Wik

The next day we didn't ever leave Wik, which was fine with me. I was really into reading "Pride & Prejudice," so we had an easy morning, slept in, sipped on coffee, then moved on to sipping on tea, listening to music, Emily and I catching up on each other's lives, head massages, drawing, doodling, giggling, relaxing, something we both really needed. In the afternoon we took a lovely walk around the Wik campus, which is complete with a lake that stretches all the way Stockholm (which equals HUGE), a farm, and a beautiful forest. I was in heaven because finally I was away from the city and could hear myself think, finally I felt some ounce of creativity that used to be within me. I didn't realized how much the city was clogging my brain until I spent that day in Wik. It also helped that Emily, this huge channel of creative energy, was always right next to me.

huge lake

Wik and Rocinante

art studio at Wik

walkin' around the countryside
That night Emily and I chilled in her school, playing on instruments and being totally awful at playing billards. I found a random guitar lying around, picked it up, and we filled the empty halls with music and laughter, you know, normal Emily/Anna goofiness.

goofing around in the school

being a total badass

Sweden #1

First off, getting to Uppsala, where I was meeting up with Emily, was an adventure. I flew in to Vasteras, where from there I had to take a bus for 1.5 hours. Lucky for me, everyone in Sweden speaks almost perfect english. Their education system really is something. While I was waiting for the bus from Vasteras to Uppsala, a guy from Spain was desperatly trying to speak in English and ask for the bus station. I instantly thought Hey! I can help this dude! And so I became the translator for José, an engineering student from Valencia. We were both going to the same place so we spent the 1.5 hours in rapid conversation about water pumps and bridges. You can imagine how much I talked...but...he was a really cool guy, we both got to Uppsala safe and sound, and I got to speak in Spanish, wish is so much better than english. :-)

When I finally met up with Emily we went to a bar to watch some good blues and relax with her friends. Unfortunately we missed the last bus to Wik, the little town where she lives, so we had to stay the night at her friend's house, Joel. Boy do we (not) know how to be on time to things...

whoa, countryside, farms, heck yes! I felt right at home

Wik

The next day we met up with Bobby Long, Emily's dad, at Wik. It was a wonderful coincidence that both Bob and I were visiting Emily on the same week. The three of us made a good pair. Wik is the hippy art school Emily is studying at this year. It's tucked back in the middle of nowhere (so we feel right at home, coming from Radnor), surrounded by fields, cows, and a HUGE lake that goes all the way to Stockholm. We trekked back in Uppsala (so I could see it in the daytime) and did some sight seeing. It was really interesting for me to see a different European country and compare and contrast. Everything was, of course, completely different: how the streets were laid out, the architecture of the buildings, the general feel of the city.

what luck: Swedes love sweets>I love sweets= I love Swedes

the river crossing through town

We went and checked out the largest cathedral in the Nordic countries, and I couldn't believe it was from the 15th century. 15th century architecture in Spain is gothic, ornamental, loads of details, and grand. This cathedral was TALL and looked almost like modern american churchs.

biggest cathedral in the northern European countries

look! Spain!

After the cathedral we headed to the castle, also from the 15th century, and the ugliest thing I have ever seen. It's a huge, bland, straight building that looks like a square salmon. Whew. I'm sorry if I'm offending swedish architecture right now, but that is one ugly castle.

ugliest castle EVER

they sure can do gardens well, though. Linnaea, the guy who created the categorizing system for plants and trees was from Uppsala

Alicante

Rocinante chilling in the harbor

Okay, finally, I"m posting about Sweden. Man, I really suck at keeping this blog thing up to date. I left Valencia at 7am on the cheapest train to get to Alicante, where my flight was from, and because I left so early I had a few hours to wander around, walk along the beach, soak up some sun, find a cool street and not find out it was a mini-mountain until I reached the top completely breathless. It was so nice to have that time to move around before getting on a 4 hour long plane ride to the freezing cold weather of Sweden. It gave me time to get into vacation mode, which this vacation consisted of reading "Pride & Prejudice" all the way through (in 4 days), actually relaxing and letting some things settle that had been happening in Spain, and return to Valencia with a clear mind and view of how I wanted to spend my last few weeks there.

goin' fishin'

great way to start vacation, laying out in the sun

soaking up the last bits of sun before heading north

Back to My Roots

What will follow is a run of pictures about, yes, the thing I miss the most, the countryside. After spending 3 or so odd months in a city, it was high time to escape to see some green, roll around in the grass, and climb some trees. I had a "holy-crap-I-need-to-escape-the-city" moment, so one weekend was full of countryside, thanks to my wonderful friends I've made in Valencia. First, Lauren (from Earlham) and I went to the Botanical Gardens in Valencia, where we, two country girls from the Midwest, frolicked around the trees and plants, relishing in the sun. But that is just a taste of the happiness I got that weekend.

botanical gardens

The next day my wonderful friend Maria took me to the rice fields outside of the city, which, if you didn't know, Valencia is famous for it's rice. I found a patch of grass that hadn't been mowed in quite awhile and plopped down and rolled. I forgot how much I love grass. It was almost a full moon, so we scurried off to the beach and took a stroll along the water side, listening to the waves and watching the moon glitter off the water. Man, I wish there was a lake, or something (that wasn't Delaware Lake, which is fake and dirty) near my house in the states...

an intense fight to the death in the rice fields...with grass...

