Valencia and Semana Santa

Hey all! Long time, no post. I apologize for being so lame at posting, and I’d like to say that I didn’t post for such a long time because I was super busy, but I don’t even really think that’s true. I think basically I was just lazy and had some things to figure out before posting again.

So, a quick overview of things that have happened since the last time I posted, and then on to Valencia, which is worth a post all on its own!

- My mom and two aunts came to visit for 10 days, and we had a great time travelling a bit around Spain. They spent a few days in Madrid, then we went up to San Sebastian and southern France for a weekend, and then back to Burgos for a few days of being tourists before they had to head home again. Plus, they seriously lucked out in having some really nice, sunshiney and warm weather.
- I went on a quick weekend trip to Leon and Astorga, a small town near Leon. The cathedral in Leon is spectacular, big and gothic and really impressive, and that was also possibly one of the nicest weather weekends we’ve had since winter began – I even got to wear a dress!
- Two of my good friends from home came to visit shortly thereafter, and they were everywhere – Burgos, San Sebastian, Bilbao, Santander, a national park called the Picos de Europa, Madrid…basically a whirlwind trip through northern Spain. Might as well take advantage of it while you’re here, right?
- I celebrated my birthday in Madrid with lots of good friends, and it was just a great weekend. Really nice to feel like I actually have good friends here in Spain, despite the fact that we haven’t known each other forever like with some of my other friends. It’s hard to have a bad time when you’re drinking outside in a plaza with the rest of Madrid, getting sung to in Spanish and English.

Okay, phew. I think that finally brings me to Valencia. I was there for the long weekend over Easter, and the city it just wonderful. We had a bit of bad luck with the weather, as it rained for a fair portion of two of the three days that we were there, but even so, it wasn’t cold and we just braved it with some umbrellas and a sense of adventure.

One of the coolest attractions in Valencia is the Ciudad de Ciencias y Artes, which is a huge complex designed by the Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava. It’s basically made up of huge, spage-age buildings surrounding water features and set in the big Parque de Turia, a park that travels through a lot of the city where a river used to run (the river Turia, in fact). It’s just stunning. We had bought tickets to see the Museo de las Ciencias, a three story science museum with lots of hands-on activities to play with; l’Oceanografic, a huge aquarium complex made up of several buildings holding animals from many different parts of the world; and l’Hemisferic, which houses an IMAX theatre. We easily spent 6 hours wandering around the buildings, exploring the experiments and animals that it housed. It was really cool, and we definitely could have spent more time there easily.

Our apartment was located really close to the cathedral and the beautiful plazas that surrounded it, right in the heart of El Carmen, the old town barrio that is one of the most exciting night-life areas of the city. I’m not entirely sure why we didn’t end up going out at night more – perhaps the rain was a deterrant – but the times that we did go out for dinner or a drink, there were a ton of really happening, varied bars in the area. I love going to bigger cities to visit, because there is a noticeable increase in the variety of shops, restaurants and people that you find. I think that perhaps my experience here in Burgos is more typically Spanish in many ways, but it’s clear that I miss the more cosmopolitan atmosphere of more diverse parts of the world.

Another big part of the weekend in Valencia was spent looking for and watching the processions that are typical to the period of Semana Santa – or Holy Week. Spain, being a traditionally Catholic country, still has a number of Catholic traditions that infuse their calendar year. One of those are the processions during the week leading up to Easter. The most traditional and well-known of these processions happen in Sevilla, but many regions have their own way of celebrating. In Valencia, the celebrations weren’t as involved as in other places, but the beach community of Cabanyal goes all out, with the various churches in the area dressing up in the traditional costumes of their church and processing around the neighborhood at various points during the week. The culmination of it all was the Procesion de la Gloria, which happened midday on Sunday, and, in contrast to all the other processions which were mourning the persecution and crucifixion of Christ, was incredibly happy in celebration of Christ’s resurrection. This included people walking in elaborate dresses and costumes, throwing flowers to the people in the crowd who yelled “guapa” at them the loudest. Lots of fun, and it felt really traditional and Spanish.

