Granada... my future home?

After Christmas Ally, Marcia and I made the trip to Granada. It had been 2 years since I´ve been back to Granada, and in these two years I´ve thought about what it would be like to be back to this city. When we arrived, I was hit with the feeling that I never wanted to leave. I don´t know what it is about this city that just makes me want to stay here. It´s not incredibly big, there is nothing super spectacular, but it´s atmosphere is attractive, and it makes me want to stay.

However, it was FREEZING, it made Huelva seem hot. Our hostal was more or less in Plaza Nueva which made it easy for us to get around, walking around the city made it feel like we never left. Granada, is just sooo much prettier than Huelva. I was able to see all of my Granadian friends besides Jose who happened to be in the States. Ally, Marcia and I went to the Alhambra, it was my 3rd time there, and although it is a beautiful place, it´s safe to say that I´m Alhambra´d out. If I don´t see it again for the next 5-10 years, I think I´ll survive. Also the lion fountain wasn´t there... and that was really disappointing since we waited all day for it. I took soooo many pictures... and I don´t even know why. Things like this are impossible to capture in photos, and I don´t know what I´m going to do with them later.

After walking all day looking at the alhambra, we took a walking tour of Granada, guided by Luis and his brother JoseMa. It was really nice to learn about all the buildings and some of the history of the city. Now I feel like I´ve walked most of Granada... and my legs were sore enough to prove it.

My favorite thing about the trip was being able to see my friends. For some reason I feel that i made better friends in Granada than I have in Huelva. Going out with them was so much more fun... and of course free tapas doesn´t. Also there just seems to be more to do, and the music is definitely better. All the time I was there I didn´t want to leave, and thought about much different my experience would be if I was in Granada instead of Huelva. I know that´s not a good attitude, but that was how I felt.

Our last full day in Granada, we went to the Sierra Nevadas... it was cold. It was a nice little skiing/snowboarding place.. and we didn´t have any gear, but next time we´ll be ready. It was a little hazy which sucked, but it was beautiful. It was like I was in Seattle, because there was soooo much snow. I thought I´d never see snow in Spain, but there is snow.

When it was time to leave Granada... I was sad, and Ally and I fantasized what it´d be like to move back to Granada and live in our old piso in Calle Molinos... with the HUGE shower, and the air conditioning/heating... that would be the life. Now we just have to figure out how to get there...

wishing everyone a happy holidays and a wonderful new year!

Con mucho carino,
Ngoc :)

Perks of being Travel Size

Because Ally's mom is here, we have made a better effort towards doing things besides hanging around our freezing cold piso. One of our outings took us on a trip to Aracena in the Sierras in Huelva. One of Ally's student, Juan, offered to take us on a day trip with his wife. We thought we'd be going on a little hike thing, so Ally, Marica and I got all ready for hiking. Shoes, sweatshirt, everything...

We woke up and were rushing to get ready, we kept thinking that Juan is Spanish, he's going to come late so we don't have to be in a hurry.... of course, Juan turns out to be the only Spanish person that arrives early or even on time. We get into the car, and begin our almost 2 hours drive to this place. We´ve just heard that it´s an amazing location, but nothing else. Sometimes I forget what it´s like to be in a car for long periods of time, because I rarely am in a car, besides commuting to work. 

Being in a car here, is not like sitting in my large Honda CRV, the cars here appear to be smaller, and coming from a person of my size, that´s hard to say. Either way, I experienced a lot of car sickness... but we did make it there. It was a beautiful day, and being able to see all the trees, and hills and rivers, reminded me of driving on I-5 towards California or something. For a split second I thought I was back in WA.

We arrived to Aracena, and found out that we were going to see this thing called La Gruta de Maravilla, it turned out to be this underground cave thing with crazy rock formations. It was one of the prettiest things I´ve seen in a while. It was super duper humid inside... 100%. It reminded me of the Vinh Ha Long caves I went to 4 years ago. We couldn´t take pictures inside, but it was still a beautiful site. One of the downsides of the cave was that

 it was a little dangerous, a lot of the paths you had to duck or else risk getting your head taken out... however, if you´re like me, and travel-size you just walk normally, and there are no problems. :)

After our little trip we went went home to Huelva, but before returning back to our piso, we stopped by a beautiful site, where there was a statue dedicated to Chrisopher Columbus. The name now escapes me, but it was beautiful, the sun was setting, and it was a beautiful site.

