I still have three months left here, yet in a few clicks of a camera, a few swigs of badly mixed drinks, a few long nights and a few raw goodbyes, it'll be over. This book will be done, the present unfolding European adventure will have folded for good (or at least for two years). My story has been a wild one, more twisted, painful and rewarding than I could've ever predicted. I hope I will be able to say the same for the epilogue.
Closing out the final chapter of my Tales of Twenty-some Countries will be harder than it was to introduce the pursuit. But the epilogue is nothing to cry about. I've accepted a two-year graduate assistant position at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, my alma mater, in the New Student Enrollment office.
I'll help coordinate, plan and implement orientation programs for new students, with special emphasis on international ones. I'll develop and direct an international-student seminar, run an English language group, arrange meals for foreign students with local families and create activities to increase interaction between foreigners and Americans. As part of the deal, the university is going to pay me for that job and even pay all of my Educational Administration Master's degree tuition. That's hard to pass up. So is finally being around to kiss my little gang of nieces and nephews, to join in family dinners and to dress in red on fall Saturdays with friends in Lincoln.
Even so, the decision hasn't been an easy one. I've had to turn down an opportunity to teach next year in the sunny, palm-tree lined coastal region of Spain that was just named the "world's best place for the good life." I guess I've chosen "The Good Life" over "the good life."
I believe our lives should read like a book. We are the protagonists in our own stories, and we must drive their course. There should be progress, excitement, inevitable lulls, a climax and a denouement. A good story has forward motion, a maturing plot and evolving characters. Happy endings are great but only if someone trudged through a patch of thorns in shorts to get there. I've recorded my narrative here, including my battles against the proverbial thorn patches that scratched me to sh**but ultimately left me better off. I hope to pen a happy ending here, too.
I've made a decision to keep moving and advance my story. So, here's to continuing to write one heck of a tale.
I was freshly 18 when he and I met at a party in a new friend's basement. You know, one of those places with the low-slung ceilings, mismatched furniture and a keg on ice. I had plans to move to the dorms that week and join the college scene as a smart-but-social co-ed. I didn't want a boyfriend. But he was tall and skinny and had shaggy brown hair. With those three characteristics, he met all of my teenage girl criteria. And so, he was mine before he knew he was mine.
I can map the trajectory of our relationship according to the evolution of his haircut. At first it was long, far past his ears, unkempt and chill. So was our relationship. It was fun and carefree. We partied, crashed on friends' floors and made beer-fueled memories we couldn't remember the next morning. Then he cut it. It was still long, but it was above the ears. It was still cool but more serious, more suitable for a degree-seeking 20-something. Our fun fling took a similar twist toward serious. We began saying "I love you" at the end of every call and increasingly chose Netflix and frozen pizza over drunk non-memories. With every inch he cut off, we inched closer to middle-class suburbia and joint tax filings.
Five years in, I moved to Spain to work for what was supposed to be a one-year deal. As part of that, I was traveling, teaching, making new friends and drinking wine and coffee. (Both were drinks I'd always adamantly despised before. They stain your teeth. They taste like shit.) And so, ours was a slow, undetectable decay, like a tumor that goes unnoticed until you're saying your last goodbye. I found myself embracing everything around me in Europe and embracing a life without him. I call B.S. on the "absence makes the heart grow fonder" line. With every Skype call missed, we grew further apart. While I was gone, he became a career man, a slacks-and-button-up man with his own health insurance and 401k. Meanwhile, I became even more of a lost soul. I was overqualified to be unemployed post-Spain but too clueless to know what I wanted to do.
I can't pinpoint when exactly I questioned going back to Nebraska to settle down, but it seems I came to a fork in the road. One path was full of curves, bends I couldn't see past and neon warning signs. It promised to be exciting but full of risk and uncertainty. The other path was straight and narrow, lauded for its smooth surface and suitability for cruise control. It was The Path by any rational standards. It was safe and comfortable, The Sure Thing that everyone searches for. I spent days, nights, mornings, evenings and middle-of-the-nights telling myself The Path was the right path for me.
When I finally chose The Wrong Path, I cried. He cried. We cried, but rarely at the same time. It always seemed like he was grieving when I wasn't, or vice versa. I grieved in private, at 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m., as the unrelenting cadence of motorbikes outside my barely-there street-side window kept me awake.
I could've had it all - a nice house, a stable career, a handsome, loving husband who would kiss me before leaving for work in his new sedan. Instead, I moved back to Spain, where I rent a bedroom in a furnished apartment and earn a pittance at my part-time teaching job. Here I'm seeing the world, gaining Spanish fluency more each day and challenging myself to build a life as a young woman who doesn't identify as the future Mrs. Anybody.