Afterwards, we rushed to the beach to take advantage of the little sun and warmth that the day afforded, and then we headed back to the center to attend an Easter Sunday church service. It was nice to be in a beautiful church to watch the service, but the service itself seemed fairly similar to any service at home. But at least I can say I’ve been now. And then it was Monday, and we headed home.

If you want to see pictures of the weekend in Valencia, follow this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2484012&id=2501475&l=b7aabe5e81.

I hope you enjoy the photos and the brief description of Valencia and Semana Santa celebrations, and I really hope to be a better blogger in the next few months. I can probably manage that given that there are only a few months left in my travel time!

Lots of besos to everyone reading.

 

Barcelona!

Barcelona is one of my favorite cities in Spain, perhaps the favorite. Well, I take that back. I think at the very least it’s tied with San Sebastian, which I’m sure you’re all sick of me raving about. Well, just wait until it actually gets nice outside and I visit more often! Haha.

But I digress.

This weekend was a long weekend in my comunidad autonoma of Castilla y Leon because this weekend was the celebration of Carnaval, the Latin version of Mardi Gras and basically the celebration of gluttony and sinfulness before Lent begins. So for whatever reason Castilla y Leon decided that we needed a few days off to celebrate this, so I had a good long weekend – five days! – and I took advantage of it to head to Barcelona. My friend Jennis’s father owns an apartment in Barca (imagine that with the little curly-cue thing below the “c”, like you might see in some French word), which she graciously let us stay in, and I got really cheap train tickets bought in advance.

We all arrived in our various ways on Friday – me by overnight train, Jennis in an airplane from the States, and Lucy on an early train from Logrono – and just spent the weekend wandering around the city and exploring its many neighborhoods. We never got far enough away from Jennis’s place to need to use the Metro, but we walked around her neighborhood (Born), as well as the Raval, along the Barceloneta beach and up and down the Passeig de Gracia and las Ramblas, two major streets in the city. And I have to say, the weather cooperated beautifully, allowing for us to spend a few meals and some coffee-time on sidewalk patios, SUCH a lovely luxury and hopefully a sign that spring is coming soon!

I’d like to say that I can remember exactly what we did or that it was overwhelmingly interesting, but there’s something about just leisurely spending your time exploring a city without any real plans that is really pleasant. I’d already seen a lot of really touristy, museum-y things in Barcelona, so this weekend plan was perfect. And to that point, I’ll share with you some of my favorite pictures of the weekend. I don’t have many, but I hope you enjoy them! Oh, and actually if you want to see more, go visit Lucy’s blog, as she is always way better at taking photos than I am!

Barcelona streetlight

Me and Jennis in front of Barcelona's Arc du Triomphe

Lucy and Me preparing to go out

Catedral de Santa Maria del Mar

Narrow street in El Raval

And the next time that I write, it will probably be to tell you about my mom and aunts’ visit here and all the exciting and crazy things that we did – I AM SO EXCITED!! I hope you all have a wonderful last week of February.

 

Figuring out my cosas

I think it’s fully legit to say that I have no earthly clue where my life is heading at the moment. Sounds pretty dramatic, no? Well, probably. I guess I have a general earthly clue: I like Spain, it’s nice, and I could see myself staying here for awhile longer, but ultimately I am still enamored with the idea of moving to SF soon and living a kickin’ 20-something life with some of my favorite people. But in terms of the details and specifics that get me back to that point, I’m pretty much winging it.

Case in point: my flight back to the States. Originally, I was coming home in late June. Then, over Christmas break, I changed it to be coming home in early September in order to spend more time here and potentially see where things were going with The Boy, only to be told by said Boy that he really wished I could have talked to him first because he’d like to come visit me in the States and the only time he can do that is in August. So then I tried changing my frequent flyer-mile ticket to the end of July, thought I would be successful, and ended up effed by frequent-flyer-mile lameness. And just as I was getting used to the idea of staying for the summer, miraculously more flights opened up and I was able to change it for the end of July. Success! Except The Boy isn’t sure if he can come anymore due to la crisis. Awesome. I clearly do not fault him for this or believe that he’s doing it to purposely make my life a little more crazy, but it’s just inconvienent.

