Marie Javins's Blog, page 71

A Night in Djerba

Here's a look at my hotel, Erriadh, in the central medina of Houmt Souk, Djerba.

It was cheap and cheerful, for sure. I would recommend it to any budget traveler interested in staying in the center of town, but those of you used to a high standard or luxury might seek out one of the resorts along the coast. Perhaps there are better options in town as well--current info is not easy to find given the dearth of tourists.



I walked down the road to Les Palmiers for
some inexpensive legumes and couscous.

At the End of the Day

I had some couscous and vegetables at Les Palmiers, right down the alley from my hotel, then headed back to turn in for the night.

My day had started in Valencia, Spain, and then had stops in Barcelona and Tunis before arriving on Djerba in Tunisia.

I didn't yet feel that certainty and confidence travel gives me, but I could see it barreling down at me. Tomorrow I'd spend the entire day sightseeing by local transport. That oughta do it.

On to Tunisia

Crawling out of bed at 3:30 a.m. in Spain turned out to be easy, given I'd spent so many hours sleeping over the weekend, due to illness.

What I didn't expect was running into comic con guests in the hotel lobby—they were returning from a Sunday night out, and had only come back this "early" to get editor Daniel onto his plane back to Portland.

Shaking my head, I waved good-bye and got into a taxi to the bus terminal. I'd loaded the local ride-sharing app, Cabify, onto my phone and used it once over the weekend, but the taxis I'd taken had been cheaper and faster to hail.

The taxi ride to the Valencia bus terminal took less than ten minutes, and I sat there for what was only really 10-15 minutes, awaiting the 4 a.m. departure to Barcelona Airport. It felt like forever.

I had my neck pillow along, and that kept me comfy enough until the 9 o'clock arrival at the new terminal. I checked my luggage for the week and carried a pod bag through to Gate D.

Oh. From gates D and E, you can't get to the services of Barcelona's airport. You can see them, but you're past passport control, and you can't use them. I would have known that if I'd read the sign. I nibbled on a croissant. This was going to be a bread-y trip.

My carry-on bag and I flew to Tunis on a half-empty flight. Good thing too—I'd hate to see how long a full flight would've taken to get through the deliciously inefficient queue at Immigration. Had I missed this, the love for bureaucratic theater? Not really, but it was not without its charms.

I finally got through, allowed into Tunisia, where I hit up the ATM and then picked up a data-only SIM for 11 dinars. My TMobile SIM didn't work here, and my backup international SIMs had expired a few years ago when I'd neglected to renew them promptly.

I was feeling travel-rusty and giddy from the odd hours I was keeping, but I got myself some food (Ham? What? Okay, Tunisia is not Kuwait.), and got onto the domestic flight to Djerba, the land of the lotus-eaters, where I wandered out of the airport to the taxi rank, and got into an old car with a bad diesel stench.

The driver put the meter on without me asking, and zipped us along the coast as the sun lowered into the sky. He pulled up in Houmt Souk, and said "Now you walk," pointing to the car-free medina. Oh, okay.

I paid the man the figure on the meter, hefted my bag onto my shoulder, and melted away into the cobblestone alleys of the Houmt Souk center. 

On the Tunisia

Crawling out of bed at 3:30 a.m. in Spain turned out to be easy, given I'd spent so many hours sleeping over the weekend, due to illness.

What I didn't expect was running into comic con guests in the hotel lobby—they were returning from a Sunday night out, and had only come back this "early" to get editor Daniel onto his plane back to Portland.

Shaking my head, I waved good-bye and got into a taxi to the bus terminal. I'd loaded the local ride-sharing app, Cabify, onto my phone and used it once over the weekend, but the taxis I'd taken had been cheaper and faster to hail.

The taxi ride to the Valencia bus terminal took less than ten minutes, and I sat there for what was only really 10-15 minutes, awaiting the 4 a.m. departure to Barcelona Airport. It felt like forever.

I had my neck pillow along, and that kept me comfy enough until the 9 o'clock arrival at the new terminal. I checked my luggage for the week and carried a pod bag through to Gate D.

Oh. From gates D and E, you can't get to the services of Barcelona's airport. You can see them, but you're past passport control, and you can't use them. I would have known that if I'd read the sign. I nibbled on a croissant. This was going to be a bread-y trip.

My carry-on bag and I flew to Tunis on a half-empty flight. Good thing too—I'd hate to see how long a full flight would've taken to get through the deliciously inefficient queue at Immigration. Had I missed this, the love for bureaucratic theater? Not really, but it was not without its charms.

