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thefloatingbed · 7 years ago

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Travel Ramble: 2017

WARNING: It’s extremely long, unedited and self indulgent.

My first actual backpack trip was in 2012 when I traveled to Paris, Madrid and Barcelona in between two jobs. It was a big deal for me for various reasons. Also, while I was meeting my friend Sowm (short for Sowmyatta) for the Spain leg, I was going to be on my own in Paris for the first and last three days of my trip. I was unbelievably nervous. At that time, I didn’t know that while I am so talented at consuming alcohol on earth, my body cannot handle alcohol when I am suspended in the air. So to ease my nerves and to summon the courage to be rude to the old uncle sitting next to me who was fucking chewing my brains out (I have a crazy amount of old uncle stories), I drank a small bottle of red wine. Just an hour later, everything in my stomach was somersaulting. I controlled my urge to vomit on the uncle, which would have been my ultimate revenge, and somehow found my way to the washroom.

In five years, I have become a better-prepared and perhaps a more evolved “traveler” (even though I have now developed a crazy and irrational fear of flying itself since the last couple of years, but that’s another story). Traveling is intricately bound with the way I live. I keep shedding my stuff to keep it to a bare minimum to be able to run away at a moment’s notice. I have also always been very romantic about the idea of uprooting and beginning over and over again. But I must confess that as I am growing older, I am unfortunately getting attached to my base (Bombay). I still like spending a LOT of time outside Bombay but I now look forward to coming back. Anyways, back to my travel notes for now.

My most recent trip was to Portugal and Spain (Lisbon – Madrid – Seville – Lisbon – Sintra (one day trip) – Lisbon – Lagos – Sagres (one day trip to a stranger’s washroom and to a bus stop of Sagres with a view of a supermarket) – Lagos – Lisbon). The first three days in the cobblestoned Lisbon passed like sand through my hands. With a crazy hangover on the third day, I took an overnight bus to Madrid. My nine days in Madrid were more like being at home, mostly because of my friend who hosted me in his beautiful home and of this being my second time in Madrid. My days mostly involved communicating with ducks and tortoises in my eternally favorite Retiro park, finding shortcuts to walk to Retiro, getting lost in Retiro, doing some journal writing in Retiro and sometimes having my lunch, well, in Retiro. Apart from the park, I just visited two local galleries, Reina Sofia museum, and one more new area in Madrid called Lavapies to see some street art. My friend and I went to pretty much the same local watering hole every night for cheap beers and then just walked aimlessly around till midnight.

Till Madrid I was still connected to the shreds of my life back home but the moment I got to Seville after another long bus ride, and fell head over heels in love with it instantly, I decided to pretty much cut off except for my occasional Instagram posts. I was anyways only connected to my phone when I had a WiFi connection which was usually for like 10% of my entire day. Seville is where I started collecting myself thoroughly. I had a rough year for multiple reasons, and unlike during one of my earlier travel experiences where I brutally suppressed whatever I was going through before leaving and ended up with a severe depression all throughout the holiday, this time I let all kinds of thoughts play out in my head in whatever way they pleased. There was something inherently honest about Seville’s beauty and character (especially one district I visited called Triana which is now my soulmate district) which really helped. It was the best place to be completely on my own. I ate 80% of my meals at the same restaurant and the waiter asked me after my few times there if I was thinking of moving to Seville. Every stormy thought in my head slowly settled down with every gorgeous building/house I passed, with every person I ended up meeting there especially during the free communal dinners at my hostel, and with every experience I had with a stranger including an extremely random old aunty who convinced me that I am a “great catch”. I just laughed and didn’t have the heart to tell her that being a “catch” is the last thing on my mind right now.

Talking about being a catch though, remember the old uncle stuff I mentioned in the beginning - so that spiralled out of control during this trip. Old uncles (and only old uncles) love to chat or flirt with me. Specifically during this trip, I met old uncles at the metro stations, in the metro, at the park, at the supermarket (where my friend/host in Madrid left me for like five minutes and an old Spanish uncle painstakingly used his broken English to tell me that he really liked my shoes), and at benches (at a bench in my favorite plaza in Seville, one continued talking to me in Spanish despite of me continually telling him that I don’t speak Spanish. After a while, I gave up and just nodded to whatever he was saying) – you name the location and I’ll find you a chatty or flirty old uncle.

Apart from the uncles and a few sweet boys me and my friend Sowm met in our hostel in Lisbon, I also had long conversations with a lot of interesting women during this trip – a nurse from Boston, USA; a Greek woman from the USA now working in London in a company’s HR department; a woman in the wine business in Amsterdam; a Latina woman from the USA who used to work in Peace Corps and was now travelling for more than six months, doing small jobs on the go to pay for her travels; and an American nanny now based in Barcelona for a few months.

