Snow in Yosemite

According to other Yosemite Institute instructors, it is hard to get jaded.  Casey, for example, will not wake up dissapointed and say, “Darn, I have to go to work in Yosemite Valley today.”  Or take Andy for example.  Maybe on Wednesday morning, he will not want to get out of bed and meet his group.  And then he promptly smacks himself in the face when thinks about it . . . “Oh yeah, I get to work beneath El Capitan, a wall of rock that towers 3000+ feet into the sky.  There are far worse jobs.” 

I think that if I ever get dissapointed by my “office,” I am ready for another job.  I know this is saying a lot from somebody who has not worked since June 15 of last year, but this place is astounding.  Before today, I had never seen Yosemite in January, other than Ansel Adams photographs.  It is truely a winter wonderland here.  Pockets of misty fog settled into the nooks and crannies between mountains and snow is everywhere.  The beautiful Merced River is full of raging torrents and strewn with boulders.  And the largest solitary boulders sitting in the middle of deep pools are covered with snow, several inches of it. 

Then I look up at El Capitan.  My eyes meet the bold granite face and I keep looking up, and up, and up, until I run out of rock and the cliff face gets obstructed by clouds.  But wait, there’s more: because above that layer of wispy clouds, is more rock face.  It continues to tower above the clouds.

This morning we pushed on through the valley and up to Badger pass, Yosemite’s cross country and alpine ski area.  Did I mention that I love this job?  Today I got paid to learn how to ski, to learn how to teach students to ski, and to lead activities in the snow.  The hardest thing I had to do today was keep warm.  Which actually is harder than in sounds as it was snowing considerably in the morning and the temperature was hovering right around 30 degrees F.  But the weather did not stop us and we skied up to badger summit and then back down.  As it turns out, I am not as good at cross country skiing as I’d like to admit, but I could hold my own and hopefully didn’t injor anything to major!

Also, the people here are all great.  Everyone is helpful and willing to get me up to speed and the people I live with are visiting, making sure I am all moved in ok.  I am living in a house called The Hotel, as it is an old converted hotel in the town of El Portal, just east of the park entrance.  I have eight other roommates, each with our own room and a huge shared kitchen and common areas. 

Tomorrow, and for the rest of the week, I am observing other instructors with student groups.  And then next Monday I get my own students.  It will be my first day of school in a while; just not in my traditional classroom.  I can’t wait!

California Dreaming

The flight was hardly full to capacity, but I decided to sit near the front anyway.  I went for the seat between two women.  Women are usually a little smaller than men; there would be less jockeying for elbow room on the all-too-scarce arm rests.  Turns out, I guessed wrong.  The woman on my left, about my age, turned out to obsessively-compulsively apply hand sterilizer to her hands.  Did she know something about the bacteria on the chairs that I didnt?  And so the hours passed, buzzing through the sky at a million miles an hour, with the pugnant smell of rubbing alcohol, killing, and then re-killing the bacteria on my neighbor’s fingertips.

Needless to say, meeting Naomi and Katie with big hugs and welcoming smiles at San Fransisco International airport was quite a relief to the eight previous hours spent getting there.  Naomi and Katie are both instructors who I met last August when I was here for training.  On the August trip, these were two of the intrepid souls who ventured with me up clouds rest, then half dome, past vernal and nevada falls, and on into Yosemite Valley in an epic 20+ hour, 20+ mile hike.  But that is another whole story that I forgot to blog about when it happened.

Meanwhile, back at the airport,  some cop is giving Naomi a hard time for parking in the waiting area for too long as Katie and I are using our best tetris skills to fit my rediculous amount of stuff into the back of Naomi’s car.  I thought for a second we might have to sell the bicycle.  But soon enough, the 30 or 40 boxes of bikes and useless household crap, and three people were in the car and cruising down highway 101.

Flying past cars and palm trees and the easy 58 degree weather, the next thing I knew, I found myself in the great central valley.  Orange trees, and almonds, and olives were everywhere.  And of course, the other best reason for coming to California: the taco trucks parked on the side of the freeways.

