Crazy Boys

My friend James from Montreal. *shakes head* So crazy but so much fun. Then yesterday it seems was the day of bachelor parties for I saw 2 in Seville and one in Granada. This pic is one from Seville. Gotta love drunk men in women's aprons (internet shitty will load later)

Granada was also funny because the guy who was obviously about to be married was dressed in a German Helga costume with a huge empty pitcher saran wrapped to his arm, while all his friends were dressed in normal clothing holding him up/pushing him down the street. I think I would like to mimic this type of behavior for my bachelorette party but just move it to the beach. ;)

The fight

This does not refer to any type of drama between friends or anything, though tensions rise and fall, that has stayed to a minimum. This refers to my first (and last) experience of a bull fight-watching it that is. It may have been the second or 3rd day in Seville that my friends and I went to see a fight, I'm really not so sure now, because all the days seem to run together a bit. But I do remember that this was the same day as Corpus Christi in Seville. Corpus Christi occurs 40 days after La Semana Santa, and that's pretty much all that anyone (including spaniards) could tell me about it. I think the Spanish just like their wine and parties too much and so make up holidays as an excuse to drink and party in the streets. I missed the brigade of floats going through the streets, but I was woken up by all the bells ringing from it. After eventually making it out for the day, Saimah, some hostel mates, and I wandered around the beautiful city, the scent of Rosemary titillating our senses. I guess one tradition of Corpus Christi is that everyone throws sprigs of Rosemary around because for most of the day the streets were covered with Rosemary. We had a nice and peaceful afternoon walking around, seeing the remnants of what looked like a much classier, but probably just grand, religious version of the Macy's Day parade. We had delicious tapas that were extremely cheap. Four of us split 11 tapas, paying only 9 euros each!! One thing I have discovered: food and drinks are so much cheaper here than in the US, though I must say I am not very partial to all the fried food served at almost every meal. In short we had a wonderful afternoon around the city and lounging in the pool during the brutally hot hours. Then after this wonderful day was the bull fight....

Essentially I found this experience absolutely horrifying and never want to see it again. As we walked up to the gates of the bull ring, I began to get the feeling that I might not like this too much. Across the street were hundreds of protesters shouting "We love the bull" (oddly in English) being held at bay by the police. I was a little unsettled by this but tried to push it from my mind as we proceeded to find our nosebleed seats, which were unpleasantly right in the sun. I paid attention to everyone else around us as we made our way around the rink and noticed that many people were dressed up as if they were going to the kentucky derby or an extremely fancy date night or something of that sort. I found that a bit odd that people would dress up so nicely for an event of pure slaughter. It seemed that killing was the classiest form of entertainment here, but I went with it and tried to keep an open mind about what was about to come, because at that point I really had no idea and didn't even remember if the bulls were actually killed or not. They definitely were. Each fight began with the releasing of the bull into the ring. The bull charged out and usually stopped to look around, obviously dazed and confused, thinking what I only guessed to be, "Wtf am I doing out here? Why are these tiny men dressed like women waving a pink and yellow flag at me?" These confused bulls of course charge at the Michael Jackson-like clad men and are then stabbed repeatedly with what looked like hooked nunchucks. The bulls were then stabbed with spears by men on horses and then by swords carried by more matadors. After the bull eventually collapsed from blood loss and exhaustion, he was stabbed in what I believe to be the jugular. Then his head was pretty much sawed off. This whole process of killing lasted about 20 minutes per bull. After the bulls finally died, they were quickly dragged out of the ring by a line of running donkeys. We saw 7 bulls killed... Though, one was actually spared because his horn broke during the fight and it was considered "unfair" to let an injured bull fight. I kinda thought it was pretty unfair to let a bull fight 6 men with swords and 2 men on horses with spears, but apparently I was in the minority on this one.

After slaughter #1 I was absolutely horrified. I might have condoned the event slightly if the dead bull were eaten or something rather than being pitched but this was not the case. In addition to being horrified at the actual bull fight, I was also horrified at whole event, for after each stab the audience would cheer for the matador. I wanted to cheer for the bull! And eventually I secretly hoped that the bull would kill one of the matadors, and clapped in my head every time it was a close call. Then after each round, the audience would stand up and clap as the matadors bowed. I think my friends were horrified at first too, but then after about round 3 or 4, they started to get into it and clap with the rest of the audience, rooting for the bull. I actually caught myself not paying attention and clapping a few times as well. Ahhh such is the power of group think.

