I have enjoyed my nice relaxing time here in Spain! This has been my third week in Europe & the third new language I have had to get used to. I studied Spanish in school, so I was not better than the previous two countries, but most of my vocabulary has been lost. Thankfully for this trip I was traveling with my friend, Aaron, who has started studying Spanish, so he was able to speak quite a bit, making it even easier to get around. I had not seen Aaron for about 3.5 years or so. It was great to catch up with him and hang out again, it was just like the old times. It is great to have friends that when you see them you just pick up where you left off no matter how much time has gone by. We started out by traveling around some of the villages a few hours south of Madrid. We loved wondering through the small streets & seeing the Spanish architecture. Many of the villages in this area had these large windmills on the hills near the towns. As we were exploring a hill top with a number of these windmills & a castle we came across an American tour group that were going into one of the windmills that had previously been all locked up. So we joined them. We learned so much about the windmills & got to meet some nice Americans traveling around Spain. The windmills were used by the village to grind down the wheat and barley in the area to make flour. They still use them once a year for a festival, otherwise they just look really cool & draw tourists. While in this village we discovered that the next town over was having a festival with Spanish bulls & all. So Aaron & I made sure we made that festival. It was great!
We got there & we had some older couples explaining to us what was happening. They knew no English at all, so half the fun was trying to figure out what they were saying. At one point when we were standing down on the ground on the edge of the bull ring we had a few different people take pictures of us. I imagine they do not get many tall Americans in this town, let alone ones at their bull festival in this small village.
In Malaga, southern Spain, we met up with one of Aaron's friends from when he lived in London & we stayed with her. Sara, Aaron's friend was amazing & took us to the beach and this great village in the rocky hillside. All of the buildings and streets were painted white to help reduce the heat created in the village from the sun. She also got us into the Spanish life style by introducing us to the beauty of a siesta. The standard Spainish day as I understand it is that the people get up in the morning & work until 2pm. Than they go home and have a siesta, which usually involves a 30 min to 2 hour long nap & a large lunch at home. Than they head back to work and the shops supposedly open back up sometime after 6pm. Than they eat dinner around 9pm & than will go to bed around 1am. In Spain the restaurants do not tend to open up until at least 7:30-8pm. We never really knew when things would be opened or closed. We did our best to adjust & started having a siesta in the afternoon and staying up late.
On Saturday night while still in Malaga Sara and her friend Helen took us out to dinner and than we went out for a couple drinks and go dancing. It was such a great time, but the habits there are so different. People normally meet up to start going out around 1:30-2am, we started by having dinner at 11pm. The town has a square with a number of bars surrounding it. Everyone meets up in this square, it is called the meeting point. You grab a drink from one of the bars & stand in the middle of the plaza with all of the other people & everyone just meets up here. After a little bit this place actually dies down & than you move onto the different bars and clubs around the main city area. The thing I thought was crazy was that the bars and clubs only start charging cover charges at 4am! Apparently the normal night ends around 8am with breakfast at home. We did not stay out until 8am, that was going to be a bit too much as we still wanted to see some stuff the next day.
In some of the bars Aaron & I discovered that, we were slightly too tall to dance there, especially Aaron. We would hit out heads on the ceiling over top, as the Spanish tend to be quite a bit shorter than either of us. We thought it was hilarious. So there were areas we could go and others we could not. Sara & Helen did a great job of showing us around, entertaining us, and answering all of our questions about the Spanish habits.
After Malaga we went through Sevilla and Granada. In Sevilla the influence from the Moorish architecture was all around. I really enjoyed the new style. The Moorish use a lot of repetition and tiles in their architecture. We went to a Palace in Sevilla that was nothing like I had ever seen before. It really threw me back. Aaron had been to Sevilla before and knew where all the best spots were. In Granada we met up with another one of our friends, Leslie. None of us had seen each other in a number of years, so it was good to do an all around catch up. Leslie had a work colleague she was meeting up with, so after the meeting her work colleague took us all out to this great boutique wine shop. The man that owns the shop goes around the local area picking out the best wines and than serves them with nibbles that are best paired with the wine you ordered. It was some amazing wine!
