The best trip + Birthday fun!

This weekend I went on the best trip so far to Lisbon, Portugal. We took an overnight train to Lisboa, and, with a time change we didn't anticipate, ended up in Lisbon at 7:45 am Portugal time, 8:45 am Spanish time, 2:45 am Iowa time. Confused yet?

We ate our breakfast in the train station, and then set out on what was to be our first lousy encounter with Portuguese public transportation. We had weird directions to our hostel, which is really a bungalow (there will be discussion of my feelings on this to come) and we didn't know which bus to take. I had directions saying from the airport take bus 750, and my friend had directions saying to take 750 to our hostel, but 714 back. Really, does 714 only go one way? That makes no sense. After consulting a map, realizing we had no idea where the airport was so that option was out of the running, and also realizing that their maps were about as confusing as possible, we decided to just walk and try our luck. After far too long, we found bus 714! We ran to catch up with it, hopped on, and the bus driver stared at us like we were stupid. After all 7 of us are crowded in the doorway of the bus he finally says "I go up there (points up the street) and stop." Fuck you one way busses. You make no sense. Discouraged and tired and grumpy from carrying our backpacks, we group-huddled it up, and decided to just take a taxi. This ended up being the best idea, since split 3 ways the taxi was only 50 cents more than the bus would have been, a lot faster, and a hell of a lot more convenient.

We got out to our hostel, located in a national park, and checked in around 10 am. Yeah, we wasted that much time getting there. So anyway, checked in and made our way to our bungalow. Now, I am SO not an outdoorsy girl. I hate bugs, I hate the gross humidity, I hate being far away from everything and mostly I hate bugs. So yeah, this was not my cup of tea. But my friends were so excited for this bungalow deal, so I went along with it, and tried so hard to be a good sport all weekend. This got tested Saturday night when a dead spider (didn't know it was dead) fell from the bathroom ceiling, nearly landed on me, and then I couldn't open the bathroom door. It was also tested Friday night when a beatle scurried across the floor near me. I tried so hard, dammit. I apologize to all my friends for my disdain of nature.

So anyway, we settled in, made a game plan, and actually caught a bus into Lisbon! Oh wait, it wasn't that easy. First, the bus passed us as we sat in the bus shelter (oh, sorry, was that not where we were supposed to wait for the bus?) so we had to wait another 20 minutes for the next one. Wow, this is convenient. When we got to Lisbon we went to a train station (weren't we just there? No, it's a different one) to go to Sintra, a nearby town that we'd heard was amazing. So we walked in and started buying tickets. It struck us that the station was oddly empty for 11 am, but we just tried to make the fickle machines work. One of my friends put in a large bill and in attempting to get change back, the machine ran out of coins (note: she was getting 45 euros back. In coins. Shitty luck) so she got a receipt that told her to come back tomorrow to get her change, but, not reading Portuguese none of us knew this until a nice man came up and asked us if we needed help (which we obviously did, because at this point we were trying to explain to a janitor at the train station what happened, but we spoke English and Spanish, and she only spoke Portuguese, so it was failing) and he explained that the train company was on strike that day, so we would have to come back tomorrow to get her change. The rest of us proceeded to buy tickets (with exact change only at this point) and made our way up to the platform. Thanks to the strike, however, that was a very wasted 4 euro, because we could have made it to the platform without tickets, and no one ever checked them. So that was great. Then, also thanks to the strike, the trains were unpredictable, so our 12:20 train ended up not existing and we took the 12:40 train.

After that confusion, we ended up in Sintra. I can only describe Sintra as a fairytale. It was absolutely the most beautiful place in the world. It was almost unreal how pretty it was. We walked around some attempting to find a tourism office, and on our way saw the beautiful town and tried some cherry liquor in a chocolate cup! It tasted like a chocolate covered cherry! After that, and some leisurely walking, we arrived at the tourism office. The extremely helpful man pointed out all the palaces in Sintra (4) and prices. The most famous, the Palacio de Pena, was a 4 euro bus ride and 9 euro entrance fee away, but two of my friends and I decided it was worth it while the others stayed to walk around the city. After getting lost on our way to the bus stop, we hopped on a bus, paid for our tickets, and walked through a beautiful park on our way up to the palace. We admired the view from the palace and the outside of it for awhile before heading inside. It was absolutely beautiful. It was also relatively new, as far as palaces go, since the last person to lived there lived there only 100 years ago. The walls were brightly colored, the furniture was ornate and amazing, and the artwork was awesome. It was rich and eloquent, but also warm and welcoming. I absolutely loved it.

