My last week on the farm started out fairly calmly; we didn't have any huespedes, so there were less people around. In addition to that, Candela left for her trip, and Esther left the next morning. It was really quiet and sad with nobody around :(
Lindsey and I went on a quest to find the conejos one day, since I was never able to find them. They were sequestered off in a tiny area behind a fence behind what looks like an old garden. We couldn't see much, but we saw them sitting in their little cages. They were really cute! We looked at them for a while, and then got ready to leave. As we were walking away, I saw an oddly dark patch of grass. When we looked closer, we saw that it was actually a patch of dried blood! And there were little tufts of hair nearby. It was really sad to see that.
A few days later, Lola finally took me in to see the bunnies! It was very exciting. Two of the bunnies (the largest male and a smaller male) had an ear fungus. We had to go in to give them fungicide to treat it. Lola went in to pick up the bigger male, and I stood ready with the fungicide spray. He was not happy about being picked up, and began flailing wildly and squealing. I didn't even know rabbits could make audible sounds, but apparently they can scream! She put him back down, and ended up just holding him in place so he would stay still enough for the medicine. It was really sad, but Lola said this fungus could kill the rabbits, so it was important to treat it now. We sprayed both of his ears, and then treated the next rabbit, who wasn't nearly as resistant. The fungicide spray was neon pink, which I enjoyed quite a bit.
Lindsey and I went for a walk a few evenings before I left, on a quest to see El Gordo, a big fat olive tree in Almajalejo. En fin, we weren't able to distinguish which tree was El Gordo, but the trip was still exciting - we ended up walking through Almajalejo, and saw some very interesting things. We stopped first at Isabel's (Lola's mother) house to see if she was home, but she didn't come out. We kept walking, and soon found a fenced in area of turkeys, chickens, and dogs. The chickens and dogs were cute and regular, but the turkeys were of a variety that I have not seen before.
These were the weirdest turkeys I have ever seen in my entire life. Their heads were wrinkled, bald, and BLUE. They had flaps of skin hanging over their beaks. And they were gigantic. We sat watching them for a few minutes, in complete awe at their appearance.
Then they started squawking. They flared up their big, black tail feathers and pranced around making odd guttural noises at each other. It was quite a spectacle.
After the turkeys, we went on to another fence, where we saw goats. I embarrassingly pointed out some chickens to Lindsey that were actually pigeons on the way. We quickly got over my failed animal identification though when the goat walked by, fully endowed with the largest udder I have ever seen. It was almost touching the ground, and looked like it was about to explode / part ways with the body of the goat any second.
Crazy, crazy animals they have there in Almajalejo...
We made more bread and bizcocho one morning. Lola has an horno de lena, so we cooked the foods outside. It was really incredible to watch: Isabel would fill the oven with little twigs and dried olive tree branches, and we waited for them to burn. When everything was burned out, the oven was swept and we were able to cook the bread and bizcocho. With no timer, no temperature monitor, nothing! The oven just functioned off of the lingering heat from the fire. It was amazing.
Exciting as the baking adventure was, I hadn't been feeling very well for a few days, and the day Esther left I got especially sick. For the next few days, I wasn't able to eat and had a very high fever and a lot of stomach pain. My stomach was gurgling and making lots of weird and loud noises. I couldn't work, and I spent all day and night in bed, either sleeping or trying to sleep or just being in pain. It was a really sad way to end the trip, but I guess it's good that I was able to get home to make sure I was okay.
Surprisingly enough, my trip home was far more successful than my trip over. I caught the bus on time, and was actually feeling a little better when I left the farm. The bus arrived, and though my bag was a little overweight, I was able to get on my flight without any problems or extra charges. It was sad to leave Huercal Overa and the farm, but it's great to be back home in New York!
Hasta luego Espana! Encantada.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Almajalejo and Taberno
The other day I went for a walk during our afternoon descanso. Instead of walking the way I usually do (along the main road to Huercal Overa), I decided to turn down a new path that led to a town called Almajalejo. Almajalejo is about 1km off of the main road, so it was a fairly short walk.
After a short while I saw a few houses, so I figured I had reached the edge of the town. NOPE. That WAS the town. Almajalejo, I learned, is not actually a pueblo (town), but an aldea (a really really tiny town. Apparently the word in English is "hamlet"). This little place is perhaps the most interesting and unbelievable anachronism I have ever witnessed first hand: the street was lined with huge houses with little garden patios; old ladies were sitting outside listening to the radio playing. From the outside (and perhaps the inside too, I don't know), it looks as if Almajalejo has not changed since Franco. I didn't get to see too much of the place though, because right when I arrived a dog / savage beast creature came over and started barking at me. I am not usually afraid of dogs; this was actually just a monster and he was not thrilled with my presence. He ran up to his gate (he was locked away under a sign that said CUIDADO CON EL PERRO) and stood there yelling at me the entire time. I figured he would stop once I past the house, but he didn't, so I ran away back to the farm.
A couple of days later, we went to another nearby town called Taberno with a few of Esther's friends who came to visit. Upon arriving, we set off to find the town church (if there is one thing EVERY inhabited place in Spain has, it's a church) and its plaza. The church looked like it was a hundred years old - very worn down, with cracked paint and a severely compromised foundation. After looking at the plaque, however, we realized it had been constructed in 1971!
After looking out at the town from the view at the top of the church plaza, we decided to walk around to find a bar to get some ice cream. While we were walking, we passed an old woman sitting outside her house with several little girls. We went over to say hi, and saw that they were all working on some very detailed embroidery. Bolillos, as I learned this type of work is called, is an intricate design made out of many different strings, usually in floral or other repeating patterns. Bolillos can be attached as trimmings for tablecloths, towels, sheets, etc. The girls' grandmother was teaching them how to make bolillos: attached to a long, round pillow are tons of strings wound up on wooden sticks (these sticks are called bolillos). You rotate the bolillos to create the design, a photocopy of which is usually pinned underneath to guide the work. It looked unbelievably complicated, but the finished products were beautiful. We stuck around talking to the girls for a little while longer to hear more about bolillos and just to make small talk.
Afterwards, we went to the bar and ordered ice cream. We sat outside on the patio to eat, and discussed various Spanish accents (whether the Spanish lisp is correct or not; saying escuela or colegio, etc). While we were eating, we saw a man ride down the street on a horse, stop, tie his horse to the window of a building, and come to the bar for a drink. Though a painfully touristic moment, we obviously had to go take pictures with the horse. Never in my life have I seen someone actually use a horse as transportation. The man enjoyed us though, and offered to have us mount his horse for the pictures. It was excellent.
Yesterday afternoon, Candela's grandmother Isabel invited us all over to come see her house. She lives in Almajalejo, so we made the quick trip over following our afternoon naps. Her house is gigantic and absolutely gorgeous. It is just as architecturally ingenious as Lola's; even in the 100+ degree weather, it remained cool and fresh inside without any fans or air conditioning. Isabel showed us around, showing off all of the bolillos she has done (which is no small amount - I can't even remember how many towels and sheets and blankets and napkins and tablecloths she showed us, and every surface of the house was covered with something she had either made entirely from scratch or had embellished in some way). She is very proud of her work (obviously), and it was incredible to see the kind of things she has made. She also showed us parts of Candela's ajuar she is preparing. An ajuar is a collection of sheets, tablecloths, towels, and other linens that relatives embellish and prepare (with bolillos, cross stitching, embroidery, etc) for when a young girl in the family gets married. The Spanish tradition of developing an ajuar is largely outdated in most major cities, but apparently still thrives in the country. Isabel was very excited about the ajuar for Candela, and secretly showed us the photocopied designs for the parts she has not yet created. I was less than thrilled when I heard about this tradition, but what Isabel is preparing really is beautiful.
We looked at tons of old photographs, of Isabel's parents, Lola as a young girl (she was BEAUTIFUL - and Candela looks just like her), and a handful of neices, nephews, and cousins. We also saw Isabel's collection of dresses she keeps stored away for Lola and Candela, which was fun. As we walked through the house, she pointed out pieces of furniture that had been passed on to her from her parents, and their parents. Nearly everything in the house had been in the family for nearly a hundred years.
After an extensive tour of the house and the newly converted apartments above Isabel rents to vacationers, we sat outside in the garden for a snack. Those Almajalejans know how to merendar: Isabel prepared cheese and pineapple and little salmon with cream cheese bread pieces, followed by homemade ice cream sandwiches (with turron ice cream - it's made from almonds and is VERY delicious). We sat and ate and talked about life in Almajalejo and Isabel's past. We learned that she was born in one of the houses on Lola's farm (Casa Abuela, now rented out to huespedes), and has spent her entire life in Almajalejo and Huercal Overa. We asked if she had a lot of family nearby. She said no, but then went on to list what sounded like a lot of family that live in Almajalejo and Huercal Overa. Isabel has spent her life tending to the house and garden of her family. When she was younger, they worked on a dairy farm, but that was too difficult. Now she works with Lola, and maintains a small garden of her own in addition to preparing Candela's ajuar.
The conversation quickly turned to Candela, who just left today for an 11 day trip to Tarragona and Paris to celebrate her friend's birthday. Isabel has never been to the beach, and is afraid of any type of travel that is not work-related. She has been sneaking behind Lola's back to try to convince Candela not to go on the trip (which she was told was just a trip to a friend's house in Alicante). She told Candela she would get sick and that she was already in pain because Candela was leaving. It was really sad and strange to see that she did not see any value in her nieta traveling, but I know next to nothing about their lifestyle and have no right to say what is best for Candela. At the very least, this trip was an eye-opening experience, and I'm happy to have gleaned some insight into what the rural parts of this region in Spain are like.
It has been really incredible to see and explore these little towns out in the country of Spain. I feel like I am getting to see a really interesting part of Spanish culture (no matter how outdated it may be for the cities and other urban areas).
After a short while I saw a few houses, so I figured I had reached the edge of the town. NOPE. That WAS the town. Almajalejo, I learned, is not actually a pueblo (town), but an aldea (a really really tiny town. Apparently the word in English is "hamlet"). This little place is perhaps the most interesting and unbelievable anachronism I have ever witnessed first hand: the street was lined with huge houses with little garden patios; old ladies were sitting outside listening to the radio playing. From the outside (and perhaps the inside too, I don't know), it looks as if Almajalejo has not changed since Franco. I didn't get to see too much of the place though, because right when I arrived a dog / savage beast creature came over and started barking at me. I am not usually afraid of dogs; this was actually just a monster and he was not thrilled with my presence. He ran up to his gate (he was locked away under a sign that said CUIDADO CON EL PERRO) and stood there yelling at me the entire time. I figured he would stop once I past the house, but he didn't, so I ran away back to the farm.
A couple of days later, we went to another nearby town called Taberno with a few of Esther's friends who came to visit. Upon arriving, we set off to find the town church (if there is one thing EVERY inhabited place in Spain has, it's a church) and its plaza. The church looked like it was a hundred years old - very worn down, with cracked paint and a severely compromised foundation. After looking at the plaque, however, we realized it had been constructed in 1971!
After looking out at the town from the view at the top of the church plaza, we decided to walk around to find a bar to get some ice cream. While we were walking, we passed an old woman sitting outside her house with several little girls. We went over to say hi, and saw that they were all working on some very detailed embroidery. Bolillos, as I learned this type of work is called, is an intricate design made out of many different strings, usually in floral or other repeating patterns. Bolillos can be attached as trimmings for tablecloths, towels, sheets, etc. The girls' grandmother was teaching them how to make bolillos: attached to a long, round pillow are tons of strings wound up on wooden sticks (these sticks are called bolillos). You rotate the bolillos to create the design, a photocopy of which is usually pinned underneath to guide the work. It looked unbelievably complicated, but the finished products were beautiful. We stuck around talking to the girls for a little while longer to hear more about bolillos and just to make small talk.
Afterwards, we went to the bar and ordered ice cream. We sat outside on the patio to eat, and discussed various Spanish accents (whether the Spanish lisp is correct or not; saying escuela or colegio, etc). While we were eating, we saw a man ride down the street on a horse, stop, tie his horse to the window of a building, and come to the bar for a drink. Though a painfully touristic moment, we obviously had to go take pictures with the horse. Never in my life have I seen someone actually use a horse as transportation. The man enjoyed us though, and offered to have us mount his horse for the pictures. It was excellent.
Yesterday afternoon, Candela's grandmother Isabel invited us all over to come see her house. She lives in Almajalejo, so we made the quick trip over following our afternoon naps. Her house is gigantic and absolutely gorgeous. It is just as architecturally ingenious as Lola's; even in the 100+ degree weather, it remained cool and fresh inside without any fans or air conditioning. Isabel showed us around, showing off all of the bolillos she has done (which is no small amount - I can't even remember how many towels and sheets and blankets and napkins and tablecloths she showed us, and every surface of the house was covered with something she had either made entirely from scratch or had embellished in some way). She is very proud of her work (obviously), and it was incredible to see the kind of things she has made. She also showed us parts of Candela's ajuar she is preparing. An ajuar is a collection of sheets, tablecloths, towels, and other linens that relatives embellish and prepare (with bolillos, cross stitching, embroidery, etc) for when a young girl in the family gets married. The Spanish tradition of developing an ajuar is largely outdated in most major cities, but apparently still thrives in the country. Isabel was very excited about the ajuar for Candela, and secretly showed us the photocopied designs for the parts she has not yet created. I was less than thrilled when I heard about this tradition, but what Isabel is preparing really is beautiful.
We looked at tons of old photographs, of Isabel's parents, Lola as a young girl (she was BEAUTIFUL - and Candela looks just like her), and a handful of neices, nephews, and cousins. We also saw Isabel's collection of dresses she keeps stored away for Lola and Candela, which was fun. As we walked through the house, she pointed out pieces of furniture that had been passed on to her from her parents, and their parents. Nearly everything in the house had been in the family for nearly a hundred years.
After an extensive tour of the house and the newly converted apartments above Isabel rents to vacationers, we sat outside in the garden for a snack. Those Almajalejans know how to merendar: Isabel prepared cheese and pineapple and little salmon with cream cheese bread pieces, followed by homemade ice cream sandwiches (with turron ice cream - it's made from almonds and is VERY delicious). We sat and ate and talked about life in Almajalejo and Isabel's past. We learned that she was born in one of the houses on Lola's farm (Casa Abuela, now rented out to huespedes), and has spent her entire life in Almajalejo and Huercal Overa. We asked if she had a lot of family nearby. She said no, but then went on to list what sounded like a lot of family that live in Almajalejo and Huercal Overa. Isabel has spent her life tending to the house and garden of her family. When she was younger, they worked on a dairy farm, but that was too difficult. Now she works with Lola, and maintains a small garden of her own in addition to preparing Candela's ajuar.
