Madrid, Spain

This morning, the girls and I got up bright and early, ate a spot of breakfast (bread and OJ) and headed to El Rastro, a street market only open on Sunday mornings. There were a ton of vendors and tents, and even more people all milling about. I bought some souvenir t-shirts, and Danielle and Kristin got some jewelry and belly chains/scarves. Another classmate (who went seperately, not with one of the girls) was almost pickpocketed, but then again, he was in a crowded flea market, with his wallet shoved in the sideways-opening pocket of a pair of baggy basketball shorts. (Don’t try this.)

Danielle, Kristin and I grabbed a snack at a pandería – some fresh bread, shaped like a turtle. (Ack! I ate a turtle!)

We walked around some more, soaking up the sights. There were Candidate City signs everywhere – Madrid is very proud to be considered for this distinction.

We went back to the dorm for lunch, but decided to go out to dinner. Unfortunately, our U.S. mindset of suppertime was about 3 hours off from the Spanish culture’s. So, we ended up walking maybe 5 miles in 2 hours, all the way downtown from the campus, before any restaurants started opening. (FYI – 9pm is an “early” dinner, if you can find a restaurant that’s open.) We ended up grabbing paninis at the Cafe & Té, which turned out to be awesome and affordable.

Incidentally, this is also when I ordered an iced coffee in Spain for the first time. They brought me an espresso (hot!) and I discovered to my surprise that I was expeced to cool it off myself with the accompanying sidecar of ice.

Then we wandered into the Retiro Park, which is Madrid’s answer to Central Park, and of all the bizarre things to see, one of the “people” by the fountain was someone in a Piglet outfit. Yes, capital P, as in Winnie the Pooh. (???) Madrid also has, as far as they know, the only statue of the devil in the entire world. It is a monument depicting Lucifer the angel as he falls into hell. (A cheery little thing. You know, for kids.)

The park was amazing. We barely saw a fraction of it, and we saw the amphitheatre (which had a free concert in progress) and a huge rectangular lake filled with little paddleboats for rent.

There was tons of Quixote stuff up for the anniversary, and I even saw a sign with the most common Spain slang word – “vale”, which means OK. (Not “Ballet”, which is what one classmate initially thought they were saying.)

Tags: food, music & concerts, shopping, travel tips

Málaga, Spain to Madrid, Spain

This morning, we packed up all our stuff and taxi’d to the train station to head to Madrid. I bought my own ticket (technically, I put it on my Eurail pass) so I was in first class. They brought by little glasses and a bottle of some sort of alcohol and asked me if I wanted any. First class = free, so I said sure, why not. It looked a little like bubble-less champagne. I took a healthy swig and almost died. (Clearly: not champagne.) That’s the last time I sample unknown alcoholic beverages on trains. I think it was straight alcohol, with a touch of artificial coloring just to throw tourists off track.

I had another little adventure when trying to go to the WC (WC = Water Closet = bathroom). I tried to swing open the door, but it was apparently a non-swinging door. I tried to pull it open and it didn’t budge. I tried to push it open more forcefully and nearly smacked into it. Finally (much to the amusement of the passengers watching this spectacle) I tilted the handle diagonally and the door magically slid open all by itself. (And closes automatically, too, so don’t stand there too long wondering at the marvels of technology.)

I also got to watch Shark’s Tale (in Spanish) on the train. It was a cute movie, but since it was dubbed, much of its humor got lost in translation. For example, the “rastafari” accents and the “italian mafia” accents just don’t have the same effect when spoken in Spanish.

So, we get to Madrid and taxi to the dorm, where a few more of Forspro’s truth-stretching shenanigans come to light. (If you’ll remember, the first part of the trip was allegedly in Málaga, but was actually an hour away.) The dorm isn’t actually *on* the University, but it is on the same street. And it’s actually in a “colegio”, which may *look* like “college” but is actually the Spanish word for high school. (The students are gone for the summer, which is how Forspro could rent out the rooms.) The school, however, is run by nuns. That’s right, instead of a university campus, my summer courses are actually being held in convent/housing for girls. (All of this might have been good to know ahead of time. There were several people who said they felt especially uncomfortable, since their religion – Jewish, etc – did not jibe with the Catholic surroundings.)