After we were done at the palace, we decided to take a winding walk through the parks to get back out and meet our friends at 6. The parks were absolutely amazing. We found beautiful flowers, amazing ponds, and a duck house (yeah, you tell me, because I don't know). It was just so beautiful. When we got out it was about 5:55, and we knew we'd be late to meet our friends, but not by much. Right outside the gate, however, was a sign saying that the last bus left at 5:50! We were a little upset at that, because let me tell you, it wasn't a short walk into town. However, after talking to a worker, we discovered the sign lied, and the bus should be coming around 6, and the last bus was at 6:40. What he really meant, however, was that the next and last bus came at 6:40. We sat and had a lovely chat, but were definitely way late to meeting our friends. When we made it back into town, we had coffee and french fries (nice combination) and then decided to buy groceries there so we could just go back to Lisbon, straight to our hostel, and cook dinner. We found a little market, but they were closing shop right as we arrived. The amazing man reopened just for us! We bought pasta, vegetables, and cake, and I am willing to bet he gave us discounts on stuff too, because my 1.45 euro chips and 1 euro candy bar equalled 2 euro. Work that one out. The amazingly nice man taught us a little Portuguese (goodnight, good day, etc) and we headed home.

The train ride was smooth, and we were lucky enough to catch bus 750 from right oustside the station! As we were nearing the edge of town, the driver stopped, however, and told us to all get off! We were confused, as we knew there were more stops (like our hostel, sir) but he informed us that it was the end of his shift and we would have to get on the next bus and pay for another ticket. The next bus, however, didn't seem to want to come, so, being tired and hungry, again we resorted to taxis.

Apon arrival in our hostel we cooked dinner, relaxed, talked, and went to bed. I slept with creepy crawly feeling all night. Did I mention I'm not an outdoorsy girl?

Saturday morning we had a leisurely breakfast and made our way into the city. We wanted to find a market, but didn't know exactly where it was. We did know, however, that we had to find a church to indicate the correct street. There are a lot churches in Lisbon, this didn't help much. On our way we saw a sign for free samples of port wine in a shop, so we stopped in and had some. We asked the women in the shop for directions, they pointed out the way to go, and narrowed down our church search to a white church. This also proved not to help, as we passed 3 white churches before finding the correct one, and eventually the market. We spent awhile there, and then headed to lunch. After lunch it started to rain, so we decided to make our way to the train station to get my friend's change, and a tourism office, to find out what to do. We stumbled on a Starbucks as the rain picked up, and hurried inside for warmth. This ended up being a great decision, because it turned out that this Starbucks was also in the train station! We got the change, had some coffee, and waited for the rain to subside before heading to the tourism office. They told us almost everything was free on Sunday, so we postponed all touristy things until the next day, and decided we really wanted to see a Fado, which is a dinner and show thing where the sing to you as you eat. We went and made reservations at a Fado restaurant, and then decided to take a trolley ride. The trolley ride was fun, but out in the middle of nowhere (as in nowhere close to where we wanted to be) he stopped, made us all get off, buy new tickets, and get back on. That made sense.

We rode the trolley back into the center of the city and then went to find an elevator tower thing to see the city at night. My friend had done research and knew of a way to get in for free, so we took and adventure and entered through a skywalk in the back instead of paying the entrance fee. It was absolutely beautiful up there! The view was astounding. I wish the boy could have been there to see it. It was so amazing. After awwing over the view for awhile, we headed back to our restaurant. The Fado was really good. The singing was cool, and the food was delicious. We had trouble with the bill (taxes? bad math? We'll never know) but eventually just paid extra and left. Some of my friends wanted to go out, but some of us were exhausted and just headed back to the hostel. At the hostel I had the spider adventure mentioned at the beginning. Did I mention I hate nature?

