| paris. |
[15 Jun 2007|10:25pm] |
Um, I’m leaving Europe in 5 days. What? The semester is long over, and all of a sudden the three+ weeks of travel is practically over. I’m updating from Munich, but since I’m so far behind in my journal I can’t tell you about Munich until, well, I’m not sure. I’m here to post some pictures and what not from Paris. Now mainly I’m just going to be reading my travel journal and transferring some of the interesting tidbits from that onto here, but with pictures. Besides, pictures are more fun to look at.
Simply put, Paris was amazing. Okay, so everything we’ve seen these past 3 weeks of travel have been amazing and everything different in their each own way. Paris is a city full of life, energy, a bajillion things to do, and freaking awesome crépes (try the chocolate banana). It is also exhausting- we were on the go practically all day, and I’ll admit it, by the end I was promising myself never to enter another museum again in my life…. But really, it was so much fun.
We bought the museum pass, which cost 45 euros for 4 days ,and gets you in practically every where, and you get to skip almost all the lines. It was definitely worth it. The first day we basically explored the Ile de la cite, which is right smack dab in the center of Paris… in the middle of the Seine. But I already wrote about this in my last entry I believe.
Our second day we caught a train out to Versailles, where Louis the 14th, 15th and 16th lived. We had a couple problems in the metro station, because well, we don’t speak French and can’t read the signs. Speaking of which, we felt extremely weird after being in a foreign country for 5 months and being able to communicate easily (Spain) to being put in another foreign country where we had absolutely no ability in their language, and it feels awful to have to speak in English. But anyway, we eventually got to where we needed to go with the help of a nice French woman who helped us with directions (Contrary to what’s commonly thought in the US, all the French people I met were extremely nice. But that was my experience).
The palace at Versailles was HUMUNGOUS! (Do you like the caps?) Extravagant would be a good word to describe it I think. We were there pretty early in the morning and there were already a ton of people there- so that kind of was a draw back while touring the palace, but I think I actually like the gardens of Versailles better. It was a beautifully sunny day and I put on my iPod, turned on my Amelie soundtrack (Cheezy, I know, but I said I would listen to Amelie in France, and I DID) and walked around. I got myself some great icecream and sat down on the grass in front of the water and watched people rowing their rowboats (sitting down on grass was a new concept for me, considering in Spain you’re just supposed to look at the grass in the park… silly Spaniards.)
We got back to the city, and because we had our museum pass we decided to do the Sewer Tour for shits and giggles. Hahah, get it? Yeah, sorry. Anyway, it was, um, interesting? We definitely wouldn’t have done it if we didn’t have the museum passes…. But it was kind of fun just to walk around a sewer. Now we know the number to call incase we ever drop our keys in the Paris Sewer… I feel prepared.
And yes, it smelled.
Afterwards we went to Centre Pompidou, which is a modern art museum. It was so—so.
Looking at the rest of my journal, I seemed to have slacked off, but I’ll try and remember what we did. I don’t really have days written down, sooooo, these take place over the rest of our time in Paris (we were there for 4 nights)
The Louvre. It was gargantuan. Enough said. We were there for maybe 4 or 5 hours and didn’t even see a 1/3 of it. Well, I only saw 1/3 of it, I’m not sure how much Kelsey saw. What we do when we go to the museums is set up a meeting time and place to meet back, because we both have different paces and different interests in the museums, so this way we can see what we want when we want, and if, when we meet up, we still want to see more, we can set another time to meet up. It worked out really well. So, anyway, I saw the usual things at the Louvre, the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and I spent a whole lot of time in the Egyptian art area (partly on purpose, partly on accident- I kind of got lost).
I actually liked the Musée d’Orsay better than the Louvre- it focused more on the impressionists and had some really cool paintings. (It has Whistler’s Mother. Y’know, from Bean (the movie).
Musée Rodin was also a neat stop- we saw the Thinker and all. The Museum is right next to the place where Napoleon is buried/entombed, so we went there afterwards. It actually was one of the more interesting places, because they have a world war museum there as well, which we spent several hours going through (it was, to me, more interesting than the art museums, even though I liked those too.)
