"You know there isn't Renfe to the Canary Islands, right?"

Mid-March… do I hear the islands calling my name?

Yes I did! A group of seven Fulbrighters decided we were done with the not-so-cold-but-cold-enough winter weather in Madrid and headed off to Tenerife in the Canary Islands to enjoy a bit of island life. We rented an apartment that made us feel like we were on college spring break, adventured around the island, and enjoyed the lifestyle that was all too fleeting.

We got into the airport late on Thursday night after a 3 hour Ryanair ride across the Atlantic Ocean (a flight I wasn’t all to eager to repeat, but knew was necessary in order to get back to work on Monday).

Right before I went to the airport, I met one of my tutees, who asked me where I was traveling to that weekend. When I told him I was flying to the Canary Islands, he looked surprised, asking me how much my ticket had cost me. I told him it was just over €100 and he responded with, “Wow! That’s practically as cheap as Renfe!” I tossed him a concerned look and asked cautiously, “You do know there isn’t Renfe to the Canary Islands, right?” He shook his head and said, “I thought you could take Renfe anywhere in Spain though.” I tried to restrain my laughter and pulled up a map of the world, showing him that the Canary Islands was even further South than Morocco and no, there is not a train that goes a 3 hour flight distance through the Atlantic Ocean. Job security, my friends.

Anyway, once we made it to Tenerife, we took a taxi to the apartment, got checked in by a Russian grandmother, and then headed out into the city to see what our dinner options were. We were unimpressed by the surplus of karaoke bars, abundance of “We speak English!” signs, and excess of annoying waiters who were half-sweet-talking/half-harassing us with the hopes of getting some business during the off-season lull. So, we went simple and got pizza from a kebap shop, where the worker was so excited to get 7 people’s business at once that he treated us to our drinks.

On Friday morning, most of the group headed off to the beach, but Matt and I woke up earlier and headed North to check out La Laguna, a small colonial city that one of his co-teachers had recommended to him. We enjoyed wandering around the city, admiring the green hills of the north part of the island, the old churches, and the typical food.

The city had an interesting mix of colonial and Spanish design

Some intriguing vegetation

Just outside one of the churches

The ceiling of one of the churches

Ropa vieja, a typical dish of the Canary Islands

Matt is slightly obsessed with climbing towers, so we went to the oldest church to check out the view. When we arrived, we found that the worker had just taken a break. We considered walking around the desk and just heading up the stairs when the woman reappeared, took our €2, and warned us about the bells that go off every 15 minutes. We were intrigued by the bells and hung out at the top awhile waiting for them to ring, only to jump with surprise at the expected clanging that could have easily left my ears ringing for the entire rest of the day.

The tower

View from the top

When we got “home” our beach friends were nursing their sunburns and we began to make plans for dinner… an all-American cook-out in our small backyard. Sparks went flying (literally… we had some problems getting the coals to heat up until the boys poured some gasoline on them), but in the end we managed to sit down to a dinner of burgers, potatoes, asparagus, and salad. Then we played some Apples to Apples before we headed to sleep in preparation for our trip to the highest point in Spain (which is also an active volcano), El Teide, the next day.

 

While we prepared dinner, Joe took a few pictures for his future match.com profile

Rather than riding the bus along the coast as Matt and I had done the previous day, we headed up up up into the center of the island until we arrived at the active volcano. I didn’t expect going to the top of an active volcano to be such a common tourist attraction, but I figured with so many people doing it, there must not be a significant risk of dying from an eruption.

El Teide

We almost left Rebecca behind at the rest stop (only a 5 minute drive from the volcano, but still…) because she got stuck in a line for the bathroom. But for the second time in Spain (First time was in Santander, 2012), I pulled the half-in, half-out trick that bus drivers basically hate because they can’t leave until I move one way or another. Thankfully, Rebecca saw me moments later and started running so we could all make it to the volcano and up the gondola to a place where we could feel on top of the world.

Looking down

Fulbright Canary Islands 2014!

It’s me and the clouds

It was a great day trip! But we decided to make the day even better by heading over to the beach to watch the sunset.

An amateur sandcastle we saw along the way

A walk along a Canary boardwalk

Chilling on the beach

Jumping fail

We ate a good dinner right off the beach and headed back with our bellies full, all exhausted from the mountains and the sea and ready for sleep.

