A forward: I'm creating this blog so as to not need to send several individual e-mails to those who have expressed interest in how things are going here in Spain. One of the main reasons I've decided to come to Spain is to perfect my Spanish and so I'm fully immersing myself in the language and culture; I'm reading books, watching movies, listening to music etc. all in Spanish. Due to this I want to point out a few things related to this blog 1) I want to spend very little time on it because its English 2) Its very difficult for me to switch languages on a dime 3) Because I'm trying to squash all things English I can already tell I'm losing my grip on the language. The accumulation of these things amounts to a rather shoddy blog I'm producing. If you want a good read in English grab a translated copy of The Brothers Karamazov. This blog is not aspiring to be anything more a quick glance into my life while I'm abroad please excuse all flaws, lack of rhetorical devices, non-sensical sentences and general grammatical errors 'cause Dear English: Sorry to put this so bluntly, but I've moved on.
La Llegada y la primera semana
Traveling to Spain was pretty painless. I must say arriving in a new country was never so simple for me as was getting to Spain. The 22 hours of plane and train time was really not painful, just a bit exhausting. I was immediately impressed by the public transportation system here, very clear maps and signs made for flawless navigation of the underground and train and easy arrival here in Alcala de Henares. However, stress level increased when it came time to find the apartment where I was going to be staying the first week.
I decided to try out the Couch Surfing website for the first time in all my travels after realizing the cheapest Hostel I could find in Alcala was 22 euro a night. This is a standard price for Spain but I really didn't want to pay money to stay in a Hostal in a city that I was going to end up living in for 6 and ½ months, I'd rather pay to visit new places. I requested couches of 4 Alcala residents about a week before I left for Alcala and was accepted by one Senor Emilio Esteban. His Couch Surfing profile, great reviews, and our really positive e-mail interactions made me feel relatively reassured that he wasn't a weirdy and also made me excited to meet him. When I asked him for directions to his house from the train station he replied that he would meet me at the station to keep me from having to wander through the city; just give him a call when I arrived. Sounds smooth! But don't be fooled. Arriving in the train station I find myself bombarded by a beggar/fortune teller who is really insistent. “No” is the same in both languages so there really couldn't have been a language barrier but while I am standing at the pay phone trying to figure out how the thing works she is pulling my arm and trying to get in between me and the pay phone. Thus, stressomiter increases and I still really can't get the payphone to work. The gypsy woman ends up showing me a little bit of how to use the pay phone and also points me in the direction of another across the street that might work better. After her help I figured I did owe her something and allowed her to read my palms. She foresaw positive travels, long life and love. She also foresaw me giving her more money to get a more in depth reading...on that point she was mistaken. Okay so zooming along—I can't figure out how to call Emilio and end up asking directions and walking there. It was only like a 10min walk from the station. I didn't know what apartment number Emilio lived in and so I couldn't call up to him to get let me in so I waited for maybe 20 min in front of the apt building until he magically showed up from around the corner. Yay! Up on the 7th floor Emilio shows me the great view of the city park, the skyscrapers of Madrid, and the mountains. He also offers me not the couch, but his own room and bed saying he'll sleep on the couch. I was really blown away by his generosity and wanted to refuse but feeling exhausted from my day of travels and desiring nothing more than a private nap couldn't bring myself to say no. In the 7 days I spent with Emilio and his flat mate Hector I was confronted with only more generosity and good, great, better and best times. Both are architecture students and in the middle of big projects but still included me in their everyday activities, went out with me on my birthday, and more. My first week here in Spain went so well. I felt happy, comfortable, and safe here and all those feelings are directly attributed to Emilio as well as Hector. So nice to have such great friends here and just to be around such quality people. Well, I finally found my own room in a shared apartment the other day and, sadly, had to say my goodbyes to Emilio and Hector. We had a parting dinner the night I left with one of the friends. I made a traditional apple pie to share and they showed me how to make Tortilla Espanola. It was a pie shaped food cultural exchange night for sure. I think they really liked the pie, none of them had ever had it but had always seen it American movies and were excited to try it. They joked about how we should leave it to cool in the window so that children could thieve it away. I related the recipe to them because they all wanted to know after trying it.
