Northern Spain

On Tuesday we left for a trip up through Northern Spain. Our first stop was at Avila, which is famous for the wall surrounding the city. We spent a couple of hours there, mostly walking around, seeing the wall, and getting pastries. Here's Kiley, Lauren, and I on the wall:

Then we got back on the bus and drove to a point where we could see the wall and city from a distance. Here's Sierra and I with Avila behind us:

Then we were back on the bus until we arrived in Salamanca a couple hours later. After checking into our hotel we all headed over to the Plaza Mayor, which may look familiar to anyone who has seen the movie Vantage Point. This is the plaza that gets blown up in the movie. Luckily it still looks good as new.

As far as plazas go in Spain, this one falls in line as my second favorite plaza over all (Plaza España in Sevilla still has the number one spot) but my favorite Plaza Mayor. There are lots of little restaurants and bars surrounding the plaza and tons of people were outside enjoying the fabulous weather. Here's me, Mark, and Lara in the plaza:

Bryanne and I in the plaza:

After chilling in the plaza for a bit and eating some ice cream several of us headed over towards the Cathedral. On the way we stopped and got matching Universidad de Salamanca shirts and sweatshirts. We also passed this cool building that is decorated with shells. The scallop shell is the symbol of Santiago (St. James) and so it is found all over the place in Northern Spain.

The Cathedral in Salamanca is cool because it is actually a double cathedral. There was an old cathedral and then they decided to build a new one, so they just built it attached to the old one. The outside is very flamboyant gothic, which is always exciting. Notice the flying buttresses on the side.

Our professor had told us that there was an astronaut on the new cathedral that we needed to find, so here it is:

The inside of the New Cathedral:



That night Mark, Ali, Lara, Courtney and I went out for tapas in the plaza mayor. Tapas are like little appetizer sized portions of food that you get while you drink and socialize with your friends.

We found them unsatisfying because the portions are so small so we went out for dinner afterwards. Then we decided to try and find this dessert place that Ali had read about in her guide book. Unfortunately by the time we found it, it was closed so we just headed back to the hotel.

The in Salamanca happens to be the worst one we've stayed at on any trip in Spain. The girls were all four to a room, so there were two cots in each room. This was manageable, but the real problem with the hotel came when I went to shower and discovered that I couldn't get the water to switch from bath-mode to shower-mode and thus had to wash my hair via putting my head under the faucet. Lauren had had this same problem, and when we told the others about it no one seemed to understand how we couldn't figure out how to work the shower. The next morning several other people said that now they understood because they couldn't figure it out either. Regardless of this, I loved Salamanca. It's a fun city with a reall university vibe.

The next day we continued our drive to Santiago de Compostela. On the way we stopped at a little town where lots of pilgrims pass through on their way to Santiago de Compostela. We stopped there because it's where the Holy Grail is supposed to be. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be there until 4 o'clock, and it was like 1, so we didn't get to see it then. The town was really cool though; it looked a lot like what I imagine Ireland looks like.

We saw several pilgrims who were on the final stretch to Santiago.

Me and Santiago himself:

We arrived in Santiago de Compostela a couple of hours later and went to see the Cathedral. The outside of the Cathedral was super impressive and awesome. The inside was less cool than a lot of the other ones we've seen, but the outside makes up for it.

We went in and walked through where the supposed tomb of Santiago is.

As we walked through the Cathedral, there was a large bust of Santiago in this little room that we walked through. I guess that you are supposed to hug the bust, so each of us did.

Lauren, Kiley, Mark, Me, and Courtney in front of the Cathedral:

Lauren and I have sweet friendship bracelets:

That night a bunch of us went out for dinner together at a restaurant from Ali's guide book. It turned out to be less than impressive, but was still fun. We walked back by the Cathedral, which looked cool at night.

The next morning we were supposed to ride the bus 5 kilometers away and be dropped off so that we could hike into Santiago like the pilgrims and then go to the pilgrim mass. We were all out on the street waiting for the bus to come, only to discover that for some reason or another the bus could not come pick us up. We walked over to the cathedral and just walked around near it until 12 when the mass started.

At the pilgrim's mass it was cool because they read off a list of where all the pilgrims had come from. They were from as far as Chile and the United States. So cool.

Then we went to lunch at an asian restaurant that also had kebabs. After lunch Tim, Mark, Lauren, Kiley, and I went to the park and enjoyed the nice weather for awhile.

