Last days in Spain

These past three days have an emotional roller coaster. Sometimes I couldn't stand the fact that I was leaving my Spanish family, but then later I would realize that I'm going to have such a good time in the next few weeks but then I would realize that I was going by myself again and so on and so on. 

So on Monday, I started really really stressing about my trip to France to Italy. My stop in Barcelona would only be 11 minutes to get from one platform to finding my next one, so we decided it would be best to reserve a train that would get me to Barcelona sooner, on a high speed train. But wouldn't you know it-- the only seats available were in the Silent Coach. Darn! What could be worse than taking a super fast train in a coach that's really quiet?! (Note the sarcasm.)

When coming back from the train station in Logroño, where we bought my ticket, we happened to run into his dad Carlos, who took us out to a few bars. He insisted that I try Mostos, which is basically grape juice (but I kept tasting apple juice??) and an orange slice. It was super good.  I'm glad we got it at four different bars... I also tried a very small fried egg, which turned out to be Quail Egg! How odd!

Got some fried chicken tapa at another bar. Super spicy sauce. I almost died. 

And at the last bar, we got these pork slices and spicy potatoes. I thought something was up with the pork when I found out that it was very difficult to chew. Andrés made sure he waited until I said that I liked the flavor that he told me that it was Pork Face. I wish he would start telling me these things in advance, or at least when it comes to pig...

Okay. So Monday was pretty uneventful, except for the odd foods. 

Tuesday, however. That's just a sad day in general. It marks my last full day in Spain, my last day in Logroño, and the last time I sleep in Spain. (Until I return, that is. I'm going to make an effort to come back within the next few years.)

First things first, I got a haircut on Tuesday. It looks pretty okay, but I think it's a bit short. 

I said bye to the Sampedro's housekeeper Nuchi (Andrés did I get that right?) and that was sad. She's such a nice person and so helpful and she always helped me when I couldn't understand what she was saying to me in Spanish. 

Andrés and I packed everything up and got ready to leave for Madrid. Pilar and Gabriel went with us to he bus station to see us off, and Pilar, bless her heart, reassured the crying Josh that if I needed to return because my trip got messed up or something that I would always be welcome back in Logroño until we figured something out. 

4 hour bus rides... Love them so much...

Got some pizza for dinner and watched Shutter Island, because it was on. 

Pro tip. Don't ever sleep on a leather couch when it's super hot out. You'll end up giving up on trying to sleep there and then you'll decide to sleep on the floor because it's more comfortable. 

Wednesday. My last day in Spain. 

Andrés and I got to the train station at about 8:45 for my 9:30 train. Hint- I cried when Andrés and I parted for him to go the airport. I mean he's like my brother and I'm not sure of the next time I'll see him you knowL (Andrés if you're reading this, let's not make it too long, okay?). 

My train was super cool and super quiet. It reaches 300km/hr, or about 200mph!! Like that's just crazy!

I've been told that Barcelona looks like Utah. No Amanda, this has too many hills to be Utah. 

I got to listen to my music the whole 3 hours and nap a little bit on he trip, but I also spent quite a bit of time just watching out the window and watching the beautiful landscape go by. 

My train got to Barcelona at about 12:30. I was originally planning on getting on the 5:30 train to Cherbére, France, but then I saw that they ran every two hours, so I caught the 3:30 one instead, which was good. It gave me the chance to enjoy the town a bit more. 

It's so so so beautiful here. Basically. Cherbére is a really small town on the border of France and Spain and the Mediterranean Sea. So it's been super nice that if I can't speak to someone in English because everyone here speaks French, I can still speak to them in Spanish. That's good. Pits actually how I ordered both my crêpe and my panini, both of which I ate on the beach. 

If I ever return to France, I want to remember this place. It's super quaint, and though the food is pretty expensive, it has a nice atmosphere. Although it's pretty humid. 

