Pamplona

Plaza Castillo at siesta time

Las night (at around 11pm) I got back safe and sound to Madrid from my tour of the north of Spain which by the way was lovely. Between buses, trains, carrying a heavy back-pack and walking all day long, everyday, I got back exhausted and could hardly wake up this morning. Actually I haven’t done much today except for the laundry, getting a problem with my Spanish SIM card fixed in the city, catching up with some people, downloading all the pictures from my camera and writing my stories for the blog. This time around I did not stress much about how to get to places and where to stay. I had done some research on the prices of buses vs. trains just to know what was less expensive, but I did not actually buy the tickets until I got there. And for the hostels, I just wrote down some addresses but did not make any reservations: I showed up to the places, asked for a room and if they did not have one they either called some other place for me or I just walked in the area looking for another one. I learned that hostels (hostales or pensiones in Spanish) are just like gas stations in the US: if you see one in one corner or one side of the street you are guarantee to bump into another 3 at the following corner.

The experience of traveling by bus for a couple of hours between cities was new to me as I had always taken the train. The buses where very comfortable, with a TV set featuring a movie, a thing for your headset so you can insert them and listen to the movie or listen to different music channels (just like the ones in the airplane), and with a driver who would announce each coming stop and the duration of the “layover” at the different towns. I liked the fact that bus stations are smaller, less hectic and less crowded than train stations. The only but for me with the buses was the fact that I could not read. I’ve always heard that it is bad to read when you are inside a car and then on top of that I usually start getting a headache when I read inside a car. Luckily I was up to date downloading the pod cast editions to my ipod of my favorite NPR shows (which I also happen to think are 2 of the smartest radio shows in the US): Wait, wait, don’t tell me and This American Life. They kept me laughing, crying and both laughing and craying during my journeys.

PAMPLONA

Old Town in Pamplona - Encierro Sculpture

I left Madrid at 8 o’clock in the morning on Thursday and took a 5 hour bus to the city of Pamplona, the capital of the state of Navarra. Pamplona (192,ooo habitants) is known worldwide for its festival of San Fermin which takes place during the first/second week of July. During this festival hundreds of crazy locals and tourists (and I call them crazy because you definitely have to have some degree of craziness to participate in it) take part on the also world famous “Encierro” or running of the bulls. The actual path of the Encierro is a half a mile stretch which begins on the town hall and ends at the bullring. And once again hundreds of crazy people run for their lives along this half a mile stretch as they are chased by a couple of running bulls. The interesting thing is to see the signs on the streets that show you which way the “Encierro” goes and also the plaques with the description on what happens to you and the bull when you reach this particular section of the “Encierro”.

Signs leading to the Encierro - Explanation of Estafeta Street tract

Estafeta Street

I arrived in Pamplona right at the beginning of siesta time. Talk about a tradition that sounds more and more appealing to me. Madrid, being the big cosmopolitan city it is has lost a lot of the siesta tradition; but smaller cities like Pamplona and the others I visited in this trip are still holding tight to it. I remember arriving to Pamplona and feeling as if I had arrived to a ghost town: hardly any souls on the streets, all the shops in the city center and old town were closed and it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. But between 4 and 5 PM when all the stores began to re-open for business the city had another feel to it: lively, noisy, and vibrant. The many pincho bars (this is how they call tapas in the northern part of Spain) began to get more and more crowded as the night went by. After walking all over town I decided to go to the pincho bar a the bottom of my hotel to have some pinchos and then called it a night as I wanted to wake up early the following day to do some more walking around town before heading to my next destination: San Sebastian-Donostia

Itinerary #1: The North of Spain

A lo que vinimos!!!

Tomorrow morning (actually today since it is already 2 o'clock in the morning on Wednesday Feb 21st) I leave to Pamplona. This will be my first stop on this trip to the norther part of Spain. I will be catching an 8 o'clock bus and arriving in Pamplona at around 1 o'clock in the afternoon. The cost of traveling by bus in Spain is very reasonable and you can save a lot of money when compared to the train fares. This is something I discovered recently. The thing is that in order to get a good fare on a train you need to book your tickets a couple of weeks in advance while when you travel by bus is the same tariff if you buy the ticket weeks in advance or the day before. Ok....so I have made up this itinerary based on recommendations from friends and other people I've met/talked to at random about my plans of going to the north of Spain. Some of these cities are also places that have always intrigued me and that I have been wanting to go to for some time now. And even though it may seem aggressive, the truth of the matter that some of the places are small towns which can be seen in just one day...or half a day.

