Priego, what a big place...

Third-grade English is learning about cities and towns. The song accompanying the lesson goes like this:

City or country,

Where do you live?

Is your town small?

Or is your town big?

Ana and I acted out the song in the front of the classroom, spreading our hands for "big" and bringing them together for "small."

When we asked the students about Priego, huge smiles spread on their faces as they shouted, "big!"

We just looked at each other and shrugged. To these kids, Priego is huge, all they have as comparison are the little villages around it.

Jobs for Next Year

Yes, I will post about my travels. Soon. I promise.

Back to Priego means back to school. Tuesday was the first day of classes after Semana Santa (Holy Week). It was also the day the Junta de Andalucía announced teaching posts for next year. Sole and Lourdes will still be at Virgen de la Cabeza. Guillermo (the PE teacher) can move to a town near Madrid if he choses. David is being sent to Villanueva de San Juan, Sevilla - a town even smaller than Priego, with less than 1500 people, and even more isolated. These decisions are not etched in stone and the government has to solidify them in a few weeks. With regard to Lourdes, she is supposed to be marrying Luis soon. He works, as a firefighter, in another part of Spain and cannot move. She has asked to move and was denied the transfer. I thought she would have been crushed, but she's not. She almost seems relieved by this news, but she still swears she wants to marry him.

The Junta lets people know about their post via an online form. Watching everyone take turns using Lourdes's computer to check their status was like hearing about our college decisions. Everyone got really nervous right before clicking "send." After their decision popped up, they immediately moved aside to let the next person go. Everyone was so curious about their colleagues' new posts. It was great to be part of the excitement. I haven't told them, but I made my decision yesterday as well. I'm going to Israel in August. I'll be living in Tel Aviv for two years. During that time, I will be getting a Masters Degree in Teaching English as a Second Language from Bar Ilan University. At the same time, I'll be teaching English and taking Hebrew classes.

My brother also got a summer internship. He'll be working in the city at the New York Historical Society.

Madrid to Priego

Saying good-bye at the airport was strange because usually I'm the one getting on the plane. I don't think I've ever dropped my mother off at an airport. In Rome we were both getting onto planes and I got off the bus first (she had to continue to her terminal). Here, she went through security and I had to walk away and go get on the metro. It was strange.

I took the metro to the Reina Sofia and went to see Guernica. I was somewhat underwhelmed by the museum, which may be due to the fact that I was really tired. Guernica was interesting to see. It's by itself in a room with two guards on either side of it. They don't let you within six feet of the painting, pictures are strictly forbidden and you are not allowed to sit on the floor and look at the painting. In addition to this room, there are two rooms which house Picasso's studies and smaller works he used to create Guernica and there's another room dedicated to other artist's works in response to Guernica. In this room, I found a mobile and a stabile by Alexander Calder, one of my faves. The rest of the museum had tons of modern Spanish art. There were a few Dalí paintings, but I'd seen better ones in the US.

I left the museum, got another Starbucks cappuccino and crossed the street to Atocha (the main train station in Madrid). I got on my train and two hours later was in sunny, warm Cordoba. I had two hours to wander around Cordoba during which I went to Corte Ingles and got some salad for dinner, bought bus tickets to go back to Madrid for a long weekend and recharged my cell phone (I was out of money). Then Ana picked me up and drove me to Priego. Along the way, we watched the temperature go down five degrees (almost ten degrees in Fahrenheit), which was so depressing. It's also been rainy and gross here.....coming back is so hard.

Madrid: Eggs and Art (plus Starbucks!)

We slept late Easter Sunday and then headed to the Mercado del Rastro in Madrid. It's basically a tourist-trap/flea market. It was insanely busy; we couldn't even walk at times. We tried to make our way down one of the streets, but couldn't even see when the market was going to end.

Instead, we went for lunch at a tavern Maria Jose and David had recommended to us. It was called "Los Huevos de Lucío" (Lucío's Eggs) and apparently even the King dines there (as does Bruce Springsteen whose photo was on the wall). We each had fried eggs and French fries (the standard plate), but I got ratatouille on mine. We made it to the restaurant just in time to beat the lunchtime rush. We actually got there before they opened (five minutes earlier) and they were all freaked out, "we're closed! We're not open yet!" We waited in the bar area for them to finish getting ready. By the time we left (3o minutes later), every table was taken and you couldn't even get to the door to get out. There are only about 15 tables in the place, but it was completely packed. Lunch was tasty and the eggs and fries made a great combo for Sunday brunch.

