“So, How was Valencia” “Eeeehh”

That’s about how the conversation is going now. We went to Valencia because we have been traveling a lot and wanted a relaxing weekend, and, as Valencia is on the Costa Blanca (one of Spain’s Mediterranean coasts) and is therefore a beach town, we figured it would be a good place for that. Last week we saw the forecast said there was a 60% chance of light rain and almost changed our plans. But, we had hostel reservations (I highly recommend the Purple Nest Hostel. However, I do not recommend Valencia), so we went. Valencia was a logical choice this weekend, because the Fund sponsored an excursion to Cuenca on Friday, which is halfway between Toledo and Valencia, about.
I may as well start with Cuenca. In the day or so before the excursion, everyone but me and Mark backed out in favor of going straight to Valencia (three found a bus that went straight from Toledo to Valencia, which is a miracle in itself). I however, not using my brain, decided to still go to Cuenca.We drove for a few hours, starting at eight in the morning, to Cuenca. Ever heard of it? Us neither. It is actually a pretty city, in a hilly region with lots of cliffs. It also has Spain’s oldest Cathedral, but they didn’t take us there. No, they took us to the Science Museum of Castilla-La Mancha. We had twenty-five minutes to walk around the museum and do the hands-on exhibits and then we met back in the lobby for the planetarium show, where we learned about the constellations from a German “robot” (constellation projector, for some reason in Spanish they call this a robot) that spoke in Spanish. I found that the theatre-style chairs were conducive to doing a lower-ab workout, which helped me from falling asleep, since I was very tired. The night before, we went out to dinner at Restaurante Chino for Gabi’s birthday. I had to leave early because I live in Buenavista and there is no one to share a cab with me, so I could not celebrate very much with everyone else, but I was still tired because I didn’t get home until midnight and had to wake up early for going to Cuenca.

Cuenca

After the planetarium show, we went on a walking tour of Cuenca, kind of. Cuenca is quite small. Basically, we walked to the Cathedral and looked at it from the outside and then walked to a bridge and looked around. On the bridge, Mark and I freaked out about catching our train to Valencia, since we had no idea where we were or where the train station was. We acquired a map, and the Fund group left for lunch (in another city, so unfortunately, we could not join them since our train was in Cuenca, or so we thought) earlier than we thought, so we actually got to the train station an hour early, even after stopping in an alimentación for bread and Fanta (the Pope’s drink of choice). I went to the counter with our printed up email receipts and the ticket lady yelled at us and said next time we would have to print something else up, but this time she would fix it for us. I’ll keep her advice in mind the next time I take a train from Cuenca anywhere. Actually, I’ve already forgotten it. The more important part of our conversation with her was that, even though we had bought train tickets for a train that runs from Cuenca to Valencia, and were in the Cuenca train station, we would not be boarding a train in Cuenca. We would be boarding a bus in front of the train station that would take us to Camporrobles and there we would board a train to Valencia. We both thought that was strange, so we decided Mark would have to verify this, but since we had time and our blood sugars were low, we figured we would eat first.
When Mark asked the lady, the only new information he gathered was that we would not be boarding just any bus to Camporrobles, we would be boarding an indirect bus to Camporrobles. Oh dear. At least I remembered to go to the bathroom, especially after drinking a liter of Fanta. The bus followed the train route, however, while train tracks run through tunnels dug in mountains, buses do not, and we were quickly behind schedule. We did make it to the train, which was also indirect, but much smoother than the bus and I even read a few pages. As we approached Valencia, the conductor came through the train and announced that everyone would have to get off the train at the next stop. We did and simply walked across the platform to the cercanias train, which was easy enough. When it stopped, however, it was in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, our train tickets included fare on the subway. Also fortunately, I thought ahead and put the hostel number in my cell phone and was able to call them to ask the metro stop. It was Colón (Columbus) and, consulting the map, we realized we would have to change at Jesús. No joke.

This is where we changed from the second bus to the first train.

We finally made it to the hostel and found our friends napping after spending a couple of hours at the cold, windy beach. The girls (we had separate rooms in true Notre Dame fashion) slept a tad bit longer than the guys to recover from celebrating Gabi’s birthday the night before, who were geeked to celebrate Jose’s birthday. When the boys knocked on the door to say they were leaving, I answered since I had not been sleeping long. This involved climbing down off my bunk, which involved my foot cramping, which happened off and on throughout the duration of that nap, which was a lot of fun. I also stubbed my toes a few time this weekend, which is something I do quite typically and is probably not even worth mentioning, but my feet were not happy with me.
We eventually made it out in time to be in an Irish pub at the stroke of midnight. We were hungry since we had slept through dinner. The thing about Valencia is, things close and we were turned away from a few restaurants. We finally found an American restaurant called Hollywood whose kitchen stayed open until 1 am. It was 12:30, so it was perfect for us. Also since it was 12:30, it was no longer a Friday, so we felt free to order burgers. They were awful, but we ate them anyway. We were still tired, so we went back to bed.
We woke up the following morning, thinking that the sun was coming through the window. False. There was no sun (I tried singing the “Mr. Golden Sun” song from Barney and was denied). But, we didn’t want to stay in the hostel all day, so we put on our rain jackets (it wasn’t raining at this point) and started walking. It was an hour until lunchtime anyway and we wanted paella since Valencia invented it. The place we went to was all reserved for lunch, so we made reservations for dinner at 10:00 and decided to find somewhere else to eat. We found a pizzeria, which was delicious. Now, I’m used to going to one restaurant each weekend and the rest of the time eating bread and maybe cheese and hoping the hostel has free breakfast. This was most definitely the most I have spent on food in one weekend.
After lunch we went shopping for a little bit. I talked myself out of buying a purse (probably the restaurants did this to me). We then went to the movies, because we found a theatre that was playing Slumdog Millionaire in English (it is hard to find theatres with movies in their original language in Spain. Really hard). I thoroughly enjoyed the film. After we left the movies, it was raining. We went back to the hostel and three of us tried to take a nap but failed quite epically, since we were interrupted more that several times. We “woke up” and went to dinner, which was a few platters of paella (by this point there were twelve of us). We definitely under-ordered the vegtable one and over-ordered the Valenciana variety, which had chicken and rabbit. However, we had no problems devouring all platters. We went back to the hostel and hung out for a while. After a while, most people decided to go out, but Courtney, Gabi, Kate and I were taking the 9:00 bus and wanted to get some sleep. Saturday night marked the beginning of Daylight Savings Time for Spain, so we were careful in setting alarms. We asked our hostel lady if our phones would change automatically and she said “Oh yes, they’ll change time when you put the new time in”. Helpful, really.

