A Spring Wedding and a Day in Cuenca

After I got back from spring break in Ireland, I had school for three days and then it was the weekend again! I did a reading activity about Easter with third and fourth grade in school that week. They were fascinated by how much fun Easter is in the U.S. They knew we had an Easter bunny but they didn't realize he was like Santa with chocolate, and they'd never dyed eggs or even heard of an Easter egg hunt. Semana Santa is a big deal in Spain but by the time Easter rolls around, people don't really care anymore. In fact, most of my students didn't even celebrate Easter at all, so they loved hearing about how we celebrate in the States.

I had a week off from my after school lessons, so I was living the life that week. It was really nice to have so much free time, but I didn't allow myself to get used to it!

I was eagerly anticipating the weekend because Vicki and Luis Felipe were finally getting married! This also meant that there was an influx of English speakers in Quintanar, which was a lovely change of pace. On Friday, I went to our favorite Chinese restaurant to meet Vicki and the people who came to Quintanar for the wedding. I met Luis Felipe's friends from Wales, two of Vicki's friends who live in Kansas, her sister from Houston, and her parents from Nebraska. Since of course Morgan was there as well, The U.S. and the UK were pretty well-represented among us.

I had my weekly lesson with the five-year-old who still does not like me, spent a few hours in the library, and then went out to have tapas with my Spanish friend Piedad and her girlfriends. I managed to make it through the night speaking mostly in Spanish (with Piedad's help, of course), so score one for Clare.

On Saturday, I actually got out of bed before 11 solely because I wanted to paint my nails for the wedding. Priorities, I know. Morgan helped me find a card for Vicki and Luis Felipe (The card I chose was technically for Valentine's Day, but love is love, right?) because I had no idea where to look for one. When I asked her, she had said, "Oh, any stationary store would do," and I had to admit that I don't know where any stationary stores are. Sometimes I feel like I don't really live in Quintanar. But I digress. With the card purchased, I headed back to my apartment to finish getting ready for the wedding (I even blow dried my hair. I was making a serious effort to look nice for this occasion.).

I was concerned about how I was actually going to pull this off because I didn't really have any wedding-appropriate accessories with me. My sister was kind enough to bring me a nice dress when my family visited for Christmas, but I didn't have any of my usual accessories like an evening bag, pretty shoes, or a shawl to wear over it, so I had to improvise with my limited Spanish wardrobe. However, when all was said and done, I was happy with how I turned out, and I managed to be ready just in time to head out.

Vicki had very kindly asked Morgan and me to sing "Amazing Grace" at the wedding, and we were performing with Luis Felipe's friend Natalia (who speaks excellent English and is a professional musician). We ran through the song at Natalia's house and then we headed over to the church. The ceremony began right at 5:00 (The priest said Vicki was the first bride he ever knew to be on time for her wedding, and I'm not sure if he was kidding or not). Morgan, Natalia and I had an excellent bird's eye view from the choir loft to enjoy the ceremony, half of which was in English and half of which was in Spanish. It was a lovely ceremony (and it wasn't too long, which made it even better). Also, the song went very well. I was by far the weakest singer in the group, so I was just "ooh oohing" in the background, but Morgan and Natalia both sounded great.

View of the wedding from the choir loft

At Spanish weddings, when the ceremony is over, the churchgoers line up to kiss the bride and groom and congratulate them. Morgan and I waited until the line died down to greet the happy couple. They both looked wonderful, and of course very happy.

Me, Morgan, and newlywed Vicki!

The singers (Natalia, me, and Morgan) outside of the church

The happy couple

Vicki's mom, sister Julie, bridesmaid Jessica, and the bride herself

The reception was in a neighboring town called Campo de Criptana. I visited a few months ago to see the famous molinos, or the windmills from Don Quijote. The wedding party was going to take photos near the windmills before the reception started, but to get to the reception, they hired two buses to bring everyone from Quintanar to Campo de Criptana. As strange as it was to get on a bus to go to a wedding, it was really smart to make sure that no one was drinking and driving.

The reception started with a cocktail hour outside with many little tapas to choose from, as well as a whole selection of cheeses (You can imagine where I spent most of my time).