All in all the day was great. I realized that there are beautiful things in the Province of Huelva, although you have to drive 2 hours to get there.... It was a great thing to do while Ally´s mom was here.

Sending all my love!!!

Besitos,

ngoc :)

Welcome Marcia to a real small Spanish village

Seasons greetings everyone. I hope everyone is safe, happy and enjoying the holiday season. I know it is snowing like no other in Seattle.. and I hope this finds everyone somewhat warm... hopefully. I won't tell you about how nice the weather has been here...

Okay, Since Marcia has been here, Ally has been doing a great job showing her what there is to to do around this small province. However, on Monday we decided to head to Bollullos... I don't know why... probably to visit Concha and her family, and also give myself a chance to really see Bollullos. We took the train to La Palma, where Concha picked us up. I had specifically been told by people that Bollullos is known for wine... so obviously we all thought it'd be cool to go to a vineyard to taste wine. Although I'm not a wine drinker, I've seen my share of movies, and wine tasting seems so cool. You go to a place where there's lots of grapes and lots of land. I also imagined lots of round barrels of wine, and possibly being able to smash some grapes with your toes or something like that. I should have know that Bollullos wine tasting was nothing like that. Concha dropped us off on a street where she said there are lots of places to taste wine and eat food... let's just say there was not one grape in sight, it was a whole bunch of restaurants with lots of wines... we were quite disappointed. But we did end up going into a real winery, and trying 3 different types of wine... I'm just going to say... I still don't get all the fuss about Bollullos wine, but I'm open to trying others... maybe we just got unlucky.

Switching to plan B, which was walking around Bollullos and seeing what it had to offer. Before doing this we had to make a quick pit stop to one of the most famous things in Bollullos... Mercadona... there we loaded up on our snacks and sat down in a really nice park. For being such a small village, I have to admit the park was pretty nice... it reminded me of many parks i've visited such as the one in Cadiz, and Sevilla it was a little mix of many parks. There were some plants, mazes, water fountains... everything you needed for a nice park. We sat in the park ate some sandwiches and did a mini photo shoot.

After that we wandered the streets of Bollullos, and arrived at Nia's house. I've told Ally how nice it is and she wanted to see. Luckily Nate was home and he gave us a tour, and made Ally and I both jealous that our piso is the size of their terrace, but we do have one up on them... we live in Huelva and they live in Bollullos. :) After that we continued our walk around the village, which I'm going to say is not very big. It is however very "movie-set" like, the buildings are mainly white, the streets are small, and there is a calmness about the city which I do like. We happened to see this girl riding her horse down the street... i guess that saves on gas right? As much as I joke about Bollullos, it is a very peaceful place, the people are very nice, and it does have its own charm.

Our tour continued on towards the main street, where we saw some of the stores that sold the best "Bollullos" style... I'm sad to announce that Ally, Marcia and I, the best shopping trio ever assembled, made it out of Bollullos without buying ANYTHING! We ended our tour with a trip to the culture center, where an exhibition was on display of old doll houses, dolls, toys, and film things. It was kinda random, but interesting. There was also a Belen which was beautiful... but i don't understand why we couldn't see it from a 360 degree view.... it was really nice... and there was like a light limit too, because after ten minutes the lights got dark and you couldn't see anything.

After the cultural center we made our way to Concha's house. Unfortunately my camera was low on battery and Ally had forgotten her camera in the piso, so I don't have any pictures to show you of the marvel that is Concha's house. It is incredibly big, and super Spanish, but I love it. It has terraces, offices, high ceilings, beautiful tiles... everything that makes one person jealous. They should just adopt me. As Ally and Marcia got the grand tour of the house, I set to work on making spring rolls with Maria. She is incredibly cute and loves to help out. Cooking was fun and once again, I had brought tooooooo much food... I get that from my mom. We sat down to eat with Concha, her husband (Jose), her son (Ignacio), and Maria. It was a nice dinner, with lots of food, laughs and conversation. It was also the first time I really heard Concha speak english, and her english is AMAZING. It's probably the best english from a spanish english teacher I've heard in Spain. Her accent is so cute... it's so proper.