Paella valenciana, with chicken and rabbit

Our bus from Valencia to Madrid was uneventful. It was direct except for one bathroom/pastry break. We unfortunately had to catch the 1:30 indirect bus to Toledo, which got us in at 3:00. Since we figured it was too late for us to eat with our families, we went to Pastucci’s and got pizza. ¿Por qué no? Yes, Mom, I did spend my weekend eating a sleeping. There was a little walking thrown in there, and I ran a few miles once I got home. So there.

A typical weekend for me includes 200 pictures. I took 8 pictures in the city of Valencia, and one was in the metro. The grand total for Cuenca, transit, and Valencia, is 38, which is an absurdly low number.

Quiz of the Week:
Who says this: “There are three kinds of pipe. There's aluminum, which is garbage. There's bronze, which is pretty good, unless something goes wrong. And something always goes wrong. Then, there's copper, which is the only pipe I use. It costs money. It costs money because it saves money.”
And no, Mom, you can’t answer because I know you know.

My Intercambio-or bitter ramblings

I have an intercambio. His name is Marcos and he is thirty years old. He lives with his parents in a pueblo outside of Toledo, but he comes to Toledo a lot because the pueblo is boring. I asked him what he does for a living and he says it is sort of like police. I asked if that meant he was a mall cop, but he said it is between police and the military. I have no idea what that means.
The point of an intercambio is that he speaks English and I speak Spanish and we help each other out, but it doesn’t work that way. I have to force him to speak English and he keeps speaking in Spanish. If he refuses to speak in English, he’s just a Spanish man buying me drinks. This would be cool, but he is thirty and lives with his parents in a pueblo. That is not so atypical in Spain because people live with their parents until they get married to save money so they can buy a house when they actually do get married and they don’t have to rent. Marcos is a little awkward, at least around me, so we’ll see how that goes.
I’m sorry, that was really mean. It’s just awkward when you sit with someone not knowing what to say because he’s so awkward and then he asks: “Will I be able to see you next week?” I don’t know why he wants to because I don’t understand why he would be enjoying our interactions. I mean, it must feel great buying drinks for a girl as beautiful as me and forcing her to talk to you, but most of the time we just sit there.
Today was really bizarre because he picked me up at the Fund and he announced that he had brought a book for me to read, but he wanted to read the first chapter out loud. So, we’re walking down the alleyway that leads to the Fund and he’s reading about a little donkey (he has a weird accent and I can’t understand a word he says anyway, especially when we’re in bars) and one of the receptionists from the Fund whose shift just ended was walking by and the situation was so uncomfortable and I was trying not to laugh. I suggested we go to Enebro, because it is right outside this alleyway and we can sit outside. This way, as people left the Fund after class, they could join us and make my life less awkward. But, Marcos knows the female bartender there, so we had to sit inside so he could show me off to her for the all of five seconds she came out of the kitchen. She didn’t seem impressed. And, no one from the Fund saw me.
I mentioned the controversy about how Obama is speaking at the Notre Dame Commencement even though he is pro-choice (and therefore the Anti-Christ) and Marcos went off on how migrant girls come to Spain and have lots of sex because they’re dumb and then they get abortions. I really hope I misunderstood him. I didn’t want to argue with him, so I just dropped it. He started talking about how great it is to have so many cultures in Toledo (no joke) and he asked: “There are a lot of Jews in your country, right?” I almost said: “Yeah, especially since we didn’t EXPELL them in 1492 and then subject them to the Inquisition!” but I refrained.
This is the second time I have seen him. Can you tell? And now I need to see him at least one more time to give him back this book, unless it was a gift…I better look it up ahead of time so I know what it’s about, he’ll ask and I really don’t think I’ll actually read the whole thing. It’s a children’s chapter book.

What a Load of Rubbish!

