Well, I suppose I knew I was going to get behind on blogging at some point, and 6 weeks in isn't bad. I'm starting to travel more on weekends, so I have less time in Seville. Although after next weekend, I'm going to stay in Seville for 2 weekends in a row and actually get to see my host family and hang out with friends here.
Last weekend (a little over a week ago) was the orienteering meet in Los Canos de Meca (near Barbate on the southern coast). It was a 4 day weekend since Monday was Day of Andalucia so we didn’t have school. I’m not sure what the point of the holiday is. My weekend started with getting up to catch a 7 am bus to Cádiz and I then had a 1.5 hour “layover” there. I sent that time wandering around Cádiz, so I got to see the outside of the cathedral, a Roman theater they were excavating (I think), the beach, and a couple plazas. They were already putting out decorations for Carnival next weekend.
I then caught the bus to Los Caños and got dropped off at a bus stop on the road in Los Caños. All I knew was the name of the hotel and that it was right where the highway curved away from the ocean. I just walked along the road until it curved and then asked people and they thankfully were able to direct me to the “tourist apartments” where I was staying.
I met up with Kean there, and took one of his practice maps to go walk around on. All the maps here are pretty technical and have 2.5 meter contours. It’s really hard to distinguish the tiny contour details. I’ve found that at times it’s easier to rely on other things (compass bearings, sometimes vegetation) and then use the contours as an additional tool instead of the other way around. I walked around a few controls, came back, picked up a map for the model, and then ran that. Here's a view of the terrain. That's the start of the model, and the picture was taken from the balcony of our hotel.
For more technical details about all my courses this weekend, see my attackpoint log. I then had dinner at the hotel (with the Norwegian junior team plus other orienteers staying there) and went to bed early since I was tired because I had gotten up so early.
Saturday morning I got up, and Kean and I hitchhiked to the meet (it was only a little over 2 km along the road), so we started walking, but there were plenty of orienteers driving by although we ended up getting a ride with a non-orienteer who’s really athletic and was really interested in orienteering and even got out at the meet to look around. We then had a 2.5 hour rogaine. I did it individually. I was a bit sloppy with my navigation, especially since there were so many people out there going to the same controls. I still made a couple mistakes and was quite tired when I came back at around 2 hr 15 min. Here's the finish. In Spanish, the say "exit" for the start and "goal" for the finish.
Kean and I got a ride back with people, had lunch, then went for a walk first along the cliffs above the beach near where we had orienteered on Friday, and then down to the beach. Unfortunately it was a bit cold to go swimming, but I appreciated walking on the sand.
We came back, had spaghetti, and I then went to bed since I was tired. Oh, somewhere in there I tried to use the internet, which I was eventually able to connect to, but it was so slow that it wouldn’t even load my gmail accout. This place shouldn’t have advertised free wifi if they only had wifi near the lobby and even then it was too slow to actually use for a lot of websites.
Sunday morning was the long. The hotel was the event center, which was so nice because the finish was right next to the lobby so I didn’t have to pack a bag to bring with me or anything. The first half of the course went really well, and then I made one mistake and was then just tired for the rest.
In the evening I got a ride to the sprint (in a nearby town called Conil) with a really nice Swedish club. They had an extra registration (the wife of the guy who drove me didn't come), so they offered it to me and I ran for her. The women was older than me, so the course was a bit shorter than I would have normally run, although that was fine since I had already run over 9 km earlier that day. The only problem was that I ended up winning that category (I don't know what the age cut-off was, but I'm definitely faster than most older women), so I think the guy who gave me a ride went and talked with someone so they could take me (listed as the Swedish woman) off the results list.
The Swedes stopped for ice cream on the way back to the car, so I of course didn't complain. I had been craving pizza for a while, so I then attempted to make pizza once I got back (I had previously bought bread, canned tomato sauce, and cheese); however the cheese, even though advertised as pizza cheese, was not anywhere close to mozzarella and it didn't taste particularly good.
I didn't have class Monday (it was the day the province gained independence from something), so I was able to race the middle on Monday. It was really interesting because the first half of the course was down at the beach. There were some sand dunes near the lighthouse, so it was interesting terrain, although it is so hard to run in sand!
After the race, I went to one of the two open cafes in the town. Someone had told me they had internet, so I went to go check that out. They also had this absolutely amazing fresh orange and banana juice! They juiced the orange, then put that and fresh banana in a mixer. Kean had talked with a British woman the day before who needed to get to Seville, so I met up with her after that, and one of the Spanish organizers gave us a ride back to Seville, so I got back before the bus I was planning on taking had left Barbate.
The three day week passed pretty uneventfully. I met up with Carmen, the Spanish girl from my linguistics class, for lunch on Wednesday. I've talked with several people about starting to have picnics or something every Wednesday, so I think I'm going to start doing that since I don't have time to go home for lunch anyway. And that was about it.
