Mom and Dad visit! Met them in the airport in Barcelona (in different terminals, almost didn´t find them because we were all following the classic “stay where you are and it´ll be easier to be found” trick…. Luckily, they ended up calling me). I found them (with Cadbury crème eggs in tow, my one request for something from home, and we took a bus to the city centre where mom slipped on a puddle with her suitcase wheeling along. After that minor trauma, we took the train into Sant Cugat, where Dad’s cousin (Octavio) lives. Everyone was excited and nervous to see Dad’s aunt, but when we arrived, she wasn’t there… We walked around Sant Cugat and casually interrupted a wedding at the cathedral, then headed back to Octavio’s place for lunch. It was fabulous and Octavio told some very enlightening and downright interesting stories about dad’s family and Moçambique. We went into the city after that and embarked on our paella-fest (mom and dad actually came so we could do a paella pilgrimage). We walked through the Ramblas to the Port of Barcelona and the Colón statue where we saw a dirty hobo who looked eerily like Steve’s friend JJ, so much so that we took a picture. When we got back to Octavio’s, they were gone to a party.
The next dayñ, we went to church at the Cathedral in Sant Cugat and sat through a mass that was being said in catalán so I didn’t even understand it, but I’m pretty sure we got the gist of what was going on. We went into Barcelona again and walked around Sagrada Familia, had more paella, and went to Gaudí’s Apartment building (Casa Milá), which was really cool. The roof was bizarre, but there were some cool little stations that explained a bit more about Gaudí’s work and about the Sagrada Familia (the Eiffel tower of Barcelona, according to Octavio). It was cool learning more about what Gaudí was all about (nationalist revival in Spain that attempted to reconceptualise gothic architecture).
We flew into Madrid and caught a cab to their hotel, where we got in touch with Jim and Sheila. Once we got to their room, Jim had already gotten out his Tupperware bottles full of martini fixings. The party had arrived. Jim didn’t believe me when I said restaurants don’t open til 8, but guess what? They didn’t… and don’t! But, we caught some decent tapas and got to walk around Plaza Mayor to the oldest restaurant in Spain, or in the world is how they advertise it here. We had some roast suckling pig and called it a night.
The next day I had class and the elders had bus trips. I met up with them at their hotel after class, and they were exhausted and flustered, definitely proud of the steps they logged on their pedometers (matching pedometers… can you say “adorable”?!). We then went for tapas for dinner and got some chocolate con churros for dessert at the famous San Ginés Chocolatería,ñ which we all gobbled up and “enjoyed,” only to reveal to each other later that they weren’t really that good. That was the night I crashed in their hostel bed with them, which I would prefer not to talk about, and yes, the Plans, Trains and Automobiles joke about a hand being between two pillows WAS thrown around.
Next day, I had class, then my two closest friends here and I met up with the rents at the hotel, we had some drinks and then went for Indian with Jim and Sheils! Mom asked my friend from New Zealand if they “have their own government and everything”… ahaha sorry Mom, but it was kind of funny.
We had a big day ahead of us the next day. I met the gang at El Escorial, which is about an hour trainride from where I live. They had rented a car. El Escorial is a fabulous building, former royal residence with so much art. Also, this is where we started ordering the menu turistico, which is 2 or 3 courses, dessert and drinks for a fixed price around 8-10euros. Pretty good. We drove to Ávila from El Escorial. It was awesome, and the weather just got nicer and nicer throughout the trip. We ate their traditional sugary treat, the yema (which is just an egg yolk that has absorbed so much sugar that it is a gooey ball). We toured St. Teresa of Ávila’s birth home, which has been converted to a Church, and we even saw a relic of St. Teresa’s ring finger, which is preserved in the shop nextdoor to the church. We then went to church in the St. Thomas Aquinas church where the Catholic Kings (Isabel and Ferdinand) had a palace.
The drive from there to Segovia was gorgeous, almost like Tuscany as the Milways pointed out. However, we did get a little lost, as we were navigating using signs and maps of landmarks from guidebooks. Once we got into Segovia, we went to the place where Rick Steve’s recommended to go and had some delicious “lomo,” and it was funny how excited we all were when we ordered a salad and it was a real salad. Usually salad here is served with a fried egg on top and tuna… gross. The next day, we went to see the acueduct, the Alcazar and the Cathedral before driving back to Mad Money to drop mom and dad off at the airport so they could bounce back to Barcelona. After some hectic navigation, we ended up taking the metro to the airport and rushed a farewell to the Mils. Luckily, the next day, I got to say a proper goodbye/hug when I ran into them at Atocha (the Grand Central Station of Madrid… again, you’d think it was a small city, it was the kind of thing again where I never walk through that part of the train station usually, but went on a whim because my friend needed to use the bathroom and… bam. The Mils).
'Twas a LOVELY visit!
