Salamanca

Hola! Since Kim is busy with work, I’m filling in for her as guest blog writer for the day. We had quite a busy weekend with lots of driving around, but it was very enjoyable. We visited three of the most famous cities in Spain – Salamanca, Ávila, and Segovia.

We left La Coruña on Friday evening and it took us about 4 ½ hours to get to Salamanca. When we got to Salamanca, we were ready to check in at the hotel when they told us that they had to move us to a different hotel. Lucky for us, we got upgraded from a 3-star hotel to a 4-star hotel not too far from Plaza Mayor! Apparently there was a problem on one of the floors and all of the rooms on that floor were uninhabitable (who would want to stay in that hotel anyway, right?)

Plaza Mayor at Night

So we moved hotels and then made it to Plaza Mayor for a late dinner. Plaza Mayor is amazing. Even 1000 PTSBYD calls it “Spain’s Most Beautiful Square”. Like Plaza Mayor in Madrid or María Pita here in La Coruña, there are places to eat all around the square and it’s great to sit and people watch while taking in the surroundings. One thing that impressed us about Salamanca even as we were driving in trying to find the hotel was the amount of college students. Salamanca has “what was once Europe’s most important university” that was founded in 1218 and there are 15,000 students in the city. It made us feel a bit old!

Plaza Mayor in the Daylight

Saturday morning we explored the city. After taking some pictures in Plaza Mayor, we walked over to the Casa de las Conchas, which is a house that is covered in over 400 scallop shells (carvings, not real) as a symbol of pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela.

Casa de las Conchas

It had a nice cloister, from which you could see the clerical university across the street.

We then went to see Salamanca’s two cathedrals. They are built right next to each other in a way that you can only get to the old cathedral from inside of the new one. While the old cathedral (Catedral Vieja) was built in the 13^th century and the new one (Catedral Nueva) in the 16^th century, there is a modern touch on the entrance to the Catedral Nueva: an astronaut! The entrance was restored and an astronaut was carved in the doorway. I think it’s neat to think that a little Texas connection (NASA and Johnson Space Center) is on a cathedral in Spain…

Astronaut!

Forgive me while I give a little aside on the architecture in the city, but almost all of the buildings are made of sandstone. The tan/beige color makes the city feel very warm and “home-y”. The cathedrals, which in many places feel a bit cold because of the typical gray stone, felt much more inviting. There was quite a bit of natural light too, so that made them nicer as well. The widespread use of sandstone definitely makes the city unique and very nice on the eyes.

Inside New Cathedral

In the Courtyard

Cathedral

After visiting the two cathedrals, we went by the University in Salamanca. Somewhere in the huge and detailed façade on the front of the main building there is a little tiny stone frog. If you find the frog it is supposed to bring you good luck. Luckily for us there was a tour guide shining a light on the little thing with a mirror. We got out the zoom lens and got a good picture of it.

University Façade

Good Luck Frog (on the skull in center of picure)

We then made our way to the Church & Convent of Saint Stephen (San Esteban). This was a convent for the Dominican priests and it had some interesting stories on the role they served in the colonization of the Americas. The convent had a very nice cloister, church, and resident birds (that Kim took about 10 pictures of).

One of Kim's Birds on Nest

By this time, it was pretty hot outside and time for lunch, so we went to Plaza Mayor to grab some lunch. After lunch, with the heat, full stomachs, and a bit of wine, we were both feeling a bit sleepy, so we went to back to the hotel for a nice siesta (when in Spain…).

Feeling refreshed, we went back out to finish exploring the city and went to the Convento de las Dueñas, which was a former Mudéjar palace (according to Merriam-Webster, a mudejar is a Muslim living under a Christian king especially during the 8th to 11th centuries). The cloister was very nice and the Muslim heritage was evident in the doorways. This convent is famous not only for the building but for the baked goods that the nuns make. We bought some cookies called “amarguillos” which are made from 3 ingredients: almonds, sugar, and egg whites. They are very tasty.

Huge Hymnal

Courtyard at Convent

This was the last major sight to see in the city, so we decided to do a little shopping. There is no H&M in La Coruña (since it is Zara’s main competitor and every time they’ve tried to open a store here they’ve been denied), so Kim was glad to shop there in addition to Zara. Later that night we had a nice dinner next to the Casa de las Conchas and took a couple of night pictures since all of the buildings are lit up beautifully.

