Saturday, February 25, 2012

(updated) AHP. La Gente está muy loca, WTF

PICTURES WILL COME LATER TAKES TOO LONG AT THE HOSTAL

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
yeah so you know what sucks? having to leave a discoteca early because your stomach feels like shit. honestly i am like dancing the night away and all of  sudden my stomach is like, hey you know what would be realllllyyyy fun? putting a mini bomb in your stomach. maybe we will even make you throw up. that´s the goal (says my stomach).
well FUCK you stomach. i told Bryce (OH YEAH Guesssss WHAT? bryce is viisting me! yeah its so crazy to have some one from home in europe. i dont remember if i have wrote on th
----------------------------------------------


Yeahhhhh so that was a fail of an AHP. I got distracted by making mash potatoes at 5am and then skyping Justina for an hour and then Dennis for three. But we´ll get to all that in a bit. I don´t understand WHERE my time goes! So let me catch you all up on that past week. It was literally the craziest four days since I have been to Spain.. And then a recovery day at the beach J

WEDNESDAY
I don´t remember what I do during the days…. Like normal stuff, some classes and then eat with my friends.. I feel like I just wait around for the nights…
So remember my new friends I made the week before? Catarina and Luiza? Well it turns out that one of Luiza´s roommates is a salsa teacher! I get facebook invitations everyweek from Erasmus for “Salsa classes at Café Tucán!!!” I don´t know why I hadn´t been yet. I think someone had told me it wasn´t that great? Well I was suppose to go to Ash Wednesday mass but I got distracted by something or another (food and then cleaning my room) so oops bad Catholic, BUT I looked it up and Ash Wednesday isn´t actually a day of Holy Obligation. So at least I didn´t commit a horrible sin.

The salsa class that my portugese speaking friends informed me about started at 8pm, but I was late of course and didn´t leave my till like 8 30. Then, I am directionally retarded and decided to take a bike which allows for even less of a reaction time so I ended up being lost for like half an hour even though it only should have taken me like five minutes to get there. Oh well live and learn.. When I did get there, the environment was really chill and you were suppose to pay 5 euros for the class which was of 2 hours but since I got there late decided to just sit out with Luiza and watch: “Un dos tres.. cince seis siete” that was the count that was repeated the entire time. Where is cuatro? Anyways, the count (yes I realize they are just numbers) got stuck in my head…

Once the class was mostly over, we decided we wanted to go drink something but everything at Café Tucán was too expensive so we decided to go to some local bar or tapas place to grab a beer (or sangria for me). We ended up finding this little bar called La Niña Bonita, got a few pitchers of sangria and of beer and just chatted about life. You know, fun girl stuff. Oh, and Neva joined us as well a bit later.
Side note: SUPER annoying. For some reason it is legal in Spain for random street vendors to come into restaurants and bars and try to sell you random shit. Why the hell would I want to buy a lighter or sunglasses or a hat??? I AM DRINKING SANGRIA!

Ten euros later, we decided to move our party to Chris and Jean Luc´s apartment, mostly to just drink some 3 euro wine and collect those two and Pelle to come back to Café Tucán. They had another salsas class at 11 which was free! Oh, and if you decide to take the lesson, you get a free mojito! Which actually was awful cuz it was soooo horrible sweet I couldn´t finish it. Neva and I got gin and tonics, AND we would get free chupitos with our shot. OH andddd the bar tender was Venezuelan. She loved me too much J


Me and Neva did some work on these bar nuts… Like, I actually ate enough to be full even though I hadn´t eaten dinner…


Ended up being there till almost 230 and it actually got really full. When we had first gotten there the environment was pretty chill but by 230 it was like crazy full. Unfortunately, it was only me Neva Pelle and Luiza and the latter two weren’t really dancing too much and I am not one to meet random people at  bars… Too much effort slash I hate small talk especillay when one or two parties isn´t sober. What´s really cool about being an Erasmus student is that every single night there is like a promotion to get into a discoteca for free before a certain time (230, 330, 430—just depeneds). Tonight´s was for Miniclub and neither Pelle nor I had been there before so we had promised each other that we were going to make go even though it was a Wednesday night and I had class at 830am the next day… I don´t know why I made this promise because the first week I went to Rumbo on a Wednesday night with a different class at 830 (not taking that class anymore, now I start at 930) the next morning with ONE hour of sleep and was still..not sober. The kid next to me was tweeting about me… Yes this really happened to me..


