Ohhhh transportation.

Ok I never really realized the glorious value of Harry Potter's ability to apparate until today. Good Lord. Dad and I woke up at the crack of 10am (whoops) ready to rent a car online, go pick it up, and take on the journey to northern Spain. We found a great deal on Priceline.com and snatched it up, and ran right over to the rental car place laughing with ignorant bliss over the "only metro pass we'd have to buy all day"!  Then the fun began. First we arrived to find that the rental car place closed in half an hour, so the cranky man at the desk put a rush order on the car from the airport that should have already been at the station to pick up like it said it would be online. But oh well, right? We grabbed a coffee across the street, talking about the great scenery we were bound to see on our drive. Then we returned eagerly to the car rental agency to find that our car still wasn't there. Oh well! We can wait a bit! The Currans are patient folk! Lo and behold, about 20 minutes later, there it was. A dandruffy scruffy little man pulled up with our beautiful Spanish vehicle. We beheld it, eyes brimming with tears of excitement and joy. 

Then.. The dreaded Spanish words came out of the desk clerk's mouth... "Manual? Qué me has traido?! Ellos no han pedido un manual!" Aka... He brought us the wrong car. Well.. We weren't brought down easily! We would wait some more. Another half hour of sitting later, FINALLY our Spanish chariot arrived. It was automatic, and it was perfect. We began the hour long process of writing up paperwork with me translating car things as best I could, when we came to insurance. We'd gotten a deal on insurance online, and explained this to the clerk. "Uh no... I don't see that" he said. We insisted that we had a copy of the order to prove it, but he wouldn't budge. We either pay another 1000 euro for THEIR insurance, or we drive at our own risk and at the cost of the car if anything happened. Uhhhh yeah no. So we had finished everything, had a GPS in hand and the keys to our adventurous northern journey, and we had to cancel everything out. Which of course, took another half hour.

We were extremely bummed as disappointed, but we returned to our old hotel and asked to the use the computers for another half hour to search for other options. At this point in the day however, prices had skyrocketed and we were out of luck. Sooo I sadly went to my old pal renfe.com and searches for a ticket. There was one train left in the evening and we had to get on it. Everything was going well, until our credit cards didn't go through the system. So that was it, we were going to the station to buy them in person. A forty minute Metro ride took us to a small train station where we bought tickets to the main station and cofusedly walked around it until a nice lady pointed us in the right direction. Okay, so far so good. We got to the main station and found the office. A little crowded, but how bad could it be? We pulled a number to see we were #594 in line... And they were currently serving customer #512. We bought a sandwich and sat down, getting sliiiighty more bummed out. Only about 45 minutes later, we got to the desk to talk with a very nice, very patient desk worker (considering the fact that his job must have been like working at the DMV except with crazy Spanish women). I explained our situation and he said he had only a few priority seats left and that was it. We said screw it, we'll pay the extra cost at this point. He then cringed and told us the train was leaving from the train station across town.... In 15 minutes. We could hurry if we wanted, but our tickets would not e refunded if we missed it. My adventure-seizing gut reaction was to grab the tickets and sprint out the door, but dad said nope. Probably smart. Anyway, our only other option to get to the north at all wouldn't be until the following morning. Defeated, we bought the earliest tickets we could get and got the heck out of there. We got some food, booked a hotel online, and found the very simple - looking metro map to get there. All would be well with a night of rest! Wrong. I made the horrible mistake of forgetting the massive construction happening on madrid's central metro stops. SO. One more HOUR of confusing navigating with two giant travel backpacks, a very hard time fido g the hotel itself, and a lost reservation in the computer later, FINALLY we are here. Obviously lots of ice cream was required to ice my feet.  Everyone's gotta have one of those travel days on vacation, I guess. We are praying for a better day tomorrow!

San Fermín - patron saint of all-nighters.