New thing I am learning #1: even in a relationship, particularly one in which you don’t know how things are going to work out logistically in six months, do the things that will make you happy regardless of the outcome and work around the details when you get there.

So, I’m home this summer! While this makes me really happy and it makes me even happier that The Boy will possibly be able to come visit me in August, this is just one of many things I have going on in my brain these days. I’m pretty sure my boyfriend thinks I am a little insane for how much I plan in advance (ha, pretty sure; no, try being told “estas loca” when you think two weeks in advance or more is an okay time to start thinking about lodging in a place, for example), and I am definitely the first to admit to you that I like my cosas in order for my personal sanity. If that means planning an Easter-weekend place to stay two months in advance, then so be it! If that means I want to know where I’m going to be spending the weekend after next in order to mentally prepare, I am all for it!

Thing #2 I am learning: live in the moment, person who loves to plan things!  My life as it stands right now has no real easy way of working itself out. It’s going to require a lot of thinking and organizing at some point, assuming I stay with this boyfriend of mine, figuring out how I stay here for awhile longer or how he gets there in a legal way, all of which hurts my head just in theory. Plus, who really makes those decisions after 4 months of knowing someone? That seems a bit insane to me; hence, live in the moment. It is incredibly challenging for me, enjoying what I have now without worrying about the consequences or decisions that have to be made in the future, but I’m learning. And it’s kind of liberating at times – I am being the procrastinator I never was!

And even though she may not know this (actually, lies, she probably does), my Santiago-dwelling friend is certainly providing a lot of inspiration for me: it CAN be done, this international relationship thing, but you have to think creatively and be committed to making it happen. I like that thought, assuming that I have to make a similar decision come summertime.  And as she keeps reminding me, I’ll try not to count those chickens before it’s time to see how they hatch.

For right now, I think my new education is keeping me quite busy enough. No sense worrying about what may or may not happen in the future, right? And just to show how much I’ve learned, I’m off to take advantage of the surprisingly gorgeous February weather, because who knows what’ll happen tomorrow?

 

The Pueblos de Burgos and el Dia de San Lesmes

Hey all. This weekend was actually pretty fun! For once I stayed in Burgos and didn’t have anyone visiting, and sometimes weekends like that can get kind of dull, especially if it’s cold outside and people don’t end up going out at all. But I stayed because Bea, one of the teachers at my school, invited me to go with her, her boyfriend Raul, and the English assistant from two years ago, Sophie, to visit some pueblos near Burgos. Sophie currently lives in Vitoria, which is about an hour away from Burgos, so she was coming in for the weekend for a little weekend vacation.

We left yesterday morning around noon, when Sophie’s bus got in, and drove directly to Santo Domingo de Silos, a VERY small town about 60 kilometers from Burgos that is famous for its monastery. We arrived just in time to see a mass and hear the monks chant, which apparently they are very famous for. From there we took a quick walk in a nearby park, called La Yecla, which was essentially tall rock formations with a path cut out between them. The day itself was pretty blustery and ominous, with lots of wind and clouds, but we were lucky and only got rained-snowed on once, just as we were leaving La Yecla. (See the pictures below – they’ll be able to describe these places better than my words can!)

From La Yecla, we returned to Santo Domingo for lunch, which was a very yummy combination of pintxos – artichoke hearts with ham, picadillo (chorizo in the form of ground beef), morcilla (Burgos’ very famous blood-sausage), salad, and a very yummy egg scramble with garlic. More than anything, it was nice to be inside outside of the windy, inclement weather.

After lunch, we entered the monastery itself and took a brief tour of the cloisters and the apothecary shop that the monks had been famous for back in the 11th century. It’s apparently one of the best examples of Romanic architecture in Spain, as well as being one of the two monasteries (along with those in San Millan de la Cogolla in La Rioja) that are credited with having the earliest written record of the Spanish language. Little side note: los burgaleses are ridiculously proud of speaking the purest Spanish in the country. But then again, so were the people in La Rioja last year. But anyway, I digress. The cloisters of the monastery are beautiful, and there are still about 20-30 monks who live there full-time. I even saw some of them walking around in sandals – SANDALS!!! I am the absolutely queen of sandals, but even I am not that insane.

