Final Travels, Final Words

The next 9 ½ hours on my flight to Miami (before connecting back home to Atlanta) will certainly allow me ample time to think, write, and reflect as I leave this country I have come to love so much. First I’ll fill you guys in on what I’ve been up to my last few weeks in Spain and then I’ll share some of my thoughts and conclusions about this experience. This is going to be a very long entry my friends, so go grab a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and settle in.

As to be expected, finals week was crazy. Since there are so many cultural distractions in Sevilla during April it is all too easy to neglect a month’s worth of work and then have it hit you like a ton of bricks when you actually have to be tested on it. Granted, study abroad finals are nothing compared to normal university finals but it was stressful all the same. All 4 of my final exams fell on the last Thursday of finals week, I still had to pack up my entire life into 2 (ok 3, I had to buy duffle to accommodate purchases) suitcases, go out Thursday night to celebrate the last night of our program, and be out of my homestay Friday. I also had to plan my post-program travels, book hostels, organize finances, and coordinate train schedules for my additional 10 days in Spain (although Roman did most of it for me). So yes, it was stressful.

I will never forget my last night out with the people I have come to love so much here in Sevilla. The entire night I was beaming so brightly I thought I might explode with happiness as my whole world came together and convened in Alfalfa (the city center). It was a perfect night. I spent all day Friday packing (and recovering) then left with Roman to begin the first leg of my travels in Merida, the capital of the Extremadura region in Spain. We stayed in a gorgeous, brand new apartment with awesome feng shui, a buddah, and a complementary bottle of champagne. The town was very quaint with tons of history and ruins from the roman empire still in unbelievable condition. We went on a night tour of an amazingly well preserved roman amphitheater and old arena where gladiators used to fight. It was very guay (cool).

Sunday afternoon Roman drove me over an hour away to another small town where I could catch a bus to Lisbon, Portugal and continue traveling around Spain and Portugal by myself. If there is anything I’ve learned about myself since being in Spain, it’s that I’m not a city girl. That much has become glaringly apparent after the extensive travel that I’ve done these past 4 months. Experiencing so many new places has allowed me to hone in on the fact that nature, simplicity, open spaces, big mountains, and steep cliffs are what call to me… not so much museums, cathedrals, and metropolitan areas. I appreciate their significance, but I don’t yearn for their presence like I yearn to be connected with my natural surroundings. Specifically, I’m referring to the fact that the entire world seems to be in love with Lisbon and I was quite surprised that I was rather impartial. I enjoyed my time there, especially touring St. George’s Castle, but much like Barcelona, it’s not the place for me. I like walking out my front door and seeing land, open spaces and fresh air, not a maze of metro stations, bus stops, and buildings. Growing up in Atlanta, I used to love big cities and find them so invigorating, so full of life… but it seems my tastes have changed over the years.

PORTO, however. I loved Porto. Maybe because I love wine. Maybe because it is a free spirited artist town. Maybe because it is totally unique and kinda funky. Or maybe because it was just breathtakingly beautiful. The hostel I stayed in was a 100 year old restored building turned into a contemporary art gallery with themed floors. My floor was Portuguese writers, another was Portuguese painters, another Portuguese architecture, and the last… I don’t remember. On my second day in Porto my hostel (again, so awesome) somehow managed to pull some strings and get me a completely complementary tour and port wine tasting at Graham’s Port Winery, an extremely well respected winery whose port wine is distributed all around the world.

Quick interjection for a fun fact: it turns out that my uncle has met and knows personally the family that owns Graham’s. He owns his own wine and liquor store in Atlanta and likes to have a personal connection with the families whose products he carries. Family businesses supporting family businesses, very cool.

Anyways, Porto was so lovely and I wish I could have stayed, but northern Spain was calling and I couldn’t ignore the land of blue and green any longer. So, I found myself once again waking before the sun and catching an early morning train across the border from Porto up to Vigo in Galicia. From Vigo, I took another train to my final destination, La Coruña, on the northern coast of Spain. I was lucky enough to visit the northern coast of Cantabria in early April and loved it so much I had to come back. Galicia is stunning, the landscape and vegetation are SO GREEN from the rainy climate and the stark contrast of the immense cliffs jutting into the deep blue water of the Atlantic is truly awe-inspiring. The topography of Galicia is actually pretty similar to that of Ireland. And bagpipes are popular in both places. And both have excellent beer. In respect to the rest of Spain, the culture of Galicia is definitely very distinct. The majority of my time in Galicia was spent walking miles upon miles along the coast, touring the sites in my path, eating great seafood, and breathing in the salty ocean air. There is something truly special about the northern coast of Spain, a place I would recommend to anyone and everyone without hesitation.

