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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!