The Stanley Langford Lloyd Chronicles

Puerto Viejo

2011-08-10T09:45:00.000+02:00

For our fifth weekend, Jillian and I decided to head to the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. After talking to a few people at Maximo, we decided Puerto Viejo would be the place to see. This trip began much like all of our others, with a really REALLY long bus ride. And when we finally arrived, nearly everything in the entire town was booked. One of the hostel owners explained that it was because of the Costa Rican national holiday happening the following Monday. We eventually found a place though, and after getting settled in, we headed to the grocery store to buy our stuff for lunch over the next few days.

After that, we decided to head off to one of the Lonely Planet recommended restaurants. The food there was rather sub par, but Jillian and I made the best of the situation by playing cards while we waited for our food. On our way back to the hostel, we wandered around the little town and looked at some of the wares being peddled by the street merchants.

The next morning, it was raining pretty heavily, so we waited in our room until about 11:00 for it to finally let up. It was then that we decided to do a late breakfast at one of the places recommended by Lonely Planet and we were pleasantly surprised by its awesomeness. The place was called Bread and Chocolate, and naturally with a name like that you can guess why Jillian and I loved it. I actually had the best french toast I have ever had in my life at this little place. Anyway, by the time we finally made it out to the beach it was close to noon. This turned out to be just perfect though because as we made our way along Playa Negra (Black Beach), there were hardly any people around us.

Okay, I know this is place was a "black sand beach," but I seriously could not get over the fact that the sand was actually BLACK!

Playa Negra

Once we'd walked a little ways away from town, we set our stuff down and played around in the gigantic waves. It was honestly one of the most fun times I have ever had in the ocean. The waves were big, but didn't have extreme riptides. At one point, Jillian and I decided that we needed to build a sandcastle and so we set out to recreate the central watt of Ancient Angkor. We got pretty far along, and for the most part our dual-ditch-defense system worked well. But then a huge wave came and over took the entire thing leaving us with this...

The once great sandcastle of Angkor.

With our architectural dreams somewhat dashed, we returned to the water for a little while longer and continued to get dossed around by the Caribbean.

Beautiful rock sitting in the sand along the beach.

From the beach, we decided to head back to the hostel until we were ready for dinner as we were both totally exhausted. We ended up dining at a little place that specialized in fish dishes and while it was good, it far from knocked our socks off. The next morning we decided to take a little walk around the town and the beach since we had to catch the early bus home.

Birds resting on some drift wood on the beach

Playa Blanca

Never smile at a crocodile

Tide Pools of Playa Blanca

More drift wood.

Random pretty flower.

Looking across the bay at Playa Negra

Mangrove Tree. These things are freaking amazing. They have the ability to live in salt water because they siphon off all the excess salt into certain sacrificial leaves to allow the rest of the tree to live.

Upon seeing this, I decided that I wanted to live in a beach house.

Tide Pool.

Playa Blanca looking out to Playa Negra

Little boats in the harbor.

Little purple flowers on the side of one of the buildings.

Hammocks hanging out side of one of the many souvenir shops.

Local grocery store

View of the beach from the main road

Quaint little church.

More cool buildings.

On our way out of the city, Jillian and I decided to do something we've never done in Costa Rica: return to a place we'd already patronized. We set up this rule so as to experience as much of the food of this county as possible. But Bread and Chocolate was so amazingly good, that we just had to come back and try their desserts.

One of our favorite places in all of Costa Rica.

And so, two decadent and chocolate filled desserts later, we were ready to head back to San Jose. All in all, Puerto Viejo was not all that amazing, but it wasn't terrible either. The tourist focused "Rasta" culture was not too appealing to us, but the beaches were fun, even if they were a little buggy... More than anything though, I think Jillian and I enjoyed having the chance to relax, feeling the sand between our toes and just letting time pass us by.

Arenal & La Fortuna

2011-07-22T09:36:00.000+02:00

Our next weekend adventure in this amazing country took us to La Fortuna and the Arenal Volcano. This was by far the most relaxing weekend we have spent here and was one of the best for that same reason. And because of some last minute decision making, Jillian and I ended up going with just the two of us. This turned out to be great for a number of reasons, but the most prevalent being that we were able to stay at this lovely hotel:

Don't even worry about it. This place boasts that it is a hotel, bar, casino, and restaurant.

Now I know it may not look like a lot from this picture, but the rooms and the little restaurant out front were really very nice. The biggest draw to this place, other than the fact that it was cheaper than the other place we liked, was that our room was private and had AC. This was honestly the first air conditioned place we have stayed in all of Costa Rica so it was wonderful. It even had a pool, but it went unused by us thanks to the gang of Tico kids who commandeered it the entire time we were there. They even managed to find a hose with a hand sprayer on it which meant that everywhere within a 20 foot radius of the pool was also off limits unless you wanted to get soaked.

View of the surrounding mountain range and volcano from our hotel room window.

So after getting settled into our rooms, we headed off to the super market to buy stuff for our lunches over the next few days, as per the usual with Jillian and me. Along the way, we talked to some of the people offering tours and quickly decided that we wanted to see at least one waterfall, the volcano and bathe in one of the hundreds of hot-springs. One of the guides even told us about a local waterfall with cliff jumping and a rope-swing. As we discussed which tour to take, we ended up taking the lazy way out and opting to not do the one that involved a 5k hike through the lava rocks at the base of the volcano. Although, the guy pitching that tour did make a reference to the hike being like the “craters of the moon” which instantly made him our favorite person in the city.

After booking our tour with the guy at our hotel, we chilled a safe distance away from the pool for a few hours reading and then headed off to dinner at a little soda that was rather busy, but had some really amazing food. I got the chicken cordon bleu and Jillian got chicken and beef nachos made with homemade chips. Needless to say, we were wonderfully happy when our food arrived. Mine was huge and hand rolled, not something out of a freezer, and Jillian’s nachos were delicious. With full bellies, we walked around the town a little bit looking at the various shops and eventually returned to the hotel to get some sleep for our adventures the next day.

Breakfast consisted of a delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some Tang which turned out to be perfect amount of childlike fuel to get us to the local watering hole we had heard about the day before. It took us a lot longer to get here than we were expecting, but it was totally worth it once we arrived.

This is a bullfighting ring we saw on our way to the swimming hole.

If you didn't know already, I really like the trees here.

When we first got there, the place was pretty deserted. Other than two Tico boys jumping in the water, the only thing interrupting the silence was the roar of the waterfall. Soon two girls from NYC showed up and then a group of four. This was it for about an hour, but round about 11, more and more people started showing up and by 12 it was pretty crowded, for a swimming hole that is. It was then that we decided to head back to our hostel so we could grab our lunch before our tour began at 2.

This is the waterhole. Yeah, it really looked like this.

Me jumping from the rope swing.

Jillian jumping from the cliffs.

Me doing a back-flip off the cliff. It took me a little while to pluck up the courage for the first one, but I had no problem after that.

This is the place you jumped from when on the rope swing.

Even more people swimming and chilling on the rocks below.

View of the swimming hole from above.

Jillian and I after our super fun morning.

You would think that with how often Jillian and I eat PB&Js we would get sick of them. But for some reason they are just too amazing to get boring. I think it may have something to do with the fact that they are a subtle reminder of home. That, and they are basically the polar opposite of rice and beans which we eat EVERY DAY with our host families. Anyway, after lunch and a little relaxing, it was down to the lobby where we were picked up by our tour guide Luis.

We packed as many people into our little minibus as possible before heading off for the national park, and at one of the stops, we gained an unwanted passenger.

Jillian was not enjoying this moth's presence in the car, and with good reason. From wingtip to wingtip, this moth was the size of my hand.

Little did we know that this was only the beginning of the creepy, crawly critters we would be encountering on our trip that day. When we reached the entrance to the park, our guide stopped the bus and got out. When he returned, he had this on his arm which he then placed on mine. It was so bizarre feeling a bug on me that actually had some significant weight. And what was even crazier was the feeling of its horny little feet digging into my skin as it moved along my arm.

This is a Rhinoceros Beetle. On my arm.

Once everyone had gotten their pictures, we headed up to the official observatory of the volcano which has been turned into a kind of resort complete with restaurant and hotel. We ended up chilling here for a while people took pictures and took in the amazing view of the crater lake and volcano.

Crater lake near Arenal Volcano.

Jillian and me standing on the Observation Deck.

Eventually, we began our hike through the cloud forest to the waterfall and all along the way, Luis made a point to show us all of the plans that would be interesting. He showed us the kind of leaves sloths eat to help with digestion, large stocks of wild sugarcane and the little berries from the Citronella plan that help keep the mosquitoes away (and yes, this is what they make the candles out of).

After a while, we made it to the waterfall which was a pretty cool. It was certainly not the largest waterfall I’ve ever seen, but it was cool because it was the first I’ve ever scaled the side of, jumped into, and then sat underneath. In addition to the falls, the banks along the river were loaded with volcanic ash making the mud highly desirable to spas and other health oriented places. Rather than do the traditional face mask and body scrub, Jillian and I opted to use the mud as warrior paint.

The waterfall. I climbed the lava rock just to the right of the flow and got up about as high as that overhanging branch.

We were very scary and very fierce.

On our way back from the waterfall, Luis gave us a little crash course in the history of the Arenal Volcano and the La Fortuna Area. Apparently, the volcano was extremely active, most active in Costa Rica in fact, until 5 months ago when the nightly lava flows stopped. The initial eruption that started this trend happened in 1968 and actually resulted in the loss of 80 lives and destroyed a small down near the base of the volcano. Ever since then, the volcano has been growing in size and is actually taking over an adjacent volcano and when the lava begins flowing again is poised to completely encapsulate it.

From here, it was back to the observation deck where we could check out the little museum and watch the sunset. on our way back though, I was able to catch a few pics of these little critters.

Beautiful spider who, with its legs was about the size of my palm

Leaf cutter ants working their away across our trail. These little guys actually had a relatively well worn highway on either side of the main trial.

Large black bee who's sting will leave you incapacitated for about 5 days.

Jillian and I saw this sign at the observation deck and knew that we needed a picture of it.

The last potion of our tour involved a trip to a hot spring river with a small pit stop on the side of the road to look at the tree frogs. We were able to see two different kinds, but I only got pictures of one. At one point though, our guide spotted one with his flashlight that was close enough to snatch out of the tree. He did so and then promptly handed the little guy over to me. After a minute or so, Luis turned the light away from the frog which caused him to jump right onto my face and crawl his way up into my hair. It was so funny and everyone in our group proceeded to take pictures of the frog crawling through my hair.

Red-Eyed Tree Frog. Here, they are affectionately known as the Marijuana Frog thanks to their large red eyes.

Red-Eyed Tree Frog. On my head.

With the frogs back in the trees, we piled back into the minibus and drove to the hot river which was wonderful. The force of the current was enough to give you some resistance and the water was just the right temperature to give off a little steam. Although there were quite a few people there, it was still pretty relaxing. I am not sure what I liked the very best when it comes to sitting in the water though… Sitting in the depths was wonderful, but so was sitting with the water pounding my back, as was lying in the more shallow portion and feeling the water trying to pull me downstream.

After about an hour of this, it was time to head back and by the time we arrived at our hotel, Jillian and I were starving. So we grabbed a quick bite to eat at another soda recommended by Lonely Planet and headed back to the hotel, but not before we bought some of our favorite ice-cream from the minimart.

The next morning started late and was nice and leisurely as we packed up the room and got ready to depart. Thanks to a happy miscommunication with the ticket office, we ended up heading home earlier than we were expecting which was good because we did not have enough time to do anything other than wait for the bus. Before we left, I was able to grab a few shots of the church and main drag of the town.

Beautiful Catholic Church

Inside the Church. The image behind the main altar is actually a Resurrected Christ, not a crucified one.

Stained glass at the back of the church.

Main drag of La Fortuna with Arenal in the background.

While we were waiting in line for the bus that the very top of the Arenal volcano decided to become visible for the first time since we had been there. It was the perfect way to end an amazing weekend adventure.

The Third Work Week and the 4th of July

2011-07-16T09:14:00.000+02:00

Okay, I know that this is actually getting posted at the end of the fourth week I’ve been here, but I did not take any pictures at the end of the day today, so this is what I’m going with.

For those of you who have forgotten or are just tuning in, I am currently working as a construction volunteer with an organization called Maximo Nivel in San Jose, Costa Rica. My project is based out of an area called the Tibas which is a squatter town that the government has relinquished any right or claim to the land over to those living there. I have a few pictures from the end of week two that I have not posted yet, but I feel that they give an even better view of how intense these living conditions really are here.

Kate and JP2 walking down one of the many cramped and winding allies that wind their way through the Tibas.