ANYWAYS, so Pelle, Neva, Luiza, and I are on a mission to go to Miniclub. For some reason we thought, well when I say we I mean that Pelle made an executive decision, to take a taxi. Mniclub was less than a mile away, mind you. Whatever, drunk Pelle makes it rainnnn.

When we got there, its close to 3am at this time. The club was LITERALLY empty. This is what happens when you get to a club before 4am in Spain.

For some reason though we had an incredibleeee time! We had so much space! No one pinching my butt or sketching. I could dance crazy and do cartwheels. Whatever, we had a great time.
Eventually people did get there, like around 4 or 430. But it never got tooo full. We forget that it is Wednesday and not everyone is an Erasmus student

We had to like tear ourselves away from the club though cuz the music kept getting better and better but we really needed to go to sleep seeing it was approaching 5am..




























THURSDAY
Well didn´t make it to my classes the next morning. But not because I couldn’t. I woke up, showered, and then was like, huh do I reallyyy want to start going to this class today? So I briefly explained that signing up for classes was a bitch… So after going to that one statistics class for 3 weeks out of the business school I ended up signing up for the statistics class in my faculty so now I can go to my Molecular Bio lectures that was at the same time as the business statistic class. So I hadn´t gone the first 3 weeks so I was like, ehhh what´s one more class…

Again, no idea what I did the rest of my Thursday… I don´t think I went to school at all but I honestly don´t remember.. I think I just lazied around my apt all day which is sometimes nice J Andd organized my life and bought my tickets for Italy! I am going to Italy for 2 weeks during Semana Santa (which is like two weeks we get off in April in honor of Easter).

That night, I had plans with my roommates! So one of my roommates (Lea) is a German Erasmus student. She has been here since last semester and speaks Spanish wonderfully. My other two roommates are both from Spain-one from San Sebastian (Cristina) and one from Toledo (Raquel). Anyways, we made plans earlier in the week to all eat dinner together and go to this Electromusic Festival at this club called Las Tres. I LOVE to dress up so I was under impression that we had to dress dub steppy. I put on some leggings, running shorts over, my converse, my crazy sports bra and a black tank top. Cris was like, Yeahhh people don´t dress up like that here. You may wanna change.
I was so sad hahah but I did a compromise J

Lea and I went to the grocery story and bought lots of pizzas and stuff for our mini piso party. She ended up having a bunch of her friends from Frisbee and stuff come over. Pelle came over as well (SPINE!!!)

After eating thoug, Pell and I decided to piso hop to Thomas´s apartment. It was  a bunch of Gandia kids so we were very much at home.

Hahaha okay so me and Pelle came to a realization. When we were riding the bikes over to Thomas, we were like, you know we are ALWAYS the ones that go out. It´s always you  and me, and then whoever ends up joining. Pelle was like, WE ARE THE SPINE OF GOING OUT FOR  OUR FRIENDS. Hence the nickname Spine. It´s fine, we call each other this now.

Since we were going to an Electrofestival, we decided it would appropriate to draw mask type things on our face. We were all looking legit.
 
I even painted one!!! And I´m so not artsy…
Eventualliy we made our way over to Las Tres… with taxis. I get so confused when we take taxis places…

So this is where I died. Neva is like the most Slovenian person I know (obviously). AND she had her best friend visiting. So double trouble. Neva always has a bottle with Fanta and vodka.. we couldn´t take it into the club so we just were passing it around between Neva, her friend Anya, and me… I ended up in one of those I´m-only-gonna-nod-and-keep-my-eyes-closed kind of state. Oops that´s a first for Spain.

last thing i remember...
FRIDAYYY
So after teleporting home, woke up the next morning and made it to my Molecular Bio lab… 45 minutes late. Luckily its Spain and we hadn´t even started the lab yet. Win win win maybe I should move here and being late to everything won´t be a big deal? J

After class I had some coffee and a little pow wow trying to clear up some stuff…

ANYWYAS back to my apartment to get ready fooooorrr BRYCE!!!! YEEEEE my first American friend visit! I rode my bike to the station and picked him up! It is sooo weird to see someone from home in Europe. Like I have said before, this whole Spain adventure has been like a dream for me so having someone from like reality to share it with makes me realize that I am not dreaming. I don´t know if that sounds trippy but that is how I feel about it.