So... Since I'm writing this blog post it's pretty obvious that we all survived the festivities of San Fermín 2013... Honestly though, I would've been more likely to be killed via a drunk 12 year old or utter lack of sleep before a bull. My first mistake (definitely not a mistake) was deciding that, although I'd had to skip out on a day of museum tours with the group in Madrid to drink DayQuil in the hotel all day, it would probably be a good idea to go to Kapital, Madrid's famous 7 floor night club, with my friends on the last night. Let me tell you, 15 euro and hours of walking around talking to sketchy discount ticket sellers was well worth the experience. The first floor was the main dance floor with insanely loud house music and a burst of cold nitrogen every time the beat dropped. We stuck to that one for the most part since pitbull or usher would repeatedly play every time I tried to explore other floors and my body can't resist the sweet sweet sounds of trashy sorority girl beats. The second floor was also pretty sweet though and had karaoke and a lounge. The very top was an outdoor terrace, but we got kind of drowsy and relaxed, and headed down to the main floor again until 5 or 6 in the morning. Needless to say, the late night made checking out of the hotel, catching a bus to Pamplona, as well as my recovery process very difficult indeed. Two friends and I met Luke at the Madrid airport (yay!!) and hopped on our bus decked out in white and red and ready to see the ridiculousness of night two of San Fermín. I dozed off for awhile and awoke around 12:30 at night to see approximately 4 football fields worth of people shouting along to a Spanish band and drinking in a huge public park. We got off the bus, immediately ran to buy more white clothing to look a little less like giant, out of place Americans, and grabbed a couple of overpriced beers to go exploring. The boys wanted to walk the route to raise their chances of survival in the morning run, and I made it until about 5am before needing to take a little grass nap. The streets were insane - covered in people young and old (and really really young), including people who had stepped on sharp objects and proceeded to bleed all over cafe floors were I was trying to enjoy a nice chocolate waffle. It was quite the experience. Watching the bull run from the plaza de toros was incredible. The bulls were HUGE and for some reason not slow and humbly like I had pictured in my head. Apparently the crowd was more intereste in cheering on the bulls than their fellow humans because the bulls got standing applause whenever they bowled another poor tourist over. We watched the little bulls for about an hour, then went to the train station for a lonnng hot sun nap before going back to Madrid. By that point I was insanely tired and ready to lay in a real bed. Our good family friend in android was so nice as to take us in for the night and prepare us an awesome traditional Spanish dinner, AND drive us to the airport in the morning. I definitely owe her some serious thank you post cards and probably a bowl of Cinque Terre pesto when I get the chance!! Overall it was an AWESOME experience that I wouldn't trade for anything, except maybe a hostel bed.

The boys... Not quite powering through the afternoon.

Venice and Milan... fin del programa :(

Hola todos!

Sorry for being so lame and not updating in forever.... it's been a super crazy couple of weeks!

Two weekends ago three friends and I decided to take the tall/dark/handsome factor of the men around us to the next level and venture to Venice and Milan for the weekend.  Needless to say, the beautiful Venetian gondola drivers winking at us while cruising under the bridges did not disappoint. ;)  The trip didn't get off to a GREAT start since RyanAir apologized for our 5 hour delay with a nice 5 euro snack voucher, which did not go toward any much needed alcoholic beverages or "real food" besides snacks.... that didn't stop us from having a few glasses of cheap champagne before sleeping our way to Milan on our now 1am flight.

Upon arriving in beautiful Italy, we ate our fair share and then some of pesto pizza, spaghetti carbonara, and FAR more than our share of gelato.  Although the best-gelato-I-have-ever-tasted-award still goes to Giolitti in Rome, I gave it its run for its money tasting several kinds in Venice and Milan both.  We all agreed after strolling the gorgeous, car-less streets of Venice that it was our preferred city.  We learned from our gondola driver (whose name was Fabio... not kidding) that Venice was founded in the year 421 and it still retains it's old, quiet beauty.  We loved wandering the streets without a map and honestly, maps probably wouldn't save anyone since the streets have no rhyme or reason whatsoever.

Milan was definitely cool in its own way, but the very large, VERY expensive city wasn't really our style.  We only stayed there for the afternoon and evening, and got to tour the main shopping street that offers Coach bags more expensive than the upbringing of my future children.  We also saw cars that made me drool, baristas dressed in tuxes that very kindly nodded toward the door when we entered (Wait.. my nike shorts and ripped tourist backpack aren't up to par for this place?) and, fortunately, got to tour the largest Gothic cathedral in the world.  That part was very beautiful and worth it. :)

Upon returning to our Valencian home, we only had one more week of fun and Spanish magic before most of the kiddos head back to the States on the 7th.  We finished things up at our internships, ate huge delicious lunches with our host mom and shared language-barrier-filled laughs with our Italian host brothers at dinnertime, and most importantly, we went to the beach.  Ohhh how I will miss that beach.