We climbed almost everything you can in Paris.... The Pantheon (really cool), Notre Dame, Arc de Triumph, Eiffel Tower, etc. Pretty much from all these vantage points you can see how huge paris really is. It stretches almost as far as the eye can see.... it's huge.
We met some really great people at our hostel too, some french canadians, some germans, and we had a great time going out with all of them... meeting people at hostels has been one of the most fun things about traveling through europe (especially when you get past the lame "How long have you been in Europe? Where are you going next? What's been your favorte?" part)
Anyway, I think it's time for pictures....
( Paris )
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| euro extravaganza continued |
[06 Jun 2007|11:20pm] |
So here's the journal entry that I wrote on the first day that we were in Paris, that I tried to update... I'm just copying and pasting it here. It's about everything up into our first day in Paris.
Okay! It’s time for an update! We’ve been out of Granada now for a little more than a week and it’s been a blast! It’s been a lot of fun, but also extremely tiring. Barcelona was a blast. It’s the second biggest city in Spain, but it isn’t overwhelming- it’s super easy to get around, whether by walking or (more easily) by the metro, it’s pretty clean, and the people were pretty friendly. The only thing that you had to watch out for was petty theft, but luckily we didn’t have any problems- although we did run into Tara (who was part of our group in Granada) and she was robbed in the Metro; someone came up to her and “spilled” something on her backpack and then suddenly people appeared with tissues to help offer to clean her up. She took off her purse to start cleaning her backpack and then her purse was gone…. Tricky. (She was able to go to the embassy and get an emergency passport within the day, and she cancelled all her credit cards).
Our first day in Barcelona we walked around the city a little bit- we walked La Rambla, which is about a mile long tree lined paseo through the city… it reminded me a little bit like the paseo in Granada, only much bigger and with much more street performers. There were street performers seriously every 20 feet- some of them were really interesting, and some were, well… They were trying hard. There were also little stores selling flowers, some selling pets (bunnies, turtles, and pigeons??)
We walked up through L’Eixample and saw the Manzana de discordia (which means the block of discord) which includes one of Gaudi’s houses that he built, and another modernist building. Further up Passeig de Gracia is Gaudi’s other house, which is really cool.
The hostel I was staying in was pretty neat- however I was staying in a room with 12 beds, and it was pretty difficult to sleep. Well, let me rephrase that: it was actually quite easy to fall asleep, however when everyone came back in from partying at 6 in the morning and turned on the lights and started shouting, it then became difficult to sleep. It was a weekend, so it was understandable, I guess.
26 MAY
We went to La Sagrada Familia, the church that Gaudi spent most of his life on, which is still yet to be completed ( I think it’s supposed to be done in about 30 years, if they keep up the pace their going). It was AWESOME. Such amazing architecture. All the facades were very intricate, but so different from anything I’ve ever seen (and let me tell you, Ive seen a lot of cathedrals and churches in Spain). The inside is also very cool- the modernists got a lot of their inspiration from nature, so the pillars looked like tree trunks and then they branched off to hold the ceiling up.
We went to Parc Guell which is in the northern part of the city, and big surprise here, it’s another of Guadi’s projects (Barcelona is the city of Gaudi). It was originally designed to be a gated housing community, but when that failed, the city of Barcelona bought it and turned it into a park. We relaxed up there for a while and enjoyed the views of Barcelona and the Mediterranean Sea- we had wonderful weather during our time in Barcelona.
Barcelona also has a great market that kind of reminded me a little of Pike’s Place, called the Boqueria, where there were tons of fruit, veggies, fish and sheep heads on display up for sale. We bought some food to bring back to the hostel to cook (because we’re poor) and we had some great pasta almost every night.
We went to the Palacio Nacional where we sat on some steps and watched the Magic Fountain, which is a huge fountain in front of the palace that has colored water and music and light displays. It was alright.
27 May
We went to the La Pedrera house of Gaudi and toured around inside. It was huge! Guadi really liked to create a lot of open space in his designs, so everything in the apartment is connected, more or less through sliding doors, etc. We were able to go out on the rooftop terrace which was so wacky… I don’t even know how to describe it.