Sunday morning, Joe and I woke up early to catch the 9:30 AM bus that would take us from our city in the South to the airport in the North. Joe wanted to get back for his soccer game later that afternoon and I needed to get back for tutoring so we wanted to take an earlier flight. Joe had booked an afternoon flight without realizing it was from the airport on the opposite side of the island (about an hour away) but once he figured out a way to get there, I decided to go along.

Unfortunately, tired from the night before, I misread the bus schedule and didn’t realize that the 9:30 bus didn’t run on weekends. We got there a half an hour after the weekend bus left and got a bit nervous when we realized that the 10:30 bus wouldn’t get us there before the gates closed on our flight. OOPS.

We then assessed our two options. Take a bus to the southern airport and hope to catch the bus from the southern airport to the northern airport or take a bus to the center of Santa Cruz in the North and hope to catch another bus or grab a taxi from the center to the airport. Realizing our distance risk was slimmer by taking the bus to Santa Cruz, we boarded and sat anxiously, calculating the amount of time we would have to get from the center city to the airport and trying to decide whether we should go to the airport via bus or taxi.

When we arrived in Santa Cruz, we decided we couldn’t take the bus unless the bus was leaving immediately. Lucky for us (?), when we pulled in, there was a bus boarding. We asked the bus driver how long it would take us to get to the airport and when he said 15 minutes, we decided that since it was a small airport, we could probably take the 15 minute bus ride, get our passport stamp from the Ryanair desk, go through security, and make it to our gate before our gate closed in 35 minutes.

We bought bus tickets, sat down, and fidgeted anxiously as the bus driver let person after person put their luggage in the luggage hold and dawdle to their seats. Five minutes later, with everyone finally on the bus, we left. As we made it through the city, Joe and I cursed every old woman who shuffled across the crosswalk and every red light that slowed down our trip. When we stopped at the train station and saw another 15 people waiting to board, I almost hopped off the bus and grabbed a taxi… but there were no taxis. “We probably should’ve taken a taxi. I never do this. It just seemed like a good idea to save the 20-something euros that it would have cost us. I mean it seemed like we would have enough time. Gosh, we’re Fulbrighters and can’t even catch a plane to get back to school on Monday. We’re going to have to call Manuel….”

I pulled out my phone and started tracking our trip… we were 2 kilometers away and still had 15 minutes until the doors closed. Joe and I selflessly gave up our seats to an older couple so we could stand at the door and when we arrived at the airport we sprinted through the doors, thrust our passports and tickets at the Ryanair worker (who was way too chipper for our current state of emergency), and began to tear off our belts and shoes as we ran to security. The security workers were confused by our certainly un-Spanish rush and when we finally got through and identified our gate, we laughed uncontrollably with happiness that there was still an entire line of people waiting to board. We high-fived, bought some water to compensate for all of our stress-sweat, and recounted the most stressful moments of the journey before informing the rest of the group that we had in fact made it.

Co-worker and fellow risk-taker

We lived happily ever after and the plane left 30 minutes late.

Much love from Spain,
Amber

Murcia: My last autonomous community and Spain's best kept secret

My last weekend in Spain was spent finishing up my goal of visiting all 17 autonomous communities of Spain. (Granted, the blog is still missing updates on both the Canary Islands and Navarra, but I promise I did visit them all!) Once life calms down a bit (if life calms down a bit?), I’ll update you on my experiences in Tenerife and in Pamplona. But for now, let me tell you about Spain’s hidden gem: MURCIA.

Two weeks ago I played jeopardy with my students for our last class together. The 500 point answer for “Amber in Spain” was, “the only autonomous community in Spain Amber has yet to visit” and the correspnding question was, “What is Murcia?” Few students got it right on the first try and one class of students failed to answer correctly at all, instead realizing they had forgotten that Murcia even existed. When I gave them the answer, they reacted with, “¡Ayyyyyyy! ¡Pero es que no hay ni puta alma en Murcia!” (This translates to: “Ahhhhh... but there isn’t even a f*cking soul in Murcia!” Excuse my French. I mean, Spanish… swear words have much less weight - if any weight at all - in Spanish culture.)

