Lanzarote and Toledo

This past weekend Magda and I went to Lanzarote, an island in the Canary Islands. We left from Priego at 1:00 for Cordoba, and then from Cordoba to Madrid on a five hour bus ride. It was long and boring, but I was amused by watching this girl in front of me play a computer game where the main person was a bright pink pig, who had to collect apples. I saw that a couple other people were watching her too, and sometimes I wanted to take the controls from her and say, "HERE, let me try. You are frustrating us with your inability to do this one move." But I simply sat there and laughed under my breath at this game, and looked away when I wanted to steal her computer and do it myself.

We arrived in Madrid and quickly figured out the Metro... I am getting quite accustomed to traveling in all sorts of modes of transportation. We figured out how to get to our hostel, and left the metro at the correct stop. We walked along a street for about two blocks, and that is all that I saw of Madrid... the rest was underground on the metro, train stations, bus stations, and airports. The first hostel was crap, but we paid a crap price, so we definitely got what we paid for! The next morning we woke up very early and got back on the metro to get to the airport. After checking in and going through security and finding our gate, I noticed that there were other American girls waiting to go to Lanzarote. And I realized that I was annoyed! There were about five girls sitting together, speaking American English together, using all our little habits like saying "like" all the time and talking about college-student topics, like who is going out with who and hooking up with who... I was so annoyed. I dont know if it was because they were American or because they were American college girls, but I wondered to myself how I was going to survive when I get back to the USA! Perhaps its only when I hear the TRAVELLING, and representing the US in that way. Maybe when I get back to the US it will just fade into the background...

Anyways, we got to Lanzarote and it was absolutely beautiful! Mid-70's, sunny, warm, fresh. We got a taxi to our hotel, and I watched the island fly by me on the way there. It reminded me a lot of the big island of Hawaii, where most of the island is volcanic rock, but palm trees thrive along the beaches. We arrived to our hotel and stood in our room, shocked. We didn't have a hotel room, but a small apartment. There was a living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen with a small stove, a sink, and cupboards with plates and silverware. The door to our apartment was wooden double doors with large windows in them, and the doors opened up to the rest of the hotel which was outside, filled with plants, and a nice big pool with a snack bar/real bar right next to it. It was PERFECT! Magda and I jumped around and squealed with happiness for about a minute, and then put on our bathing suits and went out to the pool to order some sandwiches and well-deserved cocktails (which were HUGE!). The girl working at the bar seemed surprised when I spoke to her in Spanish. I realized quickly that most of the people on the island were retired couples or vacationing families from Northern Europe, who didn't know any Spanish. The girl at the bar and her co-worker who I met later both thought I was from Italy, which I take as a compliment! I didn't have an obvious accent! The evening bartender also made me speak to him in English for a little while, because he rarely hears American accents and he thought it was cool.

After we spent some time relaxing next to the pool, Magda and I went and explored the beach, which was also very nice! A lot of the beaches weren't beaches at all, but expanses of volcanic rock. When there was a beach, there were a lot of people on it because they weren't very large. But the weather was amazing; I was beaming at the fact that I could walk around in a t-shirt and shorts and be completely comfortable. Eventually we went back to our hotel and laid next to the pool a little bit more, and indulged in happy hour (two-for-one beers!). We went to our hotel around 6:00 to take a nap... and ended up sleeping until 7:30 the next morning! Magda and I have decided that we shouldn't be allowed to nap anymore, because we seem to suck at it. But we hadn't slep much the night before, we had travelled and walked a lot that day, and drank alcohol. So we weren't that sad about our nap-turned-into-full-nights-sleep.

The next morning we went and got some breakfast and laid by the pool until noon, when we had to switch hotels because of availability issues. The next hotel we went to was just as nice, with an apartment-style hotel room, a balcony and a pool we could lay by. I spoke to the man at the reception counter in Spanish, and he seemed to appreciate it. I spoke Spanish as much as I could on this trip... I got compliments almost every time I did! I'm not sure if they say I have good Spanish because they're just surprised to hear me speak Spanish because most foreigners don't, or if I actually have good Spanish. But I like hearing it all the same! But anyways, we had to wait a little bit for our room to be cleaned, so we were sitting in the cool reception when a British guy came in and started trying to speak to the man sitting at reception. It was obvious that this man didn't know much English, and I saw the two struggle to communicate. The English man finally got pissed and started to leave, and I jumped up and said, "Wait, sir! What do you need?" And he looked at me for a moment and told me, and I translated for the Spanish man, who replied and I translated that to English. This went on for a little bit, until everything was figured out. The English man left, and the Spanish man turned to me and said, "Thank you." and then he sighed and said, "That man has been drunk for the entire week." And as soon as he mentioned it, I realized that yes, this man definitely seemed a little drunk. Soon the English man came back in and got something sorted out, and then he looked at me and said, "You speak very good English." And I stared at him for a second. And then replied, "Oh. I'm American." We laughed a little bit and I left in a slight shock. How did he not know I was fluent in English?! I chuckled about this for the rest of the day.

