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!

A random garden in San Sebastian

Morning beach stroll 

Cascante! When I was invited to join in on the Spanish equivalent of tailgating (except of course it had religious motivations, the blessing of the crops, instead of sports ones) how could i say no? In hindsight I should have, since by mid afternoon I'd developed a 100º fever that kind of put a damper on the whole day. It was still hard not to enjoy myself, despite feeling so awful! I spent the day with several coworkers and one of their families. Basically, everyone drives up to a hill on the outskirts of town and barbecues all day. We had so much food, various types of sausage, chicken, ribs, and they only use wood from olive or grape trees for the fires so it gives the food a distinctive, delicious flavor.

The priest blessing the crops.

So many people!

One of the many platters of food we enjoyed. 

Barcelona!! My amazing college roommate flew all the way to Europe just to see me. We had an absolutely perfect weekend seeing as much of Barcelona as possible in 72 hours, enjoying a few beers along the Barceloneta beach, and taking a day trip to the little beach town of Tossa de Mar. I treated her to the best of Spanish food, finding some of the best patatas bravas I've ever tried, a great pintxo Navarra-style pintxo bar where we ate a filling dinner for only 5 euros each!, and paella on the beach in Tossa de Mar. By the end she had fallen in love with Spain and I was anxiously getting down to the days til I would be home, enough so to actually get motivated to buy my flight home (August 4th everyone!!) and now I have to remind myself every day that it is still too soon to start packing (I'm putting all that excited energy into cleaning my apartment instead, my room has never been this clean!).

Of course I had to take advantage of being in one of Spain's most international cities
 and track down some Mexican food. Nachos with guacamole! 

Blowing Mary's mind at the Sagrada Familia, a civil engineer's dream come true!

We had a nice ice cream with this view of the Arc de Triomf, so Barcelona!

Beautiful views in Tossa de Mar

Rugged Catalan coast

Quiet streets of the Vila Vella in Tossa de Mar

Paella along the beach with red wine and sangria,
about as stereotypically Spanish as it gets

Blue skies, sand in our toes, and a view of a castle?
Doesn't get any better than this!

Fitero: And last, a trip to Fitero yesterday for the fiesta de la empanada. This tiny town near Tudela has an actual festival each year where everyone bakes tons of empanadas full of chorizo, chicken or rabbit, hard-boiled eggs, onions, peppers, and other veggies and walks to a small park on the other side of the river to have a picnic lunch. I joined some of my Irish friends (one of whom lives there) along with some Fitero natives. You can buy wine out of the back of a truck, there´s a band playing, ice cream trucks, and chapas, a bizarre take on gambling where just about everyone on the town partakes in an organized game of head-or-tails, betting crazy amounts of money on a coin flip!

An empanada picnic

The band (notice the newest recruit, the toddler on the sax!)

I can't believe June is already here. I'm absolutely still in denial that I'll be saying goodbye to my students in just two weeks. Crazy how fast time goes when you're having fun! Can I go back to March and have a repeat on the spring??