March is almost over?!

It seems like I was just writing a blog about Belgium and all my adventures there and now, I look at the calendar only to realize that March is almost over, which means that my time in Spain is rapidly coming to an end.  I only have 2 more months over here, but I'm going to milk it for all it's worth.  oh, I booked my ticket home, and I'll be touching U.S. soil Monday June 15th. 

 This last month was great.  The weather was gorgeously warm, sunny and in the 70's, so I spent countless afternoons outside playing tennis with Ellen, reading in the park, or picnicing on the hill at the edge of town enjoying the mountains and olive trees.  Sadly, we're now in a cold spell, and the temperature dropped 20 degrees so I'm back to my winter coat and huddling under blankets in the apartment to stay warm. Luckily, I'm leaving in four days for warmer lands.  Semana santa (holy week) begins here in Spain at the end of the week, as Spaniards start preparing for Easter with parades and festivals.  I, however, am catching a plane en route to Kenya in four days!  I'm giddy with exciement because it's my first time to Africa and I get to see Tiffany, a friend from Hope who has been there since mid-September working in an orphanage outside the capital of Nairobi.  I get to spend a whole 10 days with her experiencing life in Kenya and I couldn't be looking forward to it any more than I am already.

Anyway, quick recap of the month.  Mid-month I got some wonderful visitors.  Abby came to visit during her spring break from med school and brought two of her friends, Crystal and Dana, with her.  After meeting them in the airport in Madrid, we bussed to Toledo.  Toledo is a quaint little town on the side of a mountain.  The Jewish, Moorish, and Christain cultures all meet there, each leaving their own indelible mark on the town in both custom and architecture.  We spent

 two days exploring the town, wandering through streets and only glancing at the map when we felt like we needed to find something to eat or make our way back to the hotel.  Let me just say that walking through Toledo was my exercise for the month since the streets go up and down all over the place.  My legs were feeling the burn a week afterward.  Here are some pics of Toledo.

We made our way back south to Baeza because work was calling me.  So Abby, Crystal, and Dana did some solo touring of Baeza, Ubeda, and Granada during my work week and I introduced them to the wonders of tapas.  We celebrated St. Paddy's day at a pub here in Baeza, playing darts and talking with the locals.  I was impressed.  Dana, who knows only a handful of words in Spanish, had absolutely no problem making friends with Spaniards and managed some pretty good conversations when one considers the fact that neither participant in the conversation understood the language of the other.

Thursday afternoon we caught the bus to Madrid for a couple days of sightseeing around the city.  We laid low for the night in our hotel, and set out early the next morning to the city center.  We started the day right with a delicious breakfast of pan tostada (basically toast) fresh orange juice and a tortilla espanola (an omelette of egg and potato, which is my favorite Spanish food).  Then we hooked up with a free English walking tour through the city.  Now this was the most interesting part of the whole day.  Apparently the tour guide guild in Madrid is boycotting this company that gives free tours, obviously because if there's a free tour, people are going to take it instead of paying a ridiculous amount of money for another guide.  So about six guides were harassing our party, talking through the entire presentation and holding up signs in neon colors with slogans like "stop lying" and whatnot.  It was kind of annoying, but I was very impressed with our guide because he was very polite to the hecklers and continued his tour through it all.  He did an excellent job and knew lots of little stories about different sites in the city.  And those kinds of stories are my favorite kinds.  The company is called NewEurope Tours and they do the same thing in all the big cities in Europe including London, Amsterdam, and Edinburgh.  

Then we took a lunch break which lasted for a good 2 hours in the true Spanish style, lingering over sangria and dessert.  Afterward, the girls did a little bit of souvenier shopping and we walked across town to the Parque del Buen Retiro, a park with el Palacio cristal in the middle of it.  Basically the palace is a huge building made of glass situated next to a lagoon with a fountain in the middle of it.  From there, we went to the Reina Sofia, an art museum which houses works by Spanish artists such as Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, and Miro.  The museum is huge and we only covered one floor before we were out of time and had to leave because it was closing time.  That night it was dinner and to bed because the girls had to get to the airport bright and early for their flights.  

The next day, back in Baeza, my roommate Ellen and I went to a nearby town called Cazorla with our friend Miguel Angel where we went hiking through the Sierras de Cazorla, the mountains there.  It was so good to get out of the city and just walk around in nature for a while.  We sat next to a waterfall and I just reveled in the joy of being outdoors without being surrounded by dozens of stone buildings.  Later in the day we stopped by a paddock and rented some horses for an hour and took them for a trail ride through the countryside.  Even though it rained on us twice in the course of an hour, it was seriously one of the best things I've done in a long time.  

Since then, I've just been relaxing and saving some money for break.  

Upcoming events include:  Dan's birthday on April 1st (tapas here we come!)

Easter lessons with the kids :)

KENYA!

And TIFFANY!

Heading to Barcelona with Lucia, my first foray into northern Spain.

ok, signing off.  I promise to tell you all about Kenya and post some pictures.  Did I mention we're going on safari?

It is what it is...

Surrounded

and yet, alone.

Laughing but sad.

Outwardly confident

but falling apart.

A brave coward.

A silent screamer.

A doubting believer

(or a believing doubter.)

A cynical romantic.

A shy comic.

Eyes filled with thought and hope,

with worries, and humor,

and plans for the future.

Embodying a youthful spark

and an elderly weariness.

