We’re going to kick this party off with more words of wisdom from Bill Bryson. I read this on the bus back home Saturday evening, and it couldn’t have been a more fitting passage for the series of events that took place this weekend. Backpacking through Europe at the time, he had originally planned on traveling throughout central Europe and slowly making his way to Rome. And then, one day, he decided not to:
“Well, I’m sorry. I had intended to reach Rome as you would expect me to, in a logical, systematic way. But after nearly a month beneath the endlessly damp skies of northern Europe, I longed for sunshine. It was as simple as that. So it was with only the odd wrenching spasm of guilt that I abandoned my planned itinerary, caught an airplane, and bounded with a single leap across fifteen hundred miles of Europe. Traveling is more fun – hell, life is more fun – if you can treat it as a series of impulses.”
Amen, Bill.
This weekend, I explored the coast of northern Spain in the good company of four friends. We didn’t have an itinerary – arriving and leaving when we pleased, making decisions based on whims, and ending up on the wrong bus to Oviedo (NOT Santander) at the end of our first day. More on this subject later. Our first destination was Llanes, a coastal city about three hours west of Bilbao. Llanes is known for its amazing shoreline. The few beaches in this area are quite small, because most of the coastline is comprised of cliffs that drop straight down to the ocean below. This is quite common for northern Spain, but what’s so special about Llanes is the nature of the rock that makes up these cliffs. In this region, the cliffs are perforated my hundreds and hundreds of small holes, so that when the waves crash against them, the water enters the cliff walls from every direction. After the waves retreat, the cliff spits out a hundred little waterfalls that churn back into the ocean. If you get really lucky, you could see a bufón, which is when the water enters the rock, has nowhere to go, and spits out the top of the cliff like a geyser. We just saw some baby ones, but the entire coastline was mesmerizing. I’ve never seen water look so busy!
After an amazing, enormous, and CHEAP lunch (the trifecta), we ended up hiking at a leisurely pace down the coastline of the tiny neighboring of Cue. We made our way down the rolling green hills that sat above the cliffs, sharing the countryside with nobody but ourselves and the every-so-often sheep or cow. We explored downtown a bit, grabbed some food and headed toward our 9 PM bus to Santander – but not before squeezing in a moonlight tour of an empty, beautiful beach nestled in a tiny cove. Fully completing our day in Llanes, we headed to the bus stop.
With a closed ticket counter and broken ticket machine, we learned we had to buy our tickets on board the bus when it came. Waiting in the cool night air and ready for a nap along the way, we were all quite eager to hop on board. We bought our tickets from a disgruntled, unfriendly driver who shuffled us into the bus and took off. I said a mental goodbye to Llanes as we pulled away and drove off into the dark. We headed back west to Santander, a larger coastal city just an hour outside of Bilbao. Or so we thought. Ten minutes into the ride, my casual conversation with my bus-neighbor taught us that, in truth, we got on the wrong bus – we had taken the line from Santander…to Oviedo. Where the hell is Oviedo?!
At this moment occurred my absolute favorite part of the trip. After five initial seconds of panic, we all looked around at one another, shrugged, and laughed (and realized that passengers-turned-spectators were having a good laugh as well). We went onward into the night to Oviedo, a city we knew nothing about, except that we’d be there in an hour and ten minutes. We didn’t know where we were going to sleep (don’t worry, we found a place), whether this town was actually inhabited by people, or what we were going to do on the five hour bus ride home on Saturday night. But we went. And it was great.
As it turns out, Oviedo is actually really lovely. Nestled an hour from the coast in the middle of northern Spain, Oviedo is the capital of Asturias (two autonomous communities over from País Vasco). The next day was spent exploring its old quarter, cathedral, Sunday market, and a lovely park complete with peacocks for spectators – all in the perfect sunshine that graced the coast of Spain for (almost) the whole weekend. On Saturday evening, we set back for Bilbao, fully content with our adventure but ready for a good night’s sleep.
What a refreshing feeling it was for such a huge wrench in our plans to make absolutely no difference at all. It’s got me thinking a bit, and it’s made me wonder whether we’re happier people with itineraries or not. They certainly offer some order in your life, which can be comforting or sometimes downright necessary – but I found it quite refreshing to suddenly be without any restraint at all. We were completely free to roam and see what we pleased.
Isn’t that the reason we travel in the first place? Is the feeling of freedom we extract from exploring really that separated from the sense of awe that we get when we take in the sight of expansive cliffs, massive oceans, or a beautiful culture that's different from ours? In both cases, I think we all have an innate desire to seek the unknown. We yearn to travel, to learn, to meet new people, to try new foods. Comfort is good, but I think we were designed to shake it up every once in a while too. And for that, I am grateful.
