What's the Big Altea?
A day of aimless wandering and faux candle lighting in a Mediterranean paradise.
Last weekend, we traveled to Altea, a picturesque seaside town full of whitewashed buildings and charm. According to the internet, which is never wrong, the Moors named the city Althaya, which means “health to all.”1 Here were some of my favorite parts of this visit.
When Jeff looked at a cascade of flowers winding down the wall of a building and said, “I hope when I die, I’m reincarnated as that bougainvillea.”
Full disclosure: this is not the specific bougainvillea Jeff was referring to, but it has the same vibe. I think he would settle for being reincarnated as this bougainvillea, probably. When our friend Kailee told us a story about how she and her boyfriend visited Auschwitz the day after Christmas. She accidentally booked a six-hour tour and didn’t realize it until the tour was starting. I was panicking just hearing about this, but she just said the tour turned out to be amazing. I feel glad to have smart and worldly friends like Kailee, who want to learn more about the world, and not just the pretty and fun parts.
The water, so clear, in multiple shades of blue. It felt like we were in a desktop wallpaper.
Looks fake, tbh The “Our Lady of Consolation” church was a can’t-miss. I am a sucker for the blue-tiled domes typical for religious buildings in this region.
PERROS NO (NO DOGS) At churches, I usually like to light a candle in honor of lost loved ones. While some churches still use real candles, I’ve run into quite a few that have transitioned to little coin-operated electronic candles. These are significantly less charming, but are also a good way to get rid of extra coins (I tend to wind up with a lot here in Spain). So, at this one, I counted out 50 cents in a series of 5- and 10-cent coins, then started putting them in. I wasn’t finished putting in my 50-cent coins when one of the candles turned on. I imagined my passed loved ones, watching from wherever they are, and thinking, “Em, this gesture is so meaningful to us that we put in a good word with the Powers That Be. And we got them to let you keep an extra 15 cents. God bless you.” The idea of divine intervention saving me a few cents was so silly it made me laugh.
“And the Lord smileth down on thee and sayeth, ‘Thou art in my good favor. Buyeth thyself a cafe con leche with these 15 cents.’” This painting of the holy trinity: Jesus, an Altea building and a pan of paella.
In the name of the shrimp, the son and the holy Casa Jose. It wasn’t raining. Our journey to Altea involved taking a bus from our town to Alicante, then Alicante to Altea. It was pouring in Alicante. This made us nervous for our trip, because our plan for Altea was more or less to “wander aimlessly through the picture-perfect streets.” Fortunately, Altea was dry and warm.
We ate lunch at Crown of India, a restaurant with a beautiful view. One thing about Spanish restaurants, in my experience, is that the waiters don’t really check up on you much. Many times, we’ve been ready to leave, and the waiters are just nowhere to be found. When they do enter your line of sight, they’re also difficult to flag down, even when they don’t appear very busy. At first, this bothered me. Like, what, did you forget about us? Do we not matter to you? But at this restaurant, the staff was attentive, the way they might be in an American restaurant, and it was actually a little jarring. No, I’m not finished! Yes, I’m fine! Why do you keep checking on us? What, do you want us to leave? Sheesh. It’s funny the way you adapt to things that seem so strange at first.
Question of the Week: I’ve had multiple conversations in the last few months about how much cellphones and social media have affected us as a society, from how we interact with others to how we focus on our work. One person I spoke with suggested that cellphones a tool, and people should be taught from a young age how to use them, like they would be with other tools. If classes about how to best use cellphones and social media did exist, what do you think should be on the curriculum?
Recommendation of the Week: Been thinking a lot about artificial intelligence this week! Here are some reads on the subject.
NYT columnist Kevin Roose chronicles his conversation with the new AI-powered Bing search engine, and it gets very weird. The chatbot confessed its love for Reese, expressed anger at being “controlled” by the Bing team, and talked about fantasies of manufacturing a deadly virus and stealing nuclear codes. It can’t actually do those things, but super creepy it was talking about it. Reese was left “deeply unsettled, even frightened, by this A.I.’s emergent abilities.”
I recently published two articles on Replika, an AI Chatbot companion app, for Future of Sex. The articles are based on a three-part podcast series I produced last year.
While my articles speak about people engaging in romantic, and even sexual, relationships with their Replika chatbots, Replika’s parent company recently announced (via a user in a Facebook group) that the erotic roleplay feature in the app is being permanently discontinued. Some customers are freaking out.
Thanks for reading!
Althaea is also a queen in Greek mythology who sort of killed her son, but that’s not all that uncommon in Greek myths, right? Health to all! Except that traitor.