San Juan Summer Festival

San Juan is a major festival held every year in Spain. It is a giant party on the beach with a bonfire, stage with a band, and ending the night with everyone in the ocean making wishes. The band begins the night and at midnight the bonfire is lit. This year they burned giant Simpsons characters. I'm still unsure as to why, but I gues that it is just wnat they had laying around. Here are a few pictures of the night:

San Juan is an amazing night of Sangria, dancing, and making wishes. The walking into the water is meant to be a "cleansing activity" before the wishes are made. If anyone is around Spain in mid-June I would definitely recommend it!

Fleet Rec: Ship Tour

Friday was probably one of the better days at work. First off, I spent most of the day out of the office and walking around a ship...

Fleet rec is a section of MWR specifically designed to keep sailors happy on their Liberty (free) time away from ships while in port. A ship came in Friday, so my bosses decided that it would be a good experience for me to find out what happens (other than working a mideval bar) when a ship comes in.

Tom, the head of fleet rec for MWR Rota, and I headed down to the ship about 11am for our briefing. We sat in a room with all the high ranking people and a few others on the ship. We sat while Security, Fleet Relations, MWR and a few others briefed the sailors on the rules and what is going on around base and out in Rota.

(I did learn that it is illegal to touch the trees out in Rota... I mean it makes sense, they belong to the king!)

After one of the guys gave us a tour around the ship. I got to see everything, and while it wasn't the best tour, it was my first time on a ship!

Major Crops in Spain

You never really think about it. But somewhere in the world, sunflowers are indeed a crop. One of those places is located right outside Spain. On our way home from Sevilla on this last trip we stopped to take some pictures, so here they are:

It was awesome. And I learned something: Sunflowers (contrary to popular belief) always point away from the sun.

Surfing

Question: If I take the morning off work to go on a "scouting trip" then spend the day surfing, what does that make me?

Surfing was awesome. The waves were tiny, but I did in fact get to stand up on one which pretty much makes me a surfing expert. Ok, so I'm actually terrible, but it was a blast and I cannot wait to do it again!

Pictures of me actually trying to surf to follow. I did not take any so I have to wait for someone to give me copies of theirs... I hope they remember because that would be awesome.

Sevilla

This weekend a few friends and I took a trip to Sevilla. For those who don't know, Sevilla is one of the largest cities in Spain, and very beautiful with tons to do. Here are a few pictures from my trip:

Plaza de Espana

Statues in the Park


Museo de Arte
(definitely not worth the 1,5 euro it cost to get in!)

The next series of pictures are from the Cathedral in Savilla
(which I might add was worth the 7 euro entrance fee)

That's right... 10 American dollars to go see a church!

The above picture is the Tomb de Christobal Colon.
For those of you who might not know, that's the man who discovered America.
You might know him as Christopher Columbus...

The trip to Sevilla was amazing, the sights were beautiful, the weather was boiling, and I would go back in a heartbeat....

Pictures of Work

This is the "Outfitters Espana" area of where I work.

We rent gear, run the climbing wall, and a few other miscellanous things...

Craftech is just a craft store that I help run.

And ITT (Information, Travel, and Tours) is an info desk.

Pretty much I work three jobs all rolled into one. It's not so bad. The people I work with a really great, so I'm having a blast with it.

And the perk of free travel in Spain never hurt anyone... ;)

Mountain Biking in Los Alcornocales

This past Saturday I was given the opportunity (or forced, call it what you want) to lead a Mountain Biking Trip to Los Alcornocales. It was a new experience for myself as well as a few of our participants. A group of us ended up going about 30k on our bikes. Exactly 1/2 of this was straight uphill on gravel, which meant the other half was downhill on gravel...

I found out the hard way that breaking on gravel is not really an option...

While I didn't wipe out completely, I did end up flying down the mountain at a much greater speed than I wished and had more than a handful of close calls with my face and the ground...

Here are a few pictures of the area...

It was a great trip, and while mountain biking is not the biggest fan of me, I would definitely give it a second try!

La Flamenco in Jerez

Friday I lead an ITT (tourist) trip to Jerez (pronounced Hereth) to see a Flamenco show. I was blown away by the impressiveness of the dancing. To show everyone back home exactly what Flamenco was, I took a video on my camera. This is not the best of the four girls, but it was all pretty cool to see.

Here is the video:



And might I add... the singer and guitarist were hot! HAHAHA

The show and food were amazing. I tried to be bave and try all the food that was put in front of me. It all seemed edible at least!!

There isn't really too much to explain the night. Working for Outdoor I get to go on these trip for free. So really I lucked out on the type of deal I got coming here. I will say one thing though. If you ever travel to Spain, see a Flamenco!

Here are some more pictures from last night:

A Night Out in Rota

Satuday night Erin and I deided to head out to Rota for some fun in the American speaking bars. We ended up headed to an Irish pub for most of the night. The Irish pub was amazing. Everyone spoke English, and the bartender loved us. I think it was because we were the least drunk people in the bar. He kept looking at us, laughing, winking (he was Irish, it's what they do), and then coming over and saying stuff like "You two are my island of sanity." He was great. And the awesome accent made it that much better!

We ended up meeting a group of people who took us to another bar. And with the next bar all I really have is two things:
1. Erin and I rock at darts. Especially when the other team decided our team name is Edukated, and their was Retards and Token. Gotta love when people are impressed that much by the college degree.
2. What kind of bar has a "to go" cup for when you leave so you don't waste your beer? That's right, the ones in Spain... with no open container laws to speak of, the only hing they worry ab out is a broken bottle on the street. So the best alternative: to go cups...

Spain Rocks.