Seville

Oh boy...

I am in a new city now, Seville, Spain, if that wasn't obvious from the title of post. I haven't decided quite what to make of it yet. I think it would be quite a lovely place if it weren't over 100 degrees everyday and if there was a reliable bus or metro system, or maybe even relatively level blocks (I believe this is what happens to a city when everyone drinks all the time and siestas from noon to 5pm--no joke that's really how long siesta is). I've been here since wendesday afternoon and kinda am looking foreword to traveling maybe to a beach, who knows where really at this point, but somewhere with large bodies of water. But thank God my hostel has a pool because this heat would be absolutely unbearable otherwise and it has served very well for meeting new people. In part because of the pool, I definitely think my best times so far have been at the hostel meeting random people from all over the world rather than traveling around with friends. Things just get a little too messy and difficult when you have to incorporate another person's needs and wants into your own, which is exactly why I'm not the biggest fan of dating. It really is just too difficult and stressful to always make sure someone else is alrite and happy, while still doing your own thing. But then again, I can't say that my opinion is formed simply by the challenges of being tied to another person, for the people I have met here have been proven to be quite the lot of entertainers and so begins the story. You might think that a happy story would begin on a nice summer day in Seville, not to hot but not too cold, sun shining, birds chirping, some Spaniards playing guitar and dancing in the streets, good food and wine. The good wine is about all we got so far. The rest I liken to the 9th level of hell in Dante's Inferno. In other words--a wicked time.

After arriving in Seville, we had to trek from the airport--with our 20 lbs suit cases--to our hostel, which was made infinitely more confusing because streets tend to change names every 2 blocks (I believe this brilliant idea also must have arisen from the obnoxiously long siestas and of course, can't forget the wine). The weather was also over 100 degrees, yay summer! *insert not amused face*. After this trek, the only reasonable course of action is to either drown yourself in the river or casually lounge in 10x10 foot pool on the roof of your hostel with 15 other people. The first option did initially seem quite appealing, but, since I'm here, I obviously chose the second. This turned out to be a brilliant choice for upon arrival at the pool I found people doing shots--or rather chugging ladles full of mixed drinks--out of a watermelon and pounding beers. My first thought: Ahh these must be Canadians...yes! And of course most people were from Canada, with one Ozzy and one from England. Only the Canadians can rival our classy american drinking habits of funneling and shotgunning beer, body shots, using fruit as bowls for alcohol, helmets, and shields, and of course drinking games. Needless to say we had a great time at the pool drinking, talking, and oddly doing abs and push ups, which, now that I think about it, is kinda of a weird thing for 20 drunk people to be doing. This was of course led by our wonderful brothers across the border, while the Ozzy--known as "Ozzy Bond" a.k.a Australian James bond--did everything else needed and "England" a.k.a chef from England kept repeating, "England rules the world" and "Damn rebels, we're gonna take you back". Eventually actual foreigners joined the american force and ridiculous sayings escalated, to the point that I was telling everyone that I was from Ohio--a Mexican island territory in the U.S.--which in retrospect also does not make very much sense, but I do think I had a few people goin for a little bit, which makes it so much better.

After this wonderful outing, Saimah and I met up with my friend Mallory, who studied in Seville this semester, and her Spanish friends. This was great because I chatted in spanish for a while with some local spaniards, but more importantly because I met my true love that night--vino tino con limon. I must say, I never thought true love really existed but now, I'm a believer. I like to think it was fate that brought us together. My significant other is a wonderful blend of cheap red wine mixed with the creme of the crop of carbonated beverages-lemon Fanta. When the drink is classy, actual lemons are also added to the mix. After first encounter, I have been almost entirely faithful except for a quick flirtation with Absinthe, but it meant nothing. Ever since then there is not a day that we are apart. Every day since this one, has been even better with more quests, adventures, tales of true love, death and gore, but I am tired and will recount ensuing events hopefully tomorrow.

