Pa´s Visit Spain

As soon as I got back to Spain from the states, it was time for another adventure. The day before I arrived back, the President´s Ambassadors group from Georgetown came to Spain for a week-long excursion through Madrid and Barcelona. As I was a part of this group and was able to go to both Greece and San Francisco while at Georgetown, I knew many of the people and wanted to show them around the country as much as I could. So I met up with them the night I got back (Monday night), and stayed with them until Saturday.

Monday night and Tuesday were spent around Madrid. This ended up working out for me, as my luggage was stuck in Paris for a while due to flight delays and other airline crap. The first night, I took them to my favorite Spanish chain, 100 Montaditos. It´s this great place that has 1 euro sandwiches and drinks on Wednesday night, and every other night still has great deals. So we went there and I introduced the group to tinto de verano, a tasty drink that mixes red wine with either lemon Fanta or soda water. Of course, they all loved it as much as I do.

On Tuesday, I spent my first full day back in Spain by traveling with them to Avila and Segovia. While these are both places I had already been to, it was still nice to spend the day with old friends from back home. We also were able to make it back to Madrid in time to see the parade for the Reyes Magos.

In Spain, instead of having a big Christmas celebration, they have a little Christmas and a somewhat bigger Dia de los Reyes Magos, or Day of the Wise Kings. Instead of Santa Clause bringing presents, one of the 3 reyes comes and delivers presents. Of course, the Spaniards have gotten somewhat wrapped up in Western traditions and this has changed a little, but the Reyes Magos are still important. In many cities, they have a parade with the wise men and other floats that throw out loads of candy. We got to see the one in Madrid, and it was full of many amazing floats and baloons and all kinds of other shenanigans. Candy was being hurled everywhere, and families came with ladders for their kids to get better views and better positions to catch the sweets. It was a sight to see.

At the beginning of the parade, they had this girl doing acrobats and only held in the air by hundreds of balloons. Pretty cool.

After the parade, we went out and had a great night on the Madrid town. While out, we didn´t really worry about the fact that we had to be up bright and early to catch the train to Barcelona.

The next morning, we boarded the high-speed train to Barcelona after a mere 3 hours of sleep. This was my first high-speed train adventure, and it was great to see the Spanish countryside racing by. Once we got to Barcelona, we didn´t have much time to rest. We were given the task of a scavenger hunt about the city. My group ended up abandoning the planned scavenger hunt and basically created our own adventure. We ate a great typical Spanish lunch with paella and salads and tortilla and made our way up to Park Guell, a cool park designed by Gaudi. It took us a while to get there, but the views at sunset were amazing and the Gaudi architecture there was unbeatable. I could have stayed up there all day.

Us eating lunch on our scavenger hunt adventure.

Part of my group inside of the Park Guell at sunset.

The next day, we spent the morning on a tour of the old city, including a visit to Gaudi´s Sagrada Familia church. It is probably the most famous building in Spain, a church that was started 100 years ago and is still unfinished. They say it´ll be done in 2025, but we´ll see... The church was amazing to see from the outside, but we didn´t get the chance to go in. Afterwards, we continued our day with a rainy visit to the sea so many of the group could touch the Mediterranean for the first time.

The Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's church that is supposed to be finished in 2025. Yeah, right.

Our last full day in Barcelona, Friday, was supposed to be spent on a day trip to Zaragoza. Unfortunately, after driving about an hour and a half towards the city, we entered blizzard-like conditions and had to turn around and come back. The roads were actually shut down, but our tour guide Mar (who was crazy and told pickpocketers near our group ¨If you touch my group, I´ll kill you¨ and yelled at an old man in the cathedral) lied to one set of police telling them that another set of police said we could turn around and go back. Way to go, Mar. So we headed back to Barcelona and were able to take in some more of the sights, including Gaudi´s famous house, Casa Batllo. We concluded the last night with a last hoorah out on the town. It made for a perfect ending to the trip with the PA´s.

Us in the snow storm at the rest stop. Buses had been there all night and people were waiting to leave, but our bus snuck out past the police after some smooth talking.
Me on the top of Gaudi's Casa Batllo.
Us having fun (probably a little too much fun considering how early we had to wake up the next morning) at the bar that strangely only served Budweiser. Wait, aren't we in Spain?

While the PA´s left early Saturday morning, I slept in and waited for my flight back to Madrid from the Girona airport. I went to the bus station, bought my ticket for the 1 1/2 hour bus out to the Girona airport, and waited in line to get my documentation checked for the flight. Since we rode the train there, I didn´t think anything about needing my passport. I figured the airlines would accept my national identity card from Spain since we were not flying out of the country. However, when I got to the window, the lady turns to about page 12 of the bylaws and shows me a sentence where it says no national identity cards are accepted. So I go ask the information desk if there is any way around it, and he tells me to tell them that I lost my passport and I can go the police in the airport and get a document proving that. I spend about 30 minutes with the police filling out a fake police report saying my passport was stolen, which they say will work for the airline. When I go back up to the airline windows, the lady tells me that that won´t work because I didn´t fly to Barcelona with RyanAir. For some reason that makes a difference. So after they´re really mean about the whole situation, I´m stressed out and just went to get back to Madrid and haven´t eaten all day, now it´s time for me to find another way back to Madrid. I end up having to ride the bus back into Barcelona, then get on another bus for 7 1/2 hours back to Madrid. Let´s just say, it was a miserable trip home. And I will never travel without my passport again. The whole point in flying back to Madrid was saving money, but I ended up spending just as much as if I would have taken the high-speed train.