Belgium: Home of Fries, Chocolate Waffles, and Delicious Chocolate

Sleeping on the airport floor in order to save a bit of money by not renting a bed at a hostel sounds like a great idea.  The execution of said idea is a bit more complicated when you factor in bright lights all night long, cold tile floors, and chilly breezes wafting in through the automatic sliding doors every time someone walks past them, all complimented by the announcement over the loudspeaker every half hour telling everyone what they already know… “Do not leave your baggage unattended.  Do not accept anything from a stranger…”  So, after about 4 solid hours of sleep at the airport after I finally fell asleep, curled in a ball with my coat draped over my head to make myself think it was both dark and warm, the Baeza crowd and I got on our flight from Madrid to Charlevoix, Belgium where we caught a train north to the famous (or infamous) city of Amsterdam. 

In Amsterdam we discovered that it is not a place where using a bathroom is a right, but rather it is a privilege you must pay for, and even then you are not allowed to brush your teeth at the sink.  Oh no, the sink is only for washing your hands.  A horrible discovery when one has been traveling for over 24 hours and desperately needs to clean the grunge off one’s teeth.  After that we stashed our backpacks in lockers at the train station and headed out into the city where bikes rule the roadways and there are canals on every block.  Amsterdam is an amazingly picturesque city full of great architecture and cute little shops.  After wandering around for a bit we made our way to the Anne Frank Museum, housed in the flat where the Frank family hid for years during World War II before they were discovered.  I can’t even describe how powerful it was to walk through the empty rooms imagining living there in secrecy day after day, afraid that someone would find them.  Walking through the quiet rooms, up the creaking stairs really made Anne Frank’s diary come alive.  People spoke in whispers, in testament to the struggle and terror the place had witnessed, out of respect for the people who had lived out their last days within its walls. 

Afterward, we found a little restaurant where we had dinner, walked to the Van Gogh Museum and discovered that it was more expensive than we expected and decided to bypass it.  So instead we went to a café where we coincidentally met some Andalucians on vacation like us.  We then walked through the Red Light District of Amsterdam, an area guaranteed to embarrass you if you pay any attention to the advertisements or the windows where girls pose provocatively in skimpy clothing.  And yet again, we didn’t rent a bed at a hostel so we spent the night moving from pub to pub, to McDonalds, to Burger King, buying a beverage here and a sandwich there in order to secure a table so we could sit in out of the cold and drizzle.  When the train station opened at 5 a.m. we actually found a couch to sit on in the waiting room there and sat in an exhausted stupor for a few hours, drifting into sleep only to be awakened by station employees who were under the impression that we thought the train station was a hotel.  We were well aware of the fact that it wasn’t, but I’m sorry, when you’re running on 4 or so hours of sleep in 48 hours, you sleep when you stop moving.  And we’d stopped moving. 

So we caught the train back to Belgium, to Ellen’s (my apartment mate) house in Kortemark, a small sleepy little town where we finally crashed and slept for a solid 7 hours.  It was heavenly.  That night we traveled to Ghent, the town where Ellen went to university, where we met up with some of her friends and got to experience the nightlife of a university town. 

The next day we piled into a car and drove to Bruges, about 45 minutes away.  We walked around for a bit.  Then we made our way to a local brewery where we took an hour tour of the old brewery, a very informative tour made more enjoyable by the guide who had a wickedly dry sense of humor that caught you a bit off guard if you weren’t expecting it.  At the end of the tour we got a complimentary pale ale, which we enjoyed in the pub there.  Then we decided to take a riverboat tour of the city, through the canals throughout Bruges.  It was really neat to see the city and its buildings from the water and to listen to the guide talk about the city.  Justi and I decided we were going to live in Bruges someday.  Then we drove back to Kortemark where we had another delicious meal (Ellen’s parents were wonderful hosts who introduced us to great varieties of scrumptious Belgian food), watched a bit of TV, relaxed, and went to sleep.

Our last and final day in Belgium, we took the train to Brussels, a 2 hour trip made longer by the fact that we accidentally got into the bicycle car where there weren’t many seats and thus had to stand for most of the trip there.  We visited St. Michael’s Cathedral where you could go down into the basement area and look at ruins under the church.  Then we stopped by a famous statue/fountain called Manneken Pis.  There are many different legends about its origins but essentially it is a statue of a small boy peeing.  If you are interested in the legends take a look atit on Wikipedia.  They’re actually pretty funny.  The boy has several hundred different costumes that he wears throughout the year.  Hunger drove us to find anywhere to eat and we got lucky because we found a cute little sandwich shop which reminded me a bit of Subway, but with gourmet ingredients and having to order in French.  The next stop was the European Union Parliament where we got to tour the parliament building for free with an audio commentary.  It was really neat to see such an important building and to hear about what goes on there.  Then we hopped on the metro and took it to the outskirts of town where we walked to the Atomium, a huge sculpture of an iron crystal which was created for the Brussel’s World Fair in 1958.  Then it was back to Kortemark for dinner and sleep before we got up early and began a solid 14 hours of travel back to Baeza. 

The long weekend was absolutely fantastic although I spent last week recovering from all the travel and catching up on sleep a bit.  More pictures are soon to come.  Oh, also, my dad’s birthday was two days ago!  So Happy Birthday Dad!  Hope you and mom are having fun in Australia with Steve!