Dragon Pool

We visited this Dragon Pool while on an excursion to Lijiang and the surrounding area. This dragon pool is the freshwater source for the surrounding town. A local legend says that two dragons used to fight on the two mountains surrounding the valley, but they were each vanquished to a pond as punishment for destruction of the surrounding area. In class, we discussed whether the designation of the space as sacred was partially to protect the source of clean mountain water for the community. 

During our time in China, we have seen many beautiful forest parks and natural spaces. Most of them have shared a common thread; the presence of religious buildings or structures. The Cangshan mountains have temples and burial grounds, Jizushan Mountain has hundreds of temples including the Jinding temple near the peak, and the gardened grounds of the Yuan Tong temple in downtown Kunming. These religious places likely played a role in protecting the biodiversity in their area, such as the fresh water at the Dragon Pool near Lijiang. Yet, we cannot simplify local religious to its role for protecting biodiversity and natural resources. 

Zhoucheng Village

Dali is famous for traditional Bai tie-dying, especially the village of Zhoucheng. Zhoucheng is nestled up in the mountains along the shore of Erhai lake. In 2006, the Ministry of Culture named Zhoucheng the “National Tie-dying Hometown” and made the dying practice a state-level intangible cultural heritage site. The town is 15 minutes down the road from Xizhou and we took a local bus in class one day to learn tie-dying.

We visited the Lanxu Eco-Culture Development Center and learned about local dye production from an employee named Jake. Jake told us that dyes are made from many local plants, such as gardenia flowers, pomegranate rinds and indigo. The materials are all harvested at different points of the year and carefully prepared. The gardenia pods must be boiled for several days to get the rich yellow color they use for dyeing. Indigo is boiled and then allowed to sit for three years to get a rich blue color.

Indigo dyed fabric from the Lanxu Eco-Culture Development Center. 

To make designs on the cloth Jake gave us, we either stitched patterns into the fabric and pulled the strings tight to create white spots, or folded the fabric into free-style patterns. Once our fabric scraps were ready, we put on gloves and aprons and held our creations in large vats of indigo dye.  

The chemical in indigo that produces dye, called indicant, readily hydrolyzes to β-D-glucose and indoxyl. Oxidation by exposure to air converts indoxyl to indigo. Indican was obtained from the processing of the plant's leaves, which contain as much as 0.2–0.8% of this compound. The leaves were soaked in water and fermented to convert the glycoside indican present in the plant to the blue dye indigotin.

The pools of dye are a dark green color with bits of leaf floating on the surface. You hold the fabric in the dye for different lengths of time to get the desired color. Once we were satisfied, we pulled the fabric out and quickly washed out the dye. The indoxyl turns blue with contact with air and we were able to take our creations home and hang them up to dry. India was a primary supplier of indigo to Europe as early as the Greco-Roman era. The association of India with indigo is reflected in the Greek word for the dye, indikón. This passed into English as indigo. In China, they use a different plant variety that produces the same color, so the dye is not technically indigo. The chemical is the same. 

Jake let me take some indigo and gardenia dye home to experiment with. I painted this painting of the village with indigo dye, gardenia dye, and soil from the mountain.

Kunming Constructed

We moved from Xizhou, a small village on Lake Erhai, to the city of Kunming midway through the program. The contrast was immediate. In Xizhou we had an easy time making connections with the people we met, and they were excited to share their stories and friendship with us. Kunming is a large city with far less individuality. Making connections with people was much more difficult and the shops were more corporate and less unique.

Connection to place was also more difficult to identify in Kunming. Like many large cities, the materials used to build the cities and the resources that power every-day life are removed from view. We lived on a bustling street at the Yunnan University Hotel. Every day we could walk down the street and get all the food and commodities we needed, without any connection with the places that were impacted. Where did our trash go? What rivers were dammed to create the energy we use to charge our phones? Who grew our food? Val Plumwood writes about this in her article, “Shadow Places and the Politics of Dwelling.” Plumwood sees shadow places as places that are harmed by the impacts of keeping other locations beautiful and functional. People might see themselves as living in a small bioregion that is entirely self-sufficient, but other places are destroyed to create that illusion. For example, China is a shadow place for the United States. China produces massive amounts of the goods we use every day, from plastic toys to iPhone parts to solar panels. This production harms their environment, such as pollution in Erhai Lake near Xizhou that was partly caused by factories on the Dali plain.

Xizhou has its own shadow places, though. The touristy center hides the water pollution and fertilizer use in the surrounding area, and the mining required to find the beautiful marble that the area is known for destroys local mountain slopes. The market that seems to provide local produce and windmills that we assumed provided power for the area are actually part of the same global system that connects food distribution and power. 

I made this painting using soil from the Cangshan Range near Xizhou, indigo dye made with plants from the local mountains and tea from Kunming that was probably grown in Japan. The painting represents how cities are built from materials that come from the earth and are still a part of nature. We are all connected and every action, no matter how small, impacts people across the world. 

Jia Ma Print

The jia ma woodcut block I bought at an indigo workshop and then printed onto my postcard. 

I studied printmaking in school and I’ve always loved the rich lines and beautiful bleeding you can get with a block print. When our religion professor, Joe, showed me several small sheets of brightly colored paper with black ink block prints of what we thought were local gods, I got very excited. A few days later, we found a basket of dusty wood blocks at an indigo workshop and the local women told us stories of what each represents. I bought a round block that had Taoist symbols and vowed to learn more.

I found a shop a few days before that sold block prints and naturally dyed fabrics, and our assistant director Alex agreed to come with and see if the shopkeeper knew anything. We quickly realized that the woman minding the shop wasn’t the artist. She had no idea what the different prints meant or how they were made, but she said that the artist worked at the guest house near the Linden Center. Alex was as excited as I was and we decided to check it out. We were on a mission to find Zhang Qing Sheng, the block print artist. 

The shop in Xizhou where I first saw the block prints. 

We walked through the maze of alleyways that I’ve just started to understand after three weeks in Xizhou, and cut across the rice paddy to get to the guest house. The guest house is a beautiful building, with lush vines growing over the entrance and a shaded courtyard full of art and potted plants. There are displays of the block print postcards, so we knew we were on the right track. We explored the coffee shop and art exhibit of local artifacts and then asked the woman working at the front desk whether she knew where the artists who make block prints were. She told Alex that his studio was down the street, in the next alley. We thanked her and headed off to the next stop on our journey to find the source of these beautiful prints. The next shop had even more block prints; the entire space was devoted to displaying local arts. There were full books of prints, tote bags with designs printed onto them and many framed prints dotting the shop. Alex asked the woman behind the counter if the artist worked there. She said no, he works in Zhoucheng, the town where we tie-dyed and bought our first block prints. We couldn’t stop at this point, so Alex booked us a car to Zhoucheng. 

Alex asked for directions at a shop selling hand-made Bai clothing, which many locals still wear. 

Once in Zhoucheng, the directions to his workshop were vague; head north past the big tree. Women followed us, asking if we wanted to tie-dye and Alex told them all that we were just heading to the market. I practiced saying “no thank you,” the latest phrase I’ve added to my currently limited Chinese vocabulary. We wandered into a shop to ask directions and found a man sewing traditional Bai clothing. He said he’s friends with the artist we were looking for, and pointed us in the right direction. 

