Toyota Prius V Wagon first impressions

Having been the proud owner of the first 2012 Toyota Prius V in Austin for less than 24 hours, I thought I might write about my initial impressions. 

The last time I bought a new car was eleven years ago when the Acura MDX first came out.  Since I had kept my previous vehicles for about 3-4 years maximum, the fact that I still had the MDX until about two months ago when my son totaled it is probably the best indicator of how much I liked that MDX and how well it worked for me.  When Acura came out with a new body style for the MDX about two years ago I had a look, but was quickly disappointed because:

• The storage space was smaller with a smaller rear opening.
• The interior was incredibly “bling-y” and button crazy (I counted more than 50 buttons and dials on the center console alone!)
• Most alarmingly, the fuel economy had not improved at all over a decade. The official ratings are actually worse for the new models.

As an event photographer, I often need to haul gear around with me.  Sometimes it is a modest amount, but several times a month I need to carry a ton of gear and would pretty much pack the MDX to the gills with its rear seats down.

Now that our kids are off at college, what I wanted in a new vehicle seemed like kind of a paradox:

1. Lots of flexible storage space, typically found in medium sized SUVs and larger station wagons.
2. Significantly greener - much improved fuel economy and lower emissions.
3. Up to date comfort, safety, and amenities (like Bluetooth phone and audio support).

My search was incredibly disappointing as vehicles that had enough storage had lousy fuel economy.  Anything with decent fuel economy wasn’t large enough to take all the gear I need. For more on the other vehicles I seriously considered, see the end of this post.

Then I read about the forthcoming Prius V and it looked like it might work for me.   I did some research and ultimately put a refundable deposit down some weeks ago, which is how I ended up, much to my surprise, with the first one in Austin.

We already own a 2010 Prius hatchback and really like it.  Confusingly, the “V” in the Prius V does not mean 5th generation, but versatile (i.e. wagon).  At first glance, the Prius hatchback and Prius V wagon look pretty similar from the front, but once you see them from the side you quickly notice that the rear end is larger and squarer.  What is perhaps not so immediately obvious is that the wagon is quite a bit taller.

Since I have not looked at a 2012 Prius hatchback I can’t tell whether some of the interior differences (beyond dimensions) are 2012 features on all Prius versions, or are specific to the Prius V, but here are the changes I’ve noticed so far:

• Significantly more 2nd row legroom.  This is really where the extra length of the vehicle seems to come is as the flat area with the rear seats down measures the same as the Prius hatchback.  However, there is more volume in the wagon because of the squarer back end and because of the taller ceiling.  The space between the front and rear seats is large enough that I can actually fit some significant pieces of equipment there including a 4’ ladder and my lighting stands case and still have all the flat storage space available.

• Significantly more headroom for 2nd row passengers.
• Redesign of console information area and LCD display.  Some information has been moved to the LCD display making the console much cleaner.  Also subtle use of color adds some visual interest to this display.
• New Entune system that is far more than just typical navigation and audio controls.  The manual for this system is about as large as that for the rest of the vehicle, so I have a lot of learning to do before I understand the system entirely, but Entune integrates with my Android based smart phone to use it’s data connection capabilities to display certain information on the console using the car’s own apps.  Includes traffic info, weather, local points of interest, stock info, sports, etc.  Even includes Pandora internet radio.

• Entune system runs off a hard drive, so navigation system is much faster and more responsive (this runs off a DVD in the 2010 hatchback).  The screen appears to be smaller but higher resolution than our hatchback.
• Whereas the hatchback has a 4 disk CD changer, the wagon has a single disk CD player, which is fine with me, since most music I will be playing will come off my smart phone or a USB drive.
• Radio seems to include HD Radio (as well as analog and XM Satellite radio).  Also as previously noted, Pandora internet radio can be used with a Smart Phone.
• Clearer rear view.  On the hatchback there is a spoiler in the middle of the rear window reducing rear visibility.  There is no such spoiler on the wagon, providing a clear view.
• “Bridge” from the front console and the center console between arm rest/storage area gone.  Now the space is open, making the storage area more open and useful.  The buttons that used to be on this bridge have been moved to the top of the arm rest.

• Redesign of storage area between driver and front seat passenger.  This was a kind of odd design in the hatchback.  Now the armrest flips open towards the passenger side rather than sliding back, which is good because in the 2010 hatchback the lid could get stuck in the open position if you had the rear seats down. The storage area also looks larger. The cupholder design is different and more solid in this area too with one open cupholder in the center armrest and another pull out holder below.
• 12v accessory and USB/AUX-in moved to below front console (as opposed to being inside the arm rest storage area in the hatchback).  This makes the USB/AUX ports much more accessible and there is even a nice pocket for phones and other devices right below the ports.  But it also means one less 12V socket in the car.

• Extra pop out cupholder on the passenger’s side.
• Power mirror controls grouped with window controls on driver’s door – easier to find and operate.

• Small storage hole for parking passes, credit cards, etc. on driver’s side.
• Better soundproofing and thus quieter on the highway, not that the hatchback was very noisy.  The under floor storage compartments in the back of the car now seem to be made of heavy duty Styrofoam rather than solid plastic.  I have to assume this is a sound damping feature.
• At 44/40 US MPG city/highway (48/54 imperial MPG or 5.89/5.23 L/100KM) it is about 15-20% less fuel economic than the hatchback.  However, this is far and away the most fuel efficient vehicle currently available for the cargo space.

My overall impression of the car is very positive.  Even with it fully loaded with all my gear on the test drive it drove like the Prius hatchback.  When I glanced down at the speedometer while on the highway, I was surprised to find that I was already doing 70 before I knew it.