My friend Carmen told me not to go… it wouldn’t be worth it to miss out on my last weekend in Madrid and didn’t I want to leave something to come back to? No Spaniard (except for the ones form Murcia) said a single positive thing about the place until I told them I was going to the beach. Then they halfheartedly conceded, saying it couldn’t be too bad to go to the beach for a few days.

Boy, were they wrong. Perhaps it helped that my expectations were EXTREMELY low, but honestly, Cartagena blew me away. I’d like to promote Spain’s well-kept secret, hidden between the Costa del Sol of Andalusia and the the Costa Blanca of Valencia.

Our hotel alone was enough to want me to stay forever. I got into Cartagena earlier than Erica on Friday, giving me time to hang out in the city… or in the hotel room. The slightly overcast, windy weather kept me from wanting to sit on a terrace all afternoon; so, after lunch and a walk around the city, I headed back to the hotel, plugged in my laptop, and started blogging away in a big comfy chair situated right in front of the balcony.

The best fried eggplant I have ever had

A sculpture giving tribute to the victims of terrorism

School’s out for the summer!

I didn’t even have to leave my room to enjoy the smell of the sea and a view of the port!

Or turn around and check out the main plaza

On Saturday, Erica and I headed out to La Manga (The Sleeve), a peninsula about 30 minutes away from Cartagena where we could enjoy both the Mediterranean Sea and the Mar Menor (Minor Sea) by walking just 8 minutes across the peninsula.

Along the way we met a young woman from Arizona who had been living in Murcia for 4 years. Politely we managed to ask, “Uhhh… why?” and she fondly recounted her summers with a family friend who is from Murcia which lead from one thing to another and ended with her current state of being 5 months pregnant with her and her Murcian husband’s little boy.

She married into Murcia but she loves it like home, talking about how there is no need to go on vacation because they have paradise right around the corner. She also know the bus stops like home, which was helpful for us since not a single bus stop was labeled on the stops or on the map.

After we successfully got off the bus, we first checked out the Mediterranean Sea and enjoyed the free entertainment of watching a group of young Spaniards attempt to throw a football… the first people I have ever seen throw a football in public worse than me.

Walking along the beach

There’s nothing like beach hair!

After a few hours on beach, we left in search of food and were happy to find that southern prices were indeed as low as remembered them. €7.50 each for an entire menú!

Mmmmmmmmm

With our tummies full, we headed back to the beach for our siesta… but this time we walked 5 minutes West and settled down on the Mar Menor.

An older couple going for a stroll

Looking at mainland Murcia

Reading… typical.

We soaked up as many rays as we could until our thirst got to us and we headed out for a Coca-Cola at one of the restaurants right off the beach. Then, around 18:40, we headed to the bus stop to catch the 19:00 bus. The non-existent 19:00 bus. We waited and wondered and double checked our map and doubted whether or not the bus would stop at all of the stops or only the one at the end of the peninsula. Erica decided to check with a store clerk to see if we were at an acceptable stop and after confirming we were, we realized that there was a faded dot next to the 19:00 bus. “What does that mean?” I asked and then finally saw the legend that this little dot meant “Sólo domingos” (Only Sundays). Oops.

We had almost an hour to kill until the next bus so we sat down and had a granizado (a slushy that, in Spain, is consumed as much, if not more, by adults as by children) while I wrote out my last Spanish postcards.

Lemon slushy!

When we finally made it back into Cartagena, we showered, rejoiced in our lack of sunburns (Thank you, SPF 50!) and headed out in search of tapas. The restaurant recommended to us by our Arizonan friend was closed but by the number of people crowded around the bar down the street, we figured we couldn’t go wrong. And we didn’t. Tapas of ensaladilla rusa (Spain’s potato salad), solomillo al chimichurri (pork loin with tomato pepper sauce), berenjena rellena (stuffed eggplant), mini-hamburguesa (You can figure this one out), and pollo al curry (Hint: pollo = chicken) filled us up and allowed us to enjoy the delicious gastronomy of the South for the low dinner price of €15… total. Erica and I considered moving.