Backside/storage area of one of the houses.

TV and other electronics housed in a two room shack.

Kitchen/Laundry room of a house with 8 kids.

Anyway, back to our progress. This was the first week that we have not had a huge truck full of rocks and dirt and rebar to unload. This was probably a good thing because after losing Rory and John, we had no one over 5’10” and that wall seems to just get higher and higher. We were, however, able to get quite a bit of the finishing work done on our first wall, begin the second, and laid the foundation for the third. Jorge even let Jackie and I place the bricks after a quick tutorial on how to use an old-fashioned method of leveling. Granted, we got it wrong a lot of the time, but it was still really fun to try.

First wall, now almost complete.

Second wall, now three lines in. And for John, Kate and Rory, we were totally right, the wall is WAY too close to the side of that house and it is causing some major problems.

Trench dug, re-bar frame made and placed, and foundation poured for the third wall.

With our amazingly skilled labor family gone, we had to cut the re-bar for the third wall's foundation frame ourselves meaning that I got to use the circular saw. Don't even worry about it, I am that cool.

In addition to performing new tasks, we also had a few new people join us this week. Now mind you, we lost Rory, at the end of my first week here. And then we lost Kate and John at the end of the second week. So there was actually one day where it was just Jackie, the JP's and myself manning the construction site. But the very next day, we were joined by these lovely folks:

Nicole and Jackie chilling after a long day. Nicole, on the left, is from Switzerland and has one more year left

of high school before she goes on to university in the UK.

This is Sorana and Josh. Sorana is from Romania and is currently attending school in Paris. You can actually see the Eiffel Tower from her apartment. Josh is from England originally and now lives in Scotland. He just graduated from high school and is planning on attending Queens College in the UK.

The entire construction crew on Jackie's last day.

The caption on the above photo was indeed correct. Jackie had her last day on the Friday of my third week. And the JP's actually left today (Friday of the 4th week) which means that of the original construction crew I started with in June, I am the only one left. Everyone has been absolutely wonderful to work with and I am sure our new peeps will be just as amazing, but I sure do miss all of you guys.

John, Kate, Me and Jackie after a farewell dinner at the end of week two.

And now onto the 4^th of July. This year marked the first year of my entire life where I have not seen fireworks or participated in some kind of celebration on the 4^th. Jillian and I had originally planned on attending an event put on by one of the ex-pat organizations here in Costa Rica, but after discovering that it was two bus rides, and potentially 2 hours away with traffic, we opted to not. Instead, we grabbed one of the most two American foods we could find (chocolate cake and a hot dog) and watched 1776 the musical. It was no Sugarhouse Park Firework display, but it was a whole lot of fun nonetheless.

The hot dog. Topped with nacho cheese and ketchup.

Mine and Jillian's attempt at eating the hot dog Lady and the Trap style.

So there you have it. Half way through my time working construction in Costa Rica and I have not collapsed from exhaustion or majorly injured myself. I feel like that qualifies as a win.

Manuel Antonio

2011-07-15T08:33:00.000+02:00

For our second weekend trip, we decided to visit Manuel Antonio, the smallest national forest in all of Costa Rica which boasts some of the best beaches, stunning ocean and ample opportunities to see wildlife. The forest itself is actually just a little ways outside of a town called Quepos on the pacific side of the county.

And so, right after work (and a quick stop at McDonalds) on Friday, Jillian, Jackie and I boarded the bus bound for the little beach town. The ride was not too bad and we ended up arriving in the area around 5:30 in spite of us having left a little late. As is par for the course with us, we had not hostel reservation and chose to wander around the city a bit to see what pricing was like. After one rather sketch place and another that was almost too laid back to check us in, we eventually returned to the place recommended by our volunteer organization, The Manuel Antonio Backpacker’s Hostel.

Our Hostel

Community Open Air Kitchen

This was the view from the sink. I feel that if I had this view at home, I would have no problem doing the dishes.

Typical bit of Costa Rican art. We have seen these wheel-barrels everywhere.

By this time, we were completely drenched in sweat from the heat and humidity and only had eyes for the pool at the base of a small hill behind our hostel. But Jillian, being the most rational person in our group, suggested we drop our stuff in our room, visit the grocery store and grab some dinner before all of the things around our hostel closed for the evening. I couldn’t disagree with this logic, even though I really wanted to. But as we were preparing to leave, I was fiddling with the wall fan in an attempt to make our room a little less like a sauna when the power went out. We quickly discovered that the power had gone out on our entire street, plunging the whole area into darkness which was only broken by passing cars and a few flashlights.

Undeterred in our search for food, we trepidatiously made our way down to the supermarket thanks to Jackie’s and my flashlights. After only a few minutes of waiting outside the store, the power came back on, and the three of us began to search the place for the items necessary to prepare PB & J’s. Then it was back to the hostel to change into swimsuits and then off to dinner at a small soda featuring the brilliant, talented, and local: Chef Jose. The place could not have been bigger that your standard bedroom and we know for certain that our food was fresh because the man who took our order actually went to the supermarket and bought the ingredients after we placed our orders. In the end though, it was all worth it. I had a supremely delicious burger that despite its size, took me only 5 minutes to consume. I even got to sample some of Jillian’s burrito and Jackie’s rice with garlic shrimp, both of which were divine.

From there, it was straight to the kidney-bean-shaped pool which we had all to ourselves. And rather than dry off in the traditional way, we opted to sway lazily from the three hammocks that were set up a little ways away from the pool. By this time though, we were totally exhausted and slept soundly until the next morning.

After our free pancake breakfast, we rode the bus down to the main public beach of Manuel Antonio. We decided to spend most of our first day in the reserve so we headed down a little side street which eventually led to the entrance. The side street was actually lined with several semi permanent shops peddling every kind of souvenir you could ever want. We got a little hung up checking out things like cocoanut earrings and swordfish bond daggers, but we eventually made it to the park. Now I have been to some really cool places in my life and seen come really cool animals. But none of it compared to walking through this rainforest and hearing monkeys crashing through the trees, seeing toucans fly in the canopy and feeling the morning sunshine on my face.

Map of the National Forest

White-Faced Capuchin Monkey

I know it's hard to see, but on the left side of the 'V' there is a Three-Toed Sloth making his way up the tree while one of the White-Faced Capuchin's stares him down.

Rare Central American Squirrel Monkey enjoying a tasty breakfast.

After our little nature walk, we ended up at our first beach which was just as pretty as a picture. Rather than jump right in the water though, we decided to take a little hike along the Sendera Punta Cathedral trail. Now, I am not sure if I am just a little slower that most people, but I thought that because the word “cathedral” was in the title of the trail that we might actually see a cathedral. And while we did see some other really cool things, we still did not see a cathedral. I voiced this concern to Jillian and Jackie when we were about 3/4ths of the way done with the hike and both of them looked at me as though I was crazy. Then Jackie, without missing a beat, cocks her head to one side and says, “You didn’t really think there was a cathedral at the top of this thing, did you?”

Left side of the South East beach

Right side of the South East beach

Cool rock formation that looked like sand because of the constant erosion by the waves

This crocodile was pointed out to us by a Tico family who was heading in the opposite direction. It was lucky they did because it was down in a valley a little ways off from the trail. See that white thing in its mouth, it had just caught a rather large bird and was in the process of swallowing it when I snapped this picture.

View of the waves crashing beneath the lookout point on the Cathedral Trail.

View from the Cathedral lookout point, sans the cathedral.

Sheer cliffs leading to the ocean on the southern part of the peninsula.

Jillian and I standing in front of a massive tree that had fallen down due to a termite infestation.

Natural stairway made by crisscrossing roots.

This forest did not have a whole lot of interesting plants, but I thought these were pretty cool.

Aside from the natural staircases, the other method of moving along steep places in this park was to use these waffle blocks.

Anyway, the hike was really very wonderful, even if it did mean that we were drenched in sweat within minutes of taking our first step. The trail ended on a nice, quite beach separated from the main beach by a few large rock formations, making our area nice and secluded. We played in the water here for quite a while before returning to shore to eat our delicious lunch.

Sweaty and sticky versions of Jackie and Jillian.

While we were eating lunch, we were interrupted by two things, the tide and a meter long iguana who was bent on getting its jaws on some of our food.

I decided the best course of action was to give the little guy something for is brazen behavior. But instead of taking the potato chip I was offering him (which I ended up setting down on the sand) He went right after my outstretched fingers. It was kind of terrifying.

With our bellies full and all of our fingers still attached, we decided to head out to another beach called “Hidden Beach” which involved a slightly shorter trek, but a trek none the less.

Beautiful tree we saw on the way to Hidden Beach

Right side of Hidden Beach. See those rocks being splashed by the waves, that was just the beginning of what Jillian and I decided to climb over.

Left side of hidden beach.

This beach was even less populated than the one where we chose to have lunch. But Jillian and I did not let that stop us from finding something exciting and moderately dangerous to do to. This time it took the form of swimming through a small tidal bay that looked like a pot of boiling pasta water, scaling sharp, pointed rocks covered in creepy, crawly crabs (in my case barefoot), and sitting in the wave zone and getting pummeled by the pounding surf. A few scrapes and bruise and one relatively close call later, we made it back to Jackie on the main beach.

One quick note on the crabs: I was not able to get pictures as we decided not to take our cameras along on this little adventure, but these things were seriously unnerving. They moved over the rocks like monkeys in trees, using their claws to hold on to the tiny points on the rocks and swinging their bodies around them as they reached for the next point. This on top of the fact that there were literally hundreds of them scuttling over the rocks, giving the impression that the rocks themselves were moving before our eyes.

But back to the main story, when we met up with Jackie, she told us about how a raccoon looking creature had stolen our potato chips right out of our food bag. Apparently she didn’t even notice anything was going on until several people had crowded around our bags with their cameras out. Luckily she was able to snag a photo of the little thief and we later learned that it was a Coati (thank you Lonely Planet), which is actually in the same family as the raccoons of North America.

The Coati.

If you look in the upper third of the picture, you can just see our yellow chip bag and the Coati's little white face through the trees.

After this, we tried to take another hike to see the only waterfall in the park, but the trail was closed so we instead chose to head to the public beach as the park closes rather early. We chilled on the trunk of a fallen down tree while we discussed where we wanted to eat for dinner and eventually decided to take a walk along the beach while the sun was setting.

The public beach in the late evening.

Muted sunset over the far end of the public beach.

Once it grew to dark to see clearly on the beach, we wound our way through the deserted beach front until we found the Vella Hotel and Bar where we had some exceptional fish and steak. Jillian opted for the herb sea bass while I went for the lemon butter swordfish and Jackie the green pepper tenderloin. I’m pretty sure the other two tables in the restaurant judged us for our garb and our demeanor, but we were enjoying our food too much to care.

We ended up taking a cab home from the restaurant because of the rain. Of course the second we flagged down the cab the bus came, but there you are. By this point in the evening though, Jillian and I were craving a sweet treat so we went to the supermarket and got a point of Dos Pinos ice cream which had vanilla, lime and strawberry in it. It was the perfect way to end an absolutely wonderful day.

The next morning, Jackie and I woke to found Jillian in the kitchen with a full stack of pancakes ready for our breakfast. After this, Jillian and I caught the bus into Quepos to attend the local branch meeting there. Our directions were rather vague but we amazingly made it to the little house that had been converted into a chapel. With only 25 members, the meeting was intimate and nearly the entire congregation stood to bear their testimony. While we really didn’t understand much of what was being said, it was so great to be at a church meeting again, even if our attempts at singing the Spanish songs were a little less than wonderful.

Jillian and I outside the Quepos, Costa Rica Branch. They even had a sign!

View of the hill that separates Quepos from the Manuel Antonio beach.

Getting back to the Hostel proved to be a bit more of a challenge as the bus did not run along the same road it dropped us off on, but as is par for the course in Costa Rica, a spirit guide came along and walked us right to the bus stop. When we got back, we grabbed our stuff and Jackie and headed down to the public beach.

We decided to live a little decadently on our last day here, and rented some beach chairs and an umbrella so we could have a nice base camp. We spent a good chuck of the morning swimming and attempting to body surf in the huge waves. I loved being tossed around by the ocean and feeling the force of the undertow. We even got to see a few people go parasailing while we were out in the water. After lunch, I took a brief walk along the shore and loved watching the peacocks, urchins and walruses interact with and attempt to ignore one another. But all too soon, it was time to pack up so we could shower and eat before catching our bus.

These weren't our chairs, but they still looked really cool with the ocean in the background.

Right side of the public beach from our base camp

Left side of the beach from our base camp.

The trio manifested in different types of water bottles/ Jackie and Jillian, who were less than thrilled that I was taking a picture of them.