Cathedral at Night

The next morning, we woke up early to drive to Ávila… However, it's bedtime now, so the Ávila and Segovia entry will have to wait until tomorrow! Here is a little teaser picture:

Weekend Trip

Last weekend Juan and I drove to Pontevedra, Vigo, and the Rias Bajas. We were not very lucky with the weather, so the trip did not go quite as planned. We left Saturday morning and drove south-west, towards the western coast of Spain. It was really pretty, even in the drizzle. Since we took some side roads and followed the coast, it took about 5 hours to get to Pontevedra. We walked around the town, ate some tapas, and took some great pictures :)

Me on the street, under a little bridge.



Juan's back-side in front of the tush statue.



Juan and a statue of a old man with glasses. Behind him is a real old man with glasses. What are the chances?



We had big plans for Sunday. We were going to drive to Vigo, go on a ferry out to an island, hike around, and maybe go to Portugal for lunch. It was pouring down on Sunday morning, so we changed our plans. We drove to and through Vigo and then back to La Coruña. We were home by lunch time...

We're planning on taking another road trip somewhere (TBD) this weekend. Hopefully weather will be better!!

Our next big trip is to Barcelona the weekend of June 2nd. Neither of us have been before, so it should be a lot of fun.

More Food!

The green peppers, below, are Pimientos de Padrón. You cook them in olive oil on the stove until they are soft and brown (see the 'after' picture) and then sprinkle with salt. Most of these taste similar to okra. However, 1 in 10 are hot hot hot. It's pretty fun to see if you can get through your meal without getting a hot one, while watching the person across from you reaching desperately for their water/milk/beer/wine every few minutes. Unfortunately, on this night I was the one who got 3 really hot ones... These are very common at tapas bars and other restaurants.

Before:


After:


Below is an 'ensalada mixta'. This salad is served in most restaurants in La Coruña. It has lettuce, tomato, onion, white asparagus, tuna, olive oil, and vinegar. It's really good - we eat it at home quite often.



I promise to post a non-food blog next :)

Test Test Test

I have decided to move into the 21st century of photo-blogging. I am now using an outside photo hosting website to make it much easier to post pictures. Please let me know if you have a problem viewing any of my pictures now!

Here is my test picture:

Jinxes, Karma, and Fate

I was about 12 years old when I learned about Karma. The day is still very clear in my memory. I was driving with my mom to look at wallpaper and I was making fun of my swim coach who had just broken two of his fingers by slamming them in a car door. I remember saying, "How could someone possibly slam their fingers in the car door? How stupid do you have to be?" Do you know what happened when I got out of the car in front of the wallpaper store (not 2 minutes after I finished making fun of him)? Yep - I slammed my fingers in the car door. The door was locked and my fingers were stuck inside. I was mortified, quietly saying "mom, mom, my fingers are stuck..." I was fine, but had just been taught my very first lesson in karma.

Karma (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/karma)
1 often capitalized : the force generated by a person's actions held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person's next existence


A few years later I was going out with a bunch of high school friends to a concert downtown. This guy who was supposed to drive us was a little bit of a crazy driver and I just had this feeling deep in the pit of my stomach that we were going to get in a wreck if he drove. So, I begged another friend to drive instead. What happens? We get in a wreck - it wasn't his fault, it just happened... Everyone was okay, but it was a terrible wreck that really shook everyone up. What was that - Fate? Was I going to get into a wreck that night no matter who drove?

Fate (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fate)
1 : the principle or determining cause or will by which things in general are believed to come to be as they are or events to happen as they do : DESTINY
2 a : an inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition, or end


The other day I was walking from my house to the swimming pool. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. I was about to walk down a very steep hill towards the ocean. I thought to myself, "Wow, people better be careful walking here in the rain - I bet that hill is pretty slick. Someone could really get hurt." Not two seconds later I found myself sitting on the ground, palms slightly scraped, and bottom aching. Did I just jinx myself? You would think that the fact that I was thinking about how steep the hill was would make me not fall, right?

Jinx (http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary)
1. to foredoom to failure or misfortune : bring bad luck to


So what have I learned from these three events?

Number one: Be nice - don't make fun of people for accidents they may have had. The same thing could happen to you and you wouldn't think it was funny.