With the help of another woman on the street, we finally found the block print artist. His shop is right on the main square, looking out on two three-hundred-year-old trees that shade the shop with their large leafy branches. Once a year they host a large festival in the courtyard and opera singers from another town come to perform. They used to carry a statue of the main benzhu deity down to sit between the trees, but they don’t anymore since they put in a new entrance gate. 

Zhang Qing Shen carves jia ma woodblocks to print benzhus, small papers that locals burn at temples for luck and good fortune. 

Zhang’s shop is clearly designed for locals. There are no expensive tote bags or postcard sets like in the Xizhou shops. His shop is filled with all the materials for worshiping at the temple; incense for making offerings, candles and the small scraps of printed paper that Joe found a few weeks before blowing down the street. He says he doesn’t mind that Bai culture is used for tourism because the people who manage to track him down are always very interested in local culture. He enjoys sharing stories and he seemed genuinely happy to share with us. 

The small scraps of paper are prints of benzhus, and they are burned at temples as offerings. According to Zhang, there are 500 different images, and they have stayed consistent for hundreds of years. This is consistent with the information in our reading Remaking social boundaries: the construction of benzhu worship in Southwest China by Yuzhong Zhao. Yuzhong says that there are 500 king deities in the Dali lake basin. Each one has a corresponding image that’s carved into a block of wood. Zhang, and his father before him, carve the images into blocks of pear tree wood backward and then cover them with ink. They press the paper onto the blocks and rub the ink into the paper by brushing a rounded tool across the paper. Zhang told us that they used to use the charcoal residue from the bottom of pots, but now they just use ink from the store. This is one way that people are less connected with the environment as the towns develop more globalized economies. Zhang showed us books he’d printed with many different designs and pointed one out as the protector spirit of Lake Erhai. He didn’t have any printed, so he took us upstairs with him and printed a few more. We got to watch him ink the block and press on the paper. He even let me try, and I printed my own Lake Erhai protector spirit. 

Zhang told us that the tradition began in the Han dynasty, about 2000 years ago. It’s unclear if this is accurate as the reading suggests that Bai traditions are not that old. Many designs are standardized widely across China, but many are local and specific to this area. You burn a different benzhu depending on what you need. You might burn a print of the wealth god if you need wealth, or burn an image of the local fertility deity if you are trying to get pregnant. Usually, each village enshrines one benzhu, although some villages may enshrine the same one. In Zhoucheng, they worship a man from a neighboring village who challenged an evil horse spirit that was terrorizing the village. The man won and has since been deified in the town. Zhang showed us a print of this benzhu, as well as many others like the god who had a good heart and sacrificed himself to save the whole Dali region. 

The traditional way to hang prints of the block I purchased. 

The block print I bought at the indigo tie dying place is traditionally printed onto fabric and hung on the wall near the entrance to a house. You also hang two smaller prints, chopsticks and two bags of five grains of rice. You hang it when a newlywed couple moves in, and then pay respects three times every time you enter. This brings good fortune to the household.

To create this postcard, I painted the Cangshan mountains and some clouds onto watercolor paper. Then I painted indigo dye from Zhoucheng onto the jia ma block I'd purchased at the indigo workshop, and pressed the postcard onto the block. Residual ink from the last time the block was used added the pink and black tones to the print. 

Yunnan Coffee

I sat at Peter's and painted the view often during our stay in Xizhou. 

I really didn’t expect to find coffee in Yunnan. This region is famous for pu’er tea and the blogs I read before the trip all warned that you weren’t likely to find good espresso anywhere in China. I haven’t found that to be the case at all. On our first day in Xizhou, I wandered down the street towards the Linden Center and stumbled into Peter’s Coffee. The server, Roy, spoke a bit of English and helped my friend Molly and I order. I got a coffee and Roy explained that the beans were grown locally in Yunnan. What? Coffee production in China? It turns out that the government is strongly pushing coffee production in Yunnan province, with 95% of coffee production happening within the province. I met a Fulbright scholar named MJ Engel who is working out of Kunming, and she explained that coffee consumption in China has increased about 33 percent every year since 2006 and almost all demand is met with domestic production. The main regions for production are Baoshan, Dehong and Pu’er. They grow mostly the Arabica coffee variety.

Farmers are latching onto coffee because there is less chance for disease and pests. The plant is so new to the region that there are no predators yet. We spoke with Clément Rigal, a researcher at the World Agroforestry Center in Kunming, and he told us that many farmers are using agroforestry techniques to prevent their crops from freezing at high altitudes and to add additional crops (such as lychee) to diversify their revenue streams. This method of growing is more sustainable because the trees protect the coffee cherries and reduce the need for pesticides. The roots also help prevent erosion and shade helps the soils stay fertile. Pesticide use is also limited because few pests have adapted to eat coffee cherries, although Clement says that will likely happen within a few decades.

According to an article by Time Magazine, coffee was first introduced to the area by French missionaries in the 20th century. Coffee production in China, however, was mostly introduced through the international coffee behemoth Nestlé. The Chinese government asked the company to partner with local farmers in rural areas of China as part of a poverty alleviation initiative. Nestlé helps farmers establish coffee farms, teaches them environmental and ethical growing practices, and then buys their coffee at their warehouse in Pu’er. However, international prices have been at an all-time low so many coffee farmers are experiencing unstable incomes. The farmers often begin growing specialty coffees which they can sell at higher and more consistent prices. MJ said that the easiest way to turn regular coffee into a specialty coffee is by letting the cherries fully ripen and begin to ferment on the trees. This gives the coffee a sweeter, fruity taste. Farmers can also let the beans “honey” in the sugary inner mucilage layers. These processes take extra time but the farmers can get much more for their labor and don’t need to plant new trees.

The spread of coffee in Yunnan is great for those of us who love espresso, but may have long-term harms. I talked with MJ at Peter’s coffee after her presentations and she explained that it’s a difficult situation. On the one hand, Nestlé is a huge corporation that is well-known for poisoning water supplies and taking advantage of workers all over the world. However, their introduction of coffee to this region is helping pull some farmers out of poverty. We’ll have to wait to see the long term ecological impact of coffee production, but hopefully agroforestry techniques and limited use of pesticides can help keep coffee production sustainable in China.

Flower Farms in Dali

On one of our first drives in Dali, I watched out the window as green fields flew by out the windows of our rickety and sweltering bus. We tried to identify all the plants; rice, corn, vegetables and large swathes of tobacco. Then the view shifted and the green gave way to fields of pink and yellow. Fields of flowers, where food could be grown.

Roses are everywhere in Dali. You don’t only find the flowers growing in the ground and blossoming in clay pots around town. You also find roses in cakes, perfume, make-up and even wine. You can find small rose cakes in shops all over town. They’re handmade flakey wheat biscuits with a rose jam filling, usually two RMB each, about 30 cents in USD. I do not understand how they sell enough to cover the labor costs but enough tourists must buy them to make the industry worth it.