I hope you all keep on finding your own ways to keep on shaking, too.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Tribute to Carnaval
CARNAVAL:
Wikipedia says: a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events of which are usually during February.
Brittany says: 2-3 weeks when you can walk down the street in the costume of your choice and expect no social reprimand. You can also expect other perks like random performances throughout the city, kiddie rides set up in Casco Viejo, your host mom making amazing “tostadas” reserved especially for this holiday (think French toast, but before dipping your bread in egg, you soak it in a mixture of cream, sugar, cinnamon and a splash of brandy. YUM.), an AWESOME parade, and an all-out fiesta throughout España.
My first encounter with Carnaval was during my walk home in Deusto, a section of Bilbao that my neighborhood is in. Upon exiting a coffee shop, I was almost ran over by a 40 year-old chicken-man pushing his daughter (dressed in full clown attire) in a stroller. Ummm…what just happened? And so commenced Carnavale. Or so I thought.
As it turned out, Deusto just likes to get the party started early. The REAL Carnaval wasn’t until the following weekend, but Deusto was filled with music, festivities, and lots of costumes for the whole weekend. Then the real thing came. It’s hard to explain, but Carnaval is a lot like Halloween in that nobody’s really quite sure what they’re celebrating and they all dress up. I wasn’t going to splurge on a costume, but after several fervent urges from my host sister, I picked up some cheap necessities (black mask and hat + black dress from home + boots + fake gun = instant bandit/Zorroish character/we never really decided exactly what I was) and headed out on the town.
Let’s see if I can describe this properly. I arrived to Casco Viejo to find the old cobblestone streets teeming with costumed Spaniards. There were several notable differences between the United States Halloween:
1.) Age. Old and young are celebrating together late into the night. And the older ones aren’t just the creepy old people either (which I just learned the Spanish slang term for – “Viejo verde!”)
2.) Modesty. Girls don’t pull a Karen (Mean Girls. If you didn’t already laugh, click the name. K thanks) but are fully clothed. A refreshing distinction.
3.) Frickin’ weird costumes! I saw an obscene amount of chickens, Mario characters, about a dozen Buzz Lightyears, an airplane, and a lot of giant renditions of popular candy bars.
4.) Endurance. This thing is literally dragged on for two weeks, to the point where you don’t bat an eye when you see a crowd of 40-year-old women dressed as purple birds out to coffee on Tuesday evening. What a wonderful country.
On Saturday night, the main night of Carnaval, I danced the night away and had a blast. I even ended up on a stage once, right next to a crowd of unfriendly girls dressed as traffic cones. That should illustrate the randomness of Carnaval for you! But alas, there is more.
The following evening was one of the most peculiar occurrences: El Entierro de la Sardina. Direct translation: Funeral of the Sardine. What it really means: Funeral of the Sardine. Yep, that’s right. The entire city gets together for a fake funeral of a nonexistent fish, complete with “real” monks and an opera singer to properly mourn the passing of this little marine animal. It’s supposed to symbolize the “death” of Carnaval until the coming year, and the object varies depending on the region of Spain. Because Bilbao is so close to the sea, they use a fish. For example, Burgos (a province over) holds the funeral for a mosquito. So strange!
At the end of the funeral, they set fire to a giant paper-mache sardine, complete with little fireworks, and proceed to grill hundreds of whole sardines for the spectators. For the first and last time in my life, I ate a freshly roasted WHOLE fish. Worried about the bones? So was I. But don’t worry, after decapitating my sardine (by the instruction of Irati – this was not her first time), I extracted the entire spine and dug in. Not the ideal cuisine, but how can you NOT participate in something like that?
I can’t decide if I was more amazed at my ability to accomplish the task, or at the ease with which the 5- and 6-year-olds around me were doing the same. Apparently, this is pretty normal eating in the port city of Bilbao. That was the moment I realized that my two American friends and I were drawing quite the crowd of spectators ourselves. People thought it was pretty funny how much we were struggling and squirming at the prospect of eating a freshly cooked sardine.
And thus ended Carnaval. Not.
Just like Deusto, another area of Bilbao decided one weekend wasn’t enough – and the festivities resumed in Al Gorta the following weekend. The weather was much better and so even MORE people were in the streets – this little corner of Spain was literally overtaken by crazy costumed people, and I happily joined the crowd. Besides almost getting killed on the metro because of the throngs of people trying to squeeze into train cars (worse than Washington DC on the 4th of July, no joke!), the night was a success.
The third Sunday since my initial exposure, I finally laid Carnaval to rest. Bilbao followed in suit, and everyone I encountered on the street Monday was dressed, once again, in normal attire. The kiddie rides stuck around for a few more days, as if to wean the city off the vacation it had just taken from normal life. I'm not one to ride those things, but for whatever reason I appreciated their prolonged presence. Same with the churro stands.