I made it to an English-speaking country for the first time in over two months. Here is the breakdown:
WEDNESDAY
This has little to do with my trip to London, but I felt like sharing. My host family is going on vacation, so I stay in the Fund. They scared me by telling me that the alarm will be on at the house and I will not be able to come back if I forget anything. This leads to me going to the only Irish pub in Toledo Tuesday (Saint Patrick’s Day) with PASSPORT written on my hand. I take the bus with my weekend backpack and all of my schoolbooks and my computer because I have a paper due. Fortunately, I was able to leave this stuff there on Thursday. My service site is having a presentation so I’m going on a Wednesday instead of Tuesday. The plan is: get there at nine, leave for class at ten, come back after class and stay until one. This did not work super well, because I got lost and did not make it until 9:30. And, it ended at noon anyway. So I missed class but it was okay because I had already told the professor there was a chance of that. However, this meant missing my only morning class the day after the first Saint Patrick’s Day on which I can legally drink. SOMEONE, who shall remain nameless and was not previously aware that I caught the 11:30 bus home, started spreading rumors that I “hadn’t made it” to my morning classes. This person should now feel bad that I was doing service at the time.
This “service” consisted in watching high-school students doing an interpretive dance about extreme poverty. I don’t know if the context for the situation explains it much more….
That night in the Fund was actually quite fun. The dinner included an ice cream dessert and was followed by watching four episodes of “Boy Meets World” on youtube. I’m not planning on leaving my family, but I will say that it was a nice change and a taste of home dorm life. And, the breakfast was an array of pastries. It was fabulous.
THURSDAY
After History, Dan and I catch the bus to the bus station. I am slightly nervous because it is the feast of Saint Joseph, which is a national holiday/Fathers’ Day in Spain. (I would have said Happy Fathers’ Day to you, Dad, but it is a Catholic-based celebration here and besides, I was busy.) The Minnesota girls that happen to be on the same flight as us are taking the train because they think that the bus might not run as frequently. Since Dan and I have already printed our tickets, we see no problem taking the bus. We arrive at the bus station at 5:08 and ask to make sure there is still a “directo a Madrid” at 5:30. The ticket office guy said: “Oh, there is one at 5:15” Score! We end up beating the Minnesota girls to the airport and are done with our dinners before they make it to the gate. As we get up to go to the gate, we see that it has moved. No problem, the new gate isn’t far. When we get there, we promptly learn that the French air traffic controllers are on strike and we may be delayed as much as two hours. We end up landing only ten minutes or so after schedule but then encountered delays such as overly thorough customs officers, not understanding the ticket machines for the Gatwick Express and the tube closing mere seconds after we paid four pounds each on tickets. I think maybe the Brits are still bitter about the Revolution. We ended up on a bus (double decker of course) and went for a joyride through the sights of London- first stop: Big Ben. We finally made it to Hank’s very nice house where I had a bedroom and bathroom to myself but we woke up his parents in the process. Sorry!
FRIDAY
Either Javier said the wrong thing or Dan heard wrong, but we ended up in the Imperial War Museum when we were supposed to be in the British Museum, so we promptly left and met up with some London Programme kids for lunch. It was a Friday, so of course lunch was fish and chips. Now, being a fan of neither fish nor seafood, I was a little wary, but it was surprisingly good. Especially the chips part. But, man was that heavy.
Once we could walk again, we went to the British Library, which was awesome. Obviously there were a lot of religious artifacts like a Gutenberg Bible and even more ancient documents. But then, there was Jane Austen’s manuscripts, Beatles’ lyrics scrawled on scraps of paper (you could even listen to them singing the songs as you read the lyrics) and the Magna Carta. There was also a letter from Elizabeth I saying she did not want a husband, thank you very much and a letter from Lenin using an assumed name to get access to the reading room in the British Museum (where he met Trotsky). I can’t name everything (like Handel’s Messiah and Mozart’s marriage contract) but those two rooms are some of my favorite rooms on earth.
Dan and I then went to meet Meg at the British Museum, who had been waiting for a really long time but was super nice about it. We saw the Rosetta Stone and the mummies and all the ancient things. We tried to get into the reading room but it is closed to the public until 2012. They said something about a special exhibit, but I didn’t see anything about it. Besides the Lenin thing I mentioned earlier, it’s also where Marx thought about a lot of things (as a Sociology major, this interests me) and wrote Das Kapital.

