Solo-traveling: It's all Greek to me

I boarded the plane taking a deep breath. The group of four friends behind me were chattering excitedly about all the Greek food they wanted to try and their ferry schedule. I secretly envied them...what the hell was I thinking going on a week long trip alone??? Sure I had gone for a weekend in Belgium by myself but that was 3 days. This was a 6 day long vacation with a loooooot of me time. And you know how getting lost on the way to your hostel or not being able to find the metro is funny when your with friends well when you're alone it just seems stressful. But as I stepped off the plane in Athens I tried to view the whole thing as an adventure. I can do this I told myself, faking confidence I didn't feel as I strode toward the metro. 


I showed up to my hostel and the helpful receptionist told me I had a free drink at the hostel bar. While I was hesitant about going to a bar alone I decided to dive right in and see what happened. At 3 AM I was dancing like a loca at a club with my new found friends from the bar. This traveling alone thing might not be so bad after all. 

The next day I was up bright and early (with somewhat of a headache) to do a walking tour offered by our hostel. I made a conscious effort to talk to almost everyone who was on the tour and ended up meeting 2 girls to spend the rest of the day with. As I talked to more and more people the less weird it became, sometimes I forgot I was even traveling alone. As soon as I had met some people in Athens...it was off to Santorini!


I was a little worried when I got to my hostel in Santorini, there seemed to be no one around. I talked to the owners and they said this was the low season with less travelers and places open. Great...I thought, 4 days alone in one of the most romantic/beautiful places on earth. However, I tried to keep positive and tell myself that I would meet people. The first day I spent wandering around the capital of the islands, Fira. As I got back to my hostel I notice a group of students in the lounge. Cue my opening travel line "Sooooo where are y'all from?" Works like charm. I ended up going out for dinner and drinks with the group of Americans who went to college in Canada but were studying in Barcelona. So far so good in Santorini.

The next I woke up and decided I wanted to rent an ATV to see the island. That was the best part of traveling alone, I got to do whatever I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do it. No consulting everyone in the group's opinion and being angry at the one person that doesn't want to eat at the restaurant you found or museum you want to see. It was great. I picked up my ATV and started driving to see the black beaches. Driving the ATV was probably oneof the most fun things I did on the trip. While driving along the island, I pulled over to take some pictures. Just as I had stopped 2 guys came roaring into the same area and rolled up to take pictures as well. As I asked them to take my picture, I struck up a conversation about where they were from (Canada) and found out they were headed to the Red Beach just like me. And so a travel friendship/ATV gang began. We missed the turn to go to the beach and headed to the light house instead, celebrating another beautiful sunset with a beer. 

The next 3 days I met up with my new friends Blake and Matt to go the Red Beach, try some of the local brew Yellow Donkey, visit the volcano and have some laughs. While I didn't even get their email or last names, they made my trip to Santorini really memorable in an unexpected way. I proved to myself that I could travel byself and have a great time, pushing myself to meet new people. In the end I realized how many people I had met by being alone, something I would have never done in a group of friends. Maybe I won't have a trip to look back on and laugh about with my friends, but I made my own memories and stories. Just for me. 

Greece

Yassas y'all! (that's hello in Greek) Although CNN might tell you differently I had a great and relaxing trip to Athens and Santorini last week! I don't have time to write about it right now (school starts tomorrow eek!) but I'll put up some of my favorite pictures for now!

Spain goes on strike and I'm going...

On vacation! Tomorrow Spain will go from its usual slowness to a full stop with a general strike to protest the newly proposed budget. Spain's President, Mariano Rajoy, has proposed to cut the budget 40 billion euros this year. No wonder people aren't happy. However I am pretty excited because we finally have some vacation! Semana Santa starts Friday and I'm going to a place that's been on the top of my travel list for a while now. I'll give you some hints and maybe you can guess where I'm going!


I'll be eating the Mediterranean diet but it will look a little different.

I'll be surrounded by ancient history.

And I'll be viewing sunsets like this:

Can't wait!!!

