In like a lion, out like a, camel?

Part 3

Friday, March 16 – Sunday, March 18

                Bienvenue au Maroc!

Last semester I had planned on going to Morocco with an Erasmus/International student group in Sevilla called, We Love Spain, but alas, I was unable to go… until this past weekend! Here was the plan of attack for the weekend: leave Sevilla, arrive Gibraltar, cross the Strait to Ceuta (Spanish city in Africa), travel to Tetuan, visit Chefchaouen, return to Tetuan, travel to Tangier, see Tangier, return to and tour Ceuta, ferry across back to Spain, bus ride to Sevilla. 5 different cities, 3 different counties in 3 days. Phew! All in a good weekend with We Love Spain.

None of my lovely lady friends were accompanying me on this trip (I’ve grown quite used to having them around all the time) and I was a little unsure about just showing up for a weekend trip without knowing anybody. But, luckily, I make friends fast! And to make things even easier, I showed up at the bus stop and realized that half of my social work class was there as well as some other people I have met before. I hung out with my friend Sara who I met through Sabrina and my friend Natalia who I met through my French friend Eloise was one of my roommates!

When we arrived to Gibraltar, we switched busses and took a tour of the Rock, which included visiting the caves, a vista point AND of course, the monkeys. I was not such a fan of these monkeys… they were creepy and liked to steal your stuff. I kept my distance but snagged a photo with one when it wasn’t looking (so sneaky). After visiting the Rock we grabbed lunch in town, at a Subway, who’d a thunk?! And got back on the bus to go to the ferry. After a cup of coffee, a game of Spit with my new friend Zach and a thirty minute ferry crossing we arrived in Ceuta. We had quite an adventure at the Moroccan boarder. From the bus, it looked like a drug bus, but I could be mistaken. Don’t worry mom and dad, we weren’t allowed off the bus, stranger danger!

When we arrived in Tetuan, we checked into the hotel and had dinner before hitting the hay after a long day of traveling and sightseeing. Saturday we woke up early and after breakfast we headed to Chefchaouen, a holy Muslim city located in the mountains of northern Morocco. The cool thing about this city, is that the bottom half of all the buildings are painted BLUE! It looks magical. We toured around a bit and took lots of pictures before going to a tapestry co-opt where they hand make quilts, carpets, scarves and many other woven items as well as jewelry. One of the members of the co-opt gave us a briefing on how they make them and then let us explore the shop. We had lunch in Tetuan at a very authentic Moroccan restaurant. We were greeted as we walked in by a drum band decked out in their traditional garb, dancing and making some sick beats. For lunch we had bread, a shish kebab and this yummy chicken pastry thing, followed by cookies and mint tea. There was a lady giving henna tattoos after lunch for 3 euro, of course I took advantage!

Afterwards, we left and met up with our guide, Jamal, who was born in Tetuan and he gave us a tour of the medina (the center of the city). He took us to a holistic pharmacy where the pharmacists told us all about the different spices and oils and what they do. He asked our group if anyone wanted a massage by one of the men… me, loving massages, shot my hand up in the air (nobody else followed suite). At first I was a little eerie about the cultural idea of me getting a massage by a strange Moroccan man, but then I came to my senses and jumped up to get the massage. I was very glad that I did.

That night we traveled to Tangier. The hotel we stayed at here reminded me of a compound. In Moroccan culture, women don’t usually walk on the streets at night by themselves so for tourists they seem to just have everything, entertainment, clubs, restaurants, all in the hotels. I found my SPOON at the hotel we stayed at! I had been looking all over the place for a freakin spoon from Morocco (they don’t have the tacky tourist shops) and the man who worked downstairs in the hotel lobby told me he had one he would sell me. Bless his heart! He saved my collection! The hotel we were at had a fantasy dinner planned for us. Fantasy dinner? Glad you asked… basically, lots of delicious Moroccan food (lemon chicken, chick peas with couscous, fresh salad, TONS of bread and of course cookies and tea to follow) and several performances. There were these kids who I swear were made of rubber from how they moved and bended over each other, there was a magician who walked on glass, more drummers, a belly dancer (of course) and several other acts. After dinner we went to the club at the “compound” for a drink and then I supermaned into my bed!

Sunday morning we got up, checked out the sights in Tangier and RODE A CAMEL!! Ahhhh, the camels were so cute!! They had little babies there, and one of them took a liking to me and we had a little cuddle session. He kept making this cute little noise and I’m not sure if it was a “ooooh, I like you” or an “accck! Back off” kind of noise, you know? But I’d like to think it was the first. Once we had all taken our camel rides it was back to Ceuta! We got on the ferry, I took a nap this time, and we arrived back on the mainland. A short 2.5 hours later, we arrived back in dulce Sevilla. Fantastic Moroccan weekend with the habibi  (Arabic for little love, our group name that Jamal gave us). 

