• An Allegorical Alliterative Bike Ride

Right now it is a splendid sunny Spanish morning (trying to make my 10^th grade English teacher proud, alliteration!) but the only part of my body able to move without causing an excessive amount of pain are my fingers, thus I am doing some blog writing. Don’t worry mom, there was no terrible car crash, a group of us simply went on a 70 km, 9 hour bike ride yesterday. Yup, 70 kilometers! (43.25 miles) Now I’m not exactly out of shape, but that ride for me along with most people in our group, has hell. It was also one of the best days I’ve had since coming to Spain. The trip took us from a train station about 30 km north of the city, through orange groves, to the Sierra Calderona mountains, back down to the beach, and finally a harrowing journey through downtown Valencia as we raced to return our bikes on time (or face paying $2000!). All of it was beautiful. The scenery I mean, not the agony I felt (and still feel) in my quads. This day trip was definitely not for everyone on our trip, I know that a couple of the guys would not of enjoyed a 70 km ride in a sweltering 35 degree heat (95 Fahrenheit). But as a “corn-fed country boy” from a tiny little speck of a town in the middle of south Texas, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. The views got more surreal as we climbed higher in to the mountains, never fully out of civilization we passed through beautiful quaint Spanish villages, biked along rock walls at least 200 years old, and washed our faces in crystal clear cold running water. We were able to see a wide variety of landscapes throughout the course of the day, much like my drive from Valencia to Granada but on a bike we were able to experience the beautiful scenery in a more intimate fashion (i.e. we could literally stop and smell the roses).

The views, the villages, the vivacious people (I just wanted more alliteration…) were all spectacular and were straight out of a novel. A novel I had already read before. While not taking anything away from yesterday’s ride, or any part of the IRES experience, I will say that nothing has really surprised me since coming to Spain. Spain is almost exactly how I expected it to be, tiny cars and café’s, cigarette smoke and topless beaches, orange groves and quaint mountain homes. That being said, there is no substitute for experiencing Spain first hand, but after a childhood filled with reading novels by the gallon, and probably too much time spent on travel forums pre-departure, my expectations coincided with the reality of this place almost completely. The only exception being our actual work here, I did not anticipate working in a chemistry lab, and how much it overlaps with civil engineering (more specifically corrosion of rebar within reinforced concrete structures, but that is another blog for another time).

(our return journey from the mountains)

I was brought up in a rural, conservative, farm town in Texas. My high school was in the middle of a cornfield. Friday night football games were second only to God. Yet it’s kind of funny how much people stereotype that life (I mean…it wasn’t EAST Texas…). Football practices usually ended in yoga, many of our jocks were in theatre, dance, and band. My parents have always told me to do what I love. Heck, our priest is from South Africa! So while I have sat here this morning and stated how Spain has been everything that I expected (and visually that is true), I hesitate to make broad social and cultural statement about the people after only living here for a month. Yes, they take siestas and might replace their morning coffee with a quinto (1/5 liter of beer) every now and then. But to imply they are less productive than us 9-5 Americans would completely miss the mark. I said it before in a previous blog and I’ll say it again here, life moves at a different pace here. I think the only thing an American, living here for a month and a half can hope to do, is match it.