It has not been easy, but in life we're liable for the decisions we make and the hearts we break. I broke my heart and his heart and our families' hearts, and that weighs on me every day. I struggle with my decision, and having faith that I made the right one is a daily challenge. Months after calling off our wedding, moving on remains an ongoing pursuit. We've relapsed too many times to count, done the familiar dance of exes caught somewhere between committed and not.
There are days when the allure of The American Dream eats at me like a parasite I can't shake. We tend to measure life by a quantifiable system of metrics, and accordingly, I'm failing. We assess success by hours worked, children raised, money earned and cars owned. The intangible victories - challenges overcome or fears conquered, for example - don't count for as much. I recognize that. I don't expect everyone to understand my choice, to legitimize my lifestyle or to encourage my wanderlust. But I do hope that they respect my decision and the guts it took to make it. Maybe he and I will be Us again someday. Neither of us can say for sure. I still love him, but for now, I've chosen to live instead of to love - to live out my dreams, to not let them be dreams at all, really. So here's to having the courage to follow my instincts and the confidence that I've pursued happiness, even if in the end, I could've found it right in front of me.
People call me brave and adventurous, ambitious and determined. They congratulate me for making a decision that changed my life even though I was terrified it would, well, change my life. But for as courageous and composed as people think I am, the truth is deep down I'm as frazzled and anxious as you are. The path I've chosen wears on me, just like yours wears on you. I'm scared - Every. Single. Day. Of what I'm missing back home. Of losing touch. Of losing people. Of not learning enough or trying to learn too much. Of missing the signs that I'm in the wrong or the right place. You may think my life is worth envying. You see my pictures on Facebook; you imagine me regularly parading through passport control; you see me making friends around the globe and pursuing the opportunities I always said I would. But you know what? I envy you, dear 8-to-6'er (nobody works 9 to 5 anymore, let's be honest). You're chained to your desk, at a job where you don't feel fulfilled. You sometimes plot how to accidentally spill your coffee on your keyboard so that it can be out of commission for a while. You eat lunch at your desk because coming back from a break just reminds you how much you don't want to be there. But hey, you have stability. You have a steady paycheck, perhaps a retirement account and savings, even. There are times when you feel accomplishment and optimism and self-worth. I envy that. Dear wearied mom, you think cleaning runny poop - or, God forbid, crusty poop - off your teething infant's butt is unglamorous and perpetual. Perhaps you feel moribund, stuck in the monotony of your day-to-day. While I'm eating couscous in Morocco and Parmesan in Italy, you're taste-testing baby foods. Those meats really are awful. As much as you love your kids, sometimes you dream of travel, adventure or, hell, just a few days off. But guess what? I envy you, too. You are surrounded by people who know and support you. As much as that baby cries, she loves you, and you can hold her when you're about to break. I envy that. Dear straying partner, you think your relationship is sparkless, blissless, romantic-comedy-moment-less. On Monday you talk about a weekend date night, but by Friday you're microwaving popcorn and falling asleep at 9 with crumbs in your bed. He's tired. You're tired. You wonder about passion and romance and surprise. But guess what? You're falling asleep next to him. When he holds you, it reminds you why you've hung on for so long. I envy that. Dear young newlywed, you still hold your hand in the sun and watch your ring sparkle. You can't help but cry when you hear the song you danced to with Dad at your wedding, and you have tiered white cake in the freezer. But sometimes the naysayers get to you, the ones who've said you're not at an "OK age" to marry, that being ready only happens after you pass a certain birthday, that you didn't have time to find you before you agreed to we. You know what? I envy you, too. I envy the strength you had to commit. I envy the burnt dinners at home and the wedding album on the coffee table. I envy you having an us. Even so, life is about decisions and accepting the highs and lows that come with them. There are good days and bad days for all of us. I'm not cleaning baby poop off butts, but I'm cleaning pigeon poop off my European sandals. Some days I'm OK with that. Some days I'm not. But I can't sit and compare my life to yours, and you shouldn't compare yours to mine. Because envy is a cancer. So here's to fighting it with everything good we've got.
Madrid > Milan (only to the
airport. An Italian friend picked us up there). > Jesolo, Italy >
Ljubljana, Slovenia > Lake Bled, Slovenia > Verona, Italy >
Parma area, Italy > La Spezia, Italy > Cinqueterre, Italy > La
Spezia > Pisa/Florence (accidentally) > Venice > Prague, Czech
Republic > Budapest, Hungary > Madrid, Spain.
May 30, 2013, to June 14, 2013
The flooded Danube River in Budapest. When in Italy we realized that the Danube was at record high levels, which could affect our trips to Prague and Budapest. Luckily it didn't cause any problems for us in the end.
I loved this "castle" in the city park in Budapest. Turns out it's just a recreation of one in Translyvania in Romania, but it's cool nonetheless.
Budapest was our last stop, and we were exhausted, so we paid for a hop-on/hop-off bus, and although I felt slightly dorky, it was worth the roughly 13 euros to not have to walk one. more. step.
