¡Largos!

The answer to my guessing game is that I spent a long weekend in Largos, Portugal! The trip I won was through Discover Excursions which does trips to Portugal, Morocco, and the Sahara. A couple days before I left, I was surfing Facebook and saw a post from a CIEE member who said that they had done a trip with this company before and really liked it. Just on a whim, I clicked the link and signed up for their weekly drawing. Less that 48 hours later I got an email saying that I had won. My reaction? This has to be bullshit. Even I am not that lucky.

But apparently I am, because just a few days later I was on a train headed to Sevilla to meet up with the rest of the group to get on a bus to Largos. Once I arrived I realized that the whole weekend seemed to be designed for college kids looking for a weekend full of sun, sangria, and shenanigans ... but I was hardly going to complain.

Julia at The End of the World

The oddest thing though was that I wasn't the only person from CIEE there. In fact the first person I introduced myself to was also from CIEE. And also won this trip. And also will be working at the exact same school as me for the next year. Weird coincidence right? The fates have had a hand in this one *insert dramatic music here.* So Julia--my future coworker--and I were able to get to know each other a bit before school starts, and in a much more relaxing atmosphere.



When the bus reached the boarder, I couldn't help being excited; a new country to scratch off my map! The guild did a count down...3.. 2... 1... Portugal! Then I waited for the inevitable stop at customs. And waited. And waited. And it never came. Apparently the Portuguese border control (if they exist) didn't want to see my passport, even though I was sooo excited to show it to them. I think that was my biggest disappointment the whole trip: no stamp for my passport to prove I was there.

I ended up rooming with people I didn't know (shocker, considering when I got off the bus I knew one person decently well) in an apartment style room just a five minute walk from the beach. And the beach... the beach made the whole trip worth it. I could have done nothing but play in the surf and lay in the sun and be completely content for the whole weekend. Of course I didn't, but I did do a fair bit of lounging.

On the day I arrived, once everyone got settled into their rooms, there was an option to go on a Sangria Cruise. If it isn't obvious from the name, the premise is you get on a boat and cruise around the coast drinking as much sangria as you please. In defense of my choice to join in the in with the college kids who were clearly planning on getting plastered, I figured I would end up drinking at some point over the weekend and I might as well spend my money on drinks that also included the option of jumping off a boat into the ocean. Overall, it was a good choice. The views were amazing and I took my camera so I could get some good photos before I indulged in the (all be it, slightly mediocre) sangria. But the water was wonderfully refreshing and I even managed to jump off the top of the boat with minimalist screaming. There was even a smaller boat that took us in groups for a quick tour of the grottoes along the cost.

Day two's activity was the one I was most looking forward too: kayaking. After a morning at a new beach a quick bus ride away, about half the group dawned life-jackets and headed for the waves. There were mostly two-man (or woman in our case) kayaks, so Julia and I teamed up. Not to brag too much, but between the two of us it was pretty clear we had the most kayaking experience in our group. My competitive side kicked in and we raced through the waves and quickly caught our guide despite being nearly that last ones in the water. His tour took us in and out of several caves, past our hotel and the surrounding beaches, and ended at a quiet cove where we stopped for a break. Using a snorkel and mask provided by our tour guild I spent the hour floating off shore seeing what I could find underwater. The water was a bit murky and the sights were nothing compared to the Cayman Islands or Cancun, but it was fun to explore for a bit.

That evening I jumped back on the bus for a tour of the end of the world. I'm not talking about the Apocalypse here, just the southern-most point in Portugal: the cliffs at Sagres. As our guild explained, this used to be the very tip of the known world before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And I can see it. I can see how, looking over the vastness of the ocean, our ancestors might have thought that it all ends here. The only thing beyond that is the sea, the sky, and winds that seem to come from nowhere.

My final day in Largos was a lazy one. I walked up to a new beach, wrote poetry in the sand, and lounged. It was a quiet conclusion to a very fun weekend.

September 9th-11th, 2016

¿En qué lugar del mundo está Carol?

Quick life update and a guessing game:

My last day with my host family is Friday and I move most everything I own to my new place tomorrow! I have a piso (apartment) with three roommates about a half hour from my school and 45 minutes to the center of the city. My last day of Spanish classes is Friday (theoretically) and then I have two whole weeks free with no obligations until I need to be back in Madrid for meetings about my new job. I start teaching October 1st!

Until that time I am going to attempt to see as much of Europe as I can which means my passport will be getting a workout! I have tickets for eight days in Greece starting next Tuesday and then when I get back I immediately turn around an fly out to Majorca, which is a small island off the coast of Spain. But before any of that happens I have one more trip, which I didn't expect to take.

