Mallorca!

Then I found a ridiculously cheap ticket to Palma de Mallorca, so I went there!

I left Thursday after work and was picked up at the airport by yet another lovely couchsurfing host. This is embarrassing but I’m not 100% sure of his name. Technically it’s Juan Luis, but I work with a Juan Luis who goes by Juanlu, so, who knows.

Sidenote: like in Mexico, most everyone has a nickname, and it’s fun how they names get chopped, like Fede(rico) or changed, like Pepi (from Josefina). OH. I also work with another guy named José Carlos (a very normal name), but somehow, as a result of the Andalucian accent and my stupidity, I JUST figured out that that’s his name—to me it sounded like Jose Caldo (which means “broth”) Oops. Even so, I don’t think anyone noticed I’ve been saying it wrong this whole time. When you mumble, you get away with lots.

Aaaaanyways. Mallorca. So this guy picked me up, we dropped off my stuff at his apartment (where I had my own room and everything), and we went to a couchsurfing meeting, which, in actuality, was just a bunch of hosts and couchsurfers hanging out at a bar downtown. Twas funsies, then we went home and crashed.

The next day, my host had to work, so I left to go exploring. I found a café, which I picked because it didn’t appear to be swarming with tourists, and it turned out to be run by a French lady. She seemed to know everyone who came in there, Spanish and guiri alike. I camped out with a café con leche (which is now officially a treat again, now that I’m not drinking coffee every morning anymore) and Carlos Fuentes till I got bored. OH and I realized they had bagels, which for the most part don’t exist in Spain, so obviously I got lunch to go.

Then I basically just wandered around for hours and hours and hours. I didn’t really go in anything because the time I got moving, stuff was already starting to close down for siesta. Oh, but I did see some Arabic baths.

Everything was beeeeautiful, though. I think when people think Mallorca, they just think beach, but it is a really really pretty city.

Remember this for later:

This big tent that was set up all weekend as a demonstration about Saharan independence. To me, it just looked like a table with some information and a petition to sign, and a big tent with people hanging out in it and drinking tea.

Sobrasada is a kind of sausage that Mallorca is famous for. Since then, I've seen it on menus here in Sevilla but I'd never noticed it before. Yay for one more word on menus that I understand!

In the entrance to the library. I snuck some pictures of the weird statues-- little red riding hood, devils, etc., and left, but then curiosity got the best of me and I went back in and asked what their deal was. The security guy said they're statues with traditional dress but they'd been dressed up for carnaval. :) 

Since I was there for a few days, I definitely would have had time to go see other cities, but I decided against it. Part of me felt like I should be in super tourist mode but the other part (which I ended up paying attention to), knows that as long as I’m happy and enjoying things, there’s no need to do or see all the stuff you’re supposed to do and see.

Sidenote: there are MILLIONS of tourists there. Most of them German. I sort of knew that before going there, but I didn’t really think there would be thaat many. Signs and menus  and stuff were pretty much all in Castillian, Mallorquí (a dialect of Catalán), English, and German. Mallorquí is actually used a fair bit, I think. Host #1 said that when he hangs out with friends who are all from there (he’s from Zaragoza and in Mallorca for work), they speak in Mallorquí to each other and in Castillian to him. If you know one well, you can understand the other, except for a few things here and there, apparently.

Then Friday afternoon, I met up with Juan (? Haha) to try to see the inside of the Cathedral, but it was shut. Soo we just walked around some more, went for a coffee, and then I moved my stuff from his house to my second host’s house. It was raining during this transit (and had been the day before), so that was an unpleasant bus trip, but it cleared up the next day, and by Sunday it was really sunny.

So I found host #2’s house, but he was training with his water polo team, so he showed up later. His roommate Harry (a British guy doing the same English teaching thing as me..sorry, as I) was supposed to let me in, but he was dying in bed of a combination of several illnesses, so their friend Salvador/Sal (a Portuguese guy studying there) let me in and entertained me till León (the host, who is from Alicante, and no, no one I met was actually from Mallorca) got home.

Fun factoid, which Harry usually likes to share with people as soon as they meet Sal, but couldn’t, as he was in bed with the plague, so I didn’t find out till Sunday night), but he was on the Portuguese version of American Idol.

I didn’t get to meet one of the other roommates, León’s best friend Rodrigo, cause he was at home in the Canary Islands dealing with family stuff, and I didn’t meet the fourth till Sunday, who is a guy from Colorado and who was traveling with his parents. BUT even so, their apartment was reeeally fun.