Sunday a surprise time change hit us, and we woke up an hour earlier than planned! Damn you, daylight savings! We packed up, checked out, and headed into the city. We first hit up the Belem neighborhood where we saw a really cool Monestary, the monument of discovery, and the tower of Belem. Then we went and grabbed lunch and had perhaps the best pastry ever. Then we took taxis up to a castle in the center of the city (by this point we had lost all faith in the busses) and saw that. It was pretty cool, and we all had fun, but by this point we were also exhausted from carrying around our heavy backpacks all day. Two of the girls decided to go to church while the rest of us called it a day and headed to the train station where we did homework, ate, and chilled before our overnight train back to Caceres. In combination with losing an hour for daylight savings, we also lost an hour coming back into Spain. Some people may have missed that memo, and after returning home at 5:30 am forgot to adjust their clocks. There were a few tardies Monday morning (I am proud to say I was not one of them).

Lisbon was absolutely amazing, and I loved every minute of it. So much so that I told the boy about 100 times that I really wanted to honeymoon there! I feel in love with Lisbon.

Monday was my birthday. When I came home from school, my host mom informed me that I had a large package waiting! I opened it up, and saw the most beautiful bouquet of over 2 dozen red roses from the boy! Even though he's in Afghanistan, he ordered me flowers for my birthday! I've never gotten flowers before, so it was really really sweet. There was also a little bottle of champaign with it, and a stuffed dog that said Best Friend on the shirt. That made me laugh. Apparently he ordered a stuffed bear that said I love you, but they couldn't gaurantee the correct thing since it was an order to Spain.

Monday afternoon I went out for icecream with some of my friends, and one of my friends got me a card and another got me some candy. It was really nice of them. Then the whole group went out for Chinese food. It was a great birthday! I had perhaps the best birthday weekend ever!

Love from Spain

Colons and maps

This weekend I am going to Lisbon, Portugal. We leave on the train at 1:30 Friday morning, and come home at 5:30 Monday morning, so really, I should be doing homework so I don't have to do it in Lisbon or on my birthday (Monday!) but I feel like writing (in English), so here I am.

Yesterday I did an intercambio with a woman my host dad works with. I've mentioned this before. Anyway, we just walked around the city and talked. She says my Spanish is getting tons better, which is great to know! I can tell it has, it just feels good to know it's being recognized by others, too. So while we were walking up the main avenue of the city (Avenida de Espana) and there was this giant blow up plastic tube thing in the park of the avenue. Being curious, we went over to see what it was. I was quite surprised to find out that it was a replica of a colon! We walked through it and learned all about colon cancer (blow up colon complete with polyps. Eww). So that was an adventure.

In case you're wondering, since there's a map and all, I live just off the Avenida de Alemania. Exciting stuff.

Okay, I honestly have nothing to write about except walking through a colon. Sorry for the lame blog post. I'm off to do homework.

Love from Spain

Las Fallas

This weekend I went on a trip to Valencia. There was a bus trip offered to ERASMUS (inter-European exchange program) and us to go to the fesitval of Las Fallas, so I hopped on it, since it was about the only way to go to Las Fallas unless you booked hostel rooms like 3 months ago. It's ridiculous. So Friday night at 1:30 am (Saturday morning) we left Caceres. After 9 hours, 2 rests, and unrestful sleep, we arrived in Valencia at 11 am. We walked around the city for awhile seeing some of the random fallas , or large structures. They were spread out around the city. Some were kind of small, and then some were basically the size of buildings. The fallas are made out of wood, glue, and "paste," although I think that's an example of something lost in translation, and I'm pretty sure it's like paper-mache. They were all crazy, and I don't really understand them, but I think they were supposed to be like criticisms about the culture or something. I don't really know. Las Fallas started out as a pagan fire ritual, and eventually melded its way into the celebration for the Patron Saint of Valencia, so that doesn't really help explain what the Fallas are either. I was confused, but it was cool.

At about 2 we went to the main plaza to watch a cannon fire. Or, at least we tried to. We ended up in a huge crowd in a street off the plaza, but we could hear so it was okay. The cannon sounded for about 5 minutes, just continuously shooting. It was pretty awesome, and the ground was shaking and it was really fun. I enjoyed it.