After the meal, Maria thought it'd be a good idea to show us all the toys she has... let's just say her and Barbie are good friends, and she probably has every Barbie ever created. She even has a pregnant Barbie that comes with a detachable belly... things these people come up with. At the end of the night, Jose and Ignacio drove us back to Huelva.

All in all it was a great dinner, and a great day in Bollullos. Although small and quiet, it houses some of the nicest Spanish people I've ever met, and definitely the most beautiful Spanish house I've been in. Ally and I look forward to seeing more of Concha and her family, they have already offered to be our friends... so it's okay if we bother them now. :)

As this comes to an end... I wish everyone a very happy holidays. I miss you guys terribly but am happy and safe.

Hugs and kisses,
Ngoc :)

Lovely Lisboa

Ngoc and I took our first trip outside of Spain to Lisbon, Portugal. Not only was it was first big trip in Europe, but it was also our first roadtrip of the year. Luckily, Alex was also going to Lisbon the same weekend as us and we all drove together. All the positive things we had heard and read about Lisbon held true, it was a lovely city to visit. Not only is the city rich in history and culture but also home to decadent desserts. Street after street was littered with pastelerias full of sweets. The skies above were adorned with beautiful architecture and breathtaking statues/monuments. All the beauty absent in Huelva is more than abundant in Lisbon. We spent our four days walking like it was our jobs, I just wish I had of known the city was built on hills so I could have trained for the marathon that became our eight hour walking days, up and down incredibly steep hills. Nonetheless, it was fun to see a different city and do lots of sightseeing.



After spending a summer in Europe in 2006 and several thousand dollars poorer, we have smartened up when it comes to traveling and saving money. Rather than spending lavishly as if money grows on trees we now are taking the cost of things into consideration, just a little. Thus we decided to stay in a dorm style room rather than a private room. Being my first dorm experience in a hostel I was a little nervous but fortunately enough we enjoyed a fun four days of meeting new people from around the world. On my first night as I was falling asleep on the top bunk I turned to Ngoc and asked, “you think this bed is clean? I mean, people don’t have sex in these beds do they?” to which Ngoc comforted me and immediately responded, “of course not!” Later that night, I was awoken to which I thought was an earthquake, unfortunately for me, it was just two strangers in the room getting to know one another a little better. On a positive note, we managed to pick up some new slang from a group of Mexicans who provided much entertainment and eye candy—if only they weren’t tan joven. Although the hostel was by no means a 5 star hotel it did provide free warmth, a stark contrast from our freezing piso, which was much appreciated. All in all, minus the mini earthquake scare, it was a fun hostel. After routinely dropping 50 Euros a night on dinners in famous cities throughout Europe, we’ve learned that shopping at grocery stores is the way to go. We both ate lunch for a combined grand total of 2.89 Euros. When you only make 700 euro a month every penny matters. Oh the joys of being poor, why would anyone want to leave home?


In terms of sightseeing, pretty sure we managed to conquer Lisbon and see every castle, monument, statue, tower, church, monastery and any other sight to see. I couldn’t help but remember our times in Granada and many visits to the Alhambra while walking through Lisbon and seeing the castle. It is up high on of the hills and has a view of all of Lisbon from above. You can see the castle from pretty much anywhere in Lisbon, just like the Alhambra. Of everything we saw my favorite thing was the monastery in Belen. It was truly breathtaking. I always love moments when I look up and see an enormous building towering over me, which has been standing for hundreds of centuries and am pleasantly reminded I’m in Europe. We just don’t have that history or anything comparable to see in America. Sure, there is the Space Needle in Seattle or the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Statue of Liberty in New York, but there is no comparison to European skylines. The National Palace and Torre were also memorable for their beauty.

Without doubt we enjoyed our best dinner in the past 3 months while in Lisbon. Up in the famous Bario Alto we found a nice little Thai restaurant tucked behind a corner on a tiny little cobblestone street. Although expensive at over 45 euro, being able to have a decent dinner was worth the money and I enjoyed every little noodle. If only Huelva had food other than jamon o gambas. Portugal is also home to the Porta Agua (Portuguese Waterdog) and I felt as if I saw Wilson about ten times, just not as cute, of course.