Magda and I left the hotel and went to walk around for awhile, then came back and laid next to the pool for a couple hours. During this time I got up and walked about 20 feet down the road to the supermarket and bought beer, pringles, and some food for the morning. I put the food away and brought the beer and pringles to the pool, and Magda and I happily had a picnic next to the pool, drinking the cold beer and devouring the chips. It was wonderful, and so relaxing! Eventually we got hungry for real food, so we ventured out and walked along the road next to the beach, looking at all the restaurants for something good. I found a Mexican restaurant and was thrilled! We went in and I asked in Spanish if it was open because there was no one there, and they said yes so we sat down and I ordered Chicken Fajitas for us. While taking our order, the waiter said, "You have great Spanish! I was upstairs when you asked if the restaurant was open, and I thought you were Spanish!" I was so happy again! Lanzarote was just one huge ego boost for me and my Spanish skills. Anyways, so the fajitas got there, with the chicken on a bottom platter, the tortillas on the second platter, and little dishes of sour cream, guacamole, and salsa on the top. I happily dug in, but Magda stared at this for a second, then turned to me and said, "I'm confused. How do you eat this?!" I started laughing and it took me a minute to calm down before I could show her how to take the tortillas out of their little holder, put the chicken on it, put some sauces and rice on it, and then how to roll the tortilla. It was such a strange and wonderful feeling, teaching a foreign culture to someone who had never experienced it before. The fajitas were amazing, and I only wanted more when it was gone, even though I was full to my eyeballs.

That night we decided that we WOULD go out, and there would be NO taking any naps for us! While waiting for an appropriate time to go out, I taught Magda how to play quarters, but with a 5-cent euro rather than a quarter. And she had ENORMOUS beginners luck, and I was totally crap at this game, so I ended up drinking an entire beer in the time that she had two sips! I should have never taught her that game. When it was 11:00 we left the hotel and began walking along the beach road, looking at all the bars and restaurants and trying to decide where we would go for our first drink. At one of the places, a waiter began talking to us, and asked us where we were from. I said the US, and Magda said Poland. As soon as she said this, the man said something that I couldn't understand, and Magda suddenly laughed loudly and threw her hands over her mouth and doubled over in shock. The man was Polish! So of course we stayed here, and Magda and this guy talked for several hours while he was working, and I sat there happily listening to them. Magda barely gets to speak Polish. He was fluent in Spanish also, so at one point he asked me if I was okay with them speaking Polish, and I said, "Of course! She doesn't get to speak Polish very much, so don't worry! I'm perfectly fine." He also made us rather strong mojitos, and we ordered two, so I had fun with that also. He was very friendly and even though he was speaking a different language, I could tell he was a nice guy. Magda did eventually get a little too comfortable speaking Polish, because the next day when we went back there for our last drink, she at one point said something off-handedly to me in Polish. She suddenly looked at me as if she forgot who she was talking to and burst out laughing, then said in English that she was tired. I just laughed at all of these different languages converging.

Anyways, after our two mojitos we said goodbye to the Polish guy and headed down the road, where we found some clubs. We chose one even though it was rather empty because we had to pee, but they convinced us to stay by bribing us with 2-for-1 drinks. The guy at the door who was telling us about these specials wasn't Spanish but spoke English with an accent... and when he heard my American accent he stared at me and said, "Wow, you have a sexy accent!" And I was completely flattered! I dont ever know what people think about American accents, but to hear its sexy was kind of awesome! So we went in and had our cheap drinks. We were two of the only people there, so the DJ (and owner of the bar) told us we could request any songs we wanted, which we happily did for about an hour, dancing around by ourselves and having a generally good time. When that bar closed we continued down the street to a much more crowded club... this was obviously where the party was. Magda began dancing around and I went to sit down and began watching these two guys play pool. They noticed me watching and asked me if I wanted to play, which I did! I tend to be better than I think I am at pool after I've been drinking, and I had a great time. Eventually Magda found us and we all were playing together. These two guys were also on vacation, one from the Dominican Republic and one from France. We had a nice time but eventally headed back to our place at 6 am.