I finally made it back to my piso in Madrid at 2 am, marking the end to a crazy, yet fun adventure with the PA´s in Spain.

In conclusion, Jon Elrod riding the lion.

home for the holidays

In attempts to once again catch up people back home on my life (although not many of you read this, we´re going to act like it´s more popular than it really is) and to generate some nostalgia in me for the motherland, it´s time to update on my 16-day return trip to los Estados Unidos.

On Dec. 18, I packed up my few belongings that I wanted to take back to the states (you know, those things that I brought thinking I was going to use/wear that sat in my drawers for 4 months) and my Christmas presents for friends and family (killing 2 birds with one stone: Spain and X-mas) and headed back to the good ol´ USofA with Jordan. Our plane ride back was rather uninteresting, minus the fact that we had half of the Harlem Globetrotters on our plane heading back home to their families after their European tour. After making it to Atlanta, we had our four-hour layover turn into a 7-hour layover because of snow in North Carolina (thanks, Charlotte). But it was okay, because I was able to eat some airport Qdoba as I savored being back in Eastern time.

It was great to see my family, my friends, and of course my dogs while I was home. The next few weeks were spent traveling, eating loads of deserts (my mom made food as if I hadn´t eaten while I was in Spain), and catching up on what I´d missed the past four months (including Jersey Shore. thanks MTV for your amazing trashy TV). Here are some of the highlights of my visit home:

1. Of course, seeing my family and getting to spend time with them. This includes great Christmas memories with both sides of the family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

While I have no pictures actually with my family, I thought our Griswald-style front yard was worth noting here.
Catching up with some high school friends.

2. Archie, my amazing puppy. Well, he´s not really a puppy anymore, but I have spent more time away from him than with him since he wondered onto our fraternity porch last December, cold and malnourished. Now, he´s living the royal life at home with my family.

3. Spending lots of time hanging out with the great Jaffe family.

4. Going to not one, but two UK basketball games at Rupp Arena. One with Rebecca (thanks for the tickets, Layne!) and the other with Nelson. With Nelson, we got there 3 hours early and waited in line for tickets to the Erupption Zone (normally the student section, but sold for $5 on the day of to anyone during the break). We were numbers 180 and 181 in line and the guy said they thought they had around 175 tickets. Fortunately, they had 184, meaning we were able to get in and see the game from 10 rows back.

Our view from the 10th row or so at the UK game.

5. An amazing New Year´s party at Layne´s house. In attendance were all the guys I wanted to catch up with and see while home (minus Ryan, who unfortunately couldn´t make his way up from his wilderness job in Texas) and some of the girls.

The whole gang at New Year's.

6. A sad defeat of UL by UK in the annual rivalry game, but another good afternoon spent with friends from school and Archie´s playtime with TC´s new puppy, Wrigley (who dominated Archie, even though he´s about half his size. apparently I have a wimpy dog. all bark, no bite).

7. Getting a much-needed haircut. It´s amazing how much hair can grow in 5 months. I feared getting my haircut in Spain and ending up with a ¨Spanish¨ haircut, aka a mullet or something equally as hideous.

When I first got to Spain, I thought that I would stay around here and travel over Christmas break. I don´t know what I was thinking! It would have been so hard to be away from the states and all of the comforts of home for that long. Don´t get me wrong, I am enjoying myself here in Spain, but it was great to go home for the holidays.

In conclusion, Nelson Heard trying to mean mug. Oh, and look at the score in the background. Can we say blowout?

Madrid with Jordan

After Jordan and I got back from Rome, we had a week to spend in Madrid before going back to the states together. We filled the week with all kinds of stuff:
- A day trip to Cercedilla to go hiking. The weather was perfect, and you could see snow on some of the distant mountains.

Up at the lookout in Cercedilla. No one was there, so we were able to eat lunch up there by ourselves.

- A failed attempt to take a day trip to Toledo. We went to the train station to catch a train, but there were 70 people waiting in line for tickets. And the line was slow. We tried to then catch a bus, but went to the wrong bus station.
- Trips to both the Prado museum and the Reina Sofia to see Picasso's, Goya's and Valazquez's.
- A journey down to the main street to watch the red carpet at the Madrid premiere of Where the Wild Things Are and getting Spike Jonze's autograph.

Spike Jonze and the kid from Where the Wild Things Are.

- Seeing Chewbacca in Sol.

Yep, Chewwy.

- Jordan coming to my school and getting to meet my hellian class, who were out in full force. They were chanting, bowing down to me, and throwing stuff everywhere. Soon I will tape them for you all to see.
- An amazing Hanukkah dinner prepared by Becca.

The Hanukkah feast. Gracias, Becca.

Some of Madrid's many Christmas lights.

Yes, great times were had in Madrid, but I was so excited to head home for a couple of weeks for Christmas break.