With all of us smelling infinitely better, we decided to patronize the little restaurant that was a part of our hostel in hopes that this would expedite the dining out process. We were sadly mistaken, however, and only had 10 minutes to spare once we were done having our subpar sandwiches. But this had no impact on our good moods or on the smiles on our faces after such an amazingly wonderful weekend in this little slice of paradise called Manuel Antonio.

Picture of Jillian's drink from lunch. I feel like this should be an actual ad for Coca-Cola.

Monteverde

2011-07-13T07:48:00.000+02:00

So, I know this is long overdue, but at least it is getting up, right? Anyway, for our first weekend excursion, Jillian and I decided to go to Monteverde, a cloud forest just a few hours northwest of San Jose. We were originally supposed to be going with one of Jillian’s roommates but instead we ended up going with one of my friends from construction, Jackie.

The bus ride was amazingly long (despite the amazingly surreal scenery), but Ira Glass, Katniss Everdeen and I made it through just fine. When we got off the bus though, we quickly realized that we really had no idea where we were staying. Almost in direct answer to our question, a man named Brian approached us showing us a brochure of his hostel what was just up the hill. He told us that he had one room left that could comfortably fit three at only 6 dollars each per night. As is the case with most hostels, this included breakfast and a number of other things so we jumped at such a low offer.

When we arrived at the hostel, it was clear that he was not having us on either. The place was clean and orderly and was in fact full save our room. After we set our bags down, Brian was right there helping us decided what to do here and setting up most of it for us. We ended up getting a discount on our zip lining and on our entrance to the park all because of him.

Our Hostel.

After getting all of that squared away, we followed yet another one of Brian’s recommendations and headed down to a little soda (the Costa Rican word for a restaurant serving local foods), at the base of the hill. The place was called Rico y Ticos and was absolutely delicious. Jillian got to try her first glass of green lemonade; Jackie, her first glass of watermelon juice; and I, my first glass of soursop. With our bellies bursting, we decided to hit up the grocery store and bought things for PB&J’s for lunch the next day which was one of the better decisions we have ever made.

Our respective drinks from dinner.

The next morning, we got up bright and early and sat down to a breakfast of eggs, fruit and toast made in a waffle iron (I gave them 10 points for creativity because of this). From here, we moved out onto the porch, lunches in tow, and chilled in the hammocks while we waited for the shuttle to arrive. Once it finally came we all piled in and ended up facing the opposite direction you normally do in a car because of the rather inventive seating arrangement designed to maximize seating capacity. The ride was hilly, twisty and turny, but we made it there in once piece.

Hammocks outside our Hostel.

Rather than head into the Monteverde Park, we decided on the Santa Elena portion which is essentially the same park, just a different area. And after a quick discussion with the park ranger, we decided to take a 5k hike around the reserve to get the best glimpse of the forest. This too was one of the better decisions we have ever made. Although this park did not have a whole lot of wild live, it was nonetheless picturesque.

Beautiful Trees of the Santa Elena Nature Reserve

Yes, this is my banner photo. And yes, I did actually take it.

It was amazing to walk through this forest because every now and again, there were sections like this that looked as though they were almost to perfect to be real.

Walking through the forest.

These were the two main ways we got around in the forest. Sections of logs cut up and covered in chicken wire or wood and dirt stairs.

Me, Jillian and Jackie.

These trees are called walking trees. As they fall down, or overtake other trees, they put down roots that support their trunks. Thereby making it seem like they are walking along the forest floor.

Jillian and Jackie looking up from a particularly steep portion of the trail.

As is usually the case, I took far too many photos to include in this blog, but I didn't want you all to miss any of the cool things we saw. So I decided to try something new this time around: collages. This one is of all the flowers we saw while in the cloud forest.

Collage of the different shots of the forest. Fun Fact: A cloud forest differs from a rain forest in that it is generally at a higher altitude and is therefore primary shrouded in a thick of low hanging clouds. As such, it does not receive nearly as much rain as a rain forest, but still exhibits many of the same species, characteristics, and biodiversity because of the large amount of moisture in the air.

A little river we crossed over on our way.

Root structure of one of the larger trees.

The three quintessential hiking shoes: Chacos, Tennis Shoes and Keens.

Cool Tree.

Collage of some of the creepy, crawly critters we saw.

Various shots of the forest floor

Collage of some of the strange and beautiful plants we saw on our walk

And still more cool trees.

Humming bird nest. We had actually been hearing these little things all day, but thought they were really large insects instead of birds.

After the 3 hour hike, it was back down to the little visitor center/gift shop/cafeteria where we ate out lunch and only had to wait for a few minutes for our ride to arrive. Once we were back at the hostel, we decided to go looking for some of the various other things we’d heard were worth seeing. The eventual consensus was to visit a small artisan co-op and a cheese factory which a nice old man at our hostel was no more than 3 kilometers away. He neglected to mention, however, that the walk to the place was almost entirely uphill. It was all good though because it gave us the chance to see a little more of the area and some really amazing flowers.

Along the way, we saw all kinds of hotels, hostels and houses ranging from the very cheap to the very expensive. There were even quite a few resort-esque places, some that looked like they would have fit in Aspen or Park City.

Just one of the many neighborhoods we saw along the way.

View of the beauitful mountains and grazing areas for cattle.

Entrance to one of the resort-esque hotels.

I feel like this one, in particular, belongs somewhere in the rocky mountains.

Admittedly, there were several points along the way where we considered turning back because the walk was taking much longer that previously anticipated. But at one point in particular, we ran into this little guy:

This is Spot. He joined us about half way along our journey and stayed just slightly ahead or behind us the entire time. He actually lead us straight to the artisan co-op and the cheese factory and then mysteriously disappeared. As such, we decided that he must have been a spirit guide sent to ensure our safe passage to the valley of cured milk.

While taking pictures of some of the flowers, I also spotted this little guy.

In the end, with the help of our spirit guide, we made it to the co-op, which was a little disappointing, and to the cheese factory where we sampled some Gouda and ate some really wonderful ice cream.

Main entrance into the cheese factory.

Apparently this brand is sold all over Costa Rica.

The mist into which Spot disappeared, never to be seen again.

Jackie and I enjoying our ice cream at the Monteverde Cheese Factory.

On our way back, we ran into this sign and I just had to post it here in hopes that someone will be able to tell me what exactly an "Underground Night Electronic Party" is.

By the time we got back, it had begun raining pretty heavily so we waited at our hostel for it to subside and then headed to one of the places Lonely Planet had recommended for dinner. It left all of us wanting and so we decided to go ahead and order a cheese pizza as well. Jackie and Jillian actually retrieved the pizza while I chilled at the hostel and read. Little did I know that I would miss so much on this one little pizza run… but suffice it to say that at one point while we were eating the pizza, we were all paralyzed with laughter at the thought of our parmesan being laced with cocaine.

After breakfast the next morning, we decided to buy our bus tickets home before heading off to do our zip lining. In the town, there was clearly some kind of event going on that involved a lot of running. In addition, there was some kind of religious celebration going on as well where in church goers had decorated the streets surrounding the main block of the street with beautiful natural artwork. It was because of these two things that we were not able to buy tickets for the 2:30 bus like we had been planning. So instead we decided to be routed through Puntarenas and then on to San Jose. It was an hour out of our way, but we really didn’t have much of a choice.

Just a few of the many natural pieces of artwork ringing the city block.

After the church service, we saw parishioners walking along the little path of murals in a seemingly ceremonial manner.

With our tickets in hand, we returned to the hostel and waited until our bus came to take us zip lining. When we first arrived, my heart started to sink when I saw three large tour busses parked in the parking lot. We eventually learned that only two of the three were unloading, but both of those busses were loaded with high school students. And even though we had to wait while each and every one of them got all harnessed up, fate dealt us a good hand and because we had opted to do the superman run, we got to go first.

Now, avid followers of this blog will know that I have already done this once in Thailand. And while I have fond memories of that experience, this was SO much better. The lines were longer, we went faster and I got to see so much more of the surrounding country. Some of the lines took a full 45 seconds to complete. It was actually on one of these that Jillian and I got stuck in the middle of the line because her pulley was not working properly. So there she and I were, dangling on a half inch thick steel wire, several hundred feet in the air. The guides eventually came and recued us, but not after trying in vain to fix Jillian’s pulley while she and I were swaying on the wind.

This was the beginning of one of the many extra long cables we did. This one went all the way across to the other side of the mountain.

The another thing that was markedly different about this experience was the fact that we had to do a lot of hiking in between the platforms. Mind you, Jillian, Jackie and I are totally sore from our hike through the rainforest the day before so it was all we could do to keep up with the guides and not hold up the line.

Jackie, a little tuckered out from our intense hike.

In addition to the zip lining, we got to do something called a Tarzan swing where you swung from a high platform straight into the canopy, just like Tarzan. Jillian was the first one in our group to go and watching her literally disappear over the edge of the platform was a little terrifying. But not nearly as terrifying as when the guide pushed me over the edge of the platform while Jillian was still getting un-attached from her harness on the platform 30 feet below me.

Jillian on one of the walk ways connecting the platforms.

Our very last bit though was doing something called the Superman where instead of sitting down in the harness like you normally do, this harness suspends you from your back so it literally feels like you are flying with the entire world rushing past you. It was absolutely amazing.

Me, ready and raring to go on the Superman line.

The Superman was the last line so we sat and ate our lunch while we waited for our bus to take us back to hostel. From there we made our way down to the grocery store and bought some food for the bus ride home. While on the bus, we ran into yet another spirit guide (this time in the form of an old white guy studying in Spanish) who was also trying to get to San Jose and told us how we could shave some more time off our trip by getting off at another stop and catching the bus there.

Apparently he knew what he was talking about because we made it back to San Jose totally safe and sound. And there you have it, the brief summation of our exciting weekend in Monteverde.

The First Work Week

2011-06-30T01:41:00.001+02:00

So total honesty here, I am not sure what I was expecting with this whole thing… but I can say that doing this work has entirely changed my conception of construction, poverty and volunteering. And I have only been here for a week.

On our first day at the project, our project director, Jorge, took us on a brief tour of the area we would be working in. Mind you, it takes us two buses, two walks and a good hour to get there every day and when you arrive, it looks like something out of an indie documentary.

The area is known as Tibas which was essentially a parcel of land that was once owned by the government and had a significant amount of squatters residing on it in various kinds of shacks made from salvaged wood and scrap metal. At one point though, the government did not want to have anything to do with the area and so they turned it over to the squatters and told them that it was now their problem. As a result, there is no sewer removal, no underground power lines or water pipes. The people live in the very definition substandard housing where the primary building material used is scrap metal. There are about 500 individual houses, each of which being between 200 and 100 square feet, and around 2000 people live in the area.

To say that seeing this place was humbling would be an understatement. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that people lived like this, but seeing it up-close was something entirely different. Part of our first day was taking a tour of the area where we walked along some of the tight and twisting alleys that wind their way from house to house. There were sections of the journey where I could just barely lift my arms and touch the outer walls of two different houses. In addition, we could see the exposed trenches where all kinds of sewage and refuse flowed through the streets completely uncovered. Part of the tour included a stop at one of the houses to pick up a few shovels for our work that day which gave us the opportunity to step inside one of the houses.

The main road heading up to the church.

The place was divided into four separate rooms, a large room with the kitchen and table, two smaller rooms that served as bed rooms, and finally a laundry room complete with a washing machine. This was something that caught me slightly off guard, and so I began looking around at the rest of the house and noticed a few other things… The family had a stove, a gas range run by a small propane tank underneath, a blender, electric skillet and a few other small appliances. They also had a TV in one of the bedrooms and a satellite dish on top of the house. One of the kids was even listening to music on a knock off iPod. All of this was going on inside a tiny house made out of sheet metal with dirt floors and a leaking roof.

View of the area from the top of the main hill.

I am still not sure what to make of all this, but I think the most lasting impression I had after leaving the house was that these people have essentially tried to turn something that would be viewed as a semi-permanent structure into a permanent living establishment. So instead of trying to “improve” their living conditions, they have basically accepted them and tried to the best of the situation. Needless to say, this blew my mind for many reasons. I am not sure if it was the fact that these people had what I would consider to be luxury items while still living in a shanty town or seeing the level of social interaction between neighbors, children and others in the area. It was as though this “neighborhood” was a more collective and cohesive unit than many of the subdivisions I have lived in back in the U.S.

Anyway, after all of that, it was off to the primary location of our project, a community church set at the very top of the hill on which all of the houses are built. Jorge explained that most of the church has been built by volunteer work and in addition to acting as a church, it serves as a community center that provides child care every day from 9 to 11, also provided by volunteers.