The car is equally as comfortable as the Prius hatchback for the driver and front seat passenger and significantly more so for the rear passengers with the extended legroom and headroom.

The new Entune entertainment, communication, and information system looks like it will useful and fun (once I learn how to use it!)

At the end of the day this is a comfortable, highly efficient car with significantly more storage than most.  Storage space is equivalent (or at least for me, more useable) than most small – medium SUVs and other wagons. 

While nicely made and well trimmed, it is certainly not a luxury vehicle and while the driver (and perhaps front seat passenger) get lots of goodies to play with, the rear seat passengers will be taken to where they are going in comfort, if not in great style.

The cost of the vehicle is similar to the VW Sportswagen and heavily loaded Kia Sorrento, but is still a bit pricey for what it is.  The premium one pays for a hybrid really doesn’t make financial sense unless you drive a lot more miles than I will, or gas prices go through the roof, but for me having a vehicle that is much greener was important.   The Prius V should get more than twice the fuel economy of the MDX.  I drive to Houston fairly regularly and it has been nice to be able to make the round trip on one tank of gas and spend less than $20 on gas with the Prius hatchback.  So maybe that will now cost me $24 if I drive the Prius Wagon.

I remember seeing a joke ad for the Toyota “Pious” – essentially about hybrid owners having a “holier than thou” attitude towards other drivers.  In reality, the greenest thing most car drivers can do is probably keep their current cars for as long as possible (it takes tons of energy to make and deliver a new vehicle!) and be more efficient in using them – keeping them well maintained with proper tire inflation and cutting out unnecessary trips. But when it is time to replace a car there is no doubt that if you do care about the environment and want a greener vehicle, this is a great option.

Now that families such as ours own two of these Toyota hybrid vehicles, Toyota decided to get customer feedback on what the plural of Prius should be. Options included Priuses, Prius (i.e. a plural noun), Pria, and the winner, Prii.  

Which reminds me of a joke about two irish tailors having a chat about a tailor’s iron, also known as a goose:

Mick says to Paddy, “I need to buy two new irons, what do I ask the ironmonger for -- two gooses?“

Paddy: “That doesn’t sound right”

Mick: “Maybe I should ask for two geese?”

Paddy: “No, that doesn’t sound right either”.

Next day Paddy sees Mick with two irons and asks him what he said to the ironmonger.  Mick said “ah sure it was simple, I told him ‘give me a goose, and while you are at it, given me a second one too!’”

So, now we own a Prius – and a second one too!

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Vehicles seriously considered, including MPG (city/highway in US MPG):

• VW Jetta Sportswagen Diesel TDi 30/42. Great fuel economy, clean diesel technology, drives beautifully, well liked by people I know that own the sedan. But, not enough storage space for my needs, very cramped driver’s space, not much amenities for the price, higher cost of diesel fuel. Audi A3 was similar.  What I would loved to have bought was a VW Passat Diesel wagon, but they don’t sell them in the US!http://www.edmunds.com/volkswagen/jetta-sportwagen/2012/?sub=diesel
• Lexus RX 450h hybrid SUV 32/28.  Gorgeous car, tons of power, good space, very comfortable with all the amenities of a Lexus. But, very expensive, fuel economy better than other SUVs, but really not as much as I wanted. One issue is that although you can find specs on base models for about $45K, in reality they are only available fully loaded at about $60K+.  The dealers have never seen them other than fully loaded!  http://www.edmunds.com/lexus/rx-450h/2012/?sub=suv
• Kia Sorrento 4 cylinder SUV 22/32.  The surprise vehicle for me – comfortable, tons of space, good amenities.  On the downside, the fit and finish wasn’t quite as good as other cars, the KIA dealership (at least our local one) is horrible to work with, the fuel economy isn’t a huge step forward, 4 cyl. version felt a bit underpowered. http://www.edmunds.com/kia/sorento/2012/?sub=suv
• Toyota Prius V 44/40. My winner. http://www.edmunds.com/toyota/prius-v/2012/?sub=wagon

Nice to have expertise recognized.

I am a long time user of Digital Darkroom, a software program for photographers.  Although it can do many things, I especially use it for greenscreen/chromakey photography at events.

In their upcoming newsletter, I am featured as one of three photographers selected for their expertise in this area, which I consider quite an honor. The article can be seen at http://darkroomsoftware.com/tt_photographer_greenscreen.html

Greenscreen has become a lot more common since we first started doing it. For those who aren’t familiar, think of the weather forecaster – they appear to be in front of a weather map, but are really only standing in front of a green (sometimes blue) screen.  Chromakey technology replaces the solid color with a graphic of their choice.  We do something very similar, but with high resolution photos, so people who come to one of our parties get to interact with the image in the background.  For instance, I recently did an event for a major cable studio where we made it look like guests were part of the set of one of their productions hanging out with the stars.

We have a lot of experience doing greenscreen and make it look easy, but there is actually a lot going on and we’ve refined our process over years to create a system that is both fast moving and creates high quality output.  Earlier this year, one of my repeat clients and I were chatting and they told me how they went to an event in another city where there was a green screen.  He said that although the basic idea was the same, the quality of the images produced and the fun that guests were having was nothing like as good as our events.  I think it gave them an extra appreciation for what we do and how hard we work to make events fun and successful.

Last month I was hired to do green screen for a major insurance company at a trade show like event in Washington D.C. in conjunction with the opening of the MLK Memorial there.  As it turned out there was another green screen setup at the same event being done by a major airline.  Although they had a very fancy booth for their photos – it resembled the fuselage of an aircraft - their pictures were of poor quality.  When I looked at what they were doing, the type of lighting they used was what I would expect a rank amateur to employ.