Fisherman's Bastion, a lookout point, on the Buda side of Budapest. One of the prettiest structures I've seen.
Plaza del Erbe, Verona. Such a beautiful place.
Our Italian lunch in Verona: tomatoes, parmesan, ham and bread. We ate an incredibly amount of bread and cheese while in Italy.
We officially became members of the Betolo Fun Club. We got picked up in the Betolo at the Milan airport and roadtripped to Jesolo, Italy; Slovenia, Verona and back to a small town outside Parma.
Manarola, one of the five villages that make up the Cinqueterre area of Italy's northwest coast. The breathtaking villages are built into the cliffs and aren't accessible by car.
Venice, my second time there. The cheapest gondola ride we could find was 30 euros a person, so we passed.
Old Town Square in Prague.
Trdelnik, a typical Czech/Slovakian pastry. Perhaps the most amazing pastry I've ever had.
I was so excited to see Nebraska represented on the John Lennon Wall in Prague.
Old Town Square, Prague. The whole city looks like it came from a movie set.
Ljubljana, Slovenia is a beautiful, relaxed small city.
The stunning Vintgar Gorge near Lake Bled, Slovenia.
Lake Bled, Slovenia, where beauty is everywhere, the drinking water is as pure as it gets and the air is crisper than crisp.
We had to do a steep 30-minute climb in totally inadequate footwear to get to this point to see Lake Bled from above, but it was worth it.
Looking at these amazing places reminds me how lucky I am to do what I do.
After finishing my first year teaching and before coming home to Nebraska, my roommate and I took a nice 16-day swing around Central Europe. Once upon a time, I was a planner - meticulous and organized and anal. But together we have become the ultimate non-planners, a pair of late arrivers of the worst kind. But dang do we have a good time.
I'm going to use our failures to craft a somewhat sincere tips list for any readers who might try to recreate anything we did. Here's the trajectory of our trip: Madrid > Milan (only to the airport. An Italian friend picked us up there). > Jesolo, Italy > Ljubljana, Slovenia > Lake Bled, Slovenia > Verona, Italy > Parma area, Italy > La Spezia, Italy > Cinqueterre, Italy > La Spezia > Pisa/Florence (accidentally) > Venice > Prague, Czech Republic > Budapest, Hungary > Madrid, Spain.
1. If you sleep in the airport, be on time for your flight.
The minute I finished my last day of work, I headed to my apartment, finished packing, caught a bus to Madrid and slept in the airport, awaiting our early morning flight to Milan. Somehow we ended up losing track of time and having to power-walk/lightly jog to the gate after the rest of the passengers had already boarded. In the end, after sleeping in the airport five times, my best tip would be to just loosen your grip on your wallet a bit and fork out some euros for a bloody hotel. But if that doesn't happen: Don't try sleeping on the floor in the Madrid airport. There's a rancid woman who lives in the Ryanair check-in area, and the floorspace outside of that area is freezing. Your best bet is to snag a table at the cafeteria and fashion a makeshift bed out of the chairs.
2. If you're going to be in a country for any significant length of time, buy a SIM card with internet.
We spent about a week in Italy and found ourselves chained to restaurants with wi-fi and internet cafes. We wasted way too many hours and euros on internet, trying to communicate with the Italian friend and panic-searching for lodging. We could've bought a SIM card from the get-go (for about 15 to 20 euros) and saved ourselves the stress and money. As long as your smartphone is unlocked for international use, you can pop in a SIM card from any European country. You'll get a local number and everything. So European.
3. Speaking of lodging...Find lodging before you arrive to a country where you don't speak the language.
We arrived to La Spezia with no place to stay and without internet to look for a place. The information office was entirely unhelpful, so we paid 5 euros for wi-fi to do a haphazard lodging search. Italy is expensive, in case you didn't know, and we couldn't find anything cheap and available. So we reached out to an Italian Couchsurfing contact, who helped us find a place for 30 euros a night (each) near the train station (the owner didn't speak English, so I have no idea how we would've dealt with the situation without the local guy). Unfortunately, the Couchsurfer came to our rescue after we had already wasted three hours at the train station, caged in the wi-fi zone next to the loudest train platform.
4. Read the terms of a low-cost airline flight very closely.
We're seasoned Ryanair flyers, so we've never had a problem with them (make sure you always print out your boarding pass ahead of time or you'll have to cough up 50 or 60 euros at the airport). But from Venice to Prague, we flew Wizzair, a Hungary-based low-cost provider I'd frankly never heard of. It was cheap. For a reason. At a Venice internet cafe while trying to check in for the flight, I discovered that you have to pay to take a standard-sized carry-on. Only very small carry-on bags were free. Beings that we only had carry-ons for 16 days of traveling, our carry-ons were far from small. So we tried to pay online to add carry-ons to our flights (how ridiculous is it to pay to add carry-ons?), and guess what? The site didn't work. So we scrambled to contact the airline, but it costs more than a euro a minute to call. We bought a calling card, which we later found out can't be used to call a toll number. Ultimately we went to a bar with internet (which we had already been to earlier that day) and wrote a Spanish friend and asked him to call the Spanish Wizzair line. He called at 10:02 p.m. The customer service line closed at 10. So we ended up throwing a bunch of stuff in one big carry-on and paying 45 euros at the airport to take it on the plane.