The conversation quickly turned to Candela, who just left today for an 11 day trip to Tarragona and Paris to celebrate her friend's birthday. Isabel has never been to the beach, and is afraid of any type of travel that is not work-related. She has been sneaking behind Lola's back to try to convince Candela not to go on the trip (which she was told was just a trip to a friend's house in Alicante). She told Candela she would get sick and that she was already in pain because Candela was leaving. It was really sad and strange to see that she did not see any value in her nieta traveling, but I know next to nothing about their lifestyle and have no right to say what is best for Candela. At the very least, this trip was an eye-opening experience, and I'm happy to have gleaned some insight into what the rural parts of this region in Spain are like.
It has been really incredible to see and explore these little towns out in the country of Spain. I feel like I am getting to see a really interesting part of Spanish culture (no matter how outdated it may be for the cities and other urban areas).
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Granada!
Lindsey and I had our day off alone this week, because Esther had friends visiting and she went with them. Since we no longer had transportation, we had to work something out with the one bus that stops in Huercal Overa.
Originally we were thinking of going back to Mojacar, since we can shop there and also go to the beach. The bus only goes to Mojacar once a day, and in the afternoon, so we couldn't do that. Then we started thinking about taking a longer trip and going farther away, and we decided to go to Granada, which is just under 3 hours away. We talked to Lola about it, and she was super nice and told us if we went to Granada we would have to stay the night because it would be ridiculous not to. As it turned out, there was also a family of huespedes staying with us at the time who are from Granada, and Lola was able to talk them into driving us out there! So in the end, we only had to buy tickets to take the bus back - it was perfect!
We woke up early Monday morning to eat breakfast and pack up for the day. We got tickets to see La Alhambra, and planned to stay the night in a hostel (the father of the family actually knew a girl who runs a hostel in Granada, so we were thinking of working something out to stay there) before catching the bus at 12:30pm the next day. We got in the car around 10ish and set off for Granada.
The family has a little boy named Gonzalo, who is absolutely adorable but also a genius. He goes to a French school, so he is fluent in Spanish and French, and he loves to read - and he's only 3! The entire car ride was spent reading Gonzalo's Mi Primer Diccionario and discussing which animals scare us (nothing scares Gonzalo, apparently, and he thought it was hilarious that we were afraid of anything). Luckily the ride was super fast - we ended up getting to the city before noon.
When we got there, we got coffee and started walking up towards La Alhambra (a gigantic series of palaces and fortresses from the Nasrid family) and the Albaicin (a preserved neighborhood of silk and other markets with tiny streets). Everything we passed was amazing: there was a ton of greenery worked into the city, with rivers and streams running right through the middle of the streets. We got a map from the Oficina de Turistas, and started heading uphill towards La Alhambra.
It took us a while to find the Albaicin (it is very easy to get lost / sidetracked looking at everything), but when we finally got there it was incredible. We walked under an archway and up around a corner and found ourselves on a tiny street filled with teterias and open shops selling clothes, rugs, pareos, and tons of plates, cups, and beautifully decorated tea pots. The Albaicin was filled with streets like this one, winding up and around each other. We walked around and shopped for several hours, and ended the journey in a bar. We got beers and tapas (every drink comes with complimentary tapas! I love Spain.) and then headed off to La Alhambra - we were told we would need at least 4 hours there - so we wanted to get there early.
As we started walking, I decided to fall violently ill and could not move. My stomach was dying and I thought I was going to get food poisoning. We stopped for a while and I contemplated how perfect my timing was: I would get food poisoning the one day I come to Granada. I WOULD. I was not happy.
I decided we needed to keep going anyway. We got on a bus to go up to La Alhambra (I was not about to walk up the mountain in 100+ degree weather when I was on the verge of death), and arrived about 7 minutes later. We exchanged our tickets, and headed in to look at the gardens.
The gardens of La Alhambra are what I imagine the Garden of Eden would look like. We walked out onto a path lined with massively tall cypress trees, filled with fountains and flowers and delicious smells. I can't even describe how painfully beautiful it was, but I felt much better about five minutes after arriving. It was actually magical.
We walked through several gardens like this one, passing through archways constructed entirely out of plants and flowers, posing with 5-foot-tall roses, and dipping our feet in exposed rivulets of water that ran between the fountains. We went into palaces, baths, and studies, marveling at the intricate engravings that covered nearly every square inch of the walls and ceilings. We even picked fruit off of the trees (a Granada from Granada, of course)! --but pomegranates are not quite in season yet so it was too green to eat :(
Eventually we got to the Nasrid Palaces (the main attraction of La Alhambra). We had to wait outside for a few minutes before we could go in. The view of Granada from this height was breathtaking (you could see the entire city from this palace), but it was too hot to breathe. Lindsey and I stood dripping in sweat, feeling our backs and legs burning to a crisp. Coming from this position of discomfort made walking into the palaces even more amazing: when we got past the gates, we were welcomed by cool shade from the towering cypress trees, and more delicious fruity smells from the orange trees and roses around us. The palaces we saw were filled with massive and beautiful rooms with intricate carvings all over the walls and windows: carvings of shapes, words, and stories. I wish I spoke Arabic so I could understand what they said, but it was beautiful nonetheless.
Several hours and a ridiculous amount of pictures later, we completed our tour of La Alhambra. We shopped a little more in the Albaicin, and then stopped for some wine and tapas. While sitting on the terrace of a bar in the Plaza Nueva district (a popular spot for college students), we saw the father from the family of huespedes walk by on the street below us! He stopped to talk to us, telling us he had just finished his yoga class and was now heading over to meet his friend Paco for drinks. We paid for our drinks (and not the tapas because they are free! woo!) and headed off with Cuamo.
As it turns out, Paco lives in the Albaicin. His building, like all of the buildings of the neighborhood, is preserved from several centuries ago. In addition to being located in the greatest neighborhood ever, the building also has a garden and a patio in the middle. As obsessed as I am with Yale housing, I have to say this might be a teensy bit better.
Paco showed us around the Albaicin some more, taking us through the residential parts we had not yet seen, and leading us to a spectacular viewpoint from which we could see the Alhambra, which is illuminated and even more beautiful at night. This spot isn't well known, so there weren't any tourists, which was nice. After looking at the Alhambra for a little while and hearing more about the history and current situation in Granada, Paco took us out to his favorite tapas bar. We sat and drank and ate delicious food, watching a live flamenco performance and talking about Granada and our lives. Paco and Cuamo are paleontologists and professors at the University of Granada, so we had a really interesting discussion about our experiences with museums (I worked in the American Museum of History during high school and am now working at the Yale Peabody Museum). I had noticed on the drive out that the ground in this part of Spain is surprisingly white (usually indicating a high presence of calcium carbonate, which preserves fossils well) so we talked about that for a while too. Overall a very nerdy, but very intriguing conversation.
Several drinks and complementary tapas later, we walked Paco back to his apartment, spotting an abnormally large number of salamanders on the way (they are all over the walls of the buildings). After leaving Paco and Cuamo, we discussed housing options. In the end, we decided it was probably best to stay out all night and not worry about housing, so we could "really experience Granada." And thus we headed out to find a discoteca.
We had a really hard time finding anything that was open, since it was a Monday night and the middle of the summer. We ran into two British girls, and they offered to show us to a discoteca they had found. They kept warning us to prepare ourselves, but I still could not believe it when we walked into a dance club that was COMPLETELY EMPTY. The two girls ran out to the dance floor and started dancing; Lindsey and I decided we wanted to keep looking.
After asking several groups of people on the street that seemed to be our age for recommendations on where to go, we ended up at a discoteca near the river. It was pretty empty, but the music was good and we were enjoying ourselves. The bartender told us more people would be coming, but it was already 2:30am so we didn't really believe him.
Surprisingly enough, a ton of more people did come, and after making a request for Lady Gaga we started to have a lot of fun. We met some really interesting people, and some not as interesting people. Overall it was a great time though, because before we knew it it was 6:30am and the bar was closing. We ended up leaving with an odd group of kids we had met (a brother and sister, her girlfriend, and some other people somehow involved with all of them - it was difficult to keep track of the details). They kept telling us they lived really close to the center of Granada, so we left with them to sleep for a little bit.
I'm pretty sure we slept for about 10 minutes, because we woke up and left the house before 7:30am. We were completely disoriented and not prepared to be awake and functioning for the day, reeking of smoke and alcohol and general discoteca smelliness, but we left anyway to get breakfast. We stopped at the first open diner-type place we found, and had coffee with bread drenched in olive oil. We set off to walk back to the city after getting directions. We were actually 8km away from the city (nbd), but we decided the walk would be nice since we could see cool things on the way, and we both love walking.
We ended up walking to the bus stop, and decided it would be better if we took the bus. The other man waiting for the bus told us it would be no more than 30 minutes. Three times. Eventually we left and decided to just take a cab.
When we got back into Granada, we were ready for another breakfast. This time we decided we needed to have eggs and a milkshake. Apparently nobody has eggs for breakfast here, because we had to go to at least 4 restaurants before finding one that served eggs. By the time we finished eating, stores were beginning to open up, so we did some last minute shopping in and around Alcaiceria (a small street filled with more tea shops). After lots of sweaty speed-shopping, we left to go meet the bus.
On the way to the bus stop we found some more necessary shopping, so we lost track of time a little bit and ended up rushing to get a cab 15 minutes before the bus was supposed to depart. Luckily we made it just in time. We both passed out for several hours on the bus, completely exhausted from the trip. We woke up about 3 hours later, still not in Huercal Overa, and began to worry that we missed our stop. We didn't - the bus ride just ended up being 4+ hours long. It wasn't too bad though, because we got to sleep a little bit.
When we arrived in Huercal Overa, we called Lola to have her pick us up. She told us she wasn't coming into town for another hour, so we could wait there or take a cab back. We decided to take a cab, because we were smelly and disgusting and tired. We got in the cab and realized we didn't have an address to give the driver. GREAT.
We told him we were working on a farm staying with Lola at Casa Rural Huercal Overa. I overestimated the size of this place yet again, as he immediately knew where to take us (everyone knows everyone, even though the farm is 6km away from the town). When we got back, we jumped in the pool, ate, and slept for 4 hours. We ended up not having to work that day (!) and just slept straight through until dinner. We showered (finally eliminating the lovely smells we had absorbed) and went to bed. We were super exhausted, and I'm still tired now, but it was so worth it. Granada was amazing!
Originally we were thinking of going back to Mojacar, since we can shop there and also go to the beach. The bus only goes to Mojacar once a day, and in the afternoon, so we couldn't do that. Then we started thinking about taking a longer trip and going farther away, and we decided to go to Granada, which is just under 3 hours away. We talked to Lola about it, and she was super nice and told us if we went to Granada we would have to stay the night because it would be ridiculous not to. As it turned out, there was also a family of huespedes staying with us at the time who are from Granada, and Lola was able to talk them into driving us out there! So in the end, we only had to buy tickets to take the bus back - it was perfect!
We woke up early Monday morning to eat breakfast and pack up for the day. We got tickets to see La Alhambra, and planned to stay the night in a hostel (the father of the family actually knew a girl who runs a hostel in Granada, so we were thinking of working something out to stay there) before catching the bus at 12:30pm the next day. We got in the car around 10ish and set off for Granada.
The family has a little boy named Gonzalo, who is absolutely adorable but also a genius. He goes to a French school, so he is fluent in Spanish and French, and he loves to read - and he's only 3! The entire car ride was spent reading Gonzalo's Mi Primer Diccionario and discussing which animals scare us (nothing scares Gonzalo, apparently, and he thought it was hilarious that we were afraid of anything). Luckily the ride was super fast - we ended up getting to the city before noon.
When we got there, we got coffee and started walking up towards La Alhambra (a gigantic series of palaces and fortresses from the Nasrid family) and the Albaicin (a preserved neighborhood of silk and other markets with tiny streets). Everything we passed was amazing: there was a ton of greenery worked into the city, with rivers and streams running right through the middle of the streets. We got a map from the Oficina de Turistas, and started heading uphill towards La Alhambra.
It took us a while to find the Albaicin (it is very easy to get lost / sidetracked looking at everything), but when we finally got there it was incredible. We walked under an archway and up around a corner and found ourselves on a tiny street filled with teterias and open shops selling clothes, rugs, pareos, and tons of plates, cups, and beautifully decorated tea pots. The Albaicin was filled with streets like this one, winding up and around each other. We walked around and shopped for several hours, and ended the journey in a bar. We got beers and tapas (every drink comes with complimentary tapas! I love Spain.) and then headed off to La Alhambra - we were told we would need at least 4 hours there - so we wanted to get there early.
As we started walking, I decided to fall violently ill and could not move. My stomach was dying and I thought I was going to get food poisoning. We stopped for a while and I contemplated how perfect my timing was: I would get food poisoning the one day I come to Granada. I WOULD. I was not happy.
I decided we needed to keep going anyway. We got on a bus to go up to La Alhambra (I was not about to walk up the mountain in 100+ degree weather when I was on the verge of death), and arrived about 7 minutes later. We exchanged our tickets, and headed in to look at the gardens.
The gardens of La Alhambra are what I imagine the Garden of Eden would look like. We walked out onto a path lined with massively tall cypress trees, filled with fountains and flowers and delicious smells. I can't even describe how painfully beautiful it was, but I felt much better about five minutes after arriving. It was actually magical.
We walked through several gardens like this one, passing through archways constructed entirely out of plants and flowers, posing with 5-foot-tall roses, and dipping our feet in exposed rivulets of water that ran between the fountains. We went into palaces, baths, and studies, marveling at the intricate engravings that covered nearly every square inch of the walls and ceilings. We even picked fruit off of the trees (a Granada from Granada, of course)! --but pomegranates are not quite in season yet so it was too green to eat :(
Eventually we got to the Nasrid Palaces (the main attraction of La Alhambra). We had to wait outside for a few minutes before we could go in. The view of Granada from this height was breathtaking (you could see the entire city from this palace), but it was too hot to breathe. Lindsey and I stood dripping in sweat, feeling our backs and legs burning to a crisp. Coming from this position of discomfort made walking into the palaces even more amazing: when we got past the gates, we were welcomed by cool shade from the towering cypress trees, and more delicious fruity smells from the orange trees and roses around us. The palaces we saw were filled with massive and beautiful rooms with intricate carvings all over the walls and windows: carvings of shapes, words, and stories. I wish I spoke Arabic so I could understand what they said, but it was beautiful nonetheless.
Several hours and a ridiculous amount of pictures later, we completed our tour of La Alhambra. We shopped a little more in the Albaicin, and then stopped for some wine and tapas. While sitting on the terrace of a bar in the Plaza Nueva district (a popular spot for college students), we saw the father from the family of huespedes walk by on the street below us! He stopped to talk to us, telling us he had just finished his yoga class and was now heading over to meet his friend Paco for drinks. We paid for our drinks (and not the tapas because they are free! woo!) and headed off with Cuamo.
As it turns out, Paco lives in the Albaicin. His building, like all of the buildings of the neighborhood, is preserved from several centuries ago. In addition to being located in the greatest neighborhood ever, the building also has a garden and a patio in the middle. As obsessed as I am with Yale housing, I have to say this might be a teensy bit better.