Friday, Natalie, Tiffany, and I went to Madrid to meet up with Nancy. Getting to the bus was an adventure. First of all, Natalie and I left Nervion later than we had intended. The bus left from Plaza de Armas which was across the city, so we biked there. We passed by the bus station about 15 minutes before the bus left, so it would have been enough time to figure out exactly where to go, but the bike station was full. So we looked up the next bike station and went to that one. However, that one was out of service. We looked up the next bike station and went there. This one thankfully had spaces, but by this time, we were getting farther and farther away from the bus station. So Natalie and I literally ran for 8 minutes with backpacks to the bus station. I got there first and tried to get the bus driver to wait. Natalie arrived just as the bus was pulling away. So, we were both really sweaty and disgusting, but we made the bus. I was wired for a little bit, but then I slept a lot of the 6 hour bus ride.
Natalie went and met up with some distant relative, so Tiffany and I wandered around the city after dropping some stuff off at our hostel. Our hostel was really conveniently located in the center of Madrid and it was pretty nice. The only complaint was that it was pretty noisy (especially last night when a bunch of people in our room came back at 5 am talking loudly and turning on lights). Tiffany and I walked to Plaza del Sol, Plaza Mayor, and to the Palacio Real, but it was raining pretty hard, and both of us had wet feet and cold hands and feet, so we headed back to the hostel. Here's me in the Plaza Mayor. This pretty much sums up Friday afternoon.
I changed shoes and we warmed up and then we went to the National Library. It had an exhibit about the history of writing, which I found really interesting and somewhat relevant to both my Ancient Mediterranean culinary practices class plus my linguistics class (one is ancient history, the other has talked about the evolution of languages). There also randomly happened to be an exhibit on culinary practices from the middle ages to the present, which was obviously relevant to my culinary practices class too. Both exhibits were really interesting.
We headed back, and then Tiffany and I met up with my cousin Maddie for dinner! It was great to see her and fun to have someone who I could talk to about my family and Seattle. We went to a cute Italian restaurant Maddie knew about since I was still craving pizza and Tiffany and I have had plenty of Spanish food over the past 6 weeks. After dinner, it was raining pretty hard, so we went straight back to the hostel instead of wandering around. Around 1 am, Nancy arrived, so I said hi to her (I hadn't seen her since May!) and then went to bed because I was completely exhausted.
I had schedule the trip to Madrid primarily to visit with Nancy, so on Saturday I let Natalie and Tiffany continue with our list of things to see, and Nancy and I went on a 3.5 hour free walking tour that she knew about. It was ok, but the guide was a little strange, and I felt that most of what he said wasn't overly interesting/relevant. It was ok, and it had stopped raining, so it was nice to walk around. We passed by a lot of places I had walked the day before.
Then, Nancy and I walked through the Plaza de Espana (stopping to take pictures with the Don Quixote statue) and then went for churros and chocolate. I've been a bit dissappointed with the churros and chocolate here all three times I've had it. It was ok, but nothing special. We then went on a tapas tour that Nancy wanted to go on. It was a nice way to meet some other people around our age who were touring around Madrid, and we got to try some tapas. Here's a picture of a famous bull's tail with chocolate tapa I tried.
After three of the four tapa places, I left to go meet up with Natalie and Tiffany to see the Prado very briefly. I walked by the Parque de Retiro and one of the big arches and saw a Carnival parade going on. (Carnival was this past weekend in Cadiz too.)
I was only in the Prado for about 20 minutes before it closed (free entries after 6 pm, so I didn't waste any money on not seeing much), but I was fine with that since I've been there before (not that I remembered it though) and I'm still a bit off of art museums from being in Italy a couple of years ago. I had wanted to see the Guerrnica (at Museo de la Reina Sofia), but I didn't have time and I'm glad I got to spend the day with Nancy, so I'm ok with missing it.
Then, Natalie, Tiffany, and I stopped at a restaurant for dinner, and I got an amazing salad. After snacking on junk food all day (churros, fried potatoes as tapas, etc.) I wanted something either substantial or with veggies, and the salad I had was perfect. It had lettuce, watercress, avocado, red onions, mushrooms, and balsamic vinegar. I'm going to have to try that at home sometime. Tiffany and I headed back to the hostel, and I went out again to meet up with Nancy, one of her friends from Williams who I hadn't met before, and girl we had met earlier who was staying at the same hostel.
On Sunday, Nancy and Regina (the other girl from Williams) were going to Toledo, but I couldn't go with them and then make my bus back to Seville, so I stayed in Madrid with Natalie and Tiffany. We went to the huge flea market near our hostel and I finally got a pair of sunglasses (the only thing I forgot in the US). However, my phone ran out of money since I think calling long distance (Nancy had a UK phone) was pretty expensive, but necessary. So, I couldn't get a hold of Natalie and Tiffany (we had all wandered off in different directions), so I decided to go meet them at the next place on our itinerary: the Museum of the Americas. On the way, I stopped at a food market to get food for lunch and then went to an Egyptian temple that had been given to Madrid in thanks for Spain helping conserve some of the old temples in Egypt.
I then finally found a spot to recharge my phone and then met up with Natalie and Tiffany again at the Museum of the Americas. I only had a little time to explore that before we had to head back to the bus station to go back to Seville.
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