We hopped on the metro and headed to the Paseo del Prado where all of the museums are located. The Reina Sofia, which houses Picasso's Guernica, had just closed, so we got some Starbucks instead. Mom ate a chocolate ice cream pop as we walked back up the Paseo to the Prado museum. I was somewhat underwhelmed by the Spanish art at the Prado. I'm not that into Goya (he's got 1/3 of the museum), but I did enjoy seeing the "Third of May 1808." I actually think I liked Picasso's take on Velazquez's "Las Meninas" better than the original. (In Barcelona we saw an exhibit where Picasso had done 60 paintings inspired by the Velazquez original.) I was way more interested in seeing Fra Angelico's "The Annunciation" and Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights." Bosch was a complete nutcase. His paintings were fantastic to see in person. They're so complex and intricate, which mini-scenes throughout the larger picture. We also really enjoyed a special exhibit from France. It was called "Sleeping Beauty" and featured a painting by Lord Leighton Frederic called "Flaming June" that was just exquisite. A girl sleeps curled up in a chair; she's wearing an orange/peach dress and the gold frame works really well with the extremely vibrant colors of the painting.

We were pretty exhausted by the time we left the museum, but we headed to the Puerto del Sol (central shopping area of Madrid) where we found pretty much all of the stores were open even though it was (Easter) Sunday! I'm used to Spain being a ghost town on Sundays, so this was a refreshing surprise. MANGO didn't have the sweatshirt, but we did go to Corte Ingles to get me wheat-free cookies and wander around a bit. We checked out some of the clothing floors. The store is absolutely ridiculous. It's huge and you can buy everything there: food, clothes, plants, washing machines. You can even plan a trip around the world (they have a travel agency) and have your dry cleaning done while you shop!

We went to a cafe for dinner. I had a turkey sandwich (I took it off the bread) and Mom had a grilled cheese. It was an uneventful, uninteresting last meal together, but then we got Ben and Jerry's for dessert! The B&J's line for fresh, hot Belgian waffles was much longer than the line for ice cream, which made us laugh because, to us, Ben and Jerry's primary food offering is their ice cream. Waffles are an afterthought.

We took the metro back to the hotel, got ready for bed and watched some CNN.

The next morning we ate breakfast and went to the airport. I waited until Mom was through security. They took her knitting needles away from her, but luckily I was there to get them and she was able to fix her sweater when she got home. I'm going to send them to her.

Sofia: Rila and other Religious Places

We walked to the hotel because it was close and we were early (and needed some fresh air). The roads were treacherous to say the least. Sidewalks in Sofia do not have wheelchair dips at intersections; basically, you're lucky if the sidewalk is one flat surface. Most of them were torn up and falling apart. Some were stones, which hurt my hands while I pulled our suitcase along.

The hotel was up two flights of stairs. It contained private rooms and a small sitting area where coffee and tea were being prepared. We happily accepted some tea and declined the cakes set out in the middle of the table. We chatted with other guests to get a sense of the city and what we should see.

Two people we met were Maria Jose and David, a Spanish couple planning on renting a car and driving around Bulgaria for a week. They generously offered to drive us to Rila Monastery that morning, after they picked up the rental car. We thought this was a great idea because it meant we didn't have to figure out the buses. First we hailed a taxi to take us to the car rental place. This was quite a challenge because the first taxi didn't want to drive us there and other ones completely ignored us. Luckily one agreed to take us. It took a while for the Spanish to agree on a car because David only speaks Spanish and Maria Jose (who speaks English and Spanish) had to translate between him and the rental guy. (I was NOT getting involved.)

Along the two-hour drive, we chatted about Spain and I think I learned more in those two hours than I had learned in all the months I've been living here. They gave us an idea of what life in Spain was like before Spain joined the EU. In the 1950s, people were lucky if they had one car and in many pueblos indoor plumbing was unheard of. There were almost no highways in Spain until the 1980s and 90s when money started coming in from other EU countries. This helped me to understand Priego a bit better.

We got to the town of Rila which is at the bottom of the snow-covered Rila Mountains. From there we followed a windy country road to the monastery. It was founded in 927 AD and moved to its current location in 1355. The monastery is currently used as a hotel, and we were able to visit its courtyard and church. It was a very colorful building: the balconies were red and white. The church was complete covered with frescoes. These were unlike any frescoes I had seen before because they were outside in small domes above what can only be described as the church's front porch. Inside it was dark, like many of the other orthodox churches we visited. The vibrantly painted frescoes were interesting to look at, although I'm not really sure of the meaning behind most of them.

