Valencia 5 - Pesada

So finally we made it back and we were starving so we chose a restaurant really far from the hotel by the beach. GUESS WHO FOUND US!? FREAKING PESADA and she wanted to eat with us NOOOOO! She happened to choose our restaurant out of all the restaurants she could have went to that were so much closer! AH que mala suerte! So then we went back to the feo hotel where I found a disgusting hair on my pillow, and had to get up at 9am where we went to another no-nametown I HAVE NO IDEA WHY! We were like vale ok today will be great because yeay, she doesnt have a microphone because she broke it remember?! WRONG! She was soooo perky and was like, oh I have a sorpresa! New Microphono! ARGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!Pesada went out and bought a new microphone! So we endured her talking for another 3 hours about the Naranjos AGAIN! and then after that we went to a town called Cuenca where we saw hanging casas...nothing much. She talked for another few hours and blasted yet another movie that NOBODY but the first three rows wanted to hear! They were the brown-nosers, saying ohhhmija please can we watch this...oh youre so bonita...blah blah blah! By the time we got to Salamanca, I had a migraine, and she started talking about Salamanca, and everyone was FROM SALAMANCA, we ALREADY KNOW! She tried to be our LIFE GUIDE I swear...we only hired her for Valencia, and she never really talked about Valencia except for los naranjos! I will NEVER EVER get a guided trip again thanks to Pesada! We left the bus and everyone asked for a complaint form, that was not in the first three rows of the bus. So a bus full of Spaniards were also pissed besides us few Americans, so I was NOT exagerrating.

Valencia 4 - Stop the Bus

Then we drove to this other town for an hour, STILL nothing to do, stayed there for an hour and drove back for another 3 hours to our hotel called...did you guess: Los Naranjos (Pesada´s favorite word) Does this trip make any sense??! A couple of my friends were so fed up with her they took a train home after the first day, and about 3 other spanish families left. On the way back, I told her I had to use the bathroom, an EMERGENCY, Pesada told me to wait half an hour. I had to go soo bad that it was coming out of my eyes. Three other people had to go too and she refused to stop. So finally my friend yelled, SHE IS GOINGTO PEE IN THE SEAT STOP THE BUS! So we ran out of the bus on the middle of the highway, dodging cars to a parking lot. She wanted us to pee behind a car! I was seriously thinking about it because I had to go SO bad, but the girls said no and ran back across the highway, dodging cars, to a gas station which didnt have bathrooms, of course! Then we went to a store that had bathrooms, I couldn't even run, I had to go so bad I was walking and holding my pants away from my stomache. Then the bus left us and we had to walk down the highway, until it came back and run across the dangerous street, it was una LOCURA! We went through all this trouble when she could have just stopped for FIVE MINUTES for us t ogo! AH freaking PESADA, I cant stand her!

Valencia 3 - Lost for hours

So finally people started leaving so we could move, we ran to the bus, got there late and made our guide mad! But whatever she was wrong cuz the Crema was at ONE am not 12 am! HELLO aren't you Spanish, don't you know about Spanish time? She was like, you are very malaeducada and we dont do that in Spain blah blah blah you held up the bus...But that wasnt even the worst part of the night....We didnt get to out hotel until FOUR HOURS LATER!!! Yeah the bus driver got lost and we were driving around wondering where we were going, soo tired and he kept stopping at random gas stations to ask for directions. Then he would stop to ask random people in the street...that should have been the first clue that our hotel was a piece of crap and was basically a hostel! It was in the small no-name town in the middle of nowhere, who knows how many hours away from Valencia! When I signed up for this trip, it said that we would be in a ´centrally located hotel´...whatever mentirosos! So we went to bed at 6am and the lady said we had to get up at 9am to eat breakfast and go to another city! So after 3 hours of sleep, (I couldnt even take out my contacts because it needs 4 hours to clean)we ate and drove to the next town called...who knows because there was absolutely nothing to do there for FOUR hours! Ask me why we had to get up and see this small no-name town, I have no idea...we just sat at the port. I am not kidding when I say there was nothing to do, because when we got there everything was closed for siesta, except the travel agency who asked why we came there in the first place because when we had to leave THAT´s when everything finally opened from siesta. So we drove there hearing the guide (Ill call her Pesada) Pesada talk about the naranjoson the right and the left. I counted how many times she said the word naranjo (orange tree fields) FIFTEEN TIMES! An that's only when I started counting. She just LOVED the sound of her own voice, because obviously if people woke up they would see tons of orange trees. Everyone in the bus was tired and trying to sleep, but she would scream MIRA into the mic and wake everyone up to see fields of...oranges. YOU HAVE to be kidding me! Can someone please tape her mouth shut and throw her in the orange fields? When Pesada was done, she left the mic on and the sounds of the bus itself would rumble through the bus, SO freaking annoying ARGG! I was so tired, I just wanted to sleep without her talking! Pesada talked so much in that mic that she BROKE it and we didnt have a mic after that! YEAY!