Our assignments for the week were to help finish part of one of the cinder-block walls, create support beams from re-bar and wire, and dig a trench for and lay a foundation for a bathroom at the rear of the church. We generally work for about 3 to 4 hours a day as the heat or rain becomes too intense in the afternoon. This means that we have to make every minute of our time count. As such, the first day was devoted to digging the trench and cutting rebar. On that first day, we had quite a few people so we divided into two groups, one in charge of digging the trench and the other in charge of the re-bar. John, Rory, Kate and I were in charge of the trench and a family of four was in charge of cutting and prepping the re-bar. Before I go any further though, it might be worth showing you some of the people I worked with.

This is Rory and John. Rory was your typical Superman kind of guy who would make all kinds of manual labor look easy. John was also pretty much a work horse and had a backpack like unto Mary Poppins Bag. You would be hard pressed to find anything that man did not have on his person at all times.

This is Kate, John's girlfriend. She is pretty much amazing and back home is a speech pathologist.

This is Stephan. He is the youngest member of the family that came to volunteer for a week before they head off to explore the country. He quickly became an authority on what types of re-bar braces and wires would work the best.

On the second day we were joined by two boys from Miami, originally from Venezuela, John Pierre and John Paul, and a girl from Chicago, Jackie, who was doing Teach for America in Indiana. This turned out to be really good for us as that was the day the concrete, rocks, cinder-blocks and dirt were delivered in a big truck and it was our job to get it all over a wall and into the area where we were building.

John Pierre and John Paul (Or JP1 and JP2) JP1 is 19 and goes to FIU and JP2 is still in high school at La Salle and will start his senior year this fall.

The third and fourth days on my end were primarily devoted to bending small pieces of re-bar into forms that then hold four larger pieces of re-bar in place so that we can eventually make reinforced cement columns. It was kind of tedious, but someone had to do it. And on Thursday, we were joined by my roommate Alex. He had actually gotten stranded at a beach over the weekend and had found his way back home Wednesday night. The story of how it all happened is actually a pretty good one involving a machete, coconuts, sleepless nights on the beach and a pack of wild dogs.

This was my main work station. It is kind of hard to see, but basically I would bend the pieces of re-bar at either 45 degree or 90 degree angles around the big piece of re-bar welded to the middle of that metal piece that looks like a door hinge until I had created a square or rectangle.

This is what the forms looked like once I was done.

And then I would hand the forms over to the wire rappers and they would put the forms around the four pieces of re-bar and then attach them by lashing them together with wire.

As I mentioned before, the church offered child care services from 9 to 11 every day. These services were provided by Maximo volunteers as well. This is one of the little girls from the group.

The volunteers chilling after a particularly tough day. Rory is on the far left in white. Alex is next, moving right, in the gray. He is talking to Leo, a German guy who was helping out with child care. And then of course there is Kate on the far right.

This is Nakita. She was doing child care with Leo.

But it wasn’t until our final day that things really started to take shape. It was on that day that we placed two of the re-bar frames in the trenches and filled them with concrete. This was of course after we mixed the concrete on the floor of the kitchen. We also placed two other vertical re-bar frames which will eventually serve as support columns. This was all in addition to finishing a large portion of the cinder-block wall.

The Cinderblock wall that we all but finished.

Allie and Jackie standing over the foundation we'd just mixed and poured ourselves.

Raquelle, the mother of the family, splattered with cement after we had just finished pouring the concrete over the re-bar frames.

The foundation itself, compete with vertical re-bar column frame and Stephan's hand print.

And so, there you have it. The first week of construction volunteer work with Maximo Nivel in San Jose, Costa Rica. I will definitely keep you updated on our progress as I am pretty sure we will be able to at least get this bathroom finished during the 5 more weeks that I am here.

And So It Begins... Again

2011-06-29T22:57:00.001+02:00

Man alive it feels so strange and yet wonderful to be doing this again! I am not entirely certain where to start this time around, but I promise that THIS time, I will actually post at least one blog per week.

For those of you who do not know, I am currently in San Jose, Costa Rica doing volunteer work with an organization called Maximo Nivel. Instead of teaching English, however, I will be doing construction work. When I told my family this was my plan for the summer over Sunday Dinner my Uncle Greg had the same reaction most of you are probably having right now, “You? Doing construction? Do you even know how to use a hammer?” I will be the first to admit, manual labor is not typically my cup of tea, but seeing as this is the third summer I have spent volunteering, I wanted to do something a little more hands on. And amazingly, I have been here for just over a week and I have managed to not majorly injure myself or any of the other people I am working with.

But I am getting ahead of myself. In addition to doing something vastly different from anything I’ve ever done before, I am here with the wonderful Jillian Marie Wheeler who, incidentally, is teaching English to the future generations of Costa Rica. In fact, she is keeping a blog of our trip as well and if you are interested in seeing her take on everything, just check out the “Random Word Vomit” link under the “Other blogs you ought to consider” heading.

And now that all of the housecleaning is out of the way, it’s time to get down to business. The flight here was pretty uneventful, save only the minor setback we experienced with Jillian’s camera/packing and the amazing game we devised to pass the time during our 8 hour layover in Denver. The object of this game is to get people to wave back at you as you stand on the moving walk way while waving at the people standing at various gates. We even provided commentary on our performance and noticed trends among those who were flying to certain places. Even with a nap, our game, and exploring the other two concourses of the Denver airport we still had close to four hours to burn so we had dinner at Panda Express while watching The Devil Wears Prada and attempted productivity which resulted in a lot of silly picture taking.

Our little set up in the food court. I'm pretty sure were were openly judged by a few people while everyone else was just jealous that we got to have dinner and a movie.

Jillian with Lexi and all of her blue colored items.

Yeah... it was a really long layover.

Anyway, a few hours later we boarded our plane and five hours after that we arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica. After getting our bags from baggage claim (which took forever by the way), we headed out of the terminal and were met by a short Costa Rican woman holding a sign with mine and Jillian’s names on it. There was one other name and it’s owner came along shortly after us and she actually turned out to be one of Jillian’s roommate.

After a very twisty and turny drive from the airport, we arrived at my homestay first. My host mom greeted us right at the front door with a big smile and a hug. I could tell right then that I was going to like her a lot. After I got my bags settled in my room, I headed over to where Jillian and Breena would be living. Luckily we are less than two minutes away from each other, so that will make doing things together a whole lot easier. Once I was back at my house, I had a delicious breakfast and then went to my room to unpack. I got about half way through before I passed out on the bed.

When I finally came to, my host father told me that Jillian had stopped by to check in on me so I headed over to her place and she, Breena and I took a little walk around our neighborhood before I had to go to orientation. My host mom actually showed me how to take the bus there and when she dropped me off at the Maximo Nivel Volunteer Center, she told me it was my responsibility to make it home, unless I wanted her to wait with me. I told her she could go and that I promised to be back soon.

Orientation lasted a good long time and included a walking tour. I even got to meet some of the people I would be working with this week in construction. After nearly three hours though, I was exhausted again and ended up taking the bus straight home. Then a quick dinner and it was back to my room to finish unpacking after which I again crashed on the bed.

The Host Family

2010-09-27T15:39:00.001+02:00

After nearly three months of being hounded by friends and family, I am finally posting a blog about my host family. I really cannot give a reason why I have not done this sooner as they are all wonderful, but hey, better late than never, right?

Let’s start with Alfonzo.

Alfonzo just had his 10th his birthday is on the 22^nd and he is who I work with the most. He is a smart, funny and playful kid who really loves cracking jokes. Generally, we work together got about two hours a day, 1 hour on writing and reading and the other hour on speaking. It is during this second hour that he and I go down to the pool and play various card games while talking about the differences between the US and Spain. Most of the time, we are joined by 4 or more of his friends who occasionally struggle to keep the one rule: you can only speak in English. It has been really reviewing vocabulary with all of them though as you never know what random words kids will know.

Anyway, Alfonzo wants to be a doctor when he grows up and is pretty sure he wants to live in Hollywood, Greece or Barcelona. He loves playing soccer (he would kill me if he heard me calling it that), riding his bike and swimming at the pool. We get along pretty well for a teacher and a student and that makes teaching really enjoyable. Of course, like with any kid, there are days when the water, bathroom, and, “Can I say something to my Mother?” breaks can seem endless, but we manage.

Next up is Jaime.

Jaime is on the left and we are eating McDonald's. These two love that place so today, we had an American lunch as opposed to a Spanish one.

Jaime is 17 and loves partying and hanging out with his friends more than just about anything. His friends have all been very nice to me even though they think I am certifiably insane for not drinking or smoking. The thing that I love about that situation though is that they all respect my decision to do so and while Jaime sometimes offers me a cigarette as a joke, he and I know it is all done in good fun.

He is beginning his second to last year of secondary school, today actually, and is taking the more liberal arts option as opposed to the science based option. Apparently in Spain, this is who the whole, elective credit thing works. Jaime and I work together for an hour everyday and generally do so over video games or movies. So far it has worked out pretty well because most of his games are in Spanish so he has to translate for me and when we do watch a movie, we both like to comment on what is happening. So I know this may not be the BEST form of tutoring, but his mother wants me to focus mainly on his speaking and the threat of having to turn to a conversation book keeps both of us talking.

Then we have Agustin and Ana.

Agustin is a great guy and father who works long hours at his office which deals in bio diesel. His English is flawless and his accent is at times undetectable. While he has a legal education, he has never used it to practice law. We have had long discussions about the differences between the differences in the legal systems of the US and Spain, about things to see and places to visit in Spain, and about what is going on at his work.

Ana has been a stay-at-home Mom ever since she became very ill because of some complications with her pancreas and she loves it. She has a legal education like Agustin and was very successful in her professional life. But she has told many times that she is happy with her decision to stay at home with her boys because it has given her the chance to really know them and watch them grow up. She is also a good cook, and my favorite meal she makes is breaded chicken with fried, golden potatoes with vinegar and coarse salt. SO GOOD!

And last, but not least, is Rocky.

This little guy is the latest addition to the household and is one cute little bugger. His white fur has a hard time staying white for very long as he is very curious and takes to following people all over the house and even yapping when he cannot be where all the people are. At meal times, we have to close the kitchen door otherwise Rocky will stand on his hind legs, his front paws resting on your thigh looking up expectantly at you, waiting for even the smallest of table scraps. He also loves to come and inspect my ankles every time I come in from my run to see what dogs and other things I have encountered while I was out.

Observing their family dynamic over these past two months has been really wonderful. They all care about each other and it’s obvious to anyone who sees them. Although Ana has to get after Jaime and Agustin for smoking in certain parts of the house, and there are days when Alfonzo does not want to take Rocky down to the street to make his peeps and poops (his words, not mine), they are a close-knit and loving little family. Sadly, I have not been able to procure pictures of Ana and Agustin and the entire family together yet, but I will put them up as soon as I get them.

So there you have it folks, this is the wonderful family that I have been working with for the past two months in Madrid, and I could not be happier.

Avila and the Middle Ages

2010-09-15T05:57:00.000+02:00

So, with only one month left to go before I return to the United States, I decided to visit the beautiful, walled city of Avila. This place gets its claim to fame from its imposing medieval walls which are some of the best preserved in all of Europe. The tiny old town is littered with convents and churches and there are certain places that have not changed one bit since the 1200s. Naturally, this kind of a place has legendary beginnings, some that even stretch all the way back to the times of Roman gods and goddesses. It is said that the original founder of Avila was Hercules, but in reality it was probably brought into existence by a collection of Iberian hunter-gatherers. Like most of the cities in this region, it was ruled over by the Romans, The Moors and the Spanish during a short 300 year period. Today, Avila is very much Christian, but there are other religious presences here too.

And so, with the history lesson out of the way, we can get onto the pictures. I honestly cannot tell you why I decided to visit this particular city in Spain, other than the fact that it was recommended by several of the travel sites and books I consulted.

The Avila Train Station

Just like at El Escorial, the train station was days away from the main city but after a while, I eventually made it to one of the main gates. Upon seeing this massive structure, I was literally taken a back. The tiny little European cars that were zipping around it truly seemed to be out of place alongside these massive stone walls and towers.

One of the 88 gates that provide access into Avila's old city.

Once I’d made a total ass of myself by standing in the middle of the road to get a tacky tourist picture, I headed over to the nearest cathedral, The Basilica of Martyred Saints Vincent, Sabrina and Cristeta, which was just beyond the city walls. This place was certainly a sight to see as it seemed to be going through a bit of an architectural identity crisis. The exterior alone was finished in three different styles of architecture: Isabelline, Gothic and Romanesque. Then inside there were decidedly Muslin elements and even a few Chinese influences on some of the altars.

Main facade of the Basilica

View of the gate from the pillars of the Basilica.

