Valencia!

Or I suppose I should say, Valencia take 2!

My first "visit" to Valencia was for Tomatina, the gigantic tomato fight just outside the Valencia in Bunol.

Since my hotel was so far from the site, I slept in the airport with a group of other tourists then headed to Bunol on the first train running at 6am.

So really, I did not see Valencia other than the airport and returning to get on a bus to Barcelona.

Trip II to Valencia is to collect Alma!  She has been studying English in London.  Just to clarify, Alma speaks great English.  She is a chatty person and doesn't worry about making mistakes although she strives for near native fluency so she can work anywhere in the world (well you know, almost anywhere).

So I drove for about three hours from Soria to Valencia with Alma's parents.  We stopped just outside Valencia for a delicious paella valenciana with Alma's grandparents.  I sure hope you know what paella is.  Saffron rice with vegetables, perhaps seafood or meat.  Valencia is known for the best and purest form of paella.  A true paella has been cooked of a wood fire in a shallow pan to obtain a delicious crispness.  The kind we had was very typical with some vegetables, crab, mussels, and chicken in it. DELICIOUS.

When we saw Alma again, she was ecstatic to be back in Spain.  She was wearing a long sleeve shirt, jacket, and jeans which got me a little nervous about my 24 hour stop over in London. The girl is a total beach babe- just like me!

We got back to Alma's apartment which is the coziest thing.  The apartment belonged to her great-grandparents and stayed in the family.  Alma's sister Laura owns her own interior design company and for her final project she redesigned Alma's apartment.  The lucky girl has her own modern two bedroom apartment decorated in fantastic bright colors and it is only a short drive from the beach!

The next day we ate yummy pizza and ice cream with Alma's family- grandparents, aunts, uncles and  cousins.  Most of the family prefers horchata, a blended drink made from jamaica (not Jamaica!) but I can't stand the texture- or calling vegetables a dessert!

After ice cream- the beach! What else?

The beach area reminded me of Miami, particularly Coconut Grove, with the small canals and mid-sized yachts.

Technically, Alma is suppose to be in school now for her last semester but the term begins with an add/drop period so attendance isn't mandatory.  So she will be showing me around her favorite city and we will be going on a few side trips!  I am very excited to see more of my favorite country and its beaches!

Alma's cousin, Alma, me and Alma's mommy

Soria

Where in the world is Francesca.

Possibly one of the least internationally known stops on my world travels I am now in Soria, in northen-central Spain (the part without beaches).

Soria is in the autonomous community of Castile and Leon. Castile? Like Castellano, the most widely spoken form of Spanish? Yes.

Hence my connection to the province.  When I was studying in Spain during summer 2005 my teacher went on a trip to Soria because she wanted to set up a permanent exchange between my high school and they students there since the people of Castile and Leon are known to speak some of the purest Spanish and Soria is a quaint, safe city.  My teacher contacted the head of the Chamber of Commerce in Soria who at that time happened to be Alma's dad.  My teacher and her husband stayed with Alma's family, just as I am, and it is easy to see why she fell in love with them.  So much so that she offered to find an American family to host Alma- mine!

Today Alma's mother and I went on a city tour.  Now, remind you that Soria is not a city like Madrid, Paris, or Shanghai.  It is a city like Troy, New York, my hometown.  In fact, Soria is even smaller with just under 40,000 inhabitants.  However, if you go out on the streets on any given night you will see the whole city and it will feel like many more than 40,000 people live here. The town square, or plaza if you will, is crowded with social drinkers snacking on tapas.


Situated on the Rio Duero, the city is noted for its walls and a number of architecturally distinctive churches. here a church, there a church everywhere a church church! Wait, that's all of Europe- and somehow they stay open- unlike the Churches in America's Catholic/Protestant turned atheist North-East.

Like most of Spain, Soria has belonged to many cultures over time, typically at the periphery of the ruler's kingdom. The area of Soria was inhabited by the Iberians, who merged with the Celts to form the Celtiberians around the 4th century BC.  We saw some excavated Celtic ruins which were pretty cool. During the Roman conquest of Iberia, Soria was besieged and its population committed a collective suicide in order to escape slavery. That's a pretty deep subject which I discovered through a low budget film at the ruins. Centuries later, after the Arab conquest of Spain, it grew in importance due to its proximity to the border of the Christian lands, which in the 8th century had settled along the Duero river.

Sister Hermana!

I kinda of feel like my life is the show Sister Sister. 90s Flashback.  Tia and Tamara. Twins separated at birth and adopted.  I feel like I am at the point where they get back together and join families.

Here I am, in Spain, at Alma's family's home, without her while she is London.  All because I hung out with her for a week six years ago.  I only know her from those seven days but somehow the four days we spent in Malaga made me feel like we knew each other much better. She's smart, GORGEOUS and a person I am very lucky to have as a friend.

Alma's family is absolutely incredible too.  Her mother IS my mother.  She is always offering me food, chatting and they have the same mannerisms which is FREAKY.  For some reason I have a very hard time understanding her father.  Spaniards speak with a lisp and his is very heavy.  I suppose a Spaniard would say he has a nice voice but it does me no good.  Together they are much cooler than my parents because they travel.  They've been to ALASKA, Chile, Jordan, Kenya, Japan, Vietnam--- all over!  Maybe they aren't my parents but they are the future ME.  I just need to find a man with a big lisp and a passport.

I also met her older sister Laura who has the  most adorable two year old daughter.  Honestly, most kids, especially around that age, I find boring and repulsive but this girl is perfect. She has a brother/sister on the way which only means one thing--- I need to go back to Spain!

