to remember them all, but here are a couple of highlights:

The young guy on my right has ordered a steak with a creamy pepper sauce. When it arrives, his first comment is "where's the mustard?" Even his young girlfriend questions this: "You want mustard with a pepper sauce?". He insists and calls the (rather busy) waitress over to bring him his mustard. "I can't eat steak without mustard". 

At the end of the meal the family on my left asks for the bill. The boyfriend rushes to grab is from the waitress before the father can get it - clearly this is going to be his treat! There's a mock argument about who's going to pay for the sake of appearances and he triumphantly pays the bill.

When I finally leave, the restaurant is still completely full inside (the family on my left has been replaced by another party of four). When I get outside I discover that the tables there are also almost all occupied - and it's still just the one waitress! Admittedly, someone from the back (the dishwasher?) has appeared and is helping to re-set the tables, but the food service is still being done by that same waitress, who even manages to say goodbye and thank me for dining with them. I leave impressed.

Restaurant voyeur

At the airport again. Thank goodness I am flying business class and so get to benefit from the lounge. And there goes my train of thought. Derailed by the expression I have just used: 'thank goodness'. Like so many expressions we use without thinking about them, if you make the mistake of actually thinking about it, you begin to realise how strange they really are and you start to question where they came from. In this case it seems to be a form of 'thank God' without the religious overtones.

Meanwhile there's a lot happening around me.

To my left there's a large woman. Actually, when she stands to go to the buffet, I realise she's not just large, she's huge. She walks with the aid of a walking stick; by the way she moves I guess she's had hip surgery, or perhaps she needs hip surgery. One thing she does need is to lose weight. She's at the buffet and with the help of one of the staff she is loading up with pretty much everything on display. Back at the table a waiter is offering wines. He returns with several bottles and she tries them all before settling on one.

A bit later the waiter is back, this time with not one, but two main courses and a large bowl of salad. She sends the salad back. What seems like moments later, the waiter is back again, this time with desserts (plural). I can't help but see the Monty Python sketch of the exploding fat man: "just one more little wafer" prompts the waiter before the fat man explodes from overeating.

To my right is another woman. She's slim. Although she's almost certainly quite a bit older than the woman on my left she looks much younger. She orders the smoked salmon and a coffee. A decaf soy. A healthy choice perhaps, but also a double oxymoron of sorts. Firstly there's the contradiction of coffee without the caffeine. But she's added insult to injury - I feel my thought train derailing as I write this - by asking for milk that isn't milk.

The waiters are lovely. One even remembers me from my previous visit, or at least is very sweet about pretending to. They are male and Filipino and while it would be rather presumptuous of me to say that they are gay, they're certainly camp. They do a great job, as does the chef: good food in an airport lounge is not what you would expect, but the Etihad lounge is very impressive.

Two tables across there's another woman. She acts like she's used to being waited on and makes no attempt to be nice to the waiter. He takes it in his stride. A bit later  the woman is joined by a friend. A colleague perhaps? The two women discuss their respective challenges in getting to the airport on time. It seems like it's a contest. "I was still packing when the driver arrived" says the second woman, effectively winning the contest. She orders and makes even less attempt to acknowledge the waiter as a human being than her friend did.

There's an older couple who look like they don't do this sort of thing very often. They both have drinks; his looks like it might be a gin and tonic and it looks like it's not his first. I don't see any food on their table. She looks like she is resigned to having to deal with him; no doubt she has years of experience.

Back in the UAE

So I am (back) in Abu Dhabi for a week. It's summer (although not the hottest part) and the temperature hovers in the low 40's (C) during the day. Everyone retreats to the air-conditioned comfort of some luxury hotel, their luxury car, or a luxury shopping mall. Everyone that is, except for the migrant construction workers who are still being bused* to and from their non air-conditioned quarters (which, complete with corrugated iron roofs, make ideal saunas) in non air-conditioned buses. At least the bus windows open.

I am inside all day since I'm working. I don't venture outside until the late afternoon, when the sun's direct heat has retreated and I only have the 40 degree heat to deal with. I want to cross the road outside the hotel but it's turned into something like a ten-lane divided freeway since the opening of the Salam Street tunnel. Luckily I remember how Abu Dhabi has a network of pedestrian subways (rarely used, since there are relatively few pedestrians, and apart from the subways, not much pedestrian-friendly ground to walk on). These are grandly built with walls of tiled artwork. Like much of the infrastructure, maintenance and longevity are less of a concern, so things degrade quickly. Paving and brickwork is cracked and broken, drains, when there are any, are blocked or broken (or uncovered). A pity.

