There’s nothing like a weekend trip in a foreign country to teach you a few things about yourself.
Mom, I hope you’re happy.
You’ve successfully done it.
The nervous twitch, the obsessive mental list-making, the excessive allowance of extra time, the compulsive desire to check my ticket, then re-check it, then take it to the ticket booth and show it to the man at the counter just to see him nod in approval. Well actually he just looked at me as if to say, “That’s great honey, but this line is for people that still need tickets…so MOVE!”
You just never can be too sure.
Hannah, my roommate, might argue that one with me. “Tranquila, Jessie”
Logistically speaking, our trip was a paranoid traveler’s nightmare. Not only did we take a plane from Valencia to Sevilla, thus making it necessary to get to the airport by metro (and honestly, who can feel confident about the metro. Things happen. Haven’t you been on that earthquake ride at Universal Studios?), but then we took our first bus of the trip from Sevilla to Granada. Our bus left at 8 a.m., meaning a very alert me felt the need to start speedwalking toward the station at 7 on the dot. Not even the Starkbucks (yes, there are Starbucks in Spain) are open at 7. No people = no possibility of asking for directions = minor panic attack. Once in Granada, we decided to top off our transportation sampler platter by taking a train back to Valencia. This is where I stood in the ticket line to play a game of show and tell with the not-so-enthused ticket man. Lo siento for being seguro.
After our adventure by plane, train and automobile, I feel as though I’ve picked up some traveling street-smarts. For instance, I now know that only couples travel by bus. Everyone seemed to get the “bring-your-significant-other” memo but me, Hannah and one random Spanish man. Had there been two random Spanish men, perhaps we could have worked something out…
Another new-found fact: all three forms of transportation are equally uncomfortable. That said, I continued to prove my roommates’ long-time suspicion that I can sleep anywhere. Siesta on plane: 1 hour. Bus: 2 hours. And drum roll please…my snooze on the overnight train home: 7 horas. Not only that, but I conked out in spite of the creepy man sitting behind me with his shirt off and white-socked feet propped on my seat and nearly resting on my head. No shirt, no shoes, and in my delirious state at the end our journey—no problem.
A final revelation—despite my paranoia, planning does not always prevent getting lost and/or forgetting something. In the case of our trip, it prevented neither.
This first truth dawned on Hannah and me at the bus station in Granada. Our bus rolled into Granada and pulled into the station. We got off, stopped by el baño, walked out of the station and...stood. Frozen. Silent and slowly turning our heads as if some giant hand was going to drop out of the sky and declare “Your hostel this way!”
That didn’t happen.
Instead, we looked at each other with identical faces of bewilderment and then doubled over in sobs of laughter.
The second verification of this fact came when we got ready to take much-needed showers after a day of touring in Sevilla, then realized we didn’t have towels. Minor detail. True, there were alternatives, such as renting a towel for 3 euros. It may not sound like a lot, but 3 euros can go far in a pasteleria (bakery). Thus, I fully intended to embrace my griminess. For those of you doing the math right now…yes three days of traveling without showers=smelly. But thanks to Hannah’s wooing abilities, she finagled a towel for free at our hostel in Granada, and I took the best shower since coming to Spain. Hannah also deserves thanks for remembering shower shoes, another item I forgot and had to borrow. No me gusta fungus.
As riveting as our journey probably sounds at this point, I feel it necessary to note that we did more than take public transportation. We had cathedrals to see and palaces to go to and in general jam-packed days. There are a few milestones that stand out in my mind.
Doner Kebabs. Doner Kebabs are Whopper of Spain (technically I think they are a Middle Eastern food). In just about every city I’ve visited so far, you can smell the meaty, greesy goodness of Doner Kebabs wafting from one of dozens of small little shops with German lettering. Sometimes I feel myself getting fatter from the smell alone. Inside these shops, a less than appetizing slab of meat roasts on a rotating spike much like gyro meat, only it’s not lamb. Might be chicken. Reminds me a bit of meatloaf-on-a-stick. I prefer to believe it’s chicken.
