I am going to make this blog post more brief since I have been thinking, writing, reading, and speaking English far too much over the past two weeks of vacation. I have practically lost my Spanish soul entirely! I admire those who have adopted a language other than their native one to live by. This is a task of great exertion, strength of will and mind and heart and soul!
From Sevilla, I left Tuesday afternoon and was supposed to arrive in Madrid at a fairly reasonable hour of 12:00. Zipping along the Andalucian highway I was thinking about how good the traffic situation in Spain is and that, basically, its a perfect country. Then suddenly the highway stopped completely for an hour and a half: there was an accident. I got into the bus station at about 1:30 and to the hostal where Mrs. Clark and Lauren were staying with an extra bed at 2:00 am!
We got up bright an early at 7:00 to go to the tour bus place to get tickets to go to the Medieval town of Toledo, about an hour south of Madrid in Castillo- La Mancha that was a bit pricy but well worth it! Toledo was a beautiful town and most of all the incredible cathedral, that was built over hundreds and hundreds of years. You know, it takes a heck of a long time to upload photos to my blog, so if anyone is interested in seeing them, tell me and I will send you my yahoo photo albums. Or, just wait a month, I´ll be back, and I´ll really want to show them to you then to!
There was a lot of El Greco paintings in the Cathedral and the sacristy and we saw his famous painting in another Church nearby. I got some gifts and postcards around town too. Then the lunch was included in the tour so we went up to this isolated restuarant where the food was not bad, the marzapan cost 1 euro each little piece, and we were serenaded by.... MARIACHIS!?! If only it hadn´t been raining, I would have thought I was in So Cal in that restaurant! But after lunch, we went up to see a panoramic view of the city, which was just phenomenal. Its surrounded by a large river, like a huge moat. And the city itself if up on the cliff, where the river is below.
We came down to go to a steel factory, which Toledo is known for and we saw demonstrations of some workers carefully imbuing some steel with gold lining and welding the hot metal. That was cool! There were a lot of swords and armor all over the whole city but especially here in this factory. I didn´t buy my brothers any armaments, but Lauren and I took some funny pictures for them. Next door, there was a store called "Wine, Steel, and Cheese" or something to this effect and I wanted to go in there to look for a gift for my Mom, but it was closed.
We came back to Madrid, met up with some of the Clarks friends from Germany and went to dinner. Then I took off to an internet cafe to write to you, my dear readers. I slept in a hostal room by myself that night in Madrid and it was quite cozy. The next morning, I woke up and wondered down past the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, past the Plaza Mayor, to the Plaza San Miguel, where the Basilica of San Miguel is, where there are priests of the Work. I took some pictures of the pasos then: they were really beatiful in that Church especially.
I caught the bus to Valladolid at noon and that is another adventure I will tell you about in my next blog!
Showing posts with label Andalucia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Andalucia. Show all posts
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Semana Santa in Sevilla and then onto el Capital!!
I don´t want to spend a lot of time on my blog now because I have not yet finished with my travels this Easter vacation, but I just wanted to jot down a few things so that you can know where I am and so that I don´t forget where I´ve been!
I got into Sevilla on Monday morning after the night-long bus to Sevilla. I wandered around the city with my huge luggage quite a bit trying to meet up with Jessica Gutierrez before she jumped on a train to Madrid, but to no avail. I eneded up in the internet cafe where I last wrote an entry on my blog.
After that, I found my way to the hostal where I thought I would be staying with some friends, but it turns out, that though they had invited me to come, told me the address and the days they would be there, they had neglected to reserve me a spot. O goodness, and semana santa in Sevilla is jam packed with people so I knew that I wouldn´t have much luck if I looked elsewhere. Luckily, one of my friends from the Colegio was gracious enough to take me in for the night. She´s Aurea and she´s a supernumerary like me!
After I had lunch with my absent-minded friends, I wandered through the city looking for an open church to do my prayer. Amazingly enough, even though there are about 500 million churches in every city in Spain, it´s somewhat of a challenge to find one that´s open if it´s not mass- time (usually 12 or 6 or later). I finally found one in Plaza San Lorenzo, which also happend to be the Church where the paso of the Gran Poder was kept. There was another humongeous line of humanity waiting to go and kiss his hand!