At least one manufacturer is now making low cost “complete green screen kits” with screens, lights, software, etc.  Just add your own camera and printer.  I was curious, so I purchased one to try out.  If you’re looking for some fun for a small party and don’t care about the quality of the images, then this might be okay.  However, there were a number of problems with the kit that would make it totally unsuitable for the types of parties we do.  For starters, the lights are cheap, “constant lights” essentially high output regular light bulbs.  The light produced is way too weak and uneven to get a good chromakey effect, especially with more than one subject in an image.  Also the software is very limited and would be unable to handle the sophistication or volume of images expected by my clients.  I ended up returning the kit.

When we first started doing greenscreen, we used a number of bits and pieces of hardware and software that we cobbled together to produce something like 80 prints in a four hour party.  The client was delighted!  Fast forward a few years and more recently we did an event where we produced more than 550 prints in the same four hour period from a single setup!

It is nice that we’re being recognized for our expertise and producing quality results.  It is also fun to be doing different types of events, but no matter who the client is or what type of event they are having, our goal remains the same – help guests have lots of fun while we create unique, memorable images!

What goes up must come down. What goes down sometimes comes up.

Perhaps you may know that I have an interest in aviation and have had getting a pilot’s license on my “to do” list for a while.  However, I never seem to get this far enough up the list to really do anything about it other than talk to friends who are already pilots.

In a break playing racquetball last week with one of my regular partners, Justin, we got chatting.  I knew he designed flight simulators and we got talking about where he had gone to college.  When he told me that he had done his undergrad at the Air Force Academy, I asked him if he had been a pilot. Justin said yes - he used to fly F4 Phantom jets.  When I asked if he still flew, he said that flying powered aircraft like a Cessna really didn’t hold any interest (kind of like driving a Yugo after you’re used to driving a Lamborghini), but that he continued to fly gliders, also known as soaring.  Since there is no engine involved (once you’ve been towed up), it is man vs. nature and a kind of pure flying.

Justin told me the club is in Briggs, Texas, about an hour northwest of Austin and that the first weekend of each month they have a  demo day where you can take a relatively inexpensive flight with a flight instructor.  So this weekend I made the trek out 183 to find the Fault Line Fliers airfield, which was a little trickier than I expected as Google maps took me the wrong way, but eventually I spotted a windsock and some trailers for hauling gliders and figured I was in the right place.

The club owns two kinds of two seater gliders, the Schweizer 2-33, seen below, and a Grob Twin Astir seen above landing at the airfield.  The Grob is a higher performance aircraft and is more expensive to use.  For our test flight, the performance difference was immaterial, but the advantage of the Schweizer is that Justin (who is also an instructor) allows the passenger to sit in the front seat with all the instruments and the best view.

Once the glider has been pre-flgihted, it is hooked up to the tow plane, in our case a Cessna 152.  Since Justin has a masters degree in Aeronautics, flew for the Airforce, and designs flight simulators for a living in addition to being a flight instructor, I felt in safe hands.

As the tow plane trundled down the runway, the glider rose up first, then the tow plane took off and pulled us up to about 3,000 feet above the terrain, looking for thermals along the way.  When we got to our release height, I got to pull the big red knob which disconnected the tow cable and we were on our own.

It was a hot, clear day, with essentially no clouds in the sky.  While this makes for good visibility, it provides no direct clues as to where the thermals are like clouds would.  Instrumentation in the glider is pretty simple – an altimeter, a compass, an airspeed indicator, and a dial that shows the vertical rise/fall rate.  Since this lags by several seconds and the thermals can be kind of small, we literally flew by the “seat of our pants” – when we hit a thermal, it felt like a kick in the seat and the glider would rise rapidly.  Considering the weight of the two of us and the aircraft, and that at times  we were rising at as much as 80 feet per second and you have an idea of how powerful the forces at play are.

Justin had me shadow his movements by lightly holding the stick (the glider is dual control) to get a feel for the control, then after a while he turned it over to me. 

It is certainly fun to fly.  Even with a relatively simply craft, there is quite a bit to keep in mind simultaneously.  On one hand, you need to control the airspeed within a fixed range (45 to about 65 knots in our case).  Since there is no engine, you do this by pointing the nose of the craft down or up.  At the same time, you are searching for thermals and once you find one, trying to turn tightly within it in order to keep rising.  Also at the same time, you need to be aware of any other aircraft that might be out there, and where you are in relationship to the airport. Probably other things too that were beyond my immediate comprehension!

Justin spotted a hawk or buzzard circling below and told me that this is one of the things that soarers look for – the birds were making use of the same thermals we were seeking.  Also, apparently it is a lot of fun to sneak up on them from below and scare the living daylights out of them, but the only ones we saw were below us.

All was going pretty well until the tight turns and rapidly changing horizon set off my motion sickness.  They keep a few barf bags in the glider, but they obviously hadn’t been checked for a while.  One was completely gummed shut and the other had holes in it.  So, in addition to filling the holy bag (!) I managed to redecorate my pants and much of my shirt.  Thankfully Justin was a good sport and didn’t mind.  He even offered me his hat if I needed another “bag”.  Thankfully that wasn’t necessary.

One significant difference from powered flight is in landing.  There are no “go arounds” in a glider, so you better get it right the first time.  Otherwise, landing is similar to a powered aircraft - we paralleled the runway, turned left, then left again and landed at around 60 knots and rapidly rolled to a stop.