The one we stopped at happened to be Ramon’s.  Katie did not recommend the burrito, much to my dissapointment, but I heeded her advise and ordered three veggie quesadillas.  (No, not all for me–one for each of us).

And then we were off again, to the great place called Yosemite.  It was a long day of travel; after the hillcious flight, the driving part took another four or five hours.  Up mountains.  Past the beautiful Merced River.  Into canyons.  Past the famous rockfall area that has forced drivers onto a one-way stretch of highway for the past three years now.   And then we were there.  My new home, my old friends from last August.  My new life, and nothing but eagerness and excitement to get it all started.

Dublin . . . Again!

Here I am, back in Dublin before the last big push for the USA.  It is strangely familiar here.  For example, I know the rates of the internet here at teh airport and only had a 2 Euro coin, so here I am killing the extra €1.62 that I have vested intot his machine.  So a few more details about Spain: the ride was 502 miles, or roughly 800 km.  We rode from Pamplona to Santiago de Compostela and it took us 15 days.  We did not take any days off until we were finished in Santiago and that’s when the hips and knees and ankles really started to hurt.  But it was worth it.  We only had one rainy day in the region of Galicia, named from its Galic influences, hence the rain, and that’s when Dena and I called into a pulperia, restaurants that sell octopus, (in a region known for its famous octopus).  ANd i have to say, that not only was it muy rico, it was nice to not have to sit out in the rain.

Tomorrow we fly out of Dublin to Washington, DC and I’m thinking it will be nice to be stateside, but I will most certaintly miss Europe.  For example, the rasin scone that I am about to go purchase here in the airport.  When I return to the states, it’s one night in DC, then on to New York City to see Radiohead, and then the next day it’s on to California for three weeks of training at the Yosemite Institute, my job that starts in January.  So the traveling is by no means over, but I have no idea when I’ll be writing again.  I am fairly confidant that there is another big trip in the works for this fall, probably Hawaii, or maybe even New Zeland, but no promises on either!

For those of you asking about pictures, I didn’t have the technical prowess or Euros required to put up pics, but I might look at it in September and add a few if I get the chance.  In the meantime, thanks so much for reading.

We Made It!

Yes, it´s true.  Dena and I rode into Santiago yesterday with achy muscles and strong minds.  Having experienced everything from bike crashes to sunrises, to friendly strangers and evil albergue-nazis, we finally got here to this lovely city.  More later on stats, hopefully complete with distances, but no time for that now.  Just know that we celebrated in fine fiesta style with calamari frita and pupo (octopus), served tapas style along with the regular normal stuff like cervecas and sangria.  Desert was a Torta de Santiago, an almond coffee cake famous in this region.

Buen Camino

On the trail, there is a common bond for all pilgrims, or peregrinos as they are called in Spanish.  We are all suffering in someway, and we are all loving our own little challenges and trimuphs that make up our day.  Also, we come from all over the world.  It is hard to count all the different languages I have heard, or think I have heard.  One thing does keep the lines of communication rolling amongst the pilgrims however, and that is obviously the Spanish language.

The standard greeting is to say buen camino, which literally translates to good road, but is like the English equavalent of happy trails.  Also, according to one mountain biker we rode with some, this greeting is only common on the el Camino de Santiago.  Anyhow, because all the pilgrims are going in one direction (another subtle but unique part of this experience), Dena and I find ourselves saying buen camino, or buenos dias, or pardon por favor (because we are on bikes which move a bit faster than walkers).  This happens all day and is quite commonj on the trail.

So the other day I was struggling up a mountain.  This might have been the steepest climb I have ever done, but I´ll save those details for another blog post.  Anyhow, I had pulled away from Dena, my security blanket when it comes to the Spanish language.  There was a group of Spaniards ahead of me on the road, and I was not moving fast as they were because we were climbing the aforementioned mountain.  They say buen camino to me.  I replied with the common response: gracias, buen camino.  But the conversation did not end there.

One of the fluent Spanish speakers hit me with a pile of words and I didn´t understand any of them.  Instead of going to the trouble of saying: no hablo mucho espanol (I don´t speak much Spanish), I just said all I could muster for the effort I was putting into the mountain: estoy cansado, tambien.  When I later expained this to Dena, we guessed that they probably were commenting on the view or the weather.  If that was the case, the conversation would have sounded something like this:

Spanish speaker: Heck of a view huh? These hills are beautiful, especially this time of year.