After touring the monastery, we drove a little ways to Covarrubias, an adorable little town with these white plaster houses girded by dark brown beams, making them seem very old-fashioned. Haha, “seem old-fashioned” – how American of me! I’m sure they’re actually just OLD. We wandered around Covarrubias for a little while, and then on our way back to Burgos we stopped in a town called Lerma, which was much bigger than Covarrubias and less impressive, but one of the coolest parts of the town was the convent. The nuns at this particular convent make and sell certain candies specific to Lerma, and in order to buy them, you have to go up to a window with a revolving door and basically talk through the door, ask what you want, and then they spin the door around to give you what you’ve requested. You put your money on the door, spin it again, and then they can give you your change. This is all because these particulars nuns have chosen to live completely within the walls of the convent and can’t be seen by anyone from the outside – pretty trippy.

In the evening, we met up with some of Bea and Raul’s friends and went for tapas, which is pretty standard in terms of Spanish evenings, but this particular weekend there is a tapas competition between the various bars because of the Festival of San Lesmes, a saint somehow related to Burgos, that was celebrated today. Each bar had their own special tapa that they had created for this occasion, many yummy things involving cheese and pastry dough and fun combinations of ingredients. SUPER yummy.

Oh goodness, this post is getting very long, but I have to tell you just one more thing. Today was the celebration of San Lesmes, and I have NO idea who that was or why we care. I think one of the church’s here is dedicated to him, so perhaps he is a patron saint of Burgos. There were many people dressed up as people from Castilla y Leon from centuries ago, including traditional dance groups and small children dressed in cute period outfits. But even cooler/weirder were the gigantillos, very large papier-mache people who were “worn” by people and then walked around the plaza, representing the typical Castillian person from years ago, complete with period-specific dress. I have to say, Spain certainly does a good job of the traditional festivals. Maybe we just suck at it because we don’t really have the same depth of tradition in the States that they have here? I have no idea.

NOW. I think I’ve finished. I’m going to attach some photos so you can see what some of these places were like. I hope you enjoy them!

La Yecla

Santo Domingo de Silos

Cloisters of the Monastery

House in Covarrubias

los Gigantillos

Traditional Castillian Dress

 

The Vagaries of the Weather

I imagine that many of you are ridiculously tired of hearing me talk about how cold I am all the time and how snowy it is all the time here, but I feel like now I have new insight having been back in the last week and seeing just how quickly these things can change.

So, let’s just sum up the last week of my existence in Spain:

I arrived last Thursday and luckily made it back to Burgos before the middle of the country was blanketed with a snow storm that effectively shut down Barajas Airport for a day or two, cancelling hundreds of flights and basically causing tons of people to live in the airport all weekend. Meanwhile, I happened to be in the north of the country where the weather hovered around 10C all weekend and was generally glorious – I could even go out on Sunday afternoon without a jacket on, that’s how nice it was.

I got home on Sunday night, and then woke up Monday morning to -9C weather – that’s a difference of about 35F degrees in a 24 hour period. It literally did not make it out of negative degrees all day on Monday, which was rather swell.

Then, Tuesday it snows. And it was actually pretty nice – by pretty nice, I mean 0-2C during the day. See how this becomes relative all of a sudden? The temperature slowly warmed throughout the week, but never getting out of the double digits. And then WHAM – the most glorious weekend, with temperatures in the low 50s and sunshine and just a generally pleasant atmosphere to be outside in. I remember thinking, “Gosh, isn’t it a luxury to actually enjoy walking outside and window shopping as opposed to speed-walking as fast as possible so you don’t freeze in transit from your house to the bus to the school?”

Oh, and here’s the best part: tomorrow it’s supposed to be relatively nice again, and then another snow storm and highs of 2C throughout the middle of the week.  WHAT?!