Paco showed us around the Albaicin some more, taking us through the residential parts we had not yet seen, and leading us to a spectacular viewpoint from which we could see the Alhambra, which is illuminated and even more beautiful at night. This spot isn't well known, so there weren't any tourists, which was nice. After looking at the Alhambra for a little while and hearing more about the history and current situation in Granada, Paco took us out to his favorite tapas bar. We sat and drank and ate delicious food, watching a live flamenco performance and talking about Granada and our lives. Paco and Cuamo are paleontologists and professors at the University of Granada, so we had a really interesting discussion about our experiences with museums (I worked in the American Museum of History during high school and am now working at the Yale Peabody Museum). I had noticed on the drive out that the ground in this part of Spain is surprisingly white (usually indicating a high presence of calcium carbonate, which preserves fossils well) so we talked about that for a while too. Overall a very nerdy, but very intriguing conversation.
Several drinks and complementary tapas later, we walked Paco back to his apartment, spotting an abnormally large number of salamanders on the way (they are all over the walls of the buildings). After leaving Paco and Cuamo, we discussed housing options. In the end, we decided it was probably best to stay out all night and not worry about housing, so we could "really experience Granada." And thus we headed out to find a discoteca.
We had a really hard time finding anything that was open, since it was a Monday night and the middle of the summer. We ran into two British girls, and they offered to show us to a discoteca they had found. They kept warning us to prepare ourselves, but I still could not believe it when we walked into a dance club that was COMPLETELY EMPTY. The two girls ran out to the dance floor and started dancing; Lindsey and I decided we wanted to keep looking.
After asking several groups of people on the street that seemed to be our age for recommendations on where to go, we ended up at a discoteca near the river. It was pretty empty, but the music was good and we were enjoying ourselves. The bartender told us more people would be coming, but it was already 2:30am so we didn't really believe him.
Surprisingly enough, a ton of more people did come, and after making a request for Lady Gaga we started to have a lot of fun. We met some really interesting people, and some not as interesting people. Overall it was a great time though, because before we knew it it was 6:30am and the bar was closing. We ended up leaving with an odd group of kids we had met (a brother and sister, her girlfriend, and some other people somehow involved with all of them - it was difficult to keep track of the details). They kept telling us they lived really close to the center of Granada, so we left with them to sleep for a little bit.
I'm pretty sure we slept for about 10 minutes, because we woke up and left the house before 7:30am. We were completely disoriented and not prepared to be awake and functioning for the day, reeking of smoke and alcohol and general discoteca smelliness, but we left anyway to get breakfast. We stopped at the first open diner-type place we found, and had coffee with bread drenched in olive oil. We set off to walk back to the city after getting directions. We were actually 8km away from the city (nbd), but we decided the walk would be nice since we could see cool things on the way, and we both love walking.
We ended up walking to the bus stop, and decided it would be better if we took the bus. The other man waiting for the bus told us it would be no more than 30 minutes. Three times. Eventually we left and decided to just take a cab.
When we got back into Granada, we were ready for another breakfast. This time we decided we needed to have eggs and a milkshake. Apparently nobody has eggs for breakfast here, because we had to go to at least 4 restaurants before finding one that served eggs. By the time we finished eating, stores were beginning to open up, so we did some last minute shopping in and around Alcaiceria (a small street filled with more tea shops). After lots of sweaty speed-shopping, we left to go meet the bus.
On the way to the bus stop we found some more necessary shopping, so we lost track of time a little bit and ended up rushing to get a cab 15 minutes before the bus was supposed to depart. Luckily we made it just in time. We both passed out for several hours on the bus, completely exhausted from the trip. We woke up about 3 hours later, still not in Huercal Overa, and began to worry that we missed our stop. We didn't - the bus ride just ended up being 4+ hours long. It wasn't too bad though, because we got to sleep a little bit.
When we arrived in Huercal Overa, we called Lola to have her pick us up. She told us she wasn't coming into town for another hour, so we could wait there or take a cab back. We decided to take a cab, because we were smelly and disgusting and tired. We got in the cab and realized we didn't have an address to give the driver. GREAT.
We told him we were working on a farm staying with Lola at Casa Rural Huercal Overa. I overestimated the size of this place yet again, as he immediately knew where to take us (everyone knows everyone, even though the farm is 6km away from the town). When we got back, we jumped in the pool, ate, and slept for 4 hours. We ended up not having to work that day (!) and just slept straight through until dinner. We showered (finally eliminating the lovely smells we had absorbed) and went to bed. We were super exhausted, and I'm still tired now, but it was so worth it. Granada was amazing!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Oh the Wilderness
Wednesday afternoon started out fairly well; I did a dictado with Lindsey and Candela followed by the usual English lesson. I only had one new vocab word from the dictado, which was exciting (usually there are several). After that, Lola had me fregar all of the floors (UGH), but it was okay because in the end she said I did a good job! Finally! I have officially learned how to mop.
After fregando Lola sent me out to water the olivos. I went to the really big finca - there are 20+ trees there - and started watering. Everything was going well as usual; I sat and read my book and left the water running. Usually it is difficult to find a good place to sit, because the trees are in the middle of the wilderness. They are surrounded by tall grass and pointy plants, and there's usually maybe 2 sq ft of shade to sit in. I was walking around scouting out a place to sit, when I found a patch that was just dirt with no plants (!). So I sat there and started to read.
After un rato, I decided to get up and walk around / play with the dirt (exciting times regando los olivos). The ground here is really entertaining to me because I have never seen a desert before - the dirt is hard and cracked like it is in The Lion King. I like to poke it and make new cracks sometimes.
Anyway, as I was walking around observing and playing with the dirt, I saw a weird crack that surprisingly circular. And large. It also had twigs surrounding it in a clearly organized manner, so I figured some animal lived there. I peered in to see who it was (the hole was a bit smaller than my fist), and saw three big hairy legs.
I FREAKED OUT and screamed at the top of my lungs. It was a scream of pure terror, and I'm pretty sure everyone between here and Huercal Overa heard it. I had never seen a spider that huge before, and I was not happy.
I backed away a little bit, but kept my eye on the hole (obviously). The spider started to come out, and was just sitting there half out of his hole. I stamped my foot and he went back in. We did this for about 7 minutes - him coming out, me scaring him back in - while I devised a plan.
The tree I was watering was about 5 ft away from the hole, so I wasn't worried about recollecting the hose, but the next tree I wanted to water was directly in the path of the spider death trap. I debated trying to drown it, but I was worried that it wouldn't die fast enough and it would come kill me first. I was also concerned that it would be able to jump up onto the hose and climb up and kill me that way. (I also debated whether or not this was a life or death situation, and decided it was: the finca I was watering was super far from the house, so I wasn't sure if I would be able to stumble back to the house before lapsing into a coma and dying). I determined that I would not be able to drown the spider monster, so I collected the hose and walked the long way to get to the next tree. I left the hose there, even though I was only halfway done watering, and started heading back home.
At this point I was absolutely terrified of everything. I was concerned about leaving the spider hole, because 1. he could follow me and make a sneak attack and 2. he was still alive in there and could kill me anytime. Or anyone else who goes to water the olive trees. Or he could follow me home.
Walking back was difficult, because I had switched to the wrong side of the trees to avoid death. Nobody walks on that side, so the grass is taller than usual. I learned that in addition to my underground spider assassin, there were also equally-sized grass dwelling spiders here! I almost walked straight through a web that was strung between the tall grass, but I saw it's GIGANTIC constructor just in time. I screamed again (obviously) and ran around to the other side. To make matters worse, a huge bug hit me in the face as well while I was walking back.
Eventually I made it back to the path and got home. I immediately went online to determine what kind of monster I had encountered in the wild. I determined that it was a wolf spider. EXCELLENT. Apparently there are quite a few dangerous animals indigenous to this region. Lindsey saw a scorpion the other day (!) but Lola killed it and everything was okay.
Eventually I relaxed and everything was good. We had a nice dinner, watched I'm Not There (highly recommended). Of course that wasn't the end of it though. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a HUMONGOUS hairy spider on the wall above my head. I didn't know what to do so I wrapped myself up in my blanket and curled up in a ball. I sat like that for about 15 minutes, literally dripping with sweat (it was probably upwards of 85 degrees in my room at the time), before I realized it had been a dream. I sat there for a little while, still panicking, and slowly unwrapped myself. Eventually I fell back asleep.
Luckily I have not seen any scary creatures since then, and several exciting things have happened so I'm over it. I went on a quest yesterday to determine what kinds of fruit trees we have here. It turns out we have apple trees, fig trees, almond trees, olive trees, pomegranate trees, lime trees, quince trees (I had never heard of quince before coming here, but apparently that is another fruit), and grapes. I think that's everything, but I'm not sure. The trees are just growing around the property, around the pool and around the houses. It is so cool to see the little fruits growing on them.
Lola also made us ice cream yesterday which was very exciting. It only had three ingredients (leche, limon, and brevas) and it was DELICIOUS. She made it with the Thermomix, which is this machine that is very popular in Spain and can do everything. It's actually magical. She uses the Thermomix to make just about everything: arroz con leche, almond milk, various pates, any kind of cooked food, bread crumbs from bread that is harder than a rock, and apparently ice cream too! And all you do is put the ingredients in, and it mixes everything together. You can control the temperature, speed, and time. It can cook cold and hot things, and also weighs the ingredients as you put them in! I want one.
After fregando Lola sent me out to water the olivos. I went to the really big finca - there are 20+ trees there - and started watering. Everything was going well as usual; I sat and read my book and left the water running. Usually it is difficult to find a good place to sit, because the trees are in the middle of the wilderness. They are surrounded by tall grass and pointy plants, and there's usually maybe 2 sq ft of shade to sit in. I was walking around scouting out a place to sit, when I found a patch that was just dirt with no plants (!). So I sat there and started to read.
After un rato, I decided to get up and walk around / play with the dirt (exciting times regando los olivos). The ground here is really entertaining to me because I have never seen a desert before - the dirt is hard and cracked like it is in The Lion King. I like to poke it and make new cracks sometimes.
Anyway, as I was walking around observing and playing with the dirt, I saw a weird crack that surprisingly circular. And large. It also had twigs surrounding it in a clearly organized manner, so I figured some animal lived there. I peered in to see who it was (the hole was a bit smaller than my fist), and saw three big hairy legs.
I FREAKED OUT and screamed at the top of my lungs. It was a scream of pure terror, and I'm pretty sure everyone between here and Huercal Overa heard it. I had never seen a spider that huge before, and I was not happy.
I backed away a little bit, but kept my eye on the hole (obviously). The spider started to come out, and was just sitting there half out of his hole. I stamped my foot and he went back in. We did this for about 7 minutes - him coming out, me scaring him back in - while I devised a plan.
The tree I was watering was about 5 ft away from the hole, so I wasn't worried about recollecting the hose, but the next tree I wanted to water was directly in the path of the spider death trap. I debated trying to drown it, but I was worried that it wouldn't die fast enough and it would come kill me first. I was also concerned that it would be able to jump up onto the hose and climb up and kill me that way. (I also debated whether or not this was a life or death situation, and decided it was: the finca I was watering was super far from the house, so I wasn't sure if I would be able to stumble back to the house before lapsing into a coma and dying). I determined that I would not be able to drown the spider monster, so I collected the hose and walked the long way to get to the next tree. I left the hose there, even though I was only halfway done watering, and started heading back home.
At this point I was absolutely terrified of everything. I was concerned about leaving the spider hole, because 1. he could follow me and make a sneak attack and 2. he was still alive in there and could kill me anytime. Or anyone else who goes to water the olive trees. Or he could follow me home.
Walking back was difficult, because I had switched to the wrong side of the trees to avoid death. Nobody walks on that side, so the grass is taller than usual. I learned that in addition to my underground spider assassin, there were also equally-sized grass dwelling spiders here! I almost walked straight through a web that was strung between the tall grass, but I saw it's GIGANTIC constructor just in time. I screamed again (obviously) and ran around to the other side. To make matters worse, a huge bug hit me in the face as well while I was walking back.
Eventually I made it back to the path and got home. I immediately went online to determine what kind of monster I had encountered in the wild. I determined that it was a wolf spider. EXCELLENT. Apparently there are quite a few dangerous animals indigenous to this region. Lindsey saw a scorpion the other day (!) but Lola killed it and everything was okay.
Eventually I relaxed and everything was good. We had a nice dinner, watched I'm Not There (highly recommended). Of course that wasn't the end of it though. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a HUMONGOUS hairy spider on the wall above my head. I didn't know what to do so I wrapped myself up in my blanket and curled up in a ball. I sat like that for about 15 minutes, literally dripping with sweat (it was probably upwards of 85 degrees in my room at the time), before I realized it had been a dream. I sat there for a little while, still panicking, and slowly unwrapped myself. Eventually I fell back asleep.
Luckily I have not seen any scary creatures since then, and several exciting things have happened so I'm over it. I went on a quest yesterday to determine what kinds of fruit trees we have here. It turns out we have apple trees, fig trees, almond trees, olive trees, pomegranate trees, lime trees, quince trees (I had never heard of quince before coming here, but apparently that is another fruit), and grapes. I think that's everything, but I'm not sure. The trees are just growing around the property, around the pool and around the houses. It is so cool to see the little fruits growing on them.
Lola also made us ice cream yesterday which was very exciting. It only had three ingredients (leche, limon, and brevas) and it was DELICIOUS. She made it with the Thermomix, which is this machine that is very popular in Spain and can do everything. It's actually magical. She uses the Thermomix to make just about everything: arroz con leche, almond milk, various pates, any kind of cooked food, bread crumbs from bread that is harder than a rock, and apparently ice cream too! And all you do is put the ingredients in, and it mixes everything together. You can control the temperature, speed, and time. It can cook cold and hot things, and also weighs the ingredients as you put them in! I want one.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Lots of New Experiences!
On Monday, I woke up as usual (which is slightly earlier now, around 8/9 am, depending on my mood). I have been acting as camarera for the huespedes this past week, preparing and serving their breakfasts each day. I like it because I get to organize the food in pretty arrangements (not THAT exciting; breakfast is pretty much just bread and coffee - different kinds of bread though). I don't like that I also get to wash everyone's dishes afterward, but it's ok - I've become a rather efficient dish washer.
ANYWAY. I woke up on Monday, and went into the kitchen for breakfast, where I was pleasantly greeted by a bucket of raw meat. And by raw meat I mean FRESHLY SLAUGHTERED BUNNIES. Skinned bunnies. With the little black eyeballs still there. I have officially learned what purpose the bunnies serve on our farm.
Lola caught me staring with horror at the bunnies, who looked just like regular happy bunnies mid jump, except for the fact that they were bloody and skinless. She told me that I would have to learn how to kill a bunny myself if I wanted to leave this farm a true campesina. I told her no.
Since it was Monday, we went into town again for the market. As always, it was full of wonderful things and people and I wanted to buy everything. I came home with a few more goodies, including a new cortina for our shower to replace the moldy one we have right now. It was long overdue.