Noja 2015 <3

Noja 2015

Okay. Sorry for taking two weeks. I kinda haven't had Internet and only mobile data, except for two days when we went to a bar and had wifi but I was preoccupied and couldn't even begin to think about my blog. 

Be prepared to read a lot...

Noja is a small part on the northern coast of Spain that is connected to the Cantabrian Sea. It's really just a summer town. It has over 40,000 residents in the summer months, and only about 300 residents in the winter. Nice. 

There's a lot of really cool beaches around- we visited the 3 main ones. The water was normally pretty cold, which is expected from a western coast ocean, but it was tolerable. Too bad I don't like swimming in the ocean.

I spent most of my time on the beach walking along the sand and listening to music, reading, talking with others, sleeping, or playing beach games, like frisbee or fútbol. I really enjoyed talking with his friends. Sometimes we would talk in English, sometimes we would talk in Spanish, but most of the time, they spoke in English and I replied in Spanish. It was a pretty good way to practice. 

While Andrés and his friends would come back from diving and hunting for octopus shivering, I would sit by watching, warm and dry. 

Super fun card game. I won. 

Another thing we did  couple times was hiking up small mountains in the area. One of them was along a mile-long beach, and we climbed that one on the third or fourth day. All the days kinda blur together. 

This one was overlooking another part of the town, with a really big prison. I guess the convicts, should they escape, can't really go into he ocean unless they were planning on swimming for a good long while. 

The other mountain hike was just a few days ago, and was on the opposite side of town. I think you can even see the first mountain in the pictures from the top of this mountain. This was definitely a more difficult climb: lots of uphill in a short amount of time. More my style. Even though it was sprinkling just half an hour before, we were all sweating quite a bit. Unfortunately it didn't start raining again until the next day. I really liked this hike. It gave a really good view of the area. 

We stayed at Andrés’s dad’s house in the area, about 2/3 mile from the beach. Which was okay for the first few nights, when we didn't have 9 people sleeping in a small house… yet we all managed. Kind of.

I had some real interesting food here in Noja… 

Last night, the five of us that remained all went out to dinner at a local restaurant, where we got some really good burgers. Andrés and I had the best ones:

2x burger, 2x Lettuce, 2x Fried Egg, 2 Onion, 2 ham, and a really good bun. 

Ugh it was so much food. 

I made an amazing Apple crisp for when we had lunch on the beach. And by “an,” I mean 4. Apparently everyone liked it, and were going back for seconds, so I guess that's good. 

Also, that beach lunch consisted of Paella that was made. For thirty people. The 2 pans they used were so big, my goodness:

I tried 2 alcoholic drinks, because I guess that's what you do when you're 18 in Europe. So the first was a drink they call Calimocho, which is a combination of Wine and CocaCola. I don't understand why they love it so much… It's not very good.

The other one I tried was a mojito, which was much better. At least it tasted good, compared to the former...

Now, I also tried some very interesting food… For example, the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten in retrospect was this small circle of purple rice. Just some white rice with some sauce on it, yeah? When they handed it to me, they said, and I quote, “it's just rice. More or less.” So I was suspicious. But I mean, what is so suspicious about purple rice?

It wasn't until after I ate it that they told me what the sauce was. 

Sangre de Cerdo. In English, Pig Blood. 

Thank you Javier, I could have gone without you describing to me how they got the blood. 

It was the only food I've eaten here that has made me not feel good for the rest of the day, and even typing about it right now makes my stomach hurt so I'll stop and talk about something more fun. 

Bonfires on the beach were also super cool. (Well except for the whole returning-to-the-house-at-5:30-in-the-morning…) We prepared burgers beforehand that we would bring and then eat there. Amazing, nobody was hurt, except for the time someone decided to throw an empty 2 liter bottle on the coals and it exploded and got molten plastic on someone's leg… But other than that…

And the second bonfire we had came with an extra surprise: floating lanterns! They were so cool! I have never used these before so it was super cool. 

Of course, when you hang out with 20 year olds in Europe, you're going to go to parties. Well, if you're Josh, you go to party. 

