Just a rainy Wednesday

Last year, my life was a non-stop series of new experiences, adventures, discoveries, exploring. This fall, though, my life has been decidedly lacking in this department. This week though, a little change to my routine reminded me you don't necessarily need to travel to the other side of the world to have a little adventure. It started out like any other Wednesday morning, but a little rain sent me off on a series of little discoveries!

Like this little cafe I live next door to and walk past every day without ever entering. Facing a long, wet walk to my usual favorite, I decided to check it out. It was love at first sight: from the selection of traditional Spanish Christmas treats filling the display case to the Lacasitos (Spanish M&Ms) that came with the coffee or the smile with which the owner greeted me and directed me to the stack of magazines in the corner and offered to close the door if I was cold. Clearly a neighborhood favorite, there was a constant stream of abuelas and abuelos asking for "the usual," or "Has Pedro bought our bread yet?" or "Have you seen my wife? She was supposed to meet me 10 minutes ago!" I instantly felt at home. 

My neighborhood's best-kept secret

Next discovery, the Mercado de Abastos. Technically its not a discovery, since I've been here several times before, but only on weekends when all the stalls are closed. It's much more impressive when its actually open ;) Wandering in to look for some spices in the supermarket, instead I found stall after stall of fresh, locally grown produce, the biggest tomatoes you'll ever see, local wines, pastries and other baked goods.

I love how well I know Tudela now- I have my routine, my favorite cafés, I know the fastest way to get somewhere or where to get the cheapest beers, but it was so nice to be reminded that even boring little Tudela has a few surprises up its sleeve!

  

Beautiful, despite the grey November sky and a few raindrops

It's hard this week to be away from home for Thanksgiving: no family, no turkey, no pumpkin pie :( This Thanksgiving, though, I'm thankful for days like this, walking home through Tudela's casco antiguo, admiring the Christmas lights draped across the narrow streets and discovering new little surprises. I'm thankful I get to call this place my home.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

La vida diaria

Blog posts have been sparse this fall because, well, I really haven't been doing anything worth blogging about! So far my grand travels have been a night in Madrid, most of which was spent in in workshops, and a weekend in Barcelona, most of which was spent in a tiny twin bed in a closet-sized room with a terribly-timed cold. Not to worry, though, this time next week I'll be off on my next voyage: Morocco! In the mean time, here's a little look at what I have been up to, a typical day in my life in Tudela.

8 am: My alarm sounds. Yeah, 8 am might seem like "sleeping in" but Spain's been in the wrong time zone for the past 80 years so its still dark here when I wake up :( 

8:45: Begin my "long" commute to work: A nice 10 minute walk (but all uphill!). Coming home is a breeze though!

Ok, so I cheated and took a picture from last spring.
There are no flowers in November, but I'm not lying about the hill!

9-1: My first four classes of the day, with a half hour break for recess (usually spent having my "almuerzo" or morning snack in the staff room). Today I get to teach my third graders all about Thanksgiving, including how to bake a pumpkin pie and watching the Macy's parade. Note to self: watching videos about pumpkin pie when you can't eat it is not a good idea!

I spent the majority of my day going up and down these stairs...

1-3: Lunch time! I get two hours off, plenty of time to pop on home for lunch and a little relax time (or some lesson-planning if I've procrastinated/a nap if it was a rough morning!).Today, I run into my roommates on the walk home and decide to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and join them for a coffee in the sunny square.

3-5: Back to school for the last two classes (unless its Wednesday, then I get to take a nice long siesta). I'm in the fourth grade all afternoon today, doing Thanksgiving again. Today I learn a very important lesson: do not teach your "Countries of the World" unit at the same time as your Thanksgiving unit! The entire class mishears "turkeys" for "Turkish" and stares at me in horror as I describe how we kill and eat all the "Turkish" but that the President gets to pardon one of the "Turkish" and they get to go live in Disneyland. It takes a while to clear that one up. No kids, there is no cannibalism or mass genocide involved in Thanksgiving! Yikes.   