Central nave and main altar

Random wooden altar with very Chinese roof and even a few oriental designs.

Obligatory Organ photo

After the Basilica, I headed off to the Tourist center and for the first time in my life, paid for a map of a city. It was only 50 cents, so it was not that big of a deal, but I just found it funny that this place was my first. 10 minutes later, I had a rough plan for the day and I headed toward the main gate I’d seen before. As I walked up, I noticed a small crowd of people gathered on the left side of the gate and walked over to investigate. Within seconds it was clear what was going on and I felt a small part of my soul die. Avila was hosting a medieval fair and the crowd that I had just entered consisted of about 100 tourists, complete with awkwardly large strollers and crying babies, and 50 people dressed in garb from the Middle Ages. Just when I'd thought only Americans liked to exploit bygone cultures for capitalist ends...

Archers standing out side their prep tent while a really annoying American guy tells them all that he does the bow hunt every year back in the states.

Medieval Archery!

With a little shoving and a lot of strained body movements, I made back through the crowd of tourists and back to the gate. I had stupidly hoped that maybe the ‘fair’ would only be happening outside the city only to discover that it went through the entire town. Literally. Everywhere I looked, there were people dressed up to the nines in fake velvet and aluminum chainmail, street vendors peddling handicrafts that had some kind of a medieval flair to them, and tourists with light summer clothing, already sweating in the Spanish heat.

Tourists milling around one of the many streets that had been turned into mini markets complete with hanging banners that looked like they had been stolen from the King Aurthur Carousel in Disneyland.

I think my favorite part of this picture is that all three of these folks were wearing modern shoes and two of them were on their cell phones when I passed by.

The only redemptive factor of this whole situation was the food which was, in a word, fantastic. Everywhere I walked, I encountered a new smell and was completely taken in by the various cooking methods employed in such small spaces.

This was my breakfast. A double Chocolate Muffin, with course sugar and walnuts. So good!

Guy making bread the old fashioned way; in an oven made out of plaster and animal hair.

This thing was so cool. Obviously it is a giant circular grill, but the kid tending the meat was able to turn the top part to ensure that all the different kinds of mean cooked evenly and stayed warm without becoming overdone.

I let my nose eventually lead me to the front of the main Cathedral which is set right into one of the walls of the city. At first, I was not all that impressed with the place, especially considering the 7 euro entrance fee, but after a while, it began to grow on me. This place had two elements I had not yet seen in Spanish Cathedrals. The first was the use of internal support arches which were really cool to see stretching their ways across the building, halfway between the ceiling and floor. The other element was the use of very strange bricks that were red and white splotched, giving the ceiling an almost Dalmatian-like look.

Front of the main Cathedral

Side shot of the beautiful decorative architecture.

Ceiling of the Bishop's Robing Room.

Cool lighting in the chapels behind the main altar

Stained glass and internal support arch.

This made me really happy... those pipes are painted on. I don't know if this means that this cathedral did not have and organ, or that the pipes were concealed in the box but either way, I thought it was really silly.

View of the main altar from the central nave. The blue coloring on the walls is due to the long rows of blue stained class that ran along the nave.

Sometimes, you just need a picture of archways.

When I walked out of the Cathedral, this band was playing in the courtyard and I was instantly reminded of the Feast of Fools from Hunchback of Notre Dame.

After the Cathedral, I decided to head to one of points that provide access to the city walls. My little ticket allowed me to visit both of the entrances and I decided to use my first right after purchasing and my second later in the day when I could get some nice sunset photos. Admittedly, I thought the walk along the walls was going to be a bit lame and that I would get bored with it rather quickly. Surprisingly though, I did not. I really enjoyed seeing the city and surrounding landscape from up high and from so many different directions too. The walk was actually pretty long and led me along the longest side of the city which was fine by me as I had a lot of fun taking pictures.

Turrets along the top of the wall.

View of the Cathedral from the wall

Basilica of the Martyrs

Cathedral and walls with part of the fair in the foreground.

Convento De Los Dominicas

At various points along the way, you could go up to the top of the guard towers but some had fallen into disrepair like this one.

Church of Saint Martin, outside of the city walls.

View of one of the best sections of the wall.

Some of the turrets had makeshift arrow loops still in tact between them.

Far end of the city relative to the train station.

Once I finally made if off the wall, I was on the other side of the city and actually pretty close to a lookout point Lonely Planet had recommended. This place was supposed to afford the best views of the city and that was indeed the case. When I was walking along the wall, I didn’t really grasp just how big the city was, but seeing it all laid out before me, walls and all, I realized that this “little” town was not very little at all. As I stood there, I was reminded of the countless movies I have seen involving medieval castles and fortress-cities and the plots to overtake them.

View of the city from the hill behind Los Cuatro Postes

Los Cuatro Postes

Bridge I had to walk under to get back to the main city.

After getting my shots, I headed down to a local pub and got a bottle of water and headed back to the main city. I decided to take a little walk around the exterior so that I could see some of the other sides of the wall and explore a little park that was just beyond the old city.

These walls really were so cool

Close up of the wall's construction.

I really like this photo because it shows how the walls seem to raise right out of the rocks they sit on.

View of the new city from the park

It was around this time that I realized just how hungry I was, so I set out in search of food. I remembered from this morning that there were several food stands for the Medieval Fair concentrated in the Plaza de Mercado Chico, so I headed there.

Bell tower of the church of San Juan.

Plaza de Mercado Chico

Delicious split hard bread pizza topped with bacon and onions. YUM!

The remainder of my day was spent searching out various cathedrals and convents, half of which were closed. So rather than try to force transitory paragraphs, I will just cut right to the chase and show you the pictures, which we both know is the real reason you come here anyway.

Main entrance to the Convento de Santa Teresa (I'll talk more about her later)

Later addition to the main convent.

Ceiling of the main chapel.

Small courtyard just off the main chapel

Beautiful gilt altar in one of the secondary chapels.

Church of San Pedro

San Pedro from behind

Mansion de las Guillasmas. Notice how half of this thing is literally falling down.

This is what the inside looked like. I guess they are restoring the entire building one section at at time.

Convento de Santo Tome

Nave and main altar of the Basilica. See that large white thing on the floor beneath the altar? That is the tomb of a Spanish Prince

Choir Seats

One of the three cloisters in this convent. This one actually housed a life sciences museum and an oriental art gallery.

Convento de San Jose. This place was not all that remarkable, but it had a lot of stuff about Santa Teresa. Just for your information, Santa Teresa is the patron saint of Avila as this place was her home for most of her church life. During her time, she opposed the wealth and opulence exhibited by the Catholic church and even started her own methods of teaching nuns which involved going without shoes. They would eventually become known as the barefoot nuns as a result. One of the main reasons she did this was because of her belief that we ought to be living a life that was closer to the life of the Savior and not one covered in gold and diamonds. At one point she was imprisoned for her radical ideas, but eventually she was released and opened several convents who taught her minimalist approach to Catholicism.

One last view of the walls as the golden afternoon sun begins its decent.

Finally, I had completed my list of things to see for the day and got a ham and cheese tart for dinner along with a few pieces of marzipan before heading back over to the wall to use the other half of my ticket for the sunset photos. Okay, now I know this will sound a little outrageous, but it is all true. As I was walking up to the ticket window, I checked my iPod and watched the time change from 7:31 to 7:32. When I got to the window, the woman sitting there told me that I was too late and that I would have to come back tomorrow. I looked at the sign and argued with her as the sign clearly said wall access ended at 8:00pm She then explained that you could not go up within a half hour of closing time and indicated the very small print on the sign which explained this. Again I protested as I had missed the time by a mere two minutes and I only wanted to take a few pictures. She was having none of it though and after giving me a crusty look, she waved me away.

By this point in the day, I was so frustrated by how many things were closed, by how many tourists were milling about, by how many people were wearing inappropriately timed clothing and passing it off as medieval, by how tired I was and by how much I’d wanted those darn photos, that I was not going to take this one lying down. I went back to the window and began arguing with her again, trying to explain that today was my one day in Avila and that I would not be able to come back tomorrow. After about 30 seconds, I realized it was pointless as she was explaining to me that if she allowed me to go up, she would have to allow everyone to go up. This little remark instantly made me feel like a child so I stomped off.

This is the section of the wall that I did not get to tour.

As I walked away fuming, countless options ran through my head. I could lie and say that my little brother was up on the wall and that I needed to go and get him so we could go home. Then I thought of just making a run for it and along with that came spectacular images of me dodging, ducking and jumping over the ‘wall guards’ who may or may not have been wielding swords. And then I thought about asking another tourist to distract the woman while I sneaked up the staircase. A bolder and less tired version of me may have tried any number of those little tricks, but I was so over it by that point that I decided to just head back to Madrid on the next available train.

I know this post has ended on kind of a low note, but honestly, Avila has been my least favorite place I have visited in Spain. I think a lot of that had to do with the fair and my increasingly sour mood, but it was all made a little bit better by the amazing sunset I watched while the train raced back to the Chamartin station and I listened to, “Never Let Me Go” on my iPod.

San Lorenzo De El Escorial

2010-09-09T02:40:00.002+02:00

Two Saturdays ago, I had the chance to visit one of the many Royal Palaces that are scattered around the Madrid area. This one is the largest of the royal palaces in Spain and also houses a large basilica and monastery in addition to the living quarters of the royal family and court. San Lorenzo De El Escorial (or El Escorial for short) was commissioned by Felipe the II in the 16^th Century with its main appeal being its location. It sits in the foothills of the mountains that give Madrid its dry climate and is often much cooler than the sweltering Spanish capital.

The complex gets its name from a rather fun story involving our friend Felipe the II and his desire to crush his enemies while glorifying the name of God. On St Lawrence’s Day, August 10^th, 1557, Felipe II led his armies into battle against the French in the Battle of St Quentin. Before the battle, the King had made a promise to God that if he would aide him in conquering his enemies, he would construct a grand monastery in honor of St Lawrence. For those of you who may not remember the finer points of your Spanish history lessons, the Spanish won that particular battle and as such, San Lorenzo De El Escorial was announced, planned and eventually built.

The location chosen for the mammoth of a palace was occupied by several little villages that comprised the hamlet of El Escorial, hence the second half of the name. The residents were “compelled” to relocate and in less than 21 years, the entire complex, consisting of a full scale monastery, basilica, royal palace and mausoleum, was complete.

The train ride was only an hour and cost under 8 euro, so visiting this place was not only cheap, but it was easy. The only drawback to taking the train was the fact that the monastery is about at 20 minute, uphill walk away. Normally this would be no problem, but because I fail at remembering that EVERYTHING in Spain is built on a hill, I was wearing my flip-flops. Anyway, I eventually made it to the palace and right from my first sighting, I was awestruck.

Dome and spires of El Escorial

After gawking at the exterior for a good 10 minutes, I decided to head inside. When I got my ticket, I mentioned I was an English teacher and got a discount, yet again. Ah the perks of being a volunteer… As I did in the Royal Palace at Madrid, I decided to go with the audio guide because my ticket was so cheap. This, again, turned out to be an excellent decision as many of the descriptions were only in Spanish. In the times when this palace was used as a place of residence among other things, nearly every space fulfilled some kind of purpose. Today, however, many of those purposes have become obsolete and so they have turned much of the basement into a tapestry, art and architecture museum. For those of you who know me well, or have been following my blog, probably know that discovering this made me almost jump for joy. Seeing how the place was constructed was so cool and the art housed here is truly top notch. Sadly, they had just about as many guards patrolling the halls here as at the Prado museum so I was only able to snag a few photos.

One of the original concept models for the palace. The main dome and two spires in the center are the entrance and ceiling of the basilica.

Beautiful painting of one of the many Spanish queens who have called this place home.

Fountain head in one of the many courtyards scattered throughout the place.

After the museums, it was on to the Hall of Battles which is an amazingly long hallway that has frescoes on both walls and the ceiling. On the windowed wall, nine different battles against the Moors are depicted on the walls between the windows. On the opposite wall, one continuous fresco represents the various battles against the French, one of which resulted in the building of this beautiful place.

The Hall of Battles. It is kind of hard to tell, but the frescoes are actually painted to look like tapestries and even bend around door frames and have nails painted in the corners.

Cool view of the garden from one of the windows on the way to the Hall of Battles.

From there, it was on to the living quarters of Philippe the II and his wife Isabella. There was no way I was getting photos in there as they had guards in every room. That being said, there was one thing I found really cool about their bedrooms. Both of them had studies and beautiful views of the gardens like most royalty. But these two also had their own private oratories attached to their bedrooms from which they could see the main altar of the basilica. Philippe’s was on one side and Isabella’s, on the other. Through a six pained glass door, I could see right into the main altar which was really cool. So basically, these two could attend church without ever leaving their bedrooms, or having to deal with the townsfolk.