It turned out to be OK, but at first was a bit of a surprise. Especially since the rooms Kristin and I were first given were extra sketchy. They were old, to say the least. My tiles were cracked, and there were no toilets in the bathroom. (A shower, though.) The rest of the Málaga girls were on a different floor, and each of their rooms came with toilets and Internet hookup. I about died. After a bit of arm twisting, we were able to switch rooms and I hear we were lucky – other people later tried to switch and were not allowed.

Eating hours were posted: Breakfast from 8-9, Lunch from 1:30-2:45, and Supper from 8:30-9:45. The washers and dryer (that’s right, 2 washers and 1 dryer for the whole dorm. And each one is 1.80E per use.) were right next to the pool, which, humorously enough, also closed for siesta from 3-6 every day. (???)

We put our stuff away in our rooms and headed to El Corte Ingles, where I made an excellent purchase: an oscillating fan for 20E. (Oh yeah – the rooms and classrooms have no a/c.)

If it sounds like I’m bitching.. well, I probably am, but I got used to it, and it really wasn’t all bad. I especially liked having my own room (having never previously had college roomates), and the Internet hookups were truly a stroke of good luck.

Tags: lost in translation, technology, travel tips, wine

Fuengirola, Spain & la Costa del Sol

Today, I wake up, eat breakfast, then take the train to Fuengirola. I had seen brochures for the Fuengirola Zoo, saying that they did not believe in bars or cages, and tried their best to recreate animals’ natural environment. This sounded great to me, so I decided to check it out. I’m glad I did! Although small, it was labyrinthic and very pretty, and I even got to see a few animals I’d never heard of, and a few more way closer than I’ve ever previously been. After the zoo, I took the train back to the hotel just in time for the group’s Costa del Sol tour of the southern coast of Spain.

We drove through small pueblos, touristy beaches, posh LA-style shopping strips (Armani stores, Versace stores, etc) and super-rich beach mansion areas. We took walking tours in the downtowns of some of these places, and it was amazing to see the old churches, the ancient castles, the opulent mosques, the fountains, the statues – and these aren’t ordinary fountains and statues! In one park, everything was created by Salvador Dalí. In another, the fountain was a mosaic, and in most, the benches are made with painted tiles.

After the tour, I returned to the hotel to study a couple of hours for class the next day. Because this first class is only two weeks, every night we have to read 2-3 chapters. At midnight, Sebastián showed me a little bar on the beach. I only stayed out for two hours because I had class the next day, but I could have stayed and talked with him for hours. I was finally having a meaningful conversation in Spanish, and for the first time since my arrival, I became acutely aware of the inadequacies in my vocabulary. We talked about the Bush presidency, the lack of compulsory foreign language/culture education in the United States, and the correlated general geographical ignorance of our nation (myself included – a blank map pop quiz makes me break out in a cold sweat), the cost of living versus typical wages in different regions of Spain, the cultural norms and typical dress of people in Morocco (where Sebastián had spent 3 months traveling), the many countries that invaded Spain over the last couple millennia, the surfing waves in Peru as compared to Ecuador (this one I was doing mostly listening) and how Miami is definitely inferior to Tampa. I was hoping to make friends in Spain – and finally I found the first one!

A few things I don’t know if I mentioned but don’t want to forget to say: The bathroom in the hotel has a bidet. I don’t think I’d ever seen one before (and I have not so much as touched it as of yet) but I should at least turn it on, just to see what happens.

Also, prices. How much do things cost? Well, it depends. Some things are very expensive. The cheapest one day car rental, for example, is 45 euros, which is like 53 USD. I had wanted to go to Cadiz, but it’s 3 hours away, and at 45E plus gas… not this trip.

