En Las Montañas

(I actually wrote this at the beginning of November but didn't put pictures and everything in until now. Trying to catch up!)

The week following my trip to Ireland was probably one of my most difficult this semester. I was very homesick and everyone in my program kind of seemed to be at a stale, frustrated half-way point (hard to believe we are that far into the program, though!). Thankfully, our week was cut short by a really unique and perfectly timed experience: a weekend stay in a pueblo in the mountains.

After winding our way through the hills in a bus for a few hours, we arrived in Sorvilán, population ~200, and walked through the pueblo toward our hosts' home. Since I have visited my own host family's pueblo a few times, I was accustomed to the rustic, white-washed buildings and animals roaming the streets, but something about this one was different- I think that it was set in the mountains, and that you could really feel that you were breathing in fresher air than in the city.

Once we arrived at our house for the weekend, I realized what else contributed to the atmosphere of the pueblo- we could see the Mediterranean Sea through the hills from the beautiful open terrace between our bedrooms! That first night we pretty much walked around the pueblo and just outside it to enjoy the view, and then ate our first fantastic meal cooked by our wonderful hosts, Domingo and Enrique.

the terrace

The very relaxed first night must have been to prepare us for the next day, however, because we spent a good part of it hiking through the mountains [The Alpujarra is technically one mountain between the Mediterranean Sea and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but there are so so many hills where we were and people call them Las Alpujarras (plural)]. Although it was taxing on the uphill parts, the hike was awesome. I have camped and hiked many times before, but I haven't really had the experience of eating fresh fruit off a tree that you just come across while walking, and obviously this landscape was new to me. It's really beautiful and just very different from mountains in the U.S.

grapes

the most delicious pomegranate I've ever had

see the giant thing next to me?
It's a barrel to hold wine.

After a much needed picnic and siesta, we were ready for our next, somewhat mysterious event: a visit to a bodega. We walked through the village with our host to this empty, dark, barn-like place. As we walked in I saw that there was a big barrel and some stools at the end of the room, and some contraptions behind it that I later learned were used to make wine. A bodega is essentially a private/local winery, where the owner uses the local grapes to make all kinds of wines without preservatives or artificial ingredients. The owner of this bodega explained the process of making wines and then allowed us try them- so good! We had a great time there, and then finished our night by hanging out on our terrace looking at the stars over the Mediterranean Sea (I even saw a shooting star!).

learning how to make wine

Our final day in Sorvilán was mostly spent on another hike (this time all downhill for a few hours, which is more difficult than I anticipated. I think I need to work out outside of a gym more), but our destination was the BEACH. The water was absolutely freezing, but it was such a beautiful, peaceful way to end the weekend and start refreshed for the week ahead.

walking down the mountain to the water

it was gorgeous

an idea of the shoreline

friends!

I actually skipped over what we did Sunday morning, which was to have a "class" about the region with one of our hosts, Enrique. He talked all about the people and jobs and the invernaderos, which are gigantic plastic greenhouses that are between the mountains and the beach. The invernaderos are used to grow produce to sell to corporations, and use all kinds of preservatives and pesticides and things of that nature, are bad for the environment (not to mention ugly), and are also notorious for their terrible working conditions/pay/treatment of their mostly immigrant workers. But they make cheap food, and that is running the agriculture-dependent pueblo inhabitants nearby into the ground. They are unable to pay for their houses and land that have been in the family for generations, and their property is being bought up by richer foreign retirees. That's a pretty simplified version of the situation, but it isn't a good one for most people and is just being magnified with the current economic and job crisis (the rate of unemployment in Spain is 28%, and in Granada, where I live, it is 40%). I feel guilty talking about my fun at the beach and even throughout this semester when I'm aware of problems like this, but it certainly magnifies the scope of my blessing in having this opportunity to study abroad and travel. Even now I'm thinking of ways to use my experience in the future, and not just remember it as a fun trip I took to Europe in college (although it has been that too ;)). We'll see where it takes me!

Dreams Come True

After a couple of crazy weeks, sickness, weekend trips, assignments, and more, I am ready to finally write some posts and put up pictures of my travels and time here in the past month. But I'll be taking a brief hiatus from Spain for this post, because I get to talk about the most amazing weekend I had in IRELAND.

If you are not a part of my extended and very Irish family, you may not know that I have grown up with a myriad of Irish traditions, food, music, and more around me. Haha, just kidding. If you've known me for more than a week I've probably found some way to talk about it, because I love it. I've been an Irish dancer since I was 5 years old and it was a huge part of my life for a long time, which contributed to a lot of my own exposure to Irish culture. 

I'm really not a bucket list kind of person...I like to take opportunities as they come up. Having a to-do list would just stress me out. Ireland has been one of the few things that I had set my heart on doing in my life. So when I realized that it was a real possibility to go while I studied in Spain, you better believe I was all over that. With my friend Devynn from my Spain program in tow, I jumped on a plane headed for Dublin, ready to start my adventure.