SO yeahhhh Bryce had been to Lisbon and Porto in Portugal and then in Madrid. His last stop was Valencia to see me and he told me he wasn´t really wanting to do any touristy stuff and just wanted to have a good time. Señor Bryce, you have come to the right city J

So Friday night, Mats and his roommates (Cezar and Paco) were having a 80s/90s themed party. I loveee dressing up but I didn´t bring my onesie that I have at home… So I dragged Bryce along with me to the center to try and find some leggings and ankle warmers and stuff. He wanted to kill me but you can ask him, a few hours of boring shopping totally worth the rest of the weekend J

AND even better JUSTINA CAME!!!! It´s really funny, she and I are best friends even though its super shitty that she lives in Gandia. Regardless we skype at least two times a day and  Whatsapp constantly. Erasmus makes relationships develop on like steroids. Strange shit.

With her help we found these WONDERFUL leotard things.  Got dressed, ate dinner, and were about an hour late to 100 Mondaditos where the rest of our friends were more or less waiting for use. We were feeling good by the time we got there.

We intended on going out to a discoteca last night but we looked at our watch and all of a sudden it was 530 am. Such a fun party but going to discotecas after 330 requires us to pay like 15 euros… Bryce and I so desparately tried to share a bike on the ride home. LITERALLY impossible.  It ended up me just weaving on the sidewalk really slow and him walking next to me. I don´t know why we thought that was a good idea.

SATURDAY!!!

We had a PERFECT lazy day. Well sort of. So Bryce is staying at my apartment and I have a double bed so we snuggled. AKA I told him to stay as far away from me as possible cuz I don´t like being touched. So around 1030 in the morning the lovely Justina rings my apartment. Let her in and she decides to get in bed as well this is only after opening the blinds and letting the entire sun into my eyes. So of course I end up being in the middle of her and Bryce being touched on both sides and burning up. After like 3 hours of this uncomfortable sleep I decided to slink out of bed and shower and get ready to go to Jean Luc and Chris´s apartment for lunch. Had to wait for Bryce and miss princess so we finally got over to their apartment at like 3 or so.

Took entirely too long to turn the oven on…. BUT we ate a wonderful meal and had a nice siesta. Well the rest of the crew did and I took Bryce to see my Universitiy but they have this dumb rule that you have to be a student to go on campus after 3 on the weekends…. We tried to sneak in through the gates but neither one of us could fit. Blast.

After some more laziness and siestas, and going to the grocery store for some crucial items (grocery stores are closed on Sundays. It´s a struggle) it was 930pm! Pelle, Chris, Bryce, and I all went  for tapas at this place really close to my piso. Slowest. Service. Ever. Literally it took the poor little Asian guy like 30 minutes to bring out our beer and sangria and then like another hour after that for our tapas that were shitty.  The universe was telling us that this night was gonna be an interesting one.

I did however use my lady charm to get the guy to give us a free sangria J

At like 11 we went to JL and Chris´s apartment again. Played the most intense game of shoulders ever. We almost had something for every single number and, of course, each rule was sexual in some way. I always tend to be the only girl so I mean it´s fine..

OH and about ten minutes into the game we had a very loud pounding on the door. The old lady that lived downstairs was so mad “NEVER HAVE I IN MY 20 YEARS HAD TO COME UP AND TELL AN APARTMENT TO BE QUIET!!!! I WILL CALL THE POLICE”
Damper number 2 on our night.

Around midnight or so we decided to peace out and go to a piso party at some Brazilians´ apartments. It was on Calle Yecla, 14. Should have been about 2 minutes walking but we COULD NOT find the damn apartment (sign 3). It´s fine though we all had like two bottles of something or another and were parading around the street BELTING Asi tu Pego on the streets and Pelle was yelling that he was Jesus and could walk through cars. Aka he would walk through oncoming traffic without giving a shit. I was about to kill him if the cars didn´t.

Once we got to the apartment it was almost 2 so we had to get on our way to Las Animas seeing that free entry ended at 230. We were at the Brazilians´s apartment for maybe 10 minutes. They had a hookah though. YUMM J

We all split up to get into the taxis and I was trying to be nice and make conversation with him but he wasn´t really in the mood. Oh well. The line to get into Las Animas wasn´t awful but we weren´t allowed to take in our bottles… I tried so hard to sneak one in but it was impossible… (universe signal 4)

So Neva and her friend Anya like looove being upside down in pictures. We decided it was the Slovenian thing to do. SO about 15% of our pictures from that night are upside down.

The club was actually really fun but I don´t really know what we did. Like I think we only took pictures and did chupitos. OH and then at like 430 my stomach decided to be a huge bitch-5- (AND we get back to the AHP at the beginning of this) and so I told Bryce I had to leave and that he could stay. His response: YOU CAN´T LEAVE ME IN SPAIN I DON´T SPEAK SPANISH AND HAVE A FLIGHT TOMORROW.
Okay.