I suppose here’s what I have concluded: A) winter weather outside of California rather sucks. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that icing on the cake: while I was literally freezing my rear end off, it was 70F in Palo Alto all week. Talk about totally unfair. B) I thought I was okay with the the winter weather, not dying so much, and then it was -9C for a day and I realized that winter weather is miserable. Why do people subject themselves to it? C) Why is it allowed to be in the 50s all weekend and get my hopes up only to plunge me back into freezing misery this week? This seems totally and cosmically cruel.

I have another conclusion, actually, and it’s this: the snow isn’t really so much the problem – in fact, I think walking through gently falling snow to catch the bus is rather romantic and beautiful – but it’s the ice that inevitably sticks around afterwards that’s the killer. I can guarantee a serious wipe out due to some combination of me walking too fast-me wearing shoes without appropriate grip-sneaky hiding patches of ice sometime in the near future. It’s a serious mine-field out there. And the worst is that you know it’s coming and can’t do anything about it! As in, “Oh, how lovely, it’s snowing, but it’s probably going to dip below freezing tonight and turn all the nice snow and melted snow into hidden ice rinks all over the sidewalk so that I fall and bruise my hip on my way to rushing to the bus.” Dangerous, I tell you.

So, there you go. Again, I’m sure everyone who actually has winters colder than 45F already knows this and is rolling their eyes at my silliness, but I was just so surprised by the sudden weather changes and how completely different each day can be from the next. Let’s hope I can learn to appreciate the beautiful weather for when it comes instead of dwelling on the below zero days, right?

 

Irun

So, it’s officially lame how much I suck at writing posts in a consistent manner. So I may write two in a row on the same day to just inundate the heck out of the four people that read this. Haha.

I don’t really have anything to say about Irun and my weekend there with The Boy, just that it was really great and relaxing and I met the family (they were really cool) and it was about 10-15 degrees warmer there than in Burgos. Definitely a perk, let me tell you! And yes, as you might imagine, the weather will be the subject of my next post – que sorpresa!

So, bottom line – here are some photos from the weekend. Enjoy!

Peine del Viento, San Sebastian

Bahia de la Concha, San Sebastian

Playa in San Sebastian

Hondarribia

Hondarribia's Harbor

 

Santiago de Compostela

Alright. It’s legitimately been a long time since we went to Santiago and I am lame for not having written about it sooner, so I think I might just write a few quick comments and then just post you some fun pictures to show you how adorable the city is, especially all dressed up for Christmas! The old part of the city has a pretty medieval feel to it, with lots of cobbled streets to get lost in, but the obvious draw is the cathedral, the ending point for all the pilgrims doing the Camino de Santiago.

Okay, so apparently the history of St James that I wrote about here before was a little misinformed, so the nice person who commented on this post very generously corrected it for me: “Your photos are great! Your history… well .. not so great! James (Iago) was Yaakov ben Zebedee, brother of John Zebedee, apostles of Christ. After the crucifixion he evangelized in Spain. In 44AD he returned to Jerusalem where he was beheaded by Herod Agrippa. His disciples took his body back to Spain where they buried him on a hillside in Libredon (now Galicia). The necropolis was forgotten for 800 years. It was rediscovered in 813 and pilgrims have been walking to the tomb of Sant Iago in Compostela ever since. (Compostela – compos = burial place stella – stars).”  Thanks for the correction! I could have sworn there was something about a mysterious boat in it, but my memory’s notoriously lame, soo…who knows? Anyway, people walk, bike, ride horses, or somehow travel from the camino’s accepted beginning in France to Santiago to Compostela, hundreds of miles away. And the cathedral and the massive plaza that fronts it is pretty darn impressive to the unenlightened eye, so you can only imagine how it must feel to arrive there after weeks or months of strenous travel.

Okay, so back to Santiago. Galicia is also one of the rainiest communities in Spain, but we lucked out and had one really spectacular day to take pictures and explore the city. Plus, Galicia is well-known for its seafood, having a very long coast line and access to a lot of fruits of the sea on a daily basis. Unfortunately that is not my thing, but we certainly made friends with the large and very disgusting looking fish proudly displayed in every bar’s window, “enticing” us to come in and try the fare. Needless to say, the weekend was an adventure and worth the 8-hour-each-way bus rides! Enjoy the photos!

