Ok, here was my list of things I wanted to do this semester:
# know the city/walk without (looking at) a map check.
# ride the bike path this is the one thing I didn't do?
# read in Spanish check.
# read in English check.
# keep a journal in Spanish check.
# find a summer job almost.
# do research for my thesis check.
# travel around Europe - Paris, Milan, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest check.
# travel around Spain - Madrid, Ronda, Matalascanas check.
# learn about Sevilla check.
# enjoy my classes check. mostly.
# read by the river check.
# run outside check.
# find a favorite spot several checks.
# take a flamenco class check.
# get an internship check. sortof.
# meet Spanish students check.
# go out check.
# shop check.
# take pictures check.
# be fluent check. sortof.
# talk to my Senora check.
# do the walking tours in the guidebook check.
# try all types of Spanish food check.
I'd say I was pretty successful overall, which is great. I have such mixed feelings about leaving here. On the one hand, I am so excited to see my family and friends, especially since my whole family is coming to Sharon's graduation, and I can't wait to go back to Brown when it is all pretty for commencement and to move into my house a week later. But on the other hand, this semester has been incredible. I feel like I could make a mile-long list about all the things I will miss about Seville, but here are my favorites:
my house and my Senora
the 15 American students I have spent the last 4 months with
hanging out by the Triana bridge, in our favorite spot, drinking tinto de verano
having time to read
running by the river at sunset
tanning with Hannah on the roof
my Senora's cooking
my walk to school
the Spanish schedule
the fact that it doesn't get dark here until after 10
the Plaza de San Lorenzo and the people watching that we do there
seeing the Torre del Oro at night
the fact that everyone in Seville is always in the streets
Basically, this semester has surpassed all my expectations, and I feel lucky to have had the chance to enjoy living in Spain for this long, to learn as much Spanish as I have, to have made so many good friends, and to have had the opportunity to travel all over Europe at the same time. I don't really have any big plans for the next two days, but I think we are just going to walk around and enjoy the best part of Seville - the atmosphere.
Ok. Time to pack. See you in Providence.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
It's May Already?
I'm not sure how this happened, but it's May 10th, which means I'm leaving in 10 days. While now it feels like a blur, it also seems like I've been here for ages. Although I'm so excited to see my friends and family when I get home, there are definitely things that I can already tell I'm going to miss. But I'll save all that for the actual last post, which will probably come next week at some point. Anyway, the past week went pretty well, mostly just getting back on track and doing a little bit of organizing/studying for the 4 exams I have this Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday. They shouldn't be anything too difficult, especially since all my grades automatically transfer as pass/fail back to Brown. I'm anxious to get them over with because when I do, it will be Thursday and I'll have until the following Wednesday to hang out with my friends and do all the last things I want to do while I'm still in Seville. I guess nothing incredibly exciting has happened in the past week, except another visit to the doctor - apparently I have an ear infection, probably caused by getting water in my ear from the Turkish baths and then flying back here. It is always an experience to go to the Spanish doctor because I never really know all the words and definitely have to improvise a lot. Hannah came with me for moral support and I explained to the doctor what had happened but when I was getting my paperwork filled out, they wrote 'M' for gender. I was a little confused and said something to the woman there, but then quickly remembered that in Spain, 'M' obviously stands for mujer (woman). Right. I'm glad I've been here for 4 months and am still doing things like that. Que gracioso. She gave me some drops and everything is all set, especially because medicine is so incredibly cheap here. I got a lot of ibuprofen for only 2 euros and my ear drops were only 3 euros. Hannah was right to encourage me to go to the doctor here - it can cost a fortune in the US!
Besides all that excitement, I've mostly been just trying to hang out and enjoy myself before all the craziness that happens for the last week here and when I get home and go straight to Providence to meet up with my whole family for Sharon's graduation. I've been training for my sprint triathlon (June 13th) by running 3.5 miles a day, but I can't run until about 8:30 or 9pm because it has been 80-90 degrees here every day. I have a run by the river that I love doing and that never gets boring because of all the people watching I get to do while I run. Hopefully I'll be in reasonably good shape by the time I get home and I'll get to ride my bike and swim intensely for the next couple of weeks to make sure I'm ready. I mostly just want to know that I can do it, and maybe I'll try and do another at the end of the summer and see what kind of times I can get. I've been really enjoying the running, especially because I've been doing it so late at night - basically at sunset. Watching the sunset over the Guadalquivir (the river here) is probably one of my favorite things to do in all of Seville. I'm definitely going to miss that.
That reminds me that when I get home, I'm going to be seriously confused with my schedule. I've gotten so accustomed to the Spanish way of life - I used to think that if I didn't go out before 4pm that there was definitely something wrong with me, whereas now I don't even expect myself to leave here before 4. Running at 9 is something I've never really done on a regular basis, and I eat dinner every night at 10 or so. That is going to be a big adjustment when I get back to the US, but I also think I'm going to try and keep up some parts of the schedule that I have here because I like it so much. I like eating lunch at 3pm and eating dinner later. Maybe it's because I haven't been that busy here, but I feel like I have so much more time in the day, even though the day doesn't start until much later here. I think it probably also has a lot to do with the fact that it stays light here until about 10, so even if I don't do much until 2 or 3 in the afternoon, I still feel like I have the same amount of daylight.
The most exciting thing that has been going on here is that Loly is teaching me how to cook! I have been standing with her in the kitchen when she makes lunch and dinner and watching while she explains to me what she is doing and why. It has been a great experience so far, I have learned a lot of new vocabulary and a lot of her technique. Hannah and I were trying to convince her to publish a book with all her recipes because her food is so delicious, because she knows how to make traditional Spanish food, which generally has a lot of meat, into vegetarian food, and because we haven't seen that many Spanish cook books in the US. We talked to her about it for a while, and she pulls out this awesome printed book that she had put together a while ago for all her friends that has a ton of her recipes! We told her she had already done all the work and that she ought to bring it to a publisher. I told her that I would translate it into English for her and that she should try to sell it - her food is amazing and so healthy. She was like, yeah, I could do that, but most of my recipes are just things I make up in the moment, I don't measure or anything, I just do what is in my head. Pretty impressive, if you ask me.
Nothing else too exciting around here, I'm really glad to just relax for a while before going home. I've been able to sit and read, study a little, work on my Spanish (which has actually gotten really good at this point!) and tan. This week, after exams, I'm going to do a little shopping to get all the things I want before I leave here and then ya esta. I can't believe it's almost time to go home, but I'm also so excited because I have been looking forward to seeing my family so much for Sharon's graduation, and basically everyone is going to be there. I'll also have some friends who are still at school so it will be great to see them for a few days. And then, after a possible week at home, it's time to move into my new apartment in Providence with Rebecca and Rachel! I'm really excited, it's going to be a great summer. But for now, I am going to enjoy every last minute in Seville because I'm going to be home so soon. I can't wait until after exams are over and I just get to be with my friends in this beautiful city for another week.
Besides all that excitement, I've mostly been just trying to hang out and enjoy myself before all the craziness that happens for the last week here and when I get home and go straight to Providence to meet up with my whole family for Sharon's graduation. I've been training for my sprint triathlon (June 13th) by running 3.5 miles a day, but I can't run until about 8:30 or 9pm because it has been 80-90 degrees here every day. I have a run by the river that I love doing and that never gets boring because of all the people watching I get to do while I run. Hopefully I'll be in reasonably good shape by the time I get home and I'll get to ride my bike and swim intensely for the next couple of weeks to make sure I'm ready. I mostly just want to know that I can do it, and maybe I'll try and do another at the end of the summer and see what kind of times I can get. I've been really enjoying the running, especially because I've been doing it so late at night - basically at sunset. Watching the sunset over the Guadalquivir (the river here) is probably one of my favorite things to do in all of Seville. I'm definitely going to miss that.
That reminds me that when I get home, I'm going to be seriously confused with my schedule. I've gotten so accustomed to the Spanish way of life - I used to think that if I didn't go out before 4pm that there was definitely something wrong with me, whereas now I don't even expect myself to leave here before 4. Running at 9 is something I've never really done on a regular basis, and I eat dinner every night at 10 or so. That is going to be a big adjustment when I get back to the US, but I also think I'm going to try and keep up some parts of the schedule that I have here because I like it so much. I like eating lunch at 3pm and eating dinner later. Maybe it's because I haven't been that busy here, but I feel like I have so much more time in the day, even though the day doesn't start until much later here. I think it probably also has a lot to do with the fact that it stays light here until about 10, so even if I don't do much until 2 or 3 in the afternoon, I still feel like I have the same amount of daylight.
The most exciting thing that has been going on here is that Loly is teaching me how to cook! I have been standing with her in the kitchen when she makes lunch and dinner and watching while she explains to me what she is doing and why. It has been a great experience so far, I have learned a lot of new vocabulary and a lot of her technique. Hannah and I were trying to convince her to publish a book with all her recipes because her food is so delicious, because she knows how to make traditional Spanish food, which generally has a lot of meat, into vegetarian food, and because we haven't seen that many Spanish cook books in the US. We talked to her about it for a while, and she pulls out this awesome printed book that she had put together a while ago for all her friends that has a ton of her recipes! We told her she had already done all the work and that she ought to bring it to a publisher. I told her that I would translate it into English for her and that she should try to sell it - her food is amazing and so healthy. She was like, yeah, I could do that, but most of my recipes are just things I make up in the moment, I don't measure or anything, I just do what is in my head. Pretty impressive, if you ask me.
Nothing else too exciting around here, I'm really glad to just relax for a while before going home. I've been able to sit and read, study a little, work on my Spanish (which has actually gotten really good at this point!) and tan. This week, after exams, I'm going to do a little shopping to get all the things I want before I leave here and then ya esta. I can't believe it's almost time to go home, but I'm also so excited because I have been looking forward to seeing my family so much for Sharon's graduation, and basically everyone is going to be there. I'll also have some friends who are still at school so it will be great to see them for a few days. And then, after a possible week at home, it's time to move into my new apartment in Providence with Rebecca and Rachel! I'm really excited, it's going to be a great summer. But for now, I am going to enjoy every last minute in Seville because I'm going to be home so soon. I can't wait until after exams are over and I just get to be with my friends in this beautiful city for another week.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Budapest
We got in to Budapest around 9pm - let off the bus on the curb, next to the metro station... - and somehow found our way to the hostel, which was actually in an apartment building. It turned out to be not only the cheapest (10 euro a night) but also the best hostel we stayed in for the whole trip - free breakfast, free laundry, and really friendly people. We went out to get some dinner and then crashed and slept late, we needed it. When we got up, we had a pretty slow morning, showering, getting our laundry ready, and eating breakfast. Budapest is actually divided into Buda and Pest, so we decided to go to Buda for the day. We took a metro up to the Parliament building, which was absolutely gorgeous, and then a tram down to the Chain Bridge, which is a remake of the first bridge to connect Buda to Pest - the original was destroyed by the Nazis during WWII. We took this little train up the side of Castle Hill all the way up to the castle, and the view as just incredible. I fell in love with the city. We wandered around Castle Hill for a while, looking at Buda Palace, Fisherman's Bastion, and the St. Matthais Church, and decided to eat lunch from a grocery store overlooking the city. It is always an experience going into a grocery store in another country, but it was fun and had a relaxed and beautiful lunch on Fisherman's Bastion. After we were finished, we decided to go to the Buda Labyrinth, which basically runs under the entire Castle Hill. We had fun for a while chasing and scaring each other in the dark and trying to find the legendary wine room. After going through almost twice, we finally stumbled upon it - I smelled it and Kelly saw it - and even though the wine was technically undrinkable, we had some fun hanging out and sitting by it. After we left the labyrinth, we went down Castle Hill and over to Gellert Hill, at the base of which stands the most famous/expensive hotel in the city, which also has the most famous/expensive Turkish Baths. Budapest is famous for its Turkish Baths because hot springs run under the entire city and naturally heat the baths. We climbed up Gellert Hill to the Citadella, a building constructed by the Austrians during the Habsburg period when Austria and Hungary were one country. It was a beautiful walk and a beautiful view, and we even stopped along the way to play on some awesome slides. Then, we found a Church carved into the side of the hill and wandered around it for a few minutes until we realized that mass was about to start. We had decided that we wanted to go on a cruise down the Danube at some point, so we wandered along the shoreline to try and find one. We finally did, and the man who sold us the tickets also helped us find somewhere to eat dinner. Perfect. So we got chicken paprika and onion soup and took a beautiful cruise down the river so we could see the entire city all lit up at night.
The next day, we slept in again and got going later in the morning to see the biggest synagogue in Europe, which was absolutely gorgeous. Then, we saw St. Stephen's Church, the biggest/most important church in Budapest, and got some lunch right next to it so we could look at it the whole time. Then we walked down Andrassy Ut, which is the main street in Pest and also has the House of Terror Museum, which is the former headquarters of both the Nazi and Communist regimes. It was a great museum, although completely in Hungarian. There were information sheets in every room, and of course we all collected all of them. So now I have a book of Hungary's history during WWII. After a short break in the museum's cafe, we walked down the rest of Andrassy Ut to City Park, where we saw the Heroes' Monument and the beautiful buildings that house the art museums. We walked further in to the park to get to the Turkish Baths, where we would be spending the rest of our last night. You can enter into the baths for only about 9 euro, which is incredible considering the baths have 3 huge pools (cold, warm, and hot) as well as a million little pools of different temperatures and various steam rooms/saunas. It was great, and I'm really wondering why we don't have that in the US - oh wait, it's because we don't have natural hot springs. Right. So after that, we walked back to the hostel to call it a night. We had to pack and get ready to go home the next day.