I literally had my head out the window of the taxi I wasn´t sure if I was going to throw up or what but I just felt awfulll. When we got to my apt, I realized I didn´t have my key. Struggle 6. I tried so hard to make sense and act sober as I explained to the guard I didn’t have my key. He let me into the complex and my building and I was like, how bout my room??? :D No, why the hell would the guard have the keys to peoples individual apartments. Stupid stupid….

SUNDEEEEE
When I did get back to my apartment, I made some mash potatoes and milk-felt sooo much better. And then I decided to skype literally till 930 in the morning. Until Bryce stumbled into my living room saying: “I am SOOO wasted right now. Like more so then when I went to sleep.” We both chatted with Dennis for a little and took a half hour nap before I had to take him to the airport.

An entertaining morning to say the least. SOOOO HAPPY YOU CAME BRYCE J I had sooo much fun with him. It´s one thing for people to read my blog about what I do and about my friends and stuff, but its something completelyyy different to actually be here and live it with me. It was awesome to be able to share my life with someone I know from like the real world just for a weekend. SO you all should come visit me. I promise we will have fun J

The rest of Sunday I went to the beach and just relaxed while delirium got the best of me.  Chris made a nice song about t bagging. We relived the whole week before, and then ended up eating dinner at a Chinese buffet. We were there for TWO HOWRS. Until 11. Not even fanny…

South park for the win and just slept at JL/Chris´s apartment. I think I would of crashed the bike if I had tried to ride home.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

"Meet at the bus at 7am!",.

OH this weekend has been ridiculous. I honestly think I have taken off like 2 years of my life because of my decisions and lack of sleep?

So I FINALLY have my classes in order! Well except 1 out of 4. So I am 75% a student... And I have such a ballin schedule. No class Monday, and only a lab class on Friday morning.

I am taking Molecular Bio and so we have the lab Fridays at 9am. Gotta be responsible Thursday nights because playing with bacteria strains and centrifuges may get tricky. I am such a nerd and actually really enjoyed the lab.. It's like what I studied all last semester in biochem. WIN I have altered bacteria DNA by digestion of the enzyme BAMII to insert a vector and will test if was successful by reading the gel we ran.... Shout out to my biochem study group :)

ANYWAYS so the class I am taking, well at least the lab portion (I don´t go to lecture because it is at the same time as my statistics class) is a masters course. I am reallly confused as to how I am allowed to take it because UPV is literally retarded when it comes to letting the international students sign up for classes that aren´t in their school and shit. I will get into all that another time, I am still struggling to get into one more course (yes it´s the third week, I don´t want to talk about it..)

Since it is a masters course, I was the baby of the class. Everyone was at least 23. I am getting use to this... I wasn´t able to go to lab last week because, well becaaause (hehe justina), I didn´t even know we had it. Through my determination I was able to find out we had labs Fridays... So I worked with these two other students, one of which was a Spanish student and the other an Erasmus student who also had not gone to lab the previous week. So guess what? I made a new friend! Her name is Catarina, she´s 23, and she is from Portugal. I have this weird liking for the Portugese accent... We got to chatting and then after class I met her friend Luiza, from Brazil. The girls I normally hang out with went on an Erasmus organized trip to series of cities. I was suppose to go but the deadline to pay for the trip was while I was still in northern spain.. Oh well. But anyways, I invited them to come eat dinner with us at Mats apartment. We were gonna be cooking so fancy! Mussels, french fries, bread, wine, nomnomnom. Oh and brownies.. :)
 I just want to say, I have learned to cook SO much while here. Not having Miss Mattie´s food has required some adaptation but I have actually started enjoying cooking. Probably because we always cook in a large group so even the cooking part is like really fun.

Mats: "I always get drunk when I cook... I just am drinking wine all the time"
 P.S. If you haven´t watched the youtube video about the Uganda politician ranting about homosexuals "eating da pupu" then you should go ahead and look that up now. Half of our inside jokes revolve around that... So you can just imagine the jokes when licking the brownie pot and then eating it after etc.

Useful: So it was Luiza´s birthday! Guess what she got to use to blow out her candles! Also, writing with whipped cream is a lot harder than you would think..

Anyways after another hour or two of drinking games and talking and dancing, we went to this club near the center (we had to take cabs, I was so confused) called Mya. Really fun. Haha you know you had a good night when you don´t get out of bed the next day until almost 4pm.