Valencia 2 - City Lit on Fire

Actually the experience going into Valencia was SO cool though because as soon as we arrived, the air was smoky, and people were running from all directions, debris raining all over the place, and random explosions BOOM! So loud that it would shake the entire bus...I felt like I was in Bosnia. So we get out of the bus and started exploring, I saw the craziest things. A castle and huge displays of the falleras (cardboard constructions) before they would be lit by the Reina de las Fallas (Queen). A girl is chosen to be Reina and light all the fallas from all of these girls in huge elaborate dresses that have to be thousands of dollars. The actual fallera constructions themselves are supposed to represent social ills that are cured once you light them on fire, and supposed to be good luck for the crop season. I saw one falla with a figure of their own president on it! There was tons of music and crazy people that would light a firecrackerand throw it at your feet or just throw it on the ground and walk away.You never knew if one was going to fly up and whiz by your face, or explode near your feet. I kept my glasses on the whole time to protect my eyes because there was debris and cardboard falling from the sky. It was hard to breathe. So finally when the biggest explosions started there was soo many people inthe crowd, I couldn't even turn around. Pesada (Annoyance) said be back by 1:30, and the crowd was so dense, we left at 12am, got stuck in it and had to stay in awkward positions for an hour! I was facing opposite of the actual fallas, but I couldnt really turn around. AWFUL! People were fainting, but we couldnt move and the ambulances and firetrucks couldnt get through. These explosions were right by buildings, and I am so surprised that the buildings themselves didnt catch on fire! I looked around in wonder staring up at the sky, where firecrackers exploded and blown-up condoms floated around, I felt a hand on my purse. I felt a hand trying to steal my stuff, and my purse was halfway open, so I SLAPPED the hand hard and pulled my purse towards me. This littlelady kept looking at me I KNOW ITS HER, and when I would look back, she looked away, but I couldnt move away from her dangit!

Valencia 1 - Las Fallas

Have you ever seen an 8 year old smoking, then light a blackcat firecracker and throw it at you?! Only in Spain, and it´s called Las Fallas! I went to Valencia to see las fallas, this fiesta where people basically light their entire city on fire. For an ENTIRE YEAR they make elaborate painted paper-mache figures that are taller than buildings , and then in one night, grab some fireworks and some matches and set them all on fire!! Que GUAY! A pyromaniac´s dream, verdad! So we left at 5am on Friday morning to Valencia by bus with a tour guide who would not stop talking from five IN THE MORNING until about 1 pm! She was SOOOO PESADA, I just wantedto hit her! She would junior-high-school OVEREXAGGERATE her words like, oh I am SUPER-emocianante....and grande-grande-grande...and super- super-pequenin. How would you feel if someone was SUPER-emocianante at 5am? Then, as if her talking wasnt enough, she decided that at 8am, when people were still trying to sleep, to put on a movie, on FULL BLAST! The altavoz could not be any louder, and in fact, it was SO loud she broke it, so after the movie was over, when she would talk, the speakers would go on and off. Ok, imagine your car speakers doing this, then imagine this happening on a loudspeker for hours on a bus that you can't escape! All the way over there, she talked about La Crema de Las Fallas (which is the biggest and best Falla) which was supposed to happen at 12 am (translation: 1 in Spanish time). She repeated it about 10 times. When she spoke, she put the microphone directly on her lips, so that everything was muffled. So when we didnt understand, it wasnt because we didnt know the language, it was because she didnt know how to use a microphone. I endured this lady for a good 8 hours until we arrived in Valencia. THEN they didnt let us go to the hotel to freshen up and drop off our bags, NO! We had to carry our bags with us from 1 pm til 1:30 am in the madrugada! That is insane, about 10 hours of carrying bags! Apparently our hotel was an hour away and she didnt want to go all the way over there because she said that we would miss everything if we did. WRONG! There was nothing to do until about 10pm, except eat!