5-7: Descanso part 2. I have another two hours of free time before my night activities commence, plenty of time for a run along the Ebro River. Anyone who knows me at all knows I'm not a runner. At all. But since I live half a block away from a beautiful little park that runs alongside Spain's biggest river, it seemed a crime to pass it up. And getting through a tough workout is just so much easier when you can take in the pinks and purples of the clouds reflected in the still river as the sun sets behind a thousand-year-old Moorish bridge and the red clay hills surrounding Tudela.

7-9: 7 pm finds me either at the Official Language School studying French (Oui, je parle francais! Et vous?) or at a pupil's flat teaching conversation classes. Whether I´m discussing Catalan independence or the Spanish olive oil industry over a coffee or playing Guess Who and Go Fish with my kids, it's hard to really call it "work." French is a different story- some days the struggle of learning French in Spanish is just too much for my language-saturated brain to handle. But more on the trials and tribulations of multilingualism in another post...

Walking to my evening classes

9:00: Dinner time, finally. Today I make a delicious turkey and tomato grilled cheese and curl up in bed to study a little Spanish and read til I fall asleep.

And repeat until Friday arrives and I get a temporary reprieve from my little monsters ;)

Te comeria a versos

I guess it's a sign I'm becoming a Spain veteran, but when I was told I needed to go to Madrid to take a class, instead of a "Yay travel!," my reaction was more of the "Do I have to?" variety. I've lost track of how many times I've been to Madrid in the last 3 years, but let's say that after a ball park eight visits, a weekend alone in Madrid starts to lose some of its appeal, especially when you're on a tight budget, anxiously awaiting pay day, and expected to pay out of pocket for the trip!

Every cloud has a silver lining though, and in this case it was the discovery of the newest street art sweeping Madrid (and via social media, the entire country). Entitled "te comería a versos," a play on the Spanish phrase "te comería a besos" which means "I would kiss you" (literally I would eat you with kisses, but that doesn´t translate so well to English!), the movement swaps "versos" (verses) for "besos" and is spray painting other similarly punny/romantic/poetic phrases along the crosswalks of Madrid. 

Waking up in a hostel bunk bed, eating some toast and cold coffee as part of the complimentary breakfast, so I could spend my Saturday at workshops before embarking on a five hour bus ride back to Tudela, I needed something to brighten my day. And I tripped over the answer while crossing Calle San Bernardo. "No hay mejores brindis que los que hacen tus pestañas." My first sighting of Madrid´s newest street art.

"There are no better toasts than those of your eyelashs." 

That´s the beauty of te comería a versos, when you least expect it, as you´re going about your daily life, a little burst of poetry makes you stop and appreciate the language, before continuing on your treasure hunt across the crosswalks of Madrid in search of these words left under the cover of darkness. 

Although I only found 3 of them on my trip, I stole some pictures of a few of my favorites. Check out boamistura.com for more pictures and information about the project.

"Sleep less and dream more"

"The best hasn´t already happened, it isn´t still to come, it´s happening now."

A play on pésame (condolences):
My most heartfelt "kiss me." 

Forgive quickly, thank slowly.

Boring isn't a bad thing

Oops, I'm not so good at this blogging thing. The problem is my life seems so normal now that I kind of forgot I'm supposed to be posting on here. Normal is definitely not a bad thing though! After a summer of non-stop traveling, fiestas, dinners, and social events on both sides of the Atlantic, I reached September with a severe case of burn out, wanting nothing more than normal, boring routine. Its taken a little while for the chaos of moving back to Tudela to settle down but I've finally gotten my wish. The past few weeks have been finally back to normal, boring life!

It's amazing how different everything feels this year- while last year felt like a year abroad, an overwhelming string of new experiences, this year just feels like regular life- working, studying, planning lessons, lunches with coworkers, movie nights with my roommates, meeting for beers with friends, eating as many tomate feos as possible before they go out of season- and I'm finding I like that even more. I'm starting to feel like an actual teacher now that the school has me taking on a bigger role in the classroom and planning my own lessons. And, the increase in independence means more opportunities to have fun with the kids! Barely a month into the school year, so far we've made balloon "lungs" and decorated the classroom with fingerprints collages to study the human body, went to the gym to learn how to play hockey as part of our forces and motion unit, and made these adorable "I feel happy when..." collages.

