El Remolino - The Whirlwind Tour with Nick

I have been fortunate the past month to not have a moment to write. I have been living, rather than reflecting, and it feels good. There is so much to tell that I don't even know where to begin, but I have gotten a couple blog requests (which I suspect are just from my Mother) so I decided to sit down and see how to paint the picture of the last month... and do it justice.

So my brother came to visit. Nick. Just in time for Christmas. We celebrated with an old teacher/friend, Laura, and her family in Madrid who were so generous and it was magnificent. We ate spanish tortillas, fish soup, giant celery looking vegetables, and even 400 euro cured ham! The family was a delight, and we got a good tour of the city, the central park, nativity scenes, street musicians, and meet lots of extended that came over for villancico (christmas carols) and a Christmas day feast. At one point during the meal everyone turned to us and asked us to sing our city's song. Our song?? Ya know.. the song of Santa Barbara. Before we even had time to explain that our city didn't have a song.. they began to demonstrate with their village's song. And then one person would start to sing another traditional song, and not half a line later the whole table would have joined in... Minus the chimney smoking grandmother to my right - who was in tears. Santa Claus even brought me a sleeping bag too!! As our first Christmas away from home I believe it was a successful and very Merry Christmas in Espana.

Then the whirlwind tour began... and my brother and I proceeded to walk further than any Spaniard has ever walked and travel more than any Spaniard has ever fathomed. We saw so much you would think our eyeball might turn into marmalade. The route included the following: Madrid, Toledo, Sevilla, Ronda, Granada, Valencia & Barcelona.... and if you know a little bit of Spanish geography, you know the remolino nature of the two weeks.

We saw more artwork than your mind can saturate: from the national museum El Prado to the Picasso Museum, we saw Dali, Goya, Valazquez, Sorolla, El Greco and more. By then end of the trip we were able to tie it together, by just having seen the works that inspired cubism for Picasso a few days before.
Between reading our Lonely Planet and musuem sign posts our minds were swimming in 13th century this & 9th century that. "Although the palace was built in the 8th century, you can see that the facade has the moorish touch of the 12th century, and was later taken over by the christians, when the kings bedroom was added on in the 14th century..." Sometimes we made up our own commentary when we thought that the others didn't suffice. Other commentary is just too good to make up. "Now, this vibrant marketplace is a must see. It was the centerpiece of the city in the early 18th century, and there were riots when the city council threatened to tear it down in the 1820s. With 237 booths of fresh vegetables, meats and fish, it is the largest of its kind today in northern Spain and still is the meeting place for local farmers every Thursday to discuss water irrigation disputes, as it has been the past 200 years." Mom once used the word jadded after I described what we'd been up to: " Ya know, we saw some cathedrals, some arabic fotresses and palaces. We saw christopher columbus' tomb. Its been pretty cool." :)

In both Sevilla and Ronda we had beautiful soul breakfasts everyday on the balcony - cooked by our master chef Nick - omelettes, manchego cheese, peach juice, fresh bread.

We fought the urge to go to one of the MANY Starbucks lining the main street of Sevilla... nestled in between the 14th century Cathedral and the 10th century Alcazar -Arabic palace/fostress. And so we settled for a midday snack at the jam packed churros joint in the heart of the shopping district. Hundreds of fresh churros and thick creamy hot chocolate were flying out of the place every 4 minutes!

Sevilla has a magnificent Plaza de Espana which happened to be holding a world-renowned Belen (city of Bethlehem scene) comprised of hand made figurines, real running water and lights that shift from night to day. It is a year round project to build the Belen for Christmas every year! We saw a groovin' live flamenco performance in an old coal factory and happened to run into 2 people we knew!! Just a few days after we ran into someone else in a pub in Madrid! Small world.