Miss you all.

General Thoughts

Tonight is the night that I am finally just sitting down and relaxing before I undertake the massive amounts of traveling I'm about to be doing in the next few weeks. I’m not quite sure where to begin about what else I have experienced and thought over the past week, because so much has happened, from the crazy and weird to the simple and peaceful. So I guess I’ll start with a bit more about Valencia and then move onto Palma de Mallorca and eventually just end up ranting because I’m writing more for me at the moment than simply for updates. But to provide a general tone of the trip, I’ve had all good experiences: some I liked, some I didn’t, but each has definitely been good for a reason. To sum Valencia up, I loved it and wish I could have stayed there for weeks. The day I first got there, I threw all my stuff in my room, changed and explored/got lost by myself in the city for hours. The buildings were so amazing to walk through, for you could tell that every detail from the trellises to the doorknobs had been carefully planned or at least it was plausible to think that they had. My hostel was smack in the middle of La ciudad vieja “The old city”, which contains all the grand stone buildings with hints of gothic influence. As I walked around the city soaking up the architecture and trying to speak Spanish to everyone—sometimes ending in success, more often in failure—I began to wish more and more that my brother were with me. Not because he is any good at Spanish or really any other language for that matter, but because he is absolutely brilliant in architectural design and construction and I knew he would just love to be seeing what I was. If there was one person who would be ecstatic and should walk around this city, it should be him. Jason, if you actually read this blog at all, you and I need to go to Europe and I will show you all the awesome places and buildings I have found and probably will still find. From what I’ve seen of Valencia and Palma, the buildings here seem to be the perfect blend of art and functionality, though Valencia ranking a bit above Palma in both aspects.

Though I did love Valencia for it’s beauty and had a wonderful experience, there were a couple of things I’m not quite sure how much I liked, referring to my experience in the hostels. All in all I loved it. I thought I was going to be pretty alone here because I was traveling all by myself and didn’t know anyone and spoke only mediocre Spanish. This was definitely not the case, for I met so many people each day that it was almost exhausting and I barely had any alone time! All these people were awesome and I am definitely glad I met each and every one, but—there is always a but—they all spoke English. When I was by myself, every small interaction I had was completely in Spanish. I could think is Spanish. I could pay more attention to observing the Spanish world around me. However, when I was with a big group of English speakers from hostels, we would only speak in English, drink a lot, and definitely not try to assimilate or pay any attention to the world around us.

I thought this English-speaking trend would end once I reached Palma de Mallorca and met up with my friend Saimah, who had been studying there all semester, but this was not the case. I actually think I may be speaking more English here than in Valencia. At first we tried a blend of Spanish and English, which worked just fine for me, but being creatures of habit, we eventually settled more and more into just conversing in English. I found that though she had studied here for the past 5 months, most of her friends from the same program only spoke in English to each other. They also went to English bars like O’Briens and Shamrock’s, which I also went to the first night here. I felt a little disappointed at this, but tried not to say anything or show any disapproval of this to my friend for I guessed that this trend might not just be due to habit and inability to speak Spanish, but part of it could be due to the fact that these people were just homesick and that maybe it felt like home to speak in your native language. I’m not sure bout the homesickness influencing the language theory, but I definitely did see the homesickness side of living abroad. After Saimah and I walked back from what was known as the “shit beach” on day 1 (it definitely lived up to it’s name), both ecstatic to catch up with each other, she told me that she was so happy to see me because it was like I brought a little bit of home to her. I reminded her of home. I saw this further when she showed me all the souvenirs that she bought for her friends and family back home and how much time and effort she put into these, including the ones that I received. I understand these actions, for already want to bring to whole Mediterranean home to my family. I wish I could give the buildings to my brother, the beach to my mom, the eco-friendly cars to my dad, the gardens to Rosalie, and the art to my friends. In addition to souvenirs, today Saimah got Burger King for lunch—I couldn’t quite bring myself to join in on this meal so I pretend that I wasn’t hungry and skipped it—because she was homesick and said that it reminded her of home. At hearing this half of me felt sorry and wanted to go make her Nicole’s classic fajita meal that she loves, go buy her some cheap red wine, and watch friends (This was the story of our fall semester), while the other part of me shook my head that home to us could be somewhat represented by fast food. And in a weird way Saimah also reminded me of my home but also showed me the dichotomy of worlds that was too come. I saw and reminisced with the old Saimah, but I also saw all the changes when I was out with her and her new group of friends. I thought I would feel more alone if anything in Valencia, when I actually was alone, than in Palma with one of my good friends, but this was definitely not the case. Though I have loved being with Saimah during the day, at night when out with her friends, I feel very much like an outsider, which is exactly what I am in reality. These people have been together sharing the experience of living abroad and adapting together since day one, I am just arriving as they are leaving. Over the years, I have learned how to be quite social, which I usually enjoy, and in general am very good at adapting to new situations. I found it very difficult and quite effortful to break through the niche that had been formed through months and months of work and enter into their circle of friends. At first, I was a bit shy and actually kept thinking about home and was oddly comforted by the American country music that was playing at the bar, which apparently never happened. However, eventually after a few jokes, side comments, and stories, the group began to take interest, eventually making me feel pretty welcome by the end of the night. But boy, it was kind of a struggle at first. This feeling of being an outsider has waxed and waned throughout the trip, which I’m sure will be reinforced at some points and totally eradicated at others.