The Rosetta Stone

After the British Museum, we met up with Hank at Parliament for our private tour. Hank’s dad’s friend’s daughter is a research assistant for an MP and her friend (another research assistant) is a huge Parliament nerd. He basically knows everything about every room and all of the history of Parliament. Besides that, he’s hilarious. His humor is pretty dry (so British) but basically he is very opinionated and has no problems saying what he think about something. He taught us the origins of certain phrases that come from Parliament, like “lobby” and “toe the line”. He showed us the bag that is rumored to be the origin of the phrase “in the bag” but said that rumor is a load of rubbish. We asked him about his job and he told us that he had spent that morning editing his boss’ wikipedia page because a rival keeps changing it. I did some detective work, and am pretty sure that his boss is Geoffrey Cox, if you are at all interested.
We finished the tour right outside Westminster Abbey, but it was closed so we just walked around it. We then went out for a lovely dinner with Hank’s family. After this, we met up with the London kids and went out dancing. Smoking is illegal inside in London, so I did not come home smelling awful, which was fabulous, for a change. The tube closes at midnight (London is so weird, everything closes there and I do not understand it at all but perhaps I have been in Spain too long) and we had to take the bus and it took forever, so we got back quite late.
SATURDAY
The boys woke me up later than planned, but it was all good. We walked through Hyde Park, right by Hank’s house, then caught the tube to the Tower of London. At one point, we had to walk outside to change lines and thought about just walking the rest of the way. This would have put us on Gracechurch Street, where the Gardiners in Pride and Prejudice live. The boys did not seem to care very much about this and we got back on the tube. We got to the Tower and I managed to get a student discount without a student id (you need ID in London, how weird is that? I managed to get into the club Friday night with just my Carnet Joven, however). The name “Tower of London” is misleading because it is multiple towers and none of them are taller than ordinary. However, it is still an awesome place. We went in and had to wait a little for the next beefeater tour, but that was just dandy because there was a medieval weapons demonstration, in which Santiago was able to participate. We then went on the tour, which was awesome. British tour guides are just better. We learned a lot, but I’m sure I’ve forgotten it all. It was awesome for me to be there, seeing as I was obsessed with the Tudors in middle school, to the point of my mom making me an Elizabeth I costume for Halloween in sixth grade (with the same non-judgmental patience as my Virgin Mary costume in first grade). The boys left (Javier and Santiago had plans to come back because our tour guide said he would show them St. Thomas More when he got off duty) but I stayed there with Molly, Meg and Carly to see the rest of the exhibits, including where the prisoners were held and where we could see what they had carved in the walls. The first prisoner in this specific tower was a bishop and he escaped by getting his guards drunk and then climbing down the rope his friends snuck in the wine barrel. Smart guy.

Through this gate, Anne Boylen (among others) entered their prison...

After the Tower, the girls took me to Buckingham Palace, which included a walk through St. James’ Park, which was full in bloom, unlike Hyde Park. We then walked to Trafalgar Square and saw where they study. Notre Dame owns the building, which used to be a club of sorts for Oxford and Cambridge grads. Much classier than the Fund, I have to say. It is around the corner from the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. Both of these (like the British Museum and British Library, etc.) are free, which is one of the best parts of London. We didn’t spend much time in either museum because they were about to close, but I was able to see Renoir’s “The Umbrellas” which I (obviously) was not able to see in Paris and in the Portrait Gallery we saw Jane Austen as drawn by her sister, Cassandra, Shakespeare and the Tudors. While Javier and Santiago got to see St. Thomas More, I got to see his picture, which is clearly the same thing. We met up with Hank and Dan in Trafalgar, and everyone was surprised that Javier and Santiago were not with the other group. This was troubling because neither of them had working cell phones. We stood around for a while, deciding what to do, and just as we were about to do it, we looked up and saw Javier and Santiago at the top of the stairs, just having met up with Laura. If we had been more decisive people, who knows if we would have found them or not?
We all split up again; this time I went with Laura, Javier and Santiago and she took us to the South Bank. We saw the National Theatre (ugly but when Laura described it to us, it sounds awesome) and the Globe and had a fabulous dinner. After this, we went back to the flats where everyone left to go to some pub. Since there was a private party downstairs, there weren’t many people in the pub and we had a room to ourselves upstairs, which was nice because we filled it. We played a couple of songs in the jukebox and I tried cider. Sunday was Laura’s birthday so Javier and I presented her with her birthday present: rocks we had taken from a Kasbah in Morocco. It would have been perfect if she had understood the song reference. The pub closed at eleven (again, London is a weird place) so we went back to the flats. There, we partook in cake and conversation. Both were delicious, but especially the cake. Carly made strawberry buttercream and put strawberries on top and the cake itself was chocolate. I’m so glad I mentioned Laura’s birthday as they left for the grocery store….
It was sad to leave, but we’ll be seeing some of them in Rome for Easter and some are coming to Spain while I’ll still be there in May. I’m also planning a trip to Ireland with Meg, which we are both very excited about.

Mini-reunion of SRT Gold Team: Laura, Meg, Santiago, Me, Molly

SUNDAY
We wake up and take the cab Hank’s dad ordered for us to get to the airport. When I try to check in, I realize that I had not paid the airport check-in fee already and therefore had to give them twenty pounds. This involved standing in a long line and then running to catch my flight (turns out they were holding it anyway, which I sort of knew but for some reason still felt the need to run). In the process, I discovered that you no longer need to be an EU citizen to check in online, which will save me money in the future. Javier and I also ran to catch the 1:00 bus back to Toledo (he got the bus driver to wait a minute while I bought the tickets) so I was pretty disgusting on Sunday. Since my host family was still on vacation, I begged the Fund to let me eat. Since I was very hungry and tired and a girl, I was on the verge of tears, so it worked! I wasted time on the internet the rest of the day and then went back home for dinner, only to find that my family still was not back from Alicante. I showered and they still weren’t back. Since I was hungry I decided to cook myself dinner, at which point they returned. Fortunately, they weren’t mad at me for raiding the freezer. I have not heated up frozen food in quite some time, and did not do it correctly, but the croquetas still tasted good, even if they were a little cold in parts.

Your Humble Servant,
Global Chica, etc.