The Picasso museum was located right by our hostel, so we stopped back there and toured that around a little bit. Probably the most interesting thing there was his reproductions on Vazquez’ Las Meninas…
Payed for some way too expensive Mojitos at a Cuban bar.
28 May
We spent a lot of time down at the waterfront, walking along the beach, playing on rope towers and just having fun.
Later we went to the Palau de Musica Catalana which was also really really neat- there is a huge stain glass sun that comes down from the ceiling over the concert hall.
Went out for tapas (which are unfortunately not free anywhere outside of Granada), but they were amazing. It was a Basque bar in Cataluña (explain that one to me), but they have all the tapas out (but they’re called Pinxtos) and you eat as many as you want, but each one has a toothpick in it. When you’re done eating you count the toothpicks and then they tally your bill. Nifty.
29 de Mayo
Flew from Barcelona to Bilbao. The Basque country (Pais Vasco) is gorgeous. We got in pretty late, but in the morning it was green, lush, hilly and just completely different from the rest of Spain. The hostel we stayed in was very quiet, which was a nice change from BCN. We caught the train into the city, because we were staying kind of in a little suburb, I guess you could call it. Bilbao is a city completely transformed, full of modern architecture, it’s quaint and quiet, but sleek and trendy at the same time. We walked along the river; and there were bike paths everywhere and people seemed to be a lot more active. We crossed a really cool bridge and went to the Guggenheim museum. I remember seeing pictures of the Guggenheim when I was about ten years old or so, when it was first built and I remember wanting to go there, because the design is just crazy. So it felt really cool to be there in person. As for the exhibits in the Guggenheim, there wasn’t a whole lot of different things; there was a really cool German artist called Anselm Kiefer who used all sorts of mediums in his paintings. There was a Spanish artist who didn’t really impress us, and then there was a huge metal sculpture by Richard Serra which was really spectacular.
Of course it was raining while we were in Bilbao- it definitely reminded me of Seattle in that aspect. We sought shelter in the casco Viejo of the city, which is the old part and went to a couple churches and then returned to the hostel.
May 31 to June 1
We caught a bus to San Sebastian, bypassing Guernica, which was a little disappointing, but it was a little out of the way, and we didn’t know what we were going to do with our stuff. We got into San Sebastian around 3 or so and of course, it started raining on us as soon as we decided to walk from the bus station to our hostel. We found it okay. San Sebastian is a beautiful city situated right on the bay with amazing green/blue color. There’s a river that’s also splitting the city in two that we had to cross to get to our hostel. We explored San Sebastian for a little bit, sitting in the port, walking through the old part of the city. Supposedly San Sebastian has the highest concentration of bars where ETA sympathizers go, but we didn’t run into any problems. We did run into a friend of Kelsey’s who she had met in Morocco, so we hung out with her for a while (turns out she was staying in our hostel too) and we climbed this hill, where we saw a Jesus statue that overlooked San Sebastian. The view from the hill was gorgeous, as expected, and it was great to be in the rain, surrounded by trees and the ocean… it smelled amazing.
We met some really cool people in our hostel; a couple from Canada who we hung out with a lot, and then a guy from Argentina who moved to India when he was 18 after reading The Mahabharata to find truth and meaning for his life. He really was interesting. He lives in this “monastery” thing, I’m not really sure what it was. But he wakes up every morning at 2 AM and does a 27 km pilgrimage and chants and meditates and then he comes back and works on translating the books into Spanish, and then he does yoga (he was telling us this all in Spanish, so it may be a little rough), talks with his guru and then does another pilgrimage around all the temples of his village. And he’s only 23 years old. I couldn’t imagine doing anything like that. He was really nice and pointed out that this was “his truth” and that what is true for him isn’t always what’s true for anyone else, which I thought was really interesting.