Given the fact that it is extremely warm in central Texas right now, it doesn’t take long for any kind of liquid to dry. Which made for an interesting fashion statement once I was out of the glider. My pants went from a solid blue to an abstract design reminiscent of a Rorschach test.

Unfortunately, despite taking water up with me and drinking copious amounts once down on the ground, I really didn’t feel well after the flight and assume I must have been suffering from some heat exhaustion.  The temperature in the shade was 104 Fahrenheit, and even about twelve hours after the flight, when I had been in the air conditioning for a long time, I was still feeling a bit off. Hopefully, I’ll give this another go when it cools off a little. 

If you like flying, then this is definitely worth giving a try.  Soaring also has to be one of the least expensive ways to learn to fly (and continue flying).  If you’d like to check with out, go to their website at  http://faultlineflyers.org

Another way to cut down on pesky calls

Hopefully you have already registered on the National Do Not Call List: https://www.donotcall.gov/confirm/conf.aspx

Your state may also have their own Do Not Call List, which may prevent some calls that are allowed by the National laws. In Texas you can find this at: http://www.texasnocall.com/

but these don’t prevent all unsolicited calls. 

One of the ways telemarketers and others try to reach you is by using a predictive dialer which is technology that uses a computer to dial different phone numbers and when one answers, connect the call with an operator (i.e. telemarketer).  This frees the humans to spend more of their time talking to pestering people.  It also explains why when you sometimes answer the phone and go “hello?” and find there is a delay before you are speaking to a real person, if you can call cold-calling telemarketers real people, that is.

By law the predictive dialer is supposed to connect you to a human being within 2 seconds of hearing your voice or else they must play a recorded message.

Here’s what I’ve noticed – when I get a call from a suspicious number, I could of course just let it ring to my answering machine.  Problem is that sometimes this might be someone whose number I don’t know (perhaps they’ve even blocked it on their end), or it could be the likes of a telemarketer or other unsolicited call. 

Even if I let a telemarketer’s call ring to voicemail, a lot of the time I will see on my answering machine that their system hung up without leaving a message and I will likely get a call back at another time.

However, if I answer the phone, but don’t say anything, an interesting thing happens.  Most of the time, the call is just silent.  If a real person is calling me, they will say something.  If this is a friend, I’ll typically recognize their voice, or else they will tend to use my name.  Telemarketers will often just hang up, or if they do speak, it is usually “Hello? Mr. or Mrs. Finkel?” My turn to go click.

So what’s new here?  Telemarketers use calling lists and realistically they have no real way of knowing if the phone numbers they have are good or not.  They are working in bulk – this is why they buy large lists of phone numbers and why they use predictive dialers. It’s a numbers game – they just need some of them to answer in order to do their business.  By not speaking when I answer the phone, I believe I am confusing their system and acting more like a non voice number, such as a fax machine. 

What I’ve noticed is that I don’t get a call back from these systems when I use this technique.  I suspect that when they don’t hear a real person or a voice on an answering machine the number gets flagged as no good in their database and they ignore it.

Works for me!

Tinto de Verano

Literally “summer wine”, this is a popular cocktail in Spain and Portugal, similar to sangria, but easier to make.

The ingredients are just red wine, gaseoza (fizzy water, sometimes flavored), sugar or honey, and maybe a slice of lemon or orange.  Serve over ice.

You can make an even simpler version at home using just red wine and Sprite or 7up. 

When served in Spanish households people pour their own wine and gaseoza mixture together making the drink to taste, as opposed to sangria, where all the ingredients are pre mixed.  Sangria usually has additional hard alcohol such as a liqueur as an ingredient.

Quick and simple to make, very delicious, refreshing, and easy to get a bit schnockered on as it doesn’t taste at all alcoholic!

In praise of socks

As a working photographer I spend a lot of time on my feet.  And when we travel during the summer, we tend to do a LOT of walking.  Its a great way to see where you are and a decent substitute for the regular exercise we’re not doing that we normally do at home. But boy did my feet get tired.

Learning to wear comfortable shoes is something I figured out a long time ago.  But more recently I started paying attention to the socks I wear.  Kelly discovered Thorlo socks a while back and really likes them for hiking.  I’ve had thick woolen hiking socks (and artificial fabric versions) for years that did me great service when hiking in cool locations like Ireland, but these are very uncomfortable in the hot weather of Texas (and Spain and Portugal) and tend to get itcy.

A while back, I came across cotton socks with very thick, toweling-like soles, and the difference they make is amazing.  For one thing, I find that after a long gig wearing these, my feet don’t ache as they used to, even better than wearing gel insoles. Also, in hot weather, I find them very agreeable – more so than wearing sandals without socks.  When in a hot climate, they absorb any sweat and keep my feet dry and comfortable.

You may find that you need a slightly larger shoe, but if you achy feet at the end of the day, try some extra thick cotton socks!

How to Get a Better Seat on a Plane.

Or at least avoid the bad ones.

Long gone are the days when sweet talking the gate agents at the airport would get you an upgrade, so this isn’t about moving from coach to business class without paying for an upgrade (if you know how to do that let me know!)

Even within the same class of service, there are better and worse seats.  The worst may be smelly (next to a kitchen or toilet), busy (used as a passageway), unusually cold, without a view, uncomfortable (narrower or with less legroom than others), non reclining, or in some other way sub-standard.