            Tourism shapes nearly every aspect of life in Dali. Buses of Chinese tourists walk through with their cameras, snapping photos and buying rose cakes. Xizhou and the shore of Erhai Lake are extremely popular photoshoot spots and you can see couples dressed in wedding clothes or traditional ethnic minority garb posing in rice paddies and in front of cute shops at any point in the day. According to Beth E Notar, sociological researcher and author of Displacing Desire, tourists come to Dali for the exotic narrative of the region. Western tourists used to come because of an entry in The Lonely Planet, a popular guide book, that described Dali as a magical world of “authentic China” off the beaten path. Ironically, Dali became part of the beaten path precisely because of this narrative. Now, most tourists to Dali are from other areas of China. The Chinese government pushes tourism in this area as part of their initiative to fight rural poverty. Ethnic minority groups are used as tourist attractions and traditional rose wine, rose cakes and other flower elixirs are sold as part of this narrative.

Across the Bridge Noodles

The spread of vegetables and meats for our Across the Bridge Noodles.

We arrived a few minutes early at our first dinner of Across the Bridge Noodles so we were able to admire the patchwork of raw ingredients laid out across the table before the chaos of cooking began. Across the Bridge Noodles, or quoquio mixian, are a famous Yunnan dish similar to Vietnamese pho where individual ingredients are cooked in a bowl of boiling hot broth. Our tables were covered in a spread of colorful ingredients; pinwheels of different cuts of pork, cucumber, chicken, carrot and thin white mushrooms, with a small quail egg perched in the middle. Small plates of tofu, mushrooms and bean sprouts accompanied bowls of fried fat, thick bones and cilantro. We waited quietly, listening to the cacophony in the kitchen a few feet away. Then the cooks brought out the bowls of steaming broth, thick with chicken fat to hold in the heat. They set one in front of each of us and emphatically pointed at the ingredients and our bowls. You have to move fast in order to fully cook your food.

Across the Bridge Noodles, sometimes translated as Crossing the Bridge Noodles, are a traditional food in Yunnan. Like with many Chinese traditions, these noodles have a corresponding myth about their creation. There are many versions, but the most common story according to Wild China is of a man studying for his imperial exams. He sought a tranquil space to study on a forested island near his village. Every day, his wife made the long walk across the bridge and onto the island. By the time she arrived, the food would be cold. Her husband was growing thin and she grew worried about him. One day, she packaged the broth and noodles separately. A thick layer of chicken fat helped insulate the noodles and the broth was still hot enough to cook the meat and vegetables once she arrived at the island and her husband was able to eat. He passed his exams and gave credit to his wife’s noodles for his success. Thus, Across the Bridge noodles were born.

We heard this story from our chefs as well as from several other locals, and the stories changed each time. The emphasis on the husband’s dedication to his studies and the wife’s care and ingenuity stayed the same. The meal takes a massive amount of preparation, and we could feel the love that went into the soup while we ate. 

Another dinner served in Dali, featuring local vegetables, lichen from the mountains and a jasmine flower omelette. 

The fresh ingredients that shone in Across the Bridge Noodles also pop up in dishes all over Dali. Restaurants from all around Dali use fresh vegetables and meats from the markets that pepper the area. Xizhou has a large morning vegetable market in the center of town that we explored our first morning before class. I asked Michael Chen, one of the staff people at the center where we stayed, about the source of the vegetables. He told me that some are grown locally but many are bought wholesale at other markets along the lake and then re-sold in smaller towns. The markets were beautiful- piles of dragon fruit, mangos and mangosteens spread out on blankets on the ground. There is an entire street filled with live chickens and fish flopping in shallow tubs of water. Stalls of spices and herbs line an inner market area and people sell freshly gathered mushrooms from baskets on the street.

We visited the World Agroforestry Center in Kunming, and learned that more than eight hundred types of edible mushrooms grow in abundance in Yunnan, out of 3,000 total globally. Yunnan one of the most diverse areas for edible mushrooms in the world. Every time researchers from the center go into the field, they find mushrooms that are unknown to science. These mushrooms find their way into Chinese medicine and culinary dishes around the world. Sometimes they don’t travel far though, like the fresh mushrooms in our Across the Bridge noodle soup.

Dali University Tea Plantation

I’m an avid tea drinker. I probably consume about two cups a day and I have a total of three teapots in my dorm room, and two more at home. In high school I once drank a different type of tea every day for a month, and I made it to thirty comfortably without going out and buying anything new. I’m not alone in my obsession with tea: tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world apart from water, and according to teausa.com, “It is the only beverage commonly served hot or iced, anytime, anywhere, for any occasion.”

Picking tea at the Dali University Tea Plantation 

            Yunnan is famous for tea production, especially pu’er, and I was absolutely thrilled to learn we were visiting a tea plantation in class. We drove an hour along the shore of lake Erhai to the Dali to the Dali University Tea Plantation, up in the foothills of the Cangshan mountains. The tea plantation doubles as a visitor and education center, and we got to pick our own tea leaves and learn about the preparation of different types of tea first-hand. 

All tea is made from the same plant, Camellia Sinensis. The difference is in the treatment after picking. We spent an hour picking the tender small leaves in the plantation. The most valuable leaves are the ones that are still furled (especially for white tea, which is what we were harvesting tea for.) White tea is dried and sometimes lightly roasted. It has more buds than another teas and a light flavor. Green tea, in contrast, is steamed or pan fired after harvesting to prevent oxidization and keep the fresh-picked flavor. 

Yunnan is famous for its pu’er, a type of black tea. Black tea (called red tea in China) is allowed to oxidize. They dry the leaves, then oxidize them in controlled temperature and humidity rooms. The leaves are then dried again to stop the oxidization process. Pu'er tea is then pressed into blocks. Raw pu'er continues oxidizing over time and gets better with age. Cooked pu'er doesn't continue fermenting. 

Blocks of tea that get better with age were ideal for trade along the Ancient Tea Horse Road, which went through this area.

You could see tea plantations covering hillsides all over Dali, with women picking the small leaves all day. It’s grueling work. I was tired after just an hour picking leaves in the sun. The process of making Matcha, the powdered green tea that I painted this postcard with, is even more intensive. They must cover the leaves for the last three weeks of growing to preserve the taste of the amino acids that give Matcha its rich, sweet flavor. Then they grind the leaves very slowly. If the mill stone goes too fast, the heat will alter the aroma of the leaves. According to the Specialty Tea Alliance, it can take up to thirty minutes to grind 15 grams of Matcha (enough for about 6 cups.)

Learning more about the process of producing tea made me understand the often high prices- picking enough tea for a single cup took me about an hour, without all the added labor of drying and processing.

Gimmelwald

We left Montreux in the morning and got on the Golden Pass route to Interlaken. It's known as one of the most beautiful train routes in Switzerland, and it was obvious why.

We spent the whole trip in a car with a Chinese tour group. Every time we passed something pretty they would collectively ohhhh and ahhh and pack into that side of the train to take pictures of everything. It made us appreciate the view more too! 

