Sun! I saw sun! Real sun!!

Other than being woken up at 8:30 this morning by obnoxious jackhammering RIGHT outside my window, and I am not exaggerating about the right outside my window part, (I am SO writing a harshly worded letter to hotels.com... seriously, don't they know I'm on vacation??), Day One in Amsterdam was a success. My vague plan was to see the Anne Frank House. And that was the plan in its entirety.

I grabbed a map from the hotel (check me out, I actually took a map this time!) and started walking. The first thing I noticed about the city, other than the obvious canals everwhere (Amsterdam is nicknamed "The Venice of the North"), was the incredible number of bicycles. I noticed it yesterday too, when looking out the windows of the train while arriving. Even when we were still out in the countryside surrounding Amsterdam, I started noticing people on them everywhere. Everywhere you go, there are people riding bikes and hundreds of them parked all over the place. As you're walking along the sidewalk, in most places at least half the pavement is dedicated to bike riders. You have to keep an eye out for them as much as for cars when you're crossing a street. I nearly got flattened several times.

I spent seven hours walking, wandering from neighborhood to neighborhood, checking out the canals, the architecture, the flower market, the coffee shops... it was a lovely, leisurely day. Made all the more glorious by the constant sunshine. Aaaaah. Granted it was still rather cool and I was the only person wearing short sleeves, but I was so happy to see sun again that I just couldn't help myself! I spent lots of time basking in its glory.

An odd thing to see as an American is the abundance of cannabis here. The sale of the plants of it in the flower market, being behind someone in line at a shop who was buying it, seeing a distinguished older woman sitting outdoors at a cafe and smoking it freely, walking into a coffee shop and having the smell overwhelm you. Turns out coffee shops are where you can go to order it as easily and casually as you do a cup of coffee. Pretty wild.

Also wild was the infamous Red Light District. I debated it but, in the end, just had to go see it. It was a lot smaller than I thought and, ironically, set just a block away from a beautiful old church. At one point I had the feeling that I was being followed. Sure enough, I was soon propositioned by a skeevy old geezer. It was time to move on...

... to the Anne Frank House. I have to confess up front that fairly recently I tried to read the book but only got about halfway through before putting it down. I knew it was a heartbreaking story but, frankly, I just couldn't get into it. But being there in person, walking through the house and imagining her in those same spaces, pacing those tiny rooms and walking up and down those steep stairs, trying to remain upbeat despite her circumstances, seeing the pictures she cut out and posted to the walls to help make it feel more "cheery", not being able to go outside or breathe fresh air for 2 years, was very moving. They had quotes from her diary posted all through the house and when I got to her room and read "I long to ride a bike, dance, whistle, look at the world, feel young and know that I'm free", I just stood there and cried. It makes me teary-eyed just to write it. I've read and watched and studied a lot of things about the holocaust but that was one of the first times that I've really FELT, even a small bit, the injustice that was done and the cruelty that one human can inflict on another. I'm going to finish the book when I get home.

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Yet another long, leisurely stroll back to the hotel, taking in the scenery and enjoying a coffee at an outdoor cafe along the way. Vacation is hard.

Holland, baby!

Another day of travel. I might as well get used to them, whether I like them or not. I spent the morning piddling and packing (at least this time it was only a small backpack) and then Lutgarde took me to the train station in Namur. She kindly helped me buy my ticket and spent time with me explaining the train system so I would be able to navigate it even without benefit of speaking the language.

We said our goodbyes and I boarded, feeling fully confident in my ability to make the proper connections. Amazing I can be this age and remain so naive. I'll spare you all the details, but three trains became five and 12 minutes of combined wait time between trains became 90. But, alas, I made it to Amsterdam!

I checked in to my hotel, the one I had specifically chosen because it advertised free WiFi in every room, only to be told there is no internet in the hotel. When I told her about what the website said, her reply was "Sometimes they lie in the ads". And that was that. When I opened the door to my room, I actually laughed out loud at how small it was. And when I realized it was colder in my room than outside and went to ask how to adjust the radiator, I was informed that they don't turn the heat on until October. Sigh. But later on the girl at the front desk told me she had forgotten that they were giving out a free half bottle of wine to everyone at check-in and she handed me one. I guess they figure that if you don't have internet to amuse yourself and you're stuck in your room shivering, at least they can help you get drunk! If only the wine hadn't been undrinkable....

The Mannequin What?!