After that I met up with Aurea for mass in a church that was on the street where a paso of our Lady was passing by. There were so many people we could barely push our way through to get to mass on time! Then Aurea´s friend Esperanza and her cousin and another friend Pilar met up with us to see the pasos for the night. Esperanza knew exactly where every paso was passing (no pun intended) and at what time it was passing so we dart around the crowed streets seeing these amazing processions! I will put some pictures up as soon as I can!
The next day, Aurea and I had a delicious desayuno (the Andalucian pistañes are the best I´ve tried yet!) went to mass at 12 (that´s when life really begins in Spain .. hehe just a joke) and then she dropped me off back with my absent-minded friends. I had left my bag in the hostal for the night because it would have been too crazy to try and pick it up with all the people. So I despididod a my absent-minded amigos and headed to a center called Entrepuentes to do my prayer and go to circle. I talked with a friend who I had met in Pamplona in Zudaire at the International dinner named Lolita! It was a funny coincidence to see her again! There was another supernumerary in the circle who was working in Madrid and so they gave me the map of the hotel where I was going to meet Mrs. Clark and of the Basilica of San Miguel´s, which is a church that the priests of Opus Dei take care of because I wanted to go to confession there. That´s an amazing church and I´ll put pictures up of their pasos soon because I was just there again this morning!
After Sevilla, I went to Madrid and met Mrs. Clark and Lauren and we went to Toledo for the day! Then I went to Valladolid to visit Mercedes, my old roomie from Westfield. I will write more about these days because they were great and because I want to show you my pictures. Now I´ve left Valladolid and come back to Madrid to visit Irina! It sounds like she has done even more travelling than I have recently. She just just got back from driving through France, Monaco, and Italy. Today after we had the desayuno, I went into the city by myself for mass and exploring. I like Madrid a lot and it is a very beautiful city. I walked along the Calle Mayor and Calle Alcalá and saw tons of grat edificios. And then at the Plaza Cireles, I caught the 27 bus up Paseo Castellana to find the center where I´m going tonight for circle. That was like taking a tour bus of Madrid (but my only guide was the good bus driver who helped me find 124).
Now I´m back in Gatafe and Irina´s in class. When she gets out will head back to the city, where she wants to show me the Parque of Buen Retiro (I think)! I´ll write about the adventures in between Sevilla and Madrid soon.
I got into Sevilla on Monday morning after the night-long bus to Sevilla. I wandered around the city with my huge luggage quite a bit trying to meet up with Jessica Gutierrez before she jumped on a train to Madrid, but to no avail. I eneded up in the internet cafe where I last wrote an entry on my blog.
After that, I found my way to the hostal where I thought I would be staying with some friends, but it turns out, that though they had invited me to come, told me the address and the days they would be there, they had neglected to reserve me a spot. O goodness, and semana santa in Sevilla is jam packed with people so I knew that I wouldn´t have much luck if I looked elsewhere. Luckily, one of my friends from the Colegio was gracious enough to take me in for the night. She´s Aurea and she´s a supernumerary like me!
After I had lunch with my absent-minded friends, I wandered through the city looking for an open church to do my prayer. Amazingly enough, even though there are about 500 million churches in every city in Spain, it´s somewhat of a challenge to find one that´s open if it´s not mass- time (usually 12 or 6 or later). I finally found one in Plaza San Lorenzo, which also happend to be the Church where the paso of the Gran Poder was kept. There was another humongeous line of humanity waiting to go and kiss his hand!
After that I met up with Aurea for mass in a church that was on the street where a paso of our Lady was passing by. There were so many people we could barely push our way through to get to mass on time! Then Aurea´s friend Esperanza and her cousin and another friend Pilar met up with us to see the pasos for the night. Esperanza knew exactly where every paso was passing (no pun intended) and at what time it was passing so we dart around the crowed streets seeing these amazing processions! I will put some pictures up as soon as I can!
