Past Travels Tuesday: The Arid Zone

I've decided to start doing a new type of post on this blog occasionally, which I'm going to call Past Travels Tuesday, basically a few photos and memories and possibly advice from big trips I've taken in the past that I really enjoyed. Yes, I am a copycat--I saw some other travel bloggers doing it, and it seemed like fun! I love ensconcing myself in the past for a while and reminiscing. I'm not going to do it for every Tuesday, partially because that might get old and partially because I'm not as dedicated a blogger as all that, but it's something I'm going to try for a while, and we'll see how I like it. I hope you readers (aka Mom and Dad) get some enjoyment out of it! So here we go.

I thought I'd start at the beginning (as they say, a very good place to start). I have no idea what my first major vacation was (Mom? Dad? A little help here?), but I'd almost be willing to bet that it was to Phoenix, Arizona. We have family there and we've been going there at Christmas or Easter more or less every other year ever since I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are of 28-hour car rides and singing oldies with my parents or saying "Mommy, tell me a story."

One of our traditions from these vacations (I imagine started by a hyperexcited me really wanting to just BE THERE already) is a competition to see who can spot the first saguaro cactus on the side of the road. You see, the saguaro doesn't grow anywhere in the US east of the Arizona border, therefore once we spot the first saguaro it means we're almost there.

Perhaps because of this, or maybe because of their characteristically strange shape (I like weird-looking things, okay?), I've always had a fierce love of saguaro cactuses, and the state of Arizona where they live. 

I love them so much that I hug them. Do you think that's strange or something??

Even though I've been to Arizona probably 15 times in my life, every time I'm excited to go again. A lot of that, of course, is because I get to see family that I haven't seen in a long time, but part of it really is to get to see the saguaros again, to see the red dirt contrasting with the blue sky and to feel that dry heat creeping over my skin. 

Arizona is a fabulous place, a mix of bright colors and a clash of cultures. It's a place where you can play in the snow and sunbathe and whitewater raft in the same day, where you can eat amazing Mexican food, where there's a Walgreens on almost literally every corner, where you can see one of the natural wonders of the world, and where people choose the color of their car based on temperature. It's quirky, it's beautiful, and I love it. Lucky that I never have to worry about finding an excuse to go back!

In short, I recommend Arizona to all travelers visiting the USA. After all, some of the most iconic images of America that make it outside its borders are of Arizona. Even foreigners know who John Wayne is! Westerns gave that classic dusty desert town image to the world. So why not go to the place where many of them were filmed? Why not see a place that is so classically American and yet so atypical all at the same time? 

I have hundreds more Arizona stories I could share, but since there's not room to do them all justice, I'll leave you with just a few more tidbits. Some of our other Arizona traditions include finding a dive Mexican restaurant to eat at, making fun of the Arizona Cardinals as much as possible, climbing my uncle's mountain, going to the Buffalo Exchange to find vintage clothes, and taking a family picture in the parking lot of IHOP. What? I never said my family was normal. 

How about you? Have you ever been to Arizona? Phoenix? Are you as enamored of it as I am? Are you a fellow saguaro hugger? Do you have weird family vacation traditions too? I'd love to hear about it. 

Featured!

Alert, alert--I should've mentioned this earlier, but I didn't. In case you didn't catch it, a few weeks ago I was featured on the blog of another auxiliar de conversación, Liz, called Memoirs of a Young Adventuress.

Here's a link to the article, which you should totally check out! It's an interview with me about why I love Galicia, more or less. And, of course, I totally recommend that you echarle un vistazo (that's have a look) at the rest of her blog as well, particularly if you're a new auxiliar looking for advice, as she's doing a great series on what to do when you first come to Spain...or if you want to know more about other regions of Spain, as she's doing interviews with expats living all over the country...or if you want to see yummy food pictures, as she does a "Pincho of the Week" feature. Or if you just want to read more exciting Spain stories.

Basically, girl's blog is awesome, go look at it now. That's all, have a nice day everybody! Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

On Madrid

Madrid, I've decided, is not very much like the rest of Spain. It just doesn't seem quite as...Spanish. Since I've been here, I've more often felt like I'm in a slightly-strange America than really in Spain.

Here are a few reasons why:
I live next to an outlet mall, meaning clothes are not (nearly as) ridiculously expensive. Said outlet mall is open on Sundays.
People wear flip-flops everywhere, and no one stares at them like they're from an alien planet.
I have seen people walking around with coffee. From Starbucks. Walking and drinking at the same time!
There are foreigners absolutely everywhere. Most of the other people I see around me seem to have Central/South American Spanish accents.
Everyone seems to be in a rush to get where they're going.
Most people out on the streets don't look like they're on their way to a fashion show.
I had ethnic (Indian) food the other day, and it was of excellent quality and actually kind of spicy.
The nearest grocery store doesn't close during siesta. 
The grocery store also has a sizable international section. (In addition to there being American-themed stores!)