5. Make sure you triple check that you have boarded the correct train.
From La Spezia, we intended to go to Collechio (a small town near Parma) en route to Venice. But we unknowingly boarded the wrong train and ended up in Pisa at 10 p.m. (I wish we could've seen our faces when the ticket man on the train informed us that we were not going to Collechio.) We had to take a train from Pisa to the central station in Florence and then catch a bus to a secondary Florence station to get to Venice on the night train. Let's just say Pisa and Florence are not places you want to be wandering aimlessly at night.
I'm sure someone somewhere once said that from failure you gain strength or wisdom or something like that, right? I like to think I've gotten something out of these mistakes other than a handful of memories that are awesome only for how awful they really are. If not, oh well.
I've accepted a position to teach again next year in the province of Cáceres, Extremadura, where I work now. With that said...
No one said following your gut was easy. Constant goodbyes are awful. Distance is awful. Tough decisions are awful. But so is forgoing an opportunity that will change your life out of fear that it will, in fact, change your life. Don't let your dreams be dreams, as they say.
My decision to stay will fray relationships and jeopardize career opportunities I could've taken. I'll waste money I should be saving and postpone the adulthood I should be planning for. I'll miss moments, birthdays and holidays with the people who are most important to me. I'll see cake-smeared nieces and nephews on Facebook and wonder if I should be home watching them evolve from infants to toddlers to schoolchildren. I'll see Husker tailgates and wonder if I should be connecting with old friends, rebuilding bonds naturally strained by distance. I'll see family photos and wonder if I should be sitting at my grandparents' kitchen table while I can. I'll think about my unworn wedding dress hanging in a closet and wonder if sacrificing a marriage to my very best friend in order to stay here was foresighted or careless. I'll wonder about regrets and everything that was but isn't anymore. And when I leave let again, there will be more tears and more hard-as-hell goodbyes.
I really hate "what ifs" and "could've beens," but there'd be no avoiding them next year in Nebraska or Spain. Anthony Bourdain (goodness, I really can't stop quoting him; the man's a machine) said, “[When I die], I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities
for a good time. My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list
of people hurt, people let down, assets wasted and advantages
squandered.” So here's to another year of adventure, discovery, growth and independence in Europe. Here's to another year of being poor, lost and foreign. With that, The Nomad Chronicles continues...
It quite literally pays off. Cliche, yes, but true. I looked at flights to go home for the summer about two weeks ago, and I about puked from sticker shock. Since then I've been busy taking way too many siestas and doing way too much of nothing, so I haven't had time to look at flights. Today I finally did, and good thing I shopped around.
When I first looked, this is along the lines of what I saw. I wasn't happy about it and actually got a little worried.
So I looked at trusty Student Universe, the site where I bought my one-way ticket to come to Spain last September. Didn't turn out to be so great this time around.
So then I thought maybe it'd be cheap to fly to Chicago and then either buy a separate flight to Omaha or take a bus. Wrong. Still $701 to go to Chicago through Student Universe.
I looked at Iberia, Spain's airline. ARE YOU KIDDING ME, IBERIA? Almost 2,500 euros to fly to Omaha?
Then Expedia, from Madrid to Chicago. 633 euros. Then Expedia from Madrid to Omaha. 1,300 euros. So no. Then CheapOAir - $634 to Chicago. Nope again.
And then as a last-ditch effort, I Googled "student flights" and found STA Travel, which I had heard of when I studied abroad in Spain and Costa Rica, but I hadn't been impressed by their rates before. Then, THIS:
The exact same flight that is 2,422 euros directly from Iberia is $487 through STA Travel, which is a reputable company, even as too-good-to-be-true as it seems. The site has awesome deals for students and "youths" (me) under 26.
So, I'm coming home June 17, and I ended up paying $487. I'm thrilled.
Much of what I saw in Bulgaria was shabby and not in a chic way. It was shabby in an unkempt, paint-peeling, windows broken, "what happened to this place?" kind of way. There's graffiti, cracked sidewalks and renegade gypsy camps. Lots of buildings are blocky and gray and worn, some with exteriors that seem to house the remnants of a horror story inside. (The country has a fair share of stunning buildings, too, I should say.)