Madrid Bombing 2

Well, after that we went back to Plaza Atocha to eat and find a hospital to give blood; however the hospitals didn´t want my blood. Everyone in Madrid practically had donated blood and they didn´t need anymore sangre. So then we followed the huge mass of people to see the manifestaciones, and people were lined up on the sides of the streets of Madrid with policia and guardia civil, helicopters and camera crews running around everywhere in the rain. Those particular streets in Madrid are HUGE, I can´t believe that they blocked off roads the size of a highway for this procession. So we waited in the rain for about an hour...well worth seeing the procession of the Prince of Spain, the President, all of the major political leaders all walking TOGETHER in the SAME STREET! They have guts...I was so surprised they would walk in the open like that when it would be so easy to plant a bomb in that crowd and kill practically everyone in Madrid. Over 2 million people in Madrid and millions in every other city in Spain joined together chanting: No mas muertes de personas inocentes!! Mira, nuestros manos, nosotros no matamos!! ETA NO, ETA NO! HIJOS DE PUTAS! HIJOS DE PUTAS! (clap, clap)The streets were so full, that we were all scared that it was going to be a stampede. You couldnt see anything past the see of people chanting and crying. After the Big Wigs passed, all the crowd jumped over the fences and joined the procession down the street. After being swept away by the sea of people, we tried to go about 10 feet to a Metro to get to the bus station on the other side of the masssive crowd, it took half an hour. We thought that we were going to miss our bus. All public transportation was free; all buses, metros everything for people to move around freely, so that was nice. There were policia guarding the entrances to metros because if not people for sure would have been falling down the stairs in a stampede. We couldn´t control where we went, we were pushed along with everyone else: thank God it was towards the Metro. So we got out of there! Then on the way home, we got stopped by the Guardia Civil who asked for everyone´s pasaportes. Oh crap! I NEVER take my passport when traveling through Spain because I´m afraid of being pickpocketed. So por supuesto when he asked me I didn´t have it. And my driver´s license didn´t work for him. He asked why I didn´t have it and I said: Porque no necesito (Because I don't need it). I didn´t mean to sound rude, but I didn´t know what else to say, I really don't need it as long as I stay in Spain. He heard my accent and said: Oh you´re American, ok it doesn't matter. Being American here is like having a Visa Gold Card, no wonder everyone hates us. Anyhow, my senora Nico said that I was SOOO lucky and he was really nice apparently, because he could have made me go to the police station and wait for a long time until everything checked out and it would have been a big mess. They were so surprised that he didn´t! I made it back to Salamanca at 2:30 in the morning.

