Mid-March, Emily and I took a road trip down to beautiful Valencian coast to marvel at the spectacle that is Les Falles. 20-30 neighborhoods in the city spend all year brainstorming, fund raising and constructing these monuments ('falles' in Catalan, 'fallas' in Spanish) which are usually a satirical or extreme interpretation of anyone or anything in the public eye. Some of them just look like random scenes or ideas, but most of them hold national if not international meaning. Anyways, Emily and I decided to make our trip a little more unconventional. So we rented a car. Most European cars are manuals. Not a problem, I remember those first few horror days of driving into LOP with my new 5-speed and having an anxiety attack because the cars behind me were creeping way too close. Unfortunately, though I live independently half way across the world from my parents, I cannot rent a car in Spain. (Couple more weeks though, and 22 will no longer be stopping me from conquering the planet). My cougar friend Emily, however, was 23 at the time. She does not drive a stick. So as the
Did I mention that we rented the car with plans to sleep in it? Because, yes.. that happened.
This is the miniature version of the Falle that is actually a couple stories high. It's called a ninot (Catalan for dolls). The Falles can cost over 100,000€ to construct and did I already say that they burn the shit out of them at the end of the festival?
Spain is having a hard time getting things right lately. 2nd to worst economy in Europe and, without a care in the environmental world, burns numerous plastic and rubber structures every year. Despite that, Spain's encanto will never diminish. It's all about tradition, anyways.
Later that month, arrived one of the best vacation weeks in the whole year. Spring break, baby. Sara and I decided to stay local and head south to Seville and Cadiz. Seville is known for it's elaborate and most well known Holy Week festival compared to all other cities in Spain. We didn't know that. Pre-departure, the only response we received was the Spanish hand gesture for "LOTS OF PEOPLE." True that, these Aragoneses know what they're talking about. It was an intense transition from pueblo life in Aragon to major big city with it's biggest festival going down. We handled it well though, because it was almost a 20 degree temperature increase and there was not a shortage of marvels to...marvel at. Though I admittedly haven't done my research on KKK garb, it just makes sense that the style was stolen from an ÜBER religious and sacred celebration of Holy Week in the Catholic world. This was not a familiar sight for me. Imagine, hundreds and thousands of people in "KKK dress" (if you will) parading the streets, dragging black crosses, holding the body of Jesus Cristo or the mourning Mother Mary. Objectivity is practically flowing through my Anthropological blood, but I can't pretend that the faceless bodies in white, black, green, purple (especially the one's in the middle of the night walking with 4 foot high burning candles) didn't make me feel weird... at first. Day one, I was hiding behind the old people in wheel chairs as little children approached this figures, pulling at their coattails, asking forcandy . CREEEEEEEEEEPY. Day two felt better, and from there on out, it really just became a bother because these parades ran day and night, sun-up to sun-down to sun-up again and more than anything, made it a cluster-fuck of people who prevented me from getting back to my hotel every night. The rest of spring break was absolutely brilliant. We flew from Seville to Barcelona where 2 became a group of 6+ and I was on a mission to make everyone obsess as much over Barna as I do. I think the city should thank me, and then hire me to live there forever. Good weather, good eats and good people to kick start my favorite season of the year. Anyways, less talk, how about some cultural immersion through foticos. Enjoy! Oh one last thing, remember Christopher Columbus ? Well, he left on his second voyage out of the Cadiz port, and as he sailed away, waved to the King and Queen who stood on their royal balcony. It still exists today, believe me!
Ladies in black lace on Holy Thursday.
Making friends, peace. Trying to anyways
The man.
Where the important people sit for the holy processions.
Plaza España in Seville.
Cádiz.
The BCN troop, more or less.
If you want to join my Barcelona tours, they include minimum of a whole afternoon in the park climbing trees.
We spent a beautiful Sunday afternoon in a nearby meadow. Shooting bows and arrows, playing frisbee, climbing on rocks and throwing our bodies around in the sun.
My girl Kendicita came and spent 3 or so weeks with me in my beloved Calatayud. My friends here embraced her, she fell in love with Spain de nuevo and we had the most blessed days together. She is tied for the most beautiful people on this earth.
Óscar's family owns the Jiu-Jitsu gym in Calatayud. His father invited us to come "play" and try it out. Turns out, most of the students are MY students at the highschool, black belts and badasses. I think I was expecting it to be more like Karate, do a little warm up stretching, etc etc.. First thing we have to do.. drop down on the ground and army crawl across the mats. After that, try and wrestle my students to the ground. They were patient and they definitely could've dominated me worse, but I like to think I put up a real fight. Nails!!!
With Óscar and my students. The blonde is the champion of Aragón. Cool life?!