I finally got through, allowed into Tunisia, where I hit up the ATM and then picked up a data-only SIM for 11 dinars. My TMobile SIM didn't work here, and my backup international SIMs had expired a few years ago when I'd neglected to renew them promptly.

I was feeling travel-rusty and giddy from the odd hours I was keeping, but I got myself some food (Ham? What? Okay, Tunisia is not Kuwait.), and got onto the domestic flight to Djerba, the land of the lotus-eaters, where I wandered out of the airport to the taxi rank, and got into an old car with a bad diesel stench.

The driver put the meter on without me asking, and zipped us along the coast as the sun lowered into the sky. He pulled up in Houmt Souk, and said "Now you walk," pointing to the car-free medina. Oh, okay.

I paid the man the figure on the meter, hefted my bag onto my shoulder, and melted away into the cobblestone alleys of the Houmt Souk center. 

O Valencia

I spent most of my weekend in Valencia, Spain in bed in a hotel room. The food poisoning of the first night had hit me hard, and all the energy I had was devoted to fulfilling the duties I had at the comic book convention. I didn't really have to worry about feeding myself since food didn't sound at all appealing, though I did make a halfhearted attempt to locate a single banana. I didn't find one, not even at Starbucks. My big success was buying some cashews. When you feel sick, your victories for humanity are kind of limited.

On Sunday, I mustered the energy to catch the bus to the City of Arts and Sciences, an architectural marvel with various museums and Europe's largest aquarium. It looks a lot like a future from Dr. Who.

And so ended my first and only trip to Valencia, not with the bang of the first 24 hours of vomiting, with with a whimper of gingerly walking around some cool buildings.

Fun with Food

"I need a minute," I said to the volunteer working at the portfolio review booth. "I'm going for a walk."

It was my first day at Valencia comic book con, and I'd done six out of seven portfolio reviews, but I felt like throwing up.

And I had to take this seriously--earlier, I'd vomited twice into a trash bin when I couldn't make it to the ladies room fast enough. I didn't think I had the flu, but I did think I had food poisoning. I have a long list of food intolerances and allergies, and last night had been annoyed by the pressure at a group meal. I'd nibbled on things I knew I shouldn't eat, just to shut people up who were bugging me.

And now I regretted that.

I left the Marie Javins booth and walked in a loop around the portfolio station. I barely made it to the next trash bin, threw up three times, and glanced around to see if anyone had noticed.

If they had, they were averting their eyes.

I headed back to the booth, reviewed the last portfolio, and left for the day, catching the metro back from the convention center out in the boondocks to the hotel in the center of the city.

"Wouldn't you rather take a Cabify?" The coordinator who'd brought me to Valencia was all about ride shares.

"Wouldn't you rather risk throwing up in the metro rather than in someone's car?"

He saw my point. I headed back to the city center, nibbled on some McD's fries (What is that auto-order touch screen? I have to operate the ordering system now? Progress??) to see if I could keep that down, and went straight to bed. Tonight's group meal would have to get along without me. 

Routine Disruption

So this is about to happen. What do you think—can I find something to do in Valencia? I bet I can.

Nesting

I've been hunting for a sofa for my Burbank condo for some time now.

They're all too big, too fluffy, too overstuffed, too ugly, too expensive...mostly just too big. The place I bought in Burbank is compact, and I need my desk to be by the window, which takes up about a third of what space one would normally have for a couch. I have to have light next to my desk, so I can look outside when working. Also good for fighting off glare, which is the byproduct of insisting on sitting in natural light.

I went to IKEA, to Bulkea, to Cost Plus, to all kinds of online sites, to every sofa and furniture store across LA. Maybe not. Maybe it just felt like it. I became an expert in understanding what people want...and in knowing that's not really what I wanted. I wasn't even sure I wanted a sofa. Isn't that just another thing to carry around? I try not to accumulate. It's just more to get rid of later.

I finally narrowed it down to a take-apart sofa that showed up in boxes in the mail, a cheap disposable option from Cost Plus, and a few adequate options from West Elm or maybe it was Crate and Barrel. I forget. But I was reluctant to pull the trigger. Would I even sit on the sofa? I had one in JC and I fell asleep on it once between 2008 and 2013. I sat on it maybe 25 times, max. Mostly it was used by houseguests, which I try to discourage.

Then one day in late November, I was wandering around the far reaches of DTLA, in the Arts District, and I stumbled over a converted warehouse with a bunch of food trucks. Oh, yay, more food trucks. (That's sarcasm. We get three food trucks a day, five days a week at my place of employment.) 

But sprinkled in with the food trucks were some independent vendors. Like this one.


