The last of Spain

    I stayed in Raposeira, Portugal long enough for the hostel owners to start saying, "Mr. James, you are growing roots out of your feet, yes!?"  I figured that was my cue to start leaving.  I had been there long enough to see several groups come and go, except for one German girl who left the same day I did.  That's one of the weird things about staying in one place for too long...  It's hard to go from city to city because sometimes you don't feel like meeting new people, but it's even harder to stay in the same place and see the people you know leave.

    While in Portugal, I met a Spanish girl named Nancy who offered for me to stay at her place in Sevilla for a night and to go see a concert, so naturally I accepted.  The night I got back into Sevilla, we went to the Texas Lone Star Saloon at my request and to a small concert in a monastery across the river.  Like everyone else I've stayed with on this trip, she hooked me up and I had a blast getting to do something I wouldn't have done had I stayed at a hostel.  I stayed in Sevilla another night before taking another 7 hour bus ride to Madrid.  I went back to the hostel I had stayed at a week before; the weird old lady had finally moved out and me and one of the employees watched Fresh Prince in Spanish for a little bit.  Another great day in Sevilla.

Pajaro

Nancy

    Like I said, another 7 hour bus ride and now I'm in Madrid.  I'm really glad that this city is really cool, otherwise I would have a rough last few days.  Most hostels do a free breakfast, which usually includes toast with jam and nutella and some drip coffee.  Like a good American, I carry around with me a jar of Peter Pan peanut butter and usually throw it into the toast mix.  This morning while eating, there was a super hung over Kiwi girl who kept saying, "all I want right now is some peanut butter... all I want..."  so I handed her the jar and she almost started crying she was so happy.  I knew it was going to be a good day.  So I walked around a bit , took a nap in a park, found a real quality coffee shop, then played poker with some total bros from LA.  I opted out of going to the pub crawl with them, citing that pub crawls "aren't my scene" and are "kind of my seventh circle of hell."  They understood, without really understanding.  But I was right, it was a good day.

My hero

I don't know what this is called, but I took a nap behind it

Good parenting

The hostel book swap has some real page turners

    I'm realizing that this whole thing really is coming to an end pretty soon and I want to make the most of the days I have left.  Correction: the day I have left.  I'm flying to Boston tomorrow to hang out with my parents for a few days, but that hardly counts as traveling.  Until then, I'm just wiling away my time remembering the best and worst parts of my trip, reflecting on how much God has really blessed and taught me in the last 6 months.  I fly tomorrow, and it still hasn't hit me that I'll be home in just a few days.

    I was bored the other day, so I made a list of every city I've been do, rated them on a scale of 1 to 9 of how much I would like to live there; 8 being like Austin, 6 like Dallas, 4 like Houston, and 2 like College Station.  Then ranked all of those from best to worst, then nerded out and threw in some pivot tables and vlookups on excel.  I guess I'll post that spreadsheet and updates travel statistics once I'm home, hopefully in what will be the last post of this blog.

Raposeira, Portugal

    My original plan was to go to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls (Encierro) after Sevilla, but I decided to follow my heart and the advice of some friends from Granada and took a 6 hour bus ride to Raposeira, Portugal.  They told me about the small surfing town at the southwestern most tip of Portugal, and all of Europe for that matter, and how great the hostel and beaches were.  I was hesitant to bail on Pamplona - not because I wanted to go but because I felt that I "had" to go, and I had hoped to work on my Spanish a bit more.  But I was tired and just wanted to go somewhere nice to relax for a week or so, and surfing in Portugal sounded pretty sweet.  Otherwise, my plan in Pamplona was to sleep at a nearby park during the day and keep my bags at a friends hostel so I didn't get jacked, since every hotel and hostel is overbooked.

    The Good Feeling Hostel in Raposeira is one of the coolest hostels I've been to in a long time.  The owners are the workers and go out of their way to make sure we have a good time - driving us to the beach and supermarket, cooking dinner, etc.  The patio overlooks the town and has plenty of hammocks to lounge around in and enjoy the perfect weather.  My first night I went to Cape Saint Vincent to watch the sunset, and it was amazing.  The beaches are also really beautiful, albeit a bit windy.  I took a surf lesson a few days ago and rented a board from the hostel the last two days.  I liked surfing alright, but the waves were so choppy and frustrating, it made it hard to really enjoy it.  

I was expecting a beach and was pleasantly surprised

2 of the girls were yoga instructors

Two bros chillin

    I think the most enjoyable thing here has been the people.  The hostel only has capacity for maybe 20 people, and most the people stick around for a good chunk of time, so you quickly get to know and make friends with the other travelers.  Again, the travel culture changed a lot from Sevilla to Portugal - most people here are long term travelers or small groups that rented a car for a few weeks.

    One of the guys here is from from Utah, lives in New York, speaks fluent Portuguese from when he lived in Mozambique and Brasil working with NGOs and local farmers, has spent the last 5 months surfing across the world, going home to teach at Columbia University, and has the exact voice and personality of Blake Mankin.  My first though was, "who is this guy?"  There's another guy who's a chef about to open a restaurant in Paris and he was telling us about a meal where he paid 150 euro for the first plate, 190 euro for the entre, and 50 euro for dessert.  I looked at him like he was mental and excused myself from the rest of the conversation while I contemplated all the Waffle House I could have for 390 euro (roughly 50 All Star breakfasts with chocolate milk, by the way).