"I feel happy when other people are happy."

My kids are the cutest.

One of the many perks of my job: adorable drawings like this one.

I'm sure life won't stay boring for long- with trips to Barcelona and Madrid and visits from two friends looming in the near future life will be switching back to the "crazy" setting soon. Stay posted, maybe I'll be better at this whole blogging thing (but don't count on it!). And now, to start planning my Halloween lessons!

Volver

One week back in Spain, and what a week it's been!

I was greeted in Madrid by the tiny bunk bed that would be my home for the next 5 days (perks of being a world traveler on a teacher's salary!) and a long list of bureaucratic hoops to jump through on the paperwork trail to legality.


Most people would call being stuck in Madrid for five days a vacation, not an annoyance, so I was determined to make the most out of what was otherwise a kinda shitty situation and it ended up being a really great week. When I wasn't hopping between police stations and banks and city halls in my quest to become a legal resident, I spent my time crossing off any remaining items on my Madrid bucket list: the Archaeology Museum, the Thyssen-Bernemisza Museum, and the Real Academia de Bellas Artes, as well as relaxing a bit while picnicking in the Retiro Park or finally finding some real Spanish olives in Malasaña- I realized after ordering that I was reading Washington Irving´s Tales of the Alhambra while drinking an Alhambra beer and eating aceitunas, I guess you can take the girl out of Granada but you can´t take the Granada out of the girl!

Oh olives, how I missed you! 

Thursday, in celebration of my application for residency finally being approved, I decided to get out of the city and headed north to Avila. Unfortuantely, it backfired slightly, since as soon as I got on a train, my brain got a little confused and thought we were headed to Tudela and not Avila and it was a little hard to recover from that disappointment! Fortunately, views like this helped a lot!

Cows!

Waving to El Escorial, King Felipe II´s palace as we went by

 Avila is famous for one thing and one thing only: its walls. And while the rest of the town was nothing special, the walls were incredible! The original thousand-year-old walls are still standing and fully enclose the city. For just 3 euros, you can climb up onto the walls and walk around the city. The weather was perfect, the views spectacular, it was magical to be up there.

My favorite part of the wall was at the top of one of the towers where they had a huge sundial. Along the base of the sundial, instead of times, was a list of important dates in the history of the city over the course of the last one thousand years. I loved how it so succinctly captured what this wall has seen, and survived, over the last millennium, while also measuring the passing of time in the present.

Avila tempus

Finally, Friday came and I was on a train home, zipping through the meseta of Castilla, the mountains of Aragon, and finally the Ribera del Ebro, as the sun set behind Moncayo. It took less than 12 hours (and most of that I was asleep) for me to get sucked into the most Navarran of activities: fiestas! Donning my red and white once more, I was off to the nearby town of Fitero for a day full of gigantes, gaiteros, and cabezudos.

Welcome back to Navarra!

Now life is finally getting back to normal here in Tudela. I had my first day back at school today and am finally moved into my amazing new apartment. Right in the city center, with an enormous balcony overlooking the entire town, it was pretty much love at first sight! It´s good to be back!

Not a bad view to wake up to every morning! 

Santa Ana

I knew I would like Tudela before I even arrived for one simple reason: each summer they have a week long fiesta in honor of Santa Ana that starts on my birthday! I've always thought July 24th was the most important day of the year ;) And what´s not to like about a place where everyone agrees with me!

So what is Santa Ana? A week-long party is the short answer, but its really so much more than that. It's a week to celebrate Tudela: it´s past, present, and future, all of the unique traditions, culture, music of this town in any form they may take. There is a calendar of events for everyone from kids to grandparents about 20 pages long, stretching from 6 am to 4 am every day for a week straight: bulls, concerts, dances, a huge fairgrounds set up along the river, there's even a competition to see which Tudelano can gain the most weight during the week (with a leg of jamón as the prize) or grow the best tomate feo, one of Tudela´s prized crops. It´s an explosion of Navarran pride, the little sister of San Fermin in Pamplona (but minus the post-Hemingway tourists), a week of magical, overwhelming madness.