Yesterday we arrived safe and sound in Madrid and checked back into the hotel where the whole trip started only 6 short weeks ago.  Sara and I lost our jacuzzi room and had it replaced by a shower with no door, which makes for a lot of flooded bathrooms.  Thanks, Madrid.  We got to tour the Royal Palace yesterday which was inCREDible.  Who needs separate rooms for sleeping, getting dressed, putting on makeup, and then an in-between room to walk to the dining room, movie room, and important-document-signing-room?? Apparently Spanish royalty does.  The only cosa mala about Madrid this time around is that I'm pretty sick :(  So instead of going to the Prado Museum and the Reína Sofía today, I stayed in bed and watched Spanish-dubbed Say Yes to the Dress and CSI Miami.  A day of rest was definitely in order, but I really hope I'm well enough to spend one last night with all the cool kids on this trip before we part ways tomorrow!

Luke arrives in Madrid tomorrow night; I'm meeting him at the airport and we'll leave from the train station for the first stop on our European adventure:  Pamplona for San Fermín and the Running of the Bulls!  Pictures to come with either fun shots of the party atmosphere or Luke's mangled body as he succeeds in completing my dream of Running... ;)

Love you all, and see you after DAD'S leg of the adventure is over (on July 31)!!

San Juan... patron saint of bonfires and boxed wine.

As I type this entry I am laying in less than a socially acceptable amount of clothing in my bed trying to recover not from a hangover by any means, but instead from approximately 60 minutes of sleep last "night" followed by a few hours of needing to be bilingual and excited about teaching English to Spaniards.  But I'll start from the beginning of one of the best weekends I've spent in Spain...

Friday a group of four of us Americanos decided to take a day trip outside of Valencia (about an hour and fifteen minutes driving) with a tour guide to experience the hot springs we'd heard about on TripAdvisor.  We all headed out to a meeting point and were picked up in a semi-sketchy white van by a man named Miguel who I loved almost immediately upon climbing into his cramped front seat.  Miguel told us he was 30, a native Valencian, and very sorry for being late, but we would be picking up a couple of Canadians and Brits before heading out to the springs.  I knew the day would be a grand one when Miguel double parked to run out and meet the English couple, and, no sooner had he rounded the corner of a far off building than the man whose vehicle was trapped behind his laid on the horn and backed up threateningly toward our car.  This event was followed by a lot of yelling things like "WHO CAN DRIVE A STICK SHIFT? WHAT IF WE CRASH THIS CAR IT'S NOT EVEN OURS.  EVERYONE JUST CALM DOWN, OKAY?!" As I tried to calm the angry driver down, Miguel finally ran back over laughing and joking about the news headlines in the paper the next day: "American tourists beaten in public marketplace".  Not that funny, Miguel.  The trip went really smoothly though as we drove out to see some incredible waterfalls, cross some not-so-incredibly-engineered bridges, and finally started to wind our way through the mountains to the hot springs.  The sky wasn't particularly sunny, but we started to get a little worried when we stopped for lunch and it started drizzling.  But hey, we were going to "hot" springs, right?  No big deal.  As it turns out, the "hot" springs when being drenched with a freezing torrential downpour don't actually feel that "hot", and aren't actually even warmer than your typical 5-day-old bathwater.  This did not stop us from snorkeling and swimming out to an area with beautiful cliffs which we of course wanted to dive off of with 20% vision due to the rain.  I had a lot of questions about the depth of the water, why I was in a bikini in 50 degree weather, and why I was about to cliff dive at all when the hail started.  At this point we all YOLO'd it and jumped off the cliff anyway.  We all survived barring a rock stuck in the bottom of my foot and no one even got eaten by the fish all the girls were screaming about the whole time.  Overall the trip was incredible, and ended with a great Spanish chat between Sara, Miguel and I in the front seat about hitchhiking and rock climbing as we drank tinto from a wineskin and ate nisperos that Miguel had so kindly robbed from a small village tree on the way back into the city.  70 euros well spent, believe me.