Once tenderness has reached its prime, a man shaves the kebab causing tantalizing morsels of mystery meat to rain down on a plate below. Add tomato, lettuce, onion, secret sauce, pita bread and Viola!—you have a Doner Kebab. Take a few bites and you also quite possibly have clogged arteries. Eat two kebabs in one weekend like I did in Granada and then you’re looking at heart attack. In fact, I’m lucky to be alive right now because not only did I eat two kebabs in one weekend, but in the same sitting I gorged myself on lemon and chocolate cookies, potato chips, diet coke and fruit (health first). This binge session left us in a kebab-ified stupor that took a few hours of lounging in the sun to shake off...Needless to say, I’d do it again. I’d eat three. Death by Doner would not be a bad way to go.
Perhaps just as memorable as our Doner Kebab feast was Elious, the Serbian chef/waiter of Doner Kebabs. Somehow he left a lasting impression, and I don’t just mean the linger of his lips on my cheek after he greeted us with besitos. Nor am I talking about the imprint of his finger on my forehead after he outlined the words “Los Estados Unidos” to make the point that I look unavoidably American. No, it was his answer to a question I ask almost every shopkeeper I meet that I will never forget.
“Which is the best, in your opinion?” I asked of the various kebab options.
“Well,” he started, “the one with chicken, lettuce, tomato and…mi corazon (my heart).”
My response—“Huh, didn’t see that one on the menu.”
He didn’t stop there with the unexpected answers. The typically safe, “How was your day?” question elicited a 10-minute monologue about his education background and future academic goals. Elious is working on his Masters in geography. I have no idea how his day was.
Those two responses alone where enough to win Elious a permant spot in my memory, but he didn’t stop there. In fact, he was just getting started. Warming up his vocal chords one could say. Why? All the better to serenade me with.
I don’t remember how it started, but suddenly Elious is looking into my eyes and singing sweet nothings about, well, my eyes.
“I can see into your eyes,” he crooned off-key and in a thick Serbian accent. That’s about all I understood before he lapsed into bad a Spanish/Serbian/unidentifiable language combination.
Unfortunately for Elious, I only had eyes for one thing during his serenade—my already-packaged Doner Kebab. He sang; I stared longingly at the plastic bag dangling from his hand. Apparently I did a poor job of masking my lustful desire, because every once and a while, Elious would pause in his serenade as if finished and hold out the kebab in offering. The moment I reached out my hand to receive, he’d pull the kebab back across the counter and continue his solo; a new meaning to the term playing hard to get. After about four of these faked finales, Elious must have seen not just my eyes but the crazed look of hunger, because he finally ended his song and handed over my dinner.
Mom, I hope you’re happy.
You’ve successfully done it.
The nervous twitch, the obsessive mental list-making, the excessive allowance of extra time, the compulsive desire to check my ticket, then re-check it, then take it to the ticket booth and show it to the man at the counter just to see him nod in approval. Well actually he just looked at me as if to say, “That’s great honey, but this line is for people that still need tickets…so MOVE!”
You just never can be too sure.
Hannah, my roommate, might argue that one with me. “Tranquila, Jessie”
Logistically speaking, our trip was a paranoid traveler’s nightmare. Not only did we take a plane from Valencia to Sevilla, thus making it necessary to get to the airport by metro (and honestly, who can feel confident about the metro. Things happen. Haven’t you been on that earthquake ride at Universal Studios?), but then we took our first bus of the trip from Sevilla to Granada. Our bus left at 8 a.m., meaning a very alert me felt the need to start speedwalking toward the station at 7 on the dot. Not even the Starkbucks (yes, there are Starbucks in Spain) are open at 7. No people = no possibility of asking for directions = minor panic attack. Once in Granada, we decided to top off our transportation sampler platter by taking a train back to Valencia. This is where I stood in the ticket line to play a game of show and tell with the not-so-enthused ticket man. Lo siento for being seguro.