I stayed in Galicia for two nights before packing up my things once again and returning home to Sevilla for a final and heart-wrenching goodbye (..until next time). In one day I traveled 12 hours on two trains and laterally traversed the entire country of Spain. Just watching the scenery gradually evolve from bright green mountains and rivers to flat, dry expanses of nothing, to gradually rolling foothills and acres of olive trees as I traveled further and further south was enough to make the 12 hour ride worth it.

Roman picked me up from the train station Saturday night and the two of us went to pick up the rest of my luggage from my Senora’s house where she had kindly let me store it while I traveled. Inma and I said our heartfelt goodbyes to one another and then I went to spend my last two nights in Sevilla with Roman in the house that he grew up in (but that his family doesn’t live in anymore). On Sunday we went to his house in the country where I was completely taken by the quantity of roaming kittens, terraces, and gardens, all enveloped in the sweet aroma of orange trees. His dad had just returned from the coast with fresh fish and invited us to join him for a late lunch. I was so excited to finally see Roman’s amazing house in the Andalucian countryside and aside from the heavy rain, or maybe because of it, it was a truly beautiful last weekend in Spain.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m gonna get hit pretty hard by reverse culture shock upon my return to the states. However, despite the fact that reality calls and I have to leave my fairy-tale life here in Spain, I am genuinely excited to return to the comfort and familiarity of my life back at home. Boulder is such a part of me and I feel its absence whenever I’m gone for too long! Here is a little synopsis of some of the life lessons I’m taking away from this experience:

1.  The importance of travel. I have always known that experiencing new places and new cultures is important, but never quite understood why to the degree that I do now. Living in a foreign and, by nature uncomfortable, culture forces us to adapt. When I left Boulder, I didn’t realize that to a certain degree my growth as an individual had become stagnant. It’s funny, because for the past few years I have been on a constant search of self-exploration and self-discovery, but only in the ways that were familiar to me; only in ways that had worked for me in the past (namely persistent positivity, physical health, and exercise). Thus I was growing, but growing within my comfort zone; still exploring myself, but only in a very specific context. I became very narrow minded in that I didn’t think any other lifestyle could bring so much light and joy into my life as my own; but Spain kind of shattered that belief for me. It forced me to adapt to a new way of viewing the world outside of my filtered lens and, when I stopped resisting the cultural differences, I found myself living a life completely different than my own, and a life similarly filled with so much light and life I could hardly contain it. This is why travel is so important to me; every new place we go teaches us something new about ourselves, gives us obstacles we must learn to overcome so that little by little we learn to navigate the vast spectrum of circumstances and challenges that life will inevitably throw at us. I think we have to allow ourselves to be in uncomfortable situations that test our limits, so that when the time comes we trust in our abilities and the world isn’t quite as scary of a place.

2.  My happiness is intimately tied to having deep, meaningful personal relationships, more-so, I believe, than for the average person. This has been tricky at times because friendships are often very dynamic and I depend on them as a sense of stability. Before coming to Spain I was nervous about distancing myself from that sense of stability because I didn’t think I would be able to find friendships of the caliber I “needed” so far away and in such a short period of time. That doubt, however, was shattered instantly upon my arrival here. Not only did I learn that the friends that really matter are not going anywhere, even if I do, but I also learned that I can meet people halfway across the world and form amazingly strong relationships with them without any history at all. That realization was perhaps one of the most liberating things I’ve learned abroad. Before moving to Spain I never would have considered the possibility of living in Europe by myself after graduation, but after this semester I trust myself in a way I never have before. Moving to Spain for a year in the near future is now becoming a very real possibility for me.

