Sabbatical in Spain.: #Pragueticallie Perfect

Dear World. Blogs don't do enough to capture everything you are learning and loving about the world. I can't even begin to convey the things I have experienced in just a few words and pictures once a week, and I'm not even sure I've had enough time to sit and process them. These musings will probably just culminate in one giant Thanksgiving post. Also did everyone know that cumulate isn't a word? But here's a small snippet on my recent life. My mind is full. My heart is full. And Europe is continuing to fuel my addictive tendencies for food snobbery and deep gastronomical enjoyment.

Way back when, I signed up for a language exchange through my university. They finally gave me my built-in friend and his name is Ivan. We've met a few times and our planned hour has always turned into two or three. The great part is we usually practice Spanish second so I'm selfishly getting more out of it than he is. He's this funny boy (I'm absolutely editing this the minute he friends me on MySpace) who thinks it's totally normal to talk about that awkward moment we had trying to figure out how many times to kiss each other goodbye last week. He also made fun of me for being THAT American to drink plain black coffee instead of the Spanish way of just an espresso or cafe con leche (with milk). But we're learning a lot and becoming bffs and spend most of the time laughing at each other/my complete incompetence.

Ivan and people in my classes now have started to jokingly ask me where I traveled over the weekend because of the number of times I've had a answer to that question. Little do they know I have almost every weekend booked between now and January. Oops. I spent Tuesday/Wednesday of last week in Valencia, a city a couple hours south of Barcelona. They, too, have their own language "Valenciano" which is almost more confusing than Catalan mostly because I kept thinking it was Catalan, but it's not. While in Valencia, I stayed with another family on sabbatical from CU. Great to compare sabbatical activities over tapas.

Valencia is really interesting (except where have I been that isn't). It's apparently Spain's third largest city, but totally does not feel like it. Valencia was probably at it's modern peak five or ten years ago when they hosted the American Cup and Formula One race (really unsure what those are but I think one is yachts and the other cars?). Anyways, this means they invested greatly in infrastructure, particularly near the port and really bolstered their tourism economy. Valencia is also known recently for the famous architect Santiago Calatrava's modern constructions. Being an engineer, when people kept saying oh have you seen the Calatrava bridge? I totally thought they meant some type of bridge construction (like suspension...) and had no idea it was refering to a human. Oops again. But he was a fun person to learn about. He designed these crazy bridges and all these weird buildings in La Ciudad de Arte y Ciencias (City of Arts and Sciences) which now house opera, museums, and the aquarium. Although the aquarium is strangely not in the building that is shaped like a breaching humpback whale. Don't really get that. It's funny to asks Valencianos about Calatrava. He's outwardly and formally revered as this brilliant mastermind. But in the past couple of years, his opera house has had major leaking problems (the whole tile right on top of steel with different thermal expansion properties) and a bridge without sufficient stopping sight distance, resulting in major lawsuits and criticism on his engineering skills. Regardless, he's a beautiful artist and Valencia was totally worth the trip to see his work. In addition to all this modern architecture hype, Valencia has a really complex old city with intact giant city towers and pieces of the old walls. They've got the typical cathedral and old European buildings, but some of their streets are truly spectacular to see the mix of eras and architecture styles. Plus Valencianos invented Paella and cook it with rabbit. Bless their beautiful souls I think they're my ancestors.

Valencia also has this heavenly market with a safe section for tourists with clean floors and cooked food and the dream section for real people with raw fish and meat and real life paella pans. Bought one for four euros that's fit for eight people. Probably going to make my first paella for whoever is listed in my most recently updated MySpace top eight. I also drank an obscene amount of horchata. Which is nothing like the weird Mexican stuff we have in the US but is actually just cinammony angel drink made from small seeds that everyone kept telling me are like baby potatoes. Still not really sure how that translates into an ice cream like milkshake but I'll blindly accept it and keep drinking.