Leaving Madrid and Spain has ended up being a bit of a crazy trip. As Aaron and Leslie were meeting up with Aaron's family than were going to head to Portugal, I had to drive up to Madrid alone to catch my flight to South Africa. Since we had adopted the late nights in Spain and I had to get up quite early to catch my flight, I really struggled and was exhausted. I left late and had to stop a couple times to take a nap along the way. I also had given my passport to the Brazilian embassy in an effort to get one more of the visas I require, so I had to pick that up along the way. I was able to pick up my passport with a visa for Brazil, which is very exciting! Only one more major visa I need to figure out how to get now, than hopefully no more visa issues. After fighting traffic in central Madrid & returning the car I made it to the airport with what I thought was about 25 minutes before the check-in closed. Close, I know, but I was so happy, I thought I had made it all just in the nick of time as I had been running late all day. Little did I know I was about to not be allowed on the plane!
The deal was this, I have not completely figured out what I am going to do at the end of my trip in South Africa, so I have not booked my flight out of South Africa. I have flights booked from Kenya, but not my flights from South Africa up to Kenya. While I thought this would prove that I am leaving the country the airline in Madrid decided that I may have trouble at the other end and they were not going to let me board the plane unless I had a purchased flight out of South Africa. They thought I may be fine because I am a US citizen, but they still would not let me on the plane. With only about 15 minutes before I was not going to be let on the plane, I went running up through the airport stopping at every airline seeing if they would sell me a ticket from Johannesburg to Kenya. None of the ones that were open flew there. So I stuck some money in an Internet kiosk hoping to buy one on line.
The first kiosk, which used all of my left over Euros worked for about 3 minutes, than completely died and stole my money. I begged a few people in my very little Spanish for some Euros to buy some more time on line at a new kiosk. After working with this new kiosk it just seemed to get stuck at the point of purchasing a ticket. So I ran back to the airline & told them I tried everyone & even the Internet. I am meeting a number of friends in the airport in Cape Town, that would be extremely difficult to get a hold of & the next flight would not get me into Cape Town until a couple days later. I needed on that flight!
They told me when I got back to the counter, that I had missed my flight and they would not let me board the plane. After begging & pleading we were able to work out a deal where I purchased a refundable ticket from Johannesburg back up to Doha in the middle east. Yes, this flight goes no where I want to go, but it let me get on the plane to get to South Africa. I do not know what the fee will be, but I am going to have to pay some fee to cancel this random flight I bought so I could get into the country. So I am now about $700 Euros poorer & still they were not sure if they could get me on the plane. They had to rush my bags through to the plane, and than one of the ladies escorted me through all of the security process & walked me all the way to the flight where I was one of the last ones to board. I was so happy to be sitting on that plane. This was one of those times I was so happy the plane was running a bit late. You know what? When I landed South African passport control did not even care, Ugh! The next problem was that since the plane was running late I almost missed my connecting flight from Doha down to South Africa. On this one I ran through the terminal & I had to take a shuttle bus alone out to the plane. After I boarded the plane over the intercom they announced, “all of the passengers are now on board.” When I got to Johannesburg I found out that while I made the flight, my bag did not. I am a huge fan and quite a large promoter of traveling light & limiting the amount of luggage you carry, but this is a little lighter than I like. I think a trip to the clothing store may be in order very soon. I am happy this has happened on this leg of the trip because I planning to stay at the same place for a few days. This happened to me last year around this time of the year when I went to Merimbula for the FOT. It looks like I will only be without bags for 2 days, so it could be much worse. I have my camera, passport, credit card, computer, phone, bible, some power cords, a jacket, and the cloths on my back, what else could I ever need? :)
This trip has been a bit interesting to say the least, but I have had a good sleep on the planes!
Adiós amigos y amigas!!
~Laugh & Love Life~