Our bus from San Sebastian was supposed to leave at 2 AM, so we went to the bus station around 130 and of course, it was raining, and 2:15 comes around and our bus isn’t there yet. I should point out that when I say bus station, I really mean outdoor bus station, with no information, so we were clueless as if to our bus is going to come or not, and we’re cold. Finally our bus comes and we get on board and show the driver our tickets that we had printed off. Turns out we needed to have exchanged the papers we printed off for real tickets from the office (which had closed at 9:30 PM), but we got things squared away and hopped on. The bus lasted about 10 hours, and I slept for maybe 5 of them. We got into Paris this afternoon at noon and managed to find our way to the hostl (we’re staying in Montmarte, near the Sacre Couer in the northern part of Paris). Let me tell you, I hate riding metros with my big backpack… it’s a hassle. Luckily I have Kelsey there with me so we can guard each other.
We had a busy afternoon- we went to the Notre Dame; the inside didn’t impress me. I mean, yes it’s cool and yes it’s beautiful- but I hate to admit it, after 5 months in Europe, I’m a little jaded with cathedrals. What did impress me was going up the towers and seeing the gargoyles and the city of Paris. We had amazing weather today- sunny and hot. Notre Dame is on the Ile de la cite, which is in the middle of the Seine, and that’s where we spent most of our day today. After Notre Dame we went to the Ste. Chapelle, which was really cool, full of stained glass. We bought a 4 day museum pass for 45 euros which is going to save us big bucks, considering each museum is about 7 bucks a pop, and we’re planning on going big here. We went to eh Palais de Justice and the Conciergerie which is where Marie Antoinette was held prisoner. We also went to an archeological crypt under the Plaza (er… Place) in front of the Notre Dame which showed all the foundations of when Paris was a Roman city. Then we went to the Ile St. Louis and walked through that and hopped over to the Latin Quarter to see La Sorbonne and headed back to the hostel for a Pasta dinner, of course.
Anyway, and that’s where were at today! Sorry that it is so scattered… mainly I’m just trying to type in highlights and I’m not really doing a great job at making it interesting- but that’s what the photos are for! I’m having a great time though!
( fotos )
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[02 Jun 2007|11:57pm] |
The internet isn't letting me post this long journal entry that I had typed up about Barcelona, Bilbao and San Sebastian....
so, hopefully i can get it up later...
anyway, I'm in Paris, I'm exhausted, but i'm having a wonderful time! Good night!
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[02 Jun 2007|11:53pm] |
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test....
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| Barça! |
[25 May 2007|04:58pm] |
I made it safe and sound from Granada to Barcelona! I managed to fit almost everything in my backpack. And by that I mean, I left a lot of stuff in Spain and packed my backpack to the "backbreaking" capacity. It´s great.
Catalán is a little tricky. While strikingly similar in some aspects, the menu at McDonalds killed me and got a laugh from the cashier.
Okay! Off to explore!
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| el fin. |
[23 May 2007|12:08pm] |
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mood |
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 hopeful |
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Last night Randall and I woke up at 4 AM to the craziest thunderstorm I have ever seen. It was pouring down rain and there were flashes of lightning every 5 seconds with almost instantaneous thunder indicating the eerie proximity of it all.
But then we woke up and was clear, the sun was shining and it was completely different.
I've finished all my finals. As I complete my time in Spain, my sophomore year has come to a close. Half way done with college; it has gone way too fast. Completely done with Spain.... even faster.
Finals all went much smoother than expected. This semester definitely has not been as challenging academically as PLU, and I'm excited to get back to some harder work (even though I'll whine and complain about it once I have to do homework).
I will never be back at the Centro de Lenguas Modernas. And this is soooooo weird. When will I be back to Granada? I'm leaving a couple really great Spanish friends and I don't know if I'll ever see them again. I'm leaving friends from different parts of the USA, who I know I'll probably never see again. People come and go through out your life, but the thing is that some make such a lasting impression, that they will never actually leave you. They'll be there in your photos, in your memories; somehow they'll make you smile when they're not there, and you'll look like a lunatic smiling and laughing to yourself as you recall a funny memory that you once shared. But who knows, maybe someday you'll run into them again in the future.
AGHAGHAKJFLKSAHFKKASHDFKLHSADFKJLAJSFD. Sorry. that's how I'm feeling inside. Excited. Crazy. Bittersweet. Happy. Sad. Sick (sore throat). Energetic. Lethargic. Seriously, the end of a semester abroad messes with your mind. But it has all been so worth it.