But as of so far the only place in which I have felt entirely comfortable, safe, and happy has been out in the Mediterranean sea swimming around. Both in Valencia and in Palma I have absolutely loved and been totally content at the beaches. Today, Saimah and I ventured to Calla Major, an absolutely gorgeous beach that was situated nicely in a somewhat secluded cove area. I would have instantly ran into the water, broken footed and all had Saimah not been the voice of reason causing me to lather up with sunscreen and proceed relatively slowly into the water. As I swam around—topless by the way—I felt absolutely ecstatic, making incomprehensible noises of excitement. I explored the shoreline, swam out to the buoys, explored the rocky cove until it became a little bit too dangerous for a cripple. I can honestly say that I am never happier than when I am swimming, especially when I am out in open water. Though the water did sting the newly acquired scraps on my face, knees and hands, I hardly noticed until after I was out back on the mainland. Eventually I was able to contain my excitement to become aware that maybe it might not be so nice to leave Saimah alone on the beach all day by herself, so I made it back and plopped down on my towel. I do wish that people my age would like to play in the water as much as I do, for I do not like to lay like a lizard on a rock all day, occasionally rolling over from side to side. I kept enviously watching all of the 8, 10, and 12 year olds play games in the water and in the sand and was reminded of a conversation I had with my hostel mate at the beach in Valencia. As we were both watching a dad and a daughter play a ping pong-like game on the beach, she said that she never wanted to have children. I, somewhat confused as to how this scene could spark such a thought asked her why not. Her response, “Because then you have to play with them. I don’t want to play with kids at the beach, I just wanna lay out.” I then thought how much more fun I would be having playing with kids than just lying there. I thought of what it would be like to throw my whole swim class in the water, watch them attempt to swim and then have to save them all because, well, they can’t actually swim very well. I then thought about how someday I would probably have kids, undoubtedly future Olympians ;), who would probably be like “Mommy, mommy come play in the water with us, come race us.” And I could reply, “Ok kids, mommy’s gonna kick your ass in the water! Let’s go”. I then looked around at all the people lying on their towels, and proceeded to run/hobble—this time with Saimah—into the water again, forgetting about everything except the sea and me.

If anybody actually reads all the way through this, I am sorry for the length and the rant, I sometimes just like to write.

Pics, Not Scabby Face pics, but Valencia pics

So here are some pics of Valencia. This first pic is an action shot of what I determined was one of Spain's many indigenous panthers a.k.a black cats running around. One of my hostel mates and I went to the main beach in Valencia and decided that these black cats were actually indigenous panthers and decided to chase them around and sneak up on them by crawling on the ground in numerous attempts to get panther action shots. Judging by the amount of weird looks I received from locals and tourists, I deemed that it must have been a pretty strange and entertaining site to see a girl in a boot hobbling around in bushes trying to take pictures of stray cats. If only they knew the truth.... Well least I was able to convince Saimah that they were actually panthers until she noticed the car in the background a few minutes later.