The next day, Sunday, I was kidnapped by Bruno and Maria and we drove 2 hours away from civilization to the mountains, where twisting and winding through the peaks is a river called Rio Fraile. How beautiful. We found a spot to picnic where no one was in sight, crawled around the river (now I have good luck, Erin and Mom, because I went creeking in Spain!!), and even swam. It was freezing, but the fresh water felt sooooo good. The sun was out, which of course meant laying out and just relaxing, enjoying the sounds of the birds.

rio fraile and bruno!

bruno! yes, we swam in the freezing cold, FRESH river

Did you know that there is a town called "Anna" in Spain? I didn't either! They took me to my town, which, what luck, is GORGEOUS. There's a beautiful gorge, complete with a waterfall, clear water, and caves. O man o man o man. I was super excited.

my town!

look how beautiful it is!

and....a waterfall!

What a wonderful day! The next weekend, the day before I went to Sweden (posts of Sweden coming soon), Josep, a fallero, took me to his town and we made gazpacho manchego, again. Hell yes! So good! Definitely my favorite dish in Spain.

haha, look! It looks like my house!

I'm going to live here

yep, it's decided

mountains!!!!!

mmmm....gazpacho...

kicking our feet back and relaxing, listening to jazz, so good

A Wee Little Break

I'm on vacation for another week now; just got back from Sweden 2 hours ago and in 4 hours heading to Andalucia, hence, another long break from posts. That's all!!!!

Viernes- ¡La Cremá!

Everyone sat down and relaxed for quite awhile after the globotá, which involved me giving so many massages that my hands cramped the next day. I'm going to start charging. Everyone was so exhausted from so many days of partying that we all just sat around and stared at each other like zombies, waiting for the time to burn the falla, the moment that fallas has been building up to. First to go was the falla infantil, the aquarium. It was something beautiful watching all that work go up in flames. Of course it had to start with petardos, explosions leading up to the falla where we had poured some gasolina, and WHOOSH. There it goes! When the fire was almost done the kids got into a circle and danced around the fire singing.

off with a bang

we be a-burning!

Next: falla grande. Now THAT was something fantastic. We rigged up a dragon on a line, and to start the fire we lighted it's mouth, it took off down the line, flying towards the falla, then BOOM! Fireworks and FIRE. Most tourists don't understand why someone would spend a year building something so beautiful just to burn it. I didn't understand either until that moment. Watching all that work, seeing all my falleros full of emotion, I cried a little, like a good fallera. It is something powerful. To me, it reminded me that material things just aren't that important, they don't last. You can spend a lifetime building something, but in one moment it can go up in flames. For a lot of others and historically burning the falla signifies the beginning of spring, burning all the bad emotions, memories, and leftover wood from the winter. Either way, you can't help but feel a heat wave of emotion and a feeling of cleansing.

getting the falla rigged up for the cremá

the dragon

the heat wave of emotion

it's going....

it's going...

it's gone!

When the falla was burned to the ground, everyone headed off for home, ready to sleep for the next two days. We had a glass of cava (champaigne) and went for our pijamas. What an amazing festival.

Viernes- Otro Desfile y La Globotá

Viernes, friday, the last day of fallas. I woke up at 10:30am (WOW sooo early!) to get dressed for the parade at 1pm. The process of putting on the traditional Valencian dress took us about an hour, mostly because the dress didn't fit quite right and a lot of pins were involved. My falla dresses in estilo folklórico (folk style) which means it's not as flashy and fancy as other dresses. Of course, me being me, liked our style better.

all dressed and ready!

Process of putting on a dress:
-under skirt to make the dress poof out more
-under shirt
-skirt for the outside (which weighs a ton and pulls down on your hips)
-jacket that is like a corset
-a million scarves and stuff to decorate it
-earrings, necklaces, etc
- the hat, which reminded me of what Santa's elves wear
-socks and shoes, the most uncomfortable shoes I've ever worn

getting ready

too much fiesta

We all got together at the casal and lined up for the walk through our 'territory.' Each falla has a specific territory where they are allowed to have their parades and etc. After a false alarm (we started our parade with a band that wasn't ours) off we went, the women arm in arm with the men, proud valencianos. The vecinos, neighbors, came out on their balconies or in the street to watch. It was a short parade and afterwards we, well, at least Lucia and I, escaped back to our houses to put on more comfortable clothes. All in all, I really liked the experience of dressing like a fallera and parading through the streets. Not everyone in the Earlham program got that experience, and I'm super super grateful my falla doesn't do the Ofrenda, which would mean 4 hours or more in those shoes.

the adults

traditional dress for the boys

traditional dress for the girls

The activity for the kids today was the globotá. Hundreds of balloons were blown up (my falla has a lot of hot air, haha) and hung. Little nails were passed out and when your color was called it was your turn to go balistic and pop as many balloons as possible. Globotá is a play on word: mascletá is the explosions in the Plaza de Ayuntamiento which I've already described, and globos means balloons. Ah yes my falla is a skilled wordsmith. The noise of all the kids screaming with enjoyment and all the balloons popping was really quite fun.

balloons!