Emily's colleague took us to have a photo shoot dressed in the traditional costumes worn for the festival of Alfonsadas in Calatayud which takes place the beginning of June. It's like a medieval festival, with plays and parades and of course, serious fiesta time. I may or may not be here, but either way, do you think my red vans go well with my Arab cape? (Sara is dressed like La Dolores, who is the famous prostitute of Calatayud, the reason why all of Spain knows of my pueblo)
A weekend mini-vacay to Fuerteventura of the Canary Islands. Did you know that they are Spanish territory but right off the western coast of northern Africa? Anyways, these are true desert islands complete with cabras salvajes (savage goats o sea, wild goats), sand dunes and camels. Chulísimo no? Personally, me da igual, the water was gorgeous, I'm a little morenita and yeah, the beach and sun heals all.
So blessed, and I don't even feel bad about it. HERE'S TO DOING WHAT YOU WANT WITH YOUR LIFE!
These are my little cutie students, private English lessons. From the left they are: Mar, Cristina and Sandra. We were practicing the present continuous in the form of 'going to + infinitive' and the objective was to tell each others' fortunes. Of course, for my enjoyment, I made them wrap their heads in sparkly scarves and rub an invisible glass sphere for a more realistic feel. Of course they loved it, they are 11 year old chiquitinas!
We try to do a weekly dinner with our friends as we only have a few weeks left and we're trying to aprovechar todo. Anyways, as promised to them, we had Mexican night, as you can see by the plate in the foreground, complete with guac, black beans, fajitas and SALSA PICANTE!!! Well, if you thought Spanish food was super exotic, that's false. It's good, really good,, but it lacks variety. You can go to ANY cafetería in any town/city across Spain and you will find the same exact menu as anywhere else. I actually like the idea in that it's about simplicity, straight alimentación instead of every restaurant in America that has to come up with THE most unique dish (though that is really fun as a consumer). Either way, spicy food absolutely does not exist here. Except for 'mojo' (pronounced moho but with a really strong back of the through hhhhhhh) which actually, comes from the Canary Islands. Anyways, on the (my) spice barometer, it's barely gets a 2. So with the surplus of Cholula, Tapatío and other chili sauces we've been gifted by our amazing families (shout out!!) in the States, my Spanish friends made me SUPER proud by not only trying them, indulging in the spice without glasses of milk to get them through it. Jorge, the bravest of them all totally dug the Tapatío though I don't know what happened in his stomach. I mean to put it intoperspective , Javi can't eat ketchup it's too spicy. HAHAHAHAHA, right??!
Well now I'm just excited I have someone to gift what remains of mygiant Tapa when I leave. Oh and also, Jorge peer pressured Oscar into only eating the food with hot sauce because (that's freaking objectivity) and I quote him, "¡ASÍ SE COME!" which means that's the way you got to eat it! Later that night I had written in my notebook: "Españoles sí comen salsa picante! Todos somos capaces!" And so, we've adapted this saying "hay que sufrir para disfrutar" (you gotta suffer to enjoy it!) and it applies to eating blood sausage and hot sauce and many, many, many other situations. Haaaaaha
So that's what 23 looks like...
Tomorrow is Cammy's and my birthday. I brought American cupcakes into my colleagues, they were blown away, obsessed. Here's something I love about Spanish women in serious contrast to the world I grew up in: These ladies live in a country where the most DELICIOUS, varied, sugary and fatty baked goods are baked and devoured on the daily. There is no shame, they don't think twice about eating dessert, taking the largest slice or having seconds. And above all, obesity is NOT a problem here. The women are gorgeous, and probably more because there are less preoccupations about weight and more enjoyment of all the amazing delicatessens. Probably helps that drive-thru fast food restaurants don't exist and the closest McDonalds is an hour away from Calatayud, but I'm speaking for Spain in general. Spain 1 - USA 0 (And they eat pork, fried shit and bread for every meal) Health! Just another wonder of the way the world works...
Lastly, I'd like to pick up kite-boarding, and never leave the beach:
Spain is having a hard time getting things right lately. 2nd to worst economy in Europe and, without a care in the environmental world, burns numerous plastic and rubber structures every year. Despite that, Spain's encanto will never diminish. It's all about tradition, anyways.
Later that month, arrived one of the best vacation weeks in the whole year. Spring break, baby. Sara and I decided to stay local and head south to Seville and Cadiz. Seville is known for it's elaborate and most well known Holy Week festival compared to all other cities in Spain. We didn't know that. Pre-departure, the only response we received was the Spanish hand gesture for "LOTS OF PEOPLE." True that, these Aragoneses know what they're talking about. It was an intense transition from pueblo life in Aragon to major big city with it's biggest festival going down. We handled it well though, because it was almost a 20 degree temperature increase and there was not a shortage of marvels to...marvel at. Though I admittedly haven't done my research on KKK garb, it just makes sense that the style was stolen from an ÜBER religious and sacred celebration of Holy Week in the Catholic world. This was not a familiar sight for me. Imagine, hundreds and thousands of people in "KKK dress" (if you will) parading the streets, dragging black crosses, holding the body of Jesus Cristo or the mourning Mother Mary. Objectivity is practically flowing through my Anthropological blood, but I can't pretend that the faceless bodies in white, black, green, purple (especially the one's in the middle of the night walking with 4 foot high burning candles) didn't make me feel weird... at first. Day one, I was hiding behind the old people in wheel chairs as little children approached this figures, pulling at their coattails, asking for
Ladies in black lace on Holy Thursday.