City Hall at Night

St James

The Cathedral

Cloisters in the Cathedral

Towards the University

Cathedral from the Distance

 

Snow Pictures!

Since I subjected y’all to two whole posts about snow and how insanely cold I am, I would like to post some pictures now that show you just how snowy the weather got today. Before, it had kind of snowed for an hour or so with nothing really sticking, but today it snowed for a good portion of the afternoon, and it definitely left its mark!

Pedestrian Bridge across the River Arlanzon

River Arlanzon

The Espolon

La Castanera

Plaza de la Catedral

Snowy Cathedral

Enjoy the photos, and send me warm thoughts!

 

Madrid

So, my posts are going in a bit of a random order this week, due to the fact that a) I am lazy and it’s just taken me awhile to get up the ganas to write about Madrid and b) the snow and cold in Burgos was just so much more pressing to write about, but I am finally getting my act together! So here goes, the post about Madrid that should have happened last weekend when the trip itself actually happened!

I went to Madrid last weekend! This in and of itself is not particularly interesting, as I have been to Madrid many times over the past year and a half, both to visit friends and to catch airplanes, but this time had a purpose: we went to see Real Madrid play a soccer game (or football match, if you want anyone here to understand what you’re talking about). SO FUN. But I’ll get there.

I arrived on Friday afternoon, and met up with Abby and Marcos who had come from Logrono to spend the weekend and watch the game, as well. We found a yummy place for lunch and then spent the afternoon enjoying the sunny, relatively warm weather. We met up with my friend Chris, who lives in Madrid, for drinks on a patio on the top of a hotel on Gran Via, a main street in Madrid. Gorgeous, truly. We then ended up at TGIFriday’s for happy hour (we’re American, get over it) and some amazingly good and insanely cheap drinks. By that time, The Boy (who has now become The Boyfriend; but more on that later) called to say that he and his friends were in town, ready to pick me up and take me to where we were staying for the weekend. So I said goodbye to Abby and Marcos at the metro, grabbed my bag, and was off.

So, the other reason we had planned this Madrid trip was because The Boy had decided we should go see a Real Madrid soccer game, since he loves the team. I personally wanted to go because Iker Casillas, the team’s goalie, is my boyfriend.

Me and Casillas

(This photo was taken in a bar, with a poster on the wall, which makes me a huge nerd, I realize that, but it just shows you the depth of my devotion.)

Anyway, so The Boy’s friend lives just outside of Madrid with his wife, and we stayed with them for the weekend. So Friday night we went out to dinner in the suburb they live in and then spent the rest of the evening looking at photos from their honeymoon and other silliness that their friends get up to. They were so incredibly nice and friendly to me, and I felt really comfortable with them immediately. I love Spanish people.

Saturday, the day of the game, we went into Madrid around lunchtime and met up with Abby and Marcos again for lunch, and then again spent the afternoon wandering around Madrid in the sunshine (are you noticing a theme here? The Spanish loooove their paseo, or afternoon walk). The game didn’t start until 8pm, so we eventually bundled ourselves into a bar and had a drink while waiting for gametime. Once we actually arrived at the stadium, the three Americans were stunned: this stadium holds 80,000 people and is full on a regular basis. I know we have football stadiums in the States that are that big (I feel like if I didn’t mention that I knew this, my Wolverine brother would kill me), but this was just impressive. I don’t know that the following pictures do it justice, really.

Excited about the Game!

Estadio Santiago Bernabeu

Anyway, to sum up the game: it was kind of crappy, since Madrid has been sucking lately due to a lot of injuries to some of their best players, and they missed a lot of scoring opportunities, but we had a really great time just being part of the atmosphere. But Real Madrid ended up winning, which is always a good thing. Plus, I learned a lot of good swear words listening to all the disgruntled Madrid fans, haha.