As lovely as Lisbon is, I have to be honest and say I was glad to come home to Huelva. After visiting a big city I now appreciate the smallness of Huelva and being able to go wherever I desire by foot. Moreover, its nice walking into the bread shop and having the owner know you. Huelva affords me the opportunity to create a new home and feel as if I’m part of the community rather than just being another tourist abroad. I don’t think I could have that same feeling in a major city with millions of people. I like being one of the few Americans in Huelva and knowing I will see a familiar face while walking around town. For all the complaining I do about Huelva it does have a certain charm to it, just don’t ask me what it is, because I don’t know. I guess Huelva’s not so bad after all!

Besos
Allison

How Christmas Blew Up in Piso 4A

Season's greetings everyone! It has been a long time, the reason being we've been out and about, we've been a little lazy, but mostly we've been consumed with holiday spirit. After Thanksgiving, Ally and I were both feeling a little homesick and missing our families during. Hence, we came up with the greatest idea ever!!!! Piso decorations, thinking it would be the greatest thing ever. The funny thing about christmas decorations is that I'm buddhist, and Ally is not religious, and hence we have two people who really don't celebrate christmas for religious reasons decorating the piso. However, I love the holiday spirit, and Christmas carols, they put me in a good mood, and remind me of being home with my family. Hence, we decided this would be the best way to make us feel more at home. Little did we know it would become a big obsession and consume about two weeks of our lives. But I guess when you're in Huelva, where the extracurricular activities are limited, holiday decorations are a great way to pass the time.

Ally and I started simple with snowflakes and hand made signs. She worked on the "Happy Holiday" sign that you see as you walk into the piso, and together we spent 8 hours cutting out over 60 snowflakes. Then we hung them off the ceiling, which also was a little dangerous, but worth the effort. Once you step into the piso, the ceiling is quite amazing. Snowflakes and "Happy Holidays" made up Phase 1 of Operation decoration.

Phase 2 of our operation was putting up the tree and the fireplace. Putting the tree up with the star, and Ally strung the lights onto the tree. It was almost life-like. I was in charge of the fireplace, and it was something we needed desperately, because our piso is ridiculously cold. Although it looks like it didn't take a long time it did. I spent the most time on the fireplace, with 3 stockings, one for me (Merchi), one for Ally (Carmen), and one for Ally's mom (Marcia) -- she's visiting us soon. Doing the garland at the top of the fireplace was time consuming because it is actually single pieces of leaves cut out of green wrapping paper. However, in the end it was worth the 2-3 days i spent on it.

Phase 3 was "Noel", "Santa Claus", the wreath for the door, and mistletoe. Cutting the candles, out of red wrapping paper and making the holly for it was also time consuming, but very easy, and that was quickly finished. Ally contributed with her skillful lettering skills and we're very pleased with the results. The wreath on the door was made quickly because we had green wrapping paper. Although the mistletoe is not real, and the chances of us finding anyone to stand under it with are very slim... we are holding out for el Duque, Enrique Iglesias or any other tall dark and handsome Spanish man to enter our piso. Lastly, Santa Claus was a tough task because I had to draw him out of paper and put him together. It took aat least 5 hours, however there were some breaks for "Sin Tetas No Hay Paraiso".

After a weekend break from decorating to go to Lisbon, we returned to do Phase 4 of our operation. By this time we are a little decorationed out because I personally had spent at least 8 hours a day on decorating for 4 days in a row. Either way we had to carry on, because we could not leave it unfinished. Phase 4 consisted of creating the north pole. I made the sign, the sled and also the snowflakes that covered the walls. Ally make the life-size Frosty the Snowman which I think turned out incredible.

Phase 5 was just finishing up the final touches. We spent the last few days making presents to put under the tree, putting up snow underneath various things to make it look like snow in the north pole. Ally put up the "Merry Christmas" sign. I wrapped one of our poles in gold and silver wrapping and topped it off with big bows. Our last day we worked on ornaments for the tree. Ally made the color balls on the edges and I made some ornaments that reminded us of all the places we've traveled together ie.: Barcelona, Paris, Granada, Lagos, Lisbon... Everytime we look at the tree, it will remind us of the great friendship we have, and the many fond memories we have built, but we look forward to building more for the rest of this adventure.

As I bring this informative post to an end, I hope everyone is going super duper well. I wished everyone could be here to see our piso and how great it turned out, but most of all, I wished everyone was here to just celebrate the holiday spirit with us.

Hugs and Kisses,
Ngoc :)



P.S. You can look at the entire process here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2353854&l=feced&id=10703715