Pedestrian underpass - desert camel racing scenes in this one

* Annoying, isn't it? When you write an apparently simple word and all of a sudden your thought flow comes to a crashing stop when you can't convince yourself whether you've spelled (or spelt) it correctly! Being transported by a bus (of which more than one would be buses, while 'busses' is tempting) is being bused. But that looks a lot like 'abused' without the 'a', so can it be correct? A quick search digs up 'buss', which is a form of oral communication, so being 'bussed' is definitely something different to being transported mechanically. So 'bused' it is then.

Dubai police car - if you can't beat them, join them!

Here the people's car is a Toyota Landcruiser - the most expensive V8 model of course. In white. Given that there's so many BMW X5 and X6s and Range Rovers on the roads they are now a bit passé. The Porsche Cayenne is still popular, although you'll definitely not stand out in the crowd driving one of those. Having a Porsche is not something particularly special here. Something more exotic (and expensive) is required. Perhaps an Audi R8, or why not a Bugatti Veyron or Lamborghini?

In a country where the police (in Dubai) have cars like a BMW M6, Mercedes AMG SLS, and Lamborghini Aventador, you need to make the effort to stand out from the crowd with your car.

I am staying in one of the luxury hotels on the island. Actually "luxury hotel" is almost a tautology here; every hotel is "luxury" by the standards of any other place. The forecourt is - as is the norm - crowded with valet-parked fancy cars: from BMW and Mercedes to Porsches, Bentleys, the odd Aston Martin and Ferrari. Footpaths are for cars, not people and to get to the front door you have to negotiate this parking lot. I meet up with some old colleagues. One arrives in his Porsche and the other turns up in his Aston Martin DB9. And there I am thinking that when I had a car here I was driving a Nissan Tiida....

A novel use of 4WD to get over the traffic?

The class I am teaching is almost monochrome. I look out at a sea of white on one side and black on the other. Boys on one side in their white dishdashes (traditional male dress) and the girls on the other side in their black abayas. An occasional splash of colour is provided by the few expatriates in the class. Coffee breaks inevitably turn into very  lengthy affairs. Speaking of coffee, one morning one of the girls pulls out a Harrods bag and from it produces a large decorated ceramic coffee pot (with gilded decoration), a doily, and a set of ceramic coffee cups. I'm impressed. When I question her about it, she explains: "It's local coffee - I couldn't live without my coffee". She proceeds to offer coffee to others and the coffee break turns into a long local social event. The room is always fragrant, smelling of the typical woody local perfumes of oud and bukhoor, which are worn liberally by the men.

At dinner at one of the restaurants I am, as usual, dining alone. So I engage myself in some people watching which waiting for my meal. There's a young Emirati couple. He's in his sparkling white dishdash; she's in her black abaya, carrying the de rigueur large and obviously expensive handbag (with a large gold chain) and large sunglasses. It always impresses me when people wear sunglasses indoors. The couple arrives, are seated, and proceed to extract their smartphones (she from her handbag, he from the specially-designed pocket in his dishdash). I briefly reflect on whether traditionally, when people were still riding camels and living a nomadic life in the desert,  the dishdashes had phone-pockets. The restaurants "no shorts or slippers" dress policy clearly doesn't apply to the sandals traditionally worn by the local men.

Neither has said a word to each other; they are engrossed by their smartphones. They are briefly interrupted by the waitress - who, of course, is Filipino, like virtually all hospitality staff in the UAE - and then revert back to their phones. Throughout the entire meal they are engaged with their phones, but not each other. And while I eat my meal I'm wondering how it is that Emirati men manage to keep their dishdashes so brilliantly white and free of creases.

You call this summer?

Before you point it out, I realise that two months is a long time between posts. And a lot of post-able things have been happening in my travelling life so no excuses there (except perhaps the fact that, with all the travelling, there's been little time for posting). So much for preamble.

When we last met, I was taking a decidedly long time to cover little ground - pedalling my way across northern Spain. Since then I've added several thousand more kilometres at a more rapid pace - by car. Including, coincidentally in fact, quite a few thousand kilometres back in Spain. But more on that in another post.

My most recent journey took me even further in even less time, travelling this time by air for something like six and a half hours and covering 5,300km. And this exercise nicely highlighted how summer in one place can mean something entirely different to summer in another. In my case, leaving France on a decidedly fresh "summer" morning of 10 degrees (C) and arriving at ten o'clock in the evening in Abu Dhabi in the "cool" evening of 39 degrees. (Daytime temperatures at the moment in Abu Dhabi are in the low to mid 40's).