So here is the itinerary

• Thursday - Pamplona (Navarra)
• Friday & Saturday - San Sebastian/Donostia (the Vasque Country)
• Sunday and half of Monday - Bilbao (the Vasque Country)
• half of Monday & Tuesday - Santander (Cantabria)
• Wednesday - Gijon & Oviedo (Asturias)
• Thursday - Salamanca (Castilla y Leon)

I'm not taking my laptop with me (actually I have decided to travel very light and I'm only taking my backpack) so I'm not sure how much I will be able to connect to the internet. I will probably try to connect to an internet cafe here and there to finish booking some of the hotels /hostels I will be staying at...so I will try to give a brief update on my whereabouts and will definitely post lots of pictures once I come back to Madrid

Good-bye Paris

The Peace Wall

Right after returning from London I started what I call my farewell tour of Paris (my rounds of saying good-bye to the people I met in Paris and saying good bye to the city as well). Actually, I’m becoming an expert in saying good-bye: Miami, Munich, Paris and in the future Madrid. The tour started out by spending 2 days of the week before last St. Germain en Laye where I visited Pilar so I coud get to spend some time with her and the kids one last time. The day I came back to Paris from St. Germain I met up with 2 friends in the afternoon to have a hot chocolate at “LaDuree”. Even though I had been in Paris before I had never heard of this iconic “Maison du Thé” (Tea house) where many times you even have to stay in line before you can get a table. The place has been opened since 1863 (as far as I can remember) and it is not only beautiful, very French and very chic but rather pricy too. However it is worth it. There are 2 of them in Paris but I went to the one on Champs Elysee where I ate the best tarte tatin (similar to an apple pie) of my life together with a super delicious, rich and thick cup of hot chocolate; and last but not least we shared an assortment of their famous macaroons. The French macaroons are basically a type of cookie. In this trip, it is the first time where I’ve actually seen and had macaroons: they are 2 cookies made out of egg whites (similar to meringue) and with a filling in the middle. They are made of different flavors such as vanilla, almond, chocolate, strawberry, rose petals and pistachio (my favorite one). As a matter of fact I liked them so much I even bought a book on how to make macaroons of different flavors for when I go back to Miami. Ja ja ja…I laugh: first of all, me cooking????? Ja ja ja ( I laugh again) and making macaroons?!?!?!?. Seeing is believing!!! If I can make macaroons at least a tenth as good as they make them at LaDuree I would be very happy.

Eiffel Tower from Pont Alexander - Sunset at Montmartre

That same day (Wednesday) my friend Eliana Silva arrived from Munich. She came to visit me and spend a couple of days in Paris. This was my chance to become a tour guide of my adoptive city from the last 3 months and a half and gave me also the chance to make one last visit to all my favorite spots. We even had a chance to go out one night to a Jazz and Blues place: very typical in Paris. For many years Parisians have been in love with jazz music. Most of the places where they play jazz, just as this one was, are actually small cellars (cave in French) or basements which tend to be very packed. Many of the good ones and the most famous and oldest ones are located in the St. Germain de Pres area. We listened to a wonderful blues band while sipping a glass of a cheap wine (we were all on a student budget…you know). One of the best things about going out at night in Paris since January 1st 2008 is the fact that now it is forbidden to smoke inside closed places. I never thought that the day would come in Europe where people would be banned from smoking in bars. For a non-smoking person like me it is one of the best laws the French government (as well as many other European governments did) could have implemented in 2008.

With Eli at Notre Dame -- With Caro Niso in front of the Moulin Rouge

At the Palais Royal (Royal Palace) in Paris

Blues Band at "Cave des Oubliettes"

