European extravaganza part two: Spain + week after travel break

Well, the last week has been quite interesting to say the least...

Among the things I did was riding a 200 year old roller coaster, and seeing the oldest amusement park in the world (400 years old) - Bakken. It's located about a half an hour north of Copenhagen. My host parents took me there the day after I'd returned from my trip, while also celebrating the beginning of a 2 week vacation for both of them. Needless to say, it was amazing and the roller coaster -surprisingly exhilirating for being 200 years old.


I seem to be over the sickness that dominated the latter part of my travels outside of Denmark, maybe due to a solid appetite of meat, potatoes, rye bread, and liver postvej. Or maybe it's due to the lengthening days, and the emergence of spring. On Tuesday I enjoyed the sunlight at a beautiful park across from the Frederiksberg zoo and read a very thought-provoking and inspirational book - Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins. Later this week I finished it, it was one of those books that you simply could not put down. I literally carried it every time I went out at night so that I could read more on the bus to and from.

Thursday was spent at the farm doing various farming activities that are so absurd sounding that I have neither the time nor the patience to describe them. After, I participated in another Ungdomhuset demonstration -but this time was different. It was a celebration instead of a demonstration, for the government has recently given a new house to the youth -or so I'm told (i don't know the exact story). It was a good excuse to walk around the streets of Copenhagen for a couple of ours, listen/dance to some really cool music, and eat some free food rolling buy on the signature Christiana bikes...vegan of course.

Friday was spent eagerly awaiting classes to get done so I could start the weekend -my host family went out of town and my host brother, his girlfriend, Cooper (their cockerspaniel), Nemo, and I were left with the house. In the night time I went to a welcome back part for DIS at Luux to get a free drink, and kill some time before a film that I went to see at 11:00 pm. It was part of a night film festival that was going on the past week or two. The film I saw was called Still Orangutans directed by Ainda Orangotango - a Brazilian filmmaker. The movie was all in Portuguese with English subtitles. It was 81 minutes of one continuous take. The way the movie progressed was by following a seemingly random individual or individuals through a Brazilian city. As the character/s met new people the camera would shift focus on the new individual.


One last memorable thing that happened to me, before I get into the meat of this post - Spain, took place on Sunday night. DIS was nice enough to purchase tickets to a football match (FCK (Copenhagen) vs. Mid-Jylland (mid-Jutland) for everyone enrolled in a Danish language class. Although FCK lost (the team we were supposed to be supporting) lost, it was a great experience just to be in a football game in Europe -although I was expecting a little more rowdiness...oh well.



Nothing worthwhile happened in the last two days...(just kidding of course, I only need to move on to the second week of my travel break).

Spain

My first arrival to the country home to the Spaniards was coming in from a 5-hour layover in Paris between trains. I got on an overnight train from Paris to Irun -a town located near the border of France and Spain. From here passengers continuing to Madrid were led off of the train to a bus that took us a few kilometers away to a different station. From there I was able to secure my arrival in Madrid -however, some of my companions on the train were not so lucky...Coincidentally we ran into a few of them later on while strolling through the inclined, narrow streets of Madrid.



Madrid


The capital of Spain was greeted by yours truly at Chamartin Station, located about half an hour on the metro away from the city center. I was supposed to meet Jenna at the station, but due to a miscommunication -mainly on my part (lack of important arrival info)- it did not happen. To add to the madness of my nearing 24-hour travel day, both the tourist information office and the internet cafe in the station were closed because of some holiday. I decided to go to the city center and look for internet access there -the address of the hotel we were supposed to be staying at was stored in a message online. Eventually I found one, and made way for the hotel. On the way, Jenna and I seemed to have just run into each other out of the blue. It was an exciting moment, and the start to a series of events that will be discussed as best and concisely as possible in the following.


The next few days were spent relaxing, walking around the city, and talking about life. Our hotel resembled more of a simple room inside a house rather than the typical idea of a hotel that comes to my mind when hearing the word. Just look at that view! (our window looked into the central part of 4 buildings connected to each other -from a birds-eye view it would like like to squares sharing a center.) I ended up making a few euro while playing the ol' guitar on the side of the street. Madrid probably had the most street performers out of any country or city I visited -with the possible exception of Paris. Given the population, however, there may be a proportionally larger amount of musicians and performers than Paris.

Regardless, the stay in Madrid was a nice period of relaxation in some decent weather for once. We walked through this massive park and stopped frequently to just absurd as much sunlight as possible, or take a nap. We ate dinner one night at Plaza Mayor -a huge open plaza surrounded by tall, ornate buildings, at the bottom of which were a multitude of restaurants to choose from. After deciding -more of a task than one would think -we chowed down on some good ol' fashioned Spanish Paella (you can't go to Spain without getting a little Paella). I guess I should also mention that Madrid was bustling with activity the entire time I was there, and especially at night. My theory is that the siesta's that are so common in Spanish culture give the Spaniards the ability to stay up until dawn.


We left Madrid in the afternoon from one of the coolest train stations I was at throughout the entire trip (see picture on right). I noticed immediately, even before I saw the jungle in the center of the station, the feeling of dampness in the air. An intricate watering system sprayed mist periodically into the canopy of the jungle. The indoor ecosystem with its extensive greenery cooled tensions, but the humidity was uncomfortable. Little did we know, the train ride would take nearly 7 hours (Madrid to Valencia...stupid regional trains), and the atmosphere of Valencia would be nothing like either of us had ever seen...

some more pictures from Madrid...

