If you read the title of this article in any way other than the Wizard of Oz witch voice, you're doing it wrong. And it probably sounds more like "poopies," which is definitely NOT what I'm going for here.
THIS is what I was going for. There are soooo many poppies in Spain during the springtime, and we were allowed to leave our homes to exercise just in time to see them in full bloom. (Not that we weren't leaving the house before, we could just go a little farther away from home without fear of getting in trouble:).
And thus began the era of the "butt cracks." I'll probably laugh about this for the rest of my life. Our friend Damián loved to wake up early and go for hikes around Alcalá while carrying his maté and flask of boiling water, so we introduced him to the phrase "waking up at the butt crack of dawn." Despite our best efforts to explain what exactly that American slang phrase meant, it wasn't until Damián uttered the famous line, "The butt crack views are the best views," atop a particularly gorgeous summit that we realized we had gravely overestimated his level of understanding. It turns out he just thought the "butt crack of dawn" meant you get up early to work your butt muscles by hiking. Clarifying the meaning was honestly one of my highlights of our time in Spain, that and when we tried to explain why we wear temple garments...but that's a story for another time and place.
ANYWAY. We loved doing butt crack hikes with our friends. During the month of June, two new friends Miguel and Carolina moved into the house and they came with us a few times as well. By this time, the pool was filled and the barbecue was out, and having poolside Argentine Asado parties became a regular thing. Life was prrrreetttttyyy good in Alcalá during the summertime.
Here's us with Allison and Jeremy in the finished pool, all too excited to jump in before it was finished filling. It was a looooot of hard work getting all those tiles out, but it was worth it to enjoy those long summer days poolside.
We visited the national park just north of Madrid for one butt crack morning and it was beautiful. It was so nice to be in the mountains after so many months of confinement! On that same trip, we stopped at a castle (because when in Europe that's a normal thing to do) and realllly got into character.
We had so many more things to see in Madrid before we left Spain, so we crammed a whole lot of exploring the city into the last few weeks of June. Of course, masks were obligatory evvvverywhere, and in the Madrid summer heat that was no fun. But luckily we had our handy-dandy makeshift Camelbacks that we bought from Decathlon (only the greatest sports store in the world) to keep us hydrated. These would be our trusted companions for the duration of our European summer.
We visited most if not all of the palaces in the Madrid area during the week that they were free to the public. This one is the Palacio Real de El Pardo located northwest of Madrid, and Franco actually lived here for a while.
We visited lots of museums, and one of our favorites was the Sorolla museum - a small, unassuming house in the middle of busy Madrid. Our landlord recommended that we visit and we were not disappointed! The house was lived in by Sorolla and his family and when he died, his wife helped to transform the place into a museum. It is a beautiful collection of Sorolla's impressionist paintings depicting mostly his wife and children in different settings. The walls are decorated with exquisite ceramic tiles, and the room in which he used to paint is the best-preserved office of any painter in the world.
These were some of our favorite paintings: The Horse's Bath and Fisherwomen of Valencia.
It was a simple little place, but so, so pretty.
Our last week in Madrid was JAM. PACKED. We fit in so many adventures, and one of those was an overnight trip to Salamanca. This town northwest of Madrid has been a college town for 800 years...yes I said that right. 800 YEARS! The town has so much history and has been so well preserved over the centuries. It was just a really cool place to be.
The Plaza Mayor in Salamanca is AMAZING! So extravagant and detailed and especially beautiful at night time. Such a fun little getaway.
Just a couple of days before we left for our trans-Europe adventure, we had to go on ooonnnneee more butt crack adventure with Damián. Las Chorreras is an area in Cuenca, a province near Madrid, that we had never heard about until Miguel and Carolina recommended it to us. We went thinking we'd be going on a pretty hike next to a nice little stream, so I didn't bring my swimsuit knowing how Spaniards can be with swimming in natural waters, especially with corona. To our surprise and delight, we found the stream full of fun-loving Spaniards swimming and sunbathing, and if you know me, you know that when other people are swimming, I HAVE TO SWIM. It was the clearest and cleanest water, perfect for cliff jumping and swimming and exploring, so nothing was going to stop me from getting in, not even the fact that I had to wear Hayden's underwear because of my poor preparation. No shame.
We spent the afternoon exploring along this river, jumping in when we got hot and stopping when we found particularly cool little areas. It was seriously paradise and one of my very favorite things we did while in Spain.
This was the last area we happened upon before we left...LOOK AT THIS WATER!!! Unreal.
On our way back from Las Chorreras, we stopped in Cuenca to see the hanging houses. This is such a beautiful, unique town and we were just amazed by the architectural genius of people who lived centuries ago. The town is picture-perfect everywhere you look. Its strategic location on a plateau surrounded by a super deep ravine has been inhabited since the Moors built a fortress here in the 8th century.
(And here is where Hayden uttered the famous, "Prepare for battle!" line).
The next day we finally went out for a night on the town in Alcalá. We made reservations to have tapas with all the other residents of Mikel's house, and everyone came! It was so fun laughing and joking and living a real Spanish night on the town after so many weeks of confinement. In this picture are Naomi and Yolanda and their beautiful baby Ona ("wave" in Catalan), Damián, Miguel and Carolina, Aline and Fran (they didn't live in the house, they are friends we met in the ward who we later visited northern Spain with...more on that later) and Mikel. So many beautiful people with so many different life experiences, beliefs, stories to share, and lessons to teach. We are soooo grateful to have lived with these people and learned from them despite our incredibly diverse backgrounds.
We love Alcalá de Henares and the beautiful Plaza de Cervantes! This place will always feel like home to us.
Soooo we really made the most of our time in Spain, but as much fun as we had during our last few weeks in Alcalá, we missed our friends the Woodwells something fierce. They decided back in May that, since they weren't making any money and didn't know when things in Europe would fully open up, it was financially better for them to return home to Utah and start working. They later regretted it big time (can't say we didn't tell them so) but we're so glad we met them in the Madrid temple back in January and that we became so close. Lifelong friends, for sure!
The morning after our tapas night, we packed up and headed to the airport to start our month-long backpacking trip through Europe. It was so bittersweet saying goodbye to the place we had called home through some of the longest and most difficult months of our lives. We made soooo many unforgettable memories at this pretty house in the hills of Madrid. We'll never forget Mikel, his two bear dogs, our best friend Damián, or any of the other wonderful people who passed through the walls of this house. Until we meet again, Calle Portillo #3!
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