I recall years ago travelling from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Vancouver, Canada on Malaysian Airlines, a journey of something like 20 hours with a short stop in Taiwan.  Being on business for Dell in Asia, I got to fly business class (we had to fly coach to Europe!) and I had a business class seat upstairs on a Boeing 747.  After boarding, I got to my seat and for some reason that I still can’t figure out why, I reclined my seat while we were still parked a the gate.  It moved about 1” then stopped.  I figured something must have temporarily blocked the recline, so I fished around and figured out that the seat was hitting the flight attendant’s jump seat right behind mine.  In other words, the seat wasn’t meant to recline. Not looking forward to 20 hours of sitting bolt upright, I had to create a bit of a stink to get them to move me to another seat.  it is actually not unusual to have coach class seats that don’t recline, often these are just in front of emergency exits, or at the end of the cabin, but there are also better and worse business and first class seats.

Contrast my Malaysian experience with our Madrid to Chicago flight today.  Although we are flying coach, we have about four times the leg room of regular seats and no one wandering through our area.   How?  We’ve got the exit row over the wing.  And this isn’t an accident.  Last night when I checked in, I specifically chose these seats.

There are a few websites that give you good info about seating on planes.  The one I like best is www.seatguru.com.  Once you enter your airline and plane type, it will show you a seat map color coded in white (normal), green (preferable seats), yellow (warning, such as a very cold seat) or red (avoid).  For many flights it will also show you the location of seat based power points if the plane is equipped with them.  If you want to use a laptop on a long flight, this can be very important.

How can you find out the airplane type?  Seatguru now has a feature where you just enter your carrier and flight number and it will find the aircraft that should be used.  Alternatively, go to the website of the airline and look up your reservation or the flight schedule and you should find the information.  Worst case, you can call the airline and ask.  Sometimes they call this “equipment” and use a code, e.g. 346 means an Airbus A340-600.

If you use the seat map in conjunction with your airline’s online reservation management system, you can pick your own seat and avoid the bad ones. These days when I make a reservation with an airline, the first thing that I do after the reservation is booked is go online and reserve my own seat, using seatguru’s recommendations.  You might be surprised how many times you get given a poor (yellow) or bad seat (red) by default. 

The best seats are usually exit row or bulkhead seats and these are often not available to reserve far in advance.  Some airlines restrict reserving these seats to their premium passengers.  When I fly American Airlines, as long as my travelling companions are on the same record as me, I can book all of us in the exit seats or seats close to the front of the cabin.  If someone is on a separate reservation, I can’t.

Most airlines will make the exit seats available about 24 hours before your flight, so it is a good idea to check in online for your flight as early as you can (usually 24 hours before) and check the seating maps again so you can snag the good seats.

So, with a little forethought and a few minutes of online work you can have many hours of greater comfort in the air.

Ham-a-mania

Spaniards love their pigs, or more precisely dead pigs in form of ham, or jamon.

You see it everywhere, but Madrid seems to have more shops selling this local delicacy than anywhere else we visited.  Apparently every home has a special device designed to hold ham legs for slicing. You find places like “The Museum of Ham” on almost every street.  

According to those who eat such treyf, jamon iberico is the pinnacle of a pork ingesting experience.  Black pigs are allowed to forage for acorns before ending up on the end of a fork after a number of intermediate steps.  However, in all our country driving we didn’t see any pigs.  Seemingly they are very good at hiding from tourists, but evidently not so good at avoiding the butcher.

The number of pig legs in shops, supermarkets, and restaurants is truly stupefying.  Interestingly, we didn’t see a lot of the other parts of the animal in markets or on menus, so I kind of wonder where they go.

The local predilection for all things porky mean that one has to look out for lard where you might not expect it.  Particularly in the south, we found a number of bakeries use lard rather than butter or vegetable oil when making sweet pastries.  Luckily, there are lots of panaderias and pasterlerias so usually walking to another was all it took to find something we could eat.

With the Jews and Muslims getting expelled in the 15th century, it is probably no wonder that the Spaniards have developed an orgy of ham eating.  What did surprise me was when we were in Corodba we ate at a tapas bar that specialized in Sephardic and Andalusian specialties.  For the most part the Sephardic food, indicated by a star of David, wasn’t all that interesting, but I was hoping to try some of the Andalusian specialties until they told me the ones I liked the look of contained pork.   Having a crescent and star icon for these seems a bit deceptive to me and you have to wonder if some poor Mohammedan has found a nasty surprise after they’ve taken a few bites of their dinner. 

If you eat kosher style (i.e. no pork or shellfish), here are some phrases that might be helpful:

• No como carne de cerdo. I don’t eat pork.
• El tocino.                        Bacon.
• El jamon.                        Ham.
• Manteca de cerdo.           Lard.
• Los mariscos.                  Shellfish.
• Pulpo.                             Octopus (a common food here).

Vegetarian food isn’t all that common in Spain, although we did find some good organic vegetarian places in Tarifa and Madrid.  In particular the place we ate at in Madrid, Yerbabuena, did some very creative and tasty food.  Big portions too.

Thankfully fish is very common, so with a bit of effort, there is always something to eat.  We certainly didn’t go hungry!

Breakfast

Desayuno in Spanish, petit-dejuener in French, pequeno almoco in Portuguese and a whole host of other names in other languages.  Breakfast is one of the stranger meals when you travel.

For one thing, it is sometimes included in your hotel rate, but often not.  On a recent trip to France, most hotels’ rates for breakfast were upwards of Eu15 per person – more than $20.  For coffee, juice, croissants and jam.  Sheesh.  On another trip to France when you booked your hotel online, they gave you free breakfast.  What a deal!

I remember my first trip to France, with my parents around 1976 and how my father was outraged at what the Novotel wanted to charge for breakfast then.  It hasn’t changed!

Rates in Spain and Portugal are a bit less, but still no great value.  We generally find a coffee or pastry shop, get a few good coffees and some fresh pastries for less than half what they would want to charge for one similar breakfast in the hotel.  If you find a good patisserie you have a wider choice of options than your hotel and the pastries are fresher. 