Vratsa
I saw lots of people who were noticeably hardened -- not
mean but hard, haggard, perhaps struggling and losing. There isn't the brightness, the carefreeness, the "let's grab a beer and work later" mentality that's so classically Spanish. For the 20 percent of Bulgarians who work for the equivalent of 1 euro an hour - minimum wage - it's about
surviving. People sell tarnished coins and animal pelts and treasures from Grandpa's attic at makeshift markets to make ends meet. (Bulgaria, of course, isn't the only country where people do that.)
Even so, Bulgaria is an eclectic, endearing, intriguing ex-communist gem - nothing like the traditional European beauties of Vienna, Venice or Prague. I adored it and would love to go back someday. It's unconventionally beautiful, like a guy with a gap in his teeth or a crooked nose -- you have to look past a superficial flaw or two to see that he's peculiarly handsome.
Sofia
Vratsa
Veliko Tarnovo
Vratsa
Veliko Tarnovo
Veliko Tarnovo
Sofia
Bulgaria has plains, hills and mountains, green in summer and white in winter. It's got charming medieval towns that have endured centuries of Ottoman rule and later, communism. It's got what I'm told is an awe-inspiring Black Sea coast on its eastern side, which I sadly didn't have the good fortune of visiting.
Vratsa
And goodness, the food. MMM, the food. It was the most glorious sort of hearty and heavy - think meats, bread, potatoes. Even the salads alone were enough to over-stuff an empty stomach. Eating our three- and four-course meals was like de-layering those Russian dolls; when you think you've reached the end there's yet another surprise. And all of it was guilt-inducingly cheap: You can get a delicious meal with way too much food for the equivalent of five euros or less.
Is it lunch time yet?
Typical tomato and cucumber salad with delicious Bulgarian cheese.
Mix of veggies with chicken and pork
Potatoes and more of that delicious cheese
Pork and more delicious veggies
This was a starter...for one person (served on traditional Bulgarian ceramic).
Bulgaria may not have the Statue of David, the most well-manicured face or the most notable European architecture (we've got Churchill to partially blame for that. Sofia, the capital, lost something like 12,000 buildings when he ordered the city's bombing during WWII). But sometimes conventional beauty is boring.
The cowtown perception of Nebraska has pervaded Europe.
Coming here, I assumed no one would know anything about Nebraska, given that it's a flyover state that even Americans pay little attention to. To be sure, there are plenty of Europeans who haven't heard of the place, but I've met many who are familiar with it, surprisingly.
But what strikes me most about their reaction is the general negativity and/or snickers that follow my introduction. Is
there a lot of corn, farms and cows in my great state? Absolutely. Stereotypes are generally rooted in truth, so it's no surprise that people link Nebraska with cows and corn. But why is it viewed so negatively?
Postcards like this might have something to do with it.
I'm the proud daughter, granddaughter and sister of hard-working,
driven, intelligent farmers who are nothing like the tired stereotype
of backwoods buffoons. I find it ridiculous and downright offensive, quite frankly, that I have to defend my farm roots as if they're something to be ashamed of. Some of the most dedicated, genuine, gracious and appreciative people I know have agricultural backgrounds.
So, the next time a Spaniard, American, European or anyone, for that matter, chuckles when I say
I'm from Nebraska, I'll cite this national index that shows Lincoln, Nebraska's capital city, is the happiest metro area in the U.S.
And oh yeah, 96 percent of Nebraska's active labor force is employed. So to super-cool-dude-from-LA-whom-I-met-at-the-bar, who's laughing now? You've got beaches, Britney and oppressive debt.
**I've added a couple of gems since I posted originally.
1.) When you venture into the bowels of Spanish bureaucracy, you lose.
Getting my foreign identity card was the disasterous, mindblowingly inefficient process I was warned it could be. The workers were incompetent, and the "rules" were nonexistent at worst and fluid at best.
We Americans were each given different "official" forms to fill out. The workers told us it was OK we all had different ones because it didn't really matter anyway. Some of us were told we needed to get a verification from the town hall that proved we did, in fact, live where we said we did. Some of us weren't told that. I was told twice that I needed three passport-sized photos. Ultimately, I needed two.
But the kicker was when my American friend told me that her American friend had gone to the station, and a worker told her that "she and her friends" needed to bring in a copy of every page of our passports. Is that really a bit of information that should be given to someone I don't know and then spread through the grapevine?
If you don't believe me, watch this hilarious-but-sad-because-it's-so-true video about Spanish red tape.
2.) The travel gods like me.
I arrived at the airport in Mallorca at 6 a.m. for a 6:25 departure. And they let me on the plane with only a minor "you should really be earlier next time" scolding. I have twice had mishaps with trains in Merida, a city more than 30 miles from Don Benito. And twice, the train company paid for me to take a taxi from the Merida area to Don Benito. No official form asking for my name or an explanation of the situation. No money out of my pocket.
3.) Don't speak too soon.
I wrote this post and saved it as a draft. Then I went back to Mallorca and got my iPhone 4S and my wallet (with that hard-won foreign identity card inside) stolen.