I'm now living with a woman from Cuba, Noelia, who works for a home security company and a student and aspiring rapper, Ivan from Galicia, Spain. Ivan only practices his rapping when Noelia isn't home. I have a small but everything you need sort of a room with a very uncomfortable mattress. The apartment is well lit which I really appreciate after looking at some windowless apartments... Its clean and nice. Noelia and Ivan are no Emilio y Hector but they are both friendly and nice so I really can't complain.
Colegio Salvador Dali
So for all of you whom I informed I would be teaching at a high school, umm well I was mistaken. The “colegio” in Mexico means only highschool but here in Spain can just mean school as well. The school is 3 years old to 12 so like preschool to 6th grade. I have mostly 4th 5th and 6th graders with a one class of 4 year olds and one of 5 years old. There are three other Cultural and Language Auxiliares at the school—Blake and Lisa from the U.S. and Francesca from the U.K. We all work Monday-Thursday 18 hours a week. So far I've just been mostly talking one on one with the students working on their English. All classes except for Spanish and Math are taught in English and most of the older kids have a pretty good command of the language. For almost all the teachers english is their second language so they all pass on the same mistakes and accent to the kids and so thats why this program bring us native speakers there was started. The teachers ask us for pronunciation help and we help them learn words and explain language and culture to teachers and students.
The kids are really sweet and call out my name in the hallways and are always excited to get their one on one time to talk with me. Its really a coosh gig. I started working the 15th of December and I get paid all vacations so I'm getting paid for the 2 weeks of vacation we have coming up here pretty soon even though I'll have only worked 2 weeks total. I'm getting excited to be paid in euros so I don't have to deal with exchange rates anymore.
The kids are also kinda bad. Not a lot of raising your hand to talk really happens here and they tend to get a little out of hand sometimes but the teachers don't really discipline them so what can you expect? The teacher student dynamic here is also very different. The teachers threaten to kill the kids when they are behaving badly, make motions to be slitting their wrists when frustrated, and are kind of informal and (according to my American comparisons) are kind of mean and rude sometimes. I think this is a just a culture difference but it certainly is different than what I'm used to.
I really like the organization of the school. Teachers all work as teachers, duh, but then they also have other side jobs like also being the school secretary, care taker, etc. I just like how everyone just kinda chips in to make the school work and so the positions within the school don't seem so power stratified.
Adventuras en Andalucia
I have returned from my 12 day exploration of Andalucia Spain! Andalucia is the southern most province of Spain, its tip reaching down towards Morocco. It is quite a different place culturally than the central province of Madrid in which I live. What makes Andalucia most interesting to me is the blending of the Roman, Moorish, and gitano (gypsy) cultures. In any given city one can see the distinct influences of each of these cultures. There is not one single icon which I believe represents these regions best but an equal blend of flamenco, roman ruins, ancient mosques, arab and catholic palaces, olive groves, and orange trees sagging with ripe fruit, just to name a few. I formed a bit of a hexagon, although missing on side, as I traveled through Andalucia hitting Granada, Nerja, Ronda, Sevilla, and lastly Cordoba.
Granada
Granada is a 5 hour bus ride from Madrid but completely enjoyable as we passed through miles of beautiful olive grove countryside during the sun rise. It took me about an hour and a half to find my hostel in Granada but I suppose that is the consequence for booking a hostel in the narrow, winding, maze of streets known as the Albaicin. Once I was finally able to locate my hostel I had no regrets about staying there because of the great atmosphere, friendly fellow travelers, and awesome district in which it was located. The Ablaicin is full of Middle Eastern cuisine, Moroccan tea houses, and other miscellaneous Arab charm which has since ignited a desire to travel to Morocco while I am here in Spain.
I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas in Granada seeing sights, admiring street art and hanging with new found hostel buddies which made me feel like I was doing everything but traveling alone. On the 26th, after two days of admiring the Alhambra from its perch on the hillside above Granada I was finally able to go see the grandeur for myself. All I can really write about this is that it took a lot of concentration to cut out all tourists there to get the perfect photograph of them with the Alhambra to show all their friends but in the moments in which I did achieve this will certainly stick with me forever.