The bedrooms led to a series of chambers that were used for a number of different purposes such as meeting subjects, providing instruction to the palace guards and even a leisure gallery which was used by the King and his family when they relaxed together in the afternoons. This room had amazing views of the surrounding country and a few curiosities that interested the King.

View of a distant lake from the Leisure Gallery

This is a kind of modified sundial which, when operational, corresponds to a long, slate slap that is inlaid in the marble floor and at midday shows the current sign of the zodiac.

This is the slate slab and my personal sign, Taurus.

Next up were the Pantheons. The first was the one constructed for the actual Monarchs and was done all in gold, black marble and red jasper. Every Spanish monarch for the past 500 years is buried here. This place was truly stunning and I was, of course, unable to get a picture. If you would like to get an idea of what it looked like though, scroll down until you see the main altar of the basilica and should help. From this first chamber, the hallways lead to nine other chambers that housed the all of the princes and princesses since Philippe’s time. It was truly something to behold as there was a clear effort to take just as good a care of the dead as there was to take care of the living. Everything was decked out in marble and gold and was elaborately decorated with little flourishes on every surface. The Pantheons eventually led back upstairs to the Chapter Halls which provided access to the cloister, the main staircase, and the basilica.

Entrance to the Pantheon of the Kings

Amazing marble sculpture in the Pantheon of the Princes.

One of the Chapter halls which housed several works by El Greco and Velásquez

The Cloister here was really something to behold. All along the walls, large panel frescos had been done which chronicled the major events in Christian history and mythology from the birth of the Virgin to the final judgment by the Savior. Each one was truly its own work of art, and together it was a little overwhelming. I actually ended up walking the square twice just to take it all in. The only disappointing thing was that the arches looking into the garden had been sealed off to protect the paintings, so you could not look into the Pantheon of the Evangelists.

The Cloister. Those are some random monks and parishioners walking down the hall after a service.

One of the little rooms just off from the cloister was actually the former church where a large altar depicted the martyrdom of St Lawrence through a series of paintings. I think his story is one of the best I had heard so far. Apparently, St. Lawrence had upset a particular Roman general so much, that the general had a gridiron forged, upon which, St. Lawrence would be cooked/burned alive. St. Lawrence is reported to have cried out at one point during his martyrdom, “You best turn me over as this side is nearly well done.” Now that’s my kind of guy. He is looking death in the face, but he still has not lost his sense of humor.

The Former Church

The Cloister also connected you to the main staircase and on the ceiling of this space was one of the most amazing frescoes I have ever seen. It depicted the ascension of the Spanish Monarchy into heaven. You can see several allusive images that compare the Spanish queen to the Virgin Mary and the other family members to various Catholic Saints. The colors were so vibrant and breathtaking; you would have sworn it was just completed that morning. The audio guide informed me that this particular fresco was completed in record time and involved surprisingly little upkeep.

The amazing fresco. You can actually see El Escorial in the middle of the right edge.

The tour then led into the basilica which was simply amazing. Rather than bore you with a long winded description here and make you wait to see the pictures, I am just going to describe each picture in depth below.

Candles lit to signify that a parishioner is praying for someone or something in particular.

Open treasury housing several vases, golden crosses, jewel encrusted gloves and other elaborate religious artifacts.

The Main Altar. Okay so this thing was HUGE. That is all jasper, black marble and gold. In all, there are 15 gold plated, bronze statues and nine paintings and that does not even include the side chapels. Also, notice that fresco on the ceiling? There are four others just like it in this place and all of them were done in less than a year.

Central dome and three of the five frescoes.

Okay so I know these are not the best pictures in the world, but I really liked what they were of. These little chapels flanked the main entrance to the basilica and one was to honor the Virgin Mary and the other to honor the crucified Christ. Funny story about the Christ chapel. Obviously it gets its name from the large marble statue of the Savior being crucified which is done in a style similar to Michael Angelo's. Well, keeping with that style, this statue is actually fully nude, but he is wearing a small linen wrap around his man business so as to keep him church appropriate. Don't even worry about it, they had a small model of this statue in the gift shop and it came with its own little linen wrap so that he would be modest enough for display in your home.

The main entrance of the basilica actually opens up onto a large courtyard right in the center of the Monastery called the Patio of the Kings. That is pictured below along with some other pictures of my last stop on the tour, the Library. Let me just warn you that I loved this room. I was so amazing. Seriously Mom and Dad, it would have made you both cry. One day when I am rich and famous, I want to have a library like this one.

Basilica front from the Patio of the Kings. The figures depicted there are the 6 kings of Judah

The Library. The center was lined with old globes of the earth and heavens and cases of old coins and medals. The walls were obviously lined with books.

The ceiling and cap arches depicted 9 different liberal arts. Sorry the coloring is so different, this place was really hard to capture. Imagine something of a mix of these two images.

This globe was constructed to prove that the Earth was indeed the center of the universe.

My favorite liberal art, music.

Looking through the key hole into a room just off of the library.

With all of the areas visited, I returned my audio guide and attempted to exit the building, but I of course got lost. It was all good though as I got some really cool pictures that I would not have otherwise.

Interior of a cloister that is not on the main tour. The paintings depicted battles of some kind that were being watched over my heavenly beings.

View of the main spires of the Basilica.

Once I finally found my way out of the Palace, I decided to take a little walk around the perimeter and some of the grounds. The Huerta de Los Frailes had an almost other worldly feel too it. Dozens of tree lined paths crisscrossed all through what seemed like acres and acres of land. The particular path that I chose eventually led to the Casita del Principe which had its own neatly manicured gardens.

Main entrance to the Palace. If you look closely, you will see that the crest of the region actually has a gridiron on it in honor of St Lawrence. That lone statue is of him, and he too is holding a gridiron.

The little town that has cropped up around El Escorial is quaint and mainly caters to tourists but it was a nice little place with a Jackson Hole/Sun Valley kind of vibe.

The Huerta de Los Frailes

View of the Palace from the park.

The Casita actually had tours and when I asked about attending one, the woman looked at me as though I was insane. After a few seconds of awkward silence, she explained that the tours were only offered in Spanish and that I would not be able to understand much. When I told her I was mainly interested in just seeing the house, she informed me that there was much more to see around the palace and the other Casita and that I should not waste my time with a tour that I could not understand. Rather than protest, I decided to just wait for when I am here with my family, but the whole experience made me laugh nonetheless.

Casita de Principe

Beautiful hydrangeas in the gardens (and yes, I did have to make sure that's what these flowers were called)

Rose garden and Juniper arch at the Casita de Principe

Painting the roses red!

No idea what this one is called, but it was cool so here it is.

Rear garden gate.

With the southern park done, I headed back up towards the monastery and toured the gardens that surrounded the palace. These gardens were very different from those at The Huerta de los Frailes and I liked that. Here, the focus seemed to be more on minimal care, design and structure as opposed to the other gardens which were more organic, though still orderly. These gardens also provided great views of the palace and the surrounding town.

Western wall and garden of El Escorial.

Just one section of the palace gardens

Because everyone needs an inaccessible orange tree, right?

I love nicely trimmed hedges.

Beautiful houses just beyond the Palace walls.

View of the Basilica from the gardens.

This photo is included for one reason, and one reason only: to show that this place had GREEN shutters!

My last stop of the day was the Casita de Arriba. Just like the Casita de Principe and the monastery gardens, this garden had its own personality and feel. Here, there was very much a feeling of grandeur and opulence though this may have just been because of the fact that you had a great view of the palace from this particular garden. I ended up taking a different route back to the city center which was nice because I got to see a little bit more of this cute little town.

El Escorial on the way to Casita de Arriba

Little did I know that it was actually fall in this part of Spain.

I really like this picture for some reason.

Casita de Arriba

Yeah, I don't know what these were called either.

El Escorial from Casita de Arriba

Main entrance to Casita de Arriba

My first thought when I saw these flowers was, "Poppies, poppies... Poppies will put them sleep."

Cool fountain in one of the town squares.

Better view of the San Lorenzo Crest. See the gridiron in the center?

I want South Jordan to have lampposts like this.

This is the little train station I ended up waiting at for over an hour because our train was delayed, I think they were just waiting to get as many riders as possible as this was the last train to Madrid that night.

I Love To See The Temple

2010-09-01T11:11:00.000+02:00

The Sunday before last, I was able to make it to church at the ward that meets right next to the Madrid Temple. Although this ward is a Spanish only ward and I could not understand much of what was being said, it was still nice to be around members again. It was interesting though, because I noticed some fairly big differences between services here and those back home. For starters, people carried on conversations throughout the entire meeting, often times without even trying to keep their voices down. I was sitting in the back near the door, so for the first 20 minutes of the meeting I chocked it up to that, but after the sacrament I realized that these side conversations were happening all over the chapel. At one point, the Bishop was addressing the congregation and a group of particularly noisy people came in the door behind me, and they were talking so loudly, I thought for sure the bishop would do something to indicate his annoyance. But no, he kept right on going with his talk, completely unfazed.

This was so strange for me, I think because of the fact that I have attended church in other countries before, Thailand to be specific, and the people were as silent as they are in the US during the service. I actually articulated some of these feeling to Jillian one night and she explained similar experiences while on her choir tour in China. “They aren’t being disrespectful; they are just being not-American, or Thai, apparently.” This made a lot of sense considering the importance of saving face and always showing a high level of respect towards others in Thailand, but I guess what I had a hard time with was the fact that I had not heard nearly as much talking when I attended catholic mass. Granted, we were standing and singing every two minutes which is hardly enough to get a conversation going, but still…

Another big difference I saw was in how the people greeted one another. In Spain, greeting a woman involves kissing her on either cheek. I actually got to learn this the “fun” way during my first week here when Ana, my host mom, introduced me to two of Jaime’s friends, a boy and a girl. I shook hands with the boy first and then extended my hand towards the girl just as she was leaning in for the kisses. I nearly grazed her chest in the process and instantly turned bright red. Ana laughed as she watched the whole thing unfold and then informed me of the proper etiquette in Spain. Anyway, this rule applies to both women and men when greeting a woman and as such, in the organized chaos after sacrament meeting, all that I could hear was excitedly spoken Spanish and kissing noises. This carried on into the hall and in the tightly enclosed space, the din was almost too much to handle. SO MUCH LIP SMACKING!

After the block, I walked around the temple and took some pictures which have been scattered throughout this blog. The temple was small, probably about the same size as the Oquirrh Mountain Temple, but it was still quite striking. The stark white of the main building, combined with the burnt orange foundation and the azure blue sky made taking pictures an absolute delight. As I walked around the perimeter of the Temple, I realized that it had been over two months since I had even been close to a temple. It’s funny, but this realization made me both happy and sad. Sad because of how long it had been, but happy because it made me appreciate the feeling of calm and serenity I had all the more. And I guess it was in that moment that I realized just how much I love to see the Temple.

Holy Toledo

2010-08-30T20:56:00.002+02:00

Last Saturday, I had visited one of Spain's original capitols, Toledo. This city was originally founded by the Romans and was eventually overtaken by the Muslims. Then in 1085 AD, Alfonzo the IV took the city and established a Christian presence there. As a result, this single city has Roman, Jewish, Muslin and Christian influences and to this day houses several different religious buildings and allows for the peaceable practice of Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

Toledo is not a very big city due mainly to the fact that it is surrounded on three sides by the Tajo River. But the fact that it is built on top of a small mountain can make walking up a street a rather difficult task. Its labyrinth of tiny, cramped, streets are in many cases the very same ones that existed during the Middle Ages. I have wanted to go here since arriving in Spain and I was amazingly able to get the entire city done in one 11 hour day.

I had to wake up at 7:00am in order to shower, eat, ride the metro to the Atocha Train Station and then finally catch the earliest train that leaves for Toledo on Saturday at 9:50. I just barely made my train with a mere 5 minutes to spare and we were soon on our way. The ride was only 30 minutes thanks to the high speed Renfe Trains that run all over Spain, so we were there in no time. To be perfectly honest, I was not the happiest of campers that morning as I had been up rather late looking up various recommendations of what to do and what to see, but my mood instantly improved upon seeing the train station. I know it may sound kind of silly, but seeing cool architecture in unexpected places makes me really happy.

Toledo Train Station Clock Tower

Inside the Toledo Train Station.

Once I was out of the station, I pulled out my trusty Lonely Planet Guidebook and flipped to the map of Toledo only to discover that the train station was somewhere just off of the bottom right hand corner. So I decided to follow some of the other tourists who had gotten off the train with me and they eventually led me to the Alcantara Gate, one of six that lead into the old city.

