AMIGA CANADIENSE

So I had a six day weekend and decided I'd go visit my friend Steffi. She's in Cartagena which is an eleven hour bus ride from Pamplona. I'll include another little adventure in this blog that happened the night before leaving Pamplona. So Thursday night I went out with some friends to Marengo because it was some big fiesta put on by Bacardi to advertise the new Limón flavour. The disco sold about three hundred more tickets than their usual maximum and you actually couldn't move. But it was a fun night, I just danced with my friends and watched this one guy do tecktonik for literally four hours straight. My friends and I tried to learn a bit, he learned from youtube and was really good. Anyway at five thirty I walked my friend Teresa home and at ten to six realized I had ten minutes to get to my bus stop to catch the last one. Yeah that's on the other side of town pretty well so yes at 5:50am I ran all through Pamplona, taking a route I've never gone before because I'm overly confident with my good sense of direction, and what's normally a good twenty minutes brisk walk I got to my stop in eight minutes. Then got on my bus went home and packed, watched Glee and the sun rise because I couldn't sleep otherwise I'd probably miss my bus. The morning was a little brighter than normal though so I was a little panicked that I wouldn't have time to do everything but no I had time it was just pure white outside - SNOWING! There was huge flakes and a good ten centimeters on the ground. Before driving to the bus station I cleaned the car twice and my mother who is from ecuador drove me - VERY slowly. Pamplona only gets snow a few times per winter so plows and snow tires don't really exist. But I made my bus and that night was in Cartagena where the nights are very humid and days very sunny!

Steffi and I caught up on our Spanish lives, I met her family and we hung out for the next three days. Her host sister is really cool and he host mom and mine are really different but have SO much in common which Steffi and I had fun talking about and were relieved that some of their tendencies are I guess normal. Her host dad works a lot, they own a bar, and is quiet until he goes crazy - in a good way. My first morning we went into the city and walked down this pedestrian street which was really neat, then went home for comida. I'm pretty sure most people know this about me but even though I'm a bit of a free spirit I also like plans and I can worry easily. When Steffi explained that she doesn't remember how to get to places or recognize parts of the city she knows she's been to many times before or know her bus schedule I laughed but really would have cried. I decided to let it go and not to worry because everything will turn out fine - we have cell phones it's not like we're going to get lost and this year's supposed to be an adventure anyway. Everything did turn out well and we got home in time to eat some really tasty paella. Then siesta'd before going back into the city to again stroll around. We somehow found our way to her dads bar where some weird guy kept talking to us even though I was trying to watch the football game. FC Barcelona was in Pamplona playing Osasuna, a bunch of my friends were actually at the game and I really wanted to watch. I knew Barca was going to win, seeing as they crushed Real Madrid 5-0 in El Classico, and they're my team so I was excited but Osa is from my town so I was a little torn. As I watched I noticed how cold everyone was in the stands and didn't feel so bad about missing the live game. Afterwards, Barca won 3-0, Steffi's host dad took us to eat. He's from Sevilla and from what I gathered they're a very proud people - only cheer for their team and have a different dialect and food. So we went to eat some specialties from where he's from. We ate a bunch of different things but the most interesting was the meat. We had fun cutting off the fat and bone but it was good, Torro he said it was - bull nothing too new or weird - we liked it. Later as we walked back to the bar Miguel her dad asked if we enjoyed the meat and if we knew what it was. - Sí y ¿torro? This is where crazy man came out explaining that yes but it was the tail, and then he began to laugh hysterically. So I ate the tail of a bull and enjoyed it - so what, this made a serious and silent man have a wonderful evening so I was happy. Steffi wasn't too fazed either but I guess this is a normal thing for Miguel to surprise her and find it hilarious.

The next morning we went into Cartagena to go to the Roman Amphitheater. This was so cool. Cartagena has a really interesting history. The city I guess was built up like three times just over top of the last one. This theatre is actually one of the most famous or amazing archaeological find in the past decade and it was really cool. It's right in the centre of the city and you can just tell how old it is. One thing that's really cool about it is when people cam to build on top of it they used parts of it. So there are the structures of old houses still as well where parts of the pillars from the theatre are used in making the walls. It was really interesting and we had fun adventuring around. After we got some gelato before going home. I should mention that I was wearing just a t-shirt and she shorts. This is while the Spaniards were sporting down-filled, fur or wool coats. It was like eighteen degrees. Some people gave us weird looks, other questioned us and when we said we were Canadian everything made sense for them. We did something even crazier by Spanish standards and went to the beach that afternoon. My first time seeing the mediterranean - it was beautiful and yes in december we went swimming. There were some old guys fishing who really weren't impressed with the two girls in bikinis having a wonderful time in the aqua blue water with huge waves surrounded by mountains and the sun setting behind them. The water wasn't even that cold but honestly who wouldn't want to do that. That night we hung out with a friend of Steffi's who's from Bulgaria and his friend who was visiting. We had a fun time, Bulgarian is a very interesting language and we couldn't help but be reminded of Victor Krum or the Death Eaters with their accent. We had a foosball tournament in Steffi's basement and hung out.

The next day we went back to the beach with Austin who's another Rotary exchange student from Colorado. He got to Spain really late because his visa was denied three times but he's here now and it was nice to meet him. We walked a bit on the mountains at the beach and lied in the sun. That evening we went on another adventure to the mall. Oh wait it was a fiesta day so the stores in the mall are closed and the bus schedule and route is different. Yes although both of them told me not to worry I couldn't really help it when the bus stopped in what was an industrial desert and the driver told us we had to get off. So we walked. Eventually thanks to google maps on Austin's ipod we found the mall and went to McDonald's and then to see Harry Potter because the movie theatre was open. After we hung out a bit at Austin's place - his host brother is gorgeous - and then went to Steffi's dads bar until three in the morning. I pulled another allnighter because again I had an eleven hour bus ride to look forward to, this one starting at six thirty in the morning.

I really enjoyed visiting Steffi. She's quite a character, so funny, and really it was great to just hang out and be able to talk about everything. I've been invited back and I would really like to go, just need time. If I don't get to make it back to Cartagena Steffi is going to Acadia next year and is from PEI so I'm sure we'll go on many more adventures together.