看膩了的西班牙教堂／李明熙
歐洲旅行，每個大城小鎮都有教堂，儘管各有歷史和建築風格，但看多就會膩。自從到過梵蒂岡的聖伯多祿大殿後，看過那全雲石的裝潢設計，感覺其他的教堂都不重要，完全看不上眼，尤其要付入場費的，總是嗤之以鼻。
站在巴塞隆拿的聖家堂贖罪殿前，不禁一問，不付錢就不能進去贖罪，主何時變得如此俗套？旅遊書說，入場費是協助由 1882 年已開始修建的教堂盡快竣工，最近估算，有望在 2026 年完成。記得讀天主教小學時，神父說即使是在床頭祈禱，主亦能聽到，其實又何須上教堂禱告？教堂又何需完整？也許只有我倆覺得聖家堂的舊建築比新更好看，把它完成實是畫蛇添足。
話雖如此，我們在西班牙的行程，還是離不開教堂和宗教，停留 Girona，就為一睹她的主教座堂。這個建於 10 世紀的羅馬式教堂，在 14 世紀改建成哥德式，再從 17 世紀開始加建巴洛克式的正面主牆。但吸引我們的是，因為它是「權力遊戲（Game of Thrones）」中，被 Cersei 炸掉的 The Great Sept 設計藍本。我們坐在教堂對面，幻想 Cersei 赤裸地步下梯級，被掉番茄、雞蛋，然後一個報復的回眸，把教堂炸毁，綠氣沖天。
我們幻想力豐富，但來到西維爾差點嚇破膽。西班牙人極為重視復活節前一週的 Holy Week，一連 7 日在各城都有遊行活動。我們一出門便看到穿著全身白衣及蒙面尖帽的群眾遊行，幸好同行友人提醒這尖帽叫 Capirote，以前是罪犯戴著遊街示眾，現今取其意贖罪遊行，蒙面就是隱藏身份，不然我們以為是美國的 3K 黨，Kim 說她會一週不肯出門。
Spanish Time Table／Kimberlogic
Traveling through Spain requires a lot of adjustments and things to get used to. The way of life in this country is just a little different than most other countries. In many other countries we have traveled to, we never had to adjust our living style as a tourist, maybe just the things we eat.
The biggest adjustment for us was dinner. The Spanish don’t typically eat dinner until around 22:00. Normally, we are returning to our accommodation by this time of night or have already been there for at least an hour. Adjusting our dinner time to 22:00 took awhile to be able to wait that long for dinner, and when we finally tried, we left a bit hungry.
Tapas is what all of the Spanish eat for dinner. It is little plates to share and have a bite or two for each person. Tapas doesn’t leave you feeling full and satisfied if you were expecting a full dinner and waited a few hours more than usual for it. So, we had to make another adjustment to our lifestyle.
Lunch time in Spain happens late as well. So, we started pushing our lunch time to around 16:00 so we could make it to dinner without feeling too hungry. After a few days in Spain, we found that they eat a pretty big lunch and that is why tapas is satisfying at night. So again we tried.
Having a late lunch and a late dinner each day meant that we were not getting to sleep as early as usual or getting up and out to explore in the early morning, so we had to adjust our sleep schedule as well. We started going to sleep around 2:00 or 3:00 and waking up around 9:00 or 10:00. By the time we woke up and got ourselves ready for the day, it was close to noon. This was the biggest change in our daily routine since I am more of a morning kind of person.
Once we tried living with all of the adjustments made, we realized we had to make the Spanish way of life fit to our way of life more. To do this, we stopped eating “dinner” out in restaurants. During the day we would find a supermarket and buy ingredients for our own tapas.
Our own tapas consisted mainly of different meats and cheeses accompanied by pickled vegetables, bread and olive oil. Doing this let us eat a little earlier (although not much) and we were already in for the night this way. It also let us try the famous Spanish ham and olive oil, so we didn’t feel like we were missing the food culture of Spain.
After getting used to this lifestyle over two weeks, we arrived in Portugal and had to adjust back to our normal lunch and dinner time if we wanted to eat in a restaurant before they closed. This task was a bit difficult because that meant that we had to go to sleep earlier in order to wake up early enough to work up an appetite at normal eating times. It’s been two days now and we are not fully adjusted back, but it is fun getting to experience different cultures and trying to live like a local for a little while.
我們的 #Home2HomeTravel
