Year 2 is taking off! Boat rides, Ferias, & More

Kite Surfers
View from El zapillo

Well hello again! After a more than 3 month hiatus from blogging, I’m backkk! Unfortunately for all of you loyal readers that means I’m no longer in the states :( First, I’d like to say thank you to everyone back home for making this summer absolutely perfect! I was only home for 2 months and I spent half the time going crazy about my visa, but I seriously don’t think I could have enjoyed being home any more than I did.

While I might one day write an entry about that whole crazy process and what happened, I’d rather not relive all that nonsense right now. Let’s just leave it at that I don’t know whether the people working for the US government or the Spanish government are more retarded and incompetent. Instead of telling that story, I think my time would be better spent filling y’all in on what I’ve been up to over here my first month back.

On the night of August 8^th, we had a little going away dinner at my house despite the fact that I didn’t know whether I would actually be leaving the following day or not. I pulled an all-nighter that night finishing up my packing, organizing my room, assuring myself that I would be able to sleep on the potential flight the following day, and more than anything, wondering whether or not I would really be leaving.

Neal and I got to the consulate in Houston the following morning at 8:30 before it opened to see if they had my visa ready. The lady in reception knew exactly who I was when she saw me as we had communicated several times in the previous weeks both in person and over the phone (she HATED me haha). I didn’t even have to say anything and she went straight to the back to see if my visa was done. After about 20 minutes of waiting, she came back with my visa! I was floored. I really didn’t think that they were going to have finished processing it, but they did! I took one look at the visa and realized that it said “ALEXANDER” instead of “ALEXANDRA” but I wasn’t about to alert her to that just in case she wanted to take it back, change it, and make me miss my flight. *Side note: I’m virtually certain she misspelled it on purpose just to make my life a little bit more difficult.* Anyway, I just stood there wide-eyed, told her she was a life-saver (even though she actually deserved to be punched for having been a huge jerk to me), and then ran off with it before she could reconsider and take that precious passport back from me.

Floating in the Mediterranean

I don’t have too much memory of the rest of that day as I was sleep deprived and in shock that I really was leaving and that all my goodbye’s the previous night had been for real. I flew Houston to Charlotte, North Carolina, and then Charlotte to Madrid. Upon arriving in Madrid, I was greeted with the surprise that they had lost my luggage. YAY! However, having lived in Spain for a year and knowing how things work around here as well as having pulled an all-nighter the night before, I had prepared for that with several days worth of clothes and other necessities in my carry-on. It actually ended up working out for the better as I didn’t have to worry about toting my luggage around Madrid…they just delivered it directly to me the next day!

Everything from the first week is pretty much a big blur as I tend to struggle a lot more travelling east than west. I don’t typically require a whole lot of sleep, but that first week I was getting like 10+ hours a night and still going to bed exhausted (travelling west I just end up waking up at like 6am for the first week, which I much prefer).

I was living at Lulu’s house when I first got here, so I spent a lot of time with her, Luis, Ceci, Alberto, and Juan. The coolest thing I got to do with them was go to the CLUB DE MAR, which is the equivalent of the Galveston Yacht Club or Boat Club, and go swimming, have lunch, and then go out on Luis’ dad’s boat. We went out right in front of PASEO MARÍTIMO which is like the boardwalk along Almería’s main beach, EL ZAPILLO. I always run along the boardwalk and lay out at Zapillo, but have never been able to see it from the water. It is incredible. We anchored the boat out in the water, put on some music, cracked open some cold(ish) beers, and just enjoyed the afternoon jumping off the boat, swimming, and just generally acting like retards haha.

Lulu!

Captain Luis

Alberto and I struggling to tread water while drinking beer haha

Ceci and Lulu

It was the perfect way to spend an afternoon in Almería, in my opinion. I found myself just floating there, looking around thinking, “Wow. This is where I live.” This was by no means the first time I’ve thought that, but it was the first time in a while I had been reminded of how gorgeous Almería is…and seeing it for the first time from the water made it seem even more surreal. 

My next adventure was my first FERIA, or fair. The concept of a feria is a litte difficult to explain as there isn’t really anything comparable in the US. Basically, every town has a Saint and/or Virgin(I’m not sure if it’s one or the other or if it’s both), and the feria is the celebration of that Saint/Virgin. The Virgin of Almería is la VIRGEN DEL MAR, or Virgin of the sea. From my experience, I would define a feria as an over-the-top-10-day-long excuse to get drunk during the day and ride carnival rides at night before going to the way too crowded discoteca that has been set up in an oversized tent-on-steroids at the fairgrounds. That’s the feria in a nutshell.

 



My first feria wasn’t the feria of Almería, but the feria of Málaga. I headed out on Wednesday, August 17^th with JUANE, Jose’s roommate, and his friend JUANMA. We got in around 3, went to grab some lunch, and then headed out to the FERIA DE MEDIODÍA, or the daytime feria. In Málaga, the feria de mediodía takes place in el CENTRO or downtown. If it’s your first time at a feria, you’re GUARANTEED to be overwhelmed. There’s so much going on it’s hard to keep track of it all. First off, the streets are packed to the max with people—but it’s not just people as you see them every day. The traditional thing to do is to dress as a GITANO or gypsy. While it’s not as common to see this amongst adults, it is pretty common, not to mention ADORABLE, to see kids whose parents have dressed them this way

Calle Larios--Feria de mediodía in Málaga

If you’re a girl and you’re not full-on dressed as a gypsy, you’re pretty much, at a minimum, required to at least have an ABANICO, or fold-out-fan, and a big obnoxious flower in your hair. In addition to normal people crowding the streets, there are vendors with huge carts, street performers in elaborate costumes, tents selling crappy food and drink, and small marching bands walking around with people in pursuit singing and dancing to typical songs of the feria to which only I seemed to not know the words. It is quite the spectacle!