I don't feel weird at all hanging out with Alma's family while she is in London.  I am only here a few days then I will drive to Valencia with her parents and pick up Alma at the airport.  Then I will stay with her for a few days and off to Munich for Oktoberfest.  Alma was going to go but flights got expensive and London was costing her a pretty penny. 

We made this tentative plan that she will come to the states to work when she graduates and if we speak Spanish at home then I can move to Spain to work a year or two later.  Whatever happens it is really nice to know I have family on two continents!

My Spanish mommy (and my traveler's acne)

Tengo suerte!

“I’m lucky”.  That’s all I could say for the past four days. 

I’ve been to Spain once before, six years ago to study in Cadiz.  That same summer, the teacher who helped organize the trip asked if I would like to host the daughter of a Spanish friend of her’s for a week.  My parents agreed and we hosted Alma.

In a purely serendipitous moment I sent a message to Alma saying that I was in Guaro, outside of Malaga, working on a smelly farm without a shower.  I told Alma before I left China that I might make it to Spain and she told me we should try to see each other if I did but she would be in London for three weeks.  I wholly believed she was in London when I sent that message but by the grace of God, she was in her car on her way to Malaga.  By the powers of Facebook she read my message immediately after I sent it and she invited me to join her at the beach for a few days.  I grabbed the bus without so much as asking who she was with.  I imagined she was with friends but I was delighted to meet her amazing parents.  Alma met me at the station and I recognized her immediately. Strange how that can happen after six years. 

The rest of the time was filled with showers, good food, showers, the beach, showerers, spanish conversations, and SHOWERS. 

Guaro- que guarro!

WOW.   

Its taken me a few days because 1) I had to absorb my situation and 2) we are operating on solar power, with Spanish outlets and no internet so this whole using a computer thing is challenging.

Well El Higuero, the name of this farm or “campo, finca or granja” if you would like to speak Espanol, is not quite what I thought it would be.

First, I should state that I put only minimal effort into finding this farm.  In my last couple of month in China, I was very unsure of what my net move would be.  I knew that I wanted to improve my Spanish and this seemed like an appropriate way to do so.  Plus, I had been in a very dirty city and I could use some of the simple life an fresh air.  Note here that I am not saying that I am moving from a dirty city to a clean place.

The facilities at El Higueral are primitive.  In my hesitant phase (perhaps two weeks ago when I still didn’t have a plan) I e-mailed Guillermo, a volunteer just like me who plans to stay here for a year!  Guillermo told me the farm is “un paradiso”.  Another part of the email mentioned taking baths in the river.  I like lakes and I thought taking the occasional bath in the river would be refreshing.  Well, the river, named the Rio Grande (BIG RIVER) is not so appropriately named.  It’s a stream.  It barely comes to my ankles. Oh and we can only use organic soap.  Apparently organic shampoo is very hard to come by. Its 106 degrees and I sweat. This will be interesting.

Interesting, the name of the town, Guaro, sounds much like the word "guarro" (roll the r people rrrrrrrrroll the rrrrrrrr). "Guarro" is a slang word for filthy, disgusting, or dirty.

In my emails to Maria Jesus she told me Guillermo would be on the farm and there would be another WWOOFER, John, from New York. When the car came to pick me up at the bus stop in Guaro out came Guillermo and a young girl.  The girl was Karina, 19, from Germany.  She speaks brilliant Spanish because she spent a year living in Mexico.  This brought our happy family to four (Maria Jesus is on vacation until the middle of the month).  In total there are NINE of us. Most people came within the past week.  Xenia (23, from Austria), Stephen (21, Ireland), Amelia (26 from Italy) Meme and Cullum (17 from England) plus the others aforementioned.  This was far more people than I imagined but for such a diverse group of people we get along great. Everyone is social, pleasant and relaxed. Amelia was preparing lunch when I arrived and from that first meal (pasta from the Italian of course) it felt like a family meal.  We all started singing songs from the Lion King in our own languages- Spanish, English, German, Italian all blended together.  We are family. So fast. So soon!

 

At dinner we decided that it is time to take a field trip.  Apparently the average WWOOFer does not stay as long as Guillermo (a year) and only stays a few weeks.  My plan was to stay for a month but that got cut short by the tomato festival and I actually felt bad for staying so short.  It seems most people’s plans are a week, 10 days, or maybe 2 or 3 weeks.  Since people will be leaving soon.

I was hoping we would hit the beach.  Its been so long since I have had a beach holiday or put on a bathing suit (awkward).  I can’t describe how happy I was to see the beach from the plane.  It felt like home, and by home I mean Miami. Since then I have been constantly reevaluating whether I should look for a job in Miami.

We did not go to a beach but instead went to Ronda (rrrrrrrroll the rrrr). A city I visited  on my first trip to Spain 6 years ago!  It has the oldest bull ring in Spain and some ancient ROMAN aqueducts.  We found a cool waterfall and BATHED!

Once you get past the fact that the farm is dirty and overpopulated its not so bad.  We take turns cooking and we have had some delicious meals (pizza, pancakes, pasta, scones, curry, fried rice, potatoes and eggs).  We eat a lot of things fresh from the farm: figs (OMG no one ever told me how good these are!),  tomatoes, peppers, pomegranates, oranges (fresh orange juice), eggplant, pumpkin and almonds.  In addition there are many herbs, floral plants and olive trees.  Maria Jesus makes her own olive oil but it is not the season.  Even though I did not put much effort into choosing a farm, I was sure about not having animals, chickens might be ok but nothing too big.  This farm only has a cat, two dogs and SIX new born puppies. The puppies are just a few days old and can’t even open their eyes or walk yet.