Breakfast habits and tastes vary wildly around the world.  I’m not a huge fan of salami, cheese, and plain yogurt in the morning, which I’ve been served in the Netherlands.  Salad isn’t high on my preferred early morning list of comestibles either, but the Israelis seem to like it.  In Laos, I started my day with a Dragon fruit shake. 

Dragon fruit is an exotic fruit found quite commonly in SE Asia and Central America.  The first time I ever had it was at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, no less. It has a strange purplish scaly exterior (hence the name) and the interior is usually either purple or white with tiny black seeds as if the watermelon textured flesh was evenly studded with poppy seeds.   The few times I’ve had Dragon fruit at home it has been very disappointing – like watermelon with no flavor.  But in Guatemala and Laos, the fresh fruit has a subtle but distinct flavor that gets lost in shipping.

Perhaps my favorite place for breakfast is Malaysia.  Most hotels include breakfast, and it is usually much more substantial than most European offerings.  What makes it fun is that they try to cater to all their guests.  So they have cereal, toast, tea, sausages, eggs, etc. for the Americans and British, various Malay dishes including spicy noodles for the locals, and things like congee (rice porridge) and miso soup  for the Japanese.  And since most of the hotels cater to Muslim guests, there is no pork (the sausages are chicken). 

Of course, since all kinds of tropical fruits are grown locally, the fresh fruit and fruit juices are amazing.

Where else can you get baked beans and curry washed down with Starfruit juice to get your day started?

Leaving Madrid

Getting to and from airports is often a hassle in many parts of the world.  The worst are those where the airports are a long way from the city and the transportation options are limited.

The best have integrated rail transportation and make it quick and easy to get to and from the airport.  And this is the case in both Barcelona, where we arrived, and Madrid, from which we are leaving.  The airports are well served by metro lines.

In Madrid, it is about 15 minutes via the metro line that goes from the city to airport terminals 1,2, and 3.  Terminal 4 is about another 5 minutes away and is Iberia’s hub, along with their Oneworld partners, so this was our destination.  You pay a EU1 per person extra tariff at the airport metro station before you exit, unless you have a transit pass such as a Metro Tourist card.  Even with the extra tariff, this had to be one of the least expensive city to airport transfers I’ve had anywhere.  Numerous airports have rail connections to the city, but at most of the major airports I’ve used (Heathrow, and Gatwick come to mind especially), the cost pretty steep.  In fact, with some of the low cost airfares, you can sometimes pay as much or more to get to and from the airport as your flight cost .  Kudos to the Spanish for making it quick, easy, and cheap to get in and out of their major cities.

Terminal 4 is architecturally very interesting with a sinuous roof made up of wood spars, which softens the hard industrial look found in most new airports.

But unfortunately from a functional standpoint, there are a number of things that struck me as silly, if not downright stupid, especially for a new airport terminal,  For starters, I asked the agent after we had checked in our bags how long we needed to allow to get to the gate – he said 45 minutes.  Hmmm.  We cleared security pretty quickly, but for some reason, they have the section where they give you the plastic trays separated from the X-ray machines, which means you have to carry the tray(s) with your stuff for about 30 feet and go through a door– not big deal, except if the people in front of you are slow, you’re left standing trying to juggle everything  I can’t think of any other airport where they don’t use some sort of conveyor system to do this function.  A sign tells you that it is 23 minutes to the U gates.

Then we had to descend about 4 escalators to take a train to the satellite from which the international flights depart.  At Hong Kong’s new airport they designed it so that in most cases you never need to leave the level you are on.  Even the trains to the city are integrated into this concept – arriving trains come into the departure level and departing trains leave from a level below, which is the arrivals level.

Even sillier is that they have arriving passengers exiting from one side of the train, then the train moves along the track to come back on a parallel track for departing passengers to board the other side of the train.  Why they didn’t just have one platform and open the arriving side doors until the train cleared out, then close them and open the departing side doors to let departing passengers in, I don’t know.

Next you arrive at the satellite terminal and go through passport control, a formality and thankfully very quick in our case.  We are departing from gate U74, which ends up being the farthest possible gate.   For some reason, they have the end of the U terminal roped off so you have to show your boarding pass and passport yet again.  This appears to be only for flights departing to America.  Why?  We’ve already shown our passports to get here and flights to other locations don’t seem to have to do this.  Effectively it means you have to wait short of this barrier until they open it, then relocate to your gate.

The acoustics in this area were awful, so trying to make out the gate announcements (with the added challenge of a strong Spanish accent) was almost a lost task.

We were able to get a decent cup of coffee and a pastry for the same price as it costs in town, so that was good.  But the selection of shops for a major international airport was disappointing.  Plus, they don’t signpost where the toilets are.

My guess is that with the good ground transport connections, the arrival experience would be better, but in the end, an airport is a means to an end, and we’re looking forward to coming home.

Madrid, end of the line

If you like cities, you will likely like Madrid.  It is big, bustling, full of life and populated with classical and modern buildings as well as leafy parks and vibrant unique plazas.

We did a  lot of walking, since our hotel was located in the downtown area of the city. Thankfully we were 5 stories up, so it was pretty quiet except when other residents made noise.   Across the street was the Plaza Espanha with a statue of Cervantes as well his characters Don Quixote along with his companion and donkey.  I think his girlfriend even makes an appearance.

