Background
Well, it was my freshman year in college, and it was high time to
cash in on that promise. I spoke with my dad and he asked me how
I'd like to go to Spain. Bonus! I wasn't expecting that, but I
thought it would be way cool. In my high school class, we had sent
for pen pals, and I had been writing to Iria, my friend in Ferrol,
Spain, for a couple of years.
I wrote Iria a letter and told her that we'd be coming out in May,
after school was over. I was very excited.
Madríd
like the idea that they had to stop smoking because United couldn't
find a nonsmoking section for us. Anyway, we landed at the airport
and I was quite excited -- it was my first trip out of North America.
We stayed in a nice hotel down town, and I had a blast just walking around and checking out the sights. Madrillenos like to stay out late, which made it fun to walk around at 1 or 2 in the morning. It seemed very safe.
We toured all around Madríd. On the right is a picture of my dad
at the city palace on a very rainy day.
I went to the Prado, where I saw all
the works of art by the great masters. It was really cool, because
I had studied all this art in high school, and seen slides of it,
and now I got to see the actual pieces themselves.
I took many pictures in El Prado. To my chagrin, I later found that my battery was dead in my camera so the shots weren't exposed right.
I then walked across the street to the Madríd Botanical Gardens, and took some pictures sans light meter. They came out very nicely - check out the one on the right. It was very quiet and peaceful there.
Although Madríd was nice, three days of it was a bit much. We were
both happy to pick up our rental car and head south. My dad did
massive driving so we could hit the southern coast by evening.
Granada
the hillside in Granada. It was simple, but very beautiful,
and the surroundings were secluded and quiet.
The part I liked about the Alhambra the best was the gardens. They were stunningly beautiful. We took quite a few pictures there. There was a couple of incredibly landscaped fountains.
After finishing our visit there, we proceeded to head south and drove through another very large city, Málaga. It was quite crowded and had huge high-rise project-style housing.
We passed the rock of Gibraltar, but didn't stop because it was starting to get a bit late and we wanted to finish our journey that night. So I would have to wait to step foot on British soil until my trip to India a year and a half later.
We rounded the bend that night and got a beautiful vision of the
hills covered with windmills at..
Tarifa
Tarifa is a city on the very southern tip of Spain. It is so close to Africa that you can see the mountains, just looking out over the Mediterranean.
We stayed at the Hurricane Hotel. It had the best food that I tasted in all of Spain. The hotel was in a Moorish fashion, with a windsurfing shop I'd heard about, and a health club / bike rental. There was also a pool in the back. Nice place, but not too cheap.
My dad and I rented mountain bikes and went biking for a day in the surrounding hillside. It was an awesome ride, and I got quite burned from the sun. We saw farming families, animals on the roadside (we were sort of careful to avoid the bull), and lots of other treasures.
The next day we took a trip to
Tangier, Morocco. Then,
I went windsurfing on the ocean there behind the hotel. That was
really nice. After spending a couple more days basking in the sun (I
got quite a tan), we headed off to venture north and meet Iria. Our
first destination was Sevilla.
Tangier, Morocco (África)
We met some interesting people on the ferry who were from Oregon,
USA. Once we were in Tangier, we were led on a guided tour by a
really cool guy in a fez. When we got on the tour bus, he asked us
what languages we spoke, and then proceeded to give us a guided tour
in about 5 different languages.
Morocco was pretty incredible. Even though there was obviously big tourist business, the common-folk went about their lives pretty much unchanged from how it was a thousand years ago, save for telephone and electricity. The streets were very narrow and the buildings quite open.
Tangier was like another world. Even though Spain was foreign, it
was still steeped in Western Culture, whereas in Morocco, I was
totally an outsider, definitely a tourist. It made me curious to see
more of this third-world culture.
Sevilla
Sevilla was on our way up to Ferról. We left Tarifa, where we reflected on the great time we had, and drove north to Sevilla. By the time we got there, we only had about an hour and a half to explore the whole city before we had to head to the airport and catch our plane.
Although we didn't have much time, it was easy to see that Sevilla was an awesome city, and definitely worth spending a good day, at least, in. We went and saw the Cátedral, which was a gigantic Cathedral. That really left an impression on me -- probably the most impressive edifice I've seen, and the highlight of my brief visit to Sevilla.
We then headed over to the airport, dropped off the rental car,
and began our voyage to...
Ferról
We flew in to Santiago de Compostela, which is up near the coast in the northwest corner of the Iberian peninsula, in the province of Galicia. There I met Iria, my penpal of a few years. It was really great to finally get to meet her! Her mother and Aunt &&; Uncle were there, and they took us on a breakneck tour of Santiago. They were so hostpitable that we had to finally ask them if we could end the tour about 5 hours later.
Santiago is a wonderful city, with cobblestone streets and literally ancient buildings. There is another cathedral there, which houses the tomb of the Apostle James, and used to be a major site of pilgrimage throughout Europe in the Middle Ages.
Finally, we headed up to Ferról, and went to Iria's house.
We stayed there for a few days, and it was wonderful! Iria's dad took
all of us on a tour around Galicia's coast. It was mountainous and
very green. I was reminded of northern California's coast.
One morning my father and I cooked pancakes and put some Vermont maple syrup on top, and served it up to the family. They seemed a bit trepid at first, but tried to hide it as not to offend. However, after they got slightly used to the taste, they seemed to enjoy the homestyle cooking..
Iria also took me around Ferról a bit, and I met her friend
Ruth, and Ruth's sister. (Iria is on the right; Ruth is in the middle).
It was cool, we went to the movies and just walked around town.
Ferról is a navy port and fishing city, so it has a lot of
sailors in town.
I had a great time in Ferrol, although I must admit that I was a bit shy since I was not very good at speaking Spanish fluently. However, My English sufficed to get the meaning across, and I could understand the Spanish which was spoken back to me quite OK.
After Ferról, we said goodbye to España, flew back to Madríd, and then home. It was a wonderful trip, and I could hardly believe that we had done all that in a week and a half!