Spring Break, Semana Santa style

Get ready for the marathon spring break post! Sorry it's so long, hope you can make it through..

After a hectic weekend in Barcelona, I had a lot of school work to catch up on, and preparations for spring break..Natalia also decided over coffee that we needed to go out dancing before we left for break. Before meeting up, Thursday night I went out for tapas (jamon with paprika, and some kind of toast with melted cheese and jamon..) and then drinks at a Hawaiian themed bar on Plaza Santana with a Spanish friend. From Sol, Natalia and her friend Cuca, and my friend Kim and I headed to Palacio for good night of dancing. Kim and I had to head out early because our flight left the next day, but we had fun trying to find American "giris" for Natalia :)

I finished the last of my packing in the morning and stuffed all the canned food and goodies my señora prepared for me in my bag, but at the airport the zipper broke. I had to get the bag plastic wrapped at the airport so it wouldn't burst..and had to travel with it like that and all the stares for the whole trip. We flew into Lisbon and took a bus to the base of the Barrio Chiado. The city is set on several hills and has beautiful views of the bay everywhere you look. The streets are steep and narrow, and the buildings have cute iron balconies. It has a feel of a Greek, Mediteranean, Italian city all mixed, with a unique charm of its own. I think I liked Lisbon best of all the stops on the trip. We hiked up to the hostel, which was one of the best I've stayed at. The staff was super friendly and helpful, it was clean and bright, and the other guests were pretty nice. A walking tour around part of the city started with coffee at an old cafe frequented by famous authors, and then to the top of an old lookout elevator tower with great views of the city. We wandered around one of the main shopping streets to Plaza de Comercio, which was across the street from the water and had a cool arch leading from the city. After traveling and dinner, we were ready to crash early at the hostel.


The next morning we hiked up through the oldest part of the city, the Alfama district, to a flea market there, and then up to the remains of an old Moorish fortress. The Alfama district is full of steep, tiny windy streets and small churches. The fortress only had a few original walls and the rest were reconstructed, but it was still a cool view of city. We could see the Lisbon version of the SF Golden Gate Bridge, which looked like it be the same one spanning from the city to Marin. I definitely got a little homesick for Berkeley! We walked down from the fortress back to Plaza de Comercio, and took the train toward Belem, a suburb of the city of Lisbon a few kilometers away. On the waterfront there is an amazing monastery San Jeronimo which is where the sailors camped out before heading out for their sea voyages. Next to the small church there is an amazing cloister with a courtyard with Gothic arches and columns.

From the monastery we walked along the water and took in the view of the Torre de Belem, which was only 5 stories, but apparently the closest Lisbon has to a national monument. We met up with the rest of the group to devour delicious custard pastries at a famous Belem pastry shop. After some home cooked hostel goodness (aka some of my canned food stash from my señora) we headed out to the Barrio Alta close by. Full of small bars and narrow streets, the party spills out onto the street. Most places don't really have room inside, so people get their drink and just stand and talk with friends in the street. The party in the street vibe reminded me of a much toned down version of Bourbon Street in New Orleans. It was a great atmosphere, and my friend Kim and I ended up with some new hostel friends from Italy and Argentina speaking a combination of Italian, Portuguese, English and Spain over caipirinhas and wine at a tapas place with tables set up in the middle of the street.

The next morning some of the group headed south, while Kim and I took a train to Sintra, a small village with summer palaces and castle ruins 45 minutes away. We toured the Palacio Nacional of Sintra, which had an odd mix of Moorish and Baroque? styles and random themed ceiling and decorations, like of birds or ships. After sampling the local travesseiros pastries at the quaint village we headed up the hill toward the ruins of the Moorish castle. 15 minutes into the hike we realized that the incline and distance on the map was a bit deceiving...so we tried our luck hitchhiking by flagging down cars heading up the way. Soon enough 2 guys heading up to the castle offered us a ride, and luckily they were from Spain and we didn't have to fumble with our awful Portuguese. Even by car it was a good 10 minute ride uphill, but the view from the castle of the green valley and ocean was worth it. From Sintra, we took the wrong bus, but ended up in Cascais, a cute beach town with great views and a citadel at the top of the hill. As we were heading back to the train station we ran into our 2 hitchhiking friends..and I finally had a chance to try out the line "Hombre, ¡tu por aqui!" from lengua, though I've got to practice since it came out a bit half-assed. Back in Lisbon the night ended with a delicious meal of Portuguese steak.