My mom and I planned a Rick Steves' trip. We read his guide books, listened to his podcasts, and spent hours in his Edmonds store mapping out our trip. Like hundreds of American tourists before us, we wouldn't have ended up in Gimmalwald without him. 

 After a train ride, bus ride and gondola ride up the side of a mountain we reached Gimmelwald by early afternoon. 

Hotel Mittaghorn, with its L shaped hotel sign and mountain view. 

We got a room in Rick's favorite hotel partly based on his advice and partly because that was the only room left on the mountain. 

With our reservation, we got a very long email detailing exactly what we would NOT find at the hotel. It seems many of Rick's travelers expect chocolates on their pillows, a bathroom in their room and *gasp* an easy walk to the hotel. 

My mom and I are tough. We climbed Mount Rainier and have camped out in the dirt more times than I can count. But the walk up to the hotel aggravated my cough and by the time we found our room I sounded like I was coughing up a lung. 

Instead of actually manning the desk, they leave paper out for you to sign in by yourself. And they don't lock any of the rooms, so we just saw our paper and walked right in. I'm not sure if we would ever have seen the host if he hadn't heard my coughing. He sauntered over and welcomed us to the hotel with this creepy little giggle. A few minutes later he was back with more repulsive british accented giggles, and said he would actually prefer we not stay there and asked us to please leave as soon as possible. 

Considering that you have to take a bus and a gondola to get to the town and every single other room in the village was booked, he couldn't exactly kick us out that night. But we sure didn't hang around long. As soon as we had grabbed our raincoats, we were off into the mountains. 

Just walking down the street in Gimmalwald is an amazing experience. 

The gondola up to Gimmelwald keeps going all the way to a big observatory, the Schilthorn, that has views of the Jungfrau and was the setting for a James Bond movie in the 60's. They really milked the whole James Bond thing, with life sized cut outs, a huge museum and the theme song playing in the gondola. 

They stamped 007 on  my hamburger. These people take Bond seriously- and have been, for almost 50 years. 

We had ordered Eurail passes for Switzerland and were delighted to find that they worked for the gondola up to Gimmelwald. Since we'd paid ahead, it all felt free! However the ride up to Schilthorn cost extra, so we wanted to time it right with the unpredictable weather. We reached the top of the gondola just as the clouds started rolling in and ran up to the observatory deck. This was easier said than done, as the stairs led up through the Bond museum, gift shop and restaurant. The whole group of us getting of the gondola had a hard time finding it. 

Montreux

We felt the legendary Swiss efficiency the moment we got on our bus to Montreux. It was called The Saint Bernard Express and was adorably decorated (and wonderfully clean.) The bus left right on time and we enjoyed views of the Italian Alps through the clouds. Mom and I sat as far away from everyone else as we could, partly because my cough sounded deadly but mostly because we didn't want the locals to hear us oohhhh-ing and ahhhhhh-ing over every single cute little house. We passed through this big tunnel, border patrol boarded the bus and checked our papers, and then we were in Switzerland. 

The view from our bus over the Italian Alps into Switzerland

We kept our eyes glued to the windows until the bus dropped us off at the train station. The train station was clean and made perfect sense! They printed us out a sheet of which trains to get on and within the hour we were in Montreux. 

The view from the highest tower.

The train dropped us off right next to the Chateu de Chillon and we slowly strolled along the river (slowly due to the heavy packs.) The castle had lockers for our bags (which I was very excited about) and wine tasting (which my mom was very excited about). We spent our afternoon exploring every level of the castle, including the gift shop. 

After a dinner of bread and cheese, we set off to find our accomodations. Mom made reservations at a hostel right next to the castle but it turned out to be a good walk down the lake. I sat and watched our bags while she looked for it. After a while, I got bored and started painting. Mom came back and we sat and watched the sun sink behind the lakefront castle. 

My mom snapped a shot of me painting Chateau de Chillon.

And this is how my painting turned out!

Once we had lost the light, we walked to our hostel. We paid extra to have our own room, but after a few hours my mom started to feel sick. There was mold on the wall, sending spores into the air! We complained and they gave us our own room with 6 bunkbeds. It was surprisingly comfortable. 

Our hostel room.

I had a super nutritious dinner of popcorn and nuttela and then headed to bed(s). The next morning we walked to the train and set off for the mountains!

Walking to the train station along Lake Geneva. 

Aosta, The Rome of the Alps

By the time we left Florence, we had figured out Italian trains. Mostly. Our next obstacle was Italian pay phones. 

We were headed up into the Italian Alps to the little town of Aosta. Aosta is known for its mountains and Roman ruins. I had never heard of it. We had reservations at another agritourisma, a vineyard that my mom assured me was walking distance from the train station. With my cough still going strong, 20 feet felt like too far to walk. 

So while we had a 45 minute layover, we tried to call our hosts to ask for a ride. And we could't figure it out. There was no slot for coins, the card reader was too small and everything was in Italian. One of them was out of order for coins (which we couldn't figure out how to insert anyways) and the other one seemed to be in working order, except that it wouldn't work! 

We gave up and got on the train, arriving in Aosta with no idea if our ride would be there (and no idea how to walk to the vineyard either.) Fortunately there were taxis, and within minutes we were driving up a really long, really steep hill that I definitely couldn't have carried my pack up. 

The agritourisma we arrived at was gorgeous. They welcomed us with tea and cookies, showed us the solar powered hot tub and pool and the wood stove heated sauna and told me the wifi password. It was lovely. 

Solar powered hot tub, pretty flowers, cookies... yes. 

Our room was very nice, and felt even nicer in comparison to the hotel we had just left in Florence. Everything was sturdy and solid and new, and we spent the evening relaxing and getting clean.

Our room, separate from the main house and down in the vineyards. 

When you're in a beautiful place, filled with stunning views and fabulous ruins, you sort of feel obligated to go see it all. We were really tired and so the thick cloud cover we woke up to came as a great relief. Since we can't see the mountains anyways, we might as well just stay at the vineyard, get clean and relax for the day! 

My mom did our laundry, we went in the sauna and I tried my best to stop being sick. But no amount of cough drops and sauna time would make my cough go away! 

The sauna was shaped like a wine barrel and powered by a little stove inside. We decided that we need one at home. 

Because even relaxed people need food, my mom braved the walk down into town. It took her about three hours, but she finally returned with pasta and veggies which she cooked up in the amazing kitchen available to us. 

We got wifi, sauna, kitchen and a delicious local breakfast for less than the price of a hostel. I would highly recommend this place to anyone visiting Italy! 

Breakfast was all fresh and local and they left cake out for us later! 

We almost had to walk down into town in order to catch our bus to Switzerland, but one of the owners offered to drive us. Thank goodness, because walking a few feet felt like a hard hike with my stuffed up lungs. 

Walking to our room in the vineyard! 

Our restful day in Aosta was much needed, and I even saw a few Roman ruins and mountains from the car! 

Florence

Unfortunately our trouble with Italian trains did not end with the Cinque Terre. We knew we had to get to Florence, but there was no direct train from Le Spezia (the big train station near the Cinque Terre) to our destination. So we got a ticket with a whole bunch of possible connections and hopped on the next train that seemed promising. 