Patrick: I am tired, also.

Going to the . . . Cathedral!?

So Dena and I ride into a town called Astorga.  It is not a huge city but big enough to have a really good time: large plazas, cafes, and the like.  As we make our way into the centre of town, we find people in Roman costume, a brass band marching through town, people on the streets everywhere, and food vendors and artisans selling their wares.  It was much like the Disney movie Alladin.   Astorga was celebrating with a Roman festivle.  It is their week-long festivle that apparently many Spanish cities do, much like San Fermin in Pamplona (or the Running of the Bulls).

Anyhow, people are everywhere and we happened accross a church.  But this was not just a normal church, it was a cathedral.  It had this amazing facade with all sorts of intricate carvings and towers and bells.  Then, below all the towering ornate-ness (if that´s a word) on the steps, we could see a wedding party, dressed to kill.  Bride and groom and all the kings horses and all the kings men.  It was a sight to behold.  Now just witnessing this wasn´t such a big deal; it sort of reminded Dena and I of a week ago when we saw a baptism happening in an adjacent room of another elaborate gold-plated church.  We merely looked at each other and considered it another twist of our Spanish cultural experience.

What made this wedding wild was what occurred later in the public plaza when we were eating a fine meal of pollo asado con papas fritas and we see the wedding party show up.  And then the guests.  And then the paparazzi.  People were shouting and yelling and everyone was smiling . . . It seemed like a great time.  Rice was thrown, rose petals were thrown, fire crackers shook the entire plaza and all its inhabitants, and even bottle rockets were getting lit right there in the plaza.  Cheers, shouts, babies crying: there was nothing private about this wedding.   Dena and I cheered with the rest of them as the guests quickly found their way to the reception, or the cafe next door for a quick laugh with their mates.

What made the experience complete is that two more times was the wedding a factor in the evening.  Because Dena and I couldn´t secure a place to camp in the city, we ended up staying at a pilgrim alburge, or a hostel, designed for people walking or riding the el Camino de Santigo.  They usually provide great facilities, but they also cram 12-70 people into one room to sleep.  This particular room we were in had about 30.  Too hot to sleep, too hot to move.

I decided to take a break from tossing and turning and stepped outside on the balcony only to hear a live band echoing off the wall accross from the courtyard with people cheering and laughing. I knew in one second that that had to be the wedding I saw about six hours eariler that day, going strong.  I wasn´t mad because they sure wern´t keeping me up!

When six am FINALLY rolled around, we packed up our things and hit the trail.  On our way out the door Dena and I saw the exact same people who were lighting fire crackers in the plaza the night before doing the happy, grinning, tired stumble home.  They were singing us songs and wishing us well as we pedaled off.  All I can say is that I have to get better at speaking Spanish so I can make some Spanish friends and get invited to one of these weddings!

Scenes from a Spanish Plaza

Sitting at the northwest corner of San Fernando Plaza in Leon, I can scan the plaza from left to right and see almost a million little dramas, exciting interactions, every spectrum of emotion, every single age, and what really accounts to regular Spainish people doing their regular late-July evening activities.  But first, the structures.

At one end is a fountain.  It is very simple: just water flowing from a lions head.  It is entertaining the kids as they splash about and it refreshes the masses as people come to it to drink.  It just constantly flows.  Pretty for the eye to look at and also quite practical.  On the other end of the plaza is a gazebo where I can  only assume bands play during festivles and speeches are made.  Dena and I thought for a second that it might be a nice place to pitch our tent, but we´d never get to sleep if we had done it.

Around the outside of the plaza are cafes, restaurants, shops, the panaderia (where people buy bread), even though it has long closed its doors for business, and people drinking wine, smoking, laughing, and telling stories.

Then there is the space between the fountain and the gazebo, which is where the people come in.  As I gaze from right to left, I see it all.  It starts with the old man, sitting silently and solo, making up stories in his mind about everything he sees.  I can understand him pretty well because I am doing exactly what he is doing: watching the people.  One difference is that he has a cane and uses it.  Yes, I can relate to him but I can at least get around a little faster than he can, despite my fast approaching 30th birthday (AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!)