From Lisbon I took a 4 hour bus ride to the southern coast of Portugal, to a touristy beach village called Lagos. I met my friends at the beautiful beach, after checking into the hostel we were staying at..called the Rising Cock. (Run by a Portuguese older couple, the logo is a rooster and the place is decorated with the look of an American frat house) The place was a bit too obnoxious and overrun by American spring breakers for my taste, but perfect for celebrating St. Patrick's Day for a night. My señora told me last minute that I should go to another less touristy town on the coast called Tavira instead, but with only a night and reservations already booked I stuck with the original plan. After a short beach walk in the morning a group of 4 of us boarded the bus to Sevilla. The trip was a bit painful, with a stop at almost every coastal Portuguese village on the way..and we finally got to Sevilla at night.


I was staying at a different hostel than my friends because it had already been booked so we parted ways..except that I didn't realize how complicated it would be to get to the place. During Semana Santa, Sevilla is the city most famous in Spain for its religious processions that overrun the entire city. Streets are blocked off and rows of chair and bleachers are set up along the sidewalks, with room in the middle for the processions of floats, musicians, and most intense of all, barefoot and masked candle-bearing participants with pointy hats and robes that Americans now usually associate with the KKK. A huge group of people, hidden by a curtain, carried floats of Jesus and the Virgin, and when they came by the crowd would suddenly become silent. Of course my hostel was located on a small side street with the only entrance from a street blocked off by a procession. With my 2 big bags, I squeezed my way through the crowd to some parallel streets with some directions from sympathetic policemen. But on the last leg, I had no choice but to wait for a pause in the drumming, incense and endless rows of masked figures and try to make my way through against the procession..Needless to say it was a bit of a scary experience to have to make it with an oncoming crowd of hooded figures with candles, but I finally got to my destination! Once I put my bags down it was interesting to watch the procession, and when I met up with my friends later, I showed them where they ended by the Plaza Nueva and cathedral area. Back at the hostel (which was more like a hotel!), I could still smell the incense from my room. The hostel had a diverse group of travelers from all over the world, from Australia to Germany, who had come to check out the daily processions of Semana Santa.


The next day I headed out early and toured the Alcazar, the palace with mixed Moorish and Christian styles and decorative Islamic ornamentation and courtyards. It was similar to the Alhambra in Granada, but not as fancy. But the vast gardens were beautiful. I met up with the girls at the huge cathedral across the way, one of the biggest in Spain, and we saw Columbus' tomb and climbed up the bell tower for a view of the city. Unfortunately it started to rain, but we braved the weather and wove through the Barrio Santa Cruz to the horseshoe-shaped colonnade of the Plaza de España. After gathering our 2 Lagos straggler friends we wove back through Santa Cruz, which used to be the old Jewish ghetto. After tapas I parted ways to make sure I could get my bags at the hostel before the craziness of the procession began. Just getting lost and wandering along the small windy streets with houses with beautiful iron balconies was nice. By the time I got there, it turned out that they were canceled due to rain, so I explored the riverfront, Plaza de Torros and Torre de Oro. With Sevillan pastries and bags in hand, I made my way over to the bus station with a new hostel friend, and said goodbye to the beautiful city. I wish I had more time to spend there, but Salamanca awaited!

I took the night bus to Salamanca, which is east of Madrid. After the 7 hour ride from the southern region of Andalucia, I arrived at 4:30 a.m. in the freezing cold and walked to the apartment of a Salamanca student Kim and I had found through couch surfing. She had arrived earlier, and confirmed our host Alfonso wasn't sketchy. Since he was still out she let me in, and I was soon out cold. I met him the next day before setting out for the town, and though hungover, he was friendly and ready to help us out with our Spanish slang vocab. Kim and I had coffee at a sunny cafe on the Plaza Mayor, which might be even better than the one in Madrid. There was a constant bustle with families and tourists taking a walk through the square. We walked around the medieval town famous for one of the oldest universities in Europe, founded in 1218! On the facade of the oldest building, we tried to find the hidden carved frog, which according to legend is supposed to award passing grades to all the students who find it. The city center also had the Casa de Canchas, and 2 huge cathedrals that I had seen lit up the night before from the bus. Over the river, we could get a good view from the Roman bridge. After a siesta, we went out for dinner at a good tapas place before walking around and heading back from exhaustion and cold! Alfonso showed us around more the next day and told us some Salmanca lore over coffee. After cruising one last time through Plaza Mayor, we trudged to the train station and made our way back home to Madrid!

It was such an action-packed week with a lot of bus and train time that I ended up getting a bad cold by the end, but it was great and I headed back with such a variety of experiences from wonderful places across Portugal and Spain. I'm glad I got a chance to explore so many places within Spain, because it's such a diverse country with so many beautiful areas to explore. I would love to head back to Portugal again to explore more, but for now, I'm enjoying the chance to recover and catch up in Madrid over the weekend before school starts up again Tuesday. Thanks for your patience if you made it this far! Here's a clip of Salamanca...