On Tuesday, we worked all morning to have the afternoon free. In the afternoon, Esther, Lindsay and I took a little trip to Mojacar, because the closest bank Esther can go to is in that town. We had some time to explore the pueblo, which is super tiny and located on a mountain overlooking the ocean. There are no cars, and most of the streets are narrow and sloped. Potted plants and flowers hung from the sides of buildings, most of which were painted white. It was BEAUTIFUL. We went into a few of the shops, which were filled with wonderful little trinkets and clothes. We're going to go back because it was so amazing.
One of my favorite things about this farm is that we can live largely off of our own land: the vegetables come from the huerto, we get fruit from Lola's parents, we make our own bread, we clean our wastewater to use for the plants, we eat one of the weeds (sala), and today we ate cactus!!
There are gigantic cacti growing all around the property, and Lola cut off a few branches (? is that what they are called?) to make chumberas for lunch. We took off the pinchos and cooked them and they were surprisingly delicious!
One final note: the cats of the house are both pregnant and very fat. Today, one of the cats came out and was really skinny and had lots of floppy belly skin - she gave birth last night! We can't see the little gatitas for about a week, but I'm super excited. The other cat is looking pretty plump too, so I'm hoping she will da a luz pronto as well :)
ANYWAY. I woke up on Monday, and went into the kitchen for breakfast, where I was pleasantly greeted by a bucket of raw meat. And by raw meat I mean FRESHLY SLAUGHTERED BUNNIES. Skinned bunnies. With the little black eyeballs still there. I have officially learned what purpose the bunnies serve on our farm.
Lola caught me staring with horror at the bunnies, who looked just like regular happy bunnies mid jump, except for the fact that they were bloody and skinless. She told me that I would have to learn how to kill a bunny myself if I wanted to leave this farm a true campesina. I told her no.
Since it was Monday, we went into town again for the market. As always, it was full of wonderful things and people and I wanted to buy everything. I came home with a few more goodies, including a new cortina for our shower to replace the moldy one we have right now. It was long overdue.
On Tuesday, we worked all morning to have the afternoon free. In the afternoon, Esther, Lindsay and I took a little trip to Mojacar, because the closest bank Esther can go to is in that town. We had some time to explore the pueblo, which is super tiny and located on a mountain overlooking the ocean. There are no cars, and most of the streets are narrow and sloped. Potted plants and flowers hung from the sides of buildings, most of which were painted white. It was BEAUTIFUL. We went into a few of the shops, which were filled with wonderful little trinkets and clothes. We're going to go back because it was so amazing.
One of my favorite things about this farm is that we can live largely off of our own land: the vegetables come from the huerto, we get fruit from Lola's parents, we make our own bread, we clean our wastewater to use for the plants, we eat one of the weeds (sala), and today we ate cactus!!
There are gigantic cacti growing all around the property, and Lola cut off a few branches (? is that what they are called?) to make chumberas for lunch. We took off the pinchos and cooked them and they were surprisingly delicious!
One final note: the cats of the house are both pregnant and very fat. Today, one of the cats came out and was really skinny and had lots of floppy belly skin - she gave birth last night! We can't see the little gatitas for about a week, but I'm super excited. The other cat is looking pretty plump too, so I'm hoping she will da a luz pronto as well :)
Monday, July 12, 2010
Huercal Overa: Que Locura!
Yesterday started out being the worst day ever. Both Lindsay and I were sick - Lindsay has a cold or something I think, but I was just super dizzy and nauseas and it was not fun. I couldn't really do any work so I just sat around and deshelled almonds and cleaned things. After lunch I took a long nap, and didn't really feel better afterwards :(
Eventually later in the afternoon I went and threw up and then everything was fine.
Lindsay, Esther and I went into Huercal Overa to watch the epic final partido of the world cup. We sat outside of the town's two bars again; most of the town was out watching the game with us in the church plaza. Everyone was decked out in their world cup t shirts, Spanish flag capes, and tons of red and yellow face paint. The ninos were all screaming the entire time and blowing into their horns and noisemakers. The walls of the bar were covered in Spanish flags as well. Everyone was eating and drinking and yelling and so excited the entire time. It was wonderful!
As it turns out, I could not have been luckier with my timing for this trip. Not only am I having the most wonderful time here in Spain, but I got to be here for the MOST EPIC SPANISH WORLD CUP VICTORY EVER. The game went into overtime before either team scored, and when Spain finally made the one and only goal, all of Huercal Overa went nuts! Everyone was jumping and yelling and making noise and pouring beer and it was glorious. We sat through the next three minutes, all eyes completely fixed on the screen. Then the match ended, and Spain was declared the winners of the world cup!
Everyone in Huercal Overa came out and ran into the plaza, screaming and jumping and making noise and running and celebrating. All of a sudden everyone was in the fountain in front of the church, Lindsay and I included. We jumped and screamed and hugged and got wet and sang with the locals. We ran around the plaza singing and screaming and playing in the water, joining a conga line and almost exploding with the firecrackers that were being set off far too close to us every few seconds. It was epic.
Lots of pictures and videos from this night - of course I'm sure it was a thousand times crazier in Madrid, but those Huercal Overans...que locura!
Eventually later in the afternoon I went and threw up and then everything was fine.
Lindsay, Esther and I went into Huercal Overa to watch the epic final partido of the world cup. We sat outside of the town's two bars again; most of the town was out watching the game with us in the church plaza. Everyone was decked out in their world cup t shirts, Spanish flag capes, and tons of red and yellow face paint. The ninos were all screaming the entire time and blowing into their horns and noisemakers. The walls of the bar were covered in Spanish flags as well. Everyone was eating and drinking and yelling and so excited the entire time. It was wonderful!
As it turns out, I could not have been luckier with my timing for this trip. Not only am I having the most wonderful time here in Spain, but I got to be here for the MOST EPIC SPANISH WORLD CUP VICTORY EVER. The game went into overtime before either team scored, and when Spain finally made the one and only goal, all of Huercal Overa went nuts! Everyone was jumping and yelling and making noise and pouring beer and it was glorious. We sat through the next three minutes, all eyes completely fixed on the screen. Then the match ended, and Spain was declared the winners of the world cup!
Everyone in Huercal Overa came out and ran into the plaza, screaming and jumping and making noise and running and celebrating. All of a sudden everyone was in the fountain in front of the church, Lindsay and I included. We jumped and screamed and hugged and got wet and sang with the locals. We ran around the plaza singing and screaming and playing in the water, joining a conga line and almost exploding with the firecrackers that were being set off far too close to us every few seconds. It was epic.
Lots of pictures and videos from this night - of course I'm sure it was a thousand times crazier in Madrid, but those Huercal Overans...que locura!
Friday, July 9, 2010
It's too hot
Yesterday we went back to the biblioteca to take out books. I took out five (the max, of course):
El Principito, a book of short stories Esther suggested I read, and three science books (a small encyclopedia about the Earth, a book on alternative energy, and a bio book --> I would.). I'm super excited about them and now all I want to do is read!
I also found this magazine in the library which I am now in love with. It's called Integral, and it's about food/nutrition, energy, sustainability, and international issues. It's wonderful. And they have a website: www.larevistaintegral.com. Go look.
When we got back from our trip into town, I finally got to work with Lola in el huerto! It was exciting. It looks pretty sad right now because it is summer and it's too hot for most of the plants to grow very much, but I got to see what everything is, and I saw a few baby eggplants, tomatoes, and zucchinis growing. In the garden, I watered the plants and added compost to them. Lola told me the compost was made just of our old food, but she was definitely lying because my hands STILL smell like poop.
I learned today that I am the worst cleaner in the world. I tried to mop the floors yesterday, but apparently I used too much soap so now they look really ugly. Lola had given me the soap in a little open cup, so I just assumed she had measured out the amount she wanted me to use. NOPE. She had given me all of the soap; she just happens to keep it in a little measuring cup. Of course this was the one time I decided to go all out and mop every single floor, so the entire house looks terrible and all of the floors have this weird ugly film of soap/dirt on them. Another thing I learned: when you mop with too much soap it takes a very very very long time to fix the damage. WOO!
Thus, I have spent almost the entire morning mopping and remopping and mopping again and remopping again and again and again with water and ammonia trying to take off the soap. Every time I finish it looks promising; everything is shiny and clean and beautiful. Then it dries and the weird crustiness comes back! UGH. Hopefully I will be able to fix them soon...
I also learned today that there is a part of the awning above the part of the awning that nobody can see that nobody can see either, and of course Lola wants me to paint that too. I like it up there though because there is a lot of cool stuff on the roof for me to explore, and Lola sealed all of the beehives I was worried about.
A word about the beehives: this part of the awning has little holes in it literally every 5 inches leading into what is probably the most intricately networking beehive I have ever seen. I saw a huge black bee the size of my second toe (just his body, no wings or stinger included in that size measurement) go into one of the holes. He was huge and fat and slow and loud and I do not want to see him again. So Lola came and sprayed insecticide into all of the holes and then covered them up with cement! She can do everything.
El Principito, a book of short stories Esther suggested I read, and three science books (a small encyclopedia about the Earth, a book on alternative energy, and a bio book --> I would.). I'm super excited about them and now all I want to do is read!
I also found this magazine in the library which I am now in love with. It's called Integral, and it's about food/nutrition, energy, sustainability, and international issues. It's wonderful. And they have a website: www.larevistaintegral.com. Go look.
When we got back from our trip into town, I finally got to work with Lola in el huerto! It was exciting. It looks pretty sad right now because it is summer and it's too hot for most of the plants to grow very much, but I got to see what everything is, and I saw a few baby eggplants, tomatoes, and zucchinis growing. In the garden, I watered the plants and added compost to them. Lola told me the compost was made just of our old food, but she was definitely lying because my hands STILL smell like poop.
I learned today that I am the worst cleaner in the world. I tried to mop the floors yesterday, but apparently I used too much soap so now they look really ugly. Lola had given me the soap in a little open cup, so I just assumed she had measured out the amount she wanted me to use. NOPE. She had given me all of the soap; she just happens to keep it in a little measuring cup. Of course this was the one time I decided to go all out and mop every single floor, so the entire house looks terrible and all of the floors have this weird ugly film of soap/dirt on them. Another thing I learned: when you mop with too much soap it takes a very very very long time to fix the damage. WOO!
Thus, I have spent almost the entire morning mopping and remopping and mopping again and remopping again and again and again with water and ammonia trying to take off the soap. Every time I finish it looks promising; everything is shiny and clean and beautiful. Then it dries and the weird crustiness comes back! UGH. Hopefully I will be able to fix them soon...
I also learned today that there is a part of the awning above the part of the awning that nobody can see that nobody can see either, and of course Lola wants me to paint that too. I like it up there though because there is a lot of cool stuff on the roof for me to explore, and Lola sealed all of the beehives I was worried about.
A word about the beehives: this part of the awning has little holes in it literally every 5 inches leading into what is probably the most intricately networking beehive I have ever seen. I saw a huge black bee the size of my second toe (just his body, no wings or stinger included in that size measurement) go into one of the holes. He was huge and fat and slow and loud and I do not want to see him again. So Lola came and sprayed insecticide into all of the holes and then covered them up with cement! She can do everything.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Vamos a...el Pueblo?
Yesterday we had the most DELICIOUS lunch ever. We went a little crazy with the sala (the new plant / almost weed we discovered we can eat), and made a sala feast. We made cous-cous with roasted vegetables, sala with potatoes, almonds, and raisins, salad, and a sala tortilla. Everything was amazing! It was such a feast.
After we finished working and napping, Ester, Lindsay and I went in to Huercal-Overa to explore the town and watch the soccer game (Spain v. Germany). Huercal-Overa is super super small and quiet. It looks like a photograph, partly because the buildings are completely picturesque but also because nobody is moving. We passed maybe 3 cars the entire time, and a lot of people were sitting out in chairs in the middle of the street. Many of the streets were too narrow for cars to pass through.
We went to the biblioteca first (obvi. Tell me I wouldn't.). It was great! There were so many cool books and magazines. I want to go back today if I get time so I can take some back to the farm to read.
After the library, we went to a bar to watch the game. We sat outside, and literally everyone in the town (all 5 of the residents) was outside crowded around the two television screens watching the game. There were at least 7 Spanish flags hanging from the building, and everyone was screaming and blowing horns and it was great!
After we finished working and napping, Ester, Lindsay and I went in to Huercal-Overa to explore the town and watch the soccer game (Spain v. Germany). Huercal-Overa is super super small and quiet. It looks like a photograph, partly because the buildings are completely picturesque but also because nobody is moving. We passed maybe 3 cars the entire time, and a lot of people were sitting out in chairs in the middle of the street. Many of the streets were too narrow for cars to pass through.
We went to the biblioteca first (obvi. Tell me I wouldn't.). It was great! There were so many cool books and magazines. I want to go back today if I get time so I can take some back to the farm to read.
After the library, we went to a bar to watch the game. We sat outside, and literally everyone in the town (all 5 of the residents) was outside crowded around the two television screens watching the game. There were at least 7 Spanish flags hanging from the building, and everyone was screaming and blowing horns and it was great!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Yes I spent 8 years in Jale
The past couple of days have been very cooking-oriented. Here are some of the things we made:
Leche de almedras: This was so easy! We just put almonds in a blender type thing, added water, and strained it and almond milk came out! Very cool.
Queso! This was especially fun because I got to try to explain to everyone the chemistry of the coagulation situation going on...in Spanish. Muy dificil.
Gazpacho: I always thought this was the grossest thing ever, so I wasn't really looking forward to this one. The description I had been given before was that gazpacho is a cold soup/drink made mostly of tomatoes, onions, and garlic (ew?!). We made Lola's Gazpacho with all kinds of vegetables, olive oil, and vinagre. It was SO DELICIOUS. I want to get a blender so I can make some when I come back.
For dinner last night, we ate this plant called "sala". We actually just went out and essentially picked weeds and boiled them and ate them for dinner! It was wonderful and they were surprisingly delicious. The self-efficiency of this really excited me. I can't figure out what the name of the plant is in English though, because sala is just the local name for it.
Aside from all of the cooking, I also had to do some life-threatening painting jobs. Lola wanted me to paint the underside of an awning that leans over her terrace. Of course I understood why she wanted this painted - it's not like you can't see the underside of the awning from ANY POSSIBLE ANGLE anywhere on the property. Except it is and the underside of the awning is only visible from underneath it, which you can only get to if you happen to be lying down under it on the roof.
Anyway, I had started painting the regular, visible parts of the awning the day before, and got as much of it as I could reach from the ladder. Lola came back and told me to lean the ladder over the fence thing so I could reach the rest of one side, and told me we would deal with the other side later. This sounds fine, except the fence thing is about 32741935 years old and about to crumble if you put any more pressure on it. I leaned the ladder very precariously against the uneven edge of the wall, and wobbled up. I ended up painting that side literally hanging off the side of the building, clinging to a shaking ladder, dangling 30 ft above the ground, which was of course concrete. So safe, so fun.
Lola insisted that I paint the other side as well, which is ACTUALLY NOT VISIBLE at all unless you curl up under it. We got to it by scaling the house on the other side and walking across the roof. The roof in this part of the house is actually just a couple of sheets of plastic nailed together, so it's not exactly capable of supporting my weight without buckling. Lola brought out a sheet of rusty iron with nails sticking out and sharp surfaces all over. She indicated that I was to sit on this tetanus sheet to distribute my weight evenly to paint without falling through the roof. Oh good!