Here is a final tally of all the places I’ve traveled in the last 4 months:

Spain:

1. Sevilla
2. Cordoba
3. Cadiz
4. Granada
5. Ronda
6. Grazalema
7. Barcelona
8. Santander
9. Laredo
10. Bilbao
11. Huelva
12. Valencia
13. Malaga
14. Merida
15. La Coruña
16. Madrid

Other:

17. Morocco (tangiers, tarifa, chefcheaoun)
18. Prague
19. Lisbon
20. Porto

And now, one final hasta luego. I hope you've enjoyed reading about my life for the past 4 months. It's been an incredible journey :). xo

April travels: aka fairy tale month.

Hello cyberworld, I am finally back after a brief hiatus from writing about my life and travels. Let me fill you in on what my life has looked like these past several weeks!! But first, I'll preface this post with an explanation for why I have been able to travel so much in the past week and a half. Feria.

Feria is a massive, week-long celebration of Andalucian culture (mas o menos) in which everyone, and I mean everyone, dresses up in flamenco dresses, suits, and ties and enters the great Portada (door) where time essentially stops. They say that once you enter into la Feria, you could come back out hours or days later, lost in a foggy haze of rebujito (manzanilla and 7up) and totally disoriented. Think of Feria as an ENORMOUS carnival comprised of hundreds of casetas, really fancy tents owned by families with music, bartenders, and food that you must be invited into to join. There are also ferris wheels and cotton candy. During Feria, it is not uncommon for grandparents to be out until 4 or 5 in the morning dancing and drinking as though they were still in college. Unfortunately, I was only able to experience one day of Feria because I was traveling so much, but one day was all I needed to see.

"Inma, you press this button!"

The majority of cities in southern Spain don't have school for half the month of April. In fact, it is almost impossible to get anything productive done because there are so many cultural distractions. In the first week of April, classes are cancelled for Semana Santa and the last week of April classes are cancelled for Feria. What's more, the Tuesday after Feria (May 1st) is a national holiday and the whole city has the day off work to rest. In Spain, whenever class on Tuesday is cancelled, 90% of the time class on Monday will be cancelled as well to form a puente (bridge) from the weekend to the holiday. As if all this wasn't crazy enough... I made my schedule early on so that all 4 of my classes fall on Tuesdays and Thursdays, meaning (yep) that I had a whopping 1 day of classes in 2 weeks. Talk about living the good life!

Let me tell you what I did during those two weeks:

1. Valencia
The first weekend of Feria I went to Valencia with my interest group, Spanish Gastronomy. We had the most amazing weekend and ate paella from the city where it originated... aka tasting the best paella in the world. My interest group has become like a family to me and we had one of the fullest weekends I have had in a long time: of love, of friendship, of food, of wine, of culture, of sun. I even got to eat a true Valencia orange.

2. Barcelona
Instead of returning back to Sevilla on Sunday after Valencia, my good friend Cara and I took a 3.5 hour train to Barcelona where we booked a hostel and spent the night before flying out to Prague in the morning. I include Barcelona in my list of travel destinations because we spent all evening there on Sunday and the majority of the day there on thursday before our return flight to Sevilla on Friday. We ate at 1 amazing restaurant and 1 mediocre restaurant, visited Park Guell at night, and got REALLY good at using the metro system. It was great.

3. Prague
What can I say? I'm in love. Traveling to Prague is like boarding a plane in reality and getting off in fairy tale land. After 3 days of trying to place our fingers on the perfect adjective, Cara finally came up with "enchanting," which I believe describes the city beautifully. We stayed in a really nice hostel right in the center of the city and quickly became sponges, soaking up as much culture as we possibly could in the brief amount of time our boarding passes allowed. Almost all of the bars in Prague are underground, which provided a true "pub" experience and made me feel like I was drinking pitchers (upon pitchers...) of rich malty beer in an 18th century cave. We were lucky enough to meet up with one of my best friends, David, who is studying abroad there for the year and was the greatest tour guide! It was amazing to reconnect with a little piece of home all the way over in Prague. Cara's best friend and roommate Lindsey also happened to be traveling in Prague that week and so we spent a ton of time with her as well. The gothic architecture, cobblestone roads, giant castle overlooking the city, and aromatic charm were all truly magical.

Traditional Czech cuisine. 

Underground pub

A lock bridge: lovers put a lock with their initials on it here and then throw the key in the river. The city of romance!

David and I overlooking the city from Prague Castle

Rooftop drinks

Lennon's wall!