The way Italian trains seem to work is they give you a really tight connection time and assume you will miss it and take the next train. Every train we took ran at least 5 minutes late and connections were often around the same amount of time, so you arrive at the station after your connection has left! 

Fortunately trains run quite often and there are a myriad of different ways to get to every location. Unfortunately we didn't know any of them. 

So there we were, at a train station with no idea which train to get on. We knew Pisa had a connection to Florence, and we saw on the schedule a train that said Pisa in the small print, so we headed to that track hoping it would work out. 

As the train was rolling into the station, my mom asked the guy standing next to her if the train went to Pisa. It didn't. We were about to jump on a train going to Milan. Milan is not at all close to Florence. 

He told us his name was Rino, he was going to Florence too and he would show us how to get there. 

We followed him to random little towns, ran after him during 2 minute connections and listened to him talk about the language of architecture. Rino had spent years reading the Bible and piecing together what Jerusalem might have looked like based on descriptions. He works in city planning, and he explained how the way a city is laid out affects the emotions of it's inhabitants. He assured us that Florence is a happy place. 

We miraculously made it to the Florence station and followed our directions to our hotel, built into a palace in the heart of Florence.

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I was a little bit dubious of the stability of the elevator. 

It must have been a really crappy palace. The windows were falling out, the elevator was terrifying, the beds were hard as rocks and there was no bathroom in the room. I felt like Cinderella BEFORE she married the Prince, with only mosquitoes and centipedes for friends. 

What our hotel lacked in beauty, It made up for in location. We were a 2 minute walk from the Duomo and exploring the macaron, pastry and artisan craft shops was a thrill I enjoyed immensely (although my wallet didn't enjoy it as much.) 

The Duomo, an impressive dome church that was never completely finished but is beautiful nonetheless. 

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Th guides talked to us with little microphones that transmitted to our headsets. We had to follow close behind or the sound would cut out, so we looked like a lost little cluster of sheep. 

We spent an entire day on guided tours, seeing the statues and paintings that adorn Florence everywhere. Florence seems to have been pretty much built by the Medici, a family of bankers who got rich off giving loans with ridiculously high interest rates and bought their way out of guilt (and theoretically into heaven) by using their vast fortune to build churches and fund the arts in general. The guild of sheep herders also built their fair share of churches and you can see their sheep crest on buildings everywhere. 

Women in medieval times appear to have had a strange idea of beauty, at least according to their portraits and our tour guides. They would pluck out their eyebrows and the hair above their forehead in order to have perfectly round faces. They wanted to be pale so they would cake on lead based makeup. They believed being blond like the angels was perfection so they dyed their hair with horse urine and used manure as conditioning masks. They also believed bathing was unhealthy. I can't imagine they smelled very beautiful.

We saw the Uffici, climbed up to the Piazza de Michelangelo, crossed the Ponte Vecchio and admired David in all his giant nude marble splendor. 

While we were walking around near the Ponte Vecchio, we passed by a weird looking spa with fish in the foot baths! I'd heard of spas using fish to clean people's feet so my mom and I checked it out. For 15 euros we were in! The fish felt like little bubbles tickling my toes. It felt so nice after all the days on our feet! 

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Fish cleaning my feet! It felt like a foot rub. 

My favorite part of Florence was the atmosphere. Everyone was calm and reverent of the history and art surrounding them. I met artists on every street corner and ended every day with inspiration (as well as some purchased art and artisan products, much to the chagrin of my poor wallet.) We walked past traditional paper makers, furniture carvers and marble stone workshops that have been there for centuries. Roman towers peak out from between creperies and jewelry stores and the whole city feels both old and beautiful.

I really loved the artisan shops. This one sold handmade paper journals. 

I was sad to leave, but I'm excited to someday go back.

Bye for now, Florence! 

Cinque Terre

Travel isn't about the destination, it's about the journey. But let's face it, sometimes the destination is prettier, less stressful and a whole lot easier. 

My mom in front of the ticket machine that took 30 minutes to work. 

Trains in Italy didn't get better after we arrived in Bonassola. In order to buy a ticket you had to use one of these evil little machines. If you hit the buttons too fast, inserted your card too fast, breathed too fast... it would make you start all over again. Also you had to type in the whole name of a town in order to buy a ticket, so we went to the towns that were easy to spell first. It took us 30 minutes to buy a 2 euro train ticket. 

Buying a ticket isn't enough to get on the train though. You have to validate it. If you are caught on a train with a ticket you didn't validate, they can fine you like 70 euros or something crazy like that. Not that they ever really checked, but better safe than sorry! 

Don't forget to validate your ticket!

In order to validate your ticket, you just stick it into one of the green machines at the station. And hope it works. Often they would be out of order or it would take three or four times to get it to work. No idea why it wouldn't just work the first time. 

We decided that this was all a plot by the train companies to get us to adopt the Italian life style. You have to relax and slow down, or else your ticket won't print! 

I was pretty sick, and spent the first morning painting, coughing and trying to get some food down my swollen throat. My mom went on a bike ride and chatted with the guests in the room next to us. When people are on extended trips, they get really tired of just talking to each other and will talk for hours with whoever they meet. It's one of the best things about traveling! (Besides gelato.) 

I refused to miss out on seeing Italy, and dragged myself out of bed. Armed with cough drops, tissues and a bottle of sore throat spray we headed out into the Cinque Terre. 

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Castles by the sea are pretty stunningly cool. 

Over the three days we spent in Bonassola, we managed to see all five little cities. A cough-syrup induced fog blended them all together in my head but I guarantee they were all quite beautiful! 

The first town we visited was Monterosso, because it was easier to spell. It is the biggest town, with lots of restaurants, gelato shops and tons of tourists. It also has a castle with a restaurant right next to it. Which is pretty neat. 

Being sick on vacation is not much fun, but in Italy there were a few perks. I could justify popsicles and gelato as "medications" for my throat and eat as much as I wanted! 

This popsicle had chunks of real cantaloupe in it and is probably the best thing I have ever eaten in my entire life. 

Everywhere we went was gorgeous. We climbed castles at sunset and walked through art galleries and my mom went swimming. The hard part was getting there. 

The trains in the Cinque Terre aren't just hard to get on, they are hard to get off too. The trains have to pass through tunnels between the towns, and sometimes they stop in the tunnels instead of the station. You have to jump off in the darkness and feel your way towards the station against the walls. 

One night we were trying to get back to Bonassola on the train. At the last minute they switched the track it was coming in on and then the train passed behind a parked one and stopped in the tunnel! We finally noticed what had happened and ran to catch it, but it pulled away right as we were trying to open the doors. 

As I kept getting sicker, the walking part of traveling was getting harder too. I'd walk 10 feet, cough for 10 minutes, and repeat. But the destinations were all still beautiful! 

I enjoyed sitting in Vernazza and watching the street life. I mostly enjoyed the sitting part, as we were about the climb the castle in the background and I needed to gather my strength! 

We never got too lost and I consider that to be a great accomplishment. The Cinque Terre was beautiful but I was excited to move on to our next adventure. And I was hoping to get well along the way. 

