I realize it has been well over a month since I have put any effort into adding to my blog. I can say, however, that I have a multitude of stories to excite you with-- stories of adventure, fun and valor.
The last update I had was on Thanksgiving day. From that point on, I became relatively busy in preparation for my mother's arrival and just for the holidays in general. December brought along a lot of change. To begin, one of my best friends in Vitoria, Sophie, had to leave back to Denmark. That was not exactly the easiest goodbye. For those of you who didn't know, Mel, Sophie and I are like a trinity. Things just haven't felt the same without her. Luckily, I still have the wonderful Melanie, Magui, abundance of English teaching friends, and (the newest addition to the pack) Steve. Regardless, I am still counting down the days in which Sophie returns to Vitoria for a little bit!
Gone but not forgotten!
December 21, my mother arrived. I had the ultimate task of navigating myself from Vitoria, all the way to Barcelona El Prat (the airport). Yes, I lived in Barcelona for a month, but not nearly enough time to acquaint myself well enough with the whole city and its metro/train system. Luckily, I sat next to the sweetest lady in the whole entire world who kindly showed me the direction in which I needed to head to find my mother. So, here I was, lugging all of my belongings and waiting for the moment in which I saw my mothers beautifully, jet-lagged face. I waited.... and waited.... and waited..... And finally, it appeared after much distress that I somehow made a mistake and was waiting in the wrong terminal. Our reunion was followed by a little victory dance of excitement. My mother and I! Reunited at last! And so begins the epic tale:
SHANI AND SYDNEY TAKE SPAIN.
Once we arrived to the hostel, my mother decided she wanted to take a catnap before heading out and exploring. So I decided to wander a bit around the area I did know moderately well. It was so weird to be back in Barcelona. I was flooded with what memories I did have there such as being on the Ramblas with Catherine and Julia, meeting very attractive Norwegian boys (who bought us drinks) and so forth. Once I returned to the hostel, I woke up my mom so we could go eat some tapas.
Her first tapas experience!
The next day, we visited La Sagrada Familia. La Sagrada Familia is a basilica and was designed by the modernist architect Gaudi. Let me just say, this unfinished masterpiece is large and in charge. It was amazing. We had to wait in line for about an hour in order to get inside. We were almost at the front of the line when this French couple decided to cut in line. Wisely enough, they decided to cut behind us and in front of the little Asian family. Of course the Asian family didn't say anything to the disrespectful couple. What does this have to do with my mom and me you ask? Well, my mother began to turn red. She was fuming. FUMING. I began talking to her and she interrupted me with "I'm sorry. I can't concentrate on what you're saying. I'm so angry about the French couple." This of course led to her turning around and giving the French couple dagger eyes.
Once we neared the front of the line, the security guard asked how long we had been waiting in line for and we replied "about an hour." But then, my distracted and angry mother inserted "However, the people behind us skipped and I think that was VERY mean of them." Ahhh..... brings me back to kindergarten days. Granted, they were in the wrong. It turns out, the couple were pulled out of line, talked to by security guards and not allowed to enter. All I could think about was the fact that this couple could have been capable of anything-- murder by machete begin the first result to pop into my head. Luckily we did not run into this couple for the remainder of the trip.
Next, we visited more of Gaudi's famous works around Barcelona, none of which were as impressive as La Sagrada Familia. The same night, my mother and I attended a Christmas concert at a famous concert hall which at the beginning, I was excited for. Because of this event, we thought it would be appropriate to dress nice. I mean, it was a Christams concert, but neither my mom or I had nice clothes with us. This resulted in a frantic shopping spree of tears and frustration (my mom wears a 6 1/2 and shoes and they don't sell half sizes here). Of course, being my mother and I, we were running late. So we ran to the theater in heels and dresses. Once we arrived, we discovered that people were wearing jeans and nice shirts, meaning our stressful shopping spree was really not necessary.
At the concert there was an orchestra, an opera singer and dancers! Joy to the world! The experience was enjoyable overall, but after about an hour and 45 minutes it got a bit redundant. Then, you know, it kind of was a drag. Especially when there were around eight encores. EIGHT. Who in the world has ever had eight encores? I was hungry and displeased.
The next stop was Toledo and Oropesa. My mom made it a point that she wanted to stay the night in a castle while she was in Spain. So we made reservations at this lovely parador located in Oropesa. In Toledo, we rented a car and hit the road. On our way, we managed to discover a castle off in the distance. And of course, we had to go find it and explore. We detoured for about 45 minutes until we finally arrived. It looked as if no one had been there for years. The inside was overflowing with bushes and shrubs and grass. We explored the crumbling corridors and interestingly enough found a dead pigeon. It was disgusting, but it didn't seem unusual. Pigeons die, right? Well, in another tower, we discovered a decaying dog. It started to get weird then. We concluded that this castle was now grounds for satanist meetings where they sacrificed a dog and pigeon and were probably waiting for unsuspecting adventure-seekers to sacrifice as well. So we left that castle pretty soon after that.
Once we arrived to the parador, we had a night of luxury. The room was lovely, and the castle itself had so much history (none that I can remember... I'm sorry). The next day, we did some exploring around the towers of the castle and it was then that an interesting realization entered our minds. As we were basically crawling up the precarious and incredibly steep stairs, it hit us that this would NEVER be allowed in the United States. The states are so concerned with being sued and safety regulations whereas in Spain their like "You wanna go up crumbling, steep and possibly death causing stairs of a 14th century castle? SURE! THE WORLD IS YOUR OYSTER!" It was so much fun and made me appreciate Spain that much more.
After Oropesa, we went back to Spain. It was my job to find the hostel that we were to stay in for the night until the next day, when we would pick up Michael (my mom's boyfriend) from the airport. Every single hostel I found was booked. Until finally I found one *insert angelic choir here*. I promptly made the reservation before some other traveler could steal it from us, and finally we were on our way.
Once we got off the metro, the directions informed us that we had about a 20 minute walk until we got to the hostel. In my head, I imagined it wouldn't be bad because we would be seeing cool architecture and it would be a little adventure, even though I was carrying an extremely large bag on my back that felt more like a small child. And my mom.... my poor, poor mom was carrying her backpack as well as about two other bags that were ripping and falling apart. Little did we know that this was only the beginning.
As we started walking, we got further and further away from homes and neighborhoods and closer to a highway. "Are you sure this is right?" my mom kept asking. I was using my google maps on my phone, my battery was slowly dwindling and I didn't have a lot of money left on my phone. All of this and we were hiking along a highway. I ended up calling the hostel to make sure we were headed in the right direction, and I was promptly reassured that we were in the right area of town. The right area of town meaning the industrial district of Madrid. The district where factories are located and there is no history or fun times or anything nearby.
So we got to Hostel Welcome. Yeah, that was the name of the hostel. Hostel Welcome. It was..... how do I put this lightly? There really isn't any way to actually. So I will just put it in the eloquent words of another unsuspecting traveller who ended up in the misfortune my mom and I were in now: a half-way house for refugees. It resembled a YMCA. It was awful, especially after staying the night in a castle the previous night. Needless to say, the intended plans of going out in Madrid that night was a bust.
...........TO BE CONTINUED..........
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