Traveling home was interesting. We got to the airport in about an hour and a half and our flight wasn't posted on the board. We realized that there were 2 terminals, A and B, so we walked over to the other one but it wasn't listed there either. Uh oh. So we went down to the information desk to try and ask, and they told us which line to stand in. After asking a bunch of people in front of us and hearing Spanish in the line, we were finally convinced that we were actually going to Madrid. So we waited in line and realized that it was 12:20, and our flight was supposed to leave at 1:20. Unfortunately, the desk hadn't opened yet...so we weren't sure what to do. Kelly went to pester the woman behind the counter, but she wasn't very helpful, and finally the desk opened for check-in, although they were probably the most incompetent airport workers I'd ever seen. The line wasn't that long and it took so long to check every in to 4 different windows. Also, halfway through the line, our flight finally got posted on the departures board. Pretty ridiculous, especially considering the fact that when we got up to the front of the line the man told us that our reservation had been deleted. We talked our way on, but by that time it was 1:10 and we had to run through security and get our seats on the plane, which ended up leaving a half hour late anyway. Oh budget airlines. So when we landed in Madrid after a slightly rocky flight, it was already almost 5 and we knew we were going to miss the 6pm bus from the center of the city. The next one wasn't leaving til 10ish, so we decided to hang around the airport to wait for the bus to leave from there at 9:30. However, we knew we had arrived in Spain again when we couldn't find the bus and when everyone at the information desk had no idea what was going on. Charlie tried to ask about the bus and the woman looked up the phone number on google for him. So helpful. So we decided to go to the city, but when we tried to buy tickets, all the 10pm buses were sold out since it is Feria in Sevilla, so we had to wait around until 1am. It wasn't actually that bad, though, we just had some extra time to spend together. We knew that everything was going to be ok when we came out of the metro, it had stopped raining, and there was a double rainbow. We got home on Friday morning at 8am and passed out until after 2. I already have some separation anxiety from the people I've spent the past 10 days with.
Budapest Pictures
The next day, we slept in again and got going later in the morning to see the biggest synagogue in Europe, which was absolutely gorgeous. Then, we saw St. Stephen's Church, the biggest/most important church in Budapest, and got some lunch right next to it so we could look at it the whole time. Then we walked down Andrassy Ut, which is the main street in Pest and also has the House of Terror Museum, which is the former headquarters of both the Nazi and Communist regimes. It was a great museum, although completely in Hungarian. There were information sheets in every room, and of course we all collected all of them. So now I have a book of Hungary's history during WWII. After a short break in the museum's cafe, we walked down the rest of Andrassy Ut to City Park, where we saw the Heroes' Monument and the beautiful buildings that house the art museums. We walked further in to the park to get to the Turkish Baths, where we would be spending the rest of our last night. You can enter into the baths for only about 9 euro, which is incredible considering the baths have 3 huge pools (cold, warm, and hot) as well as a million little pools of different temperatures and various steam rooms/saunas. It was great, and I'm really wondering why we don't have that in the US - oh wait, it's because we don't have natural hot springs. Right. So after that, we walked back to the hostel to call it a night. We had to pack and get ready to go home the next day.
Traveling home was interesting. We got to the airport in about an hour and a half and our flight wasn't posted on the board. We realized that there were 2 terminals, A and B, so we walked over to the other one but it wasn't listed there either. Uh oh. So we went down to the information desk to try and ask, and they told us which line to stand in. After asking a bunch of people in front of us and hearing Spanish in the line, we were finally convinced that we were actually going to Madrid. So we waited in line and realized that it was 12:20, and our flight was supposed to leave at 1:20. Unfortunately, the desk hadn't opened yet...so we weren't sure what to do. Kelly went to pester the woman behind the counter, but she wasn't very helpful, and finally the desk opened for check-in, although they were probably the most incompetent airport workers I'd ever seen. The line wasn't that long and it took so long to check every in to 4 different windows. Also, halfway through the line, our flight finally got posted on the departures board. Pretty ridiculous, especially considering the fact that when we got up to the front of the line the man told us that our reservation had been deleted. We talked our way on, but by that time it was 1:10 and we had to run through security and get our seats on the plane, which ended up leaving a half hour late anyway. Oh budget airlines. So when we landed in Madrid after a slightly rocky flight, it was already almost 5 and we knew we were going to miss the 6pm bus from the center of the city. The next one wasn't leaving til 10ish, so we decided to hang around the airport to wait for the bus to leave from there at 9:30. However, we knew we had arrived in Spain again when we couldn't find the bus and when everyone at the information desk had no idea what was going on. Charlie tried to ask about the bus and the woman looked up the phone number on google for him. So helpful. So we decided to go to the city, but when we tried to buy tickets, all the 10pm buses were sold out since it is Feria in Sevilla, so we had to wait around until 1am. It wasn't actually that bad, though, we just had some extra time to spend together. We knew that everything was going to be ok when we came out of the metro, it had stopped raining, and there was a double rainbow. We got home on Friday morning at 8am and passed out until after 2. I already have some separation anxiety from the people I've spent the past 10 days with.
Budapest Pictures
Vienna
We arrived in Vienna at 4:45 in the morning. What can we do at 4:45 in the morning? So we got ourselves to our hostel, which was on the other side of the city, and luckily there was a giant couch there so we slept for a while, some people showered, and we got ready to go into the city and see the famous Vienna Boys' Choir perform in the Hofburg Palace, the winter residence of the Habsburgs in Vienna. We waited in line for a while but we were first, so we got the best (free) standing-room places and although you are only able to see the choir if you have an expensive seat in the balcony, we were able to hear them perfectly and they were awesome. Then, we went to the bathroom, which is conveniently located right next to the balcony from which the Boys' Choir sings! So we were able to peek around and see them for a minute, after getting some dirty looks from a woman standing nearby. After we left, we went to explore the Hofburg palace, which houses one of the best treasuries that I have ever seen - jewelry, swords, clothing, and a unicorn horn! We wandered through the rest of the palace grounds, saw the New Palace, which has never been used, and then walked to the Kaisergruft, where all the Habsburgs are buried - well, almost all of them. It was a maze of rooms arranged in order of year of death, and the most recent person (one of the last Habsburgs) was buried there in 2007. It's hard to believe that things are still done that way, but I guess it does exist. After we left, we walked into the Opera building to see what was there, and then we walked back to the Hofburg palace to find a place to sit and have lunch. We were all pretty tired from traveling overnight, although I had gotten some good sleep on the bus - it was surprisingly comfortable. After lunch, we had to go to the Sacher Hotel to get the most famous dessert of Vienna - the original Sacher Torte, basically a fruity chocolate cake. It was pretty good, but wasn't my favorite, although I feel a little bad saying that. The experience was the most fun part, sitting with my friends in a fancy restaurant eating 5 euro cake and drinking espresso. After that, the girls went to the Belvedere Palace and to the art museum there, which houses 3 of the most famous Gusta Klimt works, including The Kiss, Hannah's personal favorite. It was a beautiful museum, not too big and overwhelming like some of the others had been. It was really one of the only art museums that I went to on this trip, mostly because I had just seen all of the famous art in Paris and Madrid and felt that other things were more important to see in these cities. The Kiss was absolutely incredible, and looked like it was made of gold. I wanted to stare at it all day long. After the Belvedere, we tried to go to the cemetery where Mozart is buried, but we ran out of time because we got a little lost and didn't realize that the cemetery closed at 7pm. So we went to dinner at this ridiculous place called Centimeter, where you can order your food by the centimeter and the menu has a ruler. The waiter spoke to us in German for a while even though we obviously only spoke English, and I ended up ordering schnitzel, which was probably an entire chicken. I felt like I was back in the US - huge plate and way too much food, a stark contrast to Spain where everything is small and you eat tapas for dinner with tiny forks. For the evening, Hannah, Liz, and I went to the Prater, which is the amusement park on the outskirts of the city. It was huge and beautiful, and we went on one of the oldest/biggest ferris wheels in the world. It was 8.50 euros, but I think it was worth it for the view of the city, which was absolutely gorgeous. Each car of the ferris wheel was like a little house, and by the time we got up to the top (200 feet), we were pretty scared. It ended up being really fun, and after we got off the ferris wheel, Hannah and Liz went on this spinny ride that I opted out of. Instead, I took pictures while the ride went way too fast and Jump (For My Love) blasted. Hannah and Liz were the only people on the ride, and the person running it didn't even check to see if they had their seatbelts on. Oh how things differ from the US. The boys and Kelly didn't come with us to the Prater because they had actually gone to Bratislava for the night (the capital city of Slovakia, which is about an hour east of Vienna). I wanted to go with them, but I decided not to because I loved Vienna and wanted to see more there and because I was just too tired to stay up all night.
Day 2 of Vienna, we got up early to get to the Schonbrunn Palace, which is one of the 3 biggest in Europe. It was the summer residence of the Habsburgs, and is probably the most beautiful palace I've ever seen. I mean, Versailles was cool, but this place was just so nicely decorated. Everything matched and every room was more gorgeous than the last. I though Versailles was a little too much, but Schonbrunn was perfect. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but I took a lot of the gardens because after we bought our tickets for the guided tour, we got on a horse and carriage for a 30 minute ride through the park! It was great, and was followed by an awesome guided tour through 40 rooms of the palace. After, we went to get some lunch at a Viennes place - Liz and I split bratwurst and we all tried the clear broth soup with pancakes. Interesting stuff. Then, we went up to the Freud museum, which was probably one of my favorite things we saw, considering I'm a psychology major. The museum was in Freud's old apartment/consulting office, and we entered the museum by ringing the doorbell. Then, we were given black 3-ring binders with information about the museum in them, and instructions for where to go. It was a pretty cool exhibit. After that, we went to see the symbol of Vienna (St. Stephan's cathedral) and to get some ice cream - nutella flavored and delicious. After, I dragged my friends to the Steinway store and got to stare at an entire row of Steinway baby grands as well as sit at the grand piano. Pretty much my dream come true, and made my experience in Vienna complete. We went back to the hostel to gather our things and make our way to the bus station and to the final city, Budapest. We had some trouble finding the bus station, but they we saw the bus pass by us so we decided to just follow it. It stopped a few feet in front of us, just on the side of the road, which I'm guessing was their idea of the bus station. Right...so luckily we found it, we were 6 of the 8 people on the bus, and we were on our way to Budapest.
Vienna Pictures
Day 2 of Vienna, we got up early to get to the Schonbrunn Palace, which is one of the 3 biggest in Europe. It was the summer residence of the Habsburgs, and is probably the most beautiful palace I've ever seen. I mean, Versailles was cool, but this place was just so nicely decorated. Everything matched and every room was more gorgeous than the last. I though Versailles was a little too much, but Schonbrunn was perfect. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but I took a lot of the gardens because after we bought our tickets for the guided tour, we got on a horse and carriage for a 30 minute ride through the park! It was great, and was followed by an awesome guided tour through 40 rooms of the palace. After, we went to get some lunch at a Viennes place - Liz and I split bratwurst and we all tried the clear broth soup with pancakes. Interesting stuff. Then, we went up to the Freud museum, which was probably one of my favorite things we saw, considering I'm a psychology major. The museum was in Freud's old apartment/consulting office, and we entered the museum by ringing the doorbell. Then, we were given black 3-ring binders with information about the museum in them, and instructions for where to go. It was a pretty cool exhibit. After that, we went to see the symbol of Vienna (St. Stephan's cathedral) and to get some ice cream - nutella flavored and delicious. After, I dragged my friends to the Steinway store and got to stare at an entire row of Steinway baby grands as well as sit at the grand piano. Pretty much my dream come true, and made my experience in Vienna complete. We went back to the hostel to gather our things and make our way to the bus station and to the final city, Budapest. We had some trouble finding the bus station, but they we saw the bus pass by us so we decided to just follow it. It stopped a few feet in front of us, just on the side of the road, which I'm guessing was their idea of the bus station. Right...so luckily we found it, we were 6 of the 8 people on the bus, and we were on our way to Budapest.
Vienna Pictures
Prague
So we got up at 4:30 in the morning to catch a train from Berlin to Prague, which was pretty easy to do. Our hostel was close to the train station, so we got there pretty early and then hung out and got some breakfast until our train arrived. We got on the train and got our own little car for the six of us and basically just passed out for a while, we were all exhausted from our intense touring in Berlin. We woke up and hung out for a while until we got there around 11:30, at which point we had to get ourselves to the hostel, but not before exchanging money first. I didn't realize how nice it was to have the euro in most of the countries in Europe - when I went on my first trip to Milan and Paris, I didn't have to exchange any money. It was kindof annoying to have to figure out the exchange rate from euros to crowns in the Czech Republic and Forints in Hungary, especially since I am constantly converting from euros to dollars in the first place. Things got a little confusing, but it was ok. So we got ourselves to the Czech Inn Hostel, and that's where the puns began. We spent the rest of the trip trying to come up with the best puns for all the cities we had been to - things were Budaful, we were Pragueably going to do something, or we didn't want to be Pests but we were Hungary. I'm sure that these puns will continue till the end of the semester between the six of us, haha. So anyway, we got to the hostel, checked in, and found out we had our own room for the six of us which was great! We got ready and went into the city to get some lunch. The first thing that was different about Prague (besides the language and money, of course) was the fact that the metro/tram system in Berlin was super-organized and could get us absolutely anywhere. In Prague, it was fine, but not quite as efficient. Besides that, the metro in Prague was so far underground that we had to take a 3 minute escalator to get there! Kindof scary, when you think about it. So we went in to the city and ate lunch at this place called Country Life where we got as much vegetarian food as we wanted and we paid by weight. After that, we went to the Jewish Museum, which is actually just a collection of 5 or 6 synagogues that survived the Holocaust even though the Jewish community in Prague did not. It was really interesting to see the synagogues again, since I had been to them on my trip to Eastern Europe/Israel when I was 15. I remembered a lot about them, but it was great to see them again, especially since each of them is so distinct. Also, the Jewish cemetery that is in Prague is fascinating because the Jews were not allotted enough space to bury all their loved ones and were forced to bury people on top of one another. The result is a mess of gravestones, but is actually very interesting to look at. After all the touring, we went to a beer garden that overlooks Prague, which is basically just an open space where they sell beer and where you can sit to just hang out and enjoy the view. Charlie met up with a friend from Brown and we all hung out for a while and then went to dinner. After, we were all pretty tired and went back to the hostel to crash.
The next day, we got a huge breakfast at the hostel and then went to the Old Town Square to see the Tyn Church, St. Nicholas' Church, the Astronomical Clock that chimes on the hour, and the old town hall. Prague is just a gorgeous city, and it is really fun to just walk around and enjoy the beautiful architecture. We did a little bit of shopping and then met up with our whole group to take a free walking tour of Prague Castle, which turned out to be really interesting. I had also been there before, but it was great to go back and learn more about what is there. We walked up the 206 steps to the castle and got to enjoy the gorgeous view. After the toru was over, we took a break to get something cold to drink and then walked down the hill again and across the most famous bridge in Prague - the Charles Bridge, which is now just a walking bridge and provides some of the most beautiful view of the city. We went to a restaurant with traditional Czech food, which was great - we all tried the goulash and a couple other things, along with traditional Czech beer, all for a very cheap price. I found that nothing was really that much cheaper in countries without the euro except the food. After our great Czech meal, we went back to the hostel to get our stuff and to get on a 12:15am bus to Vienna!