After that, we decided to go to the beach, because one of our friends hadn't yet been in the mediterranean. We hung out, dipped our feet in, and chilled for awhile. Then we got Valencian paella, which they are famous for. Although being right along the sea, this has no seafood in it, just chicken. It was really good though. Much better than what I had had in my house. After that, we made our way back into the city for the burning of the fallas at midnight. On our bus trip back in, we were inexplicably stopped at a bus stop for 20 minutes while these drunk men shot firecrackers/baby flame thrower things at the bus. It was weird. When we made it back to the city, we found a falla to watch. It wasn't the big one in the central plaza, but we knew if we went there we could not get close, and if we stayed there we could be front row. Some people wanted to go see the big one, though, so they headed off to the plaza while we waited for about an hour and a half next to the Falla.

A little before midnight they strung this rope with weird firecracker-esque things on it all around the structure. Then they splashed lighter fluid around it, too. At midnight, the lit the rope on fire, sending the flame down the rope and setting off the firecrackers. They ignited and shot off colorful sparks as they lit, which caught fire on the lighter-fluid soaked paper-mache. It was crazy. The whole thing started to burn, working its way around the structure, and up the biggest parts of it. When one of the two biggest characters caught fire, the flame was so huge and so hot we had to back up. As the falla burned, there was a time when the only thing left standing were the wooden support structures in the middle. Then those too fell, and everything just burned and smoldered out. It was incredible and crazy.

After that, we headed to the main plaza to meet our friends again, and potentially see the main falla burn from a distance. When we got there, it was already almost completely gone, but we were not upset about it. We made our way through the absolutely giant crowd, trying to find our friends. As the falla stopped burning, the crowd started to move. We knew where our friends were (in a Burger King across the plaza), but the crowd had a different idea. The four of us held hands so as not to lose anyone, and shoved and pushed our way. As we were shoving and pushing, the whole crowd shoved and pushed back. Thank god no one fell, because I don't know what would have happened if they did. The crowd basically moved as one unit, and you could do nothing about it. At one point a mans elbow was infront of my face, so I could not go forward, but my friend in front of my had my hand, and my arm was totally bending in the wrong direction until I ducked under his arm and lived. It was an epic journey across the plaza.

When we got to BK we waited out the hurricane of people outside, then went to get churros. Then we met up with the rest of the group, and hung out for awhile. Basically at this point we just wanted to leave, but our bus didn't head out till 5:30, so we couldn't. At about 4 we just called it quits and headed to the bus station. On the way, we found a girl passed out, and her friends being the rudest, most unhelpful, inconsiderate assholes ever. We got her water and food, made sure she was okay, and made sure she had a taxi home. That wasn't the funnest way to end the trip. We made our way to bus station after that, and at 5:30 headed out to Caceres. I slept the entire way. All in all, it was a really good weekend.

Two Weeks Worth of Updates

Okay so I know I've slacked on my blogging for awhile. Sorry guys. I've had quite the few weeks.

Last weekend, the 5-7, I went to Badajoz for Carnaval. To get a good idea of Carnaval, think of Mardi Gras and Halloween's baby, but without the candy, and without the skimpy outfits, and with a lot of feathers, glitter, and sparkles. Okay, so I guess think of the baby of Mardi Gras, Halloween, and a drag show. It was intense. It's basically a giant party in the streets. Everyone's dancing and drinking and there are parades and music and it's crazy. Let's just say it's a night to remember. Or not.

I got home from Carnaval at noon on Sunday after having gone to Badajoz at 3 pm Saturday. No sleep occurred in that time, so I slept literally from 4 pm Sunday until 9 am Monday. It was heaven. After a whole 3 days of school (life's rough in Spain), I left with some of my friends on Thursday morning to go to Palma de Mallorca. Mallorca is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. After a few hiccups in travel (note: when traveling, even within the country, and you're not a resident of that country, bring your passport) we arrived in Palma minus one amiga. =(

We got to our hostel (sea view, that's right, be jealous) and settled in. Then we went down to the beach to watch the sunset over the Mediterranean. Can you say pure beautiful? I can: Palma.

Friday we spent the majority of the day on the beach. I did not swim, but I did walk in the Sea! That night we felt like being very American, so we started a little fire out of tea candles and matches (not recommended, by the way) and somehow found marshmallows (that were, as most American things in Spain, close but not quite) and made ourselves S'mores! It was quite tasty, so we repeated the experience Sunday night, too.