Madrid Bombing

Okay don´t get mad at me, but yesterday, the day after the bombings, I went to Madrid. (I took a bus) I was so upset at the thought of all that happening at the EXACT SAME place where I had been last week (and where I always go to travel), that I decided to go give blood, take it all in, see the trains and join in the manifestaciones against terrorism. After all, wouldn´t Spain be safest now with tons of security? (or so I thought until I got there). We bought tickets that evening for Madrid and the lady thought we were locas. She was like, don´t you watch the news?! But anyhow, when we got to Madrid, it was eerie, like the twilight zone, because as soon as we entered the city, the streets were lined with people just staring, standing outside of shops and homes. We came in at the moment of silence, so everyone watched as we came into Madrid. There were Spanish flags hung everywhere with black ribbons from windows and balconies. We got off the bus and went to Atocha, one of the Train Stations, walked right in up to the trains and looked around. NOBODY stopped us or asked for identification. So much for Spanish securidad. Anyhow, so on the way out my friend walked right into this bar that moves up and down to let cars out of the parking lot and it missed her face and hit her shoulders. So we started laughing and I asked her if she´s ok, and this lady heard us speaking English. So she wanted to know why we were there and then we told her and apparently she was a periodista for the Irish Times. So yeah we got interviewed and are somewhere in the Irish Times newspaper. We told her basically that we hoped it wasn´t Al Qaeda because the Spaniards already have animosity towards Americans and this will make it worse. They are already mad that our presidents are best friends and that Spain took part in a war that like 80% of the population were completely against. Anyhow, so after that we took a bus to the other train station.




I can´t believe what I saw. Workers washing blood off the walls, part of the train so twisted and broken with a huge hole in the middle, as if Godzilla took a bite out of it. Cameras flashing everywhere in people´s faces as they´re trying to mourn and blood splattered in the walls of the train. The train station was ruined, with debris everywhere, bricks everywhere. There were broken glass shards on the calles where bricks had flown over the wall, a good 30 feet away to hit the cars in the parking lot. On the roof of the train station was mud mixed with debris and one single white rose that someone had thrown.

Train Explosion - I'm OK!

Hola amigos,

I just wanted to let you all know that I am fine, just really shaken up. Thanks for all the e-mails and concern. The scary part is, I was at that exact train station last week, Madrid Atocha Station, but we decided to take the bus instead. I ALWAYS go there as a jumping point to travel around Spain, it´s only about 2 hours away.

You can never escape terrorism. It´s everywhere. Over 170 people killed and over 500 wounded, on Madrid´s train network by the ETA. ETA is this terrorist group in Spain that is constantly planting bombs everywhere because they want a region of Spain to be its own country (like a rogue state, as if Alaska wanted to be it´s own country). This is huge, Madrid is the CAPITAL OF SPAIN, and only 2 hours away from me!The ETA is happy, I´m sure; they have been trying to get Madrid for a long time. This is their 9-11. How sad! Why do people do the things they do? Pues, por supuesto, everyone is at the Plaza Mayor, and all university classes are cancelled for two days. The Plaza Mayor is filled with people mourning and outraged, demanding justice from those "cobardes asesinos" cowardly murderers. Some of the kids in this program are stuck in Madrid, there is no transportation anywhere, and thank God NONE of them took the train, only the bus!

You just never know in life, and this has taught me to be thankful for everything and always live as if it was my last day here. The Spaniards are more used to this kind of thing though, since ETA terrorist attacks have been happening here for over 30 years. Today are the Spanish elections, I hope nothing happens. Anyhow, here is my new cell phone number (since my other got lost in that 8-story club in Madrid):
011-34-675-367-329
Con carino,
Cassandra

Portugal 3 - Portugal vs Spain

I never realized how skinny Spanish people are until I went to Portugal, they are normal there, and Portuguese men are so much hotter. Well anyhow, so I saw the Castelo de Sao Jorge, surrounded by the Alfama (medieval district full of crazy maze streets), the Ponte Vasco de Goma (the longest suspension bridge in Europe), the Torre de Belem (a watchtower castle the sits on the water), many beautiful praças (plazas) and the ancient elevadors that run up the sides of hills (people take instead of walking up the steep hills or stairs), after all Lisbon is the City of Seven Hills. I also got offered drugs by a random Portuguese man in the Plaza, saw rats scuttling along the rocks on the beach, and a self cleaning port-a-potty that was, of course, extremely clean (Why can't we have that in the States?), got hissed at (guys hiss to get your attention instead of saying hi or whistling) which is actually really annoying, but okay whatever it a cultural thing (people do it all the time in Spain too). So I ate another box of cereal(yummy), with some 39 cent leche(milk) (kinda sketchy, but what can you do?), and now I carry a little Multicentrum bottle full of Cola Cao (chocolate drink) for whenever I travel... yes I have somewhat adapted to that Spanish tradition for my coffee. I also had my new addiction of melocoton juice with uva(peach and grape...it sounds weird, but it is really good!), and Nutella with everything (banana, orange, bread, cereal you name it, and I can eat it with Nutella). I hope you have discovered the joys of Nutella, cuz yes it is in the US! Portugal is another world, so cultural and interesting, I probably understood about 80% of what people were saying, depending on how they spoke, so yeay me and yeay for anyone who speaks Spanish because you can understand the Portuguese! I even took a survey at the train station in Portuguese!