Past the older fellow, I see a group of middle aged women, many of whom are smoking, no doubt telling stories to each other about their days.  This seems like a ritual to me; like they have to do it every single evening (at least in the summertime anyway).

At the foutain, grade school aged boys are filling up water pistols and shooting each other with them.  That is, until they are interruped by a high school aged boy carrying a big helmet.  He scans the plaza, just like I am, takes a drink, and dissapears as fast as he approached.  Dena and I speculated that he really didn´t want to get a drink; that was his excuse to see which of his mates (or maybe see which attractive chicas) were present at the plaza this evening.  Because no sooner did he disappear then did he reappear on a four-wheel ATV, huge helmet and all, rolling through the plaza.  One of his mates was on a motor-cross bike behind him.

Futher to the left, at the far corner of the plaza I see middle school aged girls who had just spent all their money at the sweet shop, trading sticks of gum for chocolate.  There is a pack of middle school aged boys nearby, all on bicycles.  There are no rules about bicycles in the plaza.  In fact, there seems to be no rules at all.

In the center of the plaza, grade school aged boys are using the gazebo as goal posts for their futbol (soccer) game.  It is the downhill end of the plaza so every fourth or fifth shot, the keeper has to go running through the people sitting in chairs at the cafe at that end of the plaza.  Oh well, any other night the goal could have been anywhere else at the plaza.  After a quality goal, the shooter would throw his hands in the air and shout something that I couldn´t hear over the din of the masses.

Last, to my immediate left, a very young girl is crying because her older brother hit her.  The brother is getting a “time-out” from Dad, but I saw it all.  Really, the little sister was antagonizing her brother until he couldn´t really handle it anymore and laid a whopper on her face.  Secretly I laughed, but I also might go to hell for it.

Through all this, I was munching on a bocadilla with Dena and just enjoying the entertainment.  It was better than TV.  Bruce Springsteen has a line in his song Jungleland (I think) in which he says: “There´s an opera out on the turnpike, there´s a drama being fought out in the alley.”  This is Spain, not New Jersey, but the happiness and sadness, and simple emotions, and standard evening feelings were as apparent out here in the plaza as they could have been anywhere.  I fell asleep that night like I understood another part of the world that much better, despite the fact that they were the same things that happen anywhere.

Mesata Flying

So Dena biked the furthest distance she has ever biked in her life today, for the second day in a row.  We went 43 miles and it was not the best conditions for cycling in that we were biking atop the mesatas in dry desert heat with the wind constantly in our faces. 

The mesatas are the Spanish equalivent of the US western landscape of high desert plateaus.  They sit at 900 meters high and remind me very much of Idaho. There are tough climbs to reach the top, then flat on top with field after field of wheat, or some sort of grain. 

Also atop the mesata is an intensity of exposure.  The steepness of the hills are heightened, the sun is brighter and hotter, the wind blows harder in your face, and the air is just a little bit harder to breathe.  Even the bumps in the dusty earthen tracks seem to bounce the bike a bit harder.  It´s almost like we are that much closer to the sun.

The intensity was further exacerbated by the lunch we had just before one exceptionally large climb to the top of a mesata.  Dena ordered us bocadillas y cervezas (sandwiches and beers) which was awesome because we were famished after a full mornings ride, we were hot, and definitely needed something cold to drink.  We were sure the beer would be cold.  (With Fanta orange soda, you take your chances on cold).  Dena also made sure the beers were “doubles” or what normal beer drinkers might call “a pint.”  While Spaniards do noot sem opposed to drinking beers, they rarely fill a glass with the stuff and it is hard to get more than a thimble-full.  I suppose thy just like small glasses here.  more on that later.

Anyhow, the publican, whose name was Roberto I believe, was quite a chatty fellow as he kept Dena on her toes (and me too) with the language difference.  I was able to order a fish sandwich with cheese.  Dena got a tortilla sandwich con queso and the queso was muy rico.  Roberto assured us it was locally made queso and very special . . . and it was.  He also did not want us to leave hungry as he sent us off up the mesata with a cookie each, made by monks at the local monastary.