Now, said party turns out to be a birthday party for you and one other, but still. 

Party. 

It was pretty cool. I had to explain some English idioms to people because they were curious. I'm still not sure how “Bob’s Your Uncle” came into being. 

We all played Charades, more or less. They played. I tried to play. But it's difficult when you are trying to get them to guess people you know almost nothing about.

And look they got me this cake!

And that was my whole last two weeks. I took so many pictures- what you see here is only a small small fraction of what is on my phone and camera. 

I had such a good time here and I'm going to miss them all so much! They are some of the coolest people I've met out of the country. (Okay, I haven't met many people, but still.)

And look here's all of us!

Barrrrrrcelona

THIS POST IS UNFINISHED. I don't have all the pictures and I can't until I get better wifi. So tomorrow night, in about 24 hours, I will have more pictures on here. Thank you. 

Wednesday, July 8th: So I started off today at 3am to catch a bus to Barcelona with Andrés!

But it was six hours long. And I slept for about 45 minutes total…

But this day was a great day! The weather in Barcelona is milder than in Logroño and Madrid, but only by a few degrees. 

Upon entering the city, we decided that one of the first things we wanted to do was see the Picasso Museum, which was pretty interesting. Lots of his stuff. Like the drawings and paintings from when he was just 15 are astounding. Why can't I be that good at it?? Like they looked mostly real. 15 years old.

One of the best things, however, was to see his progression- rather, decline (in my opinion)- of his work. I mean, yeah, his style is very unique and catches your attention, but what he was doing at 20 was just so amazing. Anyway…

After that,we walked around the city a bit. Walked around a cathedral, saw an ever-burning flame for the fighters in the civil war, and we saw the beautiful Arc de Triompf:

It's pretty cool. We a,so walked down Diagonal Avenue, which is one of the longest streets in Barcelona, but also one of the most packed with attractions. First of all, and in order of appearance, we saw La Pedrera, by architect Gaudí, who we will get back to later. La Pedrera is a really curvy, cool building that has become one of the icons of the city:

Andrés and I continued walking until we got to the Sagrada Familia, one of the most famous cathedrals in Barcelona, and probably all of Spain. It's completely funded by the public’s donations, so it's still incomplete, and has been for a really long time. But it's massive. Mind bogglingly massive. And it looks super amazing and I wish it will finish in my lifetime. 

Oh! And then I got some really good Patatas Picantes, or Spicy Potatoes, which I've had in Logroño but they're really good. 

We finished off the day by visiting another cathedral in town, but it has no special name. But it looks cool!

Dinner was some salad and fruit from Carrefour. Quite a bit of food for pretty cheap. Nice. 

And that was Wednesday… Ugh this is going to be a long post…

So Thursday, July 9th, a very uneventful day in history… Just kidding… We celebrate the birthday of someone very special and someone very dear to our hearts: Tom Hanks…

So I did my usual morning. Teeth, face, hair. You get the idea. Come out to my bed and start putting on my socks and Andrés starts laughing really hard and I'm not sure why. It's clear he was laughing at me but I couldn't figure out why. After about 2 minutes, I finally figured out that it was because I sat down right next to a bright, hot pink present he wrapped and I didn't even notice. 

We had some breakfast down at the hotel lobby. Croissant. Milk. And then we embarked on our journey to Güell Park. So Gaudí, who I mentioned before, lived here and designed a huge park out of mosaics. And it was really beautiful:

It looked super nice and really well done and it was all beautiful. It was crowded, but still nice. I had a really good time, except for when we saw the guy who had bright pink pigeons he dyed and was using to make money off the tourists. I don't know. I think it was kind of lame to let people take pictures with them, and then not tell them that that had to pay €5 until afterwards. Oh well. It seems to work. 

So we headed down to a pier near a port of the Mediterranean Sea, where Andrés just HAD to wait 30 minutes for a ferry to leave so he could get a picture with some rope which apparently looked very Summery. I guess. 