My last full day in Belgium, and I spent it well! This morning Lutgarde and I headed to Brussels, a little less than an hour drive from the house. We started out at the Atomium, a monument built for the 1958 World Expo. It's a 335-foot high structure made up of 9 huge 'spheres' interconnected with tubes that represents a cell of iron; it's actually a cube but is tilted up on just one of the spheres so it looks like it's standing ont the corner of the cube (yeah, even I didn't understand that explanation). Either way, we went up to the top of it and started off the day with a great view of the layout of the city.

We headed to central Brussels then and, after scoring what may or may not have been a slightly illegal parking spot, started walking. We did lots of wandering around the old part of the city, walking on cobblestone streets, down small streets lined with restaurants, through the royal shopping center (because I'm SO sure that's where the king and queen head when they're out of toothpaste) and to the famous Grand Plaza. We walked some more to see Royal Palace and we even made one of the normally very stern and serious palace guards laugh. Lutgarde was cracking me up about something so I was laughing and laughing (and we all know my laugh isn't exactly quiet) and I guess, no matter how serious they're paid to be, even palace guards are human.

For lunch we stopped at a traditional Belgian restaurant on a charming little street where we could sit outside. I don't remember the name of what I had but I took Lutgarde's suggestions for what would be something very traditionally Belgian on both the food and the beer... they were both good choices!

We also went to the Bier Tempel which is, as the name implies, a store with nothing but beer. Dare I say that, after my many years swearing off beer, I have become a convert. I should have come to Belgium years ago!

Oh, and no visit to Brussels would be complete without a visit to the Mannequin Pis. Yep, it's pretty much like it sounds. There is a legend about a little boy who saved Brussels from burning by, well, pissing on it and so there is a famous statue of him near the Grand Plaza. He's become a bit of a symbol of Brussels so there are lots of variations of him on just about everything imaginable throughout the city. I got my picture taken next to the life-size one randomly holding a huge waffle.

Speaking of which, as I simply had NO choice, I had a Belgian waffle. In Belgium. How cool is that?!

In the evening we went to dinner with the whole family and afterwards they all kindly obliged me in a photo session. They've been so kind in so many ways, sharing their home with me (especially poor Laurane who gave up her room!) and giving so much of their time to tell me about their country and to show me around it. I have appreciated it greatly, far more than I'm sure I've shown. I truly enjoyed my time with them and I look forward to seeing them again on my next trip to Belgium!

An American Party in Belgium

Lutgarde and Stephan have been back in Belgium just about a month and a half so they decided to have an "American party" to have a time to reconnect with friends and family that they haven't seen in a long time and to tell them a little about their time in the States. To make it really feel American, they served hamburgers!

About 40 people came and I really enjoyed getting to meet some of their friends and family. I felt pretty bad that I couldn't speak French and wasn't able to interact with a lot of the people there, but I still was able to really enjoy just sitting and watching everyone, taking in what I could from the few words I could understand (I also mastered "Bonjour", "Merci" and "Au revoir") and just watching everyone interact with each other. What I always find is that no matter how different our languages and cultures may be, we're all pretty much the same. Humans are humans and, in the end, we all want the same things. So I just sat and watched and soaked it all in.

Also, fortunately for me, a number of their friends and family spoke English and were very kind and willing to sit with me and make conversation with the 'foreigner'. I enjoyed a lot of very interesting conversations about Belgian politics (anything you want to know, just ask me!), American politics, travel, cultural differences and so on. One couple in particular I sat and talked to for about an hour and I'm pretty sure we discovered the answer to almost all of the world's problems in that time. Not bad for an hour's work, eh?

These are experiences that you only get when you know someone in a country. Opportunities to see the "real" country, to experience even a little bit of the real culture, not just what you read about in books or see from your hotel balcony, but how the people treat each other, what makes them laugh, how they spend their free time. A very cool opportunity, indeed.

One of the things that I most enjoyed watching throughout the day was the customs of greeting and saying goodbye. Whenever someone new would come in, they would go around the room and greet each and every individual person, one by one. If a family came in together, each member from the parents down to the kids would go around and do the same. The women greeted everyone with a kiss on the cheek, the men greeted others either with a kiss (for the women or even another man to whom they're very close) or with a handshake (if they're less familiar), even if there were people they didn't know. I love that. It shows such a regard for everyone in the room to go around and specifically greet each person individually. It also makes for a warm, friendly environment and a different sense of comfort than I experience when in a similar situation in the US. And, of course, when leaving it's the same process: "making the loop" to go around and bid farewell to each and every person individually. Dig it! And totally going to try to implement it when I get back to the States. So be forewarned.