July 24th, the town wakes early, dressed all in white (the official fiestas uniform, complete with a red belt and red pañuelico) for an almuerzo (an early lunch) with friends and family before heading to the square at noon for the chupinazo, the official start of fiestas. The cries of "Viva Navarra! Viva Santa Ana! Viva Tudela!" are followed by the cohete (rocket). Only once the rocket has exploded and can the pañuelico be tied around your neck!

The best birthday party EVER

Viva Navarra! Viva Santa Ana! Viva Tudela!

This photo only begins to capture the number of people crammed into the square!

No te vayas de Navarra

I wrote this post back in July, heartbroken at the thought of leaving Tudela. But fate intervened and my last weekend in Tudela, I got an email: a spot in Tudela had just opened up, I could stay if I wanted to. It took all of about half a second to realize I didn't want to go to Madrid. Now that the dust is finally settling (turns out changing your plans at the last minute like that leads to a million logistical nightmares), I finally have time to get this posted, my goodbye to Tudela turned list of reasons why I can´t wait to be back in September!

Tudela. Its charming casco antiguo with perfectly cobblestoned streets, the colorful houses, and tiny plazas filled with fountains or statues.

Even the parts of Tudela´s casco antiguo that are falling into disrepair still manage to enchant, the run down houses converted into the perfect canvas for works of art.

The Plaza de Fueros, the heart of the town, beautiful every day of the year whether its glowing with Christmas lights during winter or bathed in sunlight on a perfect March spring day or packed with red and white during Fiestas in July. The gazebo adorned with the names of famous Navarrans, the tiles depicting the coats of arms of the surrounding towns in the Ribera, the umbrella covered terraces where I could sit for hours with a mosto or iced coffee or caña, just watching the steady stream of Tudelanos on their way to and from school, work, shopping, going about their daily life.

San Fermin!

I honestly had low expectations for San Fermin. Between what I heard from people in Tudela (who are admittedly prone to exaggeration- whether about the freezing cold winters, which never actually dropped below freezing, the blisteringly hot summers, where the temperature hasn't actually climbed above 80 in weeks, and apparently San Fermin as well!)- you're going to die if you go on a Saturday, there's no bathrooms, you'll come home stained purple from wine, bring lots of kalimotxo (red wine and coke, offical fiestas drink of Navarra) cause you'll never be able to even get into a bar, you'll pay 10 euros for a beer- and what the English speaking news report on it (basically the same, you'll get everything you own stolen, your clothes will be ruined, etc.) I was expecting a fantastic party, but a really overwhelming crowd of drunken foreigners who I would want to punch in the face while I was covered in red wine and wondering when and how my my phone had been stolen.

Fortunately, none of that happened. I came home with everything I went with and the only stain on my pristine white shirt was a casualty while I was still in the apartment (typical Hilary, right? I would take a sample sip of our kalimotxo before I even left and dribble it down my shirt). We had no problem finding bathrooms, bars with reasonably priced drinks, and I didn't hear a word of English until my walk back to the bus station (obviously excluding any English spoken my friends, but they live in Tudela so that doesn't really count). 

Despite some low expectations, I was actually so excited about San Fermin  I couldn't sleep. As this cartoon sums up perfectly, adults are as excited about San Fermin starting on July 6th as little kids are about the three kings bringing them their Christmas presents on January 6th! 

July 5th: "Have you taken out your pañuelico (scarf)? Have you tried on your pants from last year? Have you picked a spot for lunch?" The joys of San Fermin!

I lay awake tossing and turning trying to decide what to wear, what to bring for food, for drink, if I would regret bringing my bag or my phone when they inevitably got stolen (I may have slightly overanalyzed the whole thing, but the thought of planning an overnight visit somewhere without booking a hotel was a little terrifying). The excitement (and crazy nerves) only increased as the day dawned, sunny and warm, and I donned the standard issue uniform- white shirt with a newly purchased red belt and red Tudela pañuelico. 

I'm now the proud owner of this beauty.

