I just read the previous post to try and figure out where I left off ... San Sebastian?!? Honestly, that seems like FOREVER ago, but I guess that's what happens with traveling -- so much seeing and doing and moving that things that happened yesterday feel like they occurred in a different lifetime. For brevity's sake, I'll write a few sentences about the various locations we have been since the last time I wrote.
First up after San Sebastian was Madrid: went and visited all sorts of good cultural things that one should see while in Spain -- The Prado and La Reina Sofia Museums (got to see a lot of Velazquez, Picasso and Miró, not to mention many of the other non-Spanish, big name artists that even non-artistic folks such as ourselves recognized), the Palacio Real (residence of the Royal Family) a bullfight (well, actually only Mom and Dad went), etc. etc. Overall, a good stop-over, but nobody's favorite city.
Valencia: By the time we got the car rented, packed, and drove all the way to Valencia, and, ahem, FOUND where our hotel was located in the city, we were left with less time than we originally planned. However, we did get to do all the basics: eat delicious paella, go to the beach and walk around the old Historical District of the city. Mom and Dad especially liked Valencia, although Colleen isn't entirely certain as to why...
Granada: Colleen's personal favorite, so she's a little biased when writing about Granada. FINALLY delving into Andalucía (clearly the best region in Spain), Granada is a city right next door to the Sierra Nevada mountain range and is home to La Alhambra (ancient Moorish fortress/palace), the Albazyn (funky neighborhood on the hillside with narrow, twisty streets and a fair amount of teterías (think cafés, but specializing in teas) and artesanía/handicraft shops. It is also home to one of Spain's largest universities, probably 96% of all of Spain's hippy population, and also has an out-of-the-way Roma (Gypsy) neighborhood who live in cave-like houses (this is all according to Dad's Rick Steves guide book --, it was kind of out-of-the-way to get to and we didn't see it ourselves). Anyway, we did get to go to the Alhambra and walk around the gardens, forts and royal chambers and patios, go to the chapel adjacent to Granada's cathedral and check out the mausoleum for los Reyes Católicos, eat chocolate con churros, watch the sunset from Mirador San Nicolas, and soak up the city's unique vibe.
Cádiz: Again, this whole trip is something of a whirlwind. We got here Saturday afternoon, went to the beach with 93% of the population of Cádiz (soooo crowded), got up the next morning and walked along the Paseo Marítimo and in the Casco Antiguo, took a bus to Arcos de la Frontera in the early afternoon, explored one of the typical Pueblos Blancos of Andalucía, nearly melted due to the intense heat, nearly didn't make it back from Arcos (that's a story for later), got back to Cádiz around 10:30, had dinner and went to bed. PS I totally realize that was one of the longest run-on sentences I've ever written, but that's pretty much what the day felt like. Anyway. Later today we're driving to Sevilla (where we're likely to finish melting from the heat), spending a few days there, and then on THURSDAY yours truly will be rejoining you all in the US and the parental unit will continue on to Portugal. Whew, complicated stuff. Okay, well that's all for now, hasta luego!!
06 July 2009
26 June 2009
Brief Update...
Hey all,
We've been spending the last few days up North in the Basque region of Spain, more specifically, the city of San Sebastian -- also called Donostia, depending on with whom you are speaking. Allow me explain: the País Vasco region of Spain is one of the three regions in the country that has its own language they prefer to use instead of Spanish. In fact, if a certain percentage of the Basque population had things their way, they wouldn't even be part of Spain, and instead form its own little nation.
The city of San Sebastian is much smaller than Barcelona and located right on the water -- a nice break from the big city. Since it's so close to France, we've noticed a good number of French vacationers in addition to the myriad of other Europeans walking around the narrow pedestrian streets of the old town, soaking up the sun on the beaches, and enjoying gelato and coffee at the many local cafes -- pretty much the same activities that we've been doing the last few days. Tomorrow we're off to Madrid to hit up another big city, wish us luck in Spain's capital! Hasta luego!
Photos:
We've been spending the last few days up North in the Basque region of Spain, more specifically, the city of San Sebastian -- also called Donostia, depending on with whom you are speaking. Allow me explain: the País Vasco region of Spain is one of the three regions in the country that has its own language they prefer to use instead of Spanish. In fact, if a certain percentage of the Basque population had things their way, they wouldn't even be part of Spain, and instead form its own little nation.
The city of San Sebastian is much smaller than Barcelona and located right on the water -- a nice break from the big city. Since it's so close to France, we've noticed a good number of French vacationers in addition to the myriad of other Europeans walking around the narrow pedestrian streets of the old town, soaking up the sun on the beaches, and enjoying gelato and coffee at the many local cafes -- pretty much the same activities that we've been doing the last few days. Tomorrow we're off to Madrid to hit up another big city, wish us luck in Spain's capital! Hasta luego!
Photos:
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| Barcelona y San Sebastian |
21 June 2009
Gx3
Remember that one time last November when I wrote about going to Barcelona? That time there was only G (as in Godfrey) running around the city. Now I'm back there again, but this time the G power has tripled with the arrival of two fantastic individuals -- yes, that's right, I'm finally getting to see my parents after more than 8 months of being a continent and an ocean away!
My parents arrived in Barcy (don't know if that's an official nickname for the city, just mine) yesterday morning, and after packing all my wordly junk into a couple of backpacks and a monster suitcase and dragging it through some trains and airports and subways, I joined them too. (sidenote: I'm sure I looked absolutely ridiculous and many people judged me, thinking I was some dumb tourist who packed her entire closet for a two week European vacation. NO PEOPLE, this is actually everything I own thankyouverymuch. I'm a little self conscious about the whole thing, if you couldn't tell already...)
Anyway, enough ranting and on to more exciting topics. Like updating you about what we did today, the first full day of our trip.
Well, first we walked from our comfy little apartment Mom so cleverly reserved online to La Plaza Catalunya, one of the main squares in the city center -- actually a bit of a walk, especially since we took a rather indirect route in getting there. After taking a moment to orient ourselves/drink some cafe con leches on the plaza, we hit up the following areas:
1) Las Ramblas
Las Ramblas is a big bustling street dominated by hordes of wandering pedestrians, creepily costumed street entertainers, street vendors offering to sell you various things -- postcards, newspapers, maps, flowers, parakeets. You know, the usual. Lots of things just kind of to look at, but not much that makes you want to stop and spend a lot of time observing.
2) Barri Gotica
The Gothic Neighborhood. True to its name, has a lot of Gothic architecture and a lot of pedestrian only streets and alleyways. It's also where the Cathedral of Barcelona is located (see #3) and where Mom got pooped on by a bird.
3) Cathedral of Barcelona
Probably the main reason we went in the cathedral is because it has a restroom where shat-upon Mom was able to clean up her hair a bit. I mean, it's a cool cathedral, has really ornate altars, a pretty interior patio with geese, a sarcophagus of a 13 year old martyr from back when the Romans were hanging out in Spain... but I think if you asked her, Mom would still say the best part was that bathroom.
4) Picasso Museum
Next up on the list was the Picasso Museum, also in the Gothic part of town. I had been there before, so I don't really have a whole lot to say about it -- there's a lot of cool artwork there, I'd say the majority of the pieces are from earlier on in his career (i.e. pre-Cubism), so there's actually a lot less crazy abstract looking things than you might imagine. Also, since it was Sunday and after 3pm, we got in for free (yesss!) but then again, so did the other 100+ tourists who were waiting in line ahead of us. So much for thinking we were being clever tourists for knowing which hours the museum is free of charge...
5) La Pedrera
Our last stop for the day, La Pedrera is a building designed by the architect Antoni Gaudí. It was originally designed to be an apartment building, but of course, Gaudí designed it with his usual flair (lots of shapes from nature, a perfect compromise of practical functionality and mind-blowing aesthetics) so now it's mainly just another stop on the tourist trail. Again, this is somewhere I had been on my first trip, but surprisingly, I enjoyed it even more the second time around. Gaudí's work is just so incredibly unique and interesting to look at.
After all that, we trekked on back to the apartment -- a full day of walking and sight-seeing (not to mention jet lag for 2/3 of us) has left us pretty tired!
Well, that's all for now -- further entries and pictures will follow in the next few days, so stay tuned...
My parents arrived in Barcy (don't know if that's an official nickname for the city, just mine) yesterday morning, and after packing all my wordly junk into a couple of backpacks and a monster suitcase and dragging it through some trains and airports and subways, I joined them too. (sidenote: I'm sure I looked absolutely ridiculous and many people judged me, thinking I was some dumb tourist who packed her entire closet for a two week European vacation. NO PEOPLE, this is actually everything I own thankyouverymuch. I'm a little self conscious about the whole thing, if you couldn't tell already...)
Anyway, enough ranting and on to more exciting topics. Like updating you about what we did today, the first full day of our trip.
Well, first we walked from our comfy little apartment Mom so cleverly reserved online to La Plaza Catalunya, one of the main squares in the city center -- actually a bit of a walk, especially since we took a rather indirect route in getting there. After taking a moment to orient ourselves/drink some cafe con leches on the plaza, we hit up the following areas:
1) Las Ramblas
Las Ramblas is a big bustling street dominated by hordes of wandering pedestrians, creepily costumed street entertainers, street vendors offering to sell you various things -- postcards, newspapers, maps, flowers, parakeets. You know, the usual. Lots of things just kind of to look at, but not much that makes you want to stop and spend a lot of time observing.
2) Barri Gotica
The Gothic Neighborhood. True to its name, has a lot of Gothic architecture and a lot of pedestrian only streets and alleyways. It's also where the Cathedral of Barcelona is located (see #3) and where Mom got pooped on by a bird.
3) Cathedral of Barcelona
Probably the main reason we went in the cathedral is because it has a restroom where shat-upon Mom was able to clean up her hair a bit. I mean, it's a cool cathedral, has really ornate altars, a pretty interior patio with geese, a sarcophagus of a 13 year old martyr from back when the Romans were hanging out in Spain... but I think if you asked her, Mom would still say the best part was that bathroom.
4) Picasso Museum
Next up on the list was the Picasso Museum, also in the Gothic part of town. I had been there before, so I don't really have a whole lot to say about it -- there's a lot of cool artwork there, I'd say the majority of the pieces are from earlier on in his career (i.e. pre-Cubism), so there's actually a lot less crazy abstract looking things than you might imagine. Also, since it was Sunday and after 3pm, we got in for free (yesss!) but then again, so did the other 100+ tourists who were waiting in line ahead of us. So much for thinking we were being clever tourists for knowing which hours the museum is free of charge...