Shot of the old city and the Alcantara Gate/Bridge

Shot of the newer city/expansion and the Tajo River.

Alcantara Gate

The views of the city from this entrance were just amazing. You can see the river and ruins of some of the ancient settlements along the banks and even some old bridges.

View of the old city, city walls and Alcazar, the Medieval fort.

Once I crossed the bridge, I began the slow, steep climb to the city itself. Although the path was paved with cobblestones and was essentially just a glorified staircase, it was no walk in the park to make it to the top.

Archway over the pathway leading to the city. This path in particular actually followed one of the ancient city walls.

After a while, I made it to the top and began trying to get my bearings. The book and map were a little too cumbersome to navigate from where I was, so I decided to head towards the nearest tourist office which was also by one of the cities largest landmarks, the Cathedral. As I wound my way through the tiny streets, I grabbed a few photos of some of the more interesting buildings.

Cool house that faces the newer part of the city.

This photo is just for you Dad! Now I've found you roosters in Asia and Europe.

After a while, I made it to the cathedral which looked as though it had literally forced its way into the very heart of the city as countless streets began and ended less than 5 feet away from one of its towering stone walls. As I walked around the massive building, the city was just coming to life (remember, it is only about 10:45 and Spain really does not get rolling until 11:30-12:00). There were only a few tourists here this early in the morning which I really liked because it allowed me to see that actual people of Toledo. I saw shop owners opening their doors, sweeping their stoops and unrolling brightly colored awnings. Cute little old ladies were wobbling up the steep streets with sacks of groceries in their hands, dark greens and fresh baguettes peaking out over the brim. As I walked past a particularly nice shop, a monk, in full dress, walked by and began talking to the owner and I could not help but smile at this little scene unfolding all around me.

Eventually, I made it to the main front of the cathedral and was able to locate the tourist office which was in the same square. The woman at the desk was fluent in German, French, Italian, and Spanish, but only knew a little English. After she gave me a map and circled a few of her favorite things on the map, I asked a few questions and through a complicated series of disjointed words and phrases and elaborate hand gestures, I was ready to go.

This is the main tourist office. Yeah, I know.

Shot of the Cathedral from Plaza de Ayuntamiento

Close up of some of the exterior carvings.

I decided to see the cathedral first as it was right there and immediately set off to find the actual entrance. I ended up almost entirely circling the thing before arriving only a few hundred feet from where I began. The entrance fee was a little steep, 7 Euros to be exact, but one I got inside, I understood why.

Main entrance to the Cathedral.

Now I must give you a warning here. I may have gone a little too picture happy in this place, but it was just so cool. The architecture was amazing, the paintings and colors were so vibrant, and this was one of the most up kept cathedrals I have ever been in. The entire thing was really just stunning and had certain elements that may make it my favorite cathedral in Spain.

Stained glass along one of the many vaults in the ceiling

Main Altar Piece. All of the gold you see is actual gold leaf and there are over 50 different statues nestled into the 30+ alcoves.

Main clock and secondary entrance to the Cathedral. That clock has a sister that sits on the other side of the wall, facing outside.

Entrance to the Chapter Chamber

Chapter Chamber. The upper paintings are of the life of Christ while the second and third rows depict Saints and other religious leaders.

Okay so this thing was my favorite part about this cathedral. It is called "El Transparente" and consists of two main parts. This part is the main altar piece and depicts the Blessed Virgin and child with various angels surrounding them

This second part is a fresco painted on the ceiling that ties directly into the altar piece and culminates in a beautiful skylight around which you can see statues of archangels reaching right out of the fresco. Looking closely, you can see that the mural actually bends it's way around some of the other architectural elements of the cathedral, giving the illusion that this thing is actually real. In all, the piece is known as the Apotheosis of the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.

Fresco on the ceiling of the Sacristy.

Bishop's Robes in the Sacristy

Beautiful gold leafed book from inside the cathedrals treasury.

View of the Main Chapel from the front doors.

Entrance to the Mozarabic Chapel. I just really liked all the colors and designs, so I thought I'd share.

Huge painting of the Savior with a child. The reason it's tilted is because the bench I had to lean on to get the shot had a tilted back.

Beautiful organ inside the Choir

Seats inside the Choir. Each seat back depicted a different city scene and each armrest was of a different animal.

These were the walls of the choir. Each of the columns rested on one side of the choir seats.

View of the main altar from inside the choir

Beautiful Stained glass and architecture inside the cathedral

The Cathedral's rosary window.

By the time I left, I had been there for over an hour and a half which, to me was not all that surprising considering the size of the place, but I had places to go and things to see. So I hustled my way down the street I had supposed would eventually lead to the church of Santo Tome, but I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way, because I got lost and ended up at one of the city walls. This was all well and good though, as I got a really cool shot of the houses across the valley, and I had the chance to sit down and get my bearings once again.

Welcome to the human maze that is Toledo.

Beautiful vista across the river from the main city.

Amazingly, I found my way to the church and was able to get in to see the most famous painting by El Greco, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. Admittedly, I did not know hardly anything about this artist prior to my little trip, but his name kept coming up in all of the books and tour guides I saw, so I decided to do a little research. Doménikos Theotokópoulos was a painter, sculptor and architect of Greek Origin who lived and worked in Spain during the Spanish Renaissance. He received the nickname El Greco because of his heritage and his rather difficult name. One of the main things that distinguished his work from that of other contemporaries is his use of almost surrealist aspects in his religious paintings. Even later surrealist artists such as Salvador Dali used techniques originally pioneered by El Greco. Sadly, There were no photos allowed here but I did get a picture of the chapel and was able to find a great picture of the painting on the internet.

Church of Santo Tome

Chapel of the Church of Santo Tome

The Burial of The Count of Orgaz (obtained from Wikipedia 8/30/10)

After this, it was onto my first Jewish site, El Transito Synagogue. This place dates from 1366 and also houses a museum of Jewish History in Spain. It was pretty cool to walk around in, though I realized that a lot of the architectural elements I would have normally identified as Muslim in origin are not quite as exclusive.

Main Hall of Worship, shot from the Women's gallery which sat above the second level as they were not allowed to participate in certain religious ceremonies.

The Synagogue from inside the courtyard

Hebrew letters on plaster tiles that have fallen from the ceiling and other parts of the Synagogue

After this Synagogue was done, it was time to head on to the Santa Maria La Blanca Synagogue. This one was from the early 1200s and was honestly a little underwhelming as it was only the main room, but the archways and ceiling designs were cool. The highlight, however, was seeing a little sign on the outer walls indicating that this synagogue was on Don Quijote’s route through Spain.

Front of Santa Maria La Blanca Synagogue

Beautiful archways, nave and honeycombed columns

I really lucked out to get only one person in this photo as people seemed to come out of nowhere whenever held my camera up to my eyes.

Door to the Synagogue. I really liked this because of the eight pointed star, just like the one that is all over The Conference Center.

Don Quijote Tail Marker.

The next stop was the Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes, a 15^th century monastery with a beautiful juxtaposition of gothic and Medujar architecture. It was originally built for the Spanish Monarchs in 1467 and is known for its beautiful cloister. This place also quickly became a bit of a problem when it came to limiting my photos but it was really just so beautiful that I could not resist. The best part of the whole thing was that a wedding had just ended when I bought my ticket so the place was nearly devoid of tourists, making for some excellent photo opportunities.

Exterior or the Main Chapel. If you look closely, you can see that there are actually chains with manacles hanging about half way up. Relics from the Spanish Inquisition? I like to think so.

Beautiful Gothic window looking into the cloister garden, complete with orange trees.

I just loved the seeming superfluity of having two doors, one only slightly smaller than the other, right next to one another.

View of the Cloister through a cool palm tree

Main Chapel and High Altar from the nave

Cool columns and archways supporting the high, vaulted roof.

Roof of the Main Chapel from the second floor of the cloister

Beautiful wood inlaid ceiling on the second floor of the cloister

Close up of the wood ceiling.

With the two major cathedrals done, I decided to take a little detour along one of the city walls to see some of the ancient gates and bridges. They were all really quite something to see in person, though I must say, my Nikon did a pretty good job of capturing these particular shots. It was nice to take a little break from the hurried pace I had been keeping since I’d gotten off the train and I eventually strolled back into the city to find it almost completely empty. I’d remembered reading about the Spanish Siesta before coming to Spain and how it is especially intense outside of Madrid and Barcelona, but I had never imagined anything like this. The streets had an eerie abandoned feeling to them and there were stretches of time where I would not see another person for a good ten minutes.

Cambron Gate

San Martin Gate and Bridge

Cool Church I happened upon in my wanderings

Old Seminary Building not open to the public

I soon realized that attempting to see any sites before 4pm would be fruitless, so I decided to do as the Spanish did and settle in for a nice, leisurely lunch. Lonely Planet recommended a little place called El Cafe de Las Monjas which turned out to be very delicious. I had the ham and cheese tart and a slice of their famous marzipan tart. I'll talk more about Marzipan later, suffice it to say that for the time being, I was very happy.

Even after my leisurely lunch, I still had some time to kill until 4pm when my next destination, the Santo Domingo El Antiguo would open. So I decided to take a little walk to some of the lesser points of interest that were listed on my tourist map.

The first place I came to was the convent of San Antonio. This convent is known for making the best marzipan in Toledo and Toledo is known for making some of the best marzipan in all of Spain. So one would naturally assume that this place would have the best marzipan in all of Spain. I didn’t get to find out right away, however, as the place was closed, but they did have this cheery little sign right outside their main door. The second place was a little chapel which is supposed to have dated from the time of Muslim occupation of Spain, but had been rebuilt several times over and, in all honesty was not remarkable in any way, so I have not included a picture of it here.

Sign outside the Convent of San Antonio

By this time, I was able to start heading in the direction of Santo Domingo, but as I made my way through the tight, little streets, I got hopelessly lost and ended up circling the place for almost 20 minutes, trying to find the main entrance. At this point in the day, it was blazing hot and my dogs had been barking since I let the restaurant, I had had two little Spanish kids speak rapidly and laugh at the fact I was lost and so I was not super thrilled with the relative difficulty in finding this place.

Cool house that goes over the top of the road and is only supported by old, wooden beans

My perseverance paid off, however, and I did find the place, only to be scolded by a nun for not having exact change. She sent me away to go and break my 20 euro note and some nice teenagers at a little restaurant up the street helped me out. When the boy handed me my change, I could not help but laugh at what had just happened, so when I returned to Santo Domingo and handed over my exact change to the nun, I did so with a huge smile on my face. This place really was not all that special either, save only the fact that El Greco is buried underneath the Choir, and even that was a little disappointing (they had literally dug a hole in the floor and inserted a window so you could see the bottom half of his tomb, but only when the nun had flipped her little light switch so as to make sure there were no photos taken).

Bell Tower of Santo Domingo El Antiguo

Main Altar of Santo Domingo. The Choir and tomb of El Greco were right behind me while I took this photo.

With that fiasco behind me, I headed down to my main Muslim site of the day, Cristo de la Luz Masque. This place was closed all day on Saturdays, which I knew, but I wanted to get some pictures of it and of El Puerta del Sol which was nearby. I also took a little walk outside the city walls and took some photos of the city itself from a little park which was nice and relaxing.

Cristo de la Luz Masque

La Puerta del Sol

View of the city and city walls from the little park across the street.

Shot of the Masque and La Puerta del Sol

My second to last tourist stop of the day as the Santa Cruz Museum which was free to the public and housed some paintings by El Greco, a number of beautiful tapestries and some rather simply painted pottery. Prior to this museum visit, I have never really appreciated the time and effort required to make a tapestry, but for some reason, the ones hanging here had a really profound effect on me. Two in particular depicted stories from the life of Moses, the fiery serpents attacking the Hebrews and then the worship of the golden calf. Seeing the exquisite detail of these things and the fact that they were all woven and not painted, really impressed me for some reason. Everything was really quite beautiful, save only the pottery which looked as though it was pained by random people in their spare time, but some of the pieces were rather intriguing.

Entrance to the Santa Cruz Museum

Tapestry of the Hebrews worshiping the golden calf

Courtyard of the Museum

One of the better pieces of painted tile

At about 7:30, I ducked out of the museum and headed off the gift shop I had visited earlier and purchased my souvenir shot glass. As I was paying the girl, I realized that I had not yet eaten an actual piece of Marzipan. As most of the places that sold this treat exclusively were closed for the day, I headed back to the place I had been to for lunch as I remembered them having several pieces on display. The woman there told me that this marzipan was actually made at the San Lorenzo Convent and as such was the best I could get anywhere. I was a little skeptical at how amazing this stuff could be with a 1 euro price tag for something so small, but I became a believer after my first bite. It was the most simply delicious thing I have ever tasted. It had a flavor so delicate and so complex that I cannot put it into words. Although my feet had been hurting all day, I was not aware of anything but how happy my taste buds were until I finished my little piece of joy. It may well have been the best euro I have ever spent.