Similarly, the Internet is pay-per-use, ranging from 1E per 10 minutes at my hotel to 1E per hour at the local, rarely-open, Internet cafe.

On the other hand, if you want something to drink, it’s probably just a euro in any vending machine. Bottled water? Diet Coke with lemon? Cadbury candy bar? Cigarettes? Beer? It’s all in the vending machines.

In the grocery stores, drinks are even cheaper. I got the equivalent of three gallons of water for 2E, and a box of sangria for 59 cents. (I don’t know what’s more ghetto – that I bought sangria for 59 cents or that it came in a box.) I took it to dinner at the hotel and shared it with my classmates. (We’d been taking turns and I was up. No expense was spared.)

Speaking of boxes of drink, I bought some Apple Juice boxes at El Corte Ingles – but if I had wanted to, I could have gotten wine instead. That’s right, you can get wine or sangria in Hi-C sized mini boxes, some with plastic bendy-straw. (See? That 59 cent box of sangria is starting to sound pretty high-class, isn’t it.)

And there’s no drinking age in Spain. Children often share a glass of wine with dinner. (I guess you could pack a wine box in their lunch pail too, if you really wanted to.) Some places enforce an alcohol *buying* age of 18, but even that isn’t standard. However, there’s really no issues with alocoholism. Because of the lack of drinking age and the idea of responsible one-glass-only drinking taught from childhood, there’s no rebellious underage drinking, no raucous frat parties or hazing, and no drunken karaoke bars. (Except in tourist areas. Americans can’t help themselves.)

So, kids have to find some other way to rebel, and near as I can figure, it’s all in the hair. Teenagers and twenty-somethings have all the hair colors in the rainbow, and many look as though they trim their hair with a lawn mower. (I’ve even seen a few lost souls with Rainbow-Brite colored mullets – and these were *women*!) The little kids, thankfully, are normal-looking and very cute.

Tags: animals, castles & palaces, cathedrals, fashion, food, travel tips, wine

Málaga, Spain

Yet another gorgeous day! Unfortunately, a school day, since the professor had agreed to switch Friday’s lesson for today. After class, I hit the train station and went straight to Málaga. My first item of business was to hit the tapas festival. I bought 3 tickets for 1.80 Euros each. The first tapas I got was hummus and falafel.

What’s that, you say? But that’s Mediterranean food, not Spanish food! Ah, my friend, I once thought the same as you. However, the southern coast of Spain is on the Mediterranean. You can often see the Rock of Gibraltar from the beach, and on clear days, you can see the mountains of Africa. I saw them myself, just the peaks peeking through the clouds, and was amazed by how close it was. Not only this, but Spain was ruled by varying Mediterranean groups for centuries, so today quite a bit of the culture and architecture remains.

The hummus was awesome, and the falafel not only tasted better than any I get in the US, but also looked much more appealing. (It was more of a golden color than the typical dark brown color that Pita’s serves.) The second tapa I got was a pizza funghi (aka mushroom). So far I had been eschewing pizza because it seemed so American and I wanted to do European things in Europe. But I saw the Spaniards wolfing down the pizza, and I had an epiphany: Pizza is from Italy, and wouldn’t you know, Italy just happens to be in Europe! So, having thus justified my pizza craving, I was pleased when I got a slice of fresh, baked-to-order, mozzarella and mushroom pizza.

The third and last tapa I bought was a Blanco Y Negro from an heladería. (In other words, a Black & White from an ice cream tent.) Let me tell you, the US better wake up and start serving these babies! (Or at least Starbucks ought to think about it.) A Blanco & Negro is a glass half-filled with iced coffee (but without the ice) and topped with cappuccino ice cream. Like a root beer float, but with a coffee theme. Delicious! (There are also other varieties, such as with vanilla ice cream, topped with whipped cream. Mmm…)

After this, I wandered around Málaga, following a walking map that turned out to be really awful. Half the time, the alleged museums/buildings on the map completely didn’t exist – at least not in the area shown on the map – and the other half of the time, the facades were under restoration, so I could only see part. Nonetheless, I had a great time watching all the people and looking at all the architecture and the graffiti. Graffiti? you ask. Before you conjure images of ghetto alleys or city subways, let me say that the graffiti here is really, really, really good. It’s an art form. Oh sure, you’ll see a few bits of amateur art (witness the Disney scene, attached) but the majority is really well done, if of bizarre themes.