Later that day I went to the hot springs about 20 minutes from the city center, well that was how long it was supposed to take... We piled 7 people in the little european rental car two of my Australian buddies were renting to travel across Spain and after asking directions two or three times and being laughed at when they saw our little city car trying to make it there (and asking directions was me, as I was the only one who could speak Spanish, walking up in the dark countryside in the middle of nowhere to these little camping gypsy communities). After searching for about an hour, finally ditching the little car on the side of the road and walking, just out of no where we stumbled across a steamy oasis full of jovial late night Spanish soakers. We left our clothes a good distance from the hot spring because it was a mud pit leading up to it and had a well worth it soak in the natural spring in the cold night air.
After the soak we trudged back through the mud to our clothes but realized we were not able to put them back on because we were just to durn muddy. Obviously the only solution was for Nathan, our Aussie driver, to drop of as close as he could to the hostel (but remember it is situated in narrow, windy, people only streets) so that turned out to be about 5 blocks away, and we walked/ran back in our towels, barefoot and muddy through the city and into the hostel. We created quite a scene and had shop keepers running out of there store saying, “Aren't you cold?! Aren't you cold?!” and trying to offer us clothes/blankets from their store for our journey back to the hostel. Needless to say, we attracted quite a crowd, our group full of scantily clad, wet and muddy foreigners walking quickly and barefoot through the streets of Granada. Ah, it was a good time though.
Nerja
Nerja beach town on the Mediterranean highly frequented by British vacationers but it is small and still retains much of the authenticity that traditional “resort beach towns” have all lost. I decided to go because I didn't want to come this far south without seeing the beach and because I'd heard there was an awesome cave nearby. It was a beautiful day at the beach! Warm and sunny. I spent a good portion of my time just reading on the sand. I also went to these caves.... whoa, what a tourist trap. The cave has HUGE caverns and features the worlds largest column formed by a stalactite meeting a stalagmite. It is also Spain's third most frequented tourist attraction, preceded by the Prado and the Alhambra, so that should have been my give away to stay away! They did not permit flash photography but at one section of the cave they had a huge professional camera set up with monster flash where they mandated you get your picture taken before going on to see the rest of the cave. Then they had fake cave noises of dripping water etc playing and other terrible gimmicks. I paid 9 euro for a 30min walk of the cave and just felt sad afterwards. Boo, needless to say I didn't buy my picture they tried to sell me at the end.
I returned to the beach to watch the sunset which was especially cool for me being an west coast girl and always seeing the sun set directly over the ocean; being at the tip of Spain I watched it disappear over Spanish mainland while the water lay in front of me.
Ronda
Ronda is one a several white hill towns in the stretch of territory between Granada and Sevilla that not many people frequent so I decided it would make a good place to visit. I woke up the morning of the 28th and was eating breakfast in the hostel's kitchen when I heard other people talking about going to Ronda as well that day which surprised me because its kind of a lesser known place and it was difficult for me to find a way to reach Ronda, no buses go there but after some searching I was able to find a train. The folks at breakfast had rented a car which was now full but after I finished talking with the car people another hosteler, Mark, expressed an interest in going with me to Ronda on the train and so we headed out that afternoon.
Ronda is a beautiful, white, small city with a deep gorge cutting through the center of it dividing the old and new city. It was a nice change to be spending the night in a small city were people seem friendlier and the countryside surrounds you.
We woke up early the next morning to make it to la cueva de la pileta. A cave I was most looking forward to seeing, especially after being let down by the tourist trap Nerja caves. This cave is privately owned by the family that discovered it about 60 years ago but they work with archeologists with conservation and research. The cave has more that 3,000 Neolithic and Paleolithic paintings, the oldest of which is dated to be 25,000 years old. These paintings are among the best preserved in the world and were mostly just lines or patterns but there were several horses, goats, oxen, and one giant fish. The cave itself was also quite a wonder with a couple of lakes inside, lots smoke stains on the wall from ancient fire pits, as well as some left behind pottery. It was a real adventure getting there though!
I have two guide books, the Let's go! Backpackers Series which won my heart over when I went to Mexico and Rick Steves', both offer directions to the cave. Rick says 'pay 55 euro for a round trip taxi, its possible to get there without wheels but don't bother' and Let's Go! Tells me take a bus to Benajoan, walk through the town and ask the locals to point you in the direction of the cave and then follow the highway that leads there 4.5 km without straying off the highway or else your sure to get lost on a mountain path.