The next day we slept, ate and laid on the beach, enjoying our last moments in Lanzarote. In the evening we were at a bar, and the bartender looked at me and said, "These girls are from America too!" And I said hi, but turned back to Magda to continue our conversation. Then suddenlly I paused, because I heard these girls speaking Spanish. They were TERRIBLE. Their accent was just ridiculous, and I know I should give them props for trying, but hearing such a horrible spanish accent for me is like hearing nails on a chalkboard. And I figured out that they were studying in Granada, which means they SHOULD be working on their accent, no excuse! Magda saw my face and said, "Time to go?" To which I nodded, trying not to feel like a snob, and we left.

The next morning we sadly checked out of our hotel and got a taxi to the airport. We flew back to Madrid, and because it was too late in the afternoon to get a bus back to Cordoba and then Priego, we went to the nearby Toledo by train. We got there about an hour until sunset, so we ran around and tried to take as many pictures and see as many things as possible before it became absolutely black outside. When it did, we went to a bar and ordered some wine and beer and food, and made friends with the bartender, who was from Colombia. People in Spain are so friendly and they love to talk to the people they are serving and make friends! We had a great time talking to them, and when we got our check at the end of the night, they only charged us for two drinks when we had ordered six. It was a nice little present for our last night on vacation.

The next day we began the long journey back to Priego. We took a taxi, train, metro, and three buses. I missed my car SO MUCH. As we our bus was entering the Granada bus station, I saw the bus to Priego leaving. I moaned in agrivation... we would have to wait three more hours to catch the next bus! So while waiting, Magda and I began playing games like normal. We have become very good at entertaining ourselves in bus stations. We played this soccer game she taught me in my notebook, and then we played that connect the dots and make boxes game that I played with my students back in the US sometimes. And then Magda suggested battleship, to which I happily agreed and we drew our ships and began playing. She said, "B-5."
"Hit!" Crap, she got one of my boats!
"B-4"
"Miss. G-1?"
"Miss. B-6" She said.
"Hit." I knew she would sink my boat now, she only needed one more.
"C-5." I stared at her. What?
"Why didnt you sink my ship?"
"I'm trying!" She replied.
"But... boats can't be touching you know."
"I know!"
I stared at her. "Well then why didn't you sink my ship? You only had one more!"
"I told you, I'm trying!"
Confused, I looked over at her paper where she had drawn her boats, and suddenly yelled, "Your boats are wrong!" Her fleet of ships looked like a tetris game, with boats not in lines, but her three- and four-square boats shaped in any way that four squares can be placed together and still touching.
"No they're not! This is how we play in Poland!" She replied.
"Yes they are! Boats can't be curved! What is wrong with your boats?!"
"There's nothing wrong, this just makes it more difficult!"
"BOATS CAN'T BE CURVED!" I repeated loudly. What the hell is she thinking?!
"THEY'RE NOT REAL BOATS!" She half laughed/yelled at me. By this time, people are staring at our fight. We were yelling at each other in English in the middle of the bus station. I suddenly take a deep breath and sit back in my chair, arms crossed in defiance. It takes me a full two minutes to re-think my rules to battleship before I can accept it and begin playing again, with these new rules. It was a ridiculous thing to have an argument about, and we was laughing soon... but changing the rules to such a simple game that I have always played in the same way really caught me off guard! It was a funny cultural encounter.

We finally made it back to Priego, where it was freezing! We burst into our apartment and Maria was on her phone, but we didn't care. We began yelling out our experiences to her and she laughed and had to put her phone conversation on pause while we told her the most important things in excited voices, and finish the conversation later. I look back on this simple memory and I know that I'll miss things like this when I come home. I realized today that I only have 13 weeks left here in Spain... 3 months next week. It really shocked me. I also bought a hostel today for my last night in Spain before I fly home... that almost made me cry! I know that it will be nice to be home, but I will really miss Spain. Its such a crazy feeling to have, so I just try to ignore all these things and simply live the rest of my time here in the best way!