4. Malaga
I flew from Prague to Barcelona on Thursday afternoon and from Barcelona back to Sevilla on Friday morning, where I spent the day in bed recovering from my travels and meandering up and down the endless rows of casetas in la Feria. As much as I wanted to go out that night, I needed to listen to my body and give it a break because Saturday afternoon I would be off again to Malaga with my really close friend Roman to see the electronic/trance/house god Paul Oakenfold that night. Oakenfold was incredible and we stayed in Roman's flat on the beach until Monday evening when I finally returned back to Sevilla just in time for dinner. Roman and I spent the weekend eating great food, exploring little cities around Malaga such as Mijas (famous because instead of using taxis, the popular method of transportation is donkeys! not kidding.) and touring the house where Pablo Picasso grew up! Even though Malaga is only a little over 2 hours away from Sevilla, we somehow managed to spend 14 hours in the car over the course of the weekend (?!?-- aka the distance from Sevilla to Barcelona) listening to trace music and choosing the scenic routes through the mountains over the more direct ones that would have gotten us home faster.

Lunch by the sea

At the port

The beautiful mediterranean 

In Mijas

Up at the Parador (outlook) overlooking all of Malaga!

We were there right after sunset- it was beautiful

I don't know when my life suddenly converted into a fairy tale, but hey, I'll take it! I spent all day Tuesday in bed resting from 10 days of nonstop travel and all day Wednesday holed up inside CIEE panicking about all the work that has steadily accumulated over the last several weeks. But no pasa nada, I'll power through this weekend and get it done in time before finals next week. My program officially ends a week from today.

In other great news, as though I haven't already gloated enough in this post, I recently discovered that I will be able to extend my stay here in Spain a full 11 days after my program ends! There is so much of the country that I still want to see and this extra week and a half will give me the time to travel, reflect, and process all that's happened this semester before I close the chapter on my study abroad experience and open the next one to my senior year in Boulder. Roman and I are planning on traveling to northern Portugal together for the first weekend after the program ends and, from there, I will continue north by myself to explore Galicia, Asturias, and whichever other regions I feel drawn to when the time comes. Expect a final blog post about my reflections upon this entire study abroad experience sometime during those extended days of solo travel. But until then, back to studying!!! Even though it seems like my life is all fun and games here, I do have to buckle down every once in a while ;).

Hasta luego! xo

One Month Left??

One month?!? Just one more month left in Spain?! Where on earth has the time gone. It feels like yesterday that my Señora Inma picked me up from our hotel and brought me to her house for the first time. The month of April is notorious in Sevilla for racing by because students don't have class for half of the month! The first week in April is Semana Santa, Holy Week, for which classes are cancelled and the last week in April is Feria, a huge, week-long, 24 hrs 7-days-a-week festival characterized by manzanilla (a strong, dry white wine reminiscent of sherry) and 7up, flamenco dresses, and massive portales (a door-like structure that serves as the entrance into the festival). Most study abroad students stay in Sevilla to experience a day or two of the festivities and use the rest of the time off school to travel. I am no exception as next weekend I will be traveling to Valencia with my interest group (spanish gastronomy) to spend the weekend eating paella, drinking wine, soaking up the culture, and playing on the beach! From Valencia, my two best friends and I are going to catch a plane to Prague for a spend the week sightseeing and visiting a friend of mine who is currently studying abroad there. What a life :). I will return to Sevilla on Friday just in time to catch the last weekend of Feria!

Random interjection: You know the expression, "Life is like a roll of toilet paper, the closer you get to the end, the faster it seems to go"? Well that is how I feel right now, only in reference to my semester abroad.

With that said, there are still so many things I want to do/see before I go! Here are few of them:

1. Climb to the top of the Giralda, the bell tower on top of the cathedral and one of the most important symbols of Sevilla. It is the highest point in the city and there is actually a law prohibiting any building from surpassing it in height (although that is currently a big topic of contention).

2. Climb el torre de oro (golden tower), an old military watchtower in Sevilla. I pass it every day on my walk to class but have never been to the top! I hear it offers a great view of the city.

3. Spend more time getting lost. I feel like I could live here for years and still find hidden parts of the city tucked away in the windy cobblestone roads on a regular basis. Every neighborhood has such a unique flavor to it and I want to spend as much time as I can getting to know the parts of the city that are still unfamiliar. 