The next day, Aurea and I had a delicious desayuno (the Andalucian pistañes are the best I´ve tried yet!) went to mass at 12 (that´s when life really begins in Spain .. hehe just a joke) and then she dropped me off back with my absent-minded friends. I had left my bag in the hostal for the night because it would have been too crazy to try and pick it up with all the people. So I despididod a my absent-minded amigos and headed to a center called Entrepuentes to do my prayer and go to circle. I talked with a friend who I had met in Pamplona in Zudaire at the International dinner named Lolita! It was a funny coincidence to see her again! There was another supernumerary in the circle who was working in Madrid and so they gave me the map of the hotel where I was going to meet Mrs. Clark and of the Basilica of San Miguel´s, which is a church that the priests of Opus Dei take care of because I wanted to go to confession there. That´s an amazing church and I´ll put pictures up of their pasos soon because I was just there again this morning!
After Sevilla, I went to Madrid and met Mrs. Clark and Lauren and we went to Toledo for the day! Then I went to Valladolid to visit Mercedes, my old roomie from Westfield. I will write more about these days because they were great and because I want to show you my pictures. Now I´ve left Valladolid and come back to Madrid to visit Irina! It sounds like she has done even more travelling than I have recently. She just just got back from driving through France, Monaco, and Italy. Today after we had the desayuno, I went into the city by myself for mass and exploring. I like Madrid a lot and it is a very beautiful city. I walked along the Calle Mayor and Calle Alcalá and saw tons of grat edificios. And then at the Plaza Cireles, I caught the 27 bus up Paseo Castellana to find the center where I´m going tonight for circle. That was like taking a tour bus of Madrid (but my only guide was the good bus driver who helped me find 124).
Now I´m back in Gatafe and Irina´s in class. When she gets out will head back to the city, where she wants to show me the Parque of Buen Retiro (I think)! I´ll write about the adventures in between Sevilla and Madrid soon.
Monday, April 2, 2007
I was in Alicante with Meg
Monica dijo...
I was at Mass in St. Peter's square on Palm Sunday and saw the elaborate palms you are talking about. Pretty neat- and some of them were huge! I was pretty close... And we saw the pope again today- even closer!! Wish you were here... but see you soon!
April 2, 2007 3:47 PM
LIZ DIJO:
Hey hey! That´s awesome! The palms were spectalcular in Elche and I bet in Rome they were too. I forgot mention that we went into the basilica at Elche and among many chapels, there was a statue of St. Josemaria there! And below there was spot for his prayer cards in about 10 different languages.
On Friday night, I left rainy Pamplona at 11:00 pm on a bus that was to arrive in Alicante at 8:30 in the morning. We were supposed to leave at 10:30 so I thought that the bus would arrive at half hour late too, at 9:00. So I hopped on the bus, wrote Meg a text message that I´d be late, but in my industrial ear`-plugs that I use to sleep at Goimendi, and fell asleep at 12:30 or so. At 1:00 I was awaken by the whole bus stampeding off to the bus stop for a 20 minute break. It surprised me that even though we had left late we were taking such a lengthy stop. Anyway, we got back on the bus and managed to fall asleep again while listening to Phillip Glass´s Mad Rush, a 13 minute piano solo of the minimalist composer. At 3:00 I awoke with a jolt as the bus pulled into another stop and the driver announced we´d be here for a half hour!! I was totally disoriented and I got up from my seat and went straight up the driver and asked him whether "el bus suele para tantas veces cuando sale tarde?" (if the bus usually stops so many times when we leave late). He assured me that we´d arrive in Alicante on time.
So we drove again and at 7:15 am the chatty lady next to me woke me up by claiming that we had just passed the Alicante bus station! Somehow we managed figure out that we would be going back and when I got up to look for my paraguas (umbrella), I couldn´t find it anywhere. She likewise helped me to search and we were dumbfounded about where it could be. Then her helpful sister in law sitting in the seat in front was enlisted in the search and suddenly she thought to look in her bag. And, low and behold, my umbrella had somehow found its way into her bag!
