Maybe one of the things I love most about Spanish culture (and I could be wrong in generalizing here; it might just be my friends) is their willingness to organize little get-togethers. We’re constantly flitting from one place to the next on the weekends - a walk and backpack lunch in one countryside, a daytime birthday party in another. The best part about it is that while these places are all old to them, they’re brand new to me, and I get to wander around in amazement, soaking up Spain’s beauty and snapping photos.

One Sunday morning, eight of us awoke far earlier than we ever would after a Saturday night out, packed our backpacks, leashed up the pooches and set out for an invigorating, sun-filled hike through the countryside. Sweating out the night prior, we walked and laughed, as the dogs ran frantically to and fro, one minute circling our feet only to jet off again the next. One of our friends’ dogs is particularly hyperactive, and he almost got himself into a situation with some cows who were not exactly thrilled by his presence.

We set up camp for a moment to eat our bocadillos (“sandwiches, typically on a baguette”), of which my lovely novio (“boyfriend”) had prepared for me, complete with juice boxes to wash it all down, so all I had to do was show up. (But really, he’s super great.) We found an abandoned dog, which was extremely upsetting, because it was very sweet and disgustingly thin. We also found said dog’s owner, who tried to claim that the dog had only been lost for a few days when it was apparent that he was lying, but nevertheless, we handed the dog over. That aside, that little excursion was a welcome reminder at how awesome it is to not waste a Sunday morning being lazy in bed.

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Surprisingly, my next little adventure was out to the countryside home of the director of my school for the annual November convivencia (roughly “get together”) of José Nogales’ teachers. Oddly enough, I’m good friends with her sons, and I already had future plans set to go to this same house for a weekend-long party, so it was pretty amusing to get a preview of what would be our digs a few weeks down the road.

After school, we all set out to this house, which is not too far outside of town in a pueblo called Los Pinos. A teacher or two and her husband had already set out an hour or so ahead of us to set everything up and begin to cook the paella. As we swung the front door open, awaiting us was a large banquet table filled to the brim with aperitivos (“appetizers/hors d’oeuvres), per Spanish custom, and a drink, alcoholic or otherwise, was placed in our hands. After all the nibbles to start us off, a heaping plate of paella, two different cakes (one of which I had two pieces), it’s safe to safe I engorged myself in the most gluttonous of ways. (And yes, this quantity of food is totally quid pro quo for a Spanish get-together) Also, acorn liquor exists - and it’s awesome. BUT, OH, THE PAELLA. 

Told you.

But really, told you. #gratuitouspregnantbelly 

Fighting past that food coma, it really was a great opportunity to spend time with my coworkers and fellow teachers outside of school, to see everyone kick back and enjoy themselves and one another. I got to know them better - their relaxed, out-of-the-classroom selves - and they got to have actual time to talk to me and ask me questions, instead of the couple minutes we get here and there during the school day. I was really grateful to be included in the festivities, and I even have a lovely 8”x11” photo of all of us, a small token given to all the teachers, which is currently proudly being displayed in the salón (“sitting/living room”) of my apartment.

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El campo seems to be the recurring theme to the majority of our adventures, and each time, we’re headed to a new site, which has given me the opportunity to see a lot the nearby areas surrounding Valverde del Camino. It’s all due to my incredible good fortune in finding a steady group of all Spanish friends here, who I never cease to learn from in every single way imaginable. And hey, they’re not all that bad to have fun with either. Y ja ja, y ja ja. (It’s the Spanish way of doing fake laughter. Pretty spectacular to hear, at least for me. I’d be more than happy to do it for you sometime. Perhaps I’ll include it in the vlog I’ve been thinking about doing for too long now…)

Stay tuned for more mini-excursion updates, coming soon to a laptop near you!

We certainly had no shortage of rainy, gray, windy, dismal days last week - at least here in the south of Spain. With weather more akin to the likes of London and Seattle, I’ve had plenty of indoors time, which I’ve spent reading like a fiend and playing some addicting games on my new iPad.

And all of this would not have been complete without my estufa. What literally translates to “stove” is actually something much, much better. The estufa I’m referring to is a special type of table that I’ve encountered in every Spanish home I’ve ever been in. The table and its size and shape are of no importance, but instead what lies beneath.