In like a lion, out like a, camel?

Part 2

Thursday, March 1 – Sunday, March 4

                “Cave woman bring banjo” –Rose Hunt

My friends Joni and Sam have fallen in love with the Andalucian town of Granada. I think before they leave to go home after the semester is over the will have gone at least three times. The first time Joni went was for her birthday, she has a tradition of going skiing on her birthday and the Sierra Nevada’s are in Granada. She came back, so excited, and immediately told us she wanted to go back, but this time, to stay in a cave. Cave? Granada? Yes and yes were my responses. Granada was on my list of places to go this semester and what a better way to go than to stay in a cave. As we were trying to figure out which weekend we should go, our friend Josie piped up and told us that her birthday (the big 2-1) was March 2. BAM! We would stay in a cave for Josie birthday, decided.

Rose and Sabrina, two other lovely lady friends in Sevilla, jumped on board with the plan and so the six of us booked our cave and climbed on the bus (watched a terrible movie on the way there) and in three hours we arrived in Granada. Josie and Sam went first, as they don’t have afternoon classes on Thursdays and the other four of us got in around 11 or 12 at night. The first night we stayed in a backpacker’s hostel, my first hostel experience. It had a relaxed, hippie chic aesthetic and the staff was really awesome and helpful but I think I have decided that group rooms are a no go for Erin on future trips. Only child syndrome, I enjoy my privacy too much. Friday, Josie and Joni went skiing in the Sierras while the rest of us lugged our stuff up the mountain to “Las Cuevas de Sacromonte.” We met our cave lady (minus the bludgeon) and she showed us to our place. HOLY CRAP, it was a nice friggin cave dude! Indoor plumbing, electricity, a kitchen, bathroom, three cute little bedrooms and lovely decorations accommodated the cave. We were all instantly in love and declared that one of us, I do believe this is Joni’s responsibility, needs to buy a cave that we can all come visit.

Birthday festivities included jam sesh with Josie on the banjo, belly dancing by Sabrina, a little bit of pre-gaming and then it was off to the dub-step RAVE. Shew… what an interesting night we had too. I’m gonna skip all the glossy details and just leave it at that. The next day, Josie and Sabrina and I woke up and hiked up to the Alhambra (the other ladies had already seen this World Wonder). I think we spent about 4 hours touring the great fortress, bought some souvenirs and some ice cream and trudged back down. The Alhambra was beautiful. I always marvel at places like that, who lived there, what were they like, what they did, how they built this, etc. The inside of the Palace reminded me of what my mom told me about the Taj Mahal in India. The Taj is constructed out of a specific white stone that has a hundreds of thousands of designs carved into its surface and then a brightly-colored matching piece of stone (also hand carved) that fits plumb into the white stone, to create an intricate and beautiful design. The carvings inside the Palace of the Alhambra resembled these designs I’ve seen from the Taj Mahal, although not quite so complex, still very detailed and remarkable.

Saturday night we decided to keep a low profile, and opted for fusion tapas at this place that Joni and Sam had been to before. In Granada, if you buy a drink, they bring you a tapa for free! So we enjoyed our free tapas with drinks and then headed back to the cave. Josie played banjo a little for us (I am now a huge fan of the banjo and can sing the old hymn, “I’ll Fly Away” quite well) and we had a quite night, enjoying our cave. The next morning we all just took it easy, I read some of Frederico Garcia Llorca, a famous Spanish poet who spent a lot of time in Granada, and coincidently read about “Las Cuevas de Sacromonte” pretty surreal feeling reading poetry about the place I was at. Then we went on a quest for breakfast and had a very traditional Spanish breakfast; tostada with tomato and jamon, café con leche and fresh squeezed orange juice. We were doing some more exploring when we got a call from the cave lady saying we needed to scoot out because her next guests were arriving soon. So we went and packed up, said goodbye to our cave, grabbed a kebab (fantastic ones in Granada) and headed to the bus station. FANTASTIC weekend.

Thursday, March 8 – Sunday, March 11

                “If France and Spain had a baby, this would be it” –me

There are many different regions in Spain, Andalucia (where I live!), Valencia, Murcia, Castilla y Leon, Galicia, Cataluña, Pais Vasco, la Mancha (I’ll give you a big virtual bear hug if you know the famous Spanish book with this in the title) and so on. Each region has a very specific culture with the broader Spanish culture. In Andalucia, for example, the people are known for being very warm and welcoming and for enjoying life (partying, socializing, etc). I had been wanting to venture out of Andalucia and see a bit more of these cultural differences. For some reason, the Basque Country (Pais Vasco) spoke to me! Back in February, I was talking to Sam about how I wanted to go up north (Pais Vasco is right near the border with France) to Bilbao and San Sebastian. And she was like, “oh, I’m going, in March, wanna come?” I love it when that happens, ha! I immediately jumped on board and we had a coffee date with her roommate Alison to plan the trip. Our friends Joni and Megan decided to come along too, giving us a nice sized group for the weekend.