Tragedies and Treaties: My Trip to Paris

Are they going to hate us? was what we all were wondering as we left for Paris. None of us speaks French and our Spanish accents are bad enough, there was no way we could scrape out a French one. We figured, since it was Paris, everyone would speak either English or Spanish, and as long as we were polite, everything would be okay.
The trip began with a tragedy: Rebecca's flight was actually two hours before she thought. They wouldn't let her get on our flight, even though there was space and she had bought a ticket. Needless to say, I was very upset at EasyJet for denying her the opportunity for this trip. When we arrived in Charles de Gaulle, we found Javier, who had gotten on said earlier flight and went ahead and bought our museum passes and RER passes to get into Paris. The museum passes were 32 euro (shockingly, a good deal given how expensive all of the museums in Paris are) and the RER pass cost 8.40. I missed Spain already. The Paris Metro isn't nearly as nice as the Madrid one, and it is more expensive and harder to navigate (how many names does one street need?). I gave France a chance, and it was an enjoyable trip, over all.
We made it to our hostel, which had a good location and free breakfast, and that is all I will say on the hostel. We went to bed, setting an alarm for the morning. We woke up and went to 9 am Mass in the Notre Dame Cathedral, probably the best way to start a trip. It is probably my favorite Cathedral of all time. I want a replica in my house. Full size. work on that, Mom and Dad, in the next two months. After Mass, we made it over to the Louvre.
The Louvre, along with being ginormous, is a big deal. The Mona Lisa, is tiny. I had heard it was small, so I was expecting it to be small, but I wasn't expecting it to be quite as small as it was.

Me with the Mona Lisa

I wrote a lot more, but the internet at the Fund deleted it, even though I am plugged into the wall. So, I will abbreviate the rest of the trip:

After the Louvre, we went to a grocery store (the only one in this nice neighborhood...and cheapsters that we are, we found it). We got baguettes, cheese and Dannon yogurt (a. because we were in France and b. because it was Friday) and we went to the orsay and sat on a bench outside. I then looked up museum closing times and realized the Rodin would be closing soon, so we bolted there. We took pictures with the Thinker and looked at the other statues. We then bolted back to the Orsay because IT was going to close soon. We didn't have much time there, but I got my fix of Renoir and Monet.
We tried to go to the Orangerie, but it was closed (it wasn't supposed to be...) So we watched the sunset over the Eiffel Tower and ate crepes. We then went to the apartment where Juliet was staying, that belonged to an Italian PhD student, Sara (studying at the Pasteur Institute) who is a member of the same Catholic Lay group as Juliet and Emily. She made us pasta ("Do you guys like pesto?" "YES!") and more courses. We met up with her friend at the Eiffel Tower to watch the midnight light show.

Me with the Eiffel Tower

The next morning we woke up early and caught the train to Versailles. The gardens weren't in bloom, so we stuck the castle, which was all we had time for anyway. it was very cool to be in the Hall of Mirrors, where so much history has been made. We went back to Paris and went to try to climb the bell tower of the Notre Dame. The line was a mile long and as we were turning around, giving up, we saw a guy with a Notre Dame jacket. We told him that we also went there. Turns out he is Bob Lanagan and was a tightend on the 87/88 football team, when they won the National Championship. He wasn't wearing his ring, he said he gave it to his dad. We went to the Saint-Chapelle, which we all thought was beautiful until we realized that there was no tabernacle or altar and so it is no longer a place of prayer. Depressing.
We then went to the Orangerie, which was fabulous (two rooms with 360 degrees of Monet's lillipads). After the oragerie, we went to the Arc de Trioumf. We saw the military procession that apperantly happens everyday (too bad none of them spoke English or Spanish and could explain that to us). We climbed up and saw the view. We then went down and went to dinner with Sara and her friends. They spoke French and Italian (some spoke English) and we spoke English and Spanish. Italians say grace in Latin, turns out, so that puts the dinner conversation to five languages. My French bouef came with french fries, but they were just called fries. the waiter gave us the choice of ketchup or mayonaisse.

Hall of Mirrors...history was made here...

We went from dinner to Mass at Sacre Couer. Melissa and I bolted after Communion to go to the train station to catch the last train to the airport. This involved running around the streets of Paris, screaming "RER?" and eventually getting there just in time. The map was incredibly misleading and our hostel guy told us the train was at 12:30. false. It was at 12:07. Fortunately, we made it and the gate was open and there were no guards and we didn't have to pay the 8.40. We slept in the airport which was neither enjoyable nor necessary and we got back to Toledo with plenty of time to accomplish nothing at all the rest of the day.

Spring has made it to Spain.

My Tale of the Alhambra

One of the things I miss most is people running to greet me when I come home. Since my mom was a homemaker, she always made sure to be there when we arrived from school. My welcome is bigger now that I so rarely come home, so I probably exaggerate it in my mind. Although, my dog does cry and leap for joy every time I come home. Here, that doesn’t happen as much, at all really. I have to find my family and say hi to them. It’s not anything bad, that’s just how they do that. I guess everyone can’t be my mom. Just sometimes, it’s awkward because they aren’t always easy to find. Sometimes I can’t find them at al, which wouldn’t be bad, it’s just that they need to know that I’m home or they won’t feed me. So, I just walk around until I find them. And I always do. But, it would be nice if they ran to greet me and ask how my day was. Leaping and crying wouldn’t hurt either.
One more thing before the real purpose of this entry…after writing that paragraph, I went down to dinner, which may have consisted of half a partridge. It looked a lot like chicken and tasted more or less the same, but it had some brown marbling action going on and the leg bone was really skinny for the size of the bird. Also, the leg meat wasn’t all dark. I was afraid to ask what I was eating because I would have felt stupid if it really were chicken.
Now, on to why I’ve brought you all here…