Each table has at least one cloth of varying thickness laid over the tabletop. And underneath? A heater. I’ve seen everything from gas to oil to electric - even one that utilized embers, and that cloth covering everything acts both as a blanket and a barrier, blocking the heat from escaping. 

Spanish buildings, homes and apartments, at least in Andalucía, are built for warm weather, not cold - as I’m positive I’ve mentioned before - and central heating (and air conditioning) are somewhat of a foreign concept. That being said, I can’t stress enough how epic the estufa is. With this wonder of an invention, I can’t really see a need for central heating. Te lo juro. (“I swear.”)

I’m severely lacking in photos of this magnificent invention, but this image pulled from Google will have to suffice. The rest is up to your imagination.

The hole in the middle at the bottom is where the heating unit goes, whichever type you prefer. Cover the table with big pieces of fabric - again, to your liking - and ¡voila!

All I’m saying is I have to know some crafty enough people to fashion something similar to this, and you’ll be thanking me come time to pay the energy bill. (I will certainly be lusting hard after central air conditioning, however, by the time the summer temps start to roll through here, and I’ve yet to find a better solution to summer in Andalucía than AC. Pray for me.)

Shortly after I finished eating lunch today, a knock came at the door. Given that I’ve already had the luck of running into every loco in town, I did the manditory peephole check to make sure we (meaning my roommate, Margaret, and I) were in the clear. Turns out it was the next-door neighbor who had made too much meat for his lunch and was offering us the leftovers. And he just so happened to have a bunch of fresh picked oranges he wanted to give us.

This simply does not happen in the U.S.

And let me tell you, that meat was rica rica rica (“delicious”). I wasn’t even hungry any more, given I had just eaten, but as soon as we tasted a tid bit, all bets were off. Without a second thought, we practically licked that dish clean.

Thank goodness my aunt’s package had just arrived from Cincinnati today, so I could return the kindness by giving him a sampling of some prime chocolate from the one and only Graeter’s. The end result was an at least 20-minute conversation with this kind old man, who - and here’s the real kicker - is also the uncle of one my friends here. (And my friend’s aunt owns the apartment I’m renting and lives right below me.)

This same man had stopped by a month ago or so and brought us fresh eggs from his farm, and he is currently making goat cheese (which I caught a glimpse of today, and it looks great and smells even better), of which he promised us some as well. And all because this house used to belong to his parents, and he was born in our apartment.

There is nothing like small town Spain life. Nothing. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

By pure chance and luck, my lovely friend Anthony had been working at a vineyard in Fermoselle - a town even smaller than my own, located in the north of Spain, so small that most people I know here in Valverde del Camino have never heard of it ever. A brief history on Anthony and I? We met in class at UW-Milwaukee. We were both in the same degree program - English: Professional and Technical Writing. And initially, we hated each other. Okay, hate is a strong word. Let’s say we had difficulty seeing eye to eye. Over time, we warmed up to each other, and now? WELP, we love each other a lot. He’s intelligent, sassy, fierce, opinionated, driven, extroverted … what more could a girl ask for?

Upon finding out that our paths would intersect in Spain for a couple of months, we knew we had to plan a trip somewhere to meet up and ended up deciding on a weekend in Barcelona, where Anthony’s man friend, Matías, was working and residing for the time being. Joining us would be two other girlfriends of Anthony’s: Maddie, who is currently interning and living in London, and her best friend, Sara, who was in London on vacation to visit Maddie.

We settled on the long weekend of November 15-18, booked flights and hostels and waited anxiously to reunite. I hadn’t seen Anthony since mid-summer when he was home in Milwaukee on a month or so break between working on a vineyard in New Zealand (where he met Matí) and getting ready to jet off to Spain. (To further ensure you how rad Anthony is, he is now currently living in Australia, working on getting the beer he brewed and bottled off the ground.) Needless to say, I was excited to see and spend time with him outside of serving him coffee at Alterra.

When finally the time had come for me to jet off to Barcelona, Miri and Carlos drove me to the Sevilla airport after work on Thursday the 15th, and off I went to reunite with Ant and the girls. And aside from my excitement to meet and see them, I hadn’t been to Barcelona since 2007, and I was ready and raring to view the city a second time, five years later. Thanks to great guidance from all involved, I was able to quickly and easily find the bus I needed to take to the Plaza de España where Anthony, Maddie and Sara would be awaiting me.

