¡Bienvenidos a España!
- Brooklynn Cooper
- Jan 6, 2018
- 2 min read
Hello everyone! This first post serves to inform you all that I made it safely to my final destination, Pamplona. It's definitely been a long day--I'm 6 hours ahead of EST, so it's currently 1:30 a.m. here and I'm used to it being 7:30 p.m. However, I want to at least give everyone a small sample of what I've experienced so far, even if it's short and sweet.
What better way to start off my travel blog than with an airplane bathroom selfie? I flew from Toronto to Madrid on a Boeing 787-9, which was my first time being on one of those huge planes with three sections of seats. I actually only thought those existed in the movies. Here's a short video of the sky when we were about 30 minutes from landing--around 9 a.m. in Madrid.
Once I took a train from Madrid to Pamplona (about a 3.5 hour ride) I met with my host mom, Soco, who informed me that I arrived during the celebration of the Tres Magos or Reyes (like the 3 Wise Men from the Bible). Tradition holds here that on the night of January 5, the three kings use ladders to climb inside people's houses and leave gifts for the children. Santa Claus doesn't exist here, and tomorrow is a national holiday, so everything in the city will be closed. Soco and I spent a couple of hours in the central part of town because there was a parade in celebration of the holiday with horses, camels, huge floats, elaborate costumes and loud music. Here's the only picture I took from the parade. Yes, I fought the urge to keep my phone out the entire time!
One thing I learned today: Euskera is the original language of Pamplona, although Spanish is obviously spoken widely throughout the town. Most of the signs are in both Spanish and Euskera.
Important FYI: I've included a section on my site about how you can keep in contact with me, but this will be changing within the next week or so once I switch my SIM card in order to have a Spanish mobile number, so be on the lookout!
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