Bonassola

After our night in Livorno, I noticed a tickle in my throat. I drank a pot of tea, took vitamin D and oregano oil and steadfastly refused to be sick. 

We were headed next to the Cinque Terre, a cluster of five towns on the Italian cost that are famous for being remote and adorably charming. They have recently gotten a lot more touristy so we decided to stay a few towns north, in the "modern fishing villiage" of Bonassola.

The hotel concierge told us to catch the local bus to get to the train station, which would take us to Bonassola. The bus was supposed to cost 1.70 euros so we had our coins ready. When we got on the bus, however, we couldn't figure out how to pay! There was no money box, no tickets, no anything. We waited until we reached the station and then tried to hand our money to the driver. He laughed, waved us off and told us not to worry about it. Italians seemed to be even more relaxed and unconcerned than I'd imagined!

The trains were another matter. Italian trains are notoriously chaotic. The guy at the ticket booth spent about 5 minutes slowly scribbling down connections in almost unintelligible handwriting. We ran for connection after connection and nearly got on the wrong train more than once, but finally we made it to Bonassola!

My mom had printed out a giant stack of papers for every place we had reservations, and she pulled out a map of how to get to our accommodation. It had a few lines that were supposed to be roads, but no labels for which street was which. We just kind of picked a direction and walked, hoping the town was small enough for us to find it. 

We saw a few signs and walked our way up into the hills, passing through teeny alleys and streets that seemed more like private walkways. My throat was getting worse and so my mom took the lead in tracking down our room. 

We had a little outdoor kitchen with a table to cook on. 

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The vineyards up in the hills of Bonassola. 

We decided to stay at an agritourisma, which is basically a farm with a guest house. Agritourismas are part of a program to help keep small family farms alive and we were happy to help this winery/ lemon farm/ everything garden. 

The family was super friendly and helpful and took my mom up for a tour of the vineyard. I slept in instead, as my sore throat was getting worse. 

After settling into our little room (with wifi, yay!) we headed back down into the town and grabbed our first Italian pizza. It was AMAZING. We're talking 2 euros for a slice of pesto-covered heaven with pasta and cheese backed onto the top in a layer of gooey deliciousness. With a bottle of lemonade and some gelato, we were ready for our first Italian picnic. And you couldn't beat the view. 

The view from our picnic in Bonassola! 

Pasta, basil and sun-dried tomatoes, how Italian can you get? 

As I am continually reminding my mom, I am a starving art student and therefore I can't afford to eat out. So we made good use of the little outdoor kitchen. We bought a package of fresh pasta, a sprig of basil and some spreads and called it dinner! 

If you look back up at the picture of the outdoor table, you will notice beautiful candle sticks and a ceiling of lush grape vines. All of this adds to the romantic beauty of the setting, and I ended up Skyping my boyfriend into dinner! 

We were sitting there, eating our meal, and then all of the sudden an ant appeared. And then another. They seemed to crawl out of nowhere faster than we could pinch them away. My mom was on cooking duty and took over ant patrol, protecting our food from the little bugs. I tried clearing the food to the center of the plate so I'd notice when they crawled across the white border. I tried stacking plates on top of cups so they couldn't crawl up. Nothing made any difference. 

After about the second dinner, I finally had a breakthrough. That beautiful grapevine that lent a romantic ambiance to our little dinner table was also dropping ants into our food. After that we ate inside the room. 

With Bonassola set as our base camp, and with me getting sicker by the minute, we began our exploration of the Cinque Terre.

A Ferry Scary Night

I think I first got the idea to take a ferry from Barcelona to Italy because it came with a discount if you buy a Eurail pass. It was supposed to be almost like a cruise, with a casino and restaurants and cabins to rent. All that was true, although not at all what we were expecting. 

First we couldn't find the place to board the ship. We finally got a taxi and he drove all the way around the docks of Barcelona and crossed a bridge over to where the cruises dock. He took us about 2 miles out of the way before finally he turned around and got us to our dock.

Once we got there, we accidentally got in the truck drivers line. There was this huge fight between an Italian family and the woman behind the counter about something to do with their truck. I don't think it ended well.

Finally another American guy arrived and a couple from Australia and a couple who was backpacking. Then these three Italians dressed in rags with a dreadlocks, a guitar, dried flowers, their bags and a dog show up. Two of them leave and it turns out that the one girl was dumped by her boyfriend and kicked out. Of course she doesn't speak English well so she told us this with hand gestures.

The 7 of us are waiting in this huge room wondering where the boat is, because there's no boat near us. Eventually they send a bus and we have to drag the girl's dog and bags on in order to finally leave.

The boat left at midnight. We thought that the 7 of us were the only walk ons and everyone else had just driven on. But when we got on the boat there were hundreds (and I mean HUNDREDS) of people camped out all over the boat already.

It turned out that the boat had started in North Africa and the boat was almost full of people with deck tickets and no actual reserved seats

There were whole families in piles on the floor. People had draped sheets over chairs to make tents. There were grown men just sprawled out in hallways on their prayer rugs sleeping. They pointed us into this weird little dark room to sleep. It had chairs kind of like on an airplane, and there were little children sleeping under them.

Then a party started above our heads. There was live music and dancing and a bar literally right above our seats where we were supposed to sleep. Eventually we gave up and went upstairs, but we could only go one at a time because we were worried about our bags. We slept with our bags clipped together and to us. I kept my phone under my clothes.

It was an old ship, I could tell because the sign showing that you had to wear clothes and not bathing suits looked like it was from the 50s.

We woke up and one at a time went to the bathroom. The floor of the bathroom was covered in 2 inches of water and there was no toilet paper.

We walked around the whole boat. Most of the chairs and couches had people sleeping on them but we found an "internet corner" to sit in.

There was no internet. There weren't even outlets.

It seemed like there were only African people on the boat until about 3 when all the Italians woke up.

Then things got loud and crazy. There were kids running everywhere. There was an empty pool on the boat and they filled it up and all the kids stripped down to their underwear and were playing. It was a writhing mass of little children.

I read my book then for a while. They had good espresso and my mom had 6 of them. Two Italian girls came over to talk to me and pretty soon there was a crowd of kids around us trying to teach us how to speak Italian. They kept giggling, and I'm not sure if it was because of our pronunciation or because they weren't teaching us the words they said they were.

We were started to get tired of being on the boat (this was at about hour 19) and so we packed up and met up with our Australian friends. It took about another hour to get into the dock. And then we couldn't figure out how to get off the boat. They announced everything in Italian and Arabic, neither of which I speak at all. My mom had booked a hotel just four blocks from where the boat was supposed to dock. But for some reason we didn't dock there.

We finally made it off the boat. I saw a line of cars and said "yay taxis!"

They weren't taxis. They were police cars. They were searching everyone to make sure we weren't trafficking drugs. Fortunately we didn't look suspicious so we got through okay. But then we were just standing in the middle of this dock at night surrounded by police. We asked them where a taxi might be and they pointed down the pier. There was only one taxi. And our hotel and our friends' hotel were both over 10 kilometers away in opposite directions.

