Things I miss…

Things I miss from the US:

·         My family and my parents

·         Iced coffee (not espresso)

·         Half and half (not milk)

·         Cold milk, in a plastic gallon, from the refrigerator (not warm milk, from the cabinet, in a one-liter box)

·         “American” food (albeit, international)

·         Ice trays (not ice in bags)

·         Rain

·         Salad dressing (not oil and vinegar)

·         Pepper (not just salt)

·         Diet coke with lime

·         TV with no voice-overs

·         Chick-flicks (not in Spanish)

·         Driving

·         Dryer (not a clothes line)

·         Bananas (not plantains)

Things I will miss from Spain:

·         European fashion

·         No attendance policies

·         Being taught from Google/Wikipedia

·         Fresh jamón

·         Tortillas españoles

·         Public transportation

·         Breakfast conversation

·         Traveling

*List subject to change. Recommendations welcome.

Segovia

Gerardo, my host dad, ran a half-marathon, along with several friends/co-workers, in Segovia. That’s 13 miles/21 kilometers. Mayte and Abel and I went to support him. I really enjoyed spending time socializing with their friends.

We left on Saturday night around 6:00pm, and picked up two friends along the way, Luis, and his cousin, Pilar. The drive to Segovia was only about an hour. We arrived at our hotel, and left right away to meet another couple, Edwardo and Tiri, for dinner.

Along the way, we passed the beautiful Cathedral of Segovia, which was even more gorgeous at night, and a winery.

Dinner was delicious. For appetizers, we had ham croquetas, provolone cheese on bread, and a green salad with fruit. For dinner, I ordered three-cheese bow-tie pasta, and I had fruit-on-ice-cream to top it off, for dessert.

The men, who were running, and Abel, went to bed right away.

Mayte and Pilar and I went out to socialize for a little bit, and then came back around 12:30am.

On Sunday morning, the men woke up early to start the marathon.

Around 10:00am, I finally woke up, and then joined Mayte, Pilar, and another friend, Mercedes (whose husband, Vincente, was running the half-marathon) for breakfast around 11:00am.

We spent the morning on a mini-walking-tour of Segovia. It is such a precious little city! This is the castle.

The marathon ended at the acueducto, which is one of the largest and most significant remaining proofs of the Roman influence in Spain from the 15th century.

We met up with Gerardo, and some more friends, Miguel and Lola, for lunch. Before our reservation, we spent time eating tapas and drinking beer. #OnlyinSpain. #Sofun. (Well, Abel was drinking Fanta.)

I didn’t get to take a picture of the whole group, but this blurry picture that Abel snapped was as close as I got =P
Clockwise from left: Luis, me, Mayte, Gerardo, Mercedes, Vincente, Pilar. Abel was taking the photo, Tiri and Edwardo were confirming our lunch reservation for 12, and Lola and Miguel hadn’t yet arrived. 

Lunch was a delicious Segovian feast, of words I cannot pronounce, nor do I know what they mean.

After a brief but delightful trip, more exhausting for some than others, we were on our way home, and arrived back in Madrid around 7:00pm.

There was snow on the mountain.

I hope I get to go back sometime =)

Love, ~Taylor

A Nation on Strike

Spring Break is coming up this week… How exciting! I’m going with my good friend, Annie, from Elon, who is studying in Sevilla, on a trip to Austria, and then to Italy. We planned to leave on Thursday night, and I was supposed to miss class only on Friday. Well, turns out that Thursday, March 29 is the National Day of Strikes in spain, which means that there will be only servicios minimos of public transportation. Only 30% of the flights leave the airport, because the other 70% of employees go on strike. That’s just great.

The online server for my airline is down, so it’s been impossible to change our flight online. I’m not interested in calling a phone number and being a) disconnected, b) put on hold, or c) being misunderstood, or misunderstanding, and automated machine. Instead, I thought it would be a good idea if I just went to airport and tried to do it myself, at the airline office.

I went with some friends, Rory, Jenna, and Crystal, (who also booked flights for next Thursday), on a group errand to the airport last Friday afternoon, so that we could each find out what to expect regarding our respective airlines. Rory was told that they have no way of knowing what to expect on Thursday, so if he is interested in changing his flight, he should come back on Tuesday. Honestly, I don’t understand why the airline thinks they will be any more knowledgeable about this impending strike, whether it’s two days before or one week before the expected flight.

Thankfully, Jenna and Crystal were told not to expect complications on Thursday. I think it’s unrealistic to expect that there won’t be complications or delays, to think that this specific airline will be an exception, on a day when the rest of the country will be on strike. At least, they were reassured that if issues do arise, they will be given the choice of a refund or a flight change.