So there I am, on a graffiti walking tour of downtown Málaga. I run into a vendor selling Spanish-language Harlequin suspense novels and I bought it because I can’t not buy books. I head back to the hotel for dinner and find out that the group plans to go out dancing tonight. I borrow an outfit from Paula (I only brought my throwaway clothes, and she brought something like 3 massive suitcases packed with the cutest possible outfits) and we all head downstairs around midnight to call a cab. The older guy at the front desk says to forget calling a cab – it’s midnight on a Saturday. Better luck walking down to the taxi stand.

But, the younger guy at the front desk (later to be identified as Sebastián) says he gets off work now and would be glad to drop us off. So, four of the girls pile into the back seat, leaving me up front because my Spanish is the most fluent. Sebastián drops us off in downtown Torremolinos, although he warns us that Torremolinos is not only the San Francisco of Spain, but actually the gay Mecca of this part of Europe. Or, should I say, he warns *me*, since all of this is in Spanish. I decide to keep this information to myself – after all, we’ve arrived, and none of us were looking for Spanish dates anyway.

As it turns out, we had a great time. The atmosphere was friendly and fun, and we didn’t have to worry about scrubby drunks hitting on us. That is to say, none of the ladies of us did. When the other half of the group joined us later, Bryan for the first time in his life had the experience of random men repeatedly pinching his rear. (We women found this turn of events much funnier than he did.)

Tags: books, festivals & fiestas, food, travel tips

Málaga, Spain & Torremolinos, Spain

My first views of Spain were of deserts and mountains. Málaga is a city on the coast, with desert, mountains, and beach. We are in a hotel (Hotel Parasol) in Torremolinos, on the beach, just outside of Málaga.

Class began today, and the first adventure was the textbook. Apparently, the professor had told Elvira (the coordinator) that we should buy our books ahead of time and bring them with us. She, however, did not tell us the names of them, and said we should just get them when we got to Málaga. Naturally, they did not have them in Málaga. So, we had to make Xerox copies of the entire textbook. This is not only unwieldy, but also super-costly, so we only made two copies and are sharing them between us, which is a hassle, but what do you do.

Before I forget, let me tell you about the elevators in the hotel. Yes! Actual elevators! But before you get too excited, let me clarify. These elevators are phone booth sized, and go in order of which button was pressed first, not in numeric/spatial order. So, if you are on floor one and call the elevator and before you press floor three, someone on floor 10 calls the elevator, guess where you’re going. Yep, from 1 to 10 to 3. (And if he pressed 8, he goes from 10 to 3 to 8.) And so on.

I ended up rooming with Ula, and we got up around 7:15 this morning and headed downstairs for breakfast at 8 before class at 8:30. Unfortunately, the 8:00 breakfast didn’t start until around 8:15 (I guess we’re on Spanish time) and we were worried about being late to class. The professor rolled in to the classroom a good 10 minutes after we did (he’s from Spain, so I guess he’s *really* on Spanish time) so it wasn’t a problem after all.

After class, Ula and I took the cercanías (local metro-style train) to downtown Málaga so I could reserve my train seats for my post-semester travels. As Murphy prophesized, this did not go down as planned.

First of all, I was transferred from cashier to cashier until someone could help at all. Next, they said they could only reserve tickets to/from Spain, so only 3 out of 20 tickets were reserved. Next, the fee for those 3 reservations was $170. Yikes! Finally, after all this, they don’t take credit cards, so I had to dash to the ATM in order to complete the transaction.