And there were a bunch of people visiting for meals and hanging out and whatnot. There were two other Couchsurfers, a couple girls from Poland, but they were pretty much only there at night. And there was a dog, Thay, who is a huskey that they got from the pound a couple months ago and who I actually liked.

Anyways, Friday night, we made a big pasta dinner and then some of their friends came over, and then we eventually went to a bar on the boardwalk, where all the bars and clubs in the city are. Ooh and their buses run all night there, so that was a nice treat.

Saturday morning, León had to take Harry to the hospital (sounds dramatic, but you go to the ER on nights and weekends when clinics are closed), so I left to go wandering around again. That weekend (and also the  next, in some places) was Carnaval, so I spent a good bit of time watching the festivities, which included parades, shows, free food, and millions of people dressed up. Spaniards don’t really dress up for Halloween, but they sure do for Carnaval.

This was my favorite. Esp. the pie pan on his back. 

Don Quijote and Sancho Panza (who had a big fake belly)

The most famous one is in Cadiz, but I got this ticket before I thought about that, so I didn’t get to see it. People also say that there are so many people in Cadiz that it takes hours to leave the city and that you can hardly move around, so while I’m sure it’s fun, Palma’s was probably a lot more comfortable. Oh, also from the facebook pictures I've seen, it looks like people think up costumes that are a lot funnier in Cadiz. That surely contributes to their country-wide reputation as a hilarious bunch of people.

Look familiar?

Ensaimada! Usually a plate-sized treat, typical of Mallorca, but the city (or ayunamiento or comunidad, I can't keep the levels straight), provided a huge one!

I waited in line for maybe 15 minutes and was rewarded with two: one of sobrasada (the sausage stuff) and another with some dried fruit. There was also freshly squeezed OJ and coke up for grabs.

Then when León got back, we met up and he took me to this castle that’s nearby, but it was shut when we got there. Sad day.

Then we went back to his apartment and made stuffed eggplants (yum!!!).  A bunch of people came over and we ate and assembled costumes to go to an Erasmus party. I hadn’t planned on dressing up, so I went with a classic last minute outfit…dressing all in black and painting whiskers on my face with eyeliner.  So we went to these people’s house and then later to another bar on the boardwalk.  It was kind of hilarious to see everyone walking around dressed up!

That's Leon, in the yellow, drawing a Portuguese cross on Sal's face, who just wore that and a soccer scarf and called it a day. Also that's my only picture of myself dressed up...haha.

Sunday, after a late start of waking up and sitting around, León, Harry (who was a lot better by then), Sal, Ethan (the American guy who’d reappeared in the house that morning), and I eventually made four pizzas (for five hungry people and leftovers) and devoured those while watching soccer. One of the pizzas had eggs on it (like a couple just cracked on top and cooked), and it was surprisingly good. Still unclear whether that’s a León thing or a Spain thing…

Then we took Thay for a walk and went to a café overlooking the harbor, had wine, and watched the sunset. How picturesque, no?

And we went to see the inside of the cathedral, which was super nice and extremely tall. Sal had stayed outside with Thay and asked how it was when we got back. León, an architecture student, reported that it’s a lot prettier on the outside than the inside, to which Sal responded, “like most women.” Heh. 

Not really sure what the decoration in the middle is.

Aanyways, we walked back to their house, I grabbed my stuff, took a bus to the airport, and had a lovely flight home to start another exciting and enjoyable week of work! (Imagine all the sarcasm possible).

More to come later on work and day-to-day Sevilla stuff.

Peace!

The One about Rome

Then I went to Rome!

Aside from my trips to visit people, this was my only trip with a specific destination and not just one of the “why not” ones. While I suppose I could have crammed the trip into a weekend, I decided to take a Thursday and a Monday off and make a decent vacation out of it. I’m way too slow getting out the door, and I enjoy sitting around in cafes way too much, so I need my time...

So that this post isn’t extravagantly long (I think I had around 500 pictures, though now I’ve narrowed it down to about half), I’m gonna try a different format. Get excited.

PEOPLE

I stayed with a fantastic Couchsurfing host named Simone. He’s one of those couchsurfers that has hosted a million people and I was convinced he wouldn’t take someone with as few references as I have, but it turns out a kind, personalized request works wonders. He showed me around town, took me out, slept on the couch and let me have his bed, and put his friend in charge of entertaining me when he had to go out of town for work for a night.

This picture is from the first night, after he and his friend picked me up from the airport and we went to a bar in Trastevere.

Another night, I hung out with another couchsurfing person, Giuseppe, who was too busy to host me for four days, but I went and walked around the city and got gelato and saw buildings and whatnot with him.

