Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

Saturday 26 July I slept in a bit, woke up and went and had breakfast with Mada and Jose in the kitchen. I took a shower, got ready and we loaded up all the food and gear necessary to make a giant paella on the beach. The whole family, Jose, Mada, Guanchi and me loaded up into Jose's orange Volkswagen van along with several surf boards, the food, towels and gear to set up camp. We headed out on the town and drove through windy roads for quite a ways. We finally got to the special beach we were going to and started to set up camp. Jose has an awning that attaches to his van and we set that up. Then Mada and I climed over the volcanic rocks to the water's edge. Then we laid out on the rocks and chatted and sunbathed. Then Sergio and Koki got there and more and more people eventually did as well. The paella was underway, cutting and cooking. It's a long process, but Jose was the master chef. Mada and I went down to the beach for a bit, also pitch black sand and sat with other people. Finally around 5PM the paella was ready. It was pretty good, especially since we were all so hungry. Someone had brought a special chocolate cake for Magdalena, since chocolate is her favorite food in the whole world. After lunch people took naps in their vans, cars and on the rocks and beach. Eventually people started leaving and we cleaned up and left too. It had been a long, fun day. Back at home we unloaded, I talked on the phone to Alicia and Victor. We took a shower and we ate a light dinner while watching Eddie Murphy's 1988 movie, Coming to America. Afterwards I went to bed.

Sunday 27 July I woke up again and met Jose and Mada in the kitchen for breakfast. Jose had to go meet with his dad and there wasn't really a plan for the day, so I just watched tv. Mada had told me, after telling me I could come whenever, that the dates I did choose weren't really good for her. Jose works two jobs and she is busy getting her her dental laboratory up and running with Sergio. It's not that I was a burden, she just wasn't going to be able to entertain me and run me around and show me things like she wanted to. I assured her it was ok and planned my trip to include 2 weekends to take advantage of. I was a little dissapointed that on a Sunday I was watching tv, but oh well. We walked the dog and then got ready to go to their friend's Sunday morning concert. It was pretty good, a Spanish band that sang in unintelligable English, but it was fun to go to a concert, like I used to in my old college days. Then afterwards we came home and Mada cooked up a pasta and we watched the Gooonies on tv, and slipped into a siesta. After that, Jose went to exercise or something and Mada and I took Guanchi to la Isleta, the little island off the coast of Las Palmas, which is now connected by a big bridge. We drove around a bit, rented a movie with George Clooney in it, Michael Clayton. Then as per the usue at the end of the day, I went to bed.

Monday 28 July I woke up and was all alone at home. I dinked around most of the morning doing goodness knows what, and finally showered and left the house. I used the map I picked up in the airport to get to the nearest tourist information office, which, because Mada and Jose live far away up on top of a mountain, was about 30 minutes away. I got all the info I could want on Las Palmas and headed to the bus stop that would take me to Triana, the shopping district of the city. I found the park where the bus stopped, looked around and got on the bus. It took a while, but when I saw an H&M I knew I was there and got off. Unfortunately, they didn't have the sunglasses I wanted so I kept shopping. I found a cd store and bought a cd for my guitar teacher Antonio and a Jarabe de Palo one for me. Then I found a Bocatta and had a nice salad, sandwich, yougart with a drink meal deal. Then I continued on to Vegeta, the historic area of the city. I visited the cathedral, the mueseum inside it and took the elevator up to the top of the bell tower. By this time I was pooped and took a nap on a bench in a square in front of the cathedral. Then I wandered around some more, and talked on the phone for a long time to my mom and dad, bringing them up to speed on some of my more recent adventures. Then I headed into the Casa de Colon, or Christopher Coloumbus' house. I know that dude has more birth and death places and places of residence than any other famous person, but he has a house in Las Palmas too. It was actually a pretty cool museum about his journey to the Americas, with a lot of old cool maps and interesting, nerd, touristy stuff I just love. After that I looked around in more shops, stopped by a church, bought a bus pass and finally headed home. When I got back Mada and I walked the dog, made and ate dinner with Jose, watched tv, I talked on the phone and went to bed.