Portugal 2 - I got robbed

Despite the fact that I got robbed by this little oompa loompa fado-singer lady in Portugal, I still really liked her. She was the perfect little carterista(robber): amiable, old, cute, and very VERY short. So when I told her I wanted to buy her fado CD, she was talking to us for a good half hour, during which she hugged me, then slipped her hands into my bolsillas. HA! Good thing I only had postcards LOSER, oh well, maybe she really needed them. By the way, fado is this really beautiful, deep and sad singing in Portugal, that is very parecido to the blues in America (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHzaIK8fGVg). She was an outstanding singer! After she robbed me, she told us to be very careful outside at night because there are lots of carteristas. It's too funny to even think about the irony of it all. Speaking of robbery, be careful when you eat the bread baskets put in front of you in Spain or Portugal because they end up costing you a FORTUNE and they're NOT FREE! I call THAT robbery. So after that we left the restaurant, in a barrio of mazes in the dark to find our hotel with tons of other people. Kinda dangerous, but eh, I didnt have a purse or anything valuable, and the one girl I did see with a purse had it wound around her neck, so she would have to get choked before someone took it. That winding neighborhood was filled with the haunting melancoly of fado, so pretty, so tempting; inviting us to turn down dark, dangerous alleyways to hear it better, like other stupid tourists who get robbed. I love Portugal!

Portugal 1 - Sleeping with a Crazy Lady

I was stuck in this hot stuffy, SMELLY little box on a train ride from Madrid to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, for SIX HOURS! They were the worst 6 hours of my life; I really thought that I would suffocate. It was so claustrophic, and I'm not claustrophobic. Seriously, I don't know why my Mom made me take a bunch of deodorant, because honestly I'm not the one that needs it. The rumor is true that people just don't freaking USE IT!!! I should give away free samples! During the train ride, the conductor asked for our passports. My friend couldn't find hers fast enough for the conductor, so he looks at mine and he's like, oh you're both American, well I don't have to see it then. So EVERYONE in the compartment got mad...I heard three words that can't be a good combination in any situation: Americans, ricas(rich), and Bush. I finally started understanding more and they were talking about why they had to show their ID if they were Portuguese citizens and blah blah blah. Portuguese is easy to understand if you REALLY listen and understand Spanish: like adios is adeush, and buenos dias is bom dia, estacion is estaçao and thank you is obrigadu. Throughout the evening, my seatmate Crazy Portuguese Lady (Ill call her La Loca) kept staring at this Spanish girl and my friend, who would look away and pretend not to see her. It was really creepy, because her blank eyes were the faded blue of a lifeless doll. Finally, the Spanish girl got mad and told her to stop staring. La Loca would jump up at every stop and scream at the top of her lungs SANTA CRUZ!! IS THIS SANTA CRUZ (in Portuguese) ! QUE LOCA! Then she would fall down on the chair in fits and start crying and praying. She finally scared the Spanish girl so much, that she ran out of the compartment. So as the evening turned to night, the lights were turned off and I was in the pitch dark with the crazy lady by me (having a EuroTrip moment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxiyRqniBJg)). I was stiffly sitting up and trying to cover all parts of my bags with my legs and hands discreetly. Little by little she siddled up to me; I wanted her yeasty bread dough body off of me. Finally, she was half laying on top of me, while I was crouching in the very corner of the compartment squished against the window. I could feel her every breath that perhaps only feigned sleep, and she kept putting her elbow on my leg. I kept breathing in slowly, trying to get oxygen and repeat to myself: Stop being American, stop being American: after all people naturally smell, and here in Europe, only Americans get uptight if you touch them or if you smell. Then, my mind kept reeling and I thought that she lay on me on purpose just so she could get close and rob me. I finally devised a plan to get her off me. When the train hit a bump, I raised my elbow and jabbed her in the lungs...but tried to make it look like the train did it. She made an oomph noise and finally got off of me. How awful, I just punched the Pillsbury Dough Boy. So needless to say, I didn't sleep at all. When we got to Lisboa (Lisbon) thank God, we caught the Metro downstairs and looked for our hostal in the mazes that the Portuguese call streets. Cheap overnight train rides to Portugal are overrated.