A little further into the city is the Plaza Major, one of the main meeting places in Madrid and an historic site flanked on all sides by 4 story buildings.  Everything from concerts, bullfights and the inquisition have taken place here, but today it is a space full of cafes and performance artists and a fun place to people watch.  Nearby is one of the old markets, now mostly full of tapas bars, and interesting olde worlde shops.  We found a cookie store and had some amazing lemon-cinnamon butter cookies.  They also sell chocolate olives – candies almonds made to look just like the olives served at most meals.

 

Another major hub a short walk away, is the Puerta del Sol, from which all distances in Spain are measured.  Located on the plaza is a statue of a bear and a strawberry tree, which is the mascot for Madrid.

Although Madrid is very urban, there are number of parks so you aren’t too far away from a cool shady stroll if you want one.  You might even get a nice vista of the Royal Palace,

What we really wanted to see in Madrid were some of the art museums, of which Madrid has almost an embarrassment of riches.  We confined ourselves over two days to the two largest and most important.  The Museo del Prado, which features classical art, especially the Spanish masters such as Velasquez and Goya and the Reina Sofia, which is dedicated to art of the last hundred years or so and has lots of Picasso, Dali, and Miro as well as a good display of photographs  presented thematically,such as the Spanish Civil War.

In gratitude to to the Spanish people for their help with building the Aswan dam, the Eqyptian government gave them the Temple de Debod, which was be seen in one of Madrid’s park.  Kind of reminds me of going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, except that its outside!

Another place we visited was the Atocha rail station, across from the Reina Sofia and Prado, which looks like a typical Victorian era station from the outside, but inside it has a tropical garden with a turtle pool.

It is here that the AVE high speed trains arrive and depart.

The Palacio de Crystal and Palacio de Velasquez are buildings associated with the Reina Sofia, but located in the Parque del Retiro and housing free art exhibits.  Elsewhere in the part is a monument to Alfonso XII and a boating lake that used to be used for naval spectacles.  The park was the private realm of the royalty until the 1800s when appropriately dressed citizens were allowed in.

The Museo Arquelogico Nacional is undergoing renovations, but they allow you in for free right now and have their greatest treasures on display in the open gallery.  They have some amazing artifacts from the different eras of Spanish history.  Perhaps my favorite items were life-size ceramic models of Spanish noble ladies from more than 2,000 years old.  They were incredibly detailed and looked almost like Spanish Dona’s from less than a century ago.

Our last stop was the Plaza de Cibeles and the Palacio de Cibeles which we peeked into shortly before they closed.  It has a number of fun art exhibits that highlight the art in the different Madrid museums.  It would be a fun place for a quick stop with kids and is also a good place to get an overview of some of the best art pieces to be seen in the city.  We recognized most of them from the museums we had visited.

We found a nice restaurant and on our last night in Spain, had a very nice meal.  The prices were surprisingly reasonable and I had to ask if these were small plates (like you get in Tapas bars) or full portions – it was the latter and the food was very tasty.  Nice way to end our journey!

Holy Toledo!

Upon leaving Cordoba and Andalusia, we drove about 3.5 hours to Toledo, which is close to Madrid.  After a quick picnic lunch, we walked around the casco viejo (old city) especially the Jewish quarter.

The streets of Toledo are very steep – lots of up and down. And there are tons of churches, many of which are obviously converted mosques.   Also in abundance were shops selling swords, knives, and scissors, as well as many bakeries selling marzipan cookies and creations, another local specialty.

Our principal aim in stopping here was to visit the Sinagoga de  Transito, which also houses the Sephardic Museum, and the Sinagoga de Santa Maria La Blanca.  The only two Synagogues left in a town famous for being a multicutural city with Jews, Muslims, and Christians.  Neither Synagogue is in use – the Sinagoga de Transito is now a Sephardic museum, and the La Blanca was converted into a church.  Although the decorative elements are restored to how it looked as Synagogue, there are still some Christian elements remaining.

It is sad to realize that in these museums Jews are effectively an historical artifact, like the Visigoths or some other extinct group. interestingly there are numerous Jewish related gift items in many shops here and in Madrid, so I guess they get a good share of Jewish visitors from the USA and elsewhere.  At least you can go home with a menorah from the country that tortured and  booted out your co-religionists more than 500 years ago.

From Toledo is was less than an hour’s drive on get to Madrid.

Driving cross country in Spain is easy.  There are excellent roads, good signposting, and pretty sights to see on the way.  But once you get to a city, it is a whole other kettle of fish.  In the old towns, there are narrow winding streets, almost all of which are one way.  It is difficult to navigate and you can quickly loose your sense of direction when you can’t see familiar landmarks. 

Big cities are maybe worse, as they have very busy traffic and in most places you can’t make a left turn.  They have a kind of layby on the right hand side of many junctions whereby you actually bear right to line up to make your left turn (once your light turns green). 

We rolled into Madrid no problem and found our hotel pretty quickly, but it is on Gran Via, the main road of Madrid and there is no parking, and no stopping nearby. Also we were on the opposite side of the street so we had to drive a few streets down until we found a turning circle and could come back. We ended up putting the car in an underground parking lot, which was thankfully only a few blocks from the hotel.

After checking in, we located a gas station (we hadn’t seen any on our drive into town).  Once we made it there we filled up the car one last time before turning it back in to the rental agency. About US$100 to fill the tank of a compact car.  Getting from the gas station to the rental garage was another adventure, but we finally made it without any damage, except perhaps to our nerves.  The car is now disposed of after 4,000 KM (2,500 miles) of driving, and we are now pedestrians in a city that thankfully has a great transport system.

Cordoba – Cultural crossroad of Spain

We’ve spent a couple of days in Cordoba, which was for a long time the capital of Andalusia. The history of Cordoba is in many ways the history of Spain.  Every major group in the country’s history has played some part here, and left their mark on this rich, and interesting city.

