Hello everyone!
Last Thursday morning four friends (Deidre, Schuyler, Bart, and Aaron) and I decided to go to Logroño. Schuyler knew about a wine festival happening there, and showed us a picture online of a man squishing grapes with his feet. We were in. Schuyler told us a few hours later that he had rented a car. Awesome. When the time came to meet him in Plaza de España to retrieve the car, he called me to say we had a problem. He must not have read the reservation correctly; Europcar only has manual cars. I have no idea how to drive stick shift, and apparently Schuyler isn't too confident either. Luckily, Bart came to the rescue and said he would try it. We piled in around 7pm, and headed out of the city.
About 10 minutes into the drive, the GPS broke. I freaked out a little, I must admit, but Sky kept saying it was fine, he knew the direction in which we had to drive. Uhh....direction? But what will we do when we get there? Oy. All we had was the address of the hostel in Logroño 4 hours away and a broken GPS. Rental car, hmm...I thought of a genius idea. Check in the glovebox! Yay, found a map. The drive was beautiful for the hour or so before the sun went down, and we finally arrived in the town of Logroño. I called the number of the hostel, and a very nice lady explained how to get to her house. The directions were as follows: "After you pass a tunnel, you'll see six sticks. Count them, one, two, three, four, five, six. Then, turn into the hidden driveway on the right, and go to a river and turn left." Uhh...sticks?
After a frustrating search for the hostel, we finally arrived around 11:30pm. Apparently, we reserved rooms in a beautiful house with a 7 person family! The young couple, Ana and Steve, have 5 very cute little kids and an amazing huge house. We really lucked out. Check out the pics on my pic website! After setting down our stuff, we got back into the car to go check out the scene in town. After eating some delicious falafel, we heard faint rock music. We headed towards the noise and found hundreds of Logroñians (?) head bobbing to a U2 impersonator. It ended up being a fun concert, and a cute little town to walk around in.
Friday morning, we woke up to a wonderful breakfast made by Ana. She then gave us some suggestions of what to do that day. First, we drove to a winery called El Fabulista. This drive was probably the most beautiful I have ever been on. We were completely in el campo, with vineyards and grape trucks blocking the roads. It was amazing. We learned a lot about wine in the bodega (winery) and even got to taste two different kinds. Later that afternoon, we returned to the house for a siesta and some delicious figs Ana picked from her fig tree that morning. Friday night, we went to a fun tapas restaurant in Logroño and saw another concert of American music! When the boys decided to go find some Spanish chicas, Deidre and I wandered around town and found a fun party with lots of dancing.
When Deidre and I woke up at 8:30am on Saturday, we heard some rustling in the boys room next door. Could it be that they were really waking up at the time we gave them to get a head start on the wineries? We found out later in the day that they had just gotten home from the discotecas in Logroño at 8:30am. Locos. The nice English couple that was also staying at Ana's house offered to drive me and Deidre into Logroño in their backwards car that the brought on the ferry from England. We hopped in. Had a very nice day: saw parades, cooking in the street of jamón and fish with their eyes still there, and had a nice nap in a parque. All of this exceitement, we found, was in celebration of the beginning of the wine season! Side note: Ana told us the night before that she messed up the booking, and had overbooked her house for Saturday night. She asked if we wouldn't mind moving to their cabin down the road. We said we were game for anything. So, after our nap, the boys picked us up and we drove to our new house. See my pictures and look for the little red cabin--it was so cute, but was like a playhouse for five year olds! It was definitely an adventure, and we got to know each other very well.
After dropping our stuff off, we decided to explore around our house. Little pond with goldfish inside, beautiful scenery, and suddenly we found the ruins of a castle. So beautiful, and fun to explore inside. It was Saturday afternoon around four, and we didn't have a plan yet for Saturday night. We looked at the map, and saw that Pamplona (the town famous for the running of the bulls) was so close! A Spaniard in the street told us it was about a 40 minute drive. And off we went.
Beautiful drive once again. After an annoying unsuccessful try at parking in the first structure we saw (famous quote of the trip by Aaron, "If we go any lower into this parking structure we'll hit lava for sure") we found a great spot on the street. We headed towards the area crowded with people that looked very historical. When I say crowded with people, I mean it was very hard to get through the street. We ducked into one of the first tapas places we saw, and proceeded to have an amazing tapas meal. I'll just say that I tried some things that I wouldn't have tried under any other circumstance...
We went back in the street to find fireworks above our heads! Very proud of our navigation skills-we really lucked out with all of our decisions of places to go this weekend. We drove around the historical area and saw the famous plaza de toros (bulls) and other beautiful buildings. All in all, it was an extremely successful weekend.
Tomorrow our group heads to Valencia! Will blog when I'm home.