By the time I figured out about my precious umbrella (so desperatly needed in Pamplona), I was so relieved that I just got off the bus and called Meg that I was here and hour and half early! And in Spain, 7:30 is REALLY early. It´s almost an embarrassing time to do anything but sleep (unless your in the Work....hehe). I totally forgot my bag in the bus and didn´t realize until it was well on it´s way to Torrevieja. Meg came and got me and the lady at the bus stop just told me to keep calling all day and they would get my bag back to me.
So then we went and had the desayuno and cafe with host parents who are very gracious and kind. And the host mother is a very good cook, I don´t know if that blurred my vision about their graciousness, or actually, they probably go hand in hand! Anyway, then we went out hiking up the montaña up to an old Castillo that overlooks the whole city. We were hiking steadily but talking faster than we could intake the appropriate amount of oxygen so we paused a number of times to take pictures that I will post soon. Or, maybe Meg has already posted some on her blog: www.meginalicante.blogspot.com.
And, as many of you know, it is a challenge for me to talk and walk at the same time, so sometimes, if we started talking about something that takes a lot of mental energy, we would just have to sit for a while and discuss. There were even some public benches for lying down and sunbathing on! We only took funny pictures there, I promise you that we did not even think about wasting our time sunbathing...
Then we headed back down through the barrio, passed the public aquarium that is like a big fish tank in the middle of the city, to the Church of Gracia Divina for mass at noon. Then we went for a walk by the beautiful beach where there was an awesome sand scultpture of the Pieta. I took a picture of it, but only from the side behind a palm tree so that I wouldn´t have to pay. Oh shoot, now I´ve told you everything!
Anway, then we found out the the center of Opus Dei was really near her house so after a delicious comida with her house parents, we headed over there for benediction. It was a cool little piso right about a little parish nestled among the residences. Everyone there wanted to practice their Enlgish with us!
And now, I don´t have enough time to write about our awesome Palm SUnday in the awesome capital of palms in Spain, and I think in the world! At least that is what Meg´s host dad told us: they send these palms everywhere, including to Pope Benedict to use in his processions. There were incredible and intricatly designed palms and tons of people. THere was one paso that came out, Jesus riding on the donkey triumphant into Jerusalem. It was interested to see that even the mayor of the town was a prominent figure in the procession. It is remeniscent of how Spain used to be a confessionalist country I think.
Later yesterday evening, Meg and I went to mass back in Alicante and then saw three more pasos going through Alicante that were beautiful! Then we had a cafe and went pack so I could pack to take another night bus to Sevilla. That´s where I am now and I will be here until tomorrow, when I will take another bus to Madrid to meet Mrs. Clark (Meg´s mom) and Lauren for the day. I´m going to post pictures of Meg and I´s (?) visit as soon as I get to a computer that I can. Oh, I got my bag back in Alicante at 8:00 pm when the bus was returning from Torrevieja. Today, I asked my guardian angel to especially help me to remember it when I arrived in Sevilla. Gues what? I walked up the escalator and almost out the door of the train station before I remembered! Luckily the bus was parked there for a while, so I have my big fat bag with me now!
I was at Mass in St. Peter's square on Palm Sunday and saw the elaborate palms you are talking about. Pretty neat- and some of them were huge! I was pretty close... And we saw the pope again today- even closer!! Wish you were here... but see you soon!
April 2, 2007 3:47 PM
LIZ DIJO:
Hey hey! That´s awesome! The palms were spectalcular in Elche and I bet in Rome they were too. I forgot mention that we went into the basilica at Elche and among many chapels, there was a statue of St. Josemaria there! And below there was spot for his prayer cards in about 10 different languages.
On Friday night, I left rainy Pamplona at 11:00 pm on a bus that was to arrive in Alicante at 8:30 in the morning. We were supposed to leave at 10:30 so I thought that the bus would arrive at half hour late too, at 9:00. So I hopped on the bus, wrote Meg a text message that I´d be late, but in my industrial ear`-plugs that I use to sleep at Goimendi, and fell asleep at 12:30 or so. At 1:00 I was awaken by the whole bus stampeding off to the bus stop for a 20 minute break. It surprised me that even though we had left late we were taking such a lengthy stop. Anyway, we got back on the bus and managed to fall asleep again while listening to Phillip Glass´s Mad Rush, a 13 minute piano solo of the minimalist composer. At 3:00 I awoke with a jolt as the bus pulled into another stop and the driver announced we´d be here for a half hour!! I was totally disoriented and I got up from my seat and went straight up the driver and asked him whether "el bus suele para tantas veces cuando sale tarde?" (if the bus usually stops so many times when we leave late). He assured me that we´d arrive in Alicante on time.
