Christmas Vacation

Christmas vacation was certainly very different for me this year. To start off I had nearly three weeks of vacation instead of the usual two we get back at home. My family went to a small pueblo called Gemuno near the city of Avila for vacation. Angel's mother lives there but she is seriously ill. Angel has been with here since December 12 and now she was in the hospital.

The road trip was about six or seven hours long. However, in the end we arrived and met Angel at the hospital. His mother didn't seem to be doing well during the majority of the time we spent in Gemuno. However, she was moved to a residence (nursing home) and on the very last day I saw her she seemed and looked a lot better.

Well we arrived in Gemuno on December 20th. It was nighttime so I wasn't able to see what the pueblo was like. Feli had told me several times that it was very small but I couldn't imagine it at the time. I was also warned that it was going to be a lot colder than Sabadell so I had packed my clothes carefully. The reason why Gemuno is colder is that it is at a higher altitude than Sabadell and the wind is brutal. Avila, the city near Gemuno, is the city with the highest altitude in Spain.

I wasn't sure what we were going to do because I had no friends here and didn't know the area so I came prepared and brought some books. When I woke up the first morning Feli took me to the balcony of a room on the second floor and showed me Gemuno. There was not much to see...

There were a lot of fields, a group of very small mountains to one side and Avila, which was about 10 km away. I had slept pretty well because there were absolutely no noises you normally hear in a city. So the day began, they had a ping-pong table, which we spent many hours playing and it gave us lots of entertainment. I had so much free time and was able to read and watch a lot of Spanish TV. One thing that I enjoyed was the fact that Gemuno was in the Comunidad Autonoma de Junta de Castilla y Leon. Spanish was only spoken in this Comunidad and I didn't have to hear any Catalan!

Days passed and we visited Avila, watched Tv, played ping-pong and read. Avila is a lot smaller than Sabadell. However, one thing Avila is famous for is its muralla. It is an impressive medieval wall surrounding the old part of Avila. It is one of the most well preserved walls from its time period. It was a marvelous sight.