Last weekend I went on a 3-day excursion to Extremadura, Spain, a province about 5 hours outside of Madrid. It was a mandatory school trip (part of our cultural curriculum), but Penn comps the whole thing, so no one complained about going...that is until we read the description of Extremadura in our guidebooks. Direct quote: "Of all the Spanish regions, far-flung Extremadura is the most remote from the modern world...the fourth largest, yet least populated autonomous region in Spain, Extremadura is also one of the least visited... the result is that this part of Spain still feels like a place with hidden corners to discover: remote villages where locals stare and there's no signal for your phone…In winter storks nest on their spires and chimneys...Ideal for nature lovers and those who want to get off the beaten path." Well if that doesn’t pump you up for a trip, I don’t know what does! Considering that none of us were looking to get off the beaten path for 3 days, in town where the main attraction is birds nesting on spires, we didn't exactly have the highest expectations going in to the trip.
Maybe it was just me, but I actually thought the trip could end up being pretty comical. 15 kids, 2 eccentric old men for our tour guides (Pablo and Manolo, aka our "Cultural Directors" as Penn calls them), and an all expenses paid trip to the middle of nowhere (notice how the picture on the left looks pretty barren..well, that's the town's main plaza). I figured if anything, at least we’d come out of it with some good inside jokes.
As it ended up, the trip actually wasn’t that bad. Some of the highlights included visits to: ancient castles, a medieval fair, some of the oldest roman ruins in Spain, a winery…AND we got to meet the mayor of Mérida, Extremadura. Albeit this was the equivalent of meeting the mayor of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, but it was still a pretty cool experience to learn about how the town is run--can't get much more immersed in Spanish culture than actually chatting with the mayor in his office. Besides that, the winery was very cool. We learned all about how wine is made and got to taste it, as well. Although Extremadura isn’t as renowned for its wine as other regions in Spain like La Rioja, the wine was still very good. And the best part….it was incredibly cheap; I bought a bottle for my dad for 1.60 euros!
Looking back, I did learn a lot in Extremadura, and saw a side of Spanish culture that I hadn’t yet been exposed too. While we still would have preferred to go to Barcelona, none of us would probably have ever visited Extremadura if we weren’t required to go on this trip; whereas all of us have plans to see Barcelona. One thing I’ve learned while abroad is to try to soak up as much as I can from every experience. That’s what abroad is about, having experiences you otherwise wouldn’t have, and taking as much as you can from them. At the end of the day, you are still in Europe. And while we may have gone to the middle of nowhere, it was still the middle of nowhere in SPAIN. There’s something to be said for that.
No comments:
Post a Comment