Another couchsurfer that was at Simone’s for two nights (he forgot and overbooked) was this girl named Aida, who I do believe is the first Lithuanian I’ve met. It was nice to have a touristing companion. She’d been to Rome before, so she didn’t need to go in all the famous places (that I had seen in the preceding days,) but it was nice to have someone to walk around all day and explore and get lost and eat with. She knew some great places that were tucked away, so that was nice. She goes to school in France and works for one of those groups that takes pictures in bars and then gives out the website’s card. So I thought that was interesting. The day included many stops to take pictures with her huge, fancy camera when she saw something cool, like this fish statue.

And, last but not least under the heading of human contact was Simone’s friend Gabriele, who I hung out with when Simone was gone. No pictures of him, but I did take some of the stuff we did.

We went to a crazy up modern art exhibit:

And we walked around a bunch, when suddenly we got to this fancy official looking freemason building with a few people crowded around the locked door. I was confused, until he instructed me to look through the keyhole.

Very Da Vinci code esque, no?

I’ll toss this self portrait from my day of solo touristing under there too:

FOOD

In summary: delicious, but hard to avoid the touristy places, even if you walk into little back streets.

My first time eating out, I gave up looking and went to one of those places, which was of course expensive, so I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, without actually understanding what it was.

Oops:

I also got to have real pizza, thanks to a place that Aida had found. I did not know this, but in a lot of pizza places, they have the display thing filled with a bunch of differently topped ovoid pizzas. You tell the person how much you want, then they cut you off a piece, weigh it, and you pay by the weight. So you can get lunch for 2 euros as opposed to the 6 euro cracker with Spanish ham pictured above. The issue is that in many eateries, you have to pay extra to sit down.

Eating said pizza, plunked down on an oversized flowerpot in the middle of a plaza:

Gelato. YUM. Giuseppe took me to this place that is apparently famous and that Michelle Obama went to and whatnot:

And, last but not least in the food pictures, classy Italian pasta:

Other food items worth mentioning (but of which I didn't take pictures) included a nutella biscuit/cake/flaky pastryish slice of heaven, which was the first nutella I'd had since I told myself I have to stop devouring it on a regular basis. And a frozen chocolate/coffee drink that, when recommended and described to me, I thought was gonna be like a starbucks mocha, liquid with ice. But no. It was like a mix between shaved ice and ice cream and chocolate and coffee and awesomeness. Oh and all of this (and gelato) is served with a huge dollop of cream on top. Yum.

BUILDINGS/ A HANDFUL OF REALLY HALF-HEARTEDLY SELECTED PHOTOS CAUSE I’M GETTING TIRED OF THIS POST

Part of the Vatican Museums was all the gifts the popes had been given from different heads of state. Most were really fancy and impressive except for this awkward one that I suspect was ordered for two easy payments of $19.99 from the Sunday coupons. With love from Richard Nixon:

This is a crypt at a monastery that I didn't even know existed, but when I was there, Suzanne wrote me and recommended that I visit. So Aida and I did, and it was suuuper cool. I wasn't supposed to take this picture, and I did it from my pocket, so that's why it's bad. I'll paste another so you can get a better idea of what it looked like.

Good enough of a sampling, I think.

Peace!

The Valencia Post

Another belated tale of a trip. I wanted to post it before I leave for this weekend and get even more behind.

The weekend of January 20-22, i.e. from that Thursday night to that Sunday morning, I went to Valencia!

That Thursday I went to work, nothing remarkable, went home, packed some snacks, and took the little bus to the airport. Lovely Ryanair flight (read: kind of uncomfortable but you get what you pay for, so, whatever), took a metro to meet up with my lovely Couchsurfing hostess, a girl named Ananda who’d been hosted but had never before hosted. 

We walked to her apartment, had some quiche that she and her sister made, chatted aaand went to bed.  She’s also 22, studies poly sci, and lives with her sister, who was hardly there (and who let me use her bed, yay!) and an insane cat that they recently took in.

Friday I woke up earlyish and we went to the supermarket (proper Couchsurfing etiquette usually entails buying your own food, I’ve learned.) Then we came back and had breakfast.

Sidenote: when Spaniards eat cereal, they pop a mug or bowl of milk in the microwave, sometimes add chocolate powder (Cola Cao, which is a brand name, and an expensive one at that, and the most standard that all chocolate milk mix is called that), and then add cereal. I was so confused that first weekend in Spain when Chani’s mom put a bowl of milk in front of me.

So that day, Ananada (the hostess) was busy doing something with her mom and grandma, so she gave me a little map so I could go touristing and we agreed on a meet-up time  in the evening. She even gave me her Valencia version of a Sevici card, trusting that I would not crash a bike on her account or run up a huge charge. So that was nice.

