I return, triumphant and exhausted, from Extremadura and Portugal! Many pictures are soon to come, but as uploading and editing over 100 photos will take a lot of time (and I am, as I said, exhausted and, in addition, have homework to do) so I'm going to summarize via narrative for now.
Friday, 23.9.11
Got up around 6:45, finished up the last bits of packing one must always do the morning of the trip and not before. Made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to eat on the bus for whenever my stomach eventually woke up. Left with Nidhi around 7:15 for the bus stop that's just down the street from us to take us to school. Ran into three other kids from the program on the same bus. Arrived at school just before 8, sat in a cloudy haze in our patio until we got on the bus. We were supposed to leave at 8:15, but of course we left somewhere around 8:30, lacking three of the thirty people that were supposed to be coming.
After about two hours of driving through surprisingly dull countryside (well, I mostly slept so I guess I don't really know) we stopped at some random truck stop-type place and some people had coffee and croissants or something. I ate my sandwich, much to the envy of many around me because peanut butter here is hard to find and expensive. (I'm lucky because Nidhi brought a huge jar from home, though we've gone through probably 2/3 of it already.) 20-30 minutes later we got back on the bus, I went back to sleep, and two hours later we arrived in Mérida.
Mérida, Spain, is an old town with Roman ruins. I either forgot or never really knew that Rome's empire used to include the Iberian peninsula, so there are parts of Spain that look like what I suppose a lot of Italy looks like. We saw an aqueduct, an amphitheatre (for gladiator fights), and best of all and possibly the highlight of the trip for me (on Friday early afternoon), a Roman theatre from the second century. It was a pretty spiritual moment for me to be in such a place, to know that nearly 2000 years ago in the place where I stood people were performing, and it was theatre in its original intent - both entertainment and an offering to the gods. A connection of humanity and higher powers. I wished we could have spent more time there, or that I could have sat there for even a few moments alone. But we had to move on.
Lunch in Mérida was unfortunately probably the most disappointing meal I've ever eaten. I got the menu del día, which is a fixed price (in this case 10 euros, but there was really nothing cheaper) three course meal that is generally a good deal because of how much food you get. We had local wine, which was mediocre, and each of us tried a different appetizer, most of which were different kinds of vegetables that seemed to have been dumped out of a can onto our plates and mixed with ham. (Because 99.9% of food in Spain is mixed with ham.) I had mushrooms with garlic and ham. It tasted okay, but the mushrooms definitely were not from a local market or anything. My main course was pork (I think grilled?) with a little salad. The meat actually didn't taste that bad but it wasn't warm. Most of us ordered ice cream for desert, which turned out to be the best part of the meal, and it was only little yogurt-sized prepackaged Nestle ice cream. Haha. Oh well. Win some, lose some, I guess.
After lunch, those three stray people who had missed the bus showed up (they took a different bus and met us there, finally), and we got back on the bus and headed to Cáseres, where we stayed for the weekend. Our hotel was so nice. Possibly the nicest place I've stayed, though it's not really comparable to some of the suites I've been in with my family. And breakfast at the hotel Saturday and Sunday morning was great. I roomed with a girl named Vella and we got along fine and had a few nice chats and lunch together Saturday. I also watched a little Spanish TV, which was fun.
After a brief break at the hotel to get situated and rest just a little, we went on a walking tour of the old quarter of Cáceres, which is a walled city that looks like it's still in the 15th century because they've kept it that way. We saw an old church and lots of towers and of course narrow streets and there were many stairs. All of Spain is hilly, and when that is combined with tall towers and castles and things, it's quite a workout. I'm from Illinois, part of the great plains, and as far as I was concerned, we were in mountain territory. But I asked Carlos, our guide, and he said hills. So. Technical term.
Post-tour was small dinner time, because it was only about 7:30, which is too early for real Spanish dinner, and we weren't terribly hungry yet. I ate with some friends and we all had bocadillos, which are sandwiches on baguettes. I actually thought I was just getting tortilla española (the potato/onion/egg dish), but I got that on bread. Which was alright. Definitely filled me up, and I didn't eat anything else that night. Actually, I got a terrible headache and instead of going out Friday night I went to bed really early.
Saturday 24.9.11
Got up at 8 feeling great and took the best shower ever. Got a funny wakeup call from the front desk at 8:30. Went down to the amazing breakfast buffet at 9. I ate a lot of mini croissants, some cereal, yogurt, fresh melon, fresh orange juice, and COFFEE. I've had so little coffee here because a cafe con leche is pretty small and doesn't really affect me at all. At this point I just want coffee because I like it, not because I need it. (I broke my caffeine addiction this summer! YAY! We'll see how long that lasts once I'm back in NYC. I give it a week.)