Can we talk about the Peanut Butter Crunch there? YUM, but why does it have to cost €5 a box???

 I know this is just an affliction of big cities; in general they tend to seem more international than the rest of the country. Paris is the same, London, etc. There are lots of opportunities in big cities, and you can find basically everything you could possibly need. But I find myself longing for real Spain, where life isn't so rushed, there aren't as many chain stores, and people get dressed up to go out in the streets. Oh, and also where it isn't 30°C or above every single day.

Luckily, I'll be headed back to my lovely cool Galicia very very soon. Until then, I'm going to keep taking advantage of all Madrid has to offer.

Seeing the sights (or trying to anyway)

Oh, yeah. And I guess Madrid isn't SO different from the rest of Spain--I attempted to go to the Temple of Debod (an Egyptian temple given to Spain as a gift) the other day, and was thwarted. I'd checked the opening hours specifically before going, and got there right on time to find the scene below, AKA 3 security guards chilling out on the steps "guarding" the temple while not letting anyone inside. And that, my friends, seemed very Spanish to me.

SE-just GO already-VIA!

It will be no surprise to those of you who know me in real life to hear that I can be kind of stubborn. OK, really stubborn. And I don't like doing the same things that everyone else is doing. But then, 2-3 years after the craze is over, I get curious about what all the fuss was about, finally do/watch/read/experience the thing, and get left saying things like "Guys, wow, The Office really is hilarious; I just watched all of the episodes in one weekend and couldn't stop laughing...guys? Hello?"

...So anyway, that's what happened here. Everyone's been telling me for years that I need to go to Segovia, that the Roman aqueduct is breathtaking and that the old town is very cute, and that there's a neat castle.  But far be it from me to do what other people tell me to do, no way! It's my life and I'll do what I want/ It's my mind and I'll think what I want... (thanks for the life philosophy, The Animals)

But of course, I eventually caved and now I have to admit that everyone was right; Segovia is actually pretty awesome. 

There's a Roman aqueduct, like everyone said, and it is cool to think that it's still here after several thousand years. 

Also, said aqueduct is HUGE and that makes it even more awe-inspiring. Those Romans, they sure were something, huh?

And like everyone said, the old town is super cute, with buildings that look like the one above. This building actually made me feel like I was back in another highly-recommended Spanish city, Salamanca. 

And here's me, hanging out in front of a weird fish fountain. I'd have rather gotten a photo of the pretty castle, but my camera is an official Battery Monster and decided to die just before we got to see it. So it exists now only in my memory...and, you know, in real life.

Moral of the story? I could probably change my life philosophy of never listening to anything that anyone tells me until years later, and I might get to enjoy cool things sooner. But then I'd also have to listen to people telling me "I told you so!" and I don't think I could handle that. Besides, if my way works, why change it?

So now I get to tell you that you should go to Segovia if you ever get the chance (but I won't fault you for not listening to me for a few years)!

A Few Summery Observations

This is the second summer I've spent in Spain, and I keep noticing things that are particular to the season that are very different from the way we do things in the US.

One example I noticed at the pool in the apartment complex where I'm living for the summer. One girl was trying to learn how to dive in, headfirst, and a whole bunch of people were showing her how. I realized that I have absolutely no idea how to dive headfirst into a swimming pool, and thought about why that might be. I realized that almost every single swimming pool I've ever been to in the US has tons of those signs embedded in the floor with a picture of a person diving and their head hitting the bottom of the pool and lightning bolts coming out of it.

[image from traderdaily.com ...don't ask me what it was doing there!]

But here, nothing of the sort. I've continued my observations, and have seen people continuously diving into the shallow end of the pool (3ft deep or so) and not coming out without any lightning bolts around their heads, or other cartoonish signs of pain. What gives, America? Why are we so cautious about this?

Another thing is sunscreen. I've spent a fair amount of time researching European sunscreen lately, after an incident where I went outside for too long with Spaniards (who burn less easily than a pale thing like me) and returned looking like a lobster. 

I was determined after that to get myself some sunscreen, so I went to the chino (it being right around the corner and usually cheaper than any other store) and picked up the only sunscreen they had, which was SPF 4. I thought to myself that this seemed ridiculously low, but figured maybe they measured SPF differently in Europe...after all, they measure everything else differently, why not that? I used it and mostly didn't get burnt, but then asked a work colleague about it and she was shocked and immediately went into overprotective Spanish mother mode, saying "You can't just go around only using SPF 4! People only use that at the end of summer, when they're already very brown! You'll get completely burnt! Go to the pharmacy, that's where the good sunscreen is."