Prague Pictures
The next day, we got a huge breakfast at the hostel and then went to the Old Town Square to see the Tyn Church, St. Nicholas' Church, the Astronomical Clock that chimes on the hour, and the old town hall. Prague is just a gorgeous city, and it is really fun to just walk around and enjoy the beautiful architecture. We did a little bit of shopping and then met up with our whole group to take a free walking tour of Prague Castle, which turned out to be really interesting. I had also been there before, but it was great to go back and learn more about what is there. We walked up the 206 steps to the castle and got to enjoy the gorgeous view. After the toru was over, we took a break to get something cold to drink and then walked down the hill again and across the most famous bridge in Prague - the Charles Bridge, which is now just a walking bridge and provides some of the most beautiful view of the city. We went to a restaurant with traditional Czech food, which was great - we all tried the goulash and a couple other things, along with traditional Czech beer, all for a very cheap price. I found that nothing was really that much cheaper in countries without the euro except the food. After our great Czech meal, we went back to the hostel to get our stuff and to get on a 12:15am bus to Vienna!
Prague Pictures
Berlin
So I think I'm going to do this in 4 steps - one post for each city - so that it doesn't get too ridiculously long. I guess that means I'll start by saying that 5 friends (Hannah, Kelly, Liz, Jon, and Charlie) and I went on a 10-day trip through Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest with only what we could carry (no checking bags). We had a flight into Berlin on April 21st, buses and trains between the cities, and a flight back to Madrid on April 30th. It was pretty intense and exhausting, but probably one of the most interesting, fun, and educational trips I have ever been on. So here goes.
We started by taking a train to Malaga, which is about 2 1/2 hours from Seville because it was easier/cheaper to fly from there to Berlin. Hannah and I got to the train station last (about 10 minutes late) and I got a phone call from Charlie saying that everyone was there and they were worried because 'we were the responsible ones.' haha, a good start to an awesome trip. We got to the airport pretty early because the train only left at a certain time, so we hung out for a while and eventually got on the plane to Berlin - a pretty uneventful flight. It took us a while to figure out how to get from the airport to the city, but we finally got to our hostel, went out to get some food, and called it a night. We wanted to get up early the next morning to see the Reichstag and try to avoid the lines.
We woke up around 7, left the hostel around 9, and walked over to the Reichstag (the German Parliament Building). Hannah had been carrying a crutch because she has tendonitis in her feet and when the people who work there saw us, they let us cut the entire line! We saved about an hour of waiting time, which was awesome. So we took the elevator up to the to the glass dome and got to overlook the entire city, which was beautiful. From there, we walked over to the Brandenburg Gate, which is one of the most famous gates that used to be part of the Berlin Wall. Then, we went to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which was this strangely shaped collection of almost square gravestone-looking things that is supposed to have 'no symbolism.' I didn't really like it at first, but after we went to the museum that is under it, I changed my mind. The museum was really cool - it had an entire room with stories of about 15 different families that had been affected by the Holocaust, a room with huge screens on the walls and benches to sit and listen to stories of person after person who had died in the Holocaust, and a room with a really interesting timeline of what happened when Hitler came to http://www.blogger.com/power in Germany. It was especially interesting because there is so little Jewish history in Spain that I haven't really thought about it that much in the past couple of months. So after that, we took a break for breakfast (at Dunkin' Donuts!) and then walked over to the Topography of Terror, which is an outdoor exhibit that displays the history of the Nazi regime and is located on the area of land where the Nazi headquarters used to be. After that, we went to Checkpoint Charlie, which was one of the most famous checkpoints between East and West Berlin, and the museum there, which tells the history of the checkpoint as well as many stories of escape attempts/successes from East Berlin to West Berlin. We were pretty tired after that and went to have some lunch - currywurst, one of Berlin's most famous dishes - and hung out for a while to rest, and then it was on to the Jewish Museum, which ended up being quite the experience - it started out pretty normal, but then we ended up in the children's section and didn't really know it so we were a little confused. After a long day, we met up with a friend of mine from Brown and all went to dinner near our hostel at a Vietnamese place which was delicious. We hung out at our hostel's bar for a little while to catch up on our abroad experiences, and then we went to sleep so we could get up for an early day the next day.
Thursday morning we got up to go to a northern section of the Berlin wall, which is supposed to be one of the more authentic sections. It was really interesting and different from what I expected, which was the brightly colored, painted, Berlin wall that is always seen in pictures. This was 2 cement walls with a space (a no man's land) in between, and we were able to go up to the top of a building to see it from above. Pretty interesting, and like nothing I'd ever seen before. After that, we went over to a beautiful synagogue near our hostel, which is one of the only synagogues in Berlin that survived Kristallnacht. Now, the part that has been restored is a museum. We went to a market for lunch where we got Turkish food (delicious) and Hannah got a banana/nutella crepe that we talked about for the rest of the trip, and then to the Berliner Dom, one of the most beautiful/important churches in the city. Then the girls walked down the Unter den Linden, the biggest street in East Berlin which is full of history. You can see where Einstein went to school and where the Nazis burned thousands of banned books during the time they were in power. After that, we went to the Pergamon museum, which was especially cool because everything was built into the walls of the museum. We got to see the Ishtar gates of Babylong, a temple to Athena, and lots of mosaics. Then we met up with Nick again and went to Alexanderplatz, which is the newish part of East Berlin - meaning everything was built in the last 15 years or so. The TV Tower, built by the Soviets, is there, as is the world clock and lots of shopping. After that, we went down to the East Side Gallery, which is the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall and is the typical, graffiti-laden, touristy Berlin wall that you would expect. We walked down it for a while and found a restaurant near the end to get some more currywurst. Then, Hannah and I went back to the hostel to get some rest while the others explored this abandoned amusement park that was pretty far away. Tired yet? I was.
Berlin Pictures
We started by taking a train to Malaga, which is about 2 1/2 hours from Seville because it was easier/cheaper to fly from there to Berlin. Hannah and I got to the train station last (about 10 minutes late) and I got a phone call from Charlie saying that everyone was there and they were worried because 'we were the responsible ones.' haha, a good start to an awesome trip. We got to the airport pretty early because the train only left at a certain time, so we hung out for a while and eventually got on the plane to Berlin - a pretty uneventful flight. It took us a while to figure out how to get from the airport to the city, but we finally got to our hostel, went out to get some food, and called it a night. We wanted to get up early the next morning to see the Reichstag and try to avoid the lines.
We woke up around 7, left the hostel around 9, and walked over to the Reichstag (the German Parliament Building). Hannah had been carrying a crutch because she has tendonitis in her feet and when the people who work there saw us, they let us cut the entire line! We saved about an hour of waiting time, which was awesome. So we took the elevator up to the to the glass dome and got to overlook the entire city, which was beautiful. From there, we walked over to the Brandenburg Gate, which is one of the most famous gates that used to be part of the Berlin Wall. Then, we went to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which was this strangely shaped collection of almost square gravestone-looking things that is supposed to have 'no symbolism.' I didn't really like it at first, but after we went to the museum that is under it, I changed my mind. The museum was really cool - it had an entire room with stories of about 15 different families that had been affected by the Holocaust, a room with huge screens on the walls and benches to sit and listen to stories of person after person who had died in the Holocaust, and a room with a really interesting timeline of what happened when Hitler came to http://www.blogger.com/power in Germany. It was especially interesting because there is so little Jewish history in Spain that I haven't really thought about it that much in the past couple of months. So after that, we took a break for breakfast (at Dunkin' Donuts!) and then walked over to the Topography of Terror, which is an outdoor exhibit that displays the history of the Nazi regime and is located on the area of land where the Nazi headquarters used to be. After that, we went to Checkpoint Charlie, which was one of the most famous checkpoints between East and West Berlin, and the museum there, which tells the history of the checkpoint as well as many stories of escape attempts/successes from East Berlin to West Berlin. We were pretty tired after that and went to have some lunch - currywurst, one of Berlin's most famous dishes - and hung out for a while to rest, and then it was on to the Jewish Museum, which ended up being quite the experience - it started out pretty normal, but then we ended up in the children's section and didn't really know it so we were a little confused. After a long day, we met up with a friend of mine from Brown and all went to dinner near our hostel at a Vietnamese place which was delicious. We hung out at our hostel's bar for a little while to catch up on our abroad experiences, and then we went to sleep so we could get up for an early day the next day.
Thursday morning we got up to go to a northern section of the Berlin wall, which is supposed to be one of the more authentic sections. It was really interesting and different from what I expected, which was the brightly colored, painted, Berlin wall that is always seen in pictures. This was 2 cement walls with a space (a no man's land) in between, and we were able to go up to the top of a building to see it from above. Pretty interesting, and like nothing I'd ever seen before. After that, we went over to a beautiful synagogue near our hostel, which is one of the only synagogues in Berlin that survived Kristallnacht. Now, the part that has been restored is a museum. We went to a market for lunch where we got Turkish food (delicious) and Hannah got a banana/nutella crepe that we talked about for the rest of the trip, and then to the Berliner Dom, one of the most beautiful/important churches in the city. Then the girls walked down the Unter den Linden, the biggest street in East Berlin which is full of history. You can see where Einstein went to school and where the Nazis burned thousands of banned books during the time they were in power. After that, we went to the Pergamon museum, which was especially cool because everything was built into the walls of the museum. We got to see the Ishtar gates of Babylong, a temple to Athena, and lots of mosaics. Then we met up with Nick again and went to Alexanderplatz, which is the newish part of East Berlin - meaning everything was built in the last 15 years or so. The TV Tower, built by the Soviets, is there, as is the world clock and lots of shopping. After that, we went down to the East Side Gallery, which is the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall and is the typical, graffiti-laden, touristy Berlin wall that you would expect. We walked down it for a while and found a restaurant near the end to get some more currywurst. Then, Hannah and I went back to the hostel to get some rest while the others explored this abandoned amusement park that was pretty far away. Tired yet? I was.
Berlin Pictures
Monday, April 20, 2009
Semana Santa and Bullfight, take 2
So the second I got back from Paris (after talking to the family and sleeping, of course), I went out to explore the festivities around the city of Sevilla for Semana Santa (Holy Week). Basically, imagine an entire city shut down because of parades of as many as 2,500 people dressed in gowns and pointed hats followed by a huge float of either Jesus or one of the Virgins, carried by 20 or so men. Pretty crazy. That basically sums up Semana Santa. Loli gave me a schedule so that I could go see what I wanted to see, but as I know pretty much nothing about it, I just wandered around and took it all in. Most of my friends were still traveling, so it was a little lonely, but I had fun anyway. I hung out with some of my Spanish friends one of the nights which was fun because they were able to explain some things to me and show me some good places to go watch the places, which are called Pasos. Each day, there are as many as 8 Pasos, usually starting around 3 in the afternoon and lasting as long as 12 hours. If this sounds crazy, that is because it is crazy. It's hard to imagine people carrying a giant float for 12 hours (luckily they switch off), but they do it. Sevilla lives for this week (and for the Feria), and it is really incredible to watch. The majority of the city travels around on foot to watch the Pasos, but some of the people have seats in the center of the city because although each Paso is different, there are a few blocks that each Paso has to follow, and if you have a seat, you can just sit there all day and watch Pasos go by. My Senora says that it is better to go to Semana Santa but because she can't walk that much, she has a seat. Well, little did I know, but she has one of the best seats! When Ethan got here, she invited us to come sit with her because she said that the people sitting next to her probably wouldn't be there, and she got us in! It was definitely a different experience to watch it from the seats, but I'm happy I got to see the week from both perspectives.
So Ethan came to visit last Saturday (April 11), and it was great to see him! He had some trouble with his flight there - you know, nothing more than an aborted landing and a couple of lightening strikes...but he made it! I did a lot of the same things I did with Sharon and we had a really good time. We went to the Cathedral, the Alcazar, he came to class with me one day, he went to the Museum of Fine Arts, and we got lots of good Spanish food. On Friday night, we went to a bullfight with 2 of my friends from my program which was really interesting. I thought that it was going to get rained out but we got lucky and the rain really held out til the end. I wouldn't say I'm a bullfight aficionada (fan), but I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would. Ethan and I got some pretty good pictures, and then he took me out to dinner at this restaurant that was made out of an Arab bathhouse. It was really fun to spend time with him since I haven't really in a long time. I guess that will change next year! Ethan has decided that I live in a fake world because I don't have much homework, I stay out til 5 in the morning, and because sometimes, the Spanish are a little crazy. For example, Ethan was too tall for the door to his hostel. Also, we went to the bank and wanted to get change for our 50 euro bills because it is a little hard to use them since most of the stores are pretty small, and we went up to the counter and the guy takes a rubber banded wad of slightly disorganized money from an unlocked drawer and makes the exchange for us. Yup, this is a legitimate bank. Oh, Spain. Ethan says that he's going to study abroad in Candyland.
Ethan left Saturday morning and I left a few hours later for my last trip with my program which was to the beach in Chiclana, about a 2 hour drive from Sevilla. It was a really great time, and so much fun to be with everyone since we barely ever all hang out as a group. It made me realize how much I love the group of people we are studying with here - everyone is so smart and motivated and friendly. It is so nice to be with a group of only 20 people, and we all just get along so well. Luckily, most of the people go to school close so we'll be able to visit. We spent all day Saturday hanging around the covered pool (actually like a greenroom) because it was a little windy, had a huge buffet dinner, and walked over to the beach for a few minutes. We all hung out Saturday night and got up Sunday morning in time for breakfast and more laying out at the beach. Tough life. We stayed in a gorgeous hotel in bungalow-type-rooms with big beds and huge showers where I could take more than 5 minutes. Oh the luxury.
I had a lot of stuff to do when I got back yesterday because I am leaving tomorrow morning for my trip to Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest, which I am really excited about. I am going with Hannah, Liz, Kelly, Charlie, and Jon, and I think it's going to be a blast. I'm sure I'm going to write a novel about it here when I get back.
I guess the only bad thing about Sevilla is that my eyes do not like whatever flowers/trees are here and I had to pay a visit to the Spanish ophthalmologist while Ethan was here. It all went pretty smoothly, and he was impressed with my Spanish and very helpful. He gave me some drops and told me not to use my contacts. Luckily I haven't replaced my glasses lenses in about 4 years, so my ability to see is a bit impaired. Guess I'll have to take care of that when I get home? I'll add it to the list.