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| Where oh where has the semester gone? |
[19 May 2007|03:38pm] |
As I'm writing this I still am in disbelief that I will be leaving Granada in 6 days. This place that I have called home for 5 months. In some ways I'm ready to move on: I miss home, I miss Alaska (where there are not cars honking outside my window 24 hours a day), I miss family and friends; but in other ways I'm not ready to leave: I have had a wonderful experience here, I've learned so much, I've had so many opportunities and adventures. This last week has been a whole spectrum of emotion. I'm excited to travel Europe for 3 weeks, sad to leave Granada, eager to be back in the USA, etc.
The weather has been sunny and hot- currently it's 88 degrees according to weather.com and yesterday it hit 90. I'm spending many an hour at Parque Garcia Lorca laying out on the grass, studying for finals which are coming up next week.
Last Thursday was our last day of volunteering at the elementary school. I actually don't think I've ever mentioned this in here. Every Thursday I would volunteer in a 5th grade class helping to teach English. It was so much fun- the kids were a blast and every time we entered the classroom the were excited to see us. It was sad to say goodbye to them.
We had our last group excursion last weekend, to Ronda and Grazalema, two smaller cities about 3 hours west of Granada. They were really really cool. I took pictures that are going to be below. We did some hiking in Grazalema, which was fun.
( Ronda y Grazalema )
Tonight we have our group goodbye dinner... oy.
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| portugal!!! |
[09 May 2007|07:47pm] |
So, about a week and a half ago we had a 5 day weekend, so I gathered some friends (or rather, they gathered me) we rented a car and hit the road, west to Portugal!
All I can say is that it was gorgeous, we had a blast, and the beaches of Granada have got NOTHING on Portugal. We were in a huge, but cheap hotel, cooked all our own food (which was delicious) and just had a great time hanging out.
Enjoy.
( Portimao, Portugal )
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| El fin de abril |
[25 Apr 2007|04:20pm] |
Yesterday was beautiful weather. After lunch I took my homework for lit class (We're reading the play "La Casa de Bernarda Alba" by Federico Garcia Lorca) and went to Parque Garcia Lorca and laid down on one of the park benches and read. People were running, juggling, singing, playing instruments and just generally enjoying the wonderful day. It was gorgeous. And hot.
Also, Po, Swanny and David (our friends from Dijon France) came back to Granada for a week so we've hung out with them the last 3 nights; they're such a blast to be with- hysterical. They're headed back to Dijon today. Sad.
On Friday I'm going to Porti Mao, Portugal for an extended weekend. Here's to hoping for good weather!
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| La corrida de Toros |
[24 Apr 2007|05:09pm] |
On Saturday we went to a bullfight. It was definitely not what I expected, at all. I was nervous before going; I mean, I knew that I wanted to see one because it would be a really great cultural experience, but it wasn't until about 20 minutes before the bullfight started that I realized that I was about to see 6 bulls get killed. And that killing meant blood, and I don't do blood.
We piled into the Plaza de Toros, along with hundreds of other Spaniards. The bull fight was being held to benefit Down's Syndrome, and there were many parents bringing their kids who had downs, many adults with downs, along with everyone else. We found our seats. There are two sections in the Plaza: Sol y Sombra, or Sun and shade. The spots in the sun are cheaper than the spots in the shade; but we were on the sunny side. Which actually wasn't too bad, because it was partly cloudy that day.
The band started up and the energy in the Plaza was tremendous. As the bullfighting began, I didn't really like it. But seriously as it progressed it became more and more exciting. It really is somewhat of an art form. It was something that I really enjoyed, surprisingly.
( Ole! )
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| Morocco |
[22 Apr 2007|05:05pm] |
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music |
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Modest Mouse- Dashboard |
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Holey moley. It's almost May. I can't believe it. The time is going by way too quickly...
Yesterday we had a group excursion up to the Alpujarras, several small pueblos up in the Sierra Nevadas. They were neat little towns; with all the houses painted in white. The Alpujarras is actually where all the Muslims went when they were expelled from Granada in the 1500s. Thus there is a lot of Moorish influence, that coincidently we saw while in Morocco last weekend.