We continued down Las Ramblas street, another huge street full of performers, until about 7:30 when Andrés decided he wanted to try some real good food to celebrate my adulthood:

(He liked it. A lot more than other fast foods, he says.)

Came back to the hotel and watched Alice in Wonderland, because hey, it was on. Also we got more fruit cups. (The fruit here is so cheap it's amazing. There's a fruit/veggie stand on every block.)

Also there was a giant cat statue and I'm not sure why, but I won't question it. Because cats. 

Friday, July 10th: Okay, so looking back on today, there was nothing bad. Everything that happened was amazing. We started off at the beaches. The Mediterranean beaches. Warm water, soft sand, really blue water… And a buttload of people. Ugh so many. But oh well. The weather was amazing. Only slightly cloudy, windy, and not too hot. (At least next to the water) 

We just walked along beach after beach after beach, looking for whatever sparked our interest. That happened to be this very large hotel, which we then sat by later to take more pictures. 

After getting lost in the city center for a bit, we stopped by an AMAZING PIZZA PLACE. Like wow it was so good and cheap. €2.95 for what would cost like $6 at an American place. Deep dish. Peppers and sausage. Ugh it was so good. I think we're going there for lunch tomorrow before our bus back. And it was so delicious oh man. Greasy food is where my heart belongs…

Walked around a bit more before taking a quick 45 minute nap by ole Columbus. 

We slugged on over to Plaça Espanya (that's the annoying thing. Everyone here speaks Catalonian, which is basically a mixture of French and Spanish, so it's not quite Spanish and very annoying…) and spent some time in the mall, where it was, thankfully, air conditioned. Walked up onto the roof, where we could get a 360 degree view of the city. Pretty cool.

We then walked back toward the city center to get me to try a new food: Kebabs. Which were the best things, I swear. Like they're a taco? But made of bread? And chicken and spicy sauce and GARLIC SAUCE WOW I LOVE GARLIC SAUCE. I NEVER GET TIRED OF IT.  And that was super good. 

Bought some watermelon. Well, a quarter of one. Probably going to go eat some now. I'm back at the hotel right now. The Internet is only available in the lobby, and that's where I have most of my pictures, so I have to go down there to get them on here. 

I might not post for a while. On Sunday morning, we are leaving for a couple weeks to Noja, a beach in northern Spain, and I guess there's not any wifi, except for at a bar which they go to every other day or so, so maybe I can post. But it probably won't be every other day like I'm trying to here. Plus, a lot of days will be the same: beach. If there's something eventful, I'll try and write it on a blog before I forget. So just a heads up. 

Last few days

Sorry. I'm trying to get this done but ugh it's work. 

Okay so my last day of writing I think was Sunday. Bus ride. Fried zucchini. 

Okay so Monday comes along. Wake up at 8:30, then I went to the bank with Andrés and Manuel. Basically, my bank account was hacked at most money was taken out, so with the amazing help of mom and dad, we got things worked out. So after we got back from the bank and ate breakfast. Andrés and I went on a bike ride! It was a lot of fun, even if it started getting really warm at the middle of the ride. We rode around a local lake, with swans and swimming rats. 

Monday must have also been the day that we went over to Carlos's house to have his amazing paella. It was so good oh my.  I even tried some of the squid in it?? It was really chewy and I've had better seafood… But it still was amazing paella and melon. Wowie the melon.

When we got back to Andrés's house, nothing really happened until we ordered hamburgers and wowowow those were really awesome. So basically, Monday was filled with really good food. My burger had this really good sauce on it and it was a really good bun and really flavorful meat and some other really good things. Really.

Alright, so Tuesday comes along and was really uneventful. With e use of my pedometer app, I found out that yesterday was the day I walked least on my trip. 0.7 miles. Went to buy more toothpaste and sunscreen. 