5) La Pedrera
Our last stop for the day, La Pedrera is a building designed by the architect Antoni Gaudí. It was originally designed to be an apartment building, but of course, Gaudí designed it with his usual flair (lots of shapes from nature, a perfect compromise of practical functionality and mind-blowing aesthetics) so now it's mainly just another stop on the tourist trail. Again, this is somewhere I had been on my first trip, but surprisingly, I enjoyed it even more the second time around. Gaudí's work is just so incredibly unique and interesting to look at.
After all that, we trekked on back to the apartment -- a full day of walking and sight-seeing (not to mention jet lag for 2/3 of us) has left us pretty tired!
Well, that's all for now -- further entries and pictures will follow in the next few days, so stay tuned...
18 June 2009
Un Viajito Más
Hey all! So I'm a bit belated on getting this post and its accompanying photos up, but now that I'm officially unemployed, living at the beach, and have literally no responsibilities, I'm finding it much too difficult to do anything that might have any chance o being categorized as "productive".
Anyway, last week I took way too many buses and 1 train to see a bit more of the Iberian Peninsula before I head over to Barcelona in a couple of days to meet my parents!!!! On this trip I made it to Santiago de Compostela, Fisterra, Porto and Lisbon. I started out the journey alone, but met a few really great people at the hostels I stayed at along the way! I was glad that I did because I'm finding more and more that I get really bored and unmotivated to do anything at all if I'm just by myself, even if I am in a really cool place surrounded by a lot of cool things!
I'll give you all a quick summary of the places and then post some pics, as per usual:
Santiago de Compostela: Santiago's a small town with a huge reputation, located up North in the region of Spain called Galicia (right on top of Portugal). It's the end of a long journey taken by many pilgrims who start their journey near the Spain/France boarder and essentially walk across the entire country along the path called el Camino de Santiago. Many people do it for spiritual and/or religious reasons, but it's also popular with a lot of adventure travelers just because it is a really arduous journey and you get to see a ton of really great landscape.
Galicia itself is absolutely gorgeous -- all of its vegetation is clearly on steroids. There are lots of trees, plants, shrubs, etc all really green and all very dense. Unfortunately, the reason behind its aforementioned greenness is because is RAINS LIKE CRAZY there. I never went anywhere without my raincoat and had to hang up my clothes every night so they could dry, but I figure I probably deserve a little torrential downpour in my life, since I've been avoiding it for so long.
While in Santiago, I also went to an even smaller town nearby called Fisterra. In some places I saw it written as "Finisterra", which I actually like better because the name then explains what it essentially is: el "Fin de Tierra" or the "End of Earth". It's the western-most point in all of Europe and, for some pilgrims, the true end of the Camino. There's not really a whole lot to do there, but I walked from the town center where the bus dropped me off out to the lighthouse that marks the "true" end of the Camino. I thought it was pretty cool and the sun even made a rare (temporary) appearance so that I could take some decent pictures!
Porto: Porto's located in Northern Portugal right on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and next to the Douro River. It's a nice old town with interesting old architecture and lots of bodegas that produce port wine. My new German friend Manuela and I took a tour at one of the bodegas, partially for the free samples at the end, partially to avoid becoming human sponges by absorbing all of the Porto rainfall. Unfortunately for me, we went later on in the afternoon and there was only one more tour happening that day -- presented in German. Fortunately, Manuela obligingly translated everything for me and I still got to see the wine cellars and try some Sandeman port at the end of our journey.
After a couple of rainy days in Porto, it was time to go further south to Lisbon....
Lisbon is Portugal's capital and really old a overall a pretty great city. Lots of things like castles (okay I actually just visited the one), more interesting architecture, and LOTS of azulejos, or decorative blue tiling found on many walls throughout the city. I really enjoyed just walking around the streets randomly looking at things that I happened upon and then ducking in a cafe for something cool to drink when I got too unbearably hot (which happened to happen a lot, especially in the afternoons... I was constantly sweating). It is also really hilly there, so I walked up and down a lot and got some great views of the city and the water. Interestingly, what with the city being close to water, its use of trams/trolleys as public transport aforementioned hilliness and a certain bridge, it reminded me some of San Francisco... I'll let you guys be the judge though, so make sure to check out the pics!
Anyway, last week I took way too many buses and 1 train to see a bit more of the Iberian Peninsula before I head over to Barcelona in a couple of days to meet my parents!!!! On this trip I made it to Santiago de Compostela, Fisterra, Porto and Lisbon. I started out the journey alone, but met a few really great people at the hostels I stayed at along the way! I was glad that I did because I'm finding more and more that I get really bored and unmotivated to do anything at all if I'm just by myself, even if I am in a really cool place surrounded by a lot of cool things!
I'll give you all a quick summary of the places and then post some pics, as per usual:
Santiago de Compostela: Santiago's a small town with a huge reputation, located up North in the region of Spain called Galicia (right on top of Portugal). It's the end of a long journey taken by many pilgrims who start their journey near the Spain/France boarder and essentially walk across the entire country along the path called el Camino de Santiago. Many people do it for spiritual and/or religious reasons, but it's also popular with a lot of adventure travelers just because it is a really arduous journey and you get to see a ton of really great landscape.
Galicia itself is absolutely gorgeous -- all of its vegetation is clearly on steroids. There are lots of trees, plants, shrubs, etc all really green and all very dense. Unfortunately, the reason behind its aforementioned greenness is because is RAINS LIKE CRAZY there. I never went anywhere without my raincoat and had to hang up my clothes every night so they could dry, but I figure I probably deserve a little torrential downpour in my life, since I've been avoiding it for so long.
While in Santiago, I also went to an even smaller town nearby called Fisterra. In some places I saw it written as "Finisterra", which I actually like better because the name then explains what it essentially is: el "Fin de Tierra" or the "End of Earth". It's the western-most point in all of Europe and, for some pilgrims, the true end of the Camino. There's not really a whole lot to do there, but I walked from the town center where the bus dropped me off out to the lighthouse that marks the "true" end of the Camino. I thought it was pretty cool and the sun even made a rare (temporary) appearance so that I could take some decent pictures!
Porto: Porto's located in Northern Portugal right on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and next to the Douro River. It's a nice old town with interesting old architecture and lots of bodegas that produce port wine. My new German friend Manuela and I took a tour at one of the bodegas, partially for the free samples at the end, partially to avoid becoming human sponges by absorbing all of the Porto rainfall. Unfortunately for me, we went later on in the afternoon and there was only one more tour happening that day -- presented in German. Fortunately, Manuela obligingly translated everything for me and I still got to see the wine cellars and try some Sandeman port at the end of our journey.
After a couple of rainy days in Porto, it was time to go further south to Lisbon....
Lisbon is Portugal's capital and really old a overall a pretty great city. Lots of things like castles (okay I actually just visited the one), more interesting architecture, and LOTS of azulejos, or decorative blue tiling found on many walls throughout the city. I really enjoyed just walking around the streets randomly looking at things that I happened upon and then ducking in a cafe for something cool to drink when I got too unbearably hot (which happened to happen a lot, especially in the afternoons... I was constantly sweating). It is also really hilly there, so I walked up and down a lot and got some great views of the city and the water. Interestingly, what with the city being close to water, its use of trams/trolleys as public transport aforementioned hilliness and a certain bridge, it reminded me some of San Francisco... I'll let you guys be the judge though, so make sure to check out the pics!
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| Galicia y Portugal |
28 May 2009
That’s all, folks.
It’s true, I’m done! I just finished my last day of work as an auxiliar de conversación in CEIP (Centro Educativo Infantil y Primario) La Inmaculada y IES (Instituto Educativo Segundario) Fuerte Cortadura. I don’t think I really believe it yet – that pretty darn soon, everything is going to change quite radically. What’s going to change? Well, let’s see, for one thing I’ll be moving back to the good ol’ US of A in just over a month’s time, where, oddly enough, I’ll be immersed by English-speakers. GASP. Also, I won’t have to light a butane tank to get hot water or climb to the roof terrace to hang dry my clothes (actually kinda going to miss that). And I won’t be a minority. No one’s going to call me “rubia” or “guiri”. I’ll be (oh wait, I guess I am) unemployed. The keyboard I use to type won’t have an ñ key and I won’t have to substitute a ´ for a ’ when writing words with contractions. People won’t try and push ham, sausage and other meat products on me, but restaurants won’t offer me delicious wine for 1.50 or less a glass. Essentially, very soon, I’m going to stop existing in a world where it’s fine to use Spanglish as a primary means of communication and where multiple cultures intersect and learn from/about one another on a daily basis. I’m really going to miss that, as they have been two defining features of my daily life for the last 8 (yeah, I know, that’s 8 as in OCHO, as in EIGHT) months. One of the things I’ll miss most about being here is just how every day is an opportunity to learn and experience something new, whether it’s something annoying and frustratingly dysfunctional that makes your roll your eyes, shake your fist and mutter “oh Spaaaainnnnn!” under your breath, OR it’s something cool and interesting and eye-opening (“huh, Spain…”), OR it’s something charming, endearing and oh so fitting with the local cultural norms (“Aww, Spain…!”) OR – probably most common – downright puzzling but absolutely hilarious and absurd (“uhhh. Spain?”).
I’ve been lucky to learn so much about a wide variety of temas over the course of my time here – how difficult and rewarding living abroad can be, the importance and value of being able to communicate clearly and speak up for oneself in an effective, appropriate manner, the genius skill of extemporaneous lesson planning/teaching a class with minimal to no preparation time, the balance of negotiating how to be “flexible and open” and “take advantage of cultural experiences” while still doing what makes me happy, the realization of just how virtuous the virtue of patience really is, and most importantly (and most emo-ly) I’ve learned a lot about who I am and the type of person I’d like to become in the future. That last part is so corny I just rolled my eyes at it, but nevertheless it’s true, so I’m keeping it there.
