Barcelona Trip Part V: Our Day in Cervera

Wednesday was a national holiday: Hispanic Day.  We rode the subway to the bus station and  got on the bus for our trip to Cervera, where Yulia's friend, Olya has lived for the past 9 years or so with her husband Francesc and two children: Adriel and Élia.  We enjoyed the drive from Barcelona through the suburbs, exurbs, and finally into the countryside.  The mountain drive reminded me a lot of the San Bernadino mountains in California, and it was a nice ride.

Riding on the bus to Cervera

On the way to Cervera

View out of the bus window

Wheat fields

Their family met us at the bus station in Cervera and we spent about 90 minutes touring the town.  Cervera is a town of about 10000 in the middle of Catalonia.  It is an old city and we really enjoyed walking through the narrow streets, looking at the ancient walls, and going down the street that was named after a witch who was burned during the inquisition (Callero de les Bruixes). We also went downtown where there was a festival at the school, which was the original university that was established after the war of Spanish Succession.  The day was a little rainy, but we were assured that the rain never really stays in Cervera because the wind is blowing all the time.  And we didn't get any real downpours.

At the main plaza

Girls are getting acquainted with the Ortegas

The former University of Cervera which is now high school

The university's (high school) courtyard. It would be cool to go to school there!

With Olya's family, university's courtyard.

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Main plaza. All of those buckets are filled with different kinds of olives.

The streets of Cervera.

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Witches' Street

Entrance to the Witches' Street

Carrero de les Bruixes (Witches' Street)

They put you right in the mood for Halloween!

Mayor offices building

The flags of EU and Catalonia, no Spanish flag in sight :)

I think these doors are the tallest doors in Cervera. They belong to the church.

Our two families.

The fort wall around Cervera

When we travel we rarely get a picture of all of us together, so we jumped at the opportunity.

After walking through the town we went to their house and spent the afternoon eating, visiting, and catching up.  It had been 12 years since we had seen each other (Summer 2004 when Yulia and I went to Krasnoyarsk after I got back from Iraq), so we had plenty to talk about. Olya made Paella and Fideua that were very delicious.  She colored the Paella black with squid ink and it had a nice color and flavor.

Cooking yummy lunch!

Feast of paella and fideua

Last time we saw Olya was 12 years ago. Lina fell in love with Olya's baby, Elya and with their huge cat who was hiding at the moment the picture was taken.

About 5:30 we went back out and walked a bit more and the kids ran around the square playing until it was time to get to the bus station.  The trip home was dark, but much quicker because our apartment was on the outside part of town, so we got off at the first stop in Barcelona and had to only go one metro stop to our apartment.

Our girls playing with Adriel on the letters. By the end of the day the became best friends.

We had a really great time seeing our friend Olya, meeting her husband, Francesc and their beautiful children.  We were blessed to see a part of Spain that is outside the beaten tourist path. Cervera is so Catalonian, that the Spanish flag wasn't even flying over the city government - just the Catalonian and European flags.

It was a great last full day of our trip to Spain. 

Traveling to Russia

The last time we were in Russia was four years ago.  The twins were half the age that they are now and I was in the middle of writing my dissertation. We have seen Babushka a lot since we lived in Kazakhstan, but it has taken us two years to get to Krasnoyarsk to see her.

The journey started in the US when the girls and I applied for Russian visas.  The law has changed since we came last time, and we were encouraged to apply for multiple entry three-year visas, which we did.  They are the same price, so it will save us money and time from having to apply again if we want to go.  We were able to get the visas with minimal trouble.  When we got back to Kazakhstan we had to renew our visas for here, so we couldn't book our travel until we had our visas and passports back.

We flew to Novosibirsk on July 18. The flight from Astana was about 90 minutes long and pretty smooth.  We overshot the airport on our first pass, so that was exciting and we had to circle back around.  The weather was rainy and the cloud ceiling was very low, so that made it a little more dicey coming in.  Once we landed it took us a bit over two hours to get through passport control.  Two flights had arrived and no one was getting through.  One of the border agents came out and announced that the hail storm had knocked out the computers.  When we did get through it was me and the four girls.  The woman who was processing our passports called her supervisor to see if we needed extra scrutiny.  We got through, though, and that's all that mattered.

Once we were through we got in a shuttle van directly to the train station.  Unfortunately our delay meant that we hit rush hour traffic.  We were standing still for much of the drive from the airport to the train station. We did eventually make it - and got to our train with about 10 minutes to spare.  It was just enough time to board and for Yulia to buy some water and snacks before our train left. We had a twelve-hour overnight train to Krasnoyarsk.  The kids love trains and sleeping on them, and this was a pretty nice train (clean and with a modern toilet system and nice conductor[1]) so it was a nice easy trip.  Our overall travel time from Astana to Krasnoyarsk was about 18 hours and it was easy travel compared to trans-Atlantic followed by trans-Russia air travel.

We arrived at a bit after 7:00, got right on a bus that got us to Babushka's house in about 10 minutes - the fastest we've ever been.

Eating once we were there.  For some reason I don't have travel pictures.

It was good to be there.  The apartment is still small, but it is fun for the kids to all be together and for Yulia and I to sleep on the balcony. It's as close to camping as I'd like to be most days, anyways!

Our first few days it was a bit rainy and we were stuck inside, but on Saturday we took a trip to Stolbi - the National Park that is just outside of town.  That will be the next post!

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[1] Apparently you pay extra on the trains with conductors who are not rude.  Standard tickets include rude conductors.  We were happy to have paid the extra.  It was really a pleasant trip.

Bus tickets

I meant to write a post about funny and odd things we encounter while living here in Kazakhstan for quite some time and I am not ready to do it just yet (still gathering some photo evidence :)) but I wanted to write about one funny experience that we had when we were in Almaty.

While living in Kazakhstan, we use public transportation a lot. We do not have a car here because if you are a foreigner it is a pain in some rear parts of your body to own a car - unless you are here as a diplomat. We have a lot of friends who diplomats, and for them to get from a point A to a point B on busy Astana roads full of crazy drivers that think that they are driving race cars is pure bliss. Police would never dare to stop them. For me though, I prefer public transportation, particularly buses. The bus system is pretty good here and usually very reliable. The way it works in Astana is that you get on a bus and pay your ride fare to a conductor who gives you a ticket. Adult tickets costs 90 tenge which is about 30 cents, and a kids ticket costs 40 tenge which is about 13 cents, and you can ride that bus anywhere in the city. You can also show the conductor a bus pass which are sold at the train station and which will allow you to ride buses limitless for a whole month. That is what I and the kids use because we are on the buses A LOT! An adult bus pass costs $24 and kids' pass costs $5. It is a pretty nice deal!

So, when we went to Almaty, we thought the  system would be about the same since we are in the same country. Not at all! There inside of the buses they have a ticket machine which you feed your cash and it will give you a ticket. The problem is that you have to feed it the exact amount of change otherwise you just lose your money, and it will NOT give you a ticket! So, what do you do, if you do not have the exact amount of change? You pay directly to the driver and get your ticket from him. I have to mention that every so often the buses are checked by a "controller" who checks the tickets of all of the passengers. Well, we walked a lot in Almaty but a few times we rode a bus, and twice (different buses, different routs) our drivers instead of giving us tickets, just ripped and gave us 6 pieces of  paper, bigger ones for Spencer and I and smaller ones for the girls. When it happened the first time, I just ignored it but the second time it made me laugh. I was just glad that the "controllers" weren't checking the buses while we were there - otherwise it would have been hard to explain to them.

Our bus tickets in Almaty!