First, a some profound Portuguese graffiti from last week:
Last Wednesday, Michelle arrived from the motherland and found herself amidst in the windy, smoke-filled streets of Santander, which had cooled significantly from the humid climes of the previous week. She explored the town while I worked on Thursday and Friday, and then over the weekend, we did a wee bit of sightseeing.
On Saturday, we headed for the big attraction known as Carrefour, the big supermarket just out of town a tiny bit. It's like a big department store that also sells food. Big-box shop, French style, in Spain. We picked up a few things that I've been meaning to get, and didn't find a few that I was looking for. Things like bigger bags of flour and sugar for baking and bigger boxes of cereal didn't exist there. They were the same size as at the little Carrefour in town. How disappointing. So I will have to stock up on a few when I get into a baking frenzy. 1kg bags are too tiny to last long for cakes and cookie urges!!
Later that day, after the exciting grocery excursion, we rented bikes (borrowed, since they are free courtesy of the local government, olé!) from one of the location points scattered through the city and set off for the Magdalena peninsula. While renting the bike, we met a New Yorker who offered to help us but ended up not knowing what to do and needed our help. =P He was an interesting character, also teaching English here in Santander, but in a public school (pity the poor guy). We rode together for a while and then he headed off to meet a friend further up the beach.
Michelle and I rode into the Magdalena, and found ourselves amongst a queue of cars and swarms of people taking advantage of the sunny day. Though it was very windy and cold, it was stunning nonetheless, with the mountains, sea and trees enclosing us and some adorable little friends.....
Is the food coming yet?
Yes that's right, there are penguins in Spain!!! My first time seeing them live and in person, I think. And of all places, in Spain. Yup. On a sunny day, not with negative temperatures, and in a tropical (more or less) country. They were super cute, and we watched them hanging out looking for food, and swimming in circles for a while--they are so clumsy looking but in the water, boy are they speedy!
Speaking of which, we also saw some other clumsy-on-land and speedy-in-water animals:
Imagine fishing out here way out on the north coast of Spain....spectacular views but I couldn't figure out what he was trying to catch, or if he was successful. Went up to the fence to look but couldn't see, and he wasn't looking up so I couldn't ask him....
Here's the two of us posing with some cool ships that were just sitting around...was too lazy to read the plaques of information--there was a lot and we were getting really cold....
The view of the park from tip of the peninsula. There is a palace at the top of the hill but it wasn't anything super fabulous. There was some kind of VW rally up there though, because the parking lot was full of them and nothing else.... Though we couldn't figure out the deal with the crowd around this guy on a megaphone hawking stickers....he kept shouting about stickers....On the way out, of course we had to stop and say goodbye (more like "See you again for sure you cute little guys!") to the goofy penguins. This one ignored us though, probably because we didn't have any fish to show him....
Saturday night, Michelle and I went out with one of my colleagues, and a student studying Spanish at the school, and hit up a few bars. Unfortunately, that means smelling like smoke all the time, which is unavoidable in this country, sadly. Sigh. We went round and round to about 5 places, had drinks and chatted, and by the time Michelle and I called it a night, it was about 3am. The others kept going for a bit longer....hey, they are learning the Spanish way. ;)The following day, we slept in really late and ended up making pancakes for breakfast, even though it was just past noon... Look it's a smiley face! (This wasn't actually part of the pancakes, but later that night we made eggs and it turned out cute, so it had to go on the blog, hehe.)
It was a chill day of hanging out, working a bit (prepping class work for me) and then later that night we went for a nice long walk around town. We trekked up to take the lift in town (yes there is a gondola/elevator-type thing in town--shows you how steep it is here!), and then headed towards the university area. Just a mellow stroll around, and when the sun was setting, we caught a glimpse of this stained-glass window all lit up by the sunset. It was nicer looking in person, since you can't tell the sun is setting here.....
Anyhow, that night Ruben came out after a long bike ride with some friends, and we went for some tapas at a place a colleague recommended, which was really nice. It was more like a combo tapas bar--restaurant, since you could order from a menu board as well as pick from the counter, and there were tables to sit down in addition to standing. We did the tapas and drinks standing, but couldn't resist dipping into the dessert selection either. :)
After a few more days of exploring Santander and its surrounding beaches, Michelle has taken off and headed westward bound in Spain. She mentioned heading to Salamanca, which is a good call since it's so pretty and I loved my time there this January! She may end up in Portugal to chase down some sunshine and warmth (it was about 30C last I checked Lisboa!) and do a bit of surfing, so stay tuned for updates! :)
This weekend, a bit of chill time and enjoying some cooking and baking time, yay! No big plans, but happily enough, I had a productive afternoon and finished almost all my class prep for next week--if only every Friday was this productive then my weekends would be always this enjoyable and relaxed!!
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