My friend left Paris on Monday night and that is when I started packing for my relocation to Madrid. Where is my relocation coordinator when I most needed her? I still can’t get over the fact of how many things we can start to accumulate in a short period of time. I haven’t really bought too many things here (except for books and DVDs…well and maybe 2 or 3 items of clothing during the January super sales) and I still had a difficult time fitting everything into my bags. That night I went to sleep super late and I was invited to a breakfast early in the morning the following day. It was a good-bye breakfast so I had to be there early and only got about 5 hours of sleep. Even though that is what I used to sleep on an average night in my previous life my body is not used to it anymore. I need my 8 hours of beauty sleep!! I almost went into a shock state when the alarm went off and I had to get out of bed…only 5 hours after having fallen asleep. Connie, the one cooking breakfast at her place, is from Monterrey Mexico and is in Paris only for 3 months while her husband is attending a course/training at a hospital. She cooked the typical breakfast from Monterrey: scrambled eggs with meat and tortillas. It was D E L I C I O U S!!! And to my surprise she had purchased a box of macaroons at LaDuree which I of course enjoyed with a cup of coffee for dessert (if such thing really exists: having dessert at breakfast). After breakfast I decided to go for a last walk in Paris. The day was gorgeous: sunny, no clouds on the sky and a very nice and comfortable temperature. After the sunset I headed back home to finish packing and to get together with my roommate for dinner: another goodbye dinner. This time at a French restaurant near the apartment so I had one last chance to walk back home looking at the illuminated Eiffel tower…for the last time.

On Wednesday I woke up early again to start my journey to Madrid. I took a flight with Vueling (very good airline, very good service and very good prices) and arrived in Madrid at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Thank God my uncle (Jorge) was waiting for me. We had some coffee together and then he helped me bring my bags over to Eliana’s apartment which is where I will be staying while in Madrid. And I have to say I couldn’t ask for anything better. I have my own room, my own restroom, and my own set of keys. My uncle couldn’t stay for very long since he was busy doing all the stuff he needs to do for his move to London (which will take place in about a month or 2 at the most) but he promised to take me soon to a new and allegedly better place to have churros con chocolate. Since I got to Madrid I have been resting, reading, jogging everyday (except today) and planning my future trips. I went out on Friday night to see Marelys at a Tapas bar near the city center and get to meet all of her roommates and friends. I couldn’t stay very long (I left at midnight, which is super early for Madrid standards) because otherwise I would miss the last metro back home. Eli’s apartment is located on a new area on the north side of Madrid called Sanchinarro. Between the metro ligero (a tramway) and the metro it can take anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour to get to the city center. Yesterday it was back to the city center after a long jogging session for dinner and coffee with Eli, Mare, Victor and Juan C. And here I am today, finally finishing this post which I started a couple of days ago and getting ready to continue planning the rest of my stay in Europe.

The last 3 and half months in Paris were great and they were a totally different experience from my stay in Munich. Actually my original plan was to stay there until the third week in January and I ended up extending my stay for about 3 weeks and a half. Sometimes I get asked which one I liked better (between France and Germany) but I cannot really answer that question. The fact is that both experiences were soooooooooooo different and they each one left me so unique things that I cannot simply compare them as equal in trying to identify which one was better. Paris left me a new language with which I now feel more comfortable and new culture: I can understand the French people a little bit better now, I understand more of its politics and where they come from, their historical background; I gained an appreciation for their music and their cuisine. Ey!! I even learned how to make Ratatouille. But in Paris everything was not about France and its culture. I met wonderful and very interesting people (all of them not from France) and I made great, smart and good-hearted friends from whom I learned a lot. And finally Paris also gave me a lot of alone time. . . to think and reflect about the things I want in my life for the future.
I have to admit that when I left I had mixed feelings: I felt nostalgic for leaving Paris and the people I was leaving behind but at the same time I was happy and excited about coming to Madrid and getting to share some time with family and friends. I was nostalgic for closing yet another chapter of this adventure and happy for opening a new one…which to some extend is still uncertain…but exciting. Nostalgic for seeing the end of this one year adventure closer and closer, but happy for having gained so much from it, learned, seen, met and done so many things…just as I wanted it and even more…until now...and I left being even more thankful to GOD!!!

Oxford

Christ Church in Oxford

During my trip to London I also took one day to visit the city of Oxford (population: 143,000). Oxford is a rather small city located north of London and about an hour to an hour and twenty minutes away by bus. I got there just around noon and fell in love with the place immediately. It is such a charming city. WOW…I was impressed. I walked all over the place stopping at some of the University buildings, churches and even the natural science museum. I walked its many narrow streets and walked into many of its small but very quaint shops and made lots of pictures. Being a university town I found Oxford to be a very vibrant and lively city and walking thru the university buildings makes you want to go back to school and study something….well, maybe not. But the place is really inspiring.