Which is what this post is about... Morocco! It was AMAZING!
We left on Friday afternoon, on a bus out of Granada with an organized group that we had found. We drove down to Malaga and then along the coast until we got to Algeciras, where we caught the ferry across the Strait of Gibralter (unfortunately we didn't see the rock... to hazy). The ferry ride lasted about an hour, and before you knew it we were in Africa! But we were still in Spain. How does that work, you may ask? There are actually two Spanish cities left in Africa: Ceuta and Melilla, which are remanents of the Spanish empire; so while we were on the continent of Africa, we were still in Spanish territory. We crossed the border from Ceuta into Morocco where we exchanged our Euros into Dirhams. 1 Euro= 10 Dirhams.
The difference in Africa is amazing. There were definitely parts of the cities which were more "european" with big buildings, etc. But then right along side, you'd see a boy herding his herd of goats through the city. It was so interesting. The women wore head scarves, although not all of them. And there were very few women with their faces completely covered.
We got to our hotel in Tetouan, where they served us the most amazing tea ever. It was extremely sweet, and probably the best tea I've ever had. Our hotel was kind of on the outskirts of the city, where there was a lot of construction, but what I noticed is that there seems to be a ton of construction going on with in the cities as well. It will be interesting to see what changes will be going on in the next twenty years- because there was construction every where.
We woke up in the morning and had a breakfast buffet. There were these crepe like things which were amazing.
We boarded the bus and went into the city to the Medina, which is the old part of the city where the outdoor market is. On Saturdays the Berber women ride their mules into the city from the mountains to sell their veggies and crafts. We were getting information from our guide, Jamal, or as he referred to himself "El Julio Inglesias de Marruecos" (He gave most of the tour in Spanish; but he also spoke English. Along with Spanish and English, he spoke French and Arabic, which it seemed like most of the people in Northern Morocco spoke those 4 languages. It was so interesting. Arabic and French are the national languages, but with its proximity to Spain, its not surprising that so many spoke it. Speaking of Arabic: I only learned three words:
Hello Assalaam aleykum
Thank you Chukran
No La
Anyway. The Medina was so cool- narrow streets winding around like a labirynth. Definitely would've been easy to get lost. Full of people selling everything you can think of. Chickens, meat, bread, vegetables, shoes, jewelery. Everything. It was extremely busy. WE had lunch in the Medina in a small restaurant, where they served us the amazing tea again, but also the best shish kebab I've ever had. It was delicious. We also had a huge serving of cous cous and chicken.
We went to Tangier in the afternoon, which is a much larger city. On the way there we made a stop where we could ride camels. It was just a quick ride... but really fun. Such goofy animals.
We later returned to Tetouan back to the hotel because we had to wake up early the next day. On Sunday we woke up at 6, and made it out of the hotel by 7 to drive through the country side to Chef Chaouen. Oh, that's anotherthing, the Moroccan countryside is GORGEOUS! The north (which is the only part we wer) was mountainous and extremely green; greener than Spain green. I was completely surprised. It was not what I expected at all.
Chefchaouen is a smaller city up in the mountains, and the city's symbol is a blue door. Walking though town you notice that almost all the doors are blue... I can't remember the exact significance of this but it has to do with Islam. It was a really neat town.
I'm just going to skip to the pictures, because they're just a lot better at telling the story then I am.
( African Adventure )
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| 3 weeks in Europe |
[18 Apr 2007|05:39pm] |
Kelsey and I have finalized our plans for our super awesome mega trip at the end of the program.
And here it is revealed to you:
May 25-May 29 BARCELONA, ESPAÑA
Fly from Barcelona to Bilbao
May 29-May 31 BILBAO, ESPAÑA
Bus from Bilbao, stop in Guernica, and get to San Sebastian for the night
May 31-June 2 SAN SEBASTIAN, ESPAÑA
Take a night train from San Sebastian to Paris, France
June 2-June 6 PARIS, FRANCIA with trip to Versailles.