I climbed onto the rusty wood, and then had to sit with my legs out and my body bent over sideways to fit under the awning to paint. It was super fun because I was actually next to the sun with rusty nails poking into my butt and legs, trying to paint over what I was pleasantly surprised to discover was an active beehive! I got the hang of it after a while (kind of) and by the end was excited to explore the roof, which is obviously a fun place to be. Lola has solar panels up there that are used to heat the water we use in the house, and I'm pretty sure there's also some kind of odd wind turbine thing as well (I'll have to ask about that). Lola is not nearly as interested in her sustainable technology as I am, so in a way I'm glad I had to paint hanging off of the roof, just so I could see all of the cool things she has.
She also mentioned very briefly that the water she uses to water the plants and trees is our own recycled and purified wastewater! I want to learn more about how that system works, because it sounds really cool and must be a fairly simple and compact process if she is able to operate it just on her property.
Last night Ester, Lindsay and I stayed up watching YouTube videos. When it's just the three of us we switch off between speaking in English and in Spanish sometimes, because Ester wants to practice her English and Lindsay and I of course want to work on our Spanish. We watched the same Noah and the Whale music video maybe 98429832175843 times, and then we watched the "That's Why I Chose Yale" video, just because it's great. Apparently Ester's middle school was called "Iale" which is obivously not pronounced like Yale in Spanish, but it could be in English, so she was joking about how she went to Yale too. Except she called in Jale, and with the sentence construction she ended up confirming that she had spent 8 years in jail. I enjoyed it.
Leche de almedras: This was so easy! We just put almonds in a blender type thing, added water, and strained it and almond milk came out! Very cool.
Queso! This was especially fun because I got to try to explain to everyone the chemistry of the coagulation situation going on...in Spanish. Muy dificil.
Gazpacho: I always thought this was the grossest thing ever, so I wasn't really looking forward to this one. The description I had been given before was that gazpacho is a cold soup/drink made mostly of tomatoes, onions, and garlic (ew?!). We made Lola's Gazpacho with all kinds of vegetables, olive oil, and vinagre. It was SO DELICIOUS. I want to get a blender so I can make some when I come back.
For dinner last night, we ate this plant called "sala". We actually just went out and essentially picked weeds and boiled them and ate them for dinner! It was wonderful and they were surprisingly delicious. The self-efficiency of this really excited me. I can't figure out what the name of the plant is in English though, because sala is just the local name for it.
Aside from all of the cooking, I also had to do some life-threatening painting jobs. Lola wanted me to paint the underside of an awning that leans over her terrace. Of course I understood why she wanted this painted - it's not like you can't see the underside of the awning from ANY POSSIBLE ANGLE anywhere on the property. Except it is and the underside of the awning is only visible from underneath it, which you can only get to if you happen to be lying down under it on the roof.
Anyway, I had started painting the regular, visible parts of the awning the day before, and got as much of it as I could reach from the ladder. Lola came back and told me to lean the ladder over the fence thing so I could reach the rest of one side, and told me we would deal with the other side later. This sounds fine, except the fence thing is about 32741935 years old and about to crumble if you put any more pressure on it. I leaned the ladder very precariously against the uneven edge of the wall, and wobbled up. I ended up painting that side literally hanging off the side of the building, clinging to a shaking ladder, dangling 30 ft above the ground, which was of course concrete. So safe, so fun.
Lola insisted that I paint the other side as well, which is ACTUALLY NOT VISIBLE at all unless you curl up under it. We got to it by scaling the house on the other side and walking across the roof. The roof in this part of the house is actually just a couple of sheets of plastic nailed together, so it's not exactly capable of supporting my weight without buckling. Lola brought out a sheet of rusty iron with nails sticking out and sharp surfaces all over. She indicated that I was to sit on this tetanus sheet to distribute my weight evenly to paint without falling through the roof. Oh good!
I climbed onto the rusty wood, and then had to sit with my legs out and my body bent over sideways to fit under the awning to paint. It was super fun because I was actually next to the sun with rusty nails poking into my butt and legs, trying to paint over what I was pleasantly surprised to discover was an active beehive! I got the hang of it after a while (kind of) and by the end was excited to explore the roof, which is obviously a fun place to be. Lola has solar panels up there that are used to heat the water we use in the house, and I'm pretty sure there's also some kind of odd wind turbine thing as well (I'll have to ask about that). Lola is not nearly as interested in her sustainable technology as I am, so in a way I'm glad I had to paint hanging off of the roof, just so I could see all of the cool things she has.
She also mentioned very briefly that the water she uses to water the plants and trees is our own recycled and purified wastewater! I want to learn more about how that system works, because it sounds really cool and must be a fairly simple and compact process if she is able to operate it just on her property.
Last night Ester, Lindsay and I stayed up watching YouTube videos. When it's just the three of us we switch off between speaking in English and in Spanish sometimes, because Ester wants to practice her English and Lindsay and I of course want to work on our Spanish. We watched the same Noah and the Whale music video maybe 98429832175843 times, and then we watched the "That's Why I Chose Yale" video, just because it's great. Apparently Ester's middle school was called "Iale" which is obivously not pronounced like Yale in Spanish, but it could be in English, so she was joking about how she went to Yale too. Except she called in Jale, and with the sentence construction she ended up confirming that she had spent 8 years in jail. I enjoyed it.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Vamos a la Playa!
Before I begin recounting today's adventures, I have some miscellaneous things with which to contextualize the rest of my story here:
There are now 5 people permanently staying on the farm: Lola, Candela, Ester, myself, and Lindsay. Lola and Candela are the owners of the farm and casa rural, and Ester and Lindsay are WWOOF volunteers like myself. Ester is somewhere in her early 40s and is from Valencia, Spain, and Lindsay is 20 and from Utah (!). Ester came a few days after I arrived, on a referral from three of her close friends who had volunteered here before. Lindsay just arrived yesterday - she goes to school in Portland, but took the last year off to work in Madrid, and is WWOOFing until she heads back to school in the fall.
In other news, there are bunnies on this farm. I haven't met them yet, but I will make sure I do soon (even if it means waking up early one day...). I thought there were goats or llamas or something - Lola kept talking about the "conejos" and I just figured it met some type of farm animal so I didn't ask, considering the difficulty she would have describing to me the difference between a goat and a llama (which I probably wouldn't understand anyway, because I don't have such a solid grasp of the difference). I ended up looking it up yesterday, and learned that it means bunnies. What purpose bunnies can serve on a farm is something I have not yet figured out, but I'll let you know when I do.
Also to follow up on the bread-making adventures...I woke up the next day around noon and saw the kitchen filled with bread! This is apparently an early morning event, so I missed it. Oh well. There is now a ton of bizcocho and deliciously fresh bread in the kitchen though, so it's not too bad.
And one final thing: my only major complaint thus far about the farm is that there is not hot water for the showers. I really mean zero. Showering here has been a really painful and dreaded experience for me. Literally painful - the water is absolutely FREEZING, to the point where it stings my back. Thus, I have avoided showering as much as possible. It has really been quite disgusting. At one point I didn't shower for two days, and swam in the pool one day to justify it. I actually caught a fly on my arm who whipped out his mouth tube thing and started feeding on my arm. There was rotting fruit and plenty of chicken poop around, but no: the fly would rather feast on the dirty sludge I had accrued on my arm. It was really an issue.
I finally decided to ask Lola about it. But first, I tried desperately to see if maybe there was indeed hot water and I was just doing something wrong. Of course I was just doing something wrong. I turned the faucet the other way, and voila, there is hot water. I'm an idiot. I had the water turned on to be as cold as possible. Of course showering sucked. (side note: I'm still trying to limit my use of the hot water here, even though I have it, because it's just something I need to learn to do in general)
So now for my story:
In Spain, July 4th is just like July 3rd. Well not actually, because today was my day off! Ester and I decided to drive out to a beach (just 30 km away..WOOO) for the day. I woke up early, ate my breakfast (bizcocho and coffee and figs and bread with mermeladas...a little bit of everything), and got ready to go. We drove out to the coast and then drove along the coast looking at the beaches to see which ones we liked. The coast was incredible and unsurprisingly very different from any coast in America that I have ever seen: the continent ends in a mountain range, so most of the coastlines are cliffs of varying heights, interspersed with tiny stretches of light, soft sandy beaches. The water is clear and blue and amazing. We find a beach that isn't too crowded, and park ourselves under an overhanging rock ledge. We're in the shade, but the rock we're sitting on leads right into the water, where a few parents and there little kids are trying to catch crayfish...apparently a popular activity here.
We sat there for a little while, reading and periodically walking through the water. We then moved to the under end of the beach, where we sat in a little cove in the mountainside on a carved out plateau. It was kind of like a couch sticking out of the rock where our feet could dangle into the water. We ate our lunches (bocadillos from the bar) and relaxed there for a while. I walked up and down the beach a few times, exploring around the rocky edges in both directions to see what the other beaches looked like.
When we were done, we got back in the car to drive to find some ice cream or coffee. We ended up stopping at another beach, because Ester decided it was unacceptable for me to travel all the way out here and not swim in the Mediterranean. Good point.
So we swam and it was beautiful.
After we dried off, we got back to the search for ice cream / coffee. We stopped at an heladeria, and ordered the most brilliantly delicious dessert ever. It comes in two forms, called the Nacional or the Blanco y Negro, depending on what kind of ice cream you get. Essentially it is a cup of slushied iced coffee with ice cream on top. I got the Nacional (vanilla ice cream) and Ester got the Blanco y Negro (I'm still not clear on what kind of ice cream this is; it tastes kind of like sweet vanilla ice cream with lemon or something) They were both DELICIOUS. After dessert, we drove back to the farm. I sat and read for a while, and swam in the pool for a bit.
Today was a good day. I feel relaxed and refreshed and want to be more helpful tomorrow!
There are now 5 people permanently staying on the farm: Lola, Candela, Ester, myself, and Lindsay. Lola and Candela are the owners of the farm and casa rural, and Ester and Lindsay are WWOOF volunteers like myself. Ester is somewhere in her early 40s and is from Valencia, Spain, and Lindsay is 20 and from Utah (!). Ester came a few days after I arrived, on a referral from three of her close friends who had volunteered here before. Lindsay just arrived yesterday - she goes to school in Portland, but took the last year off to work in Madrid, and is WWOOFing until she heads back to school in the fall.
In other news, there are bunnies on this farm. I haven't met them yet, but I will make sure I do soon (even if it means waking up early one day...). I thought there were goats or llamas or something - Lola kept talking about the "conejos" and I just figured it met some type of farm animal so I didn't ask, considering the difficulty she would have describing to me the difference between a goat and a llama (which I probably wouldn't understand anyway, because I don't have such a solid grasp of the difference). I ended up looking it up yesterday, and learned that it means bunnies. What purpose bunnies can serve on a farm is something I have not yet figured out, but I'll let you know when I do.
Also to follow up on the bread-making adventures...I woke up the next day around noon and saw the kitchen filled with bread! This is apparently an early morning event, so I missed it. Oh well. There is now a ton of bizcocho and deliciously fresh bread in the kitchen though, so it's not too bad.
And one final thing: my only major complaint thus far about the farm is that there is not hot water for the showers. I really mean zero. Showering here has been a really painful and dreaded experience for me. Literally painful - the water is absolutely FREEZING, to the point where it stings my back. Thus, I have avoided showering as much as possible. It has really been quite disgusting. At one point I didn't shower for two days, and swam in the pool one day to justify it. I actually caught a fly on my arm who whipped out his mouth tube thing and started feeding on my arm. There was rotting fruit and plenty of chicken poop around, but no: the fly would rather feast on the dirty sludge I had accrued on my arm. It was really an issue.
I finally decided to ask Lola about it. But first, I tried desperately to see if maybe there was indeed hot water and I was just doing something wrong. Of course I was just doing something wrong. I turned the faucet the other way, and voila, there is hot water. I'm an idiot. I had the water turned on to be as cold as possible. Of course showering sucked. (side note: I'm still trying to limit my use of the hot water here, even though I have it, because it's just something I need to learn to do in general)
So now for my story:
In Spain, July 4th is just like July 3rd. Well not actually, because today was my day off! Ester and I decided to drive out to a beach (just 30 km away..WOOO) for the day. I woke up early, ate my breakfast (bizcocho and coffee and figs and bread with mermeladas...a little bit of everything), and got ready to go. We drove out to the coast and then drove along the coast looking at the beaches to see which ones we liked. The coast was incredible and unsurprisingly very different from any coast in America that I have ever seen: the continent ends in a mountain range, so most of the coastlines are cliffs of varying heights, interspersed with tiny stretches of light, soft sandy beaches. The water is clear and blue and amazing. We find a beach that isn't too crowded, and park ourselves under an overhanging rock ledge. We're in the shade, but the rock we're sitting on leads right into the water, where a few parents and there little kids are trying to catch crayfish...apparently a popular activity here.
We sat there for a little while, reading and periodically walking through the water. We then moved to the under end of the beach, where we sat in a little cove in the mountainside on a carved out plateau. It was kind of like a couch sticking out of the rock where our feet could dangle into the water. We ate our lunches (bocadillos from the bar) and relaxed there for a while. I walked up and down the beach a few times, exploring around the rocky edges in both directions to see what the other beaches looked like.
When we were done, we got back in the car to drive to find some ice cream or coffee. We ended up stopping at another beach, because Ester decided it was unacceptable for me to travel all the way out here and not swim in the Mediterranean. Good point.
So we swam and it was beautiful.
After we dried off, we got back to the search for ice cream / coffee. We stopped at an heladeria, and ordered the most brilliantly delicious dessert ever. It comes in two forms, called the Nacional or the Blanco y Negro, depending on what kind of ice cream you get. Essentially it is a cup of slushied iced coffee with ice cream on top. I got the Nacional (vanilla ice cream) and Ester got the Blanco y Negro (I'm still not clear on what kind of ice cream this is; it tastes kind of like sweet vanilla ice cream with lemon or something) They were both DELICIOUS. After dessert, we drove back to the farm. I sat and read for a while, and swam in the pool for a bit.
Today was a good day. I feel relaxed and refreshed and want to be more helpful tomorrow!
Friday, July 2, 2010
Crickets should not be allowed to make deafening noises
This morning I woke up two hours ahead of schedule :(
It was 10am and I heard a weird and obnoxious ringing sound. I thought it was coming from my computer because it was SO LOUD and it would go for a few seconds and then stop, and it was very consistent. I couldn't sleep through it so I got up, and I realized it was coming from outside! CRICKETS.
I was not happy.
Once I was awake I went in for breakfast, so of course everything was okay after that. I discovered I really like figs. I thought they were disgusting before because I don't really like Fig Newtons and dried figs do not look appealing to me (although I have never tasted one). I tried a fresh one here though, and it was so yummy, so now I eat them for breakfast and for my merienda in the afternoon.
