Buon Natale!

Merry Christmas!
I am in Rome at an internet cafe, waiting to head out to Venice and Croatia. I passed Christmas eve outside the Vatican, it was gorgeous.
I met some great friends, and Dan and I cruised all around the different sights with them. I am thinking about all my friends and family this holiday season, and I hope you are passing the time well!

To family, and to friends new and old!





Save me some egg nog.

Córdoba! (how many times am I going to say Mesquita in this post?)

Dan called me up and asked if I wanted to meet up in Córdoba for a weekend trip. I was pretty excited about it; my plan when I came to Spain was to travel just about every weekend. However, I ended up living in Cádiz. I love this city, and there is so much to do here that I don't feel the need to travel. Because of this, Córdoba would be my first weekend trip.

As it turned out, one of my friends here in Cádiz (Paige) was traveling to Córdoba as well, and had already bought her train ticket. I simply took her itinerary to the train station and asked the man to set me up in seats next to her. I was to arrive in Córdoba 5 hours or so before Dan.

Paige was going to visit her cousin's best friend, Tracy, who lives in Cordoba with her Spanish boyfriend and his friend. They all picked Paige and I up at the train station and took me to their flat (one block from the Mesquita). There they fed me and offered me a place to stay if something fell through with Dan's friends. All of this, even though I wasn't invited and they didn't even know I was coming.

Over the course of the weekend, they showed all of us around the streets during the day and the clubs during the night. They introduced us to their friends and were constantly buying me meals and drinks, not letting me repay them. Fernando even gave me a pair of his shoes so I could get into a night club. He and Jorge might be some of the most generous people I have ever met. On top of that, they are funny and great to hang out with.

Change of topic, kinda.

Cordoba is a city with two distinct personalities, both of which are very lovely. First off, there is the new city, full of shops and restaurants; new buildings mixed with the old. (Since this is Spain, "new" buildings are those built since the 1800's) There is a very beautiful Calle Ancha that 3 weeks ago was already being decorated for Christmas. The nightlife centers around this area with trendy bars and discos of all types.

At the center, there is the old part, the casco antiguo. This is an area of very beautiful buildings and gardens dominated by the Mesquita and the Cathedral of Cordoba. I don't even have the words to describe the beauty of this building and even though I took dozens of pictures, I don't think any can do it justice. The Mesquita is a beautiful Moorish mosque that was begun in 785, after the muslims demolished a Christian church on the site. The Catholics were still upset about this, and in the 1500s when they tore down a section in the middle of the building and built a gothic dome and chapel. The official literature, printed in 6 different languages and given to all who visit, has this to say about the origins of the "Cathedral of Córdoba" (its official name):

It is a historical fact that the basilica of San Vicente was expropriated and destroyed in order to build what would later be the mosque, a reality that questions the theme of tolerance that was supposedly cultivated in the Córdoba of the moment.

This is, I believe, rather indicative of the official Spanish historical position regarding the Moorish invasion. It makes me smile.

Right outside the Mesquita is a little bar with an incredible Spanish omelette and salmorejo that I enjoyed twice. It is a very small but famous place, and people carry food out to eat on the steps outside the Mesquita.

The last day, after one and a half hours of sleep, we visited to Arab baths. It was an incredible experience that lasted an hour and a half, alternating between a cold pool, medium pool, hot tub and aromatherapy sauna. There was a also a short massage included. The entire time was almost silent while some very soft arabic music played in the background. We went straight from this to a small breakfast and a nap by the river. Win!

More Pictures!!!

Mesquita count: 6

Teasers and Spoilers

I know I'm behind on this blog, but I'm working on it. Until I catch up, heres a quick spoilers/teasers list:

• I have an apartment near the beach in Cádiz
• My mailing address is: 

Avendia Jose Leon De Carranza 18 7ºC

p/c 11011 Cádiz, Cádiz España

• I have a new photo album up 
• I am on a swim team here, and swimming every day.
• I am really getting into my job, I love working with the kids.
• My Spanish is getting a lot better, I am losing my shyness speaking it.
• I haven't done any traveling, but I am definitely OK with that because I love this city. But now i have Fridays off, so I might start seeing what's out there.

Ill expand a little later

Getting lost / La Barrosa

When I finally emerged from my cave, I walked out onto the beach and finally took in my surroundings. Even after the recent storm, which lasted way into the night, and the cloudy sky that persisted through the day, this was truly a stunning spot. I believe it is one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever been to.