We snapped some pictures and said "adios" to our Spanish amigos who were heading south. Then, we got on the bus bound for Sofia. This bus went through a whole bunch of tiny towns (remember we're only 100km from the CAPITAL city) in which people used horses to get around. The majority of the economy seemed to be based on agriculture and generally roads were in disarray. It took a little more than three hours to get to the Sofia regional bus station, four miles from the center of the city. We hopped on a tram (after a confusing attempt to tell the driver where we were going), paid, and punch-validated our tickets. Luckily a guy on the tram spoke English and was able to tell me how to get to Blvd. Vitosha, the main shopping street in the city.

Wandering down Vitosha we found our next destination, MANGO. A few women working there understood some English, but we couldn't find my mom's sweatshirt anywhere. It had been on sale in Barcelona, so I wasn't really expecting to find it here. We then went to dinner at a place recommended to us by our Spanish friends. The restaurant was called Divaka and it served grilled seafood (and meat) and tons of salads! I got a shopska salad and smoked mackerel. Shopska is awesome. I shouldn't really eat it because it has cheese, but it has the only cheese I really like - white, salty Balkan cheese. It's kind of like feta, but it's not feta. It's better. The rest of the salad is tomato and cucumber with red onion and green pepper (these are optional. Shopska has to have tomato, cucumber and the cheese). Mom got a more American-style salad and pan-seared salmon. We were quite content.

Back at the hostel, I got another great night sleep, while Mom barely slept. Before bed we showered (we were super gross at this point). This shower was a hand-held one but didn't have a place to hang the nozzle to the wall; it was also located in the middle of the room rather than in an enclosed space. I have encountered these before, so I tried to give my mom a usage lesson....we still managed to soak the place. Actually, it probably would have been fine if the drain worked properly.

The next morning we slept late. Our first stop was the Ladies' Market - a combination produce and flee market where you could buy anything from bras to handmade brooms to kiwi the size of softballs or cabbage the size of basketballs. Instead of all that, we bought a banana. The market was chaotic and crowded. It stretched on for blocks and across streets. Some stands were inside, some outside. We were horrified by the lack of sanitation (I've seen this all over the world) as we watched a woman use her bare hand to put a cut of meat in the window of her stall - right up against the foggy plexiglass.

Next we walked by the Sofia Synagogue. The domed roof reminded me of an orthodox cathedral, while the sides were more like buildings in Andalucía. The windows looked like those at the Alhambra. Around the corner we ate lunch at a different market. This one was indoors and the building had been a market since 1909. Mom got pizza and took the meat off of it. I had roasted eggplant and zucchini and more cabbage salad! We were basically eating in a mall food court. Then we got some fruit and went across the street to a plaza to eat it.

Sofia was built in its location because of the natural springs that bring water into the city. One of these just behind the plaza. I wandered over to see it and found a series of facets. Locals were filling empty five-liter bottles with the tepid water. Some people had as many as ten of these jugs waiting to be filled. While Mom knit for a while, I went into a mall to see if they had a MANGO. They didn't. However, the mall did have energy-saving escalator ramps which moved really slowly until they sensed that a person was standing on them.....very cool!

As I was exiting the mall, I could see a mosque (the call to prayer was sounding) and the market and synagogue in the background. It was interesting to see such a blend of religious buildings with historical buildings while I was exiting such a capitalist institution (with Hanson's "Mmm Bop" playing in the background).

Next we walked to Sveti Nedelya Cathedral. It was built between 1856 and 1863 on the foundation of other churches. It's basically the center of the city and 120 people were killed there in 1925 when communists set off a bomb in an attempt to kill Tsar Boris III (he survived). From the church, we walked through the Sheraton Hotel to the Sveti Georgi Rotunda, which is the oldest preserved building in Sofia. It's from the 4th century AD and was used as both a church and a mosque over the years. We could see five layers of fresco painting on the dome and outside the church were Roman ruins. Mom bought a cross and history booklet from the woman working the info booth/concession stand.

Continuing our tour of churches, we stopped next at the Russian Church, which was ugly and dark inside. We couldn't really see anything except a group of people who were either praying or attending some sort of religious class. Outside, however, the church was beautifully decorated with gold domes and a colorful facade.