Today I got to help make the bamboo shade contraption again, but this time I actually organized the bamboo shoots and tied them together into the sheet roof thing It was really exciting when we finished! It looks really good.
I also learned how to partir almendras today. I know surprisingly little about nuts, such as where they come from and what they look like in their natural state. Today I learned that they come in hard woody shells, and you need to hit them with a hammer to crack them open to get the little nut inside. I spent a few hours doing this, and barely filled one tupperware container. It was really hard! And it was also very dissatisfying at times because some of the shells don't even have almonds in them. Particularly the shells that take forever to open.
I am very lucky to be able to buy deshelled almonds at any store any time I want to at home.
I also painted some walls today and bonded with the cats. The walls are plain white (not very exciting), but I like the cats.
TOMORROW WE ARE MAKING BREAD.
It was 10am and I heard a weird and obnoxious ringing sound. I thought it was coming from my computer because it was SO LOUD and it would go for a few seconds and then stop, and it was very consistent. I couldn't sleep through it so I got up, and I realized it was coming from outside! CRICKETS.
I was not happy.
Once I was awake I went in for breakfast, so of course everything was okay after that. I discovered I really like figs. I thought they were disgusting before because I don't really like Fig Newtons and dried figs do not look appealing to me (although I have never tasted one). I tried a fresh one here though, and it was so yummy, so now I eat them for breakfast and for my merienda in the afternoon.
Today I got to help make the bamboo shade contraption again, but this time I actually organized the bamboo shoots and tied them together into the sheet roof thing It was really exciting when we finished! It looks really good.
I also learned how to partir almendras today. I know surprisingly little about nuts, such as where they come from and what they look like in their natural state. Today I learned that they come in hard woody shells, and you need to hit them with a hammer to crack them open to get the little nut inside. I spent a few hours doing this, and barely filled one tupperware container. It was really hard! And it was also very dissatisfying at times because some of the shells don't even have almonds in them. Particularly the shells that take forever to open.
I am very lucky to be able to buy deshelled almonds at any store any time I want to at home.
I also painted some walls today and bonded with the cats. The walls are plain white (not very exciting), but I like the cats.
TOMORROW WE ARE MAKING BREAD.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Pero tu, tu no eres - como se dice?- tu no eres "morning person"
As it turned out, I ended up telling Lola I got lost on my way back from watering the olive trees, so she went with me the second time. The path is now both familiar and obvious: not only is it about half the length of the one I took before, but it is also very direct and complete clear. When we get to the point where I was supposed to turn off the hose, Lola sees that it is still open and has a small panic attack: HEMOS FALTO TODO EL AGUA! Es un desastre! I try to explain that I did turn it off, just at a point closer to the trees, because I couldn't find the proper way back. She doesn't really believe me, but we keep walking.
Eventually we get to the point where I did indeed turn off the water, but only after we passed at least 4 other locations where I didn't. It was a fun walk.
I watered a billion trees, but came back just as the sun was setting, and successfully found the path and turned off the water. Woo!
I decided to set an alarm the next day to wake myself up. I set it for 9am, and woke up then and went in for breakfast. Lola looked at me, and immediately asked what I was doing awake. She asked if I used an alarm, and obvi I did. She then gave me a little speech about how I am NOT a morning person and shouldn't pretend to be one. We decided I will do all of my trabajos in the afternoon, so that I can sleep until 12 if necessary. THIS IS PERFECT.
On Monday we went into the town of Huercal-Overa to do some shopping. Lola left me at the mercado, and I had about 3 hours to roam around. The market was kind of like a street fair in New York, but with MUCH better stuff and ridiculously low prices. I loved it. I bought some clothing, shoes, and some gifts for the fam. I hope I can go back, because I want to get everything! It was all wonderful and I miss it.
When we got back to the farm, Candela had a friend over (Erica), and I did an English lesson with the two of them. It was too hot in the afternoon to go water los olivos, so I instead did some more arts and crafts work: I finished up the jar fixins for the mermeladas (I have a new favorite: mermelada de albaricoque. IT'S SO GOOD), and then made some light covering things out of wire, tissue paper, and hay. I had to somehow wrap the tissue paper around a conical wire structure and attach a tuft of hay to it without ripping the tissue paper. It was a struggle. Eventually I figured out a successful system, but not until I had wasted a ton of tissue paper and made some really ugly ones.
We had guests for dinner again, this time it was Erica's family. We had a delicious tortilla made of eggs, potatoes, and onions, and then salad and wine. Erica's brother Mario really enjoyed my presence. He's probably 9 or 10 years old, and he kept showing me things and trying to teach me words in Spanish. At the end of the night he gave me ice cream. I like him.
I decided that my favorite word in Spanish is "rica". But only when it's used to describe food. I think it sounds wonderful and is a perfect description of delicious food.
The next day was more of the same, but in the afternoon I helped Lola make a roof for one of the casitas for the huespedes. The house is right in the sun, so it gets really hot, so we laid out bamboo sticks to make some shade on the patio. I was in charge of hauling the sticks and cutting them, and Lola laid them out. Luckily I have used loppers before (at Harvest and also while I worked in Central Park), but the sticks were about 20 feet long and I kept poking myself and falling over.
At dinner Lola and I had a wonderful heart to heart and she told me all about her life and the history of the farm. She is from a pastoral Arab family (that's as specific as it got), and bought the property 17 years ago. She has since added 7 casitas for guests to stay in, and grows nearly all of the food herself, living in an entirely organic and natural manner. Over the past few days, Lola has reminded me many times how a woman should always know how to cook and clean. I nod politely but inside am not thrilled about this compartmentalization and feel that women should be allowed to do other things. At this dinner though, Lola explained to me that women must learn to cook not to provide for their husbands necessarily, but to be able to be independent: if you know how to cook, you can not only cook for yourself, but you also know how to go to the market and spend a small amount of money and be able to make a ton of great meals. This seems obvious enough, and I'm sure other people use this argument too, but I never thought of it this way. I like it.
Eventually we got to the topic of boys, and Lola asked if I have a boyfriend. I told her no, and she said that was better, that girls should wait longer for things like that. Candela was not pleased. I asked if it was normal for girls my age to be married in Spain, explaining that nearly every man I met at the airport and around Madrid asked me if I was married. Lola told me no, not at all, and that these men are probably asking because if I am not married, they will want to try to marry me to get papers because they aren't from here. Oh. Good to know.
Another fun event during dinner: the cats were up on the bamboo roof above the main terrace of the house, trying to eat little birds! I was not happy. Two little birds fell out of the roof, and just plopped onto the terrace. I thought they were dead because they didn't move AT ALL, but I went to look at them and they were just sleeping. I have never seen a bird that relaxed around people! I was able to go right up to them and they didn't care! (probably not that big of a deal really if they can fall out of the sky without noticing)
Today I met the chickens.
I do not like chickens. I think they are smelly and terrifying and spastic and they bring tons of flies with them everywhere. So naturally, I was THRILLED when Lola brought me over to the chickens. I waited patiently outside the door as she went in their pen, indicating that NO I would not be joining her in breathing 60% air, 30% flies, and 10% chicken poop dust. No.
Lola started scraping up the unknown substances that covered the floor of the pen, and I stood outside trying desperately to escape the flies. Lola soon came out with a bucket filled with the floor goop, and told me to bring it outside and dump it out to fertilize the trees. I looked inside the bucket and saw little worms crawling around in the poop/dirt/hay. Yummy.
I carried the bucket about 843759827855 miles to the trees, dumped it out, and headed back to Lola. She had another bucket waiting for me. And another one. And another one. I went back and forth with 8 or 9 buckets, and ended up creating a nice mountain of chicken products around the trees. I was hot and sweaty and disgusting by the time it was over. It was definitely not my favorite trabajo, but if I hadn't been there I know it would have taken Lola at least twice as long to get done. In addition, because the chickens are so disgusting, Lola was able to set up a fly trap bucket near there pen. It's working pretty well; the bucket is almost entirely filled with dead flies. I think I prefer chickens to flies, so I guess they aren't ALL bad.
However, I did cut my leg on the chicken wire, so if you don't hear from me again assume I am dying from asphyxiation from some ornithosis infection or have lockjaw from my tetanus infection.
Hopefully not though, because today Lola brought out BUCKETS of new fruit and I want to eat all of it.
Eventually we get to the point where I did indeed turn off the water, but only after we passed at least 4 other locations where I didn't. It was a fun walk.
I watered a billion trees, but came back just as the sun was setting, and successfully found the path and turned off the water. Woo!
I decided to set an alarm the next day to wake myself up. I set it for 9am, and woke up then and went in for breakfast. Lola looked at me, and immediately asked what I was doing awake. She asked if I used an alarm, and obvi I did. She then gave me a little speech about how I am NOT a morning person and shouldn't pretend to be one. We decided I will do all of my trabajos in the afternoon, so that I can sleep until 12 if necessary. THIS IS PERFECT.
On Monday we went into the town of Huercal-Overa to do some shopping. Lola left me at the mercado, and I had about 3 hours to roam around. The market was kind of like a street fair in New York, but with MUCH better stuff and ridiculously low prices. I loved it. I bought some clothing, shoes, and some gifts for the fam. I hope I can go back, because I want to get everything! It was all wonderful and I miss it.
When we got back to the farm, Candela had a friend over (Erica), and I did an English lesson with the two of them. It was too hot in the afternoon to go water los olivos, so I instead did some more arts and crafts work: I finished up the jar fixins for the mermeladas (I have a new favorite: mermelada de albaricoque. IT'S SO GOOD), and then made some light covering things out of wire, tissue paper, and hay. I had to somehow wrap the tissue paper around a conical wire structure and attach a tuft of hay to it without ripping the tissue paper. It was a struggle. Eventually I figured out a successful system, but not until I had wasted a ton of tissue paper and made some really ugly ones.
We had guests for dinner again, this time it was Erica's family. We had a delicious tortilla made of eggs, potatoes, and onions, and then salad and wine. Erica's brother Mario really enjoyed my presence. He's probably 9 or 10 years old, and he kept showing me things and trying to teach me words in Spanish. At the end of the night he gave me ice cream. I like him.
I decided that my favorite word in Spanish is "rica". But only when it's used to describe food. I think it sounds wonderful and is a perfect description of delicious food.
The next day was more of the same, but in the afternoon I helped Lola make a roof for one of the casitas for the huespedes. The house is right in the sun, so it gets really hot, so we laid out bamboo sticks to make some shade on the patio. I was in charge of hauling the sticks and cutting them, and Lola laid them out. Luckily I have used loppers before (at Harvest and also while I worked in Central Park), but the sticks were about 20 feet long and I kept poking myself and falling over.
At dinner Lola and I had a wonderful heart to heart and she told me all about her life and the history of the farm. She is from a pastoral Arab family (that's as specific as it got), and bought the property 17 years ago. She has since added 7 casitas for guests to stay in, and grows nearly all of the food herself, living in an entirely organic and natural manner. Over the past few days, Lola has reminded me many times how a woman should always know how to cook and clean. I nod politely but inside am not thrilled about this compartmentalization and feel that women should be allowed to do other things. At this dinner though, Lola explained to me that women must learn to cook not to provide for their husbands necessarily, but to be able to be independent: if you know how to cook, you can not only cook for yourself, but you also know how to go to the market and spend a small amount of money and be able to make a ton of great meals. This seems obvious enough, and I'm sure other people use this argument too, but I never thought of it this way. I like it.
Eventually we got to the topic of boys, and Lola asked if I have a boyfriend. I told her no, and she said that was better, that girls should wait longer for things like that. Candela was not pleased. I asked if it was normal for girls my age to be married in Spain, explaining that nearly every man I met at the airport and around Madrid asked me if I was married. Lola told me no, not at all, and that these men are probably asking because if I am not married, they will want to try to marry me to get papers because they aren't from here. Oh. Good to know.
Another fun event during dinner: the cats were up on the bamboo roof above the main terrace of the house, trying to eat little birds! I was not happy. Two little birds fell out of the roof, and just plopped onto the terrace. I thought they were dead because they didn't move AT ALL, but I went to look at them and they were just sleeping. I have never seen a bird that relaxed around people! I was able to go right up to them and they didn't care! (probably not that big of a deal really if they can fall out of the sky without noticing)
Today I met the chickens.
I do not like chickens. I think they are smelly and terrifying and spastic and they bring tons of flies with them everywhere. So naturally, I was THRILLED when Lola brought me over to the chickens. I waited patiently outside the door as she went in their pen, indicating that NO I would not be joining her in breathing 60% air, 30% flies, and 10% chicken poop dust. No.
Lola started scraping up the unknown substances that covered the floor of the pen, and I stood outside trying desperately to escape the flies. Lola soon came out with a bucket filled with the floor goop, and told me to bring it outside and dump it out to fertilize the trees. I looked inside the bucket and saw little worms crawling around in the poop/dirt/hay. Yummy.
I carried the bucket about 843759827855 miles to the trees, dumped it out, and headed back to Lola. She had another bucket waiting for me. And another one. And another one. I went back and forth with 8 or 9 buckets, and ended up creating a nice mountain of chicken products around the trees. I was hot and sweaty and disgusting by the time it was over. It was definitely not my favorite trabajo, but if I hadn't been there I know it would have taken Lola at least twice as long to get done. In addition, because the chickens are so disgusting, Lola was able to set up a fly trap bucket near there pen. It's working pretty well; the bucket is almost entirely filled with dead flies. I think I prefer chickens to flies, so I guess they aren't ALL bad.
However, I did cut my leg on the chicken wire, so if you don't hear from me again assume I am dying from asphyxiation from some ornithosis infection or have lockjaw from my tetanus infection.
Hopefully not though, because today Lola brought out BUCKETS of new fruit and I want to eat all of it.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
I am have brown eyes: Los Primeros Dias
My first night in Huercal-Overa was pretty uneventful: after meeting mi familia Lola y Candela, I went with them into town to do some quick shopping. The town is cute; hopefully I'll see more of it later on.
The farm I'm staying on is called Casa Rural Aloe Vera. Apparently casas rurales are very popular in Spain and the rest of Europe, and probably should be in the states too because they're a great idea. Essentially a casa rural is like the most wonderfully relaxing and intimate hotel ever: you stay with a family in their rural home. You pay to stay there, but are friends with the owner and eat some meals together. I love it.
Anyway, the first night I arrived, Candela showed me around the house. I got my sheets and towels and immediately went to shower and clean myself extensively. I ate dinner (fish, little potatoes with some pate of which I have yet to determine the contents, and salad) and then went to my room. I unpacked and went online, and when I realized 5 hours had passed and it was midnight, I decided to go to sleep.
The next morning I woke up on my own. I was surprised that I had woken up so early: the family wakes up around 6am to being working, and if I was awake on my own, that means I woke up before they came to get me. Odd, considering I hadn't slept in 3 days...I couldn't fall back asleep, so I got up and went in to the kitchen. The clock told me it was noon. OOPS
Lola did not seem to care / notice that I have slept 6 hours passed when I should have woken up, and instead makes me breakfast (cafe y pan tostado con mermelada de naranja y mantequilla). IT IS SO DELICIOUS. I love Spanish food. And Lola and Candela made all of the food themselves! So wonderful.