Still undecided for summer plans, but I'm hoping to hear back from some things this week. For now, I'm defintely going to be in Providence, which I'm so excited about. I can't wait to see my family and all my friends from school when I get to Providence - May 20th!
almost forgot - here's a picture of Loli and me!
So Ethan came to visit last Saturday (April 11), and it was great to see him! He had some trouble with his flight there - you know, nothing more than an aborted landing and a couple of lightening strikes...but he made it! I did a lot of the same things I did with Sharon and we had a really good time. We went to the Cathedral, the Alcazar, he came to class with me one day, he went to the Museum of Fine Arts, and we got lots of good Spanish food. On Friday night, we went to a bullfight with 2 of my friends from my program which was really interesting. I thought that it was going to get rained out but we got lucky and the rain really held out til the end. I wouldn't say I'm a bullfight aficionada (fan), but I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would. Ethan and I got some pretty good pictures, and then he took me out to dinner at this restaurant that was made out of an Arab bathhouse. It was really fun to spend time with him since I haven't really in a long time. I guess that will change next year! Ethan has decided that I live in a fake world because I don't have much homework, I stay out til 5 in the morning, and because sometimes, the Spanish are a little crazy. For example, Ethan was too tall for the door to his hostel. Also, we went to the bank and wanted to get change for our 50 euro bills because it is a little hard to use them since most of the stores are pretty small, and we went up to the counter and the guy takes a rubber banded wad of slightly disorganized money from an unlocked drawer and makes the exchange for us. Yup, this is a legitimate bank. Oh, Spain. Ethan says that he's going to study abroad in Candyland.
Ethan left Saturday morning and I left a few hours later for my last trip with my program which was to the beach in Chiclana, about a 2 hour drive from Sevilla. It was a really great time, and so much fun to be with everyone since we barely ever all hang out as a group. It made me realize how much I love the group of people we are studying with here - everyone is so smart and motivated and friendly. It is so nice to be with a group of only 20 people, and we all just get along so well. Luckily, most of the people go to school close so we'll be able to visit. We spent all day Saturday hanging around the covered pool (actually like a greenroom) because it was a little windy, had a huge buffet dinner, and walked over to the beach for a few minutes. We all hung out Saturday night and got up Sunday morning in time for breakfast and more laying out at the beach. Tough life. We stayed in a gorgeous hotel in bungalow-type-rooms with big beds and huge showers where I could take more than 5 minutes. Oh the luxury.
I had a lot of stuff to do when I got back yesterday because I am leaving tomorrow morning for my trip to Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest, which I am really excited about. I am going with Hannah, Liz, Kelly, Charlie, and Jon, and I think it's going to be a blast. I'm sure I'm going to write a novel about it here when I get back.
I guess the only bad thing about Sevilla is that my eyes do not like whatever flowers/trees are here and I had to pay a visit to the Spanish ophthalmologist while Ethan was here. It all went pretty smoothly, and he was impressed with my Spanish and very helpful. He gave me some drops and told me not to use my contacts. Luckily I haven't replaced my glasses lenses in about 4 years, so my ability to see is a bit impaired. Guess I'll have to take care of that when I get home? I'll add it to the list.
Still undecided for summer plans, but I'm hoping to hear back from some things this week. For now, I'm defintely going to be in Providence, which I'm so excited about. I can't wait to see my family and all my friends from school when I get to Providence - May 20th!
almost forgot - here's a picture of Loli and me!
Friday, April 10, 2009
Milan and Paris
I got back on Wednesday night from my trip to Paris, and although it wasn't the same as being home for Passover, I got to talk to my whole family on Skype for a few minutes before they started their Seder which was really nice. Kind of like a welcome home, but across the Atlantic. My trip was fantastic, I really had a great time seeing the cities and seeing a couple friends from high school and Brown and spending some time just wandering around without much of a schedule. I think a lot of us were just feeling a little stressed before vacation began, so it was really nice to just get a break. As much as I love Seville and living with my host mother, it was good to have some time away to be doing something different. So I got on a plane last Thursday morning and set out for Milan. It ended up working out really because another girl on my program, Alex, was visiting a friend in Milan and happened to be on my flight. I'm not really a fan of traveling by myself to places where I don't speak the languages, so that was a good thing. We were flying Ryanair, which is this really cheap European airline, and when we got on the plane we understood why we had only paid 45 euros for it haha. Let's just say there were no seatpockets and the seats didn't recline. Not to mention the fact that we had to be bussed to the plane and then walk up some stairs to get on it. And you know how you usually can't see exactly where the luggage comes from when you are claiming it? Well in the half-finished airport in Milan, you could see through the glass windows that it was just coming from the other side of the wall, outside. Good times. So Alex and I made it to Italy, and I hung out with her and her friend for the day because my friends (Rachel, my friend from school who is studying in Denmark, and Arielle, her friend from home who is also studying in Denmark) weren't getting there until later that night. We got some gelato (super nutella, amazing) and just relaxed for the afternoon because it was pretty rainy. Then we got dinner together and I left for my hotel. I got out of the metro and was a little confused, but luckily I was able to use a tiny map next to the bikes to help me figure it out. Good thing I was wearing my glasses and could barely see. So the trip was off to a pretty good start, I checked into my hostel where they barely spoke English or Spanish, took a shower, and went to sleep until Rachel and Arielle got there a little later.
The next morning, we were surprised to find some good weather! I was happy, but Rachel and Arielle were thrilled because they basically haven't had weather like that yet since they have been in Europe. We spent the day wandering around Milan, we tried to get tickets to see The Last Supper but we couldn't. So we went to the Duomo and climbed up to the roof, we went to get pizza for lunch, and we went to a castle and walked through the park. We did a little bit of shopping later on and then went to an auditorium to listen to a classical music concert which was really nice. We were exhausted after walking around all day. When we bought the concert tickets, we were told that it would last about an hour and a half so we didn't eat dinner before, thinking that we would just eat a lateish dinner (which isn't too bad for me, since I usually eat at 9 or 9:30 anyway). So at 10:15, we were all pretty hungry and decided to leave the concert, but on the way out literally everyone stared at us. oops. We went to get some dinner, walked back to the hotel, and collapsed.
The next morning, Rachel and Arielle left early to fly to Rome, and I got up a little later because my flight to Paris wasn't until 2:45. I gave myself a lot of time to get to the airport and ended up sitting around for a while, but I really didn't have anything else to do. I actually started reading The Da Vinci Code, fitting since I was about to go to Paris and see the Louvre. The flight to Paris wasn't long and then I had to take a bus from the airport to the city which was about an hour, but Emily (my friend from high school) was waiting for me when I got there! It was so good to see her, and her host family was nice enough to let me stay at her house. She lives about a 15/20 minute walk from the center of the city, so it was really awesome to be able to stay with her. After we dropped off my stuff at her house, we walked down the Champs-Elysees, which is the part of Paris that has a lot of the really expensive shopping. We went into Louis Vuitton for fun, and walked around a few other stores. Mostly we just wanted to catch up on what had been going on in our lives. We went out to get sushi for dinner with a bunch of Emily's friends from her program which was really nice, and then we just hung out outside and had some wine. I had forgotten that other food exists besides Spanish food because in Seville, when you go out for dinner, you get Spanish food. There really isn't much else, and to be honest, I had forgotten how much I love other kinds of food besides legumes and bread. Sounds strange, but it's true. Paris was so different because it is an international city, so people just assumed I spoke French whereas in Seville, people know that there is no way I live here. It's really interesting. It was tough to be in a country where I didn't speak the language, and even though French and Spanish are supposed to be fairly similar, they really aren't. To me, Italian sounded like Spanish that I didn't understand, whereas French sounded completely foreign.
Sunday morning I woke up early to go to the Louvre because on the first Sunday of the month, all national museums in Paris are free. Good thing I got there early because by the time I left at noon, the place was completely packed. I took this crazy audio tour which was actually a palm pilot. There were several pre-programmed tours, one of which was of the three masterpieces of the Louvre - Venus de Milos, the Mona Lisa, and the Goddess of Victory. This was the most ridiculous audioguide ever, it included descriptions of where to walk, how fast to walk, and instructions to make sure that you allowed other people time to view the art. One of the tours even had a warning that it was strenuous. Right. Anyway, after seeing the crazy crowd of people at the Mona Lisa, I met up with Emily to walk over to the Marais (the Jewish part of Paris) to get some lunch. We found a bunch of Jewish bakeries and I got a bagel with lox, tomato, and cucumber. Best thing ever. We ate in a park, shopped around a little bit, and then went back to Emily's house because the walk was about an hour. Hannah had invited us over to the apartment that she and her mom were renting for the week, so we walked over there for dinner and hung out with them for a while, eating bread, cheese, quiche, and lots of dessert. Yum. On the walk there, the sun was setting and Paris was absolutely gorgeous.
Monday, Emily had class so I spent the day wandering around. The weather was beautiful and I was just happy to be outside exploring Paris. I went to Notre Dame, to the modern art museum (Pompidou), where I managed to get myself in for free, and then to get some lunch (a crepe!) and sit in a park that my Senora had recommended I go to. It was so beautiful, and there were chairs all over the park. It seemed like every Parisian was there, but it was just so peaceful and beautiful. After reading for a little while, I met up with Emily because she was done with class and we walked over to the Eiffel Tower. The line was really long to climb it, so we decided to sit in the park and just chat, get something cold to drink, and look at the scenery. Because it is Holy Week, lots of people have vacation so in general Paris was full of tourists and all the lines were really long. But it was nice to just sit and relax for a while. We headed back to her house and went out to eat - salads and a dessert crepe (bananas, chocolate sauce, and vanilla ice cream). I love the food in Paris, but I'm happy I don't live there - I'd probably gain 20 pounds between the crepes and the pastries.
Tuesday I woke up early to meet Hannah and her mom to go to Versailles. I was a little lost looking for the subway/train station, but luckily as soon as I got into the station and got in line to get my ticket, I saw Hannah and her mom right in front of me! A few minutes later, another friend from our program, Liz, joined us because she was in Paris for Semana Santa also, and she was with her friend from home so he came too. So we took the train to Versailles, only to find some of the most ridiculous lines ever. We had to wait in line to buy tickets (although we ended up getting in for free because we showed our University of Seville IDs and they thought we were citizens of the EU), then we had to wait in line to get our bags checked and get in, then to get audioguides, and then to go to the bathroom. By the time we got in, it was around 11:30 and we had left Seville around 9! We all decided that it was one of the most poorly organized entrances we had ever seen, and that there should be just one line for tickets, bag check, and audioguides all together. It was all worth it though, because Versailles was beautiful and incredible. We walked around the main palace and through all the apartments, then through the gardens, and then to part of Marie Antoinette's estate. We were pretty exhausted by the end of the day, and we finally left Versailles around 4:30, fell asleep on the train, and I went back to meet up with Emily.
That night, Emily's host family was having a birthday part for their daughter so I stayed in Hannah's apartment and went out to dinner with her and her mom. It was one of the coolest/strangest places I have ever been. First, the waiter came over and asked if we wanted to speak English, Spanish, French, or Italian, and then he explained to us how our meal was going to work. There was basically an edible arrangements type basket of vegetables on the table that we were allowed to have as much as we wanted of, then he told us there was a cold buffet of pasta/salami/olives/etc., then there was a choice of 4 hot meals, then there was a cheese platter, and then there was dessert. Also, he gave us a pitcher and told us the wine was on tap and that we could take not as much as we want but as much as we can. Haha. So much food, but it was all delicious. At one point, we took an entire pepper from the vegetable basket and we also took a piece of one of the cheeses to put in my purse...and when the two French guys next to us (who also spoke a little Spanish and a little English) started talking to us, they were like 'you know, you're not really supposed to take extra food...' and we just laughed. It was pretty funny. It was hard to communicate with them, but we had fun anyway. Then there was another table that started talking to us because they heard us speaking Spanish and they were from Brazil. We spoke pretty good Spanish with them, and they told us they were shocked we were American because our Spanish was so good. I'm not sure about that, but I'll take the compliment. Our night ended with some ice cream (as if we needed to eat more), and we went back and crashed.
Wednesday morning I went to the Musee d'Orsay with Kelly, another friend from high school. We got some coffee and waited in a slightly ridiculous line, but it was all worth it because that was probably my most favorite museum that I have ever been to. It is in an old train station and has pre-impressionist, impressionist, and post-impressionist art. Lots of Monet, my favorite. It was great to see Kelly and catch up, as I probably haven't seen her in about a year since we were both away last summer. It's always fun to reminisce about high school.
I met up with Emily around noon, we got some lunch, did some shopping, and went back to her house because I had an 8pm flight to Seville. I had to take a bunch of different trains to get to the airport, but when I finally got in line to check in, I was thrilled because everyone around me was speaking Spanish! Finally I could understand what was going on again. A lot of the people on my flight were coming back from Euro-Disney, which is just outside of Paris. The airport was slightly disorganized, and they didn't even announce my gate until 15 minutes before the flight was supposed to leave. It was like Penn Station over there, waiting for them to announce the LIRR tracks, all of the sudden everyone freaks out and runs to their gate. I got back to Seville around 11:15 and had to figure out how to walk home because it is the middle of Semana Santa and there were lots of streets blocked off because of all the Pasos (basically a long parade that ends in men carrying a huge statue of either Jesus or one of the Virgins). It took me a while to get there, but when I got back I got to talk to the whole family on Skype because everyone was home for Passover. Lots of fun to see everyone, but I was sad not to be there. But I can't even believe it, I'm going to be home in a little over a month - May 20th, just in time for commencement. Time has flown.
Pictures of Milan and Paris
The next morning, we were surprised to find some good weather! I was happy, but Rachel and Arielle were thrilled because they basically haven't had weather like that yet since they have been in Europe. We spent the day wandering around Milan, we tried to get tickets to see The Last Supper but we couldn't. So we went to the Duomo and climbed up to the roof, we went to get pizza for lunch, and we went to a castle and walked through the park. We did a little bit of shopping later on and then went to an auditorium to listen to a classical music concert which was really nice. We were exhausted after walking around all day. When we bought the concert tickets, we were told that it would last about an hour and a half so we didn't eat dinner before, thinking that we would just eat a lateish dinner (which isn't too bad for me, since I usually eat at 9 or 9:30 anyway). So at 10:15, we were all pretty hungry and decided to leave the concert, but on the way out literally everyone stared at us. oops. We went to get some dinner, walked back to the hotel, and collapsed.