After our adventure by plane, train and automobile, I feel as though I’ve picked up some traveling street-smarts. For instance, I now know that only couples travel by bus. Everyone seemed to get the “bring-your-significant-other” memo but me, Hannah and one random Spanish man. Had there been two random Spanish men, perhaps we could have worked something out…
Another new-found fact: all three forms of transportation are equally uncomfortable. That said, I continued to prove my roommates’ long-time suspicion that I can sleep anywhere. Siesta on plane: 1 hour. Bus: 2 hours. And drum roll please…my snooze on the overnight train home: 7 horas. Not only that, but I conked out in spite of the creepy man sitting behind me with his shirt off and white-socked feet propped on my seat and nearly resting on my head. No shirt, no shoes, and in my delirious state at the end our journey—no problem.
A final revelation—despite my paranoia, planning does not always prevent getting lost and/or forgetting something. In the case of our trip, it prevented neither.
This first truth dawned on Hannah and me at the bus station in Granada. Our bus rolled into Granada and pulled into the station. We got off, stopped by el baño, walked out of the station and...stood. Frozen. Silent and slowly turning our heads as if some giant hand was going to drop out of the sky and declare “Your hostel this way!”
That didn’t happen.
Instead, we looked at each other with identical faces of bewilderment and then doubled over in sobs of laughter.
The second verification of this fact came when we got ready to take much-needed showers after a day of touring in Sevilla, then realized we didn’t have towels. Minor detail. True, there were alternatives, such as renting a towel for 3 euros. It may not sound like a lot, but 3 euros can go far in a pasteleria (bakery). Thus, I fully intended to embrace my griminess. For those of you doing the math right now…yes three days of traveling without showers=smelly. But thanks to Hannah’s wooing abilities, she finagled a towel for free at our hostel in Granada, and I took the best shower since coming to Spain. Hannah also deserves thanks for remembering shower shoes, another item I forgot and had to borrow. No me gusta fungus.
As riveting as our journey probably sounds at this point, I feel it necessary to note that we did more than take public transportation. We had cathedrals to see and palaces to go to and in general jam-packed days. There are a few milestones that stand out in my mind.
Doner Kebabs. Doner Kebabs are Whopper of Spain (technically I think they are a Middle Eastern food). In just about every city I’ve visited so far, you can smell the meaty, greesy goodness of Doner Kebabs wafting from one of dozens of small little shops with German lettering. Sometimes I feel myself getting fatter from the smell alone. Inside these shops, a less than appetizing slab of meat roasts on a rotating spike much like gyro meat, only it’s not lamb. Might be chicken. Reminds me a bit of meatloaf-on-a-stick. I prefer to believe it’s chicken.
Once tenderness has reached its prime, a man shaves the kebab causing tantalizing morsels of mystery meat to rain down on a plate below. Add tomato, lettuce, onion, secret sauce, pita bread and Viola!—you have a Doner Kebab. Take a few bites and you also quite possibly have clogged arteries. Eat two kebabs in one weekend like I did in Granada and then you’re looking at heart attack. In fact, I’m lucky to be alive right now because not only did I eat two kebabs in one weekend, but in the same sitting I gorged myself on lemon and chocolate cookies, potato chips, diet coke and fruit (health first). This binge session left us in a kebab-ified stupor that took a few hours of lounging in the sun to shake off...Needless to say, I’d do it again. I’d eat three. Death by Doner would not be a bad way to go.
Perhaps just as memorable as our Doner Kebab feast was Elious, the Serbian chef/waiter of Doner Kebabs. Somehow he left a lasting impression, and I don’t just mean the linger of his lips on my cheek after he greeted us with besitos. Nor am I talking about the imprint of his finger on my forehead after he outlined the words “Los Estados Unidos” to make the point that I look unavoidably American. No, it was his answer to a question I ask almost every shopkeeper I meet that I will never forget.
“Which is the best, in your opinion?” I asked of the various kebab options.
“Well,” he started, “the one with chicken, lettuce, tomato and…mi corazon (my heart).”
My response—“Huh, didn’t see that one on the menu.”
He didn’t stop there with the unexpected answers. The typically safe, “How was your day?” question elicited a 10-minute monologue about his education background and future academic goals. Elious is working on his Masters in geography. I have no idea how his day was.
