¿Dónde está el baño?

If you have pretty basic Spanish skills, you know that the title means, "Where is the bathroom?" You are probably curious why this is the title of my latest blog post... Two words: stomach virus. In the second week in Spain, both my and my roommates immune system gave way to a Spanish virus. Pat got it first and and went to the hospital because they didn't know what it was. That was on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Friday morning came my fight with the virus. It was kind of poor timing because we could not take part in a class trip to a tapas bar for tapas and sangria that was paid for by our instructors, oh well. We were also bummed that we couldn't go out with the amigos on Friday night. However, we did get some much needed rest. On Saturday, we woke up early for a day excursion to a pair of castles in Coca and Penafiel. First, we visited the castle in Penafiel, which also serves as wine museum. The castle was constructed in the 15th century I believe. It is perched high on a hill overlooking miles of terrain, giving those in the castle a great vantage point. It was strictly used as a castle for defense/protection. From the image below (not my image, do not have my cord currently) you can see that it is extremely beautiful. After touring the castle, we went downstairs for the wine tasting. We tasted vino blanco (white), vino rosado (rose), and 2 vino tintos (red). They were all made with grapes that came from the Ribera del Duero region, which is renowned for its wine. They were all extremely good, especially the last one. We were told that the last one, which is the wine of the museum, is award winning and went through a unique process of gaining the title wine of the museum. Around 180 wineries in the region come together for a competition that is well known around Spain and in the world. Long story short, it is narrowed down to 20 and a panel randomly tastes and selects one to be the winner. This award winning wine is one that we tasted and it was absolutely amazing. Also, there were only 3,000 bottles produced, and this was in 2013. After the tasting, we were given some free time. Some of my buddies and I decided to part ways from those meandering around the town of Penafiel and be a little adventurous. There was a decent sized hill with a cross on top and we wanted to make it there and back within the 1 and 45 minutes we had. We made it and with that we had great views of the castle and the surrounding areas. After Penafiel, we departed for Coca, where we found another castle, however this castle acted as a residence. We toured the castle and learned about the history of its inhabitants. Saturday night consisted of the usual bar, bar, discoteca, etc. Today (Sunday), Pat and I took part in a little Spanish tradition with Inma an Carlos. We met with friends of Inma and Carlos at a local cafe/bar around 11:30 we had a beer or two, ate some tapas and then went to another bar and we repeated this a few times. It was very fun to take in a part of their daily life/culture. This Wednesday we depart for Barcelona, which is shaping up to be a very fun long-weekend. I probably will not post until after that, so I look forward to sharing how the weekend went. Until then...

Cheers

Parker

                                                           Castle at Penafiel

PP