Fire and Ice

Just about 12 days until I’ll be home for Christmas. Sleeping in my own bed. Waking up to the smell of coffee and bacon. Meeting my beautiful baby nephew. I’m ridiculously excited. Though I know I’ll be itching to come back here once I’ve been back there for a while.

Things here have been chugging along.  Work is still, well, work.  On Monday and Tuesday of next week, the parents of my little kids get to come in and “observe” what class is like…but we get cookies and coffee at the end of class…so really it’s a Christmas party (at least that’s what I tell myself).

This past weekend was a puente (4 day weekend)…except I didn’t know that I wouldn’t have to work, so I wasn’t able to plan any big trips or anything.  But, in the end, it was a great weekend.

On Wednesday, we had a surprise birthday party for Josemi in Diana’s apartment.  We had balloons, streamers, cake, wine, and Diana made curry for dinner.  The curry was delicious and, wait for it, SPICY! Nothing is ever spicy in Spain, so it was a wonderful change.  After dinner, we headed out for a few more drinks and to dance at MundoPop (which might as well be our private bar, as no one else is ever there).

Thursday started the holiday weekend.  Whitney set off on her trip to Istanbul and I spent all day in my apartment. Yep, I didn’t leave once and I didn’t feel bad about it.

Friday was pretty much the same laziness, until the afternoon, when I went to Escobazos, the festival in a nearby town where people run around with huge bundles of sticks, lit on fire, and try to hit other people with them.  Juan and I got there before Josemi, Emma, and Diana, so we headed into the main plaza to see the action.  I had seen the festival last year, but there were even more people attending this year, and the plaza was overwhelming.  Between the fire, the smoke, and drunk people, we were quick to leave the plaza to hit up a bar until the others arrived.

Las chicas in the plaza.

Once everyone was there, we walked around, went into a few bars, and almost froze while waiting for a huge pile of wood to be burned.  Seriously, it was so cold.  Good thing once the fire started, it warmed us right up and gave our faces a nice little tan.  Then, after hanging around a few more bars, we made the journey home.

There was a stuffed panda bear at the very top, engulfed in the inferno.

The gang.

Saturday morning, Juan and I went up north about an hour and a half to explore some towns.  First, we went to Béjar, beautiful, small city surrounded by snowcapped mountains.  We walked around, enjoying the elevator musak played over loudspeakers on the main shopping street and getting our exercise walking up and down the millions of hills the city has.

Béjar.

Eventually, we stopped for lunch.  We got a menu del día and were pleasantly surprised when the waiter brought us a huge plate of ham and told us it was on the house. Wohoo! Spanish ham is delicious…and even better when it’s free.  When we were nice and full, we loaded back into the car, and drove to another town, about 10 minutes away, called Candelario. 

Candelario was gorgeous.  A tiny little town, its small stone streets were perfectly charming and its views of the mountains were even better. After walking around and having a coffee, we decided to see how far we could drive into the mountains and it maybe it would be possible to reach where the snow was.

We began the drive into the mountains, winding through tall trees and countless bends in the road.  Then, as the trees began to clear, the views of the land below became spectacular.  Spectacular, but a little terrifying.  I discovered something about myself…that I don’t enjoy curvy mountain roads, not one bit.  But once we got to the top of the mountain, it was all worth it.  We spent a while playing in the snow and wound up completely frozen.  We didn’t in anyway have the appropriate clothes on.

SNOW!

Yummm.

The drive down was a lot better (thanks to the compulsive breaker driving down in front of us) and, once back on flat ground, we drove to Hervás, the last stop on our tour.  We only spent a little bit in Hervás, eating snacks, drinking a coffee, and exploring some shops.  Finally, we got back to Navalmoral after a long, exhausting, and very fun day.

Sunday, Whitney got back with tales of Istanbul and baklava in hand.  It was a day of relaxing and mentally preparing myself for returning to work the next day.  Just 12 more days…the countdown continues…

Fakesgiving and No Fire

You would think that my Thanksgiving this year would be less stressful than last year’s because now I now what I’m doing…wrong.  This year’s Thanksgiving was a lot harder to organize in terms of getting people to all be able to come on the same date.  After weeks of throwing around everyday in the month of November as a possibility for Fakesgiving, we finally decided on, go figure, Thanksgiving Day.  Originally about 15 people were invited, but in the end, only 7 could make it.  Good thing too, 15 would have been a ridiculous amount of guests in our apartment.