We actually went to Galway first, on a bus straight from the airport at 2 am on Friday. We decided that instead of staying in the city, we wanted to go see some of the cliffs or islands, and settled on going to the Aran Islands. It was a rainy and cold day (like so many are in Ireland), but we had the most fantastic time! After a very...eventful... ferry ride (it was incredibly turbulent and that did not agree with a whole lot of people on board), we arrived at this picturesque and quiet island, with green rolling hills covered in low stone walls coming up to the rocky shoreline where seals play. We took a small bus tour through the island and were dropped off to walk up to this old medieval fort at the highest point on the island. We had a great walk, taking pictures, not sure what we would come to once we passed the initial stone wall of the fort. 

the coast- there are seals but it's nearly impossible to tell here

walking up to the fort

And then, all of a sudden, we walked through this little opening in the wall and came into this grassy bright green small field that led up to the fort. As I turned, taking pictures, I saw some people laying on the ground to our left. As we walked toward them, I realized that I could see the ocean....very, very close to me. Without realizing it, we had walked to the edge of a cliff. It's so windy up there that I realized why those people were laying down, and we did the same to just take it all in. That was one of the coolest things I've ever done. I just kept thinking "I'm standing on a cliff in Ireland!" Surreal.

walking to the edge

the fort

crazy hair from the insane wind

on the edge

The rest of the day on the Island we walked around on the roads finding cool things like wild horses and old church ruins, ate a fantastic lunch at this cute and cozy thatch-roofed restaurant, and went shopping at the Aran Sweater Market, where I bought the most comfortable and warm Irish sweater in the world. 

where we ate lunch

When we finally made it back to Galway after another ferry and bus ride, we met up with some friends from Wooster who are studying in Scotland this semester. We all got into our new hostel and went out to dinner, but we decided to sleep early because we had a morning bus back to Dublin.

Once we arrived there, I had my first fish and chips for lunch (and liked it a lot, surprisingly! I am not a fish person.) The rest of the day we explored Dublin, going to Trinity College and seeing the Book of Kells (ancient Bible manuscripts) and the Old Library (so beautiful) and going to the Guinness factory. Only one person in our group decided to take the tour there, and the rest of us went to a pub down the street to wait for her. While there, we met Debbie, Maeve, and Dave, the Irish (well, Debbie was Australian. But she lives in Dublin!) people at the table next to us. We talked to them for about an hour, all about Ireland and America and a bunch of other things, and they told us some good places to go for music and food while we were in Dublin. It was such a fun and unexpected event in our trip, and not our last time spent chatting with natives that weekend! We did go to a pub later that night for a little bit, but it was so crowded by the time we got there that we only stayed to listen to music for a little while and then left, because we had another day trip planned for the following day.

 Dublin Castle

The Old Library at Trinity College is stunning, especially for a library freak like me.

typical street in Dublin- love the colored doors!

We saw four different rainbows that afternoon!

This time we were heading out on a bus tour of County Wicklow, Glendalough, and Kilkenney. County Wicklow is movie country in Ireland- it's where movies like Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan, and P.S. I Love You were all filmed, and it is GORGEOUS. I got some pictures (a lot through the windows of the bus since we only got off once through that area), but pictures can't take in the expansiveness of the hills around you or how you come around a bend and see this massive still lake in the valley of all these huge green hills. Our one stop overlooking this lake was breathtaking.

this picture really doesn't do it any justice, but this is one of the lakes in the valley.

The rest of the day was spent at Glendalough, a medieval monastic settlement, with more fantastic lakes and scenery. After a very scenic hike from one of the lakes in the valley, you come out at this ancient cemetery (although it is still being used by people who live in the area!) with the ruins of the ancient church and a tower and another building that was used by the monks. The whole cemetery is full of Celtic crosses, which are crosses with a circle around it.

Christians began encircling crosses like this when they settled with the ancient Celts and/or wanted to convert them to Christianity. The circle was an almost universal symbol of the sun, and most of the pagan religions worshiped the sun in some way. By putting this symbol on the cross, the missionaries could draw the attention of the Celtic people.

see the fragment of the cross?

Our final stop on the tour was to Kilkenney, a very picturesque town with a castle and different colored buildings all squished together on cobblestone roads. We didn't have much time there, and for the most part we just ate at Kyteler's Inn, the second oldest pub in Ireland (open since 1324). The Irish are all about storytelling, and our tour guide recounted the tale of Dame Alice Kyteler, her four husbands and consequent fortune, and her eventual escape from being burned at the stake as a witch by getting the town to go after her maid instead. Story after story were told at every place and every ruin we visited. Such fun!

For our final night in Dublin, we went to the Brazen Head, est. 1198; the oldest pub in Ireland. I think I can speak for everyone in my group when I say that we had an incredible amount of fun that night, hanging out with these two hilarious Irish women we sat at a table with, listening to the FANTASTIC band play traditional and contemporary Irish music, and watching merry-making of all kinds ensue. We watched couples dance, a man rock out on the spoons (actually one of the most impressive musical feats I've seen. Shane, you should really learn to play them), and after some persuasion by my friends, I Irish danced in a pub in Ireland while the band played :) If you go to https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151931789593955&set=t.644496730&type=3&theater, you should be able to see a video of it.

It's odd how familiar a foreign country can seem. Although my family has celebrated being Irish and has lots of traditions to do so, I thought that at least a few of them were a little contrived or at least very Americanized. I was surprised at how similar a lot of things in Ireland really are to my home/family, like food and music. The most noticeable thing to me, though, was that the night at the pub felt an awful lot like a family party. It was loud and warm and fun and so clearly a favorite activity of the locals there. That's what I take with me from Ireland, and that's what I want to go back for someday too.