Yeah so I did NOTHING productive the following day. Woke up, ate, caught up on Modern Family, got back in bed.. I wasn´t hung over or anything, just SOOOO tired. But earlier that week Pelle, Mats, and I decided that we were going to go celebrate Carnaval somewhere seeing that our friends were off in Cadiz or some shit. So we signed up to go to Pego! Which is, ironically, half an hour after Gandia. So we found our way back to Gandia on the 20 11 bus (I literally have no idea how I made it seeing I didn´t get out of bed for the second time until 19 35). We were all still veryyyy tired from the night before but Pelle and Mats went to go buy costumes.. looking solid.

To give you some time reference, we arrived to Gandia before 930 then went to this tapas place until 11pm and then dragged our ass to Gandia campus. When we got there, we had no idea where anyone else was. I was still delirious and was like, HA what if we came to Gandia for nothing?? Nah things were just running late. Normal Spain things. We finally got on the buses around midnight and arrived to this craziness about an hour later. What our coordinator said to us before we got off the bus "Meet back here at 7am! And good luck finding the bus!"
If I had had ANY idea what to expect, I would of at least gotten a legitimate costume. I looooove to dress up but for some reason I had this idea that it was like a cultural celebration and people would be wearing like traditional shit. Nope. This was like Halloween meets Mardi Gras. Just huuundreds of people dressed up and HAMMERED everywhere. Within the first ten minutes of us being there, I saw two fights. Pelle, Mats, and I were like cold stone sober, and this environment, at least to fully enjoy it, that was not an option. They had bars everywhere (outside) and drinks were cheap so that was useful :)




There was this cheer that apparently everyone knew. The only thing I understood of it was "ALCOLLLLL"


I was SO impressed by everyone´s costumes. Like really creative stuff. And apparently dressing up as a different race is sociably acceptable here haha




Note to self: Learn to pop a squat behind a building or hold it for six hours cuz these bathrooms were GROSS.

But I can´t even explain how the environment was. Just like HUNDREDS of dressed up, normally very drunk people just parading around the streets. There were plenty of stages playing live music and several of the plazas throughout the small town, lotsss of bars outside with cheap drinks. Weed was like the natural aroma of the place. And so much dancing! When we first got there, I think all 3 of us were kind of like, shit we are not drunk enough for this... But it ended up being a greatttt night :)

We all know how I like these types of pictures. A huge mob of ridiculous people and behind it all a nice church haha

We somehow found our way back to the bus at 6 30am.. Mats was so smart and sent the location via whatsapp to our FFF group (the group chat we have here) so we were able to find it decently well.

I am pretty sure everyone passed out on the 30 minute drive back to Gandia. Pelle and Mats were like so confused when they woke up. They were both convinced that we like hadn´t left Pego yet... But Mats was all cheery and Pelle like wanted to kill a puppy. Delirium was on my side so I just giggled all morning :)

Luckily we didn´t have to wait very long for any transportations seeing we had to take a bus to the train station, then a train to Valencia, then the metro back to our apartments.

I was happily in bed and showered by 1030am :)


our shoes were a disaster...


everyone on the train looked like this. why else would spanish people be awake before 11am?

Monday, February 13, 2012

The End of My Camino: Santiago de Compostela and Coruña

That overnight bus between Zamora and Compostela was rough... 6 hour ride and I wasn´t feeling too great so sleep was limited...

My private hostel booker (Dennis :) ) found me a hostel called Roots and Boots that was about a 2 km (sorry now google maps on my phone does it in km instead of miles...) treck in the freezing cold. But I was walking through the old part so it wasn´t really that bad :)

 I was painfully tired though, so when I got to my hostel, I showered (overnight buses have a way of making you feel horribly disgusting) and was able to take a WONDERFUL two hour na. And check out the amazing view from my window of my room :)

 I woke up and decided to have  nice breakfast in the hostel and off I was to explore one of the most sacred places for the Catholic church which was really cool. It´s really cool to think about the history this place has. And honestly, I can´t even explain how badly I want to walk it now. It takes lke 35 days or so to do? Maybe after college. SOOO if anyone is interested :)
I find small alley´s entirely too interesting.

So after I was sufficiently content with my explorations of the old area, I decided to walk towards the center of the city. I found this park which was like super full of students and stuff, aka prime people watching.

SOMETHING I have noticed (I am planning on doing a blog of this I have noticed that are super different than the USA)--PDA (for non USA readers, stands for Public Display of Affection as in kissing and hugging your significant other in public etc). It´s like a serious issue here. The high school children in the park, and every couple I have seen, have like NO consideration for surroundings. Sorry but I don´t want to see you groping your girlfriends ass or stradling your boyfriend or just hooking up all over the place. Little 14 year olds! I like cried.