FRIDAY
After spending a night at the Fund, I board a bus at 5:30 am (buses don’t come from Buenavista until 7:00…) We got a late start on the road because a few people overslept. I saved Rebecca from the near disaster of not making it to Andalucia. She owed me ten euro and if she missed the trip, I would have felt bad asking for it. We slept on the bus until it stopped in Valdepeñas, more or less halfway to Córdoba, for breakfast. It was delicious. We got back on the bus and drove to Córdoba where Flannery decided it was the ugliest European city she had ever seen. I would trust her judgment, because she’s been in Europe since September and has seen many European cities. However, her opinion was probably influenced by the fact that it was rainy and gloomy.
We got off the bus and went to the Mesquita. It is the famous mosque-turned-church with the red striped arches. It was very impressive and huge. As pretty as the Cathedral part of it was, I kind of wish it had remained a mosque or at least not been touched because it would be interesting to see it in it’s original form.

Mesquita

We then went on a walking tour of the Judería which was not incredibly fascinating, again because it was raining. It was just a typical white-washed Andalucian town. We walked into a tiny synagogue-turned-church and then went out to see the gate to the city. We then walked to a hotel for lunch. After some free time, we got back on the buses and headed for Granada. After dropping stuff off in our hotel, we walked around the city and then went back and hung out in the hotel. At one point close to midnight, there was a huge procession outside our window. It was dark and my pictures did not turn out. I think it was just a Lenten procession, because there was a giant crucifix, and it was much too late to be a funeral.

SATURDAY
We wake up and make our way down to breakfast in the restaurant of the hotel. The buses pick us up and take us to the Alhambra. When we arrive, we have to wait while they pick up our tickets, but it beats getting in line at 5:30 am to get them. While we waited, I decided the time was ripe for a photo shoot. Some of the pictures worked, but I ran out of poses after a while.
Our tour guide wasn’t loud enough, so it was easy to miss things (like the Patio of the Lions refers to statues and not actual lions, they took them out for restoration and not for safety hazards). They tour also moved slow when we wanted it to move fast and fast when we wanted it to move slow, but the Alhambra itself was very cool.

¿Por qué no?

Afterwards, we walked down through the park (many people took the bus back to the hotel, missing this walk) since it was such a glorious day. We went for tapas and the to Pans y Company for bocadillos. I have decided that LaFortune needs to replace either Subway or Burger King with a Pan y CO, because it is so much better. We picnic-ed in the Plaza Nueva (where there is a statue depicting Columbus talking to Isabel). There was some sort of huge scavenger hunt going on in Granada, and all these people in weird costumes kept running by us all day. I think I will organize a huge scavenger hunt when I get back. Or, I might make someone else organize so I can participate.
We walked around. Since we would have time in the morning to go to Mass in the Cathedral, we decide to save it for then. On our way around the Cathedral to get to the Capilla Real, we find the perfect spot to sit and sunbathe. We sent the boys to get some helado for us. Dulce de leche is always delicious. Somehow, we got on the topic of chocolate babies and how it would be hard not to eat your own baby if it were chocolate. I announced: “I would definitely eat my baby if it were made out of chocolate”. I have since discussed this with my mother and neither of us know what is so funny about that, it just seems like the logical response.
When the sun started to go behind some buildings, we decided to actually make it to the Capilla Real. What is the big deal about this Capilla? It is where Isabel and Fernando, the Reyes Catolicos, who reunited and re-conquered Spain as well as sent of Columbus on a little voyage, are buried. Also buried there are their daughter Juana la Loca (look her up---interesting woman) and her husband Felipe el Guapo, parents of Carlos I/Charles V, also an important guy. Also in the Capilla is Isabel’s art collection (what’s left after Napoleon took what he wanted). It is the first significant art collection established by a woman. Talk about girl power. There were also flags from the Reconquista that flew over the Alhambra once the Christians took it over, which were kind of interesting.
After the Capilla, we raced to the San Nicolas viewpoint to watch the sunset bathe the Alhambra. This is the sunset where Bill Clinton took Hillary to reconcile after the whole Monica Lewinsky thing. He had the place to himself, we had to share it with the most intense hippies I have ever seen. I guess there are lots of them in Granada and they live in caves (which is actually smart because the temperature is much milder there, especially in the summer). They were doing interpretive dance to drums and digeridoos, among other things.
After sunset, we made our way back through a fun little neighborhood. We stopped at Doner Kebap for dinner. It was my first time eating there and it was delicious, if not a little messy (we spilled all over the sidewalk. Fortunately, Spain cleans its sidewalks with Zambonis on a regular basis, so we didn’t feel that bad). We went back to the hotel and hung out before a somewhat disappointing night out. When we went looking for food by our hotel afterwards, the closest place we could find was actually next door to the club we had recently vacated. That was a fun little bit of irony.

