A is for Asturias, B is for Bagpipes, and C is for Cold

My horse was parched. How did I know this, I knew this because I could literally feel the horse drifting to over to park of the mountain stream where the ice had broken. It began to move and I got nervous, my teacher and guide Professor Montes had told me horses like to lie down when they drink. Feelings of being drenched in the mountains danced in my head. But my horse ended up getting a drink, and not lying down.

So there I was, deep in the Picos de Europa. Here's a quick geography lesson, the picos de Europa are the mountains in the North of Spain. They are located in the region called Asturias. It's north of Leon. You can see the region on the map.

Upon arriving in Asturias, we headed to a cider factory. This wasn't your warm apple cider with cinnamon sticks though. This was alcoholic cider, a specific type native to the region. In this factory they had Huge barrels that they kept the cider in. Check out these three regions of significance.

After the cider factory, we went to the Asturian coast. Let me tell you, it looked exactly like the Irish coast I have been fortunate enough to visit with my family. Check out this picture the coast.

That night, we went to a barn, literally a barn where we had dinner and drank cider. When people drink cider in Asturias they have a very specific way of pouring cider. Rather than explain this one, I will just let this picture explain it.

After some healthy rounds of cider, our teacher and his friend proceeded to bust out their bagpipes and start wailing on some classics (Amazing Grace, Scotland the Brave). Of course all this wailing made me want to get in on the action. Now I wish I could say I picked up the bagpipes and all those years of trumpet made me instantly able to play perfect, but I would be lying. I just filled them with air and couldn't get enough air to get em really going. Here I am trying to be the Boss of the Bagpipes.

The next day we woke up and proceeded to hike through snow on the ground and rain falling on our heads. While the views were pretty, by the end we all were drenched and pretty cold. However I did get some good pictures.

The next day we woke up early and drove really high in the mountains. We put on many layers. My layer break down was the following

T Shirt
Long Sleeve Shirt
Sweater
Sweatshirt
Fleece

We waited for a little bit by the side of the road deep in the mountains. Soon the locals came around the bend with about 15 horses. We proceeded to mount the horses. I had a medium size horse called Moro. He was a great horse that followed my instructions. We then rode our horses deep into the mountains.
Now, I said the word mountains up there in the last paragraph and I mean it. These mountains were super diesel. I constantly felt like I was in the Lord of the Rings or an Imax movie on the Himalayas, and for the people that get it (probably only Sam and Joe) I felt like I was in a picture that would be on the wall in Dr. Lebel's office. Check out this mountains.
At the end of the horse riding trip my horse and I broke free from the group (I am sad to report that Zach's horse was extremely slow and also had some serious fart problems). Now when I broke free I managed to kick my horse/crack the reins and also scream like a crazy deranged eight year old. This combination caused Moro to take off really fast down the mountain road. It was exhilarating in a way I can't even describe. This is our guide, our "Aragorn" who made the trail through the snow.

That night, I convinced the owner of the super tiny hotel we stayed out to give me some nails and a hammer. Ruby and I found a stump and we proceeded to play Stump with the guys on the trip till the early morning. Now I have played some great Stump games (The Game at my Mom's birthday party in Maine sticks out) but this game was pretty perfect. The mountain river roared close by, our teacher was practicing bagpipes inside, the beer was cheap and spanish, and we got probably like 50 looks from locals who thought yankees were crazy. For those who don't know what STUMP is, check out this website for explanation.

The next morning we hiked deep into mountains, unfortunately there was snow on the pass and we could not travel through. It was OK, I got to practice my "Horn of Gondor" skills. I was much better at this then I was at Bagpipes. Check it out.

We then hiked back down and took the bus home to Madrid. One more time for the mountains!

Well, tommorow I head out for Spring Break. It's going to be an adventure. Here's the itinerary.

Rome
Florence
Venice
Milan
Interlocken
Munich
Prague

Hopefully I will come back with some good stories. Bye for now!

Las Fallas!

Brace yourself for Spanish Culture. Ready Lift Off! Yesterday (Monday) I went to Las Fallas in Valencia. It was the craziest thing I have seen in Spain yet. Let's just get right into with a brief explanation of it. So basically Valencia is on the coast of Spain. I took about a 5 hour bus ride to get there. Check it out on the map.
Las Fallas means "Burning." So the festival is focused on fire. So throughout the year the locals construct Fallas. They are massive structures celebrating or mocking various aspects of culture. Here is a Falla of a pirate.

So the festival goes for three days. There are lots of fireworks and on the last night, everything except the first place Fallas gets burned. This is the night I was there.If you want to know more about the event check this out: LEARN MORE. But lets move onto the goods.
So we got there and checked out the Fallas. We then ate some paella and walked the streets. These were not ordinary streets, these were streets full of kids to grandparents. And everyone was setting off fireworks. Big fireworks. As Ruby described it "it was like a war-zone." The first one we saw burn was at 10PM. They don't burn the big ones till later, but here is the first firework shot up to start the burning of the little Falla.
Then the Falla begins to burn. Here it goes

It's small so the fire is not that big. After the little Falla burned we chilled out and then moved to a square to watch a big one burn. Before we got there we all bought bandannas to wear over our faces so we didn't breathe the smoke. Here is the Falla.