Lola sells some of the foods she makes for los huespedes who stay in her casa rural. She sells mermeladas and honey mostly, along with small amounts of some other foods and arts and crafts. I spent the rest of the morning preparing some of the jars for selling.
After lunch (which Lola tells me is the most important meal of the day, "tenemos que comer juntas siempre a las dos"), Candela and I have our Spanish and English lessons:
Lola sits down with a book on la ortografica, and Candela and I sit and write a dictation that Lola reads aloud. The goal of this dictacion is to practice the difference between el be (b) y el uve (v) when writing in Spanish. This is odd for me because my first language is English, so I pronounce the two letters differently, but in Spanish it is hard to tell the difference.
After the lesson, I help Candela with her English. Her English book is very European, and the grammar is surprisingly odd for me. The book teaches word contractions like "I've" and "what's" without teaching the full phrases first / at all. It also has phrasing that is weird for me such as "I have got" as opposed to "I have". We come across a game in the book, and of course Candela wants to play it 38091713544086 times, so we sit there for 45 minutes going around and around the gameboard repeating the same questions. She plays for both of us, since I already speak English. Que divertido.
When Candela finally tires of the game, Lola takes me out to water the olive trees. The olive trees are pretty far from the house, and the view is really nice despite the fact that most of the grass is dried out. I sit and water the trees, reading a short Spanish novel Lola lent me to practice with while I wait.
I finish watering just as the sun is setting, and realize I have no idea where to put the hose, let alone how to get back. I retrace the hose to a point where it sits in a pile, and leave it there. I start walking back towards the house. I realize after about 30 seconds that I can't see the house anymore, and I'm walking through grass and bushes up to my waist. The walk over was easy and through low grass and even just dirt. This is not correct.
I see a house and start walking towards it, hoping I can at least find a road and then walk along it and hopefully end up back at the farm. I realize I am most definitely on someone else's property, as I am now running through and ruining perfectly tilled soil. Eventually I get to a road. I am sweaty and gross and sad and lost. But at least I found the road!
Of course then two dogs come out, barking as loudly as they possibly can to signify my intruding on their farm. I still have no idea where to go, but I take off in the opposite direction hoping the dogs will stop before someone sees me.
Somehow I end up back at the house. I come in just in time for dinner, which we are having with the two huespedes, Antonia y Estela. I leave to go wash my hands before dinner, and walk around the house twice before coming back and asking where mi habitacion is. I have been here for two days and still cannot find my room. I come back, and everyone is all dressed up, and I'm in my dirty farming pants with hathead. Excellent.
We sit and enjoy an incredible dinner (delicious rice and vegetables shaped into a bundt cake pan, salad, wine, and tortilla de zanahorias: a sweet pie thing made entirely of carrots--SO GOOD). I understand most of the conversation which is exciting, but only contribute really when we start talking about immigration in the U.S.
As we finish up with dinner, A BIRD COMES OUT OF ESTELA'S SHIRT. Apparently it has been sitting there sleeping in the top of her bra the whole time, but it was small and not moving so I didn't see it. He settles down and goes back to sleep. ?!
We have infusion (tea) after dinner, with some of Lola's honey. It is SO AMAZING (obviously. I lover everything here). The bird comes out again, and this time he poops on Estela's shirt before going back to sleep. After dinner, we all part ways for bed.
I woke up this morning at noon AGAIN. Lola didn't say anything!! Apparently I should wake myself up, but I'm going to try to set an alarm from now on because I don't want to miss all of the work! Candela and I had our lessons again, and I worked more with preparing the jars. For lunch I helped make patatas fritas. Spanish olive oil is the best.
Lola and Candela take a 3 hour nap / resting time after lunch usually, but I'm not tired (obvi. I woke up 2 hours ago) so I keep working on the jars or check my email. I'm about to go back out to water los olivos. I'm kind of worried because I'm going by myself this time and have NO IDEA WHERE THEY ARE or how to get back. We'll see how this goes...
Also, I'm taking a ton of pictures and will post them once I figure out how to? / upload them to the computer.
The farm I'm staying on is called Casa Rural Aloe Vera. Apparently casas rurales are very popular in Spain and the rest of Europe, and probably should be in the states too because they're a great idea. Essentially a casa rural is like the most wonderfully relaxing and intimate hotel ever: you stay with a family in their rural home. You pay to stay there, but are friends with the owner and eat some meals together. I love it.
Anyway, the first night I arrived, Candela showed me around the house. I got my sheets and towels and immediately went to shower and clean myself extensively. I ate dinner (fish, little potatoes with some pate of which I have yet to determine the contents, and salad) and then went to my room. I unpacked and went online, and when I realized 5 hours had passed and it was midnight, I decided to go to sleep.
The next morning I woke up on my own. I was surprised that I had woken up so early: the family wakes up around 6am to being working, and if I was awake on my own, that means I woke up before they came to get me. Odd, considering I hadn't slept in 3 days...I couldn't fall back asleep, so I got up and went in to the kitchen. The clock told me it was noon. OOPS
Lola did not seem to care / notice that I have slept 6 hours passed when I should have woken up, and instead makes me breakfast (cafe y pan tostado con mermelada de naranja y mantequilla). IT IS SO DELICIOUS. I love Spanish food. And Lola and Candela made all of the food themselves! So wonderful.
Lola sells some of the foods she makes for los huespedes who stay in her casa rural. She sells mermeladas and honey mostly, along with small amounts of some other foods and arts and crafts. I spent the rest of the morning preparing some of the jars for selling.
After lunch (which Lola tells me is the most important meal of the day, "tenemos que comer juntas siempre a las dos"), Candela and I have our Spanish and English lessons:
Lola sits down with a book on la ortografica, and Candela and I sit and write a dictation that Lola reads aloud. The goal of this dictacion is to practice the difference between el be (b) y el uve (v) when writing in Spanish. This is odd for me because my first language is English, so I pronounce the two letters differently, but in Spanish it is hard to tell the difference.
After the lesson, I help Candela with her English. Her English book is very European, and the grammar is surprisingly odd for me. The book teaches word contractions like "I've" and "what's" without teaching the full phrases first / at all. It also has phrasing that is weird for me such as "I have got" as opposed to "I have". We come across a game in the book, and of course Candela wants to play it 38091713544086 times, so we sit there for 45 minutes going around and around the gameboard repeating the same questions. She plays for both of us, since I already speak English. Que divertido.
When Candela finally tires of the game, Lola takes me out to water the olive trees. The olive trees are pretty far from the house, and the view is really nice despite the fact that most of the grass is dried out. I sit and water the trees, reading a short Spanish novel Lola lent me to practice with while I wait.
I finish watering just as the sun is setting, and realize I have no idea where to put the hose, let alone how to get back. I retrace the hose to a point where it sits in a pile, and leave it there. I start walking back towards the house. I realize after about 30 seconds that I can't see the house anymore, and I'm walking through grass and bushes up to my waist. The walk over was easy and through low grass and even just dirt. This is not correct.
I see a house and start walking towards it, hoping I can at least find a road and then walk along it and hopefully end up back at the farm. I realize I am most definitely on someone else's property, as I am now running through and ruining perfectly tilled soil. Eventually I get to a road. I am sweaty and gross and sad and lost. But at least I found the road!
Of course then two dogs come out, barking as loudly as they possibly can to signify my intruding on their farm. I still have no idea where to go, but I take off in the opposite direction hoping the dogs will stop before someone sees me.
Somehow I end up back at the house. I come in just in time for dinner, which we are having with the two huespedes, Antonia y Estela. I leave to go wash my hands before dinner, and walk around the house twice before coming back and asking where mi habitacion is. I have been here for two days and still cannot find my room. I come back, and everyone is all dressed up, and I'm in my dirty farming pants with hathead. Excellent.
We sit and enjoy an incredible dinner (delicious rice and vegetables shaped into a bundt cake pan, salad, wine, and tortilla de zanahorias: a sweet pie thing made entirely of carrots--SO GOOD). I understand most of the conversation which is exciting, but only contribute really when we start talking about immigration in the U.S.
As we finish up with dinner, A BIRD COMES OUT OF ESTELA'S SHIRT. Apparently it has been sitting there sleeping in the top of her bra the whole time, but it was small and not moving so I didn't see it. He settles down and goes back to sleep. ?!
We have infusion (tea) after dinner, with some of Lola's honey. It is SO AMAZING (obviously. I lover everything here). The bird comes out again, and this time he poops on Estela's shirt before going back to sleep. After dinner, we all part ways for bed.
I woke up this morning at noon AGAIN. Lola didn't say anything!! Apparently I should wake myself up, but I'm going to try to set an alarm from now on because I don't want to miss all of the work! Candela and I had our lessons again, and I worked more with preparing the jars. For lunch I helped make patatas fritas. Spanish olive oil is the best.
Lola and Candela take a 3 hour nap / resting time after lunch usually, but I'm not tired (obvi. I woke up 2 hours ago) so I keep working on the jars or check my email. I'm about to go back out to water los olivos. I'm kind of worried because I'm going by myself this time and have NO IDEA WHERE THEY ARE or how to get back. We'll see how this goes...
Also, I'm taking a ton of pictures and will post them once I figure out how to? / upload them to the computer.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Jensen Tries to Travel Solo
My journey to the farm was epically long and arduous (to say the least), and I'm going to recount its events Tucker Max - style (you'll see why soon).
Wednesday, June 24th
circa 3:30 pm: Alyssa, my mom and I pile into the car to go to the airport, after last-minute packing (obviously) and a brief Skype test to make sure my new account is working (it is, so Skype me! My username is jreckhow). My mom realizes I have brought a bottle of prescription pills with me (the remains of my wisdom teeth extraction meds) as I take one upon getting in the car. She tells me I will be arrested at the airport for bringing controlled substances onto the plane; I tell her I do not want to get an infection or to suffer from mouth pain while flying. I take the pills, as I have basically a full bottle of antibiotics left, but I'm kind of worried now.
4:30 - 4:50 pm: We circle through the Newark airport terminals three times, looking for where KLM is. After confirming three times that it is not at any of the terminals, I decide to check my flight information. KLM apparently partners with Delta. My mom is thrilled.
6:40pm: My first plane takes off from Newark. My plan is to sleep during this flight, since I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. I decide to not take my medication, because my mouth isn't hurting. Two hours into the flight, and halfway through my first book, I realize that my legs are in unbelievable pain (probably from walking all over the city before I left doing last minute shopping) and I will probably never sleep again. I'm too afraid to take my meds now though, so I just sit and read and agonize. I decide Tucker Max is less than morally sound, but this book is hilarious and I love it. We arrive in Amsterdam around 8am the next day.
Thursday, June 24th
8am - 11am: I wander around the Amsterdam airport waiting for my layover. I consume lots of Stroopwaffels (one of the greatest foods ever made: two waffel cookie things with caramel goo inside) from Starbucks like I used to way back in the day when they still sold them at American Starbucks', and idly peruse all of the duty-free shops. My envy of Europe is restored (no explanation necessary). I finish the Tucker Max book. I loved it and recommend it to everyone, as long as you know what you're in for.
1pm: I realize I am at the wrong gate for my flight, after sitting there for two hours. I check the departure board to see where I am supposed to go. I do not see my flight, and panic because my flight has already started boarding, wherever it is. Someone helps me, and obviously my flight switched terminals and is now boarding 73292015703 miles away. I start running over, looking ridiculous because
1. my bag is more than overflowing due to the 3 books I purchased to read in Spain (I hope They Serve Beer in Hell, Eat Pray Love, and Three Cups of Tea), and my computer which never fits in the first place, but is now barely wedged in between the 7 books I am now carrying
and
2. have you ever seen me run.
1:05pm: I arrive at the new terminal. It was actually not that far away, and they haven't started boarding (slash don't start for another 15 minutes).
1:30 - 4:30pm: I fly from Amsterdam to Madrid. This may be my favorites flight of all time, as they served complimentary stroopwaffels as a snack.
SIDE NOTE: After my plane lands in Madrid, I have 7 hours to kill before I take a 9 hour bus from the airport to the town near the farm I am working at. 7 hours is a lot of time, so I was hoping I might be able to go into the city for a bit to explore instead of just sitting in the airport. I mentioned this in the car, and everyone freaked out because
1. there is not enough time
2. my luggage will get stolen and I will get lost and will probably die
4:30 - 5:30pm: I decide I'm going to try to go to Madrid anyway, because I have faith in myself and also know I will be pissed forever if I pass up the chance to see the city when I have plenty of time to do it. I find a locker to store my luggage in while I am gone, and head off to take the Metro into the city.
6:00pm: The Metro takes maybe 15 minutes, and I arrive much sooner that I thought I would. This is good - I can now spend more time in Madrid! Yay!
6:30pm: jk this is not good. I am having trouble entertaining myself in Madrid and am reluctant to spend more money here.
6:30 - 9pm: I wonder around aimlessly, having not done any research on Madrid and thus not knowing where I want to go. I see plazas and colorful buildings, and spend plenty of euros on gelatto and other food I don't need that I store for later. Since I don't really know what to do and am tired and bored, I start taking pictures of license plates. I like them.
9:15pm: I arrive back at the airport, legs exhausted from my fruitless trip to the city. I'm happy I went but wish it could have gone differently: I either did not go to the right places, or just expected the city to be different. I retrieve my bag, and head over to the terminal where my bus departs from.
9:45pm: After walking around the airport in circles looking for Terminal 4 (following ALL of the signs though), I give up. This terminal does not exist, and I should not have brought a bag this large.
9:50pm: After asking for help, I learn that Terminal 4 is the reject terminal of the airport, and is actually barely within the borders of the country. I have to take a bus to get there. Terminals 1, 2, and 3 are all next to each other, actually ATTACHED to each other, and certainly within walking distance of one another. But obviously Terminal 4 has to be as far away as possible.
9:57pm: I get to Terminal 4, and go wait for my bus at the bus stop.
10 - 11pm: I wait for my bus, and go up to the driver of every bus that arrives asking 1. is this my bus? and 2. do you know where my bus will arrive? Everyone says no. I quickly recruit two friendly people I meet to help me out because
1. they see I am about to cry and am obviously not succeeding
2. they work for a bus company so they should be able to help me
and 3. one of them speaks English
11- 12:30am: My bus does not come. A thunderstorm begins and escalates and does not end. I am wet and cold and sad and busless. My new friends help me by calling the bus company and arranging for me to take another bus the next morning from a different stop. They give me directions and wish me luck. I head back inside.
12:30 - 6am: I entertain myself in the Madrid airport for 5.5 hours. I am dirty and disgusting and tired. Instead of sleeping, I sit and read and drink lots of delicious Spanish coffee.
6am: The Metro opens again. I take it to the new bus stop. I am completely cracked out on way too much coffee and not enough sleep. And by not enough sleep I mean NO sleep.