To combat the sickness I’m currently feeling due to previous touchy-feely statements, I’ll share an entertaining incident that happened last Monday when I was working at el Instituto (the older kids' school). I was working with a decently sized group of kids (~12-15 I’d say) in the extra room that’s down the hall from their classroom. I had been given several pages of vocabulary lists with instructions to practice reviewing the words with them. Okay great, so let’s play a game. We’re playing a game that makes them repeat whatever the word is and use it correctly in a sentence, but as these kids are 6th grade-ish and it’s the end of the day, focusing abilities are quite limited. Two of the boys sitting in the back row keep playing some middle school boy "poking/hitting/touching my friend who's sitting next to me and distracting everyone else while the teacher is talking" game, so being the lenient profe that I am, I decide to give them a couple of verbal warnings before I make them do anything drastic like change seats (believe me, it’s a big deal). Two strikes later, they’re still acting like the squirrely pre-teens that they are and I give them their final warning (this time in Spanish, wooooah) to let them know I meant business, but unfortunately I made the following linguistic faux pas:
So grammatically speaking, Spanish uses reflexive verbs, used for when you are doing something to yourself (i.e. putting on your clothes, brushing your teeth, etc.) … unfortunately, in trying to ask the why the heck they wouldn’t stop touching each other, I accidently used “tocandose” (touching oneself) instead of “tocando uno a otro” (touching one another). In short, my attempt to get these two boys to sit still and pay attention resulted in class-wide pandemonium, and I don’t blame them… how many of your middle school teachers ever told you to stop masturbating during class?
….
and to think, I almost got through the whole year without making a fool of myself in front of them, ooops!
I’ve been lucky to learn so much about a wide variety of temas over the course of my time here – how difficult and rewarding living abroad can be, the importance and value of being able to communicate clearly and speak up for oneself in an effective, appropriate manner, the genius skill of extemporaneous lesson planning/teaching a class with minimal to no preparation time, the balance of negotiating how to be “flexible and open” and “take advantage of cultural experiences” while still doing what makes me happy, the realization of just how virtuous the virtue of patience really is, and most importantly (and most emo-ly) I’ve learned a lot about who I am and the type of person I’d like to become in the future. That last part is so corny I just rolled my eyes at it, but nevertheless it’s true, so I’m keeping it there.
To combat the sickness I’m currently feeling due to previous touchy-feely statements, I’ll share an entertaining incident that happened last Monday when I was working at el Instituto (the older kids' school). I was working with a decently sized group of kids (~12-15 I’d say) in the extra room that’s down the hall from their classroom. I had been given several pages of vocabulary lists with instructions to practice reviewing the words with them. Okay great, so let’s play a game. We’re playing a game that makes them repeat whatever the word is and use it correctly in a sentence, but as these kids are 6th grade-ish and it’s the end of the day, focusing abilities are quite limited. Two of the boys sitting in the back row keep playing some middle school boy "poking/hitting/touching my friend who's sitting next to me and distracting everyone else while the teacher is talking" game, so being the lenient profe that I am, I decide to give them a couple of verbal warnings before I make them do anything drastic like change seats (believe me, it’s a big deal). Two strikes later, they’re still acting like the squirrely pre-teens that they are and I give them their final warning (this time in Spanish, wooooah) to let them know I meant business, but unfortunately I made the following linguistic faux pas:
So grammatically speaking, Spanish uses reflexive verbs, used for when you are doing something to yourself (i.e. putting on your clothes, brushing your teeth, etc.) … unfortunately, in trying to ask the why the heck they wouldn’t stop touching each other, I accidently used “tocandose” (touching oneself) instead of “tocando uno a otro” (touching one another). In short, my attempt to get these two boys to sit still and pay attention resulted in class-wide pandemonium, and I don’t blame them… how many of your middle school teachers ever told you to stop masturbating during class?
….
and to think, I almost got through the whole year without making a fool of myself in front of them, ooops!
04 May 2009
On the Road Again....
Well, considering I have an increasingly limited amount of time here in Europe, I decided pretty last minute to tag along with my friends Cat and Lauren and go to Marrakech, Morocco for a long weekend. It consisted of a bus, ferry, taxi, train ride and another taxi to get there (and vice versa to get back), but it was worth the effort! As always, pictures are more exciting than words, so I'll give you guys the link to my pics I took ... I tried to be good and write captions to go along with some of the stuff, so hopefully that will make viewing them a little more interesting.
Overall the trip was a success -- not the easiest of traveling I've done, but like I said, definitely worth it. Marrakech is a city conducive to perpetual sensory overload. With so much to see and hear and experience, I'm sure we didn't see every corner of the city, but we definitely got a good flavor of what the city has to offer. Like I said, being in the Medina (the old city) overwhelms the senses, so I don't know exactly where to begin or what to include... maybe I'll just break it down into a few simple categories...
1. Sight
In the Medina, there are tons of vendors everywhere selling a wide variety of carpets, scarves, jewelry, bags, clothing, woodwork, lamps, pots, mirrors, shoes, knives, dried fruit, sweets, pretty much anything and everything imaginable -- there were even a few "dentists" who were selling (false..? maybe...?) teeth!
In addition to the sheer number of things being sold and people selling them, there were so many different bright colors everywhere! Jewelry-wise, silver or metals that were trying to be passed off as silver were popular, but lapis lazuli, turquoise, and tiger's eye were all common elements, not to mention the brightly colored, borderline obnoxiously-large beads that made up a lot of the necklaces and bracelets for sale. Fun fact: the color purple was highly coveted in the past and considered to be a sign of royalty because purple dyes weren't as readily accessible as all of the other colors.
Also, in the plaza Djemma el-Fna, there are lots of "street entertainers" with their pet monkeys on leashes, or snakes or some other exotic animal and lure tourists in, allowing them to watch and take pictures and then insisting on being paid whatever amount they can get... I got mad at these people a lot because their means of earning money seems less than honorable, but I guess everyone has to make a living the best way they know how... moving on...
2. Taste
While decently popular during the day, the plaza Djemma el-Fna was quite a happening place at night. It's been deemed a UNESCO Cultural Heritage site, and for good reason. It's extremely popular with the locals, as there are all sorts of songs performed and stories told (ie 99% of the tourists can't understand what was being said). There are lots of places to eat -- larger stalls offering kebabs, couscous and other traditional fare and other smaller stands -- so much food, not enough space in my stomach... too bad!
One of my favorite things was the mint tea that was inevitably offered at every meal and at any social situation in which consumption of beverages seemed remotely appropriate. We were told that this tea is "Moroccan Whiskey" -- presumably because it is drunk in such high quantities in so many different occasions, plus that whole thing about the religion prohibiting the consumption of actual alcohol. True fact: no where in the Medina of Marrakech sells alcohol -- you have to go into the Ville Nouvelle, the newer part, to find it (if you're really that desperate).
2. Smell
Holy spices, there were so many different spices and combinations of spices being sold! A lot of them I had heard of, some of them I've used before in cooking, but there were even more that seemed unique to these markets. Part of the vendors selling tactics were to offer you a whiff of every single spice they had in their stall... which contributed to the the nasal portion of the sensory overload. In addition to spices for cooking there were teas and incenses, something (conceivably) for everyone...
3. Touch
I know I've said this a million times, but wandering through the marketplace was so crowded that doing things like walking forward, pausing turning around, and breathing could all cause you to bumble into people and things... in some of the more narrow undercover areas complete I-feel-like-a-canned-sardine moments. UGH not a fan.
4. Hearing
Some oft-heard quotes a heard from trip:
"You want to look? You look for free... hey yes, you, looking is for free. Come in my shop"
"Aaah, from America? Big welcome, big welcome.
"Aaah, America? OBAMA! He's a good man..."
"Helloooo Fish and Chips!" (only heard this one when vendors thought we were from England)
"I give you good price, very good price on this, it's handmade"
And one of my faves:
Vendor: "I offer you good price, how much you want for this scarf? I give democratic price. "
Me: 30 dirham [3 euro]?
Vendor: Oh no, no no. 150, democratic price.
Me: "Democratic? So that means I can vote? mmmm I vote 30! *raise my hand and look at Cat*
Cat: Me too! 30! *raises her hand*
Lauren: Me too! 30! *raises her hand*
We all look at the vendor, who starts cracking up.
I so got that scarf for 30 dirham.
And of course, for your viewing pleasure, the pictures:
Overall the trip was a success -- not the easiest of traveling I've done, but like I said, definitely worth it. Marrakech is a city conducive to perpetual sensory overload. With so much to see and hear and experience, I'm sure we didn't see every corner of the city, but we definitely got a good flavor of what the city has to offer. Like I said, being in the Medina (the old city) overwhelms the senses, so I don't know exactly where to begin or what to include... maybe I'll just break it down into a few simple categories...
1. Sight
In the Medina, there are tons of vendors everywhere selling a wide variety of carpets, scarves, jewelry, bags, clothing, woodwork, lamps, pots, mirrors, shoes, knives, dried fruit, sweets, pretty much anything and everything imaginable -- there were even a few "dentists" who were selling (false..? maybe...?) teeth!
In addition to the sheer number of things being sold and people selling them, there were so many different bright colors everywhere! Jewelry-wise, silver or metals that were trying to be passed off as silver were popular, but lapis lazuli, turquoise, and tiger's eye were all common elements, not to mention the brightly colored, borderline obnoxiously-large beads that made up a lot of the necklaces and bracelets for sale. Fun fact: the color purple was highly coveted in the past and considered to be a sign of royalty because purple dyes weren't as readily accessible as all of the other colors.
Also, in the plaza Djemma el-Fna, there are lots of "street entertainers" with their pet monkeys on leashes, or snakes or some other exotic animal and lure tourists in, allowing them to watch and take pictures and then insisting on being paid whatever amount they can get... I got mad at these people a lot because their means of earning money seems less than honorable, but I guess everyone has to make a living the best way they know how... moving on...
2. Taste
While decently popular during the day, the plaza Djemma el-Fna was quite a happening place at night. It's been deemed a UNESCO Cultural Heritage site, and for good reason. It's extremely popular with the locals, as there are all sorts of songs performed and stories told (ie 99% of the tourists can't understand what was being said). There are lots of places to eat -- larger stalls offering kebabs, couscous and other traditional fare and other smaller stands -- so much food, not enough space in my stomach... too bad!