So here is the game: I won a trip online with a company the specializes in trips for Americans. It will be a long weekend, starting this Friday. I leave from Madrid by train (which I had to buy a ticket for) to get to our meeting point and then I get on a bus out of Spain. I have two nights (free!) in a fancy hotel near the beach as well as half day tours with a guild, some group meals, and options to add on a Kayaking trip or surfing lessons. So based on that information, where in the world am I going?

It's a whirlwind and I feel a bit mad (in the best way possible), but a it seemed like a good reason to play hooky from school for a day!

An answer and pictures of my travels will be posted when I get back!

September 7th, 2016

¿A veces?

This is a rant, fair warning...

I was walking down the street the other night in Sol. The area is very touristy, with lots of shopping options. I passed by a shoe store and this sign happened to catch my eye:

First, lets note it is in English, not Spanish. So someone is intentionally marketing towards tourists, auxiliaries, or anyone else walking Spanish streets who speaks English (and from my experience, that is a lot of people. Kudos to Europe for teaching more than one language to its students).  

Second, lets look at what it says: "Because sometimes, a girl's gotta walk."

I will be honest: this pissed me off. 

Sometimes? Sometimes? Seriously, what do you think "girls" do? Teleport? Fly? Yes, I would be down with both of those options, but so far I haven't mastered those skills. If you figure out how, please let me know. It would make my travel plans for the next year a lot less expensive. 

And the person in this image is hardly a girl. I'm the first to admit I'm horrible about using the words "girls" and "boys" for people who are clearly full grown adults, yet in this case I interpreted the connotations as being less than empowering. 

If I take a step back from my initial feminist rage, I can see what the advertiser was trying to say. That heals are not comfortable walking footwear and that Sketchers are an alternative that probably won't cause horrible blisters or rolled ankles. Maybe the intention of this advertisement was to call out the patriarchal system of beauty that decided women need to wear heals despite how clearly uncomfortable they are to wear. But if that is the intention, couldn't they have just left out the word sometimes? 

Me convierto y la biblioteca

The thing I am struggling with the most at this point in my Spanish adventure is what to do with my time. That sounds crazy, now that I am writing it down, but this is the most free time I have had since summer vacations before I worked. That means the last time I had this much time on my hands I was 15.

Don't get me wrong, having this much freedom is great, but it goes against my borderline obsessive, American, 'middle-class' nature.

I won't start work until October 1st. My classes are only three hours a day, and only on weekdays. I don't work and I don't have a standard full load of classes.

And for me, that's hard. Culturally and personally.

It's hard because American culture teaches us that success is measured by how much money we make and how busy we are. And usually those two things are related.

It's hard because I struggle to separate success and self-worth.

I've written about that idea before (though never this publicly) and every time I come to the end of the page and realize I fall into a pattern of filling time with work and school in order to feel better about who I am as a person. Busy has become a part of my identity and simultaneously a defense mechanism. I acknowledge that isn't particularly healthy.

Simultaneously, this is my first experience living abroad and it's hard to wrap my head around the idea that I live here. In Spain. In a place that my mind has classified as "exotic" and "foreign" and "a vacation destination." Which means that I instinctually want to do all of the things, as soon as possible, because usually that is my (and my immediate family's *cough* *cough* *Dad*) MO on vacation. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity; I will probably never be back so dear God, don't miss a thing.

But for once I have more than a week in a new country so I don't need to do that. Now would someone just please tell my brain that? And while you're at it remind it that it's ok to take a break? That I'm not wasting time, even if I'm not in this exact moment working towards something that will make me successful and thus--in our culture--worthy?

I write that last bit partially in jest; don't freak out. I clearly am capable of telling myself these things, even if I haven't ingrained them into who I am yet. But I'm working on it. Living in Spanish culture forcing me to. (I mean taking a siesta--an American sign of laziness--is culturally as acceptable here as working 2+ jobs is at home. How can that not challenge who I am as a person?)

I chose my blog title intentionally: I read; I travel; I become. You can see (thanks to that awesome little widget on the right hand side of this page) what I'm reading. I have written, and will continue to write, about where I travel. This is the becoming part.

September 2nd, 2016

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I started this post to write about a library, and clearly that isn't what I needed to write about.

My first weekend in Madrid I had no plans, knew very few people, and had more time than I knew what to do with. I wandered the city for several hours, no clear destination in mind. Words I didn't understand drifted through open doors and shops closed down for that afternoon as I walked. Paradoxically, I was alone amid three million people.

So I went to the one place I knew I could never feel alone.

No matter where I am in the world, a library will always make me feel at home.

August 14th, 2016

Viajé Toledo

As if I didn't feel like enough of a tourist living here in Madrid, this past weekend I got to play tourist in a new Spanish city: Toledo. Tandem (my Spanish language school) has events every week for students to experience Spanish culture while practicing their language skills, so I was able to join about 17 of my classmates on a day trip to a new city. Toledo is about a 45-55 minute bus ride away from Madrid so bright and early Savannah and I got up and headed out of town.