Last Thursday morning four friends (Deidre, Schuyler, Bart, and Aaron) and I decided to go to Logroño. Schuyler knew about a wine festival happening there, and showed us a picture online of a man squishing grapes with his feet. We were in. Schuyler told us a few hours later that he had rented a car. Awesome. When the time came to meet him in Plaza de España to retrieve the car, he called me to say we had a problem. He must not have read the reservation correctly; Europcar only has manual cars. I have no idea how to drive stick shift, and apparently Schuyler isn't too confident either. Luckily, Bart came to the rescue and said he would try it. We piled in around 7pm, and headed out of the city.
About 10 minutes into the drive, the GPS broke. I freaked out a little, I must admit, but Sky kept saying it was fine, he knew the direction in which we had to drive. Uhh....direction? But what will we do when we get there? Oy. All we had was the address of the hostel in Logroño 4 hours away and a broken GPS. Rental car, hmm...I thought of a genius idea. Check in the glovebox! Yay, found a map. The drive was beautiful for the hour or so before the sun went down, and we finally arrived in the town of Logroño. I called the number of the hostel, and a very nice lady explained how to get to her house. The directions were as follows: "After you pass a tunnel, you'll see six sticks. Count them, one, two, three, four, five, six. Then, turn into the hidden driveway on the right, and go to a river and turn left." Uhh...sticks?
After a frustrating search for the hostel, we finally arrived around 11:30pm. Apparently, we reserved rooms in a beautiful house with a 7 person family! The young couple, Ana and Steve, have 5 very cute little kids and an amazing huge house. We really lucked out. Check out the pics on my pic website! After setting down our stuff, we got back into the car to go check out the scene in town. After eating some delicious falafel, we heard faint rock music. We headed towards the noise and found hundreds of Logroñians (?) head bobbing to a U2 impersonator. It ended up being a fun concert, and a cute little town to walk around in.
Friday morning, we woke up to a wonderful breakfast made by Ana. She then gave us some suggestions of what to do that day. First, we drove to a winery called El Fabulista. This drive was probably the most beautiful I have ever been on. We were completely in el campo, with vineyards and grape trucks blocking the roads. It was amazing. We learned a lot about wine in the bodega (winery) and even got to taste two different kinds. Later that afternoon, we returned to the house for a siesta and some delicious figs Ana picked from her fig tree that morning. Friday night, we went to a fun tapas restaurant in Logroño and saw another concert of American music! When the boys decided to go find some Spanish chicas, Deidre and I wandered around town and found a fun party with lots of dancing.
When Deidre and I woke up at 8:30am on Saturday, we heard some rustling in the boys room next door. Could it be that they were really waking up at the time we gave them to get a head start on the wineries? We found out later in the day that they had just gotten home from the discotecas in Logroño at 8:30am. Locos. The nice English couple that was also staying at Ana's house offered to drive me and Deidre into Logroño in their backwards car that the brought on the ferry from England. We hopped in. Had a very nice day: saw parades, cooking in the street of jamón and fish with their eyes still there, and had a nice nap in a parque. All of this exceitement, we found, was in celebration of the beginning of the wine season! Side note: Ana told us the night before that she messed up the booking, and had overbooked her house for Saturday night. She asked if we wouldn't mind moving to their cabin down the road. We said we were game for anything. So, after our nap, the boys picked us up and we drove to our new house. See my pictures and look for the little red cabin--it was so cute, but was like a playhouse for five year olds! It was definitely an adventure, and we got to know each other very well.
After dropping our stuff off, we decided to explore around our house. Little pond with goldfish inside, beautiful scenery, and suddenly we found the ruins of a castle. So beautiful, and fun to explore inside. It was Saturday afternoon around four, and we didn't have a plan yet for Saturday night. We looked at the map, and saw that Pamplona (the town famous for the running of the bulls) was so close! A Spaniard in the street told us it was about a 40 minute drive. And off we went.
Beautiful drive once again. After an annoying unsuccessful try at parking in the first structure we saw (famous quote of the trip by Aaron, "If we go any lower into this parking structure we'll hit lava for sure") we found a great spot on the street. We headed towards the area crowded with people that looked very historical. When I say crowded with people, I mean it was very hard to get through the street. We ducked into one of the first tapas places we saw, and proceeded to have an amazing tapas meal. I'll just say that I tried some things that I wouldn't have tried under any other circumstance...
We went back in the street to find fireworks above our heads! Very proud of our navigation skills-we really lucked out with all of our decisions of places to go this weekend. We drove around the historical area and saw the famous plaza de toros (bulls) and other beautiful buildings. All in all, it was an extremely successful weekend.
Tomorrow our group heads to Valencia! Will blog when I'm home.
Hi Debbie!
ReplyDeleteSo I am officially going to Madrid next semester through IES (the Michigan program there, same thing though!) I need to hear more about your life and recommendations you have, etc. I want to hear about your homestay family too! Email me if you want, juliekl@umich.edu
Julie (Klein)