One of my favorite things was the mint tea that was inevitably offered at every meal and at any social situation in which consumption of beverages seemed remotely appropriate. We were told that this tea is "Moroccan Whiskey" -- presumably because it is drunk in such high quantities in so many different occasions, plus that whole thing about the religion prohibiting the consumption of actual alcohol. True fact: no where in the Medina of Marrakech sells alcohol -- you have to go into the Ville Nouvelle, the newer part, to find it (if you're really that desperate).
2. Smell
Holy spices, there were so many different spices and combinations of spices being sold! A lot of them I had heard of, some of them I've used before in cooking, but there were even more that seemed unique to these markets. Part of the vendors selling tactics were to offer you a whiff of every single spice they had in their stall... which contributed to the the nasal portion of the sensory overload. In addition to spices for cooking there were teas and incenses, something (conceivably) for everyone...
3. Touch
I know I've said this a million times, but wandering through the marketplace was so crowded that doing things like walking forward, pausing turning around, and breathing could all cause you to bumble into people and things... in some of the more narrow undercover areas complete I-feel-like-a-canned-sardine moments. UGH not a fan.
4. Hearing
Some oft-heard quotes a heard from trip:
"You want to look? You look for free... hey yes, you, looking is for free. Come in my shop"
"Aaah, from America? Big welcome, big welcome.
"Aaah, America? OBAMA! He's a good man..."
"Helloooo Fish and Chips!" (only heard this one when vendors thought we were from England)
"I give you good price, very good price on this, it's handmade"
And one of my faves:
Vendor: "I offer you good price, how much you want for this scarf? I give democratic price. "
Me: 30 dirham [3 euro]?
Vendor: Oh no, no no. 150, democratic price.
Me: "Democratic? So that means I can vote? mmmm I vote 30! *raise my hand and look at Cat*
Cat: Me too! 30! *raises her hand*
Lauren: Me too! 30! *raises her hand*
We all look at the vendor, who starts cracking up.
I so got that scarf for 30 dirham.
And of course, for your viewing pleasure, the pictures:
 |
| Marrakech |
15 April 2009
More Words.
Okay, here’s the sequel to the last post. Like I said before, we took a night train to from Split to Slovenia and got there without any interesting happening (which really I suppose is a good thing). I guess the one exciting thing is that we got our passports stamped since we were reentering the EU (Croatia hasn’t been allowed in), but even the stamp we got is kind of plain and boring looking. Which is actually the exact opposite of our destination, Ljubljana (pronounced loo-blee-ah-nuh). Even though it’s the country’s largest city, it's actually quite small and can be pretty easily covered by foot, although there were bike lanes everywhere on the sidewalks and lots of bikers, few of whom actually used their designated lane.
I really don’t know how I can describe the city in a unique way, but I’ll give it a try. There’s a castle up on a hilltop looking down on the city, a small tranquil river that cuts through the city, various bridges connecting each side of the city and an abundance of popular outdoor cafes and bars that run along the side of the river. There are also a lot of big green parks where people go to spend the afternoons dog-walking, rollerblading, picnicking and other various wholesome family activities. I loved getting to wander around on some of the foresty tree-filled paths and enjoy some non-beach scenery. Another thing I liked was walking through the daily outdoor market… yeah of course there were overpriced tourist items, but only in one section – the rest of the stalls offered delicious looking and smelling produce, lots of flowers (I think especially b/c we were there the weekend before Easter), some odd looking sausage and meat products, and freshly made cheese. In an odd sort of way I almost felt like I was home (river, farmer’s market, lots of green all around), but at the same time everything was still very European and very clearly not the Pacific Northwest.
One of the days we took a bus to two different lakes a couple hours outside of the city. The first was a place called Bohinj, a lot more secluded than our second destination (Lake Bled), and one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. You’ll have to look at the pictures, but basically we were at a huge lake we pretty blue water with the Alps in the background. There are a lot of different hiking trails you can do from there, but unfortunately we didn’t know that beforehand and didn’t exactly come prepared for that sort of activity, so I very begrudgingly tried to satisfy myself with a short stroll along the lake. After taking pictures and puttering around for a couple hours, we caught another bus to Bled, about 30 minutes back in the direction of Ljubljana. This lake is much more geared towards tourists – there are hotels, cafes, restaurants, boats/canoes for rent, etc etc. Here we did pretty much the same thing – walked around, took pictures, pretty much just enjoyed the great outdoors. I should also mention that Lake Bled has a couple unique features. The first is a tiny island in the middle of the lake with an old church built on it (you can take a boat out to the island, but can’t enter the building), and the second is the castle located on a tall cliff overlooking the lake. We missed out on going in there, but really I wasn’t that heartbroken about it.
The last destination before heading back to Spain was Venice – a sharp contrast to the other places we visited earlier, but we found a cheap flight home from there and it’s actually a relatively short train ride from Ljubljana to Venice, so it actually made sense in a random sort of way… anyway, we were just there for a day, so we spent as much time as we could walking around the sidewalks and crossing over canals and watching other people pony up the 80 euro it costs to take a gondola ride. We wandered through a lot of different markets (food, fish, jewelry, more touristy trinkets), went to Piazza San Marco, ogled the Basilica there from the outside (a multiple hour wait to get in!), ate delicious gelato… yep, that’s about it. I was glad we were only in Venice for the day – there were too many big crowds and everything there was expensive… not my favorite combination.
Okay, so in regards to picture posting: first off, I’m warning you, there are a lot of them, so if you get bored, no offense taken. I got bored looking through all of them trying to decide which ones were worth sharing and then fighting with my internet to make them load properly. Second, my camera is going through a rebellious phase in its life and while at Lake Bled decided to have some sort of “Lens Error” that won’t go away. I’ve been hoping it would just fix itself, but it’s been days and still no luck. Anyway, this means I’m missing pics of Venice, but I’ll try and post a few of Erin’s just to make things a representative sample of the trip.
That’s all for now, adios!
Photos:
I really don’t know how I can describe the city in a unique way, but I’ll give it a try. There’s a castle up on a hilltop looking down on the city, a small tranquil river that cuts through the city, various bridges connecting each side of the city and an abundance of popular outdoor cafes and bars that run along the side of the river. There are also a lot of big green parks where people go to spend the afternoons dog-walking, rollerblading, picnicking and other various wholesome family activities. I loved getting to wander around on some of the foresty tree-filled paths and enjoy some non-beach scenery. Another thing I liked was walking through the daily outdoor market… yeah of course there were overpriced tourist items, but only in one section – the rest of the stalls offered delicious looking and smelling produce, lots of flowers (I think especially b/c we were there the weekend before Easter), some odd looking sausage and meat products, and freshly made cheese. In an odd sort of way I almost felt like I was home (river, farmer’s market, lots of green all around), but at the same time everything was still very European and very clearly not the Pacific Northwest.
One of the days we took a bus to two different lakes a couple hours outside of the city. The first was a place called Bohinj, a lot more secluded than our second destination (Lake Bled), and one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. You’ll have to look at the pictures, but basically we were at a huge lake we pretty blue water with the Alps in the background. There are a lot of different hiking trails you can do from there, but unfortunately we didn’t know that beforehand and didn’t exactly come prepared for that sort of activity, so I very begrudgingly tried to satisfy myself with a short stroll along the lake. After taking pictures and puttering around for a couple hours, we caught another bus to Bled, about 30 minutes back in the direction of Ljubljana. This lake is much more geared towards tourists – there are hotels, cafes, restaurants, boats/canoes for rent, etc etc. Here we did pretty much the same thing – walked around, took pictures, pretty much just enjoyed the great outdoors. I should also mention that Lake Bled has a couple unique features. The first is a tiny island in the middle of the lake with an old church built on it (you can take a boat out to the island, but can’t enter the building), and the second is the castle located on a tall cliff overlooking the lake. We missed out on going in there, but really I wasn’t that heartbroken about it.
The last destination before heading back to Spain was Venice – a sharp contrast to the other places we visited earlier, but we found a cheap flight home from there and it’s actually a relatively short train ride from Ljubljana to Venice, so it actually made sense in a random sort of way… anyway, we were just there for a day, so we spent as much time as we could walking around the sidewalks and crossing over canals and watching other people pony up the 80 euro it costs to take a gondola ride. We wandered through a lot of different markets (food, fish, jewelry, more touristy trinkets), went to Piazza San Marco, ogled the Basilica there from the outside (a multiple hour wait to get in!), ate delicious gelato… yep, that’s about it. I was glad we were only in Venice for the day – there were too many big crowds and everything there was expensive… not my favorite combination.
Okay, so in regards to picture posting: first off, I’m warning you, there are a lot of them, so if you get bored, no offense taken. I got bored looking through all of them trying to decide which ones were worth sharing and then fighting with my internet to make them load properly. Second, my camera is going through a rebellious phase in its life and while at Lake Bled decided to have some sort of “Lens Error” that won’t go away. I’ve been hoping it would just fix itself, but it’s been days and still no luck. Anyway, this means I’m missing pics of Venice, but I’ll try and post a few of Erin’s just to make things a representative sample of the trip.
That’s all for now, adios!
Photos:
 |
| Semana Santa |
13 April 2009
Spring Break, Round 2
Last week was Semana Santa, or Holy Week. As an overwhelmingly Catholic nation, all sorts of pasos (parades) take place in pretty much every city all over Spain. However, I missed out on this cultural experience and decided to stretch out my traveling legs and hop around Europe for a bit. One of the girls I work with, Erin (a fellow Oregonian!), and I flew out of Sevilla and hit up Dubrovnik and Split in Croatia, Ljubljana in Slovenia, and Venice in Italy. It was a fantastic trip and there’s a lot to tell, so I’ll try and share some of the highlights:
Dubrovnik:
Located in Southern Croatia, it is a gorgeous city right on the coast of the Adriatic. The old town is surrounded by large fortress walls and only has a only a few main entryways that can be shut off through simply by closing its heavy metal doors. The buildings in the old part all have red-orange wavy shingles on the rooftops, so everything is quite picturesque, especially around sunset, especially when looking down on the city from above. The hostel we stayed at was outside the old town, up in residential area which was tucked up in the rocky foothills above the coastline. It was a fantastic place to stay – we had a great view of the city and ocean below, were outside of the typical touristy atmosphere, and best of all, actually staying in one of the upper floors of a Slovenian family’s house! The woman who ran the hostel didn’t speak much English, but fortunately her 16 year old daughter (who could pass for at least 20 what with the crazy beyond-her-years poise she possesses) spoke excellent English and gave us helpful suggestions about what to see and where to go and how to get where we needed to be.