I ended up being the only one who felt like spending time to go to the airport had been a waste of time. I wasn’t nearly as satisfied with the assistance I received from my airline’s office, although I can’t fault the poor airline employee who was the victim of my frustration.

I arrived at the office in the airport at 6:00pm, and I was told that they had closed at 5:30. How frustrating! Nonetheless, the woman was nice enough to quickly answer my questions, but then explained that she was unwilling to attend to me because she was already working after hours. Like I said, I can’t fault her for that; I would have done the exact same thing. But, naturally, I was pretty upset.

I asked what to expect from the airline regarding the flights on Thursday. She said that she had no way of knowing, as with everybody, because nobody is required to report that they’re going on strike. I said, okay, well, does it cost money to change my flight? And she said yes, and I said, well, how much? And she said “I don’t know for sure. That will depend on a) how much you initially paid for your ticket, and b) the day and details of the flight you’re going to change it to.” So then I was like, “Ok, just be sure, you can’t help me with any of that right now?” And she was like, “no, I’m sorry, we’re closed.” She sounded sympathetic, but I was pretty angry, so I left rudely and cut her off, and felt badly afterwards.

If nothing else, I was glad to be with my friends while I had to be hanging out at the airport. However, I realized that it definitely makes the airport less exciting when you’re there for an inconvenient chore, than when you’re the one traveling somewhere.

Besides that, we had a fun litter adventure going to the airport together. We took the metro first to Terminal 4, which is where my airline office was. The town of Barajas is in between the terminals of the airport, so to avoid paying money to get back on the metro, we looked for the airport shuttle bus. While we were on the bus, we assumed that the shuttle would stop at every terminal between 4 and 1. Well, it didn’t. Lost and confused, we got off at a bus stop that we thought was for Terminal 1. The only problem was, when we got off at the bus stop, we couldn’t actually find the entrance to the terminal. We appeared to be in some sort of industrial parking lot. There was a street of taxi traffic, so we decided to walk down the road in the direction in which the taxis were facing.

There was one other couple who got off the shuttle at the same sketchy bus stop as we did. They heard us making jokes about getting lost on our way to Terminal 1, so I asked them, in Spanish if they knew how to get there. The guy just looked at me blankly, and then said “uh, we speak English.” Obviously, they were even more hopeless than we were.

As we anticipated, even though we walked next to the road of taxis for about 15 minutes, the taxis pointed in the right direction, and eventually we found the entrance to Terminal 1.

Today, Monday, I went to the airport, AGAIN, in hopes that my airline office would be open, to try to chance my flight, and Annie’s, to Austria from Thursday to Wednesday. It wasn’t. Great. I did get some information from the airport-desk guy… he a) gave me a phone number to call my airline, b) told me when all the flights are for my airline for the next three days (there are a total of three flights, one per day), c) gave me the airline office hours (two hours before each flight, for the next three days), and d) explained why he couldn’t help me change my flight.

I called Annie, and suggested that she and I just go to the airport early together on Wednesday, and tell the airline right then and there that we want to be on the Wednesday flight, instead of Thursday.

Prayers and well-wishes are greatly appreciated. #OnlyinSpain.
Love, ~Taylor

Valencia

Our trip to Valencia was exciting, to say the least. It started on Saturday morning, March 17, around 9:00am. We took the metro into Madrid, where we met up with approximately 3,000 college students, who had all arranged public transportation, in more than 50 coach buses. I have never seen such organized chaos. 

The ride to Valencia was about 3 hours, and we stopped on the way at one rest stop. This is a picture of the line into the restaurant, to use the bathroom: 

Once in Valencia, we had a hard time getting to apartment. It was our own fault, because we didn’t know which bus to take to the neighboring town, El Saler, where we had lodging in a beach-front apartment with Hali and her roommates. 

We felt like such tourists! After about two-three hours of speed-walking around town, trying to catch a bus that we didn’t even know the stops/route for, we finally gave up and took a taxi.

The apartment was for four, but Hali and her roommates made a reservation for five, but when we all got there, we ended up being nine. #OnlyinSpain.

That night, Angela and Alejandra and Jenna and I took the bus (which we were now familiar with) back into Valencia, for dinner. We were starved—we hadn’t eaten all day! We stopped at the first cheap-ish looking pizza joint that we stumbled upon, and we downed two family-size pizzas and two liters of soda in record time =P

It was Saturday night that we were first to exposed to the crowds and craziness of Las Fallas, and got to see some cool things in Valencia.  