The next morning, Rachel and Arielle left early to fly to Rome, and I got up a little later because my flight to Paris wasn't until 2:45. I gave myself a lot of time to get to the airport and ended up sitting around for a while, but I really didn't have anything else to do. I actually started reading The Da Vinci Code, fitting since I was about to go to Paris and see the Louvre. The flight to Paris wasn't long and then I had to take a bus from the airport to the city which was about an hour, but Emily (my friend from high school) was waiting for me when I got there! It was so good to see her, and her host family was nice enough to let me stay at her house. She lives about a 15/20 minute walk from the center of the city, so it was really awesome to be able to stay with her. After we dropped off my stuff at her house, we walked down the Champs-Elysees, which is the part of Paris that has a lot of the really expensive shopping. We went into Louis Vuitton for fun, and walked around a few other stores. Mostly we just wanted to catch up on what had been going on in our lives. We went out to get sushi for dinner with a bunch of Emily's friends from her program which was really nice, and then we just hung out outside and had some wine. I had forgotten that other food exists besides Spanish food because in Seville, when you go out for dinner, you get Spanish food. There really isn't much else, and to be honest, I had forgotten how much I love other kinds of food besides legumes and bread. Sounds strange, but it's true. Paris was so different because it is an international city, so people just assumed I spoke French whereas in Seville, people know that there is no way I live here. It's really interesting. It was tough to be in a country where I didn't speak the language, and even though French and Spanish are supposed to be fairly similar, they really aren't. To me, Italian sounded like Spanish that I didn't understand, whereas French sounded completely foreign.
Sunday morning I woke up early to go to the Louvre because on the first Sunday of the month, all national museums in Paris are free. Good thing I got there early because by the time I left at noon, the place was completely packed. I took this crazy audio tour which was actually a palm pilot. There were several pre-programmed tours, one of which was of the three masterpieces of the Louvre - Venus de Milos, the Mona Lisa, and the Goddess of Victory. This was the most ridiculous audioguide ever, it included descriptions of where to walk, how fast to walk, and instructions to make sure that you allowed other people time to view the art. One of the tours even had a warning that it was strenuous. Right. Anyway, after seeing the crazy crowd of people at the Mona Lisa, I met up with Emily to walk over to the Marais (the Jewish part of Paris) to get some lunch. We found a bunch of Jewish bakeries and I got a bagel with lox, tomato, and cucumber. Best thing ever. We ate in a park, shopped around a little bit, and then went back to Emily's house because the walk was about an hour. Hannah had invited us over to the apartment that she and her mom were renting for the week, so we walked over there for dinner and hung out with them for a while, eating bread, cheese, quiche, and lots of dessert. Yum. On the walk there, the sun was setting and Paris was absolutely gorgeous.
Monday, Emily had class so I spent the day wandering around. The weather was beautiful and I was just happy to be outside exploring Paris. I went to Notre Dame, to the modern art museum (Pompidou), where I managed to get myself in for free, and then to get some lunch (a crepe!) and sit in a park that my Senora had recommended I go to. It was so beautiful, and there were chairs all over the park. It seemed like every Parisian was there, but it was just so peaceful and beautiful. After reading for a little while, I met up with Emily because she was done with class and we walked over to the Eiffel Tower. The line was really long to climb it, so we decided to sit in the park and just chat, get something cold to drink, and look at the scenery. Because it is Holy Week, lots of people have vacation so in general Paris was full of tourists and all the lines were really long. But it was nice to just sit and relax for a while. We headed back to her house and went out to eat - salads and a dessert crepe (bananas, chocolate sauce, and vanilla ice cream). I love the food in Paris, but I'm happy I don't live there - I'd probably gain 20 pounds between the crepes and the pastries.
Tuesday I woke up early to meet Hannah and her mom to go to Versailles. I was a little lost looking for the subway/train station, but luckily as soon as I got into the station and got in line to get my ticket, I saw Hannah and her mom right in front of me! A few minutes later, another friend from our program, Liz, joined us because she was in Paris for Semana Santa also, and she was with her friend from home so he came too. So we took the train to Versailles, only to find some of the most ridiculous lines ever. We had to wait in line to buy tickets (although we ended up getting in for free because we showed our University of Seville IDs and they thought we were citizens of the EU), then we had to wait in line to get our bags checked and get in, then to get audioguides, and then to go to the bathroom. By the time we got in, it was around 11:30 and we had left Seville around 9! We all decided that it was one of the most poorly organized entrances we had ever seen, and that there should be just one line for tickets, bag check, and audioguides all together. It was all worth it though, because Versailles was beautiful and incredible. We walked around the main palace and through all the apartments, then through the gardens, and then to part of Marie Antoinette's estate. We were pretty exhausted by the end of the day, and we finally left Versailles around 4:30, fell asleep on the train, and I went back to meet up with Emily.
That night, Emily's host family was having a birthday part for their daughter so I stayed in Hannah's apartment and went out to dinner with her and her mom. It was one of the coolest/strangest places I have ever been. First, the waiter came over and asked if we wanted to speak English, Spanish, French, or Italian, and then he explained to us how our meal was going to work. There was basically an edible arrangements type basket of vegetables on the table that we were allowed to have as much as we wanted of, then he told us there was a cold buffet of pasta/salami/olives/etc., then there was a choice of 4 hot meals, then there was a cheese platter, and then there was dessert. Also, he gave us a pitcher and told us the wine was on tap and that we could take not as much as we want but as much as we can. Haha. So much food, but it was all delicious. At one point, we took an entire pepper from the vegetable basket and we also took a piece of one of the cheeses to put in my purse...and when the two French guys next to us (who also spoke a little Spanish and a little English) started talking to us, they were like 'you know, you're not really supposed to take extra food...' and we just laughed. It was pretty funny. It was hard to communicate with them, but we had fun anyway. Then there was another table that started talking to us because they heard us speaking Spanish and they were from Brazil. We spoke pretty good Spanish with them, and they told us they were shocked we were American because our Spanish was so good. I'm not sure about that, but I'll take the compliment. Our night ended with some ice cream (as if we needed to eat more), and we went back and crashed.
Wednesday morning I went to the Musee d'Orsay with Kelly, another friend from high school. We got some coffee and waited in a slightly ridiculous line, but it was all worth it because that was probably my most favorite museum that I have ever been to. It is in an old train station and has pre-impressionist, impressionist, and post-impressionist art. Lots of Monet, my favorite. It was great to see Kelly and catch up, as I probably haven't seen her in about a year since we were both away last summer. It's always fun to reminisce about high school.
I met up with Emily around noon, we got some lunch, did some shopping, and went back to her house because I had an 8pm flight to Seville. I had to take a bunch of different trains to get to the airport, but when I finally got in line to check in, I was thrilled because everyone around me was speaking Spanish! Finally I could understand what was going on again. A lot of the people on my flight were coming back from Euro-Disney, which is just outside of Paris. The airport was slightly disorganized, and they didn't even announce my gate until 15 minutes before the flight was supposed to leave. It was like Penn Station over there, waiting for them to announce the LIRR tracks, all of the sudden everyone freaks out and runs to their gate. I got back to Seville around 11:15 and had to figure out how to walk home because it is the middle of Semana Santa and there were lots of streets blocked off because of all the Pasos (basically a long parade that ends in men carrying a huge statue of either Jesus or one of the Virgins). It took me a while to get there, but when I got back I got to talk to the whole family on Skype because everyone was home for Passover. Lots of fun to see everyone, but I was sad not to be there. But I can't even believe it, I'm going to be home in a little over a month - May 20th, just in time for commencement. Time has flown.
Pictures of Milan and Paris
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Madrid
I haven't written much in a while, mostly because Sharon was visiting me and we had such a great time together. It was really fun to be able to show the city to someone because I finally know it so well and to be able to use my Spanish and for her to meet all of my friends here. I'm trying to remember all the things we did while she was here - we went to the Cathedral and the Palace, we walked around Barrio Santa Cruz, we went out with my friends for my roommate's birthday, and we hung out in the park and by the river. I feel like I got to show her a really good representation of what my life is like here and all the things I really like about Seville - the food, the bars, the history, everything. I think we were both exhausted by the end of the week, though, and I put her on a bus at 1am Thursday morning, only to get on the same bus 1 day later with my friend Hilary because the two of us decided to venture off to Madrid for the weekend.
So we left Seville at 1am for a 6-hour bus ride to Madrid. You would think that everyone would be sleeping, but actually everyone was talking on the phone. Nice. So I didn't sleep that much, but enough so that I was able to enjoy the day. We got the bus station in Madrid and we had decided to take another bus to Toledo, the Visigoth capital of Spain that remained the capital until the 1500s. Toledo is a very interesting city because even though religious tolerance was lacking in most of Spain after la reconquista, it remained in Toledo for much longer. After a delicious breakfast which consisted of toast that we ate with forks and 2 cups of coffee, we wandered around trying to find the important sites to see. Toledo's streets are worse than Seville's - there is no way to figure out where you are even with a map. But there is a beautiful cathedral as well as 2 synagogues, both of which are decorated in Muslim style and one of which was not only turned into a church at one point but was also used to station Napoleon's troops. We also saw some works of one of Spain's most famous painters - El Greco (The Greek, because the Spaniards couldn't pronounce his Greek name). Around 3pm, we decided to head towards the bus station to catch the bus back to Madrid to check in to the hostel. We didn't do much for the rest of the day because we were so exhausted. We were planning on going to the Prado (Madrid's most famous art museum) because it was free for a couple of hours, but the line was so ridiculous that by the time we got in, we wouldn't have had enough time to see everything. We showered, went out for dinner, and called it a night.
Saturday was basically an art marathon - 3 art museums in one day and a picnic in a plaza. Unfortunately it was a little cold and started to rain, but we ended up going to this awesome place for dinner that had really expensive drinks which actually came with tapas. Dinner and sangria for 6 euros, not a bad deal after all. Hilary had run into a friend from Tufts who is studying in Madrid who recommended it to us. We talked to some Spanish students for a while and then headed back to the hostel.
Sunday morning (after losing an hour of sleep, since Spain finally decided to change their clocks), Hilary took a train home but I went to explore the Royal Palace and a couple other sites around the city. Then, I met up with my friend my school and her friend from home, who are both studying in Denmark and who are traveling around Europe together during their 3-week vacation. We wandered around the park, got lunch, and actually went to a bullfight! Pretty gruesome, so we didn't stay for the whole thing. We had some dinner and then hung out in their hostel for a while, watching a movie. Everyone was really tired after traveling so much, and I had to get on a bus at 1am. I got back home at 7:30, just in time for a quick nap before class.
Pictures of Madrid
I have a ton of stuff to do this week, especially since I'm leaving on Thursday. Between applying for summer jobs (yes, still) and planning for trips to come, there's barely a minute to do anything. And, believe it or not, I actually have a little bit of homework this week. And an open note test on Wednesday. But Ethan's coming when I get back from Paris, so I'm really excited!
Funny picture of the week:
translation: the cow that laughs
So we left Seville at 1am for a 6-hour bus ride to Madrid. You would think that everyone would be sleeping, but actually everyone was talking on the phone. Nice. So I didn't sleep that much, but enough so that I was able to enjoy the day. We got the bus station in Madrid and we had decided to take another bus to Toledo, the Visigoth capital of Spain that remained the capital until the 1500s. Toledo is a very interesting city because even though religious tolerance was lacking in most of Spain after la reconquista, it remained in Toledo for much longer. After a delicious breakfast which consisted of toast that we ate with forks and 2 cups of coffee, we wandered around trying to find the important sites to see. Toledo's streets are worse than Seville's - there is no way to figure out where you are even with a map. But there is a beautiful cathedral as well as 2 synagogues, both of which are decorated in Muslim style and one of which was not only turned into a church at one point but was also used to station Napoleon's troops. We also saw some works of one of Spain's most famous painters - El Greco (The Greek, because the Spaniards couldn't pronounce his Greek name). Around 3pm, we decided to head towards the bus station to catch the bus back to Madrid to check in to the hostel. We didn't do much for the rest of the day because we were so exhausted. We were planning on going to the Prado (Madrid's most famous art museum) because it was free for a couple of hours, but the line was so ridiculous that by the time we got in, we wouldn't have had enough time to see everything. We showered, went out for dinner, and called it a night.
Saturday was basically an art marathon - 3 art museums in one day and a picnic in a plaza. Unfortunately it was a little cold and started to rain, but we ended up going to this awesome place for dinner that had really expensive drinks which actually came with tapas. Dinner and sangria for 6 euros, not a bad deal after all. Hilary had run into a friend from Tufts who is studying in Madrid who recommended it to us. We talked to some Spanish students for a while and then headed back to the hostel.
Sunday morning (after losing an hour of sleep, since Spain finally decided to change their clocks), Hilary took a train home but I went to explore the Royal Palace and a couple other sites around the city. Then, I met up with my friend my school and her friend from home, who are both studying in Denmark and who are traveling around Europe together during their 3-week vacation. We wandered around the park, got lunch, and actually went to a bullfight! Pretty gruesome, so we didn't stay for the whole thing. We had some dinner and then hung out in their hostel for a while, watching a movie. Everyone was really tired after traveling so much, and I had to get on a bus at 1am. I got back home at 7:30, just in time for a quick nap before class.
Pictures of Madrid
I have a ton of stuff to do this week, especially since I'm leaving on Thursday. Between applying for summer jobs (yes, still) and planning for trips to come, there's barely a minute to do anything. And, believe it or not, I actually have a little bit of homework this week. And an open note test on Wednesday. But Ethan's coming when I get back from Paris, so I'm really excited!
Funny picture of the week:
translation: the cow that laughs
Monday, March 16, 2009
Is the Weekend Longer than the Week?
What a crazy couple of days. Last week was pretty relaxed for the most part in the beginning of the week - Tuesday I read for a few hours by my favorite statue of the 3 women in different stages of love in the Park near the university and then went to dance class, Wednesday I had class all day and then we went to this thing called Euromania at a tapas chain called Cien Montaditos (100 little sandwiches), where on Wednesdays everything is a euro. Then Hilary and I sat around the Plaza Nueva and read for a while because we were supposed to have an intercambio but the girl never ended up calling us. I don't really know what happened because I got a text message with all her missed calls the next morning, but my phone never rang. Sortof disappointing because it is really fun to meet up with Spanish students to practice, but I guess there's always next week.