After this adventure, we went and got ice cream and cappucinos at an outdoor cafe. Ordering the cappucino was a little bizarre, because the waitress asked, “With or without milk?” Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought a cappucino was an espresso with milk. So if I got it *without* milk, it wouldn’t be a cappucino anymore, it would be an espresso, right? Maybe it’s different here. In any case, I smiled and said, “With, please” and dug into my ice cream, which may very well be the best ice cream I’ve had in my life. I ordered caramel, and it actually came with lots of tiny cubes of real caramel embedded in caramel ice cream! (Not the goopy processed “carmel-flavored syrup” in your average US cone.) Way yum.

After this nutritious and delicious lunch, we wandered around downtown for a bit, then got on the return train. At one stop, a woman got on with her daughter, intending to go to downtown Málaga. I told her that she had gotten on the wrong train, as this one was heading *away* from Málaga. She thanked me profusely and got off at the next stop. It wasn’t until the following stop when we realized that *our* stop was the one where the woman had gotten on, and we missed it because we were being helpful. So, we got off at the *next* stop, only to find out that the return train had just passed, and it would be another half hour until the next one. We decided to hoof it back, which turned out to be an exceptionally bad idea. Our plan was to walk to the beach and follow the coast back to the hotel, but none of the twisty residential streets seemed to lead to the beach, and anyone we asked for directions just said, “Wow! You’re really far away!”

An hour and a half later, (yes, we should have just waited for the next train), we finally catch sight of our hotel, just in time for the last 10 minutes of dinner. I had gazpacho for the first time (cold veggie soup) which turned out to be pretty good!

After dinner, Ula and I went to the beach, where I waded in the water of the Meditteranean Sea and saw lots of breasts. (Yes, breasts.) Spain is apparenttly very clothing-optional, because when we were at the outdoor cafe tables, the woman next to us spontaneously began to breastfeed her baby. As for the hotel pool, all I’ll say is that I saw a man with an extremely sunburned rear end.

Tags: food, lost, lost in translation, trains, travel tips

Liberia to Arenal, Costa Rica

While waiting to board the flight from Orlando to Miami, I met these two Costa Rican guys who said they were from San Ramon. I, in my infinite wisdom, said I had no idea where that was, but was going to Arenal. (Turns out it’s right next to each other.) I also said to Bri, “Don’t worry about Costa Rican money – we’ll get some from the ATM once we land, like I did when I went to Europe.” (More on my naivete later.)

The flight from Miami to Liberia was interesting. I had a window seat (half view, half wing) and it was pretty cool to fly from North America to Central America. The pilot would let us know what country we were flying by (”On your right is Nicaragua”) and it was pretty wild. From the air, Costa Rica is lush, green, and mountainous. From the ground, Costa Rica is lush, green, and mountainous.

Of course, once we got to the ground, I peered out the window, straining for a glimpse of the Liberia International Airport. To my right, I saw some sort of hangar – really a narrow, open building with a roof over two parallel walls and a couple planes in front of it. Come to find out, that was the Liberia International Airport.

There was a single rope separating the deplaning passengers from the people milling about, waiting to pick up friends and family or there to offer taxi services. We followed the queue inside where there were three podiums manned by three customs agents. We stood in line, got our passports stamped, and wandered out the other side of the building.

If there was electricity, I didn’t see it. If there was an ATM, it would have had to be magical.

So, we get to the taxi area and there’s dozens of Costa Ricans holding up signs for rental car agencies. We recognize our names, and head to the Alamo driver. (That’s right, there’s Alamo in Costa Rica. There’s also Dollar, Payless and Hertz.)

One of the guys opens the van door for us, loads in our bags, then looks at Brian expectantly. Bri looks at me. I look at the guy. “Si?” I ask tentatively. “Propina?” he answers. Oh. A tip. Good thing we thought ahead and had absolutely no colones (CR money). Naturally, all I had was two US twenties. Turns out Bri had the same. We figured $20 was a bit steep for throwing bags in the trunk, but we didn’t want to be rude to the locals two seconds off the plane. We scrounged in our pockets and managed to come up with $1 in change, and that seemed to work.

