Valladolid Part Tres (Nov. 2 to Nov. 8th)

Random Moments of joy in Valladolid:

Another one of the amazing parks in Vallaolid 

The Talleres River in Valladolid

Photoshoot near the city center

Why is it that his weiner is the only part that is clean?

Grande lending a helping hand...

Bigote (mustache) update:

Fabulous

A little piece of dried nasal mucus...

Valladolid cont.

A church in Valladolid

There is no doubt that the Spaniards love their soccer; you can find dozens if not hundreds of fields in every city in Spain that are dedicated to their national sport. Sadly the only soccer game I’ve participated in with actual Spaniards was with Carmen’s two grandsons (age five and seven), their dad, and Carmen’s daughter’s boyfriend, a game centered less around actual soccer and more on teaching the two boys the importance of teamwork and how to not suck so much. But that’s not to say that I haven’t played a lot of soccer in Valladolid. Juan, Grande, Kristen, and I went in on an authentic, horrible-quality soccer ball that set us each back about a Euro; but those four Euros have bought us hours and hours of highly-competitive, lowly-skilled soccer games with students from California, Wisconsin, Texas, China, Brazil, and Japan. As long as the weather permits, we get together after school about once a week and play at the river beach for hours.

We lost...

I'm assuming I lost the ball after this awesome picture was taken

SUPER FERNANDO!!!!

One day, after a great two-hour game with some Americans on a hard top court, I worked up the necessary courage to ask permission to play soccer with three burly, young Spanish fútbol players; these guys looked as fit as fiddles, as rough as robots, and as gracious as goddesses. Although they agreed and we played an exhausting game of four on three with three other Americans, as it turned out, two of them were from France and one was from Germany; these were Spanish imposters. So still I have yet to embarrass myself in a game of soccer with actual Spaniards.

Thais’s Last Supper

Every time I reference that there was a student that participated in something from Brazil, I am always referencing a girl named Thais. She is a twenty-year-old trilingual (Portuguese, Spanish, and English) student from San Paolo, Brazil who came to Valladolid to give her Spanish that final meticulous polishing required before she considers herself fluent. Since she arrived in Valladolid about two weeks after everyone else, we all noticed her as the new girl; but after thirty seconds of introductory remarks in class, every boy and girl in our class created a soft spot in their heart for her. She is one of those rare human beings, who appear to put out no effort to be accepted or loved, and yet every student and teacher, male and female alike, adores her. This became especially evident on her last day, after she passed around a note in class inviting everyone to enjoy dinner together, and I heard a mass of students declare that they planned on going. I didn’t exactly take these remarks seriously because they came from over thirty different people from every country in the program, even from people who had no classes with her, and a few that didn’t know her at all. But my voice made the same remarks; I couldn’t see myself not attending the last supper of everyone’s favorite Brazilian.

The first to arrive. From left: Juan, Fernando, and Sheogo (spelling??) an awesome guy from Japan

Juan, Fernando, and I set out that night to the Aquarium, a restaurant located inside Valladolid’s biggest park, Campo Grande; it was here that the Contemporary Last Supper would take place. After making a brief pit stop at a bar/restaurant so that I could purchase a pre-supper bocadillo de tortilla española (delicious sandwich with egg and potatoes inside), we arrived at the restaurant in impeccable timing, but we were the only ones that had arrived. I suppose I still don’t understand fashion; at any social event, you can’t reach your destination on time because that is a fashion no no. Luckily the fashion police didn’t put us in D&G brand handcuffs and take us downtown to the catwalk; us nerds just had to wait patiently until those fashionably late hipsters brought cool to the party. Within the next few minutes, over thirty glamorous friends arrived with their throbbing hearts and smiles that spelled out “We love you Thais;” the highly anticipated dinner event of the season was a social success.

The Bigote Trio (look closely and you can see mine too)

The Guests

The Guest of honor, Thais

Brandy's boyfriend came from Cal Poly to visit her for the week. What do you think his name is? I'll give you a hint, he is a really nice, polite, and obviously handsome man. Yep, you guessed it, he is a NICK...