Good food is nothing without good conversation but we had that as well… with the Murcian couple who was standing next to us at the bar. We started off talking about the bar’s food and continued on to conversations about what we were doing in Spain, our thoughts about Murcia, and more conversation about Spain’s gastronomical experiences. It wasn’t the first, though it might be the last time (at least for a while) that a Spaniard told me, “Se comen muy bien allí” (They eat very well there). Through conversation with them I discovered I had somehow missed out (?) on trying sangre frita (fried blood), the woman’s favorite food as a child. I’ll consider adding it to the to-do list for my next visit.

On Sunday morning, Erica and I woke up and headed down for our second day of the breakfast buffet (complete with fresh ginger-carrot-pear juice, a yogurt bar with pumpkin seeds and papaya chunks, ensaimadas, jamón serrano and Manchego cheese) before checking out the sights in the city of Cartagena.

First, we headed over to the Roman Theater, one of the best preserved Roman theaters in the world.

From the top

Cheese it!

Then we walked to the Roman forum and an old Roman house, which the woman at the Roman theater talked us into visiting because of the €9 student deal for all three. It was totally worth it, since we happened upon an hour long tour through the Roman Forum with an engaging guide. The Roman house on the other hand (described as “preciosa” by the woman working at the Roman theater), was a short visit… within 5 minutes we had entered, looked at the foot tall brick walls showing us the layout of the house, appreciated the oldness of the bricks we were surrounded by, and left. It made us even more grateful for the guide at the forum.

Part of one of the walls that was reconstructed by the archeologists in the Forum

The pieces of their next puzzle

After we finished our sightseeing, we walked around the city and noticed the huge difference between the main streets and the run-down buildings just off the beaten path. There was a beauty in the mix of old and new, though the old woman who saw me taking a picture of one of the run-down buildings was not amused.

Pretty old wire balconies mixed with scaffolding

As I took the picture, she stood behind me and scolded me for taking a picture of “an edificio tan feo… ¡hay muchos otros que son más bonitos justo allí!” (“such an ugly building… there are many other buildings that are much prettier right there!).

We also saw quite a few mini alters and floats waiting to be put to use later in the afternoon.

I suppose it is too heavy and too obvious to run off with

Right off Calle Mayor

Then, just before we left, we enjoyed one more delicious meal amidst the smell of the sea.

Tomato, boquerones, cheese, olives and pepper salad

Stuffed mushrooms

Paella

As you may have guessed from the photos, Murcia passed my important test. Se comen muy bien allí.

Well Spain, it’s been great getting to know you. Even up to my last journeys, you haven’t disappointed me. I’m going to miss every last bit of you.

Much love,
Amber

Caminewbs de Santabingo... more commonly referred to as the Camino de Santiago

This past weekend, Lauren and I decided to participate in an (extremely) abridged version of the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage route through northern Spain. I had done a few (okay, TWO) days worth of el Camino with Mark and Annette one of my first weekends in Spain, but life got busy over the past two years and I never made it back. Until now.

Lauren and I were far from expert peregrinos (pilgrims). In fact, we decided we could have created a hashtag about our shortcomings, #caminewbs, and had a pretty decent twitter feed going. What we lacked in preparedness, however, we made up for in creativity. Early on, Lauren came up with a unique way of peregrino watching: making a bingo board to fill in with our sitings along the way.

Hence, our adventures as the Caminewbs de Santabingo.

Unfortunately, we never got bingo. But we did get: Danish flag, sheep, twins, guten tag, hiking in sandals, camping, PDA, and < 15. Not too shabby!

Now that we're on the same page, let me start from the beginning...

On Sunday morning, Lauren and I arrived to Santiago bright and early, thanks to our 6:30 AM Ryanair flight. (Oh, Ryanair... I will miss your prices, but not your flying experience.) Shortly after, Matt (another Fulbrighter) rolled in on his night bus and joined us for our day's adventures.

After a leisurely breakfast alongside peregrinos who had finished the previous day but were still accustomed to waking up at the crack of dawn, we headed to the plaza in front of the cathedral to do some people watching and to show off our Fulbright España gear. After all, Fulbright España just won the Príncipe de Asturias award (similar to the Nobel Prize for Spaniards) for its international cooperation. Represent!

 Cheese it! This hat got Lauren into a conversation about Fulbright with a stranger within the first 30 minutes!

The only baseball hat that I have ever gotten that almost fits me... it must be child sized.