Train from Paris to Geneva.
June 6-8 GENEVA, SUIZA
Train from Geneva to Bern
June 8-June 9 BERN, SUIZA
Train to Gimmelwald.
June 9-12 GIMMELWALD, SUIZA
Train to Lucerne.
June 12-June 14 LUCERNE, SUIZA
Train or bus to Munich
June 14-June 16 MUNICH, ALEMANIA
fly from Munich to Amsterdam
June 16-June 20 AMSTERDAM, PAISES BAJOS
Fly Amsterdam-New York City, transfer to Newark-Seattle, stay a night or two in Tacoma, and then ALASKA.
(Not really sure why I listed the countries in Spanish, but if you didn't get it: Spain, France, Switzerland, Germany and Netherlands. )
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| Italia |
[17 Apr 2007|05:37pm] |
Oooh boy, it´s been a while since Italy and I haven´t even put up my pictures yet! I´m horrible at keeping this thing updated. New things are happening all the time: Speaking of new things, I went to Morocco last weekend!!! It was amazing! Hopefully I´ll get an update of that later this week, but I´m not making any promises.
Here´s pictures from Italy!
( Spring Break 2007 )
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| Granada Pictures |
[11 Apr 2007|05:30pm] |
I´m back from a great Semana Santa in Italia with Mom, Dad and Shelby!
I´ll be uploading pictures and writing about our Italian trip soon, but here are the pictures Granada the days before the Italian trip
( G-Town )
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| Deja Vu |
[31 Mar 2007|08:31pm] |
So, I'm thinking that I need to update my journal a little more frequently; I need to record more of the regular day-to-day shtuff. This week has been a great one! Mid-Terms are over! They went really well, I do believe (I haven't gotten my grades back yet, so hey as for now, I'm happy believing what I want). Probably my hardest test was for my European Union class. I feel that I studied pretty hard for it, but I didn't quite remember all the schemes of the Politica Agricola Comun (the PAC in Spanish... and maybe the CAP in English? See this is the dilemma with this class: I'm learning all the terms and what not in Spanish and if I ever have to answer a question about them in English, I will not know how to say it. ) My mid-term for Civilizacion y cultura Espanola was fairly simple: I had to write an essay on a theme that we've studied, so I wrote about the different cultures that have influenced Spain and the different "dynasties" that have inhabited Spain (from the Iberios, the Celtas, Tartesos, Fenicios, Griegos, Romanos, Vandalos, Visigodos, Moros, Cristianos, etc. etc.) and then answer 5 short-answer questions. For my class on Actualidad Sociopolitica we just had an in class essay where we were supposed to discuss the civil values of spain and how they have changed (and why) since the death of Franco (the role of the Church, implementation of democracy, views toward citizenship etc.). I actually took my Literature mid-term 2 weeks ago (but still haven't gotten my grade back) so all in all, I only had 3 mid terms this week (I didn't have a mid term for my Produccion oral y escrita class).
Also on Wednesday my parents and sister arrived! I met up with them in Plaza Nueva Wednesday Evening and we walked around the city for a little bit. We walked up to the Alhambra, walked down through the Realejo, I showed them my school, then we went and got some Italian food for dinner and went to Los Italiano's Heladeria (ice cream).
On Thursday I brought them back to meet Esperanza (my host mom) and she had made tea for us and had set out some sweets. It was really kind. Afterwards I took them to the Capilla Real and the Cathedral, and then we caught a bus up to Mirador de San Nicolas in the Albaicin, where the view of the Alhambra was amazing (yes, it still continues to amaze me). There were a ton of people at the Mirador: it seems like Tourist season is upon us... yikes. I'm not used to tourists until summertime... The streets of Granada are packed. Later that night we had a buffet at their hotel and then the women went to sleep (mom and shelby) so the men (dad and I) went out for some pints of beer. Ha ha. It was a lot of fun.