Saturday was sort of a "recovery day" so Sara and I decided to go to the Central Market for some shopping and too many pastries and then headed to the beach where we scalded our Caucasian skin for 4 glorious hours.

Sunday a group of us headed to church, checked out the "Taste of America" store (6 euros for a small can of Jif?  Worth it.), and went back to our houses for lunch and a pre-San-Juan-festival-preparation-nap.  Around 7 we went to the only grocery store open in the entire country (barely exaggerating) for some overpriced sangria and snacks and went to the beach for San Juan.  Now Spain is notorious for having ridiculous festivals for seemingly no reason, but San Juan is really one of the best/most ridiculous.  It is the feast day of Saint John, so obviously to celebrate Spaniards build huge bonfires on the beach, drink way too much, and then jump over them at midnight and run into the sea afterward.  To celebrate.... the sanctity and devoutness of the life of Saint John.  Sure, sure.  So of course that's what all 90 of us Americans decided to do too.  I made it until about 5:30pm with only one nap on the beach interrupted by a couple of drunk Americans stepping on my head and maybe a few sparks falling into my sand-filled hair, but the cops kicked us off the beach with all the rest of the crazy Spanish kids before we could watch the sunrise.  I split a taxi home to catch my beauty nap before work this morning, but some troopers in the group actually stayed out until they could watch the sunrise from the comfort of the sidewalk and so kindly walked a few of their less-"awake" friends home.  Overall it was a fantastic evening filled with late night ocean swimming, smelling like a good old fashioned American campfire, and in the company of some pretty fun friends.  A group of four of us is headed to Milan and Venice this next weekend - so more to come!!

Barcelona and Luke's first flights!

Well I'm sitting here in the Barcelona sunshine enjoying the people watching and McDonald's free wifi. Man imagine what people did before McDonald's existed, and before free wifi was offered at every single one. They definitely didn't find their hostels on the first try. 

Luke and I had a super fun three days in Spain before he had to head off to Prague to meet his brother and start their European adventure together. We saw many beautiful Valencian sights, Luke tried saltwater for the first time (and even learned to swim a little better!) and made friends with a non-English-speaking bar owner who gave him a huge hug and a bottle of free sangria at the end of our short stay at his empty discoteca. We didn't sleep much in order to better soak up the nightlife but I'm sure he'll have a big meal somewhere in the Czech Republic and make up for lost time. 

Now, since Luke and I toured the Sagrada Familia yesterday, I'm enjoying the streets of Barcelona and contemplating a park bench siesta.  Tonight we'll get some paella for dinner and head to a couple of beachside discotecas to see just how crazy they are and just how much of my money they can take before our train leaves tomorrow. 

Waiting for Luke takes forever

Well good thing I rushed to the airport, sweat away my straightened hair and turned down an offer of free lunch to get here two hours before Luke's delayed flight will!  :). But hey -- now I get to write a blog post about it.

So I've been pretty excited for Luke's virgin plane trip to come to Spain and learn about places other than Tama, Iowa ;) and I thought I was gonna hyperventilate from overall lack of exercise in the past month on my rush to the metro station. I ran excitedly into the terminal to fiiiiiind... No Luke. Turns out his flight into Spain was delayed which made him miss his flight to Valencia. What are you gonna do. I wish I would've paid someone to videotape his attempted conversations when purchasing a new plane ticket, though. In fact I might document this whole trip as I force the poor boy to learn Spanish in a "full immersion" type setting.

So this morning, besides giving my calves the best workout they've seen since we ran to the Ames Dunkin' Donuts the morning it opened, I got to work some more with the kids in the elementary school.  I did a lesson and game about the USA and some stereotypes of what things or activities people do in each state. Since the only states they know are "California" and "New York" they guessed those two almost exclusively and were horrified to find that "Disneyland, Paris" is not in fact where Mickey and Minnie originate. It was a pretty fun time overall and I'm so glad I've gotten to work with the schools during my stay in Valencia!