I can’t even begin to describe to you what that moment felt like - realizing it was my stop, gathering my things, stepping off the bus, scanning the crowd from my familiar faces and spotting them almost immediately, the long-awaited hugs, smiles and laughs. De película, as my Spanish friends say (which essentially means “like a movie,” but can also mean “fantastic”). Seeing Anthony give me a burst of energy, just what I needed after all that traveling.

And I can’t even begin to explain to you how awesome it was to have two other Wisconsin gals there with me in Barcelona. (And also I still feel like a jerk-off for not realizing I had actually met Maddie once before, being that she was the former roommate of my dear friend and coworker Callie.) Either Anthony has really good taste in friends, or us Wisconsinites have an inherent bond no matter where we are in the world. (I’d like to think it’s a little bit of both.) What really provoked it for me was Sara’s laugh, which lit me up like none other, reminding me so much of my friends’ laughs at home - a good hearty Wisconsin laugh that’s impossible to resist.

Walking and talking at a rapid pace all the way back to the hostel, we checked me in and cracked up the bottle of rum Anthony had purchased in duty-free to share with all of us. Matí met us at the hostel, and the boys began to cook us dinner: chili con carne. I have to say, not only did I love getting cooked for by these handsome gents, but also the end result was positively delicious. We had decided ahead of time that we wanted to at least cook together that first night to save money and still have dinner together, since the hostel was equipped with a community kitchen. (And the best part is that we ended up cooking dinner together every night while I was there!)

Enjoying getting to know each other and eating our first meal together.

After we had filled our bellies with chili con carne and relaxed with a few rum and Cokes, Matí decided to head back to his apartment, though he was quite the trooper and still incredibly charming despite being under-the-weather. Sara, too, decided to hit the hay, while Maddie, Anthony and I headed out for a late-night stroll around Barcelona. We headed towards the water, naturally, and ended up goofing around in a nearby half-indoor, half-outdoor mall, taking a ton of photos. Ultimately, we called it an early night, since we all had been traveling quite a bit and wanted to save up our energy to hit the town the following night.

We set out late morning the next day, Friday, on the metro to stroll through Parque Güell, one of Gaudí’s masterpieces, stopping to watch a hilariously entertaining and talented band that posts up there, The Mañaners. After a refueling break for a tapas lunch and coffee, we leisurely made our way back through the city, deciding to exercise our legs some more and walk the whole way. I mandated a gelato break (sweets are my weakness, and gelato was my best friend when I studied abroad in Sevilla), and the rest of the group stopped to try some empañadas at an adorable little shop Anthony knew of. Needless to say, we were in need of that infamous siesta by the time we got back to the hostel.

Upon waking, the girls and I set out to look for souvenirs for their families and grocery shop for our paella dinner that we had planned. Shopping in the Mercat de Sant Josep de La Boqueria, the well-known, open air market usually referred to simply as La Boqueria, is something I could never get sick of, if even just for the giant candy stand that always calls my names and the fresh, natural juices that were 2-for-1€. Buying fresh seafood and veggies was a fun little excursion, despite the hustle and bustle of everyone trying to get what they needed from the market before it shut down for the evening.

Thus began family-style dinner number two, with the boys manning the ship otra vez. Meanwhile, us girls started in on the bebidas for the evening, white wine to complement the paella and ye ol’ standby rum and Coke. We ended up making a new German friend, Chris, in the meantime and invited him to eat dinner with us, because we had overcooked, which is easily done with paella. (And yes, the only reason I remember his name is because it is the same as my brother’s. Normally, I am terrible with names. Faces, no problem, names, yikes.) 

Per usual, we got caught up chatting and playing silly games post-dinner in the common room of the hostel, but eventually, we readied ourselves and hit the streets to walk our way to the main strip of bars. (In retrospect, we definitely should’ve taken the metro; it was a long walk - and I wasn’t even wearing heels.) Incredibly fascinating it was to view the difference in between the more ‘high brow’ clubs, where you have to be wearing a certain attire to secure entry, and the strip of bars we went to, where attire is less important but the tunes are just as bumpin’. Needless to say, I didn’t even bring a pair of heels with me to Spain (On these cobblestone streets? Paso (“I pass.”)), much less shoved that, a dress, my curling iron, blowdryer and all the make-up I own in my Chrome bag for my weekend get-away. They just didn’t make the cut.

