Zigzagging Zaragoza

From Wednesday ’til Saturday I got to enjoy E’s hospitality in her Erasmus-city Zaragoza. This time we didn’t quite nail everything anymore…

On Thursday the weather wasn’t on our side (rain in Spain, what a disaster!), so after sleeping long, some jogging home-cooked lunch and drinking melted chocolate with a chocolate chip cookie in the cutest café in the world (with all the floral wallpapers, romantic furniture and girly decorations it looked like inside Tinkerbell’s hmmhmm) we decided to explore a huge mall located a bit outside of the city. The trip should’ve taken about half an hour with two bus lines (and a 10 minute walk in between the bus stops). Because we hadn’t needed a map so far on our trip (and because we were in E’s hometown), we just got going and hopped on the first bus.

When I look back now, I think the first mistake we made was to head into a 90 degrees wrong direction when changing the bus. No, actually the first mistake of E was not to take an umbrella with her, and my first mistake was to wear my old worn out sneakers with a hole in their foot sole (surprise surprise, they’re not water proof). The next mistake was to continue walking into that wrong direction for almost half an hour (why didn’t it ring a bell that the walking distance should’ve been much shorter?).

The third mistake was to finally try to locate us with E’s smart phone’s Google maps and do it wrong. After another 20 minutes of walking into another wrong direction the next mistake was made: we finally located ourselves on the map correctly, but didn’t return back the same route we had come. No, we were confident we could find a shortcut to another bus stop, so we just kept walking.

After one and a half hours walking in the forest and along a highway and finding two cemeteries but no sight of a bus stop, the sun had gone down and we both were soaking wet and cold since it had been raining cats and dogs all the time. There were almost tears in our eyes when we finally found the bus going to the mall. Luckily the mall (Puerto Venecia if my memory serves me right) was worth of all that trouble. I found a new pair of sneakers for 11 euro, and also bought some dry socks to change into and a pair of gloves (1.50 €) to replace those I lost in Seville. E bought a cute pink umbrella and we also treated ourselves with some over-expensive chocolate.

Lady Fortuna had obviously turned her back on me that day, because I got some kind of tummy bug from the dinner we had later that night with E’s Erasmus-friends. I ended up admiring the bathroom in E’s place for most of Friday. Eventually in the evening I could eat something again and we made a nice sight-seeing stroll around the city centre in the soft lights after sunset. It was great to end the day with a relaxing pizza/movie night watching a sweet rom com (Something Borrowed).

Now I’m sitting in a bus on my way to Madrid. Can’t wait to see my host S, a Spanish-German friend of mine who did her Erasmus in Tübingen this winter!

Budget so far:

Flights: 112 €

Other transport: 221 €

Accommodation: 102 €

Food: 116 €

Shopping: 87 €

Others: 31 €

=669 €

Sleepless in Seville

On Sunday it was time for us to continue our trip to Seville, the capital of Andalusia. After a refreshing bare foot jogging on the beach me and E headed to north. We had the whole day to find our way to Seville, so we made a pit stop in Jerez de la Frontera, a city with a population of 210.000, to have a coffee in the sun in the ancient market square and enjoy the local flea market atmosphere.

Once again, our unbelievable luck with finding places without a map didn’t let us down, so we had no problems returning the rental car and finding our hostel The Garden Backpacker amidst the labyrinth of narrow alleys in the Seville city centre. We’d found the hostel in hostelworld.com and would highly recommend it to all young travelers! The price (13.95/person/night in a 6 bed female dorm) had free breakfast, WIFI, laundry, bed clothes, sight-seeing walking tours, pub crawls, etc included - and free sangria every night! They also organized paella tastings, flamenco nights and other kinds of activities, but we were so busy to discover the city on our own that we decided to skip them this time.

The stay in Seville didn’t start the best possible way with my tummy not liking the tapas we ate in a local place on Sunday evening. I spent the most of the night having the weirdest nightmares and sitting on the bathroom floor (and when I finally was able to go back to bed a couple of French girls started some kind of show in the dorm so nobody could get any sleep). Anyway, by a miracle I woke up feeling surprisingly fresh and was ready to explore the city!

On Monday we did nothing but shopping (I bought 2 pairs of jeans, a cardigan and some underwear to replace those I guess I’ve forgotten somewhere along my trip), on Tuesday we went jogging early in the morning, visited the most important sights (Plaza de España, the palace Reales Alcazares and the Cathedral) and spent the rest of the day sitting in a park or by the river or in a café sipping a jug of sangria – and since the sun was shining from a cloudless sky, we totally burnt our faces.

Even after two days my face is still glooming in the dark like Rudolph’s nose. E’s Spanish roommates laughed their heads off of the sight of us (but E’s sun burn is already turning into tan). On Wednesday we’d planned to rent city bikes and make a bike tour round the centre, but the price was pretty high (12 € fee + 1 €/hour. In the hostel we would’ve got the bikes for 9€/3hours but we hadn’t made a reservation and didn’t have time to wait for the bikes to arrive) so we decided to make a couple of hours’ power walk instead (and burn our faces in the sun even more).

Oh yes, on Tuesday night we were in a local tavern having a huge cheese and ham cocktail plates with bottles of wine (the whole meal cost less than 9€/person) and watching El Clasico (a cup match Barca – Real Madrid). I’ve timed my trip well because on Saturday night there’s a La Liga El Clasico played in Madrid – and I’m in Madrid then!!!

Yesterday (Wednesday) we flew from Seville to Zaragoza, where I’m staying in E’s place ‘til Saturday. I haven’t seen a lot of Zaragoza yet, but from what I’ve seen so far, it’s very different from the Southern Spain. In Andalusia the houses were more decorated (and looked like they’ve been in need of renovation since the Second World War: you could really tell people are poor down there) and cities more Mediterranean, chaotic and labyrinthine with their narrow allies. Zaragoza reminds me more of German big cities like Cologne. I can’t tell which style I like more, both are great in their own ways!

I lost my gloves somewhere in Seville. It’s not too bad, ‘cause I guess I won’t need them until in Dublin next week. Lost items so far: camera, make-up bag, underwear, gloves (luckily the camera is on its way to Spain per mail, as I wrote in the last post).

Budget so far:

Flights: 112 €

Other transport: 195 €

Accommodation: 102 €

Food: 100 €

Shopping: 70 €

Others: 10 €
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=589 €