Today it's approximately 27387 degrees outside so I'm hoping there will be plenty of time this afternoon to head to the beach. In the meantime, gonna go grab a coffee and wait for my little American buddy to arrive!

.... Metro hair

Getting settled.

Ahhh the second weekend in Valencia has arrived and it is muuuuch needed.  Jusssst kidding; even weekdays are like a super-cultural vacation, but truthfully my internship was slightly more demanding than usual this week.  One of the teachers at the English Academy called in with bronchitis on Wednesday and my boss turned to me and said, "How would you like to substitute for her classes in about five minutes?"  I said "UHHHHHM" and accepted... somehow a licensed professional had made the decision to let me pour my knowledge of the English language (yikes) upon young, mold-able minds and I wasn't going to pass it up.  The fact that I couldn't think of a synonym for "mold-able" in that last sentence indicates what a bad choice that was on her part.  But things actually went really well with the little kids and besides getting walked all over at the end of the older kids' class (which ended in a completely non-English-related soccer game and the promise of candy for everyone on Monday) that went great as well.  The same teacher didn't show up the next day either so I got to teach the Tuesday-Thursday kids, too.  I really liked it and felt very comfortable in front of the classes (besides the few times the students asked me the meanings of certain English words in Spanish and I had no idea what they could possibly be.... such as "alien spaceship"?  Weird how that one never got inserted into my lexicon).

Thursday night Sara and I decided it was about time we attempt to pull an all-nighter or at least stay out past midnight to prove to everyone that we are not, in fact, old ladies.  So around 10:30 we hit up a karaoke bar where we performed a rousing rendition of "Colgando en tus manos" much to the joy of the Spanish locals who I'm sure assumed we knew no songs at all except for "Call Me Maybe" and "The Wobble".  Boy were they wrong.  Our drinks there seemed way more expensive for some reason... likely an added fee for people with especially horrible voices and poor accents.  After we had destroyed the love of music for as many people as possible at "Karaoke La-La" we headed down to the Ciutat de Artes y Ciencias in a cab to go dance at the discoteca.  It was a really fun time minus the three stolen iPhones of various girls in the Valencia program and a stolen wallet.... ladies:  please watch your stuff while Spanish twenty-somethings are standing there telling you how "bonita" you look tonight.  We went down to the main floor to get our dance on where I met a very nice Brazilian guy who insisted that in his country, you kiss on the mouth to greet each other  (which I politely declined, Luke).  We hailed a cab at around 4:30am (not exactly an all-nighter but hey, we're working on it) and collapsed into bed to absorb a whole two and a half hours of sleep before waking up for work again.

Although upon cracking open my eyelids at 8am I was cursing every discoteca in the country, I am extremely glad I got my American tail out of bed because it turned out to be an awesome morning.  Thanks to my boss's husband being the director of the English department at one of the local schools, I had the opportunity to go to an actual Spanish elementary/middle/high school (system is way different here) to observe some classes.  The kids were super fun and asked me questions in adorable accents and gasped in awe whenever I said I was from the United States as if I'd achieved some sort of incredible success being born in my giant comfortable mono-lingual country.  I am now fully regretting not bringing several trashy American tank tops to wear everywhere.  The littlest kids even hugged my legs and asked if "I was naughty as a child" (apparently it's part of their vocabulary list for the week) and if I would stay and teach them English.  Miiiiight try and take them up on their offer if they'll give me a salary...  Chocolate paychecks will suffice.

This afternoon was great and relaxing; we walked around in the Plaza de la Reina near the big cathedral and I chatted with a man who was browsing in the bookstore to get some recommendations for Spanish novels.  After his friend told me that one of the books I was holding was great and "de puta madre" (don't look that one up, children) I think I made a solid purchase.

Tomorrow a few friends and I are off to Alicante which is located on another beach about 2.5 hours away from Valencia.  We will hopefully be living through an ocean jet-skiing experience and eating paella on a catamaran.  If I blog again it's because a gorgeous Spanish lifeguard dragged me out of shark-infested waters.

Thanks for reading and e-mail me your address for a postcard if I don't already have it!!!