There are over 400 Fallas throughout Valencia—the Falleros that build them sign up and pay through what is essentially a neighborhood organization. Each Falla has formal Falleros that represent them, who kind of serve the role of Miss State USA, representing their Falla. There are Falleros and Falleras of all ages that represent each Falla.

We met up with everybody for dinner. Clockwise from left: Daniella, Hali, Jenna, Angela, Carolina, Julia

A typical Spanish food is called Paella, and apparently, Valencia has the greatest Paellas in the country. We didn’t get to eat any though, despite our best efforts, because we were never really in Valencia for lunch. Sad!
People were cooking Paella on the streets, though. Basically, it looked like there were Paella tailgate parties on every street corner. 

Hanging out and “partying” all night on Saturday was quite the experience. People were just dancing and drinking in the streets, nonstop! The crowds were incredible.

While Hali and her roommates went back to the apartment, the girls and I decided that we would just stay out all night and wait to take the bus back. It was almost dawn, anyway! We stopped at a supermarket to buy sandwiches for lunch on Sunday, and then we took the bus to El Saler on Sunday morning.

Our plan was to go back to the apartment to change, and then go to the beach by mid-morning.

The beach is always fun, no matter how tired you are, or what time of day it is ;) And the good thing was: we had great weather to sleep on the beach for as long as we wanted on Sunday!

Of course, I brought my Frisbee, too ;) 

And we had a delicious picnic, for lunch.

And we just hung out, in the sun, all day =)

Following our three-hour nap, playing, and eating on the beach, we went back to the apartment on Sunday afternoon to shower and rest some more. I did Angela’s hair in an inside-out French braid; I knew my Mom would be proud ;)

Then we headed back into Valencia for another night of food and Fallas!

We got some rest on Sunday night. Monday was a federal holiday in Spain, el Día de San José, also, el Día del Padre, so there was no class. March 19 is also the day that the Falleros burn their Fallas. We wanted to get to know some things around town, so we spent the day in the Ciudad de Artes y Ciencias en Valenica (the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia). We went to the aquarium and the Science Museum in the Ciudad, and then we passed some famous ancient towers and palaces in the evening.

Waiting for the bus in the morning...

Ciudad de Artes y Ciencas

The Oceanográfic is the largest aquarium in Europe!

Buying nutella crepes at the aquarium

Birds at the aquarium… rather: Birds in the aviary in the “tropics” section of the aquarium ;)

Playing in the Science Museum

Passing some famous buildings

On Monday night, the highlight of the night was supposed to be staying in the streets to watch the Fallas burn at midnight. That was awesome… but what was even cooler was what happened before that…

We walked around the streets of Valencia for a while, and we ended up standing by a Falla on a random side street where there weren’t very many people. Around 11:00pm, we asked the Fallero a question about the tradition of Las Fallas, and HE INVITED US INSIDE! Usually, only the Falleros are the ones that get to go in the fence, surrounding the Falla, but the Fallero not only invited us in to get a closer look, but he CUT A DOOR OPEN and let us stand INSIDE THE FALLA! It was REALLY EXCITING! We couldn’t believe our luck, and their generosity. We stood inside the Falla with the nice Fallero and just talked with him for like an hour. How sweet!

The theme of our Falla was political satire. There was a figure of Obama, with a caption that was written in Valenciano. 

The nice Fallero GAVE Jenna the caption sign, AS A GIFT, since he knew she is from the USA! JENNA GOT TO KEEP A REAL PART OF A FALLA WAAAHOOO!! #Soexciting.

The Falleros explained to us that the Fallas had a burn-schedule, an assigned time when their Falla would be burned, because the firefighters had to be present. The burn-time for our Falla wasn’t until 2:00am, but unfortunately we had to leave sooner than that. We had to take the metro to the bus station, and our bus to Madrid was scheduled to leave Valencia at 3:00am. We were disappointed that we wouldn’t be able to see our Falla burn, but they gave us directions to the nearest, large Falla that was scheduled to be burned at 1:00am. 

After a thrilling night of battling crowds, breathing smoke, watching the firefighters, and making friends with some nice Falleros, (who took our pictures, and gave us their business card, and whom I plan to email!), we caught the bus back to Madrid at 3:00am, and promptly fell asleep. We arrived in town around 7:00am on Tuesday, and got home around 9:00am. 

Jenna and I went to class together from 10:00a-2:00p on Tuesday, and then I took a much-needed nap when I got home. Zzzzzzz.

After such a dose of intense and exciting worldly-Spanish culture, I would love to go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans one year ;)

Next weekend, my host dad, Gerardo, is running a half-marathon in Segovia. Wish him luck!
Love always, ~Taylor