Those two responses alone where enough to win Elious a permant spot in my memory, but he didn’t stop there. In fact, he was just getting started. Warming up his vocal chords one could say. Why? All the better to serenade me with.
I don’t remember how it started, but suddenly Elious is looking into my eyes and singing sweet nothings about, well, my eyes.
“I can see into your eyes,” he crooned off-key and in a thick Serbian accent. That’s about all I understood before he lapsed into bad a Spanish/Serbian/unidentifiable language combination.
Unfortunately for Elious, I only had eyes for one thing during his serenade—my already-packaged Doner Kebab. He sang; I stared longingly at the plastic bag dangling from his hand. Apparently I did a poor job of masking my lustful desire, because every once and a while, Elious would pause in his serenade as if finished and hold out the kebab in offering. The moment I reached out my hand to receive, he’d pull the kebab back across the counter and continue his solo; a new meaning to the term playing hard to get. After about four of these faked finales, Elious must have seen not just my eyes but the crazed look of hunger, because he finally ended his song and handed over my dinner.
“Good luck with life, with love, with school, with me,” he yelled after us as we made quick get away.
Oh poor Elious…you’ll need more than luck in love if you continue to ransom the dinner of starving girls.
Elious was the only tone-deaf foreigner to serenade us that weekend, but we did meet a few rythimically-challenged Italians with whom, you guessed it, we danced the night away…terribly.
Meet Davida and Fabrizio…two petite Italians (Italian men make me feel gigantic) who were staying in our hostel. We met over paella on the roof and bonded over stories of me crashing into cars with my bicycle (if you’re confused here…see my blog about biking and failing miserably). Nothing like recounting humiliating stories of yourself to make a good first impression. Worked on Davida at least—we feared he would fall out of his seat from laughing. Probably also had something to do with the fact that telling a story in Spanish requires extensive hand motions.
After making fast friends, we went out in search of free tapas (a tradition in Granada with purchase of a drink), flamenco shows and of course, dancing.
Davida assured me that he was a horrible dancer.
This seems to be a universal cop-out. Everyone says they dance terribly…even me. And not to brag, but my air chop turns heads often…let’s be honest here.
Well turns out…Davida is very honest. At least about dancing. Never have I seen such a horrible dancer in my life who was at the same time so very committed. Davida’s favorite move involved waving his arms above his head as if he was at a country music concert. All he needed was a lighter.
Fabrizio, like me, has one move. This involves tucking his arms in, looking at the ground, and swaying back and forth. Rock on, Fabrizio.
Hannah did the Charleston; Erika reeled people in with an imaginary fishing pole; and I—big surprise—chopped the air like it was a cutting board and I was iron chef.
Needless to say, we were a sight. Even more so when you factor in the general lack of other dancers in the discoteca. Lack as in none. It’s questionable if the discoteca was even a discoteca. May have been a glorified bar with DJ…and as it turns out, entertainment in the form of two Italians and three Americans.
Aside from singing Serbians and jiving Italians, there are many more random moments worth remembering.
For instance, the best cup of tea in my life thus far at a tea shop in gypsy land. It was called Winter’s Dream, and a dream it was.
Also, there was the time our friend Joe thought it would be funny to sneak up behind me at night on the sketchy streets of Granada, grab my back and say "Give me your money!" in a low, raspy voice. He apologized profusely after he saw the look of terror on my face.
And I can’t forget the bus ride we took at warp speed down the side of a mountain. I’d like to…just can’t.
But of all the people and crazy situations over the weekend, there is one person that deserves a special shout-out.
Hannah, my roommate. Woot woot.
We bonded that weekend. Literally it seemed as if we were joined at the hip. It started in Sevilla when we ate dinner together in silence, sitting on the same side of the table and reading from the same book. I was page-turner.
The bonding continued in Granada when we sat shoulder to shoulder, butt to butt on a windowsill, putting on makeup the sliver of natural light.
Elious was the only tone-deaf foreigner to serenade us that weekend, but we did meet a few rythimically-challenged Italians with whom, you guessed it, we danced the night away…terribly.
