I Feel the Need... the Need for Speed!

             Only in Spain would it be fathomable and perfectly acceptable to get picked up to go to work on a motorcycle.  And that is just the experience I had on Friday with one of my private lessons! Our schedules were fairly tight, but he still wanted to meet to get a lesson in so decided that he would pick me up on his moto and drop me off, to cut down on walking time. So yes, I got to ride on my first motorcycle on Friday! And to be honest, it was amazing! I had always thought that I would be terrified, but I found it very exciting and exhilarating. And the fact that it was absolutely beautiful out helped in that aspect I’m sure. So now I can successfully cross that one off my bucket list!

Porto: City of Hills, Birds, and Pastries

This past weekend I ventured to the other part of the Iberian Peninsula and visited Porto, Portugal with Cait and her friend Amanda. We flew out of Madrid with Ryanair, as the flight including return cost 27 Euros! Certainly too good of a deal to pass up! I arrived on Thursday afternoon and Thursday night we ventured into a more local area for some seafood. The restaurant we stumbled upon was called ‘King of the Sardines’, so of course we had to try their grilled sardines! We ordered a total feast and the waiter even looked at us funny, as if to say ‘I don’t think you’ll be able to finish that’. We feasted on the grilled sardines, bacalao (codfish), squid, potatoes, vinho verde, and bread, and all for 30 euro!

            Friday was absolutely gorgeous in Porto, with not a cloud in the sky and in the mid 20’s! We walked around the old part of the town by the river (Ribeira) and then crossed the bridge and made our way to some of the port wine cellars. We stopped at the Sandeman cellar, one of the most well known port wines, and took a tour of the cellars. The tour was extremely interesting and the wine tasting at the end was even better! After the wine tour, we took a nice little train ride around the city to see some more places.  Saturday wasn’t as nice of a day outside so we walked around a bit then did some shopping. We also stopped at a wonderful flea market where we found some sweet deals such as scarves for 25 cents! Saturday night we had Indian food, as we have been craving different types of food besides pinchos (although they are wonderful and delicious). Cait and I left early Sunday morning and Amanda left on Monday morning.

It was a wonderful trip and a wonderful city and it is actually named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. I would highly recommend visiting Porto any time you have the chance. Even though it was wonderful to get away and travel a bit, it was certainly wonderful to get back to Logroño and also to be able to understand the language. Even after taking a year of Portuguese at Miami, I still cannot speak the language and can barely understand as well. It certainly made me determined to get back into learning it and I am considering taking classes here in Logroño next year at the Language School. All in all it was a wonderful trip: great food, great views, and great friends!

Views of Ribeira

Port Wine Cellars 

I love the old buildings!

Porto!!

Sandeman Port Wine!

Yummmmmy!

Attack of the Killer Bugs!!

            If there’s one thing I hate more than slow walkers, it’s bugs, especially big, scary bugs! And of course I have been so wonderfully blessed with a piso that is home to these big and scary creatures; a breeding ground of sorts.  I woke up last Wednesday morning with the intent of taking a nice, relaxing shower, but  alas I had other things in store for me. I was quite surprised (and not in a wonderful way) and taken aback by the huge cockroach that was setting up camp in our shower! I stifled a scream so as not to wake my roommates and thought of a plan of attack. I figured I could just drown him, but I was sadly mistaken. This little bugger (pun intended, get it? get it??) was the Michael Phelps of the cockroach world. I blasted him with water for a good 4 minutes before he stopped fighting and flailing. He washed down the drain so I stepped in to take my shower, impressed with my bug fighting skills. I was not so lucky as to stifle a scream when he crawled back up the drain! I immediately jumped out of the shower, grabbed my towel, and ran into my room to find solace in my Rainbows as means of weapon. I returned to the bathroom with weapon in hand and since he was weak from his marathon of a swim, was easily killed by the impressive tactics of my shoe whomping skills. Seeing as I am not a fan of bugs, especially of this size, I was very impressed with the way I handled the situation and stayed cool, for the most part!