Number two: Try to keep your head filled with positive thoughts. If your thoughts are going to come true - wouldn't you want them to be positive things?

Number three: Don't wear no-grip flip-flops when walking down a steep, slippery hill.

Madrid!

There are two posts today, so make sure to look at both of them!

Juan and I celebrated his 28th birthday in Madrid this past weekend. It was a great weekend. We even got bumped up to first-class on our way back to La Coruña! (We had to change/cancel this trip so many times due to our Visa delays, we think that somewhere in the change fees, flight changes, etc... we got bumped into the higher price range.) We were able to enjoy some beverages, nuts, candy, washcloths, and pampering on the short 60-minute flight. What a way to top off the weekend and to celebrate Juan's birthday!

We arrived in Madrid pretty late on Friday night and went out for some late night tapas and wine. We hopped around a bit and enjoyed several delicious dishes. We were staying in a hotel pretty near the Plaza del Sol and the subway, so we were able to walk or take a quick subway ride to most of our weekend destinations.

We woke up on Saturday and went to the little coffee and pastry shop in the Plaza del Sol (pictured in the blog posting below). After breakfast we went to the Reina Sofía, the first of three art museums that we would visit over the weekend. It was both my and Juan's favorite of the three museums. The museum had 20th century paintings and sculptures by many many artists, including: Picasso, Salvador Dalí, and Julio González.

Juan in front of Reina Sofía glass elevators

I really liked looking at the work of Dalí. You could stare at each painting for hours and still not see everything. His paintings are so detailed and so strange! They are like part of a really messed up dream world where everything morphs together. We had an audio tour headset that gave information on several of the paintings. It was especially essential to have when looking at the works by Dalí.

Imperial Monument to Woman-Child (Dalí)

There were several famous paintings by Picasso on display. Woman in Blue and Guernica both had very interesting stories. Woman in Blue was disowned by Picasso because it only won honorable mention in a national art competition. The Spanish state found and bought it several decades later. Guernica is said to be "the most famous work of the 20th century." It is a Civil War protest painting that was commissioned by the Spanish Republican government in 1937. The painting was inspired by a mass air attack on the Basque town of Gernika-Lumo by the Nationalist air force. The painting was displayed in a New York gallery until 1981 because it was Picasso's wish that it wasn't to return to Spain until democracy was re-established.

Woman in Blue - Picasso

Guernica - Picasso

There was also 1936 a painting by Alfonso Ponce de León showing a man who was in a car crash. It turns out that he died in a car crash later that same year!

After leaving the Reina Sofía we walked over to Madrid's Plaza Mayor (the main plaza). It was nice - a lot like La Coruña's Plaza de María Pita with its outdoor dining and large open square. We ate lunch at a Basque restaurant near the Plaza Mayor. It was delicious - see all the food pictures in my last blog post.

Juan in the Plaza Mayor

Our next stop was the Palacio Real, or the Royal Palace. The present king lives in a different palace outside Madrid, but this palace is still used for state occasions. There are several amazing rooms! The dining room can seat up to 160 people - whoa! There was also a "porcelain room" - no, they don’t store porcelain in the room, the room IS porcelain! The walls and ceiling are entirely covered in royal porcelain (think really shiny, thick, porcelain wallpaper). There was the throne room, the pharmacy, the room of armory, the chapel, and many many others. I can't even imagine living someplace so huge.

Juan in front of palace

This is the last picture taken with my sunglasses (in my hand). They disappeared shortly after this picture was taken. At least we got to walk through the palace 3 times looking for them! I think they just wanted to live in the palace. (or else the lion ate them...)

Picture taken in one of the palace rooms.

Dining room - Look at all the chairs! The table can extend even further.

We left the palace and made our way over to the Parque del Retiro. The park used to be for the royal family, but it was opened to the public in the mid 19th century.

Doesn't this tree look like broccoli?
There is a big 'lake' where people can rent row-boats, a nice colonnade, and all sorts of portrait painters, puppeteers, craft vendors, etc…

On one corner of the park is the Palacio de Cristal. It is literally a crystal palace set on a small lake. It was cool to see the prism effect of the crystal in such huge proportions and its reflection in the lake. We hung out by the crystal palace for a while and rested our feet.