March 8 was International Women’s Day. There’s a tradition that one this day women all around the world are supposed to cross a bridge, a figurative way of crossing the bridge of the gender divide and inequality. I’ve been wanting to go to a bridge on International Women’s Day for like, 2 years but it never seems to work out. This year, I thought it was going to be the same. There was a celebration in Sevilla, but it was at the same time as my flight. A little discouraged, I jumped on the plane to Bilbao. We got off the bus from the airport to Bilbao and what do you know, there was a parade of women walking to a bridge! Holla holla if you wanna dolla! Of course, I just jumped right in, dragging Sam, Joni, Alison and Megan along with me. They enjoyed it. We walked for about half an hour and then listened to some speeches given in a mixture of Euskara (language of the Basque Country) and Castellano (Spanish) as well as some rocking drum beats before heading to the hostel and out for pintxos (2-3 bites of yummy yummy toasts with toppings, the Basque version of tapas).

On Friday, we woke up early, went and got DELICIOUS pastries (just like in France…mmmm) for breakfast and headed to the Guggenheim Museum. We spent probably 4 hours in the Museum seeing all the cool exhibits. It’s my favorite art museum that I’ve been to yet. Go figure, it’s just, the Gugg. We made friends with the Puppy and MAAAAA, took some pictures with them, grabbed some coffee and played on the awesome playgrounds that they have in Bilbao before walking along el Rio Nervion back to the hostal. We made a friend at lunch and he told us to come back to his restaurant for drinks later, so we did. I was wacked out on cold medicine which made the night interesting, ha! But it was still fun. Sam loves making new friends, like always I love that about her.

                

Saturday we woke up SUPER early and headed to the train station. We took a day trip to San Sebastian (beautiful beach town in the north east corner of Spain) which is also the setting for Ernest Hemmingway’s The Sun Also Rises. The train ride there was a bit rough, 2.5 hours on a local train… meaning, it was cold and it made stops every 15 minutes. Ufff… needless to say, we decided to take the bus back. But it was really pretty and we got to see a lot of the country side, which was nice. San Sebastian was incredible! We admired the beach before walking up to see ole San (who Joni thought was Jesus at first… ooh Joni bear). I love climbing to really tall points in a new city and looking out over the whole landscape, its one of my favorite things to do when I go somewhere. We explored the top with San and spent some time watching the waves crash on the rocks before getting lunch. Up north, they eat lunch so early! Like at 1 or 2pm! We were used to eating around 3 or 4 so we had to modify our daily planning to accommodate the seemingly “un-Spanish” schedule. The Basque Country is known for cider and sea food, so we concluded that these were a must for lunch. We stumbled along this restaurant that all the Spaniards were at (always a good sign) and ventured in. We proceeded to stuff our faces with mussels, calamari, bread, patatas bravas and three bottles of cider. It was awesome! Then we got some ice cream and chilled on the beach until it was time to go back to Bilbao.

                

Sunday we woke up, got breakfast (more pastries!) and headed to the airport to go back to Sevilla. Excellent trip to the Basque Country! I think Alison or I will be buying an apartment in the Basque Country… gotta keep up with our vacation homes! Gotta cave in Granada and a home in the Basque Country!

In like a lion, out like a, camel?

Part 1

Friday, February 24 – Sunday, February 26

CARNAVAL!!!!!

My lovely roommate, Carmen, is from Chiclana de la Frontera which is a town in the province of Cadiz. During the whole month of February, Carmen and Jose (her boyfriend) would watch these amazingly elaborate performances every night at 9pm on TV. Of course, I became quite the fan of them myself. We would watch them together, I wouldn’t be able to understand anything they were saying, Carmen would be crying from laughing so hard at the hilarious skits and Jose got a kick out of seeing Carmen trying to explain to me what was so funny through her tears. This was all in preparation for the famous, Carnaval de Cadiz at the end of the month.

Carnaval is a weeklong celebration with Catholic origins. It is very similar to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, minus the flashing. People get dressed up, there’s lots of music, everyone is in the streets, drinking and enjoying all of life’s luxuries before the dooming start of Lent. The first weekend I chose not to go to Cadiz simply because I didn’t want to deal with all the crazy botellon-ers in the streets and the bus ride back to Sevilla at 9am without having slept. Plus, I wanted to experience more of the culture behind the celebration and not just the celebration itself. So, I decided to go home with Carmen the following weekend for Carnaval en los pueblos (or towns).