Saturday it was rainy, so we went into the city to sightsee. We saw a Gothic Cathedral, which was pretty cool. It had a cloister in it. Don't know what that is still, even after seeing it, so if anyone knows what that is, please enlighten me. After the Cathedral we ate lunch and then wanted to find a round castle that was apparently very far away so we had to take a bus, however the only bus that we could find that went there cost 15 euro, so we passed and decided to walk. After all, the Spanish version of "very far" can't be the same as an American version, can it? Yes. yes it can.

After half an hour of walking we asked someone where the castle was, and yet again were told "very far! Take a bus!" At this point, we gave up. It was raining, we were wet and cold, and we probably wouldn't have had time to see the castle once we got there at that rate. So, we turned around and walked half an hour back to the bus stop to head to our hostel again. We had a very chill evening, and slept a lot.

Sunday was another beach day. Even though it was only about 62 degrees, we swam and sunbathed. All the locals laughed at us and took pictures. One of those pictures is apparently going to be in a German newspaper because we're the first swimmers of the year (yeah, we're famous). Mallorca=Bahamas of Germany. So. Many. Germans! Sunday night we made more s'mores. It was a grand time.

Monday we headed back to Caceres, arriving around 11 pm, without travel hiccups this time.

I'll try to update more regularly. This weekend I am going to Valencia for Las Fallas. It should be a grand time!

Granada and Cordoba: Arabic or Catholic?

This weekend the whole group went to Granada and Cordoba. We left Caceres at 8 am Friday morning and had a 7 hour drive before we arrived in Granada at about 3 pm. We had had two stops in there to let the bus driver rest, and ate lunch on one of those. When we got to Granada we went to the Cathedral. It was really pretty, but also quite cold inside. It was really cool, though. One of our professors came with us on the trip, so he told us a lot of interesting facts and history of the places that we visited that we probably never would have learned had he not been there. We spent a few hours in the cathedral, and then had some free times. My friends and I were pretty tired, so we  went on search for Cafe con Leche, and found instead Churros con chocolate. It was a happy early-evening snack. After that we headed to the hostel where we also ate dinner.

After dinner, some of the group wanted to go out, but a couple of my friends and I just wanted to have a chill evening. We decided to buy a few drinks and hang out in the park near our hostel. It was, at this point, 9:45, and everything was closing at 10. We found out the nearest grocery store was about a mile away, and may or may not have run there. First we entered the wrong store (same name, but this one sold housewares, not food) so we had to run across the street. We got in just before 10, and were the last ones out 15 minutes later with some drinks and chocolate! We went to the park for awhile, then moved into my friend's room when it got a little chilly outside. We called it a night around 1:30 because we had to be up at 8 again the next morning.

The next day we had breakfast and then finally left the hostel an hour later than we were supposed to. We walked up to a lookout spot for a breathtaking view of the Alhambra (an Islamic palace/fort) and the snow-capped mountains behind it. It was absolutely beautiful, and probably my favorite part of the whole trip. After spending some time up there, we headed over to actually see the Alhambra. This, too, was very fun. Again our professor taught us a lot of cool things about it. The Alhambra was really impressive because of the incredibly intricate mosaic work. It is outstanding how they could have possibly done that.

After the Alhambra, we headed out for Cordoba: about a 3 hour drive. My friends and I had a good bus trip playing "truth or truth" the get-to-know-you-tamely cousin of "truth or dare." When we got to Cordoba we had dinner at our hostel. Again some people went out, but I was exhausted, and just called it a night.

The next day we started our Cordoba adventure by going to an archeological site that used to be an palace of an Islamic Caliph. It was pretty cool to see, but very very windy there! After that we had some free time for lunch. My friends and i had been craving pizza hardcore, so we found a pizza joint. It was so tasty! Then we went to a cathedral that used to be a mosque. It is the only mosque not built towards Mecca, which is really interesting. It was pretty cool because it was like this Arabic architecture with Jesus stuff everywhere. It was cool to see

After the mosque/cathedral we headed home. I ate dinner, showered, and slept like a rock. This week I finally got to talk to the boy again, which was amazing. He sounds like he's doing really well, so that makes me happy and helps me stay strong, too.

Love from Spain