Above: If you look closely, you can see the castle up on the hill :)

As I was walking around, I was stopped by more than one group of Germans who, upon seeing my height and blonde hair assumed I was German and started asking me something or other in their language. What followed was a rather awkward tri-lingual conversation away from which we all walked away feeling unsatisfied

I decided I was going to get to know Chiclana. After very little research (asking one dude at a bar) I decided I needed to heard back to the center of Chiclana. Being very proud of the strong legs I had developed walking around Munich and Barcelona, I decided I would walk. Maybe now I should show you a map of Chiclana, so you don't make that same mistake.

Zoom out once

View Larger Map

I saw a map similar to this before I set out, but I neglected to look at the scale of the map. The line I put here is 5 miles long, but it is straight. And when you think five miles, you won't imagine that the street is nowhere near as straight as it looks here. Also when you think five miles, you probably don't think you'll be walking mostly in the moto/moped lane on a provincial highway. Since you are walking on this highway, which is on 3 bus lines, you'd think that if you got tired you could just stop at a bus stop, wait for a bus, and one would eventually show up. You'd also think that in a region that sees about 3,000 hours of sun a year it wouldn't rain all day after a morning that only saw a light cloud cover. Ill cut this short and just say you'd be wrong on all counts, and also that there is even less between Chiclana Central and La Barrosa than it looks like.

As soon as I made it into Chiclana Central, the weather of course cleared up. It was siesta time, so everything was closed, but I was able to grab a badly needed coffee at a small place. After that, I had a great few hours getting myself completely lost and not minding at all. I knew I needed to find a place to live but I wasn't worried about it that day. i was caught up in the fact that I was here in Spain. For the first time, as I wandered around, the enormity of what I had done and what I was doing hit me. My excitement gave me the energy to wander on what felt like every street in Chiclana. I saw some really beautiful things but of course did not have my camera with me. I may try to hunt these places down again in the next few months.

I took the bus back to my hostel, wandered out to the beach to watch the sunset (I'm going to make an album of more pictures, these included, and link to it somewhere here), and had a great meal down by the beach before finally turning in after a few beers at the hostel bar.

Arrival

This is an old post I wrote shortly after arriving in Cádiz. I don't know why it didn't get uploaded earlier:

The closest airport to Chiclana is Jerez, so after some last minute scrambling using the only really weak wifi signal I could find from our hotel room in Barcelona, I set myself up with not only a flight to Jerez, but a tentative bus schedule to get me from Jerez to Chiclana. I also scouted out how to get to the barcelona airport form my hostel. It was a little stressful, because the train I was planning on taking was sold out and the internet kept blinking in and out. Whatever. I booked my flight and went to bed at about one in the morning so I could get plenty of sleep before I caught my 7:30 bus. It was all rather uneventful; I paid my extra €30 for my overweight luggage and I was on my way to Jerez!

View Larger Map

Sweet, there would be no problems getting to my prebooked hostel and preparing myself for a simple apartment hunt before I had to report to my school in 3 days.

First off, I overestimated how ready I'd be for Spanish. Studying a language for a few years in high school and two semesters in college is not good enough for sudden complete immersion after 3 years of atrophy. Everything went rather smoothly, even when I got to Chiclana. I had assumed that it was a very small town, which turned out to not be true. But I tagged along with a German family who was also going down to the beach (La Barrosa) of Chiclana. Among the 4 of us adults, we combined our skills to match those of at least one passable Spanish-speaker, and we made it on the right local bus.

I made it down to the beach area, asking the bus driver where my street was, as it didnt seem to exist on any maps I saw. The bus driver couldn't tell me anything, but a couple just happened to overhear my floundering Spanish and recognized the name of my hostel. They came up to me as the bus was beginning to close its doors and told me I needed to get off with them at this stop. I gathered up all of my bags and scrambled off the 

bus as quickly as I could. They were very patient, given that my brain was so fried at this point that Spanish was to me more like that mumbling language Furbys speak. But they pointed in

 the direction of my hotel, saying "El Campanario" a few times, I understood that.

The weather.

That made things a little more complicated, but I stayed in good sprits.

