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| Los Mallos de Riglos |
My trip to Spain was incredibly special as I went with Alberto and Ana, my 2 Spanish friends from Toulouse, to visit their hometowns, and was really able to see a different side of Spain than I had yet known. The trip was also really neat because I traveled wish some assistants that I had known in our group setting, but didn’t have the chance to spend a lot of one-on-one time with, it was a cool way to end my time here in Toulouse by getting some more individual time in with people.
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| View from El Castille de Loarre |
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| Cristella and Senor Juanco |
The first stop was my friend Alberto’s town of Lledia in Catalonia. I traveled with Cristella, and we started by taking a bus from Toulouse to Barcelona and then from Barcelona to Lledia where we met Alberto who had already gone home for Easter. We spent 4 days there at his parent’s place. His father took us on this incredible hike about an hour away to these rock formations called Los Mallos de Riglos. The rocks reminded me of something you would find out west in the US, though I’ve never been, it was a gorgeous day and once we got to the top we picnicked on tortilla de patatas bocadillos his mother had packed for us. On the way home we stopped at a caste on a cliff called El Castillo de Loarre where apparently a B-list movie with Orlando Bloom called Kingdom of Heaven was filmed. The view of the countryside from the ramparts was amazing, you saw all shades of green in the neatly divided plots of land, like a patchwork quilt. The Sunday before we left his parents also took us out to a really nice long lunch at a Spanish restaurant and we tried this regional dish of roasted spring onions. You pull the heart out of the charred outer layers and dip it into this savory almond paste. Mmmm.
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| Graffiti under a bridge in Lledia |
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| Outside the restaurant with Alberto's parents |
Then Alberto, Cristella and I flew south to Sevilla where we met our friends Ana and Bonnie. Ana was coming in from her hometown of Murcia and Bonnie was coming off of a weeks worth of traveling around France with her friend. We stayed at our friend Jose’s, another Spanish assistant, apartment. I had already been to Sevilla two times before, but the city during the festival called “feria” was completely different than anything I had ever seen before. The celebration lasts, from what I understand, several weeks in April, and it’s straight 24-hours of partying. I think it’s fair to interject the question here: Do people in Spain work??? We flew in the night that the festival officially started, and gathered in the street to watch them illuminate the massive gate that marks the entrance to the fair grounds.
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Las chicas at feria
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| Selecting our flowers to be more festive |
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| Illuminated gate at the entrance to feria |
The area is made up of a grid of “cassetas” or tents; some are public and some are private, and all have areas for dancing the traditional Sevillana dance and areas for eating. We stayed in the public tents but walked by some of the private ones to people watch. Apparently families erect a tent that’s probably 40 square meters or more, and invite family and friends to come eat, drink and dance, as I said, 24/7. There is also a part of the compound that has rides and attractions like a fair we would have here. Throughout this celebration all the Sevilliana women and girls wear brightly colored flamenco dresses and the men dress more or less formally. It was such a multi-colored spectacle to see these women done up to the nines all over town, because they don’t just put these dresses on to go to a casseta, they wear them from sun up to sun down throughout the whole celebration, to go to the bank, to go to the store, it’s wild. Ana, Bonnie, Cristella and I amused ourselves by imagining our flamenco dresses, but we were so overwhelmed by the choices, as I would say about 80% are custom made, we never saw 2 of the same.
Spanish families also used horse drawn carriages to go to and from the fair grounds, so the streets were packed with impeccably groomed horses and fairy tale style carriages carting around families sipping wine and noshing tapas. I love Spain. I felt like I was on the travel channel, but as cool as it was it was also a little frustrating, because it was like everyone was invited to this party but you couldn’t go, we kind of felt like Cinderella, we didn’t have the right to go to the ball. What a beautiful tradition though.
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| As it fell the Spainards were more tourists than the Americans, Alberto and Ana had never visited Sevilla but Bonnie, Cristella and I had! |
After Sevilla Ana, Bonnie and I flew up to Murcia to stay at Ana’s for 4 more days and to attend an annual music festival they have there called SOS. I really enjoyed Ana’s city, Northeast of Sevilla on the Mediterranean side. I found it to have a really cool, young, artsy atmosphere, no doubt enhanced by the fact that we were there during a festival. For 2 nights we went, bought Spanish savory pastries called empanadillas for dinner and pregamed in a grocery store parking lot before entering the outdoor festival. I saw The Kooks, MGMT, and The Editors plus some Spanish groups I really liked like Arizona Baby, Lori Meyers, Triangulo De Amor Bizarro, and more. As part of the festival about 30 tapas restaurants in the city do a sort of restaurant-week special: 2.50 euros for a tapa and a drink of your choice. Ana and her friends took us around to all of the swanky places that they couldn’t afford otherwise. Needless to say w were drunk 5 places, and 5 drinks later. Have I mentioned that I love Spain?
On Monday Bonnie left us to continue on her crazy European adventure that includes Italy, Germany, Spain again, and I can’t remember what else, and Ana and I boarded a 13 hour train ride up to Toulouse. After several hours the conductor came around to take our tickets, and upon seeing our final destination told us that we would have to get off the train earlier than expected because the train wasn’t allowed to cross the border due to a “savage strike” by the train system. Oh France, how I missed you. So at Figueres we took a bus over the border to Narbonne, not knowing if there would be a train to take us the rest of the way to Toulouse. Luckily, there was.
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| Soooo happy |
Oh, and I think it goes without saying but my, already pretty solid, Spanish really improved by leaps and bounds this trip. I definitely increased my vocabulary, if only in the domain of gastronomy.
I came back to Toulouse for one night and then was off to WWOOF the next day with Lauren in Cassagnabere, France.
Some more photos...
Then Alberto, Cristella and I flew south to Sevilla where we met our friends Ana and Bonnie. Ana was coming in from her hometown of Murcia and Bonnie was coming off of a weeks worth of traveling around France with her friend. We stayed at our friend Jose’s, another Spanish assistant, apartment. I had already been to Sevilla two times before, but the city during the festival called “feria” was completely different than anything I had ever seen before. The celebration lasts, from what I understand, several weeks in April, and it’s straight 24-hours of partying. I think it’s fair to interject the question here: Do people in Spain work??? We flew in the night that the festival officially started, and gathered in the street to watch them illuminate the massive gate that marks the entrance to the fair grounds. 
Oh, and I think it goes without saying but my, already pretty solid, Spanish really improved by leaps and bounds this trip. I definitely increased my vocabulary, if only in the domain of gastronomy. 
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