Valencia - Las Fallas

We came into Valencia at sunset, and because the train took so long, we were late for our first of two rendez-vous', each with separate times and locations, with our hopes in finding a place to stay. The popularity of this festival can be described in numbers, i.e., the non-festival population is around a half million and during this week in march it grows to an estimated three million. The train station was bustling elbow-to-elbow with people going to and fro. Once again, just to our luck, the tourist information office was closed -so we were mapless. Luckily, as we were asking directions -or should I say attempting to communicate since both Jenna and I only speak enough Spanish to get by- a generous lady just gave us an extra map that she had...let the games begin...

During this festival each city block builds elaborate 'monuments' that are fantastical, comical, and the highlight of the festival. To give you a taste, here are four of my favorite (see below) -among the hundreds scattered throughout the community of Valencia. Some of them are 100ft tall! We spent our first hours in Valencia in awe of the surroundings -streets jammed with people, 4 year olds lighting M-80's at every corner, and a constant barrage of muffled audio that consisted of a mixture of the voices, fireworks, and vendors.

You really can't capture the vividness and grandiose of these things, but I did my best.

So there we were, in Valencia without anywhere to stay, but with a few options. 1) Try to meet up with one of my friends who had been there for the past 3 days and crash at his friend's place, or 2) try to meet up with some members of the couchsurfing community whom I had never even met and hope they would have something for us. What actually ended up happening is quite the story...Both of our plans were foiled due to the sheer amount of people that were at the festival. It made trying to meet up with someone, even if you knew what they looked like, like trying to find a needle in a haystack. As a result, we never ended up meeting with my friend, and weren't even optimistic about finding anyone from couchsurfing. We ended up at the park -a massive, lowered area running in an arc toward the north and east edge of the city center, and eventually to the magnificent opera house and beach- watching the nightly 1:00am fireworks. This night was extra special as it was the last night the major, professional, display of fireworks was going to happen, but as we soon learned -the show was only just beginning...


The awesome display lasted for fifteen minutes or so, and we lay under the comforts of a blanket against a tree -totally relaxed. Not more than a few minutes after the grand finale -and believe me, it was grand, a group of youths bombarded the section of park with hundreds of flying, spinning, sparking, dangerous sticks of fire. I've never been under fire, but this must have been the closest thing possible to that; my concentration was 100% focused on dodging the incoming sticks of fire, and it was one of the only times on the trip that I was actually fearful that something bad was going to happen. Luckily, we were able to pack our bags, and make it out unscathed...although, the issue of where we were going to stay was not resolved.


We decided to make way for the beach, with hopes to camp out for at least a night (we later learned that from where, geographically, the beach would have been at least an hour and a half walk -something that would not have been fun given our energy level at the time). On our way there, we saw a large group of people in the middle of the park speaking, what sounded like English. Upon further inspection, it was, and we approached the group and made friends. It turns out that some of them were American study abroad students, with a place in the city. After they heard of our plans to camp out on the beach, we were offered a couch to sleep on for the two nights we were going to be there. It was the one of the best feelings in the world, I don't even know if there are words to describe it.


So, not only had our shelter issues been solved, but we had met some really cool people who ended up going into town with us the last night to see the most famous part of Las Fallas -the burning of the monuments. The day was spent wandering the streets of Valencia, eventually making it to the beautifully designed opera house -probably one of the coolest pieces of modern architecture I've ever seen. It was not simply just the opera house, but the whole complex that surrounded it in an echo of the characteristic style of the opera house. From there, and at this point the sun was beginning to set, we walked to the shores of the Mediterranean (a much longer walk than we had anticipated, but much worth it). I can now say that I've dipped my toes in the Mediterranean.



We hurried back to the flat, and met up with our new friends before we were to head out that night. This, the climax of the trip, was arguably the most memorable because it was just so astonishing. Even though I knew what was going to happen, I was not prepared for the entire experience. All the monuments were set to burn at midnight, but in actuality -like any performance- it was drawn out as long as possible. We must have stood waiting for the main monument to burn for an hour or so...but it was so worth it. The sequence of the dog burning is the lesser of the two monuments we saw being torched. The other one, which was a staggering 75ft tall or so, was of three asian women in traditional asian clothing, dancing with a giant dangling chinese lantern. After an uncomfortable period of standing way too close to way too many people, it burst into flames in a fiery explosion of color. So, after being dazzled and warmed by the sight and radiation of a 75ft flame, we got some food and called it a night.



Getting out of Valencia proved much harder than anticipated -but I guess I should have seen that coming knowing how popular the festival was. We originally wanted to leave at 6:00am for Barcelona -giving us almost a full day in Barcelona before we would have to leave on an overnight train to Paris (arriving on the 21st of March). Because the trains were all booked up, we ended up leaving at 1pm and not arriving into Barcelona until 5pm or so, leaving us with only about 4 hours until our overnight train to Paris. Four hours in one of the most beautiful cities in Spain -clearly not enough, but we did what we could. We walked around, saw a taste of what Barcelona was like, but were left drooling for more (figuratively of course).

Barcelona (in pictures)





Well, I've had thoroughly enough with this post, hope you all enjoy! Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with this given the fact that I'm barely caught up to the present, and there is so much that is going to be going on in the next few weeks...

Well, be on the lookout, but if you don't find anything...just know that you've been warned.