The week started off with grocery shopping. For this, it was really good that I had done Thanksgiving here last year…I knew exactly what shops to go to to get certain things.  Turkey? Check.  I made sure I said “PECHUGA de pavo” about a million times, so the guy didn’t think I wanted a whole turkey, a funny (and probably costly for the butcher) mistake from last year.  After days of grocery shopping, on Tuesday night I began making the two pumpkin pies.  Everything was going great until I put the pies in the oven…immediately the tops started to burn and, no matter how much I turned the oven temperature down, they just kept burning.  That was when I realized our oven is the worst.

Improvising a little, I managed to save the pies.  They didn’t look very nice, but I knew I could just cover them with whip cream and no one would be the wiser.  But, now knowing that the oven can’t really cook things, I sent out the call to see if we could use anyone else’s oven…no luck. In the end, we were going to just have to make do with ours.

Thursday morning, I got up nice and early to pick up a few last minute things, and then I set to work.  I had to go teach from 4.00 to 9.00 in the afternoon, so Whitney would have to be the one to put everything in the oven.  Whitney herself has said many times that she’s not a cook.  So, I was a little bit nervous as to how everything would turn out.  I spend Thursday before work prepping everything.  I got the green bean casserole together, made the cranberry sauce, put the marinade on the turkey, got different parts of the stuffing put together, washed the potatoes, and did anything else I could to make Whitney’s job easier.  Then I wrote out very detailed instructions for her.  When she came home for lunch, we went over the timeline of things a few times and I left her with our unpredictable oven and went to work.

At work, I decided that the entire week would be devoted to Thanksgiving.  I taught the words “turkey,” “pilgrim,” and “Indian” to my 5 year olds, and watched a Thanksgiving episode of “Friends” with my adults.  That afternoon, I kept checking my phone and Facebook for any messages from Whitney.  I wasn’t able to really keep up with them, but from what I gathered (and what was told to me later), this was what was happening…

The oven and the stovetop cannot be on at the same time, or else the power goes out.  We didn’t know that.  So Whitney was left alone, in the dark, with things in the oven, not knowing where the breaker was.  Also, the oven was getting pretty hot and when she eventually did get the power working again, the heat from the oven set off the smoke alarm that my mom had sent me in the mail last year.  Whoops. Thanks, mom.

The chefs!

Some pre-dinner coloring.

But eventually, after calling in reinforcements and sending the potatoes off to Diana’s house to be boiled, things were looking good. When I got home, I was pleasantly surprised by how little work was left to do before we could sit down to eat.  Soon, everything was all ready and we just had to wait for the latecomers to straggle in.  Around 11.00pm, we sat down to eat.  We had decorated the table with turkey coloring placemats (Whitney’s $1 purchase from the States), had plenty of wine, and were ready to say what we were thankful for.  I had to start, not sure why, and probably said the lamest thing ever…”I’m thankful for Spain and America.”  Booooring.  Whitney, Juan, Diana, Josemi, and Oscar all said much more poignant things.  Sorry, guys, I’ll do better next time.

The dinner turned out to be delicious. Everything was perfect. Then, when the pumpkin pie came out, scared as I had been, it was even better than last year’s. Yummm.

So. Much. Food.

Maybe I should make another soon...

We spent the rest of the night playing “Pin the nose on the pumpkin” (or as the Spanish read it, “Pin the no sé on the pumpkin”), taking pictures with our finger mustaches, playing card games, and just enjoying each other’s company.

Fun and games.

Like last year, I was sad to be away from my family for the holiday, but being with my Spanish family is the next best thing. I’m so lucky to have all of them in my life!

Josemi and I didn't get the mustache memo.

Around Europe in One Day

It was pointed out to me by a certain somebody that I haven’t written here since Halloween/Córdoba, and that my mom is probably checking everyday to see if I’ve updated yet…so here it goes...

I haven’t gone on any huge trips or done anything extraordinary in the past few weeks, but I’ve been loving life. Work is…well…work. Some days it’s fine, other days it’s pretty rough. But it could be a lot worse, so I’m not complaining. My favorite moment in school recently was when a girl came into class with a shopping bag and handed it to me, saying, “I have a present for you.”  In a few seconds, I thought about all the possibilities of what it could be…a bottle of wine? A new scarf? A sparkly necklace? ...It was a pomegranate the size of my head. A strange gift, yes, but a delicious one. That girl gets an extra sticker next class.