Then dinner eventually comes along. I walk out and something smells familiar, but I couldn't place it. It was only until after they told me what I just ate that I realized the smell reminded me of Grandma and Grampa Pugel’s house: lamb. Oh but I didn't have just lamb. No, I had lamb intestines…

Yummmmm…

(It was actually flavorful. I'm glad they waited until after I tried it and said that I liked it to tell me what it was.)

I have to wake up tomorrow morning at 2am to catch a bus to Barcelona. 6 hours? Nah. 

Okay so sorry if I don't post for a while. My hotel in Barcelona doesn't have any wifi for some reason? So I have to post this using my phone’s wifi, which uses data so I might not update until Saturday. Maybe. 

Madrid <3

Alrighty, so the main reason I haven't been able to post in a while is because I've been in Madrid, stay win Andrés's aunt, uncle, and two cousins. They're so extremely nice and their hospitality was so wonderful. I had some pasta salad and olives, and if you know anything about me, I don't like olives very much.

Oh! That's another thing! I tried Spanish Ham, which is pretty good! At least, in comparison to American ham... Ours is way too salty, but this is nice.

So sing this to the 12 Days of Christmas tune:

On the first day to Madrid, Andrés gave to me: a four hour bus ride with no wifi. 

On the first afternoon in Madrid, Andrés gave me a: tour of the city, where I saw some really amazing sights:

 

On the second day of Madrid, Andrés gave to me: another tour- of another part- of the city of beautiful Madrid. 

(The first one is part of a metro station dedicated to the Minions movie. The second picture is one of the statues of Don Quixote.)

(We went to the lookout balcony of city hall, where I got these pictures)

(I guess every point in Spain is measured from this exact tile on the sidewalk.)

We also had burritos for dinner, at a restaurant basically like Chipotle or Free Bird. You get the idea. It was really good. Pretty spicy. 

On the third day of Madrid, I had quite a filled up day. But I can't put it all into the song tune so you can stop with that now. 

So we started at like noon, because we woke up late. His aunt drove us into town on her way, and dropped us by the famous Four Towers, and the nearby Leaning Towers.

(Those were unnerving to walk under...)

We hung out with a lot of Andrés's friends all these days too, but Saturday was the most friend-filled day. 

Saturday was also the main day of the Madrid Pride Festival. Since we had nothing else really to do, we figured that we would stop by. I guess when they say "stop by," they mean "stay from 6pm to midnight."  So that was my Saturday. Basically rainbows and really loud music and a very very drunk woman who sprayed water at me. But it was a lot of fun. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I either associated with their ways, or I spoke Spanish.

But here I am

A Straight, English Speaking Ally.

So I didn't have as much fun. But I can still be happy for them, right? Right. 

You know what I didn't like about all this?

The fact that OVER 1.5 MILLION people show up to this, from all around Spain and Europe. I guess it's the biggest Pride Parade in all of Europe? So that was scary. I lost the others in the crowd for a few moments a couple times. But I'm all okay. 

One of Andrés's friends, Fran, is super cool. He rented me a room in his apartment co pled all to myself for Saturday night. My own bathroom, my own bed, everything. It was such a cool thing for him to do because he knew I was super tired and loved to sleep, so I guess earlier in the day, he booked it for me?? It was such an awesome thing to do. 

Also I had McDonald's fries on Sunday morning at 2am because we were still in town after the parade. It moved really slowly because, you know, over a million people were trying to eat somewhere...

So here it is, Sunday night. We slept until about 11:00 this morning, then traveled over to his aunt and uncles house one more time. We ate breakfast, then lunch, and then departed for the bus station. Our 5:00 bus, yet again, took 4 hours to get to Logroño. It's so boring with no wifi. 

I had a fried egg for dinner. It was the first time I've ever had one. It was pretty okay. I'd eat one again. I also had this thing...

Maybe, depending on how involved you are in my food eating, you know that I despise zucchini. Like I can't eat it.

Unless, I guess, it's fried. Like tonight, when I had fried zucchini. It was... Okay... I'd be willing to eat it again. Probably.