The next picture is of what I have no idea, just thought it was a beautiful site when I was walking around one night.

The next photo is an example of a type of street performer along the valencian beach. We have no idea what really this guy was supposed to be and why the African drummers were dressed in semi-cow suits, but we liked it anyways.

Next is of an "art museum" that was on the corner of my block. I say this in quotations because although it seemed like an art museum from the outside and people told me it was, there were always people going in and out after midnight, which seems like strange activity for a museum. Also, one night at around 3am there were about 50 people waiting to get in-definitely suspicious behavior. So really I have no idea what the deal is with this building but kinda wish I would ventured a bit more to find out.

This one is my favorite statue/fountain that I found and it was just across the street from my hostel. I liked to sit by this for a few as I was waiting for buses and well just pretty much anytime I passed it.

Next: Ehh, I don't remember what this is but is very prototypical of the cities architecture- breathtakingly beautiful.

Next is La Lonja de la Seda. I am still a little fuzzy as to why this grand building was named essentially "Silk shop" or "Silk exchange. Though during the time it was built (late 1400s) the main source of Valencia's wealth was from silk manufacturing and trading. This building was designed to represent the finest of Spain's gothic architecture and to display the cities wealth during this time. I also believe that it was then used for a period as the main place where silk trading occurred. Was a very peaceful and absolutely gorgeous building, definitely my favorite that I walked around.

After La Lonja de la Seda is Valencia's main cathedral in the Plaza Reino (Reino=Kingdom). Apparently in this Cathedral is where the holy grail lies, but who knows? This plaza was a bit touristy but I loved all the old buildings anyways and seemed to circle back here at least 3 times every time I was lost.

Last two: not sure, but liked them just the same.

Craziness

Each day since I have left, something crazy has happened, each day topping the previous adventures. This makes me a bit nervous about what is going to happen tonight. Let’s recall events since attempt one of departure.

Thursday, May 27^th: I was supposed to leave Cleveland at 7:30pm this day, fly to Newark, then from Newark to Madrid, getting into Madrid around noon on the 28^th, then from Madrid to Palma de Mallorca at 2pm. That didn’t quite happen… Upon arrival, I discovered that my plane was delayed for 1 hr because of “Air Traffic Control” (wtf?), making it very close as to whether I would catch my flight to Madrid or not. So I make it through security, am driven to my gate. I wait there for bout 30min, when this guy that looks more like a drug lord than a airport worker arrives and says, “Miss Lord, follow me”. I was quite surprised that he knew my name, but then figured the crutches were a dead give a way. Anyways, he said that he was going to try to get me on an earlier flight—one that was supposed to leave at 4:30—in order that I might make my connection. It was 5:45, when this happened. Right then I figured this was just foreshadowing the events that were to come. He talked on the phone for a while, which makes me a bit happier until I hear him asking, "Ooh what kind of chips are they?". This was followed my "mmmm". *Shakes my head* FML. I am then transported to my new gate, which I promptly find has been delayed at minimum until 8:30—at which time we will receive an update—because of “Air Traffic Control” once again. There was one poufy red-headed lady working dealing with all of these issues. I, nervous about missing my series of ensuing flights, asked her if she thought we would actually leave my 8:30. Her response, “I cannot say for sure, but if I were a betting woman, and I am, I would say that we will.” This same conversation was repeated throughout the night, to the point that I began to wonder how much money this “betting” woman must have lost in her life—probably a lot. In short, we kept getting announcements that we would be getting further announcements. During this time I met an accountant who knew more about airplane models and makes that probably any pilot, a lady from Romania who was traveling to the middle east by herself as a vacation from her husband. I got invited to a wedding in Valencia and I got a marriage proposal from some boy’s mother because she wanted me as a daughter. So all in all it was a pretty fun and very interesting time, but I missed my ensuing connecting flights and ended up still in Cleveland at the end of the night.

Friday, May 28^th: Ok, so this time I did actually end up making it out of the country. I ended up being rerouted to Valencia because there were no available flights to Madrid or Barcelona for the next 3 days. And although my flight was “restricted” because of competition with volcanic ash, I was able to fly to a different city because the customer service lady was awesome and rerouted me for miscellaneous “medical reasons”. Flew through Newark, sat and drank all day in Continental’s presidential club-so awesome. I then hopped on a plane to Zurich. You guys know my story there.