4.) If you're going to get robbed, don't let it happen in Spain.
Because replacing a stolen phone, canceling bank cards, dealing with police and applying for new identification is best done in your native language.
5.) Always carry coins.
Spaniards really, really prefer not to have to make change.
6.) In Spain, you arrive late, leave late, plan late,stay out late, eat late, wake up late, be late.
Puncuality just isn't a big deal. I think you can tell that from #2.
In Spain, lunch at noon is blasphemous. Going to the club before 2 a.m. is social suicide. Waking up at 10 a.m. on a Sunday is absurd. And being early is sooo foreign.
7.) The siesta is still alive and well in southern Spain.
It's a ghost town around here between 2 and 5 p.m. Don't plan for midday productivity.
8.) "Customer service" is more like, "Wouldn't it be better for both of us if you just did this yourself?"
One day at the bus ticket window, the worker was on a personal call. I waited a few minutes, growing evermore impatient. Then I enlisted the classic American/British foot-tapping tactic. All in vain. Then she pulled out a tin of orange tobacco and started ROLLING CIGARETTES while I waited there.
A different day, I was having beers with my roommate, and I asked for the bill. Ten or 15 minutes later, I still hadn't gotten it. Then the waitress came out, sat down at the table across the way and had a beer with some friends.
I laugh only because it makes me cringe at the same time. Source
9.) Official timetables are really just general approximations.
Shout out to #4 up there.
My 10:15 a.m. bus to work showed up at 11 o'clock once, without explanation. It generally rolls into the station around 10:30. Not once have I been in a plane, train or automobile in Spain that left on time, which has led me to change my arrival approach. I generally add about five minutes to established departure times and show up then. Turning up seven minutes late would be moderately risky, but three minutes would leave me with too much spare waiting time.
10.) Spain is a time warp.
Where did the past 5 1/2 months go?
11.) You can send used underwear to Spain, but don't try to send new ones.
Or detergent to launder them. If you send anything new from the U.S. to Spain (you can send used items without issue), you risk having it detained in customs in Madrid. They can slap you with hefty import and sales taxes on the goods and then charge freight costs to send the goods to their final destination (even though you already paid for them to be sent to their final destination).
I didn't actually learn this lesson from a shipment of underwear, but it makes for a more sensory example, eh?
12.) There are five requisite words/phrases to rock at Spain Spanish.
Dime - literally means "tell me." This is an acceptable greeting on the phone and at customer service counters.
Vale - means "OK."
Venga - generally means "c'mon" but can also be used as a sort of "ok" or "yeah, right."
Vamos - generally means "let's go" but can also mean "enough already."
No pasa nada - means "it's OK," "everything's all right," "don't worry about it" or "no problem."
13.) It is possible to have an entire phone conversation using the terms listed above.
I've heard it done.
14.) When out and about, it's not ideal to go more than a few hours without a coffee or small beer.
That's just the Spanish way. It's as much about rest and refreshment as it is about socializing and seizing the day.
15.) Sharing is caring.
Be careful with what I like to call the "American food and drink faux pas." If you're buying something at the coffee vending machine in the teachers' lounge, you should offer to buy coffee for everyone in the room. (I learned that one in the teachers' lounge after seeming like a real American you-know-what for months.)
And if you go out for dinner with Spaniards, and you order the cheapest platter while your friend gets the most expensive one, the bill often gets split evenly in the end. (That's assuming they actually let everyone order individually instead of ordering a few plates and sharing it all, which is what I often see.)
16.)So just order the big beer and some filet mignon and see what happens.
I may complain about inaccurate timetables and the siesta. And sure, I inject a lot of sarcasm into my posts because I really do see some things that are just outright ridiculous, in my opinion. But I've chosen to live here. I've chosen to subject myself to inefficient public transportation and mindblowing bureaucracy so that I can bask in the general gloriousness that is my life in Spain.
And you know what? I´m having the time of my life. I love Spain, Spanish and the Spanish people. And I don't regret a thing.
For my trip through Paris, Amsterdam and Belgium, I had everything meticulously planned. I studied public
transportation timetables for hours, charting the most economical times and locales.
I pored over hundreds of hotel reviews for four different cities. Everything went off
without a hitch. Our lodging was great, and transportation plans were spot on.
Meanwhile, I neglected the week-long trip I would be taking with my little sister and my
roommate through Barcelona and the south of France. I made a few lodging plans and
browsed bus schedules to sketch out a rough itinerary. I figured we could solidify things
when the time came.
Then the time came, and things were as unsolidified as ever. We didn’t know how or
when we’d get from Madrid to Barcelona; Barcelona to Nice, France; and from Nice to
Marseille to catch our return flight to Madrid.