Wednesday night I decided to go out with Hannah, Liz, Kelly, and Kelly's friend who was visiting who is also named Kelly. People were a bit confused because we were a group of 2 Kelly's and 2 Elizabeth's and a Hannah. Oh well. We hung out for a little while outside by the river and then went to this place called Boss, which was supposed to cost 8 euros but ended up being free because Kelly's Senora knows the people who own it. We were originally going to go to a party for Erasmus (what the program for study abroad is called in Europe), but we decided that it was a little too far and that since this was going to be free, we might as well check it out. It ended up being really fun and we stayed out til about 5! Not so good because 3 of us had class the next morning at 9am. I was pretty tired, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world because class consisted of a walk around Seville. We are reading a short novel by Cervantes called Rinconete y Cortadillo, and the professor took us to a bunch of the places in Seville that are mentioned in the novel. It was really interesting and fun to take the walk that Cervantes imagined these 2 robbers taking, haha. After that, I went over to the hostel to pay for Ethan's stay because he is coming for part of Semana Santa so they don't want him to cancel as well as to pick up some information about going to a flamenco show when Sharon comes. Then I walked over to the school to volunteer and work with the kids, but I was pretty much exhausted by then. I went back to my house for lunch and then had an interview for a summer job on Skype. Luckily it wasn't a video interview so I could easily pretend that I was not tired while I sat there in my sweatshirt and jeans. Sometimes being abroad works in your favor. I went out Friday night for like a half hour and then decided I was too tired and needed to sleep.
I slept in Friday morning and then did some work on my trips with Hannah in a nearby cafe that overlooks the Alameda. It was pretty cool because we could just stare out the window at 2 Roman columns that were taken from the middle of the city. I got a lot done, and then we went back for lunch and I went to meet up with Hilary to do a little bit of shopping. We ended up going over to the river to just sit and read, and then got some ice cream. Her family had introduced her to this amazing ice cream place with basically the best flavors you can imagine. I got banana and truffle, but I had pretty hard time deciding. On the way home, I told Hannah that I felt back for anyone who was eating another kind of ice cream. I think we'll be making just a few more trips there this semester - Hilary said her plan was to try spoonfuls of a few flavors every time she goes and to have tried everything by the end of the semester. Sounds good to me. Going to read by the river is probably my favorite thing to do in the afternoon. It is just so beautiful and peaceful, and there are a lot of people around hanging out with friends, listening to music, doing work, having a drink, or just sitting and watching the sunset.
Friday night I went out again with Hannah, Kelly, Kelly, and Hilary to the Alameda, which is a plaza about 4 blocks from our house (something close!!) and it was really fun. Although again we ended up staying out til about 6am, and realized we had to get up at 9:30 Saturday morning. Not such a hardship, though, because we were taking a bus to the beach in Huelva, about an hour bus ride. It was great, we spent the whole day lying on the beach reading and listening to music and then we came back to Seville around 8pm. I decided not to go out so that I would be able to function on Sunday, and Hannah and I watched The Sweetest Thing while my Senora was at the Cirque de Soleil with her kids. I fell asleep before it was over, as usual.
Sunday Hannah and I went to the flamenco museum which is fairly new and has everything in 6 languages. It was very cool and uses a lot of technology. After lunch, I went to the river to reach again and to finish reading Rinconete y Cortadillo for Tuesday. I have an exam on Thursday, so I guess I might have to study for that a little bit. Maybe. I am also reading Twlight in Spanish. It was the perfect book to read in Spanish because I kindof want to read it in English but feel a little bad because it is written for 14-year-olds I think. But since it's tough for me to understand books written for people my age in Spanish without looking up every other word in the dictionary, I decided to go for it. It has been good so far, and I really enjoying reading in Spanish in general. It's much easier than the beginning of the semester. I have been noticing lately how much better my Spanish has gotten. I even had Spanish in my dream, which was exciting! When I was out the other night, we ended up talking to a few people we met and I was able to have a conversation with them for over an hour without any big communication barriers.
Speaking of communication barriers, funny story. So Hannah wanted to tell Loly (my Senora) something that had happened to her yesterday when she was at Starbucks, but Loly could not understand our pronunciation of Starbucks, even when we tried to put a Spanish accent on in. It was so funny, we even tried spelling it out loud and we just couldn't understand each other. Finally, we wrote it down for her and she was like 'ohhhh estarbu!' I love the Spanish pronunciation of English words. Basically if you can imagine the word McDonald's being pronounced like Madonna, you have it. We all laughed for about 10 minutes.
Wednesday night I decided to go out with Hannah, Liz, Kelly, and Kelly's friend who was visiting who is also named Kelly. People were a bit confused because we were a group of 2 Kelly's and 2 Elizabeth's and a Hannah. Oh well. We hung out for a little while outside by the river and then went to this place called Boss, which was supposed to cost 8 euros but ended up being free because Kelly's Senora knows the people who own it. We were originally going to go to a party for Erasmus (what the program for study abroad is called in Europe), but we decided that it was a little too far and that since this was going to be free, we might as well check it out. It ended up being really fun and we stayed out til about 5! Not so good because 3 of us had class the next morning at 9am. I was pretty tired, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world because class consisted of a walk around Seville. We are reading a short novel by Cervantes called Rinconete y Cortadillo, and the professor took us to a bunch of the places in Seville that are mentioned in the novel. It was really interesting and fun to take the walk that Cervantes imagined these 2 robbers taking, haha. After that, I went over to the hostel to pay for Ethan's stay because he is coming for part of Semana Santa so they don't want him to cancel as well as to pick up some information about going to a flamenco show when Sharon comes. Then I walked over to the school to volunteer and work with the kids, but I was pretty much exhausted by then. I went back to my house for lunch and then had an interview for a summer job on Skype. Luckily it wasn't a video interview so I could easily pretend that I was not tired while I sat there in my sweatshirt and jeans. Sometimes being abroad works in your favor. I went out Friday night for like a half hour and then decided I was too tired and needed to sleep.
I slept in Friday morning and then did some work on my trips with Hannah in a nearby cafe that overlooks the Alameda. It was pretty cool because we could just stare out the window at 2 Roman columns that were taken from the middle of the city. I got a lot done, and then we went back for lunch and I went to meet up with Hilary to do a little bit of shopping. We ended up going over to the river to just sit and read, and then got some ice cream. Her family had introduced her to this amazing ice cream place with basically the best flavors you can imagine. I got banana and truffle, but I had pretty hard time deciding. On the way home, I told Hannah that I felt back for anyone who was eating another kind of ice cream. I think we'll be making just a few more trips there this semester - Hilary said her plan was to try spoonfuls of a few flavors every time she goes and to have tried everything by the end of the semester. Sounds good to me. Going to read by the river is probably my favorite thing to do in the afternoon. It is just so beautiful and peaceful, and there are a lot of people around hanging out with friends, listening to music, doing work, having a drink, or just sitting and watching the sunset.
Friday night I went out again with Hannah, Kelly, Kelly, and Hilary to the Alameda, which is a plaza about 4 blocks from our house (something close!!) and it was really fun. Although again we ended up staying out til about 6am, and realized we had to get up at 9:30 Saturday morning. Not such a hardship, though, because we were taking a bus to the beach in Huelva, about an hour bus ride. It was great, we spent the whole day lying on the beach reading and listening to music and then we came back to Seville around 8pm. I decided not to go out so that I would be able to function on Sunday, and Hannah and I watched The Sweetest Thing while my Senora was at the Cirque de Soleil with her kids. I fell asleep before it was over, as usual.
Sunday Hannah and I went to the flamenco museum which is fairly new and has everything in 6 languages. It was very cool and uses a lot of technology. After lunch, I went to the river to reach again and to finish reading Rinconete y Cortadillo for Tuesday. I have an exam on Thursday, so I guess I might have to study for that a little bit. Maybe. I am also reading Twlight in Spanish. It was the perfect book to read in Spanish because I kindof want to read it in English but feel a little bad because it is written for 14-year-olds I think. But since it's tough for me to understand books written for people my age in Spanish without looking up every other word in the dictionary, I decided to go for it. It has been good so far, and I really enjoying reading in Spanish in general. It's much easier than the beginning of the semester. I have been noticing lately how much better my Spanish has gotten. I even had Spanish in my dream, which was exciting! When I was out the other night, we ended up talking to a few people we met and I was able to have a conversation with them for over an hour without any big communication barriers.
Speaking of communication barriers, funny story. So Hannah wanted to tell Loly (my Senora) something that had happened to her yesterday when she was at Starbucks, but Loly could not understand our pronunciation of Starbucks, even when we tried to put a Spanish accent on in. It was so funny, we even tried spelling it out loud and we just couldn't understand each other. Finally, we wrote it down for her and she was like 'ohhhh estarbu!' I love the Spanish pronunciation of English words. Basically if you can imagine the word McDonald's being pronounced like Madonna, you have it. We all laughed for about 10 minutes.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Cordoba, the Centro, and the Macarena
Last week I bought tickets for my trip to Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. A plane ticket to Berlin and a plane ticket back from Budapest, and transportation to be decided for the in between. I can't wait to plan the rest and to see everything that those cities have to offer. I'm going to be traveling with 5 friends who are all also studying abroad in Seville, and I think we're basically just going to be bringing backpacks. It's going to be a great experience, 9 days of nonstop travel, I can't wait. So planning took up a lot of last week, but I also had the regular dance class, volunteering at the school, and eating lots of meals with my Senora and Hannah and practicing my Spanish.
Thursday night Hannah and I went out to a place called La Fabrica, which is a place that brews their own beer and has taps on the tables. They closed about 30 minutes after we got there, but it was still fun to be there for a little while. Then we went to meet up with the rest of the group and we all ended up dancing at this place called Buddha. Funny enough, mot of the clubs play English music, which the Spaniards try to sing along to but end up mumbling words that aren't real. They love to listen to us sing because we all know all the real words! Overall, it was a good night, and we didn't get back too late.
Friday, since we don't have class, Hannah and I went on a tour of the Macarena (pictures), which is a section of Seville (the northeast part). It is mostly residential, but there are a lot of Churches of very different styles. We got a little lost because we had never been there before, but it was really fun to see everything. It is also nice to go on a tour with just us because we can spend as long or as short an amount of time at the places as we want. I ended up running a little late to my intercambio with my friend Hilary and a 19-year-old Spanish student named Maria who our program director set us up with. We went to have a cup of coffee with her and talked for about an hour. It was great, and really cool that we could talk to her for an hour without any real problems in communication. We wanted her to speak a little bit of English with us, but she was embarrassed because she said her English isn't that good. She spent about a month in San Francisco, but it was a while ago. Eventually we'll get her to speak English with us - we're planning on meeting up with her about once a week for the rest of the semester. The funniest part of meeting up with her was that she suggested that we meet in the morning, which means 1pm in Spain. I love it here.
Saturday we went on a group trip to Cordoba, which is about 2 hours by bus from Seville. When we got there, we walked across the Roman bridge to the city and took about a 2 hour tour of the Mezquita, which is the Mosque that was turned into a Cathedral by the Christians when they conquered Spain. Basically what happened was that the King didn't want them to build over it but accidentally agreed to it when he was preoccupied with fighting a war. What remains is an absolutely gorgeous Mosque with a beautiful Cathedral right into the center. It is pretty cool. After that tour, we went to the only Synagogue in the city, which is tiny, and on a little walk through the Juderia. Then we had some time to ourselves for lunch and a walk around the city. I actually met up with my friend from home, Jen, who is studying in Cordoba for the semester. I had decided to stay with her in Cordoba overnight, so she met up with me as my group was leaving. We had a lot of fun - we played soccer with her friends, went out to a great dinner, and hung out with some of her friends in their apartment. On Sunday, we went to a tiny little Zoo and the Gardens across the street, and then she walked me to the bus station to get back to Seville. I was really happy we got to see each other, and did I mention she lives in a palace?! Her house has 4 floors and there are Roman ruins in the basement. Crazy stuff. There is also a pool on the roof and a fantastic view of the Palace Gardens. Pictures of Cordoba. We also got to go to the Puerta de Sevilla, which I of course had to take a picture of.
Today, after class, Hannah and I went on a little tour of the Centro - basically the Center of the city. We got to see a lot of little things - churches, the city walls, a Cervantes statue and some plaques that point out areas of the city that are mentioned in his books. Pictures of the Centro.
That's it for now I guess. This week and next week Hannah and I are trying to get as much in as possible because we realized that once it is April, we are basically traveling for most of the month and then it is May. It's going by pretty fast.
Thursday night Hannah and I went out to a place called La Fabrica, which is a place that brews their own beer and has taps on the tables. They closed about 30 minutes after we got there, but it was still fun to be there for a little while. Then we went to meet up with the rest of the group and we all ended up dancing at this place called Buddha. Funny enough, mot of the clubs play English music, which the Spaniards try to sing along to but end up mumbling words that aren't real. They love to listen to us sing because we all know all the real words! Overall, it was a good night, and we didn't get back too late.
Friday, since we don't have class, Hannah and I went on a tour of the Macarena (pictures), which is a section of Seville (the northeast part). It is mostly residential, but there are a lot of Churches of very different styles. We got a little lost because we had never been there before, but it was really fun to see everything. It is also nice to go on a tour with just us because we can spend as long or as short an amount of time at the places as we want. I ended up running a little late to my intercambio with my friend Hilary and a 19-year-old Spanish student named Maria who our program director set us up with. We went to have a cup of coffee with her and talked for about an hour. It was great, and really cool that we could talk to her for an hour without any real problems in communication. We wanted her to speak a little bit of English with us, but she was embarrassed because she said her English isn't that good. She spent about a month in San Francisco, but it was a while ago. Eventually we'll get her to speak English with us - we're planning on meeting up with her about once a week for the rest of the semester. The funniest part of meeting up with her was that she suggested that we meet in the morning, which means 1pm in Spain. I love it here.