All in all, though, I feel like I've done a pretty great job thus far of taking advantage of my time in this beautiful city :). When the time comes to return home, I know I'll be able to say with confidence that I lived my life here to the absolutely fullest and without hesitation. But what am I saying right now?!? I still have a whole MONTH left of new experiences to have here! My time is Sevilla is far from being over, and I will suck up every drop of it in the meantime. That being said, I am off to go gorge myself at the chocolatería Ocumare! A chocolate shop only open on weekends from 4-9pm during certain months of the year with raw ingredients imported directly from Africa. Is the movie Chocolat coming to mind for anyone else?? 

See you all when I'm 10lbs heavier ;). Hasta luego! xo

Adventures on the northern coast of Spain!

It’s still dark outside as I’m writing this entry on the beginning of our 7 hour train ride from Santander back to Sevilla. Wow, what a phenomenal last 4 days. Russell and I spent the last 4 nights in Santander with a day trip to both Laredo and Bilbao. Santander is a beautiful fishing town in the Cantabria region of northern Spain and is famous for it’s seafood, abundant beaches, and rugged coastlines. On our first full day, Russell and I set out from our hostel and walked along the coast in search of as many scenic views and beautiful beaches as we could find. Santander is stunning, we spent the entire day walking the coastline and found some cliffs overlooking the sea that are going on my “20 most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen” list (it is filling up rapidly these days). I have never seen any sort of landscape like this one, the stark contrast between crystal blue water crashing violently against the vibrant green cliffs is truly magnificent. Other highlights of day 1: stumbling upon a marine life zoo 2: getting lost several miles away from our hostel and bar-hopping our way back 3: walking through a magical green forest with carvings made in the tree trunks.

The Harbor in Santander

Playa de los Peligros

A little tunnel obscuring a quiet, hidden beach

We found a little lagoon with tons of fun rocks to play on

View on the other side of the lagoon :)

Magic fairy forest (as I affectionately refer to it)

This overlook...

Playa del Camello

After a restful night in our hostel, Russell and I woke up the next morning and caught a bus to Laredo, another quaint fishing city on the northern coast. Not knowing exactly what to expect, we were both pleasantly shocked to have stumbled upon some sort of hidden paradise. Laredo is famous for “La Salve”, a 5km beach that arcs around el mar de Cantabria and offers amazing views of a small peninsula jutting out into the water. Russell and I walked la Salve from start to finish, stumbled upon a small ferry that transported us across the bay to the other side of (I want to say island, because that’s really what it felt like) Laredo where we had a delicious lunch of freshly caught seafood and chatted about how we were “living the life.” After lunch we set off to hike to the top of the aforementioned peninsula and, when we got there, ran into the ruins of some old Spanish fortress! It was AWESOME. The fortress overlooked the entire coast of Laredo, with views of the mountains, sandy beaches, and fishing boats in the background. As the two of us admired the landscape in respectful silence I made a mental note to move this place up to the top 10 of my “20 most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen” list.

The beginning of La Salve

Crossing the bay on a ferry

Russell and I grabbing a beer on the other side

Pausing for a picture

Some of the ruins from the fortress we found

The higher we climbed, the more beautiful Laredo became

This was the outlook from our highest point!

Day three of our journey was cloudy and chilly, so Russell and I decided to branch out from the coast and see what else Cantabria had to offer. We initially planned on traveling to Potes, a small village at the mouth of the mountain range Picos de Europa, but the bus schedule didn’t work out in our favor so we decided to hop on over to Bilbao en el pais Vasco instead. Bilbao is a great city with tons of culture and a very modern, European feel to it. After a delicious lunch and great conversation with some locals, Russell and I headed over to one of Bilbao’s most famous attractions: the Guggenheim museum. We saw “The Inverted Mirror” exhibit, an unbelievable collection of modern art and architecture that was fascinating and captured our attention for the duration of our stay. I wish I could show you guys some of the photography and architecture we saw inside but, unfortunately, pictures were prohibited. After the museum, Russell and I set off on a mission to find the “casco antiguo” or, old part of the city. We were pretty pressed for time before having to catch the bus back to Santander and heading in the complete opposite direction from the station, but we went anyways. Despite a valiant effort to find this cultural hotspot, we somehow missed the casco antiguo and ended up in the ghetto of Bilbao which…. although not quite as scenic, offered it’s own unique flavor to our journey. Several attempts at finding public transit later, we hopped onto our bus just in time and napped the entire 1 hr and 45 min back to Santander. We celebrated our last night in Cantabria over a series of excellent tapas, a hoppy local microbrew, and a barca game before retiring back to our room for the night.