A Brand New Country! Well, at least for me...

Every place I've been on this trip thus far (Canada, England, Spain), I have been to previously. But from here on out, every place I'm going to is going to be a brand new experience for me. And the first of these is Belgium... woo-hoo!

I got up yesterday morning at the hostel and got my things together yet again. But the beauty of it this time is that, because I'll be returning to Madrid later to meet back up with Sarah, I was able to leave a lot of my stuff behind there to pick up then. So I was able to walk out of the hostel and head off for a week of traveling with only one small schoolbook-sized backpack on me. Aaaaaah. Amazing how much faster the walk from the hostel to the metro station was without having to lug my stupid suitcase with me (my animosity for my suitcase is increasing daily, as is my obsession with what I can start ditching along the way. I have a feeling by the end of the trip I may come home with a toothbrush and a travel size bottle of shampoo in hand).

My flight left a picturesque Madrid (clear blue skies, fluffy white clouds, sunny, warm but not hot, breezy but not windy) behind to land in a grey, rainy Belgium. I had been forewarned about the Belgian weather so I wasn't too surprised, but it was a bit of a shock to the system nonetheless. I was met at the airport by Stephan... always so nice to see a familiar face when you're in a country where you don't speak the language!

I met the Maistriau family (Stephan, Lutgarde, Laurane, and Valentin) last year in Lancaster. Lutgarde was sent on a temporary assignment there with her job and the family followed; Lutgarde is a chemist, Stephan is a physicist and was doing research at Columbia University and Laurane and Valentin attended high school in Lancaster. When I started planning this trip and mentioned to Lutgarde that I thought I might end up in Belgium for a few days, I hoped to perhaps be able to meet up with them at some point for dinner or something. I never anticipated that they would invite me to stay with them. It was SO kind of them! And it is of course always so much nicer to visit a country with someone from that country, as they can show you the REAL way of life. It's a totally different kind of experience and I'm very grateful to get to have this one with them.

They live in Namur, a town in the southern, French-speaking part of Belgium (the northern part speaks Dutch and a small section of the eastern part speaks German). After I arrived, Stephan, Laurane and I went for a drive to a beautiful old monastery that is now used as a school and then to a pub to have my first Belgian beer in Belgium. Since I'm not a big beer drinker, I decided to start off with something 'easy' and ended up with a local, fruity brew. I was told that it was a "girl beer", but I enjoyed it nonetheless! Last night we all went out for dinner and then took a leisurely stroll around the downtown.

The forecast for today was a mix of sun and rain and it seems that the Belgian weathermen are far more accurate than American ones as they were dead on. What surprised me most was how quickly it changed from one to the other. When I woke up, sunny. By the time I showered and got downstairs, grey and dark. And so it went all day. But we soldiered on nevertheless. Lutgarde and I spent the afternoon checking out Namur: the spot where the two rivers meet up, the charming downtown streets and shops, the citadel and a castle. In between rain showers, that is. One minute cold and windy and rainy, the next sunny and delightful.

She explained to me that the people from Namur have a reputation throughout the rest of Belgium as being slow in their way of life, their speech, their pace, etc. so they are called the "Snails of Belgium". What struck me as funny is that they're not offended by it, but rather have embraced it. The snail is now one of their regional symbols and you see it everywhere throughout the town (hence the pic of me by the snail sculpture).

A friend and I once had a discussion about what superpower we would most like to have. His answer was the ability to speak all the languages of the world. I told him that was not a superpower and made him choose again. But now I'm wishing that I had it. Coming off of two weeks of traveling only to countries where I speak the language, it's been a jolt to be somewhere again where I don't. It's been several years since I've traveled to a country that I couldn't get by in either English or Spanish and I had kind of forgotten how dumb it can make you feel. It's comforting when, for example, I'm in Spain and can understand what people are saying both to and about me so I don't have to worry about not being able to speak up for myself, or even just to be able to get what I need, when I need it. When I was downtown today and a waiter came and asked me something and I had NO idea what he was saying (Lutgarde was on a phone call), I had no recourse but to smile and do the old shoulder shrug and point to Lutgarde. It's humbling, to say the least. I'm sure wishing now that speaking all the languages of the world really WAS a superpower!

On the move!

Three cities in two days. A bit much, even for me.