Where I spent most my time

Where I spent all of my time when not in a hammock

    Other than meeting odd characters, I've just been reading and enjoying myself.  I've noticed that the days in which I spend all day on my computer are the days I regret the most.  In Thailand and Nepal, I enjoyed not having 24/7 internet access, even though I had nothing else to do.  So I've limited my computer usage here and it's been one of the best things for me.  I think it's definitely something I need to do when I make it back home.  With my flight back to the States a little over a week away, I'm soaking up every minute of this place that I can.  I've been here 5 or 6 nights - the fact that I can't remember is a good sign - and I'll stay a few more before heading back to Madrid, with a few stops on the way.

    Oh and by the way, Portuguese people sound like Russians, and they admit it too!

Sevilla, España

    I ended up spending 6 nights in Granada, which, in retrospect, was a few too many.  It's a great town and I really liked it, but I would have loved it if I had some climbing gear and some peeps to go out with.  I took a train to Sevilla on July 1st - the last day of my 2 month, unlimited Eurail pass.  I definitely think that thing was worth the cash, and I probably saved some serious money over buying train passes individually.  And that day also marked exactly 2 months in Europe, which just seems weird to me.  My 23 days in Nepal seemed so long, so did the 33 in SE Asia, but these 61 days really flew by.  Each leg of my trip has been roughly a month, at the end of which I took some time to look back on that stage, but I haven't stopped and thought about how great these last 2 months have been.

    So why start now right?  I made it to Sevilla and immediately got ready for the Euro Cup Final.  I was told to go to the Plaza Mayor, also known as "Las Setas" or "The Mushrooms," a giant, elevated area set in the middle of a large square in the middle of town.  When I got there (wearing my Germany jersey), the policia were blocking off the stairs to the area where the screen was.  Like any big crowd with beers in hand, it was getting pretty rowdy.  Then we saw a couple dozen people running up a ramp on the other side of the stairs, apparently having jumped the barriers on that side.  All the policia (all of them) ran to stop these few people, and as soon as they abandoned their posts, hundreds of people threw down the barricades and stormed the stairs.  It was funny to see the cops faces when they turned around and met eyes with the mob bum rushing them.

We were actually on a playground, so under there is some jungle gym

Anthem

Sign of the Horns, alongside the middle finger, towards the Italian players

"an accusation of having an unfaithful wife"

    I stayed for the first half of the game - enough to go apeshit twice at the Spanish goals and to have some Spaniards come up to me saying, "¡Alemania Alemania!" (Germany Germany!)  Some actual Germans came up to me saying "Deutschland!" followed by a stream of Deutsch, which made me feel like a total poser when I told them I didn't sprechen.  It was a crazy atmosphere, comparable to ACL, and was really fun, but I decided to go to the party that my hostel was throwing to watch the rest of it.  After the win, I walked towards the center of town, not knowing what to expect.  I made it to the cathedral and saw everyone walking to my right, so I went ahead and followed and got what I had hoped for: fiesta.  People were chanting, "¡Yo soy Español, Español, Español!" and just going insane.  I'm very glad I was in Sevilla when Spain won and glad I got to see how crazy soccer really is here.

Same place the next day - I didn't realize they were standing on a fountain until later

Workers fixing all the broken lights and cables

    People were honking and going cray until the wee hours of the night, but I did make it to sleep eventually, and the next day I just walked around and hung out at the Plaza de España.  I don't know what it was, but I really, really loved this place.  It's made almost entirely of red brick decorated with ceramic tiles and the occasional marble pillar.  All along the inside of it are small benches with the name of various Spanish cities, along with unique and beautifully decorated tiles along the wall.  I went back again late that night and just sat around until I got kicked out around midnight due to closing.

Beautiful clouds

Plaza de España

Benches

Madrid

Granada

    Today I did some more walking around, including a third trip to the Plaza de España.  My sister took a trip to Sevilla with some friends about 7 years ago and I had always loved the pictures they took.  I spent a good chunk of time looking around for this beautiful bench they took a picture at, and when I saw it from afar I instantly recognized it and got some guy to take the picture for me.  I had brought my computer so I could make sure I got both pictures from the same angle as the original and actually had a lot of fun doing it.

Lonely

Me:  "I need you to stand right here and point the camera exactly that way"

Photographer:  "...ok... that's very specific..."

    I met a couple from New Jersey (while we were watching Jersey Shore, actually) who had been traveling in Europe for 7 weeks now.  They were pretty tired of traveling, didn't really care to see any more cathedrals or landmarks, and were just worn out.  I was thinking, "oh 7 weeks and you have your boyfriend with you?  Yeah that's rough" but didn't say anything.  It's hard to describe the mood I've had lately...  When I was in Bolzano, I was just in a bad mood and wanted to go home.  Now, I'm excited to be here, but, like them, I'm just tired.  I have two weeks left and that is motivation to make the most of it, and I realize that some people would dream all year for 2 weeks in Spain, but... it's still hard to get off the computer and leave the hostel.  And especially since this hostel is the first hostel to have air conditioning since... holy crap I don't think I've had AC since Singapore... wow that's depressing.  And they have a slammin freezer that I've been throwing my nalgene in three times a day.

    Some other random tidbits: there's an old crazy lady that is always at the hostel and creeping everyone out.  She talks to herself a lot and just takes naps all day.  Also, today I saw someone wearing a UT shirt, so I got ready to give them a Hook'em and a smile, then saw a girl next to him wearing a YoungLife shirt - and it was an Austin West YoungLife shirt too.  I walked up to them and said, "excuse me, where'd you get that shirt?"  She said, "uh... Austin?"  I don't know what kind of answer I was expecting, but then I mentioned that I was an AWYL leader and it turned out she was a Murkison wYLdlife leader.  Maybe I'm awkward, maybe I smell, or maybe it was the beard/mullet, but she seemed a bit weirded out.  Whatever - small world either way.

It's ok, I've fallen asleep reading the bible too