The final stop on our church tour was Alexander Nevski Cathedral, a huge (I really think it might have been bigger than Belgrade's Sveti Sava) orthodox church. Again, the inside was disappointingly dark. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be dark or if it was just dirty. People were lighting candles (in all of the churches), but here the cleaning woman was taking them and blowing them all out. This made me laugh because people continued to buy the candles and light them and she just went along blowing them out and even throwing some out.

Walking towards Vitosha and the shopping section of town we stopped at a grocery store where I bought orange and lemon gummy slices (the kind sold in America during Passover). We also stopped to check out a street market, but this one was for books. We tried to find a knitting magazine for Mom, but could only find crochet magazines. We stopped into McDonald's to use the bathroom and Mom wanted a chocolate milkshake. I didn't think this was going to be easy, but the guy A.) spoke English, B.) knew what I was talking about, and C.) actually had milkshakes! As we were exiting I saw a Starbucks cup on a garbage pail. I picked it up and removed the cup sleeve from it. I then asked the first group of young, hip looking people I saw if they knew where it was. They told me it was really far away, so I opted not to go in search of it.

Mom and I wandered a bit more and stumbled upon another Divaka (apparently there are two). We decided we had better eat something before heading to the airport where our options would be seriously limited. We got more salads. I got shopska, she got a Picasso salad (red cabbage, broccoli and carrots) and we split a chicken and cabbage salad. It was a yummy and veggie-filled meal (our favorite kind!).

Then, it was back to the hostel for one last email check and off to the airport!

Our flight to Madrid was uneventful. I got to board before Mom because I had checked-in online. Apparently Easy-Jet gives you preferential boarding if you check-in online (who knew?!?!). I got us two seats together in the front of the plane and we napped the whole way to Spain. Once we arrived, we got our stuff and went to the hotel to get some sleep. It was nice to be back to a place where I speak the language and can understand what's going on.

Train from Belgrade to Sofia

On board the train, we found our cabin. Inside were two bunk beds, pillows and blankets. A small sink in the corner was covered by a drop-down counter (you had to lift it up to get to the sink). We were also given "goodie bags:" slippers, washcloths and bars of soap. It was really cute. The train was creaky and made lots of interesting noises, but I was able to sleep pretty well. (Mom wasn't.)

Customs and immigration people came to our cabin at around 4:45am when we finally reached the border. The Serbians stamped us out without asking many questions. The Bulgarian immigration people didn't really care much either. The two Bulgarian customs officials wanted to question us, but couldn't. The first guy said something I didn't understand. My mom told him that we only spoke English. We were holding our US passports open to the photo page with the inch-high "USA" above our pictures. The man looked at us and shouted, "Ah, Australia!", to which I replied, "No, amerikanka" (which I'm pretty sure means female American in either Serbo-Croat or Bulgarian - or both - .....maybe). Anyway, he figured he couldn't do much, so he split, leaving the other guy to try to ask us where we were headed. I put a huge smile on my face and said, "we're going to Sofia for one night and then we're flying to Spain!" He grunted and moved on.

We arrived in Sofia at 7am (we later figured out that it was actually 8am). At the train station, Mom ate a McTasty (two pancakes with ham and cheese melted between them). There were a bunch of British guys from our train who were eating the same thing. She also got an orange juice, which amazing tastes just like McDonald's oj in the states.

Belgrade: Modern and Fashionable

I don't know why, but I had excepted Belgrade to be more backwards or more ruined. I knew the war damages were mostly towards the end of the 1990s when NATO bombed the city. Instead we found a much more bustling city than Sarajevo (Belgrade's population is nearly three times that of Sarajevo) and a more modern city.

Our first stop was Sveti Sava, the world's largest Serbian Orthodox Church, or at least that's what it will eventually be. It was started in the 1930s, but construction was interrupted by WWII, communism, and the 1990s war. So, it's still being built, which means you can go inside and take all the photos you want! (If you can breath through all the dust.) Green marble adorns the walls of this domed building, which should be quite nice when complete. Altars have been set up and people use them to pray. One thing that really struck me was the police man stationed inside the church in a security booth. His booth was not to the side of an entrance door, rather it was located against a wall under the center dome. I had never seen that in a place of worship. It's one thing to have security inside church grounds, it's another to have him in the middle of the church.

Outside the church we walked by the national library (on the same plaza) and stopped at the fountain. We spotted a girl wearing a bathrobe and slippers, which was bizarre to see in a city where fashion is highly regarded.