Buildings belonging to Oxford University

The city of Oxford

London's Redemption

The Parliament and the Big Ben

When I went to London back in 2006 (my first and only one time in that city until now) I said it was going to be many years before I’d return back there. I know it is awful to say this but back then London did not really do it for me. I can’t really explain why: maybe my expectations were set very high (so many people had told me so many wonderful things about London I don’t know what I was expecting anymore) or I was tired from some very hectic days in York and Edinburgh at the beginning of that vacation (you know, when you try to do 4 European cities in 5 days) or maybe I was just so traumatized by how expensive everything was that I could not get past the currency exchange. I could not see beyond the bagel and tea for 5-6 British pounds which back then represented 7.50 to 9 dollars. But I definitely spoke to soon. An opportunity presented itself for me to go back to London, something I was not really contemplating on this trip, and give this city a second chance. My uncle and his wife are moving from Madrid to London and she is already living there so after she offered me a place to stay I decided to go visit her and spend some time in London. This time around my companion was with my “Europe on a shoestring” book which gives a lot of good information on places to visit and things to do in many European cities when you are on a budget. So I started looking for the most economical way to get from Paris to London and lucked out with what I found. Since the inauguration of the Channel Tunnel (the undersea tunnel which allows trains to cross from France to England under the English Channel) I had always dreamt of being able to experience being on that train. Thank God I found a great deal on the Eurostar (77 Euros for a roundtrip ticket) and was able to finally be on it. The train left Paris at around 1o’clock in the afternoon and took 2 hours and 20 minutes to reach London after stopping in 2 cities in France (Lile and Calais) and one in England. The terminal for the Eurostar in Paris is very similar to an airport terminal. You have to go thru security and have your bags scanned, then get your passport stamped by a French immigration officer and then be questioned and stamped by a British immigration officer. After that you walk into a small version of an airport’s waiting area with chairs on one side and small shops and pastry shops on the other. About 20 minutes before the schedule departure they start boarding the train and you hand your ticket to an agent at the door right before the escalators/stairs leading to the train. The train itself does not look as high-tech or from an episode of the Jetsons as you would expect…or at least as I had expected. However, it is very comfortable inside and I loved the fact that everyone boarded and got seated in a very civilized way. I knew that the train would stop in Calais, a city right on the French coast, and afterwards it would cross the channel into England. So once the train left Calais I was on the lookout for that moment the train would start to enter the channel. I was hoping for some sort of signal that would warn me. But to my disappointment there is really nothing that anticipates the entrance into the tunnel: no announcement from the captain (Captaint!! Ja ja ja..as if this was a plane or a ship; but I don’t really know what to call him/her), no music, no fireworks. So here is how I experienced it: I kept seeing more of a suburban area (green fields) as the train left Calais but saw no water. All of a sudden the train enters a tunnel (just like you experience in many train journeys here in Europe) and I also felt the train speeding up. Since I was on the lookout for the moment we would enter the tunnel I reached for my cellphone and looked at the time. The train continued its journey and nothing could be seen on either side, everything was pitch dark. After I while my ears began to get clogged. A couple of minutes into the darkness I assumed we were crossing the channel and I just continued with my reading instead of thinking that I was inside this tunnel underneath the pressure of who knows how much water and what if something went wrong or if the train had to stop for a reason and stay inside the tunnel for who knows how long, etc (I tend to be claustrophobic) When I finally saw the light (no I wasn’t having a near death experience) and saw land I looked at my cellphone again. 20 minutes had elapsed and my service provider had changed from France SFR to UK Telecom. How cool is that?!?!? I had crossed the channel and was now in the UK. About 20-30 minutes later the train arrived at the new St. Pancras station in London where my aunt was waiting for me.

St. Pancras Station in London

St. Pancras Station - Eurostar train

The weather in London was colder than in Paris, actually it was much colder and very windy. It turns out there was an artic front entering the UK right the same week I was there and the temperature dropped significantly to the low 30’s and high 20’s. But having London the reputation of a city where it always rains I lucked out because it only rained one morning from the 7 days I spent there.

