The System Works!

Finally, some sort of resolution from our not-that-great Barcelona hotel (see entry below). Without taking any sort of blame or apologizing for our starcrossed stay, the hotel did offer us the choice of either a partial refund or a free night (plus breakfast!) in an upgraded room next time we're in Barcelona. We chose the money because we have no idea when we'll be back in that part of Spain. While this is the first time we've ever complained about our lodging, I agree with the conventional wisdom that you should make your displeasure known both during the stay and upon check out, and follow-up afterwards if you are still not satisfied-- after all, it's not whining if it's true.

Who Says German Is An Ugly Language?

Sitting here as the paint crew works away (yes indeedy, our peeling wall problem still hasn't gone away, 2.5 years after move-in), I decided to get into the spirit of things and hopefully speed these guys up by playing German-language tunes instead of, I don't know, Grand Funk (though Mel Schacher certainly does rock his canary yellow satin jumpsuit and platform heels in the linked video). Besides the requisite Falco, I played electro-pranksters Deichkind, plus something a bit more mellow, popster Clueso. Actually, I play his CD So Sehr Dabei whenever guests are over-- it's a great record in any language. Anyways, here's a video from that album for a song called "Gewinner" ("winner" in English). You don't have to understand a word of German to appreciate it, and when this song inevitably gets remade in English, somebody's going to have a hit on their hands.

CLUESO GEWINNER

Talk About The Rapture: The Song In My Head Today

TheRapture "House Of Jealous Lovers."

Haven't done this in a while, and it's a rare occasion when I can actually tie in my music tastes to a theme day. In, um, honor of today's coming apocalypse here we have NYC band The Rapture grinding through "House of Jealous Lovers." You gotta love their lo-fi sound, frankly amazing rhythm section (that fluid and funky bass work deserves special mention), a guitarist who appears to be tuning the instrument during the solo, a singer who sounds like he's on work-release from a mental institution, and cowbell-- plenty of cowbell. Actually, it's a fun song and an inventive, kinetic video. WARNING: The song starts about :15 seconds into the video (hold tight), and depending on your level of comfort, there are images of a cartoon duck taking a cartoon dookie for a total of 2 seconds. So there. Enjoy!

Sketches of Spain Pt. 2: Faulty Tower-- Our Hotel

No, I'm not speaking of the classic BBC comedy Fawlty Towers; this has to do with our underwhelming hotel in Barcelona. Longtime readers of this flog know that I don't use this as a forum to settle scores... but these people have consciously made the choice not to set things right with us, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to call them out:

The Hotel España came recommended by a colleague of B's; a well-traveled executive who has seen their share of hotels all over the world. Despite its lofty rates, it was well-positioned just off the fashionably seedy (and insanely noisy) Las Ramblas, the central tourist district and arguably heart of Barcelona, and quite close to a metro stop. Because we had inexpensive airfare by using my frequent flier miles, we figured we'd splurge on a nice hotel and live it up a bit. Sadly, this was not the case. While it may claim to be a 4-Star hotel, this place consistently let us down. Yes the room was nice. The bed was firm. The hotel was clean and well-appointed (the complete refurb in 2010 to this 1800's building is nothing short of fantastic). But when it came down to brass tacks, it was lacking. About that room: It was swoopy and beautiful and modern, but exclamations of "Hey, how much do you think this cost?" were almost invariably followed by "Why the hell doesn't it work?" The shower shot out ice cold water at off-peak times. The bathroom sink stops were permanently shut and had to be manually opened (i.e. me holding the drain up) to empty. The TV never seemed to work. A water glass that broke (due entirely to my slippery hands) on the first night was never replaced for the duration of the stay. Most galling though had to be that the climate control didn't work-- well, actually it did-- the heater was always on. Always. So the room temperature when we woke up on our first morning was a positively balmy 26 Celsius-- just a shade under 80 degrees. In our sealed hotel room. at 9:00am. Repeated calls-- at least twice a day for each day of our stay-- to the front desk (in both Spanish and English) were met with varying levels of indifference or indignation-- their general belief was that clearly we were too stupid to operate our thermostat... except that for whatever reason all air conditioning controls were operated BY the front desk, and they routinely turned it off themselves. Now I've stayed in my share of dirtbag hotels including one memorably sketchy place in Mt. Vernon, Missouri where I barricaded the front door with chairs and my luggage for an extra degree of safety-- so I know from indifferent service and cold showers... but I did not expect it in a place that carried a price tag of over $1000 for 4 night's stay.

Upon check out, we politely voiced our displeasure with the hotel, ticking off the numerous problems we encountered during our stay and asking-- again, respectfully but clearly-- if they could "do something to remedy the situation." This was spoken just before I handed the clerk my credit card. He barely looked up, ran the card for the full amount, and mumbled something about how he couldn't help me, but he'd be sure to pass along our concerns to the manager and maybe she could authorize a partial refund. B pulled out her business card-- which rather prominently shows her major, internationally known employer-- and told the guy to have the manager use her contact info. Suffice it to say after 2+ weeks and several additional emails sent out there is still nothing forthcoming from the hotel. Before heading out to Spain, we were warned about the "Barcelona tourist tax"-- the fact that pickpockets would get the best of us, no matter how hard we tried to thwart them. Well, we survived the pickpockets, but still had a run in with a bunch of no-goodniks-- they worked at our hotel.

Coming next-- the GOOD things about our trip-- and plenty of food porn!