A group of fabulous young gals. From left: Kristen, Margeaux, Brycé, and Monique (the same girls that we spent Halloween with in Lisbon) 

The calm before the storm

663.48 Euros = 871.62 Dollars

 The Best picture of the night:

La Última Cena. Photo by Nicogrande Studios

Plaza Mayor on a foggy night

BURGOS (Nov. 6th)

Burgos came to me in the same way that a draft of fresh, crisp air floods through an open window and refreshes a stale, humid room exhausted from tobacco smoke and over-respiration. When autumn is in its flourishing moments, I look to Sacramento, the City of Trees, to provide me with the annual aesthetic fulfillment from being surrounded by infinite falling shades of gold and crimson. Within its thick blankets of fog, Burgos possessed exactly what I sought for at the time. The day us students from the Centro de Idiomas arrived, the trees were boldly hurling their leaves into the promising wind, which scattered them randomly through the air and fog around the city. Burgos was absolutely bursting with themes of fall.

The first view of Burgos

La Entrada: Enter if you dare

Now whenever the Taiwanese girls try to take a picture of me, I take a picture of them. A little reverse psychology.  From left: Montse (aka Monja which means nun), Juana (La Loca), and Cilia (but Bessie is her English name)

The Cathedral off in the distance

Statue of Cid, a hero from Spanish history

Yuki and Mana (from Japan) taking a picture with Cid

Bigote update

Spain has so many running fountains that you can drink from

Paseo along the river

This tree was so gorgeous

La Cathedral de Burgos. Having been completed in the 13th Century, it is a "true Gothic" Cathedral, meaning that it is does not having any other later styles mixed in with it (e.g. Renaissance)

I took a secret picture of Alfredo

In front of the Cathedral

Cool famous dudes on the Façade of the Cathedral

A Star of David forms part of the Façade

We all took a little hike up a hill

Trail on the mini-hike

It was incredibly foggy in Burgos. The Cathedral in the distance

This is Camilo, a super nice guy. He is also the unofficial leader of the Taiwanese

I got caught taking this one... But there is Agustín on the left and Alfredo on the right

View of Burgos from the hill

They are all laughing because I just ruined their picture

A great group. They are so nice. I'm gonna try and take them all back to CA in my luggage....

With a free afternoon to discover the Burgos that might have interested us most, Nicogrande and I climbed to the top of a hill to explore the castle of Burgos. After paying the reasonable entrance fee of €1.60, we soon gathered enough perceptions to comprehend that there probably would not be much discovering to be had. Built in the year 884 to defend against Muslim armies, the castle had obviously been used for its sole purpose as a defensive fortress because a lot of it remained in ruins, with the exception of the outer walls still being intact and a museum inside. We wandered along the top of the castle, looked down to the city below us, and admired autumn one more time. 

Inside the castle

View of a park from the top of the castle

The castle walls

Still within the confines of the castle, Grande and I came across a signpost on the wall that read “El Pozo.” After scratching our heads for a brief moment, we noticed a giant shaft dug deep into the ground just a few feet from the signpost, which helped us realize that “el pozo” meant “the well.” We continued reading the signpost and learned that this well extended 64 meters (210 feet) into the ground until the giant hill we stood on was even with the city below; I don’t care who you are, that’s a big ass well. Well it turns out it wasn’t an “ass well” at all—just a “big well.” Nonetheless, we continued reading. A thin spiral staircase wrapped around the well and traveled down nearly the entire 210 feet. By this time, we had read enough; we needed to see this well for ourselves. This was the afternoon adventure we were searching for. 

The entrance to the spiral staircase was equipped with a security gate with a sign that read in bold letters, “ACCESO PROHIBIDO.” We didn’t require any formal Spanish training to understand that this place was not meant for any two random Californians to meander in and have a peek. At this point, Grande asked me what he always asks when we find ourselves in these types of situations, “Is it better to ask permission or to ask forgiveness?” This time, it was obvious that we would have to ask permission because a security gate blocked us from the stairs, so we pranced over to the front of the castle and spoke with a worker to see if we couldn’t get ourselves inside. He informed us that that everyday there are three guided tours where visitors equip themselves with hardhats, and the guides take them down to explore the depths of the well. No matter the cost, we were interested; 210 feet is a long ways down. But cost was not a factor because the third daily tour had already departed and returned, so the well was closed for the rest of the day. As this worker was stern and ready to defeat our adventurous spirits, negotiation was not an option either. Grande and I dragged our feet back over to the well to get one last glance down its dark shaft as if to imagine what could have been.

