Public Transportation

"Look at all the buses now that want exact change, exact change. I figure if I give them exact change, they should take me exactly where I want to go." - George Wallace

This will be fun to explain. It had been a while since I had met my nemesis, specifically public transportation in Europe, but on Saturday I welcomed it back into my life. I have used some buses in and around Granada while here in Spain, and they have all been great, but this past weekend was a rude awakening of what's to come. For starters, I was a little naive to say the least, about how easy it would be to transport myself throughout Spain. I forgot about all the troubles I had when I came to Europe last summer, and if you don't know what I had to deal with, lets just say I had some problems. Anyways, on Friday, I decided to set my plan into motion. The plan, take the 130Am bus to Madrid, in Madrid take the bus to Segovia at 830, tour Segovia for 4 hours, then bus to where this bike race was. I had not planned how I would get back to Segovia, but I thought it would all work out. It had to, I could even get back to Granada by 1230AM on Sunday.

Problem 1: The bus from my house doesn't go to the bus station after 12am and by the time I found this out I was leaving my apartment. My choices were to take a taxi or walk to the bus station, and I decided to walk there. I arrived there early for my 130 Bus, and was able to get a seat to myself for the 5 hour bus ride.
Problem 2: I took a 5 hour bus ride at 130 in the morning. I thought I could just sleep during the ride, but similar to the past, its never that easy for me to sleep on planes, trains, or automobiles(buses). So I arrived in Madrid at 630 after having slept uncomfortably for about two hours.
Problem 3: This was the big one. I don't speak Spanish that well, and guess what, even the help desk people don't speak any English. I noticed in the bus station that the bus I needed wasn't listed. So I went to the info station, and asked the man about it, and he told me something, I have no idea what, but I decided I would try to figure it out on my own. I never did, so I went back, and asked if he could write it down for me. He gave me a sheet of paper, something scribbled on it. I couldn't read it, but after talking to him a third time, both of us annoyed at this point, I was able to understand that I was at the wrong bus station for the bus to Segovia, and that the train would take me to the right place. I went and looked at a train map of Madrid, and noticed that there was a line that ran directly to the mountain where the bike race was, so I asked the woman at the train info desk if that was a good route. She told me it was, so I bought a ticket out and back from her, deciding that Segovia would have to be a future trip because I was too frustrated to try to make my other plans work. On the ride to the mountain, I had many great experiences. But,
Problem 4: I still wasnt sure how I was going to get back to Madrid. I had to switch trains eventually, so at the transfer I searched the map for a route back, and was able to find when the trains returned, and this solved most of my problems for the day. I arrived at the ski station at 1045 in the morning and began walking around, realizing that I was there about 4 hours earlier than I had planned, but very happy to be on this mountain for this race.



The race was a time trial in the Vuelta a Espana. I could write about this forever, but I will save you most of the commentary. I had a great day, and since I arrived so early, I was able to stake out where I wanted to watch the race from. I decided to start towards the bottom, and walk my way up as riders went past, hoping to reach the top of the mountain by the time the leaders went by, so I could see the finish. It worked perfectly, and it was incredible to see how many people were on this mountain, making me think of Alpe D'Huez in the Tour de France. I got some great pictures of the cyclists, and above all I really enjoyed just being at this stage. I was there, I was yelling, cheering, and running with the cyclists. It was something I will never forget. I got to experience what its like when you almost get hit by car after car, as we(the fans) would get so close to the riders, only to jump away at the last second as the car following would go by(there were at least 130 riders that started the day).
It was great, and an American won the stage, not the race leader Alberto Contador who is pictured above, but Levi Leipheimer, which made it all the better for me. Something I will never forget.

Problem 5: After the race finished, I headed back to the train station, which was a mess with hundreds of people trying to get tickets for the train ride back, but luckily, I already had mine. Just to be safe, I decided to ask someone if I did have a ticket for the way back, and no I did not. So I waited in the line, bought a new ticket (not that it was ever checked the whole way back) and then waited with the masses for the ride back.
Problem 6: By the time everyone got on the train there were no seats left, so I stood for the half hour train ride down the mountain. Then we got on the next train, and it was full, so I stood, for another 30 minutes before I decided to sit on the ground. Another hour later, I arrived in Madrid.
Problem 7: I had to switch trains to reach the bus station, but I didnt know which train to take, and I only had 30 minutes before the bus left. I asked for help and eventually got to the train, but had a few tense moments. Back at the bus station, I got in line for a ticket, and they informed me that the next bus was at 1130. Now that I am trained in military time, I was asking for a 2330 bus, and she was telling me 1130, but I thought she said 130 am, there really is no reason why I should have confused the two, other than sometimes I think I hear what I want to hear. Anyways, I think I made her mad with my persistence for the 2330 bus, but to no avail, and eventually I settled for what she had. After getting the ticket, I realized the mistake I had made, and all was well the rest of the time in the bus station as I waited. The bus ride was better, as I was exhausted from so little sleep, and I actually slept most of the time, and arrived in Granada with a stiff back and neck at 430AM.
Problem 8: Granada at 430AM. I decided to take a taxi home, as I did not want to walk.