Although the Iberian peninsula has been inhabited for hundreds of thousands of years, it has been a constant target for colonization.  The earliest of these efforts  were by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the Carthaginians, but it was the Romans who left the greatest standing evidence of their presence.  They arrived after defeating the Carthaginians in the 2nd Punic War around the 2nd Century B.C. 

Cordoba is second only to Rome in the number of gladiatorial monuments found and it is believed that this was the location of the Iberian gladiatorial school.  Today there is still abundant evidence of the Romans’ presence with the Temple of Diana, Roman bridge, theater site, beautiful Roman mosaics and other artifacts.  Many of these can be seen around town, but the Archaeological Museum’s lower floor includes a section of the old theater which is brought to life by some excellent 3D models shown in short movie segments.

As Rome’s influence faltered, tribes from Northern Europe filled the vacuum, and in Spain’s case the Visigoths came to town by the 5th Century.  Initially they were of a tolerant Christian faith called Arianism and Jews (who had arrived with the Romans or earlier) generally got along well under the early Visigoths.  Later, the Visigoths became Catholic and more conservative and started a long succession of anti-Jewish laws and practices. They built their Gothic churches and incorporated decorative elements that were extensions of Roman designs, such as Corinthian pillars and mosaic flooring.

Some believe that the biblical Tarshish, where Jonah goes to escape the word of God, was in fact Spain. This would put Jews in the Iberian province quite early, but they certainly were here with the Romans, initially as free traders and farmers. and later in larger numbers as part of the diaspora after Rome sacked Jerusalem.

The Visigoths had treated the Jews so badly the they likely aided the Moors in their invasion.  Tin there is evidence in places such as Cordoba that once the Moors had conquered the town, they left it in the caretaking of a Jewish and Moorish force, or sometimes solely in the hands of the Jews.  The Visigoths had broken down politically, which created the opportunity for the Moors to invade early in the 8th Century. 

Initially Moorish Spain was run as an Emirate under the control of Damascus, but eventually in the 11th century, they established their own Caliphate of Al Andalus, headquartered in Cordoba.  The grand mosque, or Mezquita in Cordoba was expanded by successive rulers until it became a huge complex of 850 arches and pillars.  The mosque was a tangible symbol of the might, artistry, and culture of the Caliphate.  Notably, the mosque was sited over the remains of a former Visigoth church, and a small section of that church’s mosaic flooring can be seen today.

Jews fortunes ebbed and flowed during Moorish times. The most famous Jew from Cordoba is Moses Maimonides, or the Rambam, a Torah scholar, doctor, and community leader. His family fled Cordoba in 1148 when he was about 13 to Fez, Morocco.  He eventually ended up as the court doctor in Egypt and was an astounding philosopher, writer, sage, and rationalist.

Cordoba is one of the few places where you can find historic synagogues in Spain.  Depending on what you read, Toledo, Madrid, and Barcelona also have old synagogues, but there are other places with synagogues such as Segovia, and Seville.  Most were converted to churches or other uses and leave little or nothing to be seen today, but the Cordoban synagogue from 1315 is restored and you can get some idea of its former magnificence.

Like the Muslim ideal of a Qabba, the shul is almost a perfect cube with an upstairs gallery for the women on one side.  The remaining decorations are incredibly beautiful and as intricate as any other Moorish designs we’ve seen.

Nearby is a private museum called The Sephardic House which displays aspects of daily secular and religious life of the Jews of Spain. One of the more unusual items was a goatskin that had on it supplications for Yom Kippur.  Never seen anything like it before, but it is apparently a tradition from North Africa. Also learned about something called “Mimouna”, another tradition from Morocco, which is held the day after Pesach and is a celebration of returning to eating chametz.

As civil strife broke out amongst the later Caliphs, Cordoba’s moorish power waned. After the Christian reconquest of Cordoba in 1236, the Mezquita became a church, actually a Cathedral, so today what you see is a Christian church right in the middle of what appears to be a mosque.  The Mihrab (niche) is still intact and magnificently decorated.  However along most of the rest of the outer walls, the space has been turned over to small Christian chapels.  In today’s literature of the Mezquita, the church make it a point that this was originally the site of a Visigoth Church and essentially state that they were just restoring the site to its original use by erecting their cathedral in the midst of the Caliph’s mosque.

Hygeine was very important to the Moors. Outside any mosque, even today, you will find fountains, troughs, etc. for the faithful to wash before their prayers. At the Mezquita, these sorts of cleaning apparatus exist in the courtyard of the mosque. But, the Moors also built many “baths” for purposes of hygiene as well as  social, political, and entertainment activity.

Some sources indicate that there were likely several hundred such baths at the height of the caliphate. A short walk from the Mezquita one can visit the caliph’s baths. This is a complex of royal, public, and private baths which were powered by a boiler that blew steam into rooms through grilles and also heated under the floor and through the walls via system called a hypocaust, just like the Romans did.

The baths were elaborately decorated with arches, tiles, and skylights.

The Alcazar de los Reyes Christianos is also near the Mezquita and caliph’s baths. It was a royal fortress and has some beautiful gardens, but perhaps the most interesting aspect of visiting here was seeing the well preserved Roman mosaics that were rescued from other areas of the city.

One of the towers was known as the Inquisition tower and is notably located some distance from the rest of the buildings. You can imagine why.

Cordoba is a lovely town of beautiful winding streets and small plazas.  There is very little traffic off the main roads, so it is a great city to walk.  The historic district is relatively compact and we’ve enjoyed walking all around.