Fast forward to the rental car place. There was nothing fast about it, lemme tell ya. It took us 45 minutes to get the car that we had rented ahead of time. A lot of tapping on the computer. No clue why. Then Brian’s American Express didn’t go throuh. No clue why. Luckily he had a MasterCard. So then we get our car, our requested four-wheel-drive SUV…

Oh boy. First off, it is a tiny thing. SUV shaped, yes, but in length… not sure if it’s longer than a Dodge Neon. Secondly, it’s stick. Bri + stick = disaster. Thirdly, it’s a Toyota No Brand. Features, nil. Amenities, nil. Anything it can do (lights, wipers, radio, etc) the choices are either On or Off. The back is a hatch type thing that you cannot open without turning off the car, getting out, and unlocking it with your key. Likewise, once all your stuff is in the back, the door will not latch unless you physically lock it with the key. (Yes, we found this out the hard way.)

So Bri gets behind the wheel (he was just as nervous about that as me) and heads toward the exit. He manages to drive to the exit without killing the engine or us (for which we were both proud and relieved) and shows his paperwork to the armed guard before he will open the gate to let us out. That’s right, armed. Later, we have come to the conclusion that they were not just guards, but actual police officers. At the time, however, we just thought that Alamo meant business.

So Bri drives maybe 100 yards, pulls over, and has me get behind the wheel for the rest of the week. We glance at the packet of papers I brought and flip to the page with the directions to our rental home. Only a couple turns and mostly highway, so we should get there in no time.

Wrong again. The “highway” is barely two lanes wide, and is covered with pot holes the size and depth of bath tubs. The road is mountainous, therefore lots of ups and downs with sudden sharp turns. I’m going between 20-30 kmh (I have no idea what that translates to – the dash does not have mph, rpms, or anything else that might be construed as useful). Our teeth are rattling, our heads are banging against the seat backs, our backs are jostled against the sides of the car – and the locals are passing us, around curves, going easily twice as fast.

We found out later that the speed limit is 80-100 kph on the highway. Not me, brotha. The highway was dotted with bridges, all of which were one lane wide with sheer drops on either side. Some had whole sections that had fallen down the mountainside. We also found out later that a friend of ours’ sister actually broke a rib just driving on the road. Our conversations went something like:

“Slow down!”
“I’m in first gear.”
“Watch out!”
“Bri, the road is covered in pot holes.”
“I see them! They’re everywhere!”
“I’m going as slow as I can.”
“The bridge is only one lane!”
“Yes, yes it is.”
“We’re on the side of a cliff!”
“Looks that way.”
“Slow down!”
“I’m still in first gear.”
And so on.

Come to find out, the house was not around the corner from the airport. The house was not around the corner from anything. Had we known this, we’d have looked for lunch and a bathroom before leaving the airport. As it turns out, a neighbor says it takes her two and a half hours to get from her house to the airport. Oh yeah. So hours of the windy road and Brian’s interminable exclamations ensue before I finally pull into the road the rental house is on. And I use “road” lightly – we were told it was gravel, and I guess it is, if by “gravel” you mean dirt, pot holes, and rocks ranging in size from fists to bowling balls. Thank *God* we got four wheel drive.

I pull through the gate onto the circular driveway and wow. Amazing. Beautiful landscaping, gorgeous house, breathtaking view of the countryside and lake Arenal. Suddenly the long drive is completly worth it. We step out of the car wide-eyed, and Alex the caretaker steps out of the house to greet us. He’s young and personable and gives us a general tour, shows us how to work the hot tub, and rings up Michelle (the afore-mentioned neighbor.) She drops by, and gives us lots of great advice regarding area attractions, where to find the important phone numbers, and shows us food that was prepared for us and waiting in the refrigerator for our arrival. Mmmm.

We ate, and wandered around outside excitedly taking pictures and video. We tried (and failed) to remember how the hot tub worked, gave up, went back inside once night fell, and fell sound asleep until morning.

Tags: airports, lost, road trip, travel tips