A few things we did in Dubrovnik:
Took a day-trip to a few of the nearby Elaphite Islands in a small tour group. (Kolocep, Lopud, and Šipan are the three we visited…) The islands were beautiful, the water was unbelievably clear, and we even lucked out and got sunny weather that followed us to all of our travel destinations throughout the trip! There wasn’t a whole lot open on any of the 3 islands we visited (it’s not quite tourist season), but given the large accumulation of junk piles and hotel/beachfront restoration going on, it was pretty apparent everyone was getting ready to get things ready for the summertime vacationers. One of the most hilarious elements of the trip was our boat captain. Now, I know you aren’t supposed to make fun of how people look, that judging by appearance is a shallow way of evaluating a person, but oh man this guy was a real character … a short wiry Croatian man in baggy pants and worn sweatshirt, with longish hair that hadn’t been washed let alone brushed in so long I think the sea, wind and sun turned it all into dreadlocks which ended up sticking out in all directions like a case of perma-bedhead. The fact that he was alternately texting, rolling cigarettes and smoking while controlling the wheel are all humorous little descriptive details, but one of the most surprising things he did was shortly after we set sail. In his broken English, our hospitable captain asks if any of us if we want anything to drink. Without waiting for a response, he opens up a compartment and whips out a bottle of some sort of homemade (?) hard alcohol complete with seaweed and snail in the bottle. This, along with a couple liters of coke and orange soda along with a sleeve of plastic cups are placed out in front of the group free for the taking. The stuff smelled downright nasty, but a few brave souls went ahead and tried it because really, how often in your life are you offered snail alcohol?
Another highlight of Dubrovnik was getting to walk around the perimeter of the old city on the (aforementioned) giant walls. Not surprisingly, it provided some great views of the city and the surrounding area. A final thing we saw was the war memorial there. It is located on the top of a hill and is located in a building that was actually a fort/look-out used during the fighting. The museum had a lot of information (unfortunately only about 15% of it was translated into English from Croatian…), but a lot of the visuals – pictures taken during the fighting, old weaponry and even some video clips of some of the battles itself – were quite powerful. More than anything, it’s crazy to imagine that there was fighting going on right where we were standing as recently as 1991.
Split:
From Dubrovnik, we took a bus up to Split, which is in the middle of the country longitudinally but still on the coast. Despite being just over 200 km, the ride still took 4.5 hours due to semi-frequent stops in other cities along the way and the drifting two-lane coastal highway that the bus took. It was a pretty ride though, and interesting to see the subtle changes in the landscape. The landscape mostly consisted of rocky hills and cliffs (not large enough to be called mountains) that rise up fairly quickly from the coastline and a wide variety of trees and other sorts of greenery, which kind of surprised me from how rocky the surrounding land seemed. Off the coast were sprinklings of islands, mostly small formations inhabited by vegetation and not much else and, of course, the incredibly clear blue-green waters of the Adriatic.
There wasn’t really a whole lot to do in Split, but it was and interesting place to see and we met some cool people in our hostel and got to spend time sitting around playing cards and swapping travel stories. Anyway, a bit more about the city itself: the oldest part of Split was constructed in/around the walls of a castle built by the Roman Emperor Diocletian in 293 AD, so everywhere you go are old walls and arches and such. Split also seemed to be big on hawking a lot of tourist crap to, well, tourists, and had a large maze of stalls selling various forms of jewelry, shot glasses, postcards, and a million other overpriced trinkets that are fun to look at for 15 minutes or so and then make you really disgusted/bored because everything being sold is the same and the sellers all try and jump on you once you touch one of their products (“Oh, I give you good price…”) when really all you wanted to do was look. We only spent a day and a half here, and while it is a cute city, that’s about all we needed…
… soooo we decided to take the night train to Ljubljana, Slovenia, which I loved, but am going to have to write about later because this post is long enough and I’m sleepy. Laku Noch! (Good night in Croatian!)
Dubrovnik:
Located in Southern Croatia, it is a gorgeous city right on the coast of the Adriatic. The old town is surrounded by large fortress walls and only has a only a few main entryways that can be shut off through simply by closing its heavy metal doors. The buildings in the old part all have red-orange wavy shingles on the rooftops, so everything is quite picturesque, especially around sunset, especially when looking down on the city from above. The hostel we stayed at was outside the old town, up in residential area which was tucked up in the rocky foothills above the coastline. It was a fantastic place to stay – we had a great view of the city and ocean below, were outside of the typical touristy atmosphere, and best of all, actually staying in one of the upper floors of a Slovenian family’s house! The woman who ran the hostel didn’t speak much English, but fortunately her 16 year old daughter (who could pass for at least 20 what with the crazy beyond-her-years poise she possesses) spoke excellent English and gave us helpful suggestions about what to see and where to go and how to get where we needed to be.
A few things we did in Dubrovnik:
Took a day-trip to a few of the nearby Elaphite Islands in a small tour group. (Kolocep, Lopud, and Šipan are the three we visited…) The islands were beautiful, the water was unbelievably clear, and we even lucked out and got sunny weather that followed us to all of our travel destinations throughout the trip! There wasn’t a whole lot open on any of the 3 islands we visited (it’s not quite tourist season), but given the large accumulation of junk piles and hotel/beachfront restoration going on, it was pretty apparent everyone was getting ready to get things ready for the summertime vacationers. One of the most hilarious elements of the trip was our boat captain. Now, I know you aren’t supposed to make fun of how people look, that judging by appearance is a shallow way of evaluating a person, but oh man this guy was a real character … a short wiry Croatian man in baggy pants and worn sweatshirt, with longish hair that hadn’t been washed let alone brushed in so long I think the sea, wind and sun turned it all into dreadlocks which ended up sticking out in all directions like a case of perma-bedhead. The fact that he was alternately texting, rolling cigarettes and smoking while controlling the wheel are all humorous little descriptive details, but one of the most surprising things he did was shortly after we set sail. In his broken English, our hospitable captain asks if any of us if we want anything to drink. Without waiting for a response, he opens up a compartment and whips out a bottle of some sort of homemade (?) hard alcohol complete with seaweed and snail in the bottle. This, along with a couple liters of coke and orange soda along with a sleeve of plastic cups are placed out in front of the group free for the taking. The stuff smelled downright nasty, but a few brave souls went ahead and tried it because really, how often in your life are you offered snail alcohol?
Another highlight of Dubrovnik was getting to walk around the perimeter of the old city on the (aforementioned) giant walls. Not surprisingly, it provided some great views of the city and the surrounding area. A final thing we saw was the war memorial there. It is located on the top of a hill and is located in a building that was actually a fort/look-out used during the fighting. The museum had a lot of information (unfortunately only about 15% of it was translated into English from Croatian…), but a lot of the visuals – pictures taken during the fighting, old weaponry and even some video clips of some of the battles itself – were quite powerful. More than anything, it’s crazy to imagine that there was fighting going on right where we were standing as recently as 1991.
Split:
From Dubrovnik, we took a bus up to Split, which is in the middle of the country longitudinally but still on the coast. Despite being just over 200 km, the ride still took 4.5 hours due to semi-frequent stops in other cities along the way and the drifting two-lane coastal highway that the bus took. It was a pretty ride though, and interesting to see the subtle changes in the landscape. The landscape mostly consisted of rocky hills and cliffs (not large enough to be called mountains) that rise up fairly quickly from the coastline and a wide variety of trees and other sorts of greenery, which kind of surprised me from how rocky the surrounding land seemed. Off the coast were sprinklings of islands, mostly small formations inhabited by vegetation and not much else and, of course, the incredibly clear blue-green waters of the Adriatic.
There wasn’t really a whole lot to do in Split, but it was and interesting place to see and we met some cool people in our hostel and got to spend time sitting around playing cards and swapping travel stories. Anyway, a bit more about the city itself: the oldest part of Split was constructed in/around the walls of a castle built by the Roman Emperor Diocletian in 293 AD, so everywhere you go are old walls and arches and such. Split also seemed to be big on hawking a lot of tourist crap to, well, tourists, and had a large maze of stalls selling various forms of jewelry, shot glasses, postcards, and a million other overpriced trinkets that are fun to look at for 15 minutes or so and then make you really disgusted/bored because everything being sold is the same and the sellers all try and jump on you once you touch one of their products (“Oh, I give you good price…”) when really all you wanted to do was look. We only spent a day and a half here, and while it is a cute city, that’s about all we needed…
… soooo we decided to take the night train to Ljubljana, Slovenia, which I loved, but am going to have to write about later because this post is long enough and I’m sleepy. Laku Noch! (Good night in Croatian!)
14 March 2009
13 March 2009
Tour de Andalucía, Parte 2
Okay, one more!
After hanging out in Cádiz Monday through Thursday so I could “work” (I’ll explain the need for those “ “ marks some other time…), we headed off to Granada, one of the most bragged about cities in Andalucía … or maybe it just seems that way to me because Rosa is from G. and has an extremely high opinion of just how amazing the city is. Despite all this build up and my somewhat inflated expectations, I’m happy to say my I was still impressed with the city and had a fun escape away from the beach to the mountains! We got there Thursday night, so we weren’t able to see too much of anything, but we had time to wander around the city a bit the following morning before going up to the Alhambra for our afternoon ticket entry. That’s right, there are so many tourists who come to see the Alhambra each day that it’s necessary to book tickets in advance and sign up either for the morning (8:00-2:00) or afternoon (2:00-8:00) visiting sessions. I find Lisa’s description of it as a playground/amusement park for adults to be pretty appropriate. Reasons why:
1. The long line you have to wait in forever before entering
2. You really should probably have a map to efficiently navigate from one part to the next (we didn’t).
3. There are new and exciting things around every corner… intricate architecture, beautifully painted tiles, expansive green gardens, oh my!
All kidding aside, it was a really cool place to get to visit and I don’t really have a lot of words to explain everything. I’ll put up the pictures I have of it (and the rest of my recent travels) when I have a little more inspiration… the one downside of our visit is that we had icky weather for it – clouds and intermittent rain do not make for the prettiest of views or the best of pictures, but oh well, not a whole lot we could do to change it!