            However when I returned from a wonderful weekend in Portugal (more to come on that), and discovered that my roommate had encountered yet another cockroach roaming in the bathroom, I was not quite so impressed with our flat. I then discovered that the wall of my room that shares a wall with the bathroom was once again wet and starting to grow mold again. And that’s not the worst part! There were little bugs, gnats or something. I’m not exactly sure what kind they were since I am not a connoisseur of bugs, and never want to be, but regardless they were disgusting and everywhere on my wall! My landlady was in Barcelona for the weekend, so wasn’t much of a help, but I did buy ‘Raid Max Extreme Bug Killing Machine Spray’ and thoroughly fumigated our place today. So I’m hoping that between my newfound Terminator style bug killing skills and my landlady we can solve the problem. If my dream last night has any sort of truth to it (where I was THE bug terminator and went on a wild rampage), I will hopefully be bug free by the end of this week! Everyone just keep your fingers crossed please and thank you! 

A Roller Coaster of Emotion!

             This may seem an odd title for a trip to Valencia, Spain for their annual festival Fallas, but it certainly is well deserving for the trip we had this past weekend. Cait, Diane, Amy, Sadie, Sean, Chris, and I headed down to Valencia this past weekend to partake in the last night of their big festival Fallas. I won’t go into the history or what all happens in Fallas because I am still tired from the weekend, so if need be Google it! But in a nutshell, Fallas is a big festival where they build wooden/paper mache figures and burn them all on the last night. Sadly when I studied in Valencia 4 years ago I wasn’t able to go to this festival because it is always in March. Ever since I had been to Valencia the first time, going to Fallas has been on my list of things to do at some point in my life. And I certainly accomplished that this weekend!

            We took a bus down to Valencia on Friday night and got into the city at 5:30 am after a cramped, zero sleeping, miserable bus ride. We stopped in the bus station café for some coffee to start the day off right. We headed to the beach around 8 am and relaxed there for a bit. On our way to the beach we saw a bunch of the fallas and heard many petardos (firecrackers). After taking a nice nap on the beach I, of course, woke up with an awesome sunburn on my face due to the fact that I was wearing sunglasses during my entire nap! We headed back into the center of the city to get some paella for lunch and see one of the mascletas (one of the events in the ayuntamiento where they set off a bunch of fireworks). The center of the city was insane and completely packed with people. After “viewing” the mascleta we met up with my friend from Sevilla who now lives in Valencia. We all decided we needed a break from the craziness in the center of the city so walked along the river and in the park to the Ciudad de les Artes y Ciencias, one of the famous areas in Valencia. After getting yet another café con leche we headed back into the center for some food and to start drinking.  We were able to see the fire parade that took place to start the last night of the festivities. The Spaniards in general are pyromaniacs, however the Valencianos are the worst! Firecrackers were being thrown into the crowd, all while little children squealed with excitement. After almost being burned by the parade we decided to wait in the ayuntamiento for the burning of the big falla. Long story short, we waited for almost 6 hours, got pushed and shoved around too many times to count, people got in fights all around us while the police did nothing. Luckily the actual event of the fireworks show and burning of the big falla made up for the miserableness of waiting for it to occur. After the burning, it was complete and total chaos and I was actually quite nervous for a bit of time that something bad was going to happen or someone was going to get hurt, but luckily that didn’t happen. After the big show we walked around the city for a while more until we made the trek to the bus station around 7 am. Our bus didn’t leave until 11 am, so we hung out at the bus station with the rest of the Fallas partygoers who also didn’t have a place to stay. Note to self: always, always, always get a place to stay when traveling. It is not as exciting as it sounds to be homeless for 48 hours! After another 6 hour bus ride we finally made it back home and I fell asleep at 7 pm and slept for the next 15 hours to make up for lack of sleep for the past 48. All in all it was a crazy and intense weekend and something that I am thrilled to say I have witnessed, although if it happens again I will find a place to stay!