Cocktail hour

I was eager to go inside when the time came to eat both because I was hungry and also because the cardigan I was wearing wasn't exactly warm enough for the weather. We then enjoyed a delicious five-course meal that took more than two hours to finish. I was so full when it was over that I felt like I could roll all the way back to Quintanar.

Aside from how happy I was to be able to celebrate with Vicki and Luis Felipe, my favorite part of the wedding was that Vicki had placed all of the English speakers together at one table. It was so nice to be able to chat and make jokes with people who actually understood each other and had the same sense of humor.

Finally the dancing started around 1:00 in the morning, and I loved seeing Vicki dance with her dad and the newlyweds' first dance as a couple. But as anyone who reads my blog knows, I'm not cut out to stay up all night, so I went back to Quintanar on the first bus (which left at 2:30, so it's not as if I called it an early night or anything).

Morgan and me at the reception

At the reception (and Vicki's sister Julie and her dad in the background!)

Members of the English speaking table

I did nothing except sleep alarmingly late on Sunday and then it was already time for school again on Monday. I resumed my after school lessons by playing a version of a card game called Kings in which you have to do something different with every card you draw. I actually know Kings because it's normally a drinking game, but my students didn't know that. And I changed it so that they had to do some kind of English speaking with each card, so no one was the wiser. In school, I didn't do anything share-worthy because I was with infantil in the elementary school and we didn't do anything particularly exciting in the high school, either.

After my Friday lesson with my grumpy five-year-old, I went to the library for awhile and then Morgan and Vicki came over to my apartment to watch Zoolander. I was convinced that Morgan wouldn't like our stupid American humor but thankfully, I was wrong.

On Saturday, I went to a city called Cuenca, which is the capital of the same-named region of Castilla La Mancha. Cuenca is actually just over an hour from Quintanar, but they don't run buses there on Saturdays, so I had to go to Madrid first, which is just as annoying as it sounds. But I met up with my Toledo friends in Madrid to go to Cuenca together, including my good friend Kendra, an Irish guy named Hugh who's also in our program, and a British guy named Scott who works at a hotel in Toledo. We weren't able to take the bus we wanted to Cuenca because it filled up before we could buy tickets, so we wound up sharing a ride through Blablacar, a service that connects travelers who want to carpool. We laughed a lot and generally had a good time on the trip to Cuenca, so it was an excellent group to be traveling with.

When we got to the city, we met up with another girl in our program named Cher, who's from Michigan. Cher lives and works in Cuenca so she very kindly acted as our tour guide for the day.

I had thought that Toledo was a very hilly city, but even my friends from Toledo agreed that it had nothing on Cuenca. My aunt Erin gave me a FitBit for Christmas that I like to wear when I'm traveling, and at the end of the day, my FitBit told me that we climbed the equivalent of 110 flights of stairs. I felt I deserved the large ice cream I had later in the afternoon.

I don't have a lot to share about the city of Cuenca except photos. The city is nestled among lovely rolling hills and stone outcroppings. I had heard that Cuenca was pretty but I was still taken aback by just how lovely it was.

View from Puente de San Pablo

Las Casas Colgadas, or the hanging houses for which Cuenca is famous

Cathedral of Cuenca

Thank God we took this photo after we sat down for lunch or I would've looked like a tomato, thanks to climbing up so many hills

Cuenca Castle

View from the castle

Other view from the castle

Plaza Mayor de Cuenca

Huécar River

Bridge across Huécar River

Waterfall

Path along the river

Scott, Hugh, Kendra, and me

We managed to get on a bus back to Madrid, got some delicious Asian takeout from Wok to Walk, and then took a bus to Toledo. I was spending the night at Kendra's because we were going out to celebrate her birthday, which had been on Thursday. We were all admittedly tired from our day of basically hiking through Cuenca, but we managed to stay out until 3:00. It took us so long to get back to Toledo that we didn't actually go out until after 1:00, but I considered it a success nonetheless.

When Kendra and I finally got out of bed the next day, we lounged around, watching Netflix until it was time for me to take the bus back to Quintanar. I had a relaxing evening to rest up before a full week of school and afternoon classes, especially because this weekend, I'm taking another trip up north!