Living in Tudela gave me a chance to experience San Fermin as a "local" and oh my god it was incredible. In typical Tudela fashion, once we let slip to one of our favorite bartenders that we really had to make this our last round of drinks cause we were going to San Fermin the next day he pulled up a chair, grabbed a pen and paper and started scribbling away at a long list of recommendations. You may be foreign but that doesn't mean you have to do San Fermin like foreigners, he said. You´re from Tudela and you´re gonna do this right. Go here for the cheapest beers, go here for the cheapest food, go here for great mixed drinks, go here to watch the fireworks, and if anyone tries to rip you off, you just tell them you´re not gonna fall for it, you might be foreign but you´ve lived in Tudela for five years (five apparently being the magic number for anyone to take you seriously). 

While the advice was priceless, the biggest gift was still to come. And as he neared the end of his spiel, he asked us if we knew where the Cafe Iruña was in the Plaza del Castillo (Hemingway´s favorite bar in the most important square in Pamplona, for those who aren´t aware). No big deal or anything, but he was a member of this super swanky casino lounge on the second floor above the Cafe Iruña and he could give us passes to get into this members-only bar. If you´re still going at 8:30, he said, make sure you don´t miss the breakfast and dancing they do after the encierro, or running of the bulls. And all I can say is thank god we decided to get one more round because those passes were a game changer for the whole San Fermin experience. 

After what felt like an eternal bus ride through fields filled with sunflowers and the windmill-covered Navarran hills with the rest of the tudelanos making the trip up to Pamplona, we enjoyed a couple beers around the city as we scoped out the insanity. Oddly a couple places were places we´d been on previous trips to Pamplona, and it was very bizarre to see them shifted to fiestas mode- pinchos gone, plastic cups out, and packed at 6 in the afternoon!

By 7 we couldn´t resist any longer and had to try out our VIP passes. We were definitely afraid that if they looked at us too long they would realize we should not under any circumstances be allowed in, seeing as how we were broke English teachers carrying tote bags full of bottles of kalimotxo, so I gave them a quick flash of the card as I smoothly kept walking and we were in.  

Our balcony. Pure class.

The situation obviously demanded champagne. Who says San Fermin can't be classy?

Dad´s trip to Spain: BCN and MAD

Oops, got distracted before I could finish the trip! From Navarra we are off to Barcelona. Four days (but really two and half) was not really enough, but we did get to see a good number of Barcelona´s long list of sights: climbing up to Montjuic castle, checking out the magic light show at the Montjuic Fountain, going inside the amazing Sagrada Familia cathedral, and taking a day trip to the mountain monastery of Montserrat were all news ones for me! We also had time to visit the Barceloneta beach, get lost in the Barri Gotic, took a taxi drive-by of the Casa Batlló, and watched a whole lot of World Cup games, most memorably the US-Portugal game at 2 in the morning in an Irish pub filled with an overwhelmingly American crowd (the most Americans by far that either myself or my sister had been in contact with in about a year, definitely an experience!).  

The light show at Montjuic, much more impressive than I was expecting!

I may have developed a slight obsession with the stained glass in the Sagrada Familia.

Dad´s Trip to Spain: Navarra!

Ever since I arrived in Navarra I´ve been dying to visit the north. Unfortunately, without a car its basically impossible (and some stupid laws in Spanish mean that because I´m a Spanish resident, my US license is no longer valid here). Having Dad around though meant we could get a rental car and drive from San Sebastian down to Tudela, taking a long and winding 10 hour trip with lots of pit stops through the entire province of Navarra. And OH MY GOD NORTHERN NAVARRA! All I'd ever imagined and then more.

First stop after leaving San Sebastian was crossing the border over to France to see Sare and try a Gateau Basque, a typical cream filled kind of pie that is very typical of this region. Sare is part of Pays Basque, the French Basque Country and it was fascinating to see the two languages and culturals coexist, since I´m so accustomed to seeing the Spanish Basques.

The beautiful drive into Sare

Dad´s Trip to Spain: Pais Vasco

I´m finally getting around to updating this blog after a whirlwind couple weeks- finishing the school year and saying goodbye to my students and coworkers, moving to a new apartment, and taking a two week tour of Spain with my dad and my sister! After a weekend in Sevilla, the two of them flew up north to Bilbao where I met them. From there we continued through Pais Vasco and Navarra, finishing up with Barcelona and Madrid. Here´s part 1 of the trip: visiting three of the most important towns/cities in País Vasco: Guernica, Bilbao, and San Sebastian.