We woke up yesterday in Bilbao, spent the morning packing up the rest of our stuff and having breakfast with Maite. As we were saying goodbye to her, I was overwhelmed again by just how generous she was to us with both her time and her home, so willingly opening it up to us as if it was our own. She rearranged her teaching schedule and spent 4 solid days with us, showing us her country and taking us to amazing places. It really made me wonder if I would be as selfless and generous with both my resources and my time if someone were to come to my hometown to visit. I'm continuing to mull one that over...

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We then headed about an hour west to Santander, another city on the beach. Getting there was easy (the highway system here is SO much easier than in the US!); finding our hostel, not so much. We finally managed and proceeded to spend the afternoon doing "administrative" things like working on future reservations, sorting out our finances back home and so on. Bo-oring. But a necessary evil and something we just have to build in every now and then.

Later in the afternoon, we met up with Sara and Celia, more students from Maite's group that I worked with this summer. I expected to meet up with them for a short while, chat a bit and that would pretty much be it. I underestimated them. They took us all around the town, showing us things and giving us explanations, getting on and off the bus taking us from one side of the town to the other. It was a total turn of events, like suddenly they were the experts and *I* was the tourist, following them around from place to place. They took us to the waterfront, through the city, to the beach, to a small zoo.... they were even going to take us to a palace but unfortunately we ran out of time. They were totally into the whole tour guide thing... it was so nice of them, and I felt bad to have to cut it short. Such sweet girls!

But we had other plans to meet another friend of mine in Santander, Blanca. We had dinner at a really cool new restaurant downtown and spent some time catching up. I met Blanca years ago in Lancaster when she brought a group of students to the area. Since then I have visited her one other time in Santander and she has been back to Lancaster several times. Definitely one of those friends that you can go a long time without seeing or hearing from, but the moment one or the other is in town, you're excited to see each other and spend some time reconnecting. Very cool.

Today was a wash, one of those inevitable days that get lost in traveling. I'm sure there will be many more like it. We left Santander a little after lunchtime, got into Madrid in the early evening, spent far too much time driving around looking for our hostel so we could drop off our bags, gave up and went to return the car, then schlepped our bags from there with us (uphill!) to the hostel. Until we got checked in, it was 8:30 or so. And that was our whole day. At the very least, it was grey and chilly all day anyhow so, really, if you have to lose a day to travel, this was the one to lose.

On the upside, our hostel is in SUCH a cool area of Madrid, one of my favorites, near the Prado Musuem and tucked into a little neighborhood full of tiny, intersecting streets, quaint pubs, plazas full of tables for outdoor dining, galleries, shops and so on. When you're in it, it feels so small and cozy and familiar that you almost forget you're in the middle of such a huge city. I also love the way it fills up at night, with hoardes of locals. When we got here around 8:30, the streets were mostly deserted; when we went out for coffee around 9:30, it was filling up; by the time we came back around 11, the streets were teeming with people, dining outdoors and talking and laughing and visiting with friends. I'll be sorry to leave here tomorrow.

We soldier on, even in flip-flops

Yesterday Maite tried to kill us. But she lured us in slowly, with food and wine and the beach, so we followed her like lambs to the slaughter.

The day started off innocuously enough, with sleeping in a bit and then heading downtown. The head of the travel agency that sent Maite's group to Lancaster this summer wanted to meet me and talk about some "business". Turned out that talking about business took place at a lovely little outdoor plaza while drinking coffee. Not too rough.

We went back home, had lunch and this was when the first red flags should have started going up for us. She told us we should eat a "good lunch" as we would be doing a lot of walking later on in the day. Cue ominous, forewarning music here. We headed to a little beach town less than an hour from her house and spent some time lazing on the beach (read: Sarah and I conked out). Of course the one time we all brought our bathing suits, it was way too cold to swim in the water. Figures. And then more foreshadowing of what lay ahead: Maite and I took a stroll on the beach and she pointed out a little chapel on top of a fairly high hill on a little island in the distance and said that was where we were going later. I assumed she meant in a car. Silly, silly me.

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We tore ourselves away from the beach and got back in the car and headed up a mountain. At the top we parked, got out and started making our way back down. But this time it was down a long, winding path which led to a narrow walkway at the bottom that connected the tiny island with the chapel to the mountain. Keep in mind that I was wearing a skirt and flip flops. The hike down alone, the EASY part, took us at least a half an hour. When we got to the bottom, we saw what appeared to be like a miniature version of the Great Wall of China that winded its way up the island hill, a mix of steps (approx. 230) and slopes. But, oh, what a view! We climbed to the top, to the chapel where you can ring the bell and make a wish. We arrived with impeccable timing, just about 20 minutes or so before the sunset, which we watched go down over the sea. Simply lovely.