Fortunately, the rest of our days there were much nicer (i.e. sunny and spring-like), so it made wandering around the Albayzin (one of the old Moorish neighborhoods) and the view of the Alhambra with the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the background quite nice. Other things we saw/did while there include: seeing the cathedral where the Reyes Católicos (i.e. Isabel and Ferdinand) have their mausoleum, going on a tour of this obscure little convent with an unintentionally hilarious tour guide (not anything you’ll ever find in Lonely Planet or any other guide book, but so worth the 5 euro), enjoying some delicious free tapas (as in they come automatically when you order a drink), and relaxing on a park bench in the completely un-touristy and wonderful Parque García Lorca a little outside the city center.
Come Sunday, it was time to head back to Cádiz, go to school on Monday during the day, then go hang out in Sevilla for a night and day so Lisa could catch her flight back to Germany the following afternoon.
Whew! I guess I actually have been kinda busy over the last while! This weekend I am definitely staying here in Cádiz and hopefully going to enjoy some relaxing beach time if the weather holds out! Hasta luego!
After hanging out in Cádiz Monday through Thursday so I could “work” (I’ll explain the need for those “ “ marks some other time…), we headed off to Granada, one of the most bragged about cities in Andalucía … or maybe it just seems that way to me because Rosa is from G. and has an extremely high opinion of just how amazing the city is. Despite all this build up and my somewhat inflated expectations, I’m happy to say my I was still impressed with the city and had a fun escape away from the beach to the mountains! We got there Thursday night, so we weren’t able to see too much of anything, but we had time to wander around the city a bit the following morning before going up to the Alhambra for our afternoon ticket entry. That’s right, there are so many tourists who come to see the Alhambra each day that it’s necessary to book tickets in advance and sign up either for the morning (8:00-2:00) or afternoon (2:00-8:00) visiting sessions. I find Lisa’s description of it as a playground/amusement park for adults to be pretty appropriate. Reasons why:
1. The long line you have to wait in forever before entering
2. You really should probably have a map to efficiently navigate from one part to the next (we didn’t).
3. There are new and exciting things around every corner… intricate architecture, beautifully painted tiles, expansive green gardens, oh my!
All kidding aside, it was a really cool place to get to visit and I don’t really have a lot of words to explain everything. I’ll put up the pictures I have of it (and the rest of my recent travels) when I have a little more inspiration… the one downside of our visit is that we had icky weather for it – clouds and intermittent rain do not make for the prettiest of views or the best of pictures, but oh well, not a whole lot we could do to change it!
Fortunately, the rest of our days there were much nicer (i.e. sunny and spring-like), so it made wandering around the Albayzin (one of the old Moorish neighborhoods) and the view of the Alhambra with the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the background quite nice. Other things we saw/did while there include: seeing the cathedral where the Reyes Católicos (i.e. Isabel and Ferdinand) have their mausoleum, going on a tour of this obscure little convent with an unintentionally hilarious tour guide (not anything you’ll ever find in Lonely Planet or any other guide book, but so worth the 5 euro), enjoying some delicious free tapas (as in they come automatically when you order a drink), and relaxing on a park bench in the completely un-touristy and wonderful Parque García Lorca a little outside the city center.
Come Sunday, it was time to head back to Cádiz, go to school on Monday during the day, then go hang out in Sevilla for a night and day so Lisa could catch her flight back to Germany the following afternoon.
Whew! I guess I actually have been kinda busy over the last while! This weekend I am definitely staying here in Cádiz and hopefully going to enjoy some relaxing beach time if the weather holds out! Hasta luego!
Tour de Andalucía, Parte 1
Recently I was lucky to have my friend Lisa came to visit me in Spain for whole two weeks! (yes the same one I met up with in Barcelona and visited in Munich… apparently I only have one friend…?) Rather than sit in my 3x5 foot room and bounce off the walls/each other, we took the time to explore as much of Andalucía as we could… over the two weeks, we were in Jerez, Ronda, Málaga, La Línea, Gibraltar (okay not really part of Spain or Andalucía), Granada, Cádiz (of course) and Sevilla. Oy oy oy that’s a lot of jumping around from place to place, but Spain’s public transport system with its (mostly) reliable bus schedule postings got us safely from place to place.
Since Lisa conveniently arrived mid-week of Carnaval (i.e. week-long vacation for me), I was able to meet her in Jerez, the closest airport to Cádiz. From there we bussed it to Ronda, a cute little white village in the neighboring province of Málaga. What makes Ronda unique from the numerous other cute little white villages of Andalucía is that the old and new parts of the city are located on opposite (separate) halves of a cliff with a dramatic, literally straight-down drop-off running right down the middle of it. Fortunately for the inhabitants and visitors of Ronda, the gorge is spanned by a bridge called el Puente Viejo, so transporting oneself from one side to the other is no big deal. However, the bridge itself is nearly as dramatic and remarkable as the gorge itself – I can’t even imagine how dangerous/difficult it was to construct. Anyway, that day we really lucked out on the weather and got some lovely blue sky and sunshine, which made wandering down the footpath to the bottom of the cliffs and looking up all the more impressive. While this is the main attraction that Ronda has to offer, we also visited the town’s bullring. Thanks to my body’s stubborn circadian rhythm/apparent inability to sleep in, we were the first ones in the bullring and got to walk around most of it without encountering any other camera-wielding tourists.
From Ronda, we went to Málaga, the capital city of the aforementioned Málaga province (sidenote: likewise, Cádiz is the capital of the Cádiz province -- I’ll let you guess which provinces Sevilla and Granada are the capitals of…). Anyway, before I share my opinion of Málaga the city, it needs to be prefaced with the disclaimer that my housemates wrinkled their noses, shook their heads, and called Málaga una caca when I previously mentioned that Lisa and I might go there. I chalked up their negative opinion of the city to the excessive amount of pride that most Spaniards seem to devote to their hometowns… that being said, I gotta admit, Málaga is a caca. True, there’s a decent Picasso museum to visit, an old Arabic fortress/palace to walk around in, and has beach access, it’s not enough to make up for the fact that the rest of the city is just kind of ugly… and a little boring… and I have to admit that in comparison, Cádiz’s beaches are far superior to Málaga’s mediocre ones. Sorry to hate on you Málaga, but I don’t plan on going back any time soon.
The last leg of our journey before heading towards Cádiz was a visit to La Línea/Gibraltar. La Línea is the Spanish city right across the border (literally) from Gibraltar. Since it’s a lot less expensive, we stayed in a hostel in La Línea, but walked across the border through the Gibraltar airport’s runway and went to see what Gib has to offer. The town itself creeped me out for some reason … I’ve never been to England, but now I kinda feel like I have. The pound, not the euro is the official currency, there are those obnoxious red telephone boxes everywhere and British flags flying, and the strangest thing of all: everywhere we walked, I kept hearing… English (gasp!). In all reality, it seemed like everyone there speaks/understands either language, but I kept getting confused and didn’t know how to talk to anyone, so I just made Lisa do it.
Anyway, I preferred walking around the Rock much more than being in the town of Gibraltar itself. Rather than pay for a cable car ride up, we decided it would be much better to get to the top walking, so we did. It wasn’t an especially sunny or hot day, but it was pretty humid and the road up was decently steep, so as a true recipient of my mother’s sweat genes, I acquired quite the accumulation of perspiration while trekking up to the top. Once finally there, it was fantastic. We walked around the Great Siege Tunnels, went in St. Michael’s Cave, and visited the Ape Den. I don’t feel like "den" is really an appropriate term for what it is though. When I hear the word den, I think of dimly lit animal caves that you need to duck when you walk through them… I guess it doesn’t really make sense for apes to live in this sort of environment, but that’s what I had been imagining during the laborious journey up the Rock. The “den” was actually just this open area right off the main road where a whole bunch of apes hang out and roam around freely. They are at complete liberty to sleep, eat, and play anywhere they please – and they're definitely not scared at all by humans. In fact, when one of the teachers at my school went to the rock, an ape took some snack food right out of his wife’s purse! Luckily we weren’t carrying anything edible, so we took some pictures and watched the babies jump around and play with each other. It was like going to the zoo, but better because the animals aren’t trapped in cages!
Okay, well that’s more than enough details about the Ronda/Málaga/Gib trip, so I’ll bring this entry a close. Try not to get too sad, because more Tour de Andalucía coverage is soon to follow…
Since Lisa conveniently arrived mid-week of Carnaval (i.e. week-long vacation for me), I was able to meet her in Jerez, the closest airport to Cádiz. From there we bussed it to Ronda, a cute little white village in the neighboring province of Málaga. What makes Ronda unique from the numerous other cute little white villages of Andalucía is that the old and new parts of the city are located on opposite (separate) halves of a cliff with a dramatic, literally straight-down drop-off running right down the middle of it. Fortunately for the inhabitants and visitors of Ronda, the gorge is spanned by a bridge called el Puente Viejo, so transporting oneself from one side to the other is no big deal. However, the bridge itself is nearly as dramatic and remarkable as the gorge itself – I can’t even imagine how dangerous/difficult it was to construct. Anyway, that day we really lucked out on the weather and got some lovely blue sky and sunshine, which made wandering down the footpath to the bottom of the cliffs and looking up all the more impressive. While this is the main attraction that Ronda has to offer, we also visited the town’s bullring. Thanks to my body’s stubborn circadian rhythm/apparent inability to sleep in, we were the first ones in the bullring and got to walk around most of it without encountering any other camera-wielding tourists.
From Ronda, we went to Málaga, the capital city of the aforementioned Málaga province (sidenote: likewise, Cádiz is the capital of the Cádiz province -- I’ll let you guess which provinces Sevilla and Granada are the capitals of…). Anyway, before I share my opinion of Málaga the city, it needs to be prefaced with the disclaimer that my housemates wrinkled their noses, shook their heads, and called Málaga una caca when I previously mentioned that Lisa and I might go there. I chalked up their negative opinion of the city to the excessive amount of pride that most Spaniards seem to devote to their hometowns… that being said, I gotta admit, Málaga is a caca. True, there’s a decent Picasso museum to visit, an old Arabic fortress/palace to walk around in, and has beach access, it’s not enough to make up for the fact that the rest of the city is just kind of ugly… and a little boring… and I have to admit that in comparison, Cádiz’s beaches are far superior to Málaga’s mediocre ones. Sorry to hate on you Málaga, but I don’t plan on going back any time soon.