Our day was half structured and half free, with the morning consisting of a guided tour of the city and several important buildings. Our tour guild, Sonja, spoke to us almost entirely in Spanish which was both fun and challenging. I was honestly surprised by how much I was able to understand. She made a point to teach us vocabulary along the way, and used simple verb tenses so we had an easier time learning about the city. I didn't catch everything, but I knew enough to understand the stories and most of the history. It helped that she had a binder full of information she could use as a visual/written guide in case our listing skills were not up to par.

Walking into Toledo. Our tour guild, Sonja, is in white. 

Traveling to Toledo made me realize just how incredibly large Madrid is. Toledo has less than 100,000 people in comparison to the nearly 3.2 million people living in Madrid. I could feel the change as soon as I stepped off the bus. Streets were quieter, people wandered in the streets more slowly, and our group was frequently the only people at a historical site. It was a relief. Though I feel like I'm adjusting to city life at a decent rate, it was nice to take a step back and feel like I had a little more room.

Another difference our group quickly noticed (and many complained about) was that Toledo has hills that put Madrid to shame. On our walk into the city center from the bus stop I ran ahead to take a picture of the group climbing up a hill (below) and was cheered on/laughed at by my fellow travelers who thought I was trying to get a workout by doing hill sprints. No amigos, I just wanted to capture your beautiful faces. Even I'm not crazy enough to run hills in jean shorts carrying a camera while it's 90 degrees in the sun.

Two distinct styles of architecture that can be seen in Toledo

Toledo feels like a city that endures. It's history spans centuries and you can see it in the very stones. As I learned from Sonja, the city has survived Roman, Arab, and Spanish rule and each culture has left it's mark. It passed between kings and queens of different cultures and religions and has a surprising history of religious tolerance. For many years Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together maybe not with loving enthusiasm, but with relative acceptance. America: take note.

I'm trying not to turn this into a history lesson, but hopefully that explains some of the architectural differences in the monuments and buildings. I took a picture of Sonja's explanation so I would remember for later.

These are just a couple examples obviously but significant portions of the city are (or look because of careful reconstructions) this old.

One of the museums that we visited with Sonja was the Museo de los Concilios y la Cultura Visigoda. It is an old Roman church with beautiful art all along the walls depicting Catholic images, like that of the last supper. But what I liked most about this portion of our tour was the story Sonja told us about the building's construction.

Whats that at the top? 

Apparently, when the church was being built and designed the artists sampled several different styles to create the image on the main wall.This makes for some very beautiful art but it ultimately had some interesting religious ramifications. As you can see there is a traditionally Catholic art (not sure what to call it, I'm a storyteller not an art history major so don't judge) on either side of the window in the center, but near the top is writing in another language. If you are much more skilled than I am and could zoom in to the top of this photo enough to read it, you would see that it is actually copied out sections of the Koran.

Yes. This is a Catholic Church with passages of the Koran on the walls. Yay for religious tolerance?! Not really. In reality, the artist just thought that the lettering was beautiful so put it into his work. Because, get this, he couldn't read. Illiteracy is bad, people.

Eggs: they aren't just for breakfast anymore.

Gazpacho

After working up a sweat walking the city and visiting museums, our group took a break to taste the local food at a traditional Spanish restaurant. I tried their gazpacho which is a cold tomato based Spanish soup. The other dish is basically scrambled eggs with asparagus. If I haven't mentioned it yet people here eat a ton of eggs, especially at lunch and dinner.

After lunch we were on our own to explore the city, shop, and try not to sun burn the ever loving crap out of ourselves. A group of us opted to try to beat the heat (it was 38 C, so just over 100 F) by taking a train tour around the city. It offered an audio in both Spanish and English so we could hear a bit more about the different historical sites and gave me a chance to take some more holistic photos of the city. I can't say the ride kept me as cold as I would have liked, but was cool. Bad jokes, bad jokes.

And of course we needed to take a group photo. This is about the only one I'm in since I was behind the camera for majority of the trip.

My and my classmates recording our presence in Toledo

Our last stop before head home was a tasty one. (I think I'm allowed to do that now. Call Madrid "home" for a while?) Toledo is famous for several things: historic architecture, gold inlay jewelry, high quality knives/swords, and (my personal favorite) Mazapán.

If you haven't tasted this particular sweet, I highly suggest it. It is made out of powdered sugar, egg, and almonds and baked to perfection. In Toledo they often make extravagant art out of the sweet but it is also sold in smaller cake-like chunks for every-day consumption. And let me tell you, you will want to eat it every day. I didn't photograph the kind I bought (I might have eaten it too quickly for that thought to occur), but these are some of the fancy one's that the shop sold.

Overall, Toledo was definitely worth the visit.

Also, I almost forgot. This is a Roman road. Roman people walked on it. Literally.

August 27, 2016