Tragalgar Square and the Big Ben in the back

Picadilly - Buckingham Palace

In London I had a fantastic week. I spent time with Esperanza and the family she shares a “flat” with. They were extremely nice and welcoming, so it felt very good to be once again surrounded by the warmness of a whole family, sitting down with them to chat, watch a movie, laugh, eat and enjoy a couple of wine glasses. Since they are all from Colombia they cooked some Colombian dishes which I loved and savored: sancocho, empanadas, arepa made from cooked corn, and yuca frita. While in London I visited a lot of museums since all of them were free: the British Museum, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery (this one I really loved. It has portraits from British royals and celebrities from the 16th century until today), the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Science Museum. I also took my time to revisit the places I visited the first time around (this time I was not willing to pay the high prices to go in so I just enjoyed them from the outside) like the Tower of London (15 British pounds = 30 USD), the Wesminster Abbey (10 pounds = 20 USD) and St. Paul Cathedral. I also took my time strolling down Hyde Park, Picadilly, Trafalgar Square, the Parliament and the Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, the Tower Bridge, the London Bridge (is falling down, falling down, falling down…lalalala). A friend who I met in my German class in Munich was also in London that week as her family is from there so I met up with her to walk a little bit around Covent Garden and have a coffee. I also had time to visit a friend of the family who invited me to a home cooked lunch and where I also had a wonderful time talking. I took one day to visit the city of Oxford (I’m putting a separate story and separate pictures for Oxford) and another one to visit two small suburban towns: Richmond and Wimbledon. All and all I had a wonderful time and really enjoyed the city. I had the chance and the time to fall in love with it. I left wanting more of it, wanting to go back and realizing that sometimes it is worth to give a second chance!!!

Westminster Abbey - London's architecture

The Tower Bridge -- With Esperanza

"My" French graduation

I get asked frequently how my french is going, whether or not is improving, how much I understand and how I'm communicating with people. Here is a little story on that:

I consider myself, and therefore declare it official, as having graduated from French (the language). In other words, I feel I can checkmark the French language box …for now. Of course there is still a lot I have to learn and practice in order to master and be up to par with the language of great writers such as Dumas, Victor Hugo, Maupassant, Moliere and Camus and the language which has left us those words that we always squeeze into our mother language to make us sound so “chic”: déjà-vu, cul-de sac, avant-garde, chic, RSVP, etc etc etc. But during 2 days of the week prior to my trip to London I had to deal with a French plumber who spoke no Spanish, no English and no German. It so happens that one of the hoses on the kitchen sink broke and water started to leak. On Monday morning the bell rang and I opened the door to a lady (one who looked like “la Bruja del 71” from El Chavo or Samantha’s mother in “Bewitched”) and a gentleman. They came to figure out why there was water leaking from our apartment into hers. She even asked me to accompany her to her apartment so I could see myself the water leaking into her kitchen wall and the damage it was causing to her allegedly “just painted” wall. Of course!!! It never fails: they’ve always just painted the wall when something from your apartment leaks into their’s; people always have a small baby or a dying relative when they are out of power and are talking to you, an employee of the electric utility company; and passengers always have their most expensive and valuable object or the medicine they need to take every 8 hours or else they will die, in the bag that they checked-in and did not arrive on their flight and you are an employee of the airline’s baggage service. But I guess that is a whole other story on its own. In any case, the plumber looked at the sink and gave me his first diagnosis: Mademoiselle, one of the sides of the sink is broken; don’t use it for now and just use the other side which is OK. He later came back, checked to make sure the leaking had stopped. It hadn’t, so he checked it again and gave me his second diagnosis and the information I needed to provide to my roommate as to what needed to be done: replace one of the little hose that carries the water to the sink valve. Please mind you that all of these conversations were taking place in French. I wasn’t really prepared to discuss plumbing issues in French. I don’t even recall learning any “plumbing” words or the “plumbing” language in class…or maybe I just missed class that day…ja ja ja!!.
The following day he came back to change out the hose but he ran into a small problem and that is when he gave me his third and final diagnosis: The whole piece (the faucet) had to be replaced as this one was not a standard one which could just take any hose. To make a long story short I had to go with him to the “Sherwin Williams’ type of store across from my building and purchase the piece. 30 minutes later he had fixed the sink, the leaking had stopped and I was very happy to have communicated with him in French all the time. Not bad, is what I say!

I’m currently back from London (where I had a great time) and in my last week in Paris. My friend Eliana Silva from Munich came to visit me and just got here last night. Giving her a tour of Paris for the next couple of days will give me a chance to visit my favorite places one last time before leaving and to say good by to this amazing city which I will miss tremendously. This morning, as I was coming back home from my jogging it dawned on me how much I will miss Paris. I don’t get tired of saying how amazing, wonderful and spectacular this city is to me.

The London story and the pictures to come soon!!!