The weekend after Halloween/Córdoba, I went into Madrid to visit a friend of mine who had been an auxiliar in a town south of me last year, and is now teaching in Madrid. It was really great catching up with her as we ate some delicious tapas in one of Madrid’s cheapest tapas bars, El Tigre.  I also got to see a huge mall in Madrid, La Isla Azul.  There was a pet store.  I seriously thought about buying one of the puppies there…but I don’t think my landlord would like that very much.

The next day, I went with Juan to Parque Europa…a park filled with smaller replicas of some of Europe’s most recognizable monuments.  In one afternoon, we visited the Trevi Fountain, Eiffel Tower, and London Bridge. How many people can say they’ve done that?

Torre de Belém, Lisbon

The Little Mermaid, Copenhagen and London Tower Bridge

David, Florence

This past weekend was spent going out hard, until 8am on Thursday night. Struggling through work on Friday. Eating Chinese food Friday night. Spending Saturday in bed watching movies and eating M&Ms mixed with popcorn.  Sunday, I actually left my apartment.

Whitney and I went with a family to a town a little over a half an hour from ours to spend the day walking around and to eat lunch.  The fall colors on the trees were gorgeous and we had a really nice day, just hanging out.

Fresh mountain drinking water.

One of many super narrow streets.

This week, we'll celebrate Fakesgiving. I definitely learned by trial and error doing it last year, so hopefully this year’s feast goes well.  Tomorrow I have to go to the butcher to order the turkey breast. Last year, by this point I still didn’t really speak Spanish and I accidently ordered a FULL turkey from this guy and when he tried to charge me 50some euros for it, I politely informed him I had wanted just the turkey breast…he was not very happy with me. I doubt there’s much of a demand for whole turkeys in Navalmoral. We’ll see if he still remembers and hates me tomorrow…

Chinese Ladies and Monsoons

This past week was a three-day work-week, followed by a four-day weekend. After some confusion as to if I would have to work on Friday or not (negating a long weekend for me), I was thrilled to find out I wouldn’t have any classes that day.  Once I found that out, Whitney and I went into super planning mode, trying to figure out where we wanted to adventure to for the puente.

At first we had thought we would head over to Valencia, my home away from home.  But then, on Wednesday morning (the day before we were going to leave), we decided to go to Córdoba, a place neither of us had been before.  We were just going to play it by ear, buying the bus tickets from home to Madrid in advance, but the tickets from Madrid to Córdoba at the bus station and just finding a hostel when we got there.

After work on Wednesday, I went home to shower before going out to Oscar’s country house to celebrate Halloween.  Bad news- the water had been turned off.  No pre-party shower for Rachel.  Oh well.  Whitney and I put on our Chinese lady outfits (approved and improved by the real Chinese man who worked at the Chino we bought the costumes at…he told us we needed Asian fans to complete the ensemble) and headed out to the country.  After a few minutes driving, we reached the country school that Josemi works at and that Oscar’s dad is the director of.  Being the director comes with some perks…including a house.  The house was decked out in red candles, a fire was roaring in the fireplace, and meat was grilling.  We spent the night eating, playing games, laughing, and being super strange in our bizarre mix of costumes.

Around 3.30 am, Diana drove Whitney and me home, as we had to wake up at 7.00 am to pack and catch the 9.00 am bus to Madrid.  More bad news- the water still wasn’t on. Showers would have to wait until the morning. Even more bad news- when we went to make a list of potential hostels we could try when we arrived, only ONE had any availability. We had to book it then and there. Then, we decided to check on the bus situation from Madrid to Córdoba, just in case.  The bus we were originally going to catch at 2.00 pm was sold out, and the next one wasn’t until 4.00 pm.  We had to book it. That meant we would have 5 hours to kill in Madrid between the two buses. It was going to be a long day.

We woke up at 7am, only to find the water STILL wasn’t on and we were in terrible moods.  We quickly decided to change the time of our tickets to Madrid to 1pm, so we could get some more sleep, get a shower (surly the water would be on by then), and only have to wait around an hour before getting the bus to Córdoba. 