I'm a planner by nature. I'm always the one to take the initiative and plan projects and
trips. I obsess over details and am a slave to Internet reviews. But, as this trip proved,
sometimes it's good to loosen my compulsive grip on control and let things work
themselves out.
French Riviera
For lack of a more articulate description, we did a lot of stupid things during the trip.
Like assuming we could buy Madrid-Barcelona bus tickets for a prime departure time
mere minutes before said departure.
Like arriving in Barcelona at 1:30 in the morning and hauling our luggage through the
city’s notoriously thief-laden streets (we didn’t get robbed, so there’s a nod for faith in
humanity).
Like sitting down at the computer at 7 p.m. on New Year’s Day and assuming it was
possible to buy tickets for an international overnight bus for the same evening.
Like, after realizing that wasn’t possible, scrambling to find any company with buses
headed to southern France, then buying the tickets and deciding to wait until the
morning of departure to print said tickets and look for lodging.
Like buying tickets for a train we could see would be departing any second, and
watching it pull away as the machine spit out our passes.
Like getting off a train in a random French port village without double-checking
because a random man told us that was the place we were looking for.
The whole trip was one beautiful, frenzied misadventure. But what's travel without a bit
of panic?
The only mess we encountered that wasn’t provoked by our own irresponsibility was
a train delay between Nice and Marseille, where we needed to catch an evening flight.
The train ahead of us had an electrical problem and blocked the tracks. We sat stalled
in the train for an hour or more, listening cluelessly to the intercom progress reports in
French, which none of us spoke. At one point an Italian passenger and I were talking, he
in Italian and I in Spanish, about what was happening. Ultimately, the issue got fixed,
we made our flight, and we caught the bus home from Madrid to Don Benito.
Even considering the time and money wasted because of our imprudence, I don't regret
neglecting the planning (although I would like to have some of that lost time back to
visit more of the ridiculously amazing French Riviera). We have a handful of disaster
tales to keep us giggling for years to come.
Here’s to embracing every fiasco as an opportunity to learn or laugh.
With all the weed, sex and general debauchery, Amsterdam isn’t exactly the ideal place to celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus. But that’s where we were on December 25, so we did what anyone would do: We ate Turkish food and went to bed. Festive, eh?
As you can imagine, winter in Amsterdam is not ideal. It’s worse than that, really, but I don’t want cold, gray, blues-inducing weather to cloud my overall judgment of the place. It rained intermittently each of the four days we were there. It was cold, sometimes through-the-coat bitingly cold.
Even so, Amsterdam maintains a certain charm. It’s enjoyable enough to spend a day wandering alongside the winding canals, breathing in the generally pollution-free air (thanks to all the bikes) and window-shopping. But of course, you have to be careful what you’re window-shopping for and what you’re breathing in, if you catch my drift. Any “merchandise” in windows backlit in red is best avoided if you’ve got a wife, girlfriend, religion or conscience.
And about breathing…puffs of marijuana smoke wafting out of the ubiquitous “coffee shops” are unavoidable. “Coffee shops,” as you may have gathered, don’t specialize in caffeinated beverages. I’m not sure if they even offer coffee at all. Even so, contrary to popular belief, marijuana is not legal in Amsterdam. The Netherlands are part of an international pact to keep weed illegal. But the law just isn’t enforced – it’s not to the country’s economic benefit to do so.
You see, coffee shops do hundreds of millions of euros’ worth of business every year. And a fair share of tourists flock to Amsterdam to get high. When they get high, they get hungry. When they buy food, they buy drinks. After they drink, they pay 50 cents to use the bathroom at KFC (yes, you have to do that). Then they realize it’s cold, so they buy an “Amsterdam” stocking cap (seriously, they’re all over the place). While in the tourist shop they give the postcard rack a couple of twists and high-ly laugh at the postcards of graphic genitalia and cannabis leaves. They decide they’ll send a couple to their friends who couldn’t make the trip. Then they dip back into the coffee shop to repeat the cycle. Surely there’s a trip through the Red Light District (and perhaps a purchase) in there somewhere, too.
Are you following me? As our walking tour guide explained, Amsterdam tolerates just about anything that is to its financial benefit, with weed and prostitution being the most prominently taboo income sources.
You gotta admit it's pretty, regardless of how you feel about the way it financially thrives.
Prostitution – legal since 2000 – is regulated like any legitimate business. The ladies must register, they must be legally eligible to work in Holland, and they pay taxes on their earnings. (Interesting side note: Because weed is illegal, coffee shops don’t pay taxes.) We were told the women charge 50 euros for 15 minutes, in case you’re curious. The owners of the windows where the ladies flaunt their “goods” aren’t pimps but rather businessmen who rent out the windows for 75 to 100 euros a day. In sum, the “landlords” aren’t sex traffickers and the ladies aren't victims. I’m not trying to justify prostitution here. I’m just explaining how Amsterdam does so.