I stole a coat

AY YAY YAY! I cant believe that I am wearing someone elses abrigo(coat)! You know that black coat I have (that Chris really likes, haha) well I was at a discoteca yesterday and my coat was way up high with a million other coats hanging off the lights, right!? Well, I was leaving and I had this guy hand me my coat and scarf, I was really tired, it was like 6 in the morning and I just put on my coat and we went home and to sleep. Today, I woke up and put on my jacket and realized that something wasnt quite right. I was missing the belt in the back and on the sleeves...I looked in the pockets and there were two bright red gloves! Whaaa?? I was wearing someone else's coat EW! And someone out there in Salamanca has mine!!! I went back to the bar to do a coat exchange but there weren't any coats left, so I gave my cell number away just in case. So now I HAVE to wear it because its freezing here and I dont know what else I can do?? At least I can get it dry cleaned. Well anyway back to Carnaval, I guess there were over 2 million people at that huge party in Santa Cruz! Also,when we left we missed this huge procession, where everyone wears black,and its really somber, and the people bury this dead fish.. a sardine tobe exact. Suposedly it represents the death of the fiesta! I wish I could have seen it, I would have been mourning too!
Wanna hear something really funny? So at the discotecas, when a song like "It's raining men, Hallelujah, its raining men."(you know that 70s-ish diva song) comes on THE SPANISH MEN SING AND DANCE TO IT in little groups!!!! I am not kidding! Even to all the Britney Spears or Beyonce pop songs, they dance to it in a little circle of GUYS together moving their hips! I almost cannot believe my eyes, all of the American girls are cracking up, and the American guys (you can totally tell because they refuse to sing or dance to it) are like HELL NO! I don't care if I am in Spain, I am not dancing or singing to that song!

Gym Woes

I joined a gym right, and I have been going for the past week and a half (before I got REALLY sick), to EVERY dance class it offers: Danza del Vientre (Bellydancing), Sevillanas (lots of clapping hard to explain), Caribenos (like salsa, cumbia), Salon (like tango, pasodoble), and lastly Flamenco. Why not take advantage right?! So on Monday, the flamenco teacher (I can´t stand her, and she ignores me; I think because I am not from Spain) wants me to wait for her after class to ask the manager if I´ve paid or not, since she didn´t believe me...so I wait, and wait...and wait! Then, I decide I am not waiting anymore and leave. So then I went to her class on Wed again and she was out for revenge. She totally ignored me, and danced with every student except me, but eh I don´t care, as long as I learn. So then she wants me to wait for her again, and I do, because she hurries, and we talk to the head guy, and he tells her I paid...so I´m in the ha-ha-I-told-you-so-mode right...then we come to find out that I am supposed to be taking only ONE dance class with the gym, and you have to pay separately if you want more! OMG it was sooo embarrassing in front of all of these people in the front office! So the flamenco teacher was like, well tell me what happens tomorrow and flounced out! The head guy told me I have to pick ONE dance class that I want, and I am definitely NOT choosing hers. Oh well at least I got almost two weeks of free dance lessons! Yay me! After that, I went to a bar and had a manzanita (hot apple tea) to tranquilo down with my favorite Portuguese bartender.