To get to the center of the city (the more touristy area), we tried to take a bus. I paid the man with a 200 dinar note (about $3US), but he didn't have 40 dinars to give us as change. He said something to us in Serbo-Croat and we tried to explain that we were American and had no idea what he was saying. Luckily a woman was able to translate and help us. She told us to ride the bus anyway and that she would tell the control man why we had no ticket if he was to get on and search. She taught English at a university and Spanish at a high school. Her English was great and she took us to the street we were trying to find. She also explained that people in Belgrade work from 9am-3pm or 3pm-8pm which is why there were so many people on the buses at that time. She was wearing green heels, tight jeans and a black sweater with a v-neck in the back. Her bag and huge necklace were green as well. She was so fashionable, especially for a teacher on her way home from work. (I was wearing my army green parachute pants that are way too big on me - for the third day in a row.)

Anyway, she guided us to the Knez Mihailova, a pedestrian street, where we used the internet to book a room in Sofia and look up the location of every MANGO in Belgrade and Sofia. The cafe was located in a bookstore which was full of books in English as well as Serbo-Croat (in both Latin and Cyrillic letters). We browsed and found tons of familiar books in Cyrillic - I took pictures, the guard got angry and yelled at me in Serbo-Croat.

We tried to find the MANGO on the pedestrian street, but it had been moved to a new mall across the river. Instead of shopping, we ate popcorn and people-watched while sitting on a planter in the middle of the street. Many people were dressed to the nines in bizarre outfits which incorporated patterned tights, midriff-bearing shirts, and super high heels. We laughed at the ridiculous color combinations as I tried to photograph as many people as I could.

We walked to the end of the street and up into the Kalemegdan, a former fortress and now a park. I explored while my mom rested on a bench. I was most excited to climb to the highest point of the fortress and look out over the Danube River. The park was filled with people, mostly locals. Again, we did some more people-watching, spotting things like combination ballet flat-espadrilles......so ugly.

Exiting from the park, we decided to have an early dinner (we hadn't really eaten lunch and our breakfast was on the bus at 7am). We chose another Lonely Planet place, which the woman at tourist info had recommended. At Tratoria Kosova, an Italian restaurant near the center of Belgrade, I ate more cabbage salad (!!!) and seafood risotto while mom had a lettuce salad and gnocchi. Then we went across the street to a grocery store to stock up on snacks. We were afraid we wouldn't have enough dinars to get back to the bust station, so Mom charged $2US worth of water, fruit and candy.

It was still early, so we walked around a bit more. We spotted a woman with a MANGO back and asked her where the store was. Thank goodness she understood English because I'm pretty sure we freaked her out. Unfortunately she told us the store was far away, on the other side of the river. We continued along, stopping to look at the Hotel Moskova (Moscow) and a fountain outside it. Then we went in search of ice cream. I wanted coffee, which was not going to happen, so I settled for a fruit flavor (I should have gotten chocolate). This was probably the most difficult communication experience of the trip.....I wanted my ice cream in a cup. They didn't have proper ice cream cups, so instead I had it in a drinking cup and had to eat it with two straws. My mom wanted her ice cream in a cone. This was possible (and the preferred method for serving), but I didn't realize that I had to pay for the cone. It wasn't a lot of money, I was just confused. The woman kept pointing to a sign written in Cyrillic expecting me to somehow magically understand that the sign said the ice cream is one price, the cone is extra. I couldn't figure out why they priced it this way if they basically only offer cones (my cup request caused a bit of a commotion).

Back at the train station, we decided to brush our teeth and get ready for bed before boarding. Mom went first to the bathroom while I watched our stuff. When it was my turn, I walked over there brushing my teeth. The guy was really confused and acted like I was a complete freak for brushing my teeth in public...the nerve of me! Anyway, I finished brushing, used the Turkish toilet and was washing my face when the guy comes into the bathroom to wash his hands. Of course, the first thing through my mind is, "Oh shit, I'm in the men's room!" No, no, no. I was in the women's bathroom. I confirmed this by pointing to myself and pointing next door (to which he replied, "no"). I was pretty sure I had picked the right one because I chose the one with the "z" on the door and the Serbo-Croat word for women begins with a z when written in Latin letters.

The man kept repeating a word which sounded like "serbieski" and pointing to himself. He would shake his head, say "no serbieski" and point to me, and then shrug his shoulders. This went on for three or four rounds before I realize that he was asking me where I was from. I told him America, washed my hands and got out of there.