So we drove again and at 7:15 am the chatty lady next to me woke me up by claiming that we had just passed the Alicante bus station! Somehow we managed figure out that we would be going back and when I got up to look for my paraguas (umbrella), I couldn´t find it anywhere. She likewise helped me to search and we were dumbfounded about where it could be. Then her helpful sister in law sitting in the seat in front was enlisted in the search and suddenly she thought to look in her bag. And, low and behold, my umbrella had somehow found its way into her bag!
By the time I figured out about my precious umbrella (so desperatly needed in Pamplona), I was so relieved that I just got off the bus and called Meg that I was here and hour and half early! And in Spain, 7:30 is REALLY early. It´s almost an embarrassing time to do anything but sleep (unless your in the Work....hehe). I totally forgot my bag in the bus and didn´t realize until it was well on it´s way to Torrevieja. Meg came and got me and the lady at the bus stop just told me to keep calling all day and they would get my bag back to me.
So then we went and had the desayuno and cafe with host parents who are very gracious and kind. And the host mother is a very good cook, I don´t know if that blurred my vision about their graciousness, or actually, they probably go hand in hand! Anyway, then we went out hiking up the montaña up to an old Castillo that overlooks the whole city. We were hiking steadily but talking faster than we could intake the appropriate amount of oxygen so we paused a number of times to take pictures that I will post soon. Or, maybe Meg has already posted some on her blog: www.meginalicante.blogspot.com.
And, as many of you know, it is a challenge for me to talk and walk at the same time, so sometimes, if we started talking about something that takes a lot of mental energy, we would just have to sit for a while and discuss. There were even some public benches for lying down and sunbathing on! We only took funny pictures there, I promise you that we did not even think about wasting our time sunbathing...
Then we headed back down through the barrio, passed the public aquarium that is like a big fish tank in the middle of the city, to the Church of Gracia Divina for mass at noon. Then we went for a walk by the beautiful beach where there was an awesome sand scultpture of the Pieta. I took a picture of it, but only from the side behind a palm tree so that I wouldn´t have to pay. Oh shoot, now I´ve told you everything!
Anway, then we found out the the center of Opus Dei was really near her house so after a delicious comida with her house parents, we headed over there for benediction. It was a cool little piso right about a little parish nestled among the residences. Everyone there wanted to practice their Enlgish with us!
And now, I don´t have enough time to write about our awesome Palm SUnday in the awesome capital of palms in Spain, and I think in the world! At least that is what Meg´s host dad told us: they send these palms everywhere, including to Pope Benedict to use in his processions. There were incredible and intricatly designed palms and tons of people. THere was one paso that came out, Jesus riding on the donkey triumphant into Jerusalem. It was interested to see that even the mayor of the town was a prominent figure in the procession. It is remeniscent of how Spain used to be a confessionalist country I think.
Later yesterday evening, Meg and I went to mass back in Alicante and then saw three more pasos going through Alicante that were beautiful! Then we had a cafe and went pack so I could pack to take another night bus to Sevilla. That´s where I am now and I will be here until tomorrow, when I will take another bus to Madrid to meet Mrs. Clark (Meg´s mom) and Lauren for the day. I´m going to post pictures of Meg and I´s (?) visit as soon as I get to a computer that I can. Oh, I got my bag back in Alicante at 8:00 pm when the bus was returning from Torrevieja. Today, I asked my guardian angel to especially help me to remember it when I arrived in Sevilla. Gues what? I walked up the escalator and almost out the door of the train station before I remembered! Luckily the bus was parked there for a while, so I have my big fat bag with me now!
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