As I entered my room, I met my new roommate for the first time, and then I passed out in my bed. The day of travel was done. 15 hours of Public Transport in 27 hours total. Now I know what future traveling is going to look like.
Speaking of which, this is my last blog for a while. I am going to be going on a bit of a vacation soon, but I should have a new blog up within two weeks.

And Now I Am Mobile.

"And I will stroll the merry way, And jump the hedges first, And I will drink the clear, Clean water for to quench my thirst, And I shall watch the ferry-boats, And theyll get high, On a bluer ocean, Against tomorrows sky, And I will never grow so old again, And I will walk and talk, In gardens all wet with rain." - Van Morrison


I have now purchased a bike after four weeks of being without one. This was quite a big day for me although it was costly, I am really excited for everything that I can do now that I have this bike. As I write this it is raining here in Granada, which this is only the second time since I have been here in Spain that I can remember it raining. Anyways, the bike is an Orbea, which is a very popular brand here in Spain. I think it is a good beginner mountain bike, and I should be able to do all types of riding with it here in the future. My first ride is going to be friday, since I don't have more than an hour to spare any day except for friday.

Second thing I wanted to mention is that I have now been gone for 4 weeks from America, and as I thought about this today, it really is strange. In this month it seems I have done so little, yet really I have accomplished many things. In the beginning, my Spanish was weak, I knew many words, but had no confidence to say them, and my writing and listening were very poor. Now, after four weeks I am able to speak much better, although the conversations are still very simple, and it is not just that but I have confidence. My roommate here at my house came two days ago, and it is fun to see how he is doing, and the other late start people in my program, because I know Granada so well at this point, and to them they are where I was 3 weeks ago.

Anyways. I will have a pretty exciting post coming soon in the next few days, and many pictures uploaded to my picasa soon. Hope all is well.

The Mountains Part Dos

"The only failure is not to try." - George Clooney

For Part 1, I was able to climb most of the way up a smaller mountain that is near Granada. On Saturday, I decided to go all out, and climb one of the tallest mountains in Spain. Veleta. The mountain peak of Veleta is very close to Granada, with a ski resort located on part of the mountain. This was a much more intense hike than my previous one, because it was at a much higher altitude and it provided great views from the top.


Unlike my experience the week before, I began this trip by buying two 1.5 liter bottles of water from the grocery store, and was able to gain some food from my host mom for the excursion. I also researched this mountain a little better, and was able to figure out where I wanted to go before I got there. The only thing I really had to do once I arrived was hike, so after getting a few hours of sleep, because I went to my first spanish concert, I went and caught the bus to the Sierra Nevada Ski Resort. The ski resort is located at around 7500 feet, and it is about a 40 minute drive by bus up into the mountains to this location. The bus took us right to the trail, and away I went up the mountain. Unlike my last hike, this was not scenic in the sense of beautiful trees, rivers with waterfalls, etc, because the ground was all rock and tundra.
Also, this trail went back and forth across a road that went through the area, but all the same the views were incredible. As I reached the top, I was really excited to try to look out to Africa, because on clear days it is easily visible from this location, but it was my luck that there would be clouds everywhere on the opposite side of the mountain. I spent about an hour up at the top at around 11,000 feet, and then headed back down, all told the hike was about six hours. I had a great time though, as once again I got a chance to do some rock scrambling, and I met many nice people, from many different countries. I have uploaded the pictures from this trip onto my picasa site and you can take a look. I also used my camera for a while for some self portraits, so enjoy.