I got onto my third long bus ride from Seville to Lisbon where Sowm was joining me for the last ten days of the trip. A bit about Sowm – a story that we must have told to at least 20 people during our entire trip because as soon as she would say she is from Texas and I am from Mumbai, people just wanted to know how we ended up traveling together – we spent four years in school together (completely irrelevant piece of fact but our school was called Harvard Academy and Harvard University actually sued our school and now it’s called Hillwoods Academy. True fucking story) where we weren’t really thick pals. She then moved to the US and I came to Mumbai. Somehow though, through crazy technological divine intervention, we got back in touch and started swapping stories about our non existent love and average work lives. Our random conversations shape-shifted into a traveling plan in 2012 which is when we met in Madrid after 10 years and realized we were just talented at travelling together. We obviously became even better friends over the last five years during which Sowm also got married to an amazing guy, before meeting again in Lisbon last month. We also realized, especially during this trip, that we are extremely and eerily similar to each other in so many ways. We share our demons as easily as we share a bottle of delicious wine and fits of laughter over the most inane things.

So well, Lisbon with Sowm was a rollercoaster ride as we walked the hell out in different parts of the city and crunched a lot of experiences in a short duration. We also ended up meeting all our hostel roommates at a hill in (the highly overrated) Sintra completely accidentally and got a picture together.

From Lisbon, we took a six-hour bus ride and headed to what turned out to be a very shady hostel in the absolutely stunning all-white Lagos in the Algarve region of Portugal. We hated the washroom of our hostel so much that we didn’t shower for four days and just took dips in the ocean (I am half-kidding). Among many other places in Lagos, we ended up going to a terrific bar owned by a terrific woman called MJ where Sowm became the queen of pub quiz and earned herself free shots. I was so fucking proud when she screamed “Litmus Test” as an answer to one of the questions and the entire room turned to look at us. MJ was so impressed that she eventually told us about her life and how she ended up starting MJ’s bar. Another highlight of Lagos was that I almost drowned in the ocean when Sowm suggested that I sit down to take it all in as a really strong wave was about to grace us with its arrival. I was pretty much swallowed by that wave but Sowm managed to drag me out. Did I mention that both of us don’t know how to swim? Anyways, Sowm convinced me that many old uncles stepped up to save me. Since she specifically said old uncles, I was convinced that they really would have saved me. We came out giggling. We were also a bit high on wine of course.

I already covered the one day trip to Sagres from Lagos in my itinerary description earlier so I will skip that.

At the bus stop at Lagos to catch our bus to Lisbon where we had one final day of our holiday together, my heart had started sinking - mainly with the anticipation of the mangled up stuff I would have to practically deal with and sort out once I head back. One part of me was ready to deal with everything, but another wanted to hide in one of the smaller towns in Algarve, working at a bar and learning how to swim in my free time. Anyhow, the last day in Lisbon just involved walking some more, picking up wine and trinkets to carry back home, waiting outside a restaurant for an hour while drinking wine sitting on the pavement, etc, and I had no other anxiety except about being on two different planes for about ten hours .

#travel #spain #photography #portugal #my life #europe #holiday

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uscdornsifeadmission · 6 years ago

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Dornsife Summer Study Abroad In Madrid, Spain - Kiarra Akiyoshi

This past Summer I was lucky enough to be able to study abroad in Madrid, Spain for 8 weeks, thanks to USC Dornsife. Coming into college I always knew I would love to study abroad in Spain at some point, but being pre-med meant my options were slim. In the winter of my freshman year, my Spanish advisor informed me about the Dornsife Madrid Summer Study Abroad Program, and I immediately became interested. Thankfully everything worked out, and I was able to go on my first trip to Europe with 18 other Spanish majors/minors!

Everyone in the program had varying levels of Spanish experience; I was one of a few rising sophomores among mostly juniors and seniors, so I was intimidated at first. But, being enveloped in the Spanish culture and living with a host family drastically increased my confidence in my Spanish-speaking skills right away. I was able to live with one other girl from my program in the cute apartment of a 67-year old woman named Mayte. She spoke no English whatsoever, so it was a great experience to interact with her daily for two whole months. She was hilarious and a great cook; we were fed traditional, home-made Spanish meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. We bonded so well with her, we still keep in touch now!

We took two Spanish classes for credit while we were there: SPAN 311: Advanced Spanish Through Contemporary Issues and SPAN 465: Cultural Perspectives of the Iberian Peninsula. SPAN 311 was taught by Professors Roberto Ignacio Diaz and Samuel Steinberg, and SPAN 465 was taught by an art historian from Madrid, Paco Gómez. All three of these professors were some of my favorites I have had here at USC!

We attended classes at el Instituto Internacional on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays every week. On Tuesday afternoons we visited the iconic museums of Madrid, including the Prado, Thyssen-Bornemisza, and the Reina Sofia, where Paco led us on super insightful tours that supplemented what we learned about the history of Spain in class. On Wednesdays we took day trips to historic cities around Madrid, such as Córdoba, Toledo, and La Granja.