After some quality people watching (and some terrible street performer observing), we decided to check out the inside of the cathedral. And since it was Sunday, we did so by attending mass. It was difficult for me to engage since mass has a quite a few calls and responses that I don't know in English, let alone in Spanish. However, it was clear from the priest's approach to his message that he is used to visitors from different countries and different walks of faith and I appreciated the chance to hear him speak.

After mass, we headed out for lunch and I finally tried pulpo a la gallega (polbo á feira in Gallego) in the region of Spain it comes from! It was an achievement, though in the end I wasn't overly impressed. Perhaps it's just not my favorite way of eating octupus.

I do really like the plate though...

In the late afternoon Lauren and I said goodbye to Matt and headed for the bus station, where we took a 40 minute bus ride to the beginning of our camino journey, the small town of Arzúa.

Reality check: We then spent 11 hours over the course of two days walking back to Santiago de Compostela. #Caminewbs, YES.

When we arrived in Arzúa, we went to an albergue (hostel, but with more beds per room) that I had called earlier in the day. The price per bed was €10 so we figured it was a great option. We didn't realize that €10 meant it didn't have sheets (#caminewbs)... which we would soon discover were necessary for nights in northern Spain. Live and learn.

After showing us our beds, the hostel worker didn't take our money, instead encouraging us to shower immediately and pay later. Neither Lauren nor I had the guts to tell her that we hadn't walked that day... or at last not for more than a half an hour at a time when we were leisurely exploring Santiago. So we sheepishly went to our rooms, put our backpacks away, and awkwardly returned 10 minutes later with the money and our almost empty pilgrimage accreditation book to get it stamped. (Looking back on things, maybe we looked dirty?)

I say almost empty because I did in fact have a few stamps from my walk from Logroño to Santo Domingo. And Lauren also had a stamp because when she bought her accreditation in Santiago de Compostela (the END of the camino, #caminewbs), the worker asked her if she wanted the stamp. Still drowsy from our early morning flight, Lauren said yes. Thankfully, the hostel worker didn't bother to ask us about our lack of stamps or why Lauren's only stamp showed that she had arrived to the last city.

After paying for the hostel, we sat down to an early dinner so that we could go to bed shortly after. It was during dinner that we realized that with restaurants serving menú for lunch AND dinner, we definitely wouldn't be going hungry.

Pueblo prices: 2 plates, a drink, bread, coffee AND dessert for €9.90?!

When Lauren and I went to bed right after 10:00 (The time for lights out in albergues!), we tried not to draw too much attention to the fact that we were huddling under our still-unused towels and wearing our jackets... or in my case, a cardigan sweater (#caminewbs). We set our alarms for 6:45 and went to bed excited about being well rested for our first (and second-to-last) day of walking.

Well, little did we realize that 6:45 was way too late. The Frenchman who snored next to me all night was up and gone by 5:30 and many others were also gone by the time I finally got out of bed at 6:15. I checked on Lauren and we decided that there was no use in trying to attempt another half hour of sleep. When we were both out of our beds, one of the older peregrinos walked over and turned on the lights. Yep, apparently we were the LAST people still in our beds at 6:15... #caminewbs.

We had the bathroom to ourselves as we brushed our teeth and put our jackets back on to face the chilly morning weather. We managed to make it out of the hostel before a few of the peregrinos and contentedly set off, starting off our day with a beautiful sunrise.

 It's been a while since I've seen a sunrise!

Land really is the best art.

- Andy Warhol

As we walked, I paid attention to my surroundings in a way that I rarely do in Madrid. I noticed the spots on the inside of flowers and the shadows that create their own beautiful image on the sidewalk. I smelled "green" and remembered that such pristine nature is a wonderful gift that needs to be appreciated and protected (by Lauren, who picked up peregrinos' trash whenever she saw it). The two days were a wonderful way to disconnect from city life and relax amid the emotionally-draining experience of moving away from Madrid.

These were novel the first hour... then I realized after seeing them EVERYWHERE that they must be one of Galicía's more common flowers.

After about 20 kilometers of walking and a few snack breaks, we arrived to Pedrouzo, our day's destination. On our way into the pueblo we found this nice sign...

Take what you need: To be heard, luck, inspiration, play, happiness, peace, beauty, silence, a break, breath, passion, optimisim.