Saturday we went on a group trip to Cordoba, which is about 2 hours by bus from Seville. When we got there, we walked across the Roman bridge to the city and took about a 2 hour tour of the Mezquita, which is the Mosque that was turned into a Cathedral by the Christians when they conquered Spain. Basically what happened was that the King didn't want them to build over it but accidentally agreed to it when he was preoccupied with fighting a war. What remains is an absolutely gorgeous Mosque with a beautiful Cathedral right into the center. It is pretty cool. After that tour, we went to the only Synagogue in the city, which is tiny, and on a little walk through the Juderia. Then we had some time to ourselves for lunch and a walk around the city. I actually met up with my friend from home, Jen, who is studying in Cordoba for the semester. I had decided to stay with her in Cordoba overnight, so she met up with me as my group was leaving. We had a lot of fun - we played soccer with her friends, went out to a great dinner, and hung out with some of her friends in their apartment. On Sunday, we went to a tiny little Zoo and the Gardens across the street, and then she walked me to the bus station to get back to Seville. I was really happy we got to see each other, and did I mention she lives in a palace?! Her house has 4 floors and there are Roman ruins in the basement. Crazy stuff. There is also a pool on the roof and a fantastic view of the Palace Gardens. Pictures of Cordoba. We also got to go to the Puerta de Sevilla, which I of course had to take a picture of.
Today, after class, Hannah and I went on a little tour of the Centro - basically the Center of the city. We got to see a lot of little things - churches, the city walls, a Cervantes statue and some plaques that point out areas of the city that are mentioned in his books. Pictures of the Centro.
That's it for now I guess. This week and next week Hannah and I are trying to get as much in as possible because we realized that once it is April, we are basically traveling for most of the month and then it is May. It's going by pretty fast.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
24 Hours in Ronda
More Pictures of Ronda
Friday at noon I got on a bus to Ronda, which is one of the pueblos blancos (white villages) in Andalucia. We got to Ronda around 3, after almost getting off at the wrong stop (oops!) and checked into our hotel, which was a quad with a kindof sketchy looking carpet. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the city looking at the various puertas, the Arab baths, the city's main church, and a very strange museum that was located in a mansion built on the side of a mountain. The main attraction in Ronda is a fantastic bridge built by the Romans that is still used today and connects the old and new parts of the city. Between them is a huge gorge, providing some beautiful views of the surrounding mountains. We spent a while wandering around and taking pictures before we headed back to our hotel to shower and rest before dinner.
After dinner, we tried to find something to do, but were surprised to find out that the nightlife in Ronda is kindof a bust. We ended up finding this place that has individual taps of Cruzcampo (the local beer) on every table and a TV screen that shows the total amount of beer for each table. Pretty genius selling technique, if you ask me. We hung out there until it closed at 12:30 and then went back to the hotel to sleep.
Saturday morning we woke up and got everything organized to go see the Cueva de la Pileta (Cave of the Pileta), which is about 20 kilometers away from Ronda and inaccessible by public transportation. We took a cab there, which took a little longer than we expected because we had to go a different way due to some construction. Luckily, as the cab driver had told us to run up the stone stairs carved into the side of the mountain, we were the last 4 people to be able to take the tour that morning, but not for another hour since the one at noon had filled up. The cab driver charged us a little extra but waited the hour which was nice. The cave was really cool - stalactites, stalagmites, a lack, and prehistoric cave paintings. No pictures allowed on the inside, and they only let a certain number of people in per day and a certain number of people in at a time so that the paintings are not damaged. The only slightly disappointing thing was that most of the painting collections are in places they did not take us on the tour because they are 80 meters under the cave. I guess that's understandable.
After the cave tour, we went back to Ronda, got pizza for lunch, and bought our bus tickets back to Seville. We spend our last half hour in this place called Chocolat, getting the best hot chocolate I have ever had in my life - it was basically syrup. I couldn't even finish it, and that's saying a lot. Hilary and I were in heaven.
On the way back, the bus only ended up taking less than 2 hours because apparently there are local buses and direct buses. Who knew? Good thing the schedule really makes those things clear to us. So we got back to Seville around 7, and I got back to my house a little before 8, just in time to eat dinner with my Senora.
Friday at noon I got on a bus to Ronda, which is one of the pueblos blancos (white villages) in Andalucia. We got to Ronda around 3, after almost getting off at the wrong stop (oops!) and checked into our hotel, which was a quad with a kindof sketchy looking carpet. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the city looking at the various puertas, the Arab baths, the city's main church, and a very strange museum that was located in a mansion built on the side of a mountain. The main attraction in Ronda is a fantastic bridge built by the Romans that is still used today and connects the old and new parts of the city. Between them is a huge gorge, providing some beautiful views of the surrounding mountains. We spent a while wandering around and taking pictures before we headed back to our hotel to shower and rest before dinner.
After dinner, we tried to find something to do, but were surprised to find out that the nightlife in Ronda is kindof a bust. We ended up finding this place that has individual taps of Cruzcampo (the local beer) on every table and a TV screen that shows the total amount of beer for each table. Pretty genius selling technique, if you ask me. We hung out there until it closed at 12:30 and then went back to the hotel to sleep.
Saturday morning we woke up and got everything organized to go see the Cueva de la Pileta (Cave of the Pileta), which is about 20 kilometers away from Ronda and inaccessible by public transportation. We took a cab there, which took a little longer than we expected because we had to go a different way due to some construction. Luckily, as the cab driver had told us to run up the stone stairs carved into the side of the mountain, we were the last 4 people to be able to take the tour that morning, but not for another hour since the one at noon had filled up. The cab driver charged us a little extra but waited the hour which was nice. The cave was really cool - stalactites, stalagmites, a lack, and prehistoric cave paintings. No pictures allowed on the inside, and they only let a certain number of people in per day and a certain number of people in at a time so that the paintings are not damaged. The only slightly disappointing thing was that most of the painting collections are in places they did not take us on the tour because they are 80 meters under the cave. I guess that's understandable.
After the cave tour, we went back to Ronda, got pizza for lunch, and bought our bus tickets back to Seville. We spend our last half hour in this place called Chocolat, getting the best hot chocolate I have ever had in my life - it was basically syrup. I couldn't even finish it, and that's saying a lot. Hilary and I were in heaven.
On the way back, the bus only ended up taking less than 2 hours because apparently there are local buses and direct buses. Who knew? Good thing the schedule really makes those things clear to us. So we got back to Seville around 7, and I got back to my house a little before 8, just in time to eat dinner with my Senora.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Teaching English, Making Friends, and Learning Slang
Overall it was a pretty quiet week around here - mostly just went to class and finished up my summer job applications (finally done!). Monday night I went to this free 'learn how to teach English' workshop, which was sortof a waste of time. It was basically a 3 hour commercial for the program's yearlong course which takes place in Madrid. It was interesting to think about teaching English, though. I definitely have a pretty good grammar background because of 4 years of Latin, but I would have to brush up on the terms for everything because I only know the grammar vocabulary in Spanish! I might try to get a job here teaching English, I think it would be fun, and it would be a great way to work on my Spanish, even though it doesn't seem like it at first.
On Tuesday I didn't go to the school because the kids had a field trip to the Alcazar, so after class ended at 11, I sat outside by the fountain for 3-4 hours and read/wrote in my journal. It was beautiful, warm, and peaceful, and it was nice to have some time to sit and think - and I'm writing the journal in Spanish, so I still got to practice a little bit. On Wednesday, one of the professors who works for our program arranged a get-together for us with a bunch of Spanish students. We all went to this bar and just spoke Spanish and got free drinks - it was great! Really fun to meet them and talk to them. A couple of them were studying translation and interpretation, which means they spoke 3 or 4 languages. I was pretty jealous. But they were really good about speaking with them in Spanish and not switching over to English. We ended up spending a good amount of time with them, going to another bar afterwards to try some tapas and sweet wine made from grapes and oranges, and then to another place to dance. Hopefully we'll end up hanging out with them again, they were so nice! One of them was trying to teach me some of the slang that the young people use - he got up to lesson 8. It's tough for me to learn words in a noisy bar, though - I do much better when I can see them written down. But I did pick up a few things. I never noticed before how much slang we use in English and how difficult it would be to understand us for a foreign student in the US.
Besides that, Hannah and I finally started running yesterday, which is good because Dan signed me up for a sprint triathlon on June 13th, so I need to be in relatively good shape when I get back from Spain (which, by the way, is definitely in time for Brown commencement). A bunch of people from the group went to Morocco this morning, but I decided to go to Ronda with my friends Hilary, Thad, and Megan. It is this beautiful town about 2 hours from Seville, and just outside of it, there is a cave with paintings from 25,000 years ago. Can't wait.
Oh, and Sharon's coming to visit me over her Spring break! So exciting!
On Tuesday I didn't go to the school because the kids had a field trip to the Alcazar, so after class ended at 11, I sat outside by the fountain for 3-4 hours and read/wrote in my journal. It was beautiful, warm, and peaceful, and it was nice to have some time to sit and think - and I'm writing the journal in Spanish, so I still got to practice a little bit. On Wednesday, one of the professors who works for our program arranged a get-together for us with a bunch of Spanish students. We all went to this bar and just spoke Spanish and got free drinks - it was great! Really fun to meet them and talk to them. A couple of them were studying translation and interpretation, which means they spoke 3 or 4 languages. I was pretty jealous. But they were really good about speaking with them in Spanish and not switching over to English. We ended up spending a good amount of time with them, going to another bar afterwards to try some tapas and sweet wine made from grapes and oranges, and then to another place to dance. Hopefully we'll end up hanging out with them again, they were so nice! One of them was trying to teach me some of the slang that the young people use - he got up to lesson 8. It's tough for me to learn words in a noisy bar, though - I do much better when I can see them written down. But I did pick up a few things. I never noticed before how much slang we use in English and how difficult it would be to understand us for a foreign student in the US.
Besides that, Hannah and I finally started running yesterday, which is good because Dan signed me up for a sprint triathlon on June 13th, so I need to be in relatively good shape when I get back from Spain (which, by the way, is definitely in time for Brown commencement). A bunch of people from the group went to Morocco this morning, but I decided to go to Ronda with my friends Hilary, Thad, and Megan. It is this beautiful town about 2 hours from Seville, and just outside of it, there is a cave with paintings from 25,000 years ago. Can't wait.
Oh, and Sharon's coming to visit me over her Spring break! So exciting!
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Crazy Cadiz
Here are my pictures from the past couple weeks:
Cathedral
Alcazar
Triana
Jerez and Cadiz
Alameda
Granada
Last week was much less stressful than the previous week - pretty much just went to class and hung out in the afternoons. My classes are going well and are basically no work, which is awesome. Although I have already had a 15 minute presentation for my European Union class, but luckily it was about Spain and we coincidentally have spent the past month learning about Spain. Each person is responsible for presenting 2 of the countries in the EU, and I was lucky enough to get Spain! But besides that, I have basically had not much work to do - one poem to read but the professor told us that if we didn't understand it, we shouldn't worry about it. It's probably good though, because I have been focused on trying to find summer jobs in the past couple weeks, emailing and writing essays. Fun. We'll see what happens with that.
Besides school, a bunch of us have been taking a weekly dance class on Tuesday nights where we are learning the 4 Sevillian dances that we will need to know for the Feria. The first one was pretty tough, since it is very different from anything we have ever done before, but we are finally catching on and it's really fun. I haven't taken a dance class since I was 10, I think. The two hardest things about Sevillian dancing is that they start with the left foot instead of the right and that the music barely goes with the steps. Hopefully we'll catch on before the end of April. Other than the dance class, I decided to volunteer at a school in a class of 9-year-olds. I went for the first time on Thursday afternoon and it was really fun, but hard because unlike adults, kids don't slow down their speech for you and speak with a lot of abbreviations and colloquial phrases. I think I'll catch on soon and that it will really help me improve my Spanish. I pointed to Connecticut on a world map and they couldn't believe I live there, since it is so far away from here. Crazy. Besides the school volunteering, I am hoping to be able to teach English a couple times a week, and I am taking a free workshop this week to learn a little bit about it. And I think I also want to be matched up with an intercambio so I will be able to speak once a week with someone my age, hopefully a student at the University. Basically I'm doing anything and everything to learn as much Spanish as I can while I'm here.
This weekend was really fun, especially since I didn't even realize until late Friday afternoon that it was only Friday and not Saturday. I guess when I only have class M-Th and my Thursday class is from 9-11, it seems impossible for the weekend to be so long. I'm definitely going to go through some sort of shock when I go back to Brown, haha. On Friday afternoon I went with my friend Hilary on a self-guided tour of the Centro part of the city. We saw the Ayuntamiento (Town Hall), a bank that is in a building that was part of the Spanish Inquisition, and the palace of a Countess who basically stole all of her decorations from the nearby ancient Roman city called Italica, where we went a couple weeks ago with our program. Seriously, this woman had every floor covered with a mosaic from Italica and hundreds of Roman objects on the walls and in cases. It's no wonder there's not really anything left in Italica besides the remains of the buildings! It was fun to wander around the Centro, especially because I walk through it every day on the way home and now I have a better idea of what everything is. Friday night I went to see Slumdog Millionaire with a couple friends, and it was great. And in English, with Spanish subtitles. They don't really watch Spanish films here - basically for every 4 English movies there is maybe 1 Spanish movie. Most of the movies are dubbed over in Spanish, but there are a few theaters around that play the original versions in English with Spanish subtitles. Same thing with TV, it's really strange to me. I would think that they would get sick of the really annoying voices and the fact that the words never match how the mouths are moving. But I guess not, they are just used to it. I didn't feel bad for watching a movie in English - I tried to watch the Spanish subtitles as much as I could.
Saturday I spent with some friends planning our trips, and then Saturday night we went to a Carnival in Cadiz, which is about a 2 hour train ride from Seville. Apparently there is a month-long carnival in Cadiz and there are thousands of young people there at night just partying and hanging out, but in costume. Since they don't have Halloween here, this is their chance to dress up and there were huge groups of people dressed up as chickens and bullfighters etc. The strangest part was that their were people dressed up as Black people and Chinese people - something I can't even imagine ever happening in the US. I guess it's just because they don't really have cultural diversity here, but I don't know, I was creeped out by it. So everyone was dressed up on the train and we had to sit on the floor on the way there. Halfway through the train ride the security got off or moved to a different car and everyone started smoking! I couldn't believe it, I don't think I've every been on public transportation where anyone has smoked around me. Everyone was also drinking out of plastic kitchen cups with ice and had open bottles of alcohol, it was crazy. When we got there we were immediately surrounded by thousands of people and we basically just wandered around the city for a couple hours. It was really fun, although around 3 am we were ready to leave. We walked over to the train station and waited in line for it to open at 4:13am, which made no sense to me - why not just 4? So we rushed into the train station and set up our return tickets and ran to the train so we could get seats. We sat there for almost an hour before the train left, got into Seville at 7, took the bus home, and got there around 8am, only to go right back to sleep and wake up this afternoon at 3:15pm. Lunch was waiting when we woke up. Oh how I love Spain, and my Senora.