City on Fire: Las Fallas

This past weekend I was lucky to check off another item of my Spain bucket list: going to Las Fallas. The valeciano celebration was the first major Spanish fiesta I have been to and I was really nervous. I feel like I can tough it out under most traveling circumstances but lots of drunk people, firecrackers, and fire sounded like a potential recipe for disaster. But I loved it! On Friday I loaded my bag into my co-worker Eva's car and headed down to Valencia. As we headed out of the metro into the center of the city 5 hours later, the wafting scent of pumpkin buñuelos and sound of firecrackers greeted me. I couldn't wait to see the massive statue-like fallas hidden around every corner of the city. 

The first falla I saw!

Las Fallas is a Valencian celebration that commemorates St. Joseph (as in Mary and Joseph). Neighborhood clubs or casal fallers all around Valencia hold fundraisers all throughout the year to raise money and create the fallas that are placed all over the city. The fallas are generally satirical, poking fun at everything from celebrities to political figures to Spanish expressions to Cristiano Ronaldo. I was shocked and delighted at the amount of detail and money (the winner cost 400,000 euros) that goes into each and every one. 

For me the most interesting thing was the contrast between a Christian ceremonies like the women falleras and men falleros bringing thousands upon thousands of flower bouquets to la  virgin for her opulant cape and decorations and almost pagan parades/fire obsession. The Valencian virgen's cape took 3 days to complete and was absolutely astounding. 

Las falleras bringing their flowers to the virgen

In all her glory on the last day

And yet after seeing that awesome cape of flowers, we went to another parade that had people dancing around in devil costumes and trying as hard as they could to light the crowd on fire. WTF Spain? 

But I digress. What is the point of this entire ceremony with its beauty, intrigue, and murky Christian origins? To burn it all to the ground of course! Every falla is thrown up into flames except for the winner and boy is it fun/terrifying to watch. 

Here we go!

Viva las Fallas!

I'm still here!

I know you may think have fallen off the plains in Spain but no I'm still chugging along in Madrid! The truth is I haven't felt like writing to much lately so I haven't. Instead I've been enjoying the nice weather in Madrid right now and doing things I haven't done in ages like going to the Rastro or the neighborhood La Latina on Sundays. But I haven't forgotten about you readers! And this weekend I'm going to Las Fallas in Valencia so I'll have lots to post about when I get back on Tuesday. Get excited!

Why Spain makes me more environmentally conscious

There are a lot of reasons as to why I enjoy living in Spain and one of them is that I feel like a more environmentally conscious person (sorry to sound pretentious). Here is why:

1. I use my reusable grocery bag

Here in Spain almost all grocery stores charge you a small fee for bags (usually between 3-5 cents). It seems like an inane expense but it annoys me so much that I have to pay for bags that I started to use my reusable shopping bag every time I go to the grocery store. Just by charging a some pennies for bags, Spain made me more environmentally friendly. Those Spaniards are so sneaky!

2. I walk or use public transportation everywhere

Since I have no car here and am terrified to drive in Madrid even if I did have one, I use public transportation or walk everywhere. Thankfully, Madrid has an excellent metro and bus system making it easy to get everywhere without much hassle. Also the amount of walking I do helps to keep off the kilos!

3. My piso is never fully heated

The apartments in Spain are made for combating the miserable summer heat, not warding off the cold. My apartment for example has no central heating making energy saving much easier. And my apartment the north pole. 

4. Bills, bills, bills

Energy and water bills in Spain are much higher than they are in the US so I am much more conscious about leaving lights on when I'm not in a room and taking shorter showers. Thinking a little more about the lights, heat, and water saves me more at the end of the month. 

Although they seem like little things, I never thought about making these changes while living in US. Have you become more environmentally friendly because of living in another country? Are you environmentally friendly even though living in the US?

Snowy Spain

Thanks to a Siberian cold wave my weekend of Basque pinchos hopping in Vitoria was turned into a winter wonderland. Although I was sad not to see even the Plaza Mayor in Vitoria, seeing the snow was a treat!