With the weekends free, my friends and I jumped at the opportunity to travel around Spain (and Rome for one weekend). Everywhere we went we experienced amazing, traditional food (great seafood in San Sebastián!), and met extremely kind, entertaining people. In the middle of the program- after midterms- we spent a week in Barcelona (with a break from classes, too). We went to the beach, visited museums, ate great food a la USC, learned so much, and bonded greatly with each other and our professors. My favorite parts about Barcelona were Park Güell, La Sagrada Familia, and the Dalí museum in Figueres (about 2 hours north of Barcelona).

I am so thankful for all of the opportunities I had while in Madrid and especially for the knowledge I gained, the people I met, and the food I tasted! My homestay was right next to Retiro Park, which is sort of like a Central Park for Madrid, and I miss that environment so much. The public transportation system in the city is super efficient, and I felt so safe wherever I went. With a variety of Spanish and international food, great shopping, some of the world’s top museums, and the nicest people, Madrid quickly became one of my favorite places in the world, and I hope I can return someday! Participating in this program was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made (aside from deciding to come to USC), and I highly recommend it to anyone with the opportunity to do so.

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afrojonathan · 5 years ago

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Day 36: Madrid, Spain

I started the day with a workout in a park filled with drunks, though they seemed generally unbothered by me. After, I ventured out for some breakfast (I learned the term for multigrain bread is “pan cereales”), and with only about 2 hours until an important work call, I wanted to squeeze in a museum. So, off on my trusty Lime scooter I went, hurtling through the city en route to the Sofia Reina Museum. On the way, I came across the Thyssen Museum, the one I planned to go to post-call, so given I was already there, I decided to pop in (turns out this was a wise choice given the amount of time I had). It was a great museum of a famous collector, who assembled an astonishing varied collection over his life. I started in the medieval arts section as I knew I could fly through it (because, meh), and got to the galleries for Impressionism and such. There were some great Picassos, Kandinskys (my favorite artist), Von Rysslebergs (a pointillist artist I like), Gaugins, Degalls, and many others from artists I enjoy. I also had a timed entry to a temporary exhibit pairing the haute coture of Spain’s Balenciaga with old paintings (meh). I went back to the part of the museum I liked for a bit, but felt that feeling I hate of missing something (definite FOMO of some of the galleries/works), but I had to split. To the Lime!

Post-call, I grabbed a quick sando so I could get back to the museums! This time, I passed by the Thyssen (giving it a nod) as I went further to the Sofia Reina. That feeling of FOMO I had at the Thyssen was exacerbated in this massive place. There were so many incredible works! Also, Picasso’s famous Guernica painting (huge one in black/gray tones with bulls and despairing people) hangs here. It truly is incredible how prolific Picasso was - I’ve been to two of his museums dedicated just to him (Barcelona last summer, Málaga this summer), and so many others that display his works. I was meeting up with a friend of a friend not long after the time I arrived there, so I tried to move very quickly through it, but I could have spent the better part of a day there. I was sad to leave, feeling a bit unaccomplished, but I did indeed enjoy it. I also went to the gift shop to buy a postcard of one of my favorite works (a move I’m known to do - great souvenirs as they don’t take up room, and I can frame them when I get back).

Scootin’ my way back, I stopped in the Thyssen Museum (again) to grab a print at the shop (they didn’t have the one I really liked on postcard, but you can print your own). While I waited for the print to manifest itself (I didn’t want to say “print to print” so I tried saying it a different way...I think we can all agree it was a miss), I got to go back into the galleries I had missed earlier! 🎉 That worked out swimmingly.

Around 8pm, I met up with Amanda who took me to a local bar she likes in the Malasaña neighborhood in which I was staying. After a few (and a free round, which I’ve never seen in Europe...I’m going to say it was definitely because of me), we got a bite, some drinks and then went to an old movie theater/bar that was maybe my favorite bar of all time. It was just so cool, and I was wishing I had this place in NY.

I would have stayed there all night, but we were meeting up with Amanda’s friends. So, we got some street beers to join in a huge street festival. I forget what the occasion was for the festival, but it seemed the entire city was there. We met up with her crew, who was a super friendly bunch. We danced in the streets and drank, but it felt like we were always moving through the throngs. This was a bit annoying, as it would have been nice to just pick a spot with good music and stop trying to navigate the crowds.

After hanging with this group and getting dinged up until about 1:30am (everything happens so late in Spain! [I think it’s partly due to the fact the sun sets so awesomely late]), I called it a night, as I was getting up in just a few hours to head to Italy (where I’m meeting my favorite brother Garrett!)

I really love Madrid, and feel I barely got to see it. Return, I probably shall!

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