It was a very nice motivator, but at the moment we arrived, what Lauren and I really needed were sheets. We had to shower that evening and didn't think our wet towels would keep us warm very well.

So, we decided that it was probably worth upgrading. We went big and rented a room in a pensión (similar to a B&B), where we had our own room (aka NO snoring) and a private bathroom with the best shower that either of us had experienced in the entire country. To us it was definitely worth the €22.50 per person, though some might call us pijas.

The owner of the pensión, surveying his advertisement methods, asked us how we had found his place. From his expression, it seemed he had never heard, "Well, we were walking past and it looked like it would have sheets." We then had to explain that we didn't have sheets the previous night and had used our towels. We blamed our unpreparedness on the fact that it was our first official day of vacation and we were a bit disorganized.

Owner: Wait, this is your first day of vacation?
Amber and Lauren: Yep!
Owner: But how then did you...
Amber and Lauren: Oh yeah, the 31 day camino that we are supposedly on the 30th day of... nope, we started today.
Owner: Today?
Amber and Lauren: Yeah...
Owner: So you only walked today? Okay...

I don't think he was judging us too much.

Enjoying our luxury lodging

Our adventures in Pedrouzo weren't too much to write home about... we ate lunch out in our grungy clothes (the camino is the only time that is socially acceptable), napped, read, and watched the Germany vs. Portugal World Cup game (Ronaldo: "I would like to be 110% fit but I am 100% fit and that should be enough to help the national team"... Guess not!). 

Then, since we weren't blown away by our lunch, we went grocery shopping for dinner. After smelling pizzas in the bar where we watched the game, we decided a frozen pizza would be easy and would hit the spot. However, we hadn't taken a good look at the kitchen facilities. Though it was fully equipped, it was Galician equipped and the oven looked like this...

Yep, a wood oven.

We quickly decided it wasn't worth warming up the entire house in mid-June just to make a frozen pizza, so we got creative and made our pizza in a frying pan.

#CAMINUBES.

It was terrible. We got distracted chatting and eating with the other guests, Germans, who were kind enough to share their bread, cheese, and cherries with us. While we attempted to eat the pizza, the Germans chuckled at our pathetic dinner, a Dutch guest came down to ask what the terrible smell was, and we accepted that we were going to have to take full advantage of the older German peregrinos' generosity with their leftovers. After all, our pizza was black more than halfway through the crust. I don't think they believed me when I said that normally I'm a pretty good cook.

That event opened the conversation up and after about 30 minutes, they were roaring in laughter at our one day camino experience. One of the peregrinos showed us pictures of his different albergue stays (One with 130 people in an old chapel... imagine the acoustics of that snoring!) and we admitted to all of the failures that we had been keeping under wraps.

Then around 10 PM, one of the workers came out and told us that we had to keep it down... our group was being a bit too rambunctious. So we said goodbye and expressed our hope that we would run into them the next day. But they told us they were the "relaxed Germans" and weren't planning on starting until 9 AM the next day. They didn't seem to believe us when we said we would be walking by 6:45-7:00 AM. "We'll see..." they said. To which Lauren responded, "Or you won't! Because we'll be gone!"

And gone we were, following the little yellow arrows, stopping for orange juice and people watching, and chatting away as we enjoyed walking another 20 kilometers through Galicia.

We don't know where life will lead us post Fulbright life, but for now we'll just keep following these little yellow arrows we keep finding!

A sculpture on our way into Santiago

Back in the city!

 

Post-camino we checked into a hostel with paper sheets (we couldn't decide if that counts as sheets or not... probably not...), showered, and went back to the plaza to watch the peregrinos arrive. Unfortunately, we never ran into the Germans again, but we did meet up with María, the girl who had the farm in Galicia that I WWOOFed at earlier this year. It was a wonderful surprise to meet up once again and say goodbye. Or hasta luego.

In the main plaza of Santiago de Compostela

Well, once again I caught the camino bug. It was an incredible two days spent in a unique culture and community of people that I would love to invest more in at some point in life. Hopefully in one of my visits to Spain (because I AM visiting in the future!) I will get the chance to do a much longer part of the camino or even the whole thing... with sheets.

Much love from Spain,

Amber