Around 9:30 we started the slow process of getting everyone assembled to get on the bus to go to Portugal. We were supposed to leave at 9:45 and I think left at more like 10:15. On the way we watched Gladiator, which I had never seen and actually really enjoyed, minus the extremely gory parts. Something like two hours later we arrived in Castelo de Vide which does indeed have a big castle. We were let free for half an hour to have coffee and pastries (which I guess Portugal is known for. Apparently) and I succeeded in making up for Friday's awful lunch. I tried something called Bola de Bachegas (I think) that was a coffee-cake-mousse-chocolate-tiramisu-esque slice of deliciousness. We sat out on a little terrace and had an amazing view of a valley and some hills/mountains.
Post-coffee we toured the Jewish quarter, saw a church, and visited a castle. Everywhere we turned in the town there were amazing views. More on all that with the pictures. Lunch was paid for by NYU (for once) at a place called Do Parque, where we had traditional Portuguese food. There was a plate of (very strongly flavored) traditional Portuguese cheese, bread, chorizo (which I skipped - there are some things my almost-10-years-vegetarian self still can't handle, and bright red fatty looking slices of sausage are one of them), and olives. We had local wine, a vegetable soup that was delicious, and then a cod/onion/egg hash that mostly tasted like eggs with a salad. For desert we had a custard with caramelized sugar on top which was also really good.
We departed Castelo de Vide and headed a short distance away up a hill (mountain) to Marvâo (new fancy symbol!) and saw ANOTHER castle. More stairs. More climbing. I made up for 20 years of flat-land living in one weekend, I swear. More about that castle when I have the pictures. Eventually we left Marvâo and headed back to Cáceres for the evening.
I went to a medieval(esque) market/festival with some people (after getting severely lost and eventually successfully asking for and understanding directions), which was interesting; I didn't buy anything and we mostly wandered a lot. When I got back I went out for a small dinner and a drink with Nidhi and our friend Emily. We had the slowest service I've ever experienced (which, in Spain, is saying something, because it's always slow), but we had a nice time chatting and the food was cheap, filling, and flavorful.
After dinner we met up with a bunch of people and found a bar where we had a few shots together. (Skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to read about me drinking. Haha.) I tried absinthe for the first time. It was really gross; tasted like black licorice or jelly beans. Must somehow involve anise. Fortunately I had a (pretty weak) tequila shot after. And I actually didn't get even tipsy off of my unspecified number of shots (which were all the same liquor except for the absinthe, because I'm responsible! Yay!). They were probably all kind of watered down because they were really cheap.
We left the bar (I wasn't drunk, in case you skipped the last paragraph) and went to a discotequa (club) that the cute guy at the hotel reception desk recommended to us. It was about 1:30 when we got there (and got in for free thanks to saying Raúl sent us). Guys. NO ONE was there. We were the only people until about 2:30. Literally. But it was really fun, we took up the whole dance floor and probably looked like fools. The DJ played a lot of American dance music that even I knew some of. Any of that music that I know though is because my brother listens to it, so it made me miss him. (The only American music I hear here is top 40 stuff which I always only know because Sam likes it.) ¡Te amo, hermanito! We danced at the club until about 3:30 and then we all walked home. Just enough time for a few hours sleep before one more day of fun.
Sunday 25.9.11
Repeat of Saturday morning, then we loaded everything on the bus and started heading back towards Madrid. A short bus ride later we stopped in basically the middle of nowhere and went to a random art museum in what used to be a wool factory. More on that with the pictures too.
We got back on the bus and drove two hours to Oropesa (while watching Spanglish) and after some miraculous turns and squeezing through tiny streets in our giant bus, we stopped to quickly view yet another castle and then to eat lunch. I do have to note that I seriously felt like I was on the Knight Bus for a few minutes when we made it through one of the tiniest streets I have ever seen - there were maybe five inches between my window and the wall outside. Nothing too notable about lunch (another menu del dia - with very salty food) other than that there were a couple of really cute but probably stray kittens wandering around, one of whom spent a good 20 minutes circling our table under our chairs.
I slept on the bus back to Madrid, two more hours. They were nice and made a stop at the southern side of the center of the city in addition to the final stop at school, so I was lucky enough to get off the bus just ten or so minutes from my apartment. Which was about three and a half hours ago now... This is what I get for being detail-oriented (and also talking to a couple friends as I write this). Plus trying to talk to my friend in Spanish while also writing in English... my brain is getting a lot better at flipping between the two languages, but sometimes random words will come out in the wrong one. I guess that's a good sign, actually! Anyway, I'm exhausted, and it's about time for some dinner, or some kind of food that hopefully requires no effort.
Buenas noches, amigos. I hope you are all well and that I will hear from you soon! I miss you mucho and send love from España!
No comments:
Post a Comment