I think I´m finally getting used to the defferences here but I don´t know if I lke them.  Spaniards are not really into breakfast (see previous blog about the night owl culture) and it is really hard to get milk (leche) or a proper pint of cerveza.  I may only ever eat bocadillas here, but i suppose that´s ok because I really like those!  And with my newly aquired language skills, I can always order another thimble of cerveza!

We are Pilgrims

Yesterday we slept in a bunk huose with about 16 other pilgrims, who are all walking or biking the El Camino de Santiago.  This is (sort of) Spanish for St. James´Way, or the way to the burial site of St. James. 

There is so much to see.  I have never done anything like this in my life.  It is a fully unsupported mountain bike tour.  We are fully loaded with tents and sleeping gear, clothes for all weather as we have had just a bit of everything, and some food.  We don´t need to carry too much food because there are towns along the way.  Every time I see a FANTA sign, I have to stop because there just might be a cold drink awaiting.  There is also wine.  IT´s like they are giving it away.  In fact, they ARE as one bodega had two taps in the side of a wall: one that said vino, the other auga!  Dena and I filled up on both. 

We´ve been biking about 50 km per day (30 miles), which is pretty tough considering it´s all mountain biking.  The trail had yielded every single type of terrain including large mountain passes, dirty clay, rocks, gravel, paved roads, dried hard mud, bridges, wet mud, hills, flats, downhills, trees (hiding banditos), meadows, farmland (mostly of vineyards and wheat) and tall grass encroaching upon the trail.  At one point I stopped next to a vineyard and asked Dena did you hear that?  She said no.  And I said: Oh, i heard it through the grapevine!  As it turns out, Dena is a rockstar biker having had no prior experience biking before this trip and holding her own quite well for difficult and somewhat technical mountain bike moves that freak me out.

The Spainards are a culture of night owls.  They don´t open their shops until 9 or 10 am, and then seem to close them down again in the afternoon for siesta, which seems to last anywhere from 12 noon to seven pm.  It depends on the town I suppose but don´t go into the afternoon hungry, cause you might not eat for a while. 

And then the dinner hour.  We were seeking a restaurant at 6 pm on a Sunday, and everthing was borded up.  When we found a place that would feed us, we were out by 8 pm, and all the shops and restraunts that had been closed, were just then starting to put out their chairs and open up for business.  AT 8 PM ON A SUNDAY EVENING!  Then when Dena and I lay our heads down to sleep (usually pretty early), the voices start rising up from the street, and they get ouder and louder as the evening wears on.  Its a great culture but I don´t know how long I´d last!  More later but I don´t know when.

Viva España

Muy bien, gracias!  This place es mut bonita.  I can´t put my camera away because every where I turn there is something I want to capture.  I know we are in cities, but they are nothing like any place i have ever been before.  In Santander, Dena and I visited Roberto and Pilar, her host family from when she lived in Spain two summers ago.  They were gracious hosts cooking us big meals and sending us off with great food such a un tortilla.  A potato-egg-onion ensemble, very different from Mexican tortillias that most of us Norte Americanos are familiar with.  Also in Santander are flags hanging from thousands of the house windows.  Deep red and gold, some with a black bull on the front.  Pilar said it was because of the football tournament that Spain just won.  I felt quite at home in my new Spainish football jersey (that I bought in Ireland-go figure)!

We also went to the beach in Santander in the afternoon we were there.  We ate helado (ice cream) and didn´t sleep too many hours as we needed to catch a cab to catch a bus to Pamplona the very next day.  I am in Pamplona now, and I am faced with very similar problems: in which direction do I point my camera?  The streets here are long and winding and very narow with a cobbled road surface and there are flower pots hanging from almost every window, and the appartments rise to meet crystal clear blue the sky.  Ah, the blue sky.  Azul never sounded so good.  and the plazas.  and the fountains.  and the cafes.  and the churches that are only-oh, say 500 plus years old.

I can´t wait to get lost in this city, and then to get found again.  We are pilgrims on el Camino de Santiago.  See you on el camino.