My very own little piece of Marzipan

This was the window display of the little cafe. The dolls dressed as nuns show all of the steps involved in making marzipan.

And my final stop of the day was none other than the Alcazar. This medieval fortress has been built and rebuilt several times over the centuries and today stands as one of the main monuments of the city. Inside is the National Military Museum which is, in a word, massive. They have everything from guns, to suits of armor, to bazookas, to mini figurines, to flags, to jousting sticks and just about everything you can possibly think of that would have something to do with the military. I wandered this place for close to two hours and still did not get to see everything, but this was just as well considering I saw more than enough weaponry to last me a lifetime.

The Alcazar

Much like the Acropolis Museum in Athens, this one is built over the top of the ruins of ancient settlements and even the original foundations of the fortress.

Courtyard inside The Alcazar

With my time running short, I found a little place right near the city center and had some dinner. It too was quite delicious, though not quite as much so as the marzipan. Once I’d paid my bill, I headed towards the train station and was greeted by a spectacular sunset, one of the most beautiful I have ever seen.

Church spire catching some of the last rays of golden light

Cool angular statue of Don Quijote just outside the city center.

I know the pictures don't do it justice and part of that is due to the fact that, yet again, my camera died right when I wanted it the most. But my Dad once told me that it is sometimes better for moments like that to just live on in our memories because there they can be become even more spectacular than even the most perfect picture ever would have been.

And so, 80 pictures and over 2500 words later, that was my trip to Toledo one of the first capitols of Spain.

The Beach

2010-08-24T03:47:00.002+02:00

Before I launch into this post, I think I should provide you with a little background. I absolutely love the ocean, but I am not your typical “beach person.” I can truly enjoy if for a few days, like five or six, but then I am generally done with the sand in my shorts, sun burnt skin, and crunchy hair. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that I just get bored. You can only make so many sandcastles, be buried in the sand and hunt for brightly colored shells so many times before they all lose their appeal. So when my host family said that we would be spending two weeks at the beach, a small part of me cringed. What was I going to do for two weeks at the beach?

This is the commercial center closest to our house in Santi Pedri. It reminded me a lot Arizona and St. George.

This was my thinking before my two weeks in Santi Pedri, before I’d finished two books, sorted 75% of my pictures, studied for the LSAT, had chorizo hot off the grill, eaten the most delicious gelato I’ve ever tasted, played literally dozens of games of ERS, BS, Hearts and Spoons with Alfonzo and Jaime, and discovered the delight that comes with photographing the beach in the late afternoon. Needless to say, I feel a lot better about the idea of “staying at the beach” for a fortnight on this side of our vacation.

Picture taken along our beach in normal light.

Picture taken in late afternoon light. I love learning new things!

To tell the truth, I had a blast. We would go to the pool in the morning (because the beach was no good in the heat of midday, according to my Host Mom) eat lunch at the house, chill for a few hours and then hit the shore for about three hours in the early evening. This was different than what I was used to with my family (all beach, all day) but I think that it saved me from becoming burnt out. I actually found myself looking forward to being tossed around by the ocean and feeling the sun dry the little drops of salt water on my back. I also added the taste of salt water on my lips to my list of favorite things along with getting my feet wet and covering them with dry sand so that it looks like I have socks made out of sand.

One of the many tide pools trapped among the Oyster Rock.

Who would have thought that you would be able to find beautiful red cliffs in the south of Spain?

Seeing this little guy made me really happy.

But even with all of this wonderfulness going on in my life, I found myself struggling to find something interesting to write about in a blog post. I mean, nearly everyone has been to a beach at some point in their lives and there is only so much you can say about tiny rocks being constantly bombarded by large amounts of salt water. That being said, there were two topics that kept bubbling up in my mind while I took long walks along the shore. And with that, I give you the most ‘creative’ writing I have posted on this blog, granted that it is not really all that ‘creative’ as much as it is a collection of connected thoughts.

Beach People

A “beach” is defined as: an area of land sloping down to the water of a sea or lake, while the word “people” is defined as: any group of human beings (men or women or children) collectively. So it logically follows that “beach people” are men, women or children who occupy an area of land that slopes down to the water. For me, what do not logically follow are the various behaviors exhibited by these… people. While some rub sunscreen all over their creamy white bodies to avoid getting even as much as a freckle, others will lather themselves up with tanning oil until they reach a point where their ethnicity is incorrectly assumed during a first encounter. Then there are some who will force their children to engage in activities that clearly do not interest them in any way, shape or form, while other parents take the trip to the beach as an opportunity to catch up on the sleep they have been missing for the past 10 years. But beyond all that, the beach seems to be one of those rare places where you get to see what humans are like when they do and do not care that anyone is watching. Kind of like the breakout confession shots on the “Real World” or the State Capitol during the last week of the Legislative Session.

For some, the beach is the only socially acceptable place to show off all that God and Gold’s Gym have given them. These are the people who have spent hours a day stretching, toning and growing their muscles so that when the time comes to remove their clothing, their peers will look on and admire the fruits their narcissistic labor. These are the types who have a particular walk, nay a demeanor about them. They walk straight backed and proud with their eyes scanning the horizon, searching for another, equally impressive specimen with whom they can evaluate their progress toward total meatheadedness. These are the true peacocks of our species. True, other humans may create their own lavishly colored tails out of social contributions, accomplishments, or money in hopes of attracting a mate, but the humans here know that the fastest way to the hearts of the opposite sex is through the perfection of one’s own body.

Then of course there are others who have completely given up on the competition that is so important to the peacocks. These folks do not strut along the shore with their tanned and oiled bodies reflecting the light of the sun into the eyes of the beach urchins. Instead, you will find them lying on their stomachs, love handles and fat rolls slopping over the tops and sides of their too-tight swimsuits as the sun turns their sallow skin a vibrant shade of red. Either that, or playing a sad, oddly competitive game of paddle ball with another similarly featured human. They are also often the ones who have the most annoying children who tend to take delight in vexing any and all who pass by their little patch of sand. These are the people who are trying their best to not care about the state of their untrimmed flesh, but fail miserably. They look on at the peacocks and think about what it would be like to me like them again, or what it would have been that way at all. But they are brought back to reality when a rogue fistful of sand, launched by one of the other urchins’ offspring, collides with the side of their head.

And last, but certainly not least, there are those who simply do not care. These are the walruses of the beach. They are loud, territorial, and willing to attack at the first sign of trouble. They look at the peacocks and the urchins with absolutely no jealousy in their eyes, or at least that is what one would assume based on their actions. These men and women seem to have hit that certain age or weight where they not only do not care to participate in the competition of the peacocks, but they mock it. With sagging, leathery skin, the old time beach people sit in their lounge chairs at the edge of the waterline, letting the cool salt water soothe their aching corns while the stay-puffed’s roll about on their too small towels trying to mold the compacted sand beneath them to conform to their unique proportions. These walruses have reached a point that wouldn’t even entice Leonardo da Vinci or Harris Ribut, and yet here they are, letting it all hang out for the world to see. Some of these were once peacocks, but have since passed their prime. The best part about the walruses though is that there are many who seem so content with their current body image, that they feel compelled to reveal what is generally deemed as unsuitable for children under the age of 13 to all of the other beach goers.

While these are not certainly all of the fine specimens you will see at the beach on a given day, they are certainly all different enough to leave one wondering what brings them all here. What is it about the beach that so entices humans? Why is it that we continue to invent ways to penetrate something that seems to only want to push us back out again? And why do the peacocks, urchins and walruses come to the same place to engage in such different activities? Maybe it has something to do with the concept of occupying a space of land that is not inherently yours, if only for a short amount of time. On the beach, a brightly colored towel and a large umbrella is usually as effective as a flag and a dedicated military at deterring an invasion. But when that is not enough, a good shouting match, peppered with a few well placed insults, will generally scare the more persistent crowders from continuing to infringe on your property rights. And yet, in a few hours these territorial claims will not mean a thing as a whole new group of peacocks, urchins and walruses will have moved in to begin the delicate dance we call social interaction all over again.

Sandcastles

For as long as I can remember, I have had a sandbox to play in. The first one was at my Grandma Lloyd’s house and was exactly what you would expect a sand box to be. Roughly 10 by 10, made of huge planks of wood and filled with millions of tiny rocks. This one in particular actually had my name painted on it in big, colorful letters letting everyone know that what ever happened to the world around it, that little box of dirt would always be mine.

When my Dad built his house in my Grandma’s front yard though, he had a cement play area constructed which consisted of two parts: a swing set with gravel that took up about 2/3 of the space and a huge sandbox in the remaining third. This new space was so different from what my brothers and I had previously experienced that we actually referred to it as the “sand pile” as opposed to the sandbox. As you might assume, the STANLEY LLOYD sandbox fell into disrepair and eventually became a glorified weed patch with the addition of the sand pile. While I grieved the loss of my name being written on such a large scale, I was more than happy to move to this new space. The cement walls were thick and ideal for hill top real estate that did not require prior work to construct.

One thing you should know about my little brothers and me is that we did not simply build sandcastles in the sand pile; that was for babies and little kids. We developed vast expanses of land for urban and suburban development, constructed dams and reservoirs, employed the use of siphons and levees, and even discovered new mining techniques that involved all-water drills. Needless to say, playing in the sand pile was serious business. I remember several times where we would have to be physically removed from our work in order to perform other meaningless tasks such as eating and sleeping.

Looking back on those times, I am still amazed at how entertained I was by sand and water. Nowadays, I need all kinds of things to keep me occupied (friends, money, electronics, etc.), and being at the beach got me to wondering about what the appeal of the sandcastle really was back when I was a kid. In a simple sense, I think it had something to do with the relative ease that comes with creating a sandcastle. You can go from having a completely flat surface to having a rough outline of the eastern bearing wall of a medieval fortress in a matter of seconds. Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that no matter what you create, no matter how grand or complex, you are still bigger and therefore more powerful than it. And there is something to be said about spending hours on a project that you have worked tirelessly to complete and then being in total control of the fate of that creation. I’m willing to bet that there aren’t many adults who experience that kind sovereignty in their chosen careers, no matter how long or how hard they may have worked for it.

But all of that seemed to be a little too cerebral for a child to piece together. So after a while, I decided to relive some of my glory days from back in the sand pile. On a particularly sunny day at the end of our first week, I took a walk down the beach to an area that was relatively free of other people and I plopped down on the semi-wet sand. I cupped my hand into the familiar hoe shape it had taken many times before and I began digging the moat for my late 12^th century, concentric style fortress.

As I thrust my hands continually into the sand, water slowly lining the base of the moat, I began thinking about another element of the sandcastle that I had not previously considered. Whenever one builds a sandcastle, they are doing so with the full knowledge that before the day is over, their structure will not be standing. This can be a result of anything from a particularly large wave that takes out your preliminary defensive wall, to small gusts of wind that slowly eat away at your central observation tower, or to a runaway volley ball that bounces over your exterior fortifications and smashes right into the stone keep. In essence then, one only has control over the fate of their creation, so long as nothing else interferes. And in reality, there is nothing you can do to prevent this interference. The world of the beach is such an uncertain, scary, and arbitrary place that there is no way to protect your precious sandcastle from ultimate destruction.

As I continued to entertain this thought, I became more and more discouraged about how this concept may apply to everyday life. Many times, we build things in the same way we build sandcastles. We use inferior materials, simple methods, and try to gloss the whole thing over with clever designs and a few seashells knowing full well that it will not stand. So why do we do it? Why do we often invest our time and energies into things that we know will ultimately fail to give us any kind of eternal happiness? Why do we continue to delude ourselves with thoughts that this time will be different from the last, that we will be able to shelter the things we create from the chaos of the world that surrounds us? Why do we continue to make the same mistakes when we know that the outcome will be pain and suffering?

After a while, I stood up from my sandcastle and looked at my progress. The moat was coming along fine and the foundation was firmly packed, ready and waiting to have the inner elements of the castle set upon it. But as I stood there, small wave brushed up against my right foot which was only a few inches from the southern end of my preliminary defensive wall. At that moment, I decided to walk away from my unfinished creation and return to where my host family was sitting on the beach. I cannot tell you exactly why I left my castle unfinished and alone. Maybe I was frustrated to see another project fail. Maybe I was annoyed by the fact that I had not picked a better starting place, one that was out of harm’s way. Maybe I hated continuing to work on something that I knew would fall before it was complete.

Or maybe I was just tired of building sandcastles.