Nuremberg Frauenkirche

I took this shot as we were walking home yesterday afternoon through the Nuremberg Hauptmarkt (the market square in the center of town). Here again is the Frauenkirche (Church of our Lady). I've photographed this one before, but I liked how the clouds framed it and the angles. The Frauenkirche was built starting in 1352 and completed in an astonishingly quick 9 years. It does have a dark side to its history though-- this Roman Catholic church was built on the exact site (or the very foundations-- stories differ) of a Jewish synagogue after a pogrom pushed all of those folks out, and you can still see parts of the previous building in the floor design. The church is a lot smaller than it looks, and features what has to be one of the lamest noontime clock displays in all of Europe (my tip to visitors: skip it-- you'll be angry with yourself if you stick around, it's that bad). As far as historical context goes, once a year the Imperial Regalia of the Holy Roman Empire (which was stored in Nuremberg) was displayed for the people to see. The Frauenkirche has been under some extensive cleaning and refurbishment for almost 2 years (hence the netting and construction scaffolding), and it's a vast improvement from what it used to look like.

Sketches Of Spain, Part 1: The Flights

Sorry for the overall lack of posts of late-- too much going on after our return from Barcelona, the preparations for the book swap (see below post) were followed almost immediately by preparations for our current house guest, and I received some fairly downbeat news to boot that I am still trying to process-- so blogging hasn't been a priority. But... people come to this here flog for a dose of snark and commentary, so enough excuses and onto the main entry.

After finally viewing the photos we took in Barcelona (which still need editing, color correction, etc.) I'm not entirely convinced they will merit their own linked photo album-- there's not a whole lot of them, and they seem to be almost entirely devoted to our meals and architecture, like some sort of parallel-universe Talking Heads album. For the nonce (and to get some sort of momentum going), I will attempt to do a few entries detailing some of the aspects of the trip while the pictures get cleaned up and ready. Today's post deals with our comically lousy journey to Spain.

As I mentioned in a previous entry I burned off some old frequent flier miles to get this trip to Barcelona and ended up paying $212 for the honor of these "free" tickets. Add to that the hassle of driving the 90+ minutes to Munich to get to the flight and the €35.00 (down from €50-- we had a coupon!) long-term parking fee, and all of a sudden this cheap flight was starting to add up. For this award travel, we were compelled to fly Iberia Airlines, the national airline of Spain and an international (flies to 46 countries) heavyweight. Because this was indeed an award trip I shouldn't complain much, but these yobs were so consistently incompetent and lacking in any quality I had to share:

- The flights were all late.
- No food was served on a nearly 3-hour flight unless you paid for it-- even water cost 3 Euros.
- You quickly learned from fellow passengers to stand in line for the connecting flight at the Madrid Airport for a full hour before boarding.
- The only option was to take a flight to Madrid-- which is actually 300+ miles past Barcelona, then hang fire in that airport for a couple hours before taking the flight back east (the direction we originally came from).
- Halfway through boarding the Madrid-Barcelona leg, it was announced as "open seating"-- in other words, a free-for-all. This announcement was in Spanish only.
- Veteran Iberia passengers seemed to be aware of the uncaring attitude of the flight attendants (who all disappeared into the rear of the plane as soon as it was airborne) by bringing aboard their clearly oversized suitcases that barely fit into the overhead bins.
- The planes' (aging Airbus A320 models) seating was configured in "economy" mode-- in other words we were crammed in like sardines, and even average-sized me (all of 5'8") was having a hard time getting comfortable.
- Our return trip's 10:00 flight was switched to 9:30, and then merged with the suddenly-canceled-that-morning 8:00 flight.

...and so on. To bring a long story to a close, Iberia has pages of negative reviews on this passenger-generated review website, and I can assure you that if our flights were any indication, they deserve every bit of scorn that's heaped upon them. If anybody is thinking about using Iberia-- and they are one of the cheaper airline options to Europe in what is now the most expensive summer for airfares in history-- please be aware of what you are getting into. To Iberia's credit, they did not lose our luggage and they did get us to our destinations... eventually.

After all that vitriol, I should also give a shout-out to Iberia's subsidiary who took us home for the final Madrid-Munich leg: For every bad thing I said about Iberia, I can say positive things about Air Nostrum. The seats were wide and provided ample leg room. The planes were clean and newer. Drinks and snacks were served. The flight attendants smiled and could speak English. If anybody is looking for competitively priced intra-Europe flights, I'd recommend these guys in a heartbeat.

More Spanish impressions in the days to follow!

Calling All Local Readers...

It's a bit late to bring this up, but any and all local readers of this flog are welcome to join a merry band of like-minded literary lovers and beer enthusiasts for the long-overdue latest version of the Nuremberg Book Exchange on Sunday, May 8 at O'Neill's Pub. This time out, we're expanding the scope and folks can bring their pre-loved DVD's to the swap in addition to their English-language books and magazines. The last turnout was most encouraging-- over 25 people from all over the area-- and this Sunday looks to be a freakishly balmy 75 degrees, and the biergarten will be open. For more information check this post on Toytown Germany for the particulars. And please... no pornos. See y'all there!

Annnnnnd... We're Back

Apologies for the extended period of incommunicado, but the last week has been a blur. After a surprisingly exhausting vacation in Spain (more on that in the days to come), B went straight back to work after nearly 3 weeks on the road, and I had enough loose ends to tie up here over the last few days, culminating with my current bout with a light flu (in 70 degree weather, natch). News to follow, but-- and I can't believe I'm saying this-- it's good to be back in Germany.