After the game, we headed back to the center of Madrid and went out to a couple of bars for a little bit, and then everyone went off to their respective casas again. Sunday was pretty mellow, eating lunch at The Boy’s friends’ house and then heading back to Burgos for the night – lucky for me, he has a car AND Burgos was on his way home, so I didn’t have to take a bus back! Woohoo!

Now, to the promised “boyfriend” part of the post. I unfortunately do not have an interesting and cute story about how we became novios, but we kind of decided that that’s what we wanted to be, so I’ve spent the whole week trying to get used to the notion that I have a boyfriend. It’s still weird to say, and he pretty much is still “this guy that I met in Logrono and who I like” when I talk about him to people here, but I figure I’ll become more comfortable with it in time! I could honestly go on about how great he is, but I will spare everyone that ickiness – ask if you have questions, how about that?

So, as it turned out, the weekend was pretty great. AND it wasn’t snowing!!

 

Snow, the Sequel

After having lived in the frigidness that is Burgos in the wintertime for one week – okay, five days – I feel like I can talk about some lessons I’ve learned from living with snow. All you people who have lived in the snow before or who are less weak than I am can feel free to laugh at me, as you’ve likely known these things from birth, but indulge me, okay?

1. It is colder when it doesn’t snow than when it does. Now, as a good Atmospheric Sciences tutor, theoretically I know this to be true: when the skies are clear, it’s colder than when the skies are covered and (possibly) precipitating snow. However, I have just truly learned that this is true this past week. Today was cold, with snow and the temperature hovering around 0 degrees Celsius all day, but for some reason it didn’t seem as cold as the past few, very clear and sunny, days have felt. So I guess I grudgingly owe snow that bit of gratitude.

2. Slush sucks. Whoever invented slush or thought it would be cool to have snow kinda-sorta stick on the ground was just a huge jerk. I left my house this afternoon to go meet some friends for coffee, and by the time I finished my 7 minute walk to the cafe, my feet were wet and frozen because of the slushy crap on the ground. I would rather it was raining – I get rain, it’s wet, I know how to avoid puddles in the rain – or with a decent ground cover of snow than slushy. It’s deceptively wet and icky. And kind of snow, but really just not.

3. Snow is pretty when it falls. I am hugely retarded for having just written that sentence, I know, but I was walking back from the gym today in the gently falling snow, and I thought, “I get why people like this so much!” It was a serious moment of revelation (unfortunately followed a few short hours later by my slush adventure, please re-read point #2), and while all my body parts weren’t freezing themselves off at that moment, I was pretty sure snow was okay.

4. Windchill also sucks. Again, everything that I said about the suckiness of slush holds true for wind, as well. Burgos is infamous (apparently) for its wind, and it’s true – there are certain corners that I walk around every day that I know to expect strong winds at. But this is especially sucky when I read the weather report in the morning and it says, “40 degrees (YES! It’s warm outside today!), feels like 30 (GAH!)”. Wind should be banned from existence. Or at least people should come put up some turbines in Burgos to make it useful and energy efficient.

Alrighty, I think that’s all I need to quejarme (=complain) about this evening. I am warm in casa, and I have recently learned how my heating works (not a moment too soon!), so really things could be worse. I will TRY to get my post up about last weekend in Madrid – very exciting!! – sometime this weekend for all three of you who read my blog.

ADDENDUM!

I have found one more thing that seems to come with the wintery weather, learned today while walking home in a true snow-flurry, without an umbrella and rather cold:

5. People walk slower/are more annoying when it’s snowing. I love Spain and Spanish people in general, but aware of other people’s physical space they are not. Add to that the fact that every single person has an umbrella glued to their head which impedes their vision even more, and you have a population of people who are paying ZERO attention to you and other people walking in their space. No, perhaps NEGATIVE attention. The number of times I have been nearly stabbed in the eye by someone’s umbrella spike is insane. Also, when you have an umbrella, that means that you have to walk near the street and you cannot stroll under the overhang, because that’s where people without umbrellas (and therefore by definition want to get someplace quickly) have priority to walk. But I promise you people seem to stroll more when it’s yucky weather. With their umbrella spikes protuding. Ahhh, the danger!