Yesterday we went up to the Alhambra to walk around a little bit (we hadn't gotten tickets to enter the palaces of the Alhambra because we had thought they were completely sold out, but there are parts of the Alhambra where you can walk around sin tickets, so we were just going to go up there to walk around ) and then we found out that there were tickets available, so we bought them. We still had to wait for a while because the tickets were for 5 PM and we were there at 1 PM. So we walked around, went back to town, got some lunch (some really GREAT indian food) and then made our way back to the Alhambra. It was just as amazing seeing it the second time. But this time I got to see the Generalife, which I hadn't seen the first time. Gorgeous. The weather was wonderful.
Which brings me to today: I'm in Dublin! Surprise. We left Granada at about 9 AM towards Malaga where we were going to catch our Air Lingus flight to Dublin, and then fly from Dublin to Venice. But, it wouldn't be a typical Zach European trip without unplanned adventures. We weren't able to get on the flight to Venice, so we're at a hotel in Dublin for the night. We'll be up tomorrow morning to hop on a 6 AM flight to Venice.
I'm excited for my second trip to Italy!!
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| Caracoles |
[22 Mar 2007|08:58pm] |
So, my ventures in Spanish cuisine have been okay so far. Nothing too extreme, besides that calamari in it's own ink incident. But so far so good. I'll admit, the food is a can be bland; but the spaniards do have their redeeming dishes.
And then, came the snails. "Caracoles" if you will. As my roommate said, "My mom told me to never eat anything that carries its house around on its back".
Our host mom knew it wasn't something we were accustomed to, so she asked us if we wanted to try them. Sure, why not? We're in Spain right? Besides, it will make a good story later. So we nervously waited at the table for Esperanza to bring us our, gulp, snails.
She brings in the plate and there they are. In their shells. You can't really see the snail itself, except a little appendage thing. She demonstrates how to eat it: You take a tooth pick, stick it through the appendage, and pull the snail out of the shell, which fortunately makes a really appetizing squishing noise, the snail comes out, and you pop it in your mouth.
We each grabbed our respective shells. Randall fumbled with the toothpick, "unable" to spear the appendage. Yeah right, I thought, as I speared mine and pulled it out, he's stalling. So there it is, hanging in all it's snail glory (which isn't too pretty), and Esperanza cheers me on "Mételo en la boca!" I hesitate, but pop it in. It's.............. squishy, and once you get past the fact that there's a snail in your mouth it is surprisingly not bad. Better than the mushrooms she gives us, at least. It was actually kind of spicy.
Randall finally got his out, popped it in. Not bad.
I only ate two, Randall ate 3.
And one day later, we're still alive.
hallelujah.
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| Madrid, Toledo and Segovia |
[21 Mar 2007|06:24pm] |
Wey! I forgot to post the pics from Madrid, Toledo and Segovia. We´re going to take a step back in time to the week before Dublin. Our group took us to Madrid for 5 days! It was a lot of fun. We went to the Prado, to the Museo Reina Sofia (where I saw Picasso´s Guernica!!!!!! IT was HUGE!!! We also saw lots of really cool Dali), we went to El Escorial ( a building built by Felipe 3... I think. Anyway, it´s where they bury all the kings and queens of spain, then we went to this monument that was supposedly built ¨to honor all the spanish that died during the spanish civil war. Actually Franco forced political prisoners to build it. And Franco´s grave is now there, along with 40,000 unnamed soldiers, but Franco´s grave is the only one with recognition. And there´s a creepy basilica. We also went to Segovia for a day trip, and it was such a cool city! There is an ancient Roman acueduct that goes throught the city. The same evening, back in Madrid, we went to a play by Federico Garcia Lorca, called La Casa De Bernarda Alba- it was really good. Sad, but good. The next day we went south to Toledo, which was also a very cool city (I know, I´m getting boring with my descriptions, ¨So and so was a really cool place!!!¨ but this is what happens when you wait 3 weeks to post an entry. So, in that case, I´ll just go to the pictures!!
( The big city )
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| Sacromonte Sunset |
[20 Mar 2007|08:38pm] |
A couple days ago, my roommate Randall, and my friends Rachel and Joey and I walked up through the Sacromonte, climbed to the top of the hill, scaled the 1,000 year old wall at the top of the hill and watched the sunset over Granada. It was beautiful.
( I live here? )
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hellofromspain's journal