It was Tim's birthday, so later that evening Mark and I went to find him a cake. There was some confusion with when we were supposed to bring him it. Everyone was waiting at a restaruant for us, but when we were walking over with it we realized that it said we had to thaw the cake before eating it, so we took it back to the hotel and went to the restaurant empty handed.

At 9 there was a free concert in the Cathedral that we went to. It turned out to be rather cool. There was an orchestra that played and then a choir came out and joined them. We stayed awhile and then headed back to the hotel where we finally gave Tim his cake.

The next day we left Santiago de Compostela for Leon. But first we stopped at that same little town we had stopped at before so that we could see the holy grail that was now there. Here it is:

When we got to Leon, we followed the usual procedure of checking into the hotel and then heading over to the Cathedral. This cathedral is famous for its stain glass windows, which were really cool.


It turned out there was nothing to do in Leon besides see the cathedral, so Lauren, Kiley, Mark, Tim and I went back to the hotel and finished watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which was a fantastic movie. When it was over, Mark, Tim and I went out for dinner and of course resorted to getting kebabs because we were hungry and didn't want to eat at a bar.

We were supposed to meet up with a bunch of other people at Valor (a delicious chocolate place) at 10 for Courtney's birthday. We didn't know exactly where it was, except that it was near the Cathedral, which looked lovely at night.

We finally found it at about 10:05 only to discover that it was closed. We didn't know where everyone had gone so we just started walking back to the hotel. On our way we randomly found everybody in a bar getting milkshakes, so we joined them. It was by far the most diappointing milkshake of my life...kind of like watered down chocolate milk. We have all come to agree that Leon was not our favorite city. Though it's not my least favorite either as you will shortly see.

The next morning we left to return to Madrid at 11. We stopped in a town called Coca so that we could see this castle:

What we didn't know before we stopped was that the castle was closed. It was also randomly freezing cold and there was absolutely nothing to do in the town.

Kami was so cold she used me and Mark's pockets to warm her hands:

Unfortunately, the bus driver has to stop for 45 minutes every 2 hours, so we were stuck in this random town for way too long. We all went into a tiny gas station for awhile and then went back to the bus and just waited there. Finally, we made it back to Alcala and got off that lovely bus for the last time.

In the past 3 months we have spent at least 75 hours (3.125 days) on this lovely tour bus:

Wow. I'm genuinely surprised that no one died of discomfort or boredom on it.

El Corrido de los Toros

On Sunday Mark and I went into Madrid to see a bullfight because you can't live in Spain for 3 months and not see one. I will admit to leaning toward the anti bullfighting side of things before, but having come to love and respect Spanish culture over these past months, it's hard for me to not like something that is so deeply a part of the culture. Also, having now seen one it was nowhere near as gruesome as I was expecting. If the bull dies quickly it isn't hard to watch at all, it's only if it takes the matador several tries to kill it that it can be painful to watch.

There seem to be about four parts to the bullfight: first several matadors entice the bull with their pink capes in order to tire it out and make sure it is brave enough to fight. Then the picadors come out on their horses and stab the bull with a long pole. It's after this stage where the bull is removed if it's not brave enough to fight back (we saw 3 that were not killed). After the picadors leave, 3 matadors each take a turn running at the bull and sticking two banderillos (the white or red sticks) into the back of the bull. Then the bull is left alone with the matador, who uses a red cape, and eventually kills the bull with a sword.

Me and Mark by our seats (not the greatest, but for 2.20 who's complaining?):

The matadors and picadors entering the arena:

The picador that stabbed the first bull got knocked over and was stuck under the horse. No worries though, he seemed fine and got back on the horse once they got it up.

The matador with the bull:

Putting the banderillos in the bull's back:



The matador about to stab the bull with his sword. This matador was really struggling and got knocked down and trampled by the bull several times.

The matador with the bull:

Las Fallas

Thursday morning Kiley and I woke up before 6 in the morning so that we could catch the bus that we thought came at 6:30 to make it to the group bus at 7. When we got out to the bus stop we discovered that the bus actually came at 6:25 and then again at 7, so we had to walk 25 minutes to the train station where we were meeting the bus. When we finally got there, we were cold and slightly disgruntled that we had to walk, but it turned out so did pretty much everyone else because the buses seemed to just not come for anyone that morning.

We left and about 4 1/2 hours later arrived in Valencia. It had warmed up quite a bit from our morning walk and was still getting hotter. Kiley, Lauren, Tim, Mark, and I walked around the center for arts and sciences because Kiley and Lauren hadn't been to Valencia yet and wanted to see it.