Saturday evening consisted of some more tapas and sleep! (side note - when booking hotels on hotels.com they don't guarantee the type of room. We were supposed to get a King size room and we ended up with two twin beds. One reason I look forward to hotels is to escape the tiny bed I have to sleep in at the apartment. Oh well.) Oh, and I found a Cosmo magazine in English at one of the news stands in Madrid! Yea! (It's U.K. English - but it's close enough. I just have to take the u's out of some words and convert things from pounds to $'s or to €'s.)

Sunday was also very busy! We went to the same little coffee shop for breakfast - why mess with a good thing, right? We then headed straight for the Prado museum. It was free admission day at the Prado, so we decided to do that first -before the big crowds. With the exception of a few annoying tour groups it wasn't bad.

Amor statue in a park near the PradoI got a little bored at the Prado. (June, I can see you cringing at that statement. June was an art-history major…) There were interesting paintings, but I think I am a bigger fan of more modern art. After a while all of the paintings just started to blend together. They were all paintings from about the 12th - 19th centuries.

Several of the paintings had really interesting stories, like 'The Clothed Maja' and 'The Naked Maja'. Goya painted the Naked Maja first, in about 1800, but was accused of obscenity and later painted the Clothed Maja (below). They had both paintings on display.

After the Prado we ventured into the Real Jardín Botánico. These gardens have thousands of types of flowers, trees, shrubs, fruits, vegetables, herbs, etc… It was really fun to see some plants, especially fruits and veges, that I've never seen before!

I didn't know that artichokes grew on a bush-like plant like this. Did you? I looked really hard for my mystery plant from a my Lugo post a few weeks ago, but I couldn't find it anywhere.

We headed from the gardens to the Thyssen museum, our last destination of the trip. We had a good lunch on the patio and headed inside. It was a cool museum - I rank it in between the Reina Sofía and the Prado. There was a wide range of art here - everything from 18th century to Pop Art. Again, I highly recommend getting the little audio tour guide. It was so interesting to hear the back-stories on the paintings! It is a totally different art museum experience to actually know what the artist was thinking and what was going on in the world at the time to influence the painting.

After the Thyssen we went to do some shopping. I have figured out that I do not have good luck shoe shopping here. I finally found nice, trendy, comfortable shoes that I liked. The right shoe fit perfectly and the left shoe was defective. Of course. The tongue had razor sharp stitching on it and it was gnashing into my foot. That was the only pair in that style they had in my size. Grrrr. So, still no trendy/cute/comfortable shoes for me. I haven't given up yet! I did manage to find two books and Juan got a CD.

After shopping around we headed to the airport. It was a quick, but fun, trip!

Food, Food, Madrid, Food

I will post actual details of our trip to Madrid soon, but here are some food pictures to hold you over until I have my Madrid blog written out. Still no fish market pictures, I'll work on that! The pictures are under the description.

We went to a Basque restaurant for lunch on Saturday in Madrid. We had our own table in the non-smoking room (a lot of people smoke here), so Juan agreed to participate in some picture taking :)

Here is a salad with smoked salmon, onion, peppers, and sweet pickles with oil/vinegar dressing.

Cheese plate - very yummy cheese


Juan and chipirones en su tinta (squid in its ink)

Close-up of the squid - it really does taste better than it looks!


Bacalao - a white fish - cooked in a spicy tomato sauce

Membrillo - aka "brown stuff" with cheese. Membrillo is a traditional Spanish sweet fruit paste.

And, of course, some Vino


We had breakfast at this little coffee and pastry shop in Plaza del Sol. There is a coffee bar at the back where people just stand around and eat/drink. The take-out pastry stand is over to the right of the picture. It was a very very yummy way to start the day!


We ate lunch Sunday at the Thyssen museum. Below is a 'tortilla', a very traditional tapa or first course. It is made with egg, potato, and sometimes some ham, onion, or other ingredients.


Close-up of the (half eaten) tortilla


For lunch we split a salad and a smoked salmon sandwich. You can also see a delicious glass of sangria on the right-hand side of the photo!


Juan celebrated his birthday at the Thyssen with a piece of chocolate cake. I sang "Happy Birthday" - very very very quitely.

I'll post more details about the actual trip soon, if I can! We get our own internet on Wednesday morning, so my posts will be much more frequent!