As you can tell it has been a while since I have updated this blog, and that is more or less because I have been very busy. I have as you know class six hours a day, and outside of class, I have been busy sleeping, eating, walking and enjoying Granada. This past week I enjoyed watching two movies in Spanish, as I went and saw Che. with Benicio Del Toro in a theater, and then in one of my classes we watched a Spanish comedy called Say Yes. In both movies I could understand only a little, although in Che I understood the parts where he was being interviewed in English quite well.
I only have one more week of my intensive Spanish classes, and then I will go to only 4 hours of class a day for 4 days a week, and that will be a relief. I am ready to really explore the area. Which brings me to my next point, I think I have found a bike, and by my next post, I think I will have purchased it. Adios.

Into the Mountains

"The reward of suffering is experience" - Harry S. Truman

Sunday followed Saturday, but that was all that it shared in common for me. On Saturday, I woke up early, and then went and sat on the beach all day, yet on Sunday, I woke up late, and then walked/hiked for pretty much the rest of the day.


Where to begin. After getting some much needed rest, I left my house around 130 pm, to walk to the south side of Granada to catch a bus to the pueblo of Monachil. Monachil is in the mountains about 6 miles south of Granada, and there is a bus that goes there frequently, except for Sundays. On Sundays, it only goes to Monachil three times, in the morning, at 230, and at 845. The bus ride was good, although we stopped in the middle of nowhere, which caused me some confusion (we were early and had to wait for passengers). Once we started moving again I began growing apprehensive of making the bus that would be coming back 6 hours later. I realize that 6 hours is alot of time, but by the time I got off the bus I was down to 5 and a half, and I wasn't sure the time the bus driver gave me was the right time. This reason was because the website I had used to find the bus in the first place had said the bus came back at 8pm, yet he told me 845. All of a sudden, I thought maybe he meant a quarter till 8, and I just wasn't translating what he had said correctly. This caused me many problems, but I will go into those later. In Monachil, I followed the signs looking for the trail that was labeled as easy online. It was to Los Cahorros, a river gorge area that was very beautiful. On my hike, the path was very small in places, and I passed a large amount of rock climbers, as you can see in my pictures. Eventually I had enough of the low path though, and I strayed off onto one that began leading up the mountain. At this point I was roughly one hour into my hike and I figured that I had at least another 1 - 1.5 hours before I needed to turn back. Well I kept going up, and eventually I decided that I wanted to summit the mountain that was in the distance, so I took a fork in the trail that looked like it went the right way and started in that direction. I can tell you this, all of the walking that I have done these past two weeks did not prepare me for hiking. This trail seemed to go up at a very rapid ascension rate, and soon I was up into the trees that surrounded the upper levels of the mountain. I kept chugging up, even after I had ran out of water, realizing I may have been unprepared for the rigors of this adventure. Then I hit a fire road, and there was a sign ahead that said roughly translated, no access permited. I debated this no access permitted for a while, and eventually decided that since it was now 545, and that I had started this hike at 315, that it was necessary that I turn around. So I turned around, and retraced my steps back. I reached the fork I had been at earlier and decided to go left instead of right, and headed back towards Monachil on a new trail. This trail came out very close to the city, saving me nearly an hour, but I had to go around all kinds of houses that were out in this valley to get back. This slowed me down some but I still arrived back in oMnachil in only 1 hour and 15 minutes. I cut my time in half. A local told me that the bus would not be there until 845, and I came to another crossroads, walk home, or wait. Do the apprehensive thing, or the spanish thing.
I decided that I was built for walking, so I would walk. So at 7:05 on a Sunday night I began the 12km walk to my home in Granada. It was a very nice walk I would say, and for at least half of it I had sidewalk. The views were nice though. I ended up getting back into Granada just around 815, which is when everyone begins to go outside to meet in the streets, and I arrived back at my apartment at around 850pm. I think I saved roughly 30 minutes by walking back early which is why I am glad I tried it. I dont know if I will ever know how much I walked that day, but it was at least 13 miles, and I am sure more like 15+. The hike was great, although in the future I hope to do this hike again and reach the mountains summit.