Anyways, continued through the park and found these stairs and BAM a romanesque church. And it was like one that was not kept or anything. OH and guessss what was right in front of the church??? A clover patch. Well there were actually several. You know how I feel about four leaf clover searches :)

And then, a moment where it was probably better that I was by myself, I decided to take a picture. In front of the church were like tons of little daisy looking flowers. I try to be artistic every once in a while. I laid, like literally on my stomach- I am surprised I didn´t lay on dog shit (yeah that is everywhere too...) trying to take this picture. Each time, my damn camera would focus on the church and make the flower blurry. Drawbacks of automatic cameras... BUT after about 45 minutes?? I got it!

By this time, it was probably 3 or so? Getting hungry. I love being dictated by simple necessities. Eat, sleep, drink when I want with no set schedule.

Somehow, I stumbled upon the Uiveristy of Santiago Compostela. I just started walking towards this old looking building and it ended up being the cafeteria. Good thing since university food is much cheaper than restaraunt food. So I got lovely bocadillo for 2 euros. OH and the cafeteria was located in MY Plaza. Aka Rodriguez Plaza. I think I may own this country I see something with my last name errwhere (shut up I know my name is more common than Smith.)

I ended up taking my bocadillo to go because it was uncomfortably obvious that I wasn´t a student there seeing I had no idea where to pay or who to give my ticket to etc... Plus I was craving wine :) So walked back towards my hostel, stopped by a super market and bought some orange juice and wine and ate while admiring the cathedral from the window.

Decided to go back to the old part. Guess what? I went to confession. It was the first time in toooo long, but it was really cool to do it in such a historical place. It was like super old fashion, the priests sitting in these little like taquillas (idk how to say it in english but like a booth maybe?) And then you would go to one side and kneel and talk to the priest. It was my first time doing it in Spanish and I like chatted with the priest about it and how I was having a baby sister soon etc. I think I was able to experience a different aspect of this city because I was able to, like, participate if that makes sense?


That night in the hostel, I like scavenged for food (typical.. sorry I am a broke college student..) I had my bread and my wine and found some eggs and made egg salad. I didn´t eat real food that week haha

I met one of the girls that was in my room at the hostel and she was the one that gave me the idea to go to Coruña the next day (my last full day in northern Spain). Eh. It was my least favorite city of the week. But I mean I figured since I had sen a lot of Santiago the first day, why not?

Plaza del Humor
So I honestly had no idea what was to be done in Coruña so on my one hour train ride from Santiago to my destination I quickly whipped out my cell phone and looked up wtf to do in this town via lonely planet (look at me doing things on my own and not bothering people in the united states to help me! growing uppp)

1. Plaza del Humor. It was this plaza that had cartoons on the ground and random statues. I spent probably an hour here even thouguh it was like the size of my room.

2. Domus Museum or Casa del Hombre- museum that combines a bunch of shit. Didn´t go to this one.

3. Old City with tons of squares and monuments and, of course churches. So I ate my lunch at this plaza so I spent a lot of time people watching and such. There was a large number of kids there like either playing soccer or on the scooters and stuff. My favorite thing though was this group of like 6 kids. So there was this plaque type thing that had chains around it, you know so you don´t like mess with it. Haha but no for this kids it mean it was a shipwreck.. I took a video of them because it was so cute. I hope that doesn´t make me creepy.. But seriously, where were these kids parents??

Oh and then there was this other kid that may have been like 11. He was very entertaining to watch as well seein that he thought he was a parcor (yeah wutevuh spelled that wrong) king. And he was wearing the strangest pants. Like Aladdin style. Again, where were his parents he was balancing on a rail of like a random stair case.


Plaza María Pita
Also, as much fun as it is to take pictures of myself...... and of buildings.... I came up with a new idea. Put on the ten second timer and then get as far away from the camera as possible. Game time. Can you find me in this one?
Plaza in the Old City
4. New promenade along the seashore: longest in Europe. Plus the two really great beaches, Plaua del Orzan and Playa Riazor. LOOK how amazing that water is.
Promenade along the seashoreee
5. Castillo of San Antón- a fortress dating from the 16th century. The fortress itself wasn´t that impressive and I was too lazy slash not interested in reading the history about it (entrance into the now muesuem was free). It did have a really pretty view of the harbor though