The first place I went was the Museo del Fallero. Las Fallas is a big festival that Valencia is famous for where a bunch of artists make ridiculously tall (height of surrounding buildings) floats, topped with life-size wax/cloth/wood figurines, then the whole city gathers round and parties and burns the floats.

The float toppers are often satirical social commentary, sometimes related to a movie or something popular at the time, sometimes related to the festival itself with the traditional dress and whatnot, etc. etc. The partiers vote on a winning float topper, which is then saved from being burnt/melted and it’s saved and put in this museum, where they have the winner from each year since 1934 (and the promotional poster from that year.)

This is what the floats look like before they’re set on fire:

And here’s some of the niñots:

I guess there’s also like a beauty pageant each year, so the winner gets painted and put in this gallery:

That day it was kind of cloudy and cold and generally unpleasant, so I took advantage of the “City of Arts and Sciences” (I think the actual name was in Valenciano, but I can’t remember it.)

Another sidenote: in addition to Castellano, lots of people there speak Valencian, which depending on your point of view, is a language, dialect of Catalan (which is a language), or a dialect of Catalan (which is a dialect of Castilian. Or something like that. From what I could see, in the city it’s a lot less used than Gallego was in the cities in Galicia. Though some things were in it, like all the plaques with the titles and descriptions in the fallero museum, and at least some classes in secondary school are taught in it. Ananda said she used to know how to speak it but doesn’t really remember, though she can understand it. Walking around, we only heard it once (outside a market by a middle aged/older lady.)

Anyways, I wnet to see this this City of Arts and Sciences, a few blocks with like 7 different buildings: aquarium, opera house, Imax place, etc. shaped like different things, like one is supposed to look like a big eye, another is supposed to look like a whale skeleton, etc.

Then I spent the afternoon in the aquarium, which is the biggest in Europe and had all the stuff divided up, like there was one building with arctic, another with antarctic, a mediterraean thing outside, etc.

This is not a close-up:

The aquarium also happens to have the longest aquarium tunnel in the world, I do believe:

I happened to catch the dolphins when they were training:

Then to kill time before meeting back up with Ananda, I went and camped out at a café and read and had buñuelos, which I’d read I was supposed to eat there, which were, like a good merienda (afternoon snack), a variation of fried dough, with the super thick dunking chocolate. Amazing. Oh. I also had horchata, which is big in Valencia. I thought it was a Mexican thing. Guess they had to get it from somewhere.

Then I met up with Ananda and we ate dinner, took naps, and went bar hopping cause it was her friend’s birthday. Lovely kids.

Saturday we woke up late and went to the centro. On the way we were stopped by an old lady who was like “excuse me, do you girls have a second?” We thought either she was going to ask for directions, ask for money, or was crazy and just talking. Nope. Option four. She told us a dirty joke and went on her merry way.

In the centro, we saw the mercado central (this guy just walked in my picture; I didn’t mean for it to be that creepy):

Lots of pretty plazas (complete with a peta-esque demonstration):

La lonja (I think this building had something to do with the silk trade):

First braille city map I’ve seen:

This ice cream store apparently has reeeeally weird flavors. Like lentil, garlic, gazpacho, ham... I’m sad it was shut:

The cathedral:

More plazas:

I didn’t actually eat any paella there, but I did see these guys, headed to a party or something:

Some Valenciano:

Then I climbed the belltower stuck to the church, El Miguelete, and saw stuff like this:

Old city gate:

Then the clock stuck four. It was deafening:

Thennn Ananda’s stepdad picked us up and we went to his and her mom’s house, which was on the beach and by this super cool marina:

And we played Wii with her sister, who was 12 (aka my students’ age.) It was fun, though, because she was how I expected my students to be: fascinated with my being American, though in reality, it was more of a fascination with my being from the same country as Miley Cyrus and Zac Efron.

UPDATE: So I wrote this on the bus this morning and am now at home posting it. Today at work, though, someone said something about English people..which they aaalways think I am. It usually goes something like this... them: [random question about England] me: don't know. I'm American. them: really?!?? me: yep. them: [random question about American pop culture]. Today's was if I know Miley Cyrus.

Oh, so, Ananda's stepdad also made a fabulous merienda for us: he made chocolate and set out millions of cookie-type things to dunk in it. (My being healthy thing doesn’t apply on trips.)

That night we went back, watched a movie, and crashed.

Thenn Sunday I woke up and ate breakfast and left!

Whoo anticlimactic ending!