A sentiment which lasted briefly, until right about the moment when we realized that we had to high tail it out of there to be able to have enough time to make it back down the island hill and waaaay back UP the other one before complete darkness fell. Yeah, still in my skirt and flip flops. By the end, I'm pretty sure that little old ladies and babies were passing me. We made it just in the nick of time and of course, as soon as we made it back to the top, once I had regained the full use of my lungs, my first words were "Valio la pena"... it was totally worth it!

Today was our official chill day. We spent some time at home arranging our next few stays, headed out downtown to a bookstore, to a little pub for some vino and bocadillos for lunch and then on yet another long, leisurely stroll all along the waterway that lines the city.

A sidenote for my fellow Lancastrians: at one point we went on the oldest hanging bridge in the world, and Sarah spotted a guy wearing a shirt that said "Lancaster, PA" on it! Turns out it was just some random brand's design but it referenced 106 North Queen Street in its design. Seriously, in the middle of a small town in Spain, what are the chances of seeing someone wearing a shirt of a random company who randomly chose Lancaster to incorporate into the designs of one of its shirts? And, yes, of course I asked him to take a picture of it (check out the photo of the random dude wearing the white t-shirt... you can click on it to make it bigger).

In the evening we met up with Mikel and went out for our last dinner together. Then back home to pack (I made baby steps in getting rid of some things, even though Sarah doesn't think I should get too much credit for ditching the socks they gave me on the plane) and take one last, obligatory picture together. Moving on is always a bit of a mix of excitement about going somewhere new, tinged with sadness about what you're leaving behind. So tomorrow, we're off yet again....

The Most Beautiful City in Spain

When Maite was in Lancaster this summer, she informed me that San Sebastian was THE most beautiful city in Spain. Period, end of discussion. So today she had it planned to take Sarah and I there to prove it to us in person. I'm so glad she did.

Her son Mikel came with us and the four of us set out in the morning in our tiny little rented car towards the east, almost to the French border. When we got to San Sebastian, the first thing we did was go to the top of a mountain to get a fabulous view of the sea and the town. It was an absolutely perfect day, clear and crisp and sunny and warm all at the same time (we have been informed that we are extremely lucky because this is HIGHLY unusual weather for this time of year), so it made for a fantastic view.

Once down in the town we walked all around checking out the lovely old buildings and soaking in the old charm of the city. Turns out that the San Sebastian Film Festival was going on and we saw them setting up for the imminent arrival of Julia Roberts on the black carpet. Not red carpet, black carpet. We considered meeting up with her for lunch but, in the end, decided we would rather spend our time elsewhere so we sent our regrets from our people to her people to let her know we would try to catch her another time.

It didn't take us long to end up on the beach. When we left the house this morning, it was quite cool so none of us brought our bathing suits except for Sarah. So while she was swimming and the other three of us were sitting on the shore watching her swim, we spent our time kicking ourselves and Maite spent hers reminding us of how "estupidos" we were.

After that, more meandering through the old part of the town, to a pub for a vino, lunch from a pasterleria eaten in the sun on a park bench, wandering around looking for our car, coffee at an outdoor cafeteria, more looking for the car (Maite insisted it wasn't lost!) and finally we were on our way....

.... to the top of a mountain in a nearby town where you could see the Pyrenees Mountains and, thus, the border between Spain and France. It was crazy windy and cold but such a beautiful, panoramic view. And then we were on our way again....

.... to Hondarribia, yet another picturesque old town where it turns out Maite used to live. It is bordered by a river, one that is another dividing line between Spain and France. We could almost have thrown a rock across it and into France. More meandering. More vino (appropriately, in a pub named Bar Maite). Aaaaaaah.

It was a long, full day, but a great one. It was so kind of both Maite and Mikel to spend their whole day showing us around such beautiful places. It was also quite fun, with lots of talking and laughing. We started off the day speaking only Spanish. By the time we were driving home, Mikel suddenly whipped out his amazing English completely out of nowhere (I hadn't really heard him speak English before). By the end of the day it was a funny mix of both, some things in Spanish, some in English. Occasionally someone would even ask something in one language, and the other person would answer in the other, but always seamlessly and without either person even seeming to notice they were having one conversation but in two languages. As a language nerd, I totally dug it!