I returned to Barcelona for a few hours to change dirty clothes out of my backpack, run to class, and have another language date with Ivan. Then, I found myself headed back to the airport for a weekend in Prague. From taking the train to the airport so many times, I've now learned that all metro musicians are required to buy the same CD with the same three songs on it. They all play some brass instrument and then awkwardly sing the chorus. The best duo was two old men, one of which who played a maraca and a tambourine at the same time.

Then I flew to Prague. I made friends on the flight with this old man because we were smashed together in seats unfit for infants, let alone tall Americans and fat Czechs. Landing in Prague was a small shock coming from 85 degree sunny summer in Barcelona. But I felt positively that I finally had some use for the other half of the clothing I packed coming here. And yes, I did wear ear muffs pragueticallie the whole time in Prague.

I got to my hostel at night and was unfit for socialization before having food and warmth in me so I immediately marched outside and wandered into the first place that had a Czech section on their menu.My hostel was sort of on the other side of the tracks, meaning it was tucked gently away from the surprisingly large crowds of late October tourists and food in my neighborhood was 1/11 the price of food anywhere else. So I pretty much ate nothing all day and binge stuffed myself at night for like six cents. The first night, I had beef goulash and bacon dumplings, which is pretty much on every tourist menu, but nonetheless delicious and perfect for warming the coldest pieces of your body. Then I returned to my hostel to learn how to say "can I caress your buttocks" and "do you have a brother/sister you can introduce to me" in Czech with a Brit named Finn who kept saying "you're a star Allie" in his British accent. Travel really does highlight your weaknesses.

This is the pork knee I ordered. That caused the couple next to me to LOL (laugh out loud, Grandma and Mom), notice I was reading my chronological bible during dinner on a Friday night, and pay for my meal.

My first full day in Prague was a glorious exploration of the land across the river. Prague has some of the most convenient public transportation, and I'm not sure if anyone pays because it's never checked, but I chose to forgo this option and walk to experience the whole of the city. However that meant my early start to avoid tourist crowds was kind of ruined by the fact that it look my curious self much longer to get from one side to the next. The Prague Castle, which to me honestly felt nothing like a castle minus the towering location on top a hillside, is almost a city in itself with a beautiful cathedral that could rival the Sagrada Familia (in appearance and also years to completion: 600), a street of little houses that are now converted into artisan shops and medieval torture displays, and gorgeous views of the vast expanses of red bricked roofs lining the winding Vltava River. I spent hours mesmerized by this place and nursing tredlnik (a warm pastry with cinnamon sugar) only to realize that the second I got back down to the bottom of the hill the skies cleared and the sun was out, so I had to go back and take all my pictures again. I also made it to the famous Baroque church of St. Nicholas, the monastery that has it's own brewery and blueberry beer, and the famous giant metronome on top of the hill.

My second day was spent reminding me that bunions exist and are a curse from Satan himself. But despite the fact that I have now bookmarked a home remedies page on the internet, I found myself enthralled by the continued splendor of this unique city. Every corner is full of another piece of history, architecture, and color. The Jewish neighborhood is still impressively intact, sporting several synagogues, and years of history that escaped total annihilation like in other pieces of the Nazi regime. I'll skip the whole history lesson, but let's just say with Prague being Hitler's favorite city, the whole communist occupation, and the years of cultural and intellectual history that came before, this city is even more beautiful and full of life than the rumors you hear. I hit all the major buildings, museums, bridges, and sites in Prague, but my favorite parts were watching the sun set behind the castle in the evening, tucking myself in a small corner of a pub to try some beer with a name full of only consonants and watch real Czech people eat, and getting lost in the neighborhoods that just have such a story to tell with each colored house.

For the third morning in a row, I was the only person to be up enjoying the coffee prior to 2 pm and had just enough time for a small explore in the neighborhood near my hostel before heading to the airport and back to Barcelona. The one nice thing about Prague not being on the Euro was it forced me to keep to my budget of what I pulled out of the ATM. Otherwise, I might have spent hundreds on street sausage, hot wine, grog (who knew that was a real, non-ogre thing), and dark lager.

You might hear from me again when I've convinced myself to stop lying in bed recovering and start the adventure thing again. But my feet and head are still fighting that one out.