Enjoying the Mediterranean

"So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys, I was terrified! But I pressed on and as I made my way passed the breakers a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things but I tell you Jerry at that moment I was a marine biologist! ... The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to return soup at a deli!" -George Costanza


What a day. Saturday is a day that will not be easy to forget, as I was purely living in the moment. Myself and a few other people in my study abroad group decided to go to the beach and be beach bums as some of my colleagues at Depuy may say. There were a few problems along the way, for starters I waited for a bus that never came (to go to the bus station on the north side of Granada) so I walked all the way up there, and almost missed our bus. Thankfully I made it though, and we got on the bus, and left for Salobreña. This beach side city was only 50 minutes by bus from Granada, and at a cost of 7 dollars each way it made for a fun, cheap day.
The drive to Salobreña can only be characterized as mountainous, as the entire way, except for a few minutes at the beginning and end are going through mountains over a pass, around a gorge, and finally to the sea. What a day. Salobreña has part of its city located up on a high plateau, something we did not visit this day, because by the time we were going to, the thought of walking up that much was not very appealing, but I have plenty of times in the future where I can do it, so that was fine by me. Anyways, we got to the beach. Our day was already a success, and then we noticed it was slightly windy at this point, something that in the past I had never experienced on the Mediterranean. We coated up with sunscreen and I began pondering when I would be entering the water. After a while I was able to pursuade on of the girls to go with me into the water, so I wouldn't be swimming alone of course, and as we entered the water at a run we noticed the waves were much larger than we had anticipated and to save myself from being pounded on to the shore right when we got there I made a quick baywatch dive into the wave as it was cresting. This sealed the deal for me, and now the day had gone beyond good. The water was cold, but you acclimatized to it, and for the next 20 minutes we, with a few others joining us in these huge waves, I can only describe it as bodysurfing/getting thrashed onto the shore. For most of the rest of the day after this, it was spent laying out in the sun, and putting massive amounts of spf 30 sunscreen on, for which I am lucky as I did not burn in too many places. I did have a second voyage into the water later in the day, this time solo, and this time I misjudged the waves, and the wind, as now everything seemed to be much bigger. I am not sure if it was just a large set of waves or what, but I can easily say they were the biggest waves that I had ever seen and one of the craziest swims that I have ever had.
After this we decided to go up on a rock that was nearby to get a better view of the area. From this rock on calm days, people would normally jump off into the water, but today, that would not have been smart. There were great views from the top of this rock, and after we exited our day was done. We walked back to the bus stop, got on the 815pm bus and later arrived back in Granada, everyone being exhausted (especially me). The beach was fun. I hope that you enjoyed the rambling. Today is another big day for me, I was able to sleep in some, and now I am about to do the other great thing that I can do since I live in Granada, the mountains.

Always Walking

Granada - home to "the most beautiful sunset in the world" - Bill Clinton


I have realized now after a few days of being in Granada that I will be walking at least 5 miles a day for the next few months. It really doesn't bother me though at this point. Sunday I took a long stroll near my home. Then sometime in the middle of this walk, I thought that since it was near sunset going to the top of the old arab quarter would be a good idea. It was a fine trek, up this huge hill, through tight alley after tight alley, and many strange places. The walk was definitely worth the view, as I got stunning shots of the Alhambra, Granada, and the sunset over the mountains. The downhill after taking the pictures, that was a different story as I went down a road that was much steeper than the one I had gone up. Let me just tell you this, it hurt to come back down.
Anyways, I have now started my classes here in Granada. I am taking classes for 6 hours a day. Monday - Friday. 6. That does not include lunch, so in essence I am back in high school. I have class in the morning from 9-1, and then come home and eat lunch around 2, take a little siesta, get on my computer or watch some of the vuelta on tv, and then I am back walking in to class around 430. I then have class from 5-7 and then after I walk back home again. Its a busy day. I am walking about two or three hours a day currently, which takes a while, but I just listen to my shuffle as I walk, and hopefully I can get some spanish music on there soon, and learn some of the popular stuff (for those interested in why I dont do some sort of mass transportation. well the buses don't go in the area that my class would be in, so although it would only be like a 10-15 minute bus ride, i can walk that same distance in about 20 minutes, then there is another 10 minutes to my classes). It really is interesting how things that are popular in the United States still take a while to get over to Europe. For instance, Sean Kingston, Beautiful Girls is a popular song right now; the movies currently just coming out in theaters are Hellboy 2, and Zohan, with Pineapple Express coming soon I think, and for rental Hitch is popular. Yes, I said Hitch. Then on the other end of the spectrum is the news, as it seems like I have heard more about every place in the world in these past few days than I ever do at home. Europe reports its news well. Oh yes, other big news in Spain currently is Real Madrid just traded Robinho to Manchester City for 34million euros. That is alot of money.
I am in the market for a bike in Granada this week. Hopefully I can pick one up, and then I will be able to have more time to visit the area near the city, that is a little too far away to walk. Thanks for reading.