The beach was completely abandoned, which makes sense, I guess. Why would anyone go outside when its raining? Also it is now the off season for tourism in a city that sees its population triple when the beach bunnies come south from Germany and the rest of northern Europe. I took shelter under the awnings of shut-up beachside restaurants and made dashes during breaks in the storm. It was only about 2/3 of a mile from the bus stop I got off at, which was a much shorter walk than Dan and I had either in Munich or Barcelona. However, it felt like quite the trek, as frazzled as I was and with the weather.

I finally arrived at the hostel, bought a sandwich at the attached bar, and went into my room. I didn't emerge until sunset the next day.

Oktoberfest Continued

I am in the airport in Munich waiting for my flight to Barcelona after having gone through the most geologically slow security line I’ve ever been in. Added to this frustration is the fact that both Dan and I had to pay huge weight overage charges to check our baggage. Although we had paid the fee so we could each check two bags, our overall weight limit of 23 kilos did not increase. My bags were initially 37 kilos, but I shuffled some things around, pulled out another carryon bag, and got my total weight to 27 kilos. This would seem to me a greater success were the fee for weight overage not 10 Euro per Kilo.

 

With that as an introduction, hello and welcome back to my blog, being an account of my travels and adventures in Germany, Spain and beyond. This week and a half, until I settle in Cádiz, Spain, I am traveling with my friend, Dan Berve. He will eventually settle in Baeza after our paths split in Barcelona.

From what I have seen of Berve’s blog, it will read more like a step-by-step log where I will likely not be as specific about most events.

 

To revisit our Munich adventures:

After we eventually made it to our hotel despite a few wrong turns, we rested a bit, exhausted and starving. The hunger eventually won out and we made the trek to the fairgrounds and Oktoberfest! I dragged Dan from stand to stand looking for a passable schnitzel, and when we finally found one, I dug in and polished it off quickly as we walked to the nearest beer tent. There was an issue checking into the hotel that I will describe later (I try to avoid coming across as whiny, so I will spread out the bad news), so we really wanted to sit down and have a beer. We wandered from tent to enormous tent, looking for a table to sit at and we couldn’t believe that we couldn’t find a place to sit, or any discernable way to get our hands on a beer. As far as we could tell we were the only stone sober people in the building, and while it was an incredible sight to see thousands of people crammed together singing German drinking songs and generally making jolly, we were really craving that beer. It had been raining lightly all day (as it would for our entire trip; though sitting here in the airport I notice the weather is quite nice now) so while there were outdoor beer gardens outside each tent, they were nearly empty and all the tables and benches were very wet.

We eventually gave in and sat down outside the Augustiner Bräu tent, which was maybe the fourth we visited. There were a few people sitting at the tables and we sidled up next to a group of rowdy Australians. On of them, Spongy (He had a spongebob belt buckle, a stuffed spongebob toy hanging from his belt, and a picture of spongebob tattooed on his right butt cheek and was not shy to show all of them to anyone who asked his name.), said to us, “Don’t even try to sit in the tents, its fun but this is where the real party is, once it gets dark. You’re lucky you stopped here, this is the best damn beer here!”

And it was. We were introduced to the server for our area, Tommy, and for 10 euro he served up a litre of Augustiner Bräu. The Aussies had been at this same tent, at the same table for 3 days and had a great rapport with Tommy and his brother, Alex. We sat at the same table each night as well, even after the Aussies left, and quickly got to know the servers and vendors that worked our section. In addition, we met many people from Germany and elsewhere who sat in our section.

 

More later, my plane is about to board.

 

Prost!

Russ

Leaving fair Munich

Hello!

I am writing this from the hotel in Munich, trying to put off packing up my stuff. Its amazing how much one can unpack in four days of sightseeing and Oktoberfest!

The people here are great, and not just at the festival. The first day, we rode the train from the airport into town. Following directions printed from the hotel's website, we got off the train in a suburb of Munich and lugged our baggage onto a city bus and walked 3 blocks into a residential neighborhood. We reached 16 Shillerstrasse, and it turned out to be an apartment building. There was nobody to be seen on the streets in any direction, so we just stood around for a little while wondering what to do, when a man parked his car nearby and started unloading groceries. I walked up to him and asked about the hotel. His name was Robert. While apologizing for his english, which was actually quite good, Robert explained we needed to go further into Munich. The Schillerstrasse we were looking for lay in the city itself, very close to the central station. After he told us that and saw us walking off, he pulled up in his car and gave us a ride back to the station.

Every night at Oktoberfest we drank our first beer to him.

I need to get going to the airport now.

Prost!

Russ