Friday we spent on the train and then at night we went into Cadiz proper to catch up with one of Carmen’s friends and watch some of the live performances. That night, I sampled some of Cadiz’s finest seafood…. raw sea urchin and barnacle, mmmmmm delicious. Carmen tried to convince me that they are “rico” but I have some objections. We had some crab and these MASSIVE shrimp, which I concurred, were “rico.” After meeting up with Tanner and Scott (two guys from App who came down from Valencia where they study to celebrate in Cadiz) and David (a guy from App who is studying in Sevilla as well) we headed home, we were pooped.

Saturday we got dressed up in our Carnaval finest (or as best as an American can do on a student budget, basically, I just bought a bright purple wig and wore some crazy colors). Carmen on the other hand, had a handmade costume that matched her friends’ who were part of a performance group. She was dressed as an astronomer with a bright blue set of shorts and jacket and a sparkly top hat with planets orbiting it. She was adorable and they gave me a spare hat, so I kind of blended in. We went to the center of the city and got in line for the parade. YES, I was in a parade in Chiclana, probably the only American too, ha! It was one of the coolest things I’ve done since I’ve been in Spain. I felt so immersed in the culture and I got to throw confetti at the kids while drinking my sippy cup of rum and coke (what, I’m 21 now). On Sunday we went to the beach for a while and grabbed a tinto de verano with Bertie, Carmen’s brother. His real name is Alberto but I have dubbed him Bertie. I think he likes his American nickname. Then we spent lunch at home, Carmen’s mom made a yummy cocido, a dish typical from Madrid that has chick peas, green beans, carrots and three or four different kinds of meat. We went into downtown Chiclana to grab a beer with the guys and meet up with some of Carmen’s friends again before heading to the train station to go back to Sevilla.

I had such a good time with Carmen in her home town. Her family is so precious and welcoming. We talked a lot about food, this seems to be a recurring theme among my conversations with Carmen and her mom taught me a new phrase, “comete pan” which is used a lot by Spanish mothers. It means, “eat bread” which is a staple among the Spanish diet. Carmen’s mom served us fresh bread for every meal and was astounded when I told her that in the US we don’t eat bread for every meal.

I would have to say, that that weekend was one of my favorites since I’ve been in Spain. I loved seeing the place where my Carmencita grew up, I’ve heard so much about it, it was great seeing it and experiencing the wonders of Carnaval there with her.

Tuesday, February 28

Feliz Dia de Andalucia!!

For those of you who don’t know, I have an imaginary exotic zoo. I have moose, sea lions AND flamingoes, among other animals in my imaginary zoo. One day, I will own at least one of the animals, the most practical of these being a hedgehog, I feel. Anyway… there is a national park in Huelva (a province that borders Sevilla) that’s called, El Parque Nacional de Doñana. It’s the largest national wildlife/nature preserve in Europe and luckily, only an hour and a half from Sevilla! I’ve wanted to go since last semester and one of my friends, Alison, was planning a trip there on el Dia de Andalucia. Entonces, I went!

We caught an early bus to the town of El Rocio which is on the edge of the park. El Rocio is a precious little town where there are a lot of fiestas in the summer time. It actually doesn’t have many residents but a lot of people travel there to have celebrations, spend holidays, etc. It also looks a lot like the setting for a Clint Eastwood movie, ha! Meaning, it looks like it could be in the American Southwest. All the roads are sand roads and a lot of people travel using horses instead of cars. People wear cowboy boots and the Spanish version of cowboy hats; it’s really quite a sight. The streets are dotted with cafes, tapas bars and shops that sell flamenco attire.

We arrived at the visitor’s center where we were going to catch our guided tour of the park. We piled into the minibus and we were off on our adventure! Our guide was very knowledgeable about the park and gave us a lot of information over the two hour tour. Unfortunately, it was quite foggy that morning, so we missed a lot of the animals, which was a bit of a letdown. On the other hand, I took some really artsy photos of the trees (see Facebook album).

After the tour, we visited the town a little bit and settled by the marshes (the park is a wetland preserve too) to watch the FLAMINGOES and other birds that were feasting on whatever there is at the bottom of the marsh. We headed back in the early afternoon and I chilled on the river with my lovely lady friends for a bit. It was a great Dia de Andalucia.

HUNGARY AND BERLIN

I had my first taste of Eastern Europe... and I'm kind of in love with it.

Hahahaha, I just found this in my posts, I think started it but it never got finished. This pretty much sums up Hungary and Berlin for me. Minus all the lovely details and stories of chilling with Niki and her family in Hungary and Maria and Andy in Berlin...