In Ronda Nick got to see my little world. With students at the grocery store calling to me "Senorita!" or running into students at the bar who invite us to sing villancicos. We also got out into the countryside for a hike through the valley and the olive trees. Nick was enthralled by the craftsmanship of the giant old doors that lined the streets of Ronda. I am more of a cobblestone street kind of girl. He also discovered the charming reality of winter in Ronda - it gets cold. Our apartment had a true Arctic stream for our running water (because we didnt have propane for hot water) and an iceberg tile floor. Needless to say - when we went out to dinner one night at an italian restaurant with heating - we didn't want to leave.

It was two filled with bus rides - bus rides that held brother sister quality time, reading, journal writing, sleeping (nothin' like a good ole overnight bus), eating, and earfuls of old Andalucian men talking about olive picking, the drought, and those gosh darn new gadgets the young people have to make olive picking easier. Our conversations consisted more of life, "different cultures, different practices," personal Preferences, the necessity of dreaming big, and meeting movers and shakers.

For New Years - we went to Granada with Jen. It could be described as nothing less than Epic. New Years Eve day - A day of touring the sights, eating shawarma, taking pictures. and taking hot showers (quite the novelty) in our hostel - that yes, was indeed called Funky. :-)
After a sound siesta we woke up with just enough time to race through the narrowing winding streets up and up and up to the Mirador San Nicolas for the last sunset of 2007!! The sun set over the city, lighting up the Alhambra and framed by the snowcapped Sierra Nevada in the background. When the sun finally tucked just below the skyline the crowd erupted in cheers and applause, all to the soundtrack of a flamenco guitarist playing tunes at the base of a fountain in the plaza.

The night had just begun, as we wrote our reflections on the terrace of Funky Hostal, and each took turns sharing our New Years Resolutions with our roommates - Mark, a missionary from Michigan teaching history in Ukraine, and Regina, a girl from Singapore who, like most of her friends, is more comfortable speaking English than Chinese. Bearing 65 cent wine, more shawarmas, our red underwear (good luck in Spain) and a purse full of grapes, we hiked down to the Ayudamiento plaza to hail in the New Year. The tradition in Spain is to eat 12 grapes at midnight - one with every strike of the clock. So we did just that. There was near silence as hundreds of people packed into the plaza stuffed grape after grape into their mouth. Very cool. Then came the fireworks, the grocery cart filled with champagne... and the Spanish rock concert took the stage. Nick and I busted out our swing moves, our salsa, flamenco... we showed Espana how to boogie. Until the wee hours of the morning. Then it was another shawarma and off to bed. Feliz Ano Nuevo! 2008.

With backpacks in tow, we barreled on to Valencia and Barcelona for the grand finale of our whirlwind viaje. In Barcelona we stayed in a mega-hostal with 400 beds! Our room had 12 beds - mostly filled with Australians. And it was quite the change of scenery from little Ronda where my roommate is literally the only other native english speaker in town. Lots of English. Lots of traveling stories. And it made me feel very fortunate that I have the opportunities I do to travel, see everything we have seen, and meet other travelers. To be a part of the young packpacking world. We saw lots of Gaudi architecture, the famous Las Ramblas, and I took a little trip down memory lane to my first independent adventure with Tara - 7 years ago (gasp!) when we spent part of a summer in Barcelona taking Spanish courses and adventure-seeking. As many people say - Barcelona is much more of a cosmopolitan European city - rather than a Spanish city, so although it gave our tour a sense of well-roundedness - it made me realize what an authentic 'spanish experience' I am having in tipico little Ronda. We also made an Epic hostal dinner (master chef Nick, again) of pasta, salad and Spanish vino for a stellar 2.60 euros. Can't beat that. mmm.

After one last night of rockin out (read: enter techno club. begin a dance party) Nick headed back across the Atlantic, and I went down to Ronda. My train experience was complete with a fist fight in my train car at 2:30 am (you took my f**8ing bag!.... ); 8 conductors trying to settle things between the hooligans; and falling asleep again next to my seat mate - a 4 foot tall African gourd instrument.

Finally in the morning feasting my eyes on pretty little Ronda - it felt good to be home.