La mascleta

Plaza del Virgen

One of the Fallas!

Apocalypse or fireworks for Fallas?

The big falla that got burned!

“I’ll Be Baaaack!!”

            Yes thank you Arnold for putting it so eloquently. And yes you read that correctly, I will be back…. back to Spain that is! Yesterday I accepted my renewal position to stay here in Logrono another year teaching English with my same program. I am going to try and teach high school next year, as well as stay with one of my elementary schools. I am beyond excited to be given this opportunity again and live out my dream of living and working in Spain. This year has been so wonderful and I knew that it was something that I couldn’t pass up. So that just means that now everyone has a whole extra year to start saving their pennies and planning their trip to come visit me in the wine region of Spain!

Robin Hood Men In Tights

            This past weekend was Carnival here in Spain, which is their version of Mardi Gras. I had never been in Spain to experience Carnival before, so I was very excited to partake in this festival, and it certainly didn’t let me down! Through a random twist of fate (and knowing people haha), Cait, Diane, and I ended up marching in the Carnival parade here in Logrono with Intermon Oxfam. The parade was on Saturday and it seemed to be extremely popular. The theme for our group was Robin Hood, so we got to spend the evening and night dressed as Robin Hood, and man did we look awesome! I have never been in a parade so was quite thrilled about that opportunity and it was hysterical. We waited around with the rest of the groups while they got everyone organized and I was handed a sign with our group name on it and thought nothing of it. When we were getting ready to line up, I was informed that since I had the sign with our name on it, I would be walking first and had to stay a full 10 meters in front of everyone else! Am I surprised this happened to me? Not one bit! I don’t know whether I should feel honored that since I was the only blonde in the group I was picked to lead the way, or if I should feel offended that since I was the only blonde in the group I didn’t fit in. Either way it was a ton of fun! The parade lasted about an hour and then the awards were announced at the end! After the parade we continued the Robin Hood theme out with everyone dressed for Carnival. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was dressed up and it was definitely a fun night and an experience I will never forget!

Robin Hoods before the parade!

Enjoying Carnival!

Leader of the pack.

Why yes, we are that cool.

Study Abroad: Just Do It!

              Not to be too cliché and steal Nike’s slogan or anything, but seriously just do it! Last week when I was skyping with my cousin’s high school level Spanish classes, I was amazed by how few students raised their hands when I asked who wanted to study abroad when they got to college. Maybe it’s just the way I’ve been brought up; to fully appreciate traveling and seeing the world and learning about other cultures. Or maybe I just take for granted the opportunity I was given to study abroad. But I was certainly flabbergasted to say the least when only a couple of students raised their hands saying they were interested in studying abroad. I fully understand that not everyone has the opportunity to study abroad for various reasons: their field of study, college athletics, or finances (although many times studying abroad can be cheaper than taking classes at your university for a semester), but if you do have the opportunity to do so, I greatly urge you to do so.

            Studying abroad was one of the greatest experiences of my life thus far, and I have a feeling that it will continue to rank highly up there! It was such a wonderful experience for me that it is hard to put into words exactly how amazing it was! As I said before, I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity and for everyone who gave that opportunity to me I am eternally grateful. I not only learned another language while I was living in Spain, but I also learned so much about another culture and people and about myself as well. I would absolutely not be the same person I am today if I had not studied abroad. First off I would not be bilingual, which is something that I highly value in my life and think is extremely important (and it makes me so upset when people don’t see the benefit in being bilingual, both in your personal and professional life). I would also not have met many of my friends and the people that I know today if I had not studied abroad. And I certainly would not have the same goals and aspirations as I do today in my personal and professional life. I would also most likely not have returned to Spain, not once but twice and would not be (hopefully) returning next year. So if you are reading this and are A) in college and considering studying abroad, B) in high school, or C) know someone who is in either of those previous situations, I highly urge you to study abroad. Follow Nike’s take on it and Just Do It!