Me, Kiley, and Lauren:

We knew that at 2 o'clock they were setting off fireworks in the plaza, so we started heading there. We passed several processions with people dressed up and bands playing.

We made it to the plaza in time to hear the fireworks. We weren't close enough to see anything except the smoke in the air, but boy could we hear them. The explosions were so loud that the windows in all of the buildings were shaking. This was also our first experience with a real Spanish crowd, though it would not be our last. People were packed all through the streets and trying to walk through was nearly impossible as you had to literally slide in between people.

For the festival of Las Fallas, there are lots of these float-type things that are built and placed throughout the central part of the city. At night these floats are set on fire using a series of firecrackers. We were there on the last day of the festival to see them burn. During the day there are tons of people out and lots of street vendors and lots of fireworks being set off at random. It kind of felt like being in a war zone because of all the explosions, which you never knew when they were coming or where they were coming from. Here's one of the floats in the main plaza:

This one of the Virgin Mary is made mostly of flowers, at least her whole cape is covered with flowers:

Tim, Kiley, Mark, Lauren and I spent most of the day just walking around and seeing all of the floats. We sat in a park for awhile to take a break from walking.

In addition to walking, we spent most of the day eating delicious but not nutricious food. In the end I ate 2 chocolate covered curros (pictured below), 2 chocolate croissants, 2 scoops of ice cream, and parts of 2 dishes of paella. Needless to say we all felt a little sick by the time we got on the bus to go home, but it was definitely worth it.

Another of the floats:

There seems to be no pattern to the subject matter of the floats. They all seemed really random, so I'm pretty sure anything goes. It seems a shame to burn some of them because they are so beautiful and you can tell a lot of effort went into them. Apparently the 2 best ones are saved each year and placed in a museum.

A procession of kids dressed up:

Another float:

Here we are at round two of the chocolate croissants. It just so happens that these are the best chocolate croissants I have had in all of Spain (and believe me, I have tried a lot of them). Lara and I got them here the first time we came to Valencia, so we were excited to go back. Luckily they turned out even better than I remembered them.

After walking around all day (we'd been there since noon), we went to the main plaza where the big float was going to be burned. We had heard that they would light it at midnight, so we went at about 10:30 to get a spot so that we could see it. The crowd kept getting bigger and more tightly packed as time went on. At around midnight police started trying to move everyone back because the front of the crowd was too close to where the fire would be. This of course was difficult because we were already so pressed together.

The police made a line holding hands in order to separate the crowd and move people back, but somehow half of our little group ended up on one side of the police and half on the other. Then, after moving part of the crowd back, an officer grabbed me and Lauren and shoved us in with the other side of the crowd and kept pushing us back. Finally when they were satisfied that we were all far enough back that the front of the crowd could move back, they left, but then we were still smashed in between a bunch of random people.

Lauren and I made friends with these two old British men, who we are pretty sure were gay because they kept calling each other dear. They kept making really funny comments and asking Mark what was going on because he was so tall. It turned out that they didn't light it on fire until about 1. By that point we had been standing in this huge crowd unable to put our arms down while people smoked in our faces for 2 1/2 hours. We were starting to think that maybe this wasn't worth it when the fireworks started.




The beginning of the fireworks was about the equivalent of the finale of the D.C. fireworks show for the 4th of July and then it escalated from there. Basically it was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. The noise was unbelievable because they were being set off so close to us. At one point they were literally over our heads and the little remains were falling into the crowd, which caused a lot of commotion because if one person tried to move they fell into other people - basically a domino type effect.

After the fireworks stopped the firecrackers that led up to the float were lit and the giant giraffe we had been staring at for so long finally burst into flames.




The fire was enormous and they immediately started spraying it with water to keep it contained. It was among the coolest things I have ever seen, but you really had to be there to understand the amazingness of it.

After fighting our way through the crowd to get out we walked quite a ways to catch our bus back. At this point it was just after 2 in the morning and we still had a 4 1/2 hour drive ahead of us. Tim and I watched half of "The Rocker" to make the time pass. Then after being awake for about 22 hours I managed to fall asleep sprawled across 2 rows.

We arrived in Alcala about 6:45 in the morning - exactly 24 hours after me and Kiley had woken up the previous morning. We walked to our house and tried to unlock the door to get in only to discover that our key was not working. We rang the doorbell and a few minutes later Ana came down and let us in, clearly having just woken up herself. We went upstairs and crashed on our beds. I did not wake up until noon, and at first couldn't remember if what had happened was even real.

Basically, las fallas = insanely awesome.