The last leg of our journey before heading towards Cádiz was a visit to La Línea/Gibraltar. La Línea is the Spanish city right across the border (literally) from Gibraltar. Since it’s a lot less expensive, we stayed in a hostel in La Línea, but walked across the border through the Gibraltar airport’s runway and went to see what Gib has to offer. The town itself creeped me out for some reason … I’ve never been to England, but now I kinda feel like I have. The pound, not the euro is the official currency, there are those obnoxious red telephone boxes everywhere and British flags flying, and the strangest thing of all: everywhere we walked, I kept hearing… English (gasp!). In all reality, it seemed like everyone there speaks/understands either language, but I kept getting confused and didn’t know how to talk to anyone, so I just made Lisa do it.
Anyway, I preferred walking around the Rock much more than being in the town of Gibraltar itself. Rather than pay for a cable car ride up, we decided it would be much better to get to the top walking, so we did. It wasn’t an especially sunny or hot day, but it was pretty humid and the road up was decently steep, so as a true recipient of my mother’s sweat genes, I acquired quite the accumulation of perspiration while trekking up to the top. Once finally there, it was fantastic. We walked around the Great Siege Tunnels, went in St. Michael’s Cave, and visited the Ape Den. I don’t feel like "den" is really an appropriate term for what it is though. When I hear the word den, I think of dimly lit animal caves that you need to duck when you walk through them… I guess it doesn’t really make sense for apes to live in this sort of environment, but that’s what I had been imagining during the laborious journey up the Rock. The “den” was actually just this open area right off the main road where a whole bunch of apes hang out and roam around freely. They are at complete liberty to sleep, eat, and play anywhere they please – and they're definitely not scared at all by humans. In fact, when one of the teachers at my school went to the rock, an ape took some snack food right out of his wife’s purse! Luckily we weren’t carrying anything edible, so we took some pictures and watched the babies jump around and play with each other. It was like going to the zoo, but better because the animals aren’t trapped in cages!
Okay, well that’s more than enough details about the Ronda/Málaga/Gib trip, so I’ll bring this entry a close. Try not to get too sad, because more Tour de Andalucía coverage is soon to follow…
12 March 2009
Oooops.
It´s official, I´m a bad blog keeper. Not that you all want to hear every detail of my life (nor do I want to share everything with everyone, no offense), I do wish I included a few more updates... if I don´t write stuff down, I just forget about it (I guess you could say I´m becoming more like my mother everyday... hehe, love you Mom). Anyway, I´ve been up to quite an assortment of things lately and would like to give a bare bones outline about what I´ve seen and done the last few weeks. To avoid making this the longest, densest post ever, I´ll split up recent events into a few more managable posts, so keep checking this over the next few days!
First thing on the list is el Carnaval de Cádiz. I think I could write multiple blog entries on this alone, but basically it is a Marti Gras a la español and amplified by about 1000. Everyone and I do mean everyone -- babies in strollers to gray haired folks dresses up in wild costumes and celebrates... what exactly, I can´t say, but for a whole week there was a constant stream of confetti, parades, musical performances and a general vibe of frenetic energy is unleashed upon the city. Forgive the bragging, but it is said that Cádiz has the best/craziest Carnaval in all of Spain, and I must admit, I fully believe it lives up to its reputation. People stay out all night in their costumes dancing, singing, socializing and drinking on the streets... all of this makes for some pretty good times because when thousands of people are packed like sardines into plazas, streets, and pretty much any other public space available AND they are wearing silly outfits AND have varying levels of sobriety, well.... complete strangers can turn into best friends after about five minutes of chatting.
One part of this that I liked was that groups of friends tended to dress up in similarly themed costumes. Examples include life sized tetris shapes, a pack of hungry hungry hippoes, various farm animals and a group of Guantanamo prisoners. Popular fall-back costumes include disney characters, pirates, fairies, and cross-dressing in general.
Saturday night/Sunday morning was the biggest night of celebration with the most number of people on the street. By 7:00 Sunday morning, all the plazas contained enormous piles of garbage everywhere, the streets smelled strongly of urine, and an unmistakeable stench of general filth hung around in the air. Don´t worry, by 10:00 city workers were already sweeping up and disposing of the garbage and hosing down streets, so by midday everything was sparkly and new again. I´m not writing this post from my computer, but when I get the chance I´ll post a couple pics for you all...
Okay, that´s all I have for now, so stay tuned for the next segment of my update!
First thing on the list is el Carnaval de Cádiz. I think I could write multiple blog entries on this alone, but basically it is a Marti Gras a la español and amplified by about 1000. Everyone and I do mean everyone -- babies in strollers to gray haired folks dresses up in wild costumes and celebrates... what exactly, I can´t say, but for a whole week there was a constant stream of confetti, parades, musical performances and a general vibe of frenetic energy is unleashed upon the city. Forgive the bragging, but it is said that Cádiz has the best/craziest Carnaval in all of Spain, and I must admit, I fully believe it lives up to its reputation. People stay out all night in their costumes dancing, singing, socializing and drinking on the streets... all of this makes for some pretty good times because when thousands of people are packed like sardines into plazas, streets, and pretty much any other public space available AND they are wearing silly outfits AND have varying levels of sobriety, well.... complete strangers can turn into best friends after about five minutes of chatting.
One part of this that I liked was that groups of friends tended to dress up in similarly themed costumes. Examples include life sized tetris shapes, a pack of hungry hungry hippoes, various farm animals and a group of Guantanamo prisoners. Popular fall-back costumes include disney characters, pirates, fairies, and cross-dressing in general.
Saturday night/Sunday morning was the biggest night of celebration with the most number of people on the street. By 7:00 Sunday morning, all the plazas contained enormous piles of garbage everywhere, the streets smelled strongly of urine, and an unmistakeable stench of general filth hung around in the air. Don´t worry, by 10:00 city workers were already sweeping up and disposing of the garbage and hosing down streets, so by midday everything was sparkly and new again. I´m not writing this post from my computer, but when I get the chance I´ll post a couple pics for you all...
Okay, that´s all I have for now, so stay tuned for the next segment of my update!
15 February 2009
25 Things...
Hey all, Colleen wanted to publish another blog entry, but apparently she’s just too busy what with hanging out on the beach and enjoying this weekend’s sunny blue skies. Instead, she put me, Cádiz, in charge of this post. Since the “list 25 things about yourself” is all the rage on Facebook, I think I’ll join the crowd and share some random facts about myself with you blog readers…
1. The beaches here yield some pretty gorgeous shells, but no sand crabs
2. It doesn’t get light until 8:00am.
3. My first name was Gadir, which changed into Gadis, which turned into Cádiz, which stuck.
4. People from Cádiz are still called Gaditanos.
5. The grass to dog ratio isn’t too favorable around these parts, so it’s important to have nimble feet/be careful walking on the sidewalks unless you enjoy the scent of dog doo on your shoes.
6. Chirigotas are currently rocking the city’s music scene.
7. Chirigotas are mini-choirs that perform during Carnival season. The songs performed tend to be cleverly worded and humorous in a social commentary/criticism sort of way.
8. Which brings me to Carnival, aka party of the year, where everyone dresses up in costumes, hangs out in the streets at all hours of the day/night, and has a good ol’ time.
9. Official business hours are from 9 to 2 and 5 or 6ish – 8 or 9ish… Monday through Friday.
10. La Caleta, the beach near old town, was a filming site for one of the James Bond movies. Apparently it looks like Cuba?
11. Gaditano food staples include: fried fish, fried potatoes, egg and potato omlettes (why would anyone cook vegetables?). Don’t worry, despite this we’ll do our best to convince you that we have the best cuisine around.
12. If you wait for your turn to speak in a conversation, you’ll never get a word in. Just start talking if you have something to say, and if someone else is talking while you are, just talk louder.
13. Sunsets are consistently amazing.
14. Matching your outfit before you leave the house is serious business. Earring, belt, shoes, headband, scarf, bag all the same color? Does that color happen to be purple or red? Okay, great, then you’re good to go.
15. Job security here is great. Once the government appoints you a position, you’ve got it for life. Great for keeping individual stress levels to a minimum, but not a great technique for ensuring productivity around the workplace.
16. All schools are surrounded by walls and/or gates. It’s necessary to push a button so you can get buzzed in. Every. Time.
17. XOXO doesn’t mean hugs and kisses. It actually denotes a slang term for female genitalia, … and in Cádiz specifically, it’s used as a nickname (for girls). Example: Oye, xoxo, qué pasa?
18. Other Gaditano language quirks: letters and sometimes whole syllables just aren’t pronounced. The “-ado” part of “escuchado” is “escuchao”, just like “esto” is “eto” and “es que” is compacted into “eque”.
19. The “ch” sound isn’t that popular around these parts either. The words coche, leche, and ocho all sound more like “co-shay, ley-shay, and oh-show.
20. The local government provides free wifi in a good number of the plazas… provided you happen to have a laptop that is.
21. A jar of peanut butter costs 4.40. A similarly sized jar of nutella costs 1.49. Huh?
22. Bus fare in 2009 is 0.98. In 2008 it was 0.93.
23. Foreigners are called giris, not gringos.
24. The American accent is much more difficult to understand than the British accent.
25. There is one McDonalds and one Burger King, both located within two blocks of one the most prominent high rise hotels… someone’s gotta feed the tourists…
1. The beaches here yield some pretty gorgeous shells, but no sand crabs
2. It doesn’t get light until 8:00am.
3. My first name was Gadir, which changed into Gadis, which turned into Cádiz, which stuck.
4. People from Cádiz are still called Gaditanos.
5. The grass to dog ratio isn’t too favorable around these parts, so it’s important to have nimble feet/be careful walking on the sidewalks unless you enjoy the scent of dog doo on your shoes.
6. Chirigotas are currently rocking the city’s music scene.
7. Chirigotas are mini-choirs that perform during Carnival season. The songs performed tend to be cleverly worded and humorous in a social commentary/criticism sort of way.
8. Which brings me to Carnival, aka party of the year, where everyone dresses up in costumes, hangs out in the streets at all hours of the day/night, and has a good ol’ time.
9. Official business hours are from 9 to 2 and 5 or 6ish – 8 or 9ish… Monday through Friday.
10. La Caleta, the beach near old town, was a filming site for one of the James Bond movies. Apparently it looks like Cuba?
