Land of the Pizza, Pasta and Gelato!

This weekend my friend Amy and I took a random weekend trip to Rome!  Although it rained practically our entire trip, it was a great experience overall!  We had decided from the start to cover the main things, but take our time and not plan on seeing everything so we were not rushed.  However, I feel like we successfully covered the city.

It seems like we can never go anywhere without meeting some questionable people… and our first encounter this time was on the bus from Granada to Malaga.  The seats we sat in were across the aisle from each other, and each of us had a man on the other side.  While we were chatting, both of the men would occasionally (and very blatantly) look-no, STARE- at us.  We never really figured out why they were staring at us, but we suspect it was because we were speaking English.

When we finally arrived in Rome we went directly to our hostel.  There we met Lucas, the very knowledgeable guy in the lobby.  He suggested that we try this place, La Capitale, for dinner.  We decided to take him up on this offer.  La Capitale is a family-owned restaurant with traditional Italian fare.  Amy had ravoli and I ordered pasta with tomato sauce.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the sauce was actually quite spicy, something we hardly ever get in Granada.  This was probably my favorite meal of the whole trip!

The next day we went to the coliseum.  Because we bought these passes for 2 free museums and discounted prices, we decided to do a tour of the coliseum.  We thought the tour wasn’t really necessary, but it was informative and pointed out some of the facts you wouldn’t know if you didn’t have the tour.  And on top of that, it was funny to listen to our tour guide, Tiberio, over-pronunciate most English words.  After the inside of the coliseum, we continued our tour with the Roman Forum.  The Roman Forum is where Julius Caesar is buried, and where the ancient Romans held essentially all of their daily public activities.  After the tour we attempted to go to the Pantheon but it was closed, so we just got pictures from the outside and left.

The last full day we were in Rome we went to the Vatican City.  It was quite the experience waiting to get into the museum of the Vatican.  It was raining and the man behind us seemed to like to rest his umbrella on Amy’s umbrella; along with the people selling umbrellas and “jump the line” passes.  If you don’t believe how close this guy was, here’s the picture to prove it!

Once we were inside the museum, there was pretty much people everywhere.  Amy and I were both surprised that it was more art things, because we thought it would be more historical information about the Vatican City.  At the beginning it was very strange because there were ancient Egyptian mummies and other artifacts.  That was really weird, because the Egyptian’s had multiple gods, and this was a place of holiness in the Christian religion. Finally we arrived at the Sistine Chapel, and there were so many people, you could hardly move!  In the chapel there are signs that say taking pictures is not allowed.  Apparently no one in the chapel saw that sign, but after taking a few pictures (including one of the sign that prohibited it) a security guard walked up to me and told me that if I was going to take pictures, at least do it without flash.

Most of this trip consisted of walking around in rain and seeing interesting sites but not wanting to take pictures in order to avoid getting completely soaked.  However, I do wish I was able to take better pictures.  As I said earlier, somehow we are unable to avoid sketchy people while traveling, and on the way back to Granada we encountered the second round.  These people were necessarily sketchy, just seemed to have had a little whiff of what I call “crazy gas” before boarding the plane.  The people in the row across from us were a couple, a woman who was very skinny and the man, who had a belly that poked out of his shirt.  Maybe these people weren’t crazy, maybe just entitled.  But since I was in the aisle seat, I got a very close up view of said belly, along with ALL of their shopping bags being dropped on my arm.  The people sitting behind us would constantly laugh, but it sounded more like a cackle so Amy and I were trying to figure out what was going on back there.  The last implication of consumption of the “crazy gas” came when we were about to land.  The pilot must have had some too because the plane dropped what felt like 10 feet and everyone on the plane gasped.  When we finally landed safely, everyone began to clap.  This had also happened when we landed in Rome, and I told Amy that I wish everyone would clap when I did my job correctly, but this time I couldn’t help but join in.

Now that we are safely back in Granada, classes have resumed as normal (unfortunately) and this weekend we have an olive oil tasting, which I am excited for!  Stay tuned for the next update!

Tesla

Padres, Pascua y Procesiones (Parents, Easter and Parades…)

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:

http://www.farmtojar.com/travel-and-food/2012-trip-to-spain-lessons-learned-and-food-enjoyed-day-3/

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

MADRID!

I’m finally back after a long time of not posting!  Sorry about that- but with midterms, travelling and my parents coming this upcoming week, it has been a little crazy here!  Anyways, this weekend we went to Madrid and Toledo!  I really loved this trip, and what made it even better was when we got back our director sent us an e-mail saying this was the best trip to Madrid she has been on since working with our program!

Toledo is a small city outside of Madrid.  While in Toledo we visited the cathedral, which is the 4^th largest in the world.  We also visited a cool look out place, where you could see the whole city.  Although I would have liked to do a little more exploring of the city, we did get to see the major things about Toledo.  They have three major products in Toledo: swords, marzipan and boys!  I doubt any of the girls in our program (including our director) heard a word this tour guide was saying!  Everyone was so infatuated with him- some of the girls even yelled out a quick “te amo” (I love you) or digits to their phone number before he left!

After Toledo we headed up to Madrid.  During this trip we only had three scheduled things to do, and the rest was “tiempo libre” (free time).  These three things included going to the Palacio Real (Royal Palace), attending a play and going to the Prado museum. 

The Palacio Real was probably my least favorite part of the trip.  The tour guide looked like the costume maker from The Incredibles.  She spoke really quiet except when she was telling us to move in closer, which was whenever she wasn’t explaining about the artwork in the palace.  On top of this, in my opinion the real beauty was outside the palace with all of the gorgeous views and beautiful architecture.

We went to the Prado museum on the last morning, and by that time I was ready to get back to Granada.  Even though I really did enjoy the Prado, we were all exhausted and not ready to walk around a huge museum.  Jose, one of our teachers said that if we tried to walk around all of the Prado, we would be “borracha de pintura” (drunk off of paintings), meaning that it would essentially be way too much to handle in one trip.  It was also lame because in both the Prado and the Palacio Real, we were not allowed to take pictures.  I probably would have had a lot more pictures if we were able to!

The best scheduled thing that we did was going to the play.  The play was called “Una Buena Esposa,” or “The Good Wife.”  It was different scenes from daily life in the 70’s in Spain centering on what a woman should and shouldn’t do.  Although I didn’t get a lot of it, my director said she didn’t either so that makes me feel better!  She explained that there were a lot of colloquial words that she didn’t get, in addition to the context of the play.  The parts that I did get though were very comical!  It was a very well put on play and it only had three actresses who switched out roles!

This was a great trip overall, and now I am looking forward to my parents coming in a couple of days and driving around Spain with them!  Many of my friends think it’s crazy that we are renting a car and want updates on that, so I will try and be on the ball about updating my blog next week!!

Alla… adios!

Tesla