The flower dog outside of the Guggenheim Museum

Inside the Guggenheim

Outside the Guggenheim

Bilbao

Que chulo! (how cool)

Of all the traveling I’ve done thus far, this trip may have been my favorite. The northern region of Spain truly has it all: ocean, beaches, mountains, rugged coastlines, rolling green foothills, everything…. I LOVED it! And there is still so much to see! Asturias, Castilla y Leon, Galicia, los Picos de Europa, I am already trying to plan another trip here if I can make it happen. So little time, so little time!

Hasta luego! xo

2.5 Months Later: Reflections on Spain

Despite my best intentions of blogging weekly, three sad entry-free weeks have passed without sharing any updates on my life here with ya'll (#southerncharm). Last weekend was my first FULL weekend in Sevilla since the beginning of March and, as fate would have it, I caught the stomach flu. It was very short-lived, but needless to say I spent the majority of the weekend resting in bed. As annoying/uncomfortable as it was, in retrospect it was a blessing-in-disguise because it forced me to stay home and fully recover from what had been a month of nonstop action as well as reflect a little more on my experience here. 


Wow, what a special and unique time the study abroad experience is! As any student studying in a foreign country will tell you, the experience is characterized by one giant messy clusterfuck (sorry for the language) of infatuation, exhaustion, amusement, nostalgia, fiesta, self-doubt, self-assurance, and, to sum it all up: LIFE! Life... but a very specific chunk of it that is quite removed from reality. Honestly, when am I going to encounter another opportunity quite like this one where I can get away with traveling to hidden gems every other weekend, meeting new people everywhere I turn, practicing a language I love daily, and living in the heart of southern Spain without having to worry about work, school (only a little), and the general responsibilities of day to day life?? Probably NEVER! This time in my life is so special that I truly need to squeeze as much juice out of those naranjos (orange trees) as I possibly can. That being said, it is important to reflect as well upon the times that have not been so fun here in Spain. I have felt lonely, struggled with relinquishing the control that I'm used to having over my life at home, experienced fatigue more times than I can count, and genuinely missed the familiar.


The thing is, though, discomfort is necessary to get the most out of this experience. If we never learn to test new waters and try on Spanish Ray Berries (ok, terrible metaphor) then what are we truly here for? I did not move to Spain to come back the same person. Life is a game of perspective; a beautiful game in which we hold the cards and can win every hand if we learn to play them right. In this light, loneliness is an opportunity to make new friends, relinquishing control is setting ourselves free from habit, fatigue is an opportunity to reflect rather than act, and nostalgia pushes us to fall in love again with the things in life we take for granted.


So when bad days look like that, how can you not be thankful for them??


Here are some quick snippets of what I've been up to lately:

I stayed in a hotel on a beach in Morocco

I walked on the coast of northern Africa

I went to a spice shop in Tetuan

I kissed a two-week old camel in Tangiers

I took a picture with our amazingly kind guide in Chefchaouen 

I had rooftop drinks overlooking the cathedral in Sevilla

I made new friends :)

After a very tranquil two weeks, I leave again tomorrow to explore the northern coast of Spain in Cantabria! I am taking a 7 hour train ride from Sevilla to Santander (stopping in Madrid) and am so excited I can barely handle it (it's Semana Santa next week so we don't have school, I will be traveling from Saturday to Wednesday). In planning this trip, I literally google imaged "northern coast of spain", "cliffs northern spain", and "scenic northern spain" then clicked on the prettiest pictures to decide where I wanted to visit (...before doing a little more extensive research). I originally planned to travel solo but my friend Russell has decided to tag along as well, so it'll be great to have some company as I frolick around the beaches, cliffs, and mountains of this gorgeous region. I can't wait to write about my adventure when I get back!! Hasta luego, xo.