EL POZO

Filled with a foreign sense of defeat, I went to the security gate to grab its cold bars and shake it a bit like you might see in the movies when the protagonist is running from someone and he reaches a dead-end, but still tries the locked door as if to reaffirm his inevitable failure. As he attempts to turn the handle, absolutely nothing happens; he either pounds on the door a while and admits defeat, or he finds another opportunity to escape danger. But my life is no movie, and defeat is a reality that is difficult to come to terms with. As I went to shake the bars, the gate swung in towards me, and I became dumbfounded. Our perspective on the situation had immediately changed; now it seemed that after all, we still had the chance to ask forgiveness. Few words were spoken between us at this point; our gritted teeth and identical faces expressing fear, doubt, and sheer excitement plainly spelled out that we were going to turn this stone over. Without a guide, without hardhats, and without a sense of righteousness, we began the descent into El Pozo.

Inside the staircase (With flash on)

With the flash on, you can see how freaked out we were 

The staircase was a claustrophobe’s nightmare, but as we separated from the light of day, its tight, cramped dimensions become secondary to the fact that the natural light was swallowed by darkness; I for one was feeling a bit like super-mega bitch. To gain an ounce of sight, we used the dim red glow that glimmers when you halfway press the flash button to focus the camera, but as this was a spiral staircase, we could only see the curving wall ahead of us. We had now plunged far enough to know that we were not going to turn back until we reached something of significance. We came across a small window in the brick wall of the stairwell about the size of one of our heads that opened up into the now pitch-black well. Using the flash from our cameras, we saw that we still had a long way to go before we reached the bottom. As we continued down the stairs, we saw what appeared to be a stone cave ahead of us. As I used my flash to attempt a better view into the cave, Grande found a switch that dimly lit the path through the cave. We both entered the cave without questioning whether or not to continue down the stairs. As we frightfully crept through the cave, I repeatedly whispered to myself, “Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit…” I imagined us either being confronted by a guard or the cave collapsing, and us having to live on the few pieces of fruit and two bocadillos I had in my backpack until authorities found us. But as we traveled further into the cave, we reached a staircase that pointed us back towards the outside world; this cave was a tunnel that connected the spiral staircase to another side of the castle. As we reached the surface, we slowly and carefully crept back into authorized territory and tried our hardest to wipe the smirks of success from our faces.

With flash

Without flash

The tunnel

The tunnel

Still pretty freaked out from the cave

Like at every castle, there were at least a few Castle Kitties

Outside the castle

Walking along an 8th Century wall built by the Muslims

Playtime

This tells you nothing about Burgos...except that they have fake Legos

If there is a wedding happening in Europe, you can guess that I'll creep on it

At a playground, someone wrote, "Gordas No" (No Fat Girls). A little confused and upset, Nicogrande was forced to leave the playground while I stayed and enjoyed the life of being called Nicotito

Plaza Mayor in Burgos

Apu has the Kwik-E-Mart in Springfield, and now in Burgos he has a kebap joint

Family photo with Grande and Theresa from Austria

Off to the monastery Cartuja de Miraflores in Burgos...

Inside the monastery there are two elaborately decorated, marble tombs of King Juan II de Castilla (1405-1454) and Queen Isabel de Portugal (1428-1496)

The monastery was founded in 1441

Santiago (St. James) being depicted as a pilgrim, and not on a white horse killing Muslims like he is in the Alcazar of Segovia

Here's a friendly face we all know well

Engraved on the side of the tmbs of the King and Queen... Some of the breast art I've seen in a while

Another engraving on the tombs

Leaving Burgos

I love these guys...

November 8th

 The first movie I saw in Spain was Jackass 3. Almost every movie in Spain has the voices dubbed over if it is in another language, and Jackass was no exception. So Johnny Knoxville spoke with a deep Spanish voice, and they had to translate every curse word from English to Spanish. Needless to say, I will be going back to the theatre to see an actual Spanish movie...