Meet Davida and Fabrizio…two petite Italians (Italian men make me feel gigantic) who were staying in our hostel. We met over paella on the roof and bonded over stories of me crashing into cars with my bicycle (if you’re confused here…see my blog about biking and failing miserably). Nothing like recounting humiliating stories of yourself to make a good first impression. Worked on Davida at least—we feared he would fall out of his seat from laughing. Probably also had something to do with the fact that telling a story in Spanish requires extensive hand motions.
After making fast friends, we went out in search of free tapas (a tradition in Granada with purchase of a drink), flamenco shows and of course, dancing.
Davida assured me that he was a horrible dancer.
This seems to be a universal cop-out. Everyone says they dance terribly…even me. And not to brag, but my air chop turns heads often…let’s be honest here.
Well turns out…Davida is very honest. At least about dancing. Never have I seen such a horrible dancer in my life who was at the same time so very committed. Davida’s favorite move involved waving his arms above his head as if he was at a country music concert. All he needed was a lighter.
Fabrizio, like me, has one move. This involves tucking his arms in, looking at the ground, and swaying back and forth. Rock on, Fabrizio.
Hannah did the Charleston; Erika reeled people in with an imaginary fishing pole; and I—big surprise—chopped the air like it was a cutting board and I was iron chef.
Needless to say, we were a sight. Even more so when you factor in the general lack of other dancers in the discoteca. Lack as in none. It’s questionable if the discoteca was even a discoteca. May have been a glorified bar with DJ…and as it turns out, entertainment in the form of two Italians and three Americans.
Aside from singing Serbians and jiving Italians, there are many more random moments worth remembering.
For instance, the best cup of tea in my life thus far at a tea shop in gypsy land. It was called Winter’s Dream, and a dream it was.
Also, there was the time our friend Joe thought it would be funny to sneak up behind me at night on the sketchy streets of Granada, grab my back and say "Give me your money!" in a low, raspy voice. He apologized profusely after he saw the look of terror on my face.
And I can’t forget the bus ride we took at warp speed down the side of a mountain. I’d like to…just can’t.
But of all the people and crazy situations over the weekend, there is one person that deserves a special shout-out.
Hannah, my roommate. Woot woot.
We bonded that weekend. Literally it seemed as if we were joined at the hip. It started in Sevilla when we ate dinner together in silence, sitting on the same side of the table and reading from the same book. I was page-turner.
The bonding continued in Granada when we sat shoulder to shoulder, butt to butt on a windowsill, putting on makeup the sliver of natural light.
Then there was the electronic guided tour of Alhambra. We thought we could both listen to the recording at the same time and thus save money. Essentially, we could. We just had to stand cheek to cheek to do so. Made walking nearly impossible.
Finally our bout of bonding ended in the dark on the stairs outside our apartamento at 5:30 a.m. Sunday. That’s where Hannah and I sat after realizing we were locked out.
At the time, we assumed someone changed the locks. Little did we know that Pepa, our madre de espana, had decided to play a cruel joke on us. The kind that involved her putting a key in the door from the inside, thus making our keys obsolete. Funny, huh? Not so much.
As you may have guessed, there’s another explanation for Pepa’s sudden decision to become a practical joker. Sadly, the true explanation makes even less sense.
Regardless, at 5:30 on that Sunday morning, I feel safe in saying that no explanation would have made sense to Hannah and I. Not wanting to disturb the household, we decided to spend the wee morning hours on the steps in the dark.
We started out optimistic, looking through pictures of the weekend on my camera. That was great until, “Warning: Battery exhausted.” And darkness.
We were intrepid. We moved to Hannah’s photos and got about halfway through her camera until Duracell failed us again.
My iPod…dead.
Our last resort--Hannah’s iPod. So there we sat, sleep deprived, listening to Savage Garden, one ear bud for each of us, mouthing to the words in the darkness.
"Eww I want you, I don't know if i need you. Eww i gotta find out."
Mmhhmm...we're lucky no one walked down those stairs.