I, however, couldn’t have been more pleased with how our evening ended up. After a few shots, we spent the entire night dancing away, sweating profusely and, frankly, not giving a damn. I ended up being swooped away and dancing with some random man who tried to sweep me off my feet and failed, because I couldn’t have cared less; I just wanted to dance. Shortly thereafter, a man peddling roses gave me one and then tried to ask my guy friends to pay for it. I attempted to hand it back to him, because, like I mentioned before, I couldn’t care less - I was just out to have a good time and dance! But he careened me towards some man, presumably someone he already knew, and said this man would pay for it, but I owed him a dance for the rose. Well, as you can probably guess, this guy looked like a total creep, and I was not about to dance with him, so sucks for that guy, because I’m pretty sure he still paid for it, and I just walked away, because my friends were wanting to head over to the next place. Moral of the story? Free rose and lots of laughs.

We did Barcelona right that night - that’s for sure - as we waltzed our way over to a cab, all drenched in sweat from head to toe from dancing so much but with a smile on our faces all the while.

Our German friend, Chris, on the left. And literally, you can see the sweat; I wasn’t lying. (Photo taken by Maddie.)

Saturday morning, Sara, Maddie and I left Anthony and Matí to have some quality time together while we set out on subway and by foot to do some essential Barcelona sightseeing, if you’ve never been before. (Read: GAUDI GAUDI AND MORE GAUDI.) Our first stop was La Sagrada Familia (which if you don’t know it’s history, you should look it up; this thing has been being built since 1882, and it’s still a work in progress.)

What took my breath away was the interior of the cathedral, due to the sheer magnitude of change that had occurred since the last time I had the pleasure of being inside its walls. (Em. Maybe I should’ve rephrased the last part of that sentence, given I’m talking about a religious structure. Moving on.) I was in Barcelona in 2007 for a high school class trip I elected to go on, and, of course, we visited La Sagrada Familia. I remember it being filled head to toe with construction, plastic sheeting masking much of its beauty. While still a sight to be seen, the interior now doesn’t hold a candle to the interior in 2007. I later learned, when talking with a teacher at my school about my trip, that there was apparently a visit from the pope in 2010, or somewhere around there, and for that reason, they spread up construction more than usual to impress him.

The interior of La Sagrada Familia.

After La Sagrada Familia came Casa Milà, or La Pedrera, as it is commonly known, another one of Gaudi’s architectural masterpieces. But there was obviously a much necessary descanso (“break”) for sweets and coffee. We lucked out with a lovely little cupcake place near La Pedrera where I devoured an adorable miniature strawberry cheesecake and a metallic macaron. I had also already been to La Pedrera, but I could never get sick of looking at the vintage apartments, preserved in all their glory. As hipster as that sounds, old things are cool. I dare you to try and tell me otherwise.

Followed by a siesta to rest our weary pies (“feet”), the complete crew rejoined for a final tapas date before Sara and Maddie departed - Maddie back to London and Sara home to the U.S. We marveled at all of our paths colliding in this moment, coupled with tears and laughter and wondering when we’ll all see each other next. Big squeezes goodbye and the girls were off in a taxi to the airport.

Shortly thereafter, Anthony and I split off from Matí to run a few errands as Matí prepped his apartment for our small dinner party that evening. And oh what a dinner party it was. Throw together two Argentinians, two Americans, a French person and a general knowledge of more languages than you can imagine, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for success. Yet another evening where I had a group of handsome men cooking for me while I got to relax with a glass of wine and enjoy their company. I couldn’t have wished for a better night to cap off my trip.

The next morning, after another mediocre - but free - breakfast in the hostel, I checked out and made my way to the nearest café for a freshly-squeezed orange juice and capuchino to relax and wait for Anthony and Matí to walk me to area where I could catch the bus back to the airport. I’m still thankful for that walk and those hugs on that bright sunny morning. 

From bus to plane to taxi to train to my fantastic valverdeño friends’ loving arms awaiting me in Huelva, it was a long day of travel but with a great reward at the end. Upon showering me with hugs and kisses, we made our way to the movie theater to see the new Twilight film with our friend Cinty, who lives in Huelva, and then they carted my tired behind back home. It should come as no surprise that I got hella sick shortly thereafter, but by golly was it worth it.