11. Gaditano food staples include: fried fish, fried potatoes, egg and potato omlettes (why would anyone cook vegetables?). Don’t worry, despite this we’ll do our best to convince you that we have the best cuisine around.
12. If you wait for your turn to speak in a conversation, you’ll never get a word in. Just start talking if you have something to say, and if someone else is talking while you are, just talk louder.
13. Sunsets are consistently amazing.
14. Matching your outfit before you leave the house is serious business. Earring, belt, shoes, headband, scarf, bag all the same color? Does that color happen to be purple or red? Okay, great, then you’re good to go.
15. Job security here is great. Once the government appoints you a position, you’ve got it for life. Great for keeping individual stress levels to a minimum, but not a great technique for ensuring productivity around the workplace.
16. All schools are surrounded by walls and/or gates. It’s necessary to push a button so you can get buzzed in. Every. Time.
17. XOXO doesn’t mean hugs and kisses. It actually denotes a slang term for female genitalia, … and in Cádiz specifically, it’s used as a nickname (for girls). Example: Oye, xoxo, qué pasa?
18. Other Gaditano language quirks: letters and sometimes whole syllables just aren’t pronounced. The “-ado” part of “escuchado” is “escuchao”, just like “esto” is “eto” and “es que” is compacted into “eque”.
19. The “ch” sound isn’t that popular around these parts either. The words coche, leche, and ocho all sound more like “co-shay, ley-shay, and oh-show.
20. The local government provides free wifi in a good number of the plazas… provided you happen to have a laptop that is.
21. A jar of peanut butter costs 4.40. A similarly sized jar of nutella costs 1.49. Huh?
22. Bus fare in 2009 is 0.98. In 2008 it was 0.93.
23. Foreigners are called giris, not gringos.
24. The American accent is much more difficult to understand than the British accent.
25. There is one McDonalds and one Burger King, both located within two blocks of one the most prominent high rise hotels… someone’s gotta feed the tourists…
01 February 2009
Visiting Vejer
Which of the following statements is true of my life during the past week:
a) The person in front of me at the grocery store bought 2 pineapples and 21 bags of mixed leaf salad.
b) I went to a little pueblo located on top of a cliff/hill called Vejer de la Frontera where all of the buildings are blindingly white and oh so cute.
c) Yesterday was the warmest, most Spring-like day of the year, which was promptly followed up by the storm of the century last night including rain and wind so intense it made its way through the window cracks and pooled up/flowed over the sills and onto the ground.
d) All of the above.
For those who are curious, the correct answer to the multiple choice question is indeed the option d). However, since the most interesting subject from the list above is b), that's what I'll talk about. On Saturday afternoon (the beautiful, warm, sunny day) my friends Cat, Lauren and I hopped on a bus to Vejer de la Frontera, a tiny little town about an hour and half away from Cádiz. It is one of the typical "Pueblos Blancos" ("White Villages") in the area, and while there's not actually a lot happening in the pueblo, it's still quite a cool visit. Vejer has everything you might expect of a Spanish pueblo: narrow winding cobblestone streets that are begging to be wandered on, a couple plazas with fountains and benches for the locals to while away the afternoon hours and of course some beautiful views of the surrounding landscape that demand to be taken in. Pretty much all we did was walk around and take pictures of Vejer's old church, castle, the aforementioned beautiful view and all of the other odd but charming features of the pueblo, architecture-wise and just otherwise. After being oh-so-Spanish by taking a late afternoon break for a leisurely cafe manchada, we still had a couple hours before the next (and last) bus to Cádiz to come by, so we bummed around the various Chinese bazaars (i.e. the only open stores) and looked at oh so many inexpensive things we didn't know were missing from our lives including a soccer ball sized tennis ball (I could scarcely resist this treasured item), a mask of a bare butt (to be worn on your hind-side), and pool noodles (those long tubular foam flotation devices) that emanate a pre-recorded laugh every time they are touched. I never realized so much crap existed in my life!
Anyway, the anticlimactic ending to this story is that we got on the bus when the time came and made it back to Cádiz without any incident. All in all a good Saturday afternoon adventure!
14 January 2009
True Confession
Those who have traveled extensively with me before know that I can suffer some pretty severe Travel Paranoia (referred to as TP from here on out). Symptoms of TP include but are not limited to compulsively checking to make sure that one's passport hasn't been lost/stolen/spontaneously combusted, multiple revisions of train/bus/transport vehicle schedules, premature panic attacks when a ticket isn't instantly located precisely where it had been stored so it would NOT be misplaced, etc, etc. Kind of a weird infirmity to suffer from considering the traveling I've gotten to do, but nothing about TP is logical. I like to think that every new trip is a therapy session to help alleviate myself from unnecessary spikes in blood pressure and extreme psychological distress.
Okay, so I'm obviously (semi) joking about TP, but that being said, I had some pretty good reasons to be a little nervous about making sure I actually made it to Munich. Potential calamity inducing elements included:
1) Finding a train/bus that could get me to the Jerez Airport for my 7:00am flight. Jerez is a city about 40 minutes away by train or bus, and while schedules for public transport in Spain always seem a little haphazard to me (that could be the TP talking), it didn't help that I had booked my flight for January 6th -- aka el Día de los Reyes Magos. Los Reyes Magos (Three Kings Day) is a major holiday as it is the day that Spaniards exchange gifts with their family and children receive their gifts that the Reyes magically bring overnight (sidenote: Santa Claus is definitely present thanks to globalization, but not the main gift giver of the winter holidays). Crap, why didn't I think about this when I scheduled my flight?!?
2) Iberia, the airline company I was flying, has been has been having problems with large numbers of employees going on strike all throughout the holiday season, especially with flights that were flying through Madrid (which mine was). As a result, a large percentage of Iberia's flights were being cancelled and/or late.
3) I was to arrive in Munich 45 minutes before my friend Lisa, who was flying back to Germany where she works from her home in Minnesota where she spent Christmas and New Years with her family. What if something happened and she wasn't on her flight? I wouldn't have anywhere to go, no knowledge of the language, and what if I couldn't contact her...?
I'm happy to say that everything turned out just fine thanks to an overnight stay in Jerez and a friendly Bolivian taxi driver named Juanjo who got me safely to the airport. And while other people I talked to had problems with Iberia, all of my flights made it to their destination with minimal delays. After some ingenious sign reading (ps- we are so lucky that English is used as a default language in airports, restaurants, general international settings), I found my way to the adjacent terminal and was able to find Lisa without incident. From there, I was golden, as she has been living in Munich for close to a year now and has picked up enough German to operate as a functional member in society and could tell me everywhere I should go and how to get there.
I'd give Munich a thumbs up in my general review of things, and while I enjoyed exploring the city, I do have some issues with it. Within the first day of walking around the city, Germany's obsession with order and beauty became quite apparent. The architecture throughout the city and the art I saw in museums was incredibly immaculate, meticulously constructed as if the only way to achieve beauty was through eye pleasing symmetry and balance. So I guess what I'm saying is that everything was pretty to look at because of its predictably well polished appearance, but its perfection almost became uninteresting after a while. Don't get me wrong, everything was quite cool and I was quite impressed with what Munich has to offer, it's just that unique/weird/impractical things are usually so much more intriguing... then again, maybe I'm just turning into a bit of a travel snob. I mean really, who complains about when things are too perfect? Me, apparently....
Okay, so I'm obviously (semi) joking about TP, but that being said, I had some pretty good reasons to be a little nervous about making sure I actually made it to Munich. Potential calamity inducing elements included:
1) Finding a train/bus that could get me to the Jerez Airport for my 7:00am flight. Jerez is a city about 40 minutes away by train or bus, and while schedules for public transport in Spain always seem a little haphazard to me (that could be the TP talking), it didn't help that I had booked my flight for January 6th -- aka el Día de los Reyes Magos. Los Reyes Magos (Three Kings Day) is a major holiday as it is the day that Spaniards exchange gifts with their family and children receive their gifts that the Reyes magically bring overnight (sidenote: Santa Claus is definitely present thanks to globalization, but not the main gift giver of the winter holidays). Crap, why didn't I think about this when I scheduled my flight?!?
2) Iberia, the airline company I was flying, has been has been having problems with large numbers of employees going on strike all throughout the holiday season, especially with flights that were flying through Madrid (which mine was). As a result, a large percentage of Iberia's flights were being cancelled and/or late.
3) I was to arrive in Munich 45 minutes before my friend Lisa, who was flying back to Germany where she works from her home in Minnesota where she spent Christmas and New Years with her family. What if something happened and she wasn't on her flight? I wouldn't have anywhere to go, no knowledge of the language, and what if I couldn't contact her...?
I'm happy to say that everything turned out just fine thanks to an overnight stay in Jerez and a friendly Bolivian taxi driver named Juanjo who got me safely to the airport. And while other people I talked to had problems with Iberia, all of my flights made it to their destination with minimal delays. After some ingenious sign reading (ps- we are so lucky that English is used as a default language in airports, restaurants, general international settings), I found my way to the adjacent terminal and was able to find Lisa without incident. From there, I was golden, as she has been living in Munich for close to a year now and has picked up enough German to operate as a functional member in society and could tell me everywhere I should go and how to get there.
I'd give Munich a thumbs up in my general review of things, and while I enjoyed exploring the city, I do have some issues with it. Within the first day of walking around the city, Germany's obsession with order and beauty became quite apparent. The architecture throughout the city and the art I saw in museums was incredibly immaculate, meticulously constructed as if the only way to achieve beauty was through eye pleasing symmetry and balance. So I guess what I'm saying is that everything was pretty to look at because of its predictably well polished appearance, but its perfection almost became uninteresting after a while. Don't get me wrong, everything was quite cool and I was quite impressed with what Munich has to offer, it's just that unique/weird/impractical things are usually so much more intriguing... then again, maybe I'm just turning into a bit of a travel snob. I mean really, who complains about when things are too perfect? Me, apparently....
12 January 2009
Winter Traveling, Round 2: Munich
Hey, I've posted some pictures online from my trip to Munich. They aren't of everywhere I went (even though there are about a million of them...) because some of the pics are on my friend's camera... hopefully I'll get them soon though!
Here's the photo link:
Here's the photo link:
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| Munich |
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