To the North!

I have been to Spain about 7 or 8 times and most of the time I return to the same places because I am visiting friends. But this time I have a new friend so I get to go to a new place... yay!

We packed up from Angel's house this morning (uff, I am already SO sick of all my stuff) and went to pick up our rental car. What we imagined might take us an hour, took us nearly 2 1/2 between having to take 3 metros, getting to the rental place, finding the rental place, doing the paperwork and then going to find the car which, for as long of a walk as it was from the rental place to the rental parking lot, should almost have been considered another segment on our round-the-world ticket. The moment we pulled out of the lot, we realized we had forgotten to get a map but by then we'd already been swept up in Madrid traffic and decided it was more trouble than it was worth to try to go back so we winged it with a little city map (not a road map) that Sarah had. Amazingly, we made it out of the city relatively easily and then were on our way to Bilbao!

The drive from Madrid to Bilbao is about 4 hours and, as the rental car is in my name, I planned to do the driving. But about an hour into the trip, last night caught up with me. For some reason I couldn't fall asleep and didn't end up finally doing so until 6 (yes, six) in the morning. And all of a sudden while driving, the fact that I had only had 2 1/2 hours of sleep suddenly came crashing down on me. Apparently, I'm not as young as I used to be. Sarah drove the rest of the way while I passed out cold in the passenger's seat.

This summer in Lancaster, while working with the Spanish kids as I have done for several years, I met Maite, the Spanish leader who came with the group. She and I hit it off immediately and went on to have a great time together during the month while we were, ehem, 'working' with the students. When I told her back then about my upcoming trip to Spain, she said that we MUST come to Bilbao. A lot of people say things like that, like "Oh, if you're ever in my area.... " but I somehow knew that Maite really meant it. And so here we are. She lives in a flat with her son and they are both very relaxed, hospitable "my home is your home" kinds of hosts. We could not have asked for anyone better.

Before even getting to her house, Maite took us to the top of a mountain that overlooks Bilbao so could get a great, panoramic view of the city layout. We then went and dropped off our stuff at her place and left to go meet up with some of the students that had come with her to Lancaster this summer. While walking to the bus stop, we ran into her son on the street and made the proper introductions like normal. Then the two of them were talking in Spanish about the plans for the evening and he asked her where we were going. She replied "We're going to meet the students at the poopy.", and they just casually carried on with the conversation. Sarah and I exchanged quizzical looks and mouthed "Poopy???" to each other. Why were we going to see poopy, we wondered? We didn't want to go to poopy! We asked for clarification and Maite said, "Yes, we're going to the Poopy". Um, more clarification please. Turns out "poopy" is actually the Puppy, a gigantic, flower-covered sculpture in the shape of a dog that stands in front of the Guggenheim Museum and is a favorite meeting point downtown. With the Spanish pronunction of the 'u', it becomes poopy. We were going to let it go and not say anything but it was just too rich to let pass. So we told them how it should be pronounced and they said "No, no, it's poopy". We said "No, it's really not. It's definitely puppy." Them: "No, here it's called the poopy." We then explained the difference and now they are definitely making efforts to prounounce it correctly! Of course it has been a running joke ever since.

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We met up with the students at the Poopy and it was a grand reunion. It's always so cool when you meet someone back home but then get to go and see them in their own country, on their own turf, so to speak. There were lots of Spanish kisses and American hugs. It was so kind of them all to come out to see me!

After that we walked and walked through the city, through the old parts and the new parts, and along the river. It's a beautiful city (particularly at night) and I was really happy to get to see a place in Spain that I haven't seen before. Then in true Spanish style, we went to a pub for a copa (drink), and then on to another place for a late dinner around 10:30 pm. Maite knew of a cool little family-run place where they make Moroccan pinchos (kebabs) with lamb. De-lish. Plus, the three of us ate for like $16 USD total... which included the food AND a round of wine. Amazing.

I love the late night culture here. And that 3 glasses of wine cost the equivalent of $6 USD, even though it would cost about 4 times that in the US (I STILL can't get over that one). And that when everyone is standing outside drinking their copas, despite the fact that there is ample room for everyone to spread out, everyone instead stands in one big, massive huddle as the term "personal space" is not in the Spanish dictionary. I dig that dogs are allowed in bars here. And that everyone eats off the same plate and uses their fingers. And I love the way they use the language here. And all sorts of other things that make me smile broadly to myself every time I see them. I heart Espana.