Searching for Sasquatch: May 2009

Nate Peifer is back in the United States of America. I made it back this morning dead tired at 1:30 am after a roughly 22 hour trip from Madrid to Charlotte. I sincerely apologize for my lack of frequent updates, but I was kept busy the entire trip. I'm going to split this last entry into a couple parts. First, a continuation of my Semana Santa trip and summary of my last few weeks in Spain. Second, an overall recap of the trip. So here it goes...

Going to Hong Kong, although it was a huge trip, accounted for only half of my Semana Santa vacations. After the 10 hour train-hotel to Seville, I took another train to Lebrija to meet up with Calvin and Brandon. Lebrija is a very, very small town. There is one discoteca (dance club). Calvin found himself in Lebrija teaching English through a program for recent college graduates in the U.S. Calvin was given a choice of which region of Spain he wanted, of which he chose the South, and was put in Lebrija. I think he's enjoying himself there, especially as this is his second year teaching. He has gotten to know many of the local Lebrijans, who were very friendly for the most part. He lives in a sweet house (sort of like a townhouse) with 2 other American guys.

The first day I was there, Calvin, Brandon, and I walked around the town taking pictures. We walked up this hill that gave us a great view of the city. Lebrija was a big contrast to the other cities I have seen in Spain as there were absolutely no tall buildings. There was also no public transportation system. We walked around the town in about 45 minutes. Calvin took us to some good restaurants for tapas (small plates of snack food) and wine. We went out for some drinks that night at a couple local bars, where Calvin seemed to know most of the people.

My Aunt Nina sent me an email earlier asking me about any pottery kilns that I had come across while in Spain. In Lebrija we actually got to meet the town potter and watch him at work. I took quite a few pictures of his work and his different kilns. He had an older kiln and another, newer kiln. He said that he mainly used his new kiln, but that the old one was still functional. We watched him mold about 4 pots in a matter of minutes, he was good.

The next couple days we took trips to Cadiz (beach city in the south of Spain) and Sevilla. Cadiz was a very interesting town, although we didn’t spend too much time there. We got to see a pretty cool beach with a surprising amount of surfers and bodyboarders trying to work with the small, sloppy surf. Seeing this and the small surf in Barcelona made me glad I was up in Santander with the bigger North Atlantic swells. Sevilla was very cool; I wish I could have spent more time there. Calvin took us to a restaurant with a stadium in the back for everybody to sit and eat on. They weren’t the most comfortable seats, but it was a cool layout, very conducive for “hanging out” and “chilling.” The plan for Sevilla was to hang out for half the day, do some skating, see Brandon off on a train back to Barcelona, and then find a hostel for the night. We hung out, did some skating, then went to see Brandon off but realized that he had miss-read his ticket and thus missed his train altogether. So, somewhat dejected, we decided to all stay in the hostel that I had booked that day for Calvin and me. The next morning, I got on a 13 hour bus from Sevilla back to Santander, Brandon got a bus ticket to Madrid and hoped for the best from there back to Barcelona, and Calvin took the short train back to his home sweet Lebrija.

The week following Semana Santa was review week for our classes. Most of our teachers gave us good study guides and samples of old tests to study. I went out for a few more surf sessions in Somo beach. The weather was getting warmer and I didn’t need booties anymore (still had to wear the wetsuit). That weekend we took an excursion with the group to the caves of Soplao and a couple other pretty cool places. The caves were impressive, but we couldn’t take any pictures of anything inside. So… sorry.

The next week we had another couple days of review followed by our exams on Wed. and Thur. The exams were a pretty unpleasant pill to swallow after 2.5 months of basically avoiding real school work, but we got through them well enough. After our final exam on Thursday, a couple friends and I went out to a bar to celebrate. We drank wine from a Porron (a lamp-shaped glass that shoots wine into your mouth) and then went to the beach, where the girls went for a swim (and they realized it wasn’t quite summer yet). Later that night, we went out to an Erasmus party at a big bar on the beach. Erasmus is a giant European study abroad program that pays students money to study abroad. All of my international friends from Europe were there and I got to say my goodbyes and hang out one last time.

The following day, Friday, I woke up early (about 10 am) to spend the last day surfing in Somo. I met up with a German guy who surfs and 2 girls from my trip and we took the ferry over to Somo. The girls rented boards and wetsuits and we all went out for a surf in some really choppy and fairly big conditions. It wasn’t a great quality day for surfing, but we all had a great time and I sold my board to the German guy after the session. After surfing we went and got some huge ice cream cones and hung out in the city for a little bit. I went home to try to pack and rest a little before dinner, but ended up talking to my host uncle Jesus for about an hour (didn’t get any packing done). I had to rush out for our last dinner in Santander at a really good tapas bar with lots of sangria (a wine and fruit juice mixture). After dinner, a few friends and I went to meet up with my Spanish skater friends, the nicest group of guys that I met through skateboarding. They took us around to a few different bars and we took a couple memory cards worth of photos together. My friends and I were all struggling to stay awake, with the thought of leaving early the next morning, packing, and sleep deprivation weighing heavily on our mental. Red Bull did the trick, however, and we had a fantastic last night in Santander with some of the coolest people I have met.

Saturday morning I woke up at 7 am to pack and head out of Santander by 9 am. We all said tearful goodbyes to our host families and got on a 4 hour bus to Madrid, where we would stay in a very accommodating hotel for 3 days. Madrid was a really cool city, very big and very impressive. Everyone in our group was pretty exhausted the whole time in Madrid, but we still managed to sightsee quite a bit and even go out to some bars on Saturday night. The highlight of Madrid was definitely eating lunch at this small Italian restaurant just outside the main Plaza. We had vague directions from our coordinator about how to find this place, but we made it a mission to find it, and it was WORTH IT. We got to eat in sort of a dungeon room in a secret-looking lower level of the restaurant (probably because we were 6 boisterous Americans) which was really great for us. We ordered 3 pasta dishes, a pizza, and a ‘chef’s specialty’ to split between the 6 of us. All of the food was absolutely delicious, especially the Fiocchi pasta and the pizza. I spent the last day in Madrid walking around with some friends looking for skate spots (there aren’t too many) and doing some more sightseeing. That night we had our last dinner with the group and our coordinator Greta and packed for our flight the next morning. We caught our flight from Madrid to Charlotte (via Newark) Tuesday morning at around 10 am Spanish time (4 am North Carolina time). I didn’t get home until 1:30 am North Carolina time. It was a long day.