Tuesday 29 July I woke up early because their cleaning lady came over. I took a shower, ate breakfast and got a waxing appointment at a salon next door. Then I tried to buy some milk but gave up and because it was overcast, decided to go to a nearby mall. Victor had asked me to get him a specific t-shirt in Greece, which despite my best efforts, I never found. I searched for the appropiate gift in Mallorca and was once again unsuccessful. I had also been looking for some beach cover-ups for my mom sister and I. So I was on a mission and had to complete it in Las Palmas. Mada had told me there were some cool souvenir/ traditional Canarian stores in the mall I went to every store in. I missed them or she was mistaken, because it was just like every other mall in the world, nothing typical or traditional about it. Slightly frustrated I headed towards el Pueblo Canario. Mada and my tourist info told me it was a small area set up like an old time pueblo of the Canary Islands, that had cute resturants, and lots of shops with great gifts in them. Maybe because I got there close to closing time, or because the tourist book had to exaggerate to get people to go there, it sucked. There was 1 really expensive resturant and 1 really crappy store and a museum I didn't feel like going into. Also by this time, the sun had come out. During the month of July Las Palmas suffers from La Panza del Burro. Where all the clouds get trapped between the mountains and keep it cloudly and chilly almost always. Taking this into consideration and the gloomy weather the day began with I planned on doing indoor touristy things, both of which flopped at an early stage in the day. Now I was really upset. Giftless, swimsuitless and foodless, I took the bus back, got ripped off by ordering a way too expensive salad and wandered into an internet cafe. I bought a 3 hour internet card for the rest of the week. It had been so long since I had used the internet and I was so frustrated, that I used up all 3 hours at once, checked my 85 emails and chatted with Michelle online. Sometimes you just need to spend a day on the internet. Then I headed back home. Mada's housing complex has a pool, gym and sauna and she said she was going to show me where they were. Otherwise there was no way I was going to find them. Her housing complex was a maze of houses, but this provided a challenge. No one tells me I won't be able to find something. So I changed clothes and set out to find them, which, of course I did. I went for a run on the treadmill overlooking the water, went for a dip in the pool and then a session in the sauna. I went back home and showered and started working a bit on my Greece blog. Then Mada came home and we made dinner watched tv and went to bed.

Wednesday 30 July Mada woke me up for a change of plans. The original plan was for me to wake up when I wanted, (I was planning on running again) and then calling Mada for her to come get me and take me to work with her. Turns out she was going to go in later so I could go with her, as in right then. So I went with her to the laboratory, which was really cool to see. She hadn't let anyone see it yet, but since I wasn't going to be around for its opening, she let me see it early. So I saw it in like 3 seconds and then used the internet in her office. It would have been great had I not spent 3 hours the day before on the internet. I still had emails to read and can always waste more time on the internet, but since her computer was a Mac, I coudln't bring up the document I had worked on the day before for my blog. So that's what I spent my morning doing. I went and had breakfast with Sergio, who treated me at a nearby cafe, but other than that just used the internet. Then we went home and had lunch with Mada and Jose and watched tv. That afternoon, Koki picked me up and took me to the beach with him. It was a neat beach and I laid out while he surfed. I swam a bit, but the waves were pretty big and not really swimming water. The bummer part was when a large group of adolescent hooligans next to me decided to get in a large scale sand fight and didn't apologize or say anything when I got caught in the cross fire. After a bit Koki came back and we headed back to his house. I used the internet a bit and bought a ticket to the Painted Caves of Galdar the next morning. Then we went down to the beach and had a drink and a tapa on the waterfront. Mada came and met us when she got off work for round 2. Then Mada took me home, I showered and we watched tv, ate dinner and went to bed.

Thursday 31 July I slept in, went for a run and then swam at the pool. Then I came back for a shower and met Mada and Jose for lunch. In the afternoon, Jose's sister Laura took me to Galdar to the painted caves. Even though I had bought a ticket for the morning, the night before when she offered to drive, I changed my plans and went in the afternoon. We got there a little early, bought tickets and walked around. I was on the lookout for gifts but had no luck. The caves were pretty cool but had a 3D video which I can't stand. The caves are the old home of the aboriginies that lived on the Canary Islands. It had their old hosues and had a lot of information about how they lived and when the Spanish came and took over. The main event is a cave where you can see their cave paintings. It was pretty cool, but I was a little underwhelmed. After that on our way to the car, this guys stopped Laura in the street to hit on her. It was amazing! Then back at home I went on a walk and to a small shopping center near Mada's house. I talked for a while on the phone to my dad and then when I got home talked to Mada. She was feeling sick and not hungry, and didn't know what to make for dinner so I offered to make dinner for Jose and myself. I made scrambled eggs with cheese and tomato sandwiches. He liked it a lot or at least faked it really well, and we watched tv and went to bed.