I would have arrived in Abu Dhabi earlier, but the flight left almost an hour late. "Of course it did" you will be quick to point out, given that I departed from one of the world's more unpleasant and disorganised airports, Charles de Gaulle in Paris. To be fair, there are plenty of worse airports in the world: Murtala Muhammed airport in Lagos and Jacksons International airport in Port Moresby come to mind for example. But in some places your expectations are low to begin with, so when they are met you are not too upset. In Paris one has - you would like to think justifiably - high expectations. But in the case of CDG these are most definitely not met.

I'd been to Abu Dhabi before - in fact lived there - so I knew that it was hot in summer. But that still didn't prepare me for the slap-in-the-face feeling as you step off the plane into 39 degrees in the middle of the night. Of course, the fact that France was unseasonably cold for summer (or at least, they try to convince each other that it's unusual) only served to amplify the difference.

A lightly-loaded trolley at Abu Dhabi airport

Abu Dhabi airport was unusually busy; end of holidays, families getting back before the school year starts, local families laden with Hermès and Louis Vuitton bags (de rigueur in this part of the world) and so forth. The normally well-run airport was showing signs of strain and the arrivals area was bordering on pandemonium. I couldn't help taking a picture of a trolley loaded with what seemed a typical load for one person. The woman who had been pushing it - invariably it is the women who are tasked with pushing luggage trolleys, the men presumably having more important duties to attend to - was taking a break. Or perhaps she was waiting for the next bag to come off the belt.

And then I thought back to my bike ride and how little luggage I managed with for three weeks and it put things in perspective. How much stuff do we really need?

Off to the south of Spain (again)

And now it's a year later and another road trip to the south of Spain in July/August 2014.

In Spain. Might be forgiven for thinking I'm still in Spain, but in fact since that trip I've been to France, Belgium, Netherlands. Bit difficult to get to Holland from France without going through Belgium, although it doesn't take long and apart from the naked cyclops along the motorway there's not a lot to say about Belgium. Perhaps more on that later.

28-July-2014
Getaria, Spain

29-July-2014

Bibao, Spain
Guggenheim museum, finally get to see it. Definitely worth a trip though!

30-July-2014
Burgos
Stayed here to re-live a little bit my bicycle journey along the Camino de Santiago, during which I also stayed at Burgos.

31-July-2014
Merida

01-August-2014 to 14-August-2014
Jimena de la Frontera

With a trip to Malaga and some other local trips including to Ronda

14-August-2014

Olvera: Narrow streets, had to reverse back down one. Parked and asked a woman for directions to plaza where the bar I wanted to go to was, she started to explain, then said "It's too complicated, I'll take you there" and walked with us all the way to the top of the village, up steps, around the church, delivered us there. So many friendly people.

15-August-2014

Wake up late (almost 9 am) buffet breakfast, all Spanish except for us. Leave at 10. Quiet since it turns out to be a public holiday.

Roads are great.

Terrific road from the A5 to Alvira, over the mountains. A bit of everything from long straights, twisty mountain bends, sweeping curves, etc. lots of bikes on the mountain section.

Alvira walled city, intact walls. Walk around, choose a small local bar with outdoor tables and chairs for morning coffee. Order. Nothing happens. Go inside, the guy had obviously for gotten all about us; he says 'won't be long' I say 'we're leaving' he says 'ok'. Just as well since later we find a place that unusually, sells nice pastries so we can have a pastry and coffee. Much better than the almost certainly unpleasant bocadillo we would have had. Cathedral in granite. Wooden huts like a Christmas market set up as drinking stalls with music. Detracts from the whole experience.

Segovia larger. Roman aqueduct, impressively long and high. Fancy cathedral. Coffee and a coke and toilet stop. Some but not many foreign tourists. Many French cars on the road though.

Santo Domingo de Silos

Driving along small country road, see something in the distance on my side of the road. Coming towards me. Bigger than a pedestrian, smaller than a horse or vehicle. Slow down, get closer, then realise it's an old woman pushing an even older man in a wheelchair along the road.

Dinner at hotel after waiting in vain at chosen bar/restaurant to be served

Monks chanting Gregorian chants. Baby behind us is unimpressed and voices its dislike.

Notes from along the way:

Tolls in Spain. Great example of bureaucratic idiocy. Tolls are, for example 2.19 euros, or 3.29 euros. And the attendant gives you the one cent change. He must have an enormous pile of one cent coins (which can't be used to actually pay anything, including the toll machines which don't accept 1,2,5 cent coins...