So then I dutifully went to the pharmacy to pick up some real sunscreen. Since in the US, we usually use sunscreens with SPFs of very high numbers, like 70 or 80, I was looking for something like that. But the highest they go here is 50. I was also shocked at the price on the bottles. I ended up getting a small bottle (50 ml, or 1.5 oz) of SPF 40, because it was all I could afford at the time. And that cost me €10. 

I later did some research on the different labeling rules because I was wondering why sunscreen here only goes up to SPF 50, and I learned that the EU has stricter laws in order to limit false claims, which the US doesn't have. So that US sunscreen that says SPF 80 might not actually protect your skin better than one that says SPF 50. I also learned that the EU requires sunscreen here to protect against both UVA and UVB rays, whereas US sunscreen only legally has to protect against UVB rays (UVB rays are the ones that burn you, but UVA rays can give you cancer). Thus why European sunscreen is so much more expensive--it protects you better, and it's actually labeled correctly!

In the future, despite the expense, I'm only going to buy European sunscreen, if I can help it. Once again I have to ask, what gives, America? Get your act together, sunscreen-wise!

Now I know why all these people aren't worried about being exposed to the sun: their secret weapon, superior sunscreen!

The final observation I have (for now) on summer in Spain is something that I'll probably never get over, no matter how long I try to get US cultural norms out of my head. Why do Spanish kids wear either no swimsuit at all or only half of one?? I understand that we're puritanical in the US and that little girls don't really need a tiny bikini top when their chest looks no different from a little boy's chest...and that even a grown woman or man doesn't need to be ashamed of their body, that anyone can go swimming nude if they want to. But the little naked or half-clothed swimmers will never stop looking weird to me. And I will never be entirely comfortable on a nude beach, despite trying to seem "cool" with it. Some aspects of your native culture never leave you, and for me, this is one of them. I will probably always be slightly more ashamed of and awkward around the naked human body in public than Europeans are. Thanks for that one too, America. 

What other summertime things does Spain do differently? Are you as awkward on a nude beach as I am? Have you, too, been foiled by confusing sunscreen labels? Tell me about it!

San Juan

I spent this past weekend going on a little jaunt up to León in order to celebrate the festival of San Juan, or the longest night of the year. There, I did the following things (in no particular order):

1. Ate loads and loads of food cooked by Spanish grandmothers

2. Saw the outside of this cathedral (we kept missing the times when the inside was open, which were at weird hours because of the festival)--

3. Saw Spain kick France's butt in the the Eurocopa 2012

4. Made chocolate chip cookies for a crowd of Spaniards, who gave their approval

5. Saw a fireworks show, during which I pretended it was the 4th of July since I won't get to see any fireworks then

6. After said fireworks, watched the burning of some figurines (from a political cartoon) in this gigantic bonfire--

7. Enjoyed the break from the broiling Madrid heat

8. Did not sleep very much

I hope your San Juan, or summer solstice, or whatever you want to call it, was spent in a similarly enjoyable manner!

Where Has the Time Gone??

Here we are past the end of the school year, and as usual with, well, time, I find myself wondering what happened. Wasn't it just January? I don't know where the time between then and now went, but it flew.

If you thought I was a bad blogger before, you must think I'm truly the worst blogger on Earth now. Or that I'm dead. Neither of which is actually the case...well, the first one I guess I can't really judge, but hopefully not. Anyway.

Part of the reason I've not been blogging is that I was really busy tying up the school year and saying goodbye to all of my friends. Then I was really busy moving. Yes, that's right, I moved! I'm now living in (well, near) Madrid, though just for the summer. I'm an au pair for a family here, and since I last posted I've been getting settled in and getting to know the family and the area. Oh, and also watching fútbol, lots of fútbol...since the Eurocup is currently going on and I've got to cheer on Spain.

But by now I'm pretty well accustomed to the scorching heat and dry landscape of where I live, as well as the people and the job. So I'm back to blogging, yay!

So currently I'm wondering if there are any current or former Madrileños out there who might want to echarme una mano and give me some suggestions of things I should make sure to do before I leave the area. I only have 6 more weeks to experience it all! Of course, I would also love to tomar un café with anyone who might be willing to help out someone new to the city. Thanks in advance.

This is the view from my morning run--I feel like I'm living in the desert!

I really love this one lone white house, it makes me think of Don Quixote and lonely windmills.

Oh, did I mention that I live in the town where the Spanish national soccer team trains? Obviously, no sightings right now since they're off in Poland kicking ass and taking names, but when they get back, I'm excited to try to see them!!