Wanting to see the cave, not wanting to spend 50 euro doing it and now having Mark to accompany me along he highway, I went with Let's Go's “directions”. We set out at 7am to go to the cave and found ourselves a) In the dark (sun doesn't rise until about 8:30a) b) In an intense fog c) Without luggage storage because the bus station was inexplicably not open. Thus, we missed our train to Benojoan as we waited for light and for the bus station to open so we could use their luggage storage. The bus station eventually opened when it felt like it, just like everything else does in Spain, having gotten rid of 2 out of the 3 scary factors keeping us from going to the cave we caught a bus to the city and found our way to the highway and began our foggy, windy, uphill climb. I had a good laugh as we passed several “panoramic view points” but all there was to see was about 5 feet in front of you and then fogggggg. Okay so obviously I was totally impressed by the Pileta Cave and it was totally worth the trek.
The town of Benajoan is very very small so there were only a few buses or trains going out/back from there each day so we had to time our trip pretty well. Since we took the bus in we didn't really know where the train station was but figured that since it was the Benajoan train station it had to be somewhere close by......nope. We made it back down the highway, by this time the fog had burned off, and into town where we see on the town map the station in this weird bubble kind of to the upper left hand corner of the city map. The map doesn't show which roads connect to the station so we head in the direction of the train station with about 25 min till the train leaves. I ask the locals and they say we are on the right road, just to keeeeeeeeep on following it. The emphasis on the contunias proves to be a perfect description as we follow this winding mountain highway for quite a while before seeing, way down below, the railroad tracks. With about 15 min and 5 long mountain switchbacks Mark and I are realizing what a great view we are going to have of our train pulling up to the station and then heading off without us. We've really picked up our pace now and by the time we get to the little suburb where the station is we are RUNNING. We make it to the station, see the ticket window closed and the station operator standing by the tracks, upon seeing us sweaty and out of breath he asks if we want this train we are like YEAH! He's like well its going to be coming up to the other side of the tracks so we need to cross over but the train is coming now! And I really don't know how to get over to the other side. As the train pulls up to the station with us on the wrong side I finally figure out the part we are to cross we we jet across and onto the train. Phew! There is really nothing more satisfying than just barely making the only train for quite some time.
The station operator man was really quite nice to allow us to board the train at all, ticket sales close 5 min before the train arrives so that he can leave the ticket booth and take care of the arrival, so he let us get on the train free of charge, how nice!
Sevilla
Spain's 3rd most large city and the home of flamenco. I really had high hopes for my time here but my dreams were dimmed a bit by food sickness. The first night I got in I had a good time going out for some really yummy tapas, the next day did a walking tour by the hostel and had an indian curry which I think was probably the culprit. Then I was going out for another tapas crawl with a bunch of people and about the second place was really not feeling so hot so had to call it quits. I was quite a was from the hostel and feeling worse and worse every step I took. As I was walking along the river I was thinking, this would be a great place to puke with no one around and lots of bushes, but no, the urge took over when I was in the middle of a big open downtown city square and I vomited a ton right in the center of the plaza, I figure people probably just thought I was drunk, I was walking super slow, and puking in the center of a plaza like I just don't care. I made it to the hostel thinking that the worst of it was no probably over but no, I don't even know how many times I got up in the middle of the night. I was on the top bunk in a 6 bed dorm so I felt really bad for my dorm mates who I knew I was waking up by getting up and down and puking all night. Eventually I was just feeling too weak to make it up the ladder anymore and pulled my blankets down and spent the rest of the morning on the communal bathroom floor. The next day was New Years Eve. I spent the day sleeping and locating some oranges and water. Hostel life is funny. The same dude who greeted me when I came into the room with a “what night should I plan on us getting our alone night? And what bunk do you think would be more comfortable, mine or yours?” was the only person who expressed an interest in me while I was sick. When I'd pass out with my glasses on he would take them off and set them somewhere safe, he got me an extra blanket, and medicine. It was nice to have some one kind of looking after me even if he was a bit of a scum bag in other ways.