Great roads again. Lovely twisty small roads to and from Santi Domingo. The AP1 to the border from San Sebastián is absolutely marvellous, although many of those bends are impressive at the 120k limit!

16-August-2014

Crossing into France, suddenly everyone is driving at almost exactly the 110k limit, whereas a few km previously they'd still be driving at 140k in the apparently poorly monitored 120k Spanish roads.

Notice many - many - Swiss cars on the road from Burgos to the border. Most of them expensive. Odd. You almost never see Swiss cars in Europe (except in Switzerland). Then I see one with pink ribbons tied to the door handles, and I begin noticing that many of them have similar ribbons tied to rear wipers. A Wedding between rich Swiss and Spanish families?

Got stopped twice in the one day by Police. Odd. First time by Guardian civil, who when he found I didn't speak Spanish, and after checking the French plate on the front of the car waved me on with an air of 'I can't be bothered dealing with you'. Then again later in France at a standard roundabout check for papers. Oncoming cars were furiously flashing their lights and everyone miraculously driving at exactly the limit.

Spent a while in Limoges, buying crockery, as one does.

Dinner 43 euros, Brasserie du Commerce Miramont-de-Guyenne

17-August-2014

Stay at Chateau de la Cazine, Noth. An anniversary to celebrate!

The Financial Analysis

I hadn't defined a budget for the three-week Camino journey, although if I had, I think I would have under-spent it.

After a hard morning's ride a little splurge (at 3 euro)

Executive summary:

Food	430
Accommodation	308
Travel	247
Other	87 (after all there has to be an 'other' category in any financial analysis)
Total Cost	1,072

(all figures in Euros)

Analysis

So what's this about "Travel" costs? Didn't I pedal myself all the way? Well, apart from the rental of the bike itself (which is not included in the above figures), the travel cost reflects the costs of getting to St. Jean Pied de Port from Paris, the bus back to Santiago from Finisterre, and flying back to Paris again from Santigao. Costs to get to Paris depend entirely on where you're coming from of course, so aren't included here. By the way, you could use other gateway cities like Madrid or Porto to get close to the start / end cities.

I caught the train to St. Jean Pied de Port and flew back from Santiago airport. I was lucky that the SNCF (French trains) and the airport were not on strike. That's not as facetious as it might sound: as I type, the SNCF workers have been on strike for a week, causing all sorts of havoc. Air traffic controllers have a habit of going on strike at short notice and preferably (from their perspective) at inconvenient times for travellers.

My average daily expenses (i.e. not including the transport costs) for the Spanish section of the journey came in at a little over 33 euros per day:

Food	20.90
Accommodation	10.50
Other	1.70
Total Daily Cost	33.10

(all figures in Euros)

The municipal albergue in Hontanas

Staying in albergues is a really cheap way to sleep as you can see in the above figures. Of course you sort of get what you pay for, but a bed is a bed, and I found all the places I stayed at perfectly acceptable in terms of facilities and cleanliness - some significantly better than expected. On various forums you read about bed bugs; I never had any problems with this or heard of anybody who had. That's not the case for the French walking paths, where I did hear of people picking up a little bonus here and there. I think that's because there is a good awareness of the potential for the problem and preventative measures are in place in Spain (and by implication, either a lack of awareness or a lack of preventative measures in France).

The French part of the journey in my case involved two nights in a B&B (luxury, at 60 euros /night) and two restaurant dinners (Pilgrim menus, but more than two - three times the Spanish price). Keeping to good accounting practice (cooking the books?) I haven't included these numbers in the above daily averages to avoid the daily average results being skewed. My two nights in a B&B in France accounted for almost 40% of my total accommodation costs for the entire three-week trip !

Sleeping

A private albergue in Villafranca

Albergues (hostels) cost anything from nothing (really - some are "donativo" which means you pay what you feel you can afford) upwards. Most municipal albergues cost 5 euro per night. Private albergues are (slightly) more expensive, and can vary widely. I paid between 8 euro (Lorca) to 17 euro (Santiago). The municipal albergues often fill up first, meaning you're left with no choice but to stay at a private albergue. Another factor is that the private albergue are often more interesting and have their own character, making them good places to stay. If you go for pensions or hotels, well, you can pay as much as you like. But that's not really the idea of the Camino - although many people opt for a night here and there in a hotel; "a room with a door" as May, the Irish lady, had put it. Mind you, a one night splurge in a simple hotel at, say, 60 euro, is the equivalent of 10 nights in an albergue, so you need to keep that in mind when you do your sums.