This week should be pretty relaxed too - I'm going to get my homework done after this and then probably do a little more planning tonight. And this week I'm also going to start running outside I think, especially since it's between 60 and 70 degrees every day. I finally feel like I've really settled into my life here and can accomplish the thing I want to do every day and it's great.
Oh, and my computer's back! Skype me!
Cathedral
Alcazar
Triana
Jerez and Cadiz
Alameda
Granada
Last week was much less stressful than the previous week - pretty much just went to class and hung out in the afternoons. My classes are going well and are basically no work, which is awesome. Although I have already had a 15 minute presentation for my European Union class, but luckily it was about Spain and we coincidentally have spent the past month learning about Spain. Each person is responsible for presenting 2 of the countries in the EU, and I was lucky enough to get Spain! But besides that, I have basically had not much work to do - one poem to read but the professor told us that if we didn't understand it, we shouldn't worry about it. It's probably good though, because I have been focused on trying to find summer jobs in the past couple weeks, emailing and writing essays. Fun. We'll see what happens with that.
Besides school, a bunch of us have been taking a weekly dance class on Tuesday nights where we are learning the 4 Sevillian dances that we will need to know for the Feria. The first one was pretty tough, since it is very different from anything we have ever done before, but we are finally catching on and it's really fun. I haven't taken a dance class since I was 10, I think. The two hardest things about Sevillian dancing is that they start with the left foot instead of the right and that the music barely goes with the steps. Hopefully we'll catch on before the end of April. Other than the dance class, I decided to volunteer at a school in a class of 9-year-olds. I went for the first time on Thursday afternoon and it was really fun, but hard because unlike adults, kids don't slow down their speech for you and speak with a lot of abbreviations and colloquial phrases. I think I'll catch on soon and that it will really help me improve my Spanish. I pointed to Connecticut on a world map and they couldn't believe I live there, since it is so far away from here. Crazy. Besides the school volunteering, I am hoping to be able to teach English a couple times a week, and I am taking a free workshop this week to learn a little bit about it. And I think I also want to be matched up with an intercambio so I will be able to speak once a week with someone my age, hopefully a student at the University. Basically I'm doing anything and everything to learn as much Spanish as I can while I'm here.
This weekend was really fun, especially since I didn't even realize until late Friday afternoon that it was only Friday and not Saturday. I guess when I only have class M-Th and my Thursday class is from 9-11, it seems impossible for the weekend to be so long. I'm definitely going to go through some sort of shock when I go back to Brown, haha. On Friday afternoon I went with my friend Hilary on a self-guided tour of the Centro part of the city. We saw the Ayuntamiento (Town Hall), a bank that is in a building that was part of the Spanish Inquisition, and the palace of a Countess who basically stole all of her decorations from the nearby ancient Roman city called Italica, where we went a couple weeks ago with our program. Seriously, this woman had every floor covered with a mosaic from Italica and hundreds of Roman objects on the walls and in cases. It's no wonder there's not really anything left in Italica besides the remains of the buildings! It was fun to wander around the Centro, especially because I walk through it every day on the way home and now I have a better idea of what everything is. Friday night I went to see Slumdog Millionaire with a couple friends, and it was great. And in English, with Spanish subtitles. They don't really watch Spanish films here - basically for every 4 English movies there is maybe 1 Spanish movie. Most of the movies are dubbed over in Spanish, but there are a few theaters around that play the original versions in English with Spanish subtitles. Same thing with TV, it's really strange to me. I would think that they would get sick of the really annoying voices and the fact that the words never match how the mouths are moving. But I guess not, they are just used to it. I didn't feel bad for watching a movie in English - I tried to watch the Spanish subtitles as much as I could.
Saturday I spent with some friends planning our trips, and then Saturday night we went to a Carnival in Cadiz, which is about a 2 hour train ride from Seville. Apparently there is a month-long carnival in Cadiz and there are thousands of young people there at night just partying and hanging out, but in costume. Since they don't have Halloween here, this is their chance to dress up and there were huge groups of people dressed up as chickens and bullfighters etc. The strangest part was that their were people dressed up as Black people and Chinese people - something I can't even imagine ever happening in the US. I guess it's just because they don't really have cultural diversity here, but I don't know, I was creeped out by it. So everyone was dressed up on the train and we had to sit on the floor on the way there. Halfway through the train ride the security got off or moved to a different car and everyone started smoking! I couldn't believe it, I don't think I've every been on public transportation where anyone has smoked around me. Everyone was also drinking out of plastic kitchen cups with ice and had open bottles of alcohol, it was crazy. When we got there we were immediately surrounded by thousands of people and we basically just wandered around the city for a couple hours. It was really fun, although around 3 am we were ready to leave. We walked over to the train station and waited in line for it to open at 4:13am, which made no sense to me - why not just 4? So we rushed into the train station and set up our return tickets and ran to the train so we could get seats. We sat there for almost an hour before the train left, got into Seville at 7, took the bus home, and got there around 8am, only to go right back to sleep and wake up this afternoon at 3:15pm. Lunch was waiting when we woke up. Oh how I love Spain, and my Senora.
This week should be pretty relaxed too - I'm going to get my homework done after this and then probably do a little more planning tonight. And this week I'm also going to start running outside I think, especially since it's between 60 and 70 degrees every day. I finally feel like I've really settled into my life here and can accomplish the thing I want to do every day and it's great.
Oh, and my computer's back! Skype me!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Granada
We went to Granada this weekend as a group - a trip that my program had organized. It was really great, lots of interesting things to see and do. And the best part was we got to stay in a hotel! Granda is about a 3/4 hour drive from Sevilla so we left here on Saturday morning and got there around 1:30. We checked in to the hotel and then wandered around the city for a while to find a place to eat our bocadillas (sandwiches) that our families had made for us and then to explore what was there. We stumbled across a vitamineria, which is a little shop that makes fresh fruit juice and smoothies. I got juice with pomegranate, pineapple, and orange. We pretty much just wandered around until about 4pm, when we went back to the hotel to rest a little before meeting up with the group at 4:30. Unfortunately, we were running about 4 minutes late and the group left without us and 3 other people! Luckily, we had done some exploring before so we were able to find them, but it was a bit stressful. So much for the Spanish stereotype of always being late, I guess i learned my lesson - even though almost all of my classes have started at least 10 minutes late, haha. Anyway, Granada was one of the most important Arab villages that was taken by the Reyes Catolicos in 1492. First, we went to the Capilla Real, which is the Church where the Reyes Catolicos, or Ferdinand and Isabella. are buried with their daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. I thought that we were just going to see their tombs which we did - huge marble statues right next to the altar - but then we went down some stairs and all of a sudden we saw 5 coffins. It was pretty unreal, since the Reyes Catolicos died almost 500 years ago. We looked around a little museum in the Capilla Real which had things like clothing and a crown from Ferdinand and Isabella and then we walked up to the Arab village, from which you can see an absolutely beautiful view of la Alhambra, which is the palace in Granada. We walked down the mountain after viewing la Alhambra at sunset and stopped at an ancient Arab pastry shop. We all got different things and shared, some were good and some were not so great... but basically they use a lot of nuts, in their dessert and not that much sugar. I think it's really that we just use so much sugar in the US that things here don't taste very sweet even though they are. Anyway, after a little while, we found our way back to the hotel where we were served a private dinner and a lot of wine. We hung out for a while in one room in the hotel and then ended up going to an Erasmus party, which is the program that organizes study abroad for Europe (at least I think I'm describing it correctly). Anyway, it was really interesting because there were so many different people there, and everyone's common language was Spanish! Although some of the people spoke better English than Spanish, which was interesting. It ended up being a fun night!
We woke up really early on Sunday morning and we at the Alhambra for a tour by 9:15. La Alhambra is the palace in Granada that is a mixture of Arab and Christian buildings. Basically, the Arabs had built this huge palace and when the Reyes Catolicos took over, they and their son-in-law (Carlos I) added a lot of other buildings, but the ancient Arab palace is still completely intact and it is incredible. The two women that run our program here in Spain know absolutely everything, and one of them led our 5 hour marathon tour through la Alhambra. We were able to see a lot, including the ancient Arab palace, the palace built by Carlos I, and a beautiful view of the entire city of Granada from the tallest tower in la Alhambra. Basically, it was awesome. I'll definitely post pictures here when I get my computer back (should be in a week! thanks Mom and Dad!). We went from la Alhambra back to the hotel for lunch, and then back to Sevilla to sleep, because by that time, we were exhausted. It was a fantastic weekend, and it is so incredible that we have learned so much about these places in our orientation classes so far and now we are able to go out and see them.
We woke up really early on Sunday morning and we at the Alhambra for a tour by 9:15. La Alhambra is the palace in Granada that is a mixture of Arab and Christian buildings. Basically, the Arabs had built this huge palace and when the Reyes Catolicos took over, they and their son-in-law (Carlos I) added a lot of other buildings, but the ancient Arab palace is still completely intact and it is incredible. The two women that run our program here in Spain know absolutely everything, and one of them led our 5 hour marathon tour through la Alhambra. We were able to see a lot, including the ancient Arab palace, the palace built by Carlos I, and a beautiful view of the entire city of Granada from the tallest tower in la Alhambra. Basically, it was awesome. I'll definitely post pictures here when I get my computer back (should be in a week! thanks Mom and Dad!). We went from la Alhambra back to the hotel for lunch, and then back to Sevilla to sleep, because by that time, we were exhausted. It was a fantastic weekend, and it is so incredible that we have learned so much about these places in our orientation classes so far and now we are able to go out and see them.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Class = Stress
After a bit of a stressful week, I finally decided on my classes. Brown has a silly requirement (Brown? requirements?) that students who are abroad must take at least half of their classes at the local institution, but when I went to the regular classes, I found them very difficult to follow because the professors speak so quickly and with such strong accents. Anyway, after a several email exchange with the study abroad office, I was able to get other classes approved for this requirement and now I am all set. These are the four classes that I think I will be taking this semester: The image of Spain through the cinema; Spain and the European Union; Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Middle Ages; and Literature and the City: the Case of Sevilla. They all sound pretty interesting and definitely different from the classes I normally take at Brown, so I am excited to learn about very different subjects. And they are, of course, all in Spanish, which is a challenge but theoretically will get easier as the semester moves forward. I am really enjoying having class in Spanish so far, it keeps me on my toes.
Hannah and I didn't really do much besides school last week to be honest, which is a bit of a drag, but I'm guessing that it might have been my most stressful week of the semester so I guess I can't really complain. School here is so different than in the US - for example, I asked my professor the other day when the exams were so that I could plan my travels and he said he didn't know yet. So oh well. In my classes in the US, the exams are mentioned on the first day, first thing. I asked my Senora about this and she was like yeah, that's pretty normal, things are really relaxed around here. And if you miss the exam, it's probably not a big deal. Haha.
Speaking of travel plans, I think I finalized mine, which is awesome! I am going to take 2 big trips: one with a couple friends to Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest, and another by myself to visit friends in Milan and Paris. Besides those, we are going to definitely make it to Portugal and hopefully to Madrid and Barcelona for weekends. I'm really excited about it, but a little disappointed that we probably won't be going to Morocco. There is a trip in 2 weekends through something called Discover Sevilla, but it is all filled up at this point and I'm not sure we are going to have enough people to create another bus. I mean, I guess it all works out because I think Morocco is on the UN's 'do not visit' list.
Hmm I'm trying to think of what else is new over here. I'm busy working on a list of places to apply for summer jobs, and I finally submitted an application to Health Career Connections last week. Now I'm just working on Summerbridge, and hopefully I'll be able to find a few more in the next couple of weeks.
My Spanish is still improving, little by little, although we haven't spoken as much Spanish lately as we did at the beginning of the trip. It's probably inevitable, but I still would like to try and speak it more. The other day, I was talking to my Senora about Gazpacho because she was saying she makes it a lot in the summer and I was trying to ask her if Spaniards put cilantro in their Gazpacho. Anyway, I didn't know the Spanish word for cilantro, so I was trying to explain it by describing it, but then I realized that all the food we use it for they probably don't have. So I was about to give up when Hannah said the word 'cilantro' with a Spanish accent, and Loli knew exactly what she was saying. I guess cilantro in English = cilantro in Spanish. I should try that more often, haha.
We watched Eurotrip in my European Union class in order to look at how Americans view Europeans and now I have to write a 2 page paper about it. I love school here.
Hannah and I didn't really do much besides school last week to be honest, which is a bit of a drag, but I'm guessing that it might have been my most stressful week of the semester so I guess I can't really complain. School here is so different than in the US - for example, I asked my professor the other day when the exams were so that I could plan my travels and he said he didn't know yet. So oh well. In my classes in the US, the exams are mentioned on the first day, first thing. I asked my Senora about this and she was like yeah, that's pretty normal, things are really relaxed around here. And if you miss the exam, it's probably not a big deal. Haha.
Speaking of travel plans, I think I finalized mine, which is awesome! I am going to take 2 big trips: one with a couple friends to Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest, and another by myself to visit friends in Milan and Paris. Besides those, we are going to definitely make it to Portugal and hopefully to Madrid and Barcelona for weekends. I'm really excited about it, but a little disappointed that we probably won't be going to Morocco. There is a trip in 2 weekends through something called Discover Sevilla, but it is all filled up at this point and I'm not sure we are going to have enough people to create another bus. I mean, I guess it all works out because I think Morocco is on the UN's 'do not visit' list.
Hmm I'm trying to think of what else is new over here. I'm busy working on a list of places to apply for summer jobs, and I finally submitted an application to Health Career Connections last week. Now I'm just working on Summerbridge, and hopefully I'll be able to find a few more in the next couple of weeks.
My Spanish is still improving, little by little, although we haven't spoken as much Spanish lately as we did at the beginning of the trip. It's probably inevitable, but I still would like to try and speak it more. The other day, I was talking to my Senora about Gazpacho because she was saying she makes it a lot in the summer and I was trying to ask her if Spaniards put cilantro in their Gazpacho. Anyway, I didn't know the Spanish word for cilantro, so I was trying to explain it by describing it, but then I realized that all the food we use it for they probably don't have. So I was about to give up when Hannah said the word 'cilantro' with a Spanish accent, and Loli knew exactly what she was saying. I guess cilantro in English = cilantro in Spanish. I should try that more often, haha.
We watched Eurotrip in my European Union class in order to look at how Americans view Europeans and now I have to write a 2 page paper about it. I love school here.
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