And this is it burning behind us. Yes, that fire is what once was that amazing structure. Those bandannas were so clutch. The smoke is incredibly dense, I probably still have ash in my air. They also begin to put it out right after it goes up, so we were getting indirect water blasts from the firemen as well. After that we booked it to the super crowded town square to see the second place Falla burn. Here it is in it's pre flame glory. It was about 100 feet tall.
Before it burned, all the lights in the plaza went out and there was this huge fireworks display. It was so loud yet so exciting, and completely dwarfed every fireworks display I have seen before it. Sorry July 4th. Check out these fireworks.
Oh man after the fireworks, including a insanse Gran Finale, good old Neptune head just blew up and the whole thing went up in flames. Everyone was going nuts screaming and throwing firecrackers everywhere. It was a "blast!" I was really fire away but here is a picture of the Greek God meeting a very un-wet demise.
Stay tuned, I will try to post tomorrow aboutthe super exciting bullfight I went to on Sunday. Lots of posts coming. Stay tuned. Hasta Luego

Madre y Padre en Espana

This past week, my parents came to visit. It was a great time and I'm pretty sure it was a big learning experience for them. This is Mom and Dad at dinner with my host family. It was a really good meal (much better than usual). I was in school during the week, but I now they had fun visiting museums and being tourists. It's a shame they don't have a blog so you can see everything they did when I was at school. It would be a true visit with my parents if we didn't go to the movies. We went to the movies and saw "The Last King of Scotland" which was full of ferocious performances but could have had a more focused story.
After the movie, the week continued. Highlights included going out to dinner with Diane at a really good Cuban restaurant and seeing a Flamenco show after, dinner with my friends, and the weekend in Granada. Here we are at the Alhambra.
While at the Alhambra we walked around and saw all sorts of great stuff. Check out my previous post on Granada for all the juicy information this awesome location has to offer. While there I saw some really cute kittens, now I'm not really a cat guy (Sport was the coolest pet ever), but these kittens were really cute.
After Granada we headed to the airport. But before we left we stayed over in a town to watch "El Clasico" which is the Real Madrid-Barcelona soccer game. This game was absolutely insane to watch. Check out the results here. Ronaldinho, who plays for Barca is amazing to watch, don't believe, check it out. Here we are watching the game.
Well, it was a great visit. My parents learned a lot about Spanish culture and a little bit of the language (Sabrosa means delicious). I'll try to post soon about life in Madrid. See ya.

Nature's Classroom

Greetings From The

SPANISH WILD

Last weekend I was a field trip with my Ecology of Spain class to the Alto Tajo National Park in Guadalajara. It was an amazing trip full of lots of adventure.

I got up at 8:30 on Friday morning and took the metro to the school where we boarded a bus. I mainly slept on the bus ride, we stopped in small town for breakfast. This town was tiny and no one there spoke English, this would be a sign of things to come. After a little for traveling we arrived in our tiny town. We packed up our packs and headed down the road.


We basically hiked along this pretty massive canyon. At the bottom of the canyon was the Alto Tajo river. Our teacher Professor Montes would stop at special areas and give us ecology lectures on the region. It was refreshing to be out in the wild and also to learn a little bit about the world literally all around us. Here is Montes giving a lecture.


Here's the deal on Professor Montes. He is an accomplished nature writer and photographer who has been teaching at Syracuse Madrid for over 15 years. He is in a 9 piece Celtic rock band that frequently tours Europe and the US. He loves rock music, hates the city, and kind of sounds like "Borat".

We then hiked down to a ledge where we had lunch and also to proceeded to "clean our arteries" as Montes says. If this is confusing, "clean your arteries" is what happens when your body gets submerged in a freezing cold river after jumping off a cliff. This is me...airborne... my form is pretty bad.
After the jump we all the guys on the trip swam up stream to this rock for a "American's are adventures who pose with our shirts off picture" on a rock. Check it out.

After that we went back to the town and kicked it with the locals, keep it mind there are only 12 people in this town. We played soccer, explored castle ruins, and practiced Spanish with our 12 year old guide Ernesto. This is a group shot on the castle ruins at sunset. From the left, Greg Alvarez from Lehigh, Chris D'Erico from CUse, Andres Trujillo from RIT, Clark Lampen from Lehigh, and Zach Rubinfeld and myself from Syracuse. That night we had an incredible dinner of vegetables, salmon, lots of bread, salad, wine, a sweet desert of apple tart.

We woke up early the next day to find that it was cloudy and cold which was bad because we were slated to go Kayaking in two hours. The weather did not stop us and before we knew it we were loading the kayaks.
I wish I could show you all pictures from our descent but the water was freezing and my camera wasn't water proof. We took the bus down to a power dam, did a basic review of technique and we were off. The kayaks had skirts so water wouldn't splash on your legs. The rapids were pretty tame, I would say they were class two at highest according to this scale. We kayaked for about 3 hours and three people tipped, one of them was Ruby, who is a pretty outdoors guy. After the kayaking we went back to the Hotel and slept for about 4 hours.

That night we went to one of Professor Montes's friends house for dinner and a party. This was not an ordinary house, it was built on top of an ancient cave. So inside the house is a door that leads deep into the cave system. It is here where the wine is stored, food was stored, and people of the region avoided bombings during the Spanish Civil War. While we were there we learned the local way to drink wine, which is to pour it out of a large jar with a spout. Here I am trying to get my technique down.

After dinner, the owner showed up and things got moving. He busted out his families traditional wine that we makes in the cave system. It was a blush and it was really good. It was here that we watched the lunar eclipse with the locals in the countryside. The night was capped off the by the owner of the house/caves presenting my buddy Clark and I with custom hats. Here we are.

The next morning we woke up and went for another hike. The destination was the left "tit" of the Viana. The left "tit" is one of two plateaus that rise from the landscape. When the Roman's where in Spain they named them tits. The hike was pretty steep at times, but the views were amazing. Here is a group shot at the top. The right "tit" is behind us.
After that hike we took the back to Madrid. I met my parents at their hotel and got ready for a week of fun with them. Stay tuned for pictures from their visit. I'll leave you with a picture of the valley area.