Our “Spring break” was the week
leading up to Easter, called Semana Santa (Holy week). Over semana santa, my parents came to
visit. My dad wanted to see the small
villages and mountains, so we decided to rent a car. It was interesting to see people’s reactions
when I told them. All the Spanish people
seemed like this was a completely normal thing and a very good option. The Americans’ reactions ranged from horror
and shock to “Are you out of your mind?”
To be honest, I was a little nervous how this would work out. But nonetheless, we rented the car and they
arrived on Saturday night.
That night my senora went all out
for our dinner. We still had two girls
from England staying with us, plus my parents, my senora and me- so 6
total. This meant that it was not
logical to eat at our small table, so we got to eat in the formal dining area. The wine was flowing and the ham (from my
senora’s village) and cheese (from Norway) were first to follow. After that was my favorite soup and potatoes with
bread and duck pate. I personally was
shocked because I’ve never seen so much food, even though normal meals here are
quite a bit of food.
The next morning we went to this
local place (our neighbors are the owners!) for a breakfast of churros and
chocolate! After that we hit the road on
our adventure. Our first stop was in
Lorca. This being the first day, my
parents essentially knew nothing about Spanish customs or food, so I had to
explain most of the menu to them. The
fact that I have essentially only eaten at my house doesn’t help. After my mom had me ask a million questions
about the food, we were finally ready to eat.
After we ate we started towards our car.
Or, I should say, where our car used to be. Our car had been towed! Of course, me being the only link to Spanish,
I was the one who had to get the car out of the “grua” (impound lot). That was definitely an interesting
experience! But after a conversation
with the police, then with the towing company, we finally had our rental car
back and set out for our next destination.
The next day (and a thousand
round-a-bouts later) we ended up in Benidorm, where we stopped to eat. Well, this time we didn’t get towed, but we
did end up with a ticket! Since we
didn’t know how to pay it, we just continued on our way like nothing had
happened! However, we were wiser now and
from then on decided to park in parking lots whenever available.
The next day we were in
Valencia. The main thing we wanted to
see in Valencia was the huge indoor market.
However, we were starving so we decided to eat first. We ate at a little café next to the
market. It was extremely busy, but I
just assumed this was because it was next to a main tourist attraction. We found out throughout the course of our
meal that this was the oldest café in Valencia.
The waiter even brought out a picture of his wife’s family from a few
generations ago. After lunch, we began
to head into the market. Well, we found
out that all of the clocks we had previously looked at were wrong, and the
market was starting to close! This was
most upsetting to my mom, but I would have liked to have seen some more things
also. To get an idea of what we did see,
here is a link to the post on her blog about it:
I should say that since I had many
other tasks to worry about (translating, making sure my mom doesn’t knock over
anymore garbage cans, making sure my dad can hear and takes the correct
round-a-bout exit… etc…) I didn’t end up getting a lot of pictures. My mom, however, has a lot, so she is better
for the visual aspects!
The highlight of the next day was
going to the winery in Haro. The day
before, we stopped in to check if they had anymore tours for the next day. Of course, they only had one Spanish tour
available, which means more translating!
Actually though, I really did enjoy the winery tour. It was very cool to see where they kept all
the wine and how they hand-made the barrels to contain the wine. The tour guide was very good at her job. She seemed to know exactly how much
information we could take in at a time and she didn’t move from one place to
the next too quickly. At the end we even
got to try a few of the wines and we could keep our glass!
The next day we got as far as
Segovia but I think the most memorable part of this leg of the trip was our
stop in Burgos. We were hungry (and
somewhat grouchy) so we just ended up decided on a place to eat essentially
like, “that looks good,” “ok.” The place we decided on really summed up the
essence of the Spanish people. After a
while it dawned on me that the only people in the whole restaurant (I mean, it
had 2 tables in total, but still…) were the owners, a regular and the owner’s
son or some type of relative. When we
walked in they were all eating a soup that looked good to my parents, so we
decided we wanted some too. We came to
find out that this was not a regular meal on the menu but they were willing to
whip up some for us. Before we entered
the restaurant, I wasn’t feeling too well and although I thought the soup might
help, it wasn’t working. The owner noted
that I was eating slowly and was highly distraught at the idea that I didn’t
like the soup. When I told her that my
stomach hurt, there was only one solution to the dilemma- tea! Not that it wasn’t good tea, and I guess I
would say it did help a bit, but it wasn’t completely fixed. After a heated debate about what my parents
could or couldn’t bring back on the plane, they served us torrijas, which is
kind of like a French toast type thing.
It is a typical food served during Semana Santa (Holy Week).
The next day I came to understand
why my friends thought it was crazy for us to drive around Spain. Toledo, a suburb of Madrid, has some of the
narrowest streets. Along with the
tourists who don’t seem to differentiate between streets and sidewalks, this
was one interesting experience. Finally
we made it to a parking lot, alive and with no scratches to the rental
car. We considered this a definite success.
That was the last day of traveling,
that night we got back to Granada. In
the morning we joined up with a friend whose parents were also here and went to
a procession. The processions are
typical of Easter week and they show different stages of the Passion of Christ
story. The thing that impresses me the most
about these processions is that the “floats” are extremely heavy and all
carried by men underneath them. That has
to hurt! After the procession was over,
we did a little shopping in the touristy area of town, and then hit up a tapas
bar and headed home. After lunch my
senora took us to see another procession which was longer and more
elaborate. It was probably my favorite
procession (again, see my mom’s blog for pics!). That night we went to an area called Albayzin,
which is essentially where all the hippies are.
It was really fun, and very relaxed.
We had a tapa there and did a little people watching and went back home.
On Monday I skipped class and we
went to a region called Alpujarra, where my senora was born and raised. I think out of all of us, she enjoyed this
trip the most. She also got to
experience my dad’s driving in the mountains (at one point we were on a road
that had no land on either side of it), which she said was “a perfect 10.” On this trip we literally met every sort of
relative you could imagine- brothers, sister-in-laws, cousins, nieces, niece’s
daughters… literally everybody was there.
At one point (because of the array of topics we were covering) my mom
asked me to ask my Senora how long it had been since her and her niece had
talked. Her response? “2 or 3 days.” Oh right, that was evident by the fact that
you have literally talked about everything from weather to health to other
people. At the first stop (my senora’s
brother’s house) we were offered grapes, a blackberry drink without alcohol,
and seeds that apparently ward off mosquitos.
When we stopped for lunch we weren’t quite sure where we wanted to go,
but my mom wanted to try some gazpacho.
At the first place we stopped they had gazpacho, but it was 2 euros per
glass. This was a “barbaridad”
(barbarity?) to my senora because she
could make 5 liters for 2 euros.
So the next day, this was exactly
what she did. Her son, daughter-in-law
and granddaughter came over to help finish it off. That was a lot of fun, but it had to be
short, because I had class. Tuesdays are
my busiest days, so we didn’t do much that day.
Wednesday was the last day my
parents were here. In the morning we
went to see my service site, and my parents seemed to really enjoy it. After that we left and they took me back to
my school, and left from there.
Right now we are all gathering to
go to flamenco, tomorrow we have wine tasting and the next weekend we are going
to a bullfight. Hopefully my next post
(after I post about Rome) will be about food and some of the differences….
Hasta luego!
Tesla
-The people in general, everyone is
so nice 
-Bradley (and 50 minute classes!)