Eating

A home-cooked Pilgrim Menu
The whole bottle of wine is for me
(Dessert is not in this picture)

Food is cheap; at least it is in Spain. France is another matter. The Pilgrim menus are generally around 9 - 10 euro, and that includes three copious courses, bread, and pretty much as much wine as you can drink. Not a bad deal! In France the same thing will set you back at least twice that amount. Breakfasts cost around 3 euro, and lunch, if you eat it, can be another Pilgrim menu, or simply fruit or sandwiches (bocadillos, costing around 3 euro).

You can of course opt to do it yourself as many do. Buying ingredients and preparing your own meals is certainly cheaper than even a Pilgrim meal at a restaurant, and most albergues have at least basic cooking facilities. This approach probably works best if you're in a group and can share stuff. I brought some basic cutlery and plastic "crockery" with me, thinking I might picnic along the way. But I never used any of it.

Travel

Bus transport in Spain is pretty cheap. It costs 13 euro (actually 13.10, don't ask me why, but it must make life hell for the bus driver trying to deal with all that change) for the bus from Fisterre to Santiago (a three-hour trip). It costs 3 euro for the bus from Santiago to the airport (40 minutes). I never took a taxi, but some walkers do from time to time. I imagine that would blow the budget, but perhaps less so if you shared. I saw that the cost to ship luggage to the next albergue was 7 euro.

Other Stuff

Souvenirs, extra things you buy on the way, maybe toiletries you forgot or ran out of. I bought some gaiters and waterproof over-pants in Pamplona after my Pyrenees experience. Many walkers live on Compeed for the blisters and Ibuprofen for the inflammation - all that can add up of course (although pharmacy items appear to be pretty cheap in Spain).

Depending on your perspective of course, walking or riding the Camino isn't particularly expense - certainly not if you compare it with any other form of travel. Obviously a good part of that is the saving on travel costs, since you are providing your own personal transport. Accommodation is the other big saver, as long as you're happy with dormitory living. But, as I've said before, albergues are part of the whole Camino experience - Pilgrims are not meant to travel in the lap of luxury after all! Pilgrim menus mean even eating out all the time is affordable, although you can cut this cost (which is the largest component of the total cost) dramatically by preparing your own meals. Whether the financial aspects of the Camino are an important factor is of course open to discussion.

The Compostela

If you fulfil the minimum requirements for the Pilgrimage, your efforts are acknowledged with the issue of a certificate of completion, the Compostela. For walkers that means at least 100 km walked, and for bike riders at least 200 km ridden. On request, the pilgrim office will also issue you with a certificate of distance travelled.

My Compostela - issued on completion of the Camino

To prove that you've followed the Camino, and have walked or ridden the necessary distance, Pilgrims carry a credencial, or passport, which you get stamped at every place you stop along the way. Generally that means the albergue (hostel) you stay at overnight, but most cafés and bars along the route have their own stamp, and so it's not uncommon to collect more than one stamp per day, showing the route you took (and where you stopped for your daily café con leche fix).

My Credencial showing the places I stopped at along the way. 

My Cotolaya

 I discovered after leaving Santiago (the only place entitled to issue the Compostela, hence its full name, Santiago de Compostela) that it happened that the Franciscan church was celebrating its 800th anniversary, and to commemorate the occasion, they were also issuing their own version of a 'Compostela', although they call it the Cotolaya. As it happened, on my return to Santiago on the way home I was able to visit the Franciscan church and have my Cotolaya issued. And as a bonus, there was essentially no waiting to get it, unlike the Compostela, where I had to wait in line almost two hours before making it to the group of volunteers issuing the compostelas.

I just happened upon another blog, Annie's Simple Life, where you can find a little background on the Cotolaya (as well as a bunch of general information about the Camino - typically you find this stuff after the fact, although often it's more interesting to discover things for yourself rather than start with preconceived ideas from someone else.)


Finally, also discovered en-route by talking with others on the way, in Finisterre they also issue a certificate of completion, for those who have followed the way from Santiago through Muxia and on to Finisterre. To be eligible for this one you have to have your credencial stamped at Lires, about halfway between Muxia and Finisterre. Apparently too many 'pilgrims' were catching a taxi from Muxia to Finisterre to save themselves a day's walk, gaming the system. In case you're thinking of walking the other way around (i.e. from Finisterre to Muxia) apparently Muxia also issues their version of the certificate, so you won't miss out if you prefer to end your Camino at Muxia.

The reward for making it to Finisterre