The Clintons were here, among others

SUNDAY
I woke up earlier than necessary to take a shower before breakfast (forgetting that I had time to take a shower afterwards, however I replaced that time with a nap). We went to Mass in the cathedral, which I liked because it was Renaissance, so it was simpler. It was tall and mostly white and gold. The organ was beautiful, the most ornate part of the church, in my opinion. There were slightly too many decorations (I think cathedrals should be all or nothing---simple and tasteful or gaudy to the point of being cool again). We walked through the market/touristy area, which was very similar to the market in Marrakech. It did not have haggling and that actually bothered me. Maybe I shouldn’t have bought my backpack there? This was also around the time that my backpack tie broke (I can easily replace it with a shoelace) which was also ironic.
We went back for lunch and then had coffee the terrace until the buses were leaving. On the bus we watched Gladiator (in Spanish of course). I was excited because I saw the Kasbah where we went a week earlier. Soon in Mundo Árabe, we’re supposed to watch Lawrence of Arabia, which was also filmed at that Kasbah, so that will be doubly exciting. I tried to do homework and failed miserably. Now I’m behind. This is why I did not write this entry earlier. However, now that I have written it, I’m further behind. Now it’s bedtime, so I probably won’t get any more work done anyway.

Still I Rise

I volunteered to read a poem in English at some thing at the library of Castilla-La Mancha, which is in the Alcazar, where the kings lived until the capital was moved to Madrid (well, they had many castles, even then....) I solicited some poems via facebook and email and was offered everything from TS Eliot to a series of haikus about Tim Tebow. I ended up choosing something I found on my own, one of the first ones I found. It is a poem by Maya Angelou that I have pasted below. It may not be my favorite poem of all time, but it is very good and it is about being a strong women, a message I like. Also, there is rhyme and repetition, something I think will help the non-English speakers that I will be reading the poem to.
Now I have to translate it to Spanish, which is very difficult. It makes me wish I had decided on one of the shorter poems I was looking at, but rejected because they were too short.


Maya Angelou - Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Rock the Kasbah

Not only is this an excellent song, it is something I actually did this weekend. Let’s start at the beginning, however…
Thursday
Last day of midterms week: I have history. I bring my entire travel backpack to the Fund, however, because I will be leaving right afterwards to see a play for Teatro de Siglo de Oro class. We are reading “La noche de San Juan” but the class is going the same day I have a flight to Paris, so Javier and I got tickets for this past Thursday. We get to Madrid and check into our hostel so we don’t have to carry our large bags into the theatre and then we make our way over there. When Javier swipes his card to print out our tickets from the machine (since he bought them online), the machine says there is no record of his purchase. That’s odd. We go to the ticket lady and she tries to look it up and can’t find anything. I started calling people and got a hold of Melissa who fortunately happened to be by her computer and connected to the internet. She logged onto Javier’s email account and looked up the confirmation number. It looked right: Thursday show, 8:00 pm, Teatro Pavon…oh, wait. It was for the 19th of February, as opposed to the 26th when we were trying to use our tickets. Oh, well. We’ll explain to our professor what happened and hope she shows mercy on us and doesn’t make us try to buy new tickets.
We then walk to Plaza Mayor (which seems very empty) and find the restaurant that Javier’s aunt’s friend owns. This friend may be dead and his grandson runs it now so we didn’t get a deal, but the sangria was delicious. Let me backtrack for a second: In the bus station in Madrid, Javier saw his host brother and then when we got on the Metro, he ran into someone from his high school. He knows people everywhere and it was almost scary. In Puerta de Sol, we ran into Mike and Chris, who were hanging out and waiting for a bus, so we walked with them to the Temple of Debod, which was closed, but had a cool view. We then went back to our hostel because we had a morning flight to Marrakech and wanted to get some sleep.
Friday
We wake up early and go to the airport. We run into the Archies (architecture majors, they spend their entire junior year in Rome and we were traveling with them because they had some sort of three-week break). With only a few issues about checking bags unnecessarily, we make it to the plane. When we land in Marrakech, we have to walk from our plane to the terminal. When I got off the plane, I confess to doing a little dance. I was in Africa.
We are picked up by Kamal, who works at our hostel. He drives us to a large square in the center of the city and then we get out and walk. We felt really weirded out and nervous about this walk because we had a lot of windy streets and even tunnels and we thought we would never be able to do it on our own and that we would not be able to do it at night. But, we soon learned that it was actually quite easy, especially since we are used to the windy streets of Toledo. We arrive in the hostel and are greeted by an owner. Before settling the issue of payment, we shared a cup of tea. I’m not usually a huge tea drinker, but this stuff was amazing. It had loose leaves and a lot of mint and honey in it. I read in Rick Steves that they have similar tea in Granada (where we go this weekend) and I am so stoked. He talked to us about Marrakech, things we should be aware of and instructions on how to haggle in the marketplace.
We were hungry and went back to the big square to eat. We found a restaurant with a great view but the food was overpriced (it was about at European standards) and not that great. The rest of the food we would have over the weekend would be amazing. We heard the call to prayer and watched people enter the mosque. We paid for our meal with dirhams, a fun little currency.