Roman Tower of Hercules
6. Roman Tower of Hercules- a lighthouse that has been in continuous operation for almost 2000 years. It´s actually the oldest lighthouse in the world! Declared World Heritage Monument, which is a big deal. On the way to it, I found this sculpture. I am assuming this is my goal weight (you know seeing that Mats is my feeder and such.)


sorry sunsets are pretty and so are flowers...
The night in the hostel, before I started to scavenge for food again, I made friends! Since San Sebastian, the hostels had been kind eh as far as the people. Everyone was too busy on their laptops of phones which is no fun.. But I met this group of Erasmus students from Salamanca. They invited me to soup and then we went out for a drink. Too bad I was leaving the next day :( but if I go to Salamance I have places to stay!

yeah shitty quality.. people suck at taking pictures.
So after our drinks, I went back to the hostel before them since I had a 9 30 flight to catch... I was planning on waking up at 6 cuz I had to take a half an hour bus ride and then I had never flown RyanAir, so better safe than sorry of course... Well snooze sucks.. I woke up at 645, first word out of my mouth? SHIT.

Turned on the light, grabbed my shit, apologized to my Salamanca friends and RAN out the door. I had to catch the 7am bus... I was like up the road and saw it in the distance and I am like SPRINTING down the road as drunk people that were still out from the night before are making fun of me. Somehowwww I make it even though it was like 7 05 and normally it leaves pretty punctually. I ended up getting to the airport with plenty of time.. but quite a stressful morning..

P.S. SORRY this took so long to get posted. I have been working on this post since I got back to Valencia last Sunday but it has been crazyyy...

CHECK BACK SOON I am working on 2 other posts :)

Monday, February 6, 2012

So it Snows Here: Vitoria, Burgos, Zamora

I wrote this while I was in Zamora waiting for my overnight train to Santiago Compostela on Feb 2. I am just gonna type here as I wrote it. I had limited access to computers on my week long venture so sorry its not live!

As written 2 Feb 2012 at 22 44h, Zamora Spain
 
Once I made my 7am bus to Pamplona (yeah I´m a boss for waking up at 6AM in the FREEZING cold), at the train station I found out there weren´t any direct buses to Burgos. SO I had to go through this town called Vitoria. Nothing special there, but lots of snow :)




see randy?


Well anyways, I was only there for like an hour and then got on my next bust to BURGOS!

So have you ever seen  Yes Man? Whatever, if you haven´t, its about this man (played by Jim Carey) that was a huge opportunist and somehow gets cursed or etc into saying yes to everything. Anyways there is this scene where he and Zoey what´s her face (Deschanel?) decide (slash she decides and he has to agree) to go to the airport and take the next plane to wherever... I have always wanted to this because I love the spontaneity of it... WELL..
When I got to Burgoes, I had to figure out if I was gonna stay the night there or go to Leon which was originally the next place I was hitting on my ghetto Camino de Santiago. With the help of Mats (via whatsapp), I came to the unfortunate conclusion that all the hostels in these two cities were like 25 euros and upwards. Ehhh honestly I can´t afford that seeing I am funding this week long adventure on my one, soooo... I tried, for like 30 minutes, to figure out which bus would take me to a city that was cheaper and closer to Santiago but it was suppperrrr overwhelming so I decided to take a risk and just see what Burgos had to offer and when I got bored, I´d come back to the staion and see which bus was leaving at that time and figure it out from there.


When I got out of the station, I got directed by this old lady who pointed me in the direction of the Catedral (the big important gothic cathedral of the city). The entrance to the plaza that contained the cathedral was more than impressive...

  Twas FREEZING! Literally like -3 degrees Celsius (the only reason I use Celsius versus F is because at every corner there is a pharmacy or whatever that displays the time, date, and temperature in Celsius) So I was bundled up even more than yesterday--two pairs of pants for the win!

side note: I somehow have lost at least one pant size since my arrival in Spain (probably due to the combination of my high alcohol diet, walking 8mi a dayish, and dancing for like 5 hours straight when we go out). This caused me to buy new jeans. LUCKILY, I brought one of my original pairs, so at the station I put on my old ones over my new ones. So yeah rocking the double jean..

I mostly explored the cathedreal.. so pretty :)


I have a tripod, so I can be as obnoxious as I want as far as taking pictures without bothering anyone.