Making friends, peace. Trying to anyways
The man.
Where the important people sit for the holy processions.
Plaza España in Seville.
Cádiz.
The BCN troop, more or less.
If you want to join my Barcelona tours, they include minimum of a whole afternoon in the park climbing trees.
We spent a beautiful Sunday afternoon in a nearby meadow. Shooting bows and arrows, playing frisbee, climbing on rocks and throwing our bodies around in the sun.
My girl Kendicita came and spent 3 or so weeks with me in my beloved Calatayud. My friends here embraced her, she fell in love with Spain de nuevo and we had the most blessed days together. She is tied for the most beautiful people on this earth.
Óscar's family owns the Jiu-Jitsu gym in Calatayud. His father invited us to come "play" and try it out. Turns out, most of the students are MY students at the highschool, black belts and badasses. I think I was expecting it to be more like Karate, do a little warm up stretching, etc etc.. First thing we have to do.. drop down on the ground and army crawl across the mats. After that, try and wrestle my students to the ground. They were patient and they definitely could've dominated me worse, but I like to think I put up a real fight. Nails!!!
With Óscar and my students. The blonde is the champion of Aragón. Cool life?!
Emily's colleague took us to have a photo shoot dressed in the traditional costumes worn for the festival of Alfonsadas in Calatayud which takes place the beginning of June. It's like a medieval festival, with plays and parades and of course, serious fiesta time. I may or may not be here, but either way, do you think my red vans go well with my Arab cape? (Sara is dressed like La Dolores, who is the famous prostitute of Calatayud, the reason why all of Spain knows of my pueblo)
A weekend mini-vacay to Fuerteventura of the Canary Islands. Did you know that they are Spanish territory but right off the western coast of northern Africa? Anyways, these are true desert islands complete with cabras salvajes (savage goats o sea, wild goats), sand dunes and camels. Chulísimo no? Personally, me da igual, the water was gorgeous, I'm a little morenita and yeah, the beach and sun heals all.
So blessed, and I don't even feel bad about it. HERE'S TO DOING WHAT YOU WANT WITH YOUR LIFE!
These are my little cutie students, private English lessons. From the left they are: Mar, Cristina and Sandra. We were practicing the present continuous in the form of 'going to + infinitive' and the objective was to tell each others' fortunes. Of course, for my enjoyment, I made them wrap their heads in sparkly scarves and rub an invisible glass sphere for a more realistic feel. Of course they loved it, they are 11 year old chiquitinas!
We try to do a weekly dinner with our friends as we only have a few weeks left and we're trying to aprovechar todo. Anyways, as promised to them, we had Mexican night, as you can see by the plate in the foreground, complete with guac, black beans, fajitas and SALSA PICANTE!!! Well, if you thought Spanish food was super exotic, that's false. It's good, really good,, but it lacks variety. You can go to ANY cafetería in any town/city across Spain and you will find the same exact menu as anywhere else. I actually like the idea in that it's about simplicity, straight alimentación instead of every restaurant in America that has to come up with THE most unique dish (though that is really fun as a consumer). Either way, spicy food absolutely does not exist here. Except for 'mojo' (pronounced moho but with a really strong back of the through hhhhhhh) which actually, comes from the Canary Islands. Anyways, on the (my) spice barometer, it's barely gets a 2. So with the surplus of Cholula, Tapatío and other chili sauces we've been gifted by our amazing families (shout out!!) in the States, my Spanish friends made me SUPER proud by not only trying them, indulging in the spice without glasses of milk to get them through it. Jorge, the bravest of them all totally dug the Tapatío though I don't know what happened in his stomach. I mean to put it into
Well now I'm just excited I have someone to gift what remains of my
So that's what 23 looks like...
Tomorrow is Cammy's and my birthday. I brought American cupcakes into my colleagues, they were blown away, obsessed. Here's something I love about Spanish women in serious contrast to the world I grew up in: These ladies live in a country where the most DELICIOUS, varied, sugary and fatty baked goods are baked and devoured on the daily. There is no shame, they don't think twice about eating dessert, taking the largest slice or having seconds. And above all, obesity is NOT a problem here. The women are gorgeous, and probably more because there are less preoccupations about weight and more enjoyment of all the amazing delicatessens. Probably helps that drive-thru fast food restaurants don't exist and the closest McDonalds is an hour away from Calatayud, but I'm speaking for Spain in general. Spain 1 - USA 0 (And they eat pork, fried shit and bread for every meal) Health! Just another wonder of the way the world works...
Lastly, I'd like to pick up kite-boarding, and never leave the beach:
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