For our 4th wedding anniversary (yay us!) Jon took me on a glorious Spanish getaway, where we spent a week basking in the hot hot southern European sun, trying to remember why we moved to Ireland and not Spain. We were in Faro, Portugal for the first two nights, and then mostly in Seville, Spain after that. There was also a day trip to Ronda (which is a sweet town situated over this incredibly high stone bridge) where we found real Spanish horchata! Did you know Mexican horchata is made from rice, and Spanish horchata is made from a seed thing called tigernut? So its different than the horchata Northern Americans (like us) are used to. It tasted heavier, like a melted milkshake with extra spice! Not cheap either, we paid nearly 3euro for a dixie cup full. Even though it was 100 degrees plus humidity, I took little sips at a time, swirling its cold milky goodness on my tongue before swallowing, willing myself to not suck it down in one satisfying gulp.
But the vacation didnt start with horchata. We got off a plane in Seville, walked to a bus station, and crossed our fingers that the bus tickets I pre-bought online would actually work. Turns out, nobody wants to go to Portugal, but everyone wants to go to Seville! The bus was nicely air-conditioned, and all 7 passengers appreciated it. Jon & I sat in the very front seats, where it seems like youre flying above the road in some sort of bus cloud. For some reason, traveling in a bus makes me feel dreamy, and I spent most of the 3 and a half hours dreaming of California.
The terrain was incredibly like the California I know and love, the freeway center-lines even growing the exact same white, red, and green flowering bushes. The dry fields in the hot afternoon sun stretched out into the slightly rolling distance on either side of us, the orchard farms full of old, bent olive trees reaching with crooked arms towards a sky the color of faded jeans. The road signs were all in Spanish of course, but hey go south enough in California and its no different there either! At one point we passed a four-horse carriage, billowing along on a dusty road next to the freeway. A cart with one horse is like 'oh how quaint', two horses is like 'now theres some power', but four horses and you begin to wonder if they are actually delivering mail.
But as we crossed the Spain/Portugal border, and got closer to our destination, it didnt look like home anymore. Faro is basically a fishing village that grew an airport at some point. From what I read, people dont really visit Faro to visit Faro, they go there to catch a plane, or land there on their way to somewhere else. People on the travel tips websites said it was a ghost town, people said it was boring and not worth an hour let alone two days. But Jon & I have developed a pretty good sense of what we like in a vacation, and we like ghost towns that nobody goes to. We like when the Top 10 Thing To Do of a place includes suggestions to 'walk around'. We often ask each other if we are boring. The answer is probably yes to most people, but I think we just know what we like! So in Faro, we spent time poking around the local marina housing photogenic broken canoes, and watched hundreds of tiny rock crabs clacking their tiny claws on the algae-rich rocks. We ambled up and down uneven cobblestone streets for hours, taking pictures of each other in the romantic half-light glinting off the tiled walls. We bought a big red umbrella and read books under it while listening to the Atlantic make love to the sandy shore. And we ate Italian food instead of the local fish-heavy cuisine, because thats what we like.
Remember how I said everyone wants to go TO Spain? Well the bus ride back in was something of an uncomfortable disaster because of it. I was in charge of buying the bus tickets. I bought them to Faro at 2:45, and from Faro at 1:45. What I forgot was that in Europe, they use a 24 hr clock, so while the 2:45 bus was thankfully somehow pm, my 1:45 was in fact am... I had booked us an overnight bus. Oops. And we thought the overnight train in Norway was bad. Also the bus (supposed to arrive at 1:45am) didnt show up at 1:45...or 2...and then we were getting really worried by 2:15 and no bus. Luckily, a group of four French girls also trying to get the same bus were sitting there with us, so we knew at least we were in the right place. Even more luckily, one of them spoke Spanish fluently enough to use Jons phone & call the bus service, who told us its normal that the bus is late, and it should get us in probably no later than an hour. Fun times man, fun times. So in the end our 12 bleary eyes and 6 heavy heads finally got on the bus to Seville and filled the exactly 6 randomly spaced leftover seats that no one else wanted, but miraculously me & Jon even got to sit together! In the VERY VERY back, crammed in by the cold window, under some lights, next to some guy with his headphone music up way too loud, to arrive back in Seville at 5:45am. The sun didnt rise until 8am, and we couldnt check into our hotel until 9am. So we sat under a blue street light on a deserted park bench, delirious with sleep deprivation, talking about who knows what, until Starbucks finally opened. Its times like these that take the charm out of travel, really.
But when we woke up from a much needed nap, we were ready to take in beautiful Seville! It was all hand crafted tiled walls, pastel stucco buildings, and lacy-looking iron wrought balconies. Siestas are a real thing, and shops really closed down in the mid-afternoon to get away from the heat. The only other people out around that time were probably tourists like us, not willing to miss even a second of the day. Until later in the week, when we too retreated indoors for a few hours before heading back out for dinner. We felt obligated to do Spanish things, like see a bullfight and watch Flamenco dancers. The bullfight was voted against, and we took a tour of the ring (sans fight) instead, and learned the bloody history of the 'sport' without having to actually see a cuddly cow be gutted in front of us. We kept telling ourselves we would go to a Flamenco show, and every night we decided to do something else instead. Dancing just has never been interesting to either of us. Going to bed early just sounded better. See, we really are pretty boring.
One night instead of the dancing, we went to a Turkish bath house. Wow, it was so amazing! For 35euro a person, we got a 15 minute full-body massage, plus unlimited time in the whole bath house. Unlimited! There was a warm bath, hot bath, and cold bath in one room, and you go from the warm to the hot to the icy cold one! You do it over & over, and your body gets into a state of deep relaxation after a few times. The other rooms included a warm salt water bath (this room looked like a tunnel carved into a mountain), mineral bath with a waterfall (didnt spend too much time here, some annoying guy was getting splashy), and a peppermint-flavored sauna room (yes flavored, the steam was so intense you almost couldnt breathe, and your nostrils and lips tasted a little like Christmas). This place was like relaxation heaven. Low instrumental music wafted thru the air like incense, the walls were two stories high and painted rose red, and crowned with carved wooden panels. The candle-lit lanterns hung low, nearly touching the water, the flickering flames making the baths glow. THIS is what we like.
The whole week was like one big simmering bubble of love and ease, plus tapas. Which we now know isnt in our top 5 fave foods. Cold pink soup and leggy shrimps just dont equal a choice meal to us. This trip was our longest yet, and we only got bored on one of the days! And then we stopped being bored and were awesome instead! But really, the whole thing was amazing. All of it. And I cant think of a witty way to end this one, because it was so cool it wasnt even funny.
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