Gran Canaria: Overexposure

Gran Canaria, the biggest of the Canary Islands, is essentially the Spanish speaking Hawaii and has been my home for the past five/six days of the first ten day break. It’s a beautiful island (which I’m sure you inferred if you’ve been to Hawaii) with mountains in the center of the island and expansive, rocky beaches all around the coast. It’s very touristy, but what island (or other place I’ve visited this semester so far) isn’t? Nevertheless, the island retains very traditional architecture that’s a mix between Mediterranean and Moroccan (it’s much closer to Morocco than Spain) and is gorgeous to look at. Overexposure refers to both the sunburns we all got and the, um, nudity we experienced. Apparently people are much more liberal when it comes to sunbathing in Europe, which we found out both poolside and down on the beach. Nevertheless, the resort was great…kind of like a cruise ship full of food, cheesy activities, families, and older couples, but still the perfect place to spend 6 days relaxing. I wish I could’ve taken a million pictures on the bus ride here, because I got to see the dunes (a la Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan) near my hotel, the mountains all around, and the juxtaposition of whitewashed homes and Crayola colored apartments in the valleys and near the beaches.

Speaking of the bus ride to the airport…Tristan and I took a taxi when we got in late Thursday night/early Friday morning since the bus system wasn’t running at approx. 3 am when we finally got off the plane, got our luggage, and found the taxi stand. But, the ladies at the front desk of our hotel recommended taking the courtesy bus up to the bus station (a 3 minute ride, a 20 minute walk), then buying a cheap bus ticket (3.30 €, a bargain compared to our pricey taxi) for the bus that would take you to the airport in about 45 minutes. Since Tristan had success with that yesterday, I figured I’d give it a shot to save some €. I decided to hop the 9:50 courtesy bus and the 10:15 airport bus just to make sure I didn’t have an trouble getting to the airport for my 1:25 flight. I checked out around 9:35 and went outside around 9:40, a bus pulled up, and a load of people piled on after stowing their luggage underneath. I asked a woman if this was the bus going to the airport and she sort of nodded, plus I remembered Tristan’s bus being early, so I figured it was the right one. Next thing you know, we’re stopping at a dozen of the local hotels and NOT the bus station. I reasoned that we HAD to be going to the airport, though, on account of the obscene amount of luggage under the bus. Plus, I had left myself enough time that I could hop a taxi back to the airport in the event that the bus didn’t go to the airport. That aside, I began to worry I was going to get in trouble for being on this bus and not having paid, as I had to assume my fellow passengers paid at some point to get door to door service. And then the bus got really full. I mean I was really starting to worry they’d sold just enough tickets to fill the bus up and soon I’d be tossed out on the street with my bags in the middle of God only knows where. But, the seat next to me stayed mercifully empty (the only empty one, mind you) and we soon rolled into the airport parking lot. And then panic set in again when a woman got on the bus, gave a 5 minute little speech in German (and only German), then everyone moved towards the doors. I do not speak or even begin to understand German and I’m sure I stuck out like a sore thumb being oh, the only blond 20 year old toting a pink backpack and a look of utter terror. But, I made it off the bus and away with my luggage before any questions could be asked. So, luckily I’m hanging out in the Gran Canaria airport for a good while before my flight (the check in desk kindly let me check in early AND gave me window seats near the front of the plane). And despite my newfound hate for flying, I still love airports and all the hustle and bustle and the people around me, so I don’t mind spending a good bit of time here. (ps-on the bus, the driver was playing Michael Buble’s CD, which made me think of you guys, Grandma and Grandpa!)

Lengthy side story aside, the past six days have flown by…it really seems like Tristan and I just got here. We had pretty much the same routine each day…up in time to have breakfast before the restaurant stopped serving at 10:30, out to the pool, lunch at the poolside cafe, clean up to walk to the nearby shopping area for dinner, back for some cheesy TV or even cheesier hotel entertainment.

Friday we spent part of the day at the pool, then got cleaned up, explored the nearby shopping center, and then came back to hang out in front of the hotel to wait for Mom to get in. Turns out her plane was delayed (a trend among European airlines that drives me insane…they find it perfectly acceptable to board and depart a solid 15-30 minutes late), so we waited outside for a good while, but the weather at night is beautiful, so it wasn’t bad. Then we showed her around a bit and took her to the boardwalk restaurants on the beach right by the hotel…and we ate Chinese (something very hard to find in Venice).

Saturday we kept our routine, this time sticking around to watch the sunset (I have maybe 1000 pictures of daily sunsets, but they’re all amazing), then walking down to the nearby shopping area to have a more typical Spanish dinner of paella and sangria. Sunday at dinner time, we ventured even further down past the shopping area to see the dunes, then came back to the hotel for dinner (quite possibly the biggest, nicest buffet ever) and then had sangria and watched a cover band of the Bee Gees, which was possibly the most hilarious thing ever (3 Spanish guys, singing disco esque songs, lots of older people dancing…Tristan has videos…it’s great). Monday was a bit more stressful since we decided to figure out what I was doing for the second 5 days, which was rough since we don’t speak Spanish, which made communicating with Iberia Airlines impossible. Begonia, the customer service woman, called for us and helped us in a very real way, but I couldn’t make the Madrid-Salamanca-Venice itinerary work because Iberia wanted to charge me 200 € to change my ticket, then I’d have had to buy a 350 dollar one way ticket back to Venice on top of paying for a hotel in Madrid/Salamanca. I decided to revert to my original plan of going to Rome via train and got permission from Laura, the house director, to stay at Casa Artom tonight (since my flight from Madrid to Venice, scheduled to arrive at 10:15, would probably be late enough that making a midnight train would be a huge stretch. Yesterday I was mostly alone (Mom left at 5am, Tristan at 11), so I spent some time reading by the pool, wandered down by the beach, did some homework, watched some tv, and then went back to the Chinese restaurant by the beach, ordered food to go, and sat on a lounge chair on the beach to watch my last sunset of the trip. I finally bit the bullet and went upstairs to pack, but when I took a break to check emails, I ran into basically the British version of my Grandparents. Instead of stopping on their floor, they got off with me and we had a nice chat about North Carolina (they’ve been there a few times), Illinois (apparently they lived there), what I was doing in Gran Canaria, whether Mom and Tristan had enjoyed it, etc…I wish we’d met them earlier!

And now I’m sitting at a Cafe where I paid way too much for a muffin and water, but it was worth it for the view. My little table looks straight out the floor to ceiling windows at the planes/runways (I’ve always been obsessed, which I’m sure you know if you’ve known me for very long) and even better, a nearby mountain which leads down to the ocean…the last time I’ll see it from the ground unless I ever come back to the Canary Islands.

(pictures coming soon)