Our first full day in Pais Vasco, we took a day trip to Guernica, a small town about a half hour outside of Bilbao. Guernica is famous for two reasons. Firstly, Guernica has been for hundreds if not thousands of years the symbolic centre of Pais Vasco. For over a thousand years, the inhabitants of Guernica and Bizkaia (the province) have gathered under the oak tree (a descendent of which still stands outside the Guernica Assembly Hall). Even after Bizkaia was taken over by neighboring kingdoms (Navarra, Castilla, eventually becoming part of Spain), the invading kings respected the existing laws and government of Guernica, called fueros. The Kings of Spain even pay a visit to Guernica after being coronated to swear their loyalty to the fueros of Bizkaia.

Posing with Guernica´s famous oak tree

May in Review

I'm not really sure where May went. When I look back, I can't believe how many things I managed to squeeze into one month, which I guess is why it flew by! Here's a quick recap of what I've been up to:

Tudela: I started out May by staying in Tudela, even though I had a 4-day weekend and could have traveled (I know, gasp!), due to a combination of burn out after so much traveling in April and excitement about witnessing Tudela's famed Vegetable Week! Vegetable Week could ONLY happen in Tudela. They're vegetable crazy, and insanely proud of their famed vegetable. All week, the bars had special vegetable pinchos available and Saturday night, all of the peñas (small food clubs organized by groups of friends) open to sell beer and their hand-made pinchos, all featuring local vegetables. I went out with a coworker and all of her friends and they showed me their favorite peñas. I would have been lost without them! Most of the peñas were completely packed and it was impossible to even get in. Even the streets were full of people, and there were even tourists from France who came down for the weekend. Vegetable week also included a series of free concerts, a "carpet" made entirely of sliced up vegetables that was on display under the gazebo in the main plaza all weekend, and a parade on Sunday, including two Navarra traditions: jotas and gigantes. 

The vegetable carpet

Auryn concert in Plaza Nueva (picture One Direction but Spanish,
completely with lots of screaming 12-year-olds)

Parade on Sunday

Dancing jotas

Gigantes dancing in Plaza Nueva

San Sebastian: The following weekend, I was off to San Sebastián with a bunch of my Irish friends. It´s easily one of the most beautiful cities in Spain and a perfect spot for a relaxing weekend with great food and breathtaking views! We visited the amusement park on the top of Monte Igeldo, walked around the old town, and took a morning walk along the beach before reluctantly heading back to Tudela. The only way I could drag myself away was knowing I'd be back in a month with my dad and my sister!

Amusement park on Monte Igeldo

View from the top of Monte Igeldo. Pretty hard to top this!

Volverla a ver

La verdad, señora, empiezo a pensar que hay un placer todavía mayor que el de ver Granada. Y es el de volverla a ver.

It's always weird to be back in Granada, to see my old home through different eyes. And it was especially interesting to return with my sister, who wanted me to show her my Granada, and give her my personal tour of all my favorite places. The three days there were a bizarre mix of revisiting old favorites and discovering hidden gems I had no idea existed! I swear Granada is more beautiful every time I come back and volverla a ver.

We arrived at lunch time and had a huge lunch with my host family in their beautiful garden patio of all my favorite foods: rice with rabbit and artichokes, jamón, their homemade salchichón, and for dessert some typical Semana Santa sweets: torrijas (basically french toast, Spanish style) and leche frita. 

Next, we climbed up towards the Alhambra to get a good spot for the Santa María de la Alhambra processions, which were incredible. Unlike most of the processions, which just walk around the city, this one begins in a church next to the Alhambra and descends through the forest down into the city. The sunlight streaking through the green forest and illuminating the white lace on the flat as we joined the mass of people escorting the procession down in the city was magical! 

Nazareños

Following the procession down into the city

When we finally made it back down to Plaza Nueva, we took advantage of the last couple hours of sunshine to stroll along the Rio Darro and up to the Albaicin for sunset. 

Carrera del Darro, Granada´s prettiest street

Making friends