Letter 3

And finally the latest one, sent out earlier tonight:

Buenos dias amigos y familia –

It’s been quite a while since my last letter and plenty of things have happened. I haven’t kept up with the blog, but I have some more pictures up once again. I just returned from my 11 day trip with Greg to Berlin, Prague and Amsterdam, but unfortunately I don’t have any of those pictures yet. I think I took about 800MB worth and Greg still has them all on his computer so it’ll be a bit before I get them posted… However I do have new pics up from the castle towns I’ve been to (a lot of the pictures are pretty nice if you view them full size):

http://community.webshots.com/user/hodag09

This last month has been a whirlwind of traveling and sightseeing. School has taken a backseat to experiencing the countryside and Spanish lifestyle (which I expected, but I’m getting pretty behind in my studies – the exam weeks in January are going to be wonderful).

A few random stories before I get to sharing the traveling news. Shane, a fellow Hodag, came to visit one weekend and it was a blast. We wandered around the Ciudad de Artes y Ciencias one day, got in some Frisbee at the beach and had several late night Spanish lessons from my mentor and his friends. These are always the best – it’s oddly hilarious to the Spaniards whenever we learn their slang. If you want to know more about his visit (i.e the Red Bull and/or Marine stories) just ask.

I walked out after bartime one night (around 4am here – right before people leave to dance at the discotecas) to find about 30 guys playing soccer in the middle of a plaza downtown. I played with them for about an hour, and the experience was heightened by all the spectators who gathered and heckled the players every time they messed up or did something cool. I love that this Plaza de la Virgen, one of the more popular religious areas in Valencia, is used for both weddings and late night sports.

There’s been a noticeable difference in my figure since I arrived, thanks to Nutella and all the delicious but deadly bakeries around. I wanted something to stay in shape for Frisbee in the spring (one thing I can’t get at all here, it’s brutal) so I ended up joining the track team. It’s been quite relaxed so far – we actually don’t have real meets besides cross country until the spring so I don’t get to compete, but the workouts are making me feel better. It’s a great way to talk with people outside of class, and I’ve been enjoying it a lot. I also got on an indoor soccer team with some Germans and other Americans, and we have our first game tomorrow. I get to play goalie; it’s going to be reminiscent of my middle school days… except because the goal is so small in indoor soccer, the preferred tactic for scoring is kicking the ball through the goalie instead of past him.

My eating habits here, besides trying to sample as much as possible when I eat out, involve mostly bocadillos de jamon serrano and pasta (the most economical and tasty options). I’ve learned to love the bocadillo – basically sub sandwich bread with any manner of meats/cheeses. They’re easy and cheap and when you get them hot they’re unbelievable. I see this pretty often but it’s still amusing; a typical lunch is a bocadillo and a liter of beer to help you through classes. I really enjoy the meat based diet here, although they do eat some wildly strange cuisine in my opinion. You have to be careful what kind of meat you buy at the supermarket, and the local markets on Saturdays are ridiculous. The first time I stumbled upon one I definitely wasn’t prepared for it. Josh and I wandered around looking at skinned rabbits and random animal heads/brains (I thought one stand was keeping a cow with a lettuce necklace under the counter until I realized it was just the head) The fish stands sell creatures from the deep that I never thought would be edible - I definitely lose my appetite when the squid is bigger than my head, or the fish looks like one giant toothy mouth. Although I think the most culturally shocking one was the horse meat stand. This was the best because behind the counter they had several posters of stallions running wild through the mountains: and their meat in right front of you… ugh. But this aside, most of the more common meats (especially jamon – I’m going to miss that quite a lot upon my return to the States) are fantastic. The Spaniards love their jamon, chorizo and salchichon. The attached picture is an advertisement for jamon I saw while visiting Morella several weekends ago. Their faces say it all – they take it seriously here (haha).

I’m surrounded by historic towns here, and I’ve visited 3 ancient castles so far this month. 9 other students and I took a trip one weekend to visit 2 of these towns, Morella and Sagunto. Morella is an entire fortress town on a hilltop (almost all fortresses are on the highest ground around for security’s sake) surrounded by over 2 km of walls and overlooked by an old castle. It’s apparently one of the oldest continually inhabited towns in Spain. We rented two cars and drove the 3 hours through the mountains to the north to find this place, and it was definitely worth it. The scenery getting there was pretty spectacular (reminding me slightly of New Mexico with the shrubs and desert landscape), and the town itself was inspiring. The pictures that I have hardly do it justice; it’s impossible to explain how intimidating it looked upon approaching, or how historical (for lack of a better word) it felt inside the walls. It was just like I would have expected an old town in Spain to be – thin streets lined with high white buildings and lots of local bakeries and restaurants filled with people. It got a bit touristy in places but that didn’t take much away from the old time feel of the place. I don’t have many pictures from the top because we had to sneak past the construction and couldn’t go near the edges – we would have been kicked out if they found us.

That night we drove back into the mountains, then off the road for about a quarter mile into a valley where we decided to camp for the night. We had just set up camp amongst the cow patties without thinking about it when we heard a bell clanging a short distance off. As I wandered over to see what it was in my bright red Wisconsin sweatshirt I discovered a massive black bull with a bell around its neck approaching our campsite. I was worried about being a giant target until the Germans told me that bulls are actually colorblind and what makes them angry is large amounts of movement. I took their word for it and we headed back while staying out of sight. Now we decided that it was going to be too much trouble to pack up and look for somewhere else, so we moved the cars into a V shape close to a fence so that we would have somewhere to hide in case the bull decided to disturb us. After a great grilled chicken dinner we went to sleep around the fire hoping that it would ward off our unwanted guest. Everything was fine until we were awakened in the middle of the night by a series of bell clangs and noises that sounded like the bull was either dying or trying to crush something close by. After a few minutes of wondering whether we would have to make a dash for it the noises subsided and the bull quieted down… Thankfully we didn’t hear from him or see him the next morning, but it was an interesting night sleeping a hundred yards away from such a massive animal.

The next day we checked out a town called Sagunto on the way home, which is about 30km north of Valencia. This one was a much larger castle but in worse shape, and the town below was much more modern. We arrived in the middle of a medieval fair and headed up the hill after watching an old man lead a parade of ducks through the crowd like a shepherd. The hilltop castles have great views from the top, but it’s quite a hike. I kept imagining myself having to storm this castle in full armor – I wouldn’t have lasted very long in my current shape. But in the year 2006 I managed to make it to conquer and make it to the top (see the victorious webshot pic).

The 3^rd castle that I’ve seen here is in a town called Xativa, and while it was still in very good shape it was also quite the tourist spectacle. I went on a day trip today to check it out, and I think that the scenery outside of the castle here was my favorite. On one side of the hilltop you had the old town and the other there was a valley with mountains in the distance. Surprisingly, the acoustics up at the top were incredible – we heard conversations that were happening almost a mile away at the bottom, and a crowd cheering a soccer game further away in the town. One off the main attractions of this castle was the prison, in which they apparently incarcerated plenty of famous people (oddly enough, they listed them all in the program they gave us). Out of the three, Morella had the best historic feel, but I liked Xativa the best because of the great views.

Well I’m off to catch up on some sleep before a lab tomorrow, I hope everything is going well back home. The Badgers continue their win streak, and the 49ers actually won a game so everything seems right in the world! I know Greg has already sent out details of our trip to some of you, but when I get the pictures I’ll write something to go along with them for anybody who hasn’t heard about it. As always, it’s great to hear from everybody!

‘ta luego,

Will