I finally emerged from bed at 10pm to see what was happenin' among hostal peeps for New Years. A group of us ended up going to a main plaza where we watched the city clock without a second hand tick a way towards midnight. I was standing at an angle to the clock but I figured I would just follow along with the rest of the mass of people watching it when they erupted in a New Year Celebration but it was like clearly at least 3 past midnight when we were like uhh, okay so lets just celebrate it now! This I feel was a classic representation of Spain. Time doesn't really matter, even when you are readily awaiting the New Year. About 15 past midnight there were fireworks and the city stayed on the streets until the wee hours of the morn. It was fun just to wander around the city and see what the locals were up to.
On the first I walked all around the city to see sights that weren't open and then saw flamenco in the evening. I was totally impressed with the dancer, yes, but mostly the male singer who watched the dancer with such intensity while she was dancing really accommodating and totally singing to her like we weren't even there. He also had such expression in his face while he sang, very exaggerated but in a totally believable way. Gotta see it to believe it I guess.
Cordoba
On the 2nd I left Sevilla with a friend I met at the hostal Anni. We got a beautiful hotel in Cordoba which was so refreshing for both of us. Hostal life in great, you meet people and are surrounded by fun all the time but it also gets pretty overwhelming, sometimes you need your own time and space and so we freaked out with how cute and quiet our little Hostal Lunes de Bagdad was. It was really nice to be with such great company in a smaller town and a nice private (well with one sane person not with 8 other people with ranging levels of odor, sanity, and offensiveness) room. We ended up spending quite a lot of time inside the hotel reading, eating, talking and chilling and it made up a couple of the most enjoyable days on the trip.
We did spend hours everyday trying to find food. I was still a little food scared post my good sickness and not sure whether I wanted to venture away from my raw fruits and veggies but I was also feeling very hungry and Anni works as a chef for gold drillers just under the arctic circle, so for her that would just not do. We were severely disappointed by the food we got everywhere we went though. I don't know why we weren't able to find good food but I am really leaning towards believing that there is no good food in Cordoba. One the second day Anni was threatening to just break into someone's house and use their kitchen in order to feed me because it was breakfast time and we'd gone to MANY restaurants in search of anything gluten free and it just wasn't happening. Breakfast in Spain = Bread. We finally paid to much for small, dried out, yesterday's tortilla espanola (a traditional egg and potato omelet) and at that point I was just really done with my traveling. I craved a simple gluten free meal prepared by myself. Feeling hungry and sad about food I bought a huge chocolate almond bar and ate it alllll. I felt super powerful afterwards and now swear by the healing power of chocolate. I would be taking the bus back to Alcala soon and could wait and ride off the energy off my chocolate bar.
So after seeing the Mezquita and cruzin' around Cordoba for awhile I headed back on a 5 hour bus ride to Madrid.
I'm now back at my apartment in Alcala and enjoying my alone time thoroughly. I had a great trip in Andalucia. I learned a lot about Spain and people around the world. Talking about myself to the other people I met in hostels and around really made me realize how cool I am :-) No but really, I've done a lot of really fun and exciting things with my life so far and I think I'm committed to sticking to the fun and exciting path in life. As I developed an appreciation for Spain in my travels I also developed a real appreciation for myself. I'm proud of myself, happy with who I am, and thankful to friends and family who have been around and been supportive as I've been figuring life out.
The hike was really cool, around 25 couch surfers all met together in Manzanillas? where there is a regional recreation park. The main guy who planned it was older but really awesome. He knew the place really well and was quite the tour guide. I was incredibly unprepared for a snow hike (just had on regular pants and tennis shoes) but figured I could handle 5 or 6 hours of cold wet feet for an awesome hike with cool people. Uhhh, this was an intense 10 hour hike! We were still hiking out of the park for a good 30 min after it was completely dark out. The climb up wasn't so bad but we went straight down the mountain, like sliding down ice on our butts sometimes on purpose, mostly not on purpose though. It took us like 3 hours to get down the side. I'm scratched and bruised and sore all over but it was a ton of fun and as frozen as my soggy feet were 6 hours into the hike I would do it all over again. I'm fully converted to the Couch Surfing website, let me tell you. I meet some of the greatest, friendliest people from all over the world. So after leaving Alcalá at 6am to get to Madrid and then go to Manzanilla I got home at 9pm to find my heater was not working and there was no hot water! OH my poor wet, frozen feet. After a few good shakings my heater starts working and so I forget about the shower, eat dinner, and crash.
