Friday, January 6, 2012

Reno, NV to Abejar, Spain in 9 Hours

Day 1

Getting my feet on the ground.

The plane ride was long and my ass hurt like crazy. The flight wasn’t too bad, I made a big dent in my book and watched Willy Wonka. When we landed in Madrid I felt happy to get my feet on the ground. Cesar’s 2nd oldest brother, Jullian, picked us up as well as Javier (Ian & Nayla’s cousin) and Tia (aunt) Marie Carmen who lives in Madrid. Javier is the Spanish version of Ian he parties and then plays video games…and that’s all. Ian stayed with Javier and his aunt in Madrid and Nayla, Kerri, Cesar and I rode with Jullian to Abejar. The scenery is beautiful rolling hills with winery’s, poppy fields and farms. We will go back to Madrid at some point but aren’t sure when. The ride to Abejar was long and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. When we arrived in Abejar we stopped for lunch at Miguel‘s (Cesar’s cousins) hotel to eat and meet family. The food is indescribable. The salad was delicious, eggs, beef and unpitted green and black olives. I had the lomo which is a kind of pig plus French fries, then I had a piece of cheesecake with raspberry sauce. Plus a little bit of red wine. The hardest part is the language. I can understand bits and pieces and generally what people are saying but I am not confident enough to speak-because I am not sure if my translation is correct. For today I just listened but hopefully I can start talking and conversing with locals, the Garcias mostly speak to me in English but when they introduce me they tell people I can speak a little and that I want to try, which I am very grateful for. On the way to Abejar we passed through Soria and Nayla showed me where the fiestas will take place. We are a week away from their start but people are already setting up. The house is very nice and contains new things like nice tile and hard wood floors but they have also maintained a lot of the old structure (this is the house where Cesar’s parents lived, it used to be a barn) they kept the ceiling which is now a rich black from the open fires they used to have, they have a window which was handmade and two walls that were built using stone, mud and hay. I took a shower and quickly got into bed, I fell asleep and didn’t even hear Nayla come in after her shower (we are sharing a room with two full beds). I woke up to voices because the walls are very thin, Kerri and Cesar came back from the market and had visitors. I was going to get up but I decided to stay and listen to see if I could understand-overall, I didn’t :[. We had dinner (a much smaller meal than lunch) at around 9:45 (Spaniards eat dinner very late). Cesar made us sandwiches with traditional hard bread and Spanish cheese and salami, it was incredible. We also had Spanish potatoes chips (which taste very similar) plus melon and barvedios (or something…which has a pickle, olives, green and red chiles on a toothpick) they were really good. After dinner Nayla and I took a walk in Abejar, it was night so I couldn’t see much but it seems like a very old charming town. She showed me where she plays and where her friends live and go. When we got back we had hot milk with cola cao (chocolate mix) with tostados (taste like a mix of graham crackers and vanilla wafers). So good!
I am off to bed now, excited for tomorrow but hoping to get my internet working!!
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