Regarding marijuana…Amsterdam decided against enforcing anti-weed laws in the ‘70s because the city had a raging heroine problem. Police decided to stop worrying about potheads to focus on the harder drug, heroine. Dealers realized they could sell reefer without issue instead of the riskier heroine and voila, the city’s heroine problem eroded and weed exploded. Now, one could argue Amsterdam has had a “weed problem” ever since, but that sort of debate is beyond this scope of this light-hearted blog.
Clearly not a coffee shop.
So, in sum, Amsterdam isn’t necessarily tolerant because it’s a liberal, progressive city but rather because money makes the world go ‘round. Tolerance equals euro signs. Does getting rich off of industries seen as social ills in other parts of the world make Amsterdam exploitative?
I pose that question rhetorically, and now I’ll tread into less-controversial waters and regale you with way less-interesting adventure tales.
We paid 11 euros at a tourist shop for a boat ride through the canals. I knew better than to pay that much because I always read blogs and guidebooks before travelling, and they insisted I shop around. I went against my better judgment and coughed up 22 euros for the both of us. Then we walked by a company hawking tours for 8.50 euros apiece. Lesson learned the hard way. And we ultimately didn’t get 22 euros of enjoyment out of the ride. A big group of shouting, cackling tourists ruined that one for me. If you’re ever in Amsterdam, I’d recommend you forgo the canal tour and do it on foot for free.
A “free” walking tour is a much better investment. The name is a bit of a misnomer, however, because it really isn’t free – you’re expected to tip the freelance guide at the end because that’s the only way he or she gets paid. For ours, we paid 10 euros, but it was admittedly worth much more than that. The dang thing lasted for three hours, and our guide did a fantastic job of explaining the intricacies of laws, economics and tolerance.
Interesting tidbits learned on the tour:
-Catholicism was banned for a couple of centuries in the Netherlands back in the day. Protestants took over the Catholic churches and knocked down the statues of saints adorning the buildings. But remember what I said about financially driven tolerance? The ban on Catholicism was a ban on the books but merely frowned upon in practice because they didn’t want to drive away the wealthy Catholic businessmen, who hid churches inside their homes. - The
building that now houses the University of Amsterdam was the birthplace
of the modern stock exchange. The mighty East India Trading Company,
which was given a monopoly on spice shipments from Asia, began selling
shares of its company in the 17th century and was the first business to
do so.
-There’s a church in the center of the Red Light District. It seems blasphemous, sure, but it was strategic. Sailors would come into Amsterdam and do one of two things: Visit a priest and pay for forgiveness in advance for sexual sins he was about to commit with the lady in the window across the street, or he’d commit said sins with said lady across the street and repent at the church afterward.
Aforementioned church in the Red Light District
We took a quick stroll through the Red Light District during the tour, and Todd and I took a few more by ourselves. Everything you've heard about that area of Amsterdam is true: Women really do set up shop in windows illuminated in red. And men really do take the bait (it's a bit awkward because the entrances are right off the street, so you can see the men as they go in). There are also plenty of blush-inducing blow-up dolls and sex toys screaming in the shop windows. But being perhaps the most famous neighborhood of prostitutes in the world, I had high expectations for the ladies. I thought maybe there was fierce competition for spots and there'd be some sort of beauty standards. Let's just say my expectations exceeded reality.
I hate to jarringly and insensitively transition from prostitution to the Holocaust, but unlike Amsterdam's ladies, the Anne Frank House didn't disappoint. The young author behind the world famous WWII diaries hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam with her family and family friends. The building still stands today, albeit as a museum. I've read her diary, and I'm generally fascinated by Holocaust history, so I really wanted to visit. It's a well-planned museum with a ton of information about Anne's life and, ultimately, her death at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Her original diaries (her writings overflowed into multiple notebooks) are there. You actually walk through the rooms where they hid from - and were eventually discovered by - the Nazis. The original photo-covered wall from Anne's bedroom is in there. So is the original bookcase that concealed the door that led to their hiding space in the back of Anne's father's company building.
The Anne Frank House
Unfortunately, the furnishings were taken away after the family's arrest, but scale models and photo recreations are on display. It's a somber place and should be treated as so. The worst part is the crush of people moving through the museum simultaneously. I felt rushed and crowded, and I was annoyed by some visitors' ignorance; after multiple mentions of Anne's death at Bergen-Belsen, one guy asked his girlfriend at the end of the exhibit what Bergen-Belsen was. Even so, it's worth a visit.
I would say Amsterdam in general is worth a visit. It's a funky, eclectic place loaded with character and characters. Just stay away from the canal boats and the Amsterdam Dungeon (a haunted-house like attraction that is supposed to recount the city's dark history but really doesn't). Neither are worth your money. It's not a culinary capital by any means, either. However, if you're up for some raw ground beef sandwiches or pea soup, you're in for a treat.