Me with the barrels of Cartojal!

The defining characteristic of the feria of Málaga is a little thing called CARTOJAL. Anyone who’s been there knows exactly what I’m talking about. It’s an overly-sweet, white wine made in Málaga that is sold in plastic bottles and with little bitty shot glasses from which to drink it. It’s sold at like 7 euros/bottle and is basically the only thing anyone drinks. It’s bearable for a little while, but the excessive sweetness starts to get to you quickly. Also, if it sits for too long and gets warm, it’s pretty disgusting. I think that’s how everyone rationalizes getting so drunk. ”Officer, I had to drink the Cartojal that fast. You know how bad it tastes when it gets warm. And then with all the heat we had to buy a couple more bottles…”

Jose with the bottle of Cartojal and his mini-glass

Feria de mediodia Mon (8/22) in Porrón
Me, Alberto, Juan, Barby, Luis, Random, Patri, Lulu, amd Ceci

The feria de mediodía of Almería is quite different from that of Málaga. In Almería, as of 2008, it’s illegal to drink in the streets. As such, it looks really different. While there are some booths set up selling food and trinkets, people pretty much just go downtown to the same old bars. To me, it seemed just like any other night of going out…except like 9 hours earlier and you end up with a hangover at midnight. While I did have fun the two days that I went, as far as the feria de mediodía goes, I much preferred that of Málaga.

Feria de mediodia Thurs (8/25) in Guarapo
Me, Juanmi, Martín, JuanFra, Josetron, and Vicente

Luis, Lulu, and I on some ride called The Kangaroo

LA FERIA DE LA NOCHE, or nighttime fair, in Almería was AWESOME. I can’t compare it to the one in Málaga because we never made it out there (it’s located way out in the west part of the city and you have to catch a bus to get there and get back—big pain in the butt), but I was seriously impressed. Depending on the time of night you go, it can be 2 very different places. If you go early in the evening around 10 or so it’s like a big carnival. There are tons of kids running around with their parents, riding rides, trying to win oversized stuffed animals, and eating nasty, greasy carnival food. If you go later, between like 1 AM and 6AM (that’s when everything shuts down),  the crowd is very different. It’s like being downtown but you’ve only got your choice of like 6 or so bars and they’re all in these jumbo tents called CASETAS. We spent our evenings (or should I say early mornings) in one called GUARAPO. To enter, you pay an 11€ ($15) cover charge which includes a measly 2 drinks and then you take advantage of the fact that you’re with Almería’s Reese-equivalent, Juanmi, who always seems to know a bartender everywhere you go so that you can get free drinks :P hahaha

If you’re having trouble imagining what this might be like, check out this video. It was so freaking cool.

I was in awe when I walked in to the caseta and everyone else was like, “mehhh, it’s ok.” I later found out that apparently last year, the Guarapo caseta was a 2-STORY tent! Would’ve liked to have seen that!

The thing that impressed me the most about the feria, hands down, was the lights. You can see them lighting up the sky from football fields away. Then when you walk up to the PUERTA PRINCIPAL, or main entrance, it’s nearly impossible not to stop for a minute and marvel at the structure whose façade is intricately lined with lights in such a way that it resembles Almería’s old train station (this is my own theory…not something that someone told me, but I’m pretty sure it’s true). 

See the similarity?

Luis and I about to ride THE INVERTER...bom bom bommm

Then you notice the rides all lit up…the ferris wheel, the roller coasters, the really tall one that flips you upside down and makes all the people who drank too much at the midday feria throw up on each other (that maaaay or may not have happened to a couple people I know a few years back…Audra and LB, you might be able to guess whom haha). Then you come to the first “intersection” and you realize that all the different “streets” are marked with lights. They’re multicolored, super detailed hanging lights and they stretch literally from one end of the feria to the other. Standing at that intersection and being able to see how massive this celebration was made me stop and stare.  My friends kept on walking and I just stood there taking it all in. I don’t know what it was about those lights that intrigued me so much, but I felt like a little kid who was at Disney World for the first time. I found myself constantly pulling out my camera to take nearly the same picture over and over again because I thought it was so cool.

Those plastic things were floating on the water
and kids could run in them like hamster wheels!

In conclusion, the feria is ridiculously fun, but it’s a good thing it only comes once a year! Ten straight days of fiesta is exhausting and it eats up your money without you even noticing haha. I didn’t go out even half of those days, and by the end I was looking for excuses to be able to stay in haha. For anyone wanting to visit Spain, note that August on the southern coast is a great month to do so :)

Look forward to more blogs coming more often as I’ve found a park where I can steal somebody’s internet until I get my own!