6:15am: I arrive at the new bus stop. Problem: my bus leaves at 10am, and the train ride was supposed to be an hour and a half and obviously wasn't, so I now have 4 hours to kill. Good thing I am well rested and fully capable of staying awake and not missing my bus.
6:30am: I realize that my bag is covered in fresh plaster that I picked up while dragging it down the stairs at the train station. Picking it off is a joy. It smells rancid and of course everything I am wearing is black so I make a huge mess. But I already haven't showered in 2 days so it's no big deal really.
8:30am: A man waiting for the bus with me sees me falling asleep on my bag and asks if I want some coffee. Obviously I want some coffee, but I hadn't gotten any yet because I didn't see anywhere to get it from. My sleep-deprived brain decides it is a wise idea to follow this man.
8:50am: I finish my coffee and am restored from my zombie status. The man pays for my coffee and begins asking about my life. After learning that I am from New York and a student (the great decisions just keep on coming) he suggests we get married, because then it will be easier for me to get papers so I can travel all over Europe all the time. I laugh awkwardly and say I want to go back to look at the bus schedule. I am not about to miss a second bus.
9am: We are back downstairs. My creepy man friend asks me if I have any children. I say no, so he asks if I would like to make some children with him (in much cruder phrasing). Apparently he meant right then and there at the bus station, because he proceeds to try to kiss me.
9:01am: NO. Adios senor. I proceed to the other end of the station and reflect on my shrewd decision making skills.
9:30am: I check the bus boards for my bus, because it should be up at this point and I'm obviously panicked about missing it. It isn't there. WTF is this.
9:45am: After frantically pacing the station and asking everyone for help (unsuccessfully), I realize that my bus should be coming soon and is indeed on the board, but under a pseudonym so I would never find it. But I did, and am now waiting patiently at the stop.
9:50am: The bus arrives. I confirm that it is the correct bus, and proceed to explain to the driver in pathetically butchered Spanish that I missed my bus last night but Icalledthecompanyandtheysaiditwasokformetojustcomeandtakethisbustoday. He says uhh..ok and puts me off to the side. After everyone else is on the bus, he lets me get on in an empty seat. SUCCESS!! NOPE. Two seconds later, he pulls me off. My seat was reserved by a latecomer. It's ok though, because there are like 7 more empty seats. NOPE. A wave of latecomers show up, all with reservations. My seats quickly fill up. Eventually everyone has arrived, and luckily enough there is ONE EMPTY SEAT LEFT! I am so unbelievably relieved. I climb up and immediately pass out. Everything is great again.
5:30pm: I arrive in Huercal-Overa, where I meet my host madre Lola and her daughter Candela. I am exhausted and dirty and smelly but I could not be happier to be here. After more than three full days of travel, 0 showers, 0 teeth-brushing events, and 0 changes of clothes, I FINALLY MADE IT!
Wednesday, June 24th
circa 3:30 pm: Alyssa, my mom and I pile into the car to go to the airport, after last-minute packing (obviously) and a brief Skype test to make sure my new account is working (it is, so Skype me! My username is jreckhow). My mom realizes I have brought a bottle of prescription pills with me (the remains of my wisdom teeth extraction meds) as I take one upon getting in the car. She tells me I will be arrested at the airport for bringing controlled substances onto the plane; I tell her I do not want to get an infection or to suffer from mouth pain while flying. I take the pills, as I have basically a full bottle of antibiotics left, but I'm kind of worried now.
4:30 - 4:50 pm: We circle through the Newark airport terminals three times, looking for where KLM is. After confirming three times that it is not at any of the terminals, I decide to check my flight information. KLM apparently partners with Delta. My mom is thrilled.
6:40pm: My first plane takes off from Newark. My plan is to sleep during this flight, since I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. I decide to not take my medication, because my mouth isn't hurting. Two hours into the flight, and halfway through my first book, I realize that my legs are in unbelievable pain (probably from walking all over the city before I left doing last minute shopping) and I will probably never sleep again. I'm too afraid to take my meds now though, so I just sit and read and agonize. I decide Tucker Max is less than morally sound, but this book is hilarious and I love it. We arrive in Amsterdam around 8am the next day.
Thursday, June 24th
8am - 11am: I wander around the Amsterdam airport waiting for my layover. I consume lots of Stroopwaffels (one of the greatest foods ever made: two waffel cookie things with caramel goo inside) from Starbucks like I used to way back in the day when they still sold them at American Starbucks', and idly peruse all of the duty-free shops. My envy of Europe is restored (no explanation necessary). I finish the Tucker Max book. I loved it and recommend it to everyone, as long as you know what you're in for.
1pm: I realize I am at the wrong gate for my flight, after sitting there for two hours. I check the departure board to see where I am supposed to go. I do not see my flight, and panic because my flight has already started boarding, wherever it is. Someone helps me, and obviously my flight switched terminals and is now boarding 73292015703 miles away. I start running over, looking ridiculous because
1. my bag is more than overflowing due to the 3 books I purchased to read in Spain (I hope They Serve Beer in Hell, Eat Pray Love, and Three Cups of Tea), and my computer which never fits in the first place, but is now barely wedged in between the 7 books I am now carrying
and
2. have you ever seen me run.
1:05pm: I arrive at the new terminal. It was actually not that far away, and they haven't started boarding (slash don't start for another 15 minutes).
1:30 - 4:30pm: I fly from Amsterdam to Madrid. This may be my favorites flight of all time, as they served complimentary stroopwaffels as a snack.
SIDE NOTE: After my plane lands in Madrid, I have 7 hours to kill before I take a 9 hour bus from the airport to the town near the farm I am working at. 7 hours is a lot of time, so I was hoping I might be able to go into the city for a bit to explore instead of just sitting in the airport. I mentioned this in the car, and everyone freaked out because
1. there is not enough time
2. my luggage will get stolen and I will get lost and will probably die
4:30 - 5:30pm: I decide I'm going to try to go to Madrid anyway, because I have faith in myself and also know I will be pissed forever if I pass up the chance to see the city when I have plenty of time to do it. I find a locker to store my luggage in while I am gone, and head off to take the Metro into the city.
6:00pm: The Metro takes maybe 15 minutes, and I arrive much sooner that I thought I would. This is good - I can now spend more time in Madrid! Yay!
6:30pm: jk this is not good. I am having trouble entertaining myself in Madrid and am reluctant to spend more money here.
6:30 - 9pm: I wonder around aimlessly, having not done any research on Madrid and thus not knowing where I want to go. I see plazas and colorful buildings, and spend plenty of euros on gelatto and other food I don't need that I store for later. Since I don't really know what to do and am tired and bored, I start taking pictures of license plates. I like them.
9:15pm: I arrive back at the airport, legs exhausted from my fruitless trip to the city. I'm happy I went but wish it could have gone differently: I either did not go to the right places, or just expected the city to be different. I retrieve my bag, and head over to the terminal where my bus departs from.
9:45pm: After walking around the airport in circles looking for Terminal 4 (following ALL of the signs though), I give up. This terminal does not exist, and I should not have brought a bag this large.
9:50pm: After asking for help, I learn that Terminal 4 is the reject terminal of the airport, and is actually barely within the borders of the country. I have to take a bus to get there. Terminals 1, 2, and 3 are all next to each other, actually ATTACHED to each other, and certainly within walking distance of one another. But obviously Terminal 4 has to be as far away as possible.
9:57pm: I get to Terminal 4, and go wait for my bus at the bus stop.
10 - 11pm: I wait for my bus, and go up to the driver of every bus that arrives asking 1. is this my bus? and 2. do you know where my bus will arrive? Everyone says no. I quickly recruit two friendly people I meet to help me out because
1. they see I am about to cry and am obviously not succeeding
2. they work for a bus company so they should be able to help me
and 3. one of them speaks English
11- 12:30am: My bus does not come. A thunderstorm begins and escalates and does not end. I am wet and cold and sad and busless. My new friends help me by calling the bus company and arranging for me to take another bus the next morning from a different stop. They give me directions and wish me luck. I head back inside.
12:30 - 6am: I entertain myself in the Madrid airport for 5.5 hours. I am dirty and disgusting and tired. Instead of sleeping, I sit and read and drink lots of delicious Spanish coffee.
6am: The Metro opens again. I take it to the new bus stop. I am completely cracked out on way too much coffee and not enough sleep. And by not enough sleep I mean NO sleep.
6:15am: I arrive at the new bus stop. Problem: my bus leaves at 10am, and the train ride was supposed to be an hour and a half and obviously wasn't, so I now have 4 hours to kill. Good thing I am well rested and fully capable of staying awake and not missing my bus.
6:30am: I realize that my bag is covered in fresh plaster that I picked up while dragging it down the stairs at the train station. Picking it off is a joy. It smells rancid and of course everything I am wearing is black so I make a huge mess. But I already haven't showered in 2 days so it's no big deal really.
8:30am: A man waiting for the bus with me sees me falling asleep on my bag and asks if I want some coffee. Obviously I want some coffee, but I hadn't gotten any yet because I didn't see anywhere to get it from. My sleep-deprived brain decides it is a wise idea to follow this man.
8:50am: I finish my coffee and am restored from my zombie status. The man pays for my coffee and begins asking about my life. After learning that I am from New York and a student (the great decisions just keep on coming) he suggests we get married, because then it will be easier for me to get papers so I can travel all over Europe all the time. I laugh awkwardly and say I want to go back to look at the bus schedule. I am not about to miss a second bus.
9am: We are back downstairs. My creepy man friend asks me if I have any children. I say no, so he asks if I would like to make some children with him (in much cruder phrasing). Apparently he meant right then and there at the bus station, because he proceeds to try to kiss me.
9:01am: NO. Adios senor. I proceed to the other end of the station and reflect on my shrewd decision making skills.
9:30am: I check the bus boards for my bus, because it should be up at this point and I'm obviously panicked about missing it. It isn't there. WTF is this.
9:45am: After frantically pacing the station and asking everyone for help (unsuccessfully), I realize that my bus should be coming soon and is indeed on the board, but under a pseudonym so I would never find it. But I did, and am now waiting patiently at the stop.
9:50am: The bus arrives. I confirm that it is the correct bus, and proceed to explain to the driver in pathetically butchered Spanish that I missed my bus last night but Icalledthecompanyandtheysaiditwasokformetojustcomeandtakethisbustoday. He says uhh..ok and puts me off to the side. After everyone else is on the bus, he lets me get on in an empty seat. SUCCESS!! NOPE. Two seconds later, he pulls me off. My seat was reserved by a latecomer. It's ok though, because there are like 7 more empty seats. NOPE. A wave of latecomers show up, all with reservations. My seats quickly fill up. Eventually everyone has arrived, and luckily enough there is ONE EMPTY SEAT LEFT! I am so unbelievably relieved. I climb up and immediately pass out. Everything is great again.
5:30pm: I arrive in Huercal-Overa, where I meet my host madre Lola and her daughter Candela. I am exhausted and dirty and smelly but I could not be happier to be here. After more than three full days of travel, 0 showers, 0 teeth-brushing events, and 0 changes of clothes, I FINALLY MADE IT!
...what? (aka why does Jensen have a blog?)
This summer, after working on reunions and post-term cleanup as a Housing Assistant at school, and in between working as a test prep tutor in New York, I decided to take a trip to Spain. I'm going to be abroad for about a month, and will spend my time working on a farm near the southern town of Huercal-Overa through the WWOOF organization of Spain(www.wwoof.es).
After falling in love with everything about Harvest (the pre-orientation program I did before coming to Yale, where I worked for a week on a local Connecticut organic farm with 6 other prefrosh and 2 upperclassmen leaders), I began looking into the WWOOF organization, and quickly decided I love that too. WWOOF (for anyone who doesn't know, and sorry for the redundancy if you do) is an international alliance of farmers and volunteers dedicated to promoting more global awareness of, appreciation for, and involvement in, the increasingly critical occupation of working as a sustainable farmer committed to environmental health and justice (for a more complete version of the mission statement, go to www.wwoof.org). As a (hopefully) Environmental Engineering major, and one desperately trying to be more proficient in Spanish, I figured a month of WWOOFing in Spain would be the perfect way to develop my respect and understanding of organic farming while cultivating my Spanish conversational skills.
And so here we are. I departed from New York on June 23rd, and I'll be returning on July 28th. The month in between will be spent on the Aloe Vera farm (www.casaruralaloevera.com) with Lola and her daughter Candela (and possibly some other WWOOFers?), working on anything from garden work to animal maintenance to general housekeeping needs. I'm not really sure what it will be like just yet, but I'll keep a record of any exciting things, both in posts and in pictures, that happen here.
If you know anything about me, you can understand how far out of my comfort zone this trip is going to be. I have spent my entire life living in New York City, freak out at the sight of most insects, and actually believe that the woody parts of Central Park constitute wilderness. My farming experience is limited to the 6 days I spent doing Harvest, and this is my first time in Spain, and also my first time being in a rural area where nobody speaks English. While there are of course plenty of more daring and enlightening things I could be doing this summer, I chose this and am looking forward to the exciting challenge ahead.
I'm also looking forward to recording my trip as a blog (as I'm sure you can tell), so if you have any free time this summer and are looking for something to peruse on the internet, I would really appreciate it if you would check out my blog once in a while to see my updates!
After falling in love with everything about Harvest (the pre-orientation program I did before coming to Yale, where I worked for a week on a local Connecticut organic farm with 6 other prefrosh and 2 upperclassmen leaders), I began looking into the WWOOF organization, and quickly decided I love that too. WWOOF (for anyone who doesn't know, and sorry for the redundancy if you do) is an international alliance of farmers and volunteers dedicated to promoting more global awareness of, appreciation for, and involvement in, the increasingly critical occupation of working as a sustainable farmer committed to environmental health and justice (for a more complete version of the mission statement, go to www.wwoof.org). As a (hopefully) Environmental Engineering major, and one desperately trying to be more proficient in Spanish, I figured a month of WWOOFing in Spain would be the perfect way to develop my respect and understanding of organic farming while cultivating my Spanish conversational skills.
And so here we are. I departed from New York on June 23rd, and I'll be returning on July 28th. The month in between will be spent on the Aloe Vera farm (www.casaruralaloevera.com) with Lola and her daughter Candela (and possibly some other WWOOFers?), working on anything from garden work to animal maintenance to general housekeeping needs. I'm not really sure what it will be like just yet, but I'll keep a record of any exciting things, both in posts and in pictures, that happen here.
If you know anything about me, you can understand how far out of my comfort zone this trip is going to be. I have spent my entire life living in New York City, freak out at the sight of most insects, and actually believe that the woody parts of Central Park constitute wilderness. My farming experience is limited to the 6 days I spent doing Harvest, and this is my first time in Spain, and also my first time being in a rural area where nobody speaks English. While there are of course plenty of more daring and enlightening things I could be doing this summer, I chose this and am looking forward to the exciting challenge ahead.
I'm also looking forward to recording my trip as a blog (as I'm sure you can tell), so if you have any free time this summer and are looking for something to peruse on the internet, I would really appreciate it if you would check out my blog once in a while to see my updates!
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