They let us take the cab while the police and the taxi driver called them another one. My mom said "I've never been happier to get to a hotel room."

Barcelona

Val and her mom drove me to Santiago for my flight to Barcelona and I boarded the little plane with a "typical Spanish" sandwich in hand. It was salty jamón, salty melted cheese and salty bread. The plane charged for water so my determination to not pay for anything extra was well tested. 

My mom met me at the airport with a bottle of water in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. I chose the water, chugged it all down in one gulp and then started talking nonstop about my time in Spain. 

Mom had flown in earlier that morning, slept in our hotel all day and then headed to the airport to meet me. We were staying in this really nice hotel in the middle of a bunch of factories that was (sort of) close to the airport. 

It was late and we were both tired but hunger prevailed and we headed out into the city to find something to eat. We ended up at a little cafe selling pizza. I tried to stop my mom but she ordered two pizzas, a pasta, a salad, and a cup of wine that ended up being more like a vat. People in Spain eat late and stay out late, and there were children roller skating into tables and jumping over chairs all over the little square. 

The next morning we packed up our leftover pizza and headed out into Barcelona. With all of our stuff. We spent the whole day sightseeing with all our luggage on our backs. Good thing we packed light! 

Our first stop was the Sagrada Familia. Of course, we got off at the wrong station. So we were wandering around Barcelona, trying to spot this giant cathedral. Eventfully we got back on the metro and found our way to the right stop.

My mom bought our tickets the night before so we got to skip the giant line and walk right into the giant cathedral. I wasn't impressed.

The cathedral was a hodge podge of modern art and random colors. 

I mean, it's a huge building. It has statues and stained glass and it's kind of cool that it's still being constructed. But after seeing all the old cathedrals in Spain, the Sagrada Familia came up short. It is modern and bright and colorful and the columns are different colors and nothing seems to go together.  The "quiet area for worship" is just a roped off portion in the center with metal folding chairs. It doesn't feel sacred inside, it feels more like an airport terminal designed in the 80's.

The best part of the cathedral was the locker room where we got to store our packs during the visit. My bag was starting to feel very heavy and it wasn't even lunch time yet. 

We were only in Barcelona because that's were our ferry to Italy left from, and I didn't have high expectations for our visit. I was happily surprised by how much we saw and how pleasant it was. We spent the afternoon wandering the narrow streets, admiring street art and sipping hot chocolate and coffee at cafés. Barcelona hot chocolate is like molten chocolate pudding and the coffee is rich and dark. The only thing better were the macarons and meringues adorning the windows of every bakery. 

I ate way too many sweets in Barcelona... and I didn't stop just because we changed counties, unfortunately for my stomach! 

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On Las Ramblas, people dress as statues and move when you throw them coins. It sounds like a rough job!

We wandered right into the Picasso museum, which displays his works in chronological order. Picasso first lived in A Coruna, moved to Barcelona and then headed to Paris. That is (sort of) the same as my journey! His art slowly transitions from traditional academic work to his typical brightly colored sketches. It seems as though he is growing backwards, which I guess he is. He says he spent his whole life learning to paint like a child, after all. 

We strolled down Las Ramblas, admiring the people posing as statutes and the wares on display in the artisan booths. 

After getting lost in the metro and trapped in a station, we finally found a place to eat dinner. I ordered one last goat cheese salad and my mom got tapas. She didn't ask what kind of tapas, how much food it was or even the price and so she ended up paying 23 euros for a giant platter of crab and octopus that she barely ate. 

It was getting late and we had a boat to catch so we headed towards the docks and an entirely different kind of adventure. 

Home in Sada

After an amazing first week in Spain, I finally got to settle down for a while at Val's home in Sada. Val told me that my room would be on the third floor, and I'd have to climb down the stairs to get to a bathroom. I didn't realize she meant "climb" literally.

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My creaky, scary ladder, I am really amazed I haven't killed myself falling down. 

My room is up on the third floor, which turned out to be an attic. To get to my bed I have to climb a creaky ladder, duck through four rooms, move four drape doors out of the way, and turn off three sets of lights. 

Up in the attic there's a nice little couch, a bed, tables and chairs and a dresser and rack for hanging clothes. There's also wifi (yay!!!!!)

The rest of their house is very nice, with a library office, a kitchen that is always stocked with fresh loaves of bread and a lemon tree in the yard. 

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My lemon and book before Jazz showed up! 

I decided to pick a fresh lemon and peacefully read a book outside but the dog Jazz had other ideas. Apparently her habit of jumping up on my every time I'm near her means she likes me. Weird way of showing it, doggy!

We did a couple of day trips from Sada, heading to Santiago, A Coruna and the northern coast. The whole family welcomed me with open arms and I felt at home right away. 

Sailing in the Atlantic

I knew the family I'm staying with owned a sailboat and when my host sister suggested we go sailing for a few days I was slightly dubious. How could all of us fit in a little sailboat for that long? Would there be enough food? What about bathrooms? Would I have to duck every time the sail-thingy swung around? 

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Their boat was the biggest one at the docks. I was quite impressed. 

Luckily for me, they have a really nice catamaran. Compared to the rafts I spend weeks on while floating down Washington rivers, this thing is more like a sailyacht than a sailboat. 

The whole experience was like a dream. The boat has three bedroom cabins, two bathrooms (each with showers,) two tables with benches, a full kitchen complete with toaster and stove, and lots of space to sunbath. We were joined by two little girls and their mom for a day trip out into the sea. 

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This is me on the boat in front of the little island. I've decided I need to buy a boat and go find my own little island in the Atlantic. 

We sailed out to the most picturesque little island you can imagine, with a white sand beach all around it. There was a raft attached to the end of the boat and I pictured all of us pitching in and rowing over to the island. But the raft had its own strong motor and we jetted over there in no time! I spent my island time collecting shells, swimming in the sea and wondering what I had ever done to get this lucky. I still haven't figured it out. 

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Paradise. This is paradise. I am seriously going to buy a boat. Who needs college when you can buy a boat? 

The water was so salty that you floated without even trying, much different from the river water at home. 

We took the boat back to the dock to sleep, and went to this local seafood restaurant for dinner. I tried calamari and mussels for the first time, right next to the sea where they were caught. They were both... interesting. We slept on the boat, which turned out to have wifi and outlets when it's docked. Seriously I need one of these boats. The next day we took a drive up to the top of a mountain for an amazing view of the whole area and then sailed out to another beach for the day.

By this time I'd gotten to know my sailing companions quite well. Val's dad was the strong and knowledgeable captain, steering the boat in the right direction and trying to communicate with me English. He has to read books in English for his job so he knows lots of words, just not how to say them. Trying to figure out what he was trying to say was always possible but a bit of a challenge! 

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Lori, Mimi and their mom try to pose for a selfie and end up distracted instead. 

