Zaragoza

March 30, 2010:

Before I begin my account of Zaragoza this past weekend, I want to note a few interesting kinds of vending machines I’ve noticed here in Spain:

1. Pizza and hot sandwiches. Just wait 5 minutes, and it will be hot! (But not fresh.)
2. Helados. Yep, ice cream vending machines everywhere; not only in the beachy towns!
3. Coffee/ espresso. You pick how much sugar and cream you want, and it comes out in these tiny plastic cups. Just be careful not to burn your fingers!
4. Cigarettes. While I’m aware that these exist in the U.S., I’d be willing to bet they are a LOT more common here.
5. Last, but not least, Beer. Yes, they have vending machines for alcoholic beverages. I’m not even sure how that’s legal!


Okay, so here’s a little bit about our trip:

Jane and I left Saturday morning and took a bus to Zaragoza. We bought our tickets early, so we were sitting in the VERY front of the bus. We thought this would be good as far as bussickness goes, but we were WRONG. It felt like we were on a roller coaster with this huge glass screen in front of us. We could see how close the bus driver was to running into the cars in front of us, and we could distinguish every curve clearly. Needless to say, I was quite glad to remove myself from the bus after three hours.

We spent the day with Brian, sightseeing and enjoying the gorgeous, sunny day. We went to a real, genuine CASTLE, which made me very happy! And we went to the famous cathedral of Our Lady of the Pillar. We spent the evening just walking around the city, and then we cooked dinner. (Taco night! Mmm)

Sunday, we headed out to find a church service, only to see that all the roads were blocked off and there were thousands of people everywhere. We accidentally stumbled upon one of the famous parade-journey things that go on during Semana Santa, or Holy Week. I enjoyed the celebration of Palm Sunday, but the costumes did make us a little bit uncomfortable, because they are equivalent to those of the KKK, white robes and pointy hoods with eye holes. Although we’re aware that there are no racial ties to those costumes here, we still couldn’t fully appreciate the religious aspect of the parade with the discomfort we felt from their dress.

Anyway, there isn’t much you can do on Sundays in Spain because everything is closed, so we just ended up talking a long stroll through town and stopping for lunch before heading back to Pamplona around 5. It was a short trip, but we had a great time. And now I’m preparing to go to Paris to meet up with my FAMILY and Grace and John this weekend! I’m super excited!!!