After sleeping some more, we woke up again at noon and guess what…?  No water. At this point, we couldn’t do anything else, so we packed up and headed off to the station, knowing we would be sitting on buses all day and would smell rather delightful when we got to Córdoba.

The bus ride into Madrid was uneventful.  They actually played a movie, which is rare.  The movie was a good one, which is basically unheard of.  If you haven’t seen “The Intouchables,” I recommend it.  When we got on the bus to Córdoba, a seriously strange string of coincidences started.

When Whitney had arrived to Madrid this year before coming to Navalmoral, she had met up with another auxiliar  (Kelsey) who would be in Navalmoral this year as well.  They met up to take the bus here together, and Whitney met one of Kelsey’s friends from college, who is an auxiliar in Madrid this year.  His name was Amir.  Whitney and Amir met very briefly and that was that.  Guess who ended up sitting behind us on the bus?  Yep, Amir.  Not too strange, I guess. But listen to this…Amir was supposed to meet up with Kelsey and go to Valencia for the weekend. We were supposed to go to Valencia and meet up with Kelsey.  We would have met Amir there.  But then on Wednesday, both Amir and Whitney/I made the last minute decision to go to Córdoba.  Amir was staying in the sister hostel of the hostel we were going to be staying in…just a 5-minute walk away from one another.  Because of Amir, we found out that the hostel had a policy that if you arrive after 6pm, you must call, or else they cancel your reservation.  So we called. And good thing…or else we would have had nowhere to sleep.

After the 5-hour bus ride, Amir led us to our hostels (smartphone GPS comes in handy).  At first, Whitney and I had thought we should shower ASAP, and then get dinner…but we had gotten that far.  Another hour without showering wouldn’t hurt.  The three of us went to dinner, dined on traditional Cordobés food (salmorejo, flamenquín, berejenas…) and met Amir’s hostel roommates, two girls, one from Belgium and the other from Turkey.  We all had a lovely time at dinner and when Whitney and I got back to our hostel, we had the sweet relief of showers after 36 hours of not having one. Gross.

Friday morning, we woke up, got ready, and then met our three new friends for breakfast before heading over to La Mezquita.  The mosque-turned-Catholic church was incredible.  So different than the dozens of cathedrals I’ve visited over the years.  The Arabic arches and tiles, mixed with images of Jesus on the cross was such a bizarre and beautiful convergence of cultures.  After a while spent walking around, we said goodbye to the others, planning to meet up later that night, and Whitney and I went off to explore on our own.  We just wandered the winding, small streets of Córdoba, following the recommended sites to see from our map, as well as suggestions from a waiter at a café we had taken a coffee break at.  La calle de las flores was one of my favorite places.  It’s a narrow street, lined with blue pots and colorful flowers from top to bottom. 

A tiny street called "El pañuelo"

Calle de las flores.

We walked and walked and walked, got lunch at a hole-in-the-wall bar, ate some ice cream, went shopping, then headed back to the hostel for a rest for a bit.  After doing nothing for about an hour, we got ready and headed out for the night.  We stopped for some tapas, then just wandered the streets, at one point following a big group of jovenes, thinking they new where the good places to go would be…but then eventually just getting super lost and having to backtrack. Then it started the rain. 

Roman bridge.

We wanted to break the window and steal it.

We took shelter from the rain in a restaurant that a friend’s uncle works at near the Mezquita.  The food was pretty good and towards the end of the meal, we asked our waitress if the uncle was working…he ended up coming over and chatting with us for a while, sending over a couple of free glasses of local wine after we said goodbye. What a nice guy.  After dinner, dessert, and wine, we were ready to head out and meet up with our new friends.  We walked over to the door, only to find that there was a monsoon outside.  The streets were flooded and the rain was pouring down.  So naturally, we ordered some beers and hung around for a while. 

By time the rain stopped, we were tired and decided just to go back to the hostel and sleep before we had to get up early in the morning to go back to Madrid.  Sleep was pretty rough that night with the sounds of snoring echoing throughout the hostel.

After breakfast, we took a taxi through the rain to the bus station and boarded yet another 5 hour bus back to Madrid.  Again, the ride was uneventful and long.  That night was spent in Madrid with 100 Monteditos, watching a friend’s basketball match (one Spanish person on a team of all Dominicans), and eating chocolate cake. It was nice not to have to get immediately back on the bus back to Navalmoral until the next day.  Seven hours of bus travel (not including “layover” time) is not very fun.