The two little girls we shared the boat with were both sweet and wonderful. They were also complete and total opposites of each other. Lori, the younger sister with fair hair and skin, is rambunctious and crazy and never slows down. In the first two minutes that I knew her, she declared herself to be a sexy beast, flirted with the man on the next boat over, threw herself into my arms and then ran away down the dock. She is around 8. Her older sister is dark skinned, calm and conscientious. Val has been teaching them both English lessons and she has to encourage Mimi to speak up while trying to get Lori to stop talking! 

No matter what we were doing, Lori always wanted to be doing something else. She wanted to swim if we were sailing or eat if we were swimming or head back if we were just relaxing. She convinced me to give her a painting lesson and three minutes in she was already on to the next thing! It was quite entertaining (and exhausting.) 

The only thing the boat lacked was fresh vegetables and fruits. Val is allergic to fructose so the typical Spanish diet of bread, meat, cheese and fruits is narrowed down even more. After two days of eating bread and ham for every meal, my stomach was starting to feel a little bit awful. I was quite happy to be on solid ground with a nice big salad once the trip was over! 

Castilla means CASTLES!!!

In my town of Leavenworth, you can tell that someone is a tourist by their fascination with deer. Visitors will stop on the sides (and sometimes in the middle) of the roads, excitedly leaning out of their windows with cameras and binoculars in hand to see the indifferent animals. After a few days, the tourists realize that deer are absolutely everywhere and stop getting crazily excited and blocking up traffic in order to see them. 

That was me with old buildings. 

Our hotel had the most beautiful stone columns I'd ever seen! This lobby was also my first introduction to little European coffees, for which it will always be sacred. 

Our train pulled up to the little town of Avila and I immediately went crazy about the buildings. There was a giant cathedral and a wall around the town and an old looking tower and ANOTHER cathedral and our hotel was build into an old convent with stone columns from the 16th century! The view from outside looked almost like a castle! There were real paintings on the walls, a real bed, a shower with hot water, clean towels and, above all, WIFI! I may have been staying in a renovated nunnery but I felt like a princess! 

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I took pictures of every old-looking structure I saw. And there were a lot of old-looking structures. Val and her mother laughed at me for that. They got an even bigger kick out of my habit of photographing every meal I ate. 

I don't usually take pictures of my food. My Instagram is full of art, not pictures of meals! But Spanish food is so beautiful I couldn't help it. 

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Arroz con leche, lasagna, ensalada de queso de cabra, flan, gazpacho-  it was all delicious and beautiful! 

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The view from the wall in Avila. 

We spent one night in Avila, touring cathedrals and walking around the walls of the city. Then we got in the car and drove on to the next city, Salamanca. 

At this point my inability to communicate in Spanish was becoming painfully obvious. I had spent a few days in Spain and was starting to get the lisp in "grathias" down but my vocabulary was pretty much limited to verbs, adjectives and farm animals. I could communicate with my exchange student Val just fine because she speaks English, but her mom speaks less English than I speak Spanish! Trying to order food was an interesting challenge but fortunately some farm animals were on the menu. I guess that's how I ended up with goat cheese salad so many times. 

On the drive to Salamanca, between exclamations of "muy bonito!" and "increible!" I saw my first real castle. It was a run down old thing on the side of the road that Val and her mom barely looked at. But I was jumping up and down in my seat yelling "mira!" and pointing out at the castilla! Val's mom promised we could see more while I was there, and she sure kept that promise. 

Eventually we arrived in Salamanca. It took about an hour to find a parking spot, but pretty soon we were wandering around the two giant cathedrals that it's famous for. Val has an old friend in the town so I walked around with her mom. We managed to communicate through basic phrases, hand gestures, and a translation app on her phone. The app was set to British instead of American English so she asked me "are you fancy?" instead of "are you hungry" quite a few times. 

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One of the cathedrals at Salamanca, as seen from a balcony halfway up it. 

The spiral staircases were deceptively difficult to walk on. I'm amazed none of us fell and were added to the crypt below! 

There were these secret stairways leading to bell towers, rooftops and little museums all around the cathedral. I had too much fun climbing up all of them and ignoring the signs telling us to wait in, as Val's mom would say, "typical Spanish" fashion. 

Salamanca is also famous for its university, which is over 800 years old. By the end of our short visit there, I was already planning my semester studying abroad among the ancient cathedrals and beautiful cafes. They do have a really good program for learning Spanish as a foreign language... we will see if I end up back there some day, I certainly hope so! 

And with that we were on our way to one more city where we spent the night and went to see a castle the next day. By this time, old little cathedrals and churches had lost their earlier thrill. They were still beautiful and amazing, just not so novel. Just as the deer are still beautiful after the tourists have gotten used to them. But castles were still a thrill! I'd never been in one before, so we wandered inside the ruins of this one. 

This is a REAL LIVE CASTLE! 

After this quick castle visit we hopped back in the car (with some cheese and chocolate) and drove up to Val's home town in Galicia! 

Madrid

Val's apartment, which she shares with another girl. That couch was my bed for the time I spent in Madrid.

After Val picked me up at the airport, we made our way back to her apartment. It was a cute little flat on the first floor that had two bedrooms and a comfy couch. I quickly claimed this couch as my own. 

After over 24 hours of traveling I was somehow still standing (and rearing to go) so we set out to find some wifi to buy our train tickets out of Madrid a few days later. 

That is why the very first store I went into in Madrid was a Starbucks. I'm not proud of that.

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The differences between our cultures was perhaps most obvious at chain restaurants. Lemon tea had actual lemon, jamon sandwiches were sold instead of bagels and everything came with a little bottle of olive oil. 

It amazed me how many "American" chains were in Spain. Burger King, McDonalds and Taco Bell restaurants could be spotted in 300 year old buildings and next to authentic jamon stores or tapas bars. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find a book in English or the right brand of face wash but I shouldn't have been- in Madrid, Dove is just as common as anything else. 

After our little walk to find wifi, I lay down to "take a nap" and ended up sleeping for around 8 hours. My little habit of falling asleep in the middle of the day lasted the entire time I was in Madrid and greatly impacted my sight seeing in the light. Fortunately, Madrid never seems to sleep. 

My two goals in Spain were to drink a beer and try jamon, the famous Spanish ham. Both were extremely easy to come by. Val and I walked around the city, getting familiar with the metro and the loud clatter of these flashing toys that flew up into the air in all the big squares.

The one day I managed to stay awake past noon, we ventured over to the Royal Palace in Madrid. I gawked at the price (just a few euros, I'm cheap) and almost didn't go in. I'm so glad Val convinced me otherwise. 

The Royal Palace of Madrid. I swear it was even bigger on the inside. 

The Royal Palace was exactly how you would picture a palace- ridiculously decadent, extravagant and downright royal. There was a room for eating breakfast, a room for writing letters, a room for greeting guests, a room for receiving questions from citizens, a room for praying, an actual cathedral room and another room for worshiping. (Keep in mind that there was also a giant cathedral on the other side of the square. These people took building places to worship very seriously!) 

This cathedral was directly across from the Royal Palace. It was equally impressive, although it didn't have signs in English (unlike the palace) so everything in the cathedrals museum was lost on me. 

After a few days of exploring (lots of walking) and sleeping (mostly at odd hours,) Val and I got on a train and headed into the Spanish country side.