Friday 1 August I woke up and went running, took a shower and went to get my legs waxed. It turned out to be a huge dissapointment as the girl did a horrible job and wouldn't do what I wanted her to do and charged me a ridiculously expensive price for such a bad job. I was so angry I called Michelle to vent and asked her to look up the number for the place I got to in Granada so I could make another appointment. Then I stopped by the internet cafe for a quick minute and headed on the bus to Triana. I looked around a few of the tourist shops and finally found a gift for Victor, a cool painted plate, typical of the islands, and a magnet for me, Jose and Mada and some honey rum. Then I visited the Museo Canario, which was actually really cool. It had a big section of mummified bodies and skulls, where they could see evidence of them having cut holes in their skulls for medicinal purposes. It was pretty cool but the guy working there was quite rude. Then I talked on the phone to my mom while shopping for lunch at a grocery store. I finally bought sandwich stuff and headed back towards the beach on the bus. I went to the beach closest to Mada's house, which in the hub-bub of the week I had neglected to go to. I left to got back to meet Mada to go pick out costumes for a party we were going to. On my way up the mountain, I actually ran into Mada and Sergio in the car. I hopped in and we went shopping. I ended up finding 2 cover-ups for my mom and sister, but not one for me. We bought Mada's costume and some shoes and Koki met us. Then we went to Jose's mom and sister's house and picked up a costume Laura was letting me borrow. Then the 4 of us went to this really awesome cliffside cafe and had a few rounds of drinks and tapas. Then we dropped the boys off and went home, showered and went to bed.

Saturday 2 August we woke up early and Mada and I headed South to the touristy beaches of Maspalomas. This was the area of the island that is all hotels and bungalows and tourist-town. We had to park the car in a paid parking lot and went to the beach. We also bought some cold water. Then we headed to the beach. It was really hot and the tide came up really fast. So fast in fact that it caught us by suprise and soaked our towels. It was a long beach with a lot of sand, a big row of the pay umbrellas and seats and then the water when the tide came up. So our only choice was to move back behind the pay chairs into the scoarching desert sand. We tried that for a while, till Mada said she would treat me to a drink from the Kiosk. As with most things in tourist areas, it was really expensive and after paying for it, Mada realized that she didn't have any more money. I also only had about 5 Euros. We were going to get sandwiches and ice creams too, but realized we had to pay to get the car out of the parking lot too. So we decided to go, sans lunch, and had barely enough money to get the car out. We headed home, stopped by an ATM, and I ate some leftover spaghetti for lunch. We showered and got ready to go to the Romeria. Mada did my makeup, always an adventure and we dressed up like peasants. We were going to la Romeria de Santa Brigida. The festival of a nearby town. We were having a private bus take us and 40 other friends there at 4:30, drop us off and then pick us up at 3:30 in the morning. Our costumes were ridiculous but awesome because everyone dressed up. The romeria was fun, lots of people, food, dancing, a procession and craziness. I had a good time telling jokes and hearing them as Koki and Jose are joke masters. It was really fun and nuts, the only bad part was trying to order sandwiches, which took over an hour because of all the people. Mada and Jose left early, kind of ditching me, but I was still with Sergio and Koki. We stayed till the bus got us as 3:30 and then when it dropped us off again in Las Palmas I took a taxi home and called Mada to let me in. Exhausted after a great night of Spanish ridiculousness, I peeled off my peasant clothes and crawled into bed for some much needed sleep.

Sunday 3 August despite my non-alcoholic hangover, I woke up at 8 to pack, organize and transfer my pictures to Mada's computer. Jose brought us churros for breakfast and said goodbye as he had to go meet with his dad. I visited with Mada and she showed me her pictures and I showed her ones from the last year and my family. Then I had to shower and get ready to leave. She took me to the airport and dropped me off. I was sad to say goodbye. Then I checked in and went through security. I had a lot of time to shop and sample all the types of Canarian food they were trying to sell. Tasting all the different types of Mojo Picon they sold ended up being a bad idea after romeria food and churros. I bought a soda to settle my stomach and walked up and down the airport shopping. My flight was late and I was getting more and more frustrated with Vueling. I had originally chosen my flight to leave at 8AM, so I could arrive in Madrid at 12, and then to Granada at a decent hour after that. But they changed it to leave at 3, pushing my arrival to Madrid back to 7 which meant I had to book it to the bus station to try and catch the 9:30 bus. It seems like I would have more than enough time, but I had dealt with airports, the Metro in Madrid and the bus station enough times to know that it was going to be close. So my flight left almost an hour late. When I got to the airport, I called Alicia and made plans to meet her in the Metro. She rode with me and we chatted to the bus station where I rushed to the ticket counter by 8PM. To my dismay, but not necessicarily to my suprise, all 3 9:30PM busses to Granada were sold out. I almost started crying as I bought a ticket for 11:30PM. Victor called to see what time I would be in and I told him the sad truth. 4:30AM. Alicia and I tried several times to go to the shopping center next to the bus station and finally succeded in escaping from the maze of the Metro/bus station. We went and had dinner at the Corte Ingles and then shopped around for a wedding gift for her friend. Then we had some more time to kill in the It was really great to spend some time with her as I knew I wouldn't see her again before I left. She sent me off on the bus and I headed off on my last 5 hour journey to Granada. I read the Davinci Code as I was trying to finish it so I could give it back to Adrian. It seemed like the longest trip ever but I finally made it back to Granada and Victor picked me up and took me home. It was so great to be done travelling and living out of a suitcase and to be with Victor again. Little did I know what the next day had in store for me...