I could work with that little sofa, I thought. It's simple, clean lines, too small for houseguests, and it doesn't look like it ate too much at Thanksgiving.

What about dust? My condo gets a ridiculous amount of dust. I thought it was my proximity to the freeway until I realized everyone I know also complains about dust. It's a desert dressed up in backlots, what can I say?

I kept eyeballing the sofa on its parental website, and asking questions to the person in charge of the furniture company email. Then the holiday sale ended and the price went up!

Oh no!

I wrote and asked if I could have the price from yesterday. Yes, I could. I pulled out my credit card and ordered...

And now we wait.

Sunday in Tijuana

My agenda for the morning was to walk 20 minutes to Mercado Hidalgo. This is a local market where you can buy fruits and vegetables, kitchen goods, spices, and pinatas. I enjoyed the walk around but didn't actually buy anything—what do I really need? Well, I wanted a fruit juice but by the time I realized I wanted it (I normally avoid fruit juice due to high sugar content), the juice was across the parking lot by the entrance, and I was a lot closer to the Museum of the Californias where I was headed next.

I walked to the museum—ohhh, free entrance day! Oddly, there was a special chair exhibit on display. My next stop was another 15 minute walk away, Telefonica Gastropark. This was a fun visit but ultimately, I eat at more than enough food trucks because that's all we get at my job. I have gone from finding them novel to hating them with aggressive and furious passion. Food trucks are only fun if you can choose to eat at them rather than being forced to, every weekday. Being uprooted from the center of Manhattan and landing in food truck-land is not ideal. If you think I'm being cranky, try eating at trucks for 20 lunches a month and then get back to me about your experience. (Yes, I know I could take my lunch or grow my own lettuce or buy a goat or whatever. An aside, that's the most exhausting thing about Facebook. People are just so very helpful.) 

I fired up the Uber app on my phone—Lyft does not seem to work yet in Tijuana—but the nearest Uber was seven minutes away, so I just walked back to Revolucion. That's when I had my one questionable interaction. A guy came up and walked alongside me, then stuck his hand out and introduced himself.

Oh no you don't. 

"Not interested." I shook my head and refused to take his hand. The rules don't change because you're across the border. Random people don't walk up and introduce themselves unless they want to sell you something or discuss helping you part with money.

He trailed me a while, but eventually disappeared. I don't know when. I was intent on not looking back.

I stopped at the coffee shop by 11:15, and rested for a while. What would I do with the rest of my day? I'd paid for two nights at the boutique hotel, primarily because they only accepted bookings of two or more nights. But I'd pretty much seen what I'd come to see. I couldn't use my laptop in my room because the wifi was broken. I could have taken it to the coffee shop to write, but I could do that on the Amtrak.

"Eh, whatever," I thought, and went to the hotel to check out. So what if I lost the cost of a night's lodging? I'd leave now, cross the border, and get the traveling over with instead of going home first thing Monday morning. (The boutique hotel chose to refund the second night in the end, because of the broken wifi, which was really great of them given it was my choice to leave. I had no expectation of getting a refund.)

I got my bag, dropped the key off with the doorman, and walked up Revolucion toward the arch. I walked in the direction of the border, following the crowd along the airport-like winding queues into California, where I paid a dollar to a jitney operator to get a lift back to the trolley to San Diego. Trolley to Amtrak to Red Line to bus...to Burbank by dinnertime.

Early Sunday Walkabout

I'd had a restless night sleeping in Tijuana. I'd gone to bed just after nine, totally exhausted from the day's touristy roaming. I could hear the partying on Revu all night, but muffled through double-pane windows, the way I'd heard the din of being near Khao San Road for a month in 2011 (but without Hotel California). It was like sleeping with a white noise machine, except for the occasional siren.

Because I'd gone to sleep so early, I was wide awake by five. I forced myself to stay in bed but was showered, pacing about, and ready to leave the room by seven.

That is when I learned I should not have left the room at seven. All I wanted was a coffee, but it seemed the nearest coffee shop open at this hour was in San Diego. I am probably exaggerating, but a word of wisdom: Don't try to get a decent coffee on Avenida Revolucion before eight on a Sunday morning.

I did get an accidental morning walk, however, as I prowled about seeking an open restaurant. I walked south to the Jai Alai arena, passing murals and handmade signs. I walked north to a McDonald's, then...no. I could wait.

At 8:01, I rolled into a little place called Praga, which had a nice brunch-y sort of tourist breakfast. I'd imagined getting something from a cart, like I could have in Mexico City, but Tijuana-Revolucion is an entirely different beast from Mexico City.

And probably from the rest of Tijuana too.