Ah, how I love cultural immersion.
Wikipedia says: a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events of which are usually during February.
Brittany says: 2-3 weeks when you can walk down the street in the costume of your choice and expect no social reprimand. You can also expect other perks like random performances throughout the city, kiddie rides set up in Casco Viejo, your host mom making amazing “tostadas” reserved especially for this holiday (think French toast, but before dipping your bread in egg, you soak it in a mixture of cream, sugar, cinnamon and a splash of brandy. YUM.), an AWESOME parade, and an all-out fiesta throughout España.
My first encounter with Carnaval was during my walk home in Deusto, a section of Bilbao that my neighborhood is in. Upon exiting a coffee shop, I was almost ran over by a 40 year-old chicken-man pushing his daughter (dressed in full clown attire) in a stroller. Ummm…what just happened? And so commenced Carnavale. Or so I thought.
As it turned out, Deusto just likes to get the party started early. The REAL Carnaval wasn’t until the following weekend, but Deusto was filled with music, festivities, and lots of costumes for the whole weekend. Then the real thing came. It’s hard to explain, but Carnaval is a lot like Halloween in that nobody’s really quite sure what they’re celebrating and they all dress up. I wasn’t going to splurge on a costume, but after several fervent urges from my host sister, I picked up some cheap necessities (black mask and hat + black dress from home + boots + fake gun = instant bandit/Zorroish character/we never really decided exactly what I was) and headed out on the town.
Let’s see if I can describe this properly. I arrived to Casco Viejo to find the old cobblestone streets teeming with costumed Spaniards. There were several notable differences between the United States Halloween:
1.) Age. Old and young are celebrating together late into the night. And the older ones aren’t just the creepy old people either (which I just learned the Spanish slang term for – “Viejo verde!”)
2.) Modesty. Girls don’t pull a Karen (Mean Girls. If you didn’t already laugh, click the name. K thanks) but are fully clothed. A refreshing distinction.
3.) Frickin’ weird costumes! I saw an obscene amount of chickens, Mario characters, about a dozen Buzz Lightyears, an airplane, and a lot of giant renditions of popular candy bars.
4.) Endurance. This thing is literally dragged on for two weeks, to the point where you don’t bat an eye when you see a crowd of 40-year-old women dressed as purple birds out to coffee on Tuesday evening. What a wonderful country.
On Saturday night, the main night of Carnaval, I danced the night away and had a blast. I even ended up on a stage once, right next to a crowd of unfriendly girls dressed as traffic cones. That should illustrate the randomness of Carnaval for you! But alas, there is more.
The following evening was one of the most peculiar occurrences: El Entierro de la Sardina. Direct translation: Funeral of the Sardine. What it really means: Funeral of the Sardine. Yep, that’s right. The entire city gets together for a fake funeral of a nonexistent fish, complete with “real” monks and an opera singer to properly mourn the passing of this little marine animal. It’s supposed to symbolize the “death” of Carnaval until the coming year, and the object varies depending on the region of Spain. Because Bilbao is so close to the sea, they use a fish. For example, Burgos (a province over) holds the funeral for a mosquito. So strange!
At the end of the funeral, they set fire to a giant paper-mache sardine, complete with little fireworks, and proceed to grill hundreds of whole sardines for the spectators. For the first and last time in my life, I ate a freshly roasted WHOLE fish. Worried about the bones? So was I. But don’t worry, after decapitating my sardine (by the instruction of Irati – this was not her first time), I extracted the entire spine and dug in. Not the ideal cuisine, but how can you NOT participate in something like that?
I can’t decide if I was more amazed at my ability to accomplish the task, or at the ease with which the 5- and 6-year-olds around me were doing the same. Apparently, this is pretty normal eating in the port city of Bilbao. That was the moment I realized that my two American friends and I were drawing quite the crowd of spectators ourselves. People thought it was pretty funny how much we were struggling and squirming at the prospect of eating a freshly cooked sardine.
And thus ended Carnaval. Not.
Just like Deusto, another area of Bilbao decided one weekend wasn’t enough – and the festivities resumed in Al Gorta the following weekend. The weather was much better and so even MORE people were in the streets – this little corner of Spain was literally overtaken by crazy costumed people, and I happily joined the crowd. Besides almost getting killed on the metro because of the throngs of people trying to squeeze into train cars (worse than Washington DC on the 4th of July, no joke!), the night was a success.
The third Sunday since my initial exposure, I finally laid Carnaval to rest. Bilbao followed in suit, and everyone I encountered on the street Monday was dressed, once again, in normal attire. The kiddie rides stuck around for a few more days, as if to wean the city off the vacation it had just taken from normal life. I'm not one to ride those things, but for whatever reason I appreciated their prolonged presence. Same with the churro stands.
Ah, how I love cultural immersion.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