So I was walking behind the Catedral and this old man in this long fur jacket started talking to me (I´m not really weirded out by random people talking to me.. I know I am probably being naive, but I tend to think people have the best intentions. Haha, remeber NYC, Julie?) He was asking me if I was doing the Camino. Like I have said before, I am. Ish. Like I am going (tryinggg) to all the big cities on the pilgrimage. It is suppose to take like 35 days if you walk the whole thing but seeing I start school Monday, I only had a week. Anyways, he was like really concerned since it was so cold and actually started snowing. He went out of his way to show me where those doing the pilgrimage stay overnight for like 1 or 2 euros. I tried to explain to him that I don´t have the credentials, as in the official papers saying that I am doing the Camino legitimately and you have this sort of passport that you get stamped at each of the cathedrals slash churches of each city, but he insisted on showing me and said it was fine. All the while he was just talking to me about his experience and was asking me what I was doing in Spain etc. He was so sweet and oddly inspirational and gave me a hug "para que tengas fuerza", to have strength. I wasn´t able to stay at the place, but it really pumped me up for some reason  :)

At this point it was snowing pretty hard but I decided to explore some more and found these stairs that went up this hill to the Castillo of Burgos.  It was closed... one of the downsides of traveling during non-tourist season.
you can kind of see the snow. like the blurry white things... kind of?
 But it had an INCREDIBLE view of the city.
the metal thing was like a sort of map of the city
 After the wind was basically cutting my face open and the snow started coming down a bit harder, I decided to head back down and search for Plaza Mayor.

Plaza Mayor (YOU CAN DEFINTELY SEE THE SNOW)
 Plus had to find a spot to charge my phone (surprise!) So I took some pictures, then went down this road and bought some ham and popped a squat at this cafe and ate while the snow passed. It was nice :)
After that, said my farewells to lovely Burgos and went on my merry way back to the train station to play, where in Spain will Camila be going next??
One of the perks about traveling by yourself is that you can do what you want and go where you want without having to stress out about how someone else feels. I, for example, don´t mind at all being a little uncomfortable be in an overnight bus from hell or waiting in a stairwell for 45 minutes at the wrong hostel etc. But I would feel bad slash responsible if I had to put (most) other people in that situation. If I fuck up, then it´s only me that has to deal with the consequences. Plus I am able to meet lots of people on the way which is always fun. Easier to make friends if you are by yourself then with a group :) I am not saying that I won´t travel with people, because that´s definitely not true. Just a balance.
So for this particular occasion, I literally had NO idea where I was going next. For some reason though, I didn´t panic at all. Kind of saw it more as a game. Thank god for whatsapp :) I sent a list of the buses leaving the station within the next to hours (to Christian) to figure out which cities where east and then once I narrowed it down to Valladolid and Zamora, I got him to look up on hostel world which hostels where cheaper and the bus schedules from those cities to Santiago Compostela.

Zamora at 16 30h then overnight bus that leaves Zamora at 1 45am and arrives to Compostela at 8am was the winner! I saved myself about 50 euros because I didn´t have to pay for a hostel and the buses were still cheaper than going to Leon would have been.

So I arrived in Zamora around 8 30 and my next bus didn´t leave until 145... SO I decided to go to the tapa bars but I quickly realized that it was an older crowd (like 30s and 40s). Ehhh decided to sit in this one restaurant style and sketched there till like midnight. 3 glasses of wine deep and it wasn´t even midnight when I decided to leave.. Couldn´t really spend anymore money on food and I needed to actually make it to the bus station again so had to cut off the wine.

In the main plaza there was this fountain that I decided to like get in. It was frozen over so I was kind of worried I would fall in and then be freezing cold and wet. DIDN´T. It was funny though, like no one noticed that I was standing in this fountain. This is how slightly buzzed Camila entertains herself in a random town at midnight. Probably  not my best decisions but whatever..


awful picture, but I thought this moment needed to be recorded
So decided to head back to the bus station since I didn´t really have anything else to do. I went to the gate where I had left the bus station, andd guess what? It was locked. I think mostttt normal people would of kind of freaked out. In the state that I was in, supppperrrr tired, buzzed, whatever else. I was like kind of on a delirious high and thought it was really funny and had this certainty that everything was gonna be fine. I was like, huh, well this will be a good story. OH and I hadn´t bought my bus ticket yet for my 145 bus. I like did laps around the bus station and was accepting the fact that I would have to sit outside the bus entrance and run after a bus. Luckily, this father son pair came out and I ran in after them. Apparently the front door had been opened the whole time? I don´t know whyyy I couldn´t get in the first three times I tried. Oh well it all worked out in the end and I hung out in the bathroom for the next hour charging my phone and eating ghetto Smacks waiting for my bus to arrive (half an hour late!)

 All is well that ends well. Plus, where would be the adventure if everything worked out as planned?? :)