Call to prayer in the main square in Marrakech

We then walked to a palace that reminded me very much of the Alcazar in Sevilla, only much cooler because it was in Morocco. We then walked back to the hostel because people were tired and it was starting to rain. We got back just in time, because within minutes of our return, it started to hail. Huge hail balls (based on my limited experience). We went on the terrace and watched it fall with other people from the hostel. Afterwards, it kept raining a little, so we watched a movie (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, quite cute) on someone’s computer and took turns checking email on our hostel’s computer. Then we went out to dinner. We went back to the big square, where in the afternoon they had set up tent restaurants. Their waiters very aggressively tried to get us to their specific tent, crying out different expressions to try to get us to come in. My favorite was “It’s not Kentucky Fried Chicken, but it’s a-finger licking good!” That may or may not be where we went, it is actually hard to tell. The food was delicious. I had Chicken Tajine, a traditional Berber dish and we all had soup. They gave us bread and we finished the meal with…tea. We then went and walked around the market to see starting prices and pick out what we would get the next day.

Saturday
We woke up early because our tour guides were arriving at 7:00 am to pick us up. It was hard to set the alarm because our phone clocks did not adjust to the time difference in Morocco, so we had to set our alarm for an hour later than we actually wanted to get up. We walked to their land cruisers and left Marrakech. We drove into the mountains. The views were spectacular. We stopped several times to take pictures of the mountains and the Berber villages we passed. Our drivers spoke English, but they did not always understand what our questions were. We went to a almond oil factory where they make massage oils traditionally (as in, they his almonds with rocks) and learned how they were made. We went to two Kasbahs. Yes, in each of them I sang “Rock the Kasbah” and yes, I did take rocks from the Kasbah. Much of the dive was through the Atlas Mountain range and had breathtaking views.

Some Berber women on our trip

The first Kasbah was a lot of ruins, but several rooms were still intact. It is made of mud and straw, so it erodes a little each time it rains. The money we spent to get it helps restore it. I forgot to mention something. As we were approaching the Kasbah (we had to off-road it and we stopped to get pictures of a herd of sheep-to the dismay of their shepherd we did not realize was there) our driver said to us: “We must cross a river to get to the Kasbah, but the cars cannot go. You take horse or donkey”. I took a donkey. I never made it on a camel (there weren’t really any in Marrakech, we passed a couple on the road, however) but riding a donkey across a river was pretty cool. Another cool thing about this Kasbah was that part of the Gladiator was filmed there. I guess part of the movie takes place in Africa, and turns out was actually filmed there.
We went to lunch which was also amazing. I had chicken couscous, and I pronounced the “s”. We went to another Kasbah. This one was a little more run-down. The village around it was poorer (no movies were filmed there) and it was hard to see the children following us, asking for food and money. It was cool, however, to see a real-life Berber village. We went through the ruins part of the Kasbah and then got to the marble part. It was amazing. Filled with intricately designed carved marble, tile mosaics and intricate wooden ceilings, we really liked this Kasbah. It also had views of an almond grove, but it was a little overcast there.

Me with a rock in the Kasbah

We worked our way back to Marrakech. The sun set while we were in the mountains, but since it was cloudy it basically just went from light to dark, nothing spectacular like it might have been. Once it got dark, we let ourselves fall asleep since there was nothing to see but the trucks our cars were passing on the windy mountain road.
We got back and dropped stuff off at the hostel. We then went back to the market. Javier, Melissa and I were leaving in the morning so we wanted to go shopping but Emily and Kate were staying another day so they went to eat with the Archies. I got a backpack made from leather and carpet-y wool. I successfully got the price down from 250 dirham (25 euro) to 150 dirham (15 euro). It was hard and I couldn’t get the one I wanted at another stand (this guy was a jerk and wouldn’t go below 200 dirham). The guy I ended up buying from was fun and I had a good time bargaining with him. When he was at 160 and I was at 140, we started going dirham by dirham until finally we met in the middle.
Javier, Melissa and I went back to the stand where were had eaten the night before. This time we also tried orange juice (which they have everywhere) and patato fries (you can take the college students out of America….). we went back to the hostel to meet up with the others, but then we had to switch hostels because of a booking confusion. It worked out because we went to the sister hostel which was nicer but we got a good deal. It used to be the house of the richest man in Marrakech until it was converted into a hotel. At least that’s what we were told. It had a beautiful hand painted ceiling and two courtyards (that used to be just one).

Sunday
We woke up early because we had another morning flight. The airports were fine. We had to fly into Barcelona first and we went through customs and passport control a few times, so now I have cool stamps in my passport with Arabic writing. When we made it back to Toledo we saw the biggest rainbow any of us had ever seen. It was a full arch and about the size of the Saint Louis arch. I couldn’t get it all in my camera at once. We decided that Spain probably did not have leprechauns, but they might have Crusaders, who are equally likely to have a pot of gold. We tried to go to the Jesuit church for Mass, but we were 45 minutes early so we went to a monastery in the Juderia. It was nice, but it would have been nicer if the mass were at the main altar instead of a side one. That’s the problem with Spanish churches, they actually use their side altars. We couldn’t go to mass in Marrakech because the only Catholic church had Mass while we were on our tour.

Mountains

For those of you interested in such things, Saint Augustine was a Berber (according to wikipedia, the ultimate source of truth). So, when I ate tajine and couscous prepared in the traditional Berber way, I was eating what Saint Augustine probably ate. Boo Yeah.

In other news: I was almost out of a roll of toilet paper in my bathroom before I left (about a day’s worth left). My host mom cleaned my bathroom while I was gone and put in a new roll of toilet paper. I didn’t have to ask, and have yet to dip into the toilet paper that my parents brought me from the States.