Saturday, May 29^th: Made it to Valencia. Had an amazing day! However, that night is when things started to turn a bit for the worse. I decided to go on a “pub crawl” that the hostel offered. This is where a bunch of people from my and other hostels get together, pay 15 euros and are taken to 4 different bars, where we would then get a few “free” drinks at each place. So, we went around, had a sweet time. I met a lot of people, yada, yada. I was surprisingly the only American on this adventure, becoming known as Ms. America hehe. I ended up spending most of my time at each bar with a group of Ozzies, my two favorites being Stefan (who I later named “Gloria Estefan” hehe) and Sam. Sam just danced around and said, “This place is shit” everywhere we went, so he became the token hilarious shit boy of the night. Then, Stefan a.k.a Gloria Estefan ended up covering most of my other not included drinks because we made a deal that every time he got my name wrong, he would buy me a drink (2 drinks when he called me Beatriz). He didn’t seem to have the best memory but that’s ok because I started introducing him to people as Stephane (he didn’t like that very much) and then eventually as Stephanie (liked this even less) ;). So around 4:30am, I am still jet lagged and want to go home. Gloria Estefan says he’ll walk me home, assuming that I know the way (I avidly assured him that I did). Well, I couldn’t exactly remember to get back…so after 6:30am when we were still not back, I was demoted from being the navigator. Well, Gloria, as we already know, doesn’t have the best memory either and didn’t fare much better leading the way, even after we ended up finding a map. We ended up making it back to my hostel at 8:45am!! That is how long we walked around the city. Then this poor guy had to walk back across the city to his hostel. I must say though, he was quite the gentleman to stick with me for 4 hours trying to get me back safely, which was pretty awesome and my foot didn't hurt one bit. Yay!

Sunday, May 30^th: Beach all day-Amazing!! Pretty much everyone topless, very interesting, especially during beach volleyball. But once night came….things started to get a lil crazy again. I initially intended to just stay in and catch up on sleep, but as we can all see my plans don’t seem to quite work out very well. As I was walking downstairs to check my e-mail round 11:30pm and I was sitting down, I was hollered at by a group of pregamers goin hard on minute 40 of power hour. So of course I decided to join them and go out with them later. Duh. So the group of us Americans ventured out into unknown waters. The rest of the group were big smokers and decided to try and find some mystical green plants. We learned that if someone offers you a beer for a Euro (tons of people do this to tourists) but they don’t have a bag, that means that they are trying to sell you weed. The code for marijuana is “Chocolate” at least in Valencia. So, if you say “Quisiera chocolate” this is code for “I would like some weed”. Amazing what you can learn in 2 days. So they got some weed-I didn’t participate in this adventure. But we continued walking around, this time me successfully navigating this, until…the fall. Let’s preface this story a bit first. In Valencia there a tons of little posts that go almost to your knee that line the street but follow the curbs around turns as well. So, I was walking talking to Nema—a very attractive boy pursuing his masters in Behavioral Economics—when one of these poles jumped out in my path. I didn’t see this pole, tripped over it (it catching on my dress along the way). Given that I was traversing on cobblestone, uneven terrain in a boot and one flip flop, I couldn’t recover and maintain my footing. So, I fell into the side of a building, my face breaking the fall. It was terrible, and my nose is pretty scabby now, with a slight cut above my eye. Hopefully didn’t break anything, not quite sure, but am very glad that I was relatively fine and didn’t chip any teeth. Ok so that is rough overview of previous craziness. Hopefully tonight will be a little more relaxed in Palma de Mallorca. Yay! Finally made it here.

Spain Stop 1: Valencia. I finally made it somewhere over here!

Me at my hostel!! It's so cute and the people are extremely friendly and helpful. But am so glad I know a fair amount of Spanish because no one speaks english here in Valencia! My first time in Spain and my first time in a hostel!

I think I have had the best time ever being lost here. Ended up miles from my hostel, walking in a cast, with no map. Made it back somehow 4 hours later. I love Valencia and have already had too many interesting encounters to count.